October 21, 2025 • 26 mins
Newt talks with Brett Baier, chief political anchor for Fox News Channel, about his new book "To Rescue the American Spirit: Teddy Roosevelt and the Birth of a Superpower." Baier, known for his passion for presidential biographies, discusses the historical significance of Theodore Roosevelt, highlighting his role in expanding America's global influence and his larger-than-life persona. Their conversation touches on Roosevelt's achievements, such as brokering peace in the Russo-Japanese War and his leadership style exemplified by the Rough Riders. Baier draws parallels between Roosevelt and modern figures like Donald Trump, noting their shared charisma and unconventional approaches. The discussion also covers Roosevelt's progressive policies, his impact on American culture, and his adventurous spirit, including his perilous Amazon expedition. Baier's book tour and his approach to balancing his career in news with writing are also discussed.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
On this episode of News World. Many of us watch
him on Fox News, so I'm thrilled he would take
time out of his amazingly busy day and talk with
me about his new book, To Rescue the American Spirit,
Teddy Roosevelt, and the Birth of a Superpower. I'm, of
course talking about Brett Bhaer. He's the author of six
New York Times bestsellers, including two others in this current series,
(00:28):
To Rescue the Republic and To Rescue the Constitution. I'm
really pleased to welcome my guest, who has been amazingly
busy covering everything that's going on, Brettbear. He is the
chief political anchor for Fox News Channel and the anchor
and executive editor of a special Report with Brett Baer.
He's also host a Fox News audio, the Brettbear Podcast. Brett,
(01:01):
welcome and thank you for joining me again on News World.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Mister speaker, It's always great to be back with you.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Now, before we dive into the book, obviously with anything
going on, I just have to ask you, with all
of your best experience, what's your reflection on the last
couple of days.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I just think it's a major moment. We'll see how
it pans out in the long term. But call it
historic seems like we're sliding it a bit. The fact
that President Trump and his administration could get all sides
to get to this point, to get those images of
twenty living hostages and the reuniting with the families. You know,
(01:39):
I think it changed the world for that short part.
I do believe that it could be a paradigm shift
in the region. There seems to be just by talking
to people in the region that I've talked to for
many years. By him, there's buy him to try to
get to a solution. So I think just reporting on
(02:00):
its facts is historic and big, but I think we
have a lot yet to report about what it's going
to look like in the Middle East. Could change the
face of the Middle East.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I thought it was astonishing and I don't remember any
president who quite achieved all that on one day, so
it's pretty remarkable. But now home and he's home to
a government shutdown. You're a real pro about these things.
What's your sense of what happens there?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
You know, there is this standoff, and it is almost
reversed about what we've seen before. Democrats previously have been
very pro continuing resolution and clean crs and funding the
government to battle another day on the specifics of appropriation.
Now it's exactly the opposite. You know, as far as
the political fallout, I'm not sure you know who's going
(02:48):
to feel it most right now. I think Democrats may.
But I think that now as the checks are going
to stop coming out to folks, that there's going to
be increasing pressure and we'll see which side blinks.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
You of course cover the daily news to a remarkable degree,
but you also have this passion for presidential biographies, and
every time I've interviewed you have been fascinated because you
pick up things that nobody else has picked up. Tell
us why you chose.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Theodore Roosevelt each one of the presidents that I've written about,
I looked the speaker at at soda straw moment that
maybe was overlooked in history, that perhaps changed our perspective
of how we as a country operated or how we
look at that particular president. For Teddy Roosevelt, the entire focus,
(03:38):
the thing that makes him so consequential is that he
chose to make America broader in the world, decided that
we needed to be forward leaning in the way that
we dealt with the world. He was also a larger
than life figure, who I mean is just chuck full
of stories and anecdotes, which makes for great page turning
(03:59):
in writing, and he was prolific in writing himself. But
I think that his ability to sense that the US
needed to be forward leaning was kind of what brought
me to him at the turn of the century. A
president that was looking to the new world and saying
America needed to lead in the world.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
He's fascinating, h because he's past so much stuff in
his life and he believed in such an active, energetic approach.
