Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Ted's Brand-New Book—A Biography of Clarence Thomas, Telling his Incredible Life Story and his Historic Impact on our Nation

Transcript

Ted's Brand-New Book—A Biography of Clarence Thomas, Telling his Incredible Life Story and his Historic Impact on our Nation · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome in as Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson.
0:03
Speaker 1: With you Center, We've got a jam pack show, and
0:06
Speaker 1: we get to start with some exciting news. You decided
0:09
Speaker 1: to write a book yet again, another book which more
0:12
Speaker 1: than likely I'm going to predict it now. We like
0:14
Speaker 1: making predictions here on Verdict. I'm going to predict right now.
0:17
Speaker 1: I want it to be clear on for twenty two
0:20
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty six, I am predicting that your book
0:23
Speaker 1: will be a best seller. There, that's my confidence in you.
0:26
Speaker 1: So there you go.
0:27
Speaker 2: Well, I appreciate that. So this is book number five.
0:31
Speaker 2: I'm really excited. Books one through four have all been bestsellers,
0:34
Speaker 2: so I'm hopeful book number five will be.
0:36
Speaker 3: And this one is a topic that I'm.
0:39
Speaker 2: Really excited about. So my latest book is coming out
0:44
Speaker 2: in August and it is a biography of Justice Clarence Thomas.
0:49
Speaker 2: It is entitled Going Further the Incomparable Clarence Thomas. And
0:55
Speaker 2: what I try to do is a couple of things.
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Speaker 2: Number One, tell his story. I know Justice Thomas very well.
1:00
Speaker 2: I sat down for extensive one on one interviews with
1:04
Speaker 2: Justice Thomas, and so I tell his story because it's
1:08
Speaker 2: an inspirational It's an incredible story, but I also try
1:12
Speaker 2: to take his jurisprudence and explain it in terms that
1:17
Speaker 2: are real and understandable and make sense to folks. The
1:20
Speaker 2: book is coming out in August. You can pre order
1:22
Speaker 2: it right now. There's a new website, Goingfurther dot com.
1:26
Speaker 2: Go to Goingfurther dot com right now pre order the book.
1:30
Speaker 2: I think you're going to enjoy it. I think this
1:32
Speaker 2: is an important topic and we're going to talk about
1:34
Speaker 2: it at considerable more length and just a moment.
1:37
Speaker 1: Let me also just talk to you real quick about
1:39
Speaker 1: the incredible work that you guys are involved with with
1:42
Speaker 1: the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and helping so
1:45
Speaker 1: many people in need right now in Israel, right now,
1:49
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1:53
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1:55
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1:58
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Speaker 1: Now imagine that no help, no food deliveries, no medical care,
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2:17
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Speaker 1: But because of friends like you, Esther is not alone
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Speaker 1: meeting her urgent needs, and reminding Jewish people like Esther
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Speaker 1: you are not forgotten in times of fear and uncertainty.
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2:43
Speaker 1: are doing a very great mitzvah, a good deed you
2:47
Speaker 1: give from your heart.
2:48
Speaker 4: May God protect you. Friends.
2:51
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2:53
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3:01
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3:16
Speaker 1: So, Senator, this is one of those books that I
3:20
Speaker 1: actually was excited about. I can't remember if it was
3:22
Speaker 1: a year ago, year and a half ago. We were
3:23
Speaker 1: having dinner and you were basically taking the temperature of like,
3:29
Speaker 1: all right, what do you guys, think if I did
3:31
Speaker 1: a book about Clarence Thomas, now I got excited about
3:34
Speaker 1: it because I know, number one, how much you love
3:36
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas and how well you know him too. That
3:39
Speaker 1: is your just history with a Supreme Court. It's something
3:44
Speaker 1: you genuinely love. You loved your time there when you clerked.
3:48
Speaker 1: You love having many of your best friends involved somehow
3:51
Speaker 1: the Court. I think that makes us really exciting. But
3:54
Speaker 1: rarely do you get an opportunity as a senator to
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Speaker 1: then write a book about someone else that you admire
4:01
Speaker 1: in the game of politics, and you kind of got
4:04
Speaker 1: to hit pause and just spend time talking about an
4:07
Speaker 1: amazing man. I'm very lucky I got to know him
4:10
Speaker 1: when I was much younger, when I was starting out
4:12
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. Have so much respect for Clarence Thomas,
4:16
Speaker 1: and this is just what a cool story to get
4:18
Speaker 1: to write the book as well.
4:20
Speaker 4: Well.
4:21
Speaker 3: I've been blessed.
4:21
Speaker 2: I've known Justice Thomas for more than thirty years, and
4:24
Speaker 2: I think he is truly an American hero. There's a
4:28
Speaker 2: reason the subtitle of this book is the Incomparable Clarence Thomas,
4:33
Speaker 2: because there's nobody else like it. You know, if you
4:35
Speaker 2: think about someone. Number one is life story. Justice Thomas
4:39
Speaker 2: grew up in Pinpoint, George, an incredibly poor rural area.
4:44
Speaker 2: It's an island just off the coast of Georgia. He
4:48
Speaker 2: grew up actually not speaking English, speaking a dialect either
4:52
Speaker 2: Guller or Geiche, depending on how you describe it. That
4:55
Speaker 2: was a dialect unique to the area. He grew up
4:58
Speaker 2: an absolute pow poverty. He was raised by his grandfather.
5:03
Speaker 2: His grandfather raised him as great. Justice Thomas's autobiography is
5:09
Speaker 2: entitled My Grandfather's Son, and it's one of the best
5:12
Speaker 2: autobiography has ever read. I highly recommended to everyone. He
5:15
Speaker 2: tells his story of coming from nothing, enduring racism, enduring oppression,
5:21
Speaker 2: enduring poverty, and he excelled academically. He initially he thought
5:26
Speaker 2: he was going to be a Catholic priest. He went
5:28
Speaker 2: to seminary. His plan was to be a Catholic priest,
5:31
Speaker 2: and then he got disillusioned. He got disillusioned by the
5:34
Speaker 2: Church's unwillingness to stand up to racism, to stand up
5:38
Speaker 2: to the incredible racial discrimination we saw in this country.
5:43
Speaker 2: He then went to Holy Cross for college. He went
5:46
Speaker 2: to Yale for law school. He was a young radical.
5:50
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas was a left wing black power radical. In fact,
5:54
Speaker 2: he was part of a riot that happened in Harvard
5:58
Speaker 2: Square when he was a student. He could have easily
6:00
Speaker 2: gotten arrested. He could have easily destroyed his entire career.
6:04
Speaker 2: Then he got fortunate that didn't happen. And then the
6:07
Speaker 2: journey he went from being an angry black man. And
6:11
Speaker 2: that's how Clarence Thomas described himself a left leaning radical
6:15
Speaker 2: in college to becoming a conservative. That took years, That
6:20
Speaker 2: took more than a decade, and his journey through going
6:23
Speaker 2: to work for Jack Danforth, who was the Attorney General
6:27
Speaker 2: of Missouri. He was a Republican at the time. Clarence
6:30
Speaker 2: Thomas was not a Republican. He didn't really want to
6:32
Speaker 2: go work for a Republican, but coming out of Yale
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Speaker 2: Law School as a black man in an era of
6:38
Speaker 2: affirmative action, every major law firm he applied to said no,
6:43
Speaker 2: they did not value his degree. He went to work
6:46
Speaker 2: for Jack Danforth. He had an incredible experience. He learned
6:49
Speaker 2: to practice law in Missouri. He enjoyed it a great deal.
6:53
Speaker 2: He then went, after a brief stint at Monsanto, the
6:58
Speaker 2: big chemical company, went to d C to work for
7:01
Speaker 2: Jack Danforth, who got elected to the Senate, and he
7:04
Speaker 2: was a Capitol Hill staffer, and and we talk about
7:08
Speaker 2: in the In the book, I lay out how he
7:12
Speaker 2: ended up being outed out in an interview with Juan
7:17
Speaker 2: Williams that he didn't realize he was having. He was
7:19
Speaker 2: going and speaking at a conference and suddenly Juan Williams
7:23
Speaker 2: wrote a big expose in the Washington Post about this
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Speaker 2: black conservative and his life changed dramatically. And from there
7:31
Speaker 2: he went on to be the Assistant Secretary of Education
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Speaker 2: under Ronald Reagan for civil rights, and then he became
7:37
Speaker 2: the chairman of the EOC, which he did nearly eight years.
7:42
Speaker 2: He then became a federal appellate judge on the d
7:44
Speaker 2: C Circuit, and then he became in his early forties,
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Speaker 2: a Supreme Court justice, the second black justice in history.
7:53
Speaker 2: And the journey. There is nobody else who has traveled
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Speaker 2: a journey from us from bleak poverty and pinpoint Georgia
8:04
Speaker 2: to a Supreme Court justice. And Clarence Thomas right now, Ben,
8:08
Speaker 2: do you know that Justice Thomas is two years away
8:12
Speaker 2: from being the longest serving Supreme Court justice in the.
8:15
Speaker 3: History of the United States.
8:16
Speaker 4: I did not know that.
8:18
Speaker 2: So William O. Douglas right now has that record. Clarence
8:21
Speaker 2: Thomas will surpass that record in twenty twenty eight. And
8:25
Speaker 2: as I said, I've known him a long time. I
8:28
Speaker 2: admire him. I think he's truly an American hero, and
8:31
Speaker 2: I think his story is inspirational. And I got to say,
8:34
Speaker 2: if the guy were a liberal, he would be venerated.
8:38
Speaker 2: He would be celebrated. You would have a law.
8:41
Speaker 1: School something named after him in law schools and universities
8:44
Speaker 1: and be clamoring for him to come speak.
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Speaker 4: And he'd be celebrated.
8:47
Speaker 1: Because he's a minority on the court, he would be
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Speaker 1: an icon of icons.
8:52
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. You would have honorary degrees from law schools.
8:55
Speaker 2: You'd have elementary schools named after him. You would have
8:58
Speaker 2: liberal talk show hostsighting him on and just fawning over him.
9:02
Speaker 2: You'd have them pushing chic attire. Remember notorious RBG.
9:09
Speaker 3: No notorious.
9:10
Speaker 4: I was only thinking the same thing. He would be
9:11
Speaker 4: the male version of her.
9:14
Speaker 2: Yes, no, no, The entire culture would elevate him. The
9:18
Speaker 2: Smithsonian Museum on African American History would have an entire
9:22
Speaker 2: section dedicated to him instead because he's a conservative. He
9:27
Speaker 2: has endured enormous racism, enormous vilification, enormous hate, enormous attacks,
9:33
Speaker 2: and I think his story is incredibly consequential, but also
9:39
Speaker 2: his impact on the court is profound. And so about
9:41
Speaker 2: a year and a half ago, I called him up
9:44
Speaker 2: and said, Justice, can I come by the chambers to
9:47
Speaker 2: talk with you?
9:47
Speaker 4: Said?
9:47
Speaker 3: Sure, so I went by.
9:49
Speaker 2: He didn't know what I wanted to talk about, and
9:51
Speaker 2: I said, listen, I want to write this biography of you.
9:55
Speaker 3: I think it's an important story to tell, and I'll
9:57
Speaker 3: tell you Ben. You know. He looked at me and
10:00
Speaker 3: he said.
