Historically High - The Reagan Assassination and John Hinkley Jr.

Episode Date: September 16, 2026

This episode is a long strange trip into the mind of John Hinckley Jr. John attempted to assassinate President Ronald Reagan. Firing five shots, Hinckley would strike the President once. He was arrested immediately following the shooting. That's when the Hinckley case takes a turn. John Hinckley Jr had quite an obsession with Taxi Driver, and Jodie Foster. In John's mind, he was a Travis Bickle type character. In his mind, he needed to do something to make Jodie realize she loved him. That thing turned out to be trying to assassinate a president. That brings us to the most interesting subject of the episode. The insanity plea. John's lawyers tried it. In the end they succeeded. But was he really insane? Decide for yourself as you join us while we all get Historically High on John Hinckley Jr, and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening and don’t forget to hit subscribe, leave a 5-star rating and write a review. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join us at Patreon.com/HistoricallyHigh and get enrolled for some fun extra content Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome, you sexy people. Take your seats. Pull out your papers, your pens, pick your poison. Because I think this episode is going to have a little bit of everything, right? Give me, if you had to give me five words. It doesn't have to be a sentence or anything. Give me five words that are going to describe what this episode is going to cover. Excite me.

Arouse me for this. Insanity. Assassination. Unfortunately, it's two words, but taxi driver. Not a legit one title. I'll give you the Nazis. Well, I need two because also Jody Foster. Okay.

It's going to seem a little odd that we are going to be doing an episode about a potential attempted presidential assassination. And it is not the central focus of the episode. John Hinkley Jr. is somebody who, again, this weird timing that always seems to pop up when we're doing some of these episodes. John Hinkley Jr. was the would-be assassin of Ronald Reagan in 1981. Post-inaguration, he ends up firing six shots, hits three people, fourth, including the president. And normally when we're talking about a presidential assassination, this is somebody who has ill. will towards the president is anti-government. A max to grind.

A manifesto. Somebody that's trying to take down the president. John Hinkley was motivated by trying to gain the attention and love of Jody Foster. So the assassination is a vehicle to trying to put together a very mentally ill human being with the Hollywood starlet, Jody Foster. Foster. That might be one of the most insane sentences that's ever been uttered on this podcast. This man tried to kill the president, so Jody Foster would love him.

And that's just, that is the story. That's, I don't think it's really a secret when I do these teaching episodes. I enjoy to kind of look more towards a psychological kind of profile, whether it be a serial killer or whether it be a crazy true crime event or a Stanford prison experiment, anything like that. And John Hinkley is the reason that the insanity plea had to change in this country. And for better or for worse, I have kind of some reservations about it and we'll talk about the insanity plea quite a bit.

But this is a kind of an episode to where as I'm talking about things and as we're discussing things, kind of make mental notes on your scoreboard. Give yourself a scoreboard of somebody who would be planning to kill a president and then somebody who is suffering from a mental illness. Because ultimately this episode is going to come down to the question of, do you believe that John Hinkley, Jr. should have been able to be found innocent by reason of insanity, or not guilty by reason of insanity. I'm still trying to figure out if the Jody Foster defense is going to work. No, what I'm saying is, if you heard someone be like, I did it so Jody Foster would love me, I don't see how you argued that that's not insanity. Yeah, it's certainly a line of thinking that you could go down as far as any, you know, I hope that I get a wink or a nod or a wave from this famous star.

And if they do, it'll make my life. Now, ratchet that up to, I need the love from this person. what else can I do? Well, the ultimate grand gesture to receive love from somebody is assassinating the president. We're going to find out how that makes sense. It's just a slippery slope. Before we get into it, patreon.com backslash historically high. A lot of fun stuff going on up there. The numbers are just getting incredible. The community is growing on there just as it's growing with the free podcast. We love seeing you guys. Thank you so much for what you're you're allowing us to be able to do. We got some irons in the fire for some extra stuff,

and we would love to do them and love to continue to grow this with you guys. All right. Let's get kinky with Hinkley. What about this psychopath? Jonathan Warnock Hinkley Jr. That's probably a little bit too far. Psychopath, I think, might be a little harsh. He wasn't. And that's kind of truly, not to get too far ahead of myself here, basically all the way to the end. Hinkley is actually in communication inside of his mental hospital with Ted Bundy at a certain time. Swapping stories.

Yeah. Brainstorming. Another spoiler alert. The guy that tried to associate or assassinate Lincoln, John Hinkley. Wait, the guy that assassinated Lincoln? Jesus. He assassinated Reagan. He's out.

He frees a bird right now. And he's slowly starting to do these interviews. And even him at this point in time, you can tell pretty clearly that he's pretty out of it on whatever medications that they're giving him. I'd like to do that, but as a video interview. Yeah, you got to see the whole thing. No, no, no. I don't want to be in the same room as him. Oh, I wonder if you'll have that same feeling kind of towards the end of this.

but in these interviews that he's doing, he's talking about corresponding with Bundy and he talks about what a mistake that it was and he didn't realize it at the time, but it was at a time when they were both so infamous that it was almost like he didn't have anybody else that was in the news as much as he was to reach out to. Is this a fucking Joe and Adolf situation

when they're both so fucked up that no one else can possibly associate with them or understand what, like, how their mind is working. You have to meet someone of similar craziness to be able to have some type of connection. Even he realizes, and he says this, is when he's corresponding with Bundy, everything is very surface level. They're not trading war stories or anything like this. And he even says, he goes, Ted Bundy is a serial killer. He was a psychopath.

I made my mistakes. He's always owned up to him. He's never denied it. He's just a man in love. Yeah. He was mentally ill and it happened And he even says that He goes, Ted Bundy wasn't mentally ill

When he did what he did, I was So Hinkley Born May 29th, 1955 in Ardmore, Oklahoma He was the youngest of three children To John Senior and Joanne

Senior founded and ran Something called the Vanderbilt Energy Corporation Which I don't know I mean The Vanderbilt seemed like a name That you would use For name recognition Yeah, because the Vanderbilt's

That's why the university's name, but they were a family, but I'm wondering if there was some type of maybe offshoot. I don't know. A connection. Either way, Hinkley Sr. starts the Vanderbilt, Energy Corporation. It was a multi-million dollar gas and oil firm. They were rich. They were pretty well off. Joanne was a homemaker.

John gravitated more towards his mother while his older siblings. Scott and Diane kind of gravitated more towards her father. When John was four, they ended up relocating to Dallas in the, rich neighborhood of University Park. His parents were ardent followers of the Lord. They did a lot of volunteer work. Family is regularly attending church. And in his younger years, John was kind of a social butterfly.

He played football, basketball, baseball, hockey, which in Texas seems kind of weird. When you're rich. Yeah, I guess. Hockey is a rich person's sport in Texas. When you have enough money, you can keep a big frozen ice cube in the state of Texas. He also learned to play the P.S. This is kind of when he starts strumming on a guitar a little bit, getting it figured out.

Pretty normal upbringing. There are some kind of, I don't know, it was told that maybe his father wasn't his loving, and this is honestly just me trying to nitpick as much as possible, because I need some sort of a justification for how sick he was. And we've talked about so many of these episodes, well, there's some defining moment in the childhood. It's like, oh, yeah, that's why you went nuts. That's why he went crazy.

Ted Kaczynski goes to Harvard. He ends up running up into MK Ultra. We got some stuff that we can talk about here. Hinkley is so devoid of this big moment that it's really hard to explain what goes so wrong later. The closest thing that I have. He's insulated from it. He's in a position where he doesn't have to go like, I think part of it with Kaczynski talking about like the Harvard or not Harvard, but the MKL and everything.

He got into that because he felt like an outsider. I don't think a rich kid like this is ever going to feel the desperation of trying to go into something like that. Plus, I don't even know if he's... I don't know. He just doesn't strike me as someone very intelligent,

I guess he would say. There is also the fact that we've talked about in so many of these episodes, not everybody that suffers severe trauma as a child grows up to be a serial killer. They don't grow up to have these problems. Buddy. That's everybody.

in one way or another, like, there is some trauma, and we're not all serial killers. But, yeah. But at the same time, it can also be true that not everybody that has a normal upbringing doesn't end up falling into mental disorders or anything like that. Oh, 100%. I mean, either way. I know a guy who wanted to be a painter and ended up trying to fucking wipe out an entire race of people. So I guess it works in either scenario. If you have massive trauma, you might end up being messed up, or you might not.

If you're a rich kid who seems to come from privilege, you're probably going to end up messed up in a different way, but you can also go the same route that Hinkley win. Do you think that when you're coming from a background like that, it gives you... So you already have the grandeur. You can afford the grandeur, so you can make your delusions happen.

Or you have the perception you can make your delusions happen. Because I'm trying to tie the Jody Foster thing in here. And if someone is delusional enough to think that they're going to get with Jody Foster, in this situation, most of the time, those people that are to that delusional lack the resources to make their delusions reality. This is just someone that simply that has those resources and has that inflated confidence that this can happen. You're on the most logical path, and it's nowhere even in the stratosphere.

Fantastic. So by 1965, Hinkley had switched schools, he kind of begun losing interest in some of the social events in sports. he would attend Highland Park High School, which if you have spent any time watching a Matt Stafford game or a Clayton Kirshaw game for the last 15 years, there's never been a game that either one of them either played in or pitched in where they haven't mentioned that both of them played at Highland Park High School in Dallas, Texas together. Well, it's Kirshaw, it's Stafford, and it's Hinkley.

It went to Highland Park. Hinkley's name doesn't get mentioned. Not as much. No, not as much at all. He spends most of his time in his room at this point. He's playing guitar. He's hanging out with this cat, which is never a combination for anything good for a young adult. I'm not dogging anybody that has a cat or that likes to play the guitar, but maybe just don't do it alone all the time.

Grade for average. He showed very little interest in girls. He's just so unremarkable, and he's so unremarkable that there were coworkers and I guess workers under his father at Vanderbilt Energy Corporation that didn't even know he existed. They knew that his two older siblings, Scott and Diane, existed, because dad talked about them all the time.

There were people, when this happened, they're like, Hinkley, he didn't have a son named John. So now we're getting into some type of like starved for attention, isolation type, not disorder, what am I trying to say? Keep going. The word's going to come to be five minutes.

from now. It's a little bit that he was forgettable, kind of like a black sheep almost, but not a black sheep and like he was out causing trouble or doing bad things. He just didn't have the social, I guess social abilities. Well, that's usually what people that don't get attention do is they try to misbehave because any attention is like publicity. Any attention is good at, you know. Didn't lash out at all really. He ends up graduating. Huh? Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. No. But boy, when he does. He graduates from Highland Park in 1973. And typically in this situation, when parents become empty nesters, they shuffle their kid off from college and then they look at each other in their house and they try to figure out what they can do.

