Welcome back to the Ten Blocks podcast. This is your host, Brian Anderson. I'm the editor of City Journal.

Two years into office, President Trump has already filled two Supreme Court seats with justices Neil Gorsuch and Breck

Kavanaugh, creating the first conservative majority on the nation's highest court in a half century.

To talk about how the Trump administration

is reshaping the federal courts, we'll be joined today by James Copeland. His piece in the new

Winter 2019 issue of City Journal, co-authored with Ralph Mangwell, is called Toward a Less

Dangerous Judicial Branch. It'll be up on the website this weekend,

so I hope you check it out. Our conversation with Jim begins after this.

Thank you. Hello again, everyone. This is Brian Anderson, the editor of City Journal.

Joining me on the show today is Jim Copeland. Jim is a senior fellow

and director of legal policy at the Manhattan Institute, and his essay in the Winter 2019

issue of City Journal, co-authored with Ralph Mangwell, is called toward a less dangerous

judicial branch. Jim, thanks very much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Brian.

We have two new conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court, as I mentioned in the

introduction, and as everyone knows. But before we get to them, how is the Trump administration

doing in getting judges approved to the other federal courts and maybe give a

breakdown of the different

courts, you know, disposition to non-lawyers?

Sure.

It's an important point to point out, and as we point out in our piece, that everyone's

very focused on the judiciary, the Supreme Court as the highest court of the land, the ultimate Court of Appeals, courts being the most important.

And two of nine justices is a large percentage of the Supreme Court, given only two years and that these are lifetime appointees.

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