American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 39.2 Jimmy Carter

Episode Date: May 22, 2023

He is now held in regard as the beloved ex-president - the sage old man. But when he was president he was not so well liked. So what is the truth behind the first person we have ever covered who is still alive!?

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Jimmy Carr Part 2. Hello and welcome to American Presidents Totalus Rankium. I am Jamie. And I am Rob, ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Biden. And this is episode 39.2. It is the second and final part of Jimothy Carter. Oh, Jimothy. Yeah, you were fairly impressed with him last time, if I remember correctly. He just seemed like a nice guy hardly any corruption yeah i mean what more can you want but nice guys finished last as green day sang about and might have also been the same before then uh i do know one fact about him

though oh go on but it might spoil the episode if people don't know but i'm pretty sure everybody does know he's still alive he is still by the way. I literally checked before recording. No breaking news on BBC. Nope. I do know he's a one-term president. Oh, Jamie. I do know that. I've always known that, though.

You've always known it? Yeah. No, it is true. He is a one-term president. But why, Jamie? Why? I don't know. Well, we'll find out. Is it to do with Reagan?

Is he next? Oh, oh yes he is uh maybe it's still reagan maybe it's to do with the incident the incident the incident incident maybe who knows who knows you're gonna have to listen aren't you dear listener okay uh right kick us off let's start you know that scene in Jurassic Park? Okay. Where the T-Rex, like, crashes out through the gates and stomping. And then the wimpy lawyer guy, he runs out the car and hides in the toilet. He's on the toilet.

Yeah. And he knocks Malcolm into the toilet and all falls down. Yeah, I'm with you. Just eats him like that. Okay, all that, but replace the lawyer with the peanut from last week. So the T-Rex is still there. Yeah, yeah, the whole thing is exactly the same. It's just the peanut on the toilet instead of Jimmy Carter.

Fit that in, Rob. You see, I had something, Jamie. I had something really quite clear. I can change it if you want. Oh, no, because that ruins it. Okay, how can I? Okay, start close-up on a pair of eyes, and you can tell this is a nervous pair of eyes.

They're shifting around. There's sweat beading. You really zoomed in, so you can't see much, but you can hear the thud, thud noise, which, as you have already alluded to, we know what that is. That's the giant peanut. Yeah. Anyway.

Then suddenly, zoom out, and the eyes you are looking at, it's just this guy in a suit. And he's really nervous looking. And he's looking around, and all he can see is thud. And he's running through a dense jungle. And he's running, and he's looking around, thud, thud. And he doesn't know why he's going. Oh, he's panicking. He's third third and he doesn't know why he's going he's he's oh he's panicking he's sweating and third third and then he opens his thermos of coffee and just the little wrinkle wringular wringular that's a word ripples yeah um and yeah yeah more third

third and then he suddenly breaks into a clearing and there in front of him is a destroyed uh very brightly colored car upside down and there is a giant peanut eating a lawyer yeah yeah and then suddenly swing back in to face the lawyer and you see the eyes again and you just hear him think this is the second worst day of my life and then fade crossfade to another pair of eyes it It's the same pair of eyes, but significantly younger. And they're looking sweaty and they're looking nervous. And you zoom out again. You realise it's the same guy, but significantly younger. And he's looking nervous.

And why is he looking nervous? He's just at a desk in an office, Jamie. Just doing some numbers. There's a typewriter and there is a 70s hair. So you can tell it's the 70s. Like a big moustache kind of thing. Big moustache, that side parting quiff thing that they had in the 70s.

Sort of white shirts that aren't quite white. His tie is like half-masked. Do they call it half-masked? Probably. Is it like one of those brown ties with red and yellow checks on it kind of thing? And he's typing away on his typewriter and he's shredding documents and he's doing all sorts. He's looking very panicked in this office. And then all of a sudden the window next to him explodes and the door gets kicked in. And what's this, Jamie?

Who is storming his office? Is it a peanut? No, Jamie. Is it the T-R? Is it a peanut? No, Jamie. Is it the T-Rex? That'd be worse than a peanut. It's students, Jamie. Oh, that's disgusting. Students with weapons.

Bloody students. Is this like a prank that's gone really out of control? Well, we're comfortable. And the guy puts his hands up and then the voiceover says this is the worst day of my life and then jimmy carter comes up on the screen part two nice nicely woven in very active life that guy yeah yeah there you go there you go uh so just know that scene uh minus minus the peanut and the Jurassic Park scene, that will be happening at some point.

Ooh, exciting. I like angry. I don't like angry students. I don't like students. They're so loud. Who does, Jamie? They're so loud. They're so loud.

I mean, we were students and we were terrible. Yeah, but we hated students even then. Oh, we really did. Bloody students. The self-loathing was real. It was intense really did. Bloody students. The South Loving was real. It was intense, yeah. We had to wade through it. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, right. Let's stop talking about South Loving and let's go on to Jimmy Carter, shall we? Okay, so we left Jimmy Carter winning the election. Let's see how he does. So it's December of 1976 and Carter starts thinking about the nitty gritty details on how he's going to be in charge. There are a few things that he thought the country needed to deal with,

but before that he wanted to do something about the fact that no one trusts the government anymore. The public have been lied to repeatedly about Vietnam, Watergate, various coups across the world that the CIA have been involved in. I mean, the public had got to the point where they just assumed that anything that came out of Washington was just lies and corruption. Don't forget the Roswell, New Mexico alien crash landing as well. Yes, yes, exactly. All of that's going on.

Weather balloon, yeah, right, yeah, right. So, yeah, everyone just, they don't trust the government. And Carter wants to change this. He is going to be accountable, damn it, and transparent. No, not even Carter could do that. No. I mean, accountable is possibly, theoretically possible, but transparent? Has he got a mad scientist in his basement?

So is he a giant jellyfish? Yeah, exactly. But we'll see. Maybe he's going to do it. Because he is going to restructure the federal government to make it less bloated and more efficient and less corrupt so he goes to the chairman of the house committee on government operations an exciting title this is before he's officially president by the way he's uh he's warming up yeah ford's still in, so he's just trying to organise himself.

And he goes to the chairman of the House Committee on Government Operations, and he let the Texan congressman, a man named Jack Brooks, know what to expect from his administration. Essentially, I'm going to come in, we're going to clean slate this. It's going to be good. The public trust is the most important. Carter was very quickly introduced to the reality of Washington

and Congress and the Democratic Party at the time. Remember, Carter's a bit of an outsider. He's not gone through Washington. He's just been the governor in Georgia and then suddenly he's here. It's a bit of a wake-up call for

him. So let's go through this, shall we? Let's start with the Democratic Party. They were a split bunch. That's how you describe them. Yeah, they were made up of conservatives and liberals at this point in areas of social and economic spheres. The change in the voting process that I mentioned last time in the party meant that the old party bosses, the old boys club system, was falling apart. And the power vacuum in the party had not quite been filled yet. So it's this party that is morphing. And when Carter sat down with Mr. Brooks to talk about how he's going to change things up. Well, Jack Brooks replied, well, getting the Democrats to agree with you, Mr. President,

right now would be a bit like herding cats. You can't do that. You can't do that. I mean, you can, but you look like a fool. So don't even bother trying. Yeah, no one's agreeing with each other. So don't bother. So that was the Democratic Party.

You're going to struggle with them. As for wider Congress, well, we're not about to give the executive branch any more power than it has, says Brooks. He also pointed out that even Johnson, widely seen, as we saw, as a wizard in getting things through Congress, he'd only ever got about a third of the things he asked for. So stop demanding everything, Carter. And what's this, sir? You also don't seem to know how Washington DC works as a whole. Because you are an outsider here. You don't know how things work. To be honest, sir, you're a little bit naive if you think coming to me and talking about this was going to achieve anything.

That's a burn. That's a burn and a half. Yeah, it's not good. Just to remind you, this is a member of Carter's own party here. Democrats aren't in a good place, are they, at the moment? They are not in a good place. Carter was fuming. And the meeting broke off with both men not feeling very happy. Next up, he went to go and meet the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader, both of them Democrats at the time, and he told them that if his plans for reorganisation were stalled, he would use every ounce of his power to just move

the bills around them. So if you don't work with me here, Congress, the White House will just push stuff through. Yeah, the House Speaker replied, and I quote, that would be the worst thing you can do, particularly with a fellow like Jack Brooks. Jack doesn't get mad, he gets even. Ooh. You don't know your throat is cut until you try to turn your head.

That's brilliant. Yeah, I just, I mean, I don't want to be the person who someone says that about me apart from the fact that it's so damn cool yeah so i kind of do i don't want to go around like metaphorically cutting people's throats but it's just such a cool thing to be said about you isn't it and you can imagine the guy saying it's like a rainy street big hat on cigarette in the underneath the street like you won't even know your throat's cut until you turn your head. And then that very guy who just said that in the cool voice turns to his side, and then his head just falls off.

Ooh. Ooh. Yeah. Messy. Very messy. So anyway, this was Carter's interaction with members of his own party. Yeah, positive. Yes. Not going great.

He'd not even been inaugurated yet, and he's already deep in a feud with his own party in Congress. But Carter doesn't care. He was and he would remain a politician not defined by party, damn it. He had not needed the party to become president. He wasn't about to bow down to them now. He'd never used party bosses. He was his own man. So he't about to bow down to them now. He'd never used party bosses.

He was his own man. So he's going to carry on regardless. He was inaugurated, as presidents usually are, and in part to show Congress that he means business, damn it. The very next day, he signed an executive order pardoning all draft evaders. Ooh. Yeah. Nice.

Yeah. Well, many were unhappy with this yeah you seem fairly happy with it but lots of people weren't uh yeah i guess so but i i'm a natural coward so i would avoid the draft and then be arrested so for me it'd be wonderful well carter saw it as closing the lid on the whole unfortunate vietnam business and a lot of people agreed with him it's like seriously are we going to like spend time and effort tracking people down who evaded the war it's we've got better things to do surely but many people were very unhappy members of the public or politicians mixture of both certainly several politicians were saying things like Yes, okay, maybe we should be looking towards pardons But not just a blanket one

We should be treating this with a bit more nuance Than just go, right, everyone's pardoned But Carter wanted a clean slate So that's what he went for We're not judging yet But I can personally see the benefits of a clean slate there I think it just gets it all out of the way. But yeah, just so you know, a lot of people not happy.

Anyway, once settled in, Carter changed a few of the rules in the White House. The Marines, he said, were going to bloody well stop playing hail to the chief every time he entered a room. Every time he entered a room? Every time he entered a room. So if he went to the bathroom. Every time he entered a room? Every time he entered a room. So if he went to the bathroom.

Get out, get out, get out! The guy with the tuba just timed it with the plops. Yeah. For dignity's sake. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Put a stop to that. Okay, so, what if, right, he was in the so what if right he was in the

Oval Office he walks in the first thing in the morning and he's like oh I need to go out and I forgot to grab something

because they have to replay it again straight away is that sort of how it works I can only assume so yeah and every time

he entered a room I was going to say corridors because is he like if he keeps stepping in and out of one door would they have to keep starting again because if he keeps stepping in and out of one door, would they have to keep starting again every time he did it?

Because that's... Yeah, didn't move that time. Yeah, he could have had fun with that. Yeah. But no, he didn't. Yeah. I'm guessing what he did is he went into the Oval Office, just running full pout as a band chased after him, playing it.

He just slams the door and shouts, no more. And then this cunt slams the people hitting against the door afterwards. Yeah, and he sits down at the desk, opens a little drawer, and who's in there? Oh, it's Lionel. Oh, Lionel's still there. Yeah, Lionel's in the Oval yeah good old lionel so he talks to lionel and lionel suggests maybe you could just just tell them to quit it with his eyes of course that's how lionel yeah okay yeah anyway sorry i

felt like we've got somewhat sidetracked oh he stopped stopped the Marines from playing Hail to the Chief every time he entered the room, is what I'm trying to say. Yeah, okay. Yeah. The presidential yacht was also sold. No need for that anymore. There's an extravagance he doesn't need. And generally, he got to know the staff one time to the dismay of certain members in the

White House. He went and ate lunch in the White House mess hall and just got a cheeseburger with everyone else. See, I know that sounds like a really lovely thing and he's a man of the people, but you just know the staff probably hated that. Oh God, yeah, yeah. You're there having your lunch

and then suddenly the boss comes along. Oh, just no. No, I've got to be professional. It's my only break. Yeah. And I had a really good joke lined up that cannot be repeated in front of Carter. Oh, never mind. Apparently, I've heard Obama used to do that every now and again as well.

Oh, well, we'll get to Obama. We will. And we'll see. You're absolutely right. Some enjoyed this more down-to-earth approach. Some disliked what they saw as the erosion of the office. It's like, no, you're not here to be friends. You're here to be leader of the free world, damn it.

And the interesting thing about those arguments, they're both kind of valid. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's no definite right or wrong answer to that. So, yeah. Still, all of this is fairly small fry, isn't it? It's fairly unimportant, because there's a lot going on in the world and Carter realises he needs to start organising stuff.

