Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / Surging Support to Save College Sports, plus Mollie Hemingway on the Great Justice Sam Alito

Transcript

Surging Support to Save College Sports, plus Mollie Hemingway on the Great Justice Sam Alito · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome in is Verdict with Center Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson
0:03
Speaker 1: with you, and if you're listening on radio stations across
0:05
Speaker 1: the country, it's really nice to have you with us.
0:07
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Speaker 2: In this episode of many of them are also on.
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Speaker 1: channel Vertict with Tech Cruse there and you can watch
0:21
Speaker 1: every single episode Center. We've got a lot to talk about,
0:24
Speaker 1: including big news for the sports world, and we've got
0:27
Speaker 1: some Supreme Court news coming up as well in the show.
0:29
Speaker 3: Well, this week I shared a hearing on college sports
0:33
Speaker 3: and saving college sports, and we've talked before on Verdict
0:37
Speaker 3: about how college sports is in crisis right now. It
0:39
Speaker 3: is chaos. You've got an out of control transfer portal
0:41
Speaker 3: with athletes transferring three four, five times. You've got people
0:46
Speaker 3: playing until they're twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight years old.
0:49
Speaker 3: You've got people with six seven years of playing time.
0:53
Speaker 3: You have virtually every athletics program in the country losing
0:57
Speaker 3: money and losing millions or even tens of millions of
0:59
Speaker 3: day dollar. Schools are going broke. They're canceling programs every week.
1:03
Speaker 3: You're seeing women's sports getting canceled. You're seeing Olympic sports
1:07
Speaker 3: getting canceled. You're seeing your favorite tennis getting canceled. That
1:10
Speaker 3: happened at Arkansas just a few weeks ago. And it
1:14
Speaker 3: is if we don't act, we're going to see much
1:20
Speaker 3: of college sports decimated and destroyed. And so last week
1:23
Speaker 3: I introduced bipartisan legislation with Maria Cantwell. Maria Cantwell's a
1:28
Speaker 3: Democrat from Washington State. She is the ranking member, the
1:31
Speaker 3: senior Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee. I'm the chairman
1:34
Speaker 3: of the Senate Commerce Committee. This week, we had a
1:36
Speaker 3: big hearing and we heard testimony from leaders in college
1:41
Speaker 3: athletics about the urgency of solving the crisis. Now. One
1:45
Speaker 3: of our witnesses was coach Nick Saban, the legendary coach
1:49
Speaker 3: of Alabama, and Coach Saban's testimony was was incredibly powerful.
1:55
Speaker 3: And give a listen to a little bit of Coach
1:57
Speaker 3: Nick Saban on why Congress needs to pass or protect
2:02
Speaker 3: College Sports Act.
2:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, before we get to that, though, I want to
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Speaker 1: pay your bill. All right, let's play for you Nick
3:53
Speaker 1: Saban part of what he had to say in front
3:55
Speaker 1: of your committee. Hearing it truly was impressive to hear
3:58
Speaker 1: him talk about sports es actually in front of Congress.
4:01
Speaker 2: Take a listen, Cooba.
4:03
Speaker 4: Let me give you the history. My first year, we
4:05
Speaker 4: had collective at Alabama two point seven million, Next year
4:09
Speaker 4: seven million, next year ten million. I'll retire next year
4:12
Speaker 4: of seventeen million, next year twenty four million. Now you
4:15
Speaker 4: have schools that have close to forty million dollar rosters.
4:19
Speaker 4: So if we continue to do that, we're gonna lose
4:22
Speaker 4: Olympic sports, We're gonna lose non revenue sports, We're gonna
4:25
Speaker 4: lose scholarships. And basically what's going to happen is We're
4:28
Speaker 4: gonna have football and basketball succeed, and then we'll have club
4:31
Speaker 4: sports for everything else.
4:34
Speaker 1: He's not wrong, by the way, Center, I was in
4:36
Speaker 1: one of those non money making sports tennis, right, You
4:39
Speaker 1: had a lot of friends that you that you get
4:41
Speaker 1: to know that are in those Olympic sports, for example,
4:43
Speaker 1: that would all disappear. And when you think about having
4:45
Speaker 1: a college roster at eighty million, if you're a student athlete,
4:49
Speaker 1: that in theory sounds great, but that's only in two sports.
4:52
Speaker 1: Really the majority of that eighty you know you're talking
4:54
Speaker 1: about Alabama. I mean, there's not that much in basketball,
4:57
Speaker 1: I promise you at Alabama. So unless you pick football,
5:00
Speaker 1: you're left behind. And that's the reason why you're taking
5:03
Speaker 1: this action now and why Saban was saying what he
5:05
Speaker 1: was saying at the time.
5:07
Speaker 3: Well, and that there's only a handful of powerhouses that
5:11
Speaker 3: generate and can dominate football, and so what if we
5:15
Speaker 3: don't act. I think within five years we will see
5:18
Speaker 3: thirty to fifty colleges that have a football program and
5:22
Speaker 3: they'll basically be an NFL and the rest of the schools,
5:26
Speaker 3: their programs will be obliterated. And there are a lot
5:29
Speaker 3: of reasons that's tragic. One is just sports brings us together.
