Trump's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Grift
5/25/20261 hr 35 min
Kate, Melissa, and Leah try to wrap their heads around Trump’s nearly $2 billion DOJ slush fund, which they agree may be—despite extremely stiff competition—the biggest act of trolling and self-dealing of his second term. The professors count the ways this is so, so illegal, and speculate on how it can be challenged (looking at you, Congress). They also cover other legal news and some SCOTUS opinions before speaking with Dorothy Roberts about her book, The Mixed Marriage Project: A Memoir of Love, Race, and Family. Enter Leah’s merch giveaway for the paperback edition of Lawless here!
Favorite things:
- Kate: Nikolas Bowie’s testimony before the House Judiciary Committee
- Leah: It’s Not That Deep, Demi Lovato
- Melissa: Kin, Tayari Jones
Get tickets for STRICT SCRUTINY LIVE – The Bad Decisions Tour 2026!
- 6/20/26 – New York City
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Buy Melissa’s bestselling book, The U.S. Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader
Preorder a signed paperback of Leah’s book, Lawless, here.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsMelissa Murray· Host0:00
Strict Scrutiny is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. You're not alone if it feels like Groundhog Day every morning when you read the news or even listen to what we're talking about here on Strict Scrutiny. And while it's overwhelming to see the trajectory that our country is on, we all show up every day trying to find ways to make it better, to educate our neighbors, and to fight for democracy. And our friends at Americans United have been doing the same thing day in and day out for almost 80 years. This year alone, they filed three separate lawsuits against Trump's anti-Christian bias task force, which, spoiler alert, is anything but unbiased. AU has been tracking every mention of Christian nationalist rhetoric from this administration and partnering with many allied organizations to sue and protect our constitutional right of church-state separation, the right that protects all of our abilities to be who we are and to live as we choose as long as we don't harm others. It's easy to get apathetic as we're all seeing and hearing these attacks on our freedoms every single day, and watching a religion be weaponized for a power grab, it's not easy. But now isn't the time to give up. Now is the time to fight back against the growing authoritarianism in our country. Consider joining Americans United for Separation of Church and State. You can learn more by visiting au.org/crooked, because church-state separation protects us all.
Speaker 21:24
[upbeat music] This is the story of the one. As a procurement manager for a hospital