WEBVTT - America in Free Fall? Historian Jill Lepore on the US at 250 0:00:02.720 --> 0:00:07.200 Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:13.920 We are a very complicated country with a very complicated 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:17.680 relationship to family, community. I think all Americans just kind 0:00:17.680 --> 0:00:21.360 of wrestle with that, celebrate that wrestle with it. Wonder 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:24.320 whether we have lived up to the nation's ideals. These 0:00:24.320 --> 0:00:26.720 are questions, maybe more at this moment than in any other, 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:28.400 as we're on the eve of the nation's two hundred 0:00:28.400 --> 0:00:29.320 and fiftieth anniversary. 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:35.280 Jill Lepaul pull It surprise winning Historian of the United States, 0:00:36.400 --> 0:00:39.400 I think from your voice, I feel that this weighs 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:41.840 very heavily on you this moment in time. 0:00:42.320 --> 0:00:45.120 I think it weighs heavily on everyone, whether it's their 0:00:45.200 --> 0:00:47.839 job to think about it all day or not. We 0:00:48.000 --> 0:00:51.680 are in free fall off a cliff here. I don't 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:52.840 know when we land. 0:00:55.440 --> 0:01:00.280 From Blueberg Weekend. This is the Michelle Hussein Show. I'm 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:09.080 Michelle Hussein. America's big birthday is upon us. It was 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:13.520 on the fourth of July seventeen seventy six that a 0:01:13.680 --> 0:01:19.559 relatively short text, the Declaration of Independence, was formally adopted 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:24.880 in Philadelphia. Our final departure of British troops from the 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.840 United States was still some years away, and so was 0:01:29.120 --> 0:01:33.720 the other key foundational document of the country, the Constitution, 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:40.880 which wasn't even drafted until seventeen eighty seven. And that's 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:46.280 the text that's our route into America's story. This July fourth, 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.400 the Harvard historian Jill Lapau joins me to take us 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:54.560 through her monumental work, We the People. It's a book 0:01:54.640 --> 0:01:59.080 on how the Constitution came about and crucially, how there 0:01:59.200 --> 0:02:03.520 was an expect that it would likely change over time. 0:02:04.360 --> 0:02:09.200 This is, not, however, an episode entirely set in the past, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:14.160 because Jill Lepaul is acutely alive to the pressures of 0:02:14.320 --> 0:02:19.880 our time, to a contested sense of what America is 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:24.959 or what it should be. She's also unusual in her background, 0:02:25.320 --> 0:02:28.760 and we'll talk about this early on. She's very far 0:02:28.919 --> 0:02:33.360 from an Ivory Tower type historian. She's served in the 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.800 US military, and her route into teaching history at Harvard 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:43.960 is a sideways one. Plus she's prolific articles, a podcast 0:02:44.000 --> 0:02:48.000 series on Elon Musk, and many books. We the People 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:51.600 has just won her a Pulitzer Prize, and her next book, 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:54.880 The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State, which is 0:02:55.440 --> 0:03:01.119 about technology and democracy, is out next month. So here 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.920 is Jill Leppaul on America Past and Present. 0:03:07.280 --> 0:03:09.280 Oh, hello, thanks so much for having me. 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.600 Anything in particular on your mind today that you're particularly 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.240 thinking about or state of the world. 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:19.200 Yeah, you try to think about lunch just to get 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:22.799 through the day. Really mean, that's my plan. 0:03:23.480 --> 0:03:26.120 I'd love to begin with a sense of you before 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:28.720 we move on to your work, particularly because I was 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:31.120 struck by the fact that you are one of the 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.360 foremost scholars and writers on American history, and yet you 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:37.640 have an unusual background as a professor of history, because 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:41.440 neither of your first two degrees are in history, none. 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.120 Of minor in history. Yeah. I always wanted to just 0:03:45.160 --> 0:03:48.920 be a writer and graduated early with a degree in English. 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:50.640 Because I couldn't afford to stay in college. I worked 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:53.400 as a secretary actually here at Harvard for a while 0:03:53.880 --> 0:03:57.480 and wrote novels during the workday and sat in on classes. 