Speaker 1: N bergen wrong berg and talking and saying anything wrong back,
Speaker 1: and he's not playing any game today. Not fine today?
Speaker 1: Does that sound right today? That reading of today? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's exactly how it's pronounce Today. We are interviewing a
Speaker 1: woman who is very important. She's a very very smart woman.
Speaker 1: She's um this episode is on. H Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: own up. I forgot who we're interviewing today? Are you?
Speaker 1: I have a feeling it's not Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You
Speaker 1: tried her, right, Caroline? Did you try her? We triedberg
Speaker 1: but her business manager said, um, this is weird. She
Speaker 1: said you two had a falling out. I was, I
Speaker 1: was confused. She said you two were no longer on
Speaker 1: speaking terms. You heard that right? For two whole years.
Speaker 1: If you if you came to the Saddle Creek Diner
Speaker 1: on a Monday morning, you'd see me and baby Ruth
Speaker 1: in a corner eating breakfast and talking shop. You're talking shop.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't understand it, Carolina, Okay, it's lost stuff, all right?
Speaker 1: Did you understand it? Not really? But I let her talk,
Speaker 1: and boy can she talk. She can talk you through
Speaker 1: the Saddle Creek's Lumberjack Special for sausage links and to
Speaker 1: pancake piles. Later, she's still going on and I'm sorry
Speaker 1: to ask you, but why did you guys stop hanging out? Um,
Speaker 1: I would say scheduling conflicts? Well, I mean after we
Speaker 1: had a huge fight, she said that she couldn't see
Speaker 1: me anymore. So that was our scheduling conflict. Oh, got it?
Speaker 1: So yeah, if I saw today, I feel like bygones
Speaker 1: would be bygones. So exactly how did you guys leave it? It?
Speaker 1: For word? Well, if memory serves, she said something like,
Speaker 1: if you start a food fight in this diner, I
Speaker 1: will never speak to you again. And you started a
Speaker 1: food fight in the diner. Yes, we did, or I did?
Speaker 1: Who can remember the specifics anymore. It's it's hard to
Speaker 1: have a food fight when you're the only one throwing food.
Speaker 1: You know, it feels like you're the apple in that situation.
Speaker 1: But to get people to join, you have to just
Speaker 1: throw more food. I mean, omelets, jellos, a cup full
Speaker 1: of eyes. I mean, nothing was getting this crowd going.
Speaker 1: How old do you think most of how old were
Speaker 1: the most of the people in the diner? Oh, I
Speaker 1: mean everyone was in there early to late seventies except
Speaker 1: for one grand kid. Yeah, so that's probably not the
Speaker 1: best participants for a food fight, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Ruth knows that I'm here if she every wants to
Speaker 1: rekindle our friendship. I'm available for breakfast literally every morning. Well,
Speaker 1: actually we record the podcast in the morning. Any morning works.
Speaker 1: There is literally nothing going on in my life right
Speaker 1: now that I would prioritize over breakfast. Huh. I just
Speaker 1: want to let that lie. Yeah, I'm out there. This
Speaker 1: is really important to me, and I put a lot
Speaker 1: of effort into it. Now, after a quick commercial break,
Speaker 1: we'll have Ariana Grande in the studio, I mean her
Speaker 1: music in the studio. We'll have music reviews with Ariana
Speaker 1: Grande in the building, her music, not her physical or
Speaker 1: spiritual being. Okay, so stay tuned next to meet Oriana
Speaker 1: Grande and we're back time for music reviews. This is
Speaker 1: our music written segment. Yes that Braun introduced to me
Speaker 1: minutes ago, that I crafted myself. Ariana Grande is just
Speaker 1: drop in deuces left and right. I'm sorry, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you meant what is? What is? What are
Speaker 1: trying to say? I mean dropping hit hit after hit.
Speaker 1: I mean, thank you next, thank you Next. I'm familiar
Speaker 1: with the song. It's as if she's inside my brain
Speaker 1: when I'm eating munchkin donuts from Duncan's thank you next,
Speaker 1: thank you next. I say that after I eat a munchkin, like,
Speaker 1: thank you to that munchkin, yes, and then next onto
Speaker 1: the next munchkin. I identify with Ariana. How so, how
Speaker 1: do you? The world wants a piece of us? I
Speaker 1: can't leave my house without someone, you know, hounding me
Speaker 1: about my love life. So it's very simple. You can't
Speaker 1: leave the house, yes, Like, do you think you have
Speaker 1: paparazzi following you? Yeah? I do. Well, just one person,
Speaker 1: this crazy guy who lives on my street. He's harmless.
Speaker 1: You just asked me questions all the time. Sometimes he
Speaker 1: takes in my car if I leave it unlocked. I'm sorry. Well,
Speaker 1: let's take a listen to thank you next you day,
Speaker 1: dank you everyone, dank you for all you, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you everyone, thank you for all you. Okay, that
Speaker 1: was not the song we were talking about, and you
Speaker 1: crafted this music segment. You know what, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to disagree with you, all right. I've been listening to
Speaker 1: that song thinking it was Ariana Grandes thank you next,
Speaker 1: but you love it? I well, I love Ariana Grundie
Speaker 1: number one. I love thank You next, even though I'm
Speaker 1: not familiar with it, and I love the song we
Speaker 1: just played, so I love all three. This music segment
Speaker 1: is a disaster. I knew you were going to say that,
Speaker 1: but I love your participation for the first time. Thank
Speaker 1: you in our review segments. Well, I think that's the
Speaker 1: end of our music review. But up next we have
Speaker 1: a woman who, like Arianna, takes no bologna. Be right back,
Speaker 1: listeners and thank you next, Thank you next, I mean,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the Ron Burgundy Podcast. We are joined
Speaker 1: today by the highly esteemed Doris Kerns Goodwin. She is
Speaker 1: a Pulitzer Prize winner and one of the country's top
Speaker 1: scholars on American presidents and h Honestly, we we only
Speaker 1: got her for an interview because we lied and said
Speaker 1: this was npr um Well, so anyway, anyway, um, Doris
Speaker 1: Kerns Goodwin, thank you for joining us. Well, Ron, my
Speaker 1: old friends, it's hard for me to believe that it's
Speaker 1: now six years since you told the world in your
Speaker 1: best selling book how I had helped you with the
Speaker 1: chapter on history. Remember, and you said while we were
Speaker 1: presumably in the middle of having an affair, and so
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, then I've been stopped on the
Speaker 1: street in an airport by thousands of your fans were
Speaker 1: thrilled to hear what you said, which is that you
Speaker 1: claimed that my enthusiasm for the work was only outpaced
Speaker 1: by my enthusiasm for love making, which you could barely equal.
Speaker 1: So here we are, at last, here we are finally
Speaker 1: talking about it. I'm glad, I mean we for those
Speaker 1: of you listening that it's It's obviously no secret we
Speaker 1: had a torrid love affair, um, which you know. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you feel about it, um, but those
Speaker 1: were some of the best seven months of my life.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I'm sorry for the way it ended.
Speaker 1: I really am end well. He never said, he just
Speaker 1: said that, you know, if if I were willing to
Speaker 1: come back, I could come back any time. So it's
Speaker 1: still a mystery, I suppose to both of us. Those
Speaker 1: things you can never figure out. And Doris, now that
Speaker 1: we have this moment, I was actually going to ask
Speaker 1: you to marry me. Oh Gods of five women, and
Speaker 1: you are the top of my list. Well, I'm proud
Speaker 1: to know that, and that will make it a little
Speaker 1: easier to bounce back perhaps anyway. Gosh, my family still
Speaker 1: loves you. My family still asks about you all the time.
Speaker 1: They're like, how did you let Doris get away? Well?
Speaker 1: Here I am, so this is the beginning again. Do
Speaker 1: you remember when you do? Remember when you cut up
Speaker 1: all my ties when we broke up? You know the
Speaker 1: other thing I remember? Don't remember that, but some things
Speaker 1: I mun't doing. Anger that I put out of my
Speaker 1: mind because I'm such a nice person in my mind. Yes,
Speaker 1: But the other comment that you had was that my
Speaker 1: my teeth were as sharp as my intellect. So that's
Speaker 1: a pretty scary thought. Whatever that, Well you did you
Speaker 1: did have a tiger lady tattooed on your right shoulder,
Speaker 1: if I recall. I don't know if you had removed
Speaker 1: or not. No, clearly. I mean now, when I got
Speaker 1: married and had my children, you know that. You know
Speaker 1: I had to be an umber presidential historian for God's sake.
Speaker 1: I can't have those things on my shoulders. There's no question.
Speaker 1: Because you might tell I, well, I've already you just have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I already had. If it's already out there um doors.
Speaker 1: I have to ask, so you you've won a Pulitzer.
Speaker 1: What a what a crazy thing? What's what's that cash? Like? Well,
Speaker 1: it's not what you may imagine because I wanted in
Speaker 1: and I think then it was three thousand dollars, So
Speaker 1: that's not. Well, it certainly won't buy something big. But
Speaker 1: you know what it does get most importantly, it gets
Speaker 1: you your first line in your obituary. So that's probably
Speaker 1: pretty priceless. I'll take that over thirty thousand, fifty thousand,
Speaker 1: maybe a lot more, even pretty incredible. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people have the impression that that's that's big
Speaker 1: cash money, Like you go out and you buy a Lamborghini,
Speaker 1: an exotic bird or something. I don't think that with
Speaker 1: your first big check. Oh if I if I ever yes,
Speaker 1: Like you know, if I if I signed a big
Speaker 1: contract like one of those NBA players, I would I'd
Speaker 1: buy an exotic bird. What about your doing? You wouldn't
Speaker 1: pay that off? Well, I wouldn't pay that no, No,
Speaker 1: Well now you know him, right, Carolina. So but you
Speaker 1: know the weird thing is that the very year I
Speaker 1: won the Pulitzer, speaking of exotic birds, I grew up
Speaker 1: in Rockfell Center, Long Island, and there was a string
Speaker 1: of robberies of exotic birds in various pet stores, including
Speaker 1: one in Rockville Center that year where a kacka doo
Speaker 1: or some crazy exotic bird was worth was stolen. So
Speaker 1: maybe I was involved in that too somehow. What if
Speaker 1: that's worth all your pulletz er money? Right, I know,
Speaker 1: I know, so it's just a crazy coincidence. But no,
Speaker 1: I don't think i'd get an exotic bird or Lamborghini. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: but we're different. We always were different. We always were
Speaker 1: Yang and Yang, yang and yang. Um. Now, so you,
Speaker 1: of course you won the Pulitzer for a book on
Speaker 1: on FDR and eleanor Roosevelt during World War Two. What
Speaker 1: if you can recall in European what's the cutest thing
Speaker 1: they ever did for each other as a couple. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure cute would be the word, but what
Speaker 1: I think is the best thing they did for each
Speaker 1: other was she was Fdr, like to say, a welcome
Speaker 1: thorn in his side. She was always willing to question
Speaker 1: our relationship exactly. She was always willing to argue with him,
Speaker 1: and as a result, she made him a better person.
