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  • As the U.S. turns 250, this historian has blunt advice: ‘America has to grow up’

    As the U.S. turns 250, this historian has blunt advice: ‘America has to grow up’

    As the United States prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary, historian and Princeton professor Eddie Glaude Jr. says he’s feeling rageful. He opens his new book, America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation’s Anniversaries, bluntly, with the declaration: “I do not love America, and never have, especially now.”

    Glaude points to the Supreme Court’s dismantling of the Voting Rights Act, and to redistricting efforts that threaten to limit Black representation in Congress.

    “What I was trying to do with this book was kind of write some security underneath my feet. So that I could actually get this rage under control, to get my sadness, my melancholy under control,” Glaude says.

    America, U.S.A. looks at the country through the lens of its previous anniversaries and centennials. Today, as in the past, Glaude says, “the divided soul of the nation is in full view.” As the 250th anniversary approaches, he says it’s past time for the country to acknowledge the ways it has failed to deliver on its founding principles:

    “America has to grow up. It can no longer hide in its adolescence,” he says. “America imagines itself at once as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic. And to hold those two things together … deposits the kind of madness at the heart of the country.”

    Interview highlights

    (Penguin Random House)

    On starting his book with the sentence: “I do not love America”

    I had written some version of the introduction and it didn’t land. I thought I was holding something back. … And so I returned to that first paragraph, and suddenly this sentence just came on the page. And I got up and I started walking around my study and I was afraid of what this would mean if I left it there. And then something inside of my head just simply said, “But this is what you have to say. You have to begin here and then you can explain.” So I left it.

    On the significance of the country’s anniversaries

    Each of these moments, the country has to tell a story about itself. It has to tell a story about its founding. And so here we are in the 250th and look at the kinds of the contours of the story — just don’t look at the UFC arena or the Great American Fair or the garden of statues of heroes. But they’re going to tell a story [about] the saintliness of the founders, a story about the sacredness of this grand experiment.

    On what patriotism means to him

    Sometimes patriotism, to my ear, sounds like a rebel yell.

    Eddie Glaude Jr.

    Sometimes patriotism, to my ear, sounds like a rebel yell. Those people who embrace the flag, who wrap themselves up in the piety of the country, are often, more than not, folk who think I should be in my place, folk who are behind the assault on voting rights, folk who want to deny the specificity of the experiences that shape how I see this place. So usually when I hear a robust, visceral embrace of love of country, you know, my head goes on a swivel. Who sang it, and for what ends and for what purposes?

    On a storybook version of America’s founding he was told during a 2024 tour of Philadelphia’s Congress Hall

    [The guide was] walking us through the House and then the Senate, and he’s telling us these stories and finally talks about the conflict. [He says] that they weren’t divided according to party but, you know, region and whatnot. And [he] said the biggest conflict is that they came from the South and the North. And I was like, OK, here we go. We’re going to start talking about slavery. And then he says they didn’t know how to shake hands. That was the example of the conflict between the congresspersons, that one would bow [and the other would shake]. And I was like, that’s it? And then I just saw ghosts. I saw ghosts all around Congress Hall. But it was an example for me of a startling example of the storybook version of the country.

    Anna Bauman and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web.

    Transcript:

    TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

    This is FRESH AIR. I’m Tonya Mosley, and my guest today is Eddie Glaude Jr. He’s a professor at Princeton and a familiar voice on the country’s hardest conversations about race and democracy. He’s the author of “Begin Again,” lessons from the late James Baldwin, and “We Are The Leaders We’ve Been Looking For.” Those books look clearly at this country’s failures but still held onto something hopeful. But his latest book set sentimentality aside. It’s called “America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows The Nation’s Anniversaries.” In it, Glaude takes us to the country’s big birthdays – 1876, 1926, 1976, and now the 250th – and shows us the same ritual each time.

    The nation throws itself a party and quietly edits out the parts of the story it cannot bear to face. He goes back to 1876, the centennial, with Frederick Douglass watching the promise of emancipation come undone. And he argues that what happened then is happening again now. It’s a book written in grief and rage – and underneath both, a stubborn kind of love of country. We spoke earlier this month in Seattle on stage at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, a daylong gathering of journalists and thinkers hosted by Seattle’s public media station. Here’s our conversation.

    (APPLAUSE)

    MOSLEY: I am so honored to be in conversation with you for so many reasons. I’ve had the pleasure of talking with you many times, our first time, though, in person with each other. And I think a great way to start is to actually have you read a passage from the book. Let’s start with the very first page.

    EDDIE GLAUDE JR: Sure. But before I started reading, I want to just say how honored I am to be in conversation with you. To have an opportunity to talk about this book in this moment with you is so meaningful to me. So here it is.

    (Reading) Bitterness at the bottom of the cup. I do not love America and never have, especially now. It seems to me misplaced or dangerous to love something so abstract and so morally dubious. Love is most often felt and experienced close to the ground, in the life lived in a particular place in time and in memories that take up resonance in the heart. I suspect love of country is shorthand for the heartfelt relationships and experiences that make us who we are, things that happen in the place we call home, no matter how complicated that place may be.

    (Reading) James Baldwin was right. Whoever is part of whatever civilization helplessly loves some aspects of it and some of the people in it. And I suppose that is why, in part, we are willing to risk our lives in defense of this place and of what it might become. But in America, those feelings and experiences have always been stained by the ugliness of what white people believe about color, that somehow or in some inscrutable way, the color of one’s skin determines your value. You end up spending much of your life trying to prove to others and to yourself, not because you are obsessed with white people, but because you want to live, that you are not an N-word.

    (Reading) Some Americans may believe that this view is a relic of a past that we have long left behind. After all, they might say, we elected a Black president and vice president. Look how far we’ve come. Stop complaining, I hear them say. You teach at Princeton University. You are not a victim. But I speak from the experience of a life lived in this country, and I trust what I know, what I’ve seen and what now sits in the pit of my stomach.

    (APPLAUSE)

    MOSLEY: When did that sentence – I do not love America – become true to you? When did you consciously realize that that was a truth for you?

    GLAUDE: I had written some version of the introduction. And it didn’t land. But I was holding something back. And so, you know, writing is mostly about revision. And so I returned to that first paragraph, and suddenly this sentence just came on the page. And I got up and I started walking around my study. And I was afraid of what this would mean if I left it there, and then almost as if, you know, something inside of my head just simply said, but this is what you have to say. You have to begin here, and then you can explain it. So I left it there. And I decided, you know, in this time, you have to be courageous and vulnerable and daring. And I…

    MOSLEY: And truthful.

    GLAUDE: Yeah, exactly.

    MOSLEY: One of the things that struck me from the very beginning of this book was that I realized I wasn’t reading from the same man who wrote “Begin Again,” because in “Begin Again, which is a previous book of yours, you use James Baldwin’s work to kind of beat back despair. And in this book in particular, I felt that optimism of a truth teller, of a freedom fighter, it was gone.

    GLAUDE: Yeah. Yeah.

    MOSLEY: Am I right in that feeling? In the same way that Langston Hughes, we felt in his later writings and in James Baldwin.

    GLAUDE: Yeah. So in so many ways, I’m arguing with Jimmy. You know, in “Notes Of A Native Son,” Baldwin says, you know, I love my country more than anything. And because of that love, I reserve the right to criticize it relentlessly, to paraphrase him. I never begin there. I didn’t begin there. Maybe it’s because I’m from Mississippi, you know?

    MOSLEY: Mm hmm.

    GLAUDE: But I’m rageful. There are moments when I’m battling depression because the country has done this again. At the end of “Begin Again,” I said, well, you know, we can – we have to make a choice, right? Will we do this or that? And we have a choice to put this moment behind us, and look what we did. And now people have to raise their children in the midst of this. They’ve gutted the Voting Rights Act. They’re redrawing districts. We’re in the midst of what could very well be described as a Second Redemption, a Second Lost Cause. And, you know, the last sentence of the book speaks that emotion. And so what I was trying to do with this book was kind of write some security underneath my feet – right? – so that I could actually get this rage under control, to get my sadness, my melancholia under control.

    MOSLEY: Why anniversaries as a way to look at this country’s relationship with race? You could have chosen court cases. You could have chosen lots of different ways. What is it about our nation’s anniversaries that allow us to see the problem so clearly?

    GLAUDE: So at each of these moments, the country has to tell a story about itself. It has to tell a story about its founding. And so here we are in the 250th, and look at the kinds of – the contours of the story. Just don’t look at the UFC arena.

    (LAUGHTER)

    GLAUDE: Or the Great American Fair, or the garden of statues of heroes. But they’re going to tell a story. It’s going to be a particular story. We’re the greatest nation in the history of the world. It’s going to be a story about the – you know, the saintliness of the founders, a story about the sacredness of this grand experiment. In each of these anniversaries, the nation has to tell a story about itself about its founding. And in each of these moments, Tonya, the country is struggling and grappling with its contradiction. In each of these moments, the divided soul of the nation is in full view. All right, Du Bois in 1903 wrote “The Souls Of Black Folk.” And in “The Souls Of Black Folk,” he says that Black folks see themselves through the eyes of those who despise them. This is what he called double consciousness.

    But I believe that double consciousness is actually a consequence of the double consciousness of the nation, that America imagines itself at once as a beacon of freedom and as a White republic. And to hold those two things together with – you can’t, really, without contradiction. And it deposits a kind of madness at the heart of the country. And we see it evidenced every single milestone anniversary, 1876, 1926, 1976 and by God, 250 years later, 2026.

    MOSLEY: If you’re just joining us, we’re listening to the conversation I had onstage with Eddie Glaude Jr. at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival in Seattle. Glaude’s new book is “America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows The Nation’s Anniversaries.” More of our conversation after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

    (SOUNDBITE OF CUONG VU AND PAT METHENY’S “SEEDS OF DOUBT”)

    MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my conversation with Eddie Glaude Jr., recorded at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival in Seattle. Glaude is the James S McDonald, distinguished University professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. His new book is “America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows The Nation’s Anniversaries.”

    I want to talk with you in particular about two moments, 1926, 1976. But I’m very curious about the title, “America,” comma, “U.S.A.” Why both of those in the title?

    GLAUDE: Yeah. You know, usually it’s not a comma. It’s a hyphen.

    MOSLEY: Yes.

    GLAUDE: The Italian American, the Irish American, you know, the Black American, African American. The hyphen gives us a sense of the kind of the idea of America best represented by Ellis Island, yes? We need to remind the Trump administration about Ellis Island, right?