His parents just decide to emptiness themselves. They relocate to Evergreen, Colorado, which is where they move the headquarters for Vanderbilt Industries or Corporation. and they go, all right, John, you're going to college, you're going to Texas Tech. So you have to go to Texas Tech. We're going to go ahead and move all the way to Colorado. You're a man now. We'll kick you out of the nest pretty quickly. While John's in Lubbock for his freshman year, another just unremarkable semester or a couple of semesters,

he ends up moving to Dallas with his sister and her husband. And this is going to become kind of a pattern as far as John's just bouncing around. He's just a pinball going to all of these different places. Never setting down roots, never trying to find a job, never really taking his studies seriously. He has this love of music. He's going to try to make something of himself. But as far as personal motivation goes, he just doesn't have a lot of it.

In between 1973 and 1980, he goes on and off. He ends up coming short, I believe it was one semester from graduation. But it took him seven years, which, I mean, a lot of... Hey, well, hold on, I don't see a doctor in front of John. A lot of people go to school for seven years. Yeah, they're called doctors. Complex. That's the word I was searching for.

Okay. Complex. Yeah. I think this guy suffers from an assortment of them. Yeah. He wouldn't return to tech until the spring of 1975. He was flying under the radar. is this kind of B average student.

In April of 1976, so after he returns to Texas Tech, doesn't really find anything. John ends up moving to California. He's going to break into the music industry. Fuck yes, he is. Gotta do it. A guy that grew up on Lenin

was absolutely obsessed with the Beatles. Guy was a name like John Hinkley? That's gonna sell. John Hinkley, Jr.? Hankley Jr.? John Hinkley Jr. It has a country twang to it. He's from Dallas.

It should make sense. His music, not even close. Real Charlie Manson in that department? A bit, yeah, a bit Manson-ish. But he spends most of his time in Hollywood just in his apartment playing guitar. He's not doing anything. When he wasn't there,

he ends up spending the majority of his summer in 1976 at the movie theater because a movie called Taxi Driver just released. You have Robert De Niro playing this crazy outlaw taxi cab driver that just came home from the war named Travis Bickle. I believe it also had Harvey Kytel in it, Jody Foster, and there was another very attractive woman for the day. I mean, he's really lucky he got obsessed with Jody because had this gone a different direction,

he got obsessed with Robert or Harvey. You know, they may not have acted as understanding as Joe. I mean, it's not like Jody was understanding. understanding, but there might have been more repercussions. But if we're talking about the level of who you should be obsessed with, you probably shouldn't be obsessed with the 12-year-old girl from the movie that you just watch. Oh, shit, Jody's 12 in this? I've never seen Taxi Driver.

I know, like, taxi driver is the one we's got the Mohawk and that, yeah. He basically... Is you looking at me from Taxi Driver? Uh-huh. Yeah. He becomes obsessed with this movie. Over the time that he's in Los Angeles, they said he even admits this, he knows of 15 separate times that he went to the movie theater

just to see this one movie. Okay, so he is 19 or 20 at this point and he's obsessed with a 12-year-old Jody Foster. Yep. Okay. In the movie... The puzzle pieces are starting to connect themselves. Well, and this is also a little bit of an accident I have to grind

because in the movie, he tries to date this political volunteer named Betsy, who is working for this presidential campaign. And in the first date that De Niro takes her out to, he takes her out to an adult film and it turns out that that was pretty off-putting for Betsy. Wait, did you say De Niro took him out?

You mean Hinkley took her out to an adult film? No, Bickle in the movie Taxi Driver. Oh, okay. So Bickle ends up taking this volunteer for this presidential campaign named Betsy out on a date to an adult film that she isn't exactly impressed by, you would say. And he starts to stalk the presidential candidate because he feels like, she's being taken away by him. He ends up being stopped in his assassination attempt in the movie from killing the

presidential candidate and then turns his attention to rescuing a 12-year-old sex worker named Iris from her pimp. So that is where the pivot happens. Iris, again, played by a 12-year-old Jody Foster. And this is where I kind of had the axe to grind. Because for as much as the old guard talks about how much. we sexualize children nowadays. And again, I'm not justifying

sexualizing children. Bad all the way around. We shouldn't do it. But let's not... That goes for both of us. Let's not throw stones and glass houses when one of the most popular movies of the 70s had a 12-year-old sex worker in it.

It feels like maybe a little hypocritical. But as far as this goes, he is connecting with this Bickle character. He's falling for Jody. Foster, he wants to try to save somebody, and he's admitted in interviews that he had seen her and other things, but he was just absolutely... What, fucking diaper commercials? Probably.

He has this weird connection with Jody Foster that's going to shape the rest of his life. His parents are beginning to question his lifestyle that they were funding in Los Angeles, and as John is sending them letters, he starts creating this woman out of whole cloth named Lynn Collins. And Lynn Collins is supposedly his girlfriend. She is out there also being an actor in Los Angeles and her parents are very supportive of her pursuit of becoming an actress. And this feels a lot like maybe Hinkley leaning on his parents being like, hey, I have a girlfriend and she's trying to become an actress and her parents support her. Maybe you guys should start supporting my music career a little bit more and keep me out here longer.

He's also telling them that there are different record labels that are purchasing his songs and that before long he's going to be living in a mansion. You ain't mon, pa. You're going to hear my song on the radio one day. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, the letters start turning a little bit darker, and the industry is putting his songs on a wait list,

and it turns out that... They're assigning them to genital herpes medication commercials. His relationship with Lynn Collins, who he basically models Lynn Collins' life out of the Betsy character in taxi driver. Like, he's telling his parents, like, she comes from a rough upbringing. She was a 12-year-old prostitute before she found her way to acting. The poll worker. This wasn't Jody Foster's character. Oh, okay.

So the guy that Bickle or the lady that Bickle takes to the porno. Gotcha. He's confused why he didn't get a second date. I need to watch this movie. It seems pretty insane. By September of 1976, John's back living with his parents in Evergreen. Hinkley would bounce around between Colorado, Dallas, Texas Tech, not committing to work or school still. Parents are pretty embarrassed by this.

During this point in time in his life, John starts dressing in an army jacket like Bickle. He starts slugging peach brandy like Bickle. He starts keeping him. diary like Bickle. He's kind of trying to assume this anti-hero character while still holding this full-fledged obsession with...

All he's missing now, he just needs to find a stripper that he can save. Yeah, just a myriad of bad choices. His parents would end up sending him off to a psychiatrist in Evergreen who prescribed him antidepressants and tranquilizers to try to manage all of his emotional and psychological problems.

Tranquilizers don't seem like the right way to go. You just keep him docile. Yeah. This guy sucks. I believe this was actually a doctor. This wasn't his first psychiatrist. I believe this was a doctor. Psychiatrists are doctors.

Well, like a medical doctor is prescribing these things. A body doctor. Yeah. As far as a brain doctor, he hasn't quite been there yet. At this time in his life, like I'm saying, John's, he's dressing just like Bickle. He has all of these different things that are, he's losing his own personality. He's taking on the personality of a De Niro character in a movie. He is also obsessed with guns at this point in time.

He's going out, he's buying the 38 special that Darniery uses. Oh, gotcha. Okay. He's going to shooting ranges. He's honing his talents and his skills with these guns. I believe at this point in time, he owns a 38 and then he owns 222. revolver, just little kind of snub-nosed pistols. He's

getting pissed drunk and writing poetry in all of these songs, and he's writing in his diary, just trying to explain his feelings that are going on in his life. Is there just a whole bunch of Hinkley loves Foster

parts and arrows through them? You're making a joke, but during the trial, you could see some of the pages from the diary. Oh, seriously. And it'll be like a poem or song lyrics. And then the last like 15 lines in the diary is just him scribbling Jody Jody's name. Oh shit. Yeah. It gets to a bad enough point with this obsession with Foster that he actually began writing letters to the studio executives trying to see if they could introduce him to Jody Foster.

That's how far out of reality he's not even like an artist. with their label, and it's just this guy who's now pivoting from Play My Music to introduce me to Jody Foster. Well, and that to me is kind of, all of this is confounding. But you have enough of a connection with reality to understand that Iris, this character that you fell for is Jody Foster, and that you could reach out to a studio executive that helped produce that movie to try to meet Jody Foster in person. but you somehow can't get over this weird obsession with this movie.

Like, you understand that that's a movie because you're doing things in terms of reality while still living in a full-fledged mindset that that movie is part of your life. It's so confusing. You're saying the crazy person isn't making sense? I'm trying to make sense of it because, again, if you're keeping track on your scorecard of somebody who knew what they were doing when they were trying to assassinate the president in insanity, Gotcha. There's a lot of markers showing up in insanity.

Gotcha. You've got to build a history of the insane shit. While at the same time, you also have to put some markers under knew what he was doing because he was going. Depending on what side of the, yeah, what side you're going for. He's going to a gun range and he's practicing firing these weapons. Why do you keep putting a blazer on the targets? Well, and if that's not crazy enough, we're about to dive into one of the five, key words that you were talking about before. John Hinkley Jr.

signs up with the National Workers Party of America. National Socialist Workers Party of America? I don't believe this. Oh, maybe it was that I have to look up the exam. They were neo-Nazis. Gotcha. Okay. He signed up with the neo-Nazis kind of right around 78.

And in 1978, he started attending meetings and rallies. and he talks about this and this was something that I really wanted to hear him talk about because I wanted to hear the justification 40 plus years later Just answer my fucking questions Are you racist?

Yeah What was going on there? The Nazi party quote unquote And again, this is very tough to believe because they scrubbed a lot of these records because there are Nazis in the United States But also at the same time

Because they probably didn't want a connection Yeah with a would-be assassin A failed assassin. He had said that they didn't renew his membership in 1979. Got a Peter Dews, dude. Well, some of the interviews for the reasons why this was happening was because they were so freaked out

by his gung-ho nature of wanting to shoot and kill people. He was too violent for... He was too extreme for the Nazis. For neo-Nazis. And he doesn't ever come off as racist. Shockingly enough, again, we're going to... Maybe that just shows that they're just, all their

pussies. It's just all talk about shit. And when someone comes in, they're like, no, I want to actually do this.

They're like, oh, whoa. I do have to wonder. We just like to sit here and complain about how we perceive minorities are all the causes of all our problems. That's kind of what we do. I have to wonder how much that was used in the trial

because I guess the jury that ended up being the one that acquitted him on the insanity was made up of 11 black members and one white member. I don't know if they knew the full extent of, of him getting kicked out of the neo-Nazis for being too violent was drummed up in court when that was your jury makeup. Yeah. Just a guess at that point in time. In early 1980, Jody Foster releases an interview in,

it was like Us Magazine or something like that. The magazine doesn't matter. Stating that she was taking a hiatus from Hollywood and that she would be attending Yale University. And in Hinckley's mind, all you hear is, Kaching, we're going to do this. Oh, yeah, because guess who's got the financial backing maybe to attend Yale? Or I can just move close to Yale and I'll just hang out around campus and she'll see me.

