MSNBC’s favorite “historian” Jon Meacham is once again twisting history to defend Democrats and attack President Donald Trump — this time over Trump’s efforts to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine.
Appearing on Morning Joe, Meacham tried to frame Trump’s push for a negotiated settlement as a betrayal of history, comparing it to World War II and the Cold War. He invoked Franklin Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Reagan, suggesting that past leaders demanded unconditional surrender from their enemies and that Trump’s approach fell short of that supposed standard.
The comparison is fundamentally dishonest. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sought global domination, threatening the survival of Western civilization itself. The Soviet Union, backed by nuclear weapons, sought to export communism across the globe. Those were existential threats unlike anything posed by Vladimir Putin, whose ambitions are limited to Ukraine and the surrounding region.
Meacham also ignored a basic reality: unconditional surrender is impossible against a nuclear-armed adversary. That is why conflicts like Korea, Vietnam, and the Cuban Missile Crisis all ended in compromise. Even John F. Kennedy quietly conceded to Soviet demands in 1962 by removing U.S. missiles from Turkey in exchange for the removal of Soviet nukes from Cuba. Franklin Roosevelt himself gave Stalin vast concessions at Yalta to avoid a new world war.
Trump’s critics may prefer lofty rhetoric about “unconditional surrender,” but real leaders understand the limits of power and the necessity of compromise when nuclear weapons are in play. Trump’s approach — seeking a peace deal that prevents further bloodshed while ensuring security guarantees — reflects realism, not weakness.
Meacham, who presided over the collapse of Newsweek into an elitist mouthpiece, continues to play the role of partisan court historian. He cloaks Democratic talking points in pseudo-intellectual jargon, hoping to impress the uninformed. But the facts of history — and the stark differences between past global wars and the current conflict — expose his narrative as shallow and misleading.
