WEBVTT - Nancy Reagan: A Uniquely Influential First Lady 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:09.600 He absolutely could not have been president without her, in 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:12.960 part because I mean he had a vision, he had 0:00:13.200 --> 0:00:15.840 political gifts, He could connect with the country in a 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:19.079 way that I think we hadn't seen anybody do in 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.759 a very long time. But he was a solitary figure, 0:00:22.800 --> 0:00:25.360 and she was really the one who built the network, 0:00:25.440 --> 0:00:29.760 the scaffolding of his rise. Ronald Reagan always knew where 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:32.640 he wanted to go, but Nancy Reagan had a better 0:00:32.680 --> 0:00:34.840 idea of what it was going to take to get there. 0:00:36.840 --> 0:00:41.879 That was author Karen Tumulti talking about Nancy Reagan, one 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:46.040 of the most controversial and underestimated first ladies this country 0:00:46.040 --> 0:00:49.600 has ever had. I'm a Land Bervier and this is 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:53.640 Seneca's on women to hear. We are bringing you one 0:00:53.720 --> 0:00:57.800 hundred of the world's most inspiring and history making women. 0:00:58.080 --> 0:01:02.600 You need to hear. Nancy Reagan's time as First Lady 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:07.119 was marked by both admiration and criticism. She brought elegance 0:01:07.120 --> 0:01:11.039 and sophistication to the White House. She drew attention for 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.840 her anti drug campaign I'll just Say No, and she 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.559 was attacked for purchasing a new set of presidential china 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:22.360 that costs more than two hundred thousand dollars, but she 0:01:22.600 --> 0:01:27.400 was so much more. Karen Tumulty, an award winning journalist 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:31.040 and columnist for The Washington Post, has written a must 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:35.160 read book about Nancy Reagan that reveals her in all 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:40.880 her complexity and shows why she's considered a uniquely influential 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:46.120 first Lady. Listen to Karen Tumulty and learn why Nancy 0:01:46.160 --> 0:01:52.320 Reagan is one of Seneca's One Women to hear. I'm 0:01:52.360 --> 0:01:57.280 here today with Karen Tumulty, award winning journalist and author 0:01:57.320 --> 0:02:01.000 of a new book about Nancy Reagan. Aaron, welcome. It's 0:02:01.080 --> 0:02:04.000 delightful to be with you. Oh Milan, It's wonderful to 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:06.840 be with you as well. Thank you. Your book is 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:12.160 called The Triumph of Nancy Reagan. Why that title? What 0:02:12.200 --> 0:02:19.960 was the triumph? Um? I think that it explores her influence, uh, 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:23.800 both in the rise of Ronald Reagan, you know, one 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:27.360 of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, in 0:02:27.440 --> 0:02:32.359 the success of his presidency and ultimately in the shaping 0:02:32.360 --> 0:02:38.200 of his legacy. But it also does not flinch from, uh, 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:43.600 the many traumas that she experienced in her life, her flaws, 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:48.040 her demons, and you know, it also goes through the 0:02:48.080 --> 0:02:52.000 difficulties of the political environment in which she lived and 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:56.119 the really turbulent times in the country. Karen, You've had 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.359 such a distinguished career as a political reporter and now 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:03.440 you're a call missed for the Washington Post. What got 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:06.720 you interested in doing a book about Mrs Reagan? After all, 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:10.200 you've covered other first ladies, You've had a wealth of 0:03:10.240 --> 0:03:13.320 possibilities and what you might take up in a book. 0:03:13.919 --> 0:03:17.519 But why Nancy Reagan? Well, this was actually an idea 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.200 that Simon and Schuster, my publisher, came up with, and 0:03:21.240 --> 0:03:24.320 they came to me in the fall of sixteen and 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:28.400 said they this was just months after after Nancy Reagan 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.359 had died, and said they were interested in a biography 0:03:31.560 --> 0:03:35.560 of her. And honestly, you know, I thought she might 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.920 be sort of an interesting and you know, multi layered 0:03:40.320 --> 0:03:44.800 subject to write my first book about. But it really 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:46.840 was I worked on this book for four and a 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.680 half years, and it really wasn't until I was at 0:03:49.760 --> 0:03:53.920 least two years into the research that I began to 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:59.200 sort of put together all the many strands of her story. 0:03:59.400 --> 0:04:04.680 And the most important of that was the incredible influence 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.800 that she wielded in the Reagan White House, not just 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:14.800 as you know, the closest adviser to a really unique 0:04:15.040 --> 0:04:18.440 president who really was close to only one person in 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.280 the world and he married her. Um, but also in 0:04:22.320 --> 0:04:27.159 the shaping of of policy. I ended up writing a 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:30.080 lot more in this book than I anticipated, for instance, 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:34.839 about foreign policy, about her role in the you know, 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:38.080 in the warming of relations between the United States and 0:04:38.120 --> 0:04:40.240 the Soviet Union that led up to the end of 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.320 the Cold War. And I think the heart of the 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.719 book is the chapter on the Iran contrast scandal, where 0:04:47.800 --> 0:04:53.919 Nancy Reagan really almost singlehandedly ran the effort that rescued 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:58.520 her husband's presidency. You know, it really is a fascinating 0:04:58.839 --> 0:05:02.599 biography because, as as you said so well, she is 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.120 multi layered, and I think many of the layers that 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:09.719 you tell us a great deal more about um in 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.640 the book are not very well known. In fact, I 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.680 would imagine UM it's one of the amazing revelations of 0:05:16.720 --> 0:05:21.039 the book, because we've had activists, first, ladies like Eleanor Roosevelt. 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:25.360 We've had trend setters like Jackie Kennedy, women who changed 0:05:25.400 --> 0:05:30.800 the national conversation like Brave Betty Ford. What do you 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:33.839 think Nancy's legacy will be well. First of all, you 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:37.039 have to understand what Ronald Reagan was. He, for all 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:41.520 of his political gifts, was very conflict a verse. He 0:05:41.680 --> 0:05:47.160 was a an eternal optimist, and he really really needed 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.120 a troubleshooter, somebody who could watch his back, somebody who 0:05:51.200 --> 0:05:55.680 was actually a better judge sometimes the people around him 0:05:55.880 --> 0:05:58.680 than he was. As James Baker, the first White House 0:05:58.720 --> 0:06:01.600 Chief of Staff in the the Reagan administration, told me, 0:06:02.279 --> 0:06:06.440 she had amazing instincts, and in fact, her instincts were 0:06:06.520 --> 0:06:10.960 better than his. And if she had any ideology, it 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:16.919 was one thing, the success and well being of Ronald Reagan. 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:23.440 And so her legacy really will be I think his legacy, 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:27.560 which would have been very, very different, I think had 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:31.480 he decided to marry just about anyone else. And again 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:33.960 this is not I mean she had. She was a 0:06:34.040 --> 0:06:38.680 very controversial first lady. She seemed like a throwback to 0:06:39.120 --> 0:06:45.040 the mid twenty century. Feminists scorned her, and she made 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.839 a lot of mistakes. She brought a lot of trouble 0:06:48.000 --> 0:06:51.479 upon herself, but when it came to what was good 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:56.000 for her husband, she was almost unerring. And the men 0:06:56.000 --> 0:07:00.640 in his administration who didn't recognize that. Who didn't realize 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:03.760 what a valuable ally she could be. Who got on 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:06.520 her bad side tended not to last for very long. 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.840 And there were some men in the administration who fell 0:07:10.840 --> 0:07:14.520 into that category. And there were others, I'm sure who 0:07:14.560 --> 0:07:17.760 saw her as a tremendous ally. There were, and I 0:07:17.760 --> 0:07:21.160 think chief among them would have been, uh, Michael Deaver. 0:07:21.280 --> 0:07:24.760 Her closest sort of associate was the White House Deputy 0:07:24.840 --> 0:07:27.600 chief of Staff, and together the two of them really 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:32.560 managed Reagan's image. But the other two people who were 0:07:32.680 --> 0:07:37.920 really shrewd about both her power and how valuable she 0:07:37.960 --> 0:07:41.240 could be were White House Chief of Staff James Baker 0:07:41.800 --> 0:07:47.040 and Secretary of State George Schultz. And often those two 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:52.800 would find themselves aligned against the more ideological members of 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:58.040 the administration. Those three actually, and um, it was often, 0:07:58.080 --> 0:08:02.119 as Baker told me, if you could convince the first 0:08:02.240 --> 0:08:06.480 lady that something was in Ronald Reagan's best interest, you 0:08:06.560 --> 0:08:09.160 had a pretty good shot of getting him on board too. 0:08:09.760 --> 0:08:12.160 And they, of course, the two of them were so 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:16.960 instrumental in Reagan's foreign policy. Uh. And certainly that period 0:08:17.280 --> 0:08:20.440 with the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the possibilities 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.440 that that now represented for the United States in the world. 0:08:25.000 --> 0:08:28.840 So I don't think many of us, if many at all, 0:08:29.240 --> 0:08:32.800 understood what an influential role she played in all of that. 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.800 That's really correct. I opened the book on something George Schultz. 0:08:36.920 --> 0:08:40.560 I interviewed him. He was nineties seven years old, and 0:08:40.640 --> 0:08:44.240 he told me about a dinner that Nancy Reagan invited 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:46.640 him over to when he didn't know the Reagan's very well. 0:08:46.679 --> 0:08:49.559 It was just two couples in the White House where 0:08:49.559 --> 0:08:55.160 he first began to realize how anxious Ronald Reagan was. Now, 0:08:55.520 --> 0:08:58.320 now the dissolution of the Soviet Union looks like it 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:03.079 was almost inevitable, But at the time, uh Reagan was 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:06.280 a president who had decades of anti communist rhetoric. He 0:09:06.320 --> 0:09:09.760 was presiding over the biggest peacetime military build up in history, 0:09:10.400 --> 0:09:14.080 and most of the people in his administration were hardline 0:09:14.160 --> 0:09:16.920 hawks who really thought there could never be any such 0:09:17.000 --> 0:09:21.040 thing as a working relationship with Moscow. But it was 0:09:21.360 --> 0:09:24.560 at that dinner, at that private dinner, that George Schultz 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:29.440 began to realize that the Ronald Reagan was not who 0:09:29.480 --> 0:09:32.400 he thought he was on this issue, and that that 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:36.120 was in fact the entire reason Nancy Reagan had set 0:09:36.200 --> 0:09:38.760 up that dinner so that so that he could see 0:09:38.760 --> 0:09:41.760 something about her husband that really had the potential to 0:09:41.880 --> 0:09:46.800 change history. That's really fascinating. So in any ways, she 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:50.040 was underestimated, because when I think back at the headlines 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:54.199 that she got during some of those years, the headlines 0:09:54.240 --> 0:09:59.000 were about the fancy wardrobe and the china and things 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.720 that really were not substantive at all and didn't really 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:07.080 cast well on her, as you've already said, So it 0:10:07.160 --> 0:10:12.640 seems like she she was tremendously underestimated, and particularly the 0:10:12.720 --> 0:10:15.280 role that she played for her husband. Do you think 0:10:15.320 --> 0:10:17.600 he would have made it to the White House without her? 0:10:18.040 --> 0:10:21.480 I asked that question of people over and over, people 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:26.080 like James Baker, people like Stuart Spencer, who was his 0:10:26.160 --> 0:10:29.520 campaign manager going back to his first race for governor, 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:35.040 his closest political advisor. They were unanimous. He absolutely could 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:38.840 not have been president without her. Uh, in part because 0:10:38.960 --> 0:10:42.560 I mean he had a vision, he had political gifts. 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:44.560 He could connect with the country in a way that 0:10:44.720 --> 0:10:47.880 I think we hadn't seen anybody do in a very 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:50.360 long time. I mean, this is a president who won 0:10:50.679 --> 0:10:56.800 forty nine states, but um, he he was a solitary figure, 0:10:56.880 --> 0:10:59.400 and she was really the one who built the network, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:03.480 the staff holding of his rise. As Luke Cannon wrote 0:11:03.559 --> 0:11:07.880 in one of his biographies of Reagan, Ronald Reagan always 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.000 knew where he wanted to go, but Nancy Reagan had 0:11:11.040 --> 0:11:13.000 a better idea of what it was going to take 0:11:13.040 --> 0:11:17.840 to get there. So interesting, Well, I know you've covered 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:21.280 many a first lady in your time, and it's a 0:11:21.360 --> 0:11:24.120 very peculiar job in many ways, because there is no 0:11:24.240 --> 0:11:28.040 job description, and one is only there by virtue of 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:33.199 with whom she is married, to whom she is married. 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:38.160 And given how much we now know thanks to you 0:11:38.640 --> 0:11:42.040 in this book, what do you think the public reaction 0:11:42.240 --> 0:11:46.480 would have been had there been greater knowledge of Mrs 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.720 Reagan's political involvement, as you said, all the way from 0:11:50.760 --> 0:11:57.360 shaping foreign policy to political decisions about personnel, it would 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:00.319 not have been good. As you said, every first lady 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.400 has to sort of invent this job for herself, and 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:05.440 she has. It's a product of her own interests, the 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:09.079 product of her times, a product of her spouses needs, 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:13.680 his strengths, his weaknesses. But one thing that a number 0:12:13.840 --> 0:12:17.800 of them have learned the hard way that would include 0:12:17.800 --> 0:12:21.240 eleanor Roosevelt. That would include your old boss, Hillary Clinton. 0:12:22.080 --> 0:12:26.120 Is that when the word powerful is applied to a 0:12:26.200 --> 0:12:29.880 first lady, it is usually not intended as a compliment. 0:12:30.679 --> 0:12:34.280 And while it was very you know, in the first term, 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.360 I think people really wrote Nancy Reagan off as a shallow, 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:42.160 dilettante socialite when the extent of her power became clear 0:12:42.320 --> 0:12:45.240 during Iran Contra, when among other things, she engineers the 0:12:45.360 --> 0:12:47.679 firing of the White House Chief of Staff and then 0:12:47.679 --> 0:12:51.480 White House Chief of Staff Don Reagan. All of a sudden, 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:57.360 a lot of the traditional conservatives in the press turned 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:02.120 on her. William Staffire Uh, Scottie Restin in the New 0:13:02.200 --> 0:13:08.520 York Times, Uh Sapphire comparator to Edith Wilson, unelected figure 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.240 trying to run the country. I forgot whether it was 0:13:11.320 --> 0:13:15.200 Sapphire or Restin, but one of them actually referred to 0:13:15.360 --> 0:13:20.960 Ronald Reagan in one of his columns as impact by Yeah, 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:24.160 that wouldn't be good, Uh if it came out as 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:34.480 the idea under a person's biography, Right, that's correct, senecas 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:36.880 one hundred women to hear will be back after the 0:13:37.000 --> 0:13:49.760 short break. Well, you know, these first ladies are truly 0:13:49.840 --> 0:13:53.040 fascinating in their own right, and they're often caricatured, and 0:13:53.080 --> 0:13:57.840 we don't really understand them, I think because of the 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.560 situations in which they find them, so they're sort of 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:05.000 divorced from their own biographies. What was it about Nancy 0:14:05.080 --> 0:14:08.720 Reagan's background and growing up that made her into the 0:14:08.760 --> 0:14:17.960 woman she became, Her incredible nose for danger, her her instincts. 0:14:18.000 --> 0:14:23.000 I think we're shaped by what was a very anxious 0:14:23.120 --> 0:14:27.560 personality that that I traced back to the childhood trauma. 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.600 She was at one point abandoned by her actress mother 0:14:30.680 --> 0:14:34.840 and sent to live with relatives for six years. Um 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:38.800 she ultimately, you know, her mother gets remarried and she 0:14:38.880 --> 0:14:41.640 worships her adoptive father, but she actually has to engineer 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:46.080 the adoption herself. And so I think she grew up 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:49.200 and her son, as her son Ron told me, you know, 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:53.840 with sort of a shadow on her spirit, this since 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:57.360 this fear of abandonment, that no matter this idea that 0:14:57.400 --> 0:14:59.960 no matter how well things are going, the bottom could 0:15:00.080 --> 0:15:04.000 dropout at any moment. That seems to be confirmed two 0:15:04.040 --> 0:15:06.960 months in her husband's into her husband's presidency, when she 0:15:07.200 --> 0:15:12.040 almost loses him to would be assassin's bullet, and it 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:18.160 really does leave her anxious and wary and convinced that 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:22.880 there there is a trap waiting around every corner. Was 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:26.440 it at that point that she consulted with astrologers and 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:32.200 was trying to take that advice and have the president's 0:15:32.200 --> 0:15:36.920 staff schedule him accordingly. That is one of the weirder 0:15:37.960 --> 0:15:40.800 things that we have ever heard of any first lady doing. 