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

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

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