USA celebrates 250 years of independence

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0:39Hello, I'm Sean Lay. Thanks for downloading the BBC's World Tonight podcast from Friday the 3rd of July. As Americans prepare to share a collective pat on the back this weekend, marking 250 years since breaking with Britain, we'll be asking how resilient is the republic now? Ken Burns, who's documented so much of the history of the United States, tells me why he marks every 4th of July by reading aloud the Declaration of Independence. India demands answers from Meta after a BBC investigation found the tech giant is profiting from paid adverts promoting child sexual abuse material on Instagram in India.

1:16Sikir Starmer gives the BBC a valedictory interview and some advice for his likely successor, who once was his boss. Stay with us for the explanation of that. As Taylor and Travis say, I do. How does Swift mania measure up to Beatles mania? And the NHS backs rewards for walking. But what should they be? Stay here to find out. Those Americans heading to Washington for the 4th of July celebrations have been promised a record-breaking firework display by President Trump on what will be the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. To see it, though, they'll have to endure hot, sticky conditions.

1:53Attention, the event has been postponed. We will reopen at 5pm. Please refer to Freedom 250 social media. Please proceed with the nearer text. The heat's put bade, albeit temporarily, to this part of the festivities, the Great American State Fair on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., which features attractions from all 50 states of the Union. As hard to ignore as the weather is the bitter political crossfire of what should be a moment for all Americans to share together. The president and his allies have been accused of turning national events into partisan ones. Many of the events have been arranged by a Trump-linked organisation, Freedom 250, rather than America 250, a non-partisan group.

2:37Democrats have cried foul. Later today, President Trump himself will speak at Mount Rushmore, South Dakota, below the impassive granite expressions of four of his most consequential predecessors, Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt. If monuments could speak. Ranger Blaine Kortemeyer is excited. As you can see, lots of hustle and muscle around the property, including hauling fireworks to the top of the mountain so that we can shoot them off from up there. But bringing America to the memorial and just to celebrate the first 250 years of the nation and to do that here at the Shrine of Democracy is all of those things coming together at one time.

3:20How can it not be magical? On Saturday, there'll be a rally on the Mall, a presidential address, military flypasts, and those fireworks. Other prominent figures are marking this semi-quincentennial rather differently. Pope Leo, the first US citizen to become pontiff, used the first major address he's delivered to the country of his birth by reminding Americans of their long history of welcoming migrants. In these past 250 years, for so many peoples throughout the world, it was the firm resolve to achieve the noble vision of the nation's founders that made America a byword for freedom. As the country opened its doors to successive ways of immigrants, enabling them and their children to play their part in shaping the future of the nation.

4:09A theme echoed in an anniversary address delivered by the New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani, himself a naturalized American. Despite laws enacted by the federal government to bar their entry, despite sweatshop fires that killed hundreds of women, Despite riots aimed at their very existence, immigrants made homes here in New York City, and they helped to make New York City. That legacy of every generation of Americans insisting that the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness extends to them too, is no relic of the past. It carried millions of black Americans north during the Great Migration.

4:44It drew hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans to New York City after the Second World War. It invited countless others from the West Indies and South Asia and West Africa and across the world. And it is what brought my family to the city when I was seven years old. Mayor Zoran Mamdani, the mood is very different from that of the 200th anniversary of independence in 1976. The then-president Gerald Ford, also a Republican, strove to make the commemorations bipartisan, in part because of the bitter divisions stirred by the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal. That spirit even extended to inviting a descendant of wicked King George III, who'd provoked the whole thing in the first place.

5:25President and Mrs Ford greet a very special visitor. 200 years after the Declaration of Independence, a British monarch comes to America as an honoured guest and a good friend. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth is made royally welcome. So, is there a party atmosphere in Washington DC today? I asked Tamara Keith, White House correspondent for National Public Radio. You know, I think it depends on where you are in D.C. For people who have come into town specifically for these events, many of whom support the president, there is a party atmosphere and there's the Great American State Fair on the National Mall, which, you know, depending on when you're looking at it, is either well attended or not particularly well attended.

6:09and tomorrow on the 4th of July, America's 250th birthday, there are literally going to be very noisy flyovers all day long. So whether people are in it for the party or not, they're going to get the noise as well as their poor dogs who are going to be super stressed. There was a lot of talk 50 years ago when Gerald Ford was president about the need for an event like the 4th of July celebrations to be a coming together. particularly after a period of deep political and social divisions in the United States. Is there any sense of that this time around? You know, the thing is that Gerald Ford, it was a presidential election year in 1976.

