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 power to whether any multi-member commission could survive under the government’s theory.

They also examine what a ruling for Trump could mean in practice — from immediate at-will removal of commissioners to the ripple effects on agencies like the FTC, SEC, NLRB, and the Federal Reserve. Finally, they offer a grounded reading of where the Court seems headed and why even the “narrow” options would still reshape the administrative state.

This concludes their two-part series on Trump v. Slaughter. When the decision comes down, they will return with a follow-up episode analyzing the Court’s holding and its implications.

⭐ What They Cover in This Episode

• The Solicitor General’s argument for overruling Humphrey’s Executor
• Why the government describes independent agencies as constitutionally incompatible
• The justices’ concerns about where the unitary executive theory stops
• Sotomayor’s “for now, for now” challenge
• Kagan’s slippery-slope questions
• Gorsuch’s nondelegation angle and the “wolf comes as a wolf” moment
• Barrett and Roberts exploring “narrower” paths
• The debate over single-director vs. multi-member agencies
• How a ruling could affect the FTC, SEC, NLRB, Fed, and beyond
• The range of possible outcomes and what seems most likely