and i think he'll do that. >> jon meacham? nominees or the future itself? you know, bill clinton has always said that the election's about the future, not the past. in your experience, are these two personalities now so dominant that it's about them or can they make a coherent case about what they're going to do for the country? >> john, it's a great question. every ten days or two weeks during the 2012 campaign, mostly in the middle of the night, bill clinton would call me and say, all presidential elections are always a referendum on the future. and that turned out to be very true. these swing voters will ask one question and one question only. what are you going to do to make my family's lives better? so this will be a referendum on the future. you know, the personalities are, of course, going to drive the media coverage, but people, when they're sitting out there in missoula, montana, the most important place in the world, they want to know what people are going to do to make their lives better. and that's what they're goi

with us we have mark halperin, pulitzer prize winner jon meacham. please keep us up-to-date. >> 1954. >> no, don't bore us. form former ted cruz republican strategist, and we have ben ginsberg. and the author of the book "love that boy," ron fournier. >> let's go around here a little bit. around the horn. so, tell me, mark, what was your takeaway from last night, how do you put the trump victory into perspective? >> well, the key thing was reince priebus saying this is our nominee. it's going to be now, as ted cruz would say, a time for choosing. you're going to see some prominent people in the next 48 hours, republicans, come out for hillary clinton. you're going the see the clintons organizing that effort. and then you're going to see donald trump, i think, to a surprising degree to some, largely unify this republican party in a big hurry, start to do fund-raising as he suggested to you guys already. and now the question, can he win? democrats don't think he can. there are people who sit around this table that don't think he can. he's going to hav

. ♪ ♪ charlie: jon meacham, the executive editor and executive vice president at random house.book "american lion: andrew jackson in the white hose" was awarded the pulitzer prize for biography. he is a proud graduate, and i recently went with him, where i gave the commencement speech. we sat down for an event called "the art of conversation." i grew up as an only child, with huge curiosity. it began when my father went to world war ii, and my mother went back to a small village of 100 and helped her father run a country store. when my father came back, he stayed for a while and commuted to a business he had about 20 miles away. in a town of 18,000. in the formative years between 2 and 12, i literally lived above the store. what the store did for me, it was a very southern thing. it was a meeting place. it was a hub, place where people came, with only 100 people and a railroad through the middle. with the service station on one side and my grandfather's business on the other. there was not much television, so they would come to talk and share experiences. if you were a young ma

>> i think he may be being disingenuous there because if you read jon meacham's book on george herbertbush in 1988 trump was begging to be considered to be vice president for bush and bush 41 just scoffed, can you believe how gauche he is self-promoting himself? but trump is part of the '80s history and i think the fact of the matter is he's been able to have staying power. he's been part of our public discourse year after year. he hasn't gone away and that is a tribute to his business acumen and hitz read on american popular culture. part of it is by running casinos and learning the aspirations of americans. another part of him is somebody who plays on fear and that's the part i worry about. ronald reagan believed that oxygen was optimism and that's how the country lived to be very optimistic and trump seems to be peddling fear. >> my dad once told me and we sat down and talked about this on one of the rides out to the ranch, he said you know there's a big difference between running for president and becoming the president of the united states of america. and there's a huge difference

>> jon meacham is an egg head who has crammed his head full of meaningless facts and should know more about pettycoat junction. >> sounds like a lot of people we know. >> billy joe? >> bobby joe. >> we're going to go now to the rage. steve kornacki. he's known in the building as the rage. kicks desks. says he's going to torch this place. steve kornacki right now. >> all right. good morning. i'm steve kornacki. we are now 169 days until the election. topping our agenda right now, a dead heat. hillary clinton's double-digit lead over donald trump gone. republican voters rallying around trump now that he's going to be their candidate. some of the party's top donors are still refusing to sign up. >> i don't care at all. these are people that won't have access to the white house, and they understand that. they'll not be able to tell me what to do like they do every other candidate. >> trump won in the primaries without spending that much money but he set a $1 billion goal for the general election. is he going to have trouble making it, and is it going to cost him, if he doesn't? also on th

jon meacham with the post.itical stars, chuck todd, chris jansing, tom brokaw, ron fortier among all of our guests plus hillary clinton looks ahead to the general election. some comments she made about coal jobs in america. donald trump is already using them as an attack on her. >> she went to west virginia. she's sending a message, we are not going to cede white working class voters to anybody. it's the clintons. they are going to fight. >> we'll be right back. ♪ (music pl ♪ throughout) uh oh. what's up? ♪ ♪ ♪ does nobody use a turn signal anymore? ♪ customer service!d. ma'am. this isn't a computer... wait. you're real? with discover card, you can talk to a real person in the u.s., like me, anytime. wow. this is a recording. really? no, i'm kidding. 100% u.s.-based customer service. here to help, not to sell. wiback like it could used to? neutrogena hydro boost water gel. with hyaluronic acid it plumps skin cells with intense hydration and locks it in. for supple, hydrated skin. hydro boost. from neutrogena >>

i sat down with pulitzer prize-winning author jon meacham. true of many of use -- not every one.eporter: saturday's commence. began with a procession through the campus. the ceremony took place not outside but in the >> the university of the south is proud to bestow upon charles rose the degree of doctor of humane letters. a son of the south who has established himself as an architect of american culture. >> if only my mother and father could see me now. i woman up thoerng in the sewanee inn and looked out, there was this aab-- this remarkable golf course. i thought for a moment, maybe i could squeeze in nine holes. then i thought, no, i couldn't be late for this. my life has been spent asking questions of all manner of men and women, some good and some bad. i can tell you that not all heroes are famous. i have never talked to a medal of honor recipient and they insist on being a recipient and not a winner, who has not said to me, i'm not a hero. i did my duty, and somebody saw me do. it that's all. my buddies, they say, do it every day, put someone else's life ahead of theirs. t