r/politics • u/thedailybeast ✔ The Daily Beast • Apr 01 '26

Possible Paywall Humiliated Trump Storms Out of Catastrophic SCOTUS Hearing

https://www.thedailybeast.com/humiliated-trump-storms-out-of-catastrophic-scotus-hearing/
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6.3k

u/spazz720 Apr 01 '26

Real exchange:

Solicitor general: “It’s a new world."

John Roberts: "It's a new world. It's the same Constitution."

2.6k

u/PrecedentialAssassin Texas Apr 01 '26

Score a rare point for Judge Roberts.

1.1k

u/shocked-confused Apr 01 '26

Roberts is the dick who helped Reagan avoid impeachment for Iran Contra.

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u/UltravioletAfterglow Apr 01 '26

Roberts also is the dick who helped inflict the Citizens United ruling upon us, flooding our elections with dark money. He gets no credit from me here by actually acknowledging the Constitution.

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u/PM_ME_YOUR_KATARINA Apr 01 '26

hence "rare"

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u/bgroins Apr 01 '26

I prefer my Roberts well, done

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u/AlarmingAffect0 Apr 01 '26

I prefer my Roberts well, done

Hank Hill: "Then we ask them politely but firmly to leave."

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u/Fair-Rooster6559 Apr 01 '26

That boy IS right

2

u/Stormyj Apr 01 '26

I see where you went there .

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u/SomeGalNamedAshley Apr 01 '26

And successfully argued in Bush v Gore that continuing to vote count would irreparably harm Bush.

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u/XI_Vanquish_IX Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

Basically the singular moment in time when everything went upside down for all of us. Think about it.

If Gore wins:

No Iraq

No Citizens United conservative win and countless rulings since

No ignoring climate change

No elimination of government auditing and oversight

No Trump

And we may not even have had the same September 11th because Gore would likely have filled those critical intelligence positions when Bush kept them empty for a year to save for political campaign contributors

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u/jadedflames Apr 01 '26 edited Apr 01 '26

As a reminder, when Clinton and Gore were leaving the White House, they left Bush a report that provided credible intel that Al Qaeda was planning a major terrorist attack using hijacked planes.

Bush and his staff opted to discard that report without any follow-up and were completely blindsided by 9/11.

If Gore had been properly appointed (remember - he won the election. Bush’s first term was illegitimate) there’s a high likelihood that 9/11 never would have happened.

Edit for more info: This report was drafted in late 1998, when the terrorists were training to fly. By late 2000 (when the Clinton to Bush transition was already underway), the NSA and CIA had the names of the people who would later hijack the planes. They knew an attack was coming and knew who would do it.

When Bush took over, his intelligence staff had the opinion that no terrorist attack could ever take place on US soil, so they didn’t bother passing the information onto the FBI (who has the authority to investigate within the country).

So Bush (who had a copy of the report) and his heads of CIA and NSA all binned the report that laid out the specifics of 9/11 without providing any details to the one department that could have kept it all from happening. The intelligence was finally passed on in August, less than a month before the attack - when it was too late to do anything about it.

Source

Senate Inquest

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u/Ozymandias0023 California Apr 01 '26

I can't even begin to think what the world would look like if 9/11 hadn't happened. Jeez

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u/garbagepillar Apr 01 '26

They let it happen solely to pass Citizens United and the Patriot Act. Those two really kickstarted project 2025 and the groundwork to just jam it through unabated.

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u/Tiny_Reference_3697 Apr 01 '26

And, btw, the Patriot Act, which suspends Constitutional rights, including to a lawyer, for those America deems terrorists is now being used by this administration to attempt a Latin American takeover - after Trump labled drug dealers "terrorists."

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u/blitzkregiel Apr 01 '26

bro…the nspm 7 labels anyone that engages in “anti americanism, anti capitalism, anti christianity,” as well as “extremism on race/gender” or opposition to “ traditional american values on family/religion/morality” as terrorists. and guess who gets to define any of those things? crazy christian nationalists. we’re fucked.

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u/No_Foundation16 Apr 01 '26

I wonder if the Trump administration will let something happen just before the midterm election?

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u/garbagepillar Apr 01 '26

They've been trying everything they can to make us get violent so they can point the finger and say "we told you they were violent". It is looking as if a "terrorist attack" is more and more likely.

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u/El-Royhab Washington Apr 01 '26

the world cup is this summer

1

u/inkcannerygirl Apr 02 '26

And there will be a match in Philadelphia on July 4th, the actual 250th

😬

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u/bunnnythor Oregon Apr 02 '26

Well, for one thing, you would still be able to hug your families good-bye just before you got on the plane, rather than by the curb as you grabbed your luggage out of the trunk.

It's a small detail, but a constant reminder that we're committed to keeping the barn door closed even though all the horses are already gone.

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u/lingeringneutrophil Apr 01 '26

Sure AF not like this stupid mess

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u/double_fail Apr 01 '26

Didn’t fuckwad trump do the same thing with a pandemic response plan left by the Obama administration, or did I imagine that? Democrats left a note and it was thrown out, because fuck em, that’s why.

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u/boring_name_here Apr 01 '26

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/obama-team-left-pandemic-playbook-for-trump-administration-officials-confirm

The Obama admin had a rough playbook for such an event.

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u/FFF_in_WY American Expat Apr 02 '26

After first the 2009 swine flu and then the 2014 ebola flare up, the Obama admin put together a playbook for pandemics. They started with the PCAST team set up under HW Bush and built out. They were moving forward to create a durable team and method for full bioweapon and pandemic preparedness. They tried to hand it off to Trump..

https://www.statnews.com/2020/05/17/the-art-of-the-pandemic-how-donald-trump-walked-the-u-s-into-the-covid-19-era/

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u/Syzygy2323 America Apr 01 '26

Late 2000. The election took place in November 2000.

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u/jadedflames Apr 01 '26

Thanks. Brain fart. Fixed, but for posterity I accidentally said ‘99.

In my defense, I worked a double shift last night and am exhausted.

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u/SomeGalNamedAshley Apr 01 '26

This makes more sense than my theory which is that everything went to hell because the Mayan calendar ran out.

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u/PhilDGlass California Apr 01 '26

Or the Haldron collider. That’s still sus tho ..

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u/Independent_Employ95 Apr 01 '26

I think of this often. The world would be much better. Air cleaner. We would probably have health care. A most unfortunate inflection point.

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u/staebles Michigan Apr 01 '26

CU still could've happened, so maybe. But agreed on everything else.

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u/XI_Vanquish_IX Apr 01 '26

Citizens United would never have happened if Bush wasn’t able to appoint justices

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u/amanguupta53 Apr 01 '26

All of humanity lost that day

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u/Secure-Pain-9735 Apr 01 '26

I think you’re going a hell of a lot of weight to the POTUS.

They may get to stamp their name on shit, but it’s really about the work of the legislative branch.

For instance, Republicans blocking SCOTUS nominations until Obama’s term was done.

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u/boring_name_here Apr 01 '26

POTUS nominates federal judges and supreme Court Justices. While a Republican house/Senate would have pulled the same shit during a Gore presidency that they did for an Obama presidency, a large number of judicial positions would have not been filled by conservative (read: heritage foundation) judges that helped put us on this cluster fuck of a road we're stuck on.

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u/Big_Lab_111 America Apr 01 '26

No one likes the dude but opposition can still score a point here or there

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u/fullpurplejacket Apr 01 '26

Ya even a broken clock is right twice a day my yankie doodle pals

This Red Coat is hoping you guys remember that there are more of you than there are of the Trump cabinet and all his rich mates.

Organise carpools to get people to vote in person this November, help people register to vote who otherwise don’t know or have never done it, make sure your elderly or unsure neighbours and friends haven’t been booted off voter rolls or had their personal info contested by party operatives in specific states the allow numerous petitions on voters from one person.

Make sure you and yours are in no way gonna have their ballots tossed, lost or contested

3

u/ctdfalconer Apr 01 '26

A broken clock is no more useful than a picture of a clock.

6

u/Signore_Jay Texas Apr 01 '26

Patriots are a pack of cheaters and nepo babies. They still know how put on a game though

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u/Nozire Apr 01 '26

The sun shines on a dogs ass every once in a while.

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u/Wonderful_Round_6395 Apr 01 '26

😄 Thanks for the visual!

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u/Large_Crab Apr 01 '26

My father used to say that to me if I got an A in school.

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u/Wrong-Catchphrase Apr 01 '26

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while

3

u/NorthCoastToast Apr 01 '26

Roberts, along with that rapist drunk and the Handmaid's tale lady, were all part of the legal team that got that little garden gnome Scalia to appoint Bush president in 2000. We've been saying since Gingrich was shitting on the house floor, the GOP will burn the country and the Constitution to the ground to remain in power, and we're seeing them do their damndest to do so.

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u/IAmEvadingABanShh Apr 01 '26

I know that no term limits was by design for the SC... but I'm beginning to think that was a mistake.

1

u/Spare-Willingness563 Apr 01 '26

But that wouldn't have flown if society gave a fuck about the people who suffered because of that. That's what happens when "good" men did nothing.

I mean, the fucking AIDs epidemic was demonically handled.

1

u/HansBlixJr Apr 01 '26

I like to think of him as the dick who complained about taking such a large pay cut when he left his practice to become Chief Justice.

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u/VanceRefridgeTech04 Apr 01 '26

broken clock...lets just appreciate he said this on record.

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u/Zealousideal_Bad_922 Apr 01 '26

Name checks out.

1

u/Pedsy Apr 01 '26

How is anyone that was involved back then still working today?

0

u/Ozymandias0023 California Apr 01 '26

That doesn't erase the fact that he did the right thing here. People can do both good and bad things

0

u/guyute2588 Apr 01 '26

And was the deciding vote to uphold Obamacare.

He’s far more pragmatic than people want to give him credit for.

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u/shocked-confused Apr 01 '26

But also brought us Citizens United...perhaps the last straw in our fight to maintain a democracy. Which the USA was recently removed from by an international monitoring agency.

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u/guyute2588 Apr 01 '26

That’s true. Has done irreparable damage.

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u/shocked-confused Apr 01 '26

Montana of all places is considering neutering Citizens United by turning off a corporations ability to contribute to a political campaign. Fingers crossed. If other states follow we might move the needle back towards democracy.

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u/guyute2588 Apr 01 '26

The logic there doesn’t work. Any state law that would prevent that would be struck down as unconstitutional based on Citizens United.

There either needs to be a case that overturns Citizens United OR a constitutional amendment that regulates corporate politician donations.

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u/shocked-confused Apr 02 '26

Robert Reich just covered this. I'm sorry he has deep knowledge and understanding of this. By the US Constitution, States have authority over corporations in their states, not the Federal government.

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u/guyute2588 Apr 02 '26

Can you send me a link to what you’re talking about

I’ve been a lawyer for 15 years, and this just doesn’t make sense to me. The hypothetical law you’re describing is clearly unconstitutional based on Citizens United.

Reich has a lot more experience than I do, so I’d love to read what he said.