Is the U.S. Supreme Court facing unprecedented political pressure?
On this episode of The Truth with Lisa Boothe, Lisa is joined by constitutional law expert Carrie Severino, president of the Judicial Crisis Network, for an in-depth discussion on the growing threats facing America's highest court. They examine why conservative justices have required increased security, the controversy surrounding court packing, and the implications of recent Supreme Court decisions on birthright citizenship.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Truth with the least the booth where
we get to the heart of the issues that matter
to you. We saw a rare moment on Capitol Hill
recently where Supreme Court Justices Amy Cony Barrett and Alana
Kagan testified before lawmakers requesting a budget increase for security measures. Unfortunately,
we've seen since the Dobs Draft League in twenty twenty
two an increase of threats against the Supreme Court justices.
(00:29):
We've seen an arrest outside of Justice Kavanaugh's house where
we had an assassination attempt. We've also seen in an
attempt of planning to kill him is what we saw.
We also saw with Justice Barrett and her family where
she has been squatted and also have gotten bombed threats.
The whole point on the left is to try to
(00:50):
bully Supreme Court justices, really just the ones on the
right into submission, to get them to change their decision
making process. But the big question is has it worked.
We're going to turn to Carrie Severino to.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Answer that question.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
She's the president of JCN also the co author of
Justice on Trial. She's been on the show you probably
have seen on Fox News as well. Have these threats worked,
have they worked on justices like Justice Barrett. Also, we've
seen a real effort on the left, probably the most
calls maybe we've ever seen for court packing.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
What would be the impact of that as well?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Carrie Severreno is also called on Kagan to recuse herself
on an upcoming climate change case.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Why is that? What should you know about that?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Lastly, we'll get her take on the impact of Senator
Lindsay Graham, who has now passed on Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation,
if you recall that big moment where he stood up
for the truth and what was right. So all that
and more with Carrie Severno, stay tuned. Well, Carrie, it's
(02:02):
great to have you back on the show. Really appreciate
you making time.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So, Carrie, we had Supreme Court justices sort of in
an unprecedented fashion, requests more money before Congress, testifying.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
About some of the threats that they have faced recently.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
But I have to wonder if we had a liberal
Supreme Court, would they need to request this security increase
and budget increase.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, you know, to be fair, they have had times
when they'd come back and testified before Congress for a
budget increase, But I do think you had some skepticism
that you might not have had if the majority of
the threats against the justices weren't really against the conservative justices. Remember,
the big uptick in threats against the justices came in
(02:47):
the wake of the Dobbs League, when people like Justice
Kavanaugh's would be assassin thought well, maybe if I pick
off one of these justices, I can change the way
this all plays out at the Court. And so the
bulk of the threats have really fallen on the conservative justices.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
That said, I was grateful to Justice.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Kagan for coming to the hearings and you know, making
it clear that this is something that the justices across
the board need to have security and really judges in
general need to make sure today's world that they're protected
because even apart from the ideological attacks and people kind
(03:28):
of threatening the court for those reasons, there are just
you know, there's criminals who don't like the way their
case came out and things like that who always have
always been a threat to judges. So I think it's
really important that Congress grants this increased security funding. We
need our judges not to have to make the kinds
of sacrifices in terms of their personal safety that they're
(03:50):
being asked to do right now in order to serve
their country.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Now, I appreciate Kagan being there as well, but you know,
the reality is after the dobs leak, we didn't see
Republicans fire bombing abortion centers and planned parenthood process the country,
but we saw groups like Jane's Revenge responsible for fire
bombing pregnancy centers and pro life centers. And then we
also didn't see an attempted assassin outside of what are
(04:17):
the liberal justices house, you know, with the goal of
assassinating them, or to my knowledge, we haven't sort of
seen the swatting and the bomb threats that took Justice Barrett.
