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Speaker 1: It's great to know that even back then, when the

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Speaker 1: criminal needs to flee somewhere, where do you go?

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Speaker 2: Florida? Florida, you're so incorrigible, has this kind of like

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Speaker 2: mischievous pirate thing going that I kind of like, oh, Florida,

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Speaker 2: you've gone and done it again. Welcome to Snaffu, the

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Speaker 2: podcast about history's greatest screw ups. I am your host

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Speaker 2: ed helms, and each episode I drag a brilliant guest

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Speaker 2: through one of these disasters and we ask ourselves, what

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Speaker 2: the hell does this tell us about us as human

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Speaker 2: beings today? My guest is one of my oldest and

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Speaker 2: dearest comedy pals. He's a writing legend snl The Office,

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Speaker 2: co created Parks and rec Brooklyn ninety nine, The Good

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Speaker 2: Place Rutherford Falls, And by the way, he directed tons

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Speaker 2: of all those episodes as well, and oh don't let

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Speaker 2: me forget out of all of us who worked on

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Speaker 2: the Office, he was also the best actor. Yeah, he's

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Speaker 2: the one who brought the legendary Mose Shrewd into all

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Speaker 2: of our hearts and nightmares. Of course, he just got

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Speaker 2: a very well deserved star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame,

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Speaker 2: and at this point, I'm pretty sure NASA might be

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Speaker 2: trying to name a planet after him. Please welcome Mike. Sure, Hello, Mike.

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Speaker 2: What a wonderful introduction.

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Speaker 1: Thank you, I mean thank you first of all for

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Speaker 1: highlighting my acting, because I think you know that's the

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Speaker 1: legacy that I hope to leave this earth with more

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Speaker 1: than anything else.

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Speaker 2: I don't think you get enough credit for your acting,

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Speaker 2: and I don't agree you act enough. I think you

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Speaker 2: need to be in more stuff.

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Speaker 1: I will take any acting job that requires me to

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Speaker 1: a remain mute and be run along the side of

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Speaker 1: a car like a dog.

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Speaker 2: Let's talk about most for a second, because what went

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Speaker 2: into your choices, the choices that you made as an actor.

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Speaker 2: Was that something that like the writer's room really kind

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Speaker 2: of broke down and was like, it'd be really funny

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Speaker 2: if he was just sort of spooky and almost like

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Speaker 2: a horror movie character just sort of popping up. Or

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Speaker 2: was that just your own brain sort of chewing on

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Speaker 2: it and then showing up to set and being like,

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Speaker 2: I'm gonna get weird.

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Speaker 1: Certainly, the way that Greg Daniels and the writers wrote,

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Speaker 1: and I'm putting that in quotes wrote the character of

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Speaker 1: Mo's was spooky and weird and just kind of off.

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Speaker 1: My choice is as an actor, I would describe as

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Speaker 1: coming from a white hot panic, just pure panic. Just

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Speaker 1: no one had told me what to do. I didn't

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Speaker 1: know what to do. I'm not an actor, and I

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Speaker 1: just did anything. I just did anything that I could

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Speaker 1: think of in the moment, and people kept finding it amusing,

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Speaker 1: and so I just kept panicking and doing whatever came

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Speaker 1: to mind.

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Speaker 2: I love it. I'm glad you enjoyed it. It was

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Speaker 2: a gift to all of America. So thank you the world,

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Speaker 2: really truly. Sure. Yeah, I'm really eager to dig into

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Speaker 2: this snafoo with you today. But before I do, I

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Speaker 2: just wanted to tell you something because I was thinking

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Speaker 2: about you know, we've known each other for twenty ish years,

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Speaker 2: and we've collaborated very closely in many different ways over

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Speaker 2: the years, and I've talked about you in publicly in

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Speaker 2: interviews a lot over the years, and I realized there's

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Speaker 2: something that I kind of say when your name comes

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Speaker 2: up in interviews frequently, but I don't know that I've

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Speaker 2: ever said it directly to you. And I was like,

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Speaker 2: I got to tell Mike this. I got to get

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Speaker 2: on the record with Mike Sure, and let you know

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Speaker 2: that the character Andy Bernard on the Office never would

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Speaker 2: have clicked for me without you. You were such an

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Speaker 2: instrumental part of like helping me find his voice and

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Speaker 2: shaping who he became, and that whole process, all of

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Speaker 2: our fun little huddle ups and just hard laughs and

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Speaker 2: brainstorming sessions about who Andy Bernard could be and why

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Speaker 2: Andy was funny or what made him funny, And it's

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Speaker 2: just like one of my favorite memories of show business.

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Speaker 2: That's so kind of you to say. I mean, I

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Speaker 2: will say that.

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Speaker 1: You know, you joined the show in season three and

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Speaker 1: the plot was that, you know, Jim had moved to

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Speaker 1: a different office, and the office that would happened to

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Speaker 1: be chosen was in Stanford, Connecticut. And I grew up

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Speaker 1: in West Hartford, Connecticut, which is maybe an hour and

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Speaker 1: changed north of Stamford, and I just instantly knew and

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Speaker 1: I grew up with Andy a lot of Andy's and

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Speaker 1: it was a very familiar character to me at the

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Speaker 1: sort of preppy, like good time Charlie guy who went

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Speaker 1: to an Ivy League school and just wanted to be

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Speaker 1: liked and was just desperate for like you know, was

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Speaker 1: maybe a little clumsy in the way that he went

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Speaker 1: about it, but had a good soul and a good heart.

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Speaker 1: And I just remember thinking the combination of that character

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Speaker 1: description and you as an actor. I was like, oh,

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Speaker 1: I know, I get this, I get this. I know

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Speaker 1: exactly who this guy is. And I do have a

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Speaker 1: lot of as I'm sure you do, specific memories of

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Speaker 1: like little moments of like figuring out the exact right

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Speaker 1: little mannerism or sort of prepster little turn of phrase

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Speaker 1: or something that he would give. There was the episode

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Speaker 1: where you all get drunk in the office having to.

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Speaker 2: Work late at night.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and start you start singing an Indigo girls

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Speaker 1: Closer to Find, Closer to Fine song, and then Jim

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Speaker 1: chimes in and you pop up a go tuna, like

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Speaker 1: so excited that he also knows all the lyrics to

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Speaker 1: Closer to Find. I mean, that's that was my childhood.

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Speaker 1: That was exactly my child That was like sitting around

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Speaker 1: with my friends and listening to that album in particular.

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Speaker 2: That's really where I think our friendship forged. Like that's

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Speaker 2: when I met you, was coming onto the office set

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Speaker 2: and just immediately like you were one of one of

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Speaker 2: that handful of people that put me at ease immediately,

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Speaker 2: and I'm so glad. Yeah, I mean, it's just yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's awesome. It was a good time.

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Speaker 1: It was a very fun, fun time, and I think

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Speaker 1: all of our lives it felt like we were just

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Speaker 1: in a very creative world with a bunch of creative

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Speaker 1: fun people, and our only job was to figure out

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Speaker 1: what was the funniest thing that could have happened at

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Speaker 1: any given moment.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly our only job was to make each other

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Speaker 2: laugh as hard as possible. Yeah, And I mean, there's

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Speaker 2: no better job, no better job. Well, Mike, I am

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Speaker 2: thrilled your because today's story is basically a political sitcom excellent,

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Speaker 2: only with a lot more graft, more fistfights, and way

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Speaker 2: more dark money changing hands under the table. Today we're

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Speaker 2: talking about Tammany Hall and the legendary Boss Tweed. Fantastic. Yes,

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Speaker 2: how familiar are you with this story? A fairly familiar,

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Speaker 2: I would say.

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Speaker 1: In the broad strokes, The Powerbroker by Robert Moses is

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Speaker 1: one of my favorite books ever written, and Tammany Hall

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Speaker 1: is a human part of Robert Morris's origin story. And

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Speaker 1: you know, Robert Moses's story is legendary and have covers

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Speaker 1: many chunks. But he his like understanding of politics was

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Speaker 1: forged in Tammany Hall.

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Speaker 2: All right, well, let's start with some baseline info here,

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Speaker 2: because I think a lot of people have heard of

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Speaker 2: Tammany Hall, but might be one like, what is it exactly?

