America 250: History vs. Mythology with Annette Gordon-Reed and David Blight

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It is Tuesday, June 16th, year of our next 2026. Oh, I don't know if you're here in my voice in any way. It's a little something called life, a little something called hope. Look, you know what? Here's, I'm going to say something before we get into the show.

The meds can suck all year. I don't give a fuck. Do what you want. Come and last.

Have a payroll of $500 million.

I really don't give a shit. It doesn't matter. You know what? You've been granted amnesty. You have, you have a waiver.

All my other teams, you have a waiver. The 53 year drought, boy did we have.

“Well, I know you're sick of hearing about it probably.”

But 7th Avenue, 10th Street, my wife, my son, Robert's Michael, one of his sons. We stood there in the heat, staring at the side of a building, projecting the game. It was just one of the most wonderful experiences. Of my sporting life to just be in the city and feel the hopes and fears and ups and downs

and adrenaline and negativity followed by just an absolute explosion of joy. And I have to give one along with like NYPD, NYFD, sanitation department. The people who projected up, there was one dude, two guys actually. MVP's of the 7th Avenue watch party. They had an igloo cooler.

And in that cooler was the most delightful mix of snacks and drinks. I don't know where these angels came from. They had on crustopulse.

“They had those little blue bell cheese fucking pucks that you unwrap.”

Margarita's beers, water, and just every now and again they would dip into it. And somebody would like poke you on the shoulder and go. Cheese, he would cheese you during the game.

It was the most incredible.

And for some reason, and he showed this early, he had a Ziploc bag. A pretty good size Ziploc bag filled with 12 hard boiled eggs. Now, I don't know if that was his saiter supply that he's preparing for next year. Or if he's got an egg salad, think of it. Just with all these delightful snacks and beverages he had this thing.

And I just thought, what a ridiculous, ridiculous thing. To actually consider to bring to this tailgate party in the middle of New York City. But I'm telling you, three quarters of the way through the fourth quarter. When the tension got the highest, he broke out this bag of eggs. And people in the crowd responded to them like he was passing out free.

Next t-shirts from a t-shirt gun. Egg me, egg me, he would throw the egg. People would catch them on a scoop and eat them. It was the most brilliant. It was the coup de bras of his entire refreshment regime that he had brought out there.

And so sir's, I salute you, you anonymous heroes. It was just a beautiful moment. And that is how I will commemorate that day. But it pailed in comparison to, you know, obviously martial arts fighting on the long of the White House to celebrate the 250th. So I thought, why not for this show today?

Let's talk about the nations 250th birthday and why this is all become so controversial as to who owns our history, who doesn't own our history, what is our real history. And so who better to do that?

And you know, these are always my favorite episodes.

Historians, I just love historians. They've done the work. And all we get to do is ask them the stories and they have them at their back and call.

Ladies and gentlemen, as we move into the celebration of our nations 250th year, we are honored to have with us today to just widely revered experts in the study of the history of this great country. David Blipe, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University and Professor Annette Gordon read Carl and Lowbe University Professor at Harvard University. So it's this entire conversation is a Yale Harvard off. I want to ask you, David, I'll start with you.

You know, perhaps nothing embodies sort of the absurdity of the moment that we're having right now in that our 250th celebration. We have two competing visions of it, even within our own government. We have the America 250 celebration, which is a, I guess, a bipartisan group, non-profit established ten years ago through Congress to come up with events. And suddenly we have the Freedom 250, which was formed by the Trump administration for their vision.

“What does that say in your mind, Professor, about the moment that we are in?”

Well, let's just one more measure of how divided or polarized we are. One of those efforts is, I think, at least an attempted real history. That is some complexity, some nuance, some ambiguity, the conflicts as well as the triumphs. The other one is propaganda. The other one is using history in the service of a political moment.

It's history in the service of the present. And it's a very partisan effort. It isn't just being done by the White House, though, of course. The White House has had many, many enablers here, not least of which is the heritage foundation and other think tanks.

In fact, the heritage foundation has basically become the White House's history department.

So those two visions, if you like, are two different ways to do history. They're both very old. Yes, propaganda, not a new form. No, not a new thing, not a new thing. And that, what, you know, it brings up the interesting point.

What is the importance of a nation's origin story?

“And why do ideologues or partisans work so hard to control it?”

Well, I think we look to origin stories in the same way we looked to our own origin stories. We say, "Where were you born? What did you grow up?" You meet somebody and you say, "Where are you from?" If you say, "I'm from Texas." That tells people, "They think," rightly or wrongly, a lot about me, if you're from Brooklyn, it tells you value.

We take ourselves and we look at the nation and we sort of meld them together and say, "How did this country get started?" Because it's going to tell us something fundamental about who we are.

And we've always done this and your first question about the polarization.

I mean, history is inherently political because there was a battle about how people are supposed to think about themselves. So one person will tell an origin story that they think is all uplift and not truthful. And I think that that's one of the what David is getting at there because it's something that makes you feel good in the present. And at the same time, you can, on the other hand, you could say, "Well, I want a truthful story. I really want to know what happened in the past so that I can have a much more nuanced, as you said, story, a more realistic story.

And now what I face is that I write about slavery and I write about Jefferson and very difficult topics. There are people who don't want a truthful story about all of that. They want something that's a feel good and sometimes it makes you feel good and sometimes it doesn't.

“But you have to have both of those things to have the kind of complexity that makes real history.”

David, what is the damage of a truthful story? Why is that so resisted? I mean, and it brings up a good point and there's something in there also about people lie to themselves as well. It's not just about, you know, so I imagine for a historian, that's even a very difficult thing to tease out that you can read, you know, the difference between sort of journalism being the first draft of history and history and how you tease out.

Are these people lying to themselves or they lie inizing themselves? But why, why would that be so resisted?

Well, because narratives are always in conflict and when a powerful historical narrative series of stories, exhibitions and museums,

a great historic sites get somewhat reinterpreted, it can disorient people.

Most human beings, let's face it. We're all a little bit part of this. Want to live in a kind of chosen narrative. We'd all like our grandparents to be heroes. Our great-grandparents, we can really make heroes if we didn't know them.

You know, everyone's always looking for the perfect ancestor.

You know, as long as they don't have to know too much about them.

“And, you know, I mean, we -- that's the man. And that's what George Orgen said.”

I'm really mad, yeah, no. And Orgen's stories are self-made. Who are we? Well, let us tell you. And also, I mean, Orgen's stories are tricky. We can't live without them. Every culture does it. Every church does it. Every institution does it. Every country does it.

It always has. But they're tricky. Mark Block, the great French historian killed in the Holocaust. He had a little piece of an essay entitled "The Idol of Orgen." And he said, "Well, beware." As soon as you find your Orgen's well, then that Orgen has an Orgen and watch out. You don't really fully know the Orgen unless you look deeper, deeper, deeper.

So, the trouble with history is that it can dislodges from the comforting story we'd like to be living. And as part of what's happened here in the last, let's say two decades, really, a predates Trump. Where the American right has become so concerned about some of the great changes in how we've interpreted narrated American history, everything from race to gender and many other issues has gotten them all worked up because there was a,

there was a comfortable narrative of this country. There always has been.

