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--:-- John Bickley: American lawyer and conservative legal activist Leonard Leo is one of the most consequential figures on the right, and after Donald Trump, possibly the man most hated by the left. Leo is one of the most prolific fundraisers in American politics and is credited with transforming the federal judiciary in what liberal media outlets often call the right-wing takeover of the Supreme Court. He also helped Trump choose the three conservative Supreme Court justices who were instrumental in overturning Roe v. Wade. And with an estimated $1 billion to spend on aligned groups, Leo has the attention of both the left and right.
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--:-- John Bickley: In a rare interview, Leo sat down with The Daily Wire to discuss how he's revamping his strategy by backing conservative groups focused on operationalizing and weaponizing rather than just ideas and policy. I'm Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's October 20th, and this is a Sunday edition of Morning Wire. Text WIRE to 989-898 today.
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--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: Mr. Leo, thank you so much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to be with you.
--:-- Leonard Leo: Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: Now, last month in a much-discussed letter, you let your fund recipients know that you plan to focus on funding groups that are operationalizing and weaponizing ideas and policy rather than just developing ideas and policy. What was your thought process behind this move?
--:-- Leonard Leo: I mean, obviously, as someone involved in philanthropy, I want to make sure that the conservative movement is as impactful as possible in doing things like defending the rule of law and improving our society and culture. And that means that the participants in our movement, the many organizations that are involved in trying to improve our society and our culture and the law and politics and public policy, need to be as impactful and effective as possible.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: I mean, you mentioned how successful the left has been in leveraging their large funding engines and their organizations to change the culture. What are some of the strategies that you've noticed that conservatives should be paying attention to?
--:-- Leonard Leo: Well, a few of the strategies they've deployed, which I think were very smart and are things that we do to some extent right now, but should do more of, are things like, one, building talent pipelines and networks of activists. So again, it's all well and good to sort of educate people. But it's very important to take the best and brightest of your movement, the people who have the best strategic vision, the folks who have the greatest capability of entering into and helping to control the choke points of society.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: You mentioned how the left uses groups like Students for Justice in Palestine to push anti-Semitism on college campuses or the World Professional Transgender Health Association to influence how hospitals approach transgenderism. And it seems like the left has been very successful in these efforts.
--:-- Leonard Leo: They have. And part of their strategy was to build several different kinds of institutions and structures. Of course, one was to sort of develop the ideas and the philosophy and to educate influencers in society, as well as up and coming generations of academics and professionals about their ideas, but then also to create institutions that could mobilize people behind those ideas, behind those predispositions.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: You mentioned a foundation executive telling you, and I'll just quote here, we focus on research and policy. We're glad others fund campaign-style projects, but it's not a funding fit for us. Is that a typical attitude that you've encountered when funding conservative groups?
--:-- Leonard Leo: It's an attitude that is much more prevalent in the conservative movement than it should be. And it's an attitude that's much more prevalent in the conservative movement right now than exists on the left.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: You've argued that conservative groups are risk averse. Why would you say that is?
--:-- Leonard Leo: Well, conservatives are, to some extent, risk averse by their nature. It's how the word conservative came about, right? To conserve, as opposed to sort of branch out and do other things. I mean, there's very much a Burkean instinct that you don't just break the mold and ignore what's happened in the past.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: On that vein of the regulatory state, that kind of brings up the recent Loper Bright v. Raimondo Supreme Court case, which dealt with how federal agencies interpret the law. How do you see cases like this impacting your future plans for the movement?
--:-- Leonard Leo: Well, I'm glad you brought that up because this is a perfect example of what we're talking about, right? So for decades, the conservative movement has talked about what I call the structural constitution, separation of powers, checks and balances, and federalism.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: You have a judiciary that's receptive. You have state AGs and other public officials around the country who are willing to challenge federal overreach in a way they never did before. You have public interest litigating groups that have best-in-class talent that can do this work. And we have networks of small business owners and farmers and ranchers and private educational institutions and religious institutions that are now prepared to sort of step up and say, we want to help beat this back because the administrative state is challenging our ability to sort of be who we want to be in this world.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: Now, I wanted to circle back to something that you said a moment ago about how elections could put conservatives in a better position to enact change. What are your thoughts on the current trajectory of the 2024 election? And will conservatives be in a position of power after November 5th?
--:-- Leonard Leo: You know, I've never been a very good predictor of what's going to happen in elections. And so I've kind of given it up because my ability to predict soundly is almost laughable. However, having said that, look, I mean, elections obviously matter. But at the end of the day, politics and public policy is downstream from culture. It's downstream from societal norms.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: Well, Mr. Leo, thank you so much for your time today.
--:-- Leonard Leo: Well, thank you and very much appreciate your interest in these issues and very much appreciate the work that The Daily Wire does in trying to highlight a number of these important issues today.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olehan: That was Daily Wire senior reporter Mary Margaret Olehan speaking with conservative activist Leonard Leo. And this has been a Sunday edition of Morning Wire.
