Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s11e24 Episode Script
Federal Courts
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver,
thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week!
Hurricane Helene caused devastation
across the southeast,
Israel killed the leader of Hezbollah,
dramatically escalating tensions
in the region, and here in New York,
an anchor on New York 1 had the
moment everyone there dreams of.
We have breaking news for you here
on New York 1.
According to multiple reports,
including the New York Times,
mayor Eric Adams has been indicted
by federal prosecutors.
I love that delivery.
He finally got
his big breaking news moment,
and he was justifiably savoring it.
If I keep talking like this,
I can make this moment last forever.
Sorry, Jamie with the weather,
this is my fucking time.
But it is true: Eric Adams
was indicted this week,
for among other things, allegedly
taking bribes for political favors.
He's accused of receiving "more than
$100,000 in luxury travel benefits,
including free international flights
and opulent hotel rooms."
And not just that, he's also accused
of knowingly accepting
illegal campaign contributions
from foreign donors,
some of which, by the way,
"helped him qualify for more
than $10 million
in matching public campaign funds."
The indictment focuses primarily
on gifts and donations from Turkey,
which is interesting enough,
but honestly,
every detail in it is incredible.
According to the indictment, when
the mayor's staff member once asked
a Turkish Airlines official where Adams
could stay while visiting Turkey,
the official replied, Four Seasons.
"It's too expensive," the staffer
responded. "Why does he care?"
said the official.
"He is not going to pay.
His name will not be
on anything either."
The mayor's staffer replied, "Super."
First, maybe don't assure someone
nothing will be in writing, in writing.
You can find more helpful tips
like that in my book,
"Flagrant Corruption
for Literal Dummies".
But I love the airline official getting
a little bit sassy
with the "Why does he care?" there.
"Bitch, it's a bribe.
There's not gonna be a receipt.
Relax."
Adams allegedly got so used
to getting preferential treatment
on Turkish Airlines that he flew
on it
"even when doing so was otherwise
inconvenient."
During one flight from New York
to France,
he somehow ended up in Turkey, and
when his partner asked why, he said,
"Transferring here. You know
first stop is always Istanbul."
Which is stupid, but also a pretty good
tourism slogan for Istanbul.
I'd say Eric Adams gave that to them
for free,
but they clearly
very much paid him for it.
Adams also apparently once asked
whether Turkish Airlines could fly him
to Easter Island,
forcing the airline "to confirm
that they did not have routes
between New York and Chile"
because of, you know,
how a globe works.
And he did seem to know
what he was doing was shady,
given an aide once reminded him
to "please delete all text messages
you send me,"
to which Adams responded,
"Always do." And that was clearly
a foolproof plan.
Given that I am reading those texts
to you right now.
And look, if you happen to be
unfamiliar with Eric Adams,
first, I wish I lived inside your mind.
But you should know, he's an ex-cop,
longtime resident of New Jersey,
and arguably the weirdest mayor
in this city's history.
And we're no stranger to weird mayors.
In recent years,
we've had Goober Slenderman,
Billionaire Lawn Gnome,
and a man who was disbarred in D.C.
this week
for his efforts to overturn
a presidential election.
But Eric Adams takes the cake.
While there is no single clip that can
truly capture his chaotic essence,
if I had to pick one, it'd be this
moment from last December,
which starts with the softest
of softball questions,
and goes somewhere I guarantee
you're not expecting.
So, when you look at the totality
of the year, if you had to describe it,
and it's tough to do, in one word, what
would that word be, and tell me why.
New York. This is a place where
every day you wake up,
you can experience everything from
a plane crashing into our trade center,
to a person who's celebrating
a new business that's open.
Look, he is, sadly,
unspeakably funny.
His two answers for what makes
New York special,
which was, and I cannot stress
this enough,
not the question he was asked,
were, one, 9/11, the terrorist attack,
and two, "a person who's celebrating
a new business that's open,"
a thing that could happen in literally
any city at any moment.
What the fuck is he talking about?
It feels like his brain is a version
of ChatGPT that was trained
on Citibank ads and
Osama bin Laden's vision board.
Even Giuliani is like, "I dunno if I'd
have shoehorned 9/11 in there."
Adams and his inner circle have actually
been under multiple investigations
for nearly a year now,
this month alone has brought the
resignations of his chief of police,
schools chancellor,
and chief counsel.
So this indictment wasn't a surprise,
it's been anticipated
since last November,
when federal agents seized
Adams's phone and iPad.
And look, it is not like the FBI
has never investigated anyone
for bullshit reasons, and Adams
is entitled to due process,
but he has not been helping himself.
Last year, Adams said he'd be shocked
if anyone on his campaign
had acted illegally,
because, quote, "I cannot tell you
how much I start the day
with telling my team
we've got to follow the law."
And I'm not convinced you have
a ton of respect for the law
if every day you have to hype
yourself up into obeying it.
And Adams's coziness with Turkey
has always seemed a little bit weird.
Back when he was borough president,
he even appeared
in a Turkish rom-com,
in which two supporting characters had
a pretty telling conversation with him.
Sir, can I add a story to my building?
Could you please
show me a way to do that?
The honorable mayor,
precious Mr. Eric.
We had so many problems after we
decided to open a gyro restaurant.
Could you please grant me a license?
You guys are from Turkey.
Brooklyn loves Turkey.
Brooklyn is the Istanbul of America.
We love your food,
we love your music,
but I don't understand Turkish.
We can take a selfie, though.
Okay, it's not a great sign
when even the fictional version
of yourself is being approached
for political favors.
But also, "Brooklyn
is the Istanbul of America"?
That is a stretch. I wouldn't call
Brooklyn's climate Mediterranean,
so much as
"landfill that just hit puberty".
But while that clip has aged poorly,
I'd argue not as badly as this one
from just a year ago.
Diddy finally has the key to the city!
The bad boy of entertainment
is getting the key to the city
from the bad boy of politics!
You might not want to associate
with that guy.
'Cause things aren't looking great
for him right now.
And if you're wondering which one
I'm talking to, the answer is "yes".
We'll see how this story unfolds,
but as of taping on Saturday,
Adams has pled not guilty and
is insisting he won't step down.
Which, okay. But that is in keeping
with his general philosophy,
which he's summed up like this.
I am the pilot, folks,
and you are all passengers.
Stop praying for me
to crash the plane.
Pray for me to land the plane,
'cause there's no parachutes on this
plane. We're all going down together.
Look, obviously, prayer doesn't land
planes. Competence does.
Even in your analogy,
you sound like a bad pilot.
The bad boy of air travel,
if you will.
But while all of this is very funny,
it's worth remembering Adams
has done real damage to this city.
He's been a terrible mayor.
Even before his indictment,
he proposed slashing funding
for libraries and preschools,
blocked a law banning
solitary confinement,
and appointed a rat czar who was,
unforgivably, not a rat in a top hat.
So, despite what Adams claims,
the answer is not to pray
for him to succeed.
It's to insist that he leaves.
Because New York deserves better.
And I for one cannot wait for the day
when we finally get to hear
the most electrifying news broadcaster
in the city tell us,
"mayor Eric Adams has resigned".
And now, this.
And Now: A Little More
of Eric Adams's Favorite Metaphor.
I'm the pilot.
And all of you are passengers.
You better pray this plane lands.
Stop praying that it crashes.
I'm the pilot.
Anyone that's wishing for the pilot
to fail,
they better realize they on this plane.
I'm the pilot, co-pilot,
there's the speaker,
and I say this over and over again,
we're gonna land this plane.
There are people who wake up
every day and say,
"How do I get the pilot
of this plane to crash?"
These guys are on the plane!
I am the pilot of this plane called New
York City and we're all passengers.
If I fail, the plane goes down, and
there are no parachutes on this plane.
As I say over and over again,
Adams in Adams United,
we landed the plane.
And we guided the plane
throughout all the turbulence.
Many of you who were on board with
us thought the turbulence mean
the plane was going to sink. No.
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns judges,
the only government workers whose
official dress code is goth poncho.
Judges rule on matters big and small,
but they're also human beings,
as we got reminded early
in the pandemic,
when someone didn't mute
their microphone
during this remote
Supreme Court hearing.
And what the FCC has said is that
when the subject matter of the call
ranges to the topic,
then the call is transformed.
It's true, someone flushed a toilet
during oral arguments.
Which, to be fair, isn't the most
embarrassing Zoom mishap.
