Browse content similar to Rich Hall's Presidential Grudge Match. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!
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This programme contains some strong language | 0:00:02 | 0:00:10 | |
When I was a kid, my mom said, | 0:00:13 | 0:00:15 | |
"Work hard, you can become president," | 0:00:15 | 0:00:17 | |
cos I grew up in a Disney film. | 0:00:17 | 0:00:19 | |
That was back when we believed | 0:00:19 | 0:00:20 | |
that presidents were righteous and honourable, | 0:00:20 | 0:00:23 | |
cos, after all, they were president. | 0:00:23 | 0:00:26 | |
And that died in about 1974 with Richard Nixon, Watergate, | 0:00:26 | 0:00:30 | |
blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah-blah-blah. | 0:00:30 | 0:00:32 | |
"But, Rich, can anybody be president?" | 0:00:32 | 0:00:35 | |
Well, that depends on your circumstances. | 0:00:35 | 0:00:36 | |
If you find yourself standing outside of a Walmart bathroom | 0:00:36 | 0:00:39 | |
at three in the morning, | 0:00:39 | 0:00:40 | |
waiting on the results of your girlfriend's pregnancy test, | 0:00:40 | 0:00:43 | |
no, you're not going to be president. | 0:00:43 | 0:00:45 | |
"But I've watched every episode of West Wing. | 0:00:45 | 0:00:48 | |
"I want to change the world." | 0:00:48 | 0:00:49 | |
Screw you. Go start a soup kitchen. | 0:00:49 | 0:00:52 | |
Being president is a hard job, | 0:00:52 | 0:00:54 | |
and you really, really have to want it. | 0:00:54 | 0:00:57 | |
When you're president, you've got thousands of bosses. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:01 | |
Half of them demand stuff way outside your job description. | 0:01:01 | 0:01:04 | |
The other half wouldn't mind too terribly if you were dead. | 0:01:04 | 0:01:08 | |
So you need Disney-sized motivation, | 0:01:08 | 0:01:11 | |
the kind of motivation that craves abuse. | 0:01:11 | 0:01:14 | |
And here's the kicker. | 0:01:14 | 0:01:16 | |
There's a pretty good chance the job is going to kill you. | 0:01:16 | 0:01:19 | |
Of the 43 men who've been president, | 0:01:20 | 0:01:22 | |
four have been assassinated, all by gunshots. | 0:01:22 | 0:01:26 | |
Another 13 presidents have been shot at, | 0:01:26 | 0:01:28 | |
had grenades thrown at them, | 0:01:28 | 0:01:30 | |
car bombs planted, | 0:01:30 | 0:01:31 | |
or someone tried to crash their plane. | 0:01:31 | 0:01:33 | |
And for every president who's been killed on the job, | 0:01:33 | 0:01:36 | |
there's another one where the job killed them. | 0:01:36 | 0:01:38 | |
Franklin Roosevelt | 0:01:38 | 0:01:39 | |
and Warren G Harding keeled over from heart attacks. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
Zachary Taylor ate some bad cherries | 0:01:42 | 0:01:45 | |
during a Fourth of July celebration at Washington Monument, | 0:01:45 | 0:01:48 | |
died of severe diarrhoea. | 0:01:48 | 0:01:50 | |
William Henry Harrison caught pneumonia | 0:01:50 | 0:01:52 | |
right after his inauguration. | 0:01:52 | 0:01:54 | |
Doctors treated him with leeches and Virginia snakeroot. | 0:01:54 | 0:01:57 | |
He died after being president for only 32 days. | 0:01:57 | 0:02:00 | |
Still want the job? Fine. | 0:02:02 | 0:02:04 | |
Just make sure that you're rich, a white Protestant male | 0:02:04 | 0:02:06 | |
and a Freemason. | 0:02:06 | 0:02:08 | |
Or ugly, born in a log cabin and clinically depressed. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:11 | |
Because one thing is for certain - | 0:02:11 | 0:02:13 | |
if being POTUS doesn't kill you, it's going to prematurely age you. | 0:02:13 | 0:02:18 | |
Just look at Obama. | 0:02:18 | 0:02:19 | |
When he came into office, he was a good-looking, vibrant man. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:22 | |
Now look at him. | 0:02:22 | 0:02:24 | |
Face like a used tyre. | 0:02:24 | 0:02:25 | |
So, according to the odds, | 0:02:28 | 0:02:29 | |
there's roughly a 40% chance that, as president, | 0:02:29 | 0:02:32 | |
somebody's going to try to assassinate you. | 0:02:32 | 0:02:35 | |
But there is a 100% chance of character assassination. | 0:02:35 | 0:02:39 | |
# People, won't you come together? | 0:02:39 | 0:02:42 | |
# We've all got to live as one | 0:02:44 | 0:02:46 | |
# I ain't right sure what that means | 0:02:48 | 0:02:51 | |
# But don't you reckon it sounds like fun? | 0:02:51 | 0:02:54 | |
# Everybody pack your picnic lunch | 0:02:55 | 0:02:59 | |
# And everybody pack your gun | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
# Cos we... | 0:03:02 | 0:03:04 | |
# Can't trust no-one | 0:03:04 | 0:03:07 | |
# No, you... | 0:03:10 | 0:03:12 | |
# Can't trust no-one. # | 0:03:12 | 0:03:15 | |
I'm really excited. | 0:03:21 | 0:03:23 | |
How many people here are ready to turn the White House red again? | 0:03:23 | 0:03:26 | |
CHEERING | 0:03:26 | 0:03:29 | |
How many people here | 0:03:29 | 0:03:31 | |
are ready to go out there and tell Hillary Clinton | 0:03:31 | 0:03:33 | |
what difference it really makes? | 0:03:33 | 0:03:35 | |
What difference does it make? | 0:03:35 | 0:03:37 | |
APPLAUSE | 0:03:37 | 0:03:38 | |
I'm here at the Presidential Town Hall, and these Bush supporters | 0:03:41 | 0:03:44 | |
are feeling very good about their candidate. | 0:03:44 | 0:03:46 | |
What do you say, guys? | 0:03:46 | 0:03:48 | |
An election is a thing that happens every four years in America, | 0:03:48 | 0:03:52 | |
where we get to watch a lot of ego-obsessed men and women | 0:03:52 | 0:03:56 | |
say crazy things, trip over mic cables, | 0:03:56 | 0:03:59 | |
insult each other, and generally engage in a series of antics | 0:03:59 | 0:04:04 | |
that makes us briefly forget we live in a world of destructive policies | 0:04:04 | 0:04:08 | |
and a state of grim hopelessness created by these very fucksticks. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:13 | |
Donald Trump likes to sue people. | 0:04:13 | 0:04:15 | |
He should sue whoever did that to his face. | 0:04:15 | 0:04:17 | |
Given that being president of the United States | 0:04:17 | 0:04:19 | |
could very likely put you in a premature grave, | 0:04:19 | 0:04:22 | |
it's fairly astonishing that at the beginning of 2016, | 0:04:22 | 0:04:25 | |
23 hopeful Americans threw their hat in the ring | 0:04:25 | 0:04:28 | |
for the nation's top job. | 0:04:28 | 0:04:30 | |
At some point, every one of these candidates has looked in the mirror | 0:04:30 | 0:04:34 | |
and said to themselves, "You know what this country needs? | 0:04:34 | 0:04:37 | |
"Me." | 0:04:37 | 0:04:38 | |
That's the kind of haploid, diploid, | 0:04:38 | 0:04:40 | |
megalomaniacal level of self-delusion you need | 0:04:40 | 0:04:44 | |
to run for president. | 0:04:44 | 0:04:45 | |
CHEERING | 0:04:45 | 0:04:47 | |
When I'm president, we're getting rid of Obamacare. | 0:04:49 | 0:04:52 | |
They all talk about passion, service, | 0:04:52 | 0:04:54 | |
wanting to do it for their country. | 0:04:54 | 0:04:57 | |
Of course there's a huge amount of ego involved in all of this. | 0:04:57 | 0:04:59 | |
I turned out to be 100% right on illegal immigration. | 0:04:59 | 0:05:03 | |
People, two weeks ago, they were going after me, even the reporters. | 0:05:03 | 0:05:06 | |
You're talking about a group of men - | 0:05:06 | 0:05:08 | |
and so far, they've all been men - | 0:05:08 | 0:05:10 | |
who have been basically convinced from birth | 0:05:10 | 0:05:13 | |
that they were the centre of the universe. | 0:05:13 | 0:05:16 | |
Most of the people running for president | 0:05:16 | 0:05:18 | |
actually believe that they have a talent, | 0:05:18 | 0:05:22 | |
a philosophy, an ideology, an ability to lead people, | 0:05:22 | 0:05:27 | |
really an extraordinary gift. | 0:05:27 | 0:05:30 | |
And if they don't, we generally find out really quickly. | 0:05:30 | 0:05:33 | |
And where do we find out? | 0:05:33 | 0:05:36 | |
On the campaign trail. | 0:05:36 | 0:05:38 | |
When I'm president, you will not get in to the United States of America. | 0:05:38 | 0:05:41 | |
It's going to get tough. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:42 | |
You're going to be on the road for two years. | 0:05:42 | 0:05:44 | |
You're going to spend up to 1 billion. | 0:05:44 | 0:05:46 | |
You're going to expend a whole lot of shoe leather, | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
and you're going to have to make some bold statements. | 0:05:49 | 0:05:51 | |
A total and complete shutdown | 0:05:51 | 0:05:53 | |
of Muslims entering the United States. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:56 | |
You're going to get attacked. | 0:05:56 | 0:05:58 | |
Your past and your family are going to come under intense scrutiny, | 0:05:58 | 0:06:01 | |
and God help you if you've got any dirty laundry. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:04 | |
I am confident that I never sent nor received | 0:06:04 | 0:06:07 | |
any information that was classified at the time it was sent... | 0:06:07 | 0:06:10 | |
If you're going to be POTUS, President of the United States, | 0:06:10 | 0:06:13 | |
you're going to have to fight dirty, | 0:06:13 | 0:06:15 | |
because it's the most downright gruelling election on the planet. | 0:06:15 | 0:06:18 | |
There's nothing easy about running for president, I can tell you. | 0:06:18 | 0:06:21 | |
It's tough, it's nasty, it's mean, it's vicious. | 0:06:21 | 0:06:25 | |
It's beautiful. | 0:06:25 | 0:06:26 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:06:26 | 0:06:28 | |
And you know what? It's all been done before. | 0:06:28 | 0:06:31 | |
Ten, nine, eight, seven, | 0:06:33 | 0:06:36 | |
six, five, | 0:06:36 | 0:06:38 | |
four, three, | 0:06:38 | 0:06:40 | |
two, one, | 0:06:40 | 0:06:42 | |
zero. | 0:06:42 | 0:06:44 | |
These are the stakes. | 0:06:46 | 0:06:48 | |
The 1964 presidential campaign | 0:06:48 | 0:06:51 | |
between Lyndon Johnson and his challenger, Barry Goldwater, | 0:06:51 | 0:06:55 | |
introduced a vicious new tactic into presidential campaigning. | 0:06:55 | 0:06:59 | |
Quotemanship. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:00 | |
The idea of taking what a candidate says and turning it against him. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:04 | |
Johnson created a series of TV ads | 0:07:04 | 0:07:06 | |
that portrayed Goldwater as some kind of deranged whack job | 0:07:06 | 0:07:10 | |
who, if elected, would destroy all of mankind. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:14 | |
We must either love each other... | 0:07:14 | 0:07:16 | |
..or we must die. | 0:07:18 | 0:07:19 | |
Vote for President Johnson on November 3rd. | 0:07:19 | 0:07:22 | |
'Mr Johnson set out on a political career 27 years ago. | 0:07:22 | 0:07:26 | |
'A road that led to the White House.' | 0:07:26 | 0:07:28 | |
By the time of the 1964 election, | 0:07:28 | 0:07:30 | |
Johnson had already been in the White House for a year, | 0:07:30 | 0:07:33 | |
having stepped in after the assassination of John F Kennedy. | 0:07:33 | 0:07:35 | |
He was seen as the likeable heir apparent, but... | 0:07:37 | 0:07:40 | |
with a hidden agenda. | 0:07:40 | 0:07:42 | |
He knows he's going to win, | 0:07:42 | 0:07:44 | |
but what he wants is a huge landslide victory, | 0:07:44 | 0:07:48 | |
cos remember how insecure Lyndon Johnson was. | 0:07:48 | 0:07:51 | |
He was following the most popular president maybe to this day, | 0:07:51 | 0:07:55 | |
and he didn't just want to win. | 0:07:55 | 0:07:57 | |
He really wanted to win by a lot, because to him, | 0:07:57 | 0:08:00 | |
that meant that the American people loved him | 0:08:00 | 0:08:02 | |
and that, therefore, he could move forward | 0:08:02 | 0:08:04 | |
out from beneath the shadow cast by the JFK presidency. | 0:08:04 | 0:08:07 | |
'Since Labor Day, Senator Goldwater has travelled | 0:08:07 | 0:08:10 | |
'tens of thousands of miles to discuss the issues of the campaign.' | 0:08:10 | 0:08:13 | |
Goldwater made the agenda easy for Johnson. | 0:08:13 | 0:08:16 | |
His slogan was, "In your heart, you know he's right!" | 0:08:16 | 0:08:20 | |
And he was. Extreme right. | 0:08:20 | 0:08:22 | |
Now, Goldwater was an accomplished senator | 0:08:22 | 0:08:25 | |
and ex-air-force pilot, very close friend of the late JFK, | 0:08:25 | 0:08:28 | |
but he didn't care much for Russia or China | 0:08:28 | 0:08:31 | |
or any other commie red bastard, | 0:08:31 | 0:08:33 | |
and he didn't bother trying to soft-soap it. | 0:08:33 | 0:08:35 | |
And we must make clear... | 0:08:35 | 0:08:38 | |
that until its goals of conquest are absolutely renounced, | 0:08:38 | 0:08:42 | |
and its relations with all nations tempered, | 0:08:42 | 0:08:46 | |
communism and the governments it now controls | 0:08:46 | 0:08:50 | |
are enemies of every man on earth who is or wants to be free. | 0:08:50 | 0:08:55 | |
CHEERING | 0:08:55 | 0:08:57 | |
In terms of articulation, | 0:08:57 | 0:08:59 | |
let's compare that to a modern-day candidate | 0:08:59 | 0:09:02 | |
with a whole team of speechwriters and researchers at his disposal. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:05 | |
Hey, I'm not saying they're stupid. | 0:09:05 | 0:09:08 | |
I like China. | 0:09:08 | 0:09:09 | |
I sell apartment for... I just sold an apartment for 15 million... | 0:09:09 | 0:09:14 | |
to somebody from China. | 0:09:14 | 0:09:16 | |
Am I supposed to dislike them? | 0:09:16 | 0:09:18 | |
Goldwater had all the oratorical tools - alliteration, | 0:09:21 | 0:09:25 | |
assonance, litotes, | 0:09:25 | 0:09:27 | |
pleonasms, exclamations, | 0:09:27 | 0:09:29 | |
epigrams, classical quotes - | 0:09:29 | 0:09:32 | |
way more than the average American could absorb. | 0:09:32 | 0:09:34 | |
When he accepted the Republican nomination in San Francisco in 1964, | 0:09:34 | 0:09:38 | |
he pretty much dropped the Trumpism of his day. | 0:09:38 | 0:09:41 | |
I would remind you | 0:09:41 | 0:09:44 | |
that extremism... | 0:09:44 | 0:09:46 | |
in the defence of liberty is no vice. | 0:09:46 | 0:09:50 | |
CHEERING | 0:09:50 | 0:09:52 | |
Hard-core Republicans lapped this up. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:54 | |
Finally, a guy not willing to kowtow to the reds. | 0:09:54 | 0:09:57 | |
The more moderate Republicans, however, were genuinely flummoxed. | 0:09:57 | 0:10:01 | |
Future President Richard Nixon had to turn and explain to his buddy | 0:10:01 | 0:10:04 | |
what Goldwater had just said, | 0:10:04 | 0:10:06 | |
like someone who didn't quite get a Frankie Boyle joke. | 0:10:06 | 0:10:08 | |
Never mind that he was quitting Cicero, | 0:10:08 | 0:10:11 | |
the man who pretty much laid the foundation for practical democracy. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:14 | |
Nope, his opponents took the word "extremism" | 0:10:14 | 0:10:16 | |
and milked it for all it was worth. | 0:10:16 | 0:10:19 | |
And in no time at all, | 0:10:19 | 0:10:20 | |
they had him starring in a one-man version of Mississippi Burning. | 0:10:20 | 0:10:24 | |
"We represent the majority of the people in Alabama | 0:10:24 | 0:10:27 | |
"who hate niggerism, Catholicism, Judaism | 0:10:27 | 0:10:30 | |
"and all the isms of the whole world." | 0:10:30 | 0:10:32 | |
So said Robert Creel of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. He also said... | 0:10:32 | 0:10:37 | |
"I like Barry Goldwater. He needs our help." | 0:10:37 | 0:10:40 | |
Unlike the stentorian Goldwater, Johnson was a folksy down-home Texan | 0:10:43 | 0:10:48 | |
who used the Oval Office to further Kennedy's agenda | 0:10:48 | 0:10:50 | |
of progressive social reform, | 0:10:50 | 0:10:52 | |
eradicate poverty, promote civil rights, | 0:10:52 | 0:10:55 | |
and order lots of slacks. | 0:10:55 | 0:10:58 | |
'Joe, is your father the one that makes clothes?' | 0:10:58 | 0:11:02 | |
-'Yes, sir. We're all together.' -'Uh-huh. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:05 | |
'Y'all made me some real lightweight slacks. | 0:11:05 | 0:11:10 | |
'Now, I need about six pairs | 0:11:10 | 0:11:12 | |
'for around in the evening when I come in from work. | 0:11:12 | 0:11:15 | |
'The pockets, when you sit down in a chair, | 0:11:15 | 0:11:17 | |
'the knife and your money comes out, | 0:11:17 | 0:11:19 | |
'so I need it at least another inch in the pockets. | 0:11:19 | 0:11:22 | |
'Now, another thing - the crotch down where your nuts hang | 0:11:22 | 0:11:26 | |
'is always a little too tight, so when you make them up, | 0:11:26 | 0:11:29 | |
'give me an inch that I can let out there, | 0:11:29 | 0:11:32 | |
'because they cut me. | 0:11:32 | 0:11:34 | |
'It's just like riding a wire fence.' | 0:11:34 | 0:11:37 | |
Why, this knife-wielding, pecker-cramped good old boy | 0:11:37 | 0:11:40 | |
was determined to spend another four years in the White House, | 0:11:40 | 0:11:43 | |
and nothing was going to get in his way. | 0:11:43 | 0:11:45 | |
Goldwater never had a chance, systematically bombarded by TV ads | 0:11:45 | 0:11:50 | |
that all implied every child in America was doomed. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
Do you know what people finally did? | 0:11:53 | 0:11:56 | |
They got together and signed a nuclear test ban treaty. | 0:11:56 | 0:11:59 | |
But now there's a man who wants to be president of the United States | 0:11:59 | 0:12:04 | |
and if he's elected, they might start testing all over again. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:10 | |
The best that Goldwater could do to counter this assertion | 0:12:10 | 0:12:12 | |
was to drag out the Duke himself, old John Wayne, | 0:12:12 | 0:12:16 | |
to provide some kind of weird cryptic voice-over | 0:12:16 | 0:12:18 | |
that, frankly, made no sense whatsoever. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:21 | |
An umbrella - just that, | 0:12:21 | 0:12:24 | |
or the symbol for appeasement? | 0:12:24 | 0:12:27 | |
A table - just that, | 0:12:27 | 0:12:29 | |
or a sell-out abroad? | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
A wall - just that, | 0:12:31 | 0:12:33 | |
unless it helps you remember | 0:12:33 | 0:12:35 | |
what has happened to a billion people in this world | 0:12:35 | 0:12:38 | |
and what can happen to you and to your children. | 0:12:38 | 0:12:40 | |
What in the wide, wide world of sports was he talking about? | 0:12:40 | 0:12:43 | |
What, there was a wall somewhere with a billion people behind it? | 0:12:43 | 0:12:46 | |
The '64 campaign had turned into something that resembled | 0:12:46 | 0:12:49 | |
a bitter divorced couple fighting over custody of their kids. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:53 | |
'To many, of course, he is the president first | 0:12:53 | 0:12:55 | |
'and a candidate second, | 0:12:55 | 0:12:57 | |
'but his speeches draw a resounding cheer.' | 0:12:57 | 0:12:59 | |
Lyndon Johnson decided to really turn Barry Goldwater | 0:13:01 | 0:13:05 | |
into someone who terrified and horrified Americans, | 0:13:05 | 0:13:10 | |
and he did it in a number of different ways. | 0:13:10 | 0:13:12 | |
They wrote... | 0:13:12 | 0:13:13 | |
It sounds trivial, but they wrote hundreds of letters | 0:13:13 | 0:13:16 | |
to the advice columnists of the time, | 0:13:16 | 0:13:18 | |
Dear Abby and Ann Landers, | 0:13:18 | 0:13:20 | |
claiming to be Americans who were terrified at the thought | 0:13:20 | 0:13:24 | |
of a Goldwater presidency. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:25 | |
They even put out a colouring book for little children | 0:13:25 | 0:13:28 | |
which portrayed Goldwater in the robes of the Ku Klux Klan, | 0:13:28 | 0:13:31 | |
and then they followed up with, of course, the daisy commercial, | 0:13:31 | 0:13:34 | |
which was probably the most effective campaign commercial | 0:13:34 | 0:13:38 | |
in history. | 0:13:38 | 0:13:39 | |
Johnson won by a landslide. | 0:13:44 | 0:13:46 | |
His campaign had convinced Americans | 0:13:46 | 0:13:48 | |
that if Goldwater was elected, he would start a war, | 0:13:48 | 0:13:50 | |
and now, firmly re-entrenched in office, | 0:13:50 | 0:13:52 | |
what do you think Johnson did? | 0:13:52 | 0:13:54 | |
He went to war. | 0:13:54 | 0:13:55 | |
This administration today, here and now, | 0:13:55 | 0:14:00 | |
declares unconditional war on poverty in America. | 0:14:00 | 0:14:05 | |
That's all the joint military chiefs of staff needed to hear. | 0:14:07 | 0:14:10 | |
War. Mm! Good God, y'all. | 0:14:10 | 0:14:13 | |
In March of 1965, two months after being sworn in, | 0:14:13 | 0:14:16 | |
Johnson ordered 20,000 troops | 0:14:16 | 0:14:19 | |
to launch an offensive against Poverty, | 0:14:19 | 0:14:22 | |
a small nation on the Indochina Peninsula of Southeast Asia. | 0:14:22 | 0:14:26 | |
Within 18 months, | 0:14:30 | 0:14:31 | |
this incursion had increased to 200,000 troops, | 0:14:31 | 0:14:34 | |
all trying to keep North Poverty from overrunning South Poverty. | 0:14:34 | 0:14:38 | |
By 1967, there were more than a half-million men fighting Poverty, | 0:14:40 | 0:14:44 | |
and Johnson's support plummeted | 0:14:44 | 0:14:46 | |
to the point where he was the most unpopular president in modern times. | 0:14:46 | 0:14:50 | |
The man who had got himself elected | 0:14:51 | 0:14:53 | |
on a premise of saving America's children | 0:14:53 | 0:14:56 | |
was unfortunately watching America's teenagers | 0:14:56 | 0:14:58 | |
come home in body bags. | 0:14:58 | 0:15:00 | |
Let's imagine for a second an alternative historical scenario. | 0:15:07 | 0:15:11 | |
What if Goldwater had won? | 0:15:11 | 0:15:12 | |
Let's say that LBJ pulls out of the race | 0:15:12 | 0:15:14 | |
due to aggravated scrotal trauma. | 0:15:14 | 0:15:16 | |
He chooses, instead, | 0:15:16 | 0:15:17 | |
Hubert H Humphrey, his vice president. | 0:15:17 | 0:15:20 | |
Now, Hubert Humphrey is an avuncular hack from Minnesota | 0:15:20 | 0:15:23 | |
who's been pining for the job since the end of World War II. | 0:15:23 | 0:15:25 | |
Nobody takes him seriously, so Goldwater wins. | 0:15:25 | 0:15:28 | |
CHEERING | 0:15:28 | 0:15:30 | |
Goldwater doesn't mess around in Vietnam - he ends that war | 0:15:30 | 0:15:33 | |
in two weeks flat, and the world knows, don't mess with the USA. | 0:15:33 | 0:15:36 | |
Unfortunately, his refusal to deal with Arab nations | 0:15:36 | 0:15:39 | |
and their oil exports leads to a gas shortage. | 0:15:39 | 0:15:42 | |
With a gas shortage, the auto industry stagnates. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:45 | |
With no cars, America just becomes this place | 0:15:45 | 0:15:48 | |
with a lot of vintage automobiles, | 0:15:48 | 0:15:49 | |
really cool-looking but held together with duct tape, | 0:15:49 | 0:15:52 | |
also known as Havana chrome, and the auto industry does not progress, | 0:15:52 | 0:15:57 | |
thus we never get the nimble Ford Bronco, | 0:15:57 | 0:15:59 | |
in which OJ Simpson leads the LAPD on a high-speed chase. | 0:15:59 | 0:16:03 | |
That chase would have been on foot | 0:16:03 | 0:16:05 | |
and OJ would've easily outrun the cops, | 0:16:05 | 0:16:07 | |
cos let's face it - he was one of the fastest runners in the NFL. | 0:16:07 | 0:16:11 | |
No OJ, no trial. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:12 | |
No trial, no Robert Kardashian, | 0:16:12 | 0:16:15 | |
who rose to prominence defending OJ on the murder rap. | 0:16:15 | 0:16:18 | |
Robert Kardashian just would've been a two-bit ambulance-chasing | 0:16:18 | 0:16:21 | |
chiseller from Los Angeles and his three daughters would be vapid, | 0:16:21 | 0:16:24 | |
inconsequential bimbos, hanging out at the mall. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
It's a tragic fact that politics in America | 0:16:31 | 0:16:33 | |
is coming closer to resembling a reality TV show. | 0:16:33 | 0:16:37 | |
We want to see our candidates lined up in front of | 0:16:37 | 0:16:39 | |
a panel of judges, like Fox News presenter Megyn Kelly, | 0:16:39 | 0:16:42 | |
whose sole purpose is to create confrontation and drama | 0:16:42 | 0:16:46 | |
for the TV audience. | 0:16:46 | 0:16:48 | |
Your Twitter account has several disparaging comments | 0:16:48 | 0:16:50 | |
about women's looks. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:52 | |
You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be | 0:16:52 | 0:16:55 | |
a pretty picture to see her on her knees. | 0:16:55 | 0:16:58 | |
Does that sound to you like the temperament of | 0:16:58 | 0:17:00 | |
a man we should elect as president? | 0:17:00 | 0:17:02 | |
Even Obama seems to be confused | 0:17:02 | 0:17:04 | |
about how he's supposed to exude presidentialness. | 0:17:04 | 0:17:07 | |
Being president is a serious job. | 0:17:07 | 0:17:09 | |
It's not... | 0:17:11 | 0:17:13 | |
hosting a talk show or a reality show. | 0:17:13 | 0:17:17 | |
No, it's not. | 0:17:17 | 0:17:19 | |
So, here's Obama talking politics with Bear Grylls, | 0:17:19 | 0:17:22 | |
a guy who likes to drink his own urine. | 0:17:22 | 0:17:24 | |
-Would you ever encourage your girls to get into politics? -No. | 0:17:24 | 0:17:28 | |
-Really? -But if they | 0:17:28 | 0:17:30 | |
came to me and they said they wanted to go into elected office... | 0:17:30 | 0:17:34 | |
-Yeah. -..I would be completely supportive. -Yeah. | 0:17:34 | 0:17:37 | |
Because I think it can be noble work, | 0:17:37 | 0:17:39 | |
if done for the right reasons, the right way. | 0:17:39 | 0:17:42 | |
But if any of these presidential wannabes were put into | 0:17:45 | 0:17:48 | |
a reality show, they'd be evicted before the first commercial | 0:17:48 | 0:17:51 | |
for being soulless, snooze-inducing, robotic dullards. | 0:17:51 | 0:17:55 | |
Some of America's greatest journalists have tried to | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
chronicle elections, and every one of them would have been better off | 0:17:58 | 0:18:01 | |
following plankton for a year. | 0:18:01 | 0:18:03 | |
Boys On The Bus, Timothy Crouse. | 0:18:03 | 0:18:06 | |
Michael Lewis, author of Moneyball? Yeah. | 0:18:06 | 0:18:09 | |
Even the estimable Hunter S Thompson, who chronicled | 0:18:09 | 0:18:13 | |
the 1972 campaign between Nixon and McGovern, | 0:18:13 | 0:18:15 | |
was so overcome by torpor and ennui | 0:18:15 | 0:18:18 | |
that he just resorted to making stuff up about the candidates, | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
just to enliven things - | 0:18:21 | 0:18:22 | |
claiming, for example, that Democratic nominee Edmund Muskie | 0:18:22 | 0:18:26 | |
had hired a Brazilian witch doctor to supply him with ibogaine. | 0:18:26 | 0:18:29 | |
That's a hallucinogen that makes you think you're a salamander. | 0:18:29 | 0:18:32 | |
Open season on voters gets under way | 0:18:32 | 0:18:34 | |
as the presidential candidates start cross-country vote-hunting tours. | 0:18:34 | 0:18:38 | |
MUSIC: Ramblin' Man by The Allman Brothers Band | 0:18:38 | 0:18:42 | |
What Americans want is to be wooed | 0:18:42 | 0:18:44 | |
by old-fashioned grassroots campaigning, | 0:18:44 | 0:18:47 | |
which means crossing the country by bus and plane, | 0:18:47 | 0:18:50 | |
eating pancakes and talking to | 0:18:50 | 0:18:51 | |
a lot of lumpy housewives at shopping malls. | 0:18:51 | 0:18:55 | |
The campaigning itself is a pretty good test of the candidate. | 0:18:55 | 0:18:58 | |
If they manage to get through that without flopping dead | 0:18:58 | 0:19:01 | |
on the floor or turning into a bodacious drunk, you know... | 0:19:01 | 0:19:04 | |
I mean, I sure couldn't. | 0:19:06 | 0:19:08 | |
Just the sheer wear and tear on these people tells us that | 0:19:08 | 0:19:13 | |
they're pretty sturdy physical specimens. | 0:19:13 | 0:19:15 | |
No-one who hasn't been there has any conception | 0:19:15 | 0:19:21 | |
of how unbelievably gruelling it is. | 0:19:21 | 0:19:26 | |
It's gruelling and exhausting. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:29 | |
Remember, you've been campaigning - what? - | 0:19:30 | 0:19:33 | |
by the time you hit September, for 16 months. | 0:19:33 | 0:19:35 | |
Jumping into a plane in the morning and making four or five speeches | 0:19:35 | 0:19:39 | |
in different parts of the country, | 0:19:39 | 0:19:41 | |
which aren't that different from the ones you made the day before, | 0:19:41 | 0:19:43 | |
is not the most, er, wonderful experience, in that sense. | 0:19:43 | 0:19:48 | |
I want to thank the musical organisations that have been here. | 0:19:48 | 0:19:51 | |
I understand we have the Leon High School band | 0:19:51 | 0:19:53 | |
-and the Godby High School band. -CHEERING | 0:19:53 | 0:19:56 | |
President Truman continues his swing around the circuit, | 0:19:56 | 0:19:59 | |
meeting former vice president Garner at Uvalde, Texas. | 0:19:59 | 0:20:02 | |
Campaigning for president is more than a full-time job. | 0:20:02 | 0:20:05 | |
I mean, just raising the money is a full-time job, | 0:20:05 | 0:20:08 | |
not to mention going out and actually glad-handing people, | 0:20:08 | 0:20:12 | |
which is maybe two full-time jobs. | 0:20:12 | 0:20:14 | |
I really don't know how they survive doing it, cos it is - | 0:20:14 | 0:20:17 | |
it's just brutal. Especially this year. | 0:20:17 | 0:20:20 | |
I mean, this is a gruelling field. | 0:20:20 | 0:20:23 | |
People have lasted much longer than anyone expected. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:25 | |
Super PACS have played a role in keeping candidates going. | 0:20:25 | 0:20:29 | |
The next leader of the free world is going to have to tell us, | 0:20:29 | 0:20:32 | |
right up front... | 0:20:32 | 0:20:33 | |
are you going for the Broncos or for the Patriots? | 0:20:33 | 0:20:36 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:20:36 | 0:20:38 | |
And I'm here to announce... | 0:20:38 | 0:20:40 | |
This guy just paid off his student loan! | 0:20:40 | 0:20:41 | |
He looks like the kind of guy that should be explaining you | 0:20:41 | 0:20:44 | |
