What America 250 is Really All About

- Everybody, welcome in.

This is next up on Mark Kauprin.

This is our July 4th edition.

“Fireworks 3, but very festive, nonetheless,”

on the energy vote two way. And you're host here to everything. Next up, grateful to all of you for tuning in around the holiday season. Starting off things a little bit early.

Congratulations. You beat the 4th of July Rush, and we have a great show for you today. Some guests to talk about America, and where we are on this very special July 4th.

The America 250. Victor Davis, Hansen, the great Victor Davis, Hansen will be here seeing your fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford. Host of his own program, like many guests on our show.

Victor Davis, Hansen, in his own words. And then another guy with his own show, Aaron Tang will be here. You may not know Aaron,

but he is just an incredibly engaging

and smart guy, a law professor, UC Davis, and a moderator of PBS's Breaking the Deadlock. Aaron will be here to talk about his vision for America. And on this holiday themed episode, I'm very excited to talk to them about

the founding principles of our country.

“The symbolism of America is 250th birthday,”

and what they think the next 250 years are gonna look like here. But before they join us, I'm gonna talk to you about my view of America had 250, a youngster in terms of compared to other countries,

but pretty impressive 250 years of achievement. I've covered politics all around the country in 49 of the 50 states. I've been to all 50 states and traveled extensively and talked to people from every state

and covered things from every conceivable angle. My reported monologue today, I'm gonna wanna tell you about what I've learned in my decade-long career of reporting. So stay tuned, my reported monologue on America 250 is next up.

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Not intense reporting this week per se, but over the course of my career, reporting on this great country of the United States of America.

I always say people say what do you do for a living

or here you're a political reporter. I'm not, I'm a reporter who covers America through the prism of our campaigns. Our elections, our politics and our government, our leaders and on this special episode,

on this special year, I'm so taken by something that's happened around the world cup that many others have commented on, which is how the people from all over the world who've come to the United States, how happy they've been. How impressed they've been by the United States,

how different the United States seems to them. And you know, my career started in the Bush years, of Bush 41 and then the Clinton years, and America has become divided in Washington, around the, one of the great insights

Bill Clinton had early on as he was grappling as president with the divisions in the country. He'd say two things one that I have found to be true is I've traveled around all 50 states. One is that Washington's more divided

than the country, our politics is more divided. The loudest and angry voices on the national town square are not representative of most Americans. They just are the loudest and angryist. And the other thing Bill Clinton says,

and sometimes when he would say this, it's a little hokey to my ears, but as I've gotten older and as I've thought more about it, I think it's really true. He says, there's nothing wrong with America.

They can't be solved by what's right. There's nothing wrong with America. They can't be solved by what's right in America. And I think that's absolutely true. And you see in all these people coming from all over the world

of the world cup, you see they have a great intuitive field. They're like 1,000 to totals coming from outside, maybe seeing the United States more clearly than we can see. Now a lot of things that are great about America, that these tours like are the material things.

I get it, I like our rest stops too.

“And in technology, in culture, music, TV, movies,”

no country in the history of the world really has been our equal in how much people like our stuff. But there's obviously more to America than that. And the founders put in place not just a system of government that separation of powers, co-equal branches,

the relationship between the states and the federal and national government. All that was genius and all that was meant to put in a governmental structure that would accommodate to the realities of human nature,

and that would stay in the test of time in for 250 years.

It has all that stuff's great.

But what they also saw was the importance of openness of freedom. And that's where my travels around America and my travels to other countries. That's where I think we are greatest. And of course, openness has some negative sides openness can lead to crime, it can lead to an open border.

Openness can lead to people being hurt by other people. But to me, the greatness of America in so many ways can be defined by that one word. We are an open country, open to economic impossibility, open to others, open to others.

Now, sometimes it's a language issue, but I know it's more than that, because I go to countries where I can speak other languages,

or I'm with people, I can speak other languages.

In New York City, where I live, or in Wyoming, where I've been, or in Hawaii, or Alaska, or South Dakota, or South Alabama. You go up somebody on this street and say, you've got a problem, you need some help.

“Unlike more consistently than unlike any place I think in the world,”

people will help you. Now that's not to say that people aren't nice and friendly other places, but there's an openness in America. If I go on two way, or if I came on here, and I said, here's a story about someone who needs some help.

Someone down on their luck, a kid who needs an operation, or a guy who's trying to start a farm to help his community. I could raise a lot of money in a hurry, just by saying, please help this person. There's an openness, there's an openness to help.

There's an openness of possibility. And that part of our economy is so vibrant, but also wire society is so vibrant. It helps to be born rich and to be well-connected, to have access to capital, but the openness of our country

is such that you see all sorts of businesses being started.

“Particularly now in tech that other places just harder to do.”

And it's not because other places have more regulation, although a lot of places do. It's not because there are other kind of more concrete factors. There's just an attitude in this country of open to possibility. Open to say, I've got a great idea.

I'm going to start a business, and I'm going to do X. And it might be, I'm going to start a dry cleaner, not a new business. But it might be, I'm going to start a business to use AI to revolutionize the dry cleaning business. I find everywhere I go in the United States that openness, openness to strangers,

openness to possibility. And yes, even in this age of extraordinary polarisation, openness to ideas, part of why I love doing what I do is whether it's in person or on two-way, or here on next up, I can talk to people, and they'll be open to ideas.