0:03:57.840 --> 0:04:00.320 I was a high school athlete, do you know, girl 0:04:00.360 --> 0:04:03.640 scout person with a great sense of civic duty. Had 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:06.600 no money for college, and I got an ROTC scholarship 0:04:06.640 --> 0:04:07.600 to go to college. 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:10.400 So which is the system by which your tuition, fees 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:12.840 and all the expenses are paid for? In exchange for 0:04:13.160 --> 0:04:16.200 agreeing to serve in the military. Afterwards agreeing to serve. 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:17.360 Yeah, yeah, so. 0:04:17.400 --> 0:04:20.120 Then what happened? What changed? You're talking to us now 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:23.840 about your books on constitutional and other history, but you 0:04:23.880 --> 0:04:26.799 could have been sitting in the Pentagon listening to Pete 0:04:26.800 --> 0:04:27.679 Hesit speak. 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.960 I do sometimes think about that. Yeah, And all my 0:04:31.000 --> 0:04:34.679 friends in college were ROTC kids. You know, you incur 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:37.279 a service obligation when you went to your sophomore year. 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:42.479 And I actually loved ROTC. But at the time, Reagan's 0:04:42.480 --> 0:04:46.640 foreign policy was really interventionist. For instance, in Haiti and 0:04:46.680 --> 0:04:50.880 in particular, Reagan was exploring what was colloquially known as 0:04:50.920 --> 0:04:54.960 the star Wars program, the Strategic Defense Initiative. He was 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:58.480 going to build a missile shield something like the Israeli 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.400 Iron Dome right around the planet to end the Cold War. 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:04.960 And so all the students were engineers, and everyone thought 0:05:05.480 --> 0:05:11.799 the star Wars plan was completely nonsensical as an engineering design, 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:14.680 and I thought politically it was also nonsensical. And I 0:05:14.720 --> 0:05:17.320 went and had a meeting with my commanding officer and 0:05:17.400 --> 0:05:19.400 I said, I don't think I could work on that, 0:05:20.760 --> 0:05:23.880 and he said, you know, cadet, and you can't be 0:05:23.960 --> 0:05:26.120 in the military. You don't get to choose. This is 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:27.480 not going to be for you if you're going to 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:29.800 be evaluating the projects that are coming out of the 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:33.159 Pentagon as to whether or not you're ethically willing to 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.719 comply with them. He was a lovely person and he 0:05:35.760 --> 0:05:36.640 was a very wise man. 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:39.400 So it was a folk in the road moment. So 0:05:39.440 --> 0:05:43.040 how did history come into it? Then? Did it happen 0:05:43.400 --> 0:05:47.640 while you were working at Harvard as a secretary. 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.560 I don't think that my interest in history is necessarily 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:55.000 the same as that of many of my wonderful and 0:05:55.080 --> 0:05:58.080 distinguished colleagues, who I think are often are interested in 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:02.680 the debates among historians about how to interpret moments or 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:06.880 forces of change. I am interested in the relationship between 0:06:06.880 --> 0:06:09.560 the past and the present in a very vernacular way, 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:12.320 right in the sense of I think we all walk 0:06:12.400 --> 0:06:15.120 through our lives wondering how we got to where we are, 0:06:15.320 --> 0:06:18.600 how the institutions we work for, are, the companies we 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:21.440 work for, or the farms on which we work got 0:06:21.440 --> 0:06:24.640 to be where they are. I'm just really interested in 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:27.080 inquiring into the relationship between the past and the present 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:32.560 and finding explanations that, in my mind, often offer a 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.880 way for me to think about how to escape sometimes 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.520 what feels like difficult present moments. 0:06:38.800 --> 0:06:41.720 I'm also wondering to what extent the past and your 0:06:41.760 --> 0:06:45.560 relationship with America's past was there in your family life. 0:06:45.640 --> 0:06:51.279 Because you're the grandchild of immigrants, aren't you Italian immigrants? 0:06:51.320 --> 0:06:54.880 Is it true that your grandmother never spoke any English, 0:06:54.920 --> 0:06:57.080 you can never actually communicate with her. 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.560 Yeah, no, she did. She didn't as far as her 0:07:00.560 --> 0:07:03.039 Italian we were always told mainly she was swearing. She 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:05.400 was a hilarious, very earthy woman. 