Amending The Constitution For The 21st Century With Heather Cox Richardson

Summary

---

What A Day — “Amending The Constitution For The 21st Century”

Guest: Heather Cox Richardson
Host: Jane Coaston
Date: July 17, 2026

---

Episode Overview

This episode features historian and writer Heather Cox Richardson in conversation with host Jane Coaston about the U.S. Constitution, American democracy, and how lessons from history can guide the country forward in an era marked by political uncertainty and efforts at authoritarian power. Richardson shares compelling historical parallels, discusses the importance of civic agency, and gives reasons for hope about America’s future, even as she argues for both enforcing and updating the Constitution for modern challenges.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

Reflections on America’s 250th Birthday

[05:25–06:09]

• Heather remarks on a new sense of agency among Americans, inspired by the country’s semi-quincentennial:
  “What I'm seeing around me is a real shift in American politics as Americans recognize once again that they have agency to change the direction of the country.” (Heather, 05:36)
• She highlights the unplanned yet transformative acts of ordinary people throughout history, reinforcing that meaningful change often starts with individual effort.

Using History to Understand the Present

[06:09–07:39]

• Richardson emphasizes that while “history does not repeat itself,” its study reveals how societies transform. She notes recurring patterns (themes like political movements, the influence of individuals or religion) but cautions there are never true one-to-one parallels.
• She frames history as a practical tool for analyzing and shaping the present, not just for drawing direct comparisons.

Historical Parallels for Today

[07:39–10:37]

• Two major eras resonate with today’s challenges:
  • 1850s Political Upheaval: The collapse of established parties and oppressive minority rule led to new coalitions (eventually the Republican Party) who prioritized democracy over their differences. “We don't agree about immigration ... but by God, we can agree. We don't think those people should control everything.” (Heather, 08:48)
  • Gilded Age Economics: Current economic inequality resembles the first Gilded Age, prompting new collective pushback. Importantly, this period saw not only political activism but also cultural flourishing and increased agency from marginalized groups.

The Myth of Unprecedented Division

[13:14–16:00]

• Richardson and Coaston push back on the “more divided than ever” narrative:
  • Coaston quips: “The Civil War happened.”
  • Richardson brings data:
    “Americans are behind [universal healthcare] to the tune of like 80%.” (Heather, 13:52)
  • She asserts that “what the traditional media is reporting as being progressive or far left is in fact squarely in the center of where Americans are right now...”
• Richardson suggests that narratives of division benefit politicians seeking to maintain power more than reflect actual public sentiment.

Voices, Agency, and the Modern Public Square

[13:49–16:00]

• The historic silencing or loss of marginalized voices (due to lack of preservation, not necessarily absence) is contrasted with today’s digital “crowdsourcing” of ideas.
• Richardson defends pluralistic discourse, arguing,
  “If you believe in the Enlightenment ... more voices is better. I kind of think of it as being crowdsourcing because you hear things you wouldn't otherwise.” (Heather, 15:36)

Cynicism, Authoritarianism, and the Possibility of Renewal

[16:00–18:20]

• Richardson contends that extreme cynicism is waning as people witness local leaders (e.g., Zoran Mamdani in NYC) implementing reforms that improve daily life, restoring faith that government can work (“government really can work”).
• Events like the bipartisan passing of recent housing legislation are taken as positive signs.
• She warns that America “moved backward after the 1970s,” but stresses that meeting 21st-century challenges requires adapting and revitalizing democracy.

The Media’s Role and Loss of Human Agency

[18:20–21:00]

• Richardson critiques the focus on national leaders over grassroots change, especially in recent state curricula:
  • Example: Rosa Parks’s strategic activism is erased in favor of a passive narrative.
• Recent collective actions, including protests affecting Tesla’s profits and pushback on climate rollbacks, demonstrate the public’s power. “We created those [great American leaders]...we chose those people. They were not handed to us. That idea that we can control our future, that we can retake power in our democracy, that's what I see right now.” (Heather, 20:20)

The Constitution: Enforce, Don’t Discard—But Do Amend

[21:00–23:24]

