We Don't Talk About Leonard: Episode 1
Notes from America with Kai Wright
WNYC Studios
4.4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 5 October 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Our friends at On the Media have teamed up with ProPublica to create a miniseries about how the U.S. Supreme Court moved so far to the right.
In this first episode of We Don't Talk About Leonard, ProPublica reporters Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, and Ilya Marritz investigate the background of the man who has played a critical role in the conservative takeover of America's courts — Leonard Leo. From his humble roots in middle class New Jersey, to a mansion in Maine where last year he hosted a fabulous party on the eve of the Supreme Court decision to tank “Roe.”
You can listen to more episodes from We Don’t Talk About Leonard by visiting On The Media’s podcast, or by visiting this link.
Tell us what you think. Instagram and X (Twitter): @noteswithkai. Email us at notes@wnyc.org. Send us a voice message by recording yourself on your phone and emailing us, or going to Instagram and clicking on the link in our bio.
“Notes from America” airs live on Sunday evenings at 6pm ET. The podcast episodes are lightly edited from our live broadcasts. Tune into the show on Sunday nights via the stream on notesfromamerica.org.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey everybody, it's Kai. |
| 0:09.7 | Our friends at On The Media have teamed up with ProPublica to produce a new mini-series |
| 0:14.6 | about how the Supreme Court moved so far to the right. |
| 0:19.0 | Reporters Andrea Bernstein, Andy Kroll, and Ilya Maritz investigate the role played |
| 0:23.7 | by one man, Leonard Leo, a conservative Catholic legal activist who leveraged over a |
| 0:29.8 | billion dollars and decades of maneuvering to change the court and its rulings. |
| 0:36.2 | It's a three-part series called We Don't Talk About Leonard, and this week I want to |
| 0:41.1 | share with you episode one. |
| 0:43.5 | On The Media host Brooke Gladstone sets it up for you. |
| 0:49.5 | The court has ruled that states can decide whether abortion should be legal or illegal. |
| 0:55.7 | Roe versus Wade is history. |
| 0:58.1 | The conservative majority on today's Supreme Court has been redefining American's constitutional |
| 1:04.1 | rights in one decision after another, and one largely unknown man has played an outsized |
| 1:10.7 | role in making it so. |
| 1:13.2 | Leonard Leo has single-handedly changed the face of the judiciary. |
| 1:20.1 | This is On The Media, I'm Brooke Gladstone. |
| 1:22.5 | This week an investigation into the man who spent decades working toward a conservative |
| 1:27.9 | takeover of America's courts, because this is about way more than just the U.S. Supreme |
| 1:33.2 | Court. |
| 1:34.3 | The rights revolution in the United States didn't happen just because you magically got |
| 1:38.9 | five justices on the court who agreed with you. |
| 1:41.5 | It's all coming up after this. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.