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Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist

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Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the

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Federalist and your experience Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.

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As always, you can email the show at radio at

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the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDRLST,

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make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and

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of course to the premium version of our website as well.

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Our guest today is presidential historian Tevy Troy. Tevy is

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author of several books, including Shall We Wake the President?

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Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the Oval Office, and

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his latest The Power and the Money, The epic clashes

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between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry. Debbie, thanks

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so much for joining us in this edition of the

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Federalist Radio Hour.

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Speaker 2: Hey, Matt, thanks for having me. I'm real excited to

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talk about The Power and the Money.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. In fact, I kind of want to start

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with your previous book, Shall We Wake the President, because

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I want to begin here. I think it's a question

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a lot of Americans are asking, do we have a

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president of the United States right now? It seems after

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the disastrous debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump in

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late June and what I like to call the quiet Coup.

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It seems like we don't have an active president of

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the United States right now for many reasons. I wanted

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to get your thoughts and starting there in this conversation.

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Speaker 2: Well, it is a great point, and it raises all

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kinds of questions. I mean, if Joe Biden was not

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capable of running for president again, is the table of

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being president? Now? Did Kamala Harris know about Biden's problems

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and his infirmities, and if so, why didn't she say anything?

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If not, why was she not aware? So, yeah, there's

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a lot of issues. And then it also raises the

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question of what are our enemies thinking they're watching. China

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has been stepping up military exercises outside Taiwan, obviously, Iran

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has attacked Israel twice. Russia is continuing to prosecute its

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war against Ukraine. So everybody's watching, and it's kind of

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worrisome to not really have someone who's in charge.

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Speaker 1: It appears, and I think the emphasis is on appeers

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that Joe Biden is at least they woke him up

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long enough to appear that he is in front of

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and in charge of hurricane disaster response from the federal

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government FEMA. There have been all kinds of questions and

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concerns about FEMA not necessarily getting to places in western

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North Carolina and eastern Tennessee. We've reported on that extensively

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at the Federalist and every president, of course, to be fair,

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is going to be criticized, certainly by the other party

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about responses to disasters. But in your book, you talk

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about two hundred plus years nearly two hundred and fifty

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years of disasters in this country and the response to

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those disasters. How does this president in this administration compare

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to others. Is that a fair question?

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a perfect question. And look in my book

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The Shabwaight the President, where I talk about the history

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of disaster response. I'm glad I'm on the Federalist Radio

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are talking about this because we used to have a

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federalist approach to how we deal with disasters. The states

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were in charge, the states are supposed to handle these

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kinds of things. And now the expectations upon the federal

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government get greater and greater and greater. And you think

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that anytime there's a storm, the federal government is going

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to come in, and that means that THEMA is super

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overstretched and also sometimes acting in areas where it's not

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supposed to be, and that limits its capacities when you

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do have a massive storm like we've recently had. So

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I think we need to rethink how we approach disaster

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management in this country in general. I don't think that

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the federal job government did a horrific job compared to

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some of the other disasters screw ups in the past,

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but they weren't complete on the ball either.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt about it. It's interesting to see kind

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of the dichotomy just exactly what you're talking about, the

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federalist system with states supposed to be in charge of this,

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with the federal government playing a backup or ancillary role.

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You have in Florid a governor who absolutely seems to

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have taken charge in fact, when political politics started to

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be in fused into all of this. That is to say,

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Vice President and Democrat President nominee Kamala Harris through kind

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of a fit about Ron DeSantis, Gon Florida Governor Ron

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DeSantis not returning his calls during this. He told her

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straight out, you have no role in this. Not only that,

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with all of the other hurricanes that have hit Florida

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over the years, all of the disasters that have happened,

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she never once reached out to Governor Ron DeSantis about this.

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Now she's running for president, she wants the appearance of

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being an active executive active vice president. Do you do

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you find that curious the difference between what is happening

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at the federal response what is happening, for instance, in

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Florida with the governors.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think Governor Desantez clearly understands the proper role

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of the states, and that's why he has such a

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terrific disaster response mechanism going there in Florida. And you

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need it in Florida because Florida always has these types

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of stories, and they're ready for it, and they're good

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at it. And it was weird to have the vice

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president try and interject herself in the process. There have

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been times in presidential history, and I talk about this

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in shadow Wick the President, where vice presidents have been

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assigned by the president to look into these matters. So,

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for example, when Nixon was president, he sent Vice President's

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Bureau agnew to go investigate what happened in a hurricane,

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and how could we do it better? And as a

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result of that, we got the five stage hurricane warning

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system that we have today. You know, when you hear

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about a category one, category two, category three storm, that

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came from Agnew's investigations when he was sent down to

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look at a hurricane by Nixon. But we clearly don't

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have that in this case. We don't have any sense

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that President Biden was making Vice President Harris the disasters are,

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the hurricanes are like she was supposedly the immigrations are.

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So it's just a different, very different situation.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it is interesting. You know, the borders are notion.

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I guess if Vice President Harris really wanted to be

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in charge of this. It gives me the sense of

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al Haig speaking of the Reagan years, or after the

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assassination attempt on President Reagan, you had al Haig saying,

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you know, I'm in charge here. You kind of get

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that with the vice president who is now running for president.

