One week before America turns 250, Congress set aside money to celebrate the country. Trump's private organization, Freedom 250, is siphoning that money into a celebration that is increasingly about him. The Great American State Fair on the National Mall was supposed to open with a concert celebrating America. Musicians pulled out. It became a Trump rally. Trump said 45,000 people attended. The actual count was about 1,000, and many left early.

There are now 50 to 100 foot banners of Trump's face next to the founding fathers across Washington DC. The Supreme Court is deciding whether Americans born on American soil are actually Americans. And the question Grant and his guest sit with for most of this conversation is: what does it mean when a president cannot separate himself from the country he leads?

Karrin Anderson is a professor of political rhetoric at Colorado State University and an expert in authoritarian communication. She and Grant talk through what the centering of Trump in America's 250th celebration tells us about where we are, how democratic backsliding actually works in the 21st century (not through military coups, but through the slow institutional capture of universities, courts, and the press), why Watergate would be a minor footnote today, and what the founding actually has to teach us about this moment.

This is a conversation for everyone who is holding complicated feelings about July 4th this year. Which is a lot of people.

Karrin Anderson

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CHAPTERS:

0:00 Trump's 250th: a concert that became a rally, 1,000 people, and his face on 100-foot banners

2:18 Meet Karen Anderson: professor of political rhetoric and expert in authoritarian communication

2:52 Authoritarianism as a cult of personality: why Trump can't separate himself from the country he leads

4:10 Freedom 250 vs. America 250: how a private organization is siphoning the congressional celebration

5:09 What the Fourth of July has always meant — and why Trump's centering is a departure from 250 years of it

7:23 Does authoritarian overreach get worse as a president gets weaker heading into midterms?

7:54 The Republican Party is now the problem, not just Trump: why Congress could stop this and won't

9:13 What happens to the Republican Party after Trump? JD Vance, the moderates who got driven out, and 2028

11:10 The most dangerous thing Trump did: not the authoritarianism, but proving how weak our norms were

12:52 Why Watergate wouldn't matter today — and what that tells us about where we are

14:36 Should Democrats impeach if they win the House? Karen's answer.

20:28 Trump's legacy project: building structures, capturing universities, controlling what people learn

23:33 The stuff you can undo vs. the stuff you can't: why the policy damage outlasts the statues

24:37 How democratic backsliding actually works in the 21st century — not coups, but institutional capture

26:21 The death of the American university: which colleges close first and what that does to their towns

30:48 Were our institutions always this fragile, or was this administration just that aggressive?

31:38 Red state universities flush with federal money, blue state universities hollowed out: the coming split

35:49 How do we hold the line? What the founding actually teaches us about this moment.

36:22 Karen's closing: Citizens working together is still what this experiment is built on

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The most bipartisan housing bill in 40 years passed the House 358-32 and the Senate 85-5. Trump himself called it "the most comprehensive and consequential housing legislation in the history of our country" in a presidential proclamation two weeks ago. Republican leaders were mid-press conference, celebrating its passage, when Trump posted on Truth Social that the signing was off.

A North Carolina congresswoman showed up to the signing ceremony to a room full of empty chairs because nobody told her.

Trump killed the bill to hold it hostage until the Senate passes the Save America Act — a bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote, ban mail-in voting, and disenfranchise an estimated tens of millions of Americans including 69 million women who changed their last name when they got married, active duty military members who can't produce the right documents, and naturalized citizens serving in the armed forces right now.

The Senate doesn't have the votes. So Trump went to Capitol Hill, told Speaker Johnson, "no one gives a shit about housing," then walked into a Senate lunch that was actually a screaming match. One senator stopped calling him Mr. President and started calling him "brother" in a confrontational tone. One Republican senator described it to reporters as "a fucking tantrum." The tantrum was mostly about the Senate's war powers vote against the Iran war, which senators then reversed overnight under pressure.

The Supreme Court also issued major rulings today: asylum at the border is effectively over, temporary protected status for hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians is ending, and people with disabilities in seven states can no longer bring a trusted helper to the polls. Birthright citizenship and the president's power to fire independent agency heads are still coming, now likely Monday.

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE SUBSTACK ARTICLE

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A convicted felon named JJ Cafaro, who runs a company called Greenwater Services, was awarded a no-bid $1.7 million contract to paint the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool "American flag blue." It ballooned to $16 million, took months instead of a week, the paint is peeling off the bottom, and the water turned bright green with algae.

Trump's response was to blame vandals, threaten 10-year prison sentences, deploy the National Guard and ICE to one of America's most famous national monuments, and arrest a Swedish journalist and a US Olympic kayaker for reaching into the water, which is legal.