0:07:05.960 --> 0:07:08.480 But do you remember thinking about America's past in this 0:07:09.040 --> 0:07:11.560 very real way? It was a country that your grandparents chose. 0:07:12.120 --> 0:07:14.880 Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, my father was born here in 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:17.800 nineteen twenty four and was given the middle name Americo 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:20.920 after Vespucci. But because he was born in the United 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:23.520 States in nineteen twenty four is also the year that 0:07:23.600 --> 0:07:27.640 Congress passed the Immigration Act that essentially closed the doors 0:07:28.080 --> 0:07:31.360 of the United States to immigrants, certainly from Eastern Europe 0:07:31.680 --> 0:07:35.400 and to significantly from Western Europe as well. I don't know, 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:37.960 I remember my dad telling me about that. When he 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:40.160 was confirmed, he changed his middle name to Edward. That 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:43.160 was his confirmation name, and there was a real kind 0:07:43.200 --> 0:07:45.200 of a rasure. He was one of those second generation 0:07:45.280 --> 0:07:47.880 immigrants who he was completely fluent in Italian, but never 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:49.640 spoke it with us. He didn't want us to learn 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:50.520 to speak Italian. 0:07:50.880 --> 0:07:52.400 You mean because he was embarrassed. 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:54.320 I don't know. I think most I think most Americans 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:56.440 grow up with some version of, you know, their account 0:07:56.560 --> 0:07:59.240 of the nation's history as a version of their family story. 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.720 Whether you yourself are an immigrant or you know your 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:06.320 family has been in this country for generations upon generations. 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:07.720 Do you think you'll follow the changing His middle name 0:08:07.880 --> 0:08:11.240 was a deliberate, active integration h try and be like 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:12.080 everyone else. 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:14.800 Maybe I think he was maybe a little bit embarrassed 0:08:14.800 --> 0:08:16.960 by it. But I once wrote an article all the 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:20.000 Everyman Library about my father's books, because when he died, 0:08:20.040 --> 0:08:23.480 I inherited these books that he had, which are basically 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:26.560 as college textbooks, and he had a copy of the 0:08:26.560 --> 0:08:29.720 Aeneid that he had really marked up, you know, which 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:33.080 is a journey about trying to get home, much like 0:08:33.120 --> 0:08:35.960 the Odyssey. And I think my father had a very 0:08:36.240 --> 0:08:40.720 complicated relationship with the idea that he had come from 0:08:40.720 --> 0:08:43.080 someplace else. He was so rooted in the United States. 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:45.800 I think for anyone also an Italian American fighting in 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.080 the Second World War, fighting you know, against the access 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:51.679 powers that included Italy, was really complicated. My mother was 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:55.320 descended from Germans and her father had worked for the 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:58.079 Navy during the First World War, but was a German 0:08:58.120 --> 0:09:01.520 American who was pushed out of that kind of work. 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.760 He had been at MIT and German Americans were considered 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:07.880 a security rest during the First World War. So I 0:09:07.880 --> 0:09:11.200 don't think there's anything unusual in my story, you know, 0:09:11.440 --> 0:09:14.960 I really I do think we are a very complicated 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:20.120 country with a very complicated relationship to family, community, the 0:09:20.160 --> 0:09:23.360 idea of the nation state, the tension between the universal 0:09:23.400 --> 0:09:27.880 and the particular. What makes America both distinctive and the 0:09:27.920 --> 0:09:31.600 fountain head of universal ideas or ideas that have been 0:09:31.960 --> 0:09:34.880 embraced around the world. I think all Americans kind of 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:39.000 wrestle with that, celebrate that, wrestle with it. Wonder whether 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.920 we have lived up to the nation's ideals. I think 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:44.040 these are questions, maybe more at this moment than in 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:45.720 any other. As we're on the eve of the nation's 0:09:45.720 --> 0:09:49.240 two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, we're swimming in our history 0:09:49.320 --> 0:09:51.480 right now. The question is really whether we're drowning in it. 0:09:51.960 --> 0:09:54.360 Yes, So let's come right up to the present day then, 0:09:54.480 --> 0:09:58.319 and your book, which is heavy in its subject matter 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:00.440 and physically heavy as well, because it's a it's a 0:10:00.440 --> 0:10:03.560 big work and it's about the US Constitution. We the 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:06.800 people tell us about it, particularly the fact that you 0:10:06.960 --> 0:10:11.000 focused on how it was intended to be a living document, 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:12.400 not a tablet of stone. 