She's like, oh, my God, who's that extremely handsome and not at all creepy looking taxi driver impersonator? He looks familiar, but I can't put my f-he had a Mohawk last? No, that was De Niro. Who is this guy in these fatigues? Who is this guy that's burping up peach brandy in my face? You're looking at me? Yeah. In his mind, this is the perfect time to go professes love to foster

and for them to fall madly in love with each other, for her to return his emotions. In fall of 1980, Hinkley informs his parents, hey, I've been accepted to this writing program at Yale. Yeah, you know all that crazy stuff I've been writing? Somebody likes it at Yale. I switched my major over early from business management to English, and I haven't gotten a degree yet,

but Yale University and Ivy League school, decided to accept me for their writing program as a seventh year senior. Yep. That's when I'm really hitting my stride. He ends up heading off to New Haven. Once he gets to New Haven, as he's checking into the hotel, he's basically offering up this information to the hotel worker that's signing him in, that he's Jody Foster's boyfriend, and that he's here to see her on campus.

And when they kind of give him a little bit of a side eye, he pulls out his wallet, and he begins to show her pictures of, Jody Foster. Now, these weren't pictures of Jody Foster that he had taken. These were pictures of Jody Foster that he cut out of magazines. Oh, yeah. I kind of figure it. Again, we're so into the delusional

land of what he was that it's so hard to come back. The birds popping out of the clock right now. Cuckoo. While at the same time, he's still in the mind state to be functionalable enough to be able to travel all the way to the night. Yes, that's what I'm saying.

This is not a what you're trying to understand here is somebody that's living in a parallel reality that's moving along with normal society and in this reality the rules of normal society do not exist partially they do not exist for him because he has means

he has money he's not living on the street he's going to New Haven and he's staying in a hotel while he's staying at the hotel John begins cruising campus he's looking for Judy's dorm ends up finding him it. He begins writing her all of these letters. He's slipping them under her door. He's slipping them into her mailbox.

Eventually, somehow, he obtains the phone number for her dorm room, of which he called multiple times. He says only two. She doesn't give a definitive number, I think, probably because it was two. And you can never tell because it phones back in the what, 70s? Yeah. He records one call with her. And in this call, he says hello. and you hear Jody come on to the phone and say, who is this? And he says, is this Jody? And she says, who is this Jody? And she goes, I don't know who you are.

And he goes, it's John. She goes, oh, no, you again? Listen, you can't keep calling me. Just do me a favor. I don't know you. You could be dangerous. You could be trying to hurt me. And just in this meek voice, you hear John say, I'm not dangerous.

She goes, be that, whatever. This just isn't a good thing. Please don't call me again. Stop with the goddamn love letters and the poems under the door. You hear him go, it would make you happy if I never called you again. And she goes, yeah, it's been a real nice time talking to you. And then hangs up the phone.

He put this phone call on repeat on the tape recorder. Oh, you know for a fact he masturbated to this phone call. He's just listening to. this her pushing him away over and over again and somehow it doesn't ever stop him all he's doing is listening to that last thing of it was nice talking to you ert it's nice talking to you he took that away it was nice talking to you um and he's just just a I don't really know how to do these in order a lot of this is actually not super easy to find because it was a part of the court case so as far as like going in and pinpointing different stuff.

You have to go through all of the evidence. Certain stuff has probably been sealed as well. Yeah. So there's just these certain different things. And I guess we can wait for the kind of some of the final notes. Jody wasn't the only one that John was stalking at this point in time. John began stalking President Jimmy Carter. Not Jim.

Yep. Sweet Jimmy? No. Not Jimmy, my boy. October 2nd, 1980. Hinkley got pretty much within arm's reach of Carter at a rally in Dayton, Ohio. He had planned to assassinate Carter there, but he had decided against it kind of last minute because he didn't understand the security protocol, so he didn't really want to bring his guns there.

He didn't really feel comfortable with the large size of the crowd as far as shooting at Carter. Okay, you got to back up for just a second because we just escalated from masturbating to Jody Foster's voicemails to trying to kill Jimmy Carter. So what's the mentality here? And what is he thinking that this is going to accomplish? It's a grand gesture. It's to show his love. The ultimate show of love that he can think of would be to assassinate a president for Jody

Foster. Wasn't the Jody Foster dislike Carter? It wasn't the Jody Foster like Carter. For some reason, he had it in his head that it would get him the notoriety to bring Jody Foster to him, which, again, I don't, I'm trying to justify a crazy person. I'm trying to justify a mentally ill person. I know that it's tough to use the word crazy with somebody that actually has a mental illness. I don't, I don't think you're trying to justify it. I think you're trying to, like, hitch it to the reason wagon. Yeah, I'm just, I'm trying to make sense out of nonsense.

He, like I say, he gets so close to Carter, but he didn't have his guns on him. November 9th, 1980, Carter was holding another rally in Nashville. Yeah, and Carter's a Navy man. You don't want to try to go hand-to-hand with Carter. No, he's got some sort of a judo chop that's going to drop your ass just like you probably imagine dropping so many. He trained with the SAS and that woman from France. Oh, yes, the patented one-shot judo chop. The very day that Jimmy Carter was holding a rally in Nashville on November 9th.

Hinkley is arrested at the Nashville airport. After going through security, they ran his checked bag to the X-ray machine, and they found two 22-caliber pistols, this 38 pistol, along with about 50 rounds of ammunition. They were just floating around in his bag. Just not the ammunition's all bundled up as closed. Well, those 22 bucks is a notoriously flimsy. It's... And this, again,

caught with guns at an airport the exact same day that the president is holding a rally in Nashville. And what ends up happening to him is he, oh, also the guns, okay, the ammo makes sense with the guns. They also find a set of handcuffs. He's a pervert. I don't know what you, you want to make sense of this? Guy jerks off to Jody Foster voicemails. Of course he's going to have handcuffs. I wonder if that's what it was when they asked him about it.

Like they hold him up. He's like, I'm a deviant. I'm a sexual deviant. Those were for me, if you'll believe that. You ever seen the movie Taxi Driver? Well, they actually do end up believing him because they confiscate his guns and they find him $62.50 for a minor weapons possession, and then they release him.

They just send him away. And again, the reason that I point out that this is weird that it happens is there's no connection made by the Secret Service of the FBI with somebody that just caught a gun charge at the Nashville airport the same day that there's a rally for the president in Nashville. I get your point on that. You're talking about Tennessee. There's probably a lot of people,

and I'm guessing there's people, because if he was caught trying to go through, that's just someone that doesn't know they can't transport. Yeah. I think, yeah. It would fly back up to New Haven that exact same night, and eventually, I want to say it was like a matter of days. He ends up flying back down to Dallas to see his,

sister where he purchases two more revolvers. These guns are hot now, because they've seen, no, honestly, that makes sense. They've seen these weapons now. What do you mean? If they caught, security found these pistols, they would just have to write down the serial numbers. Oh, they took them.

Oh, they did? He didn't get them back. Oh, got you. Okay. Yeah, they took his guns. They took his guns, and they took his $62. It took his $62, and they said, on your way, sir.

Now you can get on the airplane. He's got these two new pistols. He, I believe, bought the first trio in Dallas, so there's kind of a pattern of where he's buying these guns. Eventually, after he returns to Colorado, he was met with his parents kind of sending him to see a psychiatrist. They're looking for a reason why he's just nailing jello to a wall, so to speak, with his life.

You're going to get kicked out of Yale if you don't get your head on straight. Well, he's not coming back with anything to show for it. They're like, hey, I was, yeah, I was like, yeah, I was like. No, but you understand. Someone of this prominence like his parents can just pick up the phone and call Yale admissions and be like, do you have this student registered? And would know in a heartbeat. I pretended to go to college for like an entire semester, man. And it worked.

It actually didn't. No, it didn't. I got caught. Well, how long into the semester? Very far into the semester. See? So, semi-successful. And we have phones.

We had cell phones then. That's true. When he meets up with the psychiatrist, this might be one of the worst things that could have happened. As the psychiatrist is explaining to his parents kind of what he sees, he sees an unmotivated kid who's suckling off of the teats of his parents, and they need to just cut him off, give him an ultimatum, say that you cannot stay here anymore. We're not going to fund your lifestyle. And as they're taking this advice from the psychiatrist,

he's meeting with John and he's seeing all of these entitlements play out in front of him, not really understanding that the things that he's seeing, the things that John's projecting and showing him are these underlying psychological issues. He sees an affluent rich kid who doesn't want to ever grow up. This is the pre-plot of failure to launch. Except this is not a charming romantic comedy. Yeah. After they threatened to cut them off, John begins.

I believe he sold two of his revolvers at that point in time. He would end up purchasing a couple more. He would be back up to three. He also, at this point, starts to abandon his Carter plan after Reagan wins the election because he realizes that the place of prominence that Jimmy Carter is holding becomes a lot less important to Johnny Foster, obviously. Also, I'm also not going to be able to get. keep the schedule or know any type of public addresses for a former president. Yeah, well, yeah, he's just, I, and he wants to win the Super Bowl.

He's not looking to, yeah. In this situation, Carter's lame duck period of his presidency made him less should be able. May have saved his life. Yeah, could have saved his life for sure. Maybe the biggest tragedy that ever happens in John Hinkley's life comes December 8th, 1980 when John Lennon is assassinated by fan Mark David Chapman outside of his apartment in New York City. This sends Hinkley into this spiral of poetry and recordings and shit music and brandy consumption.

Is it good like Pat McAfee's album? I haven't listened to the McAfee album, I assume. Her little sipets. It's got to be AI, right? It is diarrhea. Yeah. It is mouth diarrhea. Yeah.

As soon as, I know that there's a lot of points where you can point to McAfee and say that was it. When he started doing pro wrestling stuff, that was, we jumped a shark at that point in time. There's pictures that were brought up at trial with John at this point. You can see he's pretty shit-faced in the pictures. He's holding the revolver up to his head, just like De Niro did his Bickle in taxi driver. He's spiraling. He says in some of his writings that this. moment tied

John Lennon and Jody Foster together in his mind for the rest of his life because those are the only two things that he has. At this point in time, too, after he's already shifted his focus on Reagan, he begins really studying the JFK materials. He

starts looking into the assassination of JFK pretty heavily trying to figure out how it all went down, where the security measures were. It turns out that... A little bit of light reading. Post JFK assassination, Secret Service had gotten there.