So you know, the evidence would show us that the
threats are aims squarely at the conservative justices and not
the other way around.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Absolutely, I mean the liberal justices. I don't think any
of them has had to stop going to restaurants, but
you know, justice so do my jackson go to a
restaurant and get literally I've heard of them getting applause
from the diners, whereas other justices are getting sometimes intentionally
hounded out of them. For a while there was a
group that was literally offering money from the Conserva justices
(05:00):
was dining, and that they were still there at the
time that protesters arived. So there is an intentional effort
in groups, like Ruth said to us who doxed all
the conservative justices, there's an effort to make their lives miserable.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
And that's not just in the hopes that these justices.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Switch their votes, because I think you know, the great
news is they have stood up, particularly right in that
window where the threats were the highest and the danger
was the greatest, to stand up and do something that
they knew was going to be really unpopular and triggering
for a lot of people on the left, and that
is to overturn the constitutional error of roversus weight.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
But they've continued in that front.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
There's some really principal decisions, and if anything, I think
more have increased the number of willing the amount of
times they're willing to just hue to the Constitution and
not get swayed by these things. So the justices in
the court have been standing firm on this. But it
also sends a message to other judges, appeals court judges,
or other lawyers thinking, Hey, you know, I would love
(06:02):
to serve as a federal judge someday, But am I
willing to put my family through this? Am I willing
to put my children at risk? Things like that? That
shouldn't be the calculus. We want our best and brightest
to be honored and happy to serve and not have
to make those kinds of calculations. So I think there's
a long game going on here to try to intimidate
future potential nominees as well.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Well, that's really what the objective is, Ray, is to
try to intimidate the Supreme Court justices in being afraid
if they make a decision that's unpopular with the very loud,
you know, minority of the population or the violent portion
of the population, to try to essentially bully them in
(06:43):
a submission.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I mean, that's really the objective here.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
By the left, you know when you I mean, I
guess it's hard to believe even with justices, you know,
like Clarence Thomas, Like, you know, I don't think there's
anything you can do to you know, persuade him or
to get them off of what he believes. But like,
I don't know, Barrett, to me, seems a little soft like,
is there really no realm of possibility that these attacks
(07:08):
haven't had some impact on the decision making.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
You know, I think if you look at her actual
track record again, if anything, I think she's gotten stronger
in her originalism and her willingness to stand up since
coming on the court.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Early on in her tenure, there.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Was a decision looking at it at a religious liberty
president called eoc versus Smith that actually was written by
Justice Scalia, so at the time he thought this is
a good way to balance the rigio's liberty. But I
think across the board everyone's realized that was a mistake
and has caused a lot of problems that involved a
lot of incursions on religious freedom.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
There was a.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Case where she and Justice Kavanaugh really if they had
decided it's time to get rid of this president, they
could have stepped up and done it. There were three
votes already from Justice Is, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsis to
say let's move on, let's get a better and more
constitutionally sound religious freedom jurisprudence, and they both kind of
blinked and they were like, well, you know, we don't
need to decide that issue today. Maybe we'll just leave
(08:09):
this in place for now. But they acknowledge the president
was bad. That hasn't been either of their patterns since then.
In recent terms, we have seen major decisions that involved
having to overturn precedent, doing everything from you know, strengthening
the Second Amendment to restoring the president's control over the
administrative state, to ensuring presidential immunity, to restoring racial equality
(08:35):
in education to stopping the use of race in redistricting.
I mean, I could go on and on, and so
I really think what we've seen is and in somebody's
maybe the attacks have strengthened their resolve.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
He had a right phrase.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
He said, the other side has two different tools to
try to make you do what they want, the carrot
and the stick. And like what I've been through, I
know there's no way I'm getting the carrot.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
No matter what he says.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
They're not gonna applaud or pat him on the back
or put up, you know, statues or paintings of.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Him at law schools.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Right, They're gonna barely acknowledge his existence in a positive
way at least. And so he said, that's kind of great,
because now I don't have the temptation of the carrot.
Now all that God is the stick, so it means
you do have to endure the stick, but you're you're
not likely to be tempted by that. I think some
of these attacks, if anything, have been have strengthened the
spines of Justice Barret and Justice Kavanaugh to a certain extent,
(09:32):
because when you start.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Out, you think, oh, you know, I'm really even minded.
I'm not going to be a bomb thrower. Maybe people
will like me if I'm just sort of a little
one hand on the other hand.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
And I think it's gotten to the point now where
they all realize it doesn't matter what you say, they're
gonna hate you anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So there's no point in.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Trying to cowtow to the rural orthodoxy or to try
to throw them a bone, because they don't care. They
just are gonna hate your guts no matter what. And
that's very freeing in the sense. So I do think
actually that we've seen the opposite effect from my read
of the of the jurisprudence since then. Now, that doesn't
(10:10):
mean we should, you know, leave these threats and these
really violent rhetoric that we're getting from the left in place,
because I'm concerned that we're seeing the overtin window shifting,
particularly with what elected officials are willing to say.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
You know, used to be you'd always got.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
The fringe people, but now you've got elected officials, you know,
leaders of the Democrat Party who are playing to the
fringe and making things that once would have been unthinkable,
you know, thinkable again. I remember when Justice Ginsburg was
asked about packing the court and she kind of almost
laughed it off, like this is crazy. They tried this
with FDR. Everyone realized this is a horrible idea. And
(10:47):
now you've got the entire Democrat Party where this is
almost like a plank in their platform that you have
to expand the court for purely partisan reasons of just
we want control of this branch of government. And I
think it's that's a very bad direction the country has gone.
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Speaker 2 (12:15):
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want to get to court packing in just a moment,
But what about the decision on birthrate citizenship.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
This is a example of a case where originalism is
a interpretive methodology, not a a recipe for always getting
quote conservative results. If you are an originalist, if you
were a textualist, your job is to look at the
text of the law and interpret those words as they're written.
