Women in history and presidential libraries

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And my view has always been that those values don't have anything to do with political parties. When I'm a prosecutor and I have to get credibility, build credibility with a judge or a witness or the jury, right? It's not about politics, it's about truthfulness, integrity being decent to each other exhibiting kindness, judgment. I think those are the things that bind us together. and those are the sort of things we should lean into. Like I feel like personally, as divided as we are, if we lean into issues of integrity more that that's the best hope to get people more back together than we are now. That was former special counsel Jack Smith speaking exclusively yesterday with MS now's Nicole Wallace We will have much more ahead from that wide ranging conversation, Smith's first live television interview since he resigned from the Department of Justice. Good morning and welcome to Morning Joe. It is Friday, july third. Thank you for being with us. I'm John Vlamere in for Joe, Mika, and Willie With us, we have a great group. MS now, Sior Capitol Hill Reporter and the host of Wait To early Allly Vitale. Cumnist and associate editor at the Washington Post, David Ignatius MS now, senior Washington reporter and co host of the weekend, Eugene Daniels and opinion comments for the New York Times David French. Thank you all for being with us this morning. Happy Fourth of July to you and to all those watching at home We have a lot to get to. It's a busy morning. And we'll begin with President Trump continuing to defend his wealth and his children's business dealings A financial disclosures revealed earlier this week that the president has made them more than two billion dollars during his first year back in office In the disclosure this week, the amount of money that you and the family made in crypto, it was an outsized number. I was just saying, didid you or you know about the crypto ventures? So that was just something Anw way could know about it. I didn't. R. I mean, there's nothing illegal, there's nothing wrong with it. I could know. if I feel badly in a away for my kids Every time my kids do, if they invest in a stock or if they go and do a build, anything they do becausecause the presidency is so powerful, so big, everything if they buy a cupcake company, well, the energy to make the cupcakes is, you know sort of like How's my energy policy? so therefore you have a conflict. Almost anything they do if they want to buy a truck, if they want to buy, you they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information. So It's pretty tough in that sense. I tell my kids stay away from as much as you can stay away from. But they also have a life. You know, we were doing business long before I ever thought of, you knew me a long time before I thought of even running But the dealings under scrutiny are, of course not as simple as simply buying a new vehicle Both of Trump's sons have benefited when companies they own or they are involved with have either ined deals with the White House or cashed in on deals made by their father's administration And they both have gained from cryptocurrency ventures under their dad's name Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump co founded World Liberty Financial with President Trump That means that they earned a portion of the more than five hundred million in token sales and sixty five million dollars in selling equity stake that the company brought in last year. David French That was Trump there in our sister Network, CNBC trying to explain this away. The New York Times, your paper and other places have written extraordinary pieces. just about how unprecedented this in. Sure, We've had other wealthy presidents before, but we've never had one who's made this sort of money while in office and seemingly, he and his family making this money because He was in office We cannot forget also that the Trump administration, the Trump campaign made Hunter Biden a centerpiece of the entire twenty twenty four contest. I mean, that they were talking about Hunter Biden relentlessly. so is right wing media And Hunter Biden never got within shouting distance, screaming distance of the kind of numbers that we're talking about here. and then the kind of overt self dealing, stock trading, crypto investing that we're seeing in which the president is enriching himself. and then Many of these riches are being extended to friends, supporters, etcetera. At a scale in which, you know I've said this before, that the gilded age, the corrupt gilded age oligarchs are sitting there thinking that they are you know rolling in their graves that they were doing this in the wrong century. They could have made real money if only they were waiting around until the twenty twenties. You know, this is a situation here though that has some resonance with a very recent electoral outcome in Europe where Once the some of the economic promises of populism start to falter Once some of the grandiose authoritarian ideas of this new populism start to lose their luster Then a lot of voters start to look at corruption They often won't look at it when times are good, when they're feeling good, but when they're under strain, when inflation is increasing, when they're feeling pressure in the job market, the absolute last thing they want to see is a president of the United States making himself multiple billions of dollars really exploiting the opportunity that they gave him. And so this is something that while the economy' humming doesnesn't really hit us But it absolutely does when people are struggling We want to turn now Back to Jack Smith. In his first live television interview since resigning from the DOJ, the former special counsel sat down exclusively with our friend, MSO', Nicole Wallace for that wide ranging conversation yesterday Before he stepped down from the DOJ back in twenty twenty five Smith brought two cases against Donald Trump One on election interference and the other related to classified documents Both were dropped because Trump then won the presidency in twenty twenty four Smith defended his investigations and also weighed in on the rule of law as well as his concerns about the upcoming midterm elections I have invvestigated cases focusing on the facts and the law throughroughout my career. We did this case the same way under the same standards and You know, the thing that's I think important for your viewers to know is those standards are not meant to change from one administration to the next. And in my experience, until now they haven't And so, you know, I think we are facing An attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope to anything I've seen in my lifetime ne of it problems right today. Besides the retribution prosecutions, is that the Justice Department can't do its job, right? If you go to court, that? Well, if you go to court and the judges don't trust you You can't do the basic things that you need to do to represent the American people in court And we have seen judges across the country say they can't trust prosecutors anymore. And that has such a cascading effect on any sort of case. And you know I can't count how many opinions, but one opinion like that in my career would have been seismic peopleeople could not would not know what to do if a court said, you know trust that's been built over generations has been lost in days, right? And that's happening every day. And so regardless of what you think politically They're just not effective at doing their job anymore Well let me ask you first, do you agree that we are covering in real time an assault in our elections the upcoming onthes? I'm very concerned of what's going to happen in the next election, abbsolutely. It's a different situation now based on know the people who perpetrated january sixth that probably learned from how they did that. My personal view is I think the state attorney generals have a tremendous role to play here they can make sure the rule of law functions in their state And I would also say that I think a thing that all of us can do is support election workers and election officials the less time around, we saw that those people stood firm and they were in many cases, the difference. It's clear to me, anyways, that what I've seen publicly, that those people are going to be put under great pressure And my experience, not only just as special counsel, but you know I was the chief of the public integrity seection at the Department of Justice for five years had a number of cases with election officials. These are people also They're not tooting their own horn. They're not self promoters. They just care about our democracy We need to show them that we have their back. Ally Vatali, an extraordinary interview there. finally hearing from Jack Smith and I think a stark assessment of of course, what why his cases vanished, but also his fears Though he voted, you know, he suggests the rule of law, he believes still is alive, alive and well here in the United States, but his fears about this upcoming election beyond Well, I think that there needs to be a dose of some optimism in that. othertherwise, the entire tone and tenor of the interview is from dire warning to all out we are in flames. And so you still need somewhere to go, right? And I think that's why what happens in November is so important. I mean, I can't tell you the number of phone calls that I get from Democratic operatives looking at various parts of our election systems and wondering, okay, where could they be exploited and what could we do to plug that hole In advance of that, I think the early answer is that you just sort of have to wait to file these things in court until something happens. And so you've just got legions of people who understand our election systems trying to figure out the ways that something might go wrong. Nevertheless, I think it's a dire assessment from Jack Smith, someone who has been loatathed to come out in the media, who when he was hauled in front of Congress I immediately wanted to do so in the public eye because he had never been given a chance to present his public findings. And the thing that I really keep in the back of my mind is that the foundation of Jackmith coming forward right now, Eugene, is that he is someone who felt he could have successfully prosecuted the current president of the United States on not just keeping classified documents after leaving office, but on meddling with and trying to corrupt American election results after he lost the twenty twenty presidential election And the thing that's changed since then is that the American public saw january sixth, they watched the next few years, and then they said, you know what? Let's put that person back in office again. And so I wonder how you make