WEBVTT

00:00:01.095 --> 00:00:02.286
Fourteen years ago,

00:00:02.310 --> 00:00:05.476
I stood in the Supreme Court
to argue my first case.

00:00:05.500 --> 00:00:06.889
And it wasn't just any case,

00:00:06.913 --> 00:00:08.744
it was a case that experts called

00:00:08.768 --> 00:00:12.400
one of the most important cases
the Supreme Court had ever heard.

00:00:12.752 --> 00:00:16.021
It considered whether Guantanamo
was constitutional,

00:00:16.045 --> 00:00:19.542
and whether the Geneva Conventions
applied to the war on terror.

00:00:19.566 --> 00:00:22.709
It was just a handful of years
after the horrific attacks

00:00:22.733 --> 00:00:23.933
of September 11.

00:00:24.241 --> 00:00:27.331
The Supreme Court had seven
Republican appointees

00:00:27.355 --> 00:00:29.204
and two Democratic ones,

00:00:29.228 --> 00:00:32.770
and my client happened to be
Osama bin Laden's driver.

00:00:33.147 --> 00:00:36.131
My opponent was the Solicitor General
of the United States,

00:00:36.155 --> 00:00:38.028
America's top courtroom lawyer.

00:00:38.052 --> 00:00:39.974
He had argued 35 cases.

00:00:39.998 --> 00:00:42.268
I wasn't even 35 years old.

00:00:42.292 --> 00:00:43.847
And to make matters worse,

00:00:43.871 --> 00:00:47.045
the Senate, for the first time
since the Civil War,

00:00:47.069 --> 00:00:49.714
passed a bill to try and remove the case

00:00:49.738 --> 00:00:51.869
from the docket of the Supreme Court.

NOTE Paragraph

00:00:51.893 --> 00:00:53.520
Now the speaking coaches say

00:00:53.544 --> 00:00:56.700
I'm supposed to build tension
and not tell you what happens.

00:00:57.165 --> 00:00:58.847
But the thing is, we won.

00:00:58.871 --> 00:01:00.045
How?

00:01:00.069 --> 00:01:02.772
Today, I'm going to talk
about how to win an argument,

00:01:02.796 --> 00:01:04.796
at the Supreme Court or anywhere.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:05.201 --> 00:01:09.463
The conventional wisdom
is that you speak with confidence.

00:01:09.487 --> 00:01:11.133
That's how you persuade.

00:01:11.642 --> 00:01:13.095
I think that's wrong.

00:01:13.119 --> 00:01:16.367
I think confidence
is the enemy of persuasion.

00:01:16.738 --> 00:01:18.815
Persuasion is about empathy,

00:01:18.839 --> 00:01:20.839
about getting into people's heads.

00:01:21.228 --> 00:01:23.172
That's what makes TED what it is.

00:01:23.196 --> 00:01:25.387
It's why you're listening to this talk.

00:01:25.411 --> 00:01:27.347
You could have read it on the cold page,

00:01:27.371 --> 00:01:28.529
but you didn't.

00:01:28.553 --> 00:01:30.712
Same thing with Supreme Court arguments.

00:01:30.736 --> 00:01:33.768
We write written briefs with cold pages,

00:01:33.792 --> 00:01:35.537
but we also have an oral argument.

00:01:35.561 --> 00:01:39.543
We don't just have a system
in which the justices write questions

00:01:39.567 --> 00:01:40.871
and you write answers.

00:01:40.895 --> 00:01:42.085
Why?

00:01:42.109 --> 00:01:44.529
Because argument is about interaction.

NOTE Paragraph

00:01:44.553 --> 00:01:46.696
I want to take you behind the scenes

00:01:46.720 --> 00:01:48.066
to tell you what I did,

00:01:48.090 --> 00:01:50.479
and how these lessons are generalizable.

00:01:50.503 --> 00:01:53.129
Not just for winning an argument in court,

00:01:53.153 --> 00:01:55.153
but for something far more profound.

