May 21, 2018

Morning Joe's Scarborough talked about Trump's Twitter rants from yesterday, and saw them as a warning sign.

"I do wonder if there was any other description suggesting it's Nixonian, that it appears at least to be -- we appear to be on the eve of where Nixon was before he launched the Saturday night massacre," Scarborough said, referring to Nixon firing top Justice Department officials. (Good times! Remember when Henry Kissinger had to talk the Joint Chiefs into calling off a nuclear attack on North Korea because Nixon was drunk?)

"I think we are. I don't think that's hyperbolic, when you have a president who is basically engaging the Justice Department at this level of political detail and calling on investigating his predecessors," historian Jon Meacham said.

"One Nixonian element is both Nixon and Trump fixate on former opponents in a way that I think shapes what they do in deleterious ways, at least. Nixon justified the taping as FDR had done it, LBJ had done it. He was always obsessed with what President Kennedy had gotten away with, in his view. And remember, of course, it's clearly true with President Trump with an obsession with Obama and Secretary Clinton.

"I can't remember who said this first but somebody remarked they hoped Hillary Clinton watches Fox News because it's the only place she's president. I think that's a true factor here. My own sense is the most -- and this may sound kind of League of Women Voter-y but the most important political story in the country right now in many ways are those 435 House races," Meacham said.

"I've been skeptical of this but i would bet a good bit of money this will end up in the house with some kind of impeachment proceeding, and the makeup of that body and ultimate partly the reaction of the United States Senate, which is supposed to be the great deliberative check and final hammer on these things, I think we're going to end up -- that's going to be the season finale of this."

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