[Rush Lindell] So here's what's going on.
[Rush Lindell] The Supreme Court is in a full sprint right now.
[Rush Lindell] Twenty plus opinions sitting in that building,
[Rush Lindell] zero advance notice on when any of them drop,
[Rush Lindell] and a term that ends in late June.
[Reagan] Wow.
[Rush Lindell] Every single morning this week could be the morning.
[Reagan] And it's not a light docket.
[Reagan] NPR counted 23 cases still pending out of 58 argued this term:
[Reagan] birthright citizenship,
[Reagan] transgender athletes,
[Reagan] gun rights,
[Reagan] campaign finance.
[Reagan] Finance?
[Reagan] Independent agencies?
[Rush Lindell] All of it at once.
[Rush Lindell] No big deal.
[Reagan] Completely normal news cycle.
[Rush Lindell] Right.
[Rush Lindell] So what we're doing today-and this is the whole point of this episode-is giving you the cheat sheet before the rulings hit,
[Rush Lindell] not after when the cable news hyperventilate starts.
[Rush Lindell] Before.
[Reagan] That's the only way to actually follow this,
[Reagan] if you don't know what the cases are asking-
[Reagan] Being a headline telling you who won is almost useless.
[Rush Lindell] You know what nobody wants to say?
[Rush Lindell] Most people will hear the birthright citizenship ruling get handed a take by their preferred anchor and have no idea what the court actually decided on nationwide injunctions,
[Rush Lindell] which,
[Rush Lindell] Reagan,
[Rush Lindell] I think you're going to argue,
[Rush Lindell] is the sleeper issue of the whole term.
[Reagan] It might reshape federal litigation for decades more than the citizenship question itself.
[Reagan] in itself.
[Rush Lindell] We've also got two Second Amendment cases that nobody's talking about-and wait until you hear the Hunter Biden connection on one of them.
[Reagan] The media will find a way to under-report both.
[Rush Lindell] Shocking, I know.
[Rush Lindell] Plus,
[Rush Lindell] election law,
[Rush Lindell] mail ballots,
[Rush Lindell] campaign spending limits,
[Rush Lindell] all of it landing right in the middle of midterm season.
[Rush Lindell] The timing alone should get your attention.
[Reagan] We'll walk through every major case category,
[Reagan] the legal question,
[Reagan] what's actually at stake,
[Reagan] and where the court is looking like it's headed.
[Rush Lindell] Start with the biggest constitutional fight on the docket.
[Rush Lindell] Birthright citizenship is up first.
[Rush Lindell] Before we get into it, a quick reminder.
[Rush Lindell] We love hearing from you.
[Rush Lindell] If you have questions or topics you'd like us to cover,
[Rush Lindell] head to the link in the description and submit your question.
[Rush Lindell] We read every single one.
[Rush Lindell] Nine justices,
[Rush Lindell] roughly twenty opinions still sitting on the shelf,
[Rush Lindell] and no warning on which day they land.
[Reagan] Wow.
[Rush Lindell] That's where we are right now.
[Reagan] And the term ends late June,
[Reagan] early July at latest.
[Reagan] The clock is not their friend.
[Rush Lindell] The clock is not anybody's friend; not the White House,
[Rush Lindell] not Congress,
[Rush Lindell] not anyone who thought the big fights were already over.
[Rush Lindell] CBS News put it plainly:
[Rush Lindell] "The court already struck down Trump's tariffs,
[Rush Lindell] already gutted the Voting Rights Act in the Callais decision.
[Rush Lindell] position,
[Rush Lindell] and what's left is arguably the heavier batch.
[Reagan] That's the part people keep underestimating.
[Reagan] Louisiana versus Callais dropped April twenty ninth,
[Reagan] a six-three ruling that rewrote how states can use race in redistricting.
[Reagan] That was consequential, and the court still has Birthright citizenship,
[Reagan] Campaign finance,
[Reagan] Transgender athletes,
[Reagan] Second Amendment,
[Reagan] all of it.
[Rush Lindell] Still on the shelf:
[Rush Lindell] Totally normal June.
[Reagan] Not remotely.
[Rush Lindell] You know what nobody wants to say.
[Rush Lindell] Say,
[Rush Lindell] most people are going to find out these rulings happened because their phone buzzed while they were eating lunch.
[Rush Lindell] No context,
[Rush Lindell] no framework,
[Rush Lindell] just a push notification and a headline that sounds insane.
[Reagan] Which is exactly the wrong way to absorb decisions that are going to shape federal law for the next decade.
[Rush Lindell] That's why we're here.
