Casey Burgat debunks myths about the Supreme Court’s undefined structure in We Hold These Truths, arguing Congress—not the judiciary—should address its politicization via legislation. The 2012 Smith-Mundt Act’s alleged shift toward partisan propaganda sparks debate, with Burgat noting historical precedents and calling for media literacy amid the "attention economy." Bernie Sanders’ AI warnings hint at elite-driven tech risks, while C-SPAN’s Holiday Author Week spotlights books like The War on Words and The Spirit of Philadelphia, setting the stage for Trump’s live Mar-a-Lago appearance. The episode underscores how institutional power and media bias shape public perception in polarized times. [Automatically generated summary]
This is where we have been promised and where we needed to be for a lot of times.
But she mentioned the Constitution.
There's a lot of misnomers.
The first chapter in the book is about a lot of the myths within the Constitution itself.
The Supreme Court is won.
And we have a full chapter on the Supreme Court in the book, too, where we should get politics.
The Supreme Court is subject to politics more than it ever has been.
Within the Constitution, it just says that the Supreme Court must exist.
They didn't say how big it was, what their jurisdiction was.
They didn't even say the number of justices that were supposed to serve on the Supreme Court.
So if you think it's broken, if you think it's too political, there's a chapter in that book that I would love for you to read and then we can have conversations about it.
But they, again, are a consequence of the process to get there.
Right now, it is a consequence of how we nominate and approve Supreme Court justice seats throughout our country with changes being made on the congressional side.
But recognize Congress is the first branch of government.
It is the architect of not only the executive branch and what departments are there and how much funding is there.
We have funding debates going on and on.
We're about ready to have another one with a government shutdown looming at the end of January.
They're also the architect of the judicial branch, the often forgotten branch, until you get frustrated with a ruling.
So if you don't like the lack of ethics on the Supreme Court, if you don't like how big it is, or you want more justices, or you want to focus what their jurisdiction is, or if you want Congress to tell them how many cases to hear and what cases those are, that is a prerogative of the Congress.
We think of them, the independent judicial branch.
They are independent, but not independent of Congress and their overseeing.
So if you think it's broken, focus on your member of Congress because they can write the laws that can change a lot of how the Supreme Court functions, including how many justices have those robes to sit on those seats.
Two callers have been waiting a minute to chat with you.
Let's get to Mike first in the Keystone State.
Mike, go ahead.
unidentified
Hi.
I'm just curious to get the guests' take on a ranked voting system, where you can cast your primary vote for the candidate that you identify most with, but then you can have a second, or if that candidate doesn't win, then your vote goes to your second choice.
There's a lot of push right now and a lot of frustration across the states because, again, federal, there's no federal election in this country, including for President of the United States.
Each state decides how they conduct their own elections for their politicians.
And there's been a big push for ranked choice voting, where you literally, independent of the parties you list in order of preference.
And then the top vote getters, when they bash all those balance together, they count up all those preferences.
The top two vote getters, whether it be two Ds versus each other, or two R's or one D, one R, they go on to the primary system.
So this is a response or a reform idea that's gaining traction, including in local and state elections in several states, to get around that two-party system that we've always had conducting through the primary process, oftentimes which is closed, allowing only their partisans to vote in their respective primary elections.
I think it has merit.
I think a lot of research is saying that it's very confusing to folks that have only existed in the two-party system, which goes back to the civics conversation.
This is something that we want to advocate for.
Then we need to teach this type of balloting because it's not intuitive to a lot of folks, especially who have only existed in a previous era and a previous way of electing folks.
So whether it's jungle primaries of the top two vote getters, whether it's ranked choice votings, there's a lot of options on the table.
And I think states are wise and increasing momentum of picking these ups as options, knowing that the partisan system that we have with closed primaries or primary voting systems of first past the posts has exacerbated a lot of the polarization that we see in Congress because they're responding to the incentive structure back home from where they're elected.
I know we're past the post of 9 a.m., but SK has been waiting for a while to chat with you out of Washington.
Last caller here.
SK, go ahead.
unidentified
Yes.
