Heather Cox Richardson on Trump’s Plan for America’s 250th

[0:00] Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Alex Wagner. On today's show, historian Heather Cox Richardson [0:05] on America at 250. With the administration gearing up for July 4th celebrations and gearing [0:12] down from celebrations of Trump's 80th, I thought I'd check in with someone who can situate all of [0:17] the pomp and circumstance in historical context. You likely know Heather from her insanely popular [0:23] substack, Letters from an American, where she writes every damn day about the history behind [0:28] today's increasingly ahistorical politics. Heather has a new series out to celebrate America's 250th. [0:35] It is aptly named 250 to 250, where she tells the story of the Americans who, over the course of a [0:41] quarter millennium, worked to make real the founding ideals of this nation, that all people are created [0:47] equal. We're going to talk about that series and Trump's 4th of July celebrations, as well as so much, [0:53] much more. Trump's efforts to make D.C. just as tacky as he is. J.D. Vance's Catholic faith and how [0:59] the left can embrace patriotism once again. It was a great conversation with Heather, and we're going [1:05] to get to it in a minute. But before we do, guys, there's a new episode of Pod Save America Only [1:10] Friends out now with me and Hysteria's Aaron Ryan. Go check it out. Only Friends is the Friends of the [1:16] Pod Subscriber exclusive show, where Pod Save America hosts and contributors dive into even more [1:24] news stories from the week. In this episode, Aaron and I unpack the Justice Department's latest [1:30] investigation into Gavin Newsom and his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom. We check in on whatever [1:34] was going on at the Turning Point Women's Leadership Summit. No, that is not an oxymoron and much more. [1:41] So hit pause and subscribe to Friends of the Pod at crooked.com slash friends. Also, please, [1:48] if you would, check out my podcast, Runaway Country, where I this week talked to California Attorney [1:52] General Rob Bonta about J.D. Vance's war on blue states, the other war that he's tasked with, [1:59] and then graded the vice's salesmanship efforts this week on the Iran surrender with the great Sam [2:07] Cedar. All right, here is Heather Cox Richardson. Heather Cox Richardson, thank you so much for [2:13] joining us today on Pod Save America, and also preemptively thank you for offering wisdom and [2:19] perspective on this insane American moment. Alex, it's always so much fun to be with you. [2:23] Oh, thank you. We should do it more often. Anytime. Literally, you just say the word. I'm here. Let's [2:28] start first with the upcoming 250th celebration, the semi-quincentennial, and how the president has [2:38] chosen to celebrate this momentous occasion. Last Sunday, he, of course, hosted a UFC fight on the [2:43] South Lawn of the White House, and then next week on the 4th, he is going to be hosting the self-proclaimed [2:49] most spectacular Trump rally of them all on the National Mall. I don't have the same lens on history [2:56] as you do, but can you recall any sort of parallel to such a monstrous display of presidential ego in [3:05] the name of patriotic celebration any time in our history as a country? No, of course not. We're in [3:11] a really different moment than ever before in American history with an administration that's [3:17] rejecting the basic principles of our democratic government. So one of the things that's interesting [3:23] is how that's playing out, not only in celebrations of the 250th, but also in the memorials in [3:29] Washington, D.C. But there's a larger story. I mean, everybody knows what I'm talking about, [3:34] the reflecting pool, which might be a really interesting dive, so to speak, for us to go into, [3:40] the Kennedy Center, the gilded horses behind the Lincoln Memorial, the arch, all the things we could, [3:47] the destruction of the Ben-Shawn, the proposed destruction of the Ben-Shawn murals, all that [3:51] stuff. But what's really interesting as you look over it, when you think about democracy, [3:59] is that if you think about our great presidents, the ones we remember, people like Lyndon Baines [4:05] Johnson or Theodore Roosevelt or Eisenhower, or, you know, we could go on and on. They're the ones [4:12] who carved their memory into the American people by making their lives better, by having social [4:20] security or healthcare, or by trying to eliminate poverty, by suggesting that the way you create a [4:29] monument to yourself is by changing the lives of the American people for the better. And it's just [4:36] really interesting when you think about legacies, the fact that Trump somehow thinks that slapping [4:41] his name on stuff matters, but that doesn't matter at all. And similarly, if you think about our [4:46] history, you know, you can write, and people do write books celebrating the absolute genius of, [4:53] and I'm going to pull somebody here at random, Benjamin Harrison, but it just doesn't stick if, [5:01] in fact, it's clear that all you're doing is trying to celebrate a certain kind of dominant lifestyle [5:07] versus something that actually made the American people better. So I would suggest that right now [5:12] in American history, for example, a lot more people have heard of the Wounded Knee Massacre [5:17] than have heard of Benjamin Harrison's great successes. [5:21] Yeah. I mean, people can talk to the Trail of Tears, but they're not sure what Old Hickory did [5:24] in terms of interior decorations at the White House. McIntypes have pointed to the fact that [5:30] Teddy Roosevelt, I believe, hosted and fought in a boxing match at the White House during his presidency. [5:37] This is actually great. So if you want to talk about this, I would love to do this. [5:42] Yeah. [5:42] Because what happens in the Theodore Roosevelt presidency is this is coming... First of all, [5:47] Teddy Roosevelt really jumps into some sort of American prominence in 1884, which is an important [5:54] year politically, because that's really when the younger Republicans are coming of age. And they're [5:59] looking at the corruption of the Republican Party and saying, we can't be Democrats because of the [6:03] Civil War, but we also can't be that kind of Republican. So one of the things that they are [6:08] trying to do is figure out how to return America to its democratic, small d, democratic principles. [6:16] And this is happening in a time of industrialization. And during that time of industrialization, [6:20] the industrialists are essentially arranging the systems in the United States to create an [6:27] undereducated, underpaid, underclass that will continue... Yeah. Does it sound familiar in any way? [6:33] Sounds kind of familiar. [6:35] But so one of the things that is driving Theodore Roosevelt is he's very concerned about the terrible [6:42] conditions in the urban areas, especially in the East. Remember, he loses both his mother [6:47] and his wife on the same day to diseases that have come out of that sort of urban soup before we [6:53] really understood germ theory. And he wants to clean up the cities, but he also wants to return [6:59] the country to a place where we can actually create good citizens. And so he's going to support cleaning [7:05] up the cities. He's going to support education, and he's going to support the wide open spaces that [7:10] he's going to try and protect through conservation. But he is also going to try to reclaim a kind of [7:17] American masculinity that says, you know, we're not just cogs in a machine of a larger system. [7:23] And that speaks to his own sort of rediscovering his ability, his physical abilities from his [7:29] youthful asthma through boxing. So this is when you get... And he also protects football. [7:34] Football... Somebody had actually died playing a college football game. It was such a rough sport. [7:39] So he actually manages to recover. This is also the same period when we get [7:45] indigenous names attached to sports teams, because the idea was that you wanted men to be savage, [7:52] and I'm going to put that in air quotes, but only on the football field, for example. [7:58] So, but you think about what Teddy Roosevelt was trying to do, and a lot of people look down on it, [8:03] because, you know, of all the bare knuckle fighting and all that, and there's all... This is [8:06] sort of an era of cock fighting and prize fighting and so on in the cities. It was not considered [8:12] higher level entertainment. But there's some really big differences, I think, between... And maybe at [8:19] the time people would not have said so. There's one really major difference between Teddy Roosevelt [8:24] and boxing and his exhibition boxing, which was not the same bloody stuff that was going on in Five [8:30] Points in New York. And what happened at the White House? And the really big difference, two really big [8:36] differences is, one, taxpayer money didn't go into Teddy Roosevelt's fighting, and it was not a branding [8:43] opportunity. And for sure, it was not the corruption opportunity that the UFC fight in the White House [8:51] has been. So even though it both involved flying fists, the systems that they are either accepting or [8:59] critiquing were virtually opposite. [9:01] A very important distinction. There was no cryptocurrency sponsorship and Paramount Plus [9:06] requirement to see the match. You could just be a human being there on the way. Do you have any [9:11] idea how many people attended that White House match that Roosevelt fought in? [9:14] Oh, oh, there wouldn't have been. I don't have any idea. But it would not have been huge, [9:21] because remember, what makes things huge is the ability to get places quickly and to know that [9:26] they're happening. Neither of which would have happened. It would have been written up in the [9:29] newspapers afterward. And I'm sorry to have gone on so long about that, but literally nobody has [9:33] ever asked me. No, I love this. And just so you know, Lincoln was also a fighter, which again, [9:39] nobody's ever asked me about. Like a boxing fighter? Oh, no, worse. Lincoln, I mean, worse if you're not [9:46] into kind of Krav Maga. He was, remember, he was from the frontier and he was quite a big man and he [9:53] had quite long arms and legs. And that made him a really good guy in a fight. And in those days, [10:00] and there's an argument about how deeply he went into this, this was the era of eye gouging and ear [10:05] biting and so on. And there's big fights about whether or not he did that. Lots of people want to say, [10:10] oh, he would never have done that. Maybe, maybe not. But remember, he gets his political start [10:14] in Illinois and he is backed in a bipartisan basis because there's a gang who supports him [10:21] and they're actually from the opposite party. He's a Whig and they're Democrats and they support him [10:25] because he's such a great fighter. He has fought with them before. Did he bite ears? Do we know [10:29] if he bite ears? We don't know. We don't know the answer to that. And people who listen to this [10:33] podcast now are going to write you and me probably hate mail from both sides saying, of course he did [10:39] or no, he didn't. But he came up through that that era because you had to to survive on the frontier. [10:46] And it turned out in his case to be a springboard into politics. Well, I mean, yeah, Trump was a public [10:52] was a was a fight promoter basically through much of his career in the 80s. So here we are. And he's [10:58] promoting fights to enrich himself and line the pockets of his allies on the White House grounds [11:02] with taxpayer money. You mentioned Lincoln and I'm kind of interested in asking you whether [11:08] this moment there's a lot that's reminiscent. History tells us the future as much as it is a [11:14] detail of the past. But he Trump has other plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary, including the [11:20] Indy drag race around the streets of Washington, D.C. and the Great American State Fair, which several [11:26] states we already know, Heather, are skipping at least eight states, Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, [11:31] North Carolina, Maine, Oregon, Washington and Pennsylvania, all blue states have said they [11:36] will not take part in the fair. Maybe they don't have any any like butter, butter sculptures that [11:42] they want to send in. But I feel like it's a little bit more political than that. Is this what it felt [11:46] like in the summer of 1860 when you had states just opting out of like Fourth of July celebrations [11:52] because they just did not see themselves as part of the union? I mean, I'm not saying that that's what's [11:57] happening right now, but the division, the steep division in a moment of that is supposed to be [12:02] about national pride, but obviously Trump has insured is not. So in the 1860s and before Fourth [12:08] of July would have been celebrated at a state level. And there there really wouldn't there are Fourth of [12:13] July speeches in a lot of places, but you wouldn't have been able to make a statement like that. And in [12:18] fact, everybody would have harked back to the framers and the founders of framers of the Constitution [12:23] and the founders of the Declaration of Independence. So 1860 is a little bit too early to go. But what is [12:28] interesting is if you popped forward to something like 1876, and in 1876, there is real concern that [12:36] the United States is going to fall apart. Remember, this is the year before 1877 and the American South [12:43] taking back control of the states from the governments that were trying to protect civil rights [12:50] in the southern states. And that idea that we are celebrating different histories is actually part [12:58] of a lot of our celebrations. But I would say something different in this moment. And that's [13:03] that what really jumps out to me is far less that different states are saying we're not going to play [13:08] with Trump, then that Trump is saying, this is my holiday, this is about me. And this is about me [13:16] dictating the state of Washington and also the state of our history. And he's been tripping up over [13:22] history right and left lately, as he's been trying to dictate how we remember it. And one of the things [13:27] I love about that is that as that happens, people are stepping up and saying, wait a minute, I want to [13:34] know the real history. Tell me the real history. So one of the things that you are seeing as Freedom [13:41] 250, Trump's group, has basically taken almost all of the money from the bipartisan, congressionally [13:49] backed America 250, is that Americans themselves are finding their own ways to celebrate. So if you [13:56] looked on June 18th at the Knicks celebration in New York City, oh my God, that was a 4th of July [14:05] celebration, except they weren't actually talking about the 4th. Absolutely. And the opening of the [14:10] Obama Presidential Center in Chicago on the same day, people were actually putting on social media, [14:18] happy 4th of July. Yeah, yeah. And I actually spent, last week I did a Substack live with Joy Reid, [14:25] and we were talking about Juneteenth, which I think this year, more than any year that I can [14:29] remember, has become kind of an alternative 4th of July for a lot of people who feel completely [14:34] excluded from Trump's, you know, malignant narcissism that's cast appaller over the 4th of July. [14:40] And Juneteenth in many ways represents kind of our reconciliation with our very, very troubled and [14:46] dark past on slavery, or not reconciliation, but acknowledges it and also moves the ball forward [14:51] and reminds us that we are, you know, living in a, we are in communion with one another, [14:56] we are part of, you know, the fabric of democracy. In some ways, I feel like, to your point, Americans [15:02] have been sort of, A, forced to reckon with their history in a way that they haven't before, [15:06] and also find ways to plant a flag, pardon the metaphor, in patriotism in a way that feels [15:12] authentic and honest. And that is like a weird downstream effect that is kind of positive, [15:18] I think, from all of the Trump nonsense and garbage. I think that's right. And I had the [15:23] same observation about Juneteenth myself this year, that it felt much more like an American [15:29] celebration of recognizing what one does when the system is designed to strip away your freedom. [15:36] And one of the things that the Trump