Funding bumped up quite a bit. Not bumped up far enough to start using metal detectors yet, which I don't know if the technology wasn't there. I can't assume that it wasn't there because they had to have had something like that at an airport. Yeah, I would think because of the circumstances, you couldn't metal detect people along a parade route or whatever it was. And so maybe that's where the money went into is the most likely spot is going to. be a spot that we don't control. And like if you're being able to pat people down or do anything like that

or control the venue, maybe it's a little bit different. I don't know. Possibly. I just, I would think that at a presidential rally after having a presidential assassination, you'd want to check these people. You still would, and I'm sure there was still some type of checking. Yeah. Oh, there will be. We'll talk about it because he breezes

right through it. January 20th, 1980, inauguration day for Ronald Reagan. He ends up attending in that morning, St. John's Episcopal Church in D.C. And in the film, or in the recording of Reagan walking out of that church, headed back to the presidential limousine, if you freeze it at one point in time,

you can see a face in the background that John Hinkley's there. I love this because this is like they do in actual conspiracy stuff or shows, where they go back to show people that were present at actual events like this. and the fact you can go back and Reagan's literally walking out there and then in the background you just see the head of Hinkley just staring at Reagan. And that's

what it was. You can see him in pictures at the Dayton rally for Carter. You can see him in video recordings of Reagan on his inauguration day. He could have done this on his inauguration day. Having been cut off

by his parents completely, John continues to sell his possessions to move back and forth between New Haven, D.C., wherever he feels he's needed, basically, in his life. Prior to leaving Yale the last time, and this was one of the other notes that he had written and slipped under her door. And Jody Foster actually makes reference to this. I didn't want to give that away yet. She makes reference to this in the recorded testimony. that she has to give on a closed circuit recording as a part of this trial. I guess we can save why for a little bit later.

He writes her a note that he slips under her door that says, Dear Jody, just wait, I'll rescue you very soon. Please cooperate. John. I don't know why that last bit got me. Please cooperate. Yes. If you're planning a rescue.

It's like. Oh my God. That's like the most... I'm trying to think of... It's so threatening. Yeah. But it's... Is it the most polite?

Like, please cooperate. It sounds insane. It sounds like a movie line, right? Yes. Is Jody Foster... Like a fucking robot. Please cooperate. Jody Foster's giving her testimony

during the trial. He says, did you've seen this anywhere before? She goes, this is a note that Travis Bickle writes word for word that he slips to Iris. Oh shit. Seriously?

Yep. Ripped it straight from the movie. As he's leaving, this one final note that he slips under the door says Jody, goodbye, exclamation point. I love you six trillion times. Don't you maybe like me a little bit?

You must admit that I am different. It would make all of the difference, John Hinkley. I mean... Is this, is he hoping for the Lloyd Christmas Mary Samson thing where or what's her name? Swanson, right? Swim swimming, swimming, Swenson, Swanson? Swanson. Swanson? Right on luggage.

Swanson, I think. But where he's like, is there, you know, she's like, like 2% or she says point something. He's like, so you're telling me there's a chance. What are we talking here? Like one in a hundred, one in a thousand, more like one in a million. So you're saying there's a chance. It's wacko, it's bonko. Allegedly prior to this, he had stenciled out a letter that he had sent to the FBI that was basically tipping them off saying that there will be a time when somebody goes to abduct Jody Foster. But in the stencil letter. But it's fine.

It's just me. He says she will be abducted for romantic reasons. That's the worst reasons. Yeah. I don't know what the FBI had on their plate at this point in time. I'm assuming a lot. I'm not like taking her for parts or anything like that. It's romantic.

It's not nefarious. I'm not trying to kill her. It's for love. Yeah, it's for love. She's fine. My love and not hers. But the FBI can't take it seriously. I'm assuming because they're probably not as worried about Jody Foster as they are about the president.

It's also got to sound insane. They're like, is this dude talking about Jody Foster? That's fair. Yeah, it's very fair, actually. we get to the morning of March 30th Hinkley ends up leaving his hotel room and in his hotel room later on after this incident happens they'll go back

and for all of the security that we've talked about that should have happened after the JFK assassination in the newspaper that day that he leaves spread open on his bed it has a time by time listing of all of the events that Ronald Reagan is going to do that day. Well, yeah, you don't want to miss anything.

We gave the full itinerary for every place that you could find Ronald Reagan for the entirety of the day, just in the newspaper. And this is in D.C. It's not like this is in Muskogee or, uh, shit, what was that town in Iowa that we always did? Or that we did that whole episode. Dubuque. He wasn't going to Dubuque at this point in time. This wasn't a Dubuque star paper where you have his whole itinerary for the one day he's there. He lives there. Yeah. And you're still doing that.

As it's showing off the whole entire thing about an hour before he ends up. He was your assassination itinerary, sir. Yeah, no shit. That's exactly what it was. About an hour before he leaves his hotel room, he writes this kind of one final note to Jody. Jody. Yes. And

My dearest Jody I embark on the great journey Bro, you're Seriously? Yeah This is going to be a little long, bear with me, but I feel like this is all just so much. You really have to look at this. Dear Jody,

there's definitely a possibility that I will be killed in my attempt for rigging. Part of this is where do you parse this as knowing what you're going to do and being completely insane. That's a strong start to the letter too. I know that there's definitely a possibility that I will be killed in my attempt to get Reagan. It is for this very reason that I'm writing you this letter now.

As you well know by now, I love you very much. Over the past seven months, I've left you dozens of poems, letters, and love messages, and the faint hope that you could develop an interest in me. Although we talked on the phone only a couple of times, I never had heard the nerve, or I never had had the nerve to simply approach you and introduce myself. Besides shyness, I honestly did not wish to bother you with my constant presence. I know the many messages left at your door and in your mailbox were a nuisance, but I felt that it was the most painless way for me to express my love for you.

So he's like aware of the feelings that this can cause somebody. Yeah. But he's just like, but if you just let me, it's that guy that's like, why won't you give me your number? Why wouldn't you give me your number? Let me take you out. I feel very good about the fact that you at least know my name and how I feel about you. And by hanging around your dormitory, I've come to realize that I'm the topic of more than a little conversation.

However, full of ridicule it may be. So he knows he's being made fun of behind his back with her friends. Because he's a fucking stalker. Yeah. At least you know that I'll always love you. Jody, I would abandon the idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart. and live out the rest of my life with you, whether it be in total obscurity or whatever.

So listen up, Jody. If you don't want him to kill Reagan, you need to pick up the phone and call me. This is a letter he's never going to send out because he's about to go leave to kill Reagan. So she doesn't have a chance to do anything. In his mind, maybe she does. I will admit to you that the reason I'm going ahead

with this attempt now is because I cannot wait any longer to impress you. I've got to do something now to make you understand in no uncertain terms that I'm doing all of this for your sake. By sacrificing my freedom and possibly my life, I hope to change your mind about me. This letter is being written only an hour before I leave for the Hilton Hotel.

Jody, I'm asking you, please look into your heart. At least give the chance with the historical deed to gain your love and respect. I love you forever, John W. Hinkley. There's a lot in there. I really laid it all out and really buried his soul. There's a ton of mental. understanding and clarity about what he's about to do. Yes.

And being in a sane frame of mind to do it. He's aware of the consequences. Yeah. The very likely consequences. Yet there is a part of a lack of self-preservation or something like that. Well, in his newest interviews that he's done, he has a pretty clear mind of saying, I wasn't worried about jail. I wasn't thinking about jail.

I wasn't thinking about being killed. I understood that that could happen, but at the same time, all of that paled in comparison because it just wasn't going to happen. It all paled in comparison to the light that is Jody Foster. This fantasy only leads me to a road where her and I get married and live in obscurity for the rest of our lives.

It's so hard to try to parse how this guy was in his right mind when I just read half of that and it's just like, what the fuck is this guy's deal? There was one other note that gets presented, well, there was a bunch of other notes, but one other kind of crazy note, and I sent you this passage

that gets used in the trial. It's a postcard. There was about six postcards, I think, that they found, and all of them had, like, basically parts of the exact same message that he was trying to write out, but he finally nails it with the last one.

And this is just a postcard of Ron and Nancy standing together in front of the White House. On the backside of this, it says Jody. Or, dear Jody, don't they make a darling couple? Nancy is downright sexy. I mean, one day you and I will occupy the White House and the peasants will drool with envy. Until then, please do your best to remain a virgin.

You are a virgin, aren't you? Love John. Just when you think it couldn't get any crazier. Yeah, bonkers. Yeah, I mean, we'll leave it off there. Let's take a bathroom break. Sounds good. Well, hello.

Listen, while we head to the restroom and get ourselves something to drink, why don't you do something nice for yourselves? Head on over to patreon.com slash historically high and get signed up for a little bonus content. I mean, come on, you deserve it. If you want to keep up with this, our main source of social media is going to be our Instagram, which is Historically High Pod, P-O-D. You can also head over to its Twitter, it's X, it's Twitter, come on, at historically high, and that's high, H-I-like, hi. If you have any recommendations, you want to get to us, just want to reach out and say hello, you can hit us up on our email at Historically High Podcast, H-I-E-E-E-L-A-H-E-E.

G-H podcast at gmail.com. All right. And with that said, let's get back to the good stuff. So, March 30th, 1981, Hinkley leaves his hotel room. He ends up going and sitting in the Washington Hilton Hotel lobby. Inside of the Washington Hilton Hotel, Ronald Reagan, is scheduled to deliver a speech to the AFL-CIO, a construction trade council. Oh, look at all you guys here with so many letters in your name for your company. company.

And it's truly nothing big. I mean, I would have to assume that construction trades council speech is probably pretty mundane, right? I mean, unless there's a shooting. Yeah, and that's it. The only thing that's going to jazz it up. Maybe it's lax, though. That's the thing. He's looking for something that's going to be a little bit less factors or variables.

Very interestingly, you say that because typically in most of these situations when Reagan's leaving from giving a speech, they slap a bulletproof vest on him because he's going to be walking out in public and they don't want to get shot. Most of the Secret Service that follows him, you're good. Also, at the same time as wearing a bulletproof vest, it was about 50 feet from the entrance of the hotel to the limousine to, I believe they called it the stage coach because his code name was rawhide. Because of course he's Reagan. I've told you a thousand times it's raehide. So they think that this... Gidey up Nancy. They think that the short span is going to mean that it's not going to be necessary for him to wear a bulletproof vest,

which I believe at this point in time, Reagan's about 70 years old. He's in pretty decent shape. He's in actor's shape. All of his glamour muscles are held up. So no bulletproof vest. He does a ton of hummingbirds. Yeah, he does all the time. By 2.27 p.m., John Hinkley has come out of the...

Hilton. Out of the Hilton, he has passed through two layers of security and has made his way up to the barrier line. And when I say barrier line, it's just a goddamn rope line. 227, Reagan exits the hotel with no vest on. And you can see the video, and that's the other just absolutely crazy thing, is we have a JFK assassination that was caught on video. and then we have a Ronald Reagan attempted assassination

that is the whole thing is captured. From probably multiple angles, I would think. Mostly just from the angle where the press was. Okay. But you still see so clearly what happens. As Reagan is walking towards the vehicle, he turns to wave to the crowd and these shots rang out. John had fired six what are known as Devastator round.

in under two seconds. Now, what a Devastator round is is a 22 shell, and it has an explosive tip on it to do maximum damage. And this would be something that later on comes up in the trial as them saying, he knew exactly what he was doing. He wanted to create maximum damage, so he chose these devastated rounds. What turns out, if you go back and you watch Taxi Driver, before Bickle goes to fire his gun, he takes his bullets,

And he uses a knife. Do the cross on him to split him, so they shrapneling the fragment. And I don't know if maybe John didn't want to go that far, but he chose these devastating rounds. And they live up to the main. A fucking explosive core. The bolts featured an aluminum canister embedded in the tip containing a small charge of lead as a primary explosive compound. So the round would impact. It would crush the tip, detonate the explosive charge, and fragment the lead casing inside the target to

caused catastrophic internal damage. Fuck me. In a 22 caliber, that is nuts. They just sell those. Like that's, that's just something they buy. It says it's manufactured by Bingham Limited. I don't do.

