. >> jon meacham, historically, i know there are no parallels, but we need to bring it up right now. we're in the middle of a recession turning into a depression. we're in the middle of the worst pandemic, the worst health care crisis in over a century. the worst rioting since 1968. over the course of this year, where the president has faced unprecedented economic hardship since 1929, unprecedented health care crisis since 1918, now unprecedented rioting since 1968, we have a president whose in the middle of this incredible shrinking act. he is doing little more than tweeting. >> as you say, the analogies are imprecise, and i hate to throw his predecessors into the corner with him, but this is a lot like the spring -- winter and spring of 1968, when president johnson

jon meacham, thank you as always. p an eye out for jon's forthcoming book, "his truth is marching on," his biography of john lewis, a personal hero of ours as well, that's due out in october. >>> coming up next, coronavirus concerns at food processing plants persisting. we'll be live at a tyson facility in arkansas where workers are sounding the alarm. did you know diarrhea is often caused by bad bacteria in food? try pepto diarrhea. pepto® diarrhea is proven effective to treat symptoms, and it also targets the cause of diarrhea. the 3 times concentrated liquid formula coats and kills bacteria to relieve diarrhea. while the leading competitor does nothing to kill the bacteria, pepto® diarrhea gets to the source, killing the bad bacteria. so, try pepto® diarrhea, and remember to have it on hand every time you travel. also try pepto®-bismol liquicaps for on-the-go relief. yes. neutrogena® ultra sheer. superior protection helps prevent early skin aging and skin cancer with a clean feel. it's the one. the best for your ski

why this book right now, jon meacham? what prompted this book in this particular moment? or were you already working on the book, and the moment just happened to meet where you were? >> well, the tragedy of american life, as you know, we're fellow southerners, is that there's always a moment to discuss the imperfections, the failures, and the possibility of triumph for the american experiment. i was honored -- i met congressman lewis in 1992 when i was a reporter for the chattanooga times. as you know, he communicates this remarkable sense of calm, serenity, and justice. what i wanted to do, i was in selma with him, with a delegation back in march, and have always -- i talked to him for years, and i've always wanted to write about his theological understanding of the world. people like me argue, and i've argued in books, that, you know, you live with tragedy, you live with ambiguity. the arc of a moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. president trump has the same view. it is based on reinhold and niebuhr and others. it is comforting for white folks, people w

jon meacham, talk to me about andrew jackson.about his legacy and the legacy that has led to the protests and wanting to take down his statue. does jon meacham here me? does john meacham hear me? i think we have problem. we're going to fix that. so we're going to talk about that in a moment, but let's talk about the issue of the statues. you dealt with this issue in maryland as lieutenant guvmeove, and it's an issue that has been raised repeatedly and that is the maryland state anthem or song and lyrics that go back to 1861, which are very controversial. should the song oh, maryland, oh, maryland be changed? >> yeah, i like the tune but the lyrics leave a lot to be desired and a lot of people don't sing those lyrics. they start with maryland my maryland and then it kind of trails off after that, which is an indication while we like the tune we need to update the lyrics. we need to recognize the vestiges of an era that stained this country. and unfortunately defined its early history. and we're doing everything we can now to not m

i want to go back to eddie and jon meacham.e, let's talk about other things that happened last night. iowa congressman steve king, who has been in office since 2002, a self-proclaimed wihite nationalist, he was defeated. meanwhile, we saw the first black female mayor-elected in ferguson, missouri. what does that tell you? >> well, it teals me that the country is changing in some ways, that the last 3 1/2 years, stephanie, has had an impact on our politics. that some folks are tired. there is no guarantee because politics aren't our only answer. you know, not the only answer to our problems. but getting rid of steve king is really, really important because there is a sense in which folks are trying to sanction that kind of voice in the public domain. finally electing the first african-american mayor in ferguson also is an effort to address the systemic problems in ferguson. but we already know that electing a black person to high office in cities doesn't necessarily lead to reconciling the problems. so we still have a lot of wor

joining me now jon meacham. his lastest book is "songs of america." e to have a long conversation with you about the history of protests and how it's made this country great. let's talk about these confederate monuments. there's a lot of confusion as to why in a country in which the confederacy was defeated these monuments are so prevalent in the south and eastern parts of the country. >> let me establish my context quickly. i was born in chattanooga, texas, a key battle in the civil war. i grew up about 600 yards from braxton bragg headquarters. when i was a kid, you could find little civil war bullets in the ground. i'm a graduate of the university of the south, an institution in the middle of tennessee. i'm familiar with this vernacular. my test always for memorials, monuments, what i think of as the mechanics of memory, has been was the person or the institution being memorialized dedicated to the pursuit of a more perfect union. by that test, even the most flawed white americans, andrew jackson, james madison, thomas jefferson, george washington,

and historian and author of "the soul of america, jon meacham joins us. he's an nbc news and msnbc contributor. we will play for you more of joe biden's message that was played at george floyd's funeral, and the other moving speakers, including reverend al. we'll also get down to yesterday's breakdown in georgia's voting process. this is a big story. the secretary of state is opening an investigation after reports of long waits, voting machines not working and a lack of ballots in some areas. >>> plus, stop us if you've heard this before, president trump's latest push of a conspiracy theory on twitter draws mostly silence from republicans on capitol hill. >> and his own aides horrified by the fact that he keeps digging himself in a deeper hole in this crisis. >>> and one other major headline this morning, several states are seeing a rise in hospitalization rates due to coronavirus. and dr. anthony fauci is issuing a new warning. we'll have that for you as well. >>> reverend al, let's talk about the floyd funeral. but first, a couple of moments there where

stacey abrams and talk about the power of voting in times like these with presidential historian jon meacham. i didn't have to shout out for help. because you didn't have another dvt. not today. one blood clot puts you at risk of having another,... ...so we chose xarelto®, to help keep you protected. xarelto®, is proven to treat and reduce the risk of dvt or pe blood clots from happening again. almost 98% of people did not have another dvt or pe. don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase your risk of blood clots. while taking, a spinal injection increases the risk of blood clots, which may cause paralysis-the inability to move. you may bruise more easily or take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto® can cause serious and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. it may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. get help right away for unexpected bleeding or unusual bruising. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve... ...or abnormal bleeding. before starting, tell your doctor about all planned medical or dental procedures and an

jon meacham, hard to say where to begin.re is any parallel here with other american presidents. obviously, there aren't. the story from world war ii came to mind when stalking about stalin looking at a map and he kept asking whether holland -- or he kept talking about the germans are in holland right now. how can we remove them. the germans are in the netherlands. after holland, we should go to the netherlands. and none of stalin's aides dared tell him holland and the netherlands were in the same place. in this case, donald trump ignorant of the fact that finland is its own country, ignorant of the fact that the united kingdom became a nuclear power decades ago. but, john, more concerning is his support for concentration camps, his verbal support of concentration camps in support of a trade deal, him begging for help he on camera and off camera. and if footnote that he said journalists are scum. this is a confirmation of what we know, we are in perilous waters. >> don reagan shook people to the core when he advised that used

dave campbell, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> jon meacham, before you go, of course, you wrote "america." talk about that soul right now, where we are as a country right now. give every american watching a reason to hope. >> well, my argument is that the soul is an arena of contention, in which our worst instincts do battle with our better ones. as we celebrate, the monuments we build, are monuments to eras in which the better angels have won. it is always a close-run thing. it is as close a runned thing as you've ever seen in your life. american progress and virtue is spotty, but we're still here, fighting for a more perfect union. it is fascinating that morris did not write about achieving perfection on earth. he wrote in the great preamble we had to seem a more perfect union. it is easy for people who look like me to say. i want to stipulate that. but what i would urge everybody to do is think about how you want to be remembered. do you want to be part of a moment and a generation that led to an expansion of the american mainstream, that led to what president bush called, and

jon meacham, your thoughts? >> incredibly serious american moment. over the last three or four years, we've said that a lot. even before that, it's in the natural human tendency to see problems and moments as uniquely oppressive, which is a phrase that arthur schlesinger, the late historian, used to use. this is as real as it gets, it seems to me. the president is drawing on the vernacular of authoritarianism. he is verging ever closer to violating in a permanent and l deletarious way the separation of powers and the fundamental idea of divided sovereignty in america. we have focused, rightly, on the walk to st. john's and the oddity of that silent photo-op, where you could not hear what he was saying. there are some small mercies. but what he said in the rose garden, and how the path was cleared, are in many ways, more important. he is ever closer to expanding and deploying, projecting american military force domestically because he can't address the underlying concerns, has no interest, apparently, in addressing the underlying concerns that have le

let me just say this to my friend jon meacham. you saw that reference to better angels. he soul of america was on my mind as i was writing the book. but i think what i learned, jon, are a couple of things. one is that you have to bear witness. for what baldwin meant by bearing witness, we had to tell the truth about the suffering in the country. we had to break through the illusions. we had to in some ways insist, we have to insist on a kind of uncomfortable position with regards to our self-understanding to our self' understanding so we can imagine ourselves otherwise. that's the first thing. the second thing i realized, this moving close to 7,000 words. just it's amazing -- no 7,000 articles, pieces of writing, right, is that we have to have faith that wherever human beings are, we have a chance. no matter how dark it is. no matter how bleak it may seem. if we are present in the fullness of who we are, we have a chance. there's no guarantee but we just have to step up. and for me, that was this amazing insight, this abiding faith in the capacity of human beings to be be

the soul of america" and rogers professipr professor of the presidency at vanderbilt university, jon meacham is an nbc news and msnbc contributor. along with willie and me, joe is off today, we have a lot to get to this morning. in a moment, we'll get to all the moves by president trump yesterday. his combative call with the nation's governors about the protests across the country. his threat to deploy the u.s. military to suppress the demonstrations. and what can really only be described as a manufactured, awkward photo-op in front of a boarded up church. we'll talk about that, what the president did and didn't do, and if he's ever held a bible before. also, joe biden, yesterday, was inside a church, listening to people. we'll get to all of that in just a moment. >>> we begin with the protests against police brutality that continue to rage

and then we heard the truly, as jon meacham said on this show yesterday morning, perhaps the most damaging side, which is that he's laying this predicate already that the election is rigged. and why is he doing that? because we have polls that show him down 14 points, that show him getting crushed among women, suburban women, the people he needs to win over to be re-elected. he's laying the groundwork to look back, jonathan lamire, after election day, if he does lose, and say, this election is rigged, we should not go quietly. jonathan, you were on that trip yesterday, all day. what was it like first to be -- we'll talk about the border in a moment, but what was it like to be around him when he was making that speech? >> reporter: willie, what we saw with the campaign yesterday is they wanted a burst of enthusiasm. what they're seeing also is the president is increasingly talking to a smaller and smaller portion of the electorate, that base, and even just the die-hards, truly hard-core portion of that base. as you said, i was with him yesterday in arizona. that megachurch in phoenix is abo

jon meacham and gene, thank you. >>> senator doug jones prepares to face the attorney general jeff sessionsthe alabama senate election. we're back after this. e back af. my gums are irritated. i don't have to worry about that, do i? harmful bacteria lurk just below the gum line. crest gum detoxify, voted product of the year. it works below the gum line to neutralize harmful plaque bacteria and help reverse early gum damage. gum detoxify, from crest. they get that no two people are alike and customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need. what do you think? i don't see it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ and its mission is to make sleep...feel...cool. so, no more night sweats. no more nocturnal baking, or polar ice cap air-conditioner mode. because the tempur-pedic breeze° delivers superior cooling from cover to core. helping you sleep cool, all night long. during the tempur-pedic summer of sleep, save $500 on all tempur-breeze mattresses... and experience your coolest sleep this summer, on our best breeze savings of the year. no uh uh, no

washington post," msnbc political analyst, eugene robinson, historian, author of "soul of america," jon meacham msnbc contributor. >> it was one of those june days where the supreme court makes an announcement. >> so big. >> and republicans and conservatives wring their hands and say, what have we done? what have we done? we've had a republican president appoint another supreme court justice that has afforded the liberal cause. all of a sudden this refrain, but the courts. he's a man who doesn't share any of our values. he's a man whose very life undermines everything we try to teach our children. he is cruel, he is ignorant. go down the list. >> the list is so long. >> they go down the list of all the terrible things donald trump is, and then they go, but the courts. and what they woke up to this morning, reading the papers was a fact that a trump appointed judge just handed one of the largest culture wars victory -- culture war victories to libe l liberals and handed them one of the biggest culture war defeats over the past 50 years. >> the glib way of talking about this is they sold their so

on sunday nights, kasie hunt and historian jon meacham, the author of the biography of john lewis entitledis marching on." we look forward to that. president trump is slated to visit yuma, arizona, to mark a campaign promise. the completion of 200 miles of a new wall along the u.s./mexico border. it is president trump's second visit in arizona. after a stop in yuma, the president is expected to head to phoenix to give a speech at a church. the mayor of phoenix said the event, quotes, does not abide by current cdc guidelines during covid-19. the mayor's statement also reads in part, quote, while i do not believe an event of this magnitude can be held safely, particularly as arizona sees rising covid cases, the president has decided to continue with this rally. everyone attending tomorrow's event, particularly any elected official, should set an example to residents by wearing a mask. this includes the president. jonathan lemire, i'm wondering if you can, first of all, back up a little bit because identify seen a lot of controversy on twitter. the president and his wall and the way different