Speaker 1: Welcome back to this special edition of Verdict with Ted
Speaker 1: Cruz and my one-on-one conversation with Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Speaker 1: In part one, we explored the remarkable journey that shaped
Speaker 1: the man. Now we turn to the justice, his more
Speaker 1: than three decades on the Supreme Court, his approach to
Speaker 1: the Constitution, and why he believes its protections belong not
Speaker 1: to judges, not to law professors, but to every person.
Speaker 1: single American. Here's part two of my conversation with Justice
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas. By any measure, one of your greatest legacies
Speaker 1: in the court, and there are many, but has been
Speaker 1: on race, and you have been a clarion voice in
Speaker 1: your entire tenure on the court for the principle that
Speaker 1: the Constitution is does not allow racial distinctions, does not
Speaker 1: allow racial discrimination. The Constitution is colorblind and protects everyone.
Speaker 1: It's interesting as you tell the story or the analogy
Speaker 1: of the library and then the stacks and the books
Speaker 1: that you might not be allowed to read. One story
Speaker 1: you have told is as a young man, I think
Speaker 1: in law school, somebody gave you a copy of a
Speaker 1: book by Thomas Sowell And you started to read it
Speaker 1: and threw it in the trash and said, if I
Speaker 1: remember right, that no black man can think this way.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That was Black Education, Myths and Tragedies, I think,
Speaker 2: one of his early books. And he laughs about it. Then,
Speaker 2: of course, he sent me a copy just to make
Speaker 2: sure I had it. But then in the after law school,
Speaker 2: I was working in Jeff City. It's one of those
Speaker 2: Hobson's choices. That's how I wound up there. The only
Speaker 2: job offer I had, but it was the best job
Speaker 2: I've ever had.
Speaker 1: But all the fancy law firms wouldn't give you an offer.
Speaker 1: You came out of Yale Law School, did really well
Speaker 1: in law school.
Speaker 2: It didn't matter. And I always tell them now when
Speaker 2: I see them, they're the reason I'm on the court,
Speaker 2: because but for them, I'd be a tax lawyer someplace.
Speaker 2: And they woke now, but they were fast asleep when
Speaker 2: I got out of school. So anyway, God works in
Speaker 2: mysterious ways. I wind up in Jeff City.
Speaker 1: So you're working for Jack Danforth, who is the attorney
Speaker 1: general in Missouri.
Speaker 2: Absolutely wonderful man.
Speaker 1: And your classmates were asking, what are you doing going
Speaker 1: to work for a Republican?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He was the only one who would give you a job.
Speaker 2: He was the only one who gave me a job.
Speaker 2: I mean, I had trouble with that. I mean, I
Speaker 2: was dying. Remember, I just voted for McGovern. Yeah. You know,
Speaker 2: and I thought he was too conservative. So you can
Speaker 2: see ideologically where I was. But I go to work
Speaker 2: for him. Best job I've ever had.
Speaker 1: Well, and you said when you came in, you said, look,
Speaker 1: I don't want to work on matters of race. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be treated differently than anyone else. And
Speaker 1: you joked that he took you very seriously.
Speaker 2: He ignored all of us.
Speaker 1: But you loved that job.
Speaker 2: I loved it. It was the best job I've ever had.
Speaker 2: $ 11, 000 a year. And he promised. He said, I can
Speaker 2: give you more work for less money than anybody in
Speaker 2: the country. And that turned out to be a blessing.
Speaker 2: But at any rate, that office, the way that he
Speaker 2: ran that office was just wonderful, even-handed. One of the
Speaker 2: people I met who became a very dear friend was
Speaker 2: a quadriplegic from West Point, Nebraska. And went to University
Speaker 2: of Missouri Law School, graduated, ordered the co-wife, but had
Speaker 2: suffered from polio and was a quadriplegic. Just a very, very,
Speaker 2: very dear friend. He calls me up one day and
Speaker 2: he said, Clarence, there's another black guy out here like you.
Speaker 2: And his name is Thomas Sowell. And it was Thomas Sowell.
Speaker 2: And it was a book review in the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 2: And it was on race and economics. And I obtained
Speaker 2: copies of that. And it became just sort of the
Speaker 2: beginning of the long journey. intellectual walk back of thinking
Speaker 2: about these things. And I met him at Washington University
Speaker 2: on a panel with Ruth Bader Ginsburg when she was
Speaker 2: a professor in the late 70s. And then when I
Speaker 2: came here in 79, I think I met him again
Speaker 2: either in 79 or 80 when he was making the
Speaker 2: rounds with Hill staffers. And we've been friends since the
Speaker 2: early 1980s.
Speaker 1: By the way, for what it's worth, I'm urging the
Speaker 1: White House to award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Speaker 1: I hope they do so. I've publicly called for that.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to make that happen because I think that
Speaker 1: would be very appropriate.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it would be deserved. He is a great,
Speaker 2: great man and one of the great thinkers.
Speaker 1: I've never met him, but I've admired him. He's brilliant
Speaker 1: and courageous.
Speaker 2: Well, he's courageous. He and I met him. I met
Speaker 2: Walter Williams back then when I got here.
Speaker 1: I met Walter Williams when I was in high school.
Speaker 2: Is that right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was inspiring even when I was a kid.
Speaker 2: Brash, but he's... And there was another gentleman that you
Speaker 2: don't know that's also passed away, like Walter, who's on...
Speaker 2: Dunn was also very quiet, but a libertarian and was very,
Speaker 2: very helpful. But anyway, the whole point is that in
Speaker 2: Jefferson City, again, I go back to what I said
Speaker 2: at the very beginning, that things that initially seem like
Speaker 2: a negative, you know, you can't get a job, so
Speaker 2: you wind up in Jefferson City, turn out to be
Speaker 2: a blessing. And what I say in retrospect is that
Speaker 2: God closed all the doors that I should not have
Speaker 2: gone through and left one door open, my Hobson's choice,
Speaker 2: and turned out to be the best job I've ever had.