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Speaker 2: Was it a building? Was it some sort of club

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Speaker 2: or was it a symbol of something opaque and powerful,

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Speaker 2: maybe even a little bit sinister. Well the answer is

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Speaker 2: actually yes, all of the above. Tammany Hall was indeed

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Speaker 2: a series of buildings in New York City, the most

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Speaker 2: famous of which stood at fourteenth Street in Park Avenue South.

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Speaker 2: But it is in fact so much more than that.

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Speaker 2: When historians say Tammany Hall, they're actually referring to the

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Speaker 2: democratic political machine that controlled New York City politics for

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Speaker 2: well over a century from the early nineteenth century to

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Speaker 2: the mid twentieth century. Tammany Hall was part fraternity, part mafia,

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Speaker 2: part city council. Think the Sopranos only the front business.

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Speaker 2: Instead of being a strip club, it was city.

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Speaker 1: Hall, right, Yeah, it was the machine that ran New York.

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Speaker 2: And a political machine, by the way, was actually the

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Speaker 2: term for this type of It was not just a

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Speaker 2: kind of random metaphor that I'm using, it was actually

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Speaker 2: what these operations were called for over one hundred years.

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Speaker 2: Tammany Hall decided who got jobs, who got contracts, and

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Speaker 2: often who won elections in the biggest city in America. So, Mike, sure,

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Speaker 2: how did it all begin? Well, let's rewind a little bit,

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Speaker 2: shall we back all the way to seventeen eighty nine,

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Speaker 2: the same year George Washington became president. Coincidentally, back then,

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Speaker 2: there were a number of prominent fraternal organizations like the

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Speaker 2: Freemasons or the Society of the Cincinnati, and these groups

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Speaker 2: tended to be a bit crusty and aristocratic, little snooty

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Speaker 2: like country clubs. The Cincinnatians were even accused of trying

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Speaker 2: to set up a kind of American hereditary nobility, which

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Speaker 2: is pretty rich considering we had just fought a massive

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Speaker 2: war with England to get rid of all that crap.

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Speaker 1: The most the most American thing, right is you you're like,

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Speaker 1: no more sovereigns, And then as soon as the king

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Speaker 1: has gone, you're like, what if we had a king?

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Speaker 2: Nobility's nice good points. So the modern version of these clubs,

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Speaker 2: I think is like we see around as like Masonic temples,

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Speaker 2: or or the Shriners. The Odd Fellows, which actually started

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Speaker 2: in England around this time or even earlier, was also

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Speaker 2: happening at this time, and I think that largely, or

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Speaker 2: the Rotary club Lions.

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Speaker 1: Well, it's not just those, it's also you know, when

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Speaker 1: you're talking about like societies that aim to pull levers

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Speaker 1: of power, you're also talking about like in the modern day,

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Speaker 1: there's Bohemian Grove and there's the Davos Conference, and there's

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Speaker 1: as long as there have been societies, there have been

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Speaker 1: people seeking to form organizations that secretly control things. And

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Speaker 1: so you know that some of those clubs are more

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Speaker 1: civic minded, some of them are more you know, charity minded.

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Speaker 2: But you're social.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but there's it is always the case that there

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Speaker 1: have been people in every society, even ones that purport

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Speaker 1: to be purely democratic or republic or whatever you want

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Speaker 1: to call them, that are like, wait, we're rich, and

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Speaker 1: maybe if we quietly meet in a room somewhere, we

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Speaker 1: can divvy up the society and capital in a way

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Speaker 1: that will benefit us and not other people. So it's

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Speaker 1: a it's as tale as old as time.

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Speaker 2: Yah. Indeed, what's funny is that is that they're just

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Speaker 2: as dumb as everybody else, but all kinds of conspiracy

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Speaker 2: theories get ascribed to them. And I just think if

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Speaker 2: you could probably get into those rooms, you'd be like,

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Speaker 2: what the oh, these idiots, this is the group of people.

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Speaker 2: It's like, yeah.

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Speaker 1: My favorite thing in the world is when a billionaire

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Speaker 1: does something stupid and the reaction is like, well that

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Speaker 1: he's probably not doing that. He's a billionaire, and no,

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Speaker 1: I promise he's just as dumb as everybody else.

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Speaker 2: Of course, all right, so enter into this landscape of

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Speaker 2: sort of crusty aristocratic societies. The Society of Saint Tammany

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Speaker 2: founded in New York basically as a deliberate fuck you

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Speaker 2: to all of these aristocratic clubs. So this was to

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Speaker 2: be a patriotic club for the common man. It was

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Speaker 2: named after taminind A Lenna Lenape chief, mythologized as a

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Speaker 2: patron saint of America and liberty. Of course, the Society

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Speaker 2: of Saint Tammany also massively appropriated Native American attire, rituals

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Speaker 2: and nannings and you're kidding, yes, yeah. They not not

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Speaker 2: a real progressive, woke crew at this time, but they

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Speaker 2: threw large events, parties and parades. They were rowdy, populous,

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Speaker 2: and kind of a bit campy or silly. They had

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Speaker 2: a big sense of humor and uh and also probably

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Speaker 2: quite a bit cringe as well. Yeah, I would imagine. Yeah, yeah, so, uh,

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Speaker 2: guess who shows up real early in this in this zone.

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Speaker 2: Who's Aaron Burr? Yeah? Yeah, that guy revolutionary war Vet,

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Speaker 2: the third vice president and yes, the guy who murdered

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Speaker 2: lin Manuel Miranda. He's a national treasure in Miranda.

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Speaker 1: Does someone fact check these podcasts or should we do

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Speaker 1: it in real time?

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Speaker 2: Because I I I asked the Internet and they said

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Speaker 2: that there's a video of it.

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Speaker 1: I swear to you you got the AI overviewed it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that Aaron. This is all AI generated, including me.

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Speaker 2: I am fast asleep in my house right now. Okay,

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Speaker 2: so no, he didn't murder Miranda. He murdered Alexander Hamilton.

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Speaker 2: And Burr is the one who really saw early on

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Speaker 2: the political potential of Tammany Hall. He saw it not

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Speaker 2: as just a bunch of rowdy fund dudes, but as

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Speaker 2: a ready made voter base. And he's the one who

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Speaker 2: really steered Tammany Hall straight into politics. Okay, So now

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Speaker 2: jump ahead to the early eighteen hundreds, New York is

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Speaker 2: being flooded with immigrants, especially from Ireland. Between eighteen twenty

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Speaker 2: and eighteen sixty, more than one point six million Irish

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Speaker 2: arrived in America, and most of them funneled right through

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Speaker 2: New York City, of course, the famous Ellis Island, right

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Speaker 2: by the Statue of Liberty there in New York Harbor.

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Speaker 2: Tammany as an organization not happy about this. They were

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Speaker 2: deeply xenophobic, as were all lot of Americans at that time,

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Speaker 2: and they really resisted this massive influx of immigrants and

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Speaker 2: sometimes violently, not a real welcoming, not rolling out the

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Speaker 2: red carpet, not exactly. But this will change, Mike, sure,

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Speaker 2: this will This will completely flip because somebody at Tammany

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Speaker 2: Hall did the math, all right. Irish immigrants meant Irish votes,

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Speaker 2: and votes meant power, and so Tammany did a one

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Speaker 2: to eighty and they did, in fact roll out the

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Speaker 2: welcome matt and by welcome Matt, I mean jobs, food,

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Speaker 2: social services, and even protection from the angry Nativists movement.

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Speaker 2: In return, the Irish delivered loyalty at the ballot box.

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Speaker 2: By the mid eighteen hundreds, they weren't just part of

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Speaker 2: Tammany's political machine, they were basically the engine inside of it.

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Speaker 2: Real talk, Mike, sure, do you see this as smart

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Speaker 2: politics or just ugly exploitation or just maybe exactly the

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Speaker 2: kind of two faced move that defines American politics in

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Speaker 2: every era.

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Speaker 1: It's a familiar story. They were smart enough to understand

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Speaker 1: the way the wind was blowing. It's also a classic

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Speaker 1: American thing to have a bunch of immigrants to come

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Speaker 1: over to this country and then within a generation be

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Speaker 1: like I don't like immigrants.

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Speaker 2: It's like what what what? Yeah, you're doing?

