This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast. More what you
hear weekday afternoons on the Drive. You know Brett Behar, chief political anchor
of Fox News and anchor and executive editor of Special Report with Brett Baher.
But I don't know if you also knew he's written several books, the latest
of which is to Rescue the Constitution, George Washington and the Fragile American Experiment
in It, Brett Baer, you contend that George Washington rescued the nation and
the Constitution three times? What were those three? Hey, thanks for having
me on. Well, there was the time of the Revolutionary War where he
is tapped to be the commander and he really inspires this ragtag group of soldiers
to believe that they can win in really horrible circumstances. Then he is tapped
to be the head of and in charge of Constitutional Convention in seventeen eighty seven,
where arguably without him, it does not get across the finish line the
document, nor does it get ratified. And then the third time, obviously,
is when he's tapped to be the first American President. And remember,
you know, I mean, no one's writing a note for him in the
Oval office desk. You know, no one's passing him the torch. He
is the torch, and he is making the executive what it is. And
throughout all this research I find that he is indispensable and without him, arguably
we would not have a country. Brett Behar, I'm a big fan of
history, and you also may know some of the other books that Brett bear
has written to the rest to Rescue the Republic, three Days at the Brink,
three Days in Moscow, three Days in January, and his latest is
called to Rescue the Constitution. George Washington, The Fragile American Experiment. I'm
a fan of history, and one of the things I've trying to do is
get past the marblization, if you will, of our founding fathers. We
read so much about how smart they were, how brilliant they were. We
don't read about their challenges, their doubts, and their fears. And George
Washington had plenty of them. He did, and you know it was not
godlike, And you're right, sometimes it's almost myth mythology about some of these
Founding fathers. But this is a very real portrayal of these Founding fathers and
these men they had false George Washington desperately wanted to get home. He didn't
want to do any of this. He wanted to be at Mount Vernon with
his wife, Martha and her two children who he adopted and wanted to be
a farmer. I mean, he basically was tapped and answered the call each
time, but reluctantly. And he writes about that extensively, you know,
like the other book, and this is the fifth of the Presidential series of
books. I'm trying to put the reader in the room and the narrative so
that you can you know, it reads more like a screenplay than it does
a history book. And I think that with these nuggets of information that kind
of really crackle about the time, I think you can see it like you
haven't seen it before. So that's what I'm trying to do. And I
think it's important for us as a country to look back at how we were
founded, especially now Brett Behar you know him from Special Report with Brett Behar
on the Fox News Channel and his newest book, To Rescue the Constitution.
George Washington and the Fragile American Experiment. When he became the first General of
the Continental Army. He didn't have a lot of military experience, but it
seems as though he had a natural knack for administration. Well he did,
and you know, he actually had some failures in military and the Frenchman Indian
War. I mean, he largely was believed to have started that because he
had some mistakes and you know, he fell up. His failures actually led
him to other promotions and and in that experience he figured out how to talk
to men that were fighting and how to inspire them, how to get them
moving, and it eventually led to his revolutionary war prowess and talking to men
who you know, their their uniforms were falling apart, they didn't have shoes,
some of them they had bloody feet in the cold winter of Valley Forge.
And yet he convinced them that to stay with it, you're fighting for
liberty. And they did, and to the point where the British forces said,
obviously, live does something to these forces, because there was no way
that they should have lost. No, And I often Bret Bear, I
wonder if if it wasn't so much an out that the Continental Army out militarized
the British Army as much as they outspied them, because Washington always seemed to
have the intelligence he needed. Yeah, that's exactly right. He had really
good intelligence. And you know, throughout the war, Washington's men are underdogs
and losing many more battles than they won. They and as I mentioned before,
they were kind of the laughing stock of British generals, but they never
gave up. They won the war. And this British captain Marvel's at the
end that this rough, hungry, tired army could beat the British and he
says to his soldiers, American soldiers stayed, they fought, and this is
what liberty could do. So I do think that Washington had this ability to
be inspiring and inside the Constitutional Convention, he's not the chattiest guy. He
doesn't say much, but he works the room outside of the convention and really
tries to find common ground. And that's the hope here is that descent is
kind of baked in our cake, but descent meshed with union is really what
Washington was able to do. Brettbahar, chief political anchor for Fox News Channel,
his new book, To Rescue the Constitution, George Washington and the Fragile
American Experiment. I wanted to get into the Constitutional Convention because it required a
lot of something we don't seem to have a lot of in our Congress right
now, compromise. And there had to be a lot between the northern colonies
and the southern colonies, and the urban colonies and the more agrarian colonies.
Yeah, and some of these battles are the same battles we're fighting today,
states rights for federalism, representation of big states and small states. And some
of the battles were really intense. And you think about writing about a convention,
you're like, how is that exciting? But it really is if you
really delve into it. Many times we almost fell apart. We almost didn't
get it across the finish line. And that's the amazing thing is that we
almost fell apart from the start. And it was Washington who really held the
fabric together. And that's not a myth, it's real, based on writings
of not only him, but others in the room. And you can read
about it as well. Brett Behar puts you right there in that room,
and to rescue the Constitution, George Washington and the fragile American experiment. Brett
Bear, thank you for joining us and I hope you get a break after
all of this book writing and reporting. It'll come sometimes. Thanks so much.
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast,
and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation