i want to bring in presidential historian john meacham, he is the author of and there was light. and he also occasionally advises president biden. john, great to see you, it seems like every week we report on stories of violence, stories of political violence, we have so much toxicity in our national dialogue, it feels like the worst it has ever been. maybe you'll tell me it isn't, but can you put this in some historical context for us? >> sure. these tragedies unfold because there is evil, this is going to sound rather grand, but what we saw in this incredibly sad story that had an element of heroism, is the best and the worst of us. and, it is tragic and terrible that we have to have horrible things unfold for us to see this kind of heroism, but that's the nature of reality. the way the life of the nation works, i think, is the way our lives work. we are called to do the right thing. we are called to accept others, we are called to love our neighbors as ourselves, in scripture and every moral tradition, orders or encourages folks to do. it is incredibly difficult. and, the extre

we'll have commentary from author john meacham, a story from steve hartman.avid pogue takes a minute to take on daylight saving time, and more. it's the first sunday of a new month, november 6th, 2022. and we'll be right back. >>> time-wise, there were those who felt part of being a real man meant never shedding a tear, but as jim axelrod explains, the idea there's no crying in baseball or golf, for that matter, is long gone. >> professional golfer rob labritiz -- >> this is a game of passion. oh, yeah. >> has paired that passion with a lifetime of practice. >> does every one of your days include some time doing what you're doing? >> oh, yes. putting, chipping, pitching, bunker play, half swings, quarter swings, full swings. >> which is why last december when he finally reached a moment 35 years in the making -- >> oh, man. >> so proud of you. >> earning a place on the pga champions tour where the world's best golfers 50 and over play for millions of dollars. he was speechless. tears did all his talking. >> it was just a whirl wwind of emotion, of lifelong dr

. >> i am historian john meacham.ermon, days before his death, martin luther king junior said, we are tied together in the single garment of destiny. this is the way that gods universe is made, this is the way that it is structured. a single garment of destiny. we, the people cannot escape that reality. nor, as lincoln taught us, can you and i escape history. when we fail, we must try again, and again, and again, for only in a trial is progress possible. from jamestown forward, our story has become fuller and fairer, because of people that share a conviction that dr. king articulated on that sunday, half a century ago. the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. bending that arc requires all of us. it requires we, the people, and it requires a president of the united states with empathy, grace, a big heart, and an open mind. >> in his new biography of abraham lincoln, jon meacham rights, for lincoln, a world in which power was all, in which the assertion of a singular will trumped all, in whic

. >> we are just talking to john meacham who is saying that if history is any guide, it is usually therty of who controls the white house that who controls the midterms. so that means tomorrow will be good for republicans bad for democrats. are you seeing any signs to the contrary that you'd like to share? >> i am very mom so didn't, i can just feel it. >> the two most optimistic of democrats in america. >> 40 million people have already turned out. that 36 million had turned out in 2018. that is just good for democracy. tell me it's not. >> it's great for democracy. >> so, we are seeing high turnout among women in a number of key states as well. so i think let's have the voters have their say. let's not tell them what to do, let's have them tell us what to do. i feel optimistic about the fact that it is not going to be a shellacking. and i think that a lot of democratic voters, including young, people show up on election day. i know that seems kind of crazy, given all the gloom undo, but i think it is going to be an interesting day. i tell you the races that i'm watching, it is actual

want to bring in a presidential story, and john meacham. he's the author of and the was light. he also occasionally advises president biden. >> john, great to see was always. we do airport stories of violence. a report on stories a pickle violence. and the national dialogue. because like the worst ever been. i know, well, maybe ultimatums and. but can you put this in some historical context for us? >> sure, these tragedies unfold. and they unfold because it was going to send rather grand. and what we saw this incredibly sad story that had an element of heroism is the best in the worst of it. it is tragic and terrible that we have to have horrible things unfold when it comes to that kind of heroism and that is the nature of reality. the way the life of the nation works, i think, is the way our lives work. we are called to do the right thing. we are called to accept others. we are called the lover nature is as ourselves. as scripture and every moral tradition odell folks to do or encourages folks to do. it is incredibly difficult. the extremity of this kind of mass shooting is the

want to bring in a presidential story, and john meacham.

john meacham helped with the president's speech tonight. if you're a cynical political person looking at this and you're asking is that the right closing message, is that what you want to be your last parting words to voters? yes, if you look at polls, people care about the health of the democracy. it registers, but fails in in comparison to the economy. look at what those democrats have been says. it doesn't look like the speech tonight, but the white house felt it was an important speech. >> economy and inflation 51%, abortion 15%. that's extraordinary focus. >> huge gap. >> it's also hard to see this speech will be seen through any other lens than a political lens this close to an election. >> which is interesting given all of the back and forth when he gave his philadelphia speech which was a white house event. the white house said it was not a political speech to talk about the health of democracy and call out the maga republicans. this was a political speech tonight, a dnc event. one thing he said tonight, when he talked about what to

joining us now, we are present historian john meacham. john i want to music that to just pay while i say anything. that really lends surfaced or compartments to it. dark >> but -- maybe i'll get some work on it. >> but also what happens tomorrow. but to find the political future of donald trump and joe biden. >> it's a fundamental election? about whether the congress will be, but the governors will be? with the secretary of states will be? who are going into a really consequential 24 months. dara and i think we're going at that is largely unprecedented. that's in this is larger precedent it in 1982. , franklin roosevelt but election deniers on the ballot in 1984, or to come back in 1936. he retired into that 1968, and 70. is hand an immense question facing the country. is about a full free counting of the votes. and that will be shaped, fundamentally, by what happens tomorrow. >> john, as i've been a time in history where an entire swath of a party has denied the results of the election refused to accept their lost. >> i don't think so. i

be in danger the democrats making the case that democracy is the highest stake of all historian john meacham and occasional adviser to joe biden on this program last week said it's not conceivable that there's a national mr. rogers type figure that can unil unilaterally repair the cracks in our country, but regardless, it's important for leaders to speak the truth and directly to the american people. it appears that's what mr. biden was trying to do tonight >> kayla, thank you very much. >>> former president trump's lawyers saw supreme court justice clarence thomas as their only chance to overturn the 2020 presidential results that's according to newly -- new emails disclosed to the january 6th committee. in one of the e-mails sent to trump's legal team on new year's eve of 2020, the attorney wrote -- >> he insisted that thomas would be our only chance to get a favorable judicial opinion by january 6th, which might hold up in the georgia count in congress attorney john eastman replied later that morning, writing that he agreed with him, sugging that a favorable move by justice thomas or othe

john meacham helped with the speech last night.ple like tim ryan want to see delivering and they said ugh. >> that's the point. even cynical republicans are going to say this is democrats trying to change the narrative to be threats to democracy rather than they're losing on the economy, inflation, and crime. i'm not saying that but expect to see that messaging. it's an important message but what the party needs is what barack obama is doing this weekend. what bernie sanders has been trying to shout from the roof tops, do not make abortion your entire identity. >> i was asking someone to bring in, the cnn polling we put it up in the beginning, 51% of people say it is the economy. look at abortion, it's 15%. further down, though, with the republican messaging, 3% crime. >> you wouldn't know from the ads. >> no. >> because everything is scary. >> it does resonate but it's not at the top of the list. >> i think crime is a big e issue than the poll let's on. >> it is a big issue. people should feel safe. >> i think it's motivating with

but i believe that people were sufficiently concerned about the democracy, as john meacham was sayingd about magnetic stream-ism that they said, wait, we are going to put the brakes on the party that actually has no power yet. that's how worried we are. this is far from the republican party, i have to say, it's good as a democrat. i want to have two healthy strong parties. if the voters can't even allow you to make the brake pedal, when one party has all the power, that's a shocking result. i haven't fully digested it. >> congress, what do you think, what happened to the right way? >> well, i agree with ball. it should have been a loose 30 or 40 seats in the house, just like what happened with trump, george w., 2006, and obama thousand 18. but it wasn't. and i think two things. abortion was one. and the journal had an article this week about polling, about abortion. and in 2018 and 2020, 10% of democrats, i'm paraphrasing, 80% of republican say as their important issue, and that flip-flopped in 2022. so, that was an issue. and then, we have trump. and trump, recruiting all these terri

let me bring back in nikole hannah-jones and john meacham. okay, they're here.from lincoln, your book, jon meacham. for lincoln, a world in which power was all, in which a singular will trumped all, was not moral but a moral, not democratic autocratic, not just but in unjust. >> i think that there has to be a moral commitment to something larger than yourself, and andy united states, our best, human nature, it's best, it's been to a pursuit of justice. a realization of a promise that way americans made, which we did not live up to, which is that we are all created equal. lincoln elevated the declaration of independence, one of a singular contributions, when he said four score and seven years ago, he was going back to the declaration, not the constitution. he was going back to the mistaken, not to the compromise manual to make concessions to the slave power. that commitment was essential. >> let me express my intense jealousy that i was not at your democracy's on it. ta-nehisi coates -- a few people there. i covered my presence at that sometime, to listen to all

they are historian john meacham's new biography of abraham lincoln and there was light and confidence man maggie haberman. look at president trump. finally, book tv recently spoke th andrew albÉniz of publishers weekly about the penguin, random house and simon and schuster proposal merger, which was denied on antitrust grounds. here's what he had to say. andrew albany's is a senior writer with publishers weekly and he's followed the case from the beginning and he joins us now. so mr. albany's remind us of what this merger was to begin with, this merger was said to be the the coming together of the world's largest english language trade publisher, which is penguin random house, with its third largest big five rival, publisher simon schuster would have created a megamerger. a publisher that would have been roughly. 49% of the market for bestselling books. so who was supporting it and who was against it? well, supporting it, of course, were the merging parties, right, simon and schuster, its parent company, viacomcbs, had decided to get out of the publishing business and penguin random h

[applause] [applause] >> during the recent new orleans book festival, the authors eddie god john meachamtion of that program. >> one of the reasons that i would again and again is because i was suffering from a kind of debilitating despair and here we were, we had come out of ferguson all of these young people at risk and some of them were ending up dead and found in their car and committing suicide is so they said in the country responded to their efforts in organized efforts of the election of donald trump. just as the country responded to king's murder with the election of richard nixon, twice. and if you like it's something in a task and having to push this boulder up the hill again and again and again and baldwin tried to commit suicide at least three times. and published 1972, he has coming off of one of those attempts in trying to make sense of this moment because he is trying in some ways to tell a story that would offer resources for us to imagine how to keep struggling had so i think the way in which i came out of it, is that it is not the end to which we are trying to push the

they are historian john meacham's new biography of abraham lincoln and there was light and confidence man maggie haberman. look at president trump. finally, bookv recently spoke with andrew albÉniz publishers weekly about the penguin random house and simon and schuster proposed merger, which was denied on antitrust grounds. here's what he had to say. andrew albany's is a senior writer with publishers weekly and he's followed the case from the beginning and he joins us now. so mr. albany's remind us of what this merger was to begin with, this merger was said to be the the coming together of the world's largest english language trade publisher, which is penguin random house, with its third largest big five rival, publisher simon schuster would have created a mega-merger merger, a publisher that would have been. roughly 49% of the market for bestselling books. so who supporting it and who was against it? well, supporting it of course, were the merging parties, right, simon schuster, its parent company, viacom. cbs, had decided to get out of the publishing business and penguin random. obv

they historian john meacham's new biography of abraham lincoln. and there was and confidence man. maggie haberman look at president. finally book tv recently with andrew albany'of publishers about the penguin random house and simon and schuster proposed merger which was denied on antitrust grounds. here's what he had to say. andrew albany's is a senior writer with publishers weekly, and he's followed the case from the beginning and he joins us now. so mr. albany's remind of what this merger was. begin with this was said to be the the coming together of the world's largest english language trade publisher is penguin random house with, its third largest big five rival publisher simon schuster would have created a mega-merger publisher that would have been roughly 49% of the market for bestselling books. so who was supporting it and who was against it? well, supporting it, of course. the merging parties. right. simon and schuster, parent company viacomcbs, had decided to get out of the publishing business and penguin random house, obviously the largest and most successful publisher r

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meacham. i wrote a little about him. >> but you have written about jefferson, and the difference there is jefferson was -- jefferson was unable to make -- >> and john said that earlier this morning and annette gordon-reed was here. what i call it the jefferson conundrum, meaning how do you judge people who are great in many ways but in the light of history, i hate it when people use in the context of their time, which is usually a euphemism for, you know, excusing a moral lapse. but where so many people who fall prey to the jefferson conundrum. even in my work writing about biology with the code breaker, you have james watson who is the greatest biologists of the 20th century, does the structure of dna, but becomes racist basically in his feelings about race and heredity. so how do you teach watson and biology? how do you teach jefferson in history? annette gordon-reed was pretty interesting last, yesterday, and so was imani perry. which is, it's too easy for us to just dismiss a jefferson or something. now, i do give frank, i do think that you earn extra credit for being ahead of the curve of history -- >> franklin's reputation is certainly, i mea