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Speaker 1: But they were, and this was the source of all

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Speaker 1: of their power was they were smart enough to understand

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Speaker 1: that there were waves crashing on the shores of America

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Speaker 1: and they could either try to fight them or surf them,

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Speaker 1: and they decided to serf them. And so that is

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Speaker 1: the method, by the way, thank you very much. That's

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Speaker 1: the key to all of these movements is I understand them,

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Speaker 1: and whether they survive or disappear is do you get

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Speaker 1: on board with what is inevitable or do you try

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Speaker 1: to fight it? And getting on board is a much

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Speaker 1: smarter move politically. You mentioned the Sopranos there's the scenes

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Speaker 1: in the Sopranos where it's Thanksgiving and the guys in

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Speaker 1: the in Tony's carewer like handing out turkeys on Thanksgiving.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, by the way, Tammany Hall, same thing invented it

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Speaker 2: only handing out turkeys.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, like that one, like having a giant free turkey

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Speaker 1: Thanksgiving meal is like, that's a year's worth of votes

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Speaker 1: that they just bought for for you know at the time,

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Speaker 1: what like seventy five cents worth of foul Yeah, fabulous insight.

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Speaker 2: Mike, Sure, I love the way your brain works. We're

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Speaker 2: going to cut all that out though, yeah, yeah, Oh,

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Speaker 2: I assume you're cutting all of this out right. This

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Speaker 2: isn't going to air. So we have now set the

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Speaker 2: stage and here comes our headliner. Are you ready, ladies

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Speaker 2: and gentlemen, please welcome the man who, well, not well,

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Speaker 2: he's not going to join us, he's dead. But welcome

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Speaker 2: to our narrative, the man who would come to embody

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Speaker 2: Tammany Hall's power, greed and epic corruption, William Boss Tweed.

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Speaker 2: Have you heard of Boss? You know you're familiar with

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Speaker 2: Boss Tweed? What is his name? What is his name?

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Speaker 2: Conjure for you.

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Speaker 1: It conjures an enormous, barrel chested gentleman who strolls through

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Speaker 1: the streets of New York and everyone knows his name

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Speaker 1: and he is legendary, and people whisper and point and

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Speaker 1: wave and he waves back.

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Speaker 2: And gosh, you're just it sounds like an episode of Cheers.

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Speaker 2: It basically is.

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Speaker 1: He's basically norm but on the streets of nineteenth century

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Speaker 1: New York.

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Speaker 2: And also not afraid to just hit you with an axe. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: he's a very complicated guy because he was enormous both

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Speaker 2: in stature and in girth, and by all accounts are

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Speaker 2: very gregarious and jovial guy. Yeah, really like the kind

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Speaker 2: of like you know, backslap in good time, Charlie, but

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Speaker 2: also like capable of like horrific violence.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, combination of people like breaking into huge smiles and

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Speaker 1: waving and him waving back, and also moms grabbing their

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Speaker 1: kids and hustling them inside when he walked down the street.

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Speaker 2: That's what I picture, all right, So let's get into

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Speaker 2: old old Boss tweet here. Born in eighteen twenty three

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Speaker 2: on Manhattan's Lower East Side, son of a chair maker,

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Speaker 2: he actually apprenticed at the family trade, but he had

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Speaker 2: much more lofty ambitions. His first step in chasing those

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Speaker 2: ambitions was the rough and tumble, politically connected world of

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Speaker 2: New York's volunteer fire companies. Isn't that kind of interesting?

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Speaker 2: Kind of interesting? Yeah, because back then, fire companies weren't

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Speaker 2: the noble, Dalmatian loving institutions that we think of today.

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Speaker 2: They were basically street gangs with hoses they or buckets like.

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Speaker 2: Crews would literally fistfight over who got to put out

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Speaker 2: a blaze because whoever controlled the fire fires were so common,

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Speaker 2: and whoever could control the fires had significant control over

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Speaker 2: the neighborhood and then of course all of the political

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Speaker 2: clout that came with that. So think think of politics

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Speaker 2: by way of pro wrestling, but with a lot more

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Speaker 2: water damage. Yeah. Sure, thank god we don't have to

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Speaker 2: rely on for profit emergency services anymore for now. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure where this airing exactly. So as we were,

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Speaker 2: as we mentioned before, Tweed was a very gregarious guy.

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Speaker 2: He first joined Engine Company Number twelve before helping found

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Speaker 2: Americas Fire Company Number six in eighteen forty eight. This

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Speaker 2: company was nicknamed the Big Six and their symbol a

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Speaker 2: flashy tiger. Tweed rose to foreman of this fire company,

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Speaker 2: a position he parlayed into membership in the Society of

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Speaker 2: Saint Tammany. Again if there these fire companies were very

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Speaker 2: politically connected because they had it was just all power

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Speaker 2: broker between these sort of rough and tumble figures and

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Speaker 2: politicians and the leaders of the various wards throughout New

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Speaker 2: York City. So from there he bounced around a few

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Speaker 2: different roles. He was an Alderman congressman for a spell,

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Speaker 2: found that very boring. Came right back to New York

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Speaker 2: City from Albany. He was even a lawyer for a minute,

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Speaker 2: but he finally found real power on the New York

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Speaker 2: County Board of Supervisors as deputy street Commissioner. What a

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Speaker 2: street commissioner? That just sounds mobbed up? It really does

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Speaker 2: the street commission.

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Speaker 1: Well, Dodger's an image of like, this is the guy

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Speaker 1: who knows all the other people in the neighborhood, right,

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Speaker 1: Like it's a guy who's like, we need sixty people

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Speaker 1: to do some task, and he's like, I got it,

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Speaker 1: and he just goes out and knocks on all the

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Speaker 1: doors and gets rounds up the crew and yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a very mob very mobbed up sounding job.

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Speaker 2: Well as Deputy Street commission. Old Tweed controlled city contracts,

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Speaker 2: jobs and construction. And this is where tweeds genius for

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Speaker 2: corruption truly flourished. If you wanted your cousin on the

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Speaker 2: city payroll, you slipped Tweed some cash. If you wanted

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Speaker 2: your construction company to build a new school, you cut

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Speaker 2: Tweet a slice, or maybe you would just get the

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Speaker 2: contract and never even have to build the fucking school.

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Speaker 2: It's like they were just cranking out all the cash.

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Speaker 1: So you've been in New York for twenty years and

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Speaker 1: three of your cousins come over from from Dundalk, Ireland,

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Speaker 1: and they don't know what to do. And you go

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Speaker 1: to see Boss Tweed or one of his minions, and

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Speaker 1: you say, we need construction jobs, and they go, here's

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Speaker 1: three construction jobs. You give us twenty percent of your

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Speaker 1: salary or whatever, and you take that deal because the.

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Speaker 2: Alternative is And by the way, you vote for us,

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Speaker 2: and you vote for you show up and you vote

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Speaker 2: for us, and if we tell you to, you go

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Speaker 2: to the ballot box five, six, seven, eight, ten times. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: you change your name ten times. It was common like

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Speaker 2: they like they were just stack in ballots. I want

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Speaker 2: to be clear. So this wasn't something that Tweed brought

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Speaker 2: to New York City government. This was the culture of

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Speaker 2: New York City government at the time. It was just

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Speaker 2: a profoundly corrupt apparatus across the board. The group of

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Speaker 2: twenty aldermen and then there were twenty assistant aldermen who

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Speaker 2: were who were a sort of like governing body in

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Speaker 2: the city, and they were known as the forty thieves

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Speaker 2: like that. That's how people were barnd to them. And

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Speaker 2: this was well before Tweed even entered the picture. So

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Speaker 2: he just kind of came in and was like, oh,

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Speaker 2: I get how this works, and just kicked it up

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Speaker 2: a huge notch. He basically industrialized political corruption in New

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Speaker 2: York City. And oh, don't forget New York City. You know,

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Speaker 2: it's nothing like it was today in scale, but it

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Speaker 2: was massive for the time, and the economy of New

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Speaker 2: York City was on par with entire other countries nations. Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: When we were researching parks and rec we learned about

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Speaker 1: a group of people in a city in California that

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Speaker 1: shall remain nameless, that they incorporated the town and then

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Speaker 1: this group of people who'd been living there for a

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Speaker 1: long time. Basically were like, we want to control this forever.