• Richardson’s defense:
  “The Constitution is a really strong document that is based in tripwires, really … to prevent the rise of somebody like Donald Trump. And I hear people say we need to throw out the Constitution. And my answer … is no, we need to enforce the Constitution.” (Heather, 21:19 & 00:00 reference)
• She acknowledges real weaknesses, advocating for enforcing existing laws (Emoluments Clause, anti-corruption rules) and amending outdated sections as the founders intended:
  • “We are way overdue for that period of amending the Constitution and making it possible for American democracy to fit the 21st century.” (Heather, 23:11)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On collective agency:
  • “All the people in our past who sort of woke up one morning and didn’t say, I know what I’m gonna do today, I’m gonna change the course of American history, but got up and did something that was important to them … ended up changing the country.” (Heather, 05:45)
• On division:
  • “I don’t think we are especially divided right now. I think it benefits a certain group of politicians to keep us divided.” (Heather, 13:49)
• On historic erasure:
  • “Rosa Parks was a leader … She was a strategist. She was an incredibly powerful woman. All that’s gone. She’s just somebody who doesn’t stand up.” (Heather, 18:54)
• On hope:
  • “We created those people. We chose those people. They were not handed to us. And that idea that we can control our future, that we can retake power in our democracy, that’s what I see right now.” (Heather, 20:37)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Introducing Heather Cox Richardson & the 250th anniversary: 05:23–06:09
• The uses—and limitations—of history: 06:09–07:39
• Historical parallels (1850s, Gilded Age): 08:18–10:37
• Division and public opinion: 13:14–16:00
• The rise of public agency, local government action: 16:00–18:20
• Loss and rediscovery of human agency, media’s role: 18:20–21:00
• The Constitution: enforce and update: 21:00–23:24

---

Conclusion

Heather Cox Richardson asserts that U.S. democracy, though challenged by inequality and anti-democratic efforts, has always relied on ordinary people recognizing and exercising their agency. The Constitution is strong but needs both enforcement and modernization, as did every generation before. Far from succumbing to division or fatalism, Richardson sees the current period as a hopeful one, where Americans are rediscovering their capacity to shape the nation's future.

---

For further reflection:
“...the idea that we can control our future, that we can retake power in our democracy, that’s what I see right now.” (Heather, 20:37)

---

Transcript

[A]

The Constitution is a really strong document that is based in tripwires, really. I mean, we call them checks and balances. But the idea is to prevent the rise of somebody like Donald Trump. And I hear people say we need to throw out the Constitution. And my answer to that is no, we need to enforce the Constitution.

[B]

I'm Jane Coston, and this is what a day. The show that loves watching health and Human services secretaries Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Face his worst enemy, his own words. Here he is with CNN's Casey Hunt. Yesterday, you have gained notoriety for your skepticism about vaccines. And over the summer, in an interview, you said, quote, there's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.

[A]

Do you still believe that?

[B]

I never said that. So stop me. We have the clip. Please play the clip.

[A]

I just talked about that. The media slanders you by calling you an anti vaxxer and you've said that you're not anti vaccine, you're pro safe vaccine. Difficult question. Can you name any vaccines that you think are good? I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they're causing. There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.

[B]

Why would RFK Jr make RFK Jr say such things? On today's show, historian and writer Heather Cox Richardson tells me what she's learned from America's past and why she's still excited for America's future. Before we get into all that, here's what we're following today, Friday, July 17th.

[A]

This isn't about rehashing the 2020 election. This is just exposing what took place and to make sure it never happens again. President Trump, he hit the highlights, and those should be scary for everybody. If you are an illegal or you're voting illegally, we will hunt you down, we will find you, and we will prosecute you.

[B]

Quick question. What should never happen again, exactly? Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen gave a White House briefing today doubling down on President Donald Trump's election claims. In case you missed it, the president's Thursday night primetime speech focused on casting doubts about the illegitimacy of our elections and appealing for more restrictive voting laws. Ahead of the midterms, Mullen threatened fines, penalties or prison time for state election officials who refused to comply with the administration's election security demands. In the words of Georgia Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff, isn't it humiliating, quote, to have to indulge the president's delusions? Mullen said states that don't elect to use DHS's recently updated tool for Identifying noncitizen voters will become, quote, a priority for investigations. The US Expanded its attacks in what feels like the never ending war against Iran today. US Airstrikes hit more bridges and energy sites and collapsed a tower at a key Iranian port. Iran, meanwhile, launched missiles at U.S. allies in the Middle East. In Kuwait, one of the desert nation's water desalination plants was damaged. Efforts to salvage last month's interim ceasefire remain even as the US And Iran continue to trade attacks back and forth in a battle for control of the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian officials say recent US Strikes have killed dozens of people and wounded hundreds, with new casualties reported today. Federal officials have identified a source of the outbreak of the diarrhea causing parasite Cyclospora. And somehow that's not the worst part of this story. So what's the culprit? Apparently shredded lettuce from Mexico served at Taco Bell locations in Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and West Virginia. The CDC and FDA are now warning people in those states to stay away from the T Bell lettuce, but did not disclose which company supplies it. However, a federal official told the Associated Press the supplier is Taylor Farms. Still, experts say the recent illnesses across the US May not all stem from a single source. Taylor Farms, which has been linked to foodborne outbreaks in the past, did not immediately respond to an AP request for comment. And that's the news. Let's talk about history and Donald Trump. Last night, Trump gave a primetime address about his favorite subject, the 2020 election, which he did not win. Of course, he didn't say he won the 2020 election. During his 25 minute speech, he simply ranted and raved about potential Chinese influence on election security during the 2020 election, alleging, for example, that China had acquired voter registration files which are public. And he concluded by saying that Congress has to pass the Save America act, which would make it harder for Americans to vote in federal elections and which is also very, very, very unlikely to pass. In short, Trump is still obsessed with the past. But as we have just celebrated America's 250th birthday, many of us are thinking a lot about the past and what our history has to do with the future of our country. Heather Cox Richardson is a history professor at Boston College and the author of the substack Letters from an American. We talked about America's past. What historical moments remind her most of right now and why, despite everything, she's hopeful about the future. Heather, welcome to what a Day.

[A]

What a pleasure to be here.

[B]

Thank you. So we just celebrated America's 250th birthday about two weeks ago. What have you been thinking about as the country celebrated this major milestone?

[A]

What I'm seeing around me is a real shift in American politics as Americans recognize once again that they have agency to change the direction of the country. And so what I've been thinking about are all the people in our past who sort of woke up one morning and didn't say, I know what I'm gonna do today, I'm gonna change the course of American history, But got up and did something that was important to them and that moved the ball forward and ended up changing the country. So to me, it's a really exciting moment where we're moving into a new phase and people are remembering that determine what the future looks like.

[B]

You're a historian, and I also tend to think through the lens of history. Obviously the world we are living in now is very different from the world our founders were living in 250 years ago. Even the people who were living a century ago. You know, we are very far away from Calvin Coolidge. We're very far away from even the world of Ronald Reagan. How can history be useful here? What can it tell us about where we're going if we've never been there before?

[A]

What historians do is they study how and why societies change. And no, history does not repeat itself, although people are always gonna people, Right. So there are some themes in the way we behave. But what historians do is we take a look at what has changed society in the past and we dig really deep into our sources. We try and figure out what moved the levers of change, or didn't for that matter. So what we do as historians when we look at the past is to say, oh, look, here's a situation in which people change the future by doing or didn't change it by doing. Why? So if you think about history that way, as a study of how societies change, it's actually really useful to look at the present and possibly even the future, recognizing that there's never gonna be a one to one correspondence. But you are able to say, for example, hey, religion was really important in this moment, or political movements were really important in this moment. That looks a lot like today. Or an individual was important and these are the characteristics of that individual.

[B]

It's challenging thinking about a historical comparison to our moment because we don't know what's going to happen. But are there moments from American history that remind you of what we're facing now? For example, I've been thinking A lot about the red summer of 1919, where you have these massive race riots taking place and targeting African Americans who are returning from World War I. And you have this real whipping up of, of racist and anti immigrant hysteria that corresponds with the rise of the second Ku Klux Klan, which is a really depressing thing to be thinking about a lot. But what have you been thinking about?