So, several things facing the country that Carter wants to sort out. To begin with, there is Russia. There is. It was invented 12 years prior by George Russia. And things got tense quickly. Yeah. Now, as covered, the whole Nixon administration had made a fair bit of progress with Russia, and the mood was that the height of the Cold War

was perhaps over. The Cuban Missile Crisis was definitely starting to see us. There was something in the past. We're no longer there anymore. Yeah, that was years ago. But it doesn't mean it's all over. This is still tense. We're still in the cold war here

but we should continue disarming our nuclear weapons in line with each other so let's continue those discussions that's that's one thing that carter needs to do a second the economy oh dear all the economy's not good not good at all uh this had helped carter become president the economy's not good. Not good at all. This had helped Carter become president. The economy was really quite bad, and people wanted someone to come and fix it. So they got rid of Ford. They brought in Carter. What are you going to do, they all said in unison at his inauguration.

And Carter went, ha-ha. Just you wait and see. Yes. I've got a plan. I've got a plan. It's in this big folder here. Look, this plan is in this folder. That's where all the loose blank sheets just slip out the side and he hurriedly picks them all up.

So, yeah, he's got that to do. Third, as already mentioned, reorganising the government. Carter was serious about this. He's going to make it more accountable, streamlined and transparent. So that's number three on the list. Next up, the energy crisis. This is a biggie. There's an energy crisis going on at this time.

Yes. For many complex reasons, the United States were really struggling with energy, not just the United States, the entire world, especially the Western world. And this needed to be fixed. But isn't the USA sitting like a giant oil well oh well yeah but it's not all being accessed and they're not sitting on enough to sustain them and they're in contracts with stuff and the middle east is just there and why not use that that's where we've been getting all our fun before. But as we will go into, a little bit of problem going on over there.

So, yeah, there's an energy crisis that needs to be fixed. I'll go in more detail about that in a bit. Finally, however, this one was important to Carter, but many didn't see it as important at the time. This is America's standing in the world. Carter was very aware that the world was starting to see the United States as a bullying superpower. What? No, no.

Gone were the early days of the plucky underdog overthrowing the shackles of the bullying superpower that was britain and uh gone is the isolationist country that is economically doing very well for itself but keeping itself to itself yeah no now we're getting into an international america who are going around the world and helping helping people helping helping definitely uh yes and uh carter carter kind of realized that there are a lot of people around the world who are starting to get a little bit frustrated with the united states throwing their weight around and things like stout coups and economic sanctions and actual invasions uh yeah carter wanted to do something to make America seem like

they're the good guys in this Cold War. Yeah. So let's work on that, shall we? So when he was talking about this, he decided that the way into making America just clean up their act a little bit was to focus on human rights. It was going to be a big issue for him.

Yeah, that's a fair place to start yeah exactly it's hard to disagree with human rights yeah well yeah unless you're you know some people bizarrely do but yes uh human rights uh this is going to be a big issue my administration is going to be really encouraging human rights. To begin with, he carried on with what he'd already started before the inauguration, and that is cleaning up government. That's where he's going to start. Realising that the Democratic power base in Congress were not going to get behind him, those meetings hadn't gone well,

Carter reached out to the Republicans. He offered a hand. Take my hand. Now, the Republicans were far more unified than the Democrats at the time, but reducing the size of government is meant to be one of the core beliefs of the GOP. Yes, conservatism.

Yeah, and there's Carter saying, let's reduce the size of government. So a lot of the Republicans... Yeah, sitting here, idea. Oi, what are you doing? Yeah, a lot of Republicans went, no, what a terrible democratic guy. Yeah, no, I do actually agree with that. Damn it. Okay, I suppose we'll get on board.

Carter used this support from the Republicans to put pressure on the Democrats, who then folded. His own party. Yeah. They folded. They didn't want to look like they were supporting a bloated, corrupt Congress, which the president of their own party opposed. So Carter got his bill through.

He went behind his own party, reached across the aisle, and, yeah, got something through. He went behind his own party, reached across the aisle and got something through. As you can imagine, this was seen as a politically savvy move by some and a betrayal of the party by others. But that's how politics has to work.

You have to negotiate. You should work that way. Yes, you could definitely argue that. Now, with this done, Carter decides okay, that's done. We've made some movement on making the government more transparent. I'm not going to go into the details of all the bills on that, by the way.

I started looking and it's quite tedious. Just know, some stuff is going through that makes the government more transparent. Did they turn the White House into glass? Yes, that's what they did. Yes, and instead of writing on paper, they wrote on acetate. Did they turn the White House into glass? Yes. Awesome. That's what they did. Yes.

And instead of writing on paper, they wrote on acetate. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Really good. Did we kind of say that earlier about another president who made a glass White House? Oh, no. Oh, off the top of my head,

I honestly can't tell you which president it was, but someone installed lots of glass panels in the White House. So maybe he took the paneling off the walls and the glass layers in between it's like this is this is it yes there we go that's what he did excellent okay good to reuse a joke great um okay so carter's gonna go on to the next thing this is the energy crisis jamie let's find out what this is about so in, in 1973, OPEC, that's right, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, That's what I was thinking, yeah. had imposed an oil embargo on all the countries that had supported Israel in the Arab-Israeli War. On OPEC, an American company?

No. Ah. It's an organisation made up of the petroleum exporting countries in the Middle East. Now, obviously, this is complex, as all politics are in the Middle East. So I'm really... I did that thing like, where do I start here? And I found that I'd got back to the British Empire. No, no, hang on.

Right. I don't need to go that far back. So all you need to know for now is that various oil-producing countries in the Middle East decided to stop selling oil to Western countries because they were angry about the Arab-Israeli war that had taken place. And this is happening in 1973. Got it. Now, the embargo meant a sharp rise in the price of oil.

For listeners in the UK, this was the main reason for the three-day working week in the 70s. Yes. Yeah, this is why it happens. My parents still talk about that and still won't vote Labour for it. Really? Interesting. Because I look at it and just go, three-day working week?

Yeah. Bloody brilliant. Amazing. Why can't we go back to that? Until we get a pay slip. Oh, that's why. Yeah, so the UK is struggling. It also leads to a lot of coal mining disputes

that then leads to unions organising, which leads to Thatcher and the mining strikes. Yeah. which leads to Thatcher and the mining strikes. Yeah. Yeah. All of the history of Britain in the late 70s, 80s is all tied to this. That's amazing. Yes.

In Europe, the rest of Europe, many countries did things like ban Sunday driving to save petrol. Yeah. Yeah. In the United States, however, because that's what we should be focusing on, Nixon and Ford had attempted to solve the problem by doing things like a voluntary rationing system on petrol. Voluntary? Yeah, you can imagine how well that worked. Excellent.

The speed limit was set to 55 miles per hour to save petrol. Okay. Which I can only assume is why the speed limit in the United States to this day is lower than it is in Europe. Yeah, because you see signs of 55, don't you? Yeah, yeah. It's only just occurred to me. When I was writing my notes, it didn't, and I'm just reading it now. It's like, oh, hang on.

That's still there, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they can go faster, I'm guessing, but why that's a certain unit, I'm guessing, is really interesting because it's sort of like stuff that I could not remember because I wasn't alive in the 70s. Oh, we're getting very modern, James.

Yeah. It's starting to impact on our lives. These are things people talk about. Yes, it's crazy. So, yeah, Ford and Nixon's approaches had done very little. Petrol is still very expensive in America. Now, Carter was fully briefed on all of this, and the problems were clear. They simply did not have enough oil in the country.

You said earlier, they're sitting on a pile of oil. Well, they've not got it out the ground, and they don't have enough oil. Well, just get it out of the ground, then. Just get your straws, stick it in. Oil. Easy. Come on. Easy. Easy peasy. No, it's slightly more complex than that.

There's like whole industries involved and stuff. You can't just turn on the tap. And also it's complicated for economic reasons. They can't just lower prices on oil, like force the oil industries to lower prices, because if they did that, then everyone would start buying oil again. And they don't have enough. Oh, so they're controlling the market. Yeah.

They would run out. If they lower the prices, they run out of oil, and then the country grinds to a halt and anarchy. So actually... Back to Russia. Yeah, it's not good that it's high, but we need to kind of keep it high. That's not great, is it? Not only that, but political pressure

from Democrats from oil producing states would immediately hold up any attempt to put in place further regulations to try and get a handle on things. So in other words, the oil company lobbyists have their fingers in pies and politicians were unwilling to make moves. So yeah it's tricky, this. Carter decides to model himself on FDR, however. What he's going to do is he's going to have a fireside chat on TV, talk to the country, and let everyone

know what's what. If it worked well for Roosevelt, it's going to work for him, dammit. So, in the speech, he told the country, everyone is facing a challenge. Times are tough. We are all going to suffer. Huzzah! Then he turns over his paper.

Not for long. We will get through this. Oh, I love that Hugh Laurie moment. It's great. It's absolutely fine. We are going to suffer, but not for long. We are going to get through this. He attempts to draw parallels to the sacrifices people made in war,

because this was, and I quote, the moral equivalent of war. Duh. Which is something that sounds dramatic, and one of those things where you stop and think about it, and you go, that means nothing. No. What do you mean it's the moral equivalent of war?

We are at war with Japanese knotweed. Yeah, it's just not a thing. But it sounded dramatic. Yeah. Instead of uniting to destroy something, like in actual war, however, says Carter, what this country will be doing in our moral war is uniting to build something, which is quite nice. Yeah.

So again, it's still not a war. It's not a war, no, but people like the word war because it unifies people. So that's what they were going for. I will quote him here. The energy crisis has not overwhelmed us, but it will if we do not act quickly so stern warnings from the new president here yeah we're we're up that certain creek

and we can't even use the methane gases that it's producing so tighten your bouts there is nea padlin site yeah yeah tighten your bouts there's no easy fix for this i'm just telling you now. If you're expecting a magic bullet, it's not going to happen. Which is true. But you can imagine how well that went down with the public. They went, what do you mean no magic bullet? I want a

magic bullet, dammit. Yeah. In the meantime, Carter put forth the National Energy Plan. This was a complex plan with over a hundred provisions in it, so I'm not going into detail but to sum it up thank you it introduced regulations energy efficiency programs tax incentives alternate fuel programs uh it generally did stuff to to work in the area of energy do you think i had like those adverts that kind of go, was it an infomercial?

Yeah. These are ways to save power. You know when you walk into a room and there's that bright light in your face? Press the switch, the light goes off and so do your bills. I can only assume that's exactly, yeah. I think so, yeah. I think so. Yeah, I mean, the thing is, this National Energy Plan was a comprehensive plan,

and it was a good one. It did a lot, but none of it was a short-term fix. All of this is something to help it preventing from happening again. Yeah, so it's a bit like a plaster on your arm that's been kind of cut off. No, no, more like the opposite this is you've got a you get a new arm you've you've got a big gash on your arm because you fell off your motorcycle well let's instead give you a more sensible and safe form of transport so you're not going to fall off your motorcycle in future but no it's not going to fix the gash on your app. No.

That's happened. Okay. Yeah, yeah. We're in trouble. We're in an energy crisis. We can't fix it magically. We've got to push through. But here's how we can stop it from happening again. This is thinking about the future, long-term fixes rather than short-term gain.

Here's the Zorb ball instead of the motorbike kind of thing. Exactly. It's not normal politics. Usually politicians want quick fixes. Yeah, because it's election time. Yeah, exactly. But no, this actually is, yeah, this seems pretty good. Why can't people do that more often?

Well, for reasons we will see. Because it's so complex, it was obvious that this is going to be held up in Congress for months. So, yeah, no short-term fix in it, and even then it's not coming through anytime soon. Meanwhile, people could not drive their cars, they could not heat their homes. They are struggling. Still, Carter's done what he feels like he can, so he decides to move on. Human rights.

It's time to use the power of the united states for good damn it yes i'll quote carter here our country has been strongest and most effective when the morality and commitment to freedom and democracy have been the most clearly emphasized in our foreign policy yeah yeah sounds nice doesn't it it's the kind of thing that pretty much any president would say and all presidents do say but it's a very copy and paste statement yeah does. It's the kind of thing that pretty much any president would say, and all presidents do say, but here's the difference. Yeah, it's a very copy and paste statement, yeah. Yes, but here's the difference. Carter actually did something.

No. He set up the Bureau of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, and he put a woman called Patricia Derian, a civil rights activist, in charge. So he's getting some decent people in charge of a human rights activist in charge. So he's getting some decent people in charge of a human rights branch of government. Also, massive shout out to the fact it's the 1970s, and there's a woman in control of something that's massive.

Yeah, there you go. That stands out as a thing. Yeah, it does stand out as a thing. So this is, yeah, something's actually happening here. It was hoped by Carter that this might shake up international policy a bit, showing the world that the United States were the benevolent superpower. The superpower you could go and have a beer with, unlike those damn Ruskies. I'm the Superman.

Russia is the Flash. The Flash, okay. No one likes the Flash. Fair enough. The United States, yeah? No one likes the flash. Fair enough. The United States, yeah? All good? Thumbs up? Yeah.

