Joseph Ellis

[00:00:00] Matt Blumberg: Welcome to Country Over Self, defining moments in American history. Each episode we welcome a notable historian to tell us the story of a president and a choice that president made to strengthen the country without regard to the impact of that decision on himself, his power, or his party.

Welcome to Country Over Self, Defining Moments in American History. I'm your host, Matt Blumberg, and I'm here today with Joseph Ellis, who I think it's fair to say is the contemporary historian of record for John Adams. Joe is the award winning author of a large number of American history books and many about John Adams and Abigail Adams and others, including from my bookshelf, Passionate Sage, the character and legacy of John Adams, First Family, Abigail and John Adams, and Founding Brothers, which is one of my favorites, just to name a few.

So Joe, welcome to Country Over Self. It's truly an honor to have you here. 

[00:01:09] Joseph Ellis: it's a pleasure to be with you. And, I am, people say I'm a, presidential historian and I've written biographies of First three presidents, but I'm really a historian of the American founding and We'll talk about it.

But Adams is my favorite as I've written about Jefferson, too and David McCulloch who was a good friend of mine. And in fact, we testified before a subcommittee of Congress This was 15 years ago for a monument or memorial to Adams on the mall. And I've just learned they're, making progress on doing something.

And, David had begun to write a joint biography of Adams and Jefferson. And he called me up. And he said, Joe, and I had written a Passionate Sage by then, and he said, I can't write about, Jefferson. I really don't like him, and I can't write about people I don't like. he said, do I have your permission to write about Adams?

I said, for God's sakes, David, who is the who was God rest his soul, the salt of the earth and a wonderful human being. at any rate, he then wrote a book on Adams that sold very well, indeed. It was a very good one. It is. And, the other book I wrote that won the Pulitzer, which is, founding brothers who put three kids through college and, but at any rate, I like Adam the best because he's the most honest, and he's most, and most of the work I've done on the founding is to try to recover them as real human beings.

not as mythical figures, not as demigods. In fact, if they were mythical figures or demigods, what in heaven's name would we have to learn from them? and Adams is the one who's the most visibly, discernibly human. who tells you the truth whose letters, especially to Abigail, there's 120 of them, are the most revealing about a couple, a man and wife living through the most, challenging moment in early American history.

and at one point in time, he writes her, says, from now on, he calls her Saucy. From now on, Saucy, I'm going to make copies of all my letters because posterity is looking. And I want you to do the same thing. In fact, I think your letters are better than mine. And most historians who've read all the letters, agree with him.

Her letters are better than his. at any rate, those are the reasons why I find him so attractive. We need to recover the founders as honest or human beings who have to respond to a great crisis. If the revolution hadn't happened, John Adams would have remained an obscure lawyer eastern Massachusetts.

George Washington would just been, Virginia planner. Jefferson would be famous only for his architecture. but of course that didn't happen and crises create leadership. Crises provide a set of choices that have to be made in the crucible of the crisis. And this, what you have to recover is that They realized that they were attempting to win a war for colonial independence against the greatest military power in the world.

That had never happened before. and so they're, on their best behavior. And their letters are as much letters to us as they are to each other. 

[00:05:06] Matt Blumberg: We are posterity. 

[00:05:09] Joseph Ellis: They know we are the posterity they were talking about. And, Adams, said he wasn't sure about whether it was life after death in heaven or hell.

And, he said, if there can ever be shown conclusively that there is no hereafter, my advice to every man, woman, and child on the planet. is to take opium. he said, but it doesn't, don't, worry about it cause we'll never know. And if there isn't, we'll just be gone. And, but the guarantee of life after for Adams is in the memory of future generations, which is us.

It is. So let's, let's dive in. 

[00:05:54] Matt Blumberg: You go ahead. No, let's dive into our topic. we are, focused today on our second president, John Adams. Adams was of course, one of our founding fathers, founding brothers, the authors of the declaration of independence, the person who nominated George Washington to be commander of the continental army.

foreign emissary a number of times, negotiator of the treaty of Paris that ended the revolution. Our first vice president, our second president, our first one term president, which we'll talk about in a minute. the first president to ever live very briefly in the white house, and, one of only two presidents whose son also went on to become president.

it's interesting to me that Adams has always remained in the shadow of the other founding fathers, especially Washington. And there's some inevitability to that. I mean, who's ever going to remember the Patriots quarterback after Tom Brady or the Yankees after Derek Jeter.

but today, I'd love to discuss a few different vignettes, from Adam's life on the topic of country over self. and I'd like to kick us off with a quote from your book, Passionate Sage that I found so relevant, where you say, it was likely that Adams would succeed in the area of policy, but fail politically.