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Speaker 1: And so the way they formed the government was it

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Speaker 1: was like, you know, there was a planning committee and

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Speaker 1: a sewer committee and a construction committee and everything, and

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Speaker 1: they had it had three members, and the way it

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Speaker 1: worked was, you know, you served like a six year term,

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Speaker 1: but at the end of the term, you it was

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Speaker 1: some mechanism by which like you named your own successor

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Speaker 1: to the committee, and so then they just all they

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Speaker 1: would like just all switch committees. So they just like

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Speaker 1: it was brilliant. Yeah, so they and they they their

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Speaker 1: name was the Dirty thirty. It was thirty thirty people

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Speaker 1: controlled the entirety of this town for decades. Because there

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Speaker 1: were rules about how you could only serve on these

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Speaker 1: such committees. State laws, you could only serve on the

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Speaker 1: committees for a certain amount of time. So they just

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Speaker 1: were like, all right, we'll only serve on the committee

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Speaker 1: for six years and then we'll just switch and hand

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Speaker 1: it to someone else. And we just they kept rotating

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Speaker 1: and as a result, they just controlled every single aspect

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Speaker 1: of the planning of the community.

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Speaker 2: I'm very curious, how do you think how do you

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Speaker 2: think Leslie Nope would do in Tammany Hall not well.

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Speaker 1: Now, she as a person who believed in fairness and

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Speaker 1: equality and meritocratic system of achievement.

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Speaker 2: Sure, and also I think she's someone who assumes the

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Speaker 2: best intentions and others. Yes, yeah, I mean she was

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Speaker 2: no fool.

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Speaker 1: She's certainly in over the course of the show, had

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Speaker 1: to deal with a lot of corrupt people and understood

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Speaker 1: that people's motivations.

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Speaker 2: Were not always pure.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, it would Tammany Hall would not have been

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Speaker 1: a good environment in which she could flourish to the

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Speaker 1: best of her abilities.

432
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:31,600
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, I also would not flourish. Yeah. I

433
00:26:31,680 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 2: feel like my brain just doesn't work the right way

434
00:26:34,560 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 2: for that. And I don't mean that in like a

435
00:26:37,000 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 2: oh because I'm a good person. I just mean like

436
00:26:38,920 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 2: I don't I can't track those complex webs of manipulation.

437
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:47,240
Speaker 2: And it's like it's so overwhelming to me. It's but

438
00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:50,600
Speaker 2: someone like Tweet like he's really like an evil genius.

439
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 2: He also was. He had that sort of like Bill

440
00:26:53,840 --> 00:26:58,679
Speaker 2: Clinton level memory, So he did he had like an

441
00:26:58,760 --> 00:27:02,879
Speaker 2: uncanny knack for people names that gives you power, And

442
00:27:02,920 --> 00:27:04,840
Speaker 2: that's something I've never had.

443
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:09,440
Speaker 1: No, I've forgotten your name, like three times during during

444
00:27:09,480 --> 00:27:10,160
Speaker 1: this podcast.

445
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:11,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yeah.

446
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:14,959
Speaker 1: Likewise, no, those people who have like an internal ledger

447
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: where they know everyone's face and name and also where

448
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:20,879
Speaker 1: they live and what they owe you and what you

449
00:27:20,960 --> 00:27:24,160
Speaker 1: did for them, and can recall that with instant clarity.

450
00:27:24,280 --> 00:27:29,480
Speaker 1: That's a that's a real classic power grab skill that

451
00:27:29,520 --> 00:27:30,680
Speaker 1: people have, all right.

452
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:33,520
Speaker 2: Well, as well as things were going for mister Tweed,

453
00:27:34,320 --> 00:27:38,600
Speaker 2: he would become truly unstoppable during the Civil War. So

454
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:42,639
Speaker 2: in eighteen sixty three, the federal government has imposed a

455
00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:48,159
Speaker 2: military draft and New York City exploded into riots. This

456
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:53,040
Speaker 2: was an incredibly tragic episode. Poor Irish immigrants were furious

457
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:55,240
Speaker 2: at the idea of fighting a war that they didn't

458
00:27:55,240 --> 00:27:59,400
Speaker 2: feel was theirs, while rich people could buy their way

459
00:27:59,440 --> 00:28:05,120
Speaker 2: out paying for substitutes. Also, black people were being unfairly

460
00:28:05,200 --> 00:28:08,080
Speaker 2: scapegoaded as the cause of the war, and so they

461
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:12,159
Speaker 2: were being targeted for horrific violence. Mobs burned buildings and

462
00:28:12,240 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 2: attacked the homes of Republican elites. It was violent, racist chaos,

463
00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:22,400
Speaker 2: but of course Tweed saw opportunity.

464
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,199
Speaker 1: Of course, this, obviously, you might remember, was dramatized in

465
00:28:26,240 --> 00:28:29,040
Speaker 1: Gangs of New York. There's the famous sequence toward the

466
00:28:29,080 --> 00:28:31,679
Speaker 1: end of the movie there. Yes, of course, the violence

467
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,600
Speaker 1: of that movie is so hard for me. It's so

468
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: visceral verities, of course, as he's like a genius of

469
00:28:38,760 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 1: like just making it that feel visceral. A lot of

470
00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:46,080
Speaker 1: historical inaccuracies in that movie, but that is this chapter

471
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:50,720
Speaker 1: is exactly how that movie culminates. Tammany started offering loans

472
00:28:50,800 --> 00:28:53,960
Speaker 1: to working class men so that they too could pay

473
00:28:54,000 --> 00:28:58,800
Speaker 1: for substitutes in the draft. It was on paper compassionate,

474
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 1: but it also meant those families now owed Tweed money, gratitude,

475
00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:10,160
Speaker 1: and loyalty. The riots quieted down, and Tammany's grip tightened

476
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 1: even further. This is feeling like House of Cards on steroids. Yeah,

477
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:18,840
Speaker 1: do you see brilliant crisis management or just sociopathic opportunism?

478
00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:23,600
Speaker 1: Sociopathic opportunism? Yeah, how do we make everyone more indebted

479
00:29:23,640 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: to us than they were before?

480
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 2: Yeah? Well, from here, things like Tweed just consolidated everything

481
00:29:31,560 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 2: even more. Courts, legislature, city treasury, voting booths. Everything bent

482
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:40,960
Speaker 2: to his will. And this is also when he earned

483
00:29:41,000 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 2: the name boss. He became boss was a term at

484
00:29:45,320 --> 00:29:47,840
Speaker 2: the time for like the leader of a political machine

485
00:29:48,040 --> 00:29:53,200
Speaker 2: and he was definitely the boss. And here's where the

486
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:58,800
Speaker 2: corruption it just it scaled up so epically. Probably the

487
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:02,040
Speaker 2: most famous example is the New York County Courthouse. Do

488
00:30:02,080 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 2: you know this story? I don't think so. Now, Okay,

489
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 2: the New York County Courthouse, which is down on Chambers

490
00:30:07,760 --> 00:30:11,840
Speaker 2: Street in Manhattan. It was built at this time, and

491
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:16,360
Speaker 2: it was originally budgeted at two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,

492
00:30:16,400 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 2: which is a ton of money for the time. By

493
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:22,880
Speaker 2: the time Tweed and his cronies were finished, the bill

494
00:30:22,920 --> 00:30:27,840
Speaker 2: had ballooned to twelve million dollars, which is roughly two

495
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 2: hundred million in today's money.

496
00:30:30,960 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: Wow, So what what is that? Forty x the original

497
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:39,880
Speaker 1: cost or something? Yeah, forty eight x the original bid price?

498
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 2: Great? How does this happen? How does someone pull this off? Well,

499
00:30:43,520 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 2: it's actually pretty simple. Tweed's friends padded every single contract, carpentry, plastering, furniture,

500
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:58,000
Speaker 2: even the brooms for janitors, all built at cartoonishly astronomical rates.

