America’s Founders Feared a Caesar. Has One Arrived?

The Washington Roundtable speaks with Jeffrey Rosen, the president and C.E.O. of the National Constitution Center, a nonpartisan nonprofit, about how America’s founders tried to tyrant-proof their constitutional system, how Donald Trump’s whim-based decision-making resembles that of the dictator Julius Caesar, and what we can learn from the fall of the Roman Republic. Plus, how the Supreme Court is responding to the Trump Administration’s broad claims of executive power. 

Rosen, a professor at George Washington University Law School, hosts the “We the People” podcast and is the author of “The Pursuit of Happiness: How Classical Writers on Virtue Inspired the Lives of the Founders and Defined America.” 

This week’s reading:

• “Trump’s Golden Age of Bunk,” by Susan B. Glasser
• “Trump’s Disgrace,” by David Remnick
• “What Will Democratic Resistance Look Like?,” by Jay Caspian Kang
• “What Putin Wants Now,” by Isaac Chotiner

To discover more podcasts from The New Yorker, visit newyorker.com/podcasts. To send in feedback on this episode, write to themail@newyorker.com with “The Political Scene” in the subject line.

Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices