The Daily Signal - Who Is Amy Coney Barrett? A Closer Look at Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee

Episode Date: October 6, 2020

Today's "Daily Signal News" podcast features a panel discussion on Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett sponsored by The Heritage Foundation. (To tune into more Heritage Foundation events, subscribe to the "Heritage Events" podcast wherever you get your podcasts.) We also cover these stories: President Donald Trump returns to the White House on Wednesday evening after his hospitalization Friday with COVID-19. White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany and two of her aides test positive for the coronavirus.  The Supreme Court will not take up the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky court clerk who was embroiled in legal trials after refusing to issue marriage licenses for same-sex weddings.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Canadian Tire's Black Friday sale. With the lowest prices of the year. Hello, can we go? Limbo again. Shop the Black Friday sale at Canadian Tire and save up to 60%. November 27th to December 7th. Conditions apply. Details online.

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Tuesday, October 6. I'm Rachel Del Judas. And I'm Kate Trinco. Today, we're going to feature a Heritage Foundation panel about Amy Coney-Barritt. To tune into more Heritage Foundation events, subscribe to the Heritage Events podcast wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget, if you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now on to our top news.

President Donald Trump is back at the White House after being hospitalized with COVID-19. Trump tweeted Monday afternoon, I will be leaving the Great Walter Reed Medical Center today at 6.30 p.m. feeling really good. Don't be afraid of COVID. Don't let it dominate your life. We have developed, under the Trump administration, some really great drugs and knowledge. I feel better than I did 20 years ago. First Lady Melania Trump also indicated that she is doing well. She tweeted Monday, my family is grateful for all of the prayers and support. I am feeling good and will continue to rest at home. Thank you to medical staff and caretakers everywhere. And my continued prayers for those who are ill or have a family member impacted by the virus.

Press Secretary Kaylee McInanini and her two aides have coronavirus. In a statement posted on Twitter, McInanini said, After testing negatively consistently, including every day since Thursday, I tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday while experiencing no symptoms. No reporters, producers, or members of the press. are listed as close contacts by the White House Medical Unit. CNBC reports that McAnneany and her aides, Chad Gilmartin and Caroline Levitt,

are among at least 18 people in the White House or connected to Trump's re-election campaign or to recent White House events, who have tested positive for COVID-19 since late last week. The Supreme Court will not take up the case of Kim Davis, the Kentucky clerk who has been embroiled in legal trials since refusing to issue marriage licenses for same-sex weddings. But, Justice's Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, while agreeing with the decision not to take up the Davis case, are saying that the case is a sign of how the Supreme Court 2015 decision legalizing same-sex marriage did not protect religious liberty.

By choosing to privilege a novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment and by doing so undemocratically, the court has created a problem. that only it can fix, Thomas wrote in a statement co-signed by Alito per Fox News. Until then, Obergefell will continue to have ruinous consequences for religious liberty. Texas congressmanship Roy, who is a former aide to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, is calling for his resignation due to allegations of crimes Paxton committed, including bribery. In a statement posted Monday on his website, Roy said, For the good of the people of Texas and the extraordinary public servants who serve the office at the Attorney General, Attorney General Ken Paxson must resign. The allegations of bribery, abusive office, and other charges levied against him by at least seven senior leaders of the Office of the Attorney General are more than troubling on the merits.

But any grace for him to resolve differences and demonstrate if the allegations are false was eliminated by his choice instead to attack the very people entrusted by him to lead the office. office, some of whom I know well and whose character are beyond reproach. In another sign that life won't return to normal anytime soon, the second biggest movie theater chain in the U.S. is closing shop indefinitely. Regal theaters tweeted Monday that they would be closing all of their theaters at the end of the day Thursday with no date set for reopening. There are over 500 regal theaters in America. Next up, we'll have a Heritage Foundation panel on Amy Coney Barrett. America is at a crossroads.

Each day we see the penalties of progressive policies across our nation, while night after night our city streets are set ablaze by riots and rage. That's why the Heritage Foundation has developed a plan to help take our country back. The Citizens Guide to Fight for America provides a series of heritage recommended action items delivered to you each week. Make an impact in your community and in our community. country. Sign up for the Citizens Guide at heritage.org slash 2020 and join in the fight for America today. Welcome to Heritage Events Live. Who is Amy Coney-Barritt? A closer look at Trump's Supreme

Court nominee. We are thrilled to have you here. Here are some tips for making the most of your virtual experience with us. Please submit questions through the questions tab. Feel free to share your name and affiliation. We love to know who's joining us. You'll see a handout in the handouts tab. Download this for more information about the Supreme Court nominee. If there are any minor technical issues, we ask for your patience, as many of us are working from home using home internet. I now invite John Malcolm to turn on his webcam and take it away. We hope you enjoy the program. Well, welcome everybody, at least virtually, to the Heritage Foundation. I'm John Malcolm. I'm the Vice President of the Institute for Constitutional Government and director of the

Meath Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. As you just heard, I would invite you all to submit questions. Hopefully we'll get to many of them. This is the first of two programs that we are going to host about the nominated of the Supreme Court, Judge Amy Coney-Barrath. The second program will be next Friday, and I hope that many of you will be able to join that as well. So since last Saturday, when President Trump nominated Judge Barrett to the Supreme Court,

we've learned a lot about Judge Barrett's academic credentials. number one in her class at Notre Dame Law School. She clerked for Judge Lawrence Silberman on the D.C. Circuit and Justice Antonine Scalia on the Supreme Court. She was a distinguished academic at her alma mater, Notre Dame Law School, and for the last three years, a judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. We also know a bit about her faith and her family. Judge Barrett is Catholic.

