Have Republicans been given a major midterms boost by the Supreme Court?

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0:38Hello, it's Anthony, and you're about to hear AmeriCast. We're delighted to have you with us. And if you enjoy what you hear, please do consider subscribing to the podcast. That way, you'll never miss an episode. Now, on with today. The big week of Supreme Court rulings just got bigger. The court ruling on Tuesday that political parties in the United States can spend as much as they want on campaigns. So the ruling removes limits on coordinated spending between candidates and political parties. They're fundamentally going to change how money is spent, particularly in congressional elections. And there are, as you know, some congressional elections not far away.

1:18So Donald Trump says it's a big win for Republicans. He said that in capital letters and more importantly, the First Amendment. that guarantees freedom of speech. So are we about to see an influx of money into the midterm elections? Could it actually swing the pendulum back towards the Republican Party? Welcome to AmeriCast. AmeriCast. AmeriCast from BBC News. You hear that sound? Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money. We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover-up and this administration is engaged in it. This guy has Trump arrangement syndrome.

1:56I have four words for you. Turn the volume up.

2:05Hello, it's Justin in the worldwide headquarters of AmeriCast in London, England. And it's Anthony in the American headquarters of AmeriCast in Washington, D.C. And let us start by talking money, Anthony. So this is an important ruling. It's a ruling that changes again the law when it comes to campaign finance, basically loosens it, doesn't it? We're used to it being loosened. I think I thought that it couldn't be loosened anymore, actually. I think a lot of AmeriCasters will think, well, hang on a second, pretty much everyone spends what they can get their hands on in campaigns. So what does this actually do?

2:38Yeah, oh, my gosh, there's going to be money spent on American political campaigns. It's going to be a wash. Yeah, I mean, this is kind of the last vestiges of the big campaign finance reform that passed in 2002. And you were around here, Justin, back when that happened. McCain-Feingold was the name of the law. John McCain, a Republican, and Russ Feingold, a Democrat, were able to overcome establishment opposition from the Republican Party. And Mitch McConnell to put through this massive reform of how campaigns are funded and who can spend money on political advertising, all that. And step by step, the Supreme Court has torn it all down.

3:14Citizens United was that big case about 10 years ago that said that independent groups can spend as much money as they want on advocacy and advocating for candidates. This was one of the last pieces left. And this was a ban on coordination between political parties and campaigns. So you couldn't give money to a political party and have them essentially give it to a candidate. That was kind of a backdoor in the view of the people who supported this law that they tried to close. But now the Supreme Court has said, no, that violates the free speech rights of political parties. And so that ban, that lack of lack of coordination that they had to abide by, it is now gone.

3:54And I'll say, Justin, it's probably going to give more power to political parties at a time when maybe their influence has waned a little bit. Yeah. And could you say that that in one sense is a good thing? And as much as these political action committees and particularly the super PACs were pretty opaque, weren't they? So as you say, you could give money. So say I'm a billionaire. I give a load of money to a super PAC. Yes, it can't coordinate with a candidate, but it can pretty much lay the groundwork for that guy or gal to win, can't it? So does this, is there a case to be made that says this is just a kind of more transparent way of doing it?

4:30Yeah, money finds a way, right? It flows downhill. And super PACs, these political action committees that are independent of political parties and individual candidates, or at least supposedly independent. I mean, every major candidate has a super PAC that with a wink and a nod is supposedly independent. But let's be honest, it's the same people who work on campaigns, who go back and forth between the super PACs and the campaigns. They raise money with the understanding, implicit understanding, that this money is going to be spent to support a candidate. And they're not, those super PACs are also not supposed to coordinate.

