SCOTUS Crushes Trump's Midterm Mail Plot

0:00Andrew Ross Sorkin:Comcast is delivering extraordinary experiences in live sports through the incredible broadcast and storytelling from NBC. Innovative and personalized viewing features on Xfinity and Peacock and the country's most reliable Wi-Fi. Viewers can enjoy every game changing play faster and more seamlessly than ever. All on a network built to deliver unforgettable moments as close to live as possible. The ultimate experience for the American sports fan. Learn more at comcastcorporation.com. I'm Lindsay, and even before my diagnosis, my hands were full as a mom and an investigator. After treating my HR-positive, HER2-negative early breast cancer, I wanted to do everything I could to try to keep it from coming back.

0:42Andrew Ross Sorkin:So I talked to my doctor about a treatment plan that included Cascali. Cascali Ribocyclibs 200-milligram tablets with an aromatase inhibitor is for adults with HR-positive, HER2-negative, stage 2 or 3 early breast cancer with a high risk of coming back. Cascali may cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in serious infections. Life-threatening lung problems and abnormal heartbeats can occur. Your doctor should test your heart and blood before and during treatment. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening cough, chest pain, or dizziness.

1:12Andrew Ross Sorkin:Before taking Cascali, tell your doctor all your medical conditions, medicines you take, and if you're breastfeeding, pregnant, or planning to be, as it can harm an unborn baby. Common side effects include nausea, headache, and tiredness. Lindsay is a real patient compensated for her time. Learn more at Cascali.com. Welcome to The Beat. I'm Ari Melber. And boy, do we have a lot of developments tonight. We have a Supreme Court that's dealt Donald Trump multiple losses today on major issues, including one that we know he has fought tooth and nail for, but he is losing today, refusing the Supreme Court to take his appeal, which means he loses his bid to try to override the E.

1:51Jean Carroll defamation cases. That's a big one. Then also the court siding with voting rights to stop GOP efforts to basically get in the way of the midterms and try to see if they could get away with not counting some of the ballots. It gets into mail and details, but the bottom line is the GOP wanted to stop counting certain ballots. The Supreme Court today saying no to that. But in the most consequential case, the court ruling President Trump cannot go forward with this plot he had trying to fire someone that he doesn't have the authority to fire, at least not the way he tried. So the court rejecting Trump's effort to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook for basically no reason.

2:34And that means, for now, Trump loses the effort to oust her. She stays in that powerful seat, which affects economic policy, the court ruling that Donald Trump basically cooked his own goose by denying any basic process following the rules in how they tried to remove her. Now, the administration can still go to court in the future to work on what is still a long-shot bid to oust her for what so far has been no real reason or process. Today, that's a big loss. the decision, a 5-4 split, Republican appointee Chief Justice Roberts and Republican appointee Brett Kavanaugh joining the court's liberals and stating our Constitution creates three banishes, but only one president.

3:13That president is not all powerful, not by any means. If that theme is familiar, it is how so many of these cases and controversies have gone. In Trump's first term, he was not trying to do this in every direction. and we saw him face rulings that trimmed and sometimes reset his powers. We saw that on the so-called travel ban. In the second term, they've been trying everything and at times they've gotten away with more and they've gotten away in the short run where they sort of do it and see what happens. This is a big deal today because the Supreme Court, at least on the Fed issue, says, you don't have that kind of power.

3:53So they are telling Trump he is powerless to oust this federal official the way he tried and that's a big loss. But as is often the case with this Supreme Court, it's not all consistent and it's certainly not all anti-Trump. So whether you consider this good news or not, I'm going to give you the full rundown in plain English of what happened here so you understand some of the several cases we hope. Because while the court upheld that independence for the Fed, and remember the logic I mentioned, President's not all powerful. We don't have a one-person government. That's certainly not what the Constitution imagined.

4:27It then went in the opposite direction, undercutting that same principle, not just in, say, one other agency, but basically in all the other federal agencies. Justices ruling that Trump is basically a one-person government when it comes to these independent commissions, which for many decades, under congressional rules in both parties for a long time, have been independent for that very reason, that they're set up different than, say the cabinet. And yet now the justices say that Trump gets a power that they didn't say Biden had, they didn't say Obama had. Trump has the power, they say, to fire key independent commissioners like at the FTC and other independent agencies, raising the question of whether we're still going to call them that independent.

