CSPAN - Conversation With Justice Jackson in Indianapolis

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July 11, 2025 13:53-15:11 - CSPAN

01:17:58

Conversation With Justice Jackson in Indianapolis

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justice ketanji brown jackson

scotus 49:19

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dr robert malone

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greta brawner

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peter navarro

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Speaker	Time	Text
unidentified		Public service and her view on the legal profession today.
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		We take you now to Supreme Court Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, being interviewed by the senior judge for the U.S. District Court for Southern Indiana, Jane Magnus Stinson.
		Justice Jackson talks about her tenure on the nation's highest court, her career in public service, and her view of the legal profession today.
		The hour-long conversation is hosted by the Indianapolis Bar Association.
peter navarro ▲ ● ▼		I think I need the moment now to catch my breath.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Good afternoon.
		Thank you all for being here.
		I am so moved by that.
		I think they picked that song because it was one of my grandmother's favorites that I talked about in my book.
		And let me start, as I tend to do with these kinds of sessions, reading from a part of my book, which will give you some background and get us warmed up.
		This is from the preface called A Sacred Trust.
		I had to keep reminding myself this moment was real.
		It was just before noon on the 30th day of June 2022, and I was standing in front of a plain wooden door that would soon open into the Grand West Conference Room of the Supreme Court of the United States.
		My family was already inside.
		My husband Patrick, our daughters, Talia and Layla, and my parents, Johnny and Ellery Brown, were there among the family members and friends who had gathered to witness my historic swearing-in.
		My heart was hammering so loudly that I wondered if the two black-robed men standing on either side of me, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and retiring Associate Justice Stephen G. Breyer, could hear it too.
		Only two hours before, they and the other seven justices of the Supreme Court had issued their final decision of the 2021-22 term.
		Justice Breyer, a pragmatic consensus builder, was now stepping down from that august body.
		Having been privileged to serve as one of his law clerks more than two decades before, I would be stepping up in his place.
		I drew a deep breath to steady myself as the door in front of us swung wide and a court officer stepped aside to allow our passage into the room.
		Suddenly blinded by bright lights, I took a moment to understand that the source was a bank of video cameras set up to record the ceremony.
		As my eyes adjusted and I processed into the chamber behind the two justices, I felt heartened by the sight of my loved ones beaming at me from rows of chairs on the right side of the room.
		Chief Justice Roberts began by warmly welcoming those present.
		Then he turned toward me, now assuming a more ceremonial air.
		Are you prepared to take the oath? He asked, his tone more formal than it had been a minute before.
		I am, I responded in a voice that sounded firmer than I felt.
		Patrick positioned himself between Chief Justice Roberts and me and held out a stack of two Bibles.
		Please raise your right hand, the Chief Justice said, and I did so briskly, simultaneously resting my left palm on the pair of holy books.
		On top was our ancient Jackson family Bible, its brittle pages protected by the black leather binding that Patrick had had the foresight to get refurbished in 2013 when I'd been appointed to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
		I had sworn every oath since then on this cherished family Bible, just as I would now swear the constitutional oath to be administered by Chief Justice Roberts, followed by the judicial oath to be given to me by Associate Justice Breyer.
		Nominated by President Joe Biden four months earlier, I, the daughter of African-American parents who had come of age in the segregated South during the 1950s and 1960s, would become the 116th justice and the first black woman to sit on the Supreme Court in its 233-year history.
		These details made the other sacred volume on which I would swear my historic oath doubly significant.
		Tucked beneath our family's holy book was the Harlan Bible, donated to the court in 1906 by Associate Justice John Marshall Harlan.
		This tome had been used for the oath-taking by every Supreme Court appointee since then.
		Each new justice had also signed one of the book's fly leaves after being sworn in.
		When the court curator came to me in my temporary chambers later that afternoon and brought the Bible so that I could add my own signature to the venerated role,
		I thought about the justices of Harlan's era who collectively decided in the Plessy v. Ferguson opinion that state laws mandating the separation of people by race did not violate the 14th Amendment of the Constitution so long as the separate facilities were equal.
		Harlan had been the sole dissenter in the notorious 1896 case.
		And now here I was affixing my signature to his Bible in black fountain pen ink.
		Only one generation after my mother and father had experienced the spirit-crushing effects of racial segregation in housing, schooling, and transportation while growing up in Florida, their daughter was standing on the threshold of history, the embodiment of our ancestors' dreams, ascending to a position that Justice Harlan and his colleagues likely never imagined possible for someone like me.
		But if Justice Harlan and his contemporaries could not have pictured this moment, my family and I, and indeed most of America, were fully cognizant of the significance of my nomination and confirmation to our nation's highest court.
		In subsequent conversations with people from across the country, I learned that I had been carried on a million prayers lifted up on my behalf since the day of my nomination.
		I also fielded an avalanche of invitations to speak or appear in person as excited well-wishers wanted to know my story in whatever form or fashion I might be willing to tell it.
		How was it, they wondered, that someone with such an unusual name and from such an unconventional background came to stand in such an unprecedented place, swearing an oath on two stacked Bibles that symbolized how far our nation had traveled.
		Mine has been an unlikely journey in many respects.
		And my book, my memoir, is about that journey.
unidentified		thank you for your interest in my story and i look forward to talking about it with you this afternoon you're going to say yeah so the justice is going to stand in the front of the stage and if you want to get a picture you can take it
		You can't line up or anything.
		Why don't we do this in sections like the first group?
		I'll get off the stage, but you might be able to make a mirror meeting myself.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Thank you.
		Thank you.
		A wave to the nice people.
unidentified		Thank you, but we're here.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Thank you all.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Get these together.
unidentified		Is this on?
		Oh, it is.
		I hear it now.
		So worried, you should have heard what I was saying at lunch.
		No, I'm just saying.
		Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our most special and honored guest, United States Supreme Court Justice Katanji Brown-Jackson.
		Before we start, I need to acknowledge two very important women.
		First, Lorraine Mays.
		She is Senior Judicial Assistant to Justice Jackson and our own Julie Armstrong, who tragically is unable to be with us today.
		This all looks like it was easy to do.
		Those two did more than anything.
		Thanks to the Indybar staff too, but we really appreciate the special, special effort you made to bring this very special person to be with us today.
		So we'll begin our conversation and talk about the book, which really talks about Justice Jackson, which I know you want to hear about.
		And I'm so glad you're here.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I'm delighted to be here.
unidentified		Thank you for having me.
