But how would you describe the Republican majority, the very thin Republican majority and how it has operated over these last several years?

Well, I would say it's not been the most productive, second most productive Congress in history, which is what Mike Johnson has.

I mean, it's been I don't think you need me to tell you it's been an incredibly chaotic past few years, starting with a record setting, you know, balloting of, you know, for Kevin McCarthy in 2023, then going to ousting Kevin McCarthy.

Then, you know, Mike Johnson has been a little bit more stable on the leadership level.

But I think, you know, the two metrics is a little different.

kind of wonky, but if people want to know kind of the wonky metrics to be watching, you know, you can have a lot of qualitative stories about, you know, so-and-so member is mad at other members and they're all kind of fighting and backbiting.

But, you know, the two metrics that I think are really valuable to look at to see, you know, how... cohesive a majority is and whether the leadership is kind of exerting control over the ring and file.

And I don't think that that changes when the dust settles, when things normally get more tribal at the beginning of a new coalition.

But first, I just want to let you share your key takeaways from the term, some of which you shared in your newsletter this morning.

I did, yeah.

I mean, I think my key takeaways, and obviously what I said about this morning was kind of what I think has been kind of the dominant theme of this Supreme Court term, you know, going from October 2025 to here in June 2026, which has been kind of the relationship between Donald Trump and the Supreme Court.

And this, I think, kind of awkward dance that, you know, the president and the Supreme Court justices, obviously a third of whom he appointed, six of whom were appointed by his party.

This kind of awkward dance that has been kind of going on between these two branches of government, obviously for many of the 250 years of our history.

But I think arguably never more so, or at least it's been a long time since to the degree that we've seen under the Trump presidency.

And I would say, you know, my top line takeaway that I talked about in the newsletter this morning is that I do think you see a pretty clear pattern, at least in kind of the Trump related cases before the court.

So do you see it that way, too, that like part of what makes this court look not so ideological and sort of ready to rebut Trump is that it's just that Trump himself is not a conservative a lot of the time?

But first, I just want to let you share your key takeaways from the term, some of which you shared in your newsletter this morning.

What I said about this morning was kind of what I think has been kind of the dominant theme of this Supreme Court term, you know, going from October 2025 to here in June 2026, which has been kind of the relationship between Donald Trump and the Supreme Court.

And this, I think, kind of awkward dance that, you know, the president and the Supreme Court justices, obviously a third of whom he appointed, six of whom were appointed by his party on this kind of awkward dance that has been kind of going on between these two branches of government, obviously for For many of the 250 years of our history, but I think arguably never more so, or at least it's been a long time since to the degree that we've seen under the Trump presidency.

And I would say, you know, my top line takeaway that I talked about in the newsletter this morning is that I do think you see a pretty clear pattern, at least in kind of the Trump related cases before the court.

And the non-Trump related cases, which is that, you know, when Trump kind of has hewed to kind of the traditional principles of the traditional conservative legal movement, he's generally been quite successful.

Obviously, I think the most consequential of those is, you know, you mentioned the decision in Trump v.

Slaughter, which will let the president kind of fire independent agency officials or officials at agencies that we've historically kind of looked at.

So do you see it that way, too, that like part of what makes this court look not so ideological and sort of ready to rebut Trump is that it's just that Trump himself is not a conservative a lot of the time?

Um, so for the time that you've been in journalism covering politics, where have you seen the shift? How have you seen, since we're talking about the erosion of democracy, um, where have you seen the differences from day one to now in your career?

Well, I'll say, I mean obviously there's a lot of shifts over five years, but in terms of the engagement point, I, I, I don't think what I see is a decline in engagement or decline in people paying attention to the news or following what's going on.

I mean, I do think this speaks to a bit of a paradox that we see, I mean, when we ask people in the polls, when we ask people, you know, to describe what they think about politics, what are the words that come to mind? We hear all the words that are coming up now about apathy and about decline in interest and just, "I can't pay attention.

It's, it's too much." And yet you, you juxtapose that with viewership statistics and statistics of people reading newsletters like mine or paying attention to social media or tuning into cable news and you don't see as much of, of that same decline.

In fact, you know, I'm someone, uh, as you noted, you know, I, I've been engaged in politics a, a, a long time, you know, from a very young age, um, you know, long before a lot of my peers were really paying attention to politics.

But certainly since 2016, since the 2016 election, I would say that has not been the case.

I, I was someone who was involved in politics even before that and then ever since then, you know, it's kind of been, uh, I would say a big rush o- of interest.

Do you think there is a, a shared conversation about what it means to live in a democracy right now in the US?

They want to carry out this policy no matter what the courts say.

I think that's right.

I mean, I think I'm sure people remember kind of the Camargo Garcia case was very much in the news a few weeks ago.

And I want to write this piece, I guess, a because as much attention is being paid to that, you know, about a month ago or so has basically almost completely fallen out of the news, despite the fact that he is still in El Salvador.

He's still there.

The terrorism confinement center is the very kind of notorious prison that's gotten a lot of publicity.

He's not there in that prison anymore, but he's just in a different Salvadoran prison, still in El Salvador, where, again, as we said, the U.S. had a legal order protecting him from being sent there, and he's still in that country.

And you're starting to see mortgage rates and car loan rates creep up, I have to think that is going to be applying some pretty negative pressure on his numbers with that category, I have to think.