00:01:55.704 --> 00:01:56.855
Now obviously,

00:01:56.879 --> 00:01:58.387
it's going to involve practice,

00:01:58.411 --> 00:02:00.291
but not just any practice will do.

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:00.315 --> 00:02:02.476
My first practice session for Guantanamo,

00:02:02.500 --> 00:02:03.668
I flew up to Harvard

00:02:03.692 --> 00:02:08.243
and had all these legendary professors
throwing questions at me.

00:02:08.267 --> 00:02:10.100
And even though I had read everything,

00:02:10.124 --> 00:02:11.783
rehearsed a million times,

00:02:11.807 --> 00:02:14.014
I wasn't persuading anyone.

00:02:14.038 --> 00:02:16.164
My arguments weren't resonating.

00:02:16.188 --> 00:02:17.387
I was desperate,

00:02:17.411 --> 00:02:18.903
I had done everything possible,

00:02:18.927 --> 00:02:21.347
read every book,
rehearsed a million times,

00:02:21.371 --> 00:02:23.129
and it wasn't going anywhere.

00:02:23.153 --> 00:02:25.272
So ultimately, I stumbled on this guy,

00:02:25.296 --> 00:02:27.582
he was an acting coach,
he wasn't even a lawyer.

00:02:27.606 --> 00:02:29.836
He'd never set foot in the Supreme Court.

00:02:29.860 --> 00:02:33.388
And he came into my office one day
wearing a [unclear] white shirt

00:02:33.412 --> 00:02:35.420
and a bolo tie,

00:02:35.444 --> 00:02:38.944
and he looked at me
with my folded arms and said,

00:02:38.968 --> 00:02:40.926
"Look, Neal, I can tell

00:02:40.950 --> 00:02:42.983
that you don't think this is gong to work,

00:02:43.007 --> 00:02:44.316
but just humor me.

00:02:44.340 --> 00:02:45.617
Tell me your argument."

NOTE Paragraph

00:02:45.641 --> 00:02:47.283
So I grabbed my legal pad

00:02:47.307 --> 00:02:49.340
and I started reading my argument.

00:02:49.364 --> 00:02:50.799
He said, "What are you doing?"

00:02:50.823 --> 00:02:52.672
I said, "I'm telling you my argument."

00:02:52.696 --> 00:02:54.664
He said, "Your argument is a legal pad?"

00:02:54.688 --> 00:02:57.526
I said, "No, but my argument
is on a legal pad."

00:02:57.550 --> 00:02:59.772
He said, "Neal, look at me.

00:02:59.796 --> 00:03:02.003
Tell me your argument."

00:03:02.027 --> 00:03:03.391
And so I did.

00:03:03.415 --> 00:03:05.307
And instantly, I realized,

00:03:05.331 --> 00:03:07.037
my points were resonating.

00:03:07.061 --> 00:03:09.867
I was connecting to another human being.

00:03:10.328 --> 00:03:13.360
And he could see the smile
starting to form

00:03:13.384 --> 00:03:15.153
as I was saying my words,

00:03:15.177 --> 00:03:16.947
and he said, "OK, Neal.

00:03:16.971 --> 00:03:19.737
Now do your argument holding my hand.

00:03:20.246 --> 00:03:21.975
And I said, "What?"

00:03:21.999 --> 00:03:24.340
And he said, "Yeah, hold my hand."

00:03:25.087 --> 00:03:26.799
I was desperate, so I did it.

00:03:26.823 --> 00:03:28.942
And I realized, wow,

00:03:28.966 --> 00:03:30.442
that's connection.

00:03:30.466 --> 00:03:32.728
That's the power of how to persuade.

00:03:33.125 --> 00:03:34.307
And it helped.

NOTE Paragraph

00:03:34.331 --> 00:03:37.780
But truthfully, I still got nervous
as the argument date approached.

00:03:37.804 --> 00:03:39.923
And I knew that even though argument

00:03:39.947 --> 00:03:42.201
was about getting into
someone else's shoes

00:03:42.225 --> 00:03:43.458
and empathizing,

00:03:43.482 --> 00:03:46.243
I needed to have a solid core first.

