American Presidents: Totalus Rankium - Knockouts: Group A

Episode Date: June 29, 2024

Time to start knocking people out! In this group stage Eisenhower, FDR, Grant and LBJ go against each other one on one. Only one can go through, but who will it be? We also look at out sinners and losers in the Statesmanship round! 

Welcome to Totalus Rankium. This week, Group A. Hello and welcome to American Presidents Totalis Rankium, I am Jamie. And I'm Rob and we are at the end. We're no longer ranking all of the presidents from Washington to Biden. We are now setting all the presidents off against each other in some kind of big royal rumble. I know what a royal rumble is Jamie, it's a wrestling reference. Are you proud of me?

Yeah, I'm actually well done. Yeah. Also, yeah, different introduction to last time. See, it's not all gonna be the same. No, yeah. No. If you're listening, we finally did it. What, 300 episodes into making podcasts?

Something like that. Eight years. Eight years. We finally go through the rite of passage of having to re-record an episode. So we've already done this. We did it yesterday. We're gonna do it again today.

All I'm gonna say is that it was so close yesterday that I genuinely don't know if we're gonna come up with the same answer today. Oh, that's intriguing. Yeah, so that's a little tease for you. Also a little tease for me and Jamie because otherwise we'd know the results of the episode already. Okay, but let's jump in. So over the next seven episodes, we are going to be finding out who the winner of American presidents totalis rankia omis. We have four quarterfinals where the four presidents battle it out in each group stage as going to be a winner to each episode. And then they go through to two semifinals and then a final. And then the winner will be crowned, but not crowned, because obviously, kings, that's not what you want.

No, absolutely not. However apart from looking at the four presidents this week we're going to do what we're going to do every single week which is take a little bit of a dive into the individual rounds that we've been doing throughout the whole series. There's no point collecting all this data Jamie if we're not going to do some crunching. That's right and you love to crunch. I do love a number crunch I really do. So we're going to start this week with statesmanship. And then we'll just go through the rounds as we go on. That's what we're doing. So sound guy, uh, statesmanship, please. Statesmanship! Okay. To begin with, we have our round, which is the closest to the traditional,

who is the best president round that we actually have. You know, you never less, you usually say it's usually who's the best and we don't do that. No, but this round kind of is. So statesmanship, we've always said, is how well did the president do? What did they bring to the country? What was their service like? Did they leave the country better than they found it?

Yeah, fair. Yeah, so we're gonna look to begin with, not with the five best Jamie, but the five worst presidents in American history, the five presidents you would be ashamed to worst presidents in American history, the five presidents you would be ashamed to take home to your mother. Yes, yes I would. So, so when we were recording yesterday,

at this point I said to Jamie, do you want to hazard a guess which five they are? Yeah. And you got, to be fair, I think you got four of them. I think you guessed four, didn't you? Oh no, no, I think I got two. Did you not? Oh, okay.

So I can name, cause I said Jackson first. Jamie, Jamie, no one's ever gonna know. You could just say whatever you want. Yeah, I got them all right, I think I want two. Oh, okay. I can name, I said Jackson first. Jamie, Jamie, no one's ever gonna know. You could just say whatever you want. Yeah, I got them all right, don't remember. Yeah, I think so, Jamie. I think so. I was very impressed with your memory of Gavott. Well, I pay attention, Rob. And the kind of points we gave out. Yeah, exactly.

So I won't, let's not pretend that you're guessing again. You probably remember. Actually, I am kind of interested. Do you remember from yesterday andrew pierce franklin pierce yes see yeah going well uh donald trump was one of them yeah he was one of them oh and there's one i can't remember the name of no i have no idea so you've actually done about the service you did yesterday Well, what I will say is that the bottom five

President scored a combined total of two points in this round. That is how low scoring these guys are So I'll just say what we've got. In joint fourth place with only one point a piece, we put Franklin Pierce and George W. Bush. They only got one point each. It's a poor show from them. But not as bad as these three, who we declined to give a solitary point to. They deserve nothing according to us. So in joint first place is James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson and Donald Trump. How is it? Yeah, they're the five. They're the five that we think are absolutely awful. But as you can see, we've got some tidying

up to do because we don't just leave it with joint fourth and joint second and stuff like that. No, we need to rank them. We're totalus rankium, not mediocre rankium, which poor cousin podcast of ours don't listen to them. So we're gonna we're gonna tidy up. First of all, we need to decide who is actually fourth and fifth? Who is worst between W. Bush and Franklin Pierce? But I'm guessing if you're listening, you might be a bit hazy. It was a long time ago that we did some of these presidents. So let's just do a quick refresher of who these guys are. So Franklin Pierce was a president who was president at a time when not much was going on, apart from the issue of slavery, really. It's all the build up to the Civil War. And if you last stand on this round, you know what the bad thing's gonna be for, don't you? It's not gonna be good, is it? In this case, he did really badly because he was a northern president,

but he bowed down to the pressure of the South when it came to slavery. He repeatedly tore up agreements that kept the growth of slave states at bay. He ripped up the Missouri Compromise. He made it so new territories could decide to just have slaves. The whole bleeding Kansas violence thing was under him, if you remember. That saw pro and anti-slavery factions physically fighting and overhauling a peaceful political process. So you saw politics fall apart. This is all under Pierce. He was also a big supporter and this lost him a lot of points of the Futurative Slave Act. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, which was very depressing as we saw. And he was, he loved it. Absolutely loved it, he did. He's generally seen as a weak leader who could not control the worst aspects of his party. He's not the reason why the Civil War happened, but he is an important part of why the Civil War happened. So, not good. One racist cog in the big racist machine. Yeah, but is he better or worse than W. Bush? An inept son of a former president who failed upwards at every stage in his life, he became president in a dodgy election, and due to lacking any strong political beliefs of his own, he was soon turned into a puppet president for the far right of his party.

And then, of course, 9-11 happens, and instead of dealing with the aftermath of this, he just used it as an opportunity to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9-11. A war that led to 100,000 deaths, roughly, and a war that was formed under known lies at the time. They made up the justifications. We did give him some credit in this episode for starting to deal with the collapse of the economy at the end of his term, but we decided not to give him any points for it because he followed his party's ideology when it came to the economy, and it's very easy to argue that the Republicans just throwing all of the Oversight out the window was a major factor that led to the collapse. So, okay, so

Out of those two, which one is worse? Can you remember where we went yesterday? Yes, I can and I remember We talked about how George W Bush is fresh in the memory. It's now We talked about how George W Bush is fresh in the memory. It's now 10,000 deaths, 100,000 deaths. That is absolutely awful. And that is possibly more than Franklin encouraged. But Franklin was essentially racist pro-slavery, or at least bowed down to it. And I think treating people like animals is in some ways, well, is worse. So I think we put Franklin, we put George as sixth and Franklin as fifth.