10:00
Speaker 4: By the way, he did not know this was coming.
10:02
Speaker 4: I want ideally understand.
10:03
Speaker 3: Yeah, I just said, hey, can we talk?
10:05
Speaker 1: He said, Ted Cruise is coming to see today, Rank
10:08
Speaker 1: and order the top one hundred things you think you
10:10
Speaker 1: might want to talk to you about. I bet you
10:12
Speaker 1: none of those one hundred would have been He wants
10:14
Speaker 1: to write an autobiography about me.
10:16
Speaker 2: Well, not an autobiography, but but a biography, biography, excuse me,
10:19
Speaker 2: a biography of yeah. So so look, I do think
10:22
Speaker 2: he I don't know that he was surprised, but I
10:25
Speaker 2: don't think he expected that and it was interesting. His
10:28
Speaker 2: comment is about a year and a half ago, and
10:29
Speaker 2: he sort of stopped and reflected for a minute, and
10:33
Speaker 2: he said, you know, Ted, if it was anyone else asking,
10:38
Speaker 2: he said, I would say no. He said, if you
10:41
Speaker 2: were just a law professor, he said, I would not
10:44
Speaker 2: be willing to cooperate. But it was very kind. He said,
10:47
Speaker 2: because it's you, the answer is yes. And what proceeded
10:52
Speaker 2: for the next year is I did a whole series
10:54
Speaker 2: of one on one interviews, about nine and a half
10:56
Speaker 2: hours I spent with him one on one where I
10:59
Speaker 2: just had to overduced chambers and I'd spent an hour
11:01
Speaker 2: or two just ask him questions, and it was free flowing,
11:04
Speaker 2: asking him questions about his life, his childhood, growing up,
11:07
Speaker 2: about the time of the court, about his jurisprudence. And
11:11
Speaker 2: part of what he said is he said, look your background.
11:15
Speaker 2: So I was a Supreme Court law clerk for Chief
11:18
Speaker 2: Justice Renquist. That's when I first got to know him.
11:20
Speaker 2: When I was a law clerk. Then I was a
11:23
Speaker 2: lawyer in private practice, that I was the Solicitor General
11:26
Speaker 2: of Texas, and my entire career was litigating in front
11:30
Speaker 2: of the Supreme Court. So I argued nine cases of
11:33
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court. And then obviously for the last fourteen years,
11:37
Speaker 2: I've been in the Senate and have been on the
11:41
Speaker 2: Senate Judiciary Committee, so have been part of numerous judicial
11:45
Speaker 2: confirmation hearing Supreme Court confirmation hearings. And what Justice Thomas
11:50
Speaker 2: said is he said, look, with your background, I think
11:52
Speaker 2: you can tell this story in a way that is effective.
11:56
Speaker 2: And what I wanted to do ben so, as I said,
11:59
Speaker 2: my Grandfather's Son is a fabulous autobiography. So if you
12:02
Speaker 2: just want his life story, go buy that book.
12:04
Speaker 3: It's fabulous.
12:06
Speaker 2: But my Grandfather's Son ends when he goes to the
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Speaker 2: Supreme Court. So what I tried to do with this
12:14
Speaker 2: book is tell his story, but also analyze his jurisprudence,
12:21
Speaker 2: thirty years of Supreme Court opinions, why they mattered, why
12:24
Speaker 2: they were consequential, And what I try to do in
12:27
Speaker 2: the book is explain it in a way that is understandable.
12:32
Speaker 2: You don't have to be a lawyer, you don't have
12:34
Speaker 2: to be a constitutional expert. I try to write every book,
12:36
Speaker 2: as I said, this is book number five. Every book
12:38
Speaker 2: I've written, I try to write so that a smart
12:41
Speaker 2: high school student can read it and get it and
12:45
Speaker 2: understand it, so you don't have to be an expert.
12:47
Speaker 2: But why does Justice Thomas's jurisprudence matter? And so I
12:51
Speaker 2: try to interweave that and tell that story. As I mentioned,
12:55
Speaker 2: the website is goingfurther dot com, goingfurther dot com, and
12:59
Speaker 2: I would hold you go to the website right now,
13:01
Speaker 2: goingfurther dot com and pre order the book. The book
13:04
Speaker 2: will come out in August, so if you pre order
13:06
Speaker 2: it right now in August, when it comes out, it'll
13:08
Speaker 2: be shipped straight to you. It is, I think, a
13:12
Speaker 2: fun read. It's an interesting read. I really really enjoyed
13:16
Speaker 2: writing this book.
13:18
Speaker 4: You know it's interesting.
13:18
Speaker 1: I don't think you know this, but the first Supreme
13:20
Speaker 1: Court just I ever met was Quarence Thomas. I did
13:23
Speaker 1: not know them, and I told him, and I don't
13:26
Speaker 1: think i've ever told you just either. The Clarence Thomas
13:29
Speaker 1: hearings was the first political thing I ever watched in TV.
13:33
Speaker 1: I was, I think ten years old when in nineteen
13:36
Speaker 1: ninety one, isn't that right?
13:37
Speaker 4: I think that was a time. It was ninety one
13:39
Speaker 4: ninety one.
13:40
Speaker 2: And by the way, for our younger listeners, you may
13:42
Speaker 2: not know this, so George Herbert Walker Bush nominated into
13:46
Speaker 2: the Court, and his confirmation was the most brutal Supreme
13:50
Speaker 2: Court confirmation hearing we've ever seen ever. It followed Robert Borks.
13:55
Speaker 2: Robert Borks was really ugly and brutal. In fact, Robert
13:58
Speaker 2: Bork's confirmation hearing turned his name into a verb. To bork,
14:03
Speaker 2: someone is to attack them unfairly, to go after them.
