American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 40.2 Ronald Reagan

Episode Date: June 17, 2023

In episode 2 of 3 for Reagan we cover his rise to the big seat. And then when he is there, what is he going to do? who knows? (We all know, it's tax reform. It's aways about tax with this guy)

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Ronald Reagan Part 2. Hello and welcome to American Presidentidents Totalus Rankium. I am Jamie. And I am Rob, ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Biden. And this is episode 40. It is Double R. The Ronald Ray. Ronnie Ray Ray as they call him.

Oh, yeah. The sexy name. Yeah. So you've had a couple of weeks, Jamie, as they call him. Oh. Yeah. The sexy name. Yeah. So you've had a couple of weeks, Jamie, to digest Ronald Reagan. Yep. Delicious. How are your feelings on him?

Very much money, money, money. Yeah. Must be funny. Editing the episode, I was hit by the fact that, even though it wasn't in my notes we were both starting to get quite frustrated with how lucky his life seemed to be yeah yeah oh look at me working at this beach with these beautiful women oh i just fell into this job oh i just fell into this oh yeah it did seem a little bit like that um i don't know i was wondering when editing maybe we've been slightly unfair there but uh i don't know i don't know. I was wondering when editing, maybe we've been slightly unfair there, but I don't know. I don't think so.

I must say we did have one comment saying that the tax rate after the war was insanely high. So he maybe was justified for not liking it. And I was like, that's a valid point. Just not one I necessarily agree with. If you're earning the money of a movie star in Hollywood, you're getting paid a stupid amount for doing a dream job. Yeah. Just enjoy it. But still, that's all about the debate,

and that's about the end, Jamie. We are still fully in the biography here. So we need to start. Come on, hit me with something that we can hook the listener into. Well, it'll depend. Are we going into his presidency in this episode we are going into his presidency but not a huge amount okay yeah okay okay then start off yeah it's like a new york street like a big cloud almost like times square kind of thing yeah

neon lights a bit smoky yeah it just looks ridiculously 80s and this kind of car this station wagon sort of pulls up you know the ones that have films like this big long car with wooden panels on the outside that pulls up outside this bar and this bar is called the Dynamo the door opens you see a foot step out the foot is a massive clown foot

that makes a big squeak another foot comes out, squeak then another clown comes out, then another clown. And that happens for about 10 minutes. Just loads of clowns. It's a slow start to this film then. It is. It is.

And they walk into the dynamo. Yeah. And then you hear it. What do you hear, Rob? Well, what you see, actually, Jamie, rather than here. Okay, what you hear is another squeak of a foot. A foot comes out. It's the very last one that comes out of that wood-panelled car

that you've mentioned. Yeah. And instead of going into the dynamo, this last clown looks around him. He looks a bit shifty, as clowns go. And all the other clowns have gone in, and he's just looking around him. Actually, sorry, which city did you say we were in? I said New York. Damn it, I misheard the city.

Right, I'm in the wrong city. I'm going to have to change mid-flow. Right, okay. This clown. Well, I think I said, but I also could have said. No, no, no, this clown suddenly hails a taxi and says, take me to Washington, D.C., please. And then there's a very quick montage

of him going to Washington, D.C., please. And then there's a very quick montage of him going to Washington, D.C., and then a clown gets out of a taxi in Washington, D.C. Squeak, squeak. Squeak, squeak. And then looks around him again, just looking a bit shifty. And he's looking around, and he's looking up at a hotel, a hotel in Washington. And then he looks at a newspaper, and he reads that the president will be speaking in Washington that very day. He checks his watch and he says to himself quietly, just enough time to squeeze in a watch of Taxi Driver.

And then the clown squeaks away. Hell's enough to have a taxi because he's got to go back to New York. But let him go. And then just pan slowly towards the hotel. And what's the hotel called? Le Hotel Magnifique. No, it is called the Washington Hilton. And those people who know,

you will then go, it's the Washington Hilton in Reagan's. And if you don't know, you'll just go, what the hell was that with the clowns? Yeah. To be fair, I think everyone's going to say, what the hell was that with the clowns? Yeah, don't knock the clowns.

Okay. Send in the clowns. Are you sad I didn't actually go into the Dynamo bar? I'm a little bit. I was expecting amazing things, but that's fine. We can explore the Dynamo in maybe Trump's episode. Maybe, maybe. Okay, so we know that someone is checking out a hotel. Yeah. amazing things but that's fine we can explore the dynamo in maybe trump's episode you know maybe maybe okay so we know that someone is checking out a hotel yeah and that a clown it might be a clown

that might be artistic license but there was someone waiting for the president to be outside a certain hotel at a certain time and we all know that when we get into details about timings in like visits to hotels that's never a good sign in this podcast so wait for that jamie just wait for that okay but let's let's jump into this shall we because we left reagan as the governor of california yeah yes we did he was fighting with students if you remember oh we did not like those student-y protesters protesting over Vietnam. What else was he doing? He was cutting Social Security to the bone. Making reforms, and as I said at the end of last episode,

it is debatable how successful these reforms were, but it is considered a win for the right of the Republican Party. So he's doing a job. Some would consider a good job. But whilst he was doing that job, he had his sights on something else. What? The big job, Jamie. The reason why we do our podcast, Jamie.

The big cheese. Top dog. He likes dogs. Yeah, exactly. There were those on the right of the GOP who were convinced that Reagan could get their faction to the top. And Reagan had become convinced also. So he's doing his job as governor. He thinks he could become president. He thinks he can make it.

So while Reagan was governor, they had amassed half a million dollars to make sure he could start campaigning for president as soon as possible. Remember last time where some of his backers just bought him a mansion, essentially? Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I thought about that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, brilliant. Good for him. Fell into that again, didn't he? There are some rich people backing Reagan and seeing him as the future of the GOP, definitely. Of course, of course. However, the only problem is that the current president was Ford, a Republican.

And that kind of messed everything up because Ford was eligible to run for another term. Because of the whole Watergate thing. Now, Reagan was governor of California when the whole Nixon presidency took place. The entire time Nixon was president, Reagan was governor of California. So he saw the Watergate scandal bringing Nixon down whilst he was governor. Reagan was not convinced by Nixon to begin with. Back when Nixon was running against JFK, Reagan didn't think Nixon was all that. He'd started off promising, thought Reagan, but he'd pandered to the centre of the party too much. Nixon, in turn, by the way, saw Reagan as a far-right extremist,

with very little grasp of politics. There's just this right-wing nut of an ex-actor who's making a lot of noise in the fringe of the party, is essentially what Nixon thought to begin with. However, time has moved on since those days, and the two realise that they actually had more in common than they didn't. And they often agreed on many things. Reagan ended up campaigning loudly for Nixon's second run at the presidency, and as a reward for this, early on in Nixon's presidency,

Reagan was sent abroad to several countries as a special envoy. Now this is when he's the Governor of California. It's not a logical choice to go abroad and be an envoy for the president. But when Nixon thought that a country would like to hear a very right-wing point of view coming from America, let's send Reagan, he thought. So Reagan ended up touring the East, assuring people that the United States were doing what they could against communism, essentially.

This was great for Reagan. He's the governor of California, but he's getting international experience. He's meeting leaders of other countries. He's visiting other places. Sort of in training already. Yeah, in the same way last episode with his job when he was touring around

the country was essentially him campaigning. He's just getting a lot of experience of uh shaking hands and talking the talk big picture politics so yeah this was great however then watergate hits and uh reagan how do you think he takes it he's either be really angry or he's gonna find it hilarious i don't think he found it hilarious but he remained very loyal oh oh most of the gop remained very loyal if you remember to begin with yeah and then as the evidence started to drip drip drip and then eventually start to just hurtle towards everyone this is obvious he is guilty he's been lying to us this whole time. Everyone's started to go,

now we need to distance ourselves. With Reagan, it was slightly different. I mean, to begin with, he seemed to genuinely believe the reassurances of Nixon. In fact, I'll quote him here. I still have confidence that when the smoke clears, we will find that the president was not involved.

Just as he announced that, a leaflet comes onto his table. He was definitely involved. Well, once comes onto his table he was definitely involved well once it became clear that Nixon was definitely involved the inner circles of the GOP essentially those people paying Reagan lots of money

said to Reagan maybe you should distance yourself here slightly turns out Nixon's a little bit toxic I mean he got caught we can't be having that. Reagan refused. Nope.

No. He's been telling people in the past that Nixon was a good man to be president. He's not going to turn his back on Nixon. He told the press that the punishment of resignation was all the punishment that the ex-president needed.

We shouldn't be trying to charge him criminally because he broke the law the man had to quit his job that's that's as bad as it could get nope i think any ex-president that breaks the law should definitely have the full weight of law put upon them because that's unfair well i mean there's arguments there's the argument you've just put forth, which is in a democracy, everyone should be treated equally under the law and everyone should be prosecuted for any crimes they commit. And then there's another argument,

which says that that's not true. I'll let someone else argue that because we don't have time this episode. But Reagan thought that, no, this is punishment enough for poor Nixon. Yes, he's clearly broken the law, but it's fine. The shame of him having to resign is all the punishment needed. Yeah.

What this does mean is that Reagan was one of the few in the Republican Party who stuck with Nixon to the very end. Wow. Yeah. However, with Nixon gone and Ford in place, this puts a spanner in the works. As I mentioned, Reagan was going to run for president after Nixon. That had been the plan. Nixon completes his second term. He leaves. Reagan steps in. But now, well, Ford's there, and Ford can run again as an incumbent president so if Nixon

is to run he would have to beat the incumbent president in a primary and that has never been done before that is going against your own party yeah it doesn't it's not got the good look though has it no it really doesn't especially when your party

has just been ripped apart by the Watergate scandal. Some people in the party wanted unity. Some people saw it as an attempt to take over the party. So it's almost like there's a massive scandal with your party. It's like, actually, maybe we should take a break for a bit, regroup and decide what we are. Or, kick people while they're down and then take over the party and take it in a new direction. That's also another path.