George's fifth and Franklin's fourth. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. That is, I, that's how I remember it as well. I think you said something along the lines of slavery is bad. And I, it's like, yeah, slavery is very bad.

I'm not going to say it's good. W not good. He was really not good, but it's hard to say he was worse than a president that was saying it was fine to round up other human beings and force them into slavery. So yes, we are going to say that Franklin Pierce is our fourth worst president, W. Bush is our fifth, but now we have the bottom three to work out. Again, we have two Civil War presidents here and we've got one modern one. Let's start with Buchanan, shall we? He did very little in the face of the secession crisis. It

became very clear to many in the government that when the federal government did nothing to stop states from leaving the Union, the rest became emboldened. As said in his episode, if we were generous, we would say that he wasn't strong enough to stand up to the slave-owning South, but in reality it was simply, it was just very obvious that he was supportive of the South. He wanted the South to win, and he even broke laws of the country to help the South win. He was a big fat traitor. Yeah, he was. He was on the Southern side, and the Southern side wanted to enslave people.

It's not hard to figure out who was the wrong side there. So yeah. Yeah. Also, on top of this, Dred Scott was under him. The Supreme Court ruled that black people had no rights at all in America. Awful. One of the most awful decisions Supreme Court ever made. Now, obviously, the Supreme Court separate from the executive branch, of course, but there were some executive fingers in the Supreme Court pie that was yeah not good Buchanan was definitely wagging his fingers around there he was very supportive so basically he was awful he was awful and again he wasn't the cause for the civil war but again he is a very important step on the way arguably more so than Pierce because he's the one that goes right up to the Civil War. Yeah, so not good. But who's up next? Well, it's the other side of Lincoln. So we have Buchanan, Lincoln comes along, Civil War happens, Lincoln

dies, and we end up with Andrew Johnson. The war's won, Lincoln's dead, and in steps Johnson who stops all potential progress that winning the war would bring. Essentially he gave the South everything they asked for after the war. As I said in the episode, and I will quote myself here, it meant that after tearing off the band-aid of the Civil War, that band-aid was firmly pressed back on with some glue, and then it slowly peeled back over the next few decades. Yeah. To put it simply, he was a massive racist who spent his time in office undoing as much of

the good work that had occurred during the war in terms of civil rights. Brilliant. Good for him. Good for him. Well done, Johnson. Very frustrating. It just makes me angry what happened there. Yeah.

But hey, who's this? Who's this relative unknown? It's Donald Trump. Big, brash, largely incompetent. He started as a tool for the far right of the party, but soon the poppet ate the poppet strings. Poppet masters? Trump turned. Yeah. They could no longer control him. Essentially, he turned the far right faction of the GOP and then eventually the entirety of the GOP into his own Trump party, which is essentially what we have now.

He had no obvious political beliefs of his own. He was only in power to enrich himself. Now, all of that was bad, but probably he wouldn't have scored zero if it wasn't for the very last thing he did, which was refuse to give up power. He did everything he could up into almost... Still doing it. Yeah, he's still doing it. But I mean, we got up to the point where there was almost armed insurrection. You can't get closer than that before the actual violence on guns comes out. I mean, storming the Capitol, people did die. It is, yeah, it's just really awful what he did. He lied repeatedly to the public and continues to do so,

that the elections were rigged. It undermines the very democratic foundations of the country. Arguably, this is the biggest crisis America has been in since the Civil War. But who knows, in 50 years time, this might just be a blip. Things might calm down in 10 years,

and in 50 years time, people will look back and go, oh, do you remember that Trump, that was a bit weird, wasn't it? And it won't be seen as a blip. Things might calm down in 10 years and in 50 years time people will look back and go, oh do you remember Trump? That was a bit weird, wasn't it? And it won't be seen as a massive deal. It will just be mentioned, like Watergate is mentioned. But it's hard to say. We're right in the thick of it. It's the cultural switch as well. Yeah, it is a big deal. We need to rank these three. But I did just say the biggest crisis since the Civil War and the other two were the crisis in the Civil War so... Well I think I think Trump has to come third.

Is that what we said yesterday? I can't remember. I thought you'd written them down, did you not? No I wrote because I didn't at that point then I wrote the top ones down. I can't remember the worst ones. I didn't write them down either but when I was just speaking then I'm thinking yeah we should probably put Trump third which is interesting because I'm fairly sure we put him second yesterday. I think we did as well.

Which is fine because as we said yesterday hard to choose between these three. They are all awful but it's hard to say that person who was so bad the country ripped apart and the Civil War started is not the worst president in American history. I think Buchanan's got to be the worst. I agree. And Johnson destroying all the momentum of the rise of civil rights. It's awful. But then, oh no, no, I remember now, this is where we got to, he did fight on the right side in the war and he didn't try and stage any kind of insurrection. So is Johnson worse than Trump or Trump worse than Johnson?

Johnson enabled slavery. Trump's not doing that. Yeah, well slaves. But I mean, no, because Johnson agreed with the emancipation of slavery. I mean, reluctantly, but he didn't try and roll that back. That's what I mean, reluctantly. And made it, you know, could have snapped his have snapped his fingers. Okay, should we say Buchanan worst, then Johnson, then Trump? Yeah. Yeah. I think from yesterday, but only only slightly. We've we've switched around Johnson and Trump, I think. So Trump's got a bit of a reprieve due to our technical errors. Lucky Trump. So just to make it official, then fifth worst president is W. Bush, fourth worst president is Franklin Pierce, third worst president Donald Trump, second worst Andrew Johnson, and the very worst president of the United States according to us is James Buchanan,

the idiot. But this is all very negative, Jamie, very negative indeed. Shall we go on to the good ones? Yay, please. Yeah, the ones that make you feel all fluffy and happy. Give me that funny feeling inside. Yeah take them home meet your mother. Meet my grandparents. Who's it gonna be? Yeah well let's see I can't give you the top five because we have a joint fifth so I'm gonna have to give you the top six. So in fifth and sixth place with a score of 16 we have the Roosevelt's Teddy and

Franklin. Yeah. Together. Then in joint second place we have three presidents and it's a bunch of founding fathers. It's Washington, Jefferson and Madison. And then we don't need to discuss at all who the best president is according to us because it's Abraham Lincoln with a score of 18 points. So that's nice. We know who the best is. It's Lincoln. But let's sort out this order, shall we? So first of all, Teddy or Franklin for fifth. So Teddy impressed us mostly because we finally had a president standing up to the robber barons. The Gilded Age is going on and we were very annoyed with the Gilded Age. And he stands up to the robber barons. He sometimes even won. He was a progressive

president for the time. He was not bullied by the rich. He stood up for what he believed in. Throughout his career, he fought against corruption. He was big on conservation. We enjoyed that. So even if you take away his bombastic personality, he was still a good president. So we were happy with that. His distant relative, Franklin Roosevelt, however scored the same amount for a very different reason.