[A]

Well, see, that's a great example of what history does. You can absolutely make that comparison. And going into what the 1920s looked like with the rise of the KKK and the immigration restrictions and the concentration of wealth among a really small group of people. And that, of course, led to the Great Crash and the Great Depression and so on. One of the things that I think about now, though is actually two period that jump out to me for different reasons. And the first is the 1850s, because what we saw in the 1850s was the breakdown of two established political parties in the face of the takeover of what was then the Democratic Party by a small group of elite Southern enslavers. And when it was clear that they were running the tables not only in the Senate and in the presidency and in the Supreme Court and also in the House of Representatives, people who did not want to lose their democracy to a really small group of people who thought that everybody else should create wealth that would then funnel upward to them came together and they said to each other, we don't agree about immigration, we don't agree about financing. We don't agree about whether we should have internal improvements or not. We don't agree about education, but by God, we can agree. We don't think those people should control everything. And they came together in a whole bunch of different ways. A whole bunch of new political organizations that eventually became the Republican Party that elected Abraham Lincoln and stood behind the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments. I feel very much like we're in a political moment like that, but in an economic moment, we are looking a lot like the Gilded Age, the first Gilded Age. You can make an argument we're in the second Gilded Age, where money has concentrated again among a small group of people. And once again, you saw a whole bunch of individuals coming together in new ways to push back against that. And I like that comparison in many ways, because what we remember from that period is the politics, of course, and the strikes and the labor unrest. But we also remember the new music and the new art and the new literature and the people who were participating in America, American society and American politics even without having the right to vote. People like women for example Indigenous Americans, black and brown Americans. And I love that idea that by getting behind the idea of democracy in whatever way is your signature what you do best, people moved the needle pretty dramatically toward the Progressive Era.

[B]

We'll get back to my conversation with Heather Cox Richardson in a moment. If you also feel like we're living in the Gilded Age, but you know, with fewer corsets, make sure to subscribe. Leave a five star review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, watch us on YouTube and share with your friends. More to come after some ads what a Day is brought to you by bookshop.org would you be surprised to learn that we're living in a resurgence of independent bookstores? More than a thousand new stores have opened in the last five years. Independent bookstores do more than sell books they take care of and pour back into their communities, creating safe spaces that foster culture, curiosity, and a love of reading. When you purchase from bookshop.org, you're supporting more than 3,000 local independent bookstores so they can continue their essential work. Right now I'm reading Rasputin by the great historian Antony bevor. Use code WAD to get 10% off your next order at bookshop.org that's 10% off at bookshop.org with code WADE Water Day is brought to you by the new podcast series From Future Hindsight. An Unfinished Uprising Occupy Wall street is the story of the improbable becoming possible. In 2008, millions of people were devastated by an economic crash caused by Wall street greed, but it wasn't until 2011 that there was a mass response from the left. A call to protest went out and thousands of people responded. They raged against a system that was rigged against them and tried to create their own anti capitalist village in a small Manhattan park. The movement quickly spread across the country, inspiring hundreds of occupations and a new generation of activists. Occupy An Unfinished Uprising is told through the voices of activists who camped out in Zuccotti park for almost two months. Getting inside the drama of a movement that grew rapidly, felt both transcendent and chaotic, and then violently flamed out. Occupy changed the national conversation about capitalism, popularized the language of the 99%, and inspired a generation of activists. As we approach Occupy's 15th anniversary this September, this series offers a reminder that collective action can reshape what seems possible to listen. Search for Future Hindsight wherever you get your podcasts. All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher

[A]

and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with popping Boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite

[B]

Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drinks could be so fire six? All new drinks are here now at McDonald's.

[A]

Refreshers contain caffeine.

[B]

Let's get back to my conversation with Heather Cox Richardson. So we hear all the time that America has never been more divided. And I've always disagreed with that because one, the Civil War happened. But also I feel as if the nation has always been really divided. We just couldn't hear the other people we disagreed with. We now know more about other people's opinions than ever before in human history. And with all of these voices and influencers and government leaders and your average citizen fighting to be heard online, how can we have a productive discourse about the things that matter?

[A]

