happy holiday season to you. we will be back in january with another episode of about books. >> you are watching booktv, the top nonfiction books and authors every weekend. booktv, television for serious readers. >> welcome to our viewers, welcome to linda greenhouse, an old friend of mine and i'm excited for her new booklet is out and we will have a conversation of about 60 minutes. i want to start by saying i have known linda since the late 80s when i started covering the supreme court too and for a long time we were competitors, friendly competitors but competitors. i was full-time with the washington post and she was full-time at the new york times and we didn't start on our respective book journeys and

would sometimes be at the library of congress doing research to get a lot of people on the outside new us as competitors. i will never forget one day we had lunch together and we were walking out and a group of older visitors who looks like the washington week crowd said there is linda greenhouse and it is joan biskupic and they are together and i always think yes, here we are one more time together and it is a privilege and pleasure to start asking you about your book which lots of people will see but i have marked up in the galley to talk to you about. i thought i would ask you if you wanted to say a few words about what you were trying to do here before we get into the nitty-gritty. >> guest: we go back a long way.

the supreme court press corps is not as competitive as people might think. we've all got the same information at the same time. at 2:00 in the morning we do the best we can, not like the press gallery for our competitors but to situate the project that became this book, basically and intense court watchers through the duration of the court, 2020-2021. the shadow of ruth bader ginsburg's death and amy coheny barrett after rapid

confirmation, taking justice ginsburg's seat on the court, encapsulated by the covid pandemic, the 2020 election and all the stuff that we know about. what i try to do was channel the court in real time. i wrote every chapter, what happens in that month is an honest account. i didn't go back at the end and do things i would have gotten wrong, a case that was argued in november and decided in june, the decision didn't quite track my perception of the argument, that is life. or did she miss a signal there or something?

something that would have taken over to my eyes as a decade as a court watcher and my professional life since the 70s. it is what it is. >> host: we go along, i will mainly ask about the substance of the book but also asking about the writing because this was quite a challenge to do it the way you did it, to have it be edited simultaneously as so much was unfolding. let's start in the beginning. i found your focus early on with new justice amy coheny barrett was prescient with the

focus on abortion, so many ways you might have looked at her in your initial lens as she was appearing before the crowd at the white house for her unveiling when donald trump nominated her and the celebratory moment on the balcony overlooking the rose garden and let me ask, a timely moment for abortion rights in america how you decided to focus so much on her identity related to abortion even in the introductory parts? >> guest: it was not asked in the confirmation because it was tied up with division. so a lot was written about her,

her previous critiques her critique where she talks a little bit, and the award that was given to her, catholic member of public life, and she signed an objection because support for abortion rights, that kind of thing. so i didn't start writing the chapter until after she had been confirmed and the confirmation process, one democratic senator showed up with a final vote that was

objecting. the nomination had been announced and was shoved through so quickly because seeing democrats struggling to get abortion on to the record that confirmation hearing because they couldn't ask the question. so to me it was hanging by a thread for some years now. to me that was the story. that the court viewed with a specific case. on december one that case was on the docket since the previous summer because it was about abortion.

it has proven to be also true in november. >> host: we are taking this before november 1st when they were your argument in the texas case and this will thereafter the court has heard those and maybe even after the texas case but we will eventually touch on that a bit but i want to go backward to something you said about religion and how it was so taboo and give folks a little more context about why it is. you mentioned when senator dianne feinstein asked about her religious beliefs when she was out for the seventh circuit and the kind of backlash that happened there. and show what consequences had when she then was nominated to the supreme court.