Sometimes that law might be a law that was written
(12:53):
by Democrats and passed by and signed by democratic president,
and you might not agree with the policy, but you
think this is what the actual text means.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Though.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I don't think they got it right, but.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I think it was a much closer answer than we're
giving them credit for. When they the Supreme Court accepted
the birthright citizenship case, I thought, this is like a
really open and shutcase in the direction of broad birthright citizenship,
because that was just what everyone assumed going in.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I'm like, this is this is kind of a crazy thing.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Actually looking at the history, I thought it was very
validble it shows that originalism you don't understand until you
get deep into it, and ultimately after hearing the arguments.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I do think the President had the.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Better approach there, but I also don't think it was
an open and shutcase. There are certain issues like Roe
versus Wade, like the Secondmendment, where it's pretty clear what
this text means, or in the case of versus Wade,
there is no text that says there's abortion of the Constitution,
So it's you know, if you're an originalist, there's kind
of only one way you can go on this.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Looking at the language of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I was really struck by the fact that there was
kind of mixed history involved in that. It wasn't just
everyone at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment thought this
is not going to cover people like elital immigrants. Well
not they even had a concept of that, but that
kind of category of person or transient people. There were
there were a lot of people who thought that was covered.
(14:18):
And I think it's important to remember even Justice Thomas
and Justice Alito's concurrences in that care or dissents in
that case didn't go so far as to say, you know, yeah,
the President's executive order is absolutely open and shot. I
think under their approaches, it probably would have been a
bridge too far to say you can't have birthright citizenship
(14:38):
for illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
That's really frustrating as a policy matter.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
You know, we can see what that's doing to our
country and the incentives that creates, and I think it's
worth trying to pass a whose constitutional amendment to fix
that because I think it's unsustainable the way it is now.
That said, it's important to remember even those justices didn't
go so far as to say.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Oh, yeah, this is this.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
You know, the fourteenth Amendment absolutely includes all of these categories.
I think birth tourism is an easier question, and that's
where I kind of wish the court. I think the
Court should have probably had more evidence to go in
that direction.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But at the end of the.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Day, I don't think that decision was one that was
based on you know, fear or based on I think
this is the wrong policy. But there really was a
lot of conflicting originalist evidence in that case.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
And so I have to.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Say I disagree with her in the conclusion to Game
two and the conclusion Chief Justice came to in that case.
But I also think that they were trying to do
the right thing and were just faced with a really difficult.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Question, you know, on court packing.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
You know, you look at countries like Venezuela when Hugo
shabis over and socialism took over and you know, you
get a lot of the promises that the left are
making now, you know, fighting corruption, giving power to the people,
YadA YadA, democratically elected, and then you start changing the
institutions to favor you and start changing the rules, whether
(16:06):
it be the constitution. You look at what the left
is trying to do with court packing and eroding some
of the checks and balances that are founding fathers and
founding generation put in place to try it to fight
you know, corruption and fight tyranny, and to create decentralizations
so that we could continue to have liberty in the country.
(16:28):
Now it looks like court packing as what you pointed
out is probably you know, the biggest threat that we've had.
They've been promising it, but you know, potentially a realization
if Democrats take over.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You know, talk about what that would.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Do to the country and how you that you know
this isn't just a campaign rhetoric that it could become
a reality.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I mean Venezuela is a great example here because it
shows the clear trajectory that this has, particularly in our
country where they don't even have a guarantee life tenure.
We have a one way raptet here if you add
justices to the Supreme Court, you can't remove them unless
no one can go backwards, unless you actually had a
constitutional amendment or you just had some system where you
(17:11):
waiting for them, you know, the older justices to leave
or die off. But to get it down to a
manageable size. Venezuela got up to I think thirty two
justices on their Supreme Court. It was it was absolutely
because they wanted to have seventeen new justices on the court.
This is a recipe for disaster if Democrats add for justices.
(17:32):
You know, Republicans can't just sit there and be like, okay,
you guys can have the cultural of the Supreme Court.
And definitely they're going to add justices because it can
be done by statute. And then the denumercrounts will just
add more, and the Republicans will just add more. It's
unworkable and it's we do. We are not the kind
of country that should have that kind of fluctuation like
a Venezuela or something. The Supreme Court is an independent
(17:56):
branch of government for a reason. The Framers didn't intend
for the courts to be subject to a democratic process
because they shouldn't be subject to the whims of the majorities,
and what we're seeing right now in the polarization of
our politics is a great reason why they shouldn't be.
Their goal shouldn't be to try to channel what they
(18:19):
think the quote the people want in terms of their
elected base or the electoral base, but they should be
looking at what the law says. They're supposed to have
life tenure, so they're not having that kind of influence.
But what you've seen from the left right now is
a desire to just they're not going to be happy
until they have one hundred percent of the power consolidated
(18:41):
in their hands. That is not our system of checks
and balances. That's a return to a tyrannical government and
certainly is something we need to push back against. It's
really telling that they're not even trying to Franklin Delan
Roosevelt was trying to do this. He had some excuse like, well,
I think they're getting too old and they need some
(19:02):
help because there's so much workload. That at least was
everyone knew that wasn't what was happening, and that's why
even his incredibly powerful Democratic Senate rejected his own idea.
So everyone at the time saw this was a horrible idea,
but at least he made an effort to give it
a fig leaf. The current democratics of Democrats that particularly
like the socialists within their party, they don't even give
(19:24):
it a pig leaf.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
They just say this is all about power.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
When Rovers's Waid was decided, and so many people on
the right were horrified because it is very anti constitutional.
It doesn't even pretend to be a constitutional, constitutionally based decision.