    (LAUGHTER)

    GLAUDE: But the comma signals a break, not connection. And so, “America, U.S.A.” actually reflects the divided soul of the country. And so, part of what I’m doing is signifying on these attempts to tell the story of America and trying to capture in the title, by way of the comma, the divided soul, the double consciousness that haunts this place.

    MOSLEY: And you’re talking about the anniversaries and all of the pomp and circumstance. As I’m reading your book, don’t laugh at this, but that song, “God Bless The USA” – proud to be an American because at least I know I’m free. And as I’m reading the words in your book, for the first time, those words, at least I know I’m free, kept coming back up for me. And I wonder, what’s your relationship to patriotism overall, and to that idea of us holding such reverence and such pride in this myth and this idea of freedom being something that could be bestowed upon us?

    GLAUDE: Yeah. Patriotism. You know, the first sentence, what it’s trying to do is hold off idolatry, the idolatry of the state, right? Something so morally dubious and so abstract, right? And sometimes – and I’ll say this, and I wonder what you think about this, but sometimes patriotism to my ear sounds like a rebel yell.

    MOSLEY: Say more.

    GLAUDE: Those people who embrace the flag, who wrap themselves up in the piety of the country are often more than not folk who think I should be in my place, folk who are behind the assault on voting rights, folk who want to deny the specificity of the experience that shape how I see this place. So usually, when I hear a robust, visceral embrace of love of country, you know, my head goes on a swivel. Who’s saying it and for what ends and for what purposes, you see? We’ve always served as a kind of counter to the myth, to the illusion that this place is a beacon of freedom.

    MOSLEY: Us meaning Black folks?

    GLAUDE: Yes. Yes. John – just think about John Adams. This is an apocryphal story. But John Adams supposedly said to King George, we will not be your Negroes. At the very moment in which he’s giving voice to a notion of freedom, it’s based on an intimate understanding of unfreedom – us. In the early days of July Fourth, if we showed up to the July Fourth celebrations, like the July days of 1834 in New York, we would literally be physically attacked because our bodies represented the contradiction of what was being said.

    We have a counter calendar, what I call a counter, alternative, commemorative calendar around freedom. While the nation is celebrating itself as the embodiment of freedom, we are celebrating January 1. Why? Because January 1, 1808, was the day that they ended the transatlantic slave trade. We’re celebrating in August, West Indian Emancipation Day. Why? Because it’s the end of slavery.

    We celebrate the most important of all of those days in the early 19th century, is July 5. Douglass’ famous July 5, 1852, oration stands in the tradition. Why July 5? It’s the abolition of slavery in the state of New York. Juneteenth stands in that tradition, where we’re giving voice to a notion of freedom over and against a country that embraces the idea of freedom but doesn’t quite live it in practice.

    MOSLEY: I want to spend some real time on two of the anniversaries that sit on top of each other. So 1876 and 1976. So 1876 is where you note that racial justice starts to get treated as philanthropy.

    GLAUDE: Yeah.

    MOSLEY: It’s a gift that white people can extend and also withdraw, rather than something that is owed. Can you talk more about that and why this reframe of understanding this is so important as we read through your book and your ideas?

    GLAUDE: Yeah. Well, I’m trying to figure out this cycle. Why is it that we’re always returning to this? What’s going on? And one of the ways I’ve resolved it is that – or I haven’t resolved the cycle – of the way in which I describe it is, OK, if America imagines itself as a beacon of freedom and as a white republic and if you can’t hold those things without contradiction, how do you finesse it? Well, you finesse it by assuming that white people possess freedom to give and to take away. Oh, let me be clear now, before people get uncomfortable. When I say white people, I’m talking at a certain level of generality. This is my reading of James Baldwin. Baldwin will say, I happen to love – and I say this – I happen to love a lot of people who happen to be white, and then there are white people.

    (LAUGHTER)

    GLAUDE: The point is is that we’re all – we all bear the burden of racialization. We’re all socialized in this way in which these categories matter to how we see ourselves and understand ourselves, right? So those people believe that they possess freedom to give and to take away. And so what we see is antislavery movement, right? Folk are fighting against slavery and they are arguing that this contradicts their commitment to principles of equality and liberty and democracy and the like. And then, once the Civil War amendments are passed, particularly the one that ends slavery – the 13th Amendment – what do we get? This debate about whether or not these folk can bear the burden and responsibility of citizenship. So you see folk who were once – right? – antislavery suddenly become – right? – folk who are arguing against extending citizenship to Black folk.

    So 1876 is this moment. Douglass is – Frederick Douglass is…

    MOSLEY: Frederick Douglass.

    GLAUDE: …Grappling with this. He’s an example of these freedom snatchers – these people who believe that they can give freedom and to take away. He was born in slavery. He – you know, he escaped. He witnessed Lincoln sign the Emancipation Proclamation, the ratification of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, and he lived long enough to see Jim Crow. He called these folk the apostles of forgetfulness, right? And then he would say – and he said in 1875 – I don’t want your alms, I want justice. He’s skeptical of people who want to do something for us as opposed to with us, huh?

    And so 1876 is this extraordinary moment, Tonya, when the country engages, for the first time after the carnage of the Civil War, in a national remembrance of its founding and it engages in this horrific act, at scale, of disremembering.

    Frederick Douglass was actually invited to be on the dais with President Grant. He’s trying to get in. This is in Philadelphia. Not in Philadelphia, Mississippi, but Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

    (LAUGHTER)

    MOSLEY: Yes.

    GLAUDE: He’s trying to get in. He shows the Philadelphia police officer his ticket, which puts him on the dais. The officer says, there’s no way an N-word should be on the dais with President Grant. He would not allow him in. If it wasn’t for a senator who sees him – Senator Conkling, I believe – who sees him and then escorts him in, Frederick Douglass would not have been able to even enter the exposition. Then they sit him on the stage – the most famous orator in the United States at the time. They sit him on the stage and he cannot say a word. He’s just there, silent. Silent.

    So there’s this disremembering that’s happening as the country barrels towards the end of the 19th century with the violence of these coups that are taking place – political coups that are taking place in Mississippi and Alabama and Georgia in the – against the backdrop of the horror that will leave over 53,000 Black people dead by the end of the 19th century. The country tells itself a story about the grandness of the American project. My, my, my.

    MOSLEY: My guest is Princeton professor Eddie Glaude Jr. To accompany his new book, Glaude worked with classical composer Joel Thompson to create music to capture what Glaude sees as the spirit of the nation. Here’s pianist Leah Claiborne performing the piece called “And Blue.”

    (SOUNDBITE OF JOEL THOMPSON’S “AND BLUE”)

    MOSLEY: That was Leah Claiborne performing “And Blue.” More of our conversation with scholar Eddie Glaude Jr. after a break. I’m Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

    (SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE’S “UNTITLED ORIGINAL”)

    MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I’m Tonya Mosley. Let’s get back to my conversation with scholar Eddie Glaude Jr., professor at Princeton University and a familiar voice on the country’s hardest conversations about race and democracy. This latest book, “America, U.S.A.,” takes us through the country’s big birthdays from the centennial in 1876 to now, 2026, as we approach the 250th, revealing how the ritual is the same each time. The nation throws itself a party and quietly edits out the parts of the story it cannot bear to face. It’s a book written in grief and rage and, underneath both, a stubborn kind of love of country. Glaude is also the author of several other books, including “Begin Again” and “We Are The Leaders We’ve Been Looking For.” We spoke earlier this month in Seattle onstage at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival, a daylong gathering of journalists and thinkers hosted by Seattle’s public media station.

    I’m thinking about 2020, when we all seemed to be coming to this same realization in the same way that we found during Reconstruction, where, oh, we understand the ills. We want to right the wrongs. And the white allies are in our corner, and they believe us, and they’re speaking truth to power as well. And then something happens. Like, the idea of it being a philanthropic effort, this idea that you can put it on the shelf, and then you can take it off the shelf when it comes to racial equality.

    GLAUDE: Yeah. Yeah. Sentimentality. At the heart of this idea that certain people think that they possess freedom to give and to take away is the cycle of sentimentality and rage. You cry your crocodile tears. I remember writing this passage, trying to figure it out just five years ago, six years ago. We were in the midst of a racial reckoning. I was crying on national television about George Floyd and the like. And in the blink of an eye, we’re here. In the blink of an eye. And the only thing I could conclude is that people were lying. You weren’t telling the truth. Or you didn’t have anywhere else to land. And you just returned back, returned to the status quo.

    And so I was trying to describe it in a way, drawing on Baldwin’s notion of sentimentality – and Oscar Wilde and others, right? That sentimentality is really just, you know, about your own individual feelings. Baldwin says it’s the mask of cruelty, right? You cry your crocodile tears for us. Oh, we want to do this for you. We’re going to make sure. We’re going to resolve – we’re going to absolve ourselves of our sins by actually engaging in this effort. We’re going to tell the truth about what we’ve done.

    And then when the people who bear the brunt of what we’ve done continue to ask for justice, then the question becomes, what else do you want? We’ve given you enough. Overreach. How much more are you going to ask? And as soon as you hear those questions, we’re on the cusp of the backlash, the rage. And here we are, because sentimentality carries with it rage. Uncle Tom – you know who’s the flip side of Uncle Tom? Nat Turner.

    MOSLEY: Yes. Yes.

    GLAUDE: Same side of the same coin in our imaginations.

    MOSLEY: Yes.

    GLAUDE: This – I’m thinking we’re being too hard. Y’all all right?

    UNIDENTIFIED AUDIENCE MEMBERS: Yes.

    (LAUGHTER)

    GLAUDE: You sure? I’m just checking on you.

    MOSLEY: This is Seattle, OK?

    GLAUDE: OK, I’m just checking on them.

    MOSLEY: This is not – we can go there. We can go there with Seattleites.

    (APPLAUSE)

    GLAUDE: I’m just checking on them. Yeah.

    MOSLEY: I want to go back to Frederick Douglass, though, 1876. It’s the centennial, as you said. It’s the nation’s hundredth birthday. He is turned away initially. And…

    GLAUDE: Yeah. Yeah.

    MOSLEY: …He is the most famous Black man in America at the time. He’s watching it all collapse around him. Take me, in particular, though, to July 5.

    GLAUDE: Yeah.

    MOSLEY: 1875. What was he contending with as he’s preparing to speak?

    GLAUDE: Yeah. And, you know, usually we talk about July 5, 1852, when he delivers that famous July 5 address in Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York. But in 1875, the old man has to figure out what he’s going to say to the country, what he’s going to say to these people in Metropolitan Church.

