'If You Can Keep It': The Separation Of Church And State
1A
NPR
4.3 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 23 June 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Trump signed the executive order in May establishing the group, he marked the occasion by saying, "We're bringing religion back to our country, and it's a big deal."
But isn't the separation of church and state guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution? Can the president just "forget about it" even once?
We discuss the complicated answer.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Ira Glass of This American Life. |
| 0:02.2 | Each week on our show, we choose the theme, tell different stories on that theme. |
| 0:07.3 | All right, I'm just going to stop right there. |
| 0:08.8 | You're listening to an NPR podcast. |
| 0:10.2 | Chances are you know our show. |
| 0:11.9 | So instead, I'm going to tell you, we've just been on a run of really good shows lately. |
| 0:17.4 | Some big, epic emotional stories and some weird funny stuff, too. Download us, |
| 0:22.7 | This American Life. |
| 0:28.9 | Donald Trump's new commission on religious liberty met last week for the first time. |
| 0:35.7 | When Trump signed the executive order in May establishing the group, |
| 0:38.8 | he marked the occasion with these words. They say separation between church and state, they told me. |
| 0:44.9 | I said, all right, let's forget about that for one time. We said, really, the separation? I don't |
| 0:50.8 | know. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I'm not sure. But whether there's separation or not, |
| 0:55.8 | you guys are in the White House where you should be, and you're representing our country, |
| 1:01.3 | and we're bringing religion back to our country. And it's a big deal. |
| 1:07.8 | Now, you might ask yourself, isn't the separation of church and state guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution? |
| 1:13.1 | Can the president just forget about it, even once? Well, the answer is a bit complicated. |
| 1:17.8 | Today, we have another installment of our weekly series, if you can keep it, where we take a look at a big political story of the moment and what it means for our democracy. |
| 1:26.2 | I'm Jen White. You're listening to the |
| 1:27.7 | WhatA podcast. We get into Trump's administration's efforts to, quote, bring religion back |
| 1:32.6 | right after this. The House of Representatives has approved a White House request to clawback |
| 1:42.0 | two years of previously approved funding for public media. |
... |
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