Leah Feiger: And so many have been. Absolutely.
Katie Drummond: So many have been, so my answer has been, this will go through court and it will churn through the legal system, and it will be slow and messy and painful, but that is what the legal system is here to protect and is here to safeguard is our democracy and these checks and balances. This is sort of the last stand, right?
Leah Feiger: Absolutely.
Katie Drummond: The courts are the last stand in terms of our democracy and constitutional integrity. What we are now looking at is the possibility that that may not hold. What would that even begin to look like if that came to pass? I know that you’re not a legal expert in addition to being WIRED’s politics editor, but what have you heard? What have experts told you in the course of your reporting?
Leah Feiger: There’s a lot of people that are saying, “Look, these holds are going to come through. Musk and Trump are going to be appealing them, and then eventually this is going to end in the Supreme Court.” A lot of people are actually taking solace with this. They’re saying, “Yes, the court may be leaning quite Republican ideologically, but these are trained professionals who will understand that these legal systems must be upheld and adhered to.” I’m not as confident in that.
Katie Drummond: Right.
Leah Feiger: I’ll be totally honest. In terms of what happens next, I think that because of, in some ways, the slow march of these court systems, although decisions, even temporary ones, have been coming down really fast, there’s a lot of room to move fast and break things from DOGE’s side meanwhile.
Katie Drummond: Yeah.
Leah Feiger: A lot of these eggs can’t get unscrambled. A lot of these layoffs and firings and foreclosures are … It’s going to be really hard to walk those back once a court is able to finally say, “No, no, no, this just can’t hold.” And that’s—
Katie Drummond: If they can say that at all.
Leah Feiger: If they can say that at all.
Katie Drummond: Right.
Leah Feiger: We’re hearing that concern from experts all across the board right now. We’ve never seen anything like this.
Katie Drummond: We certainly haven’t. Not here in the United States. No.
Leah Feiger: Not here in the United States.
Katie Drummond: Well, in the meantime, we hold our breath. We keep doing the work, and we will keep delivering to all of you, WIRED listeners and WIRED readers, our reporting, what we know as we know it. That is our commitment to you. You can read all the reporting that Leah and her team are doing at WIRED.com. Leah, thank you so much for taking the time to be here with me. I know how busy you are.
Leah Feiger: Thank you so much. I love to talk about government takeovers with you, Katie.
Katie Drummond: Well, now go get a granola bar from my office.
Leah Feiger: About to go steal one immediately.
Katie Drummond: That’s our show for today. We will be back tomorrow with an episode from our regular roundtable, all about the state of dating apps, a little bit of lighthearted counter programming for all of you. If you like what you heard today, make sure to follow Uncanny Valley and rate it on your podcast app of choice. If you’d like to get in touch with any of us for questions, comments, or show suggestions, write to us at uncannyvalley@WIRED.com. Amar Lal at Macro Sound mixed this episode, with engineering support from Jake Lummus. Jordan Bell is our executive producer. Condé Nast’s head of global audio is Chris Bannon, and I’m Katie Drummond, WIRED’s global editorial director. Thank you so much. Bye.
