Advisory Opinions - Confirmation Battles

Episode Date: March 27, 2020

David and Sarah talk coronavirus confusion, and Justice Clarence Thomas and confirmation battles with Carrie Severino of the Judicial Crisis Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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in select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details. You ready? I was born ready. Welcome to the Advisory Opinions Podcast. This is David French with Sarah Isger. And listeners, you are in luck. This is perhaps the least coronavirus-focused podcast in the entire internet today. It is about, I'm going to say it's going to be about 90% on judicial confirmation battles and Clarence Thomas. We have, in just a few minutes, we've got a tremendous interview with Carrie Severino, who is the head of the Judicial Crisis Network, has been deeply involved

in judicial confirmation battles, clerked for Clarence Thomas. And she's also, she has six kids and she also has some thoughts on what it's like to homeschool six kids in these days. So we're not going to spend too much time on that, on coronavirus. So we can give that interview with Carrie all the time that it needs, but we are going to at least start with a note about the media and how hard it is to figure out what is really going on. So for the benefit of those who are not spending their lives on Twitter, which if that's you, then God bless you. I need more of what you've got going. But for the benefit of those who are not spending a whole lot of time on Twitter, earlier this morning, and it's still kind of spreading around, there was a news report that a scientist in the UK named Neil Ferguson

had dramatically downgraded his projections for the spread of coronavirus in the United Kingdom. Now, why was that important? It was important because he was part of the original assessment of the potential harm to the coronavirus in Britain that pegged Sarah, and correct me if I'm wrong, that if Britain had pursued its strategy that it adopted earlier in March, that they could have, what, around 250,000 deaths and ICU and a flood of patients to the ICUs at eight times the ICU system's capacity. Correct. And those numbers were then put onto the United States as an entire demographic. And the number was in the millions. Right. Exactly. So this was that Imperial College study that you've heard a lot about that influenced the Trump administration's thinking about the United States. It's certainly influenced the Johnson. Do you say administration premiership? Premiership? The Boris Johnson Premiership?

Yeah, whatever you'd like to say. Oh, OK. I'm just trying to be precise. I know that a listener or two will definitely fill us in. I think it's Premiership influenced their decision to go on a national lockdown in the UK. And so a lot of people saw this top line media assessment that said that this scientist was downgrading his estimates to say, wait a minute, have we conducted national policy in a way that is, that have we done the wrong thing? Are we going through a lockdown in many states, not all states? Is the UK going through a lockdown on the basis of flawed assumptions. And the way you read the initial articles, I thought you and I had an interesting disagreement in Slack. It was ambiguously written.

the downgrades were so he downgraded at least according to one news story from 500 000 deaths in the uk to fewer than 20 000 deaths and uh you said that was because of the new mitigation new social distancing strategy and lockdown that boris johnson put in place 48 hours ago and i said based on the news article and the poll quotes that it had, that it was based on new data related to the virus itself on transmissibility. And around and around we went until you very wisely said, why don't we go watch his testimony? Now, I just want to tell listeners that we're happy to go watch this testimony for you. But it was incredibly difficult to hear because this guy actually has COVID-19 and is therefore isolated at home and using a much worse microphone than either David or I have. And for those of you who've been listening since episode one, we are sorry about that. This was worse.

Yes. So we went back and did that. And based on that, the news story that both David and I were reading was, I think as I described it, David, incorrect to the point of, I think, intentionally misleading. Yeah. I read it because you and I were looking at the exact same passages. And let's be charitable. Let's be charitable to the author of the story. It was so ambiguous that it led to competing, dramatically different competing interpretations.

Yes. On a matter of extreme importance, just extreme importance. So it led to your interpretation was, wait a minute, this is being revised downward in part because the virus is just less dangerous. That it might be contagious, but a much larger percentage of the people who get the virus are not going to have symptoms. A much larger percentage of the people who get the virus are not going to have symptoms, which was one way. By the way, that was irrelevant to the testimony that we then went and listened to. It was to the extent mentioned, not mentioned in that context whatsoever. There is no new data mentioned in the testimony on transmission rates or mortality rates that are relevant to the data change, the modeling change at all. Yes. Not once. Yes. And so here's the bad news. And then let's do the good news. So the bad news is

that that initial article, which would seem to indicate that, oh, hey, the folks who are responsible in large part for both the UK and the US really clamping down, maybe they were wrong and maybe the virus is a whole lot less dangerous. And so therefore that would be fantastic news. And we could have recriminations later about why did we, why was this inaccurate assessment allowed to be instrumental in dictating public policy, but that would be really, really good news. But that's not what he said. What he said was, and it was a really interesting piece of testimony once you could sort of fight through the bad Skype connection, is he traced the history of the change and the effects, the projected effects of the change in policy in

Britain. So Britain went from a strategy that it was calling mitigation, which mitigation was essentially, we're going to try to keep as much of the economy as open as possible. We're going to have social distancing, but not in the same way that we do now, much more emphasis on washing hands. And if you have symptoms, stay home. If you're older or sicker, stay home. But we're going to try to have as normal an economic life as possible while taking some steps to mitigate. And they said mitigation would be a disaster. So then Boris Johnson implements something much more drastic than what we have in the U.S., a nationwide three-week lockdown where there's only basically four reasons you can get out. And the police are going to be watching. And so then he comes in and he says,

under the modeling, as a result of this three-week lockdown, we believe that we'll be able to handle ICU. The ICUs will be able to handle the infections and that the total number of deaths will be dramatically lower. Now, so he wasn't saying our earlier estimate was wrong. He was saying our estimate has changed because the public policy has changed. So the bad news is for those who don't like the lockdowns is he was endorsing the lockdown. But then here's the bad news is for those who don't like the lockdowns is he was endorsing the lockdown.

But then here's the good news that has been lost in all of this. He then went on to say, if the lockdown is successful, you may be able to ease up along the lines of South Korea. So instead of saying indefinite lockdowns, everything is ruined, everything is destroyed, he clearly said that indefinite lockdown, that he understands the cost of extended lockdowns. And the hope is that you can lock down for a period of time and then liberalize with testing and contact tracing. And so I took it, and maybe I'd be interested in how you took it, Sarah. I took it as, hey, it's hard, but there is light at the end of this tunnel. And we've seen sort of a way that there is light and that way that there is light is South Korea. And so I went away from it a little bit more encouraged. Two things that I took away from it. One, there was quite a bit of discussion

on the back end of some of that testimony about a second wave, and that really we're almost too early, both in South Korea and China, to know second wave effects once you do start loosening some of those measures. And that he said, you know, obviously in an ideal world, you'd keep the lockdown until we have a vaccine. But he's very clear. He says this at least four times, I counted. Yeah.

