\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWhich is it?\u201d Weiss asked. For little more than an hour, Barrett didn\u2019t so much answer the question as reassure her audience of New Yorkers who read The Free Press<\/em> that the nation is holding up, and she and the Supreme Court are going about their job\u2014not giving people what they want, but only applying the law to cases as they arise. And if there seems to be a conflict between the president of the United States and the judiciary, we\u2019ve been there before.<\/p>\n Weiss ran through a mixture of softballs (\u201cTell us why you love the Constitution\u201d) to more ripped-from-the-headlines missives about recent and relatively recent landmark rulings\u2014such as the one granting Trump broad immunity over the January 6 attack on the Capitol and United States v. Skrmetti<\/em>, which removed protections<\/a> for gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth. A former legal academic at Notre Dame before becoming a judge, Barrett was as professorial as she was technical in some of her responses. When Weiss asked Barrett how will everyday people know if we\u2019re in a constitutional crisis, Barrett didn\u2019t flinch. \u201cThe Constitution is alive and well,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what a constitutional crisis would look like.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is not the place that we are,\u201d she added. \u201cIt is plainly true that right now we\u2019re at a time of passionate disagreement in America. But we have been in times of passionate disagreement before.\u201d Barrett pointed to other times during the twentieth century when the nation has been \u201cbitterly divided\u201d\u2014the Great Depression, the civil rights movement, and campus unrest during the Vietnam War\u2014\u201cand we have come out stronger for it.\u201d Her prescription: to compromise, talk to one another, and to see each other as people and fellow citizens.<\/p>\n Whether that\u2019s possible at a time the president is attempting to erect a national police force<\/a> in more than one Democratic-led state or city, or else unleashing ICE on day laborers<\/a> at Home Depots, is an open question. The Supreme Court, which at the moment is considering an emergency petition from the Trump administration to lift a judge\u2019s ruling barring immigration agents<\/a> from profiling and arresting Californian workers on account of their looks, where they congregate to seek work, or simply for speaking in Spanish, has not been a model of unity and comity during this summer\u2019s steady stream of fast-moving decisions on its so-called shadow docket. These rulings tend to be brief, leaving lower court judges with little guidance on how to proceed and at the mercy of an administration that trains its fire on judges who don\u2019t rule for Trump. \u201cIt is inexcusable,\u201d one federal judge told NBC News<\/a> in a report compiling frustrations from federal judges about the Supreme Court. \u201cThey don\u2019t have our backs.\u201d<\/p>\n Appearing to respond to that report, which featured interviews with 12 federal judges, Barrett struck a conciliatory tone. \u201cOur district judges work so hard to get it right,\u201d she said. Indeed, Barrett herself has been on the receiving end of sharp criticism from her more liberal colleagues on this point\u2014including from Justice Jackson, who had tough words for Barrett in the watershed decision<\/a>, in June, curbing federal judges\u2019 power to issue nationwide injunctions against the federal government. (One especially sharp line aimed at Barrett: \u201cI view the demise of the notion that a federal judge can order the Executive to adhere to the Constitution\u2014full stop\u2014as a sad day for America.\u201d)<\/p>\n Weiss asked Barrett about her swipes back at Jackson\u2014including this passage: \u201cJustice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary\u201d\u2014and whether she regretted any of it for being, as Weiss put it, \u201cScalia-esque.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo,\u201d Barrett said, drawing applause. She added that Jackson\u2019s language \u201cwarranted a response.\u201d \u201cOne thing Justice Scalia used to say that I love is, \u2018I attack ideas. I don\u2019t attack people,\u2019\u201d she added. \u201cAnd if you can\u2019t keep the two separate, you don\u2019t belong on a multimember court.\u201d (When the Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, Scalia wrote, among other<\/a> memorable lines: \u201cThe Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.\u201d)<\/p>\n In the end, the takeaway of the evening, as much for Weiss as for Barrett, who has also been a target<\/a> of rightwing figures, including from Trumpland, appeared to be: Keep doing your thing, and don\u2019t let haters get to you. \u201cTo be in this job, you have to not care,\u201d Barrett said. \u201cYou have to have a thick skin.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n