Russillo Summer Book Club! ‘Reagan: His Life and Legend’ With Max Boot, Plus Life Advice

Hey, Rosillo listeners, you can find every episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. The course is calling, and your Chevy Equinox can take on whatever the day throws at you. Stylish and ready for anything, Equinox handles your commute, weekend trips, and even those last-minute tea times. Easily load up your clubs and gear with plenty of cargo space, plus hidden storage under the rear floor to keep things neat. And with a big standout touchscreen, the Equinox puts all your tech right where you need it. Bold and confident, Equinox looks just as good on the road as it does down the back roads. From the first drive to the final putt, Equinox is built to do more so you can focus on the game. The Ryan Rosillo Show is presented by Equinox. The Ryan Rosillo Show is presented by DraftKings Sports. This is the book portion of the podcast. Our first one is Reagan by Max Boot. I didn't even know that I would want to read this, and I really enjoyed it because it was reading about events in my childhood that I certainly did not understand as well. So we'll do that, some life advice for you. This summer, whatever you're watching, baseball, golf, soccer, racing, DraftKings has you covered for every single moment of it. The DraftKings Sports app is now available in all 50 states. Bringing the game straight to your fingertips wherever you are. From Florida to Texas to California, you're in on the excitement at the speed of sports. Follow every buzzer beater, every walk-off, every photo finish. Sweat the moments that matter in real time with a seamless experience built for the biggest season of the year. No matter where you're watching, you're always connected and in the game with one app. New DraftKings customers sign up with code Ryan. Spend $5 to get $150 in rewards within 14 days. Includes all markets. That's code Ryan, R-Y-E-N. In partnership with DraftKings, the crown is yours. Bet with DK. Sports book. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. 1-800-MY-RESET. Connecticut, call 888-789-7777. Visit ccpg.org. On behalf of Boothill Casino in Kansas, bet tax pass-through may apply in Illinois. 21 and over. Void in Canada. Event contract trading with DraftKings Predictions involves risk of loss. Availability varies. Predictions offer void in New York. Bet to get bonus bets that expire in seven days. Trade to get predictions dollars that expire in one year. $50 in rewards issued every seven days via click-to-claim for 14 days. One non-withdrawable reward redeemable. Terms at dkng.co slash offer. Limited time offer. I was at the bookstore a month or so ago. I was going through some stuff. They're like, maybe I'll take that book with me and some travels. And I saw the Max Boot, Ronald Reagan book. And I went, I don't know if I want to read 700 plus pages on Reagan. And I love reading about presidents. And I was like, you know what? Let's give it a shot. And Max, I ripped through it. I absolutely loved it. Being my age, it kind of was like, oh, this is what all this stuff was during my childhood. And now I understand it a lot better than I did when I was five or nine or 10 years old. So fantastic work. And I appreciate you joining us today. Thanks for having me. I'm really, really glad you liked the book. Yeah, it was terrific. So like a lot of these great men in history, how do you think his childhood framed what later became of Reagan the man? It had a huge impact. I mean, like all of us, our personality, I mean, to some extent, it's. It's DNA, but to some extent, it's also our upbringing, our childhood. And in Reagan's case, he had what we would today call a very difficult, traumatic childhood, although he always looked at it with rose colored glasses and always tried to look on the bright side. In fact, that was one of the big takeaways from his childhood, because, you know, he was his father was this itinerant shoe salesman, had a major drinking problem, kept losing one job after another. And so the Reagan family kept moving from one tiny little. Town and small town in Illinois to another in the early years of the 20th century. And often his father would go off on these multi-day vendors and come back and Dutch Reagan, as he was then called, and his brother Moon could hear these loud arguments through the thin walls of their rented houses between their mother and their father. So it was not an easy upbringing by any stretch of the imagination, but he was very influenced by his mother, who was a very devout member of the Disciples of Christ Church. And, you know, you might say she had a Pollyannish outlook, except it was kind of Pollyannish on steroids. She always told him to look on the bright side of life and and to basically refract everything through this very optimistic prism. And that's exactly what he did. And so he tended to describe his childhood as this Huck Finn idol and so forth. And so but that was, you know, it was really from his childhood that he learned how to take very unpleasant reality and to reshape it. More to his liking, which would be one of his superpowers as a politician. I mean, the other thing I think that he took away from his childhood was he became a fairly introverted, distant person with almost no friends, which, you know, probably surprises a lot of people when I say that, because if they're only familiar with Ronald Reagan, the guy on TV, the president, the actor, he seemed like a very nice, warm person that everybody liked. And to some extent, that was true. But in fact, you know, moving from town to town, he never had a lot of close. Friends when he was he was a kid, he never stayed in one school long enough. And he always had this terrible secret of his father's drinking to protect. And so he kind of erected this mental enclosure around himself and kind of walled himself off from other people. Later on, even his wife, Nancy, was probably the person closest to him in the world so that there were parts of him even she didn't have access to. And so he became kind of this outwardly friendly, but in fact, very distant, remote person in one of his longtime political. Consultants through Spencer, you know, told me Reagan would have made a pretty good hermit. He didn't really need anybody. He was very self-sufficient. Again, that was really a product of his very difficult childhood. Yeah, there's so many connections to whether it's becoming an actor, which I'm going to spend some time on here and the way he would deal with conflict once he was actually, you know, governor and then more importantly, president. But, you know, there's a version of his adolescence where. It's like he's this tall, good looking, charming, popular. He's a good athlete. He's this lifeguard who's taking such pride in the attention that he's getting from saving lives during his summer job. And then to think that he's he's worthy of, hey, I'm going to be on the air immediately and then I'm going to go pursue this acting career once I'm in California, that it was almost like he was undeniable that he was not ever going to allow what happened once he walked through the door and come home. He was just going to change. And. And honestly, I think that's an incredible gift to be able to just convince yourself that everything is great and I'm going to maximize all these things that are away from what was obviously a very challenging upbringing. Absolutely. And remember, he graduated from tiny little Eureka College in 1932, which was in the midst of the worst economic downturn in American history is something like 20 percent of the country was unemployed. So it was about as dire a condition as you could possibly imagine his own father. Was was was basically unemployed at that point. So they were feeling the distress, too. He barely had enough money to pay for college. So, you know, difficult childhood. And yet he was convinced that he was destined for greater things. And he, you know, he told his fraternity brothers, a tiny Eureka College, that within a few years he would be making something like five thousand dollars a year, which at that time that was a lot of money. That's like saying I'm going to make two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year today. And he had no job prospects. No real qualifications to do anything. And yet he set out on this path where, you know, he had dreamed of becoming a movie actor. He was very active in the drama society in both high school and college. But, you know, he looked around the Midwest, didn't see a lot of movie studios. But what he saw were a lot of radio stations and radio, you know, was was the hot new technology in the 1930s, you know, kind of like podcasts or something today. And so he decided, OK, well, I don't know how to get to Hollywood, but I know how to find a radio station. So he just went around with his. Very meager resume looking for a job and eventually wound up at a very small radio station in Iowa and started doing sports casting and all sorts of other broadcasting duties and gradually made a name for himself in the Midwest and got, you know, moved over to a larger radio station in Des Moines and became known as Dutch Reagan, the voice of the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox. And so he started even by the mid 1930s when the country was still in the midst of this incredible depression. He was already having tremendous success, far more than anybody could have imagined for this for this kid from this very hard luck background. Yeah, I obviously starting my career as an awful play by play baseball guy out of nowhere with zero qualifications. I love that part of the book because he basically impresses somebody who owns one of these smaller stations just with his personality. And can you tell us a story about his tryout? Yeah, I mean. His his his tryout was basically, you know, he had to recreate in his mind a game which he had seen or he imagined, and he was able to do this so vividly that he convinced the radio station owner that he was seeing it in person. And then, you know, the way that they did play by play in those days, I think, strikes anybody today as being pretty weird because he would not actually go to the games. He would be sitting in a studio hundreds of miles from. from the baseball stadium and he would be reading a telegraphic account of what was going on, you know, really terse, basically saying, you know, so-and-so struck out, so-and-so reached first base, whatever. And then he would be creating this word picture for his listeners as if you were actually there, pretending that he was, you know, sitting in the ballpark watching the action. So again, it required, I mean, two things that it required, which he had in spades. One was tremendous communication ability, and the other was tremendous imagination. And those are basically the two qualifications that carried him so far in life. I love the part where the teletype goes out. And so he's on the air and he just starts saying foul ball over and over and over again. And then it's like, that was one of his favorite stories. He told that one many, many times. Yes, there were a few, few stories that were repeated from time to time. But if anybody has, you know, an older relative or whatever, that makes a lot of sense. So all of this is happening so fast. He's making all this money. He's doing play by play, but that's still not enough. He is going to make the great migration West, which is very important at this time. I think you pointed out at one point, there's more theaters in the United States than actual banks. The highest paid executive in the United States is a studio executive. And everybody wants in on this. And Reagan finds a way. What was the beginning? Like, what was the connection? What was the connection to actually getting him out there for a screen test and then ultimately being offered a contract? Well, the thing you have to understand was Ronald Reagan was he always had this kind of aw shucks manner and made it sound like everything that happened to him kind of just fell into his lap and he got lucky. But in fact, he was ferociously ambitious. And he basically conned the owner of the radio station into letting him travel with the Chicago Cubs out to their spring training, which in those days was Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles and told him, you know, this will be great. I'll get to know the players. This will make me a much better announcer when the season comes around. But in fact, he had an ulterior motive because this was a way for him to get out to California. He'd never been, you know, anywhere outside the Midwest, but he went with the team to Southern California and then snuck away to Warner Brothers and did a screen test. And lo and behold, Jack Warner liked what he saw. And all of a sudden, Ronald Reagan already had a pretty good career going as this well-known Midwestern sports announcer, all of a sudden gets hired into this legendary stable, the Los Stars at Warner Brothers in the late 1930s. I know it's just when you're in this part of the book, you're like, it's happening so fast. And I love that you referenced that Orwell quote where Orwell in a way that maybe some people don't want to hear it, but says after the age of 30, the great mass of human beings abandoned individual ambition. And Reagan clearly is the opposite of this. How does his career go in the beginning as an actor? Well, he starts off the way most folks started in Hollywood. Those days as a B movie actor and making a lot of low rent pictures that were meant to be shown at the cinema alongside the A pictures, the prestige, you know, very expensive pictures. And he even did this very cheesy action series where he was playing brass Bancroft treasury agent. And, you know, man, I've watched some of those movies and they are unwatchable. The special effects are so bad. This is just such low rent movie making, but you know, this was, he was kind of, you know, the Tom Cruise of, of the, of the B movies in those days. And, and then he gradually, you know, worked his way up. He showed that he was, you know, nobody ever thought that he was, you know, the second coming of Lawrence Olivier or any of these other great actors, but he was a guy who was sober, diligent, hardworking, showed up, knew his lines, hit his marks, did what the director asked. And so, you know, he started getting bigger and bigger pictures and including, uh, you know, one of his favorites, uh, Newt Rock, the all American, where he played this very idealized version of George Gipp, the Notre Dame football star who seemed like in the movie, like an all American guy. Of course, in real life, he was this degenerate gambler, draft dodger, all sorts of other things, but they presented a very idealized version. And he became, you know, the future known as the Gipper because he played George Gipp. And then, you know, he made quality pictures like the melodrama King's row and, and some others. And so by the time, you know, world war two rolled around in 1941, Reagan was receiving a cool billing with Errol Flynn. He was actually, you know, one of the bigger stars that Warner brothers had. So in the future, I would add, uh, you know, you could insult Ronald Reagan 10 ways this Sunday and he wouldn't care, but he did not like to have his movie acting chops question. He did not like to be described as a B movie actor, because in fact, he was not just a B movie actor. He graduated to the A pictures. He was a, he was a pretty reasonably sized star in pre-war Hollywood. Um, going back and watching it, were you able to come up with like a reasonable critique of his, his acting ability? Like, did you feel like, Hey, this is, this is actually better than he gets credit for, or there's no way this guy would be an actor today. Well, that was actually kind of one of the fun parts of researching this book, watching, you know, almost all of, of Reagan's boobies. And he made a lot of them over 55 or something like that. Uh, I mean, I think the reality with Reagan is he was a decent actor, but he wasn't the great actor. He thought he was. And one of his big disappointments on life was he didn't get to star in more, uh, cowboy pictures. People often associate them with Westerns. In fact, I think he only did like five Westerns in his whole movie career. And he was actually sore at Jack Warner for not casting him in more of those. But the problem with Reagan was that the people who were the actor, the leading men who were good in action pictures, that was like, you know, John Wayne, uh, Carrie, uh, uh, Carrie, you know, people who had, uh, you know, Reagan was, was handsome and affable, but he just did not have that, that kind of that underlying danger. You, you could just not imagine this guy is going to gun down somebody because he was too nice of a guy and his, what he was really strong in. Uh, but he didn't like to hear this. He was really strong in romantic comedies. He was kind of the nice guy that, that some, you know, that often got the girl. Um, and that was, that was really his thing. He wanted to be this, you know, kind of macho action star, which he never really was. And he did his own stunts as well, right? Yeah. He certainly did some of his own stunts. And at one point, you know, got pneumonia, uh, in the bargain, he lost hearing and one of his ears, cause he had these guns with blanks being fired right next to him. So, yeah. And actually one of the things he, he didn't do, again, he didn't do a lot of cowboy pictures, but, but the few that he did, he really liked because he loved riding a horse. And so he actually got to, you know, ride a horse in those movies. It is interesting though, cause you're right. I even remember some of it, you know, whether it was, you know, being a kid and he's the president and then older relatives, like talking about him, I can even envision like at a family reunion, different aunts and arguing whether or not he was like any good. It probably had more to do with their political ideology than it did with his acting skill decades prior. But he described himself as the Errol Flynn of the bees. But then it's like, well, he, he's almost saying I can say that. Because it's also Errol Flynn. But at the same time, like, I don't want you to say that. I mean, he started off as the Errol Flynn of the bees, but again, by 1941, he was getting equal billing with Errol Flynn. So that counts for something in Hollywood. How did the war derail his acting career? What happened with the war was, I mean, he did not go off to fight, but he did go off to Culver City, which was a few miles from his home to serve in an air force propaganda unit that was making movies and propaganda movies for the Air Force. Now he did he he often talked as if he was off to battle or something like that. In fact, he never went anywhere. But so there was no danger involved in terms of personal danger. But it was not good for his career. Because during you know, during the war for a period of several years, the only pictures he was making were these Air Force propaganda pictures they were so that he was not in the commercial movie industry. And then meanwhile, other folks like John Wayne, who, by the way, was basically a draft dodger, he was making a lot of movies and becoming a big star during World War Two, while Reagan was sidelined. And so when the war finally ended in 1945, you know, Reagan took off his uniform, he was a captain by that point. And he had a high price contract with Warner Brothers. But what he found was, he wasn't getting cast on a lot of pictures, because movie audiences had changed, tastes had changed, the whole industry was kind of in decline, in part because of the rise of TV, in part because of a Justice Department antitrust suit that broke up the studios, where they don't movie theaters in our own theaters. But anyway, the studios were basically laying off stars. And, and Reagan's career was kind of a victim of that post of the kind of the post war Hollywood economics. On the timeline, you know, communism is such a constant theme, you know, the fear of communism, and whether it's the fear of communism that I would have as a kid and watching the day after, and which is a real thing, like I can explain it to younger listeners and viewers. And it's just whatever challenges you have today. And I'm not saying that this is worse, or your challenges are worse or whatever. But it was just such a strange thing to be a little kid expecting that this country that you're never going to see is going to destroy your world. And it was like an accepted thing. You know, you would talk about it at recess, like as a little kid, and then you think of that in a very selfish way of like, well, that was when it was at its worst. But I think going back to the original, like, Red Scare era, and the communism fears, like, clearly, he'd important to actors as the president of the screen. and Acting Guild, but he's also working as an informant with the FBI because basically it feels like at that point, everyone is worried the guy next door is a communist. How different in your studies of fear of communism then, which felt far more newer than say once he was actually president? And then obviously how much, I'll probably hold off on that question, but you can just see how all of these influences almost place him as president at the perfect time for us to have those fears in the 80s. Yeah. In the late 40s, right at the height of that Red Scare, right at the start of the Cold War, that was when Reagan was basically seeing his movie career dry up and he was finding a new life in politics. And he was also changing his political ideology because in the 1930s, he had been this ardent New Deal liberal who worshiped FDR. But then in the late 40s, he started becoming, he was still pretty liberal economically and still a Democrat, but he started to become this very hard, hardline anti-communist in part because it was contacts with the FBI. And as you mentioned, he became an informer for the FBI in Hollywood. And in those days, the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover, they were pretty paranoid. They kind of saw red under every bed. And so they would see the most innocuous movies as evidence of communist influence in Hollywood. And they convinced Reagan, like a lot of other people, that there was this made in the Kremlin plot to take over Hollywood. So when Reagan became president of the Screen Actors Guild in the late 40s, he kind of had a front row seat to the McCarthy era. He actually testified before the House Un-American Affairs Committee. Again, he was an FBI informant. So he was, you know, he became convinced that it was his actions and those of a few other hardliners who were preventing this communist takeover. Now, again, I think in hindsight, a lot of these concerns were really exaggerated. I mean, I looked at, you know, I looked at, you know, I looked at the, you know, the Russian files. I looked at a lot of other stuff. I don't think that there was this actual communist plot to take over Hollywood. A lot of it was, you know, just kind of normal labor disputes where the studios would claim that the labor unions who were trying to get a better shake for the studio technicians, that they were part of a red conspiracy and they were going to, you know, take over Hollywood and all this other kind of stuff, which was just not true. But Reagan genuinely believed it. And so he gained his first prominence, well, you know, the movie actors and negotiations with the studios, but also as somebody whose profile was that he was, you know, this, this anti-communist fighter in Hollywood, which obviously positioned them well for a future transition into politics. It is really funny going back and looking at some of the fears and, you know, would be okay. I mean, some of the union stuff, I can see the connection of like, oh, well, if you guys are pushing for this, this is like planning the scene. I mean, I think it's really funny. I think it's really funny. I think it's really of communism in these industries and all that like i can at least get to that conclusion even if it feels pretty far-fetched but the part that's like laughable is the idea that these directors and these writers and these actors would all be together to build these these movies that were essentially propaganda for the communism part it or for the communist party it just it doesn't make any sense i mean they're in the business of of making good pictures they're in the business of hoping people want to show up to the theaters and it it's such a like overreaction to hey what wait a minute what is this one movie about here and every time like you go through it and you think about some of the stuff it's like it's just it's absolute paranoia um without really any evidence whatsoever that the messaging was being changed during these years to try to get more americans to switch to communism right no it's absolutely right in fact i quote david in the movie who was this uh british actor decorated british officer from world war ii and actually pretty conservative but you know he he pointed out how ludicrous it was to imagine the communists could take over hollywood when the entire industry was under the control of about 12 men and they were all republicans the studio moguls i mean how could somebody imagine that the communists would tell these very rich republican studio moguls what the hell they were supposed to put on in the movie theaters and even if they did start suddenly putting on copyist propaganda why would anybody show up and pay money to watch it it didn't make a lot of sense but this was the kind of the paranoid atmosphere of the late 40s early 50s we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors football is back and with draft king sportsbook september comes with a boost all september long opt in and get a 50 profit boost every game day with the draft king's game day boost pass new draft king sportsbook customers sign up with the code bss and get 50 profit boost every game day that's code bss and get a 50 profit boost in partnership with draft kings the crown is yours gambling problem call 1-800 gambler 1-800 my reset connecticut call 888-789-7777 visit ccpg.org on behalf of boot hill casino in kansas wager tax pass-through may apply in illinois 21 plus in most states