Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Michael Beschloss:

For most of American history when Americans voted for someone for president, they actually thought, “Is this someone I would like my children to be like?” That is no longer true.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Michael Beschloss. He’s a presidential historian and author of 10 books on the leaders of the Oval Office. His most recent work, Presidents of War, chronicles the commanders-in-chief who led the country during war time. He’s also the NBC News presidential historian and host of Fireside History on Peacock. Beschloss joins me this week to discuss this moment in political history, the recent uptick of antisemitism, and how history will remember the presidency of Joe Biden. That’s coming up. Stay tuned.

Now, let’s get to your questions. “Hi Preet, what do you make of DOJ’s recommended sentence of six months for Steve Bannon. What are the chances that the judge agrees with prosecutors? Thanks, Carla.” That’s a good question and I think the recommendation by DOJ is pretty reasonable. Now, there are some people who might think it’s too harsh, those would be the supporters of Steve Bannon and President Trump. And there are people on the other side of the coin who think it’s too light. To recap, remember, Steve Bannon was prosecuted by the Department of Justice for contempt of Congress, refusing to provide testimony, and in a separate count, refusing to provide documents. So he was convicted on two counts. Remember, they’re both misdemeanors, which means the maximum sentence on each of the counts is one year. So as a technical matter, as we’ve discussed before on the podcast, he could serve up to two years if the judge so decided and ran the sentences to be consecutive.

Generally speaking, when conduct overlaps in the way it does here, judges will sentence people on multiple counts to concurrent time. And I think there’s no universe in which Steve Bannon was going to be sentenced to consecutive time. So the maximum he was looking at really, and is still looking at because he hasn’t been sentenced yet, is one year in prison. Now, there are other things that go into the equation as well, including among other things, prior criminal history of which Steve Bannon has none. Some people have written from time and time and said, “Well, he was indicted by the Southern District of New York previously and he was pardoned. Doesn’t that count as criminal history?” Per the sentencing guidelines and the law as I understand it, it doesn’t. Now he’s been indicted for some of that conduct by the Manhattan DA. And if in the future he’s sentenced on that conduct, the prior conviction we’re talking about here for contempt of Congress will come into play.

But it doesn’t come into play with respect to the sentence on the contempt of Congress, which is the first sentencing that he’s encountering. The guidelines range is calculated by the probation department and as understood by the government, zero to six months. And I think the government, given the seriousness of the conduct, was right and justified in requesting the higher end of the range. So I think it’s not too high, I think it’s not too low. Your question about the chances that the judge agrees with prosecutors, I think it’s pretty high. But we’ll see. This question comes in a tweet from Daniel who asks, “Since the DOJ has irrefutable evidence that Trump kept classified documents and lied about it, why isn’t that enough to get a search warrant for his other residences where he could plausibly have yet more documents, classified or not, owned by the government?”

So that’s a very good question. Let me explain a couple of things. First, the threshold for getting a search warrant for someone’s home or office or other premises is extremely high. And people need to understand that particularly when you’re talking about a search that is as fraud as this on a former president of the United States, that all the Ts are crossed, all the Is are dotted and you have to make a showing, a substantial showing of probable cause that a crime was committed and that fruits or evidence of the crime will be found. And not only that, you have to make a very particularized showing… Particularized is a word that’s used often in Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. A particularized showing not only of what I already mentioned, that a crime was committed and fruits and evidence may be found, but in the particular location.

Every search warrant that I ever was involved with has an attachment that describes the premises. And it’s not sufficient to say someone may have hidden documents in one place, as you put it in your question. Plausibly, he might have documents in another place. You don’t have carte blanche if you suspect someone of committing a crime to search any and all premises associated with that person. And that’s to protect against overreaching by the government. That’s a right that we are guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment, and for good reason. So while it is true that a reasonable person might plausibly, and plausibly is not probable cause, but plausibly be secreting documents at some place other than Mar-a-Lago, in the case of this former president.

The government needs particularized proof and evidence through testimony or some other source that maybe there’s such classified documents being held at Bedminster, not just Mar-a-Lago. And the probable cause has to be fresh. It’s not enough, generally speaking, to persuade a judge that a search warrant is at issue if somebody saw some of those documents 14 months ago at Bedminster or somewhere else. So this may be why you’re starting to reports about some documents being moved from one location to another. All of that put together with other testimony may be sufficient for the Department of Justice to go to another judge and get another search warrant. But you need to be particularized. Just because you have some stuff in one place doesn’t mean you have carte blanche to search another place.

This question comes in a tweet from Twitter user Cruel Shoe. I don’t know if that’s a statement about your footwear, but here’s the question from Cruel Shoe. #AskPreet, “Can you talk about statutes of limitations? Who determines them? Are they ever revisited or revised? Wondering if it is possible to suspend a statute in cases like Trump who could not be charged while POTUS and who employs delay tactics to run out the clock. Thanks.” So those are great questions. First, who determines statutes of limitations? Well, that’s the legislature. We don’t charge crimes in this country by common law, unlike contract law and tort law, which are often judge-made. To be charged with a crime, there has to be a particular statute, state or federal, which you have violated. And in which the legislature and the federal system Congress has laid out the elements of the crime and also has laid out what the statute of limitations is.

In the federal system, there’s a statute of general application that essentially says that unless otherwise specified, there’s a five-year statute of limitations with respect to a particular statute. There are many statutes that have longer limitations periods up to 10 years, 20 years. And sometimes there’s no statute of limitations at all. It never expires. As for your question, are they ever revisited or revised? Sure. But that has to be done by an act of the relevant legislature, the Congress or the state legislature in the state we’re talking about. It happens from time to time. For example, in New York State, my home state, in 2019, the statute of limitations for second degree rape was increased to 20 years, and for third degree rape increased to 10 years. So it can be done, but it has to be done by officially revising the statute. Now, you ask an interesting question about what is called tolling of a statute or suspending of a statute of limitations for some equitable reason.