[Rush Lindell] We're building the Cheat Sheet before the chaos hits,
[Rush Lindell] so when the opinion drops,
[Rush Lindell] you already know what's at stake and why it matters.
[Reagan] Uh huh.
[Speaker 3] Huh?
[Reagan] US news flagged eight major cases still pending (eight!), and the court gives zero advance notice on which ruling comes which day.
[Rush Lindell] Very convenient for everyone trying to prepare.
[Reagan] Models of Transparency
[Rush Lindell] So let's start where the temperature is highest; there is one case that rewrites what it means to be born in this country,
[Rush Lindell] and the justices who heard it did not sound like they were buying the administration's argument.
[Rush Lindell] What happens if they rule against the White House on that one?
[Speaker 4] Yeah.
[Rush Lindell] So let's talk about the main event:
[Rush Lindell] Trump v.
[Rush Lindell] Bruen,
[Rush Lindell] the birthright citizenship case,
[Rush Lindell] day one executive order.
[Rush Lindell] I've been calling it the citizenship erasure since January 2025.
[Rush Lindell] The idea?
[Rush Lindell] If your parents are here illegally or on a temporary visa,
[Rush Lindell] you don't get automatic citizenship at birth.
[Reagan] And courts have blocked it every single time, every court that's reviewed it.
[Rush Lindell] Every single one.
[Rush Lindell] Then Trump did something no sitting president has ever done:
[Rush Lindell] he showed up to watch oral arguments in April,
[Rush Lindell] first time in American history.
[Reagan] Which tells you everything about how confident the White House was going in.
[Rush Lindell] And then walked out and posted on Truth Social that America is (and I'm quoting here)
[Rush Lindell] "the only country stupid enough to allow birthright citizenship," caps-locks, STUPID,
[Rush Lindell] after his own appointed justices grilled his Solicitor General.
[Rush Lindell] Chief Justice Roberts literally told the administration,
[Rush Lindell] quote,
[Rush Lindell] it's the same Constitution.
[Reagan] Barrett and Gorsuch,
[Reagan] both Trump appointees,
[Reagan] pressed the administration hard,
[Reagan] too.
[Reagan] two.
[Reagan] This order is probably going to lose on the merits:
[Reagan] the Fourteenth Amendment's Citizenship Clause has meant automatic birthright citizenship since the eighteen ninety-eight Wong Kim Ark ruling over a century of settled law.
[Rush Lindell] Right,
[Rush Lindell] right,
[Rush Lindell] but here's what I think the media keeps sleeping on.
[Reagan] The nationwide injunction question.
[Rush Lindell] Yes,
[Rush Lindell] tell them!
[Reagan] The court already ruled in Trump v. Casa last June.
[Reagan] six three that district courts can't just issue sweeping nationwide injunctions blocking federal policy for everyone,
[Reagan] everywhere.
[Reagan] That ruling outlasts the birthright case.
[Reagan] Wow.
[Rush Lindell] Wow.
[Reagan] Future administrations,
[Reagan] future policies,
[Reagan] that's the precedent that actually reshapes how courts can stop executive power.
[Rush Lindell] So Trump may lose the citizenship fight but walk away with a power he can use on the next 20 executive orders.
[Rush Lindell] CBS News flagged this one: The term ends before July,
[Rush Lindell] and this ruling is coming with it.
[Reagan] And speaking of the 14th Amendment,
[Reagan] we're not done with it.
[Reagan] The Equal Protection Clause is about to get its own moment in the spotlight.
[Rush Lindell] Same 14th Amendment we were just talking about,
[Rush Lindell] now applied to a very different fight.
[Rush Lindell] Reagan, CBS News flagged this one.
[Rush Lindell] West Virginia.
[Rush Lindell] Virginia versus BPJ and Little versus Hecox, two transgender athlete cases,
[Rush Lindell] 27 states have laws like these.
[Rush Lindell] Whatever the court says sets the national standard.
[Reagan] Arguments were January 13th.
[Reagan] The legal question is whether those state bans violate Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause,
[Reagan] and after watching the arguments,
[Reagan] court observers broadly expected the conservative majority to uphold the bans.
[Rush Lindell] Which means cable news is about to lose its mind.
[Rush Lindell] I'm telling you right now, the second this ruling drops,
[Rush Lindell] every chyron in America reads,
[Rush Lindell] Supreme Court Attacks Trans Kids.
[Rush Lindell] But what does the ruling actually say?
[Reagan] That's the key distinction.
[Reagan] Upholding a state ban on transgender athletes in school sports is not a sweeping ruling on trans rights broadly.
[Reagan] The court is deciding a narrow question.