    And he knew exactly what was going to happen come 1876. They would tell the story of the grandness of the American project. And it so mirrors our day. But here’s that moment. Douglass says, and I always get choked up when I say it, we gained our freedom through the falling out of white men. Now we must brace ourselves – I’m paraphrasing – for what will happen now that they’ve reconciled. What – we must brace ourselves for what’s to come.

    MOSLEY: Yes.

    GLAUDE: And it’s a powerful speech, so much so that I try to pull it forward by the time I get to 2025…

    MOSLEY: Yes.

    GLAUDE: …And I’m trying to write to the 2026 celebration, yeah.

    MOSLEY: Yes. I was surprised to know that you went to school in Philadelphia, but you had never really taken tours of all of the landmarks. But you decide to take a tour of Independence Hall, what was it, like 2024?

    GLAUDE: Yeah.

    MOSLEY: So not that long ago.

    GLAUDE: Yeah.

    MOSLEY: And you’re on this tour. And you’re hearing this tour guide tell a story. And what’s interesting about that time period is there was a lot of effort that went into making it diverse to kind of show a more perfect union. And you’re noticing something very specific as you’re going through this tour. What did you find?

    GLAUDE: Well, it’s the storybook version of America, right?

    MOSLEY: Yes.

    GLAUDE: And he’s talking, he’s taking us through the Congress Hall, right? And I’ve never been a tourist. I could go – I go overseas, and I stay in my hotel and read books. My wife hates it.

    (LAUGHTER)

    GLAUDE: So I’m in Philly. I never go to the Liberty Bell or any of that stuff. But here, I wanted to return to it. And he’s telling a story. And he looks like he’s cosplaying a kind of drill sergeant. He has his, you know, force outfit on.

    MOSLEY: Yeah.

    GLAUDE: And he’s walking us through the House and then the Senate. And he’s telling us these stories. And finally, he talks about the conflict between, that they weren’t divided according to party but, you know, region and whatnot. He said, the biggest conflict is that they came from the South and the North. And I was like, OK, here we go.

    (LAUGHTER)

    GLAUDE: We’re going to start talking about slavery.

    MOSLEY: Lots to get into. Yes.

    GLAUDE: Got it. And then he says, they didn’t know how to shake hands. That was an example of the conflict…

    MOSLEY: That was the conflict

    GLAUDE: …Between the congresspersons, that they didn’t – one would bow and one would – and I was like, that’s it? We’re not going to – and so – and then I just saw ghosts. I saw ghosts all around Congress Hall. You know, pursed-lip ghosts, right? But it was an example for me – a startling example – of the storybook version of the country because in that very building, Congress decided by – only one person voted – decided to maintain the fugitive slave law.

    MOSLEY: Yes.

    GLAUDE: And Moses Gordon’s story is located right in that moment.

    MOSLEY: Talk a little bit about Moses Gordon.

    GLAUDE: Moses Gordon was – you see how good she is?

    (LAUGHTER)

    GLAUDE: Moses Gordon was enslaved and manumitted in 1776, just three months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence in North Carolina. His slavemaster was Caleb Trueblood, a Quaker. And for two years, Moses Gordon lived as a free man. But the colony or the – you know, South – North Carolina had passed a statute saying that you could not manumit your slaves unless – for meritorious service unless they fought in the Revolutionary War. So Moses Gordon was captured two years later and sold back into slavery and he freedom dreamed. And then he escaped, and he escaped to Philadelphia, and for 10 years he lived as a free man.

    But because of the fugitive slave clause in the Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, Moses Gordon was a thief because he stole himself. He belonged to the man to whom he was sold – Brigadier General William Skinner. And 10 years later, he was captured, put in shackles and was to be sent back to North Carolina. In the papers of John Parrish, a Quaker abolitionist in – at Haverford College, reside – are the manumission papers of Moses Gordon, and on the back, John Parrish wrote, instead of returning to slavery, Moses Gordon committed suicide. And that becomes a story of freedom snatching. He was freed, enslaved, escaped, captured, death. And it becomes a through line.

    MOSLEY: We’re listening to the conversation I had on stage with Eddie Glaude Jr. at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival. Glaude’s new book is “America, U.S.A.” More of our conversation after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

    (SOUNDBITE OF JOHN COLTRANE QUARTET’S “OUT OF THIS WORLD”)

    MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. Let’s get back to my conversation with Eddie Glaude Jr. recorded at the Cascade PBS Ideas Festival. Glaude is the James S. McDonnell distinguished university professor of African American studies at Princeton University. His new book is “America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows The Nation’s Anniversaries.”

    I want to take us now to 1976 ’cause this is a time period where you and I are alive, we’re coming of age. How old were you in 1976?

    GLAUDE: Eight.

    MOSLEY: You were 8 years old. Yeah. It’s the bicentennial. And the question has shifted by then. This is the apex of white flight, the thick of desegregation fights.

    GLAUDE: Yeah.

    MOSLEY: And it’s the first time, as you write in your book, that the nation is forced to kind of acknowledge Black history. But the question isn’t whether Black freedom should be retracted. It’s whether we should participate at all in the bicentennial.

    GLAUDE: Yeah.

    MOSLEY: Can you talk briefly about that?

    GLAUDE: Sure. You know, it’s just – I remember as – well, I have a photo. I have a vague memory of me being in red, white and blue pants…

    (LAUGHTER)

    MOSLEY: Yeah.

    GLAUDE: …How kitschy…

    MOSLEY: Yeah.

    GLAUDE: …The ’76 bicentennial celebration was – you know, from red, white and blue whoopee cushions to a range of things. But this is a celebration really of white ethnics in 1976. Remember, 1926, there is this real intense debate around immigration.

    MOSLEY: And this is such an interesting point in history because this is where immigrants have the ability to become white.

    GLAUDE: Yes.

    MOSLEY: They have a choice to make.

    GLAUDE: Yes.

    MOSLEY: And as Black people, we sit very squarely in that because we’re representative of what?

    GLAUDE: The journey of the country itself, right?

    MOSLEY: Yes.

    GLAUDE: But, you know, 1926, you know, if you’re from Italy, you’re from Ireland, you’re Jewish, you’re from the S-hole (ph) countries of Europe – right? – the Klan can’t stand them. They are as much against Irish Catholics – Catholicism in particular – as they are against Black people in the 1920s. But by 1976, their children are claiming the revolution as their own. Black folk are still arguing. We’re in this moment of deep dissensus, Tonya – Watergate, Vietnam, Black Power, the Black student – SDS. There’s all of this deep suspicion and skepticism about the country. And so the bicentennial is supposed to be this ritual that’s going to bring us together over and against all of this conflict and discord that’s defined the decade of the ’60s and the early part of the ’70s.

    And is this the first year? ‘Cause in – 1926 is the first time Negro History Week is celebrated – in 1926. 1976, Negro History Week becomes Black History Month. President Ford recognizes and acknowledges Negro History Week and then Black History Month. But there’s this debate – ’cause Black folk are still struggling – ought we to celebrate this? Because what’s happening is that instead of disappearing Black history, Black history is being absorbed into the story of America to affirm America’s inherent goodness.

    MOSLEY: So you write about the Reagan years.

    GLAUDE: Yeah.

    MOSLEY: This is the time period where we start talking about, like, color blindness.

    GLAUDE: Yeah.

    MOSLEY: It’s assorting. It parts Black history to fit into this fairy tale, but it – but we’re still kind of off to the side. It’s not integrated into the full story.

    GLAUDE: What so – makes this moment so crazy is that they don’t even accept the redacted version of our story. So Reagan signs MLK holiday into law. Barack Obama becomes the kind of culmination of that, right? Even so much so you can tell the story of the March on Washington in such a way that, you know, affirms the possibility of American life. We lost our way with Black power. But no, no, no, no, this is what we’re doing. The MAGA folk don’t even want that to be a part of the story. But what we see in this moment is this absorption of Black history as an affirmation of the inherent goodness of the country. So our story is blunted. It doesn’t provide a critique, right? Instead – right? – the country can tell our story and pat itself on the back. Look at you. Look at me.

    MOSLEY: Exceptionalism.

    GLAUDE: Look how far we’ve come.

    MOSLEY: Yep.

    GLAUDE: Look how decent we are, right? And then, in the blink of an eye, we find ourselves here.

    MOSLEY: You call this book an elegy. It’s pitched in the note of the blues. But I want to know, very quickly, why the blues is the right form of the story of America at this 250th anniversary? And I’m going to double this question as well to ask you what you will be doing on July Fourth or July 5?

    GLAUDE: Why the blues and what am I going to be doing? America has to grow up. It can’t – it can no longer hide in its adolescence. You know, when grown folk act like kids, they’re monstrous, more often than not. And so it keeps telling itself this story that affirms its innocence. And what the blues does, the blues – right? – takes you to the heart of the problem. B.B. King’s nobody loves you but my mother, and she can be jiving, too.

    (LAUGHTER)

    GLAUDE: It offers a tragic sense of the world, right? We don’t have to be all angels, right? The devil and the angel is in us, so all we need to do is to look in the mirror. So we need to grow up, because if you don’t grow up, you can bomb Iran and then tell somebody else to fix it. If you don’t grow up, you can do all of this evil in these detention centers, in these black sites and not hold anybody responsible, right? You can become complicit with evil because you are by definition innocent. So the country has to sing the blues. And you know what? We’ve deposited it there since we got here.

    MOSLEY: That’s the thing you talk about, too, is, like, we aren’t just a part of American history. We are interwoven into the very meaning of what this country is.

    GLAUDE: It’s on our tongue. It’s in our food. We have made – your country? No, no. We, in the fullness of our diversity, make this place swing. So on July Fourth and July 5, we need to show the full diversity of America and claim the country as our own.

    MOSLEY: Eddie Glaude, this has been a pleasure. Thank you so much for this conversation. When you say, I do not love this country, actually, this book is a love letter to America.

    GLAUDE: Oh, you’ve got me.

    MOSLEY: Yes. Thank you.

    GLAUDE: Absolutely.

    (APPLAUSE)

    MOSLEY: Eddie Glaude Jr., author of “America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows The Nation’s Anniversaries.” After a short break, book critic Maureen Corrigan reviews some spring releases on her summer reading list. This is FRESH AIR.

    (SOUNDBITE OF BILL EVANS TRIO’S “MILESTONES”)

  • Iran Deal, UFC Event At White House, Trump Heads To G7

    Transcript:

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

    President Trump said he’ll sign a deal with Iran, and this time, Iran confirmed it.

    A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:

    It’s set to be signed Friday in Switzerland. Israel was left out. So what do they think of the agreement with their longtime enemy?