>> guest: in 2017 there was a case before the seventh circuit that was issued on the committee and she asked the nominee questions, will you be able to separate your religious beliefs from your role as a judge. she said it seems to me the dogma is routed in it so this created a huge backlash, the constitution provides there should be no religious test for public office. the what was within you, i gather in the parish there were

-- it became a slogan. there was so much pushback. when the supreme court confirmation hearing took place and she couldn't ask, what is interesting about that is the democrats obviously decided no one was going to ask was the republicans had not gotten that memo, assumed democrats would be beating up on judge barrett for her religious beliefs and had all kinds of questions to post to her along the lines of isn't it terrible that democrats are beating up on you on the issue and none of them had but senators like senator graham and senator howie asked

the questions anyway and just kind of amusing to watch that unfold. they wanted an excuse to be up on their democratic colleagues. they weren't nimble enough to pivot and asked more pertinent questions. kind of a funny scene, i had a sense of humor i have to say. >> host: let me ask from justice barrett's point of view. senator feinstein asked in september of 2017 as linda just laid out and then judge barrett speaks about the questioning when giving a speech at hillsdale college and she's very put off by what happened and says everybody has to check

their biases at the door whether they be religious, racial, sexual, whatever and she pretty much uses that moment to set herself apart from others and i noticed in the book you actually have some paragraph, that many of us had at the time when justice barrett was put on the short list for donald trump and the supreme court that moment with dianne feinstein actually swept her forward in a way that other potential supreme court candidates didn't have. what do you think about how she might have viewed that moment in terms of her own ability to set herself apart? >> there were many factors that went into it, one of them was the fact that donald trump's white house counsel at the time

was also a notre dame graduate and in the seventh circuit, he showed up at the event and i think pronounced dogma is allowed within me and comported herself with appropriate in this situation, but kind of religious prejudice you might say and this is the case that probably kind of helps to be a victim and it helped her.

>> host: you mentioned don mcgann was at her swearingen. he was sitting right behind her when she was being asked those questions. he chose to attend her confirmation hearing for the appeals court which showed a certain amount of allegiance there. they are separated by a decade in ages or maybe not that much but they weren't at notre dame at the same time but she was a regular in the federalist society circuit and she would have crossed his path over and over, do you know anything else about their relationship other than the notre dame connection? anything you discovered about how he might have decided to mentor her in any way? >> guest: no i don't but what i do know is the night justice ginsburg died on september 18th, 2020, donald

trump was in the air coming back from a campaign event on air force one and got a call patched through to the president and he said mister president you should nominate somebody right away and that person should be amy coheny barrett and when justice kennedy retired, her name had been mentioned to brett kavanaugh and donald trump is quoted as having said i'm saving her for the ginsburg seat. the network of support was the icing on the cake. there was an inevitability, the white house talked about a

short list. there was only one name on the list. they never interviewed another potential nominee. >> host: they did what they did, tried to put out some breadcrumbs that would suggest a different nominee. you did research into how they told some news organizations, the judge down in florida, might see her and run to santos was excited about that possibility but just like human reporters on a chase during the neil for such selection, he tried to do that a little bit in the amy coheny barrett situation and we know from the filings that judge barrett had to produce that the president

offered her the job that monday. >> guest: trump was different from bill clinton. all kinds of names and couldn't make a decision, for weeks and even months. >> host: justice white announced on march 19th and ruth bader ginsburg wasn't chosen until the middle of june. it was literally months. >> host: he really was thinking of everybody in the country. the laserlike focus on the trump administration on the judiciary in general and the

supreme court specifically, the aspects of this saga. not going to be deterred from getting hold of the supreme court's. it was there for a long time. >> host: i want to pivot to religion more broadly. before i go i have to ask how you decided to use the phyllis shapley comparison. as i know, you know a lot of people watching know as linda was writing this, the miniseries mrs. america was on the air and an interesting comparison.