[Reagan] Can states draw a biological sex line for athletic competition under Title IX and the Fourteenth Amendment?
[Rush Lindell] You will not see that nuance on prime time.
[Reagan] No; but here's something worth flagging:
[Reagan] the Idaho case has a wrinkle:
[Reagan] the original plaintiff,
[Reagan] Lindsey Hecox,
[Reagan] voluntarily dropped her claims.
[Reagan] That raises a mootness question.
[Rush Lindell] Wait,
[Rush Lindell] so Idaho might not even produce a substantive ruling?
[Reagan] Possibly,
[Reagan] which is why West Virginia v. B.P.J. (Becky Pepper-Jackson's case)
[Reagan] is most likely the vehicle the court uses to actually write the opinion that matters.
[Rush Lindell] Twenty-seven states waiting on one ruling-that's the weight of this thing.
[Reagan] And whatever the court writes on the equal protection framework could reach well beyond just sports,
[Reagan] that's what the advocates on both sides are watching for.
[Rush Lindell] So when the coverage tells you this is simple-
[Rush Lindell] It's not the holding is narrow,
[Rush Lindell] the downstream implications are not. Remember that when your phone starts buzzing.
[Reagan] Right.
[Rush Lindell] Now, shifting gears,
[Rush Lindell] two Second Amendment cases the media will almost certainly ignore.
[Rush Lindell] That's a problem because the gun rights questions coming out of this term might outlast everything else we've talked about today.
[Rush Lindell] OK,
[Rush Lindell] so the media is going to completely sleep on these next two.
[Rush Lindell] No culture war hook,
[Rush Lindell] no viral moment,
[Rush Lindell] just two Second Amendment cases that could quietly rewrite the rules for every gun owner in America.
[Reagan] And both run straight through the Bruen framework.
[Reagan] That 2022 decision said gun regulations need a historical analog from the founding era to survive.
[Reagan] Lower courts have been scrambling ever since.
[Rush Lindell] Scrambling is generous.
[Rush Lindell] It's been chaos.
[Rush Lindell] So case one,
[Rush Lindell] Wolford versus Lopez.
[Rush Lindell] Hawaii said if you've got a concealed carry permit,
[Rush Lindell] you still need the property owner's express permission before carrying on private property open to the public.
[Rush Lindell] Beaches,
[Rush Lindell] restaurants,
[Rush Lindell] gas stations, you need a permission slip.
[Reagan] The Ninth Circuit upheld it,
[Reagan] but the Third,
[Reagan] Fifth,
[Reagan] and Seventh Circuits struck down similar bans post-Bruen.
[Reagan] That's a clean circuit split.
[Reagan] Which is exactly why the court took it.
[Rush Lindell] Hawaii is asking licensed gun owners to beg before entering a Starbucks and nobody can find a founding era analog for that.
[Reagan] That's the test; if there's no historical precedent for it,
[Reagan] Bruen says,
[Reagan] it doesn't survive.
[Reagan] The question the court's actually answering is whether private property open to the public functions like a sensitive place.
[Rush Lindell] Now the second one-Hemani-federal law makes it a felony to possess a firearm if
[Rush Lindell] if you're an unlawful drug user.
[Rush Lindell] That statute is 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(3). Sound familiar?
[Rush Lindell] That's the same type of law Hunter Biden was convicted under.
[Reagan] Right.
[Reagan] And SCOTUSblog noted the justices were skeptical at oral argument in March.
[Reagan] The government's argument is there's a historical analog in laws disarming habitual drunkards.
[Reagan] Hemani's lawyers say that's a stretch,
[Reagan] a categorical ban on.
[Reagan] And on any drug user,
[Reagan] regardless of whether they were even intoxicated.
[Rush Lindell] And here's what gets me:
[Rush Lindell] if Bruen kills that statute,
[Rush Lindell] you're talking about federal gun prohibitions unraveling across the country.
[Rush Lindell] That's not a narrow ruling.
[Reagan] It could be narrow or broad depending on how they write it.
[Reagan] That's the real question:
[Reagan] does the court rule as applied to Hemani specifically,
[Reagan] or do they knock the whole statute down?
[Rush Lindell] Either way,
[Rush Lindell] nobody on cable news is talking about
[Reagan] Uh
[Rush Lindell] it.
[Reagan] -huh.
[Rush Lindell] And then...
[Rush Lindell] And then we've got election law cases coming – mail-in ballots,
[Rush Lindell] campaign finance – where the downstream consequences arrive before November.
[Reagan] Those hit even faster.
[Rush Lindell] Much faster.
