President Donald Trump has only been in office six months, and MSNBC host Brian Williams is already asking if he is a "lame-duck President." On Wednesday's The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, during a discussion about the latest news on President Trump with presidential historians Michael Beschloss and Jon Meacham, Williams turned to Meacham and posed: "Jon, if you put it all together, legislative failures, being forced to sign the Russia sanctions veto-proof vote in Congress, and where his polling is, is this a lame-duck President?"
Meacham -- a former Newsweek editor and a recurring MSNBC guest -- recalled polling that has Democrats up for elections that are still more than a year away, and then invoked a quote from FDR as he complained that Americans are not getting the truth "straight from the shoulder" "from the White House."
Williams then undermined his previous question a bit by following up: "And, Michael, a last word. Are we every day forgetting what we often don't like to remember -- and that is how an emergency and an exigency can change a presidency, the conversation in our country in an instant?"
Fretting over White House advisor Stephen Miller, Beschloss responded:
That's exactly right -- for better and for worse. And the scary part of this is that -- I hate to bring this back to Stephen Miller -- that's the same guy who went on all those Sunday shows in February and said the powers of the President are very considerable in national security and will not be questioned. That's not exactly something that fills us with hope.
A bit earlier, as the group discussed Miller's defense of President Trump's new immigration policy to CNN's Jim Acosta, Beschloss likened the poem on the Statute of Liberty to the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution, as if the poem were as significant as the law of the land. Williams posed: "Michael, when has truth been doubted before the way it's been doubted under this administration by enormous segments of this society?"
Beschloss began his response:
I think never in the history of the presidency. I think we're pretty fair to say that. And even what we saw with Mr. Miller was an example of that. You know, his saying the poem doesn't count because it was put on later, you know, it's sort of like, "The Bill of Rights, it was ratified four years after the Constitution, so the Bill of Rights isn't very important either." You know, we're in a world, and that's probably the least of it. You know, one of the biggest weapons of the presidency has always been the fact that Americans believe in what a President says, and the same thing is true around the world.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portions of the Wednesday, August 2, The 11th Hour with Brian Williams:
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Michael, when has truth been doubted before the way it's been doubted under this administration by enormous segments of this society?
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I think never in the history of the presidency. I think we're pretty fair to say that. And even what we saw with Mr. Miller was an example of that. You know, his saying the poem doesn't count because it was put on later, you know, it's sort of like, "The Bill of Rights, it was ratified four years after the Constitution, so the Bill of Rights isn't very important either." You know, we're in a world, and that's probably the least of it. You know, one of the biggest weapons of the presidency has always been the fact that Americans believe in what a President says, and the same thing is true around the world.
That's what Dwight Eisenhower said. He said, "That's why it is so important that everything I say in public and in private has to be the literal truth." In 1962, for instance, in the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, John Kennedy sent an envoy, Dean Acheson, over to see Charles de Gaulle, the president of France, you know, with pictures to demonstrate that Khrushchev had indeed slipped secret missiles into Cuba. And de Gaulle said to Acheson, "I don't need to see the pictures -- I trust the President of the United States." I wonder if a French leader would -- or another leader would have the same reaction tonight.
WILLIAMS: Jon, if you put it all together, legislative failures, being forced to sign the Russia sanctions veto-proof vote in Congress, and where his polling is, is this a lame-duck President?
JON MEACHAM: Well, as you said a moment ago, time has become so compressed. You know, the Democrats are leading on the generic ballot on the House race, and that's a moment where lawmakers always get nervous. The approval rating is falling. I think, to go to Michael's point, the great question here is: To what extent are facts going to topple the Trump myth? Which is the relationship he has with, you know, roughly a third -- maybe a little bit more than that -- of the country -- that believes -- still believes that he is the vessel of the change they need.
And, you know, I think we're in this odd post-truth era. I'll take Eisenhower from Michael and raise you an FDR who said on Washington's birthday in '42 just as the war was really beginning for America, that "the news is going to get worse and worse before it gets better and better, and the American people deserve to have it straight from the shoulder." The American people deserve to have it straight from the shoulder, and we are not getting that in any measure from this White House.
WILLIAMS: And, Michael, a last word. Are we every day forgetting what we often don't like to remember -- and that is how an emergency and an exigency can change a presidency, the conversation in our country in an instant?
BESCHLOSS: That's exactly right -- for better and for worse. And the scary part of this is that -- I hate to bring this back to Stephen Miller -- that's the same guy who went on all those Sunday shows in February and said the powers of the President are very considerable in national security and will not be questioned. That's not exactly something that fills us with hope.
WILLIAMS: Gentlemen, I can't thank you enough -- let's do this again. Michael Beschloss, Jon Meacham, terrific conversation tonight. Thank you both very much.
