1
00:00:00,040 --> 00:00:08,719
Speaker 1: M Hey everybody, I'm Robert Evans and this is once

2
00:00:08,720 --> 00:00:11,080
Speaker 1: again behind the Bastards the Shore. We tell you everything

3
00:00:11,160 --> 00:00:13,480
Speaker 1: you don't know about the very worst people in all

4
00:00:13,520 --> 00:00:15,560
Speaker 1: of history. And we're just allowed beep in the room.

5
00:00:15,680 --> 00:00:19,880
Speaker 1: So if you look scared? Is everything okay? Everything's okay.

6
00:00:19,960 --> 00:00:22,880
Speaker 1: I'm sorry I had a nuclear device. Oh you need

7
00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:25,159
Speaker 1: to leave those outside. The guy with the nuke is

8
00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:27,640
Speaker 1: Andy Beckerman, our guest for today. Andy, how are you doing.

9
00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:31,120
Speaker 1: I'm as good as anyone can be in this uh

10
00:00:31,560 --> 00:00:34,040
Speaker 1: soupy nightmare we live in. Soupy is a good way

11
00:00:34,040 --> 00:00:36,360
Speaker 1: to describe it. Now, Andy, I'm gonna apologize right now

12
00:00:36,440 --> 00:00:38,320
Speaker 1: because we talked about what I was going to plug

13
00:00:38,360 --> 00:00:39,839
Speaker 1: for you, and then there was that beep and it

14
00:00:40,040 --> 00:00:41,920
Speaker 1: flew out of my mind. So why don't you plug

15
00:00:42,080 --> 00:00:44,760
Speaker 1: the thing that that we were? What's the thing why?

16
00:00:44,800 --> 00:00:47,880
Speaker 1: I am a co host of the Wonderful Couples Therapy

17
00:00:48,040 --> 00:00:51,199
Speaker 1: stand up show and podcast here on the Stuff Works Network.

18
00:00:51,640 --> 00:00:55,720
Speaker 1: A couple of therapy. We have stand ups who are lovers,

19
00:00:55,760 --> 00:00:59,920
Speaker 1: are best friends, or siblings do sets together about the relationship,

20
00:01:00,320 --> 00:01:02,680
Speaker 1: and then on the podcast we bring the best sets

21
00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:05,920
Speaker 1: to you and your coast and that is Naomi Pagan. Yeah,

22
00:01:05,920 --> 00:01:10,200
Speaker 1: from your episode he did about all the fringe Nazis. Yeah,

23
00:01:10,200 --> 00:01:12,520
Speaker 1: they're the non Nazi pieces of ship behind Hitler. She

24
00:01:12,600 --> 00:01:15,160
Speaker 1: was wonderful and I'm excited to talk with you today.

25
00:01:15,840 --> 00:01:19,280
Speaker 1: If I can push past the rage, it's a comedy. Well,

26
00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:22,160
Speaker 1: the good thing about today is that it'll be a

27
00:01:22,319 --> 00:01:25,240
Speaker 1: rage that's different from the rage that you're feeling about

28
00:01:25,280 --> 00:01:27,200
Speaker 1: everything in the news. I don't think so I have

29
00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:30,120
Speaker 1: a personal stake in this story, I believe. Well, yeah,

30
00:01:30,160 --> 00:01:33,560
Speaker 1: but like, okay, so where this is the day after

31
00:01:33,600 --> 00:01:36,479
Speaker 1: the Kavanaugh hearing, So so everybody's pretty angry, and this

32
00:01:36,560 --> 00:01:39,760
Speaker 1: is a thing to be angry about. That's involves a

33
00:01:39,800 --> 00:01:44,559
Speaker 1: lot of the same people, but it's slightly in the past. Sure,

34
00:01:44,640 --> 00:01:47,360
Speaker 1: I don't know. I believe when all this was going on,

35
00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:52,480
Speaker 1: I was watching Transformers in my you know, babysitters living room. Yeah, yeah,

36
00:01:52,480 --> 00:01:54,720
Speaker 1: we are. We're talking about a story from the eighties,

37
00:01:54,760 --> 00:01:58,120
Speaker 1: the story of the Reagans in the AIDS crisis, um

38
00:01:58,160 --> 00:02:00,840
Speaker 1: and the death of Optimist Prime. Well that is going

39
00:02:00,880 --> 00:02:03,800
Speaker 1: to play a role here. So yeah, we When I

40
00:02:03,840 --> 00:02:05,440
Speaker 1: started reaching this, I expected it was going to be

41
00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:09,519
Speaker 1: a pretty straightforward episode about how homophobia and religious fundamentalism

42
00:02:09,560 --> 00:02:11,720
Speaker 1: in the halls of American power led to an executive

43
00:02:11,840 --> 00:02:14,600
Speaker 1: branch that fiddled while thousands of gay people died of

44
00:02:14,639 --> 00:02:19,639
Speaker 1: a horrible disease. The story I uncovered was that, but

45
00:02:19,760 --> 00:02:23,160
Speaker 1: also somehow even more offensive than that. It was somehow

46
00:02:23,200 --> 00:02:25,160
Speaker 1: more frustrating in the story I thought I was going

47
00:02:25,200 --> 00:02:30,320
Speaker 1: to be telling. So great, Yeah, I guess. Roller coaster, Yeah,

48
00:02:30,520 --> 00:02:33,440
Speaker 1: roller coaster from nothing but trouble. You know, the one

49
00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:37,800
Speaker 1: that grinds you up into bones. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

50
00:02:37,800 --> 00:02:40,320
Speaker 1: that's exactly what we're going to do today. It's the

51
00:02:40,400 --> 00:02:44,000
Speaker 1: murder coaster, Yeah, from nothing but trouble. It's the opposite

52
00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:47,040
Speaker 1: of self care. That's today. So let's let's get into

53
00:02:47,080 --> 00:02:48,720
Speaker 1: it first. I'd like to start with, like, what what

54
00:02:48,760 --> 00:02:51,040
Speaker 1: do you know about Reagan's response to the AIDS epidemic.

55
00:02:51,680 --> 00:02:55,640
Speaker 1: I know that he ignored it for as long as possible,

56
00:02:56,680 --> 00:03:00,040
Speaker 1: that they labeled at grids at first, so that it

57
00:03:00,120 --> 00:03:05,160
Speaker 1: could kind of cordon off every everyone who had AIDS

58
00:03:05,320 --> 00:03:07,920
Speaker 1: at the or you know, HIV did even was there

59
00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:11,120
Speaker 1: any kind of scientific connection I remember the last no, no, no,

60
00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:13,120
Speaker 1: it seems like it started like that was just the

61
00:03:13,160 --> 00:03:15,160
Speaker 1: doctors giving it their best name, because it wasn't that

62
00:03:15,280 --> 00:03:17,880
Speaker 1: much later that they were like, no, no, actually AIDS

63
00:03:17,960 --> 00:03:19,280
Speaker 1: is a better thing to call it, and like they

64
00:03:19,280 --> 00:03:22,640
Speaker 1: can't like but it accrued other nicknames around the time,

65
00:03:23,360 --> 00:03:25,720
Speaker 1: um that were even more offensive. So like grids was

66
00:03:26,200 --> 00:03:29,440
Speaker 1: probably the most palatable nickname that had got before it

67
00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:32,680
Speaker 1: started being called AIDS. But um, yeah, it was pretty

68
00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:36,160
Speaker 1: it's pretty frustrating story. It was definitely uh yeah, I mean,

69
00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:37,920
Speaker 1: let's just get into it. Um, I've got it all

70
00:03:37,960 --> 00:03:41,800
Speaker 1: broken down here from time or by time. So ninety

71
00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:43,960
Speaker 1: eight is the first year that gay men in Western countries.

72
00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:46,960
Speaker 1: Sweden in the United States were the first countries where

73
00:03:47,040 --> 00:03:48,960
Speaker 1: Westerners started to get sick with what would become known

74
00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:51,880
Speaker 1: as aids. Uh. In nineteen eighty, when Ronald Reagan beat

75
00:03:51,960 --> 00:03:55,080
Speaker 1: Jimmy Carter, only about a couple of dozen Americans less

76
00:03:55,080 --> 00:03:58,960
Speaker 1: than thirty had perished quote unquote beat Jimmy Carter. Well,

77
00:03:59,200 --> 00:04:01,360
Speaker 1: wasn't there some like I mean he did, but like

78
00:04:01,680 --> 00:04:05,080
Speaker 1: the whole October surprise bs. Yeah, there was a lot

79
00:04:05,120 --> 00:04:07,640
Speaker 1: of shadiness that was done during the election, some of

80
00:04:07,680 --> 00:04:09,800
Speaker 1: which we're going to get into in a little bit,

81
00:04:10,320 --> 00:04:13,000
Speaker 1: but it was a pretty clean sweep aids, Oh, we're

82
00:04:13,040 --> 00:04:15,160
Speaker 1: gonna One of the things that's exciting to me about

83
00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:17,440
Speaker 1: this episode is the numerous opportunities will have to do

84
00:04:17,520 --> 00:04:20,400
Speaker 1: our Reagan voices. Well, can you read the whole thing

85
00:04:20,440 --> 00:04:25,159
Speaker 1: into making voice That might get a little bit old,

86
00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:29,479
Speaker 1: But I did two sentences. I think I picked the

87
00:04:29,560 --> 00:04:32,800
Speaker 1: right moments to try my Reagan voice out. But you know,

88
00:04:32,839 --> 00:04:35,280
Speaker 1: maybe we'll have us a Reagan on Reagan conversation because

89
00:04:35,279 --> 00:04:37,159
Speaker 1: there's two sides of Reagan we're going to see in

90
00:04:37,200 --> 00:04:40,039
Speaker 1: this episode, one of which is pretty sympathetic, it seems

91
00:04:40,040 --> 00:04:41,839
Speaker 1: like a guy who could have dealt with this crisis

92
00:04:41,920 --> 00:04:44,520
Speaker 1: in a reasonably woke manner, and one of which is

93
00:04:44,560 --> 00:04:48,320
Speaker 1: the Reagan that was actually president. Uh isn't the guy

94
00:04:48,360 --> 00:04:53,320
Speaker 1: that he betrayed everyone in sag Um during the McCarthy

95
00:04:53,360 --> 00:04:55,920
Speaker 1: hearings and everything. Yeah yeah, but I mean a lot

96
00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:59,480
Speaker 1: of people did that, including Khan, who was was also

97
00:04:59,520 --> 00:05:02,520
Speaker 1: a gay man but also a piece of ship, total

98
00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:05,920
Speaker 1: piece of ship. Isn't the character and Angels in America? Well,

99
00:05:05,920 --> 00:05:08,080
Speaker 1: he was one of the guys who win. McCarthy was

100
00:05:08,360 --> 00:05:11,119
Speaker 1: doing the house in an American Activities committee was asking people,

101
00:05:11,160 --> 00:05:12,479
Speaker 1: are you now or have you ever been a member

102
00:05:12,480 --> 00:05:16,719
Speaker 1: of the Communist Party, so he was. Anyway, what we're

103
00:05:16,720 --> 00:05:18,600
Speaker 1: getting so far, I can trace that. But I'm just

104
00:05:18,640 --> 00:05:22,599
Speaker 1: saying you can trace the darkness back decades. You can monsters,

105
00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:24,760
Speaker 1: you can trace the and I think the darkness that

106
00:05:24,800 --> 00:05:27,080
Speaker 1: you can trace back with Reagan to that period is

107
00:05:27,279 --> 00:05:30,480
Speaker 1: his not only to take any risks that hurt his career,

108
00:05:30,839 --> 00:05:32,560
Speaker 1: because I really do think that comes down to it

109
00:05:32,600 --> 00:05:34,960
Speaker 1: more than ideology in Reagan's case. But we'll see how

110
00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:36,719
Speaker 1: you feel at the end of this. I'm gonna present

111
00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:39,640
Speaker 1: all the evidence I have, um So. In June five,

112
00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:43,200
Speaker 1: the CDC reported that five young homosexual men in Los

113
00:05:43,240 --> 00:05:46,520
Speaker 1: Angeles had been treated for pneumo sisters karini, which is

114
00:05:46,600 --> 00:05:49,479
Speaker 1: a like a fungal lung infection that can that's life

115
00:05:49,480 --> 00:05:51,360
Speaker 1: threatening and it's only really found in people with very

116
00:05:51,440 --> 00:05:54,400
Speaker 1: compromised immune systems. And we know now that this is

117
00:05:54,440 --> 00:05:56,240
Speaker 1: one of those like you know, AIDS isn't what kills

118
00:05:56,279 --> 00:05:58,920
Speaker 1: you when your immune system gets you know, destroyed. These

119
00:05:59,080 --> 00:06:01,480
Speaker 1: little things that are always around us that normally we

120
00:06:01,520 --> 00:06:04,240
Speaker 1: don't get sick from. That's what's gets you and so right,

121
00:06:04,279 --> 00:06:06,440
Speaker 1: and they're in l A, which is a filthy town.

122
00:06:06,600 --> 00:06:11,080
Speaker 1: So well, I mean, that's one of its charms. But yeah,

123
00:06:11,360 --> 00:06:14,640
Speaker 1: you call it a charm. Uh. Two of these men

124
00:06:14,760 --> 00:06:16,960
Speaker 1: had died by the time the CDC reported it, and

125
00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:19,960
Speaker 1: on July four, the CDC reported eight more gay los

126
00:06:20,000 --> 00:06:23,000
Speaker 1: angeleos had been treated for Composi sarcoma, which is a

127
00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:25,680
Speaker 1: rare form of cancer that again only strikes people with

128
00:06:25,680 --> 00:06:27,520
Speaker 1: crippled immune systems. So no one knew what it was

129
00:06:27,560 --> 00:06:29,800
Speaker 1: at this point. Really, but doctors start to recognize the

130
00:06:29,839 --> 00:06:33,000
Speaker 1: nineteen eight one something really weird is happening, specifically in

131
00:06:33,080 --> 00:06:35,840
Speaker 1: like coastal cities and specifically to the gay populations, and

132
00:06:35,920 --> 00:06:39,839
Speaker 1: what's going on culturally? In one what movies are hot? Ship?

133
00:06:40,240 --> 00:06:44,479
Speaker 1: This isn't that far from Red Dawn, isn't wasn't that five? Yeah? Yeah,

134
00:06:44,520 --> 00:06:46,440
Speaker 1: something like that. I said, yes, I have no I've

135
00:06:46,880 --> 00:06:48,800
Speaker 1: no idea. I didn't prepare anything on the movies that

136
00:06:48,800 --> 00:06:51,720
Speaker 1: we're ready. But I'm guessing when to Dane Jones and

137
00:06:51,800 --> 00:06:56,279
Speaker 1: Nina jonesph was what eighty two Star Wars was hot?

138
00:06:56,880 --> 00:06:59,839
Speaker 1: People started dying from immuno deficiency. It was it was

139
00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:03,000
Speaker 1: beautiful era when we thought, boy, if we get three

140
00:07:03,040 --> 00:07:05,360
Speaker 1: good Star Wars movies. I don't think anyone will ever

141
00:07:05,400 --> 00:07:07,719
Speaker 1: ask for any more Star Wars movies. That'd be swell.

142
00:07:08,320 --> 00:07:11,440
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, what a time. Anyway, doctors around the country

143
00:07:11,440 --> 00:07:13,800
Speaker 1: gradually started to realize that something was wrong. Two hundred

144
00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:15,800
Speaker 1: and thirty four people died from AIDS over the course

145
00:07:15,840 --> 00:07:18,520
Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty one. When did they like name it?

146
00:07:20,240 --> 00:07:22,400
Speaker 1: That starts in like eight two, So like in nineteen

147
00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:25,880
Speaker 1: eighty one people die, President doesn't say anything. But at

148
00:07:25,880 --> 00:07:28,239
Speaker 1: this point it's small enough that like most presidents probably

149
00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:30,280
Speaker 1: wouldn't have addressed a thing that's like it's it's it's

150
00:07:30,280 --> 00:07:32,480
Speaker 1: still really little at this point. But on May eleventh,

151
00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:35,640
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two, doctors identified the blood borne pathogen behind

152
00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:37,440
Speaker 1: all these deaths. So they realized that they're not like

153
00:07:37,480 --> 00:07:40,920
Speaker 1: a bunch of different things. There's one thing connecting these all. Uh.