That's also another path. So let's see what Reagan chooses, shall we? Yeah, so if Reagan was unsure to begin with, he soon became sure. The more he saw of Ford, the less he liked the man. He was hardly a Republican in Reagan's mind, or at least not the kind that Reagan saw

as the future of the party. Ford was way too soft on, you name it, in Reagan's mind, or at least not the kind that Reagan saw as the future of the party. Ford was way too soft on, you name it, in Reagan's mind. The Soviets, crime, the economy, anything. He's just not hardline enough. Meanwhile, Ford thought Reagan was inexperienced and simplistic in his political outlook, and far too right-wing. It's what I found interesting doing the research, because obviously I know a bit about Reagan,

we're getting to relatively modern times here, just how much of the big established names in the Republican Party really saw Reagan as a far-right extremist as he was coming up. They were very unsure about him, and Ford did not like the way that Reagan was taking the party. However, Ford realised that the right of his party might just rise up against him, with Reagan in the front, so he tried to neutralise Reagan. Let's give Reagan a job offer, and let's see if that will just cool him down a bit.

But oh, Ford miscalculated. He offered Reagan Secretary of Transport. Oh, yeah. Let me sort out those roads and the big cars. Yeah. Full of clowns. I mean, how many episodes have we... Well, this is our 40th president, Jamie.

How many times have we spent a long time talking about the Secretary of Transport? Well, I remember in Jackson's episode, it was quite a prominent feature. But other than that, I have no idea. It's not a stepping stone, is it? It's not. It's not. It's a job offer that insulted Reagan so much that it pretty much cemented the idea in his mind

that he was going to take Ford on. Screw you, Ford. I'm going to be the next president. By this point, Reagan had stepped down as the governor of California, by the way, which freed up his time considerably. He went on tour. Yay! Yay!

He appeared on radio stations. He started writing columns for newspapers. He delivered speeches. He quickly became the leading national voice on conservatism. And along with this, he was making a fortune. He was making... Lucky, lucky Reagan. He was making nearly $300,000 a year.

Remember, this is back in the 70s. Just for being interviewed about his political opinions. And he probably had the same interview as well. Or had one script and just repeated it. As governor, by the way, he made $50,000 a year. So he suddenly had a huge, huge pay increase. Yeah. Nancy, by the way, remarked at the time that this was the dream job for Reagan.

This is it. This is perfect for him. He got to stick to big picture politics. He got to talk about tax cuts and not have to deal with the nitty gritty of day-to-day politics. He was able to talk about how bad big government was but not actually go into detail about why this was reagan at his best and that's not me being facetious here it really was he was very good at getting these big messages across to people and get them to care about it he loved doing it he was passionate about it if we didn't live in a society that seems to dictate

that we've got to constantly be moving on and progressing to be worth anything he probably could have done this for the rest of his life and lived a very happy life because he apparently he was having a great time he was getting loads of money doing a job he loved chatting about politics uh they bought another ranch by the way they bought a couple last episode this one's even bigger uh this time it cost over half a million dollars there was a bit of speculation that there was They bought another ranch, by the way. They bought a couple last episode. This one's even bigger. Oh, nice. This time it cost over half a million dollars. There was a bit of speculation that there was a bit of dodgy dealing going in the purchase of this ranch,

but I looked into it, and as far as I can tell, nothing was ever found. So this might just be political opponents digging, looking for something. Anyway, over the next couple of years, the ranch house was completely converted to be made comfortable and modern. Remember, with General Electrics,

he got loads of free electronic stuff, so he liked all his modern stuff. This is the 70s, so they had those big tape machines on the walls. Oh, yes. And they had fax machines. Fax machines? Oh my goodness, the future. They had sticks with metal balls on the end

that would make noises when you walk past them yeah they had all of the technology and glowing red tubes yes glowing red tubes all of that a man in a red top would occasionally just materialize on the ranch and then get shot uh yeah that was great he was having a great time with my lasers yes it's around this time that reagan was approached by some on the far right of the gop maybe they were teleported in with that guy in the red top yes they they teleported in commander Commander Reagan, we are here. And they wanted to... We are from Moonbase Alpha.

They wanted to ask him a question. Your society is doomed. Sorry. Well, yeah, no, that's pretty much what they said. They pointed out that Watergate had delivered a blow to the Republican Party. Ford was not particularly popular, especially after he pardoned Nixon. Maybe this was a tipping point in American politics. It's not been seen many times before, but maybe this is the time for a new party,

like when the Republican Party started. Maybe it's time to create a party for right-wing conservatives rather than having to rely on the GOP. Now, remember again, GOP back then wasn't naturally a right-wing Conservative Party. It contained pretty much most of the Conservatives, but that wasn't what they were all about. So a lot in the Republican Party,

very annoyed with the direction Ford was taking things, wanted to split, make a third party. Reagan genuinely thought about it. I mean, after all, it would essentially be his party. He was the forerunner. He was the spokesman in this area. But he didn't think for long. He realised the two-party system in the US

meant that third parties were almost certain to fail. I mean, as we've seen since the Civil War, it's not shifted. So, yeah, it's not likely to happen. So instead, he was determined to turn the GOP into the right-wing Conservative government that he wanted. In fact, I quote him, Is it the third party we need or a revitalised second party? It's probably easier to do the latter.

Yeah, exactly. Let's get what the GOP is and turn it into what our faction is. And then in the future, the GOP will just be right-wing conservatism. And that is it, straight down. Let's work on that, he thought. And so he decides to do that. It seems to focus him. He starts really getting into politics again at this point.

He goes after Ford. He assembles a team. He is going to campaign to be the nominee for president. It was quickly decided that Reagan needed to get away from the image that he only talked in cliches and didn't know any detail. So he started a series of speeches that actually had detail in them. What? Yeah, yeah.

But he's a big picture kind of guy. Well, it backfired immediately, Jamie. Oh. Yes, definitely. He delivered the Let People Rule address in September of 75. Essentially, the speech was about giving rights back to states away from federal government. He went into detail on how this could save money in various areas.

Ten hours later, when his speech finished... Well, this was part of the problem. I mean, the speech was not as interesting as usual. The press did not find it particularly exciting. So the public didn't hear about it as much. But his political opponents certainly did. Those in the Ford camp certainly did. And also, you know what?

It's so boring, I started looking into it and got bored myself. So I'm not even going to tell you the detail he went into. Brilliant. Kind of proving the point that it was very boring. So without going into depth, the team around Ford were able to pick apart the details that the Reagan team had put together and use it to accuse Reagan of not knowing what the hell he was talking about. And spread fears that these changes actually would raise taxes. Fewer federal taxes, larger state taxes.

And they kind of had a point. The Reagan team kind of dropped the ball on this one. He was on his back foot after this. He campaigned hard. He had 200 appearances in 17 days at one point. Wow. Yeah. When I say campaigned hard, he campaigned hard. He was meeting people, doing interviews, appearing on radio shows, closed door meetings, you name it. He was meeting people, doing interviews, appearing on radio shows, closed-door meetings, you name it. He was politic, Inc. Left, right, centre, but mostly right. He was 65 by this point, by the way, just to give you an idea.

65? Yeah, yeah, time's moved on. So he found it hard. I mean, that's a lot of work. It is. The primaries started, and it didn't go well for Reagan at all, to begin with. He lost all the important early states. It got to the point where leading members of the GOP were calling Reagan

and asking him to drop out in the name of party unity. Now, again, hindsight makes you think, oh, Reagan's rise was inevitable. But at this point, the GOP was very fractured in bits post-watergate trying to figure out what they were going to do yeah reagan's faction was just yet another disturbance that most people in the party thought was just causing unnecessary waves and could lead to a full-on civil war in the party so people started calling him going seriously reagan can you stop this you're not gonna win You're just causing it. Turn it down, dude.

Yeah, exactly. Turn it down. Donations to his campaign dried up. The public perception was he was going to lose. That actor, who was governor of California for a while, I mean, that was all very amusing, but he's not going to be president, is he? Yeah, he's no Arnold Schwarzenegger. Exactly.

Reagan responded by doubling down. There's no way Reagan's just going to give up because someone asked him to. In fact, I quote him here, I'm taking this all the way to the convention, even if I lose every damn primary between now and then. You ought to admire that in a way. Yeah, yeah. Because it's a good learning opportunity as well,

because he can then regroup for next time. Exactly. If there is a next time. Well, he then suddenly got a victory in North Carolina. Woo, he said. He did say that. He said that on a plane with some ice cream, apparently. Him and Nancy were on a plane when they heard the news

and they celebrated with a small glass of champagne and a big bowl of ice cream. Did not put that in my notes. It's weird how you just suddenly remember a detail in one book that you read a couple of weeks ago. But yes, that's where they heard the news. What have they done differently this time, they thought, and asked themselves whilst jumping down on some rocky road.

Well, nothing really. What was it that swung it? Oh, I suppose we did go hard on Ford for not standing up to Russia as much as he should. Was it that? Maybe. Maybe we should lean on that a little bit more, they thought. So Reagan took the Cold War and ran with it. Okay, let's see if that's what swung it.

Let's see. The United States, Reagan started to claim, was now number two in the world, obviously. And only Reagan would have and could have the strength to make America number one again. Sound familiar? No, it sounds like I've been recently watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary on Netflix.

Oh, yeah. Because he's a big fan of Reagan. That does not surprise me at all. No. And there's one bit, I think it's Reagan in his presidency, he's giving a speech saying, we're going to make America great again. Yes, and it's not the first time in this podcast that it's come up.

It is a slogan that has been used many times. Yeah, and this is what if i think even now to use it again now just redundant and just like oh with your own thing yes maybe well it works saying let's make america number one again that sounds good doesn't it so uh yeah people started latching on to that it was clear reagan was starting to get a bit of a bounce the fort camp attempted to paint reagan as a far-right extremist. Seriously, the guy doesn't know what he's talking about, and you should hear some of his political opinions.

This is not for the mainstream. This backfired, though, at least seemed to, when the Reagan camp was able to spin it that the Ford camp lacked conservative values and strength. They're pandering to the Democrats. Nice. Yeah. Only Reagan's a true Republican. It seemed to work.

One frustrated Ford aide commented at the time, We are in real danger of being out-organised by a bunch of highly motivated right-wing nuts. And yes, they were. I mean, the Ford camps might have viewed Reagan's lot as right-wing nuts, but that's not how a lot of the public saw them. They seemed to like what Reagan was saying. Reagan was by this time gaining votes from defecting Democrats as well. Wow.

