Morning Joe - CBS nixed Talarico interview over FCC concerns, Colbert claims

Episode Date: February 18, 2026

CBS nixed Talarico interview over FCC concerns, Colbert claims To listen to this show and other MS podcasts without ads, sign up for MS NOW Premium on Apple Podcasts. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Now, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't want to tell them how to do their jobs. But since they seem intent on telling me how to do mine, here we go. I am well aware that we can book other guests. I didn't need to be presented with that option. I don't know what this is about. For the record, I'm not even mad. I really don't want an adversary relationship with the network. I've never had one.

I'm just so surprised that this giant global corporation would not stand up to these bullies. Come on. You're paramount. No. No. No. No. You're more than that. You're Paramount Plus. Yes, and that. Stephen Colbert addressing a big story at the intersection of politics and media. We're going to go through the latest back and forth between the late night host and CBS over an interview with a Democratic Senate candidate in Texas that, that he says the network blocked. We'll also recap a busy day of diplomacy overseas for the Trump administration as Special Envoy Steve Whitkoff

and the president's son-in-law. Jared Kushner holds indirect talks with Iran, then later joining negotiations already in progress involving Russia and Ukraine. Plus, we'll go through a new reporting on the strange relationship between Homeland Security Secretary Christy Gnome and... and the Coast Guard.

Good morning and welcome to Morning, Joe. It is Wednesday, February 18th. It's great to have you all with us, along with Joe, Willie, and me. We have columnist and associate editor at the Washington Post. David Ignatius is with us. We are glad to see you, David.

CEO and co-founder of Axis Jim Van dehihi is here. And presidential historian and Pulitzer Prize-winning author, John Meacham. His new book out just this week is titled, American struggle, democracy, dissent, and the pursuit of a more perfect union and anthology. And Joe, what a lineup we have this morning. Where do we begin? I'm sorry, I fell asleep while you were reading the subtitle of Meeton.

What? I like it. That was, it was a long sub-tile. I like it. You praise Ignatius. You go crazy because he's here, and then just immediately open fire. Well, he's playing hurt, Meechum, so this is cool. But I love your book.

I love it. The subtitle is longer than the book, but I don't think that's relevant to. I think I'll be able to get through the subtitle and second or third reading. Willie, I wanted to go to you first and then have John give us a historical perspective in a way that I'm sure everyone will find exhilarating. I love Nashville anymore. But, you know, the news moves so quickly that even when great figures die, usually, you know, it'll be online for, you know, half a day and then move on.

This morning we awaken to more stories across all the sites. And on the front page of the New York Times of Jesse Jackson and, and, and, uh, and, uh, Jesse's passing. And it's just a remarkable life that he lived. And I saw even more than one conservative on social media yesterday saying, you know what, I didn't like his politics. He also could be abrasive at times and rub us the wrong way. But man, what an incredible leader.

and even these hardcore conservatives, right-wing extremists some, who I've agreed with very little over the past several years, said, go back and look at the 1984 speech. It's one of the greatest speeches in modern times. And I went back and I'd seen a few clips earlier in the day, but went back and saw the entire thing. Really, really was just an extraordinary, extraordinary piece of history. Yeah, and an electric candidacy that jolted the race on the Democratic side that year anyway.

But it was the last, we had Rev in here yesterday morning, just as the news had broken and to hear him begin to describe what Jesse Jackson meant to people like him and to activists in this country. And I think it's true, John Meacham, that, We don't have a lot of people anymore who reach all the way back to the 1960s and the era of civil rights, which is a man in Jesse Jackson who was on the balcony at the Lorraine Motel on April 4, 1968. And when Martin Luther King is assassinated, there's this scramble of who carries the mantle, who's next. And Jesse Jackson, as Rev told us and others, inserted himself very quickly there,

but also really was a galvanizing force and talked about the working. class and the poor people's campaign and the rainbow push coalition. And frankly, a lot of the issues that Democrats should and have been encouraged to get back to right now in this country was be for the working people in this country. Absolutely. And I think we've also forgotten. And Joe, you'd remember, Reverend Jackson was culturally ubiquitous. Yeah. If there was a foreign crisis, he was there, right? He was, and I think drove incumbent presidents a little to distract. at times. But you could tell, he's a complicated man,

but he kept a set of issues emerging from the freedom movement of the 50s and 60s, front and center in the 70s, 80s, and into the 90s. And Willie rightly says, there he is almost an apostle at the, Calvary, if you will, of the Lorraine Motel. And then he's in Grant Park when President Obama becomes President-elect. And there's that marvelous picture of him weeping that night. And, you know, there's movements are called that for a reason.