She and her husband, Jessie, who is also an attorney, have seven children, including one with special needs and two who were adopted from Haiti. And we learned from Judge Barrett herself that her kids consider Jesse to be the better cook. But what is Judge Barrett like as a person? At Judge Barrett's Seventh Circuit Investitor, her husband Jesse said, and I quote, You can't out work Amy, you can't out friend Amy, and you can't out love Amy. We have an excellent panel of people who know Judge Barrett well to tell us whether this is true.

The first person we're going to hear from is Carter Sneed. Professor Sneed teaches at Notre Dame Law School and has been a colleague of Judge Barrett's for over 10 years. A graduate of Georgetown Law School, he clerked for Judge Paul Kelly on the 10th Circuit. Professor Sneed is one of the world's leading experts on public bioethics, the governance of science, medicine, and biotechnology in the name of ethical goods. He's written more than 50 articles of book chapters and essays, and his work has been featured in prominent law reviews and other scholarly journals. After Professor Sneed, we will hear from

Laura Wolk. Laura has a particularly unique relationship to Judge Barrett as one of her former students. A 2016 graduate of Notre Dame Law School, she came to know then-professor-Barrick as she navigated unprecedented challenges as a completely blind student. To say that she met those challenges would be an understatement. After graduating, Laura Clerk for Judge Janice Rogers Brown on the D.C. Circuit, Judge Tom Hardiman on the Third Circuit, and Justice Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court. In the near future, she will be joining the appellate section of a top-tier D.C. firm. Then we will hear from Lexi Balthus. Lexi has experienced Judge Barrett in two capacities, as both a student of hers and in 2018 as a law clerk.

Lexi is currently an associate at Conceboy McCarthy, where her practice focuses on both trial work and appellate litigation. In addition to clerking for Judge Barrett, Lexi clerk for Judge Raymond Grunder on the A circuit, and in a couple of years, she will be clerking for Justice Brett Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court. And finally, we will hear from John Adams. John is an attorney at the firm of Imer Stahl, where his practice focuses on appellate and complex litigation.

has an MBA and a JD degree from Northwestern. A decorated veteran, John was recently appointed by the Legal Services Corporation to serve on a National Task Force examining legal issues affecting our veterans. What is most germane to our discussion today, though, is that in 2017, John Clark for Judge Barrett. And with that, I would ask our panelists to join me, and Professor Sneed, the floor is yours. Thank you, John. Thank you, everyone. For the panelists, it's so great to see my two Notre Law Alums on the panel. And John, it's nice to see you too. I'm sorry that you weren't a Notre Dame alum. But it's great to be here with so many folks who know Judge Barrett and who care for Judge Barrett

to really express the human dimension of this extraordinary woman, especially on the cusp of her entering into a process that is characterized by brutality and lies and very shameless behavior. Judge Barrett is an amazing human being. Jesse's words at her investment. are exactly right on the money. I mean, she's an extraordinarily hard worker, but at the same time, she is incandescently brilliant, a brilliance both as a scholar, as a teacher, recognized three times by the University of Notre Dame Law School students as teacher of the year, which I'm pretty sure is a record. Her mind has garnered the admiration of people across the ideological spectrum, but that's actually not the primary distinguishing characteristic of Judge Bair. There are a lot of

very, very smart people in the world and in the rarefied. circles in which she travels. What distinguishes Judge Barrett is her extraordinary goodness, her humility, her integrity, her open-mindedness, her collegiality. As a colleague of hers for the past 15 years at the University of Notre Dame, I couldn't have hoped to have a more generous colleague, a more kind presence in the law school. And again, it's just a strange thing to have such extraordinary talent and candle power in the same person that has so much generosity. and humility. And now that she's entering into this next phase of her life, we at the law school are, you know, we're sort of two minds. One, we are obviously delighted that she's been chosen by

the president because there's literally no one in America who's better suited to be on the U.S. Supreme Court than Judge Barrett. At the same time, we have some sadness at the prospect of losing her and her family to Washington, D.C., and also we're anxious about the prospect of her entering into a difficult sort of venue in which we, as we saw with Justice Kavanaugh, and to a lesser extent with Justice Gorsuch, it's a no-hold bars bloodsport in our nation's capital, which reflects our polarized politics. But what Judge Barrett has in her brilliance and her integrity and her open-mindedness are the virtues of a judge. And those are the virtues that you would want to have. And one of our colleagues at Notre Dame put it this way. He said, Amy Barrett is

the judge that you would want on the court if you didn't know which side. of the lawsuit you were going to be on. She's fair-minded, and she will focus on the facts and the law, and as far as the Constitution is concerned, focused on its original understanding, the plain meaning and of statutes. And, you know, we've been talking about this for ever since she was named last week, and what's surfaced, I think, is a basic disagreement, not about Judge Barrett so much, but about what a judge should be. And there's all kinds of speculation about what Judge Barrett believes, about this or that and her Catholic faith and her politics or ideology, her personal views. And all of that is irrelevant to the way Judge Barrett sees her role on the court.

