I'm Jonathan K. Parton, welcome to K-Part.

From controversial court decisions to questionable ethics exercised by its most senior member,

national attention on the Supreme Court has never been more intense,

and its six-three conservative supermajority has shown no qualms about overturning precedent

and creating new legal theories to achieve long-held goals of the right.

In her new book, Nine Black Robes, inside the Supreme Court's drive to the right,

and its historic consequences, CNN's senior Supreme Court analyst,

Joan Biscupic, chronicles how we got to this point.

In this conversation, first recorded for Washington Post Live on April 17,

Biscupic gets into the inner workings of the court,

the role of the Federalist Society in shaping it.

Whether Chief Justice John Roberts still has control,

and the complicated prominence of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

He is super important. He is essentially the ideological center now,

so he's got a lot of power as a potential fifth vote in either direction.

But one thing that I do point up in the book is this double signaling he does to try to

have it a couple, you know, have it two ways.

So, Joan, as you write, the right-right shift on the court has been many years in the making,

but what made the Trump era so different for the Supreme Court?

Well, let's start first with just a sheer number of appointees.

He had three Supreme Court justices in just four years.

Let's go back to Jimmy Carter, who had none.

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