[Rush Lindell] Let's get there.
[Rush Lindell] Now,
[Rush Lindell] Election Law; two cases,
[Rush Lindell] both dropping before November; I'm calling this the Double Barrel Segment:
[Reagan] And both barrels are loaded.
[Rush Lindell] Watson versus RNC first; fourteen states-California,
[Rush Lindell] New York,
[Rush Lindell] Texas,
[Rush Lindell] Oregon,
[Rush Lindell] among others-currently count mail ballots that arrive after election day,
[Rush Lindell] as long as they're postmarked by election day. The RNC says federal law-
[Rush Lindell] which defines election day as a "specific Tuesday"
[Rush Lindell] wipes out those state rules.
[Reagan] The CBS News flagged this one specifically as a case that could upend election procedures before November.
[Reagan] The ruling forces those fourteen states to rewrite their ballot intake rules potentially in weeks.
[Rush Lindell] Mississippi's law allows ballots received up to five business days after election day to be counted.
[Reagan] Wow.
[Rush Lindell] The RNC says that's a preemption problem.
[Rush Lindell] And the conservative majority at oral arguments signaled their with the RNC.
[Reagan] That's the politically immediate one; but NRSC versus FEC is the one I'd watch for structural consequences.
[Rush Lindell] Walk me through it.
[Reagan] The Republican Senate Committee—JD Vance was a Senate candidate when he Coplintoned—is challenging fifty year old caps on coordinated spending between political parties and their own candidates.
[Reagan] Right now,
[Reagan] parties can spend unlimited money independently.
[Reagan] Instantly the moment they coordinated with a campaign,
[Reagan] there are hard limits.
[Rush Lindell] And if those limits fall—
[Reagan] Parties can funnel essentially unlimited money directly into competitive Senate races,
[Reagan] in coordination with the actual campaigns.
[Reagan] That's a different animal than a Super PAC operating independently.
[Rush Lindell] So the party and the candidate just work together,
[Rush Lindell] openly,
[Rush Lindell] with no cap.
[Reagan] That's a fair read.
[Reagan] Now,
[Reagan] I'll say the First Amendment argument here is more legally-
[Reagan] Legally solid,
[Reagan] then critics admit,
[Reagan] parties exist to elect candidates.
[Reagan] There's a real speech interest,
[Reagan] but the downstream effect on competitive Senate races is enormous,
[Reagan] and it lands right in the middle of the cycle.
[Rush Lindell] Two rulings,
[Rush Lindell] votes and money,
[Rush Lindell] both before November-the double barrel fires at the same time.
[Reagan] And after we figure out who controls the ballot,
[Reagan] we get the
[Rush Lindell] the question of who controls the executive branch itself.
[Reagan] That's actually where this gets messier:
[Reagan] presidential power over the agencies that run the whole regulatory apparatus.
[Reagan] Shifting gears,
[Reagan] this one gets zero cable news minutes,
[Reagan] and it might be the most consequential case in the bunch.
[Speaker 3] Trump versus Slaughter.
[Reagan] Rebecca Slaughter,
[Reagan] FTC Commissioner,
[Reagan] Biden appointee,
[Reagan] term runs through 2029.
[Reagan] Trump fires her by email,
[Speaker 3] Wow.
[Reagan] and I mean that literally,
[Reagan] an email saying her continued service is,
[Reagan] quote, inconsistent with my administration's priorities.
[Rush Lindell] No cause stated-just vibes.
[Reagan] Just vibes; and the statute,
[Reagan] the nineteen fourteen law that created the FTC says you can only remove a commissioner for inefficiency,
[Reagan] neglect of duty,
[Reagan] or malfeasance.
[Reagan] She didn't do any of those things; she just disagreed with the president.
[Rush Lindell] So the real question before the court is whether Humphreys Executor-the nineteen thirty five precedent that said for cause protections are constitutional-gets overruled.
[Rush Lindell] And that's not a slam dunk for either side.
[Reagan] How so?
[Rush Lindell] Ninety years of settled practice,
[Rush Lindell] Congress has built the FTC,
[Rush Lindell] the FEC,
[Rush Lindell] the NLRB,
[Rush Lindell] more than fifty independent agencies,
[Rush Lindell] on the assumption that those protections hold.
[Rush Lindell] The historical argument against overruling is real.
[Rush Lindell] That said,
[Rush Lindell] oral arguments in December had several conservative justices openly questioning whether Humphreys still fits the modern administrative state.
[Rush Lindell] State of State.
[Reagan] SCOTUSblog's read after arguments—the Court seems likely to side with Trump." Chief Justice Roberts signaled the precedent may no longer fit.
[Rush Lindell] And if they do side with Trump,
[Rush Lindell] any president—this one,
[Rush Lindell] the next one—controls every one of those agencies directly—the FTC,
[Rush Lindell] the FEC,
[Rush Lindell] the Fed.
[Reagan] That's the administrative state losing its insulation from whoever just won an election.
[Reagan] And here's my problem with the coverage, or lack of it: Cable news won't spend four minutes on Commissioner Slaughter because she doesn't have a nickname people recognize.
[Rush Lindell] She does now.
[Reagan] Just vibes,
[Reagan] Rebecca.
[Reagan] Doesn't quite roll off the tongue.
[Reagan] But the ruling?
[Reagan] Massive. Every regulatory agency you've ever heard of, and 50 you haven't, hangs on this decision.
[Rush Lindell] That's exactly the pattern across everything we've covered today.
[Rush Lindell] Today, every single case is someone asking,
[Rush Lindell] where does this authority actually begin and end?
[Reagan] Birthright citizenship,
[Reagan] gun rights,
[Reagan] election law,
[Reagan] and now,
[Reagan] who runs the agencies?
[Reagan] Different cases,
[Reagan] same fight.
[Reagan] So,
[Reagan] the verdict's quick and clean.
[Rush Lindell] Let's do it.
[Reagan] Most likely to reshape the midterms.
[Reagan] That's Watson and NRSC—and it's not close.
[Reagan] Mail ballots and party cash,
[Reagan] both landing before November.
[Reagan] Those two cases are the ones that actually move votes and money.
[Rush Lindell] And the justices at oral arguments in Watson signaled they're ready to overturn those late arriving ballots.
[Rush Lindell] Ballot grace periods." SCOTUSblog noted the justices seem ready to side with the RNC on that one,
[Rush Lindell] so watch for it.
[Reagan] Most likely to generate wall to wall cable hysteria wildly disproportionate to the actual ruling:
[Reagan] trans athletes.
[Reagan] The ruling's almost certainly going to be narrow-one state,
[Reagan] one statute-and cable news will frame it like a constitutional amendment.
[Rush Lindell] The legal scope and the media scope of that ruling will have basically nothing
[Speaker 5] to do with each other.
[Rush Lindell] nothing to do with each other.
[Reagan] They never do.
[Rush Lindell] And the ones most likely to be ignored despite serious downstream consequences,
[Reagan] Hemani and Wolford,
[Reagan] the Second Amendment cases,
[Reagan] zero cable coverage,
[Reagan] potentially massive impact on every gun statute in the country that uses a drug user or similar categorical ban.
[Rush Lindell] If Hemani goes broad,
[Rush Lindell] you're looking at constitutional questions that stretch well past Hunter Biden.
[Rush Lindell] And prosecutors across the country will be dealing with the fallout.
[Reagan] And here's what it all adds up to.
[Rush Lindell] Uh-huh.
[Reagan] You just spent an hour on these cases. When the rulings drop and CBS News says they're all expected before July,
[Reagan] you won't need cable news to tell you how to feel.
[Reagan] You'll already know what happened and why.
[Rush Lindell] That's the whole point.
[Rush Lindell] Preparation beats reaction.
[Rush Lindell] The people watching the chyron's tonight are going to be confused.
[Rush Lindell] Just you won't be.
[Reagan] The rulings are coming; you know what they mean.
[Reagan] We'll see you when they land.
[Reagan] All right—that's our full SCOTUS cheat sheet—nine justices,
[Reagan] roughly twenty opinions,
[Reagan] and the clock is almost out.
[Rush Lindell] In everything we cover today—the citizenship eraser,
[Rush Lindell] the nationwide injunction sleeper,
[Rush Lindell] the Second Amendment cases nobody's talking about—all of it lands before the midterms.
[Reagan] That's the whole point of today—when the opinion drops,
[Reagan] you already know what's at stake.
[Reagan] No scrambling,
[Reagan] no waiting for a cable news chyron to tell
[Speaker 5] you what's going on.
[Reagan] ...and to tell you what to think.
[Speaker 4] I'd flag Watson and NRSC as the ones with the most direct midterm impact-mail ballots and coordinated spending both on the table simultaneously.
[Reagan] And the media will spend all week on the trans-athlete case-guaranteed.
[Speaker 4] Probably.
[Reagan] Preparation beats reaction.
[Reagan] That's the show.
[Speaker 4] Thank you for walking through all of it.
[Reagan] Thank you for keeping me honest.
[Reagan] And thank you for listening.
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[Reagan] We'll see you tomorrow.