00:03:46.267 --> 00:03:48.760
So I did something
outside of my comfort zone.

00:03:48.784 --> 00:03:51.058
I wore jewelry, not just anything,

00:03:51.082 --> 00:03:54.336
but a bracelet that my father
had worn his whole life,

00:03:54.360 --> 00:03:57.598
until he passed away,
just a few months before the argument.

00:03:57.622 --> 00:03:58.783
I put on a tie

00:03:58.807 --> 00:04:01.315
that my mom had given me
just for the occasion.

00:04:01.641 --> 00:04:03.498
And I took out my legal pad

00:04:03.522 --> 00:04:05.768
and wrote my children's names on it,

00:04:05.792 --> 00:04:07.926
because that's why I was doing this.

00:04:07.950 --> 00:04:10.299
For them, to leave the country better

00:04:10.323 --> 00:04:11.577
than I had found it.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:11.601 --> 00:04:13.887
I got to court and I was calm.

00:04:13.911 --> 00:04:16.029
The bracelet, the tie,

00:04:16.053 --> 00:04:18.791
the children's names had all centered me.

00:04:18.815 --> 00:04:21.902
Like a rock climber,
extending me on the precipice.

00:04:21.926 --> 00:04:23.704
If you have a solid hold,

00:04:23.728 --> 00:04:25.101
you can reach out.

00:04:25.125 --> 00:04:28.609
And because argument is about persuasion,

00:04:28.633 --> 00:04:30.633
I knew I had to avoid emotion.

00:04:30.982 --> 00:04:32.823
Displays of emotion fail.

00:04:32.847 --> 00:04:36.260
It's kind of like writing an email
in all bold and all caps.

00:04:36.284 --> 00:04:37.776
It persuades no one.

00:04:37.800 --> 00:04:39.990
It's then about you, the speaker,

00:04:40.014 --> 00:04:42.410
not about the listener or the receiver.

NOTE Paragraph

00:04:42.728 --> 00:04:44.585
Now look, in some settings,

00:04:44.609 --> 00:04:46.291
the solution is to be emotional.

00:04:46.315 --> 00:04:47.903
You're arguing with your parents,

00:04:47.927 --> 00:04:49.871
and you use emotion and it works.

00:04:49.895 --> 00:04:51.045
Why?

00:04:51.069 --> 00:04:52.514
Because your parents love you.

00:04:52.538 --> 00:04:54.704
But Supreme Court justices don't love you.

00:04:54.728 --> 00:04:56.546
They don't like to think of themselves

00:04:56.570 --> 00:04:58.571
as the type of people
persuaded by emotion.

00:04:58.595 --> 00:05:00.988
And I reverse engineered that
in [unclear],

00:05:01.012 --> 00:05:05.020
setting a trap for my opponent
to provoke his emotional reaction,

00:05:05.044 --> 00:05:08.567
so I could be seen as the calm
and steady voice of the law.

00:05:09.106 --> 00:05:10.415
And it worked.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:10.439 --> 00:05:13.042
And I remember sitting in the courtroom

00:05:13.066 --> 00:05:14.569
to learn that we had won.

00:05:14.593 --> 00:05:17.418
That the Guantanamo tribunals
were coming down.

00:05:17.442 --> 00:05:21.236
And I went out onto the courthouse steps
and there was a media firestorm.

00:05:21.585 --> 00:05:23.855
Five hundred cameras,
and they're all asking me,

00:05:23.879 --> 00:05:26.164
"What does the decision mean,
what does it say?"

00:05:26.188 --> 00:05:28.474
Well, the decision was 185 pages long.

00:05:28.498 --> 00:05:30.696
I hadn't had time to read it, nobody had.

00:05:30.720 --> 00:05:32.045
But I knew what it meant.

NOTE Paragraph

00:05:32.069 --> 00:05:34.533
And here's what I said
on the steps of the court.

00:05:34.955 --> 00:05:36.518
"Here's what happened today.

