American History Hit - Who Was The Richest President?

Episode Date: August 29, 2024

Which President was best with their money? Which was worst? And are Presidents responsible for paying for their food, staff and parties during their time in office?To find out all this and more, Don speaks to tax attorney and wealth manager Megan Gorman. Megan's book is 'All the Presidents' Money: How the Men Who Governed America Governed Their Money'.Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Max Carrey. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Get a subscription for $1 per month for 3 months with code AMERICANHISTORY sign up at https://historyhit.com/subscription/ You can take part in our listener survey here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. It is April 29, 1826, as we settle down in the living room to peruse the latest edition of the Saturday Evening Post. Let's see here.

My Lord, there's a lot to read. Lucky there's not much else to do with our leisure hours here in the early 19th century. We glance across the columns, and here's a new hotel opening in downtown, huh? There's fear of a drought, the usual agricultural news, and, oh, look, a bank failure. Lovely. But just as we ready our fingers to turn the page, down there in the corner we spot an intriguing announcement. Messrs. Yates and McIntyre of New York City have the management of Mr. Jefferson's lottery.

There are 11,480 chances at $10 each. The books for subscription opened at Washington on Saturday, and it is said the tickets will be ready for delivery in a very short time. A lottery? Chances for sale? For Mr. Jefferson? Surely they can't mean the former president, Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and Founding Father of Our Nation.

Now an octogenarian selling off his belongings? Because he's broke? Oh, all nice to be with you. Thanks for clicking through. I'm Don Wildman, and this is American History Hit. In modern America, every single year, we hash it out over state and federal budgets, screaming and shouting about allocations and line items. Whenever a politician runs for office, we drag them over the coals for past life choices,

political stands, and what they think we should pay for as a nation. But what about their money? Elections rarely address how candidates manage their wealth, money that could conceivably carry their portraits one day, if they're really good at what they do. How did they make their money? Or did they inherit it? Have they successfully built an estate?

how might their wealth or lack thereof influence their choices and behavior in the White House? It's a refreshing and revealing lens through which to examine presidential history and the present political landscape. And a brand new book releasing next month in September 24 in the heat of the election does just that. Straight through the chronology of all 46 presidents and their bank accounts. The book's entitled All the President's Money, How the Men Who Governed America, Governed Their Money. And its author, Megan Gorman, joins me now. Greetings, Megan, nice to meet you. Hi, Don.

It's a pleasure to be here today. We're fellow South Jerseyans, I understand. We are, we are. Although, I mean, I'm exit zero. You're a little north in me, but yes, we are total South Jersey people. Nice. Which is great. And by the way, so is Jill Biden.

So, you know, we got a first lady in our midst. We're finally figuring something out. Exactly. It's funny. We elect folks to office, and so often we hear them declare themselves for the average man, woman, and child. And yet these presidential folks, never mind congressmen, Supreme Court justices, they're anything but average, certainly in personal wealth. You've been a financial writer for many years. Was this a discrepancy that prompted the book? You know, it's funny.

I've loved the presidents since I was six years old. And, you know, in my day job, I work with high net worth individuals, right? So I would get to see and hear their stories of how they made it and achieve the quote-unquote American dream, right? Skills they had. You know, people always talk about luck or talent or they were really good at budgeting. And so how this sort of came to be, as I thought to myself,

how were the presidents? Were they good with money? Because ever since Jerry Ford retired from the presidency, presidents have been able to monetize their money. But we don't realize that at the end of the day, they're a lot more like us in terms of their struggles. And so it was really fun to go back and look through their letters, their writings, their financial documents, and realize that at two in the morning, the presidents are up worried about money just like you and me.

