Verdict with Ted Cruz - June 05, 2026


Surging Support to Save College Sports, plus Mollie Hemingway on the Great Justice Sam Alito


Episode Stats


Length

39 minutes

Words per minute

180.71

Word count

7,208

Sentence count

488

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) chairs a hearing on the crisis facing college athletics and the need for Congress to pass a bill that would protect college athletes and ensure they get equal pay for their education and time on the field.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
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00:01:06.020 Welcome.
00:01:06.680 It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:01:09.620 And if you're listening on radio stations across the country, it's really nice to have you with us.
00:01:13.420 And a reminder, we do this show as a podcast three days a week.
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00:01:28.500 Senator, we've got a lot to talk about, including big news for the sports world,
00:01:32.520 and we've got Supreme Court news coming up as well on the show.
00:01:35.460 Well, this week I chaired a hearing on college sports and saving college sports,
00:01:41.200 and we've talked before on Verdict about how college sports is in crisis right now.
00:01:44.880 It is chaos.
00:01:45.800 You've got an out-of-control transfer portal with athletes transferring three, four, five times.
00:01:51.340 You've got people playing until they're 26, 27, 28 years old.
00:01:55.180 you've got people with six, seven years of playing time. You have virtually every athletics program
00:02:01.680 in the country losing money and losing millions or even tens of millions of dollars. Schools are
00:02:06.560 going broke. They're canceling programs every week. You're seeing women's sports getting
00:02:10.840 canceled. You're seeing Olympic sports getting canceled. You're seeing your favorite tennis
00:02:15.700 getting canceled. That happened at Arkansas just a few weeks ago. And it is, if we don't act,
00:02:22.760 we are going to see much of college sports decimated and destroyed. And so last week,
00:02:29.520 I introduced bipartisan legislation with Maria Cantwell. Maria Cantwell is a Democrat from
00:02:35.040 Washington State. She is the ranking member, the senior Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee. 0.97
00:02:39.620 I'm the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. This week, we had a big hearing
00:02:42.380 and we heard testimony from leaders in college athletics about the urgency of solving the
00:02:49.760 crisis now. One of our witnesses was Coach Nick Saban, the legendary coach of Alabama.
00:02:56.940 And Coach Saban's testimony was incredibly powerful. And give a listen to a little bit
00:03:02.920 of Coach Nick Saban on why Congress needs to pass our Protect College Sports Act.
00:03:09.180 Yeah. Before we get to that, though, I want to talk to you real quick about a bill you probably
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00:04:56.860 your bill all right let's play for you nick saban part of what he had to say in front of your
00:05:01.600 committee hearing it truly was uh impressive to hear him talk about sports especially in front
00:05:06.420 of congress take a listen cabal let me give you the history my first year we had collective at
00:05:12.120 alabama 2.7 million next year 7 million next year 10 million i retired next year 17 million next year
00:05:19.740 24 million now you have schools that have close to 40 million dollar rosters so if we continue to do
00:05:27.000 that we're going to lose olympic sports we're going to lose non-revenue sports we're going to
00:05:31.260 lose scholarships and basically what's going to happen is we're going to have football and
00:05:35.340 basketball succeed and we'll have club sports for everything else he's not wrong by the way senator
00:05:41.620 I was in one of those non-money-making sports, tennis, right?
00:05:44.900 You had a lot of friends that you get to know that are in those Olympic sports, for example.
00:05:49.440 That would all disappear.
00:05:50.580 And when you think about having a college roster at $80 million, if you're a student-athlete, that in theory sounds great, but that's only in two sports.
00:05:57.840 Really, the majority of that $80 million are, you know, he's talking about Alabama.
00:06:01.460 I mean, there's not that much in basketball, I promise you, at Alabama.
00:06:04.300 So unless you pick football, you're left behind, and that's the reason why you're taking this action now
00:06:10.140 and why Saban was saying what he was saying at the time.
00:06:12.840 Well, and there's only a handful of powerhouses
00:06:15.220 that generate and can dominate football.
00:06:18.940 And so if we don't act, I think within five years,
00:06:23.160 we will see 30 to 50 colleges that have a football program
00:06:27.840 and they'll basically be an NFL.
00:06:30.020 Yeah.
