Unclear and Present Danger - Executive Power

Episode Date: June 3, 2025

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, Jamelle and John watched Executive Power, an obscure made-for-TV movie directed by David Corley and starring Craig Sheffer as Nick Seger, a Secret Service agent who gets entangled in a web of political intrigue and moral compromise after he assists the president in a deadly cover-up.There is not much more to the movie, but Jamelle and John try very hard to extract something like political insight from the proceedings! You can watch Executive Power for free on YouTube (although I would not recommend it).Our next episode is on The Assignment, a 1997 thriller directed by Christian Duguay and starring Aidan Quinn, Donald Sutherland, Ben Kinglsey and Claudia Ferri. Here is a brief plot synopsis:Jack Shaw has experienced the terror first-hand. He’s a top CIA agent who’s tracked international killer-for-hire Carlos “The Jackal” Sanchez for over twenty years and barely survived Carlos’ devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now, he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos’ dead ringer: American naval officer and dedicated family man Annibal Ramirez.And sign up for our Patreon, where we cover the films of the Cold War. Our next episode will be on Arthur Penn’s Night Moves. You can sign up at patreon.com/unclearpod.Our producer is Connor Lynch and our artwork is by Rachel Eck. You can reach out to us over email at [e-mail]

A scandal in the White House. You only thought you knew the whole story. Help! Help! Victor, I have a situation here. I didn't do anything to hurt her. You said you checked these girls out, Victor. We need paramedics.

She's not breathing. When indiscretion leads to murder. She's named. No. The fewer people who know. You must protect your president. The better. Come on.

The morning is made to find him with a bullet in his head. We believe items of a confidential nature may still be in the current residence. What did Victor videotapeak? What did he videotape? He was a White House staffer. Oh my God. They've got the tape and want you to call in every freaking favor that's out there. I want this girl found!

I want her found now! Now the powers that be... I can make you or break you. One word of the press, and you're through. We'll do whatever it takes... You can trust me. To keep the evidence... ...from getting out.

Do police are in on me? Protecting the president's pleasure can be a matter of life or death. It's about power, who controls it, and how they choose to use it. Welcome to Unclear and Present Danger, the podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. My name is John Gans.

I write the substack newsletter on popular front. I write a column for the Nation magazine, and I'm the author of When the Clock Broke, Conman, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s. That's the name of my book, right? I think that's correct. I have actions that I couldn't do it earlier, so it's on my desk. That is, in fact, the name of your book. Okay, good.

Sometimes I doubt myself, which is coming out in paperback very soon. It will be coming back out in the U.S. on paperback on May 27th. which I think will be around the time that this show goes up. And in the UK, at the end of the neck, in June, the end of June, I think, or maybe the middle of June. And that's exciting, I guess, for all those people who prefer to buy a paperback than a hardcover, and there are many of you, I believe. So if you've been waiting for this off, the paperback, it's right around the corner. All right. Pick up that paperback.

Oh, and it will have a new post script, a new post script by the author about, about, trying to bring up the book, kind of the president. Okay. On this week's episode of the podcast, we watched the 1997 political thriller, Executive Power, directed by David L. Corley. Executive Power follows Secret Service agent Nick Sager, played by Chris Schaeffer.

Don't know who that is, really, who becomes entangled in a web of political intrigue and moral compromise. While protecting President John Field, played by William Atherton, who he'll recognize from, I believe, Ghostbusters. he is dickless and Ghostbusters

lovely Matthew he's actually a great actor Sager assist in covering up the accidental death of a young woman during the president's extramarital affair lots of the president is Bill Clinton movies

which I always enjoy this act of loyalty haunt Sager especially when the incident resurfaces weeks before the election when one of the individuals aware of the cover up is found dead under suspicious circumstances. As Sager delves deeper into the ensuing mystery,

he uncovers a conspiracy that threatens to shake the foundations of the presidency itself. Executive Power stars John Hurd, Joanna Cassidy, and Andrea Roth. And Andrea Roth, I think... No, that's not who that is. One of the actresses in this movie

plays Tasha Yard in Star Trek The Next Generation. That looks like Denise Crosby, but maybe it's not. Let's look. Yeah, that's Denise Crosby. There we go. I knew that was Denise Crosby. She plays the chief of staff.

And her granddad was Bing Crosby. Go figure. Executive Power was a direct-to-video production. There's not actually a ton of information on it. I believe it aired. It may have aired on HBO. It's not clear to me. where this actually aired originally.

The fact that it has, you know, real actors like John Hurd and William Appleton and Joanna Cassidy, those are real actors. I mean, so is Denise Trouthey for that matter. So it's sort of unclear where this air, but it attracted like real people to star in it. So I'm not entirely sure when it aired. You can find it to watch or where it aired. You can find it to watch on YouTube for free, very be easy and tuby, very straight, very much a transfer from like a VHS or something. Yeah, it looks awful.