5:32
Speaker 3: Sports is so much fun. Look, we're divided on so
5:35
Speaker 3: many issues today. We scream at each other where we're
5:38
Speaker 3: like it really is hard to find common ground. And
5:42
Speaker 3: yet you can go cheer on your alma mater and
5:44
Speaker 3: you can be there with people of different parties, people
5:46
Speaker 3: of different races, people have different religions, and you're all
5:49
Speaker 3: standing together. That's really important. Every bit as critical as
5:53
Speaker 3: that is. College sports is an amazing avenue for education
6:00
Speaker 3: for millions of young men and women. And until I
6:02
Speaker 3: really started diving in to this topic and working to
6:06
Speaker 3: save college sports, I hadn't really focused on how college
6:11
Speaker 3: athletics is something that is unique in the United States.
6:14
Speaker 3: No other country has anything remotely resembling what we have
6:19
Speaker 3: here with college sports. There are today more than a
6:22
Speaker 3: half million college athletes right now. Every year. Athletics enables kids,
6:31
Speaker 3: many kids from low income homes, many minority kids, who
6:36
Speaker 3: otherwise might not have had a chance to go to college.
6:39
Speaker 3: It enables them to go to college, to study, to
6:42
Speaker 3: get a degree, to learn skills, to learn hard work
6:45
Speaker 3: and discipline and teamwork and sportsmanship.
6:48
Speaker 2: Accountability, just showing up.
6:50
Speaker 1: I can't tell you how much I learned from just
6:53
Speaker 1: the accountability, which, by the way, made me a better person.
6:55
Speaker 1: It made be better in business, It made me better
6:58
Speaker 1: in my job that I did afterwards. There are so
7:01
Speaker 1: many young men when I was at Old Miss that said,
7:04
Speaker 1: they literally believe they would either have been dead, they
7:07
Speaker 1: would have been in a gang if it wasn't for
7:09
Speaker 1: sports keeping them out of trouble in high school. And
7:12
Speaker 1: then they said, if it wasn't for college and getting
7:14
Speaker 1: that college education, they would have immediately been into bad
7:16
Speaker 1: stuff on the streets. They said that sports actually saved
7:20
Speaker 1: their life, and not only say their life. A lot
7:22
Speaker 1: of them they were the first member of their family
7:24
Speaker 1: to ever go to college, and they went because they
7:26
Speaker 1: were an incredible athlete. It gave them the opportunity, it
7:29
Speaker 1: gave them a free education, it seemed unattainable, and it
7:32
Speaker 1: completely changed their families trajectory in life. I think that's
7:36
Speaker 1: one of the most important things about college sports that
7:38
Speaker 1: people don't talk about now.
7:41
Speaker 3: That is exactly right, and the status quo is unsustainable.
7:45
Speaker 3: If Congress doesn't act, we will end up with hundreds
7:49
Speaker 3: of thousands of those college athletic positions going away and
7:54
Speaker 3: those kids, many of them having no chance to go
7:58
Speaker 3: to school, to go to college, to get those skills,
8:01
Speaker 3: those life skills that set them up for success. And
8:03
Speaker 3: look the way I approach this, I didn't worry too
8:06
Speaker 3: much about about the top one percent. I didn't worry
8:09
Speaker 3: about the Michael Jordan's or Arch mannings. I worried about
8:13
Speaker 3: the ninety nine percent of college athletes who are never
8:15
Speaker 3: going to play pro ball. But it's giving them opportunity.
8:19
Speaker 2: Senator.
8:20
Speaker 1: Also, we've got a guest coming up in a little bit.
8:22
Speaker 1: We're gonna be dealing with the Supreme Court, a best
8:23
Speaker 1: selling book, and Molly Hemingway is going to join us,
8:27
Speaker 1: So make sure you stick around for that. But before
8:28
Speaker 1: we get to that, we're talking about this incredible nil bill.
8:32
Speaker 1: And look, I had a ton of people Centator that
8:34
Speaker 1: were calling me. I had friends and people I've known
8:37
Speaker 1: the past come out of that would work because they
8:38
Speaker 1: knew how important this bill was, they knew how important
8:40
Speaker 1: it was to you. Asking me questions. There was a
8:43
Speaker 1: lot of people saying they're just not gonna be able
8:44
Speaker 1: to get this done. There's no way you'll get by
8:46
Speaker 1: parsonship here. That seems to not be true, and they said, well,
8:49
Speaker 1: there's no way even though he'll be able to get
8:50
Speaker 1: the White House behind it.
8:51
Speaker 2: That also doesn't seem to be true either.
8:53
Speaker 1: There is a lot of growing bypartson support here to
8:56
Speaker 1: get this thing done.
8:58
Speaker 3: Well, there is, and and I worked for months, Rick
9:02
Speaker 3: Cantwell and I negotiated. We sat in the conference room
9:05
Speaker 3: six eight hours a day negotiating provision by provision by provision.
9:08
Speaker 3: We introduced it with Cantwell and myself a Democrat and Republican,
9:13
Speaker 3: and also with Eric Schmidt, a Republican from Missouri, and
9:18
Speaker 3: Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware. So we had two Democrats,
9:21
Speaker 3: two Republicans on the bill, and we've seen phenomenal support
9:24
Speaker 3: for it. So the ACC has come out emphatically in
9:28
Speaker 3: support of it, The Big Twelve has come out emphatically
9:31
Speaker 3: and support of it. Condoleeza Rice at Stanford has come
9:35
Speaker 3: out emphatically in support of it. At the hearing. Pete Bavaqua,
9:39
Speaker 3: the athletic director at Notre Dame, testified strongly in support
9:43
Speaker 3: of it. Gordon Gee testified at the hearing. Former president
9:47
Speaker 3: of West Virginia University also Vanderbilt, has been a president
9:50
Speaker 3: of actually five universities. He testified that this is a
9:53
Speaker 3: crisis and this bill is the only hope to save
9:56
Speaker 3: college sports. And we've had already. We've had over one
10:03
Speaker 3: hundred and thirty signatures from leaders at more than sixty
10:06
Speaker 3: five universities come out in support of the bill. And importantly,
10:10
Speaker 3: this week President Donald J. Trump came out strongly in
10:13
Speaker 3: support of the bill. He's he sent a truth social
10:16
Speaker 3: that I want to read to you. Here's what he said.
10:19
Speaker 3: College sports, a great American institution that produces our many athletes, leaders,
10:23
Speaker 3: and Olympic dominance is a total mess, and everyone is
10:27
Speaker 3: saying that it must be fixed. After uninny lawsuits and
10:30
Speaker 3: crazed rulings, there are virtually no limits anymore, and soon
10:34
Speaker 3: most colleges won't have sports because each and every one
10:36
Speaker 3: of them will be bankrupt, never to be heard from again.
10:40
Speaker 3: Women's sports and the Olympics itself are in the most
10:44
Speaker 3: danger from this catastrophic situation. College sports are turning into
10:48
Speaker 3: pro sports, except with absolutely no rules, a result no
10:53
Speaker 3: one wants. University presidents, conference commissioners, student athletes, coaches, and
10:58
Speaker 3: athletic directors complain to me that it has become a disaster.
11:03
Speaker 3: After years of no action and that schools were losing
11:07
Speaker 3: hundreds of millions of dollars a year. They compared it
11:11
Speaker 3: to a freight train that can't be stopped. That is
11:14
Speaker 3: why a few months ago I convened a roundtable, bringing
11:18
Speaker 3: together were a world class team as some of the
11:20
Speaker 3: best sports executives, student athletes, and political leaders in our country.
11:25
Speaker 3: The goal was to find a bipartisan solution to fix
11:28
Speaker 3: the problem. Based on these meetings and the expertise of
11:31
Speaker 3: the leading authorities, I signed an executive order, but I
11:34
Speaker 3: always said that the best solution was to get a
11:36
Speaker 3: bipartisan act through Congress to my desk in order to
11:42
Speaker 3: save a long and embarrassing road through hell for these institutions.
11:48
Speaker 3: I'd like to thank Senators Ted Cruz, Eric Schmidt, Maria Cantwell,
11:52
Speaker 3: and Chris Coons, among others, for introducing the Protect College
11:56
Speaker 3: Sports Act. This law resolves many of the most urgent
12:00
Speaker 3: issues challenging our universities and student athletes, stops the chaos,
12:05
Speaker 3: and most importantly, it may be the last chance to
12:09
Speaker 3: save college sports and colleges themselves before it's too late.
12:13
Speaker 3: The House has worked long and hard on this issue
12:15
Speaker 3: as well, and I'm very grateful to Speaker Mike Johnson
12:18
Speaker 3: and Leader Steve Scalise for their work to fix this
12:21
Speaker 3: very major problem. I urge the House and Senate to
12:24
Speaker 3: come together to pass a final bipartisan law that I
12:28
Speaker 3: can sign this summer that reflects the views and input
12:32
Speaker 3: of both chambers and in all caps, we have to
12:36
Speaker 3: save college sports. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
12:40
Speaker 3: President Donald J. Trump. The support we're seeing is really significant,
12:45
Speaker 3: and I think we're going to see I hope and believe,
12:49
Speaker 3: a big bipartisan vote in the Senate behind this bill.
12:52
Speaker 1: What's the timeline now and how much is there going
12:55
Speaker 1: to be people pushing since now this has become so,
12:58
Speaker 1: you know, such a big discussion change things the last minute.
13:01
Speaker 2: Is that going to be a problem And what does
13:03
Speaker 2: that look like?
13:03
Speaker 4: Oh?
13:04
Speaker 3: Look, that is going on. And there are a handful
13:08
Speaker 3: of people that are criticizing and throwing rocks, But I'll
13:10
Speaker 3: tell you most people are shocked that we could actually
13:13
Speaker 3: find a bipartisan compromise and and and and listen, one
13:18
Speaker 3: of the natures of that that means that that I
13:20
Speaker 3: had to give quite a bit and and and the
13:22
Speaker 3: Democrats had to give quite a bit to find a
13:25
Speaker 3: common ground, because we can't pass this bill unless you
13:28
Speaker 3: get at least sixty votes in the Senate. That means
13:31
Speaker 3: you need at least seven Democrats. There are only fifty
13:34
Speaker 3: three Republicans, and my objective, frankly, is to get a
13:37
Speaker 3: lot more than sixty votes. I'd like to see a
13:40
Speaker 3: big bipartisan vote come out of the Senate. The House
13:43
Speaker 3: has tried several times to fix this problem, and unfortunately,
13:48
Speaker 3: every time they tried to take up a bill, it's
13:49
Speaker 3: failed in the House. And and so I think the
13:52
Speaker 3: Senate has got to step in because the clock is ticking.