Sparkly tooth? Yeah. It was hoped that this would unite the fractured Democratic Party as well. I mean, whether the member was a dove or a hawk, a conservative or a liberal, I mean, it's very hard not to be for human rights. I mean, come on, we all

want human rights, surely, said Carter. Stony silence from the crowd. Human rights! But who for? Humans! Humans! The clue is in the name. Yeah, but starting a new bureau was hardly earth shattering. I mean, yes, it is something,

but let's face it, it's not actually going to change the world, is it? He needs something better than that. So he wants the United States to be recognised as a force for good in the world. What is the, what's the gem in international relations? What is the pinnacle? What would anyone hope for? Trade? No, no, no. Thinking of doing good things. Think of the concept of peace.

Oh, money. Money is the ruse of peace. No. No, where would you want peace, Jamie? Peace in the East? Peace in the Middle East, Jamie. Yes, where would you want peace, Jamie? Peace in the East? Peace in the Middle East, Jamie. Yes. That's that.

Yes. If America can sort out the Middle East and bring peace, then the world will see America as a force for good. Oh, that's good. Because that explains why the Middle East currently is so, you know, basically a... Peaceful. Peaceful, yeah.

Yeah, exactly. So, senior Democrats carter away from this god carter it's a minefield stay away stay away uh no carter was determined he was gonna do this uh he was gonna make his mark on the world uh so he started by meeting with the prime minister of israel and uh it didn't go well. No? No, the two men didn't get on particularly well. Carter came away saying that Rabin was, and I quote,

very timid, very stubborn, and somewhat ill at ease. Rabin equally did not get a good impression of Carter, and left the White House feeling like Israel was not a priority for Carter. So it does not start well. But Carter's not about to give up. No, he didn't grow two million peanuts by giving up, dammit. No. No, he's going to meet more people. So he starts meeting leaders from various Middle Eastern countries just to get a feel for what they were like, who he could deal with. So that's going on. Meanwhile, the energy plan is being battered around Congress. Remember I said it's a very complex plan? Yeah. So it's still going around Congress. It's so complex, it was subject to the control of five committees and countless subcommittees. Any one of them could

put a torpedo into the works, as you can imagine. This is not good. It looked like it was just going to be pulled apart. However, the Speaker of the House, a man named O'Neill, fearing accusations of a weakened divided party, because they were a weakened divided party at the time, worked hard to get the votes for the bill. And in April, it passes the House largely intact. Wow. Great. It's a win. It just needs to get through the Senate now. And it's a big, big win for Carter.

Awesome. Yeah. So Carter puts a tick in the win column there, and he carries on bringing peace to the Middle East. But it stalled Jamie. Look at it on the road there. Oh. Just putting along and then just thumped.

It's just not going anywhere. Carter becomes very despondent that all of the leaders he's talking to don't seem very interested in peace whatsoever. So Carter, looking for a win internationally, turns his attention to Panama. Oh. Yeah. Of canal fame. of canal fame.

Of canal fame. If the world was going to see that the United States was a force for good, then maybe, just maybe, we should do something like give a stolen canal back, he thinks. Yeah. Yeah. So if you remember, hugely simplifying this, but as we have covered,

the United States had effectively stolen the Panama Canal by instigating Panama to declare independence from Colombia and then supporting them militarily in return for the land for the canal. Morals. All very underhand, all a little bit dodgy. Carter saw righting this wrong as an opportunity. this wrong as an opportunity. Now, there were worries that South America were going to turn to the Soviets because they'd had enough of being kicked around economically and diplomatically by the

United States. Yeah. So there was real worry in the United States that have we annoyed South America so much that they're all just going to turn red? Of course, of course. Not. No, no, you're not right. No. I mean, it'd been a worry for a long time that south

and central and america were going to follow cuba um so at this time there was instability in panama and there were further worries if panama goes to the soviets the united states would lose the canal entirely so carter decides right we're going to give the canal back it's going to ease tensions to the country and the united states would actually lose very little in real terms because we still economically dominate the canal. So, big show. We look good. We don't actually lose much.

Plus, it's the right thing to do. Yeah. And that. Yeah. It's the kind of thing a new, caring United States would do. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It met for thing a new caring United States would do. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It met for a lot of pushback in Washington.

I will quote one White House staffer here, the only people who give a damn are the ones who oppose it. Which is a shame. Yeah. Yeah, the feeling with many around Carter was that the president was going to gain very little from this, and he was just going to make a lot of people angry. And people were angry.

It was seen by many as another stepping stone on the decline of the country. This was a retreat. We're giving land away. Yeah. I mean, if you look at it in that way, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, you can see why people were saying that.

Yeah. Very Roman of them, isn't it? Yes. Carter, however, is determined. And in September, he signed a couple of treaties giving Panama the canal, so long as they guaranteed neutrality off the canal. So you can have it back, but don't hoard it for yourselves, guys. Come on.

Share the wealth. And also, in the very sci-fi sounding year of 2000 Panama you would get full control you've just got partial control

right now but in 2000 you get full control how about that yes where everything's silver and where we've got blue hair

we were all on hoverboards we probably worked in canals at the time the ships would just hover over it would be brilliant more for them!

So Carter gave a speech and I will quote here, This marks the commitment of the United States to the belief that fairness, not force, should lie at the heart of our dealings with the nations of the world. Yeah? Yeah. New caring United States.

Excellent. Soon after this, a little bit of bad news. His energy plan had hit problems in the Senate. Oh, the one he's confident about? Yeah, it had passed, but it had been ripped to shreds by the Senate. So it didn't really resemble what he wanted it to. So he sadly goes and rubs that tick in the win column out. Yeah. But there's nothing you can do,

so where does the president have most of his power? In foreign affairs. So let's keep thinking about foreign affairs, he says. Right, okay. Peace in the Middle East isn't working. Sorted the Panama Canal out. Russia. Let's sort that out.

Okay. They'll just go there and just tell them that they're wrong and they'll realise and then, woo, problem solved. Well, talks are still going on for time reasons. I'm not going into the minutiae of the talks with Russia at this time and the SALT II treaty that's going on, but just know there is continuation of talks going on that have gone from the Nixon era.

Things are moving in the right direction in terms of decreasing nuclear weapons on either side. So, yeah, things are generally going okay. Well enough, in fact, that Carter is able to use diplomatic channels to help set up a United States-slash-Soviet call for peace in the Middle East with a conference in Geneva. Yeah, yeah, look. That a conference in Geneva. Yeah. Yeah, look.

That's amazing. The superpowers. Yeah, yeah. Superpowers are saying, hey, hey guys, chill out. Yeah. Take a chill pill. Yeah. Yeah, don't look at us like that.

Yes, I know that we're the ones using you to fight a proxy war, but just chill out. Yeah. It's fine. Be less aggressive. It was hoped that this would be seen as a landmark occasion, but proving just how volatile the politics is around the Middle East, the fact that the announcement had mentioned,

among many other things, the official rights of Palestine, a lot of people in the United States were very unhappy about this. It's the first time the United States had ever officially recognised that Palestine was a thing. That's a good point because the US was one of the fundamental reasons, along with the UK, that

Israel exists. Yeah, exactly. So, Carter saw this as compromise and a strive to peace, but there were a lot of people who were saying he's gone too far here uh so again mixed reception to this well i mean i mean recognizing palestine and they should share the land that's not going to cause a problem that'll solve it all right no no it's fine it's fine carter believes that this is a step in the right direction so he doesn't care that he has some pushback from certain people in his

country. He thinks he's doing the right thing, so he's going to do it, dammit. He tends to go with his heart a lot, doesn't he? He does go with his heart, yes. We're seeing this a lot. And then in December, Carter travels to Iran. Yes, the United States needed to keep its closest ally in the region happy. If they lost Iran, the Soviets could just sweep up the Middle East, was the fear. Now, just to remind you, Iran at this time is very pro-United States. Ah, that was going to be my question. Yes.

Well, I say very pro-United States. In 1953, the CIA had organized a coup and the person ruling iran was very pro united states that does not mean in any way that the population is and as we're going to see that's going to cause some tensions yeah yeah so anyway carter needs to go to Iran to just show up the support of the Shah of Iran, make sure everything's good. This was seen as hypocritical by many. I mean, this is Carter. He's been talking about human rights.

He's been talking about world peace. It was not a very well-kept secret that the CIA had trained Iranian secret police. kept secret that the CIA had trained Iranian secret police. And this is a million miles away from the human rights that Carter had been talking about, because they had cracked down on the population in some quite atrocious ways. Human rights. Yeah. Yeah. The Shah Reza had been ruling as an absolute monarch since, like I say, the CIA and MI6, let's not let Britain off

the hook, had put him in charge two decades before. Large swathes of the oppressed population in the country had grown to absolutely despise the country who had supported what they considered tyrant. Anti-US feeling runs deep in iran anyway carter's over there he led a toast to the shah quote iran because of the great leadership of the shah is an island of stability in one of the most troubled areas of the world he said that and they all had a lovely toast and then he leaves to go to the airport and the way, all the protesters throw rocks at his car. Chant down with the USA and things. Carter is not popular.

Thank you. Smack, smack. Thank you. Of course, yes. Oh, almost got me there. Yeah, there's a general feeling of unrest in the country, shall we say. Hmm. Yeah.

Unrest. Simmering violence. Yeah.. Hmm. Yeah. Unrest. Simmering violence. Yeah. Anger. Yeah. Aggression. Hate. Yeah.

Anyway, back home. Carter's also in trouble back home. The energy crisis is still taking its toll on the public. And the public had decided that Carter clearly was not able to do anything about it. He'd come on TV. He'd said, yeah, he'd said, yeah, ooh, it's going to be a bit tough, guys, isn't it? Anyway, tighten your belts, and then that's it.

Is that it? You're meant to be the president. Now, there's a couple of reasons why the public saw Carter as being ineffectual here. One, it's like I've just covered. He didn't seem to be doing much, but it's a little bit more complicated than that, because Carter, by this point, was up against a very organised opposition, because in recent years, a right-wing conservative movement had been growing within the GOP. Interesting.

Now, there'd obviously been right-wing politics for a very long time in America, as we have covered. But now, they'd got organised. For the first time, it was possible to see clear links between the grassroots movements and politicians and Washington think tanks. You can start drawing and connecting the dots in the right-wing movement in America. connecting the dots in the right-wing movement in America. Whereas before, you just got pockets of it appearing in both of the major political parties. Yeah. Now, this was known as the New Right. This was what was uniting the Republican Party,

and it was starting to create an infrastructure that would help turn the party into what it is today. That's fascinating, isn't it? Yeah, because we're just starting to see the birth of the modern Republican Party. Yeah. But I say what we see today, what we saw up until Bush. We're now into Trumpism, which is something slightly different again. But certainly it's on the road to what we've got today.

So the New Right organised talk shows. They organised speaking events. They paid for political adverts that masqueraded as documentaries. Mass letters were sent out. All of them stoked fears that Carter was damaging the country. There was a really good organised push saying, Carter is ruining your life. And all of this ramped up during Carter's push to give back the Panama Canal.

So this has been going on for a while. He's giving land away. He's making America weak. And it's now continuing. Oh, dear. Carter's approval ratings dropped to 34%. That's quite low. That is very low, yeah.

Relationships between Carter and the rest of his party become even worse. They start to fear he's a liability. And Carter didn't help matters when he started avoiding calls from members of Congress. He's never really been a team player with the party, and he's not about to get on board now. So he just carries on doing what he wants to do. He's a bit of an independent, isn't he? A bit of a rogue. Yeah, yeah, he really is. Still, he can't be doing with all that.

He's going to crack on with what he is determined to achieve in his presidency. And that is peace in the Middle East, damn it. We're going to get there. So in September of 78, he invites the Prime Minister of Israel and the Egyptian president to Camp David. Now, again, simplifying things here because complex politically. But at this time, Egypt is seen as the leading Middle Eastern country. And yeah, they've got the largest army.

They are the richest. So Carter's thinking, yeah, let's get Egypt on site. Plus, Egypt and Israel have a border dispute. So let's talk to those two. Let's see if we can't sort this mess out. All very secretive. Carter didn't want leaks to the press to disturb anything. So they come to Camp David on the hush-hush.

And to begin with, they talked as a group. Did not go well. This is like a WhatsApp group. Like that, but in real life. Oh, cool. So people had to say the emojis out loud. Smiley face. Turd, turd, turd.

Frowny face. Yeah, the talks quickly fell apart. It wasn't going to work like this. Too much animosity. So instead, Carter started to act as a go-between between the two parties. He'd talk to one side, he'd go and visit the other side, he'd negotiate. He became a mediator. Carter was clear his aim was for peace.

A peace plan that sorted territorial disputes between the two countries and also one that dealt with the issue of the West Bank and the Palestinian population. Yeah, he's going for it all. He's going to fix it all. That's ambitious. Yeah, Carter figured that no peace talk would work unless we actually sought out the whole Palestine issue. Yeah. But it soon becomes very clear that the West Bank was too hot an issue

for the Israeli Prime Minister. He wasn't going to talk about this. It would scupper any talks. So Carter decides, okay, let's pick your battles. Let's focus on the territorial disputes between the two countries instead. We'll make progress there, and then hopefully it will lead to something else. So President Sadat, the president of Egypt, was getting frustrated by this point. He almost just walked out on the meetings. He was just going to leave. He wanted to talk about the West Bank and was very annoyed that it wasn't on the table anymore. Carter, fearing the president leaving, got tough. He said to the president, if you walk away now, the friendship between our countries would end, and so would our personal friendship.