And it got quite dislodged, not because, as a Trump executive order said, we were trying to tell everybody nothing but shame about America. That's nonsense. Right, not what we do. It's just because we've learned how to tell the complexities of history. And it turns out most people want that. Oh, they'd have.

I would be sure of that. And that is that what you've seen that over time, you know, the fact that you're dealing with tricky issues of slavery and race and, and those kinds of issues, is that is the dividing point here that the effort is to create an origin story of the country that's more singular and more reflective of maybe a Christian origin story or a nationalist origin story that's more homogenous and that because you're dealing in the complexities of race or as the David said, gender, things that don't fit

“as easily. That's where the pushback comes. And have you felt that pushback grow?”

Oh, yes, definitely. I mean, the last from the revolution in the historiography of slavery in particular in the 40s and the 50s. And ever since then, that goes along with the civil rights movement. I mean, history, we asked different questions of the past depending upon what's going on. And once we started changing laws and getting rid of segregation, all those kinds of things that make transforming America, you go back and people start looking at history in a different way, asking different questions.

And I think as David is suggesting, this is a reaction to all of that. There are people who want to put the genie back in the bottle or whatever we wind the tape and say, no, let's go back to a more comforting narrative, mainly because perhaps they want to go back to a more comforting country. You know, a country that is sort of 1950s, you know, 1940s country and everybody idolizes. But that's the time when people went to separate bathrooms, people, women couldn't get credit cards.

I mean, there are all these things that there's a lot that goes along with this nostalgic vision of history.

“And that is a nostalgic vision of the present. And so that's what's really frightening about it.”

It's not just about a complaint about history. It's the complaint about where we are now, the kind of country we have become. In the past 50 or 60 years. So is the idea and that if they feel like they can control the narrative of the past, they can control the future? Exactly. I mean, the thing is, this is who we are. And this, the push for originalism, the idea we have to go back.

Essentially, too, it's always the 1789 Constitution, 1787, 1789 Constitution.

It's not the post of a war when it gives us the 1314th and 15th Amendment. Let's go back to the original. And that is back in the time when, you know, Black, there was a strict racial hierarchy, a gender hierarchy. And we can't do anything past what those people thought at the time. And that's, you know, that's that's a complaint about history.

John, get David God, we live in the country that is essentially held together by the 14th Amendment.

“The 14th Amendment section one of the 14th, where it tries this and should do process and quality before law.”

Right. That's right, before the Supreme Court as we speak, we were reinvented by the 14th Amendment. And we still live under if we can hold it. You know, what's at stake here is more than just history. It's the social order. I mean, it's this idea that if you, if you let these these crazy left wing historians and universities, alter the national story that fifth graders learn eighth graders, tenth graders and college students,

the social order could fall apart. Family values could fall apart. And look, it's one of the reasons the right is so exercised about gender. Because that is a relatively new challenge to the nature of history, if you like. But it's ultimately here a question of who controls the social and cultural order.

History is always at the center of that. It's always the first problem.

Absolutely. I mean, and in the 14th Amendment, basically animated by the Declaration of Independence, you know, that gives us a creed that says all men are created equal. And the progress of America, since that moment,

“has been tried to realize that. And that's why you have this attack now, even in some ways,”

on the Declaration as a creed, saying, as the sort of creed for Americans, saying, no, America is not just a country about a creed. It's a country about, you know, a race. It's about a religion. It's about something that doesn't have that inclusive encompassing thing. So the Declaration of the 14th Amendment talking about equality has been a target for people who want a different

vision of what the country is about, a white nation.

Look, the algorithm is killing us. The algorithm, the way that it incentivizes the hostility and weaponizes ideology and all these, it's just, it's, it's not right. But the, the antidote, the antidote is information. And that's where ground news comes in. Ground news, it's this website map. It's designed to give readers a better way.

And easier way to navigate the news. It pulls together every article about the same news story from all outlets all over the world and puts it in one place. And not not incentivize for like the worst, most hostile, most partisan take. It tells you where it's coming from. You, you can see starkly in black and white. How these different organizations and algorithms are manipulating the information that we get.

They show you how reliable the source is and who's fun to get. Who's finding it, all of the money, know who's behind the headline. Oh, who is this, uh, Rupert Murdoch fella. He seems delightful. He seems to have a somewhat pointed view of the world. Telling you, man, the Nobel Peace Center has even mentioned the ground news in excellent way to stay informed.

Nobel Peace Center. That's, I think, the one that Trump started. I think it, the 3D print Nobel Peace Prizes that just hands him up. The platforms independently operated. Supported by it subscribers, so they stay independent and they stay mission driven. They don't get sucked into this slot.

“If you want to see the full picture, go to Ground News.”

They can help you through the noise and get to the heart of the news, go to GroundNews.com/steward. Subscribe for 40% off the unlimited access vantage subscription. Just count available only for a limited time. And this brings the price down to like $5 a month. That's GroundNews.com/steward or scan the QR code on the screen. I'm fascinated by the idea that by telling the stories of diverse populations, why do you think they view that?

As degrading to our national history and not something that is more remarkable about our national history in terms of where we've come. I mean, you've studied Douglas, maybe the best scholar on Douglas, you know, reanimate him from him. Would he be astonished by the progress made or disappointed that we're still litigating the very same structural issues that he litigated? Both. No, he would above him.

Did you and your new ones? I know.

But truly, Douglas would be astonished at some of this progress, but he'd be disgusted.

Uh-huh. He'd be, oh, Lord. He'd be disgusted at this attempt to erase all of that progress that has been made.

“But a best way to understand that is, Douglas gave a very important speech in 1869.”

Right at the point of the passage of the 15th Amendment, the voting rights amendment, he called it the composite nation. It's one of the most beautiful expressions you would ever read. And now today, again, this is 1869. Right. It reads like a multiculturalism manifesto, you know, from a school system in the, in the 1990s.

It, it, yeah, no, yeah, Douglass was woke. The dude was in the pluralism and the speech expresses this beautiful, you know, crazy quilt of America. And in the middle of it, he stops. He takes up the great present issue of that moment. And he makes the case for Chinese immigration.

Chinese immigration was becoming a huge issue, especially from the West. Right. And there's Douglas saying, get ready, America, they're coming. And they got a 3000 year old civilization.

The stuff we never thought about before.

Yes, they have alien language, yes, they have alien religion. But man, these are amazing people get ready for them. And anyway, so, but even though think, think about that though. That moment in history, 1869, Douglas says that.

“And what are the two things that occur almost right after that?”

Right. And she, she, okay, is about a Chinese immigrant, exactly. Yeah. But then the second thing is the South reinstates. Takes back the country.

Takes back. Right. Reanimates the very thing that created the progress that Douglas is talking about. It's the single most hopeful moment of Douglas's life. Yes.

And he never done.

He never gave that speech that I could find after about 1871.