501
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:01,520
Speaker 2: One carpenter supposedly got paid three hundred and sixty thousand

502
00:31:01,640 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 2: dollars for a month's work. By the way, that's that's

503
00:31:07,400 --> 00:31:13,600
Speaker 2: in eighteen sixty money. It's million million dollars a plaster

504
00:31:14,200 --> 00:31:17,680
Speaker 2: pulled down half a million. The courthouse became less a

505
00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:22,479
Speaker 2: civic building and more of a pinata stuffed with taxpayer cash,

506
00:31:23,040 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 2: just repeatedly whacked by Tweed's gang and just grabbing all

507
00:31:27,960 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 2: that cash. And that's just one project. And by the way,

508
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 2: they didn't even finish They just this. This courthouse went

509
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:40,160
Speaker 2: unfinished for for like decades later. Tweed would actually be

510
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:43,880
Speaker 2: tried in this very courthouse, which is ironic, but we'll

511
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:46,520
Speaker 2: get to that. By eighteen seventy one, Tweed and his

512
00:31:48,200 --> 00:31:50,880
Speaker 2: all of his buddies had skimmed off and estimated two

513
00:31:51,000 --> 00:31:55,360
Speaker 2: hundred million dollars total, which was more than four billion

514
00:31:55,600 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 2: in today's money.

515
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:00,080
Speaker 1: Man, man, they really knew what they were doing, and

516
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:01,640
Speaker 1: didn't they they did?

517
00:32:02,200 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 2: He? Yeah, so he became the third largest landowner in Manhattan.

518
00:32:06,800 --> 00:32:09,840
Speaker 2: He owned two yachts. I guess yachting was a thing

519
00:32:09,920 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 2: then too. At what point, Mike, sure, does corruptions stop

520
00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 2: being shocking and just become like slapstick comedy. I mean,

521
00:32:17,960 --> 00:32:20,400
Speaker 2: this is like when your carpenter is making more in

522
00:32:20,440 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 2: a month than Apple makes in a quarter. Are we

523
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 2: still talking about corruption or is this just like Marx Brothers.

524
00:32:27,880 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 1: Well, it gets to it gets to the cartoonish level

525
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:36,200
Speaker 1: where eventually collapse is inevitable because no one ever, ever,

526
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:40,760
Speaker 1: ever says, I have enough. Now, I'm going to stop.

527
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 1: I'm going to like take what I have and just

528
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: enjoy my life. It's never enough for folks in this position,

529
00:32:47,040 --> 00:32:49,560
Speaker 1: so they just push and push and push and push

530
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:52,920
Speaker 1: until they're finally caught or brought down somehow. This is

531
00:32:52,960 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: the story of all of these folks, especially the New

532
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:59,000
Speaker 1: York folks who were you know, who had this massive

533
00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:02,719
Speaker 1: pool of human labor and the ability to kind of

534
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,440
Speaker 1: consolidate power at a time when when the country was

535
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:09,280
Speaker 1: still young and cities were still young. Every movie is

536
00:33:09,280 --> 00:33:13,840
Speaker 1: about this too, right, It's like the person who's like amassing, amassing, amassing,

537
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:15,959
Speaker 1: and then at some point if they just said, all right,

538
00:33:15,960 --> 00:33:18,600
Speaker 1: I'm good, I'm going to retire, they could live their

539
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:21,920
Speaker 1: life there, and generations of their families could live their

540
00:33:21,920 --> 00:33:26,040
Speaker 1: lives in wealth and security forever. They just never do,

541
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,320
Speaker 1: because it's it's a psychosis that just pushes them to

542
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,600
Speaker 1: the point where inevitably they push too far and someone

543
00:33:32,640 --> 00:33:34,040
Speaker 1: comes along and takes them down.

544
00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:36,000
Speaker 2: And that's what happened to him. But the other thing

545
00:33:36,400 --> 00:33:40,600
Speaker 2: to keep in mind is that this isn't just something

546
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 2: that's kind of like making a fool out of the

547
00:33:43,320 --> 00:33:47,240
Speaker 2: City of New York. It's also there are financial repercussions

548
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,080
Speaker 2: to this. The money is coming from somewhere, it's coming

549
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:53,479
Speaker 2: from the city's coffers, and a lot of the city's

550
00:33:53,520 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 2: money is also, you know, been purchased by international investors

551
00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:04,960
Speaker 2: who are starting to sniff around, like what is going on,

552
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:10,560
Speaker 2: Like the it's starting to have real raise a lot

553
00:34:10,600 --> 00:34:12,800
Speaker 2: of like real financial issues for the city.

554
00:34:13,880 --> 00:34:17,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're all it's all essentially Ponzi scheme, right. It

555
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:21,359
Speaker 1: all depends on this endless influx of new people and

556
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 1: new stuff coming in so that there's more jobs, and

557
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 1: then there's more construction and there's more schools and more buildings,

558
00:34:27,640 --> 00:34:30,160
Speaker 1: and at some point it's not fundamentally different from something

559
00:34:30,239 --> 00:34:33,160
Speaker 1: like Enron or whatever, where like the people at the

560
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:36,440
Speaker 1: top are they're going to get away with it as

561
00:34:36,480 --> 00:34:40,920
Speaker 1: long as the like confidence in the system sustains itself

562
00:34:40,960 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 1: and then something comes along. In Enron's case, it was

563
00:34:43,160 --> 00:34:46,600
Speaker 1: the dot com bubble bursting that suddenly, like when the

564
00:34:46,640 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 1: flow of new investors is cut off. Suddenly someone goes like, well,

565
00:34:51,719 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 1: wait a second, now, where has all this money gone?

566
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:57,280
Speaker 1: And then they when people start looking into it, finally,

567
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,640
Speaker 1: that's when the whole thing collapses like a house of cards.

568
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:06,279
Speaker 2: Tweed was really good at kind of shoring up his

569
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:10,000
Speaker 2: support for exactly these reasons. Sure, he knew how to

570
00:35:10,040 --> 00:35:12,200
Speaker 2: play the game, so a lot of the money that

571
00:35:12,239 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 2: he was getting through corruption, he was also giving to charity,

572
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 2: so he would so Tammany Hall would sponsor public services

573
00:35:21,000 --> 00:35:24,040
Speaker 2: like hospitals and schools, and that, of course won him

574
00:35:24,040 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 2: a lot of fans. He would remain incredibly popular within

575
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:31,760
Speaker 2: his ward in New York City well after he toppled,

576
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,080
Speaker 2: which we're about to get to. He just had a

577
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 2: ton of fans, particularly in the working immigrant communities, who

578
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:41,560
Speaker 2: finally felt like someone in power had their backs right.

579
00:35:42,760 --> 00:35:46,839
Speaker 2: So for a while, Boss Tweed looked untouchable. He had

580
00:35:46,840 --> 00:35:50,520
Speaker 2: the votes, the jobs, the contracts, the courts, even the legislature.

581
00:35:51,280 --> 00:35:54,600
Speaker 2: But if history teaches us anything, Mike, sure, it's that

582
00:35:54,800 --> 00:35:59,120
Speaker 2: when Karma and Hubris square up for a fight, the

583
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 2: smart money and Karma. Am I right loud of that one.

584
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 2: I'm proud of that good. Yeah, you can have a

585
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:07,800
Speaker 2: nice little little line there. You can use it. Okay,

586
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:16,280
Speaker 2: all right. So Tweed's operation finally began to crumble thanks

587
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 2: to a very surprising thing, and that is the power

588
00:36:23,480 --> 00:36:27,640
Speaker 2: of satire. H yeah, wait for it. Okay, this is

589
00:36:28,200 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 2: really interesting. So the New York Times had begun publishing

590
00:36:33,680 --> 00:36:37,400
Speaker 2: a huge expose on the city's finances and all of

591
00:36:37,400 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 2: this corruption. We're talking reams of evidence that showed the

592
00:36:41,000 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 2: courthouse scandal and dozens of other padded contracts and what

593
00:36:45,719 --> 00:36:50,359
Speaker 2: ultimately brought the details of Tweed's abuses of power to light.

594
00:36:51,080 --> 00:36:54,719
Speaker 2: It would take this extra push to really spread the

595
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:59,720
Speaker 2: news of tweeds corruption throughout the city. Enter political cartoonists

596
00:37:00,080 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 2: Thomas Nast. So you probably have an actual image of

597
00:37:05,400 --> 00:37:09,040
Speaker 2: Boss Tweed in your mind, and almost certainly it is

598
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:12,600
Speaker 2: rooted in the cartoons of Thomas Nast. Nast worked for

599
00:37:12,680 --> 00:37:15,719
Speaker 2: Harper's Weekly, a magazine with a huge circulation for the time.

600
00:37:16,040 --> 00:37:19,799
Speaker 2: He drew Tweed as a grotesque vulture feasting on the

601
00:37:19,800 --> 00:37:22,320
Speaker 2: city of New York. He drew him as a giant

602
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 2: bag of money with legs. He drew the Tammany tiger

603
00:37:25,600 --> 00:37:30,640
Speaker 2: devouring actual democracy. And these doodles as it would turn

604
00:37:30,680 --> 00:37:34,080
Speaker 2: out were devastating. There we go, there we go.

605
00:37:34,160 --> 00:37:38,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what I think of as the bulging stomach,

606
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:42,600
Speaker 1: like the vest with the buttons about to pop off

607
00:37:42,640 --> 00:37:45,160
Speaker 1: because of the bulging money bag stomach.

608
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, and ironically a Tweed suit. M Now here's what's

609
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:57,160
Speaker 2: fascinating about these cartoons. Tweed's reaction was like he was

610
00:37:57,280 --> 00:38:00,000
Speaker 2: furious about the cartoons, and he said, this is a quote,

611
00:38:00,360 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 2: stop the damn pictures. I don't care much what the

612
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:08,680
Speaker 2: papers write about me. My constituents can't read, but they

613
00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:12,960
Speaker 2: have eyes. And he was exactly right. You know, so

614
00:38:13,200 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 2: many of the working population of New York City were

615
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:22,880
Speaker 2: just didn't have access to education and so but these pictures,

616
00:38:23,000 --> 00:38:25,480
Speaker 2: they were devastating. They were on the covers of things,

617
00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 2: they were all it just was, they were everywhere, and

618
00:38:28,520 --> 00:38:32,880
Speaker 2: everyone could sort of immediately understand, oh, this is boss Tweed,

619
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:34,520
Speaker 2: and he is corrupt.

620
00:38:34,920 --> 00:38:38,279
Speaker 1: This is not this zain't good. And that's say that

621
00:38:38,360 --> 00:38:41,520
Speaker 1: a picture was worth a thousand words in this case.

622
00:38:42,440 --> 00:38:46,840
Speaker 2: Like nine hundred maybe something north of the one hundred,

623
00:38:47,360 --> 00:38:51,200
Speaker 2: like a lot of words. Yeah, now it's worth noting

624
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:56,080
Speaker 2: Nast himself complicated figure. He was virulently anti irish and

625
00:38:56,160 --> 00:38:59,560
Speaker 2: anti Catholic. Many of his cartoons dripped with prejudice, but

626
00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:04,440
Speaker 2: when it came into tweet, he was relentless and it worked.

627
00:39:05,000 --> 00:39:07,240
Speaker 2: He's Boss Tweed. So what does he do? He tries

628
00:39:07,320 --> 00:39:11,160
Speaker 2: to bribe The New York Times sure to stop with

629
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:13,720
Speaker 2: all of this. One founder of the New York Times

630
00:39:13,760 --> 00:39:18,240
Speaker 2: was allegedly offered five million dollars to spike the stories.

631
00:39:18,280 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 2: Adjusted for inflation, that's well over one hundred million dollars

632
00:39:24,320 --> 00:39:28,800
Speaker 2: just to keep quiet. That's wild and insane amount of money.

633
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:33,760
Speaker 2: Like how who I can't just can't even imagine bribes

634
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,520
Speaker 2: at that level in this. I'm sure it's happening, but yeah,

635
00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:40,880
Speaker 2: it's just wild. I mean a Katari jet is worth

636
00:39:40,920 --> 00:39:45,319
Speaker 2: what that's worth, that's like a round hundred million. Yeah,

637
00:39:45,680 --> 00:39:49,200
Speaker 2: kind of a bribe. I don't know. But here's the

638
00:39:49,239 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 2: amazing thing that that New York Times publisher refused the money, saying, quote,

639
00:39:54,840 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 2: I don't think the devil will ever be higher for

640
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:01,760
Speaker 2: me than that. Wow, that's a line too. So the pressure,

641
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 2: all of this pressure kind of a guy coming down

642
00:40:04,280 --> 00:40:07,279
Speaker 2: on Tammany Hall and right onto Boss Tweed himself, it

643
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 2: just became untenable and the machine finally cracked. The city

644
00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:17,520
Speaker 2: comptroller himself, caught up in the scandal, turned state's witness.

645
00:40:17,840 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 2: He flipped and he testified against Tweed, who was ultimately

646
00:40:22,360 --> 00:40:26,240
Speaker 2: indicted on two hundred and four counts of fraud and corruption.

647
00:40:26,320 --> 00:40:28,600
Speaker 2: And I'm sure that was like just the stuff they

648
00:40:28,600 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 2: could actually, yeah, that was just the stuff they could document.

649
00:40:33,680 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 2: He was convicted, sentenced, and jailed, But old Boss Tweed,

650
00:40:39,239 --> 00:40:43,040
Speaker 2: he wasn't done scheming. In eighteen seventy five, he escaped custody.

651
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:44,920
Speaker 2: But now this is kind of an interesting thing, Like

652
00:40:45,719 --> 00:40:48,719
Speaker 2: custody was kind of a loose thing, like they were

653
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:51,120
Speaker 2: they were still letting him like go out to dinner

654
00:40:51,280 --> 00:40:54,320
Speaker 2: with go home for dinner with his family and stuff.

655
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,080
Speaker 2: This was like they didn't want to be rude. Well yeah,

656
00:40:57,280 --> 00:40:58,920
Speaker 2: I mean he had been. He had given so many

657
00:40:59,000 --> 00:41:01,719
Speaker 2: Christmas turkeys. That's so like they were just like, yeah,

658
00:41:01,840 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 2: go have dinner with your family. At one point, just

659
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:06,239
Speaker 2: come back. You got to come back, though, you got

660
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:08,319
Speaker 2: to come back. Well, one night he didn't come back,

661
00:41:08,719 --> 00:41:13,040
Speaker 2: and he disappeared from New York City. He made his

662
00:41:13,080 --> 00:41:17,279
Speaker 2: way down to Florida and under an assumed name, and

663
00:41:17,320 --> 00:41:20,760
Speaker 2: then to Cuba and then he got on a ship

664
00:41:20,800 --> 00:41:21,560
Speaker 2: to Spain.

665
00:41:22,040 --> 00:41:25,480
Speaker 1: It's great to know that even back then, when the

666
00:41:25,560 --> 00:41:29,480
Speaker 1: criminal needs to flee somewhere, where do you go Florida?

667
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:31,280
Speaker 2: You just go to Florida.

668
00:41:31,400 --> 00:41:37,200
Speaker 1: It's just been the haven for criminals and misfits for

669
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:40,640
Speaker 1: since at least the mid nineteenth century. I like knowing

670
00:41:40,840 --> 00:41:44,319
Speaker 1: Florida is nothing of not consistent. There's something I don't know.

671
00:41:44,360 --> 00:41:46,359
Speaker 1: There's something like I have this like.

672
00:41:47,920 --> 00:41:53,520
Speaker 2: Like like Florida, you're so encorurrigible, scoundrel. Yeah, you scoundrel

673
00:41:53,560 --> 00:41:57,240
Speaker 2: has this kind of like like mischievous pirate thing going

674
00:41:57,360 --> 00:42:00,240
Speaker 2: that I kind of like, it's Florida. You've got it

675
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:03,680
Speaker 2: on it again. Avenue. It's like people running giant bags

676
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:06,440
Speaker 2: of cocaine and shooting each other. But then in the

677
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:11,560
Speaker 2: afternoon they just like have their moheedos, turn on the

678
00:42:11,640 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 2: Jimmy Buffett and.

679
00:42:12,640 --> 00:42:15,200
Speaker 1: Just get out a fan boat and down some tequila

680
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:16,360
Speaker 1: and hang out in Florida.

681
00:42:16,560 --> 00:42:19,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, come on, look, listen, we're incorrigible. What do

682
00:42:19,680 --> 00:42:24,440
Speaker 2: you want Florida Weather's so good? Come on now, all right.

