member of congress is wrong. >> the january 6th riots which echo loudly. how to put this all into context? well, we have joining us the pulitzer prize winners doris kearns goodwin and jon meacham. >> if you don't have trust in government, government is who we are. also on this christmas weekend, i will tell you about another biblical exodus. this time by christians who have been leaving the middle east in droves. and -- ♪ -- the beethoven's fifth symphony and others up to nine but you never heard the tenth, because he never fenninished it. well, thanks to the world of artificial intelligence and its human handlers, you can now on "gps." stay tuned to hear what it sounds like. first, here's "my take." as the year draws to a close, i ask myself what books that i have read have had a real impact on me. it's nothing like reading a good book to engage deeply with a topic. here are three that impressed me greatly this year, the narrow corridor, state society in the fate of liberty. i took the time to savor every chapter because the book is packed with information and ideas. the authors, both distinguished in the fields of economics and political science, try to explain why so few countries are successful at creating strong liberal democracy. when living through what larry dimon has called a democratic recession, and a stable democracies have slid backwards and others become authoritarian in all but name. even the united states is facing one of the gravest challenges to its political framework of laws, rules and norms in its history. the authors help you ners the balancing act of liberal democracy is rare. as james madison explained it in advocating for the american constitution, first you must create a government that can control the governed and then one that can control itself. that latter challenge, a strong state that is still bound by constraints, rules and norms, turns out to be very hard and it takes continued effort to maintain the balance. a wave of populous nationalism has unsettled the balance and it will take a great deal of effort to restore it. adrian woolridge's the aristocracy of talent, how meritocracy made the modern world, defends classic liberalism from another series of attacks. he points out for most of human history, people were selected for jobs and honors and riches because of their membership in a family or a court or a religion or ethnic group. the american revolution is actually extraordinary because it argued against monarchs, nobodies and clerics and set up a monarch based observe what jefferson called a natural meritocracy based on talents. they move add long that path abolishing landed privileges and making higher basis on tests and skills rather than family and connections. today meritocracy faces attacks from the left and right, which argue it's a rigged system that doesn't achieve good outcomes. some of these criticisms are fair but woolridge asks the essential question, what would you replace it with? do we want to go back to using soft, fuzzy criteria like character, which is often a code for social class? do we want a racial spoil system where jobs are distributed too achieve quotas? the answer for woolridge is more meritocracy, eliminating remaining forms of special treatment based on money, connections or identity, to true will you make sure talented people who work hard are recognized and moved up the ladder. one can argue in the spirit of winston churchill that mer to be ra i is probably the worst of all selection systems, except for all of the others. and finally losing the long game, the false promise of regime change in the middle east. this is a book with a seemingly narrow subject matter but it's really a broad book about america's engagement with the world. the author, philip gordon, currently working in the white house, points out that throughout the middle east the u.s. has responded to periods of transition in complex societies, sometimes by intervening forcefully from iraq, sometimes as in limited ways as libya and sometimes virtually not at all, as in syria. all approaches failed and what ensued in almost all of the cases wa chaos, civil war, the rise of militias and humanitarian catastrophe. so maybe we should fundamentally rethink the whole idea of foreign intervention in these kinds of situations. perhaps the u.s. could play a better role by pushing for broad social and economic reforms from the outside and supporting locals when they choose to move down the right path. perhaps washington needs to recognize far more than it does even now the real limits of its power and influence. now, i should add if you are looking for a book to read or gift to somebody, my own ten lessons for post-pandemic world is out in paperback. as we emerge from the pandemic, it makes for good reading, even if i say so myself, it has a new afterward, which is really an 11th lesson. what is it? well, i think you should pick up a copy to find out. and that is my take for are this holiday season. now, let us get started with the program. ♪ the end of the year prompts to bring reflection so let's pause at this particular point in time and perhaps how historians will view it. who better to help us with that than two of the finest historians of the day, pull itser prize winners. doris kearns goodwin latest book is "leadership in turbulent times" and jon meacham's "the power of hope." he occasionally advises joe biden on his tore cal speeches and present matters. we were having a conversation, one i should credit josh steiner, said to me, so the question is, is this 1858 or 1968? in other words, when he explained to people, 1858 being a point when the tensions and turmoil in the country broke the entire political and even the constitutional system. 