Emily Bazelon

You start with her, then you think of like, oh, well, that's a chilling effect on other moms or parents or just ordinary Americans who might come out on the streets.

And then there are these other moves that take out other players.

And it just seems like that is the kind of creep that we're seeing here.

But somehow, because it starts with undocumented immigrants, it seems distinct enough from the Nazis or even Jim Crow that a lot of Americans seem to be kind of going along with it, right?

Yeah, I mean, the court has already said it considers the Fed to be different from other federal agencies.

Didn't, you know, there's like one kind of half a sentence about why.

But I think the idea that the independence of the Fed is really important for the American and the global economy, the justices get that.

It seemed clear after our argument that they were going to leave Lisa Cook in place while this lawsuit about whether Trump has properly fired her for cause based on these allegations of mortgage fraud, which she's never been charged.

She says she's had no opportunity to be heard.

He says that this true social post was her notice.

And the court did not seem to buy the president's arguments.

Right.

And so in a lot of ways, like, argument ended and seemed like, okay, well, rule of law still exists in some way, and the president is not actually the king and doesn't have absolute dominion.

I have to say, though, that the arguments that the Solicitor General, John Sauer, was making were so out there to me that I was not entirely reassured by the fact that they were going to lose because he was literally asserting—

that Trump saying that he planned to fire Lisa Cook on Truth Social, like that was enough.

And he could assert any reason that he wanted, and that would count as being for cause, and the courts would have no power to review any of it.

That was the position they were taking.

And that seemed so extreme to me that hearing it come out of the mouth of the Solicitor General seemed like a problem, even though I don't think the justices are going to accede to it.

David, what was your sense?

How did you feel coming out of this argument?