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Let's turn to your latest book. I'm interested in this

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because of what is happening between the relation the relationship

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between large portions of business in America, their relationship with

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the executive branch of government at the federal level. Again,

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the book, the new book is called The Power and

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the Money Clashes between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry.

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I think about those titans of industry now as opposed

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to what they were saying, you know, during the you know,

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the early twentieth century, and how those titans of industry

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now are in big tech, media, conglomerates, data delivery, all

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of those sorts of things, and the relationship over the

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last nearly four years with the big tech giants and

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the role that they've played in assisting the executive branch

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ofment government at the federal level. Particularly, I think of

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the Googles of the world and the facebooks or now

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shall we say, the metas and the Twitters at the

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time actively involved in suppressing speech. We know that, we

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know that through multiple congressional investigations, and we know that

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by the words of these corporate giants. Has it gotten

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more cozy for some of these big tech industries, big

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industries with this White House more than ever? Or how

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does that stand up to history?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if it's more cozy. The government

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and big business are more intertwined in many ways, because

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business knows that it has to comply with all kinds

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of government requests, regulations, demands in order to be able

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to exist, survive, and even thrive in this country. But

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there's also a lot of hostility. I mean you look

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at President Biden's FTC chair lately, Na Khan, very hostile

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to business, and they have all kinds of impositions they

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want to impose on business. They want new corporate taxes,

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so it's not like their buddy buddy. But at the

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same time they do work together. I mean you mentioned

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some of the COVID suppressions of speech that the tech

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companies carried out from them. So it's almost like the

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business is there to do the bidding of the federal government,

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and sometimes the federal government will also let them innovate

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and make profits at the same time, and sometimes they will.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you see what's happening with Elon Musk in so

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many different areas now, And you know the latest is

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California and their move to overregulate and stop the advancement

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of technologies that Elon Musk is on the forefront. How

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dangerous is that now? And moving forward?

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Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, it's the California thing's problem. But there's

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other things. In the Wall Street Journal recently, Brendan Carr,

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who's an SEC commissioner, wrote about how they voted down

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an effort to allow Elon Musk to provide more broadly

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access just because of the Elon Musk and they don't

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like his politics, which is truly insane. I mean, why

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would you. Apparently, according to Commissioner Car, this wasn't there

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was no merit on the facts, there was no merit

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on the law. It was just because they don't like

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Elon Musk, and that's just not the way you should

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be running a government. Now. On the other hand, it

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should be said that Musk needs to be careful because

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government has so much power that if you go too

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far in the one political direction, then if a government

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wins or a party wins that doesn't like you, then

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they can take it out on you. And I think

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that's a little bit of what Musk is experiencing.

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Speaker 1: Now.

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Speaker 2: He did get his start in the Obama administration, which

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was very good to him. President Obama went down to

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visit SpaceX. President Obama's energy incentives helped lead to the

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rise of Tesla. But then Musk became this big free

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speech advocate and critic of what he calls the woke

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mind virus, and suddenly he's persona on Grada on the left,

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and he guests to see the negative implications of that

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when the Democrats have controlled regulatory bodies.

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Speaker 1: So, by that token, does Taylor Swift have anything to

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worry about if Donald Trump is elected president? She's her

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own kind of co operation of course.

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Speaker 2: Well, I don't know about Taylor Swift, but yeah, I

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think it's a problem that whoever you are, you have

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to worry whether the government has a D or an

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R after its name, what they could potentially do to you.

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I just don't think that threat. Government shouldn't have that power.

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I mean, obviously there are regulations on let's say, health

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and safety that should exist for good reasons, but they

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shouldn't be enforced with the discretion based on what party

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you're in. So I think that's going far away from

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what our forefathers and the founding fathers envisioned in our

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constitutional system.

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Speaker 1: Well, I think what we lose sight of, and you

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do not because you are a presidential historian. You're a historian,

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and you understand appreciate the history of all of this

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and again I think it goes without saying, but I

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think we need to. We all need to be reminded

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that those who fail to remember history are doomed to

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repeat it. And I think we are constantly at the

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past as prologue sort of situation now as we've we've

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always been there. So your book lays out, you know,

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the history of all of these sorts of battles that

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have gone on between a big capital, between big businesses

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and the government business in general. You know, we look

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back to the Roosevelt and I'm not talking about the

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FDR years. I'm talking about Republican Theodore Roosevelt. You know,

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the sorts of progressive movements that he led in terms

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of the regulatory state. And then you go on to

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Woodrow Wilson, who massively expanded the federal government, and then

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to FDR and then to LBJ over the years. And

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it's not just a Democrat thing, it's a Republican thing too.

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We have this massive deep state. How much is that

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playing into the experience and what you have written about?

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Speaker 2: Sure, Look, I talk about the extensively about the Theatore

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Roosevelt period and how when Roosevelt went after John D.

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Rockefeller and his company's standard oil. He was directing it

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from the White House. I talk about late night meetings

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in the White House where they were saying, let's do

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this to Rockefeller and then do that. By the time

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Bill Clinton comes around and his administration goes after Bill

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Gates and Microsoft, Clinton is paling around with Gates. He goes,

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he plays golf with him, he goes to dinner with him.