It's like, you know, we're making this stuff up. They
didn't go and just storm the Supreme Court. It led
to fifty years and that was really difficult to try
(19:47):
to shift the national understanding of the importance of the court,
to try to shift the type of judges that our
elected officials were appointed, and that's what has given us
the originalist today. Working within the system is hard, and
I think that's why people don't have patience for it,
and that's why Democrats just want to grab control in
any way possible. It is so crucial to stop them
(20:10):
from doing so. And if they get the scary thing
is if they get even a bare majority in the Senate.
I worry that the pressure from the extremists, and Democrat
Party is so great that they would do this, even
though I think most of the elected Democrats right now
realize the bad idea, but they're willing to part these
lines because that's where the big special interest money is
in the left, and that's where the loudest voices are.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
You know, No, I agree, and it's scary you've called
on Kagan to recuse herself from climate litigation.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Why have you made that ask? And what should people
know about it? Yeah, So this is.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
An interesting story of how some of these leftist groups
are co opting what should be neutral government institutions for
their ends. It started with a group called the Federal
Judicial Center, which is an arm of the third branch
of government.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
They're supposed to be there just to educate judges.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
No, they have workshops and they give them training when
they come on the court, and they put out this
reference manual. And we've had climate groups that have been
working their way into this institution, so that, for example,
you've got climate litigators who are giving the workshops and
the you know, continuing education.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
For judges on climate issues.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
That's a real concern, right, But these same people ended
up writing a chapter in what's supposed to be, again,
a neutral manual for judges of how to deal with
scientific evidence. And you've got people who are involved in
the litigation, who were working on this chapter, who were
consulting on it, and who inserted into it a lot
of ideas that aren't just like, this is what the
(21:45):
law is, but this is the way they want the
law to be, and these are the standards they think
judges should apply. It's basically like getting a free extra
several hundred pages of briefing in every climate case, but
asked as a.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Neutral document that judges are looking at.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
And what Kagan did is she wrote the introduction to
this manual that includes extremely biased material.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
She endorsed it.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
She said, you know, case in and case out, the
instruction this manual offers on scientific principles and methodogs will
improve the quality of judicial decision making. She says, this
is this is the place you go for great evidence.
Turns out that now, even as she admitted it in
her testimony to Congress, this chapter is incredibly biased. The
(22:33):
Federal Judicial Center has been pressured by members of Congress
and by state attorney that chapter, but it's still up
at the National Academy's website, and her introduction is still there.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
She even admitted to Congress that she hasn't read.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
The chapter she's endorsing, this science climate science chapter that
she admits is incredibly biased that now has this judicial
stand of approval on it. We think that that puts
her partiality into question in cases that are that involved
those same principles that are being advanced in that chapter,
(23:12):
like the some core case that the Supreme Court is
going to be considering next term, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
And then last thing before we go, Lindsay Graham has passed.
Regardless what people's and his views, I will always be
grateful for him standing up for justice and for Brett
Kavanaugh when he was facing just unprecedented character assassination. How
important was that moment when Lindsey Graham spoke up during
(23:40):
the judiciary hearing and you know, stood up for what
was right.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
That was such a closely run confirmation process, there was.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Almost no room for error and any at any level.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So you could probably say this about a few different
people's contributions, Susan Collins and stuff, but I think his
moment was one of the many, you know, four causes
of justice Kavanaugh getting confirmed. Recall, you know, we had
his first hearing, which already was kind of a clown
show with people trying to stand up and he disrupt things.
And then the second hearing with Christine Blasi Ford and
(24:13):
when Lindsey Graham just erupted in outrage at what they
were doing to him, how unfair this was, at the
complete lack of evidence, and he said, they're.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Putting you through hell.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
And that really struck a note, partly because and he
and I may have disagreed on this, like he was
someone who had an approach of I actually just kind
of vote for almost everyone that the president puts up.
That the president should have a huge amount of difference
in that I think he gave too much difference to
the president. But he said, I voted for Kagan, I
(24:46):
voted for Sodamayoor. I'm trying to give, you know, an
olive brands to the other side here, and this is
how they repay that they are putting this good man
through the ringer and inventing all these charges into trying
to destroy his reputation. That was very powerful, coming particularly
from him. And I think it's also notable that when
(25:09):
Justice Jackson was up for confirmation. She did not get
Lindsay Graham's vote, So I think that moment may also
have maybe radicalized him a little bit and made him
realize again, they're not going to You can play nicely
and try to go back to a world where everyone
votes for everyone else's nominees, but that's not the world
that we're living in. And I think he also realized
(25:32):
that Justin Jackson Justice Jackson was singularly unqualified in the
way that she approached the constitution for that position. So
he was very significant in the Kavanaugh confirmation and really
in the later judicial leadership on the Judicial Jushiary Committee
as well.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Carrie Savarino, we really appreciate you making the time and
breaking the solid down for us.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Thank you so much. Great to be with you. That
was Carrie Severino, President of j c N. Appreciate her
for joining the show.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday,
but you can listen throughout the week. I also wanted
to thank John Cassio and my producer for putting this
show together.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Until next time,
Welcome to the Truth with the least the booth where
we get to the heart of the issues that matter
to you. We saw a rare moment on Capitol Hill
recently where Supreme Court Justices Amy Cony Barrett and Alana
Kagan testified before lawmakers requesting a budget increase for security measures. Unfortunately,
we've seen since the Dobs Draft League in twenty twenty
two an increase of threats against the Supreme Court justices.
