>> it's just -- it's heart breaking. nobody wins. nobody wins in this. >> i mean, this is a family divided like no other. >> yeah. >> that's all for this edition of "dateline." i'm craig melvin. thank you for watching. ♪ hello and welcome to this "morning joe" special here on msnbc putting a spotlight on the presidency. the last four years have brought many aspects of american life into stark relief including the legacies of previous commanders in chief. among them, the 33rd president of the united states, harry s. truman. he is the focus of joe's brand-new book entitled "saving freeman, truman, the cold war and the fight for western

civilization" which came out on tuesday. it is getting incredible reviews. we have hosted a series of conversations about the truman era, joe. and it kind of makes us realize we should be talking about truman more and the impact on the world stage. let's bring in another great panel to continue the timely discussion. former u.s. senator now an msnbc news and msnbc political analyst, claire mccaskill is here. she knows truman more than anybody. columnist and associated editor for "the washington post," david ignatius. historian and rogers chair and the american presidency at vanderbilt university, jon meacham, who unofficially advises president-elect joe biden. >> so, jon, let me ask you, you were the first while i was writing the book and sort of developing my thoughts, you were the first to draw parallels between harry truman and joe

biden and saying at the time if joe biden ended up being elected, there would be some parallels between the two that were too hard to miss. >> yeah, you know, coming to power at a moment where the infrastructure of the world is either under stress and strain or is fully broken. it's a moment of global consciousness not simply intellectually but in a very tactile sense. the most tactile sense because the pandemic is a global phenomena. fdr was very articulate in the way that bill clinton and barack obama were arctic late and george w. bush too in an emerging fact. but the -- what we're living through right now is that this is no longer a subject of kind of blue sky conversations but

the world has in fact become so interconnected that our fates are inextricably linked. you know, truman was a long-time legislator who was as george w. bush might say misunderestimated a great deal until he became to power and you would have not bet in the same way with i think joe biden you wouldn't have bet 18 months before harry truman became president that this was going to happen. he was a compromise choice to go on the ticket in 1944. and one of the things about predicting history this is an old observation of arthur schlesinger's. he said if you had been in 1940, if you had said that the next three presidents would be an obscure senator from missouri, a not very prominent officer in the army and a harvard

undergraduate, you would be wrong. so it's sort of -- it puts our predictive capacities in context. >> yeah. you know, willie, it becomes very obvious that this vision of the world that began with harry truman and those that were president, the creation is going to continue again now as it did from truman through reagan through bush 41 and now once again through joe biden's administration. >> yeah, tony blinken's speech was a rejection of the isolationism we have seen over the last four years and also a rejection of foreign policy as financial transaction, as so often donald trump has viewed it. we're getting ripped off by this country, getting ripped off by nato and the nato allies. what did you hear from the team, not only tony blinken, but the team announced by joe biden. what is that vision of the world

which if you just erase the last 4 1/2 years is a familiar one to anyone who's watched american foreign policy. >> willie, i heard competence, experience. this is a team that joe biden will feel comfortable delegating authority to. i saw a group of people who have a demonstrated capacity to work together. i have covered so many administrations where national security advisers and secretaries of state, secretaries of defense were at war. they were just so hungry for media attention, for space in the national debate that's not going to be true with this team. i think tony blinken said it clearly as did president-elect biden. we want to restore america's alliances which are the heart of american power and in a sense that's going to be easy because we have a world waiting for the return of a more traditional kind of american leadership.

i want to note the way it's going to be hard. the truth we all know is that you can't turn back the clock. history doesn't move backwards. it's always moving forward. we're in a different place than we were when donald trump became president. he's done damage to america's standing, to the world's confidence. but in other ways the world has moved on, so my biggest hope for this team is that rather than simply try to recreate what was, they'll re-imagine what american power connected to our allies, connected to our values, to traditional themes of american foreign policy can be in the future. but if it's simply an atavistic return to the good old days that's not going to be enough. >> and claire mccaskill, i talk about your knowledge of truman, affinity for truman. you're a truman fan because you served in a seat and you know

about him, and by the way, thank you for hosting the event at the truman library last week for joe. it was incredible. you could really see how engaged you are in sort of the incredible impact his presidency has had on the world. >> first of all, let me say about joe biden and harry truman. i think joe biden is the first president since truman that regularly uses the word malarkey. >> that is true. >> that is a word right out of truman's vocabulary. very plain spoken. very humble at his essence. he was kind of taken by the fact that he had been thrust into this job and he was every day he hunkered down and tried to get to the basics, what would be the best thing for the future of america. he left the presidency as joe knows. he and i have talked about this very, very unpopular, but let's

