In this episode, Gwen and Marc break down the Supreme Court’s oral argument in Trump v. Slaughter, the case that could upend nearly a century of precedent on independent agencies. Building on Part 1’s explanation of how the case reached the Court, this episode examines what happened in the courtroom: the justices’ questions, the strategies on both sides, and the constitutional stakes that hovered over every exchange.

They walk through the Solicitor General’s forceful attack on Humphrey’s Executor, including his description of the precedent as a “decaying husk,” and the Court’s repeated efforts to understand where the limits of the unitary executive theory might lie. Gwen and Marc explore sharp exchanges with Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson, Barrett, Roberts, Gorsuch, and Alito, from concerns about the scope of executive ...