Jamie Raskin’s Harsh New Takedown of Trump Reveals MAGA’s Dark New Aim

In a shockingly brazen move, President Trump is demanding that the Justice Department pay him $230 million stemming from certain federal actions against him. Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, sent a scalding letter to the White House demanding all internal communications on this shakedown. What struck us was the letter’s forceful indictment of Trump’s corruption and criminality: It denounced Trump’s “blatantly illegal and unconstitutional effort to steal $230 million from the American people” and his “outrageous and shocking” effort to “shake down” the Treasury, labeling this straight-up “theft.” We think this whole saga neatly captures the MAGA movement’s newly invigorated goal of securing total impunity for Trump’s escalating lawbreaking. We talked to the University of Michigan’s Leah Litman, author of Lawless, a book on the Supreme Court. We discuss Raskin’s letter, the legal nitty-gritty of Trump’s heist, what it all says about MAGA, and how the Supreme Court brought us to this dangerous moment. Listen to this episode here. A transcript is here.