If you pay to watch this movie, I feel very sorry for you. Yeah, don't pay, don't pay to watch this movie. Just it's not really, even if it's like a dollar, it's not really worth of money. What we did find was that executive power debuted in November. 1997. That's when it came out direct to video. And so let's check out the New York Times page for that day. There's a picture of Zhang Zemin at the New York Stock Exchange being lauded at the New York Stock Exchange. And the headline says, Mao's Air finds path Wall Street. President Zhang Zemin of China, Trotta

capitalist road yesterday from Wall Street to the suburban campuses of high-tech American industry. Free of all the irksome talk about human rights, he had to endure in Washington, Mr. Jang in his trip through New York yesterday on a matter closer to his heart. It was money. It was an interest enthusiastically reciprocated by American business executives eager to cash in on the world's most populous market. When Mr. Jang dropped by IBM's Madison Avenue offices to augle some of the company's most advanced gadgets, the company chairman and chief executive Louis B. Gersner, Jr., greeted him in Mandarin. Lao Pengu Nihau, Mr. Gersner, intoned to satisfy chuckles all around.

Old friend, how are you? And if Chairman Mao had once warned that the Revolution is not a dinner party, President Zhang underscored the dramatic changes in China today by throwing a party, Swordfish at the Waldorf, where the guest list included some 200 top executives of blue-trip companies like Boeing, Bristol-Myers, Scrib, FedEx Ford and Philip Morris. Yeah, I mean, it's sort of, we take it for granted that China is the way it is now, but I mean, it's kind of incredible change of its economy and growth only takes place

in the last 20 years, really, and it was Zhang's policies that, and Zhang's policies that helped to bring this about. And the United States was very open to China and did not view it with the same hostility as we knew now, partially because I think there was a belief that by liberalizing our trade relations to China and making China into a free market economy, they would become a democracy.

Right. I mean, this was very much the high point of, you know, market liberalization and democracy, will march across the earth unimpeded. Right. And so, yeah, I think that's exactly right. When this is sold, like the pitch for liberalizing trade relationships with China was exactly that rising living standards in China will bring the country closer to liberal democracy,

which, I mean, the opposite happens. Right. Yeah, I mean, and it's very interesting. if you read the Lichtenstein-Stein-Stein-Stine book, a fabulous failure, which... Great book. Yeah, which is really great. It talks about the U.S. attempts to insert a human rights concept in all of our negotiations with China, and China just being like, no, we're not doing it.

We're not interested in that bullshit. And the U.S. basically being like, well, we really are very much interested in doing business with you, so we will put that on the back burner for now. trying to just successfully resisted anything that the U.S. tried to put into any of its agreements or anything about human rights. It just said, nope. And you know what? Obviously, I don't think the People's Republic of China has a great human rights record. But I am sort of impressed with the political will of the Chinese Communist Party to say, you know what? We're not going to let these Americans tell us what to do. Like, we know they want to do business with us. We're

to just keep saying no to this and we're going to get what we want anyway. And China, you know, did not change its political system and has become a world power in the economy to rival the United States, which I think some people saw on the horizon, but the, you know, getting to this point where people are wondering, is the U.S. being, you know, has the U.S. already been overshadowed by China or are we in the rear of mirror? I think is something that it doesn't shock me, but it's definitely quite a turn around. Well, I mean, prior to this administration, I would have argued that, like, looking at relative trajectories, the U.S. wasn't actually on the path to be eclipsed by China.

Right. It's specifically China's authoritarian political system that is highly closed off, that is resistant to meaningful accountability, even within the regime. I mean, there's like a big corruption problem in China. The fact that the Chinese Communist Party is having actual trouble with the growth of a middle class and transitioning from a primarily, transitioning to the kind of service advanced economy of the U.S. has. These are all real challenges for the CCP.

And it's like it actually remains to be seen what happens. And that, like, they're economic, like, you know, slowing economic growth. There are all these things happening in China that I think if you have a measured view of the kind of global order should lead you actually to not put all your chips on a Chinese century. Yeah. And that the United States, for all of its many problems, still has a tremendous number of advantage. It's chief among, I mean, this is all now. or this is in the river mirror chief among them it's just openness yeah it's openness to new talent new ideas um and seemingly it's willingness to begin reinvesting in the kind of industrial

like you know 21st century industrial capacity yeah necessary to to compete and so i you know i like my this isn't this is not my area but sort of from my kind of like reading and observation my my thought was like actually you know china very well could remain second fiddle through the 21st century, depending on how things shape out. And if even, you know, regardless of what happens, I've always been of the view that actually even with their political system, like tighter Chinese American economic political social integration is a good thing for the world. It's not a good thing to have two major powers, you know, eyeing each other warily, potentially

ready to go at it with military force. Like having Chinese students come to American universities, right? Like having American students go to Chinese universities. Having these ties is an important thing. And if nothing else, if we are, if we do become the kind of hostile rivals, it's still a good thing if a bunch of high level Chinese bureaucrats and politicos like look fondly at their time at the University of Virginia. Right, right. Or at Harvard, right. That's actually really beneficial and vice versa.

It's a good thing if a bunch of high-level State Department people look fondly back at their time in Beijing or Shanghai. Yeah, I think a lot of those personal ties were very valuable in the Cold War because diplomats actually knew the people that they were on the other side and had some ties with them. And so, yeah, I think that, and this article is just about those sorts of ties being made. And I think, you know, they are important. I don't, I don't hope for the United States to become, you know, have an extreme. I mean, I guess we're always going to have a competitive relationship. But I don't think it would be good for the world either if we had an extremely hostile relationship, which, yeah, just for the sake of a new Cold War or whatever. I think it's a dumb idea.

