Commonwealth Club Of California Podcast

Fox News Channel Chief Political Correspondent Bret Baier returns for a Club program exploring the critical role George Washington played in securing the future of the United States. Baier, author of the new biography To Rescue the Constitution: George Washington and the Fragile American Experiment, focuses on Washington's return from retirement to lead the Constitutional Convention and establish the foundation of American governance. George Washington rescued the nation and the Constitution three times: first by winning the Revolutionary War, second by presiding over the Constitutional Convention and ushering the Constitution through a fractious ratification process, and third by leading the nation as president in its first years. There is no doubt, says Baier, that the struggling new nation needed to be rescued. After the victorious war, the states were no more than a loosely knit and contentious confederation, and they were in constant conflict. Setting aside his plan to retire to Mount Vernon, Washington