sense of The Jack Smith warnings, the work that he did, the knowledge that he brings to the table, and the fact that the American public still said this is the person we want in the oval. Yeah, there's probably no one more frustrated about that than Jack Smith. Right. He is someone who understands more intimately than any of us do about what happened and what the Trump team was doing, what their allies were doing. A lot of it happened in plain view, right The phone call in Georgia, etcetera. But there are things that he knows that none of us we may never know now because of the judges. What actually took them the interview the most was that one He is someone who doesn't want to speak up, like you said.ike we've had folks that have worked for him on our show. You probably have them on yours. And the thing that they said over and over is like, this is not a guy who wants to be out front talking to reporters. He doesn't want to do two blocks on any show. know, let alone a show as amazing with an amazing journalist like Nicole Wallace But he's doing it, they say, because he is so concerned And the hope is that one, maybe not Maga Republicans, but people will watch that and say, okay, since this is a guy who knows all of this, maybe there is something there as we get closer. Maybe I should rethink the way that we're thinking about this. And most importantly, he doesn't sound unhinged or crazy or full of hate like Donald Trump and some Republicans have tried paint him. So it's also about making clear to folks like he's just kind of a normal guy who's a prosecutor, very measured who knows a lot of information and wants people to be concerned about what's going happen inene, I had the same feeling Listening to Jacksmith, I was reminded this is a career prosecutor. He's talking about how to rehabilitate, how to rebuild the Justice Department. He's talking about the career attorneys who were still there trying to do their jobs. He says, I was for five years the head of the public integrity section prosecuting Republicans, Democrats, everybody. I stand for, he's in effect telling us the rule of law. and we're going to rebuild that. was like you know he's not a defeated guy.'s facing enormous pressure himself, but his thoughts You know, we're with his colleagues, We're with the country. We're with the rule of law. So I Jonathan, you know, he's that interview is pretty powerful, but I think we got a sense of who Jack Smith is in his in his comments under pressure that that was that's pretty interesting. This is this is not a kind of snarling atty Trump guy that we've been led to believe. This is this is a career public prosecutor trying to do his job Coming up, Governor Westmore of Maryland is standing by He's set to deliver a major speech tomorrow on the true meaning of patriotism We're going to get a preview straight ahead here on Morning Joe Summer is a gift It's a gift of days that last a little longer, a brighter state of mind. So giveift yourself a new Kia at the KIA Summer Sticker sales event, Eespecially taged vehicles including the Sornto, Sportage, Carnival, as well as the Nuro Hybrid, all backed by a ten year one hundred thousand mile limited powertrain warranty. So the gift of summer can keep on giving for summers to come. KA Movement that inspires Call eight hundred three thir threety four Ka for details host safree event and seven hundred six twenty six to dealer for warranty details So you know that uneasy, anxious feeling you get when you think about dealing with your insurance company Well, there's actually a term for that. 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As America spruces up for its two hundred fiftieth birthday tomorrow, there's growing scrutiny over how President Trump paid for some of his grand plans It turns out the administration is diverting funds from other national parks to foot the bill even as those parks struggled to keep up with critical maintenance costs MS Now reporter Britt Miller has the story B President Trump taking it all in, walking around Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C with interior Secretary Doug Bergham this week, The two marveling at recent renovations ahead of the two hundred fiftieth anniversary. What we did is the beautification with the parks and the grass and everything the removal of all the tents And this is like a different place. One of the things we did is over fifty fountains and statues Most of which were in horrible shape. They've all been fixed. We also fixed the reflecting pool But these beautification projects come at a cost. According to an MS now analysis of a federal contracting database from just the last seven months, at least ninety million dollars in national park entrance fees are being funneled to Washington DC, paying for some of those fountains, a fraction of that algae riddled reflecting pool and about one point six million towards the National Mall fireworks. All while National parks battle a twenty four billion dollars maintenance backlog. I feel incredibly frustrated. I feel deeply. Saddened by it. Former park serervice director Jonathan Jarvis calling this diversion unprecedented. I think it's a major mistake, political mistake on the part of the administration Whenever a visitor pays a fee at a popular park, federal law requires at least eighty percent of it stays within that park for upkeep. About twenty percent is usually spread to smaller