250 Years of Presidents: From Washington to… THIS?
The Lincoln Project
The Lincoln Project
4.6 • 9.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 June 2026
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two hundred and fifty years ago, a handful of revolutionaries bet everything on an idea no one thought would work: a country that governs itself, with no king and no crown. This week, Rick Wilson is joined by acclaimed presidential historian Timothy Naftali — former director of the Nixon Presidential Library and one of the sharpest minds on the American presidency — to walk the entire arc, from George Washington voluntarily handing back power to the constitutional crisis staring us down in 2026.
Rick and Tim get into what the founders actually built, the presidents who tested the guardrails and the ones who saved them, how close the Republic has come to the edge before, and what history tells us about a moment when a sitting president treats the Constitution like a suggestion. They dig into Nixon and the limits of executive power, the long erosion of democratic norms, and why the 250th birthday is less a fireworks-and-hot-dogs photo op than a genuine gut check. America has survived worse than this — the question is whether we still remember how. Happy birthday, America. Now let's talk about keeping you.
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Timothy Naftali is a presidential historian, former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, and professor at New York University. Find his work and writing at https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/communities-connections/faculty/timothy-naftali, and follow him at @TimNaftali.
Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com.
You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, folks, in the 250th anniversary of our great nation, we have a very special week of the Lincoln Project podcast. |
| 0:05.9 | We're going to talk to experts from many, many fields about where we've been, where we're going, |
| 0:11.9 | and how to fix the things that have gone wrong. |
| 0:13.9 | Your task will not be an easy one. |
| 0:16.3 | Your enemy is well-trained, well-equipped in battle-hardening. |
| 0:20.1 | There is not a liberal America and a conservative America. |
| 0:23.7 | There is the United States of America. |
| 0:28.7 | Good night and good luck. |
| 0:30.8 | Hey folks, welcome back to the Lincoln Project podcast. |
| 0:33.5 | As always, I'm your host, Rick Wilson. |
| 0:35.3 | Hey, before we get started, do me a big favor. |
| 0:37.3 | Go out to whatever app you're using right now. Click that like, subscribe, follow button, whatever one it is. It really helps boost the show with the algorithm that commands everything in our daily lives. So really appreciate that. Thanks again for joining us. And we are happy today to be joined by a very special guest. It's Timothy Naftali. He is a historian. He is a writer. He is a scholar. He understands a lot about the context of how presidents have governed throughout our history. And this 250th anniversary that we are approaching on this country has been shaped by good presidents and bad. And right now, most Americans seem to not think that we have a very good president. |
| 1:15.3 | And, you know, we had comparisons that we thought people were good or bad presidents over time, |
| 1:21.7 | but very few that have been as sweepingly controversial as the current president. |
| 1:27.3 | But Tim, you ran. I have a purpose for this sort of bad president angle. |
| 1:33.7 | You ran the Nixon library for quite some time. |
| 1:38.1 | And so you studied a president who before this current president was arguably in the modern era, |
| 1:45.6 | the guy who was considered not a terrible president in many axes, but also who went out in a scandal, who went out |
| 1:51.4 | in a sort of ignominious way because of his own actions. Talk to us about where you see |
| 1:59.8 | in this 250th anniversary anniversary the institution of the presidency |
| 2:03.8 | as it is today and what does it take going forward to sort of restore the confidence in that |
| 2:11.0 | institution and and to keep it going as a central part of our of our republic. First of all, |
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