The company that makes the paint used on the pool released a statement confirming the peeling is a product issue. A George Mason biologist tested the water and found the algae is just regular algae growth, possibly made worse because the dark blue paint is heating the water. There is no evidence of vandalism. None has been provided.

Meanwhile, Iran closed the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend, the moment peace talks resumed, then opened it back up, proving exactly what critics said would happen once Iran gained joint control. A new CBS poll finds 69% of Americans don't think the Iran war was worth it. Trump threatened to kidnap Iranian negotiators on Fox News. And no one can explain what happened at Camp David over Father's Day weekend, where the only photo released was of a woman who is not one of Trump's daughters, captioned "great daughter."

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CHAPTERS:

0:00 The reflecting pool is green, the paint is peeling, and Trump says it's vandalism

2:00 The no-bid contract: a convicted felon, a company called Greenwater Services, and $16 million

4:30 Trump says the pool was cut open with a knife 350 feet long. Reporters went looking. It's not there.

6:00 The paint company's own statement and why Pipeliner 5000 was probably the wrong product for this job

7:30 The George Mason biologist, the algae test, and why the blue paint may be making it worse

8:30 National Guard, ICE, and 10-year prison threats: how a bad paint job became an authoritarian moment

9:30 A Swedish journalist and a US Olympic kayaker arrested for reaching into the water, which is legal

11:00 SaySo News App Ad

12:30 Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz the moment peace talks resume — then opens it back up

14:00 Vance in Europe: what he said about the nuclear program and why it only gets us back to zero

15:30 Trump on Fox News: "You won't even make it back to your country" — threatening to kidnap Iranian negotiators

17:00 The new CBS poll: 69% say the war wasn't worth it, one in five think the deal is good for the US

18:30 Trump's very strange Father's Day weekend at Camp David — and the photo of a woman who isn't his daughter

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Two weeks before America turns 250, Grant sits down with NYU Law Professor Melissa Murray, co-host of the Strict Scrutiny podcast and one of the country's leading legal scholars, to talk about her brand new book: The US Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader.

The conversation covers what the framers actually got wrong (they were elitists who didn't trust ordinary people), what they got right (the structural checks that are still holding, barely), and what most Americans don't know about the Constitution because we stopped teaching it properly. Melissa makes the case that the Reconstruction Amendments, not the 1787 original, are the actual foundation of the multiracial democracy we're trying to preserve right now, and explains why the people who want you to stop teaching slavery also want you to stop knowing about those amendments.

They also get into the Supreme Court's six-to-three supermajority, what it would actually take to fix it (court expansion, term limits, jurisdiction stripping), why the electoral college is the one amendment Melissa would wave a wand to remove, and what an ordinary college student with a library card did in 1992 to get the 27th Amendment ratified.

This is a different kind of episode. Come for the civics. Stay for the hope.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Why the Constitution feels stale... and why it isn't

1:08 Meet Melissa Murray: NYU Law professor, Strict Scrutiny co-host, author of the new annotated Constitution

2:38 How is the Constitution holding up right now?

3:33 What the framers were actually afraid of: trauma, tyranny, and why they divided power the way they did

5:35 Congress is on the couch: why the framers never anticipated two branches facilitating one branch's excesses

7:30 What the framers got wrong: they didn't trust ordinary people, and they built that distrust into the structure

8:52 How the Senate became popularly elected — and why it took the Gilded Age for people to get fed up enough to demand it

10:42 The Constitution moves: how moments of rupture and trauma have driven every major amendment

13:30 Red states and a constitutional convention: why that should scare you

14:31 The Reconstruction Amendments are the real foundation of American democracy and why you weren't taught that

16:11 The Constitution as owner's manual vs. flower care instructions — and why both might be right

21:00 The Supreme Court's six-to-three supermajority and how Neil Gorsuch got there illegitimately

25:00 Court reform: term limits, jurisdiction stripping, expansion — what's on the table

31:44 How to actually strengthen the Constitution: statutes, turnout, and why doubling the electorate is possible

36:37 Judicial interpretation as the main engine of constitutional change — and what to do about this court

38:25 Why the Constitution is only 12 pages — and why Melissa's book is 300

40:00 If you could add one amendment: get rid of the electoral college. Then DC statehood. Then Puerto Rico.

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE SUBSTACK

The US Constitution: A Comprehensive and Annotated Guide for the Modern Reader

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Trump gave his longest speech since the State of the Union at a press conference in Paris, then flew to the Palace of Versailles to sign the Iran memorandum of understanding.

For those keeping score at home: Versailles is where Germany signed its humiliating defeat at the end of World War I, the document widely credited with planting the seeds of World War II.