Speaker 1: I mean, for example, during World War Two, she sent
Speaker 1: so many memos to General Marshall in the War Department
Speaker 1: about discrimination in the army that he had to assign
Speaker 1: a separate general whose only task was to deal with
Speaker 1: Eleanor Roosevelt's memos. And she had. She had, Oh you'll
Speaker 1: love this. She had weekly press conferences where the only
Speaker 1: rule was that female reporters could come to her press conferences.
Speaker 1: So all over the country's stuffy publishers had to hire
Speaker 1: their first female reporter. An entire generation got their start
Speaker 1: because of Eleanor Roosevelt. So um, that relationship was huge.
Speaker 1: What were the numbers in that female press pool at
Speaker 1: that time? Would you say? That is a question. I
Speaker 1: don't know, but I would bet. I would bet. We're
Speaker 1: talking twenty thirty. Maybe I don't know. You know, I
Speaker 1: will come back and tell you this. See, this is
Speaker 1: why you're so challenging. You asked me questions I don't
Speaker 1: know the answer to. I might have known it, and
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever known it. Okay, Well, then,
Speaker 1: Run's had a contentious history with female reporters, so it's
Speaker 1: very progressive. You've grown a lot. I've grown a lot.
Speaker 1: I've learned that that many of the female reporters are
Speaker 1: finest reporters. That's what I've learned. Yes, you're a quick
Speaker 1: study years quick thirty years exactly. No, but it's pretty exciting.
Speaker 1: I meet people sometimes and they'll say their mother or
Speaker 1: their grandmother, that was their first job and they became
Speaker 1: a it's all because Eleanor. Yeah, she was a pain
Speaker 1: in the neck. You know. She would bring people to
Speaker 1: his dinner party sometimes, so she wanted him to talk
Speaker 1: to who are maybe more liberal or doing more radical
Speaker 1: things than he wanted, and she plunked them down beside him.
Speaker 1: You know, at times he was thinking, oh, no, I
Speaker 1: just want to relax, because she never really relaxed. He
Speaker 1: loved his cocktails at night and she cocktails. Didn't He
Speaker 1: have a set cocktail hour at like five pm. Even
Speaker 1: even even during the war, it was this one his
Speaker 1: hour to unplug. Is that correct? Not only you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: He's all right. Ron needs that just a quick recap
Speaker 1: of feminist history. He told me the other day that
Speaker 1: he hopes one day I win the right to vote.
Speaker 1: And you said, I said, you probably picked them for
Speaker 1: years ahead of the cur He knows about he knows
Speaker 1: about the cocktail Hour. I mean, the great thing was
Speaker 1: that FDRs cocktail Hour. There was a rule that you
Speaker 1: could not talk about the war. You could gossip, you
Speaker 1: could talk about politics, and it was so important to
Speaker 1: him to have It was such a heavy, terrible time.
Speaker 1: They had to they had to decompress at some level. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And because he wanted his favorite regulars to be at
Speaker 1: the cocktail party, he actually wanted them to live in
Speaker 1: the White House to be ready for the cocktail Hour.
Speaker 1: So the second floor of the White House becomes the
Speaker 1: most exclusive residential hotel you can possibly imagine. All the
Speaker 1: cocktail guys are living there, living there during World War two.
Speaker 1: So it was pretty cool. I got to go back
Speaker 1: and stay in the room where Winston Churchill had lived
Speaker 1: during World War Two. When Hillary Clinton was there, she
Speaker 1: heard me talking about how I wished I knew where
Speaker 1: everyone had lived during World War Two. So she invited
Speaker 1: my husband and me to a sleepover in the White
Speaker 1: House and I figured out that yes, Chelsea Clinton was
Speaker 1: sleeping where Harry Hopkins is Foreign Policy Adviser FDRs was.
Speaker 1: The FDRs people were not his people. FDR was sleeping
Speaker 1: in the room that Clinton's latest lept in and we
Speaker 1: were in Winston Churchill's bedroom, so I was sure he
Speaker 1: was in the corner drinking his brandy and smoking his cigar.
Speaker 1: Churchill enjoyed a stiff drink. I'm sure more than one.
Speaker 1: He was great fdr his drink of choice. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: guess slow gin fizz. Well, he had his own sort
Speaker 1: of weird concoction of a martini that he would make.
Speaker 1: He was a mixologist. He had a special mixture, and
Speaker 1: he was the lame hipsters who called themselves. He was
Speaker 1: always a visionary, always a bunch those guys in the
Speaker 1: face and you might do it some days. Sorry, we're
Speaker 1: getting off track, Okay, keep going, um, Doris, you're also
Speaker 1: considered a sports journalist. Of you were you were a
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Dodgers fan growing up. I heard why baseball? What's
Speaker 1: interesting about it? Just the good looking guys. No, it's
Speaker 1: not really just the hunks. I mean, they're not so hunky,
Speaker 1: many of them. No, it's got much deeper roots. My
Speaker 1: father loved baseball. I was the third girl in the family.
Speaker 1: He taught me when I was I was He taught
Speaker 1: me how to keep score so that he would come
Speaker 1: home for work in Brooklyn during the day, and I
Speaker 1: could record for him the history of that afternoon's Brooklyn
Speaker 1: Dodger games. So when your father listens to you for
Speaker 1: you know, play by play, inning by inning, and he
Speaker 1: thinks and he makes you think he's telling you a fact,
Speaker 1: I'm telling him a fabulous story. It makes you think
Speaker 1: something's magic about history. It's where my love of history
Speaker 1: came from. In fact, I'm convinced I learned how to
Speaker 1: tell a story from those nightly sessions and my father
Speaker 1: because at first I'd be so excited I would blurt
Speaker 1: out the Dodgers wall and or the Dodgers lost, which
Speaker 1: took much of the drama of this long telling away.
Speaker 1: So I learned you had to tell a story from
Speaker 1: beginning to middle to end. And then of course the
Speaker 1: Dodgers abandoned us and went to I was just going
Speaker 1: to say, when they left, were you able to to still,
Speaker 1: you know, pull for them or did it? Did it just? Oh? No, no,
Speaker 1: it broke I mean well, I used to send letters
Speaker 1: to Walter O'Malley, the owner. We used to we used
Speaker 1: to have petitions against him when I was a little girl.
Speaker 1: Then finally I went to Harvard, and I went to
Speaker 1: Benway Park, and a park so reminiscent of Ebbittsfield. Became
Speaker 1: an equally irrational Red Sox fan. And we've had season
Speaker 1: tickets from more than thirty five years. So baseball's huge
Speaker 1: part of my life. I wake up thinking about them
Speaker 1: in the morning. When they lose. I don't even want
Speaker 1: to read the newspapers. It's it's unhealthy, but it's a
Speaker 1: happy unhealthiness. I went to I went to Finnway Park
Speaker 1: one time. I bought it. I was so excited to
Speaker 1: go there, and I sat behind a pole. The guy
Speaker 1: sold me a ticket that was behind a pole. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the problem when you go to an old stadium.
Speaker 1: But it's got charm right, And it does have charm.
Speaker 1: And I really studied the layers of paint on that
Speaker 1: and the rest you could. I bet you didn't you
Speaker 1: engrave something on it? That ron was there. I don't
Speaker 1: know how I'm going to say this, but I've carved
Speaker 1: a little heart R B plus d kg. I this
Speaker 1: is it now. Finally I'm going to have to go
Speaker 1: woman right field. You got it? Yes, So Doris, let
Speaker 1: me ask you are you? How are you feeling about
Speaker 1: the current takedown of democracy, good or bad plus and
Speaker 1: minus definitely bad. I mean, I think it's a really
Speaker 1: rough time for our country right now. But as an historian,
Speaker 1: I feel like things are going great. No, maybe I'm
Speaker 1: just living in a bubble. Well that it's a what
Speaker 1: about you, Carolina? Do you think things are going great? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: I think things are going terribly. Okay, you're with me that.
Speaker 1: But the thing is what I can say that makes
Speaker 1: us feel better, I hope, is that history provides a perspective.