your warranty when you buy a large appliance. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:46 | |
After seven years of Barack Obama, this is a time of urgency. | 0:20:48 | 0:20:52 | |
You start to hear the same things over and over again, | 0:20:52 | 0:20:55 | |
said in a new way, with new reactions from the audience. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:58 | |
Jeb Bush - decent governor, I suppose, of Florida. | 0:21:01 | 0:21:05 | |
Which is like being a manager of a Dignitas clinic. | 0:21:05 | 0:21:08 | |
But let's face it - every family needs a Fredo, | 0:21:08 | 0:21:12 | |
just clinging to some blind familial destiny. | 0:21:12 | 0:21:15 | |
Hey, Dad. | 0:21:15 | 0:21:17 | |
Hey, W. How you doing? | 0:21:18 | 0:21:20 | |
I've learned a lot, being a candidate here, | 0:21:23 | 0:21:26 | |
and I look forward... | 0:21:26 | 0:21:27 | |
They try to be as everyman as possible, but they're slowly | 0:21:27 | 0:21:30 | |
losing their identity, turning into nattering nabobs, | 0:21:30 | 0:21:33 | |
shills, ciphers, husks. | 0:21:33 | 0:21:34 | |
You know, they're too busy flitting from rally to rally, | 0:21:36 | 0:21:39 | |
town hall to town hall, dinner to dinner, | 0:21:39 | 0:21:41 | |
trying to get people to like 'em. | 0:21:41 | 0:21:44 | |
It's like an Academy Awards nominations | 0:21:44 | 0:21:46 | |
if all the nominees were from the same film. | 0:21:46 | 0:21:48 | |
I believe America can be greater than it's ever been. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:51 | |
How we can keep America safer and stronger and freer... | 0:21:51 | 0:21:54 | |
When our embassy is purposefully attacked by terrorists... | 0:21:54 | 0:21:58 | |
They peddle bromides they think American voters can respond to - | 0:21:58 | 0:22:02 | |
things like, "Let's take America back." | 0:22:02 | 0:22:05 | |
"Let's make America strong again." | 0:22:05 | 0:22:07 | |
Basically, anything that can fit onto a bumper sticker. | 0:22:07 | 0:22:10 | |
And they desperately avoid the real issues. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:12 | |
And the reason a candidate avoids the real issues is because, | 0:22:14 | 0:22:17 | |
basically, both sides - Democrats and Republicans - | 0:22:17 | 0:22:19 | |
they're on the same page. | 0:22:19 | 0:22:21 | |
Yeah, they quibble over social welfare, but they both agree - | 0:22:21 | 0:22:24 | |
needs to be fixed. | 0:22:24 | 0:22:26 | |
They quibble over a few-billion-dollar difference | 0:22:26 | 0:22:28 | |
in defence spending but they both agree we need an army | 0:22:28 | 0:22:31 | |
that can kick the world's butt. | 0:22:31 | 0:22:32 | |
They argue over the free market but they both want the Government | 0:22:32 | 0:22:35 | |
to keep their big, meaty paws off of it. | 0:22:35 | 0:22:37 | |
The only difference is that Democrats stay above the waist | 0:22:37 | 0:22:40 | |
and Republicans, for some ungodly reason, | 0:22:40 | 0:22:42 | |
are obsessed with what Americans do with their fundament. | 0:22:42 | 0:22:46 | |
Abortion, Planned Parenthood, gay rights. | 0:22:46 | 0:22:49 | |
Republicans cannot stay out of a woman's jinkety-jankety. | 0:22:49 | 0:22:52 | |
Other than that, there's no difference. | 0:22:52 | 0:22:55 | |
Republicans, Democrats - it's the difference between hair and fur. | 0:22:55 | 0:22:58 | |
-Could I have a Coke, please? -I'm sorry, we only have Pepsi. | 0:22:58 | 0:23:01 | |
Whatever. | 0:23:01 | 0:23:02 | |
Everybody wants the same thing. | 0:23:03 | 0:23:05 | |
Everybody wants economic growth, first and foremost. | 0:23:05 | 0:23:07 | |
Everybody wants a balanced budget, a secure international scene, | 0:23:07 | 0:23:13 | |
but we just have these two broad tendencies | 0:23:13 | 0:23:15 | |
with a lot of Venn-diagram overlap. | 0:23:15 | 0:23:17 | |
At times like now, when the parties seem to be very polarised, | 0:23:17 | 0:23:23 | |
that Venn diagram is only overlapping by about 50%. | 0:23:23 | 0:23:27 | |
Normally it overlaps by about 80%. | 0:23:27 | 0:23:30 | |
-In terms of what they... -Of what... | 0:23:30 | 0:23:32 | |
-What they want to achieve? -Exactly. | 0:23:32 | 0:23:33 | |
I am running for the presidency of the United States | 0:23:33 | 0:23:36 | |
because, citizens, it is time. | 0:23:36 | 0:23:39 | |
It is time that we take our future back... | 0:23:39 | 0:23:41 | |
So how do these people get themselves to stand above the fray? | 0:23:43 | 0:23:47 | |
They build a team, a human shield made entirely of yes men. | 0:23:47 | 0:23:50 | |
They've surrounded themselves with people who keep them | 0:23:52 | 0:23:54 | |
sheltered from the real world and give them | 0:23:54 | 0:23:56 | |
a courtesy reach-around hand job and keep them on a steady, | 0:23:56 | 0:24:00 | |
high-octane diet of Powerade until they turn into rutting, | 0:24:00 | 0:24:04 | |
savage-eyed alpha males crashing through the woods | 0:24:04 | 0:24:07 | |
looking for anything with a hole in it to fuck. | 0:24:07 | 0:24:10 | |
But I mean that in the nicest way possible. | 0:24:10 | 0:24:12 | |
And to get to the point where you have zillions of advisers | 0:24:12 | 0:24:18 | |
telling you what to do and what not to do and how to do it, | 0:24:18 | 0:24:22 | |
you don't know which is telling you the truth, you're surrounded | 0:24:22 | 0:24:26 | |
by ambitious people, you're raising money hand over fist... | 0:24:26 | 0:24:31 | |
..it's not a lot of fun. | 0:24:34 | 0:24:37 | |
# The prodigal son | 0:24:42 | 0:24:44 | |
# Left home by himself | 0:24:44 | 0:24:47 | |
# Home by himself | 0:24:47 | 0:24:49 | |
# Oh, the prodigal son left home by himself | 0:24:49 | 0:24:53 | |
# Prodigal son left home by himself | 0:24:55 | 0:24:58 | |
# That's the way for me to get along... # | 0:25:00 | 0:25:04 | |
People running for president uniformly believe | 0:25:05 | 0:25:07 | |
they can change the world. So the idea is to win at all costs. | 0:25:07 | 0:25:13 | |
After all, if you lose, | 0:25:13 | 0:25:14 | |
you're not going to be able to do anything, are you? | 0:25:14 | 0:25:16 | |
Winning an election is about deflecting as much as shit | 0:25:16 | 0:25:19 | |
as the other guy can throw at you. | 0:25:19 | 0:25:21 | |
If he claims that you fuck pigs, he's desperate. | 0:25:21 | 0:25:25 | |
But if he puts you in a position of having to deny that you fuck pigs, | 0:25:25 | 0:25:28 | |
YOU'RE desperate. | 0:25:28 | 0:25:30 | |
It's 1988. | 0:25:31 | 0:25:33 | |
After years of a B-movie Republican gunslinger running things, | 0:25:33 | 0:25:37 | |
a lot of Americans are ready for a change. | 0:25:37 | 0:25:39 | |
We're going to build the kind of America where hard work is rewarded, | 0:25:41 | 0:25:44 | |
where American goods and American workmanship | 0:25:44 | 0:25:47 | |
are the best in the world. That's what this election is all about. | 0:25:47 | 0:25:49 | |
A Democratic governor from Massachusetts, Michael Dukakis, | 0:25:49 | 0:25:53 | |
was primed to challenge | 0:25:53 | 0:25:55 | |
the incumbent vice president, George HW Bush. | 0:25:55 | 0:25:57 | |
I seek the presidency to build a better America. | 0:25:57 | 0:26:02 | |
It's that simple and that big. | 0:26:02 | 0:26:04 | |
I thought he was a serious candidate. | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
This was clearly going to be a competitive race. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:09 | |
I thought it was quite winnable. | 0:26:09 | 0:26:12 | |
And if I hadn't made a couple of really bad mistakes, | 0:26:12 | 0:26:15 | |
I think I could have won it. | 0:26:15 | 0:26:16 | |
By working together to create opportunity and a good life... | 0:26:16 | 0:26:19 | |
Dukakis was determined to take a fresh approach to campaigning | 0:26:19 | 0:26:23 | |
and avoid the mudslinging and the negativity | 0:26:23 | 0:26:25 | |
of so many previous elections. | 0:26:25 | 0:26:27 | |
'I hadn't engaged in any of that stuff | 0:26:27 | 0:26:28 | |
'during the primary, quite deliberately,' | 0:26:28 | 0:26:30 | |
and I thought people were fed up of that stuff. | 0:26:30 | 0:26:34 | |
But the lesson to be learned from '88 is that if the other guy's | 0:26:34 | 0:26:38 | |
coming at you, you've got to have a carefully thought-out strategy. | 0:26:38 | 0:26:41 | |
For a new era of new economic greatness in America, | 0:26:41 | 0:26:44 | |
Michael Dukakis for president. | 0:26:44 | 0:26:46 | |
Bush, on the other hand, was an old-guard politician. | 0:26:47 | 0:26:50 | |
He'd been around a long time and he knew all the angles. | 0:26:50 | 0:26:53 | |
And his opening gambit was to play the old crime-and-punishment card. | 0:26:53 | 0:26:57 | |
As governor, Michael Dukakis vetoed | 0:26:59 | 0:27:01 | |
mandatory sentences for drug dealers. | 0:27:01 | 0:27:04 | |
He vetoed the death penalty. | 0:27:04 | 0:27:06 | |
The Republicans seized upon a parole programme | 0:27:06 | 0:27:10 | |
in the state of Massachusetts where Dukakis was governor, | 0:27:10 | 0:27:14 | |
which allowed violent criminals to be released not so much on parole | 0:27:14 | 0:27:19 | |
but to be released on work furloughs for a few weeks. | 0:27:19 | 0:27:23 | |
William Horton escaped from the furlough programme. | 0:27:23 | 0:27:27 | |
He attacked a man and his girlfriend | 0:27:27 | 0:27:30 | |
and he raped the young woman and he stabbed the man. | 0:27:30 | 0:27:33 | |
Republicans seized upon this as a way to attack Dukakis | 0:27:33 | 0:27:38 | |
as soft on crime. | 0:27:38 | 0:27:39 | |
His revolving-door prison policy gave weekend furloughs | 0:27:39 | 0:27:43 | |
to first-degree murderers not eligible for parole. | 0:27:43 | 0:27:46 | |
While out, many committed other crimes like kidnapping and rape, | 0:27:46 | 0:27:50 | |
and many are still at large. | 0:27:50 | 0:27:53 | |
Now Michael Dukakis says he wants to do for America | 0:27:53 | 0:27:55 | |
what he's done for Massachusetts. | 0:27:55 | 0:27:58 | |
America can't afford that risk. | 0:27:58 | 0:28:00 | |
Never mind that those weren't convicts. | 0:28:00 | 0:28:02 | |
Those were members of George Bush Senior's campaign staff, | 0:28:02 | 0:28:05 | |
rented strangers, told not to shave for the day | 0:28:05 | 0:28:08 | |
and make a video that basically says, | 0:28:08 | 0:28:10 | |
"Elect Dukakis, and your kids will be kidnapped and raped." | 0:28:10 | 0:28:14 | |
Yep, that happened, and we let it happen. | 0:28:14 | 0:28:16 | |
Smears, cheap shots, dirty tricks | 0:28:17 | 0:28:20 | |
are part and parcel of American elections. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:23 | |
They're the currency of American elections. | 0:28:23 | 0:28:26 | |
Ronald Reagan himself had a furlough programme. | 0:28:26 | 0:28:28 | |
This governor of California had defended the programme, | 0:28:28 | 0:28:30 | |
even though two of his furloughees went out and murdered people. | 0:28:30 | 0:28:33 | |
But I said, "Not going to do it." | 0:28:33 | 0:28:35 | |
It was a big mistake. It's a big mistake. | 0:28:35 | 0:28:37 | |
And it was very likely this strategy of not fighting, | 0:28:38 | 0:28:41 | |
of not slinging back mud, that cost Dukakis the race. | 0:28:41 | 0:28:44 | |
See, mudslinging serves two important functions. | 0:28:45 | 0:28:48 | |
Number one, how a candidate responds to it is a microcosm of | 0:28:48 | 0:28:52 | |
how they would handle duress if, in fact, they were president. | 0:28:52 | 0:28:55 | |
Let's face it - no sane candidate is ever going to say anything bad | 0:28:55 | 0:28:58 | |
about himself, so you have to take them out of | 0:28:58 | 0:29:01 | |
their "I'm a nice guy" safety zone | 0:29:01 | 0:29:03 | |
and see what they'll do when the gloves come off. | 0:29:03 | 0:29:06 | |
For the next 90 minutes, we will be questioning the candidates... | 0:29:08 | 0:29:11 | |
It was during a televised debate on PBS that moderator Bernard Shaw | 0:29:11 | 0:29:15 | |
delivered the fatal blow, while 67 million Americans watched. | 0:29:15 | 0:29:18 | |
There are no restrictions on the questions that my colleagues | 0:29:18 | 0:29:22 | |
and I can ask this evening. | 0:29:22 | 0:29:24 | |
He went onto a stage | 0:29:24 | 0:29:26 | |
with millions of people watching | 0:29:26 | 0:29:28 | |
and he knew damn well, | 0:29:28 | 0:29:29 | |
he did something he didn't often do. | 0:29:29 | 0:29:32 | |
He made a mistake. | 0:29:32 | 0:29:34 | |
The first question goes to Governor Dukakis. | 0:29:34 | 0:29:37 | |
You have two minutes to respond. | 0:29:37 | 0:29:39 | |
We had rehearsed, time and again, that question. | 0:29:39 | 0:29:44 | |
That's the question where people want to know, whose side are you on? | 0:29:44 | 0:29:48 | |
Are you on the side of the criminal | 0:29:48 | 0:29:50 | |
or are you on the side of the victim? | 0:29:50 | 0:29:53 | |
And we had practised the answer endlessly in debate prep. | 0:29:53 | 0:29:58 | |
I mean, I can do it for you right now. | 0:29:58 | 0:30:00 | |
It begins with, "I know what it's like to be the victim of crime." | 0:30:00 | 0:30:06 | |
Governor, if Kitty Dukakis were raped and murdered... | 0:30:06 | 0:30:11 | |
..would you favour an irrevocable death penalty for the killer? | 0:30:12 | 0:30:17 | |
I really viewed this as being a kind of routine question | 0:30:17 | 0:30:21 | |
and, unfortunately, I think I kind of answered it | 0:30:21 | 0:30:24 | |
as if I had been asked it a thousand times. | 0:30:24 | 0:30:27 | |
No, I don't, Bernard, and I think you know that | 0:30:27 | 0:30:29 | |
I've opposed the death penalty during all of my life. | 0:30:29 | 0:30:33 | |
I don't see any evidence that it's a deterrent and I think there are | 0:30:33 | 0:30:37 | |
better and more effective ways to deal with violent crime. | 0:30:37 | 0:30:39 | |
We've done so in my own state... | 0:30:39 | 0:30:41 | |
When Bernard Shaw asked him the question, | 0:30:41 | 0:30:43 | |
"Would you support the death penalty if your wife, | 0:30:43 | 0:30:45 | |
"Kitty Dukakis, was raped and murdered?" | 0:30:45 | 0:30:49 | |
and he responded in a very robotic, stilted, | 0:30:49 | 0:30:52 | |
falling back on his talking points fashion, | 0:30:52 | 0:30:55 | |
and Americans wanted him to shout out, | 0:30:55 | 0:30:57 | |
"How dare you ask me such a personal question?" | 0:30:57 | 0:30:59 | |
So, Dukakis was doomed - | 0:31:00 | 0:31:02 | |
viewed as a shell, a man with no emotion toward his own wife. | 0:31:02 | 0:31:06 | |
And his opponent made sure there was no coming back from this mistake. | 0:31:06 | 0:31:09 | |
Here I do have, on this particular question, | 0:31:09 | 0:31:12 | |
a big difference with my opponent. | 0:31:12 | 0:31:15 | |
You see, I do believe that some crimes are so heinous, so brutal... | 0:31:15 | 0:31:21 | |
I walk all the way backstage | 0:31:21 | 0:31:24 | |
and I'm the first person to get to Michael | 0:31:24 | 0:31:27 | |
and he looked at me and he said, "I'm sorry." | 0:31:27 | 0:31:30 | |
"I just missed it." | 0:31:32 | 0:31:34 | |
