Surging Support to Save College Sports, plus Mollie Hemingway on the Great Justice Sam Alito
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Transcript
103 segmentsThis is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand? We're not boring. A lot of news is boring. And tedious. And depressing. And makes you angry. You don't want to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong and Getty. We try to bring you the truth. And help you figure out this crazy modern world. How about something about a comedic tone? We have a winner. Listen to Armstrong and Getty on the I Heart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What God started in my life, he's going to finish. The Joel Osteen Daily Podcasts. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. What was meant for my harm, Lord, I want to thank you right now. You're turning to my advantage. Your daily source of hope and encouragement. Your second wind is on its way. God is about to breathe on your life in a new way. Listen to the Joel Osteen Daily podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Welcome, it is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you. And if you're listening on radio stations across the country, it's really nice to have you with us. And a reminder, we do this show as a podcast three days a week. So make sure you download Verdict with Ted Cruz, wherever you get your podcast in this episode and many of them are also on YouTube as well. So you can subscribe to the YouTube channel, Verdict with Ted Cruz there. And you can watch every single episode. Senator, we've got a lot to talk about, including big news for the sports world. And we've got some Supreme Court news coming up as well in the show. Well, this week I chaired a hearing on college sports and saving college sports. And we've talked before on verdict about how college sports is in crisis right now. It is chaos. You've got an out of control transfer portal with athletes transferring three, four, five times. You've got people playing until they're 26, 27, 28 years old. You've got people with six, seven years of playing time. You have virtually every athletics program in the country losing money and losing millions or even tens of millions of dollars. Schools are going broke. They're canceling programs every week. You're seeing women's sports getting canceled. You're seeing Olympic sports getting canceled. You're saying your favorite tennis getting canceled. That happened at Arkansas just a few weeks ago. And it is if we don't act. we are going to see much of college sports decimated and destroyed. And so last week I introduced bipartisan legislation with Maria Cantwell. Maria Cantwell is a Democrat from Washington State. She is the ranking member, the senior Democrat, on the Senate Commerce Committee. I'm the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. This week we had a big hearing. And we heard testimony. from leaders in college athletics about the urgency of solving the crisis now. One of our witnesses was Coach Nick Saban, the legendary coach of Alabama. And Coach Saban's testimony was incredibly powerful and give a listen to a little bit of Coach Nick Saban on why Congress needs to pass our Protect College Sports Act.
Yeah, before we get to that, though, I want to talk to you real quick about a bill you probably have every month, and you may not realize when you pay that bill, your money may be going to woke, hardcore left organizations. That's why I want you to know about Patriot Mobile. Every day, Americans make choices that shape our country's future, right down to which cell phone provider we support. Here's what most people don't actually realize. Patriot Mobile isn't just a wireless provider. They're an activist organization funded by selling top-tier self-service. They've been on the front lines defending our freedoms long before it was cool, standing up in the gap when others wouldn't. The best part is they deliver prioritized. premium service on all three major U.S. networks, giving you the same or even better coverage, backed by 100% U.S.-based customer support. You get unlimited data, mobile hotspots, international roaming, and so much more. But when you switch to Patriot Mobile, that's what I love the most. You'll help grow a movement that fuels the Christian conservative cause. Every bill you pay helps advance the values of faith. Family and freedom. And switching is easier than ever. You can literally activate in minutes. Keep your number. Keep your phone or upgrade. So go to patriotmobile.com slash verdict. And you are going to get a free month of service with a promo code verdict. Or you can call them 972 Patriot. That's 972. Patriot. 972 Patriot. Or call them and go online at patriotmobile.com slash verdict. promo code verdict for a free month of service. Make the switch and make a difference every time you pay your bill. All right. Let's play for you, Nick Sabin. Part of what he had to say in front of your committee hearing, it truly was impressive to hear him talk about sports, especially in front of Congress. Take a listen. Let me give you the history. My first year we had collective at Alabama, 2.7 million. Next year, 7 million. Next year, 10 million. I retired. Next year, 17 million. Next year, 24 million. Now you have schools that have close to $40 million rosters. So if we continue to do that, we're going to lose Olympic sports, we're going to lose non-revenue sports, we're going to lose scholarships, and basically what's going to happen is we're going to have football and basketball succeed, and we'll have club sports for everything else. He's not wrong, by the way, Senator. I was in one of those non-money-making sports, tennis, right? You had a lot of friends that you get to know that are in those Olympic sports, for example, that would all disappear. And when you think about having a college roster at 80 million, if you're a student athlete, that in theory sounds great, but that's only in two sports. Really, the majority of that 80, you know, you're talking about Alabama. I mean, there's not that much in basketball. I promise you at Alabama. So unless you pick football, you're left behind, and that's the reason why you're taking this act.
