Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Tennessee’s Incorrigible Andrew Jackson with Richard Lim

Episode Date: February 4, 2022

In this episode, Sharon is joined by This American President Podcast host Richard Lim. Together they “nerd out” on facts about an under-the-radar president who was more influential than he’s often given credit for: Andrew Jackson. Listen in as they swap their favorite facts about his blasphemous parrot, Poll, his early capture as a prisoner of war, his propensity for dueling, and even how his opposition to the electoral college shaped the future of federal politics. Andrew Jackson was very instrumental in the early growth of Nashville, and the state of Tennessee. It was there that he met and married his wife, Rachel… who was already married to someone else. While in office, he also completely paid down America’s national debt by vetoing many spending bills. He was a president who reflected the people: both their great flaws and their great abilities. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey friends, so happy to have you joining me today and I'm chatting with a fellow history nerd, a governor, if you will, Richard Lim, who runs a podcast about the American presidents. And so who better to chat about a gentleman from Tennessee? Maybe you've heard me mention him, Andrew Jackson. Let's dive into this episode. I'm Sharon McMahon. And welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. I'm so excited today to be joined by my friend, Richard, who is a history buff like I am. Nerd. We're nerds. Nerd. And you actually run your own podcast specifically about talking about issues related to the American presidency.

Tell us more about that. Yeah. Yeah. Just like you, fascinated by the 45 men who've served as our 46 presidents. And so I have that podcast called This American President. And it's just a wonderful nerd geek outlet for me, you know, and that's history has been in many ways a refuge from life, learning about other people's lives, of course. And so the presidents have always been fascinating.

It goes back to when my mom took me to the library as a kid. And before I knew it, about five years ago, a buddy of mine, we were talking and we're saying, hey, you have some great stories about history. Why don't you share it with people? And nowadays you can start a podcast. So we started it and here we are. And that's how we got in touch with you. So it's been great.

Oh, it's always fun to meet other people who are as excited to talk about things as you are, because sometimes your own friends and family, you're like, I've already heard about this. I just don't need any more fun facts about Andrew Jackson's parrot. I don't need any more fun facts about George Washington's teeth. I don't need it. You know, my wife has mastered the art of very gently saying, honey, yeah, thanks. I heard that already, you know, but doing it all in a way that still conveys if you have other facts, I'm willing to hear those, but let's, let's put the parrot to bed, you know, when you were a child, were you the child who loved to acquire and then disseminate information to other people? Were you the person who was like, let me tell you about the Protestant Reformation? Oh, yeah. Well, the thing is, I remember, I would tell people like my classmates, these kind of things, and then a lot of them didn't

care, you know, and so they would respond and be like, okay, or they would respond and say, hey, man, like the past is past you know like you can't and I would get so offended because I would be like President Polk is the reason we live here in California and you know make what you will about it but like that's part of the history and they'd be like whatever he's got a weird name Polk what kind of name is Polk anyways and I'm like duh you know come on you know so anyways yes that, that was, that was definitely me. Oh, I, yeah, I feel that. Well, today I want to talk about truly one of the most fascinating presidents we've ever had. One of the presidents who is undertaught in my opinion, in schools,

who is sort of relegated to maybe a mention or two in our early American history class in seventh grade. And if people were to, if you ask a person on the street, who are the most influential presidents, of course, they would be able to name Abraham- Millard Fillmore. Millard Fillmore, absolutely. Of course, of course. Yes, yes. Teddy Roosevelt, et cetera. But the person that I think is very undertaught and has a much larger impact than we give him credit for is Andrew Jackson.

Dun, dun, dun. Dun, dun, dun. Not Andrew Johnson. Although Andrew Johnson is his own fascinating story. But yes. He is. He is bad in a different way. Andrews. Something way. Andrews.

Something about those Andrews. I would love to hear, as a fellow history nerd, what are a few fun facts that you love to share? Well, the number one, we may have just alluded to this, but the number one thing about him that the great story about him is the fact that so he had a parrot. And as we all know, parrots just parrot out what they hear. And Lord knows what he heard. The parrot, his name was Paul or her name, its name, Paul, P-O-L-L. And who knows what he heard from old Andrew Jackson. And Jackson owned him when he was like in the last years of his life. So, you know, crotchety old Andrew Jackson.

