The story centers on the political upheaval that Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson faced when he was thrust into the presidency at the hands of an assassin's bullet on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas. After Kennedy's death, Sarah Hughes administers the oath of the office for LBJ. With political battles on both sides of the aisle, Johnson works to heal a nation and secure his presidency by passing Kennedy's historic Civil Rights Act in 1964.