Latest / The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson / Going Further—The Incomparable Clarence Thomas Week In Review

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Going Further—The Incomparable Clarence Thomas Week In Review · The 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome, it is Verdict with Ted Cruz, Week in Review,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Ben Ferguson with you, and we've got one big story
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: for you. If you missed the incredible interview with Clarence
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Thomas that Senator Cruz did about his new book, well,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: then we've got it for you in its entirety. It
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: was a phenomenal week with the book launch and an
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: incredible story about the history of Clarence Thomas. how he
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: got to be a Supreme Court justice, and a lot
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  Speaker 1: of questions and facts about him, well, that he answers
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: that you may have never even heard. It's The Weekend Review,
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  Speaker 1: and it starts right now.
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  Speaker 2: Today we have a very special podcast. My brand new
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  Speaker 2: book is coming out. It's my fifth book, and it
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  Speaker 2: is entitled Going Further, The Incomparable Clarence Thomas. And this
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  Speaker 2: book does a couple of things. Number one, It tells
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  Speaker 2: the story of Justice Thomas, a truly extraordinary human being
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  Speaker 2: and extraordinary justice. It tells his life story, a journey
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  Speaker 2: that is unlike the journey of any other justice who
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  Speaker 2: has served on the Supreme Court. But it also takes
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  Speaker 2: up his three decades of jurisprudence and tries to explain
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  Speaker 2: it in a way that is accessible, a way that
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  Speaker 2: is understandable, a way that brings home why it matters,
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  Speaker 2: why it matters for the court, why it matters for
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  Speaker 2: the Constitution, why it matters for the country. And today,
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  Speaker 2: what makes this podcast very special, and by the way,
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  Speaker 2: the book will be available August 25th. You can pre-order it.
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  Speaker 2: There's a special website for that called goingfurther.com, goingfurther.com. I
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  Speaker 2: would encourage you, go to the website, pre-order the book.
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  Speaker 2: And today's podcast is a very special one because our
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  Speaker 2: guest is none other than the incomparable Justice Clarence Thomas. Justice, welcome.
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  Speaker 3: Well, thank you. It's a little embarrassing to say you'd
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  Speaker 3: be called incomparable. Let me call lots of things, though.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you.
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  Speaker 2: I really appreciate your joining us. I think this is
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  Speaker 2: the first podcast you've ever done.
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  Speaker 3: I have no idea. I think so. I don't normally
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  Speaker 3: do any sort of, I don't do much media type things.
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  Speaker 3: But you're you. I mean, I've known you now, what,
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  Speaker 3: 30 years? Yeah. And seeing you through different phases in
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  Speaker 3: your life as a law clerk. hanging out in my
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  Speaker 3: chambers as the SG of Texas and now Senator. So
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  Speaker 3: it's been a long journey. And also, it's also an
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  Speaker 3: opportunity to say you're one of the people who actually
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  Speaker 3: stands up, particularly at times when others seem to wither.
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  Speaker 3: And I appreciate it. And more personally, when my wife
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  Speaker 3: and I were under attack, for obvious reasons. You and
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  Speaker 3: Mike Lee and some of the other friends would stand up,
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  Speaker 3: Senator Kennedy, et cetera. So I really appreciate that.
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  Speaker 2: Justice, that is very kind of you, and especially for
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  Speaker 2: you to observe that I stand up in the face
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  Speaker 2: of criticism and attacks. That is powerful coming from you
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  Speaker 2: because you're someone who knows what that's like. And has
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  Speaker 2: done so in a way that has been world-changing. And
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  Speaker 2: so Justice Thomas, decades ago, wrote a phenomenal autobiography. My
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  Speaker 2: Grandfather's Son. And you told your own story. And it
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  Speaker 2: may be the best autobiography I've ever read. I read
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  Speaker 2: it at the time it came out. It inspired me. Actually,
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  Speaker 2: shortly after it came out, I was at home. And
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  Speaker 2: as it so happened, a... young African-American boy, he was
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  Speaker 2: probably 15, 16 years old, came by the house, and
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  Speaker 2: I think he was selling magazines or something, knocked on
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  Speaker 2: the door, and I struck up a conversation with him.
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  Speaker 2: I went and grabbed the book and gave it to
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  Speaker 2: him and said, look, you should read this. You may
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  Speaker 2: not have heard Justice Thomas' story and journey, but I
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  Speaker 2: hope this will inspire you. And I think for a
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  Speaker 2: lot of the folks who listen to the podcast or
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  Speaker 2: watch the podcast, and some people listen to it on
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  Speaker 2: their phones, others watch it on YouTube or Facebook, they
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  Speaker 2: know who you are, but they don't know your actual story.
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  Speaker 2: And it is, as I mentioned at the beginning, it
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  Speaker 2: is unlike any other justices on the court. So maybe
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  Speaker 2: we can just start with, tell us about growing up.
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  Speaker 2: You grew up in Pinpoint, Georgia. What was it like
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  Speaker 2: growing up?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I was born in Pinpoint, but most of my
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  Speaker 3: growing up, I've been fortunate. I think the misfortunes you have,
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  Speaker 3: can lead to different things. And the house in Pinpoint
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  Speaker 3: burned down when I was six in the first grade.
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  Speaker 3: Then we lived in a tenement with my mother in
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  Speaker 3: one room in Savannah for about a year and eventually
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  Speaker 3: wound up living with our grandparents, moving there when I
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  Speaker 3: was seven. And that was probably, well, actually was the
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  Speaker 3: best thing that could have ever happened to me because
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  Speaker 3: that was life-changing.
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  Speaker 2: You describe in your book, and I recount in my book,
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  Speaker 2: when you were in that tenement and that it did
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  Speaker 2: not have indoor plumbing, and so you used a chamber pot,
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  Speaker 2: and you describe walking down the stairs carrying a chamber pot.
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  Speaker 3: Oh, I fell down. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: It ended up being coated in urine. I mean, that's–
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  Speaker 2: it's a pretty.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it was– you know, it's sort of what
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  Speaker 3: I think of people saying they're having a bad day. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: and you're seven years old, and that happens, and you
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  Speaker 3: don't have a shower or the kind of a bathroom
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  Speaker 3: that people would normally have, you realize, I mean, to me,
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  Speaker 3: it defined a bad day. But then things that happened
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  Speaker 3: after that outweigh that. There's a wonderful song by a
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  Speaker 3: black minister that you hear, from time to time, if
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  Speaker 3: you go to a funeral with small southern black churches,
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  Speaker 3: and I won't complain. And, you know, you can have
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  Speaker 3: all these bad things, this litany of bad things happen,
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  Speaker 3: and you can say, I won't complain, because it's outweighed
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  Speaker 3: by all the good things that have happened. And that's
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  Speaker 3: pretty much my life. And those good things began with
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  Speaker 3: my grandparents and My grandfather was a Catholic convert, which
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  Speaker 3: was an oddity. Catholics were an oddity in Savannah. Black
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  Speaker 3: Catholics were really an oddity. And it was because of
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  Speaker 3: that we were educated at parochial schools with my Irish nuns.
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  Speaker 3: And those in combination, my grandparents, the neighborhood I grew
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  Speaker 3: up in, the nuns, Catholicism forged a foundation that I've
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  Speaker 3: benefited from.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and your deep faith is integral to who you are,
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  Speaker 2: who you are as a man, I think who you
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  Speaker 2: are as a justice to your journey. Many people don't
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  Speaker 2: know you almost became a priest, and for a long
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  Speaker 2: time you thought that's what you wanted to do.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think I would have been a priest had
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  Speaker 3: the bishops at the time or the leadership in the
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  Speaker 3: church been as firm and had the resolve of the
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  Speaker 3: nuns during segregation and desegregation and civil rights movement, etc.
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  Speaker 3: My nuns were immovable as far as their propagation of
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  Speaker 3: the faith, their belief in us. they were the ones
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  Speaker 3: who planted the seed that in God's eyes, and you
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  Speaker 3: heard it at home too, we're all equal. That God
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  Speaker 3: made us, we were made in his image and likeness.
