Historian Jon Meacham reacted to President-elect Joe Biden’s win and acceptance speech on MSNBC – after secretly helping craft the speech, according to reports.
Meacham reportedly helped with multiple speeches for Biden, according to the The New York Times – while working at MSNBC as a contributor. In particular, Meacham worked on Biden’s Saturday acceptance speech, although he did not disclose this during discussions on MSNBC.
In one such discussion, Meacham was asked following Biden’s speech if he agrees “that is the way we are used to hearing from our presidents.”
“Absolutely,” Meacham replied regarding the speech he reportedly helped make. “Tonight marks the entire election results. Marks a renewal of an American conversation where we’re struggling imperfectly to realize the full implications of the Jeffersonian promise of equality that has taken us too long. Our work has been bloody and tragic and painful and difficult and Lord knows it is unfinished. But at our best we try and at our best we are.”
“Vice president — sorry, the president-elect, got to get used to that, the president-elect quoted Martin Luther King tonight who quoted Theodore Parker, a 19th century abolitionist talking about the arc of a moral universe being long but it bends toward justice,” he continued. “It only bends if there are people like John Lewis and people like Jim Clyburn and people like the suffragists and people like the abolitionists who insist that it swerve. That’s the dialect of history and what’s unfolding now is the resumption of a conversation about who we are and who we want to be.”
WATCH:
During another discussion on MSNBC, Meacham declared that Biden “represents a kind of tonic for a toxic politics,” Mediaite reported. Meacham has a long friendship with Biden, the NYT reported. (RELATED: HW’s Reaction When He Heard Biographer Jon Meacham’s Planned Eulogy Sums Him Up Perfectly)
The NYT originally did not note Meacham’s role as an MSNBC contributor. Later, the publication updated its story with the relationship and noted that Meacham will reportedly no longer be a paid contributor.