14:06
Speaker 2: Because the Senate Democrats, led by Ted Kennedy, Savage, Robert Bork,
14:12
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas took it to a totally different order of magnitude.
14:15
Speaker 2: So one of the things I do in the book
14:17
Speaker 2: is breakdown the entire confirmation hearings, the allegations of sexual
14:21
Speaker 2: harassment by Anita Hill.
14:23
Speaker 3: I break them down.
14:24
Speaker 2: And by the way, the Clarence Thomas hearings set the
14:27
Speaker 2: stage for the Brett Cavanaugh impeachment hearings, where they were
14:31
Speaker 2: not impeachment hearings but confirmation hearings, they felt like impeachment hearings,
14:35
Speaker 2: where they replayed the same playbook, including anonymous allegations that
14:41
Speaker 2: the Democrats had for months, they sat on, they didn't release,
14:44
Speaker 2: and on the eve of the vote they leaked them
14:46
Speaker 2: to the press to just slander the nominee, and so
14:49
Speaker 2: I walk through and part of what I do the
14:52
Speaker 2: Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing I was intimately involved in. I
14:55
Speaker 2: was on the Senate Judiciary Committee. So part of what
14:57
Speaker 2: I do in the book is draw the parallel between
15:00
Speaker 2: those two but try to tell the inside story. But
15:04
Speaker 2: for those too young to remember, I will say Clarence
15:08
Speaker 2: Thomas was savaged at a level there have been very
15:11
Speaker 2: few people in public life who ever have and I
15:15
Speaker 2: got to say, after Donald Trump, I don't think there
15:20
Speaker 2: is anybody that left hates more than Clarence Thomas. And
15:24
Speaker 2: that's part of why I got excited about writing this book,
15:27
Speaker 2: because I've got to say, if you were to pick
15:31
Speaker 2: a role model someone to say I want to be
15:34
Speaker 2: like that person, I am hard pressed to find a
15:38
Speaker 2: better example than Clarence Thomas for someone deeply principled and
15:42
Speaker 2: by the way his journey, he didn't arrive at his
15:46
Speaker 2: beliefs and principles today. It took him decades to get there.
15:50
Speaker 2: But it was a commitment to truth, and it was
15:53
Speaker 2: a perseverance that I am going to stick to truth
15:56
Speaker 2: even if the whole world comes crashing down upon me,
15:59
Speaker 2: even if I criticize. So many people in public life.
16:04
Speaker 2: When they're criticized, they give in, they surrender, they give
16:06
Speaker 2: up everything they believe. Clarence Thomas is not. He will
16:09
Speaker 2: go down in history as one of the most consequential
16:11
Speaker 2: Supreme Court justices to ever live. And I got to say,
16:16
Speaker 2: let's say you're a young person right now. Maybe you
16:18
Speaker 2: don't want to be a lawyer, you don't want to
16:19
Speaker 2: be a judge. Maybe you want to be I don't know.
16:21
Speaker 2: You want to be an accountant, you want to be
16:22
Speaker 2: a business person, you want to be a nurse.
16:25
Speaker 3: I don't know what you want to be.
16:27
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas is a role model of what it means
16:32
Speaker 2: to live a principled life. And that's why I got
16:37
Speaker 2: excited about telling this story because I don't think this
16:39
Speaker 2: story has been told in a long time in a
16:42
Speaker 2: way that is effective and communicates. And so again I
16:47
Speaker 2: would encourage you go to Goingfurther dot com. You can
16:50
Speaker 2: pre order the book. I think you're going to like it.
16:52
Speaker 2: It's a fun book, it's readable, it's understandable. I've got
16:56
Speaker 2: lots of stories about that Justice Thomas has not told previously.
17:01
Speaker 4: I was going to ask for a one tease.
17:04
Speaker 1: Give us one little thing that even you learned that
17:08
Speaker 1: was surprising to you that you put in the book.
17:10
Speaker 3: Look, we will get to more teases in the weeks
17:13
Speaker 3: and months.
17:13
Speaker 4: Toco no. I like this. You see he's selling right now.
17:18
Speaker 4: I like this. This is good.
17:19
Speaker 2: But what I will say, all right, last week Clarence
17:24
Speaker 2: Thomas gave a speech at the University of Texas and
17:29
Speaker 2: the speech was positively magisterial. In fact, I texted Justice
17:32
Speaker 2: Thomas and I told him, thank you that that.
17:35
Speaker 3: Was an important speech.
17:36
Speaker 5: It was beautifully done.
17:38
Speaker 2: I want to play a minute of the speech so
17:40
Speaker 2: you can hear. Because this was this really sort of
17:44
Speaker 2: encapsulates who he is. I was proud of UT for
17:48
Speaker 2: inviting him. I think the student body, those in attendance
17:52
Speaker 2: were enraptured.
17:53
Speaker 3: Give a list.
17:54
Speaker 2: Listen to what Justice Thomas said last week in his
17:56
Speaker 2: speech at UT.
17:58
Speaker 6: There isn't a single judge I know who does hard
18:04
Speaker 6: things because they get joy out of it. They do
18:06
Speaker 6: hard things because they signed up to do hard things.
18:10
Speaker 6: And they may not agree with it, and it may
18:13
Speaker 6: be difficult, they may think it's not a great law.
18:16
Speaker 6: But their job, as Article three judges is to enforce
18:21
Speaker 6: the law, to interpret it and to apply it to
18:23
Speaker 6: that particular case. When I first became a judge, judge
18:27
Speaker 6: Larry Silverman, who's unfortunately passed away, said, ask yourself before
18:34
Speaker 6: each case, what is my role in this case as
18:38
Speaker 6: a judge? Notice how that limits you, not as a person,
18:42
Speaker 6: not as a Catholic, not as a policy maker, not
18:46
Speaker 6: as a husband, as a judge. And that is early
18:51
Speaker 6: on that required more discipline.