And those who raise those concerns are basically showing a misunderstanding of what Judge Barrett believes a judge is supposed to be. A judge is not a politician. A judge is not there to impose her views on the American people under the auspices of interpreting the law. And Judge Barrett understands that and being one of the most disciplined people I've ever met. Judge, we can all be confident. As Harvard Law professor and person who identifies as a liberal or progressive, Noah Feldman said, she will do her level best to get the right answer. And we can be

highly confident of that. And those who fixate on these questions are either trying to score cheap political points or they just don't get what a judge is supposed to be. And with that, I'll turn the panel back to you, John, and we can hear from our other wonderful colleagues here. Laura, you're up. Great. Thank you so much for having me today. Professor Sneed stole many of my adjectives to describe Judge Barrett because all of us have very much the same extremely high opinion of her. I was very privileged to have Judge Barrett for two classes at Notre Dame, once in my very first semester of law school and once in my third year of law school. And actually, as it turned out, as a first year, you do not pick your class. and you do not pick your professors. And just by pure providence, I was assigned to Judge Barrett's civil procedure class in my first semester, and she actually was the professor who taught the very first session of a law school class that I ever attended, her Monday morning civil procedure class.

And I just want to echo a lot of what Professor Sneed just said in the sense that Judge Barrett set an extraordinarily high standard for me, from my from my. what I was to expect from my other professors at Notre Dame. The second you walked into the class and then Professor Barrett began speaking, it became immediately obvious that this was a woman to be reckoned with. She is incredibly clear and intelligent and her legal mind, even when she is the one who is teaching and lecturing, the prowess of her legal mind is on full display and it is very apparent that she is just with smart and has a top-notch intellect.

But I want really to focus on one of the aspects of Professor Barrett that I think does speak most highly to her ability to function as a judge and as a justice. As Professor Suneed alluded to, there has been a lot of accusations and unjust insinuations that Judge Barrett will not be able to function as a justice because of her faith. or because of certain beliefs she holds. As a general matter, I think that that kind of an accusation or a line of inquiry is completely inappropriate and irrelevant, as Professor Sneed said. But I also can testify on a firsthand basis how untrue that is with respect to Judge Barrett. Judge Barrett had one unspoken rule in her class. She never said this to us outright, that it was evident. And that rule was, you better come to class prepared and you better have good reasons to believe in the arguments that you're making. She did not tolerate soft ideas and she did not tolerate sloppy reasoning and what she wanted and expected from all of her students is that they would develop whatever jurisprudence, whatever philosophy, whatever position they decided to espouse. You had to come to class with good reasons for that position and ready to

to debate with then Professor Barrett as she gave you the best counter arguments against your position. Judge Barrett never betrayed her own beliefs in the classroom. She never led her students. She never pushed them one way or the other. She acted as the Paramount Professor in the sense that her sole role was to expose her students to a variety of ideas from every side of the legal issue and then to lead her students and help her students develop their minds as they grew in their, you know, in their budding legal skills. It's easy to say that in the abstract, and I think illustrating it with a concrete experience is helpful. I took an upper-level seminar with Judge Barrett as a third year called statutory interpretation. And as that name implies, the point of the seminar was to explore different philosophies, including text,

textualism, but other competing philosophies as well that people argue are the best way to interpret a statute. And I also consider, I also consider myself to be a textualist. And so one day in class, I proffered the idea that a dictionary, dictionary definitions were a good way to ascertain the meaning of a statute and what the statute means. And Judge Barrett, after I said that, you know, began to question me and debate with me and ask me why it is that we should think dictionaries are objective. And shouldn't we consider that there are humans behind the choosing of the words and the ordering of the definitions and whether certain definitions even make it into the dictionary? She really pushed me and called on me to defend my position that I had taken in class. Now, contrast that with the experience of a good friend of mine, Allie Cox, who also took this seminar. And in that seminar, the same topic came up, and Ali voiced the opinion that maybe we shouldn't rely on dictionaries.

Maybe they are becoming too political. Language wars are becoming too political. And people can unjustly influence the public meaning of a statute through dictionaries. And what did Judge Barrett do? She did the exact same thing. She took Allie's idea and argument. She presented the best counter arguments possible. And she asked Allie to defend her position and to, you know, defend it against these different weaknesses of her position. Now, I experienced this, you know, thousandfold in Professor Barrett's class.

And what it says to me through my firsthand experience is that everything people have said about her is true. She is fair. She is unbiased. She is neutral. She is laser focused on the answer to the legal question. And I know and I have complete confidence that as a justice on the Supreme Court, she will bring that same incisiveness to her work. That she will be led exactly as she has told the American people, the president, the Senate in her prior testimony by the law and nothing else. I have been the privileged recipient of her skills in that nature, and I know that the country will benefit from them as well. Thank you, Laura. Lexi? Yes, thanks for having me. My story is in part similar to Laura's because I, too, was a student of Judge Barrett, and then I had the incredible good fortune to be able to come back to South Bend and clerk for her during the 2018-2019 term.