Of course I regret about that, I would have been delighted to be | 0:31:40 | 0:31:43 | |
-President of the United States. -HE LAUGHS | 0:31:43 | 0:31:45 | |
I mean, how many people get to be president, for heaven's sake? | 0:31:45 | 0:31:48 | |
No, I'd have loved the opportunity, but I didn't get it, | 0:31:48 | 0:31:51 | |
didn't win it, so...one does other things. | 0:31:51 | 0:31:55 | |
Let's imagine for a second an alternative historical scenario. | 0:32:05 | 0:32:09 | |
What if Dukakis, instead of answering robotically, | 0:32:09 | 0:32:11 | |
had actually said to Bernard Shaw, "I'm sorry, Bernard, | 0:32:11 | 0:32:14 | |
"did you just ask me, 'what if my wife was raped'? | 0:32:14 | 0:32:18 | |
"How about we step outside and I punch your lights out?" | 0:32:18 | 0:32:21 | |
Then he would have been a national hero, easily beating George HW Bush. | 0:32:21 | 0:32:24 | |
No George HW Bush, | 0:32:24 | 0:32:26 | |
no George Bush Jr 12 years later to follow in his footsteps. | 0:32:26 | 0:32:30 | |
George Bush Jr would still have been owner of the Texas Rangers | 0:32:30 | 0:32:33 | |
baseball team, which he would have run into the ground, so now | 0:32:33 | 0:32:36 | |
Texas fans switch their allegiance to the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA. | 0:32:36 | 0:32:40 | |
The Mavericks have a huge payroll and are able to hold on to | 0:32:40 | 0:32:43 | |
both Kris Humphries and Lamar Odom, | 0:32:43 | 0:32:45 | |
instead of trading them to the LA Clippers, | 0:32:45 | 0:32:47 | |
where they promptly go off and marry Kardashians, | 0:32:47 | 0:32:50 | |
thus perpetuating the tawdry freak-show nature of reality TV. | 0:32:50 | 0:32:54 | |
The Kardashians would just be three inconsequential, | 0:32:54 | 0:32:57 | |
vapid bimbos hanging out at the mall. | 0:32:57 | 0:33:00 | |
So, you're probably thinking, the Founding Fathers, | 0:33:16 | 0:33:19 | |
those who created democracy in America, | 0:33:19 | 0:33:20 | |
were upstanding and dignified men with waistcoats | 0:33:20 | 0:33:23 | |
and really florid signatures, | 0:33:23 | 0:33:25 | |
who would never stoop to cut-throat politics. | 0:33:25 | 0:33:28 | |
Wrong. | 0:33:28 | 0:33:29 | |
This is the Constitution of the United States. 4,543 words... | 0:33:32 | 0:33:36 | |
that explain how the government works. | 0:33:36 | 0:33:39 | |
This is an owners' manual for a 2014 Toyota Tundra pick-up truck. | 0:33:39 | 0:33:45 | |
The people who wrote the Constitution | 0:33:46 | 0:33:48 | |
had no idea if it was going to work. | 0:33:48 | 0:33:50 | |
All they knew was there had to be a better way to elect a leader. | 0:33:50 | 0:33:54 | |
Because up to this point, historically, | 0:33:54 | 0:33:55 | |
there were only two ways to acquire power. | 0:33:55 | 0:33:58 | |
One, you overran people with invading hordes. Very messy. | 0:33:58 | 0:34:03 | |
Or two, you had to find a way to successfully | 0:34:03 | 0:34:05 | |
be born into a royal family. | 0:34:05 | 0:34:08 | |
The Founding Fathers figured there had to be something in between. | 0:34:08 | 0:34:12 | |
So they came up with this idea of a trilateral structure - | 0:34:12 | 0:34:15 | |
executive, judicial, legislative - where everybody could make sure | 0:34:15 | 0:34:19 | |
that everybody else wasn't getting too uppity. | 0:34:19 | 0:34:22 | |
They already had the perfect choice for president - George Washington. | 0:34:24 | 0:34:29 | |
A philosopher king straight out of Plato's Republic. | 0:34:29 | 0:34:33 | |
A man who, other than not knowing how stupid it was to stand up | 0:34:33 | 0:34:35 | |
in a crowded boat, was articulate, humble, and the nation's hero. | 0:34:35 | 0:34:39 | |
So after drafting this template for democracy, the Founding Fathers | 0:34:43 | 0:34:47 | |
immediately did the most undemocratic thing possible. | 0:34:47 | 0:34:50 | |
They anointed Washington president, unelected and unopposed. | 0:34:50 | 0:34:54 | |
Washington didn't like the office. | 0:34:56 | 0:34:59 | |
And didn't approve of the existence of the office, in a way. | 0:34:59 | 0:35:03 | |
Nobody really knew, nobody had done this before. | 0:35:03 | 0:35:06 | |
Actually, they didn't even use the terms president | 0:35:08 | 0:35:11 | |
or vice president at first. There was a lot of back and forth | 0:35:11 | 0:35:13 | |
about what to actually call their leader. | 0:35:13 | 0:35:15 | |
OK, here's a little game I like to play. | 0:35:15 | 0:35:18 | |
Which of these were actually suggested titles | 0:35:18 | 0:35:21 | |
for America's leader, and which are famous racehorses? | 0:35:21 | 0:35:25 | |
Pencils ready. | 0:35:25 | 0:35:27 | |
Elective Majesty. | 0:35:27 | 0:35:29 | |
Phar Lap. | 0:35:29 | 0:35:31 | |
Bold Ruler. | 0:35:31 | 0:35:33 | |
His Serene Highness. | 0:35:33 | 0:35:35 | |
War Admiral. | 0:35:35 | 0:35:38 | |
His Rotundity. | 0:35:38 | 0:35:40 | |
Superfluous Excellency. | 0:35:40 | 0:35:43 | |
Seabiscuit. | 0:35:43 | 0:35:45 | |
Answers later. | 0:35:45 | 0:35:46 | |
Within his first four years, | 0:35:50 | 0:35:51 | |
Washington exposed a huge flaw in the Constitution, | 0:35:51 | 0:35:54 | |
something the Founding Fathers and all their idealistic vision | 0:35:54 | 0:35:57 | |
had never foreseen, which was that as soon as you're in charge, | 0:35:57 | 0:36:01 | |
somebody, somewhere is going to decide you're doing it all wrong. | 0:36:01 | 0:36:05 | |
The Founding Fathers never envisaged the two-party system. | 0:36:05 | 0:36:10 | |
Today, we understand the two-party system | 0:36:10 | 0:36:13 | |
as essential for the functioning of democracy. | 0:36:13 | 0:36:16 | |
They didn't really foresee that | 0:36:16 | 0:36:18 | |
there are differences in self-interest - they thought | 0:36:18 | 0:36:22 | |
people would put these aside and unite for the good of the country. | 0:36:22 | 0:36:28 | |
Almost immediately, two of the main architects of the Constitution | 0:36:30 | 0:36:33 | |
started sniping at each other - | 0:36:33 | 0:36:35 | |
Thomas Jefferson, the first Secretary of State, | 0:36:35 | 0:36:38 | |
and Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury. | 0:36:38 | 0:36:42 | |
Jefferson was a plantation owner, Republic-minded. | 0:36:44 | 0:36:48 | |
In other words, sympathetic to farmers and planters. | 0:36:48 | 0:36:50 | |
He felt government should interfere as little as possible | 0:36:50 | 0:36:53 | |
in people's lives. And by people, of course, I mean white folks. | 0:36:53 | 0:36:57 | |
It's become fashionable in the last decade or so | 0:36:57 | 0:37:00 | |
to bad-mouth Jefferson and question whether | 0:37:00 | 0:37:03 | |
he deserves that great big photobomb up on Mount Rushmore. | 0:37:03 | 0:37:06 | |
Because, you know, he owned slaves. | 0:37:06 | 0:37:09 | |
Yeah, he did. | 0:37:09 | 0:37:10 | |
So did the first five presidents. | 0:37:10 | 0:37:12 | |
So you want to blame the driver, or the guy who handed him the keys? | 0:37:12 | 0:37:15 | |
That would be you, Britain. | 0:37:15 | 0:37:18 | |
Jefferson once called slavery a great stain on the nation. | 0:37:18 | 0:37:21 | |
Now, as a duplicity of the times, you could call slavery a stain, | 0:37:21 | 0:37:25 | |
and then you could have the slaves remove the stain. | 0:37:25 | 0:37:28 | |
And as for any disparaging remarks about Sally Hemmings, | 0:37:34 | 0:37:37 | |
Jefferson's slave mistress, | 0:37:37 | 0:37:38 | |
bear in mind that Jefferson's wife died at the age of 33 | 0:37:38 | 0:37:43 | |
and on her deathbed, Jefferson promised he would never marry again. | 0:37:43 | 0:37:47 | |
So what can you do? You're the president and you can't get laid? | 0:37:47 | 0:37:50 | |
You have to file that under, | 0:37:50 | 0:37:51 | |
"Lamentable, but what choice do you have?" | 0:37:51 | 0:37:54 | |
Kind of like programming on ITV on a Sunday night. | 0:37:54 | 0:37:57 | |
Hamilton had an altogether different worldview than Jefferson. | 0:38:03 | 0:38:06 | |
He was what you would call a federalist. | 0:38:06 | 0:38:08 | |
He believed in big government, | 0:38:08 | 0:38:09 | |
and that if a big government didn't get its act together | 0:38:09 | 0:38:12 | |
and start making some do-re-mi, shore up a federal bank and print | 0:38:12 | 0:38:15 | |
a unified currency, then America was going to go down the dumper fast. | 0:38:15 | 0:38:19 | |
He admired the English financial system, | 0:38:21 | 0:38:24 | |
he admired the banking system, especially in England, | 0:38:24 | 0:38:28 | |
and he wanted to replicate those for America. | 0:38:28 | 0:38:32 | |
Because of their polarised views on how the country should be run, | 0:38:32 | 0:38:36 | |
Jefferson and Hamilton's animosity towards each other escalated. | 0:38:36 | 0:38:40 | |
Jefferson and Hamilton used newspapers very unethically. | 0:38:40 | 0:38:46 | |
Both of them were members of Washington's cabinet, | 0:38:46 | 0:38:50 | |
yet both of them took government money and funded newspapers, | 0:38:50 | 0:38:55 | |
the point of which was to express opinions for their side. | 0:38:55 | 0:39:00 | |
They would plant articles in newspapers, | 0:39:02 | 0:39:06 | |
often writing under pseudonyms. | 0:39:06 | 0:39:08 | |
In a 1776 issue of Hamilton's paper, | 0:39:08 | 0:39:13 | |
he, under the name Phocion, | 0:39:13 | 0:39:16 | |
talked about the "pretensions of Thomas Jefferson | 0:39:16 | 0:39:19 | |
"to the presidency", the nation must "be on The Guard". | 0:39:19 | 0:39:22 | |
He was "a demagogue", he wore the, quote, "garb of patriotism, | 0:39:22 | 0:39:27 | |
"but only as a disguise." | 0:39:27 | 0:39:29 | |
According to Jefferson, writing in his own paper, | 0:39:29 | 0:39:32 | |
Hamilton's ideas were "stupid, suspicious and licentious", | 0:39:32 | 0:39:37 | |
and they would just go back and forth, back and forth. | 0:39:37 | 0:39:41 | |
In essence, Hamilton and Jefferson's differences | 0:39:43 | 0:39:45 | |
derived from the ambiguity of the Constitution, | 0:39:45 | 0:39:48 | |
because the thing about the Constitution is, | 0:39:48 | 0:39:51 | |
it's purposively vague. | 0:39:51 | 0:39:52 | |
That's why we've spent 230 years arguing over what it means. | 0:39:52 | 0:39:57 | |
For example, when it comes to describing the president's | 0:39:57 | 0:39:59 | |
actual duties, this is what it says. | 0:39:59 | 0:40:02 | |
"The president shall take care that the laws of the United States | 0:40:02 | 0:40:05 | |
"are duly and faithfully executed." | 0:40:05 | 0:40:07 | |
"Take care." That's it?! | 0:40:08 | 0:40:11 | |
The label on my shirt tells me how to take care | 0:40:11 | 0:40:13 | |
in four different languages. | 0:40:13 | 0:40:15 | |
But the Constitution just says, "Hey, you know, watch out." | 0:40:15 | 0:40:19 | |
You can imagine that opened itself up to a lot of interpretation. | 0:40:20 | 0:40:23 | |
Basically, Hamilton and Jefferson disagreed on how much power | 0:40:23 | 0:40:26 | |
the president should have, because Hamilton was a pragmatist, | 0:40:26 | 0:40:30 | |
and Jefferson was an ideologue. | 0:40:30 | 0:40:32 | |
Hamilton knew he could get way more done | 0:40:34 | 0:40:36 | |
by being a behind-the-scenes guy, | 0:40:36 | 0:40:38 | |
which is what he did for the next four presidencies. | 0:40:38 | 0:40:41 | |
He was the facilitator, the go-to guy. | 0:40:41 | 0:40:44 | |
He's on the 10 bill because he started the Federal Reserve Bank. | 0:40:44 | 0:40:47 | |
He moved the capital from Philadelphia to Washington DC | 0:40:47 | 0:40:50 | |
because he believed it should be in a neutral place. | 0:40:50 | 0:40:53 | |
By the 1800 election between Thomas Jefferson | 0:41:00 | 0:41:02 | |
and the watery-faced John Quincy Adams, | 0:41:02 | 0:41:04 | |
the two-party system was firmly entrenched. | 0:41:04 | 0:41:07 | |
And now things got really nasty - | 0:41:07 | 0:41:09 | |
in the most gentlemanly way possible, of course, through print. | 0:41:09 | 0:41:13 | |
Part of us, as Americans, have a Mr Smith Goes To Washington movie | 0:41:13 | 0:41:17 | |
in the back of our minds. Some shining city on a hill, | 0:41:17 | 0:41:20 | |
back in that idealised past, where people were good to each other | 0:41:20 | 0:41:24 | |
and the Founding Fathers would never play dirty tricks on each other. | 0:41:24 | 0:41:27 | |
Well, of course, that's ridiculous, | 0:41:27 | 0:41:29 | |
because even if you go back to the election of 1800, | 0:41:29 | 0:41:32 | |
where Thomas Jefferson hires a writer to call John Adams, quote, | 0:41:32 | 0:41:36 | |
"a hideous hermaphrodite", unquote, | 0:41:36 | 0:41:39 | |
and the Federalist John Adams attacked Thomas Jefferson | 0:41:39 | 0:41:43 | |
as being "soft on the French Revolution", | 0:41:43 | 0:41:46 | |
just as Michael Dukakis was soft on crime. | 0:41:46 | 0:41:49 | |
And that election included my favourite campaign trick, | 0:41:52 | 0:41:55 | |
where the Federalists spread the rumour | 0:41:55 | 0:41:58 | |
that Thomas Jefferson was dead. | 0:41:58 | 0:42:00 | |
Which I think is wonderful! | 0:42:00 | 0:42:01 | |
Because, really, in those days, how do you rebut that very quickly? | 0:42:01 | 0:42:05 | |
Well, you can't vote for him, you know, he's dead! | 0:42:05 | 0:42:08 | |
So, you think the modern-day media | 0:42:12 | 0:42:14 | |
is a cesspool of slime and misinformation? | 0:42:14 | 0:42:16 | |
Look back to the good old days when you could just | 0:42:16 | 0:42:19 | |
pay a journalist to accuse your opponent of being insane | 0:42:19 | 0:42:23 | |
or a sexual deviant or an atheist. Just took a little money. | 0:42:23 | 0:42:26 | |
Jefferson won the 1800 election, | 0:42:28 | 0:42:30 | |
became the third president of America. | 0:42:30 | 0:42:32 | |
As for Hamilton... Well, he was never going to be able to | 0:42:32 | 0:42:35 | |
run for president because he was born in the Caribbean. | 0:42:35 | 0:42:37 | |
He continued his career as a great facilitator, | 0:42:37 | 0:42:40 | |
then ended up being killed in a duel with a guy named Aaron Burr. | 0:42:40 | 0:42:43 | |
GUNSHOT | 0:42:43 | 0:42:44 | |
Today, his achievements have been commemorated | 0:42:44 | 0:42:47 | |
in a Broadway musical, soon to transfer to the West End. | 0:42:47 | 0:42:51 | |
Hamilton, the musical! | 0:42:51 | 0:42:53 | |
# It's time to take a shot Time to take a shot | 0:42:53 | 0:42:56 | |
-# I am not throwing away my shot -Just you wait | 0:42:56 | 0:42:59 | |
-# I am not throwing away my shot -Just you wait | 0:42:59 | 0:43:01 | |
-# I am Alexander Hamilton -Hamilton | 0:43:01 | 0:43:04 | |
# Just you wait | 0:43:04 | 0:43:06 | |
# I am not throwing away my shot! # | 0:43:06 | 0:43:09 | |
So there you go - one of America's most influential Founding Fathers | 0:43:12 | 0:43:16 | |
is now a hip-hop musical. | 0:43:16 | 0:43:18 | |
Because nothing inspires wicked beats | 0:43:18 | 0:43:21 | |
like an 18th-century Federalist. | 0:43:21 | 0:43:23 | |
See if I can't find one of these all-instrumental rap stations. | 0:43:23 | 0:43:26 | |
Bet it goes something like this. | 0:43:26 | 0:43:29 | |
