Does America Still Trust the Supreme Court?
The Political Scene | The New Yorker
The New Yorker
4.3 • 3.9K Ratings
🗓️ 27 January 2022
⏱️ 27 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Supreme Court Justices often portray themselves as beyond the reach of partisan politics, but it’s increasingly hard to make that argument: recall the fights over the nominations of Merrick Garland and Brett Kavanaugh, and recent rulings in cases involving abortion access and vaccine mandates. Justice Stephen Breyer’s decision to retire this year is itself a political move, and the Biden Administration is preparing for strong Republican resistance to whomever the President nominates. Jane Mayer, The New Yorker’s chief Washington correspondent, wrote recently about Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia Thomas, who is deeply involved in right-wing groups and causes that have had, or will likely have, business before the Court. Mayer joins Dorothy Wickenden to discuss Ginni Thomas’s career and the dwindling public trust in the impartiality of the Court.
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| 0:48.3 | This is the political scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and guests about politics. |
| 0:54.8 | It's Thursday, January 27th. |
| 0:57.4 | I'm Dorothy Wicenden, executive editor of The New Yorker. |
| 1:01.0 | You know, I think that they think that we make policy. |
| 1:04.3 | I think the media makes it sound as though you are just always going right to your personal oppression. |
| 1:11.2 | So preference, so if you, they think you're anti-abortion or something personally, they think |
| 1:17.2 | that that's the way you always will come out. |
| 1:19.2 | They think you're for this or for that. |
| 1:21.5 | They think you've become like a politician. |
| 1:24.5 | And I think that's a problem to the, I think you're going to jeopardize any faith in the legal institutions. |
| 1:32.3 | That's Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, speaking last fall at the University of Notre Dame. |
| 1:39.3 | Justice has often portrayed themselves as beyond the reach of partisan politics, but it's increasingly |
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