You are right. He did it in a way that was sort of erect and correct and articulate. Later, morning joe himself Joe Scarborough joins me on his new book about president harry truman. He came from missouri. His parents were both proconfederate. He he he had a racist background. And here is a guy, in 1948, Election Year when he knows it is going to hurt him politically, he moves to integrate the armed services. Also, Michael Eric Dyson takes on senatemajority leader Mitch Mcconnell. He is enacting some of the worst practices we have seen in the history of this nation, in regard to a center blocking the coming to fruition of legislation that could relieve the the hurt and suffering of black people. And at the end of the hour, the amazing, leslie jones. Need i say more . I let them know that i was not going to do any interview first, but yours. Thats right. Because i love joy. Joy to the world, to the fishes in the deep, blue sea. I lovejoy first up, though, my recent conversation with the great, Rachel Maddow. Donald trumps presidency has felt unprecedented, in so many ways. But before there was a donald trump attacking the norms of our democracy, there was a spearspearo spearow agnew. If you want to discover the source of the division in our country, look no further than the fake news and the crooked media. Liberalism, today, translates into a pussyfooting on law and order. They dont think they are politically good. Conduct of high individuals in the department of justice is unprofessional and malicious and outrageous. Our Justice Department and our fbi have to start doing their job and doing it right, and doing it now. Whats happening is a disgrace. In her new book, bag man, the wild crimes, audacious coverup, and spectacular downfall of a brazen crook in the white house. Which details the oftenoverlooked story of the bribery scheme. Then Vice President agnew ran from inside the white house. The playbook agnew wrote to try to save himself has left its own, long legacy for the elected official who prides himself on busting through political norms. If saving yourself means undermining the institutions of democracy, the department of justice, and the free press, for starters, well, fire up the backhoe. I am joined, now, by the most of the Rachel Maddow show. The great Rachel Maddow. Rachel, thank you so much for being here. I have to start, before i even jump into the book, by asking you how is susan . Susan. First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you, for all of that. I have never seen the juxtaposition in tape there of agnew and trump. I have done it in print. I have never seen it laid out like that, in tape. Its fantastic. Their delivery is actually has such echoes. That was amazing. But susan is much better. Shes dealing with the long tail of the symptoms from covid, but we are not scared in the way that we were. And we are out of the woods, as they say. And so, boy. We you know, it took us a full week to eat through the gift package that you sent. But we buckled and we did it. So, thank you. It was so sweet of you. I can only be counted on for food and drink. Like, that is what i can do. We are very happy to hear. That is the first and most important thing. So i had to get to that. And i have to give it to up rachel, whos also named rachel who produced this segment. You know our producers are everything. So, she found that incredible video. And so, the thing that is so amazing about these two. You write in your book and you say it all the time, historys here to help. History is also here to freak us out. Because as i am reading through this book, its freaky. Agnew is basically a more articulate version of donald trump. Attacking the press. The racism. The antisemitism. Saying everybody loved me until i get into the white house and everybody hates me. The attacks. They are so symmetrical. Its interesting to me because a lot of times, you hear very smart people talk about what trump is trying to do to undermine democracy now. And the way he plays very fast and loose with authoritarian trend lines and all the stuff he pushes at. A lot of smart people will say, yeah, this is buffoonish and its easy to laugh at trump doing these things. But what about when the slicker version of trump comes around, the more articulate trump tries to do these things . That already happened. Agnew was pushing all the same levers that trump is pushing. But, youre right, he did it in a way that was sort of erect and correct and articulate. And he still was seen as a crook in office because of it. So, it may its sort of comforting to me because there really isnt anything new under the sun. But the lesson of how to deal with guys like that is not that they go away on their own. Or they can be sort of, i dont know, neutralized by the passage of time. He was as malignant as trump is but there were good people in office who put country above party, and they fixed it. Absolutely. And i think that is the story. You do write in the book and you say in the podcast. You know, it is the story of these you know, the guys who stayed straight ahead, stared straight ahead, and did their jobs that wind up fixing this. Lets talk about the actual scandal, itself. Because its a wild i mean, at one point, George Herbert walker bush shows up. This is like a netflix series, all in a book. But i mean, the fact that you have this crook operating a bribery scheme that dated back to when he is governor of maryland. A state you people dont realize how corrupt maryland politics is and has been but it was supercorrupt. Well, i should say has been. But, talk about the fact that you have this happening, kind of, simultaneous with watergate but theyre not connected. Exactly. And that is part of what i think was sort of forgotten in the history of agnew. People, if they remember him at all, they think it must have been a watergateadjacent thing, right . There are a lot of people who got charged in watergateadjacent things. All the people involved in the crime and his attorney general went to jail. You remember, you assume that it must have been that way for agnew, too. No. Totally separate, original scandal, taking bags of cash as kickbacks for government contracts. And he started doing it as Baltimore County executive and he did it as maryland governor. And he kept taking the bribes. Literally, envelopes stuffed full of cash, while he was in the white house. And so, thats what confronts elliot richardson, who is kind of one of the heroes of this story. One of nixons attorneys general. One, who didnt go to prison. One who nixon, in fact, fired for not doing his bidding. And richardson is like, all right, im getting crazy phone calls, every day, from nixon. Nixon, at one point in the story, is in the hospital with pneumonia. The watergate stuff is gearing up and getting bad. And nixon is going kind of nuts. Its clear that, like, nixons holding on by a thread, in terms of the presidency. Well, what happens in nixon goes . Agnew goes into the oval office. And he knows that agnew is taking cash bribes and is a whole different kind of felon. So, that becomes this Real National security imperative. The idea that the country might collapse, if if a president is forced out for being a crook, immediately elevating his Vice President , who then has to be forced out for being a crook. I mean, what what happens . So, it it really put the fire, i think, under richardson, in terms hof how to deal with i. Thats one of the things there isnt a parallel with trump because there is no way to force him out of office with exchange for facing indictment but thats where they landed with agnew. You know, the thing that is, also, fascinating. The country confronted, previously, this question about whether or not you can indict a president. But there is also that sort of olc issue of whether or not you can indict a Vice President. And you have agnew and nixon both asserting that you cannot, right . That they are protected, absolutely, by the office from indictment. Talk about how that connects us to where we are now because there has been a lot of this talk about whether donald trump, who is, also, seen by a lot of people as corrupt, maybe criminally corrupt, could be indicted. Particularly, on, lets say, Something Like obstruction where he says to have been dead to rights named in the mueller report. Talk about how the agnew scandal relates to that. Yeah. And i would also say you can also call him individual number one. Right . He is already named in the Michael Cohen hush money the case in which Michael Cohen went to prison, he is named by prosecutors as having been the person directing the commission of those felonies. But this is some of the stuff that made me want to write the book, in addition to doing the podcast. Because mike and i advanced the reporting on this, even after the podcast and came to what i think is sort of an unsettling revelation about that. President s do have a getoutofjailfree card. Where that comes from is the agnew scandal and specifically from nixon and agnew hating each other. At one point, agnew goes to the democratic speaker of the house, and says, basically, id like to you impeach me. And the speaker of the house is like, uh, no, i dont want to do that. But he thought if he got impeached, that would keep him from getting indicted. They go to his his lawyers are arguing, no, no, he cant be indicted. He can only be impeached. They go to the counsel at the Justice Department and what the office of Legal Counsel comes up with, they check with nixon to find out the way nixon wants it to come out, right . And what they come up with is that the Vice President can be indicted and the president cannot. And that was specifically because nixon didnt want the impeachment machinery to start for agnew. But he didnt if agnew was going to get indicted, he didnt want to get indicted, himself. That was just nixon trying to save himself in the face of his gangster Vice President getting thrown out of office. It wasnt like some Founding Fathers on a tablet given to moses sort of thing in the constitution. The getoutofjailfree card that is keeping donald trump from getting indicted by mueller and by sdny derives from this ridiculous, craven fight between these two felons. It is amazing. This era has been so toxic. But like, the 60s and 70s keep coming like, hold my beer. You think its crazy now . Well show you crazy. We are going to show it to you. You are great, rachel. What an incredible book. Congratulations on bad man. No one can borrow my copy. But still, read it. Still ahead on our reid out holiday special, more of my most interesting, enlightening, and hilarious interviews of 2020. Joe scarborough joins me next. Stay right there. Joe scarborough joins me next. Stay right there up at 2 00am again . Tonight, try pure zzzs all night. Unlike other sleep aids, our extended release melatonin helps you sleep longer. And longer. Zzzquil pure zzzs all night. Fall asleep. Stay asleep. Honey honey . New nyquil severe honey is maximum strength cold and flu medicine with soothing honeylicious taste. Nyquil honey. The nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever best sleep with a cold medicine. Each febreze car vent clip gives you up to 30 days of fresh air. So, you can have open window freshness. Even with all the windows up. Enjoy fresh, any time, with febreze. Secret stops sweat 3x more Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo Yo start your day with secret. Than ordinary antiperspirants. With secret youre unstoppable. No sweat. Try it and love it or get your money back. Secret. All strength, no sweat dont settle for silver 1 for diabetic dry skin 1 for psoriasis symptom relief and 1 for eczema symptom relief gold bond champion your skin in