now and why Saban was saying what he was saying at the time. Well, and there's only a handful of powerhouses that generate and can dominate football. And so what if we don't act, I think within five years, we will see 30 to 50 colleges that have a football program and they'll basically be an NFL. Yeah. And the rest of the schools, their programs will be obliterated. There are a lot of reasons that's tragic. One is just sports brings us together. Sports is so much fun. Look, we're divided on so many issues today. We scream at each other. We're like it really is hard to find common ground. And yet you can go cheer on your alma mater and you can be there with people of different parties, people of different races, people of different religions, and you're all standing together. That's really important. Every bit as critical as that. is college sports is an amazing avenue for education for millions of young men and women. And until I really started diving in to this topic and working to save college sports, I hadn't really focused on how college athletics is something that is unique in the United States. No other country has anything remotely resembling what we have here with college sports. There are today. more than a half million college athletes right now. Every year, athletics enables kids, many kids from low-income homes, many minority kids who otherwise might not have had a chance to go to college. It enables them to go to college to study, to get a degree, to learn skills, to learn hard work and discipline and teamwork and sportsmanship. Accountability, just showing up. I can't tell you how much I learned from just the accountability, which, by the way, it made me a better person. It made me better in business. It made me better in my job that I did afterwards. There are so many young men when I was at Ole Miss that said they literally believe they would either have been dead. They would have been in a gang if it wasn't for sports, keeping them out of trouble in high school. And then they said if it wasn't for college and getting that college education, they would have immediately been into bad stuff on the street. streets. They said that sports actually saved their life and not only say their life, a lot of them, they were the first member of their family to ever go to college. And they went because they were an incredible athlete. It gave them the opportunity. It gave them a free education that it seemed unattainable. And it completely changed their family's trajectory in life. I think that's one of the most important things about college sports that people don't talk about. That is exactly right. And the status quo is unsustainable. If Congress doesn't act. we will end up with hundreds of thousands of those college athletic positions going away. And those kids, many of them, having no chance to go to school, to go to college, to get those skills, those life skills that set them up for success. And look, the way I approach this, I didn't worry too much about the top 1%. I didn't worry about the Michael Jordans or Arch Mannings. I worried about the 99% of college athletes who are never going to play pro ball, but it's giving them opportunity.