That happens from time to time as well. There’s, for example, a federal statute Title 18 United States Code 3290, which relates to fugitives. So that if you have made yourself a fugitive, you can’t take advantage of the statute of limitations during the time that you were a fugitive. And that makes sense and that seems just and equitable. The question you raise about Donald Trump is one that others have raised. How can it be if a sitting president can’t be charged that the statute of limitations still continues to run? I’m not aware of a law that remedies that, I think people have suggested maybe there should be a remedy for that. But unless a specific law is passed with respect to sitting presidents, I don’t know that you can make that happen. But it’s a good question. It doesn’t seem quite fair, if you ask me.

We’ll be right back with my conversation with Michael Beschloss. Historian Michael Beschloss has spent his career studying the long arc of the US presidency, the choices American presidents make, why they make them, and the impact they have. He joins me this week for a historical perspective on the challenges to our democracy and politics. Michael Beschloss, welcome back to the Show.

Michael Beschloss:

Oh, thank you so much, Preet. Great to be with you.

Preet Bharara:

Now, I think it’s been four years, so that’s entire presidential term.

Michael Beschloss:

I hope you’ll ask me back more often than that, but it reminds me of what [inaudible 00:09:16].

Preet Bharara:

It’s like the Olympics.

Michael Beschloss:

Like the Olympics or like Franklin Roosevelt in 1944, his follow speech when he was campaigning. “It’s been four years since I ran and what four years these have been.” And that sure is the case here.

Preet Bharara:

So how many years does this four equal? Like 28? Well, what’s the multiple [inaudible 00:09:37]?

Michael Beschloss:

I think it’s probably more than that. Don’t you think? How many sleepless nights?

Preet Bharara:

It feels, well, I’ve aged.

Michael Beschloss:

Me too.

Preet Bharara:

As my family tells me.

Michael Beschloss:

My family tells me too.

Preet Bharara:

Welcome back.

Michael Beschloss:

Thank you.

Preet Bharara:

It’s good to talk to you. We have a lot to discuss. I thought I’d start with something that I’m not sure we spend enough time in the country talking about, and it rears its ugly head from time to time. And I know you’ve commented a about it on social media and it’s things that people say, including the former of President of the United States, like the following. This is Donald Trump on his social media platform in the last few days. “No president has done more for Israel than I have. Somewhat surprisingly however, our wonderful evangelicals are far more appreciative of this than the people of the Jewish faith, especially those living in the US.” Then he goes on to say, “Us Jews have to get their act together and appreciate what they have in Israel.” And he closes by saying, “Before it is too late.” As a historian, how do you react to that?

Michael Beschloss:

It’s crude and it’s ahistorical to say that to the Jewish people who endured, many of whom did not survive the Holocaust and Adolph Hitler. To tell them to do something before it is too late is almost obscene from my point of view.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think Trump gets a pass on this?

Michael Beschloss:

Because what?

Preet Bharara:

Well, I think you’ve commented along these lines. It’s one thing that you say something like this and make it sound like a threat. It’s another thing… And this is maybe the better question for you to give an historical perspective on. It’s another thing that I don’t know that any Republicans of any note have criticized him or called him out on it.

Michael Beschloss:

No. I have been waiting for days. This is the kind of thing, I think you would agree, Preet, if some Republican ex-president had said this, let’s say, 10 years ago. Can you imagine the number of Republican leaders who would be putting themselves on the record saying, “This is outrageous and they do not stand behind this.” And instead you hear mainly silence. The problem here is, if Trump says something like that and there’s crickets from his own party, that’s going to license a lot of other people who are going to say much worse things to think that things have changed in America and they can say whatever they feel like.

I wrote a book 20 years ago that was called The Conquerors, that was on, among other things, Franklin Roosevelt and the Holocaust. And what he did or did not do. You can fault FDR for not doing enough, as I do. But one thing he was, was sensitive to the potential for antisemitism or racism in this country to get worse if leaders stimulate it. One thing has always stuck with me, Roosevelt said in private in the early 1940s. He said, “There is so much latent antisemitism in America that if you had a demagogue like Huey Long who took up the cause of antisemitism,” Roosevelt said, “There would be more blood running in the streets of New York City than there is in Berlin.” That’s what Roosevelt said.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think the situation with respect to latent antisemitism has not improved in [inaudible 00:13:04]?

Michael Beschloss:

I think it’s improved, but the antisemitism is always there and we’ve seen that in recent years. I can tell you a lot of things I’d like to criticize about Donald Trump, but one of them is that for the last seven years, he’s done a lot to open the floodgate of racism and antisemitism and hatred of other kinds. That telegraphs to people that it’s okay to say these things that maybe you were only thinking before. Bad enough to have been thinking them, but to have a president, an ex-president say that, it’s something we as a society did not need.

Preet Bharara:

Can you think of an analog historically where a former leader of a party, former president or otherwise, can say things without fear of retribution from his own party and pretty much say anything he wants? What’s the level of autonomy and brazenness that Trump enjoys compared to his predecessors in politics?

Michael Beschloss:

I think in this one, Preet, as in other areas, he’s in a category of his own. Because we’d have… If we’re going to do a historical parallel, you’d have to say another ex-president who had a serious chance of running again and another ex-president whose party leaders were terrified of him. As we’ve seen in the Republican party since the 27th of January, 2021 when Kevin McCarthy went down in a tinny, much more minor echo of Munich and had that picture of himself taken with Donald Trump in Trump’s throne room at Mar-a-Lago. Which basically said Trump is back in the bosom of the Republican party and we’re going to have to accept it.

Preet Bharara:

I had a guest on recently, and I’m forgetting who said this. They suggested that the people who have to quietly go along with Trump and who are afraid of him, in this context or other contexts, the guest believed experience psychic pain. Do you think that there are Republicans who, in their cowardly silence, in the wake of these antisemitic statements by the former president. Do you think they experience psychic pain or no?