13:56
Speaker 3: And I will say that that there's a real risk
13:59
Speaker 3: also of the biggest players coming together to form a
14:03
Speaker 3: super league, and I think that would be disastrous for
14:07
Speaker 3: everybody else and not good for fans. Let's take my
14:11
Speaker 3: home state of Texas. Look my home state of Texas.
14:14
Speaker 3: If Congress does nothing in three to five years, I
14:18
Speaker 3: am certain that the University of Texas will survive. And
14:21
Speaker 3: I'm certain A and M will survive. They're so big,
14:23
Speaker 3: they have such a big donor base and alumni base.
14:27
Speaker 3: They'll survive no matter what happens. But it's not at
14:30
Speaker 3: all clear that the other players in Texas survive. It's
14:33
Speaker 3: not clear that TCU or SMU or University of Houston
14:37
Speaker 3: or Rice, or Texas Tech or Baylor, all of the
14:40
Speaker 3: different programs in Texas, they could go under in the
14:43
Speaker 3: status quote, I think that would be a terrible outcome
14:46
Speaker 3: if we lose historic programs all over Texas, not just football.
14:51
Speaker 3: But when you lose football, football pays for all the
14:54
Speaker 3: other sports. So when you lose football, you end up
14:57
Speaker 3: losing the entire array of sports. That would be tragic
15:01
Speaker 3: and we can't let it happen.
15:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're absolutely right there.
15:04
Speaker 1: If people want to get behind this legislation is just
15:07
Speaker 1: one of those where they talk to their senators and
15:09
Speaker 1: their congressman.
15:09
Speaker 2: Who do they need to contact quickly?
15:11
Speaker 3: Look, the first order of business is your senator and
15:15
Speaker 3: urging your senator, whether your senator is a Republican or Democrat,
15:18
Speaker 3: urging your senator get behind this bill, the Bipartisan Protect
15:22
Speaker 3: College Sports Act. There's an urgency. I am hoping to
15:25
Speaker 3: move quickly on this. I'd like to get a big
15:28
Speaker 3: vote in the Senate. Once we get it out of
15:29
Speaker 3: the Senate, then the next up will be the House.
15:31
Speaker 3: But calling your senator going on social media speaking out
15:35
Speaker 3: and saying that sports college sports should be saved. That's
15:39
Speaker 3: really valuable.
15:40
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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court pretty much more than anybody I know
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Speaker 1: in my sphere, and any book that comes out about
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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court, it's like you're a moth to a flame.
17:35
Speaker 1: We've got a really exciting guest now who's also diving
17:37
Speaker 1: into the Supreme Court just like you up too. You've
17:39
Speaker 1: got your new book coming out on Clarence Thomas.
17:42
Speaker 2: So you're in DC. Why don't you introduce our guests
17:44
Speaker 2: for us today.
17:45
Speaker 3: Well, sure, we are very glad to welcome to Verdict.
17:48
Speaker 3: Molly Hemingway. Molly Hemingway is the editor in chief of
17:51
Speaker 3: the Federalist. She is an award winning journalist. She is
17:55
Speaker 3: a best selling author, and she has a brand new
17:58
Speaker 3: book that is a best seller it is called Alito,
18:01
Speaker 3: the justice who reshaped the Supreme Court and restored the Constitution. Molly,
18:06
Speaker 3: Welcome to Verdict.
18:06
Speaker 5: It's great to be here with you.
18:08
Speaker 3: So let's start with this. What caused you to write
18:11
Speaker 3: a book to tell Justice Alito's story? These are obviously
18:14
Speaker 3: very consequential times. He's an historic justice. But what caused
18:17
Speaker 3: you to say that you wanted to do a biography
18:21
Speaker 3: of Justice Alito?
18:21
Speaker 5: Well, there are a few different things. We know so
18:23
Speaker 5: much about so many of the justices, they've written books
18:26
Speaker 5: about themselves, there are other books about them. There's nothing
18:29
Speaker 5: almost nothing about Justice Alito out there, even though his
18:32
Speaker 5: own colleagues will tell you. Is this giant on the court.
18:36
Speaker 5: And he has a particular approach to originalism that I
18:39
Speaker 5: think is interesting for this current moment. We're in that
18:44
Speaker 5: doctrine about how you interpret the Constitution according to its
18:47
Speaker 5: original meaning. There are a majority of justices who self
18:50
Speaker 5: identify as originalists. He's a little different than some of
18:53
Speaker 5: his colleagues. So I wanted to explore that, And I
18:55
Speaker 5: also wanted to look into that dops leak and dig
18:59
Speaker 5: into what happened there and who people thought was involved,
19:02
Speaker 5: and any more on that, Well, that's a.
19:04
Speaker 2: Million dollar question, right, like, what happened there? What did
19:07
Speaker 2: you find out?
19:08
Speaker 5: I did talk to. I interviewed nearly one hundred people
19:10
Speaker 5: for the book, including former clerks, staff justices, and the
19:16
Speaker 5: number one thing I took away from this is that
19:18
Speaker 5: the investigation itself was incredibly poorly done. They waited a
19:22
Speaker 5: very long period of time to even begin digging into things.