sites that don't charge at all like the National Mall. however, that process is not being followed now. Instead, park advocates say the general pool is being drained and poured into the nation's capital. And while DC parks need repairs too, they can't believe projects across the country are going unfunded, many related to public safety. So there's one park that we heard from countless hours of work, both at the park and at the support office, they had done the site assessment, they had done the surveying They had crunched the numbers and put the budget together. and they were told that they had the money. And then that was taken away and they were told, sorry, we're diverting that money to Washington, D.C In fact, the Atlantic reports more than nine hundred park service projects expecting millions this year neverever received it Now, Senator Adam Schiff and ten other Democratic lawmakers are pushing for transparency, sending this letter to Secretary Bergham. And I think that part of that eighty percent is not going back to the park where those fees are collected. So that would violate the law. Well, this is what we're hearing in part from people who would qualifies whistleblowers But we want to get the records. One of the purposes of our letter is to find out whether these Allegations are true and to be able to hold the administration accountable And a spokesperson for the Department of Interior says the agency is focused on both beautifying the district for the two hundred fiftieth anniversary celebrations and tackling deferred maintenance, looking at different funding options like endowments and revenue from park passes to you. MS now's Brit Miller with that report Coming up a conversation with presidential historian Doris Cerns Goodwin on the eve of America's two hundred fiftieth birthday The Pulitzer Prize winning author is our guest when Morning Joe comes right back Hey it's that time of the week for a look at what's on the Morning Joe reading list. And with us now of course, New York Times bestest selling author, Ryan Holiday, he hosts a top ranked podcast the Daily Stoic He gets roughly five million downloads every month. He's also the owner of course of the Painted Porch, an independent bookstore in Texas Ryan regularly talks about reading recommendations with more than a million of his followers. Ryan, your theme this week, good summer reads and you start With a with David Bentley Heart. Ging in and studying the writings of a man for forty years and being so moved that he wrote this classic. tellell us about it Yeah, let's go back almost three thousand years, The Dao Djing, a sort of mysterious book of poetry and aphorisms translated by David Bentleyhart, who I will say also has a beautiful translation of the New Testament. So he's got a mixing of East and West here. I'll give you just a quick one that I think is beautiful. One who does One who knows does not talk and one who talks does not know Stop your mouth, bar your gates, blunt your sharp edges, unravel your tangles, soften the glare of your brightness, submerge yourself in dust. This is called the secret of unity. So here we have Eastern wisdom, some of the oldest Eastern wisdom we have. and these will be something to chew on this summer I can take that to heart. Next, Pont' pilot. I think one of the most Um, the one of the one of the most u Mysterious figures actually and the teaching of Jesus and misunderstood. Tell us about Pontius Pilate Yeah, this is an incredible biography. I've been raving about this for years now. I wish more people knew about it. You're right. It's a biography of one of the most ominous and misunderstood characters in the Western tradition. A guy we know about primarily from his enemies Why did he make the decision that he made? Why did he sentence Jesus to death? You know Tony Blair An Rve quotes him in this book, you know, sees him as a politician under pressure who makes a bad moral decision. And I think it's fascinating to see him as a guy with a job, with a crappy boss, the emperor Tiberius. He's under pressure from the mob And instead of standing up, instead of doing the right thing, instead of, you know, even asking a question, right? Jesus says, You know, I am the way I am truth. and Pontius Pilot says, what is truth? You know, And fundamentally disinterested. And so I think this is a fascinating biography that willll really rivet you this summer a terrible boss, a mob that's pressuring him and a wife who's saying Don' Do it, ponscious. Don't do it. He should have listened to his wife. Next is the Glden spruce. It's an environmental true crime story. tellell us about that Yeah, I was I just did a drive through the Pacific Northwest and you can see these trees. This is a almost two hundred foot tall sitka spruce, this, you know, freak of nature, this spiritual sort of holy tree that gets cut down by this man, I think with mental problems. He's struggling against this act of defiance and and sort of environmental protest, But you're right. It's a true crime story about this incredible tree written by one of our great narrative nonfiction writers. This book this book's not as good as the Tiger, which is John Valant's incredible book, but it it's up there and it's worth reading Let's talk about Revolutionary Road by Richard Yats. obviously a classic Yes, my favorite novel is The Movie Goer by Walker Percy. It narrowly beats Revolutionary Road out for the National