Michael Beschloss:

No question. But if that’s the case, I would advise them, if we’re talking about elected leaders, to find another kind of work. If that’s a profile and courage that we’re getting from a leader who’s supposed to represent the best of us and defend people who are under challenge. Then that’s not the kind of person that we want. I’m sure there’s psychic pain, and I’m also sure that, for instance, at the time of FDR and LBJ and presidents of that period. One reason why people in Congress would go along with what a president wanted, an LBJ or an FDR and other examples, would be they were in control of what was called the Bureau of Internal Revenue at the time of World War II. And LBJ loved to get FBI files on people that were giving him trouble.

That was the part of the imperial presidency, that was supposed to have ended with Watergate. My guess would be, and we’ll see probably in the next couple of years, that Donald Trump may have turned back the clock and abused both the IRS and the FBI in ways that since Watergate, we Americans had a right to expect would not happen. Another element of this is just electoral retribution. I think, for instance, of John Kennedy in the early 1960s. There would be a Democratic senator, for instance, who would tell Kennedy, “I can’t vote for you on this bill that you want because it would make me very unpopular at home.” And Kennedy would say, “Well, I understand and I hope I can count on you for the next vote.”

In the case of Donald Trump, I assume that he was probably not so genteel. And we know that he hasn’t been because he’s publicly threatened all sorts of people with electoral retribution if they stand in his way. We’ve seen that particularly in the last, nearly two years. And the other thing, Preet, I never thought I would be saying this about a president of the United States. I do know, and I’ve talked to certain leaders who will say this in private. They’re not entirely free of the fear that violence might be authorized or unleashed against them if they cross Donald Trump. And I think in American history, that is rare or singular.

Preet Bharara:

When Trump says US Jews have to get their act together. And then he says before it is too late. Is that a dog whistle or is that a threat?

Michael Beschloss:

Oh, I think that is a threat. He may have thought… I don’t even think he thought it was a dog whistle. My guess is he was just being crude and did not realize how bad that was in the history of the Jewish people, which gives him absolutely no excuse. But the point is, it falls into this pattern of the last seven years, which is, for his own political reasons and maybe his own psychiatric relief. He has been, as I was saying, opening the floodgate of hatred, racism against African Americans and Latinos and others, certainly Jews. And also, by the way, as long as we’re correcting history here, didn’t you mention the fact that he said he’s done more for Israel than any other American president?

Preet Bharara:

Yes.

Michael Beschloss:

Absolutely ridiculous. Anyone heard of someone called Harry Truman? Harry Truman was, in 1948, the president who recognized the state of Israel only a few minutes after it was declared. Which had probably more to do with that state surviving and being accepted around the world than anything else.

Preet Bharara:

Well, he certainly did more for Israel than Lincoln.

Michael Beschloss:

Yes. Well, that’s probably true.

Preet Bharara:

As people may know, we didn’t have Israel in Lincoln’s time. What would you have someone like Kevin McCarthy or Mitch McConnell say about this?

Michael Beschloss:

About the comment that Trump made about American Jews?

Preet Bharara:

Yes.

Michael Beschloss:

It would be that this is beyond the pale and no president or ex-president should ever say such a thing. And it’s dangerous and it’s hateful.

Preet Bharara:

Now, from their perspective, and I don’t not share their perspective on this, whatever it may be, given the silence. Do you think they’re thinking to themselves, “Yeah, he does this every few days or every few weeks. I say something, it’s not going to make any difference. He’s going to say what he’s going to say, and all that’s going to happen is I will get a lot of MAGA types attacking me. And since it does no good, why bother”? Is that the mindset?

Michael Beschloss:

I think you’ve got it. I think that’s right. That plus the fact there is a major, hugely consequential midterm American election in a couple of weeks. And they don’t want to do anything to fan the flames and attract more attention to Donald Trump in the way, for instance, that Mitch McConnell believes happened in Georgia in a runoff in 2020. That he believes, so it is said, caused the election of two democratic senators that did not need to win and might have not won if it weren’t for Trump.

Preet Bharara:

You and I are of the view, and that view is shared by a lot of people, not everyone, that democracy is in peril. I think you’ve compared this time to the pre-Civil War era. Do you stand by that comparison?

Michael Beschloss:

I sure do. I think this is like 1860 and a little bit less like 1940. 1860, obviously the precipice of the Civil War when the election of Abraham Lincoln meant that probably the South would secede and there would be a military conflict between North and South that wound up killing hundreds of thousands of people. But in 1940, it was not the same thing. But that was a time that Americans were debating, should we go to war against adult Hitler and Musolini and the Imperial Japanese to save England and save the cause of freedom? Or should we let them go down and retreat to the Atlantic and the Pacific Shore and say it’s not our fight?

This country was divided almost down the middle. And Franklin Roosevelt, who was running for reelection against Wendell Willkie, with great courage said, “I believe we have to re-arm and there is, yes, some chance we may have to go to war.” And in response to that, Wendell Willkie said, “You elect Roosevelt, you could wind up losing a lot of your sons.” And Willkie started zooming in the polls, and at one point it looked as if he was going to win because of that. But the point I’m making is that Roosevelt did not shy away from this and not mention the world situation, just as Lincoln did not shy away from discussing slavery in 1860. That’s what great presidents do.

Preet Bharara:

When you made the comparison to 1860, you’re not suggesting that we’re on the brink of some kind of violent internal conflict, are you?

Michael Beschloss:

Yes, I am actually. I’m not suggesting that we are likely to see two armies from two different regions fight each other for four years. But everything we’ve seen, for instance, that’s come out of the January 6th Committee suggests that there are violent groups in this country who can be expected to act if they don’t like certain things that happen politically. That was true in 1860, it was true in 1940, but there’s something different about 2022 and that something different is this. We now have social media. In 1860, those people could not really communicate with each other very well, and they couldn’t aggravate each other. So for instance, Preet, at the time of Lincoln’s inauguration in March of 1861. In front of the capital, as Lincoln was giving his inaugural address, there were armed gangs who had threatened to kill Abraham Lincoln. This is the first day of his presidency. But they did not have social media to connect with people in other cities and say, “Show up at the Capitol and march. The president is going to join us, as many of them did on the 6th of January.