And apparently at Jackson's funeral, I'll just read to you what someone wrote. There was a pastor who was at the funeral, and this is what he wrote about the parrot. He said, before the sermon and while the crowd was gathering, a wicked parrot that was a household pet got excited and commenced swearing so loud and long as to disturb the people and had to be carried from the house. And I love the phrase, a wicked parrot. It's a very Victorian phrase. Yes. But basically, it was like this parrot was demon possessed and just started screaming, you know, all sorts of things. I mean, imagine being at this funeral, you're going to a funeral for this, you know, president. I would assume that they would have some level of dignity at these kind of things. And there's this, you know, like, you know, just throwing out F words. Yeah, exactly. And I think the thing is Jackson was such a,

like a volcano of human being. He's famous for the duels. He's famous for his temper. And, you know, when you have his, like his own pets that are just screaming all sorts of things, that says a lot about the person. And I. That says a lot about the person. And I think it says a lot about the kind of personality he had. So true. Like where did that bird learn it from? Exactly. Yes.

We all know where. And parrots, of course, very intelligent. And they live for an extremely long time. Okay. I don't know a thing about parrots. So I assume if they can regurgitate what humans say, they have to be pretty intelligent. Yes. Yes. Parrots can learn to count. They can learn to recognize letters. Parrots are among some of the more intelligent animals and they can live in

captivity for up to 50 years. Wow. When you get a parrot, first of all, do not impulse buy a parrot. Good to know. We're not talking about like a gerbil level of 18 months commitment. You know what I mean? Like this is a truly a lifetime. It's not a goldfish. It's not a goldfish. He could have had that parrot for a long time. Who knows? So here's one of my fun facts, which is that he was orphaned at a very young age, you know, orphaned at age 14. And prior to becoming an orphan, he was a British prisoner of war during the Revolutionary War period. As a boy.

As a child. war period as a boy as a child and the british soldier was like listen here you are going to clean my boots and he was like i sure as heck am not going to clean your boots and the british soldier used his sword on him he was left with permanent scars on his face. And both Andrew Jackson's brother and him were British prisoners of war as literal children, teenagers. His brother, while they were in prison, contracted smallpox and later died. And then his mother worked hard to sort of secure their release from prison. And when Andrew Jackson was finally freed from prison, his mother quickly got sick, not of smallpox, but of a different illness. His mother quickly got sick and also died. And of course his father died when he was young. So he was left an orphan having just been released from

being a prisoner of war. And that undoubtedly created that trauma, like that trauma that he had to have experienced. We can look now with our modern lens of an understanding of psychology. Absolutely had to contribute to his famous temper. Like he just had to bury all that trauma in there and it just like bubbled out as anger throughout the rest of his life. Especially against the British. I am fascinated at his, I guess, I don't want to say relationship because he never knew George Washington, but he and Washington, they kind of crossed paths. And as I mentioned, people compared Jackson to Washington Now, I used to work at Mount Vernon, which was a really fun job. And there is a chair at Mount Vernon in Washington's study, and it's the chair Washington used while he was president, which is pretty darn cool, right? You sit there and you're

like, wow, this is the stinking chair he wrote the farewell address on. Well, that chair at one point was owned by Andrew Jackson, which is pretty wild. The fact that this chair sat the butts of the founding father of the country and then arguably the second founder of the country, the leader of the post-founding era, Jackson. I want to hear your other fun facts. I already know what I know. I want to know what you know. What else? What other fun facts have you come up with for us? Well, I think everyone learned when they learn about Jackson, one of the things they learn about is that this man just loved dueling. And one of the craziest things to me is that this is an era when a cold would kill you or like having diarrhea. Sorry to mention that word, but having that would kill you. Right. And, and yet here are people saying, you know, a little paper cut could kill you, but it's like, yeah, let's have a duel. Let's go. And Jackson was one of those people. And

there's, there's a story, you know, when he had a duel with, what was the guy's name? Charles Dickinson. They, they had a disagreement about a horse race bet. And then, you know, the guy insulted his wife. And at that point it was on and they met for the duel. Dickinson fired the bullet lodged into Jackson's chest next to his heart. And it was like, oh, a flesh wound, you know, and then he put up his gun, shot and killed the man. And Jackson walked around for the rest of his life with this musket ball in his lung, which I mean, it's crazy. When Jackson was elected president and his dueling was known,

and there were all sorts of ads or campaign posters with don't vote for Jackson. Here are all the coffins of the people he's killed. And that's the guy the American people chose. They three times he won the popular vote. And it's, you know, it's amazing. I mean, it's a certain type of person that's willing to just mean, it's a certain type of person that's willing to just risk his life all the time because of an insult. A hundred percent. Yes. It also speaks to his level of temper and level of bravado that you've insulted me. And thus I am willing to risk my life to avenge this insult. Because literally dueling is risking your life. Also, I'm willing to kill you this insult. Because literally dueling is risking your life.