Book Award in nineteen sixty one. But there arere two books about, you know the very modern ennui and aimlessness, the emptiness of modern life, the struggles of marriage. This is a book that'll make you think the movie's obviously quite good. The book is darker But one of the fascinating things about reading fiction from a long time ago it is how timeless the themes are and how modern those themes are Yeah, you know So one of my favorite genres comes actually from my home region in the deep south. for all of our terrible failings, pretty good re pretty good as a background for southern gothic novels and especially courtroom dramas, Tequilla Mckingbirg St, Atticus Finch still, one of the great classics, Furious hours also details a courtroom drama in the deep South. tellell us about it Yeah, most people know that Harper Lee didn't write anything after to kill a Mckingbird, but they don't know that she tried to. And she tried to write a true crime book about this insane case in the Dep South about this Reverend who's killing his family members for insurance money. and she's covering the trial. never comes out. So the first half of this book is about that true crime story, and the second half of the book is about Harper Lee struggling against writer's block and imposter syndrome and perfectionism. I had no idea about any of this. I also didn't know her relationship with Truman Capoti and how involved she had been in cold blood Justust a fascinating book you love when you read books and it opens up a whole other world and version of events that you didn't know about I got to ask you, where do you fall on the conspiracy theory? that Truman Gapoti actually helped Harperly write most of to Killa mockingbird because that's the explanation. Maybe that's why she never wrote another great book So the conspiracy theory, I think put put forth here is that it's the other way around that Harper Lee was much more involved in the writing of in cold blood than Trum was. and that she's the genius in that relationship. But again, those literary relationships are just endlessly fascinating to me Well, yeah, I would guess Truman Capote sometimes had trouble focusing from everything. We've heard about Truman Capote. Finally, let's talk about slow productivity by Cal Newport talalking about how we can reclaim the term productivity From today's sort of fast paced meeting, let's talk about what slow productivity is I think summer iss a great time. You know lifeife's a little slower. You thinking big picture, your life's a bit more balanced. and you go, why can't life be like this more of the time? And I think that's sort of the theme here of slow productivity, that it's not about doing as much as possible. It's sort of that old Roman idea of Fistino Lente make haste slowly How do you find a more sustainable pace? How do you find something a bit more enjoyable? How do you access those deeper ideas Cal Newport puts forth that idea of deep work, when we're really focused, when we're not distracted, when we're locked in? And I think this is a great recipe to getting more of that deep productivity. I think he's one of our great thinkers, especially in this sort of noisy digital modern age Read something from Cal Newport. If not this one, read his book, Deep Work or Digital minimalism, three great books to read this summer and then take back into the fall Well, I'm going to get that. I'm going read it and I'm going to give it to my children and anybody else who will get it because in this age where attention spans have been ground down to about fifteen seconds, that seems to me the most timely book we could read right now for productivity. Ryan Holiday as always, thank you so much. Greatly appreciate you being on morning Joe. You can check out the Daily Stoic Anywhere you get your podcast And please visit the painted porch. com For your books And for more information, we write back with more morning Jel You might not think about oil and natural gas, but it's a big part of your daily routine. From the soap you use to your toothpaste Even your bedsets More than six thousand everyday products are made using oil and natural gas. Companies like Energy Transfer work behind the scenes, safely transporting these resources across the country through a network of underground pipelines Learn more at ittakes ennergy. com Monday. com AI agents took over my work. And I absolutely love it. Chasing deadlines, writing status reports, updating stakeholders. Agents handle the daily grind now. I stay in the loop only when it matters. Create your own AI agent in minutes on Monday d. com Ever since I was young, I've watched people working hard, chasing opportunity, making sacrifices, doing everything they can to build a better life. And now, we're shining a light on what matters most. Our economy, our national identity, our democracy, our future. The stakes have never been higher It's all on the line On the line with Alicia Menendez, Wekdays at twelve PM Eastern on MS Now Theodore Roosevelt believed in the America that really Works and worked. He refused to accept failure Mediocrity, corruption, decay, or decline And neither should wait That was President Trump on Wednesday during his visit to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, located the Badlands of North Dakota set to officially open to the public tomorrow The ninety three thousand square foot bunker stands as a testament to the