5:05That part of the law is still there. But to be honest, they know what they're doing. And maybe they have a conversation off the record over dinner, but they kind of coordinate. And so this could, Justin, this could give political parties a little more sway now because they can directly work with a campaign. They can work hand in hand. They can coordinate advertising and on the ground campaigning and all of that in a way that super PACs still are supposedly not allowed to do. Yeah. So if you're a very wealthy, well-connected candidate, is it fair to say that you are slightly more in hock to your party now and needing to follow the party line than you were in the past, potentially?

5:48That's potentially, yeah. If you're a candidate who has not raised a lot of money, maybe you're having problems getting people to donate to your campaign because there are other flashier candidates elsewhere in the country. This gives you another source of funding, the political party, which makes a judgment about whether you deserve support or not and whether you have a chance of winning or not. They can step in. So like you talk about maybe Watley. He's a Republican candidate in North Carolina running against Roy Cooper, the Democrat who is a former governor. He was lagging way behind in fundraising.

6:22Now he might get a little boost from the Republican Party, extra money that will make him more competitive in the seat that probably should be more competitive than it is right now. And the other thing, Justin, to keep in mind, and one of the reasons why Republicans were the ones who brought this lawsuit and Republicans are the ones who are celebrating this decision, is that the Republican National Committee in their bank accounts right now has one hundred and twenty five million dollars. The Democratic National Committee in their bank accounts are pocket lint and spare change. In fact, they're four million dollars in debt.

6:59So the Republicans have a lot more resources to be able to funnel to these candidates now that this decision has come down. I'm amazed by that. I mean, given everything that we say on every single episode of this podcast and have said for months about the enormous enthusiasm there is on the Democratic side and the enormous disaffection there is, not to say outright kind of collapse on the Republican side. What the heck's going on? There is enormous enthusiasm on the Democratic side. And the Democratic rank and file are donating tons of money to political entities. They're just not doing it to the Democratic Party.

7:42They're sending it to individual candidates who are raising money hand over fist. So that tells you a little something, right? I mean, and it was something we're seeing in these primary results in New York last week and in Colorado. Last night, we saw a 29 year old barista and Ph.D. student beat a 30 year incumbent Democratic congresswoman in Denver. and she was able to do it because I think a lot of liberal voters are dissatisfied with how the Democratic Party has handled things, how they have fought or not fought, in their view, Donald Trump, and they're looking for outsiders, people outside the establishment to support.

8:22So this is all kind of part and parcel of that. Right. So then the disadvantage that the Democrats face as a result of this decision, it's not just simply that there is a load of money that's now going to come to Republican candidates is it's that the Republican Party is able to fund these candidates, but the Democratic Party is not able to. So they're going to have to go around and get the money elsewhere. And I wonder then the question, Anthony, is whether when push comes to shove, whether actually the amounts of money being raised and spent will will pretty much equal out or not. The Republicans are the incumbents.

8:57They hold the presidency. They hold both chambers of Congress. And incumbents tend to raise more money than the out-of-power party by the simple fact that if you're a corporation or a wealthy individual or someone who's looking to influence government, you give money, you make campaign donations to people who are in a position to change government policy. And an out-of-power Democrat challenger is not going to raise the same kind of money as a Republican who sits on an appropriations committee or some other key committee that can decide your companies or your personal fate. So that's part of it.

9:31And if you look at some of these other committees, not the major, not the national political parties, but say the Senate campaign committees and the House campaign committees, which both Republicans and Democrats have, it's a little closer there. Those Democratic committees do have tens of millions of dollars. Republicans have more, but it's not quite as unbalanced as those numbers I cited for the national party. And money's not everything, right? I mean, And we saw Graham Plattner defeat the establishment back Janet Mills, the establishment back Democratic governor in Maine for that Senate primary.

10:05We've seen these insurgent candidates win even on the Republican side. We've seen in Texas John Cornyn go down to Paxton, Ken Paxton, who was outspent by an order of 10 to 1 in that Republican Senate primary campaign. So money, money buys you a lot. But when the mood is anti-establishment, it doesn't get you everything. I also we've talked about this before, Anthony. I find it fascinating. What the heck do they spend all this money on? And the obvious answer is TV. But then the obvious riposte to that is, well, you know, the only people watching TV, particularly terrestrial TV in the modern era are people who are not the coming people.