683
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 2: So he made it to Spain, and this is really

684
00:42:28,280 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 2: wild because the cartoons still haunted him. According to some accounts,

685
00:42:33,920 --> 00:42:41,480
Speaker 2: Spanish police recognized him because of Nast's caricatures, and which

686
00:42:41,520 --> 00:42:44,480
Speaker 2: is also a testament to the scale of this news.

687
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,680
Speaker 2: It was breaking it what really was international news, and

688
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:51,040
Speaker 2: it was setting off alarm bells in financial markets around

689
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:56,560
Speaker 2: the world. But yeah, Spanish police likely recognized him, and

690
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:00,680
Speaker 2: they called their American guys and them were like, hey,

691
00:43:00,680 --> 00:43:03,239
Speaker 2: we're sending them back. So he got sent back to

692
00:43:03,239 --> 00:43:09,640
Speaker 2: the United States, imprisoned again, ultimately died behind bars in

693
00:43:09,680 --> 00:43:12,279
Speaker 2: eighteen seventy eight, age fifty five.

694
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:15,520
Speaker 1: I mean, for a guy of his earth in that

695
00:43:15,600 --> 00:43:18,400
Speaker 1: time period, it's yeah, you know, that's not terrible.

696
00:43:18,719 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 2: The Tammany tiger had roared its last roar, so even

697
00:43:25,120 --> 00:43:28,279
Speaker 2: with Tweed gone, Tammany Hall did not vanish overnight. The

698
00:43:28,320 --> 00:43:31,480
Speaker 2: machine limped along for decades, turning out mayors and deal

699
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:35,640
Speaker 2: makers well into the twentieth century. But when FDR was

700
00:43:35,680 --> 00:43:38,440
Speaker 2: on his road to the presidency in the early nineteen thirties,

701
00:43:38,480 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 2: he campaigned as an anti Tammany New Yorker, and his

702
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:46,919
Speaker 2: win was basically the final wrecking ball for Tammany Hall.

703
00:43:47,000 --> 00:43:50,439
Speaker 2: The clubhouse doors finally shut for good in the mid

704
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:54,120
Speaker 2: twentieth century. Mike sure. That is the story of Tammany

705
00:43:54,160 --> 00:43:57,440
Speaker 2: Hall and Boss Tweed, the biggest, baddest, most corrupt machine

706
00:43:57,480 --> 00:43:59,839
Speaker 2: New York City ever built. Do you have any sort

707
00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:03,359
Speaker 2: of larger, big picture takeaways? For me? I was really

708
00:44:03,360 --> 00:44:06,960
Speaker 2: struck by the role that media played in this story,

709
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:10,879
Speaker 2: and particularly the role of comedy cartoons. Right. It wasn't

710
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 2: the cops or Congress or even rival politicians who brought

711
00:44:14,480 --> 00:44:17,760
Speaker 2: down Boss Tweet. It was journalists and cartoonists.

712
00:44:18,120 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 1: I'll say a couple of things. Number one is one

713
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:24,440
Speaker 1: of the best things about this country, this screwed up,

714
00:44:24,600 --> 00:44:28,719
Speaker 1: messed up, messy complex country that we live in, is

715
00:44:28,760 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 1: that in the First Amendment, it says very clearly the

716
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,360
Speaker 1: government cannot put you in jail for or prosecute you

717
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:38,240
Speaker 1: in anyway for speaking up and saying what you believe.

718
00:44:38,480 --> 00:44:41,000
Speaker 1: And it also says that the media is free. And

719
00:44:41,080 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 1: because of that, we have a system by which newspapers

720
00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:49,319
Speaker 1: in history, and television shows and radio programs and other

721
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:53,640
Speaker 1: media outlets are allowed to point out and make fun

722
00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: of and highlight corruption in government. That has always been true.

723
00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 1: It is in theory, I would say, still true today.

724
00:45:01,600 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 1: When I worked at Saturday Night Live, which was my

725
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:07,759
Speaker 1: first job. Jim Downey, who's probably the greatest political satirist,

726
00:45:07,880 --> 00:45:12,000
Speaker 1: He's the Thomas Nast of his day, really wrote the

727
00:45:12,080 --> 00:45:18,000
Speaker 1: famous debate speeches sketches between Bush and Gore in two

728
00:45:18,040 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 1: thousand and you know, the famous the first debate sketch involved,

729
00:45:24,719 --> 00:45:27,960
Speaker 1: you know, summarize your campaign in one word in Al

730
00:45:28,000 --> 00:45:31,160
Speaker 1: Gore Darryl Hammond as al Gore said lock box and

731
00:45:31,719 --> 00:45:36,920
Speaker 1: Will Ferrell, as George Bush said strategiery. And that line

732
00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:41,239
Speaker 1: stuck to George Bush so thoroughly. He did have a

733
00:45:41,280 --> 00:45:44,600
Speaker 1: lot of malaprops in his day, but there's a large

734
00:45:44,640 --> 00:45:46,879
Speaker 1: number of people who believe that he really said that,

735
00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:50,200
Speaker 1: that he really said strategicy. At one point, there's a

736
00:45:50,200 --> 00:45:53,719
Speaker 1: lot of people who believe that Sarah Palin said I

737
00:45:53,719 --> 00:45:56,080
Speaker 1: can see Russia from my house, she did it. Tina

738
00:45:56,120 --> 00:46:00,160
Speaker 1: Fay said that as Sarah Palin on SNL, and that

739
00:46:00,000 --> 00:46:01,840
Speaker 1: that tradition that is very much in the Thomas and

740
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:05,839
Speaker 1: As tradition, right is there's a difference between the way

741
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:08,440
Speaker 1: people understand the world we live in and the country

742
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:12,680
Speaker 1: we live in from dry media reports about fraud and

743
00:46:12,719 --> 00:46:15,120
Speaker 1: corruption everything else and the way that we see it

744
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:19,200
Speaker 1: through comedy and comedy is often a more powerful weapon

745
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:23,240
Speaker 1: and a more direct way to make people understand something

746
00:46:23,280 --> 00:46:26,360
Speaker 1: about government and corruption and fraud and whatever else is

747
00:46:26,400 --> 00:46:31,000
Speaker 1: going on than actual news. And that's while I was

748
00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:33,920
Speaker 1: thinking of as you were telling this story, is is

749
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: thank goodness that this country allows us to do that,

750
00:46:36,360 --> 00:46:40,640
Speaker 1: because I believe that is the most effective way often

751
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:44,960
Speaker 1: for people to come to understand what their political leaders

752
00:46:45,000 --> 00:46:47,480
Speaker 1: are doing. And that's what Thomas Asked did to Boss Tweed,

753
00:46:47,520 --> 00:46:50,040
Speaker 1: and that's what Jim Downey and other folks have done

754
00:46:50,040 --> 00:46:53,480
Speaker 1: to politicians through SNL cold opens over the years.

755
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:57,640
Speaker 2: Do you think that culturally we actually kind of underestimate

756
00:46:57,960 --> 00:47:02,080
Speaker 2: the power of Joe folks like can Humor still land

757
00:47:02,080 --> 00:47:08,000
Speaker 2: a knockout punch? I'm thinking about south Park right now. Yeah,

758
00:47:08,320 --> 00:47:12,520
Speaker 2: is really appears to be puncturing the armor of this

759
00:47:12,600 --> 00:47:17,879
Speaker 2: administration in a very startling way.

760
00:47:18,200 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 1: I mean, the media landscape in which we currently live

761
00:47:21,080 --> 00:47:22,920
Speaker 1: is so much more fractured. You know, at the time,

762
00:47:23,520 --> 00:47:28,279
Speaker 1: Harper's Weekly was probably the most powerful an important institution

763
00:47:28,520 --> 00:47:32,719
Speaker 1: in media, and obviously there's you know, there's barely newspapers anymore,

764
00:47:32,760 --> 00:47:35,680
Speaker 1: and now there's barely kind of TV. There's no monoculture

765
00:47:35,680 --> 00:47:39,560
Speaker 1: in TV anymore. We're now in this TikTok Instagram snapchat

766
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 1: world where things are very, very fractured. Everybody has their

767
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:45,880
Speaker 1: own algorithm. So the question to me isn't whether humor

768
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:48,840
Speaker 1: can be as potent a tool anymore. It's whether the

769
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:54,760
Speaker 1: delivery mechanisms that we are employing now can actually deliver

770
00:47:55,080 --> 00:47:57,320
Speaker 1: a piece of satire to the world that way, or

771
00:47:57,360 --> 00:48:00,680
Speaker 1: whether people are so siloed off that they'll that, you know,

772
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:05,080
Speaker 1: people a large majority of the public won't ever see

773
00:48:05,120 --> 00:48:05,759
Speaker 1: the same thing.