Your faith runs deep, deeper than the words on the page, and somewhere in the back of your heart you've always known. There was a place where it would all make sense in a way nothing else ever could. That place is Israel, where the Bible isn't history. It's the ground beneath your feet, where the Sea of Galilee still shimmers at dawn, and the streets of Jerusalem still echo with a story that changed the world. Believers who go, come home. Different, more grounded, more certain, more alive in their faith than they have ever been. That's what Israel does. I am, Israel. Come experience the journey your faith was made for. Start planning your trip today. Follow Visit Israel on social media. That's Visit Israel on Facebook and Instagram. Why should you listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand? We're not boring. A lot of news is boring. And tedious. And depressing. And makes you angry. You don't want to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong and Getty. We try to bring you the truth. And help you figure out this crazy modern world. How about something about a comedic tone? We have a winner. Yes. Listen to Armstrong and Getty on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. What God started in my life, he's going to finish. The Joel Osteen Daily Podcasts. Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. What was meant for my harm, Lord, I want to thank you right now. You're turning to my advantage. Your daily source of hope and encouragement. Your second wind is on its way. God is about to breathe on your life in a new way. Listen to the Joel Osteen Daily podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your favorite podcasts. Senator, also we've got a guest coming up in a little bit. We're going to be dealing with the Supreme Court, a bestselling book, and Molly Hemingway is going to join us, so make sure you stick around for that. But before we get to that, we're talking about this incredible NIL bill. And look, I had a ton of people, Senator, that were calling me. I had friends and people I've known in the past come out of the woodwork because they knew how important this bill was. They knew how important it was to you. asking me questions. There was a lot of people saying they're just not going to be able to get this done. There's no way you'll get bipartisanship here. That seems to not be true. And they said, well, there's no way even though he'll be able to get the White House behind it. That also doesn't seem to be true either. There is a lot of growing bipartisan support here to get this thing done. Well, there is, and I worked for months. Marie Cantwell and I negotiated. We sat in a conference room six, eight hours a day, negotiating provision by provision by provision. We introduced it with Cantwell and myself, a Democrat and Republican, and also with Eric Schmidt, a Republican from Missouri, and Chris Coons, a Democrat from Delaware. So we had two Democrats, two Republicans on the bill. And we've seen phenomenal support for it. So the ACC has come out.
emphatically in support of it. The Big 12 has come out emphatically in support of it. Condoleezza Rice at Stanford has come out emphatically in support of it. At the hearing, Pete Bavacqua, the athletic director at Notre Dame, testified strongly in support of it. Gordon Gee testified at the hearing, former president of West Virginia University, also Vanderbilt. It's been a president of actually five universities. He testified that this is a crisis and this bill is the only hope to save college sports. And we've had already, we've had over 130 signatures from leaders at more than 65 universities come out in support of the bill. And importantly this week, President Donald J. Trump came out strongly in support of the bill. He sent a truth social that I want to read to you. Here's what he said. College sports, a great American institution that produces our many athletes, leaders, and Olympic dominance is a total mess. And everyone is saying that it must be fixed. After unending lawsuits and crazed rulings, there are virtually no limits anymore. And soon most colleges won't have sports because each and every one of them will be bankrupt, never to be heard from again. Women's sports and the Olympics itself are in the most danger from this catastrophic situation. College sports are turning into pro sports, except with absolutely no rules, a result no one wants. University presidents, conference commissioners, student athletes, coaches, and athletic directors all complained to me that it has become a disaster. After years of no action and that schools were losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year, they compared it to a freight train that can't be stopped. That is why a few months ago I convened a roundtable bringing together a world-class team of some of the best sports executives, student athletes, and political leaders in our country. The goal was to find a bipartisan solution to fix the problem. Based on these meetings and the expertise of the leading authorities, I signed an executive order. But I always said that the best solution was to get a bipartisan act through Congress to my desk in order to save a long and embarrassing road through hell for these institutions. I'd like to thank Senators Ted Cruz, Eric Schmidt, Maria Cantwell, and Chris Coons, among others, for introducing the Protect College Sports Act. This law resolves many of the most urgent issues challenging our universities and student athletes, stops the chaos, and most importantly, it may be the last chance to save college sports and colleges themselves before it's too late. The House has worked long and hard on this issue as well, and I'm very grateful to Speaker Mike Johnson and leader Steve Scalise for their work to fix this very major problem. I urge the House and Senate to come together to pass a final bipartisan law that I can sign this summer that reflects the views and input of both chambers. And in all caps, we have to save college sports. Thank you for your attention to this matter, President Donald J. Trump. The support we're seeing is really significant. And I think we're going to see, I hope.