Also, I'm willing to kill you over this. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs.

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every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. What other things intrigue you or what other facts do you have to share about Andrew Jackson? Well, what's always interested me about Jackson is the way his views, his populist views differ, or in some ways, some would say complement the founding.

And as a lot of people know, during the founding era, they created this republic where there was some distance between the people and those who they were voting for, i.e., and as I'm sure you've explained to your listeners, the people didn't originally vote for their senators directly. They didn't originally vote for the president directly. They went through the state legislature, the electoral college. Jackson changed that. His view was of a country where people basically chose all the representatives. The president was the chief legislator of the country. And I've always found that a fascinating thing because on one hand, some look at that and say, well, he rejected the founding. He changed it. And they point to the fact that Jackson actually wanted to get rid of the Electoral College, something that many progressives want to do today.

Although not every progressive is a Jackson fan. He wanted to subject judges to the vote. I mean, that's something that the progressive movement, Teddy Roosevelt, supported. judges to the vote. I mean, that's something that the progressive movement, Teddy Roosevelt, supported. But at the same time, I think the founders also left it to the states to decide a lot of the voting laws. So they allowed flexibility in the system. And over the long term, we've agreed as a country that the best way to protect people's rights is to ensure their voting rights. African-Americans were prevented from voting in the South. And we felt, OK, well, the way you protect their rights is to give them the right to vote. And I think the fact that Andrew Jackson expanded suffrage,

it's an interesting transition from the founding era where you had the distance between the people and their leaders. And Jackson, who's saying, well, in order to represent these people, they need to have their voting rights. One can argue what his motives were or anything like that, and who he extended the franchise to. But it makes for a very interesting transition to a country where we go from filters on the people to protect the rights of the people. I love that. And I think it is very interesting to note his opposition to the electoral college. And that is part of his position in the world as a populist. And if people are listening to this and you don't

understand what the political movement of populism is, or maybe it's an ideology of populism, can you give us like a one minute explanation of what that is? Oh, okay. That's okay. So I would say that populism is a system in which I would contrast it with, I think it's the stewardship theory of government where essentially people in government, the people in power have a bit of a discretion on the direction the country should go. And they can exercise that discretion knowing that the people won't always understand why they're doing it. I would say that populism is the idea that people in government should reflect the people's views and that everything about the process should be

about reflecting their views, even if their views aren't always right. But there's virtue in the system just responding to the people very directly. And so that removes a lot of filters from, you know, there was we wanted to originally the founders wanted to protect senators from the views of the people. They wanted them to cool that down because the House represented it. I would say that populism seeks to change so that the president and the Senate in every aspect, even maybe the judicial system is much more responsive to the people. That's kind of a really nerdy way. And I'm sure a lot, you might be able to improve on that, but that's how I would describe it. Populism is an ideology that the people know best. The power comes from the people, the people know best, and the government should reflect

the people. And so that all sounds great. You're like, yeah, it is. It's a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. And they should reflect the will of the constituents. They should reflect the will of what we elected them for. Except, except some people are white supremacists. Some people, like Andrew Jackson, actively enslaved hundreds of people. That's one of the things that I think has to be held in a certain degree of caution

when we're talking about populist movements is that the people are not always right. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the risk. That's the risk that happens. Right. Now, I think some would counter that when government gets to establish, it's kind of like a balancing act, right? Like some would argue that at some points, government gets so elitist and entrenched that you need a populist movement to kind of break that. And that was the Jackson argument. And one of the very interesting things, and I hadn't really thought about this, but I have a friend who is obsessed with Andrew Jackson. He really likes Andrew Jackson. And he was arguing that people talk about the spoil system that Andrew Jackson essentially created. And on one hand, we look at it and we think, okay, patronage, corruption,