It was falling apart. Right. I was doing a research for a book and found my great, great grandfather's name on a voter list in Texas in 1867. And it was amazing. And then I thought, then I got sad because I realized what's going to happen in a couple years.

Yeah. Texas is going to, I mean, all this stuff is going to be rolled back. And he's going to be put back into a state of near, not chattel. But near, near chattel almost as bad as slavery. He made me that time period for stripped of rights and so forth.

And is the idea that the right would like that moment erased from the record or deemphasized. What is, what is the purpose of and and and that you face this. I mean, again, when we talk about Douglas with David Blight, but also Sally Hemings and Jefferson with the net Gordon read. I mean, your scholarship on that on parallel. So it is that an analogous historical figure in terms to they want that relationship erased.

“Well, you know, when I was working on this subject, it occurred to me that I think a lot of it.”

When I listen to people has to do with this question of a white nation. If somehow a person who is a symbol of the country had seven children with a woman who is not who's not purely white. Then what does that say about the country as a white nation? I mean, a an actual literal founding father. I'm here of not just white people, but of people who were black and who have who has descended to still identify themselves as black.

So a lot of it is just it's the it's a vision of themselves and the vision of what they want the present to be to sort of situate the past and sort of, you know, put us on the path to getting to a place that is comfortable to them. And that is one where whites are in a tendency and people of color are, you know, or lower down or people who are discriminated against. I want to ask you about the process of that because, you know, David, you brought this up early that idea of woke and diversity being a buzz word about this has we have to take woke out.

You know, I think Trump did the executive order restoring truth and sanity to American history. It was all about removing any idea of woke the idea being that the left or the elites are so focused on issues of race or gender or those kinds of things. But those the people that were under those discriminary discrimination policies, they didn't create those distinctions. They had to live under them. The idea of obsession with race or gender doesn't come from those who suffered under it. It was the ruling class that defined those groups.

Well, that's true. No question black folk didn't write the pro slavery laws.

They weren't part of the self definition of being channeled by any means, of course.

“Now, whether the right wants total erasure, there are many different parts of the right as you will know John.”

And some of them would say, oh, they just want to talk about emphasis. You know, they don't want to lose Jefferson in the story of Sally Hemings. And that could tell us hours on that. They don't want to lose Abraham Lincoln in the stories of the complexities of how emancipation actually happened. They don't want to lose George Washington in the story of how the American Revolution was won.

And how bloody it was and how difficult and contingent it was and how are they almost didn't win and so on and so on and so on. There are parts of the right who really are white nationalist. And I've learned this, I guess I'd say the hard way. I recently challenged Kevin Roberts, the president of the Kevin Roberts president of Heritage Foundation. Yeah, yeah. I challenged him to have a debate and we ended up doing an hour and ten minute podcast.

Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And look, we said two rules. We were going to be civil. Yeah. And, sorry. Well, we really tried.

We didn't do all right on that.

And mostly, and we were going to stay in our lane because Kevin is a historian. His PhD in history from UT Austin. And his dissertation was on slavery in Louisiana. And it's not bad 25 years ago. And he's also one of the architects of the new right, which is that project 2025.

Absolutely. And what they want in the future and has been on record as saying he wants the future to be Trumpism. Absolutely. And some of these executive orders come right out of project 2025 verbatim language. Right.

They were written over at Heritage Foundation. Many of them. But Kevin and I stayed in our lane as historians. We tried to be civil. And by and large, it didn't work.

Really? Well, we did remain civil. I was as host. I couldn't do. You know, I've been in that position.

I've been to that position. I've been to that position. Yeah. You've been a beautiful person. It works out better than other times.

Yeah. You've been a beautiful person. People, you'd like to kick that. I'm sure. Probably.

Is that safe to say? What did you think? Do you think he's being disingenuous then?

“What was his, especially if he's written a dissertation on slavery in Louisiana?”

I mean, surely he understands the complexity of it. Is he now being disingenuous for a purely political project? Sometimes he is. I'm totally convinced of that. He can read off, you know, 12 talking points.

Right. The Trump White House in two minutes. He's very good at that. But often the disingenuity, if that's the right word, comes when they start cherry picking.

When they start saying, well, there was this one exhibited to the African-American history museum that said this, that should not have said or there's that art museum over there that suggested that sculpture has something to do with scientific racism, which sometimes it does. But they will pick out a single cherry picked example somewhere and say, You see the whole damn institution has gone to hell with a bunch of liberals and

radicals. They can fuse anecdote with data, absolutely. And in your experience, because the Sally Heming thing was a very different situation in that there was a real denial of the reality of it. Their position there wasn't cherry picking emphasis.

It was, no, that's not true. None of those folks descended from Jefferson and Hemings. It's just not your line. Yeah, it was denial for the reason that was suggesting before that there was an image of Jefferson as almost the personification of American.

In some ways, that's not a crazy thing. That's one of the reasons he's an interesting figure for me because you can write about so much in American history through his life about slavery, race, politics, foreign policy, all of those things. And so he was a hero to people in a particular way.

And they had a sort of a personal identification with him. And they didn't want to lead that behind. But I do want to say something about the museum.

One of the interesting points that's happened here is that during the president's first

“term, I believe it was in the first term he visited the museum.”

And he was very complimentary of it. Yeah. I mean, he thought it was a, it was an uplifting story. And then it changed after I don't know what was the heritage foundation or the new, the new project that they put in place had to sort of alter the way they thought about

these kinds of things. And all of a sudden it becomes this cherry picking that you're talking about.

see that as a story of the bad and the good talking about it's sort of a progressive understanding of things of getting better and better as you go up the floors. And so it's exactly something that was made to in lots of ways to honor America,

not to be critical of it.

Oh, yeah. Not at all. It's the reason it was the hottest ticket in Washington. Right. Absolutely.

Because people do really want to know my experiences. People really want to know the truth and can handle it. And that was right at the beginning of his first term.

“I think that was like February 17 or something.”

But they hadn't really been fighting the culture wars to win yet. I mean, to really win. Now they are.

But why do they think why would you think that a more nuanced version of the history of this country

is something to win or that that's part of a culture war? Is the idea that if we acknowledge the complexity of it, we owe a debt to those who suffered, is it, is it about if. If you do acknowledge that there was explicit racist or exclusionary policy that built so much of the equity of this country. If you acknowledge that, are you then saying?

And now there is a debt to that acknowledgement. Absolutely. The thing is to say that black people, just it's usually black and white, it's much more complicated now in lots of ways with other minority groups. The idea is nothing happened to you.

“The disparities that we see in health care and education and wealth.”

All of those things, it's because you have not pulled yourself up by your bootstraps.

Nothing has happened to you. And if you tell a story, if you tell young people, wait a minute. You know, when a net Gordon was a little girl at six when she went to the doctor, she had to go to a separate waiting room that was much smaller and didn't have, you know, the accrued to the other side of the white one or if that you had to sit in the balcony.

If you talked about all those things and that they happened to, you know, people millions of people over the years, then you do owe them a debt. You do feel sympathy for them. And the lack of this notion that you shouldn't have empathy for people or sympathy for people is a big part of their, they're thinking because they really don't like the idea of social programs of any kind of responsibility that people have to try to alleviate those circumstances.