18:54
Speaker 1: More discipline. Uh yeah, it's a great way of putting
18:58
Speaker 1: that from Craanch Thomas there and you said earlier being
19:02
Speaker 1: a kid in the audience at ut getting to hear
19:04
Speaker 1: this conversation truly at an incredible moment, and.
19:07
Speaker 2: I will say, when he's talking about being a judge
19:09
Speaker 2: and more discipline, a lot of what I talk about
19:11
Speaker 2: in the book is his approach to being a judge,
19:14
Speaker 2: and it's very much. Look, his grandfather, he was raised
19:19
Speaker 2: by his grandfather. His grandfather worked him hard. He worked,
19:23
Speaker 2: he worked delivering fuel oil, he worked on the farm,
19:27
Speaker 2: he helped build their home on the farm. He worked
19:29
Speaker 2: his fingers literally bloody. His grandfather, during the bitter cold
19:36
Speaker 2: of the winter, would not let Clarence Thomas wear gloves
19:39
Speaker 2: because he thought gloves made you soft. He wanted to
19:42
Speaker 2: make him strong and tough and discipline. And part of
19:46
Speaker 2: what Clarence.
19:46
Speaker 4: Did is yeah, I mean.
19:49
Speaker 1: The school of hard knocks mentality behind a lot of
19:53
Speaker 1: great men. They had really tough people in their life
19:57
Speaker 1: that made them into great men.
19:58
Speaker 4: And that's an example of that well.
20:01
Speaker 2: And Clarence Thomas had enormous expectations on him and his
20:04
Speaker 2: approach to being a justice. There are a lot of
20:06
Speaker 2: justices who use much more high falute and rhetoric. You
20:09
Speaker 2: look at Clarence thomas opinions, they're plain spoken, they're very
20:13
Speaker 2: matter of fact that they are designed so they can
20:17
Speaker 2: be read by every man, so they can and look,
20:20
Speaker 2: he was growing up in Georgia with a lot of
20:23
Speaker 2: poor African Americans surrounding them, many of whom were illiterate.
20:26
Speaker 2: His grandparents who raised him were almost functionally illiterate. They
20:31
Speaker 2: had very limited reading skills. And so he tries to
20:34
Speaker 2: write his opinions in a way that they are accessible.
20:37
Speaker 2: They're straightforward, and he approaches each opinion. I use the
20:41
Speaker 2: analogy in the book. It's like a carpenter, It's like
20:44
Speaker 2: someone building a home. He lays the foundation, he frames
20:48
Speaker 2: the House. He does it peace after piece, trying to
20:51
Speaker 2: get to the truth and the title of the book
20:54
Speaker 2: going Further. If you look at thirty plus years of
20:57
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas's time on the Court, his consists stant theme
21:00
Speaker 2: is we should go further. That's a quote from his
21:04
Speaker 2: dissent in the term limits case, but it is a
21:06
Speaker 2: theme that that other great conservative justices would say, let's
21:12
Speaker 2: do X, and he would say, no, let's go further.
21:16
Speaker 2: And his focus is let's get back to the original
21:19
Speaker 2: understanding of the Constitution, let's go all the way. And
21:23
Speaker 2: the impact he has had has changed law profoundly. And
21:27
Speaker 2: I want you to listen to him again at ut
21:29
Speaker 2: last week talking about the importance of the Constitution but
21:34
Speaker 2: also the importance of the Declaration of Independence. And I
21:37
Speaker 2: think Clarence Thomas emphasizes and highlights the Declaration more than
21:41
Speaker 2: any other justice.
21:42
Speaker 3: Here, give a listen.
21:45
Speaker 6: None of our rights come from the government. All of
21:50
Speaker 6: the government's authority comes from our consent. And the structure
21:56
Speaker 6: and limited role of government is to assure that it
22:01
Speaker 6: does not exceed the authority to which we have consented
22:06
Speaker 6: or intrude on our natural rights. The Constitution is the
22:12
Speaker 6: means of government. It is the Declaration that announces the
22:17
Speaker 6: ends of government. The Constitution achieves this purpose by protecting
22:23
Speaker 6: our natural rights and our liberties from concentrated power and
22:29
Speaker 6: excessive democracy. Our Constitution creates a separation of powers and
22:36
Speaker 6: federalism truly for the first time in modern history, to
22:41
Speaker 6: prevent the government from becoming so strong that it threatens
22:47
Speaker 6: our natural rights.
22:50
Speaker 1: He takes his time, and that's one of the things
22:53
Speaker 1: that he doesn't wing it.
22:54
Speaker 3: He understoods putting on a showpeaks.
22:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's these words are deliberate, and you can tell
23:00
Speaker 1: that he has just an incredible amount of passion and
23:04
Speaker 1: care for this country. And I also think when you
23:06
Speaker 1: get a little bit older, you probably are thinking about
23:10
Speaker 1: your legacy and what you're leaving behind. And he clearly
23:12
Speaker 1: speaks that way to those students, going, Hey, I'm not
23:14
Speaker 1: always going to be here being a shepherd. Somebody else
23:18
Speaker 1: is going to have to step forward and do this,
23:19
Speaker 1: and it may take a lot of people to accomplish
23:22
Speaker 1: what he's done in his lifetime.
