Legal wonks clash over 'hysterical' Sotomayor dissent: 'That sounds pretty sexist to me'

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Two titans of the American legal system had very different takeaways after Monday's Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity.

Former Trump White House counsel Ty Cobb appeared on CNN to undermine Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent for being big on "hysterical... screaming" — but dry on substance.

The court’s conservative majority ruled 6-3 — three justices were Trump-appointed — to allow for official acts to remain immune from prosecution. They left open the possibility that private acts could be prosecutable.

The decision called into question which acts are deemed official, as the 45th president has claimed in his defense of some of his criminal allegations; specifically the attempt to subvert the 2020 election.

Sotomayor's dissent wrote that the decision by the high court armed the president with monarchy powers to order the elimination of a political rival, a military coup or sell bribes to bidders: "Immune. Immune, immune, immune."

ALSO READ: Why I'm sticking with Joe Biden

"Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done," she wrote. "The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law.”

Cobb forcefully disagreed.

"Her dissent was a little hysterical and it really offered no analysis," he said. "A lot of a lot of screaming, no analysis. And I think that was unfortunate."

Instead, he openly wished Justice Elena Kagan would have taken on pen duties and written the document.

Harvard University constitutional law professor Laurence Tribe came down like a stack of legal tomes on Cobb for the Sotomayor slight.

"I'm afraid much as I respect Ty Cobb — I couldn't disagree more with his characterization of the dissents as 'hysterical,'" he said in a separate setting outside of the company of Cobb. "That sounds pretty sexist to me. There was plenty of analysis, much more analysis."

Tribe proceeded to grade the dissenting opinions with Sotomayor and fellow liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson an A+ and A, though he didn't say who earned which grade.

In a separate dissent, Jackson wrote that she wanted to lay out the “theoretical nuts and bolts of what, exactly, the majority has done today to alter the paradigm of accountability for Presidents of the United States.”

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, Tribe's former student, opposed the dissents and went as far as to accuse the three liberal justices of having misinterpreted the majority's opinion and engaging in "fear mongering."

Roberts wrote that they sought to "strike a tone of chilling doom that is wholly disproportionate to what the Court actually does today."

And he wrote that "like everyone else, the President is subject to prosecution in his unofficial capacity."

Watch the clip below or at this link.

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James Carville schools 'dumb' Kimberly Guilfoyle on what she missed from Melania Trump

Veteran Democratic strategist James Carville said Kimberly Guilfoyle ignored a lesson from first lady Melania Trump, and now she's paying for it.

In Thursday's episode of "Politics War Room," Carville said Guilfoyle, Trump's ambassador to Greece, should have gotten her money up front the way the first lady did instead of billing a donor after the fact.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Guilfoyle pressed Trump donor Eric Deters to wire $100,000 to her American Express account days before her confirmation hearing.

"I told you to take your lessons from Melania," Carville said. "Now you asking some guy for $100,000 after the fact and then he leaks. How dumb can you be?"

"You see, Melania gets the money up front, she gets the prenup," he added.

Carville also mocked Guilfoyle's split from Donald Trump Jr., who he said had moved on with "a socialite philanthropist." He claimed embassy staff was "leaking on you like a sieve" about her parties and expenses.

"They send your fat a— over to Greece and they forget about you," he said. "Your job security after the next 60 days ain't s—."

Carville then turned to the rest of Trump's orbit. He predicted Democrats would win in 2026 and 2028 and would pursue congressional hearings into the Trump administration.

"Subpoenas are going to be flying everywhere," he said. "It's all coming. You're all going down."

He urged White House staff to start cooperating before the midterms, warning that the alternative was legal fees, testimony and court dates.

"You people got a little bit of time between now and November 3 to try to get yourself right," Carville said. "Your future is put your right hand in the air and testify and don't lie 'cause you'll put your a— in jail."

He closed with a final warning.

"You better leak. You better do everything that you can to get right because the ice pick cometh," he said.

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Trump rigs kids’ piggy banks so billionaires can dump falling stock on them: analyst

A quiet change to President Donald Trump's namesake savings program for children amounts to a gift for billionaires, according to an economic analyst.

In an article for The Bulwark on Thursday, economics columnist Catherine Rampell said the Trump administration now allows wealthy donors to stock Trump Accounts with shares of individual companies, which families have no way to turn down. In effect, "our president is helping rich donors offload overvalued stocks onto children, who are forced to hold the stocks for five years whether they want to or not."

Trump Accounts were created by last year's "One Big Beautiful Bill," which set up tax-deferred savings for every American child and seeded newborns' accounts with $1,000 in federal money. The Trump administration recently auto-enrolled every eligible child, pushing participation past 70 million.

Rampell credited that fix, noting that the concept of "baby bonds" once drew support from both Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). But she said last week's rule change turned an inoffensive idea into something far more troubling.

Under the new rule, donors may give stock grants to groups of at least 5,000 children in a given age bracket and region. SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell has already pledged shares of Elon Musk's company to millions of kids. Recipients generally cannot sell donated shares for five years.

Rampell argued that the lockup works in donors' favor. Executives tend to unload stock when they expect it to drop, and a donation lets them claim a deduction on shares that might soon lose much of their value.

"And in this case, the gift recipient is a captive audience, which may help set a sort of price floor on a falling stock," Rampell wrote.

She also questioned whether the policy is legal, pointing out that Congress limited the accounts to low-cost index funds tracking U.S. companies. Families who object to owning a weapons maker, a casino operator or a company their employer forbids them to hold have no recourse.

Rampell also pointed to the regulation itself, which states donors hope a five-year holding period may lead families to "feel that they have a stake in the fate of the corporation."

"They just...said it out loud," she wrote.

"In short, this is about enlisting American kids in Trump-style transactionalism, right from birth," Rampell concluded.

MAGA candidate smacked with the 'most brutal' debate attack: 'Devastating'

A Republican Senate hopeful absorbed a debate-stage takedown that political observers are calling one of the harshest they've ever seen.

Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) faced off against Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) Thursday night during their first debate in Georgia's closely watched Senate race, telling the Republican, "If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club."

Ossoff tied the line to a social media post from Collins. "This is a man who cheered on a group of young men who were mocking a Black woman on a college campus," Ossoff said. Collins kept his head down and appeared to be jotting notes during Ossoff's attacks, per video from independent journalist Aaron Rupar.

"The full response from Ossoff is maybe the most brutal line of attack I've seen delivered on a debate stage," Punchbowl News senior reporter Brendan Pedersen wrote in a post on X.

"This is about as devastating a soundbite as I've ever seen," declared Jack Miller, the former communications director for the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

"Watched lots of footage of civil rights protests in GA, AL and MS in the 1960s," chimed in Ron Filipkowski, the editor-in-chief of the MeidasTouch political news network. "Maybe some of you were there. Mike Collins acts, talks and behaves like a small town sheriff with a club in 1963 after the fire hoses got done."

"Just complete and utter evisceration of, coupled with palpable hatred for, his opponent," pollster Adam Carlson applauded. "You simply have to tip your cap."

"Going straight for his neck d— lol," laughed Drop Site News Capitol Hill reporter Julian Andreone.

"I mean, d—," reacted Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA). "That's a wrap."

Earlier in the debate, Ossoff went after Collins on allegations of white nationalist ties and called for Collins to release all communications between Kip Talley, Collins' former chief of staff, and a group that included white nationalists Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer. He also hit Collins over social media posts in which his son-in-law promoted white nationalist content.

"You hired half the Third Reich to staff your office," Ossoff said.


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