He got all his positive points pretty much for the New Deal. The New Deal was a big push that helped many in the country. He steered the United States from two major events, the Great Depression and World War II, and left the country undeniably better than when he found it. By the time he'd left, it was arguably a golden age for the United States. The United States had been rich for quite some time, but it was now starting to look after its citizens on top of that. However, because that sounds very good, that obviously sounds better than Teddy, doesn't

it? It just was. However, we took Marx off him because he did do the whole rounding up Japanese people and put them in the concentration camp, and it's not good, is it? Yeah, it's like George Takei who plays Sulu and Star Trek was one of those recipients. Uh, yes, so it's it's difficult. I remember we discussed this for quite some time yesterday, but I think we can cut to the chase to our conclusion. Yeah. Which I believe I said a line roughly similar to it's undeniable that FDR was a better president. He just has the black mark.

Yeah. And I think therefore we decided well let's put FDR higher than because he was a better president. He just has the black mark. And I think therefore we decided, well let's put FDR higher then because he was a better president. But we agreed we would always remember he got that black mark against his name because you can't just ignore that. It was bad. But majority of people under FDR were better off for him being their president. I don't agree with that. So that's the way we went there. So we're going to go for Teddy Roosevelt 6 and FDR 5th. But now who is 2nd, 3rd and 4th out of the founding fathers? We sorted this one out very quickly yesterday. You decided immediately who was coming in 2nd.

Where? George Washington? Yeah, George Washington. He was the first president. He set the precedents. Most importantly, he stepped down. If he didn't step down, the American experiment just wouldn't have worked. It would have just turned into a different monarchy.

So yeah, I think Washington being second makes a lot of sense. Then we debated Jefferson and Madison. Jefferson, very involved in the creation of the new government, including the Declaration of Independence. He outlined how things were going to happen, such as how states would be introduced, for example. He did many things like that. He was the founder of the Democratic Republicans, along with Madison, to be fair. So very important in American history. Then we got Madison, known as the father of the Constitution. He wrote the Bill of Rights. He's writing all the Federalist Papers for Hamilton. He is

just getting stuff done. He's working away like a beaver in the background, writing things down, whereas Jefferson was more the face and coming up with ideas and talking. Yeah, and that's the reason why I think we put James Madison as third, because, like you said, he was working hard, he was organizing it, and basically arranged the US as it is nowadays where Madison was, sorry, Jefferson, face but still effective yeah yeah I'm still happy with the decision we made yesterday though yeah so to be clear in sixth place is Teddy Roosevelt fifth place FDR then coming into fourth place is Jefferson the third place Madison second place Washington and the best president according to us is Abraham

Lincoln the turkey fighting crazy man that he was and a wrestler whole wrestling hall of fame as well yeah exactly so well there we go that is statesmanship but remember that's not their total scores because we don't our total score is not how good they were but according to their statesmanship that's how things are and we will go into group a and make a- do the main part of the episode in a moment. But before we do, I realized this was our opportunity to do something. Because this is the round that is most linked to who was the best president, we can actually compare ourselves to the official lists, because there are official lists that come out every

now and again. So there was one that came out this year that the American Political Science Association published. Now the APSA don't release this every single year, but they happen to release one this year. It is an association of political scientists across America. Every now and again, I can only assume they all get together, they smoke cigars, and they essentially do this podcast with more detail and knowledge, but just to each other's faces which can only assume which came first our podcast or them uh i'm guessing them damn it i'd have to

check it's gonna suit them i'm guessing i am guessing they started first but let's say who would steal another podcast format i mean that's absolutely awful it is awful uh well let's assume they started after us and they stole the idea of us. However, what I will say is they definitely know more than us. That's for sure. So I was interested. I was right. They were founded in 1903. I was slightly after them. Yeah, just slightly. Damn. Okay. Yeah, so I was interested. I genuinely had not seen this whole list or if I did when it came out, I only glanced at it and I was like, I'm going to wait till the end to look at this and compare. So I was interested to see what we thought compared to a bunch of experts in America.

So worst first, who were the five worst presidents according to the APSA? In fifth place they put William Harrison. Poor William Harrison, he only lasted a month, it's understandable why he does not get many points. We put him joint sixth to last. So we were very close with that. He doesn't appear in our bottom five but he was right on the cusp. And then this is where things get pretty good Jamie, because fourth place they put Pierce third place Andrew Johnson second place James Buchanan and very last they put Donald Trump. He must hate that.

Oh yes he really did hate that. So there you go we got four out of five and their fifth one we put in sixth to last so I'm really happy with that I think we got pretty close. The main difference was Dubya Bush came in 14th to last in theirs they were a bit more happy with Bush than we got pretty close. The main difference was Dubya. Bush came in 14th to last in there So a bit more happy with Bush than we were. Okay. Yeah Okay, but what about top five? Maybe we didn't get it quite right up there. Let's see. Shall we well fifth place They put Jefferson fourth place. They put Teddy Roosevelt third place Washington second place FDR and first place Lincoln So we got all the six just slightly different

order. Well don't forget we've got Madison up there as well. Oh yeah. They put him in 11th so again there's one. What do they know? They got it wrong. Well again four out of five that's pretty good I'm happy with that. I say four out of five we've mentioned all of those because we talked about top six so yeah yeah so it just goes to show even though we're hardly experts on the subject we're just a couple of Brits with a bookcase full of biographies we we hit the mark if we're wrong then the experts are wrong Jamie that's what I'm saying yes therefore I'm gonna say with confidence we can never make a mistake ever again excellent but anyway let's go on to the meat,

shall we? We've had the garnish of the episode. Let's get meaty. We're going into group A. Soundguy hit it. Okay, here's how it's going to work. Each week, we will go through the four presidents who are in that group. Three of them, Jamie, are going home. Going home home i don't know how how are we phrasing this are they going home are they just being shot they're boarding air force one to return back to that is that is nicer they go on air force one and they fly home to their homes yes that's nice and we're being shot isn't it yeah let's not be brutal yeah it's not the Romans we're not feeding them to lions it's fine barbaric barbaric okay so's not the Romans here. We're not feeding them to lions. It's fire. Barbaric. Barbaric.