		You said this memoir was written out of sheer gratitude that no one arrives at the highest of heights on their own and you also said that the vision precedes the passage.
		Can you tell us what you meant by this?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Well, first of all, thank you very much for being here, showing interest in my story.
		I wrote those words near the beginning of the book because I wanted to explain to people why it was I wrote the book, which I started actually just after my confirmation.
		I had a little bit of time and I felt so grateful for having gotten through that process.
		Some of you may have seen it.
		It was pretty arduous and I was very happy to have made it and I wanted to pay tribute to the people and the circumstances that I thought were really most responsible for that success.
		And so the book goes back to my grandparents, my parents, my many, many mentors in terms of school and other activities and just so many people who poured into me and made me feel ready for this particular honor.
unidentified		The timing of your birth, which is September 14th, 1970, that is Susa Virgo.
		I am.
		Being born to your remarkable parents, Ellery and Johnny Brown, was fortuitous.
		Can you tell us about that time and your parents that set you on the path to the United States Supreme Court?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, ma'am.
		So 1970 cannot be understated in terms of its significance or overstated in terms of its significance to my future and my ultimate success.
		1970 was within four to five years of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act and the end of Jim Crow segregation.
		My parents had grown up in Florida under segregation, having their life opportunities restricted.
		And when they graduated from college in 1968, they moved to Washington, D.C., as many, many African Americans did.
		I've met so many people who were born in Washington, D.C. in the late 1960s because this was where their help came from in terms of the changes in the laws.
		And so I'm born in 1970 in Washington, D.C., and my parents thought, this is our shot.
		This is our shot to do everything that we didn't get a chance to do.
		So our daughter's going to be in the swimming lessons if there's swimming lessons.
unidentified		She's going to do the piano lessons if there's piano lessons.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		I remember I was, you know, seven years old standing on a stage reciting a poem where my mom made me memorize.
		So it was a time of enormous excitement and opportunity, particularly for African Americans.
		And what my parents did is they were public school teachers at the time, and they were very intentional about teaching me that I could do anything I wanted because they really believed that.
		Here we are now at the dawn of a new era and our daughter can be anyone and they made me believe that.
		And I think it's a mindset more than anything that really is the key to success.
unidentified		We're glad they did, for sure.
		You titled your book Lovely One, which is a translation of your given name, Katanji Anyika.
		Can you share more about the origin of your name and the fabulous work of your aunt Carolyn?
		Well part of, this is sort of part of the story that I was telling.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		You know, my parents had gone to historically black colleges, which was typical of the time for sure, and very proud graduates of their schools.
		And they decided that in training and teaching their daughter to be proud of herself, they were going to give me an African name.
		My aunt, who had also graduated from Tuskegee University, which is where my mother graduated from, had gone to Africa and she was in the Peace Corps in Africa.
		And my mother asked her to send African names.
		And so she sent a list and my mother picked Kitanjanyika, which we were told translates to Lovely One.
unidentified		Good name.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Good name.
unidentified		Absolute name.
		Absolute name for a good person.
		And your family, your aunts, your uncles, your grandparents are so important to your development.
		And for what you just said, teaching you that you can do whatever you wanted to do.
		But that was despite their own circumstances and some of the hardships they endured.
		So could you tell us about how your grandparents, as you described it, push against the boundaries the country imposed on them to put your parents and eventually you several paces ahead of where they were?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Well, my grandparents on both sides of my family were from Georgia.
		And my maternal grandparents, who I talk mostly about in the book, were raised as young people, you know, born in the early 1900s at a time that was really significantly restricted for African Americans.
		My grandmother, neither of them actually ever really graduated from formal school, but they moved to Miami in the 1930s because at that time, late 19, I think, 39, 1940, Miami, even though it was racially segregated, was making investments in the black part of town.
		They created, some of you might know the movie Moonlight.
		Have you heard of this movie?
		The projects that are featured there were actually first developed in the early 1940s, mid-1940s, called Liberty City.
		And my mother was raised part of her upbringing in those projects, but it was a new development at the time for African Americans.
		And my grandparents moved there to take advantage of that.
		They never really got the opportunities to go to school, to finish schooling.
		My grandfather, at one point, he had been a chauffeur for white families in Georgia.
		And when he moved, when they moved to Florida, he became a driver for a beer company.
		And at one point, he got fed up with how he was being treated.
		And he started his own landscaping business.
		He was always good at gardening.
		And he would take in the local boys and his own sons.
		He had three sons to help with the business.
		And his hard work, really hard work, meant that they could afford ultimately to send all five of their children, including my mother, to school.
		And my parents, my uncles and aunts and my mother were first generation college students because my grandparents worked for that and knew how important education was.
		And so that's what I mean when I say that even wherever you are in life, you have to think about future generations and work hard to make opportunities for them.
unidentified		That's right.
		And mentors were important to you.
		Yes.
		Could you tell that Justice Jackson had a background in speech and public speaking in high school?
		And one of her mentors was her teacher Fran Berger.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Fran Berger.
		Who is fantastic.
		For those of you who are, I don't know if there are really any high school students left out here, but speech and debate was an extraordinary extracurricular activity for me in high school.
		Not the least of which was the fact that I got to meet this woman who was larger than life in so many ways, just extraordinarily kind and gracious, but also could get whatever she wanted.
		And she focused on me in particular, mentoring me.
		She saw something in me and she taught me how to reason, how to write.
		My primary activity was original oratory.
		So speech and debate is a suite of different activities involving, we call it forensics overall, but it involves both the debate teams and also the speakers.
		And I was on the speech part of it.
		And my main activity was original oratory, where you have to draft your own 10-minute speech, you memorize it, and then you present it competitively.
		And one of the things that it helped with was just getting over the fear of public speaking, which lots of people have and is normal to have, but if you want to be something like a litigator, it's helpful to be able to stand up and talk to people.
		And so I also got writing experience from that opportunity, learning how to write a speech.
		Being a speech writer is also somebody, you know, if you're thinking about a job that can help you in litigation in the long run, writing speeches is really critical because you hear the words.
		You understand how it sounds.
		And so it's helped, it helped me in writing, in public speaking.
		It was just extraordinary.
		And Franberger was a hoot.
		I spend two whole chapters in my book talking about her because it was so fun.
unidentified		Our daughter Jill Stinson is here and she's with her friend Emma Strinsky and they were both on speech.
		Yeah, great school.
		And Jill did original oratory.
peter navarro ▲ ● ▼		Nice.
peter navarro ▲ ● ▼		Yeah.
unidentified		Taking a minute here as well.