(00:29):
We've seen an arrest outside of Justice Kavanaugh's house where
we had an assassination attempt. We've also seen in an
attempt of planning to kill him is what we saw.
We also saw with Justice Barrett and her family where
she has been squatted and also have gotten bombed threats.
The whole point on the left is to try to
(00:50):
bully Supreme Court justices, really just the ones on the
right into submission, to get them to change their decision
making process. But the big question is has it worked.
We're going to turn to Carrie Severino to.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Answer that question.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
She's the president of JCN also the co author of
Justice on Trial. She's been on the show you probably
have seen on Fox News as well. Have these threats worked,
have they worked on justices like Justice Barrett. Also, we've
seen a real effort on the left, probably the most
calls maybe we've ever seen for court packing.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
What would be the impact of that as well?
Speaker 1 (01:30):
Carrie Severreno is also called on Kagan to recuse herself
on an upcoming climate change case.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Why is that? What should you know about that?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Lastly, we'll get her take on the impact of Senator
Lindsay Graham, who has now passed on Justice Kavanaugh's confirmation,
if you recall that big moment where he stood up
for the truth and what was right. So all that
and more with Carrie Severno, stay tuned. Well, Carrie, it's
(02:02):
great to have you back on the show. Really appreciate
you making time.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Yeah, it's great to be here.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So, Carrie, we had Supreme Court justices sort of in
an unprecedented fashion, requests more money before Congress, testifying.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
About some of the threats that they have faced recently.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
But I have to wonder if we had a liberal
Supreme Court, would they need to request this security increase
and budget increase.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Well, you know, to be fair, they have had times
when they'd come back and testified before Congress for a
budget increase, But I do think you had some skepticism
that you might not have had if the majority of
the threats against the justices weren't really against the conservative justices. Remember,
the big uptick in threats against the justices came in
(02:47):
the wake of the Dobbs League, when people like Justice
Kavanaugh's would be assassin thought well, maybe if I pick
off one of these justices, I can change the way
this all plays out at the Court. And so the
bulk of the threats have really fallen on the conservative justices.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
That said, I was grateful to Justice.
Speaker 3 (03:07):
Kagan for coming to the hearings and you know, making
it clear that this is something that the justices across
the board need to have security and really judges in
general need to make sure today's world that they're protected
because even apart from the ideological attacks and people kind
(03:28):
of threatening the court for those reasons, there are just
you know, there's criminals who don't like the way their
case came out and things like that who always have
always been a threat to judges. So I think it's
really important that Congress grants this increased security funding. We
need our judges not to have to make the kinds
of sacrifices in terms of their personal safety that they're
(03:50):
being asked to do right now in order to serve
their country.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
Now, I appreciate Kagan being there as well, but you know,
the reality is after the dobs leak, we didn't see
Republicans fire bombing abortion centers and planned parenthood process the country,
but we saw groups like Jane's Revenge responsible for fire
bombing pregnancy centers and pro life centers. And then we
also didn't see an attempted assassin outside of what are
(04:17):
the liberal justices house, you know, with the goal of
assassinating them, or to my knowledge, we haven't sort of
seen the swatting and the bomb threats that took Justice Barrett.
So you know, the evidence would show us that the
threats are aims squarely at the conservative justices and not
the other way around.
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Absolutely, I mean the liberal justices. I don't think any
of them has had to stop going to restaurants, but
you know, justice so do my jackson go to a
restaurant and get literally I've heard of them getting applause
from the diners, whereas other justices are getting sometimes intentionally
hounded out of them. For a while there was a
group that was literally offering money from the Conserva justices
(05:00):
was dining, and that they were still there at the
time that protesters arived. So there is an intentional effort
in groups, like Ruth said to us who doxed all
the conservative justices, there's an effort to make their lives miserable.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
And that's not just in the hopes that these justices.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Switch their votes, because I think you know, the great
news is they have stood up, particularly right in that
window where the threats were the highest and the danger
was the greatest, to stand up and do something that
they knew was going to be really unpopular and triggering
for a lot of people on the left, and that
is to overturn the constitutional error of roversus weight.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
But they've continued in that front.
Speaker 3 (05:39):
There's some really principal decisions, and if anything, I think
more have increased the number of willing the amount of
times they're willing to just hue to the Constitution and
not get swayed by these things. So the justices in
the court have been standing firm on this. But it
also sends a message to other judges, appeals court judges,
or other lawyers thinking, Hey, you know, I would love
(06:02):
to serve as a federal judge someday, But am I
willing to put my family through this? Am I willing
to put my children at risk? Things like that? That
shouldn't be the calculus. We want our best and brightest
to be honored and happy to serve and not have
to make those kinds of calculations. So I think there's
a long game going on here to try to intimidate
future potential nominees as well.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Well, that's really what the objective is, Ray, is to
try to intimidate the Supreme Court justices in being afraid
if they make a decision that's unpopular with the very loud,
you know, minority of the population or the violent portion
of the population, to try to essentially bully them in
(06:43):
a submission.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
I mean, that's really the objective here.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
By the left, you know when you I mean, I
guess it's hard to believe even with justices, you know,
like Clarence Thomas, Like, you know, I don't think there's
anything you can do to you know, persuade him or
to get them off of what he believes. But like,
I don't know, Barrett, to me, seems a little soft like,
is there really no realm of possibility that these attacks
(07:08):
haven't had some impact on the decision making.