I had Judge Barrett for three classes in law school, including constitutional law, which is a first year course. And as Laura said, you don't get to pick your professors or your classes for here. They're just assigned to you. So again, as she said, Providence, that I was in Judge Barrett's constitutional law class. I had the same impression of then Professor Barrett that Laura mentioned just total awe at a woman living such a great life with such a presence in the classroom. and obviously so, so smart. But one thing that stands out to me from constitutional law in particular

is the hope or the faith in the system with which I left her class. Conlaw is the introduction to some of the big name Supreme Court decisions, and it's sometimes easy to be cynical about the way those cases are decided. But Professor Barrett was so intentional about showing us a real and meaningful different

between law and policy. And, you know, judges have a difference of opinion about how to do law, the methodology, the philosophy behind their approach to finding the right answer. But she also showed us that we could trust the fact that they were engaged in law and not policymaking, grounding decisions and first principles rather than preferences. And she showed us this by highlighting cases where we might see an unexpected result that wouldn't be the policy result we might expect from a particular justice or group of justices. And she showed us this. And she showed us this by highlighting cases where we might see. She also taught us the same thing by, as Laura said, encouraging dialogue, engaging all viewpoints and challenging all viewpoints to make sure that whatever your philosophy, you had actually

thought it all the way through and you were reaching the most principled answer. And I know there'll be another panel to talk about Judge Barrett's own judicial philosophy. My point here is not really to get into that so much as it is to say that the quest and appreciation for principled impartial judging was something that animated her to the law even as a professor. And I could talk more about her as a professor, but since Laura's done that, I'll shift gears a little bit. I was beside myself excited to get to clerk for Judge Barrett.

She was not only someone I respected and admired, but someone I held up as a role model in all areas of life. But I was really nervous for a couple of reasons. One, would I be able to keep up with the Amy Barrett? And the answer to that is no, nobody can, but we do our best. And then secondly, I had this picture in my mind. this picture in my mind, it turns out rightly, of Judge Barrett as a kind of superwoman. And there's always that chance when you get to be up close, in person, day in and day out,

through the grind of life and work and everything else, you might see something behind the scenes that you don't like. I am pleased to report that that could not be further from my experience in Judge Barrett's chambers, and I'll just give a couple of reasons why that's true. First, I mentioned her enthusiasm for principal over preference as a law professor, and I got to see her turn theory into practice as a judge. She was meticulous about taking herself out of decision-making. It didn't matter what she might want or what the public wanted. The only thing that mattered in her chambers, and she made very clear was what the law required. In the same way she used to challenge us students, she encouraged us clerks to challenge and push back on her reasoning to make sure

that she was reaching the most principled result and she just totally embodied the ideal of a judge as judge and not policymaker second and this is more of a multi-phase point i was amazed that she never let the pace of her life affect the rigor or diligence with which she approached her job or or her relationships and interactions with people uh she worked around the clock she is diligent she is meticulous she studied and knew the party's briefs better than anyone. She dug into the record and research herself. And that was just in analyzing the case. A whole new process started when she started writing an opinion. She would go through draft after draft after draft, making sure her reasoning was clear and precise, down to the individual

word because it mattered to her. It mattered to get it exactly right. It mattered to the clarity of the law going forward. And it mattered to producing a decision that the litigants could understand and accept. Add to that, her devotion to her family and the time she spent with them and, you know, there were piano lessons and soccer practice and everything else. She had a very full, she has a very full and busy life, but she always carved out time to sit around the lunch table with the clerks and just chat about life. She had an open door policy and when anybody walked in, it was as if you were the only thing that mattered in the world. She put everything else down. One time one of my co-clerks heard his ankle playing basketball and he was hopping around Chambers and all of a sudden Judge Barrett disappeared for 15 minutes after she saw him and came back with a pair of crutches.

And that happened to be a particularly busy day in Chambers trying to get opinions out. And she just paused for a minute and did what she needed to do for him. One other example, my nieces, they were six and eight at the time, happened to be driving through South Bend and wanted to meet Judge. and again, per the usual, busy day, but she just stopped for 15 minutes. She talked to them, made them feel important, showed them around chambers, and it's her ability to be so present and so diligent about being present in all aspects of her life. That is obviously so rare, but I think one of the things that makes her both a great person and a great judge, which you're hearing from everybody, but I guess what I can assure you is that she is that

person when the cameras are on and when they're not, when it's the really important stuff and the mundane. Thank you, Lexi. John. Thank you, John, and thank you, Heritage Foundation. It's really wonderful to join this distinguished panel to talk about someone I think the world of Judge Barrett. Coming in forth as a panelist, it might be tempting for me to bridge my remarks. But fortunately, we're talking about Judge Barrett. We could speak for weeks on her qualifications, and we can speak for months on her character. And I'm happy to concur with everything that has been said before me. And perhaps I can offer a perspective of joining her first class of law clerks.

I think I may have even been her first law clerk that she hired her be the first, one of the first two, and how privileged it was and to offer a perspective on how she approached cases and what we might expect from a justice fair. I have joined Judge Barrett on the very first day. And as anyone might expect, someone with. expertise in constitutional law, federal evidence, the rules of evidence, the rules of civil procedure, the rules of appellate procedure, statutory interpretation, as Laura shared with us, the class that she took, administrative law, and all the doctrinal classes that we would expect

any appellate court judge and certainly any Supreme Court justice to know she knew absolutely back and forwards and ran us around in circles. As Lexi said, we just couldn't keep up with Judge Barrett. She approached case the same way for any case with an open mind and a foundational commitment to the idea that either side could be right and she would follow only what the law required. We would receive the briefs in the Seventh Circuit and she would dive right in. She would read all the briefs and then we would conference as law clerks and we would discuss the case. Oftentimes, Judge Barrett would identify legal issues or wrinkles that we had not even considered or the litigants before her, even though they should have considered, did not.

consider such as subject matter jurisdiction given her expertise in federal jurisdiction she would approach every case with the same type of diligence before oral argument and then if she was assigned the opinion by the panel or the embound court she would do the same thing one area of law really sticks out in my mind we can expect anyone with the expertise and the extensive scholarship as judge Barrett to know the core doctrinal cases but as I understand it she didn't have much experience in patent law and that's understandable given her background in the doctrinal court classes and even on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.

