- A band of desperate religious refugees find themselves blown hopelessly off course, only to be deposited at the one spot on a wild continent best suited for their survival.
- George Washington’s beaten army, surrounded by a ruthless foe and on the verge of annihilation, manages an impossible escape due to a freakish change in the weather.
- A famous conqueror known for seizing territory, frustrated by a slave rebellion and a frozen harbor, impulsively hands Thomas Jefferson a tract of land that doubles the size of the United States.
- A weary soldier picks up three cigars left behind in an open field and notices the stogies have been wrapped in a handwritten description of the enemy’s secret battle plans—a revelation that gives Abraham Lincoln the supernatural sign he’s awaited to free the slaves.
The illogical rise of a nation? Or, as author/broadcaster Michael Medved describes it, an American Miracle, which happens to be the title of a docudrama set for a limited run in theaters beginning tonight (June 9) and running through June 11, based on his bestselling book chronicling the hard-to-explain historical events that gave rise to our nation. Both the book and the film make the argument that America, far from being an accidental nation born out of a series of weird occurrences, is instead the result of Divine Providence.
JOHN W. KENNEDY: Why do you think America is a miracle?
MICHAEL MEDVED: Basically, there is a story that is told by a historian at the University of Pennsylvania whose name is Walter McDougall. I think he tells it very well. He says imagine if there was some mystical ship somewhere in the 1600s, and the ship was transported in time to 2025. There are nations in the world that would be very recognizable to the crew of that ghost ship—but what would be completely unexpected, unrecognizable, is that the most dominant country in the world would be in North America. North America, at the time that this country began, was actually very lightly populated. It was not a major civilization. We now are. As McDougall says, the greatest event in history over the last 500 years has been the emergence of the United States of America. It wasn’t an accident.
Can you give examples of why you believe the emergence of the United States was providential?
Yes. My book The American Miracle is a collection of stories that illustrate—and illustrated at the time—the idea that there was Divine Providence behind the emergence of the United States. When George Washington delivered his first inaugural address in 1789, he expressed gratitude for the Invisible Hand he saw behind all of the events he had lived through and the successes he had been able to achieve. In fact, at one point, I thought about titling the book The Invisible Hand, but that sounded like a horror story. That’s not what I believe about the country.
I don’t know about George Washington, but some of the Founders were Deists, correct? Did they really believe that God had a hand in affecting events?
Yes. This is one of the things that’s so remarkable. Jefferson and Franklin both where Deists and described themselves as such. Yet Franklin gave the most memorable single speech at the Constitutional Convention, that we re-create in our film, in which he says they need to begin every session with prayer. Why? He said, “If a sparrow cannot fall to earth without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?” That was Benjamin Franklin. Jefferson also believed and spoke about—as did Washington, as did all the Founders—the collection of unexpected happy coincidences that blessed this country from the beginning.
One of them, and it’s a major focus of the film, is the escape from Brooklyn. I’m not talking about today’s Brooklyn. The Battle of Brooklyn [aka] the Battle of Long Island, in August of 1776, was a disaster. George Washington lost a huge portion of his army. They were trapped in Brooklyn Heights. They couldn’t get out. It’s August and suddenly there was a fog that descended that was completely unseasonable. No one had seen anything like it before. It allowed George Washington to get a collection of little boats and, with the survivors of his army, to cross the Hudson River. In the face of British ships, they were hidden. What’s fascinating about this is even the British commander William Howe, even the British troops who were witnessing this, saw this as an indication of Divine Providence—that all of a sudden the weather was cooperating to allow George Washington and his army not to be captured.
That must have been pretty scary—to be in the British Army and to conclude that Divine Providence is working for the other side.
(Laughs) Yes. We try to capture that, and I think we do, in the film.
I’ll tell you another one. This is not in the film but it’s in my book and I think it’s important for people to know. The day that gold was discovered in California changed everything economically for the United States because we suddenly became the nation with the world’s largest gold reserves. The same day that gold was discovered was within 24 hours of the signing of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which passed California legally to the United States. In other words, gold had been lying hidden and undiscovered for all this time until it became America.
That’s similar to what happened with Alaska, right?
Yes. My second book on this subject of Divine Providence, God’s Hand on America, begins with the acquisition of Alaska. Part of what happened there was Alaska was known, historically by some of the contemporaries, as “Seward’s Folly.” It was a project which the secretary of state, William Henry Seward, was focused on. He was savagely attacked—physically. It is a remarkable series of coincidences that spared his life.