On a scale of zero to Jeffrey Toobin,
it probably falls somewhere
in the middle.
But I love that that lawyer
just kept going.
Who among us didn't sit on the toilet
during work hours back then?
You remember when I was in the void?
I was on a toilet the whole time.
I was dressed, I'm not a pervert,
but I was on a toilet.
What do you mean,
"That's even more confusing?"
Don't worry about it. Shut up.
The Supreme Court's last term was,
to put it mildly, eventful.
They issued rulings on everything
from gun rights
to social media censorship
to gerrymandering,
and also kind of made
the president a king,
holding six-three in Trump vs. the U.S.
that "presidents are completely immune
from prosecution for things
they did through core constitutional
powers of the presidency."
Adding, they're "at least presumed
to be immune,
and potentially are always immune,
for all official acts
of their presidency,"
but leaving it open to interpretation
as to what constitutes a core power
and an official act.
Which is not ideal!
Because there are pretty obvious
reasons why you'd want
to be more precise there,
as Sonia Sotomayor tried
pointing out to Trump's lawyer.
If the president decides that
his rival is a corrupt person,
and he orders the military or orders
someone to assassinate him,
is that within his official acts
for which he can get immunity?
We can see that could well be
an official act.
Holy shit!
That is Trump's attorney arguing
the president could be shielded from
prosecution for assassinating
a political rival.
That is terrifying.
Honestly, this is the oral argument that
should've featured bathroom noises,
as it seems they just flushed the rule
of law down the fucking toilet.
But extremity seems to be
the standard now for this court,
which has been aggressive in applying
hard-line conservative views
to reverse established law.
In 2022,
they overturned Roe v. Wade.
Last year, their decision
on affirmative action reversed
45 years of legal precedent.
And this June, they discarded
the Chevron doctrine,
which, as we'll get into later, is
a critical, four-decade-old precedent
concerning how regulatory
agencies work.
And all this fulfilled a promise
that Trump repeatedly made
on the campaign trail eight years ago
to try and get hesitant
conservatives to support him.
We have to win,
and one of the biggest reasons:
we have to do this, for United States
Supreme Court justices.
You gotta go for Trump.
Supreme Court justices.
And remember, justices of the Supreme
Court, remember that.
Supreme Court justices. That's all.
That's all you have to think.
That turned out to be
a pretty successful argument.
If Trump had promised to throw paper
towels at hurricane victims,
or molest a flag, or decorate
the White House for Christmas
like it's an A24 horror movie,
it might've been a less compelling
message,
though to be fair, no less true.
Because Trump delivered
on that promise,
and not just
at the Supreme Court level.
He's reshaped the judiciary
from top to bottom,
in ways that are only starting
to be felt.
So, given that, tonight,
let's look at the federal courts,
what Trump's done to them,
and if elected again,
what he could do next.
And let's start with how our
court system is actually structured.
Generally speaking, lawsuits
involving federal law start
in one of 94 district courts
around the country.
There's at least one in every state,
and this is where trials take place.
If a case is appealed, it goes up
to the courts of appeals.
There are 13 of those, dividing
the country into regional circuits.
And if it's appealed from there,
the Supreme Court could choose
to hear it.
There's some little stuff that
I'm leaving out in there,
including an extra layer at the bottom
called "Judge Steve Harvey gets
a crack at it,"
but that is basically it.
The Supreme Court hears
around 100 cases a year,
but the circuit courts beneath it
handle around 40,000,
with the district courts below them
handling over 300,000 cases.
So the decisions of those lower courts
are in most cases final.
And Trump was able to reshape
a lot of them.
There are around 900 active federal
judges in total, and as president,
he appointed 234 of them,
rivaling the numbers of presidents who
held office for twice as long as he did.
And irritatingly, he tends to frame this
as a stroke of tremendous luck.
When I got in, we had over 100 federal
judges that weren't appointed.
I don't know why Obama left that.
It was like a big, beautiful present
to all of us.
Yeah, but was it, though?
Because the actual reason he got
that big, beautiful present
was because Senate Republicans,
led by Mitch McConnell,
stonewalled Obama's judicial
nominees for years.
Those vacancies weren't gifted
so much as stolen,
which is clearly different.
Oprah's car giveaway wouldn't have
seemed nearly as fun
if she'd spent the previous night
carjacking everyone in Chicago.
And McConnell himself has admitted
that once he had a president
to his liking, filling court seats
was his top priority.
If I have a choice between taking up
a particular bill
or taking up a circuit court judge,
I take up a circuit court judge,
because I think it makes the
longest-lasting contribution
to making this the kind
of country it ought to be.
He's not lying there.
During the Trump years,
you couldn't whisper the words "court
vacancy" anywhere in Congress
without McConnell excitedly
bursting through the wall
like the fucking Kool-Aid man.
And it wasn't just him.
Right-wing groups have been focused
on getting judges onto the bench
for years now, with perhaps no one
playing a larger role than this man:
Leonard Leo.
He's been called "the man behind
the conservative effort
to move the judiciary to the right."
And one primary way that he's done
this has been through his leadership
at the Federalist Society,
an organization that he turned
from a student club
into an incubator and pipeline
for conservative lawyers
to become public officials and judges.
Leo's also a hugely successful
fundraiser
and has built a dark money network
to funnel cash to conservative causes,
groups, and politicians.
And he's used a number of tactics
over the years
to conceal the movement
of that money.
In terms of where it ends up,
he's recently been using what
are called "donor advised funds",
which make it practically impossible
to trace where the money goes.
And in terms of where it comes from,
which does feel important,
many entities he's been linked
to haven't been required
to disclose their donors.
And as you'll see here, when asked
about that, he can get cagey fast.
Could you describe to us what
the purpose of the BH Fund is?
BH Fund is a charitable organization,
you can look it up,
I'm sure its statement
of purpose is listed.
We did. Its tax document says
its mission is
"to promote the rule of law and limited,
constitutional government,"
and it received $24 million from
an anonymous donor in 2017.
I have a very simple rule, which is
I'm engaged in the battle of ideas,
and I care very deeply about
our constitution
and the role of courts in our society,
and I don't waste my time on stories
that involve money in politics
because what I care about is ideas.
Come on. I know this is so obvious
it barely needs to be said,
but where things come from
does matter,
for the same reason that Lunchables
can't just list its ingredients
as "mind your fucking business".
But even if it can be hard to say
who all of Leo's backers are,
it is clear what both he and they want,
judges on the bench
who are against regulation,
and deeply socially conservative.
Although Leo will sometimes try and
put a more moderate face on that.
In the early days of Trump's term,
Leo helped supply him with 25 names
of potential Supreme Court nominees,
and watch him shrug off questions about
whether any of those names
might one day impact the right
to an abortion.
Is the fear on the left justified
that this means that Roe v. Wade
is in jeopardy
if one of the 25 gets through
the process?
The left has been using the Roe v Wade
scare tactic since 1982
when Sandra O'Connor
was nominated.
And over 30 years later, nothing's
happened to Roe v. Wade.
So, I think their abortion issue
is really very much a scare tactic.
As I think we all know, it played out
a bit differently.
Shortly afterward, Trump nominated
Kavanaugh from Leo's list,
and he, along with Gorsuch
and Barrett,
two other picks Leo recommended,
wound up overturning Roe.
So, clearly, it wasn't just
a scare tactic at all.
It's honestly hard to imagine how
that clip could've aged worse,
other than if he'd continued,
"No one needs to prepare for any sort
of novel coronavirus in the future,
and don't worry about
Armie Hammer's career,
that thing's gonna keep going great!"
The point is, Leo's had a huge amount
of success in planting
hard-right judges throughout
the federal court system.
And that has enabled
conservative groups,
some of which he funds,
to effectively go judge-shopping.
What that means is, they're able
to write a lawsuit designed to achieve
a specific policy end,
bring it before a district court judge
who came up through
the Federalist Society,
appeal it up through circuit courts
increasingly stocked
with Federalist Society alumni,
and maybe even get it in front
of the Supreme Court,
a full third of whose members came
off a list
from the Federalist Society's own
Leonard fucking Leo.
He's putting out new conservative
judges the way Apple puts out
new TV shows, constantly,
and basically, silently.
And while testing the law through
the courts is something
both liberal and conservative groups
have long used as a tactic,
it's now much easier
for conservatives to do it,
even with incredibly weak cases.
Take last year's fight
over mifepristone,
a drug used in most abortions.