yada, yada. But on the other hand, he was looking at it as, well, there is this corrupt system called the bank. The guy that runs the bank pays off congressmen left and right. And people in the bureaucracy are corrupt politicians. And by me putting my supporters in here, I'm countering that. Right. And I thought that was very interesting. I mean, I'm not saying I was totally sold on it because you can have corruption through political appointees and you can have corruption through political appointees and you can have corruption through government bureaucrats. But it was an interesting way of saying, well, actually, he was actually trying to counter corruption. I have a couple of other more fun, fun facts that I thought people listening might enjoy hearing. And one of the things about him was that he was a

land speculator. He's like a real estate investor as a younger man. And he actually was very instrumental in founding a number of cities in Tennessee. He eventually moved to this like tiny, tiny little frontier town that was like, nobody had ever heard of it called Nashville. Ah, yes. Good old Nashville. The home of Elvis. That's right. He really was instrumental in the development of the state of Tennessee. And when he first moved to this tiny frontier town called Nashville, he was staying in a boarding house. And, you know, that was where men of his generation stayed. If you didn't have a place of your own and the daughter of the owner of the boarding house caught his eye, And the daughter of the owner of the boarding house caught his eye.

He thought, well, that might be the woman for me. They began seeing one another and eventually got married. And there was a small problem with him and his new wife. A little hiccup. A little hiccup. And that hiccup came back around to haunt him multiple times throughout his career. This is before people could look up court records online, right? That's right. That's right.

The problem was that his wife, Rachel, was married to somebody else. He was married to an already married woman. And this is something that he would take great offense to later in his life if anybody ever brought it up. And he killed people. He killed people for it. Yes, they did bring it up where they were like, well, you're a bigamist. And, you know, you're married to an already married woman. You're an adulterer.

Like they absolutely pressed on that sore spot in an effort to enrage him. And it worked. And of course, most historians think that Rachel, his wife, really didn't know that she was still married. She was unhappily married to an abusive man. And again, at the time, women didn't have any power to seek a divorce on their own. It was up to the man to initiate that and to go through the process. And so most historians think she legitimately didn't know that she was still married and that her ex-husband told her that they were divorced when in fact they were not. And when it came out that they actually were

not divorced, the Jacksons had to have like a kind of a hush hush secret second wedding to get married legitimately for the second time. Yeah. You know, it's such a fascinating story because it first shows how back then things were just a lot. I mean, the fact that she was in an abusive relationship, I'm sure she was just like, I couldn't wait till it was over. And I just need that darn paperwork to go through and et cetera. And I being in a relationship that horrible, I'm sure she, she couldn't, you know, it's understandable. she wanted it to end or at least she wanted to believe that it was over legally. But yeah, and it's really unfortunate in some ways because Jackson, he really did love her. When she died, he was devastated. She died just before he became president and he blamed his opponents

because they had attacked him and attacked her and blamed them for causing her health to decline. Whether or not that's true, who knows? But it kind of just adds to the insanity of his life, though. You know, I mean, I don't get the sense that he grew up saying, I'm going to be a bigamist one day. And who knows? He very much probably wanted to believe that her first marriage was over. But it just kind of adds to the like oh and guess what he you know he married a woman who was still married you know yes just again you think about it today you're like what where he was uh walking up the steps of the capitol one day and a

man decided that he wanted to assassinate him. And many presidents have either had assassination attempts on their life or have been assassinated. And the man that was going to assassinate him, met him on the steps of the Capitol, had two revolvers. The first one misfired. And Jackson realized what was happening, that this man is trying to attack me and this is old Jackson too oh yeah president Jackson that's right this is not a 25 year old Jackson this is like I'm an old man now my wife has passed on um bullets are you know crinkling chinkling in his in his lungs yeah yeah yes and he uh takes out his accounts differ of it was a cane or an umbrella and began beating the man on the steps of the Capitol. The man tries to fire with

his other gun. That gun also misfires. Meanwhile, here is Andrew Jackson literally as an old man beating a would-be assassin on the steps of the Capitol. Eventually they had to get separated. Like you can't- They had to save the assassin at that point. Yes, that's exactly right. From Jackson. That's exactly right. They had to pull Jackson off of the would-be assassin. I read one interesting article where people had calculated the mathematical likelihood that both of those guns would misfire. And it's like an infinitesimally small chance that both guns would misfire at that moment. That's crazy. And that, of course, Andrew Jackson