Preet Bharara:

Here’s the good news. According to a poll that’s gotten a lot of attention this week from the New York Times and CNN, 71% of Americans think that democracy is at risk. So that’s consistent with what you were saying and what I often say. But what’s disconcerting about that, and maybe you can explain this to me. Even though 71% of Americans think democracy is at risk, do you know what percentage of Americans think it’s our most important problem from that poll?

Michael Beschloss:

Please tell us. I’m quaking to listen.

Preet Bharara:

7%. According to the poll, people are much more concerned about, as they say, kitchen table issues. And those are natural things to be concerned about. Inflation, potential recession or actual recession, depending on your perspective. How can it be 71% of Americans are worried about democracy, but a tiny fraction of those think it’s our most important problem? If that’s at risk, doesn’t that swallow up every other concern?

Michael Beschloss:

Oh, I think it does. If you don’t have a democracy, you think you don’t like the economy now. Believe me, most Americans are going to find the economy completely intolerable [inaudible 00:24:46].

Preet Bharara:

Price of gas goes up in autocracies, doesn’t it?

Michael Beschloss:

Right. [inaudible 00:24:49] an authoritarian state that is in bed with oil companies. All sorts of scenarios. But the point is that democracy is always the most important thing that we have to think about. And in modern times, Americans are, for all sorts of reasons, so accustomed to casting votes, especially in midterm elections, based on shorter term issues that I’m chagrined, but I’m not surprised. When Lincoln in 1860 was running for president, some of his aide said, “Why don’t you talk about the things you care about, like Land-Grant colleges or the need for a transcontinental railroad.” Which Lincoln felt strongly about. But Lincoln said, “I can’t talk about those things because if we have no country, they’re not going to happen.” Same thing in 1940. Franklin Roosevelt could have talked about labor law or some aspect of his program that hadn’t yet been passed. But he said, “I’m not going to get any of these social reforms or programs to help people unless there’s a democracy that’s functioning.” In those years, a president of the United States had a larger and a louder voice than a president has in 2022.

Preet Bharara:

The disconnect is still jarring. Is this the failure of leadership? And it sounds like you’re suggesting that. Or, dare we say it, is it a failure on the part of the voters?

Michael Beschloss:

I think it’s a failure of both leaders and voters. And maybe this. And this may seem like special pleading because I’m a historian. But as you know, Preet, in recent years and decades, the teaching of history and civics in schools, especially public schools, has been cut for all sorts of reasons, including financial ones. In recent years also ideological reasons that have caused that kind of teaching to be much less than it used to be. And all I’m saying is, if you don’t teach kids in school why it’s crucial to live in a democracy and protect it with your life. Why should we be surprised when they don’t understand what it is or value it at the time of an election?

Preet Bharara:

What’s also interesting though is, to get that percentage of people who think democracy is at risk, that requires a bipartisan view. So on one side of the aisle, that you and I… Well, I won’t speak for you, I’ll speak for myself. That I sit on, I see the threat coming from, not necessarily Republicans, but from Trumpists and Trumpism. And I think there’s a big difference between those two things. And maybe we’ll get around to talking about what partisanship means in 2022. But on the other side of the aisle, there’s a belief that’s pretty widespread that democracy is at risk at the hands of Biden and the Democrats. Is that unusual for both sides to have that view based on different reasons and factors?

Michael Beschloss:

Oh, sure. Take the 1940 example, for instance. Franklin Roosevelt said that democracy is at risk around the world from fascists like Hitler and Musolini, and also inside our country from demagogues. He didn’t utter the name in public, but one of those he was thinking about was Father Coughlin. The priest from Royal Oak, Michigan, who had on Sundays a radio show that reached, I still almost don’t say this because I can’t believe it, but this is the number they say. In the late 1930s, Coughlin was reaching as many as 30 million people in the America of the late thirties. That was a huge chunk of America. And what was Coughlin saying?

He was saying, “America is in danger from what he called international Jews and money changers, and there was no reason to have elections. We should certainly celebrate fascism if that was an alternative to communism.” And he had a very large voice. So Roosevelt felt that he was fighting that. At the same time, someone like Coughlin or radical right people who hated Roosevelt would say, “It’s Roosevelt who’s the dictator.” Even Ronald Reagan long afterwards said the New Deal was just another form of socialism. And that Roosevelt was some kind of authoritarian. Part of that was to try to dilute what Roosevelt was saying by accusing him of the same thing. Same thing happened to Lincoln during the Civil War.

Preet Bharara:

I had scholar Ruth Ben-Ghiat on the show recently.

Michael Beschloss:

She’s great.

Preet Bharara:

She is. And we were talking about the rise of autocracy and we were talking about the election in Italy. And her view is, based on our discussion, is that in any society in 2022, even in modern liberal society, a democracy, there are possibly 25 to 30% of folks who’d be open to autocratic government. Do you have any reason to doubt that?

Michael Beschloss:

I don’t doubt it a bit, and I think it may be a low number. Not necessarily because these are people who love Hitler or Musolini or people like them, but just they do not understand how essential having a functioning democracy is to the daily life that they like to live. They don’t really make that connection. And that is a real problem, needless to say.

Preet Bharara:

Look, and it seems born out by this poll that came out after my discussion with Ruth. Do you think that that’s just part of the DNA of modern society? Or, I’ll put to you the same question I put to her, is there a way we can reduce that number below 25% significantly in the coming decades? And if so, how?

Michael Beschloss:

Well, I think two things would be for leaders to speak out about this the way that Joe Biden did in Philadelphia in front of Independence Hall. When he raised, in August, the idea that the worst thing facing us is the threat to democracy. That without democracy we’re not going to get anything else that we like. That was something that was not being said by many others. And as you were saying, Preet, not said by many Republicans.

Preet Bharara:

So when Biden says it, I just want to push back a little bit, for just purposes of the discussion.

Michael Beschloss:

Please.

Preet Bharara:

Who’s listening to Joe Biden other than people who voted for Joe Biden?

Michael Beschloss:

That’s the problem.