		Okay.
		So, but it was speech and debate that got you to that fancy school in the East known as Harvard.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, which I didn't know anything about, I will tell you.
unidentified		But you were captivated by your experience.
		Tell us.
		I was.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		So, you know, I grew up in Miami, Florida.
		I'd hardly traveled north.
		But part of the privilege of being on the debate team, if you're in a team that's very active, you travel.
		And we went my 10th, 11th, and 12th grade year to Harvard.
		We spent, I went to a big public high school in Miami, Florida, so we had to raise money all year for this trip.
		But we went in February to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and we were from Miami, so that was a thing.
		But I remember going, this seems like a nice school.
		You know, you go and you see all the postings on the bulletin board of the students walking around, and even though it was freezing, I thought, maybe I'll apply here.
		Actually, it was my reach school.
		I actually wanted to go to Georgetown because I had summered at a speech and debate camp.
		I'd done a couple of summers in Washington, D.C. at Georgetown, but I said, I'll put Harvard on the list, you know.
		And I didn't know anything about it, really, but it seemed like an ice school.
		And I got in, and it was very exciting.
		Should I tell my grandmother's story?
unidentified		Yes, tell your grandmother's story.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		So I mentioned that my grandmother, who never really had any formal schooling, but knew about HBCUs, historically black colleges.
		So I get into Harvard and I go to tell her, because we're really close to her house, and I say, Grandma, Grandma, I just got into Harvard.
		I'm so excited.
unidentified		And she said, oh, Howard, baby, that is so wonderful.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		She said, that's just amazing.
		I said, well, Grandma, I know I'd said I wanted to go to school in Washington, D.C., but this is a school in Massachusetts.
		You know, it's a really good school.
		And she said, oh, well, I'm sure that Harvard is a perfectly good school, too.
unidentified		Judge Walter Kratt graduated from Harvard, or Howard Law.
unidentified		Howard Law.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, exactly.
unidentified		So to take away here, everybody, if your kids are little, put them in speech and debate.
		Right?
		So you talked about your time at Harvard, that it wasn't easy at first.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		It was not.
unidentified		And you were homesick.
		And you missed your grandma in particular.
		But a chance encounter walking home through Harvard Yard happens.
		Tell us about that.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		So, you know, again, I was from Florida.
		It was cold in Cambridge.
		As was mentioned, my birthday was in September.
		And I remember I was a few days away from my birthday.
		At the beginning, you know, it's exciting.
		You're in this new school.
		You're meeting people.
		We're about two weeks in.
		My birthday is September 14th.
		And I just got so homesick.
		I was going to be turning 21 and I didn't really know anybody.
		No one knew it was my birthday.
		I missed my family.
		It was the first time I would ever spend a birthday without my big extended family.
		And I remember sitting on the steps of Widener Library, which is the big library in the yard at Harvard, like bawling.
		It was like a couple days before my birthday.
		What am I doing here?
		And I was walking through the yard, main part of campus, and I guess I had that look, like someone who was feeling very out of place.
		And a black woman I didn't know was crossing me, passing me on the path.
		And she leaned over and she said, persevere.
peter navarro ▲ ● ▼		Persevere.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		And I was like, wow.
		And, you know, it didn't immediately click for me, but a couple days later was my birthday.
		And I got letters from my mom and I got a letter from my aunt.
		My aunt who named me went on to become a missionary.
		And she traveled all over the world.
		And she wrote me a letter on my birthday that I still have that she said something to the effect of, you know, God has sent angels to be all around you.
		So just remember that when you're on campus.
		And I thought, maybe that lady was an angel.
		And it helped.
		It helped.
		And then I started, you know, finding friends and getting a little bit more comfortable.
		But I do remember it was a real low point when I got that piece of advice.
unidentified		We're all very glad she whispered in your ear to persevere.
		But you were, even though you were at the fancy school, Harvard, it was not a, you were not a stranger, or you did not, racism was not a strange experience.
		In fact, someone put a Confederate flag in their window while you were there.
		And that was a real tumultuous time on campus.
		Can you talk about that?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		So, you know, you have a lot of different memories from school, from college.
		One of the most significant ones that I had was perhaps, I think it might have been either my sophomore or my junior year.
		My roommates and I, I was living with five other black women and we were part of the Black Students Association and very active on campus.
		We're walking through the quad, which is where we lived, and someone had, one of the students had hung a big Confederate flag in his dorm window looking out over the yard and to make sure that no one missed it, he put a light in it so that like 24 hours a day you could see this thing.
		And the Black Students Association was obviously very upset and kicked into gear and we're making flyers and we're trying to get the university appointments with the president, you know, get them to do something about this.
		And it was a pretty difficult time for a lot of black students who already felt a little bit out of place, but to come to a place and then be made to feel other in this way was tough.
		But I also noticed that we were taking a lot of time out of our studying and out of our work to address this situation.
		And so at one of our Black Students Association meetings, I brought up what at the time was one of my favorite quotes from Tony Morrison, who said, always remember that the very real function of racism is distraction.
		That it keeps you from doing your work.
		You know, someone says your head is not shaped correctly and you spend the next 20 years trying to get scientists to prove that it is.
		Someone says you don't have a kingdom and you hire people to prove that that's not the case.
		You know, stay focused.
		And I mentioned this and talked with a lot of my friends and we really tried to make sure that we weren't impeding our ability to do the work which was exactly what the person who had put the flag would want for us to do.
		So it was a big kind of turning point in the way that I view my purpose, which is to stay as focused as I can on the work that I was called to do.
unidentified		I think we all could learn that lesson, especially now let's don't be distracted from the good work that we want to do and the oath that Judy reminded us that we took and the people we're here to serve because there's a lot of distracting things going on, but we're just going to keep it going, right?
		Okay.
		So let's talk about adulthood, your career and your family.
		Oh wait, wait, wait, gotta go, go, gotta go to gotta go.
		It was at Harvard that you met your now husband.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, my now.
unidentified		The wonderful Patrick Jackson.
		Can you tell us how your paths crossed and you continued to align in college?
		And will you also share the Hallmark movie of how you each thought the other only wanted to be friends?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
		Well, so let me say, for those of you who aren't aware, Patrick is, I would say, a Boston Brahmin.
		Do you know that phrase?
		This is, he and his family have been in the Boston area since before the Mayflower.
		He is seventh generation Harvard and is like a totally different world.
		But we met in a class at Harvard called The Changing Concept of Race in America.
		He was a sociology major and he wanted to learn all about people and he was in this class and he would sit behind me and tap on my shoulder and put his keys on my earrings and do all kinds of silly things.
		And at first I thought, oh, this guy is silly, but then I thought, oh, he's kind of cute, you know.
		And what I noticed was that we were in this class.
		Let's say it was Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and he would be very chatty with me.
		And then on Tuesday and Thursday in our government class, I would look down the row and I would wave and I'd try to talk to him.
		And he would like pretend like he didn't know who I was.
		You know, he wasn't responsive at all, like half the time.
		So I said to my roommates, what is going on with this guy?
		You know, it's so hot and cold.
		And he said, leave him alone.
		He's crazy.
		And I said, no, I'm going to confront him on one of the friendly days.
		So I said to him, just about two weeks into our knowing each other, I said, why don't you speak to me in our government class?
		And he said, I'm not taking a government class.
		And he said, yes, you are.
		I see you in this class.
		And he says, oh, you must be talking about my identical twin brother because he has an identical twin brother.
		And I did not know this.
		So that was a little something.
		And that was in the fall of my sophomore year, his junior year.
		And so we became friends, you know, not romantic friends, just friends.
		He started dating this other woman, you know, whatever.
		But I did kind of secretly like him because he was really cute.
		By the end of the year, he and his girlfriend had broken up and he was hanging out a lot with us.
		And he invited me to come to his family.
		Now, remember, he's from Boston and we're in Cambridge, so not very far.
		His family has a vacation home on the cake.
		And this is like the last day of my sophomore year.
		And I'm done with exams and I'm packing up my room.
		And he says, you know, do you want to come with me to see this house that I've been talking about?
		Great.
		Now I'm thinking, are we on a date?
		I don't know if we're on a date.
		I never really dated anyone, so it was hard to say, but he never tried anything.
		We go to this house.
		The house is boarded up because they don't open it up until the spring.
		He just wanted me to see it.
		But, you know, he doesn't try to hold my hand.
		He doesn't try to do anything.
		So by, you know, a couple of hours in, I'm starting to get really annoyed now because I'm like, okay, this guy obviously doesn't like me.
		You know, we're by ourselves.
		Nothing's happening.
unidentified		So why am I here?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		He says, so my parents live in Dedham.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		And why don't I go, why don't I go to their house, to my house, and I'll cook dinner for you and then I'll take you back to the dorm.
unidentified		And I'm like, whatever.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		We're really upset.
		So we go and he makes dinner and he's like, okay, so do you want to see a movie?
		We still have some time, you know, before I take you back.
		I'm like, fine.
		We're sitting on the couch in their den and he does one of these.
		And I say, no, and I jump up because at this point now, I had convinced myself that we did not like each other, that he didn't like me, and I didn't want to, you know, have the problem.
		And he said, what's wrong?
		And I said, I just don't want to be hurt.
		He said, I just don't want to be hurt.
unidentified		And the woman went, oh.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		And he said, Katanji, I will never hurt you.
		I love you.
		And I was like, what?
		And we dated, we dated from that point on for seven and a half years, and we've been married for 28 years.
unidentified		Single young men in the room remember that.
		I will never hurt you, and I love you.
		All right, well, let's turn to your careers and your roles in the legal system.
		So, start with your time as a law clerk.
		You've served as a district law clerk, a circuit law clerk, and a Supreme Court law clerk.
		Can you share the highlights of those experiences and tell them, and especially our law student people here, what's the value of a clerkship?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Oh my goodness, the clerkship is just extraordinary.
		So, first of all, I had great good fortune of clerking at each level of the federal system, and they're all very different.
		And I felt very privileged to be able to see how a judge operates, especially if you are thinking about litigation as your long-term career goal.
		There really is nothing like seeing a case from the perspective of the judge.
		And if you think about what you do as a litigator, your job is to persuade the judge to rule in favor of your client.
		And so, having a chance to work with a judge, seeing things from their perspective, reading all the briefs that come in, seeing people day after day in court.
		You know, there's a point at which, at least for me, it was like, oh, I'm so much better than that person.
		You build your own self-confidence by engaging with the lawyers who appear before your judge.
		And so, I always, always attempt, oops, sorry, always attempt to encourage law students to apply to clerkships.
		It can be any clerkship, it can be any judge.
		Just get the experience of having worked for them.
		And also, you develop a mentor-mentee relationship that will be there for you professionally throughout your career.
		Also, extremely significant.
unidentified		So, another experience you had in your career is that you're the only, I believe, United States Supreme Court justice who ever worked as a public defender.
peter navarro ▲ ● ▼		That is true. Thank you.
unidentified		So, can you tell us about that work and then also your work on the Sentencing Commission and how that sort of informs your judging today or your judging in the past?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Well, it certainly informs my judging as a district judge, which was an enormously wonderful opportunity to be a district judge.
		I think one of the stories that I often tell is how being a public defender and interacting with my clients made me a better district judge.
		The sort of particular thing that I noticed, I was an appellate defender, which meant that all of my clients had been convicted and I was assigned to work with them to draft their briefs on appeal and try to argue their cases.
		I was in the District of Columbia, so I had my own caseload arguing in the DC Circuit on behalf of criminal defendants who had been convicted.
		And one of the things that you do in this position is you go and you talk to your client and you say, Okay, can you help me?
		You know, they're all in jail and you're calling them.
		Can you help me figure out what happened at your trial that you think might have been a problem that I can look into as a basis for appeal?
		And very few of them really understood what had happened.
		I mean, they had gone through the most consequential time and you know, thing that they've ever done in their entire lives, and they were not able to really understand the trial process and what had happened.
		And I think that experience stayed with me as a judge because I decided very early on that I was going to focus on communicating with the defendants who came before me in the courtroom.
		That, you know, they might not agree with what ultimately happened to them if I sentenced them or whatever, but they weren't going to be confused about the process.
		And so I would script out my sentencings.
		And I had steps.
		And I would say, Mr. So-and-so, this is a sentencing.
		This is what's going to happen.
		Here are the steps.
		Do you have any questions?
		I can answer them.
		Because I felt that it was so important to treat the people who came before me with respect because it was crucial for their rehabilitation.
		My clients weren't rehabilitating because they were too upset at being mistreated in the process.
		And so what I said is, I want these people to reform.
		I want them to come out of prison and not do this anymore.
		And in order to be able to facilitate that, I've got to show them that the process was fair, that they were heard, and that even though this is not the result that they wanted, right, they are suffering the consequences of their decisions to engage in criminal behavior.
		I would say that in my script.