The whole idea that we are divided, bitterly divided right now, more so than they were in the past, I think is really problematic because if you think about things like the idea of universal health, Americans are behind that to the tune of like 80% of us, which is huge numbers. Similarly, the people who want to see common sense, gun safety regulation, over 70%. You know, many of the things that the traditional media is reporting as being progressive or far left is in fact squarely in the center of where Americans are right now and by the way, where they were in the 1950s in terms of things like economic power and so on. So I don't think we are especially divided right now. I think it benefits a certain group of politicians to keep us divided. And one of the things that we're seeing right now is a number of people backing away from this false image and saying, well, wait a minute here. Actually, I do like the idea of a rules based international order if it means that we're not going to be trying to take over Greenland and going to be able to support world trade. So I think that this idea we're divided is a product of the last 40 years of American politics more than it's a product of where people really are now. In terms of people's voices being heard. One of the things about is that you forget how much of it is lost to us. So it might sound like people didn't have voices in the past, but a lot of that is because those voices weren't handed forward. They weren't preserved for many reasons. And so I think when you say we're hearing all kinds of voices now that we wouldn't have heard in the past, I'm not entirely sure that's the case. And I would make the argument that if you believe in the Enlightenment, you believe in the idea of people marshaling arguments based in reality, based in facts, based in things that we can actually prove that more voices is better. I kind of think of it as being crowdsourcing because you hear things you wouldn't necessarily do otherwise. So I'm actually really keen on the idea of hearing the voices of, you know, a kid in an African country who maybe wouldn't have been heard in the past and now can say, wait a minute. I think if we handled energy this way, it might be more efficient and you can take that idea into a bigger realm where people can say, yeah, that seems like a pretty good idea.

[B]

We are in a weird moment where we simultaneously have a leader who wants to be an authoritarian, who wants to control every facet of American life and government. But we also have people who are growing increasingly cynical about what government could do or be looking at history as you have, do you think Americans can still turn it around?

[A]

So it's funny you say people are cynical now. I would have said people were really cynical over the past 30 years. Really, you know, if you are under 55, I think. And that's a bit of an arbitrary cutoff, I think you don't remember a time when American democracy worked. That's never to say it was perfect. It has never been perfect, which is part of the whole idea of it. It's always a work in progress. But what I see in this moment is a bunch of people waking up and thinking, hey, government really can work. And so you get somebody like Zoran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, who's doing really simple stuff that makes people's lives better in a hurry. And one of the things that I think you saw in the Biden Admin was the attempt to do that. But people didn't know what was going on because they didn't communicate it terribly well. Now, when you see Mamdani picking up something like the idea that you should be able to unsubscribe from something as quickly as you subscribe to it, like, how is that not working for us? That is great. And I think the idea of our government representing what we really want it to do seems much more within reach when you can see that happening around you. The fact that we got this housing bill now, the housing law through Congress was sort of a miracle, really. And it was on a strong bipartisan basis. Again, the president refused to sign it. It became law anyway. But I feel like I'm seeing more people have faith that, in fact, the government can do things that we want it to do. And here's a news flash. It needs to. We are stuck in a country that in many ways moved backward after the 1970s rather than forward. And if we're gonna face the challenges of the 21st century, we need to think of some new things in a hurry and make them happen in order for the United States to function really, not only to be part a responsible part of the world community.

[B]

Do you think overall, then, that kind of the bleakness, the division, the cynicism, is something that isn't really coming from everyday people, but it's kind of coming from media and people who want to keep us divided.

[A]

I think we are in a period of transition, and there has been a real move in America to focus on the leaders in the federal government and what they are or are not doing. And one of the things that jumped out to me about the curriculum that was being developed in places like Florida and Oklahoma over the last several years is we talked a lot about the individuals or the events that were stripped out of it, and they were pretty astonishing, I have to say. But if you read that curriculum, what really was clear is that what was stripped out of it was human agency. You know, Rosa Parks, in the curriculum that was being advanced, she just sat down on a bus one day. Well, you know, Rosa Parks was a leader of the naacp. She'd done all kinds of work about sexual assault against black women in the American South. She was a strategist. She was an incredibly powerful woman. All that's gone. She's just somebody who doesn't stand up. And that idea that we actually can control the future is one that I think you are seeing more and more as people push back against the Trump administration. The Tesla takedowns, where people managed to visibly see their effect on the profits of Tesla, that mattered. And when you see the administration backing off of things like, remember it was gonna pull those weather stations out of the Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans, which are so critical not only for understanding climate change and weather, but also are critical for people whose living depends on the ocean. They backed off of that because there was such an outcry. And I think you are watching Americans become empowered now, mind you, that's gonna have a lot of shaky moments. People are gonna throw up. Legislators at the local and the state level who maybe are not people you actually think you would like to have represent you. But again, the same thing happened in the 1850s. And when that happened, increasingly, when we saw new voices New ideas, new people. Increasingly, voters and the American government coalesced around people that we now remember as being extraordinary American figures, real leaders. We created those people. We chose those people. They were not handed to us. And that idea that we can control our future, that we can retake power in our democracy, that's what I see right now. And I also see, at the same time, terror on the part of those leaders who have depended on a complacent population to stay in power and their determination to make sure that voters will not be able to turn them out in the future. And that, I think, is where the rubber is meeting the road on the moves of the Trump administration toward an authoritarian takeover of our election system.