think about why he was so unpopular when he left. let's tick off the list of courageous decisions he made that would have polled probably in the teens. firing mcarthur. integrating the armed services. the recognition of israel. pushing very hard a robust foreign aid program at a time that america was still in pain from a bitter depression that left everyone economically insecure. the notion that he was able in a bipartisan way to push that truman doctrine through the senate and through the house was really -- is astounding in light of how the political winds were blowing at that time. and joe, i'd love you to speak about that and the difference between what joe biden is facing right now in terms of polarization in congress and the skill that truman had actually

getting republicans on board for what was not a very popular thing in america. >> no, and it was. a very popular thing in america especially because we had just gotten out of world war ii as you mentioned. americans were exhausted. we had a long history of being isolationists in peacetime. we talked about this, claire, at the truman library, jon and i spoke about this at the smithsonian earlier this week. so he had to get a war-weary country back on war footing and tell them just two years after winning the great war that the soviet union, our ally, was now our adversary who had designs in europe much in the same way that adolph hitler had a decade earlier. jon meacham, truman did leave

with 22% approval rating but as we mentioned we are the beneficiaries of the rating, we are the beneficiaries of the tough, unpopular decisions that harry truman made. it is in large part why the american century exploded in the '40s and '50s and over the next several decades and it's also why the united states became the indispensable power on the world stage and remained that way. >> absolutely. and he -- to me, the marvelous thing about truman like lincoln and i would argue george herbert walker bush among others, they were the right person for the moment. some of that is retrospective, but one of the instincts in human nature is to tell ourselves a coherent story. but the other thing that gives i

think confidence to presidents is the journey of harry truman. the -- i have talked to more than a few of them who understand that the 22% in real time may be the price to be paid for the monuments of of the future. and not that they're playing for monuments but they are human beings. everybody wants to be harry truman now. nobody wanted to be truman in 1952 and '53. so -- and i remember going through this with the conversations with george h.w. bush. remember, he got 39% of the country to vote to rehire him in 1992. and yet, as the years went by, the decisions he had made for the good of the country that were not for his own political gain have come to be seen as the right ones. and so when he died, he died a much more esteemed figure.

what's the lesson between truman and bush in that sense? the lesson is do what you think is right. put the good of the country ahead of your personal gain and play the long game. and, you know, i think you have quoted before. you know, truman said he never slept better than when he made a hard decision but he thought it was the right decision. if you do what you think is right, often it -- also if you challenge your base of supporters, that's what history remembers. you know? what's the one thing we remember about nixon that's certainly clearly positive? it's the epa, which was against the base of his party and going to china. lyndon johnson and race, you would not have bet on november 22, 1963, that lyndon johnson would have end up playing that role and you would not have bet

in 1945 that harry truman would have become a global thinker. the great news is have presidents who want to learn,er who open to new experiences and seeing the world not only through their own eyes but through their adversaries and their allies and their advisers and have some guts that in fact if you're president of the united states you're not just playing for next week but for the next generation. >> doris kearns goodwin said that lbj was jealous of truman for being able to sleep at night after the tough decisions. everybody stay put right here. we'll continue our conversation. still ahead, our conversation with former secretary of state madeleine albright whose own family felt the impacts of communism in europe firsthand. you're watching a special hour of "morning joe." we'll be right back. special hour of "morning joe. we'll be right back. ♪ (music swells) (dog barking)

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others in the task of achieving peace. we know now that this is not an easy task or a short one, but we are determined to see it through. both of our great political parties are committed to working together and i'm sure they will continue to work together to achieve this end. we are prepared to devote our energy and our resources to this task because we know that our own security and the future of mankind are at stake. right here, i want to say that no one appreciates more than i the bipartisan cooperation in foreign affairs which has been enjoyed by this administration. [ applause ] >> we are back with a special hour of "morning joe" and joe, you listen to that speech right there, that was the state of the union address in 1950 delivered by president truman talking about bipartisanship. we are starting to hear echos of

that, a return to some modicum of partisanship. is it naive to think that we can achieve some of that with joe biden and his relationships in the senate? >> no, i don't think it's naive at all. and for those that think it's impossible to strike a bipartisan coalition, go back to where harry truman found in 1947 when i write about dean atkinson receiving the two notes from the british ambassador informing the united states they could no longer defend greece or turkey against soviet aggression and that if the united states didn't get involved not only in those two countries, but also in stemming the tide of communism across all of europe that freedom was at risk. western civilization was at risk. well, when truman got those notes in early 1947, the republican party had just taken control back of the united

