250 Years Of America: Is Trump Tearing It Apart?

**Jamie Rubin** (0:02)
This is a Global Production.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:05)
The country Jamie has been and remains very, very divided.

**Jamie Rubin** (0:09)
President Trump appears to think that the 250th birthday of the United States is in time to celebrate him.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:15)
The respect for America around the world is plunging very, very dangerously. A median of 23% of adults express confidence in Trump's leadership of world affairs.

**Jamie Rubin** (0:25)
This is like 100 times bigger than that type of a scandal because of the direct involvement of the president and his family.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:33)
A real sense of fear because of what the retribution, personal retribution, could mean. And when I say personal, I mean directed by the White House, by the president against their economies, against their militaries, against their security. Hello, everyone. The latest episode of The Ex Files with me, Christiane Amanpour in London.

**Jamie Rubin** (0:56)
And Jamie Rubin here in New York.

**Christiane Amanpour** (0:58)
So we're talking about the 250th anniversary, the party, the celebrations were on July 4th over the weekend. But there's a lot to talk about, including how this 250th marker is going to look going forward. So we thought we'd start a little bit some of the constitutional, some of the sort of things that perhaps I could say went tits up.
But nonetheless, it was a good party. So Jamie, remember that the so-called big, beautiful reflecting pool outside the Lincoln Memorial sort of went green. There was this whole controversy about Trump trying to build a triumphal arch. There was a whole controversy about all these stars pulling out of what was meant to be an enormous concert, and then Trump putting on a great American state fair, which was a bit of a dud because not all the states came.
We've had some important Supreme Court rulings as well around this anniversary. Just last week, Supreme Court rejected one of Trump's original executive orders' signature pieces. He wanted to restrict and perhaps even deny the automatic birthright citizenship which the Constitution gives to anybody born there, and the Supreme Court said no, he couldn't do that. But they did give him, on this 250th year, expanded and kept expanding his executive rights. So it was a bit of a win one, lose one kind of thing. But the country, Jamie, has been and remains very, very divided, much more divided than it was when the centennial was celebrated in 1976 So you're there in the United States. How does it feel around this anniversary?

**Jamie Rubin** (2:44)
Well, that's a good question. I was the spokesman of the United States of America for many, many years, seven years, both at the United Nations, and at the State Department. And I felt my job was to represent the country and try to speak for the country.
And I believe in America, and I believe in the America that there are founders created. But the truth is that America has two deeply conflicting strains within it and has had different strains within it for a long, long time. We've gone through periods, the Civil War being an obvious example, the no nothing movement in the early 20th century, where immigration was opposed, isolationism, the McCarthy period. And I think America is going through one of its divided moments. And it's hard to exaggerate how divided we are, where people really see the president as representing them and representing their country properly, many.
And many don't, for the reasons that you began to suggest. Because remember, the whole point of America was to get rid of a king.
And a king has executive power. And President Trump appears to think that the 250th birthday of the United States is in time to celebrate him rather than America. And I think that has gotten under people's skin. It's something that's been driving a lot of people to distraction. It's easy to get worked up. He's very good at, you know, focusing attention on himself. And that's what makes this an odd celebration and has made it an odd celebration.

**Christiane Amanpour** (4:28)
Yeah. And remember, there was a congressionally mandated birthday celebration 10 years ago. I think it was called, let me just see if I can find what it was called. But it was called, like, you know, America 250 And that was meant to be Congress doing it. And then Trump came in and made it freedom 250
And so it became all sort of about him. And there are all sorts of historians who are quoted as this anniversary was going into effect and in the months leading up to it, that it's really difficult to know how to celebrate it and how to move forward now. If you're not with Trump, said one historian, how do we celebrate and mark this? He wanted to claim the revolution as loyalty to him. And that's not how, you know, how this system works. So let's talk about some of the big issues going forward out of this birthday now that it's happened. And some of them are constitutional, obviously. A lot of them revolve around the amendments. And let's just talk about the First Amendment, because that's the biggest, the best, the first.