The lawsuit that precipitated that
fight was clearly crafted
to restrict abortion access.
It began with activists creating
a brand-new group
called the Alliance
for Hippocratic Medicine,
which they incorporated
in Amarillo, Texas,
just months before it filed the lawsuit.
And they chose Amarillo
for a very specific reason.
By filing its lawsuit in Amarillo,
the Alliance Defending Freedom
was almost guaranteed
to draw judge Matthew Kacsmaryk,
a Trump appointee who worked in the
conservative Christian legal movement.
Exactly. By filing in Amarillo,
they knew their case was likely
to get assigned to Kacsmaryk,
seen here shortly after asking
his barber for the "wet marine".
That is the reason they,
and so many conservative groups,
are going to Amarillo, it's not
for the historic tour of Route 66,
or the canyon horseback ride,
or even the Huge Pair of Legs,
which are apparently number 30
on Tripadvisor's list of things to do
in Amarillo, even though I've never
seen a more obvious number one
in my entire life.
They have absolutely glowing reviews,
such as,
"It's a huge pair of legs standing
in a pasture next to the road,"
"What a unique statue! Tall legs!
Out in a field!"
and, "I figured while here
why not go find them.
They're interesting and big."
And amen to that, brother.
They sure are.
Kacsmaryk is incredibly conservative.
He's said being transgender
is a delusion,
has argued against contraception
and same sex marriage,
and criticized the legal foundations
of Roe v. Wade.
So, he was always likely to be
incredibly sympathetic
to the plaintiffs
in the mifepristone case,
which was lucky for them because their
arguments were laughably weak.
Basically, some of the plaintiffs
were pro-life doctors
who argued the FDA's approval
of mifepristone,
which has been used safely
for over 20 years,
should be withdrawn, in part, because
it could harm the doctors themselves.
They argued that treating patients
who'd suffered adverse health effects
from the drug, which, again,
rarely happens
"could cause them hardship
and subject them to enormous stress
and pressure".
Though, a few things about that. First,
none of those doctors were required
to prescribe the drugs
or regularly treat abortion patients,
they couldn't identify a single case
where any of them had been forced
to provide such care,
and there's already a federal law that
protects them from having to do so.
Basically, their argument
did not have a leg to stand on,
which is a little ironic, considering
Amarillo has two of them
that are just fucking
hanging around for some reason.
But Kacsmaryk sided
with the plaintiffs anyway,
striking down the FDA's approval
of mifepristone.
The government appealed his ruling,
but it was then upheld
by the notoriously conservative
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals,
where a third of the judges
are Trump appointees.
Now, the good news here is that the
Supreme Court ultimately reversed
the ruling, saying the plaintiffs
lacked standing to sue,
because they "hadn't convincingly
proven that they were being harmed."
Because they fucking weren't.
The bad news is, this was by
no means a full-throated rejection,
as in Kavanaugh's drafting
of the opinion,
he explicitly left the door open to try
again in the future, saying that,
"It is not clear that no one else would
have standing to challenge
the FDA's relaxed regulation
of mifepristone"
a hint so broad, it might as well have
had a winking emoji at the end of it.
The point is, the courts are now
incredibly amenable to lawsuits
that conservatives bring.
And while the mifepristone
and Trump immunity rulings
have been pretty widely discussed,
one of the biggest conservative
victories this year
has actually flown
under the radar a bit,
even though, for most of
Leonard Leo's big corporate backers,
it's probably the most important
reason to support him.
And it concerns regulation.
Companies famously hate regulation,
an attitude shared by certain
members of the Supreme Court,
especially Neil Gorsuch,
who always looks like the man
in every Cialis commercial.
Gorsuch released a book
this year called
"Overruled: The Human Toll
of Too Much Law",
about how, in his view, regulatory
agencies are out of control
and basically making up
new laws left and right.
For years now, he's delivered a spiel
about how federal agencies,
which fall under the executive branch,
have usurped the power that rightly
belongs to the legislative one.
It's an argument he delivers with his
trademark electric personality,
like this.
The executive branch has made up
so many new criminal laws
that people have stopped counting,
at over 300,000.
If your ketchup is too runny,
you get in trouble for that,
because a federal agency said so.
I'm not making it up.
What if you sell mattresses,
and you tear off that tag?
You're probably a federal criminal.
And if you import lobster in a plastic
bag instead of a cardboard box?
That's a problem,
because a bureaucrat says so.
You know Woodsy the owl?
Some of you, Woodsy the owl?
Give a hoot, don't pollute?
Remember him?
Some of you remember him.
Well, if you misuse his likeness,
you might be a federal felon.
That's what happens when you mix up
the executive and the legislative power.
I know this is beside the point,
but that was some deafening silence
after he asked if anyone remembers
Woodsy the owl.
Which does makes sense. He's not
exactly a top-tier owl anymore.
Your current A-listers are probably
Owl from "Winnie the Pooh"
Hedwig from "Harry Potter",
the Duolingo mascot
and, of course, this soggy little guy
who went viral
for looking like he's going through
his third divorce.
But while I'm sure Gorsuch worked
hard to cherry-pick those regulations
to dunk on, he's actually
mischaracterizing a lot of those rules,
in ways that feel pretty revealing.
For instance, a few of the things
he just cited as evidence
of an "out of control"
executive branch there
actually came from the legislative one.
The Woodsy the owl thing was
this law passed by Congress.
As for his example about lobsters,
that's him short handing
a case involving the Lacey Act,
which was, as its name might
suggest, also an act of Congress.
As for the others, those were all cases
where Congress very clearly wanted
specific things to be regulated.
When it comes to ketchup, Congress
passed this law directing the FDA
to prevent mislabeling of foods,
which the agency then did,
only after extensive review
and public comment periods.
Also, these kinds of regulations
don't generally get enforced
unless the violations are egregious.
In one recent 10-year period,
the FDA only managed to obtain
two court injunctions
against food products on account
of misleading labeling.
So, it's not like prisons are filled
with people who sold runny ketchup.
If they were,
you would know about it,
probably because we would've already
done a story called
"Ketchup Incarceration"
that'd be 26 minutes long,
featuring videos of two separate
people crying,
and ending with Steve Buscemi
dressed like a giant tomato
for reasons that would make sense
in context.
And finally, when it comes to Gorsuch
making fun of mattress tags,
just so you know,
Congress passed this law
directing a federal agency to set
flammability standards
to ensure the safety
of products like mattresses,
"including labeling" them.
And I know there is a certain
hack-comedy appeal to going,
"What's the deal with mattress tags?"
After all, why would you need a tag
saying who made a mattress and when?
When is that information ever really
gonna be useful to you, right?
A foam crib mattress by Stork Craft
has been recalled
for failing to meet federal standards
for flammability.
Affected mattresses were made
between August 2014
and January 2015, and consumers
should stop using the mattress
and contact Stork Craft
for a free barrier cover.
Oh, yeah, that does make
a lot more sense now.
Among other things, those mattress
tags might help you figure out
if your mattress has been recalled.
So, I guess the answer
to Gorsuch's question,
"Why is the government issuing
rules about mattress tags?"
is, "So a baby's crib doesn't turn
into a miniature wicker man,
you fucking idiot."
And look, I've got issues with plenty
of issues with regulations.
But it is disingenuous to suggest
they're all being issued arbitrarily
at random,
when on the whole, they're being
carefully crafted by career experts
to keep us safe.
And that work is now going to be
significantly harder due to the case
that I mentioned at the start
of this story,
the one overturning what's known
as Chevron deference.
We discussed Chevron a bit
in our first show of this year,
but it's a longstanding legal doctrine,
arising from
this 1984 Supreme Court ruling.
Very basically, Chevron said that when
there is a lawsuit over regulation,
judges should give a lot of leeway
to agencies.
So, let's say Congress writes
a law saying,
"I want mercury out
of drinking water."
Under Chevron, the EPA would
decide how to do exactly that,
and then their decisions
would be hard to overturn.
Chevron is "one of the most cited
precedents in American law."
It's mentioned in more than 18,000
federal court decisions
and was the deciding factor
in approximately
70 Supreme Court decisions.
It's essentially one of the foundations
current American law has been built on.
Getting rid of Chevron isn't just
removing the bottom Jenga block,
it's removing the entire table
underneath it.
And companies have, unsurprisingly,
long wanted Chevron gone.
And in June, they got their wish,
thanks to a ruling in a couple of cases
that were consolidated into one called
Loper Bright versus Raimondo.