The White House finally released the 14-section MOU. Grant goes through what's actually in it versus what JD Vance has been claiming on his wall-to-wall media tour. The short version: Iran keeps its enriched uranium stockpile, the Strait of Hormuz will now be jointly controlled by Iran and Oman (charging fees for access that used to be free), and the $300 billion reconstruction fund is in the document despite Trump calling it "entirely false."

At $187 billion spent to reach this agreement, the deal is 144 times more expensive than the Obama Iran deal Trump ripped up in 2018, which cost $1.3 billion and achieved many of the same things.

Then there's JD Vance, who has been the lead negotiator, the lead spokesperson, and is now being set up as the lead fall guy. If the deal collapses in the next 60 days, it's Vance who takes the blame. If it succeeds, Trump takes the glory. Grant breaks down why Trump privately mocks Vance, pits him against Rubio, and can't stand the idea of a successor, including how he felt about his own son.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 JD Vance's very bad week and the soft launch of his 2028 campaign

1:30 Sponsor: SaySo News

2:45 Trump's Paris speech: longest time on camera in months, and he struggled to finish it

5:00 Why signing the MOU at the Palace of Versailles is a massive historical red flag

6:30 What's actually in the 14-section MOU: blockade, forces, and de-mining 5,000 underwater mines

8:00 Iran and Oman get joint control of the Strait — and the right to charge fees for access that used to be free

9:30 The money: oil sanctions lifted immediately, assets unfrozen, and the $300 billion that Trump says isn't real but is in the document

11:30 John Bolton's warning: how other countries are reading this agreement between the lines

13:00 144 times more expensive than Obama's deal: the full cost breakdown

14:30 The nuclear question: Iran keeps its uranium, inspectors return, and Trump's new position

16:30 JD Vance's media blitz: every network, The View, the NYT, and a new book about his conversion to Catholicism

18:00 Trump undercuts Vance on stage in Paris with the world watching

19:30 Trump privately mocks Vance, polls his allies on Vance vs. Rubio, and calls him "cloying and weird"

21:00 Why Trump can't tolerate a successor: Don Jr., MAGA, and the legacy obsession explained

23:00 If the deal works, Trump gets the glory. If it fails, Vance gets the wolves.

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE SUBSTACK: The Price Of Peace

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Over the weekend, on Trump's birthday, the US and Iran announced they'd reached a deal to end the war. The actual text has not been released. What we know so far is that this is a memorandum of understanding, not a signed treaty, and by no measure does any foreign policy expert consider that a real deal yet.

The Strait of Hormuz, which 20% of the world's oil flows through, did not reopen immediately as promised. As of recording, only two ships have passed through and the US blockade remains. Iran would gain joint control over the strait with Oman, which intelligence officials are calling a bigger threat than a nuclear weapon, since it gives Iran an on off switch over global oil.

There's no agreement on Iran's uranium stockpile, the centerpiece issue Trump has built his entire Iran policy around. Today in Switzerland, Trump suddenly started downplaying how much that uranium actually matters. His own Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and CIA Director all told him in private meetings they don't think Iran is being fully truthful.

Grant also breaks down the $24 billion in unfrozen assets, the $200 billion total cost of this war to Americans, why this could trigger the Senate's treaty approval process, and why Lindsey Graham just threw JD Vance under the bus on Twitter.

Subscribe on Substack, Friday's interview with NYU law professor Melissa Murray on her new book about the Constitution drops this week.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 After 40 broken promises, is the Iran war actually over this time?

1:30 Sponsor: SaySo News

2:55 Trump's Saturday Truth Social post and an explicit threat to use nuclear weapons

4:20 Sunday's announcement: why this is a memorandum of understanding, not a real deal

5:40 The Strait of Hormuz still isn't open. Only two ships have passed through.

7:00 Iran and Oman would jointly control the Strait. Why intelligence officials call this worse than a nuke.

9:00 $24 billion unfrozen, $300 billion in possible reconstruction money, and JD Vance's PR problem

11:00 The real cost: $200 billion spent by Americans on a war Congress never approved

13:00 The nuclear question still isn't resolved, and today Trump started downplaying it

15:00 Rubio, Hegseth, and Ratcliffe all told Trump in private they don't trust Iran on this

16:30 Why Trump won't release the actual text of the agreement

18:00 Hurdle one: Israel, Lebanon, and Netanyahu's promise to stay no matter what

20:00 Hurdle two: the Senate's treaty approval clause and Lindsey Graham throwing JD Vance under the bus

22:30 Hurdle three: 60 days is a long time, and what could still go wrong before this is signed

MAKE IT MAKE SENSE SUBSTACK

PROMO CODE:

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Barb McQuade spent her career as a US Attorney prosecuting organized crime, including the conviction of former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on extortion, bribery, and fraud charges. Trump later pardoned Kilpatrick. In her new book, The Fix, she argues the Trump administration is running the exact same playbook she spent her career prosecuting. Her words: "it's just crime."

