American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - 43.2 George W Bush

Episode Date: February 3, 2024

W. wants to be president, but before he can do that he has to get through one of the most controversial elections in US history. But once he is in, I'm sure he is in for a smooth ride...

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, George W. Bush Part 2. Hello and welcome to American Presidents Totalus Rankium. I am Jamie. And I'm Rob, ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Biden. This is episode 43.2. As they say in Texas, part... I was waiting for you to do your Texan 2, Jamie. Two! I don't know. Yep, it's part two, all right.

Yeah, it's part two. You're damn right, it's part two. I mean, I have no idea this is a Texas accent. Couldn't give a crap. Let me just get on my horse with my spurs and get to a 7-Eleven. That's what we do in Texas. The Lone Star State, they call it the biggest state in the U.S. apart from Alaska. But it's still the biggest state in the US apart from Alaska,

but it's still the biggest state with the biggest heart. Yeah, that's exactly how they say two in Texas. Thank you. I also like the fact that we started the American series very conscious of the fact that we sometimes do bad accents in the Roman series, and we probably shouldn't in the American series. And here we are near the end.

Mocking you all. Throwing caution to the wind. Oh, talking of mocking, we had several like nails and keefs Keefs and such get in contact. We're sorry. We're very sorry. They're dying out. I'm sorry, guys.

They're dying out. They're all lovely names. You're all lovely people, I am sure. Apart from you, Keith. You know who you are. Not the name, just that one listener, Keith. He knows. He knows what he did.

Anyway, what shouldn't become a regular feature of this podcast podcast is us insulting the listeners at the start so let's move on swiftly uh you're all a bunch of losers we're on episode 43.2 it's part two of three of george w bush uh the most common phrase you asked last week was how the hell did he become president well this is the week we get to find out yeah yes so uh do you want to start us off with something oh maybe easy depending where you want to go a guy carrying a box with lots of looks like bits of white paper flying out the top or just bits of white paper flapping in the air people running around that kind of thing off you go i mean there's a very obvious one to go for here yeah now because you know the major event that's coming up in this episode but i'm gonna

throw you a swerve ball jamie so start to an election one oh no no i'm running around the ballot box and just you know stuff going on people fighting in florida because it's like come on it's down to the county kind of thing oh yeah i mean it could have gone that way no i'm not going for either of those okay start with flying paper went all over the place and um you pan down because it's just against the background of the sky and all the wafting paper in the air and you pan down and you realize all this paper is blowing out of a very stressed looking man's box that he's holding and this box is full of papers and books and it's very obvious by the look of general despair and dismay on this man's face that he is a teacher and this is all his marking flow flying out and he's very very stressed and he's late the bell's

going and he runs into the school and he goes off to his classroom but then it pans around slightly and you see through the door of another classroom there is the president george w bush himself oh yes sat at the front of the classroom and he's not got the book himself there's a teacher There is the president, George W. Bush himself. Oh, yes. Sat at the front of the classroom. And he's not got the book himself. There's a teacher next to him reading, in very rote fashion, a story to her class. And the president is there. And he is looking fixed, shall we say, into the middle distance.

And just zoom in and zoom zoom in, and zoom in, and zoom in until you're right on those eyes. And then he blinks once, and then smash W Bush on the screen. Which I'm assuming most people will know what that's a reference to. But maybe

you won't. We will find out. So there we go, that's how we start, but obviously we don't start the story story there because we left Bush as the governor of Texas, didn't we? If I remember correctly, he's playing EA's PGA Golf. Yeah. Yes, that's what he's playing. It's the 90s. He's got his home computer in his office. There's a good golf game going on. I briefly mentioned that he did not have

to do too much work because the governor job in Texas is almost ceremonial. Small government, that's what they're like down there, so they don't like someone in charge actually doing things. He had defeated the Democratic incumbent, Ann Richards, which again I mentioned at the end. I missed a quote from her though, which is so good. I'm shoehorning it in the start of this episode. Whilst campaigning against George Bush, Anne Richards said that George Bush was born with a silver foot in his mouth, which is a really nice line. I liked it. But he still managed to beat her. He became governor. And now as governor, he got to work. It mostly involved connecting people, raising awareness of things. He could do very

little practically, but that doesn't mean he did nothing. I know I said it's the least powerful governor job in the country, but he obviously did some stuff. So what did he do? Well, he soon got a reputation for being a moderate Republican. He was more than happy to reach out to the Democrats to get things done. Now, that's good. That is good. It's also arguably easier to do in Texas than various other states, because this is still a last stronghold of Southern Democrats. Yeah. The major shift has happened by this point, but you've still got Southern Conservative Democrats, and this is where you're going to find them.

So he was able to reach across to them relatively easily. He decided that his main focus was going to be on education. Education was all the rage in the 90s. If you remember, Tony Blair was saying education, education, education over here. Well, they were doing the same in America. Education in Texas was in dire need of reform. This was a popular issue. Ann Richards, the previous governor, had been doing a lot to reform things. But if you remember, Bush had been able to use this to attack her. She was saying crazy things like, maybe all of our schools should be well-funded

instead of just the ones in the rich areas. Wow, that sounded far too communist to many in Texas. So Bush was able to use that to attack. However, he couldn't campaign talking about how he could do education better, attacking Richards, and then not do anything himself. So he's governor now. What's he going to do for education? This time I'm going to buy some books. Well, he's got

one very simple idea. To improve education you can do one thing and it will immediately improve everything. What is it? I'd say hire more teachers. Hire more teachers. Interesting. That's not what he goes for. I mean, I think it's fairly clear. We've said it a lot say hire more teachers i'm more teachers interesting that's not what he goes for i mean i think it's fairly clear we've saved it a lot we are teachers ourselves so i know you've got a vested interest in this yeah uh or better training for teachers and staff better training

good no not what he goes for what is george bush does he like repaint all the schools no no testing jamie oh of course testing the more you test the more everything improves yeah that's that's 100 true yeah if you just keep weighing that pig eventually it will put on weight won't it so just test everything and everyone there you go the the more you test the better idea people have exactly how well everyone else is doing. And then the natural laws of capitalism and just trying to compete against each other, everyone will improve, is the idea behind it. Of course.

So that's what he's going to go for. Oh, Jesus. He also worked on getting more control for local school districts. And he also did some typical Republican stuff around welfare and the justice system. But for time reasons, I'm not going to go into it. But just think, moderate Republican, it's what you'd expect him to be doing. He's not making any big splashes is what I'm trying to say here.

However, like I've said, he was more of a spokesperson for these things. It wasn't him putting these things through. They were around, and the things he liked he'd speak up, and he had a platform that he could speak on. The real power, however, came from the office of lieutenant governor. One of his weird quirks in Texas, the lieutenant governor has far more power than the governor. Why?

Why? Because the lieutenant governor is an elected post where you become the president of the Senate, and therefore you set the agenda of the senate so you get to decide who's voting for what and where so you automatically have more control yeah okay that makes sense but the governor's just signing things into law and whatnot i mean like a trained monkey could do that so yeah so the lieutenant governor was a democrat name of bullock oh good name good name bush andock, that sounds like that could be a good duo for something. Bush and Bullock got on very well,

to the point that Bullock actually campaigned against his own party for Bush to become president in a few years' time. Wow. Yeah, he just came out and went, no, actually, vote Republican. So, yeah, the two got on really well. Everything's going well. This is why he gets a reputation for being a moderate. He can work with Democrats. More proof that Bush was very much in the moderate camp was his reaction to a federal court ruling that the affirmative

action at Texas University was unconstitutional. That's affirmative action. So in other words, Texas University realised that they were letting in far too many of a certain type of people. Oh dear. To the point where statistically it just didn't make sense. I say a certain type of people, white people. It made no sense in a state made up of this type of population, certain percentages of black people, white people, different makeshifts of people. You should have a roughly even amount in your university, shouldn't you? Roughly. If things are going fair. Turns out, no, no, it was just way off. So affirmative action, the idea was we will make

sure that those numbers balance out. So we will make sure that more black people, more ethnic minorities get into the university so it balances out. And then the theory behind it is once it has balanced out, you can then stop doing that because it naturally will stay balanced out, is the idea in an ideal world. Right. There are obviously things that people will pick up on this and not be happy about. There's a lot going on about it right now. But it's essentially, how do we deal with this racist institution? Let's force it to be balanced. Even if that is technically slightly unfair on individuals, it's fair on society. It's a tricky one. Anyway, you've got Texas University deciding, no, we need to do something to sort this out. We're obviously being a racist institution here.

But the federal court ruled that this was unconstitutional. They weren't allowed to do it. So Bush stepped forward and loudly said that this was wrong. He signed into law a rule that made it so the university had to accept anyone in the top 10% of their class. So if you're in the top 10% of your class, you were now eligible to go to Texas University. Now that meant, in theory, that some people with lower scores than other people could get in. And the way that Texas is made up in the education system, the poorest schools are usually in the areas with ethnic minorities, and therefore there was some outrage on this because you were getting

people with lower scores being chosen over people with higher scores now this shows that bush clearly did understand that some people have a disadvantage in life if they go to poorer schools it's not their fault they got lower scores they just have a harder life so test them more that'll make them better well this is what bush thought just keep testing um so this generally i think is seen as a positive bush is standing up for the ethnic minorities in his state yeah there you go that's nice however like i say he's not actually doing much as i mentioned at the end of last episode he is often finished by lunchtime for the day so he spends the rest of his time doing what he really wanted to do, which is run for president. Okay.

What year are we in at the moment? Like, 98, 97? We are in the mid-90s at the moment. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Now, he had surprised the world, his parents, and perhaps even himself, with how well he had done campaigning to be governor.

He had proved at last to his family that he could succeed. Not only succeed, remember his brother Jeb, Golden Ball's Jeb, had failed. He'd done better than his brother. But as we know, that's not going to be enough, is it? Because George W. Bush has daddy issues. He does.