states senate and the house of representatives for the first time since herbert hoover was routed by fdr. i don't think anybody that's read history of fdr's administration would consider fdr to be especially gracious to the republican minority and so they were chafing under fdr and were ready to show some independence. and the last thing they wanted to do was to help another democratic president especially in the field of foreign policy and yet, david ignatius, truman immediately started talking to arthur vandenburg. he immediately started to republicans and as robert isaacingson mentioned this week, they would get into the cars late at night and would drive over to the chairman of the foreign relations townhouse in washington and they would talk to vandenburg and update him

with what had been on moving on in the day. because he built that relationship, vandenburg proved to be a crucial bridge between harry truman and the rest of the republican party and this was a republican party that had been isolationist. had told woodrow wilson flat out, no, we're not going to be engaged in europe and the rest of the league of nations after world war i, but truman being a creature of the united states senate like joe biden being a creature of the united states senate knew that in the words of bismarck, politics was the art of the possible, the art of the attainable and the art of this -- and i love this, the art of the next best thing. that's something that joe biden understands as much as anybody in washington, d.c. >> joe, as you explained in your book, truman knew from the start he had to reach out.

he was not well known. joe biden has a much easier time of it. he's been ex -- his experience has been in government. he knows a wide range of people at home and abroad. when franklin roosevelt died sailors at sea on our fleet in the pacific wept bitterly thinking that the war might never be won. japanese propaganda announced at last victory was possible because the great american leader was gone and harry truman knew he had to reach out and build a national consensus. i have always thought, joe, this is one of the things that i love about your book. you illustrate the win -- in which the internationalism which comes from the heartland, from places like missouri, from the arkansas william fulbright later, the montana mike manse

field, that internationalism has a resonance throughout the country and throughout the world. and i think that biden, although he's a creature of the east coast, has that basic bedrock american feel and i hope that his instinct is to reach out as truman's was to republicans in the house and senate. he's better equipped than any democrat who could have become president to do that. and the question is whether the republicans are ready to take him up on it. vandenburg and other republicans as you say had a lot to lose. they wanted power again. they didn't want to share power, but truman made them understand that america's interests had to come first. and that's what you hope above all joe biden will be able to communicate and the people like mitch mcconnell even will be able to understand and embrace. >> claire, we actually don't know yet who is going to control

the senate as we wait for those two runoff elections in the state of georgia. but is it powerful that joe biden served so long with so many of the senators? are personal relationships that meaningful in getting things done? will mitch mcconnell suddenly come to the table with joe biden in a way he maybe wouldn't with nancy pelosi? how do you see the dynamic changing if at all? >> if anybody could do it it would be joe biden. i remember back in the obama administration and i remember when there was a time to count noses and twist arms on votes. and for barack obama calling senators was like telling them to eat his spinach. this was not his favorite thing to do. to back slap and to talk and to call and, you know, frankly, ever go up to the hill. on the other hand, joe biden did

that job a lot for barack obama. he loves the personal relationships he developed in the senate. those in leadership, those that are ranking members and chairs, regardless of who had the majority, have known joe biden for decades and they really like him. he's a nice guy and he will reach out personally to them. now, if they rebuff him, if he publicly tries so hard, i think it makes it very difficult for them politically and they have six seats up in two years that aren't going to be a walk in the park for mitch mcconnell and his republican caucus. so i'm not sure that mitch mcconnell will be as cooperative as we all hope, but if anybody can figure out the right combination to move this gridlock it would be joe biden. >> we should point out that a lot of the old friends in the senate haven't even publicly acknowledged that joe biden is president-elect so they're not off to a great start but maybe it gets better from here.

thank you all for joining us for the special hour of "morning joe," we appreciate it. and coming up, pulitzer prize winning's doris kearns goodwin and madeleine albright. that conversation next on "morning joe." it's footlong season™ at subway and minitron's got some new news! contactless curbside pickup is here! just tap for tasty in the app. and pickup contactless.

