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7th, 2024 participating McDonald's. Must opt

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into rewards. Hello,

0:38

welcome to How to Win 2024. It's

0:41

Thursday, March 28th. I'm Jennifer Palmieri

0:43

and I'm here with my co-host, Claire McCaskill.

0:45

Hi, Claire. Hey, Jen. This

0:47

is kind of a special day. I'm excited about

0:49

this. So I'm super excited about this because I

0:51

like to go a little deeper on history

0:54

than we're able to do in

0:56

the podcast normally or on MSNBC in

0:58

a short segment. So we're

1:00

going to do a little something different today.

1:02

We talk a lot about the future and

1:04

what democracy will look like in the wake

1:06

of November's elections. But sometimes looking to the past

1:09

can help us better understand the stakes. After all,

1:11

those that fail to learn from history are doomed

1:13

to repeat it. Okay, that was

1:15

Churchill, but our historian would probably

1:17

say, Claire, that was originally from

1:19

the Spanish philosopher George Santayana in

1:21

1905. So

1:24

I want to get that in there so that I

1:26

don't have to be corrected right away by our wonderful

1:29

guests. You would never be corrected by

1:31

me, Claire. Anything you say, I'm

1:33

just a bobblehead. There you go. That's

1:37

not true. But we wanted to do

1:39

some historical context today, not only to

1:41

what Trump has done to erode our

1:43

democratic institutions and our trust in the

1:45

rule of law and the very concept

1:47

of America, but how history will judge

1:50

what is going on in our country

1:52

right now. And who better to frame

1:54

that than Michael Beschloss? He's

1:56

the author of nine books on the

1:58

presidency, including Presidential Courage. presidents

2:00

of war and at the

2:02

highest levels. And he is NBC's very

2:05

own presidential historian. We are thrilled to

2:07

have you. Welcome, Michael. Love to be

2:09

with both of you. Love everything you

2:11

do. Everyone should listen to the podcast.

2:13

Thank you very much. So let's start

2:15

out with highlighting some of the

2:18

ways that Trump has broken the

2:20

norm. And frankly, we talk about

2:22

this sometimes on the air, and I

2:24

think I've even talked about it in segments

2:26

when you and I have both been guests

2:29

on panels at the same time, that sometimes

2:31

the norms are being broken so frequently that

2:33

we get numb to how

2:35

different Donald Trump was as a

2:38

president of the United States. Can

2:40

you talk a little bit about

2:42

the decorum and the use

2:44

of the White House and some of

2:46

the things that don't rise to the

2:48

level of making a headline like some

2:50

of his incendiary comments, but just the

2:52

way he handled the job compared

2:54

to how presidents through history had

2:57

handled it? Well, here's the problem. I

2:59

love our founders in most ways. I

3:01

don't like everything they did, and I

3:04

certainly don't like that they created

3:06

a system that allowed and promoted slavery.

3:08

But one thing they did, if we

3:10

look at the Constitution, it doesn't say

3:13

too much about what a president should

3:15

and should not do. And

3:17

there's a reason for that because when the

3:19

founders met in Philadelphia in

3:22

1787, they knew that George Washington was

3:24

going to be the first president of

3:26

the United States. So rather than having

3:28

a list of do's and don'ts, they

3:30

basically had sort of a sketchy idea,

3:32

this is what the president has the

3:34

right to do, and they assumed that

3:36

George Washington would be the first president

3:38

and would set the pattern that would

3:40

apply to everyone who followed if the

3:42

system worked. Someone who tells

3:44

the truth, who is a model

3:47

for young people, someone who behaves

3:49

with modesty and restraint befitting the

3:51

head of a democratic small d

3:54

republic. And I hate

3:56

to put it so simply, but if you want

3:58

to look at the opposite, of

4:00

George Washington, Donald Trump comes pretty

4:03

close. So what about

4:05

some of the language he

4:07

has used in terms of

4:09

how he dwells on the ugly? Is

4:11

this something that has happened before and I'm

4:14

just not aware of it? Or does it

4:16

just feel more real to me because we're

4:18

watching it in real time? No, we've

4:20

had people run for president, but even major

4:22

party nominees. I mean, you know, you and

4:25

I and Jim, we were not there at

4:27

the time, although I feel as if I

4:29

have been from studying these guys for over

4:31

40 years. But think

4:33

of a major party nominee all the way

4:36

back to the time that Washington was chosen,

4:40

1789, who would have used this kind of

4:42

language, who would have been so openly

4:44

racist, would have been so brutally eager

4:46

to divide the nation. The

4:49

closest I can come in recent

4:51

times, and this is like

4:53

talking about a finger painter

4:55

rather than a Picasso of

4:57

corruption and presidential malfeasance, would

4:59

be Richard Nixon. One of the

5:01

reasons that people dislike Nixon,

5:04

and he could have been sent

5:06

to jail and impeached and convicted

5:08

for certain crimes, was that part

5:11

of Nixon's MO was, you

5:13

know, don't unite the country, instead create

5:15

divisions that you can exploit. But

5:18

hatred against certain groups in society,

5:21

such as in that case, anti-war

5:23

protesters, liberals, he talked about bums

5:25

who were demonstrating against the war.

