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*The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity. The timestamps correspond to the video at the top of this newsletter. *
**Jessica Yellin **00:07
Hi everyone! I am here bringing you a fun conversation today with . You know her from her work on MSNBC. She’s also the author of How the Hell... with Alex Wagner on Substack.
She is out this week with a new book, The Steal: Four Right-Wing Hardliners, One Republican Presidency, and The Raid on America’s Courts. Her book tells the story of how a group of conservative activists looked beyond the immediate wins and losses of electoral politics to a slower and more enduring source of power — the courts — and how, over decades, they built the institutions, funding, and legal movement that would ultimately reshape the federal judiciary.
I’m excited to talk to Alex about this and current politics. Alex, hi. It’s great to see you.
**Alex Wagner **01:09
Hi, Jessica. Thank you for having me on. Thank you for that lovely intro. I’ve gotten a lot of book intros this week, and that was the strongest one. You captured the essence of the book. It’s a heist novel, really, about how conservatives seize the court, and you just brilliantly encapsulated it.
**Jessica Yellin **01:09
Well, I am so grateful. That’s a very nice compliment. You are now an independent journalist. How is life with freedom?
**Alex Wagner **01:18
Freedom is wild. I mean, the days are your own, but if you harbor deep anxieties about not doing enough with every single day, you can really work yourself to the bone, which is where you find me this Friday, on the heels of an exhausting book tour, but also my duties doing television and writing Substacks, and also — most importantly, but somehow, often forget the to-do list is raising children. Being a mom — also a full-time job and then some. So it’s a lot, but it’s really exhilarating. You know what I mean? There’s a real sense that you can approach each day with creativity, and it’s sort of as the day takes you, and that’s really liberating.
**Jessica Yellin **02:01
Well, if you ever need a little bit of coaching on how to say, “I’ve done enough...”
**Alex Wagner **02:05
Please! I need you to just say the phrase, “I’ve done enough.” Someone said that to me today. They were like, “Alex, you’ve done enough.”
**Jessica Yellin **02:11
It’s enough. It’s enough. We’re gonna work on it. I promise. Let’s talk about the book. I’m curious, because you spent all these years covering the day to day of American politics, and this is very much sort of a step back and a way to tell a much longer story about how power was being built through the courts. What made you come to this book?
**Alex Wagner **02:31
I am incensed by the direction this Supreme Court has taken the country. They are increasingly lawless — not really, but they don’t read the Constitution that they propose to be in strict adherence to, and they have reoriented American society away from what most of us would say is the magnetic north of inclusivity and civil rights. You’re so right to focus on the fact that we, and specifically I, really think of this moment that we’re all living in in the day to day, and we think of it in the last 24 hours, 48 hours. Sometimes we look at the last week. But rarely do we understand the historical context and all the actions and organization and strategy that lead us to this particular moment. So, in the context of this Court, what I really wanted to understand was how the courts and this particular [Chief Justice John] Roberts Court became so radicalized.
What resulted from years of research and archival digging is a book that tells a story of a right-wing plot that was formed in the shadows of the Reagan administration that really has come to fruition in this moment, right now, with the decisions this court is making. I think it’s essential for us to have a little bit of context in this tumultuous moment where we’re understandably focused on what just happened — but what just happened is never the result of just a few hours or days or discrete decisions. It’s a long road. This is the long tail behind where we are now.
**Jessica Yellin **04:00
You know what comes to mind as you’re talking about this, is when I have conversations with conservative court watchers, they kind of endorse what you’re saying from a different point of view. Their argument is this was a long effort, but this isn’t, in their view, radicalized. Their view is that this is what the intention always was, and they finally have the moment to come into full flower with the incremental efforts they had made before. There’s a sense of real accomplishment on that side, that this is what they’ve been planning.
I want to step back for a minute. I’m going to ask you to take us through the history, but before we get there, let’s just level set. I’m interested to understand where you think the judiciary stands. Yes, the Supreme Court overturned Roe, narrowed voting rights, gave the president sweeping immunity. But at the same at the same time, they’ve also made some real rulings against Trump. They blocked him on tariffs. They blocked him on birthright citizenship this week. This week they blocked changes to mail-in voting. Are we really looking at a transformed judiciary or something a little more complicated than that?
