Live from Music Row Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – Leahy was joined in studio by all-star panelist Crom Carmichael.
During the second hour, Leahy and Carmichael discussed recent comments made by local Nashvillian Jon Meacham who they referred to as an incredible historian, and his recent statements on MSNBC that likened Trump to a monarch. They questioned whether Meacham clearly understands Trump’s base or if he simply does not want to.
Leahy: The original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael is in the studio with us this morning. Good morning Crom.
Carmichael: Micheal, how are you, sir?
Leahy: I just have to mention this. Remember the brain virus situation there that was affecting Nancy Pelosi and that crowd?
Carmichael: Yes. Yes.
Leahy: One of our callers called it ‘Schiffilis’. I think somebody had tweeted it out maybe a week before, but yesterday Mark Stein used that phrase to describe the problem of Democrats on the Rush Limbaugh show. And then last night, I was going to call you. I fell asleep before I thought to call you last night. Tucker Carlson on his show, Mark Stein used the phrase again.
Carmichael: Used it again. Yeah. Now part of our vocabulary.
Leahy: First, heard on broadcast air perhaps here?
Carmichael: Maybe.
Leahy: And by the way. A significant day today. Three years ago today, we started the TennesseeStar.com. We are bigger and better than ever.
Carmichael: Congratulations.
Leahy: We are growing and that other paper in town, left-wing, that other paper in town, that liberal rag as I call it is declining. It’s so sad. So sad.
Carmichael: And that’s interesting in Nashville because Nashville is a city that typically leans slightly left. Just slightly.
Leahy: Yep.
Carmichael: Not a lot. Just slightly.
Leahy: I think it’s leaning a little bit more. It’s an interesting Crom. We were talking about how the left is a little bit deranged and it seems to be affecting not just politicians, nott just the mainstream media, but even some other people here. Like some historians.
Carmichael: Yes. Yes, I heard a sound bite from Jon Meacham who now resides here in Nashville. And by the way, I have purchased and read a number of his books. He is a fine writer and a great historian. And it’s interesting to me that somebody who has such a wonderful perspective on history has such a strange perception of the president.
Leahy: Well, let’s hear what that is. This is a fairly long clip. We’ll get started on it. This is Jon Meacham talking about that just recently on MSNBC.
(Jon Meacham on MSNBC clip plays)
I think the significance of today and going into the weekend and into next week, is I think is now arguable. And Chuck who’s reading Federalist 65 he can check me on this and look up from that. Is that Donald Trump may well have now become the most powerful President in American history. So just pause for a second and think about that. He has the capacity.
He has such a standing with his political base that senior United States Senators’ had decided that though he is guilty they are not going to risk the wrath of the people in order to follow through on what is clearly spelled out in the Constitution.
That is a raw and elemental definition of power. And I think it’s something that we haven’t fully grappled with. The idea that what President Trump has done and this is why the example going forward is fraud. President Trump is functionally a monarch at this point. If the king does it, it’s ok. That’s what we’re seeing…
Leahy: Crom…
Carmichael: Let me just say this, Jon Meacham is obviously not a Trump supporter. I would say with a fairly high level of certainty that he doesn’t understand Trump’s supporters, and he doesn’t have a particularly high opinion of them. He lives here in Nashville. He moved here from New York.
I suppose he enjoys the no income state of Tennessee versus the very high-income tax which by the way is much more toward his own political disposition, the city that he moved from to come to our great state of Tennessee which is extremely well governed compared to the state from whence he came.
Leahy: He’s also as a historian, it was fascinating for me to learn that he is apparently a mind reader. Because he’s read the mind of 52 senators who voted “no” on both articles of impeachment.
Carmichael: Well and of all members of the House.
Leahy: He’s read their minds. And he knows that they believe that the President is guilty on both articles because they fear him.
Carmichael: It’s not just that. It’s his perception of the so-called crime.
Leahy: Yeah.
Carmichael: Jon Meacham has clearly bought into the notion that jaywalking can be an impeachable offense (Leahy laughs) because let me be clear, no one disagrees that jaywalking is wrong. And so what they’ve done is they have found something that they can claim is wrong and therefore because it is wrong we can elevate it to an impeachable offense. And so that’s what Jon Meacham is essentially buying into.
