G7 Meet, Masterpiece Cakeshop, Immigration, Trump's Pardons

Mike and Jay open with a look at the G7 meeting in Quebec, Canada. They agree that President Trump's protectionism is bad policy, though Jay still thinks that the president might be using his tough talk as a negotiating tactic and may not impose long-term tariff barriers. Mike says that President Trump's call to readmit Russia to the group is a horrible idea because, unlike the G7 countries, Russia is not a real democracy. Then it's a discussion of the Supreme Court's 7-2 ruling in the Masterpiece Cakeshop case. The Guys agree that this was a very narrow ruling (in scope, not vote split) and that the Court should have addressed the key free expression issue that was raised. Although Mike is a strong supporter of LGBTQ rights, he thinks the concurrence of Justices Gorsuch and Thomas, which argues that forcing the baker to create a cake for a same-sex wedding is a form of unconstitutional compelled speech, makes some strong points. After that, it's immigration - first the move by House GOP moderates to force a vote on allowing Dreamers to stay in the country legally, and then a discussion of rising illegal border crossing arrests, the wisdom of the Trump administration's 'family separation' and 'zero tolerance' policies, and a big-picture look at what U.S. immigration policy should be. Finally, Mike and Jay talk about President Trump's commutation of Alice Marie Johnson's sentence and his view that he can pardon himself, if he so chooses. Listener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. If you’re interested in supporting the show, go to politicsguys.com/support. Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-politics-guys/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesThe Politics Guys on Facebook | XListener support helps make The Politics Guys possible. You can support us or change your level of support at patreon.com/politicsguys or politicsguys.com/support. On Venmo, we’re @PoliticsGuys.The Politics Guys is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.