19:26
Speaker 5: They didn't have a good understanding of how much access
19:28
Speaker 5: clerks had to the draft decision outside of the court building.
19:34
Speaker 5: They're truly like a million different ways it could have
19:37
Speaker 5: been leaked, but the questions weren't hard hitting enough. So
19:40
Speaker 5: instead of saying, what has been your contact with this
19:43
Speaker 5: journalist who published this? Or do you or any does
19:47
Speaker 5: any member of your family or a friend have contact
19:49
Speaker 5: with this person, they pretty much just said did you
19:51
Speaker 5: leak it?
19:52
Speaker 3: And if they said no, then they want.
19:55
Speaker 5: Very much for coming in. There's no way you're going
19:57
Speaker 5: to find out answers when that's the level of investigation.
20:00
Speaker 3: Why do you think the investigation was shoddy?
20:04
Speaker 5: It certainly is not something that the Marshal of the
20:06
Speaker 5: Supreme Court is used to having to do. As you know,
20:10
Speaker 5: the culture of the of the Court is such that
20:12
Speaker 5: it's unthinkable that you would leak something like this. And
20:16
Speaker 5: it's not that it wasn't possible for people to leak
20:19
Speaker 5: previously a draft decision. They just had the type of
20:22
Speaker 5: moral character that would prevent them from doing it. And
20:24
Speaker 5: the Chief, of course, is very adamant when clerks begin
20:27
Speaker 5: and other staff begin about the importance of the integrity
20:31
Speaker 5: of the court and not leaking any information whatsoever. So
20:34
Speaker 5: I think it was just this is not something that
20:36
Speaker 5: the Marshal had done previously. Was a very sensitive situation.
20:40
Speaker 5: It was still also somewhat in the aftermath of COVID,
20:43
Speaker 5: so the new procedures that had been in place weren't
20:45
Speaker 5: well understood. But ultimately, you know, I think it was
20:48
Speaker 5: a real failing and probably they would have done things
20:51
Speaker 5: differently if they had to do it over again.
20:52
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, you use the word unthinkable, and that's
20:56
Speaker 3: not an exaggeration. I remember when when the Dobbs draft
20:59
Speaker 3: to Pay and leaked, and I was a dinner when
21:02
Speaker 3: politicals broke the story, and it was stunning. I just
21:06
Speaker 3: stared at my phone in shock. Because everything about the
21:11
Speaker 3: Court is predicated upon trust. It's a quite small institution
21:16
Speaker 3: you have nine justices. Each justice has four clerks, and
21:20
Speaker 3: it's a small, little intimate family, and there's a robust
21:25
Speaker 3: back and forth. Almost all the edits are done via
21:29
Speaker 3: in writing, going back and forth with the justices communicating
21:32
Speaker 3: with each other, and it just it. It did permanent
21:38
Speaker 3: damage to the court in terms of the trust the
21:42
Speaker 3: justices have for each other. I think changed the court was.
21:45
Speaker 5: One justice put it. It's like if there's infidelity in
21:48
Speaker 5: a marriage, you can keep going, but something has changed
21:51
Speaker 5: with that marriage. You know, nobody really thought it was
21:54
Speaker 5: a justice. The justices themselves certainly didn't think it was
21:57
Speaker 5: a justice, but just knowing that things aren't as trustworthy
22:02
Speaker 5: as people thought was a big issue.
22:04
Speaker 3: But I loved it.
22:05
Speaker 1: Sorry, you know, if this ever happens again, what was
22:08
Speaker 1: your takeaway? Would they do it the same way? Should
22:10
Speaker 1: there be a different way of there being an investigation?
22:13
Speaker 1: I'm a pessimist. I think, well, if Democrats want to
22:16
Speaker 1: leak out a decision the future again that they want
22:18
Speaker 1: to try to stop and put pressure on justice, they'll
22:21
Speaker 1: do it again.
22:21
Speaker 2: There was no accountability for this leak.
22:23
Speaker 1: That was unimaginable, as Santa Cruz has put it, What
22:27
Speaker 1: would what would be different the next time, if anything
22:30
Speaker 1: at all, I do.
22:31
Speaker 5: I do think that there was something singular about this situation.
22:36
Speaker 5: Abortion in the court has always been difficult. That's actually
22:38
Speaker 5: where a lot of the leaks have happened previously as well.
22:41
Speaker 5: And even the person who did the leak, until he
22:44
Speaker 5: or she admits it, we probably won't know who did
22:47
Speaker 5: it again. It was something that could be done very
22:50
Speaker 5: easily without detection, So I don't think it would be
22:53
Speaker 5: I don't see it happening again. But this is a
22:56
Speaker 5: there there is still time actually to think about whether
22:59
Speaker 5: there's should be a better investigation into this, including whether
23:03
Speaker 5: there's any role for an outside investigator, law enforcement investigator.
23:08
Speaker 5: One of the things I think is interesting is that
23:10
Speaker 5: after the leak of this decision, you had attacks on
23:13
Speaker 5: the lives of the justices, organized and coordinated protest activity.