He could do what was right for the country, but arrange events so that his personal fates. suffered as a consequence, and you go on and say that this was the established Adams pattern to sense where history was headed, to make decisions that position America to be carried forward on those currents, but to do so in a way that assured his own alienation from success.

when I think about this topic that, that this project and this podcast is all about country over self, that sort of implies something a little bit different, but I'd love to start hit a few different vignettes from Adam's life and talk through that. And the first one I'd like to start with was actually pre presidency and even, pre revolution or sort of very, early, pre revolution, when Adams, defended the British soldiers.

who are charged in the Boston Massacre in 1770. let's talk about that for a couple of minutes. what was, what must that have been like, to be defending essentially the enemy? 

[00:08:12] Joseph Ellis: yes, you're right. Adams successfully defended the British officers and enlisted men who were charged with, killing several people.

mooning several others in what they call the Boston Massacre. he said that he wanted to show Great Britain, that the United States would treat these accused people fairly according to the law. And that we were a model, therefore, of, political honesty. And he talked to his cousin, whose name is also Adams, and they agreed that this would be a politically shrewd move.

so it wasn't just a, an act of hon of honesty. It was an act of pol political, savvy as a matter of fact. And when the press started to criticize Adams for doing so his cousin, wrote to the press and made sure that. They stopped doing that. so he didn't suffer too much for this one.

Interesting. He paid no price. He paid very little price for it. And, but we're landing in the area now in the years, before the revolution where Adams's role is crucial because he's from Massachusetts when he's appointed to the Continental Congress and Massachusetts is the epicenter of the resistance movement because the British have occupied Massachusetts with this large military force and they're punishing Massachusetts for throwing all that tea in the water.

and so he. Is more, more prepared to say that we're on a road here, which ends in only one destination and before, and you can see the play or the movie 1776, and they've got this right in the movie, Adams is the most outspoken person for American independence in the continental Congress. He said those that are worse or wishing something else are deluded that they're waiting for a Messiah that will never come.

So he's his greatest achievements really politically occur long before he's vice president or president when he leads the resistance movement. and, I think that, in that role, And that's the reason he and Jefferson have so much in common. And we'll talk about their correspondence later.

But, Jefferson is the penman of the revolution and Adams is the, voice of the resistance movement, more clearly than anybody else. He sees where history's headed before everybody else does. 

[00:11:14] Matt Blumberg: So I want to. Fast forward a little bit to his presidency and big jump there.

one of the things that stands out to me, on this topic of, country over self and sort of recalling your own words about, he would do the right thing, but managed to muck it up himself politically, was making peace with France. Yes. And, I'd love for you to, sort of talk through that vignette.

What, was, the context? Why did he do what he did? And how did he arrange it in such a way that, that it would hurt him, politically? 

[00:11:54] Joseph Ellis: Adams was vice president under Washington and then was a candidate for the presidency, in, 1800 running against Jefferson. And Adams insisted that the United States should not go to war with France.

And that at the time was a very unpopular position because France was doing all kinds of things on the oceans to take our ships and, there was a little, there was a small war already going. But he insisted that we sign a peace treaty with France and send a delegation to do that. It was extremely unpopular.

It's one of the reasons he lost the election. And he then said, losing the election was one of the proudest moments of my life because I did the right thing. And popular opinion was against me and therefore I knew I was doing the right thing. one thing that our listeners need to begin to understand is that throughout the founding up until Jackson, Andrew Jackson, the word democracy is an epithet.

Democracy means mob rule or vulnerability to demagogues. And therefore, a truly enlightened political leader will often have to do what is unpopular. And Adams is the best at doing that. and that's what he's referring to. But he said the proudest moment of his life was when he lost the election.

and if you're not prepared to lose an election, you should never run for office in the first place. so it's a point of view that. Contemporary politicians could not fathom, of course. And, but this is virtue. Virtue is the great value. You do the right thing. And a republic, res publica, means things of the public.