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.200 And I one thing I do is I try to 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:46.120 take the reader, almost minute by minute by the day 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:50.760 of the day in March of when Reagan was shot. 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:57.280 Reagan was a deeply, deeply religious person, an optimistic person. 0:15:57.400 --> 0:16:01.400 He comes out of that experience thinking God preserved him 0:16:01.640 --> 0:16:04.840 for a reason, He's got a purpose. It's you know, 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:08.880 everything's going to work out fine. Nancy Reagan did not 0:16:09.200 --> 0:16:13.880 really have that kind of grounding in religious faith, and 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:18.160 so she is so anxious and weary. She is desperate 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.400 for anything that can give her a sense of control, 0:16:22.480 --> 0:16:26.640 no matter how uh you, no matter how wacky it 0:16:26.760 --> 0:16:30.120 might sound. And one day, shortly after the assassination attempt, 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:33.960 her friend Merv Griffin, the entertainment executive who shares a 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:37.320 July six birthday with her and an interest in astrology, 0:16:37.400 --> 0:16:40.160 tells her, will you know there was there's this woman 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:43.320 in San Francisco who knew that March was going to 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.160 be a bad day for your husband. And that's the 0:16:46.200 --> 0:16:50.160 point at which she begins consulting this woman. And when 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:55.520 it is revealed by in a book by Don Reagan, 0:16:55.560 --> 0:16:59.440 the White House chief of staff, that she had fired, um, 0:16:59.480 --> 0:17:04.639 it become was just one of the biggest embarrassments I 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:09.040 think any White House has had in our lifetime. It's 0:17:09.119 --> 0:17:14.720 really always surprising, I think when things like this can happen. 0:17:15.720 --> 0:17:19.840 It's clear that that it has been quite a feat. 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:24.000 As you sort of alluded to earlier in our conversation 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.439 about the time you spent working on this book and 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:31.520 the amount of research and interviewing you did, and I wonder, 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:36.040 given this fascinating portrait of Nancy Reagan, and in many 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:40.320 ways one that most of us didn't know about her 0:17:40.520 --> 0:17:44.520 or only new very tiny indications, what was the most 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.320 challenging part of writing this book for you? Maybe what 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:53.720 surprised you along the way, either in your interviewing or 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:57.239 in some of the research you did, it really was 0:17:57.680 --> 0:18:01.119 some of the impact that she had at on policy 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:06.320 at crucial moments, uh during a rand Contra. When her 0:18:06.400 --> 0:18:09.000 husband is finally going to give his first speech on AIDS, 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:12.600 she would not trust the West Wing to do the 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:15.040 speech writing. She would actually go out and get her 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:20.520 own outside speech writer to do the job. Um. The 0:18:20.600 --> 0:18:24.439 other thing that I think is really important in the 0:18:24.480 --> 0:18:30.119 book is the post presidential years after he leaves office. 0:18:30.320 --> 0:18:34.200 Very shortly after he leaves office, he has diagnosed with Alzheimer's. 0:18:34.200 --> 0:18:39.359 He begins a long, you know, a decade of his 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.280 life where he is essentially incapacitated. And it really does 0:18:43.400 --> 0:18:49.120 fall on Nancy Reagan's shoulders to to shape and mold 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.800 his legacy. She she puts a lot of energy into 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:58.320 getting the library off the ground. She makes sure that 0:18:58.480 --> 0:19:02.720 his his diaries are published, his letters are published, so 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:05.960 that people can see in his own handwriting, Um, what 0:19:06.160 --> 0:19:10.320 kind of thinker he was. She was also very suspicious 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.160 of people on the right who would sort of seek 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:18.400 to appropriate her husband's name and his image for things 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:22.280 that maybe Ronald Reagan wouldn't have agreed with. UM. One 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.959 thing that for instance, in the ninety nineties, after Republicans 0:19:26.000 --> 0:19:29.000 took over the House, one of the things they wanted 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:34.280 to do was kick Franklin Delano Roosevelt off the dime, 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.439 Roosevelt who they didn't like, and replace his image with 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:42.600 Ronald Reagan. And Nancy Reagan actually stands up and says, 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:45.840 I do not support putting my husband on the dime. 0:19:46.000 --> 0:19:50.200 As she said, he admired Franklin Roosevelt more than any 0:19:50.240 --> 0:19:53.960 other president. He would not support this. So she really, 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:58.600 you know, she she was careful and wary of people 0:19:59.000 --> 0:20:01.919 from both sides who would try to turn Ronald Reagan 0:20:02.080 --> 0:20:05.800 into in someone in some cases something he wasn't or 0:20:05.840 --> 0:20:10.159 something that really wasn't true to what he believed. You know, 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:14.480 when when people talk about her dedication to him, that 0:20:14.600 --> 0:20:18.920 dedication went beyond the love they had for each other 0:20:20.000 --> 0:20:24.320 to to this kind of interest in ensuring that his 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:28.360 place in history and his and the characterization of him 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.400 was what she thought he would have wanted, and she 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:36.399 wanted to help him ensure that that happened. If over 0:20:36.440 --> 0:20:38.920 and over people would tell me, in some ways she 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:43.600 was more interested in that than he was. She at 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:47.240 one point goes out and picks Edmund Morris, a Pulitzer 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:51.480 Prize winning biographer, and gives him incredible access to Reagan 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:54.240 and the White House at the book turns out to 0:20:54.320 --> 0:20:58.879 be a disappointment to her. But as Edmund Morris told me, 0:20:58.920 --> 0:21:01.439 you know, Ronald Reagan, could it cared less who wrote 0:21:01.480 --> 0:21:06.159 his biography? Uh, And and she just in some ways, 0:21:06.240 --> 0:21:09.200 I mean, she really did want history to see him 0:21:09.240 --> 0:21:13.760 as a great man. And that really, more than anything else, 0:21:13.840 --> 0:21:19.520 I think, drove her instincts on pushing him to reach 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:23.080 out to the Soviet Union and Mikhail Gorbachev. She didn't 0:21:23.119 --> 0:21:25.360 want him to go down in history as a warmonger. 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.439 She wanted him to go down in history. And she 0:21:28.680 --> 0:21:32.280 believed also that this was truer to his own beliefs, 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:36.959 as you know, somebody who was capable of pulling the 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:40.960 world back from the nuclear abyss, even though his image 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:43.359 was as kind of a you know, quick on the 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:48.080 trigger trigger cowboy from the West. Yeah, and you mentioned access. 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:52.320 I guess enough time had elapsed in there not being 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:55.800 on the national stage. It sounds like many many people 0:21:55.840 --> 0:21:59.919 agreed to speak with you m very frankly about the 0:22:00.000 --> 0:22:03.240 as times. That is so true. Um, as I mentioned 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:08.080 George Schultz was when I talked to him. Uh. Nancy 0:22:08.280 --> 0:22:12.800 Reagan's stepbrother, who has recently died, was in his mid nineties. 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:17.360 I do think that some people told me these stories, 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:20.360 and they were not all flattering stories, but they were 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:22.960 telling me these stories in part because they knew that 0:22:23.000 --> 0:22:25.480 if they didn't tell them now, they would never be told. 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:29.520 And so you benefited from that, and we as readers 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:32.160 of this book that truly get to benefit from that 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:36.600 and understand this period in history. You really created an 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:41.000 extraordinary read Karen, and I hope lots of our listeners will. 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.120 We'll get the book and be as fascinated by it 0:22:45.600 --> 0:22:48.040 and learn a great deal about this period that we 0:22:48.080 --> 0:22:51.000 thought we knew well, but clearly we didn't know at 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:54.200 least this aspect of it as well as we might have. Well, 0:22:54.240 --> 0:22:58.040 thank you so much, Milan. It's it's really been my my, 0:22:58.040 --> 0:23:01.320 my pleasure. I don't want to let you go because 0:23:01.359 --> 0:23:04.640 I want to take advantage of this minute or so 0:23:04.720 --> 0:23:07.800 that we have left um to take advantage of the 0:23:07.800 --> 0:23:10.320 fact that you're one of the most seasoned and astute 0:23:10.320 --> 0:23:16.040 political commentators on the national landscape today. And I wanted 0:23:16.160 --> 0:23:19.000 to ask you, certainly in light of the book and 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:22.640 the period you were writing about, and what's happened to us. 0:23:23.280 --> 0:23:27.040 You know, obviously it's a time of terrible political partisanship 0:23:27.080 --> 0:23:31.640 and polarization that's dividing us and and and really under 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:38.679 under mining even sort of a modicum of bipartisanship. And 0:23:38.720 --> 0:23:42.239 I I remember thinking about the story we all do 0:23:42.359 --> 0:23:46.080 know and and still here quoted about how a president 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:51.159 Reagan and the speaker O'Neil would certainly disagree on the issues, uh, 0:23:51.480 --> 0:23:54.040 but they would get together in evenings and play cards 0:23:54.080 --> 0:23:58.000 and get along amiably and uh and really respect each other. 0:23:58.080 --> 0:24:01.960 And we seem to have lost that. I wonder in 0:24:02.080 --> 0:24:05.520 writing the book and in covering politics today, and you 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:09.720 write in your column very cogently about the issues, what 0:24:09.880 --> 0:24:12.200 you think it will take for us to get back there, 0:24:12.240 --> 0:24:16.720 because I'm sure our listeners also wring their hands wondering 0:24:16.800 --> 0:24:19.480 about the fact that we all just need to get along. 0:24:20.640 --> 0:24:23.720 You're correct. And what I came to Washington in the 0:24:23.800 --> 0:24:27.760 nineteen eighties, and you know, as I mentioned, Reagan won 0:24:27.840 --> 0:24:30.919 re election with forty nine states. I can't even imagine 0:24:30.960 --> 0:24:35.199 any politician who could do that today. But it always 0:24:35.240 --> 0:24:41.560 seemed that the the goal in the eighties was to 0:24:41.680 --> 0:24:46.840 get things done, whether it was tax reform, which required 0:24:46.920 --> 0:24:51.879 by partisanship, whether it was immigration, a huge rewriter the 0:24:51.880 --> 0:24:56.760 immigration laws. Again it required by partisanship, But politicians then 0:24:56.840 --> 0:25:00.560 seemed to believe that voters would put wish them if 0:25:00.600 --> 0:25:04.320 they didn't get things done. Now it sometimes seems that 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:08.639 they believe that voters send them to Washington to stop 0:25:08.720 --> 0:25:12.480 things from getting done. And and I don't know what 0:25:12.600 --> 0:25:14.840 the answer to this is. I mean, part of it 0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:18.040 is everybody gets to crawl into their own media silo 0:25:18.160 --> 0:25:21.160 and only here people who are already agree with them. 0:25:21.880 --> 0:25:24.760 But I do think, you know, every time I think 0:25:24.800 --> 0:25:27.680 it can't get any worse, something happens and it does. 0:25:28.520 --> 0:25:36.479 And not until voters start punishing elected officials instead of 0:25:36.520 --> 0:25:39.920 rewarding them for the kind of behavior that we see, 0:25:40.240 --> 0:25:44.359 is anything really going to change. Well, I do hope 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:46.639 things get better, as I'm sure all of us do. 0:25:47.119 --> 0:25:50.240 And on that note, I just want to thank you 0:25:50.320 --> 0:25:54.840 again for writing this book. I want to tell our 0:25:54.880 --> 0:25:58.760 listeners that it's a wonderful read. Go out and get 0:25:58.800 --> 0:26:03.320 a copy of The Try of Nancy Reagan by Karen Tumulty. 0:26:03.520 --> 0:26:05.840 It's not just fun to read it, it really is 0:26:05.880 --> 0:26:09.560 a great learning experience. So thank you Karen for writing it, 0:26:09.640 --> 0:26:12.480 and thank you for all you do and for your 0:26:12.720 --> 0:26:18.160 great columns as well. Thanks again, Gwen. What a fascinating 0:26:18.240 --> 0:26:22.040 life Karen Tumulty has revealed so much we never knew 0:26:22.080 --> 0:26:26.080 about Nancy Reagan. Here are three things I took away 0:26:26.119 --> 0:26:32.440 from that conversation. First, as Nancy Reagan's experience shows, being 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:35.280 first lady is harder than most of us can imagine. 0:26:35.920 --> 0:26:39.640 There's no job description. Each first lady has to set 0:26:39.680 --> 0:26:46.720 her own priorities and she will always be judged and criticized. Second, 0:26:47.400 --> 0:26:52.919 like so many women, Nancy Reagan was tremendously underestimated. In 0:26:53.000 --> 0:26:56.679 her research, Karen Tumulty discovered a woman of sharp instincts, 0:26:57.200 --> 0:27:01.479 fierce loyalty, and an iron will that propelled Ronald Reagan 0:27:01.640 --> 0:27:04.439 into the White House and kept him there when he 0:27:04.480 --> 0:27:09.800 suffered a presidential crisis. Finally, we have Nancy Reagan to 0:27:09.880 --> 0:27:13.359 thank for some of the international progress made during the 0:27:13.440 --> 0:27:16.679 nineteen eighties. It was she who pushed her husband to 0:27:16.720 --> 0:27:19.679 reach out to the Soviet Union during a time of 0:27:19.800 --> 0:27:24.360