And so it's humanizing, right? Because presidents, I think after a certain point in time, I mean, clearly not when they are president, but after their president, they sort of get put up on a pedestal. And it's really easy to think that they have no worries. But the other thing that's fascinating with the president's Don is when you go back and you start to look at all their different financial lives, their financial lives are a good reflection of where we are in the United States today or in the day that they lived. Right. So whether they were living through the civil war, a panic, because panics were quite big, you know, throughout U.S. history, or even a period of time like prosperity during the Eisenhower years, right? all of their finances reflect what the United States is going through. I think in the present day, and I'm maybe skipping to the end of this interview,

this has become a much more active conversation, certainly prompted by having a billionaire and take power and the strange leverage that brings to that individual. In the past, how much did we know about presidents? I mean, we're talking about that financial disclosure, which is really not a law. It's just kind of an understanding among the journalists that we will know how much you're worth and what your tax forms all say. When did it come to pass that we knew more about them than we used to? Yeah, I mean, I think the actual formal disclosure process is a much more modern day process, right? But in the past in the U.S., if you think about it, there was a very limited pool of candidates, right?

Because most of these candidates had to have the wherewithal to be able to go run for office. to go make connections, to go do speaking. But presidential campaigns in particular were not like they are today. I mean, today it's like a two-year process, right? Back in the day, you know, half the time the candidate didn't even show up at the convention because it was just, it just was not proper, right? So, you know, I think the thing is financial disclosures are really helpful, but most people can't understand them.

And I say this because whether you like him or not, right, and the book is non-political, If I showed you Donald Trump's tax return, I would tell you 95% of all Americans wouldn't understand what's going on there. Because what's going on behind the scenes with him is you have someone who is maximizing all of the sort of grayer areas of the tax code. But that tells you a lot about something about Trump. He has a comfort with risk. And so that brings up two other people that come to mind when I think of risk.

The first is Dwight D. Eisenhower, Ike, right? The Great Commander. And when he was growing up in Abilene, Kansas, his family didn't have money. You know, he was a big family, big farm family. In fact, his father used to give each of the boys a plot of land for them to grow vegetables to sell. But Ike ended up befriending this guy who was down by the river. And he would go fishing with this gentleman. he would go hunting, and this gentleman taught Ike beyond those two things how to play poker. And he really focused on with Ike learning not just the technical skills of poker, but how to control risk. And that doesn't seem like it would actually have an impact on the world and, you know, World War II and D-Day landings. But from a very early age, Ike learned how to balance emotion.

and that was sort of his superpower. And as he grew over the course of his life and got to certain moments, he made certain choices by being in the military and not making a lot of money and being in the military. But he married up. He married maybe Dowd, who was a wealthier woman. He actually got an allowance from her father for a while.

And then any time there was a moment where he could maximize, he was willing to take the risk to do so. So he was very good at controlling his emotions. So I think when you think of risk and you think of your portfolio, right, you want to tap into that inner Eisenhower or that inner Trump, right? Because both of them have a comfort with taking on risk. Now, we're taping this and we just had Kamala Harris's vice presidential candidate be announced, Tim Walls. And I have to tell you, everybody looking at his finances, Don, they come back with the same answer, which is, where's his money, right?

Right? So this is an interesting character coming up into American politics. He's very, there's a little bit of Harry Truman in him, right? Yes. Who was not wealthy? Yeah. Who was not wealthy? Until the end.

He was eventually wealthy, but that freaked Truman out. But, you know, Walls has got a little Truman, you know, doesn't have a lot of money from the Midwest, very folksy, right? You know, you think about how you see him as a coach. Now, remember, we're taping this and he's just been picked. So God knows what. it'll happen by the time this airs. But when you carved into his finances, you were like, okay, well, we've got a pension.

We got a little bit of cash, but that's it. And people are going, well, where is it? Did he spend it all? And here's what I think, because, you know, you have to sort of put some of the expertise on to what we think's going on here. I think with walls, this is someone who made a choice to be a teacher. And his wife made a choice to be a teacher. I think being a vice presidential candidate was never really.

on the time horizon, you know, 30 years ago. And so I think in being a teacher and getting a pension, they made decisions to create stability. So unlike a Donald Trump, unlike a Dwight Eisenhower, they aren't going to take unnecessary risk, not because I don't think Walls can't handle the emotion of it, but the risk was too great being a teacher. Interesting. And so one of the things that people point out is in 2019 when he became the governor of Minnesota, he sold his house. And people are like, whoa, what's going on there? Well, these are teachers. They have children. They know their kids are going to go to college. And the U.S. today, and we'll look at this probably in 20, 30 years time, and from a history standpoint, we're in a student

tuition crisis right now. It is impacting the shape of our country and the drive behind the American dream. It wouldn't surprise me if they sold their house to help their kids pay for college. I think it is very stability driven. And so this is important when you take that history lens, because what you're seeing with the different candidates is this struggle to find the American dream. And what is the American dream today? Because it probably has a lot of the same threads as it did in Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt's Day. And yet the opportunity set has gotten a lot harder. It is not easy to be an American today as it was 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago. Sure. And wealth has changed, too. I mean, 19th century wealth is different than 20th century

wealth in a way, a lot more defined by the holdings. I mean... Don, let me just say one thing, though. The wealth, the shape of it might be different, the emotion is the same. Hmm, interesting. I want to tell people, because let's guide this by your book, which is brand new and coming out in a month or so. You've broken it down into parts. the basic building blocks of these candidates. And as you say, but it skips around through different eras. Part two is money and meaning part three is the wealth builders. But you also basically have an entire list.

You know, the next page is a list of the presidency of the United States. You're covering it all. And that's what I find so fascinating is that it's a grab bag of different storytelling of different eras, how different people are handling their money. George Washington surprised me. I mean, one of the top wealthiest presidents of all time, right? Yeah, and he's a fascinating character. He's been sort of turned to stone as a human being, right? We we revere him, we worship him. He's the only president who did not make it into the 19th century. He dies in 1799.

So he's almost inaccessible. But when you actually start to carve into his story and how he built wealth, you start to realize he's so American. He is the ultimate American hustle in terms of drive and what he wanted to achieve. And it makes him so human. But when you look at the characteristics or the traits that people typically have to build wealth, Washington struggled with one of them. Washington struggled with education. He was the son of the second marriage. So the father had money.

But when his father died, everything went to his brother Lawrence. from the first marriage. Mm-hmm. And so Washington was not able to go to college. So you think of his peers. You think of the John Adams, the Thomas Jeffersons, the James Madison. How smart these men were. How educated.

Right. And back then the education was very European style. And then you had Washington who had to hustle to make money. He couldn't get that credential like a Yale to say, hey, help me make money. And so what he does is he relies on grit. And grits one of these traits in making money that we often overlook. And in fact, I think at times we confuse it with luck. I find in talking with my clients who have made their way and made money,

they'll rely on the luck concept versus the grit. But the grit is much more than just working hard. It's a drive to achieve a goal. And what you see with Washington from when he starts out and borrows a book from his neighbor to learn surveying, to going on surveying trips, to using his connections to get paid surveying jobs, to buying land. He's constantly building on his experience. And when you look at his letters and you look at his budgets,

first of all, they're beautiful. He had great penmanship, right? And then you look at his letters, and he's writing letters over the course of his life because he struggles with liquidity. He's got a huge landholding. So the last thing I'll say about Washington, which I think is very important when we study the presidents,

is he was the first to marry up. A lot of the greats, Washington, Lincoln, you know, you could argue FDR. I think Eleanor had a bigger trust fund than him, right? Eisenhower, all of them married women who came from higher means than they did. And that really propelled them. So with Washington, when you think of him, I don't want you to think of him on the dollar bill. That's him at the end. I want you to think about him at this young guy who is hustling,

to get ahead and to climb. And so that's part of the American spirit and the American dream. He also marries into a lot of cheap labor. He's got a whole enslaved labor force thanks to his wife. And by the way, he had slaves too. Well, sure.

There were 12 presidents that were slaveholders, and you have to, against any of them, put an asterisk when you say, are they the wealthiest, right? Because, to your point, they made money off of slave labor. And the thing that you find, in researching these guys is they all struggle with it.

Trust me, they all wrestle. They know it's wrong. But just because they know it's wrong doesn't mean they're not going to do it in a way to build wealth. And so it's something that's frustrating with Washington. When he does marry Martha Custis, he inherits her dower, right?

He gets her dower, which has her dower slaves. Washington's wife, Martha, was beautiful, and she had been married previously and had two children. But her first husband was older than her, and he died. And she inherited his wealth. And so when Washington married her, he was now in charge of her wealth. And that helped propel him money-wise.