5:28

You didn't hear Dwight Eisenhower speak

5:30

about bums, yet he had been

5:33

the leader famously of allied forces

5:35

on D-Day. And do you think, when

5:37

you look at, you know, some of the things that

5:39

Trump said most famously, going down the

5:41

escalator, talking about that Mexicans come over the

5:43

border, some of them are rapists and criminals.

5:46

The Charlottesville protests, where you're talking about there

5:48

being very fine people on both sides. Is

5:50

that something that, you know, Nixon was 50

5:52

years ago at this point, I guess? Is

5:55

this the 50-year on equivalent of

5:58

that, or is this... something...

6:00

No, this is a hundred times worse

6:03

than Nixon, but if you're looking in

6:05

history for a recent precedent, it would

6:07

be Nixon. Uh-huh. Andrew Jackson?

6:09

Is that maybe one? Yeah. Andrew

6:12

Jackson was demagogic, tried to divide the

6:14

country, and again, you know, to compare

6:17

this to the 1830s, obviously, we're talking

6:19

about two different places in

6:21

time. So what I would

6:23

say is, you know, if we're looking at, let's

6:25

say, the last century, Nixon would

6:27

do it. He had to divide this

6:29

country, almost succeeded. 1968

6:32

particularly had a very large

6:34

racial aspect to his campaign, generating

6:37

black against white, rich versus

6:39

poor, feeling that that would work. Most

6:42

other presidents have felt that, like George

6:44

Washington, their job should be to unite

6:46

people, not divide them. What about Jackson? Did

6:49

Jackson do the same thing? Did he try to divide?

6:51

He certainly did. Yeah, to talk about, and

6:53

Andrew Jackson, as you and I know, was the

6:55

hero of a great Missouri American, Harry Truman,

6:58

although I don't think Harry Truman endorsed

7:00

everything that Jackson did, including

7:03

being a slaveholder. But yes,

7:05

Jackson said, and he

7:07

was right in saying this part of

7:09

it, the country is under the control

7:11

of elitists in the Bank of the

7:13

United States in Philadelphia. If you're a

7:15

farmer, if you're a shopkeeper, if you're

7:17

an engineer, these people in a city

7:20

in the east are controlling your lives

7:22

by manipulating interest rates and making

7:24

decisions that you have nothing to do with.

7:26

And part of that was a very brutal

7:28

appeal. But I

7:30

would say that at least in the

7:33

1830s, Jackson was somewhat restrained by the

7:35

checks and balances system, which is one

7:37

reason why he was so much

7:39

an overdrive. And the other thing, can you imagine

7:42

Andrew Jackson in 2024 with access to social media?

7:46

Right. You know, with that

7:48

enormous megaphone instantly to be able

7:50

to say those things, not in

7:52

newspapers that got to someone's house

7:54

maybe a week after they were

7:56

printed some gazette, but instead instantly

7:58

on social media. on somebody's

8:01

war room podcast or broadcast

8:03

reaching a big audience very

8:05

fast. That's a much bigger megaphone.

8:08

Okay. But Nixon

8:11

did not praise dictators, correct?

8:14

No, he did not. I mean, is there,

8:16

you know, in terms of praising Putin, Kim

8:18

Jong Un? That's what I'm saying. Nixon never

8:21

said something like that. Nixon

8:23

was maybe 8% of

8:25

what Trump has done. Did Nixon

8:27

ever have secret relationships and praise without

8:29

condition the leader of the Soviet Union

8:32

at the time? Absolutely

8:34

not. He was anti-communist. Nixon

8:36

was corrupt at a way that Donald

8:38

Trump would laugh at given the level

8:41

of Trump's corruption as is being demonstrated

8:43

right now in the courts. So

8:45

before we close out this segment, I want to

8:47

ask you a question that I just thought of

8:50

as we were talking, and that is, as somebody

8:52

who studies presidents in history, how

8:55

is history going to treat Trump?

8:58

And by that, I mean, it feels

9:00

to me like there are two

9:02

different versions of Donald Trump in

9:05

the country. That we have

9:07

gotten to the point that we all don't agree on

9:09

what the facts are. And

9:12

I talk to people in Missouri all the

9:14

time that with all kinds of conviction and

9:17

sincere belief actually

9:19

think that this is a wonderful

9:21

man who was a wonderful president

9:23

who had the right policies for

9:25

our country and that things were

9:28

wonderful when he was there. And

9:31

so will this be the first

9:33

time that there are two

9:35

starkly different versions of history

9:37

written or will it

9:39

somehow meld together as time goes on?