00:05:36.542 --> 00:05:38.447
You have the lowest of the low,

00:05:38.471 --> 00:05:41.800
this guy, who was accused
of being bin Laden's driver,

00:05:41.824 --> 00:05:43.895
one of the most horrible men around.

00:05:43.919 --> 00:05:45.958
And he sued not just anyone,

00:05:45.982 --> 00:05:48.863
but the nation, indeed,
the world's most powerful man,

00:05:48.887 --> 00:05:50.895
the president of the United States.

00:05:50.919 --> 00:05:53.712
And he brings in, not in some
[unclear] traffic court,

00:05:53.736 --> 00:05:55.783
but in the highest court of the land,

00:05:55.807 --> 00:05:58.236
the Supreme Court of the United States,

00:05:58.260 --> 00:05:59.887
and he wins.

00:05:59.911 --> 00:06:02.982
That's something remarkable
about this country.

00:06:03.006 --> 00:06:04.666
In many other countries,

00:06:04.690 --> 00:06:06.561
this driver would have been shot,

00:06:06.585 --> 00:06:08.442
just for bringing his case.

00:06:08.466 --> 00:06:11.395
And more of the point for me,
his lawyer would have been shot.

00:06:11.419 --> 00:06:13.518
But that's what makes America different.

00:06:13.542 --> 00:06:15.542
What makes America special.

00:06:15.566 --> 00:06:17.304
Because of that decision,

00:06:17.328 --> 00:06:20.014
the Geneva Conventions
applied to the war on terror,

00:06:20.038 --> 00:06:22.728
which meant the end
of ghost prisons worldwide,

00:06:22.752 --> 00:06:24.768
the end of waterboarding worldwide,

00:06:24.792 --> 00:06:28.252
and an end to those Guantanamo
military tribunals.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:28.276 --> 00:06:30.498
By methodically building the case,

00:06:30.522 --> 00:06:32.791
and getting into the justices' heads,

00:06:32.815 --> 00:06:36.300
we were able to quite literally
change the world.

00:06:36.606 --> 00:06:38.256
Sounds easy, right?

00:06:38.280 --> 00:06:39.901
You can practice a lot,

00:06:39.925 --> 00:06:41.376
avoid displays of emotion,

00:06:41.400 --> 00:06:43.400
and you too can win any argument.

00:06:43.776 --> 00:06:46.355
I'm sorry to say, it's not that simple,

00:06:46.379 --> 00:06:48.315
my strategies aren't foolproof,

00:06:48.339 --> 00:06:50.812
and while I've won
more Supreme Court cases

00:06:50.836 --> 00:06:52.193
than most anyone,

00:06:52.217 --> 00:06:54.233
I've also lost a lot, too.

NOTE Paragraph

00:06:54.257 --> 00:06:56.709
Indeed, after Donald Trump was elected,

00:06:56.733 --> 00:07:00.468
I was, constitutionally
speaking, terrified.

00:07:00.492 --> 00:07:03.087
Please understand,
this is not about left versus right,

00:07:03.111 --> 00:07:04.405
or anything like that.

00:07:04.429 --> 00:07:06.206
I'm not here to talk about that.

00:07:06.230 --> 00:07:08.837
But just a week in
to the new president's term,

00:07:08.861 --> 00:07:11.528
you might remember
those scenes at the airports.

00:07:11.552 --> 00:07:15.679
President Trump had campaigned
on a pledge, saying,

00:07:15.703 --> 00:07:19.580
"I, Donald J. Trump am calling
for a complete and total shutdown

00:07:19.604 --> 00:07:22.596
of all Muslim immigration
to the United States."

00:07:22.620 --> 00:07:25.793
And he also said,
"I think Islam hates us."

00:07:25.817 --> 00:07:27.642
And he made good on that promise,

00:07:27.666 --> 00:07:30.301
banning immigration from seven countries

00:07:30.325 --> 00:07:33.363
with overwhelmingly Muslim populations.

NOTE Paragraph

00:07:33.387 --> 00:07:36.990
My legal team and others
went into court right away and sued,

00:07:37.014 --> 00:07:39.839
and got that first travel ban struck down.