his new book saving freedom, truman, the cold war, and the fight for western civilization. How the truman doctrine has shap shaped u. S. Foreign policy and americas role in the world for the last seven decades. Prevented his administration from making progress on any, significant foreignpolicy issue, over four years. Back with me now is Joe Scarborough and author of saving freedom. Which i am in the midst of reading, joe, and i am enjoying it, a lot. I, actually, am really intrigued by harry truman. I am a history buff, anyway. But he is an interesting figure to me because he is this guy, hes this sort of racist senator from missouri. Who writes his wife, in his little note to her about n words and china men. And then, comes and does more for black americans than fdr did. You know, allowing black people to actually get into the military and the federal workforce. That actually ends up doing a lot and changing. How how do you think he, also, changed our Foreign Policy . Well, i want to talk about that first, though, because its fascinating to see how much he grew. He came from missouri. His parents were both proconfederate. He he had a racist background. And yet, here is a guy who, in 1948, Election Year, when he knows its going to hurt him politically, he moves to integrate the armed services. And sure enough, Strom Thurman breaks out. He is getting attacked by Henry Wallace on the left and Strom Thurman on the right. And frankly, he just didnt give a damn. He thought it was the right thing to do, given the service that black americans gave during world war ii. And and he thought it had to be done. And and its another example of how harry truman grew in his life. This was a guy that was mocked and ridiculed when he came to washington, d. C. He was called a rube by the new york times. A mousey, little man from missouri. And yet, after he got elected or or after he became president of the United States, after fdrs sudden death, he had to guide this country, not only through the end of world war ii but, also, into a very turbulent peacetime when americans and, especially republicans in the senate were isolationists, they didnt want to be bothered by europe. They didnt want to be bothered by the rest of the world. They had just gotten past defeating hitler. And yet, joe stalin, Joseph Stalin and the soviet union, actually posed a great risk to freedom, not only in Central Europe but western europe and across the world. And truman marshalled the resources and the support from republicans and democrats, alike, to actually stand up. And contain the soviet union spread and to ensure freedom in europe. And and created, really, more than any other president over the past 75 years, created the world that we live in today. You know, and its interesting because theres ambivalence about him, too. Right . There is hiroshima and nagasaki, you know, which one might argue was incredibly cruel to have done. We, the only country thats used nuclear weapons. But he also is somebody that did grow as president. Contrast that with the current guy because hes not growing. Well, i mean, it its hard to contrast it with the current guy because truman believed in plain speaking. He said the buck stopped here. He actually liked making difficult decisions, and slept better at night after he he did what he thought was the right thing to do. He didnt blame other people for his mistakes. He took responsibility and i believe, at the end, he changed the world for the better. He was an adult. Joe scarborough, it was great it helps. Author of saving freedom, truman, the cold war, and the fight for werstern civilization still ahead, Michael Eric Dyson says he has proof that whiteness is americas religion. Well be right back. Is americas religion. Well be right back. [narrator] this is steve. He used to have gum problems. Now, he uses therabreath healthy gums oral rinse with clinicallyproven ingredients and his gum problems have vanished. crowd applauding therabreath, its a better mouthwash. At walmart, target and other fine stores. Each febreze car vent clip gives you up to 30 days of fresh air. So, you can have open window freshness. Even with all the windows up. Enjoy fresh, any time, with febreze. And my water broke. At only 23 weeks. Andrew we had to stay in the hospital for 10 weeks, 1000s of miles from family. Our driver kristin came along in our most desperate hour. Suzanne bringing us homecooked meals and gifts. Andrew day after day. We wanted to show you something. Kristin oh my god Andrew Kristin is the most uncommonly kind person that weve met. Suzanne thank you so much. Just between us, cleaning with a mop and bucket is such a hassle. Well i switched to swiffer wet jet and its awesome. Its an allinone that absorbs dirt and grime deep inside. And it helps prevent streaks and haze. Stop cleaning. Start swiffering latonight, silence it with newd byzzzquil night pain. Because pain should never get in the way of a restful nights sleep. New zzzquil night pain. Silence pain, sleep soundly. Honey honey . New nyquil severe honey is maximum strength cold and flu medicine with soothing honeylicious taste. Nyquil honey. The nighttime, sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever best sleep with a cold medicine. In the opening of his new book, Michael Eric Dyson rights directly to elijah mcclain. A 23yearold black man who died last year in police custody. Dear elijah, we are about to see if it is true, that we are one. To see if your death and ahmaud arbery, george floyd, and untold others, are viewed as worthy of moral revulsion and, from there, the change of practice and belief that would prove a real reckoning is taking place. Congress has not, yet, passed comprehensive Police Reform and not because the house hasnt tried. In grimreaper Mitch Mcconnells senate. And i am joined now by Michael Eric Dyson, distinguished professor at Vand