Let's see what else we got here. Campaign panel, it's kind of, you know, we're in the middle of the 90s here. It's a little sleepy. Campaign panel to end hearings on fundraising, fundraising. Ambitious inquiry hit political reality. The investigation into finance practices led by Senator Fred Thompson, narrow the star witness or the surge of energy needed to generate a heavy television coverage. But the greatest weakness of the inquiry was the failure of the chairman and committee to deliver on the opening pronouncement that a Chinese plot to pour money into the American politics affected the 1996 race.

Wow. That and the failure scored directorate on President Clinton left the inquiry without steam to go on. There was like this scandal about Chinese money going to the Democrats that the Republicans really tried to capitalize on it. And I don't think there was much there and it didn't go anywhere. it was Chinagate, I guess, or something. You know, I can't read about Fred Thompson without thinking of the Nixon tapes where they talk about, I think he was Congressman Thompson at that time.

And Nixon goes like, what's what this guy, Thompson? Is he an idiot? They're like, well, no, he knows that he has to be a loyal Republican. He's like, but he's not very bright, is he? And I just can't ever see Fred Thompson's name without thinking about Richard Nixon calling him stupid. So, yeah, that was not a huge scandal in the end. They had better luck, just around the corner, just about a year later, with the Monica Lewinsky scandal, which I'm sure we're going to talk about with this movie. Is there anything else in the newspaper front page that looks interesting to you,

Jamal? So just a real quick thought on the investigation. the campaign finance practices. It is, I mean, I think people will forget that there was a basically like half decade period where campaign finance was like a major political issue, right? Like the John McCain kind of made his bones in national, trying to try to reach for the presidency on this, on this basis of being like an honest man. He's going to deal with campaign finance corruption. And McCain Feingold, the bill that bears his name was passed into. 2002. Camping finance concerns basically vanish after Citizens United. Well, it's funny. In Washington, they vanish because everyone should have like the world. We live in now is where you just have to get a bunch of billionaires to pump money into your packs and go go for that. Or the small dollar donor revolution makes it viable to raise a ton of money without having to either interface with the party or with the party or with

these big donors. But when you talk to like ordinary voters, which I, you know, do on a somewhat regular basis just because of my travel and such, people, campaign finance is the thing that people are so very angry about. Oh, sure. And I would not, I would not understate the extent to which Trump being a rich guy who presumably doesn't need to raise money to run campaigns is a real source of his appeal. I also wouldn't understand the extent to which the, the, understanding people have of campaign fundraising isn't, we're raising money to pay for campaigns, but rather is we're raising money that goes into our pockets. And so when Trump gets money into his pocket, people don't really see that as anything different than existing practice,

which is just as if it's sort of like the huge, like, I'm of the, I mean, it's sort of empirically, money actually, but beyond a certain point, you can't buy elections. Like if you can outspend someone two to one, then that matters, three to one. But if there's like rough parity between the two sides to kind of like a wash. Yeah. And so like in terms of actually affecting election outcomes, I'm actually, I've never, it's, it's unclear how much big money it matters that much. Yeah. But I do think that in terms of structuring how people see the political.

system and how it in how the presence of huge spending leads people to see the political system as just incredibly corrupt, which, you know, not wrong. It's really destructive. Yeah. Yeah, it makes people feel like, you know, they're not. This is a structural problem that led to Trump to a certain extent, as you pointed out. And I talk about this in my book. The perception that politics is corrupt allows these kind of demagogues to come along who, say I'm going to clean things up and I'm not beholden to the interests that are usually controlling things. Of course, they're worse often. But that allows them to be, and people get very frustrated and they feel a lack of control of the system. And then they say, well, this guy is my choice. This guy

is going to clean things up. He's a different. And that's a very easy appeal to make. And it's a very manipulative appeal to make. And they're often worse than the establishment, which, you know, often, you know, does have a lot of the problems that they're diagnosing. It's just that the cure that they're offering is worse than the disease. So, um, yeah, I think it's important to take these, like, issues that often like kind of like wonkier people are like, well, it's not really that big of a deal. And you're like, yeah, but the average voter gets very exercised about these things and they don't accept the explanation that like, well, don't get too upset about that because you don't really understand how all this works. It just pisses them off more. They're just like, oh, if

If they're like, I believe that's kind of corrupt, then you're like, it's not really corruption. Like, let's be real. They're going to be like, fuck you. Right, right. So I think that's a, that's a case where like, where one could say, and I don't like to use this term a lot, liberal elites might do a little bit better to take people's, take people's concerns about public corruption and responsiveness to public, like the public, more seriously. Because otherwise the Republican. just suck the Republicans keep on sucking up that like civic civic cleanup energy you know like always get the protest votes and things I think are bad ideas but they they have the energy

like term limits I think it's a terrible idea but like that is a civic protest vote a civic norms protest vote so understanding the power of that I think is something that Democrats and liberals really could could think more about and you know it's also an issue that doesn't is not divisive. They're always like, well, everything is so divisive, racially, and on gender. That's an issue that's actually quite uniting along race and gender. Like a lot of people of, of many social classes, of all races, men and women have very negative feelings about the responsiveness to use government and levels of corruption. And if you are like, I'm going to provide a democratic or liberal alternative or answer to those concerns.

you know those people might be interested so if i were if i were advising an ambitious democrat looking to make a national name for themselves of things to do one of them would be to and this is in part of it's like a way to differentiate yourself from other democrats without like breaking from substantive positions yeah but one would be to like vocally call for banning stock trading among elected officials yeah people would like that just just you can't trade stocks anymore. If you get elected to Congress, we put your money in like a Congress, like a vanguard account, you know, run by some anonymous bureaucrat. And then once you leave, then you get it back you ever want. But while you're in office, you can't trade stocks. You can't do any of that.