00:07:39.863 --> 00:07:41.252
Trump revised it.

00:07:41.276 --> 00:07:43.871
We went into court again
and got that struck down.

00:07:43.895 --> 00:07:45.925
He revised it again,

00:07:45.949 --> 00:07:48.276
and changed it, adding North Korea,

00:07:48.300 --> 00:07:49.482
because we all know,

00:07:49.506 --> 00:07:53.328
the United States had a tremendous
immigration problem with North Korea.

00:07:53.352 --> 00:07:56.756
But it did enable his lawyers
to go to the Supreme Court and say,

00:07:56.780 --> 00:07:59.034
"See, this isn't discriminating
against Muslims,

00:07:59.058 --> 00:08:01.141
it includes these other people, too."

00:08:01.165 --> 00:08:04.067
Now, I thought we had
the killer answer to that.

00:08:04.942 --> 00:08:06.831
I won't bore you with the details.

00:08:06.855 --> 00:08:08.855
But the thing is, we lost.

00:08:09.163 --> 00:08:10.933
Five votes to four.

00:08:10.957 --> 00:08:12.322
And I was devastated.

00:08:12.346 --> 00:08:15.733
I was worried my powers
of persuasion had waned.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:16.046 --> 00:08:17.744
And then, two things happened.

00:08:17.768 --> 00:08:18.990
The first was,

00:08:19.014 --> 00:08:22.574
I noticed a part of the Supreme
Court's travel ban opinion

00:08:22.598 --> 00:08:25.312
that discussed the Japanese
American interment.

00:08:25.669 --> 00:08:27.670
That was a horrific moment in our history,

00:08:27.694 --> 00:08:30.826
in which over 100,000 Japanese Americans

00:08:30.850 --> 00:08:32.993
had been interned in camps.

00:08:33.017 --> 00:08:35.414
My favorite person
to challenge this scheme

00:08:35.438 --> 00:08:36.748
was Gordon Hirabayashi,

00:08:36.772 --> 00:08:38.942
a University of Washington student.

00:08:38.966 --> 00:08:41.125
He turned himself in to the FBI

00:08:41.149 --> 00:08:43.304
who said, "Look,
you're a first-time offender,

00:08:43.328 --> 00:08:44.506
you can go home."

00:08:44.530 --> 00:08:45.705
And Gordon said,

00:08:45.729 --> 00:08:47.268
"No, I'm a Quaker,

00:08:47.292 --> 00:08:49.831
I have to resist unjust laws,"

00:08:49.855 --> 00:08:52.426
and so they arrested him
and he was convicted.

00:08:52.450 --> 00:08:55.084
Gordon's case made it
to the Supreme Court.

NOTE Paragraph

00:08:55.108 --> 00:08:56.887
And again, I'm going to do that thing

00:08:56.911 --> 00:08:59.363
where I quash any sense
of anticipation you have,

00:08:59.387 --> 00:09:01.164
and tell you what happened.

00:09:01.188 --> 00:09:02.490
Gordon lost.

00:09:02.514 --> 00:09:04.886
But he lost because of a simple reason.

00:09:05.212 --> 00:09:06.784
Because the Solicitor General,

00:09:06.808 --> 00:09:09.434
that top courtroom lawyer
for the government,

00:09:09.458 --> 00:09:11.213
told the Supreme Court

00:09:11.237 --> 00:09:15.467
that the Japanese American internment
was justified by military necessity.

00:09:16.115 --> 00:09:17.314
And that was so,

00:09:17.338 --> 00:09:19.798
even though his own staff had discovered

00:09:19.822 --> 00:09:23.628
that there was no need
for the Japanese American interment.

00:09:23.652 --> 00:09:27.088
And that the FBI
and the intelligence community

00:09:27.112 --> 00:09:28.533
all believed that.

00:09:28.557 --> 00:09:31.810
And indeed, that was motivated
by racial prejudice.

00:09:32.157 --> 00:09:34.704
His staff begged the Solicitor General,

00:09:34.728 --> 00:09:37.688
"Tell the truth, don't suppress evidence."

