Originally aired on July 30, 2017.

Originally aired July 23, 2017.

When the news broke that John McCain had been diagnosed with brain cancer, the outpouring of well wishes all hailed his toughness. This week marks the anniversary of one such example.

Fifty years ago, the USS Forrestal aircraft carrier was deployed in the Gulf of Tonkin during the Vietnam war. A rocket accidentally fired, sparking a fire on the deck. It spread to planes preparing to launch and set off a chain reaction of explosions. 134 sailors were killed. One of the pilots preparing for takeoff who was hit was Senator John McCain, who miraculously escaped his burning A-4 Skyhawk.

The math of durability in McCain’s life is extraordinary. In addition to surviving the Forrestal, McCain has survived three other plane disasters including being shot down over enemy territory. He then survived five and a half years of torture as a prisoner of war and later three skin cancer surgeries. His former chief of staff and co-author Mark Salter wrote this: John McCain will be around for a long while. I’ve always known he’d outlive me. I wrote the eulogy he’ll give at my funeral. It’s very touching.

There is a basic idea to this fighting spirit: that there are standards worth devoting yourself to that are more important than your self interest. That you should keep the faith, even if it means turning down early release from torture and living in a dark box in North Vietnam. “He didn’t just hold fast in Hanoi,” wrote the New York Times’ Jonathan Martin. “An 80-year-old man with brain cancer pushed himself to exhaustion this year traveling to reassure the world about America.”

This does not make John McCain a saint. He’s flawed, a hothead, and has fallen short of his own standard. He’ll tell you nearly all of this himself. But when off the path, his fight is to get back on it, to return to his standard. It’s a human lesson for all of us who are tempted to recline into self-preservation. It’s a call not just to admire the fight from a distance but to fight a little harder ourselves.

Back in a moment.

Originally aired July 16, 2017

President Trump said any person in a campaign would have done what his son and top advisers did -- meet with a person advertised as a Russian government agent with dirt on an opponent.

Politics, the President said, is not the nicest business. It’s not. In 1940, FDR instructed aides to spread rumors about his opponent’s affairs. In 1968, Richard Nixon worked with the South Vietnamese to avoid peace talks that would have helped his opponent Hubert Humphrey.

But there are also examples of the opposite: people behaving morally when it was easier not to.

In 1964, One of Lyndon Johnson’s top aides was arrested for lewd conduct. Barry Goldwater’s staff wanted him to make an issue of it. Goldwater said no. He didn’t want to ruin the man. In 2000, a top aide to Al Gore received George W. Bush’s private debate briefing book. He turned it over immediately to the authorities. In 2008, John McCain forbid his staff from using an ad that referred to Barack Obama’s former pastor Jeremiah Wright or to raise that issue in any other way. He believed it was a sneaky way to use Obama’s race against him.

In 1968, Lyndon Johnson’s team had wiretaps that proved candidate Nixon was working to block the Vietnam peace talks, but they believed it immoral to use the covert information to expose Nixon. Said Secretary of State Dean Rusk:”The moment we cross over that divide, we’re in a different kind of society.” They were worried about something more than victory.

Politics is not the nicest business, but there are still times when people do the right thing. We’ll be back in a moment.

Originally aired July 16, 2017.

Originally aired July 2, 2017.

One of the great coincidences in American History took place on the Fourth of July 191 years ago. Two of the country’s founders died on the same day, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. One was its author Thomas Jefferson, the third president. The other was John Adams, a signer of the declaration and the country’s second leader.

Also amazing was that they died friends, because they had once been vicious enemies.

They had worked together forging the nation-- one the pen, one the voice, of independence-- but by 1800, they competed for the presidency in a campaign far uglier than ours today. Jefferson employed one of the greatest hatchet men in politics -- James Callender-- who attacked President Adams so viciously that Adams threw Callender in jail. He lost anyway.

Jefferson and Adams didn’t communicate for 11 years until a mutual friend reminded them of their past, calling them the “north and south poles of the American Revolution.”