And frustratingly,
like the mifepristone case,
it's built on quite a bit of bullshit.
On its face, it involves a group of
fishermen trying to overturn
a regulation requiring them to pay
for federal monitors
to prevent overfishing.
They complained it could have made it
impossible for them to make a living,
and I say "could have" because the
regulation was not being enforced,
and even if it had been, the fishermen
didn't identify a single fishing trip
for which they would've been required
to pay for monitoring services
under that rule.
Nevertheless,
the fishermen were represented
by these two conservative groups,
one of which, this one,
is backed by entities linked to,
you'll never guess it:
Leonard fucking Leo.
At this point, finding out
Leonard Leo had a role
in a major conservative court case
is like finding out
a ventriloquist dummy has a hand
up its ass. It's basically assumed.
I do think it's telling that some major
industries suddenly seemed
very interested in the outcome
of this obscure fishing case,
with dozens writing amicus briefs
including
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
the North American Meat Institute,
and a trade organization representing
e-cigarette companies.
And unless fish are vaping now,
I don't really see why that group
should be involved,
although if they are, that is also cool
as hell. 'Cause look at that.
That is fucking sick.
I don't mean to be pro-tobacco,
but that's pure sex appeal right there.
And those interests got their way.
Because the Supreme Court
ruled six-three
to overturn Chevron deference entirely
making it much easier for companies
to challenge
a regulatory agency's decision.
And when you put that in tandem
with all these other recent rulings,
the power of regulatory agencies
has now been sharply limited.
And conservatives are understandably
very, very happy about all of this.
Here's Jim Jordan, explaining why.
The fundamental question
is who decides.
The, quote, "experts," the technocracy
as Mr. Bishops described,
or the elected officials.
We may not know how many parts
per billion is necessary.
But I do know one thing. Regulations
and rules that impact the economy
to the tune of millions
and millions of dollars,
and impact the 800,000 folks I get
to represent, that's important.
We have deferred to the, quote,
"experts".
Experts who think they can run our
lives and never be held accountable.
Look, I'll give him this:
when Jim Jordan says,
"I may not know how many parts
per billion is necessary,"
he is absolutely right.
After all, he is a man who prides
himself on not knowing things,
whether it's science, technology,
or indeed,
the alleged sexual abuse happening to
college wrestlers on a team he coached.
Jim Jordan has built a personal brand
on not knowing what's going on.
But there are a few problems
with his reasoning there.
First, Congress can't pass shit
right now.
But even if it was functional,
you wouldn't necessarily want it
writing technical rules on everything.
Legislators can be good at many things,
delivering speeches,
raising campaign money,
getting uncontrollably horny during
"Beetlejuice", the musical,
escaping to Mexico when their
constituents need them most,
but they don't possess universal
expertise in technology,
medicine, or food safety.
Every part of a regulator's job
is now going to be much harder.
As one commentator wrote,
Loper Bright has opened the door
so that "the worst judges will issue
nationwide injunctions,
effectively one-man vetoes
of entire agencies in real time based
on personal opinion."
Which is just fully not how the
government is supposed to work.
There's a reason
that "Schoolhouse Rock!" video
doesn't end with some random judge
in Mississippi suddenly wiping
his ass with that bill.
And unfortunately, it's already begun.
One analysis found that Loper Bright's
already been cited in 116 cases
since the Supreme Court decision.
In fact, less than a week
after it was issued,
three judges in different states
published decisions on the same day
citing Loper Bright as they blocked
implementation of a new rule
"that would prohibit discrimination in
health care based on gender identity."
And at the same time,
judges are making it clear
they're not much better equipped
than Congress
to answer highly technical questions.
In one decision this term,
Neil Gorsuch "repeatedly confused
nitrous oxide,
often known as laughing gas,
with nitrogen oxides,
the class of compounds that help
form smog."
That's a mistake you get to make
at dental school exactly once.
And when you take all this together,
you can understand why one
of the justices on the losing end
of all these recent six-three decisions
has been going around
saying stuff like this.
There are days that I've come
to my office
after an announcement of a case
and closed my door and cried.
There have been those days,
and there are likely to be more.
Well, that doesn't feel great.
You know things are bad when Supreme
Court justices are crying alone
in their office instead
of where they usually cry,
on national TV while getting credibly
accused of sexual assault.
So, what can we do?
Well, members of Congress have
introduced bills to try and undo
some of these decisions,
but given that Republicans
currently control the House,
those bills have gone nowhere.
And that actually brings us
to the key point here.
Because the only way of undoing some
of the harm that's been done,
and preventing even more happening,
is by keeping Trump
out of the White House,
and Republicans out of Congress
in November.
Because like in 2016, Trump's
intentions here are very clear.
The oldest justices
are currently Thomas and Alito,
and many believe one or both of them
could step down
due to age in the next four years,
potentially giving Trump the chance
to "cement the court's conservative
supermajority for a generation".
He's openly promising
his base as much.
I will once again appoint rock-solid
conservative judges
in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia,
Samuel Alito,
he's done a fantastic job,
and the great Clarence Thomas,
he's been fantastic.
First, no, he has not been fantastic.
He's been a fucking nightmare.
Eagle-eyed viewers will remember that I
nearly obliterated my personal finances
to encourage him to retire,
which honestly would've been worth it,
but would've also put me
in such a hole,
I'd have probably had to go
full "cancel culture warrior"
to dig myself out of it.
I'd have a two-hour Netflix stand-up
special called
"They Won't Let Me Do
Stand-Up Anymore"
and a stadium tour called
"They Won't Let Me Tour Either".
The point is, that is a man who knows
that that is the promise
that can get him elected,
and have people willing to ignore
literally everything else about him.
Look, the remaking of America's
judiciary is the culmination of a plan
that's been going on for decades.
While a lot of the judges that've been
put in place aren't going anywhere
for a while, that doesn't mean the
change has to be permanent.
And securing the White House
and Congress is our best shot
at starting to slowly undo that change.
And I know it can feel
extremely depressing,
I mean, sad-owl level depressing,
to live in a world where rich,
anonymous interests can install
friendly judges to hand them
whatever rulings they want,
and where the government's ability
to keep us safe is hamstrung
by some dork's B-minus
stand-up routine.
But that situation only persists
if we let it.
If we can elect people who value
an independent judiciary
and the rule of law,
then Leo and his backers won't be able
to so easily buy the justice system.
Meaning he'll probably need something
else to spend all of that money on.
And may I suggest a trip to the most
spectacular legs in Texas?
I don't want to oversell them,
but I hear they're both interesting
and big. And now, this.
And Now: People on TV Learn That
Gen Z Don't Like to Show Their Feet.
Want to know the biggest difference
between Gen Z and the rest of us?
Gen Z kids don't like
to show their feet.
They like thick, chunky sneakers.
They like Crocs with socks.
They don't want to show their feet.
So, they're wearing those with socks.
Socks with sandals, Crocs with socks.
That's what all the kids are wearing.
Why?
They're embarrassed to show off
their tootsies
and are offended by the ugly feet
of others.
I feel like we need to get back
to something you said earlier.
You had a friend with 11 toes?
Is that right?
I did, yeah. Stan, in high school.
Guy always wore socks with sandals.
We're like, "Stan, take
your socks off." He's like, "Okay."
Finally took them off,
and he had 11 toes.
On the little guy, right here,
he kind of had a little offshoot.
There was a guy I went to grade school
and high school with.
He had one more than Stan the Man.
He had 12.
- Six on each foot?
- No kidding.
It was one of those things where you,
after a while, you just own it.
I have very long, skinny feet,
and I have long toes.
I can use my feet like hands.
Like, I can pick up stuff with my feet.
And I didn't wear sandals
for the longest time
because one time
in elementary school,
and my friends were like,
"Wow, you've got monkey toes.
Can you hang from trees?"
And I'm like, "Okay, that's it."
'Cause I was so self-conscious.
Now, I just don't give a rip. You don't
like my feet? Don't look at 'em.
Having said that, I have seen a fair
amount of corns and bunions
and other things in in my time
at the pool.
I have hammer toe.
Hammer toe, that little guy is hugging
up to the next one. It won't let go.
15-minute procedure, though,
they chiseled that bone, man.
You're back to normal.
New man, ladies and gentlemen,
he's a new man.
We're out of time.
We're moving on here.
New man, straight as an arrow.
Well, good for you, dude,
that is good to know.
That's our show,
thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next week, good night!