Yeah. Yeah. So do not walk out on these talks. We are here for peace, damn it. Yes. I will kill you if we have to. By any means necessary, we will have peace. Yeah.

President Sadat is persuaded. Okay, fine. I'm not happy, but I'll stay. I'll talk. In the end, it was agreed that Israel would retreat from some of the land in question and Egypt would formally recognise Israel. Fine. Israel's a thing.

We accept it. So two big concessions there. Nice. Genuinely good work. And Palestine, The West Bank? We'll kick that can up the road for now, shall we? Someone else can deal with that.

Look, we've achieved something. Let's celebrate. So Carter took it as a win and celebrated. And for a while, his ratings go up. He genuinely has made a little bit of progress in the Middle East. There's a little bit of peace in the Middle East. A little bit of peace. But the celebrations don't last for long.

Unfortunately for Carter, most Americans did not care about peace in the Middle East. They cared about the fact they couldn't afford to heat their homes and they could not afford to drive their cars. Fair point. It's a very fair point. It's like, why do I care about these countries halfway across the world? I can't eat. I'm poor. Yeah, so it gave him a bit of a boost, but it was not what he hoped for.

And increasingly, the Democrats in Congress were getting angered by what they saw as Carter's refusal to engage in the economy. You're too busy focusing on world politics. Deal with what's happening in your own country. A majority of the Democrats believed that the job of government was to ease the lives of those suffering in times of hardship. What's the point in having a government if we don't look after our citizens in times of trouble? Carter, however, did not share those views.

As we've seen before, he's never really a full Democrat. And this was an area, his opinions more aligned with the Republicans. He believed that in times of economic hardship, it's not the job of the government to look after its citizens. It's the job of the government to hold the course, to keep the ship economically steady, let the market sort itself out, and then people can get back on with their lives.

Carter was a fiscal conservative. Those in the Democratic Party who wanted Carter to be doing more to aid the poorest were very disappointed that Carter was doing more to aid the national budget than its citizens, and they were getting very frustrated with him. By this time, Carter's about halfway through his presidency, or at least the first term. He didn't realise it was his whole presidency at the time, obviously.

Brilliant. So I've got another six years of this. Woo! Rock on! Yeah. Well, the midterms are up. Guess how well it goes. I'm guessing not great.

Did they lose the... Because they got the house and the Senate, haven't they? So I'm guessing not great. Did they lose the... Because they got the House and Senate, haven't they? So I'm guessing they lost them. No, they keep control of the House and the Senate. The House and the Senate at this time is very democratic and has been for a while.

However, they lose all of their big majority. They keep Congress but just, and it is seen as a huge, huge loss. The parties start to genuinely worry because the right of the GOP are now very organised. There are now many former Democratic voters leaving

the party, particularly in the South and the South West, and voting for this more right-leaning Republican Party. We're hemorrhaging votes here. They're spurting votes out of their veins. They are. And we covered this with the Democratic shift and the Republican shift that we've covered.

There were many in the Democratic Party realised that they were going to lose a lot of votes as their party started to shift towards civil rights. And this is exactly what we're seeing here, especially in the South. Yeah. So, yeah, the Democratic Party is in trouble. Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah.

Yes, they are, to be blunt. Incidentally, by the way, a man named Newt Gingrich gets his seat in the House in this election. And believe me, we will have more on newt later on you come across kingrich before no but i love the name newt just pop him in his volcano lair oh is he taking over oh i don't know maybe it's my own political bias here and maybe as i'm being more neutral at least attempting to be in future episodes maybe Maybe I'll have to go easy on the guy. Maybe I'll see some points that he raises.

But he's instrumental in the way that the Republican Party goes. Right, okay. He's going to be a big player, just know that. Anyway, he's starting at this time. Anyway, morale was bad for the Democrats. Many openly stated about running for president next time, despite Carter being able to run again. Let's just get rid of him.

We don't need to keep him. Chief among these was the brother of John F. Kennedy. Ah. Not Bobby Kennedy. He's also dead. Yeah, I was going to say. No, this is the third brother, Ted Kennedy. He's going to run.

Ted Kennedy publicly criticised the fiscal conservatism of carter and he said the party needed to sail against the wind of the conservative public sentiment and use the federal funds to actually help people carter was not impressed with this and i'll quote carter it is an illusion to believe that we can preserve a commitment to compassionate progressive government if we fail to bring inflation under control it's like yeah well i want to do good for people but if we if we mess up the economy we won't be able to do it fair point uh yeah i mean you can see arguments on both sides of this it's a tricky thing the trouble was carter is not bringing inflation under control that's the problem with carter's

argument he's he's saying well i've got to bring it under control, so we can't do what you say. Well, go on then, bring it under control, said Ted Kennedy. Carter's not doing it. Unemployment is high, and to most it looked like the president was just doing nothing. The only ones in Congress who were happy with him were mostly the other fiscal conservatives, and most of them were in the GOP.

And they're not about to sing his praises for obvious reasons. So Carter's got very little support in Washington. And then OPEC announced that they're rising the prices of oil. Hooray! Way! Just what we need. So the energy crisis gets worse. Then, oh, reports coming through from Iran, by the way.

The country's looking even more and more unstable. You know those riots that took place when Carter went and visited? Well, they never really went away and it's just continuing and there's lots of riots. And oh, the Shah had to flee the country. Oh, wonderful. Yes, because supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini,

Khomeini was the leader of a religious movement in the country, in exile himself, but his supporters had chased the Shah out of the country and taken over Iran. In fact, it was only a matter of weeks before they took over the military. So Iran is no longer a US ally. Oh. Yeah. I mean, you you could argue technically wasn't

what the government was was yes uh the mood in the country was not and now it's just full-on not khomeini uh is invited back into the country takes over as the first supreme ruler of Iran. The official position of Iran is now deaf to the United States. A lot of bad feeling there. And understandably so. I mean, the United States did overthrow the government 20 years ago, so you can see where the anger's coming from, yes. Anyway, Khomeini brought in a very different government to that of before. It was very traditionally Muslim, but also brought forth some new ideas on how Islam and politics should be linked.

The idea is that the religion and the government are now fused as one. Yeah. And this way we can have a more firm grip on the country was the idea behind it. For the purposes of this podcast, you just need to know it's very anti-United States. It's very anti-Soviet, although not as anti-Soviet as anti-United States. And it's largely seen by the people of Iran as a liberating government that had overgrown the shackles of Western oppression. So it was largely celebrated. Obviously, this is very complex, and I'm simplifying this.

You will have to go and find other podcasts to go into the details of the revolt in Iran. Anyway, Carter, back in America, can't do anything about this, so he didn't. That's just nothing you can do. Okay, well, that's a shame. Peace. Peace in the Middle East, damn it. How's that going, he said, furiously flicking through his file of facts.

He turned to Lionel on the bench. Lionel just gives him a slightly sort of sad look. Kind of, oh, it's not going well, is it, Kars? And then just slowly rolls over to his side so he's facing away. Yeah. No, it's fine. It's fine, Lionel. I, Carter? And then just slowly rolls over to his side, so he's facing away. Yeah. No, it's fine. It's fine, Lionel. I've got peace in the Middle East sorted.

It's going to be fine. Let's set up new meetings. New meetings and get more peace, damn it. Let's pour peace into the Middle East. So the Israeli Prime Minister comes to Washington yet again. Meeting did not go well. Like I said before, the two men just didn't get on very well personally. And after a few meetings, it was obvious things weren't going as smoothly as they should be some things were put in place it was agreed to a 12-month target to reach an agreement over palestine okay the whole

palestine issue is a mess but yeah let's agree to agree to something within the next 12 months now you just know nothing's going to happen for the first like 11 months and 20 days right everyone's gonna go oh no we said peace in the middle east quick right uh google uh peace in the middle east ben just wants to what's a google it's a big number of the hundred zeros how's that google it's a big number of 100 zeros how's that helpful it's not there's panic in the room yeah um but still they've got their target in place yeah no it's slightly better than you predict. They don't leave it until the 11th hour.

A few weeks after making this target, Carter travels to Egypt, where he is met with enthusiasm. Generally, people in Egypt see this as a positive thing. Yeah. It goes well. He meets the president of Egypt. Yeah, it's not too bad. Progress is being made.

Then he goes to Israel. Oh, less of a cheerful welcome there. Protesters, people chanting nasty things about Carter. Yeah, it's not great. I didn't realise so many words rhymed with Carter. There was a general feeling amongst many in Israel that the United States were turning their backs on the country. Yeah. They were surrounded by people who didn't want them to exist and their friends.

The superpower was abandoning them. What's the feeling in Israel? Yeah. rail. Yeah, obviously, the feelings of other countries and people who had been displaced from their land were slightly different. Like I say, it's a complex issue. Yeah. All we need to know for now, though, is that there's tension in the area. But despite this, in the end, the agreement that was come up with in Camp David months before was finally publicly announced. So, yeah, we're doing this. It's fine.

The leaders of Egypt and Israel publicly shook hands. This was shown across the world, seen as a first step to peace in the region, celebrated this is fantastic news. Carter puts a tick in the win column once more. And it gets better and better from then. Yes. As ever, none of this is helping Carter back home.

Of course not. As stated before. What would it? Few people care. I mean, obviously, people cared. Very few people want war in the Middle East. People were happy that peace seemed to be getting better. But when half of the gas stations in the country had closed down

and people are booking appointments to queue for hours to get gas for their cars, that's what's on the forefront of people's minds right now. That seems really weird. That's what people are getting frustrated by. Because when you think of America, you think of cheap gas, gas stations everywhere kind of thing. Mm-hmm.

You know, pop into the gas station and buy a really dodgy burger, get ill, continue driving, get out, relieve yourself, get back in again. I see you've got American driving culture down there. Oh, I've read Mick Foley's book. I know what's going on. Excellent. Yeah, well, none of that is true. It's queues at the gas station, it's expensive, and you probably couldn't even get a burger.

Ooh. Yeah, probably not. So, yeah, and this new energy plan that had been ripped apart and finally got passed was doing nothing to help. It was a long-term solution, and it had been ripped apart, so it just had not helped at all. Carter felt that the nation needed to understand the plan more, to get behind it.

Is he going to do the thing that the other president did, where he sits by a fireside and just explains it? Well, yeah, yeah, exactly. He's going to do that again. There's no magic bullet. People need to hold firm. So to get this message across, you're absolutely right, it's another fireside story time with President Carter on the TV. So what are we going to say in this speech, he says to his room of speech writers? Come on, come on, ideas.

No idea is a bad idea. How can we spin this to make it sound positive? We need to tell the public that they are f***ed. But it needs to sound positive. We need to tell the public that they are f***ed. But it needs to sound good. How do we do this? We're screwed, but we're not screwed forever. Your grandchildren will be fine. Yeah, no, it really was not going well.

They just could not figure out a way of making the crisis sound good. There was no solution i mean when you call it a crisis that's the negative element so maybe you need somebody in there it's like we need to rename this it's not a crisis call it the energy opportunity yes that's what it is yes that's what it is it's an opportunity to change the way we do energy yeah well the problem was carter was told is that the public already knew what was in the energy plan and they decided that it was useless and it didn't help them.

Carter turning up talking about his energy plan more was not going to help anyone. In fact, his wife, remember Rosalind? Yeah. She summed it up, and I'll quote here, prices are still going up. I was just hoping you'd just scream. No, prices are still going up i'm just hoping you just scream no uh prices are still going up they don't want to hear about a new program that will allocate energy to the elderly at a lower cost they just want to be told that everything is going to be

all right and someone understands the situation and has it under control stop getting lost in the details and just come across as reassuring. That's all you need to do. One aide said, the country does not want or need another energy crisis speech. It wants and needs energy action. Do something, Carter.

Something that has an immediate effect. The speech was seen as so poor, Carter decides to pull it. He cancels. A couple of days before the televised speech, he just cancels it. We're Carter decides to pull it. He cancels. A couple of days before the televised speech, he just cancels it. We're not going to do it. I mean, that understandably, everyone sees that

as a sign of weakness. Yeah. And a lot of distrust and suddenly like, ooh, he doesn't know what he's doing. Yeah. Instead, Carter decides to rethink. He's really struggling at this point. It's not going well. He knows it's not going well he knows it's not going well something's gone wrong

he needs to regroup so he heads to Camp David he invites his advisors he invites experts he invites politicians they're going to talk everything through and get to the nub of the problem let's actually figure this out

one man who attended saw the president sitting on the floor just scribbling notes on where to improve as people talked to him. Oh dear. Yeah. This person later said that he tried to imagine Lyndon Johnson doing this and just could not picture it. He didn't see this as a man trying to figure out how to get better. He saw it as a sign of weakness. Now, during this wave of unpopularity, one of Carter's former speechwriters

wrote an article for a national newspaper entitled The Passionless Presidency. The article accused Carter of just lacking all opinions. He could not see the bigger picture. He got lost in the details and he became obsessed with things abroad. And he'd only become obsessed with things abroad because he was bored of dealing with domestic issues.