		You know, I'm sentencing you because you have to face the consequences of your decision to engage in criminal behavior.
		So it made me a much better district judge, I think.
		I think it made me a better or makes me a better appellate judge because I have seen the real impact on people, on their families.
		When you're representing people as a defender, you are engaging with them in a way that you don't when you're at the Supreme Court.
		So it was enormously, enormously impactful for me to be a defender.
unidentified		Our Chief Justice has a phrase, Loretta Rush.
		She says, the hot breath of humanity, right?
		That you have to be able to feel the hot breath of humanity.
		I think those rules did for you.
		But there was important, important, impactful work at the Sentencing Commission that was accomplished when you were there that cured some very serious inequities in sentencing law that really had a racial impact.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Can you share that with our group?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		So many people are familiar with the 100 to 1 crack powder sentencing disparity that used to exist.
		This is the legislature deciding that this is Congress deciding to set mandatory minimums at varying levels depending upon the kind of drug that you were convicted of.
		And when they initially set up these mandatory minimums, you would get the same amount of time in jail for 100 times more powder than for cracks.
		You could have an ounce of crack and get five years, and you'd have to have 100 rams or whatever, I can't remember of powder.
		And what was doing was the commission did a lot of research into this because crack cocaine was more prevalent in African American communities.
		It was resulting in a dramatic inequity in terms of sentences, mandatory minimum sentences for people in the African American communities, getting much, much longer sentences.
		And so the Commission did a lot of research and Congress eventually changed the ratios, not one to one, which is what the defenders pushed for and many judges pushed for, but they changed it dramatically to make it better during my time, right before I came onto the commission.
		And then the commission had to decide whether we were going to make those changes retroactive in the guidelines, which was our bailiwick.
		And it was a pretty dramatic time, but we all decided unanimously, the Sentencing Commission is a seven-member bipartisan by statute board.
		And it was a pretty big deal to get all seven members of the Sentencing Commission to agree to retroactively reduce the sentences for people who had been sentenced under this really draconian, inequitable, mandatory minimum sentence, sentencing system.
		And so I was very proud of the work that we did.
		I gave a very impassioned speech about it.
unidentified		You should watch it on YouTube.
unidentified		I think you actually clap like this when it happened.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		But it was great.
unidentified		It was great.
		You also worked for the Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem.
		Yes.
		And you saw there, you said, the way law can hurt or help people.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Can you describe ways that you've tried to use law to help people?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my goodness.
		Well, the law can certainly help people in many different ways locally in your community if there are equity, you know, inequities.
		There are lots of good lawyers, defenders, people who are trying to ensure that the government does what it's supposed to do in respecting people's rights.
		The Neighborhood Defender Service of Harlem, which I would also recommend to law students, if there are law students out there, I went and worked for them for a summer.
		This is in Harlem.
		It's a program of the Vera Institute of Justice.
		And it was really new when I first started, but I interned before I became a lawyer.
		And I was from Miami, Florida, totally different dynamic than Harlem in the city.
		And I just learned so much about how the law works from interacting with real people in that position.
		So law school students, there are lots of opportunities to try to really understand the law.
		And I would encourage you to do something like that.
unidentified		And if I could make an unpaid commercial announcement, on our court, you can also volunteer to represent a prisoner who has litigation and needs to go to trial.
		So we have some volunteers.
		I don't know if they're here.
		Ms. Burpo and Mr. Hughes, if you're here, raise your hand.
		But thank you for your trial on Tuesday.
		And at the end of it, even though he lost, the prisoner plaintiff said, thank you for the forum, judge.
		Yes.
		So that's a great way that you can help human beings.
		But let's switch back real quick to Patrick, because I know a lot of the people here, and I know a lot of people here are parents and two-job parents.
		And you and Patrick have navigated those challenges.
		Can you share with us that experience?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Yes.
unidentified		Your advice?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Patrick is a surgeon.
		And as you heard from my story, we met in college and he was going to medical school and I was going to law school.
		And so we both knew that we had pretty demanding careers ahead of us.
		And we decided early on that because our careers were important to us, we were going to essentially take turns in terms of the parts of our career that we could manage, to the extent we could manage it.
		So when he went through his residency, for example, he was a surgical resident, which is a five-year program after four years of medical school.
		He was a resident at the Mass General, which is a very, very demanding program.
		At that point, we had an infant, and even though I knew I probably would not end up at a law firm, I took a law firm position, and I was pretty unhappy.
		But, you know, it was sort of my opportunity to kind of care for our family, both, you know, make some money so that we could actually survive while he was pressing forward very vehemently, very aggressively with preparing for his career.
		Before we had our daughter, when I was clerking on the Supreme Court, he took a year off of his residency program, making it six years, and moved down to D.C. to support me while I was clerking, because you can barely like find food or do anything during that time.
		So he did research at Georgetown while I was on the Supreme Court.
		And we sort of did that back and forth.
		When we look back, it wasn't really conscious, it wasn't a plan, but when we look back over our careers, we were both able to make it as far as we were because we throttled forward and back in support of our partner.
unidentified		That's great.
		More great advice, everybody.
		Okay.
		So following your nomination and confirmation to the DC District Court.
		Oh, oh, oh, can you share one of my favorite quotes from the book?
		It actually, it's Justice Jackson quoting someone else about when your children are adolescents.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, yeah.
		It's a great quote.
		So when your children are younger, your job is to be their CEO.
		You are organizing everything.
		And as they age, if you're lucky, they will fire you as a CEO and hire you back as a consultant.
		That's what you want.
peter navarro ▲ ● ▼		That's really true.
unidentified		I love that quote.
		And I've shared it with people.
		It's very important.
		Okay, so let's talk about your nomination and confirmation to the DC District Court.
		And you said there, it takes a village to raise a judge.
		Yes.
		I once said it takes a metropolitan area to raise two children.
		Thank you.
		All the people in my village who are here and helped us with the girls.
		But you've talked about friends and family members who've been essential parts of your village, but it gave special credit to Justice Breyer.
		Can you share that relationship with us?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, it's just extraordinary.
		I mean, he's an extraordinary human being.
		He's a brilliant jurist and one who really focuses on collegiality and compromise and trying to bring the justices together in ways that have been very significant.
		And of course, he has a way of looking at the Constitution in particular that I think has been very significant for me as I develop my own thoughts about it.
		And he's still around.
		So I'm lucky.
		He comes floating through, coming by my office.
		I actually have the benefit of being in his old chambers.
		So when he retired, I'm back in the same offices I was 20 years ago as his law clerk, which is really lovely.