Most patent cases go to the Federal Circuit and not any other court of appeals before they might reach the Supreme Court. But she approached the patent law case the same way she would approach any case. She dug into the briefs. She consumed treatises on patent law and then she would engage her clerks on the issues. She would ask her clerks, what did you think about Chapter 2, Section 5 in this patent treatise or Chapter 7, Section 10, and that treatise, as she continued to probe the legal questions before her.

And then she would again consume the briefs. She would read the record. She would understand the facts. And in this particular instance, she did all of this before oral argument. It would have been easy for a judge to just not do any of this right before oral argument and just listen to the advocates on each side. But that's not who Judge Barrett is. She dove right into the case.

and the litigants before her were appellate attorneys who led their appellate practices at AM law, 20 firms, and she engaged with them the whole oral argument. And she knew the record and the facts and the case law as well as they did, despite the fact that she had been studying the materials for five weeks, and they have been studying the materials for five years before it reached the appellate level. I think that's the type of justice that we could see on the Supreme Court. Someone who knows all the doctrinal core issues that we would expect justice. to know constitutional law, administrative law, federal jurisdiction, all the federal rules,

as well as someone who will dive into the facts of a new issue or a new case before her. She also taught me a very important lesson that I engage with as I continue to develop as an attorney in private practice. She said that she would put herself in the shoes of the party that she was ruling against and consider how would that person perceive her decision, her written word, her questions at oral argument, in a sense of decency, justice, and fairness that we would expect of any judge. And without fail, she consistently produced the type of results that the law required, but to do so with a sense of decency, as we heard from our other panelists,

that would have every person before her say to themselves, they understood that she had done everything that she can to reach the right result, and they felt heard. I think that's very important for a judge. And I would also add that she has a wonderful, sense of humor. Everything that the other panelists have said is absolutely true, and I don't think I could come up with many more adjectives than anybody else described. I mean, she has a wonderful sense of humor that I really appreciated. And in my view, it's a self-deprecating sense of humor.

We would often joke about her being the only federal judge who would drive a minivan to and from work, and she would engage in that type of laughter. And that's something that's just totally warm to me and someone who I model my life after. Thank you, John. Carter, I know you need to leave need to leave soon. So let me pose the first question to you. And I just want to get your reaction to something. So a writer for Vanity Fair in New York Magazine recently tweeted the following. I guess one of the things I don't understand about Amy Coney Barrett is how a potential Supreme Court justice can also be a loving, present mom to seven kids. Is this like the

Kardashian stuffing nannies in the closet and pretending they've grown their own baths for their kids and if there aren't enough hours in the day for her to work for her to work and mother those kids when she portrays herself as a home-centered Catholic who put its family over career, isn't she telling a lie? You've known her for 15 years and what's your reaction to that? My first reaction is to the question itself. I mean what's behind that question is something that's so ugly and shameful that we should immediately recognize and condemn it. I mean there's so many premises about what a woman should be, about what a mother should be, and simply without any evidence at all, just simply throwing a brick in the direction of one's political opponent. And that is,

that is so characteristic of the ugliest parts of our politics right now that the person who wrote that should apologize. It's just an outrageous thing. As to the, as to the substance of the allegation, it's completely ridiculous. As I used to have known Amy and Jesse Barrett for over 15 years, They have a beautiful family. Their family is their heart. It's the most important thing to them. Judge Barrett is very much a present mother. She is with those kids going over their Latin homework, taking piano lessons, being a room mother in their and their class in their schools. And every morning, just to give you a sense, and how does she do it? I don't know how she does it. She's an amazing human being. She's the most disciplined person I know. She gets up in the morning and goes to a CrossFit style gym here in South Bend that a lot of folks that Notre Dame like, and then gets home in time to climb up the very steep stairs of their old house to their son Benjamin's room, Benjamin, who is now in elementary school, not a small kid anymore, and she puts Benjamin on her back and carries Benjamin all the way down those steep stairs to have breakfast. That's their morning ritual. She is a, as a parent, she's an inspiration to me.

And the idea that someone who doesn't know her and doesn't know anything about her would say such shameful things is just deeply offensive. But the truth is Judge Barrett is a human, is a human being like you've never met in your life. And we're all blessed to have known her. And I can tell you from firsthand experience that she's an inspiring parent. And yes, she has one babysitter, who she brought with her to her announcement ceremony and thanked openly. We all need help. We're a community of families and friends here in South Bend. But Amy and Jesse are unbelievable parents. And their children do come before anything else in their lives. Well, thank you, Carter. I appreciate that. Lexi, there also been a lot of questions. Some of you address this a little bit about

about how Judge Barrett's faith might affect her ability to serve as a judge. And you know, you and John have obviously witnessed this firsthand in terms of deciding cases. What are your, what's your reaction to these criticisms? Well, Judge Barrett is a person of faith. She's been open about that. And as one might hope, her faith is real.