They'll be open to ideas they don't agree with. And again, that's because the crowding out of openness to new ideas, to ideas you don't agree with, that comes from the algorithms. And that comes from media and political forums, whose profit model, whose economic model is based on not being open,

of saying, we're going to make fun of people who disagree with us. We're going to shut out people who disagree with us. But the founders saw that there was going to be competing ideas in America. And they liked the notion of, made the best ideas win. If you go back and read the stuff that they wrote,

federalist papers, is the most common thing people talk about, but just go read their letters. Somebody shared with me the other day, I let her George Washington wrote to a Rhode Island synagogue. Beautiful writing, but again, an understanding that make your argument, state your point of view, but be open to the fact that other people might disagree.

And don't let that make you angry. Don't let that consume you with negativity, but love the pluralistic nature of it.

There's so much diversity in America.

“People's stories, I ask, I've done this my whole career.”

I ask people, what generation of American are you? Tell me the story of how your family came to be here in America. And some people know if there's quite well some people less so. But almost invariably, in the stories of Americans who are alive now, who I talk to, almost invariably,

there's a chapter in the origin story. One generation back, two generations back, maybe just in the current generation. Where somebody took a risk, somebody said, I'm going to be part of the American experience.

And they came here. And rarely, as they came here, and they were just as well office, whereas when they came, in fact, I hear, I hear, often. My dad or my grandfather was a surgeon, or a CEO,

or owned a lot of real estate. And he came to America.

And for the first X number years, they drove a cab.

For the first X number of years, they worked in a dry cleaner, and then they bought the dry cleaner.

“They came here, knowing that they would be starting slightly back,”

or way back, from where they were. And they came with the confidence that this would be the best place for their kids, their grandkids, their best place for them, to have fulfilling lives. Now, look, there's a lot of things I could spend.

The same amount of time we've talked, talking about the things that are wrong with America. But as Bill Clinton said, there's nothing wrong with America. They can't be fixed by what's right with America. It'd be great to have less polarization.

It'd be great to have less income inequality. It'd be great to have better educated kids, better educated kids and better schools. We should aspire to all that. But even during this period of polarization,

250, I've seen it in every state in the union. I see it every day on two hours. I see it every time I'm interacting with nexters. This country's openness to others,

“this country's openness to greatness has never been matched.”

And that doesn't mean we should look down on other countries. Of course, or say, we're greater than everything ever in every respect. But I feel confident saying in this 250th anniversary of the United States of America, no one has been more open to possibility,

to ideas to others in the history of the world. No one has been more open to the United States of America. And you can see it manifested around the world couple, see it around the Olympics. We see it even in the most negative politics moments we have in our politics.

Things that happen in the United States and the political realm, which are offensive to some and bothersome to some, in most cases, would not happen in other countries. Would not be tolerated, would not be accepted in other countries. I love Silicon Valley, I love Hollywood.

I love Broadway. I love all of our sports leagues. We do things bigger here. We do things here with the openness to new ideas and dreaming that is the envy of the whole world.

See envy of the whole world. And I look at some of these other countries who have thriving middle class, upper class, economic success. And they can't match us for ingenuity. All of these tech companies that have been,

some of the biggest ones obviously everybody knows. But below, below, meta and Google and all that alphabet, we've got all of these tech companies in the United States. And are just brilliant. It's brilliant.

And they're the product of fundraising and hiring. And all the things you do to start a business. But most of all, they're a product of the openness of the American mind to dream big. I'm so grateful that in my career,

I've had the opportunity to travel as I have to talk to people around the country as I have. And whenever people say, oh, you're a political reporter, you must be so cynical.

Always politely tell them, no, not a political reporter.

I cover the United States of America and the American people. And I'm not the least bit cynical. And I've grown even less cynical. More hopeful as I become a dad, but also as I've learned over time, just how extraordinary the dreams

and openness the American people are. Happy and proud to be posting this show and to have you as next or sent to have you as part. As we go forward into the next 250 years as a country together.

There you have it. My thoughts on America 250. grateful to you. Want to know what you think about this holiday and this special celebration going on throughout the country.

Send me an email next up at devilmaycaremedia.com.

Let me know what you're thinking about

“about what makes America great on this extraordinary year”

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“Then we come back and a special treat for me.”

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Again, www.sourcentree.com. [MUSIC PLAYING] Next up in joining me now to continue to talk about America's birthday special birthday is a guest who combines a lot of attributes.

Smart, interesting, interested, great communicator,

principled, and never before have been on the program,

which I'm happy to say that we saw today in honor of America's 250. Victor Davis Hanson, Senior Fellow, the Hoover Institution, and a host of his program, Victor Davis, Hanson, in his own words, new episodes were on. So often, I'm not sure how he's done time to join us.