10:48Let's just put it kindly like that when it comes to voting or anything else. And that increasingly small audience is not where the future is. And if you think about the people, well, I've mentioned Mamdani, but also you think of John Ossoff in Georgia. These people have a really good social media game and social media being cheap. That actually isn't that another reason why the whole situation, the whole context of this money in politics thing is changing. Yeah, television is still the most expensive way of campaigning and one of the easiest for a candidate. You cut your 30 second television spot.

11:24You buy the time on local networks. You get the ads up. I mean, it's familiar. It's familiar for a lot of people who have been in the business of campaigning now for their entire adult lives. But but you're right online. One online is a way to reach different voters. the younger voters, people who, as you say, do not watch terrestrial down the line television anymore. And it's taking up a bigger and bigger chunk of these campaign spending. And it's becoming more expensive to do videos on YouTube and ads on Facebook and all of these other means of reaching an audience to have a social media team that can come up with a social media strategy.

12:05Maybe you're not paying for the airtime, but you're paying people to do that, people who know how to do it, people who can produce things that that are compelling and authentic as the catchphrase that we use a lot. And then there's money spent on on the ground campaigning, on voter outreach, on people who can go door to door and give pamphlets and brochures and things like that. Candidate travel, putting on these big events at various places, renting out the space for it, all of those. You know, that all takes money, too. But I think you are going to see, Justin, I think you're right. You're going to see spending on television advertising, which used to be the the big thing, the one big thing that could really determine whether a candidate can win or lose, that taking a smaller and smaller chunk of campaign budgets as we go forward.

12:49And as a sidebar issue, the TV station, that was pay dirt, wasn't it? So you think now in Texas, where a ton of money is going to be spent in the general election with a genuinely competitive Senate fight, if you own, well, maybe you do own shares in Texas TV stations. You come from there, Anthony, you're laughing, aren't you? Because traditionally, an absolute ton of money, wall of money, then comes to sometimes quite rural, quite local places where not used to having tons of money thrown at them. And it's part of American politics, isn't it? When we talk about money being spent, sometimes we talk about it being spent as if it's being spent in Washington, D.C.

13:29It's not, is it? It's being spent around the country. And that has been traditionally quite important. Yeah, there's a reason why states like Iowa and New Hampshire fought tooth and nail to keep their position as early primary and caucus states for the presidential race because it was a windfall every four years. Candidates would come there. They would buy up every single bit of television advertising those two states had to offer. They would rent hotels. They would rent out coffee houses and restaurants for their campaign events. They would spend money left and right on people on the ground doing campaign activities.

14:03In a state like Texas, which is a huge state and has multiple media markets, two of the biggest media markets in the United States, in Houston and Dallas, it's super expensive to, one, put up television advertising on the air, but also to travel around the state and run a campaign. I mean, campaigning in a place like Texas is comparable to the cost of a campaign in England or in Germany. It's just a massive, massive place, a big territory and it's expensive and has a lot of people. OK, another court decision. This one not so favorable to Donald Trump. In fact, not favorable at all. Birthright citizenship.

14:42I think we've been saying, haven't we, for the last year or so, it is unlikely. It seemed unlikely that the court would overturn birthright citizenship. And we were right. They didn't. Although Donald Trump had invested in this pretty personally. Did he go to the first hearing? I seem to remember he did that live on AmeriCast, didn't he? Although he might not have known he was live on AmeriCast. But we covered it when it happened. Yeah, he went and sat there in the Supreme Court chambers while they did their oral arguments. the first sitting president to attend an oral arguments for the Supreme Court in American history, as far as I recall.

15:19He talked about it a lot. He posted on social media a lot about how this was essential, how the United States wouldn't have a country if we weren't able to guarantee that only children of citizens would become American citizens upon birth on the soil, and how it was different than a lot of countries. He said all countries, but it wasn't. There are other countries that do have birthright citizenship. But he was up against the text of the 14th Amendment, which pretty exclusively says... Trump against the Constitution, eh? Yeah. Everyone born on U.S. soil and subject to the jurisdiction thereof is a citizen.

15:58And the debate was whether subject to the jurisdiction meant that undocumented migrants and temporary visitors, whether they were or were not subject to American jurisdiction. There was also a Supreme court precedent that goes back about 130 years, where the court looked at the child of Chinese immigrants and determined that that child born on U.S. soil was an American citizen. There was a federal law passed in the 1930s that also explicitly said anyone born on U.S. soil, with the exception of a few distinct categories of invading armies or people on ships passing through or the children of diplomats, they automatically become citizens.

16:37So all of this was weighing against him, which is one of the reasons why we said that it wasn't likely he was going to win. And he didn't win. Although, Justin, I will say it was a little closer, I think, than maybe some of us thought. It was a six to three decision. But one of those six, Brett Kavanaugh, said there was nothing in the Constitution that prevented the federal government from changing the rules for birthright citizenship. He pointed at that federal law and said you'd have to change that federal law in order to do it. The other five justices, the three liberal justices, Amy Coney Barrett and John Roberts, they pointed to the text of the Constitution, the text of the 14th Amendment and said, no, it explicitly says born on U.S.

17:24soil, that includes undocumented migrants, that includes people here on green cards, people temporarily in the United States. All of that is guaranteed by the Constitution. So So in a way, that was a pretty definitive ruling. You're going to have to change the Constitution in order to change that particular policy. And super definitive, given that he has convinced, or the arguments convinced conservative justices that Trump was wrong. And that weighs heavily with him, obviously, as it weighed heavily with him when they found against him one or two of them, didn't they, over the whole tariffs business as well.

18:03He doesn't like that happening. But it does send out a signal, doesn't it? An interesting signal. We probably haven't got time to go into this now, Anthony. But we ought to in a few weeks' time about where the court actually is. Because it is plainly not a Trump rubber stamp court. This ruling says that, doesn't it? So let's listen to what J.D. Vance, so the vice president is asked then about the ruling. He's talking to Laura Ingram on Fox News back on Tuesday. Let's listen to what he says. You know, one of the things that might invite Laura is people to come here quite literally on a vacation, give birth.

18:37And then all of a sudden the child and their family have the full benefits of American citizenship. It's just a preposterous ruling. And the absurdity of that outcome suggests why the Supreme Court should have went the other way. Now, I know a lot of conservatives, Laura, certainly the people that I'm talking to, that you're talking to are extremely disappointed in this. I do actually think there's a really big silver lining here. And that's the simple fact that a lot of legal experts expected this case to go the wrong direction by seven to two or even eight to one. The fact that this case was a five to four decision effectively means that the concept of birthright citizenship, which is an absurdity to the 14th Amendment, that concept is hanging by a thread.

19:20Is that true, do you think, Anthony? Well, you know, interesting. Neil Gorsuch, one of the Trump appointees who descended, he descended, but he said that he thought there probably was a constitutional right to birthright citizenship for undocumented migrants, the children of undocumented migrants who are living here permanently, essentially. His issue was these temporary visitors, the birth tourism, as it's been termed. And he didn't think that they, the children of those people, deserve to have automatic citizenship. And that seems to be what you're hearing from Donald Trump and from Vance and from others, they aren't complaining about undocumented migrants and their children per se.

