Dan Rather On Trump: “It’s Never Been This Bad”

The journalism legend is fed up with Donald Trump and says the office of the presidency has zero nobility left

We’re bet­ter than this,” jour­nal­ist Dan Rather told Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir on “Salon Talks,” refer­ring to President Donald Trump and the deep divi­sions in American pol­i­tics today.

The leg­endary inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist and anchor has inter­viewed every pres­i­dent since Eisenhower and cov­ered near­ly every major polit­i­cal event in recent U.S. his­to­ry: Watergate, President John F. Kennedy’s assas­si­na­tion, 911, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the jail­ing of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The list goes on.

Rather occu­pied the anchor chair at “CBS Evening News” for 24 years. Now 86, he is the author of the new book “What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism,” which is out this week.

What’s miss­ing from the pres­i­den­cy today is “nobil­i­ty,” Rather said. “Our great pres­i­dents, the best pres­i­dents,” he added, “Washington, Lincoln, Teddy Rosevelt, right on through, had a cer­tain noble approach to the office, which we have zero of that now.”

Rather, who calls him­self an “opti­mist by nature,” remains hope­ful that America will get through these dark times. “While we’re in an extreme­ly dif­fi­cult peri­od now, a per­ilous time for the coun­try,” he said. “We need to remind our­selves, we’ve come through a lot worse before.”

But, Rather cau­tioned, change won’t hap­pen mag­i­cal­ly. Read more @ : https://​www​.salon​.com/​2​0​1​7​/​1​1​/​0​8​/​d​a​n​-​r​a​t​h​e​r​-​o​n​-​t​r​u​m​p​-​i​t​s​-​n​e​v​e​r​-​b​e​e​n​-​t​h​i​s​-​b​ad/