I'm John Oliver,
thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week!
Hurricane Helene caused devastation
across the southeast,
Israel killed the leader of Hezbollah,
dramatically escalating tensions
in the region, and here in New York,
an anchor on New York 1 had the
moment everyone there dreams of.
We have breaking news for you here
on New York 1.
According to multiple reports,
including the New York Times,
mayor Eric Adams has been indicted
by federal prosecutors.
I love that delivery.
He finally got
his big breaking news moment,
and he was justifiably savoring it.
If I keep talking like this,
I can make this moment last forever.
Sorry, Jamie with the weather,
this is my fucking time.
But it is true: Eric Adams
was indicted this week,
for among other things, allegedly
taking bribes for political favors.
He's accused of receiving "more than
$100,000 in luxury travel benefits,
including free international flights
and opulent hotel rooms."
And not just that, he's also accused
of knowingly accepting
illegal campaign contributions
from foreign donors,
some of which, by the way,
"helped him qualify for more
than $10 million
in matching public campaign funds."
The indictment focuses primarily
on gifts and donations from Turkey,
which is interesting enough,
but honestly,
every detail in it is incredible.
According to the indictment, when
the mayor's staff member once asked
a Turkish Airlines official where Adams
could stay while visiting Turkey,
the official replied, Four Seasons.
"It's too expensive," the staffer
responded. "Why does he care?"
said the official.
"He is not going to pay.
His name will not be
on anything either."
The mayor's staffer replied, "Super."
First, maybe don't assure someone
nothing will be in writing, in writing.
You can find more helpful tips
like that in my book,
"Flagrant Corruption
for Literal Dummies".
But I love the airline official getting
a little bit sassy
with the "Why does he care?" there.
"Bitch, it's a bribe.
There's not gonna be a receipt.
Relax."
Adams allegedly got so used
to getting preferential treatment
on Turkish Airlines that he flew
on it
"even when doing so was otherwise
inconvenient."
During one flight from New York
to France,
he somehow ended up in Turkey, and
when his partner asked why, he said,
"Transferring here. You know
first stop is always Istanbul."
Which is stupid, but also a pretty good
tourism slogan for Istanbul.
I'd say Eric Adams gave that to them
for free,
but they clearly
very much paid him for it.
Adams also apparently once asked
whether Turkish Airlines could fly him
to Easter Island,
forcing the airline "to confirm
that they did not have routes
between New York and Chile"
because of, you know,
how a globe works.
And he did seem to know
what he was doing was shady,
given an aide once reminded him
to "please delete all text messages
you send me,"
to which Adams responded,
"Always do." And that was clearly
a foolproof plan.
Given that I am reading those texts
to you right now.
And look, if you happen to be
unfamiliar with Eric Adams,
first, I wish I lived inside your mind.
But you should know, he's an ex-cop,
longtime resident of New Jersey,
and arguably the weirdest mayor
in this city's history.
And we're no stranger to weird mayors.
In recent years,
we've had Goober Slenderman,
Billionaire Lawn Gnome,
and a man who was disbarred in D.C.
this week
for his efforts to overturn
a presidential election.
But Eric Adams takes the cake.
While there is no single clip that can
truly capture his chaotic essence,
if I had to pick one, it'd be this
moment from last December,
which starts with the softest
of softball questions,
and goes somewhere I guarantee
you're not expecting.
So, when you look at the totality
of the year, if you had to describe it,
and it's tough to do, in one word, what
would that word be, and tell me why.
New York. This is a place where
every day you wake up,
you can experience everything from
a plane crashing into our trade center,
to a person who's celebrating
a new business that's open.
Look, he is, sadly,
unspeakably funny.
His two answers for what makes
New York special,
which was, and I cannot stress
this enough,
not the question he was asked,
were, one, 9/11, the terrorist attack,
and two, "a person who's celebrating
a new business that's open,"
a thing that could happen in literally
any city at any moment.
What the fuck is he talking about?
It feels like his brain is a version
of ChatGPT that was trained
on Citibank ads and
Osama bin Laden's vision board.
Even Giuliani is like, "I dunno if I'd
have shoehorned 9/11 in there."
Adams and his inner circle have actually
been under multiple investigations
for nearly a year now,
this month alone has brought the
resignations of his chief of police,
schools chancellor,
and chief counsel.
So this indictment wasn't a surprise,
it's been anticipated
since last November,
when federal agents seized
Adams's phone and iPad.
And look, it is not like the FBI
has never investigated anyone
for bullshit reasons, and Adams
is entitled to due process,
but he has not been helping himself.
Last year, Adams said he'd be shocked
if anyone on his campaign
had acted illegally,
because, quote, "I cannot tell you
how much I start the day
with telling my team
we've got to follow the law."
And I'm not convinced you have
a ton of respect for the law
if every day you have to hype
yourself up into obeying it.
And Adams's coziness with Turkey
has always seemed a little bit weird.
Back when he was borough president,
he even appeared
in a Turkish rom-com,
in which two supporting characters had
a pretty telling conversation with him.
Sir, can I add a story to my building?
Could you please
show me a way to do that?
The honorable mayor,
precious Mr. Eric.
We had so many problems after we
decided to open a gyro restaurant.
Could you please grant me a license?
You guys are from Turkey.
Brooklyn loves Turkey.
Brooklyn is the Istanbul of America.
We love your food,
we love your music,
but I don't understand Turkish.
We can take a selfie, though.
Okay, it's not a great sign
when even the fictional version
of yourself is being approached
for political favors.
But also, "Brooklyn
is the Istanbul of America"?
That is a stretch. I wouldn't call
Brooklyn's climate Mediterranean,
so much as
"landfill that just hit puberty".
But while that clip has aged poorly,
I'd argue not as badly as this one
from just a year ago.
Diddy finally has the key to the city!
The bad boy of entertainment
is getting the key to the city
from the bad boy of politics!
You might not want to associate
with that guy.
'Cause things aren't looking great
for him right now.
And if you're wondering which one
I'm talking to, the answer is "yes".
We'll see how this story unfolds,
but as of taping on Saturday,
Adams has pled not guilty and
is insisting he won't step down.
Which, okay. But that is in keeping
with his general philosophy,
which he's summed up like this.
I am the pilot, folks,
and you are all passengers.
Stop praying for me
to crash the plane.
Pray for me to land the plane,
'cause there's no parachutes on this
plane. We're all going down together.
Look, obviously, prayer doesn't land
planes. Competence does.
Even in your analogy,
you sound like a bad pilot.
The bad boy of air travel,
if you will.
But while all of this is very funny,
it's worth remembering Adams
has done real damage to this city.
He's been a terrible mayor.
Even before his indictment,
he proposed slashing funding
for libraries and preschools,
blocked a law banning
solitary confinement,
and appointed a rat czar who was,
unforgivably, not a rat in a top hat.
So, despite what Adams claims,
the answer is not to pray
for him to succeed.
It's to insist that he leaves.
Because New York deserves better.
And I for one cannot wait for the day
when we finally get to hear
the most electrifying news broadcaster
in the city tell us,
"mayor Eric Adams has resigned".
And now, this.
And Now: A Little More
of Eric Adams's Favorite Metaphor.
I'm the pilot.
And all of you are passengers.
You better pray this plane lands.
Stop praying that it crashes.
I'm the pilot.
Anyone that's wishing for the pilot
to fail,
they better realize they on this plane.
I'm the pilot, co-pilot,
there's the speaker,
and I say this over and over again,
we're gonna land this plane.
There are people who wake up
every day and say,
"How do I get the pilot
of this plane to crash?"
These guys are on the plane!
I am the pilot of this plane called New
York City and we're all passengers.
If I fail, the plane goes down, and
there are no parachutes on this plane.
As I say over and over again,
Adams in Adams United,
we landed the plane.
And we guided the plane
throughout all the turbulence.
Many of you who were on board with
us thought the turbulence mean
the plane was going to sink. No.
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns judges,
the only government workers whose
official dress code is goth poncho.
Judges rule on matters big and small,
but they're also human beings,
as we got reminded early
in the pandemic,
when someone didn't mute
their microphone
during this remote
Supreme Court hearing.
And what the FCC has said is that
when the subject matter of the call
ranges to the topic,
then the call is transformed.
It's true, someone flushed a toilet
during oral arguments.
Which, to be fair, isn't the most
embarrassing Zoom mishap.
On a scale of zero to Jeffrey Toobin,
it probably falls somewhere
in the middle.