void in canada one football boost per customer maximum bet limits and wagering restrictions apply tokens are single use and expire at the end of the year and they're free to use in the future and they're free to use in the future end of the final select game each day when offered terms at sportsbook.draftkings.com slash promos during his time as the president of the screen actress guild he's his interests are changing as you're talking about his ideologies um and it feels like he's it's not like he's getting noticed for the first time because i mean he's been in movies now for for a really long time but he's not working so maybe by do you think it was by necessity for the next paycheck that there's the pivot into politics or was that truly his calling because if he's probably in a lot of good movies still he might never become governor of california i think what was really important was that you know when his movie career dried up his agents uh found him a new gig uh working for general uh electric uh ge theater which was hosting this this this the sunday night show on cbs and in those days he was in the movie industry and he was in the movie industry and he was a very conservative company very right wing uh because they saw spreading free market ideology as being kind of an inoculation against union troubles and so they went to a lot of troubles to make sure that all their managers and spokesmen read all these conservative publications and were fully indoctrinated into this kind of right-wing worldview and ronald reagan was a very faithful employee and he had a lot of time to read because he was afraid of flying in those days so he would take the train from l.a to new york and he would take the train from l.a to new york and he would take the train from l.a to new york uh to speak on behalf of general electric and then he would go around the country speaking at g plants and civic organizations and elsewhere and he wasn't just speaking about how great g's products were he was talking about the issues of the day and you know he was reading you know reading national review reading human events reading readers digest all these other publications and hearing what his g bosses were saying and so his world view was changing as i mentioned he had already become the staunch anti-communist by that point but it was really his stint with ge in the 1950s that also converted him into this hardline free market guy who saw any kind of government regulation as the as the destruction of freedom in america and that became kind of the the gospel that he was preaching on behalf of ge basically talking about the threat of communism uh from without from the soviet union but also from within and suggesting that any kind of social welfare legislation was going to read to lead to communism in america and he in the in the 60s he when when the bills to create medicare and medicaid were being debated in in congress he called that socialized medicine and predicted it would lead to this totalitarian regime in america so he became this very staunch hardline right winger i think during his uh you know during his tenure working for g and i don't think that was a coincidence yeah going back and reading the excerpts that you share with us where he becomes this very staunch hardline right winger i think during his tenure working for g and i don't think that was a coincidence yeah going back and reading the excerpts that you share with us where he becomes absurd it's so right-wing that like i would think even modern republicans today would go like i don't i don't want to be aligned with that but at the beginning of the political run for reagan it is hey well look i mean clever is too basic of a word here but it's it's rather clever like he believes a lot of this stuff but he's very very cautious of how far he's publicly aligning himself with some of some of the things that he's been doing for a long time and i think that's what he's been doing for a long time and i think that's what he's been doing for a long time like really right-wing thoughts is that accurate a hundred percent i mean he had very right-wing beliefs but his genius was uh that he was genial uh that he that he came across as kind of your you know your lovable uncle he really became prominent politically for the first time uh in 1964 when he was campaigning on behalf of barry goldwater who was at that time was seen as this right-wing kook and it was very interesting for me to see there was a a journalist who watched both barry goldwater and ronald reagan speaking on the same platform and he noted that you know barry goldwater came across as your as an angry man as somebody who was kind of scary and and and frightening whereas ronald reagan was thought was mr genial he was you know this journalist compared reagan's personality to taking a warm soothing bath he made everybody feel good he had the exact same personality as barry goldwater and he was the one who was the one who had the exact same message as barry goldwater but he delivered with a smile and a wink and and and just made it seem very unthreatening and very acceptable in a way that Barry Goldwater did not. Yeah, I love the 64 mention because he basically has this incredible performance, like all time, like his life's work is building this and he's not running for president, but it's one of those moments sometimes like when you'll see a debate and then maybe you'll see like a vice president debate and the country just feels like, well, wait a minute, why isn't this guy, why isn't this person going to be in charge? And it must plant seeds for Reagan, who is very, again, it's interesting how calculated he is. You know, it almost reminded me of like some of the early George Washington stuff where Washington knew he was going to be in charge, you know, after like he aspired to be in charge, but he was like incredibly reserved, not wanting to have it be known that he was seeking power, like seeking power and have it be public would be far worse than not having power to him. But then, you know, again, different times sort of understanding, understood that he would be leading up, you know, different times in history. And Reagan clearly knows deep down, like I plan on being the president, but it would still be much like his career from play by play to acting. It would be way ahead of schedule. So when he dances with the idea, which I think he's historically ignored, that he announces that he's going to run for president in the late 60s, like was that just to be on the radar or did he just- did he think he was actually ready for it at that time? Well, the first thing that happened, of course, was that he ran for governor of California against Pat Brown, who was a very popular two-term governor. And nobody expected that this, you know, quote unquote washed up actor could possibly beat Pat Brown, the two-term governor of California. And yet he did beat Pat Brown by a million votes showing that he was one heck of a politician. But then the first thing that happened right after he won in November of 1966 was within a month, he sat down in the Pacific Palisades House with his advisors and started talking about how he could seek the presidency in 1968, which is, you know, a very aggressive schedule. Shows just how ambitious he was, but he never wanted to let on that he was that ambitious. And then, of course, the 68 campaign fizzled out. It just was not his year. Richard Nixon making a political comeback was the clear favorite and won the Republican nomination. And then so then after that, Reagan's other skill, aside from pretending he had no, ambition was he had a way of rewiring reality so that bad things never happened. And so after 1968, he basically pretended that he had never run for president in the first place. He just pretended, oh yeah, a few people wanted me to run, but I was never serious about it. Never thought I was ready. In fact, he had a real campaign. He announced it, didn't he? Yeah, he announced it. Well, you know, he was trying to be a favorite son from California. Then at the convention, he announced that. And he worked very hard. I mean, he traveled all over the country trying to get votes, but when it didn't work out, he just pretended it never happened. How did Nixon feel about him? Well, that's a great question because Ronald Reagan loved Nixon. He was 110% for Nixon. Even after the Watergate scandal came out, he kept being convinced Nixon couldn't have known anything was wrong. He kept thinking that Nixon was going to be vindicated. He often said that Nixon was the victim of a lynching. So he was, he was 110% gung-ho for Nixon, even at a time when a lot of right-wingers thought that Nixon was too liberal, but Reagan was always defending him. On the other side, it's really amusing to listen to some of these White House tapes where Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger are talking about Ronald Reagan because their basic view is Reagan is a dope. He doesn't have a thought in his head. He's this airhead actor, but we got to keep him happy because he's really popular, so we don't want him causing problems for us. So, let's give him something to do. And so they would send him around, you know, to on these foreign trips representing the president, basically visiting right-wing dictators all over the world. And so Nixon actually had complete contempt for Reagan, but he was in awe of them. He thought that they were wonderful. I think the record shows he was a pretty good governor of California. Yeah, he was a very popular governor. I mean, he shocked a lot of people because a lot of people said like, this guy's a washed up actor. He has no experience. He's also this right wing kook. So who are we electing? But in fact, he was able to pivot to the center, work with Jesse Unruh, who was the very powerful speaker of the California assembly, a Democrat and get things done. And he upended a lot of expectations. He signed one of the most liberal abortion laws in the country. He signed one of the toughest gun control bills. He raised taxes. He balanced the budget. He expanded wildlife protections. And so he actually became a very popular, very popular governor. Then in '76, this is where it really could just be over to challenge Ford as sitting president, same party and it doesn't work. So I imagine Ford maybe had more disdain for Reagan personally because of that than maybe Nixon did based on his personality or what somebody around him seemed to kind of agree on limited intelligence. But the Ford move that that really should have been. And his undoing. And yet it isn't. Yeah, I mean, that was people forget that was an incredibly gutsy move to challenge a sitting president of your own party in the primaries. And he did that because Reagan had no respect for Ford. He thought Ford was an accidental president, which in many respects he was. Reagan really thought he himself Ronald Reagan was the natural successor to Richard Nixon. And so he did not want Ford standing between him and the Oval Office. And so he challenged him in 1976 and lost some of the early contests. And if that had if he'd had to pull out of the of the primaries early, that probably would have been the end of Ronald Reagan's career. But he pulled off this unexpected upset in North Carolina with the help of the Jesse Helms political machine. And then it was really a fight all the way to the convention. This was he didn't win. Reagan didn't win, but he came closer than any other challenger to taking the nomination away from a sitting president. And so he emerged actually stronger than when he had gone into it. And so even though he lost very narrowly to Ford, he delivered a tremendous speech at the convention. And after Ford lost to Jimmy Carter in the general election, Ronald Reagan at that point was seen as as kind of next man in line for the Republican nomination. Unless, yeah, I'm sorry, keep going. Yeah. A lot of people thought he was old, but other than that, he was kind of the next man in line. It doesn't feel like Reagan happens without those four years from Carter. Is that fair? A hundred percent. Yeah. Because, you know, if Carter had been a very successful president, if the economy had been in great shape, if there hadn't been an Iran hostage crisis, it's hard to imagine Reagan mounting a political comeback. But because Carter's presidency was a hot mess, basically, with stagflation, double digit inflation, high interest rates, the Iran hostage crisis, everything that went wrong that could go wrong went wrong. And so that created an opening for the Republicans. A lot of Republicans are eager to run. But Reagan was the guy having run before who was the front runner from from the get go. This is, you know, it's. Pertinent to what we're talking about here, though, but like sometimes you're just the president of the wrong time, right? And, you know, we're still probably scarred from Vietnam, certainly with Nixon and Ford loses because it feels like there's enough moderates that are like we need something different, which is a very predictable voting pattern throughout history. I mean, Reagan's Reagan's great campaign slogan was, are you better off than you were four years ago? And most people would say no. Yeah, I mean, he's the he's actually the originator. Is he the originator of Make America Great Again? He was. Yeah, that was also that was another one of his campaign slogans. But, you know, it had it had a different meaning in those days, because if you'd asked Ronald. Reagan what makes America great, his response would probably be immigrants, because he often talked about how we were a country of immigrants. And it was really people from all over the world come here. That's that was the true greatness of America. So same slogan, but different meaning. What was your favorite part of the. Carter Reagan face off where it just felt like Carter didn't have much of a chance and Reagan, you know, four years later is is going to pull off something that people thought he would be he just wasn't going to be an option anymore after losing a Ford. Reagan again was was a master communicator, very genial guy. He had everything going in his favor except for one thing, which was people still had some doubts. Was this former actor up to the job of being president or was he some kind of scary right wing kook? And I think Reagan really put a lot of those doubts to bed in his one debate with Jimmy Carter, where he kind of wiped the floor with Carter. And of course, his most famous line from that debate. Was there you go again? Now, of course, the reality of that line is very different from the way people perceived it, because it was it was kind of a killer line that that made Carter seem like this mean, grumpy guy and Reagan as this as this genial, witty, witty fellow. Of course, if you actually look at what they were talking about, Carter was right because he was accusing Reagan of having opposed the creation of Medicare and Reagan said, there you go again and then proceeded. to argue about why he had been in favor of medical insurance all along, whereas the reality is, as I discovered, Reagan had been in favor of legislation that would have covered like 1% of seniors, whereas, of course, Medicare covers all seniors. So Carter was right. He was opposed to Medicare. But, you know, fact-checking didn't matter. What mattered was he was the master of these genial one-line comebacks, and he was brilliant in debate. And among other things that upended one of the assumptions of his critics was that he was too stupid to be president, that he was an airhead. In fact, he showed he was very quick on his feet, very, you know, he was very good at repartee, and that showed a lot of things, including a sense of humor, but also that he was, he had this mental agility to be president. He seems to step in with like two things in mind. One is based on his previous fears of communism, defense spending through the roof, okay? We need to. to beef up our defenses. We need to prioritize the military. Um, however ridiculous it can feel 45 years later, whatever time you want to pick of like living in constant fear. And we have to spend all this money on all these weapons that we're never going to use. Um, and then also his tax plan, which I did not know this. Um, this is incredible. This is like a baseball general manager hiring the next genius from Yale to run his baseball department. And then you don't realize that the kid from Yale has never watched a baseball game in his entire life. So, uh, Reagan, who definitely be criticized for this, it just feels like, Hey, everybody, you go and do all the stuff and then let me know what stuff we've agreed on. And then I'll go out and sell the stuff. But again, his, his ideology is like, we need to fix some of these tax things that we've had. Um, which obviously has been criticized for decades, but can you dig a little bit deeper for us here in the audience on how absurd it was that it was basically this guy that he thought was like a financial genius of what, like 30 years old. And then ultimately, um, he was maybe overselling his ability to pull a pull off an entire new tax reform. Yeah. You're talking about David Stockman, who was this wonder again, budget director who had been a Congressman for a couple of terms and that Reagan basically turned over all his economic policy to this guy. Uh, but you know, Stockman had sort of an impossible job because if you look at what Reagan was promising during the campaign, he said he was going to raise defense spending substantially. And he launched the largest peacetime defense buildup in American history. He said he was going to cut taxes substantially. And he did. We went from a top rate of, uh, 70% to a top rate of about 30%. But at the same time, as he was raising defense spending and cutting taxes, Reagan also promised he was going to balance the budget. Within a couple of years. And the math just did not add up. This is why George H.W. Bush called it voodoo economics. And so David Stockman came in, he had the job of translating these voodoo economics into an actual policy blueprint. And very quickly he figured out he couldn't do it. They could cut taxes for sure. That was popular, but cutting spending, well, they could cut some spending, but they couldn't cut enough spending to balance the budget, especially not when they were, you know, increasing, uh, the defense budget. So, you know, it was a, it was a, it was a, it just did not add up. And the result of all that was sky high budget deficits, which was Reagan later said that was the one regret he had about his presidency was he didn't balance the budget like he had been promising to do. And as he had been campaigning for decades against, uh, federal deficit spending and he, and he added to the deficit spending, but it kind of worked out anyway, because the reality was, even though he did add to the budget deficit, it didn't make much economic impact. And I think the most important thing that Reagan actually did economically was to support Paul Volcker, the chairman of the fed, as he was raising interest rates to ring the inflation out of the economy, which was very painful because it led to this massive recession from 1981 to 1983. It caused a lot of economic pain, but Reagan stood by the fed. He did not go out and criticize the fed chairman. And so that gave Volcker, uh, the support and the time to rig the inflation out of the economy. And then Reagan and, and, and a bipartisan, partisan Congress passed tax cuts in 1981. And so the result of all that was to get the economy growing again and creating very strong economic growth just in time for his reelection campaign in 1984, again, at the cost of, of, of these high budget deficits, which, you know, uh, David Stockman admitted he had no idea of how to solve that problem. But at the end of the day, it wasn't that much of an economic problem. It was more of a political problem. So you lay it all out and it's, it's always a nice reminder. I think for everybody is that if you go back to like world war two and then post-war war two, like what the government was getting away with taxing at the highest rates is absurd. I mean, if you explain, I'm sure a lot of people should be the first time they'd hear it, but Kennedy, when he steps into office, which is also something else that I think you're great at pointing out here is you have Kennedy, this Democrat that's going, we're taxing the top earners at a 91% rate past this threshold. Like that's, that's insane. But they were getting away with it probably far too long because at least during military times, you could expect people to feel like, okay, you know, I think the, the world was different than to what people felt like they owed it to their country at times. And it feels like the world could possibly end, uh, certainly going back to the forties. It's like, Hey, whatever it takes, but then you keep those taxes in place for a decade and a half. And then Kennedy's like, okay, well, this is ridiculous. Like we can't have it be at 91% over this threshold. I think almost everyone would agree with that. Maybe not. Um, it's at 70%. Reagan wants to take it way below that because they're big into the trickle down stuff, which I think you do a good job of, of being fair of like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know if this is really, you know, it's, it's sold over and over and over again. Um, and how cutting rates is going to stimulate the economy. But the, the irony is you just point out is that this Reaganomics thing that we've heard about forever and maybe creating the greatest divide, maybe eliminating the middle class. That none of that happened for the first few years. And it's even more interesting that if he's not, if there's not an assassination attempt in March of 81, we didn't even know if the bill passes. Yeah. All of that is absolutely right. I mean, he was, I call the, my chapter on the assassination attempt to find his finest hour because it really was because, you know, he came much closer to death than people realized after he was shot by John Hinckley, he was bleeding out at the hospital. And yet he never lost his sense of humor. And, you know, even as he's going into the operating table, he's joking with the doctors saying, I hope you're all Republicans and telling his wife, honey, I forgot to duck. And so when those comments were relayed to the public, uh, there was just this wave of affection and support for Ronald Reagan. And so he came back out of the hospital stronger than ever, not only physically, but politically. And that's what enabled him to pass these, these tax cuts, which as you point out, had strong bipartisan support. I mean, remember his, the house was in, uh, was in democratic hands. So he needed democratic support to pass those bills. And he had it because as you say, there was a bipartisan consensus, the tax rates were too high. Now, in hindsight, I think it was kind of a mixed blessing because on the one hand it did help to turbocharge the economy. It did lead to stronger economic growth, but the downside of it is just what you said. It also led to greater income inequality because so many of the benefits accrued to the top 1% of earners. And so if you look at charts of income inequality in America, they tend to go like this in the early 1980s, they start to diverge very radically. So you have the top earners, you know, making more than ever, but then you have the middle-class stagnating and, and the working class going backwards. And that's, that was certainly not intended to be the consequence of Reaganomics, but I think Reaganomics was one of the factors that led to that. I mean, there were other factors, including the information age, computers, free trade. There were a lot of stuff going on, but there's no doubt that, that the Reagan era tax policy contributed to some of that income inequality. Yeah. Do you see that as a definitive line of like, had, had we taken a different course, you know, I mean, it's hard to say, Hey, we wasted all of this money on all this defense stuff when we were constantly worried about it, but we absolutely wasted billions and billions of dollars. And that's where the budget kind of gets out of whack with so much defense spending. Um, and then, you know, unfortunately too, like there's, there's certainly questions like when you think of the income disparity, and then you think about how many minorities are impacted by this, um, of where so much of, of these demographics like show up on, on what kind of earnings you're talking about here. There's, there's just a lot where you go, Hey, Reagan, actually set us down a path that we're still trying to dig. ourselves out of, or, you know, again, the other argument is without him, we don't become the superpower that we became. Yeah. I think you can make the case for both arguments truly. And he was just not worried about income inequality. This was one of his blind spots. His entire focus was on economic growth. He didn't really think about who was getting the benefits. He just wanted to get the economy growing and that, you know, you can see that the logic for that, but I think this was a big blind spot. And I think we are, we are paying a price for it. And part of the price is. The Republican party has been dramatically transformed in a more populist direction since Ronald Reagan's day, in part because of these trends that Reagan himself inadvertently set into motion. we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors it's fran from chicks in the office the weather is getting cooler and abercrombie's fall drop has everything i need for the season the best-selling anf sloan taylor pant is a closet staple for me i'm always wearing it to work events happy hour anytime i want to be a bit more dressed up and the viral dylan dress is easy one and done perfection but my fall uniform will always be denim paired with a henley sweater a bra free top it's comfortable effortless it just never fails find your fall capsule at abercrombie shop in the app online and in stores reagan on race um you know there's all sorts of stories from his childhood where you're like this guy isn't a racist at all right i mean it just doesn't and i don't think you're trying to sell that you know i think you're incredibly fair you you have critiques of him but the thing that you