I'm Brian Lehrer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, January 19th.

We have an opportunity today to talk to the legendary Harvard constitutional law professor Lawrence Tribe, whose influence includes

arguing dozens of cases before the U.S. Supreme Court, having as students in his class at one time

or another, John Roberts, and Elena Kagan, now on the Supreme Court, of course, those two, and Barack Obama

when he was in law school. The Harvard Gazette writes as a trusted advisor to Democratic presidents and party leaders.

Tribe has influenced nominations to the Supreme Court for nearly half a century

from the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist to Justice Brett Kavanaugh,

much to the delight and dismay of partisans, they write. And as much as

tribe can write long detail legal briefs for the Supreme Court and the groundbreaking textbook,

American constitutional law, I see he is also very active in the 280 character form of scholarship

known as Twitter. Two of his latest from the last day,

Department of Justice absolutely must throw all its weight now into a grand jury pursuit of the

guy at the top of the criminal conspiracy against the Constitution. I think you all know who that is.

And he wrote, Gorsuch's refusal to mask up on the bench, even when asked by the chief

justice to do so, in order that the diabetic and hence immunocompromised justice, Sotomayor, could

attend in person, shows just what kind of a jerk Gorsuch is. I wish he weren't a Harvard law school alum, unquote. We'll ask

Lawrence Tribe about that tweet as we go. The reason we have Professor Tribe today is because he will

be a featured speaker tomorrow at the second annual State of Democracy Summit, hosted by the

Belfour Center at the 92nd Street Y here in New York and Craig Newmark

Philanthropies.

It's a virtual summit, and you can register for free at 92Y.org.

Professor Tribe, it's an honor.

...