1 00:00:02,560 --> 00:00:07,040 Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. 2 00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:11,840 Speaker 2: Stacy Vanixsmith here from Everybody's Business, and today we have 3 00:00:11,880 --> 00:00:15,120 Speaker 2: a very special episode for you. On this fourth of July, 4 00:00:15,680 --> 00:00:18,640 Speaker 2: Max Chafkins sat down with Dan Carlin, who you might 5 00:00:18,720 --> 00:00:21,759 Speaker 2: know from the Hardcore History podcast, which is going for 6 00:00:21,840 --> 00:00:25,280 Speaker 2: a long time. It's a huge and really important podcast. 7 00:00:25,280 --> 00:00:27,280 Speaker 2: They deal with all kinds of historical things. We thought 8 00:00:27,320 --> 00:00:30,200 Speaker 2: it would be perfect for today. They will be talking 9 00:00:30,240 --> 00:00:32,919 Speaker 2: about what we can learn from the past to help 10 00:00:33,040 --> 00:00:35,320 Speaker 2: us make sense of this current moment in the US. 11 00:00:35,840 --> 00:00:39,480 Speaker 2: So sit back, relax, enjoy, and have a great holiday. 12 00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:47,000 Speaker 2: We will see you next week with a brand new episode. 13 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:51,519 Speaker 1: Dan, Welcome to Everybody's Business. 14 00:00:51,560 --> 00:00:52,479 Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. 15 00:00:52,840 --> 00:00:57,920 Speaker 4: So as we record this, the United States is getting 16 00:00:57,960 --> 00:01:01,960 Speaker 4: ready to marke. It's two hundred fifty then, and to me, 17 00:01:02,840 --> 00:01:06,720 Speaker 4: I'm possibly to you as well, it's it feels like 18 00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:10,400 Speaker 4: a weird moment. You know, we have this norm breaking president, 19 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:15,040 Speaker 4: we have this sended populist movements, and even this you know, 20 00:01:15,080 --> 00:01:18,520 Speaker 4: two hundred and fifty anniversary feels very strange. And I'm 21 00:01:18,640 --> 00:01:22,039 Speaker 4: curious as you think about our present day in this 22 00:01:22,200 --> 00:01:28,119 Speaker 4: like the present moment, like what historical periods or moments 23 00:01:28,360 --> 00:01:30,959 Speaker 4: or sort of work that you have explored in the 24 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:32,440 Speaker 4: podcast over the years. 25 00:01:33,280 --> 00:01:34,800 Speaker 1: Do these times remind you of. 26 00:01:35,319 --> 00:01:38,480 Speaker 5: I like that phrase of the quote that history doesn't repeat, 27 00:01:38,480 --> 00:01:41,480 Speaker 5: but it's sometimes rhymes, And I like that because it 28 00:01:41,560 --> 00:01:45,000 Speaker 5: helps us understand that any comparisons are going to be 29 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:47,160 Speaker 5: screwed up by the variables, right, I mean, every era 30 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:49,480 Speaker 5: is different. If we want to compare ourselves to the 31 00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:52,320 Speaker 5: Gilded Age or to Rome or whatever, there's going to 32 00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:55,080 Speaker 5: be a bazillion things that are not the same. That 33 00:01:55,120 --> 00:01:58,160 Speaker 5: doesn't mean that we can't see similarities, and that's of course. 34 00:01:57,960 --> 00:02:00,080 Speaker 3: What the rhyme means. For me. 35 00:02:00,280 --> 00:02:04,120 Speaker 5: I've always assumed that this reminds us of the declining 36 00:02:04,200 --> 00:02:06,200 Speaker 5: years of the Roman Republic. And I do want to 37 00:02:06,200 --> 00:02:09,400 Speaker 5: emphasize republic because people will say Roman Empire, and this 38 00:02:09,520 --> 00:02:11,320 Speaker 5: is nothing like the end of the Roman Empire, but 39 00:02:11,360 --> 00:02:13,239 Speaker 5: it's a lot like the end of the Roman Republic. 40 00:02:13,639 --> 00:02:15,320 Speaker 5: And I think part of the reasons why is because 41 00:02:15,360 --> 00:02:17,680 Speaker 5: you see many of the same systems in place, The 42 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:20,600 Speaker 5: same things that a salesman would use to target you 43 00:02:20,680 --> 00:02:23,280 Speaker 5: today to sell you something would work on an ancient 44 00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:24,359 Speaker 5: Roman too, right. 45 00:02:24,760 --> 00:02:27,320 Speaker 3: Greed, envy, heartstrings. 46 00:02:26,560 --> 00:02:28,760 Speaker 5: You know whatever, all those things are still in play, 47 00:02:29,240 --> 00:02:31,800 Speaker 5: and you throw human beings into a system that's similar 48 00:02:31,800 --> 00:02:34,040 Speaker 5: to ours in the sense that it's a republic, and 49 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:37,160 Speaker 5: you're gonna see similar dynamics. For example, if you want 50 00:02:37,200 --> 00:02:39,080 Speaker 5: to say, and I don't know how you couldn't that 51 00:02:39,200 --> 00:02:42,119 Speaker 5: corruption is an element of our system right now that's 52 00:02:42,120 --> 00:02:45,520 Speaker 5: causing problems. The Romans would have recognized that too, for example. 53 00:02:45,520 --> 00:02:48,760 Speaker 5: So yes, the answer is points of departure more than 54 00:02:48,840 --> 00:02:50,960 Speaker 5: points of similarity. But if we're going to make any 55 00:02:51,040 --> 00:02:53,320 Speaker 5: historical comparisons, I think that's always going to be the case. 56 00:02:53,960 --> 00:02:55,959 Speaker 4: First of all, I'm wondering, do you think there have 57 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:00,960 Speaker 4: been periods in history when the business world had this 58 00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:02,320 Speaker 4: kind of power? 59 00:03:02,680 --> 00:03:03,840 Speaker 1: I mean, you think about like. 60 00:03:05,400 --> 00:03:08,560 Speaker 4: I've in stories written that you know, Facebook is the 61 00:03:08,560 --> 00:03:11,000 Speaker 4: biggest and most powerful media company in history just because. 62 00:03:10,760 --> 00:03:13,000 Speaker 1: It has a huge, you know, global footprint. 63 00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:17,040 Speaker 4: You have businesses operating at a scale that is that 64 00:03:17,160 --> 00:03:21,080 Speaker 4: feels you know new. We published a story a couple 65 00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:25,040 Speaker 4: of months back about Bloomberg did about. 66 00:03:24,680 --> 00:03:25,800 Speaker 1: Elon Musk's wealth. 67 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:31,760 Speaker 4: Essentially, he is about as rich as Rockefeller was during 68 00:03:31,760 --> 00:03:34,119 Speaker 4: the you know, basically the height of the Gilded Age. 69 00:03:34,160 --> 00:03:36,680 Speaker 1: Have we had periods. 70 00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:39,720 Speaker 4: Of this this level of dominance where business guys had 71 00:03:39,720 --> 00:03:41,800 Speaker 4: this amount of sway. 72 00:03:42,800 --> 00:03:45,000 Speaker 5: Yes, But the difference, so the part that we're not 73 00:03:45,120 --> 00:03:48,000 Speaker 5: that we're ignoring here with these comparisons, is the difference 74 00:03:48,040 --> 00:03:50,560 Speaker 5: in the US government at the time. So if you're 75 00:03:50,720 --> 00:03:54,840 Speaker 5: playing within the normal constitutional guard rails in the Gilded Age, 76 00:03:54,840 --> 00:03:59,880 Speaker 5: for example, the late nineteenth century, then your power is constrained. 77 00:04:00,160 --> 00:04:00,600 Speaker 1: Vis a vi. 78 00:04:01,280 --> 00:04:05,000 Speaker 5: The Rockefellers or the Vanderbilts or those people. We're not 79 00:04:05,080 --> 00:04:08,160 Speaker 5: playing by those rules anymore. And so when we talk 80 00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:10,920 Speaker 5: about the relationship of the ability of the Vanderbilts or 81 00:04:10,920 --> 00:04:13,440 Speaker 5: the Carnegie or any of those people to influence government, 82 00:04:13,920 --> 00:04:16,920 Speaker 5: government was less powerful back then and it's not now. 83 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:20,120 Speaker 5: And and truthfully, one could have expected a Supreme Court 84 00:04:20,240 --> 00:04:23,240 Speaker 5: or a Congress to come in if the president, you know, 85 00:04:23,320 --> 00:04:25,880 Speaker 5: stepped on the toes of too many important business leaders. 86 00:04:26,560 --> 00:04:28,440 Speaker 5: I don't think that's I don't think we're there anymore. 87 00:04:28,480 --> 00:04:31,360 Speaker 5: I think part of what happens when the president becomes 88 00:04:31,400 --> 00:04:34,400 Speaker 5: more powerful than the president has ever been is everyone 89 00:04:34,440 --> 00:04:35,839 Speaker 5: else around him is diminished. 90 00:04:36,120 --> 00:04:38,800 Speaker 4: One of the things that when I think about some 91 00:04:38,839 --> 00:04:42,120 Speaker 4: of these big tech companies is that I've noticed is 92 00:04:42,160 --> 00:04:46,520 Speaker 4: that they they're sometimes explicitly or implicitly framed as empires. 93 00:04:46,640 --> 00:04:46,840 Speaker 1: You know. 94 00:04:46,920 --> 00:04:50,600 Speaker 4: Mark Zuckerberg, you know, kind of famously is like a huge. 95 00:04:50,279 --> 00:04:52,120 Speaker 1: Fan of of. 96 00:04:52,160 --> 00:04:55,840 Speaker 4: Classical history down to a haircut, like, So, what are 97 00:04:55,880 --> 00:04:58,560 Speaker 4: some of the ways in which that kind of popular 98 00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:03,000 Speaker 4: idea of of what you know, Greek and Roman culture 99 00:05:03,400 --> 00:05:05,760 Speaker 4: or history is versus the reality? 100 00:05:06,560 --> 00:05:09,279 Speaker 5: Well, I mean, I think it's the difference between and 101 00:05:09,279 --> 00:05:11,360 Speaker 5: I think we all fall into this category, the difference 102 00:05:11,400 --> 00:05:14,560 Speaker 5: between some of the high water marks of those earlier 103 00:05:14,600 --> 00:05:17,040 Speaker 5: civilizations that we noticed that made it in the history 104 00:05:17,040 --> 00:05:19,039 Speaker 5: books that are famous, that roll off the tongue of 105 00:05:19,040 --> 00:05:22,000 Speaker 5: some people that are shown in movies, and the reality 106 00:05:22,040 --> 00:05:23,919 Speaker 5: of most people on the ground and what life was 107 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:26,360 Speaker 5: like back then. I think we forget about that kind 108 00:05:26,400 --> 00:05:28,120 Speaker 5: of stuff. So, for example, I'll run into some of 109 00:05:28,120 --> 00:05:30,680 Speaker 5: these guys that we'll talk about the dangers of immigration 110 00:05:30,920 --> 00:05:34,200 Speaker 5: or mixed societies and all this sort of stuff, or 111 00:05:34,240 --> 00:05:35,800 Speaker 5: they'll say things like one of the things I'll hear 112 00:05:35,880 --> 00:05:38,400 Speaker 5: is the Roman Empire fell because of mass immigration. I 113 00:05:38,400 --> 00:05:41,000 Speaker 5: heard that from one of these guys. Yeah, but what 114 00:05:41,040 --> 00:05:44,000 Speaker 5: they're ignoring is that all the way back to the 115 00:05:44,040 --> 00:05:47,320 Speaker 5: Republic so we're talking centuries and centuries and centuries before. 116 00:05:47,720 --> 00:05:53,640 Speaker 5: These are multicultural empires with many religions many so in 117 00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:56,920 Speaker 5: other words, none of that sort of matches the actual 118 00:05:57,080 --> 00:05:59,680 Speaker 5: historical vibe that happened. If you want to get the 119 00:05:59,680 --> 00:06:01,880 Speaker 5: big and you want to really understand this area, you 120 00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:04,120 Speaker 5: can't ignore those kind of things. Otherwise, you know, you're 121 00:06:04,400 --> 00:06:06,479 Speaker 5: sort of playing a little dress up game here in 122 00:06:06,480 --> 00:06:06,880 Speaker 5: your head. 123 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:07,520 Speaker 1: Do you think the. 124 00:06:07,839 --> 00:06:11,320 Speaker 4: Kind of wealth disparity that we have in this country, like, 125 00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:14,800 Speaker 4: how does that compare to the wealth disparity during the 126 00:06:15,360 --> 00:06:17,159 Speaker 4: you know, at the other points in American history, even 127 00:06:17,160 --> 00:06:17,839 Speaker 4: world history. 128 00:06:19,040 --> 00:06:20,520 Speaker 3: It's the worst in American history. 129 00:06:20,720 --> 00:06:24,240 Speaker 5: I saw something the other day comparing Vanderbilt's wealth to 130 00:06:24,360 --> 00:06:26,880 Speaker 5: some of the wealthy people today, and it's a fraction. 131 00:06:27,040 --> 00:06:29,240 Speaker 5: But that's that was part of the problem that happened. 