But I love that that lawyer
just kept going.
Who among us didn't sit on the toilet
during work hours back then?
You remember when I was in the void?
I was on a toilet the whole time.
I was dressed, I'm not a pervert,
but I was on a toilet.
What do you mean,
"That's even more confusing?"
Don't worry about it. Shut up.
The Supreme Court's last term was,
to put it mildly, eventful.
They issued rulings on everything
from gun rights
to social media censorship
to gerrymandering,
and also kind of made
the president a king,
holding six-three in Trump vs. the U.S.
that "presidents are completely immune
from prosecution for things
they did through core constitutional
powers of the presidency."
Adding, they're "at least presumed
to be immune,
and potentially are always immune,
for all official acts
of their presidency,"
but leaving it open to interpretation
as to what constitutes a core power
and an official act.
Which is not ideal!
Because there are pretty obvious
reasons why you'd want
to be more precise there,
as Sonia Sotomayor tried
pointing out to Trump's lawyer.
If the president decides that
his rival is a corrupt person,
and he orders the military or orders
someone to assassinate him,
is that within his official acts
for which he can get immunity?
We can see that could well be
an official act.
Holy shit!
That is Trump's attorney arguing
the president could be shielded from
prosecution for assassinating
a political rival.
That is terrifying.
Honestly, this is the oral argument that
should've featured bathroom noises,
as it seems they just flushed the rule
of law down the fucking toilet.
But extremity seems to be
the standard now for this court,
which has been aggressive in applying
hard-line conservative views
to reverse established law.
In 2022,
they overturned Roe v. Wade.
Last year, their decision
on affirmative action reversed
45 years of legal precedent.
And this June, they discarded
the Chevron doctrine,
which, as we'll get into later, is
a critical, four-decade-old precedent
concerning how regulatory
agencies work.
And all this fulfilled a promise
that Trump repeatedly made
on the campaign trail eight years ago
to try and get hesitant
conservatives to support him.
We have to win,
and one of the biggest reasons:
we have to do this, for United States
Supreme Court justices.
You gotta go for Trump.
Supreme Court justices.
And remember, justices of the Supreme
Court, remember that.
Supreme Court justices. That's all.
That's all you have to think.
That turned out to be
a pretty successful argument.
If Trump had promised to throw paper
towels at hurricane victims,
or molest a flag, or decorate
the White House for Christmas
like it's an A24 horror movie,
it might've been a less compelling
message,
though to be fair, no less true.
Because Trump delivered
on that promise,
and not just
at the Supreme Court level.
He's reshaped the judiciary
from top to bottom,
in ways that are only starting
to be felt.
So, given that, tonight,
let's look at the federal courts,
what Trump's done to them,
and if elected again,
what he could do next.
And let's start with how our
court system is actually structured.
Generally speaking, lawsuits
involving federal law start
in one of 94 district courts
around the country.
There's at least one in every state,
and this is where trials take place.
If a case is appealed, it goes up
to the courts of appeals.
There are 13 of those, dividing
the country into regional circuits.
And if it's appealed from there,
the Supreme Court could choose
to hear it.
There's some little stuff that
I'm leaving out in there,
including an extra layer at the bottom
called "Judge Steve Harvey gets
a crack at it,"
but that is basically it.
The Supreme Court hears
around 100 cases a year,
but the circuit courts beneath it
handle around 40,000,
with the district courts below them
handling over 300,000 cases.
So the decisions of those lower courts
are in most cases final.
And Trump was able to reshape
a lot of them.
There are around 900 active federal
judges in total, and as president,
he appointed 234 of them,
rivaling the numbers of presidents who
held office for twice as long as he did.
And irritatingly, he tends to frame this
as a stroke of tremendous luck.
When I got in, we had over 100 federal
judges that weren't appointed.
I don't know why Obama left that.
It was like a big, beautiful present
to all of us.
Yeah, but was it, though?
Because the actual reason he got
that big, beautiful present
was because Senate Republicans,
led by Mitch McConnell,
stonewalled Obama's judicial
nominees for years.
Those vacancies weren't gifted
so much as stolen,
which is clearly different.
Oprah's car giveaway wouldn't have
seemed nearly as fun
if she'd spent the previous night
carjacking everyone in Chicago.
And McConnell himself has admitted
that once he had a president
to his liking, filling court seats
was his top priority.
If I have a choice between taking up
a particular bill
or taking up a circuit court judge,
I take up a circuit court judge,
because I think it makes the
longest-lasting contribution
to making this the kind
of country it ought to be.
He's not lying there.
During the Trump years,
you couldn't whisper the words "court
vacancy" anywhere in Congress
without McConnell excitedly
bursting through the wall
like the fucking Kool-Aid man.
And it wasn't just him.
Right-wing groups have been focused
on getting judges onto the bench
for years now, with perhaps no one
playing a larger role than this man:
Leonard Leo.
He's been called "the man behind
the conservative effort
to move the judiciary to the right."
And one primary way that he's done
this has been through his leadership
at the Federalist Society,
an organization that he turned
from a student club
into an incubator and pipeline
for conservative lawyers
to become public officials and judges.
Leo's also a hugely successful
fundraiser
and has built a dark money network
to funnel cash to conservative causes,
groups, and politicians.
And he's used a number of tactics
over the years
to conceal the movement
of that money.
In terms of where it ends up,
he's recently been using what
are called "donor advised funds",
which make it practically impossible
to trace where the money goes.
And in terms of where it comes from,
which does feel important,
many entities he's been linked
to haven't been required
to disclose their donors.
And as you'll see here, when asked
about that, he can get cagey fast.
Could you describe to us what
the purpose of the BH Fund is?
BH Fund is a charitable organization,
you can look it up,
I'm sure its statement
of purpose is listed.
We did. Its tax document says
its mission is
"to promote the rule of law and limited,
constitutional government,"
and it received $24 million from
an anonymous donor in 2017.
I have a very simple rule, which is
I'm engaged in the battle of ideas,
and I care very deeply about
our constitution
and the role of courts in our society,
and I don't waste my time on stories
that involve money in politics
because what I care about is ideas.
Come on. I know this is so obvious
it barely needs to be said,
but where things come from
does matter,
for the same reason that Lunchables
can't just list its ingredients
as "mind your fucking business".
But even if it can be hard to say
who all of Leo's backers are,
it is clear what both he and they want,
judges on the bench
who are against regulation,
and deeply socially conservative.
Although Leo will sometimes try and
put a more moderate face on that.
In the early days of Trump's term,
Leo helped supply him with 25 names
of potential Supreme Court nominees,
and watch him shrug off questions about
whether any of those names
might one day impact the right
to an abortion.
Is the fear on the left justified
that this means that Roe v. Wade
is in jeopardy
if one of the 25 gets through
the process?
The left has been using the Roe v Wade
scare tactic since 1982
when Sandra O'Connor
was nominated.
And over 30 years later, nothing's
happened to Roe v. Wade.
So, I think their abortion issue
is really very much a scare tactic.
As I think we all know, it played out
a bit differently.
Shortly afterward, Trump nominated
Kavanaugh from Leo's list,
and he, along with Gorsuch
and Barrett,
two other picks Leo recommended,
wound up overturning Roe.
So, clearly, it wasn't just
a scare tactic at all.
It's honestly hard to imagine how
that clip could've aged worse,
other than if he'd continued,
"No one needs to prepare for any sort
of novel coronavirus in the future,
and don't worry about
Armie Hammer's career,
that thing's gonna keep going great!"
The point is, Leo's had a huge amount
of success in planting
hard-right judges throughout
the federal court system.
And that has enabled
conservative groups,
some of which he funds,
to effectively go judge-shopping.
What that means is, they're able
to write a lawsuit designed to achieve
a specific policy end,
bring it before a district court judge
who came up through
the Federalist Society,
appeal it up through circuit courts
increasingly stocked
with Federalist Society alumni,
and maybe even get it in front
of the Supreme Court,
a full third of whose members came
off a list
from the Federalist Society's own
Leonard fucking Leo.
He's putting out new conservative
judges the way Apple puts out
new TV shows, constantly,
and basically, silently.
And while testing the law through
the courts is something
both liberal and conservative groups
have long used as a tactic,
it's now much easier
for conservatives to do it,
even with incredibly weak cases.
Take last year's fight
over mifepristone,
a drug used in most abortions.
The lawsuit that precipitated that
fight was clearly crafted
to restrict abortion access.