1968, being a period of enormous turmoil but somehow the country came through and it was resilient and ten years later, 15 years later, things looked fine. so jon, 1858 or 1968? >> fantastic question. i prayer it's 1968 and there's a sentence you never thought you would say, a year that began with dr. king's assassination, lyndon johnson gets out of the race, robert kennedy's assassinated, chicago descends at the democratic convention and george wallace wins 13.5% of the vote in five states. 1968 is also the first year america ever had an integrated electorate. think about that. the first presidential year after the 1965 voting rights act was the first time a multiracial democracy was actually recognized fully by the constitution by legislation. so we're really only about 56 years old. what happened in 1958 was the two clashing views of slavery and freedom and power and identity and faith and what worries me most is what happened in 1858 was the power of passion and pride to overcome reason and genuine devotion in the declaration. >> what do you think of, doris? >> what i think of when i think of the 1850s is some ways it does remind me of where we are today in a scary sense in they had a partisan press, just as we do now. if you're listening to one of the debates between steven douglas and abraham lincoln or reading the republican newspaper, they will say he's triumphant, carried out in the arms of his followers, you read the democratic newspapers and they said he fell on the floor and you had to carry him out that way. that was part of it. you had a series of events that led to the ever-deep enago split between the north and south. one of those events always haunted me when we saw january 6th was the caning of charles southerner in. you get a congressman brooks who comes into the chamber against the anti-slavery, charles sumner, hits him over the head with a cane with such force he's out for three years. but that event was so shocking to the country because it happened inside of the country and it expanded the republican base. mostly anti-slavery people but now more people got involved in it. i thought january 6th would be a similar event. i thought when you looked at history that was a moment when the line would be drawn. it seemed to be drawn at that time. you in mcconnell say the president, trump was practically and morally responsible for what happened and the attackers were inspired by his feeling the election, his claiming the election was stolen and somehow you had to have some retribution for that, that there would be something happening. you even have kevin mccarthy saying this was an un-democratic attack on the electoral system and maybe there's going to have to be some sort of -- i think he said censure, some kind of censure. and what happened since then 1234 i think we have to look learn from the 1850s, if you don't learn. but the 1960s, i lived through that, you guys are too young, it seemed like the old were too young, the people in the country were against people in the city, blacks against whites, anti-war violence and two, three assassinations in that decade. i felt when i was a young girl like what's going to happen? yet the story ends with finally you get peace, finally you get the first black president elected and luke back at the '60s and extraordinary things happen. that's the thing, we end that decade with the thought of the assassination of bobby kennedy and vietnam war at its height and assassination of martin luther king but in the middle you had civil rights and voting rights and medicare and education and npr and pbs and the most extraordinary social legislation since the new deal. when we look back at a time, we have to remember -- this is what i think about history now too, we have to remember all of the difficult things that happened and how we were never at the ideal that we wanted to be. we have to remember that great things happened as well. and great things happened in that crazy decade. >> to me the test is democracy is really counterintuitive. you've written about this brilliantly. it's not the natural state of things. the natural state is find a strong guy, ally yourself to him so he will beat off the predators so you will get employer food. th more food. that's it. the notion we're neighbors and we will concede a little bit in the morning because we might need a little something in the afternoon, give and take. >> that brings me to the thing you said which was fascinating to me which was you thought january 6th would be this moment of rest constitution and when y heard republicans initially, it did seem like that. then they all went back to trump, presumably because they noticed