My name is waylon, and a general manager of the bookstore. We are delighted to have you here today to share an evening with ali vitali and kim tran wehle. This is an iconic establishment, during the 1976 dedicated to them inclusiveness. We love to have you here again. This is about our fourth and that so far in this new space so welcome. Its unnecessary to say but you can reach us also its always unnecessary to say that. Allow me tointroduce our guest of honor. Ali vitali is a correspondent for nbc news based in washington dc. She is has worked with both President Biden and Vice President harris as well as efforts. [inaudible] as an nbc news road warrior she followed her career on rrthe campaign trail of elizabeth warren, amy klobuchar. [inaudible] she previously covered the Trump Administration as a white house recorder for nbc news digital and the Political Campaign that ended before 2016 president ial campaign. Shes running in 2012 and her first book why hasnt america put a woman in the white house yet will be out in august 2023. Professor wehle is a lawyer and legal expert. She served as a legal analyst for cbs news on facethe nation with margaret brennan. She was a regular guest on msnbc, and npr and appeared on fox news and pds. Shes contributed to the hill and the Baltimore Sun and l. A. Times. Shes a former assistant United States attorney, associate independent counsel and in the whitewater investigation and author of the book how to read the constitution and why, what you need to know about voting and why and how to think like a voter and why. Kims books are all available at the counter of the bookstore and please help me welcome ali vitali and kimberly wehle. [applause] im so excited to be here in this space, feeling good about being back in person and to be here to celebrate kims amazing achievements of this latest book, youre so prolific. Were just talking about how many she has and i think its so gstriking you say its a big moment for Civic Engagement and i think this latest book really speaks to that and of course many of us know kim for from her columns, from her many a experiences and as someone was also all the time on msnbc. You and i get to be in boxes next to each other so to be here in person is a real treat. Ive been excited about doing this talk for weeks but im really excited that were doing it today of all days cause the first thing i thought of this morning was the news that we ended up covering all day which was on the leak memo or decision from the Supreme Court about the dobbs versus mississippi case. And the first thing i thought was how do i think through this like a lawyer would . Im glad were here to talk about this tonight because i wonder for you how you digested all the different pieces of that and how we as an audience of people who are engaged in following this news, what we should be looking at. Let me first thank kramer for having me and thank you allie for doingthis. Its a really question because in the book i talk about five steps. I break them thinking like a lawyer in five steps. The number one step and one that students have said is the biggest take away frommy classes is to take a big issue and break it down into smaller issues. So we are in a very polarized world. People say that all the time but when i say that what i mean is were into black and white thinking. Im right, youre wrong. Heads i win, tails you lose. We go to our camps and entrench ourselves in those camps and abortion as that one of those divisive e issues for decades and are you pro or you against and actually its a much more complicated, nuanced question. If you took the question and do i support abortion rights or not, on many sub issues there you have to think about the healthcare implications for the person who is finds herself with those unwanted pregnancy. You have heto think about the implications for the arc of constitutional law and other rights in america. You might have to think about the moral and religious implications for yourself, Justice Alito in the late decision opened that position talking about the morality of theissue which really isnt the job of law. Its the job of the individual and the family and the faith but if you take that big issue and break it down into smaller ones, immediately you realize and easy answers. If youwant to empathize one aspect of it , maybe if people believe, many people believe the life of the unborn child is something the law should respect but if that is your priority you have to give something up and youre going to have to give up omthe needs or interests of the woman particularly low income women who are disproportionately affectedby these kinds of loss. Thats released at one and we will talk about the other steps but getting informed on the facts, the legal implications that bear on each of these issues and turning it over , saying whats the other side of the coin here . I tried to say imagine youre a person that you really respect, what is the best argument they will make for a position you dont agree with. Where not used to thinking that way and thats what the book tries to get through and theyre doing a lot of tv and radio today and ortrying to break it down into what is this really about, is it a thumbsup or thumbs down issue is the most critical element. What youre talking about with the method in this ebook is so important to how all of us can apply the ideas to how to even make sense of this opinion ideranging that came down and will have impacts over the course of the next few weeks iaand months politically and of course physically and socially but its really your first book that allows you the perfect insight into this moment f particularly because its whats in the constitution. What are our rights you so i wonder what your thoughts work when you read that alito drafted what argument he was making. The critical part of my series of books s in the title is the lie. If you understand the why you can understand the what so why do we have Constitutional Rights and when i asked people i question what is a constitutional right inevitably someone waves their hand and they say its something that i have as an er american but functionally its not so much that what is a