OK, so one of the presidents will go through. Only one, so it's tough to get through. So who have we got in group A? Well, we have got Dwight Eisenhower, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Ulysses S. Grant, and Lyndon B. Johnson. We are going to go through each one one by one, do a very, very quick recap just to

refresh the memory then we'll decide who we're knocking out and who's going through. Okay let's begin with Eisenhower. The 34th president Dwight Eisenhower. He was a Republican. He scored a total of 37 points which puts him fifth place in our rankings. But let's break down those stats shall we? He got 13 for statesmanship so slightly slightly above average not bad here's here's where he shined shawn even here's where he was shiny disgrace gate zero oh that's very good zero very good which i'll talk about more in a moment silver screen a respectable 16 canvas ability we liked the cut of his jib he scored a total of 4 out of 5 there.

He scored 2 for terms, no one tried to kill him, and he got a landslide victory, so 2 points in election. So good score, I mean, yeah, yeah, he's 5th place, it's pretty good. But what was his life? Let's do a quick reminder, shall we? He grew up poor, his family lived in a shack at one point. We're talking very poor here. He was sent to West Point, and he was going to get a life in the military, he was.

We saw some amusing stories at the time, such as when he was told to come along in dresscoat one time, and him and his friends turned up wearing just a dresscoat and nothing else. He became obsessed with tanks after graduating because they put him in charge of the tanks even though they had no tanks. Oh, can you imagine that? It's like an armadillo. It's like a car with metal around it. I was thinking cardboard boxes, cardboard tube, that kind of thing. So look, kind of like this. This is the initial concept. Yeah, and Flintstones style running. Yeah, yeah

Actually got lifted up as you run. Watch out for the mines. Exactly. Oh, those pretend as well. No. Yeah anyway he rose through the army. Rosed through the rain. World War I happens but he misses it. He was sent out literally as it was ending. So he just missed World War I. So much to his regret he didn't see action but then he rises through the army he's given a job to look into what the allied forces did during World War One and write a tour book about it okay so he actually spent a long time just researching what happened he became arguably one of the best experts in World War One because no one else in the military had the time to just sit around reading what happened during World War I. They had other stuff to do.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, he becomes an expert in logistics and tactics and everything. Purely by mistake, really. Because of this, he keeps rising through those ranks. He works under MacArthur for a while. World War II then starts and he goes to Europe. Quick version of his career in Europe. He was promoted and he led the invasion of North Africa, then Italy and Sicily and then the major push into Europe and the Allies win. Hooray! So he goes home.

Remember he had the affair with his driver at this point. Yeah. Yeah. He was tempted to leave his wife at this point and just go and live in England, but his bosses said no, we'll fire you if you do that. So he goes back to his wife, he becomes the president of Columbia University. He absolutely hated it. So he goes into politics. Both parties wanted him, he couldn't decide which one to go for. So eventually just goes Republican, but he didn't really feel like he belonged to either. Anyway, he becomes president. He was the popular war hero. And then it was a fairly standard presidency. Nothing awful happens. But the thing that really impressed us is the fact that he howled

off the worst instincts of America post-war America. There was a lot of anti-communist feeling and there was a lot of pro-nuke feeling. We've got these new weapons. We can use them when any war we want now. And Eisenhower kept saying, no, no, no, no, we don't need to antagonize the Russians. And we are not using these nukes. Good. Yeah, this really impressed us. The most important thing he did was the refusing to use the nukes in Korea in the Korean War. Because let's face it, if they were used in Korea, they would have been used in Vietnam, etc. It's just nuclear wasteland by now. So arguably, Eisenhower saved the world. Arguably, you could certainly debate that. But it is nice that a president came in who wasn't all gung-ho using these new weapons, that's for sure.

We were also impressed that Hedway was made into civil rights, although it was a bit of a mixed bag with him, but, for example, black children in Arkansas were allowed to go to school in mixed classrooms or mixed schools. Arkansas, as we saw, did not like that, the whole Little Rock thing happened. I believe you joked that people were trying to get him to use nukes on Little Rock. But Eisenhower said no. God's bomb him. Do it. Now, just going through the total scores in the Draw episode, if you remember, I was interested to see that Eisenhower scored the same as Washington. I'd forgotten that. But after

re-listening to the episode for this episode, I can see why. His racks to riches was interesting he won the biggest war in history he became a cool-headed wise statesman his zero and disgrace gate is very impressive because it's only equaled by Hayes and Obama yeah only three of them that scored zero where we went you know what I just don't think there's anything we could score him down now arguably we were a bit nice to Eisenhower here because you could argue the fact that he just ran off with his driver during World War II. He deserved to pick up a point for, in retrospect maybe I'd give him a point there, but hey we didn't feel at the time. So I would say he was underrated by me. I'd say he is a bit of a hidden gem,

which might sound a bit weird to Americans who grow up knowing more about these presidents than we do being in Britain But over here Eisenhower's not really a president. We talk about much Washington yeah Exactly, so I was impressed with them. Yeah, I thought he was pretty good I enjoyed him again as well because kind of oh, yeah, actually it was very good I can see why it's a goody was very good but isn't good enough to beat the top scorer in this group? Because next we have...