that's where the base was. in history, is there any person who had this svengali-like hold over a major political party that donald trump now has over the republican party? >> i think what you're seeing now that wouldn't have been true before is the media that follows in a certain way that it wouldn't have been able to before. we had huey long. you had outsiders on the system who had a hold on people. but i think for a president to have a hold in this way as we've seen, i'm not sure i fully understand it. i kind of think -- i'm an historian, and you can probably bring up characters from the past but it will not be like the the hole we see today. >> i think interests have held parties. i think the white democratic interest held the upper democratic party in the anti-bell up period. there was horrible anxiety the supreme court, dred scott decision, there were seven democrats on that court that made that decision, the chief justice from the 1830s from maryland. and part of what led to the civil war was the anxiety -- and historian james oakes talks about this -- the fear of the scorpion sting, that slavery, if you contained it, it would end up killing itself. and that's what the democrats of that era were so cterrified of. the election of lincoln was the trigger of success because they thought, all right, we're in fact going to be -- have this wall erected around us. >> in an odd way, we're going to have to break here, but they accepted the election result. they didn't contest, they said -- they -- >> no, no. >> lincoln did get elected so we will leave, which is different from now. >> may i say -- this is the really important thing -- >> if this is the important thing, you can say it. >> lincoln said the central idea by the struggle, he said this in april of 1861 is if the minority -- and he meant losing the dks can, just as you say, break from the union the whole experiment of democracy is impossible. it will show people cannot govern themselves and that's exactly what's happening now. we have to take a break. when we come back, we'll going to talk about the constitutional crisis that lies awaiting us in 2022. ho ho ho! not again. oh no. for the gifts you won't forget. the mercedes-benz winter event. and we are back with presidential historians doris kearns goodwin and jon meacham. so i want to lay out what seems to me a reasonable scenario, which is donald trump seems to be trying to control the republican party for a purpose -- this is not just a hobby -- he would like to run again. if he runs again, assumption number one, he wants to run. assumption number two, he will get the nomination, because the party seemed enthralled with him. he will run and in 2024, whatever happens, will he claim he won. doesn't that present us with a constitutional crisis? >> i think it's and unfolding one. it's an interesting use of the word crisis because it comes from hippocrates. it's a moment of disease when a patient lives or dies. and i think we're certainly there, which i didn't think before january 6th, honestly. i think we came as close to losing the constitution -- and when we say democracy, america is not a democracy, america is a republic. we call it american democracy. we came as close that day as we had ft. sumpter. >> i think when you think about the problem of the fight of our life right now in this generation has to be to secure voting rights and secure peaceful transition of power. that should not be a partisan issue that the state legislatures are now being given a chance to overturn a election. that means every election can be contested. where will it be from the old days of george washington when you had a peaceful transition of power? i don't understand exactly why this country is not making voting rights the central issue of the time. it's not a partisan issue. one of the things that lyndon johnson said was the fundamental rights upon which all of the other depends. in a certain sense when he was arguing at selma to get that voting rights bill through, he said it's not a southern problem, northern problem, states rights problem, national problem, moral problem, it's absolutely right to deny your fellow americans the right to vote, it's the center of democracy. what is democracy? a system warrior people choose their leaders. if we make that as hard as we are now to get the right to vote and we make the chance state legislatures can overturn what the popular vote is, then i think democracy is really in trouble. but we can fight it. we still have the chance right now. >> let me ask you about the other side here, which is the most difficult part of all of this is not donald trump, it's that 70 million or 50 million or 60 million still agree the election was a fraud and he actually won. i was looking at the polls when he asks which of the following phrases best describes the united states. the one that wins out is a democracy in trouble. only 7%, for example, of young people call it a healthy democracy but to me the most interesting thing is it is the moment -- republicans are most pessimistic than democrats. 