constitutional right to mark it the ability to get to court and get an order stopping government from being too aggressive into some space that is personal to you. So my first question in reading alito and we can talk about the details sets up a twopart test for these rights Going Forward that is a little arcane. Its brandnew in the law or it draws from other elements the bigger question really i said i think all of the abortion debate has been framed improperly around the rights of the woman. Its really about how much do we want to confine thand constrain the power of the government . This goes to anything from the right to bear arms to the right to not be forcibly sterilized by government. Thats not in the constitution. Where talking all about abortion rights are in the constitution but theres a lot of stuff thats not in theconstitution and the problem with this decision is its a potential cascade of implications for rights that we take for granted but if you understand why we have rights, why we call them rights is because most americans want their freedoms, they dont like an overbearing government. Thats a really different frame. So if you think about it that way and not so much so, is it the woman or the unborn child , what is it about as americans how much power do we want to get government, the Supreme Court looks like its poised to aggrandize the power of government and minimize the power of individuals and i uadont think people across the political spectrum like that idea. Its a fascinating way that you talk about it because the decision would put the power with the states so the idea theoretically of less Big Government at the federal level but much bigger influence at the statelevel which is fascinating if youre looking at conservative principles to. Thats also to talk about why do we have a federal government . Because we had a civil war just as an example around certain states wanting to continue to enslave human beings for profit. We then had the 13th, 14th, 15th amendment. The 15th camendment is where abortion rights and a lot of rights come from but what happened there . The Southern States said we dont care what the constitution says, were going to do what we want. Congress had to pass a statute called the ku klux klan act that basically as we said gives people the right to go to court to get an order to tell the government to stop doing something. So the fact that states have, you know, their own legislatures isnt enough. If they were enough we wouldnt have a constitution. The framers understood its psychologically human nature to abuse and entrench their power and thats why we have the government broken up into different pieces, its all about accountability and again in the book if you understand the why and you understandthe various implications you can noodle through these problems and get out of im right, youre wrong and then that just escalates and people get isolated. People tufeel judged. People feel shamed tand once shame enters the picture, the dialogue is over. I want to talk about the tribalism but the thing that was striking to me is i picked up this book initially y and i thought my parents are lawyers, theyre going to be thrilled im reading it but when you think about how to think like a lawyer some people might wall themselves off to the idea that they m even need to because they dont work in a firm. But really i think what i was struck by in these pages was the fact that you say attacking it with this mindset can help you figure out anything from should my kids have a social media account to the bigger question of what happens if im getting divorced . I think when you make that turn to the personal it becomes so much more acceptable and i wonder why you think its important to make that turn . Part of what i do frankly and why i started doing this a few years ago was to take the law school classroom, sophisticated graduatelevel legal analysisand translate it into commonsense everyday language. The big distinction i would saybetween how lawyers think and its hard for my students to get this. The rest of us , lawyers look for questions. Whats the answer, what do you want . Ou im not going to be sitting in your office when you get the first problem and if you can wikipedia the answer nobodys going to pay you 500 bucks an hour. Youre hired because its ambiguous. Its pushy, its confusing so lawyers are like bloodhounds and look for the questions and the answers only come later if at all. Most of us are going to be on the Supreme Court. So lawyers have to deal with bad law. They have to tell their clients they cant get them what they want. You live in this in between space and what we see on tv is there fighting for their client. What we dont see are the weeks and months and sometimes years of work gathering facts, making sure theyre verifiable. Not because youll go to jail but because it makes for Good Journalism and you have professional ethics and thats the same for lawyers. I think you make the point that a lot of this is factfinding and i think right now in this moment there is so much saturation online, on social media and ri along with that comes this information. Weve seen the s reallife implications of that even on Something Like january 6 but you given this book examples of legacy media organizations are the places you should be going you use rothe marty mcfly test of if they were around then you should be looking at them now but i wonder what you think othe impact of having all these different spaces for information are because on the one hand its a nice democratization. Of media and on the other hand it makes it good hard to find good facts. I i think about when i grew up in buffalo new york, one of five kids and we had the super encyclopedia. My mother bought it enough groceries she get the next volume and thats where we all went. That was everything. And so the goal and if you really wanted to date in, youd have to get the card catalog, you might have to do some microfiche or go to the xerox machine and make copies. Finding the information was the challenge. And was the skill. Now its the opposite, its sorting the information. Its sorting it, is not only overwhelming in terms of content and