We cannot do that, though. And I understand that we can't do that. Yes. And it was nice to hear someone in his position get that. They also asked him this really wonderful question, I thought, which was, and David, you've raised this, but forgive me, I thought this was a better phrasing. And I'm going to go for it, which was, there is some link to lower GDP and life expectancy. Are we simply going to trade off which lives we're losing,

whether we're losing them from COVID or we're losing them because our GDP shrinks and lower GDP predicts lower life expectancy? And he said, one, I've actually thought quite a bit about that. I'm very aware of that argument. And I think it's a very important public policy argument, for instance, and he added to the question, he said, how many of the people who will die of COVID-19 would have died anyway by the end of the year because they were health compromised and sick people? He's like, we don't know the answer to that. He's like, but second, that is not the question I was asked to answer or that I can answer. What I need to look at

is at what point our public policy would swarm or inundate the health system such that our health system would collapse, thereby having all these unintended consequences basically saying my job is to tell you how we can get under the number of icu beds that we have in our country because until and unless we can get under that number uh you have no idea what this flood will look like. And guess what? The lockdown measures, plus they tripled their number of ICU beds means we are now in my model, just barely under that number. And I just, again, it was hard to understand him given his connection, but that was to me actually the best answer of the whole thing. And I would clip it and put it around the internet if the internet

ever wanted a nuanced perspective on anything. Well, you know, that's our whole business model, Sarah, is offering the nuanced perspective. So I pray the internet wants it. And you know, I'm, I think out of everyone at the dispatch and the most, you know, butter versus guns of all of us, Like I, I want to do the absolute minimum. Right. Not personally, but as a society personally, because I'm pregnant, I assume that I will not see another human being for the next three months. But for the rest of you, I'd really like you to be able to go out and say hi to people. Well, and what he said, so he was so, I just wish everybody could watch it because it was so well done. And of course, here's the caveat. He's talking about the UK. He's not talking about the United States, but he's been influential in the United States. And a lot of what he said.

He's also talking about a mathematical model that is based on the inputs he puts into it, meaning we are only as good as the information that we have. Right. And he makes all of that very clear that the thing that I thought that was really interesting was saying, look, he acknowledged we cannot just shut down an economy forever. But he also said that the shutdown has, based on everything that he understands, has a positive effect that by itself can lead to, that the shutdown has a positive effect that means it can be finite. And I think that that's one thing that I think we have to very clearly communicate and go going back to argument we had in our dispatch pod yesterday. We have to do it on the basis is important. Yeah. We have to do it on the basis

on of data, not hope. Just we need to do it on the basis of data and scientific understanding. But we have to communicate that there is a strategy here that is not you're in your house for 18 months until we get a vaccine. And one thing that I thought- I also don't think it helps if the strategy is you're in your house. We don't know how long because we have no clue what's happening. We just know that if you stay in your house, that's probably best right now. Like that's that's not comforting. Well, and, you know, any sort of any sort of major effort has a strategic aim. And, you know, whether it's a war on a virus or whether it's a war on Nazi Germany, you have a strategic aim and articulating what that strategic aim is, I thought he did that very well. And then what he said is sort of on the follow up

is, let's be clear, if you do a lockdown and follow it up with, say, the South Korean model, where you do more contact tracing, I keep wanting to say contract tracing, contact tracing, wanting to say contract tracing, contact tracing. That's no guarantee that that's not saying the virus is done. That's a management method. It's a management method until you come to until you either have a treatment or a vaccine that comes to their ultimate rescue. And I thought all of that was very helpful explanation because we want everything to just be done. We just want it to be done. And I thought he gave us hope for there's a light at the end of the tunnel. But at the same time, he wasn't Pollyanna-ish.

He was saying we're kind of in a maintenance mode until we get a vaccine. And all of that just made a ton of sense to me. Yep. Now, let's hope that the inputs he's using for that model are also correct on one side or the other, right? Like we get mad at algorithms all the time and it's like, well, the algorithm is only as good as the person who put the numbers into it and as good as the data that we have, which is not particularly good for all the reasons that you can find elsewhere on the

internet. I don't know, David. I say we dive into Carrie. Yes, yes, yes. One quick last thing. I had this whole post about the fog of war and about how when you have complex systems interacting in real time in a crisis mode, there is often so much more that you don't know than you know. And I have a feeling that when all this is said and done, almost every side of this argument is going to be really surprised by the actual facts in one way or the other. And so it's going to be, it's worth it just to say, hey, look, any projection or assessment or opinion we offer with this situation moving as rapidly as it's moving is offered in all due humility with the full knowledge that we could be completely wrong.

So with that word of confidence. confidence. I'm real over people dunking on the virologists who were absolutely doing the best they could with the very limited slash bad data they were getting out of China back in January. Do you think like it's a new virus? What did you want them to do? Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Well, shall we go on to Carrie? I'm so excited. Let's do it. Exactly. Well, shall we go on to Carrie? I'm so excited. Let's do it. And joining us now is Carrie Campbell Severino, the president of the Judicial Crisis Network. She recently co-authored a book with Molly Hemingway, bestseller, I will note, Justice on Trial, the Kavanaugh Confirmation and the Future of the Court.

But she's here in a somewhat different capacity today, because on top of all of those things, she clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas. And there is a new documentary out that David and I were both so excited to get to watch called Created Equal, Clarence Thomas in his own words. So Carrie's here to talk about a little bit of everything, but maybe with a special emphasis on her former boss. Carrie, thanks for joining as friend of the pod. Great to be here. So first of all, did you watch this documentary by yourself with your co-clerks? So I have watched it three different times now. And it was fun because the first one, I actually had got a really early preview because I was going to go on Fox talking about it. So I have watched it three different times now. And it was fun because the first one, I actually had got a really early preview because I was going to go on Fox talking about it. So I got to watch it at home with my kids, actually, which was a really fascinating thing. Because as you guys know, it just tells an amazing perspective of his life story.