9:42

How will that work, Michael? It

9:44

usually, just as you're saying, as a

9:46

president leaves office and historians write about

9:49

that person, usually there does come to

9:51

be a consensus 40 or 50 years

9:53

later. But that's

9:55

in a country that is not as divided

9:57

and angry as ours, and the thing I

10:00

have to say to introduce a note of reality

10:02

here, I am not 100% certain that historians in

10:07

universities will be able to write what they

10:09

think freely if Donald Trump comes

10:11

to a second term. I am

10:13

not sure that publishing houses that

10:16

publish democratic and progressive leaning books

10:18

will not have antitrust or other

10:21

regulatory actions designed by the

10:23

government to drive them out of business. The

10:26

interesting thing is that those are things that

10:28

Richard Nixon talked about privately

10:30

when he was president, but

10:32

that was very early on. He actually

10:34

met with Roger Ailes, the founder of

10:37

Fox News, and said, you know, there

10:39

really should be a conservative TV network

10:41

in this country to protect a president

10:43

who's a conservative. There's no such thing.

10:45

So nowadays, Donald Trump has

10:48

a bodyguard of right wing media

10:50

that a lot of the people

10:52

in Missouri and elsewhere listen to and

10:54

watch that say that Donald Trump

10:56

is essentially God. So

10:58

what you're worried about is more what

11:01

kind of freedom there will be to

11:03

write the truth going forward as it

11:05

relates to the academicians. Well, what

11:07

I'm saying is if you've got a president who said

11:09

he's going to be a dictator for a day and

11:11

we know that no dictator leaves after a day and

11:14

he's already threatened to use

11:17

the legal action against media

11:19

organizations and perhaps academic organizations

11:22

that say and do

11:24

things that he does not like, the

11:26

problem here is that I love the

11:28

founders, love the Constitution. My view is

11:31

they all give a president too much

11:33

power. We as Americans are

11:35

much too dependent on the good

11:37

luck of electing someone president who

11:39

has good character and restraint and

11:41

loves democracy. If Donald

11:44

Trump, our luck ran out and it

11:46

may run out again this November, I

11:48

sure hope not. Yikes. We're

11:51

going to take a quick break, but when

11:53

we're back, more with presidential historian Michael Beschloss

11:55

on what history can teach us about the

11:57

presidency today. Back in a moment. Time

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slash podcast. Welcome

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back. We're here with renowned

13:12

presidential historian Michael Beschloss. Now we

13:14

want to use your expertise, Michael,

13:16

to look to some historical comparisons

13:19

to President Joe

13:21

Biden. And feel free to riff

13:23

on this however you would like

13:25

because I know there's a number

13:27

of different ways you could look

13:29

at this, his age, his

13:32

experience in the Senate, his

13:34

foreign policy. Who would you, as

13:37

you look to the past in presidents, who

13:39

does Joe Biden remind you of, both good

13:41

and bad? If I had

13:43

to make one comparison, I think I would

13:45

say Harry Truman. If you look at

13:47

Harry Truman running in 1948, just

13:50

to begin with this, you heard Joe Biden's

13:52

State of the Union not long ago. And

13:55

My instant reaction was that this reminded

13:57

me so much of something I've studied.

14:00

It in history. Truman spoke at the

14:02

Nineteen Forty Eight Convention. As all of

14:04

you know from your knowledge of history,

14:07

Democrats that spring have been looking

14:09

for another candidate because they thought he

14:11

was a loose right. They try

14:13

to get Eisenhower to run as a

14:15

democrat for instance and the convention nominated

14:18

him.was deeply depressed because they thought

14:20

he was assured that was so Truman

14:22

After midnight steps of the microphones and

14:24

as white suit in the convention

14:26

hall in Philadelphia and the first line

14:29

of the speeches referring. To his running mate.

14:31

says. Center Bar Clan. I will

14:33

win this election. Mack those republicans like

14:36

it. Don't you forget that. Will.

14:38

Do that because we're right now. Wrong. I'll

14:40

prove it to and just a few months.

14:42

And. He gives a speech was just like

14:44

bad. So when I heard Joe Biden getting

14:47

his State of the Union, I don't know

14:49

if someone in the Bible entourage was aware

14:51

of that speech, but it reminded me of

14:53

trauma, not only in style, but someone think

14:56

of what Truman's had done in map term.

14:58

He. Had wound up world War Two,

15:00

he had prepared to resist Soviet

15:03

communism in your. That. Very

15:05

weak he decide where is the armed

15:07

forces The United States that had been

15:09

shamefully divided since the beginning. Of.

15:11

This country. These are accomplishments.

15:14

One. Of which would have made and probably

15:16

a great president was. The. Modesty

15:18

and the love of democracy and

15:20

the self restraint and I hate

15:22

to use that word these days.