23:17
Speaker 5: You had the fire bombings of the churches and the
23:20
Speaker 5: pro life pregnancy centers. It is illegal to do this,
23:23
Speaker 5: do something with the intent to affect the outcome of
23:26
Speaker 5: a decision, and yet.
23:27
Speaker 3: The Biden Justice Department did nothing, refused to follow federal law. Look,
23:31
Speaker 3: one of the things that the really bombshell facts that
23:34
Speaker 3: you report in this book is is you report Justice
23:38
Speaker 3: Kagan screaming at Justice Bryer so loud that the walls
23:42
Speaker 3: were shaking over Dobbs tell us about that.
23:45
Speaker 5: Well, after the league happened again, the lives of the
23:48
Speaker 5: justices are immediately threatened. You have justices having to be
23:51
Speaker 5: moved to secure locations, Amy Cony Barrett having to put
23:54
Speaker 5: on a bulletproof vest in front of her children. We
23:57
Speaker 5: also had the situation where she recently was the victim
23:59
Speaker 5: of the swatting attempt where someone tried to get her
24:02
Speaker 5: house swatted, and you had Justice Kavanaugh, of course, with
24:05
Speaker 5: an assassin outside of his house. Well, prior to that
24:08
Speaker 5: happening with Justice Kavanaugh, some of the justices asked the
24:12
Speaker 5: dissenting justices to please wrap up their dissent so that
24:15
Speaker 5: the decision could be released. Until a decision is released,
24:18
Speaker 5: it's not final. So if one of the justices were
24:20
Speaker 5: to die, that would mean Dobbs was not handed down.
24:24
Speaker 3: And let's just underscore that point, because if one of
24:27
Speaker 3: the justices were to die that this is an area
24:31
Speaker 3: where passive voice doesn't really capture it. To really underscore it,
24:37
Speaker 3: that means if one of the justices in the majority
24:39
Speaker 3: were to be murdered, suddenly Dobbs cannot issue and roe
24:46
Speaker 3: versus weight is not overturned. And so the assassin who
24:50
Speaker 3: came with plans to murder Brett Kavanaugh and the other
24:53
Speaker 3: conservative justices could have changed history. And every day that
24:58
Speaker 3: there was a delay, there was an added risk that
25:01
Speaker 3: someone would murder one of those justices.
25:03
Speaker 5: So a request was put forth by Alito and also
25:06
Speaker 5: by Justice Gorsuch, could you wrap this up? Could you
25:09
Speaker 5: give us a date by which time you'll be done?
25:11
Speaker 5: And they wouldn't could The liberal justices would not give
25:15
Speaker 5: a date. But after that conference, Kagan went to Briar's chambers.
25:20
Speaker 5: Briar is a liberal, but he is a gentleman and
25:24
Speaker 5: his colleagues. He cared about his colleagues in their lives,
25:26
Speaker 5: so he seemed most amenable to wrapping things up, and
25:30
Speaker 5: Kagan did implore him not to accommodate the conservative justices.
25:35
Speaker 5: They finally say, we'll get something out by June first.
25:38
Speaker 5: We'll get something done by June first, and they do
25:41
Speaker 5: in exchange for getting other decisions done later, but they
25:45
Speaker 5: include this gratuitous footnote that was completely unnecessary for another
25:49
Speaker 5: decision that really wasn't going to be handed down for
25:51
Speaker 5: another several weeks, and so during that period of time
25:55
Speaker 5: before it was finally handed down, I think it was
25:56
Speaker 5: June twenty third, that was when Kavanaugh actually had the
26:00
Speaker 5: assassin outside of his home. And this slow walking, which
26:03
Speaker 5: I report in Alito the book, was also confirmed I
26:06
Speaker 5: think this year as a tactic that is being used
26:10
Speaker 5: by the liberal justices. We learned that they were also
26:13
Speaker 5: slow walking that Calay decision, that Voting Rights Act decision
26:17
Speaker 5: in the heart if they got it out too late,
26:19
Speaker 5: then state legislators could not respond to the decision well.
26:23
Speaker 3: On Katanji Brown Jackson was quite vocal and wrote about
26:26
Speaker 3: wanting to delay that decision with a very explicit, I
26:31
Speaker 3: think objective of preventing state legislatures from acting and redistricting.
26:35
Speaker 3: And it's one of the most partisan disputes we've ever
26:42
Speaker 3: seen at the Court. Her effort to have a real
26:46
Speaker 3: impact on the election in November.
26:48
Speaker 5: And I will point out that Justice Alito actually responded
26:51
Speaker 5: to her by pointing out, this is a case that
26:53
Speaker 5: we heard in October, and it was not the first
26:55
Speaker 5: time they heard it. They heard it the previous term
26:57
Speaker 5: as well, pointing out that every other decision from that
27:01
Speaker 5: term had already been released, that this slow walking was political. Yeah,
27:06
Speaker 5: ending down a decision that needs to be handed down
27:08
Speaker 5: is not political slow walking it, however, is all right.
27:12
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28:07
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about Molly, and that was
28:09
Speaker 1: about the idea now that every time a decision comes
28:12
Speaker 1: down that Democrats don't seem to like they want to
28:15
Speaker 1: either completely remake the court pack the court. Does that
28:20
Speaker 1: concern you, especially as you were writing this book, how
28:22
Speaker 1: much now they're saying, ah, nine, maybe we'll move it
28:24
Speaker 1: to fifteen or eighteen or whatever the number is they
28:26
Speaker 1: want next.
