john meacham. [applause] mr. meacham: thank you. i can tell you were not sworn. whenever i think i am the most preeminent anything, my mind goes back to a moment, it was about 10 years ago now on the washington mall. i was at that point on my way to give a talk about andrew jackson. and a woman ran up to me, which doesn't happen enough, forever, actually. she said oh my god, it is you. well yes, existentially speaking. and she said, your books have meant so much to me, i love them. will you wait right here, i am to go buy your book and have you sign it. i sat there thinking, this is the way the world is supposed to be. women are supposed to run up to you, buy your book. it was a twofer. hand to god, she brought back jon grissom's latest novel. [laughter] so whenever i think i'm that distinguish i remind myself that somewhere in america there is a woman with a forged copy of "the runaway jury." because you had to sign it. significant act for you to have a tendency income to you on this day. so i am delighted. the story that we commemorate today began with dreams o

wrote a great piece of how this month and many ways is micro-causium. >> looks like we have lost john meacham satellite control feed. john, you have to go on. >> that was the dni cutting in. >> basically patterns get sets in august. phil and ashley wrote a great piece about this. 957 days. nothing is going to change here. i don't think so. will there be guard rails? no. there is a certain poetic irony. in him attacking the mayor of london, he's in a political of a knife fight. this is a state of nature. this is his state of nature and the question is going to be will the democratic par the -- party, sent their head which is joe biden or their heart, which is elizabeth warren into this party which is ferocious. >> phil, john brought up a great point. it brings us to the one brand that you wrote earlier this summer. that got through the president. that was racist. was an effort made to counter act that or just because of the flaw of daily conversations, are we off of that title, that subject line? >> brian, i don't know if we are off of that subject line because i think for a lot of americans,

back with us are john meacham and michael beschloss.we had this very conversation in this studio last night. if you want to know about the ability of foreign policy, a, and b, iran specifically to disrupt a presidential election, ask two-term u.s. president jimmy carter. >> right, who did not make it to the second term as you well know. and that was because there were 50 american hostages that were still locked up and carter decided not to use force to try to get them out although to this day he thinks that had he done so he might have gotten re-elected. but that's one of the most important things that a president does is decide whether something is worth going to war for or not. john adams kept the nation from going to war. he felt an unnecessary war against france during his one term, lost re-election because of that. on the other hand, you had famously abraham lincoln waging the civil war after fort sumpter and franklin roosevelt getting america involved in world war ii after pearl harbor. not only is this important in terms of deter

this, i think, is what john meacham was referring to in our own time. i think civil war americans have their own echo chambers. they were locked in their own worlds, reading negative portrayals of the other side. that is what created the sense of being under threat from the other side that became so consequential. you have to get into the minds of the actors, the people who caused the civil war in order to understand how things spiraled in the direction of conflict. and i think that can be really difficult in many ways to do in a museum exhibit. but what i have learned from working with the museum staff, the professionals, is that they know how to say a lot with a little. it is kind of the opposite of some college professors, i think. [applause] -- [laughter] they can deploy just the right quotations, the right personal stories, the right details to reveal this kaleidoscope of different perspectives and opinions and ideas of people who lived through the 1850's and into the civil war. they also had to deploy the right artifacts, i think, to allow visitor

congressman david sill leany of rhode island, heidi with nbc news correspondent, and john meacham of course a presidential historian and coauthor of "impeachment, an american history." let me start with you congressman heck, i remember from writing about niktsen all those years he said i knew i was in trouble when i saw who was running the show up there, in that case my old boss. in this case pelosi seems she's out in front. >> yes, he knows he's in trouble because of the speaker's change of position. but he also ought to know he's in deep trouble because the senate took action today to unanimously require and demand that the odni cough up the whistle-blower complaint. that ought to tell him we're inching up in impeachment territory on his refusal to follow the law. it says oats not any longer just a question of democrats versus republicans or even liberals and conservatives. this is matter of upholding the law and following our constitutional possibility to provide oversight on an unchecked administration. >> if you could tell your people back home in rhode island what to expect in

our thanks to both of these gentleman, to john meacham, to michael beschloss. joining us on a friday night to round out the week. >>> he may have been the tallest candidate but he came up short. now the democratic field has been paired back to 17 candidates. the story when we come back. candidates the story when we come back. chi, frankly, you're missing out. uh... the mobile app makes it easy to manage your policy, even way out here. your marshmallow's... get digital id cards, emergency roadside service, even file a... whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa. whoa! oops, that cheeky little thing got away from me. my bad. geico. it's easy to manage your policy whenever, wherever. can i trouble you for another marshmallow? (tennis ball hit) (tennis ball hit) (tennis ball hit) (tennis ball hit) (tennis ball hit) (crowd cheering) (tennis ball hit) (tennis ball hit) (tennis ball hit) the business of hard work... ...hustle... ...and high fives. modernized comfort inn's and suites have been refreshed because our business is you. get the lowest price guaranteed on all choice hot