tell us how you settled on that. >> host: not many people watch that popular miniseries but it wasn't in the news. i had been writing years ago in the history of the abortion issue in the united states and a big role, the equal rights amendment, and tuesday if this amendment is that the constitution, the right to abortion and doing that, she was able to foment riots between catholics and evangelicals in american politics, very wary of one

another, the catholic church being on abortion and evangelicals, not because of abortion thursday that they saw as a threat to the traditional family structure, and it is oversimplified, there were many hands in this but focusing into the very powerful coalition that was coincident with the rise of ronald reagan. toward the end of the public part of her career. her career lasted until 2016, to endorse donald trump in the run up to 2016 election but wanted to give her a job in the

cabinet and put the kibosh on that and that kind of position and the miniseries ends with her taking a call from reagan to tell us you've done a great job and you see her crushing disappointment too. if you watch the rise of amy coney barrett, much in common. >> host: with something else. >> guest: a very traditional family structure. obviously far behind the

confines of the traditional household, all those kinds of things. hair on her head, verbal dressed and so on. it just occurred to me in a way, amy coney barrett in 2020 was the fulfillment of what phyllis shapley had failed to do in the early 1980s and that is why i do like the comparison. >> host: a fascinating comparison. let me ask you a question about religion and i would like you to weave in your response on how much of a back story you wanted to tell, you are focused on these 12 months, such crucial 12 months but

necessarily had to develop the scaffolding for that and you talk about training lutheran is a case you want to write about. the case in 2017. really important case when some seeds were planted and unusual divisions emerged among the justices so the importance of that religion case for what we see now in terms of the justices jurisprudence, religious liberty. why you chose that as this starting point you needed to fill in and how hard it was to decide how much back story to give on certain areas as you were actually writing. >> guest: to answer the last part of the question first, i went through the same thing as

a reporter, issues of those who ascend to smart interested people, just didn't happen in this matter. to really understand what is happening, what kind of context do they need. i tried to do that here because in the context of covid and the capacity restrictions they were putting on all kinds of places, it became an important theme as it went on. and now, soon to be, the division in the public square gives difference to religious clues. it is an essential part of the

project of chief justice john roberts, which is quite common, after a lifetime of advocacy in certain things they would like to see accomplished doorstop from happening or whatever it may be. i'm quite sure religion sways the project so to understand what happened is important to go back just a few years to this interesting case where a preschool, two things, the state constitution provided state money should go to churches number one, number 2 a

program where the recycled tires available to schools on realigning their playgrounds, to have nice rubber tires. to apply for them for its preschool to get on this tire company and they were eject it because they were a church. that was the free exercise question that came up. justice roberts wrote an opinion that was on the face of it quite narrow. he said this is outrageous discrimination on the basis of religion. this church is being discriminated against not because of anything it is doing but because of what it is, a

church. the free exercise clause can't put up with that but don't worry, we are only talking about playgrounds, this case has nothing to do with anything else but can it be eligible? so just discourse such, a concurring opinion that concurs with the judgment the church is entitled, constitutional questions that don't decide specific facts and cannot draw this distinction and off arising going to a church and i support that and the distinction you are making, that was the premise of a much

longer -- in my discussion of what the court was doing. >> he was not just in his third term but his first 2 or 3 months, came in april, june of 2017 decision. that case to show it was a case about playgrounds because it is the ticket too much broader broader rulings as the years unfolded but something else happened that gives me a chance to segue into another justice i want you to address because it is more of a human part of your story. justice sonja sotomayor and ruth bader ginsburg were the only ones on the left to dissent on the case, justice breyer and elena kagan, democratically appointed liberals, tried to find common

ground and i just want to bring into justice ruth bader ginsburg, she's part of your title, how you wrote this, why you wrote this, her departure, and the ascension of justice barrett. you were so close to justice ginsburg and respected her on the law, respected so much of her life, when did you end up coming down, her decision to retire? >> the worst you can say is she placed a bad bet. in 2016, so that all the rest of us, the entire eastern establishment assumed the same

thing so that didn't happen. and had she hung around in the four months the story we are talking about would have had a very different narrative. my feeling is had she retired when they told her to retire in the beginning of president obama's second term we would have missed the entirety of the notorious rpg. what do i mean by that? most of her career she was a consensus seeker if not always a consensus builder. her belief was very narrowly don't know more than you have to, try to bring it in, tried

