Sarah Isgur

On today's roundtable, we'll discuss a large number of Americans who say they want substantial change or complete and total upheaval in these midterm elections, and whether the prevailing anti-incumbent and anti-Trump sentiment will lead to a blue wave, a rogue wave, or something else entirely.

And then, is the South Carolina Senate race really competitive? Finally, for Not Worth Your Time, what's a lawyer? I'm joined today by Dispatch editor-in-chief Jonah Goldberg, Advisory Opinions host and SCOTUSblog editor Sarah Isgur, and politics editor and author of our must-read Next Right newsletter, Mike Warren.

Let's dive right in.

[upbeat music] Mike, we're always happy to have you join us for the podcast, but we're especially grateful for Jonah joining us today, coming off of a hellish trip back from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and three hours of sleep.

And we're excited to welcome back Sarah Isgur to weigh in on politics.

Sarah, you've been focused of late on the law and SCOTUS blogging and advisory opinioning, but we wanna pull you back in and do some politics today, so thanks for making time.

I'm living in Texas now, and any time you try to watch any college football game, wall-to-wall Senate ads, so I feel particularly qualified to join today.

Welcome to Advisory Opinions.

I'm Sarah Isgur, that's David French, and have we got maybe the most thrilling, sexiest advisory opinions to date on sealing orders.

And we've got guests to talk about it, Northern District of California Judge Vince Chhabria, and Stanford Law Professor Nora Engstrom are here to discuss all things, the difference between protective orders and sealing orders, and are we over-sealing the heck out of civil litigation, and how would we do it in criminal litigation, and why is Judge Chhabria sanctioning everyone that comes into his courtroom from big law? I love it.

David, we also have some cert grants from the Supreme Court to walk through before they get to oral argument later in the year, and a question from a first-year associate at an AM Law 100 law firm.

Um, so how, how are you doing this? Um, and it's really, really difficult.

So I mean, my, my colleague Sarah Isgur, she has this whole well drawn out theory about how for women you don't want to date the dude who was the most popular or the biggest jock in high school.

You want someone who had to work a little bit because they were socially, you know, just a notch down and learned how to talk to women rather than just having women come to them, and I think there's some real truth there.

But on the, on the job thing, like just out of curiosity, like I remember reading about, particularly with African American women among single moms, is the reason they...

Welcome to Advisory Opinions.

I'm Sarah Isgur, that's David French, and we're going to check in on the Supreme Court.

What's going on on the docket? We've got a new cert petition filed by the Trump administration and some interim docket items that are pending.

How many times did the Supreme Court need to say it, circuit courts? More than once is clearly the answer.

Let's bring in our left, right, and center panel.

On the right, we have Sarah Isgur, senior editor at The Dispatch, host of the Advisory Opinions podcast, and author of Last Branch Standing.

She was also a spokesperson at the Department of Justice during President Trump's first term.

And on the left, for his left, right, and center debut, we have Adam Green.

Congress is where we go to have stable, long term solutions to our political problems as

a whole.

I've been talking with Sarah Isgur and Adam Green, who are putting the right and left in left, right and center today.

We'll be back shortly.

Welcome to Advisory Opinions.

I'm Sarah Isgur.

That's David French.

We have got a pod for you today.

Welcome to Advisory Opinions.

I'm Sarah Isgur, that's David French.

Happy OT 2026, everyone.

The new term of the Supreme Court has officially started.

A new term begins today in Washington, DC.

The justices convened at ten o'clock this morning, and SCOTUSblog's Sarah Isgur, big expert, she joins us today to preview the term and tell us about the cases to come.

We're now just twenty-nine days from the midterm elections.

New York Congressman Mike Lawler joins me at the bottom of the hour.

The lesson is they should elect somebody else.

Don't know that they're going to do that, but that's what it ought to be.

Sarah Isgur from SCOTUSblog is next.

Stay with us.