HEAVY BEAT | 0:43:29 | 0:43:30 | |
# Alexander Hamilton was the bomb | 0:43:30 | 0:43:33 | |
# Born in the West Indies and orphaned from his mom | 0:43:33 | 0:43:36 | |
# Where he witnessed first-hand the degradation of slavery | 0:43:36 | 0:43:40 | |
# And was promoted by George Washington for his bravery | 0:43:40 | 0:43:43 | |
# He founded the bank of the Federal Reserve, | 0:43:43 | 0:43:46 | |
# But Tho.Jeff got on his nerve | 0:43:46 | 0:43:49 | |
# Tho.Jeff, he said, the economy needs to be saved | 0:43:49 | 0:43:52 | |
# But he, Jefferson, was too busy banging his slave | 0:43:52 | 0:43:55 | |
# To listen | 0:43:55 | 0:43:57 | |
# And that is the paradox of the two-party system | 0:43:57 | 0:44:00 | |
# Because Alexander Hamilton ain't bullshit. # | 0:44:00 | 0:44:04 | |
Boo-yah! | 0:44:07 | 0:44:09 | |
I do this shot all day, man. Give me any politician, I'll rap him. | 0:44:09 | 0:44:13 | |
I'll rap a politician. | 0:44:13 | 0:44:15 | |
-'Trump!' -Trump? | 0:44:15 | 0:44:17 | |
# Donald Trump's mom was born in Stornoway | 0:44:17 | 0:44:21 | |
# At a very early age | 0:44:21 | 0:44:22 | |
# All the hair on Donald's head had worn away | 0:44:22 | 0:44:25 | |
# If you elect him president, beware | 0:44:25 | 0:44:28 | |
# How can a man control a country | 0:44:28 | 0:44:30 | |
# When he can't even control his hair? # | 0:44:30 | 0:44:35 | |
HE LAUGHS | 0:44:35 | 0:44:36 | |
So, the 1800s arrived and we get a steady succession of presidents. | 0:44:41 | 0:44:45 | |
Some forgettable, some will eventually | 0:44:45 | 0:44:47 | |
have a three-day mattress sale named after them. | 0:44:47 | 0:44:51 | |
And in 18w5, you get John Quincy Adams, the first true dud. | 0:44:51 | 0:44:56 | |
The only son of a former president | 0:44:56 | 0:44:58 | |
who ended up being a worse president than his dad. | 0:44:58 | 0:45:01 | |
That's right, John Quincy Adams purposively underperformed | 0:45:01 | 0:45:04 | |
in the White House to ensure that future sons of presidents | 0:45:04 | 0:45:07 | |
would learn from his mistake and never attempt to repeat it. | 0:45:07 | 0:45:10 | |
And how did these early POTUS-es, POTI, | 0:45:11 | 0:45:15 | |
engage with the public? | 0:45:15 | 0:45:17 | |
They didn't. Not remotely. | 0:45:17 | 0:45:20 | |
No, they stayed holed up in DC amongst their peers | 0:45:20 | 0:45:23 | |
just pontificating and extemporising and writing lots of doctrines. | 0:45:23 | 0:45:28 | |
A doctrine, by the way, is a word that the more you say it, | 0:45:28 | 0:45:31 | |
the stupider it starts to sound. | 0:45:31 | 0:45:33 | |
Smaller than a writ, but bigger than a pamphlet. | 0:45:33 | 0:45:36 | |
But none of these guys would be caught dead fraternising with | 0:45:36 | 0:45:40 | |
the average guy from Main Street, USA. Why would you? | 0:45:40 | 0:45:44 | |
Imagine how much more you can get done if you don't have to | 0:45:44 | 0:45:47 | |
deal with those pesky citizens and all their rights and demands. | 0:45:47 | 0:45:51 | |
# Come on, baby Let the good times roll... # | 0:45:51 | 0:45:54 | |
The candidate who more or less | 0:45:54 | 0:45:56 | |
invented campaigning as we know it today was Andrew Jackson. | 0:45:56 | 0:46:01 | |
He realised that to win the election of 1828, | 0:46:01 | 0:46:03 | |
he was going to have to work the crowd, | 0:46:03 | 0:46:05 | |
meet the public, kiss some babies. | 0:46:05 | 0:46:08 | |
He began to do something that no milk-tit gilded-cage candidate | 0:46:08 | 0:46:12 | |
had done before. He stumped. | 0:46:12 | 0:46:15 | |
What is stumping? Just what it implies. | 0:46:15 | 0:46:18 | |
Get yourself a stump, arm yourself | 0:46:18 | 0:46:20 | |
with a few all-encompassing phrases, | 0:46:20 | 0:46:22 | |
crowd-pleasers like, "This is the best potato salad I've ever tasted. | 0:46:22 | 0:46:26 | |
"Can I count on your vote in November?" | 0:46:26 | 0:46:29 | |
And then get to stumping. | 0:46:29 | 0:46:30 | |
Fellow Americans, | 0:46:35 | 0:46:36 | |
thank you very much for inviting me to your wonderful state | 0:46:36 | 0:46:40 | |
here in the heartland of America, but also very near the coast. | 0:46:40 | 0:46:44 | |
I realise I am probably standing on sacred Indian burial ground | 0:46:44 | 0:46:48 | |
and I will fulfil my promise to remove those bodies | 0:46:48 | 0:46:52 | |
and relocate them, so we can put an all-important manicure parlour here, | 0:46:52 | 0:46:58 | |
and that means jobs, jobs, jobs. | 0:46:58 | 0:47:03 | |
Thank you. | 0:47:03 | 0:47:04 | |
Thank you. | 0:47:07 | 0:47:08 | |
Andrew Jackson's campaign depended on the persuasive power of personality. | 0:47:12 | 0:47:17 | |
Until Jackson, politics in America was an institution. | 0:47:17 | 0:47:20 | |
He turned it into a happening, and here's why. The man was a badass. | 0:47:20 | 0:47:25 | |
How much of a badass? | 0:47:25 | 0:47:27 | |
All right, let's take all 43 presidents, | 0:47:27 | 0:47:29 | |
put them into a steel cage, | 0:47:29 | 0:47:30 | |
no-one comes out alive - battle royal. | 0:47:30 | 0:47:33 | |
You have to honour and defend the Constitution. | 0:47:33 | 0:47:35 | |
No Apache helicopters allowed. Who wins? | 0:47:35 | 0:47:38 | |
The smart money would be on ex-soldiers, | 0:47:40 | 0:47:43 | |
like Rutherford B Hayes, | 0:47:43 | 0:47:44 | |
who took five bullets, making him the 50 Cent of presidents, | 0:47:44 | 0:47:48 | |
but does that make him a tough guy | 0:47:48 | 0:47:49 | |
or just someone who survived a bad shot? | 0:47:49 | 0:47:51 | |
Eisenhower had guts - he beat the Nazis. | 0:47:53 | 0:47:56 | |
But by the White House years, those guts were inflamed | 0:47:56 | 0:47:59 | |
and falling out from gastroenteritis. | 0:47:59 | 0:48:02 | |
Put a 20 on Andrew Jackson and while you're at it, | 0:48:02 | 0:48:05 | |
put Andrew Jackson on a 20. | 0:48:05 | 0:48:07 | |
# We fired our guns and the British came a-comin'... # | 0:48:07 | 0:48:09 | |
He killed Indians. | 0:48:09 | 0:48:11 | |
He whomped the British in New Orleans, | 0:48:11 | 0:48:13 | |
kicked the Seminoles back to Florida and as a duellist, | 0:48:13 | 0:48:16 | |
once plugged a guy named Charles Dickinson. | 0:48:16 | 0:48:19 | |
By the time he decided to run for Prez, | 0:48:19 | 0:48:21 | |
his temper and passion were legendary | 0:48:21 | 0:48:23 | |
and he kicked the crap out of anybody who called his wife a ho, | 0:48:23 | 0:48:26 | |
which many people did. | 0:48:26 | 0:48:28 | |
In September of 1827, having made up his mind | 0:48:28 | 0:48:31 | |
he was going to be president, bar nothing, Jackson started | 0:48:31 | 0:48:35 | |
organising "Friends of Jackson" rallies throughout the country. | 0:48:35 | 0:48:38 | |
His supporters nicknamed him "Old Hickory". | 0:48:38 | 0:48:42 | |
They called themselves "hurrah boys", wrote songs, | 0:48:43 | 0:48:46 | |
printed pamphlets, planted hickory trees, | 0:48:46 | 0:48:48 | |
passed out hickory brooms, hickory sticks, hickory canes - | 0:48:48 | 0:48:52 | |
the man literally won an election through a concerted arboreal effort. | 0:48:52 | 0:48:56 | |
They ripped his opponent, the incumbent John Quincy Adams, to shreds. | 0:48:56 | 0:49:00 | |
The Adams camp responded by pointing out that Jackson couldn't | 0:49:00 | 0:49:04 | |
even spell the word "Europe", which sadly was true. | 0:49:04 | 0:49:08 | |
On voting day, they showed up in droves | 0:49:08 | 0:49:10 | |
and elected Jackson by sizeable margin. | 0:49:10 | 0:49:12 | |
Jackson took office in March 1829. | 0:49:14 | 0:49:18 | |
Massive crowds lined the streets of Washington to celebrate. | 0:49:18 | 0:49:21 | |
Eventually, they surged into the White House, wiped their feet on the rug, smashed the furniture, | 0:49:21 | 0:49:25 | |
cleared out the liquor cabinet, started punching each other. | 0:49:25 | 0:49:28 | |
On his first night in office, Jackson slipped out the back door, | 0:49:28 | 0:49:31 | |
went and found a room at a local inn. | 0:49:31 | 0:49:33 | |
Now that he had won the first presidential popularity contest, | 0:49:34 | 0:49:38 | |
Jackson invented a new party - | 0:49:38 | 0:49:39 | |
the Democratic Republicans, nowadays called Democrats. | 0:49:39 | 0:49:44 | |
Almost immediately after his inauguration, | 0:49:44 | 0:49:47 | |
Jackson's wife got fed up with being called every name in the book, and died. | 0:49:47 | 0:49:51 | |
So now Jackson is even angrier. | 0:49:51 | 0:49:53 | |
As soon as he's cleaned up all the broken furniture in the White House, | 0:49:53 | 0:49:56 | |
he set about trying to destroy the careers of all the people who | 0:49:56 | 0:50:00 | |
had opposed him. | 0:50:00 | 0:50:01 | |
And fighting the Federal Reserve Bank, | 0:50:01 | 0:50:05 | |
because Jackson hated paper money. | 0:50:05 | 0:50:07 | |
He was a backwoods guy, believed in gold and silver. | 0:50:07 | 0:50:10 | |
Spent eight years fighting the Federal Reserve because | 0:50:10 | 0:50:13 | |
he believed that bankers were supreme sleazeballs. | 0:50:13 | 0:50:16 | |
And then when he dies, they put his face on a 20 bill - | 0:50:16 | 0:50:20 | |
quite possibly the biggest posthumous fuck-you a president has ever received. | 0:50:20 | 0:50:25 | |
Also as a footnote, he was the first president to ever be shot at. | 0:50:25 | 0:50:29 | |
He was leaving a funeral at the age of 67, | 0:50:29 | 0:50:32 | |
and some twisted geek took two shots at him, missed both times. | 0:50:32 | 0:50:35 | |
Jackson proudly responded by beating the living snot out of him | 0:50:35 | 0:50:39 | |
with his hickory came. They don't make 'em like that any more! | 0:50:39 | 0:50:42 | |
In spite of his contrariness, or possibly because of it, | 0:50:47 | 0:50:50 | |
Jackson was assailed by the media of the time, mercilessly lampooned. | 0:50:50 | 0:50:55 | |
You lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. | 0:50:56 | 0:50:59 | |
Because he courted public acceptance, | 0:50:59 | 0:51:01 | |
he had to accept public derision. | 0:51:01 | 0:51:03 | |
Thomas Nast was the most famous of a new breed of journalists, | 0:51:08 | 0:51:14 | |
who didn't use words as much as he used pictures. | 0:51:14 | 0:51:20 | |
He was a political cartoonist with captions. | 0:51:20 | 0:51:23 | |
See, back then, a political cartoon served a purpose. | 0:51:23 | 0:51:26 | |
A lot of Americans were pig-illiterate but they could | 0:51:26 | 0:51:28 | |
look at a cartoon and glean a lot of information. | 0:51:28 | 0:51:31 | |
Nast was so skilful at lampooning that just one of his illustrations | 0:51:33 | 0:51:37 | |
could destroy a politician's career. | 0:51:37 | 0:51:39 | |
But nowadays I think we can all agree that the ability to draw | 0:51:43 | 0:51:47 | |
big ears and bulbous features on a politician | 0:51:47 | 0:51:50 | |
doesn't pack the punch it used to. | 0:51:50 | 0:51:52 | |
Astoundingly, today there are still over 200 political cartoonists in America. | 0:51:52 | 0:51:58 | |
200 people who have to wake up every day, think of the lamest premise | 0:51:58 | 0:52:03 | |
possible, sketch it, rethink it, | 0:52:03 | 0:52:06 | |
re-sketch it, colour it in, deliver it to the editor | 0:52:06 | 0:52:11 | |
so that we can look at it in the paper and do this. | 0:52:11 | 0:52:14 | |
Seriously. | 0:52:18 | 0:52:19 | |
Have you ever overheard anyone say, "Hey, | 0:52:19 | 0:52:22 | |
"did you see that political cartoon in the paper today? | 0:52:22 | 0:52:26 | |
"God, David Cameron had a head like a condom!" | 0:52:26 | 0:52:30 | |
Ha! Woo! | 0:52:30 | 0:52:31 | |
Seriously. You're a political cartoonist, do yourself a favour. | 0:52:31 | 0:52:35 | |
Go down to Leicester Square, get yourself a stall, | 0:52:35 | 0:52:37 | |
surround yourself by pictures of dead rock stars | 0:52:37 | 0:52:39 | |
like Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison and make a living hoodwinking tourists | 0:52:39 | 0:52:43 | |
by drawing their giant engorged heads onto little tiny bodies. | 0:52:43 | 0:52:48 | |
You'd be better off. | 0:52:48 | 0:52:49 | |
Hack! | 0:52:49 | 0:52:51 | |
By the middle of the 1800s, | 0:53:02 | 0:53:04 | |
Americans were finally involved in the election of their president. | 0:53:04 | 0:53:07 | |
Andrew Jackson had changed voting forever. | 0:53:07 | 0:53:10 | |
From now on, if you wanted to be president, you had to bid for the vote of the masses. | 0:53:10 | 0:53:14 | |
And that of course meant spin, spin, spin. | 0:53:14 | 0:53:17 | |
Media spin. You think that's a modern phenomenon? | 0:53:17 | 0:53:20 | |
William Henry Harrison, born into a wealthy family, | 0:53:20 | 0:53:24 | |
father was Governor of Virginia, | 0:53:24 | 0:53:26 | |
he was educated at Hampton Sydney College. | 0:53:26 | 0:53:29 | |
He was 5'8" of pure unadulterated toffee. | 0:53:29 | 0:53:33 | |
In the election of 1840, Harrison and his party, the Whigs, | 0:53:33 | 0:53:38 | |
took an offhanded comment by a Baltimore newspaper that said, | 0:53:38 | 0:53:42 | |
"Harrison looks like someone that if you..." | 0:53:42 | 0:53:45 | |
His party supporters picked up on that hard cider and log cabin reference | 0:53:52 | 0:53:55 | |
and gave it the full spin. | 0:53:55 | 0:53:57 | |
# Look at me | 0:53:57 | 0:53:58 | |
# You know what you see? | 0:53:59 | 0:54:01 | |
# You see a bad mother... # | 0:54:01 | 0:54:03 | |
All of a sudden, a guy who owned a 200 acre farm with slaves | 0:54:03 | 0:54:07 | |
was transformed into a hard drinking, big stinking backwoods philosopher. | 0:54:07 | 0:54:12 | |
The Whig party organised rallies for Harrison that could only be measured in terms of acreage. | 0:54:12 | 0:54:18 | |
The parades were 10 miles long. | 0:54:18 | 0:54:19 | |
What hickory had done for Jackson, log cabins did for Harrison. | 0:54:19 | 0:54:23 | |
Harrison won the election over Martin Van Buren, | 0:54:25 | 0:54:28 | |
and then because he had to keep up | 0:54:28 | 0:54:29 | |
this outdoorsman persona, | 0:54:29 | 0:54:31 | |
he delivered his inaugural speech in his shirt sleeves... | 0:54:31 | 0:54:34 | |
in January... | 0:54:34 | 0:54:36 | |
in the snow...for two hours. | 0:54:36 | 0:54:39 | |
And then he went off and died. | 0:54:39 | 0:54:40 | |
His greatest contribution as president was to the lexicon - | 0:54:40 | 0:54:43 | |
a distiller started selling William Henry Harrison commemorative whiskey bottles | 0:54:43 | 0:54:48 | |
in the shape of a log cabin. | 0:54:48 | 0:54:50 | |
That man's name was EC Booz. | 0:54:50 | 0:54:53 | |
And so the parade of presidents rolls on, | 0:55:00 | 0:55:03 | |
each campaign more vigorous than the one before. Newspapers come and go. | 0:55:03 | 0:55:08 | |
By the early 20th century, thanks to the airwaves, | 0:55:08 | 0:55:10 | |
everyone knows what a president sounds like. | 0:55:10 | 0:55:13 | |
'You people must have faith. | 0:55:13 | 0:55:15 | |
'You must not be stampeded by rumours or guesses. Let us unite...' | 0:55:15 | 0:55:20 | |
In Beaver, Idaho, 1927, a man named Philo Farnsworth | 0:55:20 | 0:55:24 | |
pottering around in his garage, invents something called | 0:55:24 | 0:55:28 | |
the image dissector and modern television is born. | 0:55:28 | 0:55:31 | |
Now, inevitably, thanks to television, | 0:55:31 | 0:55:33 | |
anyone running for president comes under a new kind of scrutiny | 0:55:33 | 0:55:36 | |
in living black and white. | 0:55:36 | 0:55:39 | |
In 1946, 8,000 Americans owned televisions, | 0:55:39 | 0:55:43 | |
and by 1948 that number had swollen to 350,000. | 0:55:43 | 0:55:48 | |
That was the year of the Dewey-Truman election | 0:55:48 | 0:55:50 | |
and for the first time, Americans got to see their candidates on the box. | 0:55:50 | 0:55:54 | |
So both the Democrats and the Republicans chose to hold their nominating conventions | 0:55:54 | 0:55:58 | |
on the East Coast, to take advantage of the time zone. | 0:55:58 | 0:56:02 | |
In Philadelphia, Harry Truman went to the podium to accept the | 0:56:04 | 0:56:07 | |
Democratic party nomination. | 0:56:07 | 0:56:09 | |
Now Truman was an incumbent president | 0:56:09 | 0:56:11 | |
but his victory was nowhere assured, | 0:56:11 | 0:56:13 | |
nor was it a good sign when a lot of pre-celebratory pigeons were released, | 0:56:13 | 0:56:18 | |
freaked out, started crapping on the conventioneers like something out of a Hitchcock movie. | 0:56:18 | 0:56:23 | |
In fact the Republican candidate, | 0:56:23 | 0:56:25 | |
Thomas E Dewey was so assured of stealing the presidency, | 0:56:25 | 0:56:28 | |
that his adviser told him, "Just don't say anything stupid and you're in." | 0:56:28 | 0:56:33 | |
Every poll and newscast seemed to support this. | 0:56:33 | 0:56:37 | |
'We now know that Governor Dewey will carry New York State by | 0:56:37 | 0:56:40 | |
'at least 50,000 votes and that he will be the next president | 0:56:40 | 0:56:44 | |
'of the United States!' | 0:56:44 | 0:56:45 | |
CHEERING | 0:56:45 | 0:56:47 | |
And November 2nd, 1948, Harry Truman went to bed a loser... | 0:56:47 | 0:56:52 | |
and woke up in the morning president. | 0:56:52 | 0:56:54 | |
So radio and this newfangled TV coverage managed to convince | 0:56:58 | 0:57:01 | |
many Republican voters that Dewey was a sure thing | 0:57:01 | 0:57:04 | |
so they didn't even bother to turn out and vote. | 0:57:04 | 0:57:07 | |
Truman squeaked back in by slightly more than two million votes. | 0:57:07 | 0:57:10 | |
November 3rd, 1948 marks the one and only time in history | 0:57:12 | 0:57:16 | |
that a newspaper got something wrong. | 0:57:16 | 0:57:18 | |
Television has established itself as new and vital tool in future | 0:57:21 | 0:57:24 | |
election campaigns, but it won't be long before the novelty wears off. | 0:57:24 | 0:57:28 | |
When did television campaigning get ugly? | 0:57:30 | 0:57:33 | |
Certainly not at the beginning. | 0:57:33 | 0:57:35 | |
In 1952, about the only slanderous thing that Democratic frontrunner | 0:57:35 | 0:57:39 | |
Adlai Stevenson could say against his opponent, | 0:57:39 | 0:57:42 | |
General Dwight David Eisenhower, | 0:57:42 | 0:57:45 | |
was that Eisenhower appeared to have grown to a height of 8'6". | 0:57:45 | 0:57:49 | |
General, I'd like to get married | 0:57:51 | 0:57:53 | |
but we couldn't live on the salary I get after taxes. | 0:57:53 | 0:57:56 | |
Well, the Democrats are sinking deeper into a bottomless sea of debt | 0:57:56 | 0:58:00 | |
and demanding more taxes to keep their confused heads above water. | 0:58:00 | 0:58:03 | |
Stevenson supporters fought back teeth and nail with | 0:58:03 | 0:58:06 | |
a series of devastating show tunes. | 0:58:06 | 0:58:09 | |
# I'd rather have a man who knows what to do | 0:58:09 | 0:58:12 | |
# When he gets to be the Prez | 0:58:12 | 0:58:15 | |
# I love the gov, the governor of Illinois... # | 0:58:15 | 0:58:20 | |
Unlike the governor of Illinois, Eisenhower had | 0:58:20 | 0:58:23 | |
no real political experience. | 0:58:23 | 0:58:25 | |
He was, by his own admission, a lifelong professional soldier, | 0:58:25 | 0:58:28 | |
he'd been dragged into the race on a tide of national hero worship. | 0:58:28 | 0:58:32 | |
-NEWSREEL: -He returned home and his own people took him to their hearts. | 0:58:32 | 0:58:36 | |
Stevenson was an egghead, the thinking fellow's candidate, | 0:58:37 | 0:58:41 | |
and thus hopelessly unsuited for the presidency. | 0:58:41 | 0:58:44 | |
In fact he was quoted as saying, | 0:58:44 | 0:58:45 | |
"I have no ambition to be president, | 0:58:45 | 0:58:47 | |
"I have no desire for the office, mentally, temperamentally or physically," | 0:58:47 | 0:58:52 | |
and then promised to shoot himself if he were nominated. | 0:58:52 | 0:58:55 | |
The Democrats nominated him anyway. | 0:58:55 | 0:58:57 | |
Both candidates were what you would call nice guys - who needs that? | 0:58:57 | 0:59:01 | |
Hey, if nice guys were electable, | 0:59:01 | 0:59:03 | |
Adam Hills would be a president somewhere. | 0:59:03 | 0:59:07 | |
Turns out TV wants to see the dark underbelly, | 0:59:07 | 0:59:10 | |
the savage heart, the snake in the woodpile. | 0:59:10 | 0:59:13 | |
Fortunately in 1952, such a snake reared its head. | 0:59:13 | 0:59:17 | |
My fellow Americans, I come before you tonight | 0:59:19 | 0:59:22 | |
as a candidate for the vice-presidency. | 0:59:22 | 0:59:26 | |
And as a man whose honesty and integrity has been questioned. | 0:59:26 | 0:59:32 | |
For Nixon, exposure on television was both beneficial and deceptive. | 0:59:32 | 0:59:36 | |
'We are looking for those moments where you see the real person.' | 0:59:37 | 0:59:40 | |
When you look at that person, do you trust them, | 0:59:40 | 0:59:42 | |
do you feel like they keep it real or do you feel like, | 0:59:42 | 0:59:46 | |
"Hmm? I don't really know what this person believes." | 0:59:46 | 0:59:49 | |
Just because you tell us you think something or you feel something, | 0:59:49 | 0:59:53 | |
are we inspired by you, do we know what you believe? | 0:59:53 | 0:59:56 | |
I want to say this to the television audience. | 0:59:56 | 0:59:58 | |
I've made my mistakes, but in all of my years of public life... | 0:59:58 | 1:00:02 | |
Nixon verbally had lots of what we call deceptive hotspots in my world, | 1:00:02 | 1:00:06 | |
but then he had the body language hotspots. | 1:00:06 | 1:00:08 | |
You see Nixon holding on to the lectern. | 1:00:08 | 1:00:12 | |
We tell people what we are, not what we're not. | 1:00:12 | 1:00:15 | |
Nixon said, "I am not a crook." | 1:00:15 | 1:00:17 | |
..people have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. | 1:00:17 | 1:00:21 | |
Well, I'm not a crook. | 1:00:21 | 1:00:22 | |
And he's, like, "And I welcome these questions." | 1:00:22 | 1:00:26 | |
And he steps back from the podium and crosses his arms. | 1:00:26 | 1:00:30 | |
And he is, like, robotic. | 1:00:30 | 1:00:32 | |
I've earned everything I've got. | 1:00:32 | 1:00:34 | |
We lean towards people and things and ideas that we like. | 1:00:37 | 1:00:41 | |
And we lean away from people and ideas and confrontation that we don't like. | 1:00:41 | 1:00:45 | |
I've earned everything I've got. | 1:00:45 | 1:00:48 | |
You feel it. You're like, "This guy's fake, | 1:00:52 | 1:00:54 | |
"he's phoney, he's lying about something." | 1:00:54 | 1:00:56 | |
But can't you also just see they're coached? | 1:00:56 | 1:00:59 | |
Yeah, of course, Hillary Clinton comes out like this, | 1:00:59 | 1:01:01 | |
like she's the Christ, we call this the Christ pose, | 1:01:01 | 1:01:04 | |
like she's on the cross. | 1:01:04 | 1:01:05 | |
And then she does the A-OK at the end of her hands, | 1:01:05 | 1:01:08 | |
so she stands out, she's like, "Hello, everybody," | 1:01:08 | 1:01:10 | |
like, "I'm your saviour, I'm here to save you." | 1:01:10 | 1:01:13 | |
If you want a president who will listen to you, | 1:01:13 | 1:01:18 | |
work HER heart out, to make your life better... | 1:01:18 | 1:01:21 | |
CHEERING | 1:01:21 | 1:01:24 | |
..and together, to build a stronger, fairer, better country... | 1:01:27 | 1:01:31 | |
Al Gore, one time, he was debating against George W Bush, | 1:01:31 | 1:01:36 | |
they were both seen as presidential, | 1:01:36 | 1:01:38 | |
both seen as likeable going into the debate. What happened, | 1:01:38 | 1:01:41 | |
Al Gore speaks, it's George W's turn, he speaks, | 1:01:41 | 1:01:44 | |
Al Gore stands up, walks over to George W. | 1:01:44 | 1:01:47 | |
It's not only what's your philosophy and your position on issues, | 1:01:47 | 1:01:51 | |
but can you get things done? | 1:01:51 | 1:01:53 | |
And, like, stands over him. | 1:01:53 | 1:01:55 | |
It was so disrespectful, like, intimidating him. | 1:01:55 | 1:01:58 | |
And George Bush looks over at Gore, like, "How are you doing?" | 1:01:58 | 1:02:01 | |
But can you get things done? | 1:02:01 | 1:02:03 | |
LAUGHTER | 1:02:04 | 1:02:05 | |
And I believe I can. | 1:02:05 | 1:02:07 | |
It made George Bush look likeable, even more likeable, | 1:02:08 | 1:02:12 | |
in control, and not going to be pushed around easily. | 1:02:12 | 1:02:15 | |
So we have an incredible country. | 1:02:15 | 1:02:17 | |
For people like me, Donald Trump being in the race is fun. | 1:02:17 | 1:02:21 | |
Because he's showing up real. | 1:02:21 | 1:02:23 | |
We don't have victories any more. | 1:02:23 | 1:02:25 | |
You feel like the guy that stands up on that stand is the same guy | 1:02:25 | 1:02:29 | |
that's going to talk to you at dinner. | 1:02:29 | 1:02:31 | |
And if he thinks you're an asshole, he's going to say - "Dude." | 1:02:31 | 1:02:34 | |
And that all you got to go on? | 1:02:34 | 1:02:36 | |
That's it. | 1:02:36 | 1:02:37 | |
# Sometimes I'm right and I can be wrong | 1:02:41 | 1:02:45 | |
# My own beliefs are in my song... # | 1:02:45 | 1:02:49 | |
Nowadays, candidates live in a world somewhere between | 1:02:49 | 1:02:53 | |
character assessment and character assassination. | 1:02:53 | 1:02:56 | |
JFK was likeable, Nixon was shifty, so JFK won. | 1:02:56 | 1:03:00 | |
People look at you on TV, they make up their mind in a heartbeat | 1:03:00 | 1:03:03 | |
deciding if you have that likeability factor. | 1:03:03 | 1:03:06 | |
And by likeability, I mean, is there remotely anything | 1:03:06 | 1:03:09 | |
about these wazoos that you the voters can relate to? | 1:03:09 | 1:03:11 | |
So for a long while, telegenics, TVQ, as they like to call it, | 1:03:13 | 1:03:17 | |
went a long way in determining who would be the next president because | 1:03:17 | 1:03:21 | |
viewers could look at a candidate's debating skills, his speeches, | 1:03:21 | 1:03:25 | |
his actions, and determine for themselves who was the most | 1:03:25 | 1:03:28 | |
decisive, who was the most presidential. | 1:03:28 | 1:03:31 | |
And the single most important factor in choosing a president, | 1:03:31 | 1:03:35 | |
who is the guy you would most like to sit down and have a beer with? | 1:03:35 | 1:03:39 | |
It's the most difficult personal hurdle | 1:03:39 | 1:03:42 | |
that a POTUS contender can overcome. | 1:03:42 | 1:03:44 | |
So who is the guy you would most want to have a beer with? | 1:03:44 | 1:03:47 | |
OK, forget any of the Mount Rushmore guys, | 1:03:47 | 1:03:50 | |
cos that's like drinking with a celebrity, right? | 1:03:50 | 1:03:52 | |
You just want to get a selfie taken. | 1:03:52 | 1:03:54 | |
CUSTOMERS SHOUT | 1:03:54 | 1:03:56 | |
Andrew Jackson, mean drunk, Bill Clinton, sure, | 1:03:56 | 1:03:59 | |
if you don't mind being a wingman | 1:03:59 | 1:04:01 | |
while he sneaks off with some waitress to take care of business in the back of a Camaro. | 1:04:01 | 1:04:05 | |
Nope. The guy you want to drink with is Harding. Warren Gamaliel Harding. | 1:04:05 | 1:04:11 | |
Harding would have been the perfect drinking buddy. | 1:04:15 | 1:04:17 | |
He played baseball and golf, played poker like a maniac - | 1:04:17 | 1:04:20 | |
once won an entire newspaper company in a card game. | 1:04:20 | 1:04:23 | |
Even when he was president, kept flitting back off to Ohio to | 1:04:23 | 1:04:26 | |
sit on the porch and polish off cocktails with his small-town pals. | 1:04:26 | 1:04:30 | |
And this was during Prohibition. | 1:04:30 | 1:04:32 | |
Boy, did the man have stories. | 1:04:36 | 1:04:38 | |
And I don't mean, "I'm kind of a big deal in the White House" stories. | 1:04:38 | 1:04:41 | |
I'm talking about STORIES. | 1:04:41 | 1:04:43 | |
You know, multiple terms in the Oval Office, if you get my drift. | 1:04:43 | 1:04:47 | |
Warren G Harding, affectionately known as Warren G Hard-on, | 1:04:47 | 1:04:51 | |
made Bill Clinton look like the guy at the prom with acne. | 1:04:51 | 1:04:54 | |
Slept with his wife's best friend, slept with his best friend's wife, | 1:04:54 | 1:04:58 | |
his own wife, Flo - Flo... | 1:04:58 | 1:05:01 | |
was some kind of hectoring ballbuster | 1:05:01 | 1:05:04 | |
who travelled with her coterie of acolytes, | 1:05:04 | 1:05:08 | |
and advisers and once tried to put a seance chair | 1:05:08 | 1:05:12 | |
in the White House living room. | 1:05:12 | 1:05:14 | |
Isn't that the best kind of drinking buddy - | 1:05:14 | 1:05:16 | |
the guy and his personal stories are so horrific that they make | 1:05:16 | 1:05:19 | |
you feel better about your own pathetic life? Damn right it is. | 1:05:19 | 1:05:22 | |
Warren G Harding is your man. | 1:05:22 | 1:05:25 | |
So let's go order up a couple more pitchers of beer and plates of ribs | 1:05:25 | 1:05:29 | |
and check out the rack on that waitress. | 1:05:29 | 1:05:31 | |
# I'm a man, yes, I am and I can't help but love you so | 1:05:31 | 1:05:37 | |
# No, no, no | 1:05:37 | 1:05:39 | |
# But I'm a man, yes, I am and I can't help but love you so | 1:05:39 | 1:05:44 | |
# Yes, I am | 1:05:44 | 1:05:46 | |
# No, no, no, be it so, baby? # | 1:05:46 | 1:05:48 | |
Back to the question. At what point did modern campaigning get ugly? | 1:05:48 | 1:05:52 | |
I mean, really, really ugly? | 1:05:52 | 1:05:54 | |
1972. | 1:05:54 | 1:05:56 | |
The sitting president, Richard Nixon, | 1:05:56 | 1:05:58 | |
set out to destroy the Democratic primary by pitting its four | 1:05:58 | 1:06:02 | |
main candidates - Hubert Humphrey, George McGovern, | 1:06:02 | 1:06:06 | |
Scoop Jackson and Edmund Muskie, against each other. | 1:06:06 | 1:06:10 | |
Cut-throat. | 1:06:10 | 1:06:11 | |
-# Whoo! -Who can take a sunrise? -Who can take a sunrise? # | 1:06:12 | 1:06:18 | |
Nixon had already spent four years in the White House doing | 1:06:18 | 1:06:21 | |
a perfunctory job of running things. | 1:06:21 | 1:06:23 | |
No-one could quite get a beat on his character. He just seemed shady. | 1:06:23 | 1:06:27 | |
They didn't nickname him "Tricky Dick" for nothing. | 1:06:27 | 1:06:30 | |
Of course, while Nixon was respected by Americans for being strong | 1:06:30 | 1:06:34 | |
and tough, nobody really loved him. And he was not exactly | 1:06:34 | 1:06:38 | |
a warm figure that gave off sort of popular vibes. | 1:06:38 | 1:06:42 | |
So Nixon had to worry about his re-election. | 1:06:42 | 1:06:45 | |
Just remember, we cannot fulfil the American dream unless each | 1:06:45 | 1:06:50 | |
American has a chance to fulfil his own dream. | 1:06:50 | 1:06:52 | |
That's what we believe in. | 1:06:52 | 1:06:54 | |
Nixon was leaving nothing to chance. | 1:06:54 | 1:06:57 | |
So first of all, he infiltrated the Democratic primaries, | 1:06:57 | 1:07:00 | |
so he would get the opponent he knew he could destroy. | 1:07:00 | 1:07:03 | |
They were doing all kinds of sabotaging events, | 1:07:03 | 1:07:07 | |
giving false information, trying in every way to weaken the | 1:07:07 | 1:07:11 | |
candidates that Nixon most feared as potential opponents. | 1:07:11 | 1:07:15 | |
Donald Segretti, one of Nixon's campaign workers, | 1:07:15 | 1:07:18 | |
wrote a letter on stationery belonging to Democratic nominee | 1:07:18 | 1:07:21 | |
Edmund Muskie - the letter was meant to cause chaos, | 1:07:21 | 1:07:24 | |
accusing Humphrey and Scoop Jackson of sexual and alcoholic misconduct. | 1:07:24 | 1:07:30 | |
Some years later, Segretti would eventually admit they were lies. | 1:07:30 | 1:07:34 | |
Each and every allegation in the letter was untrue | 1:07:34 | 1:07:37 | |
and without any basis in fact. | 1:07:37 | 1:07:40 | |
It was not my desire to have anyone believe the letter, but instead, | 1:07:41 | 1:07:47 | |
it was intended to create confusion among the various candidates. | 1:07:47 | 1:07:51 | |
But in 1972, Nixon's plan had worked. | 1:07:51 | 1:07:53 | |
The Democrats basically started cannibalising each other | 1:07:53 | 1:07:57 | |
and McGovern moved to the forefront of Democratic contenders. | 1:07:57 | 1:08:00 | |
He wanted to run against George McGovern, he thought George McGovern was the most vulnerable | 1:08:00 | 1:08:05 | |
potential opponent, the person he could most easily defeat. | 1:08:05 | 1:08:09 | |
-NEWSREEL: -Seldom in American history have presidential candidates held | 1:08:09 | 1:08:12 | |
such sharply opposing views on major issues. | 1:08:12 | 1:08:16 | |
McGovern wants to end the Vietnam War immediately. | 1:08:16 | 1:08:19 | |
Nixon's re-election committee had more money than they knew | 1:08:19 | 1:08:23 | |
what to do with, and used it to paint McGovern as a fuzzy socialist. | 1:08:23 | 1:08:27 | |
FACTORY WHISTLE BLOWS | 1:08:27 | 1:08:28 | |
Senator George McGovern recently submitted a welfare bill | 1:08:29 | 1:08:33 | |
to the Congress. | 1:08:33 | 1:08:34 | |
According to an analysis by the Senate finance committee, | 1:08:34 | 1:08:37 | |
the McGovern bill would make 47% of the people in the | 1:08:37 | 1:08:41 | |
United States eligible for welfare. | 1:08:41 | 1:08:43 | |
Nixon had a systematic campaign to relentlessly tag McGovern as | 1:08:43 | 1:08:49 | |
a radical and an extremist. | 1:08:49 | 1:08:50 | |
Tying McGovern to the Yippies - Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin - | 1:08:50 | 1:08:54 | |
even one anonymous piece trying to connect him to Charles Manson. | 1:08:54 | 1:09:00 | |
And who's going to pay for this? | 1:09:00 | 1:09:02 | |
Well, if you're not the one out of two people on welfare - you do. | 1:09:02 | 1:09:06 | |
The McGovern camp responded by pointing out | 1:09:07 | 1:09:10 | |
a tiny infraction by the Nixon campaign organisation, that | 1:09:10 | 1:09:14 | |
they had broken into the Democratic campaign headquarters at Watergate. | 1:09:14 | 1:09:18 | |
This is about credibility. This is about electronics. | 1:09:18 | 1:09:22 | |
This is about bugging. This is about spying. | 1:09:22 | 1:09:26 | |
Nixon stressed that McGovern would wreck the military. | 1:09:26 | 1:09:30 | |
The McGovern defence plan. He would cut the Marines by one third... | 1:09:32 | 1:09:37 | |
..the Air Force by one third. | 1:09:39 | 1:09:40 | |
Meanwhile, McGovern could not emphasise enough... | 1:09:40 | 1:09:43 | |
This is about deception. This is about the White House. | 1:09:43 | 1:09:47 | |
And this is how you stop it. | 1:09:49 | 1:09:52 | |
With your vote. | 1:09:52 | 1:09:53 | |
Watergate. Watergate. | 1:09:53 | 1:09:56 | |
No, no, I'm still here. | 1:09:56 | 1:09:59 | |
I'm still here, the director has forced me | 1:09:59 | 1:10:02 | |
into this lead pipe obvious joke, | 1:10:02 | 1:10:05 | |
that some people broke into Watergate in 1972. | 1:10:05 | 1:10:09 | |
Watergate, break-in. Hey, everybody... | 1:10:09 | 1:10:13 | |
# Who can take a rainbow... # | 1:10:13 | 1:10:15 | |
Despite McGovern's efforts, Nixon was still the favourite for the election. | 1:10:15 | 1:10:19 | |
He shifted his presidency into turbo-drive - he visited China. | 1:10:19 | 1:10:23 | |
He made deals with Russia. | 1:10:23 | 1:10:25 | |
He got tougher on Vietnam while at the same time brokering | 1:10:25 | 1:10:28 | |
a peace resolution, all within a few months, | 1:10:28 | 1:10:31 | |
which just goes to show you how much a president can get done when | 1:10:31 | 1:10:33 | |
someone is gunning for his job. | 1:10:33 | 1:10:36 | |
He was a strategist, he was relentless in his thinking, | 1:10:36 | 1:10:39 | |
even as he was immoral in his tactics. | 1:10:39 | 1:10:43 | |
# The candyman can | 1:10:43 | 1:10:44 | |
# The candyman can | 1:10:44 | 1:10:45 | |
# The candyman can... # | 1:10:45 | 1:10:46 | |
He even manipulated the economy, juggling stats and figures to | 1:10:46 | 1:10:50 | |
make everything in America look peachy keen, | 1:10:50 | 1:10:53 | |
all so he could sail into the Oval Office | 1:10:53 | 1:10:56 | |
on a victorious cumulonimbus cloud made entirely of ticker tape. | 1:10:56 | 1:11:01 | |
Sorry, that last description really got out of hand. | 1:11:01 | 1:11:03 | |
It's hard to believe in this modern age of what they call transparency, | 1:11:08 | 1:11:11 | |
that voters would choose to ignore the fact that a sitting president | 1:11:11 | 1:11:15 | |
had orchestrated a burglary of his opponents' campaign headquarters, but they did! | 1:11:15 | 1:11:18 | |
And they sat back and watched McGovern slowly defeat himself. | 1:11:18 | 1:11:22 | |
He chose as his running mate Thomas Eagleton, a senator from Missouri. | 1:11:22 | 1:11:27 | |
Somehow, revelations hit the newspaper about Thomas Eagleton. | 1:11:29 | 1:11:33 | |
It was reported that he had undergone electro-shock therapy for clinical depression. | 1:11:33 | 1:11:37 | |
And questions began to arise about his ability to function as | 1:11:37 | 1:11:40 | |
McGovern's second-in-command. | 1:11:40 | 1:11:42 | |
Well, McGovern said he was 1,000% behind Eagleton and then | 1:11:42 | 1:11:45 | |
two days later, shoved him out the door. | 1:11:45 | 1:11:48 | |
Yep, replaced him with R Sargent Shriver. | 1:11:48 | 1:11:51 | |
McGovern had made the biggest mistake a politician can make, | 1:11:51 | 1:11:54 | |
which is to stab your buddy in the back. | 1:11:54 | 1:11:56 | |
Apparently that's a lot worse than breaking into Watergate. | 1:11:56 | 1:12:00 | |
Nixon won by a landslide | 1:12:00 | 1:12:02 | |
and then America watched the whole thing unravel. | 1:12:02 | 1:12:05 | |
By the time Nixon resigned in August 1974, | 1:12:05 | 1:12:08 | |
the man who had once been affable old Ike's running mate | 1:12:08 | 1:12:12 | |
was the most hated politician in the history of history. | 1:12:12 | 1:12:16 | |
# He thought he was the King of America... # | 1:12:18 | 1:12:23 | |
Nixon spent two more years in office, and was forced to resign. | 1:12:23 | 1:12:26 | |
The only POTUS to do so, although it was touch and go at one point for | 1:12:26 | 1:12:30 | |
Bill Clinton. | 1:12:30 | 1:12:32 | |
One of the last conversations I had with President Eisenhower, | 1:12:32 | 1:12:36 | |
as a matter of fact the last conversation I had with him | 1:12:36 | 1:12:39 | |
before I was inaugurated, | 1:12:39 | 1:12:41 | |
he called me on the phone, he said he wanted to wish me well. | 1:12:41 | 1:12:46 | |
And then he went on to say, and his voice broke a bit when he said it, | 1:12:46 | 1:12:49 | |
he said, "You know, I have only one regret on this great day. | 1:12:49 | 1:12:54 | |
"This is the last time I can ever call you Dick." | 1:12:54 | 1:12:57 | |
So the 1972 elections are full of almost Shakespearean intrigue | 1:13:12 | 1:13:17 | |
and deception and anger and chaos and yet apparently, | 1:13:17 | 1:13:20 | |
so uneventful that Hunter S Thompson feels the need to make up stuff | 1:13:20 | 1:13:24 | |
about ibogaine and Brazilian witch doctors. Why? | 1:13:24 | 1:13:28 | |
Because Americans know it's hype. | 1:13:29 | 1:13:32 | |
It's all one big dog and pony extravaganza. | 1:13:32 | 1:13:37 | |
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Senator Marco Rubio... | 1:13:37 | 1:13:41 | |
They watch the spectacle of men fighting savagely for a party nomination, | 1:13:41 | 1:13:45 | |
calling each other whores and traitors and slimeballs, | 1:13:45 | 1:13:48 | |
right up until the convention. | 1:13:48 | 1:13:51 | |
An air of expectancy hangs over the Cow Palace as the time for the chief business of the convention, | 1:13:51 | 1:13:55 | |
the nominations, approaches. | 1:13:55 | 1:13:57 | |
But then, once the guy's nominated, they all come together in | 1:13:57 | 1:14:00 | |
a miraculous mutual orgasm of party unity. | 1:14:00 | 1:14:04 | |
Come on, let's let bygones be bygones and join together and | 1:14:04 | 1:14:07 | |
put the old stomp and whips on the opposing candidate. | 1:14:07 | 1:14:11 | |
And then the real race begins. | 1:14:11 | 1:14:13 | |
It'll be won by the team with the best organisation and the most money. | 1:14:13 | 1:14:17 | |
You gather as many earnest, | 1:14:17 | 1:14:19 | |
unjaded foot soldiers as you possibly can, you canvass | 1:14:19 | 1:14:23 | |
every state by foot and by phone, and you work it just like Santa Claus. | 1:14:23 | 1:14:28 | |
The only problem is, Santa Claus doesn't exist. | 1:14:28 | 1:14:33 | |
And neither does true democracy. | 1:14:33 | 1:14:35 | |
Because we don't elect the president, | 1:14:35 | 1:14:37 | |
just in case you didn't know it. | 1:14:37 | 1:14:38 | |
Nope, we go to the polls and we write down on | 1:14:38 | 1:14:41 | |
a piece of paper who we would LIKE to see president. | 1:14:41 | 1:14:44 | |
So quite simply, we the people don't directly vote for the president. | 1:14:49 | 1:14:53 | |
We cast our vote for our state's electors, who are pledged to | 1:14:53 | 1:14:56 | |
one or other presidential electorate, | 1:14:56 | 1:14:59 | |
and this system is called the electoral college. | 1:14:59 | 1:15:01 | |
Look, we all know why we had an electoral college in the original | 1:15:03 | 1:15:07 | |
Constitution, it was because the folks who drafted the Constitution | 1:15:07 | 1:15:10 | |
didn't trust average folks to elect the president. | 1:15:10 | 1:15:13 | |
They wanted them to vote for people like them, | 1:15:13 | 1:15:16 | |
who THEN would elect the president. | 1:15:16 | 1:15:17 | |
Well, that was...in 1787. | 1:15:17 | 1:15:22 | |
Yeah, it's a flawed system, | 1:15:22 | 1:15:23 | |
and it allowed George W Bush to get elected when he beat Al Gore. | 1:15:23 | 1:15:27 | |
It's absolutely...dumb. | 1:15:30 | 1:15:32 | |
And we ended up with a situation in which one guy won the popular vote | 1:15:32 | 1:15:36 | |
and the other guy became president. | 1:15:36 | 1:15:38 | |
And in my opinion, it was a disaster. | 1:15:38 | 1:15:41 | |
Yep, the best man doesn't always win. | 1:15:41 | 1:15:43 | |
Let's imagine for a second an alternative historical scenario. | 1:15:51 | 1:15:55 | |
What if Al Gore had become president? | 1:15:55 | 1:15:57 | |
How would the world be different? | 1:15:57 | 1:15:58 | |
Sorry, can't come up with anything. | 1:16:00 | 1:16:02 | |
Nothing would have changed - his most notable achievement | 1:16:02 | 1:16:04 | |
would be just making it into this documentary to fill up some space, | 1:16:04 | 1:16:08 | |
same as his presidency. | 1:16:08 | 1:16:09 | |
Yeah, he might have lowered global temperatures by half a degree | 1:16:09 | 1:16:12 | |
but let's face it, the Kardashians would still be | 1:16:12 | 1:16:14 | |
showing way too much skin - nothing changes. | 1:16:14 | 1:16:17 | |
So now, you've made it to the White House, congratulations, | 1:16:27 | 1:16:30 | |
Mr Big Face. You're the leader of the free world. | 1:16:30 | 1:16:33 | |
But have you bothered to read the job description? | 1:16:33 | 1:16:36 | |
What do we expect of a president? | 1:16:36 | 1:16:38 | |
Well, obviously and unbelievably - everything. | 1:16:38 | 1:16:42 | |
After all, he's the most powerful man on earth, right? Yeah, on paper. | 1:16:42 | 1:16:46 | |
But when a president gets into office, | 1:16:46 | 1:16:48 | |
he has to spend a lot of time just trying to acquire power. | 1:16:48 | 1:16:52 | |
I'll give you a hypothetical example. | 1:16:52 | 1:16:55 | |
As president, I will ban all Muslims. | 1:16:55 | 1:17:00 | |
Can he do that? Does he have the authority? | 1:17:00 | 1:17:02 | |
Yeah, well, sort of. | 1:17:02 | 1:17:05 | |
He could invoke section 8 of the US code which says... | 1:17:05 | 1:17:09 | |
..tell your story walking. | 1:17:13 | 1:17:15 | |
But then he would have to get the majority of Congress to agree with him, and then they | 1:17:15 | 1:17:18 | |
would be challenged by the Supreme Court, who would probably override | 1:17:18 | 1:17:21 | |
the whole thing as incredibly, incredibly unconstitutional. | 1:17:21 | 1:17:25 | |
So it's likely that the ban would be imposed, stalled, rescinded, | 1:17:27 | 1:17:32 | |
reimposed, stalled, re-rescinded, | 1:17:32 | 1:17:34 | |
leaving a lot of angry Muslims stranded at the airport. | 1:17:34 | 1:17:38 | |
And that would be one busy multi-faith prayer room. | 1:17:38 | 1:17:42 | |
What's your point, Rich, other than trying to open | 1:17:42 | 1:17:44 | |
a floodgate of angry letters from the BBC? | 1:17:44 | 1:17:46 | |
My point is that a president has to fight for every decision. Boom. | 1:17:46 | 1:17:52 | |
No knockout, 12 brutal rounds, against federal judges, | 1:17:52 | 1:17:56 | |
and congressmen, the Supreme Court, the opposing party, | 1:17:56 | 1:18:00 | |
people within his own party, it's a constant, unending grind. | 1:18:00 | 1:18:04 | |
# Fight the power | 1:18:04 | 1:18:05 | |
# Fight the power | 1:18:07 | 1:18:08 | |
# Fight the power... # | 1:18:08 | 1:18:10 | |
The perception is that the president is the most powerful man in the world. | 1:18:10 | 1:18:13 | |
Yeah, he stands atop our government | 1:18:13 | 1:18:16 | |
and he exercises power in a way that no other | 1:18:16 | 1:18:17 | |
political actor in the US does, | 1:18:17 | 1:18:19 | |
on the one hand, | 1:18:19 | 1:18:20 | |
but on the other hand, | 1:18:20 | 1:18:22 | |
he operates in a system that is stacked against him and so he | 1:18:22 | 1:18:25 | |
stumbles, and scratches and claws for power wherever he can find it. | 1:18:25 | 1:18:31 | |
Take for instance Obama's repeated efforts on gun control. | 1:18:31 | 1:18:35 | |