administration has done, I think, is it has made people realize [15:43] that the, I'm sorry, but the villains we found in our past that seemed somehow as if they were [15:48] overdone, like truly nobody could really do X, are around us even still. And while you could always [15:56] say that because you know human nature, watching some of these people take positions of power in [16:04] the same sorts of ways that the segregationists did in the 18, I'm sorry, 1960s and 1860s as well, [16:11] but 1960s and 1970s. I mean, Bull Connor still walks among us. And for those people who were not old [16:17] enough to remember those days, you know, watching somebody like Greg Bovino giving Nazi salutes and [16:23] talking about ethnic cleansing and recognizing he really was running our immigration policy is an eye [16:33] opener. I think that reminds people we must act in solidarity against those who are trying to destroy [16:40] American democracy, not by party, not by any of the other divisions that people tend to emphasize or have [16:47] tended to emphasize since the 1980s. But really, this is an existential struggle for the survival of [16:54] American democracy. And we could actually get it right this time. Fingers crossed. The mere existence [17:02] of Stephen Miller is a reminder that we can indeed go back to our very, very violent racist roots. [17:10] Today's show is sponsored by Strawberry.me. Think about your career. Maybe it looks fine on paper, [17:14] but does something feel a bit off, Tommy? Yes. Maybe you're stuck, burned out, ready to move [17:19] up to the next level. Or maybe you just want clarity on what's next. I wish there was a career coach or [17:25] a mentor that I had had. I would love that. Yeah. Usually you have a great boss, you know, [17:29] you have some people that we really learned from, Barack Obama, Robert Gibbs. He was, yeah, [17:33] he was our Strawberry.me. Josh Earnest. Just some great, great human beings in my life. You know, [17:38] when you work for someone like that, that really does like kind of mentor you along the way, [17:41] it's very valuable. It's very helpful. I pay for them to call me once a month and yell at me about [17:45] something. Me too. Honestly. And that's where none of them really yell. They're all just like [17:49] disappointed. Right. Yeah. But you know, tell me I'm wrong. That's where today's sponsor, [17:54] Strawberry.me comes in. Strawberry.me matches you with a real career coach carefully selected based on [17:58] your goals, personality, and professional background. These aren't random internet gurus [18:02] selling their services. Coaches on the platform average 16 years of experience across 900 plus [18:07] companies and 37 industries. And most have been leaders, founders, or executives themselves. [18:11] And it's not just a single conversation. You'll have a one-on-one video call with your coach, [18:15] build a personalized plan together, and stay connected between sessions when real-life [18:19] challenges arise. Most people hit a meaningful milestone within four to six sessions, whether that's [18:24] landing a new role, getting unstuck, building confidence, or finally taking action on something [18:27] they've been putting off for years. Visit strawberry.me and start with a coaching trial [18:32] today. Tell them Pod Save America sent you and get 50% off your first session. [18:36] Pod Save America is brought to you by Rocket Money. Thanks to the good people at Rocket Money, [18:39] I realized that I had been upcharged by a streaming service for access to one show, [18:45] because it was a foreign thing, that Hannah and I had watched during the pandemic one time, [18:50] one episode of it, then abandoned it, and then forgot to cancel it. And we're getting charged [18:54] like 10 bucks a month in perpetuity. That's why you all need Rocket Money. Here's what they do. [18:58] They allow you to track subscriptions and cancel them within the app with just a few taps. In fact, [19:02] Rocket Money has saved users over $880 million and canceled subscriptions. You can categorize [19:08] automatic transactions across your accounts and customize categories with tags to help shed light [19:12] on your spending patterns. Get regular reports on your spending habits. You can even receive real-time [19:17] alerts for large transactions, upcoming bills, refunds, and low balances. Consolidate your checking, [19:22] savings, loans, and investment accounts into a single dashboard to give you a clear picture [19:26] of your finances. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted [19:31] subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. [19:35] Let Rocket Money help you reach your financial goals faster. Join at rocketmoney.com [19:39] slash crooked. That's rocketmoney.com slash crooked. Rocketmoney.com slash crooked. [19:45] You mentioned the other ways in which Trump is celebrating America 250, and one of them is [19:50] remaking, recasting the city in the image of, I guess, Mar-a-Lago or perhaps Trump Tower, [19:55] gilding horses with a half an inch thick gold plating and trying to dye the reflecting pool blue [20:03] to no avail. We'll talk about that in a second. But when we talk about the actual architecture of all of [20:09] this, right, DC was designed to be a piece of civic art. And it is what the New York Times recently [20:18] called an accumulation of carefully arranged details, many quietly referencing one another. [20:24] I grew up there. There is a through line in many of the buildings, even though they're different styles. [20:29] And now Trump wants to install a mammoth arch. He's trying to do something to the Lincoln Memorial [20:35] as well. There's been a lot of pushback. There have been some lawsuits. I see Trump's push for monuments [20:42] as inextricably linked to a male obsession with phallic objects. But maybe you have [20:47] a less Freudian interpretation of what's going on here, Heather. [20:51] Well, I actually don't do a lot of work with Freud. I was always more a young person. [20:56] Sure. [20:57] I actually, I got to do a shout out here. I think the New York Times has done a really [21:02] excellent job of popularizing understandings of the architecture in Washington, DC. They've had a [21:08] couple of really good issues lately where they set out what it will mean to have these changes to the [21:14] landscape and what it looks like. And so that's just, you know, we don't talk necessarily enough [21:20] about when the media really gets something right. But I think that's exactly right. I mean, one of the [21:24] things I've always loved about DC is the degree to which when it was laid out, it was supposed to [21:29] reflect the American government, the three separate, you know, the three separate nodes of power and so [21:36] on. And one of the things about the proposed ballroom is that it actually breaks the line of [21:42] sight between the, yeah, which you grew up with, right? Down Pennsylvania Avenue, I think it is, [21:50] that you could look all the way down and see the White House. And similarly, the arch goes from [21:57] having that bridge between Washington, DC and Virginia, which is really important to the Civil War [22:05] and the fact that the Arlington National Cemetery sits on General Lee's former plantation. And that [22:13] itself is a really interesting story. And if you look at how that is laid out, at least according to [22:19] the renderings by the New York Times, what it does is the arch will frame Robert E. Lee's house, [22:27] which, and again, somebody said we should tear the house down. I fervently disagree with that. The [22:32] Robert E. Lee house has a different name as well. It's a really interesting and important historical [22:37] document itself. The people who've lived there, it's actually got very much a biracial history and [22:44] so on. But I think what you are seeing is somebody who doesn't understand the concept of the people [22:51] or the majesty, the true majesty of the concept of a government that is controlled by the people who [23:00] are governed, which is in our Declaration of Independence. So plopping yourself down in the [23:05] middle of it, it strikes me that that kind of mirrors when he shows up at foreign dignitary events [23:12] like the G7 last week or any one of them and basically walks in and says, well, I'm