132 00:06:29,240 --> 00:06:31,600 Speaker 5: That's that's one of the theories of what destroyed the 133 00:06:31,680 --> 00:06:35,000 Speaker 5: Roman Republic is the wealth getting out of control and 134 00:06:35,040 --> 00:06:37,479 Speaker 5: the I mean, there's a reason why, over and over 135 00:06:37,520 --> 00:06:41,159 Speaker 5: and over again you had these reformers in Rome, Saturninus, 136 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:43,920 Speaker 5: the grocchy Eye, all those kinds of people. Over and 137 00:06:43,960 --> 00:06:47,080 Speaker 5: over you had these cycles come come forward where it's 138 00:06:47,279 --> 00:06:51,000 Speaker 5: and and what really made the cycles particularly nefarious was 139 00:06:51,040 --> 00:06:53,560 Speaker 5: many of these poor people who were angry at the 140 00:06:53,800 --> 00:06:58,760 Speaker 5: rich and poor divide were legionaries. Right, we're military men 141 00:06:58,839 --> 00:07:02,160 Speaker 5: and people who you were able to get on your 142 00:07:02,200 --> 00:07:04,760 Speaker 5: side as a reformer by saying and the exact line 143 00:07:04,800 --> 00:07:06,720 Speaker 5: I'm trying to go from memory was something, you know, 144 00:07:06,839 --> 00:07:07,560 Speaker 5: I forgot who it was. 145 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:09,400 Speaker 3: I think it was one of the Grocchy Eye brothers. 146 00:07:09,160 --> 00:07:12,320 Speaker 5: Who said to the soldiers, you people have won an 147 00:07:12,320 --> 00:07:14,720 Speaker 5: empire for Rome, and yet you do not even have 148 00:07:14,800 --> 00:07:17,160 Speaker 5: a little plot of land you can call your own. 149 00:07:17,840 --> 00:07:20,640 Speaker 5: We would call that class warfare today in the modern 150 00:07:20,800 --> 00:07:24,440 Speaker 5: you know, American society. But this is exactly what tore 151 00:07:24,560 --> 00:07:29,920 Speaker 5: Rome to pieces, right, because those those a conservative would 152 00:07:29,920 --> 00:07:34,960 Speaker 5: call them demagogues, a liberal might call them reformers. But 153 00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:37,680 Speaker 5: they were basically making the case that these soldiers fought 154 00:07:37,680 --> 00:07:39,280 Speaker 5: for the empire and they deserve a piece of it, 155 00:07:39,560 --> 00:07:41,680 Speaker 5: and the rich were suggesting, well, why should they have 156 00:07:41,720 --> 00:07:42,280 Speaker 5: a piece of it. 157 00:07:42,360 --> 00:07:43,560 Speaker 3: We bought that land, it's our you know. 158 00:07:43,600 --> 00:07:45,800 Speaker 5: In other words, they were hiding behind the same age 159 00:07:45,800 --> 00:07:47,840 Speaker 5: you would hide behind a day, and the soldiers were 160 00:07:47,840 --> 00:07:50,760 Speaker 5: basically saying, we're veterans, we deserve this, and then when 161 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:53,320 Speaker 5: generals would come in and say you're being mistreated, you 162 00:07:53,360 --> 00:07:53,880 Speaker 5: deserve this. 163 00:07:54,320 --> 00:07:55,920 Speaker 3: Well, that's how, all of a sudden you get an 164 00:07:56,040 --> 00:07:56,920 Speaker 3: army fighting for you. 165 00:07:57,040 --> 00:08:00,960 Speaker 5: Right when the current president was even suggesting little things 166 00:08:01,000 --> 00:08:03,120 Speaker 5: to help the military. I mean, they almost seemed, you know, 167 00:08:03,120 --> 00:08:06,400 Speaker 5: when we talk about rhyming history rhyming, it almost seemed like, 168 00:08:06,520 --> 00:08:09,520 Speaker 5: how can we make these soldiers have a certain loyalty 169 00:08:09,560 --> 00:08:12,600 Speaker 5: maybe to the president rather than to the constitution of 170 00:08:12,640 --> 00:08:15,280 Speaker 5: the country. And that is what destroyed Rome, when all 171 00:08:15,280 --> 00:08:18,320 Speaker 5: of a sudden the armies had allegiance to individuals and 172 00:08:18,360 --> 00:08:19,040 Speaker 5: not the state. 173 00:08:19,520 --> 00:08:21,000 Speaker 3: That's the beginning of the end right there. 174 00:08:28,640 --> 00:08:32,560 Speaker 4: Just to come back to the the kind of wealth disparity. 175 00:08:33,040 --> 00:08:36,360 Speaker 4: We're seeing a lot of different populist movements, both left 176 00:08:36,520 --> 00:08:40,840 Speaker 4: right and so on. You've seen a lot of these 177 00:08:40,960 --> 00:08:44,840 Speaker 4: rich guys get behind aspects of the right wing populist movie, 178 00:08:44,840 --> 00:08:47,199 Speaker 4: you know, like kind of fan the flames, and and 179 00:08:48,040 --> 00:08:51,240 Speaker 4: I'm kind of curious, like what do you think, whether 180 00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:56,440 Speaker 4: going looking at the Rome story or any other historical parallel, 181 00:08:56,480 --> 00:08:59,920 Speaker 4: Like is there a way this ends that isn't you know? 182 00:09:00,240 --> 00:09:04,360 Speaker 4: That isn't like where we don't have another sequiss Centennial 183 00:09:04,440 --> 00:09:06,319 Speaker 4: of America in two hundred and fifty years. 184 00:09:06,520 --> 00:09:08,120 Speaker 5: Well, there's a fork in the road, right. The fork 185 00:09:08,160 --> 00:09:11,280 Speaker 5: in the road is either things get fixed or they don't. 186 00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:16,400 Speaker 5: And you can pull the historical examples of both of 187 00:09:16,440 --> 00:09:18,720 Speaker 5: those things. If we're sticking with Rome, I mean, I 188 00:09:18,800 --> 00:09:22,120 Speaker 5: mentioned all those reformers earlier. The Saturnine is the grachy eye, 189 00:09:22,120 --> 00:09:24,680 Speaker 5: all those people, well, all of those were eras in 190 00:09:24,760 --> 00:09:27,000 Speaker 5: Roman history, where if you look at the fortunes of 191 00:09:27,040 --> 00:09:29,439 Speaker 5: the republic, it's like a stock market, and there are 192 00:09:29,520 --> 00:09:32,480 Speaker 5: times when it's going well, in times where it's going badly, 193 00:09:32,559 --> 00:09:36,520 Speaker 5: and oftentimes I mean, let me use a US history example. 194 00:09:37,440 --> 00:09:39,360 Speaker 5: I don't know what history books in high school look 195 00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:41,440 Speaker 5: like anymore, but when I was in high school, you know, 196 00:09:41,480 --> 00:09:43,480 Speaker 5: you divide those things in chapters. 197 00:09:43,040 --> 00:09:45,160 Speaker 3: Because otherwise it's just one big book. 198 00:09:45,640 --> 00:09:48,160 Speaker 5: And the chapters are usually based on things that sort 199 00:09:48,200 --> 00:09:51,800 Speaker 5: of summarize the age or the era. And in the 200 00:09:51,880 --> 00:09:54,560 Speaker 5: history high school textbook I used to read, you'd have 201 00:09:54,600 --> 00:09:57,920 Speaker 5: the Gilded Age, the Vanderbilts, the Carnegie, the late nineteenth century, 202 00:09:57,920 --> 00:10:00,280 Speaker 5: all that, and what age was that followed? What was 203 00:10:00,280 --> 00:10:02,440 Speaker 5: the next chapter in your high school history book? The 204 00:10:02,520 --> 00:10:06,760 Speaker 5: progressive era. Now, unfortunately, the terms have all acquired all 205 00:10:06,800 --> 00:10:09,160 Speaker 5: sorts of modern meanings that didn't apply back then. The 206 00:10:09,200 --> 00:10:12,599 Speaker 5: Progressive era had presidents from both parties. Woodrow Wilson was 207 00:10:12,640 --> 00:10:16,080 Speaker 5: a progressive, Theodore Roosevelt was a progressive, both from different parties. 208 00:10:16,280 --> 00:10:19,120 Speaker 5: But that era was a pendulum swing and a reaction 209 00:10:19,320 --> 00:10:23,960 Speaker 5: to the previous age, that is, correcting the imbalances of 210 00:10:24,040 --> 00:10:27,880 Speaker 5: the previous age. When it goes wrong, when it goes 211 00:10:27,920 --> 00:10:31,440 Speaker 5: sideways is when the self correction mechanism is broken. So 212 00:10:31,520 --> 00:10:33,800 Speaker 5: if we live in a new gilded age and we 213 00:10:33,880 --> 00:10:37,679 Speaker 5: can't follow that with an age of reform that takes 214 00:10:37,720 --> 00:10:40,319 Speaker 5: a look at what went wrong and corrects it, well, 215 00:10:40,360 --> 00:10:42,839 Speaker 5: then you're screwed. And so that's where the question is, 216 00:10:43,040 --> 00:10:45,600 Speaker 5: can we fix this absolutely? And we have before, But 217 00:10:45,679 --> 00:10:47,720 Speaker 5: if we don't, well then we're in trouble. 218 00:10:48,160 --> 00:10:49,240 Speaker 1: We talked about Progressive era. 219 00:10:49,280 --> 00:10:52,040 Speaker 4: I'm kind of curious about other, not necessarily even American history, 220 00:10:52,559 --> 00:10:55,720 Speaker 4: when when the fork went in the right direction. 