BREAKING: Kamala Picks Radical Walz as VP, and Value of Free Speech, with Justice Neil Gorsuch, Rich Lowry, and Batya Ungar-Sargon | Ep. 856

This episode explores Vice President Kamala Harris's decision to select Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate for the 2024 presidential race, highlighting the political ramifications and controversies surrounding the choice.

1. Kamala Harris's selection of Tim Walz as a running mate is viewed as a strategic but controversial move to align with the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
2. Critics argue that Walz's policies and background may not resonate with moderate voters crucial for a presidential victory.
3. The episode discusses the political implications of not choosing Josh Shapiro, emphasizing anti-Semitism within parts of the Democratic Party.
4. The choice of Walz is seen as a reflection of the party's shift towards more radical policies and away from mainstream American values.
5. The episode highlights the potential repercussions of this VP choice on the 2024 election dynamics, particularly in key battleground states.

1. Introduction and Overview

Megyn Kelly introduces the topic of Kamala Harris's VP selection and sets the stage for a detailed discussion on its implications. The chapter outlines the primary themes and introduces guests Rich Lowry and Batya Ungar-Sargon. Megyn Kelly: "Today, we're diving deep into the VP pick and what it means for the Democratic Party and the upcoming election."

2. Political Analysis of the VP Selection

This chapter delves into the strategic reasons behind Kamala Harris's choice of Tim Walz, discussing the political landscape and the internal dynamics of the Democratic Party. Rich Lowry: "Choosing Walz reflects a clear tilt towards the progressive base, potentially at the cost of alienating moderate voters crucial for winning swing states."

3. Cultural and Social Implications

Discussion on how Walz’s policies and his stance on various social issues align with or diverge from mainstream American values, and how this might impact voter perception. Batya Ungar-Sargon: "Walz's progressive policies, especially on social issues, might resonate with the left but could alienate the broader electorate who are wary of radical shifts."

4. Impact on Electoral Strategy

Analyzing how the choice of Walz might influence the Democratic strategy in key battleground states and the overall electoral map. Rich Lowry: "Not picking Shapiro, who could have secured Pennsylvania, seems like a missed strategic opportunity."

5. Conclusion and Future Projections

Summarizing the discussion and projecting how this VP choice could influence the Democratic prospects in the 2024 Presidential Election. Megyn Kelly: "As we wrap up, it's clear that this VP choice is a gamble—one that could redefine the party's identity and its chances in the next election."

1. Understand the Electoral Impact: Voters and campaigners should analyze how VP picks influence electoral outcomes in swing states.
2. Engage in Civic Discussions: Engage in informed discussions about the implications of political choices on social policies.
3. Monitor Political Alignments: Keep an eye on how political parties align with or diverge from public opinion and mainstream values.
4. Advocate for Moderate Policies: If concerned about radical shifts, advocate for more moderate, centrist policies within party platforms.
5. Participate in Elections: Ensure to participate in upcoming elections to voice preferences for party directions and candidate selections.

Megyn Kelly is joined by National Review's Rich Lowry and Batya Ungar-Sargon, author of "Second Class," to discuss Kamala's pick of MN Gov. Tim Walz as her VP, why she didn't pick PA Gov. Josh Shapiro, how Shapiro's Jewish heritage was a factor, the rumblings about Shapiro's political ambition, the controversy over Harris' VP pick Gov. Tim Walz's military record, why the issue could become a major factor in the 2024 election, JD Vance's military service, Walz' radical progressive policies, his lack of action during the Minneapolis BLM riots, his extreme support of COVID lockdowns, and more. Then Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, author of "Over Ruled," joins to discuss what he and his Supreme Court colleagues really talk about behind closed doors, the decorum and friendship they share, how modern law-making contradicts the founders' vision, specific ways too many laws make it harder for Americans to live their lives, some of the craziest overreaching laws in America, how important free speech is in America, the importance of disagreement and discussion, the increased rhetoric about the Supreme Court justices that led to protests outside his house, what he thought when he saw the assassination attempt of Trump, the importance of faith for him personally but not professionally, and more.

People

Megyn Kelly, Rich Lowry, Batya Ungar-Sargon, Neil Gorsuch, Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, Josh Shapiro

Companies

None

Books

None

Guest Name(s):

Rich Lowry, Batya Ungar-Sargon

Content Warnings:

None

Megyn Kelly
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on SiriusXM channel 111 every weekday at noon east.

Hey, everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to the Megyn Kelly Show. Vice President Kamala Harris has selected her running mate for the 2024 race, and it is Minnesota governor Tim Waltz. Oh, Republicans. They're expressing a huge sigh of relief in response to this. They definitely did not want Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania. And as it turns out, neither did she.

It's. He's just very jewish. Honestly, I think that's her reasoning. She's saying otherwise. And we'll get into what she's saying, but there's no question that party has gone so radical. It's Ilan Omar's party now. How could they have a jewish man as her running mate? Bad enough she's married to a jewish man. This is how I'm sure they're thinking. I mean, this is, waltz, on the other hand, is from a state that just changed his flag to represent that of Somalia. So it's a win.

Miss Harris reportedly calling Governor Walts earlier today to inform him of her.

I'm putting her in quotes. First big decision. Who the hell knows who made this choice for her? He's the favorite of Nancy Pelosi.

He was the favorite of Bernie Sanders. Does that tell us anything?

It was a somewhat surprising move, as many did suspect that she would do the practical thing and go for the swing state governor, which Minnesota is not of Pennsylvania. Josh Shapiro. He's a little bit more moderate. I mean, anyone would be. And he comes from a state she must win if she wants to get to 270. But Mister Shapiro may have become an issue due to the growing pro Hamas faction of the Democratic Party. The media and others on the left are already working to, to brand Governor waltz moderate and a representation of middle America. That's not true. He's not moderate. Driver's licenses for illegals, check. Free. Tuition for illegals, check. Free. Health insurance? Free. Free, that is for illegals. Check. Who pays for that again? Does Governor Wallace just, like, draft an imaginary check from an imaginary pot of money? Oh, wait, no, it's the taxpayers. He's all for teenagers undergoing life altering gender surgeries. And by the way, he wants to take your child away from you if you won't okay them. He supports putting tampons in the boys bathrooms for kids as young as the fourth grade. All right, I have a fourth grader rising fifth, and if there were ever a tampon dispenser machine in his bathroom, I would personally go and rip it down like we saw those kids do in Virginia last year. And what will likely be a massive issue for Governor Walts, which is not being covered by the mainstream today.

He is being accused of misleading voters on his military service and dodging combat service in Iraq.

Joining me now, Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review, and Bhatia Angar Sargen, opinion editor at Newsweek and author of Second Class.

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Thank you both so much for being here. Bhatia, let me start with you. They're not gonna say Shapiro's a jew, but you and I both know, and rich knows, too. There is no way that wasn't an important factor in his rejection.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
Honestly, Megan, some of them are coming out and saying it. Right? And the thing about Josh Shapiro is he's not just a jew, he's an observant jew. He keeps kosher. Right? This is a person who has a deep connection to his jewish heritage. Of course, that was not the reason to pick him. The reason to pick him was he could have delivered the one state Kamala Harris absolutely needs to win in order to win the presidency. Right? So on the one hand, you have the guy who could deliver the one state she actually needs in order to win. Right? And on the other hand, you have somebody who is a far left progressive, as you said, who, what's his big claim to fame? He coined the term weird for JD Vance. So obviously she went with Tim Walls. I mean, it's so amazing, Megan. And there is simply so little effort being put by the far left progressive wing of the party to mask the fact that this was simply about Josh Shapiro having a strong, proud jewish identity and opposing anti semitism on college campus. They have been explicit about this, and the Democratic Party has caved to the anti Semites. That is what we're seeing here.

Megyn Kelly
We have here Karen Attia of the Washington Post, who has been one of the nastiest commentators on the Israel Hamas war. She was celebrating in the streets once Israel was attacked, long before they really began their retaliation campaign.

She was one of the people who liked, this is what decolonization looks like. Like within a day or two of the attack. Columnist for the Washington Post, she's thrilled about Governor Waltz. She tweeted out, looking forward to waltz donkey stomping Vance in a VP debate. Waltz is full of Persona, charisma, experience, and authenticity. Vance is a shape shifting woman hating weirdo. Sellouthenne, he's going to tap out in 46 seconds like that weepy italian boxer. I'm here for it. Lfg do you believe that? So she's got it all in there. Rich. This is classy. Washington Post, just so thrilled they didn't go with that other guy who is somehow weirdly objectionable, you know, the governor of Pennsylvania.

Rich Lowry
This is just mind boggling because obviously Pennsylvania is the whole ballgame, right? Trump's not winning without it. She's not winning without it. 10,000 votes could matter. I don't think picking Shapiro would have delivered Pennsylvania, but it potentially could have helped 10,000, 20,000, whatever, in a narrow race that could be decisive for the entire election so that she didn't pick him. He's popular there. The Fox News poll had him at 61%. He has executive experience. He's obviously bright, he's glib. So it does make you go, hmm, and scratch your head. You can't know exactly what the internal deliberations were, but the entire public argument, there are a few other that things thrown in, but most of it was that he was a pro Israel Jew and he was apologetic over it. He was very defensive over this college op ed he wrote 20 or 30 years ago, saying the Palestinians are the problem and the reasons why we can't have peace. Which is obviously true, but that's considered Oppo now in the democratic party. So instead she went with this guy who seems to me to be an MSNBC anchors idea of what being folksy and having appeal to the middle of the country is. I don't get it at all. And another factor here with Shapiro may have been, he's quite good, and she may have felt there's a potential that he would outperform her, that people would comment on that he was, the fact that he's better at this and she felt threatened by him. Also, might have been an element of it here, but clearly, you know, it's a left wing choice.

This isn't a moderate choice whatsoever. She's doubling down on the left.

