Sep 27, 2026 3-5pm ET
Sunday on The Robert Scott Bell Show:
This week on Sunday Conversation, we’re continuing something I plan to do periodically by sharing selected episodes from our Saturday Conversations on PTL. I know many of you who follow The Robert Scott Bell Show may not yet have had an opportunity to see what we’ve been doing over there, and some of these conversations are simply too important to leave confined to one audience. This particular episode is unlike anything we’ve done before. Through an extraordinary opportunity arranged by my dear friend and brother in liberty, Jonathan Emord, I sit down for an actual interview with George Washington, 230 years after his Farewell Address, to talk about the founding of this country, the sacred nature of liberty and the warnings he left for generations of Americans who would follow him.
Imagine having the opportunity to ask George Washington directly what he meant when he spoke of “the sacred fire of liberty.” That’s where our conversation begins. Washington confirms the words from his first inaugural address and explains the enormous responsibility entrusted to the American people. The American experiment wasn’t simply about creating another government. It was an attempt to establish a republic dedicated to preserving individual liberty, grounded in the understanding that our fundamental rights come from God rather than government.
We travel back with President Washington to the circumstances surrounding the American Revolution. He describes a people who originally considered themselves British subjects entitled to the traditional liberties of Englishmen, but who increasingly believed those liberties were being violated. Their petitions for redress failed, and ultimately they faced a decision: accept continued subjugation or stand for liberty. The Declaration of Independence becomes central to our discussion because it expresses the revolutionary proposition that government doesn’t create our rights. Government exists to protect rights that already belong to us.
One of the things I most wanted to ask President Washington about was his remarkable willingness to give up power. After commanding the Continental Army, he surrendered his military commission. After serving two terms as president, he walked away again despite those who wanted him to remain. He explains why he considered that essential to everything the Revolution had been fought to achieve. America wasn’t supposed to replace one king with another. Even the deliberately humble title “Mr. President” reflected his understanding that the president was supposed to serve the people, not rule them.
That brings us directly to Washington’s Farewell Address and one of the warnings that resonates powerfully 230 years later: “Let there be no change by usurpation.” President Washington explains why even an unconstitutional exercise of power that appears capable of accomplishing something good can establish a precedent that eventually destroys free government. Power accumulates. Government expands. And if the people aren’t vigilant about the boundaries placed around that power, the liberties those boundaries were designed to protect can gradually disappear.
We also explore the distinction between a constitutional republic and other forms of government. President Washington explains the philosophical foundations that influenced the founding generation, including John Locke and Montesquieu, and describes the extraordinary collection of people who came together despite their disagreements to build a system centered on liberty. From there, we bring the conversation forward and ask Washington what he makes of later political systems such as socialism and communism. His answer comes back to the same fundamental divide: liberty versus concentrated power.
Then we revisit one of the most remarkable episodes of Washington’s life: the Newburgh crisis of 1783. Officers in the Continental Army were angry, financially desperate and frustrated with Congress, and there was discussion of using military power to force political change. Washington rejected it. Here was a man who commanded an army and possessed the stature to seize tremendous power, yet refused to destroy the principle for which he and his men had sacrificed so much. He reminds us that fighting tyranny doesn’t give us permission to become tyrants ourselves.
I also have the opportunity to ask President Washington about another famous warning from his Farewell Address: permanent foreign alliances. Washington makes an important distinction. He isn’t arguing that America should never cooperate with other nations. He knew better than anyone how important French assistance had been during the Revolution. His concern was permanent entanglement, where America could find itself obligated to serve another nation’s interests rather than independently determining its own.
Washington shares a deeply personal example involving the Marquis de Lafayette, a man he loved almost as a son. When Lafayette was imprisoned in Europe, Washington faced pleas to use the United States government to intervene. Personally, he desperately wanted to help his friend. As president, however, he believed doing so risked drawing the young nation into European conflicts it wasn’t prepared to survive. It’s an extraordinary illustration of the difference between what we may desperately want to do personally and what someone entrusted with governmental power is constitutionally and morally justified in doing.
Eventually I ask the question that may be the most fascinating of the entire interview: What does George Washington think when he looks at America today? His response brings us back to the original purpose of the republic. Government wasn’t designed to solve every problem. Its central responsibility was to protect liberty. We discuss the enormous expansion of the federal government, the modern administrative state and Washington’s concern about governmental power migrating away from the constitutional structure of the executive, legislative and judicial branches. His message is straightforward: return to the principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
For me, however, this conversation ultimately goes beyond government and politics. There is something profound about Washington’s phrase “the sacred fire of liberty.” Sacred implies responsibility before something higher than ourselves. Washington repeatedly returns to the understanding that our rights come from our Creator and that the American people have a responsibility to preserve those liberties for their posterity.
That’s why I wanted our Sunday Conversation audience to experience this extraordinary PTL episode. Thanks to Jonathan Emord for arranging what I can only describe as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, we’re able to sit across from George Washington and ask questions many of us have probably wished we could ask him ourselves. What did you mean? Why did you surrender power? What were you warning us about? And, perhaps most importantly, what would you say to Americans today?
Two hundred and thirty years after his Farewell Address, George Washington’s challenge remains with us. The sacred fire of liberty isn’t something one generation can light and then forget. Every generation has to decide whether it will tend that fire, understand the principles behind it and pass them along to those who come next.
God bless you, and remember always: the power to heal, even politically, is yours.
Remember Friends, The Power to Heal is Yours!