221 00:10:56,440 --> 00:10:58,960 Speaker 5: I think the best one to use as an example 222 00:10:59,120 --> 00:11:03,360 Speaker 5: is the most recent, the post Watergate era, because I 223 00:11:03,440 --> 00:11:06,320 Speaker 5: think that was a perfect example of something that appeared 224 00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:10,960 Speaker 5: to a lot of Americans as something that screamed for 225 00:11:11,040 --> 00:11:14,240 Speaker 5: some sort of reform afterwards. You know, when you have 226 00:11:14,280 --> 00:11:17,559 Speaker 5: a president resigning under pressure of being from being impeached, 227 00:11:18,520 --> 00:11:20,840 Speaker 5: when the country discovers a whole bunch of things that 228 00:11:20,880 --> 00:11:22,960 Speaker 5: have been going on in secret that seemed to run 229 00:11:23,120 --> 00:11:26,000 Speaker 5: totally contradictory to the American spirit, and all these sorts 230 00:11:26,040 --> 00:11:31,120 Speaker 5: of things, it seemed positively negligent to not then do 231 00:11:31,240 --> 00:11:33,000 Speaker 5: something about it. I mean, how can you acknowledge that 232 00:11:33,080 --> 00:11:36,080 Speaker 5: situation and then just say, oh, well, I mean, it's 233 00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:39,840 Speaker 5: incumbent upon you then to repair the damage. Right, once 234 00:11:39,840 --> 00:11:41,920 Speaker 5: the damage is exposed, once you see that hole in 235 00:11:41,960 --> 00:11:44,360 Speaker 5: the pool in your backyard and you realize it's leaking, 236 00:11:45,200 --> 00:11:48,440 Speaker 5: it's negligent to walk away from that, right. And the 237 00:11:48,559 --> 00:11:51,240 Speaker 5: post Watergate era had a ton of reform. What a 238 00:11:51,240 --> 00:11:53,440 Speaker 5: lot of people don't realize, but you can go look 239 00:11:53,440 --> 00:11:57,040 Speaker 5: at YouTube and see some of the original news stories, 240 00:11:57,440 --> 00:12:01,240 Speaker 5: is that there were congressional hearings, I mean the Church 241 00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:04,320 Speaker 5: and Pike Committee hearings in the post Watergate era, which 242 00:12:04,360 --> 00:12:08,720 Speaker 5: only happened because Nixon's resignation and the need to reform things. 243 00:12:09,080 --> 00:12:11,440 Speaker 5: That's where we know the majority of stuff we know 244 00:12:11,559 --> 00:12:15,280 Speaker 5: about CIA activities going back to the creation of the CIA. 245 00:12:15,360 --> 00:12:18,040 Speaker 5: I mean they were showing weapons that we use to 246 00:12:18,120 --> 00:12:22,040 Speaker 5: assassinate foreign leaders in public on the news. 247 00:12:23,320 --> 00:12:24,280 Speaker 3: The number of people in. 248 00:12:24,240 --> 00:12:26,800 Speaker 5: The intelligence community that must have been ready to jump 249 00:12:26,840 --> 00:12:30,160 Speaker 5: off a bridge seeing that on television must have been intense, 250 00:12:30,200 --> 00:12:33,480 Speaker 5: Except that was what was needed to sort of shine 251 00:12:33,600 --> 00:12:37,840 Speaker 5: the sunlight, the great disinfectant on what had happened and 252 00:12:37,920 --> 00:12:40,400 Speaker 5: to cleanse ourself, if we want to look at it 253 00:12:40,440 --> 00:12:43,680 Speaker 5: this way, of the sins of not just the Nixonian era, 254 00:12:44,520 --> 00:12:46,800 Speaker 5: but what the Church and Pike Committee hearings were showing 255 00:12:47,200 --> 00:12:50,120 Speaker 5: was all the previous administrations from the last few, right, 256 00:12:50,160 --> 00:12:54,600 Speaker 5: So they were showing the dirty laundry of our country 257 00:12:54,640 --> 00:12:58,440 Speaker 5: as a way to help us change and not go 258 00:12:58,520 --> 00:13:00,280 Speaker 5: down that route again. And the only way to do 259 00:13:00,320 --> 00:13:02,120 Speaker 5: it was to show everybody what had happened. But the 260 00:13:02,120 --> 00:13:04,640 Speaker 5: only reason you could do it is because of the 261 00:13:04,679 --> 00:13:09,040 Speaker 5: momentum generated by the fall of Richard Nixon and the 262 00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:11,840 Speaker 5: need to repair the damage that had. 263 00:13:11,880 --> 00:13:13,199 Speaker 3: Cropped up as a result of that. 264 00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:16,040 Speaker 5: And Nixon always screamed that he wasn't doing anything, that 265 00:13:16,160 --> 00:13:18,960 Speaker 5: Johnson wasn't doing, and that Kennedy wasn't doing, And he 266 00:13:19,040 --> 00:13:22,400 Speaker 5: might have had a