Frank Reidy, Loser! The 32nd president. A Democrat. He scored 41.25. He is our top scorer. So he really is the one to beat here. But let's break down his stats. He scored a very impressive 16 in statesmanship, which we've already talked about, so I won't talk about that anymore right now. Disgrace Gate another very impressive only minus 2. Silver Screen very impressive 19. You can see why he's our top scorer he just does well in every round. Well apart from this one the canvas ability we went middle of the

road 2.25 out of 5. 3 terms because it's the only president scored more than two in this round so that got him more points someone tried to kill him at one point so that got him a point in assassination and landslide victories he just racked up the points he really did but that doesn't mean you win not here in totalitarancio no without giving too much spoilers to the roman series it's not a guarantee so let's go through ruisvalt? Oh, he was rich. He was very rich. He came out clinking, he was when he came out. Already. Lucky wasn't a kangaroo, because he'd already had pockets full of gold, he would. Yeah. Yeah, he went to a very posh school. And then that was followed by Harvard. He got various posh jobs. And then he married his very distant cousin Eleanor Roosevelt And they didn't have to change her name because they shared the name It's really weird It's really weird isn't it? But distant cousin remember distant

Yeah, but they have the same name Distant cousin They have the same name Anyway, he gets given a job as an assistant secretary to the Navy during World War I He wanted to go and fight but he was talked out of it by hires up They said no you're staying here. You're doing the paperwork. You couldn't do the paperwork. He gets into politics and up until this point, we were not impressed. He just came across as full of it, a tad racist, not as racist as his wife who came across as very racist.

However, at this point, he contracts polio and he really seems to change, apart from the obvious physical changes. A lot changes about Roosevelt. It has a massive impact on his life. As we saw, he seemed to become more compassionate, more willing to accept other people's point of view. He was bedridden for years and he slowly makes a very limited recovery. He eventually was able to shuffle with a stick if someone was helping him, but mostly he needed a chair. Everyone around him told him to give up, just relax, you're rich you don't need to do anything. But no he didn't, it's like, no I'm getting into politics, I'm doing it, I'm gonna overcome this. So he does, he becomes the governor of New York, does a

decent job, he becomes president in 33 and delivers his the only thing to fear is fear itself speech. Always good to have a famous speech. And then, and this is where he starts racking up the points as we've already discussed in statesmanship, the New Deal pushes it through. That's why he's held up as one of the best presidents. Unlike every other president in the United States history, FDR forced through a reform that actually benefited the average American rather than the rich ruling class. When he did something good.

Yeah. Crazy I know. Now I'm not going to go into all the New Deal now, we he did something good. Yeah. Crazy, I know. Yeah. Now, I'm not going to go into all the New Deal now. We've got an episode for that. We could listen to that whenever we want. But the reforms largely work. And it gets the country through the Great Depression. People are undoubtedly better off than they were because of his leadership.

He proved that the government could actually be a force for good. Government doesn't have to be oppression. The government can do things like provide social security nets He proved that the government could actually be a force for good. Government doesn't have to be oppression. The government can do things like provide social security nets for people who are starving to death and also help organise infrastructure, farming, manufacturing to make it just work smoother. I can't imagine a country wanting that. It's unusual when countries actually invested themselves.

Yeah, exactly. So it just worked really well. And everyone was happy with him because he was reelected in a landslide. Then World War Two starts up, he tried to keep the United States out of the war for as long as he could. But he kind of knew they were always heading in that direction. He bends rules as much as possible to help the allied side, because technically they were neutral, but they weren't neutral. He realized that the Nazi threat in Europe was serious and could break the American democracy if it was unchecked.

There were a lot in America at the time who were more than happy to see the rise of Nazism in Europe, and it easily could have caught hold in America but Roosevelt was having none of it as were a lot of people to be fair wasn't just him but to say everyone was on the allied side in America at the start of the war is not true but fortunately they had a leader in who was pushing against the rise of the far right in Europe. Anyway, then Pearl Harbor happens. Yeah. That's pulling the Americans in, isn't it? So, America join World War II. He is elected for a third time. Then we go all the way through the World War stuff. He continues to lead the United States through the largest war in history. He does very well. He's doing

all the meeting Churchill and Stalin, everything.nery does a very good job here and then he's elected to a fourth term. Oh my goodness. A fourth term, just count them. Some people are starting to get a bit nervous at this time. Is this dictatorship here? Is this a new monarchy? What's going on? But he's doing such a good job people just want him to stay. And then he dies pretty much immediately after that. All right, right. We were very impressed with him. Yes. Mainly that he got through not one but two major challenges, but he also used them to bring about a lot of good social change. He got most of his points in silver screen because his challenges

to overcome his paralysis would make a great series to watch. He got a strong statesmanship score, well deserved, but let's not forget the black mark against him did put Japanese people in concentration camps. He did. That was awful. Yes. So he's the one to beat, but who's next? Ulysses S. Grant. The 18th president, Ulysses S. Grant, a Republican scoring 33.75. He came seventh overall, a very respectable position respectable position breaking down his score 14 for statesmanship not bad minus four for disgrace okay pretty good silver screen a healthy 17 mediocre canvas ability was in for two terms no assassination attempts and a landslide election so did pretty good overall yeah the start of his life very very similar to Eisenhower, interestingly.

We see a lot of parallels between Eisenhower and Grant. He's got two of the military presidents in one round. And yeah, starts off poor, just like Eisenhower did, and was sent off to West Point, just like Eisenhower. Grant was the son of a tanner. He loved horses. He goes to West Point and he enters the military. But then things change a lot compared to Eisenhower because Grant sees a lot of action. A lot of action indeed, working his way up from the bottom. He's arguably the most fighty of all presidents. Arguably Taylor could give him a run for his money, who he served under at one point. He served in the Mexican-American War in the 1840s.

He left the army in the 1850s but rejoined once the Civil War broke out. Remember he didn't go into the Civil War leading it. He was promoted throughout the war. Now a lot of his episodes was about what he got up to fighting in the Civil War if you remember. He almost became a Civil War podcast for a little while. So we're not going to go over that here but just know through the Civil War he's promoted and promoted again until he is in charge of the Union forces and they win Hazard. Robert E Lee surrenders to Grant, famous part of American history, but then Lincoln is assassinated. Boo. Johnson becomes president and ruins everything but then Grant gets in and attempts to right on the ship once more and he

does okay. The results were mixed. As we commented on the time, his presidency shows the kind of problems that Lincoln would have come up against. Lincoln died at the perfect time to secure his legacy because he was at the peak of his presidency. So everyone can just assume that he would have been a genius if he'd stayed around. But realistically, he would have been coming across the same problems as Grant did. Probably would have been fairly similar. Post-war US was a mess. The southern states were winning the peace after Johnson was allowing to them. We were mostly impressed with Grant with the fact that he did things like clamp down hard on

the rise of the first KKK. He clamped down on that so hard that he eradicated it immediately. That is very impressive and that is absolutely on the right side of history. Yes, if only other presidents had clamped down on the other KKKs that rose at various times in American history. So, yeah, we were very pleased that he did that. Civil rights are starting to swing once more in the correct direction. Black people are now allowed in the military. The 15th Amendment goes through, meaning black people can vote. And black people did actually vote because Grant used the military to make sure they did.