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today, if there is anything inevitable in the future, it is the will of the people of the world for our freedom and for our peace. >> nato just got larger. tonight there are three new members all of whom used to be on the other side. >> secretary of state madeleine albright welcomed nato's newest members in independence, missouri, the birth place of truman, who was president when nato was founded. the czech republic, poland and hungary were part of the powerful soviet led military allian alliance, the war sar pact, but that was ended. today, poland, hungary and the czech republic became the newest members of nato. >> hey, welcome back. we have been looking at the presidency of harry truman through the lens of the current government in washington. president truman understood what donald trump has not understood. that politics is the art of the possible. the attainable. the art of the next best.

here now is part of our conversation with somebody else who understood that, former secretary of state madeleine albright and presidential historians michael beschloss and doris kearns goodwin. secretary albright, i just wanted to get your thoughts as i heard tony blinken yesterday talking about his step-father escaping the holocaust and falling to his knees in front of american tank and african-american soldiers coming out of it and tony's stepdad saying, god bless america. the only three words he knew. i thought about you and your family escaping hitler's grasp. i thought about dr. brzezinski. i thought about mrs. brzezinski. and i know it would have been

such a moving moment for your dear friend zbig. i'm curious what your thoughts were yesterday as you saw tony repeat that remarkable story. >> well, i was deeply moved because tony's story and his family's story is so remarkable and makes him appreciate even more the incredible job that he's about to step in to. my thoughts were how grateful i am to america because we came in november 1948 and harry truman was my first american president and i also so remember being a little girl in london all during world war ii. when the americans came, what a difference it was to see the yanks walking through london and knowing what had happened in terms of america helping to save europe from the horrors of fascism. >> could you -- could you talk

about what this moment means to you, seeing america once again getting engaged on the world stage when you were secretary of state and throughout your entire life. you have been such a champion just like dr. brzezinski was. yet, you were such a champion for the promotion of american values across the globe and standing up to autocrats. standing up to tyrants. believing that america was the indispensable power. what does it mean for us to be back to where we had been since 1947? >> i think it's so important, joe, and mika, because we know what a difference it makes when america is not just present, but partners with other countries who have similar values in order to make the world a better place for all those people who want to live in freedom. and so it means an incredible

amount to see that we are back and that we are back with a team of people that truly understand what america's position in the world needs to be. we have been awol and it's been terrible. and we need to restore our standing and our reputation and understanding what america means in terms of values and working with others. so i am very hopeful for this administration. they have a very difficult job ahead of them because the last four years have been a disaster and it means rebuilding in a very different kind of situation but i think they're a terrific team being led by president-elect biden who has a very much disposed way of dealing with people as partners and listening and not bossing everybody around. >> and doris kearns goodwin, as we speak with hope about the incoming administration, it is

so important to remind our viewers that the words that we heard yesterday could have come from the lips of a secretary of state who worked for any republican or democratic administration between harry truman and barack obama. but you just look, one of the things that was so inspiring about harry truman's leadership in the cold war is that he built an architect -- an architecture, with the international construct that every president that followed him through ronald reagan and george h.w. bush, they followed and there was a seamless passing of the torch from when administration to another. between one group of diplomats to another group of diplomats who understood what america's role was in the world and we are

actually -- it seems that we are once again reconnecting with that proud heritage. >> you know, it also, joe, we're reconnecting with a team that's going to be strong minded. people who are willing to speak their mind. question assumptions and argue. that's what's so great about the harry truman team as you portray in your book. look at general marshall. there's a great story when he was a young general he was in fdr's office and fdr is presenting a pet project and everybody else is going along. fdr says to marshall, you're not nodding your head. well, i don't agree with you at all, mr. president. everybody thought, uh-oh, here's the end of his career. he lifts him up, 25 notches to become the chief of staff that's what he wanted. and i think that's what we saw in biden's team yesterday. it's what we saw in harry truman's team. i just wanted to ask you, joe, what fun it must have been to live with this man. i choose the people i write about them and truman is somebody i'd love to live with him. i went to his house not long ago

and they told a great story. he'd come back from being president, and he was sitting reading. he was always reading who cares if he went to college because he was always reading. somebody knocks on the door who needs help, his car is broken down. he lets him in to use the phone and then as the guy is leaving, he just stares at harry's face. it's just amazing you look like that s.o.b. harry truman and he says i am that s.o.b. harry truman. >> the conversation continues after this short break. this special hour of "morning joe" is coming right back. pecia joe" is coming right back. she's so beautiful. janie, come here. check this out. let me see. she looks... kind of like me. yeah. that's because it's your grandma when she was your age. oh wow. that's...that's amazing. oh and she was on the debate team.