And you get the same health care plan as like a federal worker or something, something like that. Basically something to be like, listen, we're just public servants. The other thing would be to call not for term limits, but for age limits. Yeah. I think you might. Like mandatory retirement once you hit 75. Yeah. I got,

I got to believe you. I think people would really like that. And it would have the advantage of being able to like, it's like you don't have to be like Biden old, but you're basically already there. Yeah. Everyone gets it. Yeah.

And like that's the way laws should work. They shouldn't target like, you know, they should, they sometimes, you know, they, they, create a general rule like they're not targeting a specific person obviously so so this reveals it you know a broader problem in our political system yeah no i i'm with you i mean it's better i think that's way better than term limits as an age limit yeah it's better than term limits because if you get like elected at 30 why shouldn't you be able to serve until like you're 65 if people want you there but and and if you if you if you do want to get in public office it kind of encourages

people to start younger you know yeah the thing about term limits is actually going to create machines because basically if you have some people in and out of Congress every two years, you're going to have some political machine that's just like, yeah, we find another schmuck on the street, we get people to vote for them. We put him in there. He's our guy. We tell him how to vote. And then we find a new guy every two years.

We kind of cycle them through our system. You know, it's actually creates usually more independence of somebody's like, I know I'm going to get reelected. There's nothing you can do. What are you going to do? Run somebody against me. My constituents love me, you know? So it would have perverse incentives, but that's just another comment.

So, you know, that case against her amendments, to me, sounds like a case for them. Yeah, I want a machine. I don't care about to make a picture of a dude. No, no, not a machine in the good sense, but, but like, they're, the machine in the sense that, like, they would put, be, well, I mean, it is. They would just be putting hacks into office, right? You know, like, you want to have a representative system where the person is somewhat, it has a, has a, has a, a deliberative role somewhat, you know, and brings experience and knowledge of their district and its issues over many years to the job. But, yeah, I know that, you know, that we are nostalgic

sometimes for the time of machines and parties. But I think it would just be like you would, you would have candidates who are even more beholden to like local elites, right? Because they would just be finding people on the street essentially. I just wanted to know on page three, there's an article that really interests me. U.S. historian relates how Vichy French served Nazis. The American historian who provided the French with the first comprehensive picture of the crimes of the Vichy regime in World War II defended his views today in a court that will for the first time pass judgment on a senior Vichy official. Tall and distinguished, historian Robert O. Paxson stood just a few yards from Murray's Papon. 87, Administrator in the pro-Nazi Vichy government.

His trial has become a symbol of France's difficulties in confronting its history and offer an extraordinary confrontation of a historian and his subject. Mr. Paxton's 65, a former professor of history at Columbia University, is widely revered in France for his groundbreaking work, but he's also bitterly resented by a conservative minority that sees him as a presumptuous American ready to pass moral judgments on the French. Mr. Pacton's book, Mr. Paxon's book, Vichy, France, Old Guard, and New Order was published in France in 1973. It was the first work to show that Vichy was not the helpless instrument of Nazi policy, rather, in its unsolicited adoption of sweeping anti-Semitic laws in 1940, in its assiduous assistance in the deportation of 76,000 Jews between 1942 and 1944, Vichy reflected the views of many French people.

this trial was a huge deal actually in France it changed I mean obviously Paxton's book had been out for some time and France was France was already confronting its Vichy past but this trial was huge in that it caused a big public debate in France and basically that modern attitude which is the historically true one that Vichy was a willing collaborator with the Nazis that these myths about it being a secret resistance or kind of like doing its own thing and ignoring the Nazis were kind of demolished. And the conservative, and that put the far right, until very recently put the far right and France also on the back foot because they couldn't claim, you know, Vichy was actually honorable in any way. So they had a huge political, a huge

political change. I think Zamor, who was a far right. French candidate for president in his book, in one of his books, actually complains about the post-Paxton consensus in France, which is just the truth. So this was a politically very important trial. And Paxton's work, and I'm very proud to say I know him a little bit, was, you know, it's rare that an academic historian has this kind of effect on a country's history in politics and I think it's pretty extraordinary as this kind of direct effect I think it's pretty extraordinary so I just want to call it out the last thing I'll say about this paper is there's

his headline by one of my colleagues David Firestone um still there mayor foresees better relations with minorities mayor Rudolph Giuliani predicted yesterday that its relationship with many minority groups will improve in a second term as residents of poor neighborhoods realize they were sharing the benefit of lower crime and improving economy. This is

November 1st, 1997. About less than two years later, Amadu Dialo will be killed

by the New York Pete, yeah, New York City Police Department. And this, this, I really think this is the

signal incident of the Giuliani. Right. And he just defended the cops reflexively. He just defended the,

yeah. I remember. I was a kid and I was a big part of my political, coming to a political awakening was Amar Diyah shooting. Let's get into the film. To film. Yeah.