Speaker 3: All right, let me take a quick second. I want
Speaker 3: to talk to you about how you can get involved
Speaker 3: right now to help the people in Israel and the
Speaker 3: rising anti-Semitism that's happening not only in the U.S., but
Speaker 3: around the world every day. And the Jewish people continue
Speaker 3: to pay the price from growing threats against Jewish communities,
Speaker 3: attacks of violence, harassment and intimidation. Many Jewish families are
Speaker 3: living with fear simply because they are Jewish. Synagogues, schools,
Speaker 3: and community centers continue strengthening security as hatred spreads far
Speaker 3: beyond the headlines. And that's why the International Fellowship of
Speaker 3: Christians and Jews is working every day in Israel and
Speaker 3: around the world, providing security, emergency assistance, food, and critical
Speaker 3: care for vulnerable Jewish communities. For more than 40 years,
Speaker 3: the fellowship has stood alongside the Jewish people, delivering practical
Speaker 3: support when it is needed the most. Hatred, it continues
Speaker 3: to spread, but compassion and action can make a world
Speaker 3: of difference. So I want you to join us. The
Speaker 3: International Fellowship of Christians and Jews and me in doing
Speaker 3: one simple thing, praying for the safety of the Jewish people,
Speaker 3: for peace in Israel, and for an end to anti-Semitism. Together,
Speaker 3: we can remind God's people that they are not alone.
Speaker 3: If you want to know what to pray for, you
Speaker 3: can stand with Israel in prayer today by visiting PrayIFCJ.org.
Speaker 3: That is PrayIFCJ.org.
Speaker 1: Ultimately, you're in the AG's office. You go get a
Speaker 1: job in corporate America at Monsanto, which paid you a
Speaker 1: good chunk of money but was not rewarding and you
Speaker 1: were not happy with corporate America. And then Jack Danforth
Speaker 1: has gone to the Senate and you go work for
Speaker 1: him in the Senate. And you're Capitol Hill staffer and
Speaker 1: you go to a conference with Thomas Sowell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he invited me personally to that in San Francisco.
Speaker 1: And at the time, you're a Republican staffer, but you're
Speaker 1: on the journey. One of the things I try to
Speaker 1: do in the book is chronicle the intellectual journey and
Speaker 1: awakening from an angry left-wing radical to a principled conservative.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty big shift. And reading was an important
Speaker 1: part of it. Questioning was an important part of it.
Speaker 1: But you've described how you're sitting at, at a lunch
Speaker 1: table with, with Juan Williams, the reporter, having what you
Speaker 1: thought was a conversation. And, and, uh, it was one
Speaker 1: of your first interactions with, with the press and, and
Speaker 1: it ended up having a big feature article in the
Speaker 1: Washington Post describing you as the black conservative, which, which
Speaker 1: was a pretty startling thing for you.
Speaker 2: Well, I'd never called myself conservative. I, I've, you know, the, um,
Speaker 2: That was a way of character. They called us black
Speaker 2: conservatives in order to dispose of us. They called Tom
Speaker 2: Sowell that, Walter Williams, Jay Parker, who was another dear friend,
Speaker 2: has passed away. But I was shocked. Remember now, I'm
Speaker 2: 32 years old. I'm a Hill staffer. I've never been
Speaker 2: in the press. I had just made my first trip
Speaker 2: to California.
Speaker 1: You got the inkling that there was going to be
Speaker 1: something on you when they sent a photographer to take
Speaker 1: a picture.
Speaker 2: I was sharing an office with three other staffers, and
Speaker 2: this photographer shows up from the post. And December 16, 1980,
Speaker 2: there's my smiling face on the op-ed page. And then
Speaker 2: my whole life changed. And the attacks, the negativity.
Speaker 1: And there is a nastiness.
Speaker 2: Ostracism.
Speaker 1: As a black conservative that I don't think anyone else
Speaker 1: experiences you get some of it as an Hispanic who's
Speaker 1: a conservative because I'm not supposed to be a conservative
Speaker 1: but you're really not supposed to be a conservative and
Speaker 1: there's part of the reason I wanted to write the
Speaker 1: book is the vitriol that has been directed at you
Speaker 1: is different look Justice Scalia you knew him extremely well
Speaker 1: he was a brilliant, extraordinarily principled. He never had the
Speaker 1: kind of hate directed to him that you did. And
Speaker 1: the left, they view you, a black man is not
Speaker 1: allowed to think that way. You're a traitor. And there's
Speaker 1: an ugliness to that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean, that's, you know, I grew up, again,
Speaker 2: I've been fortunate to have had misfortunes. And one of
Speaker 2: the things you learned during segregation is there was this
Speaker 2: idea that, boy, don't you know your place. And that's
Speaker 2: the same thing. I mean, these are the same, some
Speaker 2: of the worst people that you would meet, like the progressives.
Speaker 2: That's why I mentioned people like Woodrow Wilson, one of
Speaker 2: the early progressives.
Speaker 1: Who was a vicious racist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but see, underneath that, and Paul Johnson makes the
Speaker 2: point that you scratch the surface of things like the
Speaker 2: Marxists and the socialists. That's what you find because they
Speaker 2: have to categorize people. So I understand that. But I
Speaker 2: crossed that bridge in my early 30s that I accepted
Speaker 2: that this is the way they were going to treat me.
Speaker 2: This is what was going to happen. This is what
Speaker 2: would happen, and who knew where it would leave, but
Speaker 2: God would take care of that part. But the fact
Speaker 2: that they have all this vitriol, to me, is a
Speaker 2: white flag that they have no argument. When you start calling..
Speaker 1: If they think you're wrong, persuade you.
Speaker 2: Look, I'm open to reason, but I will not be
Speaker 2: told what to do. No one cajoles me, no one
Speaker 2: makes me do anything. Slavery is over. But there's this
Speaker 2: sense that don't you know what you're supposed to think?