		And he's great.
unidentified		That's awesome.
		Many people in your life believed that you would be on the Supreme Court today.
		Even your 11-year-old daughter, Layla, wrote a letter to President Obama in 2016.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		She did.
unidentified		Encouraging him to nominate you to fill Justice Scalia's vacancy after he had passed.
unidentified		Can you describe how you felt when you learned about the letter?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Oh my gosh.
		Well, this is actually probably one of my favorite stories.
		It could be the best in the book.
		So many of you remember when Justice Scalia died and it was pretty out of nowhere for a lot of people.
		My daughter was in middle school at the time and I had been a district judge for about three years.
		And she comes home one day, this might have been two weeks after Justice Scalia passed and she said, mom, you heard Justice Scalia died, right?
		Yes, I heard.
		She said, so my friends and I were talking and we know that you're a judge, so we think that you should apply for that position.
		And I said, sweetie, you know, I said, you know, that's very sweet, but being a Supreme Court justice is not the kind of thing that you apply for.
		You know, you just have to be doing your job.
		You're a good judge, and the president hears about you, and then he nominates you.
		And she said, oh, well, if the president has to hear about you, I'm going to write him a letter and tell him who you are.
		So she goes off.
		She's like 11 years old.
		She goes off.
		I was very amused by this.
		But she comes back with an actual letter that she's written.
		And it was just so amazing that she, first of all, would endorse me.
		I mean, you know, she's 11.
		I'm like not the mom that's making the homemade cookies and they'll go to a cookie sale.
		So I just felt so pleased and grateful that she even knew what I was doing.
		But really the big emotion was that I was raising a young woman who wasn't afraid to speak her mind even to the president of the United States.
		And I thought, I thought I must be doing something right.
unidentified		Like mother, like daughter.
		Right, okay.
		So speaking of 11-year-olds, when you were 11 years old, you decided you wanted to be a judge and did.
		You were modeling yourself after Judge Constance Baker Motley.
		Could you share a little bit about Judge Motley with the group if people don't know and what she meant?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		So Judge Motley was the first African-American woman appointed to the federal bench in the mid-1960s.
		And she had been a civil rights litigator on Justice Thurgood Marshall's team in his group going through the South arguing cases in small places and large places.
		She also, she was one of the architects of the Brown versus the Board litigation.
		She was also a Supreme Court litigator.
		She argued something like 10 cases in the United States.
		She was the first black woman to argue in the Supreme Court.
		She argued 10 cases in the Supreme Court and she won nine of them.
		She was brilliant.
		She was born on my birthday.
		We were birthday twins.
		And this was the thing that was so mind-blowing for me.
		I learned by looking at one of the magazines my parents had around about September birthdays and then I looked and here was this woman who was born 49 years to the day before I was and because of the times in which she lived she didn't have the opportunity to serve on the Supreme Court.
		So it made me feel very, first of all, very grateful to do what I'm doing now.
		But back when I was 11 and I thought, oh, I could be a judge.
		I didn't say earlier that my father, who was a public school teacher when I was born, went back to law school when I was three years old.
		And some of my earliest memories are of sitting at the kitchen table and he has his law books and I have my coloring books and we're working together.
		So I had always thought I wanted to be a lawyer.
		I didn't know what else you were supposed to do.
		We lived on the campus of the law school.
		So I'd always thought I wanted to be a lawyer.
		But then when I learned about Judge Motley, I thought I could be a judge.
		And then I learned about Justice O'Connor.
		And I thought, well, maybe here's the first woman on the Supreme Court.
		Now women can be on the Supreme Court.
		And I just, those role models were pivotal for me, I think, from that early age, thinking that this might be something I wanted to do.
		So much so that for my Harvard application, I wrote, I was in speech and debate, and I was also doing a lot of acting as a part of speech and debate as well.
		And for my Harvard application, I wrote that you really have to accept me because I have a dream of being the first black woman, Supreme Court justice, to appear on a Broadway stage.
unidentified		And didn't you?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		I did.
unidentified		I was.
unidentified		Tell me about Broadway.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		So I got to be a Supreme Court justice, and then the producers of this show, Anne Juliet, which was on Broadway at the time, read about this in the book and called me and said, hey, we can make it happen.
		And I was like, okay.
		And it was great.
		I did a one-night-only performance and it was really super fun.
unidentified		Well, she's also a singer.
		And if you listen to the book, she's speaking it.
		But there are times when she sings.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		I do sing.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Not like those people.
unidentified		Not like the big sister.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, my gosh.
unidentified		But she did sing His Eyes on the Sparrow.
		That's why that was the second accident.
		Yeah.
		So it's a pretty daunting task to write somebody's memoir.
		When I try to journal, I feel like I'm writing my sixth grade diary, so I quickly stop.
		But it's really demanding if you've just been named to the United States Supreme Court.
		So tell us, why did you write this book?
		What led you to write it at this moment in time?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I mentioned that I wrote it out of gratitude and I had a fabulous collaborator.
		There are people, there are authors who specialize in memoirs.
		There are memoirists.
		And so I was able to find a woman who I was very compatible with, who interviewed me and all of my family members.
		My parents are still with us, and so that was very helpful.
		And all my friends, and she actually did the first draft, but it took us about two years to write this book together.
		Yeah.
unidentified		It's a wonderful book.
		You'll love it if you haven't read it, and you'll love reading it again if you have.
		What were your expectations arriving to the Supreme Court?
		How are they met or not met?
		How are they changing?
		How did you adapt to the reality of that role?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Well, I was fortunate to have been a Supreme Court law clerk, so I was familiar with the building.
		Institution doesn't change that much.
		You know, so I knew the general contours, but of course, there's nothing like being a justice.
		For those of you who've never been to the Supreme Court, I encourage you to go.
		When I do these kinds of talks, I always say to people, please come to the court.
		It's a government institution.
		It's a public building.
		You should know how your government works.
		We live in a democracy.
		And so I asked people to come, but I'm sitting up on the bench and looking out for the first time was pretty extraordinary.
		I think I didn't realize how formal the court really is.
		I kind of thought maybe when the justices go into conference, they let their hair down a little bit, you know.
		No.
unidentified		No.
unidentified		That's a problem.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		We speak in order, seniority order.
		We vote in seniority order.
		Shake each other's hands every time in a ritual that we do before going out to the bench or if we're just having a conference day before conference every time.
		And so it's kind of interesting and neat, but it's quite a formal institution.
		Yeah.
unidentified		Was that what you expected?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		I don't think I expected it that.
