Lin-Manuel Miranda stopped by the special year-end episode of Elliott Wilson and Brian "B.Dot" Miller's Rap Radar podcast Tuesday, where he discussed Hamilton's continued influence on the shape of pop culture to come and his thoughts on the 2016 presidential election. As Miranda explained in the wide-ranging discussion, now is the time to face the "complicated" history of America head-on.
"I don't know what that invite looks like, honestly," Miranda said when asked if he would consider heading back to the White House during the forthcoming Apprentice presidency. 2016, Miranda added, has been a particularly enlightening year in a multitude of ways. "It's been a hell of a year and something that I've been proud of about the show is that people on lots of different sides of the political spectrum have responded well to the show," he explained.
According to Miranda, that success can be attributed to the inherently "complicated" nature of the nation's history. "I think it's because, listen, our country's history is really complicated," Miranda said. "There's a lot of really dark chapters to it. But we all live here now, so I think it's important to talk about how we got here and what we want the best version of it to be going forward."
Though Miranda has been spending most of his time overseas in preparation for the forthcoming Mary Poppins Returns, he assured the Rap Radar team he has no plans to dip out on America ahead of a looming Trump presidency. "No, I'm not leaving," Miranda said. "I'm not moving to Canada. I'm not moving to London. I hate leaving 181st Street. But, yeah, I think that the best of our country is worth fighting for."