23:24
Speaker 2: Well, and I'll tell you again, in that ut speech,
23:26
Speaker 2: he contrasts the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the
23:30
Speaker 2: principles of the Constitution, the immutable principles upon which our
23:34
Speaker 2: country was founded. He contrasts them with progressivism. And progressivism,
23:39
Speaker 2: I think has been a poison that has led the
23:42
Speaker 2: United States in a very dangerous direction. Listen to Justice
23:46
Speaker 2: Thomas draw in that.
23:46
Speaker 5: Contrast, progressivism seeks to replace the basic premises of the
23:52
Speaker 5: Declaration of Independence and hence our form of government.
23:58
Speaker 6: It holds at our rights and these come not from
24:01
Speaker 6: God but from government. It requires of the people a
24:06
Speaker 6: subservience and weakness incompatible with a constitution premise on the
24:12
Speaker 6: transcendent origin of our rights.
24:16
Speaker 4: Wow. I mean wow. What else can you say besides wow?
24:21
Speaker 2: And by the way, you might say, well, gosh, is
24:24
Speaker 2: progressivism really at war with the principles of the Declaration
24:28
Speaker 2: of Independence. You may remember last year at a Senate
24:30
Speaker 2: form Relations committee when Timkin, Democrat from Virginia, was questioning
24:37
Speaker 2: a nominee to the State Department of President Trump nominated
24:40
Speaker 2: the State Department who had written in his testimony that
24:44
Speaker 2: our rights come from God, not government. And tim Kin
24:48
Speaker 2: got outraged and he said, that is a radical statement.
24:51
Speaker 2: That is a dangerous statement, That is an extreme statement.
24:55
Speaker 2: That is the kind of thing theocratic societies like a
24:58
Speaker 2: rand build believe. We don't believe that God doesn't give
25:02
Speaker 2: us our rights. Government does. And I walked in right
25:05
Speaker 2: as Tim Kaine was saying this, and I had a
25:07
Speaker 2: whole line of questioning that I'd planned to go down
25:11
Speaker 2: on the hearing, and I threw it all in the trash,
25:13
Speaker 2: and I spoke shortly after Tim Kaine, and I said,
25:17
Speaker 2: you know, Tim Kain said, the idea that our rights
25:20
Speaker 2: come from God is a radical and dangerous and extreme idea, and.
25:23
Speaker 3: He's right it is.
25:25
Speaker 2: It also happens to be the founding principle upon which
25:28
Speaker 2: our nation was created. And I said, listen, if you
25:32
Speaker 2: don't believe, maybe maybe you're you're inclined, you're you're politically
25:35
Speaker 2: left of center, and you may be inclined not to
25:37
Speaker 2: believe me. If you don't, maybe you might believe another
25:42
Speaker 2: Virginian who wrote, we hold these right We hold these
25:47
Speaker 2: truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal,
25:51
Speaker 2: and that they are endowed by their creator, not by government,
25:58
Speaker 2: not by the DNC, but by God Almighty, with certain
26:02
Speaker 2: unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty in the
26:05
Speaker 2: pursuit of happiness. That was, of course Thomas Jefferson. That
26:09
Speaker 2: was in the declaration. That's what Justice Thomas is referring.
26:13
Speaker 2: And part of what was so disturbing about Tim Kaine
26:16
Speaker 2: so cavalierly dismissing the idea that our rights come from
26:20
Speaker 2: God and instead insisting they come from government is Tim Kaine.
26:25
Speaker 2: And the Democrat Party is not some crazy radical. He's
26:28
Speaker 2: not Bernie Sanders, he's not Elizabeth Warren. He was Hillary
26:32
Speaker 2: Clinton's vice presidential nominee. He is about as mainstream a
26:35
Speaker 2: Democrat as you can find. And it really shows how
26:39
Speaker 2: progressivism has suffused the Democrat Party. And I got to
26:43
Speaker 2: say at UT last week also Justice Thomas talked about
26:48
Speaker 2: the need to engage and engage in the fight for truth.
26:52
Speaker 2: Here give a listen.
26:53
Speaker 6: I think if we don't stand up and take ownership
26:56
Speaker 6: of our country and take responsible for it, only letting
27:00
Speaker 6: others control how we think and what we think. The
27:05
Speaker 6: I think the beauty of going to school is that
27:08
Speaker 6: you learn how to think for yourselves. You develop the
27:11
Speaker 6: discipline to think things through you. If you think it's
27:16
Speaker 6: losing confidence, then you get up and you participate. You
27:19
Speaker 6: don't sit on the sidelines. You think that the that
27:24
Speaker 6: the the state is being run and inconsistent with how
27:27
Speaker 6: you feel. Then you get up and you participate, you
27:30
Speaker 6: prepare yourself. If you think that the medical profession is
27:34
Speaker 6: not right, whether you become a doctor or be a
27:37
Speaker 6: medical person, and you deal with that. I think we
27:42
Speaker 6: need to take ownership of our country. It's our country.
27:47
Speaker 1: It's our country, and man, you know, one of the
27:49
Speaker 1: things he said there that was interesting is he said,
27:51
Speaker 1: you know, you go to school to learn, you know,
27:53
Speaker 1: to figure out what you believe in, what you think,
27:54
Speaker 1: and those of things I think.
27:56
Speaker 3: The least, and to learn how to think and learn.
27:58
Speaker 4: I think they think they're no.
28:00
Speaker 1: You come here so we can indoctrinate you, yep, and
28:03
Speaker 1: tell you what to think, and tell you what to say,
28:05
Speaker 1: and tell you what to protest, and tell you how
28:09
Speaker 1: to act. That is the difference between conservatism and liberalism
28:13
Speaker 1: on a college campus.
28:15
Speaker 2: Well, let me say this. If you're a young person,
28:17
Speaker 2: maybe you're in high school, maybe you're in college. Maybe
28:21
Speaker 2: you're a young professional. Maybe you're not that young anymore.