Okay. Executive power, the movie we watched. I'm not even going to ask if you know anything about this movie prior to this, John, because no one does. This was a made-for-television movie, and I think I only found it through my exhaustive search for all political thrillers released in the 90s. I will be genuinely surprised if anyone has well. watch this movie other than us in the previous 15 years at least yeah yeah I mean look

there are some no well there are some like letterboxed or like IMDB reviews I don't know if those might not be those might be more than 15 years old at this point but it's like of people who watched it like and they're like this movie sucks yeah I'm looking I'm looking at letterbox and there are um there are it says 66 people have watched this oh well that's not a lot but like it's still more than I expected um it's so basically like yeah this is a made for TV movie made for a straight to video movie of which is a thing that doesn't really happen I guess there's a lot of crap on streaming but that that's the old the old like oh made for the low quality kind of budget um you know straight to video couldn't get movie distribution

movie is a thing yeah I mean because the movie is made for streaming these days would have been released in theaters in the 90s, right? Yeah, most of them. Most of them. There are still direct to video movies. That's still very much a thing. But even the quality of those is like a little better than you think. I watched more, I watch more direct to video action movies and I care to reveal.

Oh, Jamel. What are you watching? But like they come straight out on DVD. Yeah, they come straight on DVD. Where do you find these? then you're like trying to pass it off like they're not so bad really where do you find them there's a whole there's a whole community of people who are into dTV action and I just you know I just follow you know it's it's a are we talking like you're are we talking like late

career Steven Seagall level quality no no no not nothing bad more like uh guys like Scott Adkins, Michael John White, like those types who are like actual martial artists slash actors in movies where it's sort of like there's barely plots. It's just sort of like a series of set pieces so you can see them beat people up. Oh man. You know that story of Trump having his son? Yeah, the blood sport. Yeah. That's exactly what I thought of. It's like that. It's basically that. Oh my God. Okay. Anyway. It is worse than those. It is worse than those considerably so. yeah um and it's it's it looks like i mean it looks like like i was going to say tv movies have a particular aesthetic so they're not actually things that look like that would have ever been

released theatrical they have the budgets of episodes of television shows yeah yeah um and this certainly does and this certainly does as well yeah it looks budget it looks awful sometimes like i don't know sometimes we've watched some excellent tv movies and there are some excellent tv movies that really do a lot with a small budget not one of them No. It's also like a weird knockoff. Like, it's called executive power. And we already watched executive decision and absolute power. Absolutely power. I mean, it very much feels like a knockoff of absolute power.

Yeah, in plot and everything, because it starts with that, like, you know, the press, the witnessing of the secret service of the murder. The movie is like not, yeah, the acting. It's kind of fun to watch because like the, like, movies like that are. this bad or so dated and you're like wow this is the most 90s shit I've ever seen like their clothes haircuts sunglasses I was like damn like they're just like straight out out of like a fucking banana republic or Armani like ads from that era and you're like kind of like hell yeah but it's not good in any way the lead actor is terrible like the script apparently like this script according I didn't catch that many but among people who

was like watch this movie this script is is like famous famous for like being badly written on like a grammatical level like on the sentence level like people say things that don't make sense i didn't catch too many but i was like i wasn't you know like listening and perhaps as careful as i should have um so yeah i mean okay so just trying to pull something out of this movie i would say it's really what's weird about this movie and almost uncanny and i think there's actually an explanation for it beyond just the zeitgeist and vibes is that it comes out before the Monica Lewinsky scandal right right okay so this movie is obviously about the Clintons because it's got this liberal president and his ballbusting wife right and he's calling you a liberal yeah i am a

liberal and i can't keep it in his pants and he's got a mistress and she's also god knows what she's up to and then they it's just very much a conservative fantasy of the clinton's um which was generated on shows like rush limbo and also there were had already started like the clinton body count stuff Vince foster that they were killed the clintons were killing people and the clinton sex scandal stuff began quite early right there's for sure for sure there's the the famous interview that bill and hodot did Jennifer flowers so the president clinton can't keep in his pants thing was like already an established trope by the time this movie would have even been written or gotten into production yeah which is true i hate to say

it but i mean so yes but the conservative media and uh talk show circuit was going crazy with the story that the clintons were murdering people And also, you know, Bill was a sex fiend. That was only half of that is true. So, yeah, this film is very much coming out of that kind of, I think its tagline was like taken from today's headlines. But it does feel a little uncanny if you don't know that context. And then you think, well, this is like a, you know, months before the Monica Lewinsky scandal breaks. And you're like, whoa, how do they know?

And you're like, well, like, these, it wasn't, it wasn't, it was, it was shocking in one sense, but no one was surprised that, you know, Bill Clinton may have had a marital indiscretion and lied about it. And no one, and the Republicans were certainly looking for something like this very hard. So, yeah, I think that the film, um, is kind of unlike a lot of the movies we watch, which are very Hollywood lib-coded, one of the few really conservative movies, you know? Yeah. And very much about a conspiracy among, and then it's a very, well, do we even understand

what happens in this movie? So at the end of the movie, we have, you and I both watch this and we're talking before the show, and it has a lot of little plot twists. do we know how so it seems as if and the movie is this badly made that the president commits suicide and then the first lady is sort of in power at the end of the movie that's what it feels seems like because the the ultimate conspiracy is that the first was the first lady having an affair but the president also has an affair because it must be because it was a woman at the beginning right why is it

it why is it why is her affair like a bigger deal and a twist that's what i didn't yeah i don't understand watching it they're like oh the first lady was the one having an affair but that's not true like they were both having an affair i guess that's very conservative they're both the clinton sex feeds so the first lady is like the villain of the movie in the end kind of she's pulling the strings to get rid of the press was she pulling the strings to get rid of the president well at the beginning it says she wants control over the president's domestic agenda which Which is a very Hillary Clinton. Hillary Clinton coded.

Right. She's Hillary. I mean, that's what they're saying in this movie. This is very much a movie about Hillary Clinton. I guess in that respect, it's interesting. Well, first of all, the kind of misogyny about her, but also like the efforts for a very long time to make her see. I mean, you know, she was a real political player in the administration. But to kind of meet like the kind of story of Hillary Clinton's actually running things and pushes.

around and he's a hen-packed husband and she's trying to get control of domestic agenda. She did want to help out with health care. Right. Not to say, I'm not saying this to defend Hillary Clinton particularly. I'm just saying that the book on her was written very early. Like she's a ballbuster who's bossing her husband around. He cheats on her because he can't, he feels emasculated, so on and so forth. Um, and I think, yeah, that's just, you know, series of sort of the, I don't know, what do you want to call it.

The kind of smear on the Clintons. Yeah. It's, I mean, Hillary Clinton was a quite novel first lady, right? Like, Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan, um, Betty, Betty Ford. No, sorry, it's Carter. So Rosalind Carter, Betty Ford, like previous First Lady is, even if they were, you know, close confidants of their husbands, you know, able political minds in their own right, did kind of take on very traditional roles. And Clinton was kind of the first to be sort of like the working woman, first lady. Yeah.

Yeah, you know, brilliant. Yeah, very smart, very capable and skilled lawyer in her own right. Yeah. advocate in her own right and you know if in a different in a different world right like maybe would have been the one with the political career to begin with um yeah and that they in the in in there they made no effort to hide this right like this wasn't there wasn't an attempt to make hillary like the the attempt to make hillary a more traditional first lady comes after all of this initial kind of like what's your fucking deal um yeah criticism yeah yeah

Yeah, and that was kind of a problem in Arkansas, and they kind of more, they trad-wifed her a little bit, and they tried to do that on the campaign trail. They trained in the first election, they changed her hair cut a bit and wanted to make her a little bit more, you know, less, less, you know, the modern woman that she was. But, you know, these things happen in politics, but these are cultural forces. like Hillary Clinton represented a larger social force of women who were entering the workforce and actually excelling the workforce and leading in the workforce. And, you know, a lot of men didn't really care for it. And, you know, this is also going down at the same time as you have the big profile, first profile cases about sexual harassment. You know, you have Clarence Thomas.

So, like, women's role at this point in society is changing rapidly, and Hillary Clinton represents that. You know, she's a symbol of that. And has always been a symbol of that. And, you know, impressed a lot of people with her intelligence and competence. And I think also her experiences, to a large extent, embittered her and maybe made her public persona a bit more. a bit cost. You know, Bill is very warm and gregarious.

It's difficult for women to perform politically in the same way men can because they're judged in unfair ways. But Hillary Clinton's entire political persona has not been like, I'm a fun guy like Clinton's is. It's like, look, I'm a smart and competent person. And I think that that has not always worked in her favor, unfortunately, or fortunately, or depending on who you think she should be present.

I don't know. So, yeah, and I think that the first lady is depicted in this movie is a clear stand-in for Hillary. The president is a clear stand-in. The character of the journalist, who's the love interest and part of the, you know, the unraveling the plot, yeah, she's like kind of like an intermediate figure. figure where she's like, yeah, she's a professional woman and she's smart, but she's also like a really hot blonde, which makes it easier for people to swallow. Yeah, yeah.

You know, so like a very traditional looking, and she's not, she's a little challenging to the main character, but I would say the gender, the gender dynamics this movie are not exactly enlightened. I think it's a, it was a movie that would be likely to appeal, you know, without much reflection to people with conservative politics. It's not insane. It's just the same way, like, a liberal thriller would portray certain parts of the national security state certain ways and others different ways and, you know, have a conservative

president who seemed bad. Like, I don't think these were liberal when Tom Clancy wrote them, but definitely unclear and present danger had this kind of Reagan or Bush stand-in president, right? Right. Right. So then, so I think like this movie obviously, you know, I don't know if the people who wrote it were conservative, but they're definitely imbibing kind of the conservative swale about, about the Clinton presidency and that comes through really. But other than that, what does it say about politics? I don't know. It's not a good movie. There's not, there. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's. As a film, it's mainly just like a bundle of cliches, right? Yeah, that's right. When I was watching it, I was thinking, this is what me and my friends would have written if we were trying to do a political theory, a political thriller when we were teenagers, right? Yeah, exactly. Even certain lines of dialogue. Like, you know, this goes deeper than you can ever imagine, stuff like that.