I mean, that's not unfair criticism. It's very easy to see how that could be considered true. Yeah, yes. The fact is Carter is spending more time on foreign issues than domestic issues. Carter himself would say that's because the fiscal conservative steadies the course. We are just going to ride this out. We can't just go splashing money that we don't have around to try and fix the problem. We've just got to plough through it.

Some support Carter on this, but a lot of people don't. And this article hugely damages Carter in the theatre of public opinion. By this time, Ted Kennedy is obviously setting himself up to run against Carter as the Democratic nominee. He publicly criticises his own president. Rioting in the country is common by this point. Oh dear. Yes, it's not a good time.

Protesters even attempted to scale the fence around the White House. Wow. Yeah. Things not going well. However, Carter decides, right, okay, fireside speech. Let's actually do this now.

We've had a bit of time to think. I've recalibrated. I know what I'm doing now. So, speech. Let's do this. 60 million people I'm doing now. So, speech. Let's do this. 60 million people tuned in to hear Carter make a speech. Yeah. To deal with the energy problem, he assured people that a windfall tax would be put in place.

So there you go. That's a little bit of a change there. Okay, we'll tax the bigger companies. We weren't going to do that before. What a socialist. Not only that, incentives were going to be put in place to reduce the countries of alliance and oil. We start to see some ideas that will have a quicker impact than what happened before. But most importantly, he appealed to the average citizen to accept the fact that this is a crisis, that it's going to be tough, but they had to pull together.

Again, there is no magic bullet here, and I'll quote him. Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. There is a growing disrespect for government and churches and for schools, the news media and other institutions. This is not a message of happiness or reassurance, but it is the truth, and it is a warning. Interesting.

Yeah. So there was a little bit of, okay, right, I'll try and put some stuff in, but generally the message was, yeah, it's tough. Deal with it. I think as well, if I was around at the time and I was struggling and I heard that speech, it sounds a bit attacky. Yeah. Like, it's your fault, you're poor.

It kind of comes across that way a little bit. Or even if it's not, it's your fault, you're poor, it's a, yeah, you're poor, deal with it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, as you can imagine. It's your indulgence has made you poor that is how it sounded yeah yeah as you can imagine the response was mixed i mean some did praise him some thought this was the highlight of his presidency um really he was finally addressing

the problem he was coming out he was speaking about the energy crisis he is introducing the one fall tax he is actually starting to get stuff done he's moving yeah yeah he's moving uh so uh some uh praised him for this uh some however claimed what was that that was nothing we need real action here and you're just throwing a small little bone and we're in crisis and like you say the tone of it it was debatable how well that went over yeah well i say it's debatable we can use maths because we're now very much in the age of... They've invented maths by this point. Well, no, because we've got all the polling figures. What we do know is his approval rate went up 11 points after the speech.

Oh. So the speech did do a net positive. Okay. One letter arrived at the White House that said, and I quote, you were the first politician to have said the words That I've been thinking for years Which is, yeah, okay, stop Being so self-indulgent

We need to work together Don't forget, there was going to be a lot of The older generation who lived through the war at this time Seeing the younger generation And we're talking the younger generation Going through the 50s and the 60s And all of the fun that that was. Yeah.

And thinking, oh, this young generation, they don't know what hard work is. A lot of them probably would have liked this message of, no, you need to stop being so self-indulgent and actually work. Stop buying your records and your marijuana. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. Anyway, all of this seems to encourage Carter. So it's time to start acting, he thinks.

I've said it. Let's do it. Yeah, I'm going to actually start doing stuff. I'll quote him here. I have one and a half years left as president and I don't deserve to be re-elected if I can't do a better job. I intend to run for office and I intend to be re-elected. Carter's not got his head in the sand here. He knows he's not doing a good job and he is determined to do better.

So what does he do? Genuinely don't know at this point. Well, he asks 34 of his top staff to resign. Is this the whole fresh start thing he likes? Oh yeah, he guts his own administration completely. This includes the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare,

the Secretary of Housing, the Secretary of Transport, and the Secretary of Energy. Not all of them do resign, by the way, but he asks for the resignations. A number of them do. But the message behind this is, clean slate. Let's change things up.

I've been getting advice from these people. I've heard your concerns, public. So I'm going to change things up. Let's get things done. Wow, yeah. Unfortunately for Carter, this backfires massively. The public don't see this as the president cleaning house so he could rebuild. They see this as the administration cleaning house so he could rebuild. They see this as the administration falling apart.

Yeah. They saw Carter as weak and ineffectual anyway, and then suddenly his whole administration's gone. Yeah, it just does not work. Any good work from the speech is utterly destroyed by the coverage of the resignations, and they happen so close to each other they're completely intertwined. So those 11 points that he he got gone

instantly oh okay and then during all the bad news a pebble that would start an avalanche happens the shah of iran currently in exile in mexico because remember he had to flee he asked to come to america for health reasons now henry kissinger oh yes he's still around he he had personally been badgering the President to allow the Shah to come to the United States for some time. He's a friend to America. We should allow him in.

That's what we should do. Carter, very unhappy with the idea, fearing that it would open the United States up to accusations of plotting a counter-coup in Iran. No, no, we weren't. No, of course not. Well, I'll quote Carter here.

I don't have any feelings that the Shah or we would be better off with him playing tennis several hours a day in California instead of Acapulco. It just does not benefit us, him being in America. Why on earth would we do this? But then Carter changed his mind all of a sudden overnight, which is interesting. Did he have a conversation? Well, we don't know 100% why. Some historians have speculated that Kissinger was able to

put pressure on Carter due to the SALT II talks with Russia. They're going on in the background, by the way. The talks with Russia, de-escalation and all that is going on in the background, by the way, talks with Russia, de-escalation, and all that is going on in the background. Kissinger, obviously, due to his role, could cause problems or help due to his connections. So some historians speculate he put a little bit of pressure on the president. Other historians say this is absolutely nonsense and conspiracy theory stuff.

And actually, the Shah was genuinely ill, and Carter was a compassionate person. And when he found out that the Shah was ill, he allowed the Shah to come into America to be treated. Either way, the Shah was let into America. And almost instantly, Iran was in an uproar. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, many in the country feared a repeat of 53,

with the United States taking over their country once more. Anti-American feeling, already incredibly high in Iran, ramps up even more. And then on November the 4th, and this is where we go to the start of our episode, have you got that guy with his tie in his office? Oh, yeah, yeah. Well, that office is actually in the embassy in Tehran.

Oh. Yes. Swerve. Yeah. Because on November the 4th, students break into the American embassy in the capital of Iran. And a few velociraptors. And a few velociraptors. And a few velociraptors. They were helping the students out, yes.

Go, go! To begin with, this invasion of the embassy was intended to be a sit-in by the students. We're going to break into the embassy, we're going to sit down, and we're going to protest until the Iranian forces turn up, remove us. But we'll make a big commotion, and it will be a big protest. That was the initial idea.

As they suspected, the security forces in the embassies, the American security forces, they're not going to use force against us. There's loads of us. We're in Iran. There's not many of them it would be a very bad look if they're shooting at students so there's one thing america isn't is trigger happy i mean it is a gamble isn't it if you're i'm sure they won't shoot us well it's um it's a gamble but it's a fairly sensible one you're a bunch of students you're going in uh they're going in with signs saying this is peaceful we're sitting down it's a fairly sensible one. You're a bunch of students. You're going in. They're going in with signs saying, this is peaceful. We're sitting down.

It was a, we're doing a peaceful protest. They are unwrapping their cannabis as they're saying that. Unlikely with these students. But yeah, they're going in and they are sitting down and they are going to protest and they're going to wait till the Iranian forces remove them. And as they suspected,

the security forces in the embassy did not use force against them because they were a very large and angry crowd and they would have been ripped to shreds. However, the situation changes very quickly once the students are in, because it turns out that, uh, Kamoni was more than happy with this action. No one is about to force the protesters out. The Iranian forces are not on the way. So the protesters go excellent. How far can we go?

Yeah, this is going better than we expected. Okay. Well, we're in now, so let's see what we can get. Things escalate. The embassy staff and the marines posted there are blindfolded and paraded in front of the press. This, in a matter of hours, turned from a let's do a sit-in in an embassy

into a full-blown hostage situation. Because they had backing from the Supreme Leader. Yeah. So, here are the demands. Give us our old Shah back. We won't do anything nasty to him, promise. And you can have your embassy people back. Oh, and also, America, apologise for 1953 and unfreeze all the Iranian frozen assets that you've frozen. So, do that and you can have your people back. These are very savvy students, aren't they? Well, I should say at this point, obviously there is an element of organisation here

that suggests that maybe it's not just a bunch of students. Yes, I mean... Just know that there's a group of people and most of them were students. They were studying. That's what they were doing. Yeah. So it soon became clear to the Khomeini

supporting students that they had hit the jackpot here. Their invasion of the US embassy was hugely popular in their country, so much so that Khomeini's political opponents were hugely damaged. Iran isn't just one solid mindset.

Obviously, there were still people in the government who supported the old Shah. The prime minister of the country, for example, was seen as quite a moderate and was not happy with the way things were going. But because he was not happy with the taking over of the American embassy, he lost all political power and was forced to resign and his cabinet fell apart within days of the embassy being taken over. So Iran takes a big shift towards the supreme leader. So there's very little to no incentive to release the hostages by this point until the Americans give them exactly what they want. There's no internal pressure in the country to stop this. Yeah.

So, back in the United States, Carter is trying to deal with the fallout. His appeal for the hostages to be released on humanitarian grounds just falls on deaf ears, as you can imagine. Oh, yeah. Have you thought about releasing the hostages because it's the right thing to do? No? No. Damn it, I'm out of ideas.

Oh. Okay. I really thought that would work. Yeah, the president cancelled all of her business to focus on this. This is a crisis, obviously. To begin with, in the United States, this crisis was as much of a unifying event as it was in Iran. People saw Carter attempting to save American lives and being attacked by Iranian politicians

and support for Carter rose dramatically, as you can imagine. But as Carter realised this is only going to last so long, if he doesn't find a solution quickly enough, he will simply be blamed. So yeah, I mean, he can ride the support, but he's got to find a solution.

Yeah. So remember, 4th of November was when that happened. Just to give you a sense of how long this is going to go on for. Right, so we're now in late December. To complicate things, the Soviets invade Afghanistan. Ah!

Brilliant! Yeah, that's fun, isn't it? The worst fears of the United States are coming true here. They're losing their hold on the Middle East. They don't have Iran anymore, so the Soviets feel like they can walk into the Middle East. Oh, dear. Okay.

There's not much we can do about that now. We need to focus on the hostage situation, thinks Carter. This is what the public care about more than anything. Could argue in some ways more than the energy crisis. This has captured the imagination of the American public. Evening news programs cover the story daily, counting each day that's gone by at the end of each news report. And this is the backdrop in which the primaries start up, because that's right, the election's coming up. Oh, wonderful. In about a year.

Next November. We're in December of the previous year. Remember, American elections are long, Jamie. But you've got to start thinking about it. So many in the party are fed up with the president. He can't seem to get anything done. Should we just put someone else up instead? As predicted, Ted Kennedy throws his hat into the ring.

We don't need to keep Carter for another four years, he says. We can change. Let's, yeah, let's change things up. I'd be better. I'm a Kennedy. Yeah. I'm a Kennedy. Yeah.

People love Kennedys. The big K. However, fortunately for Carter, Kennedy then shoots himself in the foot. Literally? No, Jamie. One day, one day. One day a metaphor and idiom will come true. I'm just going to have to research people who have literally shot themselves in the foot

so I can do an episode on them. World War I is your best bet, I think. Quite likely, yeah. on them. World War I is your best bet, I think. Quite likely, yeah. Anyway, yeah, Kennedy, he really messes up.

He has an interview early on. It's like right at the start of the idea of people running in the primaries. And he is asked the tough, tough question. Why do you want to be president? I mean, your initial answer should be something like, to make the country better, I have these ideas, these plans.

It'll make people happy. Yeah, Kennedy doesn't have an answer. He just goes and then just waffles, and it's very clear he does not have an answer. Yeah, he really messes up this interview. He can't answer why he wants to be president. He later said that he was expecting a softball interview, so he just hadn't prepared.

It doesn't get much more softball than why do you want to be president. This interview damages him a lot. It's obvious that he's not actually prepared. Carter and his team delighted. Fantastic. Kennedy was his biggest rival within the party. It now seems likely that the party are going to stay with Carter.

Now, it is more complex than that as we go on, but for time reasons, I'm just going to say, ultimately, Kennedy's support runs out of steam. And Carter is safe. But for now, he I'm just going to say, ultimately, Kennedy's support runs out of steam. And Carter is safe. But for now, he doesn't know that. And also, it's the only good news for Carter, because he's still trying to deal with the Prime Minister of Iran. He was seen as more reasonable than Khomeini.