It began with activists creating
a brand-new group
called the Alliance
for Hippocratic Medicine,
which they incorporated
in Amarillo, Texas,
just months before it filed the lawsuit.
And they chose Amarillo
for a very specific reason.
By filing its lawsuit in Amarillo,
the Alliance Defending Freedom
was almost guaranteed
to draw judge Matthew Kacsmaryk,
a Trump appointee who worked in the
conservative Christian legal movement.
Exactly. By filing in Amarillo,
they knew their case was likely
to get assigned to Kacsmaryk,
seen here shortly after asking
his barber for the "wet marine".
That is the reason they,
and so many conservative groups,
are going to Amarillo, it's not
for the historic tour of Route 66,
or the canyon horseback ride,
or even the Huge Pair of Legs,
which are apparently number 30
on Tripadvisor's list of things to do
in Amarillo, even though I've never
seen a more obvious number one
in my entire life.
They have absolutely glowing reviews,
such as,
"It's a huge pair of legs standing
in a pasture next to the road,"
"What a unique statue! Tall legs!
Out in a field!"
and, "I figured while here
why not go find them.
They're interesting and big."
And amen to that, brother.
They sure are.
Kacsmaryk is incredibly conservative.
He's said being transgender
is a delusion,
has argued against contraception
and same sex marriage,
and criticized the legal foundations
of Roe v. Wade.
So, he was always likely to be
incredibly sympathetic
to the plaintiffs
in the mifepristone case,
which was lucky for them because their
arguments were laughably weak.
Basically, some of the plaintiffs
were pro-life doctors
who argued the FDA's approval
of mifepristone,
which has been used safely
for over 20 years,
should be withdrawn, in part, because
it could harm the doctors themselves.
They argued that treating patients
who'd suffered adverse health effects
from the drug, which, again,
rarely happens
"could cause them hardship
and subject them to enormous stress
and pressure".
Though, a few things about that. First,
none of those doctors were required
to prescribe the drugs
or regularly treat abortion patients,
they couldn't identify a single case
where any of them had been forced
to provide such care,
and there's already a federal law that
protects them from having to do so.
Basically, their argument
did not have a leg to stand on,
which is a little ironic, considering
Amarillo has two of them
that are just fucking
hanging around for some reason.
But Kacsmaryk sided
with the plaintiffs anyway,
striking down the FDA's approval
of mifepristone.
The government appealed his ruling,
but it was then upheld
by the notoriously conservative
Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals,
where a third of the judges
are Trump appointees.
Now, the good news here is that the
Supreme Court ultimately reversed
the ruling, saying the plaintiffs
lacked standing to sue,
because they "hadn't convincingly
proven that they were being harmed."
Because they fucking weren't.
The bad news is, this was by
no means a full-throated rejection,
as in Kavanaugh's drafting
of the opinion,
he explicitly left the door open to try
again in the future, saying that,
"It is not clear that no one else would
have standing to challenge
the FDA's relaxed regulation
of mifepristone"
a hint so broad, it might as well have
had a winking emoji at the end of it.
The point is, the courts are now
incredibly amenable to lawsuits
that conservatives bring.
And while the mifepristone
and Trump immunity rulings
have been pretty widely discussed,
one of the biggest conservative
victories this year
has actually flown
under the radar a bit,
even though, for most of
Leonard Leo's big corporate backers,
it's probably the most important
reason to support him.
And it concerns regulation.
Companies famously hate regulation,
an attitude shared by certain
members of the Supreme Court,
especially Neil Gorsuch,
who always looks like the man
in every Cialis commercial.
Gorsuch released a book
this year called
"Overruled: The Human Toll
of Too Much Law",
about how, in his view, regulatory
agencies are out of control
and basically making up
new laws left and right.
For years now, he's delivered a spiel
about how federal agencies,
which fall under the executive branch,
have usurped the power that rightly
belongs to the legislative one.
It's an argument he delivers with his
trademark electric personality,
like this.
The executive branch has made up
so many new criminal laws
that people have stopped counting,
at over 300,000.
If your ketchup is too runny,
you get in trouble for that,
because a federal agency said so.
I'm not making it up.
What if you sell mattresses,
and you tear off that tag?
You're probably a federal criminal.
And if you import lobster in a plastic
bag instead of a cardboard box?
That's a problem,
because a bureaucrat says so.
You know Woodsy the owl?
Some of you, Woodsy the owl?
Give a hoot, don't pollute?
Remember him?
Some of you remember him.
Well, if you misuse his likeness,
you might be a federal felon.
That's what happens when you mix up
the executive and the legislative power.
I know this is beside the point,
but that was some deafening silence
after he asked if anyone remembers
Woodsy the owl.
Which does makes sense. He's not
exactly a top-tier owl anymore.
Your current A-listers are probably
Owl from "Winnie the Pooh"
Hedwig from "Harry Potter",
the Duolingo mascot
and, of course, this soggy little guy
who went viral
for looking like he's going through
his third divorce.
But while I'm sure Gorsuch worked
hard to cherry-pick those regulations
to dunk on, he's actually
mischaracterizing a lot of those rules,
in ways that feel pretty revealing.
For instance, a few of the things
he just cited as evidence
of an "out of control"
executive branch there
actually came from the legislative one.
The Woodsy the owl thing was
this law passed by Congress.
As for his example about lobsters,
that's him short handing
a case involving the Lacey Act,
which was, as its name might
suggest, also an act of Congress.
As for the others, those were all cases
where Congress very clearly wanted
specific things to be regulated.
When it comes to ketchup, Congress
passed this law directing the FDA
to prevent mislabeling of foods,
which the agency then did,
only after extensive review
and public comment periods.
Also, these kinds of regulations
don't generally get enforced
unless the violations are egregious.
In one recent 10-year period,
the FDA only managed to obtain
two court injunctions
against food products on account
of misleading labeling.
So, it's not like prisons are filled
with people who sold runny ketchup.
If they were,
you would know about it,
probably because we would've already
done a story called
"Ketchup Incarceration"
that'd be 26 minutes long,
featuring videos of two separate
people crying,
and ending with Steve Buscemi
dressed like a giant tomato
for reasons that would make sense
in context.
And finally, when it comes to Gorsuch
making fun of mattress tags,
just so you know,
Congress passed this law
directing a federal agency to set
flammability standards
to ensure the safety
of products like mattresses,
"including labeling" them.
And I know there is a certain
hack-comedy appeal to going,
"What's the deal with mattress tags?"
After all, why would you need a tag
saying who made a mattress and when?
When is that information ever really
gonna be useful to you, right?
A foam crib mattress by Stork Craft
has been recalled
for failing to meet federal standards
for flammability.
Affected mattresses were made
between August 2014
and January 2015, and consumers
should stop using the mattress
and contact Stork Craft
for a free barrier cover.
Oh, yeah, that does make
a lot more sense now.
Among other things, those mattress
tags might help you figure out
if your mattress has been recalled.
So, I guess the answer
to Gorsuch's question,
"Why is the government issuing
rules about mattress tags?"
is, "So a baby's crib doesn't turn
into a miniature wicker man,
you fucking idiot."
And look, I've got issues with plenty
of issues with regulations.
But it is disingenuous to suggest
they're all being issued arbitrarily
at random,
when on the whole, they're being
carefully crafted by career experts
to keep us safe.
And that work is now going to be
significantly harder due to the case
that I mentioned at the start
of this story,
the one overturning what's known
as Chevron deference.
We discussed Chevron a bit
in our first show of this year,
but it's a longstanding legal doctrine,
arising from
this 1984 Supreme Court ruling.
Very basically, Chevron said that when
there is a lawsuit over regulation,
judges should give a lot of leeway
to agencies.
So, let's say Congress writes
a law saying,
"I want mercury out
of drinking water."
Under Chevron, the EPA would
decide how to do exactly that,
and then their decisions
would be hard to overturn.
Chevron is "one of the most cited
precedents in American law."
It's mentioned in more than 18,000
federal court decisions
and was the deciding factor
in approximately
70 Supreme Court decisions.
It's essentially one of the foundations
current American law has been built on.
Getting rid of Chevron isn't just
removing the bottom Jenga block,
it's removing the entire table
underneath it.
And companies have, unsurprisingly,
long wanted Chevron gone.
And in June, they got their wish,
thanks to a ruling in a couple of cases
that were consolidated into one called
Loper Bright versus Raimondo.
And frustratingly,
like the mifepristone case,
it's built on quite a bit of bullshit.