5:09This decision comes down along a familiar break. NPR notes it was a significant win for the Trump administration, a major expansion of the president's control over parts of the government once seen as a check on his powers. The Washington Post, which is owned by Jeff Bezos and is not exactly some raging set of Trump criticism in the news section, simply stated the obvious, that this is the largest change to the structure of government in the United States in, quote, decades. And so this is where we are tonight. Now, if you go online, you might go to one site and only hear part of the story. You might hear the pro-Trump part, the part that's positive for his power, or you could go to another website or other podcasts and they might focus on the other part.

5:54Here we are going to try to show all parts of what the Supreme Court's really doing, and you could make up your own mind about it. I will just tell you that it is glaringly inconsistent. I happen to be someone who went to law school. You can hold that against me or not, but in law school they talk a lot about precedent and jurisprudence, and the lower courts generally follow that. The Supreme Court is different because it can do what it wants. And lately, it's been doing a lot of what it wants, which turns out to be exactly what Donald Trump and MAGA want. Because Joe Biden clashed with independent parts of government.

6:26He followed the rules. They never popped up, and it's a very similar court, of course. We don't have new justices for most of the positions. They never popped up and said, you know what, let's give Joe Biden a lot more power over those independent agencies or student loans or what have you. And so then you say, okay, well, is this a shift where this is just a completely new doctrine? No, for the reasons I just told you. When it comes to the Fed, it's still got to be independent. And so people are left wondering why the court is this inconsistent and why the Trump rules that give him so much more power over all these agencies today, new for the first time in decades, don't extend to the Fed.

7:05And is that just because the Fed deals with money and we live in a capitalist system where the Supreme Court's like, hey, they have the MAGA votes. They're going to give him as much as they can, but they don't want to mess with the economy too much because money matters more. If there is a better argument for these rulings, I guess we'll have to find it in the days ahead. But there is a big tension here. I'm telling you that in plain English. As for the official who lost out today, here was her reaction.

7:32Andrew Ross Sorkin:I'm very worried about a future where presidents like President Trump can wield this enormous grant of executive power that the president, that the Supreme Court just handed to him in order to reward his friends and punish his enemies and do so with impunity. that's fair the supreme court has now provided more impunity for that kind of abuse and revenge something that donald trump has done in the very recent past and may do again now given this legal weaponry the court gave him that avenue they also removed another check on his power so there we are again this inconsistency or the two directions i'm telling you about it's that kind of day at the court.

8:16Because Donald Trump, more than anyone since, say, probably going all the way back to Jim Crow, has actively admitted an effort to only count certain votes and to go after redistricting in ways we haven't seen in decades. And to basically say he wants ballots counted if they're for him and not for others. He also, of course, is associated with an insurrection. So all of this is the era we're living through. And he wanted to work with Republicans to count fewer ballots in the upcoming midterms. Why? Obviously, because they thought it might help them win. And they found that the court is checking that power for these upcoming midterms.

8:57It's ruling that they will be counting all the ballots, including ones that come in as long as they are cast on time, rather than accepting a GOP plan that was going to try to limit certain ballots depending on when they arrived. A 5-4 split there, Chief Justice Roberts, and we should note a Trump appointee, Amy Coney Barrett, siding against the GOP. If you look at the chart on the screen, I've told you things are a little all over the place or inconsistent today. We've swapped out Kavanaugh, basically. He's gone there with the GOP on counting fewer ballots. You decide whether you think that's a good thing or not.

9:29Obviously, if you're for democracy, you wouldn't want to count all the legally cast ballots, not pick and choose, but it's only because another Trump appointee, Barrett has swung into the majority that you even have this. That is how tenuous a line we are on for counting all the ballots in the next election. Election day statutes don't set a deadline for ballot receipt. They don't prevent the court ruled, the state at issue from counting those ballots. Now that is a move to stop Trump-led Republican efforts to interfere. You know, in the media, sometimes we are rightfully held accountable for searching for big headlines and narratives.

10:05there's no clear narrative here because the court has gone in different directions on these different issues all in one day and whether it is aware of that or not whether it cares whether Chief Justice Roberts would tell us he's doing the best he can because he's got a MAGA court or whether they think this all makes perfect sense is open to interpretation what I can tell you is they are handing Trump new powers that recent presidents haven't had over everything except the economy which apparently they think is different. And when it comes to whether or not all the ballots will be counted, well, you can exhale a sigh of relief tonight.

10:42They will in the next election, but that's just by one vote. John Flannery is here, former federal prosecutor, a no-nonsense lawyer. Your thoughts?

10:53Andrew Ross Sorkin:Well, my thoughts on the last point are that I think the court decided they couldn't do what had happened in Gore and Bush. That is to say, when they had that case, they decided a presidential election in an unjustified, unlawful, unconstitutional way. And all the ringing of hands made no difference. Here we have an approaching vote, and Trump and company are asking the Supreme Court to make it easier to win an election across Congress. And I think, though some say they're not political, this is certainly political, it seems to be. And they decided they went as far as they could, and Roberts would like to retain his notion that this is a court of law, not an ideological supporter of Trump for whatever he needs.

11:48Andrew Ross Sorkin:As for the other, which is the power, that's both startling and terrifying. We already had a Supreme Court that gave him immunity. Now we have a Supreme Court that basically said, with one exception, the Cook case in the Federal Reserve, you have complete control over these people appointed, hired by independent agencies formed by the Congress, directing the executive, Trump and his predecessors, to do what Congress authorized to be done, but not to destroy. Trump wants to destroy all these many agencies. NLRB, you know, you go through them. I think, I don't know if there are two dozen, but there's quite a number of them.

12:30Andrew Ross Sorkin:In other words, we have this entire structure created by Congress to accomplish certain things and to give independence so that it would be impartial and not political. And Trump comes in and wants to make it all political, all about government, all about his power, and basically strangle the government created by Congress. I think you put that well. And I'm curious, do you see any reason other than money as to why they don't apply that to the Fed? It's almost like, you know, it's almost like a 401k exception where they say, well, we're going to let Trump have at it, but not with not with our savings.

13:06Andrew Ross Sorkin:Well, you know, I'd like to be able to draw a line from Adam Smith and Wealth of Nations and his feeling about trust forward with Alexander Hamilton and his sense of the bank, the American bank, and what a torturous historical path that was. But I have to wonder that it's not written on the pages why they decided it the way they did. Right. Not this person, Cook, someone else. And why not Cook? Because Cook is like Comey and the other BS investigations, prosecutions by the Justice Department. So it's not said, but it sure is a concern. And the only clue we have that they may be thinking that way is give the governor a chance to prove her case in court, her defense, really.

13:55Andrew Ross Sorkin:And that's the thing they single out. They said, well, look at it down the road and we'll see what happens. But what we're going to do right now— Yeah, I'll jump in. I mean, they hang it on process, right? And our job as lawyers and analysts and journalists is we'll tell you what they said. They say process. And I'm telling folks that doesn't seem logical. It seems like it has more to do with money. And maybe they don't care about this or other presidents running roughshod over these other agencies. But something about the financial system bothers them more. And last time I checked, a lot of Americans are worried not only about their jobs, but about clean water and having independent, nonpartisan officials.

14:33This is a blow against that.

14:36Andrew Ross Sorkin:Well, I think it's true. Whenever Trump's involved, it's about power and money. But the money part is always complemented by the power part. And in this case, immunity for himself, various deals he's trying to get, money he's trying to get from the government. And now I can deal with these independent agencies because now they're dependent on me. And so it's a march toward an autocracy, toward a modern monarchy that even Hamilton himself, though he mentioned favorably in certain circumstances, never embraced. So they're kind of exceeding their birthright as Federalists. And I would hope that what we're going to see is the Jeffersonian Republicans of today are going to put us back on the right path.

15:23Andrew Ross Sorkin:And so we have a reason to celebrate the 250 years. We got Senator Booker standing by. But here, here to that, the 250, I can only wait with bated breath as to which bow tie you will don on this July 4th. I hope you'll share a picture, sir. Yes, well, I wear the tie and I wear the stars and stripes for the government we're going to resume that has been in abeyance and the one that once was that I spent most of my life admiring and being respectful for. Well, there you have it, Counselor. Thank you very much. Let me tell folks what's coming up. Andrew R. Sorkin is here on whether we're facing a bubble.

16:00Almost no one else you could ask for better informed on that topic, our colleague. But as mentioned, Senator Cory Booker is standing by on the Supreme Court developments. We're back in 90 seconds.

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17:12Andrew Ross Sorkin:Comcast is delivering extraordinary experiences in live sports. Through the incredible broadcast and storytelling from NBC, innovative and personalized viewing features on Xfinity and Peacock, and the country's most reliable Wi-Fi, viewers can enjoy every game-changing play faster and more seamlessly than ever. All on a network built to deliver unforgettable moments as close to live as possible. The ultimate experience for the American sports fan. Learn more at comcastcorporation.com slash sports. I'm Lindsay, and in my line of work as an investigator, I'm always looking out for other people. Getting my diagnosis didn't really change that, but it did make me realize that I also need to keep an eye out for myself.

