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i would not rule that out. >> jon meacham, i want to circle back to you., i think, a pretty dramatic shift turning a lot of democrats into republicans for conservative reasons it's much like my grandmoth grandmother and people that went through the depression in the deep south, we noticed my grandmother never left -- she was pretty skinny but she never left food on her plate and that was something we always talked about and noticed, that our grand parents never left anything on their plate because they would -- they just grew to believe during the depression they may not get another meal again for some time. >> right. the shaping of the life of the country in many ways goes from -- we live in a world still shaped by franklin roosevelt and 1932 when one out of four americans was out of work, there were riots in the midwest, roosevelt himself said the two most dangerous men in america were huey long who would lead a revolt from the left and douglas macarthur who could lead one from the right. on the night he was sworn in, an aide came in and said mr. preside

i want to bring in presidential historian and msnbc contributor jon meacham. i'm curious. what did you think when you heard the president's self-comparison to ronald reagan and mental health? >> i thought it was a reach. i spent a lot of years reading every word and listening to the tape-recorded diary of reagan's vice president, george h.w. bush, who was the person who was most in the line of fire, if, in fact, the president was becoming less able to execute his duties in that period. never found a single allu schla about diminished capacity. second-term presidents who begin to run for re-election, often have a bad first debate. "the wall street journal" wrote a pretty significant story about whether what was then known as the age issue. this is back when 75 meant something, 73. >> 75 is the new 55, right? >> as we get older, it seems less and less significant, doesn't it? >> it does. >> it's funny how that works. so, i think the reagan analogy is smart of trump. he has done something -- >> so politically smart? >> yeah. in his intuitive way, he's defended himself with th

jon meacham, i don't know where to start but a good place to start would be just to say that what do we do? have we found ourselves in a position where you have a president who actually is calling around after making racist comments gauging the political fallout and then bragging about making those racist comments? >> yes, we are. seems to me one way to think about this is if you're a president of the united states when it comes to the eternal question of race and justice and equality of opportunity in america there's a spectrum. there's andrew johnson on one side who succeeded lincoln and then decided to return the south, as much as he could, to an antebellum footing. he opposed the 14th amendment, he opposed the 15th amendment, he vetoed civil rights acts. he was someone who said that we are essentially a white man's government. there's andrew johnson over here and then there's lyndon johnson over here. and lyndon johnson exactly 100 years after appomattox, a southerner, a texan who had a very mixed record on civil rights in the 1950s becomes president in a moment of tragedy and of

joining me is jon meacham. we'll look at the campaign promises trump has made.e kept his word on was lowering the corporate tax rate. will this year be remembered as a year that the president fulfilled a promise to corporate america who he didn't actually promise much to? or did he do a lot for the american people who voted for him? >> i think year one is about twitter and taxes. and we'll see what year two is, but you know, i know, a lot of the establishment republicans who when governor bush and senator rubio went by the wayside in 2016, they signed on with trump. but what they were really signing on for was the tax deal. they wanted that -- they wanted the affordable health care act done away with. and they wanted taxes. and that was the price for their soul. that check has cleared. so i think the real interesting question going forward is going to be, will they continue to stand by someone who is so temperamentally unstable through this, if, in fact, they have the bottom line taken care of. >> is the real question going forward, who is president trump's base

. >> and jon meacham, again, without knowing the background, it certainly seems ominous that one that the united states has been targeting in an agency that's investigating him after firing a former fbi director is targeted by the president and announces he's leaving the fbi on the same day that devin nunes release this is suspect memo. or votes to have this suspect memo released. >> i think it's safe to say it's never a good sign when a president is meddling in the personnel decisions of the second and third level of an agency. it brings up the saturday night massacre. it brings up the threat of some of the justice department lawyers, including comey, to resign under george w. bush it's just a manifestation of management issues and more fundamental issues in this case when a president is calling the number two, number three of the fbi and talking about his wife. i don't remember fdr doing that. >> nope, i don't either. jon meacham and clint watts, thank you for being on the show this morning. >>> still ahead, we'll bring in senator chris coons who is looking for information and eric