Hi, Casey.
I love you're speaking.
You're very knowledgeable.
You're speaking, your book is about hold these truths.
You talked about the amendments to the Constitution.
There's a propaganda bill called the Smith Month Modernization Act of 2012, which came, it overturned the 1948 act to prohibit the dissemination of propaganda to the American people.
It was overturned in 2012 by Obama administration, Congress.
And I just want to think about how that fits into things of what we're told these truths are, because I constantly see lying and just horrible misstatements.
And people are not telling the truth on TV.
The mainstream media is a propaganda machine, and it's mostly the Democrat side.
What do you have to say about the Smith Month Modernization Act and how it applies to everything you've said?
I don't know enough to speak intelligently enough, which I wish more members of Congress and our leaders were willing to say.
I don't know enough to tell you the truth on it.
But the color's right.
The sentiment is there.
He's not alone in sharing it.
He may be coming from, he's obviously blaming the Democratic side.
I think a lot of Democrats will blame.
There's a propaganda machine on the right, just as strong, if not stronger, perpetuating a lot of this stuff, which leads me to two thoughts.
Number one, this isn't going away.
Our media environment is incredibly fractured, more so than it's ever been.
It's going online.
It's going to go back to the AI conversation where you're literally going to, unless we put up guardrails for this stuff, you're going to see literal campaign ads where you're going to see some candidate there speaking, looking, acting like this person, and he's saying something that he or she never said.
And it's going to look incredibly real.
And we don't know if that's illegal yet.
The propaganda has always been true.
There were incredible propaganda machines going back to the days of Thomas Jefferson out of the State Department from which he was the leader of at that time.
He had a partisan newspaper that he had someone work for in his position.
This is a genie, again, that's not going back in the bottle.
So we need a response to this and making sure that when you get to court, that when you have news in your name and you're defending it, then you can not just say, hey, this is an opinion show.
We can do what?
But now we're getting a conversation with the First Amendment versus the right for folks to understand and make sure that there are legitimate news sources to their name, which puts a huge burden on the consumer themselves, right?
That we need a media literate citizenry to recognize opinion versus not.
And then maybe potential guardrails, legal and otherwise, to make sure that what you are speaking, especially when you're putting news next to your name or you're an authoritative, looked at as an authoritative site, that you are upholding journalistic standards and making sure that you are not exacerbating the propaganda machine.
But this always goes back to the attention economy, that we consume what we want to consume.
We've never had more choice.
That is a blessing and a curse where you're not just going to get the three news channels of your grandparents and your parents, but at the same time, you have choice to consume what you want.
You are the own consumer of your own information and make sure that you're checking yourself and that you are not subject to a lot of these propaganda machines that are that are out there and making money off of your attention.
But before we get to 2026, C-SPAN's Holiday Author Week continues tomorrow.
It's Trimane Lee.
His book is A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence in Black Life in America.
On Wednesday this week, it's Greg Lukianoff, The War on Words: 10 Arguments Against Free Speech and Why They Fail.
On Christmas Day, Jeffrey Rosen of the National Constitution Center will join us.
His book, The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton v. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America.
And then on Friday this week, Chris Gibson, Republican of New York, former member of Congress, his book, The Spirit of Philadelphia: A Call to Recover the Founding Principles.
That's all this week long on C-SPAN's Author Week.
We hope you join us all week long.
And a very good Monday morning too.
You can go ahead and start calling in now.
We're talking about the future of AI and your feelings on it.
It was Bernie Sanders who expressed his feelings, his pessimism about the future of AI in the form of an ex-post last month.
He's calling for congressional action to address the threats that he says are posed by AI.
This is what he had to say: Let us be clear: AI and robotics are the most transformative technologies in the history of humanity and will have a profound impact on the lives of every man, woman, and child in our country.
Just a few points, just a few points that we need to be thinking about.
One, who is aggressively pushing these technologies?
Well, surprise, surprise, it happens to be the very wealthiest people on earth.
unidentified
We'll leave this here to take you live now to President Trump, speaking to reporters from Palm Beach, Florida.