Speaker 1: Because people will sometimes come up to be in the
Speaker 1: airport and say, are these the worst of times? And
Speaker 1: I can honestly say, of course not. And talk about
Speaker 1: what it was like for Abraham Lincoln when he first
Speaker 1: went into office, and um, the country is about to
Speaker 1: split into in fact, it's already splitting up, and six
Speaker 1: thousand people are going to die in a civil war,
Speaker 1: Or what it was like for FDR when he comes
Speaker 1: in and the depression is at its height and the
Speaker 1: banks have collapsed and you can't even get your money
Speaker 1: out of the banks. And yet somehow we came through
Speaker 1: those times. And and the great thing that I think
Speaker 1: gives us hope, right now about the difficulty of democracy
Speaker 1: here is that what Lincoln said when he was called
Speaker 1: a liberator, he said, don't call me that. And it's
Speaker 1: after the Emancipation Proclamation he said, it was the anti
Speaker 1: slavery people that did it all. It's always the citizen
Speaker 1: movements that make things better. So it was the anti
Speaker 1: slavery movement during the nineteenth century. It was the progressive
Speaker 1: movement at the turn of the twentieth century that made
Speaker 1: it possible for Teddy Roosevelt and FDR to do what
Speaker 1: they did. Civil rights movement made it possible for LBJ,
Speaker 1: women's movement, environmental movement, And now we need a movement
Speaker 1: for political reform. And I think we saw in the
Speaker 1: mid terms more people voted than for, more women came
Speaker 1: into office than in a long time, more veterans. That's
Speaker 1: really important. You know, in in the nineteen sixties and seventies,
Speaker 1: three out of four Congressmen and senators were veterans. They've
Speaker 1: been in World War Two and the Korean War. They
Speaker 1: knew how to go across party lines. They knew too,
Speaker 1: you know, somehow put a purpose beyond partisan or regional
Speaker 1: or racial divisions. And now we've got to get back
Speaker 1: to that. But I think there's there's an impulse in
Speaker 1: the country. The citizens are more active in politics they've
Speaker 1: been for a while. So that's my optimism about the country.
Speaker 1: We're not as fragile as as people think we are
Speaker 1: this democracy. Is it true that Babe ruth eight thirty
Speaker 1: hot dogs in the dug out during a Yankee game?
Speaker 1: Was that your next question? Now? I'm just going to
Speaker 1: my next question because she just said a lot of
Speaker 1: really inspiring, really amazing it was. Oh I didn't I
Speaker 1: didn't hear it. I just wrote down my baby ruth question. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's skipping back from baseball. You know, that was the
Speaker 1: question before, which is fine. I just popped in my head.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I gotta you know what, I've always wonder
Speaker 1: if that's just a myth. Did Babe ruthy get all
Speaker 1: those hot dogs in the dugout? I think? You know,
Speaker 1: I think the stories about some of these larger than
Speaker 1: live figures, they usually have some reality. So whether it
Speaker 1: was thirty or twenty five or twenty he was a
Speaker 1: big eater that that we know, we can say that
Speaker 1: as in a story. Just look at his body and
Speaker 1: you'll know that it's so probably eight thirty hot dogs. Yes,
Speaker 1: I would put that down and you tell the next
Speaker 1: person you are a Harvard grad and you taught there.
Speaker 1: Um for those listeners, that's Harvard University. Where is that located? Pittsburgh? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I know a little east of Pittsburgh. Let
Speaker 1: me ask you this. Maybe you're not at liberty to say,
Speaker 1: are you? Are you sick of all the know it
Speaker 1: alls the running around that place. Well, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. I think to some extent, the whole idea
Speaker 1: that people have that just because you went to Harvard
Speaker 1: you're smarter than other people is nuts. I look at
Speaker 1: lots of young people who just feel like, if I
Speaker 1: don't go there and want to get there, my life
Speaker 1: will be it's it's it's it's a school. It's a
Speaker 1: good school. I remember when I was working for Lyndon
Speaker 1: Johnson and I was helping him on his memoirs, and
Speaker 1: I was living for a while at the ranch, and
Speaker 1: he would I was twenty four years old, and he
Speaker 1: would always call me Harvard. He'd say, Hey, Harvard, come
Speaker 1: over here. I've got a question for you. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it was fine, and he didn't really like the Harvards
Speaker 1: think they wouldn't deal well with him, But he was
Speaker 1: fine with me. But I'll never forget one time he
Speaker 1: he wanted me to go in this car that had
Speaker 1: near his lake, like l b J. And right before
Speaker 1: we took off in the car, yeah like LBJ. Yes,
Speaker 1: of course, so he the Secret Service day to him,
Speaker 1: be careful. The brakes aren't so great. We didn't check them,
Speaker 1: and we're going down a hill towards the lake, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden the car goes into the water.
Speaker 1: And I wasn't afraid. Somehow, I just figured I'm here
Speaker 1: with the President's gonna fine. And of course it was
Speaker 1: an amphibious car. So it suddenly starts floating in the water.
Speaker 1: But I didn't scream, and so he says to me,
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you, Harvard? Don't you Harvard people know
Speaker 1: enough to get scared when something scary. So he was
Speaker 1: mad at me because I hadn't screamed. But I somehow
Speaker 1: he really wanted to freak you out with his amphibious
Speaker 1: We did this to a lot of people. This was
Speaker 1: part in fact, when when Brian Cranston played lb J
Speaker 1: and this wonderful play and movie, all the way. I
Speaker 1: had told him about this story of the amphibious car.
Speaker 1: So they have a scene in the HBO movie where
Speaker 1: he takes Hubert Humphrey, his vice president, in the car
Speaker 1: and they go in the water and you see Huber
Speaker 1: Humphrey with his suit on in the water, floating with
Speaker 1: his amphibious car, which is on display now at the ranch.
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, if I want a pulletzer, I'd buy that
Speaker 1: amphibious car. Hey. Maybe now we've figured out the answer,
Speaker 1: you know, not the Coca do. I'd go all in
Speaker 1: on Lbj's amphibious car. You have collection agencies after you,
Speaker 1: why don't you just pay off? We'll get to that later. Um,
Speaker 1: but I think that's fascinating the President Johnson, he hired
Speaker 1: you even though you were actively against the Vietnam War?
Speaker 1: Was that? Did that create friction there? It did, But
Speaker 1: it was a wonderful thing in a certain sense that
Speaker 1: he was able to do that. What happened is I
Speaker 1: was chosen while I was a graduate student at Harvard
Speaker 1: as a White House Fellow. It's a fabulous program and
Speaker 1: still exists today. For those who aren't familiar with the
Speaker 1: Vietnam War. Yeve we won that one didn't know, Carolina.
Speaker 1: You have to deal with him. You have to deal
Speaker 1: with him as you do I understand. Anyway, what happens
Speaker 1: is I get chosen as a White House fellow. We
Speaker 1: have a big dance at the White House. He does
Speaker 1: dance with me. But it's not that weird because there's
Speaker 1: only three women. No, not not well, sort of like
Speaker 1: you know Texas. You know, you go towards the floor
Speaker 1: and you come up, but there are only three women
Speaker 1: out of the sixteen white s wels. So it wasn't
Speaker 1: weird that he asked me to dance. But while we danced,
Speaker 1: he whispered that he wanted me to be assigned directly
Speaker 1: to him in the White House instead of to another
Speaker 1: cabinet officer. So that all seemed fine. But then a
Speaker 1: few days later a friend of mine and I previously
Speaker 1: very much involved in the anti war movement, had written
Speaker 1: an article against l b J which we'd sent to
Speaker 1: the New Republic but heard nothing, and it suddenly appeared
Speaker 1: right after the dance with the title how to Remove
Speaker 1: lb J from Power. So I was certain he would
Speaker 1: kick me out of the program, but instead, surprisingly he said, oh,
Speaker 1: bring it down here for a year and if I
Speaker 1: can't win her over, no one can. So I did
Speaker 1: eventually end up working for him in the White House
Speaker 1: and then accompany him to his ranch to help him
Speaker 1: on his memoirs. You know, never fully understanding why he
Speaker 1: had chosen me to spend so many hours with. I
Speaker 1: like to believe it was because I was a good
Speaker 1: listener and he was great storyteller. At sabular stories. There
Speaker 1: was a problem with these stories that you might understand
Speaker 1: that half of them aren't true, but they were great
Speaker 1: done the last and I loved listening to them. Um.
Speaker 1: But also I worried that part of it was that
Speaker 1: I was then a young woman and he had somewhat
Speaker 1: of a minor league womanizing reputation. So I was constantly
Speaker 1: chattering to him about steady boyfriends, even when I had
Speaker 1: no boyfriends. And everything was perfect until one day he
Speaker 1: said he wanted to discuss our relationship, and he took
Speaker 1: me to a picnic on the lake, you know, with
Speaker 1: red check cable cloth. No, no, this was just in
Speaker 1: this normal car. We didn't get into that one. But
Speaker 1: while we seemed to be the lake a lot in
Speaker 1: these stories. Anyway, he started out with all these romantic
Speaker 1: trappings around him, saying, Doris more than any other woman
Speaker 1: I have ever known. And my heart sank. And then
Speaker 1: he said, you remind me of my mother. It was
Speaker 1: pretty embarrassing given what was going on in my mind. Goodness,
Speaker 1: that happens to me a lot does. Were with Ron
Speaker 1: too well, actually picnic once and I was really concerned
Speaker 1: that I was going to get hit on. But and
Speaker 1: he just tried to entire me. No, I said, you
Speaker 1: remind me of my grandmother. She was a real piece
Speaker 1: of work. What's fun for you two to be together?
Speaker 1: It sounds good. We have a great back and forth.
Speaker 1: I can hear it. I am Carolina's lb J to
Speaker 1: her Doris Kern's Goodwin sometimes. In fact, I think you
Speaker 1: should call me lb J from now on. Okay, that's
Speaker 1: going to be confusing, but it might. We'll table that
Speaker 1: for now. You'll still be wrong for a little while long.
Speaker 1: I'll still be wrong for I think it's impressive though,
Speaker 1: that at President Johnson, despite your political stance, he was
Speaker 1: still welcoming because he thought you were a smart cookie. Yeah. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, how much of it had to do with
Speaker 1: the fact that I was a young woman. How much
Speaker 1: of it had to do with the fact that I
Speaker 1: was from that Harvard place, and he always knew the
Speaker 1: history might be written by the Harvards. But it turned
Speaker 1: out to be the formative relationship in my life, because
Speaker 1: that's what really made me a presidential historian, because I
Speaker 1: wrote my first book on him, and then after that
Speaker 1: comes Kennedy's, after that comes af DR and then Lincoln,
Speaker 1: and then Teddy and taft. I mean, I've spent all
Speaker 1: these years, as I say, living with these dead presidents.