point, But that just exemplifies even 267 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:25,880 Speaker 5: more that there needed to be a repair situation. I 268 00:13:26,160 --> 00:13:29,960 Speaker 5: hesitate and flip flop on whether Iran contra in the 269 00:13:30,040 --> 00:13:34,120 Speaker 5: nineteen eighties counts as something like that also, But there's 270 00:13:34,120 --> 00:13:37,120 Speaker 5: no doubt that the post Watergate era is a period 271 00:13:37,160 --> 00:13:40,240 Speaker 5: where the pendulum swung and we went to a reform 272 00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:42,920 Speaker 5: era and tried to correct some of the imbalances. And 273 00:13:42,960 --> 00:13:46,200 Speaker 5: that's what's been missing over the last two or three decades. 274 00:13:46,240 --> 00:13:47,720 Speaker 1: I think it's funny when I think about the news. 275 00:13:47,920 --> 00:13:50,360 Speaker 4: Maybe this is just a kind of like present day 276 00:13:50,400 --> 00:13:52,839 Speaker 4: bias or something, But whenever I think about Watergate, it 277 00:13:52,880 --> 00:13:55,960 Speaker 4: seems so quaint, like they broke into a hotel, like 278 00:13:56,000 --> 00:13:58,840 Speaker 4: I mean, it just seems like so small compared to 279 00:13:58,920 --> 00:14:03,040 Speaker 4: like some of them more recent uh you know the 280 00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:07,960 Speaker 4: a you know, a mob breaking into the US capital, uh, 281 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:10,160 Speaker 4: you know whatever, like some of the some of the 282 00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:11,760 Speaker 4: pardons and crypto stuff. 283 00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:14,960 Speaker 1: And but perhaps that's just you know, you're. 284 00:14:14,800 --> 00:14:16,920 Speaker 5: Falling into the trap Nixon would have wanted you to 285 00:14:16,960 --> 00:14:19,880 Speaker 5: fall into. Right, It's just a burglary. We're forgetting the 286 00:14:19,920 --> 00:14:24,760 Speaker 5: firebombing of the Brookings Institution. There's a wonderful book I 287 00:14:24,800 --> 00:14:28,160 Speaker 5: think It's called the Poisoning of the Press, and one 288 00:14:28,160 --> 00:14:30,600 Speaker 5: of the things it talks about in there is that 289 00:14:30,680 --> 00:14:33,080 Speaker 5: there was a U and it got as far as 290 00:14:33,080 --> 00:14:37,280 Speaker 5: the president, a plot to kill reporters. Jack Anderson, g 291 00:14:37,440 --> 00:14:40,520 Speaker 5: Gordon Lyddy had suggested putting poison. 292 00:14:40,160 --> 00:14:41,320 Speaker 3: On his steering wheel. 293 00:14:42,360 --> 00:14:45,320 Speaker 5: So to suggest that we're talking about a third rate burglary, 294 00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:47,320 Speaker 5: which is what all of Nixon's people wanted it to 295 00:14:47,360 --> 00:14:50,000 Speaker 5: sound like, ignores the fact that no, no, no, no, he 296 00:14:50,080 --> 00:14:52,400 Speaker 5: had an enemy's list he was going to go after. 297 00:14:52,440 --> 00:14:54,920 Speaker 5: I mean, like I said, his close inner circle is 298 00:14:54,960 --> 00:14:58,240 Speaker 5: talking about ways to kill news reporters. That's not a 299 00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:01,120 Speaker 5: third rate burglary, right, So, so I feel like some 300 00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:03,680 Speaker 5: of that is the propaganda that was thrown out there 301 00:15:03,680 --> 00:15:05,600 Speaker 5: almost as a political sense. I mean, look, if you're 302 00:15:05,680 --> 00:15:09,080 Speaker 5: Gerald Ford trying to run a political campaign against Jimmy 303 00:15:09,120 --> 00:15:12,040 Speaker 5: Carter in nineteen seventy six, do you want that to 304 00:15:12,080 --> 00:15:15,640 Speaker 5: be the way the Watergate situation was portrayed. No, it 305 00:15:15,720 --> 00:15:18,360 Speaker 5: ran smack dab into our political need to frame this 306 00:15:18,480 --> 00:15:21,960 Speaker 5: in a way that didn't hamstring the Republicans for more 307 00:15:22,360 --> 00:15:24,160 Speaker 5: than it had to hamstring them. Right, No one was 308 00:15:24,200 --> 00:15:26,520 Speaker 5: going to vote for a Republican in seventy six, right 309 00:15:26,560 --> 00:15:29,040 Speaker 5: after the Nixonian situation. But you didn't want it to 310 00:15:29,040 --> 00:15:31,920 Speaker 5: hamstring the Republicans for a generation, so you portray it 311 00:15:31,960 --> 00:15:33,200 Speaker 5: as a third rate burglary. 