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(BIRDS CHIRPING)

♪ (MELANCHOLIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(DOGS BARKING)

JON MEACHAM: History tells us

that this particular era is
difficult but not unique.

♪ (MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

The forces that are shaping

the worst parts of us
right now...

are forces that are part
of the American character.

REPORTER 1: I just think
we're the most polarized

we've possibly ever been.

REPORTER 2: No society
has ever changed this much.

REPORTER 3:
Thousands more families

were separated at the border.

ALEX JONES: It is time
for the return of men.

REPORTER 4:
...an attack on women's basic
human rights and civil rights.

REPORTER 5:
...worst of the worst examples
from the mainstream media.

REPORTER 6: The number
of hate groups has doubled...

MEACHAM: I think that history
gives us the ability to see

what is the scope
and nature of our crisis,

how have people
in previous generations

addressed those crises,

and are there lessons to apply?

NEWS ANCHOR: Joining me now,
NBC news contributor

and historian Jon Meacham,
giving a history lesson.

It is a complicated
and-- and fraught history.

We have been
in terrible spots before.

What we have to figure out
is how do we get out of them,

and what lessons can we take
to get through this?

I'm not saying
it's all gonna be fine,

but I think it's on all of us.

If we don't arm ourselves

with a historical understanding
of how complex our history was,

we're not gonna be able
to think clearly enough

to react in real time
to save the country.

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

ANNOUNCER: It is not unexpected

that in these politically
tumultuous times,

we scrutinize our past

in order to understand
the present.

-MEACHAM: Hey. How are you?
-What's up?

-Good to see you. Jon Meacham.
-Hi.

ANNOUNCER: Tonight's speaker
has established himself

as one of the most reasoned
and enlightened voices

wielding the literary scalpel
examining history.

Ladies and gentlemen,
please give a warm welcome

to Jon Meacham.

(APPLAUSE)

MEACHAM: Thank you. Um...

So, we're living in an era
of politics as entertainment.

Politics as an unfolding
and insistent drama.

And so, the question
I get asked the most is:

"Has it ever been like this?"

Second question is:
"How do we get out of this?"

And so what I'd like
to take are-- are a few minutes

this afternoon is to talk
about some moments

that I think should give us
a sense of proportion

about the questions
of the present time.

Because we have
been here before.

If we had been here
101 years ago today,

what would have been going on?

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

Woodrow Wilson would be
president of the United States.

We would be fighting
the First World War

with a huge part
of the country wondering

why our boys
were going to fight

for nations about whom
we knew so little.

(GUNFIRE)

In 1919, 1920,
you had a prevalent fear

that radicals, socialists,
communists

-were taking the country away.
-(HORSE WHINNIES)

Woodrow Wilson cracked down
on civil dissent

and civil liberties.

A. Mitchell Palmer,
the Attorney General,

launches a number of raids
on suspected dissidents.

President Wilson closes down
400 newspapers.

Immigration was
at an extraordinary high.

It didn't really stop until

the 1924
immigration legislation,

which put quotas on immigration
from different countries.

(HORSE SNORTS)

There was white anxiety
about cultural identity,

about economic opportunity,
that inspired the rebirth

of the Ku Klux Klan
in the 1920s.

(BOOTS STOMPING)

1925 and '26,

50,000 Klansmen marched down
Pennsylvania Avenue

in what was a remarkable

but not stunning
public display.

(CAMERA SHUTTER CLICKS)

It was a big, broad-based
racist army,

and what they wanted to do
was make America great again.

The governor of Georgia
announced that he wanted

to build a wall of steel
as high as heaven

to keep immigrants out.

Huh.

As Mark Twain once said,
"History may not repeat itself,

but it does rhyme."

(LAUGHTER)

MEACHAM:
Nativism, xenophobia, racism,

sexism, isolationism are
perennial American forces.

They ebb and they flow.

♪ (MELANCHOLIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

The story of race and fear
and anxiety and violence

is inextricably intertwined
with the story of the country.

It's not that the soul
of the country

has been captured

by a particular group
at a particular time.

The soul of the country is,
in fact, this essence,

which is not all good
or all bad.

You have your better angels

fighting against
your worst impulses.

And that has a religious
component, certainly.

It's also, though, a matter
of historical observation.

Our history is shaped
by the extent to which

those better angels
or those worst instincts win out

in a given period of time.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

It was true in the 1760s.

It was true in the 1860s.

It was true in the 1960s.

And it's true today.

WHITE NATIONALISTS: (CHANTING)
You will not replace us!

You will not replace us!

(CHANTING)

(CHANTING REPEATEDLY)
Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!

REPORTER:
A white nationalist blogger

had called upon his followers
to meet here in Charlottesville

to protest the city's efforts
to try to take down

a statue of Robert E. Lee
from a city park.

(INDISTINCT CLAMORING)

MEACHAM: When the
Charlottesville riots happened,

the neo-Nazi rally, and then
the death of Heather Heyer...

(PROTESTORS SCREAMING)

...the editor of TIME magazine
at the time called and said,

"Do you have anything
to say historically

about the history of hate
in American politics?"

So I started
with Reconstruction

and moved forward.

And it became a book
about the soul of the country.

The fact that,
in the 21st century,

people calling themselves
Klansmen

are in
Charlottesville, Virginia,

the home of Robert E. Lee,

basically fighting for

an antebellum vision
of the world

is a remarkable thing.

But it's not all that remarkable
if you know American history

and if you know that five
minutes after Lee's surrender,

the reaction sets in.

White supremacy
replaced slavery

as the consuming concern
of white southerners.

Segregation replaced
human enslavement.

And so, when people say

the Civil War
never really ended,

that's pretty much
what they mean.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC CONTINUES) ♪

(PLANE ENGINE ROARS)

MEACHAM: If the 2016 election
had gone the other way,

I wouldn't have written
about the soul of America.

Now I could just write
books about that,

or I could, as I do, try
to talk about it in real time

and hope that it has
some impact.

So, we have about 15 minutes
until your talk.

-MEACHAM: Oh, okay.
-WOMAN 1: Yeah.

Uh, is there
some place I can just...

-Be?
-...sit? Yeah.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

MEACHAM:
The American story is a story

of more generously applying
the Jeffersonian idea

that everybody gets a chance.

Thomas Jefferson wrote,

"We hold these truths
to be self-evident,

that all men are created equal
and are endowed by their Creator

with certain inalienable rights,
among them life, liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness."

Jefferson didn't mean everybody

when he sat down to write that
in June of 1776.

He didn't mean women.

He didn't mean people of color.

He meant white men.

But the story of the country

is one in which we have
more generously understood

what that sentence meant.