Yes. It makes sense if you think about it. These are Democrats in southern states. Alabama, Indiana, Georgia all went for Reagan over Ford, in large part because of traditional registered Democrats abandoning their party for the promise of a very conservative Republican one. Again, we're seeing the consequence of the Democratic push for civil rights and the Republican

Southern strategy coming into effect. And this idea that the party's just suddenly flipped isn't true. That is overly simplistic. We have seen for many episodes now this slow bleed from one party to another, but we're seeing it here again. You're getting a lot of Democrats in the South going, actually, it's Reagan, chap. We're liking what he's saying. By this point, Ford and Reagan were neck and neck. Quite the achievement for Reagan and outside of going up against a sitting president of his own party yeah very impressive it was so close in fact that the primaries couldn't decide it it actually went down to the convention where a handful of unpledged delegates would decide things so i think talking like the old days where you go to the

convention and like someone's going to make a decision in the back room somewhere. Bit of a throwback here. It was very close. But in the end, being a sitting president gave you a lot of leverage and Ford was able to convince those and decided to go with him because, hey, I'm the president and I can give you something now. Whereas all Reagan can do is promise you something if he wins. So vote for me. Have a house.

Yeah, exactly. Just shh. Speedboat. Oh, yeah, just sort of get you this lovely speedboat. It's a lot of expenses. Box of Cuban cigars. Yes, they are illegal, but not for me. Or you.

Well, Reagan loses this. It was bloody close, though. However, it's not a bad defeat. I mean, there were defeats and there were defeats. In fact, looking back, historians generally agree that him losing here was the best outcome for him. If he'd won here, he would have been going up against Carter

and Carter was a no. Yeah, it's a lot of debate over whether this actually did Reagan a favour and I can kind of see the point, as I'll explain more in a moment. Yeah, Reagan ended that night not feeling too disheartened. They felt like this was the reagan a favor and i can kind of see the point as i'll explain more in a moment um yeah reagan ended that night not feeling too disheartened they felt like this was the start of something rather than the end of something it's like the groundswell isn't it yeah exactly the feeling

in the party was that the right faction in the party were on the rise and it's only a matter of time reagan has proved himself capable of campaigning on the highest level, and now he had a huge base of support across the country. When Ford called Reagan on stage at the end of the convention, in a sign of unity, cries of speech went up. Speech! Speech! Speech! Tell us the speech!

Well, Reagan was unprepared, apparently, which, I read this in two places, and made me go, really? I don't think it'd be possible to be unprepared to give a speech if you've been campaigning to be president. You can have at least four in your back pocket at any time. Let me guess though, he gave the best speech of his life. Yes, yes he did. He leaned back on some of his favourite material. He spoke for six minutes

about freedom and about the need to defeat the communists. He spoke of America in 2076 and how the erosion of America through the Democrats had to be stopped if they wanted America to be great at that time. In fact, he said there is no substitute for victory. And the auditorium broke into a rousing applause and many said it's the best speech he's ever given. Ford, with a bit of a fixed smile, stood next to him. Yeah.

Yeah. Great, yeah. That's great. Oh, yeah, yeah. One reporter commented that Ford had won the nomination, but Reagan had won the hearts. So, like I say, Reagan left that night feeling very positive for a loser. And he barely paused for breath. He just carried on campaigning to be the president.

He loyally campaigned on Ford's behalf against Carter, to begin with. Or, at least in Reagan's mind, he loyally campaigned against Carter. Many in Ford's camp believed that maybe Reagan could have tried a little bit harder. Ford himself blamed his eventual loss to Carter

in part due to Reagan and the GOP right not getting behind him. So there's, again, that undercurrent of civil war in the GOP right not getting behind him. So there's again that undercurrent of civil war in the GOP going on there. Anyway, Carter does win, as we saw, and for the next four years, Reagan did everything with his eye on the White House. His newspaper columns, speeches, radio interviews ramped up. He was now doing radio interviews daily by this point.

He delivered 150 speeches across 1977-78. In two days. He wrote two columns a week. He was just full-on campaign mode all the time. As I've said, in hindsight, it's easy to see the GOP as ramping up here. It's like this is them really getting into gear. But at the time, the GOP was seen as a dying party.

Carter's come in, Ford is gone, Watergate's wounded them, the pardoning of Nixon had destroyed Ford, and the core of the party was being overtaken by this fringe group on the extreme right. The Republican Party was seen as drowning. However, Reagan would loudly declare to all who would listen that this was nonsense. The GOP's best days were to come. They were ahead of them. In 77, he called for a new Republican Party that embraced economic and social conservatism.

He wanted the party to get away from the image of being the party for the elites and big business, and instead become the party for the people. Now, most of the Democrats dismissed this. Reagan was still seen as a political lightweight, lacking on detail. However, some people were getting nervous. One prominent Democrat at the time said, there is a movement to turn the Republicans

into populists, a party of the people against the Democratic Party of the state. Some people might have said that was slightly hyperbolic, that the Republican Party would just become a party of populists. It probably was hyperbolic at the time, but you could see the point that they were making. Anyway, many things are lining up for Reagan at this time. Not all obvious, some of this is with hindsight, was actually perfect timing for him. His seemingly endless luck continued. Of course, yeah, of course it did. Lucky Reagan. Lucky, lucky Reagan.

Lucky Reagan. As we saw in Carter's episode, it's about this time the economy falls apart and the energy crisis kicks in. I mean, to be fair, it's been falling apart for a while, but it's now really on Carter's watch and the Democrats' watch. Yeah. And Reagan, woo, and had an ice cream. Well, Reagan said, ha ha ha, told you, told you so, told you so.

His warnings of the country being weak because they had a weak president was seemingly supported by the fact that people now could not put gas in their cars and could not heat their homes. Meanwhile, the Christian right, horrified by Carter, a seemingly godless president, by the way, who clearly did not care for traditional family values, well, where can we go? They thought, well, there's a vocal conservative here. So,

Christian Wright, not to this point an obvious Republican group, started really moving towards Reagan. On top of this, people at the time were quite scared about the Russians. The Cold War seemed to be hotting up once more. It had been a while since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Things seemed to get better for a while, but oh now.

The United States had lost Vietnam. Iran had then revolted, leaving the Middle East more open to the Soviets, and sure enough, they'd rolled into Afghanistan. Are we losing this? People started to ask themselves. Reagan and other prominent Republicans were telling the public at every opportunity that the Russians would indeed win this war if they continued with the de-escalation of the arms race.

We need to stop reducing the nukes. This is leading us to being weak. The only way to win the Cold War is to be far stronger than the enemy.

Now that is a very clear and simple message that makes sense to a lot of people. A lot of people liked hearing it. They were worried they weren't as strong as Russia. Reagan's group was saying, let's be stronger than Russia, though. Reagan, by the way, personally believed that if America was strong enough,

Russia would collapse it in on itself trying to keep up. Reagan genuinely believed that if America just kept pushing the arms race, Russia would not be able to keep up their fall apart. He did not see a need or want to turn the Cold War into a hot war. That idea horrified Reagan. But he didn't voice this too loudly when he was getting the Warhawk vote. No, of course not. So he talked about strength a lot.

Yeah, strength, power. Yeah. Big muscles. He was personally horrified at the idea of actually leading to nuclear war, but he just sort of left that part out. As he should be. Everyone should be horrified at that. Well, only a complete psychopath would not be horrified by that.

Yes. Yes. And Reagan wasn't one. What an idiot. He believed, however, that de-escalating nukes was actually a bad idea. Just get stronger and stronger than your enemy until they give up. Yeah. You can see the argument.

You can also argue that it's a hell of a gamble. But that was Reagan's thinking. Anyway, so he was doing well with the types of people who liked the idea of a strong military. Interestingly, one area that he was not doing well with was business. Really? Yeah, they feared Reagan was turning the GOP into the party for the people. Oh, we don't want that. Well, yeah.

I mean, yes, it's great he's talking about tax cuts, but when you actually stop and listen to what he's saying, he's talking about cutting people's tax, not business tax. I mean, he's also saying cutting that as well, but just talk about cutting tax for, like, everyone. Big business didn't particularly like this. However, Reagan had one thing on his side. He wasn't Carter, and big business by this point

had decided that Carter was the worst possible outcome in the next election, so they lukewarmly supported Reagan. Assuming, of course, that he would win the next election, so they lukewarmly supported Reagan. Assuming, of course, that he would win the next primary, because Reagan's not necessarily going to be the next nominee. Yes, he'd narrowly been defeated by Ford, and Ford was out of contention. So who else is going to go up against him? Well, there was one man, one rival,

and he was the head of the CIA. He went by the name of George H.W. Bush. Ah! Yes, Bush. Bush Senior. Who's head of the CIA. He went by the name of George H.W. Bush. Ah! Yes, Bush. Bush Senior. Who's head of the CIA? Yeah, oh yeah, well, we'll get to that in his episode. Wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, so we're... future episode, Jamie, we'll get into it. Yeah, he

was pushing for the moderate vote in the GOP was Bush. The race was launched in Iowa, and to the shock of many, Bush won the first primary. Yay! Yeah.