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  Speaker 2: So were the nuns more willing to speak out about
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  Speaker 2: civil rights?
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  Speaker 3: They were in their way. Of course, they had a
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  Speaker 3: vow of chastity and poverty and obedience. So there's only
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  Speaker 3: so much, but they were adamant. And they were adamant
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  Speaker 3: outwardly to the world and inwardly to us. So we
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  Speaker 3: couldn't use race or some of the other things as excuses.
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  Speaker 3: And it's hard to put it in context, but when
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  Speaker 3: I was in the second and third grade, this is
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  Speaker 3: again post-Brown, and the Georgia legislature was in the midst
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: of drafting legislation that was reasserting segregation.
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  Speaker 2: And for our listeners, Brown is Brown versus Board of Education,
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  Speaker 2: which was a seminal Supreme Court decision in 1954 that
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: overturned Plessy versus Ferguson. Plessy versus Ferguson, I think, is
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  Speaker 2: one of the most– in fact, almost everyone thinks is
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  Speaker 2: one of the most disgraceful decisions the courts has ever decided.
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  Speaker 3: Where it.
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  Speaker 2: Embraced the doctrine of separate but equal. And Brown overturned
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  Speaker 2: it in order that schools be desegregated. And you were
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  Speaker 2: a student when this, I mean, this impacted your life.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I started first grade in 1954. Yeah. But still,
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  Speaker 3: schools were still segregated.
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  Speaker 2: Do you remember as a little kid, like being a
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  Speaker 2: first grader, were you aware of Brown at the time?
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  Speaker 3: Well, no. Brown had almost, I mean, you're a kid.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And school meant you got like a new pair of
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  Speaker 3: pants and. It was the first time I'd been to school.
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  Speaker 3: I went with my cousins to a little school called
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  Speaker 3: Haven Home School. But then when the house burned down,
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  Speaker 3: I moved in. There's a big difference between urban poverty
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  Speaker 3: and rural poverty. And rural, we were with relatives. it was,
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  Speaker 3: we were always together. You could run around barefooted and
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  Speaker 3: everybody knew you.
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  Speaker 2: It was sort of an enclave. And you didn't grow
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  Speaker 2: up with English as your first language.
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  Speaker 3: Well, it was a version. We, people know it now,
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  Speaker 3: they celebrate it back then. They used to make fun
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  Speaker 3: of us. In Georgia, there's a dialect called Geechee. Mm-hmm.
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  Speaker 3: And in South Carolina, they call it Gullah. But it's just,
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  Speaker 3: it's a patois that for people who were not, who
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  Speaker 3: did not assimilate in the culture or who were not
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  Speaker 3: a part of the culture, we were isolated near the water.
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  Speaker 3: So you kept that language. And that's the way I,
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  Speaker 3: until I moved to Savannah, that was all I knew.
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  Speaker 3: They called us, back then they said we were bad talkin'.
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  Speaker 3: Today they celebrate it as a cultural thing. But when
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  Speaker 3: I moved to Savannah, you were in urban poverty, which
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  Speaker 3: was quite different. And I'm not going to go into
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  Speaker 3: all the details. But then when I went to live
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  Speaker 3: with my grandparents, even though the schools were segregated, they
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  Speaker 3: were parochial schools. And that was different from the public
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  Speaker 3: schools because there was quite a bit of order. You
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  Speaker 3: wore a uniform. The bell rang a certain time. You
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  Speaker 3: said the Pledge of Allegiance in the schoolyard before you
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  Speaker 3: marched in. You had a catechism class. It was a
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  Speaker 3: first class. It was every unison, good morning, sister. There
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  Speaker 3: was a lot of order, and that's what my grandfather wanted.
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  Speaker 2: Now, I think anyone understanding your life has to start
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  Speaker 2: by understanding your grandfather. You were... raised by your grandparents principally,
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  Speaker 2: and your grandfather, Myers Anderson, I think you would say
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  Speaker 2: was the most important man in your life. And tell
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  Speaker 2: us about your grandfather.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, he was not only the most important,
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  Speaker 3: I think he's the greatest man I've known, and my
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  Speaker 3: grandmother is the greatest woman. They were, and that's what
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  Speaker 3: I mean when I say, look, you can look at
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  Speaker 3: the negative side of things, but the blessings are enormous.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, to be, just think of the idea of
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  Speaker 3: living with those two people and being raised by them.
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  Speaker 3: And you can, after all these years, say that they
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  Speaker 3: are the two greatest people you've ever known.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and he instilled a lot of discipline in you.
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  Speaker 2: He was, I think, a hard man and a strong man.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, you're from Texas. When you live a hard life,
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  Speaker 3: you have to be hard or you collapse. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: today we are inundated with fragile people. you are not permitted.
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  Speaker 3: And when you live in poverty and you have to
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  Speaker 3: figure things out, and he had a total of nine
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  Speaker 3: months of education. My grandmother had six years, and those
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  Speaker 3: weren't six full years, six, nine months. They knew how
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  Speaker 3: to make do with life. They knew how to make
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  Speaker 3: a way in the world without no education. So things
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  Speaker 3: that we have today, like education, freedom, etc. They prized,
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  Speaker 3: they dreamt about. They wanted us to have a chance
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  Speaker 3: to have those things.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and your grandparents prioritized education with you and reading
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  Speaker 2: in particular. That became an outlet for you as a boy.
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  Speaker 3: Well, they were absolute about education. But the other thing
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  Speaker 3: was work. He didn't believe in sports. That was foolishness.
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  Speaker 3: We didn't have time for that. We delivered fuel oil
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  Speaker 3: in the winter and we farmed in the summer.
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  Speaker 2: You know, one story you told that stood out to
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  Speaker 2: me is that when you were delivering fuel oil, and
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  Speaker 2: there were times when it was really cold, your grandfather
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't let you wear gloves.
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  Speaker 3: No. He lost a finger on his right hand working,
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  Speaker 3: and he never really got too much into the details
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  Speaker 3: of it. But it must have involved a glove because
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: he would not, I mean, he got caught in a
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: chain or a winch or something, and it ripped it
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  Speaker 3: off about right. above the first knuckle or below the
• 14:17
  Speaker 3: first knuckle. And so he would make us work with
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: no gloves. And for us, cold would be 40 degrees
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: in Georgia. You felt like you were freezing. But he believed.
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  Speaker 3: It was a way not to be harsh or anything
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  Speaker 3: like that. It was, he thought, safety. It was safer
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  Speaker 3: not to have gloves on.
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  Speaker 2: Now, you tell a story about being in Catholic high
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  Speaker 2: school and one of the boys passing you a note
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: about Martin Luther King. Tell us that story and how
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: it impacted you.
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  Speaker 3: Well, that was only one student out of dozens, and
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  Speaker 3: there was one bad apple, and he wasn't there very long,
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  Speaker 3: but it was my first year in the seminary, and
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  Speaker 3: There were two of us, two blacks in the seminary.
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  Speaker 3: I was the only one in my class. I was
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  Speaker 3: a sophomore. There was a young man behind me in
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  Speaker 3: the ninth grade. And the note was, I mean, it
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: was offensive, but it wasn't debilitating. And you say, you
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: consider the sender. And it just said on the outside
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: something like, I like you. Martin Luther King, and then
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: you open it up and it said dead on the inside,
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: something like that. And it was, you know, again, this
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: is 1964, 65, a lot going on. And, you know,
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: I knew who it was. I know who it is.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to say who it was. But he
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  Speaker 3: left after a year or so. And that was that.
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  Speaker 3: But the rest of my classmates were and have been
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: just phenomenal. You know, I was treated better there in
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: the minor seminary. Because remember, we're at the beginning of desegregation.
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  Speaker 3: This is 1964. The next two years after my first year,
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: I'd be the only black in that school. And I
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: was treated very well. I was a really good student.
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: I was treated fairly. The great thing about it was
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: if you got a 95 in physics, you got a
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: 95 in physics. Right. Latin was the nemesis of most kids.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: I did very, very well at St. John Vianney Minor Seminaries.
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  Speaker 3: And I have zero complaints. It was, again, one of
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  Speaker 3: the benefits that I received in Savannah. I was treated,
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: and I like to say this for obvious reasons, I
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: was treated better there than I was at Yale.
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  Speaker 2: Well, and your time at Yale.
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  Speaker 2: In fact, you draw an analogy between two kinds of snakes,
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  Speaker 2: which I think is revealing.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I think most people who live in rural areas
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: know the difference. My grandfather always used this analogy. And
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: the difference between a rattlesnake and a moccasin, which we
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: had both, and they were pretty big in Georgia, in
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: South Georgia. A rattlesnake always warned you. And if you
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: gave it time, it'll get out of your way. You
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: leave me alone, I'll leave you alone. A moccasin basically
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: wouldn't warn you. And its attitude was, look, I was
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: here first, and you're going to have a bad day.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: And I'm not moving. But his point was about the warning,
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: that you had some people in Georgia who didn't like blacks,
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: and they were bigots, and they were openly so.
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  Speaker 2: And what you said is the Southern... The southern racists
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: were like rattlesnakes.
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  Speaker 3: They were like rattlesnakes.
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  Speaker 2: You knew who they were. They made noise, and they
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: were visible. But when you went to the north and
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: the northeast, they were like moccasins. They were hidden until
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: they'd strike.
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and the attitude. That was sort of one of
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: the things that surprised me. We were told basically that
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: the north was the Holy Grail. So it was shocking
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: to see in New England the kind of, ethnic divisions,
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: the bigotry toward minorities, etc.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Now, what is it that attracted you to being a priest?
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: Because that's what you thought you wanted to spend your
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: life doing.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm Catholic. I was an altar boy. I loved
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: being an altar boy. I loved, we used to get
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: these magazines, marrying old priests and serving, you know, kids
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: who were, had disease or were poor or were, having difficulties,
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: and you begin to feel that that would be a
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: good way to spend your life. And then it becomes
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  Speaker 3: an issue when you enter the minor seminary. It's really
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: a time of discernment and to see whether you have
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: the capabilities. And I like the idea of being called
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: to serve to do that. When you When you have
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: a vocation, you're asking yourself, what is God calling me
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: to do? Right. And that became actually, again, but for
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: the weakness of the bishops, I think I'd be a
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: priest today. Or not specific bishops, but the church itself
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: seemed to be vacillating on the issue of race. And
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: to me, the big, the major wrong in the country,
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: the major major contradiction in this country was the race
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: issue that you treat you can place the importance of
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: equality at the center of your founding document and then
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: you have this issue of slavery and It's offshoots.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Well, and the church was slow to recognize that. One
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: point that I make many times is you look at Dr.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: King's letter from a Birmingham jail, and people forget to
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: whom it is addressed. It's addressed to the clergy of America.
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: He's writing to the leaders of the church saying, wake
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: up and speak up. And my favorite portion of that
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: letter was there's a group of senators, bipartisan senators, who
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: regularly read that letter on the floor of the Senate.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: It's really powerful to read the words out loud. And
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: there's a portion in it where he says the church
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: should be a thermostat and not a thermometer, that it
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: should be changing society and not just reacting to what's around.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: And that's ultimately what– led you to leave the seminary
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: and say that you were not going to go down
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: the path of being a priest?
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it was an overreaction. I think I
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: was 19 years old.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: And when Dr. King was assassinated, that was a pivotal moment.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: That was a pivotal moment. I was in my first
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: year in college in the seminary. I would love to,
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: I loved the Benedictines. I was there in Magna Conception
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: Seminary in Missouri. I loved being there. The people, it
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: was wonderful. Um, But it was not there that things
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: were difficult. It was the world around me. It was
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: the church generally. I thought that as a sort of
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: a moral beacon, we should talk about the court, that
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: we should have taken a leadership role in the church. Unquestionably.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: And it's been a long and difficult journey for our country. Now,
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: you went... from the seminary to Holy Cross and then
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: Yale Law School. A lot of people listening, I mean,
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: they know you were one of the greatest conservative leaders
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: to have ever lived. But as a young man, you
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: were not in any way, shape or form a conservative.
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: Tell folks what your worldview was as a 19, 20,
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: 21 year.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Well, I think when you're 19 and you're angry, you're
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: confused for the most part. I came from a very
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: traditional background. In fact, as I went through that period
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: when I quit the seminary and returned home, my grandfather
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: invited me to leave his house immediately. And so I've
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: basically been on my own since then. And, of course,
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: as you're 19— And that was a hard moment for you. Oh,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: it was more than hard. Hard is an understatement. Yeah.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: And it was in that vein or in that posture
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: that I wound up going to New England in sort
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: of a negative posture. And I think we react to
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: our circumstances in certain ways. And I was reacting to
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: the church's sort of... not doing what it should be doing.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: I overreacted. I reacted as a 19-year-old, emotionally.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: And you were angry at the time. You were angry
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: at God. You stopped going to Mass.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Well, I left the church completely. And I think if
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: I had to do over, I would not have left
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: the church. And I think it's a matter of, and
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: this is a point my grandfather was making at the time.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: He said, you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: That it is people not living up to what is right.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: That's the problem, not the underlying principles. So the church,
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: the belief, the tenets of the church are not wrong.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: It's that the people are failing in living up to that.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: But at any rate, when you're young, you don't make
• 24:09
  Speaker 3: those fine distinctions. So I think an easy way to
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: deal with that or a quick way or a to
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: sort of respond when you're that age is to find
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: these sort of radical movements you participate in, you protest,
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: you sort of let off steam and you're angry and
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: you feel empowered by that anger. But then as time
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: goes on, you take a step back and you start
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: thinking about what you're doing. You know, my grandfather asked
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: me a question, and I've said this before, I would
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: come return home and he would be upset with me.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: And he would say, after all his sacrifices, this is
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: what I've become. And he would challenge me because I'd
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: say the country's racist and we need to destroy it
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: and all that sort of thing. And he said, and
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: when you destroy it, where are you going to go?
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: That was always the unanswerable question. Yeah. What country is
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: better than this country with all its problems? To which
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: I had no answer. So I think that's planted the
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: seed of doubt from this. And as I grew older
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: and more mature and thought about things, in fact, about
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: the time I was at Yale and had participated in
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: enough sort of demonstrations.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Well, and you had You took part in a protest
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: that became a riot in Harvard Square.
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: At your alma mater. Yeah, I did. See, I could
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: have saved you trouble. That was sort of, I think
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: that was the road to Damascus moment. That's the moment
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: where you look into the abyss and it looks back.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Well, you realized that it could have gone much worse
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: for you. You could have been thrown in jail. You
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: could have been expelled from school.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Well, I couldn't answer why I was doing it. You know, again,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: it goes back when you ask the hard question, why?
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: Why did I just do what I just did? Right.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: To spend all night doing something I don't quite understand.
• 26:28
  Speaker 3: But that return, it was... April 16, 1970. So I
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: returned to Holy Cross from Cambridge.
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: And walked in front of the chapel because I was
• 26:44
  Speaker 3: exhausted but couldn't sleep. Walked in front of the chapel.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: And again, I'm not attending or anything, but I'm still
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: deeply Catholic. And I face it, the Blessed Sacrament, and
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: I ask God to take hate out of my heart.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: And I said, if you take hate out of my heart,
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: I will never hate again. And that was the moment
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: when you began to, for me, when I began to
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: move in a more positive direction. When you begin to offload,
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: it was like lancing a boil. And it was long, erratic.
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: There was not a straight line. But it was away
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: from the thing that it consumed to me. Well, and even.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: when you were a left-wing radical, you could see glimmers
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: of the man that Clarence Thomas would become. That in
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: many ways, I think, was the wisdom your grandfather and
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: your grandmother had imparted to you, but you could see
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: the individualist. You have never liked to conform.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't like being told what to do. I
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: just think when you, the nuns made it clear that
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: when God created us. It was mind, soul, and body.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: And you don't just liberate the body. And you were responsible.
