# America Has a King Now

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/political-gabfest-500617/america-has-a-king-now
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/political-gabfest-500617/america-has-a-king-now.md
Podcast: [Political Gabfest](https://stenobird.com/podcast/political-gabfest-500617)
Published: 2026-07-02T21:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/political-gabfest/episodes/america-has-a-king-now
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/696568de9ab39048a63ed7f7/e/6a46aed5ecd1239143dcabf1/media.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/political-gabfest-500617/episodes/america-has-a-king-now
Duration seconds: 3733

## Resource

This week, Emily Bazelon, David Plotz, and guest host Ruth Marcus discuss this week's momentous Supreme Court rulings. The FTC/ Slaughter case overturns nearly a century of precedent protecting independent agencies from presidential power while Cook makes a suspicious exception for the Fed, birthright citizenship prevails on constitutional grounds but the close vote further reveals what's broken at the Court, and the Court rules against transgender people, again, by upholding state bans on trans athletes. For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, David, and guest host Ruth Marcus discuss how Trump's rally-turned-fireworks-delay, a militarized downtown, and a rebranded "Freedom 250" have turned DC's festivities into a loyalty test. They ponder whether skipping DC's fireworks means ceding the flag to Trump and if attending old-fashioned local cookouts and parades is the more patriotic move.   In the latest Gabfest Reads , Emily Bazelon talks with Senator Chris Murphy about his new book, Crisis of the Common Good: The Fight for Meaning and Connection in a Broken America . Murphy lays out a provocative agenda for Democrats to call Americans to national service, break up corporate power, rebuild local communities, and create a bigger tent that reaches disaffected conservatives hungry for change.   Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)   Podcast production by Nina Porzucki   Research by Emily Ditto You can find the full Political Gabfest show pages here .   Want more Political Gabfest? Join Slate Plus to unlock weekly bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. You can subscribe directly f…

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/political-gabfest-500617/episodes/america-has-a-king-now/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/political-gabfest-500617/america-has-a-king-now.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.