Neil Gorsuch is discussed across four episodes of The Bob Zadek Show as the nominee — and then Justice — whose appointment to the United States Supreme Court became, for the show’s guests, a measure of how much libertarian change can be won through the judiciary. The excerpts treat the nomination as a pivotal event in the 2016 election’s aftermath, a source of both hope and unease about judicial power, and a flashpoint in later arguments about court packing. No excerpt reports a decision, opinion or vote by Gorsuch after he joined the Court.
The nomination and the vacancy
Bob Zadek opened the March 25, 2017 episode by announcing that the show would discuss “the nomination and, hopefully, the confirmation of the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to be elevated as Justice Neil Gorsuch to the United States Supreme Court.” He noted that Gorsuch was nominated by Donald Trump and described the Senate’s interview with him as a “Kabuki theater of make-believe” and “a show trial of sorts,” after which the Senate would proceed through its procedural steps toward confirmation Judge Gorsuch on the Hot Seat (2017).
Zadek introduced Ilya Shapiro, identified as a Senior Fellow of Constitutional Studies at the Cato Institute and Editor-in-Chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review, who had last appeared on the show in May 2016. Shapiro framed the moment as a “teachable moment about the Supreme Court” and argued that the Court “plays an increasingly large role in our political discourse,” listing healthcare, immigration, voting rights, gun rights, gay rights, campaign finance, affirmative action and abortion as top issues that had come before it. He called that pattern anomalous rather than the norm, and said the vacancy mattered because which president and party made the appointment “would change the dynamic of the court” and its direction on issues that “tend to be decided five to four” Judge Gorsuch on the Hot Seat (2017).
Hope in the Court
In the earlier February 4, 2017 episode with William Watkins Jr., Zadek had already placed the nomination inside a larger argument about where libertarian change comes from. Discussing Watkins’s proposed state-centered amendment process, Zadek said he found the greatest hope in the Supreme Court, because a change of one or two justices toward more liberty-minded justices would produce profound change, and because dramatic movements toward and away from liberty had come from the Court rather than Congress. He called Gorsuch “a step in the right direction” [[episodes/crossroads_for_liberty__with_william_watkins_jr|Crossroads for Liberty with William Watkins Jr. (2017)]].
Watkins agreed that the Court offers great leverage but attached a caveat. He said that whatever one thinks about Donald Trump, Trump had done “a real solid” with the nomination of Gorsuch, who seemed to be a strong originalist and someone who could fill the seat of a Justice Scalia. Watkins’s concern was structural: he had “a fundamental problem with the court serving as a final arbiter of the Constitution and having nine unelected individuals exercising the power that they do,” since the Court can do much for liberty but also much to undermine it. He said he would prefer to see the popular branches, or state legislatures accountable to the people, more involved [[episodes/crossroads_for_liberty__with_william_watkins_jr|Crossroads for Liberty with William Watkins Jr. (2017)]].
Originalism and the appointment’s significance
The originalism theme recurs in the February 21, 2019 episode with John McGinnis, a professor of constitutional law at Northwestern University School of Law. McGinnis said Trump’s decision to commit himself to appointing judges who read the Constitution as written was one of two developments that gave him hope, and he invoked a long theory of the Supreme Court going back to the early Republic under which the justices are in some sense Republican schoolmasters who, if originalists, recall the country to its founding principles. He said Trump gets enormous credit “certainly for the appointment of Gorsuch, who’s turned out to be great,” adding that Kavanaugh was still unknown but that there was reason to believe he would be quite good in this respect Here Comes the Storm (2019).
McGinnis contrasted Trump with Reagan, saying Reagan traveled the country writing speeches trying to imply Hayek’s ideas, whereas Trump’s background as a real estate operator from New York was transactional. He also credited Trump’s State of the Union address with capturing principles by talking about the danger of socialism and the importance of freedom, and said Trump’s appointments of justices and judges were the best of any president, even better than Ronald Reagan’s. Zadek played a clip of Trump saying that socialism had bankrupted an oil-rich nation and driven its people into abject poverty, and that socialism’s thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion and oppression; Zadek called it “right out of Hayek” and the first time Trump had drilled down to a principle in support of his policies Here Comes the Storm (2019).
Court packing and the Garland seat
The April 18, 2019 episode with Ilya Somin returns to the Gorsuch seat from the opposite direction. Zadek asked whether judicial review, which he called a cornerstone of the system of government, would survive a norm under which each incoming administration controlling all three branches would increase the number of justices by two. Somin answered that judicial review might not disappear but would be much weaker, because a coalition able to pack the Court could ensure no effective review of policies it supports and considers important; even the threat of packing could keep justices from rocking the boat How to Create a Legitimacy Crisis (2019).
Somin said some Democrats who generally oppose court packing treat the current situation as a special case, on the theory that Republicans had gotten away with something improper by blocking the nomination of Garland in 2016 and thereby enabling Trump to nominate Neil Gorsuch for that seat. He called that reasoning at least naive, predicting that escalation by one side would generate further escalation by the other, since Republicans would not agree they had done anything wrong in the Garland episode. Zadek asked whether anything good could be said for court packing; Somin said nothing sufficient to outweigh the evil, while noting that people who oppose judicial review in general as undemocratic and harmful should welcome it How to Create a Legitimacy Crisis (2019).
Across episodes
The nomination is treated in two 2017 episodes and revisited in two 2019 episodes, and the treatment shifts with the Court’s composition. In February 2017, Zadek and Watkins debate whether a single appointment can deliver libertarian change, with Zadek locating hope in the Court and Watkins warning about unelected justices as final arbiters [[episodes/crossroads_for_liberty__with_william_watkins_jr|Crossroads for Liberty with William Watkins Jr. (2017)]]. In March 2017, Shapiro supplies the structural case for why the seat mattered, tying it to a run of blockbuster issues decided five to four Judge Gorsuch on the Hot Seat (2017). By 2019, McGinnis treats the appointment as an accomplished fact and a success, calling Gorsuch “great” and ranking Trump’s judicial appointments above Reagan’s Here Comes the Storm (2019), while Somin discusses the same seat as the grievance Democrats cite to justify court packing How to Create a Legitimacy Crisis (2019). What changes between the earlier and later episodes is the question: from whether the appointment would move the Court, to what the appointment’s contested origins mean for the Court’s legitimacy.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts contain no account of Gorsuch’s record as a justice — no opinion, vote, case name or doctrinal position is attributed to him. They do not describe his earlier judicial career, his confirmation vote, or the outcome of the Senate process beyond Zadek’s expectation of confirmation. The Garland nomination is mentioned only as Somin characterizes Democratic arguments about it, not as a narrated sequence of events. Nothing in the excerpts states what Gorsuch’s originalism consists of beyond the labels the guests apply to him.