    INSKEEP: I’m Steve Inskeep with A Martínez, and this is UP FIRST from NPR News.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    INSKEEP: On his 80th birthday, the president did not celebrate the Iran deal by jumping on top of the fence at a UFC match at the White House, but some of the fighters did, as the president looked on. Mara Liasson analyzes the politics of a Paramount+ TV program on the White House lawn.

    MARTÍNEZ: And right after the fight, the president headed to France for the G7 summit. How might they help with the aftermath of the war in Iran? Stay with us. We’ve got the news you need to start your day.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    MARTÍNEZ: The United States and Iran say they are ready to stop their nearly four-month war.

    INSKEEP: The president started the war by saying a U.S. bombing campaign would set up Iran’s people to overthrow their government. That government is still in power, and Trump now makes an agreement with it. In recent weeks, reports of the terms have included payments to Iran to stop the fighting, although the actual terms are unknown. It is thought to be a temporary deal to end the shooting and return to negotiating the hard issues, including the status of Iran’s nuclear program.

    MARTÍNEZ: NPR’s Carrie Kahn joins us now from Tel Aviv. So, Carrie, President Trump announced this final agreement on his social media platform, posting Sunday evening. What do you have to say?

    CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: He portrayed it as a victory for the U.S. and that once it is signed this Friday in Geneva, the U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports will end. Trump says the Strait of Hormuz will be open and free to all, and he added, ships of the world, start your engines. Let the oil flow. Oil prices did drop on news of a deal. Iran is also claiming the deal as a victory. Iran’s deputy foreign minister said the cessation of fire will be immediate and on all fronts, and he did state that includes Lebanon.

    MARTÍNEZ: OK. So details, Carrie. What do we know about any details here?

    KAHN: Not a lot. Lots of questions remain. But Trump says the straits opening will happen after the deal is signed on Friday. That’s in Geneva, and it will begin with a sweeping of the vital waterway of all minds. He said in the past that the pact would entail a 60-day ceasefire while both sides begin negotiations on a permanent end to the war. And then comes the really tough issues like Iran’s nuclear capabilities and sanctions relief. In an interview with The New York Times last night, Trump said Iran would be allowed low-level nuclear enrichment, but what that looks like is unknown. And then there’s the role of Israel in all of this deal. Israel has not been part of talks leading up to the agreement, and as of now, is not expected at the future negotiations.

    MARTÍNEZ: OK. So what has Iran said about this deal?

    KAHN: Iran’s Supreme National Security Council confirmed the deal, too. It said it was agreed to and that Iran expects fighting on all fronts to end, including Lebanon. The semi-official state news agency, Mehr, did have a lengthy 14-point draft of what Iran says is in the memorandum of understanding with the U.S. Most important – and this could be another wrench and finalization of the deal – Iran says the U.S. will release $24 billion in blocked funds during the 60-day ceasefire. And they said that half of that amount, quote, “must be made available to Iran before further negotiations begin” (ph). No word from Washington on that point.

    INSKEEP: OK. And what about Israel? What are they saying?

    KAHN: Officially, Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, posted a response that also casts doubt about Israel’s cooperation and U.S. control over its military actions. He said both he and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agree Israel will not retreat from Lebanon, where it’s fighting Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants or Syria or Gaza. He added that is, quote, “despite all the existing pressures and those that may yet come” (ph). Israel struck a Beirut suburb Sunday after detecting Hezbollah drones in northern Israel, and that cross-border clash almost scuttled yesterday’s announcement of the deal.

    MARTÍNEZ: That’s NPR’s Carrie Kahn in Tel Aviv. Carrie, thank you very much.

    KAHN: You’re welcome.

    MARTÍNEZ: President Trump celebrated his 80th birthday and the country’s 250th birthday last night, with a spectacle never before seen at the White House. It was a UFC fight right on the White House lawn.

    (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

    BRUCE BUFFER: We are live from the South Lawn of the White House.

    INSKEEP: We should do things on NPR like that sometimes.

    MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter).

    INSKEEP: Anyway, mixed martial arts fighters went after each other in a scene that included the White House backside, along with giant ads for Monster Energy drink, Bud Light and sports betting. The Paramount+ streaming program included shots inside the White House and fighters warming up in a historic room in the building next door.

    MARTÍNEZ: Steve Inskeep’s a grappler. That’s why I wouldn’t take him on. NPR’s Mara Liasson has been covering all of this. So, Mara, this wasn’t just a presidential birthday bash. I mean, this was a major political event. So what was President Trump conveying with this fight?

    MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: That’s right. I think on the simplest level, Trump wanted a spectacle for his own entertainment for his 80th birthday, happy birthday, Mr. President. But the cage match at the White House also happened in the middle of an election season where age and generational change are big issues. Trump’s critics say he’s been showing signs of decline. He’s closed his eyes at White House meetings. There’s been a lot of talk about his health. The White House denies that he’s ever fallen asleep. But the fight last night certainly contradicted the image of decline. Trump’s brand is strength and toughness – fight, fight, fight. It’s also spectacle and hype.

    And it was an unprecedented scene. As Steve said, fighters warmed up barefoot in these grand meeting rooms at the White House filled with historic paintings. There was a pre-fight broadcast from inside the White House, and even the commentators kept on saying how surreal it felt. But Trump is a base politician, and there is a lot of overlap between the UFC fans, young men, particularly white noncollege-educated men, who are a critical part of his MAGA base. And even though his support is still very strong among that demographic, it has slipped a lot.

    MARTÍNEZ: All right. So let’s get into some of the criticism. Is the criticism mostly coming from Democrats, or is Trump facing maybe broader blowback on this?

    LIASSON: Well, mostly from Democrats, but Republicans will complain privately. Democrats say that Trump is spending money on his personal whims, a birthday party, a grand arch, a ballroom, not worrying about problems that ordinary people are facing. And for Republicans, their concern is just that they want him to focus more on issues that might actually help them keep their majorities in Congress in the midterms.

    MARTÍNEZ: OK. So what do they want him to be saying out loud? What do they want him talking about?

    LIASSON: What they’d like him to be talking about is ordinary people’s concerns, first and foremost, high prices. They want him to tell them how he plans to bring down gas prices, how he plans to keep rural hospitals open, how he plans to make it easier to buy a home, etc.

    MARTÍNEZ: So what does the White House say in response to all that?

    LIASSON: Well, the White House says that Trump, like any president, can and should walk and chew gum at the same time. They say there’s nothing preventing him from having a birthday celebration or worrying about the aesthetics of the National Mall while also doing the work of a president. And they point to the deal with Iran as a perfect example because just before the fight began, Trump announced a deal to end hostilities there. That’s a big promise he’s been making to end the unpopular war. And also, he left immediately after the fight to fly to France for the G7 summit. So a UFC fight and a trip to an international summit all in one day, the White House says that proves their point.

    MARTÍNEZ: That’s NPR’s Mara Liasson. Thanks a lot.

    LIASSON: You’re welcome.

    MARTÍNEZ: All right. So as Mara said, President Trump will join leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations for a summit in the French Alps today, known as the G7.

    INSKEEP: The meeting we expect will involve talk of that peace agreement between the United States and Iran. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz raised oil prices and affected just about every economy on Earth.

    MARTÍNEZ: We turn now to NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley, who is following from France. Eleanor, this G7 summit will open in a few hours. What’s the mood there?

    ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Well, leaders will be bracing for the arrival of President Trump later today, but that’s usually the case because he has a tendency to dictate the timing, the agenda, and the mood of such international summits. Commentators are saying he’ll be arriving in a good mood, like a hero, fresh off of a deal to end the war with Iran. But European analysts are also noting that both the U.S. and Iran are claiming total victory and that the U.S. is only fixing something it had broken. So basically, the world is back to where we were before the U.S. and Israel launched this war 107 days ago, they say. French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting the summit. This is his last G7, his last year in office. He reacted last night when the news broke, speaking from Evian-les-Bains in the French Alps, where he’ll be receiving President Trump and the leaders of Canada, Japan, the U.K., Italy and Germany later today. He was cautiously optimistic. Here he is.

    (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

    PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: (Speaking French).

    BEARDSLEY: He says, “we need to see the consequences of this agreement, support for Lebanon, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz long term and, of course, an agreement on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic weapons.”

    MARTÍNEZ: So trying to remember, didn’t European leaders say that they would help reopen the Strait of Hormuz once the fighting stops? If so, I mean, is that still on the table?

    BEARDSLEY: Yes, it absolutely is. Around 40 countries met in April in Paris, led by Britain and France, and they said they would contribute to such a force once the war ends. And France has an aircraft carrier in the region, the Charles de Gaulle, standing by. Alice Rufo, who is France’s deputy defense minister, spoke this morning on the radio. Here she is.

    (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

    ALICE RUFO: (Speaking French).

    BEARDSLEY: So she says, “we are ready to contribute to reopening the strait and demining it as long as there’s this agreement in place and the fighting has stopped.” You know, Trump disparaged, he even mocked British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Macron for this offer of force after the war ends a couple of months ago. But he wants them involved today. Analysts say Trump will be counting on these allies to help him buttress the deal and give it credibility. So we likely will see Trump treating his allies with respect in the next couple of days, they say.

    MARTÍNEZ: OK. So that’s the big topic at the G7. What else will be discussed there?

    BEARDSLEY: Artificial intelligence, world trade imbalances, immigration and also the war in Ukraine, which is a top priority – ending it is – for Europeans. That’s four of the G7 members. President Zelenskyy will be at the summit. Ukraine has been very successful striking deep into Russia with its own, you know, drones and missiles, long range, that’s crippling Russian oil refining capacity. And Zelenskyy is hoping that strength will get Trump back to the negotiating table to put pressure on Russia to end the war.

    MARTÍNEZ: And one more thing. Anything else on President Trump’s European agenda?

    BEARDSLEY: Well, the summit ends Wednesday, but we know President Trump will be staying at least through Wednesday night because he’s been invited to a tete-a-tete dinner by President Macron at the palace of Versailles, where there will be fireworks to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary.

    MARTÍNEZ: But no Octagon cage at the Palace of Versailles. You haven’t seen…

    BEARDSLEY: No.

    MARTÍNEZ: That’s NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley. Thank you.

    BEARDSLEY: Thank you.

    MARTÍNEZ: Before you go, don’t forget to listen to UP FIRST Sunday Story. In 2020, an anti-police violence protest in Seattle ended in a teenage boy’s death. And as the questions mounted, protesters closed ranks.

    (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR CONTENT)

    ASHLEY DORELUS: It’s, like, what’s the No. 1 rule of Fight Club?