00:09:37.712 --> 00:09:39.490
What did the Solicitor General do?

00:09:39.514 --> 00:09:40.696
Nothing.

00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:44.282
He went in and told
the military necessity story.

00:09:44.719 --> 00:09:48.631
And so the Court upheld
Gordon Hirabayashi's conviction.

00:09:48.655 --> 00:09:52.933
And the next year, upheld
Fred Korematsu's interment.

NOTE Paragraph

00:09:53.255 --> 00:09:55.231
Now why was I thinking about that?

00:09:55.255 --> 00:09:57.374
Because nearly 70 years later,

00:09:57.398 --> 00:09:59.434
I got to hold the same office,

00:09:59.458 --> 00:10:01.704
Head of the Solicitor General's Office.

00:10:01.728 --> 00:10:03.895
And I got to set the record straight,

00:10:03.919 --> 00:10:08.117
explaining that the government
had misrepresented the facts

00:10:08.141 --> 00:10:10.623
in the Japanese interment cases.

00:10:10.647 --> 00:10:14.204
And when I thought about the Supreme
Court's travel ban opinion,

00:10:14.228 --> 00:10:15.744
I realized something.

00:10:15.768 --> 00:10:19.315
The Supreme Court, in that opinion,
went out of its way

00:10:19.339 --> 00:10:22.185
to overrule the Korematsu case.

00:10:22.209 --> 00:10:25.820
Now, not only had the Justice
Department said

00:10:25.844 --> 00:10:28.193
the Japanese interment was wrong,

00:10:28.217 --> 00:10:30.920
the Supreme Court said so too.

00:10:31.523 --> 00:10:35.356
That's a crucial lesson
about argument's timing.

00:10:35.380 --> 00:10:36.913
All of you, when you're arguing,

00:10:36.937 --> 00:10:38.783
have that important lever to play.

00:10:38.807 --> 00:10:40.903
When do you make your argument?

00:10:40.927 --> 00:10:42.815
You don;t just need the right argument,

00:10:42.839 --> 00:10:45.776
you need the right argument
at the right moment.

00:10:45.800 --> 00:10:47.736
When is it that your audience,

00:10:47.760 --> 00:10:50.371
a spouse, a boss, a child,

00:10:50.395 --> 00:10:52.220
is going to be most receptive?

NOTE Paragraph

00:10:52.244 --> 00:10:54.839
Now look, sometimes
that's totally out of your control.

00:10:54.863 --> 00:10:57.400
Delay has costs that are too extensive.

00:10:57.784 --> 00:10:59.829
And so you've got to go in and fight

00:10:59.853 --> 00:11:02.909
and you very well may, like me,
get the timing wrong.

00:11:02.933 --> 00:11:04.934
That's what we thought in the travel ban.

00:11:04.958 --> 00:11:06.109
And you see,

00:11:06.133 --> 00:11:08.069
the Supreme Court wasn't ready

00:11:08.093 --> 00:11:11.149
so early in President Trump's term

00:11:11.173 --> 00:11:14.212
to overrule his signature initiative,

00:11:14.236 --> 00:11:19.526
just as it wasn't ready to overrule FDR's
Japanese American interment.

00:11:19.550 --> 00:11:22.074
And sometimes, you just
have to take the risk.

00:11:22.098 --> 00:11:24.982
But it is so painful when you lose.

00:11:25.006 --> 00:11:26.942
And patience is really hard.

NOTE Paragraph

00:11:26.966 --> 00:11:29.220
But that reminds me of the second lesson.

00:11:29.244 --> 00:11:31.361
Even if vindication comes later,

00:11:31.385 --> 00:11:34.615
I realized how important the fight now is,

00:11:34.639 --> 00:11:37.790
because it inspires, because it educates.

00:11:38.220 --> 00:11:43.315
I remember reading a column
by Anne Coulter about the Muslim ban.

00:11:43.339 --> 00:11:44.601
Here's what she said.

00:11:44.625 --> 00:11:47.696
"Arguing against Trump
was first-generation American,

00:11:47.720 --> 00:11:49.061
Neal Katyal.