Can you still get them, I wonder? Probably not, but this was a commercially produced product. Damn. Yeah. The fuck you need this for. I don't know, man. I don't know what the public needs that for.

I don't know if you're doing any sort of hunting that needs an explosive tip to just ruin the meat. Fucking ground squirrels. So, incredibly enough, these six shots that John fired in succession in under two seconds, it was kind of crazy to hear one of the FBI guys that was being interviewed. He might have been a Secret Service guy. He said that they had timed it and they said that it was about one and a half seconds, which if you want to understand how fast one and a half seconds is,

one and a half seconds is saying one and a half seconds. He fired off six rounds. And in those six rounds, the first shot hits, Press Secretary James Brady in the head causing severe brain damage. He would be paralyzed, I believe, on his left side for the remainder of his life. He lived up until 2014 in a wheelchair. He would end up returning back to his press secretary position is just kind of like this ceremonial.

All the Deputy Press Secretary is handed everything else. But Brady is, his life has changed instantly. His life has been taken from an earlier age because of this shot that, Hinkley fires. Second round hits D.C. police officer Thomas Delhonte in the neck. Thomas would end up having to medically retire because of the injuries sustained in his neck. Luckily, again, he would live just like Brady. Third round ends up missing.

Fourth round hits an outstretched Secret Service agent named Tim McCarthy in the abdomen. And Tim McCarthy might be the most heroic guy. that I've ever seen. You always hear SS member, or Jesus Christ, I don't want to say it that way, Secret Service members, basically sign up saying that I'll take a bullet from the president.

And what he did at this point in time was after the first shots rang out, just out of instinct, he turned away, he spread his arms out and got in a defensive stance like he was taken on shack in the paint, and just takes one of these rounds straight in the stomach. And in a situation where you,

already have Brady down. You have Delahonte that collapsed on top of him. You see McCarthy take one in the stomach and fall back behind. Fifth round hits the glass door lodging in the bulletproof glass or in bulletproof window of the door that is directly right in front of Secret Service agent Jerry Parr grabbing Reagan by the hips and basically dry-humping him into the limo. Into the limo Dry hump and raw dog Or raw skin, wait, what is it? Dry Humping raw hide

Into the stage coach As this happens We have not only another Presidential assassination That's being recorded We have another What I can only claim To believe is a magic bullet

This bullet End up striking the side The side panel of the limo In front of where the door is glances off and as it glances off it slips in between the three inch crack between the exterior. So when you open the door. It had a suicide door. Yeah.

So it opened towards where the crowd was. Gotcha. It slips through this three inch gap and his Reagan's arms are extended as he's jumping inside of the limo. It clips him five inches under his armpit. and as he ends up landing inside the limo, Parr ends up landing on top of him. And Reagan immediately says, I think your gun or your radio might have broken my rib.

And I'm assuming Jerry Parr was like, that's not my gun or my radio. I'm just real happy to be on top of you, Ronald. Say it again, ride. So these shots are going off. Again, six shots and one and a half, seconds ended up hitting four people. You get this. And the last one ricochets and catches the target.

Yeah, through a three inch gap. Yeah. If it had been off by a second. But also at the same time, this round that hits McCarthy would have 100% killed Parr may have hit Reagan for a first time. Yeah. Before hitting him on this last time. There's so many other things that could have gone wrong at this point in time. And basically, the exterior shot that you get that's all. on recording and maybe one of the creepiest things about the video recording of seeing a president

get shot is the police and reporters just mob Hinkley knowing that he had just fired a gun Hinkley says that he doesn't really remember this but what he does remember is dropping his pistol after he's being mobbed by

the crowd and in the recording after seeing the president dive into the limo it turns and it pans into the crowd where they're dog piling on him and if you freeze it you just see this pistol sticking out and you see him drop it and it ends up landing like within a foot of the collapse James Brady right in front of him one of the biggest issues beyond him him not wearing the vest which I mean honestly if he gets hit five inches under the armpit that

ain't where the vest is going to cover it depends on how high up under the arm it goes and everything but still he still probably would have been hit yeah but the police training was so poor that is Reagan was walking out and walking to the limo, you see every police officer staring back, looking at Reagan instead of watching the crowd to make sure that nothing's going on. It was just a bunch of errors that come so fast. And again, we're talking about a matter of two seconds that this happens.

Inside the limo, Paul immediately says, we got to get out of here, we got to get out of here. We need to head back to the White House. and they're trying to kind of reconcile what happened and Reagan's talking about how he thinks he has this broken rib and his par looks over at him he starts to see some blood around his lips and you hear or you don't hear it but Reagan says to him I think I bit my lip I think I bit something inside my mouth

he opens his mouth and his par looks in he just sees this bloody spit that's coming out of his mouth at a rapid rate and he realizes maybe the rib had punctured the lung. He starts to feel him down and pat down his body. He's reaching underneath his shirt and he's coming up. And maybe I just have a fundamental misunderstanding of bullet wounds because of movies. He comes up and his hands are clean. The entry wound has not started bleeding.

I guess it might depend on where he got hit. Yeah. I mean, if I'm not a fucking... Ballistics expert. Yeah, no shit. But I would think a 22 is pretty small. so I don't know when it hit the car if it detonated at that point

and then maybe shrapnel flew out that direction and that's what hit him and so it was a smaller wound but if that's small and then he's sealing it up or something like that or it's I don't know it seems so odd that they don't know this yet but part believing that Reagan had a lung

punctured from this broken rib ends up saying hey we got to get the motorcade headed in a different direction we need to head to George Washington University Hospital. As they get there, and this is, it's totally Reagan. It's, I'm full disclosure, not a huge fan of Reagan after a Rayn Contra and some of the other things. He always has this sense of humor about him that's sort of confounding to me, or confusing to me. He ends up telling Parr that he wants to walk into the hospital under his own power and that he feels good enough that he can do it.

It's just a broken rib as he's bleeding from the mouth. Yeah. Broken rib's not going to make you bleed from the mouth. He ends up getting about 20 feet inside the door and collapses. They carry him to a trauma bay. There's a trauma surgeon named Joseph Giordano that first kind of gives a look at him as they're trying to figure out what's wrong with him. They have him in the trauma bay and they begin cutting his suit off.

And Reagan says, hey, be careful. That's an expensive suit. and in post interviews with Reagan, he said that that was the first day that he had gotten the suit back from the tailor and he'd never worn it before and he was concerned about it. Now, unbeknownst to everybody in this situation

and what's becoming very clear to the Secret Service back at the scene where the nuclear football that is a very important integral part of the Cold War, always being around the president, is separated from the one man who has all of the nuclear codes in case something were to happen

in a Cold War situation. And all of those codes are on a gold card that is actively being cut off of Reagan's body because it's sitting in his suit or his jacket pocket or something. His jacket coat. And this just gets discarded

in this trauma bay for a number of hours. Because it's supposed to be a clean room. People aren't allowed in there. It's just, it's, Yeah, it's a sterile environment. For a number of hours, the only codes to launch the nuclear football from the only guy that can make that decision are just sitting in a heap outside of a trauma bay at George Washington University Hospital. As they begin cutting off the clothes, Giordano sees a one inch entry wound, five inches underneath his armpit, and he immediately knows that he's been hit. at this point in time

Reagan's lung is collapsed he loses an estimated 40% of his blood Jesus they're pumping I believe they pump two pints in him to prep him to go in for this three hour surgery

before he goes into surgery that's conducted by this man named Dr. Ben Aaron Reagan's last words before he goes under are I hope you're all Republicans and a very devout liberal Democrat

Ben Aaron looks in him and he says, Sir, today we're all Republicans. And Reagan ends up slipping under for this almost three-hour surgery as they're in there kind of looking around, they end up getting an x-ray. And they see this bullet fragment that is lodged. They believe it's a bullet fragment

that's lodged in Ronald Reagan's lung that stopped an inch before it hit his heart. Jesus. And as, as, Aaron has his hand literally inside of the president of the United States. In his chest cavity. Trying not to bump this and push this any further in, hidden artery, anything like that that's going to leak out even worse. He's already lost 40% of his blood.

He ends up pulling it out. And what they believe is when the shot hit the car and the detonation happened, it had flattened the bullet. Gotcha. So it went in as almost like the size of a pan. into the side of him. Scarly enough, post interviews, or I guess post-mental hospital interviews

with Hinkley, he was asked why he didn't bring the 38. The gun that most assuredly would have fired that bullet all the way through. Yeah, but then does that ricochet the same? Don't know. Yeah.

The only thing that we do know is the only reason he didn't bring the 38, is because that was one of the guns that he had sold to get to D.C. And he said that had he not sold the guy had the guy not wanted the 38, he would have used the 38.

So we're talking about a matter of a gun purchase that took place in a parking lot. A matter of a hundred bucks or something like that, maybe. May have saved Robert Reagan's life. Just an insane three-hour surgery,

successfully finding the bullet, removing the blood, re-inflating his, his lung. John Brady is rushed to same hospital. He undergoes surgery. And if you're the press secretary of the United... James Brady.

Yeah, James Brady. If you're the press secretary of the United States of America and you get rushed to a hospital with a bullet in your head, there's a great chance that you're going to be the highest priority patient. You're going to get the best trauma surgeon in the building. Unless. to come do your surgery, yeah. Unless. Unless the president of the United States is also there. He does undergo successful surgery. They get the bleeding and everything taken care of.

Unfortunately, part of his brain is pink mist. Delahante goes to a separate hospital, which I'm sure he's probably pretty pumped about that he didn't fall in line behind the president, the press secretary, a secret service agent. That seems like a pretty good deal that he went separate. McCarthy would make a full recovery. I'm sure he got

some crazy medals for actually taking a bullet for the president. And this time, Reagan would be released two weeks later. The very next day after the surgery, they bring him in a bill that he can sign, just trying to play up the fact that he's not in a week in state. That's two weeks later. The fallout and the aftermath of what happens at the White House after Reagan gets shot, which they don't know for sure. They know that a shooting had taken place.

They're getting reports from the hospital that, yes, he has been shot. He's in surgery and it doesn't look good. Now, the presidential line of succession says that the vice president would take over the presidential powers. Then the secretary state after, right? No. No, no. I see why you say that. And we're going to get to it because it's a fucking brilliant part of this whole entire thing.