And this is someone, you know, I worked for him. I know him really well. I clerked for him the year his autobiography came out. So I read this whole story. And this is someone, you know, I worked for him. I know him really well. I clerked for him the year his autobiography came out. So I read this whole story. But getting to see some of the images of his childhood growing up in the Jim Crow South, I was hearing stories that I hadn't heard from him or in the autobiography before. And I thought that was a really amazing aspect of that to share with some of my children, because they have no context for processing what America was like in that era, because we live in such a different world. And it was interesting for them to hear it from someone who they just know of as this

incredibly accomplished, really successful justice on the Supreme Court. And to realize the background that he came from and the incredible odds that he beat to be able to achieve the things he did. So that was one of my favorite ways to watch it. Although the younger ones weren't really able to watch all the way through the crazy part of his confirmation. But it was a great opportunity to share that with him. And then I also got to see it. I got to see it with some of my co-clerks, as well as some other, you know, just different people in the conservative movement and a couple of different

other showings. And that was really exciting to, you know, get to see it with other people who'd known him in different capacities. But again, even those of us who know him well got to hear different stories and different perspectives. And I know for the American public who haven't gotten to hear him in his own words, in his own voice, it's a real treat. So first of all, a couple things. One, I think my grandfather's son, which is his autobiography, is one of the best autobiographies probably ever, but certainly of the last 20 years. And it was my go-to Christmas present that year. I don't know how you can read that without being...

Forget politics, forget even the law. It's not a story about either of those things. It's a story about a part and a history of this country that hopefully no one will experience again, but that very few people alive today have experienced and are able to talk about with such poignancy. I just found it so unbelievable is the only word I could come up with. My jaw was literally dropping on some of the pages. And that's what I think you're exactly right. The documentary does a great job of just putting that in a new format, A,

does a great job of just putting that in a new format, A, adding new information to it, B, and also if Justice Thomas is known for one thing in the legal community of people who actually know him, it's his laugh. And it was really lovely, I think, to be able to have more people hear that guffaw that really only his clerks and very few friends and family really get to experience. So I would think for you, that'll be sort of a treasured thing that you get to show your kids when they're older and, you know, for generations to come.

So, Carrie, I've got a, I've got a question for you. As anyone who covers judicial confirmations and judicial appointments knows is that there is such a thing as a clerk mafia that Brett Kavanaugh's clerk mafia. My goodness. There was a there was a point early as he was a finalist that I was just literally emailing people and saying, guys, stop. that I was just literally emailing people and saying, guys, stop. I know you love him. Okay. I've heard the argument. But this really does seem to be a thing that a lot of people don't realize is that there's like, fraternity is not the right word because it's men and women, but there's a fraternity of people that is around sort of an extended family of each justice. And just tell us a little bit, is there such thing as a Clarence Thomas, clerk mafia sounds pejorative? How about clerk fraternity? Yeah, we literally call it the clerk family because with Justice Thomas, and I think you're right, for any judge, being a clerk is a really formative experience. It often happens very early on in one's legal career. So it's a key relationship

that kind of carries through your whole career. But some judges and justices, I think, have tighter groups than others. You're right. And we describe in Justice on Trial the intensity and the incredible enthusiasm of the Kavanaugh clerk network. Justice Thomas's clerks are certainly, you know, I think, if anything, possibly more devoted and loyal, I don't know if that's possible, to their justice, because he really is like a family. Justice Thomas thinks of his clerks as these are his kids. And he really makes an effort, more than any other justice I'm aware of of to stay in touch, not just like with an annual Christmas party or a barbecue or something. But when he is in DC,

you know, during the sitting at the Supreme Court, we'll have lunch together once a month with a group of clerks. And it means that it's not just this great opportunity to get to sit down with your former boss and Supreme Court justice and stay connected, but also a way to connect all of the other former clerks as well. And it's getting to be a pretty exciting bunch. I mean, I forget how many actual just judges, now federal judges, were sitting at the table for the last lunch. That's amazing. But it's, you know, he also made it very clear, and I got this message loud and clear from the time I was still clerking of, he said, D.C. is a really horrible town.

It'll eat you up and chew you up and spit you out. And he saw that firsthand. You guys need to know that there's someone who has your back. And he let us know, I expect career, when I was thinking about teaching or thinking about going one direction or another, asking for advice, I could pick up the phone and call anyone who was a former clerk of his, whether I had ever met them before or not. And I knew they would give me whatever advice and help they could. And there's a lot of just personal assistance that goes through. There was one clerk who had a family medical issue while I was clerking. And I remember being floored by the number of people who were not just sending flowers and things, but dropping what they were doing, going to be with her in the

hospital because her husband was traveling at the time. You know, their spouses who were doctors giving medical advice. They just, you got the idea of this is a group that we expect to step up like family. So it's an amazing opportunity to be part of that network. By the way, shout out to Carrie because she is part of a mafia. That's her family. But there is an HLS Girl Mafia of which Carrie is a member. And Carrie, as part of that mafia, has many times helped me, a younger member of the mafia, as well as some of her classmates and everything. So thank you, Carrie, for all that you do in the HLS girl mafia. So Carrie, well, when did you graduate? I graduated in 2004. A little ahead of Sarah.

I'm just, I knew you were, I knew you were behind me. I just am always the elder statesman now in any room. It's just even a virtual room. It's terrible. Well, so before we get into there, there's a couple of observations about the documentary. And then I wanted to ask you, well, first, I'll start with the observation and sort of get your thoughts about it. As I was watching it, I was kind of I was reminded to the extent to which the cultural left in this country has a disproportionate role in defining who sort of our cultural heroes are. watching, you're realizing that this is really a remarkable American story, where he went, where he came from to where he is now. And it's hard for me not to believe that if he were, it's hard for me to believe that if he were a more left-leaning justice in his judicial philosophy,

that he wouldn't be lionized across the land in universities, fetid in universities, consistently fetid with multiple movie depictions of his life. And it just strikes me as one of the unfortunate consequences of the domination of sort of our cultural storytelling by one side of the spectrum. And this documentary strikes me as a really helpful partial corrective for that. Yeah, I think that's especially in an era where you look at, for example, the cult that has developed around Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who, you know, really has done some impressive things with when you look at the things she's overcome in her life. But we don't see a similar, you know, series of movies.