Speaker 3 (07:11):
You know, I think if you look at her actual
track record again, if anything, I think she's gotten stronger
in her originalism and her willingness to stand up since
coming on the court.
Speaker 2 (07:23):
Early on in her tenure, there.
Speaker 3 (07:24):
Was a decision looking at it at a religious liberty
president called eoc versus Smith that actually was written by
Justice Scalia, so at the time he thought this is
a good way to balance the rigio's liberty. But I
think across the board everyone's realized that was a mistake
and has caused a lot of problems that involved a
lot of incursions on religious freedom.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
There was a.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Case where she and Justice Kavanaugh really if they had
decided it's time to get rid of this president, they
could have stepped up and done it. There were three
votes already from Justice Is, Thomas, Alito, and Gorsis to
say let's move on, let's get a better and more
constitutionally sound religious freedom jurisprudence, and they both kind of
blinked and they were like, well, you know, we don't
need to decide that issue today. Maybe we'll just leave
(08:09):
this in place for now. But they acknowledge the president
was bad. That hasn't been either of their patterns since then.
In recent terms, we have seen major decisions that involved
having to overturn precedent, doing everything from you know, strengthening
the Second Amendment to restoring the president's control over the
administrative state, to ensuring presidential immunity, to restoring racial equality
(08:35):
in education to stopping the use of race in redistricting.
I mean, I could go on and on, and so
I really think what we've seen is and in somebody's
maybe the attacks have strengthened their resolve.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
He had a right phrase.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
He said, the other side has two different tools to
try to make you do what they want, the carrot
and the stick. And like what I've been through, I
know there's no way I'm getting the carrot.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
No matter what he says.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
They're not gonna applaud or pat him on the back
or put up, you know, statues or paintings of.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Him at law schools.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Right, They're gonna barely acknowledge his existence in a positive
way at least. And so he said, that's kind of great,
because now I don't have the temptation of the carrot.
Now all that God is the stick, so it means
you do have to endure the stick, but you're you're
not likely to be tempted by that. I think some
of these attacks, if anything, have been have strengthened the
spines of Justice Barret and Justice Kavanaugh to a certain extent,
(09:32):
because when you start.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Out, you think, oh, you know, I'm really even minded.
I'm not going to be a bomb thrower. Maybe people
will like me if I'm just sort of a little
one hand on the other hand.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
And I think it's gotten to the point now where
they all realize it doesn't matter what you say, they're
gonna hate you anyway.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
So there's no point in.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Trying to cowtow to the rural orthodoxy or to try
to throw them a bone, because they don't care. They
just are gonna hate your guts no matter what. And
that's very freeing in the sense. So I do think
actually that we've seen the opposite effect from my read
of the of the jurisprudence since then. Now, that doesn't
(10:10):
mean we should, you know, leave these threats and these
really violent rhetoric that we're getting from the left in place,
because I'm concerned that we're seeing the overtin window shifting,
particularly with what elected officials are willing to say.
Speaker 2 (10:25):
You know, used to be you'd always got.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
The fringe people, but now you've got elected officials, you know,
leaders of the Democrat Party who are playing to the
fringe and making things that once would have been unthinkable,
you know, thinkable again. I remember when Justice Ginsburg was
asked about packing the court and she kind of almost
laughed it off, like this is crazy. They tried this
with FDR. Everyone realized this is a horrible idea. And
(10:47):
now you've got the entire Democrat Party where this is
almost like a plank in their platform that you have
to expand the court for purely partisan reasons of just
we want control of this branch of government. And I
think it's that's a very bad direction the country has gone.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
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want to get to court packing in just a moment,
But what about the decision on birthrate citizenship.
Speaker 3 (12:32):
This is a example of a case where originalism is
a interpretive methodology, not a a recipe for always getting
quote conservative results. If you are an originalist, if you
were a textualist, your job is to look at the
text of the law and interpret those words as they're written.
Sometimes that law might be a law that was written
(12:53):
by Democrats and passed by and signed by democratic president,
and you might not agree with the policy, but you
think this is what the actual text means.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Though.
Speaker 2 (13:02):
I don't think they got it right, but.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
I think it was a much closer answer than we're
giving them credit for. When they the Supreme Court accepted
the birthright citizenship case, I thought, this is like a
really open and shutcase in the direction of broad birthright citizenship,
because that was just what everyone assumed going in.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
I'm like, this is this is kind of a crazy thing.
Speaker 3 (13:23):
Actually looking at the history, I thought it was very
validble it shows that originalism you don't understand until you
get deep into it, and ultimately after hearing the arguments.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
I do think the President had the.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Better approach there, but I also don't think it was
an open and shutcase. There are certain issues like Roe
versus Wade, like the Secondmendment, where it's pretty clear what
this text means, or in the case of versus Wade,
there is no text that says there's abortion of the Constitution,
So it's you know, if you're an originalist, there's kind
of only one way you can go on this.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Looking at the language of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I was really struck by the fact that there was
kind of mixed history involved in that. It wasn't just
everyone at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment thought this
is not going to cover people like elital immigrants. Well
not they even had a concept of that, but that
kind of category of person or transient people. There were
there were a lot of people who thought that was covered.
(14:18):
And I think it's important to remember even Justice Thomas
and Justice Alito's concurrences in that care or dissents in
that case didn't go so far as to say, you know, yeah,
the President's executive order is absolutely open and shot. I
think under their approaches, it probably would have been a
bridge too far to say you can't have birthright citizenship
(14:38):
for illegal immigrants.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
That's really frustrating as a policy matter.
Speaker 3 (14:42):
You know, we can see what that's doing to our
country and the incentives that creates, and I think it's
worth trying to pass a whose constitutional amendment to fix
that because I think it's unsustainable the way it is now.
That said, it's important to remember even those justices didn't
go so far as to say.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Oh, yeah, this is this.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
You know, the fourteenth Amendment absolutely includes all of these categories.
I think birth tourism is an easier question, and that's
where I kind of wish the court. I think the
Court should have probably had more evidence to go in
that direction.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
But at the end of the.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Day, I don't think that decision was one that was
based on you know, fear or based on I think
this is the wrong policy. But there really was a
lot of conflicting originalist evidence in that case.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
And so I have to.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Say I disagree with her in the conclusion to Game
two and the conclusion Chief Justice came to in that case.
But I also think that they were trying to do
the right thing and were just faced with a really difficult.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Question, you know, on court packing.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
You know, you look at countries like Venezuela when Hugo
shabis over and socialism took over and you know, you
get a lot of the promises that the left are
making now, you know, fighting corruption, giving power to the people,
YadA YadA, democratically elected, and then you start changing the
institutions to favor you and start changing the rules, whether
(16:06):
it be the constitution. You look at what the left
is trying to do with court packing and eroding some
of the checks and balances that are founding fathers and
founding generation put in place to try it to fight
you know, corruption and fight tyranny, and to create decentralizations
so that we could continue to have liberty in the country.
(16:28):
Now it looks like court packing as what you pointed
out is probably you know, the biggest threat that we've had.
They've been promising it, but you know, potentially a realization
if Democrats take over.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You know, talk about what that would.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Do to the country and how you that you know
this isn't just a campaign rhetoric that it could become
a reality.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I mean Venezuela is a great example here because it
shows the clear trajectory that this has, particularly in our
country where they don't even have a guarantee life tenure.
We have a one way raptet here if you add
justices to the Supreme Court, you can't remove them unless
no one can go backwards, unless you actually had a
constitutional amendment or you just had some system where you
(17:11):
waiting for them, you know, the older justices to leave
or die off. But to get it down to a
manageable size. Venezuela got up to I think thirty two
justices on their Supreme Court. It was it was absolutely
because they wanted to have seventeen new justices on the court.
This is a recipe for disaster if Democrats add for justices.
(17:32):
You know, Republicans can't just sit there and be like, okay,
you guys can have the cultural of the Supreme Court.
And definitely they're going to add justices because it can
be done by statute. And then the denumercrounts will just
add more, and the Republicans will just add more. It's
unworkable and it's we do. We are not the kind
of country that should have that kind of fluctuation like
a Venezuela or something. The Supreme Court is an independent
(17:56):
branch of government for a reason. The Framers didn't intend
for the courts to be subject to a democratic process
because they shouldn't be subject to the whims of the majorities,
and what we're seeing right now in the polarization of
our politics is a great reason why they shouldn't be.
Their goal shouldn't be to try to channel what they
(18:19):
think the quote the people want in terms of their
elected base or the electoral base, but they should be
looking at what the law says. They're supposed to have
life tenure, so they're not having that kind of influence.
But what you've seen from the left right now is
a desire to just they're not going to be happy
until they have one hundred percent of the power consolidated
(18:41):
in their hands. That is not our system of checks
and balances. That's a return to a tyrannical government and
certainly is something we need to push back against. It's
really telling that they're not even trying to Franklin Delan
Roosevelt was trying to do this. He had some excuse like, well,
I think they're getting too old and they need some
(19:02):
help because there's so much workload. That at least was
everyone knew that wasn't what was happening, and that's why
even his incredibly powerful Democratic Senate rejected his own idea.
So everyone at the time saw this was a horrible idea,
but at least he made an effort to give it
a fig leaf. The current democratics of Democrats that particularly
like the socialists within their party, they don't even give
(19:24):
it a pig leaf.
Speaker 2 (19:25):
They just say this is all about power.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
When Rovers's Waid was decided, and so many people on
the right were horrified because it is very anti constitutional.
It doesn't even pretend to be a constitutional, constitutionally based decision.