312 00:15:33,320 --> 00:15:33,760 Speaker 3: It wasn't. 313 00:15:33,760 --> 00:15:35,920 Speaker 5: There was a lot more to it, And the third 314 00:15:36,040 --> 00:15:38,200 Speaker 5: rate burglary part is just what exposed. It was the 315 00:15:38,200 --> 00:15:40,600 Speaker 5: tip of the iceberg that exposed everything else. And then 316 00:15:40,600 --> 00:15:42,480 Speaker 5: when you have the Church and Pike Committee hearings and 317 00:15:42,480 --> 00:15:45,360 Speaker 5: everything else, you're not just exposing the Nixonian era, like 318 00:15:45,400 --> 00:15:48,600 Speaker 5: I said, you're exposing LBJ, You're exposing Kennedy. 319 00:15:48,720 --> 00:15:50,400 Speaker 3: I mean, in other words, that was. 320 00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:52,480 Speaker 5: The thing that allowed us to open up the door 321 00:15:52,920 --> 00:15:56,200 Speaker 5: and examine what had gone wrong really since the nineteen 322 00:15:56,240 --> 00:15:57,880 Speaker 5: fifties maybe forty eight. 323 00:15:58,360 --> 00:15:59,920 Speaker 1: Dan Carlin, thank you so much for joining. 324 00:16:00,040 --> 00:16:02,360 Speaker 5: Yes, let me just say one thing in closing here, 325 00:16:02,400 --> 00:16:06,760 Speaker 5: and I am a fan of what I call the 326 00:16:06,800 --> 00:16:11,960 Speaker 5: myth of America, and I'm really invested in hoping that 327 00:16:12,040 --> 00:16:14,800 Speaker 5: we turn this around in exactly the ways you and 328 00:16:14,800 --> 00:16:17,720 Speaker 5: I have talked about all this time. Do we still 329 00:16:17,760 --> 00:16:20,240 Speaker 5: have it in us to do this? That's the big 330 00:16:20,320 --> 00:16:24,600 Speaker 5: question of our era, And I'm hopeful and I'm. 331 00:16:23,960 --> 00:16:26,000 Speaker 3: Pledged to do what I can to help. This is 332 00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:27,440 Speaker 3: the test of our time. 333 00:16:27,560 --> 00:16:31,400 Speaker 5: As Americans, and this is the crucible for us. And 334 00:16:31,480 --> 00:16:33,640 Speaker 5: so we'll see what happens. But we need a reform 335 00:16:33,680 --> 00:16:36,080 Speaker 5: era after this, and it has to focus on the corruption. 336 00:16:36,160 --> 00:16:37,680 Speaker 3: It has to focus on the two parties. 337 00:16:37,720 --> 00:16:40,040 Speaker 5: You can't just say this is a Trump thing because 338 00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:43,200 Speaker 5: he's just the guy who proved that the guard rails 339 00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:45,520 Speaker 5: were mythical. We have to deal with the fact that 340 00:16:45,520 --> 00:16:49,360 Speaker 5: the guardrails were mythical, and otherwise we're going to resign 341 00:16:49,440 --> 00:16:52,200 Speaker 5: ourselves to having no guard rails and that's. 342 00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:52,520 Speaker 3: Not a good thing. 343 00:16:54,000 --> 00:16:55,240 Speaker 1: Dan, thanks so much for being here. 344 00:16:56,120 --> 00:16:57,560 Speaker 3: Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. 345 00:17:04,600 --> 00:17:06,840 Speaker 1: This show is produced by Jasmine J. T. Green and 346 00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:07,600 Speaker 1: Stacy Wong. 347 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:11,879 Speaker 4: Mangus Hendrickson is our supervising producer. Sam Rogic handles engineering, 348 00:17:12,080 --> 00:17:15,200 Speaker 4: and Dave Purcell fact checks. Special thanks to Jeff Muscus, 349 00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:18,320 Speaker 4: Julia Rubin, Angel Recchio, and Maria Ling. If you have 350 00:17:18,359 --> 00:17:20,320 Speaker 4: a minute, please rate and review the show. It'll mean 351 00:17:20,359 --> 00:17:21,800 Speaker 4: a lot to us. And if you have a story 352 00:17:21,800 --> 00:17:24,639 Speaker 4: that should be our business, email us at Everybody's at 353 00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:27,480 Speaker 4: Bloomberg dot net. That's everybody with an s at bloomberg 354 00:17:27,560 --> 00:17:29,120 Speaker 4: dot net. Thank you for listening. 355 00:17:29,200 --> 00:17:30,320 Speaker 1: We will see you next week.