154
00:07:40,920 --> 00:07:42,680
Speaker 1: And they call the new disease as you mentioned, gay

155
00:07:42,720 --> 00:07:46,840
Speaker 1: related immune deficiency syndrome so GRIDS. Eight hundred and fifty

156
00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:50,440
Speaker 1: three Americans died during nineteen eighty two, and a couple

157
00:07:50,480 --> 00:07:54,360
Speaker 1: of months after that in June of June nineteen eighty

158
00:07:54,400 --> 00:07:56,160
Speaker 1: two is when the term AIDS came into you. So

159
00:07:56,200 --> 00:08:00,200
Speaker 1: the medical community corrected pretty quickly. They started off, you know,

160
00:08:00,280 --> 00:08:02,400
Speaker 1: with the definitely bigoted position of like, well, let's just

161
00:08:02,960 --> 00:08:05,000
Speaker 1: lock this down as a gay disease. But within a

162
00:08:05,040 --> 00:08:07,720
Speaker 1: couple of months doctors were like, well, okay, that's not

163
00:08:07,760 --> 00:08:09,960
Speaker 1: what's happening, and we've made a mistake and they corrected.

164
00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:12,640
Speaker 1: But at this time, the more common names that were

165
00:08:12,800 --> 00:08:15,160
Speaker 1: used were yet people called it the gay plague or

166
00:08:15,240 --> 00:08:18,400
Speaker 1: gay cancer, like, so that was the more common term,

167
00:08:18,440 --> 00:08:22,800
Speaker 1: and Grids definitely reinforced that attitude. That sways my go

168
00:08:22,960 --> 00:08:29,240
Speaker 1: to reference for a character who's a disgusting homophobe and

169
00:08:29,280 --> 00:08:34,320
Speaker 1: also old he's got the gay pleg Grids will this

170
00:08:34,440 --> 00:08:39,080
Speaker 1: plague just came sweeping through the coasts. But by the way,

171
00:08:39,120 --> 00:08:42,360
Speaker 1: not a lot of opportunities to to riff on. No, no,

172
00:08:42,400 --> 00:08:44,760
Speaker 1: not really people dying of what turned out to be

173
00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:48,160
Speaker 1: a horrific, horrific disease. I mean, it doesn't We don't

174
00:08:48,160 --> 00:08:49,679
Speaker 1: have to riff because this would just be like a

175
00:08:49,720 --> 00:08:53,400
Speaker 1: heartbreaking conversation where we're both emotionally exhausted at the end

176
00:08:53,400 --> 00:08:56,840
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, well, I mean that's life at this point, right. Yeah.

177
00:08:56,840 --> 00:08:58,960
Speaker 1: The guiding principle of this podcast is that, like you

178
00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:01,400
Speaker 1: have these horrible stories that are important that nobody's gonna

179
00:09:01,679 --> 00:09:03,280
Speaker 1: after a week like this week, where like you hear

180
00:09:03,320 --> 00:09:05,319
Speaker 1: about all this ship going on in our actual government

181
00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:06,920
Speaker 1: right now, very few people are gonna sit down and

182
00:09:06,920 --> 00:09:08,560
Speaker 1: be like, well, I'm going to read about you know,

183
00:09:08,600 --> 00:09:11,000
Speaker 1: how the government ignored he AIDS epidemic. But it's important

184
00:09:11,040 --> 00:09:13,280
Speaker 1: that people know this. So maybe if you you pull

185
00:09:13,320 --> 00:09:15,079
Speaker 1: a little bit of frosting, make a couple of Reagan

186
00:09:15,160 --> 00:09:17,920
Speaker 1: jokes and whatnot, do some accents and stuff, then people

187
00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:20,200
Speaker 1: hear the story and it sticks in their head and

188
00:09:20,240 --> 00:09:23,080
Speaker 1: they don't go home and drink bleach because they're just

189
00:09:23,120 --> 00:09:25,800
Speaker 1: so sad. That's the goal I've got in my mind.

190
00:09:25,840 --> 00:09:29,080
Speaker 1: As Reagan sitting in his chair in the Oval office,

191
00:09:29,240 --> 00:09:33,000
Speaker 1: just like shoveling jelly beans as into his mouth as

192
00:09:33,040 --> 00:09:38,000
Speaker 1: his mind just deterior rates jelly bean today, like you

193
00:09:38,040 --> 00:09:40,679
Speaker 1: can see the pieces of his brain like as dust

194
00:09:40,760 --> 00:09:44,839
Speaker 1: like fly out of his ears in a trail. That's

195
00:09:44,880 --> 00:09:46,360
Speaker 1: the picture of my head right now. Well, now that

196
00:09:46,360 --> 00:09:51,400
Speaker 1: we've lost the conservative listeners, no no, I mean this

197
00:09:51,480 --> 00:09:53,760
Speaker 1: was never going to be the episode that they grabbed onto.

198
00:09:53,840 --> 00:09:56,360
Speaker 1: Do you have conservative listeners? I assume, so they leave

199
00:09:56,360 --> 00:09:59,959
Speaker 1: really angry reviews. Whenever we talk about the Regans, Okay,

200
00:10:00,679 --> 00:10:02,520
Speaker 1: I'll say, I'll say I'll give a real message of

201
00:10:02,520 --> 00:10:05,240
Speaker 1: conservative listeners. There is an example in this podcast what

202
00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:08,200
Speaker 1: we're talking about about a Christian, very far right wing

203
00:10:08,240 --> 00:10:12,199
Speaker 1: conservative who was a legitimate hero of the AIDS epidemic.

204
00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:15,560
Speaker 1: So we're gonna be giving his story alongside Reagan's. So

205
00:10:15,600 --> 00:10:19,720
Speaker 1: we're not biased on this, like we're not based. Yeah,

206
00:10:20,120 --> 00:10:22,400
Speaker 1: we're all biased, but you can talk about how the

207
00:10:22,440 --> 00:10:24,280
Speaker 1: Reagans act, and you can talk about how other people

208
00:10:24,320 --> 00:10:26,960
Speaker 1: who were even more extreme in their beliefs still did

209
00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:29,360
Speaker 1: the right thing during the epidemic, which I think is

210
00:10:29,400 --> 00:10:31,920
Speaker 1: important because like, people are gonna believe things that I

211
00:10:31,920 --> 00:10:33,800
Speaker 1: don't like no matter what. It doesn't mean you have

212
00:10:33,840 --> 00:10:36,760
Speaker 1: to ignore hundreds of thousands of people dying of disease. Well,

213
00:10:36,800 --> 00:10:38,600
Speaker 1: I think what's interesting is there is a time in

214
00:10:38,760 --> 00:10:43,560
Speaker 1: our country where conservative people there was some kind of

215
00:10:43,640 --> 00:10:47,840
Speaker 1: moral compass attached to their existence, whereas now if you

216
00:10:47,920 --> 00:10:50,920
Speaker 1: are on the right wing, I really do feel like

217
00:10:51,040 --> 00:10:52,840
Speaker 1: at this point you knew who Trump was when you

218
00:10:52,920 --> 00:10:56,920
Speaker 1: voted for him. He was not unapologetic about being a

219
00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:00,320
Speaker 1: racist and a white supremacist and a monster and bounced

220
00:11:00,400 --> 00:11:04,320
Speaker 1: his candidacy by calling Mexicans rapists. You knew who he

221
00:11:04,440 --> 00:11:06,360
Speaker 1: was when you voted for him. I don't think you

222
00:11:06,400 --> 00:11:09,560
Speaker 1: have an excuse anymore. Maybe during the Reagan era. Yeah, well,

223
00:11:09,600 --> 00:11:11,680
Speaker 1: the Reagan era was really the first time we start

224
00:11:11,760 --> 00:11:13,480
Speaker 1: to see a number of things that are now sort

225
00:11:13,520 --> 00:11:15,800
Speaker 1: of hallmarks of the right wing. For one thing, it

226
00:11:15,920 --> 00:11:19,800
Speaker 1: was the first time that conservative Evangelical Christians voted as

227
00:11:19,800 --> 00:11:24,160
Speaker 1: a group for a conservative candidate, because most Evangelical Christians

228
00:11:24,160 --> 00:11:27,240
Speaker 1: had voted for Carter in the election prior, and Carter

229
00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:29,720
Speaker 1: had disappointed them, mainly by the fact that he kind

230
00:11:29,720 --> 00:11:31,520
Speaker 1: of he governed as more of a moderate because he's

231
00:11:31,600 --> 00:11:33,280
Speaker 1: he's the same guy he didn't like, you know, he

232
00:11:33,320 --> 00:11:36,080
Speaker 1: opposed abortion personally, but he didn't like push against it

233
00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:38,280
Speaker 1: or anything like that. He's an empathetic person. I mean,

234
00:11:38,320 --> 00:11:44,600
Speaker 1: he built houses, building houses for having at for humanity.

235
00:11:45,400 --> 00:11:47,400
Speaker 1: So they backed him, but they wound up going with

236
00:11:47,440 --> 00:11:51,160
Speaker 1: Reagan during the nineteen election. And so it's one of

237
00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:54,120
Speaker 1: the things that I think is important to recognize now

238
00:11:54,240 --> 00:11:58,000
Speaker 1: since we're talking about like the past, is how weird

239
00:11:58,120 --> 00:12:01,240
Speaker 1: Reagan's campaign was for the time because again, for most

240
00:12:01,240 --> 00:12:04,439
Speaker 1: of American history, different Christian denominations had voted for different parties.

241
00:12:04,600 --> 00:12:06,520
Speaker 1: It was that like the first like big tent kind

242
00:12:06,559 --> 00:12:10,480
Speaker 1: of yeah, Republican Athletics voted one way, Protestants voted another way.

243
00:12:10,760 --> 00:12:13,600
Speaker 1: Nobody really cared what the Quakers did, but you know,

244
00:12:13,640 --> 00:12:16,480
Speaker 1: they made really good butter um. And that was politics

245
00:12:16,480 --> 00:12:18,280
Speaker 1: for a couple of hundred years in America. So this

246
00:12:18,400 --> 00:12:20,000
Speaker 1: but this is the beginning of like big tent, that

247
00:12:20,080 --> 00:12:22,040
Speaker 1: idea that like, and this is the beginning of the

248
00:12:22,120 --> 00:12:26,520
Speaker 1: Christian right voting with the Republican Party. So yeah, Ronald

249
00:12:26,520 --> 00:12:29,600
Speaker 1: Reagan was this guy who was the first conservative to

250
00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:32,000
Speaker 1: really effectively reach out to the evangelical right. But he

251
00:12:32,040 --> 00:12:34,400
Speaker 1: was also a TV and movie star and a former

252
00:12:34,400 --> 00:12:37,800
Speaker 1: governor of California. He spent most of his life in Hollywood,

253
00:12:37,840 --> 00:12:41,000
Speaker 1: around Hollywood movie stars. There's people he socialized with, and

254
00:12:41,040 --> 00:12:43,760
Speaker 1: so he and Nancy Reagan had numerous gay friends in

255
00:12:43,800 --> 00:12:46,520
Speaker 1: their early life, including the closeted film star Rock Hudson.

256
00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:50,199
Speaker 1: During the Kennedy years, California Republicans started preparing Ronald Reagan

257
00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:52,320
Speaker 1: for his first political foray. They kind of picked him

258
00:12:52,320 --> 00:12:54,400
Speaker 1: before he was even governor, And like, this guy is

259
00:12:54,480 --> 00:12:58,320
Speaker 1: someone who we can wedge into power. Since Ronald Reagan

260
00:12:58,360 --> 00:13:00,480
Speaker 1: was gonna be getting into politics, the people sort of

261
00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:02,360
Speaker 1: grooming him for this new that Nancy Reagan was going

262
00:13:02,400 --> 00:13:04,320
Speaker 1: to need a very carefully crafted look if she was

263
00:13:04,360 --> 00:13:07,199
Speaker 1: going to be eventually a first lady. So she wound

264
00:13:07,280 --> 00:13:09,599
Speaker 1: up hiring a bunch of fashion designers and whatnot to

265
00:13:09,640 --> 00:13:11,360
Speaker 1: kind of help her craft a look, and one of

266
00:13:11,400 --> 00:13:14,560
Speaker 1: them was a very famous gay fashion designer named Jimmy Galanos.

267
00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:19,280
Speaker 1: Working with Jimmy thrust Nancy deeper into Los Angeles's homosexual community,

268
00:13:19,480 --> 00:13:21,679
Speaker 1: and she made a lot of friends. She was regularly

269
00:13:21,720 --> 00:13:24,360
Speaker 1: seen quote on the arm of a guy named Jerry Zipkin,

270
00:13:24,400 --> 00:13:27,400
Speaker 1: who was a gay real estate air and socialite. News

271
00:13:27,400 --> 00:13:31,440
Speaker 1: clippings at the time refer to him as I don't know,

272
00:13:31,520 --> 00:13:32,920
Speaker 1: I just try to put a picture in my head

273
00:13:32,920 --> 00:13:35,400
Speaker 1: of like, you know, it's weird. I tried to research

274
00:13:35,440 --> 00:13:37,760
Speaker 1: this guy because like, you can't find out much about him.

275
00:13:37,880 --> 00:13:39,560
Speaker 1: Articles at the time will refer to him as a

276
00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:42,360
Speaker 1: popular social escort, which is apparently a thing that used

277
00:13:42,360 --> 00:13:44,320
Speaker 1: to exist to where like women would want to go

278
00:13:44,360 --> 00:13:46,320
Speaker 1: out and go to parties and events and their husband

279
00:13:46,360 --> 00:13:49,040
Speaker 1: wouldn't be available and Jerry was a prominent guy that

280
00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:51,600
Speaker 1: everybody knew was gay, even though it wasn't really talked about.

281
00:13:51,640 --> 00:13:53,960
Speaker 1: So like, if he's with your wife at the opening

282
00:13:53,960 --> 00:13:56,280
Speaker 1: of a gallery at a movie premiere, it's fine, you know,

283
00:13:56,320 --> 00:13:59,800
Speaker 1: it's Jerry's he's with Jerry. I'm imagine like thick glasses

284
00:14:00,040 --> 00:14:03,439
Speaker 1: frames with like tinted lenses. It's the thick frames are

285
00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:06,320
Speaker 1: what I get from the name Jerry. The tinted lenses

286
00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:09,680
Speaker 1: are all zipkin. Yes, it's it's both parts of his

287
00:14:09,760 --> 00:14:12,560
Speaker 1: name complete my belief of his Look, we're not gonna

288
00:14:12,600 --> 00:14:14,720
Speaker 1: look that up. We're just gonna keep that in our heads.

289
00:14:15,000 --> 00:14:17,320
Speaker 1: So Nancy and Ronald also became friends with Roy Kohen

290
00:14:17,400 --> 00:14:19,640
Speaker 1: around this time in the sixties. Cone was, as we said,

291
00:14:19,720 --> 00:14:24,160
Speaker 1: kind of a fiercely anti communist lawyer. Uh. Yeah, he

292
00:14:24,200 --> 00:14:25,880
Speaker 1: was a big fixer. He was a big influence on

293
00:14:25,920 --> 00:14:28,720
Speaker 1: Donald Trump in the early nineties. They were very close,

294
00:14:28,720 --> 00:14:30,720
Speaker 1: and he was also a close advisor to Ronald Reagan.

295
00:14:31,280 --> 00:14:34,960
Speaker 1: Fire just a phrase for someone who like gets people

296
00:14:35,240 --> 00:14:37,320
Speaker 1: murdered and blackmailed and all that kind of stuff. No,

297
00:14:37,400 --> 00:14:39,160
Speaker 1: I've used a number of fixtures in my career. When

298
00:14:39,200 --> 00:14:42,840
Speaker 1: I've been working in war zones. They're people who basically

299
00:14:43,000 --> 00:14:45,800
Speaker 1: like know wherever you are better than you and help

300
00:14:45,840 --> 00:14:47,360
Speaker 1: you do like you like I need I have this

301
00:14:47,400 --> 00:14:49,320
Speaker 1: goal in Los Angeles and I and he's like, Oh,

302
00:14:49,360 --> 00:14:51,000
Speaker 1: we're you gonna need to talk to this person, this person,

303
00:14:51,040 --> 00:14:52,520
Speaker 1: this person, they can help you out, or like in

304
00:14:52,640 --> 00:14:54,680
Speaker 1: d C, it's the same thing, like, oh, well we

305
00:14:54,720 --> 00:14:58,560
Speaker 1: can make this happen. Like fixing is a morally neutral term.