It's like, you know, we're making this stuff up. They
didn't go and just storm the Supreme Court. It led
to fifty years and that was really difficult to try
(19:47):
to shift the national understanding of the importance of the court,
to try to shift the type of judges that our
elected officials were appointed, and that's what has given us
the originalist today. Working within the system is hard, and
I think that's why people don't have patience for it,
and that's why Democrats just want to grab control in
any way possible. It is so crucial to stop them
(20:10):
from doing so. And if they get the scary thing
is if they get even a bare majority in the Senate.
I worry that the pressure from the extremists, and Democrat
Party is so great that they would do this, even
though I think most of the elected Democrats right now
realize the bad idea, but they're willing to part these
lines because that's where the big special interest money is
in the left, and that's where the loudest voices are.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
You know, No, I agree, and it's scary you've called
on Kagan to recuse herself from climate litigation.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Why have you made that ask? And what should people
know about it? Yeah, So this is.
Speaker 3 (20:47):
An interesting story of how some of these leftist groups
are co opting what should be neutral government institutions for
their ends. It started with a group called the Federal
Judicial Center, which is an arm of the third branch
of government.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
They're supposed to be there just to educate judges.
Speaker 3 (21:05):
No, they have workshops and they give them training when
they come on the court, and they put out this
reference manual. And we've had climate groups that have been
working their way into this institution, so that, for example,
you've got climate litigators who are giving the workshops and
the you know, continuing education.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
For judges on climate issues.
Speaker 3 (21:24):
That's a real concern, right, But these same people ended
up writing a chapter in what's supposed to be, again,
a neutral manual for judges of how to deal with
scientific evidence. And you've got people who are involved in
the litigation, who were working on this chapter, who were
consulting on it, and who inserted into it a lot
of ideas that aren't just like, this is what the
(21:45):
law is, but this is the way they want the
law to be, and these are the standards they think
judges should apply. It's basically like getting a free extra
several hundred pages of briefing in every climate case, but
asked as a.
Speaker 2 (22:00):
Neutral document that judges are looking at.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
And what Kagan did is she wrote the introduction to
this manual that includes extremely biased material.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
She endorsed it.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
She said, you know, case in and case out, the
instruction this manual offers on scientific principles and methodogs will
improve the quality of judicial decision making. She says, this
is this is the place you go for great evidence.
Turns out that now, even as she admitted it in
her testimony to Congress, this chapter is incredibly biased. The
(22:33):
Federal Judicial Center has been pressured by members of Congress
and by state attorney that chapter, but it's still up
at the National Academy's website, and her introduction is still there.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
She even admitted to Congress that she hasn't read.
Speaker 3 (22:49):
The chapter she's endorsing, this science climate science chapter that
she admits is incredibly biased that now has this judicial
stand of approval on it. We think that that puts
her partiality into question in cases that are that involved
those same principles that are being advanced in that chapter,
(23:12):
like the some core case that the Supreme Court is
going to be considering next term, you know.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
And then last thing before we go, Lindsay Graham has passed.
Regardless what people's and his views, I will always be
grateful for him standing up for justice and for Brett
Kavanaugh when he was facing just unprecedented character assassination. How
important was that moment when Lindsey Graham spoke up during
(23:40):
the judiciary hearing and you know, stood up for what
was right.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
That was such a closely run confirmation process, there was.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
Almost no room for error and any at any level.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
So you could probably say this about a few different
people's contributions, Susan Collins and stuff, but I think his
moment was one of the many, you know, four causes
of justice Kavanaugh getting confirmed. Recall, you know, we had
his first hearing, which already was kind of a clown
show with people trying to stand up and he disrupt things.
And then the second hearing with Christine Blasi Ford and
(24:13):
when Lindsey Graham just erupted in outrage at what they
were doing to him, how unfair this was, at the
complete lack of evidence, and he said, they're.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
Putting you through hell.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
And that really struck a note, partly because and he
and I may have disagreed on this, like he was
someone who had an approach of I actually just kind
of vote for almost everyone that the president puts up.
That the president should have a huge amount of difference
in that I think he gave too much difference to
the president. But he said, I voted for Kagan, I
(24:46):
voted for Sodamayoor. I'm trying to give, you know, an
olive brands to the other side here, and this is
how they repay that they are putting this good man
through the ringer and inventing all these charges into trying
to destroy his reputation. That was very powerful, coming particularly
from him. And I think it's also notable that when
(25:09):
Justice Jackson was up for confirmation. She did not get
Lindsay Graham's vote, So I think that moment may also
have maybe radicalized him a little bit and made him
realize again, they're not going to You can play nicely
and try to go back to a world where everyone
votes for everyone else's nominees, but that's not the world
that we're living in. And I think he also realized
(25:32):
that Justin Jackson Justice Jackson was singularly unqualified in the
way that she approached the constitution for that position. So
he was very significant in the Kavanaugh confirmation and really
in the later judicial leadership on the Judicial Jushiary Committee
as well.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Carrie Savarino, we really appreciate you making the time and
breaking the solid down for us.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Thank you so much. Great to be with you. That
was Carrie Severino, President of j c N. Appreciate her
for joining the show.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Appreciate you guys at home for listening every Tuesday and Thursday,
but you can listen throughout the week. I also wanted
to thank John Cassio and my producer for putting this
show together.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Until next time,
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
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