47% of republicans say this country is a democracy in trouble, whereas only 37% do. when asked what do you see the chances of having a second civil war in america during your lifetime, 46% of republicans say we will have a second civil war. only 32% democrats. so what i'm trying to get at, as angry in exercises you might be, what do you think explains this republican rage about where america is right now? >> i think it's about the republican establishment from eisenhower through george w. bush not fundamentally delivering to the base. who created the warren court? eisenhower. who appointed the justice who wrote roe v. wade? richard nixon. who would campaign on anti-abortion amendments and school prayer and -- >> and on repealing the new deal and on repealing medicare, and even ted cruz's campaign, we're going to abolish the irs. what you're saying is they make these crazy promises to the base to fire them up and then don't deliver. >> and that creates a trust deficit. so think about -- i think one of the things that happened to the republican party, the party of eisenhower and reagan and the bushes and the party that nominated john mccain and mitt romney 20 minutes before they nominated donald trump, right, what happened? it's the will of the power. and i think that's part of what's in the polling numbers you're talking about. democracy again is not the natural state of things. we're emotional creatures. the inside of a founding for all of its failings was if we had a chance to do something, most people would do the wrong thing. >> if men were angels, no government is necessary, jays ja says james madison. >> to go back to say genesis, human beings have been messing up since then. the point of the constitution is erect guardrails, so it would be hard to do wrong things. the tragic implication of that is there is it's also hard as doris was saying, to do good things. >> i would like to make a larger point if i may -- >> larger than genesis? okay, this is good. >> no. not larger than genesis. but you're right about the tendencies for people to be concerned about themselves and maybe they don't do the right thing but we've also seen time and again in our country's history where people have put ambitions for something larger over themselves. they fought in the civil war. when lincoln was called a liberator, he said don't call me a liberator. it was the anti-slavery movement and union soldiers that did it all. what about the civil rights movement in the '60s? what about the courage and bravery that took? what about the people out in the settlement houses and progressive eras? there were eras where the people were willing to put something larger so that wars against a time like ours where you have the feeling where is the ambition? where are.in both parties who are willing to sacrifice something for what they believe in and let themselves not get elected the next time around? >> let me ask you, doris, when you look at periods like the civil rights period, your late husband wrote some of the most extraordinary speeches johnson gave, it now looks through the warm lens of nostalgia, it all looks much easier. it was -- there were deep divisions then. there were people who thought johnson was destroying the america they knew. they thought medicare was the worst idea -- ronald reagan said it was the last straw, that america was going to go down a dark path. how do we come back from those kinds of divisions? do you have to kind of beat the other side? do you extend a hand? >> i think one of the important things is you're right, we remember how the story ended and we forget how difficult it was to live through it. we live with the anxiety and we don't know the next chapters that will be written in our story. i think the most important thing, when you think about young people, young people have to think about how tough the battle will be but they have to be out there. right now we have to have some faith there is an activism, they voted in greater numbers than ever before, there's a lot of passions they have for the environment and for different kinds of issues. i guess they have to have a rendezvous with destiny. unless they believe they can make a difference -- and there are things to do -- they should be out there organizing for voting rights and organizing for environmental change. they do it at a local level, and maybe that's what we have to hope on, maybe for a while, when we look for change -- that's what happened in the progressive era, it happened in the city and states before the federal government so we have to hope in the local area people have more trust in the local area than the state, more trust in the state than the federal government. right now three-quarters of the people don't believe the government will do the right thing. no, three-quarters used to believe the government would do the right thing. >> in 1965. >> exactly right. >> now it's opposite. >> one quarter. >> you can't find anybody who does. >> if you don't have trust in government, government is us, it's who we are. we are government. you can't think of some body out there. that's what we got to hope, the young people are feeling a sense of motivation. i think we are seeing some of that. we saw it in black lives movement, which was a large part of different people coming together to argue for something that