So it's, it's a way of saying, you know, we don't, you know, we don't have any responsibility. The society has no responsibility for the legal impediments that were put upon people for many, many decades. You guys are familiar with the internet, you've been on the internet. You probably have a computer, you probably have a, it's probably on your phone.

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They can't harm you if they can't find you. Click the link in the description to claim your 60% off and get your personal data off the market in Cogny.com/stuure. What's so interesting about that to me is so I think about it and maybe this is far field,

And working class whites, I would say are the primary victims of that kind of job loss, right?

It's very common in this country to say the policies that were instituted destroyed that economic prospects for those folks in that part of the country. It led them to deaths of despair. It brought out a lot of different vices and those kinds of things. And we're going to take policy measures to repair that damage. We're going to levy tariffs.

We're going to do various things to try and alleviate the suffering that occurred from the policies that were put in place.

“Isn't that the exact story of racially exclusionary policies?”

Why is that in any way a controversial issue? Well, okay, good question. I mean, I grew up-- I'm taking this class.

You get an A already done.

But I grew up in an auto town, Flint, Michigan. I grew up in an auto maker family. That white working class Midwest, that's where I'm from. So there's no question. Democrats lost that white working class and Republicans gained major portions of it.

Because of globalization, because of a loss of jobs, because of sending jobs abroad and on and on and on. No question.

“But what's also happened in that process is they have taught that white working class and a whole lot of other people to distrust institutions.”

Like universities, distrust institutions, like great museums, distrust this whole apparatus that an adenir just two small parts of the practice of history, the practice of academic, the creation of academic knowledge. And we got surprised by that. And this is where the left has to take at least a look in the mirror and realize that for years we were being distrusted and didn't really even know it. And we forgot that only about 47% of Americans ever even go to college, any kind of college.

And the slight majority of this country never sets foot on a college campus, even for a football game because they can't afford it.

So, you know, we lost touch in some ways. So we made our creation of knowledge obscure in many ways, although many of us for years and years on a net, you know, was a spearhead of this because of the Sally Heming's case. And that took time to convince Monticello and the country of its truth. But there's a resentment there because of its truth. Well, that's true, too.

There's a resentment towards a net or towards you for even bringing up that truth. Telling us the painful stories. That's right. Don't tell us those painful stories. Minkers feel good again.

And it makes me feel like it's a battle over who the real victims are. And now the white wearing glasses saying, no, no, no, no, no. It's not the woke that are the victim. It's us. Yeah.

We're actually the victim. Yeah. Well, there's the racial story that's involved in this as well. I mean, the white working class, you know, beloved of news organization, so forth. Sure.

They represent, they're seeing as representing real Americans in some ways. And this is sort of a way of saying that black people are kind of not real Americans. Explicitly so, even the heritage Americans. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

“And the truth is most African-American people are descended from people who came here in the 1700s.”

There are only 1700s. You know, so it, we would certainly be people who have a history here for very, very, you know, for centuries and yet we're not real Americans. So when you think about when people are told that the government and that's the other thing that they, if not only am is trusting universities, the government is the problem.

So we're an industrialized country that doesn't have a social welfare system anywhere like that approaches any place else. And in Europe and in our sort of people who have comparable types of societies. And so, and that is social scientists suggest is because of the racial question here. Is that people don't want those people, those people's children or those people to have, you know, to be helped in any way. And so it's, it's very much a sort of a heritage Christian nationalist kind of understanding of of who belongs in this country.

But at the core of it, is it resource guarding?

I'm going to say you because you have a dog. I have a dog.

So I'm always thinking of dogs.

“And I'm like, oh, they, they resource guard.”

Yeah. And in some ways, is that the resentment of, you know, you hear that a lot. If we weren't spending money on these immigrants and the health care, my life wouldn't be hard. But we're certainly not the only country with a complicated history. Oh, no, no, no.

Talk to the Russians and the Germans. Right. Uh, yeah. Well, but, but, you know, we do have something a little peculiar on them. And that is, you know, talk, talk to the right common Russians about progress. They might ask you what the hell that is, you know.

Talk to whatever generation of Germans about progress. But Americans have this, I don't know if it's DNA in the water, in the air, wherever it all comes from. There's this, it's, it's an American mythology. It's deep in American mythology. So our exceptionalism. Yeah. This place has to be about progress.

And these messy complicated, conflicted, difficult histories are disrupting that progress. Are showing us that, oh, my God. Well, look, our job has been for years. And we, and actually we're paying the price for some of our victories.

“I mean, I, I think so. And I, I wonder if a net does it.”

You're talking about victory progress in terms of civil rights and those kinds of things. It's, it breeding resentment in other groups, but even writing the new histories. I mean, both of us here came of age with the transformations of, of the subject of American history. It, race was the big subject for both of us, but many others, you know, the, the rewriting of American, the history of American foreign policy, the rewriting of the American West because of the explosion of scholarship on Native American history.

And, and sometimes, you know, maybe we did go overboard. Maybe we did stop studying the presidency. Over, when you say overboard, do you mean in terms of painting it as a story of pure, negative impulse or colonizer versus victim that in that way? Or, well, to some extent that, and if, if I hear one more student and a seminar use the term settler colonialism for just everything they want, I will stop them, because there are other, other ways into American history.

Right. But I think it's more than just, you know, shame or whatever. No, it's not. I'm talking about just the explosion of the new histories. I mean, there's so many new histories. We are so pluralistic.

And that, do you see that as well? Do you see a kind of access in, in the scholarship? Because it, it feels like it's never access if it's just, if people are just exploring those histories,

as long as there are other options to be studied, you know, if a college only offered you a narrow slice of, very specific, or colonialist victim histories. But it, it sounds like we're expanding the palette.

“Yeah, I would, you know, I would, you know, depart from David a little bit on this, because I think it's basically comes down to the sort of cherry picking that we're talking about before,”

that people come and they look, go to a university and they find some class that they think is crazy and say, this is what people are being taught. Right. Judges by its title usually. Yeah, by title, and people would say, you can't take Shakespeare anymore. There are no classics. You know, I went to Dartmouth and you could, and people would make these complaints about, you know, what, what's not there on the curriculum, but there are all the traditional things were there. It's just that they weren't focusing it on that.

I think I think it's more people being upset because they don't want other people. They don't want those kinds of things available at all, even though what they want is still there. That's the point. They don't want it available at all. It's a food court, and just because you've introduced a Panda Express, and Empanadas doesn't mean you can't still go to McDonald's. Exactly. It's all still there.

It's but it's the expansion of it is frightening. Yes.

I mean, when people come to something that you, you're not used to this. You used to the very things that you always went to, and now you have all these alternatives.

And, you know, it's Starbucks, you know, I, you know, I want my coffee, but I resentful that other people are getting the, the no whip, Fapuccino, whatever, but you can have those things if you want them. You can tell it's around lunchtime for all of them. Yeah, it's exactly. And all the analogies now are going to be food food related, but it's all taken as an attack.

