Leonard Leo
Appearances
Up First from NPR
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
He's Leonard Leo, and he played a big role in assembling the Supreme Court's conservative supermajority. He has links with a lot of conservative donors and with several conservative legal groups, the most famous of which is the Federalist Society. And he's been central to setting up a network to identify and promote young lawyers, law clerks,
Up First from NPR
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
with what Leo would consider the right political views or judicial views and persuaded Republican presidents to appoint them to the bench.
Up First from NPR
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
Well, his network has potential judicial nominees ready, although there are fewer vacancies this time. So Leo is turning his fundraising and organizing skills on other targets. He wants people promoting Western culture and traditional values as he sees them in other industries, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, even Hollywood.
Up First from NPR
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
And there are a lot of young professionals in entertainment and in journalism and in business and finance who are looking for opportunities to inject their traditional values and the Western cultural tradition into other aspects of American social and cultural life.
Up First from NPR
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
ProPublica obtained a video of you promoting this project and saying you wanted to, quote, crush liberal dominance. Is that what you want to do?
Up First from NPR
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
Yes. And the reason, Steve, and I would really call your attention to the words I use, I want to crush liberal dominance. In other words, I want to make sure that there's a level playing field for the American people to make choices about the lives that they want to have in our country.
Up First from NPR
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
Well, he can try, and he has access to funding for sure, although these industries are a lot bigger and less centralized. You can't just win a presidential election and have your guy start appointing people. It would be a much more complicated process, although he feels like those industries are moving in his direction now.
Up First from NPR
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
Well, I asked because Leo himself contends that he's for the rule of law. So does he want a lawless president? And he expressed confidence in the separation of powers to contain Trump.
Up First from NPR
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
I think the conservative justices of the court have consistently shown that they rule independently. In 2020, during the earlier election, the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts ruled in the election cases the way they saw it.
Up First from NPR
Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire, Trump's Spending Cuts, A Conservative Activist's Plan
Of course, the court has also ruled in the president-elect's favor, most recently saying that the president has immunity for his official acts and even for some private actions, which impeded the prosecution of Trump and will now apply to his actions in 2025.