We have seen some previous depictions in film, for example, HBO trying to, you know, rewrite his confirmation story in a critical way, you know, not the, just telling this inspiring story. And so this is a real opportunity when it came out in theaters, it was right in the middle of black history month. And I think that's something that's a real vision for the movie, maybe going forward into next year. I think this would be an amazing opportunity to be able to share this with, uh, with high school students around the country. This is a story more people need to understand because it's growing up through the Jim Crow. It's his own experience of his frustration and rebellion as a child and then coming back. I think that's such a great story for all of us to be reminded of because I think a lot of us have had times in our life where we've realized, hey, I feel like

maybe I've gotten off on the wrong track on this. And his illustration of how to come back to your roots and drawing strength from that, I think is a real message that a lot of people should be be sharing. Something else in the documentary that struck me along this line, David, that you can't pick up in a book. When they play some of the skits, making fun of him after he's on the bench. The joke being that he's dumb, I guess that he's deferring to his white colleagues because he's an Uncle Tom figure at some points. That really struck home with me, because I don't remember it from, you know, obviously the time exactly. But also I think it has a more universal message. Conservative women

often feel this, that if you say something that is not orthodox, that you're not the right kind of woman. It's something Carly Fiorina used to say a lot. I'm not the right kind of woman. It's something Carly Fiorina used to say a lot. I'm not the right kind of woman, which is why I don't get heralded as, you know, a feminist and, you know, get female support from the left. And I think that, you know, forget identity groups. I think that can be true for any number of people where they feel like they're saying something that's not part of the in crowd. And I think he does a pretty powerful job speaking to that. And I guess my question to you is privately, I would think that he has said even more to you guys about what that's like.

Well, one of the things that I think you can really tell a lot about a person by looking around their office and the things that they think are important to them. So you can see things like his pictures of his wife and his son and now their grandson. And, you know, he's got a picture of St. Thomas More. He's got a picture of Frederick Douglass. But also on the wall is a prayer called the Litany of Humility, which I think really kind of is a guiding force for him now that he's been forced to live through. But it's realizing, and when he talks about this, it's about doing the right thing, even though you're not going to be approved of for it. So it's got all these great lines from the desire of being honored, deliver me, Jesus, from the desire

of being praised, deliver me, Jesus, from the fear of being humiliated, of being forgotten, of being wronged, of being in all of these things. And that's what he has had. He has experienced in many ways in his life. I think that's what many of us and anyone, I think, who is willing to stand up to the predominant narrative for what they think is right is going to experience that at some point. So in many ways, it actually, you know, it was a hard blessing, but a blessing for him to have learned that early on in his life, because that is what has made him able to and free in his life as a justice to always cling to doing what he knows is right. He's not going to, he doesn't care what the New York Times editorial page is going to say about his opinion, because they've already dinged

him enough times. It wouldn't matter what he wrote. They're not going to write something nice about him. And I think he's gotten to the point now where he knows if they did, it would be transient and passing anyway, and it would be mere flattery. And so it gives him a much more depth and strength of character. I think that's a gift that all of us have when we realize, you know, we're not going to maybe get the plaudits of the mainstream media or, you know, whatever cultural elites are saying, but that frees you to do what you really know is right. So I have a couple of questions related. One is Justice

Thomas is famously known as being silent on the bench. And so I, part A is, did you, when you were clerking, did you gain any insights as to the reason for his silence? And B, silence does not mean that a lot of people mistake sort of the fireworks of oral argument for influence. He's undoubtedly been an influential justice on the jurisprudence of the court. So part A, any insights on the reasons for the silence? And part B, how would you describe his intellectual influence on the court? Yeah, so he would tell the story in terms of his silence on the bench, which is, of course, not his silence in real life. He actually,

you know, in chambers, if he got talking, you knew that you could just write off getting any work done for the rest of the day because he'd be in your office for like three hours talking about everything from, you know, his personal stories from his time on the court to the latest football stats to whatever. But his silence on the court to the latest football stats to whatever. But his silence on the bench, he talks about how when he first started at the court in 1991, you could go a whole day without actually having people interrupting someone to ask a question. And their days were twice as long then as they are now. Now they only hear cases in the morning. Then they used to hear cases in the afternoon too. So now we hover around 70 some cases a year. They were well over 100, 120 cases

at the time. So they did a lot more work. And I think from his perspective, they wasted a lot less time with yammering on to each other about stuff and they just got their stuff done. I think he is frustrated seeing that sometimes the questions are not necessarily designed to actually elicit information. They're designed to kind of make a point with each other. They're designed to be intellectual sparring, but not for the sake of really gaining information. And he would say, look, if these are people who have been living with this case a whole lot longer than we have, why don't we approach this assuming they actually do have something to teach us and not try to give them gotcha questions and not try to just interrupt? Sometimes it's justices interrupting before the person has had a chance to even answer the other

justices' question. The court has actually done a little bit in the last year or so to attempt to push that where they have at least a two-minute intro where you're not allowed to interrupt. It's already been violated by certain justices who are the more provocative ones. And he also talked, which I thought was an interesting insight. He said, some of these people, you know, this is their life pinnacle of their profession. Some of these people go up there and every day, you know, the Paul Clements of the world, they've argued five Supreme Court cases before lunch. A lot of these people, this is the peak of their career. They come all the way to DC, their family is there. You have this case prepared. You're sitting there trying to score cheap points on them by just

kind of doing little gotcha things. That's not respectful to them either. Assume that they have something to teach you too. So I think if maybe the rest of them slowed down in talking, he might pick up if there were questions that really needed to be asked. But the truth of the matter is, 99% of the real work happens in the briefing. I think it's easier, you can lose a case at oral argument by making a bad concession or coming off really badly, but it's, it's not, that's not really where cases generally are won. And the briefing, you have thousands and thousands of pages that come up on things versus, versus just, you know, a few minutes, a half an hour in front of the justice is an oral argument. And what was the other half the question now no i've got

influence his influence on the court and and so i i his influence on the court i think is really interesting there's a there are different ways you can influence the court some justices famously have been big vote traitors and you know trying to keep things like that i think that that would violate his understanding of what it is to decide the law and keep up with his oath to the, to interpret the constitution. He's not going to, he's not going to come up with a decision he thinks is wrong, trade it to you for some other vote. But I think you can see his influence most clearly in looking at a much longer term trajectory. There are many issues that he has kind of been the first one to highlight, often in a lone dissent. And then you see slowly that

get picked up. And maybe a decade later, sometimes, it suddenly is an issue that's gaining real traction. For example, the Heller decision, which was decided the term that I was clerking, that's an issue. The idea that we hadn't really been paying attention to the Second Amendment, maybe there were some issues there we've been ignoring, was something that he flagged years before in, again, a lone dissent to a case. It wasn't even really about that issue centrally. And he's like, hey, guys, we should look at this. And lo and behold, you know, over a decade later, suddenly the Supreme Court has this landmark decision. If you look at some of these administrative law cases that we're looking at now, the real questions about courts' deference to administrative agencies, is this appropriate for courts to effectively cede their law

