American democracy is under threat. That was the starting point for a task force assembled by the American Bar Association two years ago and led by former Homeland Security Secretary Jay Johnson and former federal judge Jay Michael Ludig.

Their mission was to investigate the causes and potential solutions for this growing problem.

Since their work began, the country

has seen a turbulent election, the transfer of power, deepening political polarization, and an alarming

rise in political violence, witnessed again this week with the murder of conservative activist

Charlie Kirk. All of this highlights just how fragile the American political experiment truly is.

That ABA Task Force has released its final report and recommendations, and Jay Johnson joins me now.

Secretary Johnson, welcome back to the NewsHour. Thanks for joining us.

Thanks, Omna. Thanks for your interest in the report.

So I need to ask you about the context in which this report is being released, this moment

where we've just seen the assassination of a major political figure in Charlie Kirk, this

time of rising political violence that we're in.

How do we interrupt that trend?

That's a good question.

Much of America is drowning in conspiracy theories, extremist views, and there are a number of elected officials, politicians that pander to those views.

So we wanted to issue a set of recommendations that would have long-lasting impact that would be as relevant a year from now or even a decade from now as they are today,

rather than try to respond to the crisis of the week.

And so we've put forth a number of things like recommending open nonpartisan primary citizen redistricting commissions

and a rededication to American civics education on the belief that

Americans tend to distrust things that they don't understand and trust more things that

they are more familiar with.

I want to point out the task force was assembled, as I noted, by the American Bar Association.

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