The same night Lincoln was shot by John Wilkes Booth, another assassin, Lewis Powell, was supposed to kill Seward. His survival of being stabbed several times in the neck until the knife broke was so bizarre and otherworldly. It’s one of those What are the odds? things. The point being that you can say it’s all coincidence and happy accidents, but a pattern of “happy accidents” is still a pattern which, I think, is the most important thought in the movie.
The actor Richard Dreyfuss is one of the commentators you have in the movie. I believe he went through a similar evolution as you, in that he was once more on the left side of the political spectrum and moved to the more conservative side. Can you tell me about your own journey?
My own journey is the subject of my book Right Turns. It’s a journey that involved three Ps. It involved parenthood, which changed my entire perspective on the issue of human life and human responsibility; paychecks and sort of noticing the disappearance of a big chunk of the money that I had worked for. You don’t really realize that, even when you’re doing jobs when you’re in high school, but all of a sudden, when you’re dealing with a family and trying to raise a family, that changes very much. And then prayer is the third P. I became religiously observant when I was in my early 20s. I was the first one but not the last one. I have two brothers who are also religiously involved and trying to live lives as observant Jews. Those three things changed me from being a teenage liberal to being a middle-aged (as I like to still think of myself) conservative curmudgeon.
Pat Boone is also in the movie, playing Thomas Jefferson. He had a role in the recent Reagan movie. I’ve interviewed him several times. He likens Donald Trump’s survival of the Pennsylvania assassination attempt, particularly, as kind of a providential event. As I understand him, he says the blood on Trump’s right ear is a biblical symbol of Trump’s call into the priesthood to stand against evil in the world. He understands that stuff much better than me. I’m not asking you to take a stand on Trump—although you can if you want to—but what do you make of that?
I think it’s very good to figure out what’s going on. … There’s a famous biblical passage: It’s in the book of Exoduswhere Moses asks to see God’s face. God says, “No, you have to hide in the cleft of a rock. My face cannot be seen. You can see my back.” A lot of traditional Jewish interpretation of that passage is that it’s sometimes impossible to discern God’s role right now. One of the advantages of history is perspective. For instance, there are so many things that you don’t understand until after they have happened. One of them being the profound significance of the Fourth of July, American independence, and how it’s changed the whole world.
In terms of Trump’s survival, I think that Trump was echoing President Reagan, who also believed that he had changed very directly because he had a near-death experience. We’ll see about President Trump, what his long-term impact is on the country. I’m not among those ready to proclaim him, sort of preemptively, a savior. We shall see.
Among your other books is Hollywood vs. America, where you take on the entertainment industry. Do you see a shift in American politics toward conservatism, and, if so, has it touched Hollywood?
It has. My book Hollywood vs. America came out in 1992. Basically, the big argument in my book was that I believed Hollywood had largely ignored what had always been a very eager and healthy audience for years and years, which is an audience of people of faith.
The development of faith-based cinema has been remarkable. I mean you have tremendous levels of success of people doing all kinds of good work—like, well, Kevin Sorbo who has done the God’s Not Dead series of movies. He happens to be playing the younger Thomas Jefferson in our movie. I think if we continue with a series of films, which I think is a real possibility, with American Miracle, Kevin will be back as Thomas Jefferson.
So I do believe there have been those changes. Just statistically, there has been more of an emphasis—more of a realization of something that I argued in my book—that it’s better not to make everything for an adults-only audience and to respect the idea of family film and family entertainment. If you look right now, the big film in the country is not Mission: Impossible. Do you know what it is?
It’s the Disney movie, right?
Yeah. It’s Lilo & Stitch, not that it’s a great and undying work of art, but, to answer your question, I do think that there have been changes in Hollywood and that there is more of a willingness to express a conservative point of view, and certainly more of an eagerness to connect with a faith-based audience.
While I think Hollywood is wise to move in a more pro-faith and pro-patriotism direction, my personal feeling is that one of the industry’s problems is that they have an issue with old-fashioned optimism. So much of what they’ve been putting out is so dark.
There’s no question about it. That’s the theme of this movie. It’s one of the reasons we did this movie.
What do you hope people take from your film?
I hope they take that our reaction to America should not be looking at our past and feeling guilt, but feeling gratitude and, basically, recognizing how fortunate we are. For me, it’s easy because all four of my grandparents were naturalized citizens. They were people who came to America. I am so grateful that they did.