Megyn Kelly
There's some support for that second theory. Rich. Coming from Fox News is Jackie Henrich tweeting out two sources confirm on background, the deciding factor in the VP choice was what Senator Fetterman of Pennsylvania said publicly concerns that Mister Shapiro's own personal ambitions would cause him to upstage or override Harris. The video produced by the Philly, by the Philly mayor team solidified this sentiment on Friday. The implication being that Shapiro had something to do with that sort of pre release, making it look like he was the choice.

But Shapiro's team saying they had no idea that the mayor's office was doing that or releasing that. But the point is, you know, they're trying to say, ok, he was, he was getting ahead of himself. Batia, I read that. And I think that's her people trying to say it's not the fact that he is an observant jew, it's that he got too big for his britches.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
Yeah, I totally agree with you. And I think, you know, that you pointed out that Pelosi and Obama were behind walls, whereas actually President Biden was behind, was backing Shapiro. Right. So again, we see this big, you know, power exchange happening, that the center of gravity in the party, and of course, that is the most important thing about Kamala Harris. Right. She is sort of, you know, democratic factory settings. Right. She has no independent convictions of her own. She reflects where she thinks the center of gravity of the party is. And so looking ahead to this last week, I was saying, I really hope she picks Shapiro because it will signal to jewish american voters. Look, of course there is this anti semitic campaign against Shapiro, but the leadership is not listening to that. The leadership would never fall for something this disgusting. The leadership knows that in order to win the presidency, we need to win Pennsylvania. And so we're going to go with the guy who has 61% approval in Pennsylvania. And instead, what did Kamala Harris do? She signaled to the country that the center of gravity of the democratic party right now is with the pro Hamas protesters. And anybody who said anti Semitism will not be tolerated is going to get the boot. And I think jewish Americans are paying very close attention to that. The signal that was given to them is you need to tell your children now that you cannot be the vice president of the, of the United States if you are a jew. That cannot happen for you because the center of gravity of the party is on its knees begging to be recognized by anti semitic young people.

Apparently, that was the message of this choice.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah. You can't if you're not, if you want to run as a Democrat, it's a, it's a no. I mean, even if you're the governor of Pennsylvania, the must wing win state in the entire contest, in a nail bitingly close race. It won't be enough, sweetheart. You'll have to find something else to believe in if you want that role. It's just absolutely disgusting. It's so on the nose. These are the people who want to be our moral betters, who claim to be rich, who are constantly lecturing us about bigotry and inclusion. It's a lie. They're all for inclusion. When it's men and women's sports like this, Carinatia laughing at the pain of that italian boxer. But when the inclusion looks like a man who happens to be jewish, it's a. Yeah.

Rich Lowry
And this, this is not like a. This wouldn't have been a history making choice. Right. It's been done before, most recently with Joe Lieberman. So we've actually seen backsliding among Democrats and on the left, where this would be actually a big deal, having a Jewish, a running mate who's somewhat favorable to Israel. It's not like Shapiro is one of us. Right? He's just relatively moderate compared to the rest of the party. And the choice of Walt's just show where the center of gravity of the party is. And it's not where Joe Biden is. Right. Joe Biden has, even though he's kowtowed to the left in all sorts of appalling ways, he is a preacher of another time and has certain instincts on being pro Israel in favor of allies, kind of patriotism that Kamala Harris does not have. She is awoke progressive. She had all those positions in 19 and 20 that she's now disavowed that Joe Biden never would have adopted or only adopted them under extreme pressure. She did it of her own free will because she thought that's where the party was going. And now she's trying to moderate. But this choice just does not make sense on that level. Unless she's trying to pick someone to her left to show, well, I'm moderate compared to that guy, but how much sense does that make?

Megyn Kelly
No, it's terrifying. I agree with you. Joe Biden wouldn't. I mean, God rest him, this would. No, just kidding. He's not actually, forgive me, little joke, little humor for you.

But I do want to talk about Tim Waltz because, my God, my very first story at Fox News, very young cub reporter was swift boat veterans for truth. Coming after John Kerry and his misrepresentations about his military service, Tim Waltz has a swift boat problem of his own. If you look back at Alpha News, and this is a great news organization, we had them on when they did the documentary about the trial of Derek Chauvin and the smear job by so many against him. I'm not defending, you know, the tape. I'm just saying if you actually watch this documentary, you'll be horrified at what was done to Chauvin by the officials in charge in Minnesota.

Anyway, Alpha News vetted Tim Waltz hard back in 2018 when he was trying to elevate from congressman to governor, and he did it successfully. And here's the headline. Former National Guardsman Colon, Tim Waltz is misleading the public about his time in service. Going to read you some excerpts. Waltz often refers to his military service as he campaigns for governor. However, former members of the Minnesota National Guard are raising concerns over the discrepancies in his story, saying he's misleading the public about it. Tim Waltz has embellished this is a quote, and selectively omitted facts and circumstances of his military career for years, said Thomas Behrens, a retired command sergeant major for the Minnesota National Guard. Waltz, 54, this is back in 18, joined the Army National Guard when he was 17, completing 20 years of service. And then in 2001, just days after 911, Waltz re enlisted in the Minnesota Army National Guard. He then retired four years later in 2005, ostensibly to run for Congress. Okay, so far, we're wondering what's wrong with any of this.

Barron says Waltz did serve a long and honorable career, but it is his story surrounding his service post 911 that raises red flags. They, the discrepancies start with how long he re enlisted for.

They say. Okay, in 2006, as Waltz was amid his first campaign for Congress, questions were raised about the timing of his retirement. You see, um, Waltz's sudden retirement after learning that his unit would be deployed to Iraq is what is under scrutiny. He allegedly re enlisted for another six years, which would have taken him well past, uh, the time of being his. They were trying to deploy him. He would have had to stay. He would have had to go and be deployed. And suddenly he got out of it a couple of years early. And what they say is that he quickly retired after learning that his unit, southern Minnesota's 1125 FA battalion, would be sent to Iraq for Tim Waltz to abandon his fellow soldiers and quit when they needed experienced leadership. Most is disheartening, and it dishonors those brave american men and women who did answer the nation's call and continue to serve, fight, and unfortunately die in harm's way.

The governor or the then congressman came out and defended this report at the time, saying, after completing my 20 years in 2001, I reenlisted to serve for an additional four. Right, which would have taken him to 2005. And I retired the year before my battalion was deployed in order to run for Congress. Then Alpha News goes on. However, official documents from the National Guard contradict that story.

According to his report of separation and military service, Walts reenlisted for six years. Six years, not four, as he claimed. And his service obligation was not complete until September 2007, which was after his unit was deployed and went this. The allegation is that he got out of military service, he did not want to go to Iraq, and then he lied about the circumstances around it. Here is Tom Behrens, who I mentioned just a moment ago, speaking about this to Alpha News.

Thomas Behrens
He abandoned us. You know, I mean, what the hell kind of leader does that? I mean, he just, as soon as the shots were fired in Iraq, he turned and ran the other way and hung his hat up and quit. For Pete's sake, this guy quit. And if I say I'm not going to do it, I mean, what the hell kind of leadership is that? If a company would say that we're going to deploy to Iraq or somewhere and you're going to be gone for whatever amount of time, and then a foreman just says, no, I'm not going. I mean, what does that say to the 500 people that are working at factory there? You know, when he was a congressman, he, you know, he bragged that he was, he was a command sergeant, retired command sergeant major. I'm the highest ranking person ever in the house. And, you know, all this lie that he was telling the state of Minnesota came out after 2018, after this was exposed. And they said, well, he can say that he served as a command sergeant major, but he can't say he's a retired one because he's not.

Rich Lowry
And that's what he was saying.

Thomas Behrens
And he was saying that. And there was lots of public, you know, lots of cards coming in the mail, you know, for him to be elected. They said, right, honor. He's a retired command sergeant major just tooting his own horn, just hanging on the coattails of people that actually are command sergeant majors that went through all the process and put all the time in it's stolen valor is really what it is. I don't know of anybody else that's done what he's done, but we call it the truth about Tim Walls.

Megyn Kelly
Rich, this is potentially bad, especially when you consider he's going up in a debate and otherwise against a former marine who did deploy, who did not try to dodge, who did go to Iraq.

Rich Lowry
Yeah. So I have not looked at this personally myself yet. It obviously needs to be litigated. You would think if they're somewhat competent at the Harris campaign, they're aware of this and they've vetted it and they have an answer. But this is the kind of thing that's potentially a torpedo to the bow of any major politician, and it is the sort of thing people tend to shade. Right.

He wouldn't be the first one, but this will be a major focus. I'm looking outside of this question. I'm looking forward to the debate. Waltz is not an idiot, and neither is JD Vance. And JD Vance is the cliche has had a rocky start, but he will be loaded for bear and a real professional when it comes to trying to demolish this guy and his records. And I'm sure this clash will be scheduled at some point here, and it'll be fascinating to watch.

Megyn Kelly
The thing is, Baja, you don't lie about your military service. It's not that you can't get elected if you do. Senator Richard Blumenthal and his statements about serving in Iraq. He got elected anyway.

John Kerry did not get elected president after the swift boat veterans for truth came forward about what he was saying. But that was a Minnesota election when Tom Behrends and the others. It's not just Tom. Uh, there's Tom. Tony Wenzel, retired platoon sergeant for the Minnesota Army National Guard, said he could never vote for Tim Waltz as our governor when he abandoned his fellow soldiers like he did. There are others who have come forward and will continue to come forward. Now. Now it's a national election. We're outside of Minnesota. And there will be plenty of military families who will be determined to get to the bottom of whether Tim Waltz might be in a position to send their sons to fight in combat when he was allegedly too chicken to do it himself.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
Yeah. You know, I. I reached out to a number of very close friends who are veterans when, um, I was looking into this story because, you know, I. I'm bringing humility to this. I haven't served. And Tim Walz did serve 24 years, quite honorably, right in the National Guard. And then he did. Seemed to lie about it. And my friend said, this is really unacceptable. Both the lying about it, saying that he, you know, retired as a command sergeant major when he hadn't actually completed that service, but also abandoning his men. And, you know, again, as somebody who didn't serve, who didn't go to Iraq, who didn't deploy, you know, I don't know that I would have had the courage to do it. It's the lying about it. It's the covering up. The fact that he did withdraw in order to avoid that deployment while his men were sent overseas to fight that fight, misrepresenting that suggests that he does have a guilty conscience about it, that he does understand that there was something ignoble about that that voters don't want to see.

Megyn Kelly
I like this is not going to go away. He received a warning order to prepare to be mobilized, according to Alpha News, for active duty, for a deployment to Iraq in early 2005.

And on May 16, 2005, he retired, leaving his battalion and its soldiers without a key leader as they prepared to go to war. He had no answers when he was served and asked about the papers confirming these allegations. And that's not going to hold, not in this election. You know, it, it's interesting to me in part because, rich, recently you had the Kamala Harris team attacking him as he won't be loyal to the country, he'll only be loyal to Donald Trump. And JD Vance heard that and took to the stump and attacked it immediately. We have the soundbite watch I saw.

JD Vance
The other day, Kamala Harris question my loyalty to this country. That's the word she used, loyalty.

And it's an interesting word. Simplify loyalty, because there is no greater sign of disloyalty to this country than what Kamala Harris has done at our southern border.

And I'd like to ask the vice president, what has she done to question my loyalty to this country?

I served in the United States Marine Corps. I went to Iraq for this country.

I built a business for this country.

And my running mate took a bullet for this country.

So my question to Kamala Harris is, what the hell have you done to question our loyalty to the United States of America?

Megyn Kelly
It's stirring and it's effective.

Rich Lowry
Yeah, that was good. And he had an event. He's having these so called bracketing events, as the media calls them, with Harris and Walt as they go around the country. First stop in Philadelphia. And these events that JD is holding, they're not rallies. He'll have some ordinary people come up and talk, have a small group there and then he's just taking questions from reporters. And he did this this afternoon. Highly effective. Especially effective when he's making the case that Kamala is hiding via an event where he's taking questions from all comers. Now, it helps to have a sympathetic crowd there that likes everything he says and applauds, right. Any political performer likes that. But it does speak to a huge self confidence, right. That he's, he's just, these reporters can ask whatever they want. He got challenging questions at this event. So they really, even if they can't smoke Kamala out, you know, I think she's going to have to at least do one interview with Waltz, right, on MSNBC or something. If they can't smoke her out, at least if they can really punch through with the argument, what is she hiding? Is she really up for this if she can't go off script? And I think that JD has a really, campaign has come up with a really effective way to do that using JD.

Megyn Kelly
You know, bhati, I'm thinking about the imagery, right? You've got former marine and he did deploy young guy, semper fee. You heard the whole thing. And on the other hand, you have Tim Walts, who did serve for 20 years as national guardsman, but has this significant black mark at the end of it. And who's, you know, effectively running to be stand in for commander in chief. And as we're seeing right now in real time, being in the VP role actually can foist you into that role, whether officially or unofficially, sooner than expected.

Meanwhile, and the reason I think it's interesting, in addition, is because I mentioned in the intro, Tim Walts changed the Minnesota flag to look almost exactly like the somali flag. I mean, it's a dead ringer for the flag of Somalia. It's got the highest population of Somalis than any other state in America. And you look at Kamala Harris's website, we noticed this the other day.

Good luck finding an american flag on there. Good luck finding one policy, one nothing. You know what it is? It's LGBTQ pride merch.

That's what's on her website. You go to the Trump website. It's covered in american flags. His motto is Make America great again. It's his campaign slogan. He's got his former marine out there. They talk about America and their love of country at every turn. And so I do see this dividing pretty quickly into the pair that loves America and what it stands for and the pair that doesn't.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
Yeah. On the policy front, it really is amazing. Of course. Which policies should she put on her website? The ones that she held a year ago or five years ago or 20 years ago or five minutes ago. Right. She's such a flip flop or that it would be very hard to pin her down. The split screen is very, very significant. Here you have Kamala Harris reportedly choosing the less charismatic, less challenging of the potential mates, whereas Donald Trump went for a man who is clearly going to be the standard bearer for the future of the MAGA movement. You have the Harris agenda, which amounts to basically a yossification campaign. Right? A yas queening right to the top with no actual policy. And then you have Donald Trump's record on the economic front that really made working class Americans feel like they had a shot at the american dream. Again, you have the Democrats caving to the elites in their party. You know, President Obama, George Clooney, Nancy Pelosi, effectively choosing the next president on their ticket as opposed to the voters. And then you have Donald Trump again and again sidelining the elites in his party, whether it's project 2025 or whether it's the donor class who picked Nikki Haley. Right. They are really two visions for the future of America at stake here. One of them says, I'm going to be a perfect reflection of my voter base. I'm going to represent the multiethnic, multiracial working class, and they're shot at the american dream. And the other side says, no, I'm going to reflect no policy.

I'm simply going to be a reflection of, you know, elite energy. Right. Elite vibes discourse. Right, exactly. Elite vibes. The vibes that the elites want to see out there and hope to trick the american people into, to going along with it.

Megyn Kelly
But, you know, this selection, rich in a way, telegraphs exactly which Kamala Harris we're dealing with. Is she the 19 one who proposed getting rid of private health insurance and who wanted to ban fracking and all the things open the border? All of it. Is that her or is she this new moderate, as the campaign written statements have suggested that she's reversed herself on all of that. We have yet to hear from her at all.

This election tells us everything we need to know. This guy waltz, oh, he just went through the list. Okay, first of all, Minnesota schools have dropped from 7th in the nation to 19th under his gubernatorial reign. Um, he wants driver's licenses for all illegals. He wants free tuition for all illegals. He wants free health care. Has provided, not just wants, has provided free health care for all illegals. And as I said, in the intro, free is not free. Uh, he wants to make Minnesota a sanctuary state. It's not yet.

Neil Gorsuch
I.

Megyn Kelly
But he's on record saying, yes, I would like that. That makes sense to me.

He has supported the Biden Harris economic agenda. And here's the capper.

He's as radical as we can get on the trans and children issue. He is Gavin Newsom with white hair. That's who Tim Waltz is. He signed an executive order that says the state can take your childhood away from you, away from you if you don't, quote, affirm their gender identity, meaning they say they're a girl when they're really a boy, and make sure they can get access to puberty blockers, cross sex hormones, and surgeries, chopping off their healthy body parts. If your 13 or 14 year old comes home and says, I want to be castrated and you say, no, Tim Waltz wants the state to take your kid away from you, that's as radical as we have anywhere in the world on this issue. Rich.

Rich Lowry
Yeah, just shocking. And to the 2019 point, Tim Waltz would have been totally comfortable in that primary, right? He wouldn't have had to change any positions he has now, right? Tomo became more or less in that. Now she's telling she isn't anymore. Waltz is still with all those 20, 919 positions. And ultimately, you know, it's Kamala's positions that. That matter more. But the case you can make against her is that this reflects her values, this reflects where she really is. And the idea that the state is going to be weaponized against parents who want their disturbed or ill children who have gender dysphoria to be treated in a rational way, where you try to wait it out and hope it's a phase that passes rather than introducing these radical measures that, you know, western Europe, UK are now rejecting because there's no science behind them whatsoever, and we still have it in America and in the heartland. That's stunning. It'll be part of the case against him. And JD Vance was already making it this afternoon.

Megyn Kelly
But look, Bhatia, at how the media is already rolling out the red carpet for this guy. We're get used to this because we're going to have three more months just like it. Take a look at sat nine.

Waltz appears to fit the all american definition of a man from middle America, high school teacher, teacher, football coach, member of the Army National Guard before becoming a member of Congress and now governor.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
Exactly. He really has that perfect backstory. He's the one, George, remember, who labeled JD Vance and his republican allies as.

Megyn Kelly
Quote, weird, which gained a lot of.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
Steam with the Harris campaign.

Megyn Kelly
He has this folksy, personal, informal vibe.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
That has really appealed to a lot of Democrats. And they believe that his rural backstory, the fact that he was a former member of the NRA, as you say, he is this high school, former high school teacher. He was a football coach.

Megyn Kelly
That this can help appeal to those.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
Independent swing state voters.

Megyn Kelly
Independent swing state voters. Budget. They're going to love him because he's folksyeh and was once a member of the NRA. And then they're going to say, here, have my child start chopping.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
The media thinks that because they don't care about policy, because they are rich and elites and don't have to worry about pocketbook issues or issues like, you know, what's going on with their kids in public schools because their kids are on private school, right. Therefore, the only thing that matters is vibes. Right. Therefore, the only thing that matters is, does somebody give off a folksy vibe. Right. What is their backstory? Same thing with Kamala Harris. They don't care what she represents. They only care what she looks like. Right. They only care about the story because they are not facing the kinds of struggles that average Americans are struggling with every single day. Now, walls did do some things that are, you know, pretty good for working class Americans. Um, you know, he established a standard for nursing homes. Very important. Um, he banned non compete clauses. Very important for working class Americans. And he, um, also required a certain level of transparency in warehousing, which is really important for Amazon workers. This is all stuff that really matters and stuff that, you know, republicans really need to be paying attention to, because that is the only threat that he actually represents. And honestly, it's clear that that is not what they are putting. That is not the basket they're putting their eggs in.

Megyn Kelly
Right.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
He's not being trotted out as somebody who's good for workers. He's not being trotted out at someone who can restore the american dream for the struggling working class. He's being trotted out as someone who can support, you know, the Yas queen effication of Kamala Harris. And on that front, obviously, that split screen we've been talking about, I mean, how could he possibly compare to someone like JD Vance, one of the only people in the elites who cares about the forgotten american?