And how best to defeat those daddy demons? Well, only one answer. Become his own father only better. It's the only way you're going to excise those demons, isn't it? Yeah, only better it's the only way you're going to excise those demons isn't it yeah definitely that's the only thing that works now obviously this is a pop armchair pseudo-psychology analysis of why he wanted to be president but it's hard not to feel like it's a very good reason for why he did it there has to be something in there yeah i mean why what made him think he should be president

apart from fact his dad did it i'm still amazed he even became president yeah he's he's got no experience at all and it's a very weird trajectory he's like drugs whatever yeah it's just sort of a crazy lifestyle um a couple of jobs that he does really badly in lots of drinking drugs and then he does a couple of failed oil industries and then he owns a baseball team and then he becomes governor and then president it's insane anyway this is more for the end of next episode or when we're judging him but he decides he's going to be president now he's got a political advisor at this point called carl rove he had led his campaign to become governor. The two of them started to talk. What's this going to look like? If you run for president, how are we going to do it? It was decided. Bush was going to focus his

energies on being re-elected as governor in 98. Because if he loses that, he couldn't be the Republican nominee. I mean, he'd just proven he couldn't win an election campaign to be governor. So he's got to win that first. While Bush concentrated on that, Rove would work on the national scene. He would be spreading the word, gaining support. And initially, things were positive. Because as sometimes happens in a party,

there were very few big names to choose from at this time. You're sometimes getting parties, loads of big names that come up at the same time. And sometimes you have a bit of a drought. Well, that's what's happening now. It's a new generation's coming forward. The old generation's going. The Reaganites and all them are starting to fade off,

but who's going to replace them? Kill me! So with few big names, maybe the momentum's with Bush. And also, in the same way that Clinton was riding the positivity of the economy in the White House at this time, Bush was doing the same in Texas. His popularity grew to the point that he won re-election in a landslide in 98. No problems at all. Life was good in Texas.

Fab. So his name went to the top of possibilities to run for president. Are you sure? I've heard he's a bit of an idiot. But this is how crazy it is. He became governor in a state where being governor means next to nothing. Yeah, it's like, what's he done to prove himself? And he did it because of his dad, basically. And he doesn't do much in his job.

And yet, because of all this, he's now frontrunner. Right, so I'm hoping there's someone in the Republican Party called, I don't know, Dave. Sensible Samuel. Sensible Samuel. There we go. And he's making all these points. What's he doing? Has anyone actually stopped and listened to him for five minutes?

What does he know? What experience has he got? Shut up. Shut up. You're ruining democracy. Shut up. You're ruining democracy. So, due to all this, his rise in popularity, his winning the governorship in 98, he was able to start raising campaign funds very quickly,

and he soon amassed far more money than any other potential candidate in the Republican Party. One million dollars. Well, I didn't write it down, but it's significantly more than that, that's for sure It was June 99 when he announced publicly That he was running But there were some worries You're absolutely right I'm telling you guys, listen Listen to me

Well, no one knew Bush They knew his name, they knew his father But they did not know him There was some worry By Sensible Samuel that the more people got to know george w bush the more they would realize that perhaps he lacked some of the experience and knowledge that you would expect from a president he keeps talking about bondage between mothers and their children it's weird that is a bushism yeah. We're not going into Bushisms this episode.

I'm going to save a little bit for the next episode, though, so don't worry, we will talk about them. Anyway, Daddy Bush steps in with a solution for this, because they're not blind to this. He introduced his son to his former national security aide, Condoleezza Rice. Oh! Yeah, there's a name you recognise.

Yeah. The two get on really well, and Rice was soon brought on to be Bush's principal campaign manager on foreign policy. Or in other words, Bush knew nothing about the wider world. Rice would be there to whisper in his ear, give him support,

and generally help the campaign. Much needed advice. I'm here to tell you something about Russia. What's there? Yeah, things like that. However, this appointment would not please everyone. In particular, it would not please the right of the party. No.

Who were already unlikely to be behind Daddy Bush's son. Remember, Daddy Bush seemed more as a moderate. The right didn't like him. Now, also, to remind you, what's going on in the white house right now is the monica lewinsky affair that's kind of gone gone through it but anyway all this is going on while bush is governor and also ingrich has been pulling all of his stunts that we talked about in clinton's episodes so the right of the republican party has taken a hit the moderates were on rise. It was time for them to shine. Yeah.

Yeah. But still, they thought, in the Bush campaign, it would be best to please the whole of the party. Let's not just take people on board from the moderate side. So let's bring on some other people. People like Lawrence Lindsay. Lawrence Lindsay was a huge advocate of Reaganomics. Large tax cuts for the rich to trickle down economics.

Always works. That's what he was into. Anyway, him being on board as an economy advisor would please the economic right. So he's got the moderates, his dad's lot. He's got the economic right because he's got a couple of advisors in. And don't forget his personal religious journey and the fact that he had become the go-between between his father and the religious moral right during his father's presidency meant that he had good ties there. Now, to Bush's credit here, as much as we have mocked him, he managed to, while campaigning to be nominee, keep most of the

party happy and actually make it feel united. can believe the last time the republican party felt united i was gonna say that's this is the last time yeah it's he kind of appealed to everyone because he wasn't threatening enough to worry anyone oh yeah but to his credit he did it he he was a unifier in the party in that sense. Now, not everyone, obviously. There were always some detractors, but it wasn't too bad going. In doing so, some did complain that he was pandering more to the right of the party than he needed to. Like I say, the moderate wing of the party seemed to be on the rise. He doesn't need to pander to the right, but Bush didn't see it that way. He saw it as it was one party, let's work together. That's a good way of thinking of it, to be honest. Yeah, arguably it is. Yeah. Anyway, his only real opponent was a certain John McCain. I remember him.

Oh, yes. John McCain, a Vietnam veteran who was seen as a bit of a maverick. He was attractive to those who felt the party needed to shake up a bit. We need a change from the Reagan years. We need to change from the Bush years. We can't have more Bush years. That makes no sense. He was mostly on the moderate side of the party, but he also had support from the Warhawk faction because he was a veteran. So he also was speaking across the various parts of the party as well. So really it's between Bush and McCain. The race is on. Bush wins Iowa in the primaries. McCain didn't bother competing there because he knew he'd probably lose. So instead, he threw all his energy into the next race, New Hampshire, which McCain wins 49 to 30%.

So good solid win. They've got one each under the belt. By now, the McCain camp had found a message that was working. Bush is going to take all the surplus that we now have, let's not discuss who managed to do that because I'll be praising the Democrats, and spend it all on tax cuts for the rich. Yeah, that's good for America. Because let's face it, that was probably what Bush was going to do. He wasn't saying it too loudly, but he had the economic right advisors with him at the moment. That's kind of what they were advocating for. The Bush camp struggled to land a blow back.

And then all of a sudden, messages were being left on people's telephones. Did you hear? McCain has a child out of wedlock, Jamie. Oh my goodness. And the child, Jamie, get this, the child isn't white. Oh my goodness. And the child, Jamie, get this, the child isn't white. Oh my goodness. Yeah, this kind of low blow kind of tactic then starts taking place. Now, the actual truth behind

it is that McCain and his wife had adopted a child from Bangladesh. Oh, that's lovely. So that's what happened. Well, that's his story. Exactly. The Bush campaign then used it to start saying things like that. McCain, absolutely furious at this. How dare you, Bush campaign. You would be. Absolutely would be. Now, to be clear, Bush has always denied that he had anything to do with this tactic.

Apparently it was some over-ent some over enthusiastic people campaigning for him and he had no idea it's a very good chance he didn't know but it's still it's done under his name he gets the blame that's how it works that's how it should work however bush was very upset by this apparently saying to mccain to his face after a debate put his arm around mccain and told him i had nothing to do with that mccain replied, and I quote, don't give me that s**t and take your hands off me. That was brilliant. Yes. Because McCain became a bit of a rock star in his last few years, didn't he?

He was always a maverick in the Republican Party, and that included when Trump took over. Yeah, but we'll get into that in Trump's episode. Brilliant. Because it's not the last we hear of McCain. However, how much this dodgy tactic made a difference is impossible to say. But Bush won the next race in South Carolina, and it became obvious who the nominee was going to be from that moment on. Just the way things were going, McCain was out the race, but Bush was going to win, which he does. He wins the primaries and he is up against the Democratic nominee, none other than the vice president, Al Gore. And I'm super serial. Yeah. Now, because we know who Al Gore is, I think we see that name as just Al Gore. But I feel if we were doing the presidents from, say,

the mid-1800s and we came across someone called Al Gore, we'd really like that name it's just al gore but i feel if we were doing the presidents from say the mid-1800s and we came across someone called al gore we'd really like that name yeah it's a core name gore al gore it's a good name isn't it uh anyway al gore allegory for other things as well oh oh he's slap yeah now here's the exciting part jam Jamie Oh, good Oh, the whole ridiculous thing The whole ridiculous thing I could do two or three episodes on this election alone Unfortunately, you have to condense it down to ten words Go

Not quite ten Hang on It was a bleep show sort of There you go Okay, seven That's how I will sum it up bleep show sort of. There you go. Okay. Seven. That's how I will sum it up. Yeah, I'm not going to go through all the details here today,

but if you're listening and you want more details and you're like me, you find this stuff fascinating, there are plenty of Election 2000 podcast episodes out there from various different podcasters. All of them go into loads. A whole podcast about it? Whole episodes. They're four-part episodes about it. If you look for them, you will find them.

Recommendation, friend of the show Wicked Game, their podcast did, obviously they've gone through all the elections. They are currently re-releasing everything up until the current one, so you won't be able to find it immediately, but you will be able to find it I think if you subscribe you can find it immediately. But yeah, very good podcast there.

So go and check them out. Anyway, I'm going to break down this election like this. I'm going to tell you what Bush did, and I'm going to tell you what Gore did, and then I'm going to talk about election night, and then I'm going to talk about the aftermath. But I'm not getting stuck in the details. If you see me getting stuck in details, Jamie, stop me. Get a little pitchfork or something and like wedge me out of that detail. I'll get my Spocktopus. I mean, that works for me, but you're going to have to clarify for listeners who can't see the monstrosity that you're holding up to the camera.

It is a 3D printed model of Spock's head, or Leonard Nimoy, with eight tentacles hanging from his neck. It is, and that's the sound that he makes when you shake him. Okay, fair enough. So if I hold it up, you're talking too much. Well, no, it needs to be audio so that the listeners can hear. Yeah, you do that means that I've got bogged down in details because I've really tried not to. Okay, here we are.

Let's talk about Bush. Oh, too much detail sorry gary okay bush has several things going for him in this election he was to put it bluntly far more likable than gore he had some advantages such as coming across like a human being always useful yeah yeah yes he made gaffes a lot when he spoke yeah yes he did and the democrats though isn't it the democrats jumped on them yeah and i did i did go looking oh here we go we'll find something really amusing and to be honest and maybe this is the trump effect but they do not seem that bad no it's like a word mispronounced or something.

It's nothing. Well, I'll give you an example that really was jumped on and is quoted in all the books I read about this. Use this one. He said, put food on their family instead of food on their table. That's fine. I mean, it's not great. You're meant to be a better speaker than this.

You're meant to be more eloquent. But it happens, doesn't it? Yeah. He called the Greeks the Grecians. Right. Okay. So he got that wrong. Again, not great, but...