What are the ways, you know, so let's think about, you know, there are countries, obviously, with even more complicated. South Africa is a great example. And now there's this real Renaissance and nostalgia for apartheid South Africa, Rhodesia and those kinds of areas.

Why is there an nostalgia for that? And, and did South Africa's truth and reconciliation commissions help bridge a gap to ease that? What's going on in these other complicated histories?

Well, it has been many, many different attempts at truth and reconciliation, truth commissions of various kinds. In fact, we did a conference comparing all those at Yale some years ago. There are many different efforts, and they're very difficult to do. And they're all rooted in their own cultures and their own histories, but, but thank God that the world is at least attempted to do this. And many different from India, to Germany, to South America, South Africa, you name it. Nostalgia for past, it's a human urge, you know, nostalgia for the British Empire when, you know, for some, not just Brits.

There are Americans who are Anglefiles and may yearn for, I don't know, some time in the history of the British Empire. They better not look at some of those wars, the British fought in Africa or India. Sure, I don't know. I get ugly. Or amongst themselves. Or amongst themselves.

“I think sometimes there's a feeling that if it was just homogenous, there wouldn't be issues.”

Yeah.

But human beings will always find a way to divide ourselves.

Oh, you know, and if you just, you can go back to, well, if it was just this Anglicized version of Christian Nationals. I mean, you're like, right, but who's version of it? And suddenly you're back in the Protestant Catholic wars. You're back into the hundred years' wars. You know, you're back into a whole other era of violence and division. Just based on different characteristics. Sure.

I once, uh, I was teaching a Germany 37 years ago, and I showed Ken Burns's film series on the Civil War. Mm-hmm. All dubbed into German, by the way. It was weird. But, um. Anyway, uh, German students came out from me and said, why is it you Americans think that everything

anything that happened to you was the greatest, the biggest, the bloodiest. And he said, if Americans ever heard of the 30 years' war, and I said, no, probably not. You know, I'm sorry, but they probably haven't. Right. You know, we don't do comparison that often.

But, uh, we should do more of it. But you know, the burden is still on us. It's still on us historians to make what we do clear.

“To, translate what we do. And, and I think, well, you've got two historians here have been attempting to do this for years and years and years.”

To reach out to real people who read books, you know, the public, uh, to write in ways that are not only accessible, but good narrative. Based on deep research, but good narrative. And historians lost touch with some of that over the years. The revolution in social history, the revolution in this kind of method, that kind of theory. But there's a real movement now. I think, uh, it's, it's an interesting, in fact, this conference I'm running here right now is all about this.

To, to take history to the public, take good history to the public, whether it's in museum exhibitions in our books, in lectures, tell the big, complicated stories. I like to eat things in bowls, bowls, bowls, all types of bowls. You can see that Leslie Jones wrap for messin' out bowls, bowls. It's about that I think it was this song 80, 80 Brian. I'm a back home ball or something like that.

“I hope this is not a digression, but I think bowls are probably the best, uh, receptacle by which man has created to eat things out of.”

Good enough for my dog, it's good enough for me and my favorite thing to put in bowls. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, serial.

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You know, Juneteenth is coming. Juneteenth and people may not know, but you play the crucial role in, I'm embarrassed to even say, when I was younger going to school,

I had no idea of that, the significance of that date, you know, we are taught the emancipation proclamation, and that's kind of the end of it. There's emancipation proclamation, and after that we were good, and then there was a little kerfuffle, and maybe the sixties.

“Somebody here at the book on that. That's what I'm saying. So, you know, a net that's coming up is that what was your process like in bringing that story more to the public forefront,”

and getting the acknowledgement of it from a government that's resistant to that kind of acknowledgement? Well, it was a pandemic book. Oh, that's your idea. If you don't leave the house, if you don't leave the house, you get a lot of writing done. Fair enough. I was there in Manhattan, and only going out to Central Park for for breaks and so on. But, you know, I thought that I could tell the story of Texas and this day through my family story.

So, and that's, I think that is David's point about making things accessible. People like stories about other people, you know, and that was the hook to try to do it.

I hadn't thought that the government, I hadn't thought that there would be a national holiday that there was another woman who's responsible, or, hopefully, who's more responsible for all of that, but the timing was good. And, you know, I worked on it and got it out, and it was, it was a way to try to get people to think about not just the emancipation proclamation, but also to think about how African-Americans and Texas and other places, in some ways, liberated themselves by leaving the plantations, and were responsible for, in some ways, for their own freedom.

I thought it would be, this was sort of a celebration of human rights that people in the country could just say, this is just a milestone. It's not the end of everything. It didn't end slavery, it didn't end the whole, the thing, the slavery ends with the fight. Right. But it was some, it's a marker for people to latch on to. Can I ask what the response is because I'm curious sometimes.

The standard historian framing and you brought up Ken Burns is you're studying this other period, and you're looking for all the source material, and you're sorting out who might have been lionizing themselves, grandisement, who is how are they manipulating the details of the events versus your story about through the lens of your family in Texas, where it's a much more personal story, and I would imagine harder to refute through the lens of intentional attacks.

“Yeah. Well, I think it's difficult because I don't write about myself as much easier to write about other people,”

you know, the people's families because, you know, it's just, you're too much into it. But by the same token, these are my impressions of my past, and so people can't, and this is what I think people can't come and say, that's not how you felt. You know, watching Billy Jack, that's not how you, that's not how you felt when you saw those movies. By the way, one of my favorites, I think that, in form, that you know a lot about people,

which side of the town, they were empathizing in Billy. If you know people that watch Billy Jack, and they, and you know which side they're empathizing on, and tells you a lot about where they're politics are. Oh, I mean, those movies, I mean, try to explain it to my kids. They were the best.

In my town, my little East Texas, you know, very, very conservative town. All of these people were just whipping in, you know, in favor of Billy Jack and his compatriots, something.

“You know, you're the same folks. Do you understand what this is about?”

I'm coming at this very differently. I was a high school teacher when Billy Jack came out. Man, that was hot. How many times I saw that was students, yeah. But you tell those kinds of stories and people relate to them,

and then you give them history, and then it becomes a part of the whole thing taken together. You know, then you hope that they learned something. It's a different way of doing it. But I want to ask you with somewhat confusing about, for me, about this 250th celebration.

One of the things that, you know, we were always taught about was this idea of American exceptionalism.

And that American exceptionalism was about the creed. It really was about the declaration of independence and all men are created equal. And that is what separated. And to go back to blood and soil feels like an admission of defeat.

We're not a shining city on a hill. We're just like every other nationalist movement in the history of the world.

“So why wouldn't the right embrace what truly is exceptional about the country?”

This creed so difficult to achieve, but certainly worth the pursuit. And what do you think of that? Well, a lot goes along with that if you believe in the creed.

You believe, I mean, and there've always been a segment of Americans.

When, you know, those words were written and when Jefferson said them, and we could, we don't have time to go into him on all of this. But there are always people who disputed that notion. And the civil war in the South explicitly rejected it. And you know, the cornerstone speech.