Megyn Kelly
He officially brings this race to a presidential contest in which the candidates will have not just one, but two candidates with a mug shot. Now, we'll get into that. His role in the BLM riots and the over the top Covid reaction that he unleashed in Minnesota. Right after this. More with Batya and rich right after this quick break. Do you owe back taxes? Pandemic relief is now over, along with hiring thousands of new agents, great and field officers. The IR's kicked off 2024 by sending over 5 million pay up letters to those who have unfiled tax returns or balances owed. Don't waive your rights and speak with them on your own. Why would you do that? Tax Network USA, a trusted tax relief firm, has saved over $1 billion in back taxes for their clients, and they can help you secure the best deal possible.

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Unidentified
Megan when it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. With indeed, don't search. Match indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. If you need to hire, you need indeed. You can even use indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging to connect with candidates faster. 93% of employers agree that indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites, according to a recent indeed survey. And since indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, the more you use indeed, the better it gets. Join over 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use indeed to hire great talent. Fasten plus listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@indeed.com. sxm just go to indeed.com sxm rightnow and support our show by saying, you heard about indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You. Need indeed.

Neil Gorsuch
People like JD Vance know nothing about small town american. It's not about hate. It's not about collapsing in the goal. The golden rule there is mind your own damn business. Their policies are what destroyed rural America. They've divided us.

Megyn Kelly
This is the first ad that the Harris campaign has released in favor of the Minnesota governor, Tim Wallace as her running mate. Back with me now, Bhatia Angar Sargent, opinion editor at Newsweek and author of second class, and Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review. I mean, just so cringey, batya like, I guess it's and if you look at the website now, they're trying to brat, bratify waltz, too. It's like his name and those, that brat. Right. What are they doing?

Bhatia Angar Sargen
Right. It's like his whole appeal is supposed to be that he's like a normie, that he's folksy. And now they're trying to like impose this, you know, brat campaign on top of that. It sort of like cancels out the very thing that they're supposed to be going for.

Megyn Kelly
No, not, not feeling it. They got to find a different way. It's not to say that he's never going to resonate, because I do think the far left progressives are going to love this guy and maybe normies will love him if the media does what we saw in that Stephanopoulos clip, rich, which is just go along with couldn't be more Normie heartland. They're celebrating him and his backstory in a way they did to JD Vance when he wrote hillbilly elegy, but not this time around. And even in that clip, Kamala's team says, oh, he, Walt says he knows nothing about small town America. He knows JD Vance knows nothing. I mean, this is what we're going to be subjected to. Right. The media's going to be like, yeah, this guy's got an amazing midwestern mid small town story. This guy hates childless cat ladies.

Rich Lowry
Yeah. It's very, that clip is very weirdly defensive and focused on JD Vance. Right. The election is not going to be one and lost in an argument over JD. But it seems this pick is partly in response to JD and what the Democrats and the media, the mistake they're making, although the media will do everything they can to make it work. They love these kind of frostbelt socialists because if you're from Minnesota, the chances are you actually are a nice guy. Right. Paul Wellstone, late senator from Minnesota, as left as you can get. But everyone who is around him, right, left and center, just love the guy. I've never been around walts, but maybe that's true of him as well. But that doesn't detract from the socialism, that doesn't subtract the socialism and it's.

Megyn Kelly
Body parts off of healthy children. There's nothing nice about it. There's just, there's no, there's no squaring those two things.

Rich Lowry
And it's, and it's out there. Right. It's not a secret. Again, it's not something he wrote like Josh Shapiro 30 years ago in a college newspaper as a position that he's in favor of now.

Neil Gorsuch
Right.

Rich Lowry
And is enacted now. So it's incumbent on the Trump campaign to make the case. That means the guy at the top of the ticket needs to be more disciplined than he has been recently, obviously. And bring all this back to Kamala, right. If he lied about his military record and he gets nailed over that, ultimately it's not Tim waltz that matters, right? You say, oh, that shows her poor judgment and her incompetence. The position, radical position on the trans stuff shows she really supports that stuff. Whatever she says now and bring it all back to her. But they're obviously operating in a difficult information environment. She hasn't had one bad news cycle since she ascended, in effect, to the, the nomination and the media's intent on her not having any bad news cycles.

Megyn Kelly
You mentioned him with the, you know, a super nice guy, but a socialist. Here he is on that white dudes for Kamala Zoom call where he copped to that twelve.

Neil Gorsuch
Don't ever, don't ever shy away from our progressive values. One person's socialism is another person's neighborliness.

Rich Lowry
Just do the damn work.

Megyn Kelly
Oh, okay. Just another person's neighborlyness. Okay, so I mentioned before the break, now Trump is not the only candidate running who has a mug shot. Just FYI, it was 30 years ago and he was going 96 in a 55 and was accused of being very drunk. He was arrested for DUI. He reportedly then lied to police about being deaf in an attempt to avoid the arrest.

He later pleaded it down to reckless driving and was convicted. I mean, when you plead guilty, you're convicted of that. So he's got a, but he's got an arrest record as well. And maybe that is one of the reasons why he was so empathetic toward the BLM protesters who ruined one of Minnesota's greatest, biggest cities, Minneapolis post the death of George Floyd when he sat for days and let it burn, notwithstanding urgent pleas from the mayor of Minneapolis, who was also a hot mess. But this too will come back to haunt him, Bhatia, because what happened in Minneapolis was dark. We actually do have some of the video queued up just to bring people back to what was happening while Tim Waltz sat there, apparently musing about how wonderful socialism is. Watch.

9901, 9901 emergency.

Neil Gorsuch
We got individuals breaching the gate at the third precinct. We also got people trying to breach the front doors.

Reach the back gate.

Megyn Kelly
They're taking heavy rocks, heavy run.

Airing information citywide.

Rich Lowry
The third precinct has been compromised.

Neil Gorsuch
Third precinct is flames.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
We're going to move back.

They're starting to throw Molotov cocktails. We're going.

Megyn Kelly
The protesters are the ones that feel.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
Like these streets are their streets, which you will hear people chant, protesters here.

And of course, of course, there's an explosion because there is gas and there are all kinds of things inside of these cars.

Megyn Kelly
Just one more for you. JD Vance commented on this today while on the campaign trail. I think he's on the airplane here. Watch.

JD Vance
This is a guy who's proposed shipping more manufacturing jobs to China, who wants to make the american people more reliant on garbage energy instead of good american energy, and has proposed defunding the police, just as Kamala Harris does. I think it's interesting, actually, they make an interesting tag team because, of course, Tim Waltz allowed rioters to burn down Minneapolis in the summer of 2020. And then the few who got caught, Kamala Harris, helped bail them out of jail. So it is more instructive for what it says about Kamala Harris, that she doesn't care about the border, she doesn't care about crime, she doesn't care about american energy, and most importantly, she doesn't care about the Americans who have been made to suffer under those policies.

Megyn Kelly
Season, what do you make of that, Batya?

Bhatia Angar Sargen
This stuff looks like it's far left, right? The Green New Deal scam, as Trump calls it, the allowing of the burning down of working class neighborhoods, the ratification of children being taken away from parents because they want to amputate parts of their bodies. This is class warfare. Okay, let's call it what it is. Of course it's far left. Of course it's radical. Of course it's extremely salient factor here is that it is class warfare on hard working, normal Americans who just want to be left alone to live their lives. They just want enough money to support their families and raise their children in beautiful, nice communities. And this is what is taken away from them by these radical, far left policies. Because, Megan, the truth is that being progressive is a class proposition. Having an elite university degree, that then gives you somehow the right to lecture people who are struggling to make it and impose upon them laws that make them poorer, that make them less safe and make it impossible for them to raise children and retire indignity. And that is really what this ticket represents.

Megyn Kelly
I mean, the BLM riots coming back up and his sitting there rich is its great fodder.

Rich Lowry
Yep.

Megyn Kelly
I mean, to be honest, Trump was president when that happened, which could also come back to haunt.

Rich Lowry
Yeah, but. But he's not the governor of the state. And the basic rule is you don't let your police stations get run over and burn to the ground. Right. There's a very basic, everyone understands that they did and he failed by that metric. His statements about this are the worst sort of progressive excuses for lawlessness, saying if we don't put diversity and inclusion at the center of what we do, this is what happens. No, this is what happens when people run out of control and they're not stopped by the authorities. And that was, by the way, another a plus statement you play there from JD Vance. Again, it's not just that waltz failed, linking it to the radicalism of Kamala Harris, who is in effect on the side of these rioters by supporting a bail fund that was getting them out of jail. That 2020 period was a time in our life when the left went crazy. And both Waltz and Kamala have a lot on their record from that period.

Megyn Kelly
Yes. Not only did she absolutely tweet out a link to the fund that was bailing out these protests, these rioters. These rioters. But she's on camera saying it's not going to stop. Watch.

Neil Gorsuch
I know that there are protests still happening in major cities across the United States. I'm just not seeing the reporting on it that I, that I had.

Rich Lowry
That's right.

Neil Gorsuch
For the first few weeks, they're not going to stop.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
They're not going to stop. And that's, they're not, this is a movement. I'm telling you, they're not going to stop. And everyone beware because they're not going to stop.

Neil Gorsuch
It is going to, they're not going.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
To stop before election day in November and they're not going to stop after election day. And that should be, everyone should take note of that on both levels, that this isn't, they're not going to let up and they should not. And we should not.

Megyn Kelly
Rich, is anyone else getting a little nervous? Like, I know it's good thing that she selected such a radical person because I think it probably increases the truck that, you know, Trump's chances. But I'm getting a little scared at the thought of that pair in the White House.