• 28:10
  Speaker 3: You committed a sin. It wasn't because the devil didn't
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: make you do it. You did it. You gave in.
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: You made the decision. And you were responsible. And you
• 28:20
  Speaker 3: didn't do your homework. You were responsible. Excuses didn't count.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: And my grandfather was that way. You were accountable. And
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: that's similarly when you made— it was my life. And I
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: wasn't—I'm not talking about being a libertine or anything like that.
• 28:41
  Speaker 3: It's more libertarian. Right. That you believe in liberty, and
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: that means you have to take responsibility for it. And
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: I really didn't like people saying, you have to do this,
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: you have to do that. we had this saying that
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: there are only two things I have to do, stay
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: black and die. And that was a retort to people
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: who had these sort of requirements for us, these mandates
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: for us because of our skin color. And the thing
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: that's really kind of interesting, it wasn't until later on
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: that people began to say that when I came to
• 29:17
  Speaker 3: this town, one of the greatest difficulties, if you think
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: about it, was that There were those who thought that
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: I should think a certain way. And the difficulty has
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: been that they said, oh, you're confused. Well, I'm not confused.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: You're confused. You confuse me with someone who's been in
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: indentured servitude. or something. But at any rate, they think
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: that here's the way you're supposed to think. Again, here's
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: your skin color. There's this kind of deterministic view that
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: you're supposed to think this because we say so. And I,
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: of course, declined that invitation to And so now that
• 29:59
  Speaker 3: means that something, that I'm a walking contradiction because I've
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: deviated from their perception of what I should think. Explain
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: to me how that is different. Here's what I've asked people.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: I said, when I was a kid, the Savannah Public
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: Library was segregated. I said, do you think it was
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: right that the Savannah Public Library was segregated? Oh, no,
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: you should have been able to go in. I said,
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: what if they allowed me in but said I couldn't
• 30:28
  Speaker 3: go to certain floors? That would be wrong. I said,
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: what if they said you couldn't go to certain stacks? Well,
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: that would be wrong. What if they had certain books
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: marked that were off limits to me? That would be wrong.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Then my question is, why is it then that you
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: have a problem with me embracing certain ideas in certain books?
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: What's the difference? Of course, that's unanswerable. In fact, I
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: would prefer not to go in the building to not
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: being able to embrace the ideas that I find that
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: I agree with or that are important.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: By any measure, one of your greatest legacies in the court,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: and there are many, but has been on race. And
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: you have been a clarion voice in your entire tenure
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: on the court for the principle that the Constitution... does
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: not allow racial distinctions, does not allow racial discrimination. The
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Constitution is colorblind and protects everyone. It's interesting as you
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: tell the story or the analogy of the library and
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: then the stacks and the books that you might not
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: be allowed to read. One story you have told is
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: as a young man, I think in law school, somebody
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: gave you a copy of a book by Thomas Sowell.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: you started to read it and threw it in the
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: trash and said, if I remember right, that no black
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: man can think this way.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: That was Black Education, Myths and Tragedies, I think, one
• 31:56
  Speaker 3: of his early books, and he laughs about it. Then,
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: of course, he sent me a copy just to make
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: sure I had it. But then, in the after law school,
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: I was working in Jeff City. It's one of those
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: Hobson's choices. That's how I wound up there. The only
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: job offer I had, but It's the best job I've
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: ever had.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: But all the fancy law firms wouldn't give you an offer.
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: You came out of Yale Law School, did really well
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: in law school.
• 32:22
  Speaker 3: It didn't matter. And I always tell them now when
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: I see them, they're the reason I'm on the court.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Because but for them, I'd be a tax lawyer someplace.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: And they woke now, but they were fast asleep when
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: I got out of school. So anyway, God works in
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: mysterious ways. I wind up in Jeff City.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: So you're working for Jack Danforth, who is the attorney
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: general in Missouri.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: Absolutely wonderful man.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: And your classmates were asking, what are you doing going
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: to work for a Republican?
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: He was the only one who would give you a job.
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: He was the only one who gave me a job.
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, I had trouble with that. I mean, I
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: was dying. Remember, I just voted for McGovern. Yeah. You know,
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: and I thought he was too conservative. So you can
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: see ideologically where I was. But I go to work
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: for him. Best job I've ever had.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Well, and you said when you came in, you said, look,
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: I don't want to work on matters of race. I
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: don't want to be treated differently than anyone else. And
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: you joked that he took you very seriously.
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: He ignored all of us. But you loved that job.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: I loved it. It was the best job I've ever had.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: $ 11, 000 a year. And he promised. He said, I can
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: give you more work for less money than anybody in
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: the country. And that turned out to be a blessing.
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: But at any rate, that office, the way that he
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: ran that office was just wonderful, even-handed. One of the
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: people I met who became a very dear friend was
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: a quadriplegic from West Point, Nebraska. And went to University
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: of Missouri Law School, graduated, ordered the co-wife, but had
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: suffered from polio and was a quadriplegic. Just a very, very,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: very dear friend. He calls me up one day and
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: he said, Clarence, there's another black guy out here like you.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: And his name is Thomas Sowell. And it was Thomas Sowell.
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: And it was a book review in the Wall Street Journal.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: And it was on race and economics. And I obtained
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: copies of that. And it became just sort of the
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: beginning of the long, intellectual walk back of thinking about
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: these things. And I met him at Washington University on
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: a panel with Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she was a
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: professor in the late 70s. And then when I came
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: here in 79, I think I met him again either
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: in 79 or 80 when he was making the rounds
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: with Hill staffers. And we've been friends since the early 1980s.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: By the way, for what it's worth, I'm urging the
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: White House to award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: I hope they do so. I've publicly called for that.
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to make that happen because I think that
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: would be very appropriate.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it would be deserved. He is a great,
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: great man and one of the great thinkers.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: I've never met him, but I've admired him. He's brilliant
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: and courageous.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: Well, he's courageous. He and I met him. I met
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: Walter Williams back then when I got here.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: I met Walter Williams when I was in high school.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: Is that right?
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he was inspiring even when I was a kid.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: Brash, but he's... And there was another gentleman that you
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: don't know that's also passed away, like Walter, who's... Dunn
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: was also very quiet, but a libertarian and was very,
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: very helpful. But anyway, the whole point is that in
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: Jefferson City, again, I go back to what I said
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: at the very beginning, that things that initially seem like
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: a negative, you know, you can't get a job, so
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: you wind up in Jefferson City, turn out to be
• 36:21
  Speaker 3: a blessing. And what I say in retrospect is that
• 36:25
  Speaker 3: God closed all the doors that I should not have
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: gone through and left one door open, my Hobson's choice,
• 36:32
  Speaker 3: and turned out to be the best job I've ever had.
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: Well, and ultimately you're in the AG's office. You go
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: get a job in corporate America at Monsanto, which paid
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: you a good chunk of money but was not rewarding
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: and you were not happy with corporate America. And then
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Jack Danforth has gone to the Senate and you go
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: work for him in the Senate. and you're a Capitol
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: Hill staffer, and you go to a conference with Thomas Sowell.
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he invited me personally to that in San Francisco.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: And at the time, you're a Republican staffer, but you're
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: on the journey. One of the things I try to
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: do in the book is chronicle the intellectual journey and
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: awakening from an angry left-wing radical to a principled conservative.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: That's a pretty big shift. And reading was an important
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: part of it. Questioning was an important part of it.
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: But you've described how you're sitting at lunch table with
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: Juan Williams, the reporter, having what you thought was a conversation.
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: And it was one of your first interactions with the press.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: And it ended up.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Having a big feature article in the Washington post describing
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: you as the black conservative, which, which was a pretty
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: startling thing for you.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: Well, I'd never called myself conservative. I, I've, you know, the, um,
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: that was a way of character. They called us black
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: conservatives in order to dispose of us. Uh, they called Tom.
• 38:08
  Speaker 3: So that, um, the Walter Williams, Jay Parker, who was
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: another dear friend has passed away. Um, But I was shocked.