would continue to live. Also, to speak to your point that Rachel died before he took office, she did not want to live in the White House. And so she said she would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to live in that palace in Washington. Essentially saying, I would rather be dead than live in that White House. And then she was. Yeah, sadly, yes, yes. The irony. Yes. But we also don't have any modern frame of reference for spouseless presidents. And the idea that we actually had a number of presidents with no spouses living in the White House. That is not something anyone today can really remember, conceive of. It would be very unusual and unique and would be a topic of conversation if we ever had

a president elected, male or female, who did not have a spouse to move into the White House with them. Again, at the time, the culture being that it was a woman's job to host the parties and plan the parties and receive the formal guests and all of those kinds of things that put presidents who did not have a spouse, usually because of death, put them in a unique position of having to find an alternate woman to do those things. You know, they certainly couldn't do it themselves. They're busy. They're a man, blah, blah, blah. But then having to find somebody else to assist them in those hosting duties in the White House. Yeah. I've always found that so fascinating because oftentimes, I mean, they would end up choosing like their niece or their daughter or their, I mean, who was it? I forgot if it was

like Chester Arthur's like sister, you know, and if you look up the list of first ladies, it's like, technically, she was the acting first lady at the time. And so, you know, you kind of look at it, and you're, but it's, I mean, it was a responsibility, you know, when you're dealing with back then, where all the etiquette of the social life back then. And so I think that one would have to be very careful, and they'd have to find somebody in their family that they could trust, but also had the willingness to put herself out there and be judged by DC society, be judged by the country. Absolutely. I would be remiss if I didn't mention two things about Jackson that I think are worth mentioning. The first is that the Battle of New Orleans, which is an incredible battle where he was really just

outnumbered and ragtag group of, you know, pirates, privateers. And that victory, which people learn happened after the Treaty of the War of 1812 ended. But that kind of masks the fact that, well, New Orleans was the gateway to the Mississippi, which was the gateway to the Louisiana Purchase. And that piece of land, the British and the Spanish and the French all were eyeing or owned at some point. And by winning that battle, he essentially closed off that whole area to European colonialism. He did the same in Florida. And that's a fascinating story.

And I think it's one of those things that, okay, if you're going against somebody and you have an enemy, I'm not saying that Andrew Jackson did everything right, but I would have much rather had him fighting on my side than fighting against. Not saying I agree with everything he did, but I would say just in terms of if you didn't want to lose. And the other thing I would say, and I do think this is a genuinely remarkable accomplishment, is the fact that he completely paid down America's national debt. I think, you know, one can argue whether it was wise to get rid of the national bank. There are lots of arguments for and against that. He issued a specie circular. He hated paper

money. Ironic because he's on paper money, but he hated paper money. One could argue about whether that was smart or not, but paying down the national debt because of vetoing a lot of spending bills, no president has ever done it. And most leaders of any country haven't done it. Probably easier to do that back then when the government was a lot smaller, but that again, painting that picture of a man who reflected the people, their great flaws and their great abilities too. Fascinating man. I find the Battle of New Orleans fascinating. New Orleans history is in and of itself incredibly fascinating. Jackson recruited all of these like Jean Lafitte and all of these people who were working as pirates,

privateers in that area, and recruited them to help us win the Battle of New Orleans, which was a huge turning point in our relationship with the British. And a number of British generals were like the marksmanship of those people. It was like there was no way to win. Like they were just too good at shooting. Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, America, right? Right. They're too good at it. Like these are people who have been living in, you know, swampy bayous on, you know, little tiny kind of islands who have had to defend themselves, hunt. So they were used to the terrain, et cetera. And here are these like highly decorated, highly trained British Naval officers who were like, I did not see that coming.

You know, I went to a lecture at Mount Vernon a few years ago and someone had studied the Battle of New Orleans in depth. And I think at one point he learned that some of the soldiers that fought against Jackson at New Orleans also fought against Napoleon at, I don't know if it was Waterloo or Austerlitz or one of those battles, but that kind of blew my mind. I mean, you know, and people would call Jackson kind of like an American Caesar. So you're going up against an American Caesar and then you're going up against Napoleon, which must have been incredible. I'm sure as you appreciate, love learning about where different stories intersect, right? Yes. Yeah. I absolutely love that. So, oh yeah. Yeah. No, that's, that's, that's like nerd red meat right there. Like I call them brain tingle moments. Oh yeah. I like that. Oh, the brain tingles are so good.