15:24

His honesty. If. This was

15:26

even at the time was evidence that he

15:28

was a great man, but he was not

15:30

appreciated because he didn't look and sound like

15:33

Franklin Roosevelt. He. Won the election. I

15:35

got it. Do a little true

15:37

and thing here. I think this

15:39

is important because trim and really only

15:41

began to be celebrated as a great

15:44

president. After the sack and of course

15:46

nothing gets on my nerves. More than the

15:48

Republicans trying to own true and I mean

15:50

to. I. Mean. and the idea that they

15:52

would try to co ops Harry Truman? Can

15:54

you imagine what Harry Truman was a about

15:56

down. Job I can. The two

15:59

people had loved it. here, late presidents,

16:01

I'd love to hear speaking about Donald

16:03

Trump in private. Number two, Harry Truman,

16:06

number one, LBJ. I

16:08

think it's important because one of the things we're trying to do

16:10

on this podcast, Jen has reminded us of

16:12

this several times, is

16:14

we're trying to keep people from freaking out. Well,

16:17

and there are a lot of reasons not to freak

16:19

out. There are. And I think

16:21

Truman, I think it's important to remember

16:24

how unpopular he was when he left

16:26

office. Yep. I mean, when

16:29

you read about how he left

16:31

Washington. Well, his public approval rating in Gallup

16:33

was 23%, which was like about 6% nowadays because

16:38

unlike the last 25 years,

16:40

Americans were shy about telling upholstered

16:42

they hated a president, which is

16:44

not a problem these days. Right.

16:47

But why was he unpopular when I was

16:49

a young historian? I looked into it because

16:51

I was puzzled. They were impatient with the

16:54

Korean War. There was petty corruption. An amazing

16:56

number of them said he doesn't

16:58

sound like Franklin Roosevelt, which is our idea

17:00

of the president. And a true story is

17:02

told. Truman was asked what he

17:04

thought of Richard Nixon, who was running for vice

17:06

president in 52. His reply was,

17:09

I think Nixon is full of manure. Truman's

17:11

aides went to Mrs. Truman and said, couldn't

17:13

you get the boss to speak a little

17:15

bit more elegantly? She said, you

17:17

have no idea how long that took for me to

17:19

get into use the word manure. I love that. That's

17:22

what seemed important. So, OK,

17:24

similar to that time, the U.S. is

17:27

coming out of a period of trauma,

17:29

right? The four years of Trump were

17:31

trauma in terms of the impact on democracy and

17:33

breaking of all these norms. And then also, of

17:35

course, you have COVID. And I was talking to

17:37

a Biden aide this week who

17:39

said that they think that this

17:41

is something that I've seen

17:44

in Kosovo, for example, I went

17:46

there shortly after, you know, year or

17:48

two after the war with Serbia, that

17:50

a society's way of processing trauma is

17:53

to ignore it immediately. And,

17:55

you know, I was so when I went to Pristina,

17:57

I was expecting people to be kind of huddled and

17:59

very. Inward and it was like a dance

18:02

party the entire town. You know he was

18:04

just like it was through shockey given the

18:06

genocide that they had been through, but I'm

18:08

wondering if that is and Truman had perhaps

18:11

the same thing Churchill had the same

18:13

experience he saved Europe after all to and

18:15

the just kind of got thrown out. The

18:17

people were tired of them, are so ungrateful,

18:20

are ready to move on or whatever, but.

18:22

Theory Of and George Hw Bush to the

18:24

degree of of the Cold War was over

18:26

and people than one eligible? Yeah! Is

18:28

this sort of reaction to trauma real? And

18:30

is this in our experience in this Oh

18:32

to talk about that. Yeah. I mean

18:35

during the pandemics I think I can

18:37

speak for all of us and tell

18:39

me if I'm wrong but dream a

18:41

pandemic. I thought that this would be

18:43

something that people would think about for

18:45

the rest of their lives and would

18:47

change all of our lives. and we

18:49

would never forget what that time in

18:51

lockdown was lived in, the people who

18:53

died and the incompetence of Donald Trump

18:55

in trying to you know run the

18:57

response to. Hold it in a

18:59

with million people plus ultimately dying.

19:02

But. I knew from history that's not

19:04

the way it works and the way

19:07

it works is exactly what you just

19:09

said Jim, Which is remember the influenza

19:11

widow remembered personally, but the influenza pandemic

19:14

of my teen eighteen nineteen mind. Six.

19:16

Hundred seventy thousand Americans killed by

19:18

bad Woodrow Wilson. Never spoke about

19:21

it once and public. And.

19:23

The second it was over and it

19:25

looked very much like the pandemic the

19:27

we went through came the Roaring Twenties.

19:29

People wanted to forget it as soon

19:31

as possible. And it was almost never

19:33

mentioned. And that might be why the

19:35

by his accomplishments are biking through. Why

19:38

when people people seem to have trump

19:40

amnesia. I mean I think high prices

19:42

are a big reason why buy into.