Okay. So George Bush is down for a rally in Texas as this is happening. he is informed that he needs to fly back to D.C. And as they're on the phone, the White House is on the phone with Bush. They can't say anything because he's on a plane with an unsecured phone line. So they can't tell him that the president's been shot. It's not looking good, which they know he's in surgery.

You need to get back because you need to assume the powers of the executive office. So you have the Secretary of State meeting with all of these other undersecretaries and they're trying to get their poop in a group. They're trying to get this shit figured out because off both coasts of the United States, there are rolling, roving submarines, pairs on each side of the country because we're dead nuts in the middle of the Cold War.

Oh, sorry, I meant, Speaker of the House, not Secretary of State. Yeah, no, again, you're going to like this a lot because this just shows the incompetency that was a part of the White House that seems to be a part of every White House. You also have a situation in Poland where the Soviet Union is making incursions that they could really march on at any time. So all of a sudden you're going through your conspiracy mind

in your head and you're saying, was this an assassination plot to try to get Reagan off the board so they could invade Poland? Was this guy a Russian plant? Yeah. Was this a Soviet plan? That's got to be the thought in every situation like that, right? Yeah.

Well, and they're freaking out. Or something like that. Because they're getting information from the Coast Guard. They find out that now there's four submarines that are sitting on the East Coast of the United States. United States. And everybody's sitting shit, threat level zero, this is bad, we need to get this figured out. Who

has the nuclear football? Not the president. Who has the nuclear codes? We don't know. We're currently trying to get back to you on that? Figure it out, yeah. Turns out that this was just a shift change between submarines and there were two. It just happened to coincide.

Yeah. Two submarines that were going out to relieve the other two. And after a couple of hours of this, they kind of come to realize if the Soviet Union was behind this, they would have done something already. They would have fired a ballistics missile at the White House. Anything else. Yeah. This would be the point for them

to be able to do something like this. But they're trying to figure out. They have to figure out who's in charge. And in doing so, they start to argue amongst themselves at this cabinet meeting trying to figure out, okay, who are we going to put out in front of the media? What are they going to say?

How are we going to get, I guess the news out in a way that doesn't make us sound weak at this point in time. But to let people know something is going on. Reagan ain't here. Bush is still on a plane coming back. We can't talk to him because we think so little of the position of vice president that we don't even send him over on a plane with a secured phone line. We need to get somebody out in front.

And Secretary of State at the time, Alexander Hague, was basically saying, I'm the Secretary of State. I'm the one that's in charge. The rest of the Secretary is like, the fuck are you talking about, man. That's not how the line of succession goes. I would like to show you a document. Yeah.

If this makes you feel any better, we're going to go with it. We're not going to report to you. You can do whatever you want. We got some other business. Go play over there in the corner. We have to go give a press briefing. And ironically enough,

the Deputy Press Secretary at the time was a man named Larry Speaks. Larry Speaks is the press secretary. He's going out to give a speech. and during this speech he's fumbling in the briefing room trying to explain what's going on Leslie Stahl from CBS asked who's running the government in Reagan's absence and speaks can only really get out I cannot answer that question at this time that obviously alarms pretty much everybody that's sitting in the war room

no shit no shit he's like wow that was a bad choice Harry, no, fuck. Hing rush is in there. It gives this line, this constitutionally, gentlemen, you had the president, the vice president, and the secretary of state in that order.

Should the president decide he wants to transfer the helm to the vice president, he will do so. He has not done that at this time. As of now, I'm in control here. In the White House, pending the return of the vice president, And we were in close touch with him.

Okay, so you're letting him know that... The media is not all idiots. The general public's not all stupid. The presidential succession order goes, president, vice president, speaker of the House, president pro tempore of the Senate, and then the secretary of state. So in this current dynamic setup that Hague said that he's number one in command, you have both the president and vice president out. He's saying he's in command.

He's actually third on the roster. He's not even on deck. He's in the hole. So the White House just had the Secretary of State come out and completely fuck up a constitutional part of our country. What in the world is everybody else thinking? Let's just make this worse. Just wild.

After this happens, Hinkley, to go back to the crime scene Hinkley is thrown into the back of a DC police car he's taken to the station they begin kind of questioning him he's very calm like psycho calm

not as yeah not as calm as somebody that was just shooting the rim of yeah he says they didn't know he said that he didn't ask they weren't telling him about the injuries he didn't know at the time who he had hit what their status was

and he gets moved to an FBI field office where they begin questioning him. One of the questions that he asked about was the Academy Awards that were going on that night. Did Jody win? Well, he asked if they were going to play any of the recordings that they had been telling him about. We're all over the news of him shooting Reagan at the Academy Awards. And they ended up having to cancel the Academy Awards that night because Reagan was such a big player in Hollywood. And I don't know if he was supposed to be.

there, but I think he was going to phone in or something. Oh, shit. They postponed him for one night. Reagan had recorded something in the hospital that night to be played the next day. But he is portraying this thought of like, am I going to be so famous? I'm going to be named. How famous am I? How many likes do I have?

How many views? Which again, if we're going on the tally sheet of sound mind and insane, if you're doing this for- Shock on the insane. But if you're doing this. this for fame and notoriety by killing the president, that seems like a thing that you would take to you. Like a thing that you would take in a natural mind. I'm not saying that it's not crazy to do that, but somebody who's trying to assassinate the president. But it's such an extreme.

You have a result that you want to, and your result is fame. Yeah. It's such an extreme. You have to suspend so many things, warning signs, about achieving fame through that method. But how many killers have we known that killed to become famous? Yeah, I mean... I'm not saying that it's of rational... But his seems like that's his primary reason.

For other killers, it was to fulfill some type of sick, fucked up need or want. He has the exact same thing. His sick, fucked up need is to have Jody Foster love him. Yeah. It's so complicated to go back and forth. You're just making me think insanity even more. Well, and I mean, it's... I'm not going to lie.

I'm on that train. I know it's probably not a popular opinion, and I can see kind of both sides of this. While he's at the FBI station, they end up getting the search warrant to go back to his hotel room and search everything. They find this final unmailed letter that we were talking about, the crazy Jody letter, the postcard that had the Hope You're a Virgin tag on there. Of course. A separate postcard asking Foster. It was some other question. I believe it was a part of the list and it just had a different message on it.

They find 38 pages of Hinkley's own writings, including poems, notes, all this other material that's used at trial as evidence for his mental state. And the defense is going to be like, I'll take as much writing as I can get. Because this is where the true crazy really shows itself. Um, they find up torn magazine pictures of Jody Foster, newspaper clippings that were sprawled on the bed that had Reagan's whole entire day on it. Um, there was an empty box of the devastating tip bullets, separate box of ordinary ammunition. If you were describing your wet dream for a crime scene investigator or an investigative team to walk into each thing that friends are just like, oh God, yes, the ammo's over here.

Oh, fuck. It's like that Vince McMahon meme where it does the three phases of Vince. Yeah. Just keep getting better. They end up finding volume tranquilizers, antidepressants, and nasal decongestion, DXM. You got a breeze. He's got two suitcases in there. He's got an Army fatigue jacket.

Of course. Got to have that. A 1981 calendar of John Lennon. Again, Jody and John are now inextricably linked. Reagan. They're artists. Catcher in the Rye. J.D. Salinger, a book that seems to have spawned a lot of...

Is this where it gets the tie? I think it's going to be more than that. I believe he also has Romeo and Juliet, which is nuts. Skyjacker by David Hubbard. He had all of these other just kind of parts and pieces. is like, this doesn't make any sense. Why would he have this in there? And they're looking at all this evidence.

Like, well, what are we going to get him for here? Why does he have all these pictures of Jody Foster? Why did we just read a note saying that he's shooting Ronald Reagan? We have a presidential assassin. It's so, they're like, where's his beef against Reagan? Yeah. Like, where's all the manifesto and everything? All I'm seen is a bunch of fucking Jody Foster.

fucking fanfic. We have a presidential assassin that has a copy of Romeo and Juliet. That doesn't make any sense. Those aren't words that go together. Hinkley would end up being charged with attempting to assassinate a president, assault on a federal officer,

use of a firearm and a federal felony. I believe it in total with the assault, with the intent to kill counts, comes up to about 13 counts. As the news is getting back to his parents, it's not that they're seeing all of these news flashes on TV. As soon as they end up getting his name, all of these press agencies start calling the house. So when you said Catcher in the Rye, that reminded me there was a plot of a movie that centered around that.

And it was a movie called Conspiracy Thories from 97. And it had Mel Gibson playing this guy named Jerry Fletcher, who was a New York cab driver and conspiracy theorists who suffered from an uncontrollable subconscious urged to buy a copy of Catcher. in the Rye every time he saw it on a bookshelf. Turns out he was a victim of a covert MK Ultra-style mind control project run by a rogue psychiatrist and the book was meant as like a conditioning agent for him. You don't say.

And it was riffing on the real world conspiracy theory surrounding Mark David Chapman and John Hinkley Jr. Hmm. Interesting tie-in. Just a real loop-ty-loop of nuts. I guess he'd also, I don't know if it was in the other list of books. but he had purchased the book that was the taxi cab or the taxi driver was made off of.

Oh, so it was the novel of the adaptation of whatever, yeah. He had studied taxi driver real deep all the way around from every single angle. His parents who were finding out that their son just tried to murder the president of the United States, are panicking. They're wondering if the last piece of advice that they were given by the psychiatrist to cut him off and push him away was maybe the catalyst. Yeah, of this situation. His parents ended up hiring this prominent D.C. law firm, Williams and Conley.

They assigned a man named Vincent Fuller to the case. Prior to jury selection on April 27th of 82, the media is starting to circulate that they believe that the lawyers are going to be using an insanity plea. and why? Yeah, it's, I don't think everybody had all the information yet. I'm sure that the tabloids immediately were like, torn up Jody Foster pictures found in a would-be assassin's hotel room the night before, along with the book, Catcher in the Rye,

I'm sure they went into a little J.D. Salinger there. They went through probably a list of conspiracies as to what they could be. A bunch of used tissues. And a picture of Robert De Niro next to the used tissues. I'm not quite sure what that happened. A crusty picture of De Niro. So it turns out for jury selection, they end up coming out before this happens and saying, yes, we're going to be using the insanity defense. Opening statements begin May 4th in 1982.

The insanity defense being posited as the reason that you can't find him guilty. And at the time that this happened, the reason I say at the time is because after this case, this all changes. Federal law placed the burden of proof on the prosecution to prove that the defendant was sane beyond a reasonable doubt. So instead of the defense trying to put on an argument saying that he was insane at the time and didn't know what he was doing and completely pulled out of reality, it was the prosecution's fight to prove that he was insane. was sane during the commission of the crime. Gotcha. A much higher burden to reach. Beyond a reasonable doubt at this point in time.

