How Many Presidents? (1787) w/ A.J. Jacobs

This Day

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2024

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It's May 7th. This day in 1787, the writers of the constitution are debating a central question -- how many presidents should the United States have?

Jody, Niki, and Kellie are joined by author A.J. Jacobs, whose new book "The Year of Living Constitutionally" dives into the weird world of our founding document. They discuss why the founders were concerned with the imperial presidency, and how the system we have was finally agreed on.

AJ's new book is out now! And be sure to check out The Puzzler too!

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in Esoter political history from Radiotopia.
0:07.0	My name is Jody Avergan.
0:11.0	This day, May 30th, 1787, let's go back to the writing of the Constitution with our
0:16.8	pal A.J. Jacobs, author of The Year of Living Constitutionally.
0:21.4	And here we are, as the document is being written some basic
0:24.3	ideas are being hashed out and it's not only lofty stuff about rights and freedoms
0:29.3	and ideals but also some practical stuff like oh I don't don't know, how many presidents should there be?
0:34.4	If one's good, why wouldn't we have more?
0:36.8	More is always better, right?
0:38.4	A.J. Jacobs, author of that new book, The Year of Living Constitutionally.
0:41.8	Welcome back to the show, and congrats again on the new book. Welcome back to the show and congrats again on the new book.
0:45.0	Thank you, delighted to be here.
0:47.0	And here as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley.
0:51.0	Hello Jody.
0:53.0	Hey there.
0:53.7	If three people on a podcast is good, why not four, right?
0:56.8	Exactly.
0:57.8	Yeah.
0:58.8	A.J.
0:59.8	I guess if you are starting from scratch,
1:01.6	you might as well entertain a lot of ideas.
1:03.4	And on that front, you know, having spent all this time looking into how the Constitution came together,
	...

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