there are people who are posting blaine james and so you know i don't feel much of anything when i see these gestures right now a few days ago you wrote a piece on how western media would cover minneapolis if it happened in another country and in that piece you imagine an 18 year old white beery and student activist saying this about america lives don't matter especially not black lives it's like the americans are living in a failing state. karen are you living in a failing state now. well i think as as a black american as the daughter of immigrants if you look at what a state is supposed to do a state is supposed to protect you the state is supposed to deliver you adequate health care. a state is supposed to protect your rights and i think right now. if those rights if those protections are afforded to these people of color and means that the state has failed honestly and so i think what's happening now with the pandemic with. the police brutality we're seeing how much value we put on lives and so for all of this to be happening at the same time as we're seeing more than a $100000.00

. >> james blaine, james g. blaine, the continental liar from maine, who if anything has too much political experience. he's been speaker of the house. he's a senator from maine. he's one of the major figures in the republican party. yet he has a reputation for probably having private virtue, a good family man, but he's also tainted by public corruption and he's kind of an inside-the-beltway guy. >> and so the whole campaign of 1884 ends up revolving around these things. so one of the first... >> personal politics. >> personal politics. and so if the greatest strength of grover cleveland, the greatest opportunity that the democrats have since james buchanan to actually get back the white house, is the reputation of cleveland as being a man of public virtue, then, as any good political operative would point out, go right after it. and so they did. they went straight after probably his most weak point, which is the illegitimate child. >> and the refrain for anybody who's studied history of the period that became p

james g. blaine saying that, when the hayeses traveled, that rutherford insisted on lucy going along with him so that people wouldn't say bad things about rutherford. so perhaps she was more popular than he was. >> our next call comes from julie. are you watching us truly in caracas, venezuela? julie, are you there? it's been great. we're learning so much american history, it's just fantastic. >> do you have a question about this first lady? yes. were the hayeses the first power couple in washington? >> were the hayeses the first power couple in washington? >> no. no, i would say that the first power couple in washington were john and abigail adams, but the first power couple in the presidency were martha and george. >> we'll go to another call. this is... >> it's a good question, though. >> and delighted to have people watching in venezuela tonight. lindsay is in kingston, pennsylvania. what's your question? >> hi, i don't have a question either. i thought it might be fun for your viewers to know th

he goes to the train station accompanied by james blaine and two of his sons, james and harry, here is the train station. that train station is today where the west -- where the national gallery of art is. my good friend, eric danker, who is one of the curators at the national gallery told me somewhere at the national gallery there's a plaque where garfield was shot. i haven't seen it, but it's somewhere in the national gallery today. when i see eric next i'll ask him where it is. secretary of war robert todd lincoln is at the train station to greet him. he was -- poor robert todd lincoln at his father's bedside when his father die, next to garfield when garfield is shot and with mckinley in buffalo when mckinley is shot and after mckinley's death he says i never want to see another president again. garfield enters the waiting room. guiteau steps forward, pulls a trigger from point-blank range and shoots garfield in the back. garfield yells out, my god, what is this and throws up his arms. guiteau fires again. i forget to mention, prior to shooting the president, a few days earlier, he