But it's not going well. Nor were any attempts to use the backdoor channels to talk to commedia's people eventually seeing no other way to resolve the situation carter agrees to force force what we are going to get our people out of there oh oh for a bit of context here several months have passed by this point yeah day by day the public saying, why can't you rescue our people? Right. So let's get them out. A plan had been put together, you'd be pleased to know. You could tell it was a good one because it was called Operation Eagle Claw.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. What a name. Operation Eagle Claw can't go wrong. It's called Operation Eagle Claw. Yeah. In fact, soldiers, don't even worry about it. Just go in there, do what you need to do.

It's fine. See this folder with the words Operation Eagle Claw on it? Yeah, that's what we need. And just walk into Tehran with your folder and just show people that we've got plans. And it's called Operation Eagle Claw. In fact, he's an eagle. Go for it. Right.

Operation Eagle Claw. eagle he's an eagle go for it yeah uh right operation eagle claw the plan was a joint effort of the navy army marines and air force i mean it sounds impressive yes we put the might of all of our armed forces on the job no you want to stream like anyway no no it's fine it's a simple plan it's a simple plan eight helicopters were going to fly to assault plane 200 kilometers from tehran they would rendezvous with troops that had been flown there in planes, and they'd pick up supplies and refuel. Then they would fly in the helicopters that had been refuelled to a mountain location near the city, and then wait 24 hours, enter the city the next night, rendezvous with CIA operatives in the city,

storm the embassy, take the hostages to an airport 80km outside the city Excellent. Eagle claw! Their little shout. Everyone did an eagle claw motion with their hands. Yeah. Caw! Caw, caw, caw! Sensible Samuel in the corner just yeah he's just buried his head in the eagle claw folder no one can see him screaming silently

it's fine this is going to go off without a hitch okay it starts well enough you'll be pleased to know as in the helicopters lifted off. Yes, the helicopters lift off. That's good, they're fuelled, that's a good start. But leave the helicopters lifting off. Don't go any further with the helicopters. That's the end of the positivity.

Instead, go to the troops that were going to the salt planes in airplanes. I am not, by the way, anyone listening, going to be listing the actual military names for the equipment, the planes, and the helicopters because it means nothing to me and I'm guessing it means nothing to most our listeners.

All you need to know is that they're army planes and army helicopters. Probably air force ones. You know what I mean. Military. Military planes. Military helicopters. I think there's that's i think the c's and a's in them if you want to know the details look it up just helicopters and planes that's all we need to know right so the troops the troops are in the planes and they go to the

salt plains the salt flats let's call them that yeah that's it gets confusing otherwise so yeah the troops array arrive at theats, no problem at all. They arrive, they get out the planes, they are looking around. No one's meant to know they're there. But what's this coming up the road in this deserted literal desert that they're in? It's just a bus full of people. Ah, they're probably school kids, it's fine. It's fine. So they stop the bus full of people at gun, they're probably school kids. It's fine. It's fine.

So they stop the bus full of people at gunpoint and just tell them not to go anywhere. Yeah. It could be dangerous. Yes, shush. They all do a shush motion. Don't tell anyone we're here. Right, okay.

That's fine. Oh, what's this coming up the road? At this point, you can imagine someone turns to someone else and just goes, seriously? We're meant to be in the middle of nowhere and we've already got two people driving by no don't be so negative no this was a big uh fuel truck oh fuel yeah big fuel that must be for the bus quite possibly um they wave it down they They try and stop it. It's not stopping. Then they realize, oh, no, this is a truck smuggling fuel.

This is an illegal fuel thing that just happens to be going on. Okay. Well, it refused to stop. It's seen us. It will tell people we're here. What do we do? Ooh. Well, as two people, I imagine, are pondering this situation, the third guy just pulls out

a rocket launcher and blows it up. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, so there you go. Amazingly, the driver survived. How? Survived. Don't know. Maybe jumped out last minute. His passenger, though, was burnt to a crisp. He's dead. So, there we go. That's someone dead already. And also, it's a fuel truck. You can imagine the explosion. The entire area

is lit up. Everyone does the shush motion at each other. Don't know we're here. It's fine. Oh, go back to the bus. You can all keep a secret, right?

He'll look round. Is the bus still there can all keep a secret, right? You'll look around. Is the bus still there? Is the bus? Yeah, the bus is still there. It's fine. Go and tell everyone on the bus that it's fine. They didn't just see an explosion. Right.

Okay. So everything's going fine. This is okay. Right. We're being sneaky. Come away from the salt flats. Right. Off to the helicopters.

The helicopters have hit a problem, Jamie. They took off fine, but then they flew straight into a localised sandstorm. Oh. Yeah, not good. One of the helicopters has to turn back because of an electrical fault. One of them just gets lost in the sandstorm. In the end, several hours late, only six of the eight helicopters arrive at the salt flats. Those on the ground argue over the merits of continuing behind schedule

on a reduced team. Should we do this? We're hours behind schedule. We don't have all of the helicopters. Should we cancel this? We can't decide. We need to ask. So the question goes up, command,

and who is ultimately in charge of the armed forces in America? Well, the president. The president. So finally it hits Carter. What do we do? Abort. This is unsafe. We're behind schedule.

We've not got the helicopters. We'll just have to try again. And everyone aborts and leaves and everything's fine. Yeah. That would be nice if that was true wouldn't it jamie yeah was there like one guy just like with the folder saying eagle claw not quite but yeah this this is actually sort of like the high point of the mission things steadily go downhill yeah it's been downhill since it started. Yeah, it's only just begun. Due to the delays, the planes were low on fuel.

They'd been, like, ready to take off at a moment's notice, so the engines had been idling. So they're low on fuel. Yeah. One of the planes had to move immediately, otherwise it would run out. So as it started to move, the dust kicked up and disorientated one of the helicopter pilots that was hovering nearby.

Oh. The pilot attempts to correct his position, but clips the plane. The plane was full of people. No. Yes, the explosion kills eight people outright outright and two were very severely burnt oh yeah at this point it's decided let's not send the question up chain of command let's get out of here this is the second explosion in a few hours there's no way the iranian forces don't know we're here let's get out of here. So they get out as quickly

as possible, leaving behind a lot of equipment. They just leg it, basically. And equipment and evidence. Evidence, equipment. This is absolutely awful. The worst it could possibly have gone. Embarrassing. gum. Embarrassing. Politically embarrassing, tragic on a human level that people

died over nothing. Yeah, it was absolutely awful. The next day Carter was forced to announce to the world the failed operation that had cost eight lives. The Iranian smuggler who had been caught up wasn't mentioned, as I'm sure you're not surprised to learn.

It was eight American lives that had been lost. Yeah, this was the landscape when it became clear that Carter was going to be up against a popular and organised Ronald Reagan in the upcoming election. Ooh. Yeah. Reagan was running as the anti-establishment candidate. He had declared that the Republicans were the party of the working man nowadays, not the elites. That's all behind us. The Gilded Age was a long time ago. Forget about what you think about the GOP being the party of big business. We're the party of farmers. We're the party of shopkeepers. The little man.

We're the party of shopkeepers. The little man. This message was going across okay in some areas, less so in others. Results were mixed, but that doesn't hugely matter because Carter can't catch a break at this point. His opinion poll numbers, received, as I said, a bump after the hostage crisis started, has since plummeted to below where Nixon was post-Watergate. Oh. Oh. Oh. Yeah.

That's the only phrase I can get out. Yeah, not good. No. Still, Carter's not lost hope. Really? How has he not lost hope? Well, there are reasons. The Republican Party had, post-Nixon, like I've said, shifted far to the right. And Carter thought that this was going to play to his advantage in the election. The GOP is no longer a large tent with political overlaps with Democrat Party. All through our podcast, the two parties have been different, but with significant overlap.

We're starting to see the two parties shift away from each other slightly. Carter's thinking this is to our advantage. He fully believes that the average American is actually Democratic at heart, and if the Republicans shift right, then they'll alienate themselves. He pointed out that the current Republican Party is not just different to the Democrats, but also very different to how the Republican Party was under Ford and under Nixon. So they're going to alienate their own voters by shifting to the right like this. And so he's thinking this, and to be fair to Carter, he's not 100% wrong.

Despite Carter's unpopularity, and believe me, he is not popular, the polls for the two candidates were roughly even. People don't seem to like Reagan or Carter. But overhanging all of this is obviously the hostage crisis. Every day that went by was damaging to the president. Meanwhile, Reagan and his team feared an October surprise, where the hostages would be released just before the election, giving Carter a boost. They feared that the Carter administration would

politically make sure that the hostages were released at a politically opportune time. And there was good reason to fear this. Through back channels, through the German ambassador, the president had heard news that the Iranians were prepared to speak. Yeah, so that's good. But then things get slightly more complex because Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq,

invades Iran. You're looking shocked, Jamie. Saddam Hussein! Oh yes, we're getting looking shocked, Jamie. Saddam Hussein. Oh yes, we're getting very modern, Jamie. Very modern. This is weird. Yes. Yeah. Again, I'm not going into all the details of the animosity

between Iraq and Iran from this time, but Saddam Hussein is not happy with Iran over certain border disputes and several other things linking to all sorts of political and religious reasons, and Saddam sees Iran as being weak after the recent coup, so decides, okay, let's move in. Carter and his administration held their breath and hoped that Iran would release the hostages so they could focus on the invasion.

But no. The anti-American feeling in Iran meant that most people in Iran simply believed that the United States were behind the invasion. Which, it's not hard to believe that after what the United States had done in 53. Why wouldn't they think that? Well, of course. Yeah. Yeah. Due to this, the hostages stayed exactly where they were, while a frustrated Saddam Hussein realised that Iran was actually far more organised than he thought.

Yeah. And that invasion was not going well. Still, on the 9th of October, word came through the back channels once more. Fine, we can talk about the release. So, talk start-up. Yeah. Meanwhile, Reagan is warning the country against Carter. Expect him to

say he's close to getting the hostages out. He's going to say anything to keep his numbers up. And also, the Iranians get this. They want you to vote for Carter because they want a weak president. Remember this, everyone. Iran hates Reagan. How Reagan was

pushing things. Carter was very frustrated by this. Carter's thinking, I'm doing everything I can to get these people out. How dare you accuse me of using them as a political tool? So being very frustrated, he lashes out at Reagan. He calls Reagan racist, untrustworthy, and someone that you could not trust to hold the nuke codes this backfires yeah it was seen as petty and untrue as we have seen many times in america um certainly in my lifetime uh the taboo of calling someone racist is greater than being racist itself you can't go around calling people racist no good god um yeah so whether you believe it of reagan or not is immaterial as a presidential candidate is seen as unseemly of accusing your opponents

as being racist yeah so yeah this does not do carter any uh any good whatsoever meanwhile the organized conservative groups backing Reagan put out attack ads accusing Carter of being soft on communism and of being a danger to the children of America. After all, he had organised a new department of education that encouraged homosexuality

and abortion, don't you know? He's going to get all of the gay children to have abortions or something like that. Anyway, it's awful. That's just minutia. Yeah. We're going to say words that scare you and don't vote for Carter.

It's scary how this is so... It's starting to sound very, very modern, isn't it? Yeah. Meanwhile, Carter is attacked by a rabbit. What? He's attacked by a rabbit whilst fishing. He's on a little boat. He takes a bit of a break.

He's on a little boat on his own in a river. Or on a river, I should say. And he's just fishing. And a rabbit jumps into the river, swims directly towards him, his teeth gnashing away, crazed look in its eyes, trying to get into the boat to attack Carter. Jaws had been out by this point. Oh, you're jumping ahead of me, Jamie.

Oh, I'm so sorry. That comes into it. Okay. Oh, no, no, that's fine. It comes into it in just a moment. Yeah. Okay. This was just one of these weird things uh he he's he's fishing

and apparently this there was this rabbit that was being chased by something fearing for its life it jumped into the river saw something that it could jump onto a boat and swam towards carter carter seeing this poor little rabbit but also it's a big swamp rabbit apparently these things aren't cute fluffy rabbits it's a yeah it's not Apparently these things aren't cute, fluffy rabbits. It's not something you want to share a small boat with. So he uses his oar to sort of splash the rabbit to make it go away. Yeah. Yeah.

The story gets out and, oh, it's bad for Carter. President attacked by rabbit is not a good headline. It's really not. It's really not. It's hilarious. It's hilarious. That's what it is. Yeah, Carter, he's so weak. He's a target for rabbits.

He can't even fight off the rabbits. How's he going to free the hostages when the rabbits are after him? And yes, you're absolutely right. Jaws was out at this point because one newspaper did a mock-up of the Jaws poster, but with a rabbit and called it Paws.