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But his Justice Department, which is kind of separate and

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removed from Clinton to some degree, and they're doing the investigation,

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so Clinton doesn't have to be bothered with the messy details.

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He gets to make a friendship with Gates and pal

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around with him even as the government is investigating Gates. So, yeah,

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there is a big shift over the one hundred and

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fifty years that I described in the Power of the Money.

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Speaker 1: How much more are we seeing And you've touched upon

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this before, but the regulatory climate for for business, And

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when I think about that, we have comparisons recently between

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the two administrations. You know, we have what happened during

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the Trump years. Not to say that there wasn't burdens

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regulations certainly for all kinds of businesses, but what we

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saw over the last three and a half plus years

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nearly four years in the Biden administration, and there are

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a lot of businesses who can attest to how oppressive

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those regulations have been. Yet we still have a number

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of businesses pouring in a lot of money into the

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first the Biden reelection campaign and then into the Harris campaign.

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Why is that, I guess, well.

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Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of complex reasons why businesses

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make decisions. Sometimes they think that if they build a

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good tie with an administration, they won't be enforced gens in

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the same way. I call this selective enforcement. There's so

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many regulations and so many ways to go after a

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company if you so choose, the federal government can't possibly

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enforce every one of them. So what they do is

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they select who they're going to go after based on

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who's politically disfavored at the moment. So that's one reason.

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Another reason is that Republicans are increasingly critics of big business.

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So big business says, well, if the Democrats are going

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to criticize me, and the Republicans are going to criticize me,

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let me just go and hang out with the people

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who are most like me, and you think about it,

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Big tech CEOs have a lot in common with Democrats

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and Democratic voters these days because the Democrats are the

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parties of the blue state bubbles and the elite. So

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I think there's a whole bunch of complex factors that

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go into why you see business leaders making different decisions

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about who they endorse. It's not just as simple as saying, well,

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i'm a businessman, I'm going to be a Republican.

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Speaker 3: If you haven't learned your lesson yet, never rely on

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the federal government. The watch Out on Wall Street podcast

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00:17:03,480 --> 00:17:06,440
with Chris Markowski. Every day, Chris helps unpack the connection

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between politics and the economy and how it affects your wallet.

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After another theme of fallout, while my York is shopped

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at designer stores, at some point we need to eliminate

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it and outsource it to the private sector while using

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the military like we did for Katrina. Whether it's happening

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in DC or down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially.

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Speaker 1: Be informed.

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Speaker 3: Check out the watch Dot on Wall Street podcast with

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Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: Our guest today is presidential historian Tevy Troy Tevy is

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author of several books, including Shall We Wake the President?

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Two Centuries of Disaster Management from the Oval Office, and

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his latest. As we're talking about the Power and the Money,

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the epic clashes between commanders in chief in Titans of Industry,

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just a final question on that, what are some of

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the more epic clashes that you note in your book.

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Speaker 2: Oh, the classes in the book are legion. That's what

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makes the Power of the Money such good reading. But

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in addition to Rockefeller versus Roosevelt, you've got Henry Ford

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versus Franklin Roosevelt. Also Henry loose the founder of Time magazine,

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goes up against Roosevelt. So those are some really big ones.

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In previous days I mentioned Bill Gates against Bill Clinton,

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or at least Bill Clinton's administration. And now today we

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have Rupert Murdoch. You've had two administrations, both the Obama

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administration and the Biden administration have kind of set up

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anti Rupert Murdoch or anti Fox News war rooms. So

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and then the same person that needed done seems to

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be running both of them. So, yeah, these classes are

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endless and legion. And as long as federal government has

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all this power over business, you're going to see these

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classes continue.

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Speaker 1: You've made a study of presidential history by living it inside.

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I mean that's you have a lot of historians who

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do great work, but they do a lot of research

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from the outside. You served as Deputy Secretary of the

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US Department of Health and Human Services in President George W.

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Bush's administration. You have been in the White House. You

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have been in the know and connected to a lot

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of policy, a lot of issues. You served as a

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policy director for then Senator John Ashcroft from nineteen ninety

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six to nineteen ninety eight. I wanted to talk to

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you about some of your experiences dealing with presidents, dealing

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with administrations, particularly in your time as a Deputy Secretary

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of Health and Human Services. The experiences then, did you

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ever fully expect with what you experienced there to see

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the kind of pandemic that we saw in twenty twenty

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in this country, but more so the response to it.

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Speaker 2: So you bring up a lot of interesting things with

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that question. First of all, you have the fact that

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the federal government sphysically. The Bush administration where I served,

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did a lot of work on pandemic preparedness so that

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we wouldn't have that kind of problem, and we set

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up multiple barriers to protect the country from this kind

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of disease, and those barriers did not work in the

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case of the pandemic. There were a number of reasons

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for that. One it was built on trust of international

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institutions and other countries to report what was happening that

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Chinese didn't do.

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Speaker 1: That.

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Speaker 2: One was built on our capacity to build tests and

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then be able to use infection controls to track, trace,

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isolate people who have the disease. That failed because CDC

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arrogantly said they were the only ones who could make

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the test and they failed to do so. And then

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the strategic National stockpile, which is the third line of defense,

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didn't have anything for coronavirus, even though in that book,

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in Shall We Wake the President of twenty sixteen, I

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warned that we had no counter measures for coronavirus, and

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so that was four years before coronavirus hit our shore.

