Mount Vernon

We're excited this morning to kick off two days of panels from Mount Vernon at "Lessons from the Founding: The 2026 George Washington Symposium."

Through nine dynamic themes, and with more than 50 speakers, the symposium will connect the nation's founding principles with today's most pressing civic questions.

Follow along here over the next two days for a peek into thought-provoking moments, photos, and a look at some special objects from Mount Vernon’s collections. #GWSymposium

And with a final discussion on Civics Education featuring Louise Dubé (@louise_dube), CEO of iCivics, we conclude "Lessons from the Founding: The 2026 George Washington Symposium"!

Thank you to our speakers, moderators, and attendees for two days of thought-provoking conversations about the founding principles of our republic and their relevance today.

A special thank you to our Leadership Sponsors, Stand Together and More Perfect, and our Sponsors, Don and Karen Tavolacci and the Francine A. LeFrak Foundation.

The annual George Washington Symposium is supported by a generous endowment established by The Barra Foundation.

#GWSymposium

Panel on Religious Freedom with John Fea (@JohnFea1) and Mona Charen (@monacharen), moderated by Jeffrey Rosen (@RosenJeffrey)

“We have had many reasons to look back at the founders and think, ‘They missed a few things.’ But religious freedom—that they nailed. It is worth remembering that we are the very first country to formally separate church and state. It had never been done in history.” - Mona Charen

#GWSymposium

Panel on Covering the Presidency, moderated by Robert Costa (@costareports)

“It’s the ultimate beat, obviously. The tricky part is that White House Correspondents, like the dog that catches the bus, they are confined into a little room. They often don’t have access. They’re interviewing each other. It can be very limited, it can be very confining. The trick is how to break out of that and how to work around the narrow funnel that the White House tries to put you in.” - Evan Thomas (@evanthomasbooks) on covering the presidency

“I think that for anybody who really wants to understand Washington [D.C.], spending a few years on Capitol Hill, before you sort of get sucked into the maw of our imperial presidency, is a great way to do it. Because I think you learn about how tactile power actually is and how much it’s made of relationships.” - Susan Glasser (@sbg1)

#GWSymposium

Panel on Presidential Transitions

“I wish every American could see what the West Wing looks like on the night of January 19th, because everybody is gone. Everything is gone. There are no books on the shelves … there are carpenters and painters furiously getting ready to have the West Wing look the way the new president wants it to look. And to me, it was almost a spiritual experience wandering around the West Wing on that night because democracy had done its work, an incumbent president was being abruptly removed, his entire team was gone, and I had a feeling of, ‘What a great thing our system is that permits this to happen peacefully and smoothly.’” - Joshua Bolten on the presidential transition of 1993

#GWSymposium