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welcome back to this "morning joe" special. putting a spotlight on the presidency. from harry truman to joe biden. here now is more of our conversation with former secretary of state madeleine albright and two of the best historians around, michael beschloss and doris kearns goodwin. we all remember the story, michael beschloss, the morning

after the 1948 election where somebody gives him a copy that he holds up that says dewey defeats truman, but we don't hear as much about what truman did the night before along doris' point. >> right. >> where harry truman was being told by all of the experts, by all of the pundits, that he had lost the race, that dewey was going to win. what did harry truman do? he got a sandwich, poured him a glass of milk, had his sandwich, drank his milk, went to sleep. and when he woke up, they were like, mr. president, you won. he had just pulled off the greatest upset in the history of american politics, but as doris said the guy went to sleep, thinking you know what, i did my best. if i win i win, if i lose i lose. that's an incredible quality for any president to have. >> it is, joe, and i love the book. thank you, it's a gift right

now, we're watching freedom being saved before our eyes right now. so this could not be a better moment for you to give us this great gift. and, yeah, you know, another thing that truman had was, you know, forgive me for saying this, i don't think doris is going to disagree. he never had a college education, family couldn't afford, but harry was better read than any other president and truman used to say, it couldn't have -- he couldn't have imagine how anyone could be president of the united states without being interested in history. can you imagine if he came back during the trump years and saw a president who could care less? truman said, not every reader will be a leader, but every leader has to be a reader. he said, you know, i don't -- this is my paraphrasing, i don't know how i could have gone through things like the threat of the soviets in 1947 or what to do about the atom bomb or firing macarthur, if i had not

read books and not dealing with jackson and his book is horribly titled a gift from his mom, it was called -- i apologize for this title "great men and famous women." 1895. the author thought women could only be famous not great. and the subtitle was from nebuchadnezzar to sarah bernhard. so i covered a wide swath of human experience. he said whenever i had to make the tough decisions i would think back to what lincoln or jackson or others did and it was never an exact parallel. but it would give me some idea how to operate as president when i had to make the tough decisions with fragmentary information. sometimes ten big decisions at once. sometimes i was tired. he said the only user's manual you've got is to know what

worked in history. >> so secretary albright, joe's book is about shaping a new world after world war ii. that's what truman started in some ways as you pointed to earlier, joe biden's job now is to restore that world. so as someone who has been secretary of state, who's been in all of those rooms, with all of those leaders and crisscrossed the globe, where do you begin on day one and showing america's commitment to the world? how do you start? >> well, i really do think we begin by understanding that we have to dig out of a time when we didn't respect our allies and friends and i think it's very important to deliver the right messages that we want to work with them on solving the problems of the 21st century world and to really look at what public service is about and how we're going to work with everybody. and i think that message is going to be delivered. and it is going to be delivered

by making also foreign policy less foreign by focusing on the covid tragedies that have gone on and then working on issues together in making the world healthier and the climate change and understanding that we operate within a very different world. i think harry truman did understand -- by the way, i'm very proud of the fact that we renamed the state department building the harry s. truman building in order to recognize what he had done and so all those people are going to be operating out of a building in honor of harry truman and following some of the things that he did in terms of establishing the things you write about, joe, in terms of how the truman doctrine came together. the establishment of nato. understanding that we have to operate with other countries as partners and i think i was very proud frankly that i was able to do the first secession to nato

at the truman library, signing on a december of harry truman's. because so much of what he did is something that has to be reviv revooifed and tells it like it is and respects the people who work for him. >> filling that building at the pentagon and the white house and all, all of them, to michael beschloss' point, we will have doris kearns goodwin, great men and great women. because joe biden is certainly not afraid of putting people around him who challenge him, people from different points of view and different experiences. >> exactly. that's what you want. you want to bring a different set of understandings of the world, different perspectives. you know, one of the things that teddy roosevelt worried about is

that democracy would be threatened if people in different regions, different classes began to think of each other as the other, so the more you have people around you who bring different experiences just like lincoln did, it wasn't just his team of rivals. he brought in some radicals, some conservative and then you fight in there and become a family team when you project yourself on the outside world and you know the president is getting the best advice. it's a very comforting thing. it's never the leader alone. that's why i think that combination of humility and confidence matters. humility to understand you may make mistakes but confidence to know when you make the decision you have listened to those people and you're making the best possible decision and the possible time you can make it. so it's great, it's exciting. it's exciting to see a new world order forming and to see it built up step by step as you describe in the book. >> doris, can you explain -- try to help me understand something.