and believe a big bipartisan vote in the Senate behind this bill. What's the timeline now? And how much is there going to be people pushing since now this has become so, you know, such a big discussion to try to change things the last minute? Is that going to be a problem? And what does that look like? Oh, look, that is going on. And there are a handful of people that are criticizing and throwing rocks. But I'll tell you, most people are shocked that we could actually find a bipartisan. compromise. And listen, one of the nature of that, that means that I had to give quite a bit and the Democrats had to give quite a bit to find a common ground because we can't pass this bill unless you get at least 60 votes in the Senate. That means you need at least seven Democrats. They're only 53 Republicans. And my objective, frankly, is to get a lot more than 60 votes. I'd like to see a big bipartisan vote come out of the Senate. The House is tried several times to fix this problem. And unfortunately, every time they've tried to take up a bill, it's failed in the House. And so I think the Senate has got to step in because the clock is ticking. And I will say that there's a real risk also. of the biggest players coming together to form a super league. And I think that would be disastrous for everybody else. And not good for fans. Let's take my home state of Texas. Look, my home state of Texas, if Congress does nothing, in three to five years, I am certain that the University of Texas will survive and I'm certain A&M will survive. They're so big, they have such a big donor base and alumni base, they'll survive no matter what happens. But it's not at all clear that the other players in Texas survive. It's not clear that TCU or SMU or University of Houston or Rice or Texas Tech or Baylor, all of the different programs in Texas, they could go under in the status quo. And I think that would be a terrible outcome if we lose historic programs all over Texas, not just football, but when you lose football, football pays for all the other sports. So when you lose football... you end up losing the entire array of sports. That would be tragic, and we can't let it happen. Yeah, you're absolutely right there. If people want to get behind this legislation, is this one of those who they talk to their senators and their congressmen? Who do they need to contact quickly? Look, the first order of business is your senator, and urging your senator, whether your senator is a Republican or Democrat, urging your senator, get behind this bill, the bipartisan Protect College Sports Act. There's an urgency. I am hoping to move quickly on this. I'd like to get a big vote in the Senate. Once we get it out of the Senate, then the next step will be the House. But calling your senator, going on social media, speaking out and saying that college sports should be saved, that's really valuable. There was obviously a massive victory that happened in this country with the overturning of Roe v. Wade. But what it really meant was the issue of abortion would go back to the states. And that is where the real fight has actually begun. Now, over the past 50 years, Americans United for Life has filed more than 200 legal briefs and also helped create at least 400.
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outside of the court building. They're truly like a million different ways it could have been leaked, but the questions weren't hard hitting enough. So instead of saying, what has been your contact with this journalist who published this? Or do you or any, does any member of your family or a friend have contact with this person? They pretty much just said, did you leak it? And if they said no, then they want to thank you very much for coming in. There's no way you're going to find out answers when that's the level of investigation. So why do you think the investigation was shoddy? It certainly is not something that the marshal of the Supreme Court is used to having to do. As you know, the culture of the court is such that it's unthinkable that you would leak something like this. And it's not that it wasn't possible for people to leak previously a draft decision. They just had the type of... moral character that would prevent them from doing it and the chief of course is very adamant when clerks begin and other staff begin about the importance of the integrity of the court and not leaking any information whatsoever so i think it was just this is not something that this uh that the marshal had done previously it was a very sensitive situation it was still also in somewhat in the aftermath of covid so the new procedures that had been in place weren't well understood But ultimately, you know, I think it was a real failing, and probably they would have done things differently if they had to do it over again. Yeah, you know, you use the word unthinkable, and that's not an exaggeration. I remember when the Dobbs' draft opinion leaked, and I was at dinner when Politica broke the story, and it was stunning. I just stared at my phone in shock. Because everything about the court is predicated upon trust. It's a quite small institution. You have nine justices. Each justice has four clerks. And it's a small little intimate family. And there's a robust back and forth. Almost all the edits are done in writing going back and forth with the justices communicating with each other. And it just, it. It did permanent damage to the court in terms of the trust the justices have for each other. It, I think, changed the court. Was one justice put it, it's like if there's infidelity in a marriage, you can keep going, but something has changed with that marriage. Nobody really thought it was a justice. The justices themselves certainly didn't think it was a justice, but just knowing that things aren't as trustworthy as people thought was a big issue. But I love to- Oh, sorry. You know, if this ever happens again, what was your takeaway? Would they do it the same way? Should there be a different way of there being an investigation? I'm a pessimist. I think, well, if Democrats want to leak out a decision in the future again, that they want to try to stop and put pressure on justice, they'll do it again. There was no accountability for this leak that was unimaginable, as Ted Cruz just put it. What would be different the next time, if anything at all? I do think that there was something singular about this situation. Abortion and the court has always been difficult. That's actually where a lot of the leaks have happened previously as well. And even the person who did the leak, until he or she admits it, we probably won't know who did it. Again, it was something that could be done very easily without detection. So I don't think it would be.