Bush, the underdog, had worked the state hard, whereas Reagan and his advisers had decided, let's appear like we're above the fray, like we've already won. Let these other people scrap amongst themselves. You're the obvious contender. That completely backfired. If Bush won the next state,

he would have momentum as a forerunner. And in this new primary system they now had, that was vital. So Reagan changed up. Okay, we've got to fight Bush straight on, he thought. So in New Hampshire, the Reagan team offered the Bush team a one-on-one debate. Let's get on TV. Let's debate one-on-one. In fact, we'll even pay,

said the Reagan team. We'll pay the fees for the TV and everything. Just come on and debate us. Let's ignore the other five who are running because there were five other candidates. They are insignificant. Let's turn this into a two-person race. Both sides thought their man would win easily. Bush thought Reagan's a walking cliche with no detail. And Reagan thought Bush wasn't a real conservative. So the two of them were confident. So it was set up. Yeah, okay, let's do a one-on-one debate. However, they set it for three weeks' time. And three weeks, as the saying as the saying goes is a long long long time in politics and polling showed that reagan was no longer losing to bush in fact it looked like he was going to win the state regardless of this

so a debate was just a risk we don't need to do this anymore however backing out of a debate looks weak doesn't it yeah okay so we don't want to back out but we don't want to go for a one-on-one debate what can we do um monetary problem but oh we can't do it now because we said we'd fund it but we can't uh that would look weak as well though wouldn't it oh dear my finances are rubbish bomb no not that extreme uh no great push his legs let's invite the other five candidates to debate spread the damage less likely you make a fool of yourself if there are seven people on stage so um the reagan camp just invite everyone else along the bush team were furious it's like no this turns bush into the

one candidate against reagan who was the forerunner at the start. So we don't like this. But they couldn't really do anything because this invite went out on the morning of the debate. Everything was very quick, fast-paced. Yeah. So Bush's team were furious, tried to fix things, but they couldn't fix it quick enough. The invites had gone out, the venue had accepted the change.

Okay, Bush was completely ambushed. Reagan and four other candidates turned up. The fifth one decided not to bother. They turned up at the venue, and then so did Bush. Very angry. And it still had not been decided exactly how the debate was going to play out. Oh, wow, okay. Yeah. It was all a bit chaos. Welcome to the debate. I think there may be questions. I have no idea. Yes, it's either two people or five people. Anyway, I mean, it starts, and Reagan starts off without warning

by explaining that he's invited the other candidates on because he wanted everyone to have a fair say. It's party unity. We're all Republicans here. Let's hear all of our opinions. Aren't I a good guy? The moderator of the debate, seeing that this is not in the plan,

what on earth's going on? No, no, no. So he shouted for the microphone to be shut off. Like, shut off Reagan's microphone. No, you cannot be saying this. The audience jeer. Reagan's popular. They don't want Reagan to be shut off.

Reagan attempted to carry on, and again, the moderator demanded the microphone to be shut off. And at this point, a visibly angry Reagan shouted, I paid for this microphone, Mr. Green. Now, this did a couple of things. This made everyone realise that Reagan was paying for the debate, which made it look like he was kind of in charge. Mr. Green, by the way, wasn't the moderator's name. It was Mr. Dean. So that just kind of put the moderator in his place and people found that amusing. But it also, in one soundbite,

made Reagan seem powerful and authoritative. He did not come across as whiny and annoyed. powerful and authoritative. He did not come across as whiny and annoyed. Maybe that's the way he said it. He was a trained actor after all. He said it, and it sounded good when he said it. There was uproar. The crowd, mostly, however, were lapping up this show of passion and drama.

There then was a debate over what the format of the debate would be. Exciting stuff. Reagan, during this, remained... Was this in front of the debate would be. Exciting stuff. Reagan, during this, remained... Was this in front of the audience? Yeah, yeah. So this is in front of the audience. Everything has just been publicly put out on display here. Yeah. And whilst this is happening,

Reagan is visibly very angry still. He's looking furious. One of his aides, worried that Reagan was about to storm off stage, got a piece of paper to Reagan. It's like, run on stage with this bit of paper, pass it to Reagan. The note essentially said, stay calm, seriously.

This is looking good for you, but if you storm off, you'll look like you can't control yourself. At this point, Reagan turned three quarters on the stage, so he was not facing the audience anymore. He found the face of the aide waiting in the wings and just gave the aide a nice wink. Reagan wasn't furious at all. Again. He found the face of the aide waiting in the wings, and just gave the aide a nice wink. Reagan wasn't furious at all.

He's acting! He's a trained actor. He knows how to work a crowd. He knows how to deal with these things. He's playing it perfectly. Now, eventually they decide on, no, it was agreed, Bush versus Reagan. No one else. So that's what

actually happens. There was a debate, just, Bush versus Reagan. No one else. So that's what actually happens. There was a debate, just the two of them. No one remembers it at all. They just remember Reagan getting passionate and angry at the start. So Reagan wins the debate without having to do anything to do with his political opinions or mapping out his vision for the country or anything whatsoever. He just came across as better so he went and it was seen as a turning point reagan was the forerunner from that moment

on and went on to win the primary by that time it was decided to offer bush the vice presidency nomination there's a bit of animosity between them at the point where i was talking about but by this time bush was actually more than happy to be vice president and because I don't have time to talk about him much later, the two of them actually get on really quite well. But Bush was the kind of vice president who went, yes, sir, you just tell me what to do. And Reagan liked that. So yeah, they choose Bush because it shores up the vote in Texas,

which had been won by Carter last election. And Texas, big population, carries a lot of electoral college votes. So if we can swing Texas using Bush, sounds good. Now, we kind of covered the election between Reagan and Carter in Carter's episode. It was dominated by the Iran hostage crisis, remember? Yes. But that didn't mean that other factors were not important. The economy is still a mess. Public confidence in Carter was through the floor. However, the public were worried about Reagan. It was clear to anyone paying attention that Reagan

would be the most extreme president in their lifetimes if he's elected. And to anyone who was not paying attention, wasn't he that actor? Really? What, president? Yeah, so, eh. Reagan had become the voice of conservatism nationally,

but he'd not necessarily broken through to everyone else as a sensible candidate for president. I guess it's like nowadays, like a reality TV star being named president would be that kind of ridiculous thing, wouldn't it? I suppose so, yeah, it would be a bit like that. But a bit further on, it'd be a bit like Nasty Nick from the first series of Big Brother running for prime minister. The only Big Brother I ever watched I'm actually able to name someone.

Never saw any of the others. Never seen it in my life. I watched the first series just because it was very new and interesting. A lot of people did. Yeah. And then I went, no, not for me. And then I stopped. Is it still on? Do they still do that are we still on

islands now i don't know anyway um so uh reagan he's got a base he's got a base that he's building that i've already mentioned and that's getting him a lot of votes and also carter's having a tough time of it that means the race is virtually neck and neck. And the election was not a clean one, as I talked about in the last episode. Reagan's campaign managed to steal Carter's notebook

before a debate. So Reagan was able to know exactly what the president was going to say, which kind of gave him the edge. You'd be unsurprised

to know that the public thought that he won that debate. Weird. Yeah. I mean, there's an argument to be said that if you're electing a president, you want a president who knows how to win a debate

no matter what. Yeah. Yeah. However, this falls under campaign tomfoolery compared to if you start looking into the fact that Reagan's campaign apparently got word to Iran. I did mention this last time. Reagan got word to Iran, keep the hostages until after the election reagan will be good for you just just keep them for a while

longer obviously utterly utterly reprehensible and awful this is a campaigning presidential nominee saying to a foreign power please keep my citizens for longer because it will do me some good. Yeah. That's a bit dodgy. It's one of the most dodgy things we've ever covered. I mean, not the most. We've covered some severely dodgy stuff, but it's really bad. I do feel I should say and stress, however, all of this is still officially denied.

But when one of the people who went on the trip with the message admitted to doing it yeah it's like the guy who went with the message went yeah i was there i saw it i don't have to deliver the message i have the message here in my hands look yeah and also then taken to the fact that it's exactly what iran did i mean as we covered last time they literally waited minutes after Carter had stopped being president to release those hostages. It was a clear message.

I'm just going to say it. I'm taking it as truth. I believe this happened. I know we've talked about conspiracy theories before, and I think some people claim that this is a conspiracy theory, but I'm taking this one as the truth. But I will keep stressing

that I don't know it's the truth. There were two House committees that looked into this allegation back in 93, by the way. So it's not a modern allegation. Those committees discovered that no foul play occurred whatsoever. So there you go. That's the official word. Yeah. Yeah.

Anyway, polls put Reagan ahead, but not by much. It's really close. In the end, it was Carter admitting publicly that the hostages would not be released before the election that really swung the poll numbers. As mentioned last time, most voters for Reagan said that they weren't voting for Reagan. They were voting against Carter.

We're talking over 50% here. That is a huge number to go. I didn't really care who I was voting for as long as it wasn't Carter. This was a, we don't like Carter. Yeah, that's going to give you a complex, isn't it? It really is, especially when Carter was literally one of the nicest guys ever to be president. Yeah.

Maybe we should put it here. Oh, we did get some pushback, not giving Carter Jeanne César. There were definitely some unhappy people. Jeanne César? Oh, wrong podcast. American. I think he should have had it. That's not what you said.

No, I definitely, definitely said he should have had it. Well, I said he should have had it, and you argued me down. That's what I remember. Nope. No? I don't remember that at all. Well, apparently we went against what we did for John Quincy Adams. Apparently we did take his post-presidency into consideration, and that affected our

decision so i don't know maybe we'll go to the knockout rounds and we'll we'll come back and we'll listen to john quincy adams and we'll see if we've been harsh on carter we could re-evaluate carter and i'm not ruling it out completely we did not at the end of the episode we didn't say one way or the other we just left it blank okay so we've not actually made an official ruling there but i don't know i feel like we might have been right you know anyway that's a uh that's by the by um carter lost he lost the election only 25 percent of voters at the time deemed this result as i quote a mandate for a more conservative policy the the public were not crying out for a more conservative government they were crying out for less carter but regardless that is what the u.s were going to get because not only did reagan win oh he won in a landslide the way that the uh it actually fell

in the end 489 electoral college votes to 49 oh my god that is a just absolutely destroyed carter we we have not seen wins like this since the early days when the system was different when he's washington versus nobody yes exactly uh even then nobody picked up at least 52 votes uh yeah no um the senate by the way went republican for the first time since 1954 and the Democratic control of the House was significantly lowered so it's looking good for the Republicans and remember this is so soon

after Watergate they managed to turn themselves around so quickly the Democrats must have been looking at themselves going what the hell has just happened we had an open goal yeah we can be in power for the next hundred years what the hell has just happened. We had an open goal. Yeah. We could be in power for the next hundred years.