Speaker 2: And that is with me, that is the wrong argument.
Speaker 1: Well, and related to that, one of the things that
Speaker 1: you have really powerfully written and spoken about is with
Speaker 1: affirmative action and racial quotas, it brings with it a stigma.
Speaker 1: You rather famously put a sticker of 15 cents on
Speaker 1: your Yale law degree from a cigar box because, and
Speaker 1: you talked about coming out of Yale, but not being
Speaker 1: able to get a job. And look, I went to
Speaker 1: school at a different time than you did, but I'll
Speaker 1: tell you, as an Hispanic, I still remember this one
Speaker 1: supercilious liberal in law school explaining that everyone who wasn't
Speaker 1: a white man, was on the law review because of
Speaker 1: affirmative action. That was the only reason anyone could possibly
Speaker 1: do well is because they were giving us this gift.
Speaker 1: And it was infuriating.
Speaker 2: You know, I've heard, I've been, there are many, many
Speaker 2: slights along the way. But it doesn't make you wrong.
Speaker 2: These are little bumps in the road. And what I
Speaker 2: compare it to, again, I compare it to what My
Speaker 2: grandparents went through. Like, just take my grandfather. Yeah. If
Speaker 2: I'm going to complain, right, I have to look at him,
Speaker 2: at a man who didn't complain. He never knew his father.
Speaker 2: His mother dies when he's six or seven, maybe eight.
Speaker 2: And then he goes to live with his grandmother, who's
Speaker 2: a freed slave who lives on a part of the
Speaker 2: plantation that they're from.
Speaker 1: Just pause for a second and think about the marvel
Speaker 1: of America, that your grandfather who raised you was raised
Speaker 1: by his grandmother who was a freed slave. And now
Speaker 1: you are the second longest serving Supreme Court justice in
Speaker 1: American history and in a couple of years will be
Speaker 1: the longest serving. That is– it's one of the things– Look,
Speaker 1: those who point to the flaws in our nation's history,
Speaker 1: they're not wrong. Our racial history in particular has been
Speaker 1: a history of injustice, and slavery was grotesque. But I
Speaker 1: agree with Dr. King that the arc of history is long,
Speaker 1: and it bends towards justice. And that journey was possible
Speaker 1: because of the principles America was built on, even if
Speaker 1: it took us decades and even centuries to begin living
Speaker 1: up to it.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, he always, my grandfather would talk about
Speaker 2: don't throw out the Ten Commandments because people don't obey them.
Speaker 2: There's nothing wrong with the Ten Commandments. It's just we
Speaker 2: have weaknesses or for whatever reasons we don't comply. And
Speaker 2: I think sometimes when you're angry and you see suffering
Speaker 2: and difficulties, you are willing to throw everything out, the
Speaker 2: baby with the bathwater. And as you get older, you
Speaker 2: can be more discerning. And one of the things I
Speaker 2: think that's unfortunate is that the people who should know
Speaker 2: better haven't stood up and defended those principles and asserted
Speaker 2: them and then tried to live up to them and
Speaker 2: not be hypocritical and not to sacrifice the principles for
Speaker 2: a share of the power, for a share of the
Speaker 2: loot that they're getting from the country or whatever. And
Speaker 2: so one of the things that I tried to do
Speaker 2: when I was teasing out the speech at the University
Speaker 2: of Texas is to make this point. Two things that
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about was the fact that here
Speaker 2: you had uneducated people who believed that God made them equal.
Speaker 2: And you had Irish nuns, immigrants, that believed strongly that
Speaker 2: in God's eyes, we're all equal. And this was not
Speaker 2: to be debated. No matter what the laws around us said,
Speaker 2: this was not debatable. So now that means if there
Speaker 2: are Irish immigrants and uneducated people who have no formal
Speaker 2: education believe this, my point was simply that it must
Speaker 2: be self-evident. Otherwise, how else would they know? The other
Speaker 2: part of it that I was interested in is there
Speaker 2: are a lot of nice words in the Declaration, for example.
Speaker 2: But what do they pledge? Their lives, their fortune, and
Speaker 2: their sacred honor. And this is after what the king says,
Speaker 2: I'm going to hang all of you.
Speaker 1: And that was not theoretical.
Speaker 2: No, no, I know it. He was not happy. But
Speaker 2: at any rate, my point is if you end it
Speaker 2: by saying, I'm willing to die for this. Now, that
Speaker 2: gives value to what you just said. In your wedding vows,
Speaker 2: you say, I do, and you mean it. You said
Speaker 2: you've been married, what, 29 years?
Speaker 1: 25.
Speaker 2: 25 years. So that gives content to your wedding vows. Yeah.
Speaker 2: When I said, I do, to my wife, that gives content. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: it's just nice words. And I think one of the things,
Speaker 2: and this goes back to my point about leaving the seminary,
Speaker 2: Do you really mean it? Do you really believe as
Speaker 2: a church what you said you believe? And it was
Speaker 2: the gap between that, what you said, the church said,
Speaker 2: and what the leadership seemed to a 19-year-old to believe.
Speaker 2: And I think in this country now, think about it.
Speaker 2: When last have you had a leader that said something
Speaker 2: that is the equivalent I pledge my life, my property,
Speaker 2: my fortune, and my sacred honor.
Speaker 1: So you referenced the speech you gave at University of Texas.
Speaker 1: I want to commend all the listeners here. Go and
Speaker 1: listen to that speech. It really was an extraordinary speech.
Speaker 1: I'm proud of UT. I spent a couple of years
Speaker 1: on the faculty as an adjunct law professor there. And look,
Speaker 1: most law schools are so left-wing. I'm proud of UT
Speaker 1: for inviting you there. The president, Jim Davis, is a
Speaker 1: good friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Had you there, but it really is an important speech
Speaker 1: and conversation, and if folks haven't listened to it, they should.