matters. we have hope that is a turning just as it did in the '30s and '60s. arthur schlesinger said it comes in 30-year cycles. we haven't quite seen it. >> we're down to 30 seconds now. >> on that note of hope, i'm going to stop so we can stay hopeful. thank you both so much. next on "gps" -- america's racial reckoning. we'll look at just why the country is so divided on race yet again. that story in a moment. hey, angie! you forgot your phone! hey lou! angie forget her phone again? yep. lou! mom said she could save up to $400 on her wireless bill by switching to xfinity internet and mobile. with nationwide 5g at no extra cost. and lou! on the most reliable network, lou! smart kid, bill. oh oh so true. and now, the moon christmas special. gotta go! take the savings challenge at xfinitymobile.com/mysavings or visit an xfinity store to learn how our switch squad makes switching fast and easy this holiday season. it's been 156 years since the abolition of slavery. more than 57 years since the civil rights act passed but debates about race are as fiery as ever in america. and they've been kicked into overdrive by "the new york times'" 1619 project and murder of george floyd in minneapolis. the hardest issue seems to be what our children have been taught about race and the history of racism in schools. this issue, which became the chris cal race theory, played a role a democrat in time called losing his bid for governor of virginia. will it thwart other democrats' visions? joining me now, feldman and academy, both professors of harvard law school. "the broke hen constitution: lincoln slavery and the refounding of america." and kennedy's latest is "say it loud: on race, law, history and culture." noah, let me start with you by asking what is this conversation about race that triggered what appears to be kind of a political backlash in virginia. why is this happening i guess is the simple question? >> the republicans are exploiting a problem that the democratic party in particular and liberals in general face right now. and the problem is there's been a very important and much-awaited reconsideration by progressives and liberals about the history of race in our country but liberals still don't have a clear narrative to replace the old narrative, according to which nothing was really so terrible and anyway we overcame it. now that liberals acknowledge there was slavery in the constitution, that even after the end of slavery, there was still segregation and black people were still barred from voting, now that liberals acknowledged those things, they need a way of talking about race that reassures the general public that it remains possible still to maintain progress. and i think what republicans are doing rather cleverly is exploiting a moment where liberals don't have a clear narrative to scare their base and scare potential swing voters into thinking that the democrats are saying something that they're not saying, namely that there's no hope for us in this country. >> so, randy, how would you address that issue? it does seem that what the republicans are trying to do is appeal to the person, the greg youngkin voter or potential voter in virginia who voted for biden, so clearly didn't want donald trump in his racism, but felt being told, white kids are being told in classrooms that everybody in america is racists, that things haven't progressed much since 1965, that that's wrong, that that's producing a backlash. what do you say to those people? >> i say that the best way to address this issue is to address it forthrightly and straightforwardly and embrace the complicated history and complicated presence of america. on the one hand, that's right, slavery and segregation and racism and white supremacy is deeply entrenched in america. at the same time there has been a tremendous alternative tradition, a tradition against slavery, a tradition against segregation, a tradition against racism. after all, in the past 25 years the united states of america has seen an african-american president. as we speak, there's an african-american vice president. . as we speak, there's an african-american who is in charge of the department of defense. so we have a complicated situation, and i think the best way of addressing our -- our race question is to just be straightforward and be clear and embrace the tensions, the contradictions, the complexities of race in american life. and if we need a new vocabulary, so many of the terms we use, we use these terms over and over, starting with racism, structural racism, critical race theory. these words actually have been weaponized. they are vehicles for propaganda. i think it would be -- we would be better off if we were more concrete, we talked about real problems and we actually used a language that got us away from these overused terms that actually don't mean that much. >> one of the things we all -- people like trump have been able to weaponize is this idea of american history being irredeemably racist. are we not allowed to honor people like thomas jefferson or even george washington because they owned slaves and actively pro slavery? what is your answer to that problem? >> i'm very influenced by another colleague of mine