I don't see it happening again, but there is still time actually to think about whether there should be a better investigation into this, including whether there's any role for an outside investigator, law enforcement investigator. One of the things I think is interesting is that after the leak of this decision, you had attacks on the lives of the justices. You had organized and coordinated protest activity. You had the firebomings of the churches and the pro-life pregnancy centers. It is illegal to do something with the intent to affect the outcome of a decision. And yet the Biden Justice Department did nothing, refused to follow federal law. Look, one of the things that really bombshell facts that you report in this book is you report Elena Kagan screaming at Justice Breyer so loud that the walls were shaking over Dobbs. Tell us about that. Well, after the leak happened, again, the lives of the justices are immediately... threatened. You have justices having to be moved to secure locations, Amy Coney Barrett having to put on a bulletproof vest in front of her children. We also had the situation where she recently was the victim of a swatting attempt where someone tried to get her house swatted. And you had Brett Kavanaugh, of course. with an assassin outside of his house. Well, prior to that happening with Brett Kavanaugh, some of the justices asked the dissenting justices to please wrap up their dissent so that the decision could be released. Until a decision is released, it's not final. So if one of the just were to die, that would mean Dobbs was not handed down. And let's just underscore that point. Because if one of the justices were to die, this is an area where... Passive voice doesn't really capture it. To really underscore it, that means if one of the justices in the majority were to be murdered, suddenly Dobbs cannot issue and Roe versus Wade is not overturned. And so the assassin who came with plans to murder, Brett Kavanaugh and the other conservative justices. could have changed history. And every day that there was a delay, there was an added risk that someone would murder one of those justices. So a request was put forth by Samuel Alito and also by Justice Gorsuch. Could you wrap this up? Could you give us a date? By which time he'll be done? And they wouldn't, the liberal justices would not give a date. But after that conference. Elena Kagan went to Breyer's chambers. Breyer is a liberal, but he is a gentleman and his colleagues. He cared about his colleagues in their lives. So he seemed most amenable to wrapping things up. And Elena Kagan did implore him not to accommodate the conservative justices. They finally say, we'll get something out by June 1st. We'll get something done by June 1st. And they do. in exchange for getting other decisions done later. But they include this gratuitous footnote that was completely unnecessary for another decision that really wasn't going to be handed down for another several weeks. And so during that period of time, before it was finally handed down, I think it was June 23rd, that was when Brett Kavanaugh actually had the assassin outside of his home. And this slow walking, which I report in Samuel Alito, the book,
was also confirmed, I think, this year as a tactic that is being used by the liberal justices. We learned that they were also slow walking that Calais decision, that Voting Rights Act decision in the hope that if they got it out too late, then state legislatures could not respond to the decision. Well, and Ketanji Brown Jackson was quite vocal and wrote about wanting to delay that decision with a very explicit, I think, objective of preventing state legislatures from acting and redistricting. And it's one of the most partisan... disputes we've ever seen at the court, her effort to have a real impact on the election in November. And I will point out that Samuel Alito actually responded to her by pointing out, this is a case that we heard in October. And it was not the first time they heard it. They heard it the previous term as well, pointing out that every other decision from that term had already been released, that this slow walking was political. Yeah. Handing down a decision that needs to be handed down is not political. Slow walking it, however, is. All right, I want to take a moment here, and I want to also talk to you about an amazing product that we've been giving our dog Birdie. It is from Rough Greens. I got to tell you one