Yeah. Reagan delivered his inaugural address. By the way, first one ever given on the West Front rather than the East Front of the Capitol. So yes, that's right. Every time that you have been imagining the inaugural address in all the other episodes and you've been picturing them standing facing the washington monument apparently not oh i'll admit when doing my research this was the first time i realized

they only shifted it this late okay they're on the other side of the capitol building apparently oh yeah did they tell the crowd maybe that's why they swapped him maybe the crowd went to the wrong place and they had to shuffle around. No, actually, the reason why they shuffled round was to save money. Someone who I can only assume got a gold star that day pointed out that you do realise if we go to the other side of the building, we don't need to build a stage because we could just do the inauguration on the terrace. It's like a natural stage. That'll save us loads of money.

Brilliant. Someone said to Sensible Samuel. Samuel, by the way, has been trying to get this message across for the last 100 years yeah he sits down and weeps that someone's finally listened to him thank you that's a whole 20 dollars saved but once they made the decision to move uh to the west front it was one of those why on earth haven't we always done this moments yeah because reagan was able to give his inaugural address and then point to the lincoln and washington memorials whilst he was doing it and also the crowd could be far larger because they could be on the mall it just made

so much more sense so yeah and from then on that's where they've been sort of with one exception that we're coming to anyway within minutes of being president as we said word comes in the hostages have been released reagan's got his first win he's already done what carter couldn't not even entered the white house yet i like to think he just finished off his speech got a microphone in his pocket and went release the hostages he's finished his speech with just a countdown and it will be a brighter day for america three two one and then a banner comes down hostages released yeah it's probably like that yeah yeah don't look into that that's definitely true well what did happen actually afterwards is all the parties began

so many parties lots of celebration tickets to the various celebrations, by the way, were on average $500 each. This was compared to Carter's tickets, which were $25. Yeah, the event gathered criticism as being in celebration of the wealthy for the wealthy. Well, yeah. The whole

party of the people now image took a little bit of a hit that night as Washington just filled with very very rich people celebrating day one yeah some claim that this was hypocritical from a man who had campaigned that he was going to make the average man's lives better uh some however argued that this was a show of strength to the world got a new person in charge of course you want lots of wealth and display and yeah we're not a poor declining country. We're on the rise.

We're the world's most powerful country. So that was the argument either side. Either way, the debate was cut short when Reagan was shot. Oh, clown! Yay, there we go. Yes, or maybe not a clown, but someone. Yes, he was shot and he died. The end.

Right, so let's rate him right oh jamie it's a ruse it's a ruse he doesn't die oh oh you become the first president to be shot and not die two months into his presidency he delivered a speech at the washington hilton that's right jamie it's the hotel from the start with the the clown. With the clown. Maybe not a clown, but with the clown. The venue was a well-secured hotel. It was, it had a good screening process. There was no way to get in or out without being thoroughly searched. So safe was

the venue, it was decided that Reagan didn't even need to wear a bulletproof vest. However, for some reason, the plan from the Secret Service had not included keeping the crowd away once Reagan exited the hotel. Of course. No, so it was like a little bit of a journey between the door and the car where the crowd could actually be really close. One man, John Hinckley, stood in the crowd.

He was a man just wiping off a bit of pale makeup and putting a small red nose in his pocket. Yes, this was John Hinckley. John Hinckley had an obsession with Jodie Foster, and he had seen Taxi Driver recently and decided that, like Robert De Niro, if he planned to kill a prominent politician, Jodie Foster would notice him. So he was on some... He fell off the deep end, let's say.

Yeah. Yeah, let's say that. He was not in a good way. Let's say that. Yeah. Put aside any idea that Reagan was attacked for his political views. No, we are not going down that road. This is someone who was delusional.

Anyway, Reagan leaves the hotel, and as he passed Hinckley, Hinckley pulled out his gun. His gun held six rounds, six explosive rounds. They're the ones that explode, aren't they? They're the ones that explode on impact. Oh! Yeah. Small calibre,.22.

I know my guns. I've seen enough TV programmes to know that that's the small calibre type of bullets, though. Yeah. It's weird. I always find it weird. It's like, you know, it got a 9mm. It's like, you're using millimetres. Why?

It should be like 7 16ths of an inch. Oh, that's a very good point. They're using the Imperials. Yes. The metric. That's never occurred to me. Look at them getting all metric with their bullets. I know. However, it never occurred to me. Look at them getting all metric with their bullets. I know.

However, it never occurred to me. Slippery so towards socialism. That's what Reagan would say. It's probably what he thought when he saw the bullets. Yeah. Anyway, these small caliber, but might I remind you, explosive rounds were fired from a distance of only 15 feet and six bullets were fired. The first bullet, are you following it in bullet time?

Yes. Okay. Full matrix. It's left the gun. It shoots through the air. It hits Press Secretary James Brady in the head. Ooh. Ooh.

Nasty. Outlook isn't good. It's not good. Oh, actually, better than you might expect, he survived. Oh. He was not killed by this, but he was severely disabled by it. He was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and had speech for the rest of his life.

He went on, by the way, to campaign for tighter gun laws. You might be shocked to learn. Yeah. Anyway, no time for that now. The second bullet has left the gun. Are you following it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. This one rips through the air and hits a police officer in the neck. Oh. Ow. The officer, by the way, was only there because his police dog was ill. Oh. Yeah. He was a police dog officer.

A dog handler. He had a dog. Like Turner and Hooch, that famous film. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um anyway the dog was ill so it's like he was on duty and he volunteered for the guard duty of the president cushy number yeah uh turned out not so cushy the bullet hit his neck but the bullet did not explode defective that's good yes in fact when in the hospital the doctors had to wear bulletproof

vests just in case the bullet exploded when they were trying to remove it. By the way, this police officer went on to sue the gun manufacturer. He lost. He definitely lost. Anyway, no time for that. By this point, one of the secret servicemen, in fact, the guy in charge, had started to bundle Reagan into the nearby limousine. By this time, Hinckley fired his third shot. Follow this one.

Yeah. Go past a shocked-looking man and maybe a granny dropping some bread or something, and it just flies off somewhere. It misses everyone, doesn't hit a thing. Good. The fourth shot hit a secret service man named Tim McCarthy. Tim McCarthy stood in front of Reagan. By this time, he'd realised what's going on, Tim McCarthy stood in front of Reagan. By this time, he'd realised what's going on,

so he stood in front of Reagan, he made himself big, he was taking a bullet for the president like you're supposed to. I didn't think this would actually happen, he thought. Well, this bullet also did not explode as it was designed to. The bullet ricocheted inside him and went through his lung, diaphragm and liver. Ooh. Yeah.

McCarthy, by the way, was only on duty that day because he'd lost a coin toss with a colleague. Oh, I bet his colleague's laughing. Could have been me. McCarthy survived and made a recovery. Yeah. He later became a police chief and then got into politics as a Democrat.

Yeah. Yeah. So that's nice. The fifth shot, by the way, we're now on the fifth out of six, so keep following those bullets. This one went past him, McCarthy, and hit the bulletproof window

of the open limousine car door. Right. So it just smacks into that. No one's hit. By this time, Reagan has been bundled into the car with the lead security lying on top of him, shouting, go, go, go.

The sixth bullet hits the car door, ricochets off, and manages to miss the security man on top of Reagan and hits Reagan in his left underarm, ricochets, hits a rib, and then lodges into Reagan's lung less than an inch from his heart. Oh.

Yes. By the way, Jamie, all of that took 1.7 seconds. To fire six bullets? Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. That was eight, but I could edit two of those out, so I don't sound stupid. Hang on. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Hang on, I'm going to put a timer on. Okay. Stopwatch, okay? Tell me when to go. could edit two of those out so i don't sound stupid hang on bang bang bang bang bang hang

on i'm gonna put a timer on okay stop watch okay tell me when to go three two one go bang bang bang bang bang 1.46 yes you could do it you can do it see science can't argue with the science so when the podcast goes south which you could argue it already has we could just get into uh get into forensics jamie that's what we can do because i do a crime podcast they're always popular yeah yeah that's what we do um yeah so yeah it's just less than two seconds all this happens in the next moments the limo drives off hinkley was jumped on and beaten uh one secret service man pulls an uzi out of his briefcase just in case yeah okay i mean that makes so much sense but for some reason it just doesn't seem it's not my image of the secret service i think cool collect it pulls out a pistol and checks your six that kind of thing not just

scrambling to pull an Uzi out your briefcase and just start spraying the walls. What's the combination for this briefcase again? Yeah, anyway. Is it 111 or 222? How do you spell password with numbers? Anyway, meanwhile, in the limo, Reagan was in a lot of pain. I'm not surprised.

Well, he didn't know why. I mean, yeah, no one knew he'd been shot. He assumed that he'd broken a rib after being pushed into the limo, because to Reagan, someone jumped on top of him, pushed him in and landed on top of him, and then as he was lying down, he felt something in his chest. He was being laid on top by that point. You wouldn't think it was a bullet, would you?

Yeah, so he's in pain. He thinks he's broken a rib. The limo starts off towards the White House, but when it became clear that Reagan was coughing up blood, they diverted to the hospital. They assumed that he had broken a rib and that rib had punctured his lung. So within four minutes of the shooting, amazingly,

they were at the hospital. This was so quick, the hospital did not have time to get a stretcher out. So Reagan got out of the limo and walked unassisted, smiling, grimacing, to some people who happened to be there from the public with a kind of wave,

and just walks into the hospital. And as soon as he gets inside, he just collapses to one knee. That is pretty badass. That is pretty badass. You've got to admit it it's pretty badass it was at this point that he realized he'd been shot i've been shot so he was rushed to surgery reagan joked to the doctors as he's being wheeled in i quote i hope you are all republicans

which again got a bit of a good line. And then one of the doctors replied, because, I mean, he'd obviously been practising smart replies. Today, Mr President, we are all Republicans. And then everyone stopped and then held to the chief plate and then everyone high-fived. And then they went, oh, we're meant to be doing surgery. Banner dropped down, balloons.

Yeah, exactly. Confessing. Good time. Good time to be doing surgery. Banner dropped down balloons. Yeah, exactly. Confessing. Good time. Good time to be an American. Anyway, the president's blood pressure dropped from 140 to 60. This is enough to kill. Reagan was close to death. If they'd taken longer to get to the hospital,

or if that bullet had just gone a little bit more, he would have died. But Reagan pulled through. The surgery was clean and efficient, and it went well enough for the doctors to quickly be able to say, actually, he'll be out of hospital in a couple of weeks. Getting shot's never good. But if you're gonna get shot,

being shot by this type of bullet that didn't explode actually meant for one of the better recovery times you could hope for. As you can imagine, the whole thing did Reagan the world of good politically. Yes. I bet he you can imagine, the whole thing did Reagan the world of good politically. Yes.