Where did they come from?
My grandparents on my father’s side came from Ukraine. My dad was an afterthought when they arrived in America. My grandmother was 50 when my dad was born. So he was always considered their American miracle. They had lost children in Ukraine before they came over here. My grandmother came in 1924 to reunite with her husband after years of separation. He was working as a barrow maker in Philadelphia to try and bring his family over.
My mother’s family came in 1934. They came from Germany. My grandfather came because he had a small factory. On April 20, 1934, the union at his factory insisted on flying the swastika flag. He decided then that it was a good time to move the family to the United States. My mom was nine years old.
Two of your grandparents came from Ukraine—which reminds me that, besides God’s hand being on America, you could say the same about Israel and Ukraine. In the case of Ukraine, Russia was supposed to take over the country over the course of a weekend and look at how effectively the Ukrainians have been resisting and fighting back. It’s pretty amazing.
That’s exactly right. Again, people have asked this question, because I write about Divine Providence for America, do I think Divine Providence is there for other countries? The answer is yes—if you believe that God controls the world and shapes history.
One of my favorite quotes from the book is by Otto von Bismarck, “The Iron Chancellor” of Germany in the latter part of the 19th century. He said, “God Almighty has special protection for drunkards, imbeciles, lost dogs, and the United States of America.”
As America approaches its 250-year mark in 2026, how do you think we’re doing? Are we on the right or wrong track to fulfill our destiny?
I am hoping that we are taking a course change to be less polarized and less divided. I do think, without speaking about specific political leaders, that we have a real problem with viewing people who are rivals or opponents as enemies and adversaries. Again, we’re in this together. We have this tremendous gift we have been given by the past. I do want people to come out of the film feeling more of that sense of a grateful heart for the blessing of being born in America. It’s like being born with one of Willy Wonka’s gold tickets, right? You’ve got everything in terms of human possibilities.
There’s a phrase that used to describe America that was popularized by one of the great Jewish leaders of recent generations, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, who said that “America is a self-prophetic kingdom of lovingkindness.”
There’s a sense out there that liberals and conservatives are out to destroy each other when really they’re called to balance each other, right?
Absolutely! And to work together. We’ve managed to do this, at least we have in the past in wartime, but it shouldn’t require that. My dad graduated from high school in 1944. He graduated directly into the Navy because we were at war. I do believe in a sense of commonality, of community, of a shared task for which we would all be the beneficiaries. People in some of the early screenings of American Miracle have cried at the end because our focus on the first 50 years of this republic offers so much to appreciate.
For me, I end up feeling very grateful and proud that [the film] turned out as well as it did. I’ve had other books in the past that have had media adaptations and haven’t worked out well. This, on the other hand, has been delightful from beginning to end. Working with people like [director] Tim Mahoney, who really sees a sense of mission, not just entertaining people but a sense of mission, uplifting people and spreading that desire to work together to share our gift and our destiny of being Americans.
I like the way the film highlights the sense of gratitude. There’s plenty to criticize about our country, but sometimes it seems like people feel sophisticated in criticizing it, but there’s a certain sophistication in being grateful, too.
Right. That’s why our big national holiday is Thanksgiving. Then you have the Fourth of July. The most famous Fourth of July in all of American history, other than the one in 1776 when they signed the Declaration, was in 1826, when the two giants who created the Declaration of Independence, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, died on the same day. That completely amazed the entire world at the time. We re-create a speech by Daniel Webster where he talks about what it means, what God was trying to say by taking home these two great men. … John Adams’s last words that he was heard to speak were, “Liberty endures. Jefferson still lives.”
And they were rivals during their lifetime, right?
Right! They had run against each other for president twice. Then, after Jefferson left the presidency in 1808, between 1808 and his death in 1826, they wrote to each other almost constantly and were dear friends. We’re hoping that lesson is one that spreads to the audience of the film.
I think that’s a great lesson. So what’s next for you after this?
As I said, there are two books: the first being American Miracle, which came out in 2016, and then God’s Hand on America, in 2019.
So you’re going to make a film of that?
Yes—but first there are 12 chapters of American Miracle, and we cover [only] the first four in our movie.
Anything you’d like to say as we wrap up?
My wife and I have been married 40 years. We are blessed with five grandchildren so far, and another one on the way. It’s thrilling to me to think that our oldest granddaughter, Julia, who’s eight, is almost old enough to see this film and, I think, be inspired by it.
(This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
