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Speaker 1: This is a podcast from wor Now the WR Saturday

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Speaker 1: Morning Show.

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Speaker 2: Here's Larry Minty. Welcome to Saturday Morning.

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Speaker 1: On this week's show, there's been over five hundred lawsuits

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Speaker 1: filed against the Trump administration, which already set a record

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Speaker 1: by a lot. We're gonna ask Sarah Isker, who covers

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Speaker 1: the courts for ABC, what is going on. I want

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Speaker 1: to start with something that was said at the cabinet

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Speaker 1: meeting yesterday, the cabinet meetings that are now open to

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Speaker 1: the press. It came from Pam Bondy, and I was

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Speaker 1: kind of shocked at it, and I want to see

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Speaker 1: I want to get your reaction.

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Speaker 3: We have been sued five hundred and seventy five times,

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Speaker 3: five hundred and seventy five times more than every administration

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Speaker 3: going back to Reagan combined. Most recently, yesterday, I was

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Speaker 3: sued by an immigration judge who we fired. One of

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Speaker 3: the reasons she said she was a woman. Last I checked,

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Speaker 3: I was a woman as well.

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Speaker 2: Five hundred and seventy five lawsuits against the Trump administration.

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Speaker 2: What do we read into that?

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Speaker 1: Is this now a new political weapon or has the

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Speaker 1: administration just been that egregious?

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Speaker 4: Why can't it be both. So we have started to

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Speaker 4: govern by lawsuit, there's no question about that. You know,

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Speaker 4: as Congress has done less and less, presidents have started

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Speaker 4: running the country by executive order. Well, guess what that's

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Speaker 4: really right for lawsuits among other things. And so you've

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Speaker 4: seen you know, red state governors sue when it's a

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Speaker 4: Democrat in the White House, blue state governors sue when

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Speaker 4: it's a Republican in the White House. There's been entire

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Speaker 4: cottage industries pop up. We now have state solicitor generals

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Speaker 4: whose main job, it seems like, is to sue administrations

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Speaker 4: from the opposing party. It gets you headlined, it's good

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Speaker 4: for fundraising. The president wins because now he has an

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Speaker 4: enemy that he gets to you know, battle with, and

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Speaker 4: the opposing side looks like they're you know, quote doing

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Speaker 4: something rather than what we used to do, which is

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Speaker 4: actually compromised log role work through Congress, have stable pieces

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Speaker 4: of legislation that would be the product of you know,

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Speaker 4: that messy process that was taking place in Congress.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you kept saying that one side it would

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Speaker 1: do the other. It's pretty common. They've done this, they've

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Speaker 1: been but you just heard Pambondi. It's five hundred and

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Speaker 1: seventy five lawsuits now and that's more than the last

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Speaker 1: three administrations combined. So what you were talking about is

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Speaker 1: going into hyperdrive under Donald Trump. And that's why the

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Speaker 1: question is that now a new strategy. Have the Democrats

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Speaker 1: found a new strategy or they're just using an old

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Speaker 1: one and making it.

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Speaker 4: Hyper So under each president it's basically increased quite a bit.

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Speaker 4: So under Barack Obama, if you remember, he said, you know,

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Speaker 4: I have a pen and a phone. I'll rally the

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Speaker 4: American people if Congress doesn't do what I want them

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Speaker 4: to do. That was sort of the starting gun for

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Speaker 4: a lot of this, And so you had plenty of

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Speaker 4: lawsuits against the Obama administration. In the first Trump administration,

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Speaker 4: it increased even more in the Biden administration. The student

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Speaker 4: loan debt, forgiveness, eviction, moratorium, vaccine mandate, all of those

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Speaker 4: were major lawsuits, but there were plenty, plenty more than

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Speaker 4: that that the Biden administration for instance. Once here we

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Speaker 4: have the Trump administration and the dial gets turned up

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Speaker 4: once again. So yeah, this continues to increase again, I

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Speaker 4: think because we don't have the normal political valve of

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Speaker 4: Congress where people were supposed to go, and you see

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Speaker 4: what's happening is that the courts are getting pulled into

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Speaker 4: these political fights, and so then they get viewed as

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Speaker 4: more partisan. And it's not a sustainable model.