28:24
Speaker 3: Maybe you're in.
28:25
Speaker 2: Your thirties or your forties, or your fifties, or maybe
28:27
Speaker 2: your sixties, seventy eighty, maybe you're in your nineties, if
28:32
Speaker 2: you want a hero, I think you could do a
28:37
Speaker 2: lot worse than Clarence Thomas.
28:40
Speaker 4: That's a great I'm putting it.
28:42
Speaker 2: He is someone. Look, I spent the better part of
28:46
Speaker 2: a year writing this book. There's a lot of things
28:49
Speaker 2: to devote my time to. The reason I wrote this
28:53
Speaker 2: book is I believe this book needed to be written.
28:55
Speaker 2: His story needed to be told. His autobiography is great,
28:59
Speaker 2: but it was written a long time ago, and and
29:02
Speaker 2: a lot of people today haven't read it. And his jurisprudence,
29:06
Speaker 2: there have been other other books that have been written
29:08
Speaker 2: that have been academic discussions of his jurisprudence, and if
29:12
Speaker 2: you're a federal judge, if you're a law professor, that
29:15
Speaker 2: can be useful. But there's very little in terms of
29:19
Speaker 2: if you're just an American who cares about our country,
29:22
Speaker 2: who cares about truth, there's very little that explains what
29:27
Speaker 2: Clarence Thomas has stood for, what he said when he's
29:30
Speaker 2: argued on the court. And this book I've tried to
29:34
Speaker 2: do so in a way that it's fun, that is interesting,
29:36
Speaker 2: that's telling inside stories. And so again, the website is
29:40
Speaker 2: goingfurther dot com going further dot Com. I'd encourage you.
29:44
Speaker 2: If you're listening to this this podcast right now, if
29:46
Speaker 2: you're watching on YouTube, just click over on your phone
29:49
Speaker 2: to Going Further dot Com, pre order a copy, and
29:53
Speaker 2: and you know you may even think about, uh, this
29:56
Speaker 2: will be August. If you have if you have a child,
29:59
Speaker 2: if you have a grandchild, if you have relative, you
30:02
Speaker 2: have a friend, Birthday's coming up, Christmas is coming up.
30:07
Speaker 2: This book I wrote because I want people to read it.
30:10
Speaker 2: I want people to read it because I think Clarence
30:12
Speaker 2: Thomas's life, his journey, his principles, his commitment to truth,
30:20
Speaker 2: and his courage.
30:22
Speaker 4: Yeah.
30:22
Speaker 3: Look, one of the things.
30:24
Speaker 1: From Courageous, I don't think people understand what a beating
30:27
Speaker 1: he took in the confirmation hearings. Yeah, I go back
30:30
Speaker 1: to that data point there. It engaged me in politics,
30:35
Speaker 1: and I watched it as a ten year old, and
30:38
Speaker 1: my parents were really concerned because the subject matter.
30:41
Speaker 4: They thought it was important for me to see.
30:43
Speaker 1: I was homeschool at the time, what a confirmation may
30:47
Speaker 1: look like, but also how like there's good and evil
30:50
Speaker 1: in the world. And I think my parents were understanding
30:53
Speaker 1: that I was learning that there is evil and there
30:56
Speaker 1: is good, and I became not only a fan of his,
30:59
Speaker 1: but I also fell in love with the political process
31:01
Speaker 1: from watching it, saying, I want to stand up for those
31:03
Speaker 1: people that are trying to destroy his life, and that's
31:06
Speaker 1: what I want to do with my life. And that
31:08
Speaker 1: was a very pivotal moment when I was ten years old,
31:10
Speaker 1: because two years later becoming talk shows.
31:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, I remember it was nineteen ninety one during
31:16
Speaker 2: his confirmation hearing. I was in college, and I remember
31:19
Speaker 2: a good friend of mine who lived down the hall
31:20
Speaker 2: for me coming in and just being like Ted, our
31:23
Speaker 2: guy is on the ropes.
31:25
Speaker 3: And it was brutal.
31:26
Speaker 2: I mean, they were savaging him at a level that
31:29
Speaker 2: conventional wisdom was this guy is going to crumble. He's
31:33
Speaker 2: not going to last the president George Troba Walker Bush,
31:36
Speaker 2: He's going to lose faith and withdraw him.
31:39
Speaker 3: That could easily have happened.
31:41
Speaker 2: I think the Democrats were shocked that they did not
31:44
Speaker 2: destroy him with the assault they brought. And by the way,
31:48
Speaker 2: ever since he went to the court, he's been there
31:50
Speaker 2: over thirty years, and the Left hates him with a venom.
31:56
Speaker 2: They accused him of being stupid, They accused him of
31:58
Speaker 2: following white men, they accused him of just doing what
32:01
Speaker 2: anton and Scalia does. There is a bigotry and racism
32:05
Speaker 2: from the left that is nasty. Listen, Antony Scalia was
32:09
Speaker 2: a rock rib conservative, and yet the left did not
32:13
Speaker 2: heap the hatred. And there is a sense from the
32:16
Speaker 2: left Clarence Thomas is a black man is not allowed
32:21
Speaker 2: to be a conservative. He is a traitor to his
32:23
Speaker 2: race for daring to have conservative beliefs. And I admire
32:30
Speaker 2: people who endure adversity and who persevere, who stay true
32:35
Speaker 2: to their principles. And so this book is really trying
32:37
Speaker 2: to tell the story in a way that I hope
32:40
Speaker 2: inspires you, and I hope inspires you in your life. Listen,
32:43
Speaker 2: I will say, the folks that listen to Verdict, we
32:46
Speaker 2: have an amazing We have millions of people that listen
32:48
Speaker 2: to this podcast and I love I get the chance
32:52
Speaker 2: you do too, Ben. All across the country we meet
32:54
Speaker 2: Verdict listeners who come up they say, I love the podcast,
32:56
Speaker 2: I listen to it. It informs me. I wrote this
33:01
Speaker 2: book because knowing our Verdict listeners, I believe if you
33:07
Speaker 2: know who Clarence Thomas is, what he is endured, stood for,
33:11
Speaker 2: and the journey he has traveled that it will inspire
33:15
Speaker 2: you because it inspires me. That's why I wrote the book,
33:18
Speaker 2: and I think it'll be I think it's a fun book.
