. >> joining me, john meacham, author of "thomas jefferson: the art of power" and jane mayer of "theker." we have been told that broadwell has been cleared, but yet as we sit here, the fbi is completing a search of her house. why would they be searching her house if they have already concluded there is nothing criminal here? >> well, petraeus is cleared as well. i mean, there are many strange aspects of this investigation. and lots still to know. but i have to say, one of the things that i think is really troubling is why this investigation ever became what it is. why did it even take off. why is it public? apparently there have been several reports have come out late today, saying that the squalled threatening e-mails that were sent, it turns out from paula broadwell were not terribly threatening in the first place. they were kind of in the order of sassing this other woman jill kelly and basically telling her to back off a little. but the fbi in tampa that first looked at it, they were really not sure they wanted to get into this thing, because the federal bureau of investigation,

this week's book is "thomas jefferson, the art of power" by my guest today, john meacham. off his pedestal and presents him as the politician that he was, artful, ruthless, manipulative. it describes him as a politician, not a saint. and our last look. judging by the buying spree on black friday, i think it's fair to say the u.s. economy is moving forward. but the eurozone is officially in a double dip recession and, therefore, is a victim of falling tax revenues. so governments need to find new sources of revenue. what to do? sell stuff. in italy, they were selling everything but the church. now they are selling the church, sort of. for about $125,000, you can have your name engraved on one of the 135 splendid spires of milan's cathedral. if you've had your eye on that beach house or this home in barcelona, $200,000 or more to buy in the country, residency will come gratis. the plan is for citizenship and an eu passport to be given to anyone who buys hungarian bonds worth $325,000 or more. an eu passport. they are putting black friday to shame. the correct answer to our g

. >> john meacham is a pulitzer prize winning historian.ook "thomas jefferson, the art of power." good morning. first of all, why do presidents stumble so badly in second terms? >> absolutely, it's because, i think the president's clock now moves towards history. everybody else in washington's clock is moving towards the next election. and so his interests and their interests begin to divide as every day passes which is why it's so important to get things done early. >> the president even acknowledged all of this in his first press conference. he recognizes the curse of second term presidents. >> people who try to domestic big things first. and i think the president has a big chance here with the fiscal cliff and a possible deal and other successful presidents use the last two years typically to try to do something big in foreign policy. where they have a lot more unilateral movement. ronald reagan made his progress with the soviets in the second term. bill clinton almost got a middle east peace deal in the second term. so i do think there'

joining me, tom friedman, david brooks, tom brokaw, john meacham and amy gutman. >> i'm take within amy's comment that we've been campaigning in fiction and i would say extremely short fiction. it's been small and short. and so i guess the first thing i would do is i'd say you've got to draw a line between what we've been through and what we're about to go through. you have to make a clear statement that the election is past, i'm going to talk in a very different way, i'm going to talk in a much bigger way, i'm going to say we have three big problems, we have the debt problem, we have a growth problem, we have an inequality problem. they cross cut against each other and we're going to face this cliff pretty soon and so i'm going to do -- either what i didn't do or what president obama didn't do in the last four years, i'm going to lay out a plan. here it is, some people in my party won't be happy with it, some people in the other party won't be happy but some will be intrigued in both parties, so here's my plan, let's work on this starting with my framework. >> rose: i'll ask all of you b

john meacham is a pulitzer prize winning historian and author of the new book "thomas jefferson the art of power." good morning. >> thank you, sir. >> tell me about what's going on in washington right now. everyone is saying the right things. president obama said a couple days ago i'm looking forward to reaching out and working with leaders in both parties to meet our challenges. john boehner said we are ready to be led. is this just honeymoon talk or do the american people have reason to believe things might be different in a second term? >> a lot of it's honeymoon talk. this is the natural result. the president wants to appear magnanimous in victory. the speaker, whose party just lost, wants to be clear that practically he understands that the country voted for an incumbent president as opposed to the nominee of his party, so it behooves him at this point to make the right noises. but it's still friday. sometimes bipartisanship in washington is a little like what mark twain said about tom sawyer and huck finn. there was once an evangelist who came to town who was so good that even huc

john heilemann. also msnbc contributor mike barnicle and pulitzer prize-winning historian, jon meacham. he's the author of "the art of power." it's no longer forthcoming, it is here. and in washington, nbc chief foreign affairs correspondent and host of "andrea mitchell reports," andrea mitchell. good morning, andrea. >> hi there. >> john heilemann, it's been such a long, long road since you guys started reporting on president barack obama -- then-senator barack obama's first election campaign in 2007. here we are five years later, a very emotional moment for the president who has endured five years of the highest highs and the lowest lows in politics. this has to be one of the most special moments for the man. >> undoubtedly. you know, it will be -- you think about the significance of him winning the first time, obviously, an historic moment. but in a lot of ways, you know, if he had lost on tuesday night, there would have been a lot of people who kind of consigned that victory to an accident. >> he would have been an aberration of history. >> almost re-election means as much and maybe

meacham. >> wow! >> this wave of nausea. >> religion, okay. >> all right, john lennon. hanks. >> back to whom? >> yeah, exactly. >> oh, meacham. the sewer rat. >> meacham, i'm sorry. >> thanksgiving, the godless holiday. i've never heard that before. >> it's all about giving thanks to god. >> it's the pagan holiday of the year, isn't it, meacham? >> not when abraham lincoln declared it. rendered thanks to god. >> he's got some bad memories. >> it's okay. >> i guess to me it's just about joy. >> you're free to think that. >> we go into the christmas holidays and hanukkah and the new year. why is it that the holidays are so difficult for so many people? >> i think it's this ridiculously high bar that we all have to be singing in unison and happy and content and love people we don't frankly want to hang out with. >> so you're back to family. brutal. >> yeah. >> i say that -- >> let's move on to obesity. >> in my family, these are great holidays because we all like each other. but if you are recently divorced or you're struggling with an illness or you're in a marriage you d