Preet Bharara:

And there are couple three Republicans, one of them is Liz Cheney. And who’s listening to Liz Cheney. Maybe that’s the better question. Who’s listening to Liz Cheney, who has just thrown her political career away, at least with respect to her house seat. Put Biden aside for a moment. Liz Cheney did something that I think was right and morally strong [inaudible 00:31:42]. I don’t like the word hero to describe anyone anymore, because I don’t think that that’s befitting. Because people have complicated views, and you can disagree with people on some things. And people are just… They’re very complex. But I’m very admiring of what Liz Cheney has done. Who is listening to her?

Michael Beschloss:

I assume Democrats and some independents. People who love democracy and realize how crucial it is to the future of America. But what really breaks my heart, Preet, is that if you and I were talking, let’s say 15 years ago. I will speak for myself in this case. If someone had said that there was a coup against democracy that almost succeeded on the 6th of January, 2021. And there were continuing threats. I would’ve said the majority of both parties would be agreed that we have to preserve the rule of law. We have to preserve free and fair elections.

We have to preserve our institutions of democracy. But what we’ve seen, especially since January of last year, is that the majority of the Republican Party has followed Donald Trump. Saying, “We don’t care that much about elections. We’re going to challenge the ones that we do not win.” Institutions like the Department of Justice. “Well, in 2022, if we Republicans win Congress, maybe we’ll vote to turn off the lights to the Department of Justice if it does things that we do not like, like prosecute Donald Trump.” Those things used to be above politics, politics stopped at the water’s edge. That’s all gone, and that’s scary.

Preet Bharara:

Let me say one more pessimistic thing. And I guess the question is, and maybe it answers itself based on the Cheney example. The question is, is there any Republican with enough stature who has been generally supportive of Trumpism and all these things, who decides one day, whether it’s the antisemitic remark or something else, notably the incitement to rioting on January 6th. Who says, “I’ve had enough,” and who would not become immediately a pariah and an island? If Liz Cheney can overnight go from being one of the strongest conservative voices in the house, daughter of Dick Cheney. And overnight be thrown into basically irrelevancy in the Republican party. Is there anyone else who can avoid that fate?

Michael Beschloss:

No. And it shows the grip that Donald Trump has on this party. You cross him in the tiniest way… And what he’s doing with Liz Cheney is saying, “This will be your fate too.”

Preet Bharara:

I don’t know. Very frustrating for me. How do you get to the point where you have a party, one way to put it is that, such a shallow bench that there is no voice of rebuttal or rebuke that won’t immediately be thrown away when the person they would be rebuking is basically a newcomer, nationally on the political scene. What does that say about the strength of that party or its values or anything else you care to comment on?

Michael Beschloss:

Well, what it said is that these are not leaders. Because the word leader is something that I would reserve and I’ll bet you would reserve for someone who is willing to stand up for certain things that are unpopular, that may cost you your political career if that is necessary.

Preet Bharara:

Yes, I totally agree with that. But some of these folks, maybe McConnell is one of them. It’s probably saying, “I’m not Donkey Hodie, I don’t want to tilt at windmills.” Trump has won. And I hate it and it makes me sad and it causes me psychic pain perhaps. But I see what happens when anybody stands up. And I would rather, maybe Kevin McCarthy has some version of this. I’m not saying this is the right thing, I’m just trying to get in. I would try to get in people’s minds and understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.

And then you can analyze it. And they’re saying, “I don’t want to lose my seat. Because the next person to come in.” And this was, I think, part of the thinking of some of the people who served in the White House under Trump. “Because the next guy who comes in is not going to have my point of view. And if it takes being a little quiet about it and being a little accommodationist about it, that’s better. Not just for me, but for the country and for the party.” Now, I think that’s lame and cowardly. But is there truth to that?

Michael Beschloss:

As JFK would say on a question like that, “Everyone has to look into his or her own soul.” And all I can tell you, Preet, is I’ve studied American leaders and citizens all the way back to the 18th century. We could go on for four hours and I could talk about the number of leaders who’ve stayed in politics and made compromises that were morally horrible and justified it to themselves by saying, “I have to continue my political career because it would be worse if I was gone.” Maybe that is somewhat true. But in history, I’ve seen an awful lot of people in an awful lot of societies justifying being complicit in an awful lot of bad things. Do you know the number of people who were Nazis in Germany in the 30s or the 1940s who said exactly that? “If I get out of the government or get out of the Nazi party, it’ll be even less centrist.”

Preet Bharara:

We’ll be right back with more of my conversation with Michael Beschloss after this. Before I get to asking you about the Biden presidency and what, if any assessment can be made at this point? I want to ask you a random question that I’ve been thinking about and I’ve raised on the show before. It’s a little disconcerting, but it is my conclusion now that in American politics we talk a lot about hypocrisy and people who flip flop. And that supposedly causes people to vote against someone who had one view and now has a different view. Talking heads contemplate and analyze and dissect those things all the time.

It’s become my view that, as a general matter, people don’t care about hypocrisy. What they care about is, does the person who’s up for election have my view now? And if he didn’t have my view before, I forgive it because I don’t care about that. And if they had my view before and they don’t have my view now, it’s not the hypocrisy that makes me mad. What makes me mad is, you don’t have my view. Whether it’s Herschel Walker or anyone else. And that seems a very obvious point, but I took a long time to appreciate that. Do you have a reaction to that?

Michael Beschloss:

Yeah. I think you’re absolutely right, and I think people have a shorter attention span. There’s another conversation here, which is that, we used to expect of our leaders, especially our presidents, that they be people of character. To younger people who are listening to us, this is going to sound like a novel point of view. But for most of American history, when Americans voted for someone for president, they actually thought, “Is this someone I would like my children to be like? Is this someone who is going to uphold values like honesty and courage and keep the kind of society that I would like my children to grow up in.”

That is no longer true. And Donald Trump is, in a way, he’s an avatar of a lot of things. But one of them is something that… Of all things, there was a Secretary of Labor called Lynn Martin who was speaking at the Republican Convention of 1992. And she was using this against Bill Clinton. George HW Bush is running for reelection. And she said, “You can’t be one kind of person and another kind of president.” 1992, that was still an idea that a lot of people had. I don’t think in 2022 they do.