Yeah, I would have written that when I was 15 and I was trying to write a political thriller. it's it's it's just a bunch of cliches and um to the extent that there's anything there that seems even remotely sort of like substantive there is this i mean that our main character has this note where he's like you know i don't even care about politics because because he the journalist doesn't want to reveal some sensitive information because it might cost the president his reelection bid and his opponent is coded as some kind of you know ultra-concert conservative. And the Secret Service agent are our protagonist. It's like, oh, I don't care about politics. It doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's, we've talked about this before.

That's a very 1990s sort of sentiment that, that politics, you know, it's Tweedle D or Tweedle Dumb, Morpher, the son of a drug lord, none of the above, fuck it cut the court. That kind of thing, that kind of sentiment was very common among basically people of the ages of the protagonists in this film. And the fact that the president in the movie is very venal and doesn't particularly seem to care about actually the public good and just wants to stay in office and get it wet is, seems to be the, you know, justifying the Secret Service agent's view. There's also a kind of, I thought it was a little interesting because there's a scene where she asked him, that the journalist asked him, you know, why did he want to become a Secret Service agent in the first place? And he recounts seeing John Hinkley Jr. shoot Reagan and, you know, admiring the agent who saves Reagan's life.

And he's like, you know, everyone just wanted Reagan to pull through, which, I mean, you know, citation needed, but. I don't think anybody, well, maybe some people. president die we we that is a horrible thing jamel yeah we nobody you nobody wants to see the president of the united states be assassins uh sure yeah no one wants to see that no one wants to see that i was just someone someone on the uh on the internet was saying how there can't be a uh a left-wing joe rogan because people will cancel people who make off-color jokes and i just want to say don't cancel me for my off-color joke about the president getting got um well they got I mean I think left-wing Joe Rogan would come under political uh who would be politically

repressed I mean look what happened I'm not always crazy about everything that's on a show but definitely more in that style is Hassan Piker and he was just harassed by the he was just harassed by the the fucking DHS when he was coming back to the United States for things he said on his podcast. Right, right. You know, at this point, I think that if you wanted someone who was, you know, like, Joe Rogan puts outrageous things, says and puts outrageous things on the show. And if you put that from a let, and you know what, I don't like it.

I don't think it's healthy. Everything he puts on a show. Sometimes I think people get a little too bad to out of shape at him, but I'm not, I don't like it when he puts people on it, I think are lying and misleading to people. and giving them false information in narratives, if you had the left-wing version of that, you can quickly get into territory that, you know, is getting criminalized or, you know, will get you harassed by the government, you know? So I support Piker's free speech rights.

I don't think he's a huge fan of mine if he knows me. Generally, a lot of people who like him aren't. but you know he has a right to have have an outrageous show if he wants it um and and i don't think that he's beyond the pale where he's encouraging violence and so on and so forth um but yeah i mean i do think that there is a for whatever reason um a different standard and how outrageous you're allowed to be you know a right wing person can you know call for violence or Now these bring on Holocaust deniers on TV, and Piker being a little edgy about Hezbo and Hamas, which I don't like, is like, oh, my God, terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, like, you're supporting

terrorism? And I'm like, dude, come on. Like, that is not, he's not being much more edgy than the right has gotten. Not to say it's good that everyone's trying to find the farthest edge, but it's a little bit of a rant here in the middle of this. But I do think it's actually interesting because I think we can relate this to the movie. This movie is obviously a product of the right-wing, you know, talk radio consciousness, right, of the 1990s. And that is born on the 1990s.

And the question has always been, where is the left-wing version of that? Where is the left-wing version of that? The left doesn't have that. They can't replicate it. They try to do left-wing limbo. they tried to do, you know, this, that, the other thing. The fact of the matter is, is that it doesn't work for whatever. You know, there's a lot of reasons it doesn't work.

I think a lot of it, actually, the left does get more scrutinized than the right. I mean, you know, people farther to my left, it would get come down on harder than someone with extreme right wing, or what used to be extreme right wing views. like Tucker Carlson, he's putting total looney tunes on a show, right? Yeah. And people complain, but he's just part of the fucking media world now, you know? And he's not getting harassed by the fucking DHS when he comes in and out of the country. He went to Russia, you know?

So, anyway, rant over. Rant over. I think the only thing I think I was going to say is that. In the kind of the nostalgia for a national coming together in the wake of Reagan's attempted assassination in the context of the movie, there does seem to be the kind of germ of what might come to be as sort of like make America great again to the baditudes. Because one of the things we haven't really discussed in this podcast is that among the demographics in the country in this moment, most, the Trumpiest, the Trumpiest group of Americans are gen Xers, like unambiguously. And so I think that's because of their cynicism in a way, but. Right.

