This Sunday, find in common ground. Something to hope we can do no matter who you voted for. To see each other, not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans. Bring down the temperature.
It's time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us. It's time to unite. In this deeply divided nation, how do we talk to one another and bridge the divide? What I really want is all the vitriolic, the ugliness, the threats, the violence, the pinniness against each other.
To please stop. We're in a time of very divided government and a very partisan atmosphere in Washington. I wish it were not. What is the path forward?
Scary time in America right now? Things are just not going well. We are in a moral crisis right now and it won't get better unless we act. My guests this morning, Republican Senator James Langford of Oklahoma, and Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, the only two clergy members serving in the U.S.
Senate, joining me for insight and analysis are Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, Russell Moore, the editor-in-chief of Christianity Today and NBC News correspondent Antonia Hilton. Welcome to Sunday and a special edition of Meet the Press. From NBC News in Washington, the longest running show in television history, this is a special edition of Meet the Press with Kristen Welker. Good Sunday morning.
We begin with the question, can Americans keep talking to each other even when they disagree? With political polarization at an all-time high, is it even possible? A record high 80% of U.S. adults believe that Americans are greatly divided on the most important values.
Just 18% believe the country is united. Americans today dislike and distrust those from opposing political parties more than they did in the past. Growing shares in each party describe those in the other party as more close-minded, dishonest, immoral and unintelligent than other Americans. Nearly two-thirds of Americans say they always are often feel exhausted when thinking about politics.
55% feel angry. Just 10% say they always are often feel hopeful. In his first inaugural address as Civil War threatened to break the country apart, Abraham Lincoln famously said, We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.
Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. Over the decades, American presidents facing a divided country have returned to Lincoln and called for Americans to talk to each other. We don't have to call each other names anymore. We have honest differences.
We don't have to be mad. We don't have to be angry at each other on a human level, but we are honest differences. Sometimes our differences run so deep it seems we share a continent, but not a country. We do not accept this, and we will not allow it.
It's one of the few regrets of my presidency, that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better. I have no doubt a president with a gift of Lincoln or Roosevelt might have better bridged the divide, and I guarantee I'll keep trying to be better, so long as I hold this office. To take us through where we stand, I'm joined by my colleague M.C. political correspondent Steve Cornaki.
Steve, break it down for us. Yeah, Chris, I guess you could say there's consensus, but the consensus is on how fundamentally divided we are as a country. Can you show this a minute ago? This isn't even a value issue.
This is just about the basic values we have as Americans. Do you think we're united or greatly divided on those values? 8 out of 10 saying we are greatly divided on values, and this cuts across party lines. You can see it right here.
Democrats, Republicans, independents, very few of any of them say we are united on values. Just to put this in some context, it doesn't have to be this way. It wasn't always this way. This right here, you're looking at numbers right after 9-11.
Obviously, that's an extreme moment in our history. But again, look at the unity the country was feeling at that moment. Two decades later, look how far those numbers have descended since 9-11. So some context, some perspective there.
Again, you get the issue of how each side of the divide looks at each other. Again, what you see here are numbers that tell you this goes beyond policy differences. This goes beyond just basic disagreements about issues. Asking here, you're asking each party about what they think of the other party.
So you're asking Democrats. Do you think that Republicans respect democratic institutions? Not many Democrats say that about Republicans. Not many Republicans say that about Democrats.
Do you think the other party governs honestly? Almost no Democrats. Almost no Republicans say that about the other party. You see it here too on the question of tolerating different types of people.
So the view that each side has of the other, it's deep, deep suspicion hostility between the two parties, between the two sides of the divide. How does this play out in our elections? How did it play out in November? We talk about the different demographic divides that have been driving elections.
Now, gender, one of them, this goes back decades. We've really had a gender gap since 1980 in this election. Trump winning men by 12, Harris winning women by eight, a gender gap of 20 points. Third straight election, the gender gap was at least 20 points.
We see it on marriage. Married voters, heavily for Trump, unmarried, heavily for Harris. We see it among white voters, not so much yet with non-white voters. We're keeping an eye on that college degree.
Without a degree, Trump wins by 34 points. White voters with a degree, Harris by eight, an enormous gap right there. And then you can take a look right here as well in terms of how this would look on the map. These are all the counties in the country.