can't ignore is that his use of the term states rights which is basically this dog whistle to the south to that voting base that he's like it's basically going to be okay um how do you think history should remember him on how he treated minorities in this country that's complicated because as you say he was actually brought up by his parents not to be bigoted and he really wasn't i mean he had black teammates at eureka college he brought them home when they were not allowed to stay at a segregated hotel so his own personal feelings were actually he was he was pretty good personally he was i don't think he was personally a racist but i think the reality is he did indulge in kind of dog whistle politics from the beginning of his political career all throughout and it began in 1966 when he really won in part on a law and order appeal after the watts riot and basically there was you know massive fear of of of crime in california and a lot of it was white suburbanites fearful of black inner city people committing crimes and he he played into that and said he was going to protect them and later he talked about welfare queens and how they're ripping us off and a lot of people understood that to be code words uh for black people on welfare uh and then as you mentioned um he in you know in in 1980 he went out to neshopa county mississippi a side of a horrible crime during the civil rights era and talked about how he's in favor of states rights and by the way throughout his career he was opposed to civil rights legislation i mean i don't know if you've heard of him but he was opposed to civil rights legislation i mean i don't know if you've heard of him but he was opposed to civil rights legislation i mean i don't know if you've heard of him but he was opposed to civil rights legislation i mean i don't know a lot of people didn't realize this that later on that he had opposed the 1964 civil rights act he opposed the 1965 voting rights act he criticized martin luther king he opposed sit-ins and protests saying that they were breaking the law uh he talked about how desegregation was very unfair to the south and it was really an imposition on the south so uh he he definitely played uh to a the south and it was really an imposition on the south so uh he he definitely played uh to a he himself was was was not really racist he himself was was was not really racist he himself was was was not really racist how important how important how important was gorbachev becoming was gorbachev becoming was gorbachev becoming the leader of russia to the leader of russia to the leader of russia to finally thaw finally thaw finally thaw uh what had been going on now for decades uh what had been going on now for decades uh what had been going on now for decades between these two countries between these two countries between these two countries i think gorbachev's ascension in 1985 i think gorbachev's ascension in 1985 i think gorbachev's ascension in 1985 that was really the key turning point that was really the key turning point that was really the key turning point towards the end of the cold war because towards the end of the cold war because towards the end of the cold war because during reagan's first turmoil he was during reagan's first turmoil he was during reagan's first turmoil he was increasing defense spending increasing defense spending increasing defense spending there was one crisis after another with there was one crisis after another with there was one crisis after another with the soviets in 1983 we actually came the soviets in 1983 we actually came the soviets in 1983 we actually came alarmingly close to nuclear war with the alarmingly close to nuclear war with the alarmingly close to nuclear war with the soviet union and at the same time as he soviet union and at the same time as he As he was confronting the Soviets, Reagan also wanted to deal with them. But as he complained, I wanted to meet with a Soviet leader, but they all kept dying on me. They were all these old timers who were, you know, in the hospital instead of meeting with Reagan. And all of a sudden, in 1985, you got Gorbachev, who was this much more vigorous reformist guy in his 50s, who wants to transform the Soviet system. And I think it was very much to Reagan's credit that after he met with Gorbachev in Geneva in November of 1985, he concluded that Margaret Thatcher had been right to say, this is somebody you can work with. This is somebody we can do business with. And at the time, there was a lot of suspicion of Gorbachev in conservative circles. A lot of people said, oh, you know, he's just another typical communist hoodwinker. He's trying to pull the wool over your eyes. He just wants to make the Soviet Union more menacing than ever. But in fact. And Gorbachev, as we now know, was a true reformer. He was somebody who was, would have risen up within the communist system, but lost faith in it. He really wanted to create a democratic socialist system of the kind that he had seen in Western Europe. And so he launched his great reforms of glasnost and perestroika. And the consequence of that, which he had not intended, was to destroy the Soviet Union. Because basically, the Soviet Union had all these captive nationalities, including Ukrainians, including Balts, including Communists. Kazakhstan, so many other nationalities. And all of Eastern Europe, of course, was part of the Soviet Empire. And all these people were basically held captive by force. And once Gorbachev said, I am not going to use force to keep the Soviet Union together anymore, the whole thing disintegrated. And so that's what led to the end of the Cold War. And it wasn't, I don't think it was directly Ronald Reagan's defense buildup. I don't think it was the pressure that Reagan applied. But I think Reagan, to his great credit, was able to put aside. You know. Half a century of his own anti-Communist ideology. And realized that Gorbachev was somebody he could work with and support. And he did form a friendship and did support Gorbachev. And I think that was really the, that set the stage for the end of the Cold War. It's very predictable, too. If you grow up as Reagan and you have the experiences that you have. I mean, this isn't him just being the president. Like, he despised communism. He seemed to be in constant. Fear of Russia. And he couldn't work with any of the previous leaders. And by the end of it, you're like, hey, he and Gorbachev, like, they feel like they're friends. And what's kind of funny is that, you know, here's Reagan. Essentially, like, I don't think it's wrong for all these other leaders to be like, I don't know how smart that guy is. And it feels like Gorbachev early on comes to the same conclusion. But yet, wherever Reagan is on the intelligence scale, it became so frustrating to negotiate with him. That it actually seemed to work in Reagan's favor. Because Gorbachev's just like, I can't. He doesn't understand what I'm talking about. Like, I can't keep having the same conversation over and over again. Like, fine, fine. We'll do that then, too. And I don't think that Reagan was doing it tactfully. I just think they spent so much time together that Gorbachev got to know him a little bit. Realizing, like, I'm not going to get through to him. And we need to come to some resolution today. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I think, you know, Gorbachev himself talked about how when they first met in Geneva in 1985, they had these conversations. These caricatures of each other were where Reagan saw Gorbachev as the world's number one communist. Gorby saw Reagan as the number one capitalist. And they thought that they were, you know, doomed to be perpetual enemies. But in fact, when they talked, they realized they actually had a lot in common. And both of them were very scared of World War III. Both of them wanted to, in the arms race, even abolish nuclear weapons altogether. And so they found that they actually had much more in common than they realized. And again, I think that's very much to Reagan's favor. Reagan's credit that after decades of vilifying Soviet leaders, he found a Soviet leader he could actually work with and realize that, no, Gorbachev was not just like all the other ones, as so many right-wingers were saying at the time. He talked about the budget being his greatest regret. Is that him conveniently absolving himself for any involvement in the Iran-Contra affair? Because if you go back to, like, it feels like he knows a little bit more. It feels like he's a little bit more involved than, say, Grant in the Whiskey Ring scandal, where that feels like everyone around Grant was just doing whatever they wanted and Grant kind of was a little removed. And I do think it's kind of funny when I was reading the chapter about Oliver North and his inability to negotiate with Iran, where, I mean, it's so embarrassing. It's so funny, but it's so embarrassing. It's like they have these hostages. They want these missiles. And they're negotiating with this shady character. And they go, look, we'll give you all the hostages if you give us 10 of these missiles. And Oliver North thinks like, oh, cool, I'm going to be this secret operative. And then I'm going to funnel that money to the Contras. And so, OK, fine, here are all the missiles. They're headed your way right now. And then they gave up, like, one person. And then they're like, we need 100 missiles. They're like, all right, cool, we'll give you 100 missiles. And then they're like, we need 400 missiles. And it just keeps going on and on and on. And it's so ridiculous. And it's even crazier. You're reading it now. Because as a kid, I was like, what's going on? You know, again, I was like 10 or 11. And then Oliver North, just based on his testimony, becomes this national sensation where you're going to the gas stations and there's Ali T-shirts. And he just became popular when, in fact, he was completely full of shit. And he was awful. Even in his involvement in this, he was terrible at it. And then there's Reagan's kind of like. Is it a wink and a, hey, get it done, but leave me out of it? Or like in so many other cases, it felt like the cabinet and all of the positions were acting independent of Reagan because Reagan preferred it that way. Yeah, I think what I say about Iran-Contra, which was the worst scandal after Watergate in the first few decades after Watergate. The reason why Reagan got into Iran-Contra was basically the same reason he got out of it, which was that he was a very hands-off manager. He had very little involvement in the day-to-day running of the government. And so you had aides like Ali North or his boss. John Poindexter, who was the national security advisor, who came up with this crazy idea of we're going to trade arms for hostages to Iran. And then in return, we're going to take the profits from selling weapons to the Iranian mullahs and funnel them to the Contras, these Nicaraguan rebels, even though Congress passed the bill saying you're not supposed to provide money to the Contras. And so they did that. And Reagan clearly signed off on the first part of that, the arms for hostages, because he thought that would improve relations with Iran. And then he always claimed that he didn't know about the diversion of money to the Contras, which was really the impeachable offense in this, in this whole deal. And nobody could ever prove otherwise, because Poindexter was widely seen as basically following the sword for the commander in chief and saying that he never told Reagan. But when all this. What did you believe? Did you believe, like. I mean, I don't, I don't know. I mean, this is one of the secrets that Reagan took to his grave and nobody will ever, I don't think even he himself knew because, you know, it's possible that Poindexter may have mentioned it in passing and Reagan thought that sounded okay, but didn't remember it. Nobody really knew. There was no evidence that he knew about the diversion. But at the end of the day, when this whole scandal broke out in the fall of 86 and then into 1987, Reagan's defense was, I didn't know what was going on. Now, if Richard Nixon had said, I didn't know what was going on, nobody would believe it because everybody knew that Nixon was a micromanager who knew every little thing that was going on in the government. But with Reagan, this guy who was falling asleep at cabinet meetings, he was like, I don't know what's going on. I don't know what's going on in the government meetings. It was very plausible for him to say, I didn't know what was going on. And so basically the Democrats had to conclude they couldn't impeach the guy because A, he was too popular and B, he had this alibi, which, which they couldn't crack. Does it bother you when people think of him solely as an actor acting as the president? Yeah, I don't think that's fair because one of his, one of his great lines was, he was asked, you know, a lot of people wonder how an actor could be president. His reply was, I don't understand how anybody but an actor could be president because of course, in anybody who is the chief executive of the United States, there's a high element of, of communication and artifice