		I mean, certainly I've got a glimpse of that from the clerkship, but I'm talking about what we do behind closed doors when no one is there.
		So yeah, that was very interesting.
unidentified		I've noticed some unexpected to me, Gorsetz-Jackson pairings this term.
		Any comment?
		No comment.
		Okay.
		I knew.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		No, I mean, you, you know, you end up aligning with different justices at different times because the cases vary.
		And sometimes you'll find someone who you wouldn't ordinarily be aligned with who thinks about this issue in the same way that you do.
		And I think this was last term most significantly that there were articles written about it, which I got a kick out of.
unidentified		All the speculation.
		The current makeup of the court means that you are sometimes in the minority.
		Sometimes.
		How do you decide when you're going to issue a dissent?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		You know, I dissent, well, first of all, just in terms of the sheer mechanics, there are nine justices on the court, and when we do our conference vote, we know within a few days of the oral argument how the court has voted in a case.
		And sometimes it'll take months for us to get the opinion out, but we know internally.
		And the most senior, the justice with the most seniority on the majority side and on the minority side, is responsible for making the assignments.
		So, you know, in a case that we have a lot of unanimity, actually, in a lot of our cases, but in a split decision, let's say it's a 6-3 decision with me, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Kagan in the minority, Justice Sotomayor will decide who's going to write the dissent, the principal dissent.
		Sometimes she will assign one to me.
		It just depends on the way in which the cases are breaking down.
		But then there are some times when even after the principal dissent is written, I have a slightly different perspective or a different take on something, or this is an issue of particular importance to me for whatever reason, where I will say, forgive me, Justice Sotomayor, but I need to write on this case.
		And it's because I feel like I might have something to offer and something to add.
		And I'm not afraid to use my voice.
		So, you know, it just it really depends on the issue and the circumstances.
unidentified		Now, I know when you do issue a dissent, the opinions are circulated before they're issued.
		So sometimes the majority writer can address the dissent in the majority opinion.
		And as I've said to people, sometimes it isn't the what you're saying, it's the how.
		Does that ever hurt your feelings more the how than the what?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		I have a very thick skin.
unidentified		Yes, you do.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		I do.
		I mean, maybe that's part of the blessing.
		You go all the way back to the beginning, talking about what your parents gave to you.
		Yeah.
		You know, my parents gave to me a sense of my own ability to write and to speak out and to say what I have to say and to not be really offended by other people saying what they have to say.
		So I don't, I actually don't get my feelings hurt.
		What I do is I try to respond as effectively as I can in my writings.
unidentified		Okay, can we do a lightning round?
		Sure.
		All right.
		What advice would you give your younger self?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, network.
		Network.
		I was kind of shy.
		I'm actually an introvert.
		I'm learning.
		But I wish that I had taken more advantage of talking with older people, mentors, people in the fields going through my career.
unidentified		What book are you reading right now?
unidentified		I think you just mentioned it.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Yes, I'm reading a book called Quiet by Susan Kane about the power of introversion, about the power of introverts.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		I'm very, very excited by it.
unidentified		What's your favorite song?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Oh, I don't know.
		What is my favorite song?
		Oh, probably to share a lens To Be Real.
		It's a good song.
unidentified		Yeah, it's a great song.
		We're going to play that at a bar association function now, in your honor.
		It'll be our theme, song, To Be Real.
		What keeps you up at night?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		I would say the state of our democracy.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		I would say that I am really very interested in getting people to focus and to invest and to pay attention to what is happening in our country and in our government.
unidentified		Who's your favorite United States District Judge?
unidentified		Oh!
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		No comments.
unidentified		What's your favorite food?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		My favorite food?
		I don't know.
		What is my favorite?
		Fried chicken, probably.
unidentified		Okay.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		Fried chicken.
unidentified		Okay.
unidentified		Let's get up for fried chicken, everybody.
peter navarro ▲ ● ▼		All right.
unidentified		We'll serve that when we play To Be Real.
		And are you watching any TV right now?
		And if so, what?
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		You know, not right now, but only because my favorite show is not on right now, which is Survivor.
peter navarro ▲ ● ▼		Survivor's anything.
peter navarro ▲ ● ▼		Of course.
unidentified		I love Survivor.
		All right, well, we're at time, ladies and gentlemen.
		I just want to give you some advice, which is this.
		Join a committee.
		If somebody asks you to join a committee, say yes, because you might make meet a really special friend.
justice ketanji brown jackson ▲ ● ▼		That's how we met.
unidentified		So on behalf of the Indy Bar, the Asian Pacific Bar Association of Indiana, the Mary County Bar Association, and Indy Bar's Hispanic Lawyers Division and Lambda Committee, we offer you our heartfelt thanks for making the trip to our city and for sharing your story and for giving many of us hope in these turbulent times.
		Thank you.
		Coming up live at 3.10 p.m. Eastern, President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump participate in a discussion with first responders and local officials involved in the flood relief and recovery efforts in Kerrville, Texas.
		Authorities have confirmed at least 120 deaths across six Texas counties due to the flooding and more than 170 people still missing.
		Watch the President's Visit live here on C-SPAN.
		Sunday on C-SPAN's Q&A.
		Dr. Robert Malone, recently appointed to the CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, talks about his book, Cy War, in which he argues that the U.S. government uses psychological warfare against Americans to control them.
		He also talks about how his career as a virolog and immunologist took a turn after he criticized the government's response to the COVID pandemic.
dr robert malone ▲ ● ▼		I think what we had was kind of an emergent, multifaceted campaign that was driven by fear and driven by a number of falsehoods that were readily accepted and promoted through money by various organizations such as USAID and various NGOs,
dr robert malone ▲ ● ▼		and perhaps by the pharmaceutical industry to suppress alternative voices and promote a harmonized narrative wrapped around the logic that anything that would cause people to become vaccine hesitant had to be suppressed.
unidentified		And of course, that is in direct opposition to the logic of informed consent.
		American physician and biochemist Dr. Robert Malone, Sunday night at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A and all of our podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts or on the free C-SPAN Now app.
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greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		We want to welcome to our table this morning Tyler Page.
		He's co-author of the new book, 2024, How Trump Retook the White House and the Democrats Lost America.
		He's a reporter with the New York Times and White House correspondent.
		Joining him is his co-author, Isaac Arnsdorf, and Isaac Arnsdorf is a Washington Post senior White House correspondent.
		Your third co-author is Josh Dossi of the Wall Street Journal.
		Thank you both for being here.