This is over 3,100 counties, and you think of those demographic divides. Trump cleaning up with blue collar voters, white voters without college degrees. You see that in a lot of rural areas, a lot of small population counties all over the country. Look at all of that red.
Meanwhile, the Democrats doing well with voters with college degrees, suburbanized city dwellers. So you see the Democratic base is much more narrow geographically. It's sort of population dense areas. That's what the divide looks like there.
And you just see within this, look at this, the number of blowout counties, which is at least a 50-point margin in the presidential race, a four-fold increase in the last generation. We can reduce this note to a very microscopic level, precinct level. These are areas within cities and towns. We might have found the two most polar opposite demographically precincts in the country.
I just want to show you them here. One is Hyde Park, Chicago. This is upscale. This is where Barack Obama's from.
High median income. Everyone is a college degree, a high school degree. Look at this. One in three quarters have a postgraduate degree in this precinct.
Harris wins it overwhelmingly. Other side of the divide here. Take a look here. This is Panther, West Virginia, McDowell, Colony, one of the poorest in the country.
You can see here not even half the residents with a high school diploma. Nobody with a college degree here. Donald Trump wins this by 92 points. Totally, totally far apart.
If there's one silver lining, maybe we can see when it comes to polarization, though. Just quickly, it is this. There is less overall racial polarization coming out of this election. Go back to 2016.
Trump won white voters by 20. Clinton back then won non-white by 53. That was a 73 point gap. This time, 1531.
The racial gap narrow this election. Donald Trump did much better with Latino voters, Asian American voters. We do have less racial polarization, but we still overall have a ton of polarization. Yeah, the numbers really tell the tale of just how divided we are.
Steve Krennaki. Thank you so much. And joining me now are the only two ordained ministers in the Senate, Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Republican Senator James Langford of Oklahoma. Welcome back to me, the press to both of you.
Thank you. Good to be back again. Thank you both for being here. It is so great to have you both here for this bipartisan conversation.
And we really want to focus on how we can restore bipartisanship in Washington and also those conversations across America that just aren't happening. You are two senators who care deeply about bipartisanship. And it comes at a time when we are very fractured here in Washington as a nation. I wonder if you can take me behind the scenes in Senator Warnock.
You can begin. Do you all have conversations about how you can restore bipartisanship? Are those conversations happening? Absolutely.
And I can tell you that for me, and I'm sure Senator Langford would agree, bipartisan work is as basic as the American Covenant. He flew us on out of many one. And so, you know, we have differences of opinion, but the issue is our humanity and trying to build and strengthen the American family. That's the spirit with which I come to this work.
It's informed by my years as a pastor. I still lead my church. And I'm deeply honored to work with Senator Langford. And this week and in recent days, we've been trying to think about ways we can do more work together.
Senator Langford, tell me about some of those conversations. How do you start the conversation of how you can do more work together? I really don't think of this as bipartisan work. This is just American work.
Most people don't think of themselves first as Republican, Democrat, independent. They think of them first as human beings and neighbors and people that work in families. And so really what we're talking about is how do people who disagree sit down and figure it out. So we are, unfortunately, Washington D.C.
is a mirror to the country that the country doesn't really like. Everybody looks at Washington D.C. And so those people yell at each other and everything else. And I typically will smile at folks when they say those crazy people yell at each other.
I was like, what was Thanksgiving like when you're all feeling like that? What happens is family members get together. They aren't together all the time. They see their differences and they have arguments.
I was like, well, that's D.C. That's what's happening. People that disagree. But the difference is, we're not supposed to just come here and just figure out how to be bipartisan.
We're supposed to figure out how to solve problems. And people, two people that disagree or a hundred people that disagree or four and 35 in the house that disagree have got to be able to down be grown ups and say, let's talk this out. Let's figure it out. Do you feel like you're in a minority of people who care about figuring it out right now in Washington because certainly across the country as we're saying relationships conversations are fractured?
Yeah, conversations are fractured. I don't think I'm in a minority that want to figure it out. I think I'm in a minority that has hope we will figure it out. I think a lot of people just lost hope.
This gets better. And I think that's the emotion of the country is they wanted to be fixed, but they can't figure out how it's going to actually happen. The latest poll I saw was over 70% of the people in the country don't like the direction of the country. That's not a political statement.
