In CBS Mornings’s latest example of officially partnering with a liberal partisan to sell books, Tuesday’s show embarrassingly fangirled over liberal historian Jon Meacham’s latest tome and voicing agreement to claim America is facing a “moral crisis” requiring the greatest level of citizenship since the 1850s because there is an “authoritarian” in Donald Trump “galloping at the highest level.”
“Coming up in this 8:00 hour. Some perspective on these very divided times. Historian Jon Meacham says we are in a moral crisis as a nation, but it’s not the first time, he says. So, we’ll ask how, in his view, it does get better,” teased co-host and Democrat donor Gayle King.
Featured co-host Vladimir Duthiers gave a glowing lead-in:
It may feel like our country is more divided than ever, but according to our next guest, conflict is nothing new in our democracy. Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize winning historian and best-selling author. His latest book is called American Struggle: Democracy, Dissent and the Pursuit of a More Perfect Union. You can buy it right now by scanning that QR code that you see on your screen. Meacham chronicles the divisions and the debates that have defined our country from 1619 to the present. Jon Meacham is here. Good morning. I’m such a fan.
After briefly having Meacham weigh in on the passing of the Reverend Jesse Jackson Jr., Duthiers said his book American Struggle and its stories from 1619 to today exhibit a “theme in sort of what Reverend Jackson talked about throughout his life and times, which is he didn’t want a society that did not include everybody.”
Hysteria, NOT history: Tuesday's 'CBS Mornings' -- again, supposedly a MAGA network under Bari Weiss -- was fawning over liberal historian (and Joe Biden speechwriter) Jon Meacham saying America's in “moral crisis” b/c Donald Trump is an “authoritarian galloping at the highest… pic.twitter.com/VNJCNN2I8Y
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 17, 2026
“You say we’re in a moment of moral crisis. What do you mean by that,” he wondered.
Meacham’s answer sounded nice in that “if we don’t recognize each other of equal dignity, if we don’t see each other as those who stand equally before God and the law” and our founding documents (which he dubbed “American scripture”), “then the covenant that is America falls apart.”
But sounding nice is all one could say given the fact that Meacham has spent decades in the political arena hurling coarse rhetoric at his adversaries and even advising speechwriting for President Joe Biden.
We compiled 16 different examples back in September, such as Meacham referring to Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) as dog feces, and viewing Republican voters as “lizard brain[ed]” “white guys” led by a man in Donald Trump who’s dumber than springer spaniels.
Someone ask Duthiers about that double standard.
But Meacham is treated as non-partisan, so the lovefest went on.
King asked him to expound upon a James Madison quote fearing a time when “enlightened statesmen” won’t be at the helm of the country.
This went right into Meacham’s claim about Donald Trump being “an authoritarian galloping at the highest level” (click “expand”):
KING: [T]here’s a line in the book where you talk about James Madison, who says “... it’s vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust those classic interests to the public good” — it makes me think about Congress — “but these enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” What can we — ain’t that good, Vlad?
DUTHIERS: Yes.
KING: What can we learn from that? Because it seems very similar to what’s going on today.
MEACHAM: Absolutely. The founders would have been surprised, I think that it took this long.
DUTHIERS: Really?
MEACHAM: I really —
KING: For what? For what?
MEACHAM: — for there to be an authoritarian galloping at the highest level.
KING: Really? That it took this long? Wow!
MEACHAM: Because really — because, think about it, the Constitution is incredibly unwieldy. It’s unwieldy because they assume that most of what we would want to do would be wrong. It’s a theological document in many ways. It’s based on the idea that we’re driven by appetite and ambition more often than we’re driven by grace and generosity. And guess what? I know you all are better people than I am, but I know that’s true in my life.
King followed up: “But, Jon, many people believe that — many in power don’t believe that the Constitution matters these days.”
Meacham replied with partisanship wrapped in flowery language that “[t]his is an hour of — this is arguably the most important hour for citizenship since the 1850s” and “the founders anticipated this” and that “the Constitution was built for moments...of stress and strain where people” — as in Republicans — “would put power above principle.”
Using emotional blackmail, he added that “our” — as in “we, the People” — “task is to put the principles above power.”
Since King is a Democrat, she twice blurted out “exactly.”
Co-host Nate Burleson finally had a go, wondering if there’s “historical context for that younger generation that doesn’t dive into history books that can give them some parallels to what’s going on today.”
Like he did with Duthiers, Meacham started with an undisputable fact that older Americans “all grew up more adjacent to great moments in American history” in which, for example, older generations had parents or grandparents who fought in World War II or even World War I.
Bari Weiss’s ‘CBS Mornings’ co-host sit in awe as Jon Meacham suggests American government in the 21st century has failed because of crises that all conveniently happened on the watches of Republican presidents: 9/11, Iraq, Great Recession, Covid, Donald Trump being elected,… pic.twitter.com/rDoMe5C6TN
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) February 17, 2026
But once again, he veered into the partisan by asserting those born “in the 21st Century” have seen a government that’s “not covered itself in glory” and, sure enough, his examples only occurred under Republicans George W. Bush and Donald Trump (and the other in lack of mass gun confiscation, failed because of GOP pushback):
September 11, weapons of mass destruction, Iraq, great recession, COVID, President Trump, January 6 and school shootings and school shooting drills, right? If you are that age, why would you trust grown-ups to protect you when we self-evidently say we can’t protect you in schools. We have to drill for this.
Meacham’s solution? Teach younger Americans about the courage of those from yesteryear such as those maimed on Blood Sunday (March 7, 1965) in Selma, Alabama.
Someone at CBS News needs to explain to us, on or off the record (my DMs on X are open!) how the ideological tilt to the hard left is going to be changing in the near future under new ownership.
Because, with segments like this one with Meacham and others last week like this on the CBS Evening News and CBS Mornings cheering Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, it sure doesn’t seem like anything has changed outside the opening few weeks.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from February 17, click here.