kids books like the max and ruby's books, john meacham's new book so if you're hunkered in this weekendthe ipad mini. my problem with it is $330. >> well, if you have an ipad already and you want to go smaller, some people like the smaller size in their hand. you can actually sell the one that you have and use it to buy the ipad mini. so the folks did a little survey and looked at different websites where you can sell your ipad. this was comparing prices on the third generation ipad, 32 gi gigabyte. we found prices from $250 up to $500 depending on the condition of your device. and if you're willing to do the leg work yourself on a site like craigslist, you may get a little more. just one thing about those offers. if you're trading it in through apple or al semazon, you may we getting a gift card. >> as part of our frugal friday, we want to recognize a shopper of the week. this week it's liz jenkins from philadelphia. >> she started this very cool thing that she is calling a for later fund. for the last six months every time she went to an atm, she would take a $5 bill and mark it for l

meacham. welcome, john, my hero for many years.t seems to me a wonderful biographer like for you to bring to the front of the stage again, someone we haven't thought of for a while and should, why should we think about him, given we're in the age of barack obama? >> because jefferson was a tall, cool cerebral politician who didn't -- affected not to like politics but turned out to be pretty good at it. >> like somebody else we know. >> like somebody else we know. and what i wanted to do in this is like what you've done with jack kennedy and richard nixon in the past. i want to recover him as a politician, as someone from 1769 until 1809 was all about trying to find solutions, principled solutions to problems in real-time. he would cut a deal, he would make a bargain as long as it didn't compromise that fundamental principle about the survival and success of republican liberty. and politics and politicians -- politics is always going to be contentious. it doesn't always have to be frustrating. and in his day, it wasn't all that frus

back with us on set we have mark halperin, john heilemann and jon meacham. eral david petraeus scandal. >> there's another general -- >> an allegation involving the top commander in afghanistan. general john allen is being investigated for alleged inappropriate communications with jill kelley. >> seriously? is it like a club? >> apparently. >> did he send topless pictures also? >> we don't yet. she is the woman who reportedly received the threatening e-mails from paula broadwell, david petraeus' biographer. >> allegedly on that. >> with whom petraeus is said to have had had an affair. general allen took over military command in afghanistan from general petraeus after petraeus was tapped for the cia. now officials are reviewing up to 30,000 pages of communication. >> let's stop right now. >> between allen and miss kelley. >> 30,000? is. >> stipulate it was a very big fund like 18 points. >> almost as big -- >> do we have that number right? i mean, come on. >> so hold on one second. i'm not really good -- >> my eyes are bad. >> i think i've proven this. not goo

we feature a kid out of chattanooga, johnny football, jon meacham, and tom brokaw joins the table along with johns start with your thesis. thomas jefferson may have been the most successful politician. thomas jefferson the philosopher, you were writing about thomas jefferson the politician. he may have been the most successful in our public's history. >> for 40 years from 1769 until he left the presidency in 1809 he was constantly in public office, more importantly, i think even, from 1800 to 1840 for 36 of those years, either thomas ovjefferson himself or a self-described jeffersonian was president of the united states which is unparalleled. >> everybody in that run except tore his biggest enemy. >> john quincy adams. >> martin van buren is running as a jeffersonian. >> what you find out early here, though, this guy that ruled american politics for 36 years, actual actually didn't get elected until it went to the house. and speaking of 36, it really took 36 ballots to figure out whether thomas jefferson was going to be the president of the united states? >> that vote in the house was so close th

affairs editor for "new york" magazine and msnbc political analyst, john heilemann and pulitzer prize-winning historian, jon meacham. good to have you on the show this morning. we will talk politics soon. >> thank you, ma'am. >> actually, the candidates are jumping back into the fray. full campaign mode again. and we have an endorsement by mayor michael bloomberg to talk about. >> is that what that was? >> the word disappointing and endorsement. >> let's just leave it there. >> passive aggressive endorsement. >> it was. it was passive aggressive. we also have, later in the show, the jobs numbers coming up. and i do think that will be interesting metric. >> are we going to -- i wondered if we're going to allow these two wardrobe decisions to go unnoticed. the three-piece. who's it homage to? >> deutsche. >> donny. >> and bob novak. >> straight from the program to the campaign trail. >> this is your campaign gear? >> garb. >> inside pockets. >> he's not wearing sweats, though. >> is it a fleece sweater or a sweater sweater? >> you guys obviously are in the part of the city without power. no problem. >> got dressed in

numbers that were better than expected, the ohio event, jon meacham, where romney drew 20 to 30,000. you have the pennsylvania event that john, was incredible. and it seems, again, we -- it seems like a jump ball, but sometimes enthusiasm doesn't translate into votes. and i think back to a rally that john kerry had in 2004. i think about 50, 60,000, 70,000 in madison, wisconsin. >> tom was saying a second ago it's a mysterious transaction that happens. the first two pages of teddy white's making of the president 1960s about how mysterious it is. and you go into the voting booth and it's like the economy. you know, these are an infinite number of decisions that can't be captured as hard as we try. >> the country's republican until 6:00 at night then the workers come home and then it shifts. >> if america goes democratic, it goes democratic after work. >> you had that full-throated endorsement by mayor bloomberg, right? that was it? that probably clinched it there. i think so. apparently. >> has a -- >> has a terrific sense of timing and obviously the city suffered and he did what he thought was best. but i tell you, i think t