Rich Lowry
Yeah. It's the most left wing ticket that we've ever experienced and she'd be the most left wing president we've ever had, I think, easily outpacing Barack Obama. And what she's doing there, it's kind of the Al Sharpton play. For years and years, whenever he wanted something wasn't getting a political agenda. It was going to be a long, hot summer, which is like, watch out, riots are coming, right. It's a way to use riots as a threat. And that's, that's basically what she was doing. And it's not just that, you know, that many parts of Minneapolis burned down and those several nights of disorder there was elevated crime and gunplay and murder, maybe still to this day, I haven't looked at the exact figures, but for a long time. And to Batya's point, ordinary hardworking minority, largely folks, lived in those neighborhoods and they're the ones who paid the price. So these progressive shibboleths and an inability to insist on what we want from our authorities, above all, safety and order, hurt them most. And that's among the reasons that it's so shameful.

Megyn Kelly
He also loved the COVID lockdowns Bhatia oh, he loved them. He actually set up a hotline for one neighbor to report on another neighbor for not complying with his draconian orders. That's who he is. That's who she is. That actually is who most democrats are. They also loved the COVID overreach, except for the normies, who have since crossed over to voting Republican. I know a lot of them.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
And except Josh Shapiro, who was very good on Covid and opposed the vaccine mandates at a time when every other Democrat was pushing them. At a time now when everybody knows they were a mistake.

Exactly.

Megyn Kelly
Crazy. So I don't know. I mean, how are you feeling about Apatia?

Bhatia Angar Sargen
I think that this is going to be a big galvanizing moment for the american jewish community.

I mean, how can you keep voting for a party that's telling your kids that they can't be at the top of the ticket because they are proud Jews? It's so, so shameful. And the funny thing is, is liberal american Jews would never tolerate this for another minority. And I'm hoping that this is a moment when they wake up and find a little self respect and a little dignity and walk away from this mess.

Megyn Kelly
Hope springs eternal. But I'm going to go ahead and say, don't bet on it.

Okay, well, we'll see. Rich. Right. I'll give you the last word on it because I feel like we've got the rest of August to get through, and then this thing's really going to kick off in earnest. I mean, it's going to get very fierce in September.

Rich Lowry
She's going to be ahead after the convention in two weeks, maybe two, three, who knows, four or five points. Then we'll have to see where it settles down. And then you got more of a UK type general election, just a two month sprint. So again, Trump has not had a great five or seven days or so, but he's in the past, gone through these phases where he seems kind of wrong footed and like he's experimenting and nothing's working, is hurting himself. Then he usually settles on some stuff that works. It just doesn't seem complicated here. Right? She's trying to run a future versus past campaign, you say, no, she's not the future. She's been part of this failed administration. And by the way, the future they want is insane and would turn us back on what we must treasure as Americans.

Megyn Kelly
He'll get there. I think he'll get there. Guys, thank you both so much. Great to have you.

Bhatia Angar Sargen
Thank you, Megan.

Megyn Kelly
Up next, Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch is here, and I will ask him what he thought when he saw the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the man who appointed him. If you're tired of the same old coffee from those mega corporations pushing their woke agendas, listen up. It's time to take a stand and support a brand that embodies american values. At blackout coffee, they stand with hardworking Americans who believe in family, faith, and freedom. They roast some of the most incredible coffee you will ever taste using only premium grade beans. And guess what? They roast and ship within 48 hours to ensure you get the freshest coffee possible. I love this because I'm not into grinding my own beans. That's a pain in the butt. It adds another step to the process, and I'm already tired. So to know that I'm getting the freshest coffee, it was ground within 48 hours of me drinking it.

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Unidentified
When it comes to hiring, the best way to search for a candidate isn't to search at all. With indeed, don't search. Match indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to indeed data and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. If you need to hire, you need indeed. You can even use indeed for scheduling, screening, and messaging to connect with candidates faster 93% of employers agree that indeed delivers the highest quality matches compared to other job sites, according to a recent indeed survey. And since indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, the more you use indeed, the better it gets. Join over 3.5 million businesses worldwide that use indeed to hire great talent. Fasten plus listeners get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility@indeed.com. sxm just go to indeed.com sxm right now and support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you. Need indeed.

Megyn Kelly
I'm Megyn Kelly, host of the Megyn Kelly show on SiriusXM. It's your home for open, honest and provocative conversations with the most interesting and important political, legal and cultural figures. Today. You can catch the Megyn Kelly show on Triumph, a SiriusXM channel featuring lots of hosts you may know and probably love. Great people like Doctor Laura, Glenn Beck, Nancy Grace, Dave Ramsey and yours truly, Megyn Kelly. You can stream the Megyn Kelly show on Sirius XM at home or anywhere you are. No car required. I do it all the time. I love the Sirius XM app. It has ad free music coverage of every major sport, comedy, talk, podcast and more. Subscribe now. Get your first three months for free.

Neil Gorsuch
Go to siriusxm.com mkshow to subscribe and get three months free. That's siriusxm.com mkshow and get three months free. Offered details apply.

Megyn Kelly
My guest today is one of the most impactful people in Washington, DC and the country, and yet you don't hear from him very often. It is Supreme Court Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch. In 2017, Justice Gorsuch was nominated to the high court by then President Donald Trump. Since then, he has been part of some of the most consequential decisions in american law when it comes to religious freedom, freedom of speech and government overreach. He has seen a lot during his time as a judge, and one of his biggest warnings to the american public right now is stop the madness of law after law after law, and the federal and state and local governments boot on the neck of regular american citizens. It's contrary to the way the founders envisioned the country.

It is the topic of his new book out today titled overruled the human toll of too much law.

Justice Gorsuch, thank you so much for being here today.

Neil Gorsuch
Well, it's a delight to be with you, Megan, thank you for having me.

Megyn Kelly
The pleasure's all mine. So I have a lot that I want to ask you about the book. Forgive me, I've got to hit a little news of the day off the top. We just heard from Kamala Harris that she selected her running mate, the governor of Minnesota, Tim Walts. And I just wonder, I know you're not going to weigh in on whether it's a good pick, a bad pick, but is that the kind of thing that you guys will discuss at the Supreme Court? Do you guys ever hit news of the day with each other? Is it chummy in that way?

Neil Gorsuch
Speaker one Megan, you're not going to be surprised that you're not going to get me to talk about politics during a presidential election year.

We often eat lunch together. It's true.

It's the government. So bring your own lunch.

And sure, we'll talk about everything from baseball to politics to when Justice Breyer is around some pretty bad knock knock jokes that he gets from his grandkids.

Megyn Kelly
Is it like when we all go home for Thanksgiving and we have of leftists and rightists and conservatives, republicans, everybody, liberals, you know, debating these kinds of things over the potato salad, or is it, I would imagine it's a little bit more elevated than that.

Neil Gorsuch
Well, it's certainly like a family.

You know, there are nine people, we work together for long periods of time. We do easy things and we do hard things together. And it's a, I always think it'd be nice if the american people could take a peek and our discussions in the conference room. Now I'm glad they don't because it gives us an opportunity to speak candidly with one another and work through difficult problems. But I think they'd be very proud of the level of discourse and the thoughtfulness that goes around that conference table.

We have a rule, we speak in seniority, and everybody goes around the table and says their peace before any further discussion. And then it's just a conversation back and forth. And it's amazing how often that conversation yields something that we can all agree on and that becomes our starting place for our work.

Megyn Kelly
Is it true that you all shake hands with all of the other justices every time you see each other?

Neil Gorsuch
That's a 150 year old tradition, Megan. And yes, we do.

And I think that's a wonderful icebreaker for us. And I, and, you know, for all people, right. No matter how difficult the matter of the day is, no matter what disagreements we might have had yesterday, we're always greeting one another with a warm welcome and a question about their family or what they've been up to over the summer. And yes, it's a great tradition.

Megyn Kelly
That's really nice. I think about it sometimes in church where it's time to say peace and make peace with your neighbors. And I appreciate the return of the handshake like human touch in congregation with your neighbors, even strangers to you, but with whom you have a common belief there's something to it. And you hit on this in the book, like that tradition of going to church, some of the themes of bowling alone.

That's really kind of interestingly part of the problem in the knee jerk over regulation of everything.

Neil Gorsuch
Well, now, Megan, I'm a lawyer, so I like laws. And I think they're very important to our freedoms, right? Without them, we can't be safe.

We don't know what our responsibilities and our rights are without laws. But James Madison a long time ago asked the question, all right, some law is essential, but is there an irony in law? And can there be too much law in ways that actually hurt our freedoms and our aspirations for equality and our rights?

And, you know, just as a judge now for about 18 years, I've just seen so many cases in which decent, hard working Americans just trying to make their way, just getting overrun by laws that they didn't know about. And I felt it was important to take a moment to just tell their stories.

I've reflected on it for a long time, and many of them were kind enough to share their stories with Janie, my co author and former law clerk, and me. And, and the book really is about them and it's dedicated to them and it's their stories mostly.

Megyn Kelly
It's incredible the way that you've chosen to approach it. And Janie obviously is brilliant because I'm sure she did the bulk of the research. And the stories are spectacular, the ones that you've chosen, just to put a little header on it for the audience, you pose the central question of the book as follows. What happens to, this is my phrase to the little guy and their foundational freedoms, like the right to speak, the right to pray, the right to gather freely. When our laws increasingly restrict what we may say, they monitor what we do and tell us how we may live. You write in the book about how rich people, people with connections or popular people, they'll do okay. If you look at history, it's when the unpopular or unconnected, unwealthy guy or gal gets dragged into the courts that all of this regulation becomes a problem. And you feature front and foremost the story of Sandra and John Yates. I told my family the story. We're still talking about it. Even my kids were completely baffled by what happened to John Yates. Can you outline it for us quickly?

Neil Gorsuch
Sure.

