The following is a preview of Daily Signal Politics Editor Bradley Devlin’s “Signal Sitdown” interview with Mollie Hemingway. The full interview premieres on The Daily Signal’s YouTube page at 6:30 a.m. EST on April 30.
This transcript has been slightly edited for clarity.
Bradley Devlin: You start at the end of the [Brett] Kavanaugh saga to talk about Justice [Samuel] Alito. Why do you do that?
Molly Hemingway: Well, partly it just worked as a scene to open, because Justice Alito was moving into former Justice Anthony Kennedy’s chambers at the front of the court as the Kavanaugh confirmation had been finalized.
When that was finalized, you had braying protesters, some of whom were arrested inside the Capitol building, some who went over to the Supreme Court to try to tear down these very large doors that they had no ability to tear down, climbing the statues. And they were saying from their improvised audio systems that they hoped people could hear them inside the court—and they could.
It was very weird because we have branches of government that are subjected to political pressure, namely the executive branch and the legislative branch. The judicial branch is not supposed to be that way. They have lifetime appointments. Their pay is protected so that if congressmen get mad about how a decision has gone, they can’t cut their pay and try to force them out that way.
And yet the Left, through these massive networks, has figured out that precisely because they aren’t political animals, that’s an opportunity to exploit for political machines.
Devlin: This was incredibly radicalizing for a whole bunch of people in the conservative movement—younger people in the conservative movement.
But was it radicalizing for Alito, sitting there and hearing this stuff?
Hemingway: Oh, there recently was a story about Justice Sonia Sotomayor being very vicious and personal against Justice Kavanaugh, and one thing I thought spoke well of everybody involved was that it was Kavanaugh’s colleagues who were more upset by that than Kavanaugh.
I do think that Kavanaugh might have a thick skin at this point. He does, and he’s very forgiving, but his colleagues were appalled. This is not done.
And I mean, I get into a lot of these types of stories—what’s happening behind the scenes at the court. Traditionally speaking, it is totally fine to disagree vehemently with your colleagues on the court, and you’re supposed to put that in your written opinion and your written dissent.
Then, apart from that, you get along and you speak well of each other in public. You always uphold the integrity of the court. What we’ve seen recently is, as the three liberal justices have struggled with lack of control over the court, they’ve started publicly going after their colleagues, publicly undermining the integrity of the court.
Devlin: I think I first became Alito-pilled when I read his dissent from Bostock. That was the first time where I had really gotten turned on to Alito’s jurisprudence and started doing a little bit more research.
And who is this Samuel Alito guy? Because I like a lot of what [Antonin] Scalia had to say. I like a lot of what Clarence Thomas has to say—both of them legends. But this Alito guy has something else to him that I’ve really enjoyed in reading his court opinions.
And also, it isn’t so much about the textualism and the originalism. He’s really about being prudent, yes, and connecting Supreme Court jurisprudence to an enduring moral order that I think really comes from the Declaration of Independence.
And I think that’s what kind of separates his jurisprudence apart from Thomas and Scalia. And, you know, you walk around this conservative movement, and the divide amongst the normies is, are you Scalia-pilled or are you Thomas-pilled?
Some people are both. That’s totally fine. There’s a large overlap in the middle for the Venn diagram. But Alito—was he underrated before Dobbs? His star is rising right now, it feels like.
You mentioned the public polling that suggests Alito is one of the lesser-known Supreme Court justices. What is happening with the Alito pill?
Hemingway: I love everything you said. I feel like I’m gonna steal some of this when I’m talking about him. This is kind of how I came to write it.
And if I can just say, personally—forgive me—from a libertarian background, so I am so used to—
Devlin: We all were—
Hemingway: I was just obsessed with Scalia. I was obsessed with Thomas.
I’m still obsessed with Thomas.
Devlin: Me too.
Hemingway: They are liberty-minded in a way, libertarian-minded in a way, that Alito is really the conservative on the court. He is the conservative.
So, you have five people with originalist—they self-identify as originalists—and that just means you believe that the Constitution should be interpreted according to its original meaning, not whatever you’re feeling like on a given day.
But within those five, you have big variations. I think it’s fun to explore those variations.
You mentioned Bostock, which was—I think [Neil] Gorsuch is a fantastic justice. That was a horrible decision that he did, and I have no problem saying that as much as I can.
I mean, it was—he said that when the Civil Rights Act was passed, that the people who passed that intended it for—or, you know, he says it also includes trans people.
You can’t have different standards for men who identify as women and women—actual women. And it’s ludicrous. It’s preposterous. I hope he knows that by this point.
Alito calls him out—and quite beautifully. I mean, they’re friends, but he does not respect that opinion. He said it, you know, in his dissent.
The Alito book comes about in part because when I was working on that Kavanaugh book with Carrie Severino, even Alito’s colleagues were thinking it was weird that nobody talks about Alito.
You know, they’re like, he’s the giant on this court. He’s brilliant. He does things that nobody else can do. He’s amazing in oral argument. He writes these masterpieces, and yet nobody talks about him.
It’s because he’s the opposite of a celebrity justice. He’s not appearing on Broadway or going to the Grammys or giving flowery speeches.
He just does his work humbly, keeps his head down, and moves on.
But to me, a man like that is worthy of knowing more about, honoring for whatever good traits you can see there, and emulating in whatever way is possible.
But I just have to say, Bradley, that there is a certain type of conservative attorney in town who has been saying to me for years, it’s Alito.
Everybody talks about Scalia and Thomas, but it’s Alito. And I think they’re all great.
And I think they all—and in fact, they also think they all worked together well, and that Thomas and Alito continue to work together well precisely because they have some differences that play off each other nicely.
