July 23, 2026

I LIKE THE CUT OF HIS JIB: Rep. Brandon Gill Grills Head of American Bar Association About DEI, Future of Law Schools.

More here, from Bethany Mandel: Brandon Gill’s Socratic method.

“If I wanted to yell at liberals,” he said, “I could sit behind my desk and make a video yelling at liberals.”

A congressional hearing, in his mind, serves an entirely different purpose.

“The whole West’s intellectual edifice is based on the Socratic method,” he continued. “It’s based on asking probing questions and coming to truth by asking probing and enlightening questions. A committee hearing is the perfect place to do that.”

That one sentence explains almost every viral moment Gill has had since arriving in Washington. Take the abortion hearing that made him a household name in conservative circles. The exchange wasn’t built around a rehearsed one-liner — it was built around a simple premise. If someone has dedicated decades of her professional life to defending abortion rights, shouldn’t she be willing to describe, plainly and without euphemism, the procedure she is defending?

“If you’re going to dedicate your life to defending this,” Gill recalled thinking, “tell me your favorite method.”

The question wasn’t designed simply to shock. It forced the witness to abandon abstractions and confront the concrete reality of what she was advocating. When she refused to answer, that refusal proved more revealing than any prepared statement could have.

Listening to Gill describe the exchange, it became obvious that he doesn’t think of hearings the way most members of Congress do. Many lawmakers view their five minutes as an opportunity to deliver a speech that happens to include a witness. Gill treats the witness as the point of the exercise. The hearing is valuable precisely because the person sitting across from him is under oath, the cameras are rolling, and millions of people can watch ideas tested in real time.

And they just can’t do it:

Evergreen:

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll