White smoke! Cardinal Robert Prevost, an American-born prelate with a surprisingly political Twitter history, dons the papal vestments as Pope Leo XIV. Trump announces a trade deal with the United Kingdom and swaps out two key nominees for MAGA (and MAHA) favorites: tree-loving influencer Casey Means for Surgeon General, and Fox News’s Jeanine Pirro for US Attorney for DC. Senate Democrats clash with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel over the constitutional right to due process. And President Joe Biden attempts to rehabilitate his reputation, going on The View to talk about why he believes he would've won the 2024 election. Jon and Dan discuss MAGA's reaction to our new, possibly woke pope, House Republicans' internal debate over Medicaid cuts, and why Democrats should be honest about Biden's decline. Then, Jon talks to Leah Litman, co-host of Strict Scrutiny, about the Trump administration's attacks on the judicial system and her new book Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [email protected] and include the name of the podcast.
Chapter 1: What did Cardinal Robert Prevost's appointment mean for the Catholic Church?
But now, Loomer is attacking means for being too, quote, woo-woo and new agey. So she's trying to loomer her too. What do we know about Casey Means, Dan?
You hit in your intro two key points. One, she never finished her surgical residency and she does not have an active medical license. Her medical license expired in 2024. She has been up until... She stopped having a medical license, but a sort of preventive holistic medicine doctor in Oregon. But she's best known as a – she's a very big figure in the wellness community.
She's a big supporter of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for a long time. She's quite controversial for a number of reasons. She has a lot of positions on... You don't say. I don't say. But there are two reasons she's controversial. One is she has a lot of non-scientific-backed positions on disease prevention and other things. But the other thing is that she's essentially a wellness influencer.
She is constantly promoting... supplements, vitamins, other things with very limited scientific backing. But she does it by publishing affiliate links on her social media pages for which she makes money.
And even more controversially, she's often promoting products from a company called TruMed, which just happens to be run by her brother, Kelly Means, who is also an employee of the Department of Health and Human Services. And so she has none of the credentials.
Even if you put aside her positions and the grift on the wellness side with the supplements and the whatnot, she doesn't have any of the credentials that a surgeon general normally has, not the clinical experience, not the medical experience, not the- I was going to say, like America's top doctor, like being a doctor, being a practicing physician.
She is technically not a doctor, which does seem to be a challenge. One of the chapter titles in her book is Trust Yourself, Not Your Doctor. She said that the birth control pill disrespects life because it's, quote, shutting down the hormones in the female body that create this cyclical life-giving nature of women. She likes full moon ceremonies.
And she has said that talking to trees helped her find true love. She does admit that that was out there.
The tree thing, let's not kink shame her on that. It's not for me to judge how she found true love. I didn't kink shame her.
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Chapter 7: What did Leah Litman discuss about the judicial system?
He's talking about the influence he might have, not his authority. That was what the DOJ said in response. He's all powerful, except when you ask him to do what the courts have ordered him to do. And then, eh, I don't know. And they're all like, it's just wild that they're all pointing fingers at everyone else. Kristi Noem's like, DHS, we don't detain people. That's Marco Rubio.
And then Cashfield's like, I don't know. I was the Constitution. And Trump's like, I don't know. I listen to my lawyers.
I mean, the, I listen to my lawyers is such a pitiful.
He's a real stickler. Yeah. He's a real stickler.
It's just someone known for seeking legal advice before he does anything. Cause you know, the one thing I say about Trump is dot the I's and cross the T's legally.
I do find it just horrifying that – because I don't think Libya is the last example of a new country they're going to want to send people to. And this one, like you said, it seemed designed to send a message because the – so there's one Libyan government that the world recognizes in Tripoli.
And then there's the warlord in eastern Libya whose son I guess met with the Trump administration a couple of weeks ago. where they must have cooked up this deal. And it wasn't just a rumor because there was a fucking flight plan that was filed for a C-17, a military plane in Texas that was going to Libya. And so this shit was going to happen.
And they were going to send just a couple of Asian nationals that they found in a detention center in Texas. What? To what? Do we even know if these people are undocumented? Do we know that they're legal residents? Do we know that they're citizens? We don't. What crimes have they committed? We don't know. What authority do they have to send them to another prison? We don't know.
Do they get due process?
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