I'm gonna begin with you, Tim, because I gotta know, are you surprised by this effort to review whether the Watergate investigation was weaponized?

Well, I'm not surprised by efforts to make Richard Nixon and Donald Trump both seem to be victims of a quote-unquote deep state.

This particular approach to explaining malfeasance in office has been used by Nixon apologists for some time.

And I'm not surprised that Vice President Vance uses the same terms.

What would surprise me is if Vice President Vance actually believed what he was saying.

Let's make clear the basis for this argument that the deep state took down President Nixon.

President Nixon asked the FBI to do things the FBI felt it could not do in the United States.

The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.

Can you explain why the DOJ is suddenly seemingly dabbling in this?

Well, The president and his closest associates and the vice president are to some extent attracted to conspiracy theories.

To some extent, doing a lot of work there for you.

They have lumped the Nixon-Watergate story into that.

And there are people who have argued for some time that the CIA, by not assisting the president in the coverup, as the president hoped, the CIA constituted a deep state.

If you think about it, that's really odd.

The CIA and the FBI both decided not to violate laws for a president, And we should, instead of supporting that approach to our Constitution, we're supposed to criticize them for not helping a president engage in a cover-up.

Can you just put that in some context for us?

So as you're speaking, I keep looking at the screen, okay, and the protesters, but what I'm looking at, Tim, is behind them, is that tarp, okay? I must admit that it rents space in my head every few days to wonder what it says about a person that he cares so much about his name being on that building that they're not removing the tarp so that he isn't confronted with the fact that the Trump part has to come off and Kennedy remains.

Well, Erin, there are bullies that have very thin skin, and the president is showing an intense obsession with this building.

And it's not a healthy obsession.

So think about what it means here.

Imagine if Franklin Roosevelt, in his second term, Franklin Roosevelt, who also survived an assassination attempt, If he decided, you know, I'm a popular president, I'm going to put my name on the Lincoln Memorial.

I'm going to put my name on the memorial because I'm going to make it bipartisan.

The Lincoln-Roosevelt Memorial.

But I guess I'm taking a step back and saying, if you think people talking about this is a good thing for you, that is is unsettling.

Hmm.

Now, think of that, a leader of this country feeling remorse, admitting error, understanding they're human and they're flawed, and knowing that the pain that others, other Americans suffered was in part, I mean, there, the 9- our government on 9/11 didn't want what happened, happened.

But they recognized they might have done more to prevent it, and feeling that sense of remorse.

Okay.

25 years after Pearl Harbor.

What did they, what were, what was Congress able to do? A bipartisan group in Congress dismantled Jim Crow.

We, we don't seem to have that ability 25 years after this attack.

Mm-hmm.

So I, I'm not...

I, I think if we, if you and I had this discussion right after the book came out in '07, I would have said he's without a doubt the most underrated.

But Barack Obama over two terms, and I think he even gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to, uh, George Herbert Walker Bush.

I think Barack Obama did a lot for elevating George Bush's, uh, reputation because obviously he's a Democrat, and Democrats don't usually say such things about Republicans.

Anyway, here's why he deserves cre- Here's why he deserves attention.

Um, um, he was willing, um, to take, uh, some risks.

Mm-hmm.

So last night's speech struck a far different tone it seemed, Tim.

Yes.

Um, uh, uh, first of all, Gerald Ford was a, a different, a different man.

Um, uh, had a different...

He was an institutionalist.

Uh, he was, he was not elected, uh, to the presidency, nor was he elected to the vice presidency.

He comes to power because of, of the resignation of Richard Nixon and the, um, corruption of Vice President Agnew.

... anniversary obviously comes at a time of deep partisan divisions, sweeping changes in technology, a fair degree of turmoil, but you've looked at other big milestones for the country, not just 1976, but also 1926 and 1876, and those were also, uh, transformative moments?

... can you set the scene for us? How were George Washington and the Founding Farm- Fathers feeling 250 years ago today, on July 3rd, on the eve of a really momentous occasion, uh, the day before the Continental Congress officially adopted the Declaration of Independence?

Well, um, 250 years ago, [clicks tongue] uh, in Philadelphia, uh, they were editing.

[clicks tongue] Uh, they cut the first, they cut Jefferson's draft of the Declaration of Independence by a, a quarter on July, uh, 3rd.

Uh, by the way, on July 2nd, the day that John Adams always felt should be celebrated as our Independence Day, uh, the Continental Congress had, um, uh, voted for, uh, the resolution of independence.

But of course the declaration itself took a couple of days of editing and wouldn't be, uh, uh, formally approved until tomorrow, 250 years ago.

George Washington, however, had a very different July the 3rd.

Uh, George Washington was here in New York City, and George Washington was overseeing the defense of New York City.

Uh, what was, uh, that celebration like? What was the message that he gave to the American people? And what do you expect from President Trump tomorrow?

Just how significant has Ted Turner's contribution to history, how significant has that been?

Well, Ted Turner was a larger-than-life figure who thought globally.

And to paint a picture for you, Wolf, and my personal condolences to you and those who worked with Mr. Turner, I paint a picture of the start of Operation Desert Storm, the operation to liberate Kuwait, which was occupied by Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army.

George Bush, Barbara Bush, and Billy Graham were watching CNN to watch the start of the war.

Not too far away, General Colin Powell was at the Pentagon watching CNN.

to watch the beginning of the war.

In fact, Colin Powell wrote later in his memoirs that he was watching Bernard Shaw, Peter Arnett, and John Holloman like current day Edward R. Murrows.

How do you think that's resonating with President Trump?

Well, I think you can tell from President Trump's manner that it's resonating very well with him.

President Trump doesn't usually hide how he actually feels about how things are going.

And I get the sense from the pictures we're seeing today, but more importantly, from the way he reacted to the King's toasts at the state dinner, that the president is very much enjoying this trip.

And I think that says a lot for Charles' Delicate Balancing Act.

is not simply the head of state of the United Kingdom.

He's the head of state of 15 countries.

Do they have anything else in common?

Well, I would think that...

they both understand the importance of this moment.

I just wanted to make clear that the British government decides when the king goes somewhere.

And whatever the king says has been scripted by the government of the day, which would be Keir Starmer.

The British understand this affinity that you mentioned, Wolf.

and need it now.

Just how historically significant is this appearance at the Capitol? And what are you watching for in his speech?

uh no no you you are an amazing you're an amazing specimen and uh intellectual moral and physical uh so we've got so many things to cover but i want to start drawing on your expertise as a founder of a presidential library um there is a project for a trump presidential library in miami it will not surprise you to hear that this project is laden with scandal but you think it's not just the financial scandals that are important So let's talk about the financial scandal and the intellectual scandal of the Trump Library.

First of all, it's great to be with you, David.

I had the privilege of working for the National Archives and Records Administration, and I was appointed, I didn't apply for the job, but I was appointed to be the first federal director of the Nixon Library.

After Watergate, because of concerns that the president, President Nixon, would destroy his famous tapes and the documents, Congress seized his materials.

President Ford signed the law.

And as a result, the Nixon materials couldn't leave the Washington, D.C. area.

So Nixon could not have a real presidential library.

What do you know about the Cumming Trump Library? How does it compare and contrast to other presidential libraries that already exist?

Is there anything that could slow down these sweeping changes over in the East Wing of the White House? President Trump plans for the White House complex are very intense.

It's all about the public, Wolf.

The president fired all the members of the Commission of Fine Arts.

And the Commission of Fine Arts, under a series of executive orders and a statute from Congress, signed by President Taft, is supposed to advise the president.

Now, the president alone makes the decisions.

But that whole advisory process hasn't happened regarding the campus of the White House because the president fired all the members of the commission.

There's a way to slow down this process.

Do you want to elaborate a little bit more?

Why is this such a big deal? What can you tell us about that and past changes to the White House?

Every president has the right and the expectation of changing the Oval Office.

And generally speaking, at the end of their term, that Oval Office is reconstructed in their presidential library.

Presidents change the colors of the Oval Office, the rug, which presidential portraits they want to display there.

There's no doubt that that is certainly part of the expected tradition.

What is not part of the executive tradition is that the president will demolish part of the White House campus.

And if they do demolish it, will do it without involving the organizations that were established in some cases in 1910. to ensure the integrity, historical and otherwise, of the White House.

What sort of artifacts are we talking about, and where do we expect they may go?

What do you mean by that?

What I mean by that is that President Trump as a candidate promise that he would use the power of the federal government enormous power of the presidency to seek retribution to seek revenge he said to his supporters that he was doing it on their behalf but in many ways it seemed like it was for himself that he was doing this and in office he has sought to use federal power to go after perceived adversaries in government and in the private sector.

He's gone after universities.

He's gone after law firms.

He's gone after media organizations.

He's gone after federal members of the court.

He has gone after America's closest allies.

Can you talk about that? Because it feels like a huge part of this first 100 days.