Speaker 1: What I want to do in the interest of time,
Speaker 1: there are additional chapters in your life from being a
Speaker 1: Hill staffer to an assistant secretary of the Department of
Speaker 1: Education to the chairman of the EOC and the Reagan
Speaker 1: administration to a court of appeals judge on the D.C.
Speaker 1: Circuit to going through one.
Speaker 2: Of..
Speaker 1: If not the most brutal confirmation hearing of any justice.
Speaker 1: You and Brett Kavanaugh can arm wrestle for who had
Speaker 1: the rougher time, but in many ways, and I talk
Speaker 1: about this in the book, how what Justice Kavanaugh went
Speaker 1: through was a replay of the playbook that you were
Speaker 1: subjected to. I want to skip over all of those periods,
Speaker 1: although I recount them in detail in the book. And
Speaker 1: I want to go to after you are confirmed. and
Speaker 1: you're sworn in and you're in your early 40s and
Speaker 1: suddenly you're a Supreme Court justice and your autobiography ends
Speaker 1: with your being a justice so it tells your life
Speaker 1: story but then does not cover your jurisprudence I want
Speaker 1: to start with just a human thing what's it like
Speaker 1: the first day you're a justice. You walk in, like
Speaker 1: just what's day one of being a Supreme Court justice?
Speaker 2: Well, you feel a little small. And like, what the
Speaker 2: heck am I doing here? Which is still a question.
Speaker 2: But this is, you know, the, as I said, just
Speaker 2: Lord grant me the wisdom to know what's right and
Speaker 2: the courage to do it. That has been a constant
Speaker 2: plea of mine. And it is what brought me back
Speaker 2: to the church, stopping at first St. Nicholas, then sometimes St. Mary's,
Speaker 2: and sometimes St. Joe, to just ask for the wisdom
Speaker 2: and to know what is right and the courage to
Speaker 2: do it. But you know, it is just the, you
Speaker 2: pledge to I gave President Bush my promise. I took
Speaker 2: an oath. He said, can you call him as you
Speaker 2: see him? He asked me that in Kennebunkport, July 1, 1991.
Speaker 2: I said, I can. And that's what I've lived up to.
Speaker 2: My grandfather, when I asked him when I was being
Speaker 2: attacked in the early 80s, 1982, I said, what should
Speaker 2: I do? He said, boy, you got to stand up
Speaker 2: for what you believe in. It's pretty simple. And I
Speaker 2: must say, I'm on the other side of that spectrum now,
Speaker 2: but I was treated royally, fabulously, by my new colleagues.
Speaker 2: Your old boss, Chief Justice Rehnquist, Justice Scalia, Stevens, O'Connor,
Speaker 2: a great woman who doesn't get the credit she deserves,
Speaker 2: Justice Kennedy. And now I'm on the other side of
Speaker 2: it where I have newer colleagues, wonderful teachers, And brilliant
Speaker 2: young people like Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, you mentioned. We
Speaker 2: have Amy Barrett. And then Sam Alito and I were
Speaker 2: at Yale together. Just a wonderful, wonderful group.
Speaker 1: You were classmates at Yale.
Speaker 2: He was a year behind.
Speaker 1: He was a year behind you, but you didn't know
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 2: He's a funny guy. He's brilliant. He was always nerdy.
Speaker 2: Princeton guy like you, right? Yeah. And so... I said, Sam,
Speaker 2: how come we were there two years together? Why weren't
Speaker 2: we friends? Clarence, you were scary. I'm so glad they
Speaker 2: didn't have these phones where you could take a lot
Speaker 2: of pictures. I wore bib overalls throughout law school and
Speaker 2: combat boots. It was awful. But, you know, you have
Speaker 2: just the chief has been a good friend. But my
Speaker 2: point is simply this, that, you know, I was embraced there.
Speaker 2: It was a different generation. It's the World War II,
Speaker 2: Byron White. They were just wonderful people. They were very
Speaker 2: kind to me. You know, the courts changed a bit
Speaker 2: now since the Dobbs League. Back then there was a trust. Yes.
Speaker 2: There was an honor. Even as you disagreed, there were
Speaker 2: lines you did not cross, and I like that. These
Speaker 2: people were the age of my mother and older. And
Speaker 2: so it was a different era. And now it's a
Speaker 2: different generation now. But the point is that you have
Speaker 2: equally good people who are there. I mean, I loved,
Speaker 2: I knew some of them as law clerks. They've become
Speaker 2: very dear friends. And I hope to be a model
Speaker 2: to them as the older members of the court who
Speaker 2: were there when I arrived were to me.
Speaker 1: So of all the justices who have served on the court,
Speaker 1: I think you are the most willing to reconsider precedent
Speaker 1: and to think of an issue anew, which is in
Speaker 1: some ways to think about it as it was, in fact,
Speaker 1: in many ways to think of it as it was
Speaker 1: originally understood. Mm-hmm. and that, you know, your opinion writing is,
Speaker 1: you write straightforward opinions in ordinary English. You don't tend
Speaker 1: to use fancy highfalutin words, but your opinions are written
Speaker 1: so that the regular person can read them and understand
Speaker 1: what you're saying, and I think there's a workmanship quality
Speaker 1: to your opinions. I analogize it to a farmer or
Speaker 1: someone building a home. And you draw that same analogy.
Speaker 1: Why do you think it is that you are the
Speaker 1: most willing to reconsider precedent?
Speaker 2: You know, I start with something you and I, I think,
Speaker 2: have talked about over the years, and that is that
Speaker 2: I start with something that has to make sense.
Speaker 1: The quote from your grandfather, if it don't make no
Speaker 1: damn sense, it don't make no damn sense.
Speaker 2: And I keep that in my office because the– you can–
Speaker 2: he would call some of these professors fast talking. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And you think about it. We have had throughout history
Speaker 2: court intellectuals who can make all sorts of justifications for
Speaker 2: things and theories and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2: And I've been blessed because I can sort through the
Speaker 2: theories and I read lots and lots and lots of books.