306
00:14:58,640 --> 00:15:01,120
Speaker 1: It's gotten like we're talking about Trump's fixers in the

307
00:15:01,120 --> 00:15:03,080
Speaker 1: news right now, so it's very shady. But there are

308
00:15:03,120 --> 00:15:05,200
Speaker 1: just fixers whose whole job is like, oh, you're trying

309
00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:07,240
Speaker 1: to accomplish this goal, these are the people you need

310
00:15:07,280 --> 00:15:10,640
Speaker 1: to meet. This the early MGM fixer guy, I forget

311
00:15:10,640 --> 00:15:12,640
Speaker 1: his name, but I don't know. Yeah, there's been there's

312
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:14,880
Speaker 1: a lot of fixers throughout history. Sometimes they're just called

313
00:15:14,920 --> 00:15:18,920
Speaker 1: advisors or aids or whatever throughout history. Yeah, that would

314
00:15:18,920 --> 00:15:20,880
Speaker 1: be a fun thing to do. So Roy Kan was

315
00:15:20,920 --> 00:15:23,160
Speaker 1: a famous fixer in this period. He was a closeted

316
00:15:23,200 --> 00:15:24,840
Speaker 1: gay man. It's impossible to say one way or the

317
00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:27,880
Speaker 1: other if the Reagans knew about his sexuality. We do

318
00:15:27,960 --> 00:15:30,240
Speaker 1: know they went to a ton of parties with Roy Khan.

319
00:15:30,400 --> 00:15:33,040
Speaker 1: And we do know how Roy Khan behaved at parties

320
00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:35,160
Speaker 1: because some of his friends wrote about those nights. So

321
00:15:35,200 --> 00:15:37,360
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote now from a Life article titled The

322
00:15:37,440 --> 00:15:43,000
Speaker 1: Snarling Death of Roy m Khne spoilers. At his parties,

323
00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:44,960
Speaker 1: he'd hould people up to their feet to sing God

324
00:15:44,960 --> 00:15:47,720
Speaker 1: Bless America, evidently his favorite song, even though he was

325
00:15:47,760 --> 00:15:50,320
Speaker 1: a lifelong opera goer. Roy's idea of a good time

326
00:15:50,360 --> 00:15:52,440
Speaker 1: was to sing patriotic ditties at a piano bar in

327
00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:55,560
Speaker 1: Provincetown on Cape Cod. Our friend recalled going home early

328
00:15:55,600 --> 00:15:58,280
Speaker 1: one summer evening and on inquiring the next morning about

329
00:15:58,280 --> 00:16:00,360
Speaker 1: the rest of the night, being told we else stood

330
00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:02,880
Speaker 1: around the piano Roy saying three choruses of God Bless

331
00:16:02,920 --> 00:16:05,000
Speaker 1: America and got a heart on and went home to bed.

332
00:16:05,080 --> 00:16:07,720
Speaker 1: What is he the founder of the capital steps. He's

333
00:16:07,800 --> 00:16:10,800
Speaker 1: just a good American singing the national anthem and drunk

334
00:16:10,800 --> 00:16:14,800
Speaker 1: as hell with a really big erection. And that's Roy Kone.

335
00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:19,640
Speaker 1: How big I mean they noticed it and they commented

336
00:16:19,680 --> 00:16:24,280
Speaker 1: on it in the sixties, so I'm gonna guess they're significant.

337
00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:27,600
Speaker 1: I feel like there may be like you know, you know,

338
00:16:27,640 --> 00:16:30,360
Speaker 1: like people never speak ill of the dead. Like when

339
00:16:30,440 --> 00:16:32,480
Speaker 1: Nixon died, everyone was like, what a great guy, even

340
00:16:32,480 --> 00:16:35,280
Speaker 1: though he was just like rat fuck little. He was

341
00:16:35,320 --> 00:16:37,560
Speaker 1: a drunk man with his hand on the button, yeah,

342
00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:40,800
Speaker 1: screaming the inward regular. So I bet like they're like, oh,

343
00:16:40,840 --> 00:16:42,600
Speaker 1: he's dead, let's just talk about how big a dick

344
00:16:42,640 --> 00:16:44,280
Speaker 1: he had. I don't. I don't think he was dead

345
00:16:44,280 --> 00:16:47,120
Speaker 1: when this story was, but I don't really know. The

346
00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:49,880
Speaker 1: snarling death was after he was dead. But like this anecdote,

347
00:16:49,880 --> 00:16:52,080
Speaker 1: I think came from an earlier interview. Um, it was

348
00:16:52,080 --> 00:16:54,680
Speaker 1: hard to tell. Uh you imagine in an interview where

349
00:16:54,680 --> 00:16:57,960
Speaker 1: you're just like, and man, the size of that guy's cock.

350
00:16:58,160 --> 00:16:59,560
Speaker 1: What are you telling you about the time I saw

351
00:16:59,600 --> 00:17:05,560
Speaker 1: this man's direction. Roy Cohne was hard for America. Okay,

352
00:17:05,040 --> 00:17:07,560
Speaker 1: that was a slogan when he was trying to like

353
00:17:07,840 --> 00:17:11,400
Speaker 1: when he was running for office himself. Hard hard for America.

354
00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:14,080
Speaker 1: And it was like a penis shaped thing with like

355
00:17:14,119 --> 00:17:16,640
Speaker 1: the American flag. I was gonna say that the lyrics

356
00:17:16,680 --> 00:17:20,040
Speaker 1: of godless America written on the shaft. But different, you know, honest,

357
00:17:20,040 --> 00:17:22,840
Speaker 1: men can can can interpret that differently, or like a

358
00:17:22,880 --> 00:17:25,840
Speaker 1: constitution with someone writing on it, like you know instead

359
00:17:25,840 --> 00:17:29,720
Speaker 1: of a quill, that it's a penis. If that's how

360
00:17:29,720 --> 00:17:34,280
Speaker 1: they'd signed. No, no, no, we're getting the family podcast. No,

361
00:17:34,400 --> 00:17:36,560
Speaker 1: it's not at all, not in any way, shape or form.

362
00:17:36,600 --> 00:17:39,159
Speaker 1: Don't let your kids listen to well, listen to some

363
00:17:39,200 --> 00:17:40,680
Speaker 1: of this. Let your kids listen to the one about

364
00:17:40,680 --> 00:17:43,399
Speaker 1: the East India tea company. That's important. Okay, So Nancy

365
00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:46,760
Speaker 1: Reagan also desperately wanted Billy Haynes, a gay home decorator,

366
00:17:46,800 --> 00:17:49,440
Speaker 1: to decorate her home. Um, he had decorated the home

367
00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:52,240
Speaker 1: of some other favorite socialite who was sort of like

368
00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:55,640
Speaker 1: he decorated the home of somebody that that Nancy really admired,

369
00:17:55,680 --> 00:17:57,200
Speaker 1: and so she wanted this guy to do her house.

370
00:17:57,200 --> 00:17:59,320
Speaker 1: But Nancy and Ronald did not have enough money at

371
00:17:59,320 --> 00:18:01,920
Speaker 1: this point to hire the guy. So they had what

372
00:18:02,560 --> 00:18:06,080
Speaker 1: they weren't rich. This is like, this is like sixty nine.

373
00:18:06,080 --> 00:18:09,360
Speaker 1: I'm like, they have bed time for bonds. No, that's

374
00:18:09,359 --> 00:18:12,000
Speaker 1: not that much money, man, bed time for bonzo. They

375
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,159
Speaker 1: were just low enough. On the toldham Pole that like

376
00:18:14,440 --> 00:18:16,960
Speaker 1: he could be convinced to go into politics, he was

377
00:18:16,960 --> 00:18:19,280
Speaker 1: not that biggest star. Should have got a better business manager.

378
00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:23,119
Speaker 1: Well that's a fair point. Um, So Yeah, she wanted

379
00:18:23,119 --> 00:18:25,359
Speaker 1: this guy to decorate her house, but they couldn't afford it,

380
00:18:25,480 --> 00:18:27,400
Speaker 1: so they hatched a cunning scheme to get the next

381
00:18:27,400 --> 00:18:29,720
Speaker 1: best thing. So here's a quote from an article in

382
00:18:29,720 --> 00:18:32,000
Speaker 1: The Advocate called Nancy in the Gaze that talks about

383
00:18:32,000 --> 00:18:34,080
Speaker 1: how Nancy kind of finankled her way into kind of

384
00:18:34,119 --> 00:18:36,399
Speaker 1: having this guy decorate her home without paying for it.

385
00:18:37,040 --> 00:18:39,200
Speaker 1: She and Ron soon began socializing with the gay couple.

386
00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:41,800
Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty seven, when Reagan became governor of California,

387
00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:43,520
Speaker 1: the victory party was held in the home of William

388
00:18:43,560 --> 00:18:45,600
Speaker 1: Haynes and Jimmy Shields. Haynes is the guy that she

389
00:18:45,600 --> 00:18:48,280
Speaker 1: wanted to decorate her house. Soon, Nancy used Jimmy Shields

390
00:18:48,320 --> 00:18:50,600
Speaker 1: as partner as her shopping buddy. Still unable to afford

391
00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:52,760
Speaker 1: the high prices and super swank of the Haynes look,

392
00:18:52,960 --> 00:18:55,000
Speaker 1: she would take Jimmy along on a shopping junket and

393
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:57,679
Speaker 1: get his advice and use his articulate tastes. So she

394
00:18:57,760 --> 00:19:00,760
Speaker 1: basically befriends the husband of the guy that she wants

395
00:19:00,840 --> 00:19:03,040
Speaker 1: to decorate her house and just takes him shopping with

396
00:19:03,040 --> 00:19:05,960
Speaker 1: her to get advice on stuff she's too cheap to hired.

397
00:19:06,640 --> 00:19:09,840
Speaker 1: So there's a history of them exploiting gay men. Yeah,

398
00:19:09,880 --> 00:19:13,920
Speaker 1: but in a friendly way. I don't know, friendly exploitation

399
00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:16,400
Speaker 1: and maybe exploitation. They may have actually been buddies. I've

400
00:19:16,400 --> 00:19:18,120
Speaker 1: read different things on it. Some of them say these

401
00:19:18,119 --> 00:19:19,800
Speaker 1: people were pretty close to them. I don't know. It

402
00:19:19,840 --> 00:19:22,399
Speaker 1: does seem like they had some legitimately close gay friends

403
00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:24,520
Speaker 1: in this period. From what I can tell, I will

404
00:19:24,520 --> 00:19:27,240
Speaker 1: say this, I can't find any evidence of movie star

405
00:19:27,280 --> 00:19:31,119
Speaker 1: Earon Ronald Reagan pre politics expressing publicly any homophobic views.

406
00:19:31,280 --> 00:19:33,080
Speaker 1: In fact, it seems that prior to the fall of

407
00:19:33,160 --> 00:19:35,359
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, a lot of people might assumed he

408
00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:37,720
Speaker 1: was kind of your best case scenario for a Republican

409
00:19:37,760 --> 00:19:39,800
Speaker 1: if you were like a gay person looking at like, okay,

410
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:43,280
Speaker 1: Republicans gonna win. What's the least defensive one. Well, it's

411
00:19:43,280 --> 00:19:45,360
Speaker 1: this guy who's already kind of plugged into the gay

412
00:19:45,359 --> 00:19:48,320
Speaker 1: community in l A. And has shown willingness and like

413
00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:51,520
Speaker 1: open mindedness and at least in his personal life. So

414
00:19:51,560 --> 00:19:54,040
Speaker 1: that's how people might have felt in nineteen sixty seven.

415
00:19:54,200 --> 00:19:57,159
Speaker 1: Now ninety seven is the year he took office, and

416
00:19:57,200 --> 00:19:59,119
Speaker 1: in fall of that year, there was a big series

417
00:19:59,119 --> 00:20:02,119
Speaker 1: of news articles at out a quote homosexual clique in

418
00:20:02,119 --> 00:20:04,600
Speaker 1: the Reagan administration, because it turned out that a lot

419
00:20:04,640 --> 00:20:06,480
Speaker 1: of the guys he had high up in his governor's

420
00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:09,359
Speaker 1: administration were gay men. This was exposed by the news

421
00:20:09,760 --> 00:20:12,920
Speaker 1: and was seen as a big deal because Reagan had

422
00:20:12,960 --> 00:20:16,119
Speaker 1: campaigned on inn in California's moral decline, so it was

423
00:20:16,119 --> 00:20:18,240
Speaker 1: not taking well with his conservative bass and he fired

424
00:20:18,280 --> 00:20:20,639
Speaker 1: all of the gay men and his administration. He'd been

425
00:20:20,640 --> 00:20:22,840
Speaker 1: happy to work with them earlier. Obviously, he only jettison

426
00:20:22,880 --> 00:20:26,439
Speaker 1: them because they threatened his career. Might as well, you know,

427
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:30,480
Speaker 1: dump your morals as well well. See. But this is

428
00:20:30,520 --> 00:20:32,320
Speaker 1: what's interesting to me because when I got into this,

429
00:20:32,359 --> 00:20:34,639
Speaker 1: I had thought, Okay, he was probably just a really conservative,

430
00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:36,720
Speaker 1: homophobic person from the beginning. And I don't think that's

431
00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:38,440
Speaker 1: the case. I don't think he personally had much of

432
00:20:38,440 --> 00:20:39,960
Speaker 1: an issue one way or the other. I think he

433
00:20:40,080 --> 00:20:43,080
Speaker 1: just seems works there's a problem. It is worse. That's

434
00:20:43,080 --> 00:20:47,680
Speaker 1: what I'm instrumentally homophobic as opposed to just like, I mean,

435
00:20:47,960 --> 00:20:52,280
Speaker 1: all of it is is terribly awful, but it's all bad.

436
00:20:52,320 --> 00:20:55,640
Speaker 1: I think it is worse though. If he knows there's

437
00:20:55,680 --> 00:20:58,199
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with it. Really, he doesn't actually care what

438
00:20:58,280 --> 00:21:00,320
Speaker 1: these people are doing in their private lives. He just

439
00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:03,159
Speaker 1: wants to stay in power and win more elections, and

440
00:21:03,200 --> 00:21:06,280
Speaker 1: so he'll jettison whoever he's got a jettison. Now. The

441
00:21:06,320 --> 00:21:08,800
Speaker 1: Reagans did begin after this period to take stronger public

442
00:21:08,800 --> 00:21:11,320
Speaker 1: stances against gay people. Nancy still went on her dates

443
00:21:11,320 --> 00:21:14,080
Speaker 1: with Zipkin, but she would also in public call homosexuality

444
00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,400
Speaker 1: a sickness. She called it an abnormality. Also in interviews,

445
00:21:17,480 --> 00:21:21,399
Speaker 1: she stop using tinted lenses in his glasses. That's the

446
00:21:21,440 --> 00:21:27,840
Speaker 1: worst yet. Um, Jerry, please, I have Nancy. This is well, well,

447
00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:30,360
Speaker 1: I love that. If you're going to do the Nancy voice,

448
00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:32,040
Speaker 1: you always you're always going to go back to doing

449
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:34,840
Speaker 1: the Ronald voice because nobody knows what Nancy Reagan sounded

450
00:21:34,920 --> 00:21:38,320
Speaker 1: like anymore. Don't use drugs. I don't even remember if

451
00:21:38,359 --> 00:21:40,880
Speaker 1: that's accurate. I think I can remember Barbara Bush's voice,

452
00:21:41,840 --> 00:21:44,000
Speaker 1: but only because I can remember Barbara Bush on The Simpsons.

453
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:48,439
Speaker 1: What do like uptight socialites sound like? I don't know,

454
00:21:48,720 --> 00:21:50,600
Speaker 1: they're all dead because we don't have social I mean, like,

455
00:21:50,640 --> 00:21:53,679
Speaker 1: tighten my butthole, real tight, and well, it's just my

456
00:21:53,880 --> 00:21:59,639
Speaker 1: hello you're just doing Lady Reagan, Lady Reagan, my favorite

457
00:21:59,640 --> 00:22:02,320
Speaker 1: Beatle song. All right, now we have to we have

458
00:22:02,359 --> 00:22:04,320
Speaker 1: to break through some ads right now. But when we

459
00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:07,320
Speaker 1: get back, we're going to talk about a legitimate stance

460
00:22:07,359 --> 00:22:09,800
Speaker 1: Reagan took in favor of gay people while he was governor.

461
00:22:10,520 --> 00:22:12,199
Speaker 1: And then we're going to talk about the death of

462
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:15,200
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of Americans. So that's all coming up.

463
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:26,320
Speaker 1: But first products and we're back, we're talking about the Reagans.

464
00:22:26,359 --> 00:22:28,720
Speaker 1: We just talked about their history, their friendships with gay

465
00:22:28,760 --> 00:22:31,600
Speaker 1: people quote unquote friendships. I'm pretty sure they really liked

466
00:22:31,680 --> 00:22:35,359
Speaker 1: Roy Cone because he's a vicious monster. Nothings with rock

467
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:38,160
Speaker 1: huts into but there's nothing to do with his homosexuality

468
00:22:38,640 --> 00:22:40,800
Speaker 1: in uh in sixties seven. Of course, he fires all

469
00:22:40,800 --> 00:22:43,879
Speaker 1: of the gay people in an administration in nineteen seventy eight,

470
00:22:44,040 --> 00:22:46,320
Speaker 1: so near the end of Reagan's time in office, eight

471
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,879
Speaker 1: movies are out. Star Wars was Star Wars I'm thinking right, yeah.

