Why Is This Happening? With Chris Hayes

The future of our courts will be decided in the 2020 election. While the Trump administration grabs headlines with scandal after scandal, gaffe after gaffe, behind the scenes they are quietly chipping away at their central agenda of reshaping the courts. It’s a transformation happening at an historic rate, where one in four circuit judges is now a Trump appointee. They’ve already flipped the balance of the Supreme Court to a 5-4 conservative majority. If given another four years, Donald Trump would lock down the federal judiciary for decades to come. Senior legal correspondent for Slate Dahlia Lithwick has reported on all of this. From the President’s affinity for using the courts as a weapon to the changed dynamic of the Supreme Court in the wake Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Lithwick documents what the rule of law looks like in the Trump years. Listen as we discuss exactly what’s at stake this November.RELATED:Why I Haven’t Gone Back to SCOTUS Since Kavanaugh by Dahlia LithwickTrump’s Lawyers’ Impeachment