Where we were opening our arms
and not clenching our fists.

(CROWD CHANTING DISTANTLY)

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

REPORTER 1:
On Saturday, one day after
the presidential inauguration,

thousands of women are expected
to march in Washington, DC.

REPORTER 2:
A wave of protesters,

many in pink
knitted "pussyhats,"

gathered in the National Mall.

REPORTER 3: An estimated half
a million people turned out.

WOMEN'S MARCH PROTESTER:
I really believed that we were

moving toward a world
where there was equality,

and I guess I was really
disappointed that, um...

(CLICKS TONGUE) ...the election
showed that maybe,

I don't know,
maybe there was a backlash.

MEACHAM: For those who think
that the country can't change,

I sometimes submit
that a hundred years ago,

more than half the population
couldn't vote.

To exclude women
from voting was to move them

to second- or even
third-class citizenship.

Our better angels tell us that
if all men are created equal,

then all men and women
are created equal.

To make that real is a victory
for those better angels.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

LISA TETRAULT:
The women's movement

out of which
the suffrage movement arises

really starts
in the antebellum period

in the United States,
so in the 1830s, 1840s.

By 1913 or so,
there's this phenomenon

called the "New Woman."

And the New Woman is
this young, independent woman

who works for a while,
forestalls marriage,

sometimes has
a fair degree of education.

And people hold up
the New Woman all the time

to say, you know,

"Woman has all the rights
she could need.

Why would she need the vote?"

In the suffrage movement,

the person who most emblemized
this New Woman

was Alice Paul.

TETRAULT:
She had gone to college.

She was a social worker.

She went to England.
And while she was there,

she became associated
with the suffrage movement

in Britain,
which was quite militant.

And then
she would come back to the US,

and launch a new chapter
of the suffrage movement

that was in your face
and unrelenting.

MEACHAM: Alice Paul launched
a very direct campaign,

focused on the White House,
trying to get Woodrow Wilson

to endorse
the suffrage movement.

When he arrived in Washington
in 1913 for his inauguration,

he actually asked,
"Where are all the people?"

And all the people were
at the suffrage march.

TETRAULT: There were floats
and delegations

from suffragists
all around the nation.

It's the largest parade
to take to the streets

in American history
at that point.

But the crowd becomes incensed

because, of course,

good, respectable women
don't do this,

and the crowd starts
attacking the marchers.

MEACHAM: If you're a white man

susceptible to the appeal
of the Klan

in the second decade
of the 20th century,

"My God,
immigrants are taking my job.

Catholics are trying
to change my culture.

And now women want to vote.
What's next?"

You know, that was the view.

TETRAULT: People are sent
to the hospital,

people have broken bones.

And the police
turn a blind eye.

But Alice Paul keeps up
this tactic of direct action.

One of the things she does
is start stationing picketers

outside the White House.

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

TETRAULT:
They had these banners

and they would just stand

silently outside
the White House gates.

We now think of this
as a familiar tactic.

That was brand new.

MEACHAM: Alice Paul
made a point of having people

at every gate
of the White House,

so that the president
would have to see them

when he came and he went.

She was determined to take
the fight directly to him.

TETRAULT: At first,
Woodrow Wilson is

cheerfully tolerant of them.

"Oh, these cute little women,
they'll go away after a while."

And then winter comes,
and they're still there.

And then summer comes,
and they're still there.

And then
World War I breaks out.

And you do not picket
a wartime president.

That is unpatriotic.

TETRAULT: The problem is that
they are not breaking any laws,

so they trump up
a reason to arrest them,

and they say that
they have obstructed traffic.

And they start
to round up these women,

throw them into paddy wagons,
and assume they'll go away.

They go to court, they refuse
to pay their court fines,

they go to the workhouse.

More women show up.

They throw them
in paddy wagons.

They go to the workhouse.

So you start to have
a huge crop

of political prisoners
in Occoquan Workhouse.

MEACHAM: There were
hunger strikes in prison.

They were willing
to risk everything.

TETRAULT: The prison staff
thought they could

stop this hunger strike

by force-feeding these women.

They would put them in chairs
and literally strap them in.

And then you would have a tube

-forced down your throat.
-(WOMAN GROANING)

TETRAULT: And then
they would put a funnel

at the top of the tube,

and they would whip up eggs
or whatever it might be,

and then they would just
pour it into the funnel

and it would come down.

The women would vomit.

They had bloody noses
routinely.

TETRAULT:
Alice Paul had stomach problems

for the rest of her life.

But the National Woman's Party

knows what's going on
inside the prison, right,

and they start publicizing
what's happening.

(PRINTING PRESS WHIRS)

TETRAULT: And this creates
a great deal of sympathy

in the American public
because it was so brutal.

But really it's
a million things over time

that eventually tip the scales.

A bunch of suffragists
go state by state

and get "male"
taken out of the constitution.

That is a dual strategy

working at the state level and
working at the federal level.

You've got two branches
of the movement.

The state movement

starts to win
a lot of victories.

States out west
and states in other places

start enfranchising women

and allowing them
access to the ballot.

It started to have a kind of
insurmountable momentum to it

that I think
Wilson eventually joined.

(SHEEP BLEATING)

TETRAULT: In 1918,
Congress takes up a vote,

and it narrowly fails.

And what the
National Woman's Party decide

is they're gonna go
to those states,

to those legislators
who voted against,

and they're gonna try
to get them out of office.

And by 1919,

they've gotten a lot
of those men out of office.

They take a second vote
in the House and the Senate,

and it passes both.

MEACHAM:
Change in America comes

when the powerful take notice

of what the people
have been saying.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

And when
those two things intersect,

that's how history is made.

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

TETRAULT: But the thing
that we can't forget

is that while this suffrage
story is unfolding,

there is simultaneously
a suppression of democracy

going on in the United States.

During that massive
1913 suffrage parade,

the great Ida B. Wells,
journalist,

anti-lynching crusader,
feminist activist,

comes in with her Illinois
delegation from Chicago.

But they're in D.C.,
which is a southern city,

and there are gonna be southern
congresspeople watching this.

And so Alice Paul says,

"No, we can't have you march
with white women."

And that's one example
of the ways

in which Alice Paul
was willing to embrace

and perpetuate racism
in the service of the movement.

And I think the suffrage
movement reminds us

that we really have
to be thinking constantly

about the ways in which justice
movements can do damage

while they're also doing good.

And I think that's
a caution to us today

because we're no different.

(BIRDS CHIRPING)

MEACHAM:
I grew up on Missionary Ridge,

a battlefield
in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

When I was little, you could
still find Civil War bullets

on Missionary Ridge and around.