They're already starting in a hole because everything goes in support of insanity. Yeah. And it's how do you prove that somebody's of sound mind? Especially when you're basically trying to prove because everything before that is going to be pro insanity. Your job is to try to find supporting evidence that during. that period when it happened there was like a lucid period where he was

sane and knowledgeable about what he was doing with the consequences of the repercussions. You just have to prove it during that window, but that's insanely hard to do when all of the pre-existing supporting evidence is going to make you think that he's crazy so why would he all of a sudden just become sane for this?

I think they put on a pretty decent case and the reason that they don't have to prove anything beyond just that he's not insane. Both sides agreed to all of the facts surrounding what happened on

March 30th, 1981. They didn't question anything. The defense wasn't saying that he didn't do it. They had video evidence showing him being the shooter. There was an acknowledgement that the actual set of circumstances were as they happened. So they weren't fighting a case to try to prove

that he didn't do it. They were fighting a case. There's no second gunman on the grassy knoll situation. Someone else responsible. It became, I guess, kind of in legal history, they frame it as a battle of medical opinion. And each side called four psychiatric specialists and psychologists to the stand to try to basically figure out, was Hinkley a helpless victim of his own neuroses, or was he this willful assassin? And the prosecution argues that John only suffered from personality disorders of a type

affecting 5 to 10% of the general population, it's not really legal insanity. Like if 5 to 10% of the population is suffering from these personality disorders, but also getting along in the world. What kind of precedent does it set if we now allow 5 to 10% of the population to simply claim insanity for any crimes committed? Yeah. It's, I mean... I see. Yeah, you can definitely see how they would get into that. I can definitely see also how this changes it because this is a case that definitely sets precedent.

I believe they said that the last successful assassination and sanity plea that ended up working out was like in 1870 or some just crazy ass number like that. And they thought that person was a witch. Yeah. Yeah, probably could have been it too. They bring to the stay in a guy named Dr. Parker Elliott Dietz. He's testifying that these government psychologists believe that Hinkley was looking for easy fame. and in part revenge on his parents rather than an act of delusion.

And if we're going to walk through that, back to the Academy Awards question, if he's looking for a little measure of fame, he's asking if he's going to be seen on the Academy Awards, they're laying this out. They're also trying to frame this as revenge on the parents that cut him off, that drove him to insanity,

that he needed a way to get back at them. Not that he was trying to impress Jody Foster. That wasn't something that they wanted to bring up. Dietz had interviewed John for more than 25 hours. Just an insane amount of time. Dr. Sally Johnson had interviewed him 55 times over a four-month period. And she's agreeing with what Deets' conclusions are. And in part as they're going through it,

they're trying to point out all of these consistencies like I was talking about earlier. If he was insane, would he be going to the show? shooting range, would he be practicing? They're showing his human targets that he's taking to the range, showing the groupings. So they're trying to establish that although there were bouts of possible delusion,

there were also as many instances where you could point to him doing... Same things. Not... Yeah. Yeah, I guess. And also, they're saying... Not insane things. How could somebody who's suffering from... I want to say they

ended up getting them with schizophrenic delusion and psychosis. They're arguing and saying, how could a member of society function with these schizophrenic episodes and psychosis? Well, if you've ever seen or known anybody that is schizophrenic, it's not like it's an all-the-time thing. It's not turned on 24-7. It's bouts. There's a lot of people that can suffer.

from schizophrenia and still kind of get along in the world. And again, this isn't like Hinkley's showing up for a nine to five job every day. This isn't like he's paying any sort of bills. He doesn't have a mortgage. He doesn't have a rent. He doesn't have a car payment or anything like that. So all of the kind of general things that you have to do to function in society, Hinkley just doesn't have.

Can he check into a hotel? Yep. Can he go to the shooting range? Yep. You can do all that kind of stuff. at the same time, you can't really call it a one-for-one comparison of somebody who's functioning in society. He knows how to get on a plane, but he doesn't understand that Jody Foster will never love him for killing the president. Yeah.

It's his battle back. The pendulum swings far to both sides. Yeah. The defense opens up the floodgates to Crazy Town at this point. They use the final letter, the call recording, his diary, unsent letters, and this very odd testimony. and they put the cherry on top, a little movie showing. John refused

to aid in his own defense unless his lawyers compelled Jody Foster to testify at the trial. And when they reached out to Jody's representatives and ended up agreeing and telling him, John was on the phone with his parents and he said, Mom, Dad, I get to see Jody. She'd agreed.

He's getting what he wants through the craziest set of circumstances. But not in his mind, he's like, this is going to be the moment where in front of the court, she tells everybody that my grand gesture has been accepted and that we will be together. And she'll wait for me. And that, yes, she is in fact a virgin. He's a full belief. She agreed to this closed recorded session that only included the judge, lawyers, and then Hinkley to be present. and as she's on the stand

and the prosecuting lawyers are asking questions about their relationship and about him reaching out I believe at one point in time they said when you found out that John Hinkley was the one that assassinated the president

did you make the connection with the guy that had called you previously and she goes well how many Hinkley's do you know and I mean Hinkley's a very rare last name I think it's not a Smith it's not a Cooper no so she's basically saying

yeah, I put it together. And they go through all these questions. Were you comfortable getting these phone calls from Hinkley? No. Do you have any emotional ties to Hinkley? No. Can you describe the substance of your relationship? And she says, we have no relationship.

There was no relationship. At the end of questioning, Hinkley stands up and grabs a ballpoint pen and throws it in Jody's direction. And he says, I'll get you, Foster. I'll get you, Jody. Yeah. And when this recording is played for the jury, it shows everything, and it cuts off about three seconds before this final Hinkley outburst. So they don't get to see it. They don't get to see his visceral reaction to Jody.

Rejection. Yeah. That seems pretty major that you need to see that to establish what type of person this is in certain situations. Yeah, I mean, if you don't get to do that, he will get to show a movie. So we will get to see some physical response and stimuli. What he does do is after the recordings cut off, Hinkley stands up at his table and begins to try to exit the courtroom where he's tackled and wrestled back into his seat by the... All right, we've established, right? By the police.

She's the crazy one. I'll be seeing you. Guilty? Nah, not guilty. She's guilty. Let me out. Set me free. You see what I'm dealing with? Yeah. Lead psychiatric expert for the defense was named William Carpenter Jr. He interviewed Hinkley for 45 hours. He concluded that he exhibited these signs of psychosis and schizophrenic episodes. Dr. David Bear testified about the obsession with taxi driver. He also shown cat scan results that showed this widening of a salusi groove or sluicey groove in the brain. This was a cat scan done of... How the fuck did they get him to hold still long enough?

I don't know. He had x-rays. He had cats scans. I'm sure they're like, you don't want to go to jail. And he's like, Jody's not in jail. All stay still. Jody would love you to get this cat scan. Jody loves catscans. It's a sign of atrophy that's statistically more common in schizophrenic patients in their brain. The prosecution would come back and say that this is pretty irrelevant. It's not something that's found in all schizophrenic patients.

There are other such cases when it's found in regular normally functioning brains or healthy functioning brains. Then they get failed psychiatrist, Dr. John Hopper, that was the guy that told Hinkley's parents that they had to cut him off, and that he was just a rich boy trying to ride their coattails. John Hopper had enough respect for the court and the situation that he was in not to take off his aviator glasses. Nice. Classic power move. He does admit that this was a bad diagnosis.

He does say that it could have contributed to a psychological break. prior to Hopper going up, they bring his mother onto the stand and ask her how she feels about everything. And she talks about how he told them that they had to cut him off and that she didn't realize that it was going to alienate her son. They thought that it was going to motivate him. They thought that he was going to. Yeah, it motivated him. Yeah. It did.

Yeah. They thought it was going to change his life. He did change his life. They bring his dad up. And his dad says, I wish so bad that I could switch spots with my son because, I feel like I drove him to do this. I... You're a little too late, man.

That's what sucks. So contrite the whole entire time. This final defense exhibit is the chef's kiss masterpiece. There's a showing of taxi driver. Yes. Oh, my God. Can you imagine in a... This fucking has...

Okay. This is an obsession with Jody Foster that grows into stalking, that grows in Tunis. assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan that then results in taxi driver having to be shown as admissible evidence in a court of law. This is the greatest fucking story ever told. It's a master stroke for the defense because the lights are dimmed.

I mean, can this only happen in America? Yeah. Yeah, I'd probably say that. We turn to the silver screen to try to decide a patient sanity. I love the fact that this was the point about it, though, is it was showing because he would be watching. And it was about them seeing his reactions and how he was, how he was seeing it. You're talking about his active watching with a smile on his face. Again, not having a child, but I've seen this.

This is like throwing on a cartoon that your kid's obsessed with and you're talking to him and he's just staring at the screen. and everything around the world is going on. Yeah. But it truly doesn't matter. He's so locked in. The only time that they said that he diverted his eyes and he actually covered them during the movie was when Iris slow dances with her pimp. That was the one time that he couldn't watch this movie. During the final shootings at the, or during the final gun battle scene at the end, I believe this is where he shoots the pimp.

John raises his hands in the air. crescendo. He slaps the desk. He's that excited about what's going on. And if there was any doubt in the juror's mind that he had some weird unhealthy connection mentally with this movie, they just saw it play out in front of him. Put that question to rest. Yeah. I don't know how it took this long. I mean, we're talking about attempted assassination on a president. The trial of the shooter took them four days to come back. June 21st, 1982, the jury returns a verdict not guilty by reason of insanity. Same day, ABC puts out a poll, and the response shows, or showed that 83% of the respondents believe that justice was not done.

Now, in all fairness, most of the time felony trials aren't shown on TV for the world to see. They pushed as hard as possible to try to get the jury sequestered because they were so concerned that outside media was going to influence them and sway them. Rightfully so, yeah, 100% if it's going to happen, it's this. They end up not getting sequestered, so they are out into the public. But, I mean, if that was laid out in front of it, if that, whole thing, if you just watch the guy slap the table and get excited to watch a gun

to watch a shooting scene. A pimp get gun down, which I'm in you know, it's exciting. And then cover his eyes, well, a 12 year old positive slown. That's my favorite part of pretty woman is when Richard Geard goes back and finds Julia Roberts Pimp and just curbstomps him. That doesn't actually happen in the movie,

but I just, I don't know what outside media could really sway you to believe otherwise. Yeah. But as far as fellow case... They're not going to tell you anything crazier than what you're being physically shown in the courtroom. Yep. They don't know all the details. In these felony cases, only about 2% of them use the insanity plea. And of that 2%, 75% of those ended up failing. So we're talking about a very, very minute number. It has to fit, you know, it has to fit what is, is in the definition of sexual relations. Yeah, it's, but you can't

explain that to people and say, hey, I understand that this insanity plea just played out on a national stage in front of you, and you're really mad about it because he shot a president. But at the same time, understand that Tom, Dick, and Sally, that present insanity defense in a felony case aren't getting let off

for the same things. Yeah. Like, it just happened in front of you. It doesn't mean that it happens everything. Directly after this case, I guess two years later, Congress passes the insanity defense reform act, which changes over to putting the burden of proof of insanity on the defense, which I'm not going to argue with that.