Speaker 1: My only fear is that in the afterlife it's going
Speaker 1: to be a panel of all of them, and all
Speaker 1: of them want to tell me everything I got wrong
Speaker 1: right or I missed about them. And then the only
Speaker 1: fear I have after I've not answered their questions or
Speaker 1: that haven't told them the right thing, is the first
Speaker 1: person to scream will be lb J. You know. How
Speaker 1: come that damn book on the Roosevelts was twice as
Speaker 1: long as the book he wrote about me. So this
Speaker 1: afterlife may not be as much fun as it's been,
Speaker 1: but it's been great fun to study dead presidents in
Speaker 1: my whole life. I wouldn't change it for anything. I
Speaker 1: catapult back into another time era I can learn about
Speaker 1: what it was like to live, you know, in the
Speaker 1: nineteenth century and the twentieth century. It's great. When when
Speaker 1: is your Millard Fillmore book coming out? That? How don't
Speaker 1: you know that's next? He's my favorite character because of
Speaker 1: his name Millard. Nobody has about that. He couldn't be
Speaker 1: elected now with the name of Millard Fillmore. No, well,
Speaker 1: I you should call him Millie. Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, he interests historians only because of his name.
Speaker 1: But I think I have to really care about the person.
Speaker 1: That's why I don't know who I'm doing next. And
Speaker 1: I like them to write diaries and and keep letters
Speaker 1: so that you can really go back into their emotional lives.
Speaker 1: And any of our president day presidents don't do this.
Speaker 1: Here's the problem. In the afterlife, Millard Fillmore is going
Speaker 1: to be like, why didn't you write a book about me? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there'll be a lot of them up there, or maybe
Speaker 1: they'll be glad I didn't write about them. But no,
Speaker 1: that's not true, because I never choose somebody that I
Speaker 1: don't want to live with over a period of time.
Speaker 1: I could never write about Mussolini or Hitler or you know,
Speaker 1: one of the bad Or Buchanan, one of those crazy,
Speaker 1: bad presidents. So I just want to wake up with
Speaker 1: them in the morning, think about them when I go
Speaker 1: to bed at night, and they're gonna make mistakes like
Speaker 1: everybody does. I'll be mad and disappointed at them. Basically,
Speaker 1: I'll respect and feel enormous affection, especially toward Lincoln. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's the best. Did you Is it true that Taft
Speaker 1: got stuck in his bath? It is a true story.
Speaker 1: I mean it's a story that's true enough that it
Speaker 1: can be told again. And he weighed about three pounds
Speaker 1: or you know what. There's a children's book that's probably
Speaker 1: not true, which is adorable. However, my grandchildren loved it.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a children's book. Yeah, that's a child No,
Speaker 1: but there's a story that's real that he had a tub.
Speaker 1: There's a picture of him in a tub being made
Speaker 1: by four workmen. Oh no, I've read it. You've read
Speaker 1: the child didn't realize it was a children's book, though.
Speaker 1: They explode and finally out of the tub, and you
Speaker 1: may remember and then he's like Ferdinand, you know, with
Speaker 1: the flowers. He's sitting with nothing much on on the grass.
Speaker 1: So you do remember these things you reading excellent, Doris.
Speaker 1: We can't thank you enough for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 1: We got to rehash some old ground and thank you
Speaker 1: for being forthright. I really appreciate it. And and like
Speaker 1: I said, I I had a ring in a box
Speaker 1: ready for it was going to go down to a knee. Um,
Speaker 1: oh my god. I was gonna ask your father permission. Uh.
Speaker 1: I even had a Brooklyn Dodger hat that was going
Speaker 1: to wear. Oh my god. And this is now a
Speaker 1: vision that will be in my head. Yes, and that's
Speaker 1: a good thing. Right. We can both imagine what might
Speaker 1: have been. That's what historians do all the time. We
Speaker 1: try to think what might have been if somebody had
Speaker 1: made a different decision, if somebody had died and somebody
Speaker 1: had lived. So just think about the both of us
Speaker 1: living in a one bedroom apartment, just screaming at each other,
Speaker 1: throwing plates against the wall. But I well, it's it's exciting.
Speaker 1: It's like, who's afraid of Virginia Wolf? Oh see, look
Speaker 1: he's he throwing these literary analogies. You see, he's gonna
Speaker 1: surprise me. Who is afraid of Virginia Wolf? Not me? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Same here? Not me? What fun to talk to you again.
Speaker 1: It's really it's it's great to catch up, Doris. I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm telling you the one thing that I think we
Speaker 1: need more than anything today is humor among one of
Speaker 1: our leaders. I mean, Abraham Lincoln had it, and and
Speaker 1: that's why we need to be able to laugh at ourselves,
Speaker 1: you know. And somebody yelled at one point you you
Speaker 1: were too faced, Mr line can in a debate, nil back.
Speaker 1: If I had two faces, do you think I'd have
Speaker 1: this face? I mean, that's what we need. These people
Speaker 1: take themselves. He was not a no oh no, I'm
Speaker 1: telling you. I was on John Stewart one night or Pulbert.
