#1700 Clay's Take on Current Events

Listening to America

Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 20 April 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Beau Breslin interviews Clay on current events. First, the successful launch on April 1st of Artemis II, America's first space mission to the moon in more than 50 years. The launch's success was not particularly unexpected, but our relief was palpable when it was nearly flawless. Second, Ken Burns' latest documentary is a three-part study of the life and achievements of Henry David Thoreau. Clay was one of the featured historians in the film. Beau wanted to know what it was like to sit across from the great Ken Burns in an interview. And third, the future of the 14th Amendment, guaranteeing birthright citizenship to all children born in the United States. The Supreme Court recently heard arguments on the topic, though the decision is not expected until late June. This podcast was recorded on April 2, 2026.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everyone. This is my introduction to this week's podcast. I'm actually at an undisclosed
0:05.6	location in the American West at a Thoreovian cabin. The wind is howling outside at spring.
0:11.1	I'm looking at the Rocky Mountains. The cabin is 10 by 15 feet. Exactly the dimensions of
0:16.5	Thoreau's cabin, which he called a house, at Walden. I was just at Walden 10 days ago and in Boston
0:23.0	with Ken Burns and Don Henley and Chris and Eric Ewers, the makers of the new Ken Burns three-part,
0:31.5	three-hour documentary on Henry David Thoreau. And so I'm having this kind of release of all
0:37.1	that pressure, travel tension by being in this cabin for aau. And so I'm having this kind of release of all that pressure, travel, tension
0:39.8	by being in this cabin for a week.
0:41.3	And it's been wonderful.
0:42.9	I had an interview just now with Bo Breslin of Skidmore.
0:46.9	He's one of my favorite people,
0:48.1	and he's certainly one of my favorite guests.
0:50.4	He couldn't be more generous to what we're doing here
0:53.2	at listening to America.
0:54.5	And he's coming out to Vail at the end of January to do a Vail Symposium with me and also with Sanford Levinson.
1:02.2	So two great national constitutional scholars at Vail at the end.
1:06.1	You should come.
1:06.7	And it will be streamed.
1:08.2	Just go to Vailsymposium.org and you'll find out all of the details.
1:13.4	Anyway, so now I'm here in this undisclosed location, and I just interviewed Bo about three topics.
1:20.7	Topic number one was the space launch yesterday of Artemis II, which was fabulous and thrilling.
1:30.3	And I was so relieved. I was just so relieved. I was anxious.
	...

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