In some ways, there's a parallel I think with Trump,
just in the sheer explosion of human energy.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I agree, and I make those comparisons in the intro
and the kind of my summary in the book. There
are some similarities with President Trump, that larger than life figure,
the person who loved interacting with the press and was
controversial at times, but also captivated the American people to
(04:54):
the point where there was this sort of joy about
it all. He was not and he did not like
to go with the status quo. He saw that all
throughout his life as a police commissioner, as a legislator
in the New York State Legislature, as New York Governor,
as Vice president, and then obviously he's president as the
result of assassination of President McKinley.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I couldn't help but think of the parallel in terms
of peacemaking with Teddy's role in bringing in Japan and
Russia to Portsmouth and getting them to negotiate and end
of the Russo Japanese War. Different style in a way,
but very similar effort to get to peace and to
get foreign countries to pay attention.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It was largely overlooked he brokers this agreement in the
Russo Japanese War, and it seemed maybe obscure at the
moment in the big picture, but that is actually the
moment that I think it's America's entry into a larger
global role, and the world sees the US as the
(05:59):
person and the country that could bring that together.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
In the wake of that, he then does something that
Ronald Reagan would echo, peace through strength. He wants to
show how powerful the US is. Proceeds to paint all
of the battleships from gray to white, and it calls
it the Great White Battleships and sends them out around
the world in a tour to show the magnificent navy
(06:24):
that the US has, and it had an effect, and
the world paid attention and suddenly we were bigger.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Am I correct that he did not actually have the money
to go all the way around, and he said, I
want to send the ships out, and the Congress is
either going to provide the money or they're going to
sit out there.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
That's exactly right. And when he started out, they didn't
know how far they were going to go because they
were unfunded. But after its magnificent launch and the sun
opens up, it's just a beautiful thing. It's perceived in
the world's eyes. It's a big deal in Congress laments
and moves forward in terms of presidential leadership with a
reluctant Congress. That's one of the great stories in American history.
(07:06):
That's true. How he rolled the dice and they came around.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
You open up things I had never thought about. And
I really like the degree to which you see Roosevelt
not just as president, but is this extraordinary cultural figure
capturing a version of America at a moment when we
were really trying to think through identify ourselves. Can you
talk a little bit about his eighteen ninety nine Strenuous
(07:31):
Life speech. Preson sort of captures the essence of Roosevelt.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, it really does. It's his entree into how he
feels about life. He thinks that you should take life
and really be dedicated to it. He later obviously does
what later became the Man in the Arena speech after
leaving the presidency, but that same theme of the American
(07:55):
heart declaring it good. The country's bristling with opportunity, and
he wants to take it by the horns. Each one
of these presidents I wrote about has some effort to
go through, some cross to bear in there. Growing up
some crucible teddy. Roosevelt was horrific asthma, and they didn't
think he was going to mount to much. In fact,
(08:16):
his parents tried everything to break the asthma. They even
had him smoking cigars and drinking strong coffee, which was
supposed to get rid of it. It didn't have made
him sick, but they made him go outside and breathe
the fresh air, and that's what led him to the
Great Plains later in North Dakota. He is this free
spirit who engages a bristling bustling, expanding America, and he's
(08:41):
almost a caricature of what America would become.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
In terms of his scale. I think, if I remember correctly,
he wrote a book about the birds of New York.
When he was still in his teens. He writes a
two volume history of the Naval War of eighteen twelve,
which is still because it Saturday first right piece of work,
and he did that, I think in his early twenties. Man,
(09:23):
this is a guy. I think he wrote forty some books.
Altogo did amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
He was really prolific, especially when it came to that.
For most of his life he believed he was going
to be a scientist. That outdoor part to solve the
asthma got him interested in specimens and birds and all
kinds of things, and his father said it was a
good idea. He collected specimens and almost had a museum
in their house to the point where they traveled overseas.
(09:50):
His brother Elliot would room with him. And Elliott came
to their father and said, Dad, I need my own room.
And the father said, you can't have your own room.
Why do you need your own room? And he walked
him back to the room and there was Teddy Roosevelt
on this European trip, had collected all these dead birds
and entrails in the bathtub and all this stuff that
(10:11):
had become a museum in the hotel, and the father said, Elliott,
you can have your own room. So he always wanted
to be a scientist. But that was something that he
always thought he wanted to continue, and that stream of conservationism.