6:53He ultimately lost and he was studiously apolitical in his remarks and in his approach to America's bicentennial. This is a different time. Certainly, it is another polarized time in America. And it's a time where there is a president who has taken a very different approach and has really put himself in the center of so many of these celebrations. He's going to be delivering a speech of what he's calling a Trump rally, even though I don't know that it is meant to be. But if he calls it a Trump rally, it becomes a Trump rally. But before the big fireworks spectacular tomorrow night, President Trump is expected to deliver something like a 45 minute speech.

7:36He says the temperatures are insanely hot here right now. And he's like, I'm going to go extra long just to prove that I can do it. So the challenge here is that I think this is a moment where America could use some unity. And in a way, it has become a missed opportunity, sort of a political Rorschach test where either what the president is doing and these events are amazing and awesome, or, you know, he is soiling them with his partisanship and by putting himself in the middle of it. They did start off, didn't they, as celebrations that were going to be nonpartisan or at least organized by nonpolitical groups.

8:15What changed? Yeah, there was a bipartisan commission that was created by Congress called America 250. They're still operating, but they've been utterly bigfooted by Freedom 250, which was created by President Trump after his election. he essentially looked at what was in the plans for America 250 and thought that's not good enough. And he wanted to put his own stamp on it. So this organization, Freedom 250, was created, it fundraised. I mean, some of the aims are still very much about patriotism and American unity and just a great experience for the American people. But again, because it has the president's stamp on it.

8:57For instance, you saw a bunch of artists pull out of what was supposed to be a summer concert series because they felt like it was too partisan. And, you know, this is just sort of a symptom of these times in America. Is there a moment of reflection here for Americans about how their nation is today and to what extent it reflects the values of 1776? I think there is a moment of reflection. I have this project that I have been working on called Swing Shift, where I'm talking to swing voters, people from swing states who have voted for politicians of both parties. And I asked them if they are proud to be Americans.

9:41And they all said yes, but there was a lot of nuance under the hood. Yes, but I'm embarrassed. Or yes, but there's still so much more work to do. So, you know, I think that people are clear eyed about the state of things. They see this country as divided, but they are still optimistic. These voters that I've been talking to, they still have a lot of hope, even if it's cautious optimism that this country can figure itself out. Tamara Keith, political correspondent for National Public Radio. Well, a declamatory document printed in haste in Exeter is brought ashore in Plymouth. Hardly a noteworthy journey, except it was published not in Devon's county town, but in Exeter, New Hampshire, and it ended up in Plymouth after being seized by the Royal Navy from a ship crewed by rebels against the King on Christmas Eve 1776, which should give you a clue as to what the document is.

10:36A rare copy of the Declaration of Independence, recently discovered the National Archives announced today. It's a document filmmaker Ken Burns knows well and is considered in-depth in his TV series, The American Revolution. Earlier I spoke to him on the occasion of America's 250th birthday. I asked him first, how will the Burns family mark this special 4th of July? Oh, as we always do, I'm at our cottage on a lake in New Hampshire. I have assembled three of my four daughters, one of my two son-in-laws and two of my four grandchildren. I will subject them all before they are allowed to eat to my reading of the Declaration of Independence, which is something I've done for 35 years here.

11:21It's a ritual. We hang a gigantic American flag that I was gifted many, many years ago, a gigantic 10 by 20 foot flag that has 48 stars. So it puts it somewhere around the 19-teens. It hangs from the second story down almost to the first and displays our patriotism, I guess, for the entire lake community to see. Off the top of your head, without any warning of this question, can you recall for us how the declaration begins? Oh, well, the first sentence is sort of the justification for why they're going to talk. The key is the second sentence, which I think is the most important sentence written in the English language besides I love you.

12:04And that is we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It's very interesting that here on this side of the Atlantic, the National Archives was just announced earlier today, that it's rediscovered a copy of the declaration. It didn't realise it had one that was seized, actually originated in the state you're in, New Hampshire, and was an example of how people were trying to disseminate the information of this, not just internationally, but more importantly, presumably among the colonists themselves.

12:44Oh, very much so. And you've made a good point. And yes, I read about that. I'm so excited. I spent some time in London earlier this year at the British Library, which, of course, its sort of central holdings are George III's book collection. You know, George III is sort of always assumed to be a bumbling idiot madman in the United States. And certainly the musical Hamilton doesn't do anything to dissuade you from that. But of course, he's incredibly, a very devoted constitutional monarch. And I hope that our film in some ways rehabilitates his seriousness. But I'm thrilled about that. And yes, this is a document that is very much an internal document.

13:25We were trying to convince you these are brand new ideas for a long time, even after the fighting. Remember, this comes out 15 months after Lexington and Concord. That's on April 19th, 1775. So now we're into July of 76. And Americans are still having to be persuaded that they want to have a separation, independency, as it was called. Thomas Paine, an Englishman, has done an amazing job towards that early in 76 with his pamphlet Common Sense. But this is sort of laying out the case. So it's being disseminated all through the colonies, now states. It's no longer parliament. Everyone thought, oh, parliament doesn't get us.