We don't believe those things. Jefferson was wrong, essentially, what they say. So we've always had that some percentage of people. Tell me what the cornerstone speech is because I'm not familiar with the cornerstone speech. Alexandria, the vice president of the Confederacy wrote a speech,

basically saying that the cornerstone of this new southern society that we're making was the idea that the African race was not created equal to white race. And he calls out Jefferson and says, basically, they were wrong. They believed, you know, essentially necessary evil. But they believed that slavery was a wrong thing.

And we don't believe that.

“We believe that that is the natural state of African Americans to be in slavery.”

And it somehow, somehow in the early 1900s, it became about stage rights. Is it my own house? Oh, yeah. Well, because at some point when racism becomes, they understand as a dirty word in some way.

You have to say, no, it's not it. And they know they were wrong. You know, people know they're wrong. They come up with some kind of explanation for what it is they're doing. And it is the tariff.

You know, you kill 600,000 people about the tariff. Right. It's like, no, I don't think so. So the notion changes. Especially when the cornerstone speech exists when it's when it's on record.

Yeah. On record, and it was just the beginning. I mean, this, every succession resolution told the world of the states to see the world. It told the world they were succeeding protect a racial system, a labor system. And by the way, that was a slave labor system.

But John, back to your cradle, your creed question.

I think it's crucial here.

It's absolutely crucial. The creeds were dangerous. The creeds were dangerous. That declaration of end of those four first principles. Life, liberty, pursuit of happiness on the right of,

doctrine of consent and the right of revolution. They're dangerous. And nobody appropriated them quite as vigorously, forcefully, hopefully as did black Americans eventually. And the whole abolition movement.

And that night we're just doing a teacher in suit together in Philadelphia, about the Constitution. And she heard me on this. But if a person goes and just reads the declaration today, which we'll be hearing endlessly in the next week or two,

stop and look. Jefferson spent more words and so did the whole committee than wrote it. Defending the right of revolution than they did of the other natural rights. Almost as though life and liberty and consent or given's, but that right of revolution, you're going to overthrow monarch.

You're going to overthrow government. They spent 22 lines of the declaration justifying that as a human right. Those are dangerous creeds. But you're right. We all own the creeds.

“And why doesn't the right want to embrace the creeds a little more?”

Well, they do to their own purposes. But those creeds were dangerous too. It depends on who gets to use them. They've seen how people have used them as you were saying here.

The first people who file petitions, freedom suits,

all of those things are African-American people who's in wait a minute. We've created this country. And that is, that is an exceptional thing. I mean, to go from a monarchy to a republic. Right.

In this modern world, that's a big deal. And it damn there didn't work. And almost didn't work. And it was contingent at every stage. And so when you see the people who have used this,

black people have used it. Women used it in Senika Falls 1848. Gay people have used it. Labor movement. Labor movement used it's the right to strike.

All those things come out of this notion of the creed. And so if you don't like those things, if you don't want to see a racial hierarchy leveled, if you don't want equal rights for women, if you don't want labor unions to be able to collect

of the bargain, if you don't want immigrants. I mean, the creed was used to teach people who came to the country.

And if you believe these things,

“and you support this, you are an American.”

If you don't like those, those people, those ideas, then you're going to be against it. The creed is David Satt is very, very dangerous. Because of who in history shows who has used those things, to make a different place for themselves.

Is it the success then of the creed that and the people that have used that as a folk room to elevate themselves to their natural, unalignable rights? Is the success of that?

What animates the backlash, always?

You know, we talk about kind of the idea of, well, let's look at Germany. So Germany tries to reckon with its past to create laws that you can't deny the Holocaust, and all these other things.

And, you know, people view it as this is a successful way of facing up to a difficult past. But nothing has animated in Germany right now more than the far right. Yeah.

I was just in Berlin two weeks ago, John, a given lecture American Academy,

“and I spent some time in Central Berlin.”

When do you guys have office hours? I'm hearing about it. It's June, man. I'm down here to a speech of over here signing a book. Oh, yeah, well, it's June, man.

When do they come in for the office hours? All right. I'll accept it. June is every academic's favorite month.

In fact, I've always wondered why I've got

had all that power. Why didn't you create two tunes? I want two tunes. Anyway, but Germany has in Central Berlin and three, at least great museums, and of course,

the huge Holocaust Memorial, has faced its past to time, has faced its past nationally more than any other country. And they had the most difficult past of face. But that's because the world made them do it.

Yeah. The world was looking in on the cold war made them do it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. No one came from outside to force Americans to face their past. We have to do it through our politics. We have to do it through history, which makes it a political fight,

as well as a scholarly fight and a history fight and a teaching fight. And what we're in now is that it's a whole new level of that.

I mean, there's, there's never been an executive branch

a presidency take on the entire practice of history. Museums, the universities, et cetera, like what has happened. Certainly not in this country. I mean, it's been done. Not in this country.

Oh, yes. It's been done in other autocracies. Yeah. And that's exactly what's been done in the past year. And we are catching up.

We are trying to figure out what our own resources had a fight back. And we are fighting back. Are you heartened in any way? And that are you heartened in any way by sort of the small acts of

defiance of that. Well, any act of defiance is heartening to see people doing things to stand up against it because it has been saying. I mean, American people, most American people don't want a white wash history.

And there are people who standing up to say, you know, local school boards gets book banning. And so forth, it's pulling people out who don't normally participate in these kinds of things. And that's what it's going to take.

It's going to have to take people saying we don't want to live in Hungary. Hungary didn't want to live in Hungary. Right. And you know, after a while.

And this is our great thing was you were able to think and to say what you, you know, say what you think about things. So I've set on many, you know, advisory committees and so forth recently in meetings and museums and places. And people are scared to say stuff.

Or wondering about, can we say this? I'm frightened to put their funding at risk. I mean, there's, there's a, it's a funding issue as well. I'm never, you never in all years have, have, you know, I heard people act like that.

Is it used to, when we grew up? Oh, there's self censoring going on everywhere. And it's like, it's censoring from the top in places like the National Park Service where I'm located right now. And, and other federal agencies.

“But here's one good sign. And I think, and that knows about this.”

On September 26, John, there's going to be a day or a weekend. And there's a whole coalition of organizations, the major history associations, the association of local history. All kinds of historical associations, museums, and so on. Have come together and a lot of them are at this little conference

I'm hosting. It's going to be a day they're calling, we want more history. We want more history. And it's going to be, it's not the snappiest. I know it's not.

I wasn't in the committee to create a day we want more history.

Americans always want, "want, want, want, want, want, want, want."

But it's going to be a day when every little, every small museum, every historical society is going to be challenged. We're going to do today to fight back against this attempt to control how we get to know our history.

“I think there's a lot of damage being done.”

And I am not terribly hopeful about this, but it's very hard to take over a country's history, teaching of it, writing of it, representing it, when it's been pretty free for a long time. They're not going to win this one in the long run.

They're going to do a lot of damage along the way. But I don't think they win this in the long run. And it's a political question. The question is, what do citizens do? Absolutely.