It's an emotional statement like what's happening to us as Americans. And my basic statement as well, Americans are all made up of individual Americans when each person decides they're going to do a different, American decides they're going to do a different. Let me give you some more polls because you're absolutely right. Almost two thirds of people say they feel exhausted when they think about politics.
They feel angry. More than 60% say having political conversations with people they disagree with is stressful and frustrating. Senator Warnock, how did we get here? Well, you know, as a pastor, I've said in my study many times with families that are struggling.
And I think what's important is to remember that you're family. And I think that what we're dealing with is the fundamental assault on that basic understanding that we are the American family. And all families have a complicated story. You know, we sort of gloss over things, but just beneath the surface of the family union, their stories are parts of our family life that, you know, we may not necessarily want to talk about that.
But it's all there. And the issue is remembering that you're still family. We have differences, but we sit together and we work it out. A lot of these differences are structural.
I do agree that Washington in some ways, in many ways, is a reflection of the country. But there are some structural issues, like gerrymandering, partisan, racial gerrymandering, that fracture of the country, the ways in which people's voices have been squeezed out of their democracy. I think there are many issues. I'll pick one fraud issue, like gun violence.
There's a Fox News poll that said 86% of Americans believe that we ought to have just basic background checks when it comes to gun violence. And yet we can't seem to get legislation that reflects anything near that level of agreement between the left and the right among ordinary citizens. We have to fix that. It's not like for what do you make of that issue, like gun violence, where we are seeing over and over again these school shootings that rip schools, rip communities apart.
Do you think there will be a time when some, and there has been, there have been moments of bipartisanship on this issue, but few and far between. Do you think there's space for something larger getting done? So I still go back to the most basic issue, gun violence issues really break down family issues. Very often when you have someone that ends up being a violent attacker somewhere, you go back and say, what was the family?
What was happening in the school? What was happening in the environment? And so we want to say, just pass a law, and that fixes it. But there are many issues in America.
You don't just pass a law and fix. It's a heart issue. Racism is a heart issue before it's a legislative issue. Now there are legislative issues where you say, we got to make sure everything's fair, balanced, opportunity for everybody, but it's a heart issue at the court.
And I started several years ago just asking people a simple question. Has your family ever invited a family of another race to your home for dinner? And most of the people caught me of all races and said, why friends with other races? I was like, that's not what I asked.
In your home is a family of another race ever been in your home and shared a meal. And most people I talked to of every race of Americans have said, no, that's never happened. Well, it's a barrier literally at our front door where our kids aren't growing up seeing families of other races around the kitchen table and just having normal conversations. That's a heart issue and a family issue to be worked through.
Same thing with gun violence and other things to try to figure out what's happening in our culture and our society that we've got to break down to see this kind of anger and hatred. Well, another issue that you both worked on, go ahead, Senator. Well, you know, look, it is a heart issue. It's a family issue.
But we've got to address the fact that this doesn't happen in other countries where there are, you know, there are family issues, there are heart issues. This is kind of bipartisan conversation that happens between two Christian brothers who have deep brother respectful one another. But, you know, I think we would agree that there's more work that can be done in this area. And we need more honest conversations like this or that.
Well, speaking of more work that needs to be done, I want to talk about another big issue. Certainly you've been very involved in Senator Langford immigration. You were very close to getting a bipartisan immigration deal. And I know you were working hours nonstop to try to get this done.
It fell apart in the end. We won't get into all the reasons why. But you were actually censured by Republicans in Oklahoma, in your home state. What does that say?
And what message does it send to people who say, there's no hope for the bipartisan deals being bipartisan? Again, we break down the issue. It's not necessarily bipartisan. It's how do we solve the problem?
There's a problem. How do we get together with people we disagree with and figure out how to be able to solve that? That's the ultimate issue. In the focus a lot of times you're in Washington DC is how to do bipartisan.
When you get home, again, the conversation's not that way. It's how do you actually just solve the problem on it? And we talk a lot about bipartisan disagreements on it. But quite frankly, Democrats have fights with Democrats, Republicans have fights with Republicans.
Most of the most heated battles that I face are with other Republicans on it. And then we'll sit down and talk about something and say, we're going to find common ground on things. But that's just the nature of where politics are. And I think it still goes back to this core issue.