Tuesday, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturday is Victor Davis, Hanson, welcome to next up. Thank you for having me, Mark. Very grateful to you for making time. We call it often called America's great experiment,

how's he experiment going? I think it's going pretty well. If you look at the criteria of what makes a society viable, it's the basics that we have the longest constitutional stability

of any consensual government in the world, where the largest producer and history of gas

and oil fuels always important for civilizations,

where the largest food producer. We have pretty much the most robust, it's anemic, but it's robust compared to the rest of the Western world in terms of fertility, 1.7. So we're not shrinking and aging to the degree

that our competitors like China are allies in Europe. China was supposed to have this point surpassed our GDP, but that didn't happen in terms of per capita GDP. Four Chinese create 60% of the GDP per capita, one American does.

So it takes four of their workers to do 60% of what we do. They may have about a $20 trillion GDP we have. 60 on a excuse me, 30, despite they have a 1.4 billion people.

“And militarily, I think we've recaptured the initiative”

in space, satellites, robotics, AI is going well. We've done carrier groups for 100 years. We have 11 of them they have three. I know they're rapidly trying to increase their nuclear fleet, but basically we have 10 times the number of nuclear weapons.

Our universities are in crisis, but in this terms of STEM graduate programs, they still on the top of the top 50 universities, they rank about 45 universities in the top 50.

I think the biggest challenge we're having

big large dynamic democracies don't do well when they don't integrate to simulate a culture-rate different peoples. If they're not uniracial or unethic like China or Japan, but they're more like Brazil or India,

and these are quasi-democratic societies we're trying to, and they don't acculturate integrate as simulate, they don't do well. We're at an all-time high with the 53 million people that we're not born in the United States, some 16%.

That can be a great asset, but we've kind of dropped civic education and any type of unifying experience whether it's in the schools or the popular culture. So we're kind of tribalizing and Balkanizing, and we talk about various communities

as if there's separate entities.

“That's not going to work in the long term, I think.”

So that's one of my biggest worry right there.

- Yeah, I was always a pretty much of a half glass,

more than half full kind of guy, but you did highlight at least one problem. I'm so struck as we think about our relationship with Europe and comparison to Europe. How different we are, and both the vice president,

the vice president, Bansen, and Secretary Rubio, have given extraordinary speeches. Really, I think amongst the best speeches I've heard given by American leaders and over the course of my career, warning the Europeans, it's not just about NATO, although NATO is a big issue.

It's about their economics, their culture, how they deal with young people, how they deal with immigrants. What has allowed the United States to, for all the problems we have, to not succumb to what Europe has succumb to, all these problems that the vice president

and the Secretary of State have highlighted,

that really put them in crisis,

and they don't seem to be waking from their slumber. - Yeah, I think part of it is our class, we don't have a class structured system like the Europeans. We don't really care what your parents did, or how much land you own, or how many generations you've been.

I mean, those are nice things, but Americans are sort of each generation that's up to them to be successful. We have a lot of economic fluidity, you can be very wealthy, and your kids can't be, or your kids can be goal and exceed their parents.

And that's kind of a dynamic, fluid society.

“The other thing I think it's very important,”

we have an ethos from the very beginning. I think Tokenville's talked about Americans, that I guess the Greeks would call it a good type of envy. It's an envy of immulation. If you were an IC guy with a Cadillac

and we're driving in a jalapi, we go over there and ask him how he bought it, how much it costs, what's he got on it? If you're in Europe, I'm kind of exaggerating a bit. But your tendency is to kick it.

How do you get that? That was wrong. You shouldn't have had that. And that comes from a lot of the class envy that really retard social mobility, innovation. And so I think that's been very important to the United States.

We had a frontier, and it really encouraged the dynamic people to go west and that spirit of creating something out of nothing. And we kind of replaced it with these immigrants. But when you look at someone, like the founders of Google or Elon Musk that come here,

they get the sense that in the United States, there's gonna be less regulation, less government co-hours, and more free speech, less censorship, and more admiration for what you create. And that seems to be uniquely American.

And when you look at Europe, I mean, they've destroyed their energy grid, but going this subsidized green, the borders have been open, illegal immigration. They do not assimilate a cultured, intermediary like we do.

They haven't had that experience as long as we have. Their fertility is really scary at 1.3, 1.4, they're aging, they're shrinking. They feel they're sort of utopian. They got to the end of history.

And that weaponry was obsolete. The United States was sort of their Roman legions, they were the Greek philosophers, and they had transcended that.

“That's all coming back, I think, for a variety of reasons”

that we see in the Middle East with Ukraine war, the rise of the United States, China, all of that, is really a shock them that their paradigm didn't work. And it's very dangerous for their survival. - Well, and Brian Lee said,

but I'm gonna double back for a part of it that still confuses me. You talked about the frontier. That's, you know, 200 years old. We don't have that anymore.

We do metaphorically, but that spirit, you know, my son does an impede with the frontier spirit in the way previous generations were. He talked about the Europeans and the class system, and all that.

They have the same internet, we do. They have the same world economy as we do. They don't have all our natural advantages,

Shouldn't they look in America?

They love America, they all watch friends, they all watch the NFL. Shouldn't they look in America and be able to copy what we do? Or they can't, or they don't want to.

Why don't we, why are we going to have a monopoly on some of these things still? - I think they still are, are wedded, are they're trapped in this view that America is this aberrant offshoot of Europe.

And it's a wide open society of cowboys and rich people and great divergencies in class.