Historians, we can do things, but as we do things as historians, as citizens,

but other people, this is about voting. It's about who's in power. And the American people have to take control of that. Well, it's so interesting. We bring that up and that because it is when you look at the battle plan

to take control of that. There's the historical aspect. But there really is almost more importantly, the voting aspect than when you see them rip out the pillars of the voting rights act or to suggest, and I'm really not sure how this is going to happen.

It's okay to gerrymander for ideological and partisan gain, but not, and if those are synonymous with race too bad, and if districts that are majority minority lose their ability, not to have minority representation, but to have their voice matter within their cohort,

that's the interesting thing that they're not just attacking this in one area.

There are tentacles. Oh, yeah. This is a full force widespread, well coordinated. Does Roberts admit to that, David, when you were having your debate with him, I'm curious how he would frame the difference between creed and blood in soil as his story,

or to see, to see, brush over it because the project takes precedence over everything. No, no, he wants to speak about creed. He is a Christian nationalist. He's a Catholic Christian nationalist, and those labels matter to him. I used to run a small private Catholic school, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

How does he square that with the American creed? Good question. I tried to get him to respond about separation of church and state, and he changed the subject. So, you know, that's what they do.

But you see, the far right wants the creeds, and they tend to talk about them by talking about how much we, the left, liberals, scholars, have soiled those creeds. Have misused those creeds. Have twisted those creeds.

Have called the abuses of those creeds a shame on the country, and on and on and on. They go on the attack immediately, rather than to step back and calmly say, you know, we're all part of those creeds, all of us. And we didn't have that separation of church and state.

We may have blown apart by now. Right. And we may again, they're very selective. And is there any acknowledgement that any project of this kind of exceptionalism

“is going to, if it wasn't a battle, it wouldn't be so exceptional?”

Exactly. If the attempt to create what's happening wasn't hard, will everyone would do it? Every look at every major religion in the world that finds itself on creeds, it ends up fighting.

Right. It ends up having schism after schism. Breakups, Protestant Reformations and on and on and on. It's the same if a creedal nation has set itself up to violate the creeds. Because you know, we don't obey all the 10 commandments either.

But you have to have the aspiration. Yes. Oh, yeah. Yes. And that's America as an aspirational country.

Without that, we're nowhere. I mean, you, how can African-American people?

“How can any group of people who've been discriminated against in this country that has the history that we have without thinking about the notion of aspirations?”

And even, you know, not even people who've been oppressed necessarily. You have to aspire to something. I exceptionalism is problematic. I have no question about that. But the idea that you don't see what an enormously important project it was for the founding of a country based on

Republican, democratic Republicanism versus a monarchy. Right. And to include words that people have used over the years to make a place for themselves and it. That is, it's an exceptional thing.

And we should be trumpeting. Don't you think a net this is one of the reasons some. I hate to racialize anything. But sometimes people, white people are surprised when they encounter black patriotism. When they encounter, you know, black folks wanting to take back the flag.

Take back the declaration. Oh, absolutely. You know, because they say, well, wait a minute. Why would you do that? Because it belongs to us.

Because we've been here forever. Right. And I mean, in some periods of times, it was, it was frowned upon for African Americans to celebrate the Fourth of July. Yeah.

And from whites, because they thought that this was provocative. You're claiming these rights to themselves.

“Well, Douglas himself made that famous speech about, you know, what is the Fourth of July?”

A rhetorical masterpiece. Right. But it really is, you know, it reminds us that aspiration is the fuel of progress. It's the catalyst that drives it forward.

And it's always been present.

And the thing that I think, and maybe this is a nice place to kind of wrap it through is what happens to a country when it begins to take its exceptionalism as birthright. And not as a project worthy of constant iteration and edit and aspiration. Decadence. Yes.

Degeneration. Yes. And, you know, maybe they would become a Roman Empire that may begin to collapse with gladiators. I mean, I'm just saying, you know, that would never happen here. So the idea that on the wall of the People's House had to make a man who'd grapple seems absurd.

No, you know, you know, John, I'm sure you know this. But in all those centers out there that are studying democracy, they're all kinds of these. And they do indexes. The United States is now in that middle zone of democracies that are falling back into a democracy by any measure, yeah, any measure, softly and otherwise, yeah, no, you're absolutely right.

And it's happened so quickly at a very surprising rapidity. Well, it's happened. It's happened over a long period, but it's hitting us quickly. There's no question. Yeah, no.

One of the great bulwarks against that slide is the work of fabulous historians.

And I thank you both just for the incredible work you both do.

And the fact that you helped build that wall that is protective against those kinds of things. David Blight, Sterling Professor of History at Yale University in Ed Gordon-Reed, the Karolob University Professor at Harvard University. Guys, thank you so much for joining us today. Really appreciate it.

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“Like, I think to the point where I like,”

I think they're like, dude, I... Office hours are over. But you keep getting A's and all these classes. Not challenging. Your professor on, they're like, you get me.

You get it, and you get it. You get it, baby. Stunningly, when I was in college, I didn't get any of those. A plus?

I know.

I don't know what the hell happened.

We're suddenly... I was like, ooh, knowledge. I think that's fair. I feel like college is kind of wasted on young people. Right.

Don't have the same impression of, like, oh my god, I get to just learn from these people. That's insane. It is interesting that the view on the right is that, you know, these colleges are indoctrination centers

of this left wing, you know, bias and all that. But my experience with college students 'cause I have two of them. Is that overwhelmingly the ethos at college is not indoctrination,

but how am I going to get a job? Yeah. How am I going to meet a partner? How am I going to get drunk? Like, overwhelmingly,

college is not these hotbeds of indoctrination. Yeah, it's almost like they're being disingenuous when they say that. Well, Julia, I didn't want to say it in that way. They're like, look at these college students with all their ideology. I'm like, I would love for you to turn that mirror on yourself, bro.

Turn it on yourself, bro, because really,

they're just looking to score some gummies. It's not that hard. It's not that serious. And they're all like everywhere you're looking. I'm like, I've met some of these STEM students.

Dude, they wouldn't. They're literally just like, I can't believe they gave me 20 pages of problems. What the fuck is happening in my life? Yeah, they're just like cold brew all night in the library. Trying to make it through.

Wait a minute, I just noticed Brittany. Yes. You're rocking the Stevie Nicks. What happened there? Taylor Swift went to the thing,

and they all designed their own shirts, and they've exploded. It exploded everywhere. Nicks puns. It's all fun. I know.

I saw the New York Philharmonic has a shirt out. That's too hard. Really? Yeah, that's funny. I imagine Nick and I should be jumping on this.

That's a good one.

I'm like, oh, they got a rebrand that for next year.

Nick said, yeah, let's go. Just to be clear, I did not make this myself. Like she did. Now, do they have, are they already selling those? Absolutely.

Yes. Like multiple places are just, yeah.

“I did overnight this, but why is it that I can never catch that lightning in a bottle?”

You know, she's effortless. Taylor Swift is effortless. She just thinks, oh, you know what? I'll have a fun little thing with my friends. Time.