14:04We don't have representation. The king is our friend. And Paine first says, nope, hereditary monarchy is a crazy, insane thing. Nobody can set them up, you know, and their family for perpetual rulers. And then here are the things that the king, not the parliament, has done. It's a big moment in the declaration that you've switched from a kind of argument about British law with the parliament to the establishment of these natural laws that supersede anything that the British monarchy represented in terms of power. and authority and it's very complex and very interesting dynamics going on in these, you know, very short documents, 1337 words.

14:45Two questions if I may. One is about the document itself. You have looked very closely at it. It's remarkable, isn't it, how many omissions, additions, amendations are made. I mean, to what extent does it reflect the tensions between the colonies and between those who were taking part in this process of trying to draw up the declaration? Very much so. My favorite moment, though, is, you know, we always complain that, you know, you don't want to write by a committee. But this is a committee of five people. They give the main job to Thomas Jefferson and he begins the second sentence. we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable, which is a really good way to present an argument with new ideas that have never, you know, sort of had the light of day with regard to what's happening now.

15:32But Benjamin Franklin, who's on the committee, changes it to self-evident. There's nothing self-evident about these truths that you're about to hear. In fact, they're brand new. So there's, as someone said in another film I made on Franklin, that it's the lawyer's dodge. You just say they're self-evident and we're not going to argue about that and we're going to move on and now we're going to tell you what they are. Jefferson himself proposed another injury and usurpation against the king that somehow George III was responsible for the Atlantic slave trade. And everybody kind of looked at him and said, huh?

16:03No, we're not going to put that in. A lot of it has to do with the fact that they're not going to deal with what will be a central issue for the American Republic, which is the existence of chattel slavery in a country that had just proclaimed that all men are created equal. So there's lots of interesting changes. And I've looked at the first draft of Jefferson's. I've seen the emendations that have been made by Franklin and others. And there's a wonderful sense of process in the American story. You know, we're in pursuit of happiness. Eleven years later in our constitution, we're seeking a more perfect union.

16:36So there's always this idea of corrigibility, of not saying we're already there. We're not an end in and of ourselves. You have the idea of a nation in the process of becoming still to this day, 250 years later. And for all the problems, for all the failures, for all the things, there is an kind of animating American spirit, which is always a sense of, you know, we can be better, which makes any kind of retrenchment, any kind of sense of going back to some other idyllic time that never existed, kind of unusual. No, no, no, we're going forward here and we're going to try to get it right. Ken Burns on the Declaration of Independence.

17:15His six-part documentary series, The American Revolution, is on the iPlayer.

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18:10from here. The government said it would not extend licensing hours. Yesterday Sakhir, a passionate footy fan and keen amateur player, risked the wrath of the police by decreeing that pubs could stay open after all. Then this evening it's reported that the kick-off time is set to be moved to a more civilised 7pm UK time. That news came after Sakhir had recorded a valedictory interview before his premiership with the BBC's chief political correspondent Henry Zeffman, who's with me in the World Tonight studio. Henry, tell us about the highlights of your conversation. Well, look, it was untypically candid, Sean.

18:45This is a Prime Minister who has been criticised often for being buttoned up. And I think he knows that and knows that that has been a political flaw of his. And I think he was keen to demonstrate that it's been quite a personal decision for him coming to the decision to resign. I think he was also rather keen to defend his legacy, a battle which I think is probably only just beginning. And he was keen to stress that his legacy isn't just his two years as prime minister. It's also the four years as leader of the Labour Party in opposition before that, as you hear in this clip. As you described earlier, you came to politics later than most.

19:21You've had an incredibly successful life. Eleven plus, two great universities, DPP at a relatively young age. You come to politics and I think you've said before you thought you might be Ed Miliband's attorney general. Instead, you're leader of the Labour Party within five years, prime minister within nine. It must be difficult that clearly the last two years ultimately haven't gone as you'd hoped. Well, the way I see it is this. I didn't come into politics in order to be the prime minister. I came in because I wanted to be part of something that would change millions of lives for the better. I stepped up as leader of the Labour Party after the 29 election.

20:03And so the way I'd put it is the Labour Party arguably could have been lost, but I stepped up as leader and with others we saved the Labour Party. We returned it as an electoral force, won a general election, and then in two years have started the important work of change and left the country in a materially better state than it was two years ago. So yes, look, in answer directly to your question, did I want it to end at this point in this way? No, I didn't. But I accept that with good grace. The Prime Minister was also pretty clear to me, Sean, that he sees foreign policy as a core part of his legacy.