Speaker 1: I think it was Stewart first. And I mentioned when
Speaker 1: the book first came out a team of rivals that
Speaker 1: I there's a picture of Lincoln before his beard and
Speaker 1: his hair is kind of wild, and he looks really rugged.
Speaker 1: And I said, he's really sexy. I've never been able
Speaker 1: to live that down. That's not your first thought about
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. But look then, when Daniel day Lewis became
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln, I was right, and I got to know
Speaker 1: him and he became my friend, and I half fell
Speaker 1: in love with him, like I was in love with
Speaker 1: Lincoln and you can't say he's ugly, and he's Lincoln right,
Speaker 1: hottest politician though. I see Bobby Kennedy, he was pretty extraordinary.
Speaker 1: Oh you see you like that old fashioned type. I'll
Speaker 1: take Tip O'Neil. He's like an FDR figure. But my
Speaker 1: husband was actually with Bobby when he died. He was
Speaker 1: very close friends with Bobby. And um, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: it weirdly as we're speaking. I'm looking at a picture.
Speaker 1: My husband died a year ago, and he was the
Speaker 1: most extraordinary character. He worked for JFK, lb J McCarthy,
Speaker 1: Bobby Kennedy, and he worked on the Ripples of Hope speech.
Speaker 1: This is on Bobby's grave. He did the we Shall
Speaker 1: Overcome speech for lb J. Anyway, I'm looking at a
Speaker 1: picture as we're talking of Bobby and my husband in
Speaker 1: the campaign, as they're in California right before he died,
Speaker 1: and Bobby's looking pretty good. As you might say. Now,
Speaker 1: he was an amazing character. He would have been, I think,
Speaker 1: a really good president because he'd been through so much.
Speaker 1: All presidents that are great and my judgment, have gone
Speaker 1: through adversity. In Lincoln had a near suicidal depression. Franklin
Speaker 1: Roosevelt abctousally lost his power to walk with his polio
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt lost his wife and mother on the same
Speaker 1: day in the same house, and they all became better leaders.
Speaker 1: And of course that that was it. Yeah, that changed everything.
Speaker 1: And then they went away, disappeared on time, just exactly untime.
Speaker 1: He had a sense of timing absolutely. Yeah. Well, Doris,
Speaker 1: thanks again, great to catch up with you. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: great fun for me too. I'm really glad we could
Speaker 1: do this. I'll see you guys soon. Alright, Okay, take
Speaker 1: care of Doris Kern's goodwin. Everyone on the Ron Burgundy
Speaker 1: podcast will be right back after this. Edward back on
Speaker 1: the Ron Burgundy Podcast. My final thoughts, Carolina, Wow, Doris,
Speaker 1: it was a real gossip, don't you think. What do
Speaker 1: you mean? I mean, oh, that t She just spilled
Speaker 1: about her old boss Lindon and that that guy FBI. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, she's a historian, but geez, I was like,
Speaker 1: is any of that your business? She's go and through
Speaker 1: people's letters for grapsake? Well, you know what, that brings
Speaker 1: up a really interesting point. I mean, what are we
Speaker 1: allowed to access as historians? Accurate portrayal of history is
Speaker 1: so important. But should our leaders have a right to privacy?
Speaker 1: Certainly their families do, but what about post humans. I
Speaker 1: think that's all for today, folks. I'm tired, and frankly
Speaker 1: i'm a I'm missing a friend, Ruth. Ruth, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: I know you are. Chrince Peter Ginsburg listens to our podcast.
Speaker 1: I love you. Please just text me back, just one
Speaker 1: emoji will suffice it a kissy face or or the
Speaker 1: two pink hearts. Let's see you at breakfast. And and
Speaker 1: you know what, Ruth, if you're going to ignore me,
Speaker 1: that's fine because I think Doris and I got it
Speaker 1: back on track today, So you know, Ruth, don't wait
Speaker 1: too long because I got good old DKG hot back
Speaker 1: on my trail. Oh, Doris, thanks again. It's great to reconnect.
Speaker 1: And who knows, maybe we I don't know. I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna wait by the phone for either one of you
Speaker 1: because I got things to do, all right. This is
Speaker 1: Ron Burgundy, A k Lyndon Baines Johnson signing off one
Speaker 1: more time for the Ron Burgundy Podcast. The Ron Burgundy
Speaker 1: Podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and Funnier Dot.
Speaker 1: I'm Ron Burgundy, the host, writer and executive producer. Carolina
Speaker 1: Barlow is my co host, writer and producer. Our producers
Speaker 1: are Jack O'Brien, Nick Stump, Miles Gray, and Whitney hot Act.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Mike Fair. Our consulting producer is
Speaker 1: Andrew Steele. Our coordinating producer is Colin McDougall. Our associate
Speaker 1: producers Anna Holsnian and Sophie Lichterman. Our writer is Jake
Speaker 1: Vogel missed. Our production coordinator is Hannah Jacobson. This episode
Speaker 1: was engineered, mixed, and edited by Nick Stout. Until next time,
Speaker 1: Mrs ron Berger