who wrote the most important book written in many years about jefferson. her view broadly is it's fine to acknowledge and honor those ak expects of somebody like jefferson that we do consider to be laudable, his commitment to democratic principles, liberty, whole range of good things, while simultaneously being honest and acknowledged, yes, he helped slaves. yes, if you read the material in there, it's a material argument for white supremacy and material argument that's a terrible one. but we have to be grown-ups and acknowledge that. >> randy, does all of this leave you sad and disappointed you can still weaponize race in such a powerful way? >> yes, it does. in fact, for most of my life i have been a very confident racial optimist. i have believed very confidentially we shall overcome. what has happened in the past few years and the ascend nse of donald trump of donald trump was the worst aspect of it, what happened in the past few years has been an emergence of an unapologetic and open appeal to racial resentments that has really taken me aback and has really chastened me. so i still an optimistic, my confidence has definitely been shaken. >> on that sobering note, we've got to end it. thank you, gentlemen, for a fascinating conversation about an important topic. >> thank you. >> thanks, fareed. next on "gps" -- bethlehem once had a population that was about 80% christian. it is now less than a quarter of that. why have christians fled from the birthplace of jesus? the answer when we come back. to be a thriver with metastatic breast cancer means asking for what we want. and need. and we need more time. so, we want kisqali. women are living longer than ever before with kisqali when taken with an aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant in postmenopausal women with hr+, her2- metastatic breast cancer. kisqali is a pill that's significantly more effective at delaying disease progression versus an aromatase inhibitor or fulvestrant alone. kisqali can cause lung problems, or an abnormal heartbeat, which can lead to death. it can cause serious skin reactions, liver problems, and low white blood cell counts that may result in severe infections. tell your doctor right away if you have new or worsening symptoms, including breathing problems, cough, chest pain, a change in your heartbeat, dizziness, yellowing of the skin or eyes, dark urine, tiredness, loss of appetite, abdomen pain, bleeding, bruising, fever, chills or other symptoms of an infection, a severe or worsening rash, are or plan to become pregnant, or breastfeeding. avoid grapefruit during treatment. ask your doctor about living longer with kisqali. the eyes of the christian world have been on bethlehem this weekend as the faithful celebrate jesus' birth in a manger there. more than 2,000 years later, that city now in the west bank has lost most of its followers of the cross. as recently as 1950 some 80% of bethlehem's residents were christian. today it's less than 20%. it's not just bethlehem and the west bank, from egypt to syria to iran, the population of christians in the middle east is dwindling fast. janine di giovanni is a longtime correspondent who turned her eye for this issue and new book "faith lost in the twilight of christianity in the land of the prophets." janine, this is such an interesting and important book. what drew you to it? when did you sort of realize yourself this is extraordinarily the big trend not many people have written about? >> yes, exactly. i started working on it really 30 years ago when i started working in the middle east exclusively. and what i found, especially around the time of the fall of saddam hussein in 2003 in iraq was so many of the christians were leaving. they were either fearful of a change of hand, of what would happen when saddam left, and then much later in 2014, of course, when the islamic state rolled through. and now there's even greater challenges for them. >> when people think about the middle east, you do think about the expulsion of jews, which is exactly not often talked about but in the late '40s and '50s, after the foundation of israel, hundreds of thousands of jews were pushed out of places like iraq, where they had lived for hundreds and hundreds of years. at that point the christians were still welcome, right. you see the big shift as recently as the rise of candidate and islamic state and this brand of arab radicalism? >> what's really interesting, and it was actually kind of shocking to me when i first started working on it, is most of the christians felt protected by dictators. so the egyptian cops under mew batik, the christians under assad and iraqis under saddam hussein. what they feared more than anything was the breakdown in the rule of law. they thought this is the devil we know, it's better than what can come next, especially in syria where people feared the rise of al qaeda or whoever. >> and they turned out to be right, one has to say. saddam hussein and assad and mubarak did protect the questions. >> like tito in yugoslavia. there's always an army like gadhafi can hold strong minorities together and protect them. but the fact there are other factors at work which are driving them out. the rate at which they were leaving is absolutely shocking. there's not many censuses done, but let's take iraq. there were something like 1.5 million christians at the last census, which was in the time of saddam. now the numbers are between somewhere ten 150,000 and 300,000. we don't know but more towards 150,000. >> do you think part of this is people in the west particularly have a conception of christianity and christians which is entirely western and white, if i may say so, and the truth is the original christians, jesus, was a middle eastern jew, who then -- people don't realize that these are all middle eastern guys that are probably brown skinned. >> yes, they are. and i cannot tell you how moved i have been by being in some of the masses in let's say mosul where they speak aramaic, the language of praise. to hear them, i willer in forget a mass i went to right before the invasion. people were praying, and they were terrified, terrified for what was coming next and they were crying and they were praying for protection. to see that, witnessing that, was something for me historical and vital. and then in the aftermath of the ice eye sis islamic state, when i tried to return back to the munnties to go back and if they were rebuilding the churches, to see them still there was remarkable. i said why did you stay, what kept you here? and they looked at me and said, this is our land. of we have been here for 2,000 years. >> janine di giovanni, pleasure. fascinating, fascinating book. >> thank you so much. next on "gps" -- ♪ when beethoven died, he left behind nine symphonies as you probably know. but did you know he started a tenth? the fascinating story of the humans and machine that completed it. when it comes to autism, finding the right words can be tough. finding understanding doesn't have to be. together, we can create a kinder, more inclusive world for the millions of people on the autism spectrum. go to autismspeaks.org and now for the next big idea. ♪ most of us know the four notes that come next. ♪ this is, of course, lud individual van beige hovan's first symphony first performed in 1908. in his lifetime the prolific german composer produced more than 700 works, including his famous nine symphonies. ♪ beethoven was actually working on his tenth symphony when he died in 1827 at the age of 56. ♪ but he had already scratched out sparse musical sketches leaving future musicians to wonder what would have come next? nearly two centuries after his death, that tenth symphony has received life in a very unusual way. a group of composers, musicologists, music historians and computer scientists teamed up with artificial intelligence to complete the tenth symphony. the group set out to expand beethoven's original notes into a full-blown symphony. they taught the ai about his creative process using the composer's entire body of work. we talked to the computer scientist in charge of the process, professor ahmad algamid of rutgers university, to find out how they trained the computer to write music as beethoven might have. it wasn't just a simple algorithm. the team had to change the ai to build on teams, stitch notes together and decide which instruments would play which parts. a symphony has several movements. that tune you recognize as "ode to joy." just one part of beethoven esninth. the ai even listened to music beethoven would have listened to at the time to help understand what he was exposed to. that helped the computer to understand what made beethoven beethoven. versus what made mozart mozart. ♪ the ai would generate several possibilities for a symphony section but the human musicians ultimately chose what made tenth. as explained to "gps," ai can predict the text of your email but only you can decide what you mean to say, so ai does not replace an artist, it is merely a tool to enhance the work of artists. it took the team about three years to finish the project, expanding beethoven's 200 or so original notes to a 40,000-note symphony entirely composed with the help of ai. they played it to beethoven's experts who struggled to tell where his original music ended and where the ai music began. the tenth symphony debuted this fall in germany in the city he was born and raised. take a listen. ♪ we will never know how close this extraordinary piece actually is to the work beethoven would have composed. but professor elgamid believes the 19th century composer would have been happy to know musicians of the future tried to understand his genius using 21st century tools. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. a very happy new year to all. and i will see you next week and next year. ♪ hey, i'm brian stelter and this is "reliable sources," where we examine the story behind the story. we figure out what's reliable. this hour we're going to answer your questions about media slipups and screw-ups. then we're going to go from the worst of journalism to the best and introduce you to a cnn translator who fled the taliban in afghanistan and now has a new life in america. and from the heaviest news to the lightest, what is it like to run a hysterical news site constantly fooling gullible users? i will ask the editor of "the onion" in a little b