And we'll put some shirts on. And then next thing, you know, it's probably a multimillion dollar business. Yeah. And I'm still literally in the living room with my wife going. I'm telling you the crumple.

If you make a dog bed for dogs, you throw it down. It changes the topography every time. We call it the crumple. Sharks. I'm offering you 10%.

It's going to happen. Who wants to get on the floor with me and make some money? It's effortless for her. It's crazy. It's ridiculous.

It is effortless. Did you guys watch the, the, how did you experience the festivities? I did. I did. I just watched that home and then actually like did the streets explode outside your apartment.

Yes. So that's what I did. I like when I, I was getting a little optimistic near the end. So I actually put, I put my TV on mute and I opened up the windows. So I could just hear the reaction.

You felt that.

“That's what I wanted to do is feel the city.”

Yeah. And then after after it ended, I went out on the street and I took my dog on a walk. And we got to see everybody celebrating and stuff. Oh, it was great. That's awesome.

How did your dog handle it? I was going to say, I was like, that sounds like a great story. Except he's like, we're walking towards the loud noises. Right. Right.

I don't know. Roman candles. My favorite. Yeah. Brittany did you, did you pop outside as well?

I stayed awake this time. Nice. And we did. I ran outside when there was like five minutes left. There was like a pizza place near me.

Then that like screen set up and it was wild. But the best part was the TV was on delay. So we kept just refreshing our phone to see. And so we saw that they had one. And you were like, they won.

And it was awesome. And then my favorites. It's so cool. It's just a wonderful night. Yeah.

You know, smile. I was the one who I was saying, you know, where you're going to watch. You think it about maybe Madison Square Garden or something like that. And then how's it goes? I got to tell you.

I want to feel the city. Yeah. And it sounded so like. And I was like, yes. Feel the city.

That's what we want. And so that's that's what we did. We went down. You're in the streets. Well, they showed you on the broadcast.

Yeah. That wasn't cool. I was. I was. I was like stand out there.

I just looked up. I was like. Oh, I don't know. You were the Spider-Man meme. I don't know what's happening right now.

Hey, uh, feel the city would be a good t-shirt on. Feel the city. I like that. Yeah. Get on it.

You know what else?

“What if to feel the city shirt doubled as a crumple?”

And you made it on the floor. Brittany, what are the people want to know this week?

John, after 250 years, is it fitting or disturbing that Trump is president?

Oh, God. It fitting or did. Wait, what? Fitting. It's not fitting.

This is. It's Trump.

“As president is not befitting of a country.”

We just talked about this grand experiment of exceptionalism of a creed that, uh, a people must strive morally and aspirationally to get to. And now we're just a subsidiary of Trump enterprises. It's, he can't be the, at the 250. It's such the wrong, you know what it reminds me of.

We're like a long running show, like a Broadway show. Yeah. We're like it's 250 years of cats. But now instead of like the, the big stars that were there.

Now it's just like from summer house.

That's what, that's where we're at. We're at the replacement level. Reality TV star taking over a hallowed institution. And the audience is on their phones. And the audience is on their phones.

Well, like I remember when I saw this with Matthew Praterick. It was great. It was great. And now Sky doesn't even know how to say. Take itself down the toilet.

Yeah. No. Okay. Next. Next.

“John, are you going to replace the next picture above your door with a picture of the 2016?”

I would, you know what, I, I would love a companion. Yeah. To that space looking at it out. Yeah. I love that picture so much.

Because that is, that's, it's when I fell in love with that team. The, the, the willys read and the magical coming out after, you know, hurting his leg and hitting two quick jumpers. You know, to bleed, you know, the nicks to, to big. I mean, he went out of the game after that. But he sort of inspired the team.

Bradley and DeBusher would just, these unbelievable. They were the great, like, corner, you know, Bradley from the corner, just pop and Walt Frazier was a magician and Dickie Barnett and just, those were the teams that I fell in love with and then they ended up adding or all the pearl and winning again in, in 73. But that team just represents like, I just loved the city so much.

And I love that and that team just felt so representative because it wasn't also like back then it was Will Chamberlain and like, you know, the Celtics, Dynasties and all that shit.

And my first ever game at the garden was a double overtime playoff game, Nick Celtics.

My brother and I went. Yeah, yeah. And nicks were getting the doors blown off. Funny is a very similar kind of game they're getting the doors blown off in the first half. And then Frazier just came alive and they tied the game, went it to overtime.

Double overtime. These were the Jojo White Celtics, Dave Cowen.

“And all those guys and have a check I think who wasn't playing.”

But yeah, just, just the best. And in the heart of the city, you know, just, it's just such a special, there's none of the like metal, metal and bullshit. There's none of the like where oh, they're the New York Nicks, but they play in a swamp somewhere near exit 16 W like it was in the city.

You could take the subway there. You could walk outside and feel this, it's that thing. You know, I go saying, felt the city, whenever you went to the garden, you felt the city. Just fantastic. Were you court side for that game as well?

Yeah, no, they told me right. I was right next to the stars of the day. Yeah, I'm not even sure. I mean, I think I might have gotten altitude sickness at that. Like the rafters are real.

Rafters are real barely. See up there. Yeah. But, but they are, as they say about the rafters, they are real. And they are spectacular.

All right, we got to get you a picture to go up there. Yeah, yeah. What else we got? Final question in the trilogy of Taco Bell questions. Oh.

The people want to know. They really do. Chipotle or Taco Bell. Oh, please. How is this even a question?

Chipotle, hey, well, you want me to just scoop it out of a bucket for you. Hey, hey, come on in here. What do you want? A bucket of chicken or you want a bucket of beef. Or maybe I could give you a bucket of black bean mush that we decided to add.

Whatever fucking ridiculous ghost pepper spice they put in there. Like brutal. It's brutal. Yeah. I don't like to eat at a bucket.

I like to see some work. I like some ore agami. I want to see. I want to know that a craftsman that an artist now to be fair. They probably do use buckets.

I just don't see that part. The real mistake of Chipotle is putting the bucket in. You're walking right down the street with them.

It is bucket. You want to add it.

Let me get my ice cream scoop.

“And you're watching them also do the like portion training.”

Yeah. Where they're like, give me to half scoop and the thing. Let me get them to think of rice and then like, you know. There's a lot of manipulation that goes on.

I like to, I don't want to see the work.

I want to see once the piece of paper becomes a swan. That's all I want. I want to see the swan. I don't want to see the folding.

“I definitely don't want to see the folding.”

Yeah. Fantastic. How they get in touch with this printing? Twitter. We are weekly show pod.

Instagram, Thuds, Tik Tok, Blue Sky. We are weekly show podcasts.

“And you can like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel.”

The weekly show with John Stewart. Boom. Do it. Thanks again.

As always, produce a printing.

A matter of producer Gillian's peer video editor and engineer Rob Atoll has worked out for him today audio editor and engineer Nicole Boyz. How to work cut out for today. And our executive producer's Chris McShane and Katie Gray. Thanks so much and we'll see you next week. [Music]

The weekly show with John Stewart is a comedy central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Bustboy Productions. [Music] [Music]