You know to make the best case you can for Donald Trump he said that he was not a politician

that he's there to drain the swamp that he wants to break the habits of Washington and

of course Washington's going to cling to its habits and try to damage him.

I think there's a case to be made that of course he's going to run into the kind of difficulties

that he's run into, but the point you're making which I agree

is that we are at a heightened moment of national consciousness about what a republic

means and what a constitutional system is.

And studying Jefferson and looking at what happened to the nation and to him during his time

is such a broadening of it it's a way to sort of ameliorate the conditions that we're living in now to have that sort of long view and broad perspective.

For me, it is.

For me too.

And you know when you hear Jefferson saying and I really made the point of

this today that he was not a man who wanted power first of all you were so cynical we just think it can't be true it can't be true but what if it is true and when you think what if it were true that somebody of great capacity who was beyond the lust for power agreed to help us through the birth pangs of the 21st century.

It just makes you kind of ache, doesn't it?

Yeah. But again, part of me, even though I'm making the case for Jefferson,

things, oh well, maybe he really was more engaged than we think, but whatever is the case.

Jefferson retired, thought he was retiring permanently in December of 1793,

has a couple of years where he sort of becomes a melancholic because he's at

Madicello and he doesn't have enough engagement in the world. And then Madison, the great Madison, draws him back in and Jefferson

goes to Washington to become the Vice President and the Adams administration and in a certain sense the rest will follow from that because once he's back in the arena

Jefferson is too good and too committed to his vision to stand by and watch other people damage it.

And so once he's back in Philadelphia as the Vice President Adams, it's virtually inevitable that Jefferson is going to re-engage in a big way and he does and he becomes the third president and I wouldn't say one of the greatest presidents in American history, but one of the most consequential in American history.

...