Anyway, despite all this, what is interesting is that the polls remain deadlocked. People aren't rushing towards Reagan. They're not happy with Carter. It is a stalemate at the moment. But televised debates come up, and Carter has a disadvantage. He doesn't realise he has a disadvantage, because what he doesn't know is that someone had stolen a notebook full of briefing notes from the Carter administration and given it to the Reagan team in advance. Yeah. So Reagan was able to prep,

knowing exactly what Carter's talking points were going to be. We do not know who handed over the book, but it is suspected, shall we say, that it perhaps might possibly have been Ted Kennedy. Frustrated that his attempts to be president had failed, but I should mention, we don't know that for certain, but that's the word on the street. I think it was the rabbit. It was probably the rabbit.

Didn't let me on your boat, Darren. It was definitely the rabbit. Yeah. Screw you. Or maybe the rabbit did a big splash and swiped the booklet from Carter's pocket as in then swam away. He was probably sent there by Reagan.

Yes. Oh, it's all coming to light. Anyway anyway the debates do not go well for carter i mean he's got the disadvantage anyway but he also just does not perform as well as reagan he comes across as nervous he comes across like someone who doesn't want to be there whereas reagan's coming across as confident uh carter's full of the detail. Reagan's just saying, we don't need detail, we just need confidence. And people like that. Yeah. And as always, those damn hostages dominating everything. But there's good news there.

Good news. Word's come through. Khomeini has given the green light to his prime minister and the president of Iran. They are now allowed to negotiate. Yes. Carter and his team receive the proposals given from Iran. They look it through, and their

hearts sink. This was doable. There's no reason why they wouldn't be able to release the hostages, but it wasn't simple. It was not going to be quick. They certainly were not going't be able to release the hostages, but it wasn't simple. It was not going to be quick. They certainly were not going to be able to get it sorted before the election. This is very bad news for Carter.

Trying to get ahead of the story, he goes to the public. Good news, he says. Progress is being made. The hostages are likely to be released soon, but not until after the election, he says quietly, whispering. A slight cough. Carter hoped the good news would be a help. He can't hide this from the public, so he's going to try and dress it up as a good thing. But it doesn't work.

He was seen by the public as too weak to sort it out. He was probably not even telling the truth, said many. He probably hasn't made any progress at all. He's probably just trying to make himself look good, pretending that he's making progress. Republicans leaned hard into this message, as you can imagine, and it was extremely unfortunate for Carter that Election Day came up, and guess when Election Day was?

Do you remember the date I gave you earlier? No. So I'm just going to Do you remember the date I gave you earlier? No. So I'm just going to tell you that the hostages were taken on the 4th of November of the previous year. Oh, okay. Guess when Election Day is this year. Was it around the November mark? It was, early November.

4th, the 4th of November. One year to the day that the hostage crisis began is election day. Now, that is some unfortunate timing. That is uncanny. Yeah. And, yeah, the election takes place. Carter was utterly, utterly destroyed. Yeah.

Yeah. Many, almost 40% of people, according to one poll, said that they voted for Reagan because he was not Carter. Yeah. Yeah. Many, almost 40% of people, according to one poll, said that they voted for Reagan because he was not Carter. They didn't care about Reagan. They just didn't want Carter in charge anymore. So Reagan gets 51% of the popular vote. That doesn't sound too bad, does it, for Carter?

Carter only gets 41%. There was actually a third candidate that did fairly well that I've not covered. So that's 10% difference in the popular vote. That's large, but it's nothing compared to the Electoral College, because Reagan gets 489 seats to Carter's 49. Ooh. Yeah. Not only this, the Republicans get the Senate. The House stays Democratic, but the number of conservative Democrats increase, meaning that the now mostly right-wing GOP would actually have support in the House from those Democrats over many issues. So it is absolute disaster for the democrats this election yeah yeah and bear in mind this

is just a few short years after the watergate scandal had ripped apart the republicans that's a hell of a rally yeah and then believe it or not things get worse for carter oh because obviously you lose the election you you're still president. Yeah. After 10 weeks of negotiations with Iran, hard work, sleepless nights going on, Carter's team secure the release of the hostages at 6.30 in the morning of Reagan's inauguration. So, just in time. Carter's still president, just a slither of a consolation prize. Carter's going to be able to get the hostages released as the last thing as president.

Feeling that it was his duty, Carter rang Reagan to inform him, but Reagan didn't bother even coming to the phone, just had a message passed to him. After passing the message on to the upcoming president, Carter hung up, and then when someone asked what Reagan had said, Carter grimly joked that Reagan had said, what hostages? Oh. Yeah. Oh.

At some point during the morning, Reagan called back and assured Carter, okay, I've received the message. Apologies, I didn't come to the phone. It's been a very busy day, but don't worry. Secret's safe with me. Obviously, until the hostages are safe, we won't say anything. Thank you for letting me know. And then they prepare for the day's events. News came through that the hostages are safe on a plane, but come on, it's gone 6.30 now. Why haven't they been released? Any news on the hostages being released? Any news at all? Fine, I'll put my tuxedo on

or whatever he was wearing. I'll put my suit on for the inauguration, but when are these hostages being released? Eventually word comes through, no, those hostages aren't moving. They're on the plane, they're on the runway, but they're not moving.

And eventually Carter realises what's happening here. Iran are making a statement. They were not going to give Carter any credit whatsoever. As the day wore on, it became more and more obvious that Carter was right in this assumption. It was a tense drive to the inauguration. Carter and Reagan barely talked to each other. At 12.35, Reagan becomes the President of the United States of America. At 1238, Iran released the hostages.

Carter obviously is no longer President. And that is where we end, as ever, at the end of the Presidency. However, I do, at the end of the presidency. However, I do need to briefly say that the post-presidential life of Carter is the most extensive in American history. He's still alive, Jamie. And he does a lot. In 1982, he founded the Carter Presidential Center, which is devoted to issues relating to democracy and human rights. He works with organizations that work worldwide to issues relating to democracy and human rights. He works with organisations that work worldwide to provide housing to underprivileged people.

This, by the way, is why you see him building houses with hammers a lot. He's been a freelance ambassador many times, helping soothe tensions between countries in the Middle East and with North Korea. He is generally accepted in the imagination of the populace of America as being the perfect ex-president. He has gone on and done a lot of good things. And due to this, he is now remembered very positively by a lot of people in America. It's Carter.

Good old Carter. But that is not how he was seen when he left his presidency, and that is what we are judging him on. So are you ready to rate him? If I'm honest, I don't think I am. Well, let's do it. Statesman shit!

Okay, good. What good, as a statesman, did Carter do? Well, at the time, he was pretty much seen as an absolute disaster. Well, yeah. Yeah, but perhaps this is unfair. Many historians have said we have been too harsh in the past on Carter. So let's actually look at some good that he did here. He did attempt with, to be fair,

some success to bring peace to the Middle East by talking with Israel and Egypt. I mean, as we know, ultimately, there was still conflict there. But you cannot deny that from the start of his presidency to the end of his presidency, it was more peaceful in the Middle East. Well, at least in terms of Israel. Israel and Egypt got on better. Let's say, let's put it that way. It's progress. There was the handshake.

He's working on it. Yeah, he's working on it. That is a positive. Something I've really not talked about in the episode just for time reasons, but the work with Russia continues. There was still a de-escalation of nuclear arms going on. So that's a positive. Hard to give him credit like we gave the Nixon administration credit though, because he's continuing that work really. He worked hard

at pushing human rights. This is very easy to just gloss over as a, oh, he talked about human rights and he wanted America to look better. But actually, this leads to some lasting progress in the world. Many initiatives over the next couple of decades in America, and therefore across the world, are impacted because he really pushes the idea of human rights. It kind of becomes enshrined in American politics for a while. We shouldn't just dismiss that because we didn't see an immediate impact. It was about the long game with him. And as you mentioned halfway through the episode, we need more politicians to be looking at the long game. So yeah, which leads me to his energy program. Although not great for helping people immediately

struggling, I mean, it was a tough time. It was a very sensible long-term look at the problem and contained some of the very first attempts by a government in the entire world to tackle things like climate change. This was actually a good set of proposals and it got ripped apart. So it wasn't as good as it could have been, but it was sensible. It was good. And it wasn't done for political gain. It was done because it was a sensible thing to do for the long term. So credit there. This idea that climate change is a very modern thing that people have started talking about only recently is not true. It's been talked about for 50 years in politics, if not longer. So that's a good thing. Generally, over his time as president, just like when he was governor,

he passed significant legislation on keeping the environment clean. It's just not very interesting to weave into the narrative, so I've not really talked about it. But just know that a lot of environmental stuff is going through. He makes an impact on the country. He gave Panama Canal back. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. So that's all good. However,

as we saw, many considered him an absolute failure as a president. A lot of it is bad luck. As covered many times, when you live in a capitalist society, boom and bust happens, and the person in the White House at the time largely has little to do with it. That's not to say they don't have an impact. Obviously they do, but you can't really blame Carter for the economy and the energy crisis that he struggled with. He inherited them. You can't say he was the cause of them. That said, you can argue he could have done more to aid those suffering. His brand of fiscal conservatism was definitely a bone of contention with many in the country, so you could criticise him for that. Carter's competency in the hostage crisis is often talked about, obviously. He didn't

do enough to get the hostages released, is the criticism. He was unwilling to compromise, just like he was with Congress. This meant that Americans stayed suffering just because Carter wasn't good enough at dealing with the situation. However, interestingly, literally a couple of months ago, in March of 2023, a man named Ben Barnes came forward and said he was working with a man named John Connolly during the election we just covered. Connolly had travelled to the Middle East with Ben Barnes, working for Ronald Reagan. And Barnes witnessed Connolly asking leaders in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Egypt about the hostage situation. Wherever he went, apparently he asked for a message to be passed

to Iran. And the message was, and I quote, don't release the hostages before the election. Mr. Reagan will win and give you a better deal. Now, Barnes said that he felt he had to get the story straight, as Carter is obviously now near the end. He said that he'd only told four of the people throughout the entire previous 40 years, or four of those people have backed up the story saying, yes, he did tell us all those years ago. It would appear that he's telling the truth. Obviously, some people dispute this. But what I would say is, can we really blame Carter for being ineffective in releasing the hostages when he is being undermined by people in his own country. Yeah. It's not a good look.

So, anyway, that's good and bad for statesmanship. What do you think? Well, this gets, like you've said it literally since the beginning, that it's going to get more tricky as we head into the future. And it is. I think there's a bit of a revisionism going on with carter because he is such a nice guy and post-presidency he has done so much i think a lot of people really really want him to have actually been a really good president and misunderstood yeah but i'll be, I'm not seeing it.

I think he got unlucky. I think that he had good intentions, and I think he did do some good stuff. So I'm not marking him really low, but I also can't go really high. He did just let people stew in the energy crisis. He dithered. He didn't make quick decisions. He should not have let the Shah of Iran into the United States.

Because that is what triggered the invasion of the embassy, which triggered the hostage crisis, which triggered all of the problems. That was just a moment of weakness on Carter's behalf. And also, there's a lot to be said for the fact that he was not beholden to party bosses. He was his own man. But he did not work well with his own party. No. And if you're looking for a statesman... He almost tried not to.

Yeah, if you're looking for a statesman, you want someone who's able to bring people together in politics. How well did he do that? I think it's a very mixed bag. I'm going straight down the middle with a five. I might go to a four. Fair enough. That is nine for statesmanship. Disgrace, Genghis!

Carter has managed to enter the public consciousness as a man with no faults or scandals. Yeah. Like I say, he's now seen as the sweetheart of ex-presidents. He is the pinnacle of being a president what is no more. Yeah. He's the old president that puts up buildings. Yeah, exactly.

With a hammer. How true is this, though? Or is this just a myth? Well, in fact, I'd say one of his most famous stories, if you were to ask someone who doesn't know much about presidents, but knows a little bit, if you asked, what do you know about Carter? They would probably say he put his peanut farm up

into a blind trust, so there would be no whiff of scandal. This is a famous story. You'll be pleased to know it's kind of true. He did, but don't forget, the peanut farm is not really a peanut farm. It's actually two big businesses by that point that was making millions of true. He did. But don't forget, the peanut farm is not really a peanut farm. It's actually two big businesses by that point that was making millions of dollars. I'm not going to go into all

the detail. It's not a squeaky clean, as you might first think. But generally, it's fine. Yeah, it was a good thing that he did that. And as we will cover with future presidents, compared to them, he did a good job there so that that's nice yeah yeah but that's not to say there's no scandal around jimmy because jimmy has a brother jamie a brother who i have not mentioned at all because i could not figure out a way of getting him into the narrative sensibly we are not going to spend a long time on Billy, but just know Billy was a thorn in Jimmy's side. So Billy was a card, shall we say, a character. He drank a lot.