    DAVID GUTMAN: Don’t talk about Fight Club.

    DORELUS: Exactly.

    MARTÍNEZ: On The Sunday Story, the unsolved killing of a young man and how the protesters’ circle of silence continues to hide the truth. Listen now to The Sunday Story from UP FIRST on the NPR app.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    MARTÍNEZ: And that’s UP FIRST for Monday, June 15. I’m A Martínez.

    INSKEEP: And I’m Steve Inskeep. Today’s UP FIRST was edited by Tina Kraja, Kelsey Snell, Miguel Macias, Mohamad Elbardicy and Taylor Haney. It was produced by Ziad Buchh and Ben Abrams. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Zo van Ginhoven, and our technical director is Carleigh Strange. Join us again tomorrow.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

  • If you plan to catch up on reading this summer, start with these 3 books

    (W. W. Norton & Company)

    I love reviewing books but sometimes the pace of reading them can feel like that classic I Love Lucy episode at the chocolate factory. The conveyer belt speeds up and the books keep coming along faster than they can be “wrapped” in a review. Summer gives me a chance to catch up with some good books that whizzed by in spring.

    James Lasdun’s The Family Man: Blood and Betrayal in the House of Murdaugh came out the first week of May, which is when I read it. This nonfiction book, which grew out of a piece Lasdun wrote for The New Yorker, is about the investigation and conviction of prominent South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh for the 2021 murders of his wife and adult son.

    Then came the real-life plot twist: A little over a week after Lasdun’s book was published, Murdaugh’s conviction was overturned because of jury tampering. A retrial is being scheduled. Rather than rendering The Family Man obsolete, this new twist intensifies the miasma of stories that swirl around the Murdaugh case — including suspicious deaths and embezzlement.

    Lasdun is a “true crime” writer in the reflective mold of his late New Yorker colleague Janet Malcolm. Although investigating the double murder case drives this narrative, Lasdun is most interested in exploring the ultimate unsolvable mystery: the mystery of evil.

    (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

    Harriet Clark’s debut novel, The Hill, which came out in May, has been getting tons of deserved praise. The novel draws explicitly from Clark’s own background: Born in 1980, Clark was 11 months old when her mother, a member of the radical Weather Underground, was arrested and sentenced for her involvement in a Brinks armored truck robbery that resulted in the deaths of three men. Clark’s maternal grandparents got custody and she visited her mother in prison for almost 40 years, before she was paroled in 2019.

    Clark’s main character, Suzanna, is 8 when the story begins and living with her grandparents, former members of the American Communist Party. The plot here is a marvel of sustained claustrophobic stasis. Every week, Suzanna is taken — first by her grandfather, then by a nun, then on her own — to visit her mother at the Children’s Center in Hillcrest prison. Suzanna’s voice charges this novel with intelligence:

    Each week … my mother fixed and re-fixed my hair. I slept and didn’t sleep, . … Around us women counted down to release, but my mother and I had been released from countdowns. No reason to look forward, no interest in looking back, we were, as I saw it, free of the past and free of the future. Carnival Day, Friendship Day, Birthday Day — the holidays in the Center followed their own lilting rhythms, and eventually we submitted again to the lull and pleasures of our timeless life.

    All the while I was reading The Hill, I kept thinking of E.L. Doctorow’s The Book of Daniel, inspired by the Rosenberg case. The two novels differ in scope, but like Doctorow, Clark interrogates the cost of parents’ radical commitment to their children, as well as how the world itself shifts radically, from generation to generation.

    (W. W. Norton & Company)

    Sometimes I put aside a good book for a bad reason. Mary Costello’s slim novel, A Beautiful Loan, touted as a devastating story about relationships, came out in March. “No,” I thought back then, “not another ersatz Sally Rooney in time for St. Patrick’s Day.”

    But, one empty afternoon, I picked it up and kept reading, mostly because the present-tense narration of the main character, Anna, struck me as so weird in tone. Her deadened voice was at odds with her emotional turbulence. Here’s 19-year-old Anna summarizing how Paul, an elusive older man she’ll eventually marry, keeps her in thrall to what she calls “this oscillating life”:

    In the middle of the night, … he rises on one elbow in the bed beside me and, in an urgent, desperate voice, says, I love you. In the morning, he makes no reference to this, and I think he must have spoken in his sleep. Never again in our lives together will he say those three words.

    A Beautiful Loan spans 25 years and Anna’s obsessive devotion to two men, one dog, the writings of Camus and Jung, and the practice of Islam. Like the other two books I’ve caught up with here, it may not be the ideal “beach read,” but it would be perfect for a wash-out of a summer weekend.

    Transcript:

    TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

    This is FRESH AIR. For our book critic, Maureen Corrigan, summer reading sometimes means catching up on the books she missed earlier in the year. Here’s her short roundup of some spring books.

    MAUREEN CORRIGAN, BYLINE: I love reviewing books. But sometimes the pace of reading them can feel like that classic “I Love Lucy” episode at the chocolate factory. The conveyor belt speeds up, and the books keep coming along faster than they can be wrapped in a review. Summer gives me a chance to catch up with some good books that whizzed by in spring. James Lasdun’s “The Family Man” came out the first week of May, which is when I read it. This nonfiction book, which grew out of a piece Lasdun wrote for The New Yorker, is about the investigation and conviction of prominent South Carolina lawyer Alex Murdaugh for the 2021 murders of his wife and adult son.

    Then came the real-life plot twist. A little over a week after Lasdun’s book was published, Murdaugh’s conviction was overturned because of jury tampering. A retrial is being scheduled. Rather than rendering “The Family Man” obsolete, this new twist intensifies the miasma of stories that swirl around the Murdaugh case, including suspicious deaths and embezzlement. Lasdun is a true crime writer in the reflective mold of his late New Yorker colleague, Janet Malcolm. Although investigating the double murder case drives this narrative, Lasdun is most interested in exploring the ultimate unsolvable mystery, the mystery of evil.

    Harriet Clark’s debut novel, “The Hill, “which came out in May, has been getting tons of deserved praise. The novel draws explicitly from Clark’s own background. Born in 1980, Clark was 11 months old when her mother, a member of the radical Weather Underground, was arrested and sentenced for her involvement in a Brinks armored truck robbery that resulted in the deaths of three men. Clark’s maternal grandparents got custody. And she visited her mother in prison for almost 40 years before she was paroled in 2019.

    Clark’s main character, Suzanna, is 8 when the story begins and living with her grandparents, former members of the American Communist Party. The plot here is a marvel of sustained, claustrophobic stasis. Every week, Suzanna is taken first by her grandfather, then by a nun, then on her own, to visit her mother in the children’s center in Hillcrest Prison. Suzanna’s voice charges this novel with intelligence. Listen.

    (Reading) Each week, my mother fixed and refixed my hair. I slept and didn’t sleep. Around us, women counted down to release, but my mother and I had been released from countdowns, no reason to look forward, no interest in looking back. We were, as I saw it, free of the past and free of the future. Carnival day, friendship day, birthday day, the holidays followed their own lilting rhythms. And eventually, we submitted again to the lull and pleasures of our timeless life.

    All the while I was reading “The Hill,” I kept thinking of E. L. Doctorow’s “The Book Of Daniel,” inspired by the Rosenberg case. The two novels differ in scope, but like Doctorow, Clark interrogates the cost of parents’ radical commitment on their children, as well as how the world itself shifts radically from generation to generation.

    Sometimes I put aside a good book for a bad reason. Mary Costello’s slim novel, “A Beautiful Loan,” touted as a devastating story about relationships, came out in March. No, I thought back then, not another ersatz Sally Rooney in time for St. Patrick’s Day, but one empty afternoon, I picked it up and kept reading, mostly because the present tense narration of the main character, Anna, struck me as so weird in tone. Her deadened voice was at odds with her emotional turbulence. Here’s 19-year-old Anna, summarizing how Paul, an elusive older man she’ll eventually marry, keeps her enthralled to what she calls this oscilating life.

    (Reading) In the middle of the night, he rises on one elbow in the bed beside me and in an urgent, desperate voice, says, I love you. In the morning, he makes no reference to this, and I think he must have spoken in his sleep. Never again in our lives together will he say those three words.

    “A Beautiful Loan” spans 25 years and Anna’s obsessive devotion to two men, one dog, the writings of Camus and Jung and the practice of Islam. Like the other two books I’ve caught up with here, it may not be the ideal beach read but it would be perfect for a washout of a summer weekend.

    MOSLEY: Maureen Corrigan is a professor of literature at Georgetown University. She reviewed “The Family Man” by James Lasdun, “The Hill” by Harriet Clark and “A Beautiful Loan” by Mary Costello.

    Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, as we approach America’s 250th birthday, writer Jesse Wegman tells the forgotten story of James Wilson, a brilliant 18th century lawyer who played a critical role in crafting the Constitution, pushing for a strong federal government and the direct election of lawmakers. Wegman’s book is “The Lost Founder.” I hope you can join us. To keep up with what’s on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram – @NPRFreshAir.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    MOSLEY: FRESH AIR’s executive producer is Sam Briger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi, Anna Bauman and Nico Gonzalez-Wisler. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I’m Tanya Mosley.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

  • Stop overthinking skin care. What’s essential and what’s hype

    Stop overthinking skin care. What’s essential and what’s hype

  • Slavery exhibit targeted by Trump faces uncertain future

    Slavery exhibit targeted by Trump faces uncertain future

    Transcript:

    ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:

    It’s CONSIDER THIS, where every day we go deep on one big news story. We’re just a few weeks away from celebrating the nation’s 250th birthday. So I went to the city called the birthplace of America – Philadelphia.

    (SOUNDBITE OF BELLS TOLLING)

    FLORIDO: It was right here at Independence Hall that the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Philadelphia became the nation’s first capital, George Washington its first president. He lived a block away. For decades and decades, people have come to these few old city blocks, all cobblestone and red brick, to steep themselves in this history of American freedom. Our producer, Henry Larson, and I came because of a battle playing out right now over that history. Specifically, over whether the National Park Service, which runs these historic sites, should have to tell the stories of the Black people who are part of it.

    We’re standing here looking at this beautiful rear facade of Independence Hall, and then you turn around, and just a few steps away is the house where George Washington, when he was president during those early years, lived, and not only where he lived, but where he enslaved nine people.

    MICHAEL COARD: Austin, Paris, Hercules, Christopher Sheels, Richmond, Giles, Oney Judge, Moll.

