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Nan Aron

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Nan Aron

Second interview with the President, Alliance for Justice

Nan Aron is the founder and president of Alliance for Justice, a liberal advocacy group that monitors the appointment of federal judicial nominees. The organization opposed the nominations of Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

This is an interview with FRONTLINE’s Jim Gilmore conducted on October 26, 2020. It has been edited for clarity and length. You can see an earlier interview with Nan Aron here.

This interview appears in:

Supreme Revenge

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The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Let’s start with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.Justice Ginsburg certainly had her health problems during the Trump years.So, talk a little bit about what she was going through, how persistent she was, but how, I guess, scared or nervous the Democrats were about her health during the Trump years.

It was not a surprise to anyone, particularly on the Democratic side or in the advocacy groups, that we would have a vacancy this fall.We were hoping against hope that we wouldn’t.Some of us had put a cloud around Ruth Bader Ginsburg to protect her.But we also knew how ill she was.And some of us knew, in fact, that during the Obama years, there had been several conversations about her health.A few law professors actually spoke out, loudly, asking her to resign her seat, in case a Republican was elected president in 2016.So I think that there was always that thought and fear that Justice Ginsburg would die before the election.

And why that made Democrats so nervous?

From the very beginning of the Trump years, and even before that, Donald Trump had announced during his run for the presidency that he would prioritize selection of federal judges, particularly Supreme Court justices.In fact, wherever Donald Trump went in 2016, in the run-up to the election, he would ask the audience, “How many people love me?”And people would raise their hand.And his next question would be, “How many of you don’t love me?”And a few people would raise their hand.And he said: “It doesn’t matter.This is all about the Supreme Court.”

And to prove that he was serious about it, he indicated that he was going to ask an outside group, actually outsource a selection of judgeships to a far-right organization, and then went even further by releasing a list of names of people he wanted on the Supreme Court.So from the very beginning, he was intent on prioritizing judgeships. …

Democrats were nervous because Donald Trump indicated, and Mitch McConnell reinforced the notion, that if and when Ruth Bader Ginsburg left her seat before the end of Trump’s tenure, she was going to be replaced, even though during the last year of Barack Obama’s eight-year term, as we all remember, Republicans did not allow Merrick Garland to move, give him a hearing or even a vote.But both McConnell and Trump made it very clear that if there was an opening, they were going to fill it, and fill it before the next election.

Do you know anything about her dying wish?What was her dying wish, and why is it important to understand?

I think Justice Ginsburg knew the risk she was taking by “I'm staying on the court.”I mean, it was no secret.She had advanced cancer.She was ailing, and she knew that, if she were to vacate her seat before the end of the term, that Mitch McConnell was going to fill it.In no uncertain terms, he was going to fill it.And she knew that well.And I think perhaps there—don’t say—there might have been some guilt in that.But in any event, she knew that if she left before the end of the term, her seat was going to be filled, and she also knew that it was going to be filled by an individual who would do everything he or she could do to undo Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s legacy.She knew the threat.I mean, she knew—she knew what McConnell and Trump were capable of.And having seen Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh become Supreme Court justices, she knew that she would be replaced by someone who would undoubtedly begin to undo her own legacy on the court.

So her dying wish was what?

Her dying wish was to wait for the next president to be elected and inaugurated to replace her.

Now, this was not just any ordinary seat.This was Ruth Ginsburg’s seat.What’s the significance of her death, and what did it unleash?

Well, she was, on the court, she was an extraordinary jurist.She was a pioneer in women’s rights.Her opinions helped men and women move up the ladder of opportunity.She was, as a law teacher, as a lawyer, as a Supreme Court justice, a role model, a cultural icon and a justice who saw way into the future and wanted to make sure that there, in the future, was gender equality for all. …

But given her consequential role on the court, and her place in dissenting in critically important cases, she knew that anyone replacing her would begin, incrementally, to undo everything she stood for, worked for during her lifetime.It was—I mean, because she was one of the three liberals on the Supreme Court, replacing her would have a huge impact and implications for justice moving forward.

When you heard, what did you think?

Ugh.It was a—when I heard, it was—it was a nightmare.I was asked to speak at a vigil the next night, and I remember going to the steps of the Supreme Court.She died on a Friday.The vigil was the following day.I was invited, along with many others, to speak at a vigil held outside the Supreme Court.And I expected a few hundred people.When I arrived, there were thousands of people.Outside the Supreme Court, there were layer upon layer of flowers and tributes, and kids had left written letters to her.It was just a scene that I will never forget.

I mean, when Antonin Scalia died, and I remember it was in the middle of winter, I don’t know that anyone showed up at the Supreme Court.But I was just amazed at the outpouring of grief experienced by hundreds and thousands of people who congregated that Saturday night outside the court.

The fact that McConnell never showed up to any of the memorials, what was your take on that?

Oh, I didn’t expect Mitch McConnell to show up in any memorial.And if he had, it would have been just a—I would never have expected Mitch McConnell to show up, given that he knew, and we knew, that he was going to appoint an individual to replace Ruth Ginsburg who would dismantle everything she stood for and worked for on the Supreme Court.He couldn’t have shown up.

Filling the Ginsburg Seat

So on the same day of her death, McConnell confirms that the Congress will, before the election, replace her, will confirm Trump’s pick.This is his lifelong mission, of course.

It’s his lifelong dream to get another seat on the Supreme Court.And yet Mitch McConnell was so craven that he announced he was going to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg soon, before the election, and he didn’t even know who he was going to replace her with.In other words, he simply wanted to steal another seat on the Supreme Court, put someone in, anyone in, who had only one mission, and that was to turn the clock back on everything that Ruth Bader Ginsburg stood for on that court.

I should also say, at that point, that Mitch McConnell probably had a pretty good idea that Trump was going to nominate Amy Coney Barrett.But still, he—to him, it was less important who it was and more important that it would be someone who would join with the ultra-conservatives on the Supreme Court to turn the clock back.

And the response of Democrats after he made the announcement, surprising?

You know, it’s interesting.I think Democrats had, over a few years, forgotten what happened with Merrick Garland and the fact that Republicans refused to even give Merrick Garland a hearing, much less a vote.But for the Democrats, this was too much, because this wasn’t just one stolen seat; this was another stolen seat, because, of course, what they wouldn’t allow to happen in Barack Obama’s last year of his term, they were going to allow Donald Trump to appoint a justice.So in other words, they broke all—they went against their own principles and rules that they established during the Obama administration in order to get another justice on the court as quickly as they could.

And they also were counting on the fact that, by announcing the appointment of another justice, they would give Donald Trump a reason to reach out to the hard-right groups in the Republican Party and energize them and get them to the polls.

So it wasn’t simply to capture the court for a generation, but it was to help Donald Trump reengage with his right-wing base, and with the hope that they’d come out and vote.

Holding Open the Scalia Seat

… So when Scalia dies, McConnell, within an hour or so, puts out a statement.What’s his idea at that point?What’s his argument?What's the argument that he makes for the direction that he is going to go, which is to hold back on any nominee of Obama’s?

Well, we already knew, when Scalia died, that Mitch McConnell was doing everything he could, with respect to lower-court judges, in blocking them.He wouldn’t move nominees to the D.C. Circuit or other major circuits in the country.Mitch McConnell already had operationalized plans to block lower-court judges. …

So an hour after Scalia’s death, Mitch McConnell announces that the next president ought to pick Antonin Scalia’s successor, not Barack Obama.And he made the case that—well, you know, we’ll leave it at that.

But I’d love you to actually give me the case.What’s his argument?

Well, his argument was, you had a Democratic president and a Republican Senate, and you ought to have the president and the Senate be of the same party.But essentially, what he was saying is, “Let’s let the next president decide,” with the hope that the next president would be a Republican.It was a stalling tactic designed to keep that seat open until the election so that—with the hope that Donald Trump or, at that point, with the hope that a Republican would replace Scalia.

You know, Scalia was also a very vocal ultra-conservative justice on the Supreme Court.And McConnell and the Republican Party did not want Barack Obama replacing an ultra-conservative justice with a more liberal justice, so he came up with this ploy to delay the announcement and delay the appointment until the next president was elected.

So the blocking—

He was—I mean, his whole view was, he was looking at the balance of power on the Supreme Court—critically important to him, critically important to the Republican members.They did not want a Democratic appointee replacing a Republican one.

… And it also shows something about McConnell, which is the fact that he is a ruthless pragmatist, I suppose.I mean, what did it show about him, and why was this decision so exceptional?