00:11:49.085 --> 00:11:52.360
There are plenty of
tenth-generation America-haters.

00:11:52.384 --> 00:11:56.145
You couldn't get one of them to argue
we should end our country

00:11:56.169 --> 00:11:58.006
through mass-immigration?"

00:11:58.030 --> 00:11:59.673
And that's when emotion,

00:11:59.697 --> 00:12:02.950
which is so anathema to a good argument,

00:12:02.974 --> 00:12:04.426
was important to me.

00:12:04.450 --> 00:12:06.974
It took emotion outside the courtroom

00:12:06.998 --> 00:12:08.958
to get me back in.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:08.982 --> 00:12:11.799
When I read Coulter's words,

00:12:11.823 --> 00:12:13.180
I was angry.

00:12:13.839 --> 00:12:17.910
I rebel against the idea
that being a first-generation American

00:12:17.934 --> 00:12:19.930
would disqualify me.

00:12:19.954 --> 00:12:23.193
I rebel against the idea
that mass immigration

00:12:23.217 --> 00:12:24.788
would end this country,

00:12:24.812 --> 00:12:29.991
instead of recognizing that as literally
the rock on which this country was built.

NOTE Paragraph

00:12:30.015 --> 00:12:31.317
When I read Coulter,

00:12:31.341 --> 00:12:34.110
I thought about so many things in my past.

00:12:34.134 --> 00:12:35.499
I thought about my dad,

00:12:35.523 --> 00:12:38.133
who arrived here
with eight dollars from India,

00:12:38.157 --> 00:12:41.667
and didn't know whether to use
the colored bathroom or the white one.

00:12:42.003 --> 00:12:43.876
I thought about his first job offer,

00:12:43.900 --> 00:12:45.495
at a slaughter house.

00:12:45.519 --> 00:12:47.272
Not a great job for a Hindu.

00:12:47.296 --> 00:12:51.634
I though about how, when we moved
to a new neighborhood in Chicago

00:12:51.658 --> 00:12:53.625
with one other Indian family,

00:12:53.649 --> 00:12:56.249
that family had a cross burn on its lawn.

00:12:56.273 --> 00:12:58.066
Because the racists aren't very good

00:12:58.090 --> 00:13:00.939
at distinguishing between
African Americans and Hindus.

00:13:00.963 --> 00:13:03.014
And I though about all the hate mail I got

00:13:03.038 --> 00:13:04.316
during Guantanamo,

00:13:04.340 --> 00:13:05.990
for being a Muslim lover.

00:13:06.014 --> 00:13:07.696
Again, the racists aren't very good

00:13:07.720 --> 00:13:10.577
with distinctions between
Hindus and Muslims, either.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:10.601 --> 00:13:15.004
Anne Coulter thought that being the child
of an immigrant was a weakness.

00:13:15.028 --> 00:13:17.012
She was profoundly,

00:13:17.036 --> 00:13:18.877
profoundly wrong.

00:13:18.901 --> 00:13:20.514
It is my strength,

00:13:20.538 --> 00:13:24.220
because I knew what America
was supposed to stand for.

00:13:24.752 --> 00:13:27.291
I knew that in America,

00:13:27.315 --> 00:13:31.853
me, a child of a man who came here
with eight dollars in his pocket,

00:13:31.877 --> 00:13:34.750
could stand in the Supreme Court
of the United States

00:13:34.774 --> 00:13:37.107
on behalf of a detested foreigner,

00:13:37.131 --> 00:13:39.358
like Osama bin Laden's driver,

00:13:39.382 --> 00:13:40.573
and win.

00:13:40.597 --> 00:13:41.953
And it made me realize,

00:13:41.977 --> 00:13:44.596
even though I may have lost the case,

00:13:44.620 --> 00:13:46.720
I was right about the Muslim ban, too.

00:13:46.744 --> 00:13:48.577
No matter what the court decided,

00:13:48.601 --> 00:13:52.653
they couldn't change the fact
that immigrant do strengthen this country,

00:13:52.677 --> 00:13:56.955
indeed, in many ways,
immigrants love this country the most.

