# Gambling Away the Future: Kalshi, SCOTUSBlog, and Trump’s Bet on the Midterms \[SUBSCRIBER-ONLY\]

An episode of [5-4](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1497785843), 4 Aug 2026, 4:48.

Audio: https://pscrb.fm/rss/p/clrtpod.com/m/audio4.redcircle.com/episodes/24c89972-a782-4031-9537-8879a8b68a87/stream.mp3

Peter, Rhiannon, and Michael take a break from case law to discuss the possibility of stolen midterms, the evil lawyers defending Kalshi and Polymarket, and SCOTUSBlog’s subtle conservative makeover. If you're not a 5-4 Premium member, you're not hearing every episode! To hear this and other Premium-only episodes, access to our Slack community, and more, join at fivefourpod.com/support. 5-4 is presented by Prologue Projects. This episode was produced by Alli Rodgers. Leon Neyfakh provides editorial support. Our website was designed by Peter Murphy. Our artwork is by Teddy Blanks at Chips NY, and our theme song is by Spatial Relations. Transcriptions of each episode are available at fivefourpod.com Follow the show at @fivefourpod on most platforms. On BlueSky, find Peter @notalawyer.bsky.social, Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social, and Rhiannon @aywarhiannon.bsky.social. Our Sponsors: * Check out Mint Mobile and use my code mintmobile.com/fivefour for a great deal: https://www.mintmobile.com * Check out Quince and use my code FIVEFOUR for a great deal: https://www.quince.com Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands

## Transcript

[0:04] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Hey everyone!
[0:05] \[SPEAKER_02\]: This is Leon from Prologue Projects.
[0:07] \[SPEAKER_02\]: For this subscriber only episode of 5-4, Peter, Reannon, and Michael, been taking a spin.
[0:13] \[SPEAKER_02\]: There's some of the biggest legal stories in the news.
[0:16] \[SPEAKER_02\]: There is a collection interference in the midterms.
[0:19] \[SPEAKER_02\]: Minnesota's lawsuit against the gambling app, sorry, prediction market platform, calcium, creeping changes that go to Splogue, and more.
[0:27] \[SPEAKER_02\]: This is 5-4, a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks.
[0:36] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Welcome to 5 to 4, where we dissect and analyze the Supreme Court cases that have destroyed our civil rights.
[0:41] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Like Barry Weiss is destroying CBS news.
[0:44] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I'm Peter.
[0:44] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I'm here with a reality.
[0:45] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Zero out of five stars are like, what's the performance review looking like, you know, bad, bad, bad over there?
[0:52] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I think she's doing great, I think she's doing great.
[0:54] \[SPEAKER_03\]: You just hate to see powerful Lesbian succeed.
[0:57] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Introduce Michael.
[0:58] \[SPEAKER_03\]: The first person to get introduced shouldn't talk so much.
[1:01] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Frank, that's just sorry.
[1:02] \[SPEAKER_03\]: That's part of the format.
[1:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I should have just said, hey, so don't blame me.
[1:05] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You're right.
[1:06] \[SPEAKER_01\]: You're right.
[1:06] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Also, Michael is here.
[1:08] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Hey everybody.
[1:08] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Alright.
[1:10] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I am here.
[1:12] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Women speak on this podcast.
[1:15] \[SPEAKER_01\]: That's right.
[1:16] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Someone's going to talk shit about Barry Weiss.
[1:17] \[SPEAKER_00\]: It's going to be reaned.
[1:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: exactly.
[1:19] \[SPEAKER_01\]: I'm first in line broke.
[1:23] \[SPEAKER_03\]: We're recording this not too long after the higher of Ross doubt it.
[1:29] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Ross doubt that poached from the New York Times when we were arc for a boy.
[1:35] \[SPEAKER_03\]: He's been at the time since he was like 29 which blows my mind.
[1:38] \[SPEAKER_03\]: He's like 45 or something.
[1:40] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Before that he was just like a national review guy.
[1:42] \[SPEAKER_03\]: These guys are just just
[1:44] \[SPEAKER_03\]: kissed by sunshine do just like you're writing like bullshit conservative nonsense for national review and then the New York Times hires you and then God knows how much we are Barry's paying him right must be a fortune.
[1:56] \[SPEAKER_00\]: I do think he's going to be a disaster though right like these are not translatable skills being good at writing op-eds which it's debatable whether he's good at writing op-eds but writing op-eds period of any quality.
[2:09] \[SPEAKER_00\]: There's nothing to do with being good on camera.
[2:12] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Well, the times has been putting him on camera like video podcast format for their podcast.
[2:18] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah, he's been interviewing some characters.
[2:21] \[SPEAKER_00\]: Yeah.
[2:22] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And I would say it's unpleasant to look at.
[2:24] \[SPEAKER_03\]: As a consumer, like I watch New York Times podcast, like opinion podcasts because I'm a little the bait pervert.
[2:32] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I've got a brainworm.
[2:33] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I mean, he is there's no way there's no other way to put it.
[2:36] \[SPEAKER_03\]: He's an ugly man.
[2:37] \[SPEAKER_03\]: It's hard to look.
[2:38] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And I feel like the powers that be are doing this stuff on purpose.
[2:41] \[SPEAKER_03\]: They're like, look at him.
[2:45] \[SPEAKER_03\]: You have to you have to look at him.
[2:47] \[SPEAKER_03\]: We don't even know what he's going to do yet, right?
[2:49] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Then what his role is.
[2:51] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I'm picturing like an Andy Rooney segment.
[2:53] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Totally.
[2:53] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I get to know what it looks like a few minutes with Andy Rooney or whatever it is.
[2:56] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And he's like, what's up with women dressing like whores or something right?
[3:00] \[SPEAKER_01\]: What is up with borders?
[3:02] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Then how poor is they are?
[3:03] \[SPEAKER_01\]: It's scaring me and my family.
[3:05] \[SPEAKER_03\]: doing an Andy Rooney bit but it's like complaining about abortion would be funny and if they do that I respect it a lot actually just at the desk messy desk is like oh women having choices right complaining about women in the workplace and the camera is like panning over to like an intern like female intern or whatever.
[3:24] \[SPEAKER_01\]: or his literal producer.
[3:26] \[SPEAKER_01\]: Yeah.
[3:26] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Yeah.
[3:27] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Yeah.
[3:27] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I have a bit in my head where he does a women ruining the workplace thing, which he's he's done.
[3:33] \[SPEAKER_03\]: He's not saying yes they are.
[3:34] \[SPEAKER_03\]: He's just just investigating this cultural idea.
[3:38] \[SPEAKER_03\]: He's wondering.
[3:39] \[SPEAKER_03\]: But it would be funny to do that exact thing except your only example is Barry Weiss at CBS, right?
[3:44] \[SPEAKER_03\]: And that's the whole thing, man.
[3:47] \[SPEAKER_03\]: All right, today we're doing a bit of a grab bag episode.
[3:50] \[SPEAKER_03\]: There are a few things we want to talk about.
[3:52] \[SPEAKER_03\]: A few news items, topics of interest, floating in the ether that we wanted to grab out.
[3:58] \[SPEAKER_03\]: One of them is the midterm elections.
[4:00] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Are they going to be stolen?
[4:03] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Every summer before the elections, we have to have an episode that's like, are they about to be stolen?
[4:09] \[SPEAKER_03\]: It's something we're about to have the folks.
[4:10] \[SPEAKER_03\]: If you want to hear the rest of this episode, you're going to have to subscribe.
[4:14] \[SPEAKER_03\]: This episode is one of our premium Patreon only episodes.
[4:17] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Membership starts at just five bucks a month.
[4:19] \[SPEAKER_03\]: If you want to hear the rest join us at patreon.com slash five four pod.
[4:23] \[SPEAKER_03\]: That's five four pod.
[4:24] \[SPEAKER_03\]: I'll spell that.
[4:26] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Members get a bunch of stuff not only do you get access to the premium episodes but access to subscriber-only events discounts on merch and at the $10 a month level you get bigger discounts on merch and membership in the incredibly rowdy five to four slack.
[4:41] \[SPEAKER_03\]: So again that's patreon.com slash five four pod five four pod all spelled out.
[4:47] \[SPEAKER_03\]: Become a member today.

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