Introducing: "Slow Burn: Becoming Justice Gorsuch"
First America
Pushkin Industries
4.7 • 8K Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
Neil Gorsuch may not be the most well-known justice on the Supreme Court, but he might just be the key to understanding how and why the current court has come to wield so much power over our day-to-day lives. In the 11th season of Slow Burn, host Susan Matthews traces the rise of Neil Gorsuch, from his formative years as a young conservative through his nomination to a “stolen seat” on the U.S. Supreme Court. Through interviews, legal analysis, and archival research, this mild-mannered Westerner emerges as the court’s most unpredictable—and most important—sitting justice.
In this first episode, Matthews examines Gorsuch’s early years, what he took away from his iconoclastic mother’s rocky tenure in the Reagan administration, and how his worldview was shaped by his time on a liberal college campus and in 1980s conservative circles. Plus: the controversial court case that might have gotten Gorsuch noticed by just the right people at just the right time.
Follow and listen now to the entire season on Slow Burn from slate.com.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, this land listeners. |
| 0:03.1 | I'm Susan Matthews, executive editor at Slate, and I'm here to tell you that our award-winning |
| 0:09.0 | narrative show, Slow Burn, is back with a new season, becoming Justice Gorsuch. |
| 0:14.8 | As you know from previous seasons of this land, the decisions made at the Supreme Court can |
| 0:20.2 | have devastating consequences for |
| 0:22.0 | our civil rights and for marginalized people and communities. So why focus this season of |
| 0:27.5 | Slow Burn on Neil Gorsuch, someone's so anonymous that most Americans can't pick him out of a |
| 0:32.6 | lineup? First, he's part of the current court's conservative supermajority, which has ended affirmative |
| 0:40.3 | action, limited abortion access, and upended voting rights. Also, among the nine Supreme Court |
| 0:47.3 | justices, this mild-mannered, self-styled westerner is something of a wildcard. He's the court's most unpredictable vote, |
| 0:56.3 | and because he'll likely be on the court for decades to come, we need to understand him |
| 1:01.6 | in order to understand this Supreme Court. Join me as we trace Neil Gorsuch's formative years, |
| 1:09.5 | from his mother's rocky tenure in the Reagan |
| 1:11.7 | administration, to his coming of age as a young conservative in the 1980s. We'll talk through |
| 1:17.9 | his legal philosophies and his controversial nomination to a stolen seat on the high court. |
| 1:24.0 | And an important part of all of this, as you'll hear, is the infamous frozen trucker case. |
| 1:30.3 | The Supreme Court's end of term is upon us, and that means the justices are handing down decisions |
| 1:36.6 | that will fundamentally change what it means to be an American. Find out how we got here and where |
| 1:42.7 | we're going in Slowburnburn becoming Justice Gorsuch. |
| 1:47.1 | Follow Slowburn on your favorite podcast app to hear the entire series. |
| 1:51.9 | And now, here's the start of episode one, Man with a Plan. |
| 2:11.1 | In January of 2009, Alphonse Madden was driving a semi-truck along an Illinois highway, hauling a shipment of meat. |
... |
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