joining me now is michael beschloss, nbc news presidential historian, who pointed out this episode from history today. and michael, you always bring the funk, as they say. >> i do my best, thank you. >> nixon is thought of in history as the president who most warped the notion of the presidency. but we now have a president who is essentially one-upping him on the idea of saying, i'll just have the attorney general of the united states declassify things and i'll just have him also prosecute my political enemies. >> oh, yeah, donald trump is taking richard nixon to the sixth power. and nixon had a couple of things he was looking for there. and i interviewed richard helms, the director of the cia under nixon, whom he hated and sdru d distrusted, many times. he said nixon kept coming to him through haldeman and others and saying, i want the kennedy administration's pbay of pigs files on cuba. he wanted evidence that john kennedy had ordered the assassination of fidel castro. also they wanted material, as you had on the tape, on the coup against the president of south vietnam in 1963. they t

joining me now is michael beschloss, nbc news presidential historian.at to have you with us tonight at this important moment in history in which we have to understand because chairman nadler says is the white house position that congress doesn't have the right to investigate is as he says, quote, unprecedented and unsupported by law, history, and practice. you are our expert. is it. >> yeah, and also unsupported by the constitution. as you know, ali, you go to the constitution, what james madison wrote is one of the most important checks congress as on warranted presidential power is investigation. so for the executive branch to say congress cannot investigate the executive branch, that's absolutely crazy. >> up until now, michael, the white house and congress have been going back and forth over granular things, documents, witnesses, testimony, timing, scope of questions, i can understand if a viewer might get a little bored with that because it's complicated. but this new argument that the white house is putting forward feels like a species jump forwar

joining us now is michael beschloss, nbc presidential historian.r most recently of "presidents of war." mr. beschloss, it's great to see you. thanks for being here tonight. >> thank you. me too, rachel. >> is this restraint that we're seeing from the democratic leadership in the house, do you think it is unusual given the historical circumstances here? >> yeah, i do. i think it really defies history. just as you said in the case of richard nixon after the saturday night massacre, a lot of members of the house wanted impeachment, and also leon jaworski, the prosecutor sent this secret over to the house that was called the watergate road map. you and have i talked about that before. 1st of march, 1974 with supporting evidence, and that allowed the house to essentially good ahead. and that was considered to be so hot it wasn't released until about seven months ago. and then in the case of the starr report, that was released to the public in september of 1998, and starr sent that immediately to the house, along with 18 boxes of evidence. and once again

let me read you something, rachel, that the great michael beschloss tweeted while you were on tonight. >> okay. >> it's about william safire, who was a columnist for "the new york times" and a republican. he worked -- he was a -- went into politics to write for richard nixon's -- >> yeah. >> -- 1968 campaign. so he knew -- bill safire new all the republican players. he knew all the players, but the republican players, he knew them very well. in 1992, thanks to michael beschloss, bill safire's column refers to then attorney general william barr, then attorney general william barr as the cover-up general. bill safire was quite the phrase maker, and that was his view of william barr then. >> how do you think they found william barr for this gig? >> they googled "cover-up general." >> exactly. who is famous for cover-up as attorney general? right. >> okay, rachel. go home and don't sleep. >> i will do. >> thank you, rachel. >> thanks. >>> senator elizabeth warren is going to join us later in this hour, and it's on a day when she's enjoyed a significant bump in the polls, including one pol

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nbc presidential historian michael beschloss was tweeting about this today. he's the kind of presidential historian who gives you a little constructive giblet every single day that helps you understand the current news. but you see the headline there from "the new york times," may 1974. "nixon rejects subpoenas, tells rodino he'll get no more watergate data." he had the job then jerry nadler has today. there's nixon saying rodino will get no more watergate data. oh, how far, we haven't come, right? and looking back on what nixon was trying to do back then, looking back now, with the advantage of hindsight, we, of course, know nixon was doomed to fail in that hardline stance. but back in may 1974, americans didn't know how that was going to end up. congress didn't know how that was going to end up. it was a time of uncertainty and frustration and, honestly, some fear. >> good evening. president nixon today laid down one of the strongest challenges any president has ever put to any congress. we're finally back out in our yard, but so are they. scotts turf build

nbc presidential historian michael beschloss was tweeting about this today. but you see the headline there from "the new york times," may 1974, nixon rejects subpoenas, tells rodino he'll get no more watergate data. he had the job then jerry nadler has today. there's nixon saying rodino will get no more watergate data. oh, how far we haven't come, right? and looking back on what nixon was trying to do back then, looking back now with the advantage of hindsight, we of course know nixon was doomed to fail in that hard line stance. but back in may 1974 americans didn't know how that was going to end up. congress didn't know how that was going to end up. it was a time of uncertainty and frustration, and honestly some fear. >> good evening, president nixon today laid down one of the strongest challenges any president has ever put to any congress. he told the impeachment investigators in the house of representatives that he will not comply with the judiciary committee's latest subpoenas for 11 white house tapes, and the president added that he will decline to compl

joining me now is michael beschloss, the author of "presidents of war."equences of impeachment and not. you're so good at the analogies in history. the andrew johnson impeachment feels more like this. he violated a law, boom, impeachment. applicant felt more nakedly political. we're going to send a message about him. can we learn from either of them? >> i think andrew johnson was almost of the preface of what we're seeing right now. he was in a state of complete confrontation. he was trying to relax controls on the south, the radical republicans that were in control with congress, they wanted to use military force to make sure that the south respected the rights of african-americans and changed their ways from what it happened. so he basically deliberately defined thom. defied them by saying i don't ca care. i'm going to fire my secretary of war. they went to impeach him. they say he escaped a trial by one vote. that was 1868. that was an election year he could not be nominated for another term as president. >> does the impeachment sanction withstand acqu

. >> as michael beschloss says at what points will books we write go straight to large print, given the age of our people. >> good pount. >> we have a lot going on. hold on, though. we've got more sports. red sox, we're number three. we're number three. >> our long national nightmare is over. we've reached .500. >> a moment so important, it will be celebrated at the white house this afternoon by the president because they reached . -- .500. >> oh, no, they're going to win, they're going to win. >> they are not! j.b.j. -- and you ask yourself, a tip of the hat, you ask yourself why you do you keep a guy who bats .150 in the lineup? that is why you keep a guy who bats .150 in the lineup. because he wins games. >> wow, that game should be over. so before i leave the red sox, before i leave the red sox, i hate to bring this up, they're going to the white house but it has become a very segregated affair for our boston red sox, a team again let's say in the past has had some real problems with race. >> championship teams when they go to the white house, that's a familiar ritual. there as a fe