In the aftermath of Sandy Hook, | 1:18:35 | 1:18:36 | |
he comes out, puts together a commission led by his vice president | 1:18:36 | 1:18:40 | |
that's going to propose all kinds of legislative enactments | 1:18:40 | 1:18:43 | |
and he hits a wall in Congress, doesn't get anywhere. | 1:18:43 | 1:18:46 | |
He's the president of the United States and he's grasping for | 1:18:46 | 1:18:50 | |
whatever he can find in order to make advancements. | 1:18:50 | 1:18:53 | |
So a savvy president doesn't wade into a mass confrontation | 1:18:53 | 1:18:57 | |
against judges and congressmen, and opposing linebackers. | 1:18:57 | 1:19:00 | |
He does an end run. | 1:19:00 | 1:19:02 | |
There are a lot of unilateral powers that presidents have claimed, | 1:19:04 | 1:19:08 | |
they've invented, adapted to suit their needs, executive orders, | 1:19:08 | 1:19:11 | |
national security directives, memoranda... | 1:19:11 | 1:19:13 | |
A security directive is the president's ultimate secret weapon | 1:19:13 | 1:19:16 | |
it's like a double barrelled shotgun, | 1:19:16 | 1:19:19 | |
but one of the barrels is always bent and aimed at their own foot. | 1:19:19 | 1:19:22 | |
He uses it when he has to make a decision that he thinks is | 1:19:23 | 1:19:26 | |
right for the moment but probably won't look that good in retrospect. | 1:19:26 | 1:19:30 | |
He will use it if it's a time of crisis or if he wants to | 1:19:30 | 1:19:33 | |
create a crisis. | 1:19:33 | 1:19:34 | |
Congress never finds out about security directives until | 1:19:37 | 1:19:40 | |
it's too late to do anything about it. | 1:19:40 | 1:19:42 | |
And they're not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. | 1:19:42 | 1:19:45 | |
So Americans have no idea how many security directives are | 1:19:45 | 1:19:48 | |
floating around out there - but one thing is for certain, every | 1:19:48 | 1:19:52 | |
president since Truman, who more or less invented it, has used them. | 1:19:52 | 1:19:56 | |
Truman called them NDSs - National Security Directives - | 1:19:57 | 1:20:02 | |
and he issued one that basically said if Japan ever pulls that | 1:20:02 | 1:20:05 | |
Pearl Harbor shit again, this time, | 1:20:05 | 1:20:07 | |
we don't screw around for two years, we annihilate them right away. | 1:20:07 | 1:20:10 | |
Naturally, when Congress caught wind of this, they said, "Hey, | 1:20:10 | 1:20:13 | |
"hey, Harry, you can't just go around willy-nilly threatening | 1:20:13 | 1:20:16 | |
"nations with a hydrogen bomb. Enough with the NSDs." | 1:20:16 | 1:20:20 | |
So, since then, presidents just keep changing the initials | 1:20:20 | 1:20:22 | |
of a security directive | 1:20:22 | 1:20:24 | |
and redefining them for their own purposes. | 1:20:24 | 1:20:26 | |
ROCK MUSIC | 1:20:26 | 1:20:28 | |
When Eisenhower became President and wanted to force an embargo | 1:20:28 | 1:20:31 | |
against trade with the USSR, he just changed the name from NSD to NSCP... | 1:20:31 | 1:20:37 | |
..and adapted it to his needs. | 1:20:39 | 1:20:42 | |
JFK used one to invade the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. | 1:20:42 | 1:20:45 | |
He renamed it an NSAM... | 1:20:45 | 1:20:47 | |
Reagan changed the NSAM to NSDD, | 1:20:51 | 1:20:55 | |
which I believe means... | 1:20:55 | 1:20:56 | |
..and promptly sold arms to Iran, then funnelled the money | 1:20:59 | 1:21:01 | |
to Contras in Nicaragua. | 1:21:01 | 1:21:03 | |
And George Bush changed the NSDD to NSPD... | 1:21:04 | 1:21:07 | |
He didn't know what it meant - he can't spell. | 1:21:12 | 1:21:14 | |
So, basically, whenever a president wants to do something | 1:21:17 | 1:21:20 | |
he is pretty sure is a little bit ropey, | 1:21:20 | 1:21:22 | |
he just shuffles some letters and hopes he doesn't get caught. | 1:21:22 | 1:21:25 | |
Cos that's what presidents do - | 1:21:25 | 1:21:27 | |
a lot of sneaking around behind Congress' back. | 1:21:27 | 1:21:30 | |
The odds are stacked against him, | 1:21:30 | 1:21:32 | |
they don't have the power they need, which is precisely why | 1:21:32 | 1:21:34 | |
they scratch and claw at every turn to get what power they can | 1:21:34 | 1:21:37 | |
in order to make a lasting mark. | 1:21:37 | 1:21:39 | |
And those who do or those who leave a legacy are worth remembering. | 1:21:39 | 1:21:44 | |
Nobody wants to be remembered as a crap president. | 1:21:56 | 1:21:59 | |
How do you know you were a crap president? Very simple. | 1:21:59 | 1:22:02 | |
After you're dead, | 1:22:02 | 1:22:03 | |
just look around and see how much stuff is named after you. | 1:22:03 | 1:22:06 | |
If all it is is a library and an elementary school | 1:22:06 | 1:22:09 | |
in a rundown neighbourhood, yeah, you were a pretty crappy president. | 1:22:09 | 1:22:13 | |
The good thing about bad presidents - | 1:22:13 | 1:22:15 | |
they save Americans money. | 1:22:15 | 1:22:17 | |
George Washington - father of our country. | 1:22:19 | 1:22:22 | |
Thomas Jefferson - author of the Declaration of Independence. | 1:22:22 | 1:22:26 | |
Abraham Lincoln - the Emancipation Proclamation. | 1:22:26 | 1:22:30 | |
Without a doubt, these men and more served their country gloriously. | 1:22:30 | 1:22:34 | |
They'll be forever in our hearts, but isn't that enough? | 1:22:34 | 1:22:38 | |
You know how much of Americans' hard-earned money goes | 1:22:38 | 1:22:40 | |
to maintaining these granite monstrosities year after year? | 1:22:40 | 1:22:44 | |
Hundreds of millions, that's how much. | 1:22:44 | 1:22:46 | |
Jesus, do we have to prop up their rampant dead egos forever? | 1:22:46 | 1:22:51 | |
Why can't a candidate just say, "Look, elect me, I will serve | 1:22:51 | 1:22:54 | |
"faithfully for four years, eight years tops and then when I'm dead, | 1:22:54 | 1:22:58 | |
"I will have myself buried in an unmarked grave underneath | 1:22:58 | 1:23:01 | |
"a random overpass somewhere. | 1:23:01 | 1:23:03 | |
"I will never cost you another dime"? | 1:23:03 | 1:23:05 | |
I'd vote for that person. | 1:23:07 | 1:23:08 | |
Hi, my name's Vermin Supreme. | 1:23:14 | 1:23:16 | |
I'm running for president of America. | 1:23:16 | 1:23:17 | |
I have a four-platform plank. | 1:23:17 | 1:23:20 | |
Plank number one - time travel research. | 1:23:20 | 1:23:22 | |
I'm the only candidate who will go back in time and kill baby Hitler | 1:23:22 | 1:23:26 | |
with my own bare hands. | 1:23:26 | 1:23:28 | |
Ultimately, you go down in presidential history as good or bad. | 1:23:31 | 1:23:35 | |
So, what makes a good president? | 1:23:35 | 1:23:37 | |
A good president is one who is not ideological but who is pragmatic. | 1:23:39 | 1:23:45 | |
I think in the last 20 years, in this country, | 1:23:45 | 1:23:48 | |
we've had a pragmatist in the White House and his wife | 1:23:48 | 1:23:51 | |
might be the next pragmatist in the White House. | 1:23:51 | 1:23:55 | |
Any leader throughout history has to be larger than life. | 1:23:55 | 1:23:57 | |
The presidents who were larger than life but who had within them | 1:23:57 | 1:24:01 | |
caring and concern were probably the best presidents, | 1:24:01 | 1:24:04 | |
like FDR, like Abraham Lincoln. | 1:24:04 | 1:24:07 | |
The great presidents generally governed in times of crisis, | 1:24:07 | 1:24:12 | |
which made their actions, their role, | 1:24:12 | 1:24:15 | |
their presidency more important in many ways. | 1:24:15 | 1:24:19 | |
So, Franklin Delano Roosevelt - a great president? | 1:24:19 | 1:24:22 | |
Yes, a great president, no question about it. | 1:24:22 | 1:24:25 | |
There have been great presidents but let's face it, | 1:24:25 | 1:24:27 | |
America's history is also littered with intelligent, talented, | 1:24:27 | 1:24:30 | |
effective men who wasted a sizeable chunk of their lives | 1:24:30 | 1:24:33 | |
being president. | 1:24:33 | 1:24:34 | |
Jimmy Carter was a US Naval officer, nuclear engineer, | 1:24:38 | 1:24:41 | |
successful farmer, Georgia governor and human rights activist. | 1:24:41 | 1:24:45 | |
But for four years between 1977 and 1981, | 1:24:46 | 1:24:50 | |
he completely disappeared from the face of earth. | 1:24:50 | 1:24:53 | |
Nobody knew where he was. | 1:24:53 | 1:24:55 | |
Turns out he was holed up in this building, | 1:24:55 | 1:24:57 | |
ineptly trying to free a bunch of hostages in Iran for four years. | 1:24:57 | 1:25:01 | |
Fortunately, the man realised what a colossal waste of time being | 1:25:02 | 1:25:05 | |
president was and went back to doing something useful, namely, | 1:25:05 | 1:25:09 | |
building houses for homeless people and winning the Nobel Peace Prize. | 1:25:09 | 1:25:14 | |
Carter's uneventful term in the White House made him realise | 1:25:14 | 1:25:17 | |
what he was supposed to be doing with his talents. | 1:25:17 | 1:25:19 | |
He learned something about himself from his experience, | 1:25:19 | 1:25:23 | |
which is more than you can say for some presidents. | 1:25:23 | 1:25:26 | |
-JOURNALIST: -What would your biggest mistake be, | 1:25:26 | 1:25:28 | |
what would you say and what lessons have you learned from it? | 1:25:28 | 1:25:31 | |
I wish you had given me this written question ahead of time | 1:25:31 | 1:25:34 | |
so I could plan for it. | 1:25:34 | 1:25:36 | |
I don't want to sound like I made no mistakes, I'm confident I have. | 1:25:36 | 1:25:40 | |
I just haven't... | 1:25:40 | 1:25:41 | |
He has put me under the spot here and maybe I am not as quick | 1:25:41 | 1:25:45 | |
on my feet as I should be in coming up with one. | 1:25:45 | 1:25:47 | |
So, maybe, a good, fitting last question is - | 1:25:47 | 1:25:51 | |
did anybody ever have fun being president? | 1:25:51 | 1:25:54 | |
Yeah, I'm pretty sure one guy did - | 1:25:54 | 1:25:56 | |
Teddy Roosevelt. | 1:25:56 | 1:25:57 | |
Now, I can't stress enough that Teddy Roosevelt was | 1:26:00 | 1:26:03 | |
a borderline psychopath on whom | 1:26:03 | 1:26:04 | |
no presidential standard should be based, | 1:26:04 | 1:26:07 | |
but, boy, did he love the job. | 1:26:07 | 1:26:08 | |
Being president was just one of the things | 1:26:08 | 1:26:11 | |
he did between cattle ranching, writing books, | 1:26:11 | 1:26:14 | |
modelling moustaches, shooting Spaniards, | 1:26:14 | 1:26:16 | |
invading helpless countries and building the world's biggest canal. | 1:26:16 | 1:26:20 | |
He put a boxing ring in the White House, | 1:26:21 | 1:26:23 | |
ran up and down the staircases every day, | 1:26:23 | 1:26:25 | |
walked around whacking all his friends with a big stick. | 1:26:25 | 1:26:28 | |
Does this remind you of anyone? | 1:26:28 | 1:26:30 | |
I think it's a safe bet that somewhere in Putin's library | 1:26:30 | 1:26:33 | |
is a really dog-eared biography of Teddy Roosevelt. | 1:26:33 | 1:26:38 | |
When his eight years were up, | 1:26:38 | 1:26:39 | |
he went off to Africa to shoot critters, got bored, | 1:26:39 | 1:26:42 | |
came back, started up his own party so he could do it all again. | 1:26:42 | 1:26:46 | |
Yep, that's what Teddy Roosevelt did. | 1:26:46 | 1:26:49 | |
How many times have you checked your Facebook page in the last hour? | 1:26:49 | 1:26:51 | |
Four? Lightweight. | 1:26:51 | 1:26:53 | |
Show me a person who had fun being president, | 1:26:53 | 1:26:57 | |
and I'll show you someone who needs therapy. | 1:26:57 | 1:27:00 | |
Recently, if I were to pick one, I'd pick Clinton. | 1:27:02 | 1:27:05 | |
I think he relished his time in office in ways that other | 1:27:05 | 1:27:09 | |
presidents have not. | 1:27:09 | 1:27:11 | |
For them, it has been a little bit more of a slog. | 1:27:11 | 1:27:13 | |
I was actually an admirer of Bush 1's foreign policy. | 1:27:13 | 1:27:17 | |
He had a view of the world which I thought was really | 1:27:17 | 1:27:21 | |
quite mature and quite responsible, | 1:27:21 | 1:27:24 | |
and talked about it in some length by the way in his memoirs. | 1:27:24 | 1:27:26 | |
Too bad his kid didn't read them. | 1:27:26 | 1:27:29 | |
I don't think anyone ever had as much fun in the presidency as FDR. | 1:27:29 | 1:27:33 | |
Franklin Roosevelt loved power, loved political manipulation, | 1:27:33 | 1:27:38 | |
loved getting things done. | 1:27:38 | 1:27:40 | |
This is a man who really revelled in being president. | 1:27:40 | 1:27:43 | |
I think Johnson was probably the one that I would pick. | 1:27:43 | 1:27:46 | |
He played a lot of dirty tricks to win that election and '64 | 1:27:46 | 1:27:49 | |
but when he was president, | 1:27:49 | 1:27:51 | |
he brought all that Texas wheeling and dealing and profanity | 1:27:51 | 1:27:54 | |
and whiskey drinking and everything to the White House | 1:27:54 | 1:27:57 | |
and he was larger than life | 1:27:57 | 1:28:00 | |
and he really, really - I think - enjoyed being president. | 1:28:00 | 1:28:03 | |
I think he hated to leave it but he was of course done in | 1:28:03 | 1:28:06 | |
by the Vietnam War. | 1:28:06 | 1:28:07 | |
Well, none of them want to leave because it means | 1:28:07 | 1:28:11 | |
their life as the centre of the universe is over. | 1:28:11 | 1:28:16 | |
Yeah. | 1:28:16 | 1:28:17 | |
You have to want it, it's an impossible job. | 1:28:17 | 1:28:20 | |
It's a job that would break most men. | 1:28:20 | 1:28:22 | |
It's also a job that launches you into history and allows you | 1:28:22 | 1:28:27 | |
to affect change in ways that no other job can. | 1:28:27 | 1:28:30 | |
Wouldn't you like to be the most powerful person in the free world? | 1:28:30 | 1:28:34 | |
My guess is that being president for better or worse is a long, | 1:28:41 | 1:28:44 | |
strange trip you never quite come back from. | 1:28:44 | 1:28:47 | |
After all, you've been the most powerful man in the world. | 1:28:47 | 1:28:49 | |
What are you going to do for a rush after that? | 1:28:49 | 1:28:52 | |
That's why Bill Clinton is going to feel like the luckiest guy in | 1:28:52 | 1:28:54 | |
the world if he gets back into the White House as the First Dude, | 1:28:54 | 1:28:57 | |
gets to run around and pee in every corner and re-mark territory. | 1:28:57 | 1:29:01 | |
That sounds like a prediction - it is. | 1:29:01 | 1:29:04 | |
You don't have to panic, Britain, | 1:29:04 | 1:29:06 | |
Donald Trump is not going to be president. | 1:29:06 | 1:29:09 | |
I will wager everything on that. | 1:29:09 | 1:29:11 | |
I will go so far as to say if Donald Trump becomes president, | 1:29:11 | 1:29:14 | |
I will never appear on British television again, | 1:29:14 | 1:29:17 | |
and that is a promise. | 1:29:17 | 1:29:19 | |
HE LAUGHS Who am I kidding? | 1:29:19 | 1:29:21 | |
If Trump becomes president, I'm spending all my time in Britain. | 1:29:21 | 1:29:24 | |
I'm Rich Hall and I approve this message. | 1:29:25 | 1:29:28 | |
# Everybody pack your picnic lunch | 1:29:29 | 1:29:32 | |
# And everybody pack your gun | 1:29:32 | 1:29:35 | |
# Cos you can't trust no-one | 1:29:36 | 1:29:41 | |
# No, you can't trust no-one | 1:29:43 | 1:29:48 | |
# No, you can't trust no-one. # | 1:29:51 | 1:29:56 |