I bet he set it up, didn't he? Well, the public were still not sold on this man despite the landslide election. They were glad Carter wasn't there

but who is this Reagan? But this happening just a handful of weeks into his presidency made sure that there was an outpouring of public support. No one in

their 70s is going to be able to shake off a gunshot wound, but like I say, you could have had a worse gunshot wound, and Reagan was back on his feet and in the White House remarkably quickly. So he starts getting on running the country, and he did this in a very similar way to being the governor. One of the criticisms against him by his opponents had always been that he didn't really know what he was doing. He was light on detail, big in cliches, which arguably is true. But if you remember, when governor, he also knew that he didn't need to know the details

because he could just hire people who did. So he often, in fact, wouldn't give details to his subordinates about what he wanted to do. He believed that his public statements were enough for them to figure it out. Which I read and thought, that's interesting. I wonder how Reagan would have dealt with Twitter and whether it would have been a case of,

well, I sent a tweet about it, so come on, guys, keep up. I kind of get the feeling it might have been a little bit similar to that. As president, he expected his people to know what would be expected from them without express direction. Read my mind! Well, he also expected them to get it done, and if they didn't, they were out. Mostly, this actually worked really well.

He delegated and people figured out what he wanted. Although some aides did get frustrated by the lack of direction and feedback. One remarked that they just wanted to know whether he was helping or not. Am I doing a good job? But he wasn't able to find out. Reagan was like this with everyone, apparently stony-faced, giving little away. One thing Aids soon realised, though, it turned out that Reagan was the kind of guy who would believe people very quickly. They soon realised that if he had the magazine Human Events in his pile in the morning, things could escalate quickly that day, because he believed what was in that magazine. Now, Human Events was a very right-wing magazine

that, to put it bluntly, was more propaganda than reporting. It had a reputation in Washington to be unreliable, shall we say. It was not a magazine... So it was a bit like the modern-day Breitbart kind of thing? Yeah, it was not a magazine that serious politicians read, but it was a bit like the modern day Breitbart kind of thing? Yeah, it was not a magazine that serious politicians read, but it was a magazine that the right faction of the GOP read. But now that faction were the serious politicians because they've taken over the party. So the aides, however, started just hiding the magazine from him

because they realised it got Reagan a little bit riled and a bit unfocused that day which is interesting anyway if these were his negatives however they were definitely positives and they were just what you'd expect he could charm people no problem he was able to compromise even if he was annoyed at doing it

he was not stuck in his ways if he realised he had to back down on stuff he would once he was set up and recovered from the shooting Reagan started to look into what he wanted to do in his ways. If he realised he had to back down on stuff, he would. Once he was set up and recovered from the shooting, Reagan started to look into what he wanted to do in his first term. Essentially, it was nothing short of dismantling the ideals of the New Deal and turn to capitalism to solve the country's problems. But what's that look like? Well, there were three main goals. Well, they can sort it out. Well, three main goals, and this is what Reagan made sure was clear.

We have three main goals. You guys make sure this gets done. Number one, you can probably guess number one. More nuclear weapons. Yes. Well, I've put that as number three, but that's definitely one of the three. Yeah. I've put it as restore US domination militarily in the world. It's not necessarily nuclear weapons.

We just need to be the power. That's number one. Number two? Little government, big state. Little government, yes. Make the government as small as possible. Get powers to the states. Yeah.

And number three, his favourite thing to talk about. Lower taxes. Lower taxes. There you go. You got all three. You know Reagan's mind. Yeah. Well done, three for three.

I am Reagan. Well, he made it very clear that these were his focuses to begin with. Coolidge's portrait, by the way, was moved to a more prominent position to show this. Good old Coolidge with his low taxes and small government, thought Reagan. This is the way. What a guy. Yeah. This annoyed some of his supporters.

Not the moving of the painting. The focusing on tax, government and the military. Because remember, a lot of the moral right, shall we say, they'd hoped for more on things like abortion and traditional family values. Reagan didn't seem interested in that stuff. Big picture. Yeah. The first act of Reagan was to use an executive order to remove oil and gas price controls. Remember, Carter brought these in.

Oil and gas is hugely expensive. Let's put a cap on how much they can charge. Reagan just removed them. This hadn't been done before because the fear was the companies will then just rise the price, making it even harder for the public. Much to the annoyance of the Democrats, that didn't happen. Increased production led to lower prices as imports went down. Actually, prices went down. Reagan put a tick in the win column.

He called it. He got it right. He was able to say his ideas were better than anything the Democrats could do, and it was hard to argue with him on this one. He got that call right. But as the House was Democrat-led uh if he wanted to do anything big working on his big three he was going to have to work with a democrat speaker of the house this man was tip o'neill good irish name there uh yes well he's the democrat speaker and the two met tip was as condescending as many had been to re in the past. In fact, I'll quote Tip here, you're in the big leagues now, he said to Reagan.

Yeah, condescending. He was obviously in his mind talking to an ex-movie star rather than a president. O'Neill, by the way, believed that the government's job was to help the citizens most in need and viewed Reagan as nothing short as a class traitor. Polar opposites, politically. However, Tip O'Neill might be the more seasoned politician,

but Reagan was far more media savvy, and the Democrats may have had the House, but a lot of the Democrats in the House were actually still conservatives. The Democrats hadn't fully shifted at this point, and a fair few of the Democrats actually agreed with Reaganagan on a lot of stuff so that's interesting and uh the president and the speaker knew that yeah the democrats have the house but do the liberals have the house or do the conservatives and those two were not the same thing no when the first administration backed budget went through to vote 63 democrats crossed the floor to vote with the Republicans.

Reagan had proved that he could get stuff through the House. He could get it past O'Neill, even if the Democrats technically have control. So with this, feeling like he's on a roll, Reagan started testing the waters for other things he could do to reduce government spending. He reached out to House Democrats personally,

individually inviting them to meetings, parties, all sorts, talking to them one-on-one. Yeah, convincing them of his conservative goals. And he was targeting the conservative Democrats. And, oh, it worked. An omnibus bill passed with 29 Democrats crossing the floor. This bill was the largest scaling back of government in America's history.

Reagan announced, very proudly, that he had just saved the country $140 billion over the next three years. That's a chunk of change. Oh, it certainly is. So where were these savings coming from? How had Reagan just managed to save so much money? It's like Social Security and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah.

To put it bluntly, it was the poor, Jamie. It was very much the poor. This bill meant that 400,000 families would lose all welfare assistance another 300 000 families would see theirs cut dramatically one million people estimated would lose food stamps an estimated million children would no longer have lunch at schools provided for them. 700,000 pupils would lose financial support at university. A billion dollars earmarked for medical support was just simply taken away. Wow. That sounds very inhumane. It was ripping apart the New Deal in one swoop. ripping apart the New Deal in one swoop. The government is no longer here for you.

You're on your own. But now you're on your own, you're going to be far, far more likely to make something of yourself. It's the American dream. Yeah, literally millions of American citizens found themselves worse off than they had ever been in their lives overnight. And life had been hard recently.

And then suddenly the support was taken away from them. But Reagan got a lot of support. Many saw it as a good way to make the lazy work and also all that money was being saved. That's gotta be a good thing, hasn't it? You say things like 140 billion savings. That's gotta be good, yeah? Sounds good. Meanwhile, spending on the military shot through the roofs, far, far outstripping how much was being saved from the budget reforms.

So the government were not actually saving anything. They were just pouring it into the military. Reagan had kept things simple. The larger the Pentagon budget, the better the American military was. Let's not get any more complex than that. So let's increase the Pentagon budget by 5% more than Carter. That's what he campaigned on. blunder one that made me stop in my research and just go oh wow just wow so just to be clear here reagan had promised five percent more spending on the military and with the military's budget that is an astronomical sum yeah however the reagan administration once in power had missed the fact that carter had upped the pentagon budget by roughly that amount just before leaving.

Oh. Oh. Yeah. So instead of just leaving it and going, there you go, Pentagon, you've got 5% more, they put another 5% on top. The Pentagon, not believing their luck, it's like, what, we've just had two 5% bumps in a row? They immediately went to work on allocating all of those funds to essential projects.

Of course, it's essential. Don't take this. No, you promised. You promised. Pinky promise. Do not take this money back. Obviously, someone spotted it fairly soon afterwards. This was a huge, huge blunder.

Yeah. And once the White House realised the error, it was too late to reverse. Taking money away from the military would be against everything that Reagan had campaigned from, so he couldn't do it. He might have got away with saying, I don't need to put it up because Carter did, because Carter only did it because I said I'd do it and actually this was me. He could have spun that.

But he can't take an extra five off once he's given it. So this means that the aim of balancing the deficit has been destroyed. Reagan wanted the deficit equal. His whole idea is we don't spend as much, we don't give out as much, and the government is staying level.

Oh, yeah. Oh, and by the way, why are the army wearing, like, Armani uniforms all of a sudden? Yeah, exactly. Why does every soldier have a butler? Yeah, so just like that, with someone just not looking into something carefully enough.

Wow. That's it. It's all messed up. The deficit's not going to be able to be balanced out. It really shows that details matter. Yeah. Reagan looked at the list of three things and reminded those around him, actually, the deficit, it's something that I believe in. I want it to be balanced. But is it on the board?

He pointed to the board just behind him with his three big things on that was sat there. Lionel perched to one side reading the big three things stroking his beard. What with? He doesn't have hands. He's a lamb. Reagan's hired someone to stroke Lionel's beard. Nice.

It's all very fancy in the White House right now yeah Reagan says it's like look look at what Lionel's butler's pointing to

the deficit's not there but the military being mighty is and okay this was a mistake and we shouldn't have done it but actually

put a tick next to the military being the most mighty military because we have certainly spent enough on the military now and more

now it's 10% more mighty as well. Yeah, excellent. So big tick. There we go. That's one done. Right, okay, what's next? We've slashed government to levels unheard of in this country's history. We have the military spending through the roof and then some.