to work with scalia. career from you, this kind of thing. what happened was 2007, 2006 actually, the beginning of calendar year 2006, replaced by justice alito by president george w. bush, the court launched immediately to the right a variety of questions including on racial equality, abortion rights, and started becoming alarmed and upset and she started writing increasingly to send and a few days later when the court

overturned section 5 of the voting rights act she gave as a dissent, you don't need the voting rights act anymore is like throwing away your umbrella because it stopped raining. the rise of the notorious rpg, christened her with that name that she got a big kick out of. the last few years of her tenure, this happened at a time that her voice, her culture because something was happening at the court, something was happening in politics, something was going to have to call it out and she started taking it on.

the court at that time, with the changes in the dates and the supreme court, the state we are in today. >> those dates are all correct and i will give you another date, 2010, the year she became the senior justice among the liberals after justice john paul stevens retired and she took that role very seriously and that emboldened her for the 2013 shelby county versus holder opinion you mentioned and that is right around the time when a lot of liberals were -- began trying to pressure her to step down. in 2013, a far cry from where she ended up in 2020 although

obviously with great consequence was there's another cultural aspect i want to ask about before we returned to abortion and that is what happened to the court during the covid time. we are aware how much the trappings of the institution helps these 9 justices their identity. they love that building and have so many rituals in the building, the meeting together, the confiding in each other and all that disappeared in march of 2020. i do think that was an important development in the key 12 months you focus on. how do you think covid affected them in a substantive way? >> guest: the justices on the bench three days of two weeks

out of every month, october through april right wrap up the arguments, meet in private conference twice a week. something about they do not have very formal honest relationships when they are not scheduled to sit together or be together around their conference table but something about the contacts and that was gone. they canceled the arguments of 2020, started having arguments by telephone. this nice platform you and i are on so on the telephone

lines i think, would like to just change the way of life there. >> introduction, the anthrax scares and the immediate aftermath of 9/11 there was anthrax the the court was immediately evacuated. for the first time since it was built, the court met elsewhere, down the street and that was very disruptive because everybody had to leave their chambers for a couple weeks. the question, not meeting publicly but meeting privately, in april after everybody was

vaccinated, and you know better than i didn't come to those conferences and they start at least eyebrowing each other back. >> host: can you hear me now? >> guest: yes. i think because of earlier feedback i'm now muted between sessions here but i don't -- i to spend time on abortion and say peoria arguments they canceled two sessions because they were at the beginning of march so the march session and april and they had that a special teleconference but held over 10 cases. they are creatures of habit and those kinds of exceptions can rattle them and i think you are

right. it played out in cases in the cases in ways that are mostly subtle but we will never know whether there might have been a little bit more collegiality in some cases as we head into the crucial term with justice barrett or not. i think it is so important when it has developed on abortion and our audience will be seeing this after we might have gotten a preliminary decision in the texas case on whether the state can try to insulate itself from judicial review with an unusual mechanism that has built into a 6-week ban on abortion and essentially privatize public citizens to be bounty hunters to go after anyone who has assisted a woman in obtaining an abortion. that is all unfolding as we are speaking now, but as linda

said, on december 1st the justices are going to hear a direct challenge in the mississippi case that man's abortion after 15 weeks. the reason i describe it as a direct challenge is roe versus wade in 1917 and kc versus planned parenthood in 1992 all used viability is the cutoff or when government could restrict woman's access to abortion, viability is 22 to 24, 22 to 24 weeks and my question to you on abortion, would you have ever predicted that they would have allowed the texas 6-week abortion ban to take affect the way it did? we are still in it. it is in two months the women in texas have been deprived of this right and where will they

go with the more substantial case that they will actually hear arguments on in the mississippi dispute? >> guest: i was shocked they didn't grant a stay of the effective date of the texas law. for them to do, because in the mississippi case, december 1st, mississippi, the question in mississippi, the restrictions on the viability of abortion unconstitutional. so texas after six weeks, that's the question, 15 weeks,

and the doctor and all that, the stuff, at the heart of the question, can texas restrict access to abortion. typically when they decide something when this comes up they put that case on hold, the decision in light of that, in the normal course of things what would have happened in the texas case and the court would have stayed it, the texas law on the verge of taking affect and the court will take that case.