00:06:30.340 And the rest of the schools, their programs will be obliterated.
00:06:34.000 And there are a lot of reasons that's tragic.
00:06:36.400 One is just sports brings us together.
00:06:38.240 Sports is so much fun. Look, we're divided on so many issues today. We scream at each other.
00:06:44.200 We're like it really is hard to find common ground. And yet you can go cheer on your alma mater and you can be there with people of different parties, people of different races, people of different religions, and you're all standing together.
00:06:55.540 That's really important. Every bit as critical as that is is colleges. College sports is an amazing avenue for education for millions of young men and women.
00:07:07.900 And until I really started diving in to this topic and working to save college sports, I hadn't really focused on how college athletics is something that is unique in the United States.
00:07:20.220 No other country has anything remotely resembling what we have here with college sports.
00:07:26.320 There are today more than a half million college athletes right now.
00:07:32.360 Every year, athletics enables kids, many kids from low-income homes, many minority kids who otherwise might not have had a chance to go to college.
00:07:45.520 It enables them to go to college to study, to get a degree, to learn skills, to learn hard work and discipline and teamwork and sportsmanship.
00:07:55.000 Accountability, just showing up.
00:07:56.440 I can't tell you how much I learned from just the accountability, which, by the way, it made me a better person.
00:08:01.760 It made me better in business.
00:08:03.260 It made me better in my job that I did afterwards.
00:08:05.980 There are so many young men when I was at Ole Miss that said they literally believe they would either have been dead, they would have been in a gang.
00:08:13.980 if it wasn't for sports, keeping them out of trouble in high school.
00:08:17.620 And then they said if it wasn't for college and getting that college education,
00:08:21.180 they would have immediately been into bad stuff on the streets.
00:08:23.800 They said that sports actually saved their life.
00:08:26.640 And not only saved their life, a lot of them,
00:08:28.700 they were the first member of their family to ever go to college.
00:08:31.860 And they went because they were an incredible athlete.
00:08:33.820 It gave them the opportunity.
00:08:35.120 It gave them a free education that seemed unattainable.
00:08:38.220 And it completely changed their family's trajectory in life.
00:08:41.300 I think that's one of the most important things about college sports that people don't talk about.
00:08:46.440 No, that is exactly right.
00:08:48.560 And the status quo is unsustainable.
00:08:50.980 If Congress doesn't act, we will end up with hundreds of thousands of those college athletic positions going away.
00:08:59.580 And those kids, many of them having no chance to go to school, to go to college, to get those skills, those life skills that set them up for success.
00:09:09.020 And look, the way I approach this, I didn't worry too much about the top 1%.
00:09:14.640 I didn't worry about the Michael Jordans or Arch Mannings.
00:09:18.320 I worried about the 99% of college athletes who are never going to play pro ball, but it's giving them opportunity.
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00:09:35.560 They, and countless other workers, show up for Ontarians every single day.
00:09:40.640 But the Ford government's cuts have left workers with no choice but to go on strike.
00:09:44.900 Today, workers are on the picket lines fighting for their communities and the services we all depend on.
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00:10:57.120 Senator, also we've got a guest coming up in a little bit.
00:10:59.480 We're going to be dealing with the Supreme Court, a best-selling book.
00:11:02.020 And Molly Hemingway is going to join us, so make sure you stick around for that.
00:11:05.960 But before we get to that, we're talking about this incredible NIL bill.
00:11:09.400 And look, I had a ton of people, Senator, that were calling me.
00:11:12.600 I had friends and people I've known in the past come out of the woodwork because they knew how important this bill was.
00:11:17.400 They knew how important it was to you.
00:11:19.460 Asking me questions, there was a lot of people saying they're just not going to be able to get this done.
00:11:22.480 There's no way you'll get bipartisanship here.
00:11:24.880 That seems to not be true.
00:11:26.160 And they said, well, there's no way even though he'll be able to get the White House behind it.
00:11:28.940 That also doesn't seem to be true either.
00:11:30.620 There is a lot of growing bipartisan support here to get this thing done.
00:11:35.680 Well, there is, and I worked for months.
00:11:39.500 Maria Cantwell and I negotiated.
00:11:41.260 We sat in a conference room six, eight hours a day negotiating provision by provision by provision.