Yeah. Yes. Yeah. I hear you. All right. Well, I want to just close this out. I have one other thing that I think I'd be remiss if I didn't mention, which is that Andrew Jackson and Rachel Jackson could never have biological children of their own, but they did adopt one of the twin sons of Rachel's brother and named him Andrew Jackson Jr. And it's unclear if Rachel's brother kept one of the twins and then gave one of the twins to Andrew and Rachel. Obviously the mother of the children was involved. Or they kept one and gave one to them, or if they kept, or if something happened to the other one and they were unable to care for them, we don't have good records on what kind of relationship

he had to his, if there was a twin sibling, which, you know, if they were raised as a cousin, et cetera. And then another thing that he was well-known for was adopting a Native American infant or young child that he ostensibly rescued after massacring the entire village that this child was from. He saw this baby. Sounds very Jackson. Unclear about exactly how old this baby's name was. Lynn Coya, approximately a year-ish. Let's just go with that. Writes a letter to Rachel before coming home. She was living in Tennessee, writes a letter to her and is like, I have found a baby, a child that I will be bringing home as a pet. That is what he said. I will be bringing it home as a pet.

And it's also unclear of what he meant by the word pet. Does he mean it like a dog or a cat? Or does he mean like a friend? Because that word can also mean like, oh, be quiet, my pet. You know, like that kind of- Like an affectionate term. Yes, an affectionate friend. We could bring it home as a friend for our other child that we've adopted. But when Koya did not live a long life, he died of smallpox

or he died of an illness as a very young adult. There's not a lot of evidence that shows that Jackson treated him like a son, but nevertheless, that shows that speaks again to that very, very unique mindset of a man who is willing to wipe out a native village for the, what he viewed as the betterment of the United States. And then after killing his mother to adopt the baby. Yeah. You know, my, my coworker, when we were working on the Sandro Jackson project at work, he said something like it's the ultimate, I have a Native American friend kind of thing. I have a person of color as a friend. Right, right, right. Yeah. And, you know, it's very interesting because I think it's kind of like when you hear about that famous story of the British and the Germans in World War I on Christmas Day, you know, here they are in this

horrible war, but then when they all come together, it's let's sing Christmas hymns and all that kind of stuff. And it's like when you hear about Civil War veterans, you know, they hate each other's cause so much, but then they're going to have a beer with them. And in the Battle of New Orleans, Jackson fought with Native Americans. There were times where he fought with them. There are times where he fought against them. That wasn't unique. You know, George Washington, the same thing. It was probably hard to avoid. And I think it was one of those things where in abstraction, groups take on a certain different meaning versus viewed groups and people at the time. But yeah, again, it adds to kind of the multidimensional aspect of who he was. I think he's somebody that if you were an enemy, you were his enemy till death. And at the same time, if you were a friend,

there were probably Native Americans he considered close friends that he had, he admired because of their fighting spirits. So it's, it's just part of that, just such a different way to look at, at, at people back then. Good point. There is often a difference between how we view a group and how we view an individual. And it speaks to the point that I break up regularly on this podcast, that it is hard to hate people up close. That's true. It's easy to hate a group from far away because it's easy to dehumanize or other them, but it's really hard to hate people up close. Yeah. And I always think about that when, you know, you, you see how people talk to each other

on social media to total strangers. I mean, and it's not even about politics. If you go to a sports website, people are like, you're an idiot. How could you think that so-and-so is the greatest, but then if you're in front of someone, you're not going to say that. No, no. Well, Richard, this has been really fun. We could probably talk all literally all day, literally. I have 20 more fun facts for you, but if people are interested in listening to a podcast about American presidents, tell people where to find you. It's called This American President. So basically wherever you listen to podcasts, if you go on your iPhone app or Google Play, Spotify, et cetera, you can find us, This American President. Yes, it is a riff on This American Life. And so sometimes people, when they type in This American, they'll see

life first, but just keep going. This American President, we have a website, thisamericanpresident.com. If you want to hear us nerd out about presidents, we, and we, we love talking about different aspects of presidents. We actually just finished a series on the cold war and we, we did one on president. We just did one on president Reagan. We just released an episode this morning about Nancy Reagan. I was a little too young to know anything about her when she was first lady, but a fascinating woman in her own right.

Thank you. This is really fun. We'll have to do this again. I am really grateful to have you here today. Thank you. Grateful to be able to chat with you. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon Says So podcast.

I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon.

I'll see you next time.