    FLORIDO: Michael Coard is reading their names etched onto a wall at the site of Washington’s house. Coard’s a lawyer and an activist, and like many Philadelphians, he was stunned in the early 2000s when a local historian unearthed records that George and Martha Washington had brought nine slaves to work for them here.

    COARD: Many of us knew that he enslaved, but not many knew that nine were held right here in Philadelphia. So I was enraged. I put together a group of local activists. We formed it…

    FLORIDO: He called it the Avenging the Ancestors Coalition. It began pressing the Park Service to create an exhibit. It took years, but in 2010, it was finished. The house, long gone except for its foundations, was partially rebuilt. Panels and video screens along the walls told the stories of George Washington’s nine enslaved workers.

    COARD: It was the grand opening of the first slave memorial of its kind on federal property in the history of the United States of America. We thought it would last forever, but 15 years later, the destruction came.

    FLORIDO: Last year, President Trump signed an executive order titled Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. It ordered national parks and historic sites to remove any exhibit or display that, quote, “inappropriately disparages Americans past or living.” A few months later, federal workers showed up at the slavery exhibit here at the president’s house with crowbars.

    COARD: There were 34 interpretive panels to tell this old story. They pulled all 34 down. I felt like a part of my soul was being ripped out with each interpretive panel being ripped out because this is my story.

    FLORIDO: At national parks and historic sites across the U.S., the Trump administration has for months been removing displays about slavery and other ugly chapters in U.S. history. Trump’s order said that telling history this way deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame. This week, a federal judge temporarily blocked the president’s order, but it’s not clear what that will mean for the slavery exhibit here in Philly, which has already been partially restored because of a separate lawsuit brought by the city.

    (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: One, three, four, eight, city of Philadelphia against the Secretary U.S. Department of Interior.

    FLORIDO: CONSIDER THIS – just days before thousands of people are expected to stream into Philadelphia to celebrate the nation’s 250th birthday, some of the exhibit at the president’s house has been restored, but a lot is still missing.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FLORIDO: From NPR, I’m Adrian Florido.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FLORIDO: It’s CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. In Philadelphia, a historic site meant to tell the stories of Black people enslaved by George Washington is at the center of a battle over history.

    (SOUNDBITE OF BELL RINGING)

    FLORIDO: Five months ago, the Trump administration took down an exhibit at the site. To get a sense of what the slavery exhibit’s removal has meant, we met tour guide Raina Yancey at the house. Her shock hasn’t gone away.

    RAINA YANCEY: I wasn’t prepared for the full range of emotions that overcame me. I don’t know. I’m still upset. I’m still angry.

    FLORIDO: Seven years ago, Yancey started a company called The Black Journey. She gives walking tours about Philadelphia’s Black history. Here at President Washington’s house, she always tells the story of Ona Judge, who ran away – escaped to freedom. Yancey gave me a bit of the tour.

    YANCEY: So you have about 50% of the walls as it would’ve had. We’re walking to a wall that once held a panel information about the dirty business of slavery. There are metal brackets where the panels used to be secured to the wall.

    FLORIDO: We’re looking at an empty wall now.

    YANCEY: We’re looking at an empty wall. It doesn’t make sense without the context. There are footprints that are supposed to represent Ona Judge’s triumphant escape in the ground. They’re bronzed. They’re beautiful. But it doesn’t make sense without the story – what the significance of the names etched in granite, the footprints. It doesn’t make sense.

    FLORIDO: When you’re bringing people through this house, what is the story you’re trying to tell them while you’re standing right here, where we’re standing right now?

    YANCEY: I want them to understand that history of slavery in the United States is from the very beginning, from the very top. And I also want to tell the story of triumph, that people stood up for themselves, in particular, Ona Judge. She emancipated herself. She was a young woman. She had no idea where she was going. She knew she would never see her family again.

    FLORIDO: Yancey tells me that after she learned of the story of Judge’s escape and the stories of the other eight enslaved workers, she felt an urge to tell as many people as possible.

    Did you ever consider, after those panels came down, not doing the tours?

    YANCEY: No. I see the Black journey as stewards of this history, and we saw how easily the history was previously lost for over a century, and I want to make sure that that doesn’t happen again.

    FLORIDO: How do you grapple with this paradox of slavery in the shadow of Independence Hall?

    YANCEY: I call it hypocrisy. On the tour, we share a picture of the founders. There’s a famous oil painting, and it’s supposed to depict the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And there are red dots on the faces of most of the founders, and I always ask the visitors, well, what do you think those red dots represent? And of course, it represents those that owned human beings.

    FLORIDO: When people are making that realization as you’re telling them that story, what do you notice come across their faces?

    YANCEY: Some people thought about it, but for some people, it’s, like, the first time that that’s clicked. And they realized, oh, my, like, there are, like, so many levels of freedom right in this square block. And so we want to make sure that the panels tell the full story of slavery and how people did self-emancipate. It was so intolerable to so many people, and people resisted in so many ways.

    FLORIDO: In his executive order, President Trump directed the Parks Department to remove exhibits that did not emphasize American greatness. What does that say to you?

    YANCEY: I think Ona Judge’s story is a prime example of American greatness, of self-emancipating herself to create her own life, her own story, and people need to understand it so that we don’t go back. Just by taking the panels down, you can’t make it disappear. You can’t make that history go away.

    FLORIDO: We asked the Trump administration for an interview. The Interior Department sent us a statement saying the administration, quote, “is committed to celebrating and acknowledging the full breadth of our nation’s history.” It also sent us a link to new exhibit panels it wants to replace the ones it removed. These new panels would tell some of the story of the people Washington enslaved at his Philadelphia house, but they also downplay their possible suffering, suggesting they had better lives than slaves at Washington’s plantation in Virginia.

    As we walked through the house with Raina Yancey, we noticed something – all the little acts of public rebellion. On some of the walls, people had taped up handwritten explanations of why the exhibit was missing.

    YANCEY: So the signs are removed by the Department of the Interior every day – these protest signs. There’s facsimiles of what used to be there printed on, you know, 8 by 10 paper. But every day, they’re taken down in the evening, and every day, people exercise their First Amendment rights and replace them.

    FLORIDO: In front of another wall, a woman named Nikia Stevenson (ph) was reading aloud from a white binder.

    NIKIA STEVENSON: 1793, the Fugitive Slave Act passed by Congress…

    FLORIDO: She told me it was the text from the missing panels.

    STEVENSON: I’m very passionate about history, and I am obviously African American. So this is my history that they’re trying to erase.

    FLORIDO: Michael Coard, the activist who fought to have this exhibit created, says it’s urgent to get it back up before July 4, when thousands of people will stream into Philadelphia.

    COARD: So either the federal government is going to tell the story, or damn it, we’ll tell the story.

    FLORIDO: He’s planning a number of events here to tell the story of Black people’s fight for freedom in the birthplace of American freedom.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FLORIDO: This episode was produced by Henry Larson. It was edited by Sarah Robbins. Our executive producer is Courtney Dorning.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FLORIDO: IT’S CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. I’m Adrian Florido.

  • How an anti-police violence protest ended in a teen’s death

    How an anti-police violence protest ended in a teen’s death

    In the summer of 2020, sixteen-year-old Antonio Mays Jr. traveled a thousand miles to be part of the racial justice movement. He arrived in Seattle during the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest, known as CHOP. Less than a week later, he was shot and killed there. The case remains unsolved.

    Today on The Sunday Story, we bring you the first episode of a new series from NPR’s Embedded podcast that investigates Mays’ death.

    This episode of The Sunday Story was produced by Ben Rappaport with support from Andrew Mambo. 

    We’d love to hear from you. Send us an email at TheSundayStory@npr.org.

    Listen to Up First on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

  • The joys of reporting on 3 teenagers chasing glory in the World Series of Birding

    The joys of reporting on 3 teenagers chasing glory in the World Series of Birding

    Transcript:

    ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:

    It’s CONSIDER THIS, where every day we go deep on one big news story. At NPR, we bring listeners to the front lines of conflict. We report on political upheaval. And we also share people’s passions, like for the natural world.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Oh, nest. Whoa.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Whoa.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: You have to pin that.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Pin, pin, pin, pin.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: You have to pin that.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I’ll pin it.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Sharpie nest.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: It’s so hard.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Sharpie nest. Where is it?

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Sharpie nest is good.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah, that’s really good.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Holy.

    FLORIDO: We are listening to the sound of some teenage birders.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: So we’re using our scopes to try and find an owl on that pipe out there across the river, right across the pond.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Do you guys see…

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: We’re just trying to scan…

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: …In the water two black skimmers? Everyone, both.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Those are not skimmers.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yes, they are.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Skimmers?

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Look, they’re flying very low. The wings are…

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Oh, yeah, I see.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: …Pointed. Do you guys see two black skimmers?

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah, whoa.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Wow.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: Dad, we just got a skimmer.

    FLORIDO: These boys were competing last month in New Jersey Audubon’s 43rd Annual World Series of Birding.

    NATALIE ESCOBAR, BYLINE: So, the gist is that you have – it’s an entire day from midnight to midnight.

    FLORIDO: And this is Natalie Escobar, an NPR editor who spent that entire day with them.

    ESCOBAR: And the goal is that you have to count as many species of birds as physically possible within the borders of the great state of New Jersey.

    FLORIDO: Natalie recruited colleague Ava Berger to join her as she crisscrossed the state.

    AVA BERGER, BYLINE: So I’m not someone who was in the birding worlds, so I didn’t know what to expect. But did I expect us to actually be following around three teenage boys for 24 hours? No, but they genuinely go for 24 hours.

    FLORIDO: CONSIDER THIS – every story presents challenges for reporters. Sometimes that means keeping safe in a war zone. But what does it take to tell the story of teenagers chasing hundreds of birds across an entire state? Coming up, we’ll hear from the reporters who pulled an all-nighter and tried not to get sick in the back of a minivan, all in pursuit of that story.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FLORIDO: From NPR, I’m Adrian Florido.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FLORIDO: It’s CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. When NPR’s Natalie Escobar and Ava Berger set out to cover the World Series of Birding, they hadn’t realized just how committed the three teenage boys they were following would be to tracking down as many bird species as possible. So for the week’s Reporter’s Notebook, I asked them how the boys organized their day.

    ESCOBAR: They have it planned out by the second. They would be amazing radio producers, to be honest.

    (LAUGHTER)

    ESCOBAR: They had an entire Google Sheet saying, at midnight, we’re going to be here. Fifteen minutes later, we’re going to be here. A certain bird is only going to be in a certain spot for, like, a very short period of time in some cases.