People knew McConnell cared a lot about the federal courts and judges and prioritizing judges, and that’s why he blocked so many of Obama’s judges to the circuit courts.This, however, was extraordinary.This was dramatic, because if you just look back to when Robert Bork was nominated and then failed to be confirmed, Ronald Reagan, during his last year in office, saw his Republican candidate for the Supreme Court confirmed by a Democratic Senate.So what McConnell was doing was playing—playing with fire at the highest levels, breaking with precedent in an extraordinary power grab, making the decision that Barack Obama, president, couldn’t have his appointee to the Supreme Court.It was breathtaking.

The Kavanaugh Nomination

Let’s move up to history to the Kavanaugh nomination. …

Here we have a system in the past that was based on bipartisanship, which valued debate, and it had devolved into partisanship.Kavanaugh’s hearings, sort of, is another moment when this is played out for the public.Where are we by the time we get to Kavanaugh?Some people have sort of said it’s a point of no return.What had changed for the Democrats and the Republicans?How did we get to the point where we had a hearing such as the Kavanaugh hearing?

I would say the point of no return was Merrick Garland, because that was a signal by Mitch McConnell that he was going to stop at nothing to get the court of his dreams and Donald Trump’s.I assumed—I think many of us assumed Brett Kavanaugh would be nominated to the Supreme Court.It was not a surprise.The only surprise was he wasn’t on either of Donald Trump’s two lists.But we all assumed that Brett Kavanaugh had been groomed for the seat on the Supreme Court, and we also knew that Anthony Kennedy would only step down if he is—if his replacement were Brett Kavanaugh.So that was not at all a surprise that he was nominated. …

The other way we knew that Brett Kavanaugh was likely to be the nominee was looking at his record on the D.C. Circuit.He crafted his opinions in such a way so that they would come to the attention of the Federalist Society.He auditioned on that D.C. Circuit for years so that he could get a seat on the Supreme Court.And he was active in just the right Republican circles—went down to Florida to get involved in the recount for George W. Bush, worked in the Bush White House.He had done everything he needed to do to get that nomination.That was not a surprise whatsoever.

In some ways it’s a very partisan pick, though.But things had changed in the court, I mean, with the dropping of the filibuster, the idea that there was less debate amongst Democrats and Republicans to get a choice that was agreeable to both.What had changed?What had changed for the Democrats and the Republicans that it was such a raucous sort of debate, that argument that went on during the Kavanaugh hearings?

Well, one major change was, soon after Trump came into office, McConnell just threw aside all the customs and traditions that had been used by actually both parties for decades in the Senate: the blue slip for Court of Appeals nominees, time for debates, time for committee markups.So many of the rules were simply eliminated by the Republicans. …

Here you had the Trump White House ignoring the wishes of Democratic senators with respect to Court of Appeals nominees.Here you had a White House who didn’t care what the American Bar Association said about nominees and put forward nominees who got unqualified ratings by the Bar Association.There was not one nominee during the Obama administration that was ever put forward who didn’t get a qualified rating from the American Bar Association.So you saw all the rules, customs and traditions dismantled.

You saw the filibuster go by the wayside.You saw any kind of meaningful conversation that had always taken place between senators and the White House completely ignored.And nominees were sent to the Senate over the objections, sometimes very vocal objections, of senators, and their wishes were completely ignored. …

Republicans see judgeships as pathways to power.Democrats see judgeships as pathways to justice.Republicans will do anything—run roughshod over customs, traditions that have been in place for decades—in order to get their nominees confirmed by the Senate and on the courts.And you know, this happened in circuit after circuit.Democrats would speak up, and it didn’t matter.The White House ignored their objections and confirmed the nominees.

Just to sum up, by the time of Kavanaugh, how broken is this system of how we choose justices for the Supreme Court?

How broken?You're not going to like this answer, but the Constitution creates a very messy system for nominations and confirmations.It basically—Constitution says, president, you have the right to send a name to the Senate, but Senate, you have a right to say no if you want.And one’s understanding of that division of labor is that both sides will try to come to an accommodation.