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: Remember now, I'm 32 years old. I'm a Hill staffer.
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: I've never been in the press. I had just made
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: my first trip to California.
• 38:28
  Speaker 2: You got the inkling that there was going to be
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: something on you when they sent a photographer.
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: To take a picture. I was sharing an office with
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: three other staffers, and this photographer shows up from the post.
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: And December 16, 1980, there's my smiling face on the
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: op-ed page. And then my whole life. changed and the
• 38:48
  Speaker 3: attacks the negativity.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: And there is a nastiness as a black conservative that
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: I don't think anyone else experiences you get some of
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: it as an Hispanic who's a conservative because I'm not
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: supposed to be a conservative but you're really not supposed
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: to be a conservative and there's part of the reason
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: I wanted to write the book is the vitriol that
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: has been directed at you is different look Justice Scalia
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: You knew him extremely well. He was brilliant, extraordinarily principled.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: He never had the kind of hate directed to him
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: that you did. And the left, they view you... a
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: black man is not allowed to think that way. You're
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: a traitor. And that, there's an ugliness to that.
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, that's, you know, I grew up, again,
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: I've been fortunate to have had misfortunes. And one of
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: the things you learned during segregation is there was this
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: idea that, boy, don't you know your place. And that's
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: the same thing. I mean, these are the same, some
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: of the worst people that you would meet, like the progressives.
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: That's why I mentioned people like Woodrow Wilson, one of
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: the early progressives.
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: Who was a vicious racist.
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but see, underneath that, and Paul Johnson makes the
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: point that you scratch the surface of things like the
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: Marxists and the socialists. That's what you find because they
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: have to categorize people. So I understand that. But I
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: crossed that bridge in my early 30s that I accepted
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: that this is the way they were going to treat me.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: This is what was going to happen. This is what
• 40:35
  Speaker 3: would happen, and who knew where it would leave, but
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: God would take care of that part. But the fact
• 40:43
  Speaker 3: that they have all this vitriol, to me, is a
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: white flag that they have no argument. When you start calling.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: If they think you're wrong, persuade you.
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: Look, I'm open to reason, but I will not be
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: told what to do. No one cajoles me, no one
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: makes me do anything. Slavery is over. But there's this
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: sense that don't you know what you're supposed to think?
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: And that is with me, that is the wrong argument.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: Well, and related to that, one of the things that
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: you have really powerfully written and spoken about is with
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: affirmative action and racial quotas, it brings with it a stigma.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: You rather famously put a sticker of 15 cents on
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: your Yale law degree from a cigar box because, and
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: you talked about coming out of Yale, but not being
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: able to get a job. And look, I went to
• 41:47
  Speaker 2: school at a different time than you did, but I'll
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: tell you, as an Hispanic, I still remember this one
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: supercilious liberal in law school explaining that everyone who wasn't
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: a white man, was on the law review because of
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: affirmative action. That was the only reason anyone could possibly
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: do well is because they were giving us this gift.
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: And it was infuriating.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: You know, I've heard, I've been, there are many, many
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: slights along the way. But it doesn't make you wrong.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: These are little bumps in the road. And what I
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: compare it to, again, I compare it to what My
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: grandparents went through. Like, just take my grandfather. Yeah. If
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: I'm going to complain, right, I have to look at him,
• 42:36
  Speaker 3: at a man who didn't complain. He never knew his father.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: His mother dies when he's six or seven, maybe eight.
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: And then he goes to live with his grandmother, who's
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: a freed slave who lives on a part of the
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: plantation that they're from.
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Just pause for a second and think about the marvel
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: of America, that your grandfather who raised you was raised
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: by his grandmother who was a freed slave. And now
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: you are the second longest serving Supreme Court justice in
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: American history and in a couple of years will be
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: the longest serving. That is– it's one of the things– Look,
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: those who point to the flaws in our nation's history,
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: they're not wrong. Our racial history in particular has been
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: a history of injustice, and slavery was grotesque. But I
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: agree with Dr. King that the arc of history is long,
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: and it bends towards justice. And that journey was possible
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: because of the principles America was built on, even if
• 43:50
  Speaker 2: it took us decades and even centuries to begin living
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: up to it.
• 43:55
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, he always, my grandfather would talk about
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: don't throw out the Ten Commandments because people don't obey them.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: There's nothing wrong with the Ten Commandments. It's just we
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: have weaknesses or for whatever reasons we don't comply. And
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: I think sometimes when you're angry and you see suffering
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: and difficulties, you are willing to throw everything out, the
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: baby with the bathwater. And as you get older, you
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: can be more discerning. And one of the things I
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: think that's unfortunate is that the people who should know
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: better haven't stood up and defended those principles and asserted
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: them and then tried to live up to them and
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: not be hypocritical and not to sacrifice the principles for
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: a share of the power or for a share of
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: the loot that they're getting from the country or whatever.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: And so one of the things that I tried to
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: do when I was teasing out the speech at the
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: University of Texas is to make this point. Two things
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: that I wanted to talk about was the fact that
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: here you had uneducated people who believed that God made
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: them equal. And you had Irish nuns, immigrants, that believed
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: strongly that in God's eyes, we're all equal. And this
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: was not to be debated. No matter what the laws
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: around us said, this was not debatable. So now that
• 45:36
  Speaker 3: means if there are Irish immigrants and uneducated people who
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: have no formal education believe this, my point was simply
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: that it must be self-evident. Otherwise, how else would they know?
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: The other part of it that I was interested in
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: is there are a lot of nice words in the Declaration,
• 46:00
  Speaker 3: for example. But what do they pledge? Their lives, their fortune,
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: and their sacred honor. And this is after what the
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: king says, I'm going to hang all of you.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: And that was not theoretical.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: No, I know it. He was not happy. But at
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: any rate, my point is if you end it by saying,
• 46:20
  Speaker 3: I'm willing to die for this. Now, that gives value
• 46:24
  Speaker 3: to what you just said. In your wedding vows, you say,
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: I do, and you mean it. Right. You said you've
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: been married, what, 29 years?
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: 25.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: 25 years. So that gives content to your wedding vows. Yeah.
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: When I said, I do, to my wife, that gives content. Otherwise,
• 46:42
  Speaker 3: it's just nice words. And I think one of the things,
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: and this goes back to my point about leaving the seminary,
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: do you really mean it? Do you really believe as
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: a church what you said you believe? And it was
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: the gap between that, what you said, the church said,
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: and what the leadership seemed to a 19-year-old to believe.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: And I think in this country now, think about it.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: When last have you had a leader that made– that
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: said something that is the equivalent of, I pledge my life,
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: my property, my fortune, and my sacred honor.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: So you referenced the speech you gave at University of Texas.
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: I want to commend all the listeners here. Go and
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: listen to that speech. It really was an extraordinary speech.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: I'm proud of UT. I spent a couple of years
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: on the faculty as an adjunct law professor there. And look,
• 47:40
  Speaker 2: Most law schools are so left-wing. I'm proud of UT
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: for inviting you there. The president, Jim Davis, is a
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: good friend, had you there. But it really is an
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: important speech and conversation, and if folks haven't listened to it,
• 47:52
  Speaker 2: they should. What I want to do in the interest
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: of time, there are additional chapters in your life from
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: being a Hill staffer to an assistant secretary of the
• 48:02
  Speaker 2: Department of Education to the chairman of the EOC and
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: the Reagan administration. to a court of appeals judge on
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: the D.C. Circuit, to going through one of, if not
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: the most brutal confirmation hearing of any justice. You and
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: Brett Kavanaugh can arm wrestle for who had the rougher time,
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: but in many ways, and I talk about this in
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: the book, how what Justice Kavanaugh went through was a
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: replay of the playbook that you were subjected to. I
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: want to skip over all of those periods, although... I
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: recount them in detail in the book. And I want
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: to go to after you are confirmed and you're sworn
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: in and you're in your early 40s and suddenly you're
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: a Supreme Court justice. And your autobiography ends with your
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: being a justice. So it tells your life story but
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: then does not cover your jurisprudence. I want to start
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: with just a human thing.