    BERGER: Yeah, and what you can’t account for, even though they try to account for everything, is if they’re actually going to see the bird they want to see in that one spot. And their dad, Jeff…

    ESCOBAR: Otys Train’s…

    BERGER: Otys’ dad, yeah.

    ESCOBAR: Yeah.

    BERGER: Jeff Train – he explained it to us like this.

    JEFF TRAIN: You know, that’s a part of the game that, you know, hopefully you spot a bird. And if you don’t, you got to just suck it up, move on. There’s lots of surprises, right? You’re going to have peaks and valleys.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: I’m always trying to…

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: How long…

    TRAIN: And so we’re going to be on our way to see a bird, and it’s going to fly right across the car, and they’ll pick that up, and then they don’t have to go to that spot. And sometimes you’ll show up to a spot looking for an owl, and the owl…

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Shh.

    TRAIN: …Just doesn’t…

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Shh.

    FLORIDO: Is he getting shushed?

    BERGER: Yes. I wanted to play that tape because he was getting shushed at the end.

    FLORIDO: By his son.

    ESCOBAR: They’re not shy about shushing. They’ll – they shushed us. They shushed me. They shushed Ava.

    BERGER: (Laughter).

    ESCOBAR: And it’s not personal. I picked that up really quick, but I was like, oh, okay, this is…

    FLORIDO: (Laughter).

    ESCOBAR: …This is – I…

    FLORIDO: They’re focused. They’re serious, and they’re accounting for every second. And they were trying to break a record. They were trying to spot more than 200 birds – species in 24 hours. How do you verify that they’ve actually heard or seen the birds that they say they’ve heard or seen? Is it just, like, the honor system? How does it work?

    ESCOBAR: Yeah, so there are competition rules that, you know, everybody has to adhere to. The – for the vast majority of the birds, all of them, all the people on the team have to hear it or see it, and they all have to agree on what bird they saw. So one thing about birds is that there’s a lot of them look like each other – famously shorebirds and gulls – but they have to all be in agreement. And you also can’t play the bird calls in order to try to get a response. But if you’re really good like these teenagers are, you can imitate the bird calls to try to get a response. So one of them was doing the call of the great horned owl, which was really cool.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Imitating great horned owl).

    BERGER: I thought that I heard an owl. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Like, no.

    ESCOBAR: No.

    BERGER: That was him.

    ESCOBAR: That was him.

    BERGER: (Laughter).

    ESCOBAR: Things they can do, though, is that they can also clap to try to, like, stir up the birds a little bit without stressing them out.

    (APPLAUSE)

    ESCOBAR: And they can also do this thing that birders do called pishing. It’s like this (vocalizing).

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Vocalizing).

    ESCOBAR: And for whatever reason, that makes the birds a little more active. Maybe they’ll come out of their hiding spot.

    BERGER: And we did ask them the question of cheating ’cause that was something on our minds. I mean, why not just say you saw it? Why not just put it in, get one extra bird? And their answer was immediate.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: I don’t really know. We’ve never had an incident, though, that we, like, lied about it. Like, already, we’ve had two birds that – we had the monk that they didn’t see, and then we had the screech owl that I didn’t hear. So I feel like we’re pretty honest about that.

    FLORIDO: These kids didn’t actually win the competition. They came in second place. Was that – you know, you’re an objective journalist. You’re there just to record what happened, but was it hard to see them fall three bird species short of the trophy?

    ESCOBAR: I was a little devastated for them.

    FLORIDO: Yeah.

    ESCOBAR: I’m not going to lie. You get really invested when you’re hanging out with them for 24 hours. But a lot of it is luck. A lot of it is, like, you’re at the right place at the right time. And it works in both directions. Sometimes that you get unlucky. Sometimes you get lucky and you see something that you wouldn’t have otherwise.

    UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah, last night, like Jack said, we were a little annoyed. And I guess, this morning too, just, like – but I’m not focusing on, like, we lost. I’m focusing on the fact that, you know, we got second in our division with 206 species, and we had an amazing time and made some amazing memories. And we can use this as a learning experience for other years.

    ESCOBAR: The other team simply saw more birds – the Flying Penguins.

    BERGER: The Flying Penguins.

    ESCOBAR: Give them their due. They are rivals too, I will say. They were swapping notes at the end. They were really careful to not reveal the locations of specific birds that they saw, like, where their nest sites were ’cause, like, they are rivals.

    FLORIDO: You know, we cover a lot of serious stories at NPR, a lot of tragic stories, a lot of sad stories, a lot of important social issues. But, you know, we also like to do stories like this, and people really like them – fun stories, stories that take people out into a community with people just doing cool things. Why was this a story that you wanted to tell?

    ESCOBAR: I just thought about how beautiful it would sound and how beautiful it would look ’cause people really connect with stories about the natural world. People really love birding. But I also – one of the things I realized as I got further and further into getting to know this group, getting to know this team and their dads is – I don’t know. I always hear stories about how teenagers are always on their phones and, you know, teenage boys, in particular, might have trouble forming deep friendships, and just this really flies in the face of that.

    Also that – seeing parents and their kids just really bonding and having this moment. You know, dads who love their sons so much that they’ll spend 24 hours driving them around in a van, eating – what? – they were, like, eating chips and M&Ms and drinking Red Bull, and…

    FLORIDO: Oh.

    ESCOBAR: But also sons who, like, really want to hang out with their dads and go birding and spend all this time with them. I felt kind of like I was crashing this, like, really sweet moment.

    BERGER: I will just say, I mean, Gen Z – as a member of Gen Z, we get a bad rep. And I think this really showed – I mean, it was posted on the NPR Instagram and it got a ton of attention. And the top comment was, the kids are all right. And I love that. I think that really summed up what we were trying to show and what these kids were doing. And just to your point of the stories we cover, I mean, this week, I was covering the Epstein files. And we cover these stories that are really difficult and really hard. And having some messy wonder in our lives is very beautiful. And that’s what these kids gave to us.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FLORIDO: Well, I’ve been speaking with Natalie Escobar and Ava Berger about the reporting on the World Series of Birding. Thanks to both of you for coming by.

    ESCOBAR: Thank you. That was so much fun.

    BERGER: Thank you.

    FLORIDO: This episode was produced by Vincent Acovino. It was edited by Adam Raney. Our interim executive producer is Courtney Dorning.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FLORIDO: It’s CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. I’m Adrian Florido.

  • Trump’s Iran Negotiations, Entertainment Mergers, NBA finals

    Transcript:

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    DAVID FOLKENFLIK, HOST:

    A tidy end to the war in Iran has eluded President Trump for months.

    ELISSA NADWORNY, HOST:

    He continues to both threaten more strikes and promise that peace is imminent.

    FOLKENFLIK: I’m David Folkenflik.

    NADWORNY: And I’m Elissa Nadworny. And this is UP FIRST from NPR News.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    NADWORNY: The high gas prices that the Iran war kicked up have complicated the administration’s attempt to rein in inflation. Now the president says he loves inflation.

    FOLKENFLIK: Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery have an all-clear from Washington to merge both of the entertainment powerhouses’ own movie studios, streaming services and television news divisions.

    NADWORNY: And the NBA finals tonight might give the New York Knicks their first title in over half a century.

    FOLKENFLIK: Stay with us. We have the news you need to start your weekend.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FOLKENFLIK: The biggest challenge facing the Trump administration right now – a peace deal with Iran. It’s become a bit of a will-they-won’t-they Washington story.

    NADWORNY: It’s gone like this – the president announces a deal is forthcoming, and we wait.

    FOLKENFLIK: This week, as we waited, an Apache helicopter went down off the Gulf of Oman. The U.S. blamed Iran. The U.S. struck Iran. Iran struck its Gulf neighbors, and the president threatened to again strike Iran, quote, “very hard.” Then, hours later, Trump announced he’d canceled that plan and that a peace deal was forthcoming.

    NADWORNY: Joining us now is NPR senior contributor Ron Elving. Good morning, Ron.

    RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Elissa.

    NADWORNY: So this deal is a memorandum of understanding. And yesterday, Iran’s foreign minister said it’s in the final stages and that his country’s leadership had approved it. Do we know exactly what’s on the table yet?

    ELVING: Not really. We only know what might be. Right now, the one thing the two sides seem to have agreed on is their interest in having an agreement, or what each side can say is an agreement. That would help President Trump celebrate his 80th birthday this weekend by claiming victory and by ending what has become a politically expensive misadventure.

    And if there really is a deal that holds up, it should reenergize the world oil market and bring prices down worldwide for gas and fertilizer and, ultimately, food, as well. It would help Iran get back to selling its oil and accessing some of its frozen assets. And so for the moment, everyone seems eager to sign and smile. But the real test comes once a deal is actually in place and we see whether both sides perform as agreed and whether that produces the desired results.

    NADWORNY: Right. OK, Ron, last week, you talked about the bipartisan upset on Capitol Hill over Trump’s pick of Bill Pulte, the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, to step in as director of National Intelligence. So now there is a new name, Jay Clayton. Will this pick satisfy the lawmakers?

    ELVING: It surely won’t satisfy all of them, but it seems likely to placate them, or at least to placate enough for Clayton to be confirmed. Clayton has been a U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. His background in intelligence is quite limited, but Pulte had no such background at all. That’s why a bipartisan group of senators has been loath to even have him in the job for a minimal transition period. And that alone may abbreviate the confirmation process for Clayton and lead some senators to give him the benefit of the doubt.

    NADWORNY: OK. On to the economy. President Trump had this response Wednesday when he was asked about the new data that showed the highest level of inflation in more than three years.

    (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

    PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The numbers were great. You know what I really love? I love the inflation. You know why?

    NADWORNY: That sentence, I love the inflation. It got a lot of attention. But there was more to his answer. I mean, what point was he making?

    ELVING: It would make sense for him to brush off that ugly inflation report and claim that the upward trend would soon be reversed and that inflation would come down. And he may have meant to say he loved not inflation itself, but the inflation number that was out that morning, the measurement, if only because it could have been still worse. And if that’s what he meant, then he failed to say it clearly enough. So now he’s on tape, saying he loves the inflation. Not a good look in an election year. Trump has already fallen 20 points among independents since the start of last year. He won’t be on the ballot this fall to bring out his hardcore base of supporters. So November could bring a serious setback in the midterms.

    NADWORNY: Yes, of course, which people will be paying attention to inflation. OK. Finally, Ron, what are you going to do tomorrow night?

    ELVING: Tonight, of course, it’s the Knicks and Spurs…

    NADWORNY: (Laughter).