At the beginning of the Trump administration, it became clear that there was only one side, and one side only, and that was the White House and the working in concert with the Republicans in the Senate, running roughshod over the Democrats.There was no consultation, no meaningful consultation whatsoever.And by the time Kavanaugh was nominated, I think senators understood what they were facing. …

The Nomination of Amy Coney Barrett

Let’s go back now to Judge Barrett.An election is pending within weeks.I mean, the votes are already being taken around the country, compared to nine months on the Garland nomination.So the election is pending.Here we are.Courts are at the center of attention again for another election.How surprising was this?I mean, you’ve talked a little bit about this, but how surprising was it that we ended up in this situation for this election at this time with this president and McConnell?

The only surprise—well, it wasn’t surprising at all.Donald Trump knew, in September, he was in trouble.He needed a way to galvanize his base to bring them to vote.And he knew, in 2016, that by talking about the Supreme Court incessantly, at almost every campaign stop, that that was a surefire way to enable his—engage his voters.He was relying—so when—when Ginsburg dies, Donald Trump is figuring, well, talking about justices and—justices is a reliable way to engage my base, get them enthusiastic."I'm going to announce a successor to Ginsburg as soon as I can," with the hope that millions of Americans will come out and vote, particularly for an ultra-conservative to the Supreme Court, hoping it would work for him again.

At the same time, you have Mitch McConnell, who knows that … there are hundreds of pieces of legislation that have been stopped at the door house of the United States Senate, that have not moved.The only thing Mitch McConnell has done in these three and a half years is move judges, confirm judges, knowing full well that his imprint, and that of the president’s, will last far after Donald Trump leaves the White House.That has been his priority from day one, and we know that because we got a sense of it during the last years of the Obama administration, when he held open all these seats with the hope that a Republican president would fill them.

So it wasn’t surprising at all that both would move as quickly as possible.We had a notion that Amy Coney Barrett would be the candidate of their choice, given her record and because Donald Trump had made it very clear that he was looking for two things in a Supreme Court justice.One, he was looking for someone who would overturn the Affordable Care Act, and two, overturn Roe v. Wade.And Amy Coney Barrett’s comments, negative comments about the Affordable Care Act and her positions on abortion, meant that she filled both these criteria perfectly.

And what is McConnell’s argument?Why does he define that this is necessary to be done as quickly as this will have to be done, and how do you view that argument?

Well, I don’t think Mitch McConnell had much of an argument whatsoever.I think Mitch McConnell made up an argument.“Oh, we have to wait till the next—oh, we have to hurry up now, because we have the president and the Senate of the same party, both in sync.Let’s go do it now.This is a perfect moment for the country and for the court to move quickly, given we’ve got the synchronicity on the—in the Senate and the White House.Let’s move.” …

I think what made it so sad or moving was he was moving so quickly in contravention of Justice Ginsburg’s dying words, dying wish to let the next president choose—choose her successor.

You know, they have fulfilled their life’s dream.Mitch McConnell has, at least.This is what he set out to do.And as far as he’s concerned, he will stop at nothing.He will manipulate the rules in order to set in stone a court that will turn the clock back on workers’ rights, consumer, environmental protections and abortion for generations.

… Is her nomination a Bork redux in some ways, but this time, the Republicans have all the cards in the Senate?

… Her confirmation is significant in that she will now cement, and the ultra-conservatives will cement, a hold on this court for years to come.So in a sense, like Bork’s, it is the culmination of decades-long court-packing strategy that actually started way before Robert Bork.It began in the 1970s.But it does represent the culmination of a decades-long program to capture the courts on behalf of big business and evangelicals and hard-right fringe groups in this country.

The hearings, when they start, [Lindsey] Graham makes his statement, and his first statement, which is basically, “We all know the Republicans are all going to vote for this, and the Democrats are all going to vote against it.”And it was, you know, a courtroom drama that they were playing at.It wasn’t—it wasn’t real debate.What has happened to the responsibilities or the way the Senate views their responsibilities of advice and consent when it comes to this important role that they play, and certainly for this nomination, which was historic?

Oh, I think the hearings were a travesty, a sham, a ploy to cement the right-wing hold on the court.But I do think—I think the question is, where do we go from here?There's no question.The process has always been designed to be messy, given it’s a shared power by the White House and the Senate.At this point, however, we do see one party clinging to the old rules and another party grabbing for power in a travesty.And where we go from here is anyone’s guess.I certainly have my hopes as to where we go.But we will not go back.We are not going back, thinking that, oh, let’s return to the halcyon days of advice and consent, where the parties and the White House get together and engage in meaningful conversations about who ought to—who the best Supreme Court judges and justices are.We’re not going back to that time at all.