However, at the end of his life, when he was making his will, he had to decide what to do with the slaves that he owned. His slaves and Martha's slaves. And he sort of came to this, okay, I'm going to do the right thing, but this is it, which is when she dies, he's going to free them all. Now, if anyone listening as an attorney and a drafting attorney, what you'll realize is Washington made a horrible drafting mistake. Because the minute he dies, Martha is fair game. And by the way, if you go to Mount Vernon, they discuss this.

They show you. Because, you know, look, if you think about it, when Washington dies, they publish his will in the paper. Not just in the U.S. papers. It's in the U.K. papers. It's all over the place. In fact, his estate plan was so complex. they made a book about it because it lasted for 50 years.

So anyway, Martha inherits everything back but she knows now that when she dies, the slaves are free. And this is frightening to her. And one of the ways we know this is Abigail Adams, who's now the president's wife, goes down to see Martha at Mount Vernon.

And Martha is terrified and explains she thinks her only way out of not being injured or killed would be to free the slaves. And Abigail reports this back to a friend in a letter. And Martha does sign a writ of manumission releasing the slaves. And so she releases them before she passes.

And she's able to sort of calm this potential uprising against her. But again, you know, it was a drafting error on Washington's part, but in a way maybe it was fate coming in to free these slaves because it would have been the right thing to do. It's the drama behind the numbers.

That's your whole career telling these stories. Exactly, exactly. But let's be clear. I have here, his estate was valued at $780,000 in 1799. That's over $400 million today. George Washington was rich. George Washington was incredibly rich, and he owned a lot of land all over the East Coast.

And, you know, he had plantations. Sure. And so he was our wealthiest. And, you know, I think the one thing I'll say about him as well is he was very skilled with money because he had to learn it. So beyond learning, surveying, he did great budgets, but he also learned estate planning. He served in people's estates, and he had his estate plan all thought out, just with that one little error.

I'll be right back after this short break. Meantime, if you'd like us to cover anything specifically, if you have any ideas of subject matter, we should be looking at, send us an email. at A-H-H at historyhit.com. We'd love to hear from you. I want to compare Washington with Lincoln, just to go through our most iconic president. Lincoln was not a wealthy man, but did okay, right?

So Lincoln's an interesting story, because I think he did do okay, despite some things that happened to him. You know, we all know the story, right, that he grew up poor and self-taught, and that's all true. I will tell you that's probably been a little embellished over the years.

At periods of time, his father did own sizable amounts of land that didn't make him the poorest guy in town. But Lincoln really grew up unschooled in money. And you see this across his early life. You know, he gets into these businesses and they fail. And there's lawsuits. And, you know, or he borrows something, buy something on credit. And, you know, that never pays the bill. And so then they come after him.

So Lincoln is a guy who struggles. But he's incredibly smart and he loves to read. And he makes his way eventually to Springfield. And he becomes an attorney. But when he's there, he meets someone who changes his life. He meets a woman by the name of Mary Todd. And I sort of always love the visual of them because she's like 5-2. He's like 6'4, right?

They're like the ultimate semicolon. And they're both passionate about politics. But they're both from very different worlds. She grew up the daughter of a wealthy, plantation holder from Kentucky, her family owned slaves. She was a little rebellious. Her mother had died and her father had remarried and she loved to give her stepmother hell and make things very difficult for everybody. But Mary and Abraham Lincoln really connected. But when they get married, you know, he's working as an attorney. She's horrified because he moves her into a boarding

house. He's paying about $4 a month at the boarding house. He writes his friend, Joshua Speed about this. And Mary goes from living in this beautiful world where she has servants and people waiting on her to living in a boarding house where she doesn't even have a drawing room. So this is a huge wake-up call. And it starts to propel a lot of the tensions

in the Lincoln marriage, which there's a lot of different theories on why they are. But when we look at the money part of it, we start to see Mary engage in some weird behaviors. She gets into hoarding. So there's a great story where, she's in town and she finds this beautiful bolt of silk

and she decides she's going to buy it, not just enough to buy a dress, but the whole amount so nobody else could have the same dress as her. So when you think about Lincoln, here he is trying to climb, marries this woman, he actually gets help from her father and they buy what I would argue is one of the nicest houses in town. And when he becomes president,

he rents the house out, goes to D.C., and pretty much with the bulk of his paycheck, every month or every two weeks, he is buying U.S. Treasury notes because they're paying over 7%. And so you think about politicians and the ability to be conflict-free. Here he is, he's running the Civil War

and he's buying treasury notes, right? Skin in the game. So when he dies, you know, he dies within a state worth about $85,000, which is just over $2 million. And one of things I find fascinating is when a president is assassinated, they get paid to the moment they are assassinated.