Speaker 2: And I've been at it a long time. And I
Speaker 2: have young people who have that energy and they say,
Speaker 2: we're going to go find the answer. Now, it may
Speaker 2: not be what we want, but we're going to go
Speaker 2: look for it. And what we find in many instances
Speaker 2: is it's been a theory. So you can have, you know,
Speaker 2: you can, deductive reasoning. You have a theory and you
Speaker 2: work down. Or you can have inductive, which any rancher
Speaker 2: or farmer uses, which is you do something and it's
Speaker 2: experience and you keep generalizing up to something more general.
Speaker 2: And that's the world I grew up. The latter is
Speaker 2: the world I grew up in. I cannot explain it
Speaker 2: to that guy on the ranch. Yep. And if he says, boy,
Speaker 2: that don't make no sense. You know, he should be a,
Speaker 2: he or When I go out to ordinary people, they
Speaker 2: should be able to understand their Constitution.
Speaker 1: And by the way, ordinary people, one thing people may
Speaker 1: not know, you do that a lot. You and Jenny
Speaker 1: go out in your RV, like in the summertime, you
Speaker 1: head across the country and are in Walmart parking lots
Speaker 1: just hanging out with regular people.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm Bucky's now. All right, now as a Texan.
Speaker 1: That makes me happy. Bucky's is a destination.
Speaker 2: But, you know, I love, I grew up with... as
Speaker 2: my granddad said, PO folks. And that's the world I like.
Speaker 2: I like people who work with their hands. I like
Speaker 2: people who are regular people. That's my preferred world. And,
Speaker 2: you know, I was, my wife laughs at me because
Speaker 2: I was, my, our motor home is, motor coach is
Speaker 2: 35 years old. So I like the old buses. And
Speaker 2: so you hang out with the guys who do work
Speaker 2: on old buses. And, I got to spend time with
Speaker 2: one of them this in the December and we're like,
Speaker 2: we take all the wheels off and you're up. So
Speaker 2: I said, that was happy as I could be because
Speaker 2: you're under the air. You got all the shocks, all
Speaker 2: the airbags, you know, the lines he's, he's showing you
Speaker 2: all these things, the valves. And it was just, I
Speaker 2: could not, I wish I could spend two weeks there
Speaker 2: instead of two days. But, The point is, it's their constitution.
Speaker 2: It's that truck driver's constitution. It's that school teacher's constitution.
Speaker 2: It's not the preserve of court intellectuals and law professors.
Speaker 2: And we've turned it into that. We've over-intellectualized it. This
Speaker 2: is a point that Murray Rothbard makes in his book,
Speaker 2: Conceived in Liberty. We've taken something that was passionately achieved
Speaker 2: and that was believed in passionately, and we turned it
Speaker 2: into this thing that you need an oracle. to explain.
Speaker 1: The Federalist Papers were newspaper editorials.
Speaker 2: And they were only in New York, by the way.
Speaker 2: Those were basically Hamilton and those guys. There's a big
Speaker 2: difference between Hamilton and some of the more radical guys,
Speaker 2: like a Sam Adams, which is more than a beer,
Speaker 2: by the way.
Speaker 1: I will admit there was an amusing exchange of one
Speaker 1: commentator on the left who was on TV saying, James Madison,
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson, can you imagine those people overthrowing the government?
Speaker 1: And I couldn't help but respond, yes, yes, I can.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: It kind of happened. One of the things you have
Speaker 1: been really eloquent on, and I think profoundly influential on
Speaker 1: is the– look, the Constitution is the foundational document that
Speaker 1: created our government. But you have focused a great deal
Speaker 1: on the Declaration of Independence and– Why is the Declaration
Speaker 1: so important and what is the relevance that people should
Speaker 1: know about it?
Speaker 2: Well, the Constitution sets up the government, the form of
Speaker 2: the government. But what precedes that? What does it mean?
Speaker 2: What defines you, your rights? How do they view your rights?
Speaker 2: Where do they come from? And where does the government
Speaker 2: come from? And it sets the order right. Just take
Speaker 2: it simple. It says your rights come from God, basically,
Speaker 2: from nature's God. And then from that, you give up
Speaker 2: some of those God-given natural rights in order to be governed.
Speaker 2: And what does that lead to? That leads to the Constitution.
Speaker 2: I was pointing out to my clerks the other day,
Speaker 2: because you get these Second Amendment cases. And I said,
Speaker 2: you know, why do we keep saying there's a Second
Speaker 2: Amendment right? The Second Amendment says the right to bear
Speaker 2: arms shall not be infringed. It assumes a right. It
Speaker 2: doesn't grant a right. And so you can go First Amendment,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Where does that come from?
Speaker 2: And that's what I was interested in, that what establishes
Speaker 2: this whole notion of liberty. What establishes this order of rights?
Speaker 2: And so it matters if you think the government is
Speaker 2: the primary giver of, grantor of rights, and you receive
Speaker 2: rights and benefits from the government versus you have the
Speaker 2: rights and the government receives its authority from you. And
Speaker 2: I think that that order... being able to establish that
Speaker 2: in each case is important. And if you go back,
Speaker 2: and that explains Justice Scalia's writings on the structure of
Speaker 2: the Constitution being the safeguard of these rights that you
Speaker 2: have that are antecedent and that are transcended. So I
Speaker 2: focus on that to always get the order right. When
Speaker 2: you farm, every farmer knows, like when you plant, or
Speaker 2: when you plow, I don't know if you've ever plowed.
Speaker 1: I'm a city boy, so I've watched it on TV.
Speaker 2: So my granddaddy said, boy, he would always say, and
Speaker 2: he put a little cuss word in there from time
Speaker 2: to time, he said, and those rows better be straight.
Speaker 2: So you have to take your first row, and it
Speaker 2: has to be absolutely straight. Then you put your tire
Speaker 2: in a groove where the plows, especially if you're using
Speaker 2: a dish plow, and they go different ways. You go
Speaker 2: and you follow that. So now every subsequent row is straight. Well,
Speaker 2: going back to your point about precedent, what if that
Speaker 2: first row is crooked? Will you keep going, pretending that
Speaker 2: it's straight, or do you go back and make it straight?