and agenda driving, takes 5 months for a study. for amy barrett's ascension to the court in ruth bader ginsburg's city, from stay, as justice sotomayor said when the court for the second time, issuance day, they get more pregnant. the constitution has been violated every day, the court refused to do that and in

mississippi it is clear the mississippi law would be touted. whilst with the court have taken the case with there's no circuit, the main marker for the courts hearing a case, they only accept 70 cases out of 6000 so it is a very precious scarce -- they granted this case after considering it because they didn't like the status quo. and struck down the mississippi law had to do it because the viability on its face, unconstitutional, whilst take a case? and how do they go about overturning it?

they simply say it is located -- we see -- as you said the viability firewall means before viability, this day can make an injunction with this kinds of stuff. it is an absolute right to terminate a pregnancy. i am not sure what happens next. one of the most common questions a just a set of oral arguments will ask is what is your limiting principle? what will we do in the next

case, they always care about the next case. what is the limiting principle? viability and it comes down to when life begins. with that classic conception. life begins at implantation, somebody might be, without birth, i don't know but it all comes down to somebody's philosophical orientation to this question. we can all agree on the viability of the developing fetus to live independently outside the woman's uterus but the significance of that as constitutional or moral matter, but it is what it is, but once

you get rid of that everything is up for debate. a tragic mess. >> host: as you know from your research in 1973 with roe and 1992 with kc the justices thought about that line, the majorities said viability is the wisest way to go because of how slippery any point might be or we are getting close to the time i want to ask about two sets of people on the court and first you mentioned justice sotomayor at her passionate distance, the first time on september 1st when the court initially allowed the texas law to take effect and other in the liberal wing dissented but none as strongly as she did and she

was the only one, more recently, a couple weeks ago when the court for the second time that the texas law stay in effect and she was the only one dissented. how do you understand this build bridges added to the justices kagan and breyer have versus go in and burn it down the justice sotomayor has? two of them will probably be around longer and remain in leadership positions on the liberal side, justice kagan and sotomayor? >> the difference in approach to the role. justice breyer or justice kagan, what they do best is to marginally modify, so now reach

some of the justices to the right but to the extent that happen, they have certain cases, other cases that turned out to be more narrowly focused than we might have expected and i can't hear and prove, that they inserted some kind of influence than the others but they see that as a goal. sotomayor has given up on that goal and has a different goal and that is to tell the truth to the american public as she sees it about the failure of the majority and make a record because none of us will be here forever but history will be about the supreme court of this

era and the executions the trump administration carry out in its last 7 months which is just astonishing, if the court did not stop any of them. she at the end of a for the last execution, kind of a black lives matter, she needed to make that record and it justice ginsburg was with her on those moments and we've got to watch her and listen to her. >> host: we will talk about justice breyer but i was struck

by your scrutiny of justice course such's are. when he first came in he had some sharp elbows, alienated chief justice roberts in some ways. i know you documented yourself, we've seen as arrogant but then toned down a little bit and one point where you write he was returned to his old self by the end of the recent session and he was donald trump's first appointed but might have been another republican presidential appointee too, he didn't stand out as much as justice barrett did in terms, at the time, how do you understand what he's trying to do? >> he thinks is right and

thinks that the chief justice is too much looking over his shoulder, caring about what people think about the court, it goes with the territory of the chief justice, justice course which is quite impatient to get things done that he would like to get done so he and justice alito too, the two of them, two mentees him, and that is because they are impatient and don't want to miss an opportunity to go as far as it is possible to go. >> do you think justice thomas