They get like a partial patronage. So Garfield got that, McKinley got that, JFK got that. Sort of weird creepiness, but they get a paycheck up until the moment they go. But Lincoln's estate, what's interesting about it is over $2 million, he's an attorney, and he dies without an estate plan. And so Mary and the two remaining sons, Robert and Tad, have to have the chief justice of the Supreme Court help them administer the estate. So Lincoln is one of these figures where he does know better and he does learn skills over the course of his life.

He's got a challenging wife who overspends. And then he sort of self-sabotages. I mean, the guy has visions of dying and he doesn't do an estate plan. Wow. You're reminding me to call my financial planner before I'm assassinated. Exactly. The opposite poll is Thomas Jefferson. Not completely.

I mean, very, very wealthy man, also large enslaved labor force, but kind of blows it at the end, doesn't he? He sort of blows it over the course of his whole life. We all know what Thomas Jefferson, right? You know, he's the guy who's always borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. And this is an issue that comes up with a lot of these early presidents who own large land holdings, which is they are illiquid. And illiquidity is very, very challenging. Hence the high reliance on slave labor. Jefferson's an interesting guy because a lot of people die on him very early,

including his wife who, as you know, on her deathbed, makes him promise never to remarry. So when you're surrounded by death, it's very hard to think about where are you going to be in 20, 30, 40 years, right? You sort of live in the moment in that sense. And he was able to accrue some really amazing taste, right? He moved to Europe, you know, ice cream, Parmesan cheese, He was the guy who like brought it all back to us. But he was living the high life, but not managing the finances. He did something that we in finance really see all the time where you're sort of making

promises to yourself, like you're doing the budget in your head instead of on paper. And you're sort of saying, okay, I think this will measure out and I promise I'll get, I'll fix it next month, right? He's bargaining with himself. And so what happens to him is by the end of his life, he is up to his eyeballs and debt. and the only way out is to sell Monticello at auction, which is crazy, right? Could you imagine, you know, Barack Obama putting his Martha's Vineyard property up at auction because he can't afford it?

It's just crazy for us to think about this, but he does. And it appears in the paper and there's actual auction tickets. And a group of Americans who knew him got together and they're like, we can't have him do this. This is crazy. He's Thomas Jefferson. It's going on the nickel. Right, exactly. even though he doesn't have two nickels to rub together.

So they basically are like, look, take the auction off, we'll figure it out with you, let's try to raise like a go-fund me for him. So they all try to help him, but it's never enough to really save him, but he doesn't die losing Monticello. That falls on to his heirs, who are now left with this huge financial mess. And so, you know, it's sort of tragic in a way because of how he ran his money. upon his death, his slaves were auctioned off. And you have to remember, they were often in families.

And so families were split apart. And we know this because one of the slaves ended up writing a book many years later talking about the horror of the slave auction of when Jefferson died and all the slaves had to be sent elsewhere. So Jefferson isn't who you want to emulate. He lacks the ability to be present in his money,

which is interesting because Washington could be very present in his money. And, you know, Jefferson was the more educated of the two. Yeah, but boy, could he write. Oh, God. Yeah. Today, he would be cashing in. Today he'd be on the Jerry Ford model.

Can you imagine? On this series, I often am pointing out the fact that money is driving this, you know, in more than obvious terms. The changing relationship to money and to currency, for that matter, throughout the 19th century, has so much to do with the historical events that really drive the American, even identity, let alone, you know, the actual political events that we talk about. The mercantile era of the early 1800s is when people start to realize that they can improve themselves.