Preet Bharara:

I think it’s even worse than that. I think in modern American politics, and maybe in other countries as well, if you are a candidate who presents yourself as a person of character, that can come and bite you in the behind. Because you’re then judged on a different scale I think. If Barack Obama, who presented himself as a family man and a person of character, and I believe that to be true, not everyone does.

Michael Beschloss:

I do too.

Preet Bharara:

He couldn’t have gotten away with the tiniest fraction of complete crazy shit-

Michael Beschloss:

Absolutely.

Preet Bharara:

… that Donald Trump has because he presented himself as a person of honor. Donald Trump has never done that. Donald Trump has presented himself as much the opposite of that, and that causes him to get a buy. [inaudible 00:40:36] learn from that, right?

Michael Beschloss:

The nadir of exactly what you’re talking about is, do you remember the beginning of the Trump presidency when, I think it was on the day of the Super Bowl, that Trump was being interviewed by Bill O’Reilly at the White House? And Trump said, “What about Putin? He’s a criminal, he murders people.”

Preet Bharara:

Oh yeah.

Michael Beschloss:

I’m paraphrasing.

Preet Bharara:

I do remember this.

Michael Beschloss:

And Trump replies, “Well, do you think we’re so good? You think we don’t do those things?” It was such a window under the way that he looks at things.

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. But he presented himself as a rascal, and that’s a very mild term. So you get away with a lot. Look, Herschel Walker is also not running as a saint, which is why he’s getting away with a lot of things. In one analysis. Rafael Warnock, who’s literally a minister, if he had slipped in some smaller ways, he’d be toast. Right?

Michael Beschloss:

I think that’s right.

Preet Bharara:

So is the lesson we’re supposed to teach our kids, lower expectations and don’t run on honor and character?

Michael Beschloss:

No. The lesson is that we’ve seen our political system degenerate in a really sad way, where we no longer think that we have a right to expect of our leaders values of the kind that you and I are talking about. And we used to, fairly recently.

Preet Bharara:

Let’s talk about the Biden presidency. And I understand that Joe Biden, who thinks about and cares about history and talks about history, has respect for historians like yourself. And he had a gaggle… What do you call a group of historians? Is it a gaggle?

Michael Beschloss:

A gaggle. I hope not a cabal

Preet Bharara:

Not a murder, a murder of historians.

Michael Beschloss:

Yeah, Murderers’ Row.

Preet Bharara:

A pack of historians. So there was a gaggle of historians. Can you set the scene? Was there food? Was it cheeseburgers?

Michael Beschloss:

No. This wasn’t-

Preet Bharara:

Describe the scene.

Michael Beschloss:

This was not Trump times.

Preet Bharara:

How many of you, and what goes on at this kind of meeting?

Michael Beschloss:

Well, I should say that I was at the meeting that you’re talking about, which was at the White House in August. And I have been at similar meetings with President Bush 41 and with President Clinton and with President Bush 43 and President Obama. I have never met Donald Trump in my life, and that is not by accident. So he would not be on this list. But in early August, Joe Biden had a small group of historians to the White House. He still had COVID. This was supposed to be a dinner, and it was changed to a meeting where he would be in his office upstairs, something that used to be called the treating room.

You remember, you see pictures, for instance, of JFK and LBJ in this very Victorian looking room with Ulysses Grant’s cabinet table. Well, that is now a private office for the president and has been since George HW Bush. So that’s where he was. We had a video link. We were sitting down in the map room two floors below. And believe it or not, although all those presidents I’ve mentioned who’ve had these private meetings that I’ve been in on, honored to be. The question was usually the same, which is some form of, does anything that’s going on in American life right now remind you of anything in American history? And the President doesn’t even need to ask the question because of this [inaudible 00:44:09].

Preet Bharara:

So Joe Biden was doing a podcast?

Michael Beschloss:

Maybe he should or maybe he will in the future, but this was on. I think it was not recorded. But in any case, so we talked for two hours and the talk was mainly about the threat to democracy and what reference points this had earlier in American history. And this has been somewhat reported, I prefer not to talk about off-the-record meetings in Washington with the president. Someone told me, in that respect, you’re the most observant person this guy told me he had ever seen. And I said, “Well, there may be no award for second place since people tend to chat a lot about off-the-record meetings, but I try not to.”

But the point is that what the conversation was reported to have been, and this was correct, was two hours of discussion of some, sort of some of the things that we’ve been talking about pre-1860, 1940. The dangers to democracy in 2022, and whether people should talk about them in a way that an historian would 50 years from now. I’ve said in all sorts of venues that 50 years after the election of 2022, what a historian is likely to say about this election is not how high the inflation rate was, although the historian will lament that a lot of people were suffering. And that was a terrible thing. Most likely that historian would say, “Why was democracy teetering on the edge in 2022 and what happened after that?”

Preet Bharara:

Was there anything, if you can say, that you think had an impact, a clear impact on the President, or that surprised the president?

Michael Beschloss:

It’s hard for me to say. And that would normally be true, because for all such meetings that I’ve been in on, which is now literally 30 years plus. People sometimes have the point of view that these historians are meeting in secret with the president, and the president must confide in them his private plans or his private thoughts about things that are going on. And the historians leave the meeting keeping the secret, or not keeping it in some cases. In my experience, almost every single one of those meetings, the president will ask clarifying questions. What did you mean Mr. Or Ms. Historian when you said… But if we’re relying on those meetings to tell us what’s in a president’s mind, they don’t tell us much. And that was particularly true at the one in August, because as I say, he was two floors upstairs. We saw him on video links. So we had even less of a view of his reactions than we might have had we been sitting, as we were supposed to, at a dinner table together.

Preet Bharara:

Let’s talk about the Biden presidency. It’s almost two years in. I know you’re a historian, but you also tweet, so you live in the present and in the moment as well. First, what are the standards by which you judge a presidency looking forward? In other words, how do you think, at this point, we should think about whether or not the Biden presidency is or is not successful? What are the standards and then how is he doing according to those standards?

