Thing is persuading people to do things that you think are the right thing to do and you have persuade people by being honest with them, being forthright with them, bringing them along in a way that i think makes people feel they are getting something from the negotiation. A good negotiation is one where both sides feel like they are getting something and not completely happy with it but getting something out of it. Dickerson how do you think donald trump has done on that front . Well, i think it is very difficult to judge a president this early, to be honest. I think most historians would say give me 40 years after the presidency to evaluate whether the person has done a good or bad job. Dickerson given what you know about the presidency, when you hear it talked about in president ial campaigns is there a part of that conversation that you say, you know, this is nice, but it is really not what the job is . Well, when you are running for president of the united states, your job is to get elected to some extent and do so in a reasonably honorable way, you can say things that are ridiculous i think but in a reasonably honorable way but you have to recognize that what people say in a campaign rarely can get implement sod easily. So if you say i want to have a certain type of tax, i want to change the law this way, it is not that easy to do, you have to deal with congress and so i think it would be a good idea if people were to. Propose things that are realistically possible, and not to ignore the impossibility of doing something great, but sometimes you have to have bold ideas, and bold ideas are good, but sometimes some things are just not going to happen and you can get people excited about the prospect of it and you are really going to disappoint people. Dickerson if you could give the american story to every president ial candidate what lesson would you hope they could draw from . From it . I would say learn more about american history, learn about the things we have done right and wrong in the past. Do not think you have the sole knowledge of what the right thing to do, is and bring other people into the equation. Make sure you bring in to the to your 0 proposals about what t your administration, if you are elected people that have a sense of history. Very often many of our president s have met with historians because they want to learn what previous president s did. I think thats a good thing and i think learning what our previous president s did, the good and bad is a good way to learn how to be a good president. Dickerson rubensteins book was published by simon schuster, a division of the cbs corporation. The full interview is on our website facethenation. Com. We will be back in this museum of fun was not a great call. Should have gone to jack, theyve got it all. Head to jack in the box and experience the joy of missing out with my 3 mini munchies. Get em delivered with doordash. Only at jack in the box when you humble yourself under the mighty hand of god, in due time he will exalt you. Hi, im joel osteen. Im excited about being with you every week. I hope youll tune in. Youll be inspired, youll be encouraged. Im looking forward to seeing you right here. You are fully loaded and completely equipped for the race thats been designed for you. Dickerson we turn now to a conversation with four authors whose books focus on president s and patriotism in politics. Ruth marcus is the author of a new book that looks at one partys notification control the Supreme Court. Supreme ambition, Brett Kavanaugh and the conservative takeover. Michael duffy is the coauthor of the president s club, inside the worlds most exclusive fraternity. Susan page is the author of the matriarch, barbara bush and the making of an american dynasty and the upcoming madam speaker, nancy pelosi and the arc of power. Our final panelist, jon meacham joins us from nashville, his latest book is the soul of america, the battle for our better angels. It examines national divisions, at critical times in our history. Jon, i am going start with you, you wrote recently that this impeachment question tells us something larger, it is not just about a president , it tells us something about the country. So what are the stakes right now . Moments of enormous existential crisis over the direction of the country. Andrew johnson and the verdict of the civil war, where are, were we really going to act on the immr. I indications to victory of the Union Victory at appomattox. President nixon was coming with vietnam, and the questions about the nathan of the country. In many ways, in fact, i think we can think of the modern founding of the country as 1964, 65 with the civil rights act. We only have governed this particular policy for 60 years or so and vietnam and that era was a period of enormous tension. And the clinton era was in a way a precursor to this one, where we were returning to an 18th and 19th century system of partisan media. It was toom a battle over generational power, and now we face this wildly unconventional president who is actively and overtly putting all the norms that so many of us were accustomed to on trial. And so we have these forces in American Life that are perennial, xenophobia, extremism, racism, nativism, isolationism, they ebb and they flow in American Life, they always have and right now they are flowing, the task of the country is to get them to ebb. Dickerson and, ruth, what jon describes and sets the table for there nicely, it feels like we had a bit of a preview of what we are going to see with the impeachment hearing, which is what you write about with the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation, do you see those parallels . Indeed. And i think they are disturbing els that mai ive the automatic and unrelenting partisanship of our time, that jon and others have referred to. Republicans complain that we cant take impeachment now seriously because democrats were talking about impeaching the president even before he was sworn in. Correct. Republicans claim that we couldnt take the allegations against Justice Kavanaugh seriously because democrats were out to get him from the start and he is only, this these only arose at the last minute correct but the question is, were there serious allegations, are there serious allegations in the case of