Americans feel like things are broken. And when you begin to lose hope and you feel like things are broken, you get angrier. Well, yeah, speaking of that, that anger, I mean, Senator, we're not, do you feel like there's a public anger and almost mistrust of people working together, reaching across the aisle to find that common ground? I think the whole country has what I call a low-grade fever.
You know, someone, if you wake up and you just don't feel really well, you can't even put your finger on it. We've been through four years of COVID and people, you know, the early years of that, early months of that, having to shelter in all the trauma around that, 20 years of what felt like an endless war. And then demagogues who make, you know, who exploit this moment through exacerbating the fault lines, the cultural fault lines of division in our country. And I think people just feel the full weight and the trauma of all of that.
And what I would encourage us to do, especially in this season, is to look toward one another, rather than to figure out, you know, rather than thinking about how we can hurt one another. And pray with one another, rather than pray on one another. And, you know, I still have a great hope for this country. Our ideals of unity, of inclusion, of equality.
And the American story is about pushing us closer towards those ideals. And there have been moments when the democracy has expanded, there have been moments when it's contracted. But anyone will tell you that even contractions are necessary for birth. And so I remain hopeful even in this moment.
But it's going to be hard work. Senator, like for talk to members of the Republican Party, what is your message to them this holiday season? As we prepare to begin a new chapter here in Washington, as a country, together, what do you think Republicans can do better? To try to bring about the type of bipartisanship, the work, the spirit that you have been dedicated to?
I think the key thing is there. Let's identify what the problem is. Let's figure out how to be able to solve it. And we find great differences across the country in different regions.
A Republican in Oklahoma is different than a Republican in New York or in Maine or in Washington state. It's just different. They think differently, though we're all in the same party. So even within parties, there are differences of opinion.
And there's differences between Republican and Democrat. We live next door to each other. We figure out how to be able to work it out as neighbors. We've got to be able to figure out how to be able to work it as well.
Now, that doesn't mean we give away our values. We don't have to give away values on it. I'm always looking for where do we have common ground? Compromizers are where a lot of people throw around.
I understand what you're trying to say, but I think what people hear, though, especially Republicans, is compromise means give up your values. I don't think you should give up your values. I don't think I should give them my values. But there's a lot of areas where we may have 80% or 70% that we do agree on.
That's a common ground issue as Americans. Let's do that. And then as Americans think and pray about the next big problem, we'll find that area common ground again. And let's keep moving.
The worst thing we can do is do nothing. If I can make this simple statement, every single issue that we face, we can either do nothing, something or everything. Now, problems are so bad. Debt is so big.
We're so out of control. Immigration is so out of control. Everybody in my party says, let's do everything. We got to fix it all.
We got to fix it all right now. Washington's terribly doing everything. We're terrible at it. Trying to get everything done on it.
But we can't do just nothing. We have to find the something that can get done so we can at least make progress and Americans can feel progress is being made. We're doing something. We're not just sitting there complaining about the problem.
We're actually going to try to solve this. Kristen, I think the problem comes when politicians center themselves rather than the people. If you center the people, you have a shot at getting the policy, right? What is your message to Democrats?
What do Democrats need to do better and differently moving forward? Well, look, you've got to listen to the people. We just had an election. And I think we have to take some time to listen to what the folks are saying, what the people are saying, everyday people are saying, and continue to build on our values.
Look, I've had success doing bipartisan work, working with people like Ted Cruz and I did legislation together. I've worked with Republican senators in Alabama to defend and support farmers. A lot more bipartisan work happens very often than you think. Sometimes it's not talked about because it doesn't necessarily fit.
That's not news. It's not. It's not. It's not.
It's not because. There's one person doing this and one person doing this. We do what we're making the people see. All right.
Well, wonderful point there. And today this bipartisan conversation is the news. Thank you so much for being here today with us. When we come back, more of our conversation with Senators Langford and Warnock, the only two members of clergy serving in the US Senate.
We'll talk about how they find common ground as faith leaders. Welcome back, and Senators Raphael Warnock and James Langford are still with me. Let's talk about faith. You both came to politics from Baptist Ministries.
And I wonder how that background has shaped your work now in Congress. What would people learn if they got to sit in church with you all on Sundays? How does that inform the type of politician you are Senator Langford? Well, I have to say when I accepted Christ, it was a simple thing for me to understand.