The money is being stacked on top of the roof now. So what's next? Ah, yes, it's my favourite, says Reagan. Tax. The largest tax cut in American history. Named the Economic Recovery Tax Act, this was going to be the big one. O'Neill and the Democrats in the House by this point had learnt their lesson, however. They saw this coming. Everyone saw this coming. Reagan was all about tax cuts. Reagan could and would get an insane tax reform through the House if he wanted to. They've done it before.

So how can we fight this, the Democrats thought. So they decided, let's take the sting out by putting forth our own tax cut idea first. We'll propose something, and then it will be taken on board by the Republicans, and then we'll start from a base that is more reasonable rather than Reagan's insane nonsense that he's clearly going to come up with.

So what can we put in there that is reasonable? Okay, let's get the top band of tax down from 70% to 50%. Let's put that in there. No, we don't like it, thought the Democrats, but it's got to be better than anything that Reagan comes up with. So they suggest that. Reagan hears this and could not believe his luck. Because he had already decided that asking to go from 70% down to 50%

for the top band of tax was actually too much too soon and would be seen as giving money to the rich. There are the Democrats coming to him and proposing it because they are so scared that he's going to go even further. Yes, I agree. Great, thinks Reagan. So he just goes along with it, essentially. The bill that was finally put through

was one that Reagan was very, very happy with. Again, a large chunk of the Democrats crossed the floor and voted for it. The majority of Democrats, however, were in despair by this point. One said at the time, I'll quote here, we haven't really laid a glove on Reagan. His philosophical approach is superficial, overly simplistic, one-dimensional. What he preaches is pure economic pap, glossed with uplifting homilies, an inspirational character. And yet so far, the guy is making it work. Appalled by what seems to me a lack of depth, I stand in awe of his political skill. I'm not sure I've ever seen its equal. So we're seeing a bit more of what we saw when he was governor.

No, the guy didn't have attention to detail, but he knew how to get stuff done. Things just seemed to work around him. And we've been calling him lucky a lot, but I don't know, maybe he's got the magic touch. Within a year, Reagan was able to tick off all three of his aims. One year.

That is... That is impressive. No matter what your political biases are, that is good. Yeah, and if you are a Conservative and you voted for him in because you agreed with these policies, you are loving things at the moment. Everything is going great. If you were worried about

this guy coming in, you are having a miserable time. Anyway, what now? Well, the pesky unions were getting in the way. Air traffic controllers had gone on strike, and they were asking for an unprecedented pay rise of $10,000. Wow. Plus 10% on top of that a year later. This was asking a lot.

No, that is for the early 80s, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's where we are. Yeah. That's a ton of money. That's almost an extra grand a right? Yeah. Yeah, that's where we are. Yeah. That's a ton of money. That's almost an extra grand a month. Almost. Yeah, exactly.

And in retrospect, this was too big an ask. The public did not get behind it. Most saw the job of air traffic control as being fairly easy and fairly well paid already. Get to sit in an office and look at a computer screen and you get paid lots of money for it. Now, obviously, if you're an air traffic controller, you'll be fuming at that characterisation of your job because you will know it's far more complex and much harder than that. But that was the public perception.

So the president was able to use this public displeasure to really crack down. He ordered the strikers back to work or they would all be fired. Well, the union thought, whatever, no way you're going to do that. No, because you can't replace everybody. That'd be fired. Well, the union thought, whatever, no way you're going to do that. No, because you can't replace everybody. That'd be ridiculous. Yeah, and our economy relies on all these planes flying around in our air. We've got planes all over the place. Within weeks,

11,000 personnel had been fired. Wow. This was over half of the union. The union was more than decimated. Decimated times five, and a bit more. I guess, though, that adds job opportunities for people as well. Well, yes, at the same time,

thanks to drafting the military to begin with, 80% of the planes were still operating. They managed to keep the planes mostly in the air. Now, this is a huge gamble. If a single plane had crashed during this time, it would have been over for Reagan. He would have lost this fight, because he would have taken the blame for the loss of lives. No plane crashed. Fortunately,

no lives were lost. The union was crushed. Big advertising campaign then starts, and like you say, jobs. And within a month, all 11,000 jobs were filled. All new staff, by the way, had signed something in their contract that they would not join a union. This was the biggest victory against a union for a president since the Gilded Age. Many took note, and across the country, companies start cracking down on unions, knowing that if worse comes to worse, the president will have our backs. Rapidly, workers' rights decline across the country. The weak economy meant that there was always people willing to take up new jobs without being part of the union. For the first time in a

very long time, we start seeing decline in rights. However, the poor economy was hurting Reagan in other areas. The poor economy meant it found it easier to win the fight against the strikers, but in other areas it made it tricky. The fact was the White House had

started to do some sums, probably the same group of people who had missed the 5% hike in the Pentagon. Yeah, it turns out now we've actually gone over them a couple more times. What we're spending is not level to the amount that we are bringing in thanks to the loss in tax revenue.

In fact, quite staggeringly so. Oh. Time to introduce here, David Stockman Hey, it's David Stockman The youngest cabinet appointee In over 100 years He's 34, Jamie And he is now the Director of the Office of Management and Budget

What are you, Jamie? Are you that? No, I'm a primary school teacher Exactly Well, Stockman The young genius that he was, he had worked with Reagan to get elected. He often acted as Carter in the debate prep

where they stole Carter's book. It was Stockman reading that book to get the ideas. Nice. Stockman had views on the economy, shall we say. These views on the economy often lined up with Reagan's. So, like I say, he was put in as director of the Office of Management and Budget, the OMB, and he is known as the father of Reaganomics. Reaganomics.

Reaganomics, possibly more known as trickle-down economy now, but that is an oversimplification. Oh, bad, bad. It's bad, it never works. Maybe we've just not tried hard enough, Jamie. Reagan had been telling everyone for years that his plan would sort out america's problems overnight but the problem was despite all the reforms he'd done so far his administration was spending 44 billion more than it was making reagan's idea was we don't spend much we don't tax much but it turns out they were

still spending and they weren't taxing much. They needed to find money from somewhere. In fact, they needed to find 44 billion. Stockman suggested social security. Let's target that again. Usually this is seen as untouchable. You touch that, you're out the next election. But Reagan believed, well, we've already done some reform in this area. In fact, we've done the largest reform we have in American history, and people seem to be behind us. So get out the knives, guys. Let's cut away at Social Security some more, shall we? A task force was set up,

and it came up with a Social Security reform that would save the government $110 billion over just a handful of years. Easily cover that 44. Reagan, brilliant. I love it. Go for it. This time, however, Reagan had become overconfident.

He hadn't done his homework. He hadn't laid the groundwork in the Senate. The Senate were blindsided by this and angered that Reagan was just doing things without consulting them. Every one of them voted against it, Republicans and Democrats alike. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, okay. That against it, Republicans and Democrats alike. Oh, wow.

Okay, that's not going anywhere, thinks Reagan. So he goes back to Stockman. Right, that's not going to work. What else can we do? So Stockman says, okay, what about we scale back some of that tax reform that we did? At that point, Reagan turns around and looks at his big three and his

big three ticks. There's a tick on the board. Don't want to take that tick down. Stockman points out, well, if we just scale it... I don't have to punch you in the face. If we just scale it back a bit, not much, just a bit, then we can plug that $44 billion hole. Here's an idea, said Stockman. Let's just give the businesses and the top tax earners the breaks

and no one else. We can do the rest later on on let's just give the rich the tax breaks and that way the people who are likely to finance our next campaign will still finance us and we will plug the the deficit this is sounding very modern well in stopman's eyes this is the perfect uh idea after all the top rate tax was the real goal here. He later admitted in his words to a journalist that the tax form bill was, I quote, a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate. In Stockman's eyes, giving tax breaks to the poor was not a goal for the Reagan administration whatsoever. They were just using it.

Reagan, however, to his credit or to his discredit, depending on what your beliefs are with tax, refused to consider this. In fact, I'll quote, Now, what Stockman hadn't really understood, and what we've seen glimpses of before, is Reagan, when it comes to tax, is a true believer. When he said everyone should pay less tax, he said everyone should pay less tax, he meant everyone should pay less tax, not just the rich,

which was not the same as what most of his aides thought. No. Those around him thought, oh, we're just saying that, aren't we? It's just a thing. Yeah, we say that to get the votes. No, Reagan meant it it apparently uh he refused to go with this i've got a tick on that board i'm not touching those tax reforms okay so stockman

takes a big sigh and then looks at the next one on the list okay well what about the midlatory budget we spent far too much there why don't we just take some of that back reagan at that point yes reagan at that point just taps at the big tick again. No, that's a big tick on the board. It's not coming down. So the government balance sheet reached an unprecedented level at this point. A $128 billion deficit in 81, and then a $207 billion deficit in 83. Now, these were unprecedented for the time.

Utterly unprecedented. The $128 was the first time it had gone over 100 billion, and the next year it was the first time it went over 200 billion. The government have no money, and they are getting deeper and deeper into debt. This is completely against what Reagan has said he's always believed in. He had complained on the fact that Carter's much smaller deficits had caused price instability and had damaged the country. I mean, this was an embarrassment for him, and things were only

getting worse. So, in the end, Stockman decides there's only one thing they can do. What are they going to do? In the next election, get somebody else in. No, no, you need to show that you're saving money, but you cannot actually physically

bring any more money in or save any money there's only one thing you can do jamie cheat lower the expense on okay cheat cheat i'm saying buy less pencils for the the government no no in stockman's own words cook the books oh okay fraud yeah it's not fraud when government does it, Jamie. It's politics. Domestic spending cuts were simply invented out of nothing, and revenue was overestimated by over 10%. Out and out lying, the White House managed to get the next year's deficit forecast to under 100 billion.

We're going in the right direction. It's coming down. Yeah. Still not good enough for capitol hill uh the democrats cried that this is runaway gifts to the rich that have been going on so far is what's causing the deficit you have cut all the taxes the tax reforms by the way were tax reforms to everyone but they were heavily weighted towards the top earners and the businesses. The richer you were, the more you benefited. The Democrats pointed this out and then pointed out that the government have no money.

