5-4

5-4

5-4 is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. Hosted by Peter Shamshiri, Rhiannon Hamam, and Michael Liroff, it's a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court's most important landmark cases and an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics. Subscribe to our premium episodes & much more at fivefourpod.com/support 5-4 is a production of Prologue Projects.

Episodes

July 8, 2025 63 mins

CTRL+F for “birthright citizenship” in this majority opinion, and you only get two hits. That’s because Amy Coney Barrett spends thousands of words telling you that the President's evisceration of birthright citizenship from the Constitution isn’t really about birthright citizenship, it’s about nationwide injunctions. 


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The Supreme Court has made life more difficult for trans children, who are already among the most marginalized groups in the country.


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5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh p...

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June 17, 2025 54 mins

The Supreme Court allowed the 20-somethings at DOGE to access your Social Security information. What's the worst that could happen?


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5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh...

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June 10, 2025 41 mins

The Supreme Court just made it easier for Trump to fire heads of independent federal agencies. Unitary executive theory, anyone?


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5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh provid...

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Crime rates are at historic lows, yet year after year, people say that they feel unsafe and believe crime is rising. You can thank the news media with help from corporations and law enforcement narratives. We speak with civil rights lawyer Alec Karakatsanis about his new book, Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News.


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If the Supreme Court can take away constitutional rights from one minority group, it can do it to any of us. Yes, even podcasters. 


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5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh pro...

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Since taking office, Trump has moved quickly to implement his authoritarian agenda. Now, he is asking the Supreme Court to limit the judicial branch by preventing individual judges from blocking his orders.


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The Supreme Court has been stripping away students' free speech rights for decades. They don't want you to think for yourself or speak your mind. You might end up making podcasts like this.


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April 29, 2025 56 mins

Following the 9/11 attacks, both liberal and conservative justices contributed to the rise of some authoritarian powers that the Trump administration is now wielding today.


ERRATA: Henry Blodget is no longer the CEO of Business Insider.

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April 22, 2025 4 mins

The Firm, the legal thriller starring Tom Cruise, shows us that big law is sometimes worse than the literal mob.


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5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial sup...

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April 21, 2025 43 mins
New from Prologue Projects and Pushkin Industries: it's a new edition of Fiasco: Iran-Contra, widely available for the first time ever. New episodes of Fiasco release Mondays, available wherever you get your podcasts. Pushkin+ subscribers can listen to the full season of Iran-Contra, ad-free, now. Find Pushkin+ on the Fiasco show page in Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin.fm/plus. 

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April 15, 2025 51 mins

The Supreme Court under Trump 2.0 is engaging in their favorite pastime: finding convoluted procedural reasons to rule in his favor.


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5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh pr...

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April 8, 2025 51 mins

Finally, the Supreme Court gets to live its dream: being xenophobic and homophobic at the same time.


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5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our re...

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April 1, 2025 4 mins

The Trump administration has moved at breakneck speed to suppress free speech, mass deport hundreds of individuals without due process, and target judges who dare cross him – moves straight out of an authoritarian playbook.


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March 25, 2025 50 mins

While a law may have discriminatory or racist effects—such as diluting the Black vote in a city and rendering those votes essentially meaningless—this does not necessarily mean it was created with malicious intentions. The Supreme Court says that we should assume good faith and not presume that some laws are enacted with racist motives... Sure...


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March 18, 2025 42 mins

How much poop is in our water? The Supreme Court says “not enough.” 


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5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Dustin DeSoto. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our researcher is Jonathan DeBruin, an...

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March 11, 2025 4 mins

Before he was ever a Supreme Court justice, Lewis Powell was an enterprising corporate attorney representing tobacco companies and calling on CEO’s to get off their asses and flood American politics with money.


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February 25, 2025 56 mins

Presidential candidates raised more than $1.6 billion in the 2024 election cycle, but if you think flooding politics with money is bad then you don’t understand FREEDOM OF SPEECH. Thanks to this Supreme Court decision, that pesky problem of an individual donor not being able to give more than $117,000 to political campaigns because of stupid campaign finance laws has now been solved.


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February 18, 2025 42 mins

Crisis pregnancy centers can provide misinformation about healthcare and perform medical procedures without requiring a licensed doctor. Yes, all of that is legal, thanks to the Supreme Court.  


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What do you do if ICE comes to your door? How will Trump enforce his anti-trans orders? Are there risks to podcasting in the age of Trump? You asked some really dark questions, and we have answers.


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