00:11:46.320 We introduced it with Cantwell and myself, a Democrat and Republican, and also with Eric Schmidt, a Republican from Missouri, and Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware.
00:11:57.160 So we had two Democrats, two Republicans on the bill.
00:11:59.600 and we've seen phenomenal support for it so the acc has come out emphatically in support of it
00:12:07.020 the big 12 has come out emphatically in support of it um condoleezza rice at stanford has come
00:12:13.220 out emphatically in support of it at the hearing pete bavacqua the athletic director at notre dame
00:12:18.260 testified strongly in support of it gordon gee testified at the hearing uh former president of
00:12:24.580 west virginia university also vanderbilt uh has been a president actually five universities he
00:12:29.580 He testified that this is a crisis and this bill is the only hope to save college sports.
00:12:35.760 And we've had already, we've had over 130 signatures from leaders at more than 65 universities come out in support of the bill.
00:12:47.080 And importantly this week, President Donald J. Trump came out strongly in support of the bill.
00:12:51.780 He sent a truth social that I want to read to you.
00:12:55.120 Here's what he said.
00:12:56.580 College sports, a great American institution that produces our many athletes, leaders, and Olympic dominance, is a total mess.
00:13:03.760 And everyone is saying that it must be fixed.
00:13:06.420 After unending lawsuits and crazed rulings, there are virtually no limits anymore.
00:13:10.900 And soon most colleges won't have sports because each and every one of them will be bankrupt, never to be heard from again.
00:13:18.040 Women's sports and the Olympics itself are in the most danger from this catastrophic situation.
00:13:24.400 College sports are turning into pro sports, except with absolutely no rules, a result no one wants.
00:13:31.700 University presidents, conference commissioners, student athletes, coaches, and athletic directors all complained to me that it has become a disaster.
00:13:40.500 After years of no action and that schools were losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, they compared it to a freight train that can't be stopped.
00:13:51.820 That is why a few months ago I convened a roundtable,
00:13:55.160 bringing together a world-class team of some of the best sports executives,
00:13:59.300 student athletes, and political leaders in our country.
00:14:02.420 The goal was to find a bipartisan solution to fix the problem.
00:14:06.660 Based on these meetings and the expertise of the leading authorities,
00:14:09.720 I signed an executive order.
00:14:11.060 But I always said that the best solution was to get a bipartisan act through Congress
00:14:16.580 to my desk in order to save a long and embarrassing road through hell for these institutions.
00:14:25.880 I'd like to thank Senators Ted Cruz, Eric Schmidt, Maria Cantwell, and Chris Coons, among others,
00:14:31.520 for introducing the Protect College Sports Act. This law resolves many of the most urgent issues
00:14:37.960 challenging our universities and student-athletes, stops the chaos, and most importantly,
00:14:43.840 it may be the last chance to save college sports and colleges themselves before it's too late.
00:14:50.900 The House has worked long and hard on this issue as well, and I'm very grateful to Speaker Mike
00:14:55.140 Johnson and Leader Steve Scalise for their work to fix this very major problem. I urge the House
00:15:01.180 and Senate to come together to pass a final bipartisan law that I can sign this summer
00:15:07.100 that reflects the views and input of both chambers.
00:15:11.000 And in all caps, we have to save college sports.
00:15:15.700 Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump.
00:15:19.820 The support we're seeing is really significant,
00:15:22.780 and I think we're going to see, I hope and believe,
00:15:26.440 a big bipartisan vote in the Senate behind this bill.
00:15:29.760 What's the timeline now, and how much is there going to be people pushing
00:15:33.460 since now this has become so, you know, such a big discussion to try to change things at the
00:15:38.500 last minute? Is that going to be a problem? And what does that look like? Oh, look, that is going
00:15:42.900 on. And there are there are a handful of people that are criticizing and throwing rocks. But I'll
00:15:48.160 tell you, most people are shocked that we could actually find a bipartisan compromise. And listen,
00:15:55.060 one of the one of the natures of that, that means that I had to give quite a bit and the Democrats
00:16:00.440 had to give quite a bit to find a common ground because we can't pass this bill unless you get
00:16:06.180 at least 60 votes in the Senate. That means you need at least seven Democrats. There are only 53
00:16:11.820 Republicans. And my objective, frankly, is to get a lot more than 60 votes. I'd like to see a big
00:16:17.840 bipartisan vote come out of the Senate. The House has tried several times to fix this problem.
