Michael Barbaro

From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro.

This is The Daily.

For the past decade, the Supreme Court has relied on a rushed and secretive system to make major rulings on everything from immigration to presidential power.

Now, for the first time, a Times investigation brings to light the precise moment when that system began.

Today, Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak take us inside the five days that we made the Supreme Court.

It's Monday, April 20th.

Jodi, Adam, together at last in one episode of The Daily.

It's good to be here, Michael.

So you two joined forces for an investigation that seems to begin with a genuine curiosity, which is what are the origins of the Supreme Court's shadow docket?

So tell us why you were both drawn to answering that question.

on the show about the shadow docket quite a bit.

But just remind us what it is, and more importantly, how, as Jody just said, it bypasses the time-tested steps of the Supreme Court.

is changing the speed and rhythm of all of these cases.

Right, because these rapidly reached, barely explained rulings that emerge from the shadow docket raise a really important question.

Is the country's highest court rushing to rule based on, because we don't really know, gut instinct, personal peak, partisan instinct, all the things that a slow, deliberate, judicious system is meant to avoid?

You're talking about shadow docket cases of the Trump era.

So even if they are temporary in nature, they are extremely meaningful in practice.

And what does that very tantalizing sentence actually mean?

You did.

That new way being the shadow docket.