I'm Brian Lerer. This is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Wednesday, May 26th.

History classes in session with none other than the acclaimed historian and journalist John Meacham,

formerly editor-in-chief of Newsweek, seen frequently on MSNBC during the Trump years,

as many of you know and through today, and now the host of a five-episode podcast series

called Fate of Fact.

The final episode just came out this morning.

John describes the series as being about the origins of the strong grip, misinformation, and disinformation have on our

politics, with an emphasis on why the right has chosen to break with a governing consensus

that, however, imperfect, was once embodied by what he calls the

figurative conversation between Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan.

In fact, before we even start talking to John Meacham, here are two clips from the first

episode of Fate of Fact.

This is President John F. Kennedy from when he was in office, early 1960s, governing on optimism and

what is in our control.

Our problems are man-made.

Therefore, they can be solved by man, and man can be as big as he wants.

No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man's reason and spirit have often

solved the seemingly unsolvable, and we believe they can do it again. Kennedy invoking reason

and spirit, and of course he was assassinated in 1963, after which his vice president,

Lyndon Johnson, won election in a landslide in 1964 and proposed an array of social programs

aimed at reducing poverty that he named the Great Society. Here's LBJ.

You have the chance never before afforded to any people in any age.

...