He liked being in front of a camera. He liked voicing his opinions. He was generally seen as a bit of an embarrassment for the president. And then in the late 70s, when Jimmy was president, Billy visited Libya. We're talking Gaddafi here. He visits Libya several times and ends up registering as a foreign agent of the Libyan government. Now, nothing illegal about that. Brother to the president doing it. It's dodgy, but it's nothing illegal about that. However, long story short, let's just say Billy seemed like he was getting a lot more money than he should have been. Strongly suspected that, in fact, up to millions of dollars

were being secretly paid to Billy, leading to something known as Billygate. Because obviously Watergate has happened now, so now everyone is calling things gate. Yeah. This got to the point where jimmy had to publicly come out and say about his brother and i'll just quote him here i am deeply concerned that billy has received funds from libya and that he may be under obligation to libya

these facts will govern my relationship with billy as long as i am president billy has no influence on u.s policy or actions concerning libya in the past and Billy has no influence on US policy or actions concerning Libya in the past and will have no influence in the future. So he has to completely distance himself from Billy. But the accusations fly thick and fast. It's not a good look. But is it enough to pick up some points? And is one of these things

that's just going to be targeted by any opposition? Oh yeah, yeah, definitely. I definitely the republicans went for it um what we need to be mindful here i think is that this kind of thing is going to pop up in scandal gate a lot from now on and how much do we pay uh credence to you have a family member who has talked to a government do we give points to the president for that will we end up giving points to biden for let's face it hunter biden is not squeaky clean will we end up giving trump points for let's face it all of his family it's yeah we need a dividing line are we looking here at just the president? Does it affect politics?

Yeah, does it affect the politics? And are we looking just the president or the family? As far as I'm concerned here I could see no evidence to suggest That what Billy did had an impact on Jimmy's decisions So I'm willing to say no points here I like that Did it have an impact on the politics?

But are we judging the politics of the president? Well, did it have an impact on the politics but are we are we judging the politics of the president well if it has an impact on the politics that means the president's personal character is flawed because he has let his family member have an influence i think it stands i think it stands but i think it's gonna get really tricky oh it is so i knew from the start these last episodes were just going to be a minefield um let's say for now it's not affected him no because he distanced himself himself like straight away and that's a good yeah he came out and he said no this is wrong i distanced myself i think for that reason i think we can say no points for Billy Gates. Yeah, no points. N'il peut.

Silver Spring. Oh, I think he's going to struggle here, Jamie. I, yeah, no, because nothing really exciting happens. Sometimes I get to this round and off the top of my head, I can just go da-da-da-da-da-da-dum and write some things. This one, I'll be honest, I had to go back to my notes from last episode just to... Oh, dear. Yeah. So let's go through this.

He was born and he grew up on his farm and he did very well at school. He hunted and he fished. He got into no trouble whatsoever at school. And then he joined the Navy Academy, where he got into no trouble. He did meet his future wife, remember? A friend of his sister.

You could definitely get a little bit of drama out of that because his family connection. You could definitely do a little bit there. I think an episode of him coming back from the academy and meeting Rosalind. Yeah, so a little bit. He graduated after doing very well. They get married.

He goes around with the Navy, and he hated it, remember? He was posted all over the place, including Hawaii. He just tours off China. He was almost killed whilst on a submarine. There you go. He's got to get points for that. He was almost swept to sea during a storm. Well, that'll be an exciting five minutes.

Yeah, at least worth a point. Come on. As his ribs smacked against that gun and he managed to hold on for dear life i'd like to think he was thinking well at least i'll get a point for this so it's worth it at the end exactly um and then uh his father died and he moved home to look after the family business He networked until he got interested in politics. He ran as an outsider and he got a seat in Congress. He ran as an outsider and got the

governorship job. He then ran as an outsider and got the presidency. It was all very dum-dum-dum. It fell in his lap. Then once president, things slowly fall apart. He's not able to get to grips with the economy, the energy crisis, dealing with the Soviets invading Afghanistan, Iraq invading Iran,

the hostage situation, all sorts is going on, and he never really seems to get a grip on it. The election was close to begin with, so you could get some drama out of that. What are we talking about? The hostage situation, Jamie. There's no way. Yeah, that's nothing to do with,

that's not him though. That's just, it'd be a really tense hostage situation with occasionally. No, no, you could get. That's bad.

You could get a really interesting series out of the hostage situation and the election and Reagan and Carter playing off each other. I genuinely think you could get something really good out of that.

Yeah, but it's all based around other people. No, no, Carter. Like the Reagan and Carter's. That's a Reagan's episode. Carter's integral to that. He is integral to that. Remember Carter? Yeah, but it's all about Reagan. Carter let the shower in. I'm giving him points for that. I think that's good. Are you? Yes. Yes, I am, Jamie. I'm judging

you right now. You can judge me. I don't care. He's not getting loads, but he's getting points for that. Anyway, he then defeats massively to Reagan. He defeats? that's not the way you say that sentence uh but i'm sticking with it you know what i mean uh and then he um he dedicated his life to helping the homeless and pushing human rights and he helped environmental issues and all of that good stuff but let's face it it doesn't make for good drama it makes for a good little epilogue in a drama if the rest was really exciting.

I'm going to give him three. Three? Yeah. Two for the hostage situation and one for being swept off a submarine. I'm going to give him two because I don't think it's about him. But I'm standing with that.

That's five. It's not all about you, Carter. You hammered out. That's sad. I'm very sorry for Carter. Okay. Well, there we go. He seems like a relatively nice person, but yeah. Okay. Right.

Canvas ability. Okay. Here he is. Very reminiscent of old presidents. very dark, moody background. Yeah, we've gone back to the red. He's got a slight... It's almost like someone's asked him to smile, and that's the best he could do. Yeah.

He looks worn out, doesn't he? Yeah. Yeah, he's sort of grasping his hand in a slightly awkward way. He looks awkward. It's not relaxed. No, he looks like he needs to stand up. Yeah. Even his hands.

He's got really alien hands. Yeah, it's all clawed. He's almost doing the eagle claw motion with his hands. That's what it is. Yeah, that's what it is. That's what it is. Yeah i mean he's he's there he's got a 70s hairdo he's got his tie the time he's got a star on his chair i would have said it's a very average painting it's nothing that inspires me but i'm gonna have to knock a point off for the fact that he does not look relaxed. He does not look

happy in this position. He looks stressed. Yeah, it's like he needs to go and build something. Yeah. It's weird. I'm glad he had a good post-presidency. I'd hate to think that this was it, and then he just had a heart attack immediately afterwards. Yeah, so I'm going to give him a four.

Yeah, I'm going to give him a four. Okay, total of two. Bonus! Bonus. He did one turn. No one tried to kill him. And he gets one point for election because he won, but it was not a landslide.

So how's he done, Jamie? He's got a grand total of 18. 18. He'll be disappointed. Yeah, but... But probably not surprised No No

Yeah that's about right But then we get a question And I think there was a serious question to ask here American Or American As president No How many times have you said

Why don't politicians just Try and do good Every day Well this is why jamie because he tried to like do long-term plans and it backfires on him because he doesn't get immediate results he obviously cares yeah maybe we should be giving him credit for that uh yeah he is i would say uh definitely without hesitation i'd say he is in the top say, definitely, without hesitation, I'd say he is in the top five of the nicest people we have covered. He might even be number two behind Hayes.

Yeah. But is that enough to say he's American? I mean, what did he do? Would you tell someone about him? Who he wouldn't need to is, like, go and, you know, you can go meet him. He's still around. The thing is, if he died in 1985.

Absolutely not. Yeah. The only reason, I hate to say it, the only reason why people have such a soft spot for him is because he's lived for so long. And that is amazing. And he's used that time brilliantly. Yeah, yeah.

We don't consider that time. No. We never have done, and we can't bend the rules and say, but he had a great post-presidency, because we always cut it off at the end of the presidency. So we need to discount that. And if you discount that, what's he got? I don't think much.

I don't think he... No. Sorry. It's a shame. I feel really bad about this one. Yeah, me too. I feel guilty. Yeah, because we've given American to, quite frankly, some shocking people. Yeah. But they're interesting.

Yeah. I'm really sorry, Carter. And he's the first person who's still alive, Jamie. What if he's listening to this? Well, just think, you have to send him a letter now saying, sorry, you didn't quite reach American. Oh, I feel really bad, Jamie. I know.

Okay. Well, you know what? I'm not even going to say one way or the other. No. I think we all know. We all know. There's a collective knowledge here. Yeah.

But we don't need to rub it in by saying it out loud, do we? No. No. Okay, then. Well, there we go. That is Carter. And we have, oh, we have a big one, Jamie, because do you know what happens in the next president that we cover?

Reagan, he meets Thatcher. We are born, Jamie. Hang on. Was I born? Yeah, yeah. He was president until 89. So, yeah, we were both born, Jamie. Wow.

So, not next episode, but in the next person we're doing, at some point, Reagan's going to stop, look out the window, and go, was that Rob being born? Yeah, so, yeah. Two years later, what's that noise? Put it back. so yeah well there you go so that's exciting and also reagan is one of the big ones that i've

always been looking forward to doing because he's such a big name uh i'll be fascinated learning more about him he's gonna be a good one to cover i think so thank you i imagine oh uh yeah well i've decided already going in i'm almost certain he's going to be a three episode really you're breaking the barrier already i i think yeah rather than getting stressed to be there rather getting stressed and then trying to work i'm just going to go from the get-go i'm guessing reagan is going to be a three so because i mean he was an actor and all sorts of there's all sorts going to go on and then yeah but anyway this is for future times well that is be a three. Because, I mean, he was an actor in all sorts of... There's all sorts going to go on in his life. Yeah, that's true. But anyway, this is for future times.

Well, that is instantly a 10 point for silver screen then, surely. I mean, he's going to... Instantly, he's been in a film. He's going to struggle not to score high. At least one. Yeah. And then there's going to be all sorts of stuff that gets me very frustrated.

But, oh, it's going to be so hard to do modern politics, Jamie. Right. I need to find myself an unbiased hat that's my job this weekend to go and buy one right okay thank you very much for listening everyone thank you for downloading us on popbean itunes stitcher or wherever else you download us thank you very much yes and um all that needs to be said is... Goodbye. Goodbye. So we're just not going to do it. We can't read this.

This speech is awful. I think we can. If we just look at this speech, we can polish it up, sir. Have a look. I've amended the second paragraph. Have a quick read. It's no good, Rosalind. She's right. People don't want to hear this anymore. No. They don't want to hear the detail. They don't want to hear the negativity. Come on. Come on, people. Come on., ideas. What can we do to make this better? What about, how about a Muppet? They're popular now.

They're very famous on television. A Muppet? What? It's like a puppet thing on your hand that somebody shouts. Children will like it. You're suggesting that I address the energy crisis facing our nation using a Muppet? Yes. Jim Henson's very on board, sir. He's a massive fan. Right, Chad, you know when I said no idea is a bad idea? Yes.

In fact, you know how I've written it on the board up there? Just go and cross that out for me, would you? Oh, okay, sir. Right, okay, anyway. Ideas, ideas. How do we, how do we make this, how do we spin it? How do we make this positive?

Try harder. That could be our statement. We need to try harder. It doesn't sound good though, does it? It sounds like we're accusing them of being lazy. Yes, but they are poor. Spend less.

People like spending money. That sounds awful. We can't say that. You don't need food. You need God. I mean, it would play in some areas, but I don't think it's going to cover the whole country. Do we just lie?

No, we can't lie. No, no. Look at the glass doors, sir. We are transparent. Transparent. Okay, right. I'll just go out and I say, look, this is sir. We are transparent. Transparent. Okay, right. I'll just go out and I say, look, this is hard. This is tricky.

We're all facing challenges, but I can't do the war thing again, can I? It didn't go down well last time. How about we will release the hostages? Because the Americans love the hostages. They're desperate for you to say, yes. If we could release the hostages, I would have released the bloody hostages because the Americans love the hostages they're desperate for you to say Chad Chad if we could release

the hostages I would have released the bloody hostages yes but that's the aim we will release the hostages why are you looking at me like that

Chad see on the board when I said speak your mind yes just cross that one out as well oh okay and just right up there

do not mention the hostages I've had it up to here with the hostages. Okay, okay. They're gone. Rule number one now is do not mention the hostages. Have you got that?

Okay, I've got it. Okay. Free toy with every meal? Chad? Yes? Come on, you've got to give me something here. There's just nothing.

How do I say that we are **** without saying we're ****? Big cheese, sir. What? Yes, sir. Cheese that's big.

What are you talking about? Well, if you read that book I got for your birthday that you hadn't mentioned yet to that, all the earlier presidents used to hand out big cheeses as a massive gift to the nation. And they loved it. Everyone loved it. It's not really applicable in this moment. Yes, but just imagine the sights, sir. Opening the...

Chad, do you have a big cheese? Not yet, but I've got a friend called Tony... Can we make a big cheese in the energy crisis? My cousin has a cow. I'm sure we can milk... You know what? Chad, Chad, we're just going with whatever option three was. I don't care cow. I'm sure we can milk. You know what? Chad, Chad, we're just going with whatever option three was. I don't care anymore. I've given up. Just just pull it off the board.

Whatever's written up there. We're doing that. OK. Option three, sir. Yes. I don't care. I don't care. We're doing option three. Are you sure? Yes. And I'm going for a nap. OK. The following is a official announcement from the White House. Hi, birds and girls! My name's Mr. Deflating Economy, and I'm going to tell you why your mommy and daddy are really sad, and why you've not had any food for a fortnight. It's because the country is officially f***ed. A long, long time ago in the Middle East, there was

a country called Syria. And in that country, they made lots of cheese, but no one liked to eat onions.