0:10:12.800 --> 0:10:15.520 Yeah, I think we have to the agree that Americans 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:17.760 kind of carry around with them any sense of the 0:10:17.800 --> 0:10:20.960 Constitution as having a history as opposed to just being, 0:10:21.280 --> 0:10:23.040 you know, a piece of parchment that you could go 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.400 see at the National Shrine in the National Archives or 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:28.640 something that members of Congress will waive these kind of 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:30.840 pocket editions at one another. To the extent that we 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.280 have idea that has a history that we could trace 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.480 it over time, that ideas really relies on the Supreme Court. 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:39.920 So like in law schools I'm speaking now from the 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:43.640 Harvard Law School, law students are really taught to learn 0:10:43.720 --> 0:10:46.920 a series of Supreme Court decisions and that's how lawyers 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:48.560 and judges are going to argue about the meaning of 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:51.040 the Constitution. This is a reference to earlier decisions of 0:10:51.040 --> 0:10:54.560 the Supreme Court, and as an American historian interested in 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:57.080 the story of the people as a whole, that always 0:10:57.080 --> 0:11:02.120 seemed to me something of a problem because it presumes 0:11:02.160 --> 0:11:04.920 that the Court itself has created a fiction about which 0:11:04.960 --> 0:11:08.240 is that the Supreme Court is the only authority on 0:11:08.280 --> 0:11:11.160 the Constitution and the only mode of constitutional change that 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.120 it's possible is seeking change by way of the Supreme Court, 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:18.319 when in fact that is absolutely of a crucial way 0:11:18.440 --> 0:11:21.440 that the Constitution changes, and the Supreme Court has an 0:11:21.480 --> 0:11:24.559 unparalleled role in changing the Constitution. But if we think 0:11:24.559 --> 0:11:27.400 about the history of the constitutions only that way, we 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:31.000 miss that the Constitution was written in an age that 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:34.720 celebrated what I call the philosophy of amendment, the idea 0:11:35.000 --> 0:11:37.559 very Enlightenment idea, kind of almost panglossy and like the 0:11:37.559 --> 0:11:40.120 world is getting better every day in every way. The 0:11:40.200 --> 0:11:42.920 idea that if you're going to write down a constitution, 0:11:43.000 --> 0:11:44.480 which was new, which is a new idea in the 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:46.640 eighteenth century, if you're going to write down a constitution, 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:48.720 and is an ingenious thing because then it's going to 0:11:48.720 --> 0:11:51.920 be transparent, the powers that government has, the limits to 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:53.920 the powers of government, the rights of the people. All 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:55.760 those things are going to be written down. We can 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.400 inspect them, we can hold the government accountable to those things. 0:11:58.520 --> 0:12:01.800 We can insist on those limits, can insist on those rights. 0:12:01.840 --> 0:12:03.920 This is a genius idea, but that if you're going 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.280 to write something down, there has to be a way 0:12:06.320 --> 0:12:09.240 for it to change over time, and it can't be 0:12:09.360 --> 0:12:12.679 changed by the forces of tyranny, which will be the 0:12:12.720 --> 0:12:16.160 inevitable mode of change that all of human history. Explained 0:12:16.320 --> 0:12:19.280 to the framers of the US Constitution, that humans, for 0:12:19.760 --> 0:12:22.400 almost the entirety of human history, have been ruled by tyrants, 0:12:22.400 --> 0:12:25.040 been ruled by force and violence. So you have to 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.880 have a mechanism for change. And that mechanism is amendment. 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:31.000 And it's within the document because I'm holding one of 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:32.240 those pocket versions. 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:33.280 Yeah, And it's an. 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.520 Article five setting out the way that the Constitution can 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.000 be amended, which was essentially a key part of how 0:12:40.000 --> 0:12:42.880 it ended up getting passed in that agreed to in 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:48.400 the summer of seventeen eighty seven, because without it, it 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:50.600 was the way to bridge the disagreements to say this 0:12:50.640 --> 0:12:52.240 is what we're going to. This is the document we're 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:53.439 agreeing to right now. 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:57.880 Yeah, I mean, it was necessary at the convention in 0:12:57.880 --> 0:12:59.680 the summer of seventeen eighty seven, where there was a 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.920 tremend this disagreement, and the entire Constitution is the subject 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:07.640 of very strenuously fought compromise. But everyone understood there was 0:13:07.679 --> 0:13:09.560 going to be an amendment provision, because that's why they 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:11.480 were there in the first place, because the previous frame 0:13:11.520 --> 0:13:15.680 of government was essentially unamendable, required unanimity to amend what 0:13:15.840 --> 0:13:18.959 was essentially the treaty that united the thirteen states, the 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:21.720 Articles of Confederation, So they were there to come up 0:13:21.720 --> 0:13:24.400 with a new constitution because the other version couldn't be amended. 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.480 So they knew they're going to have to make it amendable, 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:28.920 and they did, but it would not have been ratified. 0:13:29.000 --> 0:13:31.720 So in September of seventeen eighty seven, the Constitution is 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.320 sent to the thirteen states, at least nine of which 0:13:34.360 --> 0:13:36.600 have to approve it in order for it to become law. 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.600 But in practical terms, all thirteen states have to approve 0:13:39.600 --> 0:13:40.959 it because what's going to happen to the other four 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:43.760 They're just going to walk away, So it's a very 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.360 close call. People have a lot of problems with the Constitution. 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:48.960 They have a lot of the states propose some two 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:51.480 hundred amendments to it. Even before it's they were willing 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:54.360 to ratify it. And so the federalists who are the 0:13:54.360 --> 0:13:57.640 proponents of the constitution say, look, it's okay, we know 0:13:57.679 --> 0:13:59.880 it's not perfect. We did our best. None of us 0:14:00.160 --> 0:14:02.720 really entirely happy with it. Either everyone had a problem 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:05.600 with something in the constitution or something that wasn't in 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:08.440 the Constitution, And so their whole kind of slogan was 0:14:08.480 --> 0:14:11.760 if it was a bumper sticker, it's ratify now, amend later, 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:14.840 you know, just let's ratify it. Like we're in chaos 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:16.800 here as a country. We have to have a constitution. 0:14:16.960 --> 0:14:19.440 Please just ratify that. We promise the first thing we'll 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.640 do when Congress sits for the inaugural Congress is we 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:25.800 will send amendments to the states, And in fact they did. 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:26.920 That's what the Bill of Rights is. 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.880 But over time, over the sweep of these two hundred 0:14:29.920 --> 0:14:34.560 and fifty years since independence, not since the Constitution, it 0:14:34.560 --> 0:14:37.720 has been amended very little. Why is that the case. 0:14:38.560 --> 0:14:42.400 Yeah, there's a whole field of political science that studies amendments, amendability, 0:14:42.400 --> 0:14:47.840 amendment rates, amendment difficulty. The US Constitution, while undoubtedly the 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.840 most influential constitution in the world, is one of the 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:53.160 least amended and one of the most difficult to amend. 0:14:53.160 --> 0:14:54.920 It's not at the top of that list, but it's 0:14:55.040 --> 0:14:58.040 very very high up, and both of those counts. It 0:14:58.080 --> 0:15:02.040 has been amended really only seventeen times. It has proven 0:15:02.040 --> 0:15:05.200 to be the case that for most of American history, 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.360 it's very difficult, if not impossible, to amend the Constitution. 