They aren't quick. It's slow. It's hopefully there's always forward movement. But he's a hugely important figure between King. You know, he and John Lewis and Andrew Young are really the enormous figures who kept, sorry to say this, kept hope alive. Right, right. And David Ignatius, we look at the age that we're in, the era we're in,

where politics really has become such a blood sport. and I just want to briefly read to you something from Richard Ben Kramer's extraordinary work on the 1988 campaign, what it takes, probably one of the best histories of a campaign I've ever read before as far as character study. And this is the night that Jesse Jackson stormed ahead of Dick Gephart in the Democratic primary. It was supposed to be Dick Gephart's year, and it wasn't. Then a noise, Gephart stopped. The door opened. It was filled with Jesse Jackson.

Jesse was huge that night. He was blowing Duke away in Michigan, a late surge from the central cities. A flood tide. It wasn't even close. Jesse, Dick came across the room, St. Louis polite. He held his hand out in front of him, but Jackson spread his arms. And he gathered Dick in a bear hug that disappeared him. All they could see was the reddish top of Gep Hart's head.

Jesse Jackson knew loss. He knew what was going on in that room. And there was in his embrace, not just his triumph of the night, but the understanding of Dick's effort, the years, the hope, the exhaustion, the loss. Jackson would not let go. Gephart's head wiggled briefly. Then it settled against Jackson's suit. Jesse would not let go. And just for a short while, half a minute, perhaps, the only time that night, on the breast of the only man in that room who could really understand, Dick Gephardt wept. It's an extraordinary moment when one presidential campaign is on the rise and another is collapsing and shows Jesse Jackson's humanity there going in to comfort a political warrior who he was fighting against but then immediately became friends with. It's a beautiful passage, and it brings back the feeling I had watching him in those years that he was a person who was larger than life.

So often these days, politicians seem less than what they are. Jesse Jackson sometimes was uncomfortably big and dominating the person people would cry on the shoulder of. And I think he is the bridge from the civil rights. movement and all the energy towards mainstreaming those ideas, making them central to the Democratic Party and to American political life, this idea that social justice and change was going to be part of our country's story. Jesse Jackson sometimes pushed to go into areas that I think were beyond his expertise, especially overseas. He became a kind of freelance mediator. but the central aspect of his personality,

this incredible human dynamism, charisma that comes through in the passage you read, I think that's what we're remembering today, and we'll remember for a long time about it. All right, and we are going to be talking a lot more about Mietam's book, American Struggle, Throughout the show. But now we'll get to our top story of the morning, Stephen Colbert, addressing a big story. at the intersection of politics and media as the late-night host, Colbert, and his employer, CBS, Duke it out.

He says the network blocked his interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Telerico from airing on TV. He also accuses CBS parent company Paramount of not standing up to quote, bullies over new FCC guidance on equal time for political candidates. But CBS says Colbert is not telling the whole story. MS Now reporter Nick McCool shares more on The Late Show Controversy. There's another big story today that I never got to over in my monologue, and it's me. Stephen Colbert addressing the firestorm over an interview with Texas Democratic Senate candidate James Talarico, which was slated to air Monday night, but did not appear on the broadcast. He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers who called us,

correctly, that we could not have him on the broadcast. That decision, Colbert said, came after FCC chairman Brendan Carr posted guidance from the commission last month, saying late-night shows may not qualify for an exemption to the rule that political candidates for office must be given equal time on the air. He had not gotten rid of it yet, but CBS generously did it for him and told me, no, told me unilaterally that I had to abide by the equal time rules. something I have never been asked to do for an interview in the 21 years of this job. In a statement Tuesday, CBS said the late show was not prohibited by CBS from broadcasting the interview.

St. Colbert was presented with options to provide equal time. On Tuesday night, Colbert said his original monologue recounting the dispute was approved by CBS lawyers. I am well aware that we can book other guests. I didn't need to be presented with that option. The exemption in question is for bona fide news interviews. In 2006, the FCC ruled that an interview on Jay Leno's Tonight Show with then California incumbent gubernatorial candidate Arnold Schwarzenegger qualified as such an interview. But Carr says that exemption doesn't necessarily apply to all late night talk shows, especially those motivated bipartisan purposes. If Kim or Colbert want to continue to do their programming and they don't want to have to comply with this requirement or other public interest obligations like, like prohibitions on broadcast hoax or news distortion, then they can go to a cable channel or a podcast or a streaming servers, and that's fine. The lone Democratic commissioner on the FCC, Anna Gomez,

ripped the network for stopping the interview, writing CBS is fully protected under the First Amendment to determine what interviews it airs, which makes its decision to yield to political pressure all the more disappointing. Guardian U.S. media and power reporter Jeremy Barr. Really what this is about is Brendan Carr, you know, who is one of Donald Trump's, of main enforcers of, you know, putting pressure on media companies that tend to be critical of him, basically trying to use the rulebook in a way that can sort of curb some of these shows and these networks that are critical of him.

Tala Rico's late show appearance posted on YouTube has garnered millions of views. I think that Donald Trump is worried that we're about to flip Texas. Tala RICO addressing the controversy on MS Now Tuesday night. The most powerful people in the country, the most powerful politician, and the most powerful corporate executives are working together to sell out the First Amendment. We reached down to the FCC for Common and have not heard back. And we should note just yesterday, Warner Brothers Discovery said it would reopen talks with CBS's parent company, Paramount Skydance, about a potential merger. Any final deal would need approval from the federal government. Back to you.

Nick McCool reporting there. So Jim Van, a lot to say here. First of all, that this is a gift, a political gift. to James Tala Rico, who made hay of it at a rally last night and says, this administration does not want me taking the Senate seat. They're worried about me. That's one part of it. And also just this selective enforcement by the FCC going after Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, who it is no coincidence, are both critical of President Trump each and every night. What do you make of this situation and really the invocation of a FCC guideline that

hasn't been used in a very, very long time, as Nick says. Well, in that package, Nick says that we should note that Paramount is in negotiations or wants to be able to buy Warner Brothers. I think you should more than note it. It is the complete backdrop of this entire story. The reason that Paramount has been bending over backwards to do everything it can to placate the administration is it wants favorable treatment and being able to get a massive deal done that could take it and escalate it to being one of the most powerful content

providers, certainly in the United States, if not on earth. And so they have a heavy incentive to do it. That's obviously getting kind of pushed together with this heavy-handedness of the federal government, which conservatives should hate this too. Like the idea that you have the federal government micromanaging businesses or micromanaging who's on what show when is just not a great precedent for anybody, right? Like especially if you're a party that stands for free speech, certainly like Colbert and others have had many, many guests on in the past. past, and obviously he is aware you could have the Democratic or the Republican opponents in Texas on the show if he wants. But it's just a really dangerous precedent. And it also plays

into this controversy of ever since Barry Weiss took over CBS. There's just a lot of drama inside that network. A lot of people don't like her. A lot of people feel like the network itself is trying to placate Trump. So you have a lot of different plots, subplots happening in this drama. Well, if a lot of people feel like they are trying to placate Trump, well, let's validate those feelings. Of course, they're trying to placate Trump with every move they make, every breath they take, every step they take. Placate, placate, placate. Why don't they just unfurl a banner across CBS? news is headquarters on, what is it, 57th Street.

Like the Saudis. And say, please, please, please approve the merger. Please, because that's all it's about. Everybody's known that from the second they hired Barry Weiss. This was not about news. It's just not. It's been about this deal, which Paramount has been obsessed with for, well, since I was golfing with somebody this summer.

And they said, what do you think about, Barry Weiss. They said, this isn't about Barry Weiss. This isn't about news. This is about them getting Warner Brothers Discovery. By the way, I have not golfed in the snow. So this was like nine months ago. This is, this is like my torts professor said, anybody should have seen this coming at him like a freight train out of the mist. I do want to say, though, John Meacham, I'm struck by the sheer stupidity of people in Washington, D.C. Time and time and time again. And this belief that the only checks and balances in America, and we've talked about this before,

come from Madisonian democracy and the Constitution. There are a million checks and balances all over the planet. And I said this after they talked about taking Colbert off the air. I said, okay, so you think you can whack that mole over here and take Colbert off the air. Well, three days later, you're going to give South Park's creators a couple of billion dollars to turn it up to 11. And to go after Donald Trump and the administration and J.D. Vance in a way, Colbert never could do. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened.

His number one streamer on Paramount, worst case scenario for those who said, oh, maybe we can silence content creators of Paramount. It's the same thing here. the second I, you know, the second I saw this dust up. I go, oh my God, who is the luckiest man in the world politically? The candidate who was, quote, banned. So you can go and say, the most powerful people in America, the most powerful regulators, they're scared of data. I mean, which happens to be true here.

But, again, in America, you try to whack that mole, it's going to pop up somewhere else. There's so many checks and balances. There's so many diverse power centers. It's pretty impossible. And so now, oh, you don't want, there's been my argument from the very beginning. And I'll bring this in for a landing because I know your answer is going to be even longer.

I said this from the very beginning. You take him off of there and you take Colbert off of network. What have you allowed him to do? Now he can create content online, get probably 10 times as many viewers. with absolutely no restrictions at all. Right. And you made an essential point a moment ago,

which I just, and when you were playing golf, I hope you mentioned this in the grill to the Peter Millar Republicans who were eating chicken salad. This is not conservative. This is, and I think we need to stop if we can. It's so hard because the vernacular, so, you know, it's like the air we breathe.

But this is not a conservative. movement. This is using the power of the state to tell institutions what to do. The point of conservatism was to minimize the role of the state allowing the private sector to be as predominant as possible. And so I remember talking to a sane Republican who had only had a political career pre-Trump, who was genuinely puzzled, business guy, genuinely puzzled that his supporters, his donors, his friends who'd given him money in the 12 cycle and the 16 cycle, didn't understand this. And it was the pressure on, he was talking about, I think, Governor DeSantis in Florida was

the context for this, right, when they were trying to pressure Disney to do something. it's just not conservative. And the other thing, you're exactly right, the unintended consequences is when you try to ban someone or silence someone, Ronald Reagan was right, right? The Bill Buckley Conservatives were right. Mankind wants to be free. They want to be heard. They will find a way to do it. All right.

Still ahead on morning, Joe. We're going to get... Meacon. Sorry, Joe. Oh, I'm sorry. I was supposed to go to Jim Bandahe high really quickly. You're right. Jim?

No. No. My fault. My fault. Jim Van de Haid, of course, we always, we talk about the hypocrisy of these, you know, so-called conservative free speechers. You know, these free speech absolutists who have just turned into, of course, oppressors of free speech, left and right. We see it time and time again. Trying to get people arrested at workplaces for tweets. In this case, this, I mean, this is a deep cut as far as right-wing hypocrisy. Because you'll remember it was the right that despised the equal time doctrine. And it was Reagan's gutting of the equal time doctrine that elevated who? Rush Limbaugh. And conservative media rose on the gutting of the equal time doctrine. And they've always been against it.

But now suddenly, oh, we can't allow a late-night comedian to interview. a primary candidate in the state. It's just, again, it's just absolutely absurd. Right. And it's what we keep coming back to about your playing with fire, because what are you going to do when a Democratic administration does this to you and does it to your side? It's not like viewers aren't stupid. They understand that Colbert is probably a left-of-center comedian, right? Just like someone watching Fox News late at night understands that they're listening to someone who comes from a conservative perspective. That's why when you work from an absolute kind of free speech doctrine, it's like the fairest way to go about it because you trust that individuals

can have discernment and can make judgment. The minute that you put government into it, it becomes inherently ideological and now right now inherently punitive. All right. Still ahead on morning, Joe. We're going to get to David Ignatius's take on the diplomatic talks yesterday in Geneva. Plus, Homeland Security Secretary Kristy Noem, facing new criticism over her use of Coast Guard, resources. We'll dig into that new reporting. And as we go to break, a quick look at the travelers' forecast this morning from Ackyweather's Bernie Rayno. Bernie, how's it looking? Mika, I have to give it to you again.

The raino foghorn, low clouds and fog. Be careful this morning. Harrisburg, Philadelphia, New York City, all the way across parts of Long Island. Boston, you get to low clouds here this morning, then some rain going over to the snow this afternoon. This evening. This evening. evening with a coating to an inch and some slippery travel. From Texas, Carolinas, and Florida, it's just warm and dry. Delays, though, you're going to find them today across the northeast. Boston, New York City, Philadelphia. We get a break from the rain, by the way, in California until tomorrow.

They help you make the best decisions and be more in the know. Download the Acky Weather app today. I can't unsee this. Thank you very much, Willie. Let's walk you through this. Why? Why? It's met his match.

That is part of the video post. yesterday by HHS Secretary Robert S. Kennedy Jr. He posted that showing his workout with Kid Rock. RFK Jr. writes that the two have teamed up to deliver a pair of simple messages to the American people, get active, and eat real food. So much there, Joe. Again, can we start with the jeans? What is it with RFK Jr? We're wearing jeans and water.

Remember he went swimming at Rock Creek Park? And now he's taking a cold plunge and a hot tub with Kid Rock in a pair of rank. What's going on? Wait, I mean, man, you know, yeah. Did he just spake? First, he's, first, first, first he's sitting in, in, and feces, feces, uh, in the water, uh, in the park. Uh, and, and, and, and now an ice bath.

Let me tell you, I kind of done, I've done ice baths. Look at this. This Vladimir Putin's like, like, winter retreat. But again, the Wranglers. And a cold plunge. And then a glass is a whole milk in the hot tub. Come on. What is?

Oh, my God, I don't. There are no words to express just the lunkheads in this administration. It's just unbelievable. That's a word you don't hear enough. That's good. Yeah. So that's going for it. No, I'm bringing it back.

I'm bringing it back because you know what? The shoe fits here. One area, though, Mika, where hopefully some more positive work is being done is in negotiations to try to end the Russian-Ukrainian war. U.S. Special Envoy, Steve Whitkoff and President Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Matt, for indirect negotiations. Wait, hold that second. Hold a second. Hold a second. Hold a second. You stop there. Are you still thinking about the Wranglers and the Cold Plunge? Because that was sort of a rough segue there. If I were to say so. It was not the Wranglers.

It was the just the need to take off the shirt constantly by RFK, the need to show himself naked, the desperate need to display himself. I don't. What's going on? What is that fulfilling? Just in the grotto at Kid Rock's house. Then Kid Rock, I'm stuck on his lyrics. And who among us has not been at the groin at Kid Rock's house? That statutory thing, I mean, it's the whole, I, that should be statutory right there.

Right? That is definitely, that's against the law. That's all I'm going to say. That is setting up shop for all the wrong reasons right there. No. Anyway, let me try again with feeling. Taking it back to 98. That's four seasons.

Yeah, 1999. That's right. I want to be enduring lines in that time period and set up shop Mika for all the right reasons. Cowboy, you go. Are you ready now? Segway? All right. Segway ready.

Three, two, one. And let's cut to Mika Q. T.J., Mika, go, swipe. U.S. Special Envoy, Steve Whitkoff, and President Trump's son-in-law, Jared, he doesn't show up anymore. Kushner met for indirect negotiations yesterday with Iranian representatives in Geneva. This image was the only media released of the meeting showing Kushner and Whitkoff meeting with Oman's foreign minister who mediated the talks. Iran's foreign minister said afterwards that both sides agreed on a set of guiding principles, and that the U.S. and Iran had agreed to exchange drafts on a potential deal. Multiple outlets cite a single United States official as saying progress was made.

Anyone take notes, maybe? Meanwhile, Iran closed part of the Strait of Hormuz yesterday to carry out live fire drills for the first time. It comes as the United States continues to build up its military presence in the region. Meanwhile, the second straight day of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine has concluded. Today's talks followed trilateral negotiations, which began yesterday and included Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, both Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on the issues that remain central to the conflict. Moscow wants to keep the land it has claimed through its unprovoked war of aggression. Ukraine does not want to give up Ukraine's land and wants security guarantees to deter future Russian attacks.

Right before negotiations got underway, Ukrainian President Volunimir Zelensky said, Moscow continues to attack civilians in Ukraine. Nearly 400 drones were fired into the country yesterday, according to Zelensky. But we'll note that all this comes as Ukraine has made its fastest battlefield gains against Russian forces in two and a half years. Newsweek reports new figures from the Institute for the Study of War reveal Kiv retook more than 200 square kilometers of 10.000. territory back from Russian troops last week. The gains made between February 11th and February 15th mark Ukraine's most rapid advance in that time frame since mid-2023. They keep fighting for the peace of the world, really, Joe. Yeah, they do. They do. And what they're doing is Donald Tusk said,

it's so fascinating. He said, you know, people like J.D. Vance will go over. and say that the Ukrainians are not grateful enough for all we've done for them, as Donald Tusk says, at least for Cold Warriors, old Cold Warriors like myself and like my father was, and certainly your father was the OG Cold Warrior, as the kids would like to say about Zubik. We owe actually Zelensky and the people of Ukraine thanks. Just like we owed... Britain, thanks in 1940 and 1941, just like we owed West Germany, thanks throughout the height of the Cold War, for being on the front line and staying steady and staying strong as our

ally. David Ignatius, so fascinating things happening here. You and I have discussed this before. There has been, and I don't know that there will be moving forward, but there has been this fiction inside the Trump administration over the past year that Ukraine better to hurry up and settle this thing because they're about to lose the war. There's nothing they can do to stop the oncoming Russian hordes that are going to sweep across the border and make it all the way to Kiev. That's just not the reality anymore. Russia needs this peace every bit as much as Ukraine

does. They are losing ground. Talk about what you've learned. on your trips to Ukraine and also talking to the people that are in the room negotiating about how far off we are from a deal. So, Joe, I was in Kiev about a month ago and was struck, as I have been on every trip, by the resilience of the Ukrainian people. This was the fall and then the winter in which Russia really thought it could break the back of Ukraine. They've thrown an enormous amount of missiles.

drones, the situation at Kiev really is frightening. It's bitterly cold. The heat is out in many buildings. But the Ukrainians haven't broken. They haven't broken at the front where Russian hopes that they'd push through in Donetsk and begin to conquer the remaining area there hasn't happened. Despite this bitterly cold winter, Ukrainians are toughing it out every night. They're getting through. When you listen to U.S. negotiators, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, they talk like business people. You know, Ukraine needs to basically sell now. They need a deal now because the deal they'll get in six months will be worse because the Russians are going to roll through Dhenzstan. They'll be in a worse situation. That just isn't what's happening.

The Ukrainians are finding ways to resist the Russians. One of the things I saw in Kiev, new technology that will allow Ukraine to draw on its library of four years of warfare, all the sensors, all the imagery, to train AIs that will power autonomous defense of the Ukraine cities in the front a year from now. So I think that the Trump premise, these guys are about to fold, has been demonstrated to be wrong. We are now in a very difficult phase in the ground. negotiations where the question is, will Ukraine give up some territory to get to a piece?

And we don't know the answer to that yet. I hear lots of different views from Ukrainians. But the baseline, Joe, is what you said. They're holding. They're not collapsing this terrible winter. And they're going to make it into the spring. You know, about a month ago, negotiators were talking, that I'm talking to, we're talking about how, you know, maybe maybe they could come to a deal. America had promised the Ukrainians, a strong security guarantee in exchange for

the Dunbos, whatever way that zone would be carved out. The problem is, David, that the Russians keep saying we're about to take the Dunbos, we're about to take Dinesk, we're about to, and they're losing ground.

Their position is weakening. You know, six months ago, I was saying on this show, Ukraine shouldn't give up land at the negotiating table that Russia can't take on the battlefield. The situation is getting worse for them. We talked about, you and I talked about this other day. You know, 1.2 to 1.3 million casualties over 350,000 Russians dead. The economy just absolutely shattered. The war-making machine, if not destroyed for a generation, is destroyed for the next decade at least. And at this point, Vladimir Putin needs to be as fearful of who's coming back at the end of the war as the Ukrainians. He's using these convicts to fight the war. Talk about how peace is necessary not only for the Ukrainian survival, but also ultimately for Vladimir Putin's survival before Russia gets any war.

weaker. As hard as it is to imagine, there are worse futures for Russia than Vladimir Putin. There's a new study by the Estonian intelligence service of all things that's available online in which the Estonians, right next door, they know the Russians pretty well, warn that you're going to have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers coming home when this war finally ends, some of them will be released convicts, some of them will be angry people from every part of Russia, and they'll form a kind of criminal underclass in Russia, perhaps for many years to come, making governance of Russia even more difficult. That's one of the things that Putin ought to be thinking about.

You know, these negotiations are now in a kind of make-or-break phase. both sides have got to think, what's it going to be like to continue this war indefinitely? Because that's the alternative. And I hear little rumors that in Moscow there's increasing skepticism about continuing with the course that Putin's on. We'll have to see. It is important that the U.S. holds strong, not try to be simply a mediator, but remember that Ukraine is fighting for the values that. we in Europe have standing up against what, as Mika said in the introduction to this, was an unprovoked invasion by Russia.

And by the way, Zelensky is showing signs of being a little emboldened in that Axios interview a couple days ago saying it's not fair that the onus is always on us and we're not going to agree to a deal that forces us to give up land lost in this war. The Washington Post, David Ignatius, David, thanks so much. John, let's turn to your book. It's titled American Struggle in it, John. takes a dive into America's very complicated past, reflecting on a series of notable documents and speeches

that show conflict is nothing new in our polarized democracy. By the way, just wrote a 500-page book while writing your 1,000-page book about Dwight David Eisenhower, just a fun side project here. This is important. This was the best book I've ever Xeroxed, and I made that point in class at Vanderbilt recently, and they said,

What does Xerox mean? Well, yeah. Oh, wow. You know it hurts. It's awful. Yeah. So let's talk about the premise. Yeah.

Why now and how it connects to today? Well, I don't know, Willie, if you followed the news. There's a lot going on in Washington about the fundamental nature of the country. This book grew out of a book I did almost seven, eight years ago, called The Soul of American. And the idea is after Charlotte's full. The idea is that the country does have a little. assault, that it's not all holy good or holy bad. It's an arena of contention where our better angels do battle against our worst instincts. And this is a collection of documents beginning with

Virginia summoning the first popular government, which happened in the same season as the first enslaved people coming to Jamestown, all the way through President Trump and Vice President Vance's key speeches. And what I thought was important to do. do is let's don't listen to me anymore, not that you do. I mean, we try. I know, I know. But let's listen to the people who did it. Let's listen to the people both on the, you know, Alexander Stevens, the vice president of the Confederacy, who says the cornerstone of the confederacy is the inferiority of the black man, right? So kind of clear what that was all about, right? And also, you know, George Wallace, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.

Also Frederick Douglass. Also John Lewis. Also Ronald Reagan. Also George Bush. You have people who have engaged in this central struggle. And the central struggle that animates our own time is are we going to actualize the Declaration of Independence or are we going to case? cave in to our own appetites and ambitions and hold on to what we have. And that's what the American struggle really is, right? It's can we live up to what we said we were going to be

about, right? We voluntarily said, this is a nation based on an idea. And there is a strong movement afoot in the country that is about nationalism and is about according rights, only to people who look like you. And that is not what the United States is supposed to be about. And that's something that Republicans like Ronald Reagan have said for a very long time. And we're just having this conversation a few minutes ago about conservatism. And that a lot of what we see right now is not actually conservatism coming out of Trump supporters and this administration.

So in the book, July 3rd, 1986, Ronald Reagan makes a famous speech at the Statue of Liberty for the lighting of the torch after the statues. been renovated. They came from every land. And I think when Trumpists today hear that speech, and by the way, others from President Reagan, they have a little bit trouble squaring their, someone they've declared as one of their heroes, Ronald Reagan, with the policies they're supporting today. I don't think President Reagan could be nominated by the Republican Party of 24.

I know neither Bush could. And that's certainly not Senator McCain, certainly not. Governor Romney. And so that's just something to sit with for a second. I'm not saying the establishment was always right. I mean, self-evidently, the establishment, as we understand, it was clearly not commensurate to the cares and concerns of a dispositive number of people in the country over the last quarter century or so. Does that mean, therefore, you take out the whole constitutional order? I don't think so. And I think what the moment, what I hope this does, and it's, again, it's not me, so you'll like it, folks.

I introduce some stuff, but it's really, I hate this corporate term, but it's a convening, right? This is, if we're going to, if you were going to have dinner with important people from whom you've heard of and haven't heard of from the American story, this is what they believe, this is what they fought for. A final point. I, I, I, I'm not. all the time. So the two questions we all get, right, is, has it ever been like this? And what do I do? And the answer is, kind of on the first one. It's, you know, liberalism has been on the march. We've only been, we're going to talk about the 250th for a long time this year. Really, this country is 60 years old, right? 1965 is when we became a multiracial democracy with the

Voting Rights Act and the Immigration Act that undid, the restrictive 1920s system. And what do you do? Well, what you do is what these folks did. They stood up. They understood that to whom much is given, much is expected. Yes. There's nothing easy about citizenship. And there never was. And so I think despair is not an option.

Jim Van de Haie. John, I think when people hear you talk about Ronald Reagan not being electable in the Republican Party, it kind of adds to this anxiety and this feeling among, at least half the country, that the systems broke beyond repair. I happen to be in the camp of I just think that there's something about capitalism and democracy that are far more resilient than people realize in the moment. Like make that case. Like why, based on the conversations that you're trying to channel,

should people feel hopeful that will spring back? Because, Jim, we lived in a country that until 20 minutes ago had functional apartheid in the region where I grew up and lived. So it's not as if there was some democratic lowercase D Valhalla that was somehow corrupted in 2015 when Donald Trump comes down the escalator. This is a complicated, disputatious country that on our biggest moments, right, reform of democratic capitalism, the aggressive era and the gilded age, the expansion of rights, the undoing of Plessy versus Ferguson, the battle against slavery. And also what I haven't mentioned, which is vital, is Mika has only been able to vote for 100 years in federal elections in this country, right?

So my point is we have always had to confront a fundamental question about, does the system work, and maybe even the better way to put it is, can the system deliver? And if democracy, you know, if the constitutional order can't deliver the conditions for lives of purpose and prosperity, then we will have a politics of total war. And I agree with you about the resilience of democratic capitalism, but democratic capitalism only endures if we have a common faith in the rule of law. what I say to business folks and you know more of them than I do is if you break the Constitution, what makes you think any contract is safe? Right. That's what authoritarian is.

It's trust. It's a covenant. It's a covenant. And it's hard. It's really, really hard. You know, John, I, for some reason, I watched the searchers last night, considered by many to be John Wayne and John Ford's best movie.

And that reminded me of Joan Didion actually going on the set of the sons of Katie Elder and writing about it so eloquently. So I went out after, and I searched for slouching toward Bethlehem. But I picked up the White album, her book that came out after.

And I just, this reminds me, these words, you know, Sultching towards Bethlehem was a woman who, a brilliant woman, who could make no sense of what was happening in the 60s. She talked about the atomization that was happening. America was breaking apart, as so many people believed in 67 and 68. But I just want to read you from the White album, something she wrote after going through, looking back over that entire period. And it reminds me so much as I was reading it of what I hear people saying to me,

what they say to you. And she writes that in the middle of her life, she still wanted to believe in the narrative and the narrative's intelligibility. We look for the sermon and the suicide, for the social or moral lesson in the murder of five. We interpret what we see, select the most workable of the multiple choices. We live entirely, especially if we're writers by the imposition of a narrative line through desperate images. Or at least we do for a while. I'm talking here about a time when I began to doubt the premises of all the stories I had ever told myself, a common condition, but one I found troubling. I suppose this period began around 1966 and continued until 1971. The only problem was that my entire education, everything I had been

told or had told myself, insisted that the production was never meant to be improvised, it was supposed to have a script. And I had mislaid it. I was supposed to hear cues, and I no longer did. I was meant to know the plot, but all I knew is what I saw. Flash pictures and variable sequence images with no meaning beyond their temporary arrangement. And of course, she was talking about the chaos of Vietnam, the chaos of Martin Luther King, Bobby, all the assassinations, one after another that happened, Kent State, all the riots across America. You read this and you understand this could have been written by Joan Didion in these days. All the cues, all the narratives, all the stories we tell ourselves to live, all seemingly wiped clean, but of course,

they're not wiped clean. You go back to 68 and see the chaos there. In many ways, it's so much more overwhelming than anything we've gone through over the past decade, but that seems to be the message of your book. We've been here before. It hasn't been pretty. In fact, we were here for many Americans until 1965. So we can get through this, right? We can. It doesn't mean we will, right? And so you're exactly right.

And I think that's why the story matters, particularly for the 21st century. If you were born in the 21st century, why would you believe that the public sector is, or democratic capitalism, as Jim raised, is worth the defense? September 11th, the failure of weapons of mass destruction and intelligence, the Great Recession, a biographically interesting but historically indispositive Obama presidency, the rise of Trump,

COVID, January 6th, school shootings and drills that explicitly say, we can't keep you safe. So you and I, we all grew up with, if not, part of eras where the country's mainstream, was widened where we were strong, where we could, in fact, pursue a more perfect union. We were adjacent to those people, right? My grandfather's fought in World War II. My father fought in Vietnam, right? We all have that connection. So for us, it was more tactile. Now, it has to be, Joe, what you just said, it has to be narrative. You have to tell the story in order to have a faith that this constitutional order is worth defending. Otherwise, the voices of nihilism, the voices that are about power above principle,

about the rule of the strong over the defense of all, will prevail. And that's why this story is so important. All right. The new book, American Struggle, Democracy, Descent, and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union is available now. Presidential Historian and Pulitzer Prize winning author, John Meacham. Thank you very much. We'll be talking about this a lot more. Thank you.

Thank you. Jim Vandauey of Axis, thank you as well for coming on this morning.