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: What's it like?
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: The first day you're a justice, you walk in, like
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: just what's day one of being a Supreme Court justice?
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: Well, you feel a little small. And, like, what the
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: heck am I doing here? Which is still a question.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: But this is, you know, the, as I said, just
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: Lord grant me the wisdom to know what's right and
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: the courage to do it. That has been a constant
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: plea of mine. Um, and it is what brought me
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: back to the church being stopping at first St. Nicholas,
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: then sometimes St. Mary's and sometimes St. Joe, uh, to
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: just ask for the wisdom and to know what is
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: right and the courage to do it. But you know, you,
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: it is just the, you pledge to, uh, I gave
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: President Bush my promise. I took an oath. He said,
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: can you call him as you see him? He asked
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: me that in Kennebunkport, July 1, 1991. I said, I can.
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: And that's what I've lived up to. My grandfather, when
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: I asked him when I was being attacked in the
• 50:28
  Speaker 3: early 80s, 1982, I said, what should I do? He said, boy,
• 50:31
  Speaker 3: you got to stand up for what you believe in.
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: It's pretty simple. And I must say, I'm on the
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: other side of that spectrum now. But I was treated royally,
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: fabulously by my new colleagues. Your old boss, Chief Justice Rehnquist,
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: Justice Scalia, Stevens, O'Connor, a great woman who doesn't get
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: the credit she deserves, Justice Kennedy. And now I'm on
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: the other side of it where I have newer colleagues,
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: wonderful and brilliant young people like Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh,
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: you mentioned. We have Amy Barrett. And then Sam Alito
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: and I were at Yale together. Just a wonderful, wonderful group.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: You were classmates at Yale.
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: He was a year behind me.
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: He was a year behind you, but you didn't know
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: each other.
• 51:24
  Speaker 3: He's a funny guy. He's brilliant. He was always nerdy.
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: Princeton guy like you, right? And so I said, Sam,
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: how come we were there two years together? Why weren't
• 51:35
  Speaker 3: we friends? Clarence, you were scary. I'm so glad they
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: didn't have these phones where you could take a lot
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: of pictures. I wore bib overalls throughout law school and
• 51:49
  Speaker 3: combat boots. It was awful. But, you know, you have
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: just the chief has been a good friend. But my
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: point is simply this, that, you know, I was embraced there.
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: It was a different generation. It's the World War II.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: Byron White. They were just wonderful people. They were very
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: kind to me. You know, the courts changed a bit
• 52:19
  Speaker 3: now since the Dobbs League. Back then, there was a trust. Yes.
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: There was an honor. Even as you disagreed, there were
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: lines you did not cross, and I like that. These
• 52:32
  Speaker 3: people were the age of my... My mother and older.
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: And so it was a different era. And now we're in,
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: it's a different generation now. But the point is that
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: you have equally good people who are there. I mean,
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: I loved, I knew some of them as law clerks.
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: They've become very dear friends. And I hope to be
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: a model to them as the older members of the
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: court who were there when I arrived were to me.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: So of all the justices who have served on the court,
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: I think you are the most willing to reconsider precedent
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: and to think of an issue anew, which is in
• 53:22
  Speaker 2: some ways to think about it as it was– in fact,
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: in many ways to think of it as it was
• 53:26
  Speaker 2: originally understood. And that– your opinion writing– is you write
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: straightforward opinions in ordinary English. You don't tend to use
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: fancy highfalutin words, but your opinions are written so that
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: the regular person can read them and understand what you're saying.
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: And I think there's a workmanship quality to your opinions.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: I analogize it to a farmer or someone building a home.
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: And you draw that same analogy. Why do you think
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: it is that you are the most willing to reconsider precedent?
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: You know, I start with something you and I, I think,
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: have talked about over the years, and that is that
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: I start with something that has to make sense.
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: The quote from your grandfather, if it don't make no
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: damn sense, it don't make no damn sense.
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: And I keep that in my office because you can–
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: He would call some of these professors fast talking.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: And you think about it. You know, we have had
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: throughout history court intellectuals who can make all sorts of
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: justifications for things and theories and et cetera, et cetera,
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: et cetera. And I've been blessed because I can sort
• 54:53
  Speaker 3: through theories and I read lots and lots and lots
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: of books. Yeah. And I've been at it a long time.
• 55:01
  Speaker 3: And I have young people who have that energy, and
• 55:03
  Speaker 3: they say, we're going to go find the answer. Now,
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: it may not be what we want, but we're going
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: to go look for it. And what we find in
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: many instances is it's been a theory. So you can
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: have deductive reasoning, you have a theory and you work down,
• 55:23
  Speaker 3: or you can have inductive, which any rancher or farmer uses,
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: which is, You do something, and it's experience, and you
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: keep generalizing up to something more general. And that's the
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: world I grew up. The latter is the world I
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: grew up in. I cannot explain it to that guy
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: on the ranch. Yep. And if he says, boy, that
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: don't make no sense. You know, he should be a hero.
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: When I go out to ordinary people, they should be
• 55:49
  Speaker 3: able to understand their constitution.
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: And by the way, ordinary people, one thing people may
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: not know, you do that a lot. You and Jenny
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: go out in your RV, like in the summertime, you
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: head across the country and are in Walmart parking lots
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: just hanging out with regular people.
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: Well, I'm Bucky's now. All right, now as.
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: A Texan, that makes me happy. Bucky's is a destination.
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: But, you know, I love, I grew up with, as
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: my granddad said, po-folks. And that's the world I like.
• 56:24
  Speaker 3: I like people who work with their hands. I like
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: people who are regular people. That's my preferred world. And,
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: you know, I was, my wife laughs at me because
• 56:35
  Speaker 3: I was, our motor home is, motor coach is 35
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: years old. So I like the old buses. And so
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: you hang out with the guys who do work on
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: old buses. And I got to spend time with one
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: of them this in the December and we're like, we
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: take all the wheels off and you're up. So I said,
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: that was happy as I could be because you're under
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: the air. You got all the shocks, all the airbags,
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: you know, the lines he's, he's showing you all these things,
• 57:05
  Speaker 3: the valves. And it was just, I could not, I
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: wish I could spend two weeks there instead of two days. But,
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: The point is, it's their constitution. It's that truck driver's constitution.
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: It's that school teacher's constitution. It's not the preserve of
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: court intellectuals and law professors. And we've turned it into that.
• 57:23
  Speaker 3: We've over-intellectualized it. This is a point that Murray Rothbard
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: makes in his book, Conceived in Liberty. We've taken something
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: that was passionately achieved and that was believed in passionately,
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: and we turned it into this thing that you need
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: an oracle. to explain.
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: The Federalist Papers were newspaper editorials.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: And they were only in New York, by the way.
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: Those were basically Hamilton and those guys. There's a big
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: difference between Hamilton and some of the more radical guys,
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: like a Sam Adams, which is more than a beer,
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: by the way.
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: I will admit there was an amusing exchange of one
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: commentator on the left who was on TV saying, James Madison,
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: Thomas Jefferson, can you imagine those people overthrowing the government?
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: And I couldn't help but respond, yes, yes, I can.
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: It kind of happened. One of the things you have
• 58:33
  Speaker 2: been really eloquent on, and I think profoundly... influential on
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: is is the look the constitution is is the foundational
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: document that that created our government uh... but but you
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: have focused a great deal on the declaration of independence
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: and and and why is the declaration so important and
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: and what what is the relevance that that that people
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: should know.
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: About well the the constitution sets up the government the
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: form of the government but what precedes that? What does
• 59:08
  Speaker 3: it mean? What defines you, your rights? How do they
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: view your rights? Where do they come from? And where
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: does the government come from? And it sets the order right.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: Just take it simple. It says your rights come from God, basically,
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: from nature's God. And then from that, you give up
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: some of those God-given natural rights in order to be governed.