I didn't make the universe. I'm not God. And I know I have sinned in my life and I'm separated from God. And so when I accepted Christ in my life, it was a revolutionary event in my own soul.
That affects how I treat other people. That affects how I treat my wife, my children, people I disagree with, my staff. It affects how I drive. I say to people a lot on the faith issues.
If your faith only affects what you do on Sunday mornings, things that you only do on a weekend, that's called a hobby. A faith is something that permeates every part of what you do. And so my faith affects me. I see people as great in the image of God and they have value and worth.
We may disagree on an issue, but that person's great in the image of God. They have value and worth the same as I do on that. And so I'm going to treat them different. I want to have strong debate on issues, because clearly I'm right.
Clearly you're wrong. Clearly you're wrong. All those issues. I want to talk about the issues and what I believe in.
Especially about it. Do it in a respectful way to say I want to also listen because I'm a person that should learn humility as well. Because God has affected me and I'd love to have that for other people as well. We're not, how does your faith impact the work that you do every day here in Washington?
Well, I often say to folks that I'm not a senator who used to be a pastor. I'm a pastor in the Senate. And, you know, I don't know if you've ever been to a Baptist service. You took great risk of fighting two Baptist churches.
There's a limit to this. We're worried about the time cues. Yeah. So, you know, look, every Sunday at my church after I finish the sermon, I see the doors of the church road.
It is our invitation to discipleship. And it is an openness. And you really mean it. Whosoever will let them come.
I have brought that same spirit to my work in DC. I literally mean it. Like, whoever I can work with to get good things done for the people of Georgia, I will do that. And my work as a pastor, walking with people.
Even as you work for the people. Very often in DC, you can't get things done at the rate that you want to get them done. But I think people need leaders that they feel walking beside them in some sense. I've spent years literally in hospital rooms.
I've seen up close what happens when the diabetes, for example, is out of control. I've been there when families have had to face the terrible news that someone has to get an amputation. And so it was those folks that I had in mind when I wrote my bill, the Catholic cause of insulin to $35 per month. And so I try to bring that spirit of centering people, the openness to work with anybody to get things done.
Do you worry that politics is impacting people's religious faith center? Well, I think that we shouldn't turn the politics into a God. You know, when one central tenant of our faith is that you have no other God before me. And look, I don't want to turn politics into a God.
I don't want to practice my faith in such a way that I'm not open to others. You know, I'm a pastor, but I believe firmly in the separation of church and state. It is the values that come from my faith, from my faith that inform my work every day in D.C. and knock the doctrine.
And so, you know, it's important that the table is broad enough to embrace people of moral courage. Do you think center like that that faith can still help bridge the divide of politics? Oh, absolutely. And I was supposed to be in Baptist history here.
Baptist were kicked out of all the colonies. And originally when we were just colonies, every colony had its own religion. There was a time in America where you had to be a certain denomination to be a leader in that area. Baptist were kicked out of all the colonies.
We didn't all end up in Providence, Rhode Island. Actually, that's how it became this Providence, Rhode Island. Because it was open to all faiths and all backgrounds, the unique background on it. This basic tenant of politics affecting your faith or affecting politics.
I believe the whole Bible. I just do. And I just believe that's truth on it. One of those truths that are in there is you love your neighbor as yourself.
And in politics right now, it seems to be most interesting when you hate your neighbor and when you attack your neighbor and you go online and go on social media and say something snarky about your neighbor. You're like, I get that's politically interesting and it gets you likes on social media. But it violates a basic biblical principle of I'm going to love my neighbor as myself. And I've got to decide as a person of faith.
Am I going to try to be the most aggressive, angry politician? Or am I going to try to be a Jesus follower who also serves in this role? And that takes me to my next question for both of you. A lot of people are about to be with family for the holidays to celebrate a range of different holidays.
And there are a lot of divisions right now in our politics and within people's families, within their friendships. So talk to people, Senator Langford, why don't you start us off all around the country this holiday season. What would your message be about how they can restart some of those conversations that they may have lost? Well, it's the most basic thing to have a little bit of humility in relationships and to be able to sit down with people and to be able to get their story, especially with family.
Hey, we're family. We got to figure this out on it. Before the sake of our children and our cousins and our parents, let's sit down and try to figure out ways to be able to solve this. I've never met a person that regretted solving issues in their own family.
