Dem Takeover of House Could Stall Trump's Agenda & More Oversight, Investigations; Trump Regrets Not Having Softer Tone as President.
SCIUTTO: President Trump's agenda in Congress could hit a roadblock if Democrats do win the House today. And a Democratic takeover of the House is likely to mean more oversight, more investigation. Doris Kearns Goodwin is a presidential historian, author of the new book, "Leadership in Turbulent Times." These are turbulent times so I'm happy she's joining us today. Frist question, results are not baked in. We do not know how people are going to vote today. From a historical perspective, how have presidents fared after losing midterm elections? It happened to Obama. It happened to Clinton. How have they recovered from that?</s>DORIS KEARNS GOODSIN, HISTORIAN & AUTHOR: Clinton recovered by moving to the center, talking about crime and welfare reform and a balanced budget but still keeping the traditional pocketbook Democrats. But most importantly, when the general election comes, usually, the midterms are a much smaller number of people, so you've got that regular base out there in the general election. Same thing with President Obama. He did so badly in the midterms. By the time the general election came, African-Americans came back in much more numbers. Hispanics voted in greater numbers, and women, his traditional constituency, that hadn't been there in the midterms. The only difference in this one is, because there's so many people voting now, whatever patterns may be showing up here may be more longstanding than they would normally be in a midterm when it's mostly people voting discontents against the administration in power.</s>SCIUTTO: I love having you on because you bring such a historical perspective. You made a good point about how these midterms -- keep in mind, there are hundreds of candidates running in states and in the Congress and the Senate, governorships, et cetera. You might have an unexpected star emerge or victor. Tell us about that.</s>KEARNS GOODWIN: Yes. That's what is so interesting about history. Think about 1858, a midterm, and Abraham Lincoln, not well much in the nation at large, and indulges in debates with Stephen Douglas, it becomes nationally known and he then becomes the first runner, becomes Abraham Lincoln, the historic candidate, even though he loses that Senate race to Stephen Douglas. Or think about Teddy Roosevelt. He runs in a midterm, 1898, as governor, becomes Theodore Roosevelt, a president. And FDR in the 1930, in the midterms, wins a landslide governor's race, and becomes FDR, one of the historic presidents. So there's someone out there who may emerge and that history will regard that as the most important part of the midterms. Maybe we don't know it yet.</s>SCIUTTO: I want to ask you to apply your historical perspective on more recent history, the last two years of the Trump presidency. You may have heard President Trump telling Sinclair Broadcasting Group about one of his regrets so far in his administration. Listen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED SINCLAIR BROADCASTING GROUP HOST: Is there anything, as you look back on your first almost two years that regret, that you wish, on you, that you could just take back in you review?</s>TRUMP: Well, there would be certain things. I'm not sure I want to reveal all of them. But I would say tone. I would like to have a much softer tone. I feel, to a certain extent, I have no choice. But maybe I do. And maybe I could have been softer from that standpoint?</s>SCIUTTO: Do you believe the president when you hear that?</s>KEARNS GOODWIN: There's been glimmers now and then of presumably that softer tone but it never lasts. Even at the hundred days, he was self-reflective, and saying, I didn't know health care was going to be so difficult, I didn't realize the job would be so hard. But then he goes right in and not bring enough people around him who had experience who could have helped him. At the time of the Kavanaugh hearings, at first, he said Christine Basey Ford was credible and then he was mocking her. At the time of bombing plot, there seemed to be talk about unity, and then he even said, I'm doing this just so I can appear good. The next thing you know, he's blaming the press.</s>SCIUTTO: Yes.</s>KEARNS GOODWIN: And the same with the two synagogues. That desire for a softer term is contraindicated by the words and actions that he uses. It's hard to imagine. You keep hoping, but it's hard to imagine that something is going to change that.</s>SCIUTTO: Yes. Let me ask you this finally, because a lot of folks will say they've never seen the country more divided than it is today. But, you know, I imagine you would say, listen, the country's been divided at various points before in time. In your experience, and with your knowledge of history, how unusual is the division we see today?</s>KEARNS GOODWIN: Well, it's certainly unusual in my lifetime. Maybe it was worse in the 1850s, but that ends up in the Civil War. We don't want to think about that as a model. But something's happened to our culture and our partisanship. Teddy Roosevelt warned that democracy would founder when people from different regions or parties or religions see each other as the other. I think that's happened in our country, it's happening in our political systems. It wasn't so long ago, when I was not so old, that people in Washington saw each other as human beings. They played poker together and had cocktails together. And partisanship wasn't as hyper as it is today. Right now, it's become tribal. And we haven't seen that, I think, since the 19th century. And it's really troubling because it's then an example that it sets to the country, and then the country reflects that back to the party. And how we're going to get out of it is very unclear, except it's going to take leaders to get us out of it and an awakened citizenry. That's what's always changed things. When things get bad, the citizenry gets involved, in slavery, in equal rights, in the women's movement, the gay rights movement. It's now up to the citizens to take charge and say we can't deal with this anymore and we're going to change the toxic culture. We can do it if we need to.</s>SCIUTTO: And one way the citizens have the power to do that, is voting. Doris Kearns Goodwin --</s>KEARNS GOODWIN: Absolutely.</s>SCIUTTO: -- thanks so much. I should mention that Wolf Blitzer, who normally anchors this hour, he will lead CNN's special coverage starting at 5:00 Eastern time, well into the night and the morning hours right here on CNN. As we get into the final hours of voting on the east coast, we'll walk you through the history that could be made tonight across America. And what you're seeing there, as we await history, is live pictures from Texas, one of the many contested races. Beto O'Rourke versus Ted Cruz. Just one of the many we'll be following tonight. Stay with us. We're going to be here all night.