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: And what does that lead to? That leads to the Constitution.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: I was pointing out to my clerks the other day,
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: because you get these Second Amendment cases, and I said,
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: you know, Why do we keep saying there's a Second
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: Amendment right? The Second Amendment says the right to bear
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: arms shall not be infringed. It assumes a right. It
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: doesn't grant a right. So you can go First Amendment,
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Where does that come from?
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: And that's what I was interested in, that what establishes
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: this whole notion of liberty. What establishes this order of rights?
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: And so it matters if you think the government is
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 3: the primary giver of, grantor of rights, and you receive
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: rights and benefits from the government versus you have the
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: rights and the government receives its authority from you. And
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 3: I think that that order... being able to establish that
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: in each case is important. And if you go back,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 3: and that explains Justice Scalia's writings on the structure of
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: the Constitution being the safeguard of these rights that you
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 3: have that are antecedent and that are transcended. So I
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 3: focus on that to always get the order right. When
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: you farm, every farmer knows, like when you plant, or
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: when you plow, I don't know if you've ever plowed.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: I'm a city boy, so I've watched it on TV.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: So my granddaddy said, boy, he would always say, and
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: he put a little cuss word in there from time
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: to time, he said, and those rows better be straight.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: So you have to take your first row, and it
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 3: has to be absolutely straight. Then you put your tire
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: in a groove where the plows, especially if you're using
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: a dish plow, and they go different ways, You go
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 3: and you follow that. So now every subsequent row is straight. Well,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 3: going back to your point about precedent, what if that
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: first row is crooked? Will you keep going, pretending that
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: it's straight, or do you go back and make it straight?
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: That's why you say, well, I'm not accepting precedent. If
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: something doesn't make any sense, what am I going to do?
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: Am I a fool for following that or not questioning it?
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 3: And I taught a course on stare decisis just for
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: this point. It makes sense when you have this unwritten
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 3: laws and when you have traditions and when barons are
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: like ruling on cases in these rural areas in England.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: But when you have positive law, when it's written down
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: and you can see the deviation, who's the fool? You
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: follow something that's absurd. Why would you follow something that's absurd?
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: Well, look, a great example of that, in a case
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 2: I talk about quite a bit in the book, is
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: the Kelo case, where Kelo involved a city that was
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: condemning a woman's home.
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: That they had for 100 years. Yes. This tiny house,
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: regular person's house, not a mansion, and for a public purpose,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: not a public use. And that started in southwest D.C.,
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 3: by the way, the precedent for that. And the court
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 3: was willing to say that the public purpose was the
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 3: equivalent of public use. Well, a public purpose could be
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: to increase your tax base.
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 2: Well, and actually, as I was driving over here to
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: do this, I wanted to look. I pulled up the
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: language of the Fifth Amendment. And the relevant prohibition at
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: the end of it is, nor shall private property be
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: taken for public use without just compensation. So that's the
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 2: actual language. And Kelo, unfortunately, it was 5-4, the majority
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 2: said that the city of New London, Connecticut could take
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: her home, not for a highway or a road or
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: a city building, but for a parking lot for a
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: planned Pfizer.
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: Building.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: And you dissented, you dissented, and it focused on the
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: words public use versus purpose. And explain that distinction to us.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: Well, purpose is a very broad term.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 2: And the court and its precedent had basically turned use
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 2: into purpose.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: But there's another thing. principle or that we have followed
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: for years, which is you don't take, the government doesn't
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: take property, private property from person A and give it
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: to private person B. Right. That's not a public use. So,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: but going back to your point that the, a public
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: use would be a park, it'd be a hospital, it'd
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: be a highway, et cetera. Something that the public uses.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: A public purpose doesn't necessarily, is much, much broader. So
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: just imagine you have a somewhat blighted area. But suddenly
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: it's attractive to people with lots of money. And a
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: city decides, well, we'd like to increase our tax base. Well,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: there are all these young people with lots of money
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 3: who want to build these McMansions or these high-end $ 2
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: or $ 3 million structures. Well, the public purpose would be
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 3: to increase that tax base, but that's not a public use.
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: And now you've given people who have authority to take
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 3: your property a much broader way and much more power
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 3: to take an individual's property. Now, why is the issue?
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 3: I took quite a bit of property at Yale for
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: this reason. If you go back to Georgia, if you
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: go back to the South, you go to places like
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 3: South Carolina, There was all this land that blacks owned
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: in the way that my family received land over the years.
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: It was called heirs' property. Everybody owns it. Nobody's really
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: in charge. Well, a lot of that land, there were
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: aggressive efforts to use that land for developments. It could
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 3: be for resorts in Hilton Head. It could be for
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: strategic purposes in Harris Neck, Georgia. It could be for
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 3: conservation in places where blacks were subsistence farmers, like in McIntosh, Georgia.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: So my only point is simply this, that the word,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: if you want to protect the property, you have to
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: stick to the words in the Constitution, or it sort
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: of spreads out. to broader powers that were not intended,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: and public purpose allows it. Plus that word appears in
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 3: no place in the Constitution.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 2: Well, I will say, even though you were in dissent,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 2: you did not command the majority in the court, I
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: think over time the view you articulated has prevailed, and
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: it's persuaded Texas and many other states have enacted laws
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: to prevent the taking of public property for public purposes,
• 1:07:11
  Speaker 2: and it was inspired by inspired by your very, you know,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: Justice O'Connor used an effective analogy in dissent in that
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: case where she said under this reasoning, the government could
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 2: condemn every Motel 6 and to build a Ritz-Carlton.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And she's right. And she and I, and remember
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: she comes from, a rancher.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: I think the, just think about it, hand in hand
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: with liberty. Uh, you had, they, they were traveling companion,
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: Liberty and property. Okay. Wherever you see it, if you
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: look at the new process clock, what does it protect?
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 2: Life, Liberty and property.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: Okay. Wherever you see it. And that was my grandfather.
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: What did he say? These were PO. He said a
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: little bit of land. You get to raise crops. You
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: get to build a little place to live. Uh, you
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: get to raise some animals. Okay. The property was a
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: part of your way to take care of yourself. So
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 3: liberty and property, it was the fruit of your labor.
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: So you worked in the cornfield, you planted it, you
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: took care of it, you harvested it. It's yours. And
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: the land is yours. You earned it. And I think
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: you see throughout the founding, all those things, those were
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 3: always paired, liberty and property. And we treat it as
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: though it's a benefit from the government rather than a
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: right that transcends the government and is to be protected
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: from the government.
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: One thing you did there just a minute ago that
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: is really powerful and that is a consistent thing. of
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: your jurisprudence is you understand the rights protected in the
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 2: Constitution with an understanding of the context of history. So
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 2: when you're talking about condemning land or property for public
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: purpose rather than use, you quickly brought it to when
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: government power is used, historically it has been used over
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 2: and over by the rich and powerful against the more
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: vulnerable in society, often against African-Americans or Hispanics or people
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: who don't necessarily have the ability to defend themselves against
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: government power. That's something also that you've powerfully done in
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 2: the Second Amendment context. And one of the things that
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: you've said, you and I, when we were sitting down
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 2: doing interviews, you talked about the importance of Reconstruction. That
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: if you're going to understand American history and the Constitution,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: you've got to understand Reconstruction. Tell us about that.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: Well, it's everything. I mean, it's, you know, the, I think, Reconstruction.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: Why did you have Reconstruction? I mean, because you had
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: the Civil War. You had slaves that were freed. You
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: had the South that was not going to do what
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 3: it should do. And so you basically had the military
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: in the South. And after Reconstruction, of course, you got
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: the Redeemers. You got the Redeemers. You have the former
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: Confederates who've been disempowered, disenfranchised, and they start forming these
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: vigilante groups. And who are they going after? Are they
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: going after the Republicans in the South, they're going after
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: particularly the freedmen. And what's the argument? If you just
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: take a look at it, you'd see they would maraud.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: They would intimidate. They would lynch. And there was a
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: big difference. But the 14th Amendment is passed. And the
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: whole point is to now make these slave citizens. But
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: there's something further going on. If you look at the
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: debates in the 14th Amendment, the argument is these people
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: have a right to defend themselves. Now, the radical Republicans
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: felt that with these rights, privileges or immunities, also brings
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: the right to bear arms. They have a right to
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 3: defend themselves from these marauders. And anyone who lives in
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: a rural area, who lives in the South, It could
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: be in Texas, in rural Texas. Everybody is armed for
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: a variety of reasons. To defend themselves, to hunt, etc.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: And if you live in rural Georgia, I didn't know
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: anybody who didn't have at least one weapon. And you
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: could have a mad dog. You could have a big
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: six-foot rattlesnake. You could have a moccasin. You could have
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: all sorts of things. And you could have an opportunity
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: to kill an animal for food. But my point is
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 3: that the radical Republicans understood that without that right to
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 3: defend themselves.