00:16:24.660 And unfortunately, every time they've tried to take up a bill, it's failed in the House. And so
00:16:28.500 I think the Senate has got to step in because the clock is ticking. And I will say that there's a
00:16:36.060 real risk also of the biggest players coming together to form a super league. And I think
00:16:42.800 that would be disastrous for everybody else and not good for fans. Let's take my home state of
00:16:49.060 Texas. Look, my home state of Texas, if Congress does nothing, in three to five years, I am certain
00:16:56.820 that the University of Texas will survive, and I'm certain A&M will survive. They're so big,
00:17:01.400 they have such a big donor base, an alumni base, that they'll survive no matter what happens.
00:17:06.880 But it's not at all clear that the other players in Texas survive. It's not clear that TCU or SMU
00:17:13.020 or University of Houston or Rice or Texas Tech or Baylor, all of the different programs in Texas,
00:17:19.620 they could go under in the status quo. And I think that would be a terrible outcome if we
00:17:24.300 lose historic programs all over Texas, not just football, but when you lose football,
00:17:30.360 football pays for all the other sports. So when you lose football, you end up losing the entire
00:17:36.120 array of sports. That would be tragic, and we can't let it happen. Yeah, you're absolutely
00:17:40.960 right there. If people want to get behind this legislation, is this one of those where they
00:17:45.120 talk to their senators and their congressmen? Who do they need to contact quickly? Look,
00:17:49.060 the first order of business is your senator, and urging your senator, whether you're
00:17:54.180 senator is a Republican or Democrat, urging your senator, get behind this bill, the bipartisan
00:17:58.560 Protect College Sports Act. There's an urgency. I am hoping to move quickly on this. I'd like to
00:18:04.900 get a big vote in the Senate. Once we get it out of the Senate, then the next step will be the
00:18:08.500 House. But calling your senator, going on social media, speaking out and saying that sports,
00:18:15.300 college sports should be saved, that's really valuable. There was obviously a massive victory
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00:20:03.240 Senator, you love the Supreme Court pretty much more than anybody I know in my sphere.
00:20:07.960 And any book that comes out about the Supreme Court, it's like you're a moth to a flame.
00:20:12.360 We've got a really exciting guest now who's also diving into the Supreme Court just like you love to.
00:20:16.960 You've got your new book coming out on Clarence Thomas.
00:20:19.440 So you're in D.C. Why don't you introduce our guest for us today?
00:20:22.020 Well, sure. We are very glad to welcome to verdict Molly Hemingway.
00:20:26.340 Molly Hemingway is the editor-in-chief of The Federalist.
00:20:29.500 She is an award-winning journalist.
00:20:31.960 She is a bestselling author, and she has a brand new book that is a bestseller.
00:20:36.860 It is called Alito, The Justice Who Reshaped the Supreme Court and Restored the Constitution.
00:20:43.320 Molly, welcome to Verdict.
00:20:44.240 It is great to be here with you.
00:20:45.960 So let's start with this.
00:20:47.260 What caused you to write a book to tell Justice Alito's story?
00:20:51.060 These are obviously very consequential times.
00:20:53.000 He's an historic justice.
00:20:54.420 But what caused you to say that you wanted to do a biography of Justice Alito?
00:20:59.320 Well, there are a few different things.
00:21:00.240 We know so much about so many of the justices.
00:21:02.840 They've written books about themselves.
00:21:04.480 There are other books about them.
00:21:06.220 There's nothing, almost nothing about Justice Alito out there,
00:21:09.520 even though his own colleagues will tell you he's this giant on the court.
00:21:14.080 And he has a particular approach to originalism that I think is interesting for this current moment we're in,
00:21:20.220 that doctrine about how you interpret the Constitution according to its original meaning.
00:21:25.800 There are a majority of justices who self-identify as originalists.
00:21:29.240 originalists. He's a little different than some of his colleagues. So I wanted to explore that.