So, to me, the history was
just right there.

I met Jon when he was 19,

and he seemed to me
like he was 30 when I met him.

He was just very much
an old soul,

and he was very wise.

He was sort of someone
who got on really well

with older people.

You could tell
that this was someone

who, at a very young age,
was really engaged

in the life of the mind.

At age ten,
he campaigned for Reagan.

And he was fascinated
by Reagan as a man.

RONALD REAGAN:
We, as Americans,

have the capacity now,
as we've had in the past,

to do whatever needs to be done

to preserve this last
and greatest bastion of freedom.

MEACHAM: I could have
fairly easily ended up

in some sort of
young conservative ethos.

But because I started
in journalism when I was 18

at the Chattanooga Times,
I almost immediately saw

that the world was a hell
of a lot more complicated

than either
a conservative ideology

or a liberal ideology
would have it.

KEITH MEACHAM: By the time
we really got together,

he was
at the Washington Monthly,

which was like
boot camp for journalism.

We would have Friday night dates
that got cancelled

because we had to drive up
to the printer

because somebody was late
filing their stories.

And then Jon ended up
getting an offer from Newsweek.

I was an editor at Newsweek,

and the young
Jon Meacham walked in,

25 years old, maybe.

We talked for a little bit,
and I realized right away

that I'd be working
for him soon.

You are how old?

-I'm 29.
-ANCHOR: Twenty-nine?

What's it like to be
a 29-year-old managing editor--

-Closing in on 30.
-ANCHOR: (LAUGHS) Okay.

What's it like to be
a, uh, closing-in-on-30,

uh, managing editor of, uh,
one of the big news magazines?

My guest tonight,
the editor of Newsweek magazine.

Please welcome back to the show,
Jon Meacham. Jon?

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

EVAN THOMAS:
I remember thinking

he was a slightly
ridiculous figure

at Newsweek because people
usually dress sloppily,

and Meacham always wore
kind of a neat suit.

His hair was carefully combed.

He had this slight waddle
as he went down the hallway.

He was kind of prematurely old
and-- an old-fashioned figure

surrounded by a lot
of people trying to be hip.

And I think
he took some grief for it.

I think people kind of
laughed at it a little bit.

But they weren't laughing
when he was working on--

when he was working
on their copy.

MEACHAM: You know,
I've written about people

about whom
much has been written.

Thomas Jefferson,
Andrew Jackson.

And I've written about people

where it's kind of
the beginning

of the conversation,
George H. W. Bush.

On the primary campaign trail
in New Hampshire once,

he grabbed the hand
of a department store mannequin,

asking for votes.

When he realized
his mistake, he said,

"Never know, gotta ask."

(LAUGHTER)

MEACHAM:
I've spent most of my life...

thinking about the past,

and thinking about how
the past became something

either worth emulating
or worth avoiding.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

MEACHAM: In the course
of a year, I can do

between sixty and a hundred
speaking engagements...

with people who care
about the country,

who care about history,

and are trying
to connect these dots.

(APPLAUSE)

MEACHAM: So, one sign of
consistency in challenging times

is I appear to be wearing
the same necktie.

(LAUGHTER)

MEACHAM: So...

My hair is grayer, however,

so that may be
because of the 2016 election.

Uh, so 2016, uh,
how did it happen?

Two numbers, I think.

One is 17 percent.

That's the percentage
of Americans who say

they have trust
in the federal government

to do the right thing
some or most of the time.

That's down from 77 percent
in the mid-1960s.

So that's a huge trust gap.

The other is $130,000.

That's the number
that some economists believe

a family of four needs
in annual household income

to lead what
they would think of

as a classic post-World War II
middle-class life.

Annual income
for a family of four

is about 56,000 dollars
right now.

So in that missing income gap
and in that trust gap,

you have the ingredients

for a kind of populist moment
like this...

where someone says,
"Those people are to blame

for the fact that
you don't have this money."

We are sick and tired
of people disrespecting,

coming over by the thousands.

We wanna make sure
that our borders are secure.

(INDISTINCT RADIO CHATTER)

REPORTER 1:
The US government is releasing

new video
of the child detention centers.

REPORTER 2:
This shows children walled in

by a chain-link fence.

CHILD: (CRYING) Mommy.

(CHILDREN CRYING)

MEACHAM: And so often,
people in American history

have felt that they were
on a precipice,

-and so they lash out.
-Build the wall!

MEACHAM: You saw it
with white southerners

after Reconstruction.

You saw it with the second Klan
and immigration,

the shifting economy.

You saw it in the 1930s.

It's an incredibly powerful
political emotion.

And the great
political leaders...

are the ones
who don't cater to it,

who tamp it down
instead of flame it.

♪ (OMINOUS MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

MEACHAM: The 1930s have
a lot to say to us.

It was a period
of enormous ferment

of anxiety
about a changing world.

Technology was changing
the country,

the rise of radio,

people were moving
away from farms,

they were gathering in cities,
they felt alienated,

they felt lonely.

If we look at the 1930s,
we can see

how economic anxiety,
isolationist tendencies,

nativist tendencies
can lead to a genuine crisis,

both at home and abroad.

The country is in the throes
of what becomes

a global depression.

We're paying the price
for isolationism,

paying the price for
instituting immigration quotas,

putting up high tariffs.

By the spring of 1933,
one out of every four

adult American men
was out of work.

-(EXPLOSION)
-(HORSE WHINNIES)

There were riots
in the Midwest.

(INDISTINCT SHOUTING)

There was a live question
about whether

democratic capitalism
would survive the decade.

(INDISTINCT YELLING)

-(EXPLOSION)
-(CROWD CHEERING)

We face that crisis.

We face it
with singleness of purpose.

So shall we win through
to a better day.

MEACHAM: Onto that stage comes
Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

(CROWD CHEERING)

(CROWD WHISTLING)

MEACHAM: One of the brightest
young politicians

in the Democratic Party, 1920,

goes to Campobello
off the coast of Maine,

wakes up and can't walk.

Wills himself
back into the arena

and becomes, in a way,

the embodiment
of the American notion

that we can recover.

He believed
we could all walk again,

not least because he had taught
himself to walk again.

♪ (TRIUMPHANT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT:
Let me assert my firm belief

that the only thing
we have to fear is...

fear itself.

MEACHAM:
So, when we think of FDR,

we think of the great line,

"The only thing we have to fear
is fear itself."

The line that got the biggest
cheer that day, though, was

the current crisis
is of such scope

that he might require powers

"as if we had been invaded
by a foreign foe."

...invaded by a foreign foe.

(CHEERING)

MEACHAM: And the crowd roared.

