Jonathan Karl talks courage and bipartisanship with Kelly, Young and Barcott

Jonathan Karl sat down with Sen. Mark Kelly, Sen. Todd Young and Rye Barcott on This Week as the country moved toward July 4, 2026, the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The interview centered on Barcott’s new book, Courage Can Save US, and on a harder question hanging over Washington: whether courage in politics still means anything beyond ceremony.

Barcott, a Marine veteran and the co-founder and chief executive of With Honor, built the book around 10 elected officials from both parties, five Democrats and five Republicans. Kelly, a Democrat from Arizona, and Young, a Republican from Indiana, are among them. The book is framed as a response to Americans’ concern that courage is fading in Washington, and as part of the broader semiquincentennial moment that America250 describes as a nonpartisan initiative running through July 4, 2026.

The timing is not just symbolic. The U.S. Mint’s semiquincentennial program has said 2026 coinage will include dual-date 1776 ~ 2026 designs and other special marks, a reminder that the anniversary is being marked in official ways even as politics remains deeply divided. The more important test is whether the habits Barcott celebrates can still produce results inside Congress, where incentives reward confrontation as much as cooperation.

With Honor says it supports principled veterans of both parties who take the With Honor Pledge to serve with integrity, civility and courage, and says it has helped elect more than 100 military veterans and national security professionals since 2018. It also works with a bipartisan group of senators and the House’s For Country Caucus to pass legislation, giving the book’s message a practical anchor beyond nostalgia for a more collegial age.

Kelly, a retired Navy captain and former NASA astronaut, argued that public service demands a different kind of courage than military service, the willingness to take stands that may be politically harmful if those positions are right for the nation. Young, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps, said elected officials are sent to solve hard problems with people who do not always see the world the same way. Their continued bipartisan work in the Senate gives that argument a live case study: cross-party cooperation has not vanished, but it now survives only where lawmakers are willing to spend political capital on it.