Speaker 2: That's why you say, well, I'm not accepting precedent. If
Speaker 2: something doesn't make any sense, what am I going to do?
Speaker 2: Am I a fool for following that or not questioning it?
Speaker 2: I taught a course on stare decisis just for this point.
Speaker 2: It makes sense when you have this unwritten laws and
Speaker 2: when you have traditions and when barons are ruling on
Speaker 2: cases in these rural areas in England. But when you
Speaker 2: have positive law, when it's written down and you can
Speaker 2: see the deviation, who's the fool? You follow something that's absurd.
Speaker 2: Why would you follow something that's absurd?
Speaker 1: Well, look, a great example of that, in a case
Speaker 1: I talk about quite a bit in the book, is
Speaker 1: the Kelo case, where Kelo involved a city that was
Speaker 1: condemning a woman's home.
Speaker 2: That they had for 100 years. Yes. This tiny house,
Speaker 2: regular person's house, not a mansion, and for a public purpose,
Speaker 2: not a public use. And that started in southwest D.C.,
Speaker 2: by the way, the precedent for that. And the court
Speaker 2: was willing to say that the public purpose was the
Speaker 2: equivalent of public use. Well, a public purpose could be
Speaker 2: to increase your tax base.
Speaker 1: Well, and actually, as I was driving over here to
Speaker 1: do this, I wanted to look. I pulled up the
Speaker 1: language of the Fifth Amendment. And the relevant prohibition at
Speaker 1: the end of it is, nor shall private property be
Speaker 1: taken for public use without just compensation. So that's the
Speaker 1: actual language. And Kelo, unfortunately, it was 5-4, the majority
Speaker 1: said that the city of New London, Connecticut could take
Speaker 1: her home. not for a highway or a road or
Speaker 1: a city building, but for a parking lot for a
Speaker 1: planned Pfizer building. And you dissented, you dissented, and it
Speaker 1: focused on the words public use versus purpose. And explain
Speaker 1: that distinction to us.
Speaker 2: Well, purpose is a very broad term.
Speaker 1: And the court and its precedent had basically turned use
Speaker 1: into purpose.
Speaker 2: But there's another thing. principle or that we have followed
Speaker 2: for years, which is you don't take, the government doesn't
Speaker 2: take property, private property from person A and give it
Speaker 2: to private person B. That's not a public use. So,
Speaker 2: but going back to your point that a public use
Speaker 2: would be a park, it'd be a hospital, it'd be
Speaker 2: a highway, et cetera. Something that the public uses. A
Speaker 2: public purpose doesn't necessarily, is much, much broader. So just
Speaker 2: imagine you have a somewhat blighted area. But suddenly it's
Speaker 2: attractive to people with lots of money. And a city decides, well,
Speaker 2: we'd like to increase our tax base. Well, there are
Speaker 2: all these young people with lots of money who want
Speaker 2: to build these McMansions or these high-end $ 2 or $ 3
Speaker 2: million structures. Well, the public purpose would be to increase
Speaker 2: that tax base, but that's not a public use. And
Speaker 2: now you've given people who have authority to take your
Speaker 2: property a much broader way and much more power to
Speaker 2: take an individual's property. Now, why is the issue? I
Speaker 2: took quite a bit of property at Yale for this reason.
Speaker 2: If you go back to Georgia, if you go back
Speaker 2: to the South, you go to places like South Carolina,
Speaker 2: There was all this land that blacks owned in the
Speaker 2: way that my family received land over the years. It
Speaker 2: was called heirs' property. Everybody owns it. Nobody's really in charge. Well,
Speaker 2: a lot of that land, there were aggressive efforts to
Speaker 2: use that land for developments. It could be for resorts
Speaker 2: in Hilton Head. It could be for strategic purposes in
Speaker 2: Harris Neck, Georgia. It could be for conservation in places
Speaker 2: where blacks were subsistence farmers, like in McIntosh, Georgia. So
Speaker 2: my only point is simply this, that the word, if
Speaker 2: you want to protect the property, you have to stick
Speaker 2: to the words in the Constitution, or it sort of
Speaker 2: spreads out. to broader powers that were not intended and
Speaker 2: public purpose allows it. Plus that word appears no place
Speaker 2: in the Constitution.
Speaker 1: Well, I will say, even though you were in dissent,
Speaker 1: you did not command the majority in the court. I
Speaker 1: think over time, the view you articulated has prevailed and
Speaker 1: it's persuaded Texas and many other states have enacted laws
Speaker 1: to prevent the taking of public property for public purposes.
Speaker 1: And it was inspired, uh, inspired by your very, you know,
Speaker 1: Justice O'Connor used an effective analogy in dissent in that
Speaker 1: case where she said under this reasoning, the government could
Speaker 1: condemn every Motel 6 and to build a Ritz-Carlton.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And she's right. And she and I, and remember
Speaker 2: she comes from a rancher.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the, just think about it, hand in hand
Speaker 2: with liberty. Uh, you had, they, they were traveling companion,
Speaker 2: liberty and property.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Wherever you see it, if you look at the due
Speaker 2: process clause, what does it protect?
Speaker 1: Life, liberty, and property.
Speaker 2: Okay. Wherever you see it. And that was my grandfather.
Speaker 2: What did he say? These were PO. He said a
Speaker 2: little bit of land, you get to raise crops, you
Speaker 2: get to build a little place to live. Uh, you
Speaker 2: get to raise some animals. Okay. The property was a
Speaker 2: part of your way to take care of yourself. So
Speaker 2: liberty and property, it was the fruit of your labor.
