and columnist for time magazine david french. they both wrote a piece for this really important cover story. john, your piece is entitled the power of a president s words. you say a president is supposed to set the tone and the president isn t meeting that challenge. is it that he s not meeting that challenge or he is setting a tone but it s a tone of division? i think that s right. i think he is falling far, far short of what franklin roosevelt called the making the presidency a place, preeminently a place of moral leadership. words have consequences. when you say things sometimes that leads to unspeakable acts. and i think that the presidency from the very beginning, john adams wrote in 1790s that the president would be the object of all eyes, the object of all attention. john kennedy said it was the, you know, vital center of
city, george w. bush going to a mosque after 9/11, president obama after charleston. presidents who led, who opposed chose to fight for what the best of american character is about. there s deafening silence now. sadly, we don t have that today. our president has aligned himself with the darkest forces in this nation. and it makes winning this battle for the soul of our nation that much tougher, harder. trump doesn t understand what frankly d. roosevelt did. he said the presidency is, quote, preeminently a place of moral leadership. he doesn t see what jfk did when he said only the president representing the national
president obama after charleston. presidents who led, who opposed, chose to fight for what the best of american character is about. there is deafening silence now. sadly, we don t have that today. our president has aligned himself with the darkest forces in this nation. it makes winning had battle for the soul of our nation that much tougher, harder. trump doesn t understand what franklin d. roosevelt did. he said the presidency is, quote, preeminently a place of moral leadership. he doesn t see what jfk did when he said only the president represents the national interests. he is blind to what lyndon baines johnson said of the office when he said, quote,
h.r. bush renouncing his membership in the nra. president clinton, after oklahoma city. george w. bush going to a mosque after 9/11. president obama after charleston. presidents who led, who opposed, chose to fight for what the best of american character is about. sadly, we don t have that today. our president has aligned himself with the darkest forces in this nation. it makes winning this battle for the soul of our nation that much tougher, harder. trump doesn t understand what franklin d. roosevelt did. roosevelt said the presidency is, quote, preeminently a place of moral leadership. he doesn t see what jfk did when
deeply distraught and emotional, he put it right on the line. as he sees it. i know there are people around the president who don t believe that s what the president thinks, that s not who he is. but, you know, what s more important is, that these white supremacists, some of them were quoted today, there was a quote in the press today by a white supremacist saying, we were emboldened by donald trump s electi election, we have taken our signals from that. he has to denounce this, i think, to restore the order to build up the moral authority of this presidency, i cannot emphasize enough, the overall context of this is, as frankling roosevelt once famously said. the presidency is a place of moral leadership. preeminently a place of moral leadership. what he was talking about was, that repeatedly in american history, questions come up about right versus wrong, it s been up for the president whoever s in that office to identify what is