Brett Kavanaugh speaks about presidential power, his Taylor Swift fandom and an expensive trip to see Caitlin Clark

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh told an Austin judicial conference on Friday that his experience in the George W. Bush administration has made him more skeptical of presidential assertions of regulatory power.

Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh told an Austin judicial conference on Friday that his experience in the George W. Bush administration has made him more skeptical of presidential assertions of regulatory power. His comments on the issue (he also discussed Taylor Swift and Caitlin Clark) were especially salient in light of the many challenges to the Biden administration policies on which the court is expected to rule by the end of June. Referring to his 2001-2006 tenure as a lawyer for Bush, Kavanaugh said he was “in the room” as regulations were written and saw first-hand the “pressures” on administrations to push the limits of their statutory power, whether over the environment, immigration or health care. “It gives me a good, for want of a better term, B.S. detector,” he said. “When the executive branch says, ‘We can’t possibly do this.’ … I think to myself … I saw it done.” Kavanaugh observed that presidential candidates regularly campaign on a reform agenda but then become stymied in their priorities by the legislative process and congressional gridlock. That creates an incentive for presidents to push the boundaries of their regulatory authority, he said, emphasizing that the phenomenon affects both political parties. “The judiciary is there to help police those boundaries,” Kavanaugh said.