Speaker 2: So you worked in the cornfield, you planted it, you
Speaker 2: took care of it, you harvested it. It's yours. And
Speaker 2: the land is yours. You earned it. And I think
Speaker 2: you see throughout the founding all those things that those
Speaker 2: were always paired, liberty and property. And we treat it
Speaker 2: as though it's a benefit from the government. Yep. rather
Speaker 2: than a right that transcends the government and is to
Speaker 2: be protected from the government.
Speaker 1: One thing you did there just a minute ago that
Speaker 1: is really powerful and that is a consistent theme of
Speaker 1: your jurisprudence is you understand the rights protected in the
Speaker 1: Constitution with an understanding of the context of history. So
Speaker 1: when you're talking about condemning land or property for public
Speaker 1: purpose rather than use, you quickly brought it to when
Speaker 1: government power is used, historically it has been used over
Speaker 1: and over by the rich and powerful against the more
Speaker 1: vulnerable in society, often against African Americans or Hispanics or
Speaker 1: people who don't necessarily have the ability to defend themselves
Speaker 1: against government power. That's something also that you've powerfully done
Speaker 1: in the Second Amendment context. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that you've said, you and I, when we were sitting
Speaker 1: down doing interviews, you talked about the importance of Reconstruction,
Speaker 1: that if you're going to understand American history and the Constitution,
Speaker 1: you've got to understand Reconstruction. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Well, it's everything. I mean, it's, you know, I think Reconstruction,
Speaker 2: why did you have Reconstruction? I mean, because you had
Speaker 2: the Civil War. You had slaves that were freed. You
Speaker 2: had the South that was not going to do what
Speaker 2: it should do. And so you basically had the military
Speaker 2: in the South. And after Reconstruction, of course, you got
Speaker 2: the Redeemers. You got the Redeemers. You have the former
Speaker 2: Confederates who've been disempowered, disenfranchised, and they start forming these
Speaker 2: vigilante groups. And who are they going after? Are they
Speaker 2: going after the Republicans in the South, they're going after
Speaker 2: particularly the freedmen. And what's the argument? If you just
Speaker 2: take a look at it, you'd see they would maraud.
Speaker 2: They would intimidate. They would lynch. And there was a
Speaker 2: big difference. But the 14th Amendment is passed. And the
Speaker 2: whole point is to now make these slave citizens. But
Speaker 2: there's something further going on. If you look at the
Speaker 2: debates in the 14th Amendment, the argument is these people
Speaker 2: have a right to defend themselves. Now, the radical Republicans
Speaker 2: felt that with these rights, privileges or immunities, also brings
Speaker 2: the right to bear arms. They have a right to
Speaker 2: defend themselves from these marauders. And anyone who lives in
Speaker 2: a rural area, who lives in the South, You could
Speaker 2: be in Texas, in rural Texas. Everybody is armed for
Speaker 2: a variety of reasons. To defend themselves, to hunt, etc.
Speaker 2: And if you live in rural Georgia, I didn't know
Speaker 2: anybody who didn't have at least one weapon. And you
Speaker 2: could have a mad dog. You could have a six-foot rattlesnake.
Speaker 2: You could have a moccasin. You could have all sorts
Speaker 2: of things. And you could have an opportunity to kill
Speaker 2: an animal for food. But my point is that the
Speaker 2: radical Republicans understood that without that right to defend themselves..
Speaker 1: And fundamentally, it's a right to life, a right to
Speaker 1: protect your life, your kids' life, your family.
Speaker 2: Well, that was the point. That was the Freedmen Bureau.
Speaker 2: If you look at the reports, they're getting killed down
Speaker 2: here with the Knights of Camellia, the Ku Klux Klan, etc.,
Speaker 2: And so you get the 14th Amendment. Right. And defining them,
Speaker 2: of course, answering Taney and responding to his notion that
Speaker 2: blacks cannot be citizens. But this also brings in the
Speaker 2: privileges or immunities clause.
Speaker 1: And Taney was the author of Dred Scott, which if
Speaker 1: there's a decision that is more disgraceful than Plessy versus Ferguson,
Speaker 1: it was Dred Scott.
Speaker 2: Well, it is... For a lot of different reasons. I've
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time on Dred Scott and the
Speaker 2: history around Dred Scott. But the whole point is that
Speaker 2: here's a man who's trying to figure out a way
Speaker 2: to say that no way blacks could ever be citizens
Speaker 2: of this country, just by their very nature. And, of course,
Speaker 2: we revisit that old notion in the birthright case last term. Yep.
Speaker 2: in a different way and for different reasons. But the
Speaker 2: 14th Amendment in this country is critical because it's basically
Speaker 2: the second founding. And so you have to understand that.
Speaker 2: So what I think I owe my fellow citizens is
Speaker 2: not just to read the words of the Constitution, but
Speaker 2: to try to understand not just the 14th Amendment, but
Speaker 2: the revolution, leading up to the revolution, the history of England,
Speaker 2: the things that influence it. The Civil War, the post-Civil War,
Speaker 2: the Reconstruction era, and you may have to read people
Speaker 2: you don't necessarily agree with.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: For example, I read and reread Eric Foner on Reconstruction. Now,
Speaker 2: he's a revisionist historian, but he's fine. He does a
Speaker 2: great job of explaining Reconstruction and a lot of these problems,
Speaker 2: and I admire the work that he's done. At the
Speaker 2: same time, you may not agree. with the revolutionary period
Speaker 2: with Murray Rothbard because he's a libertarian. But he's written
Speaker 2: a couple of thousand pages on this and conceived in liberty.
Speaker 2: And it's worth reading because it gives you that sort
Speaker 2: of granular understanding of the revolutionary period.
Speaker 1: But you told me a story about Justice Breyer when
Speaker 1: he was robbed. And if you just share that story.
Speaker 2: Poor Steve Breyer. He's such a good man. So, Steve,
Speaker 2: this is a joke, and I hope I don't offend Steve.
Speaker 2: He's a very decent man. We spent a lot of
Speaker 2: years sitting next to each other. What a fun time.