great john meacham. backft aer this. was ahead of its time.aster. smarter. because to be the best, is to never ever stop making it better. the 2020 c-class family. lease the c 300 sedan for just $429 a month at your local mercedes-benz dealer. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. why accept it frompt an incompyour allergy pills?e else. flonase sensimist. nothing stronger. nothing gentler. nothing lasts longer. flonase sensimist. 24 hour non-drowsy allergy relief if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, every day can begin with flakes. it's a reminder of your struggles with psoriasis. but what if your psoriasis symptoms didn't follow you around? that's why there's ilumya. with just 2 doses, a majority of people were clear or almost clear. and over time, even more people were clear or almost clear. all with dosing 4 times a year... after 2 initial doses. plus, ilumya was shown to have similar risks of infections compared to placebo. don't use if you are allergic to ilumya or any of its ingredients. before starting treatment, your doctor s

that's where we are, and i think john meacham's right. i think there's a decent chunk of the trump base that will not be moved by this regardless of what the facts are. the president's clearly going to try to turn this whistleblower into andy mccabe and is going to demonize and shame this person whether they become public or t not and some amount of the trump base will just believe that. there is a large question about the weaker part of the trump support in the republican party and whether they will be moved by the plain facts here. >> right, and you know, willie you have the president, of course, changing alibis every day. >> yep. >> he, of course, was talking about europe not cooperating, not contributing, when in fact, when it comes to assistance they've paid more than double what the united states has paid in 2016 and 2017. but you go back to the first reason the president admitted to holding up that military audit, it was because he wanted to talk about, quote, corruption, specifically joe biden. he has admitted it, so that actually

john meacham joins us. you about this "washington post" reporting about the conversation the president had in 2017 with the foreign minister of russia and the russian ambassador to the united states. he says i'm not that worried about russian interference allegedly, according to the reporting in the election, because america does it too. that's an interesting thing to explore. there's truth in the fact that america has done things to influence others' elections. there is concern that the president doesn't seem to be recognizing the equivalency here. >> are you suggesting that the president may not be saying that's nuanced or true? that's an unusual assertion at this point in american history. i think there are two things out of this reporting. i think this is the first of many, if i were betting, the events of the last ten days, we'll be seeing more and more examples of conversations, attempts to enlist agents of foreign governments into the political process here. i think the initial whistle-blower arguabl

and historian, author of "soul of america" john meacham. heez rn an nbc news and msnbc contributor. admitting he discussed former vice president joe biden on a phone call with the president of ukraine. the admission came after the wall street journal reported that trump repeatedly pressed the ukrainian leader to investigate the business dealings of the former vice president's son, hunter. the journal puts that number at eight times. >> so it says that eight times, eight times the president of the united states got on the phone and as the wall street journal said specifically pressured the leader of ukraine to deal with his personal lawyer to dig up dirt on joe biden and his family. >> the president deflected questions. and instead tried to shift the scrutiny to biden. >> the conversation i had was largely congratulatory and largely all the corruption taking place, largely the fact that we don't want our people like vice president biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the ukraine. i'm not looking to hurt him with respect to his son. joe's got a lot of problems. joe'

john is here. and nbc news and msnbc law analyst editor chief of law fair, ben wittis. and professor of presidency at vanderbilt university, jon meachamc contributor. >> so wise. >> this is an odd place do, but, john, i'm coming to nashville this afternoon, i'll call you later. >> okay. >> lsu/vandy tomorrow. >> about that thing that -- he'll call you. >> it's true. >> that person show up at the -- >> right. >> we'll call you later. >> right. okay, speaking of calls, we're going to begin with a whistleblower complaint that the trump administration is trying to keep secret from congress. two people familiar with the matter tell "the washington post" that it centers on ukraine. nbc news has not confirmed that ukraine is at the center of the issue. the white house did not immediately respond for a request for comment. the post citing two former u.s. officials previously reported that the complaint was made by a u.s. intelligence official who was alarmed by a promise the president made to a foreign leader in a phone conversation. trump spoke with the new president of ukraine on july 25th. the whistleblower complaint was filed less than th

national security adviser john bolton opposing a meeting with the taliban, with the deal dead now, the taliban has promised more bloodshed in afghanistan. with more from jon meachamtorian and editor at atlantic. david, i want to talk to you about this. what happened this weekend to stop this terrible meeting to happen? >> the meeting was never going to happen. this is a story of fantasy and envy. the president's fantasy of being a great deal maker and envy of president obama's peace prize, cahill, our former ambassador to afghanistan was running a process of negotiation with the tal ban to see if some arrangement could be reached. about the 1st of september, he seems to reach some kind of interim deal. what should have happened at this point is it goes into the government, different agencies look at it do we like it, can we live with it, can we go forward, can we stop? trump got the smell of this and thought this was a done deal. zalame is about to get credit. he will get the nobody eel peace prize. >> how do you know the time line? >> this is an agreement it goes to the agency process, not up to the president of the united states. trump swoops in and invites eve