Has the Supreme Court just made Trump the most powerful president in history?

**Justin** (0:00)
Hello, it's Justin, and you're about to hear Americast. We are delighted to have you with us, and if you enjoy what you hear, please do consider subscribing to the podcast. That way, you'll never miss an episode. Now, on with today.

**Sarah Smith** (0:12)
We've just had some very big news out of the United States Supreme Court, some very important decisions that they've made today, including saying that the president does have the power to fire the heads of so-called independent agencies. That's going to have enormous implications.
Some of the decisions have gone Donald Trump's way, some of them haven't, and there's a furious response from him on social media about that. Taken in the round, has the Supreme Court now expanded the powers of the presidency, given more executive authority to the White House? And what does this tell us about whether the Supreme Court always does what Donald Trump wants or when they're prepared to defy him? Welcome to Americast.

**Justin** (0:55)
Americast.

**Kate Shaw** (0:55)
Americast, from BBC News.

**Justin** (0:58)
You hear that sound?

**Anthony Zurcher** (0:59)
Oh, I think when I hear that sound, it reminds me of money.

**SPEAKER_6** (1:03)
We didn't start this war, but under President Trump, we are finishing it. This is a big cover up, and this administration is engaged in it.

**Justin** (1:10)
This guy has Trump Derangement Syndrome.

**SPEAKER_7** (1:13)
I have four words for you.

**SPEAKER_6** (1:16)
Turn the volume up.

**Sarah Smith** (1:22)
Hello, it's Sarah in the BBC's Washington Bureau.

**Anthony Zurcher** (1:25)
And it's Anthony here at my home, just across the river from you, Sarah in Arlington, Virginia.

**Sarah Smith** (1:29)
It's been another one of those interesting mornings, hasn't it, Anthony, where we've been waiting for rulings from the Supreme Court that could be really very newsworthy. But because we've got no idea what cases they're going to rule on, on which days, we all have to sit glued to their website to see what's happening. And just to explain to any of our Americasters who are wondering how we can all be experts in Supreme Court rulings, the answer is we're not. We have one expert and he's called Anthony Zurcher. And he sits on a Zoom call that the whole of our staff are then glued to. And every time the Supreme Court releases one of its decisions on its website, he explains to us what it means and why that case is so significant. And you had quite a busy morning today, didn't you? Several big cases. What's the takeaway? Good day for Donald Trump, bad day for Donald Trump?

**Anthony Zurcher** (2:18)
I think it's a mixed day for Donald Trump. It was interesting. There were four cases decided today. And in three of those cases, the three liberal justices were actually in the majority. So a kind of a rare day for contentious Supreme Court cases where instead of the traditional kind of six to three conservative liberal divide that we've seen in the court recently on high profile cases, instead of that presenting itself, we saw some interesting coalitions forming on some of these other cases. I mean, the one that did break down six to three, the one that was not surprising all the conservatives stuck together and was the one that Donald Trump will be happiest about.
And that is the case of an FTC, a Democratic FTC commissioner who had been fired for Trump purely because he disagreed with her politics. And the majority, the conservative majority in that opinion said, yeah, the president has broad power, sweeping powers to be able to appoint whoever he wants to these regulatory commissions like the Federal Trade Commission, the Federal Election Commission, a labor board, a nuclear energy regulating commission. And he doesn't have to provide any kind of grounds for why he's pulling these people out. So it reversed a precedent that goes back to Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s. And essentially is going to make US presidents going forward much more powerful when it comes to who does the regulating in these commissions across the board.

**Sarah Smith** (3:46)
How significant is it if the president can fire members of these independent commissions? Because up until today, we thought they were rather protected from presidential influence, didn't we? That the whole point was that they were, as the name says, independent.

**Anthony Zurcher** (3:59)
Right. It's something that Congress had set up more than 100 years ago, where you have these independent commissions that are supposed to be a little bit immune from political currents. In fact, like the FTC, there's a certain number of appointees on the board that are democratic, a certain number that are conservative, and then whoever is the president, Republican or Democrat, they have the deciding appointees. They'll tilt towards the party in power, but also are a little more built-in to be divided, built-in to be independent, and the Supreme Court just tore all that down today.