It didn’t take much. “A letter from you calls up recollections very dear to my mind,” wrote Jefferson. “It carries me back to the times when, beset with difficulties and dangers, we were fellow laborers in the same cause.” They exchanged 150 letters after that. What allowed them to knock off the crust of hatred was their love for a shared set of values.

The Jefferson and Adams reconciliation matched their hopes for the nation. America would be able to survive the bad spells--partisanship and pride and abuse of power-- because its citizens would keep their commitment to freedom, equality and justice and pull the country back on track. The risky experiment is now 241 years old, only because each generation fought to keep faith with that foundation that Jefferson and Adams laid.

Happy Fourth of July. For Face the Nation, I’m John Dickerson. We’ll see you next week.

Originally aired on July 2, 2017.

John Dickerson and former CIA director, retired Army General David Petraeus, take a tour of the unprecedented threats facing the United States and the latest developments in American national security and foreign policy.

Historian Jon Meacham has written extensively about the presidency, with acclaimed books on Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Franklin Roosevelt, and most recently, George H. W. Bush. He is currently working on a book on James and Dolly Madison. What does his research into these presidents suggest about the nature of the office? What might we learn from the past about the current state of politics, the White House, and perhaps more broadly, democracy in America?

Aired June 25, 2017.

This week, President Trump said that there was no White House taping system. It ended a mystery he had created. Former FBI director James Comey described an Oval Office encounter where the president encouraged him to wrap up his investigation into Michael Flynn. The president said it didn’t happen and warned tapes might contradict Comey.

Well, there are no tapes and in making this announcement this week, the president was celebrating an anniversary. 44 years ago on June 23rd, Richard Nixon recorded what would become known as the “smoking gun” tape-- where he told his staff to have the CIA tell the FBI to stop investigating the Watergate break-in. It sealed Nixon’s fate.

Why would President Trump encourage Nixon obstruction of justice comparisons by talking about tapes? On Fox and Friends Friday, the president offered insight into his gambit. He was trying to keep James Comey honest. As a private citizen, Donald Trump also reportedly hinted at having made recordings-- and maybe sometimes did-- as a way to keep people honest.

The press and the president are in agreement on this: a recording keeps people honest. That’s why it was a mistake for the White House this week to further limit televised or audio recordings of press briefings. A sketch artist rendering of the audio and video-free briefing makes it look like a court room. But it’s not a court. The briefing is a place where an administration explains in real time what it is doing on behalf of the people who pay their salaries.

There may not be a taping system in the Oval Office, but there is one in the press room. No installation required. The cameras are there and they are on. It’s designed to keep people honest.

Originally aired June 25, 2017.

Originally aired June 18, 2017

June 18, 2017

After Wednesday’s shooting, Congressman Gary Palmer said, “our Republic is in danger” and that we are “fraying at the edges.” Congressman Rodney Davis said, “the way we talk to each other has to change. The political hate has to end.”

It’s not the words we use, it’s what’s in our hearts. We are meaner than we used to be. According to the Pew Research Center, a majority of both parties see the other in “very unfavorable” terms, a view that has doubled since 1994. We used to think our opponents were just wrong. Now, a lot more of us think they are evil. Politics defines more of our lives, which means this is all more personally felt.

The political system uses hate to motivate voters. No fundraising letter or “get out the vote” flier starts: “Hey, the other guy has a point.” Instead, the other guy is “corrupt,” and “heartless.” In debates -- in social, partisan and mainstream media -- if you are skilled at pointing out dark motives in your opponents, the market will reward you.

We can stop applauding this, and we can stop taking the bait. We can start acting in the ways we praise after a tragedy: recognizing our common humanity, acting with restraint, assuming good motives. Your opponents have families just like you do, who would worry about them in a crisis. Their kids amaze and confuse them, just like yours do.

Lumping people into groups steals the humanity we recognize in times of tragedy. Judging motives off the bat starts conversation in the gutter. This doesn’t mean ending the battle of ideas. It means returning to ideas, and not being lazy and defining people by the left, or the right, or “your ilk.”