So, John and Sandra Yates are high school sweethearts. They moved to Florida. He pursued his life's dream of becoming a commercial fisherman, worked his way up from deckhand to captain of his own small crew, and he's out. One day, somebody comes alongside, flashes a badge, and says, I'd like to measure your fish. John says, well, we've been out for some time, and I've got thousands of pounds of red grouper in the hold. He says, fine. I got all day. And he sits there measuring the red grouper one by one, and he determines that there are 72 fish that are less than 20 inches long. The limit at the time. Now, John's not convinced this fellow knows how to measure red grouper because he doesn't account for their long, lower jaw like he should. But put that aside. 72 it is. The agent says, put those in a crate, and I'll deal with you when you get back to doc in a few days. John does that well. When he gets back, the agent measures them again and finds 69, now not 72, that are undersized, and he's suspicious. But John doesn't hear anything more about it. For three years, when a group of agents surround his house, his wife's doing the laundry and arrest him. Take him 2 hours away. He has no idea what this is about. And he's charged with a violation of the SaR Baines Oxley act, which was, as you know, adopted after the Enron accounting scandal. And it's designed to prevent people from destroying documents when there's a federal investigation. But the law reads a, you can't destroy things like accounting records and spreadsheets and other tangible objects.

And the government Sarbanes Oxley theory is that John had thrown overboard 72 undersized red grouper and replaced them with 69 still undersized red grouper.

And John thought that was about the silliest thing he'd ever heard. But they pursued the case even after the size limit for red grouper was dropped to 18 inches and all of his fish. Bye. Anyone's estimation were longer than that. They spent years pursuing him, secured a conviction. He spent 30 days in jail over Christmas when he and his wife were trying to raise two young grandchildren.

And he was ready to give up. He was done.

And Sandra said, no, we have to fight this for the next person so it doesn't happen to someone else again. She took it all the way to the United States Supreme Court and won by a single vote. Now, that kind of spirit I admire. But look at the costs that it came to that family. John was no longer able to pursue his lifestream as a commercial fisherman, put out of work. His wife now supports the family, and they live in a trailer. So that's the human toll of too much law. Right?

And, you know, it's something that's happened in my lifetime. Megan, I don't know about yours, but our laws have just simply exploded. The federal criminal code has more than doubled in my lifetime in length. There are so many federal crimes now in regulatory provisions that nobody can be sure because it would take years just to read them. There are at least 300,000. We know. And everybody says Congress isn't busy. They write two to 3 million new words of statutory law every year.

And the federal regulations, forget about Congress. That's just the tip of the iceberg. The federal register used to be 16 pages long when it started in the 1930s. Now every year we see 60 to 70,000 pages added annually.

Megyn Kelly
John's wife Sandra is really the heroine of the book.

I agree.

She brought this case, notwithstanding the enormous challenges to doing that when you don't have a lot of money, as you point out, at last lasted eight years, three courts, 13 different judges, and John was forced to do the time and pay the price, even though he was ultimately successful at the US Supreme Court.

You point out in the book, all of this is very contrary to the founder's vision of what America would be about. And you say that one of the essential purposes in our founding documents, as recognized by Justice William O. Douglas Washington, was to take government off the backs of the people and to keep it off.

And somehow that's been turned on its head with the numbers that you just espoused. That by 100 years ago, all the federal government laws fit into a single volume. This is all from the book. Overruled. By 2018, us code was 54 volumes, 60,000 pages. There are 300,000 federal agency regulations, many of which have criminal penalties, and on and on, it's just spun out of control to where no one could ever understand what all the laws are out there and how many we violate in a day.

Neil Gorsuch
Yeah, some people say. Some academics say that anyone over the age of 18 in this country could be charged with a federal felony. And that does raise a lot of questions in my mind. Right.

Our founders wanted for us written laws.

They wrote a constitution that was a novel idea in human history at the time, and it was designed to divide and check and balance power and make lawmaking difficult. We forget that they saw law as restrictions on freedoms, and so they wanted lawmaking to be especially difficult task. And that's why we have two houses of Congress, why you have to then get the president to sign it or override his veto.

And we've kind of taken that process where we're supposed to have the wisdom of the masses, all the people involved, their representatives coming together, compromising, working through problems, and passing laws that we can all maybe understand and agree on. We've outsourced a lot of that work to federal agencies where there are experts and they have very important contributions to make. But there aren't the kinds of checks and balances that Madison had in mind for us.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, they're, they're not elected. And as you point out in the book, overruled. They often not only will be the promulgators of these basically criminal statutes that we're going to have to abide by, but then they're the judge and jury, too. They will create the regulation. They'll charge us with violating it, and then, and they'll try the case. And surprise, surprise, they're not the most objective judge.

Neil Gorsuch
Well, you know, when Janie and I sat down to work on the book, we wondered how many federal agencies there are, Megan, and it turns out federal agencies can't agree on how many federal agencies exist. There are at least three different published numbers of how many of them there are. And you're right, they write rules, very important work. They prosecute people for violations of those rules, and then in many cases, they serve as the judge for the case, too. Jonathan Turley, Professor George Washington says that the average American is ten times more likely to be brought before one of these administrative judges. They used to be called hearing officers, but now they call themselves administrative judges.

Great than they are to be, than an American is likely to ever face a judge and a jury. And what's at stake there?

Why do we care about this? Why do we write about this in the book?

Well, when you're before a judge, you're before somebody who is pretty independent, who's been appointed and confirmed and been through that process, but after that, doesn't owe anything to anybody.

His only job or her job is to apply the law as faithfully and fairly as they can.

And you have a jury, a jury of your peers to decide your case before an agency. Your administrative judge or administrative law judge is likely to be somebody who works for the very same agency that's bringing the charges against you. You're not going to have a jury.

And many of the procedures that you'd get in court, including basic rights like cross examination, are not always given to you the way they would be in court. It's a very, very different system, and it's unsurprising as a result that agencies almost always win before their own judges in ways that they wouldn't win in court.

Megyn Kelly
That fierce independence of the judiciary is going to come back into this discussion as we get into some of the criticisms of the courts these days and the push to make them more accountable and whether that's also inconsistent with the founders vision. You, you go through, you do an excellent job of outlining the problem in terms of the volume of law, the impossibility of understanding the laws, real men and women stories of how it's impossible to navigate the system and how people have gotten caught in this web. But I do want to tick through a couple of the passing references because they bring it home.

Justice Gorsuch goes through the six year old you may have heard of who landed in court for picking a tulip by the bus stop. Ten year old whose lemonade stand was shuttered for lack of a business license. We talked about those kids all the time when I was on Fox. It's a federal crime to enter a post office while intoxicated. There goes my Saturday night to sell a mattress without a warning label. I never knew that was real. We all rip those off of our mattresses thinking that's a joke, to injure a government owned lamp in DC, and I mean, absurdly, to consult with a known pirate, which is right on point, who spends their time coming up with this stuff, never mind enforcing it.

Neil Gorsuch
Well, that's the thing. I used to think those were like stray anecdotes, and then I started seeing them in my courtroom. When I was a 10th circuit judge, I had a case, I think it was a 7th grader, certainly a middle schooler, who was trading burps for laughs in his classroom. And I might have been guilty of that in the day. And instead of being just taken to the principal's office or maybe his parents called or maybe detention, he was arrested and handcuffed and it went to court.

Now, I don't know what's happening in our society that leads to things like that. Another one, a small healthcare company in Kansas was accused of Medicare fraud. Big, big deal. That's the kind of thing that can put your company out of business.

And it went through six years of those kinds of administrative law proceedings we talked about a moment ago, got to my court and the three of us, we sit in panels of three on the courts of appeals. Usually we looked at each other and said, we think, gosh, I think they complied with all the rules that were in existence at the time they provided their services.

And the government's accusing them of violating rules that it didn't even promulgate until years after they provided the services. Are we missing something?

And we got the government lawyer in front of us and heard argument. And it turned out the government had just become confused. It was producing so many rules so fast, it had no idea that it was accusing somebody for violating rules that didn't even exist at the time.

Megyn Kelly
The theme I see out of the book, again, overruled, is these government entities overreact to problematic behavior, minor problematic behavior, and they punish good or neutral behavior over and over and over.

There's so many examples in the book, but one of them that our audience may be familiar with, Hemingway's cats down at his estate, which some regulator deemed a problem. Everyone was perfectly happy. No one was suffering.

But then they were once the regulators stepped in.

Neil Gorsuch
Yeah. So there's this law that said that if you're an animal exhibitor, like a zoo or a circus, you have to have a federal license for your animals. Fine.

Then the agency took that and kind of ran with it and said, basically animal exhibitors include everybody from children's magician Marty Hahn. I talk about him in the book, too.

Megyn Kelly
That's a crazy story.

Neil Gorsuch
That's a crazy story. But the Hemingway museum, turns out they needed a federal license. And somebody from the US Department of Agriculture went down there and said, okay, you have these cats. They're all descendants of Ernest Hemingway's original six toed cat that he got from a ship captain is good luck. And they've been taking care of him for years down there.

They even stayed during hurricanes to make sure the cats are okay. And they have a little cat cemetery with tombstones. I mean, these cats are loved and they're all named like Marilyn Monroe and Cary Grant. And any rate, this person from the Department of Agriculture says, you got a problem taking care of these cats because the wall isn't tall enough. So the cats kind of wander into town. People love them, but you know that you got to keep them in and so you got to put the wall higher. And the museum said, well, we'd love to, but there's another federal agency that says we're a historical site and we can't change the wall.

So. All right. Then the agents said, well, maybe you need to put a hot wire on top of the. On top of that wall. So they put the hot wire in, and of course, that fried the cats.

And the agency got very angry about that. And the museum said, well, hold on. You guys are the experts. We're just trying to do. Anyway. They went through three rounds of applying for permits.

The american government spent hundreds of thousands of dollars sending agents to Key west.

They rented an apartment across the museum, took surreptitious photos. They're labeled like, could be a cat from Hemingway museum on them. And PETA did a study. They brought in PETA, and PETA said they saw a bunch of fat and happy cats down there.

It took years, and ultimately, of course, it got resolved. But the museum tried to fight it and said, this regulation is too broad an interpretation of a statue. They fought it all the way to the 11th circuitous and lost. The 11th Circuit said, you got a pretty good reading of the statute there, but there's something called Chevron deference, which requires us to favor the agency when there's any question about how best to read the statute. So you lose.