impeachment against the target of democratic ire, and are we capable of taking those allegations seriously or do we so automatically go to our corners that we are not capable of rising above partisanship . I think that is a really open and serious question. Dickerson michael, you wrote about, it is an extraordinary thing, bill clinton when he was going through this, called richard nixon. So the idea that two president s across that period of time would have a conversation, i mean, you cant imagine donald trump calling bill clinton. Clinton admired nixons resilience, the fact he gutted it out, the famous quote from the clinton impeachment experience was, we will just have to win this. When it was clear he had done whatever he had done, we are just going to have to win this. And i think he looked to mix son and mix sons experience as a model because nixon fought right up until the time the smoking gun came out and then of course his party abandoned him. Both men were survivors and both men fought like the dickens to hold on to power until, in nixons case couldnt. One thing about that relationship, it would fall to clinton, of course, to eulogize nixon in 1994 when he finally died, 20 years after he leftovers. And clintons famous at the market eulogy, may the days on judging nixon on just one bart of his life being brought to a close which of course was a benediction for him and all president s. Being him. Dickerson yes, he was making an appeal for the long sweeping view. For all of the president s who would come afterwards. Dickerson susan, i will ask you about another part of this drama which is really instruct me as, during the testimony of the house intelligence committee, a lot of the witnesses kid not just start with the facts of the case. They, you know, in writing we talk about going up to 30,000 30,000 feet, they talked about the role america plays in the world and their immigrant background. What did you think of that . The impeachment hearings were a dispiriting ed soap, episode both because of the a allegations being made and the partisan response to them. But i thought it was inspirational to hear from these witnesses, career Public Servants who started by talking about their immigrant backgrounds. Two of them immigrants, one of them the child of immigrants, families that had fled nazi germany, had fled the soviet union, had come here for greater economic opportunity, and lack of a class structure and they talked about how grateful they were to america for taking them in, giving them this opportunity and that was one reason they had chosen the path of service they had. I thought that was i thought that was the best moment. It was a reminder of what americans want to protect about our country, that seems often just so battered in these times. Dickerson right. In this room is not just the president but bedrock basic American Values america is fighting over. Jon, want to get your thoughts about the task before the House Judiciary Committee this week, which is to start looking at the constitution and what guidance it gives for this inquiry. What wisdom do you think that the document or that summer in philadelphia should give us in terms of thinking about this . The impeachment clause was added in part because george mason, a, of virginia argued that shall any man be above justice . That was the central question. And the question that the framers tried to argue and answer was that there had to be a check and a balance on the executive. The entire insight, remember, of the guiding insight of the constitution was that we would screw everything up, and we have done everything we can since then to prove them right. It is a fundamentally human mey sck insight we would be driven by appetite and driven by ambition, we were shaped by shortcoming and sin, and the therefore, sovereignty had to be divided, power could not be, all power could not be given to any one element in the republican 0 contract, so impeachment was a hugely important element there. The article is very short. It is about treason, bribery and other high crimes and misdemeanors. The latter phrase comes from the English Common law, and as gerald ford, famously remarked, a high crime and misdemeanor is whatever a majority of the house of representatives says it is at any given moment. And this generation, this groupe they going to use ruths phrase, are they going to reflexively be partisan and interpret reality not as they see it but as they wished to see it . Dickerson ruth, one of the things that we still dont know what the actual position is, because you can say, well, there are those acts but they dont raise to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors, but the president is saying these acts werent even bad in the first place. You have been studying the idea of originalism, the original public meaning of the constitution, does that give us any guidance here for how to interpret this moment . The guidance is very fraudian in the sense it is really a political question that is up to the political branch. But, yes, the framers were entirely worried about precisely the kind of event that we are talking about here, foreign influence, the misuse of president ial power for public gain and political advantage, rather than for the public good. If you were going to the question that i would have for republicans is, if this does not rise to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor or look a lot like the framers conception of bribery, what does . And the thing that i would say that gives me some concern here, i think facts are so serious that the house was really constitutionally obliged to launch an impeachment inquiry, but we have now gone through three of these in our lifetimes, and impeachment was supposed to be and it should be a breaking case of emergency inquiry, and now i worry that we will unleash it as just another political tool. Dickerson and michael it is happening in an Election Year which we havent seen before. It is always in the past happened in a second term, or at least in our lifetime. So this allows the republicans to argue, somewhat justice guyably we are going to have an election in a year, wait and let the people decide and they are deploying that almost daily or hourly. That raises another thing about jons test of madisonian democracy, we