472
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,880
Speaker 1: A conservative lawmaker named Briggs proposed a California ballot initiative

473
00:22:53,880 --> 00:22:56,240
Speaker 1: that became known as the Briggs Initiative. If it passed,

474
00:22:56,240 --> 00:22:58,879
Speaker 1: it would have banned not only all gay people, but

475
00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:01,560
Speaker 1: all people who support did gay rights from teaching in

476
00:23:01,640 --> 00:23:05,440
Speaker 1: California schools. So this wasn't even saying you can't talk

477
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:08,080
Speaker 1: about homosexuality in school. This is saying, if you personally

478
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:10,440
Speaker 1: support gay rights, you can't be a teacher in California.

479
00:23:10,520 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 1: So anyway, the initiative was really popular when it started out.

480
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: It was the focus of one of the first major

481
00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:19,040
Speaker 1: gay rights campaigns in California I think or American history.

482
00:23:19,080 --> 00:23:21,239
Speaker 1: Harvey Milk was a big part of it. UM. It

483
00:23:21,240 --> 00:23:23,000
Speaker 1: involved a lot of gay men going door to door

484
00:23:23,119 --> 00:23:24,760
Speaker 1: and talking to people and just being like, hey, we

485
00:23:24,840 --> 00:23:27,639
Speaker 1: exist in this law sucks and UM. Reagan took a

486
00:23:27,640 --> 00:23:30,480
Speaker 1: public stance against the BRIGS initiative UM, along with a

487
00:23:30,520 --> 00:23:32,439
Speaker 1: number of other people. President Carter did as well. The

488
00:23:32,560 --> 00:23:35,359
Speaker 1: advocates in this case were very successful in turning public

489
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:38,920
Speaker 1: opinion around before the vote, and obviously it was defeated,

490
00:23:39,160 --> 00:23:40,800
Speaker 1: so that's good. And so this is where the lug

491
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:43,480
Speaker 1: Cabin Republicans come from. They performed in order to fight

492
00:23:43,600 --> 00:23:46,640
Speaker 1: this initiative, and then other things have happened, and then yeah,

493
00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,640
Speaker 1: what happened, Like why are there's still log Cavan Republicans.

494
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:51,760
Speaker 1: They started out trying to stop a thing that needed

495
00:23:51,800 --> 00:23:54,480
Speaker 1: to be stopped. So in this case, they're on the

496
00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:56,640
Speaker 1: right side of things, although this is a really hard

497
00:23:56,760 --> 00:23:59,399
Speaker 1: thing to be on the wrong side of, Like you're

498
00:23:59,440 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 1: really a big piece of ship if you're in support

499
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 1: of the Briggs initiative at this point. Again, even Reagan

500
00:24:04,920 --> 00:24:08,400
Speaker 1: was against it prior to running for president. So yeah,

501
00:24:08,440 --> 00:24:10,280
Speaker 1: this is where I started to realize that, yeah, I

502
00:24:10,280 --> 00:24:13,280
Speaker 1: had gotten something wrong about the Reagan's um and started

503
00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:15,560
Speaker 1: to realize that the real story is much darker because

504
00:24:15,560 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: he's clearly capable of being convinced to give a ship

505
00:24:18,880 --> 00:24:21,560
Speaker 1: about gay people because it happened once, and he has

506
00:24:21,600 --> 00:24:23,879
Speaker 1: all these friends. So yeah, this is kind of the

507
00:24:23,960 --> 00:24:26,160
Speaker 1: high water mark morally that we're going to get into

508
00:24:26,200 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: here in the story, and it's all downhill from here.

509
00:24:28,160 --> 00:24:32,000
Speaker 1: So yeah. In nineteen eighty three, three years after taking office,

510
00:24:32,080 --> 00:24:34,879
Speaker 1: Ronald and Nancy hosted interior decorator Ted Graber and his

511
00:24:34,920 --> 00:24:40,399
Speaker 1: partner Archie Case at the White House right before right

512
00:24:40,400 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: around the corner. Yeah, right around the corner. So they

513
00:24:42,480 --> 00:24:44,680
Speaker 1: have Ted Graber and his partner atch Case over to

514
00:24:44,680 --> 00:24:48,320
Speaker 1: the White House. They celebrated Nancy's sixtieth birthday and stayed

515
00:24:48,320 --> 00:24:50,680
Speaker 1: the night, and Ted and Archie were probably the first

516
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:52,879
Speaker 1: same sex couple to room together at the White House.

517
00:24:53,160 --> 00:24:55,200
Speaker 1: So again we're still at the high wall water mark.

518
00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:57,639
Speaker 1: I teased that just a second to early. But this

519
00:24:57,720 --> 00:25:00,879
Speaker 1: is the best part of the Ragons, So him standing

520
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:04,640
Speaker 1: up against the briggs An initiative and having one gay

521
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:08,800
Speaker 1: couple at the White House. That's so I want to

522
00:25:08,840 --> 00:25:11,040
Speaker 1: make sure of being fair here. That's why the bar

523
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:14,080
Speaker 1: is set very very low. I mean, the sad thing

524
00:25:14,200 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 1: is that's actually not a low bar for nineteen eighty three,

525
00:25:17,320 --> 00:25:19,600
Speaker 1: especially after what we're going to get into here. Anyway,

526
00:25:19,600 --> 00:25:22,280
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that later. When AIDS became a very

527
00:25:22,280 --> 00:25:24,600
Speaker 1: public and prominent problem in nineteen eighty two, the Reagan

528
00:25:24,640 --> 00:25:26,320
Speaker 1: should have known it was serious. They had friends who

529
00:25:26,320 --> 00:25:28,400
Speaker 1: were members of the gay community. They were clearly plugged

530
00:25:28,400 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: into Los Angeles. You would have expected something from this

531
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:34,520
Speaker 1: administration on the fact that hundreds of Americans were now

532
00:25:34,560 --> 00:25:37,399
Speaker 1: dying from AIDS. Instead, here's what happened. I'm about to

533
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:40,640
Speaker 1: play you audio of the Reagan administration's first official response

534
00:25:40,680 --> 00:25:42,399
Speaker 1: to the AIDS crisis. This is a clip from a

535
00:25:42,480 --> 00:25:46,200
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two press conference. Reagan's Press Secretary Larry Speaks

536
00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:50,680
Speaker 1: is asked about AIDS. Larry speaks with a with an E. Yeah,

537
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 1: I know, it's even weirder this Secretary Larry speaks. This

538
00:25:54,119 --> 00:25:57,840
Speaker 1: is Larry speaks well at the job. Clearly your name

539
00:25:57,920 --> 00:26:02,480
Speaker 1: speaks is my defense secretary to any bombs. It's almost

540
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:04,280
Speaker 1: like a dick army kind of ame, Like it really

541
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:06,400
Speaker 1: is if the only they've all been in the same administration.

542
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:09,640
Speaker 1: Um and then yeah, he's being asked a question about

543
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:12,719
Speaker 1: AIDS by a reporter named Lester Consulting. So all right,

544
00:26:12,800 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 1: let's play it from the Center for Disease Control of

545
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:21,359
Speaker 1: a Lanta that AI d S is now an epidemic

546
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:32,239
Speaker 1: SI six hundred cases. It's known as gay play. I mean,

547
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 1: it's a pretty serious thing that one and every three

548
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:36,719
Speaker 1: people that get this who died. And I wondered if

549
00:26:36,720 --> 00:26:39,679
Speaker 1: the president even where I don't have it or you

550
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: do you? You don't have it? Well, I'm relieved to

551
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:47,880
Speaker 1: hear that do you? You didn't answer my question? How

552
00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:50,679
Speaker 1: do you know the project? The White House looks on

553
00:26:50,800 --> 00:26:52,920
Speaker 1: This is a great joke. Now I don't know anything

554
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:56,399
Speaker 1: about it. Master, does anybody in the White House know

555
00:26:56,440 --> 00:26:59,360
Speaker 1: about this? Epidemic l I don't think so, I don't

556
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:02,440
Speaker 1: think any there's been no personal experience here last year.

557
00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: Dr check Thorley with Dr Rugy this morning. He's had

558
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:12,960
Speaker 1: no uh, no patience suffered from a I D S

559
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:18,400
Speaker 1: or whatever it is. Is that what I didn't say that? Yeah,

560
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 1: I thought I heard you in the State department over

561
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:26,640
Speaker 1: there when you stay over there, because I love you,

562
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:33,360
Speaker 1: let's don't put it in those terms. Last year, so

563
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:39,720
Speaker 1: I just love how like smirky these fuckers are like smug.

564
00:27:40,080 --> 00:27:42,760
Speaker 1: I mean, it's the same, it's exactly the same today,

565
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:46,400
Speaker 1: like nothing has changed about these elite sons of pitches. Well,

566
00:27:46,440 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 1: i'll tell you what's changed. I'll tell you it's changed

567
00:27:48,280 --> 00:27:50,160
Speaker 1: because what this is and what this is usually when

568
00:27:50,200 --> 00:27:51,919
Speaker 1: you this is from like a vanity fair put all

569
00:27:51,960 --> 00:27:53,880
Speaker 1: these together in a short little documentary. You can find

570
00:27:53,920 --> 00:27:56,439
Speaker 1: one it linked on the site. This will usually be

571
00:27:56,680 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: framed as like, listen to the Reagan administrations the laughter

572
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:01,880
Speaker 1: and stuff that they had over this, which is obviously

573
00:28:01,960 --> 00:28:06,439
Speaker 1: Reagan's spokesman is laughing about this, and basically his response

574
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:08,440
Speaker 1: this guy bringing it up is why do you care?

575
00:28:08,480 --> 00:28:10,800
Speaker 1: Are you gay? I'm not gay. I don't have it. Yeah,

576
00:28:10,800 --> 00:28:13,520
Speaker 1: it's like gay panic. It's like the Also like I

577
00:28:13,600 --> 00:28:17,359
Speaker 1: like how they didn't know how to use acronyms. Yeah,

578
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:20,080
Speaker 1: by the way, are we are we gonna get any

579
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:22,359
Speaker 1: information about how much money we're given to N A

580
00:28:22,480 --> 00:28:26,040
Speaker 1: T O. Yeah, it's it's it's but like, what's notable

581
00:28:26,080 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 1: to that to me is that this is not just

582
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,600
Speaker 1: Reagan people. These are journalists presumably, people who are more

583
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:33,960
Speaker 1: like to the left of the spectrum. They're all laughing

584
00:28:34,000 --> 00:28:36,359
Speaker 1: at it, like it's not just the Reagan people, which

585
00:28:36,400 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 1: is something that has happened. I don't think if a

586
00:28:38,160 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: disease were to inflict the gay community, I don't think

587
00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:42,760
Speaker 1: you have the press box all making fun of it

588
00:28:43,160 --> 00:28:44,960
Speaker 1: like that. I don't know. They're a bunch of elite

589
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,880
Speaker 1: ship heads too. I don't know. I feel like it's

590
00:28:48,920 --> 00:28:50,760
Speaker 1: shocking to me then that you could have And I

591
00:28:51,120 --> 00:28:53,600
Speaker 1: think Lester're king Solving or Kinsolving is not a left

592
00:28:53,600 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: wing journals. He's actually conservative right wing guy. He's a

593
00:28:56,400 --> 00:29:00,239
Speaker 1: pretty homophobic dude. But at the same point is like

594
00:29:00,800 --> 00:29:02,280
Speaker 1: a third of the people who have this have died,

595
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,440
Speaker 1: thousands of Americans are sick. You have to say something

596
00:29:05,520 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 1: That's one of the things that's interesting to me about

597
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:08,760
Speaker 1: this is that you have a number of people who

598
00:29:08,800 --> 00:29:12,959
Speaker 1: by certainly by our standards, are really homophobic, people like

599
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,360
Speaker 1: Lester who are still like, but something has to be done.

600
00:29:16,480 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 1: It's not entirely a matter of people's morality. Was different

601
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,719
Speaker 1: than because some people who were still pretty bigoted at

602
00:29:23,800 --> 00:29:26,720
Speaker 1: least did something. He's not using the terminology that you'd

603
00:29:26,720 --> 00:29:28,960
Speaker 1: want anyone to use today, but he's trying to get

604
00:29:28,960 --> 00:29:31,240
Speaker 1: the White House to address a plague that's killing people,

605
00:29:31,600 --> 00:29:34,440
Speaker 1: which is not nothing. And it's interesting to me that

606
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 1: he's the only one in that room taking it seriously.

607
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:41,560
Speaker 1: Is I mean, sure, Okay, I don't I It's just like,

608
00:29:41,840 --> 00:29:45,080
Speaker 1: I guess it's his job too in some way, but

609
00:29:45,160 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 1: it's all of those journalists job too, and he's the

610
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,560
Speaker 1: only one that is something that's worth noting. It's both

611
00:29:50,600 --> 00:29:54,400
Speaker 1: worth noting because everybody's really fucking homophobic in that video,

612
00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:56,920
Speaker 1: but it's also worth noting because it's not just the

613
00:29:56,920 --> 00:30:00,240
Speaker 1: Reagan administrations falling down on this. Mainstream journalist him in

614
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:03,280
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two considered this worth laughing over. Lester was

615
00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:05,720
Speaker 1: a kuk in a crank for talking about it at all.

616
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:09,880
Speaker 1: That's worth noting to me. We shouldn't just be attacking

617
00:30:09,880 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: the Reagan administration because it was it was homophobia at

618
00:30:12,640 --> 00:30:17,320
Speaker 1: every level of our nation's culture that allowed AIDS to

619
00:30:17,360 --> 00:30:19,240
Speaker 1: get as bad as it god and I think that

620
00:30:19,440 --> 00:30:22,440
Speaker 1: video is emblematic of it. Lester obviously wanted the White

621
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:25,240
Speaker 1: House to address this in some way and they don't, Like,

622
00:30:25,280 --> 00:30:28,239
Speaker 1: there's no he just wanted a scoop. I mean, at

623
00:30:28,320 --> 00:30:30,400
Speaker 1: least he keeps it up, He keeps he keeps doing

624
00:30:30,440 --> 00:30:32,560
Speaker 1: this for years, like he's trying to get them to

625
00:30:32,600 --> 00:30:34,200
Speaker 1: say something, and they were a few like that is

626
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,800
Speaker 1: important to note the Reagan administration refused to even address it,

627
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 1: to even say as much as we're aware that there's

628
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 1: a problem, we're monitoring it. They wouldn't even say that

629
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:44,880
Speaker 1: much at this point. Part of why they weren't willing

630
00:30:44,920 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 1: to say that much is that twelve days before the

631
00:30:46,920 --> 00:30:49,959
Speaker 1: nineteen election, Ronald Reagan had received the endorsement of a

632
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:53,080
Speaker 1: group called Christians for Reagan now Christians for Reagan or

633
00:30:53,160 --> 00:30:55,200
Speaker 1: C for Our as I'm gonna call him, to be

634
00:30:55,240 --> 00:30:58,960
Speaker 1: cool and Hip, was an ostensibly politically independent Christian fundamentalist

635
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:01,080
Speaker 1: lobbying groups, so see for are paid for what Slate

636
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:03,880
Speaker 1: describes as a barrage of ads attacking President Carter for

637
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:07,480
Speaker 1: catering to gate people. Quote on one spot, an announcer

638
00:31:07,480 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 1: in toned the gaze in San Francisco elected in mayor,

639
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: now they're going to elect a president. Before the ads began,

640
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:14,840
Speaker 1: polls had shown that Carter, a born again Christians, still

641
00:31:14,840 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 1: had considerable support among evangelicals. But the hard hitting TV

642
00:31:18,080 --> 00:31:21,000
Speaker 1: spots were extremely effective, and they helped Reagan carry every

643
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 1: Southern state except Georgia, where Carter had been governor. Partly

644
00:31:23,840 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 1: because the commercials never aired in New York at Washington,

645
00:31:26,040 --> 00:31:28,600
Speaker 1: most people outside the South were never aware of them.

646
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,800
Speaker 1: So this is part of I think why the Reagan

647
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:35,520
Speaker 1: administration won't even say we're aware that there's a disease,

648
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:39,480
Speaker 1: because they got elected off the back of people who

649
00:31:39,880 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 1: were able to shift support away from Carter via homophobia,

650
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:46,960
Speaker 1: so that Reagan knows that's part of his like foundation.

651
00:31:47,080 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: Hey Republicans, wait, we needed racism for the Southern strategy.