Megyn Kelly
And you point out too, I want to get to Chevron. But in New York City, for an example, opening a restaurant in New York, citing a New York Times article, you'd have to go through eleven city agencies, often with conflicting regulations, get up to 30 permits, registrations, licenses and certificates, and pass 23 different inspections. That's exactly the kind of bureaucracy that they were running into down at the Hemingway museum, where they just wanted to love these cats and not electrify them or electrocute them. Same thing as the poor magician who had similar problems. You got to read the book to find out his story, Marty Hayne, where he's just trying to pull a rabbit out of a hat. And if he wanted to pull an iguana out of the hat, he could have done whatever he wanted to it. But ultimately they were actually getting down to the nitty gritty of. Of, well, if a tornado comes, the cat needs to go into the holding shelter first before the dogs and cats. I mean, it's insane.

Neil Gorsuch
Megan, Megan. When he had a. So, yeah, he got whacked just like the people at the Hemingway museum. An agent came up when he's doing a show, children's show, and pulled the rabbit out of the hat and said, do you have a license for that? And he said, no, do I need a license? I mean, he's a law abiding guy. He wants to do it right. And they told him, if it's an iguana, you don't need one. And if it were rabbit meant for stew, that's okay. You don't need one. But for the children's show, you need a federal license. And he got one, of course. And then later, after Hurricane Katrina, they said, well, now you need to have an emergency preparedness plan and for chemical spills and hurricanes and all manner of disasters. And he had to hire a disaster management expert to help him write a 2080 page disaster management. He lives in Missouri. He says, we do have one thing I'm worried about, and that's tornadoes. And my plan is to get the family in the basement, then the dog and the cat. And if there's time, I'll get the rabbit. And of course, the agent. No, no, I don't care about the dog or the family or the rabbit's got to go first. He even had a home visit. He had a home visit when they wanted to see how he carries the rabbit to the shows. And he showed him the cage and. And the agent said, well, now, how do you know which way is up when you carry the rabbit? And Marty says, well, I've got a handle. I carry it from the handle. And they said, no, you have to have one of those stickers that says, this way up on it.

And he said, well, where do I get some? And the agent said, well, I'll send you some. And two weeks later, he got 200 stickers in the mail, thanks to your tax dollars.

Megyn Kelly
It's. So we have to laugh because it's truly just is absurd. But it's one of those laugh or cry situations, you know, of all these cases, because they wound their way through the judicial system, these people were forced to defend themselves against an overreaching federal government that does not understand those founding principles of how limited it was supposed to be and how we formed the whole country because we didn't want that boot on our neck inside of our homes. And when we do a magic show, not everything has to be over regulated. And one of the examples that's the most heartbreaking in the book, not the least of which, because we actually went there for a short time during the COVID lockdown, was what happened in Butte, Montana. It's where you may not know this justice. Rob O'Neill, the guy who shot bin Laden, is from Butte, Montana.

And, boy, I've talked to him many times, but I've never talked to him about the history of his hometown and how this government overregulation stopped people from helping themselves.

Neil Gorsuch
Yeah. So Butte, Montana, 100 years ago, 150 years ago, is one of the richest places on the planet. They discovered copper there and the wires for our telegraphs, our telephones, bullets for World War one. They came from Butte, Montana. It was so important in world War one that Omar Bradley was sent there to guard the it. And of course over time the plant closes, the smelters close and it becomes.

It's a tough place to grow up these days economically. And they also discovered that that smelter had poured a lot of arsenic into the air that had settled on the land. 300 sq. Mi around Butte became a super fun site.

And EPA did a good job with industry trying to clean it up. But they set the acceptable arsenic ranges to be left in the soil at 250 parts per million, in residential yards and in many, many municipalities today you cannot put anything in a landfill that's greater than 100 parts per million.

And about 100 people in Butte said wow, I don't feel comfortable with 250 parts per million. Where did this come from and can we do better than that? And EPA said well we think that's an acceptable cancer range, that 250.

And the people at Butte said well we'd like to clean up our own land or get this company to help us do better. I mean we're talking about daycares and kids backyards.

And of course the industry fought it, fair enough. But EPA came in on the side of industry and they said that federal law preempted any efforts by the states to clean up the land or even by the people themselves in Butte, Montana without EPA's permission.

The case went all the way to the Supreme Court and we held that the law was exactly as EPA and the industry read it.

I dissented, but I admit my colleagues had a pretty strong reading of the law.

I guess my question just is, suppose that is what the law is.

Is that how it should be? What do we think? Of course environmental regulation is very important and maybe if there had been some earlier we wouldn't have had the problem that we had in Butte. But at the same time, while expertise is important and Washington regulation is important, isn't the local knowledge of Butte also important?

Can't, can't those people, aren't those people entitled to think about cleaning up their own land without asking people 3000 miles away in Washington for permission?

Megyn Kelly
This over reliance on experts is another theme that comes up in the book about how we're seeding what we know in our hearts as street sense to this washingtonian sense of authority time and time again. And you do get in repeatedly to what happened during the COVID lockdowns before we go there, though. I want to point this out because you've got some great, great quotes in here. I mean, I am a lawyer, recovering lawyer. I practiced for ten years.

Neil Gorsuch
I know you are.

And covered the court too, didn't you?

Megyn Kelly
I did. I sat there for years listening to the arguments. It was my favorite part of my job.

But you weren't there yet. I'm sure it was even better today. But I love the quotes from the old justices and legal titans. And there's this one from judge learned hand.

It reads as follows, quote, liberty lies in the hearts of men and women when it dies there. No constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it.

That's what's starting to happen to us. We're allowing in too many cases, the government overreach and the over regulation. And you go through the nutty things that we went through during the COVID lockdowns, like some guy was on his front porch listening to music. I mean, just craziness of it. And you're not saying, as a justice on the high court, you know, I will stop this. You're saying people look at what we're allowing in our, in our country.

Neil Gorsuch
Yeah. So, you know, Covid is tricky, right? People didn't know a lot early in the pandemic. And of course, we need experts to help guide us.

But during COVID we saw an interesting thing, right? Lawmaking basically stopped in legislatures. The courts largely fell silent, and we had an intense wilsonian efficiency of executive decrees changing from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, neighborhood to neighborhood, week to week.

And we just asked the question in the book that's kind of an insight into maybe kind of the core of what we're talking about. What happens when lawmaking moves away from we the people and into other, into executive areas where you're just a few people are deciding everything for us.

And lots of good things can happen, but there are also some costs.

Who's best equipped to deal with that world?

It's often the people who have money and connections, and it's often the people, ordinary Americans, the mom and pop stores and the unpopular, they get whacked. And so you look at what happened during COVID with respect to companies, for example, who can deal with this massive new wave of regulation. The mom and pop stores shutter. Meanwhile, billionaires saw their net worth increase by 70% during those years. That's incredible. And then you look at how those regulations impacted popular and unpopular people. In Nevada for a period, casinos could open with 50% occupancy and no restrictions about how people interacted hundreds or thousands of people interacting in a casino just fine. But a church down the street could only have 50 people in it, no matter how large it was, no matter what precautions they took. And you just see what happens to popular versus unpopular people. Then, of course, as you alluded to Megan, there were laws that made it impermissible to even meet with people on a street corner. And you see, maybe not too surprisingly, that those laws tended to be enforced disparately with respect to African Americans versus, say, other citizens.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, you're going down a dangerous path there.

You talked about the churches. That's the story we covered a lot during the lockdowns. And I know I read that you said in an earlier interview a couple years ago that when you were going through your confirmation hearings, you did pray. And the power of prayer, you said, really helped you. People would stop you a lot in the street. Are you a man of faith? What role does that play in your very important job?

Neil Gorsuch
It plays no role in my job. I want to be very clear about that, Megan. You know, when. When you. When you don the robe, it's a reminder to put all those things aside. Your job is to squarely look at the law and squarely look at the facts. Do pretty much nothing else.

All right. But if you're asking me as a person, is my faith important to me?

It's right up there with my family and my country.

Those are things I love and I value more than anything else. And, yes, during the confirmation period, I can't tell you how many notes I got, and I still get from the american people saying, we're praying for you. I don't always agree with you, and I may not like the person who appointed you or the Senate that confirmed you. And I know I'm not going to like all your rulings, but I'm praying for you, and I'm praying for our country.

That personally means a great deal to me.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, that's. I mean, that's the kind of thing that makes you believe in our little experiment we call America. Right. I mean, this is something you hit many times, is the importance of being with our fellow Americans, reminding ourselves that political differences don't mean we can't respect, think well of root for people who are on the other side.

Neil Gorsuch
Yeah. And that's kind of the end of the book, if you will.

What's the way forward?

How do we get past some of these problems? And I think it reminds me of Tocqueville, who visited this country in the 1830s, and he marveled that what a great undertaking needed to happen. In England, a british lord would be in charge. In France, it would be a government. But in America, the people came together and they made it happen, whether it was through their charities or their local governments or just as private citizens. And it's that spirit that's always distinguished America. And I see that still. And it gives me hope in the problems we've been talking about, because I see people like Sandra Yates and Marty Hahnden who are standing up and trying to make real change, and they have, and it's happening at our state level, too. We see a lot of states taking this issue, starting to take this issue seriously. Idaho recently, not too long ago, passed a law saying the entire administrative code of the state is abolished except for basically those provisions that the governor subsequently deemed important enough to keep.

Texas has got a sunset law that now abolishes agencies after a set period of time unless they're affirmatively renewed. And we're starting to see that sort of thing take root across the country because of people like Sandra Yates.

And it isn't going to happen from that one old man sitting in Washington. He isn't going to make the difference.

Megyn Kelly
Now be careful with the old. I think you're only three years older than I am, so let's reel that in. Justice. I think you're like 56. You're a young man. One of the many reasons Trump appointed you, you go through the prescriptions on how we might consider getting out of this. And one of them you just mentioned, another is civics.