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So we definitely built defenses, and the defenses, for a

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variety of reasons, did work. The second thing, and I

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appreciate you mentioning this is just my own experience. I mean,

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I worked on the endemic defenses, but my experience in

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the White House, I think helps sharpen my insights as

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a historian looking at the presidency. There's a lot of

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presidential historians out there. There's a lot of people served

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to the White House, but not a lot of people

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have that combination of both. And that's what I bring

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to the table in all of my books, including The

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Latest Power of the Money.

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Speaker 1: The history of pandemics in this country is interesting. I mean,

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we take a look at what was then known as

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the Spanish Flu. Of course, twenty twenty arrives and all

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of a sudden, people are revising the name of it

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because they think it's some sort of insult on the

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Spanish or something, just as you know the characterizations of

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the coronavirus coming from China, the China Flu or however

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it has been described by the former president or others.

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But it was amazing to me to see the reaction.

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Obviously living in real time, but the Spanish Flu of

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nineteen nineteen, nineteen twenty was a horrendous event in the

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United States and globally historically speaking. Did this government and

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the administrations involved with it too, the Trump administration and

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the Biden administration, did we handle the COVID virus, the

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COVID like they did in two thousand, excuse me, nineteen nineteen,

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nineteen twenty with the Spanish flu. How did those two things,

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the response to those two pandemics, how did they compare.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot in that question. So first of all,

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Row Wilson, who was president at the time of the

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Spanish flu, did nothing. So whatever we did was better

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than that. I think the development of the vaccine in

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record time was something that was worthing. But that said,

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I think we also made a lot of mistakes. There

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are a lot of screw ups along the way. I

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think the way we handled the masking situation was not right.

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I think all the school closures for as long as

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they were were very problematic. But also even the naming

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things are issue. You talked about how they had a

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renamed Spanish flu. In retrospect, it wasn't called the Spanish

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flu because it came from Spain. It was called Spanish

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flu because it hit the Spanish royal family. It actually

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probably came from America from a military base at Camp Funston.

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But to calling the recent COVID outbreak that China flu

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actually would have been more accurate. I know people didn't

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want to do it. But this one pretty clearly did

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come from China. Whether the Chinese government had something to

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do with it or not, it's a different ques question,

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but it definitely came from China. And so a failure

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to name something, to call it what it is, is

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often a challenged because it makes it hard for her

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to address the thing. And I think we were slow

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to deal with the fact with how big a problem

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this was from China, because the Chinese were telling, oh,

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it's not such a big problem, and then anything that

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was directed at China in terms of countermeasure or response,

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we've seen somehow as racist towards China or Chinese people,

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which it wasn't. So I think when it comes to

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matters of science, you just have to call things as

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they are. You have to be accurate with your nomenclature

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so that you can actually address the problem.

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Speaker 1: But it wasn't that. One of the big problems is

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that the science kind of changed and it was deified

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for some reason. We were supposed to follow the experts,

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that's what they kept saying. And there's nothing wrong with

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putting trust in experts if the experts earn and deserve

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your trust. But what we have found over the last

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several years is the experts were abusing are trust. How

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much do you think, as someone who worked at the

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Department of Health and Human Services, how much has that

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negatively impacted how we are able to deal with these

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kinds of crises moving forward.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look, in that book, shall we the President I

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specifically talk about this issue of trust and how trust

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is the number one resource the federal government has in

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a disaster, and if you blow that resource, that is

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going to make it that much harder to deal with

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the issue at hand. And so I'm a fan of experts,

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But when experts get their views from politics, or they

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politicize what they're providing to you, or you have someone

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like doctor Fauci, whom I know and whom I worked with,

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when he was saying privately that we have to tell

427
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people not to wear a mask because we want to

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limit the number of masks that people purchase in that

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really changes the trust equation. And so yeah, I'm for experts,

430
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but I'm not for exs to politicize it.

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Speaker 1: You mentioned that Woodrow Wilson did nothing during the Spanish

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flu outbreak. He was also incapacitated through much of that,

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which brings me back to where we began with this conversation.

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We have had instances in this country where presidents have

435
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been incapacitated, not able to do their job, certainly not

436
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able to do their job in the way that they

437
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are expected to do their job. It's a very demanding,

438
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a very difficult job. And when Woodrow Wilson had what

439
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was it a stroke, incapacitating, you know, ailment, we know

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that other people, particularly his wife, were running the day

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to day affairs of the administration. How different is that

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than what we're seeing with Joe Biden in October of

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twenty twenty.

