The Lincoln Project

Six men signed both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. You can probably name Franklin. You've almost certainly never heard of James Wilson — the man who did more than almost anyone to put "We the People" at the heart of American government, sat on the first Supreme Court… and then died broke, on the run from creditors, and was quietly erased from the story of the founding.
As part of our special 250th podcast rollout celebrating this amazing country of ours, Rick Wilson sits down with Jesse Wegman — New York Times editorial board member and author of the new book on James Wilson — to resurrect the most important founder nobody remembers. They get into how Wilson shaped the Constitution, why his radical idea of popular sovereignty still defines (and haunts) American democracy, how a founding genius ended up in a debtor's ruin, and what his erasure tells us about the myths we build around 1776. It's the perfect 250th-birthday story: not the founders on the money, but the one history decided to forget — and why remembering him matters now more than ever. 
•
•
•
•
•
Jesse Wegman is a member of the New York Times editorial board and the author of the new book, The Lost Founder: James Wilson and the Forgotten Fight for a People's Constitution. Find more of Jesse's work at the Brennan Center for Justice, the Kohlberg Center on the U.S. Supreme Court, and the Future of the Constitution Advisory Committee.
Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. 
You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln.
#JesseWegman #JamesWilson #LostFounder #America250 #RickWilson #LincolnProject #FoundingFathers #Constitution #PresidentialHistory #July4th #History #Politics #Podcast

Two hundred and fifty years ago, a handful of revolutionaries bet everything on an idea no one thought would survive a decade — a country that governs itself, with no king and no crown. So how the hell did we get here? This week, Rick Wilson sits down with legendary Democratic strategist James Carville — the Ragin' Cajun himself — for a no-holds-barred conversation about America's 250th birthday and the long, strange road that led to this moment.
A Democrat and a Never-Trump Republican walk through how the country actually got to the brink: the slow erosion of norms, the parties that lost the plot, the voters nobody listened to, and the economic anxiety that keeps getting ignored while Washington fights culture wars. Carville and Wilson don't agree on everything — but they agree the experiment is closer to the edge than it's been in a long time. Equal parts history lesson, gut check, and two old bulls telling it exactly like it is. America has survived worse than this. The question is whether we still remember how.
•
•
•
•
•
Follow James at https://www.youtube.com/@Politicon and on social at @JamesCarville. 
Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. 
You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln.
#JamesCarville #RickWilson #America250 #LincolnProject #PresidentialHistory #July4th #Democracy #Politics #PoliticalPodcast #Elections #CurrentEvents #Podcast
👉 Hydrate your liver at the cellular level with LTV
If you’re tired, bloated, or feel like water isn’t working anymore, this could be the fix.
 🔥 Get up to 64% OFF for a limited time and visit http://drinkltv.com/Lincoln#ad
Protect your family with life insurance from Ethos. Get up to $3 million in coverage in as little as 10 minutes at https://ethos.com/lincolnproject. Application times may vary. Rates may vary. Trustpilot rating as of 6/1/2025. #ad

Two hundred and fifty years ago, a handful of revolutionaries bet everything on an idea no one thought would work: a country that governs itself, with no king and no crown. This week, Rick Wilson is joined by acclaimed presidential historian Timothy Naftali — former director of the Nixon Presidential Library and one of the sharpest minds on the American presidency — to walk the entire arc, from George Washington voluntarily handing back power to the constitutional crisis staring us down in 2026.
Rick and Tim get into what the founders actually built, the presidents who tested the guardrails and the ones who saved them, how close the Republic has come to the edge before, and what history tells us about a moment when a sitting president treats the Constitution like a suggestion. They dig into Nixon and the limits of executive power, the long erosion of democratic norms, and why the 250th birthday is less a fireworks-and-hot-dogs photo op than a genuine gut check. America has survived worse than this — the question is whether we still remember how. Happy birthday, America. Now let's talk about keeping you.
•
•
•
•
•
Timothy Naftali is a presidential historian, former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, and professor at New York University. Find his work and writing at https://www.sipa.columbia.edu/communities-connections/faculty/timothy-naftali, and follow him at @TimNaftali.
Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. 
You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln.
#America250 #July4th #PresidentialHistory #TimothyNaftali #RickWilson #LincolnProject #Constitution #Democracy #Nixon #Trump #Politics #PoliticalPodcast #Washington #History #Podcast

Trump barged into the Senate this week to throw his weight around — and instead came UNGLUED on national television. This week's Elephant in the Room is the meltdown for the history books: Trump SCREAMING in Bill Cassidy's face, raging at his own Republicans over Iran, melting down in front of the very cowards who used to grovel at his feet. Rick Wilson torches the whole spectacle — because this wasn't a stumble, it was a strongman COLLAPSING in real time. The bully act only works while the room is scared, and the Senate just watched the fear EVAPORATE. The long knives are out. MAGA is cannibalizing itself. The 2026 succession war has gone fully NUCLEAR. When the king starts shrieking at his own court, the court starts digging the grave — and Rick brought a shovel. This is the beginning of the end, and it could not be sweeter.
Rick Wilson is on X at @TheRickWilson, on Bluesky at @TheRickWilson.bsky.social, and you can check out Rick's Substack at therickwilson.substack.com. You can check out more of LP's work at www.lincolnproject.us and on X at @ProjectLincoln.
Head to Superpower.com and use code LINCOLN at checkout for $20 off your membership. Unlock your new health intelligence. 100+ biomarkers. Every year. Detect early signs of 1,000+ conditions. #superpowerpod #ad
#Trump #MAGA #BillCassidy #RickWilson #LincolnProject #Iran #Senate #Republicans #Election2026 #Politics #PoliticalPodcast #Meltdown #CurrentEvents #Democracy #Podcast

Trump promised to restore law and order. Instead, critics argue he’s turned the Department of Justice into a weapon of political revenge, selective accountability, and loyalty tests. This week, Rick Wilson is joined by Brendan Ballou, founder of the Public Integrity Project and author of When Companies Run the Courts, to unpack the growing concerns surrounding Trump’s DOJ—from politically motivated prosecutions and controversial pardons to the lingering questions around the Epstein files and the effort to rewrite the history of January 6th. Rick and Brendan also expose how forced arbitration has quietly tilted the legal system in favor of powerful corporations, creating a parallel justice system where the rich and connected play by different rules. If Americans can be convinced to forget an insurrection, what else can they be convinced to overlook? It’s a conversation about power, corruption, accountability, and the dangerous idea that justice is only for the people on the right side of power.
•
•
•
•
•
You can find Brendan Ballou on X, @brendanballou, or at his website https://plunderthebook.com. His newest book, ‘When Companies Run the Courts: Forced Arbitration and America’s Secret Justice System,’ is available now, wherever fine books are sold. 
Visit https://publicintegrityproject.org to find more information about the Public Integrity Project.