are depending on whether you are like us and have to drink it every day or you are just following along inform play can seem at times this is the worst the country ever faced but i suspect between a whole number of 1777, 1863, 1932, there have been other difficult times. What is different now is that in how we experience it, that we are we are self arming if for division because so much of the information we get is coming to us through our devices and those devices are weaponnized to sort of a alienate and divide us and that is a difference in certainly between this and the last impeachment and all of the ones that have come before. And i think this is the test that madisonian democracy, you know, we are meant to have our better angels work at all levels here, but at every turn, we are being fed information that is, divides us rather than brings us together and that is a real test of whether we can survive. Dickerson and we are self satisfying ourselves by ourselves. Susan, michael just described the state of affairs. Nancy pelosi didnt want to go down this impeachment road, felt like she had to. What is the state of the nancy pelosi view of the world as she tries to hold on to power at a time that we are in, in this volatile moment . This is very much what ma nancy pelosi predicted would happen when she was holding off some democratic instincts to impeach the president months ago, years ago, since soon after his election, which is it would be divisive for the country and you shouldnt go forward unless you can could get bipartisan support but then you ha had the artheukraine phone call come oud i think at that point she determined, she decided you had no option as the saying, if not this, what would be impeachable, had to go forward. She has tried to keep the focus narrowly on the ukraine matter g incredibly fast, the speed of this impeachment inquiry is really quite breath faking, breath taking with the idea we will see articles of impeachment perhaps this week 0 panned see a vote of the house before the end of the year, and then it goes to the sat and i think the instinct in the senate is also lets do this and get it off our plate. Dickerson michael, before we go, i want to ask you about the 2020 election. I dont know whether when i worked with you or somebody when we were back at Time Magazine said, every election is about one question, maybe they didnt say that but what is the question of this election . Well, all elections are about, you know, hope or fear, and whether or about change and whether you hope for change or fear it. I think at the moment this is provisionally, whatever, whatever they think about impeachment in a year, given what amy said in the previous segment, this will be a referendum on donald trump, no question, and impeachment may play into that, both sides think it is going to help them. Thats what is so interesting. The democrats think they have to push this through, and have this test and show they have done it in order to help build their support in their base, republicans i think increasingly think this will build our base as well and turn out the people who believe in donald trump. I think both parties think they hope it helps them. I think both parties fear it is going to hurt them. And i think at this point it is impossible to figure out exactly what the politics of this issue is going to be. Dickerson i mean, let me ask the final question to you, jon meacham, david rubi rubenstn suggested it takes 40 years before you can weigh in on a president. What is your view on that and we should let people know you weighed in on George Herbert walker bush before that timeline. 45 michael our friend says 25 years so i am a beshlathian on that question. Think they is the about right. 40 years is biblical, and so therefore we can be for it. But i think 25 at least worked for me. And i would say i if i may, president bush died a year ago yesterday, and when you think about however imperfect a man he was in life and politics, we all have our problems, but he really embodied a kind of Public Service that seems incredibly remote now. It is almost as though we are talking about agincourt, an american president that signed the disabilities act and managed the fall of the interlynn wall with such grace and restraint. And i think that when we think about that everything is cataclysmic and always at the edge of a cliff, 20 years ago we had a president that is almost unimaginable now until we put it we imagine it again, and so, you know, the first election we had in this country that was about the soul of america was 1,800, when Thomas Jefferson ran saying we needed a revolution to get back to 1776. So if they were talking that way then, it is not surprising that we are talking this way now. Dickerson all right, jon meacham, thank you so much. And thanks to all of you for being with us. We are going to ask ruth to stick around for a few more minutes and so you do that too. We will be right back. What you want, baby i got what you need, you know i got it all im askin is for a little respect excuse me maam, would you like to have my seat . Respect find out what it means to me respect take care. Tcb, oh sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me a little respect helping out when things go standing up wrong. Ats right. Seeking the truth, and speaking our minds. Not just making records, but breaking them. Leading the way behind the camera, beyond the runway. And on the silver screen. Not just making our mark, but making a difference . Now that is a job for a girl scout. Girl scouts. Preparing girls for a lifetime of leadership. Dickerson we are back with ruth marcus to talk more about her book, supreme ambition, Brett Kavanaugh and the conservative takeover. Welcome back. Thank you. Dickerson so some people may think of this as what they saw through their television with screen which were faces in a room with a bunch of senators, but you sketch a story of titanic forces in america. Bring some of those forces in to the story to remind people of really all that is going on in this drama. Sure. Well as you say this is not everybody was trance fix ford a few weeks in the fall of 2018, but there is a story that stretches back decades, literally. This is a 30years war on behalf of republicans and conservatives to finally cement the