[B]

On that note, there's obviously been a lot of conversation recently about the Constitution and what it was intended to be and what it was intended to be in the future, and it continues to be tested. Do you think the Constitution is a strong enough foundation to steer Americans forward no matter who's in power?

[A]

100%. But what we've been celebrating in the last 250 years is the Declaration of Independence, which is not a body of laws, but it's important because it sets out unalienable rights. It sets out the idea that there are natural laws that give human beings at the time, of course, a very limited set of human beings, but the principle that we have these rights and they cannot be taken away from us. And among those rights, that is enumerated, not the only ones, they say these are only some of them, but that's enumerated in the Declaration is the right to have say in our government, the right to consent to the government that we have put in power. The Constitution is a really strong document that is based in tripwires, really. I mean, we call them checks and balances. But the idea is to prevent the rise of somebody like Donald Trump. And I hear people say we need to throw out the Constitution. And my answer to that is no, we need to enforce the Constitution. You know, the emoluments clause, the idea that you shouldn't be able to accept anything from a foreign government. You look at the extraordinary corruption of the Trump White House, which is, you know, as economist Paul Krugman says, what they are doing in the White House is the equivalent of Teapot Dome. Every day, we need to enforce the laws that we have, which, by the way, is what Mamdani is doing in New York City. I asked him once, you know, how are you gonna get all this stuff? And he said, I don't have to get anything through. I have to enforce the laws that are on the books, and I think that's a really important lesson to take nationally. We have to enforce the laws that are on the books now. That being said, we also now know that there are weaknesses in the Constitution that need to be fixed. We need to expand certain parts of it, we need to change certain parts of it. But that's something that the framers put in it so we could do that. And generally, the United States has had periods when they amend the Constitution pretty dramatically over a period of years. And then there's a resting period. We are way overdue for that period of amending the Constitution and making it possible for American democracy to fit the 21st century.

[B]

Heather, thank you so much for taking the time to join me.

[A]

It's been a pleasure.

[B]

That was my conversation with Heather Cox Richardson, professor of History at Boston College. We'll link to her substack in the show Notes before we go On Hysteria's latest episode of this Fucking Guy, Aaron Ryan and Alyssa Mastromonaco dive into the past of a man they're calling the Jelly Bean Jackass Ronald Reagan. He is one of the most infamous and consequential conservatives in American history. They'll cover how someone goes from B list Hollywood acting to mucking up foreign affairs for decades to come. Watch hysteria now on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, enjoy an exciting episode of csi, Review Revolutionary War and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading and not just about how by using DNA and genetic genealogy, scientists successfully identified a soldier who died at the Battle of Camden 246 years ago. Like me, what a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and [e-mail] subscribe I'm Jane Coston, and the soldier's name was Private John Pumphrey. Rest in Peace. What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. Our show is produced by Caitlin Plummer, Emily Foer, Erica Morrison, and Adrienne Hill. Our team includes Haley Jones, Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Joseph Dutra, Johanna Case, and Desmond Taylor. Our music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Kanter. We had help today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America east.

[A]

This episode, sponsored by Little Sleepies. Little Sleepies makes getting your kids dressed a lot easier. Their signature bamboo fabric is incredibly soft, breathable and gentle on sensitive skin. It stretches so kids can move comfortably all day from playtime to bedtime. Parents love the smart details too, like double zippers and fold over mittens that make diaper changes and getting dressed faster and easier. And because little sleepies are designed to grow with your child, they last longer than typical kids clothes. Right now, discover the ultra soft styles families swear by. Visit littlesleepies.com and find your new favorite pajamas today. The lights go down, the picture fires up, and with lg, your couch becomes the front row. From late night streaming to game day watch parties. LG, OLED and QNED TVs make every screen moment bigger, brighter and easier to love with smart features that feel effortless and sleek design that looks beautiful even when the screen is off. Because when it's lg, movie night doesn't just happen, it becomes the event. Bring the theater home with LG. See the latest OLED and QNED TVs [e-mail].