The public interest is often not the same thing at all as the popular interest. And people at any given time, have a misguided notion about what we should do, and you as a leader have to simply do the right thing. Washington thought similarly, but he was so great that he was never going to be voted out for anything.

but it's a form of leadership that's pre democratic and that, it's also how we weirdly get, we get this weird contraption called the, electoral college, namely, in the Constitutional Convention, neither Adamson or Jefferson, however, is present for the Constitutional Convention.

They're in France at the time. They decide that the electing of the president cannot be totally popular. We have to filter popular opinion through more enlightened and experienced minds. And those minds, what Madison calls filtration. And once again, it's that, The long term interest of the public is not the same thing as the democratic values of the present.

and you got to be prepared to take the losses as a result of that. And in the long term, you'll be recognized for doing the right thing. But, and to, to some extent we're here on the day trying to make sure that Adams gets credit for that.

[00:15:25] Matt Blumberg: Did it work? Did it work? 

[00:15:28] Joseph Ellis: Yes, it did work. It worked. After the election had already occurred, the treaty was signed and we avoided the war. And if it had been signed beforehand and it had been exposed as the right thing, he might've won the election. but it came too late. 

[00:15:47] Matt Blumberg: Of course, it's one of the things 

[00:15:48] Joseph Ellis: that, he also said, I never really wanted to be president in the first place.

And I'm happier now to be in retirement with my beloved Abigail and blah, blah, blah, all of which was a half lie. 

[00:15:58] Matt Blumberg: Do you think he made a political mistake? Could he have handled it such that it didn't cost him? 

[00:16:05] Joseph Ellis: I don't see how, because he had alienated the fed. He was a federalist.

The two parties then were called Federalist and Republican. In some textbooks, they say Democratic Republican. That's wrong that they don't use the word democracy until much later. But he's alienated his own party. And Hamilton, who's the really, The titular head of the Federalist Party hates him and writes a public letter saying that Adams is slightly out of his mind and can't be trusted.

So he's alienated them, and that's his own party, for gosh sakes. and, Jefferson's the candidate on the other side. during the time that the campaign is going on, he hires a Scotsman to demean Adams and, later on lies about it to Adams. He even demeans, he said Adams, if elected, will become a monarch and he will attempt to have his son, John Quincy, his successor.

Of course, John Quincy later on does become president, but, not at that time. At any rate, Adams just doesn't play politics. And in order to be successful in that moment, he had to be willing to do that and he just was unwilling to do it. 

[00:17:20] Matt Blumberg: When you think about his, his presidency, is there another story that comes to mind of a time where he put country over self or country over the Federalist Party agenda?

[00:17:36] Joseph Ellis: during that time of his presidency, there's this fear that the Americans are going to be attacked or invaded by France, and therefore there has to be a army built up to oppose that. Adams opposes the army. He says, if we're gonna be attacked, we need a strong Navy. But, Hamilton becomes the arg the man who says, Yeah, we have an army and best guess what?

I'll be the head of it. Adams perceives Hamilton as a, Wanna be a president and a demagogue. And so one of the things he does is order the disbursement of the army. He actually sends Abigail down to talk to, or Abigail does go by and talk to Hamilton and that. So we're avoid, and Hamilton's plan is to take the army south, do all arrest all the people who were supporters of Jefferson and maybe go to Mexico and take that too.

So he had. Yeah, he had real ambitions. Hamilton, by the way, is the smartest of the founders. If he would pass, get the highest grade on the LSATs. and Adams really dislikes him, and sees that he is a potential, monarch or looking for that kind of title. And, he wins in this one. He wins in this one.

And, but it's another action taken in the long term interest of the United States, regardless of the political consequences. 

[00:19:15] Matt Blumberg: And was there fallout from it politically? 

[00:19:19] Joseph Ellis: it just further alienated him within the Federalist Party, his party. Okay. And, in fact, the election of 1800 was rigged.

it's, talk about rigged elections these days, right? And, New York, all the electors in New York were essentially chosen, and manipulated in such a way by Hamilton and by others, so that they would, that the New York election, the New York vote would be for Jefferson and, or against Ham, against Adams.

And, and that's why he lost the election. He also lost it because of the fact that the, Slaves were counted as two thirds, for one, the one fifth, rule and that up the votes of the southern states. Right. But again, instead of saying, oh my gosh, I lost, Adam said, oh, wonderful. and, Abigail, seconded that.

and as you said, they're the first people to occupy the White House. And there's a, still in the White House, engraved on, above the fireplace, is a, in this house, I forget if I'll get it completely right, it's just a hope that in this house only men of integrity will live. so he's got his mark there.

And, but if you're trying to assess Adams career as a whole, Even though we're so presidentially inclined these days. The presidency isn't the most important moment in his career. And it comes late in the game. And, he's, simultaneously one of the most Ardent advocates for recognizing that American independence is inevitable.

And secondly, and this is a biggie, he's a conservative radical, a conservative revolutionary, conservative, meaning we cannot impose the full agenda of our, declaration of independence now. We cannot attempt to end slavery. We cannot give women the vote. We can't do these kinds of things. We can't even give, people that don't own property the right to vote.

We have to defer and delay that. And if we try to do it fast, it'll explode. And what he's thinking is what's going to happen in the French Revolution. Right. If you try to impose your agenda, what do you end up with? You end up the guillotine and, Napoleon. 

[00:21:55] Matt Blumberg: Out in the streets. 

[00:21:56] Joseph Ellis: Yeah.

If you do this in Russia, you end up with a firing squad, Wahl and Lenin. And that, therefore, He is a Burke ian conservative. We need to have a revolution, but it has to happen slowly. The American revolution succeeds because it's not really a revolution. the French revolution fails because it tries to be a full revolution.

And Adams is the central player in that dialogue. And trying to recover that is difficult for Americans now. Though historians, you were saying he's never quite had the reputation he deserved. In popular opinion, I think that's true. But if they put up the, something on the mall, maybe that'll change.

But among historians over the last 20 or 30 years, Adams status has gone up. As the letters keep being published as, and they're accessible. And I. encourage our listeners to sort of read, especially the correspondence between Adams and Jefferson, which is available in paperback. As, those letters have become available within the profession itself, His status has gone way up.

[00:23:04] Matt Blumberg: But let's, come back in just a minute to the correspondence with Jefferson. I want to get one other question in first about Adams. and this is maybe more, broad than just Adams. On this theme of, country over self, I think one of the things we forget today when we see presidents today is how different things were, in the era before, industrialization and transportation.

And, today we see Obama on the sidelines of his kids soccer games and we see, Ford's daughter having her high school prom in the white house. You forget that in the early days presidents really did put country over self physically and emotionally and Adams must have spent more time away from his family than with them for 20 or 30 years.

[00:23:56] Joseph Ellis: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I remember thinking when my father went off to war in the World War II, I didn't see him. I mean, I was born just before he left in 43 now, you can, anyway, you're exactly right. Distance made a difference. It's one reason that we have these letters. The reason that we have the letters with that, with Abigail and John's, cause they're separated.

He's in Philadelphia or he's in Paris and that letter, I used to tell students this, You write emails. The emails are really different from letters. Adams and Jefferson are two of the greatest letter writers in, in the Revolutionary Era, to be sure. think of any two American presidents now in the, writing the kind of letters that Adams and Jefferson write to each other.

We'll talk about that in a second, but that letter writing is a much more self conscious, careful process. and, distance made a difference. It took about six months for a letter to get from the United States to Paris. It took about three weeks for a letter to get from Boston to Philadelphia. So that when you write a letter, you have to be aware of the fact that it's not going to be received for some period of time.

The thought process of doing that is really, different. and therefore, one of my historian points is the past is a foreign country and you have to learn to occupy that foreign country. If you're going to make judgments about the people, then you have to enter into their world. and assess it on its own terms, rather than bring, like, I know it doesn't sound possible because I used to teach at some really great places, West Point, Mount Holyoke, Amherst, Williams.

They were really good students, but every once in a while, and we talk about the distance problem. One, person would say, why don't they just use their cell phones?

No, they don't have those things. no, they can't get in the car. They can't get in an airplane. and so you have to lose your presentism and be willing to, inhabit a foreign country. and that's what being a historian entails. 

[00:26:25] Matt Blumberg: So let's talk about, Adams and Jefferson and, the correspondence.

and I think the, way I'll frame this topic and, kind of let you go on it is, they're both their correspondence, and their death. I think are one of, or two of the more remarkable stories in American history. And this podcast has a title, which is country over self that I think is represented in that correspondence, but it also has a subtitle, which is defining moments in American history.