17:55Andrew Ross Sorkin:So my doctor and I decided to start on Cascali Ribocyclic. Lindsay is a real patient, compensated for her time. Visit Kaskali.com. That's K-I-S-Q-A-L-I.com to learn more. And ask your doctor if Kaskali RoboCyclob is right for you.

18:17We are back with United States Senator Cory Booker. Welcome. I want to jump right into the tension in the Supreme Court rulings today. As I told viewers at the top, one ruling basically gives a lot more power to this president that this court didn't give to other recent presidents, eliminating nearly all of Congress's more than a century old power. I think it's about 90 years to create agencies that act with independence from the president. Vox writing that it's worth noting the decision was handed down alongside the Fed case I mentioned, which strongly suggests members of the Federal Reserve are independent from the president.

18:47If you look at the practical implications, it basically means this president can fire all of the independent agency chiefs, making them less than independent. We can put this up, but can't fire. This is number seven. Can't fire just the members of the Fed. As a Judiciary Committee member and a legal scholar in your own right, a lawmaker and law writer, does this make any sense what happened today?

19:15Andrew Ross Sorkin:Yeah, it makes sense to me. first of all, and I'll come back to this point, we have a corrupt and compromised court in ways we've never seen in American history, continuing to make decisions that pull power away from everyday Americans, taking away their reproductive rights to control their own body, pulling away their voting rights. More recently, when they tried to access the court to sue big corporations like Monsanto and Bayer, it just recently in the last days pulled away their power to be able to successfully fight against corporations. Now, here they are again making a decision that will benefit the wealthy and the powerful against the people.

19:52Andrew Ross Sorkin:Because think about these independent agencies. You have the Federal Trade Commission that protects people against unjust mergers and corporate concentration. You have the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau that has already returned in the past literally tens of millions, hundreds of millions of dollars to consumers who been screwed over by the big banks. There's going to be agency after agency that now is going to be at the behest of powerful people like this president who doesn't care about people, but is going to use and abuse them and turn independent agencies into political arms. And so let me just say, I say this court is corrupt and I'm making it my mission to bring this court under ethics laws.

20:32Andrew Ross Sorkin:Because remember, this court, unlike any other, takes gifts, unlimited gifts from billionaires, RVs, tuition, lavish vacations. Billionaires have swarmed around this court, deeply influencing them and compromising them. In most states, what this Supreme Court is doing would get judges in other states jailed, literally brought out in handcuffs and put in jail. And so we have to make it a point to save our democracy by reforming this court. Do you think they treat the Fed differently because it's involved in money? I think they're terrified because there are lots of people who, because of the Fed and having a stable markets, stable full faith and credit in this country, are seeing the windfall years where they're making people who have invested in their stock and their wealth comes from the stock market, are making a lot of money because of the stability of the Fed.

21:23Andrew Ross Sorkin:So they left that one alone. But all these other ones that protect our health, our safety, protect us against monopolies, All of these other ones now are at the whim of a president and have been these independent agencies created in a bipartisan manner, never challenged before, now can be thoroughly corrupted by the corruption of money in politics, which we're seeing growing more and more from the executive branch to mine to the judiciary. Well, you're hitting important stuff. I think most people can feel this if they don't. They might not know all the details, jurisdiction, jurisprudence, standing.

21:54Forget it. I think people feel that there is a kind of a rot of elites in Washington. You just laid out some of the reasons. And so they say, oh, oh, yeah, if it involves your money and these dividends. And, you know, most people don't have enough money to be doing a lot in the stock market or to be thinking about interest rates, except for maybe how it hits their regular consumer savings account. And so, you know, everybody in politics knows about NIMBY, not in my backyard. And you get the feeling that Supreme Court, for them, NIMBY is their money, their elites, and the rich people around them.

22:27And so for them, NIMBY, they don't want Trump running roughshod there. Trump can't just fire all the Federal Reserve chairs because what would happen? And yet for every other part of the government, apparently that's now okay.

22:40Andrew Ross Sorkin:Yeah. I mean, look, the biggest threat to our democracy unleashed like in an incendiary way by the Supreme Court and Citizens United. But it's the corruption of money in politics where you're seeing in the Supreme Court. I've just described that the president, it's open. If you want contracts, donate to my ballroom. Those people got$50 billion worth of contracts. I'm trading stocks. This is a president and companies I am influencing with my decisions. Senators, the reason why I don't own individual stocks, but senators trading stocks, senators playing in the market with their insider information.