interpreting role to people who are in a kind of constitutional limbo of a position? They're not really the executive branch. They're not even really the legislative branch. They're certainly not the judiciary branch. Why do they get to interpret laws or regulations? He has flagged that. He has done some real work on the history of that and the original understanding of these things. And now we're seeing that getting to the point where the court, I think, is poised to overturn some of these longstanding precedents that he has highlighted the constitutional faults with them. And even Justice Scalia himself, who wrote the Our Decision, for example, one of these decisions about administrative deference, I think by the end of his life was convinced probably by the long, slow, steady work of Justice Thomas, both personally and in his opinions, that this wasn't

the right direction. He had said at one point to Justice Thomas, what's up with our, this case is crazy. And Justice Thomas goes, you know, you wrote that case. Oh, yeah. But I think that's where you see the real influence. And especially now when we do have five Republican appointed justices who actually come at the Constitution from a conservative perspective. We've had five Republican appointees before, but they've not been the conservatives in the court historically. I think he is now really, talk about the elder statesman, he is the one who has been there decades longer than the other justices and really is a real leader in having

highlight a lot of the issues the court is now finally able to grapple with and have some potential on. You talk to a lot of law students, by the way, and they'll, you know, ask them who their favorite justices and his dissents because they often are so short and easy to understand what he's saying. Like, this is just not in the Constitution. Sorry, guys. XOXO Justice Thomas. You know, back in my day, it was very cool to be into Scalia dissents because they were so pithy and funny and had all this, you know, personality in them. But I think that has really turned among sort of conservative law students to the Justice Thomas model of where is this coming from? David, do you want to turn to confirmation battles of future? Yes, but only after I get to share my 1980s high school analogy of

Justice Thomas's influence, because I think this is right. He's the guy in the bathroom who never took the cigarette. So like if you were in high school in the 80s, there's always a group of guys going to the guy's room where they're, you know, shooting the breeze, talking about what they're going to do over the weekend. And Justice Thomas was is the guy who never compromised. And that person always over time has disproportionate influence in a social dynamic. And he's always been the guy who has not compromised on his, now I don't agree with every one of his opinions, but he's never compromised on the

essential judicial philosophy that he has. And in continuing to express it with force, that has a disproportionate effect on a group of human beings. I think it's just part of what the way human beings are. And it's one of the reasons why I think he's had this influence on jurisprudence beyond being one out of nine. Is that too much of a stretch? I wanted to get – His principles are so clear and he's consistent. And I loved also as a clerk that when he changed his mind – because sometimes he doesn't even agree with all his decisions. I mean there's sometimes when he has changed his mind, he doesn't just try to sweep it under the rug. He'll have maybe a concurrence saying, by the way, I decided this

differently, but here and here's why I've changed my mind. And going to Sarah's point about the clarity of his opinions. Funny story is when I was at Harvard Law School in Liz Warren's bankruptcy class, I remember she mentioned that her favorite Supreme Court justice at the time, I don't think she acknowledged this now, was Justice Thomas, because his opinions were so clear. And just, you know, he's not trying to go for the rhetorical flourish. He wants to actually make it clear so someone can understand what's written there. And that itself is its own, you know, way of influence. I don't I don't know if she'd say he influenced her at this point. But, you know, she's she's changed a lot over

the years, too. We might find out there was a poll today that has her, you know, polls don't matter in these things, but leading popularity for the VP pick. Really? Yeah, who knows? And chalk that up in other things that don't matter in our daily COVID lives. So looking forward, and I think Auer and Chevron are such a good jumping off point to talk about the future of judicial confirmation battles, because these are the battles yet to come, so to speak. so to speak. You've been on the front lines of this for some time, and things have been getting worse. I don't know how else to say it. Like, the pendulum isn't swinging back. The fights become more partisan. You know, your book on Justice Kavanaugh lays this out in some stark and depressing detail. But it's happening at the lower courts a lot we now have a dc circuit opening with judge griffith retiring and what i don't know what are your predictions does this get better or does is it a one-way ratchet as justice scalia described yeah unfortunately um so I think the good news is part of the reason the confirmation battles have heated up so dramatically is because of the incredible success of the Trump presidency and administration so far in this area. of those topics that, you know, people who agreed and disagreed with him have to acknowledge he's

been doing an amazing job. And I think the left has, as, you know, it has taken us kind of from Reagan until now, we've slowly begun to chip away at the stranglehold that the left has had on the courts. And as conservatives and originalists become more successful at that, as they start to see their ability to effectively achieve liberal policy goals through the courts instead of going through the Congress slip away, that's why we're seeing it get so much more intense. Because for a long time, liberals didn't have to have a big fight about justices or judges because they were all more or less, you know, bringing the same liberal policies that were being taught in every law school in the

country. I think there's been a lot of success there. So the good news is it's getting crazier because of that success. And with each new administration, we've learned more on how to select those people. I think Trump has been uniquely bold in being willing to select people who had resumes that once might have been something that would disqualify you because, hey, you were too clearly conservative. We want to have someone who flies under the radar. Now I think they've been much bolder

and have people who have a record of not just, they know how to talk the talk when they're in an interview, but they actually have a record of not just, you know, they know how to talk the talk when they're in an interview, but they actually have a career that shows they have been standing by originalism from day one and are willing to do so out loud and in public. So that's really exciting. I think that the challenge now is how do we make sure this is this doesn't become so destructive that no one in his or her right mind would want to become a federal judge? Because I think that's actually part of the endgame here of the constant attacks on judges is trying to make it so that no one wants to even step up to put their family and their own career through the nightmare of a judicial confirmation battle. And it's obviously a very- Yeah, and I'll highlight, by the way, yeah, but a friend of ours, Lawrence Van Dyke, who went through this process, and we both went to school with Lawrence. I think he overlapped with

both of us, right? Yeah, he overlapped me. Yep. I mean, that was, I can't imagine being his family and watching that. Well, you know, what's happened is, especially with the decline of the filibuster, although this this trend predated this, if you have a party that has a slight majority and someone is otherwise qualified, the only way to derail their nomination is to try to blast them apart as a human being. It's to just try to make them look so bad that they can peel off one or two or three people from the majority. And that's not to say that everybody who's ever going to be picked in the future isn't going to have skeletons in their closet. I mean, you know, vetting processes aren't perfect, but the playbook is now pretty darn clear. It is the only way to stop this is just to destroy a human being. And so we've seen things like people's families in the background getting visibly emotional as this attack is made on somebody who's tried to live a life of integrity,

