Kimberly Adams

Jane says the Saks Global brands were getting those aspirational luxury shoppers, but those shoppers are more likely to pull back spending in times of job insecurity and higher prices for everything from housing to health care, especially younger consumers, says Lars Perner at USC's Marshall School of Business.

On top of that, luxury department stores are now competing even more with the brands they carry, says Marie Driscoll, a retail expert at Driscoll Advisors.

What has happened in the last 20 years is many of the luxury brands have opened up their own stores, like the Dior, Chanel.

Louis Vuitton.

To get a foothold in the new luxury retail landscape, Driscoll says department stores will have to lean into the idea of offering those aspirational shoppers a luxury experience, even if they're in the store, for a budget purchase.

In Washington, I'm Kimberly Adams for Marketplace.

Hello, everyone.

I'm Kimberly Adams.

Welcome back to Make Me Smart, where none of us is as smart as all of us.

And today we're going to talk about what's happening in the courts, kind of at all levels.

Over the past year, the Trump administration has done a lot in the courts and also fought a lot in the courts with lots of legal challenges to many of the administration policies they've been trying to roll out.

But how well are these challenges actually working?

And how is the Trump administration using the justice system to fight back?

Plus, a big question for all of us here at Marketplace.

What does this mean for the economy?

And so here to make us smart about this is someone who is very tuned in to what's happening in the courts.

Kyle Cheney, who's a legal affairs reporter at Politico.

Welcome back to the show, Kyle.

Last time you were on Make Me Smart, we were talking about the January 6th investigations because you were deep into all those cases.

And what January 6th actually meant for our democracy and the economy.