		We appreciate it.
		Let's just start overall, Tyler.
		There's many books that have been written about 2024 and the campaign.
		How is yours different?
tyler pager ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, so we set out to write the comprehensive and definitive story of the 2024 election.
		And there's a lot of material out there.
		There's a lot to be read.
		But we think that this book is the one to read because it takes you through the entire two-year election cycle.
		It doesn't just start with the fateful debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.
		It starts with the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago to retrieve classified documents.
		And it starts before the 2022 midterms, where there are Democrats eager and plotting to run for president, believing Joe Biden will not.
		And so it takes you from those two critical juncture points through the inauguration of Donald Trump.
		And it's important to understand all of what's happening much before the debate to really understand what happened that night and how the election turned out as it did.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, Isaac, let's start then with the beginning of the book.
		I just want to read a little bit from the book jacket before we do that.
		On November 5th, 2024, Trump was elected the nation's 47th president and would return to power vindicated, emboldened, unrestrained, and burning for revenge.
		I want to start with those adjectives, vindicated.
		What do you mean?
unidentified		Well, I mean, Trump ran this election his way, and he won.
		For him to have campaigned openly on pardoning January 6th defendants, imposing tariffs, deporting millions of people, he views that and to win the popular vote for the first time, which eluded him the first time, he views that as a license to govern even more aggressively than in the first term and take care of a lot of unfinished business and address a lot of things that he and his advisors regret from the first time around.
		And we've absolutely seen that play out in the first six months.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Tyler, emboldened.
tyler pager ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, look, one of the things that is a theme throughout the book, we start the book with Trump meeting with his lawyers on a separate criminal case.
		And much of his last two years before taking office were consumed by legal challenges.
		He, as we well know, spent much of those two years ragging against those criminal charges, saying they were bogus, unfair.
		You know, the Justice Department was weaponized.
		And he says, you know, our co-author Josh Tossie did an interview with him at Mar-Lago 10 days before the inauguration.
		And he said to Josh, you know, if I had not won, my life would be very unpleasant.
		So he is, you know, he saw the best path to freedom as winning the presidential election.
		And so his ability to no longer have to deal with those criminal charges and his feeling that the American people sent him to the White House with a mandate, he feels that he's unburdened by some of the restraints he felt, as Isaac said, during the first term.
		And particularly from that period in his post-presidency when he was a pariah.
		I mean, one of the interesting scenes in the book is his presidential launch when he couldn't even get any senator, very few members of Congress to come.
		And he went from that to having the whole world sort of sitting there at the inauguration celebrating his second term.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		So Isaac, what would you add to unrestrained?
unidentified		Well, part of the book looks at how he transformed the institutional Republican Party, clearing the way for his regaining the nomination, which was not at all a done deal if you think about how weak he was after the 2022 midterms.
		And that control over the party is how he's governing now as well, with the congressional majorities and the ability, even with a very small majority in the House, but a larger one in the Senate, to keep his Republicans in line.
		And if you look at the Tom Tillis news, it seems like in every cycle there's one of those retiring Republicans who is using that opportunity to assert some independence from Trump, but keeps moving right because of how the party has transformed.
		I mean, Tillis is not a corker.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Sticking with you, Isaac, burning for revenge.
unidentified		Well, I mean, Trump was very explicit about that in the campaign.
		And meaning it both in terms of himself personally, the people who he blames for the prosecutions, wanting to turn the heat back around on them.
		But he also talks about it in terms of a way that his supporters can identify the wrongs that they feel like the previous administration committed against them and wanting to turn that on its head and have the other side feel the pain.
		And again, that's very, that's the way that he has approached the first six months.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Tyler, you mentioned the Mar-a-Lago raid.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		How consequential was that for the president?
tyler pager ▲ ● ▼		Yeah, I mean, I think it was hugely consequential.
		We have reporting in the book about multiple Republican allies, including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who told us that Trump was not dead set on running for a third time.
		This was not something where it was automatically the day after he left office he was set on running.
		He was thinking about it, contemplating it, and then the FBI search on Mar-a-Lago really was a critical juncture point where he saw the best path to his freedom as winning again.
		And so, definitely a determining factor in that decision.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		Let me read from the book.
		Finally, the Mar-a-Lago search forced Trump's hand.
		It made me more resolute, he would later say in an interview for this book.
		He wanted to get ahead of any possible indictments by officially declaring his candidacy, which he thought would help portray the charges as politicized.
		Quote, he was not going to run until the FBI raided Mar-a-Lago, said Doug Deason, a Republican donor close to the Trump family.
		He was pissed.
		He was stunned.
		He then was going to run, and he was going to clean house at the DOJ.
unidentified		I think that focus, the realization of the personal stakes for Trump, kept him focused throughout the last campaign in a way that he lacked in his previous ones.
		And we're not saying that Trump was a disciplined candidate.
		There are lots of times in the book where his aides are saying, talk about the economy, talk about the economy.
		And he says, I don't want to talk about the economy.
		That's boring.
		He's not a disciplined candidate, but there are other moments in the book where behind the scenes, when he's not performing for the cameras, he does demonstrate for himself, sometimes even more than his advisors, an ability to either let things slide or keep his eye on the ball because nothing quite focused the mind like the reality that if he lost, he might go to jail.
tyler pager ▲ ● ▼		Like the Larry Hogan example.
unidentified		Yeah, there was a moment when we knew there was a verdict in the New York case, but before we knew what the verdict was, Larry Hogan, who was the former Republican governor of Maryland, who was running for Senate, not an easy Senate seat for the Republicans to win.
		So he came out and said we should all respect the verdict.
		And one of Trump's top advisors, Chris La Cavita, attacked him for that.
		And when Chris saw Trump later, Trump said, lay off, Larry, we need the vote.
		So actually, it was Trump telling Chris, one of his advisors, you need to keep in mind the political strategy here.
tyler pager ▲ ● ▼		And I think we're seeing that play out right now, right?
		The congressman from Pennsylvania who voted against his one big beautiful bill.
		Trump has spent a lot of time attacking Thomas Massey, but we have not seen that same sort of attack on the congressman from Pennsylvania.
		In part, aides have told me because that congressman's district, Kamala Harris, won.
		He's one of the few Republican congressmen who is in a seat that Kamala Harris won.
		And so there's still, you know, Trump is, as Isaac said, not the most disciplined candidate, but he has become somewhat more strategic in his politics.
greta brawner ▲ ● ▼		All right, we want to invite our viewers to join us in this conversation this morning.
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