Folks, he did it again. On Wednesday’s CBS Mornings, co-host Tony Dokoupil stood tall for the tens of millions of Americans who supported President Trump or simply identify as conservatives and independents by defending Trump’s insistence that the Smithsonians emphasize America’s greatness and not perpetually dwell on its shameful moments like slavery.
And better yet, Dokoupil noted most people around the globe would admit, if pressed, that the world is a far better place because our country came into existence.
Unsurprisingly, this call for “balance” and not viewing the country “with contempt” was greeted with scoffs from fellow co-host Gayle King and Vladimir Duthiers and an accusation this positive view of the country would “whitewash” history.
Duthiers led off the “What to Watch” block with Trump’s Truth Social post announcing his team would be reviewing content because he claimed the museums are too focused on “how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was,” and “nothing about Brightness” or American exceptionalism.
Duthiers went full Barack Obama circa 2009, arguing “American exceptionalism means something different to different people” and that he knows the topic well having spent many years living overseas and being asked about it.
“I would always say that what sets the United States apart from other countries,” he explained, “is not our perfection, but it’s our relentless drive to reckon is imperfection and you know, scholars of American democracy have talked about this, that the uniqueness of America is the way we continually interrogate our own history.”
He sounded like a tried-and-true college professor citing the usual buzzwords and invoking “protests” and “reform movements” that “enable[d] the change” with King saying the Smithsonian Institute currently shows “our complete history” (click “expand”):
DUTHIERS: We celebrate achievements like the Declaration of Independence, the civil rights movement, while we openly wrestle with slavery, segregation, and inequality. Alexis de Tocqueville, in 200 years ago, he talked about this. He said what makes America great is her capacity for self-correction. So, these were forms that we have had over the course of our history. Judicial review, reform movements, protests, actually enable the change. They are a force and mechanism for progress in this country.
KING: But it’s all part of our history. That’s what —
DUTHIERS: That’s right.
KING: I think is so great about when you — when go to the Smithsonian and see these museums, you get to see our complete history, which I think is very important for everybody.
DUTHIERS: Exactly.
DOKOUPIL: But I think even striving —
KING: — which even makes us stronger, by the way, what we’ve been through and how we’ve come out on the other side.
Dokoupil had tried to get a word in, but was repeatedly rebuffed by the two. Duthiers had to offer another set of takes, implicitly putting slavery as rooted in America’s origins:
[W]hat makes America great doesn’t some from claiming flawless origins. We don’t have flawless — so what comes from it is the opposite — the courage to expose our flaws and argue over them in the open as we have done in our history and that reckoning and striving is what makes the U.S. not just a powerful nation but a great one.
Dokoupil finally had the floor and he made the most of it, starting with from the premise that “American history shouldn’t be a thing of reverence” and it’s “not above critique, but we shouldn’t look at our history with contempt and I think there is some room for a correction back toward the middle.”
He then argued Smithsonian superintendent Lonnie Bunch and the President have similar views of how American history should be celebrated:
Lonnie Bunch, who heads the Smithsonian and Donald Trump…are saying quite the same things. The mission of the Smithsonian is to forge a shared history, a shared future, not just context but hope to lead the country and communities together. That’s essentially the same language that Donald Trump is offering here[.]
Dokoupil continued by suggesting a both/and approach to history in America’s story is told as “a journey toward greatness” that “is very real and we all have something to be incredibly proud of.”
He closed by addressing Duthiers’s answer about how foreigners view America: “[I]f you ask someone is the world and its people better off because of the existence of America and its people? To me, the answer is unquestionably yes. And I think people walking in the Smithsonian…should get some sense of that.”
All this was for naught in trying to find common ground as Duthiers snapped back that “[w]e shouldn’t whitewash who we are and where we came from” with King adding “exactly.”
Dokoupil twice exclaimed “I don’t think you have to,” but that was all he would get in. Unsurprisingly, King argued there’s no need for any changes because there’s not “an overcorrection”:
DUTHIERS: And — and so, that conversation needs to continuously happen so that we continuously get better.
DOKOUPIL: Yeah. I don’t think it —
KING: I don’t think they want to go through the exhibits and decide — I hope that they will take historians and experts who know exactly what it means because I don’t think there’s been an overcorrection. I think it’s just putting out the history that — that’s all part of who we are.
Thankfully, Dokoupil got the final word and took the high road by not using the position to bash his colleagues: “This conversation is so healthy and so good and we’re having it on the 250th anniversary of the country. It’s wonderful. It’s wonderful.”
Not be confused with being as conservative or even Republican, Dokoupil is the kind of journalist David Ellison should lean into when shaping the future of CBS News and his public calls to depoliticize it. With a balanced approach, man-on-the-street interviews, and making sure all voices are heard, that is what legacy media need to regain trust.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from August 20, click here.