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.880 And then something pushes that door open, and then a 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:14.800 flood of amendments come in. Then the door slam shut again, 0:15:14.800 --> 0:15:17.640 and then for decades and decades and decades, it's impossible 0:15:17.680 --> 0:15:20.680 to amend the Constitution. We're in a period now where 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:24.520 it's effectively impossible to amend the Constitution. It requires a 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:27.840 two third supermajority in both houses of Congress and then 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:31.360 a three fourths ratification, ratification in three fourths of the states, 0:15:31.920 --> 0:15:34.240 and the degree of polarization in the country today just 0:15:34.480 --> 0:15:37.160 effectively makes that impossible. I mean think about two thirds 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:41.120 is also the necessary bar in the Senate for impeaching president. 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:45.560 Yeah, So in your view, is that a good or 0:15:45.600 --> 0:15:48.520 a bad thing? Do you dislike the idea of it 0:15:48.600 --> 0:15:50.640 being amended or do you think it's an important and 0:15:50.680 --> 0:15:54.560 necessary function of democracy and we should be able to 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:55.000 get there. 0:15:55.680 --> 0:15:59.080 I don't honestly have a prescription. I do think it's 0:15:59.120 --> 0:16:02.040 important to recogniz that the Constitution hasn't been meaningfully mended 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:05.600 since nineteen seventy one. That means that because change is 0:16:05.640 --> 0:16:07.720 going to happen, you know, like a river is going 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:09.200 to find you can put a dam in, but the 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:11.920 water's going to go somewhere. The water runs to the 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.720 Supreme Court, and then the Supreme Court has far more 0:16:14.720 --> 0:16:17.520 power than it was intended to have, which is a 0:16:17.520 --> 0:16:23.640 deformity of our politics. Then Supreme Court nominations become hugely controversial. 0:16:23.680 --> 0:16:25.960 The public is really engaged in them. The Supreme Court 0:16:26.080 --> 0:16:30.720 justices have become really celebrities, personalities, characters. People know about them, 0:16:30.840 --> 0:16:33.160 their lives, They write memoirs, they go on book tours. 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:36.760 That's not how the Supreme Court was meant to function. 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:41.480 And I think it has contributed to presidentialism. That is 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.880 to say that the celebrity ofification and magnification, exaggeration and 0:16:45.880 --> 0:16:49.920 amplification of the role of the executive who in this instance, 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:55.240 in this iteration of effectively an amendment drought. This president's 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:58.000 view is that whatever he says is in the Constitution 0:16:58.160 --> 0:16:59.640 is in it, and what he says is not in 0:16:59.680 --> 0:17:05.240 it is not. I think that's actually essentially a continuation 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:08.720 of the kind of deformity of the separation of powers 0:17:09.320 --> 0:17:12.560 that has been out of whack since the Constitution became unamendable. 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:15.520 So there's another argument why it would be good to 0:17:15.560 --> 0:17:18.840 amend the Constitution more often, and that is that I 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:21.359 would suspect most Americans don't know the US Constitution is 0:17:21.400 --> 0:17:24.879 amendable for one thing, and we don't feel ourselves to 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.080 be the authors of our own constitution. And that is 0:17:28.119 --> 0:17:30.800 the principle on which the nation was founded and arguably 0:17:30.880 --> 0:17:33.800 is crucial to the legitimacy of the Constitution. So a 0:17:33.800 --> 0:17:37.040 lot of the political instability constitutional instability we see now 0:17:37.760 --> 0:17:41.560 I think we would describe as insurrectionary, and amendment was 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.439 the mechanism that was meant to prevent insurrection. If you, 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:47.080 as a people wanted to fundamentally change the government, adjust 0:17:47.160 --> 0:17:50.520 something significantly like imposed term limits on Congress, for instance, 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:52.520 you ought to be able to do it peaceably. You 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:55.359 ought not to need to use political violence to secure 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.159 that result. That was the genius of the amendment provision 0:17:58.160 --> 0:17:58.840 in the first place. 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:02.760 I suspect back and forth in time founding father's present 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:05.399 day quite a lot in this conversation, because those are 0:18:05.440 --> 0:18:09.440 the threads you're already touching on. But let's hear then 0:18:10.240 --> 0:18:14.560 from President Trump. I'd like to play you these words 0:18:14.560 --> 0:18:18.280 from him when he was being questioned by NBC News 0:18:18.440 --> 0:18:23.200 about the deportation of Kilmar Brego Garcia wrongly as US 0:18:23.280 --> 0:18:28.240 government officials acknowledged to El Salvador. Your Secretary of State says, 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:31.640 everyone who's here, citizens and non citizens, deserved process. 0:18:31.640 --> 0:18:33.399 Do you agree, mister p I don't know. 0:18:33.480 --> 0:18:36.119 I'm not a lawyer. I don't know. 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:38.080 Well, the Fifth Amendments, I don't know. 0:18:38.119 --> 0:18:41.960 It seems it might say that. But if you're talking 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:44.119 about that, then we'd have to have a million or 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.120 two million or three million trials. 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.280 Don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States' press? 0:18:49.480 --> 0:18:52.960 I don't know. I have to respond by saying, again, 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:57.440 I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they 0:18:57.480 --> 0:19:00.760 are going to obviously follow what the Supper Court said. 0:19:00.960 --> 0:19:03.400 What you said is not what I heard. The Supreme 0:19:03.440 --> 0:19:05.560 Court said. They have a different interpretation. 0:19:06.119 --> 0:19:08.239 So when you heard those words, as I'm sure you 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:10.679 did at the time, what did you think. 0:19:11.640 --> 0:19:13.760 He can't not know that it is his duty to 0:19:13.840 --> 0:19:16.520 uphold the constitution, that is the oath that he swore 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:20.480 when taking office. I think the overwhelming majority of the 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:23.600 legal scholars consulted across the political spectrum are now convinced 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.320 that we are in a considerable crisis regarding the rule 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:30.520 of law in this country because Trump's behavior has been 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:34.800 entirely different in this administration, in this second term, which 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.120 is to do whatever he wishes to do and hope 0:19:38.119 --> 0:19:42.040 that the court blinks without regard to its constitutionality or 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.280 its legality, to just proceed and do it and see 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:45.040 what happens. 0:19:45.400 --> 0:19:48.399 I think from your voice, I feel that this weighs 0:19:48.480 --> 0:19:50.879 very heavily on you this moment in time. 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:55.120 I think it weighs heavily on everyone, whether it's their 0:19:55.200 --> 0:19:58.080 job to think about it all day or not. We 0:19:58.240 --> 0:20:01.960 are in free fall off a cliff here. I don't 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:02.840 know when we land. 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:07.400 Can you explain that what you mean by free fall 0:20:07.520 --> 0:20:11.359 and what it is that you see that that leads 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:13.520 you to believe that it is so serious and and 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:16.080 indeed on unconstitutional? Is that? Is that what you're saying, 0:20:16.080 --> 0:20:19.080 that the president is acting unconstitutionally. 0:20:19.240 --> 0:20:22.000 I think that much that many of these administration's actions 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:26.280 that many federal courts have declared to be in constitutional. 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:30.160 It's not my personal view as a citizen. I may 0:20:30.200 --> 0:20:33.240 have my own evaluations of it, but the courts have 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.520 have declared much of it to be So. 0:20:35.680 --> 0:20:37.720 Is the central position in all of that the use 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:41.440 of the executive order, or the use of emergency powers. 0:20:42.280 --> 0:20:45.600 I think that has been an engine for Trump, characterized 0:20:45.640 --> 0:20:48.920 by an extraordinary number not only of executive orders, a 0:20:48.920 --> 0:20:53.200 record breaking number, but a record breaking number of declarations 0:20:53.240 --> 0:20:56.440 of emergencies and immigration emergency and energy emergency, which gave 0:20:56.440 --> 0:21:00.440 the executive new powers to take action. And he was 0:21:00.480 --> 0:21:02.359 not the first to do that. In fact, the Democrats 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:05.679 were the first to really use declarations of emergency for 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:07.080 these purposes. 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:08.120 Which Democrat woulout have been. 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:10.119 You see a lot of the use of the emergency 0:21:10.119 --> 0:21:13.919 powers by Bill Clinton, for instance. You know, there are 0:21:13.960 --> 0:21:18.520 a lot of declarations of emergency during what George W. 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:21.200 Bush called the Global War on Terror. There are circumstances 0:21:21.240 --> 0:21:24.680 that to some degree or others would seem to necessitate 0:21:24.760 --> 0:21:28.720