28:27
Speaker 5: This is a huge threat to the court and rule
28:29
Speaker 5: of law what we're seeing happening from the left. And
28:32
Speaker 5: I actually go into this in detail in the book,
28:34
Speaker 5: showing how coordinated the attacks on the court are, how
28:37
Speaker 5: well funded they are. To just use one example, Pro Publica,
28:41
Speaker 5: which is a left wing media outlet, raised fifty three
28:45
Speaker 5: million dollars with the express purpose of going after Justice
28:49
Speaker 5: Thomas and Justice Alito, And at the end of the
28:52
Speaker 5: year they reported on their nine to ninety form what
28:54
Speaker 5: they'd done with fifty three million dollars. I mean, can
28:58
Speaker 5: you imagine how many reporters and researchers you can hire.
29:02
Speaker 5: High level people don't publish that many stories. But the
29:06
Speaker 5: whole goal was to attack the integrity of Alito and Thomas,
29:09
Speaker 5: two men who actually have a great deal of integrity.
29:12
Speaker 5: But this was done as part of the democrat law
29:15
Speaker 5: fair efforts that are going on to pressure the Court
29:19
Speaker 5: into agreeing with some of the more extreme lawfair efforts
29:23
Speaker 5: that they have had in play, whether it's you know,
29:24
Speaker 5: kicking Trump off the ballot or having uneven prosecutions of
29:28
Speaker 5: conservatives versus liberals. And you see it with now so
29:33
Speaker 5: many prominent Democrats calling for the actual packing of the court.
29:37
Speaker 5: This isn't about, you know, having a thoughtful discussion about
29:39
Speaker 5: the number of people on the court. If they get power,
29:42
Speaker 5: they will do this packing for political outcome. And I'll
29:45
Speaker 5: just point out Conservatives were not in power on the
29:47
Speaker 5: Court for decades and many bad things happened, and they
29:51
Speaker 5: never once resorted to undermining the integrity of the court.
29:53
Speaker 5: They said, we're going to put a lot of effort
29:55
Speaker 5: into electing senators who will confirm good justices, electing a
30:00
Speaker 5: president who will nominate good justices, and building up the
30:03
Speaker 5: network of people who understand what a proper, coherent conservative
30:07
Speaker 5: judicial philosophy is. And the left doesn't want to do
30:09
Speaker 5: that work. They just want to.
30:12
Speaker 3: They want power and by any means necessary, and they
30:16
Speaker 3: view the Court as an extension of political power, not
30:20
Speaker 3: an institution that actually is supposed to follow the Constitution
30:23
Speaker 3: or follow the law. And in fact, they view the
30:25
Speaker 3: court as an avenue to end run democracy because many
30:29
Speaker 3: of their most extreme policies are very unpopular. The voters
30:33
Speaker 3: don't want them, and so it's much easier to get
30:35
Speaker 3: a handful of unelected judges just to force it on
30:38
Speaker 3: the whole country then actually to engage in the difficult
30:42
Speaker 3: and messy business of democracy of convincing your fellow citizens.
30:46
Speaker 3: You're right. It strikes me there are a lot of
30:49
Speaker 3: very similar themes in your book on Justice Alito that
30:55
Speaker 3: are in my upcoming book on Justice Clarence Thomas. My
30:58
Speaker 3: book is coming out in August, And like you, I
31:01
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time interviewing Justice Thomas as you
31:05
Speaker 3: did with Justice Alito. And you know, one interesting bit
31:08
Speaker 3: of history is is Justice Thomas and Justice Alito were
31:11
Speaker 3: both classmates in law school at Edya Law School. They
31:15
Speaker 3: didn't know each other, but they were classmates. And there's
31:18
Speaker 3: a funny story Justice Thomas told me when I was
31:22
Speaker 3: interviewing him for the book, where he said, when he
31:24
Speaker 3: got when he was at the court, and when Alito
31:26
Speaker 3: went to the court, he asked me, he said, Sam,
31:29
Speaker 3: why weren't we friends in law school, and Justice Alita responded, Clarence,
31:35
Speaker 3: you were scary, and Justice Thomas irrupts in his signature
31:41
Speaker 3: just belly laugh, which which is, as you know, infectious.
31:46
Speaker 3: Tell us a little bit about what made sam Alito
31:51
Speaker 3: into the great Justice Alito, and you mentioned before what
31:54
Speaker 3: you described as his unique brand of originalism. Elaborate on
31:58
Speaker 3: that a little bit.
31:59
Speaker 4: Well.
31:59
Speaker 5: I think one of the things that sticks out is
32:01
Speaker 5: that he was raised in a middle class family by
32:04
Speaker 5: a public servant who he really respected. His father. He
32:08
Speaker 5: goes to Princeton and he's a public school kid, and
32:10
Speaker 5: he assumes that all of these elite kids are going
32:12
Speaker 5: to be really smart and give him a run for
32:15
Speaker 5: his money. When he gets there, he finds out actually
32:17
Speaker 5: he's doing just fine in the intelligence department. And also,
32:21
Speaker 5: these elite kids are the ones who end up rioting,
32:23
Speaker 5: shutting down the campus. He knows that they will go
32:26
Speaker 5: on and have cushy jobs that their fathers gave them,
32:29
Speaker 5: whereas he needs the education. And so he even though
32:33
Speaker 5: he goes to elite institutions Princeton, Yale goes to the
32:36
Speaker 5: Department of Justice.