And it's evident in her life in the way she loves people, in her kindness, her compassion, her generosity, her patience, and, even her work ethic and the enthusiasm with which she approaches her job. But when it comes to the actual substantive decision-making process, neither Judge Barrett's religious beliefs or any other belief she might hold factors in. She's committed to applying the law as it is written, and she follows the law wherever it leads,

whether it's an outcome she likes or not, because that's what judges do. It's also worth noting just inherent in that question, all judges have beliefs and convictions that they have to set aside to do their job. It isn't particular to people of faith. It's a little bit particularly troubling that people of faith are held out for a different kind of scrutiny in that respect. But all judges do this. As a judge, she takes an oath to the Constitution and commits to upholding the laws of the United States. And we can look at her record to see that she does, in fact, do that and we'll continue to do it on the Supreme Court. Thank you. Laura, I actually have a couple of questions for you. So one of them is I

You wrote an article recently in which you were quite candid and said that when you were starting out in your legal, in your law school career, and then again in your third year, that you were having problems because of your blindness and that you reached out to Professor Barrett and that she was helpful to you. And I was wondering whether you could take a few moments and talk a little bit about that. Sure. So I, so the article you're referencing was published in First Things. It's called what I learned from Amy Coney Barrett if people are interested in looking that up. And basically, I described their two incidents. First, in my first semester, I came to the school and I use a lot of assistive technology to allow me to be successful and to play on a level playing field to my peers. And it just happened that I had done a lot of planning.

As a person with a disability, you can really never be spontaneous about anything. You have to plan for lots of exigencies and I had done a lot of planning to get the technology there on time and You know best laid plans by through a variety of circumstances the technology was not there when I arrived and then Very unfortunately my own personal computer broke very soon after I came to class So I was two weeks in and really floundering because my computer this is back in 20 So for those who can get in the way back machine, I know now everyone is very, very connected to their smart devices, but that was me a long time ago. It was my lifeline to everything, my textbooks, my notes, my ability to do my legal research, everything. And I went to Professor Barrett and I, again, this, this, these sort of metaphysical things that we're all alluding to, like her presence, her, her, her deep honesty that is just apparent on the, on the, on the, on the

of everything she says. Like they're hard to describe it. If you've ever known her or interacted with her, they're very transparent. And it was those things that I picked up on about her being in her classroom that led me to believe that I could depend on her and trust her.

And I went to her and I disclosed, you know, the problems that I was having. And she told me, like, this is not your problem anymore. This is my problem. And I will take care of it. take care of this for you. And the thing is that as a person with a disability, you hear that a lot. You hear a lot of people say, don't worry, you can rely on me. And unfortunately, a lot of the times

that isn't actually the case. But when Professor Barrett, who had no reason to owe me anything, she didn't have any reason to look out for me, to advocate for me, to take a personal interest or use any of her time, as we know, is very, very short supply. But she did. And when she told me, I will take care of it. As someone who has experienced these types of barriers many, many times, I knew that it was a rare circumstance when I could rely on her. And I just want to emphasize that that's not a unique story.

Like my particular story has to do with the fact that I have a disability. And, of course, I can only speak for myself and tell my own story. But I will tell you that there are many, many women that I know, particularly women who have told me their own stories of going to Professor Barrett with a particularly unique problem or obstacle that they had to be vulnerable about or intimate about and disclose some things to Professor Barrett. And she was their champion and their advocate. And so, you know, just as Professor Sneed was alluding to earlier, this idea that this, that Professor Barrett is somehow he, and she was. handicapped by her family size or her commitments. It just shows that I don't think these people who are saying that have ever met someone who is practiced at the act of radical love the way that Professor Barrett is. Because radical love makes you a bigger person.

It expands your heart. It doesn't constrict it. And it makes you more capable of serving others and loving others and being present to them, not less able to do those things. And so the point I wanted to make in my article is that I know that I was, I received the benefit of Amy Coney-Barrid's faith because it is the thing that animates her when it comes to these situations.

It is what calls her to do what is right and to see every human being that she speaks to as a person who is equal in dignity. And to have people suggest that actually it is a hindrance to her, not one of her most amazing gifts. It just shows that people don't know her at all. Thank you for that. Let me stick with you for this next question. In a few moments, by the way, I'll be turning to audience questions, so please keep them coming. And then, John, you can comment on this, too, if you want to.

So questions have been raised about the Barrett's adoption of their two children from Haiti, their daughter Vivian and their son, John Peters. An NYU professor has suggested that perhaps these adoptions were illegal because of problems with some adoptions from Haiti. and a professor at Boston University has suggested that perhaps the Barrett's are white colonizers who are using their kids as props. And I wondered whether you had a reaction to that. Yeah, I think the reaction is very simple.

That's actually a horrendously racist thing to say, to take one characteristic the Barrett's race, to take another characteristic the race of their children, and to de facto per se state. that there is something racially insensitive or colonizing or racist about what this adoption means. I mean, there's just no other way to say it. It's a very racist accusation to make. It's an insult to all parents who have engaged in the generous loving act of adopting a child of any kind. And it's just amazing to me that someone who, to my knowledge, I mean, he could correct me if I'm incorrect, has no person knowledge of Judge Barrett, no personal knowledge of her relationship with her children whatsoever would make such an outrageous suggestion. Fair enough. John, let me turn to you. You can give me

a reaction to that as well, but I'd also like to hear your thoughts. So Judge Barrett's about to undergo a grueling process. Her 2017 confirmation was not exactly a walk in the park. But how do you think she's going to hold up during this process? John, Your first question and the response, quite simply, Judge Barrett is better than any of those despicable comments, and she would never have to get into the gutter to respond to anything like that. And her example shows that. Secondly, Judge Barrett will handle these confirmation proceedings with the utmost grace and confidence. Laura spoke about the radical love that Judge Barrett has exhibited to everybody else. And Lexi has also spoken about how Judge Barrett has a unique way to be present in the moment,

despite all of the other hats that she's wearing at any given point in time. If past his prologue, what we can expect to see is the same type of grace under fire and the patience and the absolute poise and fortitude that we saw at her 2017 confirmation hearings. She was able to handle unfair characterizations and attacks on her personal aspects of her life that have no bearing on what it's like to be a judge. And she will handle the same type of attacks and same type of pressure that, she's going to be experiencing in the next few weeks with the same type of uncommon grace that she handles everything in her life with the utmost poise and fortitude and principled characters that she has. Well, that's great. At this point, I don't know whether there are any audience questions.

I haven't seen any submitted to me. Katie, I'm assuming you have some questions. I don't see any questions, which is a little bit, a little bit unusual. I don't know whether you have any, you know, other personal stories that you would like to tell about Judge Barrett, things you saw her do with her family or, you know, special things that she did with her law clerks that gave you some insight into her. But until we get some questions from the audience, I would invite you to offer whatever thoughts you have. John, as you might imagine, this whole process is quite surreal for me. Someone I think of in the highest regard and think the world of is going through this process. to see the President of the United States nominate her to one of the highest positions in government,

rightfully so, is an amazing moment for me. And it's caused me to reflect on who Judge Barrett is. And I've thought about that for the last week or two and also reflect on my experience with her. And one image really stands out in my mind. I remember one night, Judge and I were working on an important opinion that she was going to release the very next day. And while she was diligently working on the opinion and crafting very, very eloquent prose and continuing to dive into the record and other cases, her daughter was playing at her feet and having such a wonderful time. And that image stands out in my mind as I think about

who Judge Barrett is and the type of person that the President of United States nominated to the United States Supreme Court. And it's a beautiful image to me. And it's someone that we should all be very proud of and happy for to take on such a tremendous accomplishment and responsibility as an associate justice. I see, Lori, anything to add? Yeah, I can share. I mean, Another anecdote I think that really speaks to Judge Barrett's open-mindedness. So as I mentioned earlier, I took this seminar with her and about statutory interpretation. And I also consider myself to be a textualist. And so in this seminar, you write a final paper on, you know, like a full-length, article-length

paper on a subject of your choosing. And I actually chose to critique an aspect of textualism, actually, and in particular, an idea that Justice Scalia had written about in his famous Heller Second Amendment decision, which is a constitutional decision, and an idea that he had actually written about elsewhere in his interpreters, his books on interpretation. And, you know, Judge Barrett clerk for Justice Scalia, she has openly called him her mentor. She has said his philosophy is more. mine. And when I went to her and presented her with this idea, she got extremely excited. And the critique that I had, which not to get too much in the legal weeds, but the critique was, Justice Scalia had made this argument that text in the preamble of a legal document, either a constitution or a statute, should not be given the same interpretive weight as the text in the operative provisions of those instruments. And I kind of wanted to push back on that and

wonder if that was still an appropriate way of approaching given our uniquely bicameralism and presentment mode of passing laws. So Judge Barrett was very excited by this prospect and worked with me pretty diligently on my paper. It was something that I, you know, I took pride in thinking of like I was excited about the idea and again, like I would go to her and she would, she would pick at my ideas and she would she would sort of point, help me to see the weakness and I believe it was Lexi who mentioned viewing the idea from the point of view of the person who's going to disagree with you. She helped me to develop that skill very much. And I was extremely proud of that work of scholarship that I produced.

But it just, again, it reiterates to me that if Judge Barrett were this ideologue, unidimensional person that everyone is describing her to be, Her response to me would not be to be open to my idea, would not be to encourage me to critique an aspect of textualism or her mentor. It would be to be uninterested and to tell me that that idea was wrong and that nothing could be further from the truth. And again, this was all well before there was any talk of Amy Coney-Barritt being on the Seventh Circuit or the Supreme Court. And so, you know, well before she was a common household name, I saw these attributes being demonstrated in her as a professor. And I have no doubt that she continues to do that as a judge. So this is a derivation of a question we got from an audience member. And it was specifically asking about fun things that she likes to do with her law clerk.

So even though she said that her kids prefer Jesse's cooking, it's my understanding that Judge Barrett makes a mean etou fete. and has also taken her clerk's skeet shooting. So I was wondering whether you could talk a little bit about sort of what life was like around the chambers and what things you would occasionally do to take a break for more. Chambers was fun. We worked really hard, but we had a really good time to, like John said, she has a great sense of humor and, you know, easy to laugh and just fun to talk with and hang out with. I was not the skeet shooting class, but we did. She made us, I think it was like a five-course meal one night, just out of the goodness of our heart to have us.

over over with her and Jesse and just sit around and do life. Yeah, she's a great coach. She had the same, she helped, and a gracious host as well. She hosted us over one night towards the end of the spring. And consistent with the theme that we've identified with everything going on in her life and all the different hats that she wears, mother of seven, wife, federal judge, law professor, community volunteer, and on and on and on. She still takes time to be a mentor towards us and have a good time doing it. Whether she's inviting us into her home or sharing a lunch with us a few times a week as we discuss the law or we just discuss what's going on in our personal lives.

