We live in historic times and stand at three significant milestones. Year two of President Trump’s second term begins on January 20, 2026. One quarter of the 21st century began on January 1, 2026. And on July 4, 2026, America will celebrate its 250th birthday.I am asking, on camera, a series of extraordinary people to help take the temperature of America in 2026. They come from around the world and from every walk of life spanning policy and poetry and many without fame or fortune. The central question is simple: How are we doing?Jon Meacham is a historian, biographer, speechwriter, commentator, teacher, and Pulitzer Prize recipient. He is an advisor and friend to presidents and the biographer of four American presidents Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and George H. W. Bush and is currently writing about Dwight Eisenhower. He has also written about the friendship between Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, as well as several acclaimed books, including The Soul of America, The Battle for Our Better Angels, and His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope.Jon Meacham teaches at Vanderbilt University and appears frequently on Morning Joe on MSNOW.

A Charlie Rose Global Conversation:David Ignatius join me for a continuation of a conversation that was posted this week but recorded before the U.S. military’s mission to Venezuela to arrest the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro and his wife.It also occurred before a fascinating interview between President Trump and 5 New York Times reporters on Wednesday evening, January 7, 2026

We begin tonight a series of conversations about the United States military’s mission to arrest the President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and bring him to the United States for trial on drug charges. Is it part of the controversial new initiative in American foreign policy?We start with Thomas L. Friedman of The New York Times. He is one of the world’s most influential foreign affairs columnists and a speaker at conferences around the world. His ideas are read and sought out by influential leaders in capitals everywhere. His subject is global affairs in all its reality—from war and peace to politics, technology, climate, and biology—as well as the strategy and motivation of the leaders whose actions drive the forces that determine the future. He is the recipient of three Pulitzer Prizes and the author of seven books.This is an important moment to consider the consequences of the United States’ action.Throughout the multiple conversations, we will ask many questions about the mission, including why it was undertaken, the role of oil, what happens now, and the impact on China, Russia, Iran, Europe, and other nations in Latin America. Is it the first of other missions regarding the Western Hemisphere, part of a renewal of the Monroe Doctrine?

* This conversation was recorded on Dec 22nd 2025, before the events in Venezuela. We hope to follow up with David Ignatius soon on Venezuela and more.America is at an interesting moment.We are approaching one year into the second Trump administration and are one quarter of the way through the 21st century. On July 4, 2026, we will celebrate our 250th birthday. I am asking a series of extraordinary Americans - many without fame or fortune, and coming from prose and poetry - to help take the temperature of America in 2026.What is the American idea?What do we stand for?What values do we need to remind ourselves of?How is this country doing politically, economically, culturally, and as a force for good around the world?David Ignatius is the internationally admired foreign affairs columnist and associate editor at The Washington Post.He joined the paper in 1986, later served as foreign editor, and has written his twice-weekly column since 1998 - more than 25 years.From 2000 to 2003, he was executive editor of the International Herald Tribune in Paris, while continuing to write his column.Earlier in his career, he was a reporter for The Wall Street Journal, covering the State Department, the Justice Department, the CIA, and the Middle East.He is the author of twelve spy novels, including Agents of Innocence, his first - considered by many who know the agency to be the best description ever written of spycraft and the CIA.Born into a family shaped by public service, educated at Harvard and King’s College, Cambridge, and based in Washington for much of his professional life, he has had a front-row seat to America’s actions in the world.

Freedom was at the heart of America 250 years ago on July 4th, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed. Freedom of speech was recognized as an American right. It was essential to the responsibility of journalism in America to hold power accountable. How was journalism doing as America celebrates its 250th birthday, enters the second quarter of the 21st century and the second year of the second Donald Trump presidency. Martin "Marty" Barron is America's most celebrated newspaper editor lionized in the Academy Award film spotlight as the executive editor of the Boston Globe, which received a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for its coverage of the Boston Catholic sexual abuse scandal. In January 2013, he became executive editor of the Washington Post, which was purchased by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos from the legendary Graham family after the death of Katherine Graham. During his editorship, the Washington Post received a number of Pulitzer prizes.Baron retired in early 2021 and wrote his memoir, Collision of Power: Trump, Bezos, and the Washington Post. He was also executive editor of the Miami Herald and has worked at the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times. He has received many journalism honors in addition to the Pulitzer Prizes.

Rob ReinerFrank GehryTom StoppardBill MoyersDiane KeatonJane GoodallRobert RedfordDavid LynchVal KilmerGene HackmanRoberta FlackRichard Chamberlain Terence StampJim LovellGeorge Foreman Charles Rangel Sam MooreJules FeifferBrian WilsonAthol FugardDick CheneyFrederick SmithJames WatsonEdmund White

Fareed Zakaria has spent decades explaining the forces shaping the modern world, and America’s place within it.He is the host of Fareed Zakaria GPS on CNN, a weekly international affairs program he has anchored since 2008. He writes a weekly foreign affairs column for The Washington Post. He previously served as Managing Editor of Foreign Affairs and as Editor of Newsweek International.Zakaria is the author of four books: The Future of Freedom (2003), The Post-American World (2008), Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World (2020), and Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present (2024).Born in India, educated at Yale and Harvard, and shaped by the experience of becoming American, he has spent his career thinking about how democracies function, how power is used, and how ideas shape the course of history.

America is at an extraordinary moment in its history.We are one quarter of the way through the 21st century, and in 2026 we will celebrate our 250th birthday.I am asking a series of extraordinary Americans - many without fame or fortune, speaking from lived experience as well as poetry - to take the temperature of America in 2026.What is the American idea?What do we stand for?Which values do we need to remind ourselves of?How is this country doing politically, economically, culturally, and as a force for good in the world?Walter Isaacson has long served as one of America’s great interpreters of ideas, leadership, creativity, and power.He has held senior leadership roles at some of the most influential institutions in American media and civic life, including Editor of TIME, Chairman and CEO of CNN, and President and CEO of the Aspen Institute. He is currently a Professor of History at Tulane University.Isaacson is the author of nine books, including acclaimed biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, Leonardo da Vinci, and Elon Musk.His newest book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, steps back from biography to focus on a single line from the Declaration of Independence:“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…”It is a sentence that has echoed throughout American history—invoked by Lincoln at Gettysburg, challenged by generations who saw its promise unfulfilled, and returned to again and again during moments of national crisis.As America approaches its 250th birthday, Isaacson asks what that sentence still means - and whether it can continue to bind a deeply divided nation.Born in New Orleans, educated at Harvard, and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Isaacson has spent a lifetime examining how societies innovate, how democracies endure, and how human creativity advances both science and freedom.Walter Isaacson has been - and is - many things:father, husband, teacher, Rhodes Scholar, Harvard graduate, TV commentator, journalist, editor, writer, son of New Orleans, CEO, and yes, biographer - often chosen by the famous when they want their story told.He has been described as a bridge between power and ideas, science and the humanities, the past and the future, and creators and consumers.

America is at an interesting moment. We are one quarter of the way through the 21st century, and in 2026 we will celebrate our 250th birthday. I am asking a series of extraordinary Americans—many without fame or fortune, but rich in experience and poetry—to take the temperature of America in 2026.What is the American idea?What do we stand for?What values do we need to remind ourselves of?How is this country doing politically, economically, culturally, and as a force for good in the world?Bret Stephens has emerged as a translator between the American establishment of both parties and the conservative rank and file, making him a sharp guide to the nation’s path forward. In 2017, he joined The New York Times as an opinion columnist, after a distinguished career at The Wall Street Journal, where he served as deputy editorial page editor from 2015 to 2017. Prior to that, he was a foreign affairs columnist at the Journal and received the Pulitzer Prize in 2013.At just 28 years old, Stephens became editor in chief of The Jerusalem Post, a role he held from 2002 to 2005. Born in New York and raised in Mexico City, he is a graduate of the University of Chicago and the London School of Economics. He has long championed the classical liberal order—free enterprise, free trade, free speech, and the preservation of democratic institutions.In his 2014 book America in Retreat: The New Isolationism and the Coming Global Disorder, Stephens warned of the consequences of diminished American leadership. As the nation approaches its 250th birthday, his recent books, columns, and articles reflect a notable evolution in his thinking. He has increasingly analyzed the presidency of Donald Trump not as a historical accident, but as the product of deeper political, economic, and cultural forces.Stephens has argued that part of the Democratic Party’s defeat stemmed from a growing divide between the “economy of words”—lawyers, journalists, and academics—and the “economy of things,” including manufacturers and service workers. He has also become a fierce critic of what he sees as intellectual rot within elite universities, particularly around antisemitism and the erosion of free speech.And perhaps most concerning to many, he now suggests that the United States may be in retreat not only politically, as he argued a decade ago, but more broadly across multiple dimensions of global leadership.

Rob Reiner, who became famous for his acting in All in the Family and was much admired as a director of classic films, was brutally murdered on December 14, 2025, in his Brentwood, Los Angeles, home alongside his wife, photographer Michele Singer Reiner. He was 78. She was 70.Their deaths are the subject of a homicide investigation. Their son, Nick Reiner, is being held.Rob Reiner, the son of legendary writer-director Carl Reiner, first made it as an actor portraying “Meathead,” the liberal son-in-law, on Norman Lear’s groundbreaking sitcom All in the Family. It earned him two Primetime Emmy Awards and made him a familiar face on American television. The series became a cultural touchstone, sparking discussion around the generational clash of the 1970s.Reiner reinvented himself as a director with an extraordinary streak of films in the late 20th century that have become classics across several genres. He debuted with the rock mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, followed by the coming-of-age drama Stand by Me, the adventure film The Princess Bride, the romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally, and the legal thriller A Few Good Men.Reiner’s range made him one of Hollywood’s most versatile and celebrated filmmakers. At the same time, Reiner continued to act in films and on television shows.Reiner’s company, Castle Rock Entertainment, produced a number of popular properties, including Seinfeld and The Shawshank Redemption.In the 21st century, Rob Reiner emerged as a prominent liberal voice and activist, particularly in Democratic politics, gay rights, women’s rights, and children’s issues.