“And the way, I think Topville said at the best,”

the United States, he had hope because the independent and that time was the agrarian class, small landowners of 1830. There wasn't a peasant class, but what he analyzed was applicable to any period,

and he said basically in America,

Americans are perfectly happy with people who have more than they do, as long as everybody in that process is better off. Europeans, he said, "They insist that everybody be equal, coercibly equal, even if that means they're all worse off."

They'd rather be worse off than equal, than Americans would rather be better off at some more better off. And that kind of sums it up in the United States, that part of it's their class system, part of it is,

they were the embryo of communism and socialism that had strong roots, and they are command economies, still in parts, they're very socialistic. And the quality, I mean, the French Revolution is a egalitarianism

and fraternity and ours is liberty, and it's a big difference. The French Revolution was trying to make everybody equal, and we were trying to allow everybody their own initiative and to have freedom.

Liberty is a kind of a different idea than coerce freedom.

It's just so incredible how relevant to Tokyoville still

is just like what the founders, federalist papers. I mean, if you're not ready to Tokyoville and you're listening to us, I recommend it. The guy just got the United States and everything he, every inside he had, or many of the insights he had,

I guess, are still relevant understanding

“why is it's a country's different than every other place?”

Really, just a phenomenal, a phenomenal ability to see what was special about America. Have you lived your whole life in California? - Yes, I'm speaking from my farm. I'm the fifth generation living the same house.

It's, I haven't gone too far. I commute to Stanford once a week. - How many of the other 49 states have you been to? - I've been to every state. I travel too much, I had a help if you lately,

but until then I was flying once every two weeks. So I've been to every state and I've been to-- - I've been to every state too, and I've covered politics in 49 of the 50, and I'm so struck by, we have our federal system, other countries really,

mostly, don't have states that are as empowered as our states. And the founders, again, in genius, not just the federal separation of powers between the legislative judicial and the executive,

“but power bounds between the states and the federal government.”

And now we have this self-sorting for the most part polarization and partisanship, Red American, blue America, within blue states, there are some red areas and vice versa. But is America, as compared to when we had 13 colonies,

is America more divided regionally now, less divided, exactly the same, how do you see the regional divisions now, as compared to 250 years ago? - Well, it's something to worry about, because the founders idea was that federalism would allow

the idiosyncratic nature of regional areas to be expressed without competition or war with others. And it was kind of a safety valve concept. It was really taxed. What I think they would have said is,

what is worrisome is when there's a geographical component to ideological differences. And we've only really had that once, and that was in the 18, late 1850s where those geographic differences were cemented

with ideological pro-slave antace. And what's a little bit worrisome today is that the ideologically left is blue and red. And maybe 20 years ago, they were purple everywhere. And now they're starting to separate.

And top of that, the ideologies are getting more distinct. And it's pretty clear the blue state model economically. I'm not talking about socially or culturally, but economically, it doesn't work. So more people are going from blue to red.

And their blue are doubling down on that. They don't want to make those changes.

to go to Wyoming, Montana, but especially Texas,

Tennessee, Florida, people kind of look well, you're just left. But we're dividing.

“So I think you know, when you go to another state,”

like a Tennessee California, you're right about pockets in California. Here in the San Joaquin Valley, in the center, it's very conservative as is far north, northern California. But mostly, they can be different countries almost now. Yeah.

The people's attitudes and the infrastructure, California, when I was a kid, it had the most impressive school system infrastructure airports. And when I, you don't really know how to crepate it, it's become and backward until you go to a place like what

you see's going on in Texas and Florida with the infrastructure, freeways and everything. And then you look at California.

It's just 30 years of stagnation and ideology

and people are just leaving in droves. I think of maybe 20 people I talked with in this area at the Cal State System that were professors on the left. They were all on the left. But they've all of them up left when they retire.

They just left, which is kind of an irony. I see, sorry, we see in commentary and in fiction, the speculation about America being potentially in the eve of a civil war. Does it feel that, how to what extent does it feel that way to you?

I don't think so yet, because still that we have these popular culture, the music, sports, things like that are very, very important. We kind of downplay them. The other thing is, so far, the right is sort of a lip. I got to take care of my family, my church, my community.

I don't have time for politics, live and let live.

The left is more intense.

I think, and holistic. And they keep trying to push agendas. I think the right would say, if you want the transagenda and biological men's sports, just keep it to yourself in your state or your health.

If you want sanctuary cities too, maybe recently, okay, but we're not going to do it on ours.

“And if you want to have a critical legal theory idea about no cash”

bail, if that's what you want to do in Detroit or you want to do that, and say, okay, but we're not going to do that. But I think the left feels that they're losing that argument and they have to be intrusive and do it everywhere. And so far, you haven't seen--

I mean, January 6 was more of a buffoonish riot than I think an insurrection. But you haven't seen the right push back. But if you keep doing it and you keep trying to shoot people on the right, try to shoot people or the president,

and you glorify that. And you openly say, James Carverly said, who I thought was pretty reasonable, even though I don't agree with him. But he said the other day that you have to have a visceral hatred

of Donald Trump. You didn't want him dead, but you have to have a visceral and that's going to be his fate. You have to hate him. That's a type of public discourse.