And it suggested
to Eleanor Roosevelt

that they were ready
for a dictator.

(SPEAKING GERMAN)

MEACHAM:
Dictatorship was on the march.

(CROWD CHEERING)

MEACHAM:
Look at Germany, look at Italy,

look at the increasing
totalitarianization

of the Soviet Union.

What did Franklin Roosevelt do?

-(CROWD CHEERING)
-I have shown our determination

in the past by action.

MEACHAM: Franklin Roosevelt
stayed in the arena.

Action that is saving
and will continue to save

the constitutional
representative

form of government

in which all Americans rejoice.

He insisted that we had
something worth preserving

despite its faults.

He fought against fascists,
the German Bund.

Madison Square Garden
was filled, 30,000 people,

a Nazi rally.

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

FRITZ KUHN:

MEACHAM:
The isolationist movement

was centrally based on the idea

that we should not
be drawn into foreign quarrels

because someone was always
taking advantage of us.

If you believe
that this country

should not enter the war
in Europe,

we ask you to join
the America First Committee

in its stand.

(APPLAUSE)

MEACHAM:
FDR dealt with isolationism

incredibly carefully.

We are keeping out of the wars
that are going on

in Europe and in Asia,

but I do not subscribe
to the preachment

that the United States
should do nothing.

MEACHAM:
World War II was opposed

by 40 percent of the country.

Again, this is why
I think history matters.

The more we understand

that it wasn't so clear cut
even then,

I would hope that would give us
some hope that you can--

we can find a way
to manufacture consensus

to solve the problems
of our own time.

Thank you. I appreciate it.
Hey. How are you?

Hello. Thank you
for coming to Westmont.

Thank you.

STUDENT: Yeah, I was just
interested in your comments

about the legacy of...

forgive me, but, like,
your generation and...

-(CHUCKLES)
-...older generations.

Like, what kind of legacy
do you think, like,

your generation is leaving
behind for my generation?

Well, the jury--
Well, the jury is still out.

Um...

I think we've created
an overly partisan...

and overly reactive world
right now.

I don't think it's
a great legacy at this point,

but we have a little more time.
(LAUGHS)

-STUDENT: That is true.
-It's close.

♪ (GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

JOHN GRISHAM: We tried to line
up a speaker for this fall,

and nobody else would come,
so I said, "We got Jon Meacham.

-He's an old friend of mine."
-(AUDIENCE LAUGHS)

I'm supposed to introduce him,
so I'm gonna be polite.

Um, please welcome my friend,
Jon Meacham.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

Thank you.

That was much nicer than usual.
Thank you.

(APPLAUSE CONTINUES)

GRISHAM: So, let's talk about
that book, The Soul of America.

In it, you write about
the darkest chapters

in American history.

So when was the last time
the partisanship was this bad,

we were so divided?

I would say the isolationism
versus the interventionism

-of the late 1930s, early 1940s.
-The war?

There was more ferocity,
more vitriol over what to do

about Hitler
than even about Vietnam.

And it was solved for us
by external forces,

by Japan and by Germany's
unilateral declaration.

So it's not as though
we woke up one morning

and said, "Yeah,
I think we are gonna

defeat tyranny
and project liberty."

-♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪
-(PLANE ENGINES HUMMING)

RADIO BROADCASTER 1:
We interrupt this broadcast
to bring you

this important bulletin
from the United Press.

Flash, Washington.
The White House announces

Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor.

(RUMBLING)

RADIO BROADCASTER 2: The attack
on the Hawaiian Islands

has caused severe damage

to American naval
and military forces.

What changed everything
was Pearl Harbor.

Bombs had been dropped,
Americans had died,

war had been brought to us
by the Japanese.

ROOSEVELT: The number
of our officers and men killed

in the attack
on Pearl Harbor was 2,340.

Since the unprovoked
and dastardly attack,

a state of war has existed

between the United States
and the Japanese Empire.

(CHEERING)

MEACHAM:
In the wake of Pearl Harbor,

there were anxieties,

particularly along
the West Coast,

that Japanese Americans
might serve as agents

of the Japanese
imperial government,

an enemy force.

RADIO BROADCASTER 3: Word has
just come that some 91 Japanese

have been taken into custody
in Northern California

by the FBI.

In Fresno, California,
two Japanese were arrested,

their automobile seized
by police.

DONALD TAMAKI: Within a day,
the Secret Service, the FBI

sweeps into cities
and urban areas

from Seattle to Arizona,

arresting community leaders,
martial arts instructors,

Japanese school language
teachers, Buddhist priests.

MILTON EISENHOWER:
Our West Coast became

a potential combat zone.

Living in that zone were
more than 100,000 persons

of Japanese ancestry,

two thirds of them
American citizens,

one third aliens.

GEORGE TAKEI:
My parents met in Los Angeles

and they married there.

I turned five years old
on April 20th, 1942.

I'm the oldest, and my brother
was next, a year younger,

and my baby sister, Nancy.

Here we were
in the United States,

and the country was at war
with our ancestral land,

and so there was great concern
about what might happen to us.

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

MEACHAM: The Attorney General
of California, Earl Warren,

and others argued
that people of foreign descent

were dangerous, were potentially
enemies of the country.

EISENHOWER:
No one knew what would happen

among this
concentrated population

if Japanese forces
should invade our shores.

TAMAKI: By February 1942,

President Roosevelt signs
Executive Order 9066,

and this empowered
the military to take control

of the eight
most western states.

(TALKING INDISTINCTLY)

TAMAKI: General DeWitt
is placed in command

of that whole western region.

General DeWitt, uh, said
that Japanese Americans

are an enemy race.

MAN 1: He said very
emphatically, "A Jap's a Jap.

And a scrap of paper
attesting to his citizenship

doesn't alter that fact."

TAMAKI: He began issuing
public proclamations

singling out
Japanese Americans.

TAKEI: A curfew came down.

Japanese Americans had
to be home by eight o'clock

and stay home
until 6 a.m. in the morning.

The government froze
our bank account.

Rents couldn't be paid.

My father's dry cleaning
business fell apart.

Everything was lost.
Everything.

And then the soldiers came.

One morning, my parents
got me up very early,

together with my brother
and my baby sister,

and dressed us, uh, hurriedly.

And suddenly,
we saw two soldiers

marching up our driveway,

carrying rifles
with shiny bayonets.

And they stomped
onto the front porch

and with their fists,

-began pounding on the door.
-(KNOCKING ON DOOR ECHOES)

Uh, that sound
still resonates in my mind.

My father came out,
answered the door,

and we were ordered
out of our home.

We stood on the driveway

waiting for our mother
to come out.