They're protecting the voting booths, making sure violence didn't break out. So for a brief period post-Civil War, you actually got black people voting in the South. So we got black politicians and such. It doesn't last very long, however, because the military support is taken away, voter suppression comes flooding in decades afterwards. The black vote is heavily suppressed, arguably still is today, to a lesser extent, but it's still there. So anyway, generally good, tied a history bad. We did criticize Grant for some things. He turned his back on the Native American population when gold was found in the Black Hills So some treaties were turned just torn apart and also we start to see the start of the Gilded Age

Yeah At this point essentially the North won and that meant that the big industries of the North Began to be able to influence politics more and more which led to Robert Barron's yeah That that was just awful. Don't get me wrong, bedavent slavery, but it was awful. And this is what I mentioned yesterday as well, there's a series by Julian Fellows who does Downton Abbey and he did Pride and Prejudice in the 90s. He does a series called The Gilded Age. There are two series, the third is currently being filmed or has probably finished filming,

should be out soon. And it's very good. Yeah, you said it doesn't go into the politics much it's like a family yeah it's just like the societal things is it a rich robber baron uh no it yeah one of them is um so it's old money versus new money kind of thing oh i see yeah okay no that sounds interesting it does i thought that yesterday when you mentioned it that's like maybe i should give this a go. Yeah. So I mean, it's pretty good from Grant. Yeah. But we've got one more to go over. Well, I mean, let's not beat around the bush here. He's the outsider. Lyndon B. Johnson was the 36th president. He was a Democrat. He scored 19.5, which isn't amazing. No, that's very middle of the road. He's 16th in the total rankings,

breaking down his score. Statesmanship, not bad. 14. That's where he gets most of the road. Well he's 16th in the total rankings. Breaking down his score, statesmanship not bad 14 that's where he gets most of his points. Disgrace gate minus 12. Oh ouch. Yeah that's where he lost most of his points. Silver screen 12 points so fairly average silver screen there. Canvas ability again middle of the road. Terms one no assassinations. He did get a landslide victory, so he scored two in election. So, it's not amazing. He's the third lowest-scoring president with AmeriCAN. Interesting. He only beats Hayes and Polk,

and Polk we already knocked out in the draw round. So he's only really beating Hayes. And Hayes has a great story. I know why he's here. So why is Johnson here? Why is he here? Well, first of all, maybe it's his life story. He was born to a poor family in Texas. He followed his father around, who was in local politics.

He did menial jobs, he had a bit of a wild side. He got a chance connection, which got him a job in Washington as political aide. And he suddenly found out that he had a gift for politics. He was a natural politician. The rest of his story was him climbing the political ladder. He did what he could to win elections, including keep cheating several times. He became vice president because he was just a good politician and no one disliked him enough for him not to be vice president. And when JFK was shot, he became an accidental president. With a silver screen of 12, you can see that we thought that this was fine, but hardly amazing. So again, it begs the question, why AmeriCAN? Well, mainly it was because he was

a very good politician who pushed through the civil rights reforms. The Civil Rights Act is one of the most important parts of American history, underscoring the aim of equality in a country that, let's be honest, has failed to live up to it. But it's in writing that they're trying and that is important. No country lives up to the dream of equality. No country is perfect. But America have it in writing that they're trying to get there. Not many countries do. So that's pretty good. I mean, it'd be nice if they actually did it. But hey, it's something to aim for and let's celebrate that. And the Civil Rights Act is a big part of that and Johnson pushed it through. But also other things, reforms in education and in voting meant that people were better educated, more people could vote easily than ever before.

Generally, he did a good steady job as president. And I think we just thought that that should be celebrated more. Yeah, you want boring politicians. You want boring politicians who get the job done. Yeah. That's good for countries. The more pervading personality you have the more suspicious it is. You're hiding something. You don't need all the drama. You don't want the drama. You just want someone who can run a country. Yeah. The less you think about who's in charge the better it's being run. I can only assume. Yeah. I think you're right. Yeah if 80% of the country has no idea

who's in charge it's probably a pretty happy country. Yeah. Not that I'm suggesting 80% of people didn't know who Johnson was by the way. I'm sure they did. But you understand the point I'm trying to make here. However we did criticize him. He jumped into Vietnam. Yeah he did. His predecessors had done everything they could to stay out of Vietnam but oh he just jumped in there. He didn't care. And that was a mistake. Yeah, we debated whether we should have it. And we really went back and forth. We even talked about the coin, which we very rarely do in the American series. We almost split a coin. Yeah.

But you were saying he should. I was on the fence. And because you said yes and I wasn't sure, we decided eventually to go, yes, but I quote myself here, but I'm not happy about it. So I'll be honest, he's not got much of a chance. He's going to be fourth. He is going to be fourth. And we're now talking about where they're going. So let's go into this, shall we?

Sound guy. Yeah, I mean, we don't need to, well, we don't need to discuss this too much because we've already had this discussion. Quick look at the file that did work my side of the conversation. We talked about this for about 20 minutes yesterday, by the way, and it went down to the wire. There was a period of about a minute when neither of us said anything as we were trying to decide. Do not think this is a foregone conclusion. I genuinely don't know if we're going to land on the same side today. But what we both agreed yesterday, and I'm still sticking with, is Johnson's out straight away. He clearly cannot win this round against the other three, can we?

Absolutely not. No. Then we have the fact that we have Franklin Roosevelt as the favourite. Yes. And we've got Eisenhower and Grant, who are arguably not the favorite. Yes. And we've got Eisenhower and Grant who are arguably not the favorite. Although I changed my mind slightly. I had a bit of a curveball yesterday and I still do. I still stand by my decision. It wasn't much of a curveball because I was having the same curveball. The first thing, rather than trying to pretend that we're thinking this for the first time again, Let's just say that we decided

that Grant comes out at this point. Yes, he did a lot of good things for black folks. He fought the KKK, very fighty, incredibly fighty, rose from nothing, very admirable, almost very similar to Eisenhower in one sense. And that was it. If you've got Eisenhower and Grant in the same group as each other, well, why not have Eisenhower rather than Grant? We thought Eisenhower was a better president than Grant and we thought that Eisenhower won the biggest war in history, which I mean, okay, the Civil War was also very big for Americans. But yeah, having those two big military fighters, the two of them were in charge of the armies in the two biggest wars in American history. It's interesting having them side by side. But we said Eisenhower.