It brings out a roof or some of these other people. So what I'm a little afraid of is if they keep pushing it-- and I'm in an area where there's 95% Hispanics that I grew up with, and you look at the ice officers. And that's a subtext that people haven't talked about.

55% of them are Mexican-American. And you have this idea that these kind of upscale antifa or Karen caricatures, many white, are pushing, pushing, showing them throwing stuff atoms, insulting them while they're trying

to keep illegal alien criminals out of their communities. And you get the impression they're getting very, very angry. And I think a lot of people in the right are trying to say, now, don't push it. And I hope that they can keep calm.

But I'm in a family where we were all kind of Kennedy Democrats, and I have a twin brother. And I would say that I'm the only one left-- I mean, right of center. And I would say it--

and maybe your family is similar. But when you go to a family gathering, and it's where there are these days, the people on the left seem to want to bring up politics more than the people on the right.

People on the right want to keep calm and realize that they're not liked because of their politics. And they just want to get through the meal. The people in the left feel they're intellectually more adept, or they can have a better eye.

And they just want to bring it up and see if they can convert and get angry.

“And I think that's what's happening a little bit”

that's scary. So that's a long windy answer, but it scares me. Let's put together an all-star team of America. Can't be anybody who serves the military or in the government. And you can't choose-- we do five.

You can't choose more than two people from any century. Give me five names.

But just five who should be considered

for America's all-star team. No government, no military. It can't be the founders, for example. It can't be the founders.

“And let us say it didn't serve, but most of it--”

I don't know military. Yeah. Well, can I go backwards? You can tell you just can't do-- you can't do more than two from any century.

Well, I think the most substantial person by far in our generation is Elon Musk. No one has mastered it. I mean, he's single-handedly saved American space exploration satellites.

He invented the United States, the electric car industry. He's saved social media. So he's by far the most substantial. I think in World War II, somebody like William Newton or Henry Kaiser, they took the United States

that had an army that was 19th in the world in 1940. And by 1945, we had a GDP that was larger than all of the major combatants, all the access and the Allies put together. Our Navy was larger than all the navies

of the world put together.

And our army in a country of 145 million was 12.5 million.

It was almost the same size as Soviet Union. It had 240 million people. So they were quite something.

“Martin Luther King, I think, was very important”

because he had a very good argument that had had been followed. What if I think changed racial relations? But that is that it wasn't he or Black leaders that were necessarily demanding freedom for Blacks

and he was challenging Frederick Douglass that it's in the Declaration of Independence at all men are created equal. And he was saying you have a promissory note, white America. And all we're asking is, we're not asking for a revolution

or communism. We're just asking to honor what Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence.

That was a very powerful and then the nonviolent

tradition had that been kept, was very important. All right, give me one more. Yeah, I have, there have been a lot of great writers in America and people like Mark Twain especially. When you have people who can really understand

the American experience, Thomas Wolf was another one, Heming Wades to some degree, but they were very, I think Mark Twain was the most American, and summed up the American experience in a way that people from all different classes and they were entertained

by at one level and then other people that were academics understood at another level, but it was a unifying Mark Twain and things like that were very important. Yeah, Twain's like to talk with you, you could read him today and get insight not just into America

but into human nature, just to genius. That's a pretty good list or grateful to you. Victor Dave's Hanson, happy holidays to you, happy anniversary and thank you for celebrating America's 250 with us.

Thank you, probably, Mark.

“All right, as always, as I said, if you want to hear more”

from this great man who's views and opinions and insight are valued by smart people around the country and around the world, you have an opportunity to do that on a regular basis. Check out Victor Dave's Hanson in his own words, new episodes every Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday,

wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube, you'll want to check him out and read his columns as well. He's an extraordinary, certainly productive content creator and genius, grateful to you. Thank you.

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He's the moderator of PBS's Breaking the Deadlock

and a law professor at UC Davis and very happy to have him here. Aaron, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me, Mark. I know a lot of smart and vicious, telegenic law professors.

All of whom would like to get TV shows. And almost none of whom have them. How did you get this show? Good luck being in the right place the right time. I got a nice message from producers of Breaking the Deadlock.

They were re-upping this format, this TV show. That was very popular in '90s on PBS and a law professor had moderated these episodes. So they brought six or seven law professors. I'm sure all very much smarter than me.

And I happen to be pretty close to having young kids down on the ground imagining playing, living in a world with them, a hypothetical world with them. That's actually more or less what this show is. Occupying a imaginary space that rhymes with real life

and putting people in hard decisions, which is what I do with my kids. So I think things just sort of worked out and it's been a real blessing. How is the dialogue of Breaking the Deadlock

to think consistent with the founders for saw we'd have speech on the National Town Square? Sure, I think in body, some of the best dreams and hopes that the founders might have had. I don't think the founders had any illusions

that Americans were magically going to agree on all the hard problems of the day. That wasn't their own experience, of course. Huge disagreements over the future of the country. I think what they hoped was that men and women

of good intention could sit down and listen to each other, try to understand each other, view themselves in a sort of political marriage, where maybe we disagree, but we all have the same goal understanding, persuading each other rather than trying

to destroy each other, right in oppositional model.