I do believe that it should be the defense that puts on the justification for an insanity plea. I still feel like this would have gone through even in those circumstances. And that's just it is it doesn't. It wouldn't have changed this case that have been put in, but I mean, has it helped since? I can't say yes, I can't say no. Do I think that there are people that were mentally insane that have been found guilty of the crimes that they committed while they're mentally insane?

100%. Idaho, Montana, Utah just decide to abolish the insanity defense completely. We're just not going to let that happen. Eventually, after the trial subsides, John ends up being moved to, Fuck, what's the hospital's name? No. Don't give me that.

You know what? Well, I'm looking for that. We'll go ahead and just fast forward to a couple days after the trial. This actually comes out with, I guess, with the acceptance of his lawyers, I don't really know how to put it because I don't know really how much they had to do with this. but he sends a letter to the New York Times and in this New York Times piece he writes I'm not going to read it all because it's fucking

long just some of these excerpts my actions on March 30th 1981 have given special meaning to my life and no amount of imprisonment or hospitalization can tarnish my historical deed does that sound like a guy that just knew what he was doing when he shot the president yeah I would say so

But at the same time Lean and hard into admitting to it. Yeah, he knew what he was doing. Double jeopardy states that since he's been found not guilty by reason of insanity, he can't be retried, so he might as well say it. That's how this all thing goes. The shooting outside the Washington Hilton Hotel

was the greatest love offering in the history of the world. I sacrificed myself and committed the ultimate crime in hopes of winning the heart of a girl. It was an unprecedented demonstration of love, but does the American public appreciate what I've done? Does Jody Foster appreciate what I've done? Doesn't anyone understand? There are many times I wonder why the world is still revolving.

Doesn't anyone understand the meaning of March 30th? Jody tries to carry on with her life as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened to her. She still keeps her distance from me and torments me with her silence. I gave my life for Jody and she couldn't care less. I can't believe her heart. Yes, Jody Foster knows who I am, just like the entire civilized world knows

who I am. But does it matter now? I wanted Jody's love, not eternal infamy. Jody has hurt me more than I or more than I've hurt her. She killed me first. For the past 15 months, I've died a little each day and I'm sure the future will be

no easier. But once again, I must state, I wouldn't trade places with anyone in this courtroom. It was my fate that I... Except the people. back in the gallery that aren't in handcuffs. Yeah. But only them.

Well, they didn't try to show Jody Foster how much they loved them by trying to kill president. So, I mean. Jody, what's, Jody, just had you given him a chance? This is the shit that is, I mean, if that's not scary enough, Jody Foster may continue to outwardly ignore me for the rest of her life, but I have made an impression on that young lady that will never fade from her mind. I am with Jody spiritually every day and every night. I have made her one of the most famous actresses in the world.

Everybody, but everybody knows about John and Jody. We're a historical couple, whether Jody likes it or not. I am Napoleon. She is Napoleon's wife. It wasn't in here, but he finishes it that way. At one time, Ms. Foster was a star, and I was an insignificant fan. Now everything has changed. Oh, here it is.

I am Napoleon, and she is Josephine. I am Romeo and she's Juliet I am John Hinkley Jr. and she's Jody Foster. The world can't touch us. Society can't bring us down. Jody can't ignore history. She'll never escape me.

I may be in prison and she may be making a movie or making a movie in Paris or Hollywood, but Jody and I will always be together in life and in death. I mean, he's just nailing home the fact that he's insane. Well, And that letter started out being like, okay, this guy got away with the insanity plea because he knew that he shot Reagan.

And then it continued. And there it is. No, you're like, is this guy insane? You're like, keep reading. Yeah. He would end up being shipped off to St. Elizabeth's Hospital to leave or St. Elizabeth's Hospital. As he's there through the years, again, he, he, he. He shot a president.

Like, it's, it's really hard to get around the whole idea that he isn't behind bars. I just, I don't know how really to explain kind of, I don't know, I don't have a problem because it's still being institutionalized. While at the same time, understanding that prison may not be the best place for a guy that was so disgustingly infatuated with a child at one point in time. Like he needed some sort of help. And I do think that he probably got a little bit of help when he was in the mental hospital. In the interview, as he's talking to, I never thought I would say this just because it's a history podcast. And Vlad TV, DJ Vlad doing an interview never seemed like something that I would ever use as research. But you can tell as he's interviewing Hinkley that,

There's just, he has this rapid blinking that's going on. You see his mouth kind of continuously moving without him talking. There's a very monotone time. In the whole 50-minute interview, he never cracks a smile. He gives kind of this half-hearted laugh. He's just... Clocked out, it kind of seems like, like medically clocked out. Yeah, and it's all of these antipsychotic drugs that he's still on to this day as he's out.

over these following decades Hinkler remains at St. Elizabeth he's undergoing treatment there's also these odd controversies that pop up like we were talking about earlier in 1987 he has correspondence with Ted Bundy he's reaching out he also gets caught seeking out

photos of Foster shocking that he's still on the Jody Foster I'm still not over you Jody yeah throughout the 90s his attorneys are pushing to try to get him to be able to visit his family outside of the institution,

certify or supervised visits. They get basically all the way up to 2003. Hankley begins to transition back into society. He has these supervised visits and day passes and I guess night passes to stay with his parents in Williamsburg, Virginia. 2006, he starts getting these extended unsupervised visits away from the hospital. he hadn't left the hospital for until 2003 since 1982. So we're talking about 18 years, 21 years he was institutionalized in this mental hospital.

Again, I'm not saying that 21 years is enough and we'll continue to go through this and kind of walks through the path of what he faced. He says in the interview of Vlad that they had put out. a plea deal with the government who at the time they were dealing with Rudy Giuliani and they had posed

four life sentences served concurrently with parole in 20 years. So they reject this plea deal the government rejects a plea deal he does 20,

what did I say, 22 years, whatever. 21 years before he's finally let out. out just for day visits. 2016, finally, a judge rules.

I'm not saying finally, like it's a good thing. Hinkley could live full time with his mother in Williams, River, Virginia. She was 90 years old. This would be under strict conditions. He had therapy, monitored internet use, monitored phone use. He had travel restrictions.

Don't even fucking Google Jody Foster. I think... You're not allowed to go to any movie theaters that are watching... seeing showing Jody Foster movies. We'll be monitoring your Blockbuster account. To put on the crazy a little further, I forgot to mention it, two times between the assassination attempt and the trial he tries to take his life.

He had saved up some volume. He had some, I believe it was Tylenol or aspirin or something like that and took what he thought was a fatal dose. That didn't do it. He tied his clothes together. He tried to hang himself. And I believe he, said it was in

1985 or 86 while he's institutionalized at the hospital. One night they're all watching TV. Taxi driver comes on. This is like a fucking trigger for a sleeper agent.

And that same night he tried to kill himself again while he was in the mental hospital. Now, I don't need a whole lot of concrete evidence beyond if I want to believe that he truly was insane that if you just

dodged life in prison and you get sent to a mental hospital and you consider that a win that you would then try to kill yourself. That to me still feels like a pretty mentally unstable human being. Oh yeah. And he, like I say, he's institutionalized for so long

after that. When you look at how he was I guess under his restrictions, it was a situation where living in his mother's home, his room was a fully furnished room

with a king-sized canopy bed, a TV, decorated with all of his own paintings inside the house. He had all of these cats. Yeah, probably some of that. His 2016 restrictions couldn't do anything in public, but they would let him begin to publish his music and put out his artwork under his own name. Once he's allowed to live independently and with roommates,

there's no strict... Who wants to be roommates? I mean, I guess, yeah, there's fucking fandom for all these people. I mean, he didn't need anything. He had all of his social media that he was barred from taking or being put back on the table for him. He didn't have to return over any passwords for computers, phones, or other online accounts for people to monitor. He had to give three days notice before traveling more than 75 miles. He couldn't travel to any location where he knew a Secret Service protectee would be president or president.

So president, congressional member, anybody like that. Bared from contact with the U.S. sitting president or members of Congress, that one felt pretty good to have. barred from contact with the media like I say that one ends up getting dropped he couldn't have any contact with Reagan's children or any of the other shooting victims like I say when

Brady ends up dying in 2014 eventually succumbing to his wounds it's ruled a homicide but because of double jeopardy he can't be charged for that homicide so if you want to split hairs and say that he was in a mental institution because he shot the president he actually killed somebody yeah like not

directly but he short No, no, he directly did. Yeah, I guess you could say directly. Yeah, I mean, it directly led to the conditions that led to his death. After Brady ended up recovering somewhat, they began to become, Brady and his wife were pretty staunch advocates of gun reform. They wanted waiting periods. They wanted checks to make sure people that were crazy weren't able to buy guns. Yeah, full background checks.

And even after Reagan came out after he, he was. He was shot. He said that he didn't support any new gun control measures or anything like that. This could happen even with gun control measures, he said. And then when Brady and his wife started pushing this Reagan reverse course, it supported this bill that would eventually end up getting signed by Clinton, this gun reform act to kind of clean up all the laws and everything regarding background checks and waiting periods and all that.

Um, 2022. He is basically everything is lifted. He's, he's a free man, except for there are pretty routine secret service agents that are in and around his area, pretty much finding him wherever he is. And a current standing restraining order against him from Jody Foster.

I'm sure there has to be something there. And Hinkley, coming out of this, I mean, he was rich he got his family's generational wealth and there were other kind of weird connections where his

older brother was very good friends with a non-political Bush kid he owns I believe Was Jeb political ever? Wasn't Jeb like the governor of Florida? Maybe. One of the Bushes was something in Florida because of the hanging

Tramp Bush. Yeah Dick Bush The Jeb there's Deb, there's George, there's Georgina, whatever. He has his own record label, he posts a bunch of his music online. I'm not going to sit here and continue to shit on the guy, because I do believe that kind of what happened was he was truly having some insane tendencies when this happened.

It's kind of hard to argue that he didn't. But his music sucks. Yeah. It's not good. That's not surprising. It's very Bob Dylan meets John Lennon Except for there's no real substance to it Except the words aren't good

And he's had a key Can't play the instrument But I can't really say that it's his fault Because he's under so many antipsychotic drugs In an order for him to reach Having some like true meaning and care and love And his songs And actually put something in his songs

That's representative of him Those pills all stop that at the base level It's not getting any people He's lucky. He's lucky He's out. I guess that's but, yeah. Yeah, it's, I had no idea that this is what flipped the insanity defense. I had no idea just beyond looking through to try to find something to do that this was going to lead us to John Hinkley Jr. trying to assassinate Reagan.

It's an insane story. I love it. Thank you for, thank you for taking me on this journey. Oh, you got anything else about this guy? I don't think so All right I think you did him justice Yeah

Hope you guys enjoyed the episode We'll catch you next time Peace