I want to talk to you just about a couple of them. You talk a bit about free speech and the importance of remembering how important that is in the context of, don't totally demonize the people who disagree with you. Hear them out. Let's, I mean, my take on it is let's not have safe spaces where we don't express ideas in which it's not okay to say how one actually feels.

And free speech is one of my own favorite issues. And it's something that's really important under the First Amendment and to most Americans.

You were the justice who authored 303 creative of the following finding. And that was, we covered that we had on the plaintiff in three or, well, I guess she was the defendant. I don't know her stance when she went up. But in any event, we had this woman on. She was a graphic designer. She did not want to design a wedding website for gay marriages because it conflicted with her christian beliefs. And they tried to force her, the state tried to force her to do it, saying, you're violating our anti discrimination laws. And that case is very interesting because it puts somebody's free speech rights right up against our, you know, anti discrimination laws, both of which are laws on the books, you know, or in the constitution. So you guys had a serious decision to make.

Eugene Valak pointed out that the court has a longstanding hesitation to enforce anti discrimination statutes in the speech context. So I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise. But you wrote as follows. The First Amendment protects an individual's right to speak his mind, regardless of whether the government considers his speech sensible and well intentioned or deeply misguided and likely to cause anguish or incalculable grief.

That is just so important. I just feel like we're drifting from our understanding and value of this concept. The first amendment protects an individual's right to speak his mind, regardless of whether the government considers his speech sensible and well intentioned or deeply misguided and likely to cause anguish and grief.

Can you just put some meat on that bone?

Neil Gorsuch
Sure. So, you know, our whole system of government, Madison wanted us to disagree, right? Because he thought through our disagreements, the best ideas would emerge, compromises would be hashed out, and we would tap the wisdom of the whole people. The wisdom of the masses, you might call it today in political science jargon. And what is that? Well, Francis Galton, who is a cousin of Charles Darwin, went to a county fair in England, and he put it this way.

There was a guess, the weight of the ox contest, and he wrote down all the guesses of the experts, and then he averaged the guesses of the regular people and guess which was closer. It was the average of the regular people that's tapping the wisdom of the masses. And that's what Madison wanted for us. He knew that more than any one person, the american people will have greater wisdom.

To do that, you have to be able to debate, you have to disagree in order to then decide and to move on as a country, just as we do in this court. We debate, we disagree, we decide, we move on.

You attack the root of that whole process, the foundation of it, when you suppress ideas.

And that is a very, very concerning thing to me when I read that a lot of millennials today don't even think it's important to live in a democracy. A third of them, according to some reports.

When Americans today report that they often and increasingly think of people on the other side of the political divide, not just as wrong, of course, fine, but is evil when you don't want to just say, you're wrong, but you hate the other person. You might want to hurt the other person.

That is not what our founders had in mind. And we have to be able to debate and disagree in order to decide. I think of my friend Steve Breyer, with whom I often disagree, and he says this and just, I think a healthy reminder for us all. If you listen to somebody long enough, long enough, take the time, you're likely, aren't you, to find something you agree with them about. And maybe you start there.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, I think about it as the bomb shelter principle.

God forbid we found ourselves with our enemy, quote unquote, in a bomb shelter. We'd be hugging them, we'd be talking about our kids, we'd be talking about our lives, and we wouldn't be talking about politics or all the things that divide us. I wonder, justice, if you felt this personally. I mean, being on the Supreme Court is, it's got a lot of responsibility and it's growing more and more volatile. I mean, we've been covering for a couple of years now since Dobbs, the protests outside of your house, some of the other justices houses, and the rhetoric getting more pointed than whether you have, have felt that personally or your family has.

Neil Gorsuch
Megan, I'm not going to sit here and complain.

There's, what you say is real.

But I count myself as one of the most fortunate and blessed people I know.

To be able to serve the american people in this court with these colleagues is just an incredible privilege.

And I surely agree, though, that we all do need to be able to talk with one another more and listen and learn how to win and lose again. Right.

And recognize that the person with whom we disagree probably loves this country every bit as much as you do.

Megyn Kelly
Weird question, but speaking of vitriol, did you, this is, I'm not going to ask you to weigh in on anything other than did you see the assassination attempt on President Trump? He, of course, appointed you to the bench.

Were you, can you give us any color on where you were when you saw that and how that affected you?

Neil Gorsuch
Megan, of course I saw it, like all Americans did. And I am deeply concerned with the state of our public discourses we've just talked about. And we all need to learn how to do better.

And I think one of the things that can kind of help us get there is maybe just learning a little civics again.

Right? We need to learn stability all over, but we also need to learn, you know, how our government works and how we can make change through it. Right? I mean, I worry when they're not teaching civics anymore. In our schools, there are only six states that have a full year civics curriculum.

In high school, we have college students who can't name the three branches of government.

60% of Americans apparently would fail the citizenship exam that my wife took. And that exam is not difficult.

Filling out all the paperwork is. I can tell you that because I didn't do it right.

That's how complicated it is. But I do think if people understand, understood better the nature of our government, the gift we've been given.

I mean, Daniel Webster called what happened in this country a miracle. That it took 6000 years of human history for people to be able to come together and say the people, through a democracy, can rule themselves and do so wisely and peaceably together.

It took 6000 years to achieve that. And he said, miracles do not cluster and don't expect what happens here to happen again or easily.

And I just think sometimes we take for granted what we've been given and we don't understand it well enough. And I do think if we had some of that, that would help us move forward.

Megyn Kelly
52% of the american people can't name a single supreme Court justice. Many believe Judge Judy is on the bench, which could be a lot of fun for you guys. I'm just going to say, and in the book, you quote Thomas Jefferson, if a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never was and never will be. Let's talk about a couple of other things quickly. Patriotism. You would, I think, like to see a return to the celebration of our ideals and our country, warts and all, pointing out that July 4 celebrations have come under attack. Justice Gorsuch. Every year we dress in full colonial gear. At my family, with my family and our friends, we have a marching band. We recite the declaration. We have Thomas Paine there. It's actually great. But we need to remember our love.

Neil Gorsuch
Of country, you know, Megan, I'm so glad to hear that.

There was an immigrant to our country who about 100 years ago, she fled Poland with her family in the russian revolution, and she started something called an I am an american day. And it used to be celebrated with huge fervor in this country. And she started it on Long island with a little march to her farm in the kind of colonial gear you're talking about and reading things like the Declaration of Independence.

And it became so huge that that speech you quoted from, from learned at hand was a speech he gave to over a million people on I am an american day in Central park in New York.

That spirit is, I think, what's key to holding us together. And we are coming up on the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence two years from now.

And I hope that moment will be something like it was. And I'm sure you may remember 1976, too, maybe you were too young.

Megyn Kelly
I do.

A little girl, but I remember it.

Neil Gorsuch
It was a real moment for this country after Watergate and after the Vietnam war, where we did come together and we recognized, yes, there's a lot more that unites us than divides us. And the Declaration of Independence, I think, is one of the most remarkable documents in all of human history. Right. There are three basic promises or thoughts in it that were radical at the time and nearly got all the people who signed a kill. One, we're all created equal.

Two, we have inalienable rights that don't come from government, but are given to us by our creator.

And third, that the government derives its just powers from the consent of the people.

And those were revolutionary ideas. And the men who signed them, signed that document knew that they were risking their lives and committing an act.

Megyn Kelly
That's a great section of the book, too. You go through the actual consequences to these guys who were a lot like Sandra Yates. They knew what they were putting on the line and they did it anyway. All right, quick, quick question to wrap us up. We didn't get to Chevron, which is unfortunate, but it's part of this solution. In Chevron, the Supreme Court said, we're not going to just defer to these agencies and these regulators who are going to interpret all these regulations anymore. That's the job of real judges like us, which a lot of us were cheering on. So good job.

But as you know, the president Biden has just called for reforms to the Supreme Court, like term limits and an ethical code. And I know you just passed your own, but even Justice Kagan has said it's kind of meaningless without teeth. Without somebody to enforce it, there's no enforcement mechanism.

I've heard you say, well, look, this is getting close to messing with our independence. That's my paraphrase. What you said to Shannon Bream of Fox News was, he needs to be careful. So what did you mean by be careful?

Neil Gorsuch
Listen, I'm not going to get into specifics over policy proposals by politicians in an election year. That's not my business.

The only thing I was trying to articulate there, and I'll repeat here, is that we should all recognize what gifts were given in our constitution. We all do.

People don't need to be reminded of it. But sometimes we do forget, don't we? And one of them is the independent judiciary. And why do we care? Why does that exist? Goes back to some of the things we were talking about earlier.

If you're popular, you don't need a judge or a jury to protect you. You're going to be in the majority.

But what happens when somebody sues you? What happens when the government has you and its crosshairs and you're the one in the dock? What happens when you're John and Sandra Yates or Marty Hahn or the Hemingway museum or any of the other countless examples in the book?

I think then you want what James Madison wanted for you and our founders wanted for you, and the men who signed that declaration wanted for you. You want somebody who's a fiercely independent judge, who isn't beholden to politicians, decide your case fairly under law, and you want a jury of your peers to hear that case.

Megyn Kelly
Yeah.

Neil Gorsuch
And that's just part of our constitutional heritage that we'd all, it's important to all of us.

Megyn Kelly
We don't want it put back in hands of the executive who controls the judiciary. We tried to get away from that level of power. Justice. Neil Gorsuch, thank you so much for being here. Really enjoyed the book, and I think our audience will love again it's called overruled. Two words, the human toll of too much law. God bless you. We're praying for you, too.

Neil Gorsuch
Thank you, Megan. Really appreciate your time.

Megyn Kelly
Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No b's, no agenda, and no fear.

So many options for toilet paper, quintuple ply. This roll is titanium in forest. This one is made from elderly trees. Is that good? Just grab angel soft. It's simple, soft and strong. And for any budget, angel soft, soft and strong. Simple.