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 2: And fundamentally, it's a right to life, a right to
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: protect your life, your kids' life, your family.
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: Well, that was the point. That was the Freedmen Bureau.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 3: If you look at the reports, they're getting killed down
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: here with the Knights of Camellia, the Ku Klux Klan, etc.,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: And so you get the 14th Amendment. Right. And defining them,
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: of course, answering Taney and responding to his notion that
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 3: blacks cannot be citizens. But this also brings in the
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: privileges or immunities clause.
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 2: And Taney was the author of Dred Scott, which if
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: there's a decision that is more disgraceful than Plessy versus Ferguson,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 2: it was Dred Scott.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: Well, it is.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: For a lot of different reasons. I've spent a lot
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 3: of time on Dred Scott and the history around Dred Scott.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: But the whole point is that here's a man who's
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: trying to figure out a way to say that no
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: way blacks could ever be citizens of this country, just
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 3: by their very nature. And, of course, we revisit that
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: old notion in the birthright case last term. Yep. in
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 3: a different way and for different reasons. But the 14th
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: Amendment in this country is critical because it's basically the
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: second founding. And so you have to understand that. So
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 3: what I think I owe my fellow citizens is not
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: just to read the words of the Constitution, but to
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: try to understand not just the 14th Amendment, but the revolution,
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: leading up to the revolution, the history of England, the
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 3: things that influence it. The Civil War, the post-Civil War,
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: the Reconstruction era. And you may have to read people
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: you don't necessarily agree with. Sure. For example, I read
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: and reread Eric Foner on Reconstruction. Now, he's a revisionist historian,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 3: but he's fine. He does a great job of explaining
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 3: Reconstruction and a lot of these problems. And I admire
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 3: the work that he's done. And at the same time,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: you may not agree. with the revolutionary period with Murray
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 3: Rothbard because he's a libertarian. But he's written a couple
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 3: of thousand pages on this and conceived in liberty. And
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 3: it's worth reading because it gives you that sort of
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: granular understanding of the revolutionary period.
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: But you told me a story about Justice Breyer when
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 2: he was robbed. And if you just share that story.
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: Poor Steve Breyer. He's such a good man. So, Steve,
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: this is a joke, and I hope I don't offend Steve.
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: He's a very decent man. We spent a lot of
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: years sitting next to each other. What a fun time.
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 3: But at any rate, so Steve Breyer, he'd been robbed,
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: and he didn't want it to be public. He didn't
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: want the attention. And Nevis, where they have little property there.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: And he said, so he's telling the story to a
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 3: number of us, a number of others as I walk
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: in the room, that he turns to me because I
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: wasn't there at the beginning. He said, Clarence, I had
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: a question for you. You're on your porch. You're playing
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: bridge with another couple, you and your wife, and a
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: guy walks up with a machete. What would you do?
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: And I said, I don't play bridge. He said, okay, okay,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: you're playing poker. And the guy walks over to the machete,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: and he says he demands money. What would you do?
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: He said, I don't play poker. I don't play cards, Steve.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: He said, what would you be doing on your porch?
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: I said, cleaning my guns. And I said, do you
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: want some ketchup with that? But at any rate, he
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: is such– I hope that doesn't offend him. He is
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: the nicest man. You know, I– And that goes back.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: I just, let me just say a word. You ask about,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: you know, the, the court and the work, et cetera.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: It's a human institution. And I've been blessed because I
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: get along with the members of the court. Uh, we
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: have a different set of colleagues now. Um, but they're wonderful.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: You've got, uh, Neil and Louise Gorsuch, the delightful, just
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: wonderful couple. Um, And, you know, it takes a few
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 3: years to get your legs, and he's done that. Brett
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: Kavanaugh was just the nicest person. He and his wife, Ashley,
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 3: she's a Texan. You've got the Alitos, Martha Ann and Sam. Again,
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: and the Chief and Jane. I mean, it's a wonderful
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: group of people. And it was when I came on
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: the court. It's different now because I'm the oldest member
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: as opposed to They're the youngest. As the New York
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: Times said, the youngest and the cruelest. But, you know,
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: it's just I've just changed perspective. But still, it's a
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: human institution with decent people on board.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: So I saw Brett and Ashley at Lindsey Graham's funeral.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 2: And they've been friends. I've known them for 30 years.
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: Ashley was on the. 2000 George W. Bush campaign with
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: Heidi and me. So we were all young staffers on
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: that campaign. So I saw the two of them at
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: Lindsey's funeral. I actually told Brett at the funeral a
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 2: story during his confirmation hearing when Lindsey Graham went off.
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 2: And I think it's his– Lindsey was a dear friend
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: of mine and it was his finest moment I believe
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 2: as a senator where he unloaded on the unfairness of
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: what was happening and My mother had not previously been
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 2: a fan of Lindsey Graham's. And in the hearing, she
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 2: texts me and she says, okay, I now love Lindsey Graham.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 2: And she goes online and gives him 40 bucks. And
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 2: so I walk over to Lindsey, I pull out my
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 2: phone and I show him the text from my mom
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 2: and Lindsey is cracking up laughing.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, it is really interesting. And that goes
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: to our country. People like people who stand up for
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: what's right. And as I said to you from the beginning,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: I do not understand a lot about this town. I
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: don't know who has the time for all this anima.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 3: toward other people. I don't spend any of my day
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: on that sort of thing. But the lying that takes place,
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 3: the attacks on financial disclosure, which was, it was laughable
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 3: in one way, but just painful to just the lies.
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: But you and Mike Lee and the others who stood
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 3: up are dearly appreciated because we could not believe the
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 3: inundation of just misstatements and falsehoods. And we don't have
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: the capacity at the court to defend ourselves. We don't
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: have a bully pulpit or anything like that. Most of
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: us just simply are doing our jobs. And we can disagree,
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: you know, in the old days, I first became aware
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 3: of the court when they're riding along US 17 between
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: Savannah and the farm. There were these impeach Earl Warren
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: signs after Brown v. Board of Education. And so I
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: understand that people have different ways of reacting to to
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: the work that we do, but this current environment that
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 3: we're in is quite, excuse me, quite different from signs
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: saying impeach Earl Warren.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 2: Well, Justice, let me say thank you. Thank you for,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 2: you've been incredibly generous with your time. Thank you for
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: joining us on this podcast. Thank you for spending the
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: time in the interviews to write this book. And look,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 2: I've said this before, but you are a true American hero.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 2: And I want to say to the folks listening, if
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 2: you're a young person, there are a lot of young
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 2: people that listen to this podcast. If you are a
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 2: young person and you're looking for someone to admire, someone
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 2: to emulate, someone to walk along a path and be
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 2: inspired by, you would be very hard pressed to find
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 2: a better role model than Clarence Thomas. And that's why
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 2: I wrote this book, because I think you are an
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: incredibly historic significant human being and leader with courage and principle,
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 2: and I am grateful. You can order the book, goingfurther.com,
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 2: pre-order the book, buy it for your family. I think
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 2: you'll like it. I think you'll learn. I hope in
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: this podcast you've seen why I admire Justice Thomas so
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 2: much and why I think you should as well. And
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 2: thank you very much, and we'll see you on the
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 2: next podcast. Thank you, Justice.
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 3: Thank you.