But not only did we say Eisenhower, we then got to the point where we couldn't decide between Roosevelt and Eisenhower. And this is where we stopped recapping yesterday. And this is where we're just going to jump into debating again, because we discussed this for a while and finally just chose one. And I still don't know if we made the right decision so let's just carry on with the debate and see where we land shall we? Yeah so I wanted Eisenhower and I think the biggest thing that stood out to me was the no to nukes. He didn't pull the trigger which was very sensible because I think if he had have done we'd be living in a very different world now.

Yeah I mean this is huge and I think this is underappreciated about him. All it needed was a president to say, okay, let's use a nuke in Korea. I cannot see how the world would still be stable now. No, it wouldn't be, because then Russia would go, oh, okay, fair game. By leading America into a war, but refusing to use their most powerful weapon. That set a precedent. It did. And that precedent we're kind of still living with? Yeah, I mean it's been-

As of this day of recording. Yeah, it's been dodgy. There's been scare moments. But it is stuck. For longer than perhaps a lot of people would have dared to think when those first bombs were dropped on Japan. This is a really big moment in American history that I just don't think is valued enough. And it falls squarely on Eisenhower's door. It was his decision. He didn't want to do it. He was fed up with the military people going, let's fight, let's fight, let's be gung-ho.

Well, more to point, it was usually civilian military advisors, people in his cabinet who were saying, let's go and fight. And I'm telling you what the military should do. I know how I knew what the military was like, and he knew the horrors of war. And he wasn't going to go and gung-ho because he actually knows what it's like. Yeah. Yeah. And I still I still completely agree with you. But again, Roosevelt, I know it's not as one big point flashily exciting, but decent reform in your country, which stops the Gilded Age

and then solidifies the Progressive Age, is very important. It is. Roosevelt defines America up until Reagan, in my mind. It's a very different country to it was in the late 1800s and early 1900s. And then 80s onwards, America was very different again. I would argue America was always at its most positive in that era, the FDR era, where we are going to lead the world and we're going to look after our citizens and we are not all in it for ourselves. We are going to help each other. We're going to work as a team. That's how I view it. Now, I know some people, many people, disagree

with that assessment of Roosevelt, depending on your political leanings, but hey, it's our podcast. That's how I see it. But also, Eisenhower, he rightly gets points for leading World War II, but also so does Roosevelt. He was the president during World War II. He was also making the big calls. He was the one negotiating with Churchill and with Stalin and making sure that things happened. He was the big picture guy. And then on top of that, you've got the fact he was doing all of this, whilst the fact that he could barely walk. This was your point yesterday, but I'm stealing it since I'm on a Roosevelt role. Having a disabled president as a role model is very important.

Yeah, I agree. I think, yeah, it gives people hope. Like, oh, well I could do that. Or something like that. Yeah, this is America, where anyone can become president as long as you were born into an insanely rich family. But it does show that you can overcome things and go on to become the president, which I do think is important in a country that claims that anyone can become president. You need examples of people overcoming obstacles. And to this day, presidents can turn around and say,

what do you mean I'm physically unfit to be president? Look at Roosevelt. You don't need to be able to run a marathon to be a president. You just need to be able to get the job done. So there's a lot of good. I mean, Roosevelt was a better president, but that's not what this is. But on top of being a better president, Roosevelt was also transformative, and he was interesting. He was. And another interesting point of it as well, and it's bad, but it's interesting, is the fact he was used a racist policy to lock up Japanese people in the US. Wow. Yeah, and this was the one thing I was going to come on to because yesterday I'd got to this point in the discussion. I was like, no, it's definitely Roosevelt. It's

definitely Roosevelt. And then you mentioned that as, oh, that's a good point. We've got nothing against Eisenhower. Eisenhower just is, it's all pretty positive. But there's nothing big and flashy. But there was this black mark against Roosevelt. And can we put Roosevelt through with this black mark? That is interesting. It is interesting. We're not talking about what's best, but equally it's also awful. And interesting and awful is not the same as interesting and good. So Hitler is interesting, but he's awful. Exactly. I know where I'm going. I don't know where you're going.

I think I know where I'm going now. And I think our ideas align more so than yesterday. Oh, interesting. Okay. Because yesterday, it's around this time that we just stopped talking to each other for about a whole minute. Okay, well, on three, we both say who we think is going through. Yep. Three, two, on three, and I'm counting backwards. Yeah. After three. After three.

One, two, three. Roosevelt. Right. Okay. Roosevelt Roosevelt we both agree I I thought Roosevelt yesterday but you almost convinced me with Eisenhower you were passionately arguing and I do like the guy I think the arguments there but yeah out of interest I think Franklin D has it slightly new are you are you more Roosevelt today than you were yesterday then more so today because I've heard it twice yeah I think I think we made the right decision yesterday.

Yeah, okay. Well, yeah, because it's odd recording an episode twice, especially when you're making a major decision at the end of it. It means you spend the next day going, did we make the right call there? Especially when it ended up being quite close. But yeah, I think Pastas was right.

I'm happy to continue with that. Okay, in that case, official results for Group A is 4th place Lyndon B. Johnson, 3rd place Ulysses S. Grant, 2nd place Dwight Eisenhower. But going through to the semi-final is Franklin D. Roosevelt. And he will be battling against the winner of Group B, which was decided yesterday when Jamie just declared it, and I realised I hadn't figured that out yet, so we're sticking with it, because why not? Who is Franklin D. Roosevelt going to be off against? Uh, so it's Group B, right? Group B, yeah, and who we happen to be covering next time, so who's it gonna be?

So, four people. We've got Obama, John Quincy Adams, Monroe and Teddy Roosevelt. Could be a Roosevelt semifinal but not necessarily because... No it can't be semifinal. Yeah semifinals next. Oh yeah. Yeah yeah these this is the rounds here are the quarterfinals. Yeah. But who knows out of them? That will be an interesting one. I think that's a bit closer. I say it's close in this one. We ended up debating this one for ages. Who knows?

