Poor Jon Meacham. The resident Morning Joe historian and occasional Biden speechwriter was in a decidedly dark and depressed mood on this Inauguration Day. Just look at the guy!
Meacham was down on the United States in general, claiming that "for 250 years, [America] more often than not has gotten things wrong."
And he was down on Trump in particular. Meacham compared, albeit via a John Belushi line, Trump's impending presidency to the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Meacham addressed himself to his fellow Trump detesters. He warned them that the days ahead will be "hard" and "depleting," and acknowledged that a lot of people are "exhausted."
You sensed that Meacham was speaking to himself!
Meacham urged people not to "surrender" their agency. He then broke out his Belushi line: "We didn't give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor."
Tens of millions of Americans are greeting Trump's inauguration as a moment of great joy and hope.
But for Jon Meacham and his ilk, it is, to quote FDR, a day that will live in infamy.
Note: Joe Scarborough seemed so concerned for Meacham's mental state that he tried to buck him up, reminding him that the courts have served as a counter to Trump. But Meacham would not be assuaged, lamenting that in just a matter of hours, the nuclear codes would be handed to Trump. Somebody give poor Jon a chill pill--STAT!
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
1/20/25
6:17 am ETJOE SCARBOROUGH: I'm wondering, again, we have no idea where this is going to go, but have we not seen, at least in this interim, have we not seen institutions, and let's just say it, the courts, doing what the courts did his first term? So it's not just one person.
JON MEACHAM: Well, eh, but we're giving the nuclear codes to one person in about four hours.
SCARBOROUGH: Yes, we are.
MEACHAM: Right? And we have seen, four years ago, this day, we have seen what happens when that one person declines to accept the results that he doesn't like.
All I'm saying is. this is in the tradition of John Adams. When John Adams was Vice President, he wrote and said, the American presidency, I'm paraphrasing, is central, and it shall be the object of all eyes, the subject of all attention.
And so it's a vital role, both constitutionally and culturally. And a dispositive number of American voters have decided to entrust it again to someone who has broken with tradition in ways that many people cheer and which may be constructive, but he also broke with tradition in ways that were potentially destructive.
And so that is the tension we will now live with. Will the institutions hold? I pray so. I think the evidence is yes.
This is a country that for 250 years, more often than not, has gotten things wrong. But here we are, still believing this experiment is worth defending.
And so what I would say to people who are seeing today in a darker light, in a darker shade, is you can't surrender your agency in a democracy because you lose a single election. This is about we the people, we are a player in this symphony, and it's going to be hard and it's going to be depleting. And as we all know, there are a lot of people who are exhausted.
But, as John Belushi said, because John Adams to John Belushi, "We didn't give up when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor."
SCARBOROUGH: No, we did not.
MEACHAM: So we can't give up now.
WILLIE GEIST: Wow. You know, he brings it all the way around.
SCARBOROUGH: He's got that college sweatshirt underneath there.
GEIST: He's got that poster that every college kid has. Belushi.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Connecting with the youth of yesterday.
SCARBOROUGH: The kids love him. Like 1970s [inaudible.] Exactly.
GEIST: It was a good reference, John. Well done. We like it.
