Federalist Society co-chairman and former Executive Vice President Leonard Leo speaks to media at Trump Tower in New York, Nov. 16, 2016.
Carolyn Kaster/AP/AP
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Carolyn Kaster/AP/AP
Leonard Leo may not be a household name, but odds are most people in the country know his signature achievement:
Leo was a key architect of the conservative supermajority on the Supreme Court that rolled back the federal right to an abortion.
The conservative activist advised President-elect Donald Trump during his first term on the nominations of Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The three picks gave conservatives their 6-3 majority on the high court. And all of them voted to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision.
For decades, as a leading figure in the Federalist Society and other conservative legal groups, Leo identified and promoted the careers of lawyers and law clerks who shared his views of the constitution.
He supported the confirmations of Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito. Now, having done so much to influence American jurisprudence, Leo has set his sights on reshaping American culture.
His plans involve the Teneo Network, which describes itself as a “talent pipeline” for the conservative movement, with ambitions to influence Hollywood, Silicon Valley and other cultural power centers that he and fellow conservatives see as dominated by liberals. The proposed technique is similar to Leo’s network of judicial nominees: raising money from conservative donors to help identify, connect and promote the careers of like-minded people. In the language of Teneo’s one-page website, the group exists “to Recruit, Connect, and Deploy talented conservatives who lead opinion and shape the industries that shape society.”
Leo spoke to Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep about the opportunity he anticipates to exert more conservative influence on the judiciary under a second Trump presidency and his plans to “crush liberal dominance” of American culture.
Steve Inskeep: I want to begin with the moment that we’re in with a new administration coming in and a very particular new administration coming in. What’s the opportunity you see for the judiciary in this new administration?
Leonard Leo: Well, as in the first administration, you know, President Trump has an opportunity to put more individuals on the bench who are committed to interpreting the Constitution as it’s written and it was understood by the founding fathers. You know, there aren’t as many vacancies as there were in the first term, but there are a few on the courts of appeals and some pretty important parts of the country. Probably about five or six of those. And you never know. There’s always the possibility of a Supreme Court vacancy. So it’s an opportunity for the president to sort of further solidify an originalist constitutionalist approach to the law in the federal courts.
Inskeep: Are you assuming that there will be some justice who will at least think about retiring in the next few years?
Leo: I think it’s probably unlikely. Just given where the court currently is and the ages of the justices and their respective health. But you never know. It’s always a possibility. And every administration I’ve ever known has always prepared for that contingency just to make sure.
Inskeep: I want to note for people, you speak a lot about the rule of law. You’re interested in the rule of law. The president elect has appointed judges and justices whose view of the law you very much like, but also tends to decide for himself what he thinks is illegal or proper and also wants to punish his critics. Are you concerned about the rule of law in this moment?
Leo: Well, fortunately, we have a constitutional system that protects against any rash or hasty action by presidents or by other public leaders. The separation of powers helps a lot in that regard and an independent judiciary, and so do the checks and balances between Congress and the executive. So there’s always that risk in any system of government. But it’s the best system of government I think we’ve ever seen in the world in terms of really making it hard for those things to happen.
Inskeep: The president’s critics, as you know, feel that there are a number of justices and judges that ruled in his favor again and again in a number of these criminal cases that he has faced. Do you believe that the justices that you did so much to bring to the Supreme Court would in fact, rule independently of the president who appointed them in the years ahead?
Leo: 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. And that was mostly not consistent with at the time President Trump’s views. And there are lots of other instances where his appointees and others on the court have made decisions that he hasn’t been entirely thrilled with.
Inskeep: That’s true.
Leo: You know, so I think they’ve shown their independence reasonably well. I know lots of people disagree with some of the decisions they’ve made, but my own view is that they are calling them the way they see them in accord with the Constitution.
Inskeep: Mr. Leo, I want people to know about something called the Teneo Network, if I’m pronouncing it correctly. There’s been some reporting on this, an effort that you’re involved with to bring conservative influence to businesses Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Hollywood, in the same way that you brought more conservative influences to the judiciary, will you help me understand what you’re doing there? With judges, you identified young law clerks, young lawyers to try to promote them into the judiciary. What are you doing with, say, Hollywood?
Leo: It’s very important, in my view, to create pipelines of talent and networks of very driven, strategic people in all sectors of American life. If you want to introduce, you know, the Western cultural tradition and traditional values. So in the case of Hollywood, for example, the idea is to recruit and identify talented young professionals who have a knack for content creation and other aspects of the production of entertainment. People who believe in a sort of family-centered entertainment, where there’s a high demand. And Hollywood recognizes that. And then really helping them find opportunities to use their skills to create that kind of entertainment in the Hollywood space and beyond. 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.
Inskeep: ProPublica obtained a video of you promoting this project and saying you wanted to “crush liberal dominance.” Is that what you want to do?
Leo: Yes! And the reason Steve – and I would really call your attention to the words I used: 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 their country. I’m perfectly happy having a world where people can make choices between various kinds of things. But what I don’t want is a system where our entertainment system or our world of news media or our business and finance worlds are heavily dominated by left ideology that either chokes out other ways of thinking about things, or that just creates a system where sort of inappropriate political and policy decisions are being made in places where politics and policy don’t really have a proper place.
Inskeep: It sounds to me like you are doing something very analogous to the judiciary. You’ve identified what you feel are power centers, where liberals have great cultural power and you want to change them and get people who are on your side further up into them. Is that correct?
Leo: Yes. That’s a very fair characterization of a lot of what I think that the Teneo Network is trying to achieve. And that’s why I’m very supportive of it.
Inskeep: Do you see this as a multi-decade project, rather like the project for the judiciary has been?
Leo: Well, I think these kinds of changes do take time, although I have to say I am impressed by how quickly the Teneo Network has been able to build pipelines of talent in these places. And I am also very impressed with how quickly you’re seeing efforts, for example, in the journalism and entertainment spaces, the standing up of new production studios and news platforms. Very impressed with the speed with which the debate about ESG has kind of flipped and changed. And so, yes, these things do take a long time. But I am struck by the speed with which some of this has occurred in the past two or three years. And I can’t explain why it is. But it does seem to be faster than what I saw in the law, Steve.
Inskeep: ESG – environmental, social and governance – the idea of having socially responsible investing. That’s a thing you want to change, you’re saying.
Leo: Yeah. That’s the other area where we’ve seen some really quick changes. Right. You know, we’ll walk back from companies and finance firms for doing and again, it’s a speed of change that we really didn’t see in the law. Again, I can’t explain why that is, but it does seem to be that there’s a slightly different dynamic in play when you see these other networks building up in these other sectors of American life.
The radio version of this story was edited by Jan Johnson and produced by Ana Perez.