of the best days is when you bring home a brand new puppy. Ours is named Bertie. The tiny paws, the wagging tail, you know, that excitement that they bring, the energy that just doesn't quit. And that's why we sprinkle rough greens America's number one dog supplement on Bertie's food every meal. It's packed with all the live new nutrients needed for our puppy to live a long and healthy life. Now, you can join Bertie and thousands of other dogs and get your free. Jump Start trial bag today. You just cover the shipping. Go to roughgreens.com and use the discount code verdict. That's r ufffgreens.com. Code verdict. Rough creams make any dog food better. This brings up a bigger question I wanted to ask you about, Molly. And that was about the idea now that every time a decision comes down that Democrats don't seem to like, they want to either completely remake the court, pack the court. Does that concern you, especially as you were writing this book, how much now they're saying, oh, nine, maybe we'll move it to 15 or 18 or whatever the numbers they want next? This is a huge threat to the court and rule of law, what we're seeing happening from the left. And I actually go into this in detail in the book, showing how coordinated the attacks on the court are, how well-funded they are. To just use one example, ProPublica, which is a left-wing media outlet, raised $53 million with the express purpose of going after Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. And at the end of the year, they reported on their 9-90 form that what they had done with...
$53 million. I mean, can you imagine how many reporters and researchers you can hire, you know, high-level people? Yeah. Publish that many stories, but the whole goal was to attack the integrity of Samuel Alito and Thomas, two men who actually have a great deal of integrity. But... This was done as part of the Democrat lawfare efforts that are going on to pressure the court into agreeing with some of the more extreme lawfare efforts that they have had in play, whether it's kicking Trump off the ballot or having uneven prosecutions of conservatives versus liberals. And you see it with now so many prominent Democrats calling for the actual packing of the court. This isn't about, you know, having a thoughtful discussion about the number of people on the court. No, no. If they get power, they will do this. Yeah, packing for political outcome. And I'll just point out, conservatives were not in power on the court for decades. And many bad things happened. And they never once resorted to undermining the integrity of the court. They said, we're going to put a lot of effort into electing senators who will confirm good justices, electing a president who will nominate good justices. and building up the network of people who understand what a proper, coherent, conservative judicial philosophy is. And the left doesn't want to do that work. They just want to burn it down. They want power and by any means necessary. And they view the court as an extension of political power, not an institution that actually is supposed to follow the constitution or follow the law. And in fact, they view the court. as an avenue to end run democracy because many of their most extreme policies are very unpopular. The voters don't want them. And so it's much easier to get a handful of unelected judges just to force it on the whole country than actually to engage in the difficult and messy business of democracy of convincing your fellow citizens, you're right. You know, it strikes me that there are a lot of very similar themes in your book on Samuel Alito. that are in my upcoming book on Justice Clarence Thomas. My book is coming out in August. And like you, I spent a lot of time interviewing Clarence Thomas, as you did with Samuel Alito. And, you know, one interesting bit of history is Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito were both... classmates in law school at Yale Law School. They didn't know each other, but they were classmates. And there's a funny story Clarence Thomas told me when I was interviewing him for the book, where he said when he was at the court, when Samuel Alito went to the court, he asked him, he said, Sam, why weren't we friends in law school? And Justice Samuel Alito responded, Clarence. You were scary. And Clarence Thomas erupts in his signature, just belly laugh, which is, as you know, infectious. Tell us a little bit about what made Samuel Alito.