00:21:32.900 Yeah. And I also wanted to look into that Dobbs leak and dig into what happened there and who
00:21:38.140 people thought was involved and more on that. That's a million dollar question, right? Like
00:21:43.360 what happened there? What did you find out? I did talk to, I interviewed nearly 100 people
00:21:47.980 for the book, including former clerks, staff, justices. And the number one thing I took away
00:21:54.880 from this is that the investigation itself was incredibly poorly done. They waited a very long
00:22:00.600 period of time to even begin digging into things. They didn't have a good understanding of how much
00:22:05.620 access clerks had to the draft decision outside of the court building. There are truly like a
00:22:13.740 million different ways it could have been leaked, but the questions weren't hard-hitting enough.
00:22:17.360 So instead of saying, what has been your contact with this journalist who published this, or do you
00:22:23.860 or does any member of your family or a friend have contact with this person?
00:22:27.380 They pretty much just said, did you leak it?
00:22:29.980 And if they said no, then they said thank you very much for coming in.
00:22:33.700 There's no way you're going to find out answers when that's the level of investigation.
00:22:37.100 So why do you think the investigation was shoddy?
00:22:41.220 It certainly is not something that the marshal of the Supreme Court is used to having to do.
00:22:45.960 As you know, the culture of the court is such that it's unthinkable that you would leak something like this.
00:22:53.160 And it's not that it wasn't possible for people to leak previously a draft decision.
00:22:57.920 They just had the type of moral character that would prevent them from doing it.
00:23:01.880 And the chief, of course, is very adamant when clerks begin and other staff begin about the importance of the integrity of the court and not leaking any information whatsoever.
00:23:11.380 So I think it was just this is not something that this that the marshal had done previously.
00:23:15.440 It was a very sensitive situation.
00:23:17.560 It was still also in somewhat in the aftermath of covid.
00:23:20.680 so the new procedures that had been in place
00:23:22.980 weren't well understood.
00:23:24.440 But ultimately, I think it was a real failing
00:23:26.760 and probably they would have done things differently
00:23:28.680 if they had to do it over again.
00:23:30.080 Yeah, you use the word unthinkable
00:23:32.220 and that's not an exaggeration.
00:23:35.020 I remember when the Dobbs draft opinion leaked
00:23:37.900 and I was at dinner when Whitaker broke the story
00:23:41.040 and it was stunning.
00:23:42.700 I just stared at my phone in shock
00:23:45.960 because everything about the court is predicated upon trust.
00:23:51.120 It's a quite small institution.
00:23:54.240 You have nine justices.
00:23:55.540 Each justice has four clerks, and it's a small little intimate family,
00:24:00.400 and there's a robust back and forth.
00:24:03.980 Almost all the edits are done in writing, going back and forth
00:24:08.480 with the justices communicating with each other,
00:24:10.360 And it just – it did permanent damage to the court in terms of the trust the justices have for each other.
00:24:21.220 It, I think, changed the court.
00:24:22.660 As one justice put it, it's like if there's infidelity in a marriage, you can keep going, but something has changed with that marriage.
00:24:30.180 Nobody really thought it was a justice.
00:24:32.480 The justices themselves certainly didn't think it was a justice.
00:24:34.900 but just knowing that things aren't as trustworthy
00:24:39.440 as people thought was a big issue.
00:24:41.600 But I'd love to get into, oh, sorry.
00:24:43.460 You know, if this ever happens again,
00:24:45.180 what was your takeaway?
00:24:46.460 Would they do it the same way?
00:24:47.920 Should there be a different way
00:24:48.960 of there being an investigation?
00:24:50.520 I'm a pessimist.
00:24:51.860 I think, well, if Democrats want to leak out a decision
00:24:54.880 in the future again,
00:24:55.700 that they want to try to stop and put pressure on justice,
00:24:58.160 they'll do it again.
00:24:58.960 There was no accountability for this leak
00:25:00.720 that was unimaginable, as Senator Cruz just put it.