19:44

Thompson's. Are breaking points And do you

19:46

think that this could also be part

19:48

that sort of amnesia question? And that's

19:50

part of Joe Biden job to make

19:52

sure that people remember. But yeah, Trump

19:54

was already. President Warren said it was

19:57

a disaster for every American family or

19:59

health or economics. and almost everything else.

20:01

If they have forgotten that, they better have

20:04

that on their mind in November. But at

20:06

the same time, even as

20:08

bad as Trump was as president, he

20:10

is saying and promising things that go way

20:12

beyond that. Dictator for a day,

20:15

suspending the constitution, pitting

20:18

the Pentagon and the Justice Department

20:20

against his political enemies, going after

20:22

the media, going after other organizations

20:25

he does not like. This is

20:27

Mussolini. This is not anything like

20:29

anything we've seen in American history,

20:31

if it happens. Of the

20:33

presidents that you wrote about in

20:35

the book, Presidents of War, do

20:38

you see any comparisons? You

20:40

know, I think we all know that our

20:43

students of history, the position that

20:46

FDR took vis-a-vis the war

20:48

in Europe in the early

20:50

days of that war and the difficulty

20:53

that he had politically

20:56

in stepping up in terms of

20:58

what we needed to do to go against

21:00

Hitler. I am looking at

21:02

Biden and Trump and they're very, very

21:04

different in terms of how they see

21:06

foreign policy. What

21:08

are the historical comparisons in terms

21:10

of foreign policy that you see between

21:13

these two men and what are the

21:15

implications of that? Well, taking Ukraine

21:17

is a great example of what you've just said. Everyone

21:20

and every historian knows, and the two of

21:22

you and I know that one of the

21:24

hardest things for any president in American history

21:27

is to get Americans to, you

21:29

know, give up their treasure. And I'm

21:32

saying potentially human treasure, but certainly financial

21:34

and other resources for

21:37

a country that few people have ever heard

21:39

of. And so when Joe Biden almost single-handedly

21:41

at one point a couple of years ago

21:43

was saying to Americans, you

21:45

may not even know much about Ukraine, but

21:47

unless we make sure that Putin is

21:50

resisted there, this may jeopardize

21:52

not only Western Europe, but NATO

21:55

and the lives of your children in the United

21:57

States. He made that point and one of, I

21:59

think. the great leadership accomplishments

22:02

that we've seen from him is that he had

22:04

the foresight to do that and the

22:06

political ability to get Congress to agree. Donald

22:09

Trump is looking at this in terms of

22:11

someone who would like to break up NATO,

22:13

would be perfectly cool. And he's actually said

22:15

this, I mean, I'm not surprised he thinks it,

22:17

but he said this in recent months that,

22:20

you know, there are circumstances under which he would say

22:22

to Putin about NATO, go

22:25

ahead and do whatever the hell you want.

22:27

Does that sound to you, Claire, like Harry

22:29

Truman? No, it does not. So the point

22:31

I'm making is that I can talk about

22:33

history till the cows come home, but

22:35

we are seeing and hearing things day

22:38

after day, right now, let alone during

22:40

Trump's four years in the White House

22:42

that American eyes and ears have never

22:45

encountered before. We'll take

22:47

a quick break, but more with presidential historian

22:49

Michael Beschloss in a moment. Now

22:57

for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. Wake

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23:58

back. Presidential story. Michael Beschloss is

24:00

with us today. Michael, before we let

24:02

you go, we want to look at

24:05

instances where past presidents have intersected with

24:07

the law, albeit through the political means

24:09

of impeachment, not quite what we're facing

24:11

now. We want to get a sense,

24:13

if at all, if there's

24:15

anything in the past that relate

24:17

to Trump's legal woes today, not only

24:19

through his two impeachments in Congress, but

24:22

to the unprecedented nature of his indictments.

24:24

And you know, Michael, the

24:26

bottom line is there has never been. Anything

24:30

like this. No. It

24:32

is so far outside the

24:34

norm. But what is this,

24:36

this playing politics with impeachment,

24:39

give us some context historically,

24:41

because you know, now they're

24:43

impeaching Mallorca's and they're doing

24:46

a trend impeachment of Biden.

24:48

Have we lost the historical

24:50

impact of what impeachment is

24:52

supposed to mean within our

24:54

constitution? Of course, impeachment is the biggest

24:56

constraint that Congress has on a president.