that goes into that job. And people used to say about Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was Reagan's great hero as a young man growing up in the thirties, people used to say that FDR was, was this great actor. And I think you kind of have to be a great actor when you come in. And I think that's a great thing to do. And I think that's a great thing to command the bully Pope. And that was something that Ronald Reagan was very good at. And it's true that that was his strength as a president and he was a much weaker manager, but it's actually really important to have a president who was very good at communicating because in many ways, that's the chief part of the job. Did you ever know when you were younger that a lot of these national events were being scheduled based on Nancy Reagan's astrologist? That was one of the great secrets of the Reagan administration. Very few people knew about that. It was very funny around Contra affair, Don Regan, who was the white house chief of staff, uh, presided over this disaster. And so then Nancy Reagan finally convinced her husband, Ronnie to fire Don Regan. And Don Regan was fuming. He was this former CEO of Merrill Lynch. He was not used to being fired. And so he went to write his memoir while the Reagans were still in office and in his personal files, which are now at the library of Congress, I actually found a folder marked revenge. You really wiped out revenge on one of their folders, but that's exactly what he did. And he got his revenge because he wrote this memoir in which he revealed the deep, dark secret of the Reagan white house, which was Nancy's reliance on this astrologer, the celebrity astrologer named Joan Quigley out in San Francisco. And she became really paranoid after Ronnie's near assassination in 1981. And so she constantly consulted Joan Quigley to schedule the president's events, speeches, travel, because she wanted to make sure the stars were aligning to keep them safe. And so when Don Regan revealed this, it kind of turned Nancy Reagan into, into this laughingstock, but she had been right to fire Don Regan. He was a terrible chief of staff. Uh, but he, you know, he did get his revenge. I think back to, you know, again, when I'm really actually aware of things, you know, I don't know what's going on, right. But there's this, I grew up with this, this swell of American pride, you know, and it's, it's, it's Rocky four, it's the Rambo movies. It's all those movies, right? It's top gun. It's, it's all of this stuff where all of a sudden, like you, you wouldn't even think of not having pride in your country. You know, the way we talk about some things now, which I think, you know, some of the criticisms certainly are fair, but like back then, I don't want to say brainwashed, but you know, you just kind of looked at like, Hey, we're the best and I love it and everything's great. And it, it maybe was like the right correction post Vietnam and how the country felt about themselves in the seventies and how, how the country, you know, obviously with the Carter stuff that we've covered already, where it's like, Hey, we need something different. Um, he really felt like the perfect guy for it. And I, even though the military spending that you point out, it can even bump. And I was reading that. I was like, well, how bummed out do you want to get about this? When basically after the cold war is over, you go over and inspect and be like, the Russians had zero chance, by the way. Like we spent all this money and all of this stuff and they had zero chance to even compete from an arm standpoint. But the thing I think you do a great job of pointing out is like, okay, yes, the imbalanced budget, defense spending, fears all overblown, but the country and the military taking a pride in itself in a way that it hadn't felt for probably, I don't know, almost 15, 20 years. Is that fair to say? Oh, a hundred percent. I think, you know, people ask me where I would place Ronald Reagan on the presidential pantheon. And I basically agree with the consensus of historians that he is a near great president, often ranked around nine or 10 among all the presidents. And that's despite all of his faults and foibles and setbacks and defeats, because I think he did two big things right. The first we already talked about, which was in his second term, he worked with Gorbachev to end the Cold War. But his other great achievement in his first term, which we're now talking about, was to kind of give the country its mojo back after this very difficult, tumultuous decade of the 1970s, which I'm just barely old enough to remember. This was a time when you had stagflation, Watergate, defeat in Vietnam, the Iranian hostage crisis, everything that could go wrong was going wrong. And the country was really down on itself. There was kind of a sense of malaise, which was a term associated with the Jimmy Carter presidency. But this was really Reagan's shining hour because he always viewed the country as the, shining city on a hill, as this wonderful place. He never lost that faith. He had kind of the same gift as FDR, who imbued Americans with confidence during the Great Depression. Reagan imbued Americans with confidence after the 70s and during the terrible recession from 81 to 83. He made people believe it was all going to work out okay. And he revived pride in the military. He revived pride in the United States. And I think that was a tremendous achievement. So, that he was able to run for reelection in 1984 with these famous commercials proclaiming that it's morning again in America. And people believed that. That resonated. It really felt like we had turned a corner from all the defeats and despair of the 1970s. All of a sudden, things were looking up. And there were a lot of things that went into that. But part of it was Ronald Reagan's sunny personality, his optimistic outlook, and his ability to communicate his confidence in America to the American people. I think that was hugely important. That was a massive achievement. We'll finish here. And I still am so impressed with the brilliance of what's a simple back and forth and back to the future in the first one. Where when Marty goes to Doc's place, I'm from the future. And he's like, okay, future boy. He's like, who's the president? And he's like, Ronald Reagan. And then he just laughs. He's the actor. And just, you know, it's like, this is crazy. This guy's not from the future. And then once he convinces him that he is from the future. And he's like, I'm from the future. And he sets up the camera. And he's like holding the camcorder. And he's thinking, it makes perfect sense that the president would be an actor with this kind of technology. And I just I'll always forever be impressed. I think it's one of like the most impressive little things and what is still one of the great movies I think of all time. And there is something about the power of the excuse me, the the power of likability. And, you know, wherever you are, he just, he seems so likable, which is also shocking that he wasn't close to anybody other than Nancy. But that may have been his like, I think his compromise, the fact that he was very pragmatic. He just had this superpower that other presidents are never going to have. I you know, look, there may be some other future president, but for the time and in the back, it just it's such a huge part. of his run, that you looked at him on TV, and you kind of felt better. Yeah, no, I think there were a lot of secrets to their success. A big one was that he was very pragmatic, he was willing to compromise. Another part of it was that he had this tremendous communications ability known as the great communicator. And it wasn't just that he was reading speeches off of teleprompters. For decades, he was writing his own speeches, he was making his own remarks. So he really, and this was a skill really honed as a radio speaker, he was a great communicator. And he was very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, said, that he had a very likable personality, even though in real life, he was kind of a remote person with very few real friends. He projected likability. He was very soft edged. And he played into that because he didn't go out and attack his political opponents. You know, he always, he never engaged in that homonym attacks. He was always a consummate gentleman. And so that made it much easier for him to engineer bipartisan agreement and also to win votes from Democrats, which he needed to do in those days, because Democrats were still the majority party. And so, you know, he was at the end of the day, Ronald Reagan, even if he disagreed with his policy, with his policies, or his politics, he was just a very hard guy to dislike. Personally, he was just so amiable, genial, so low key. He was so unassuming and modest. And I think he had no errors about that. I mean, it's fascinating. One of the most fascinating aspects of my research was visiting his ranch near Santa Barbara. And I would encourage anybody who has the opportunity to go out there because I think it's really a window into who Ronald Reagan was. And it's this beautiful land with a view of the Pacific, lots of riding trails. But if you go to the actual house, it's unbelievably modest. It's a place where, you know, the decor looks like it came from a flea market. It's never going to be featured in Architectural Digest. And this was a place visited by very few people. And one of the really touching aspects of learning about Reagan was, you know, learning, talking to this fellow named Dennis LeBlanc, who used to be a California state police officer, used to protect Reagan, then went to work for him on his ranch and talking about what Reagan was like there in the 1980s. And, you know, Reagan with Dennis and another former state police officer named Barney Barnett, they would go out there and do ranch work all day. And then they would come home, you know, dead tired. And, you know, they would go out there and do ranch work all day. And, you know, they would sit down to dinner with Nancy with a very stingy meal prepared by the housekeeper because Nancy Reagan was always watching her wait and made sure everybody else was too. And so, you know, they would get up from the table almost as hungry as when they sat down. And then they would go to this very modest living room and plop down on the sofa like so many other Americans, turn on the TV and watch Murder, She Wrote or one of these other shows from the 1980s. And then at some point, they would all kind of fall asleep in front of the tube. And Nancy would put, you know, Dennis on the foot and say, OK, guys, time to go to bed. And so Dennis and Barney would kind of shuffle off to their trailer and the housekeeper might give him a couple of chocolate chip cookies as a going away present. And then the president and the first lady would go to their extremely modest bedroom and fall asleep. And that's where Ronald Reagan was happiest, was on his ranch, doing ranch chores, hanging out with these two former state police officers living very, very modestly. And that was really what who he was. And I think people came to understand that. And it was just hard to dislike that. With all your research, and I know this took you a really long time to write, the fact that you watched all of the Reagan movies on top of everything else truly makes you the authority. Thanks so much for the work on this. I appreciate it. Great conversation. Thanks so much for having me on. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Being lucky? You should be. Meet the new Lucky One Sweet Tea from Miss Peaches, the vodka drink typically doing good. Made with real tea and real vodka, non-carbonated, 100 calories. And here's the scoop. Their new sweet tea is the only vodka-based sweet tea on the market. Simple ingredients in a smooth, full flavor that makes it taste just like the real sweet tea. Best part, every can helps rescue dogs find their forever homes as they work to a goal of donating $1 million to dog rescues in 2026. So if you love true sweet tea, this one's a no-brainer. Pick up Lucky One Sweet Tea today. And we'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Check out offers on the 2026 Silverado at chevy.com. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari, 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life advice, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. That is the email address you get, livereactiontoadultswim.com. You can find me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Instagram. We've got Steve. Let's get into it. Maybe one little feedback one for us to start things here. Let's see here. There's a lot of Adult Swim stuff going on. People thinking it's stupid. It should be abolished. Relax. I'll read this one because this one just annoys me. All right. Live Reaction to Adult Swim, an email. Let me get this straight. The three of you really sided with people that openly shit-talked a baby. Is that what we did, sir? I think he was shit-talking the dad. I don't think it was. I don't think anyone was mad at the baby. I think it was more of a breach into quorum from the father. Pretty sure I also said that I didn't agree with that, but hey, man. Also, I don't think anyone was talking to the baby. They might have been talking about the baby. Come on. Let's be honest. I think he was saying that. He was saying that to try to strengthen his argument. I thought in the moment, I don't think anyone shit-talking that baby. I don't think there's one moment where anyone could perceive from us talking about that email that it's like, yeah, man. I mean, fuck you. You can't even talk. Eight months, acting like you own the place. Probably peeing in the pool right now. Yeah. That's like, get the fuck out of here. The email continues. I can excuse the ignorance of the two of you that don't have children. The one that does has no excuse. That's the Rudy in the crosshairs. Love the show. Listeners since well before Hasselbeck cracked on Ryan for not having his name on the show, but y'all missed this one. Ask him to leave is fine. Stupid, but rules is rules. Shit-talking an infant should never be defended, sir. I don't know. You misread this one. I'm going to be honest with you. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe I'll go back and listen. I heard them say like, he's not an adult. They were talking about the baby and you know, come on. Nobody said anything like wag their finger in his face. Like you get out of here. That's crazy. That's why so many of us on air suck at the job now, because all we're doing is qualifying everything to try to just put up a shield in case it's like, what is that counter? Like, I didn't see that angle. You know, we don't get to the point. We start, I do it. Start a monologue going like, all right, here's the 17 things you could possibly say in opposition to what I'm about to say. And it's like four minutes later and you haven't even made the fucking point yet. All right. Is it dumb to pursue my future roommate? Hmm. 24 years old male, six foot one 60, currently on a never ending bulk that never gets anywhere because I can't find the balance of being a lifter who runs instead of a runner who lifts probably shouldn't run before you lift. Start there. I'm in grad school because of clinical rotations. My crush and I are about to live in the same city for a few months, then accidentally become roommates accidentally. It's not an accident for one of you. I would say placements are basically random from August to October. We'll be in one city. And then from October, December, we'll be back in our college town. One of my classmates, 26 female, Ooh, an older woman. Let's call her Rachel happened to get the exact same placements. I've had a harmless crush on Rachel for a few months. Nothing's ever happened besides plenty of flirty nights out studying together for exams. A few drunk texts from me, nothing worse than quote. I want to see you. Oh no. Do you get a response to any of that? Right. Yeah. What did she say? If at all. Yeah. Conveniently left out. Yeah. Other than that, we're good friends. We talk in class texts. Occasionally we're in the same friend group. She's single. We've never hung out one-on-one. We've never hung out one-on-one outside of studying or being with friends. So I honestly can't tell if the flirting means anything or if that's just how we are for our first rotation. We each have our own apartments lined up, both one bedroom in good areas. When we head back to our college town, two of our classmates offered to sublease us, their two bedroom, two bathroom apartments, since they'll both be gone. I talked to one of them. It's a great deal. Nice apartment, great location, cheaper than finding my own place. The only catch was that Rachel had already talked to the other roommate about taking the second bedroom. I told my friend I'd only do it if Rachel was comfortable living together. I asked her about it. She had no problem with the idea. So we're currently planning to sublease the apartment together. Nothing has been signed yet, but that's the plan. So here's my question. Is it dumb to try pursuing her romantically now that we're likely going to be roommates? Part of me wonders if she's interested, but another part thinks she may have just agreed because she sees me as a safe, easy roommate. My biggest concern is that if I ask her out and she's not interested, I've made it an awkward living situation before we've even moved in. On the other hand, if I wait until after we live together, that feels like it could be even messier. Should I shoot my shot before signing the lease or just treat her like a roommate and move on? Or is there another new girl adjacent play I'm not seeing? Thanks for the help of the pod. Well, you can't do this before unless you have a really good option 1B, because if you ruin this, you have to not live there. You can't ruin this for her and then be like, all right, you either option A or option B, you know, so you can't do this before. And if you're planning on trying. up with somebody you're not dating before you move in with them yes and you can't if you're gonna like wait until you guys are like in the same domicile you definitely have to be like you have to like let this come to you you can't like pounce in any way you can't you can't first night forward yeah you can't you can't so like there has to be together what's going on exactly like that you have to be way more careful in the you know in the second phase of this um yeah this is it's messy because you you would have thought you would have some sort of inkling whether this is good or bad but you say drunk texts now i think people could respond to that if with a no response in two ways if it's too late it's like this person's a fool if he really cares he'll text me during the daytime or it was like that's creepy and i'm just gonna pretend this never happened so it's hard to you don't really have a good temperature on how those texts were received you've never hung out one-on-one she's certainly not interested in instigating that in this point so i don't know you know maybe just living room should we watch a movie tonight stay on separate couches or you know see see if there's anything that blossoms there but definitely no hint dropping before you guys get together because that would that would be shitty now it does seem like a great scenario like if something happens during the time you're living together then like it's it's a great scenario yeah you know like hey like oh oops like this thing kind of just happened like whatever and if it ends up being a thing it's a thing that's great it's like a built-in excuse for you to actually maybe try now do push-ups before breakfast hey you're making eggs early um i have my shirt off a lot well yeah yeah answer the door um cut up five new t-shirts be like yeah thanks in the house that's my rule but i am a little worried about the like the one-way flirtiness of this like it does it does feel like there was no other thing from her at least in your email about her kind of coming back to you on this and it would also scares me a little bit that like maybe she sees you as just like a safe living partner because she doesn't find you uh a future romantic partner you know what i mean so that i i'm a little nervous for you but i do think this is a good situation at least figure that out but definitely do it don't do anything as the guy said don't do anything beforehand i don't think this isn't going to go well um and there's there's another reason that we haven't touched on here and that is okay first of all she's not responding to i want to see you drunk texts that's not a great sign okay and i was kidding when i said older woman but 26 24 in the academic field she may actually look at you as the harmless younger guy even though it's insane that it's only two years but you have to like get to like 30 before you start like thinking people are the same age when they're not so that could come into play here so i i hate the idea of you asking her out before because it feels like it's going to lean towards a no and then it's really awkward so what you need to do to find a way if you want to live with her and i don't know if you have those pheromones that eventually like inside of the same domicile she's going to start to like you i'll never forget i think it was like 16 was washing dishes at this restaurant and they were trying to figure out summer housing which is always a disaster where i where i was like i don't know i don't know i don't know where i'm living um and there was these other two older dishwashers and then there was like a new hostess and she needed a place to stay god damn yeah like they don't even know like there's been plans made about you for months that you were unaware of and these two dishwashers were ready to fucking kill each other over this living arrangement with this hostess because it was like she got assigned to live with one of the other dishwashers and i was like hey what's the problem and then i'll never forget the dishwasher was like 20 just looks at me and goes well because whoever ends up living with her is going to be sleeping with her and we both like her i'm like you haven't even met her yet she just got here and they were like yeah yep do you like we're dishwashers man but we don't and it was true like the guy dated her like that entire summer i think the other guy had like a breakdown over the whole thing um so anyway the point is is that maybe if you're just living together she sees some newer version of you and it works out what i don't want you to do is think about that i do not want you to get your hopes up i do not want you to think any of these things about i just want you to be you the entire time and if that works great and if it doesn't work now you know the the downside to you because i do think you care about this person a lot or you convince yourself that you do is if you ask her out before and she says no that sucks if you don't ask her out but you like her and you live there but it doesn't go anywhere that also sucks what happens when you don't address any of it and you're just living there and then she is going on dates and that's the part where i'm fearful that i don't want your grades to suffer because i don't know if you're built for that yeah dude in the pie chart of who's thinking about this it's like 98 to 2 and it's so exciting for this guy i'm thinking like i could think about like if this opportunity was presented to like 24 year old me or whatever be like i'd be so excited about like the best version of the scenario which again is probably not going to happen i guess if housing isn't that serious if it's not that like hard to come by you could just try the you know jim and pam just tell her your feelings and then if not just move to the stanford branch just like i'm gonna get a different one tell her during the first placement while there's enough runway you know what i mean if it's really that point if you're not gonna be able to control yourself in this in this uh however many months you're actually going to be in the same place you could just try to put it out on the table before um but again i think this is you're always thinking about this and she's almost never thinking about this and that could have been because of how you expressed your feelings in the past or she might just be totally aware of everything that's going on she's just like this guy's never gonna jump this wall so i don't know so but all right so what's the answer then you are you giving it a couple weeks living together where you just you know maybe crack open a bottle of wine and try to do something serious or like what do we think is like a notebook by yourself digital download of the odyssey right yeah just paid 30 bucks to watch this at home you interested uh-huh you have to do it early though that's the point right so like you think if you well i think i think if you let it linger then you're opening up to her just yeah like just being normal and try to date people potentially and if you don't want that you kind of have to do it early but you can't do it too early where you're like wow you're just waiting the entire time to just basically get to the situation so we can hook up i don't know you also have to be honest with yourself like is this somebody that would have interest in you in any other scenario you know would people be like i can't believe you're dating her it's not like you're working on a cruise ship or something that's right so if the the odds already stacked against you i would say denzel this inside man you know just just be there and see what happens maybe she sees a side of you she never saw before he was he was there in front of me the entire time good luck make sure you pick your best hobbies to bring over too yeah yeah a lot of a lot of reading you know get some non-fiction hardcovers in there maybe some incense you know things that things like things of that nature i didn't know you had class that late no i was volunteering again yeah the animal shelter needed me yeah there's a rabbit co-op unhoused rabbit thing i like to work at rabbit notice we pick it up all right how to respond to chirping from the local use so rudy's usually our go-to guy here 32 year old male 58 185 bench 175 could probably push push