774
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:08,200
Speaker 2: That's my fear. I know exactly what you mean, and

775
00:48:08,239 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 2: I feel that sense of sort of fractured culture that

776
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:17,440
Speaker 2: you're speaking to. But I still have this feeling and

777
00:48:17,640 --> 00:48:20,439
Speaker 2: it may start be transitioning into more of a hope

778
00:48:20,440 --> 00:48:25,280
Speaker 2: at this point, but a feeling that truly exceptional work,

779
00:48:25,840 --> 00:48:29,160
Speaker 2: whether it's a South Park episode or you know, a

780
00:48:29,200 --> 00:48:33,640
Speaker 2: particularly keen clip of stand up like the cream still

781
00:48:33,760 --> 00:48:36,840
Speaker 2: rises to the top, and it does, it can still

782
00:48:37,400 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 2: like sort of permeate those I.

783
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:43,360
Speaker 1: Would hope so, because I think if the story of

784
00:48:43,400 --> 00:48:47,799
Speaker 1: Boss Tweet teaches us anything, it's that, you know, that

785
00:48:47,960 --> 00:48:50,239
Speaker 1: is what is needed in these moments. What's needed is

786
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:54,560
Speaker 1: a voice of satire and clarity and perspective that can

787
00:48:54,600 --> 00:48:57,759
Speaker 1: cut through and present in a single picture or a

788
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 1: single comedy sketch or a single joke. What it would

789
00:49:01,120 --> 00:49:05,799
Speaker 1: take a scholar, you know, hours to properly relay a

790
00:49:05,840 --> 00:49:09,480
Speaker 1: picture of a greedy person as a vulture devouring democracy.

791
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:12,920
Speaker 1: Is a lot more effective in a single blow, in

792
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:17,279
Speaker 1: a single coup than you know, a lengthy article or

793
00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:20,040
Speaker 1: a six part series in the New York Times or

794
00:49:20,080 --> 00:49:21,640
Speaker 1: something like that.

795
00:49:21,640 --> 00:49:24,399
Speaker 2: That feels like a perfect place to wrap this up.

796
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:27,960
Speaker 2: Can you share what you're working on? I'm dying to

797
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 2: know what the latest Mike Sure project is.

798
00:49:31,600 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: So Amy Poehler and I are back together again. We're

799
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:38,040
Speaker 1: making a new show called Dig that will be on

800
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:42,080
Speaker 1: Peacock sometime next year, we don't know when. Very exciting.

801
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:46,160
Speaker 1: Amy and I wrote the pilot together and we're working

802
00:49:46,239 --> 00:49:48,440
Speaker 1: in the writer's room now. And the extra fun thing

803
00:49:48,480 --> 00:49:51,560
Speaker 1: is that my wife, jj Fhilban is co show running

804
00:49:51,600 --> 00:49:54,240
Speaker 1: the show with me, so it's amazing we're ever working together,

805
00:49:54,280 --> 00:49:57,320
Speaker 1: which is very exciting. And then in a couple of

806
00:49:57,360 --> 00:50:01,280
Speaker 1: weeks we start work on Man on the Inside Season

807
00:50:01,360 --> 00:50:04,240
Speaker 1: three in the writer's room. Season two will drop in November.

808
00:50:04,280 --> 00:50:06,160
Speaker 1: We're getting a head start in season three the show

809
00:50:06,200 --> 00:50:09,640
Speaker 1: with Ted Danson on Netflix. So I've got a full

810
00:50:09,880 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 1: a full dance card, as they say. But I would

811
00:50:12,400 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 1: not for a second even think about missing the chance

812
00:50:15,920 --> 00:50:18,520
Speaker 1: to talk to my old pal at Helms on this podcast,

813
00:50:18,520 --> 00:50:20,920
Speaker 1: which I really love. By the way, it's a truly,

814
00:50:21,000 --> 00:50:23,600
Speaker 1: truly entertaining and delightful Well, thank you very much.

815
00:50:25,080 --> 00:50:28,160
Speaker 2: Wait, can you give us any like a logline or

816
00:50:28,200 --> 00:50:31,360
Speaker 2: a teaser about this show Dig with Amy which sounds

817
00:50:31,400 --> 00:50:33,440
Speaker 2: just utterly delightful, So, Eddie.

818
00:50:33,480 --> 00:50:36,160
Speaker 1: It's based on a book called Excavations that Amy read

819
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:38,239
Speaker 1: and really liked. It's about a group of women who

820
00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:42,120
Speaker 1: work on an archaeological dig site in Greece. And it's

821
00:50:42,239 --> 00:50:46,280
Speaker 1: four women ages nineteen, twenty nine, thirty nine, and forty nine,

822
00:50:46,880 --> 00:50:50,239
Speaker 1: so four women from four slightly different generations, and they

823
00:50:50,600 --> 00:50:53,760
Speaker 1: work on this dig site in Greece and they slowly,

824
00:50:53,880 --> 00:50:56,279
Speaker 1: over the course of the show uncover a sort of

825
00:50:56,360 --> 00:50:59,160
Speaker 1: like little conspiracy and they all left it.

826
00:50:59,400 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 2: Did some die sours murder each other? Oh, you've seen it,

827
00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:05,640
Speaker 2: you've read the book. I mean, what else? What are

828
00:51:05,680 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 2: you gonna find? And a dig it's a dinosaur homicide.

829
00:51:10,960 --> 00:51:13,080
Speaker 2: It just sounds like so much fun and all the

830
00:51:13,120 --> 00:51:15,560
Speaker 2: people that I love. Yeah, it should be very fun.

831
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:18,919
Speaker 2: I'm very excited about it. Great congrats on that, Mike Sure.

832
00:51:19,600 --> 00:51:22,400
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for your time and just for the

833
00:51:23,640 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 2: great hang today.

834
00:51:25,360 --> 00:51:27,359
Speaker 1: Thank you so might Hang buddy. Thank you for having

835
00:51:27,400 --> 00:51:30,279
Speaker 1: me and I truly do love this podcast. Thank you

836
00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:33,120
Speaker 1: for inviting me on right on. I love you, buddy,

837
00:51:33,280 --> 00:51:33,919
Speaker 1: Love you soon.

838
00:51:34,320 --> 00:51:39,920
Speaker 2: Bye. Snafu is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffo Media,

839
00:51:40,080 --> 00:51:44,240
Speaker 2: a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company.

840
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:48,320
Speaker 2: Our post production studio is Gilded Audio. Our executive producers

841
00:51:48,360 --> 00:51:53,360
Speaker 2: are me Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim Whitney, Donaldson,

842
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:57,320
Speaker 2: and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino,

843
00:51:57,480 --> 00:52:02,320
Speaker 2: Tory Smith, and Carl Nellis. Additional story editing from Carl Nellis.

844
00:52:02,520 --> 00:52:06,560
Speaker 2: Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering

845
00:52:06,560 --> 00:52:10,320
Speaker 2: from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo

846
00:52:10,360 --> 00:52:14,440
Speaker 2: and branding by Matt Gosson and the Collected Works. Legal

847
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:19,080
Speaker 2: review from Dan Welsh, Meghan Halson and Caroline Johnson. Special

848
00:52:19,120 --> 00:52:22,400
Speaker 2: thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone

849
00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:26,799
Speaker 2: at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Kerrie Lieberman and

850
00:52:27,080 --> 00:52:30,160
Speaker 2: Nicki Etoor. While I have you, don't forget to pick

851
00:52:30,239 --> 00:52:33,760
Speaker 2: up a copy of my book, Snaffoo, The Definitive Guide

852
00:52:33,760 --> 00:52:37,600
Speaker 2: to History's Greatest screw Ups. It's available now from any

853
00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:43,520
Speaker 2: book retailer. Just go to snaffoodashbook dot com. Thanks for listening,

854
00:52:43,680 --> 00:52:45,000
Speaker 2: and see you next week.