Michael Beschloss:

I’d be happy to talk about that. But it’s not going to be historical judgment, because I believe that a historical judgment takes at least 30 or 40 years [inaudible 00:47:42].

Preet Bharara:

It has to be history and it’s still going. And anything can happen.

Michael Beschloss:

In real time, I’m glad to give you a real-time view, but if I were around in 40 years, I would expect myself to be looking at all sorts of things differently. Because we will know how the story turned out for America. Hopefully will. And at the same time, we will have access to, if Joe Biden is keeping diaries, I don’t know if he is or not. If he sends emails to his wife or keeps other kinds of records, an outsider will not have access to those in 2022. But a historian probably will in 2062. So it’s a different view. Since I have no hindsight and I’ve got no private sources what I’m about to say is-

Preet Bharara:

That’s a lot of caveats, Mr. Beschloss.

Michael Beschloss:

Yeah. [inaudible 00:48:31].

Preet Bharara:

All right.

Michael Beschloss:

Trying to stay true to my profession. So this is what I will say.

Preet Bharara:

So how’s it going?

Michael Beschloss:

Number one, it’s hard to argue that anyone other than Joe Biden could have defeated Donald Trump as decisively as he did in 2020. So beginning with that, had he done nothing else, this country could, should owe him enormous thanks for preventing a second Trump consecutive term. In which I think Trump would’ve done horrible things to our democracy that are so draconian I don’t even want to talk about them right now. So that did not happen. If you are happy about that, you should really thank Joe Biden. Above and beyond that, Joe Biden could have ridden on those laurels, but he has spent two years trying to pass legislation that deals with basic problems.

Some of those things got through, narrow majorities in the House and Senate, and some of them did not. Given the margin he had in both places, he’s done remarkably well. Doesn’t mean that he has not made mistakes. But on the basis of these two years, the Biden people argue it’s the most consequential presidency. I think it’s the language that’s used by some of them since FDR. I don’t believe in comparing presidents because these are different times. But given the limited success that a lot of people thought Joe Biden would have because of that deadlock in Congress that we saw after the 2020 election, he’s done a lot more than that. And I think he’s had a very good record.

Preet Bharara:

How steep do you expect the headwinds to be, based on historical analog, for Biden or a Biden successor in 2024 given inflation, given recession? And obviously we don’t know how long these things will last. But can you give us a little bit of your view on potential comparisons there and how tough it’ll be?

Michael Beschloss:

I think I’d even speak more short-term, Preet, you’re the one who’s talking with a long historical view. Well, I’ll be a pundit for a second.

Preet Bharara:

Go for it.

Michael Beschloss:

I’ve got a midterm election in a few weeks. And if there is, let’s say, a Republican victory in the House and Senate… I was talking to some people who were on Bill Clinton’s staff the other night at a party. And I said, “Would you think I am right to say that if the Republicans retake Congress this year, it’s going to be like Newt Gringrich 1994 times 10?” And they said, “Yes, we agree with you.” And by that I mean-

Preet Bharara:

Oh, a 100%. Yeah, go ahead.

Michael Beschloss:

… an effort to take the incumbent American… You remember Bill Clinton in the spring of ’95 being asked at a press conference, are you still relevant? It’s a question the most presidents are not asked. But if that happens, and everyone who is considering casting a vote over the next few weeks should consider this extremely carefully. It will be a very different world that we’re living in, and that will begin in only a few weeks. So, all I’m saying is a lot of power is in your hands, Miss or Mr. Voter. Use it wisely.

Preet Bharara:

You said a few minutes ago that you think that in the field, the Democratic field in 2020, only Biden could have defeated Trump. If Trump is the nominee for the Republicans in 2024, will it again be true in your view that Biden is the only person who can defeat him in the Democratic Party?

Michael Beschloss:

I think it depends who runs, Preet, and what we see of them in a campaign. But I will say one thing, running for president is, I think you would agree, a very skilled job. And people who have done it before and who have national networks and who can raise money and know what to say and what not to say, tend to do better than neophyte candidates. Sometimes you’ll see an exception like Barack Obama in 2008, but I would say he’s much more the exception than the rule. I’d feel more comfortable with someone who’s run for president before or who’s had experience in national politics. And virtually everyone we would be thinking of as an alternative to Joe Biden, with the exception of Bernie Sanders, maybe one or two others, that would not fit them.

Preet Bharara:

Do you care to assess by historical standards or draw any comparison historically between Vice President Kamala Harris and any of her predecessors?

Michael Beschloss:

It’s always a difficult relationship. In other words, as a future presidential candidate?

Preet Bharara:

Yes.

Michael Beschloss:

I think that’s the case we’re going to learn more about, because relationships between presidents and vice presidents, it’s like religion and marriage. It’s something that historians usually know the least about in real time and find a lot more about later on. For instance, it turns out that Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush were a lot closer and more friendly than a lot of people would’ve guessed in the late 1980s. So a lot of this talk about not much sympathy between Biden and Harris, and why has he not designated her as his political heir? Well, something I think people were not quite as sensitive to. If you look at the last a 100 years plus, when have we seen a president of the United States single someone out and say, “This is the person I want to be the next president of the United States”? Bill Clinton did that with Al Gore. I can’t think of anyone else.

Preet Bharara:

We are recording this on the afternoon of Tuesday, October 18th. The podcast will air on Thursday, October 20th. Will the Prime Minister of the UK, Liz Truss, still be in office by then?

Michael Beschloss:

Well, you’ve been so genteel, Preet, by not saying, “Do you have a head of lettuce in front of you? And will that go before Liz Truss does.” British politics is so far outside my area of expertise.

Preet Bharara:

We were chatting about that before-

Michael Beschloss:

Yeah, that’s right.

Preet Bharara:

… before we started recording.

Michael Beschloss:

Friends of mine say that if you say in Washington that you don’t know something because it’s not in your area of expertise, you’ll be kicked out of the District of Columbia because it so violates-

Preet Bharara:

That’s what you do. All right, so give us your view.

Michael Beschloss:

… normal traditions. But that had [inaudible 00:55:16].

Preet Bharara:

You’re heavy on the hedging today, Mike.

Michael Beschloss:

She doesn’t look destined for a long career as Prime Minister.

Preet Bharara:

I see. So some people will be listening to this podcast in the early weeks, and Liz Truss will no longer be the leader of Great Britain.

Michael Beschloss:

They may be asking who was Liz Truss?

Preet Bharara:

Yes, I see that might be true. Before I let you go, are you working on a next book or books?

Michael Beschloss:

Oh, thank you for asking. I’m working on a book on race and the 20th century American presidents. Focusing especially on Franklin Roosevelt through Nixon, with the idea that that’s the period where it really mattered who was president in the United States, in terms of this country stumbling toward some kind of progress on race. And I can’t say what the conclusion will be yet, because the book is not yet written. But one thing I would say, which is that, much too often in the history of this country, I think you would agree. Whether there were rights for black people depended much too much on whether there happened to be someone who happened to get elected president of the United States, who felt like doing something to help them. Or in some cases did not. That’s not the way an effective democracy should be running.

Preet Bharara:

Well, that then raises the question, what is the way it should be running? And is part of the reason that these issues are now dealt with or should be dealt with locally or by communities, or through culture or something else?

Michael Beschloss:

Well, the reason why presidents like Truman in integrating the armed forces and Kennedy in raising the civil rights bill in 1963 used executive action was exactly that, Preet. Because, especially in the South, but not only in the South, it wasn’t happening at the local level. You couldn’t depend on the state legislature, all these people saying that has to be done at the state level. If you had a feeling and you were in Washington in 1963, that there should be important protections to make sure that black people in the South can vote. You weren’t too likely to allow that to rest on George Wallace, for instance, in Alabama or the Alabama State Legislature. So a functioning democracy is where there’s something that, at least is so obvious to me, and I know to you, that everyone should have their voting rights protected. That should come from all areas of the system, not just the good luck that there happened to be a benevolent president toward African Americans like Harry Truman in 1948 or, belatedly, John Kennedy in 1963.

Preet Bharara:

But you’re not saying that there’s no role for presidents to play. You’re just saying that they should not be as central as they have been.

Michael Beschloss:

Yes. They basically were as central as they have been because this was not coming from other areas of our system. And sadly, in the year 2022, we have got so many problems with our democracy, that is just one of them.

Preet Bharara:

I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to say and what your conclusions are. But many would say that we have a resurgence of voter suppression type of activities and policies-

Michael Beschloss:

Totally.

Preet Bharara:

… at a local level. And what you need is a strong governmental response, whether it’s DOJ or something else.

Michael Beschloss:

Absolutely. And if John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson, especially LBJ who got the voting rights bill passed in 1965, saw the state of voting rights in this country in 2022. He would cry, and he was given to crying. He really would.

Preet Bharara:

He was given to crying?

Michael Beschloss:

Yes, he was.

Preet Bharara:

Like John Banner, or worse?

Michael Beschloss:

No. In Johnson’s case… I don’t don’t know John Banner, but Johnson was an extremely emotional person. For instance, when he sat in the theater watching the film of The Grapes of Wrath, he cried because he knew people were suffering like that.

Preet Bharara:

Well, now I have to ask you this question. Are you a crier, Michael?

Michael Beschloss:

I’m not. I think maybe we who come from the Midwest, it may not be as much a characteristic of my home region as it is in the hill country of Texas.

Preet Bharara:

Okay, fair enough. Michael Beschloss, thanks for being on the show again. Really appreciate it.

Michael Beschloss:

Loved it. Thanks so much for what you’re doing, Preet.

Preet Bharara:

My conversation with Michael Beschloss continues for members of the CAFE Insider Community. To try out the membership for just $1 for a month, head to CAFE.com/insider. Again, that’s CAFE.com/insider. I want to end the show this week by returning to a disturbing trend that I discussed with Michael Beschloss, the recent upsurge in antisemitic behavior and speech. We’ve known for a while that antisemitism is on the rise. The Anti-Defamation League, which tracks antisemitic behavior nationwide, found 2,717 incidents in 2021. That’s a 34% increase from the year before. But in just the past 10 days, some of the most famous and powerful Americans have given further voice to this hate. I’ve already discussed Donald Trump, but there’s another loud voice that has been spreading antisemitic bile. It’s Ye. The artist formerly known as Kanye West.

Ye has given a series of interviews, including one with Tucker Carlson, in which he spewed some of the oldest and most harmful anti-Semitic tropes. He was suspended from Twitter for saying in a post that he was going to go, “DEFCON 3 on Jewish people.” Ye’s anti-Semitic comments have come amid other behavior, including wearing a White Lives Matter shirt at Paris Fashion Week and falsely suggesting that it was fentanyl that killed George Floyd, not the knee on his neck. Now, people may be compelled to dismiss Ye’s words as the rantings of a celebrity who has been known to struggle with his mental health. Nothing serious, frivolous tabloid stuff. But if we have learned anything from the past decade, it is that we ignore hate speech and disinformation at our own peril. Even when it’s coming from a source we might not take seriously.

So many of us are exhausted by the onslaught of bad news stories. Mar-a-Lago and January 6th, Russia and Ukraine, talk of a recession and concern about the midterms. But in the midst of all of that, we must continue to speak out when we see racism, bigotry, and hate. I think it’s always a good idea to invoke the words of Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Peace Prize winner who survived the Holocaust and died in 2016 at the age of 87. So I’ll do that here. Wiesel said, “The opposite of love is not hate. It’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.” Amen. So I add my own voice to the chorus of folks rightly calling out this behavior, whether it’s from a former president or a famous artist, or a random person on Twitter. Let us not succumb to cynicism and indifference.

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, Michael Beschloss. If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me @PreetBharara with the #AskPreet, or you can call and leave me a message at 669 247 7338. That’s 669 24 Preet. Or you can send an email to letters@CAFE.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The senior producers are Adam Waller and Matthew Billy. The CAFE team is David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Weiner, Jake Kaplan, Sean Walsh, Namita Shah, and Claudia Hernandez. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m your host Preet Bharara. Stay tuned.