I've met a lot of people that regretted broken relationships in their family. So if a relationship is broken in your family, that affects your whole family. So do the hard work, sit down with people you disagree with and say, let's figure this out on it. Because it'd be good for us for decades to be able to come on it.
And just a basic gift to your family and to your kids, quite frankly. Senator Warnock, final thought. Our faith should not become one more tool in the arsenal of these cultural wars. My faith is not a weapon.
It's a bridge. And it's certainly ought to be able to bridge relationships within one's own family. And so we approach this work with a degree of humility, the recognition that we don't know everything, the things we can't even see quite frankly, based on where we're sitting right now in this room. Literally the things you're seeing because where you're sitting that I don't see in vice versa.
So we have to talk to one another. And in this Christmas season, I have to tell you, my favorite Christmas to him is a holy night. And then there's just one great line that says his law is love and his gospel is peace. I would hope that as lawmakers and citizens that we will be guided by the law of love, the gospel of peace, regardless of our faith tradition, and that we will see each other's humanity.
Senator Warnock and Langford, such an important and informative conversation and honor to have you both here. Merry Christmas to you. Merry Christmas. Thank you for being here.
We really appreciate it. And when we come back, we continue with a special panel conversation on how our divided nation can find a past home. Stay informed with the NBC News app. Breaking News is just coming in moments ago.
Watch, read, and listen throughout your day. And now unlock even more with a subscription. It's the best of NBC News with fewer ad interruptions, including ad free articles, podcasts, and full NBC News shows. Plus, deeper access and exclusive content.
Let's just take a step back. It's more context and clarity from the reporters you trust. Download the NBC News app now and subscribe for more. I just think way, way back to the election of 1800 between Federalist John Adams and Republican Thomas Jefferson, it was so much more vitriolic than the one we just went through.
Each one said the other one was an enemy to the Constitution. Each one said the other one was an existential threat. Even Martha Washington bore in on the Federalist side, saying that Jefferson was despicable. The most despicable man kind of all.
They called each other atheists. They called each other monarchists. And the extraordinary thing was that they actually jailed people who were saying things bad about Adams. Adams had a 1798 law, and so that somebody had called him a bad name.
He put him in jail. And so this was really, really tough. So what does Jefferson do? This is where there's an answer to this.
He comes to his inauguration. And he starts off saying, we are all Federalists. We are all Republicans. We must approach each other with civility and magnanimity.
We must unite for the common good. And that somehow set a tone. And then he let that law expire that allows you to jail journalists. And he brought the journalists who had been put in jail out on a pardon.
And he followed through on his idea that he would reach across the aisle and become a president and set a tone for his own president. There's answers to these problems as history shows. And the lesson there that words and actions indeed do matter. Dr.
Moore, let me turn to you because Doris is talking about how to emerge from an election cycle that is so divisive in a stronger way. How do you think people can work on rebuilding their relationships in the wake of this past election that we've all just witnessed? Well, that's the number one question that I get from people in their families, from people in their churches and their communities. And especially as we're going into the holidays, a lot of people say, what do we do with this tense sort of sitting down at the table?
And some people think I don't want to avoid the topic because if I do that somehow giving up, I don't think it is. I think we do this all the time. We don't bring up Aunt Mildred's ex husband. Uncle Ronnie can't handle eggnog.
Don't bring any to the table or those kinds of things. All kinds of things that we don't talk about because we want to remain connected with one another. So I'm often quote a Bible verse that says, so far as is possible with you, live peace of lead with all people. It's not always possible.
There are going to be people who are going to insist on being divided and to argue. But I think that most people, if you say, look, we disagree. I'm not going to convince you of my views on politics. You're not going to convince me.
But I really need you as mom or as brother or as friend. Can we just avoid that? Most people are willing to do that. Now you slip and you slide and you fall.
There's not a one-line us reciting Luke 2 speech. It just ends everything and everything is warm again. But it does mean that you're working together toward that point of connection. And I think that's important.
The importance of putting a relationship with the person and the connection above all else. Antonio, I've been struck. You've been traveling all around this country, talking to people in communities and places of worship, in schools. What have been your biggest takeaways about this moment of division that this country's facing?