This attack is made on somebody who's tried to live a life of integrity, watching the people who were attacked themselves. I mean, Justice Kavanaugh was the most famous example, but we have seen other examples of people who it's visibly affects them to have their name destroyed so thoroughly. And the reality is the real anger is that the judicial philosophy. Right. That's where the real anger is. But because you can't stop them on that basis, you're escalating to these personal attacks. And Sarah's exactly right. I mean, this is something where people are counting, even though it's a, you know, a very influential and important and plum job, people are going to be counting the cost. And I have to think that's part of the object of the hyper-partisan playbook here,

is to make it just too painful. Yeah, I think definitely. And I know people who have said, you know, I don't know if I want to even go through with this process or if my colleagues find out I'm interviewing for a potential thing, it's going to destroy my career. I can't move forward with this. I have one friend who was nominated and was also on the Supreme Court shortlist whose wife lost her job because they didn't want, it was just kind of this cancel culture. We can't be associated with you because you must be a horrible, evil person. I mean, it's, this is, this is not how our system should work. And I agree. I think it's at the end of the day, it is a bad alternative. It's kind of like the bad facts make bad law saying where people are,

you're just trying to get to a result that, you know, doesn't work, but you're just going there. What they really want to do is vote against the person because they disagree with it. For a while, I think during like Justice Thomas's era, the part of the reason that came out is because at that time, vote against someone. I think you should be able to vote against someone because they have a judicial philosophy that doesn't comport with the Constitution. So I think that's good. However, the left, unfortunately, has gone to the point where even if we can't win, at least with Kavanaugh, they certainly went this way. And I think they went with Van Dyke. They tried to go this way with Amy Coney Barrett. If we can't win, at least with Kavanaugh, they certainly went this way. And I think they went with Van Dyke. They tried to go this way with Amy Coney Barrett. If we can't win, then it doesn't, even arguing about their judicial philosophy, we'll take it to the next step because we have

to do whatever we can to stop them. And that's what Chuck Schumer said about Kavanaugh. No holds barred. We'll do whatever we can to stop him. I want to pick a point of disagreement with you. whatever we can to stop him. I want to pick a point of disagreement with you. And you and I have been on opposite sides of one of these. So I want to dive in because we haven't really gotten to talk about it. So let's do it publicly. I think I disagree that we should not confirm people because of a judicial philosophy disagreement that the president of the United States, whatever party they may be, whatever judicial philosophy they may have, does not get to pick qualified jurists for the bench simply because we someone disagrees with their overall philosophy as long as they're qualified. This came up during the Kagan confirmation, where the right tried to attack her for being not qualified. And I publicly said that I believed she was qualified. This caused some consternation. But I stand by that, A, that she was qualified, but also B, that a qualified person should be able to serve on a court if the president wants them on the court, regardless of whether I disagree with them.

And so I want to dig in on that with you for a second. Yeah, so I think the more the more the more key part to that is the is judicial philosophy an appropriate basis on which to vote for or against a judicial nominee. I think I would trace this back to the senator's oath to uphold the Constitution. If someone tells me my philosophy is that these words, the Constitution, mean whatever I feel like they mean today. They don't necessarily mean what they meant when, you know, they were, when they were ratified, whether that be in 1789 or 1865 or whatever, they mean whatever I, they, they, they have an open, you know, thing that I can add content to this. Living constitution. A living constitutionalism thing that, that you, I can't in good faith say I could uphold my,

my oath to the, to support the constitution when someone is telling me I'm going to interpret the constitution to mean anything I want it to mean. And of course, they're not going to – they're going to not quite say it as broadly as that. Justice Kagan herself said during a confirmation hearing, we're all originalists now. Nowadays, I think it's in vogue to couch your arguments in terms of originalism. I think it's in vogue to couch your arguments in terms of originalism. But the practical effect and process that many of the judges in the Supreme Court, some more openly than others, take is these words can evolve and they can change. And I don't see how I could uphold as a senator my oath to defend the Constitution while putting someone on the Supreme Court who is going to

defend the constitution while putting someone on the supreme court who is going to introduce into the constitution things that are not there or refuse to read parts that are in the constitution because they think they are out of date etc uh that you know obviously there are there is a range i mean i i think it would be it would be pretty impressive if someone said i'm you know i'm going to vote against someone because they were more of a Scalia originalist as opposed to a Thomas originalist. But, yeah, I think this is this is what this the this is the reason we have a check on these of with people that also have this desire to uphold the Constitution. I wish we could get to a point where all of the potential nominees would have a – I don't think that's too high of a bar to say, look, we have to understand this as it originally was interpreted. I think there's a lot of – there's vote for them in a situation like that, particularly for the Supreme Court, where they have the capacity to effectively rewrite the Constitution with merely five votes. That's not how our constitutional

system was designed. Sarah, your counterpoint, Sarah. Well, I wanted to ask when you were at the same law school that we were at, the Halloween party for the Federalist Society was called Night of the Living Constitution. I was wondering if you had that party. So I just have to, let me put on my old man hat for a minute and say, back in my day, the Federalist Society is not quite what it is now. It was very small. It was pretty divided, as I recall. You know, it's funny how when you can get a very small faction, it sometimes gets even more bitterly divided, the less relevant it is. So it reminds me of a life of Brian. Do you remember the famous scene of the People's Front of Judea versus the Judean People's Front? That was sort of the

Federalist Society in my day, as best as I remember it. It's been a long time. But I remember, so going to the Justice Kagan point, which is relevant to this discussion. Yes. A little known aspect of her confirmation battle was that. And you guys may know this better than I do. But so I was in the Dean Bob Clark regime, which was so fractious and furious on campus. which was so fractious and furious on campus. It was sort of like the Hunger Games era of faculty infighting and student activism. And then came the Elena Kagan era, and she brought in conservative faculty. She said, I love the Federalist Society, which are words that would not have escaped Bob Clark's mouth.

We wore T-shirts with that on it also, by the way. And I remember distinctly- And it served her very well in her confirmation process. Go on. Yes, it did. That's what I was just going to say because I remember- She is a very smart politician. And I was there when she became dean. I agree.

She overhauled the school in a wonderful way. It is Harvard's tremendous loss that she has left the school. Yes. And I remember- I see what you did there the school. Yes. And I remember. I see what you did there, Carrie. Yes, I know. I remember in the confirmation, people trying to get coalitions of law students or former law students who were under her administration to come out against her.

And it was hard. Conservative law students were not willing to do it because they had thought she had been an outstanding dean and that she had been extremely protective of the academic freedom of the conservativeagan nomination battle, that to the extent that non-judicial philosophy, issues that were not related to judicial philosophy came into play, they helped her a great deal, just the way that she interacted with the students on the campus. At least that was my perception. And I had to figure out the statistics of her hiring when I was just writing about it in Justice on Trial. And I think I determined that she did dramatically increase conservative hiring. Bob Clark was, I think, maybe because he was at least rumored to be personally conservative, was so scared about looking like one that he didn't want to do anything.