Grant and Barb walk through the parallels in detail. The kickback scheme that sent Kilpatrick's associates to prison looks a lot like the DOJ's immunity deal and slush fund. The pattern of inflicting pain until someone complies, then owning them permanently, is the same pattern Barb saw with extortion victims in Detroit and the same pattern she sees in how Trump dismissed the bribery case against Eric Adams in exchange for cooperation on immigration enforcement.

But this isn't just a conversation about the problem. Barb has actual proposals: moving the US Marshal Service under the judicial branch so courts can enforce their own contempt orders, ranked choice voting to reduce the power of extremists in both parties, independent redistricting commissions like Michigan's, and term limits for Supreme Court justices that would prevent any single president from reshaping the court for a generation.

0:00 An optimistic episode, finally: meet Barb McQuade, author of The Fix

3:11 Why Barb calls this a "mob-style government" instead of authoritarianism

6:39 "It's just crime": why this framing matters and how Peter Magyar used it to defeat Orban

7:30 The Kwame Kilpatrick case: kickbacks, extortion, and the contractor who couldn't say no

11:04 The Eric Adams parallel: dismissing a bribery case in exchange for loyalty

12:17 Win by losing: how Trump flexes power even when courts block him

14:00 The real fix: bolstering Congress as the check the founders intended

17:00 Ranked choice voting and how Alaska elected Lisa Murkowski's independence

19:30 Ending gerrymandering: Michigan's independent redistricting commission as the model

21:30 Getting money out of politics: Michigan's utility contribution ballot measure

25:12 Should Democrats expand the Supreme Court? Barb's answer: term limits instead

28:51 A radical idea: moving the US Marshal Service under the judicial branch

31:52 Does this collapse from the inside, or is Trump too big to fail?

34:07 Where to find Barb's book and her podcast, Sisters in Law

The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government

Make It Make Sense Substack

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103 days into a war Donald Trump promised would never happen, the United States is striking targets inside Iran and along the Iranian coast for the third straight day. The Secretary of Defense announced the US would target bridges and power plants. Legal scholars say those strikes are unconstitutional. International law experts say targeting civilian infrastructure is a war crime.

This morning, Trump announced the US would be taking Kharg Island, Iran's most important oil hub. Senator Patty Murray called it a quagmire. Iran's lead negotiator called it a quagmire. Military and constitutional scholars called the strikes illegal. Six hours later, Trump posted on Truth Social that the strikes were cancelled and a peace deal was done.

Iran was not on the list of countries that approved the deal. Iran has not commented. This is the 39th time Trump has announced a peace deal is ready to be signed.

Grant also breaks down why 265 ships are still stranded in the Strait of Hormuz, what it means that the US has drawn down its own oil reserves to historic lows, and what Mike Johnson said when asked whether Congress should authorize the war — and then ran away from the cameras.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 The US is back at war with Iran. Three days of strikes. Here's what changed.

1:30 Sponsor: Cozy Earth

3:00 The helicopter Iran shot down, the rescue, and the US airstrike response

4:15 Why these strikes are unconstitutional: no Congressional authorization, no War Powers justification

5:30 Mike Johnson asked if Congress should authorize the war. He ran away from the cameras.

6:45 Senator Ron Johnson: Congress can't be trusted to know about its own wars

8:00 Targeting power plants and bridges: why Hegseth's "on our terms" is an admission of war crimes

9:30 The covert oil mission: 100 million barrels through the Strait, 265 ships still stranded

11:00 Trump says "I love inflation." The White House spin vs. what oil executives are actually telling the administration.

12:30 Kharg Island explained: why taking it means boots on the ground and a full-scale ground war

14:00 55% of Americans oppose any invasion. Support for the war is now at minus 20.

15:15 Six hours later: the invasion is off. Peace deal number 39 is announced. Iran wasn't consulted.

16:45 103 days of a war Trump promised would never happen. No end in sight.

PROMO CODES

This episode is sponsored by Cozy Earth. Summer nights and a chaotic news cycle are a rough combo — at least your sheets shouldn't make it worse. Cozy Earth's bamboo sheets and brushed bamboo pajamas are temperature-regulating, insanely soft, and built for actually sleeping cool. Use code MIMS25 at CozyEarth.com for 30% off — and when you do, you're also supporting the show.

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