652
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:54,000
Speaker 1: Now we need homophobia so we can keep the evangelicals

653
00:31:54,000 --> 00:31:57,280
Speaker 1: in line and abortion. So we take that for granted now,

654
00:31:57,320 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: but this is the start of that This is also

655
00:31:59,000 --> 00:32:01,240
Speaker 1: really the start of abortion being a major factor in

656
00:32:01,280 --> 00:32:04,040
Speaker 1: American politics. That was not always you go back to

657
00:32:04,120 --> 00:32:06,600
Speaker 1: the nineteen forties, that wasn't a wedge issue. I mean,

658
00:32:06,640 --> 00:32:09,200
Speaker 1: it wasn't even really a most people's radar. It's in

659
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:12,120
Speaker 1: during the Reagan era that this really kicks that both

660
00:32:12,120 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: of these things really kick off as major aspects of

661
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 1: Republican strategy. So whenever the question of homosexuality came up

662
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: in Ronald Reagan's political life, uh, he was harsh when

663
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:22,320
Speaker 1: it was, you know, a public statement. He was asked

664
00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:24,720
Speaker 1: on the campaign whether or not his ballet dancers son

665
00:32:24,760 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: was gay, and Reagan replied, He's all, man, we made

666
00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 1: sure of that them. Sorry, I have nothing funny is

667
00:32:31,160 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: they're just like all fuckers. No, I mean I think

668
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:37,320
Speaker 1: that means Reagan was hitting his kid. But but just um.

669
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:39,800
Speaker 1: The first couple continued to socialize and work with gay

670
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:43,040
Speaker 1: people behind the scenes. The publicly homophobic Roy Kahan was

671
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:45,600
Speaker 1: a close advisor to the Reagan White House. Ted Graber,

672
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:47,200
Speaker 1: who spent the night at the White House, also got

673
00:32:47,200 --> 00:32:49,680
Speaker 1: a contract to do a one million dollar renovation job

674
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 1: of the family quarters in the West Wing. So clearly

675
00:32:52,400 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 1: Ronnie and Nancy weren't above throwing a friend a bone,

676
00:32:55,080 --> 00:32:58,560
Speaker 1: even if that friend happened to be homosexual courting taxpayer money.

677
00:32:58,640 --> 00:33:01,000
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, and that will be noteworthy in

678
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 1: a minute. Here. According to Steve Weisman, a journalist who

679
00:33:03,400 --> 00:33:05,640
Speaker 1: covered Reagan's first term for The New York Times, quote

680
00:33:05,880 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 1: the White House wasn't that homophobic because Nancy head friends

681
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: who were gay. But it was definitely a place where

682
00:33:10,120 --> 00:33:12,440
Speaker 1: you would hear one staff member call another staff member

683
00:33:12,480 --> 00:33:14,960
Speaker 1: a fag behind his back. Jesus Christ. I just a

684
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 1: lot of the fact, like, you know, I can't be racist,

685
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,120
Speaker 1: I have a black friend, or like that kind of

686
00:33:20,800 --> 00:33:24,080
Speaker 1: justification is Yeah, it's a pretty remarkable quote because it's

687
00:33:24,080 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 1: like you just described a pretty homophobic office, Like it's

688
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:29,160
Speaker 1: not that sex assive place. We just you know, do

689
00:33:29,200 --> 00:33:33,480
Speaker 1: a lot of pinching. Like well, okay, at this point,

690
00:33:33,520 --> 00:33:36,280
Speaker 1: federal action who actually stopped the spread of AIDS and

691
00:33:36,360 --> 00:33:38,040
Speaker 1: only been taken by a handful of scientists at the

692
00:33:38,040 --> 00:33:40,720
Speaker 1: CDC in at this point in two they in a

693
00:33:40,760 --> 00:33:43,280
Speaker 1: small caucus of New York and California congressman lobby to

694
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 1: get additional funding to fight AIDS. It's worth noting that

695
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 1: these congressmen got involved because they all had openly gay

696
00:33:48,400 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 1: staff members who begged them to do something. So these

697
00:33:50,360 --> 00:33:53,160
Speaker 1: Democratic congressman, we have gay people on their staff who

698
00:33:53,160 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: are like, there's a fucking problem, You've got to do something.

699
00:33:55,200 --> 00:33:58,760
Speaker 1: And so that's why the first real political action starts

700
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 1: getting taken. It's because straight lawmakers have gay people who

701
00:34:02,920 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: worked for them who are like, dude, ships fucked up. Um,

702
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:09,040
Speaker 1: which is why it's important. All of the gay people

703
00:34:09,120 --> 00:34:12,040
Speaker 1: who were in Reagan's political orbit got excised in nineteen

704
00:34:12,120 --> 00:34:15,279
Speaker 1: sixty seven. That is a factor in this um. So.

705
00:34:15,320 --> 00:34:16,920
Speaker 1: One of the books I did read to prepare for

706
00:34:16,920 --> 00:34:19,399
Speaker 1: this episode was After the Wrath of God. It's an

707
00:34:19,760 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: Oxford University Press textbook about how American religion impacted the

708
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:27,759
Speaker 1: AIDS crisis. Very interesting um. It tides much of the

709
00:34:27,840 --> 00:34:31,320
Speaker 1: Reagan administration's failure to the fact that gay people didn't

710
00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:35,040
Speaker 1: have any access to administration officials. Quote. The Reagan era

711
00:34:35,160 --> 00:34:37,080
Speaker 1: ushered in not only a new national leader, but also

712
00:34:37,080 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: a new White House staff that included a number of

713
00:34:39,200 --> 00:34:42,040
Speaker 1: anti gay conservatives, chief among them Pat Buchanan, Gary Bauer,

714
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 1: and William Bennett. The shift consequently curtailed the already limited

715
00:34:45,640 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 1: access that gay and lesbian leaders had two aids within

716
00:34:47,719 --> 00:34:50,560
Speaker 1: the previous administration. As a Storian William Turner puts it,

717
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:53,360
Speaker 1: rather than having highly sympathetic White House and Executive Agency

718
00:34:53,400 --> 00:34:56,080
Speaker 1: staffers serving under a largely indifferent president who supported the

719
00:34:56,080 --> 00:34:59,760
Speaker 1: basic logic of civil rights, suddenly activists faced hostile staffers

720
00:34:59,719 --> 00:35:02,320
Speaker 1: serving under a largely indifferent president who opposed the basic

721
00:35:02,400 --> 00:35:05,440
Speaker 1: logic of civil rights. So one attitude on this is

722
00:35:05,480 --> 00:35:08,120
Speaker 1: that the Reagans didn't make a huge difference. It was

723
00:35:08,160 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 1: the fact that their staff had zero people who gave

724
00:35:11,320 --> 00:35:13,320
Speaker 1: a ship about the gay community. They had no control

725
00:35:13,320 --> 00:35:15,560
Speaker 1: over the staff. Well, I mean they did control their staff,

726
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:18,279
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's sarcastic. But also I love how like

727
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:22,839
Speaker 1: there's like maybe one or two sentences in the entire Bible, Yeah,

728
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:26,279
Speaker 1: are like that even vaguely tied to it, vaguely tied

729
00:35:26,320 --> 00:35:30,680
Speaker 1: to it, And somehow those two outweigh all of jesus

730
00:35:30,920 --> 00:35:33,319
Speaker 1: discussion of like loving thy neighbor and like turning to

731
00:35:33,360 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: the cheek and all this other kind of stuff that

732
00:35:35,200 --> 00:35:38,239
Speaker 1: is about love. And I don't know, like what is

733
00:35:38,280 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: it with like Christian Conservative what is with their brains

734
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:47,320
Speaker 1: where that somehow those two little sentences or whatever somehow

735
00:35:47,920 --> 00:35:49,879
Speaker 1: warps the rest of it. I think it has very

736
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:51,279
Speaker 1: little to do with the Bible. I think it has

737
00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:52,719
Speaker 1: much more to do with the fact that a lot

738
00:35:52,719 --> 00:35:54,719
Speaker 1: of these people grew up in a culture where like,

739
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 1: that was the thing that you made fun of, that

740
00:35:56,120 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 1: was the thing you attacked. It was seen as immoral.

741
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:01,560
Speaker 1: They didn't really know much about these people. There's a

742
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:04,520
Speaker 1: great quote from Senator Henry Waxman, who was like one

743
00:36:04,520 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: of the congressmen in a health sub committee who was

744
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 1: like really active in early fighting back against AIDS. In

745
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: the nineteen two he wrote, there is no doubt in

746
00:36:11,719 --> 00:36:13,399
Speaker 1: my mind that if the same disease had appeared among

747
00:36:13,480 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 1: Americans of Norwegian descent or among tennis players rather than

748
00:36:16,480 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 1: gay males, the responses of both the government and the

749
00:36:18,440 --> 00:36:21,000
Speaker 1: medical establishment would have been different. And I thinks that

750
00:36:21,040 --> 00:36:23,320
Speaker 1: what it's a marginalized group that people are used to

751
00:36:23,360 --> 00:36:25,400
Speaker 1: making fun of, so no one treats it seriously. Like

752
00:36:25,440 --> 00:36:28,440
Speaker 1: that's the initial response of the administration. You heard it

753
00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:32,400
Speaker 1: in that in that audio. It's it's the press secretary

754
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: joking that a journalist is gay for asking about gay people.

755
00:36:35,840 --> 00:36:38,239
Speaker 1: I think that's why it was so ignored, because they're

756
00:36:38,239 --> 00:36:42,879
Speaker 1: just seen as this subcategory of humanity that they don't

757
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:46,600
Speaker 1: like is so far beneath their concern I I really

758
00:36:46,600 --> 00:36:48,880
Speaker 1: think that's most of what it is. Yes, no, I

759
00:36:48,920 --> 00:36:51,239
Speaker 1: get that, but I'm just saying that, like, the thing

760
00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:55,720
Speaker 1: that's supposed to define these Christian Conservatives is the Bible,

761
00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 1: and most of it's about loving everyone. Well, we're going

762
00:36:59,160 --> 00:37:00,799
Speaker 1: to get into the Bible a little bit because there

763
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:04,120
Speaker 1: are a couple of different ways different Christian Conservatives take

764
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,480
Speaker 1: the Bible as relates to the AIDS crisis. So we're

765
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:08,759
Speaker 1: seeing one right now. When we get back, we're gonna

766
00:37:08,800 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: talk more about the Reagan administration's fun up of the

767
00:37:11,560 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 1: AIDS crisis. That's what we're gonna talk about. Well, time

768
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:26,800
Speaker 1: for some ads Jesus Nicaragua and we're back. Um. Nineteen

769
00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:29,839
Speaker 1: two was the first year that something should have been

770
00:37:29,880 --> 00:37:33,400
Speaker 1: done by the Reagan administration v v AIDS. It was

771
00:37:33,440 --> 00:37:36,520
Speaker 1: also the year that very little was done v AIDS.

772
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:39,240
Speaker 1: While the National Institutes of Health spent thirty six thousand

773
00:37:39,280 --> 00:37:41,720
Speaker 1: dollars per toxic shock death in the US and nineteen

774
00:37:41,760 --> 00:37:45,759
Speaker 1: eighty two, they spent only eight thousand per AIDS death

775
00:37:45,760 --> 00:37:48,800
Speaker 1: in nineteen two. Toxic shock as in keeping in a

776
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:50,719
Speaker 1: there's a number of things that can cause it. Be

777
00:37:50,960 --> 00:37:53,600
Speaker 1: keeping a tampon can cause it. It's it's a It's

778
00:37:53,600 --> 00:37:55,759
Speaker 1: a less common cause of death than AIDS was by

779
00:37:55,760 --> 00:37:57,759
Speaker 1: this point, but it was getting a lot more money,

780
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:05,880
Speaker 1: and so was legionnaire's disease. The soak um legionnaire's disease,

781
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:08,719
Speaker 1: which killed about fifty people in nineteen eighty two, got

782
00:38:08,840 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 1: way more funding. Between June nine in May nineteen eighty two,

783
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:14,719
Speaker 1: the CDC spent less than a million dollars on AIDS

784
00:38:14,760 --> 00:38:19,120
Speaker 1: and nine million on Legionnaire's disease. So more than a lobby,

785
00:38:19,320 --> 00:38:21,960
Speaker 1: there's a legionnaire's lobby. Well, yeah, there have been fifty

786
00:38:21,960 --> 00:38:24,040
Speaker 1: people killed in that time from legionnaire's disease, in a

787
00:38:24,040 --> 00:38:27,000
Speaker 1: thousand from AIDS. So AIDS gets a million dollars and

788
00:38:27,080 --> 00:38:30,239
Speaker 1: kills a thousand people. Legionnaire's disease kills fifty people and

789
00:38:30,520 --> 00:38:33,839
Speaker 1: gets nine million dollars in federal funding. So yeah, there's

790
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 1: not a lot of money being devoted towards it at

791
00:38:35,680 --> 00:38:38,719
Speaker 1: this point. Here's a quote from an Advocate article I

792
00:38:38,719 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 1: found Congressional staffers joke that the n i H really

793
00:38:41,120 --> 00:38:43,400
Speaker 1: stood for the National Institutes of Health RELEA stood for

794
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:47,400
Speaker 1: not interested in homosexuals. Republican priorities were perfectly clear right

795
00:38:47,400 --> 00:38:48,920
Speaker 1: from the start of the Reagan government. One of the

796
00:38:48,960 --> 00:38:51,400
Speaker 1: administration's first official acts was to propose a cut of

797
00:38:51,440 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 1: nearly fifty in the appropriation for the CDC from three

798
00:38:54,880 --> 00:38:56,840
Speaker 1: d and twenty seven million to one hundred and sixty

799
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:58,760
Speaker 1: one million. So one of the first things the Reagan

800
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:01,919
Speaker 1: administration does as a plague is starting to take off

801
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,319
Speaker 1: is cut CDC funding in half um. At the same time,

802
00:39:05,320 --> 00:39:08,040
Speaker 1: Reagan asked for an immediate increase of seven billion dollars

803
00:39:08,080 --> 00:39:10,440
Speaker 1: in defense spending and an additional increase of twenty five

804
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:12,719
Speaker 1: billion for the following fiscal year, for total of two

805
00:39:13,040 --> 00:39:15,279
Speaker 1: and twenty billion dollars spent on defense, when we cut

806
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,080
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty million dollars out of the CDC's budget.

807
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 1: So again, you've got like a perfect storm here, not

808
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,799
Speaker 1: all of which is related to homophobia, but certainly all

809
00:39:24,840 --> 00:39:26,399
Speaker 1: of which is related to not really giving a ship.

810
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 1: What happens to people where that money go to, like

811
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:33,239
Speaker 1: arming to mine, yeah, mining the harbor and n star

812
00:39:33,280 --> 00:39:36,239
Speaker 1: wars and stuff like that. We had to had to

813
00:39:36,239 --> 00:39:39,040
Speaker 1: get lasers in space that we still don't have h

814
00:39:39,200 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 1: space forces crossed you get it in. We helped out

815
00:39:42,600 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: some nice boys in Afghanistan and the last time I checked,

816
00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:48,800
Speaker 1: that place has been sailing pretty smooth since the eighties

817
00:39:49,120 --> 00:39:52,720
Speaker 1: and good times in Afghanistan. So in three, the CDC

818
00:39:52,880 --> 00:39:55,120
Speaker 1: warned Blood Banks that it believed the blood supply may

819
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:57,480
Speaker 1: have been contaminated, but would be a good name for

820
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:01,960
Speaker 1: a like a rich person who like Peter Thiel. That

821
00:40:02,080 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: is happening right now, Peter Teel should his name should

822
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:10,879
Speaker 1: be informally blood Banks. Yeah, we're just Dracula, I mean uh.

823
00:40:10,920 --> 00:40:13,200
Speaker 1: The HIV virus was identified and named for the first

824
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:15,600
Speaker 1: time in nineteen eight three. Ronald Reagan did not say

825
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,400
Speaker 1: the words AIDS in nineteen eighty three. As far as

826
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 1: we know, he had never uttered the word in his

827
00:40:20,360 --> 00:40:22,960
Speaker 1: life at that point, even though two thousand, three hundred

828
00:40:23,000 --> 00:40:25,960
Speaker 1: and four Americans died in just nineteen eighty three from AIDS.

829
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 1: On June nineteen eighty three, after roughly one eleven is

830
00:40:29,800 --> 00:40:32,480
Speaker 1: worth of total American deaths due to AIDS, the disease

831
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 1: finally came up in a second press conference, You got

832
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:37,520
Speaker 1: any predictions about how this one's going to go? My

833
00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:40,640
Speaker 1: guests longer peals of laughter. All right, all right, let's see,

834
00:40:40,800 --> 00:40:43,240
Speaker 1: like when you appeel you know, an orange or something,

835
00:40:43,239 --> 00:40:45,400
Speaker 1: and you'd use the thing to get the whole peel

836
00:40:45,800 --> 00:40:48,200
Speaker 1: off into one little strand. I've never had the patience

837
00:40:49,320 --> 00:40:53,360
Speaker 1: that did the environmental destrive vir President's teach on Saturday,

838
00:40:53,440 --> 00:41:02,719
Speaker 1: the fairy tale? Is there any true ferry tales? Are

839
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:05,799
Speaker 1: not true? And this one's true? Leicester's ayres perked up

840
00:41:05,800 --> 00:41:11,799
Speaker 1: when you said fairies. Yeah, it's pretty bad interest in that.

841
00:41:12,719 --> 00:41:16,880
Speaker 1: This is the movement even at the Comers convention, Crest

842
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:22,359
Speaker 1: Food Federal system getting at the age from President has

843
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:26,840
Speaker 1: been involved in um in in briefed on the age

844
00:41:27,120 --> 00:41:30,840
Speaker 1: situation number of months ago in a Cabinet meeting and

845
00:41:32,040 --> 00:41:36,080
Speaker 1: ordered that high priority be given to research matters on it. UH.

846
00:41:36,440 --> 00:41:39,280
Speaker 1: The Center for Disease Control has been involved for some time.

847
00:41:39,840 --> 00:41:43,000
Speaker 1: President will continue to be updated. We have recently asked

848
00:41:43,000 --> 00:41:46,480
Speaker 1: at twelve million dollars to be reprogrammed for research on

849
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: the age. That's extend of the President's involvement, which has

850
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:52,280
Speaker 1: been Laurry. Does the President think that it might help

851
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:55,760
Speaker 1: if he suggested that the gays cut down in their cruising.

852
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:02,520
Speaker 1: Yah told you and hear your answer. I just was

853
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:05,919
Speaker 1: acknowledging your and your interest in this said, you don't

854
00:42:05,960 --> 00:42:07,799
Speaker 1: think that it would help if the game has come

855
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 1: down on their cruising and we're researching, and if we

856
00:42:11,080 --> 00:42:15,880
Speaker 1: come up with any any, any research that shed some

857
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 1: light on whether gaish and cruise or not crude would

858
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:26,000
Speaker 1: make available to you. The one legitimate piece of progress, motherfuckers,

859
00:42:26,120 --> 00:42:29,840
Speaker 1: is that they use the acronym. Now now they understand.

860
00:42:29,880 --> 00:42:32,279
Speaker 1: You got to give him credit for that. Took a year,

861
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,040
Speaker 1: had an English teacher comment and teach them something. They

862
00:42:36,080 --> 00:42:38,560
Speaker 1: are still laughing every time anyone says the word fairy.

863
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 1: By the way, is everyone in the press pool a

864
00:42:40,280 --> 00:42:42,160
Speaker 1: twelve year old boys? Yes, this was a time when

865
00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:44,160
Speaker 1: everyone in the press pool was a twelve year old book. Well,

866
00:42:44,200 --> 00:42:46,919
Speaker 1: that makes what was a Reagan era policy? Um, yeah,

867
00:42:47,000 --> 00:42:50,040
Speaker 1: which we should go back to. Actually, if you've watched newsies,

868
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:52,200
Speaker 1: you know how funny kids can be with the news

869
00:42:52,520 --> 00:42:55,600
Speaker 1: and cholera. I've never watched newses. I assume they all

870
00:42:55,640 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 1: die of colera. Kids die from the darnest things. Most

871
00:43:00,600 --> 00:43:05,520
Speaker 1: popular show in nineteen nineteen um so, the Reagan administration's

872
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,880
Speaker 1: first official meeting of the AIDS crisis with representatives of

873
00:43:08,880 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: the gay community was held on June. It included two

874
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:16,560
Speaker 1: members of the National Gay Task Force, a special Assistant

875
00:43:16,560 --> 00:43:19,080
Speaker 1: to the President, and staff members from Health and Human Services.

876
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 1: The members of the Gay Task Force, which was essentially

877
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:23,839
Speaker 1: like a gay advocacy group. I wish it was like

878
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: a gay assassin group, like it was made of all

879
00:43:27,080 --> 00:43:30,360
Speaker 1: gay men and women and they just murdered homophobes. I

880
00:43:30,400 --> 00:43:32,320
Speaker 1: will tell you strom Thurmond would not have lived to

881
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:35,000
Speaker 1: be a hundred and sixteen if that task force had

882
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:37,320
Speaker 1: been doing it. He's still alive, by the way, somewhere

883
00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:40,759
Speaker 1: he's that kind of hatred, never quite down. No, no, no, no,

884
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 1: he's I mean, do you think what he died. The

885
00:43:44,120 --> 00:43:47,800
Speaker 1: molecules in his body just like floated off in his

886
00:43:48,280 --> 00:43:52,359
Speaker 1: infected much much like in the Return of Optimus Prime

887
00:43:52,440 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 1: with the hate virus that I think molecules from him

888
00:43:55,840 --> 00:44:00,000
Speaker 1: disintegrated off of his body and formed a new hand

889
00:44:00,120 --> 00:44:03,879
Speaker 1: end avestigial hand on the spine of Roger Stone. Yeah,

890
00:44:04,000 --> 00:44:06,279
Speaker 1: so now he can jerk himself off with both of

891
00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 1: his hands. That's my theory. Roger Stone can present a

892
00:44:10,960 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 1: panceless photo of himself to prove it wrong or not.

893
00:44:13,080 --> 00:44:15,279
Speaker 1: But I believe he has astigial hand growing on his

894
00:44:15,360 --> 00:44:18,399
Speaker 1: thigh like Quatto, like Quatta exactly, but just a hand,

895
00:44:18,520 --> 00:44:23,120
Speaker 1: but just a hand for jerking himself off constantly. Roger Stone,

896
00:44:24,160 --> 00:44:26,520
Speaker 1: the Baba dooke himself, by the way, at this point

897
00:44:26,520 --> 00:44:29,640
Speaker 1: in time, is helping Paul Manaford establish the first lobbying

898
00:44:29,640 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 1: group explicitly for dictators, which is pretty cool progress. So

899
00:44:34,000 --> 00:44:36,920
Speaker 1: there are progressives involved in politics at this point. We

900
00:44:36,960 --> 00:44:39,800
Speaker 1: should point that out. So the Gay Task Force people

901
00:44:39,920 --> 00:44:42,480
Speaker 1: asked for things from the regular administration like more money

902
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:44,759
Speaker 1: for sex ed at the state level. They wanted a

903
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:48,120
Speaker 1: national conversation about condom use and the destigmatization of AIDS

904
00:44:48,160 --> 00:44:49,880
Speaker 1: as a gay disease. By the way, where where did

905
00:44:49,920 --> 00:44:52,600
Speaker 1: you grow up? Texas? Texas? I grew up in Pennsylvania.

906
00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:55,960
Speaker 1: The sex d and fifth grade was basically like a

907
00:44:56,120 --> 00:45:01,239
Speaker 1: nervous Jim teacher being like the oh, we just got

908
00:45:01,880 --> 00:45:04,319
Speaker 1: They didn't. They just started the video, walked out of

909
00:45:04,360 --> 00:45:06,200
Speaker 1: the room and came back and when it was done

910
00:45:06,239 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 1: and everyone was very uncomfortable. It was terrible sex said,

911
00:45:11,320 --> 00:45:13,880
Speaker 1: but it was Texas, so I'm surprised they let us

912
00:45:13,880 --> 00:45:16,719
Speaker 1: know penises exist. They really like to keep that under

913
00:45:16,719 --> 00:45:20,359
Speaker 1: wraps in Texas. So yeah, the what the task force

914
00:45:20,400 --> 00:45:22,759
Speaker 1: wanted was pretty minor and pretty like a big thing

915
00:45:22,800 --> 00:45:25,120
Speaker 1: for them was just like, tell people condoms work to

916
00:45:25,239 --> 00:45:28,040
Speaker 1: prevent AIDS. They should know that, maybe give out some condoms.

917
00:45:28,400 --> 00:45:31,560
Speaker 1: The Reagan administration was not a big fan of this advice,

918
00:45:31,800 --> 00:45:34,160
Speaker 1: so they had a second meeting about AIDS in August.

919
00:45:34,320 --> 00:45:37,880
Speaker 1: No representatives of the gay community were invited this time. Instead,

920
00:45:37,960 --> 00:45:41,400
Speaker 1: Reagan representatives met with the National director of the Conservative Caucus,

921
00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:44,120
Speaker 1: Howard Phillips, who thought any information about AIDS had to

922
00:45:44,160 --> 00:45:47,400
Speaker 1: be delivered under a blanket condemnation of homosexuality as a

923
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:51,640
Speaker 1: quote moral wrong. Another attendee, doctor Ron Goodwin, of the

924
00:45:51,640 --> 00:45:55,279
Speaker 1: Moral Majority, suggested that the administration should close gay bathhouses

925
00:45:55,280 --> 00:45:58,920
Speaker 1: and require blood donors to give their sexual histories. Historian

926
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:01,800
Speaker 1: Jennifer Bryan note that when the CDC officials pushed to

927
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:04,880
Speaker 1: take effective steps against the disease, they struggled against the

928
00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:07,719
Speaker 1: fact that quote many of Reagan's domestic advisors and AIDS

929
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:10,399
Speaker 1: wanted to bend what they called AIDS education to fit

930
00:46:10,440 --> 00:46:13,839
Speaker 1: the model of social and religious conservatism that posited gay

931
00:46:13,840 --> 00:46:16,319
Speaker 1: men as sick and dangerous. By the way, more like

932
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: the Moron majority. Oh nice, you really told that one

933
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:27,359
Speaker 1: in time? Guys, I am professional comedy writer. We get

934
00:46:27,360 --> 00:46:29,240
Speaker 1: that on some T shirts from the eight four election.

935
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:31,319
Speaker 1: I think we can really make a difference. There's got

936
00:46:31,440 --> 00:46:33,600
Speaker 1: to be like some village in sub Saharan Africa where

937
00:46:33,640 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: everyone's either wearing a Moron majority shirt or a Hillary

938
00:46:36,560 --> 00:46:41,040
Speaker 1: for Prison shirt. It's just we're still fighting your political

939
00:46:41,080 --> 00:46:43,799
Speaker 1: battles from ten years ago here in T shirts. Yeah.

940
00:46:43,800 --> 00:46:46,960
Speaker 1: And also they've got like shat T shirts, a lot

941
00:46:47,000 --> 00:46:50,640
Speaker 1: of shack T shirts. It's gonna be fun. A lot

942
00:46:50,640 --> 00:46:54,440
Speaker 1: of Kazam whatever whatever movie was. Kauzan was the real one,

943
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:58,160
Speaker 1: Shazam was jas was the Mandala effect one. So late

944
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:01,400
Speaker 1: in nineteen three nine Republican congressman wrote a letter to

945
00:47:01,440 --> 00:47:03,719
Speaker 1: the President. One of these congressmen was new to ging Ridge.

946
00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:07,480
Speaker 1: Here's Jennifer Bryer. Gingridge argued that closing bath houses are

947
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:09,920
Speaker 1: mandating reporting of AIDS was a more reasonable policy than

948
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:12,479
Speaker 1: trying to provide sex education at bath houses or keeping

949
00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:15,480
Speaker 1: the names of people who tested positive for HIV anonymous.

950
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:18,760
Speaker 1: Here the common sense arguments betrayed a particular stance on AIDS,

951
00:47:18,800 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 1: one that sought to make the public healthy by restricting

952
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:23,560
Speaker 1: the civil rights of those believed to be sick. So

953
00:47:24,440 --> 00:47:26,840
Speaker 1: you'd certainly never hear about anything like that happening. Again.

954
00:47:27,280 --> 00:47:29,800
Speaker 1: One of the doctors working tirelessly to treat the epidemic

955
00:47:29,920 --> 00:47:32,400
Speaker 1: was Marcus Kanan. This is new Gingris, the guy who

956
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:37,000
Speaker 1: served his wife divorce papers while she was in the hospital. Right, yes,

957
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: moral paragon. Yeah, all these fuckers like to to a man,

958
00:47:42,760 --> 00:47:45,640
Speaker 1: there isn't one of them that isn't just like a

959
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,840
Speaker 1: dark cathul like beast in their brains. But they're all

960
00:47:50,000 --> 00:47:55,560
Speaker 1: these kind of like non Euclidean garbage creatures. No, which

961
00:47:55,600 --> 00:47:57,759
Speaker 1: is why I I think, really, if you want to

962
00:47:57,760 --> 00:48:00,560
Speaker 1: reform politics in this country, one of the laws that

963
00:48:00,600 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: you pass is that in order to be an elected

964
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 1: politician at the national level, you wear a camera at

965
00:48:05,160 --> 00:48:07,360
Speaker 1: all times while you're elected. Everybody sees you go to

966
00:48:07,400 --> 00:48:10,640
Speaker 1: the bathroom, Everybody sees you fuck, Everybody sees every conversation

967
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:12,640
Speaker 1: you say. You can just log into a stream. You

968
00:48:12,640 --> 00:48:15,520
Speaker 1: can watch Rand Paul do whatever the funk. Rand Paul

969
00:48:15,560 --> 00:48:19,840
Speaker 1: does at eleven thirty at night. Zero privacy for you, Yeah, exactly.

970
00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:21,960
Speaker 1: And if you once you've got a full look at

971
00:48:21,960 --> 00:48:24,200
Speaker 1: these people, you decide I want to keep supporting them.

972
00:48:24,280 --> 00:48:27,920
Speaker 1: I think they're in line with myral moral values. Why

973
00:48:28,000 --> 00:48:32,319
Speaker 1: is round Paul holling a a six inch hole out

974
00:48:32,320 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: of a copy of the fountain Head? Oh? Man, you

975
00:48:34,320 --> 00:48:37,239
Speaker 1: hope it's a copy of the fountain Head shoving all

976
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:41,000
Speaker 1: that vastly in there. I don't know why, but I

977
00:48:41,040 --> 00:48:43,640
Speaker 1: when I imagine the thing that Rand Paul has sex with,

978
00:48:43,960 --> 00:48:48,560
Speaker 1: that's not a person I was imagining, like a decorative gourd. Yeah,

979
00:48:48,600 --> 00:48:55,760
Speaker 1: I was a magic like dollar iron. Rand, you're my mommy.

980
00:48:56,880 --> 00:49:01,000
Speaker 1: You're still doing a Reagan voice. We're stuck in well

981
00:49:01,400 --> 00:49:05,240
Speaker 1: and RAN's my mommy. One of the doctors working tirely

982
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:07,759
Speaker 1: to treat the epidemic in n was Marcus Connent. He

983
00:49:07,800 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 1: was among the first physicians in the country to treat

984
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 1: or diagnose AIDS and patients. Due to his work in

985
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: you see San Francisco. Dr Connent met with the Reagan

986
00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:17,560
Speaker 1: administration three times, first and nineteen eighty three. Here's the

987
00:49:17,560 --> 00:49:20,680
Speaker 1: Guardian doc Content and his colleagues quote we're going on

988
00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:22,960
Speaker 1: and on about how this was a disease and infectious disease.

989
00:49:23,000 --> 00:49:26,160
Speaker 1: He recalled. Reagan's representative wasn't buying it. Her response was

990
00:49:26,200 --> 00:49:28,360
Speaker 1: that this was a legal problem, not a medical problem.

991
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:31,400
Speaker 1: Connent said, simply because of who game in with aids

992
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:33,640
Speaker 1: were and who their sexual partners were. She told him

993
00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 1: these people were breaking the law. So that's the Reagan

994
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:41,479
Speaker 1: administration's stands to doctors, gay people are breaking the law.

995
00:49:41,560 --> 00:49:44,279
Speaker 1: The problem is their law breaking, not the fact that

996
00:49:44,280 --> 00:49:46,759
Speaker 1: there's a disease. Ronald Reagan did not address the nation

997
00:49:46,760 --> 00:49:51,719
Speaker 1: about Remember when we locked up all those people at Typhus. Yeah, yeah,

998
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:54,680
Speaker 1: that was a good time. Oh man, we that one

999
00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:58,399
Speaker 1: lady got out. It was a real problem. We had

1000
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: tiny handcuffs made for all the lice. I thought you

1001
00:50:02,920 --> 00:50:04,880
Speaker 1: were talking about tiny handcuffs for children, and I was

1002
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:06,560
Speaker 1: thinking that's an industry that had to have taken a

1003
00:50:06,640 --> 00:50:09,640
Speaker 1: hit since the eighteen hundreds. Oh yeah. Ever, like whatever,

1004
00:50:09,680 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: the labor movement started kicking up in the like teens

1005
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:15,440
Speaker 1: or whatever. So if we have a children's uprising today,

1006
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:20,280
Speaker 1: the police are not prepared to deal with it. Which kids. Hey, look,

1007
00:50:21,080 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 1: if you're a business person, looking forward to the future,

1008
00:50:23,800 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 1: we are going to need children's sized cuffs at some point,

1009
00:50:27,280 --> 00:50:30,560
Speaker 1: children's size cuffs, children's size cages, all sorts of little

1010
00:50:30,560 --> 00:50:34,960
Speaker 1: cute little children's size prison paraphernalia. Guys to growth, industry,

1011
00:50:34,960 --> 00:50:39,600
Speaker 1: capitalism works. Oh man, a little children's guard uniforms too,

1012
00:50:39,719 --> 00:50:43,000
Speaker 1: could have all child prison Oh my god, Oh my god,

1013
00:50:43,080 --> 00:50:46,479
Speaker 1: that would be so cute. Little anne Gettis calendars, little

1014
00:50:46,560 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 1: German shepherd puppies, like just ripping people apart on the ground.

1015
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:54,800
Speaker 1: Oh man, what a time it's going to be. Anyway,

1016
00:50:55,640 --> 00:50:58,960
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan did not address the nation about AIDS as

1017
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:00,439
Speaker 1: far as we know at that point, and he still

1018
00:51:00,480 --> 00:51:02,719
Speaker 1: had not himself said the word. He certainly hadn't said

1019
00:51:02,719 --> 00:51:06,479
Speaker 1: it in public. His communications director, though, Pat Buchanan, wrote

1020
00:51:06,520 --> 00:51:10,920
Speaker 1: an article for The New York Yeah. Quote from Pat Buchanan,

1021
00:51:11,080 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 1: The sexual revolution has begun to devour its children, and

1022
00:51:13,719 --> 00:51:16,960
Speaker 1: among the revolutionary vanguard is gay rights activists. The mortality

1023
00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:20,120
Speaker 1: rate is highest and climbing the poor homosexuals. They have

1024
00:51:20,160 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: declared war upon nature, and now nature is exacting an

1025
00:51:23,000 --> 00:51:27,479
Speaker 1: awful retribution. Here's how Randy Schlitz, author of the band

1026
00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 1: played on sums up pet Buchanan's articles conclusion in his book,

1027
00:51:32,280 --> 00:51:35,000
Speaker 1: Buchanic concluded by saying that no homosexual should be permitted

1028
00:51:35,040 --> 00:51:37,319
Speaker 1: to handle food and that the Democratic Party's decision to

1029
00:51:37,320 --> 00:51:40,240
Speaker 1: hold their next convention in San Francisco would leave delegate

1030
00:51:40,280 --> 00:51:43,439
Speaker 1: spouses and children at the mercy of quote homosexuals who

1031
00:51:43,440 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 1: belonged to a community that is a common carrier of dangerous, communicable,

1032
00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:51,280
Speaker 1: and sometimes fatal diseases. Pat Buchanan, everybody, is he still alive?

1033
00:51:51,920 --> 00:51:53,960
Speaker 1: I think so. I know my dad probably voted for

1034
00:51:54,040 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 1: him for president at one point. God. Yeah, he was

1035
00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:58,399
Speaker 1: a perennial candidate. Guy, kind of like a fringe, right

1036
00:51:58,480 --> 00:52:02,719
Speaker 1: dude would always always run, oh you're from Texas again, right, Yeah,

1037
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:06,120
Speaker 1: I have to remember that. Yeah. Uh. Four thousand, two

1038
00:52:06,160 --> 00:52:09,279
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty one Americans died from AIDS in nine four.

1039
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:13,040
Speaker 1: President Ronald Reagan still said nothing. He did, however, invite

1040
00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:16,000
Speaker 1: his buddy Rock Hudson over to the White House. Oh yeah,

1041
00:52:16,040 --> 00:52:18,440
Speaker 1: look at that. Hudson was really keeping it together at

1042
00:52:18,480 --> 00:52:21,160
Speaker 1: fifty nine. Now he has HIV in that picture. He's

1043
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:23,359
Speaker 1: starting to get sick, but you can't really tell yet.

1044
00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: He's handsome. He is a handsome guy. Very good looking man.

1045
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:30,320
Speaker 1: He's almost sixty in this picture. I think that's almost sixty.

1046
00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:33,200
Speaker 1: Why are you can quibbling with me? Well, you were

1047
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:36,080
Speaker 1: asked and I was giving you specifics. He died about

1048
00:52:36,120 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 1: a year after this picture was taken, but we'll get

1049
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:41,120
Speaker 1: to that um. In ninety four, the Democratic National Convention

1050
00:52:41,160 --> 00:52:43,080
Speaker 1: was held in San Francisco as part of an attempt

1051
00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 1: to get the Reagan administration to give a ship about

1052
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:47,359
Speaker 1: the disease that was sweeping through the country. More than

1053
00:52:47,400 --> 00:52:49,759
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand people marched from the Castro and San

1054
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:54,160
Speaker 1: Francisco to Moscow and Center on December eleven, with more

1055
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:57,440
Speaker 1: than dred Americans dead from AIDS. The disease came up

1056
00:52:57,560 --> 00:53:01,319
Speaker 1: in another press conference, and he guesses about this one,

1057
00:53:01,680 --> 00:53:05,280
Speaker 1: I'm going to guess a two minute like applause break

1058
00:53:06,440 --> 00:53:09,600
Speaker 1: just for AIDS. Yeah. Just imagine like you know when

1059
00:53:09,920 --> 00:53:12,920
Speaker 1: Louis c. K came back and uh at the seller

1060
00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 1: and he got a standing ovation. Uh something that that

1061
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:21,120
Speaker 1: dark will happen in the suppress conference. Okay, Lester's beginning

1062
00:53:21,120 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 1: to circle now he's moving in front. Go ahead. The

1063
00:53:24,080 --> 00:53:33,399
Speaker 1: Center for Disease Control and let of inestimated estimated three

1064
00:53:33,440 --> 00:53:37,360
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people exposed to AIDS which shouldn't be transmitted

1065
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 1: through saliva. Will the President, as commander in chief take

1066
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:47,280
Speaker 1: steps to protect armed forces with the medical services from

1067
00:53:47,520 --> 00:53:50,920
Speaker 1: age patients or the risk of spreading age and in

1068
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:54,919
Speaker 1: the same amount of the thing the bed typhoid from

1069
00:53:55,280 --> 00:54:02,120
Speaker 1: being for the journalists, Yeah, I wish has President concerned

1070
00:54:02,160 --> 00:54:12,960
Speaker 1: about this subject reaction here? You know what I mean?

1071
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:16,520
Speaker 1: Is he gonna do anything? Last i've heard him express anything.

1072
00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:20,600
Speaker 1: He has no no, express, no opinion about this epidemic. No,

1073
00:54:20,680 --> 00:54:22,719
Speaker 1: but I must confess I haven't asked him about it.

1074
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:28,719
Speaker 1: Would you back? Have you been checked? I didn't hear

1075
00:54:28,760 --> 00:54:34,480
Speaker 1: the answer. So it's interesting. Lester is clearly angry in

1076
00:54:34,560 --> 00:54:36,919
Speaker 1: that uh. And this is part of why I think

1077
00:54:36,920 --> 00:54:39,040
Speaker 1: he deserves a lot of credit for his activist because

1078
00:54:39,040 --> 00:54:41,680
Speaker 1: he's clear like he's a HOMOPHOBI is a conservative guy.

1079
00:54:41,840 --> 00:54:44,480
Speaker 1: He's stuck with the questioning. He kept four years trying

1080
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:46,839
Speaker 1: to bring this up, and by that third video he's

1081
00:54:46,840 --> 00:54:49,640
Speaker 1: not laughing anymore. The first couple he chuckles a few times.

1082
00:54:49,920 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 1: He's really piste. Now he's like sucking a couple hundred

1083
00:54:52,120 --> 00:54:55,319
Speaker 1: thousand people are infected, thousands are dead, you have to

1084
00:54:55,400 --> 00:54:58,440
Speaker 1: say something that's worth something to me. The fact that, like,

1085
00:54:58,480 --> 00:55:03,160
Speaker 1: even though this guy had his biases, he understood the

1086
00:55:03,200 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 1: severity of what was happening. Credit for doing that when

1087
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:09,400
Speaker 1: nobody else does. All Right, he got me, he did something.

1088
00:55:09,640 --> 00:55:12,400
Speaker 1: It's not nothing. All Right, I won't hate him as

1089
00:55:12,480 --> 00:55:15,200
Speaker 1: much as I did. Everyone else in that room deserves

1090
00:55:15,239 --> 00:55:17,520
Speaker 1: to be hated. This used to be named because also

1091
00:55:17,800 --> 00:55:20,840
Speaker 1: that that is representative of what the kind of White

1092
00:55:20,880 --> 00:55:23,920
Speaker 1: House press people's like. It's a bunch of like elite

1093
00:55:24,000 --> 00:55:28,719
Speaker 1: fox who like going to pool parties with politicians and

1094
00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:34,279
Speaker 1: then ask them mostly softball questions or like laugh at

1095
00:55:34,840 --> 00:55:38,799
Speaker 1: things that are affecting you know, large swaths of the populace.

1096
00:55:38,920 --> 00:55:40,719
Speaker 1: They're not talking about things that are as real to

1097
00:55:40,760 --> 00:55:43,200
Speaker 1: them as they are to the people who actually need

1098
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 1: the news. Yeah, because they're totally separate. It's like, why

1099
00:55:47,120 --> 00:55:49,839
Speaker 1: why so much of television is bad. It's because it's

1100
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:53,520
Speaker 1: a bunch of rich people trying to write about what

1101
00:55:53,560 --> 00:55:57,919
Speaker 1: they think normal Americans or whatever people around the world,

1102
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:01,400
Speaker 1: but mostly Americans right are and they have no idea

1103
00:56:01,440 --> 00:56:03,839
Speaker 1: because they've been wealthy for so long, possibly for their

1104
00:56:03,960 --> 00:56:05,880
Speaker 1: entire lives, because they've been living in the hills for

1105
00:56:05,920 --> 00:56:08,520
Speaker 1: the last thirty five years. Yeah, and they're they're slumming.

1106
00:56:08,600 --> 00:56:11,279
Speaker 1: Is going to Trader Joe's on a Wednesday. So I

1107
00:56:11,320 --> 00:56:13,560
Speaker 1: always respect it when people are able to take a

1108
00:56:13,600 --> 00:56:18,080
Speaker 1: step outside of their own beliefs and biases to understand

1109
00:56:18,200 --> 00:56:20,480
Speaker 1: something that is a problem for people that they don't

1110
00:56:20,560 --> 00:56:23,719
Speaker 1: like and take it seriously. It's better to just be

1111
00:56:23,760 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 1: a person who's open minded and believes everyone as a

1112
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:28,880
Speaker 1: human being. But if you've got those biases and you're

1113
00:56:28,920 --> 00:56:31,560
Speaker 1: able to do what Lester does and still take it seriously,

1114
00:56:32,320 --> 00:56:36,480
Speaker 1: that's better than everyone else. I hope that guy got

1115
00:56:36,480 --> 00:56:39,800
Speaker 1: the Pulitzer for he did not be he did not know.

1116
00:56:39,960 --> 00:56:42,040
Speaker 1: I mean specifically the Pulitzer for not being a piece

1117
00:56:42,040 --> 00:56:44,760
Speaker 1: of ship. That would be a good award. The Pulitzer

1118
00:56:44,800 --> 00:56:48,520
Speaker 1: Prize for not being a sociopath. Very few people, very

1119
00:56:48,520 --> 00:56:52,799
Speaker 1: few people qualify in the field. So in July, rock

1120
00:56:52,880 --> 00:56:55,520
Speaker 1: huts And flew to France to take an experimental AIDS

1121
00:56:55,560 --> 00:56:58,759
Speaker 1: treatment HP a tree. It hadn't yet been approved for

1122
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:00,919
Speaker 1: human use in the United States. He never quite made

1123
00:57:00,920 --> 00:57:02,720
Speaker 1: it to the hospital. Here's a quote from The Guardian.

1124
00:57:03,160 --> 00:57:05,000
Speaker 1: He collapsed at the Ritz Hotel and was taken to

1125
00:57:05,040 --> 00:57:07,800
Speaker 1: the American Hospital in the French capital. His publicist contacted

1126
00:57:07,800 --> 00:57:10,120
Speaker 1: the White House, the Reagans were old friends, in an

1127
00:57:10,160 --> 00:57:12,560
Speaker 1: attempt to speed up a transfer to a military hospital

1128
00:57:12,600 --> 00:57:15,359
Speaker 1: to be seen by Dr Dominique Dormant, a French army

1129
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:18,320
Speaker 1: doctor who had previously treated Hudson in secret. So he

1130
00:57:18,400 --> 00:57:21,040
Speaker 1: needs approval to go to this French military hospital. It

1131
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:26,360
Speaker 1: is me. You just sounds like French reag Well, well,

1132
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:32,280
Speaker 1: well I have some jelly beans for you maybe. So

1133
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:35,280
Speaker 1: they wouldn't let him into the hospital because it will

1134
00:57:35,400 --> 00:57:37,080
Speaker 1: was like a French army hospital, and they were like,

1135
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:38,600
Speaker 1: you're just some guy, Like, we can't let you into

1136
00:57:38,600 --> 00:57:43,160
Speaker 1: this hospital. So Hudson's publicists telegrammed the Reagans and basically said, like,

1137
00:57:43,200 --> 00:57:44,800
Speaker 1: this is only the only hospital in the world that

1138
00:57:44,880 --> 00:57:47,480
Speaker 1: can do what's necessary to save rocks life or at

1139
00:57:47,560 --> 00:57:50,320
Speaker 1: least make him more comfortable. Please intervened, because you're the

1140
00:57:50,320 --> 00:57:52,440
Speaker 1: fucking president. You can do something. You call France and

1141
00:57:52,480 --> 00:57:54,520
Speaker 1: say let this guy into their hospital. They'll do it

1142
00:57:54,560 --> 00:57:57,040
Speaker 1: for you. According to a note written by an aide

1143
00:57:57,040 --> 00:57:59,560
Speaker 1: at the time who delivered the message to Nancy Reagan,

1144
00:57:59,600 --> 00:58:02,400
Speaker 1: a quote I spoke with miss Reagan about the attached telegram.

1145
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:04,120
Speaker 1: She did not feel that this was something that the

1146
00:58:04,120 --> 00:58:06,320
Speaker 1: White House should get into, and agreed to my suggestion

1147
00:58:06,360 --> 00:58:07,920
Speaker 1: that we referred to the writer to the U. S.

1148
00:58:07,960 --> 00:58:11,600
Speaker 1: Embassy Paris. Now BuzzFeed actually talked with this aid once

1149
00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:14,080
Speaker 1: they found the telegram in the right Reagan Library archives.

1150
00:58:14,320 --> 00:58:16,360
Speaker 1: He claims he advised the first lady that they had

1151
00:58:16,360 --> 00:58:18,560
Speaker 1: to be fair and not treat Rock different just because

1152
00:58:18,560 --> 00:58:21,440
Speaker 1: he was their friend. She agreed. The Reagans were very

1153
00:58:21,480 --> 00:58:23,680
Speaker 1: conscious of not making exceptions for people, he said, just

1154
00:58:23,680 --> 00:58:25,880
Speaker 1: because they were friends of theirs and or celebrities or

1155
00:58:25,920 --> 00:58:27,960
Speaker 1: things of that kind. They weren't about that. They were

1156
00:58:27,960 --> 00:58:31,080
Speaker 1: about treating everybody the same unless you were gay. Well,

1157
00:58:31,600 --> 00:58:33,360
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons that's bullshit. One of them is,

1158
00:58:33,360 --> 00:58:34,960
Speaker 1: of course, we just talked about the fact that they

1159
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:37,320
Speaker 1: paid one of their gay friends a million dollars to

1160
00:58:37,440 --> 00:58:40,560
Speaker 1: redo the residence at the White House. Clearly they're not

1161
00:58:40,600 --> 00:58:43,400
Speaker 1: above doing a favor for a friend. Ronald Reagan had

1162
00:58:43,400 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: intervened personally like a year before to help his friend

1163
00:58:45,880 --> 00:58:49,439
Speaker 1: Bob Hope with a fundraiser um and in nineteen eighty two,

1164
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:52,680
Speaker 1: when Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan's dear friends, Ferdinand and

1165
00:58:52,720 --> 00:58:55,120
Speaker 1: Emelda Marcos, were having a little bit of trouble clamping

1166
00:58:55,160 --> 00:58:57,240
Speaker 1: down unrest in the Philippines caused by the fact that

1167
00:58:57,280 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 1: they tortured and killed thousands of people. Ronnie did his

1168
00:59:00,040 --> 00:59:03,760
Speaker 1: friend a solid and invited Ferdinand Marcos to the White House.