That's what I was going to say. I mean, sort of the cynicism on display here, it both sort of like the, yeah, a sort of nostalgia for a past that they didn't get to live through, that their parents may have lived through when there was more unity and national purpose, plus a cynicism about present politics in a sense that nothing at all matters never when it's corrupt seems to be sort of the two elements that make up the kind of disposition that can lead that has made Gen X the most MAGA cohort of Americans. And I took note in watching this. There's a little bit of that in this movie. Yeah. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, I think this is like, there's like the

Gen X of Grunge and Slacker Culture, and then there's the right-wing Gen X, which propel Trump to power. And that's very much this kind of conspiracism, this kind of cynicism. But I mean, I'll say, you know, I wouldn't make such a, I wouldn't make such a hard separation between the two kinds of Gen X. Like, I think of a guy, a person, like, Chris Novicellick of Nirvana, who is, who was, I think, the basis for Nirvana, um, and also a Republican politician. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, I think there's a lot of people like that now.

And there's a lot of people who I'm, like, shocked of Gen X figures who I kind of admired. And I'm like, oh, they're big Trump people. Yeah, I want to, I want to offer a correction. Neviselik, not a Republican, but was someone. who was sympathetic to Trump in 2020, saying that he thought Trump was strong and direct in response to the murder of George Floyd. Well, that's kind of the opposite.

He kind of danced around that one in a million different ways. First, he was like, looks bad. And then he was like, I don't know. Like, he really was, his response to that was very weird. I mean, he could tell, I thought that was always interesting unremarked upon. Like Trump could tell, like, with his politician's instincts, he's like, if I start barking about how this guy had it coming, which you could expect him to do, it's not going to go well. He immediately was like, it looks pretty bad because it does. But like, and then, you know, as the protests unfold, he kind of shifts his line about it.

But I always thought that was interesting. He didn't take the maximally white supremacist line at the beginning of that situation. No, no. I think he took that. I think if it were up to Trump, like if Trump just, you know, separated from his entire political apparatus, he would have done the most opportunistic thing, right? Like somehow try to both try to be sympathetic or whatnot. I think that, and I think that had this happened not in the context of the pandemic, that actually might have been the path that he took, but I do think that the pandemic, I think that the pandemic, I think that. I think that. I think he got pandemic brain. The administration got pandemic brain like a lot of people did. And that shaped how they responded to George Floyd. In addition to a sense from the hardliners of the administration. That like they just start shooting protesters.

Right, right. Okay. Let's wrap up because there isn't that much more to talk about this movie. I'm not getting recommended. It's bad. Don't watch it. and that that is executive power. I'm going to go through our list of films and make sure that there's nothing that's bad again.

Okay. Thank you. I really appreciate that, Jamal. That is our show. If you liked it, if you listen, please leave a review on the iTunes page. It helps other people find the show. You can find us, you know, wherever podcasts are fans. Apple, Google, Spotify. We're everywhere these days. If you'd like to leave us some feedback,

you can reach out to us at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com for this week in feedback. It's been a minute since we've done some feedback in part because there are vacations and such. But for this week in feedback, let me find a not long email. We have an email from Paul. no title hey jemell and john i'm way behind on the podcast i wanted to send a quick doubt of thanks for the great show i listened to the episode on broken arrow that's the 1995 john woo film and had two bits of response one jemelle told john that the listeners like tangents yes that is very much correct then you'll love this episode i love the wild roads that you guys go down second you describe this as a quote nuke on the loose plot of which there are many in the 90s

I cannot believe there was not a Zucker Brothers style dumb comedy called Nuke on the Luce It would have been terrible But I would have watched the shit out of it I would have watched it too I love their movies Maybe starring Leslie Nielsen or something

Yeah Third response John expressed some bewilderment And both the nostalgia's for the 90s And as a Gen Xer I completely agree Maybe I just hated my high school years But the 90s sucked

And then there is some Friendly praise for me But I won't repeat that here Thanks for the interesting conversations, guys. Paul, thank you so much for the nice email, Paul. You know, a nuke on the loose. I would enjoy a nuke on the loose film. And let me say, Broken Arrow, actually a pretty fun movie.

Watch that instead of this. Yeah, that's not a bad. It's not a bad thriller. I recently just watched a bunch of the American John Woo movies. I watched Face Off last Friday. another face off not really appropriate for the podcast like I was watching it I was like it's no way to fit this in but it's a it's a ton of fun it's so much fun so yeah um watch face off watch broken arrow don't watch this uh episodes come out roughly every two weeks and so

we will see you then with an episode on the 1997 film the assignment directed by christian du guai du guay um don't really know who that is uh here's a brief synopsis Jack Shaw has experienced terror firsthand. He's a top CIA agent who's tracked international killer for hire Carlos the Jackal, Sanchez, for over 20 years and barely survived Carlos' devastating bombing of a Parisian cafe. Now he finally gets a break when he discovers Carlos' dead ringer, an American naval officer and dedicated family man. The assignment stars Aiden Quinn, Donald Sutherland, Ben Kingsley, Claudia Fierry. that's a decent cast Yeah, it's going to be fun.

And you can find it to watch on Amazon to rent, on Apple TV to rent, or on Tube to watch for free. So next episode is going to be on the assignment over the Patreon. I think the current Patreon episode is Army of Shadows. The next Patreon episode will be

night moves with Gene Hackman. And the Patreon is just patreon.com slash unclear pod for $5 a month. you get two bonus episodes a month on the films of the Cold War. So check that out. All right. I think we're done.

For John Gans, I'm Jamal Bowie. Thank you for listening and we'll see you next time. Thank you.