NOTE Paragraph

00:13:56.979 --> 00:13:59.315
When I read Ann Coulter's words,

00:13:59.339 --> 00:14:02.371
I thought about the glorious
words of our Constitution.

00:14:02.395 --> 00:14:03.704
The First Amendment.

00:14:03.728 --> 00:14:07.529
Congress shall make no law
establishing religion.

00:14:07.553 --> 00:14:09.831
I though about our national creed,

00:14:09.855 --> 00:14:11.570
"E plurbis unum,"

00:14:11.594 --> 00:14:13.667
"out of many come one."

00:14:14.006 --> 00:14:15.720
Most of all, I realized,

00:14:15.744 --> 00:14:19.125
the only way you can truly
lose an argument

00:14:19.149 --> 00:14:20.545
is by giving up.

00:14:20.569 --> 00:14:23.641
So I joined the law suit
by the US Congress

00:14:23.665 --> 00:14:28.923
challenging President Trump's addition
of a citizenship question to the census.

00:14:28.947 --> 00:14:31.352
A decision with huge implications.

00:14:31.376 --> 00:14:32.939
It was a really hard case.

00:14:32.963 --> 00:14:34.939
Most though we would lose.

00:14:34.963 --> 00:14:36.852
But the thing is, we won.

00:14:36.876 --> 00:14:38.447
Five votes to four.

00:14:38.471 --> 00:14:40.288
The Supreme Court basically said

00:14:40.312 --> 00:14:44.300
President Trump and his cabinet
secretary had lied.

00:14:44.744 --> 00:14:47.569
And now I've gone back up
and rejoined the fight,

00:14:47.593 --> 00:14:50.680
and I hope each of you,
in your own ways, does so too.

NOTE Paragraph

00:14:50.998 --> 00:14:52.164
I'm getting back up,

00:14:52.188 --> 00:14:55.667
because I'm a believer that good arguments
do win out in the end.

00:14:56.598 --> 00:14:58.637
The arc of justice is long,

00:14:58.661 --> 00:15:00.463
and bends often slowly,

00:15:00.487 --> 00:15:03.209
but it bends so long as we bend it.

00:15:03.598 --> 00:15:07.636
And I've realized the question is not
how to win every argument.

00:15:08.033 --> 00:15:09.652
It's how to get back up

00:15:09.676 --> 00:15:11.152
when you do lose.

00:15:11.176 --> 00:15:12.533
Because in the long run,

00:15:12.557 --> 00:15:15.014
good arguments will win out.

00:15:15.038 --> 00:15:16.760
If you make a good argument,

00:15:16.784 --> 00:15:19.101
it has the power to outlive you,

00:15:19.125 --> 00:15:21.156
to stretch beyond your core,

00:15:21.180 --> 00:15:23.500
to reach those future minds.

00:15:23.828 --> 00:15:26.256
And that's why all this is so important.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:26.280 --> 00:15:28.234
I'm not telling you how to win arguments

00:15:28.258 --> 00:15:30.256
for the sake of winning arguments.

00:15:30.280 --> 00:15:31.906
This isn't a game.

00:15:31.930 --> 00:15:33.303
I'm telling you this,

00:15:33.327 --> 00:15:36.128
because even if you don't win right now,

00:15:36.152 --> 00:15:37.883
if you make a good argument,

00:15:37.907 --> 00:15:39.854
history will prove you right.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:39.878 --> 00:15:42.934
I think back to that acting
coach all the time.

00:15:42.958 --> 00:15:44.434
And I've come to realize

00:15:44.458 --> 00:15:46.417
that the hand I was holding

00:15:46.441 --> 00:15:48.448
was the hand of justice.

00:15:48.472 --> 00:15:51.377
That outstretched hand will come for you.

00:15:51.401 --> 00:15:54.563
It's your decision to push it away

00:15:54.587 --> 00:15:55.762
or to keep holding it.

NOTE Paragraph

00:15:56.413 --> 00:15:58.413
Thank you so much for listening.