so harry truman graduated from spaulding commercial college in kansas city. he went on to be the most significant foreign policy leader on the world stage in the post-war era. joe biden of course was offended with the suggestion that only ivy league grads should be president of the united states throughout the campaign and he talked about that. he's going to be the first nonivy league president since ronald reagan who of course went to eureka college and knew his way around the global stage as well. and the domestic stage. but lbj, a man obviously you knew a great deal about and wrote so eloquently about. another man who wasn't a harvard or yale man. he went to southwest texas teachers college. can you -- have you thought what

it was about these men with modest educations, what it was about them that made them so much more effective with lbj? the same thing with harry tru n truman. and ronald reagan. what was it with the men with modest educations that were so effective and those three are the most three effective presidents of the last 75 years. >> it's a great question, joe. i mean, i think in some ways you take lincoln and then you take harry truman. never having had that college education, they were life-long learners which meant that they're reading, thinking, learning the entire time. not as if the clock struck 12:00 when you graduate from a place like harvard or yale. and with lbj his father said you'll brush up against the grind stone of life. that's more important than whatever college experience you went to. so that means you just keep

learning. lbj learned from people. he had the congressman over to his senate and office buildings and to the mansion. night after night after night. you know, they'd have dinner with him. he'd learn from them and listen to them. so i think the answer is you don't think you're suddenly educated because you went to the ivy league school. you think i'll keep doing this the rest of my life and those people will catch right up. teddy roosevelt was reading abraham lincoln, in the middle of the coal strike because he wanted to know how did lincoln handle a difficult situation. there's so much to learn. this is for michael too, from history. i mean, you learn from your parents and grandparents, why would you not learn from other presidents so the fact that you keep learning, life-long learning is a great thing. you have lived with him for years and you have done it for me. >> he has.

michael beschloss, to bring things up to current day, where are we right through? i mean, it's a huge question, but you look at -- sort of the continuum of history, the country has been so rattled, turned upside down in many ways over the last four years under donald trump. how do we stabilize again? is it too much to ask one man, president-elect biden to do that? >> well, willie, as you know, we've got a system that very much depends on presidential leadership. look at everything that's happened in the last four years just because of the deficiencies and foibles of one person, donald trump. you know, life would have been different during the last four years had it been otherwise so presidential leadership helps. but i'm of the view that we have just been through a terribly close call. we are being untied from the railroad tracks. had donald trump been re-elected, i think we would be talking this morning about the danger that next year we won't be living in something that resemble as democracy that we

recognize and our children will be in danger. and newspapers might be in jeopardy of being closed down and a president surrounded by even more yes men than before, living in a world of greater and greater delusion. that would have been dangerous for all of us. so now we're in a position not only as joe biden there is the person who is delivering us from four years of donald trump, but this is someone who has 50 years of experience, you know, in working in democracy. he knows all those people we saw on the stage yesterday. he loves to see them fight with one another. and he knows that the founders wanted advisers to a president or a members of congress to fight with one another because they knew the result of that is the best policies. that's the way you do it. not to be surrounded by yes people. >> a great thanks to madeleine albright. so honored to have her here and also michael beschloss and doris kearns goodwin. we'll be right back. loss and dos kearns goodwin we'll be right back.

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hey, welcome back to "morning joe." thank you so much for being with us and i just want to give you this -- just this reminder as we go through the thanksgiving weekend. we still have so much to be thankful for in this country. we have been through a very difficult year, but there have been many times when i know a lot of you have reached out and

emailed me or talked to me and asked, mika and me, are we going to be okay? one of the reasons i always believed that we were, one of the reasons i had so much confidence in the strength of our institutions and the goodness of this country is because i read about presidents like harry truman. i read about american history so much and have seen time and time again that this country has faced terrible obstacles and we have gotten through them and we have become better every time because of the challenges that we've faced. what's been true over the past 240 years, i hope to god will be true of this country over the next four years. for over 30 years, lexus has been celebrating driveway moments. here's to one more, the lexus december to remember sales event. lease the 2021 nx 300 for $349 a month for 36 months and we'll make your first month's payment.

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good morning and welcome to a special prerecorded edition of "morning joe" on this friday after thanksgiving. we have some great conversations lined up for the next couple of hours including our week long series on how america's founding principles are being tested today. plus, commentary on the coronavirus pandemic. and a special tribute to all those americans making their voices heard amid a very tough year. and that's exactly where we start this hour with one of the most extraordinary presidential elections in the nation