And it remains to be seen, given the outcome of the election, as to what transpires in the future.But we—now, I think we’ll—I think the process has become illegitimate.The court itself has become illegitimate.The hearings have become a travesty, a sham.And where we go now, I believe, is we have got to focus on democratizing our courts, making sure that the people we now put on our federal courts, at all levels, are people who will take our country back, not—we need to focus on getting judges and justices who will democratize our courts, who will think about the future, who will understand the importance of the federal courts, which is to be there for everybody, not just big business, not just for the hard right in this country, but be there for everyday people, to give them a shot at justice in our great courtrooms in the country.But we will not go back.It’s—it is broken.

The Courts and Political Power

… What you're sort of defining, to some extent, though, is that it’s only by having power can one change it, and that this will remain a partisan issue on who is on the court and who’s not on the court?

Unfortunately, I think—I think we have to look at what’s at stake now with the current court.That’s what’s so important.And what’s at stake is people’s lives, their rights, their liberties, their freedoms.That’s the great promise offered by our federal courts.And I do believe that if health care is overturned, if abortion is eliminated, if regulations protecting our water, the air we breathe, workers’ rights, civil rights—I think people have to take stock of what’s happened to our courts and begin to think differently about judges.

I think we have to urge the next administration, if we get a Democrat in the White House and a Democratic Senate, to put individuals on the federal courts at all levels who understand and respect the Constitution and its great promise for the future.

So if [Biden] does take power, and some of these decisions are made in the way you’ve said, dramatic way you’ve said, does that sort of force his hand to make some dire decisions of his own for the Democrats, especially if, in fact, the Democrats do take the Senate as well?Will that lead to decisions like packing the court or some other issue, which will change the way things work forevermore?… What would your answer be to that?

Well, my answer is a little different.And I don’t ever use “packing the court” for us, because we don’t pack the court.They pack the court.The first thing a Democrat in the White House needs to do is prioritize the—prioritize the federal judiciary.The next president has to start filling vacancies from day one, not take months and months to look around and figure out who to put on the federal courts.We will have names.We have names of exemplary lawyers, both demographically and experientially diverse, who would be fantastic federal judges.

We want the next president to start filling vacancies as soon as he can and with people who represent—who have represented—who have been public defenders, civil rights lawyers, public interest lawyers.The process needs to start quickly, beginning day one.There will be many, many vacancies across the country on our district courts, Courts of Appeal, and we want those vacancies filled just as soon as they can be filled.So this has got to be a priority.

Two, because the process has changed—it’s been altered during these past few years—we believe that it’s important to keep these processes, to continue the process that’s begun by the Republicans.We don’t want Democrats—it’s foolhardy for Democrats to return to the halcyon days when pretending that everyone cooperated around judgeships.We want the same process that’s been instituted by Republicans to remain in place and used by the Democrats.

We would very much like the next president to think about various options, doing away with the legislative filibuster, thinking loudly, clearly, about expanding the court, the Supreme Court.I don’t think of it so much as expanding the court as democratizing the court.But I do think the next president will have to immediately focus on this issue.

… Sen. [Sheldon] Whitehouse’s statement, of course, at the end of the hearings, talk to me a little bit about what your thoughts on what he said were.I mean, he basically laid out the fact that Republicans will “rue the day” for this nomination, that their credibility is gone.The decision has now been made, become, “because we can.”That defines how the decisions are made.What was he saying?What do you think of that statement that Whitehouse made in the hearings?

I think he was marking the end of what we think of as advice and consent, and saying: “Look, this is—this is now warfare between the two parties.You’ve run roughshod over our customs, traditions.For four years, you’ve put ultra-conservatives on courts at every level who will turn the clock back.You have run hearings as a means to—you’ve run hearings where you're not at all concerned about the quality of the person up for consideration.We’re going to have our day as well.We’re announcing, this is—this is warfare that we now see these decisions as decisions of power, not just justice, and we’re going to do whatever we can to ensure that we can move ahead quickly, courageously, and begin to prioritize the federal courts the way our counterparts have on the Republican side.”

In our film, we use an old speech that you’ll remember from McConnell after Bork, where he gave a very similar speech in some ways.

