DSR Daily August 25: Supreme Court Gives Trump a Win with Trump on Mail-In Voting
The DSR Network
This episode of DSR Daily covers major political and legal developments, including the Supreme Court's interim ruling on Trump's mail-in vot
Key takeaways
- The Supreme Court's procedural ruling on mail-in voting allows Trump's executive order to proceed temporarily despite legal challenges, creating uncertainty ahead of the midterm elections.
Main topics
- Supreme Court ruling on mail-in voting
Notable quotes
The Supreme Court, when given a choice to bend over backwards for Trump or bend over backwards for the law, bends over backwards for Trump.
Conclusion
Despite legal challenges and public scrutiny, Trump's administration continues to push policies aimed
Transcript preview
Speaker 2 (0:04) The Speaker 1 (0:05) city moves fast, but your vibe, that's different. Sharper, smoother, more alive. Speaker 2 (0:15) The new Speaker 1 (0:20) Honda City isn't just made to drive, it's made to feel. The new Honda City, all new vibe. Speaker 5 (0:40) Hello, everybody, and welcome to the DSR Daily. I'm David Rothkopf. I'm joined by Riley Fessler and Minna Stein. We're here to try to wade through some of the big stories of today, make sense of them, and do so quickly enough that you can get on with your business, it being the end of summer, time to go to the beach, time to go swimming, time to enjoy the sun. before it all goes away, and you've got to go back to school, and then there are elections, and then there's fascism, and then we become a police state, and then we all have to huddle in our apartments and not go out because we're afraid they're going to round us up and send us to concentration camps. I've taken this too far. I know. It's just sometimes I spiral. I can't help it. Let me try to get some uplift from the news. Give me something uplifting, guys. Speaker 4 (1:31) Well, I've got a bad story to start. In an interim ruling, the Supreme Court paused a lower court injunction that had blocked key aspects of President Trump's March executive order restricting mail-in voting. The order requires DHS and the U.S. Postal Service to compile lists of eligible voters and deliver mail-in ballots strictly to those listed. While the high court's conservative majority focused on procedural timing rather than the underlying legality of the executive order, which is so important, obviously, dissenting liberal justices warned the decision injects severe uncertainty into the upcoming midterm elections. Despite the Supreme Court's action, practical implementation remains stalled due to tight timelines and a separate nationwide court order blocking the Postal Service from carrying out the directives. Speaker 5 (2:19) Yeah, and I think that's the point here. Everybody's a little unnerved by this. They should be unnerved by it. Once again, the Supreme Court, when given a choice to bend over backwards for Trump or bend over backwards for the law, bends over backwards for Trump, at least the six-person conservative majority does. But there is this other injunction. And were they to go and start implementing things in spite of that injunction, that will head straight to the Supreme Court too. Will this have an effect on the upcoming election? Well, you know, it does already as people begin to question whether they can file a mail-in ballot or states begin to think that this may be a problematical area and so forth. And so, you know, quite apart from the law, how it impacts people's views, people's actions. Those things are all important. The lawyers I've spoken to seem to believe that the case and the other injunction, I think was a case brought by the League of Women Voters, will hold up because at the end of the day, of course, elections are the province of the states, not the province of the federal government or the president. Speaker 5 (3:41) But, you know, they're trying everything, literally everything they can do, post office, you know, regulations, cases like this one. They just want to discourage people from voting. Now, you know, if there is a bigger tell about what they think of democracy and what they think of the majority view in the United States, I don't know what it is. They want to keep people from voting because they believe that if people are given an opportunity to vote in a free and fair way, they'll vote against Trump and the Republicans because Trump and the Republicans are screwing up their lives. And, you know, I still think that's what's going to be the driving theme behind this upcoming election, which is 71 days away, 70 days away. But. We've got to stay vigilant because these cases could throw a spanner into the works, as they say in the UK. The Speaker 3 (4:45) Trump administration is preparing to execute the largest mass... visa revocation in U.S. history, planning to strip the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreign nationals who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum. The initiative targets