No, an offending intonation. But yeah, you can... But to his credit, he was also able to joke about these gaffes. He didn't pretend they didn't happen. He made references to them. See, that's charming. able to joke about these gaffes he didn't he didn't pretend they didn't happen he he made he made references to them he openly said that's charming yeah exactly he was he was able to do that yeah so don't worry though like i say more on bushisms next episode because there are some amusing ones and we will talk about them i used to have a book of bushisms at one point yeah exactly

they're good uh we'll talk about them later, the most important thing to happen in the Bush campaign, however, and arguably the most important thing that happens for the next decade or so in terms of politics, was Bush deciding who his next vice president would be. It's like a big event now, isn't it? Yes and no. You'll see why this is so important. All right. He wanted, like everyone does, someone who balances you out. He knew he was inexperienced. He needs the opposite. He needs someone from a state he could win,

but is currently losing in the polls, because it will give him the edge in that state. Oh, he chooses a rocking chair, doesn't he? That's not ridiculous. He does not. He also needs someone who will appeal to the areas of the party he wasn't in. He's seen as a moderate. He needs someone from somewhere else in the party. Right.

So he's looking for this kind of running mate. Or more to point, Rove, his campaign manager is. He's the brains behind it. That's who Rove's looking for. However, in order to choose someone, they need someone with good connections in the party. Someone who knows everyone. So they turn to Dick Cheney. Yeah.

Dick Cheney was his father's former Secretary of Defence. And they asked Cheney, can you come up with a list? However, as Cheney was compiling the list, Bush asked Cheney if he would do the job instead. Ooh. Yeah. Now, I would love nothing more than to do a whole episode on Cheney. He is one of the more interesting political figures in modern history, and arguably becomes the most powerful vice

president in all of American history. And he has power. Yes. Oh, wow. He actually shapes American history. Wow. As we will see. But for now, just know that he is from the right of the party, sort of, because he kind of shifts around.

But more importantly, he had been a powerful figure behind the scenes since the Ford administration. Wow. Yeah. So he's just hanging around like a bad smell kind of thing. He is not hugely popular with the public, but by this point, if you're big in the Republican Party, you have gone through Dick Cheney somehow. Okay. He's a man behind the scenes doing stuff.

Anyway, Rove argues against Cheney. No, no, no, asking him to choose was fine. He's got connections, but he doesn't do anything for the campaign. He's not coming from a state with lots of Electoral College votes. He's not your opposite. Okay, he is experienced and you're not, but the public don't like him. He's just an old man with a gravelly voice. He has to do cross symbols every time they see him.

I mean, Cheney had tried to run for president before, and he became so low in the opinion polls he just dropped out. It just wasn't going to work. Now, yes, the right of the party would be happy, but ironically, choosing Cheney didn't distance him from his father, which was something they wanted to do because Cheney had worked for his father. It just so happens Cheney was the sole voice from the right faction under his father in a fairly moderate administration. So yeah, like I say, and he doesn't come from a useful state at all. He's got no charisma. He's an awful choice. Don't choose him. He's a horrible human. But Bush did not want a running mate who would just prop him up in an election. Bush wanted someone who could help him run the country. Could

you imagine such a thing, choosing a vice president who's actually useful that's interesting interesting various theories have been put forth to why suddenly we have this kind of change so it's time for you to choose jamie let's play why did cheney become vice president why did cheney become president vice you said. No, but I like your little addition at the end. Okay, that's fine. Okay, option one. Let's call this one Bush the statesman. No. Shall I just move on? Yeah.

Let's hear it. Bush felt that having a strong vice president was more important than having a weak one who could help shore up some votes in an election what what a statesman take the initial blow be a stronger ruler yeah no no you're not going for that one okay well i don't know i'll hear them first option two bush out of his depth yes well let's go over this one bush was panicking by this point and wanted someone to help him. Cheney was a reassuring voice of experience. Cheney came along, started talking about who could be vice president, and it soon occurred to Bush that here's someone in front of him who seems to know everyone in the party.

This man's got connections. He can help. I mean, from what I know of Bush from this episode, that sounds very likely. Option three, evil Cheney. What? This is a power play from Cheney himself. He had failed to win the Republican primaries in the past, as I mentioned. So in order to get as much power as possible,

he had seen how weak Bush was and realised he could run the White House through Bush. Oh, that's interesting. Now, as a... Oh, no, no, sorry. You need to choose one. I don't know, because I... Hmm. Because you could...

There could be a situation where if Cheney is evil, he's, you know, subtly suggesting to Bush that I would be the best person, because look at all of my contacts. Just get out an address book. Look at them all the names exactly that kind of thing and bush goes oh i'm i'm where my depth can you be my running partner it could be a combination of uh two and three well as ever jamie whenever we do this the answer is almost always it's probably a mixture of all three and i'm just going to add to this one,

and also probably not as extreme as any of them. It's probably a milder version of all those three with a mixture, is most likely. Option three, Evil Chaney, has become more popular after the film Vice. Vice came out in 2018. It's got Christian Bale as Chaney. Absolute phenomenal makeup they do with him as he ages. I think it's a really good film,

but it is definitely not 100% accurate. I wouldn't even say it's 80% accurate. Watch it with a huge pinch of salt, but it is a very good film, and it does not hide the Chaney as evil bias one bit. They go hard for that one. Yeah, I know to advertiseises on here but is it

i'm trying to hide what i'm saying okay or amazon prime yes it's on one of those and it's on my last one you said amazon prime okay i couldn't find a free version so i i rented it for like three quid uh whilst doing the research for this episode because i love biopic history films they're great yeah no this is it it's a good biopic it's just just do your research before forming an opinion on the man um based on solely that film because it it doesn't hide its bias at all that That said, it certainly raises some points. But we're not talking about that film right now. We're talking about Bush.

And all we need to know is that he has Cheney, a very formidable running mate, with him. Okay? So that's the most important thing from Bush's campaigner. On to Gore. Gore. I'm not going to talk about Gore as much. It's not his episode. In a nutshell, Gore had been given some bad advice.

The Democrats were worried that the scandals around Clinton were going to be bad for them in the campaign. So the Gore campaign decided to ignore the fact that Clinton was actually doing really well in the polls and distance themselves from Clinton in every single way possible. Is this a start of his climate change? I think he more gets into that after he doesn't succeed. That becomes his passion. But yes, he's already very interested in that. Yes, definitely.

Anyway, the country was, as we've seen, doing very well at this point. Like, really well. The late 90s was a mini-Golden Age. People had decided that Bill was a bit of a rascal, you know, for giving in to that evil temptress Lewinsky. But hey, who doesn't make mistakes? It was pretty much the public mood, unfortunately. Anyway, if Clinton could have run again, it's almost certain he would have won a third term. Wow. That was never my impression.

I just didn't know. I just assumed that he'd lost popularity. Well, he had his detractors, sure. But he ended really quite popular. Really? That's interesting. Yeah. He's one of the more popular presidents at the end of their second term. It's his cheeky little smile and his sax

playing. That's what it is. Yeah. Anyway, obviously he's not running again. But what he can do is strongly back the guy who is. Hey, you want more of me? Vote for Gore. They could have had that. The Gore campaign could have had that, and they didn't use it because they were worried the Republicans would be able to say, look at the scandals around that Clinton. Well, Gore's just like him. You'll just get more scandals. It's a very sensible position to take. You don't want scandal.

However, the scandal wasn't hitting Clinton. Clinton was popular. And he's an oily dude as well. Yeah, arguably, they really made a mistake there. Anyway, his choice of vice president was just as useless to the campaign as Bush's. Gore chose Joe Lieberman. Lieberman was just as wooden as Gore, and then more so. Apparently being described as the only person with less of a personality in the country as Al Gore. Oh dear. So that's not good. No. Lieberman was a vocal Clinton critic

within the Democratic Party. So this was a clear sign we are not the Clinton administration. Again, you can see why they're doing it. They were close to the Clinton administration and they could see all the cracks that had been papered over and all the scandal up close that was really quite bad. But the public didn't know or care or want to care. Anyway, to sum up, the go campaign was a disaster from day one the democrats should have won this election hands down but as the election campaign went on the polls increasingly had it as a very close race bush did take a hit when his dui arrest came out and at this point need to put on a little bit of the old sad music correction time i mentioned he got arrested for drunk driving. And remember, this is Texas in the 70s.

Imagine how drunk he must have been. It wasn't Texas. It was Maine. Oh. No, and this time I'll say this was Maine in the 70s. Imagine how drunk he must have been. But yeah, so got the wrong state. Apologize for that.

But yeah, it's the drunk driving was the main thing there. Anyway, coming out that he was arrested for drunk driving did damage him slightly because, like I say, Bush was running on him being the moral superior to the Democrats. Yeah. Look at this quagmire of scandal that Democrats always find themselves in. We are the moral party. We are the upstanding party,

which is hard to say with a straight face in modern times of 2024 but back then they really were seen that way they were seen as the party of law and order where they followed the rules yes exactly and it was working for him so when the public found out that he'd been arrested well that did damage him the bush campaign feared that this was the tip of an iceberg because, let's face it, Bush had done some dodgy stuff in his youth. Yeah. But none of it really came out. Bush publicly talked about the fact he'd made a mistake or two in the past. I'll quote him here. I oftentimes said that years ago I made some mistakes. I occasionally drank too much. Just, just, just occasionally. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, all this stuff comes out five days before election day.

Bush's numbers drop. It's incredibly tight in the polls. Yeah. Far closer than most people would have predicted a year previously. But despite this, people who are very good at crunching numbers are still putting their money on Gore. Gore is the most likely to win. It's just far closer than anyone thought it was going to be.

And then election day comes around. Now, I'm not going to go through a blow-by-blow of each state calling. That would be boring. The night starts off as a disaster for Bush. Florida is called for Gore. So straight off, Gore gets Florida. Yeah. You look surprised, Jamie. Because that's not the narrative I know. Yeah, well, just wait for it. You'll start spotting the narrative you know quite quickly. Now, this is incredibly bad news for Bush. Florida could have gone either way. It was a close one. And Florida's got a lot of electoral college votes in it. 25, in fact. So if the evening carries on like this, it's looking like an easy Gore win. Yeah. Bush really needed Florida. Anyway, the night continues to the point that Gore only needed one more state to win, and he's got the presidency. And he had some pretty supportive

states yet to call. It's all seemed over. And then at 10pm, New Mexico is called for Gore. The networks announce Gore is the 43rd president of the United States. Wow, really? Yeah. So there we go. Interesting. However, there was a weakness. Gore has won, but ooh, has he messed this up. Like, hugely messed this up. He is having a terrible night.

He lost his home state. Ooh. Losing your home state's always a very bad sign. Yeah. Very embarrassing. You just feel betrayed. Like, dudes, come on. Also, very importantly, he lost Arkansas.

Or Arkansas, as I thought it was pronounced. Or Arkansas, yes. Now, if he'd allowed Clinton to campaign with him, it's very hard to argue that he would have lost Arkansas. Yeah. Arkansas was going to vote for Clinton. Yeah. And they didn't because they were very publicly not pro-Clemson. Now,

this becomes very important later on because how elections work in America is, I'm just going to put it bluntly, very strange. Yeah, it is. And I'm not talking about the flawed electoral college system here. We've already talked about that. You just keep stabbing an American sign, Rob. Oh, I'm sure all Americans will agree their election system has faults. And we all know the faults with the Electoral College. We've talked about it before. I'm not going to go much into that today. What I'm going to talk about is another weird thing about American elections,

which is how much stock is put into the network's calling of states. Yeah. It seems almost like an event, doesn't it? Well, to be clear, I'm going to compare it to this country because it's the one I know most about. So over here on the BBC, Channel 4, etc, the networks conduct exit polls. And then when the polls close, the outcome of the exit polls is released. Yeah. This is how it's more than likely going to go. The BBC, Channel 4, released yeah this is how it's more than likely going to go the bbc channel 4 say exit polls are in and it looks like a victory for Tony Blair and you get that 10 p.m roughly on polling day you get

it as the polls close because the polls yeah polls close yeah exactly they very very clearly and very loudly tell the viewers that this is a prediction. Yes. And then the night is spent comparing the actual counts as they dribble in to the prediction to see whether the prediction's on track or not. Yeah. And you get the host of the show looking more tired and worn out. Yeah, yeah. Oh, I love watching them. They're great.

Now, when the counts back the prediction up, the prediction's leaned into, and it's not so much of an exciting night because the prediction's probably going to become true uh when the counts dribbling in are not quite tallying up with the prediction that's a fun election night because you're not really sure which way it's gonna go and everyone has a good time yeah uh so that's over here the important thing is that the actual result is when the votes are counted. And everyone is very clear on that. In the United States, it's slightly different.

The five big networks and the Associated Press, all resources, and they use exit polls, yes. But then they also compare these polls to early counts, and they start to get the counts in local counties, the smaller ones, they do a lot of very complicated and clever calculations to work out who they think has won each state. It's very complex. It takes a lot of work. In theory, it's more accurate than the UK system, but it's slower. And more importantly, culturally, it has more weight because it's seen as more accurate. So it's almost seen by society in America as the actual result. Yeah. They don't all come in at the same time.

They come in depending on which state is done because they are using some of the results compared to some of the exit polls. Now, in the United States, most people see the networks calling a state as the official end of the race, rather than here, where it is the prediction that just helps understand the results. Yes. Now, on top of this, the networks pull resources, yes, but they also obviously have their own sources and methods on top of this, and if you're in the news game, it's all about being first. Yeah, yeah. You don't want to be discussing whether to call a state

for i don't know for clinton only to find that fox or cnn has just called ahead of you because if they called it ahead of you by 30 seconds then um i don't know i could get any further than that in that sentence i have no idea why they've put so much stock in being first by 30 seconds but they do it's human nature it's human nature you want to be first you want yeah yeah anyway all of this is leading me up to telling you that the network's messed up big time because they called florida for gore right at the start but the voting's still going on or is it when the votes close they start voting the votes close, they start calling. The votes are being counted, but they've not been counted totally. Right.

So they have their prediction. They're testing it against the counts. And over here, at that point, they're going, oh, it looks like the prediction's going to be right. But in America, it's like, right, we're calling it, then it's definite. And they have this hard call. And the networks saw the actual counts coming in and realised their initial prediction was wrong.

Oh. It's too close to call. Now, in Britain, this is really exciting at this point, because the prediction's wrong and who knows what's going to happen. Oh, let's stay up a bit longer. Let's not go to bed. In the US, this is a disaster because the public perception is that the winner of the state, in this case, Gore, has just had the victory taken from them. Now, Gore hasn't had the victory taken from him.

The count hasn't been done. Yeah. But that's what it looks like. Now, I'm generalising here. Obviously, there are a lot of people, probably even most people in America, realise what I'm saying here. I realise the call is not true. They do say it on the networks. But it's not quite the same as over here. It's the call is not true. They do say it on the networks, but it's not quite the same as over here.

There's a significant portion of people who are very unhappy that it suddenly has gone into the grey undecided. It was blue. It's now red. Incidentally, Jamie, by the way, and this is fascinating, and I seem to remember saying it right at the start of the podcast,

this is where we get red and blue for democrats and republicans from really oh before this election the the parties had no set color green and yellow well maybe who knows it could have been anything pink and a giraffe and apparently on the night most of the networks actually had them flipped which makes more sense because usually in countries the more conservative party is blue and the more left-wing party is red. But one of the networks, I can't remember which one it is off the top of my head,

had done it the other way around and for some reason that's the one that stuck. So that's why the parties are the colours. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Anyway, by the time all states had been called by the networks, several things had become clear. Gore definitely had the most votes by popular vote.

Okay. Bush had clearly won 246 electoral college votes. Gore had clearly won 250 electoral college votes. You need 270 to win, so neither of them won. Okay. Because Wisconsin, Oregon, and Florida were all too close to call and needed recounts. Ooh. Wisconsin, Oregon, and Florida were all too close to call and needed recounts. Now, the first two states in that list, completely irrelevant,

because they don't have many electoral college votes. Florida, with 25 votes, that's the one that counts it. That's the one that would tip either over the line. Yeah, it's a chunky monkey. Yeah, the chunky monkey. Florida becomes the sole focus of the election. It is nail-bitingly close. By 2am, after a lot of internal debate, the networks call Florida for Bush. They've gone the other way. Now, a lot is also made out at this point that Fox News was the first to call it, and then the other networks follow suit. But all

networks did agree on this. It's not like the other networks went, oh, Fox, you're mad, but we've got to do it. Fox were just more eager to get out there that bush had won but all networks agreed bush is now actually one yeah bush receives a call from gore and gore congratulates him and says we sure gave him a cliffhanger it'd be great if we spent what for what two i'm ready for what are you oh no oh no no my god i thought that was a dream. Bush told Gore that he was going to go and tell his supporters that I'd won. Gore said, do you mind giving me 15 minutes just so I can break the news to my people and then I'll give a concession speech? Bush agrees.

This is all standard stuff. So Bush sits back and waits for Gore to appear on television to give his concession speech. And he waits. And he waits. And he waits. Over an hour passes and no concession speech is made. Apparently, as Gore was literally heading to the stage, he was physically grabbed by an aide. No! Don't go on the stage!

Tie him back! The numbers are too close, seriously. Do not concede, We can still win this. Another recount. So, Bush then receives another call, and I'm just going to quote the conversation here. Gore says, Circumstances have changed dramatically since I first called you.

The state of Florida's too close to call. And Bush said, Are you saying what I think you're saying? Let me make sure I understand. You're calling back to retract your concession. It's a fair question. Yeah. Gore replied, you don't need to be snippy about it.

Ooh, they're harsh words. Yeah. But Bush replied, well, you've got to do what you've got to do. So Bush, understandably, very annoyed by this. He's just won, in his mind. Gore gave up, and now, no, apparently not. Several of Bush's aides advise him just go public tell him that tell everyone he conceded and you've won at this point his brother jeb who by the way is the governor of florida by uh now he got in afterwards yeah so jeb's governor

of florida he obviously has some inside information he can get quickly the count he's the governor so jeb says to his brother no no no no, no, don't do that. It genuinely is too close to call. Gore's right. Don't go out and save one. Because it was close. How close? It was down to like, they were in like one little

area, weren't they? I remember like a map of like they're just counting in this spot. Gore was on 2,907,351 votes. And Bush was on 2,909,135 votes. In 6 million votes cast, it was within 2,000 votes. Wow. Yeah. Now, a result within half a percentage, which in this case would have been 30,000, was caused for an automatic machine recount. The actual difference was 1,784. So definitely a machine recount is needed. So a machine recount is done. They put all the electronic things through the machine again.

Everything's counted. You're talking about mostly voting slips. It's all very complex, but most of them are hole punch things that go through a machine that counts the holes. This recount was done. Bush is still the winner. This time he gets 2,912,790. Gore gets 2,912,253. Out of 6 million votes, it's now 327 votes in it. Oh my goodness. That's crazy. We are talking so far into the margins of error,

you cannot say who won the state. Because every time you do a machine recount, it's going to be too close to call. That's crazy. Yeah. However, there are some things that people do know. Bush has done very well in the overall election. He had taken 10 states that had voted for Clinton four years before. And as I said before, Gore lost some open goals. Gore was, due to the recounts coming in for him, a single electoral college vote from winning. Because he won the other two recounts. He's one vote from winning. So all he had to do was win any other state in the whole election and he would have got it.

In other words, if he got Arkansas or his home state, which he really should have got, he would have been president. Wow. So as I heard in one of the podcasts I listened to, it's like people talk about Florida being this big deciding thing. Well, no, it was actually Gore messing up the other states that meant he lost. Yeah. But it does come down to Florida because it's so, so close. As you can imagine, the lawyers soon come in. The two sides do exactly what you expect. Gore's side demanded manual recounts. We need to get an accurate picture. They asked for four

counties to be recounted. Only four. And those four happen to be very pro Gore places. Because of course that's what they're going to do. Bush's team said, no, no, no, no. No recounting. We've already won. No recounting. The've already won. No recounting. The recounts in the four counties were given the go-ahead.

Four manual recounts. Wider in the public, arguments came down to the very fringes of voting ballots. This is the edges where the extreme stuff happens. Stuff that happens in every single election, but so rarely does it make a difference. No one ever talks about it. Gorside argued correctly, in my opinion, that there were some very obvious problems with the machine count because it was rejecting ballots that had hole punches in that hadn't fully come out now when

you're doing hole punching and one of the little holes snacks oh yeah these were called chats and they were called hanging chats uh if that hadn't come off it just messed up the machine slightly and it just didn't count that boat yeah they were rare but in this case rare counts for something so they said oh there's a problem with machines but you could argue that that should go either way well yeah yeah because that's going to be random isn't it yeah that's true but the gore side realized if we do recounts in pro gore areas then you'll actually end up with more Gore votes that had been rejected in this way. The Republicans

pointed out, well that's unfair and they've got a point. Also, there were many examples of incorrect voting slips. In other words, if you filled out your ballot incorrectly, it was rejected immediately. That makes sense. The Gore team argued, however, well, what if someone ticked Gore and then in the writing

place at the bottom had written Gore? That's a vote for Gore, isn't it? No. Well, it was debatable because the law is it needs to be a clear vote for one person, but also you voted in two separate places. Yeah. Now, i would argue that's an obvious vote for gore it should count i mean that's of what i just think yeah but but you could argue well that is technically against the ballot however it then becomes very blurry what if and you're in the fringes here people do all sorts of crazy things what if you've got one that has a tick for gore and then in the writing bit it says anyone but Bush? You could argue that's a clear vote for Gore. You can argue it's not a clear vote for Gore. And when there's only 250 odd votes in between them out of six

million, these arguments count. Yeah, I do. Yeah. So anyway, all of this is going on. There's a whole media firestorm, all people talking about all the technicalities of elections that no one ever bothers to think about. The Bush team argued manually recounting actually would lead to more errors. Humans make more errors than machines. So if we recount them manually, who's to say that counts? It's going to be more accurate than the one we've already got. Yeah.

Things escalate when Florida's Secretary of State announces that she would certify the result on the 14th. So within a week, regardless of where they are in the recount. Oh, that's a lot hanging on. So you've got a week to sort it and then I'm calling it. I don't care how far you've got. Now, it's interesting to note that the Secretary of State just so happens to have another job. Guess what her other job is?

Is she George Bush's shoe cleaner or something? No, she is George Bush's co-chair for the campaign in Florida. The fact that you can have someone who actually certifies and signs off eventually who was the co-chair of one of the people is insane, but apparently you can. Anyway, things are moving quickly. A hurried court case resulted in that deadline being extended by a few days. The recounts in the four counties were not recounting in a uniform way because they've all got different types of ballots because uniformity isn't a thing.

So there's arguments on how they're doing it. Why not? Why isn't it the same nationally? This is a national vote. Sorry. Arguably, it's quicker to do things if you delegate. If everything's centralised, it takes ages to do it. That is a very good point. But then you just send the pdf file right this is the voting slip that's what you're using yes print it off for your state yeah i mean they're not using they're not using the laser jet printer in the white house to print off 350 million ballot papers i mean they're there in

the little room and paper jam it's like damn it hold on again we've got 16 million left to do before midnight yeah anyone know how to change the egg change the egg anyone connected to the office down there no is that a thing yet it's year 2000 yeah it's they they're doing it differently anyway that's causing arguments as well yeah anyway the recounts are ongoing and they are showing a marked increase in gore votes in these counties just just as the gore team thought they would easily enough to win this is looking good but then time runs out the deadline hits but then the florida supreme court steps in and goes no, it's important we get the right result. Carry on counting. That sounds fair, doesn't it? Yeah. The Republicans cry foul, pointing out that all seven members of the Florida Supreme Court just happen to be Democrat. Yeah. Do you see how both

sides here are making some fairly good points at how dodgy all this is yeah but then also equally at the same time doing furry dodgy things oh yeah yeah this is very partisan on both sides they are both don't doing everything that they can to win which i mean of course that's what they're going to do anyway another five days was given to conduct the uh recount in the counties and again word is coming through it's going gore's way this is looking good for Gore. But then the Supreme Court steps in, as in the Supreme Court of the United States, not the Florida one. The Republicans accused the Florida Supreme Court of changing the rules of an election after the election took place. You can't change the deadline for bringing in the counts. You need to say that before. Now, I'm not going to go into all the legal details

here, but this was seen as a last- attempt this this shouldn't work the supreme court of the united states is not going to tell the supreme court of a state what their own state laws are yeah that's very uh that goes back this is federal overreach hugely federal overreach now on top of this the recount was literally still happening, and the whole point of the Supreme Court is to deal with things that have already happened and need to be appealed. So this clearly is not Supreme Court stuff. However, the Supreme Court decides to step in anyway. Meanwhile, in Florida, the extension runs out yet again, and the votes were taken in, and it's still a bush victory but it's tightening the gap is now

537 oh now that looks bigger but this is after the overseas votes came in as well which were very positive for bush so bush got a bump but then it started closing again so it is actually still narrowing on november 26th, the Secretary of State of Florida, and remember the co-chair of the Bush campaign, nothing dodgy about that, officially declared Bush was the winner. There we go, we're done. But that's far from over, because it all depends what the Supreme Court says. The Supreme Courts have stepped in by this point, and it all is down to them. The two sides put forth their argument before the court. Essentially, should the recounts be finished? Supreme Court was uneasy to weigh in on state law. So after hearing the

arguments, they unanimously ordered the Florida Supreme Court to clarify its ruling to carry on counting. So why did you say carry on? Why did you say carry on? Because we've been asked to say whether it's right, and we don't think you've been clear enough. The Florida Supreme Court, a little bit annoyed by this. How dare you? Just send a photocopy of a middle finger back. Well, yeah, how dare you federal court? The whole point is state separation of state powers.

So come on, no, no. We're the Florida Supreme Court. We decide the Floridian laws, not you. So they ordered that all counties in Florida start doing a manual recount, not just those four. It's to basically just widen out the recount. Keep going, keep counting. It's the only way to find out the real winner,

which makes sense. You want to count the votes. Yeah. The Bush team immediately went to the Supreme Court again and went, oh, no, no, no, we're appealing this. They're counting votes that shouldn't be counted. They decided to do that after the election. They also went to the Court of Appeals.

So the Bush team have gone to the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeals to say, can you stop the Florida court from doing that? The next day, the Court of Appeals refused. No, that's federal overreach. They are doing the right thing. But two hours later, the Supreme Court weighs in and decides the opposite way. Florida is to immediately stop all recounts.

Now, this decision was very split. Nine people on the Supreme Court, and it's split 5-4. Yeah, well, I can see why. Yeah. Both sides then argue their case again. Bush's side argue that the Florida recount is illegal. It was made up after

the election. The Gore side argue that unless all votes are counted, it would go against the right of all citizens to have their votes counted. The Republican side say it already has been counted. Twice. Democrat side say, yes, it's within the margin of error, so we're not certain. You see how it's going backwards and forwards. None of the Supreme Court judges changed their mind, however. The four who wanted the recount

still did, but it was more to the point of the fact that this was federal overreach and not what the Supreme Court should be doing that they objected to. The five that did want Florida to stop said they still wanted Florida to stop. And they don't really give a reason why, or at least not a decent one. That hasn't got good optics, has it? Not good optics at all. The original machine recount would be the one that's official, so the one that's only like 250-odd votes between them.

And with the Supreme Court deciding that in a very split way without clear reason that is why bush wins the election wow now my personal takeaways from all this because i spent all week going all around the houses all different angles on this this is very dodgy but i'll be honest this is no way near as bad as i thought it was. No, I thought it sounded very sneaky and dark, and they would have stolen the win. But from what you're telling me, no, not at all. It's just two people fighting over... Well, I'll be honest.

I thought, based on my limited knowledge of it, that Gore had won the presidency, and Bush's brother Jeb, who happened to be the governor of Florida, had done something to slip the votes of the state and give his brother the presidency, and Bush's brother Jeb, who happened to be the governor of Florida, had done something to slip the votes of the state and give his brother the presidency. Turns out, Jeb, nothing to do with it whatsoever. Which I should have known, as I got to know more about American politics. Can't say I put that much thought into it. But obviously, Jeb had very little to do with it. He offered his opinions loudly, obviously, but it didn't actually make any difference. As it is,

the election was ridiculously tight. Gore did a terrible job. Bush did a better one. The margins are so tight in Florida, it is impossible to say who would have won even if every vote was counted again, because you're still within a margin of error. Yeah. Who knows? Democrats would argue that the momentum was with Gore when the Supreme Court ended the recount, and he would have won. Republicans would argue that Bush had already won twice. I can see both arguments. The Supreme Court decision to overrule the states and stop the recount is by far the most dodgy part of it. That very much seems like the Supreme Court just giving it to Bush. Yeah. It's also downright

hypocritical as it came from the traditionally states' right sides that did it. So, so much for states' rights. That's only when it suits them, apparently. But even if the recount had happened, what would the results have been? There's been a whole load of detail about which ballots were recounted that I have not gone into. It gets very complex. And since the election, a lot of people have used various methods to figure out who would have won the recount had it have gone ahead. And the results are very mixed. Some come out for Gore, some come out for Bush. It's too close to call. Well, it obviously is. That margin of error, it's almost like you need to redo the whole election again. Yeah, and even then, it's almost like you need to redo the whole election again yeah and even then it's that close to call yeah it's just a mess many examples of problems with the electoral system have been

found but again most of these are never usually a problem no i mean a lot of people when covering this like you do get really annoyed it's like well why isn't it uniform then why because it's never usually a problem this is an extreme case uh and i'm being consistent at least it should but it never needs to be it never needs to be that's why it does which is why this is extreme but this shows you be cautious and this is why it is now more consistent oh good yeah but if you're asking why it wasn't when it happened because it hadn't ever needed to be before but it is now more because lessons have been learnt from this. Ultimately, I would argue whichever side won,

the other side would have had a fairly legitimate reason to be annoyed. I personally think that Gore was screwed over very heavily by the Supreme Court, but I can also see that I could say the same thing if Gore had won about Bush. Yeah, it's too close to call. It is too close to call. You could argue there was no winner of that election. Yeah, and the election, instead of being decided on actual votes, was decided by a dodgy Supreme Court. Yeah. Well done, Supreme Court. Brilliant. Not got the best track record, that Supreme Court. I'm sure they'll sort themselves out

and be much better in the future. Anyway, Bush is president. You'll be pleased to know. Huzzah. Hooray. Hooray. Yay. So he needs to choose a team. In fact, this is what he's been doing. Whilst I've been talking about all the election, Bush has been choosing his team. Just really hoping it went his way. Well, yeah, I mean, Cheney came up with

the plan. It's like, well, let's look like we know what we're... Let's look like we've won. We look like we've won. The optics will look better. So they put their team together. They put their administration. Now we will probably never know exactly how this happens, but after a meeting between Bush and Cheney, guess what? Something extraordinary happens. Cheney gets Bush in a headlock and says, I'm your daddy? Yes, pretty much. Awesome. Bush gives Cheney the go-ahead to assemble the cabinet.

Oh. Yeah. That's interesting. The vice president is given the go-ahead to choose who is around the president. Yeah, you know that question I gave me last time about which one you think is A, B or C? It's definitely B. George doesn't know what he's doing hmm yeah for the first time in the united states history the administration is going to be made up by people more loyal to the vice president than the president himself now i should point out cheney and his people certainly would

not have put it this way and nor nor would Bush. They were all Republicans. They're all on the same side, the side of America. But there is no doubt that suddenly the White House was a lot more right-wing than any time since Reagan. Bush was seen as a moderate, but his cabinet was not. Anyway, Bush is inaugurated and he has settled him. Things are looking good. Clinton had left a ton of money behind. That never happens.