33:22
Speaker 3: It's an interesting book.
33:24
Speaker 6: You know.
33:24
Speaker 2: A bunch of the guys on my team they read it.
33:26
Speaker 2: I've written five books. I had several people who said
33:29
Speaker 2: when they read it, they said, I think this is
33:30
Speaker 2: the best book you've ever written. It's the most interesting.
33:33
Speaker 2: It's just fun and interesting to read. I hope that's right.
33:36
Speaker 2: I hope people enjoy it.
33:38
Speaker 1: Well, it's gonna be cool in your homework. As I
33:40
Speaker 1: describe it as, Hey, you got to August or the
33:42
Speaker 1: book comes out. You can pre order now going further
33:44
Speaker 1: dot com, Gooingfurther dot com.
33:46
Speaker 4: But I would challenge everybody. I'm going to be one
33:48
Speaker 4: of those.
33:50
Speaker 1: I've never read Quarence Thomas's autobiography, so I would say
33:55
Speaker 1: you got to August to read that. You pick up
33:57
Speaker 1: the story where that ends.
33:58
Speaker 2: In essence, it's the single best autobiography ever read. It
34:02
Speaker 2: was also it was also excruciatingly painful for Justice Thomas
34:07
Speaker 2: to write. One of the things he shared, look, this
34:10
Speaker 2: book is based on nine and a half hours of
34:12
Speaker 2: one on one exclusive interviews, and he shared he doesn't
34:15
Speaker 2: intend to write another autobiography. He didn't want to tell
34:18
Speaker 2: his own story because he had to relive really painful chapters,
34:22
Speaker 2: and in particular his relationship with his grandfather. He was
34:26
Speaker 2: a very hard man, he was a strong man, but
34:28
Speaker 2: for a substantial chunk of their lives they were estranged.
34:32
Speaker 2: And he goes through those painful chapters where at one
34:36
Speaker 2: point his grandfather threw him out of the house and said,
34:39
Speaker 2: you can't come in here anymore. And and and he
34:41
Speaker 2: details that, and I tell that story too, But it
34:45
Speaker 2: was it made Clarence Thomas into the man he was.
34:50
Speaker 2: And and he had periods where he struggled. His first
34:53
Speaker 2: marriage did not succeed, He struggled for a period of
34:57
Speaker 2: time with drinking. He was he was angry. He had
35:03
Speaker 2: rage for many years. And and how he dealt with that,
35:06
Speaker 2: how he dealt with the rage and the rage at
35:08
Speaker 2: at racial bigotry. And a lot of what I talk
35:11
Speaker 2: about in the book is justice Thomas's views on race,
35:14
Speaker 2: where he has been the most powerful and eloquent proponent
35:18
Speaker 2: of a color blind constitution that our country's ever seen,
35:21
Speaker 2: of not having government to discriminate based on race, and
35:26
Speaker 2: and and and as an African American.
35:29
Speaker 6: Look.
35:30
Speaker 2: One one story he describes is when he was in
35:32
Speaker 2: the Reagan administration and he went was hauled, he was
35:34
Speaker 2: head of the EOC, was hauled to a mediate at
35:37
Speaker 2: the White House and and a White House staffer said,
35:40
Speaker 2: here's what you got to do. And Clarence Thomas responded,
35:44
Speaker 2: there are only two things I got to do. Die
35:47
Speaker 2: and be black. Like That is Clarence Thomas.
35:52
Speaker 3: He is.
35:54
Speaker 2: He is tough and strong and inshakeable, and and the
35:59
Speaker 2: entire warl Old could pound down upon him and he
36:02
Speaker 2: will stand strong and resolute.
36:05
Speaker 4: There you go.
36:06
Speaker 1: Grab the book again online. You can pre order it
36:09
Speaker 1: going further dot com. That's going further dot com. And
36:11
Speaker 1: obviously you can get Clarence Thomas's autobiography. I'm sure online
36:14
Speaker 1: Amazon where you get your your books and uh and
36:17
Speaker 1: and grab both those.
36:18
Speaker 4: It's gonna be really cool. What a fun show.
36:20
Speaker 1: I love getting to hit pause sometimes for the news
36:23
Speaker 1: the day to talk about really important things like this.
36:26
Speaker 1: I hope it inspires people to get the book, get
36:27
Speaker 1: it for your kids, get it for your grandkids. I
36:30
Speaker 1: got my Center Summer reading list. Now I'm expecting my
36:32
Speaker 1: advanced copy. So I can use on summer vacation before
36:34
Speaker 1: August uh and and and it should be signed of course,
36:37
Speaker 1: so that we'll make sure we do that. But grab
36:39
Speaker 1: it again going further dot com and.
36:41
Speaker 2: Then I can promise you yours will be signed to
36:46
Speaker 2: to whom it may concern.
36:49
Speaker 4: There.
36:49
Speaker 1: I thank you, thank you. That's so kind of you
36:51
Speaker 1: to make us well played, all right, well center. I
36:55
Speaker 1: we'll see you back here Friday morning for the next episode.
36:58
Speaker 4: Have a great day until then.