On Wednesday's MSNBC Live with Craig Melvin, MSNBC contributor and historian Jon Meacham made no pretence of being unbiased as he used a Winston Churchill quote to declare Democrat Doug Jones's victory over Roy Moore in Alabama to be "the right thing," and added that "that's probably good news for the country inarguably."
At 1:31 p.m. ET, after host Craig Melvin asked for Meacham's reaction to the Alabama Senate election, the historian and frequent MSNBC guest responded:
What I think happened in Alabama is my neighbors in Alabama managed to prove Winston Churchill right one more time. Churchill once said, "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing once they've exhausted every other possibility." And they've sent a message, I think, that the President and this kind of reality show excess that has become so much part of our politics is not going to always carry the day.
Referring to Steve Bannon's endorsement of Moore, Melvin followed up:
Was Steve Bannon's influence diminished at all last night? Or does he still have enough pull among Trump's base to still cause trouble for Mitch McConnell and other members of the co-called establishment?
Meacham again spoke approvingly of the Democratic victory:
That's the key question before the 2020 presidential election. Did Bannon -- did the Breitbart-ism of the America First wave that elected Trump -- did that carry such a flawed candidate to within 20,000 votes? Senator-elect Jones won -- that's probably good news for the country inarguably -- but it was close. This was not a blowout. And so I do think that's going to be a salient factor going forward.