And when she came out,

she had our baby sister
in one arm,

a huge, heavy-looking
duffel bag in the other,

and tears were streaming
down her cheeks.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

TAKEI: We were taken by truck

to, uh, the, uh,
Buddhist temple

in downtown Los Angeles
in Little Tokyo.

And that's where
we were all assembled.

WOMAN 2:
The heads of the families

were ordered to report,

and we were given
our family number and tag.

TAKEI: And a row of buses
took us to Santa Anita,

where we were unloaded

and herded over
to the stable areas,

and each family was assigned
a horse stall to sleep in...

still pungent with the stink
of horse manure.

We were there
about three or four months...

(TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS)

TAKEI: ...and then
we were loaded onto trains

with armed soldiers
at both ends of each car.

(TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS)

We were transported two thirds
of the way across the country

to the swamps of Arkansas.

There were ten camps
altogether.

Rohwer, Arkansas,
was the farthest east.

The camps were not camps,
they were prisons.

They lived in dusty barracks.

There were cracks in the walls,

so they had to
stuff newspaper in

to stop the wind
from blowing in.

They had common latrines
without doors.

The food was terrible,
inadequate medical care.

(BELL CHIMES)

TAKEI: I did go to school,

and I remember
we began every school day

with the Pledge of Allegiance
to the Flag.

I could see the barbed wire
fence and the sentry tower

right outside
my schoolhouse window

as I recited the words,

"With liberty
and justice for all."

TAMAKI: By the end of 1942,

you had almost
120,000 Americans,

people like my mother
and my father

who were born in California,
who are citizens by birth,

who had lost their property,
they lost their freedom,

some had even lost their lives

without any trial,
without any charges,

and for no offense.

We were incarcerated
for the duration of the war,

four years.

When we were freed,
we had nothing.

For my parents,

everything that they had worked
for was taken away.

(WHISTLE BLOWS)

ROOSEVELT: We know now
that if we lose this war,

it will be generations
or even centuries

before our conception
of democracy can live again.

MEACHAM: It's one
of our most shameful episodes.

And a reminder
that even in the midst

of a global campaign
to defend liberty,

someone as otherwise remarkable
as Franklin Roosevelt

was able to make
a decision that violated

fundamental principles of both
human and American rights.

The internment's
a cautionary tale.

When we give in
to the worst in us,

we exclude, we oppress,
we marginalize.

Are we gonna look back
at the child separation

on the southern border
in the same way we look back

on slavery and segregation and
Japanese American internment?

I'd bet yes.

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

(PHONE KEYS CLICKING)

(NOTIFICATION WHISTLES)

♪ (GENTLE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

(PHONE KEYS CLICKING)

MEACHAM: Hey, how are you?

WOMAN 3:
I didn't wanna disturb you.

-You're just like...
-MEACHAM: Good to see you.

WOMAN 3: ...all the youngsters
you see in the street.

MEACHAM: (LAUGHS)
I know, I know, I know.

I'm trying to earn my living
while on the road.

-Everything's well here?
-WOMAN 3: Oh, it's great.

It just gets
better and better here.

MEACHAM: Excellent.

WOMAN 3: The other day
when you were on MSNBC,

you were talking
about Trump being so emotional

and the Democrats
sort of trying to talk reason.

-Right.
-WOMAN 3: It was such a simple--

-Reason versus passion.
-WOMAN 3: Yeah,

such a simple statement
that you don't hear that.

-I specialize in those. (LAUGHS)
-WOMAN 3: You don't hear those.

I try to be
as simpleminded as possible.

-WOMAN 3: It was so wonderful.
-Well, thank you.

MEACHAM: As Madison said,

"Ambition must be made
to counteract ambition."

And reason was our best bet.

That insight forms the core
of what made this country

and what makes this country,
when we get it right,

truly great.

-(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
-(SIREN WAILING IN DISTANCE)

MEACHAM: Shh. I like this, shh.

Hey, how are y'all?

-KEITH GREENBERG:
Hey, how are you?
-Jon Meacham, how are you?

-Hey, I'm Keith.
-MEACHAM:
Keith, glad to see you.

Do we need a mic,
or are we okay?

We're gonna mic you up.

So, just be careful
when you get up.

-I have this microphone up top.
-(EQUIPMENT BEEPING)

(SOFTLY) Okay.

MEACHAM:
We're at a moment in our history

where we react to things
because of where we stand,

not because of what they are.

And the issue becomes
that the partisan reactions,

the passionate reactions
to incoming data

are so strong,
they're tsunami-like,

that it's almost impossible
for people to sort out

in a reasonable way,
in a data-driven way,

what to make
of a given report.

One of the most significant
shifts we've lived through

is the move from a literate,
reading print culture,

which was the world
of Jefferson and Lincoln,

to radio,
which was FDR and Churchill,

to television,
which was Kennedy and Reagan,

and now digital and cable,
which is Trump.

It is increasing the likelihood

that people will not engage
with texts,

they will simply engage
emotionally.

And that creates
a political marketplace

that is ever farther from reason
and ever closer to passion,

which is exactly what
the Founders were worried about.

We can learn a lot
by studying the McCarthy era.

I think the fall of McCarthy

is an incredibly important
case study

in how reason can ultimately
triumph over passion.

Socialism has spread the shadow
of human regimentation

over most of the nations
of the earth,

and the shadow is encroaching
upon our own liberty.

MEACHAM: In many ways,
the conservative movement

that has a connection
with conspiracy theories

begins in the aftermath
of the second World War.

(THUNDER RUMBLES)

NARRATOR 1: The Communist
fifth columnists among us

are working
for world dictatorship.

MEACHAM: There was
anxiety about the way,

uh, FDR had handled Yalta.

Eisenhower was seen
as a dedicated agent

of the Communist conspiracy.

George Marshall,
the army chief of staff

during World War II,
was seen as a Communist agent.

NARRATOR 1: Thousands of good,
loyal Americans have been duped

into actually aiding
the Communists.

MEACHAM: There was this ferment
which plays in, yet again,

to this recurring theme
that there is some force,

foreigners, powerful people,
rich people,

who are trying
to undo the America

that is most familiar
and most beloved

to those who are listening
to the conspiracy theories.

NARRATOR 2: Joseph R. McCarthy,

the junior senator
from Wisconsin.

He was obscure in the halls

where senators advise
and consent

until February the 9th, 1950.

Even if there were
only one Communist

in the State Department,
that would still be

one Communist too many.

MEACHAM:
Joe McCarthy gives a speech

saying he has the names

of 205 Communists
in the Department of State.

NARRATOR 2:
That discovery propelled him
into the headlines.

JOSEPH MCCARTHY: There is no
remote possibility of this war

which we're in today
ending except by victory

or by death
for this civilization.

MEACHAM: He then starts
this campaign executed

in the Senate
through different committees,

but mainly in the newspapers.

McCarthy understood
that headlines

spoke louder than details.

He would have loved Twitter.

He is the master of making
the sensational charge,

often with
very little basis to it,

and the press amplifies it.

TV HOST: And here is our guest,
Senator Joseph R. McCarthy.

If you had to do this
all over again,

would you have changed
any of your tactics?

I'm not, uh, equipped to use

lace-handkerchief type
of tactics.

Uh, we may have to use
lumberjack tactics,

bare-knuckle tactics.
If those are the only kind

of tactics
the Communists understand,

then those are
the tactics we'll use.

MEACHAM: There's
an enormous number of lives

that were wrecked
because of these charges.

PHILIP JESSUP:
Senator McCarthy's
charges and insinuations

are not only false,
but utterly irresponsible

and, under the circumstances,
reveal a shocking disregard

for the interests
of our country.

MEACHAM: McCarthy,
his own lawyer Roy Cohn said,

was an opportunist.

He wasn't really interested
in the end

of fighting Communism.

He was interested in the means
of fighting Communism,

because the means
made him more popular,

made him more powerful.

(CROWD CHEERING)

MEACHAM:
McCarthy's political base

was a source of fear,

particularly for other
Republican senators.

McCarthy gave the impression

that he was leading
this vast army.

His other fellow senators
weren't sure

how big that army was,
but if it was big,

they sure as hell
didn't wanna run afoul of it.

NARRATOR 3: Acclaimed
as an anti-Communist hero

and denounced
as a threat to civil liberties

for his conduct
of Senate investigations,

Joseph R. McCarthy became
the most controversial

political figure of the period.

MEACHAM: There was
a huge amount of debate

during the McCarthy era

about whether
a journalistic institution

should simply report
what was said

without assessing its validity.

It's the same kind of debate
that goes on today.

Just because someone in power
says something crazy,

do you have to report
what that is?

If you report it,
do you say it's crazy?

Or does that somehow violate
the neutrality of the news?

So, in the midst
of the McCarthy scare,

Palmer Hoyt, who was
the editor and publisher

of the Denver Post,
issued a statement saying,

"We are no longer simply
going to report

what Joe McCarthy says,
unless we can confirm it."

Hoyt's view was
widely discussed,

huge debates in newsrooms
about what to do.

Tonight's See It Now devotes
its entire half hour

to a report
on Senator Joseph R. McCarthy,

told mainly in his own words
and pictures.

Did the Civil Liberties Union
supply you with an attorney?

They did supply an attorney.

MEACHAM: Edward R. Murrow's
program would say,

"The senator has said this,
but he has no evidence."

Do you know the Civil Liberties
Union has been listed

as a front for and doing
the work of the Communist Party?

The Attorney General's list
does not and has never listed

the ACLU as subversive,

nor does the FBI or any other
federal government agency.

MEACHAM:
I think when Palmer Hoyt,

when Edward R. Murrow said,

"This is what we think
the truth is,"

they were living up
to the best tradition

of those better angels.

The line between investigating
and persecuting

is a very fine one.

And the junior senator
from Wisconsin

has stepped over it repeatedly.

This is no time
for men who oppose

Senator McCarthy's message
to keep silent,

or for those who approve.

We can deny our heritage
and our history,

but we cannot escape
responsibility for the result.

MEACHAM:
If you're a journalist today

trying to figure out what to do
about a demagogic figure

who makes
outlandish statements...

studying the McCarthy era
is instructive.

BROADCASTER: In Washington,
a Senate committee recommends

censure for Joseph McCarthy.

MEACHAM: It took
a long time, four years.

But ultimately,
McCarthy is censured.

BROADCASTER: McCarthy becomes
the fourth senator in history

to be disciplined.

MEACHAM: McCarthy rose
on screaming headlines:

"Reds under the bed."

He fell when some reporters,
including Edward R. Murrow,

began assessing
the validity of those claims.

Purists versus pragmatists.

In politics, we tend to want

candidates to be principled,

coherent, uh, absolutely devoted
to a certain platform,

and they're gonna do
everything they can

to enact that platform, right?

The issue is, if you're
in a position of power,

if you are totally devoted
to that purist principle,

you have less of a chance
of getting through the day

and getting something done.

I would argue some
of the greatest moments

in American political life
have resulted

when people in power
have changed their minds.

Hmm.

Abraham Lincoln on emancipation.

Ronald Reagan
on the Soviet Union.

Richard Nixon on China.

The country was built by people

who were willing to learn
from their mistakes.

We looked the facts
in the face,

and we thought, "You know what?

What we thought was true
and good yesterday

is not true and good today."

Thank you, all.

That's not a partisan point.

It's about the capacity to say,

"I want to live in a country
that looks and feels like this."

♪ (UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

Get outta here.

Ooh, wait, look.

Hmm, Fanta Zero,
that sounds glamorous.

Unavailable?

(BEEPING)

Ooh, cherry.

It's Friday,
we're going for cherry.

(MACHINE WHIRS)

CHOIR: (SINGING)
♪ We are praying, praying ♪

-♪ We are praying, praying ♪
-♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ We are praying
In the light of ♪

♪ The light of God ♪

♪ We are praying, praying ♪

-♪ We are praying, praying ♪
-♪ Ooh ooh ♪

♪ We are praying
In the light of God ♪

MEACHAM: So we have a formidable
group of people here.

You got a lot of members
of Congress here,

you've got
a lot of engaged souls

in the fight of
this moment going forward.

What's your best advice,
given what you've seen

and what you've done
and what you've fought for

and what you've hoped for?

What's your best advice
for folks in the arena today?

I think a part of the direction
is to go the way

of the Rosa Parks,
Martin Luther King movement.

Because love is powerful.

Love is not an empty,
uh, quiet force.

It's a force that we have not
yet begun to really explore.

And so,

that nonviolent movement
was rooted in that.

So I think that that's one of
the things that I would push,

so that we can be pushed
hard to recognize

that we are people on a journey,

and that that journey
does demand

a certain kind of behavior.

Anything doesn't go.

(APPLAUSE)

MEACHAM: The hundred years
from the end of the Civil War

through
the civil rights movement

is a vivid case study
in the struggle

between our worst instincts
and our better angels.

In the civil rights legislation
of '64 and '65,

our better angels won...

in a ferocious struggle
with our worst instincts.

And if we want a model
for how to move ahead,

looking at those years
is instructive.