24:58

And how's that been working for you

25:01

the last number of years? It doesn't work. It

25:03

is used for reasons that don't have too

25:05

much to do with the facts at hand,

25:08

as happened during the Bill Clinton period, for

25:10

instance. And I would like to begin, you

25:12

were asking, you know, how

25:14

Trump fits into history. I put

25:16

all the other presidents in one

25:18

category, Donald Trump in the other

25:20

category. No president tried to have

25:22

a coup d'etat and an insurrection,

25:25

an attack on Congress that almost

25:27

killed, literally physically

25:29

killed leaders of Congress and

25:31

maybe the vice president in order to corruptly

25:33

hang on to power after losing a presidential

25:35

election and lying about it. There are a

25:38

lot of bad things a president can do.

25:40

That's just about the worst. Let's start with

25:42

that. You know, we can go through Trump's

25:44

other trials, but I think what I'm trying

25:47

to say is this, you were saying at

25:49

the beginning that Trump uses rhetoric in a

25:51

way that other presidents have not. Washington

25:54

Post, even before that presidency, it

25:56

was over counted 30,000 public lives

25:58

that he had told, that's

26:01

not Abraham Lincoln, that's not

26:03

Harry Truman or Dwight Eisenhower,

26:05

that's A-presidential, A-heithon-presidential, if there

26:07

is such a word. It's

26:09

almost Orwellian. And he

26:11

gave a very interesting interview to Leslie

26:13

Stahl on 60 Minutes, CBS, right after

26:16

he was elected in 2016. I'm sure

26:18

you both have seen and remember. She

26:20

was asking him about the exaggerations and

26:23

perhaps the lies. He said, I do

26:25

that deliberately because this is my language,

26:27

not his. I want these words to

26:30

have no meaning so they can't be used

26:32

against me. Where did we see that before? We've

26:34

all read George Orwell, 1984, you know, we're in

26:38

a dictatorship. They use slogans like

26:40

war is peace, freedom is slavery,

26:43

ignorance is strength. So you

26:45

can't accuse the dictator because the word won't

26:47

have any meaning anymore. What I'm

26:49

worried about this fall, since, you know, you're telling us

26:52

how to win in 2024, is

26:54

this. When I was growing up

26:56

in the 60s and 70s in the

26:58

Midwest, if someone said one of the

27:00

two major candidates for president wants to

27:02

be a dictator and is going to destroy

27:04

our democracy, everyone I grew up with

27:06

would know what that meant. Republican,

27:09

Democrat, or independent. Now,

27:11

I guarantee you Donald Trump and

27:14

his bodyguard of right

27:16

wing organizations and others, and perhaps

27:18

even hostile foreign governments,

27:21

will try to make sure that the word

27:23

democracy is drained of all

27:25

meaning by November, or perhaps

27:27

the word dictatorship is

27:29

applied to Joe Biden among a lot

27:32

of those people. All I'm

27:34

saying is if you look at any

27:36

dictatorship, one of the first things the

27:38

aspiring dictator tries to do is take

27:40

the sting out of words that can

27:42

be used against. You know,

27:44

we talked about Nixon earlier in the earlier segment, if

27:46

you're looking at a sort of sliding scale that 50

27:49

years ago, some of the ways he was

27:51

trying to divide people and using race in particular

27:53

as a means of doing that. But

27:55

it seems to me the difference is when he was

27:58

Impeached or threatened with impeachment..

28:00

Men: the Republican Party. Broke

28:02

against him years and it took a

28:04

while. Republicans propped him up for a

28:07

good while year and a house and.

28:09

Then I guess it was the sorry night

28:11

Massacre was the. Tipping point or it

28:13

was that. And then finally the release

28:15

of his tapes and Supreme Corridors are

28:17

no ruled a to nothing July of

28:19

my Team Seventy Four Nixon must release

28:22

his tapes which are evidence that he

28:24

knew was gonna do women. So he

28:26

do he was gone and look at

28:28

bad supreme Court majority One Justice. I

28:31

don't want to use this word because

28:33

it seems not to exist anymore in

28:35

the Supreme Court. recused himself and William

28:37

Rehnquist said I was a member of

28:40

Nixon's Justice Department before I came here.

28:42

I should rule on the So it

28:44

was eight others suiting three mix injustices

28:46

like Trump. Nixon thought that they would

28:48

say them. So. When he was

28:50

called by as Chief of Staff and California

28:53

Nixon the first thing he said when he

28:55

her as gone against him he said is

28:57

there any error and the decision in other

28:59

words was of maybe five to four or

29:01

something like that. They. Said. Or.

29:03

right? Know it's a to nothing.

29:06

And Nixon's reaction was of the at

29:08

any thought of contesting the decision which

29:11

he really didn't You can't go against

29:13

unanimity, so what about says with prosecutors.

29:16

We now have this Special Counsel Law.

29:18

In. History Has there ever been a

29:20

time that there have been special prosecutors

29:23

and did that come about through the

29:25

Justice Department are two Presidential power. Is

29:27

this the first time in history that

29:30

were seen this kind of I know

29:32

we had when obviously during the Clinton.