God, we've got cash. What a great president. We should follow his example. And the economy, which has been mostly awful for decades, is doing brilliantly. So what should we do with all this money? It's one of those amazing first problems you have as a president. What to do with all the money we've got? Well, what else? They're Republicans' tax cuts. And you know what? They've got the money to actually do it. So why not? In particular, let's cut the taxes for, all together now, the rich. Yes. Huge tax cuts

were immediately proposed. 30% of the tax cuts were to go to the top 1%. Now, this was, to be fair, watered down in Congress, but mostly it goes through. Apart from taxes, the Bush administration, with the guidance of Cheney, obviously, worked on removing anything they disliked about the Clinton administration. So in other words, anything to do with reducing carbon emissions, that had to go. Bush announced that, and I quote here, the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of and solutions to climate change meant that they should,

they just shouldn't do anything about it. It's not incomplete. It's a massive scientific consensus. It's not 100% though, is it? Yeah, but when it's 97 that's pretty strong crackpot charlie dr crackpot charlie over there who's uh squealing and running after his pet tin hat um okay he says it's not real so right so other if if three percent of the world's population believe the earth is flat and it's less than that three percent because not everyone's an idiot

so it doesn't mean the earth is flat no no it doesn't jamie and i know you know this and i'm to be honest i'm fairly sure cheney and bush know this yeah of course it's money isn't it it's money that's what it is they can make more money because and i don't want to get too hung up on this but cheney and bush both come from oil as That's true, that's a good point. They have connections in that area. They both will be wanting to do things for the areas they know. And the great thing is, soon they're about to expand their oil gatherings. Oh, we'll get to that, Jamie. We'll get to that.

Anyway, other things he does. He introduces a new office of faith-based community initiatives. This idea is to make it easier for religious groups to obtain federal money to support communities. Is this the dawn of megachurches by any chance? Not the dawn of megachurches, but you are tying into that, yes. Federal support of it. It's making that easier to do. Opponents say that this goes against the idea of a separate church and state.

This is ignored. But the biggest thing on Bush's agenda is what he focused on in Texas. Education. We need to teach the children to read. So he wanted his first big win to be on what he called No Child Left Behind. Now, the idea came from the fact that lots of children were leaving school not educated to a decent level. They couldn't read and write.

They were being left behind. And you can really see the logical steps they took yeah see if you can follow them here the children are being failed in their education do you agree uh they're leaving school not being able to read and write they're being failed yeah yeah okay who is failing, obviously, it's the school and the teachers. It's their job to educate them, so they're failing to educate them. Logical. Hmm. You can hear the teacher in you.

Go on. So, how can we find out which schools and teachers are failing the children? Oh, I've got an idea. Go on then. Testing. Testing, testing, testing. Testing, testing. And then parents and politicians can root out the bad ones. When you put it like that, it genuinely makes a lot of sense.

But as I know you know, and I'm sure many of our listeners will know, and this is where I'm getting on a slight high horse here, this is full of holes, full of awful, awful holes. The teaching unions at the time pointed out that it is not the teachers and the schools usually at fault that's not to say there aren't bad teachers and bad schools obviously there are but the bigger reason for poor performance is usually societal it's wider socio-economic reasons schools in poorer areas and perform not because they've got bad teachers but because their students live harder lives and have to do that much more. It's harder to do well at school when you are starving.

Yes. It's just when people are having hard lives, it's harder to do well. Now, if you introduce these standardized tests, the teaching union said at the time, things are only going to get worse because teachers will be forced to teach to the narrow test in poorer areas just to get their pupils to pass them where in the richer schools where children are naturally doing better they will be able to teach to the test but also they will have time to teach a wider curriculum so all you're doing is narrowing the curriculum for the ones that are already struggling and because of that the education gap will widen. Of course it will. Bush was having none of that. That's nonsense. As long as you all try hard, you've all got an equal chance. Yeah. I mean, someone that has had such a wonderful relationship with education,

of course he knows how it works. He knows how it works. He worked hard at school, and that's why he was a success. Nothing to do with the advantages of his family. Anyway, the bill goes through. Without getting too far ahead, No Child Left Behind is ultimately seen as a disaster. It falls into all the traps that the unions warned about at the time. But right now, where we are in the narrative, education reform looks good,

and there are a lot of people behind it. Across Democrats and Republicans, a lot of the people who actually offered the bill in the end say oops that was a mistake but never mind education reform it looks good and it means that bush can do things like go to schools and read to children that always looks good doesn't it oh yeah definitely sat at the front of the classroom surrounded by children teachers reading a book yeah Yeah. What year is this, Bonnie? It's 2001. 2001, okay. 2001, yes.

Sort of end of summertime. Okay, so like October? No, a little bit before that, Jamie. A little bit before. Oh, September. Because as you have perhaps, I'm inferring that you've guessed this here. Yeah. Yeah.

Bush is doing exactly this in a school in Florida when a plane flies into one of the Twin Towers in New York City and history changes dramatically. It really does. Now, for time reasons, I am not going into the details of the build-up to 9-11. I could go into the history of Al-Qaeda from the early 90s, ever since the car bomb in the World Trade Center,

but there are other places you can find that information. We don't have time to do that. Well, also our previous episodes, because we talked about it. No, we briefly mentioned it. But yeah, if you want more, this isn't the place to find it. What I will say is, as we saw in Clinton's episode, bin Laden is very much on the radar of America. He doesn't come out of nowhere. He had been responsible for various acts of terrorism in recent years against American embassies in Kenya, in Tanzania, various other stuff. Atrocities had been committed by the man. Clinton had ordered a hit on him, to put it bluntly. But as we talked about, it didn't work. It failed. The Clinton administration then had warned Bush in the handover period that this needed to be dealt with

this is this is going to be a problem the bush administration agreed however since then the clinton administration has said we said this is number one priority and the bush administration said no they didn't uh the it was probably somewhere in the middle it was probably somewhere in the middle. It was probably a case of he's on the radar. It's not a priority. He's on the radar. Here's a file. There's a file on Shelf 3B. Yeah. It might be interesting.

Yeah. Now, terrorism, clearly it's an important thing, but it's not a top priority compared to, say, watching and weighing into the balancing act of nations in the Middle East. That was seen as far more important. So that is what the Clinton and the Bush administration were doing. So the idea is get that balance in the Middle East. That was seen as far more important. So that is what the Clinton and the Bush administration were doing. So the idea is, get that balance in the Middle East right, the United States will benefit. In May of 2001, the CIA reported an increase in chatter about an

incoming, an upcoming attack on American soil. We know something's in the works. This was brought to the president very clearly in early August. We think there is a planned attack on American soil. We know something's in the works. This was brought to the president very clearly in early August. We think there is a planned attack on American soil. The memo was presented to Bush that stated that bin Laden was determined to do this attack. However, it did not include any details. I mean, pretty much what I've just said to you is pretty much all Bush was told. So what can you go by? Yeah. So yeah, it's like, there's like there's no detail it's like well of course he wants to attack us i mean he let off a firecracker in the middle of uh central park i mean that's yeah it might terrorize a few pigeons but the difference is he had been attacking embassies on foreign soil now

he wants to attack american soil but i was about to say all he's done what he has done so far is atrocious and terrible. It's certainly nothing on the scale of what 9-11 turns out to be. So yes, it's being seen as important by the Bush administration, but they are, again, they're not putting it top priority. They are acting upon it, though, albeit slowly. A meeting was set up to discuss how to deal with al-Qaeda. They met in early September of 2001.

Okay, that's good. This is clearly going to be a problem. We suspect that al-Qaeda are going to do something soon. We need to make a decision. Bush wasn't in this meeting. Condoleezza Rice was there. She sent the decision, which was to launch unmanned predator drones for reconnaissance in Afghanistan.

She sent that to Bush. Could you sign that? We'll start looking into al-Qaeda. This was signed on September the 10th. That's a shame, isn't it? Yes. Yes. The next day, Bush goes off to read to children in the morning, and 19 men hijack four planes. The first plane hits the North Tower of the World Trade Centre at 8.46. There was massive confusion. Was this a tragic accident? What the hell was that? Yeah. 17 minutes later, a second plane hits the South Tower, and it becomes obvious that this is a planned attack. Now, I remember that part happening. Yeah. I was very confused. I had a very early phone and I got a text message from one of my friends saying, America under attack, sponsored by Nescafe.

Oh. Which genuinely did confuse the hell out of me. He was so shocked by it, he'd gone onto his computer and he had something where he could send text messages from his computer, which is really rare back then. Yeah, you had to go onto the ot website and you could pay in yeah and it was sponsored and your whoever was um sponsoring it got added to the end so i thought he was just doing some weird joke about nest cafe attacking america i was really confused uh it was only when various other messages started no no it's

when my mum came home from being my brother so, so I put the TV on, that I realised that there was actually a problem. I'm assuming you remember where you were. Yeah, I knew nothing. I got home from school, because obviously time difference. Yeah, it happened at the end of school for us, didn't it? My dad opened the door and said, America's been attacked. And I thought, ah, what are you on about?

Don't be silly. Then took me to the living room, TV on. Oh, oh, oh, okay. Then I saw I think the I can't remember if it was the second tower collapse or the first one

but it was very horrific it was like oh absolutely harrowing to watch it really was they watched the news for like the next ten hours

yeah yeah and um yeah it was uh before the towers came down I think it was yeah I just I just remember the chaos no one knew

what was going on everyone looked absolutely terrified it was a scary moment even being a teenager in a different country yeah no i felt that it was like oh i knew this was big and this was going to change the world i can only imagine what it must have been like being in america and it being your own country it must have been absolutely horrific yeah anyway back to bush we talked about him reading to the class in the opening didn't we so yes he receives news of the second plane hit as he's at the front of the class the teacher is there reading a book called the pet goat oh yeah bush is sat next to the teacher. An aide comes in and whispers something to his ear.

We now know what's whispered to him is, and I quote, a second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack. And that's when his expression changes. Well, yeah. Bush then sits and does very little for a few minutes. You can see, but you're never really sure whether you're just reading into it, inferring

it, but you can almost see this controlled panic in his eyes now some have really criticized his reaction and it's like oh he froze he didn't know what to do but i'll be honest i think that's unfair you're in front of a bunch of kids what are you supposed to do jump up scream bustle out of the room there was nothing he can individually do no immediately so he just takes a moment to process the information yeah i i agree with you and he was i mean it was his account of course but there's a 9-11 documentary a few years ago that came out a really long one and he's in it as well he talks about it and he's saying that i just wanted to sit not panic anybody and then you know i'll leave as soon as i can and then deal with it and they

went on air force war did he fly around from it yeah yeah exactly i mean this is one of the biggest events in american history uh your first reaction to it i mean it's anyone you'd be shocked you it's a bit mean to judge someone i personally think um because i know a lot of people have judged him with his reaction here but i'm kind of on his side here. Because I remember it was the documentary that came out by What's-His-Face. He did lots of documentaries to criticise Bush. Oh, Michael Moore. Yeah, Michael Moore. He's very critical.