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

During the '60s, we felt
the stain of segregation

and racial discrimination.

And when you see something
that is not right,

not fair, not just,
you have to do something.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.:
We cannot continue to accept

these conditions of oppression,

for this is not a struggle
for ourselves alone,

it is a struggle
to save the soul of America.

JANICE WESLEY KELSEY: When I
participated in the movement,

I was 15.

It would not
have been successful

had it not been
for ordinary little nobodies

doing their part
to make it happen.

MEACHAM: By 1963,
the full panoply of segregation

was under attack.

It begins to culminate
on the streets of Alabama.

REPORTER 1:
The campaign was directed

against racial discrimination
in Birmingham,

the most totally segregated
big city in the south.

I had a made-up mind
that I could handle

whatever was coming,
and be nonviolent.

(SIRENS WAILING)

MEACHAM: In May,
thousands of children marched

against segregation
in Birmingham.

MAN 2: The city is determined
to maintain order.

MEACHAM:
They're attacked by fire hoses,

-by police dogs.
-(DOGS BARKING)

KELSEY: To see
children treated like this,

the whole nation
rose up in arms.

REPORTER 2:
The events in Birmingham

have sent a chill
through most Americans.

MEACHAM: What the movement did
is dramatize

the stakes
between good and evil.

GEORGE C. WALLACE:
I will be present to bar

the entrance of any Negro

who attempts to enroll
at the University of Alabama.

MEACHAM: All of these incidents
have a slow, cascading effect

on the opinion of the country.

-KING: I have a dream today.
-(CHEERING)

MEACHAM:
And honestly, the opinion
of President Kennedy.

JOHN LEWIS: I remember
President Kennedy saying to us

on one occasion,
"We now understand."

JOHN F. KENNEDY: This nation
was founded on the principle

that all men are created equal,

and that the rights
of every man are diminished

when the rights
of one man are threatened.

Now the time has come
for this nation

to fulfill its promise.

MEACHAM:
Kennedy and Johnson propose

a far-reaching
Civil Rights Act.

It was not going
particularly well.

REPORTER 1:
It appears as though

something has happened
in the motorcade route.

MEACHAM: Kennedy is shot
to death in Dealey Plaza.

REPORTER 2: It's official now,
the president is dead.

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

OFFICIANT:
I do solemnly swear...

LYNDON B. JOHNSON:
I do solemnly swear...

MEACHAM: Johnson takes the oath
of office on Air Force One,

becomes president.

We have suffered a loss
that cannot be weighed.

I ask for your help...

and God's.

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

MEACHAM: That night,
Johnson is lying in bed,

and he's listing off things
he wants to do:

foreign leaders
that need to be called,

funeral arrangements.

But in the midst of this,
he says he wants to pass

the administration's
civil rights bill

without changing a comma.

And it was kind
of a remarkable moment

because Johnson had
a presidential race coming up.

No more political man
ever drew breath

than Lyndon Baines Johnson.

Johnson had been a senator
from Texas, a segregated state.

A lot of debate about
to what extent he watered down

civil rights legislation
in the '50s, but he did.

He was in no way
a leading progressive.

And so, you wouldn't have bet
that Lyndon Johnson

was gonna try to finish
the work of Lincoln.

Everything about that moment
would have led him politically

to have made
all kinds of promises,

all kinds of rhetorical nods

to the
civil rights legislation,

but not to pursue it.

There was something
in Johnson's soul

that led him to believe

that this was
the moment to strike.

JOHNSON:

KING:

JOHNSON:

LEWIS: Lyndon Johnson was
a strong, strong leader.

He made a commitment
to those of us

in the civil rights movement,

that he would pick up where
President Kennedy left off.

And he did.

MEACHAM: Lyndon Johnson risked
just about everything

for civil rights.

As he later put it,

"What the hell is
the presidency for

if not to do the big things
that other men might not?"

(CROWD CHEERING AND APPLAUDING)

Ladies and gentlemen,
we're going to pass

the civil rights bill
because it's morally right.

MEACHAM: What Johnson
then did from '63 to '64

is he created
a remarkable coalition

of Republicans and Democrats

to pass a law
that would finally undo

what had been
the racist reaction

to the verdict
of the Civil War.

JOHNSON:
I promise you here and now

that we are going to pass
a civil rights bill.

MEACHAM: Lyndon Johnson was one
of the great persuaders

in American politics.

The "Johnson treatment,"
it was called.

JOHNSON: We will pass
the strongest civil rights bill

-in American history.
-(APPLAUSE)

MEACHAM:
The trade-offs, the deals cut

to get
to a legislative solution

is the work of politics.

NARRATOR 4: July 2nd, 1964,
President Lyndon B. Johnson

signed the civil rights bill
into law.

JOHNSON:
I urge every American

to join in this effort

to bring justice
and hope to all our people

and to bring peace to our land.

MEACHAM: The Civil Rights Act
and the Voting Rights Act,

taken together in '64 and '65,

represent what concentrated
acts of citizenship can do

when they intersect
with the attention

and the skill
of those in power.

Lyndon Johnson heeded
the work of Martin Luther King,

the work of Rosa Parks,
the work of John Lewis,

the work of innumerable people
whose names we will never know,

who stood up in the streets
and courthouses and schools

of the American South

and undid, as best he could,
American apartheid.

And if America wants
to do some big things

about education, about climate,
about economic inequality,

you can do a lot worse
than to look at 1964 and '65

and see how
even in a complicated,

ultimately fallen universe,
you can make progress.

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

MEACHAM:
8:05, so what time is it?

♪ (MUSIC FADES) ♪

Oh, we got seven minutes,
this is perfect.

It's actually really useful
in speeches.

It's my godfather's.
Herbert Stephenson Wentz. HSW.

All right. (SIGHS)

All right, let's go dazzle 'em.
Let's go save America.

It may take
a little more than this.

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

REPORTER 1: There is seemingly
no US institution,

big or small,
that is off-limits for Trump.

REPORTER 2: The president
of the United States
is lying to us.

REPORTER 3:
They referred to journalists
as the enemy of the people.

MEACHAM: I do think
there are certain norms,

there are certain conventions,

and those are under fundamental
assault at the moment.

REPORTER 4: The president's
attacks on the FBI...

REPORTER 5: The president
charging the department

as part of
a so-called "deep state."

MEACHAM: So we can't count
on the American president

to play the role that many of us
had become accustomed

to that president playing.

So I wanna talk
about three characteristics

that in my mind are
great leadership characteristics

but are as important
for citizens.

One is curiosity.

We have to listen
to each other more.

Ninety-nine times
out of a hundred,

if you're on that side
of the aisle

and I'm on this side
of the aisle,

I'm gonna disagree with you.