32:37
Speaker 3: He doesn't do you want me to concede that Yale's
32:39
Speaker 3: an elite institution. That may be a bridge too far.
32:42
Speaker 3: Go ahead.
32:43
Speaker 5: Sorry, he doesn't seem to want the respect of many
32:46
Speaker 5: of the people he meets there.
32:47
Speaker 3: He just doesn't.
32:47
Speaker 5: He's not that impressed with them. And I think that's
32:50
Speaker 5: you see that come through now. And it's the same
32:52
Speaker 5: thing with Justice Thomas. He cares so much more about
32:55
Speaker 5: people were working at the Supreme Court than the people
32:57
Speaker 5: at the cocktail parties. And speaking of Justice Thomas, he
33:02
Speaker 5: and Alito work together very well. But whereas Justice Thomas,
33:05
Speaker 5: as one person put it, is the deployed aircraft carrier
33:08
Speaker 5: on the court, Alito's chambers are more like the green berets.
33:12
Speaker 5: They go and they prepare the land. He might agree
33:14
Speaker 5: with Thomas on where he wants to be, but he's
33:17
Speaker 5: going to be more tactical about, Okay, well how are
33:19
Speaker 5: we going to get there? And you even saw that
33:20
Speaker 5: again in the Clay decision. This Voting Rights Act. What
33:23
Speaker 5: does Thomas say Section two of the Voting Rights Act
33:26
Speaker 5: is completely unconstitutional? Alito might agree with that, but he
33:30
Speaker 5: builds together a six person majority to say it can't
33:34
Speaker 5: be interpreted that there are these racial jerrymanders, because that
33:38
Speaker 5: is that cannot be what the law means, given what
33:40
Speaker 5: the fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution does and explicitly prohibiting such.
33:45
Speaker 3: So what do you think Justice Alito's legacy will be
33:50
Speaker 3: fifty years from now?
33:51
Speaker 5: For most justices, I think they will be lucky to
33:54
Speaker 5: be remembered for one thing, And if it is one thing,
33:57
Speaker 5: it's definitely going to be the Dobbs decision. But the
33:59
Speaker 5: reason why people should pay attention now is because of
34:01
Speaker 5: all these other important decisions, his incremental solid work on
34:05
Speaker 5: religious liberty speech issues. And I would say the other
34:11
Speaker 5: thing I find really interesting about him that people should
34:12
Speaker 5: pay more attention to is how effective he is in
34:15
Speaker 5: oral argument, Yes, very much so positioning the court where
34:19
Speaker 5: on what issue they should decide a case on. So
34:22
Speaker 5: he's quiet, he's humble, but you believe people on the
34:26
Speaker 5: right should absolutely know more about him and understand what
34:28
Speaker 5: the left understood long time ago, which is he's a
34:31
Speaker 5: very important Joe.
34:32
Speaker 3: Well look like Chief Justice Roberts, like Elena Kagan. Sam
34:36
Speaker 3: Alito is a veteran of the Slicer General's Office and
34:39
Speaker 3: is an experienced Supreme Court advocate And then' that is
34:43
Speaker 3: a rare skill and you see him displaying it from
34:47
Speaker 3: the other side of the benches of justice, and you're right,
34:50
Speaker 3: he's very, very effective at oral argument. Talk a little
34:53
Speaker 3: about his character. He's an extraordinary man, but share your
34:57
Speaker 3: thoughts on his character.
34:58
Speaker 5: It's just really interesting to find someone in Washington, d c.
35:01
Speaker 5: With this level of humility. He's a family man. He
35:06
Speaker 5: very much believes in doing his duty, even the fact
35:08
Speaker 5: that he's been a public servant his entire career. This
35:11
Speaker 5: is someone who could be making so much money off
35:14
Speaker 5: of the court, and he cares about you know. Even
35:16
Speaker 5: he hires clerks who are people who are going to
35:19
Speaker 5: be devoted to public service or the academy. And he's
35:23
Speaker 5: just a very quiet, humble, but also very funny guy
35:27
Speaker 5: with a very subtle sense of humor.
35:30
Speaker 3: He's hysterical art. I want to encourage everyone. Go out
35:32
Speaker 3: and buy Molly's book. Go buy Alito, the Justice who
35:36
Speaker 3: reshaped the Supreme Court and restored the Constitution. Go to Amazon,
35:39
Speaker 3: go to Barnes and Noble. By the way, while you're there,
35:41
Speaker 3: go buy my book too, on Clarence Thomas. It's coming
35:44
Speaker 3: out in August, but you can pre order them. Read
35:46
Speaker 3: them together. The two are great bookends and you know what,
35:50
Speaker 3: they both would make fabulous graduation gifts, birthday gifts, Christmas gifts.
35:56
Speaker 3: Go buy Molly's book and Molly, thank you for joining us.
35:59
Speaker 5: Thank you very much.
36:00
Speaker 2: It's really important. Don't forget.
36:01
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36:03
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36:06
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36:15
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