Who knows? That is next time. However, so thank you very much for listening. All of you who do listen. Thank you for downloading us where you do download us. So pop in iTunes. Thank you. Thank you to you, Jamie, for listening to me say all this twice.

That's a problem. Enjoy it. You'll do it. And yeah, we for listening to me say all this twice. That's good. No problem. I enjoy it. You're dulcet, Holmes. And yeah, we're gonna leave it there. So until next time, goodbye. Goodbye. And this is the BBC America with the American Sport. Good evening audience, my name is Winston Featheringway. I am Cuthbert Manbatten and here we are on a glorious sunny day here in the United States of the Americas. And we are in the state of Arkansas and we are here today to watch one of these American sports.

Absolutely thrilled at this new position to come over to America and help introduce those back in old blighty, the joys of the American sport. This is thrilling and what do we have today Winston? Well today we have something called NASCAR. It appears people get into a car, drive round in a big circle multiple times and then one of them is declared a winner. Like the GGs? Yes, exactly like those. Excellent, spiffing, fantastic, so a race you say, a race. Yes, exactly a race and as we look out onto the field of play there are four cars lined up. Yes this is very exciting. Four presidents are going to be racing today to see which one will go through to the next race. It's terribly exciting. We have, oh, a spiffing uniform there, looking very dashing, is Dwight Eisenhower.

He's in the first car, lovely blue car, dark blue car there. And in lane two we have Franklin D. Roosevelt who is climbing into his muddy yellow car. Yes, and if you... oh how lovely, he's brought his child with him, that's a child in a cage, hanging out the window at the back, how lovely. To spur him on to victory I assume. Bring your child to work day, absolutely wonderful. And oh another dashing cut of a mighty mighty man here. Look at those brass buttons, look at the beard.

He looks like a Greek philosopher. Takes me back to the days at Eden. It's Ulysses S. Grantwinson. Ulysses, again, love it, absolutely love it. Absolutely spiffing, absolutely spiffing absolutely spiffing and who's this Lyndon B Johnson he's taking up the fourth car it's a beautiful red car with a spoiler on the back and propeller driven I believe. What's he using Winston? I can't say. Good God Winston good God it's a good job this is

audio this is audio. This is not family friendly at all. Johnson appears to be using his Johnson to propel the car. Well they know what they say. You've got a Johnson, use it. Yes exactly, well, lots of celebrations. I can only assume that this is typical for the start of the NASCAR because there's lots of people milling around, there's lots of people buying the hot dogs. Yes I believe that's a sausage in a long row. Yes, long pork sticks I believe they are. Long pork sticks in bread pillows.

Covered in yellow and red jam it looks like. Yes, well I mean I'll be honest I had one earlier and I'll certainly be trying them again I could quite describe what they taste like but I loved every moment of it Also where I picked up this Winston. Oh you what's happened to your hand? It's big. It's big and phobic and you point it in the air like and I quote you just don't care Winston Oh, let's give it a go. Oh sorry I got you in the eye. I apologize. Oh yes no it's fine it's fine it's very dangerous that's why they made a firm. It'll be fine. So yes no yes it's good I've got one for myself so let's wave these around and we'll wait for the starting gun starting how do they start, Winston? Well, a man is walking out the front holding what looks like a black and white square flag.

Check it, I believe. He's holding it up. He's holding it up. He's holding it up. It's down and they're off! And they're off! And they're off! The crowd are going absolutely wild. And God, this is quite fast, isn't it? So fast, Lyndon B. Johnson smashed straight into a wall there. Who put a wall there? That seems dangerous. And the car is up in flames. Car is up in flames.

Lyndon B. Johnson, no way he could have survived that. But, oh no, he's walking out in harm. Um, not quite your halve, but there you go. That's quite the miracle. Look at that suit. You do say in harm, but his propeller is left behind. His propeller is left behind, and that's going to hurt in the morning, I can only assume. But we are down to three men already that is Dwight Eisenhower neck-and-neck with UCS grant and up ahead is Roosevelt and they are taking

now the next turn it's another left turn and they're still going another left turn and there's a lot of bumps on the road. This is not Formula One, I can tell you that. No, no, it's another left turn. Another one. It's all left turns, Winston. It is. It's all left turns. It is. Okay, that's interesting. That's fine. That's okay. It's very bloody fast, isn't it? It's quite terrifying. Very fast. Anyway, Dwight Eisenhower, he's rolling down his window, he's rolling down his window and he's, some kind of gesture at Grant, I'm not sure what that is, it's pointing or something, pointing in the air. With his, but not with his index finger, it seems to be one of his middle fingers.

Middle finger, pointing in the air, maybe it's indicating the sky or something. Grant is doing the same, doing the same, they're both pointing in the air with their middle fingers. Well, that's good. That seems to show that they're getting on and wishing each other luck. Oh, no, Grant has spun out. Grant has spun out. He was distracted, whatever it was.

Maybe it was a bird in the sky or something, some kind of bird. Yes, Grant is now on fire as well, on fire, but again, walking away unharmed. It's really quite miraculous. Well, there you go so two two horse race two car race haha yes Eisenhower is now catching up with Roosevelt it's very close very close it's another left turn followed by another left turn it is it appears they're getting so close that one's taking the other over then the other one edging in front it's almost like they're having a debate about who's

going to be first it would appear this is the last lap in front it's almost like they're having a debate about who's going to be first it would appear this is the last lap when still the last lap yes oh it's still neck and neck is neck and a there is a hair between them and they've crossed the finish line but just finish line it's very very close can't tell but just getting through my earpiece here yes Roosevelt Franklin D Roosevelt is the winner D. Roosevelt wins the NASCAR. That is fantastic. And as you were just looking out here, it seems to be some Eisenhower's advisors walking over to him and saying, I'm trying to proliferate, something about using a nuclear option on Franklin D. Eisenhower is refusing. He's refusing, shaking his head. That's good to know. But we have Franklin D. Roosevelt going through. And here's the winner today.

You know what, Winston, that was wonderful. I would definitely try the NASCAR again. I would definitely try the NASCAR. I like the NASCAR. I would like to ride in a NASCAR. I think it would be quite splendid. I just hope we're invited back. If you're listening at home, do give it a try.

If you ever can come and watch it for yourselves, it really is quite remarkable. I'm glad they have booked us for the whole season. So we will be here covering the whole season of the NASCAR. So join us next time. I have been Cuthbert Manbatten. And I have been Winston Featheraway. Goodbye.

Good evening.