Here Are 7 Key Moments From Justice Barrett’s Latest Sit-Down Interview

The Federalist ^ | November 06, 2025 | Shawn Fleetwood

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The U.S. Supreme Court may be busy juggling cases from its ongoing term, but that hasn’t stopped Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett from making time to speak directly to the American people.

On Oct. 31, the Trump appointee participated in a sit-down interview with the Hoover Institution’s Peter Robinson. Released on Wednesday, the more than hour-long exchange covered Barrett’s recently released book and a myriad of issues relevant to the Supreme Court and America’s ongoing political discourse.

From the origins of originalist jurisprudence to the limited power of lower courts, here are some of the most compelling remarks from one of SCOTUS’s most junior justices.

Originalism

Before delving into more modern issues, Robinson began his conversation with Barrett by discussing originalism, the judicial philosophy of interpreting the Constitution as originally written at the time it was adopted.

After playing a clip of Associate Justice Samuel Alito’s analysis of originalism’s origins during his interview with Robinson several months ago, the Hoover policy fellow described how originalism “had to fight to establish itself” when its early pioneers like former Associate Justice Antonin Scalia — for whom Barrett clerked — first joined the Supreme Court. He further noted that Barrett and her fellow Trump appointees are “of a different generation” where originalism “is already, in some way, established.”

While agreeing with Alito’s assessment that “originalism became prominent as a theory, and it became self-conscious as a theory, at the time that Justice Scalia and some of the early pioneers of originalism … began writing about it,” Barrett added that “when you look back at the 19th century, originalism is what the court was doing in most cases.”

“It had never had to defend itself,” Robinson said, to which Barrett replied, “Exactly.”

“The story of originalism is really...”

[Segovia]

I have a really hard time disagreeing with anything she said there...... I think I have a bit more respect for the woman.

[Carry_Okie]

I have a really hard time disagreeing with anything she said there....

I did in one respect: She was critical of Thomas' preference to dig into what may be bad precedent and leaned toward Scalia's reticence there. At the same time she mildly disparaged the Warren and Burger courts for their "living Constitution" activism. The latter makes a mockery of law, effectively saying 'it means whatever I say it does,' as there is no limit to the frequency of public whim (time frequency and legal instability being a property Scalia himself did not articulate in his famed debate with Justice Breyer). IOW, Thomas is right to seek to undo the damage done by the Warren Court and to return law to its status as an articulation of unchanging principle.

Somebody I know once wrote:

This is Law, an is, not a "should be,"
An image of Truth, not forgotten, by Truth not required.