On April 30th, 1789, George Washington stood on the balcony of Federal Hall in New York City and took the first presidential oath of office.

The words he spoke that day were those written clearly in Article 2 of the new Constitution, which established the executive branch of the federal government.

The rest of Article 2, however, is not so clear, and Washington became the first of many

presidents accused of unconstitutional behavior.

But what makes one person a strong president and another guilty of executive overreach?

Which presidents have done the most to reshape the presidency?

And have we given some presidents too much credit while forgetting the important contributions

of others?

On our first Presidents' Day episode of The Road to Now, we get the answers to these questions and more in our conversation

with one of our favorites. The host of my history can beat up your politics podcast, Mr. Bruce

Carlson.

I'm Bob Crawford, and I've Ben Sawyer, and this is the road to now.

Well, Bob, it's President's Day, and we thought we should do something special for this occasion.

I don't know. Is there anything more special than having on Bruce Carlson?

No, I can't think of anything more special than Bruce Carlson for president today.

The only thing I could think of that would be more special is if I took my wife out to a nice dinner for President's Day,

and Bruce Carlson was our waiter.

That would be just take it to the next level.

We should get Bruce to start like a package deal where you get this romantic President's Day dinner.

And then he comes to your table and just wooze the both of you with beautiful soliloquies about the presidents.

Yeah.

What I love is like Bob's default is that President's Day is a romantic holiday.

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