MSNBC contributor and presidential historian Jon Meacham said Friday on MSNBC’s “The 11th Hour” that former President Donald Trump had caused the Republican Party to lose its way.
Meacham said, “You have to follow the evidence. And the evidence leads us to a former president of the United States under criminal indictment, an unfolding crisis in trust democratic institutions, lower case d and that former president using rhetoric that comes straight from the Third Reich as he mounts a campaign to be reelected and most polls show him to be firmly in control of one of the two major parties in the United States.”
He continued, “I don’t think President Biden is on trial here. I think we are. I think the question is, what do we as American people, what are the choices that we want? If Donald Trump is renominated by the Republican Party, that tells us pretty much everything we need to know about those Republican voters, seems to me.”
Anchor Stephanie Ruhle asked, “Do you believe democracy is at stake next year?”
Meacham said, “Yes, sure. How could not be?”
He added, “The Republican Party, a party that is elected Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, President Ford, President Reagan, the Bushes, nominated John McCain, in four years before Donald Trump, nominated Mitt Romney, that is a party that has lost its way. And they are the ones who need to learn how to lose with grace. Again, I don’t think there’s any, we don’t do ourselves favors by tiptoeing around this. One of the two major parties in the United States as of this hour is not a functioning member of the constitutional compact. It just isn’t. It could be, the Republican primary voters have a chance starting in what, three weeks, to write that ship in many ways.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.