Former Biden presidential historian and speechwriter Jon Meacham said he believes that if former President Donald Trump runs for a third time in 2024, America could be thrown into a civil war as Democrats continue to push for voting rights legislation.
Meacham, a regular CNN contributor, appeared on the network’s Fareed Zakaria Show Sunday, where the host said Trump would claim he won regardless of the results in 2024.
Isn’t that a constitutional crisis for us? Zakaria asked.
“I think it’s an unfolding event,” Meacham replied, describing it as “an interesting use of the word crisis”.
The riot at the Capitol on January 6, Meacham said, was the closest America has come to losing its democracy since the Civil War.
“I think we came as close to losing the Constitution … that day as we have been since Fort Sumter,” he said.
Meacham, a Vanderbilt professor and Biden speechwriter, appeared on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria Show with fellow historian Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Meacham said on CNN on Sunday that he believes that if former President Donald Trump runs for a third time in 2024, America could lose its very constitution.
Fellow historian Doris Kearns Goodwin joined the panel and said securing voting rights and a peaceful transfer of power is ‘the battle of our lives now,’ suggesting that state legislatures that veto elections could mean every election could be challenged.
Earlier in December, President Biden vowed while speaking to world leaders that he would make voting rights legislation a “priority” as he opened his White House Democracy Summit.
He said the president is inviting participants from about 110 countries with the goal of reversing the “downward slide of democracy,” a trend on display around the world and in the United States.
“My administration will continue to fight to pass two critical pieces of legislation that will underpin the foundation of American democracy, the sacred right of every person to be heard through free, fair, and secure elections,” Biden said.
John Lewis’ Voting Rights Act, which passed the Democratic-controlled House in August, remains stalled in the struggling Senate, but has become the new priority after Biden’s pricey dream of building back better was shattered by West Virginia’s Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin.
Meacham indicated that the anger and disappointment that Republicans feel comes from the party’s lack of commitment to policies.
He spoke of everyone from Dwight Eisenhower to George W. Bush to Ted Cruz as making what Zacharias called “crazy promises” to al Qaeda without keeping.
It is the will to power. Democracy is not the natural state of things. We are emotional creatures. The founding insight was that if given the opportunity to do something, we would do the wrong thing.
Meacham is a Vanderbilt University professor and frequent CNN guest who helped Biden write his inaugural address.
He also frequently criticizes Trump, after accusing him of treason.
His comments come after three retired US generals warned that a divided US military could fuel a new civil war if there is another coup attempt after the 2024 election because ‘more than 1 in 10 of those accused in the January 6 attacks have a service record’. .
Former Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton, former Brigadier General Stephen Anderson, and former Army Major Antonio Taguba made the troubling claim in a column for Washington Post.
As we approach the first anniversary of the deadly uprising at the U.S. Capitol, all of us former senior military officials are increasingly concerned about the fallout from the 2024 presidential election and the potential for deadly chaos within our military that would put drafted generals and all Americans in grave danger.
They added, “We are very cold at the idea of a coup succeeding next time.”
A retired Army major general Paul Eaton was among three former senior military officers who warned the country could plunge into civil war if there is another coup attempt after the 2024 election.
The generals recalled on January 6, 2020, when thousands of inflammatory patriots and supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol, killing five people.
In such a polarized political atmosphere, “with loyalties divided,” the generals noted, “some may follow orders from the legitimate commander-in-chief, while others may follow the Trumpian loser.”
In this context, with our military crippled and divided, the security of the United States will be crippled. Any of our enemies can take advantage of this by launching an all-out attack on our assets or allies.
“The military and lawmakers have been given a hindsight to prevent another insurgency in 2024 – but they will only succeed if they take decisive action now,” they asserted.
The 71-year-old Eaton was responsible for training Iraqi forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom between 2003 and 2004 during it. After retiring, Eaton became a vocal critic of former President George W. Bush, who led the war in Iraq, and is currently a senior advisor at VoteVets.
Taguba, 71, spent 34 years in the military and made headlines for an internal US Army report on the abuse of detainees held at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison when it was leaked in 2004.
Anderson, 65, had spent 31 years in the armed forces, including 15 months serving under General David Petraeus in Iraq.
Robert Palmer (pictured), 54, was recently sentenced to 63 months in prison for his involvement in the January 6 riot, in which he assaulted police officers with a fire extinguisher and threw planks at them
And the three retired generals noted that the events of January 6, 2020 — when thousands of inflammatory patriots and supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building, killing five people — showed “signs of potential unrest in our armed forces.” there’.
Since then, at least 185 people in attendance have been charged with assaulting or obstructing police in a failed attempt to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden’s presidential victory.
The three generals were sure to note that “more than one in 10 of those accused in the attacks had a service record.”
Meacham, the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner for a biography on Andrew Jackson, was dropped by MSNBC after he failed to disclose that he was helping write speeches for Biden.
The political analyst recently went on air to comment on the presidential election as well as Biden’s victory speech on Saturday night after the 2020 presidential election.
However, Meacham did not tell employers that he was involved in drafting Biden’s speeches, including his acceptance address in Wilmington, Delaware, New York times mentioned.
Jon Meacham (pictured on the network over the weekend) will no longer serve as a paid contributor for MSNBC after he failed to disclose that he was helping write Joe Biden’s speeches.
A New York Times report revealed that Meacham was helping craft Biden’s speeches including the victory speech the president-elect delivered in Wilmington, Delaware, on Saturday night.
Meacham and Biden have had a close relationship over the years. They are pictured together above at the Joseph R. Biden Jr. School of Public Policy and Management at the University of Delaware
The report revealed that Meacham had been “playing a greater role” in the Biden campaign “than previously known,” including writing the president-elect’s acceptance speech at last summer’s Democratic National Convention as well as his Gettysburg speech.
Meacham has appeared on the network three times since Biden’s remarks on Saturday, including one appearance in which he analyzed the speech.
He was asked to think of the title during an on-air conversation with then-announcer Brian Williams.
“I’m not the historian you are, and I don’t have the Pulitzer that you have, but would you agree that’s the way we used to hear from our presidents?” Williams asked.
“Absolutely,” Mecham said, without acknowledging that he played a role in the writing process.
A spokesperson for Biden downplayed Meacham’s involvement, telling the Times that Biden wrote his own victory speech but “consulted a number of important and diverse voices as he often does.”
Another campaign official said Meacham contributed to the “themes” listed in Biden’s remarks.
Although the source did not specify the topics, parts of Biden’s speech echoed Meacham’s 2018 book — The Soul of America: The Battle for Our Better Angels — where he spoke of “rebuilding the spirit of America.”