29:34

Years sure, which I believe famously

29:36

got off track right? Enter and

29:38

I was there. Dazzle Prosecutor later

29:40

on defended a lot of the

29:42

things in Donald Trump said he'd

29:44

gone after Bill Clinton for supposedly

29:47

do exactly. That was further

29:49

back in history. Who had there

29:51

been special specially anointed prosecutors that

29:53

we're supposed to look into certain

29:55

specific issues. The first or exact

29:57

example the we would talk about would be.

30:00

These machines grad who win or

30:02

eighteen seventy five hour appointed a

30:04

special prosecutor. Because. They were

30:07

charges of stolen revenue from

30:09

federal whisking taxes. right?

30:11

Or wrong. He thought investigation was

30:13

unfair and corrupt. Getting. Too

30:15

close to his inner circle. Sophie

30:17

Fire that special prosecutor. Unlike

30:19

the Nixon times, that's where it

30:21

ended. So. In what was

30:23

the basis in which he was his controversy

30:26

at a time. When he fired to

30:28

special prosecutor was this. With. This to

30:30

talk of the country. Know resists know

30:32

there was not publicize it was a

30:35

newspapers But for instance, I was a

30:37

college student when Nixon fired Archibald Cox

30:39

and on October nineteen Seventy Three and

30:42

I was in Williams College in Massachusetts.

30:44

We had one Tv so like. Fifty.

30:47

Of us would watch Tv together the

30:49

nightly news and so they have the

30:51

news Later that evening that Nixon had

30:53

fired Cox. And there was

30:55

an intake of breath in the room

30:58

and people were shocked. And it created

31:00

as you well, no such a backlash

31:02

that Nixon had to hire a new

31:04

prosecutor, Leon Jaworski, who finally pursued this

31:07

case to the and. Giant, You and

31:09

I must be the same. It's. The way

31:11

I remember I remember gathering around the

31:13

Tv and are sorority house at the

31:15

University of Missouri. And watching Now

31:18

I must admit that some of

31:20

my cell a sorority sisters were

31:22

not as interested as I want

31:24

to sit. Over bad bad

31:27

bad goes my phone bills. When my

31:29

collective rest was taken away at

31:31

that point in time because I

31:33

understood how brazen it was to

31:35

do that. And then you look

31:37

at Enron. By the way, as

31:40

you remember, he ordered the Special

31:42

Prosecutor's office is locked and the

31:44

files and pounded. Yeah, this had

31:46

elements of dictatorship, but. Compared.

31:48

To nowadays you know this was

31:51

peanuts. yeah so it's interesting do

31:53

you think that trump i mean when he

31:55

was signed of fire bar at their at

31:57

the end and trying to put in i

31:59

for get, what was that guy's name? Jeffrey

32:01

Clark? Yeah, Jeffrey Clark. Yeah, that's the thing.

32:04

Attorney General. Yeah. The environmental lawyer.

32:06

He was going to put in as Attorney

32:08

General. When he was doing that, do you

32:10

think that there was talk in the White

32:12

House about what Nixon had

32:14

done and the impact it had

32:17

on his presidency when everyone kind

32:19

of bowled up and said, if

32:21

you do that, everyone's resigning? There

32:23

may have been, and some, some of

32:25

those people were something of a profile

32:27

and courage. Mark Esper,

32:29

Bill Barr, who I thought I would never say

32:31

anything nice about till the end of my life,

32:34

resigned rather than having to go through with this.

32:36

And I hate to say I saw it in

32:38

real time, but I really did because in December

32:41

of 2020 and the

32:43

beginning of 2021, there would be

32:46

announcements that the president had made

32:48

appointments of these obscure figures in

32:50

the Pentagon and the Justice Department,

32:53

for instance. And I said

32:55

to my wife, you know, Trump doesn't know what

32:57

these jobs are at the only way he would

32:59

be doing this is if he's going to try

33:01

something on the sixth of January, he had already

33:04

said, come to Washington, it will be wild. And

33:06

that famous tweet. And he wants people in those

33:08

departments who will make sure that they

33:10

do not interfere with a coup attempt

33:13

where, you know, sometimes I have too

33:15

dark an imagination, but it was not

33:17

too dark that time. No, no, just,

33:19

just, just based on history. Okay.

33:21

I have what's going to sound like a dumb question,

33:23

which is how much the internet is contributing to all

33:25

of this? Because I think 50 years

33:28

ago we had three networks,

33:30

watched three news stations. There

33:32

was an agreement on what

33:35

was true. There was an agreement on

33:37

what was, you know, the Republicans understood

33:39

what and Congress understood what was happening

33:41

to that what Nixon was doing was

33:43

unprecedented and really bad, but

33:46

they just decided to go along with it until they

33:48

decided that they couldn't withstand the pressure anymore.

33:51

And Now it's a very different thing.

33:53

Now There's just two versions of reality

33:55

and you can choose to live in

33:57

your own version of reality and really

33:59

believe that. I supporting Trump.