“So that's what we try to portray on the show”

and get out of this us versus that modality that's so common today. When you bring voices on there, what are you trying to accomplish? In other words, when you have a good episode,

what happens, what's the execution of a good episode? Sure, so a couple of things that make us feel like we did things, right? One, agonizing moments. I think one of the things that Americans

viewers need to see about the reality of politics today is that a lot of the choices that are elected to official space are actually hard. That's not the picture you get from watching crossfire type debates on the news.

One side thinks it's easy and they're direction, the other side thinks it's easy and their direction, how dare the other side be to dumb or disingenuous.

The truth is, a lot of the question we face about,

voter ID about healthcare are really hard, really nuanced, so if we can get real officials, prominent thought leaders in America to agonize, that's important. And then, of course, the second thing is to show people

from different viewpoints. And we always have, you know, strikingly conservative, strikingly liberal folks, being able to talk to each other, definitely not always a green, but able to engage

in a way that models, like, what would it look like to have a conversation with a neighbor, or some of you go to church with, who you know, voted for the other guy in the presidential election,

“and yet still being able to sit down with each other?”

The book you've written, Supreme Hubris, I love the title because it's the most hebristic branch in my experience. I got nothing against individual judges actually I do, injustices, but my complaint is more about the institution.

It's the least scrutinized of the three branches, in part because they don't allow coverage. They only seem to do interviews when they've got a book to sell. And I consider a bunch of politicians and robes, equal the liberals and the conservatives,

and it was driven home to me for me, most emphatically by Bush v. Gore. Every Justice in Bush v. Gore voted based on the party of the president who nominated him for the court, not consistent with their previous judicial

stated for judicial philosophies. It's not the only case like that, but it's the starkest case because it was a totally political case, and instead of setting aside politics, they acted like they were five Republican senators

and four Democratic senators.

So first question, so you know where I stand on this is,

how does the federal courts operate today as a co-equal branch connected to the legislative branch

“in the executive branch as compared to what the founders had seen?”

How is it the same, how is it consistent, and how is it deviate from what you're understanding if how the founders assumed it would operate and hope to it operate? - Okay, so I think one thing is the same

and one thing is different. I don't think the founders imagine federal judges being entirely neutral, dispassionate. They did a federal judge's would be partisans in the same way that you were described.

And maybe not in every case, but it's hard to set our aside, our political priors, our social circles. I mean, John Marshall, the most famous Chief Justice in our history, was the Secretary of State

when he was nominated to be Supreme Court

So the idea that we would have neutral dispassionate judges,

I don't think that was ever the reality.

“What's different though, I think is the amount of power”

this court exercises. I don't think our framers would have imagined a Supreme Court weighing on the constitutionality of the vast majority of controversial public laws that are enacted by states or Congress,

every important executive order that the president announces. I think the framers would have thought most of these questions would have been left to the people acting through their, like the lawmakers, a Congress that actually did work.

And there's more adjudication because more cases are brought to the court or the decisions are more sweeping. Why are they doing more than you think the founders would have thought? - So yes, so I think that is a part of it.

The scope of what can be sued over, you know, courts in the 18th century were very much like, I'm gonna resolve this dispute between person A and person B. There was not, they were not really courts, they were not really instruments for setting social policy

in this broad way, the idea, public interest litigation, right? It was a very much a 20th century innovation. So I think that is a part of it.

“And I think the other part of it is sort of a growing sense”

among Supreme Court justices that it's much more fun to decide the big pressing issues of the day to grab that power for yourself. Some of that comes about for really good reasons. I think, you know, the Supreme Court grabs a lot of its power

after 1954, once it boils itself and doing the right thing, ending segregated schools and public education, once the court's like, oh, you know what, we actually can issue single decisions that tell everybody what the equal protection clause means.

What free speech means, what do process means? The court just sort of runs away with this power and the justices are all too happily engaged and dividing these disputes for the rest of us. - If you were a chief justice and could set policy

for the high court and the lower courts, what changes would you institute? - Oh boy, well, I mean, this is fun

'cause I mean, it's just never gonna happen.

I haven't even given thought to that question. So I think I do think that I would explain decisions on the shadow market more. - Yeah. - That is a very important part of what the court does.

- Explained for those who don't know what is a shadow document and what would more explanation provide? - Sure, so in the old days before maybe 10 years ago when this before the Supreme Court would issue a final judgment on a major case on birthright citizenship,

independent agencies, the Supreme Court would always call for full briefing from the parties, issue an oral, have a cold and oral argument and then issue an opinion, sometimes 100 pages of opinions explaining its decisions.

Nowadays, the Supreme Court will first decide on the merits of a case using something called the shadow market. While it's a ruling, technically not fully resolving the case, what happens is in the weeds and I'm sorry I'm working might have to add it this out if you have that option.

- So we don't edit it out, we're all for transparency here. You're doing great. - The president does something, the president decides I'm gonna get rid of birthright citizenship. People who are upset sue and they get a preliminary injunction

of lower courts, I'm gonna pause this. This is not constitutional, but I'm not gonna hold the trial I'm not gonna do the whole thing. And it used to be that the Supreme Court would rate until after the trial, after the full year or two years

to decide if the Trump Executive Order was right. Now, the party that loses here, the Trump administration, goes straight to the Supreme Court on the shadow market to appeal the temporary injunction. The preliminary injunction in the court

will issue a ruling without briefing, without oral argument deciding it there. And that is what people find so actionable because the Supreme Court's making these huge decisions

are basically about the benefit of four reasons to consider it.