20:44And I said to him, there's a lot of Labour MPs who are hoping that Andy Burnham, assuming he succeeds him, will be able to spend more time on domestic policy than Keir Starmer has. Well, this was his response. If you're Prime Minister and you care what bills are going to be like in any household around the country, you have to care about finding a lasting solution to the situation in Ukraine. You have to care about what happens in the Strait of Hormuz. And that's why I am proud that when other countries have looked to the sort of group of countries that's needed to work on these, they've looked to the UK and to France and Germany for the work on Ukraine in particular, the Coalition of the Willing.

21:28And they've looked again to France and the UK when it comes to the work that needs to be done on reassurance in the Strait of Hormuz. And that is, I am proud of the fact that the UK is now regarded as a leader, a country that others look to and want to engage with. And that is in our best interests here at home. You can't, it is, it is, it's not sensible to think you can just separate these two things out. Because there are those in your party, and you probably know this, who think that the next Prime Minister could spend less time on diplomacy than you have. You're saying pretty clearly that's not possible.

22:00No, I don't think it is possible. And I've given you the examples of Ukraine and the straight-up almost. I can give you plenty of other examples. The deal we did with the US that safeguarded all the jobs at JLR up in the Midlands. It's integral to the domestic picture. Before we did that deal, I went to see the workforce and looked them in the eyes. They were really worried because of the threatened tariffs that they were going to lose their jobs. And I went back to them. Immediately we did the deal with President Trump. And they were so relieved because they knew for them, their families, their communities, it was a massive deal.

22:34So this suggestion you could really, in the modern era, simply split up international and domestic, it just doesn't make sense. It isn't true. It isn't right. Well, there's lots more in the full interview, Sean, including what the Prime Minister describes as the intensely personal decision he took with just his wife, Victoria, to resign. And for that and plenty else besides, you can watch the full interview tomorrow on BBC Breakfast at 8.15. It will also be on the iPlayer and on YouTube. It's two years ago this weekend since he became Prime Minister. How did you find him? Was he dejected, relieved?

23:09Relaxed, I think. Not demob happy, but I do think demob relaxed. I think there was palpably a weight that had been lifted a bit off his shoulders. But look, he was, I think, at peace with the fact that Labour MPs had decided, as he put it to me, that he wasn't the man to win the next general election. Boy, he does not agree, though. And I think that is very clear. But he was adamant that he would be a good ex-Prime Minister. He said, I'm going to keep my mouth shut. And he did basically acknowledge more clearly than ever before that Andy Burnham is going to be his successor. Yeah, it's a funny turnaround, isn't it?

23:41Andy Burnham was once his boss when he was Shadow Home Secretary. So Keir was a new boy, a new spokesman. Talking of Andy Burnham, on Saturday he's going to be taking questions on Instagram. Today he was taking them from users of Reddit. He declined to take questions from journalists when he gave that keynote speech about his vision back on Monday. Should we expect more of this, do you think? I think there's definitely a recognition from Andy Burnham, as there is from a lot of politicians, and as Keir Starmer has dipped his toe in as well before he was the outgoing prime minister, that the media landscape is changing and that there's different ways they want to communicate with people.

24:16And we did learn some important stuff via Reddit today. Andy Burnham saying he won't call a general election as a new prime minister, saying he wants to negotiate returns agreements for failed refugees, including with Taliban-run Afghanistan, saying he won't scrap the triple lock on pensions. So I think we probably can expect that on Instagram tomorrow and other platforms, I'm sure, before long, that might be the place we have to look for more clarity on this very rapid succession to a new prime minister who hasn't said an awful lot, at least recently, about what he would do in office. Yeah, well, hopefully there'll be plenty of interviews for you too.

24:51Henry Zephman, our Chief Political Correspondent, thank you so much for coming in to talk to us about that interview with Skiya Starmer. It is now just after half past ten, if you're listening to us live. This is The World Tonight with me, Sean Lay. Our main headlines, three men have been found guilty of the joint enterprise murder, not guilty of the joint enterprise murder of the journalist Lyra McKee, who was fatally shot in Londonderry in 2019. Poland's Prime Minister has said the country is preparing for various scenarios and that the coming months could be critical concerning the threat from Russia.

25:22And New York's roads are closed out of megastar Taylor Swift's wedding to American football paler Travis Kelsey. A retired city police officer told the New York Times this week that Taylor Swift's sardom could be compared only to the likes of Elvis or the Beatles. And if you need a reminder, at the height of Beatlemania in the early 60s, this teenage girl could hardly contain her excitement as she waited for John, Paul, George and Ringo to touch down in the Big Apple. I don't care what anybody thinks. I love the Beatles for them and I'll always love them. Even when I'm 105 and an old grandmother, I'll love them.