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Then Franklin's World is a production of Colonial Williamsburg Innovation Studios.

Adams had been quite meticulous in putting out his feelers.

He had this incredible web of informants across the European continent.

And what they were reporting back to him is that France had expected that it

could really bully the United States, that it was much more divided internally and would be a

pushover for anything that France had asked for. And when instead, the United States responded with

strength, with outrage, with these defensive measures, France had really done a 180. They actually didn't want

war, and Adams was very much right about that assumption.

Hello, and welcome to episode 403 of Ben Franklin's World, the podcast dedicated to helping you

learn more about how the people and events of our early American past have shaped the present

day world we live in. And I'm your host, Liz Covart. Did you know that John Adams, not

George Washington, solidified the precedents of the executive branch and the presidency

of the United States? Lindsay Trevinsky, an award-winning presidential historian and the executive

director of the George Washington Presidential Library, has just written a book about this very topic.

It's called Making the Presidency, John Adams and the Precedents that Forge the Republic.

Lindsay joins us today so that we can investigate the presidency of the United States' second

president, John Adams. Now, during our investigation, Lindsay reveals precedents that George

Washington set for the presidency that John Adams helped solidify for the future. The political

and international crises that John Adams inherited,ify for the future. The political and international crises that

John Adams inherited, including tensions with Great Britain and France, and a very vicious discord

between the Federalist and Democratic Republican parties. And how John Adams navigated these crises

...