I think the major takeaways for me, the kind of break down into two things. The first is that I think our national, political, politics, the polarization that we see on the national stage is seeping into and fraying local relationships. And then I think, and this one may be the more obvious one. I think we're living in a time right now where people have retreated into silos and they're in very different information and fact ecosystems.
But what's interesting is that people are responding to this dysfunction, the fear that they have about cultural or technological changes, often with actually the same strategy. Even though it might look a little different because they come from different communities. So I've spent time in Texas and Oklahoma with evangelical families and they're concerned about what's happening in the public school system. So they pull their kids out, they put them into a Christian academy because that's where their faith is affirmed.
And that's where they think the books will be the most appropriate for their children or they're concerned about the story of American history that their children will be exposed to. And so they retreat there. And then I've spent time with, for example, a black family in North Carolina ahead of the election. And they felt like the Democrats had come back time and time again and made promises to them that were not fulfilled.
And so they were describing basically a lifestyle that was now hyper-local. I'm going to depend on my neighbor. I'm going to care about my kids. I'm going to worry about my job and my salary.
And I don't think I'm going to participate. I need to retreat. So very different communities and people. But they're actually doing the same thing.
All retreating. It's so fascinating to hear you map it out like that indoors. You actually participated in a time in history where people instead of retreating were coming together. The March on Washington in 1963, you were there.
Really the height of the civil rights movement. Here we have some footage of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. What are the lessons for you of that moment of that time?
Oh, it was an extraordinary moment really. I mean, it was that feeling for the first time in my life when I was part of something larger than myself. There were 250,000 other people there at that time. And you felt a sense of joyous, complete, peaceful, disciplined march.
I mean, when I was carrying a sign, Catholics and Jews and Protestants unite for civil rights. And I really changed the direction of my life because we ended up singing We Shall Overcome. I felt a sense of fulfillment that many people in the 60s spent that we were making the country a better place. I went back to college.
I was going to be in international relations. I'd gotten a Fulbright to go to Paris in Brussels. I said, no, I want to live in America. I want to be part of this.
And I think if we could only restore, I think what you said about silos is so important. If I had one thing I could do as an older person now, I would have a national service program. Kids come out of high school. They have a year where the city kid goes to the country, the eastern person goes to the heartlands, and they have a service.
So they feel that sense of fulfillment. We felt in the 60s. We can do that. It's a hard thing to do.
It's the only way we're going to break down the silos, but have them work together on a common mission. Let's do it domestically at home. I'm really, really for that. What a fantastic ending point for this segment, but stay with us.
We have a lot more to get to when we come back. We look back on those we lost in 2024. Welcome back. As we do every year, we want to take a moment to remember some of the iconic people in politics, culture, and the media when we lost in the past 12 months.
This is a day for every American, including those of us who are politicians, to drop the labels. We're not Republicans. We're not Democrats. We're Americans.
The only evidence in the case that we tried is that sexual orientation is something that's possible characteristic of an individual. We saw justice because equal pay for equal work is an American bagger. You cannot be afraid, and you cannot be worried about who doesn't like what you do, because there's always some ways not going to like it. If nobody doesn't like it, something's wrong with it.
It's truly been 41 marvelous years. Do you have one memory of Meet the Press that you're going to take with you? I think it's mainly the people that I've worked with behind the scenes as well as on the front. The people are what count always.
Learn more about the books featured on Meet the Press. Go to NBCNews.com slash books. You'll also find new releases on history, biography, and more. NBC News receives a commission for sales made through our website.
Welcome back. The panel is still here. And Tony, I want to start this part of the conversation with you. We are about to start a new administration, a new chapter, really, for the entire country.
As you talk to folks in your travels, what are they telling you about their hopes, their expectations for this next stage for the country? Well, I think the one thing everyone can agree on is that they are either hopeful for or bracing for immense change right now. And I come back again to some of the conversations that I had during the election cycle in late October as I was on the road mostly in North Carolina. And I would talk to families that described to me feeling like year after year or cycle after cycle, whether they were in urban parts of the state or rural ones, like their lives were not changing, that they were seeing this dysfunction on our sort of national political stage and they wanted change.