In the middle class, can even start to say, wait, if I just accrue more money, I can get this. You know, education, as you point out, becomes down the line. Gee, an ordinary person can become a PhD doctor, for that matter. It's really a fascinating shift that happens right through the course of making money and the definition of money in the American story. It's very, very important. Your book is so cool because it really takes this down to an individual basis. I think often about the fact that if you were elected president, your entire life blows up in front of your eyes. Here you've been struggling and the push to get elected. It may or may not happen. But when it happens, oh, my Lord,

your entire existence is completely transformed for the rest of your time. God forbid, you're 40 years old. going to live the rest of your life as an entirely different person. It's extraordinary. So their relationship to money is at least grounds us into something we can understand. One of these episodes that's really fascinating, anecdotally, is that of JFK, you know, his desire to sort of keep up a front, but while also keeping an ordinary life going. Talk to me about being born into such privilege and then, you know, pursuing this course to the presidency for JFK. Yeah, I mean, JFK is interesting, right, because you know he's wealthy, right? You just, No, he did not have the same struggles as, say, a Jerry Ford or Ronald Reagan or even LBJ, his

vice president. But Kennedy realizes early on that money is just a means, right? Unlike other presidents, I don't feel he's ever really like in love with being wealthy. It's just, that's his natural state of being. But that being said, he was very aware of wastefulness. and it was something that he was hypersensitive to. So when you read through the oral histories, Lembellings, Pierre Salinger, right, Ben Bradley,

you start to hear these stories where JFK is faced with a moment where there has been somebody's overspent. And it clearly offends something in him. You know, there's a story where, you know, when they would have parties at the White House, he would tell the butlers, look, don't just keep pouring, right? Don't let these people finish their glass of champagne before you pour it on. The story brings up something that all of the presidents deal with,

which is they are personally responsible for all of their entertainment costs. Oh, interesting. Yeah. So, I mean, Michelle Obama actually was on Jimmy Kimmel once talking about it. She said, I have had to tell Barack whatever happens, don't stand there and say, God, I could crave a peach right now. Because if we're in the middle of February, one's going to appear out of nowhere, and then I'm going to get a bill for $500.

Wow. Do they have to pay for their own food and drink? Yes. Yes, they all do. They all do. And it's one of the things, if you look at their, across American presidency, they all hate it. It drives them insane. I didn't know that.

Seriously, the food that's in the walk-in of the White House, the presidents have to buy that for themselves? Yes. That's remarkable. I didn't know it. Think about it, right? It aligns them more with the American people's interest. They are not kings, right?

I know John Adams was on that kick that we should have called George Washington, you know, his, I forget what it was like, his excellency or something, but it was very important that these people not be seen as being greater than the average American. But that can't go for state dinners and stuff, does it? State dinners are covered by the government, right? Because that is doing government business, right? In the tax code, right, think about the technical definition of a business deduction is something that is ordinary and necessary in the pursuit of business.

Sort of the same thing with the White House. A state dinner is ordinary and necessary in the pursuit of business. Tuesday night, Chile, not so much, right? So Kennedy is very hyper-aware of this, right, of this overspending. Because he's like, look, I understand everybody thinks I'm wealthy, but it doesn't mean they should take advantage. And this is something that I've found over the years in working with wealthy people. A lot of them have that mindset.

Now it's interesting because Kennedy was always like this. Lem Belling's, who was his best friends since they were kids, talks about when they went to college and they would go to New York in the summers, they wanted to go to the hot club, the stork club. The store club was cool. They had balloons that would come through the ceiling, and there would be prizes in the balloons, and there was girls there, and it was fun.

But it was expensive. So he and Kennedy would go, they would have a drink, and then they would say, hold our beers, and they'd run around, they'd lead the place, run down the street, slam back a couple of beers that were cheaper, and then we'd go back to the Stort Club. Because Kennedy was aware, Kennedy could afford the Stork Club, but he was aware his friends couldn't.