here now. [23:19] The boss is here and gets laughs. It's literally that statements like that are greeted with laughter [23:26] because what a joke. I got to ask. Except it's our taxpayers at this point putting up those jokes. [23:33] Well. And that's the other piece of this that I don't think we have yet grappled with is how much [23:39] of our money is going into those vanity projects. And mind you, I love the idea of upkeep on the [23:47] gilded horses and all that. That needs to be done. But this isn't his money. It's our money. [23:53] And you look at the number of people who have been thrown off SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition [23:58] Assistance Program. And I'm like, listen, I love a gilded horse as much as the next person, but [24:03] I would very much rather my neighbors can eat. Children getting free lunches at school or hot [24:09] lunches. Children getting sometimes the only meal they're going to eat. Medicaid recipients having [24:14] urgent and life-threatening health conditions dealt with. I mean, this is all stuff that has been [24:20] slashed in the name of putting an extra few centimeters of gold on the horses by the Lincoln [24:25] Memorial. You mentioned the cost of the taxpayers. This week we have new reporting from the Washington [24:30] Post. The cost of the ballroom, that monstrosity, is going to cost $600 million, with approximately [24:37] half of that coming from taxpayer wallets, Heather. [24:41] Well, and worse, they knew that. That was a fabulous article. By the way, the Washington [24:46] Post has had some great exclusives lately too. But when he was out there saying private funds are [24:52] going to pay for this, which by the way is not okay either, they already had cut checks off the [24:58] public treasury. And, you know, I just, again, when I see these people out there talking about waste, [25:05] fraud, and abuse, and what they mean by that is we're tossing people off Medicaid, and then they're [25:10] turning around and spending, I believe the number, I believe, don't quote me on this, is $352 million [25:17] of taxpayer money on that, and lying to us. I guess for me that that's sort of the overall, [25:26] I mean, it's all part of democracy, right? You either have a democracy that is responsible, [25:31] where the government is responsible to the people, or you have an authoritarian government [25:35] where everything we have belongs to them, and they can spend it however they wish. [25:40] And those two things should be firmly in front of the American people. But don't lie to me and tell [25:45] me that you're protecting my money while you are literally picking my pocket. I mean, that to me, [25:51] and the same thing back to the UFC fight. Don't tell me you're having a party for the American people [25:56] when you're making bank off it, and I can't see it unless I belong to Paramount+. [26:03] I would just say this is the stuff that we know about, too. We on Runaway Country had an episode [26:09] last week talking about the ways in which the Trump family is basically stealing money from [26:14] the Department of Defense, lining the pockets of friends and stooges through government contracts or [26:20] no-bid government contracts or government loans. Donald Trump Jr. sits on the board of a company [26:26] that just got a 600, over $600 million in a federal loan to scale up its rare earth mining, [26:35] or to scale up its rare earth magnet manufacture. This is a company that didn't exist several years [26:41] ago. The level of corruption will make your eyes not just water, but bleed. And that's the stuff, [26:48] you know, the government, the Department of Defense, these government agencies have [26:52] deep pockets because we appropriate a lot of money towards them. And the Trump administration [26:56] learned something between Trump 1.0 and 2.0. Like, if you're going to go corrupt, go big or go home. [27:02] It makes the Trump hotel emoluments clause debate look like child's play compared to what's happening [27:08] inside the guts of the federal government. We see what's happening, the corruption on the outside, [27:12] the, you know, just gargantuan betrayals, like the destruction of the East Wing and the, you know, [27:22] attempted construction of the ballroom, which actually I wanted to ask you about, Heather. [27:26] Do you think that this thing's actually going to be constructed before Trump's out of office? [27:30] Personally, no. And the reason I say that is I don't, I never assume anything's going to happen [27:37] the next day. I mean, that's one of the perks of being a historian. You know that you get really [27:41] weird things happening and all of a sudden some bet is off, but there's legal challenges. There's [27:49] financial challenges. Trump is falling apart. Nobody likes that ballroom. Maybe, but, you know, [27:57] if you think about any construction project you have ever done yourself, like every, all the planets [28:04] in the universe have to be lined up correctly to get it done on time. And it's almost never [28:10] on or under budget. And that's when you're not under pressure. So I look at that and I think [28:17] maybe, I mean, maybe if you throw enough money at it, but it's, it's, I don't know, just my personal [28:23] experience says doubtful personally. Yeah. I mean, I just was struck by it that, you know, [28:30] the UFC match in the background is the rubble of the East Wing. And it's, I mean, it's still very much [28:37] a construction site. It's an open, it's a gaping wound if you ask me. Has there ever been a [28:42] parallel? I mean, when Truman installed the balcony, like, and obviously not on the scale of [28:47] malignant narcissism that Trump is operating on, but just when, when presidents have done renovations [28:53] to the White House, significant ones that the public can see, has there ever been any sort of [28:59] flutter of outcry that would presage something like this? Well, yes and no. That is, Americans [29:07] complain about change all the time, all the time. There is never a change where somebody goes, [29:11] who boy, that was a great idea. I mean, even when we went to the moon, there were people who said, [29:16] that's a total waste of money. Why are we doing this? You know? So you're always going to get [29:20] pushed back. And basically that's human nature, right? So there's always pushback about everything. [29:24] But there are only two occasions that I can think of when there were, when there was a really big [29:31] pushback. And one was interesting because it was during the Civil War when the Lincolns move into [29:38] the White House, it's falling apart. And Mary Todd Lincoln, Lincoln's wife, was actually probably a [29:44] better political instincts than he did, which is saying something because he was a political animal. [29:48] And she recognized, in a way that he didn't, the power of women in Washington to determine [29:57] what politics were going to end up being the most powerful. So she recognizes that the White House [30:03] is totally shabby. And she undertakes the redecorating of it because the guy who desperately [30:10] wants to be president is the man that Lincoln makes Treasury Secretary. His name is Salmon P. Chase. [30:15] He's from Ohio. And he thinks everything should revolve around him. And so he comes to Washington [30:21] and his, the woman who is in charge of his house is his daughter, Kate Chase, who's beautiful and who [30:26] is, you know, sort of a very much a socialite. And she redecorates Salmon P. Chase's house to the nines. [30:35] And then Jay Cook, who's a banker out of Philadelphia, picks up all the tab for it. And yeah, exactly. [30:43] And then he goes on to do a lot of work with the Treasury, which was corrupt, would be considered [30:49] corrupt now, was considered corrupt then, right? But so Mary Todd Lincoln looks at this and recognizes [30:54] that Kate Chase is the one who's going to be having all the fancy parties because she's the one who has [30:58] the beautiful home. And this is going to mean that her husband's presidency is going to be undermined [31:05] and that Chase will probably get the 64 four years out nomination. So she redoes the White House. [31:12] And then she goes to the Congress and says, this is how much it cost. And it was a lot, [31:17] I mean, in dollar terms, but also they're in a fight literally for the survival of the union. [31:22] And Congress goes ballistic and says, we are not paying this. And Lincoln ended up picking up the [31:27] tab for it himself. And it was a major sum of money at the time. [31:31] And so there was that, but she was right. Then Washington, I mean, the White House became [31:38] the centerpiece as opposed to Kate Chase's house. And that's actually what led to her bad marriage. [31:44] And I could go on at great length. I'm actually writing a book and I am back in history and I [31:49] can't tell you how much I love it anyway. I'm so jealous. [31:52] So then there's another time though, that is much more applicable. And that is, and I hate to have [31:58] mentioned him twice today. During Benjamin Harrison's administration, he has this ne'er do well son, [32:04] which I know you can't imagine what happened to a president with a ne'er do well son. [32:11] His name is Russell. And when Benjamin Harrison becomes president, Russell Harrison and his wife [32:16] and children move into the White House. And they probably begin to say, this is way too small for [32:21] a president to live in. And they come up with plans dramatically to redo the White House, to add a [32:27] green, a greenhouse. I'm not sure if there was a ballroom or not, but they did this. They were going [32:32] to redo it in this huge way because this was fitting for the U.S. president. And again, the White [32:38] House has always been humble because theoretically the president represents the people and it's supposed [32:44] to be humble, not that gold stuff everywhere. It's supposed to be plain. And he was absolutely eaten [32:51] alive in the press. And people were like, if it's too small, why did you move in? We didn't elect you. [32:58] And in fact, that, that renovation never goes forward. It dies. [33:02] Okay. So they didn't go around hand gluing, um, coins and memorabilia to the walls to spruce up the [33:08] place like Trump appears to be doing. We have new reporting last week that Trump's literally going around. [33:13] I guess it's in Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's new book, Regime Change, but Trump literally has, [33:17] like, is it a glue gun? It's some kind of, um, gorilla glue or crazy glue that he's, like, [33:23] literally using it to apply, um, I guess, more gold objects to the mantel pieces and the walls of the [33:31] White House, which they said surprised no one in the White House, but should really astound the rest of [33:37] us because that is not what presidents do. You know, it's actually interesting. I mean, again, [33:41] not a psychologist, but like, if you were crumbling, at least if I were crumbling, [33:48] I can't think of a single instance in my life I have ever turned to a coin or that kind of a [33:55] decoration. Yeah. Like, I'll buy pens is what I'll do. And notebooks. Like, they're going to have to [34:00] take away my wallet. They're going to pry your notebooks from your hands. He has a very specific [34:07] psychology. Look at you. God bless pen and paper. I'm with you, sister. Do you, what do you think [34:13] should happen to this stuff? Like, assuming, let's assume he does get the ballroom built. There's a [34:17] raging debate about whether it should be torn down, whether it should be reappropriated to be [34:21] something else. What's your opinion on that? I'm afraid right now I don't have an opinion. That is, [34:26] I would very much love to see all the sight lines back and have the White House restored. The ballroom, [34:31] the way he is talking about it, is huge. It dwarfs the original building. And yet, I am not going to [34:40] rule out the possibility that somebody says a great representation of the American people would be to [34:46] put here, and I don't know what comes next in that space, but certainly it is possible to think of the [34:54] American people being able to turn a symbol of authoritarianism into a symbol of popular power. [35:00] And other countries have done it, and somebody who is good at architecture, unlike me, would [35:07] probably be able to say, here's what we really need to do. You know, the same way they have repurposed [35:14] places in other countries to reaffirm popular power. So I'm an agnostic. Well, some kind of reconciliation. [35:22] Yeah, maybe that's where you have the reconciliation trials. I just have no idea. [35:25] Yeah. The reconciliation trials, Heather. It is essential that we mention, as we talk about the [35:32] ways in which Americans are trying to reclaim their own history and think of patriotism in a [35:36] way that feels authentic and honest, you have embarked on a project because you're not busy enough. [35:42] Honestly, I think of myself and I'm like, but Heather Cox Richardson is writing today. [35:46] You have launched a project 250 to 250, which highlights, quote, [35:50] the people, places, and events that have helped to move us forward toward a more perfect union. [35:56] First of all, thank you for doing this, great American. And did you intend for that to be a [36:02] balm on the self-aggrandizing staged patriotism that Trump is offering us? [36:09] Well, first of all, thank you for mentioning them. They have turned out, and I will tell you more about [36:14] the working of them because they have turned out to be a much bigger deal than I think I, anyway, [36:19] foresaw. We came up with this idea before Trump had done anything because it's not really an answer [36:26] to him as it is an answer to American democracy. I firmly believe that the meaning of American democracy [36:34] is that it has always been contested and that it has been the story of marginalized peoples demanding [36:41] inclusion in the principles that were laid out in the Declaration of Independence. So it's never done, [36:46] but it's always about what the American people are willing to do. And one of the things that is [36:52] central to that is it's, it puts in the middle of that principle, marginalized people. You know, [36:59] if you've got those rights, you're not the one fighting for them. So it's people like Fannie Lou Hamer, [37:04] for example. And what we wanted to do was make, was center the American people in history again, [37:11] because what I have observed really since the 1980s, but you see it in a lot of the curriculum, [37:16] and certainly in the things that Trump is trying to put up in national parks, for example, [37:21] the idea that change simply sort of comes from on high, like all of a sudden Rosa Parks just decides [37:28] not to stand up. Rosa Parks had been working for the NAACP doing really deep dives into statistics on [37:36] rape, especially in the American South for, for literally decades by the time that she works to, [37:44] to challenge segregation. So in that way, so we wanted to, to regain what was missing from that [37:52] curricula and center the American people and say, you know, if you want change, this is how you do it. [37:59] Even in times when people didn't have rights. And so we started it and it's been really interesting [38:05] because first of all, we only have a maximum of 250 stories, which is nothing to a historian. I mean, [38:11] we could do 250 stories on, you know, one year of the revolution alone. [38:16] To a podcaster, it's a lot. [38:18] Yeah. But, but for a historian, it's killing, it is killing me. And, and many people have given us [38:23] great suggestions we simply can't do. But what's been interesting about it is that we have a maximum [38:28] of 124 words, because we wanted to get them in a, in a minute, a maximum of 124 words, [38:36] which means that what we've done is we've gotten narrator, fabulous narrators for them. [38:42] And they're great narrators. [38:43] Yeah. Well, because everybody suddenly wanted in, which was great. And, and we wanted to match [38:49] the narrators to the, through the stories. And what that means is that if you're going to get [38:57] what it is, who did it and why it mattered, you've got to really condense the material. [39:04] So it turns out that they're actually really good teaching documents as well. [39:08] Yeah. [39:08] Like the one on the Erie Canal, which Pete Buttigieg, former Secretary of Transpiration [39:12] Pete Buttigieg narrated is like, that's like my entire lecture on the Erie Canal. [39:21] That's