And I find that one of those defining moments as well. It is. What was that correspondence like and when did it all end? 

[00:27:03] Joseph Ellis: In 1812, when both Jefferson and Adams were retired from the presidency and living in Monticello, and Adams gave his house a name of Little Monticello or something like that.

And a mutual friend named Rush, Benjamin Rush, said he had a dream and he dreamed that these two great leaders who became bitter political enemies came together and began to recover their friendship and that they actually died on the same day and then went up to heaven together. Now, this doesn't happen very often in the real world, but Adams, sorry, I never heard this part before.

For Benjamin Rush. Said that in, I see that I, in my mind, I see them ascending into heaven at the same time. In what year did he say this? 1812. Okay, so they initially initiate a correspondence. Now these two guys were close friends during the war and as mutual ambassadors in Paris, and Jefferson lived with Adam's family, and Adam said his son John Quincy was, he was a father to John Quincy as much as he was, and that kind of thing.

But they really parted in the 1790s when they occupied different sides, and, Jefferson was This is a reason that, my friend, the historian didn't want to write about Jefferson. And, as I mentioned, he hired people defame it. And anyway, they get back together through letters. And again, I encourage as many of our listeners as possible to get volume two of the Adams Jefferson Correspondents, available on paperback and what comes through there is both of these people are extraordinarily well educated in the classics. And they can, Oh, did you read Montesquieu on this or, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, they do recover the friendship and, and Adams gets this letter from Jefferson one time in which, Jefferson.

is complimentary and he says, this is the greatest letter in the world. And, Jefferson's now my good friend again. And at the beginning of it, Adam says to Jefferson, you and I ought not to die before we have explained ourselves to each other. Because what we've got here is two of the primary leaders in the American revolution who end up concluding that the revolution is, that they don't agree on what the revolution was really about.

Adams thinks it's about the creation of a self sufficient American nation state. Jefferson continues to believe it ought to remain a place where state sovereignty is the rule. In part because that's a way to protect slavery. But at any rate, on July 4th, 1826, Jefferson dies at one o'clock in the afternoon.

His last words are, is it the fourth? Meaning he's hoping to die on schedule. These guys can will themselves. 50 

[00:30:19] Matt Blumberg: to the day. 

[00:30:22] Joseph Ellis: Adams at 4 o'clock in the afternoon passes and his last words are, Thomas Jefferson still lives. He'll be the last one. Jefferson has already died. The mathematician at Yale University, calculates that it's one chance in seven million that this could ever possibly happen, that this is somehow a divine event.

People in the South and the Southern states say, wait a minute, Jefferson died, but that Yankee, he didn't die too, did he? And they don't want to believe it. And, this is a Virginian speaking here. at any rate, The way I've explained this to myself and to my readers is, and to my students, is that they willed themselves to die.

And July 4th was never really the right day for independence. Nothing happened on July 4th. Adams thought that the day would be July 2nd, because that was the day they actually voted on independence. All they did on the 4th was send the document. to the printer and the printer put July 4th. They didn't sign it on the 4th either.

Okay, people didn't sign it until August 2nd and some were signing into September. and Adams had written Abigail and saying this day, July 2nd, will be the day that we will celebrate with parades and even got the fireworks right. But he got the day wrong because he thought the day would be the day they voted independence.

There was never a signing ceremony. There's a famous painting that hangs in the Capitol called the Declaration of Independence. It shows these five guys stepping up to the table, and everybody thinks it's the signing ceremony on the 4th. No, it's June 28th. Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, and two other people are presenting the draft of the Declaration to the full Congress.

That's what it is. So the play, 1776, for dramatic reasons, has to have a signing ceremony. It's, everything else in the play is pretty good, but that's wrong. and anyway, the July 4th is the wrong day. But Adams and Jefferson decide to make it the right day and by actually dying on the 4th.

And by the way, Monroe dies on the 4th too. Madison tries and misses by 5 days. And, these guys are dying on schedule. And, at any rate, it's, it's the kind of story that you can't make this thing up. No, although 

[00:32:51] Matt Blumberg: apparently it's the kind of story you can forecast if you're Benjamin Rush.