00:25:04.440 what would what would be different the next time if anything at all i do i do think that there was
00:25:10.560 something singular about this situation abortion and the court has always been difficult that's
00:25:15.840 actually where a lot of the leaks have happened previously as well and even the person who did
00:25:20.960 the leak until he or she admits it we probably won't know who did it it's you know again it was
00:25:26.060 something that could be done very easily without detection so i don't think it would be i don't
00:25:31.320 see it happening again. But there is still time actually to think about whether there should be
00:25:37.560 a better investigation into this, including whether there's any role for an outside investigator,
00:25:44.360 law enforcement investigator. One of the things I think is interesting is that after the leak of
00:25:48.480 this decision, you had attacks on the lives of the justices. You had organized and coordinated
00:25:54.000 protest activity. You had the fire bombings of the churches and the pro-life pregnancy centers. 0.56
00:25:59.380 It is illegal to do this, do something with the intent to affect the outcome of a decision.
00:26:04.180 And yet the Biden Justice Department did nothing, refused to follow federal law.
00:26:08.960 Look, one of the things that really bombshell facts that you report in this book is you report Justice Kagan screaming at Justice Breyer so loud that the walls were shaking over Dobbs.
00:26:21.900 Tell us about that.
00:26:22.620 Well, after the leak happened, again, the lives of the justices are immediately threatened.
00:26:27.620 You have justices having to be moved to secure locations, Amy Coney Barrett having to put on a bulletproof vest in front of her children.
00:26:34.420 We also had the situation where she recently was the victim of a swatting attempt where someone tried to get her house swatted.
00:26:40.520 And you had Justice Kavanaugh, of course, with an assassin outside of his house.
00:26:45.200 Well, prior to that happening with Justice Kavanaugh, some of the justices asked the dissenting justices to please wrap up their dissent so that the decision could be released.
00:26:54.580 Until a decision is released, it's not final.
00:26:56.980 So if one of the justices were to die, that would mean Dobbs was not handed down.
00:27:01.260 And let's just underscore that point because if one of the justices were to die, this is an area where passive voice doesn't really capture it.
00:27:12.080 To really underscore it, that means if one of the justices in the majority were to be murdered, suddenly Dobbs cannot issue and Roe versus Wade is not overturned.
00:27:24.940 And so the assassin who came with plans to murder Brett Kavanaugh and the other conservative justices could have changed history.
00:27:34.800 And every day that there was a delay, there was an added risk that someone would murder one of those justices.
00:27:40.900 So a request was put forth by Alito and also by Justice Gorsuch.
00:27:44.980 Could you wrap this up?
00:27:46.080 Could you give us a date by which time you'll be done?
00:27:48.740 And they wouldn't – the liberal justices would not give a date.
00:27:52.860 But after that conference, Kagan went to Breyer's chambers.
00:27:58.160 Breyer is a liberal, but he is a gentleman and his colleagues, he cared about his colleagues
00:28:03.280 and their lives.
00:28:04.220 So he seemed most amenable to wrapping things up.
00:28:07.340 And Kagan did implore him not to accommodate the conservative justices.
00:28:12.700 They finally say, we'll get something out by June 1st.
00:28:16.320 We'll get something done by June 1st.
00:28:17.900 And they do in exchange for getting other decisions done later.
00:28:21.840 But they include this gratuitous footnote that was completely unnecessary for another decision that really wasn't going to be handed down for another several weeks.
00:28:30.740 And so during that period of time, before it was finally handed down, I think it was June 23rd, that was when Kavanaugh actually had the assassin outside of his home.
00:28:39.520 And this slow walking, which I report in Alito, the book, was also confirmed, I think, this year as a tactic that is being used by the liberal justices.
00:28:48.420 We learned that they were also slow walking that Calais decision, that Voting Rights Act decision, in the hope that if they got it out too late, then state legislatures could not respond to the decision.
00:29:00.320 Well, and Ketanji Brown-Jackson was quite vocal and wrote about wanting to delay that decision with a very explicit, I think, objective of preventing state legislatures from acting and redistricting.
00:29:12.880 And it's one of the most partisan disputes we've ever seen at the court, her effort to have a real impact on the election in November.
00:29:25.280 And I will point out that Justice Alito actually responded to her by pointing out this is a case that we heard in October, and it was not the first time they heard it.
00:29:33.980 They heard it the previous term as well, pointing out that every other decision from that term had already been released, that this slow walking was political.
00:29:44.260 Handing down a decision that needs to be handed down is not political.
00:29:47.280 Slow walking it, however, is.
00:29:48.980 All right.
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00:30:42.660 This brings up a bigger question I wanted to ask you about, Molly,
00:30:46.320 And that was about the idea now that every time a decision comes down that Democrats don't seem to like, they want to either completely remake the court, pack the court.
00:30:56.720 Does that concern you, especially as you were writing this book, how much now they're saying, oh, nine, maybe we'll move it to 15 or 18 or whatever the number is they want next?
00:31:04.640 This is a huge threat to the court and rule of law, what we're seeing happening from the left.
00:31:09.180 And I actually go into this in detail in the book, showing how coordinated the attacks on the court are, how well-funded they are.
00:31:16.360 To just use one example, ProPublica, which is a left-wing media outlet, raised $53 million with the express purpose of going after Justice Thomas and Justice Alito.
00:31:29.240 And at the end of the year, they reported on their 990 form what they had done with $53 million.
00:31:34.780 I mean, can you imagine how many reporters and researchers you can hire, you know, high-level people?
00:31:41.580 They don't publish that many stories, but the whole goal was to attack the integrity of Alito and Thomas, two men who actually have a great deal of integrity.
00:31:49.320 be. But this was done as part of the Democrat lawfare efforts that are going on to pressure
00:31:55.760 the court into agreeing with some of the more extreme lawfare efforts that they have had
00:32:00.920 in play, whether it's kicking Trump off the ballot or having uneven prosecutions of conservatives
00:32:06.840 versus liberals. And you see it with now so many prominent Democrats calling for the actual
00:32:13.520 packing of the court. This isn't about having a thoughtful discussion about the number of
00:32:17.640 people on the court. No, no. If they get power, they will do this. Yeah, packing for political
00:32:21.400 outcome. And I'll just point out, conservatives were not in power on the court for decades,
00:32:26.420 and many bad things happened. And they never once resorted to undermining the integrity of
00:32:30.880 the court. They said, we're going to put a lot of effort into electing senators who will confirm
00:32:35.780 good justices, electing a president who will nominate good justices, and building up the
00:32:40.880 network of people who understand what a proper, coherent conservative judicial philosophy is.
00:32:45.580 And the left doesn't want to do that work. They just want to burn it down.
00:32:49.440 They want power and by any means necessary. And they view the court as an extension of political power, not not an institution that actually is supposed to follow the Constitution or follow the law.
00:33:01.240 And in fact, they view the court as an avenue to end run democracy because many of their most extreme policies are very unpopular.
00:33:10.460 The voters don't want them.
00:33:11.720 And so it's much easier to get a handful of unelected judges just to force it on the whole country than actually to engage in the difficult and messy business of democracy, of convincing your fellow citizens you're right.
00:33:23.920 But it strikes me that there are a lot of very similar themes in your book on Justice Alito that are in my upcoming book on Justice Clarence Thomas.
00:33:35.740 My book is coming out in August, and like you, I spent a lot of time interviewing Justice Thomas as you did with Justice Alito.
00:33:43.400 And one interesting bit of history is Justice Thomas and Justice Alito were both classmates in law school at Yale Law School.
00:33:52.220 They didn't know each other, but they were classmates. And there's a funny story Justice Thomas told me when I was interviewing him for the book where he said when he got when he was at the court, when Alito went to the court, he asked him, he said, Sam, why weren't we friends in law school?
00:34:08.840 And Justice Alito responded, Clarence, you were scary.
00:34:14.940 And Justice Thomas erupts in his signature just belly laugh, which is, as you know, infectious.
00:34:23.060 Tell us a little bit about what made Sam Alito into the great Justice Alito.
00:34:30.760 And you mentioned before what you described as his unique brand of originalism.
00:34:35.580 Elaborate on that a little bit.
00:34:36.680 Well, I think one of the things that sticks out is that he was raised in a middle-class family by a public servant who he really respected, his father.
00:34:45.100 He goes to Princeton, and he's a public school kid, and he assumes that all of these elite kids are going to be really smart and give him a run for his money.
00:34:53.300 When he gets there, he finds out, actually, he's doing just fine in the intelligence department.
00:34:57.960 And also, these elite kids are the ones who end up rioting, shutting down the campus.
00:35:02.760 He knows that they will go on and have cushy jobs that their fathers gave them, whereas he needs the education.
00:35:09.280 And so even though he goes to elite institutions, Princeton, Yale, goes to the Department of Justice, he doesn't seem—
00:35:15.400 Do you want me to concede that Yale's an elite institution?
