Name: アメリカ大統領図書館 館長だけど質問ある？ | Tech Support | WIRED Japan
Uploaded: 2025-03-22T09:55:09.000Z
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I'm Lindsey Chervinsky, presidential historian and head of the George Washington Presidential Library.

I'm here today to answer your questions from the internet.

Town and That asks, can Trump run again in 2028?

No, Trump is constitutionally barred for running for a third term.

The 22nd Amendment, which was passed after FDR ran for four terms, says that presidents can only run for two full terms.

Prior to FDR, presidents generally followed

George Washington's precedent of only serving for two terms, but that was voluntary and not required by law.

Grizzly Redneck asks, what's going on with Joe Biden pardoning his own son?

Well, in Article II of the Constitution, the president is given almost unilateral authority to issue pardons on federal offenses, except for those relating to impeachment.

So while lots of presidents have issued pardons we don't necessarily like or maybe feel a little bit gross, a president's pardon power is almost unilateral.

George Washington was the first president to issue a pardon.

One of his first was to a rum smuggler in April of 1794.

Sludge Gaze asks, was the political divide always this bad?

There certainly have been times where we've had very bad partisan tensions and a big divide between the two different political parties.

The 1790s, the 1850s, the 1890s, and the 1960s were all times when political rhetoric and how people talk to one another were really intense and often quite nasty.

John Adams often referred to one of his political rivals,

Alexander Hamilton, as a puppy, which was the ultimate insult to masculinity in the 1790s.

And John Adams' critics said he had a hermaphroditic character because his values constantly shifted.

There have been times when things have been better, when political campaigns weren't quite so awful, but this moment that we're in now is probably as bad as some of the other ones we've lived through.

Hi Cat Whisperer asks, how did we end up with two stupid, unpopular political parties that are pretty much our only alternative?

We have what's called a two-party system.

There have been other parties over the course of American history, generally as one of the major parties breaks down and there are various different factions.

So for example, in the 1840s and 1850s, there was a Know-Nothing Party.

Then eventually the Republican Party merged a lot of those different factions into one new party.

Because of the way our primary system works and the way our Congress works, it's really hard for a third party to gain any traction.

But that's not necessarily the case in other types of systems.

For example, if you have a parliament, like in Great Britain, there are lots of parties that have to build coalitions in order to have governing power.

Alec Emily asks, why do we even have a State of the Union Address anymore?

The State of the Union is actually required in the Constitution.

Article Two says that the President shall from time to time give updates to Congress on the State of the Union.

George Washington called these his Addresses to Congress and he noted that they were indeed a required act.

What's interesting about the States of the Union is from Thomas Jefferson to Woodrow Wilson, they were in writing and the President would deliver a written address.

Woodrow Wilson went back to delivering this speech in person and they have been in person at Congress ever since.

And here at George Washington's Presidential Library at Mount Vernon, we have what's called an Acts of Congress.

In January of 1790, as George Washington prepared to deliver his first Address to Congress or State of the Union, we think that he made these notations in his copy of the Constitution where you can see that he has written a notation that says required next to the responsibility to give Congress an update.

Every year of his presidency, he went to Congress and delivered a spoken address telling them what had happened while they were on recess and giving some suggestions for what they might consider in the upcoming term.

Kai Marsh asks, did you know Teddy Roosevelt was shot before speech and proceeded to give the entire 90 minute speech with a bullet in his chest?

A man named John Schrenk thought that he was having visions that told him to try and defeat Theodore Roosevelt from winning the presidential election in 1912.

Now what's amazing about why Theodore Roosevelt survived was he had the speech folded up in his pocket and because the speech was so long, the paper was so thick that it actually slowed down the bullet and saved his life.

After he was shot, Theodore Roosevelt said, you can't bring down Bull Moose, which is where the name Bull Moose Party comes from.

Ria Soccer Crazy asks, so apparently Teddy bears were named after former US pres Theodore Roosevelt, but why?

Theodore Roosevelt went on a bear hunt after his presidency, but he wasn't successful and he couldn't get any and it made him really mad.

So the people he was with actually captured one and tied it up to a willow tree so that he would have the opportunity to shoot a bear.

But he felt like that wasn't very sporting and wasn't really fair to the bear, so he refused to kill it.

A political cartoonist depicted this scene and a candy maker who had a toy and candy store saw this cartoon and thought it would make an excellent children's toy.

The toy maker received permission to use Teddy's name for the bear and the Teddy bear was born and has been known as such ever since.

Bill Shine Eight asks, has the peaceful transition of power ever been in more doubt?

Well, we have had a number of very dramatic transitions.

So for example, when President Abraham Lincoln was elected in 1860, the South seceded before he became president.

Then in 1932, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected, it was in the midst of the Great Depression and economic conditions were horrible.

But Herbert Hoover really rejected the New Deal programs that Franklin D. Roosevelt had suggested during the campaign and they spent several months bickering over what to do with the election before FDR was finally inaugurated in March of 1933.

The difference with January 6th was that it was a contested transition.

We've never had one candidate to reject the outcome of an election and we've never had people try to overthrow the results of an election.

The South didn't like the result in 1860 and so they left the nation.

Yap Pay asks, in the United States, does the president have access to all levels of classified information?

Yes, the president has access to all classified information and all of the top secrets in the United States.

Hockey Madman asks, what does the president do all day anyway?

So the president does a lot of different things.

The president talks with foreign leaders, makes really difficult decisions because no easy choices come to the Oval Office.

The president meets with business leaders and labor leaders and members of Congress and state governments.

The president hosts really important social receptions.

Those can be for visiting dignitaries like state dinners.

They can be from championship teams that we see sometimes at the White House or they can be students or kids who they're trying to encourage to pursue their studies.

What you can see here is an invitation from President George Washington to come to an event at the president's house in Philadelphia.

This social component of the presidency was there from the very beginning and George Washington hosted events every single week during his presidency.

David Kwong asks, what does the S in Harry S. Truman stand for?

He added it in later because he thought that he needed a middle initial.

Rorden 508 asks, wow, the Supreme Court in America shows the world USA does not do democracy.

Apparently any incoming president can stack its highest court like it's a perk of office.

Well, the Supreme Court size is not actually in the Constitution.

It's totally up to Congress how many seats there are going to be on the Supreme Court at any given moment.

The original Supreme Court was six justices and George Washington appointed all six and then the replacements as they left.

The Supreme Court has evolved over time, sometimes for political reasons.

For example, the Federal Judiciary Act of 1801 reduced the size of the Supreme Court, making it harder for Jefferson to appoint a replacement because he would be from a different party.

Tychus Balrog asks, why are American elections so long?

Why not just have them last two to four weeks?

And a lot of other elections and other nations are much shorter.

Ours have actually expanded over time, especially in the last couple of decades as they've become more expensive, as they've become competitive, but there isn't really anything that says how short or how long they can be.

The problem is if we try and limit that by law, that could be a restriction of freedom of speech.

And we have a First Amendment, which makes it very difficult to limit political speech especially.

Savannah Lay asks, damn, did anyone know the President Roosevelt had polio and hit it because of how the community saw disabled people?

FDR did have polio and he spent most of his presidency in a wheelchair.

He was able with the use of braces and support from his sons and his aides to prop himself up for speeches and press conferences, but by and large, he was unable to walk.

He hit it because at the time, there was a sense that if you were physically disabled, that meant you were somehow mentally impaired as well.

And he understood that it would make it much harder for him to become president and much harder for him to meet with other foreign leaders and exercise the type of power that a president is required to use.

The secret largely remained such because the press were willing to cooperate.

Subtitles ListPlay Video

アメリカ大統領図書館館長だけど質問ある？ | Tech Support | WIRED Japan

depression

term

necessarily

territory

アメリカ大統領図書館 館長だけど質問ある？ | Tech Support | WIRED Japan

depression

term

necessarily

territory

アメリカ大統領図書館館長だけど質問ある？ | Tech Support | WIRED Japan