1169
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:05,800
Speaker 1: Now there were big protests at the time. It was

1170
00:59:05,840 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 1: a political risk to invite a fascist to the White House,

1171
00:59:08,960 --> 00:59:11,840
Speaker 1: but Ronald Reagan did it. He stood by his friend,

1172
00:59:11,880 --> 00:59:13,560
Speaker 1: and he gave him tens of millions of dollars in

1173
00:59:13,600 --> 00:59:17,479
Speaker 1: covert military aid, which really is what friendship is all about. Yeah, sure,

1174
00:59:17,600 --> 00:59:20,280
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, it's why you know, the Clintons

1175
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:25,160
Speaker 1: were fans of what's his name, the Egyptian dictator. Oh yeah, yeah,

1176
00:59:25,200 --> 00:59:26,760
Speaker 1: I mean it's one of those things like they were

1177
00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:29,320
Speaker 1: clearly not above doing things for their friends. This would

1178
00:59:29,320 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 1: not have been They wouldn't even even had to publicly

1179
00:59:31,760 --> 00:59:34,240
Speaker 1: call the thing. They just love willing to take the

1180
00:59:34,320 --> 00:59:39,200
Speaker 1: risk dictators. Hey, if you murder tens of thousands of people,

1181
00:59:39,200 --> 00:59:42,240
Speaker 1: are disappear them, you're our friend, as long as you

1182
00:59:42,280 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 1: don't like commies or through Islamic terrorists, right, and even

1183
00:59:47,440 --> 00:59:49,960
Speaker 1: then it might be okay as long as you're okay

1184
00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:53,080
Speaker 1: with our business interests. Well yeah, so yeah, Rock Hudson

1185
00:59:53,160 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 1: got no special treatment from the Reagan White House. On July,

1186
00:59:57,600 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 1: Hudson announced that he had AIDS. This also served as

1187
01:00:00,600 --> 01:00:03,520
Speaker 1: his first public announcement that he was a homosexual. Paul

1188
01:00:03,560 --> 01:00:07,440
Speaker 1: Bonberg of the Mobilization Against AIDS campaign begged President Reagan

1189
01:00:07,480 --> 01:00:09,600
Speaker 1: to speak up. Surely, now that a man who had

1190
01:00:09,640 --> 01:00:12,560
Speaker 1: been his friend for decades had the disease, the President

1191
01:00:12,600 --> 01:00:14,600
Speaker 1: would finally do something, By the way, that's kind of

1192
01:00:14,600 --> 01:00:19,360
Speaker 1: on Rock. Also for still being friends with Maybe there

1193
01:00:19,360 --> 01:00:21,160
Speaker 1: were fun at parties. I never got to drink with

1194
01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:24,200
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan. I don't know all of my family members.

1195
01:00:24,400 --> 01:00:26,240
Speaker 1: I mean none of my family members, but like family

1196
01:00:26,240 --> 01:00:28,360
Speaker 1: friends that voted for Trump, i've cut out of my life.

1197
01:00:28,760 --> 01:00:30,840
Speaker 1: Certainly none of my friends ever did. But like, it's

1198
01:00:30,880 --> 01:00:33,600
Speaker 1: pretty easy to cut out the pieces of ship in

1199
01:00:33,680 --> 01:00:36,280
Speaker 1: your life. I think this was an age before that

1200
01:00:36,360 --> 01:00:39,360
Speaker 1: really happened in politics, because even if you're talking about like,

1201
01:00:39,760 --> 01:00:42,080
Speaker 1: it's not like the gay community had a lot of

1202
01:00:42,080 --> 01:00:46,080
Speaker 1: play in the Democratic Party in nine right, this was

1203
01:00:46,120 --> 01:00:49,520
Speaker 1: the first life and death political issue other than just

1204
01:00:49,600 --> 01:00:52,600
Speaker 1: discrimination and whatnot the death that results from that for

1205
01:00:52,800 --> 01:00:54,400
Speaker 1: gay people. And it was the first one where there

1206
01:00:54,480 --> 01:00:56,760
Speaker 1: was a clear difference between the Republicans and Democrats, because

1207
01:00:56,760 --> 01:00:59,280
Speaker 1: if you're talking about like the deaths that result from

1208
01:00:59,560 --> 01:01:03,120
Speaker 1: social isolation and discrimination, I don't really think they're Democrats

1209
01:01:03,160 --> 01:01:05,040
Speaker 1: and eight five are much better than the Republicans. But

1210
01:01:05,040 --> 01:01:08,040
Speaker 1: if you talk about AIDS, the Democrats are directly dealing

1211
01:01:08,080 --> 01:01:10,880
Speaker 1: with AIDS. They're holding their convention in San Francisco, they're

1212
01:01:10,920 --> 01:01:13,640
Speaker 1: making a march part of it, They're taking some actions.

1213
01:01:13,680 --> 01:01:15,840
Speaker 1: This is the first time where it becomes a life

1214
01:01:15,840 --> 01:01:18,400
Speaker 1: and death thing. Um. Who knows what Rock would have

1215
01:01:18,400 --> 01:01:20,480
Speaker 1: done if he'd lasted another couple of years, but he

1216
01:01:20,760 --> 01:01:25,120
Speaker 1: died very soon after this on September seventeenth of ninety five,

1217
01:01:25,200 --> 01:01:26,720
Speaker 1: the same year Rock was sick. A couple of months

1218
01:01:26,720 --> 01:01:29,480
Speaker 1: after he made his announcement, Ronald Reagan finally, for the

1219
01:01:29,600 --> 01:01:38,400
Speaker 1: very first time, said the word AIDS in public. Finally,

1220
01:01:39,160 --> 01:01:41,920
Speaker 1: the Great Communicator made a surprise visit to the Department

1221
01:01:41,920 --> 01:01:44,400
Speaker 1: of Health and Human Services and said, quote, one of

1222
01:01:44,440 --> 01:01:47,080
Speaker 1: our highest public health priorities is going to be continuing

1223
01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:49,520
Speaker 1: to find a cure for AIDS. He announced that see

1224
01:01:49,560 --> 01:01:51,840
Speaker 1: Everett Coupe, the Surgeon General, was being pulled in to

1225
01:01:51,880 --> 01:01:55,000
Speaker 1: write a report on the disease. Hudson's death changed to

1226
01:01:55,040 --> 01:01:58,200
Speaker 1: the national conversation about AIDS. He is, this is seen

1227
01:01:58,240 --> 01:02:00,760
Speaker 1: as like the major dividing point and the national attitudes

1228
01:02:00,760 --> 01:02:02,880
Speaker 1: towards AIDS. A lot of people say there's AIDS before

1229
01:02:02,960 --> 01:02:05,960
Speaker 1: and after Rock Hudson comes out about it. Um. It

1230
01:02:06,080 --> 01:02:08,200
Speaker 1: is like the equivalent if there were some weird disease

1231
01:02:08,200 --> 01:02:10,760
Speaker 1: in a marginalized community and then fucking George Clooney dies

1232
01:02:10,760 --> 01:02:13,280
Speaker 1: of it, like it catalyzed the nation in the world

1233
01:02:13,320 --> 01:02:16,520
Speaker 1: because he was a big star. President Reagan finally acknowledged

1234
01:02:16,520 --> 01:02:18,960
Speaker 1: the diseases existence, but he still had not actually addressed

1235
01:02:18,960 --> 01:02:21,040
Speaker 1: the American people about AIDS, so he'd never given a

1236
01:02:21,040 --> 01:02:22,800
Speaker 1: speech about it. He'd never talked about it. In the

1237
01:02:22,840 --> 01:02:26,800
Speaker 1: other context, five thousand, six hundred and thirty six Americans

1238
01:02:26,840 --> 01:02:30,080
Speaker 1: died of AIDS in what's the grand toll so far?

1239
01:02:31,080 --> 01:02:32,880
Speaker 1: I think we're gonna get to that in a second. Um.

1240
01:02:32,960 --> 01:02:35,880
Speaker 1: One of them was Rock Hudson. Um, So we're we're

1241
01:02:35,920 --> 01:02:40,080
Speaker 1: definitely above ten thousand, like fifteen, fourteen thousand, something like that.

1242
01:02:40,200 --> 01:02:42,920
Speaker 1: Right now, Rock Hudson died on October two, just a

1243
01:02:42,960 --> 01:02:46,240
Speaker 1: few months after coming out. Ronald Reagan kept quiet about

1244
01:02:46,280 --> 01:02:49,600
Speaker 1: his homosexuality, and The Advocate named Reagan Homophobe of the

1245
01:02:49,680 --> 01:02:53,920
Speaker 1: Year that year. Representative Henry Waxman from Los Angeles said this,

1246
01:02:54,440 --> 01:02:56,800
Speaker 1: it is surprising that the president could remain silent as

1247
01:02:56,840 --> 01:02:59,760
Speaker 1: six thousand Americans died, that he could fail to acknowledge

1248
01:02:59,800 --> 01:03:02,760
Speaker 1: the epidemics existence. Perhaps his staff felt he had to

1249
01:03:03,000 --> 01:03:05,680
Speaker 1: since many of his New Right supporters have raised money

1250
01:03:05,720 --> 01:03:10,040
Speaker 1: by campaigning against homosexuals. President Reagan continued to not address

1251
01:03:10,080 --> 01:03:12,640
Speaker 1: the nation about AIDS in nineteen eighties six, as another

1252
01:03:12,760 --> 01:03:16,480
Speaker 1: sixteen thousand, three hundred and one Americans died from the disease.

1253
01:03:16,760 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 1: That year, Transformers of the movie came out. It might

1254
01:03:19,240 --> 01:03:22,640
Speaker 1: be it might be optimist Prime kept quiet too, just endless,

1255
01:03:22,800 --> 01:03:25,720
Speaker 1: just to give you guys a you know, some context.

1256
01:03:26,000 --> 01:03:29,600
Speaker 1: Megatron donated a lot of money. Well, trap point was it,

1257
01:03:29,720 --> 01:03:33,560
Speaker 1: I don't I don't actually know anything about Transformers. Um

1258
01:03:33,600 --> 01:03:36,360
Speaker 1: that year, nineteen eight six was the year that twenty

1259
01:03:36,360 --> 01:03:38,920
Speaker 1: one thousand total Americans had died. That was the total

1260
01:03:38,920 --> 01:03:41,000
Speaker 1: of the end of nineteen eighties six. Do you think

1261
01:03:41,000 --> 01:03:45,400
Speaker 1: Reagan sent a representative to the advocate to collect his homophobe.

1262
01:03:45,400 --> 01:03:46,760
Speaker 1: But the year well, I hope so, I mean you

1263
01:03:46,800 --> 01:03:51,320
Speaker 1: really want that that trophy on his mantle. Yeah. So,

1264
01:03:51,560 --> 01:03:54,960
Speaker 1: twenty one deaths into the AIDS crisis, Dr Connent, that

1265
01:03:55,320 --> 01:03:56,840
Speaker 1: one of the first doctors to treat it, sent a

1266
01:03:56,920 --> 01:04:00,320
Speaker 1: letter to Ronald Reagan. He recalled its contents to the Ardian.

1267
01:04:00,720 --> 01:04:02,720
Speaker 1: Dear President Reagan, I have all these patients and they

1268
01:04:02,720 --> 01:04:04,880
Speaker 1: are dying, and no one's doing anything. It is incumbent

1269
01:04:04,960 --> 01:04:07,480
Speaker 1: on your administration to direct the Centers for Disease Control

1270
01:04:07,520 --> 01:04:09,919
Speaker 1: and National Institutes of Health to begin efforts to find

1271
01:04:09,960 --> 01:04:14,080
Speaker 1: the cause and treatment for this disease. Now, the Reagans

1272
01:04:14,120 --> 01:04:18,320
Speaker 1: responded to this letter, It said fuck off, no, no, no,

1273
01:04:18,400 --> 01:04:20,480
Speaker 1: It just said Nancy and I thank you for your support.

1274
01:04:20,720 --> 01:04:24,760
Speaker 1: He got a form letter on Americans dead, which is

1275
01:04:24,800 --> 01:04:27,240
Speaker 1: I think more than the total Americans who have died

1276
01:04:27,240 --> 01:04:30,760
Speaker 1: in the entire global War on terror. So yeah, that's

1277
01:04:30,960 --> 01:04:33,400
Speaker 1: that's where we are. Um, that's where we are at

1278
01:04:33,400 --> 01:04:35,080
Speaker 1: the end of part one of this episode. It is

1279
01:04:35,160 --> 01:04:39,280
Speaker 1: n Americans have died. Ronald Reagan has said the word

1280
01:04:39,320 --> 01:04:43,560
Speaker 1: AIDS once and not in a public speech. So that's

1281
01:04:43,560 --> 01:04:45,600
Speaker 1: where we are. When we come back for part two.

1282
01:04:45,600 --> 01:04:48,880
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about Reagan's eventual acknowledgment of the epidemic,

1283
01:04:49,320 --> 01:04:50,800
Speaker 1: and we're also going to talk about one of the

1284
01:04:50,840 --> 01:04:54,080
Speaker 1: AIDS crisis is Unlikeliest Heroes, a surgeon general with a

1285
01:04:54,160 --> 01:04:59,080
Speaker 1: ridiculous name see Everett Coop. See Everett Coop. Yeah, he's

1286
01:04:59,080 --> 01:05:01,680
Speaker 1: actually does the right thing in this But yeah, that's

1287
01:05:01,680 --> 01:05:04,040
Speaker 1: all coming up. So at the end of part one,

1288
01:05:04,200 --> 01:05:06,000
Speaker 1: do you want to plug some plug doubles before we

1289
01:05:06,040 --> 01:05:10,040
Speaker 1: get into that. Oh, well, subscribe to a couples therapy. Uh,

1290
01:05:10,160 --> 01:05:13,040
Speaker 1: if you want to hear me talk about politics and India. Actually,

1291
01:05:13,040 --> 01:05:15,080
Speaker 1: we don't talk about politics at all. It's a thing.

1292
01:05:15,160 --> 01:05:18,400
Speaker 1: We try to offer you some respite from this nightmare.

1293
01:05:19,200 --> 01:05:24,080
Speaker 1: And then my dear love Naomi, who is the I'm

1294
01:05:24,080 --> 01:05:28,560
Speaker 1: the weirdo, she's the populist. So let's get some take

1295
01:05:28,640 --> 01:05:31,720
Speaker 1: some rest respite from the madness over the next day

1296
01:05:31,800 --> 01:05:34,240
Speaker 1: or two, and on Thursday, Andy and I will be back.

1297
01:05:34,320 --> 01:05:37,600
Speaker 1: It just makes me want to vomit. We will continue

1298
01:05:37,640 --> 01:05:39,880
Speaker 1: to make Andy want to vomit. So that's part two,

1299
01:05:40,120 --> 01:05:42,280
Speaker 1: the vomiting. We've got a cup here on the table.

1300
01:05:42,320 --> 01:05:44,480
Speaker 1: I think it's about one Vomit's worth it, cup, so

1301
01:05:45,120 --> 01:05:48,160
Speaker 1: we'll be fine. See, we'll see how much comes out

1302
01:05:48,160 --> 01:05:50,880
Speaker 1: of me until Thursday and until we all learn how

1303
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:53,360
Speaker 1: much comes out of Andy. I am Robert Evans. This

1304
01:05:53,440 --> 01:05:55,400
Speaker 1: is Behind the Bastard. You can find me on Twitter

1305
01:05:55,440 --> 01:05:58,080
Speaker 1: at I right, okay. I have a book on Amazon,

1306
01:05:58,160 --> 01:06:00,800
Speaker 1: A Brief History of Vice. You can also find this

1307
01:06:00,880 --> 01:06:03,360
Speaker 1: podcast on the internet behind the Bastards dot com. We'll

1308
01:06:03,360 --> 01:06:05,960
Speaker 1: have pictures and sources up there. You can find us

1309
01:06:06,000 --> 01:06:09,960
Speaker 1: on social media at Bastards pod on Twitter and Instagram.

1310
01:06:10,000 --> 01:06:12,960
Speaker 1: So come and check us out, and uh come back

1311
01:06:13,000 --> 01:06:19,240
Speaker 1: Thursday to learn more aboutes and Ronald Reagan Bail. It's

1312
01:06:19,280 --> 01:06:22,800
Speaker 1: time for you to go now. I love about you.

1313
01:06:26,520 --> 01:06:26,560
Speaker 1: M