PAUL BUTLER, HOST: It is Tuesday, July 2, 2024.

We are pleased to welcome you to today’s edition of The world and everything in itGood morning, I'm Paul Butler.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I'm Nick Eicher.

First on the agenda are the Supreme Court's decisions in cases concerning presidential immunity and Idaho's abortion law.

This is the busiest time of the year for our friend and colleague Mary Reichard, but, Mary, thank you for slogging through these monumental decisions, page by page. Let's start first, of course, with the presidential immunity case.

MARY REICHARD: Right, that’s what everyone has been waiting for.

The question was whether the court would weigh in on this: Does the former president enjoy immunity from prosecution for events after the 2020 election? The answer… it depends.

The indictment against President Trump alleges that he conspired to overturn the results, and the six justices agreed by a majority that immunity applies only to “official acts.” It is a novel question, and the lower courts had not analyzed President Trump's alleged conduct here.

The of the Supreme Court Opinion makes clear that a former president has absolute immunity for his core constitutional powers. He is also entitled to immunity for officially Actions and no for unofficially actions.

For a more in-depth analysis, I called Daniel Suhr, a lawyer, court observer and writer for WORLD Opinions.

DANIEL SUHR: The bottom line is that we'll have to wait and see, Mary. This ruling really just provides a framework for some important legal questions, but it doesn't answer the core question that I think the headlines are focused on: What's next for President Trump? And the answer is that the case has to go back to the court for fact-finding.

When the decision was made, some headlines turned hysterical: “Supreme Court endorses presidential dictatorships” is probably the icing on the cake. But this opinion is predictable at first glance: It takes time to apply the rule that presidents are immune from prosecution for some crimes but not for others.

SUHR: The reality is that we are asking the president to do many things at once. He is the head of state, he is the head of government, he is the head of his political party. He can be a candidate for re-election, and he performs all of these tasks in one person when he sits in the situation room and decides on the most important issues of war and peace.

This applies to every president, including President Barack Obama, who cannot be charged with murder even though he ordered drone strikes. Or President Biden, who allowed millions of people to overrun the southern border.

The Supreme Court also made it clear that courts cannot Motives while distinguishing official from unofficial behavior. This would result in mere accusations for political purposes. To give an example: in 1998, in the midst of the Lewinsky scandal, President Bill Clinton authorized missile attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan.

SUHR: And the question is, did he do that to distract from his own political problems? From the affair that he was having? Did you do that because they posed a threat to the United States, or did you do that to create a reporting story that would distract from Monica Lewinsky and the impeachment process?

Something struck me in Justice Sonia Sotomayor's dissent, joined by Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson: It seemed over the top and lacking the usual respect for the majority. Sotomayor wrote, “The President is now king, he is above the law,” and ended with, “Out of fear for our democracy, I dissent.” And she did not write “respectfully dissent,” as is customary.

I asked Suhr about this.

SUHR: It's also their responsibility to model the kind of healthy, respectful dissent that we need more of in our democracy. We hear all the time about the ethics of Justice Alito or the ethics of Justice Thomas. I would like to hear more about the ethics of some of the other members of the Court who model respectful collegiality, who set a positive example for the American people that you can disagree without being unkind. We need more of that in our politics.

In practice, this decision delays things. Aside from Trump's convictions in New York for his criminal prosecution, these and other proceedings will likely be delayed beyond the election.

This is good news for him, but…

SUHR: The bad news for President Trump and the American people is that this process is going to continue beyond Election Day, right? It's going to continue to be on his mind. It's going to continue to weigh on our politics, just like what happened in New York, just like what's happening in Georgia. Unfortunately, as a country, we're just not able to put what happened behind us.

For our second case today, we return to last week’s decision. Moyle v. United States. Idaho has a law that criminalizes most abortions. The Biden administration has filed suit against that state law, arguing that it is overridden by a federal law called the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, which states that hospitals that receive Medicare funding must provide pregnant women with “necessary stabilizing treatment” in emergency situations.

The legal question was whether federal law overrides Idaho's law protecting the unborn.

I called an attorney who had filed an amicus curiae brief in support of Idaho, John Eidsmoe, senior counsel for the Foundation for Moral Law.

JOHN EIDSMOE: Neither a victory nor a defeat. The media has made it seem as if the fact that abortions are now taking place in Idaho is a clear defeat for the pro-life movement, but that is not the case at all.

What happened was a DIG dismissal was issued as imprudent. The Court was divided 3-3-3… with Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch upholding the Idaho law; while Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown-Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor invalidate it; and Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Chief Judge John Roberts preferred to send the case back to federal district court for procedural reasons.

But what has changed since the court accepted the case for review?

EIDSMOE: You said the positions of both sides have evolved somewhat. The Federal Court is now willing to recognize that its law allows doctors who are conscientiously opposed to abortion to not perform it. Idaho acknowledged that its law could allow abortions for the benefit of the mother in circumstances that are not life-threatening, and because the positions of both sides have evolved, the Court must send the case back to the Federal District Court for a thorough review of the facts.

Justice Alito and Justice Jackson both wrote that they would not have dismissed the case…but for different reasons. And…cultural side note: In Justice Jackson's concurrence in part and dissent in part…she used the phrase “pregnant persons” or “pregnant patients” instead of “pregnant woman.” No other justice did so.

That's all for today. More tomorrow. I'm Mary Reichard reporting for WORLD.

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