amazing. [39:22] Yeah. And then there's some that are just really heart-wrenching that are not the, [39:27] the one I'm thinking of is not out yet. So I won't drop it on you, but we didn't do live [39:34] people unless there was some important reason to. And there was one that I did not know who [39:43] they had gotten to do it. And he's talking and I'm like, well, this is fine, but like, [39:47] why did they get, who is this guy? And then he says who he is. [39:51] Oh, now I want to know. [39:53] Yeah. [39:53] It's coming. When's it dropping? Do you have a date? [39:56] I don't know. I don't have a calendar. I'm not, I'm not in charge of the calendar, [39:58] but I got to tell you when he said his name, I started to cry. [40:00] Oh my God. [40:01] Because I didn't know who he was. I don't, I don't think anybody [40:04] probably knows what this person looks like, but it's a really important story. [40:08] I was going to ask if his name rhymed with Smarok Tobama, but. [40:11] No, no. [40:13] You also pick places, right? It's, I mean, you not living people, but it's not just, [40:17] you know, figures from history. You also have like that Everglades and Yellowstone are part of this [40:21] compendium. It's really like thinking of the country, both as a land and people. [40:26] Yes. People, places and events. And so we just did one on the new Madrid. It's not new Madrid, [40:33] who knew it's the new Madrid earthquakes, which happened in the early 1800s in sort of the [40:40] Missouri area of the country and moved the Mississippi river and forced indigenous tribes [40:45] to go west, which, I mean, I'd heard of them, but I had no idea they were so important. And [40:50] everybody in that part of the country is like, yeah, we grew up on this stuff. [40:53] Similarly, we did some where I didn't like, I didn't, I mean, I obviously wasn't alone in coming [41:00] up with the topics. We wanted to make sure there were at least two from every state and territory. [41:05] Oh, cool. [41:05] And so that also means people. Rita Moreno was an early one we did and Ariana [41:11] DuBose read that one for us. Amazing. [41:13] Like, did you know that there was one 24 hour period when the flags of three different [41:19] countries flew over St. Louis? No, like I sort of knew, but like, it's all involved. [41:25] I feel like one of us would maybe know that. And that person is not. [41:29] Well, but you know, it's like, it's the, it has to do with the, the, uh, Louisiana purchase. And [41:34] first France has a territory, then Spain has it, but then France has it, then the US has it and so on. [41:39] But like, I was like, let's figure this out. So there's a lot of really fabulous stuff. [41:43] What a great project. [41:44] Well, but the theme was always that we wanted to center the American people. And in many ways, [41:51] to me, it felt like people have been so good to me. You know, I, everything I do is available for [41:57] free, but people pay willingly for the sub stack and so on. And, you know, as I say, Trump walked [42:04] away with all the funding for so much stuff. And I was like, you know what, this can be my gift back [42:10] to all the people who gave me the funding to do it. So. Righteous. [42:14] Yeah. So I love it. So I'm pleased it's killing us, but, but we're really, [42:19] all good things do. All good things do. I mean, it does get back at that. The [42:23] thing we've been talking about throughout this conversation is how do we celebrate this country? [42:28] And what sort of lessons do we need to remember? I want to ask you a specifically kind of like [42:35] socio-political question, which is Jerusalem Demsus, who is the founder of the argument at [42:41] recently was a really provocative piece arguing that the left basically has abandoned patriotism [42:47] and needs to recapture its sense of or reclaim its sense of patriotism in order for democracy to [42:55] function. To protect democracy, we must reclaim, I think, a form of patriotism that is authentic, [43:02] but patriotism nonetheless. Does the left seem historically unpatriotic to you? I guess I should, [43:07] should ask. Well, so let me start, let me start by making it very clear that one of the great [43:14] successes of the radical right has been to take everybody who doesn't adhere to their political [43:19] ideology and call them of the left. The left has a specific definition. It is an ideological position [43:27] that critiques liberal democracy by saying that it doesn't work either because it's too racist or [43:34] sexist or classist and it needs to be taken down and rebuilt. And that's a really interesting story, [43:40] just FYI here that I'm not going to go into, because I think what that argument does is it [43:47] identifies that really since the Vietnam War, people who are not part of the radical right, who are either [43:54] Democrats or centrists, have tended to cede the idea of patriotism to that radical right. And so if you [44:02] take that as a premise for what I'm going to say, one of the things that, honest to God, has jumped [44:07] off the charts for me for many years now, really since you started to see veterans of Iraq and [44:15] Afghanistan, especially female veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan running for office, because their [44:20] advertising was very different than any kind of advertising, political advertising I had seen [44:25] before. But especially taking off in the last two years, let's say, with the insertion into, [44:32] especially the House of Representatives, but also the Senate of so many veterans of wars and [44:38] intelligence agencies on the Democratic side. What I think you are seeing is the claiming of [44:45] patriotism by people who are not of the radical right and redefining it and redefining it as the [44:52] protection of the United States, of course, but also of protection of the people who have defended [44:59] the country for us now for many years. And, you know, you think about things like the idea that [45:07] veterans who came back from the Vietnam War were spat on. There is no documented instance of that [45:14] happening. That was a construction of the radical right. And yet it lives on. [45:18] And it gets picked up by Rambo because it went on to live in film as in the 1980s. So much of patriotism [45:26] lived in film with things like Top Gun and like Red Dawn and so on. But I actually think that what [45:33] you have identified is central to a new political ideology for those that are not part of the radical [45:41] right. And perhaps not part of the left, although the left certainly is closer to the goals of [45:48] centrists and more left leaning. Well, you can call them progressives. I think that much of what the [45:55] progressive wing of the Democratic Party wants right now is, to my mind, very centrist. I mean, [46:01] Teddy Roosevelt was talking about universal health care, right? [46:03] Yeah. But those people are redefining a new kind of approach to what it means to be an American [46:11] right now. And in a way that has not happened, I think since World War II, the Democrats are getting [46:18] in on that. And I think it is central. I did an event with Jason Crow at Harvard a month or so ago, [46:25] and his understanding of the protection of veterans is very much tied up in his idea that [46:34] the government should be working for ordinary people. Because he says, you know, who's out there [46:38] fighting in Afghanistan but people like me? And he tells the story of being on the front lines. [46:47] And he was a paratrooper. And being on the front lines and coming back to the, I don't know if they [46:54] still call it the mess hall, but coming back to eat. And he said, the kid putting mashed potatoes on his [47:01] tray. They got talking and the guy was making like four times what he made in terms of money. And he [47:09] said, this is not the way it should be. And this is not patriotism. And that kind of marriage of [47:20] politics that talks about the ordinary people and talks about our military as those people who are [47:27] protecting our way of life and are part of that, is a really different way than saying, [47:32] we'll just wave the flag and claim we love veterans while we're slashing all the funding for the VA. [47:37] So yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And I think it's central and I don't think people [47:40] recognize it enough. So thank you for that. [47:43] Pod Save America is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. A new CNBC report highlights that [47:46] almost half of all hiring managers rank a candidate's enthusiasm as the single most important element when [47:51] evaluating them for a position. If you need to hire for your business, how can you separate the [47:55] candidates who are really excited about your opportunity from the ones that are just going through the [47:59] motions? ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that quickly lets you see the most [48:03] interested, qualified candidates first, so you meet the right people faster. And now you can try it for [48:08] free at ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. Candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested [48:13] in your job. No wonder ZipRecruiter is the number one rated hiring site based on G2. We love ZipRecruiter. [48:19] We've used it here at Crooked. It is always very difficult to hire. You have to sort through a lot of [48:24] resumes. Um, it's just a, it's a long arduous process and ZipRecruiter has made it so much [48:29] easier for us. Um, use ZipRecruiter and find enthusiastic talent fast. Four out of five employers [48:34] who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for [48:39] free at ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. That's ziprecruiter.com slash crooked. Meet your match [48:43] on ZipRecruiter. Pod Save America is brought to you by Tommy John this summer. Don't be that guy. [48:48] You know, the one, the one who has full sweat pools under his arms, sticking to his shirt in the heat. [48:52] Well, eat Tommy John. That's going to be me. All right. I like your underwear, but don't, [48:57] this is what's going to happen. I can't stop it. Public transport is a sauna. Your walk to work [49:01] feels medically unsafe, but Tommy John is you covered with breathable underwear and undershirts [49:05] designed to keep you cool, dry and significantly less swamp. Like just know that Tommy John base layers [49:10] are lightweight moisture wicking and built with breathable stretch fabric that actually moves with you. [49:14] So you're not spending your morning presentation wondering if people can see the outline of your [49:18] entire back in sweat. Your first purchase is covered by the risk-free guarantee. So if you're not happy, [49:23] Tommy John will make it right with over 30 million pairs of underwear sold. There are thousands of [49:27] guys out there more comfortable than you right now. So don't suffer this summer. I love Tommy John. [49:32] I wore only Tommy John underwear. It's the best genuinely. So go to tommyjohn.com today and save 25% [49:39] on your first order with code crooked comfort perfected. Just use code crooked at checkout and upgrade your [49:44] essentials today. I think that there's probably, when you talk about how the left articulates [49:48] a patriotism that's both urgent and needed, we talk about what patriotism means to the right, [49:54] what identity that undergirds patriotism means to the right. And I always return in moments like that, [49:59] and particularly moments like this when we're talking about the Declaration of Independence and the [50:04] Fourth of July and all the rest, to a speech, and I know you listened to this speech, that JD Vance gave [50:09] at the Claremont Institute, and I believe it was last year, it was in 2025, where he basically laid out [50:18] the MAGA worldview, the nativist worldview that animates, I think, all of the Trump administration's [50:24] policies, if there is such an elegance. Insofar as thought does undergird anything that they're doing, [50:30] this kind of idea about blood and soil nationalism is the essence of Trump, and I think in some ways, [50:37] the Trump appeal. At one point in the speech, Vance critiques what he calls the creedal principles of [50:44] the country as not enough on their own. He names the Declaration of Independence as an example of a [50:50] document that is both way over inclusive and under inclusive in terms of defining what it means to be [50:57] an American, and he basically goes on to give an alternative vision of what citizenship and being an [51:02] American ought to be. He's like, it's not an idea. It's a place and a people, and it's really specifically, [51:07] I'm paraphrasing, people who fought the Civil War, and maybe against the North. What in that seems to be [51:14] most dangerous to you in terms of what Vance is arguing? Well, first of all, I'm amused by being able to say, [51:21] here's the marker. You had to fight in the Civil War. Like, there goes Trump's family, right? And why fight in the Civil War? [51:28] And just, I mean, again, not that it matters, and I really don't think it matters at all. [51:33] My ancestors on both sides were here from, like, the very beginning. And I'm looking at that and I'm [51:38] like, I shouldn't even know, like, why pick that? Why not be like, the date was April 30th of 1834? [51:50] Just an arbitrary date. [51:52] Exactly. Exactly. And you know why, and you know why, and that's because you actually had, [51:57] when you had, if you identify something like that, you can say exactly that. We're looking to fight for [52:03] a white culture like that of the Old South. And the real thing about the switch that he is making, [52:09] and make no mistake, that is a real switch. That is, from the founders of the country, [52:17] which is what we identify, the people who wrote the Declaration of Independence, that's the name we use, [52:21] is the founders, the framers of the Constitution. From that time, they were literally saying, [52:26] we are creating a nation built on these ideas. We hold these truths to be self-evident. And tucked [52:36] within that, I think, is another bigger piece that I'll come back to. But they literally say that [52:43] America is about this idea. Now, the people who have tried to say, no, no, no, no, it's about race, [52:50] were people before the Civil War, like the old Southern elite enslavers, who wanted to say, [52:56] no, no, no, no, we're a white country. And when they did that, people like Abraham Lincoln said, [53:02] why don't we just tear up the Declaration of Independence then? But this idea of blood and soil [53:07] is actually one that comes out of Europe. It's not one that fits naturally at all over North [53:11] America, because of course, if you're going to talk about soil and the origins of the United States [53:17] of America, you're really looking at 13 colonies. And those 13 colonies were never white. I mean, [53:25] they were never a bunch of Europeans. That actually comes from a document from the early [53:33] 20th century, the 1920s in the US, that tried to say, well, they're all Nordic. And the Nordics went [53:40] to England. And it's all just about garnering political power with appeal to racism and sexism. [53:52] I mean, what we don't talk enough about here is the degree to which this idea of you had to fight [53:57] for your country in the Civil War basically says most women didn't fight. Now they contributed in [54:02] other ways, and some actually cross-dressed and fought, but that's really an attempt to put white, [54:09] wealthy men in charge. But even more profoundly, I think it is an attack on what America means. [54:17] So what the founders say in the Declaration is that it is possible for human beings to accept a series [54:27] of natural laws, not divine laws, but natural laws that say we can observe the universe around us. [54:35] And we can say, because of our observations, that there are natural laws, like all men are created [54:42] equal. Now, again, there's all kinds of caveats they have around that. But the natural laws, [54:46] the laws that actually rule this planet, say people are the same, and they have certain rights. And [54:54] among those are the right to have a say in how they are governed when they come together as societies, [55:00] and that they have a right to equal access to resources, and that we as human beings can observe [55:07] the natural world, and we can construct social systems that reflect that. And that's what American [55:14] democracy was always supposed to be. And when you have somebody