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Speaker 2: Well, first of all, it's possible and perhaps even likely,

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that Wilson was incapacitated by the Spanish flu or may

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may have brought on his stroke. So it's not that

447
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he did nothing because of his incapacitation. It was perhaps

448
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his doing nothing that led to the spread of the

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disease and then his incapacitation. And he was told that

450
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troop transports going to Europe were spreading the disease and

451
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killing American troops. One hundred and sixteen thousand American troops

452
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died in World War One forty three thousand of them

453
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died from the Spanish flu. Wow, So they could have

454
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been a lot better about protecting our boys in uniform

455
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from the spread of this dread disease, and Wilson chose

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to do nothing about it even when he was warned

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about it. He also had a what was called a

458
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Committee on Public Integrity or the CPI, which is basically

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the propaganda arm of the United States government, that limited

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discussion of the Spanish flu so it is not to

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detract from the war effort. So Wilson's Wilson's response really

462
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has to go down as one of the worst responses

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to any disaster ever. Obviously, I don't think we're as

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bad in twenty twenty with the coronavirus, but there was

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too much politicization and there was a sense that we

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really can't necessarily trust the experts, and I think that

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has not only harmed our ability to respond to the

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Spanish flu, but it has harmed our ability to deal

469
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with disasters going forward.

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Speaker 1: Seems like the more things change, the more they stay

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the same. And we're talking about Woodrow Wilson over one

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hundred years ago, suppressing speech for political reasons for his

473
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agenda and we've certainly seen that. Well, we've seen that,

474
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to be honest, from most, if not all presidents. And

475
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so I want to get your take on the last administration.

476
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I know that time and it is the ultimate teacher.

477
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:03,799
When it comes to history. You need context, you need perspective.

478
00:29:04,559 --> 00:29:08,720
But this current administration, this current president, how do you

479
00:29:08,839 --> 00:29:15,759
think he compares as a historian to presidents over the

480
00:29:15,799 --> 00:29:17,319
history of this great nation.

481
00:29:19,440 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 2: You're driving about this current president, right, President Biden?

482
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:22,319
Speaker 1: Exactly?

483
00:29:24,359 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 2: Not great? One term. Usually the great presidents are seen

484
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:29,000
as people who do more than one term. With the

485
00:29:29,000 --> 00:29:32,839
example the exception perhaps with James K. Polk, who's one

486
00:29:32,839 --> 00:29:34,960
of my favorite presidents, who served for one term, said

487
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:36,839
what who's going to do? Did it, and then left.

488
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:40,119
Speaker 1: And then died. Right he worked himself to death.

489
00:29:40,240 --> 00:29:46,160
Speaker 2: Yes, true, But look, I think Biden's lack of honesty

490
00:29:46,200 --> 00:29:49,279
about his condition, I think is going to be a

491
00:29:49,279 --> 00:29:51,200
mark against him. I think the huge inflation is going

492
00:29:51,279 --> 00:29:52,480
to be a marked inst and I think the fact

493
00:29:52,519 --> 00:29:58,319
that we saw the rise of Islamic terror and the

494
00:29:58,319 --> 00:30:01,799
attack on our ally Israel, the attack by the Russians

495
00:30:02,079 --> 00:30:05,839
against Ukraine. There's a sense that he just wasn't monitoring

496
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:09,559
or managing world affairs. And he also tried to be

497
00:30:09,720 --> 00:30:13,759
hyperpartisan in his legislative attempts. I mean, he tried to

498
00:30:13,799 --> 00:30:17,720
be Lyndon Johnson or FDR with narrow majorities. They both

499
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:20,279
had big majorities when they passed the Great Society or

500
00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:23,720
the New Deal legislation, and Biden did not have that.

501
00:30:23,799 --> 00:30:26,759
So I don't think he's going to get great marks

502
00:30:26,759 --> 00:30:27,200
in history.

503
00:30:28,000 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: You have a little more time. Of course, with the

504
00:30:29,519 --> 00:30:35,440
first administration you have a few years. Again, it takes

505
00:30:35,440 --> 00:30:38,400
some time to really view things in context and see

506
00:30:38,400 --> 00:30:41,880
what policies actually worked or didn't work in policies or

507
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:46,480
things that happen over time. How do you rate former

508
00:30:46,559 --> 00:30:50,160
President Donald Trump, who is in an interesting position historically

509
00:30:50,240 --> 00:30:57,720
speaking of becoming the second Grover Cleveland, if you will.

510
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:57,880
Speaker 2: I think that whether he wins the election or not,

511
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,680
we'll have something to do with how I mean, if

512
00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:03,960
he gets the special Grover Cleveland status, I think he'll

513
00:31:04,400 --> 00:31:06,880
be remembered in that in the way that Cleveland is

514
00:31:06,920 --> 00:31:11,559
as a person came back twice the economy was doing well.

515
00:31:12,359 --> 00:31:17,920
You have to remember that liberal historians make the usually

516
00:31:18,119 --> 00:31:21,319
make the judgments or do the ranking. So I think

517
00:31:21,319 --> 00:31:24,240
he's gonna mark poorly of that. Obviously, his legal challenges

518
00:31:24,319 --> 00:31:28,680
are a problem as well. He's divisive in some ways,

519
00:31:29,359 --> 00:31:31,680
I think, so, I think he's going to have certainly

520
00:31:31,720 --> 00:31:36,480
a mixed record, but it was mostly a period of

521
00:31:36,519 --> 00:31:40,440
peace and prosperity also, so I think that gets baked

522
00:31:40,480 --> 00:31:41,480
into the equation as well.

523
00:31:43,960 --> 00:31:47,519
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code federalist. Well, we have the current administration going against

541
00:32:58,880 --> 00:33:03,599
the former administration, an interesting battle as well politically speaking,

542
00:33:04,400 --> 00:33:09,519
and I guess as you've looked over time and presidential campaigns,

543
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:12,920
there's been a lot of talk about this being an

544
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:20,640
existential campaign for the country or the republic. How do

545
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:21,759
you view this campaign?

546
00:33:22,519 --> 00:33:24,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't buy that because as a historian, I

547
00:33:24,519 --> 00:33:26,680
know that in every single election they say this is

548
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:28,680
the most important election of our lifetimes. If you ask me,

549
00:33:28,720 --> 00:33:31,559
the most important election in American history was the one

550
00:33:31,599 --> 00:33:37,160
between Jefferson and Adams. Adams loses after one term to Jefferson,

551
00:33:37,480 --> 00:33:39,759
and what he does in response to losing is he

552
00:33:39,839 --> 00:33:42,799
leaves town. He gives up the reigns of government peacefully.

553
00:33:43,279 --> 00:33:47,200
And I think that is the measure of a democracy. Now, Trump,

554
00:33:48,440 --> 00:33:50,920
I think in some ways failed that test in terms

555
00:33:50,920 --> 00:33:53,400
of the way he responded to the election, but ultimately

556
00:33:53,440 --> 00:33:56,599
he did leave down and that allows us to maintain

557
00:33:56,640 --> 00:34:00,839
this system of the peaceful transfer of power, or what

558
00:34:00,839 --> 00:34:04,200
happened on January sixth, And I think he should have

559
00:34:04,240 --> 00:34:07,200
recognized earlier that he had lost the election. But at

560
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:10,119
the end of the day, we have a peaceful transfer

561
00:34:10,159 --> 00:34:12,079
of power. And I think that is the transition that

562
00:34:12,159 --> 00:34:14,800
was started by our founding fathers, specifically Adams Jefferson in

563
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:16,840
a very tight run race, and I think that is

564
00:34:17,079 --> 00:34:19,800
that was an existential race. I don't think this race

565
00:34:19,880 --> 00:34:23,239
is existential, even though we will go in different policy

566
00:34:23,239 --> 00:34:26,559
directions based on who wins. And I really don't think

567
00:34:26,559 --> 00:34:30,159
that any election that where they say it is the

568
00:34:30,159 --> 00:34:32,320
most poor election of our lifetime, it generally isn't.

569
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:36,079
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, we have heard that at nauseum, and

570
00:34:36,119 --> 00:34:38,800
so it gets to the point where you say, how

571
00:34:39,079 --> 00:34:42,960
seriously do you take that. I do agree that this

572
00:34:43,039 --> 00:34:48,039
is a critical election. I do worry about the future

573
00:34:48,320 --> 00:34:53,039
of this republic given where we stand today in America.

574
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:59,400
I do believe that this is a battle of federalism

575
00:35:00,400 --> 00:35:07,159
versus big government, massive government, the swamp as it has

576
00:35:07,199 --> 00:35:12,440
been called. Bureaucrats massive amounts of bureaucrats, and apologies to

577
00:35:12,519 --> 00:35:16,599
you because you served in administrations you were labeled a

578
00:35:16,639 --> 00:35:19,280
bureaucrat at one time. I'm not saying there aren't good

579
00:35:19,519 --> 00:35:22,199
people who work in government, but it has gotten so

580
00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:28,039
massive and so big that there is no sense of

581
00:35:28,199 --> 00:35:32,440
self governance anymore, a very little sense of self governance anymore.

582
00:35:32,800 --> 00:35:36,000
And I do worry about that. How do you feel

583
00:35:36,079 --> 00:35:38,760
about the future of this republic as a historian?

584
00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, first of all, I'm not offended by the

585
00:35:41,039 --> 00:35:43,280
bureaucrat of disignation because I wasn't bureacraut. I was a

586
00:35:43,280 --> 00:35:46,000
political appointee. That's how I get around that problem.

587
00:35:46,079 --> 00:35:47,360
Speaker 1: True, true, Yeah.

588
00:35:47,639 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 2: But the other thing is that I think our base

589
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,159
problem is thirty five million dollars in debt without any

590
00:35:54,280 --> 00:35:56,039
plan to pay it off. And I don't think either

591
00:35:56,079 --> 00:35:59,679
posdential candidate is seriously addressing that issue. And I think

592
00:35:59,679 --> 00:36:03,400
that the potential existential threat on the horizon that if

593
00:36:03,440 --> 00:36:06,880
we somehow have to declare bankruptcy or sell off national

594
00:36:06,880 --> 00:36:12,360
assets or stop not meet our obligations to future generations,

595
00:36:12,400 --> 00:36:15,840
and that could lead to political unrest. So I think

596
00:36:15,840 --> 00:36:17,760
that's what I worry about most I don't see either

597
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:21,440
administration or either candidate taking that on, and I think

598
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:23,039
at some point we're going to have to. Unfortunately, I

599
00:36:23,079 --> 00:36:26,239
think it's going to be a some kind of economic

600
00:36:26,280 --> 00:36:28,480
shock to the system that is going to force us

601
00:36:28,519 --> 00:36:28,920
to do it.

602
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:36,280
Speaker 1: As we move forward and think about where we are today,

603
00:36:37,199 --> 00:36:42,760
what informs you as a historian in terms of policy,

604
00:36:42,880 --> 00:36:48,039
in terms of executive policy, in terms of the most

605
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:54,199
or more successful presidential administrations, and is there is there

606
00:36:54,519 --> 00:36:59,440
the possibility that we will see more of that anytime soon.

607
00:37:01,400 --> 00:37:04,960
Speaker 2: Well, again, I try and take a sober rational approach

608
00:37:05,000 --> 00:37:08,440
to this kind of thing and look back at history

609
00:37:08,559 --> 00:37:12,679
to make my judgments, and also recognizing I worked for

610
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:14,960
George W. Bush, as we've talked about, and he used

611
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:19,280
to say, they're still writing books about the first George W.

612
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:23,000
So I'll wait and let see what the historians write

613
00:37:23,039 --> 00:37:26,320
about me. And if you don't think about it, George W.

614
00:37:26,400 --> 00:37:29,159
Bush has looked better in history. A lot of people

615
00:37:29,199 --> 00:37:32,199
who were saying horrific things about him between the years

616
00:37:33,599 --> 00:37:35,039
two thousand and one and two thousand and nine and

617
00:37:35,079 --> 00:37:37,280
now saying, oh, why can't we have Republicans like that anymore?

618
00:37:37,400 --> 00:37:41,519
So I do think over time, traditions change, reputations change.

619
00:37:41,519 --> 00:37:45,679
Woodward Wilson, for example, I think skated by on having

620
00:37:45,679 --> 00:37:47,639
a D after his name for way too long, and

621
00:37:47,679 --> 00:37:49,800
now I think both parties recognized what a bad president

622
00:37:49,840 --> 00:37:54,119
he was. John F. Kennedy obviously tragic assassination, but if

623
00:37:54,119 --> 00:37:57,360
you think about it, he didn't do that much as president,

624
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,079
and I think his reputation has gone down in recent years.

625
00:38:01,119 --> 00:38:05,159
And then obviously people learn about all his sexual shenanigans also,

626
00:38:05,840 --> 00:38:09,239
So I think the time in history sorts this out.

627
00:38:09,440 --> 00:38:12,519
And that's why I love presidential history, because even though

628
00:38:13,440 --> 00:38:15,679
all this stuff has happened already, it's still new to

629
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:17,320
readers who haven't read it about it. For him, I

630
00:38:17,320 --> 00:38:19,599
see something that Harry Truman once said, which is the

631
00:38:19,639 --> 00:38:21,159
only thing to new is this world is the history

632
00:38:21,159 --> 00:38:23,480
you haven't read yet. So I'm going to keep diving

633
00:38:23,519 --> 00:38:26,559
into presidential history, learn more and more, and try and

634
00:38:26,760 --> 00:38:29,159
share with the world what I learned via my books

635
00:38:29,159 --> 00:38:29,719
on the subject.

636
00:38:30,000 --> 00:38:34,119
Speaker 1: It sounds like the old NBC slogan when they used

637
00:38:34,119 --> 00:38:36,199
to run reruns. If you haven't seen it, it's new

638
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:41,679
to you, And that contemplates that question of history as well.

639
00:38:41,679 --> 00:38:43,519
You brought up something that I think is interesting, and

640
00:38:43,519 --> 00:38:47,800
I as we close out our conversation, appreciate the generosity

641
00:38:47,800 --> 00:38:50,440
of your time today. But you mentioned Kennedy. John F.

642
00:38:50,519 --> 00:38:56,159
Kennedy an abridged tenure in office, of course for obvious

643
00:38:56,239 --> 00:39:01,000
reasons that we will note coming up next month. But

644
00:39:01,480 --> 00:39:04,639
you're right. I mean, history shows he didn't do a lot.

645
00:39:04,960 --> 00:39:09,880
He was an aspirational president. Aspirations really, I think in

646
00:39:09,920 --> 00:39:13,400
many ways to find that presidency, at least through the

647
00:39:13,440 --> 00:39:16,239
prism of how the public viewedom, how the media viewed them,

648
00:39:16,320 --> 00:39:20,159
the whole camelot stuff. But that's what we have. I

649
00:39:20,199 --> 00:39:25,400
think that Kamala Harris is trying to replicate, not that

650
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:28,760
John F. Kennedy was the first to talk about aspirations,

651
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:32,519
but you keep hearing this over and over from Kamala

652
00:39:32,599 --> 00:39:39,559
Harris about aspirations, Americans aspirations. What happens though, when you

653
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:47,119
have all kinds of aspirational themes and campaign slogans, but

654
00:39:47,159 --> 00:39:50,760
it appears you have nothing to back up the how

655
00:39:50,800 --> 00:39:53,599
to get to the aspirations?

656
00:39:54,239 --> 00:39:58,079
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I appear to have just Kennedy a little

657
00:39:58,119 --> 00:40:00,360
bit a moment ago, So let me defend him as well.

658
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:03,280
I mean, Kennedy was very quick on his feet. He

659
00:40:03,320 --> 00:40:06,960
was the first president to do live, uncut press conferences

660
00:40:07,239 --> 00:40:11,039
with reporters, regularly had the reporters laughing. He was on

661
00:40:11,079 --> 00:40:14,599
top of things. He was very good in that setting.

