The Argument That Could Reclaim the Supreme Court for Democrats
Amicus With Dahlia Lithwick | Law, justice, and the courts
Slate Audio
4.6 • 3.4K Ratings
🗓️ 7 July 2018
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week Dahlia LIthwick talks with Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island, about what we can expect over the next several months as Donald Trump nominates a new associate justice to the Supreme Court. He talks about why Democrats must care more about the Supreme Court, the danger of dark money, and the frustration of confirmation hearings.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The performance of these judges in our judiciary nominations hearings has become absolutely wrote, |
| 0:13.3 | and they will say the things that their handlers tell them to say, which include the typical |
| 0:20.3 | nod to the importance of precedent, and then they |
| 0:24.5 | will immediately get on the court and go right out and run wild over those doctrines, and there's |
| 0:30.1 | no consequence. |
| 0:34.1 | Hi, and welcome back to Amicus, Slate's podcast about the courts and the Supreme Court and the law. |
| 0:39.6 | We're going to do a special podcast this week on the vacancy created at the court last week with the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy. |
| 0:46.5 | This coming Monday during prime time, Donald Trump is going to announce his pick to fill that seat. |
| 0:52.0 | The shortlist has ostensibly been whittled down to three or four names, |
| 0:55.5 | and the president is said to have met with all of them and already selected a nominee. |
| 1:00.1 | Mitch McConnell has chosen September for confirmation hearings, and a lot of listeners have sent in |
| 1:06.3 | email saying, ah, what do I do? So joining us to discuss what Senate Democrats can do is Senator |
| 1:13.1 | Sheldon White House from the great state of Rhode Island. He sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee. |
| 1:17.8 | He's joined us on the show before Senator White House. Welcome back to the podcast. |
| 1:21.8 | Thank you. Great to be with you. And I think I want to start by asking you what I asked last |
| 1:26.6 | week's guests, which is you've watched Anthony Kennedy for a long time. |
| 1:30.5 | Were you surprised by his decision to step down last week? |
| 1:34.0 | I was. Caught me completely cold. |
| 1:37.1 | And do you take it as some iteration of whatever happens, happens, but he just can't fix things anymore? Or is there something going on there beyond that? I know there was a bunch of last minute reporting. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think we know the full story on that yet. The back and forth between the Trump White House and him about trying to get him to resign before the election, the stories about |
| 2:04.9 | his son's business arrangements with the Trump's. I mean, it all just seems a little odd. |
| 2:12.2 | Yeah. But we don't know the full story yet, I don't believe. Okay. Well, let's leave it at odd. |
| 2:16.4 | What I wanted to ask you about, |
... |
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