Leahy: Well, Jon Meacham also knows what a monarch is and what a president is.
Carmichael: Yeah.
Leahy: And he just said the president is now like a monarch. It’s not there in the Constitution by the way.
Carmichael: No. And it’s not even in there in the Constitution of how he behaves if he is describing a monarch not as the Queen of England but as a ruling monarch.
Leahy: An absolute monarch?
Carmichael: An absolute monarch. That’s absolutely and historically nuts. And, so I would love to have a conversation with Jon Meacham to try to understand because I think he probably can give us a perspective on how the hard left thinks. At least the hard left in the media.
Because they’ve been out to get Trump since the day he announced he was going to run. And apparently, Jon Meacham sees nothing wrong, nothing wrong with what the Obama administration did to Carter Page. And sees nothing wrong with surveilling with one party, surveilling another party’s political campaign and then trying to dig up dirt on that campaign.
And so, when I look at what’s going on right now and I have enormous respect for Jon Meacham because I’ve read so many of his books, this gives you an idea of the divide in the country that somebody of his intelligence differs so much. And truly doesn’t understand why Trump supporters support Trump.
Leahy: It’s not just that he doesn’t understand.
Carmichael: No, no. He doesn’t understand.
Leahy: It’s not just that. I don’t think he wants to try to understand. Let me by the way just mention the books that he’s written. He’s written a book about Andrew Jackson in the White House. American Lie.
Carmichael: That’s a wonderful book.
Leahy: Thomas Jefferson, The Art of Power.
Carmichael: Wonderful book.
Leahy: The American Odyssey of George Herbert Walker-Bush.
Carmichael: Not read that one.
Leahy: American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation also by Jon Meacham. So he writes on interesting topics.
Carmichael: Yes.
Leahy: Virtually every major historian, but 95% of them, oppose Donald Trump. They hate Donald Trump. They sign all these letters saying you’ve got to get rid of the guy. It’s interesting to see how logic and facts they apparently can apply them to some degree to historical figures. But can’t apply them to Donald Trump.
Carmichael: Well, there’s not a shred of difference saying what Don Lemon is saying and what Rachel Maddow saying.
Leahy: Is it Don Lemmon or Don Lemon? The CNN guy.
Carmichael: I don’t have a clue, but we know who we’re talking about. So these people who are way over to the left on CNN and MSNBC. One of the greatest historians is right in there with them. And that’s interesting to me. That somebody of his intelligence and perspective does not understand why Trump supporters support him. He thinks they’re mind-numbed robots. And nothing could be further from the truth.
Leahy: So, the thing about Jon Meacham Crom is this. He lives here in town. We ought to talk to him.
Carmichael: Love to. I’d rather have him as a guess.
Leahy: If you know Jon Meacham, he’s hanging out somewhere in Nashville. When you see John Meacham we’d love to have him on, and we’ll have a nice conversation about this.
Carmichael: Going forward, by the way, Joe Biden is toast. I don’t know if you saw the article this morning, but he has disappeared from the campaign trail. What I’m saying is, this is an indication that the Joe Biden we’ve come to know and love over the past 40 years is still alive and well in the sense that he is the same Joe Biden which is somebody who can’t get people to vote for him outside of Delaware. That’s where he was a senator.
Leahy: Well, not just that. He’s a guy that can’t take a punch and get up off the mat.
Carmichael: Well, that’s right.
Leahy: It doesn’t matter it is done. He’s toast.
Carmichael: Now we’re now moving into a new phase and the one I heard your discussion with Jim Larew and the part that I heard, Bloomberg didn’t come up because he wasn’t in Iowa. But Bloomberg now with his billions and billions of dollars, he may attempt to literally buy the nomination and then buy the presidency which is exactly what Democrats say is terrible.
Leahy: Yeah.
Carmichael: I’m interested to know if Jon Meacham thinks that buying the presidency is good for our great republic.
Leahy: Well, we’ll find out maybe someday if Jon Meacham comes in.
Listen to the full second hour here:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 am to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Jon Meachem” by Larry D. Moore. CC BY-SA 4.0.