662
00:40:14,719 --> 00:40:18,800
And I think that's the star contrast to Vice President Harris,

663
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,159
who I don't think is good in any interview format,

664
00:40:21,199 --> 00:40:24,280
even when they find her the most favorable possible interviewer,

665
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:27,039
interviewers like Colbert who are kind of putting the tea

666
00:40:27,159 --> 00:40:28,960
on the ball of the key over and over again

667
00:40:29,039 --> 00:40:30,679
trying to get her to get the answer right, and

668
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:33,360
she can't do it. So I actually think that's very different.

669
00:40:33,840 --> 00:40:38,119
You know, Kennedy again deserves some dings for Bay of Pigs, definitely.

670
00:40:38,199 --> 00:40:40,320
I mean, he should not have let that go forward.

671
00:40:40,400 --> 00:40:44,039
And I think so Vietnam trajectory was in part set

672
00:40:44,079 --> 00:40:48,480
by him, although Johnson worsened it. But I think he

673
00:40:48,559 --> 00:40:51,800
still was good at the aspiration stuff, good at articulating

674
00:40:51,800 --> 00:40:55,480
what he thought, good at inspiring the American people. So

675
00:40:56,320 --> 00:40:58,599
let me give some points to Kennedy, even as I

676
00:40:58,639 --> 00:41:00,639
note that he didn't get that much in part because

677
00:41:00,639 --> 00:41:04,719
of the tragic assassination. So I just don't think it's

678
00:41:04,719 --> 00:41:06,440
fair to compare the two, and I think he was

679
00:41:06,519 --> 00:41:08,559
just a much greater political talent than she is.

680
00:41:10,119 --> 00:41:13,639
Speaker 1: I certainly understand and agree with you on that point.

681
00:41:14,199 --> 00:41:16,559
It all makes me long for the days of the

682
00:41:16,599 --> 00:41:22,320
great communicator that I'm showing my age. Of course in that,

683
00:41:22,719 --> 00:41:23,039
can I.

684
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:24,519
Speaker 2: Think something about the great communicator?

685
00:41:24,599 --> 00:41:25,719
Speaker 1: Just absolutely yes.

686
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 2: I'm Ronald Reagan, one of my favorite presidents. He used

687
00:41:28,239 --> 00:41:32,840
to say, liberty binds us together, four words that are

688
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:36,079
incredibly powerful and that we should think about when everyone's

689
00:41:36,079 --> 00:41:39,519
trying to divide us by race, or by gender or nationality.

690
00:41:39,559 --> 00:41:41,599
People who come to this great country, you live in

691
00:41:41,639 --> 00:41:45,280
this great country, want to live in a system of liberty,

692
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:47,840
and that is what brings us together as Americans. Not

693
00:41:48,039 --> 00:41:50,880
where you're from, now, where your ancestors are from, but

694
00:41:50,960 --> 00:41:53,519
do you believe in this shared project of liberty? And

695
00:41:53,519 --> 00:41:57,119
I think Ronald Reagan and those four words really encapsulated

696
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:00,039
what it's about all about to be an American. I

697
00:42:00,039 --> 00:42:02,400
would love to have a present going forward who doesn't

698
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:05,800
focus on the divisions. But the unification, and the unification

699
00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:09,000
is not about whether you can cobble together fifty one

700
00:42:09,039 --> 00:42:13,119
percent on election day a year that's divide by four

701
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:16,599
but whether you can articulate a vision of what brings

702
00:42:16,639 --> 00:42:18,880
us together as Americans, and I think Reacan did that well.

703
00:42:19,199 --> 00:42:22,360
Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think he did that. You're

704
00:42:22,400 --> 00:42:25,480
absolutely right, and he did at a time that was difficult,

705
00:42:25,639 --> 00:42:28,920
faced zone set of challenges as well. But I also

706
00:42:29,119 --> 00:42:35,039
do believe I'm not a unification or die kind of guy.

707
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,280
I also believe there is division for a reason. There

708
00:42:38,360 --> 00:42:41,480
is a division in this country because of the absolute

709
00:42:42,119 --> 00:42:46,320
daily threat on liberty. And I think what we're seeing

710
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:48,679
in this election, as we've seen in the past, are

711
00:42:48,719 --> 00:42:52,599
people standing up and saying enough is enough. Our liberties

712
00:42:52,639 --> 00:42:56,880
have absolutely been eroded in a very short period of time.

713
00:42:57,440 --> 00:43:01,280
We saw that, as we talked about with COVID the

714
00:43:01,320 --> 00:43:05,159
government's response to that. We've seen that in terms of

715
00:43:05,760 --> 00:43:10,039
weaponized justice. And we can argue about the merits of

716
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you know, probes into the former president and his allies,

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but a lot of the stuff is not based on justice.

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It's not based on liberty. It's based on politics. And

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I think people have grown very tired of that. And indeed,

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the ties that bind our liberty were we just happened

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to be losing ours. And I think that's why this

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election is very important as well. Thanks to my guest today,

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presidential historian Tevy Troy, you've been listening to another edition

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of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior correspondent

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00:43:44,079 --> 00:43:47,840
at The Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then,

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00:43:48,440 --> 00:44:03,360
stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.

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Speaker 2: On a Lesile check up.

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Speaker 1: MAS come without Blacklomp