But what she did was probably double it to about 1% faculty that was conservative. I mean, literally the numbers, it is. So on one level, good for her for hiring any conservatives, but she hired vanishingly few compared to all the liberals she hired. So let's not overstate what happened. But I think she was, again, I totally agree. I think she was a wonderful dean,

but I think it's also hard for us in these processes to figure out, and I think Merrick Garland was another similar instance, to say, you can think this is a really great guy. You can think he's a wonderful person, but you can also disagree with the way that they interpret the law. And it's a problem with our society in general, because we've lost the ability to figure out how to disagree with people in a way that is civil, and we can respect each other and go home and be friends or neighbors or colleagues and not agree on every issue. And that's, so I think this is part of this problem is a symptom of that same issue of,

I can think she's a wonderful person. I can think she's a great Dean, but I can also think, and I think can think she's very brilliant lawyer. I can also think she's not a person person who should be should have been confirmed at the Supreme Court or who I personally would certainly voted against. So, Carrie, what does the playbook look like? If and when a Democratic president is in office with a Democratic Senate, what does your world look like at that point? Senate. What does your world look like at that point? It looks like, in many ways, what it was for most of the time I've been working on traditional nominations. I mean, I started in 2010, right before Justice Stephen stepped down and Kagan was nominated. And for most of the time, simply, even with Republicans controlling the Senate, there was virtually nothing that could be done to block most nominees. So in that kind of situation, I think you have to focus on raising awareness in the ways that you are able to about the problems with specific

nominees. I think you have to focus on helping states. And this is why it's great that we have a federal system. In those years when it was hard to make a lot of strides in the federal judiciary, there actually were a lot of strides made in a lot of the state judiciaries. And many of those were put on much better solid footing. I think that's part of the reason that you were able to see so many state Supreme Court justices on President Trump's shortlist when he put that out, because that's where a lot of the great young talent was going in the conservative world in those years. I think you also then in a time like that, and this is another, it was an interesting factoid I learned while Molly and I were researching for Justice on Trial. We talked to several different people working in conservative activist groups. And we said, when did you first start working on the Kavanaugh confirmation? And several different people said, 2014. And we're like, whoa, wait a minute. This is before the vacancy by many years. What do you mean?

They said, we realized that if we wanted to be able to ever, even though Obama's still in the White House, we know he's not going to appoint anyone that we think is a good pick. We knew we needed senators in place that would be willing to confirm the kind of judges we'd like to see. And so they really viewed that as a very long game. And I think that's a lot of the reason we have this series of the reason we have this series of events where we do have Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on the court now. Because if you think about it, 2014, the GOP went to the Republicans. That is the reason that we have Justice Gorsuch and not Justice Garland on the court today. Because if it were a Democratic Senate,

absolutely, they would have confirmed someone to fill that seat and things would look very different today. I'm so glad that you brought up the state judiciary because those of us – all politics is getting national now. It's now the reverse of all politics is – it used to be we could say all politics is local, but now increasingly it's all politics is national. And all judicial arguments seem to be national. But if you are living in a given state, your state Supreme Court is going to have more influence on your life than in most circumstances than the federal judiciary. And I became keenly aware of that because after law school, I came back South and practiced law as the South was just turning red. You had all these state legislatures going

red. You had the governor's mansions going red. But the state judiciaries were all blue. All the legacy of sort of the yellow dog Democrat days of the the solid south, so to speak, for the Democratic Party and the amount of extra constitutional mischief that they could work was really stunning. to be more protective of abortion rights than Roe versus Wade, reading entirely new school funding policies into state constitutions. It was it was a so I'm glad you're we're singing from the same song, same songbook, so to speak, when you're talking about the importance of these state judicial positions. And it's a subject of almost zero national conversation. And not enough state conversation. I think we're now gotten to the point where different states do different things. Some elect it, some have the governors nominated, but where they're getting more educated about the significance. 90% of cases filed are filed in state courts. We hear about the US Supreme Court, and when they do kind of egregious

activist kind of things, you hear about it. You don't hear about the U.S. Supreme Court, and when they do kind of egregious activist kind of things, you hear about it. You don't hear about it nearly as often when your state Supreme Court does it, even though it does have a huge impact. And I think that's, I think, an area that hopefully will continue to see progress in improving the quality of these state Supreme Courts. And frankly, it kind of goes both ways, both the fact that there were great people there, put them then into the national spotlight as potential even U.S. Supreme Court contenders or federal court contenders. But it goes the other way to the fact that now people realize, oh, yeah, state Supreme Courts, that's an important thing. Maybe this is a career track that I want to consider. I think that we need to make sure that the up and coming lawyers

are viewing that as a great path. Yeah, it's not life tenure like a like a federal position is, but we need to have smart people going into these areas so that we can make sure our state law is, you know, on track and not kind of getting getting taken over and hijacked by by activist courts. getting taken over and hijacked by activist courts. So, Carrie, we've kept you so far over the time that I asked you because you are so much fun to talk to, and I simply adore you. But I have to end on this one question. You are a, I mean, you're kind of a feminist hero to a lot of young women on the right. You have a best-selling book. You run this organization that's on the front lines of a lot of the political battles going on every day outside of the current quarantine we're in. You also have five young children who you are homeschooling now, thanks to this virus.

So I guess my last question to you is, A, any thoughts on your role as a feminist icon, but B more specifically, homeschooling advice that you've learned over the last 14 days? Yeah, so actually it's even worse than that. I've got six kids at home. It's better than that effect. Oh my gosh, I'm sorry. I forgot, it's even worse than that. I've got six kids at home. It's better than that effect. Oh, my gosh. I'm sorry. I forgot the last one. And it's, you know, I just want to give

a huge encouragement to anyone. I felt like I was going into this like, oh, I've got tons of resources. I have, you know, lots of help at home. My oldest is now 14. So I feel like although she's been, you know, doing her own online schooling, but I have a lot of, you know, I'm not sitting at home with five kids under five or something. I felt and I have homeschooled before I had homeschooled my oldest when she was in sixth grade, but only one kid at a time before. So I thought, oh, I've got this. Oh, my gosh, it kind of and especially being thrown in the middle of the year. This isn't like plan all summer, pick your curriculum, you're kind of being thrown in with kids who are already in the middle of someone else's plans. So it's been pretty

overwhelming, but it's kind of reminding, you know, rhyming myself and reminding everyone else the things I already knew, which is it doesn't all have to get done today. Be willing to flex with what, you know, what happens each day. So one day we, you know, I was like, you know what, it's the Feast of St. Joseph. Today we're taking off, we're doing art class and we did a Bob Ross video and we spent all morning, we did Bob Ross art class. You know, a few days ago, we figured, we happened to see that they had agar for sale at Whole Foods. I've been taking one kid at a time on field trips to see what the school, what the stores are like, because I figure they're going to tell their grandchildren these stories. So we bought that. We made Petri dish plates and swabbed everything in the house.

So it's kind of so that we just didn't do any other school that day except for that. We had a debate class yesterday because I was I just felt like we couldn't the kids were not going to sit still for school. So we debated the merits of homework and that turned out to be a good, you know, exercise. So I think being willing to just go off script and not, not let anyone, it might be harder if you've got a school that's, that's forcing you to turn in assignments all the time. But, you know what, they'll, they'll, kids are resilient. They will manage. And I think at the end of the day, the most important lessons aren't even, you know, aren't even the, the, do you know your math facts? Although I think that's

pretty important or, but do you still have a love for your family and each other? Can you, can you function as a group teaching your children through your example, hopefully trying to, how to deal with, okay, life throws you a curveball. What do I do with it? Trying to acknowledge that, okay, I don't know what to do with this either. Let's all sit down and work this out. All of that has been, these are kind of the mantras I keep on trying to remind myself. And I figure if we, you know, whatever we accomplish, it's three months. The rest of the nation is also on a crazy homeschool hiatus this time. Next fall is going to be a big catch up for everyone. So whatever we accomplish, it's going to be good and try to emphasize the things that this is going to be an opportunity for that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise.

You know, it's my favorite thing. They're certainly getting a whole lot more outside time. And it's been it's that's been exciting to see as well. So. Carrie, thank you so much for joining us. I hope everyone now realizes why Carrie is such an important mentor to so many young legal conservatives in this town. And as I said, feminist icon Carrie Severino. Thanks, Carrie. And by the way, her husband does pretty incredible work as well. Yeah. And he's been, he's at HHS. So he has been kind of insanely busy right now too. So I'm actually thankful that Leader McConnell is leaving town. So I don't have to worry about

anything on judges. I can just be a full-time homeschooling mom right now. And, and it's because I got, I got a very busy husband who's trying to make sure everything is going smoothly on that front. Thank you for his work. Yes, thanks, Keri. Okay, well, I thought that was awesome. But David, follow-up question to you.

How's homeschooling your 12-year-old going? Well, so we have, I think I've said this before, we have six people in the house, a 22-year-old son-in-law, 21-year-old daughter, 19-year-old son, and 12-year-old daughter, and then of course, Nancy and me. The 22-year-old and the 21-year-old senior and junior, they got this college thing down. Our freshman, he's pretty much, you know, on a groove. So I'm mainly tech support to make sure all the tech works. Our 12 year old, we've really just, it's, she literally sits next to my wife on at the, in, on the kitchen table while my wife works. And so they, it's like they're office mates and they're working side by side.

And Nancy zooms in and helps when she can. And then I'm tech support. And so every now and then when everything stops working, I walk in and I say, have you restarted the computer yet? Very helpful. Yes, yes. That's my contribution to homeschooling. Have you restarted the computer yet? But it's going well. Let me put it this way. I am keenly aware, keenly aware that in the grand

scope of this virus situation, we are blessed. We have our family home. We still have jobs. we're we still have jobs we have a great family so it's good we're actually enjoying the time together and so I have to constantly remind myself we are on the power curve of blessed in this circumstance and there are an awful lot of people who are in the exact opposite and and the the the jobless numbers came out today, worst ever, worst ever. And that's just stunning. So as I share these details about the funny side of our life at home, I'm doing it fully cognizant

and fully aware of all of our many blessings. Well, I went to my doctor who's in a hospital today. It's my first outing out of the house by myself. It was very exciting. That hospital was on lockdown. It was really something to see. And I could do a whole like pregnant and quarantined podcast separate from this. Um, because the, the fear among pregnant women right now is really high. For instance, if I were to go into labor, um, today, uh, and your spouse would probably not be with you in most hospitals right now. Uh, which, you know, for me, I'm like, frankly, the doctor's gonna be more helpful than Scott,

so that's really for the best. But for a lot of people, this is something they really wanna share and it's really important to them and they need that and want that support, not to mention the fear aspects of it and all of that. So yeah, my doctor and I basically were like, well, I don't think there's much point in making plans because who knows what next week looks like, let alone, you know,

I've got about nine or 10 weeks left to go. Sarah, I think Pregnant and Quarantined is the next viral podcast. Oh man, I have some group chats with some women who are all around two weeks one way or the other around me and it gets real on the group chats. There's potential for a quickie book here, what to expect when you're pregnant and quarantined. I mean, there's a lot there. You know, when like Amazon delivers packages, I have like, I let them sit for three days because that's how long we know it can last on plastic. So Scott brings them into the house and then they, they're all sitting at the front door right now. Wow. Wow. Well, and on also on the lighter side, you have a, a family milestone today. We do. So my brother and sister cats,

it's their 13th birthday today, which I know that many of you are laughing or mocking me, but I just have to say, as someone who kills cactuses, you know, succulents, houseplants of all varieties, me keeping two cats alive from when they were, you know, baby kittens for 13 years, you know, it feels like a milestone. So thank you for recognizing my cat motherhood, David. I'm happy to. And I'm no cat vet, but is 13 years old getting kind of long in the tooth for a cat? Well, I would say they're late middle-aged. So we did have quite a few teeth pulled at our last vet visit. So Franny has a bit of a funny smile right now. But, you know, they're still quite spry. They're just a little more ornery than maybe they were as younger kittens. But Zoo, man, he can move. He really likes playing.

He's anxious to have us around the house because he still likes some alone time. But he also wants us to play more, more treats, more time outside. So he's getting the benefit as well. Well, outstanding. So that, listeners, is the complete podcast. A burst of science at the beginning, a big chunk of originalism in the middle, a dollop of homeschooling,

and a dash of cat parenting, all in one podcast. That's why I continue to say this is the flagship, Sarah. I mean, who can argue? I don't know. I don't think anyone can. Well, thank you guys for listening. And again, please rate us on Apple Podcasts and subscribe on Apple Podcasts.

And also, please become a member of the dispatch and support, support our efforts to offer nuance to awaiting internet. Uh, thank you again. And we'll be back next week. Bye.