He says that we’re not going to sulk; we won't go away.Well, I will say, I think a lesson has been learned.It was a very hard lesson.But Democrats are not going to go away.They're not going to sulk.They're not going to bury their heads in the sand.They're going to fight.

They're going to prioritize the courts with our help.We will be the wind at their back.We will be pushing the Democrats, a new administration, to get into the business of prioritizing the courts, not as a third or fourth issue but from day one, because after all, if Biden wins, he’ll be in the White House four, maybe eight years, but his judges and justices will be there long after he leaves.

A lesson, a hard lesson learned by Democrats.They're not going to wait, as they did during the Obama years, for nine, 10 months before they start sending names over to the Senate. Uh-uh.Day one, they have got to factor in their agendas for year one of beginning to reassert some balance on these courts and begin to democratize them.

Is this a lesson that the Democrats, to some extent, have learned from McConnell?

Oh, I don’t want to give McConnell any credit.

But if you look back at that speech and what he said and what he warned and what he said would take place, and compare it to what the Democrats have sort of learned, or what Whitehouse is saying in that speech, is there a comparison to be made?

Well, I will say this, and I think this is a very important point.I have never, in over 40 years, seen progressive groups so galvanized around the courts, never—environmental, consumer, civil rights, women’s rights, unions, so focused on the federal courts.The senators, the Democrats know that they now have a very engaged, enthusiastic base behind them, the same way years ago Republican senators knew they had a base that they had to play to.And we will not let these senators or the White House go a day without prioritizing the federal courts.That’s the difference.It’s not just Mitch McConnell, but three and a half years have had an impact on not just the senators themselves, but progressive groups around this country.Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee announced that they heard from over 700 organizations in opposition.They had over 7,000 signatures by lawyers around the country.They had over 400 state and local elected leaders come out against Amy Coney Barrett.That is unprecedented.

And when you think that, from the day Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies till now—it’s been a month—this many organizations and individuals have spoken up, have gotten engaged, means that this next president ignores the federal bench at his peril.

McConnell’s Focus on the Courts

… So bring us to that moment, just the other day, of McConnell telling his Republicans on the floor that, as a legislator, they see their accomplishments as ephemeral, that the thing that they’ve done, the significant thing that they’ve done, is secured the courts, and that was the essential thing.It almost seemed, if you read it in one way, that he is admitting that they might very much—very may lose the Senate; they may very well lose the White House.It was a fascinating statement.What was your take from—

My take?My take is that Republicans know that their presidents will disappoint their voters.They just will.It’s—over time, Republicans—I mean over time, you see presidents, particularly Republican presidents, having to disappoint their voters on a range of issues.It’s probably why Mitch McConnell didn’t take up much legislation, because he knew that Donald Trump would be forced to sign pieces of legislation that he probably didn’t want to.

But Mitch McConnell knew, at the end of the day, that the one thing that doesn’t disappoint voters in the Republican Party are the judges, and he knew that while Donald Trump could say silly things—I mean, all the things that Donald Trump does—he knew that the one way to keep that base energized and loyal was to focus on the judges.That has been the Republican strategy since the Nixon days.It goes back way, way before Robert Bork.Republican presidents understand that the most reliable tool they have around elections is to talk about and focus on the federal courts.

Do their voters know much about the federal courts?Of course not.But they are individuals who want to overturn Roe v. Wade, who want to bring prayer back in schools, who don’t like redistricting that favors Democrats, who—you’ve got the business community that doesn’t like all these regulations protecting our air and water and workers.These forces are hard at work and focused on the courts.

Republican candidates know that talking about the courts is their most reliable argument to appeal to these voters who are disengaged, feeling disenfranchised and disempowered.And holding out the promise that they can get their judges on the federal bench has worked over time.And it worked in 2016 for Donald Trump.

Beyond the votes, though, how revealing was that speech to laying out sort of what he’s believed for decades, which is the fact that this will have much more significant consequences about keeping a conservative right power section of the government whole to fight against? Even if they lose all the upcoming elections, it will still have the courts.

Well, he was basically saying, even if Trumpism dies, you will have the courts; you will have the judges there to do your agenda for you.

Even if we lose the White House, we lose the Senate, we lose Trumpism, your judges will be there, making decisions that will appeal to you and please you, not just for the next 10 years but for decades to come.That has been his single-minded focus from day one.

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