He's sitting there for this half a minute, now three minutes, now four minutes. He's not doing anything. But actually, to be fair, it's a stressful situation. Yeah, it is. It's time to time to think well talking about stressful situations meanwhile at the white house everyone is scrambling the first plane goes in that's big news the second plane right everyone to the bunker we're under attack yeah as the third plane hits the pentagon it's clear that this is the biggest event since pearl harbour Cheney takes charge. The members of the administration who were there all go to the bunker. They leave their

response from there. The vice president is calling the shots. Bush is at Air Force One by this point. The plane takes off minutes before one of the Twin Towers collapses, which really is burnt into my brain that happening because that was more shocking than the planes going in minutes after this the fourth plane crashes before it can reach its target in washington yes that's the uh the film yeah the target most likely was the capitol building some have speculated it was the white house but it was going to be one of those almost certainly but the plane comes down i'll be honest i remember seeing that at the time it's like ah they started shooting the planes down because that makes sense yeah i remember thinking that at the time and for a long time i have since looked

into it and it does seem unlikely that that was what happened just because the times don't match because for a point i will uh say right now because by this point cheney had seen enough because it's at this point he gives the order to shoot down any other plane that looks like it's been hijacked he does not get permission from Bush as far as we can tell now both of them have since said they had a conversation and Bush gave the order but there is no record of it and believe me a lot of people have spent a lot of time looking into what happened to this period of time and it would appear that conversation didn't happen so chain just made a decision he was asked later was that a hard decision to make because you're ordering the murder of american

citizens and he replied it had to be done once the plane became hijacked even if it had a load of passengers on board who obviously weren't part in any hijacking attempt. Having seen what had happened in New York and the Pentagon, you really didn't have a choice. It wasn't a close call, which it's one of those awful decisions, but you can see the logic behind it. If the plane's been hijacked, then what can you do but save the lives of the people that plane will hit? Awful time, horrible decisions being made very quickly. Anyway, 10.28, the second tower collapses, and the major events of the attack, which started only roughly 45 minutes before, are over. Wow.

But that's 45 minutes of absolute insanity. Editing up here, a quick correction there. That was meant to be an hour and 45 minutes. Just wanted to get that part accurate. Back to Pastus. But obviously at the time, no one knew that this was the end. Because it was still chaos. False reports of other planes being hijacked were all over the place.

And there was now an order out to shoot any plane that looked like it had been hijacked. So everyone was very tense. There's a lovely graphic of showing the air traffic at the time. Oh yeah, and it just dies. Anyway, meanwhile, Bush is arguing, I need to be at the White House. Where else should I be? I've got to be at the White House. No. Rice says, no, no, no, no, no.

We need to keep you safe. at the White House. No. Rice says, no, no, no, no, no. No. We need to keep you safe. So Condoleezza Rice raises her voice at Bush and essentially shouts at him, don't you dare come back here. You can't stay there. He needs to be kept safe. So instead, he's flown to Louisiana to begin with. He delivers a message on screen,

but it's very hastily done. It's grainy footage and it doesn't look great. It looks panicked and rushed because it was panicked and rushed. Yeah. Yeah. As the day goes on, however, without any more imminent attacks seeming likely, it was decided, yeah, let's get the president back to the White House. Cheney is shipped out, Bush is brought in, so there's a separation there. Anyway, he gives an address at the White House.

Today, our nation saw evil. The search is underway for those behind those evil acts and then he took the role of a wartime president and presided over a national prayer he visited washington's islamic center where he urged people not to commit hate crimes against innocent muslims nice yeah uh he visited what had become known as grand zero yes that's where he did the speech yes the crowd started chanting usa usa and he responded and i quote the rest of the world hears you and the people who knock down these buildings will hear all of us soon he was that's a good that's a good bit of rhetoric and he's angry he's angry and this is just coming off his head there's no speeches being written here that's film rhetoric there yeah exactly um and he That's a good bit of rhetoric. kind of understand why the death count at this point was around 3 000 with countless people

traumatized he himself was feeling very much on edge yeah this was a massive wound to the country yeah anyway the public rally around their president as you expect the country had been bitterly split 50 50 after that mess of an election it resembled much more like it ends up resembling in 2016 for a brief period of time. But this cuts that off absolutely dead. The first poll after 9-11 showed Bush at 90% approval rating. Oh my goodness. Bush can do no wrong. That's crazy. In the background, however, the Bush administration were trying to decide just exactly what the future is going to look like. What do we do here?

Obviously, some kind of retributions needed. All very angry. We need to get some payback here. It's the Christian way. But what? What does that look like? Against who? Now, publicly, it wasn't known it was al-Qaeda, but the White House knew.

It was very quickly put together. And al-Qaeda is not a country they could declare war on. Afghanistan is the obvious choice, because Afghanistan is where bin Laden's main base is. So we could declare war on Afghanistan. That's a clear message, isn't it? However, there was a faction that immediately, and I'm talking within 24 hours of the attack, advocated for declaring war on Iraq. The link was less clear here. Why Iraq? WMDs.

There's nothing to tie Iraq with the attack at all. No. But it was suggested to Bush, and Bush did take note. He didn't act on anything at this point, but he heard that suggestion, and it obviously went into his brain slightly. I'm not a massive fan of Family Guy, although I've watched quite a lot, but there's a great moment in that that that deals with this little conversation it's very funny though okay it was this and this and this and linked to his countries and it's like so should invade iraq no yeah well we'll get into that in a bit anyway in the end it was decided and announced in a speech

by the president that i quote her we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbour them. Now, this was an important announcement to make because it meant we're going to do whatever the hell we want to do because we're pissed off. And the rest of the world kind of took note of that. It's very nice and loose. You're a terrorist or you harbor terrorists

what does that mean they're in your country they've been supported financially they were born in your country it's very loose and i guess america had always been like it always has always essentially been a supporting role apart from with maybe vietnam and they sort of built their army built their prestige and then suddenly it's like, actually, no, now we're attacking. We're hunting. And it's, you know, so, ooh, okay, ooh. That changed slightly. Yeah, anyway, he then meets with his National Security Council,

and he says the following. I want all of you to understand that we are at war, and we will stay at war until this is done. Nothing else matters. Everything is available for the pursuit of this war. Any barriers in your way, they're gone. Any money you need, you have it. This is our only agenda.

Wow. So that's it. That's running the country gone. Yeah. It's all about retribution for 9-11, which you can kind of understand, but also you're meant to be running the country. Yeah, a bit of perspective is important, right? Questions are then risen about nations that

harbor them what are we talking about here pakistan for example they have al-qaeda bases quite a lot of them but they're also one of our close allies are we going to start bombing one of our allies well no of course not that's that'd be ridiculous and also also, well, as Donald Rumsfeld pointed out, he was there, international law allows the use of force in this way to prevent terrorist attacks. It is illegal to use force in this way for retribution. So what you're proposing here, Mr. President, is illegal. Bush was angered, and I quote, I don't care what the international lawyers say,

we are going to kick some ass. You can imagine, though, if that had been announced, that had just happened, most people would have gone, yeah, hell yeah! Oh, yeah, you can imagine. You can see that in a film, can't you? And it's roaring, ah, yeah, let's cut all the red tape. But equally, this is real life.

This might be a problem. Things you need to navigate. Bush begins to see what he has called this evil attack as proof that he has been put as president as a reason. And I quote, this is why I was put on Earth for. I'm here for a reason to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil. Which raises some eyebrows, which you literally just did. Your eyebrows just went up. Yeah, yeah. This raises some eyebrows in the White House, but never mind. And in retrospect as well.

Yeah. Anyway, it was soon decided to call the nation's harbouring terrorists the Axis of Evil. That's a good name, isn't it? You can't be on the side of the Axis of Evil. They're evil, by definition. And also, the Axis makes you think of World War II. Yeah. And the bad guys and that. There we go, it's a good name.

It was decided that they would invade Afghanistan, enforce a regime change, and root out al-Qaeda. These were all fairly obvious and simple goals they could go for. Let's just hope in 22 years' time that doesn't have any repercussions. Well, again, several of the administration at this point advocate for invading Iraq. But why they have oil. Well, sensible Samuel goes, but I'm sorry, what? Bush seems responsive

however. They're in a meeting at this point and they're talking about this. Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, strongly objects to the idea of invading Iraq at this time. There is nothing to link them to the attack. We will split international support if we invade Iraq. Why

would we do that? And only dumb countries would support us in that. It's an act of self-sabotage. Well, Colin Powell says we should go after the organisation that acted yesterday. Yeah. In other words, I know a lot of you were annoyed at Saddam Hussein over the last war because it didn't quite end how you wanted it to, but don't bring that into this. We are dealing with al-Qaeda and bin Laden here. Bush and Cheney agreed with Colin Powell. No, that will be a diversion.

Afghanistan is what we need to do. Focus on that. But who knows? Who knows? Once we've dealt with Afghanistan, because we need to defeat the world of evil. It's not just defeating al-Qaeda. We need to rid the world of evil. So let's put a pin in this Iraq conversation, shall we? It was essentially the outcome of the meeting. After this meeting,

the counter-terrorism chief, a man named Richard Clarke, who I can only assume is friends with sensible Samuel, went to Powell, confused, and said to him, I thought I was missing something there in that meeting. Having been attacked by Al-Qaeda, for us to go bombing Iraq would be like invading Mexico after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Yeah. Yeah. He genuinely is like, what the hell was that about Iraq? A very grim Colin Powell apparently replied, it's not over yet. Powell sees which way the wind's blowing. Later that day, Bush bumps into Clark in the White House and says to him, I know you've got a lot to do, but I want you as soon as you can to go back over everything. See if Saddam's did this. See if he's linked in any way.

How did he become president? Anyway, Clark replies to this that, well, he wasn't al-Qaeda. It's got nothing to do with Iraq. We've already done the, my job's to know this, and I'm telling you it's not. Bush replies, and I'll quote again, I know, I know, but see if Saddam was involved. Just look. I want to know any shred. Again, Clark stated that al-Qaeda works out of Afghanistan, and yes, they also have links to Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Nothing to do with Iraq. Apparently, Bush became annoyed at this point and replied, look into Iraq, Saddam, and then walked off. Oh my goodness.

Shortly after this, Bush announced the plan to go into Afghanistan publicly, stating, and I quote, every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists. Meanwhile, in the background, the administration, mainly under Cheney's influence, remember, they're mostly Cheney's men, were using the nation's upheaval as cover to enact some draconian laws, shall we say, in the name of national security. The Department of Homeland Security is set up and took charge of immigration, customs, and border control. It was a lot more heavy-handed than what was there

before. Yeah, so you're belt off when you're flying now because of them. Yeah, you do. The Justice Department and the FBI were given far more powers, and most famously, the Patriot Act was brought in. This removed the wall of separation between intelligence collection and law enforcement.