- So very low-life planche, it's just sort of like a word from on eye, this is what's happening. My biggest complaint about the court now that I would change if I were chief, not that you asked me, but I'm gonna tell you and then ask you what you think.

“Is there two slow on cases that are in the real world?”

You know, brief, send us your briefs in four months. We'll schedule our arguments four months after that. We'll issue a ruling in an unpredictable date four months after that. Some cases, okay, but for instance,

they have a case about whether the president can fire members of the Fed, okay? It's about the Federal Reserve Governor Cook, but it pertains to the guy who's outgoing Fed Chair, Mr. Powell.

They've had this case for months, and it's not a super complicated case. I bet you every justice in every clerk, knew how the vote was gonna go. You know, I'm not saying they should write their opinions

with AI, but I mean, write the thing here, get the briefs. Let's say, let's say it was like Bush versus Corps, which they did here very quickly.

How quickly, from the time they accepted the case,

to the time they rule, if you were chief justice, and you said, Mark Alperon's right,

“the world needs this ruling, how quickly could they do it?”

I say 17 days. - So that's not inconceivable, and in fact, we're contentioned between the points that you and I just talked about. The shadow market, the fenders of the interim market,

they'll call it on the court. We'll say they're actually doing exactly what you're saying. They are the emergency dock of the shadow market, the court can issue quick rulings. They're thinly-reasoned to it.

- But it's not the final decision. - It's not a final decision, that's true. So you want to say, you want the plan? - Let's say, let's say I was chief, and you were my clerk, you've been a judicial clerk,

and I'm the chief justice, and I say, I say, Erin, we're gonna do this in 17 days, give me a schedule.

You'd say, okay, they always have the briefs in two days.

Oral arguments in four days, and then we've got almost a week and a half to write the thing. Then we'll then immediately after the oral arguments, we'll go and change, we'll go in the conference room, we'll decide who people are gonna vote,

we'll vote, we'll assign the majority opinion, anybody wants to write a concurrence or then to send, and say, okay, everybody's got a week and a half to write the thing. I mean, you know, don't play poker, don't take a vacation, get this real world decision with real world implications done.

What's wrong with my idea? - So it's not a crazy idea, and sometimes the court does act that expeditiously, they're quite... - Very rarely, though. - Very rarely, very rarely.

They're frankly the major roadblocks are one,

“you need to have a staggered briefing schedule,”

so that parties can respond to each other's brief, so two days, two days, two days, and a half of time. But your point could be a month, right? We don't need six months, we don't need a month.

- Well, we certainly don't need six months,

but I'd say staggered, I'll give you a day. I mean, you know, these private lawyers want to bill, the government lawyers want to put surround, like it's not the norm. - No, the fact that quality of the briefing,

it's gonna quit out. - You want the Supreme Court to get cases right, right? You want the movement to be happy. - I mean, I mean, name a profession that needs that long to do stuff.

I mean, I mean. - All they're doing is reading some legal briefings and writing a decision. It's not rocket science. They have any clerks to have, if four clerks eat it?

- You're probably right that on the judges, the justice is side, this takes too long, and I'll tell you one big leap is a norm of courtesy to dissenting injustices. - Yeah, in my experience when I clerk

at the Supreme Court in the 2013-2014 term, a majority of opinions would often circulate as soon as a month after or argument. There's something, it could be faster, it could be too to think,

it needs in the act as expeditiously, but then there's this norm of, if anybody wanted to send, and now that the senting justices take their sweet old time.

- I know, but again, the Supreme Court is like the book publishing business. If you write a book now, they'll say, okay, the books coming out in February, we need the manuscript in July.

No, you actually don't. Like, these antiquated places who just have, they do it the way they do it. And the evidence that they can do both industries can do it the other way.

I'd have remembered the exact briefing schedule on Bush vs. Score. Man, they had to get that one, right? I'm not sure they did, but they both sides got to write priests, they had oral arguments.

There were hundreds of opinions in that case. - I will tell you one thing to recommend your proposal. - Yeah. - That the day is at 30 days or what happened.

It wouldn't encourage the Supreme Court to write less. It wouldn't give us a chance to write less. - Correct. - It's a bad thing, because nobody's reading these 100 pages.

- Correct. - All this. - It just, you just got to change your expectation. And I don't think it needs to be done on every case. - I suspect I'll get it right, too.

But you know, yeah, let's, okay. All right, Aaron, let's move on to this. How old are your kids? - 7 in 10. - 7 10.

“What's something that's used to be true about America?”

That's either not true or less true now that you would like to be there for them. But something that's changed in a negative way that you hope comes back to a more positive for your kids. - Sure.