And we have profound joy or she has a sense of profound joyness when she does all of this. And it's just so amazing for us to see her balance all these competing interests while remaining gracious the whole time. Can you describe a little bit to this? This is also a derivation on a question I just got from an audience member. who specifically asked about, you know, getting comments back on drafts and your discussions. But in what way would you describe how she would serve as a mentor, mentor to you? And, Laura, you can weigh in on that as well.

In fact, Laura, why don't we start with you? Sure. So, you know, I've already described the first experience, which is pretty instrumental to me. But I'm happy and just so pleased to say that my relationship with Judge Barrett has continued past my graduation. And I remained in touch with her. I actually one time did call her while she was at Chambers and she took the time to give me an hour of her time and just to talk about life.

And the thing is that this is something that everyone has said, and again, it might start sounding like a broken record. But when Judge Barrett speaks, you know that she has thought about everything that she has said, whether it's her legal opinion or her opinion of you or her opinion about what you should do. She just doesn't, she's so careful and thoughtful and she tells the truth. She's just a woman of her word and just honesty.

And so at periods of my life when I've been at a juncture in terms of deciding what to do, I will oftentimes go to Judge Barrett. And I'll tell this, you know, this example, because it probably is the most salient. So I had decided that I wanted to apply, that I thought I wanted to apply to the Supreme Court. I would have been the first blind person in recent times to do so, to have a clerkship. And I had a lot of fear that perhaps like I had managed to do well so far, but maybe I couldn't handle the actual job of being on the court. And there's a lot of things about being on the court that are not public and there's no way to know. until you're there or unless you talk to someone who has been there and they're obviously not

going to give you the details but they can give you a sense of life there and um so once again i i went to judge then professor barrett and i knew that if judge barrett told me you can do this like i know that you can do this and like i have faith in you then it was true because she knew me very well and she doesn't say things she doesn't mean she doesn't pump you up She doesn't give false praise. And so, yeah, it was my conversation with Judge Barrett, then Professor Barrett, when she said, I think you can do this and we will support you. That caused me to apply.

And it's just that kind of spirit in her where there are, you know, other work things, other things, other life events that I've just needed to talk through. That when you speak with her, you know that you have her full attention and that you can trust her. her assessment of your strengths and weaknesses and character and, you know, the pros and cons of different decisions, she's thinking about them as carefully as she does, you know, these, her legal opinions. And that just makes her an extraordinary friend and mentor. Lexington, John. I'll pick up with what Laura said. She answers the call for how articulate she is and how she can explain complicated legal topics or complicated life issues. She's a wonderful listener. And she will always lend an ear to anybody in her life.

And that's something that's very meaningful for me. John, you had also asked a question about drafting. Many times while I served as her law clerk and maybe Lexi had the same experience, before I woke up and I consider myself an early riser, generally get up around 6 or 6.30, Judge Barrett had already sent me a draft of an opinion that we are working on

and completed a workout. And then she's heading to cook breakfast for the family or have breakfast with the family and then head to chambers precisely and promptly. on time. And the drafting was quite intimidating to send written material to Judge Barrett and then to have her dissect it and analyze carefully and precisely every word in every sentence and think 15 years down the road how something could be construed or used in a way that wasn't what she intended or wasn't what the law required. And so when we go draft after draft after draft after draft until

she was finally satisfied if she was ever satisfied with the opinion that she produced. And to have that back and forth with someone with such brilliance and precision is a lesson that I'll never forget. That's terrific. Anything dad, Lexi? Much of the same. I mean, it would be difficult to overstate the influence that Judge Barrett spent in my life, both in the technical aspects that John's talking about and the legal analysis, both in class

and as a clerk. And then also, as Laura says, you know, just as a mentor and as a support. system in addition to an amazing example of how to live life well. Did Judge, this is another question from an audience member. This probably be our last one. By the way, we got a tremendous number of great questions all about her jurisprudence. And I would remind people that next Friday we are going to have a panel discussion on that. So one, I'm going to save the chat because you've given me a lot of great questions.

And I hope that you will join next week and be able to remind me to ask them. But how did she get along with her fellow judges? fellow judges. I mean, the Seventh Circuit's got a lot of heavyweights on it. And I was just curious whether you got a census who, you know, she's about to go up with, hopefully with a bunch of other heavyweights on the Supreme Court. How were her interactions with her fellow judges? John, one thing that I learned from Judge Barrett, one thing that we heard last week, as Judge Barrett gave her a speech when the president nominated her to the Supreme Court, is how much she admired Justice Scalia's relationship with Justice Ginsburg. They both

differently about the law they both came to different conclusions on the law but they were profound friends and that type of civility friendship and setting aside professional differences to maintain close personal relationships is something that i viewed judge barrett approach with her relationship with her colleagues on the seventh circuit and you can see that in the dissents that she wrote or the dissents that were written from her majority opinions but she never let any type of professional disagreement impact her personal relationship. And she got along very well with all the judges from what I saw. Thank you all. This has been a terrific, terrific hour. We very much appreciate your insights. You obviously had a remarkable experience,

spending time with a remarkable individual who may very well be on the Supreme Court in the near future. I'd like to thank our audience for attending. And I hope you all can join us next Friday. And with that, we are adjourned. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to The Daily Signal Podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeart Radio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts. And please encourage others to subscribe.

Thanks again for listening and we'll be back with you all tomorrow. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Kate Trinko. and Rachel Del Judas, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, visit DailySignal.com.