U.S. Presidents Historically Honored Election Process
JON MEACHAM, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: And now we have a de facto systemic racism that continues to shape (ph) who we are, with a structural partisanship. So the search for a more perfect union was framed the right way, "more perfect." Perfection is not possible. And people like Senator McCain, people like Joe Biden, people like George Herbert Walker Bush, these were people who didn't get everything right, but when they had power, when they had influence, they tended to get more right than they got wrong. And I think that's the test, do you trust this person at the pinnacle of power to think more about you than about himself?</s>JIM SCIUTTO, CNN ANCHOR: Jon Meacham, we often use the word "unprecedented" with this president in terms of statements, attacks, moves, decisions, et cetera. I want to ask about one in particular -- as we're 50-some-odd days out from the election -- that's his repeated attacks on the election as being credible. You know, again this morning he says, "We may never accurately know" the outcome of this election, deliberate, constant. You're a historian.</s>MEACHAM: Yes.</s>SCIUTTO: Is there any precedent for that in this country, a president --</s>MEACHAM: No.</s>SCIUTTO: -- repeatedly calling into question the credibility of the process?</s>MEACHAM: The very legitimacy of the process. There's really not. In fact, quite the opposite. In 1960, President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon thought about challenging the Kennedy result, and decided that that would be disruptive and there was -- there were plenty of grounds to do so, there were a lot of folks in Illinois who voted beyond the grave. They were so civically minded that they voted even though they were dead. So there's really not -- and "unprecedented" is a tricky word because there's always something. But President Trump is this singular phenomenon in many ways. But here's something that I think everybody should bear in mind as we go through the next couple of months. He is a manifestation of perennial American forces that we should do all we can to force into an ebbing mode: racism, extremism, hyper-partisanship, a grasp -- an elemental grasp for authority, which is what your question alludes to -- those are always going to be with us because we live in a fallen (ph), frail and fallible world. But what we had done at our best, is we have forced those impulses into abeyance, and we've managed to focus on pushing ahead, expanding the Jeffersonian promise of equality and embracing what Lincoln called "our better angels." It hasn't been perfect, it will never be perfect. But that's been the story of the country when we've been at our best. And you don't have to have unanimity, right? Thirty-four percent of the country approved of Joe McCarthy after he was</s>SCIUTTO: Yes.</s>POPPY HARLOW, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Always pushing. Thank you, Jon, it's nice to have you and I hope people tune into your podcast, "It Was Said." It's powerful. Thanks so much. [0:33:46] We'll be right back.