-Our first guest tonight is a United States Senator
from Massachusetts.
Please welcome back to the show Senator Elizabeth Warren!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Welcome to the show, Senator.
Well, it has been -- it has been a week of historic news.
Not all good, most bad.
But let's start with a silver lining.
Judge Ketanji Brown-Jackson
becomes the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
-Yes.
[ Cheers and applause ]
You know her other first?
She is the first public defender
to sit on the United States Supreme Court.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Think about --
Just for one second, think about what that means.
This is a woman who has made public service her life
and who is so committed to the principles of justice
that she made her work about speaking up for people
who couldn't afford to have lawyers,
who weren't going to have a voice
except for someone like her who stepped in
and said, "That's my job and I'm going to be
part of making this justice system work."
She's going to be fabulous on the Supreme Court.
-That's a really interesting point
because I think we often talk about the hegemony of, like,
how the backgrounds and sort of the racial backgrounds
or, you know, the gender backgrounds --
But really that's such a interesting point,
because everybody comes from it from the same side of the law.
And, of course, the law is multifaceted.
So that'll be great to have that new perspective.
-That's right. We have had a lot of people
who came from the side of all those corporations
who desperately needed help. -Yeah.
-And now it's really terrific to have --
It's kind of amazing it took us this long, right,
that we have our first public defender.
She's going to be terrific.
-Unfortunately, it seems like a lot of her role will be
to be one of 3 people on the side of 6-3 decisions.
You know, we had another one today about emissions.
Basically, the court ruled that the EPA is very limited
in the sort of emissions
they can regulate from different plants.
What are the grander implications
of a decision like this?
-So, look, this is a Supreme Court
that is basically out of control.
And they have decided
that they don't like the way that we have,
for decades now, tried to deal with climate change.
This has been a very pro-corporate court,
and this is actually
not the first decision in that direction.
They've been anti-union. They've been anti-consumer.
They've empowered corporations more than ever before,
giving them religious liberty rights,
letting them contribute money, money, money
to influence the political process.
And I see this as just -- this is one more decision
heaped on losing Roe versus Wade,
heaped on a gun decision that is going to make life
more dangerous for all of our children,
for all of our neighbors, for all of our loved ones.
It really is a time when the American people
are losing confidence in the Supreme Court,
and for good reason.
A court that is not grounded in law,
not grounded in, uh...
in the principles on which we have tried
to build a country going forward,
but instead a court that says, nope, they're just
going to substitute their own personal views
and make the rest of America bend to it.
-So this is a time where I feel like --
You must be hearing this a lot from your constituents,
from the people you talk to.
It seems like there's two reactions you have,
which is to be sad or to be angry.
Do you feel like one is more helpful than the other?
-Yes. -Okay.
-Sad. You got a few hours for that.
-Okay. -I will go as much as 24.
-To 2 to 24 hours.
-And that's it. That's it. 2 to 24 hours.
And after that, cold bucket of water.
Because now it is time to be angry
and to channel that anger into action.
And the reason for that is sad is about leaning back
and giving up, and we can't do that.
There is a path out of this.
It is not an easy path. It is not a guaranteed win.
But I guarantee you this --
you don't get what you don't fight for.
So it is powerfully important
to take the anger over what the Supreme Court has done
and channel it into action.
Can we do the actions? -Let's do the actions.
-Let's do it. Alright. Let's do it.
Right now on Roe, the first one is
there are people out there right now
who are pregnant and who need help.
They need protection.
And we need to pour resources into helping them.
That means each of us volunteering money,
volunteering time to support the organizations
that are trying to help people.
The administration is stepping in, using all of its tools.
And I commend the President for stepping up,
for example, on medication abortion,
making that more widely available,
protecting people who have to cross state lines
in order to get help.
We should be looking at the fact that the federal government,
biggest employer in the country --
make sure that people have got time off from work
and resources to travel.
So we need to do things to protect people
who are pregnant now
and who get pregnant next month and the next month,
because this is the urgent problem in front of us.
But second thing we need to do
is we got to focus like a laser
on the election in November.
Understand -- this small minority
that wanted to overturn Roe has been disciplined.
They have worked at this for nearly five decades.
They lost and they got back up and they stayed in the fight.
And they helped all of those senators
who help shepherd through these justices
who swore until the world looked level
that Roe was settled law
and that we don't disturb settled law.
And as soon as they got the votes, they went ahead
and did not just to chip away at Roe --
just blew the whole thing up.
We need to be just as committed,
just as focused on this election in November.
Two senators.
If we pick up two Democratic senators
who will help us get rid of the filibuster,
which the President has now said he's on board for that,
and who will give us Roe versus Wade --
Two senators.
And, yes, John Fetterman, I am looking at you in Pennsylvania.
Yes, Mandela Barnes, I'm looking at you in Wisconsin.
We get those two senators in, we hang on to the House,
and Roe versus Wade
will be the law all across America.
That's what we can get done. That's a fight worth having.
-[ Cheers and applause ] -I think it's important --
And I appreciate the optimism.
What do you say to people who feel as though
maybe Democratic leadership
did get caught a little flat-footed from --
I mean, it did feel like this was coming for 50 years.
Now, maybe nobody thought it was going to happen.
But we've certainly known for the last few months,
based on the leaked draft, this was coming.
And it did seem like it took the White House
maybe six days to come out sort of with their plan.
Why wasn't there a plan in place,
or was there and it was just slow to come out?
-Look, I think what matters
is that we are using every tool in the toolbox
and doing everything we can to protect people
who are pregnant right now and need help.
But understand this --
we have every single Republican
in the United States Senate and the House
has voted against Roe versus Wade.
We actually had this -- Nobody quite remembers this.
Just a few weeks ago, we actually voted this
in the Senate,
and every Republican said nope on Roe versus Wade.
You know what? We got elections coming up.
We need to hold every Republican accountable for those votes.
-I have a lot more to ask you. We will be right back with more
from Senator Elizabeth Warren.