On its face, it involves a group of
fishermen trying to overturn
a regulation requiring them to pay
for federal monitors
to prevent overfishing.
They complained it could have made it
impossible for them to make a living,
and I say "could have" because the
regulation was not being enforced,
and even if it had been, the fishermen
didn't identify a single fishing trip
for which they would've been required
to pay for monitoring services
under that rule.
Nevertheless,
the fishermen were represented
by these two conservative groups,
one of which, this one,
is backed by entities linked to,
you'll never guess it:
Leonard fucking Leo.
At this point, finding out
Leonard Leo had a role
in a major conservative court case
is like finding out
a ventriloquist dummy has a hand
up its ass. It's basically assumed.
I do think it's telling that some major
industries suddenly seemed
very interested in the outcome
of this obscure fishing case,
with dozens writing amicus briefs
including
the U.S. Chamber of Commerce,
the North American Meat Institute,
and a trade organization representing
e-cigarette companies.
And unless fish are vaping now,
I don't really see why that group
should be involved,
although if they are, that is also cool
as hell. 'Cause look at that.
That is fucking sick.
I don't mean to be pro-tobacco,
but that's pure sex appeal right there.
And those interests got their way.
Because the Supreme Court
ruled six-three
to overturn Chevron deference entirely
making it much easier for companies
to challenge
a regulatory agency's decision.
And when you put that in tandem
with all these other recent rulings,
the power of regulatory agencies
has now been sharply limited.
And conservatives are understandably
very, very happy about all of this.
Here's Jim Jordan, explaining why.
The fundamental question
is who decides.
The, quote, "experts," the technocracy
as Mr. Bishops described,
or the elected officials.
We may not know how many parts
per billion is necessary.
But I do know one thing. Regulations
and rules that impact the economy
to the tune of millions
and millions of dollars,
and impact the 800,000 folks I get
to represent, that's important.
We have deferred to the, quote,
"experts".
Experts who think they can run our
lives and never be held accountable.
Look, I'll give him this:
when Jim Jordan says,
"I may not know how many parts
per billion is necessary,"
he is absolutely right.
After all, he is a man who prides
himself on not knowing things,
whether it's science, technology,
or indeed,
the alleged sexual abuse happening to
college wrestlers on a team he coached.
Jim Jordan has built a personal brand
on not knowing what's going on.
But there are a few problems
with his reasoning there.
First, Congress can't pass shit
right now.
But even if it was functional,
you wouldn't necessarily want it
writing technical rules on everything.
Legislators can be good at many things,
delivering speeches,
raising campaign money,
getting uncontrollably horny during
"Beetlejuice", the musical,
escaping to Mexico when their
constituents need them most,
but they don't possess universal
expertise in technology,
medicine, or food safety.
Every part of a regulator's job
is now going to be much harder.
As one commentator wrote,
Loper Bright has opened the door
so that "the worst judges will issue
nationwide injunctions,
effectively one-man vetoes
of entire agencies in real time based
on personal opinion."
Which is just fully not how the
government is supposed to work.
There's a reason
that "Schoolhouse Rock!" video
doesn't end with some random judge
in Mississippi suddenly wiping
his ass with that bill.
And unfortunately, it's already begun.
One analysis found that Loper Bright's
already been cited in 116 cases
since the Supreme Court decision.
In fact, less than a week
after it was issued,
three judges in different states
published decisions on the same day
citing Loper Bright as they blocked
implementation of a new rule
"that would prohibit discrimination in
health care based on gender identity."
And at the same time,
judges are making it clear
they're not much better equipped
than Congress
to answer highly technical questions.
In one decision this term,
Neil Gorsuch "repeatedly confused
nitrous oxide,
often known as laughing gas,
with nitrogen oxides,
the class of compounds that help
form smog."
That's a mistake you get to make
at dental school exactly once.
And when you take all this together,
you can understand why one
of the justices on the losing end
of all these recent six-three decisions
has been going around
saying stuff like this.
There are days that I've come
to my office
after an announcement of a case
and closed my door and cried.
There have been those days,
and there are likely to be more.
Well, that doesn't feel great.
You know things are bad when Supreme
Court justices are crying alone
in their office instead
of where they usually cry,
on national TV while getting credibly
accused of sexual assault.
So, what can we do?
Well, members of Congress have
introduced bills to try and undo
some of these decisions,
but given that Republicans
currently control the House,
those bills have gone nowhere.
And that actually brings us
to the key point here.
Because the only way of undoing some
of the harm that's been done,
and preventing even more happening,
is by keeping Trump
out of the White House,
and Republicans out of Congress
in November.
Because like in 2016, Trump's
intentions here are very clear.
The oldest justices
are currently Thomas and Alito,
and many believe one or both of them
could step down
due to age in the next four years,
potentially giving Trump the chance
to "cement the court's conservative
supermajority for a generation".
He's openly promising
his base as much.
I will once again appoint rock-solid
conservative judges
in the mold of Justices Antonin Scalia,
Samuel Alito,
he's done a fantastic job,
and the great Clarence Thomas,
he's been fantastic.
First, no, he has not been fantastic.
He's been a fucking nightmare.
Eagle-eyed viewers will remember that I
nearly obliterated my personal finances
to encourage him to retire,
which honestly would've been worth it,
but would've also put me
in such a hole,
I'd have probably had to go
full "cancel culture warrior"
to dig myself out of it.
I'd have a two-hour Netflix stand-up
special called
"They Won't Let Me Do
Stand-Up Anymore"
and a stadium tour called
"They Won't Let Me Tour Either".
The point is, that is a man who knows
that that is the promise
that can get him elected,
and have people willing to ignore
literally everything else about him.
Look, the remaking of America's
judiciary is the culmination of a plan
that's been going on for decades.
While a lot of the judges that've been
put in place aren't going anywhere
for a while, that doesn't mean the
change has to be permanent.
And securing the White House
and Congress is our best shot
at starting to slowly undo that change.
And I know it can feel
extremely depressing,
I mean, sad-owl level depressing,
to live in a world where rich,
anonymous interests can install
friendly judges to hand them
whatever rulings they want,
and where the government's ability
to keep us safe is hamstrung
by some dork's B-minus
stand-up routine.
But that situation only persists
if we let it.
If we can elect people who value
an independent judiciary
and the rule of law,
then Leo and his backers won't be able
to so easily buy the justice system.
Meaning he'll probably need something
else to spend all of that money on.
And may I suggest a trip to the most
spectacular legs in Texas?
I don't want to oversell them,
but I hear they're both interesting
and big. And now, this.
And Now: People on TV Learn That
Gen Z Don't Like to Show Their Feet.
Want to know the biggest difference
between Gen Z and the rest of us?
Gen Z kids don't like
to show their feet.
They like thick, chunky sneakers.
They like Crocs with socks.
They don't want to show their feet.
So, they're wearing those with socks.
Socks with sandals, Crocs with socks.
That's what all the kids are wearing.
Why?
They're embarrassed to show off
their tootsies
and are offended by the ugly feet
of others.
I feel like we need to get back
to something you said earlier.
You had a friend with 11 toes?
Is that right?
I did, yeah. Stan, in high school.
Guy always wore socks with sandals.
We're like, "Stan, take
your socks off." He's like, "Okay."
Finally took them off,
and he had 11 toes.
On the little guy, right here,
he kind of had a little offshoot.
There was a guy I went to grade school
and high school with.
He had one more than Stan the Man.
He had 12.
- Six on each foot?
- No kidding.
It was one of those things where you,
after a while, you just own it.
I have very long, skinny feet,
and I have long toes.
I can use my feet like hands.
Like, I can pick up stuff with my feet.
And I didn't wear sandals
for the longest time
because one time
in elementary school,
and my friends were like,
"Wow, you've got monkey toes.
Can you hang from trees?"
And I'm like, "Okay, that's it."
'Cause I was so self-conscious.
Now, I just don't give a rip. You don't
like my feet? Don't look at 'em.
Having said that, I have seen a fair
amount of corns and bunions
and other things in in my time
at the pool.
I have hammer toe.
Hammer toe, that little guy is hugging
up to the next one. It won't let go.
15-minute procedure, though,
they chiseled that bone, man.
You're back to normal.
New man, ladies and gentlemen,
he's a new man.
We're out of time.
We're moving on here.
New man, straight as an arrow.
Well, good for you, dude,
that is good to know.
That's our show,
thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next week, good night!