Maybe the rich should be paying a little bit more, they said. The Republicans were also very unhappy. They were unhappy that this unprecedented level of deficit was not under control. Even based on the false figures, they weren't happy. God knows what they would have thought if they'd seen the real figures at the time. So Reagan was forced to compromise. Plans were put into place to reduce the deficit. Mostly it came from rolling back on Reagan's tax cuts.

Reagan let a solitary tear out his eye as Lionel's butler rubbed out the tick and that's to tax. Yeah. The Tax Equality and Fiscal Responsibility Act was enacted. as Lionel's butler rubbed out the tick and that's to tax. Yeah. The Tax Equality and Fiscal Responsibility Act was enacted. The largest peacetime tax increase in American history. So who raised taxes higher than anyone else in American peacetime history? Yes, that's right. It's Ronald Reagan. Yes.

This was putting a lot of the stuff he'd taken away, putting it back on. As you can imagine, Reagan very unhappy about this. But as we've seen before, he knows how to make the most of things. Yeah. He managed to convince a lot of the public that this was all the Democrats' fault. He was only going along with this as a compromise. If it was up to him, all of your tax would be lower. You saw what I tried to push through.

But those Democrats have brought back the tax. So next election, remember whose fault this is. Yeah, that worked on a lot of people. Excuse me, sir, aren't you the President of the House and the Senate, though? Shh, have him killed. That man was dragged away. But that man wasn't alone. By this time, his opinion poll had dropped to 40%.

It was 57% the year before. Yeah, he's starting to become very unpopular. In fact, when midterms were all around, the economy still struggling, he was unable to help prevent losing a large number of seats in the House. As it happened, the Senate seats up to grabs were all safe ones, so they managed to keep the Senate, but that was more luck than anything else, and everyone knew it. After the midterms, which were seen as very much a win for the Democrats,

the projection for the next couple of years was bleak. The deficit projections were now running over 200 billion. There was no way to square the numbers. Reaganomics was a failure. One opinion poll said at the time that over 60% of people said they were more than happy to spend less on the military to plug that gap seriously we're spending too much on the military over 60 percent of people said they were happy to pay more tax to plug that gap seriously we are not doing

the right thing here reagan started to waver the economy is going to fall over if it keeps like this and not just according to his enemies, according to everything he believes in, having this high deficit is awful. And he is in charge, and he's got the highest one in the country's history. Something's got to give. And just then, Jamie, just when he needed it the most,

what's that on the White House lawn? It's a little pot of luck. Oh, of course. Of course it is. Of course it is. Yeah. As we have covered many times, the boom and bust cycles of the economy

in a capitalist society is complex. It's hard to predict. It's a hard thing to fully understand. Even professors who know a lot about this stuff disagree with each other. Yeah. One thing we have kind of covered a few times though is it's uh very rarely the person who is in the white house having an effect on the economy short term um yeah

anyway the country was about to enter a boom period it's just gone through a bus period it's about to enter a boom period and this boom period is going to last twice as long as any other post-war boom. From 83 to 88, the economy rose on average 4.2% every year. Wow. Yeah. This is over 90 months of constant solid growth.

Now, if you were rich enough to have investments, they went up by, on average, 58% over this period of time. Wow. wow yeah and if you were like most people in the country too poor to have investments then inflation stayed down roughly 3.5 on average the whole time so prices weren't going up unemployment plummeted because the economy was going up jobs were being created. In other words, everyone suddenly started feeling a bit richer and a bit happier. And with the economy

suddenly finding its feet, people stopped caring about the deficit. It's still there. It's still at unprecedented levels, but, yeah, so what? Who cares? We're making money. And that's true. It's like, if you're a regular person just getting a job but you're getting money,

it's like, I don't care about deficit. That means nothing to me. If you're going through a hard time a job but you're getting money, I don't care about deficit. That means nothing to me. If you're going through a hard time and you know that the government has this huge deficit and it's getting worse, you're going to blame the government for your ills. But if you're happy, then you are happy to let things roll. The Democrats accused Reagan of keeping the deficit deliberately high as an excuse to keep cutting back government spending.

I can't pay for anything because the deficit's so high. Meanwhile, business was good. People generally felt richer. So with Reagan with a big tick on cutting back on big government and a big tick next to his military and a half-robbed out tick on his tax reform, Reagan was able to sit back and start feeling that maybe, just maybe, he was going to be able to turn this one around. And that, Jamie, is where we will leave it today. Ooh. Yeah.

Interesting. You haven't even mentioned Margaret Thatcher either. Well, I was meant to have mentioned Margaret Thatcher this episode, but a couple of things happened this week which meant that I wasn't actually able to finish this episode. This wasn't where I was planning to leave. I was going to get to the end of his first term, and I was going to have a bit of Thatcher in there as well. But I'm going to have to try and squeeze that into the next episode instead, which is fine. I think that's fine. But did you also notice, Jamie, that I was just born? when were you born because i said between 83 and 88 i have just

covered a time period on this podcast where i am alive me too i was 87 so yeah we're both alive now jeremy not not fully because we're not well we're sort of we're sort of half alive because we're not really covered that time period yet but we're starting to talk around it so we've been mentioned yeah yeah i'm guessing the cloud coverage over the england suddenly happened and lightning strikes eagles circled snakes bit people is it a coincidence that roughly the time we were born uh everything started to look good in the economy yes um but then you can also argue that that's also true with reagan's policies uh but we can debate that another time yeah so what impact did we have on the american economy um is he's absolutely suited for this job in a way. The way he can sweet talk. I think the little details are a problem for him. He relies, I think, maybe to rely on luck and circumstance of,

ah, it was me. You've got to hand it to him, though. Yeah. He gets stuff done. Yeah. And he keeps getting stuff done. Yeah. I am understanding why he is held in such high regard. Yeah. And he keeps getting stuff done. Yeah. I am understanding why he is held in such high regard.

Yeah. Sorry, I interrupted you saying exactly the same thing. Yeah. I agree with me saying what you were about to say. Yeah, I can see it. I don't think I'm giving too much away by the way I've been talking about things. I don't necessarily agree with him politically with a lot of things, but got to hand it to the guy.

He's getting stuff done. Yeah. And you can understand why people that aren't liberal and are more conservative would kind of go, well, but this works because it works. Well, look at the oil price. Yeah. That worked.

And the economy's turned around. Yeah. There's a big argument to be saying boom and bust and really actually this came along and saved him

rather than the other way round but that's one argument. There was also the argument on the other side. Anyway, we're getting far too much

into debate. We've still got one episode left. So we're going to leave it there. Thank you very much for listening everyone. And thank you for downloading us on wherever it is you download us

like PayPal what no on Podbean iTunes and everywhere else Stitcher you know the score if you're listening to us you've already got one so thank you for listening on the thing you're listening to us on

before we go Jamie Jamie, Jamie, what have you done? What have you done this week? Oh, I've edited an episode. You've edited an episode? Yes, yes. All on your own. It's going to be released.

Yes. It's the initial episode ranking all the Sartre captains from Archer all the way to Burnham. But the first episode will be out at the weekend if you're a Patreon member. Yes. If you're listening to this,

it means that it is probably almost certainly out. We're going to release both this weekend as a special treat. So if you are one of our Patreons, go and sign up and you can listen to our first Star Trek episode and get access to all the other episodes. There's just loads. There's whiskey episodes. all the other episodes. There's just loads.

There's whiskey episodes. There's Roman episodes. There's Hamilton episodes. So all sorts of stuff there. There's so many episodes. Yes. Great. Years of my life.

Sorry, Jamie. One day I'll stop talking history at you. Right, okay. We should probably round up now because we're waffling. So thank you very much for listening. And until next time. Goodbye.

We've gone the wrong way around. Goodbye. That's called domination. I'm being dominant. Just because you're now the host in one of the podcasts. Yeah, I've got an inflated sense of ego. Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye.

You went second, Pat. I'm still in charge. Damn it! Chad, have you seen this? Have you seen it? I have. I honestly can't believe what I'm seeing. It is amazing.

It's a mistake. It's obviously a mistake. They've not realised. They've paid us twice. It's fine. It's fine. But they're going to spot. They're going to take this back.

We can't spend this. That's two 5% bumps. Well, yes, but they can't take it back if we already spend it. Do you know what I'm saying? We can't spend this much money. We've already got too much money. We've literally got no idea. You should see some of the stuff my department is spending money on. It is frankly ridiculous.

How are we going to spend this much money? What is your department spending money on, by the way? At the moment, we are literally training dolphins. You're training dolphins? What, diffuse sea mines? No, that was years ago. We've gone on to getting them to serve cocktails at the parties. But they're on the eighth floor.

A lot of money was spent. They can walk now. They have thumbs. Oh my God. Exactly. And when we've reached that level, how are we spending this? The world is literally our lobster. We can do whatever we want.

Well, I gather we've got 48 hours tops before they demand this money yet. And if we've not allocated it to something reasonable, it's gone. Right, here's my first proposal. Operation Unicorn. I am liking the sound of this. Already sounds hideously expensive. Oh, it will be. Can you remember back in the old days, World War I, we had a cavalry? Yes.

And what does a cavalry need more than anything else? Horses. Horses, exactly. Well, Operation Unicorn, we're going to have unicorns. Okay, might need a bit more detail than that. Genetic engineering. Nice. Okay, might need a bit more detail than that. Genetic engineering.

Nice. Horses, narwhals, no one's going to believe the amount of money we can **** away. Ha ha ha. No, wait, no, no, no. Oh, Jamie's frozen. No, oh. I'm back, Jamie.

I can hear you. Can you hear me? Oh. Oh, I think I heard you a little bit there I can hear you sometimes okay, if you can hear me which you can't I'm going to reset my internet I know

it's great when a guitar has been in tune. I call this song the ballad of the internet wifi. My wifi's down and I don't know what to do. Don't know what to do. Don't know what to do. My wifi's down and I don't know what to do, my wifi's down and I don't know what to do, it's down on the do. Yeah, I love this guitar. You know, you can leave it for weeks, in hot weather, cold weather,

it just stays in tune wonderfully. That's why I bought it. Absolutely great.