And, you know, in a way, I think he understood it was more fun that way, right? The struggle sometimes can be more fun. But, you know, he was an interesting person in that sense, and it was a lot of the friction with him and Jackie was money. Money was a tool that they often used to torture each other with. Well, of course, and she was raised otherwise, as were so many of these presidents wives who they marry up into. He marries up into, in a way, marries up into Jackie, doesn't he? He marries up in terms of social status, but his, her family, remember Blackjack Bouvier,

by the time she meets Kennedy, has no money. And he's, you know, descended into alcoholism. But with Jackie, Jackie had a compulsion to spend, right? And so, you know, you see stories where Kennedy is in the White House looking at bills and being like, where is all this stuff? And, you know, he's struggling because Kennedy made a decision when he became a congressman and he carried on as being senator and his president, he donated his entire salary to charity. Yeah, yeah. And so here he is, he's donating to charity, he's getting these crazy bills because Jackie's out there spending. Yeah.

So that's a push-pull between them. So much of these lives are smoke screens in some ways, you know, especially on that level. You've got to keep appearances up. But, Don, it's also, that's how marriage works. Right. That's life. I know, I know. They're in the White House.

She's Jackie Kennedy. But I don't know any marriage where there isn't some push-pull about money. Theirs is just at a very prominent level. I think that that will be your follow-up book. Presidents and their wives. One fascinating guy in this story that we can almost close with is Nixon. And his relationship with orange juice. Yes.

Richard Nixon, he's so awkward. I mean, I just bless his heart. You know, poor Richard. Nixon. But Richard Nixon grew up poor. His father actually came out from Ohio and was in Whittier, California, and they had a grocery store attached to a gas station. And so each of the Nixon boys was in charge of a certain thing. And Richard Nixon was in charge of citrus. So fast forward, he goes to college, he goes to law school. He's now an attorney in his hometown. He's an okay attorney. He really messed up his first case of law. So he struggles with confidence,

I think we all know this as Americans. We know Nixon well. And a group of local businessmen have this great idea in the late 30s. Wouldn't it be amazing if every American could have a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice on their table like we have here in Whittier, California? And so one of these guys had this, quote unquote, technology. And the technology was such that they were going to be freezing the juice from the orange juice from the orange. orange and then shipping it in containers around the country. And I can tell you because I'm married to a chemical engineer, that's a disaster because you've got sugar basically becoming

alcohol. But besides that, Richard Nixon, you know, struggled to make sure that the business was in compliance. They put him as CEO of the business. And he was in charge of the business. He got family and friends to invest. And then he made mistakes with filing Social Security for his employees, he couldn't get, you know, the shipments to work. At one point, a box car in the LA area blows up because the sugar ferments. He just can't get this business to go. And by the end of it all, it basically goes bankrupt, but Nixon feels so beholden to friends and family. He doesn't go bankrupt. He decides to take on the debt. We actually have court documents with him in court absorbing the debt about $8,000 in 1941. And so he does

go off to war. And by the way, he never wants Pat to know how bad the debt is. He does go off to war. And while he's at war, like a lot of American soldiers, he plays poker. And he sends his poker winnings home to help pay off the debt. So I bring this up because Nixon was one of these people who really wanted to be wealthy, really wanted to rise. But he struggled with his risk tolerance. And I think if he, you know, a lot of times when you meet people in Silicon Valley, I've heard them say this, they'll be like, you'll be lucky. My first, my first, you're not, my first two ideas failed. Now I'm ready. Right. It's a little bit of that with Nixon. This idea failed, but I think if he had tried again, he might have been more successful because he would

have learned a lot. He really just dropped the ball on a lot of different issues with the Orange Juice Company. But it's fascinating to think of how that psychologically played on him, you know, and how that shaped the man and the psychology that later becomes president and a part of our history so much. Well, Don, think about it. The Checker speech, he's reading you, his network worth. Who does that? Yeah, exactly. Richard Nixon. It's fascinating storytelling of the nature I have never encountered. When you tell the story of money in people's lives, you're inevitably behind the scenes.

This takes you behind the scenes, behind the veil of these iconic people that we assume so much about but don't know as much as we should. And that's the service you've done for us today. This is a book that comes out next month. It's called All the President's Money, How the Men Who Governed America, Governed Their Money, and the author is. is Megan Gorman, who has been with us today. She was a wealth manager for Goldman Sachs, B-N-Y Mellon, and finally her own boutique practice. Thank you so much, Megan.

We'll see you again. Dawn, thanks for having me on. Take care. Hello, folks. Thanks for listening to American History Hit. Each week, we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays. All kinds of great content,

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