So I have a distinct memory when I was four years old. I was watching my, a presidential debate with my parents. There was a George W. Bush, Michael DeCoccus election. And I remember my parents watching that debate and being genuinely, genuinely unsure

who they were going to vote for, but saying afterwards that they liked both candidates. They seemed ice thoughtful trustworthy people. I would love a time when most Americans can watch a debate between two candidates

and believe that no matter the views of the candidates, the politics, it's not a blood sport. It's not like I want my team to win this debate to destroy the other side.

It's a moment of kids coming together and watching think, oh, people have different viewpoints.

I'm not trying to destroy each other. I don't pretend Mark that's gonna happen anytime soon. A lot would have to change for us to get there. But the us versus them mentality or out to destroy the own the lives

or own the cut to the, that's the problem. - Beautiful answer. Do people refuse to come on your show 'cause they don't want to sit with somebody else who's in a different tribe?

Does that happen? - I don't know that anybody's articulated in that exact purpose. There have been people who've been reticent to go on the show because they're worried

that it's an ambush, frankly, more often conservative folks have worried that PBS is trying to set them up and put them in situations that are gonna embarrass them and they've uniformly afterwards said, wow,

that was not what I expected. That was a really thoughtful, genuine conversation. The vice president of the Heritage Foundation Roger Severino and person I often disagree with,

“but I think is a really terrific example of thoughtful,”

reasonable person who thinks through hard questions comes out differently. He's been on the show three times because he's enjoyed it so much, the dialogue. I think that is a testimony to what,

how important this mission we have is of showing Americans showing viewers that it's not broken. We don't have to sit at a table and try to destroy each other.

- Yeah, beautiful answer, truly beautiful answer. If you could have dinner with any of the founders, who would it be in why? - Probably Alexander Hamilton 'cause my kids would have a lot of questions

when I go where he got his rap skills. I mean, I mean, this with Manuel. - Make probably Hamilton. - Yeah. You think it's okay for kids you're kids who are your kids

ages to see Hamilton with all the profanity and adult themes?

- Yeah, I mean, I think there are parts of the second act

with Mariah Reynolds that we withhold from our kids. - Yeah.

“- But I think I overall like this idea of people”

that we, you know, celebrated heroes being flawed, you know, my 10 year old is now aware of Hamilton's balloon fidelity and his poor choices getting into a duel or flawed, people are complicated. - Yeah, I think, you know, Michelle Obama said Hamilton

was the greatest work of art of any kind ever produced. I'm not sure that's true, but I see her point. And I just think the impact of Hamilton is so big, the show Hamilton is so big. The reason you said showing the humanity of someone like that.

But also, it's just a genius integration into extremely entertaining program show of some of the great themes of American, not just the founding, but of our history. - I think that's right.

- I can't think of anything, anything else even close to that. And I know just my son has started to listen to some of the music we've not seen all show you. But I know he knows stuff about American history now, he wouldn't have known it, and it was really deep

in textured way. - It makes US history the founding, the revolution cool again. And boy, wouldn't it be great if 10 years from now, we were talking about how the current generation of voters your kid, my kids, are deeply informed

and exercising the right to vote in a thoughtful way, perhaps inspired by their childhood experiences watching this theater. So every little thing we can do counts, even these rap battles, like a cabin of battles,

right, whether we get involved in the war

between England and France and the second,

the Bank of United States, there's such wonky things and to have kids be like, oh, there are, that's the federal reserve, that's the historical

“animal on the federal reserve, how do we feel, right?”

It's just, it opens up these worlds in ways that are accessible to young people to be, it is. - It's just so genius and staggers, staggers, my mind. - Lastly, you're hope for America next to 50,

what are some of your hopes for the country? - Over the next 250 years? - Yeah. - I mean, maybe this is to maybe I should dream bigger. I'm hoping we're around in 250 marketable.

I'm hoping that-- - Extant, your hope is for extant. - Yes. (laughs) - Survival. - I mean, yeah, I think we will get through

this difficult moment of divisiveness if the next generation can figure out how to talk to each other, how to reach out and find people they disagree with at church at literally games. People who voted for the other person and say,

you know what? We could vote for two very different candidates and still want the good life for our kids, for our families, for this country. We don't have to give into the glitz and glamour of politicians

who make it look like life or death.

This is the most important election ever.

If you don't pick vote for us, if you don't destroy the other side, America's over, that's not right. It's up to us as the people. If we demand some sensibility from our elected leaders,

we can get it, that's my hope.

I tell people where and when they can see breaking the deadlock.

“- Yeah, so the next episode of breaking the deadlock”

and tired of how to fix an election will be on nationwide on your local PBS station

on July 7th, evening time.

- Erin, unlike many lawyers at Supreme Court Clark's

“Ahmed, you're both likable and interesting.”

So I'm very grateful to you for being here. - I appreciate it. - I appreciate you, Mark. - Happy Holidays to you. Thank you. - You did.

“- All right, that's it for today's special fourth”

of July episode. We hope you have a safe, happy and very meaningful independence day with your family and your friends. And we hope that you come on back when we're done with our break.

We're looking forward on my family to celebrating the Fourth of July with a big old cookout. Back next week, more conversations, more reporting, more reported my logs and more. Telling you what's coming up next in politics media

and our culture subscribed to the program on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

So you, like other next Thursdays, always know

what's coming next time. (upbeat music)