And I think one of the reasons we're in the moment that we're in and that people were fueling a comeback for President-elect Trump is that in a way that represented a type of change, a release quo that it seems large numbers of Americans actually no matter what side of the divide they're on, they wanted broken in some sense. And so that's the thing I think we need to recognize, but the pieces that I see on the ground at the local level that seem to respond to or heal from that are local community groups and organizations that are starting to bring people together across those differences and have them spend that all the time. I did the story about a basketball, a pickup basketball league in New York City the other day where investment bankers, artists, people between employment were all on a team together, never talking about politics, never talking about the difference between Staten Island and the Bronx but we're just talking about their love of Caitlin Clark and the WNBA and their place in the world and I think people want more of that. Dr.
Moore, pick up on that point and also just the responsibility that you think as a faith leader, you think leaders should have morally whether they're in the White House or in the halls of Congress or at the community level as Antonio is talking about. Well, what I worry about right now is cynicism. People who have given up and the assumption that my enemies are as corrupt as they can possibly be, therefore I need to be just as corrupt in order to fight them. And so I think there's a sense of exhaustion and cynicism that we have to combat.
And I think in terms of moral leadership in office, a lot of that has to do with imaginatively giving people a picture of what is possible. Growing up in Mississippi, when I would see elderly white people who had resisted the pull to Jim Crow segregation ideology was almost always for one reason. They were in the Air Force. They were in the Army.
They had seen a different picture of reality and were able to bring that back home. I think our leaders can't underestimate how many children are watching and saying, what does this really mean? And can rhetoric, can language even mean anything at all? Or is it simply this constant thing of the stakes?
Which as a Christian, I think of Jesus saying, those who live by the sword will die by the sword. That kind of cycle of violence, whether rhetorical or actual leads to nowhere good. Well, you take me to my question for Doris Beautifully, which is we are about to, of course, hear from President-elect Trump at his inauguration his inaugural address. And you talk about the importance of language and rhetoric in these moments where everyone is watching Doris.
What does history tell us about this moment? I think history would point out exactly what you said about imaginatively giving people a different way of thinking FDR's first inaugural I think was perhaps the most impactful. He was told right before he went there that if your program works, you'll be one of the great presidents in history. If it fails, you'll be one of the worst.
He said, no, I'll be the last American president. That's how hard it was. One out of four people out of work, people feeling paralyzed, no safety net. And he comes on and he says with this contagious optimism, you know, only a foolish optimist would deny the brutal realities of the moment.
But there's only nothing to fear but fear itself. But most importantly he said, it's not your fault, people. It was the failure of leadership. And I'm here to provide that leadership.
And then he promised action. I'll bring an emergency session of Congress. I'll get these laws passed. If they won't, I'll somehow act as if I'm at war.
By the end of that talk, people felt changed. They felt they had a leader. They were headlines. We have a leader.
The government still lives. Hundreds of thousands of letters went in. My roof fell off. My wife is mad at me.
I've lost my job. Everything's bad, except you're there. Now everything's all right. It's the mystery of leadership that that can happen.
Now it may not happen at the top, but we have to believe, as you say, we cannot have cynicism. All the big changes that have happened in America come from the ground up. When Lincoln was told you're a liberator, he said, no, it was the anti-slavery movement that did it all. It was the civil rights movement.
The women's movement. We have to believe if we're not able to think that we can have a leader that can help us out of it, we have to believe in ourselves as citizens. We only have about 30 seconds left until we really quickly, will the younger generation be listening. I think we have to meet them where they are.
And they tell me, start from the beginning. You need to explain to me the terms of the debate, because I feel like it's running away from me. Come to the platforms where we live and the neighborhoods where we are. And that's going to be the beginning of change.
Dr. Moore, we have about 20 seconds left, your final thought. I think politics makes a good way to run a country together. It makes a terrible God.
We have to have things more important than our political struggles if we're going to make it together as a country. All right. Thank you for this really incredible panel discussion. I appreciate it.
That is all for today. Thank you for watching. Have a merry Christmas and a very happy holidays. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's me for us.
Hey, it's Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of The Drink. This month, Demi Lovato is my guest. The global superstar tells me that she is the happiest she's ever been right now. But getting there, it wasn't simple.
Demi opens up about starting in Hollywood Young and why she now thinks she may have started too soon. She talks about recovery, her new marriage, and the deeply personal reason behind her new cookbook. The drink is always about the journey to the top. And this was an honest conversation about what that takes.
Hope you'll listen and follow The Drink Wherever You Get Your Podcast.