20:00At least that's not what they're playing up to the media right now. They're talking about these people fly in and have kids and fly out. Trump in a kind of a facetious Truth Social post congratulated the Chinese and President Xi Jinping for the victory in the Supreme Court. The reality, however, is that that is a very, very small segment of people. There are not a ton of folks flying in, having kids here, and then like, oh, we got our citizen, we got our anchor baby, or whatever you want to call it. Part of the reason is just because you have a child who is a U.S. citizen, that doesn't give you, despite what Van says, that doesn't give you all of these benefits as parents.

20:40They don't automatically become citizens. They don't automatically have access to all of this. The kid can stay, but you could you could as a parent, you could still get kicked out. In fact, that's happened now. And the Trump administration has been doing that for undocumented parents of U.S. citizens. But it's written in the Constitution, right now, Donald Trump, after this decision came out and did a true social post that said, well, it's disappointing. He wasn't happy about it, but it can easily be changed by Congress. We don't have to amend the Constitution. It's not going to be that big a deal.

21:12He kind of shrugged almost. He wasn't he wasn't raging. He didn't hold a press conference where he showed up like he did after tariffs and call call the Republicans lapdogs and and say that he was he was angry at the court and go on and on about how how frustrated he was. He posted a couple on True Social. He said, oh, we'll take care of it in Congress and then moved on. But the reality is that it's going to be really hard for Congress to do anything because this is grounded in the Constitution. And you've seen some members of Congress, some Republicans like Andy Ogles, suggest that maybe the United States shouldn't allow any pregnant woman into the country in case they might have a have a child here, do some sort of a means of banning that, which seems incredibly intrusive and unwieldy.

21:59But that just is that demonstrates exactly how difficult it's going to be to get around this court decision because it's, as you say, grounded in the actual text of the Constitution. Yeah. OK, one other decision, which I think is actually more important, possibly than it's being given credit for and politically more important. And it's not being given a lot of credit for it because, frankly, it was expected, wasn't it? So the court says a state is allowed to ban transgender women from competing in the female part of sports in both schools and colleges. So they're not banned from competing, but they are banned from competing in the female section.

22:40And it was a six to three decision, wasn't it, Anthony? And nobody expected, I think, that it would go any other way. They said that nothing in federal law and in the education law precluded these bans. What they did say was that they would have preferred that there were more lower court proceedings to look and see whether these bans violated the Constitution, at least when they were applied to, say, this one girl who was competing in track and field in a West Virginia high school. And so they wanted to go a little farther. But there was actually a unanimous decision in upholding these laws, which I think underlines, Justin, this case's decision was, I think, pretty clear that they were going to go this way.

23:25And that is tricky for some liberals to be able to figure out where to come down on this issue. Yeah, and it's a really important point that, isn't it? So this thing, Title IX, that guarantees, I mean, since the early 70s, wasn't it? So just the context of this, sport for girls and women was abysmally badly supported, wasn't it? Badly financially supported, just it didn't really exist. there were so many more male athletes than female athletes. And that was challenged in the 70s. And this thing, Title IX, that says you must have as many sports for females as you have for males. And then the question, of course, never arose for many, many years, what that actually meant.

24:03Now it has arisen what that actually meant. And as you say, all the justices agreed what it actually means. It actually does mean biological sex. But it interested me then that the three liberals couldn't find a way of just saying, OK, we're going to go along with it. I had to find other kind of slightly more technical things to to to disagree with. And I think exactly as you suggest, Anthony, I think for Democrats, this issue that and we all remember how it blew up during the Kamala Harris campaign in 24, this issue just won't sit down. And it's not an issue that most Americans think about on most days.

24:39Let's be blunt. But it just won't die for them. And they've got to find a way of getting through it. And I'm not sure they've found it yet. Yeah, it's an issue that got more attention maybe than it merited, given that there are a handful of transgender girls trying to compete in girls sports across the country. There are not very many transgender students, a few hundred thousand across the country. It's a small amount. BJP, the one girl in West Virginia, was the only person trying to compete in girls, a transgender girl trying to compete in girls sports. But it did, as we remarked on, dominate the presidential campaign down the stretch.