Following the November midterm elections, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist George F. Will *68 spoke with the PAWcast, our monthly podcast series, about President Donald Trump, the divided Congress, and the prospects for rebuilding civility in national politics.
Yielding the floor The Congress has been voluntarily ceding powers to the executive since the 1930s; it’s a bipartisan sin on the part of Congress. ... That way, Congress gets out from under the burden of legislating, gets out from under the burden of making difficult choices. It’s disgraceful. It is ignoring the many reasons why the Framers, in their wisdom, made Congress Article One, the first branch of government.
Changing tone What you need is someone with not just a different, but almost the opposite, temperament, and taste, and values [from Trump]. ... The problem is you can’t un-ring a bell, and you can’t un-say the things he has said and continues to say daily — the childish, schoolyard taunts and the indifference to facts and all the rest.
LISTEN to the full interview at paw.princeton.edu/podcasts