But here's the difference.

If you get up
and I listen and I think,

"Huh, maybe you have a point,"

I would submit
that America at her best

happens when you say,
"Huh, maybe you have a point."

The second is humility.

Humility in the sense
of being able to acknowledge

a mistake and learn from it.

Most of us wouldn't be here
if John Kennedy

had not been able to admit
that he'd screwed up

the Bay of Pigs
in April of 1961.

KENNEDY: There are
from this sobering episode

useful lessons
for us all to learn.

MEACHAM:
After the disaster in Cuba,

Kennedy reaches out
to the one person on Earth

before whom
he least wished to appear

to be in need of tutelage,
and that was Eisenhower.

Eisenhower walked him through
what had happened,

he realized that Kennedy
had never held a meeting

with all the stakeholders,

so he couldn't weigh
their arguments.

He said, "You have to do that."

Cut to October 1962.

KENNEDY: A series
of offensive missile sites

is now in preparation
on the island of Cuba.

The purpose of these bases
can be none other

than to provide
a nuclear strike capability

against the western hemisphere.

MEACHAM: Kennedy remembered
what Eisenhower had told him,

and he held what became

the world's longest
committee meeting.

It lasted 13 days.

We came through that crisis,

not least because Jack Kennedy
had the power to admit

he had screwed up
and needed to learn.

And if we can't find a way

to admit
that we changed our mind,

we're not gonna make progress.

The third characteristic
is empathy.

We have to be able
to see the world

through other people's eyes.

-(CROWD WHISTLING AND CHEERING)
-MEACHAM: Cut to November 1989.

Good evening.
Live from the Berlin Wall

on the most historic night
in this wall's history.

MEACHAM: The most vivid symbol
of the deadliest standoff

in human history,
the Berlin Wall, falls.

GEORGE MITCHELL: To acknowledge
the tremendous significance

of the symbolic destruction
of the Berlin Wall,

I urge President Bush
to travel to West Berlin.

MEACHAM: Democrats,
everybody's pounding on Bush

to go to Berlin
and declare a great victory.

It clearly is
a good development

in terms of human rights.

MEACHAM: Bush won't go.

Lesley Stahl
is pounding on him.

LESLEY STAHL:
You don't seem elated,

and I'm wondering
if you're thinking--

I'm elated. I'm just not
an emotional kinda guy.

MEACHAM: He was thinking
about Mikhail Gorbachev,

who had a hardcore right wing

that did not wanna see
Soviet greatness go away,

and if you doubt me,
I refer you

to a young KGB officer
named Vladimir Putin,

who was part
of that right wing.

Bush knew that if he showed up,

it was gonna make
Gorbachev's life harder.

And so, he took the hit.

REPORTER: His low-key reaction
of yesterday was another case

of what critics have called
timid leadership.

MEACHAM: Christmas Day, 1991,
the Soviet Union disappears

without a shot being fired.

He was empathetic enough
to know

that our national interest
was being served

by his seeing the world
through Gorbachev's eyes.

(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING)

We have to create a climate
that gives enough permission

for people who are in office

to actually make
that compromise or two.

I mean, that's on us.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

♪ (SOMBER MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

Jon has a desire
to see what is good in America

and to let people know it,

while being realistic about
what's not so good in America.

Absolutely spectacular.

-MEACHAM: Thank you.
-It was special.

-I expected
nothing less from you.
-MEACHAM: Oh, thank you.

But it was a special evening.

-MEACHAM: Thank you, sir.
-Thank you.

But he has, above all things,
a sense of redemption.

That even if we're stuck
in a dark place,

there is a way out,
and that history shows

we've done this again
and again and again.

KEITH MEACHAM: I think
there's a real pride in America

and a belief in America.

Like, I think Jon
really, really believes

that the American experiment
is flawed but ultimately

better than anything else
we've seen anywhere else.

It gives him a sense of duty
to go out and...

and preach
what it is he believes in.

MEACHAM:
The work of citizenship

at this particular moment,

if you believe
that we need a change

in the presidency
of the United States,

the work becomes convincing
the right number of people

in the right number of states
that you're right,

and they need
to agree with you.

And so, the work
of citizenship now is, in fact,

the work of democracy
in its purest sense.

I think our role as citizens is
to become civically engaged.

(INDISTINCT CHATTER)

TAMAKI: If the Japanese
Americans have anything to say

to the public about this,

is don't take
your liberties for granted.

They can be taken away from you.

PRO-TRUMP PROTESTOR:
We are going to build a wall!

MEACHAM: What's at stake

in this political
and cultural moment

is the nature
of the democratic republic.

ANTIFA PROTESTORS:
Nazis out! Immigrants in!

MEACHAM:
Our reality is farther away

from the American ideal today

than it was
three or four years ago.

BRIT HUME: People think
the other side is evil

and must be stopped.

TAKEI: The internment
that we went through

is history now, 75 years old,

but I feel like
it is current news.

REPORTER: These facilities
have now been repurposed

as detention centers
for families.

TAKEI: What's happening
on our southern borders

is the same kind
of irrationality.

PROTESTORS: (CHANTING)
Lock her up! Lock her up!

Lock her up! Lock her up!

MITCH MCCONNELL:
She was warned.

She was given an explanation.

Nevertheless, she persisted.

TETRAULT: One of the things
that the women's movement

fought for
in that early incarnation

was the idea that women
should just be able to

stand up and speak of politics.

We cannot, we will not,
be silenced.

And that's something
we're still fighting for today.

KELSEY:
What I see going on today

is so reminiscent
of what I saw in the '60s.

There's so many forces today

that are preaching
hate and division.

We need leadership now
to lift us, to inspire us...

to be guided by better angels.

(APPLAUSE)

MEACHAM:
We've always grown stronger

the more widely
we've opened our arms,

the more generously
we've interpreted

what Thomas Jefferson meant
when he said

that all men were created equal.

If we don't make that case,
if we don't tell that story,

then we're gonna be perpetually
in two armed camps

staring at each other,

and neither side wants to blink.

♪ (TENSE MUSIC PLAYING) ♪

The question at this moment is:

"Will we continue to pursue
a more perfect union,

or will we settle into

a constant state
of tribal warfare

in a ferocious struggle
with our worst instincts?"

How do we get to 51 percent?

How do we do the right thing
just enough of the time?

Dark forces are perennial.

(ELEVATOR BEEPS)

The good news

is that the forces of light
can also be perennial.

And let's just see how
we can get that side to win

a little bit more often.

♪ (MUSIC CONCLUDES) ♪

♪ (DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYING) ♪