Speaker 2: But at any rate, so Steve Breyer, he'd been robbed,
Speaker 2: and he didn't want it to be public. He didn't
Speaker 2: want the attention. And Nevis, where they have little property there.
Speaker 2: And he said, so he's telling the story to a
Speaker 2: number of us, a number of others as I walk
Speaker 2: in the room, that he turns to me because I
Speaker 2: wasn't there at the beginning. He said, Clarence, I had
Speaker 2: a question for you. You're on your porch. You're playing
Speaker 2: bridge with another couple, you and your wife, and a
Speaker 2: guy walks up with a machete. What would you do?
Speaker 2: And I said, I don't play bridge. He said, okay, okay,
Speaker 2: you're playing poker. And the guy walks over to the machete,
Speaker 2: and he says, he demands money. What would you do?
Speaker 2: He said, I don't play poker. I don't play cards, Steve.
Speaker 2: He said, what would you be doing on your porch?
Speaker 2: I said, cleaning my guns. And I said, do you
Speaker 2: want some ketchup with that? But at any rate, he
Speaker 2: is such, I hope that doesn't offend him, he is
Speaker 2: the nicest man. You know, I... And that goes back.
Speaker 2: I just, let me just say a word. You ask about,
Speaker 2: you know, the, the court and the work, et cetera.
Speaker 2: It's a human institution. And I've been blessed because I
Speaker 2: get along with the members of the court. Uh, we
Speaker 2: have a different set of colleagues now, uh, but they're wonderful.
Speaker 2: You've got, uh, Neil and Louise Gorsuch, the delightful, just
Speaker 2: wonderful couple. Um, And, you know, it takes a few
Speaker 2: years to get your legs, and he's done that. Brett
Speaker 2: Kavanaugh was just the nicest person. He and his wife, Ashley,
Speaker 2: she's a Texan. You've got the Alitos, Martha Ann and Sam. Again,
Speaker 2: and the Chief and Jane. I mean, it's a wonderful
Speaker 2: group of people. And it was when I came on
Speaker 2: the court. It's different now because I'm the oldest member
Speaker 2: as opposed to They're the youngest. As the New York
Speaker 2: Times said, the youngest and the cruelest. But, you know,
Speaker 2: it's just, I've just changed perspective. But still, it's a
Speaker 2: human institution with decent people on board.
Speaker 1: So I saw Brett and Ashley at Lindsey Graham's funeral.
Speaker 1: And they've been friends. I've known them for 30 years.
Speaker 1: Ashley was on the. 2000 George W. Bush campaign with
Speaker 1: Heidi and me. So we were all young staffers on
Speaker 1: that campaign. So I saw the two of them at
Speaker 1: Lindsey's funeral. I actually told Brett at the funeral a
Speaker 1: story during his confirmation hearing when Lindsey Graham went off.
Speaker 1: And I think it's his– Lindsey was a dear friend
Speaker 1: of mine and it was his finest moment I believe
Speaker 1: as a senator where he unloaded on the unfairness of
Speaker 1: what was happening and My mother had not previously been
Speaker 1: a fan of Lindsey Graham's. And in the hearing, she
Speaker 1: texts me and she says, okay, I now love Lindsey Graham.
Speaker 1: And she goes online and gives him 40 bucks. And
Speaker 1: so I walk over to Lindsey, I pull out my
Speaker 1: phone and I show him the text from my mom.
Speaker 1: And Lindsey is cracking up laughing.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, it is really interesting. And that goes
Speaker 2: to our country. People like people who stand up for
Speaker 2: what's right.
Speaker 1: Amen.
Speaker 2: And as I said to you from the beginning, I
Speaker 2: do not understand a lot about this town. I don't
Speaker 2: know who has the time for all this animus toward
Speaker 2: other people. I don't spend any of my day on
Speaker 2: that sort of thing. But the lying that takes place,
Speaker 2: the attacks on financial disclosure, it was laughable in one way,
Speaker 2: but just painful to just the lies.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: But you and Mike Lee and the others who stood
Speaker 2: up are dearly appreciated because we could not believe the
Speaker 2: inundation of just misstatements and falsehoods. And we don't have
Speaker 2: the capacity at the court to defend ourselves. We don't
Speaker 2: have a bully pulpit or anything like that. Most of
Speaker 2: us just simply are doing our jobs. And we can disagree.
Speaker 2: In the old days, I first became aware of the
Speaker 2: court when they're riding along US 17 between Savannah and
Speaker 2: the farm. There were these impeach Earl Warren signs after
Speaker 2: Brown v. Board of Education. And so I understand that
Speaker 2: people have different ways of reacting. to the work that
Speaker 2: we do, but this current environment that we're in is quite,
Speaker 2: excuse me, quite different from signs saying impeach Earl Warren.
Speaker 1: Well, Justice, let me say thank you. Thank you for,
Speaker 1: you've been incredibly generous with your time. Thank you for
Speaker 1: joining us on this podcast. Thank you for spending the
Speaker 1: time in the interviews to write this book. And look,
Speaker 1: I've said this before, but you are a true American hero.
Speaker 1: And I want to say to the folks listening, you're
Speaker 1: a young person, there are a lot of young people
Speaker 1: that listen to this podcast. If you are a young
Speaker 1: person and you're looking for someone to admire, someone to emulate,
Speaker 1: someone to walk along a path and be inspired by,
Speaker 1: you would be very hard pressed to find a better
Speaker 1: role model than Clarence Thomas. And that's why I wrote
Speaker 1: this book, because I think you are an incredibly historic
Speaker 1: significant human being and leader with courage and principle, and
Speaker 1: I am grateful. You can order the book, goingfurther.com, pre-order
Speaker 1: the book, buy it for your family. I think you'll
Speaker 1: like it. I think you'll learn. I hope in this
Speaker 1: podcast you've seen why I admire Justice Thomas so much
Speaker 1: and why I think you should as well. And thank
Speaker 1: you very much, and we'll see you on the next podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Justice.
Speaker 2: Thank you.