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Speaker 1: No, no, I understand that. So, but that portends bad

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Speaker 1: things for the future. You're saying that this isn't going

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Speaker 1: to stop anytime soon unless they fix the system. This

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Speaker 1: will continue. By the way, it is exactly why those

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Speaker 1: confirmation hearings, if people are wondering why they're so important,

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Speaker 1: because it's usually just some federal court judge, but they

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Speaker 1: become hyper important now because of this right.

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Speaker 4: That's exactly right. Our confirmation hearing is get more contentious,

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Speaker 4: by the way, one of the only things that Congress

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Speaker 4: still does other than put out Instagram reels, as best

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Speaker 4: I can tell. And again, it's putting stress on our

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Speaker 4: institutions that they cannot bear because judges are not politically accountable.

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Speaker 4: They're not supposed to be the one refereeing our most

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Speaker 4: bitter political disputes. That's supposed to happen in Congress. Now,

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Speaker 4: what's interesting about this Supreme Court term is that they

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Speaker 4: have two cases that hopefully are going to police some

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Speaker 4: of those separation of powers boundaries force Congress to do

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Speaker 4: its job by saying that presidents can't rule by executive order,

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Speaker 4: for example, the tariff's case, and that presidents actually have

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Speaker 4: to be politically accountable for their own branches. And so

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Speaker 4: these so called independent agencies that Congress created where they

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Speaker 4: shield you know, executive branch employees from presidential direction, that

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Speaker 4: that can't happen either. And so you make the president

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Speaker 4: that of the executive branch, make him a better president

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Speaker 4: and a worse legislator, if you will.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the Trump is case. You're talking about Trump versus Slaughter.

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Speaker 1: That's the case you're talking about. Yes, Yes, So we're

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Speaker 1: going to get oral arguments on that on Monday, and

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Speaker 1: everybody's going to be listening because we'll figure out exactly

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Speaker 1: where the court is leaning on this.

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Speaker 2: Do you have any guesses or assumptions?

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Speaker 3: Oh?

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Speaker 4: I think at this point any court watcher will tell

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Speaker 4: you that it's very likely that the court will hold

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Speaker 4: some version that these independent agencies have to be politically

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Speaker 4: accountable to the president. I think there's a you know,

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Speaker 4: a wider win and a narrower win for the administration.

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Speaker 4: But I don't think there's much question that these you know,

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Speaker 4: alphabet agencies aren't going to exist in their current form.

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Speaker 4: Where you know, we say that these are the most

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Speaker 4: important elections of our lifetime whenever there's a presidential election,

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Speaker 4: but the president doesn't actually have control over wide swaths

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Speaker 4: of the American economy. And if you don't like what

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Speaker 4: the National Labor Relations Board did or what the Securities

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Speaker 4: and Exchange Commission did, there's nothing for you to do

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Speaker 4: about that. Voting for a different president doesn't help, Voting

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Speaker 4: out your member of Congress doesn't help. There's no political

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Speaker 4: accountability right now. And I think what you'll see a

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Speaker 4: majority of the court say is that that doesn't work

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Speaker 4: under our constitution. There is no such thing as an

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Speaker 4: independent agency.

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Speaker 2: Then what do they do. They don't rule on a remedy, right,

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Speaker 2: will they just say you have to fix this.

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Speaker 4: What they'll say is the president is allowed to remove

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Speaker 4: any member of the executive branch at his discretion. If

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Speaker 4: they won't follow his policy direction, he can fire them,

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Speaker 4: and that will basically end these independent agencies because they

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Speaker 4: will be politically accountable to the president. Now, the problem

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Speaker 4: has been a Congress because they were shielded from removal

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Speaker 4: from presidents, gave these agencies huge amounts of very vague

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Speaker 4: broad power.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fascinat Yeah, it's an extremely important case, but

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Speaker 1: it doesn't sound like that fixes the problem either. Sarah Isker,

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Speaker 1: ABC News contributor in Washington, DC.

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Speaker 2: This has been a podcast from wor