is in some ways in the right place at the right time or do you see him as having driven the agenda among these nine conservatives? >> guest: i think he was never influential inside the court but very influential outside the court. it is astonishing how many of them during the trump use of ended up on the federal courts or other very significant including the recently appointed solicitor general in mississippi who has taken over the litigation in the abortion case for thomas clark. justice thomas as way of signaling to the bench, does speak to the base outside the

court of what kinds of issues should be litigated in case the pipeline is product to the court so it is that way more so. it is not the thomas court as some people seem to be thinking but in a way between the thomas era of constitutional litigation you might say. >> host: a smart line to have drawn, having lost in what he said before the senate judiciary committee until now i have observed is influence outside the building but inside the building he really is and wants to be a nation of law. he's not tried to be super persuasive with his colleagues. he is happy to go his own way. he is not actively working on votes and he has been joined by

no course which largely because justice course which was already there when he came on the bench, and justice breyer who i know you have known for a very long time, longer than i've known him and i've known him since he became a justice and unity when he was a judge of the harvard law professor. what have you made about his decision to wait at least a year? people ask about this so much. >> guest: i have avoided talking to him in this past year because i didn't want to think that i was snooping around the disrespectful of the entire billboard in washington and the soundtrack driving around the supreme court

building which he was not in, always have the negative affect because it persuaded him that it would be seen as is it desperately worth it not to be seen as a political act and number 2, he had a successful term last term. got good assignments and lots of say, hasn't lost a step at the top of this game. it is hard to give it up. hard to give it up. those of us who watch the court have noticed it, as soon as it justice steps off the court not for justice david souter, he was 70 when he retired.

retirement since 2009 but for a lot of them retirement has not been kind but chief justice rehnquist, going to do that for one year. a good you that you wanted to as opposed to something else or maybe not. . these are not cartoon characters, they are humans, they have human responses to the situation in which they find themselves and that is how i reach stephen breyer. >> that is a good take and i think you are right about david souter, certainly the exception and i remember in the 90s part of my archival research finding

a letter that justice rehnquist is written about how tyler stewart, his health declined seriously after he step down in 1981, succeeded by sandra day o'connor and he always took i remember reading way before he became ill himself in 2005 that he thought leaving the bench especially alone, without his wife at the time contributed to a miserable life, couldn't let it go and stephen breyer is one of the youngest 83-year-olds i know, still has a spring in his step and doesn't seem to have lost what it takes to be a justice so i'm sure it has been a dilemma for him but it is a question that even though we

are now fully into a new term, it would be completely crazy to leave midterm, the missed opportunity would be at the end of this summer in june and yet it is constantly a source of chatter, people outsiders, liberals, democrats haven't been able to let go of it. i need to let go of this but we've gone more than the 45 minutes recommended. we are asked an hour and i want to ask if there is anything you would like to mention while you've got their attention. >> guest: the most important parts of it, cases that i talk about in the book that are yet to come are coming to fruition,

the abortion cases so the court is a work in progress, a work in transition. we will see the playing out of what happens in 2022 this coming year for sure. >> host: thank you for this wonderful book and thanks to the miami book fair. >> you are watching booktv. for complete television schedule visit book cv.org. you can follow along behind-the-scenes on social media, booktv on twitter, instagram and facebook. >> weekends on c-span2 are an intellectual feast, saturday, and on sundays booktv brings the latest in nonfiction books

and authors. funding for c-span2 comes from these television companies and more including charter communications. >> broadband is forced for empowerment which is why charter invested billions in infrastructure, upgrading technology, empowering opportunity, communities big and small. charter is connecting us. >> charter communications along with these television companies supports c-span2 as a public service. >> and now, history and books on c-span2. explore our nation's past with american history tv and watch television for series readers with booktv. today on the presidency, a series highlighting the politics and legacies of us presidents, author bob withers talks about the trains that played a part in presidencies of andrew jackson, abraham lincoln and warren harding to name a few. find a full schedule on your program