Is this about like the Red Scare in the 50s? That's what it sounds like, but worse it's worse arguably because these are actual laws that are being put in place it's like that on turbo speed it's all very complex and detailed we don't have time to go through it all right now but essentially it allows the government to spy on its own citizens in a way that would not have been dreamed of in a small government republic's worst nightmares just a decade ago. And here is a Republican administration putting them into power.

Wow. The government could now issue wiretaps far easier, make records of phone conversations, credit card bills, leases, and library records of its own citizens without their knowledge. The government can now spy on people legally. The NSA could conduct electronic surveillance into and out of the country without warrants. They can just choose on who they're listening to. As long as it crosses the border, they can just do whatever they want. Eventually, this is leaked by a man named Edward Snowden in 2013, and that causes a bleep storm because, yeah, it turns out the

government were doing a lot of things that the public were not aware of, that had all been snuck in under the radar straight after 9-11 in the name of national security. Now, the people who were sneaking this stuff in would argue that it was to keep the country safe. A lot of people would argue that it was very knee-jerk and went a little bit too far. Anyway, two days after signing this hatred act into law, on October the 6th, Bush ordered the start of the military campaign into Afghanistan and the troops go in the next day.

Five weeks later, the Taliban, who were running Afghanistan at the time, fled the capital, and a month after this, it falls completely. Bush was able to declare that he had won okay war in afghanistan's over yep however two things are very obvious first of all the american troops are gonna have to stay because as soon as they leave the taliban will just walk back in so well there we go we've committed troops to a foreign country for an indefinite amount of

time guess when the last troops left? 2021. And it was not done well. So that's not great, but the second more important to the average American, Bin Laden had fled and was nowhere to be found. Whole point of this was to go after Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden. Their leaders escaped. However, the administration used this as a victory. They have won in Afghanistan and soon they were collecting the spoils of war. And in this case, the spoils of war is intelligence. The invasion had resulted in a large number of Taliban and al-Qaeda prisoners, and they were sure to have information. Now, Bush had made a decision very early on in all of this.

They were not going to play by the rules when it came to the laws of prisoners of war. Yeah. So it was announced that the prisoners of war were not actually prisoners of war at all, by the way. They were campers. They're unlawful combatants. Yes. So it was announced that the prisoners of war were not actually prisoners of war at all, by the way. They were campers. They're unlawful combatants. Yes. That's what they are. So because they're not prisoners of war, they don't get any of the protections of the Geneva Convention. Oh. Now this greatly troubles

many in the administration, especially those who had anything to do with the military because they knew how important that is. It doesn't go one way if you start ignoring the Geneva Convention, because next time it might be your guys. Anyway, Powell in particular was very uneasy about this, but sounded perfect for Bush.

No prisoners of war, unlawful combatants. As for where to keep them, well, Cheney had some ideas about that. They needed a place controlled by the United States. It needed to be very secure so it couldn't be attacked, but also it'd be handy if it's by the United States. It needed to be very secure, so it couldn't be attacked. But also, it would be handy if it's not on United States soil, so we don't have to follow any of those pesky United States laws. So Guantanamo Bay in Cuba was chosen.

The United States had a naval base there, which comes from back in the Spanish-American War days. I believe we mentioned it in that episode back then. Anyway, Guantanamo Bay is perfect. Close to the United States, but not the United States. No. So now they have a place to keep the prisoners. How should we get the information out of them?

Torture! No, no, no, Jamie. Torture's illegal. Oh, of course. Sorry. Shh. Don't go talking about torture. No.

Since the unlawful combatants were not covered by the Geneva Convention, good news, they could be tortured. Oh, wonderful. However, slight problem, the United States couldn't torture. Just doesn't look good, does it? No. No, land of the free. We don't do torture.

Could they use alternative means, then? Well, we just need something else. Changing the name to one where the awful combatants work, so let's try that. Another name change. How about enhanced interrogation? Oh. That becomes the new buzzword.

The CIA draws up a list of suggested enhanced interrogation techniques. These are sent to the Justice Department to see whether they were illegal or not. You'll be shocked to learn that none of them were. Apart from one. One was rejected. And that was burying people alive. Oh my god. That was the only one that was rejected. Water boarding was the most controversial and the one most talked about.

So simulated drowning is a nice way of saying it, but you're suffocating someone with water. It also included using dog sleep deprivation as well as slapping is what it's called, but permission to physically pet. Music as well.

And babies crying, things like that. It's torture. It's textbook definition of torture. Literally no one is fault. The entire world saw that the United States were

now abducting people out of other countries with no permission, sending them to camps, and torturing them. And remember, Guantanamo Bay was the acceptable face of this. It soon became knowledge that the United States had several so-called black sites around the globe, such as in Poland, Romania, and Thailand, where no one knows what went on. None at all. This is really bad. Now, again, the people calling the shots here would argue they were doing this to make America safe. But it's really bad. Now, I'm not saying the people that they were picking up were all completely innocent people and had never done anything bad in their life. But if you're meant to be the moral high ground country, you shouldn't just be abducting people off the streets and torturing them.

And that's what they're now doing. The international community, almost unanimously behind America in the wake of 9-11, soon lost a lot of sympathy because America was not listening to anyone in their frustration and the rest of the world watched on nervously as america lashed out after a devastatingly awful attack on its soil no one just waited to see what they were going to do next and that's how we will leave it today a high note there yeah i was planning to try and get to uh bush standing on the ship with his banner for victory after the Iraqi war today, but that didn't happen. Too many things happen in Bush's presidency.

Yeah, so a bit of a downer, I'm afraid to say, as we end there. But, hey, it was a tough time to be president, a tough time to be an American, a tough time generally in the world. And the world is now how it is because of this yeah so there we go anything in that episode that surprised you anything new um yeah the election thing was interesting uh because i sort of i my perception of it wasn't what it was yeah yeah i found that genuinely fascinating as well um which is why i spent quite a bit of time on it yeah but yeah is he

the president you thought he was yeah so far yeah yeah yeah i didn't realize just how much how a chain he had and i started research yeah that was interesting that's a good point actually and it now explains how the right of the party managed to rise again so quickly yeah so that's interesting right well there we go yeah let's uh end on something positive shall we jeremy uh yeah cheese is still a thing cheese is a thing and i don't know if you know this but puppies and kittens sometimes play together oh everything's good cool right well who knows maybe the next episode when do we do we do some bushisms next time jamie that will cheer us up oh yeah yeah next episode, we'll do some Bushisms next time, Jamie. That will cheer us up.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's what we'll do. Right, well, thank you very much for listening. We should be finishing Bush next episode, I really hope, but we will see. There's so much to get through. And all that needs to be said. Thanks for downloading us where you do download us from. Thanks for listening as well.

You know, we love that you do. If you really do like what we're doing um feel free to join our patreon if you'd like yes very supportive yeah it helps rob do stuff like gamble or alcohol and research material as well that's yeah on my off days yeah yeah it's all good yeah okay great well thank you very much, and goodbye. Goodbye. George, Al here. Well, we gave him a nail-biter, but it appears that you have one.

I will, of course, be conceding very shortly. I'm hoping you'll give me 15 minutes just to talk to my people and help you understand this is a difficult time for us. But thank you for the gentleman's race. Oh, thanks for your message, George Rush here. That's lovely to hear. It was a jolly good race, I've got to admit. We fought well,

we were polite to each other, which was really good. You know, although you took a bit of a dirt, I can let that go, it's fine. Yeah, thank you for your support, and I would love to speak to you in person at some point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You need me? Okay. Sorry, I've just got to go and set a break. See you in person at some point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you need me? Okay.

Yeah, well, sorry, I've just got to go and celebrate. Yeah, see you in a bit. Bye. Al Gore here. Yes, well, well done. Just to say well done again and no hard feelings.

Like I say, I will certainly be delivering my concession speech within the next 15 minutes. Sorry I missed you. You're obviously celebrating. It'd be great to talk in person instead of leaving these damn messages. Anyway, yes, well done.

Hey, yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's been over 15 minutes now, but that's absolutely fine. Don't worry, we're just celebrating here with Cracked Up in the Champagne. Hey, Cheney! Yeah, we're having a great time. Anyway, I do really look forward to seeing and hearing your speech

within the next 15 minutes. That'd be really good. Yeah, speak to you soon. Anyway, love to the wife. Bye. Hey, yeah, it's been an hour. Still haven't seen your speech. Bye! dude I get it we've had debates we've hugged you know I get we've been through a challenging time

but I still respect you dude and I really hope you respect me well and say oh shit yeah cheddy yeah pass me another champagne yeah

but you know we'll sort it out just you know when I see your speech that'll be really really good so if you can get that on as soon as possible

that will solve everything. Ta-ra. You leave me hanging, go. Still no speech. Where's the speech? Where is the speech? Al Gore here. Terribly sorry to have missed you. All I can say is that circumstances have changed dramatically since I first called you and the state of Florida is too close to call. Terribly sorry about this. I know it goes against protocol, but I do not feel comfortable conceding, so I'm just not going loving pisses al gore is is this the button to hang up joe is are you kidding me are you kidding me we've just opened a massive like those like magnum bottles of champagne we've been spraying it around the room. And we're not getting our deposit back. You're not conceding the rate.

I've won. I've won. I don't care how narrow the margin is. I've won. Give me the presidency, Gore. Give me the presidency, Gore. I need the presidency. Well, you don't need to be snippy about it, Bush. All I'm saying is it's too close to call.

And I don't care what your brother's saying to you. You Bushes, you're all alike. You know what? I've been on the champagne as well, you know? Yeah, I have. Right, I'm going to hold it up to the party. Okay, well, you can't hear the party we're having right now

because it's so fun, you can't hear it. And you've got boring ears and your boring ears can't hear fun because you've got boring ears and your boring ears can't hear fun because you're an idiot bush you're an idiot and i hate you and i hate all the bushes and god damn it god i anyway al gore says goodbye goodbye are you kidding me gore are you yanking my balls gore you are yanking my balls you're twisting my balls the presidency is mine how dare you say things like that to be Yeah, he's president, I get it. I'm just trying to help him too.

Oh, thanks, Jeb. I get it, you know, I'm a mess. I've just been in his footsteps the entire time. I just want... I need this. I need this. I've got, like, 8,000 people cheering behind me. What am I going to say? Thank God. If you do a bro a favour.

How the hell did he be a president? It's scary. I don't even know where Florida is. Help. Supreme Court here. Yes, we are listening. Oh. Supreme Court here. Yes, we are listening. We've decided, or at least just over half of us have, that Bush gets to win, by the way.

So deal with it. Deal with it. Ta-ra.