legacy of one of America's most famous commanders in chief It features interactive exhibits as well as an artificial intelligence avatar of the late Pident. which visitors can interact, it says bully a lot. Joining us now from Mador, North Dakota is Pulitz Prize winning presidential historian, Doris Kurns Goodwin. Also with us, the co founder and CEO of All in Together, Lauren Leer, Paav Victorian and Alie Vitali, back with us as well Thank you all for being here. Doris, of course, we will start with you. know a remarkable new facility there for a tribute to a remarkable president Tell us more about what we can find in North Dakota Well, it's absolutely astonishing. You know, I mean, this was the place, as he later said, without which he would never have been president He hadd been so depressed when he came out here. hisis wife and his mother had died on the same house and the same day And he came out really to just escape, but somehow he found a healing out here, which was much more important than an escape in the beauty of this landscape, it seeped into his soul almost. and he became the great conservationist But even more important, from then on, he was a romantic cowboy. He was a wrangler. He hadd been with farmers and cowboys, and he was no longer just an Eastern dude, a dandy. So he was able to combine those parts of the country when he bec came back and to be president. He'd also trained his troops later in the rough riders. He brought the Wanglers and the cowboys together with the Knickerbacker guys and the Somerset cllubs All these parts of America that had split apart that felt they weren't the same. The West was just decided from the east The South was off from the North. He brought them together. He was a united figure. and he was so much fun to live with. I spent ten years with him and I felt like I was back with him again. My boyfriend, I got back with him again these last couple of days So Doris, you and your ex there. Tell us about what lessons of from TR, what parts of the TR Resume or legacy or character What you think would be most useful for our country today as we head into the two fiftieth anniversary You know, in so many ways, I think the time in which he he was president is much like our own because you had the industrial revolution had shaken up the economy, much like globalization and the tech revolution and AI today. You had people who are rich and people who are poor, a massive gulp Big companies were swallowing up small companies. new inventions were making people a little scared about the change of the pace of life. And capitalism had no regulations from the time of the Civil War until Teddy Roosevelt So there was a feeling that there was no control over the economy. And he comes in and he comes in with this perfect slogan, which is more than that, It's his whole legislative program, a square deal for the rich and the poor, the capitalist and the laborer. And he had rational regulations that did not break up these big companies unless they were not doing well, that allowed them to move forward more concerned for making sure that they were treating their workers right and they were lowering prices as a result of efficiency that came from business And he just had a spirit, I think that people glammed on to. He had more energy than anybody I've ever known There was a vitality to him. He was fun. He acknowledged errors in when he was. He wrote a memoir about the rough riders, his experience in the Spanish American War. and the humor said he made himself the center of every moment of every action that he should have called it alone in Cuba. So everybody's laughing at him, but instead, he writes back, I regret to tell you that my wife and my intimate friends are delighted with your book Now I owe you one. I hope we can become friends. He was able to laugh at himself. He had humility. He had all the qualities of character that you really want in a leader So Dor, stay with us, please. We'll come back to you in a moment. We should note as we head into the two fiftieth, one Democratic leader is playing direct counter prorograming to President Trump for the july fourth holiday Governor West Moore of Maryland is set to deliver a speech from the state House in Annenapolis tomorrow It's titled the work of patriotism The governor is expected to make the case that Democrats cannot ced patriism to the president. And Governor Moore joins us now. He' of course, also a combat veteran. who served in Afghanistan. Governor, great to see you as always. Thank you. Happy fourth of July to you. So give us a preview, if you will, because this is interesting. The idea of patriotism has become sadly, polarizing. Even symbols of this country like the flag. I know some Democrats who are deeply, they feel ambivalent about it, at least for now because they feel like President Trump has seized it all for himself. Give us a sense as to what you plan to say tomorrow I want to highlight the fact that the United States is still the greatest experiment in world history that there was nothing like it before And in many ways, there's been nothing like it since Now, we understand that our history is complex. We understand that our history is complicated, that it has been ugly at times. But I also know there has been this arc that patriotism and the work of patriotism has really inspired that tomorrow I will be giving an address as the first African American governor