exponentially growing but computer algorithms based on our swipes and clicks and speech. Of thinking for us and feeding information into our phones that confirms perceived biases that we have. Its a different completely different world where we need to learn and teach our children how to sort for good facts and what does that even mean . That i think technology and i said this for many years but technology is vastly outpaced the law and its also vastly outpaced thow we problem solved. We talk about Critical Thinking skills. The fivepart method is really bad. Its okay, break it down into pieces. Identify your values and im sure well talk about that. Lawyers have to think about value systems, collect lots of knowledge and i talk about how to do it. Analyze both sides because if you dont think of your opposing counsels argument youre going to lose. You have toknow your opponents argument as well as her own and to which i think is critical , tolerate the fact that youre not going to get everything. Its not blackandwhite, its mostly gray and you have s to tolerate the fact that you cant have it all and youve got to give stuff up and were just not used to that in our culture. On team mentality, my team your team and its hurting rt kids. Thdepression rates, suicide. People are feelingalienated. They dont know how to communicate and bridge gaps and connect which is ourhuman instinct. So i think people do look at the title and sale lawyers, all they want to do is find. Itsthe opposite, its kind of chicken soup for the soul. With your one class wraps. I even grew up when you talk about having to learn both sides of it dad used to tell me you shouldnt ask questions you dont want to know what the answer is unless you know what the answer is going to be and that comes from knowing where the other side is coming from. The thing thats striking for me because i exist in a place that is regularly red versus blue. You can predict the tribal lines on every issue as a form and part of it feels like were not operating from the same set of facts anymore on a lot of these issues and im wondering how you wrap up this moment of perceived bias and the way that you cant really tolerate the other persons argument because it feels like youre not operating from the same foundation because the tribalism is just seeping in. How do you unwind all that . On i think a lot about this. I started with a book on the constitution then i realized our tomography is all about voting. Theres no right to vote in the constitution and then i realized its deeper than that. Our failing democracy is Something Else and thats the answer your question i think we need to go back to shared common values as human beings. I think what we saw today or were going to see with this decision is the crisis of co compassion in our country and just anecdotally, ive been in a number of with someone that was very dogmatic about donald trump or whatever. When i shifted the conversation to common values , common value systems, how government we want to be. Howpowerful , nobody wants that. Nobody wants government deciding how you raise your children. Nobody wants government telling you what job you can have. Whether you can enter into a contract or not. None of this is spelled out in the United States constitution so if we can connect around allright, were humans and we had this shared value system , we set aside the republican, set aside the democrat and build from that because once you do that then you have to start making compromises and when i know its a little high in the skybut its not going to be , i mean our political system is devastatingly broken. I still have hope but the structures are going to save us and obviously the Supreme Court is not going to save us. The only way this shining acbeacon of democracy in america is going to survive is or people to connect and connect with each other. I do think the one step of the five steps that stood out the most is the tolerate piece of it because ive been on the road traveling what either from eeveryone and the thing that just amazes me the most is people have stopped talkingto the neck their neighbors if they have different political opinions. They extricated themselves from family situations that might bbe uncomfortable. Those are the exchanges that can help us grow by being introduced to other mindsets that are our own, dont you think . That the concept of curiosity. I taught the class during the first trump impeachment called democracy at risk and the students were anxious about talking about these things because theyre worried and in that camp or that they get canceled. It happens across the political spectrum but i say okay, theres a recent Supreme Court case i wanted to bring to class to opinion editorials from legacy or respectful journalists that have different points of view. On whatever the issue is. At the end of the semester they said this is the safest ever felt to talk about heart issues and i came to class curious about different points of view. I also think teachers go and sort of thought leaders need to manage the conversation. When people start going into dark areas of im right, youre wrong you have to bring them back to some common ground. There has to be leadership around that. So anyway, i think its a really powerful thing that weve lost and the book again , you can take up to five steps. At thanksgiving, uncle milton is really difficult. How do you make it through a couple of hours of difficult conversations. The book lays out a five step methodology and i will say its a methodology. Any of you who watched the judge jackson hearing, you might recall her being asked particularly by republicans over and over whats your judicial philosophy. She wouldnt answer it. Why . Its not a black or white philosophy, its a methodology. Ishe kept saying its a methodology. I take into account all different facts. Precedents, the policy implications. The scope of my authority. The arguments on both sides and direct what i call a framework but it basically is like a decision tree for how to use through something hard . Its a myth that theres one way to read the constitution that theres a oneway judicial philosophy just like its a myth thatdeciding w