    ELVING: …In Game 5 in the NBA finals. But tomorrow night, well, it’s going to be hard not to watch the Octagon on the White House South Lawn. This is the new spectacular arena that’s been built near the site of Trump’s rally on January 6, 2021. That rally became an assault on the Capitol and routed the members of Congress. On Sunday, the South Lawn will be the site of Trump’s multimillion-dollar UFC cage match. It’s a huge moneymaking event to mark Trump’s 80th birthday, and it just might be splashy enough and flashy enough to keep the focus off that particular number and the other age-related issues swirling around the nation’s second octogenarian president.

    NADWORNY: (Laughter) That is NPR senior contributor Ron Elving. Thank you so much, Ron.

    ELVING: Thank you, Elissa.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FOLKENFLIK: The Trump administration has blessed the union of two rival Hollywood titans.

    NADWORNY: The Justice Department said late yesterday it has no qualms about Paramount’s $111 billion bid for the much bigger Warner Bros. Discovery. The merger would tie up Paramount’s movie studios with Warner’s, Paramount+ with HBO and CBS with CNN. David, you have been covering this for a while now, and the Justice Department had been investigating this proposed merger. So what did it conclude?

    FOLKENFLIK: Well, it said after a careful eight-month review that it found there would be no threat to competition within the industry, which is to say, people, you know, let’s say producers or directors or actors, would they be unfairly disadvantaged because you had the combination of these two enormous studios, you know, and these television properties, and also that consumers wouldn’t be adversely affected. They said, no harm, no foul, and they put zero conditions on this. Often, when you have major mergers, you have to spin off properties here or there. You have to make promises to the government. None of that was done here by the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.

    NADWORNY: So how surprising is that?

    FOLKENFLIK: Well, there’s two ways to answer that question. One is this is the biggest combination of like with like I can think of in the history of Hollywood. These are, you know, the two of the last remaining enormous legacy properties in Hollywood, the studios. You’ve got these two major TV news divisions. You’ve got the two streamers. It is very much like with like. And at the same time, of course, the Justice Department’s antitrust regulators, as did Paramount, argued, Look, we’re in an age of streamers. You have these digital giants. They’re enormous. You have the resources behind Netflix and Apple, the world’s largest digital device makers. And you’ve got Amazon, the everything store, doing its own with Prime Video. There is plenty of competition out there. Why would we only look at it through the narrow frame of Hollywood? So there are arguments to be made for it. People thought that this was likely to happen, and at the same time, it’s extraordinary.

    NADWORNY: This merger would put a Trump ally in charge of CNN, which is one of the president’s frequent targets in the media. I mean, did politics play a role in their approval?

    FOLKENFLIK: And this is why, actually, that despite the size and magnitude of this, this was all but predicted by people analyzing this. President Trump has said, for example, that he wanted CNN in the hands of the Ellisons. Larry and David Ellison took over Paramount’s parent company only just last year. Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, one of the richest people on the planet, his son David, the founder of Skydance Media, which helped to arrange this bid for Paramount last year. So he took over CBS. Trump has liked what he’s seen. Ellison, among other things, has put Bari Weiss, a former opinion journalist – the founder of the center-right news and views site, the Free Press – in charge of CBS. And there’s been an extraordinary level of controversy and crisis since. Trump has liked what he’s seen, and therefore it was believed that his regulators would give it sort of the matador defense and green light that puppy.

    NADWORNY: OK. So with the end of the DOJ investigation, I mean, is it going to be smooth sailing for the takeover bid?

    FOLKENFLIK: Well, the FCC, Federal Communications Commission, has to review it, as well, because there are CBS’s locally owned stations that are part of the combination, and there’s going to be an enormous infusion of foreign capital into this for this deal. The Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund is among the investors. But people expect that to go through. But you have states’ attorneys general, and you also have the European Union and regulators in the United Kingdom still reviewing this. We don’t know exactly what all that means, but we have seen Democratic states’ attorneys general becoming much more aggressive about challenging antitrust deals like this in the courts, and that’s likely where this is headed.

    NADWORNY: David, thank you for your reporting on this.

    FOLKENFLIK: You bet.

    (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

    FOLKENFLIK: The Knicks are just one win away from an NBA title, and the city of New York is unhinged. Will the San Antonio Spurs spoil things?

    NADWORNY: And in college football, what will the NCAA do with Brendan Sorsby? Joining us now to answer these questions is sportswriter Howard Bryant. Good morning.

    HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning. How are you?

    NADWORNY: I am good after last night’s win, which we have to talk about. World Cup match. The U.S. scored four goals – four…

    BRYANT: Four.

    NADWORNY: …In its opening match over Paraguay. Wow. I mean, nobody expected much from this American team. Did you think that last night’s results are going to change your mind?

    BRYANT: No, maybe not. I mean, it’s fun. I mean…

    NADWORNY: Yeah.

    BRYANT: …I think that when you think about soccer and the World Cup and the United States, obviously, it begins with the women, and that is the – they’re always going to be the standard because of their dominance.

    NADWORNY: So good.

    BRYANT: And so the men, on the other hand, you don’t have any expectations for them. They scored four goals. They had never scored four goals before. You don’t go into this expecting that sort of excitement. However, as a host nation, there is a sort of added level of adrenaline that’s going to come with it, and I think that there is a sort of feeling that, you know, maybe one of these days, there’ll be a great run that American soccer fans on the men’s side will be able to sort of enjoy. But I think that it’s hard to have a better debut than that with all…

    NADWORNY: Right.

    BRYANT: …The turmoil that men’s soccer has had. So have fun with it. Enjoy it.

    NADWORNY: Yep.

    BRYANT: Exactly. And see what they do against Australia.

    NADWORNY: OK. The New York Knicks and their fans have been waiting 53 years for a title. It could happen tonight…

    BRYANT: It could.

    NADWORNY: …In San Antonio. Do you think the Spurs are going to force a Game 6 in New York? What’s going to happen?

    BRYANT: It’s been a crazy series. I think that the Knicks have been the best team this postseason. They’ve only lost three games. They have been, by far, the more poised team. They are on the cusp of a championship. They should win tonight, and if they don’t win, then they should win probably the next game in New York. And it really feels inevitable. This team reminds me – I know New Yorkers are going to hate it, but I’m going to say it anyway – they have that 2004 Red Sox feel to them, this feel of inevitability that everything they do works for them. You know, the Red Sox fired their manager in 2003, and then they bring in Terry Francona, and he takes them to the championship.

    The Knicks fired Tom Thibodeau last year, and then this new team, which is actually, in a lot of ways, the same team, they come back and they’re on the cusp of a championship. This team has been down by 20 points twice in the playoffs in the fourth quarter and has won. There is this feeling of inevitability. They should win. On the other hand, San Antonio has had the lead in the final two minutes of all the games. And so, you know, Victor Wembanyama has come back, and he said, hey, we can win the next three games. And they can. But I think – after 53 years, I think that city has been waiting to explode, and I think they’re going to get their chance.

    NADWORNY: Amazing. Going to be a great game. OK. So, finally, in college football, Texas Tech quarterback Brendan Sorsby was banned for life by the NCAA for betting on his own team. That has been basically an unbreakable rule.

    BRYANT: Forty times, by the way, Elissa.

    NADWORNY: Oh, goodness. That’s a lot.

    BRYANT: Forty times.

    NADWORNY: OK, so that’s kind of like a no-no, I mean, going back over a century. But this week, a Texas judge granted Sorsby an injunction allowing him to play this season before his trial in February. I mean, what’s your take on this? A lot of people condemned it.

    BRYANT: Well, my feeling on it is it’s total corruption in a lot of ways.

    NADWORNY: Really?

    BRYANT: And this is the – the hard part of all of this is that this is what they’ve all asked for. And it’s what the sports have asked for when – in 2018, when the barring of sports betting was lifted by the Supreme Court. It’s exactly what we knew was going to happen. You know, we talk about gambling addiction and the whole thing, but it’s the teams. It’s the league. I don’t see Texas Tech saying, hey, for our integrity, we shouldn’t have this player. They want him, too, because he’s a great player.

    NADWORNY: Right.

    BRYANT: And so this is what has happened. This is what you knew was going to happen. And one of the things that – one of the more difficult pieces of this is that so much of media, as well, is underwritten by gambling as well. So it’s not surprising, but this is just another step to – we don’t trust the games anyway. It’s going to get even worse.

    NADWORNY: Yeah. That’s sportswriter Howard Bryant. Thank you.

    BRYANT: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you.

    FOLKENFLIK: That’s UP FIRST for Saturday, June 13, 2026. I’m David Folkenflik.

    NADWORNY: And I’m Elissa Nadworny. Dave Mistich produced today’s podcast with help from Gabe O’Connor.

    FOLKENFLIK: Our editor is Dianna Douglas, assisted by Melissa Gray, Emily Kopp, and Ariel Plotnick. In the control room today is our director, Andy Craig, and our technical director, David Greenburg, with engineering support from Zo van Ginhoven, Jay Czys and Simon-Laslo Janssen.

    NADWORNY: Shannon Rhoades is our senior supervising editor. Our executive producer is Evie Stone. Catherine Laidlaw is our deputy managing editor.

    FOLKENFLIK: Tomorrow on The Sunday Story, a Black teenager was killed at a protest against police violence in Seattle in 2020. Why, six years later, is the case unsolved?

    NADWORNY: Thanks for joining us in the podcast feed. We’ve got so much more for you on your radio.

    FOLKENFLIK: To find your local NPR station, just go to stations.npr.org.

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  • Fresh Air Weekend: ‘The Book of Mormon’ at 15; Clarke Peters on ‘The Boroughs’

    Fresh Air Weekend: ‘The Book of Mormon’ at 15; Clarke Peters on ‘The Boroughs’

    Fresh Air Weekend highlights some of the best interviews and reviews from past weeks, as well as new program elements specially paced for weekends. Our weekend show emphasizes interviews with writers, filmmakers, actors and musicians, and it often includes excerpts from live in-studio concerts. This week:

    As The Book of Mormon turns 15, its original stars pop in to say “Hello!”: Fifteen years after The Book of Mormon made its Broadway debut, original cast members Andrew Rannells and Josh Gad once again took the stage as Mormon missionaries — this time at the 2026 Tony Awards.

    The Wire actor Clarke Peters explains why he couldn’t say no to The Boroughs: “He’s the guy I want to be when I grow up,” Peters says of his Wire character, Lester Freamon. In The Boroughs, Peters plays a member of a retirement community that’s plagued by mysterious forces.

    You can listen to the original interviews here:

  • Insult Dogs and Emotional Support Alligators

    Insult Dogs and Emotional Support Alligators