into the great Samuel Alito. And you mentioned before what you described as his unique brand of originalism. Elaborate on that a little bit. Well, I think one of the things that sticks out is that he was raised in a middle class family by a public servant who he really respected his father. He goes to Princeton and he's a public school kid and he assumes that all of these elite kids are going to be really smart and give him a run for his money. When he gets there, he finds out actually... He's doing just fine in the intelligence department. And also, these elite kids are the ones who end up rioting, shutting down the campus. He knows that they will go on and have cushy jobs that their fathers gave them, whereas he needs the education. And so even though he goes to elite institutions, Princeton, Yale, goes to the Department of Justice. He doesn't seem... Do you want me to concede that Yale's an elite institution? That may be a bridge too far. Go ahead. Sorry. He doesn't seem to want the respect of many of the people he meets there. He just doesn't... He's not that impressed with them. And I think that's... You see that come through now, and it's the same thing with Clarence Thomas. He cares so much more about people who are working at the Supreme Court than the people at the cocktail parties. And... Speaking of Clarence Thomas, he and Samuel Alito work together very well. But whereas Clarence Thomas, as one person put it, is the deployed aircraft carrier on the court. Samuel Alito's chambers are more like the green berets. They go and they prepare the land. He might agree with Thomas on where he wants to be, but he's going to be more tactical about, okay, well, how are we going to get there? And you even saw that again in the Clay decision, this Voting Rights Act. What does Thomas say? Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act is completely unconstitutional. Samuel Alito might agree with that, but he builds together a six-person majority to say it can't be interpreted that there are these racial gerrymanders because that cannot be what the law means given what the 15th Amendment of the Constitution does in explicitly prohibiting such. So what do you think Samuel Alito's legacy will be? 50 years from now. For most justices, I think they will be lucky to be remembered for one thing. And if it is one thing, it's definitely going to be the Dobbs decision. But the reason why people should pay attention now is because of all these other important decisions, his incremental solid work on religious liberty, speech issues. And I would say the other thing I find really interesting about him that people should pay more attention to is how effective he is in oral argument. Yes, very much so. Positioning the court on what issue they should decide a case on. So he's quiet, he's humble. But I do believe people on the right should absolutely know more about him and understand what the left understood long time ago, which is he's a very important justice. Well, look, like Chief John Roberts, like Elena Kagan, Samuel Alito is a veteran of the Solicitor General's office and is an experienced Supreme Court advocate. And that's a, that is a rare skill. And you see him displaying it from the other side of the bench as a justice. And you're right. He's very, very effective at oral argument.
Talk a little about his character. He's an extraordinary man, but share your thoughts on his character. Just really interesting to find someone in Washington, D.C. with this level of humility. He's a family man. He very much believes in doing his duty. Even the fact that he's been a public servant, his entire career, this is someone who could be making so much money off of the court. And he cares about, you know, even he hires clerks who are people who are going to be devoted to public service or the academy. And he's just a very quiet, humble, but also... very funny guy with a very subtle sense of humor. He's hysterical. I want to encourage everyone, go out and buy Molly's book. Go buy Samuel Alito, the Justice who reshaped the Supreme Court and restored the Constitution. Go to Amazon, go to Barnes & Noble. By the way, while you're there, go buy my book, too, on Clarence Thomas. It's coming out in August, but you can pre-order them, read them together. The two are great bookends, and you know what? They both would make fabulous graduation gifts, birthday gifts. Christmas gifts. Go buy Molly's book. And Molly, thank you for joining us. Thank you very much. It's really important. Don't forget we do this show Monday from Wednesday and Friday as a podcast. So download Verdict with Ted Cruz wherever you get your podcast. You can also watch us on YouTube so you can subscribe the channel there. It's always free and on Facebook as well. The Sunday and I will see you back here on this radio station as well next week. Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand. We're not boring. A lot of news is boring. And tedious. And depressing. And makes you angry. You don't want to live your life like that. Hey, I'm Jack Armstrong. He's Joe Getty. We're Armstrong and Getty. We try to bring you the truth. And help you figure out this crazy modern world. How about something about a comedic tone? We have a winner. Yes. Listen to Armstrong and Getty on demand on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. The Joel Osteen Daily Podcast. God's plans for you are for good. Be inspired. Get ready. God is about to exceed your expectations. Joel Osteen Daily podcast. You are coming out of that dry place into more than enough. Daily encouragement right when you need it. There are opportunities in your future bigger than you can imagine. Listen to the Joel Osteen Daily podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite podcast. Thanks