for a bit more but my spotter is jesus either way jesus would never let you hold any weight he doesn't think you could handle jesus take the bar you know yeah oh man player comp danny heifetz uh okay we love heifetz in what context yes that's just there was we like danny but i no one knew what to do with that comp all right i'll try to keep it short second job part-time pay down my student loans and ensure i'm still able to invest save etc look at this guy over his headset i work as a field supervisor at a local municipalities parks and rec department this basically means i unlock equipment turn on lights make sure any rental group has private access to the turf naturally the worst part of the job is kicking public users off the field yeah these are often local teenagers who get mouthy when kicked off the field usually they just get a little bit of an attitude going and keep it moving tonight however oh man this guy was still heated he sent the email that night i kicked a group of three off the turf i'm assuming they're around 13 years old they said hey guys the field is closed for a private rental you're welcome to use any of the grass fields in the park but you can't be on the turf i proceeded to walk away i turned around 20 seconds later to catch them trying to sneak onto the turf i stopped and made eye contact until they realized i was looking and walked back off this happened a few more times until i eventually had to come back down to the field and said do i really have to babysit you guys you're going to have to go to the field you're not allowed on the turf during their practice it's that simple i then decided to just sit near the field and watch the ongoing practice so that they wouldn't keep bothering the renters usually i walk around the park once i cleared the field but now i actually had to play security guard this prompted them to go into the grass fields behind me and start chirping knowing i was within an earshot while they kicked their soccer ball around quote he's a little snitch quote he's got nothing better to do bro quote doing all this just to make 15 bucks an hour oh man the users can't work in manhattan beach because i still think like the most evil thing i see day to day is like the 12 to 13 year old manhattan beach kid walking around town to just there's it's crazy how much they figured out about the world at that age it's really incredible they scare the shit out of me i cross the street the only non-idiots walking around at 13 it's crazy yeah they've got everything figured out and everybody else sucks uh i mostly just ignored this because i don't necessarily see the benefit of a verbal altercation with a 14 year old they left for a bit on the bike shortly after this i'm assuming you're going to be able to see the benefit of a verbal altercation with a 14 year old one of their moms made pizza rolls one of them shouted you a bitch oh yeah as he rode away i hate to revert to the classic am i a bitch for not fighting these children but i'd love to hear from reformed chirper saruti in the quick-witted kyle or ryan on how to respond to those hooligans in inevitable future altercations for the record i would i didn't chirp at these scenarios like this is just a whole nother level these kids are obviously douchebags i have gotten into a bad habit of being a bitch and i'm like i'm not gonna do that i'm not gonna do that i'm not a bad habit though of like i don't take um i don't take i don't take feedback from the golf rangers very well uh i am a pace of play guy i get in my head about pace of play but like i've had a couple different dudes that have just thrown the ranger just throws me off whenever they say anything and now we got a couple new guys in the group and they do slow down i try to keep everybody moving but i've had some issues with rangers in the past so i feel like my bad habits are coming coming to the forefront again which is a little bit scary but this guy but on the ranger thing real quick like when you know you're not slow i'm not gonna do that i'm not gonna do that i'm not gonna do that i know it doesn't let you and then you see the car it's like hey you're 10 minutes behind and the ranger comes up and you just like you you know when you play with a slow group or not a slow group and it's like we're not lining up putts all day here guys are picking it up if it's a disaster hole we don't have one guy in the group that's fucking indiana jones over here looking for some kirkland all right so we're not playing slow like the course is slow today everybody's behind there's no gap between us and the next group i i had one i'll tell you that can annoy me too when you just go all right it throws you off man it's not maybe i'm mentally weak but like i had one where the guy was like hey you know you're you know however many minutes behind and on the damn cart it tells you if you're on time or behind you're on time and i was like i'm on time and like i am hyper aware of that too and i and honestly like i can't stand slow play and it like annoys me and i tell my buddies like all right let's go like stop like stop taking non-practice swings make it moving so i am aware of it but man when they start doing it for some reason like my my teenage irrational anger just comes back out and me and i'm like god damn it and you know i've said a thing here too to different guys i'm not proud of but sometimes i feel like they don't want to talk about they don't want to talk to the blue hairs in front of you that are taken forever you know what i mean that happens too it's like so i just get this come on what am i the coach's son you're gonna yell at me for no reason what's going on yeah and i know it's your job but like it's just like hey man i feel like you gotta use some common sense where these this this situation our is talking about like these kids don't have any common sense they're stupid i would i was never that dumb type of chirper i feel like i only chirped in like situations where it deserved to be chirped even if i wasn't you know big enough to probably be chirping at the time these kids are clearly assholes what were they playing could you challenge them to something like were they playing pickup hoops you want to play one-on-one are you good i think he said soccer and they just wanted to use the turf part which i would too 13 years old fresh turf instead of grass acls just completely guys don't like turf but yeah it is a little it'll 13 year old soccer guy turf is american soccer guy he doesn't even know enough to know he shouldn't like turf as much yet so the problem is when the perceived power that they have over you is that you have to be there and it's not like you're some guy who's walking around it's like you know it's not right but that's the that's what's going on in their stupid little brains it's like this bum who this bum works for me kind of yeah and if you do anything it's not only illegal but you know yeah you want to find a different part-time job yeah yeah uh man it's it's a tough man teenagers are brutal teenage dudes are brutal kyle you got anything here well i think the the the kind of binding thing is like i think i i my brain immediately goes to like saying some worse curse words that but like again you're like you're maybe this maybe the c word or something like just to try to throw them off a little bit because you're you know my my bag is not that deep when it comes to dealing with 13 year olds i just i don't and especially when you throw out you know you're being employed to be there as well i mean i'm sure there's not a ton of oversight you're like the one guy in charge of these four fields you know probably not too much would get back to you but i think back to your you know the town supervisor or whoever's in charge of parks and rec but yeah i don't i don't actually have a ton because what's the next thing is like am i gonna have to get you guys banned from here now now you look even nerdier to them now now that you just made them more badasses they just got banned from the town park so i don't this is tough i would i would totally defer to saruti you can just say they suck be like hey you guys aren't even good anyway i've seen you play like you know this is for this field is for advanced only like you could just i don't know i don't know yeah the problem is i think anybody that's a parent can understand this or has been a child which is even a larger group um if the kids suck and then you cross kind of a weird adult adolescent line here by like letting them have it you know maybe you feel better in the moment those guys are going on their bikes they're going back to their parents and they're talking about you they're gonna turn into kids again right they're that that presentation of their case is going to be so flawed but overwhelming and the parent there's likely going to be one parent out of that group he's a barrel chested and he's got tattoos i don't know where that shift or when it's happened or maybe i'm wrong but it seemed to be back in the day parents were okay with another adult telling their kid they sucked the first thing was what did you do what did you do to make this happen right like you know your kid yeah and it's like oh here we go again right you've been lying to me now for from ages 10 to 13 like let me check in with the adult first before i take your side it feels like there's been this shift to just blind belief of the child um and i don't even know if this is accurate or not again some of you are probably like based on what research like well your kids i think most teachers and anyone who deals with kids would tell you you're correct yeah yeah i i look i think coaching you know friends of mine that have been youth coaches and and like this stuff didn't happen i mean granted parents have always gotten involved but there wasn't this default setting of believing your kid over the adult every single time so my fear for you would be that you would if you felt better for like a quick little win that is about as temporary as it gets for this well-crafted slightly aggressive mindset that you could then be dealing with parents that have these three hyperventilating bike kids crushing pizza rolls and then next thing you know you've got like a dad coming over who's completely wrong and it's been sold this story this bullshit and it just leads to a bigger headache for you i do kind of think of the wire the xerox machine lie detector test scene where they had the kid put his hand on the machine they were asking him questions and then they would have these these these pieces of paper to come out and say true yes or false i wonder if there's a way you can just go up get each and every one of their names and go you guys are all going in the file you guys are all going in the file and if you do it again now you already have one strike against you and you're not going to be allowed on the premises and it can be all bullshit kids are going to believe that secret files junior high like i was going in your file what does that mean i can't buy a house when i'm older like what's what's going on yeah just actually right i hope you don't go to something in the sunni system because they'll know yeah i don't know if that helps you have to go private school yeah there's nothing satisfying enough for you to probably feel good about this like you're just going to probably have to take the l here it's a part-time job remember that part of it you got you can say something hey you guys on the team you guys in the high school team or you're not good enough i like it that's why you're practicing but are you going to feel that much better later on especially if they have like some better shit to say to you you know what i mean if you got any sort of physical but if any sort of physical flaws how's the back of your head looking do you have it all yeah like do you have anything because they're going to find it and uh you may have just opened a bigger can of worms just get through your shift i think yeah there's nothing probably worse than like a 13 year old kid who you know is riding a nice bike has some good clothes on whoever talking about how you were working a minimum wage job like there's just there's really no there's really no probably satisfying comeback to that unfortunately he's not smart enough to know that you got him either so it's just what are you going to be when you grow up and then he says something awesome you're like probably not the problem is there's no rules for them there's none and there's rules for you they morph into from these like you know adult like creatures back to children when it suits them it's it's really tough it's a really tough you know they get all the consequences of they're all you know lack thereof of being children but they can explore the world as adults it's shitty it's really tough it's a really tough it's a really tough it's a really tough it's a really tough it's on my thigh you guys want to kick the ball around then it's almost like you're a youth counselor i don't know that probably wouldn't work either all right that'll do it for life advice today thank you to tom and kevin and kyle and sir rudy the ryan rossillo show barstool sports you