[00:32:56] Joseph Ellis: the fact that Rush had that dream and the correspondent between Rush and Adams is really good too. If you ever wanna look at, Rush goes on to become a psychiatrist and he is a father of modern psychiatry. And so he says to Adams lets us compare our dreams. and they do that in an interesting way.

Adam says, oh, I believe this and blah, blah, blah. Rush is prescient, but he's also lucky, and maybe they, willed this. I don't know. I mean, obviously, but it happened. and the fourth has never been the right day until they made it the right day. but for readers, that's an, I've talked to a lot of congressmen over time when they've invited me to give presentations.

And it's many times they will say, the most important thing you ever told me is to read the correspondence to the Adams and Jefferson. I learned more from that than from any other document in American history. And so I encourage our listeners to think about doing that too. 

[00:33:59] Matt Blumberg: So let's. Let's close, let's shift gears from Adams and let's close with four super quick kind of rapid fire questions.

All right. I'll be brief. All right. Number one, if you and I were not talking about Adams today, in the context of country over self, who would you want to be talking about? Washington. 

[00:34:17] Joseph Ellis: Washington is the great leader. I mean, if you rank all the founders, Franklin's the wisest Adams is one of the best read in politics.

Jefferson's the most verbally literate. Washington. Hamilton's the smartest, Madison's the most politically adroit, but Washington's the greatest. And they all said that. 

[00:34:40] Matt Blumberg: Alright, so question two, the opposite. If we were talking about presidents who put self before country, Who are we talking about?

[00:34:51] Joseph Ellis: it's not Washington. I don't think it's fair to lay that one on Jefferson. you could, especially on the slavery issue, meaning the fact that he owns slaves at Mount Vernon and not at Monticello is an underlying reason why he opposes federal power. but he does the Louisiana Purchase. any rate, I think you have to move into the middle of the 19th century to find that president.

And who do you think it is? Oh boy, Jackson, maybe, for Indian removal. but the degree to which you have to sacrifice politically in order to do the right thing policy wise, is an idea that has died by the time you get to the middle of the 19th century into democracy. So that this generation, which is the greatest generation in my mind, it doesn't mean it's perfect.

They failed to end slavery or put it on the road to extension and they fail to reach a just accommodation of the native populations. If you're thinking perfection, you shouldn't be a historian. but the kind of leadership that they exhibited is almost impossible. Now, political parties make it impossible.

the media, the internet, So they created what becomes democracy, but they couldn't survive in a democracy. Okay. They created a society that makes them irrelevant. 

[00:36:28] Matt Blumberg: All right. Question three out of four, Biden's withdrawal from the race in 2024 country over self, not country over self or too soon to tell.

[00:36:40] Joseph Ellis: Country over self. Yeah. He, did what Washington did. He steps down. Now, Washington wanted to step down from, in the first term, no president in American history did not want to be president more than George Washington. That's the reason he could be trusted. I think Biden's decision, he was slow to make it.

but it was a choice that he made correctly a lot of times Biden doesn't get to the right thing for a long time, but eventually he got, there on that one. So it's not quite as dramatic, but it's, it's in the Washington category, I believe. 

[00:37:18] Matt Blumberg: All right. Last question, knowing everything, about our history, our system of government, our founding, our politics, if you could wave a magic wand and you could make one change to our system, legal, constitutional, cultural, to strengthen our system and strengthen our democracy, what would it be?

[00:37:42] Joseph Ellis: Eliminate the electoral college, make it a popular vote. I'd also have mandatory national service for all young people. It wouldn't have to be military. But three generations have grown up without the presumption of any service. And I think that, a civic sense is something that's being lost. States don't require it anymore.

In the current election, only about 10 percent of the people could pass the civics test that, all immigrants have to pass for citizenship. American history enrollments are way down. so the push towards a more civics version of American history that everybody knows. so let's get rid of the electoral college.

That's the hardest thing to do because it requires a constitutional amendment, which is really difficult and the founders made it difficult. But that would be my number one choice. 

[00:38:38] Matt Blumberg: All right. Joseph Ellis, bestselling author, presidential historian. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

[00:38:44] Joseph Ellis: Don't say presidential historian.

OK. Historian of the founder. OK. Historian of the founder. Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's been fun.

[00:38:58] Matt Blumberg: Thank you for listening to the country over self podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please take a minute to give us five stars and leave us a review. If you have an idea for an episode or want to reach Matt directly, please email podcast at country over self. com.