Let’s hope lawmakers are successful toning down the hate. But we can do more than hope. We can act and we must, because we are all part of the problem.

Originally aired June 11, 2017

How we behave when no one is watching is a test of character. Under pressure, do you do the right thing? That question was at the center of James Comey’s testimony this week -- a Washington morality tale with an Oval Office encounter. A high pressure stage.

The president once told us the story of a titan of business who was so awed by the Oval Office, he broke down. James Comey says he felt pressured in the Oval Office to end his investigation into Michael Flynn. The president said he made no such request.

There are many disputed points. We don’t know who is telling the truth because no one was watching. This highlights something essential about Washington though. Sooner or later, for people in power, it comes back to those tough, solitary tests.

The founders knew men would fail and designed a system to guard against it. The Senate Intelligence Committee was engaged in that protective service, making sure that when power and ambition are mixed, it doesn’t lead to an abuse of power -- we’ve seen it in presidents and FBI directors.

There are people in Washington who will face these tests or who are mulling one they’ve just taken. And the question is: how strong are the standards you bring with you to the room where it happens? Do you keep faith with the voters, to your oath, to your institution? To the lessons your mother taught you?

Standards are what you bring to the character test. Those who keep them are admired, trusted and forgiven when they falter. But also, in Washington, while sometimes it might seem that no one is watching, the hearing this week reminds that eventually, everyone might be.

This week, President Trump reflected on his place in history.

“Look at the way I’ve been treated lately. Especially by the media,” Mr. Trump said. “No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly.”

Actually, there’s plenty of competition for that title. President John Adams was labeled a hermaphroditic character by a journalist who was so rough on Adams that he threw him in jail. A newspaper published that Jefferson was dead and when caught in the lie said they were just trying to make readers feel better. Abraham Lincoln was called a gorilla and an idiot and a newspaper called for his assassination.

The press was more partisan then, but even in modern times, President Trump is in good company in feeling aggrieved. Here’s a Trump-like complaint from a recent president -- cleaned up a bit: “I have fought more darn battles here for more things than any president has in 20 years… and not gotten one darn bit of credit from the knee-jerk liberal press, and I am sick and tired of it … You get no credit around here for fighting and bleeding.”

Was that Richard Nixon? He did douse the press in expletives, but no, that was Bill Clinton. Lyndon Johnson said the presidency was like being a donkey in a hail storm. Sometimes you just have to stand there and take it.

President Trump has challenged so many traditions of the office and public life, but by complaining about his shabby treatment in the press, he is a very traditional president.

Aired May 14, 2017

Mother’s Day is a welcome event in partisan times. Nearly everyone agrees that we should show mothers gratitude.

For those of us who have lost our mothers there is a little melancholy in the day, though, but that melancholy can be put to good use: a lesson I learned from my mother, and that I recommend.

When she died, Mom left me her letters and journals. Windows into things I would have been too young to understand when she was alive, or too busy, or too much of a know-it-all.

What these papers show is her grit. She was a journalist, who for a decade or so, was told that because she was a woman, she couldn’t be on television with the men. She got there eventually, but she also later got fired. In her journals she is scared. There were times the bills couldn’t be paid. At one point she typed a letter to her children on carbon paper from the office. It was to be read in case she died. She was on the road all the time working and worried something might happen to her.

Nothing happened, but that letter--and all her letters-- are a lesson, a gift and a guide. They make sense now that I am old enough to understand them, and see myself in her blemishes too: the pride and selfishness that trips up all of us from time to time.

So as a tribute to Mom I write letters to my kids on Mothers Day.

Letters like the one she left me, to be opened when I’m gone and they’re older and the contents make more sense. If I am around when they’re my age, maybe we’ll open these letters and read them together --if I’m brave enough-- and we’ll all thank Mom.

Aired May 7, 2017

From May 1, 2017

Aired April 30, 2017