in the history of the state of Maryland And I'll be giving it from our state house, which was partially built by the hands of enslaved people there is something to the unlikely nature of this country. And I think that what we are seeing in Washington, DC, while we' watching almost a tribute to self attribute to an ideology is not just backwards, but it's deeply un American. And so you know when we see darkness, we want to introduce light. When we see hatred, we want to introduce love and context. And I think that's what this speech tomorrow is going to help to highlight. You know, Governor, as I hear you talk about what your speech is going to highlight, I think about the way that we started the show today withith David Ignatius writing a column about how the U. S. is glowing and decaying all at once. And I think even as I hear you talk about the historic abilities that you yourself embody Are we still a country at this moment that is striving for our better angels. And as we look at this two hundred fiftieth anniversary, what do you hope for the next two hundred fiftieth or even for the next year? No, there's a great song by Donny Hathaway called a Song for you. and he says He says, I know your image of me is what I hope to be And I think in many ways, that's the story of America where the image of America is what we hope to be and we strive to be But it's something that even when the country was first founded, it wasn't founded on the idea that we created a perfect union It was on the idea that we're creating a more perfect union and that every generation, their job is to help to bring that about. And I think that's the difference in many ways between America two hundred fifty and Freedom to hundred fifty Where America two hundred fifty is a celebration of patriotism Freedom to fififty is a celebration of nationalism And that's the difference that I think the president is inspiring here. And so I think the hope that we have is if we really take on the work of patriotism the work that so many before us did. that we actually have a better chance of being the country that we hope to be. Governor, there has never been, I think, a feeling that I can recall of The mainstream, the rest of the country feeling like there are things going on. at the very top both embodied by institutions as well as this administration. things going on that they cannot access or profit from And yet they're being asked to, of course celebrate a country seems politically like it is heading in a direction that only exacerbates that gap. between what is being done behind the scenes and what is being told to them How do you speak to a nation that is looking for something like critique, perhaps, while also feeling like The notion of pride is obviously a political opportunity for the Democrats that hasn't quite been seized It's absolutely right. And I think that feeling is justified because, you know, we we're here talking about how The United States was a gift But for many people in this country, what they're seeing is a grift They're seeing a president who has now profited by billions. of dollars. You, we are seeing policies that are cutting people off of healthcare. policies that are ripping children. away from food assistance, all while we can give billionaires tax cuts And so the frustration that people feel, it is a very real frustration, I understand it. and the cynicism. is real The thing that I ask in this moment is and remind people is again, I don't come from a political background or political family. This is the first office I ever held in my life. And so my measure of cynicism has not left me. I still carry it with me every single day. It's part of the reason that I ran for governor in the first place I want for that cynicism to be my companion But I don't want it to be my capor. I don't want it to be something that I can look at the future and say, I'm now opting out and I'm forgetting about the sacrifices that people made before me What I want to use it is is my motivation and my ammunition to be able to think about the type of future that we want to be able to pull together. What we are seeing right now from Washington, DC, and from this Trump administration, it is grotesque. But The answer to it is not simply to forfeit and to let it happen The answer to it is to do what those who came before us did and say, we will fight for a better future because that was the hopes of this nation in the first place Democratic Governor Westmore of Maryland, thank you so much. We'll be watching for your speech. Happy fourth of July to you For, Thankk you Lauren, take a question to Doris, if you will, but before you do, give us your thoughts here as we head into two hundred fifty about We hear so much about the founding fathers, but talk to us about the role as you're thinking about the women who played such a vital role at the birthplace of this country. You know, less than fifteen percent of the American history that kids learn in school includes the history of women's contributions to this country. and that remains just a massive gap. We are and have always been essential to the founding, development, growth, success, and impact of this nation around the world. And I'm very heartened by some of the new books. Nora O'Donnell's new book that calls out, you know we the women, the sort of interest now in capturing the stories that have been overlooked, whether it's Catherine Johnson