00:35:18.320 That may be a bridge too far.
00:35:20.260 Go ahead. Sorry.
00:35:20.880 He doesn't seem to want the respect of many of the people he meets there.
00:35:24.840 He just doesn't—he's not that impressed with them.
00:35:26.940 And I think that's—you see that come through now, and it's the same thing with Justice Thomas.
00:35:30.520 He cares so much more about people who are working at the Supreme Court than the people at the cocktail parties.
00:35:37.060 And speaking of Justice Thomas, he and Alito work together very well.
00:35:41.560 But whereas Justice Thomas, as one person put it, is the deployed aircraft carrier on the court, Alito's chambers are more like the Green Berets.
00:35:49.640 They go and they prepare the land.
00:35:51.620 He might agree with Thomas on where he wants to be, but he's going to be more tactical about, okay, well, how are we going to get there?
00:35:57.100 And you even saw that again in the Clay decision, this Voting Rights Act.
00:36:00.520 What does Thomas say?
00:36:02.100 Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is completely unconstitutional.
00:36:05.760 Alito might agree with that, but he builds together a six-person majority to say it can't be interpreted that there are these racial gerrymanders because that cannot be what the law means given what the 15th Amendment of the Constitution does in explicitly prohibiting such.
00:36:22.960 So what do you think Justice Alito's legacy will be 50 years from now?
00:36:29.040 For most justices, I think they will be lucky to be remembered for one thing.
00:36:33.300 And if it is one thing, it's definitely going to be the Dobbs decision.
00:36:36.660 But the reason why people should pay attention now is because of all these other important decisions, his incremental solid work on religious liberty, speech issues.
00:36:46.620 And I would say the other thing I find really interesting about him that people should pay more attention to is how effective he is in oral argument.
00:36:54.240 Yes, very much so.
00:36:55.240 positioning the court on what issue they should decide a case on. So he's quiet, he's humble,
00:37:01.480 but I do believe people on the right should absolutely know more about him and understand
00:37:06.100 what the left understood long time ago, which is he's a very important justice.
00:37:09.400 Well, look, like Chief Justice Roberts, like Elena Kagan, Sam Alito is a veteran of the
00:37:15.640 Solicitor General's Office and is an experienced Supreme Court advocate. And that is a rare skill,
00:37:22.440 and you see him displaying it
00:37:24.440 from the other side of the bench as a justice.
00:37:26.760 And you're right, he's very effective at oral argument.
00:37:30.400 Talk a little about his character.
00:37:31.760 He's an extraordinary man,
00:37:33.020 but share your thoughts on his character.
00:37:35.880 Just really interesting to find someone in Washington, D.C.
00:37:39.060 with this level of humility.
00:37:40.960 He's a family man.
00:37:42.740 He very much believes in doing his duty.
00:37:45.560 Even the fact that he's been a public servant
00:37:47.260 his entire career,
00:37:49.100 this is someone who could be making
00:37:50.360 so much money off of the court and he cares about, you know, even he hires clerks who are people who
00:37:56.300 are going to be devoted to public service or the academy. And he's just a very quiet, humble, but
00:38:02.120 also very funny guy with a very subtle sense of humor. He's hysterical. All right. I want to
00:38:08.860 encourage everyone, go out and buy Molly's book. Go buy Alito, the justice who reshaped the Supreme
00:38:14.200 Court and restored the constitution. Go to Amazon, go to Barnes and Noble. By the way, while you're
00:38:18.700 there, go buy my book, too, on Clarence Thomas. It's coming out in August, but you can pre-order
00:38:23.660 them, read them together. The two are great bookends. And you know what? They both would
00:38:27.980 make fabulous graduation gifts, birthday gifts, Christmas gifts. Go buy Molly's book. And Molly,
00:38:35.560 thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. It's really important. Don't forget, we do this
00:38:39.100 show Monday from Wednesday and Friday as a podcast. So download Verdict with Ted Cruz
00:38:42.880 wherever you get your podcast. You can also watch us on YouTube so you can subscribe to the channel
00:38:47.560 there. It's always free. And on Facebook
00:38:49.480 as well. The Son and I will see you back
00:38:51.560 here on this radio station as well next week.
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