34:01

You are supporting democracy, no

34:03

question. So we've gone through

34:05

big revolutions of communication before.

34:08

Television, radio, the printing press. They

34:10

cause big disruptions in the world.

34:12

How do you think about the

34:14

Internet? Welcome. It's a faustian bargain

34:16

that we may have and we

34:18

didn't have too much choice about

34:20

it When the internet which as

34:22

you know had been have not

34:24

known Us Defense Department way of

34:26

communicating since it was invented Nineteen

34:28

Sixty Nine. And in the wake

34:31

of a Cold War and them for me

34:33

ninety Nine Days is decided to make it

34:35

available to everyone on earth as you well

34:37

know and administration the to serve Bill Clinton's.

34:39

The day he took the oath. I think this

34:41

is right. There was something like fifteen web sites

34:43

on the internet. That. Shows how different

34:46

things are and before that happened.

34:48

Just as you're saying when John

34:50

Kennedy gave his speech on the

34:52

Cuban Missile Crisis. My. Team

34:54

Sixty Two. There. Were three main

34:56

networks had ninety percent of those watching

34:58

television. There was a roadblock and so if

35:01

you didn't want to hear his speech,

35:03

you didn't have too much luck. Mainstream Magazines:

35:05

Time and Newsweek. Newspapers.

35:07

That tried to be quote unquote, fair

35:09

minded with varying degrees of success. Now

35:11

here we are and twenty twenty four

35:14

as he wants. I'll. Bet there's

35:16

a Nazi channel and probably growing.

35:18

and there are other web sites

35:20

and channels and social media that

35:22

can tell you just what you

35:24

want to hear and then some.

35:26

Think. If we were in my

35:28

team thirty one in Weimar Germany

35:30

and adults Hitler Word doing a

35:33

reprint of mine com which came

35:35

down in the twenties is. Notorious.

35:38

Book and he put him on the

35:40

unit. Yeah, you know, as it was

35:42

a it went to sort of a

35:44

group of fairly well read Germans, even

35:47

repulsive ones who were aspiring Nazis. But.

35:49

Nowadays that would be available to billions

35:51

of people, would have a much greater

35:53

impact and do it much more quickly.

35:56

So. I guess. The.

35:58

way to look at this is the

36:00

power to stop this lies

36:03

with the American people. The power

36:05

to stop this is

36:07

through the ballot box. And

36:10

the more we make people aware, the

36:12

better off we're going to be. And everyone needs to

36:15

pay close attention. Totally agree. I do think

36:17

everyone's worried, and I do think that is a

36:19

good thing. I don't think it's a bad thing

36:21

that people are worried, because you're more vigilant when

36:23

you're worried, and it's going to take vigilance. We've

36:26

got to be on guard and be

36:28

ready to deal with them. We who

36:31

love democracy. But I'd like to end,

36:33

at least my part of this, on

36:35

a happy note, is that okay? Absolutely.

36:37

As long as we've got an electoral

36:40

process, and I think we do, where

36:42

votes will be counted correctly, where Americans

36:44

will see that to choose one candidate

36:46

Donald Trump means dictatorship, giving up the

36:49

rights that Americans on the

36:51

battlefield and civil rights marches, in women's

36:53

marches, have worked so hard to win

36:55

for all of us, those would

36:57

all be out the window. As long

36:59

as people understand that that's the basic

37:02

choice in this election in November, I

37:04

have enough faith in the American people

37:06

and our beloved process of democracy that

37:08

a serious majority of those people voting

37:11

will say, we want democracy. We want

37:13

to say, you cannot take away our

37:15

rights. Let's hope. Let's hope. I

37:18

feel it. I feel it too.

37:20

And thank you, Michael, because this helps,

37:22

actually putting in a historical perspective and

37:24

seeing ourselves in that arc of history,

37:26

I think it's inspiring too. Makes us

37:28

feel like we've been through challenging times

37:30

before and it's on those of us

37:32

that are here now to protect this

37:34

democracy. You have to be an

37:36

optimist because, how else has

37:38

America gotten through over two centuries of

37:40

some of the biggest problems that you

37:43

can imagine and still here we are.

37:45

And basically, I hope people understand what

37:47

democracy is and why we have to

37:49

preserve and protect it. We were

37:51

lucky to have you today and we are going

37:53

to be optimistic and vigilant. Michael

37:56

Beschloss, NBC's own presidential historian

37:58

and prolific author. on Presidential

38:00

history, thank you for taking the time today

38:02

to be with us. Glad to hear. Love

38:04

being with you both. Thank you so much. Thank

38:07

you. Thanks so much

38:09

for listening. As always, if you

38:11

have a question for us, you

38:13

can send it to howtowinquestionsatnbcuni.com, or

38:16

you can leave us a voicemail at 646-974-4194, and

38:18

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