like JD Vance coming in and saying, [55:20] no, no, no, this is all about what God says, or what race says, or any of these systems that are based [55:28] not in natural law, but rather in human prejudices or divine inspiration, that is not only a rejection of [55:38] sort of the surface level of these are our rights, it's a rejection of the entire enterprise of human [55:46] self-determination. And people ask me why I think we're going to come out of this. And I won't say, [55:52] okay, because we've already lost so many people and so much. But the answer to that is I believe in those [55:58] natural laws. And I believe in the human capacity to say, hey, you know, if we destroy our environment, [56:05] we're all going to die. So maybe we shouldn't do that. And to reject that and say, no, no, no, no, [56:10] I get to dictate stuff seems to me to be a position that eventually is going to run headlong up against [56:17] reality rather as Trump's war in Iran has run up against reality. And that at the end of the day, [56:24] we are, I think, living in the world that the founders outlined as being part of a series of [56:31] natural laws. And we do have the capacity to discover those and to act accordingly. [56:36] Yeah. It's just, when you talk about reality coming, crashing through the front door, [56:39] J.D. Vance's version of America excludes his own children and his wife. [56:44] And his wife. Yeah. I mean, well, and he's just such an opportunity. He'll say anything. [56:48] Well, that's, and that I think is actually one of the most dangerous things is that he is [56:53] espousing a belief that's so at odds with what he fundamentally lives and, and himself, I think, [56:59] believes. So that's dangerous. Well, he said that. He told, you know, [57:02] when the whole eating cats and dogs thing, he actually said that he was willing to make stuff [57:08] up because it would call attention to the dire conditions under which people lived or something. [57:13] And it's like, what you're saying is the ends justify the means. And so you can lie. And here's [57:18] a newsflash. The ends never justify the means because you never get to the end. [57:22] We've learned from history. If you are in any way a student of history, you know that to be true. [57:26] But what is J.D. Vance a student of other than shameless, shameless ambition, I guess, [57:34] and the lust for power? Heather, let me ask you one more question before we wrap up our, [57:41] your brilliant analysis of this moment and what patriotism means and how we should be thinking of [57:45] America's 250th. If you as a historian had to pick another moment other than the signing of the [57:50] Declaration of Independence to celebrate, to make a national holiday out of. And you can't say Juneteenth, [57:55] because it's already a national holiday. Is there another moment in American history that you think [58:00] represents in many ways either the establishment of the American ideal or a reaffirmation of American [58:08] ideals? I know I'm asking you this like totally on the spot, but you're so good that I'm confident. [58:13] Can I have two? Sure. Why not? [58:15] Fourteenth Amendment. Right on, sis. [58:18] Fourteenth Amendment is my favorite amendment. And it should be everybody's because it's the one that says, [58:24] you know, that whole equality thing? We mean it. And that if in your states you, you know, [58:31] you and I talked about how the, you know, Bull Connor walks among us still. If in your states, [58:36] you're run by Bull Connors or you have been bought by corporations that are willing to destroy your [58:43] workers' rights or your women's rights or your environmental rights or whatever, we're going to [58:48] come in and we're going to change that. And that, and it gave the 13th, 14th, and 15th are the first [58:53] amendments that give power to the Congress rather than taking it away. When's the, do you know the [58:58] date offhand of the ratification for the 14th? No. Like what month would that be? No, because I think [59:04] it's August 13th. Oh, it's a good time for a three-day weekend. Yeah, I'm in. But, and I should know that. [59:11] The issue is it passes Congress and then it goes off to the states for ratification. And I don't remember all [59:15] those individual dates to say August 13th sticks in my mind, but don't quote me on that. I'm probably [59:19] wrong. It's also written in 1866. Um, it's, it, when, when it becomes clear, the South is not going [59:28] to permit black equality. They actually write, the Congress writes it in 66 and then it doesn't get [59:33] ratified till 68. But if I can have that one, uh, is the biggie, the, the voting rights act, this, [59:39] the signing of the voting rights act, um, which again, aside from anything else that it does, [59:45] because it sets in motion, a lot of things, um, including things like having our ballots in [59:50] different languages, which, you know, has, has been an issue throughout our entire history. [59:57] There's a wonderful journal from, uh, the colonial era in which a woman is traveling from the, the, [1:00:03] um, or a little after that, I guess, is traveling from the coast to Ohio. And in it, she says, you know, [1:00:09] everyone thinks it's like JD Vance thinks that this is an English based country. They were certainly [1:00:15] English based government. She gets like almost there. And she's like, you know, [1:00:19] what I really want when I get to Ohio, I can't wait to hear the language of English spoken again. [1:00:24] She hasn't met a single English speaker the whole way she's going across that whole way. [1:00:29] So we get from the voting rights act, the idea of ballots in different languages, but we also really [1:00:36] put our money where our mouth is and say, yeah, everybody gets a say for the first time, everybody [1:00:43] gets a say in the government. And that of course has been what the radical right has been working [1:00:48] to dismantle ever since. And so in this era, I'd say both of those, but it's certainly worth [1:00:55] celebrating the voting rights act as well as the 14th. And for, um, all of you crackerjack [1:01:02] Googlers, uh, the, the ACE production team at Pod Save America tells me that the ratification of the [1:01:08] 14th was July 9th, 1868. But it's so close to July 4th. It all makes sense. [1:01:17] Oh, that's a really good idea. We wouldn't really have to change our vacation schedules. [1:01:21] That's a really good idea. Hey, next year, next year we'll do, let's do that. That's a great idea. [1:01:27] I'm in. Can we do a special episode about it? [1:01:28] Yeah, sure. Put me down in the calendar. [1:01:30] Yeah. July 9th. [1:01:32] Yeah. July 9th, babies. [1:01:34] That'll be right before the book comes out. So I'll be footloose and fancy free. [1:01:38] Heather Cox Richardson, the most prolific, the most prolific person in this, in this degraded [1:01:45] America in which we live, where people have just been content to rest on their, on their bums and [1:01:51] do nothing. Or have been called to action, been called to action, have been engaged. And we applaud [1:01:57] you if you're, especially if you're listening to this podcast, but most especially we are so grateful, [1:02:02] Heather, for all the things you do to keep us wise and thinking and keep our front porch lights on, [1:02:08] mentally speaking. It's always just such a real pleasure. And it's always so enlightening to talk [1:02:13] with you. Thank you for reminding us of who we are and who we can be. And good luck with 250 to 250. [1:02:20] Everybody should download and watch the clips and always subscribe to Heather Substack, [1:02:25] the great Heather Cox Richardson. Thank you. [1:02:28] Thank you, Alex. It's always a pleasure. [1:02:30] A huge thank you to Heather Cox Richardson for spending some time with me. [1:02:35] The gents will be back in your feed on Tuesday. [1:02:38] Paws of America is a Crooked Media production. Our show is produced by Austin Fisher, [1:02:42] Saul Rubin, McKenna Roberts, and Faris Safari with Ree Cherlin, Elijah Cohn, and Adrian Hill. [1:02:46] Our team includes Matt DeGroat, Ben Hethcote, Jordan Cantor, Charlotte Landis, [1:02:49] Kirill Pellaviv, David Tolles, Mia Kelman, Ryan Young, and Naomi Singel. [1:02:52] Our staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.