Really as president, he makes big strides and changes the
way America looks today based on what happened back then.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Why do you think he organized the rough Riders to
go to Cuba.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
First of all, he was very into helping Cuba fight
off Spain. He believed that we were not answering the
call and their need. And having been out west and
having interacted with these characters out there, he fell in
love with them. But he also had his Northeastern college guy,
(11:00):
the college Dandies, who wanted to join up with him.
So he put them together in this cornucopia of fighters
that became the Rough Riders, And the stories of that
are really just chuck full of these anecdotes of these
two sides of the wild West and the Northeast College
guys fighting in San Juan What he was always about
(11:24):
was leadership. It wasn't charge, it was follow me up
the hill. He came back from that literally a hero
and somebody that the world paid attention to. Now, I
will say, to be all fair, he had a number
of press reporters that traveled with him, so the stories
coming out were very focused on that group. So it
(11:44):
was pretty good early days of a podcast or something
with the reporters.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Really well, you know, there's a great story in one
of the biographies in Roosevelt. Well, they get down to Tampa,
try to get to Cuba. The whole thing's chaos is
badly organized. Roosevelt commanders a ship and noticed the two
leading war correspondents trying to get to Cuban says, oh,
why do you come ride with me?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
That sound like Trump or what?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah? And the biographer clothed by saying, and so the
greatest self propagandist of the nineteenth century merrily sailed off
to war with two war correspondents in tow. Trump would
have admired that. And I have a hunch that Trump,
probably to some extent, seasoned Roosevelt a four runner of
what he would do.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Definitely, I joke about having all those reporters. There clearly
was heroism and there were big acts, and obviously some
of those rough riders didn't make it back, but the
stories of that live on forever. And he was savvy
enough to see that as he was commander in that
ship to go over to Cuba. You know, he also
didn't fit a mold. Sometimes you didn't know what Teddy
(12:51):
Roosevelt was going to do. So that's the battle between
you know, Republican and conservatism and progressivism. He had this
thought that you have to be the leader, but you
also have to take care of the lowest among us,
and he brought that to the presidency.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
One of the things you bring up, I'd never seen
the story of how Roosevelt operated after McKinley was shot
in Buffalo, and he'd gone up there, he'd been faithfully
by his side, and then thought he was recovering, so
he went off hiking, and all the stuff I've read
about Roosevelt, I have never read this section.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, So he gets the word that McKinley's been shot
at the Buffalo Exposition, makes his way there, but is
told and his friends say, he never really thinks, oh
this is the end. He doesn't think that this is
how he's going to become president, and almost it's in
his mind that that's not going to happen. The doctors
say that he is recovering McKinley, and to the point
(13:49):
where they say, go ahead, continue your family vacation. He
goes on to the Adirondacks and he is way out
of civilization when a shot rings out as he's hiking
on the top of Mountain Mercy, the tallest of those peaks,
and it is a local guy who has been sent
to get him with a telegram saying the situation has
gotten well worse. By the time he makes it down
(14:12):
and gets in the carriage, with a treacherous ride to
the train station, they reach him again to say McKinley
had died. So by the time he gets to Buffalo,
he pays his respects. He says to the cabinet he's
not going to change. He's going to continue on with
the McKinley policies, which lasted for some time, but not
that long, because he is an individual man. I mean,
(14:34):
he is I think the beginning of the real progressive movement,
and it's I think part of his energy level. But
also I have to take one divergence in terms of
the point you make, which is exactly right that in
many ways Teddy Rosat is a bigger impact as a
cultural figure. Somebody once said he was probably the most
(14:56):
popular president since Washington. Share briefly the whole story of
Teddy's bear. I tell you the entire life story of Teddy.
Roosevelt has this kind of larger life figure, and he
sets up Sagamore Hill in New York as his home base.
(15:17):
It's his escape, and he is a hunter. He has
it lined with bison and polar bears. And I talked
to Tweed Rose about his great grandson, and he said,
there was nothing like being in this house. There were
so many things for kids to play with, you know.
When the kids there were six, all five with Edith,
one from Alice. When they lived in the White House,
(15:40):
it was NonStop fun. There were times during the Oval
Office where he'd be meeting with dignitaries and at four
o'clock in the afternoon, the kids would come in and say, paw,
it's time, and he would wish goodbye to whoever he
was with, and he would go play with the kids.
And there were animals that ended up in the White House.
There were horses that were on the second floor. There
(16:02):
were bicycles that were going down the hallway, and he
had this larger than life laughter that you would hear
through the halls of the White House. And you know,
some of those figures obviously came back in these stories.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
It's funny because when I go occasionally to the East Room,
I find myself thinking about that the kids rode horses
on a rainy day, they're inside the White House.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Inside the White House.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
There's just sort of classically did on Roosevelt. Part of
the tragedy of his life was that he splits the
Republican Party in nineteen twelve. Although fascinatingly it's the beginning
of having primaries. He wins the primaries. It's just that
the old machine States stick with Taft and Roosevelt I
(16:47):
think was enormously frustrated by what was going on in
Europe and his sense that Wilson just didn't get it.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, and his fight against passivism and his battles with
Woodrow Wilson continue after that. But a lot of people
point to the fact that the Bullmost Party and its
surge when he runs gives Wilson the win at that time,
at that crucial time. So historians will look back and
say Conservatives bristled at Teddy Roosevelt in that time. You know,
(17:17):
he didn't provide a challenge in those primaries. The machine
which Teddy Roosevelt fought against every step of the way
as legislature, a police commissioner, as governor, as vice president,
as assistant secretary of the Navy, all of the machine
circled around and it changed the dynamic.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
As obviously Woodward Wilson would eventually lead to World War One.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
And Roosevelt's case something that I think forgotten that history.
But he actively supported African Americans, the first president to
actually have dinner in the White House with an African
American leader, and he really did represent an effort to
bridge beyond slavery and segregation in a way which tragically
(18:18):
Woodrow Wilson totally reversed as a guy born in Virginia,
Wilson was totally for segregation. But it does strike me
that part of Roosevelt's progressivism was this sense of inclusion
that really had a big impact.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I agree with you one hundred percent, Ryan kill Me
kind of went down that road with his book, and
I think that where Teddy Roosevelt was about increasing the
tents and not shrinking it, and some of those policies
crossed over, and I think he didn't see skin color
at that time. What really was interesting is that he's
(18:53):
president at forty two years old. He dies at age sixty,
his son Quentin dies in war in a plane crash,
and he really never physically recovers. He says he does,
and he still gives speeches, but the broken heart eventually
leads back to his death. In January of nineteen nineteen.
(19:14):
Died in sleep, and his vice president said he had
to go in his sleep because Teddy Roosevelt would have
fought it off in the daytime set.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Also, I think been weakened when he went to the
Amazon and on that trip apparently caught a whole bunch
of tropical diseases.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
They've survived it, but that trip down the Amazon was
really death defying, and at the time people thought crazy.
But he came back with all kinds of anecdotes, another
book about the Amazonian flora and fauna, and barely survived.
But he did survive.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I suspect part of the difference was he had done
Africa earlier, but the part of Africa he was in
was dramatically less disease. Written had he gone up the Congo,
he'd have understood the Amazon basin. I think he underestimated
how really difficult that was going to be. And I
think at one point they thought he's going to die
on the Amazon trip.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
A one hundred percent and there are amazing stores. How
he survives, has to go by himself in a canoe
to get down river as he's fighting malaria and other diseases.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It's so hard to igine anybody having quite the frontiersman outlook,
because you pointed out earlier this is a guy who
has asthma and is weak when he's like a teenager,
and just besides by sure will power that he's going
to strengthen himself and strengthen himself until he's able to
be a frontiersman, a rancher, hunter, extraordinary character.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
He was larger than life. He's only five ten, but
he was larger than life. That time out West really
pardoned him. He got a lot of grief for wearing glasses.
They called him four eyes. But he was a boxer
and when somebody came at him, he took him down
the story of being in a bar and some guy
with two guns comes up and says, four eyes, you're
(21:02):
gonna pay the bar tab and Teddy Roosevelt laughs and
the guy says, no, I'm serious, and Roosevelt hauls off
and hits him and then hits him again. The guy
falls and hits his head on the bar, passes out,
and the whole bar erupts saying, we hate that guy.
They took him out to the shed, and that was
the beginning of his time in North Dakota.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Those are the kind of things that become legends.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
When he campaigns for governor in eighteen ninety eight after Cuba,
they actually have a bugler on the train who blows
the cavalry charge as they leave each station.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And he brought rough riders each stop. He pointed out
a couple of the guys that were with him on
that journey in San Lan.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
To your point earlier, but he was such a reformer
that the machine in New York was desperate to get
rid of him, and that's how he ends up on
the ticket with McKinley and McKinley's great political advisor, Mark Hanna,
who's a great businessman for some reason wasn't around. And
when he gets back he learns that they named Roosevelt
vice president. Of the story is he said, utilize there's
(22:07):
only one heartbeat between that damn cowboy in the White House.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
But they thought they could take this reformer, put him
in a spot. This is the days before the Dick
Cheney vice presidency where the vice president was just kind
of a figureheaded nothing much more, and put him in
that slot and control them because they believed that he
was such a reformer and troublemaker that he could be
a problem for the party.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Then he probably would have been. I think given your
schedule and all the things you're doing, you also have
a pretty serious upcoming book tour and will to invite
people to come and hear you and have a chance
to meet you, because again your a national figure because
of your show. And you're going to be correct me
if I hit this wrong. October twenty fifth, you're going
to be at the Vero Beach Book Center.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I am big, big store.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And then on the twenty sixth, you're going to be
at the Barnes and Noble in the Villages. Is that right?
It is you're cross crossing the country.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I am, I am.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Then I go to California and you're going back on
the twenty seventh to the Nixon Presidential Library, and the
following night you'll be in Seebe Valley at the Ronald
Reagan Presidential Foundation.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
You know, I've done this tour.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
That's quite a tour.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
It is, it is. I've done this kind of path
in each one of these books, and it has been
very successful. They've been three number one, so I figured
why change. There's just a lot of history buffs that
go to all of those spots that show up in
big numbers. And I love to talk about the book
and take questions and they all do it well.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
If you're a serious book writer, you realize you have
to spend as much time selling the book as you
spent writing it. That's what a lot of authors don't
quite get. They're so exhausted when they're done writing. They're
just kind of go, oh my god, I can't do this.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
That starts the journey. That's right.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
You're also a great golfer.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I played in.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
College and you managed to keep it up right. And
the little white ball have had a long relationship. I
just have to have, because golf tasts time. To stay
as good as you are takes time. And you have
a show every night, which is I think probably the
high point of news delivery at Fox and does a
great job routinely makes it seem like it's just normal,
(24:18):
although I suspect you work at it pretty hard and
then you write books and then you go sell books.
I mean, how do you organize your time the golf?
I usually do one time a week, either at balls,
or I player with my son or something transpires. I
just try to keep it up and see if you
can hold onto that handicap. Right now, I'm a walking wallet.
(24:39):
I'm essentially passing money friends. But the show, I have
a great staff and we do work on it, and
it is different every day, and it's like drinking from
the fire hose, so that takes time.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
The books have been just a labor of love, and
I have a real great blueprint. I have a super
researcher who just parts at presidential libraries and gets these
nuggets that become the blueprint and the quilt of how
we look at this book. And it usually it takes
about a year and a half. I pingpong back and
(25:11):
forth with my co author and we come up with
a plan. The first book on Three Days in January
A by Dwa D. Eisenhower, took three years, three and
a half years. But then I kind of got this
blueprint and this soda straw look at different moments of
presidential life, and I've figured it out down to a year.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Half the amazingly competent I know you're going to continue
to educate the country. I want to thank you for
joining me. Your new book To Rescue the American Spirit,
Teddy Roosevelt and the Bertho Superpower is available now on
Amazon and in bookstores everywhere. And want to remind our
listeners they can watch Special Report with Bredbaar weeknights at
six pm Eastern on the Fox News Channel.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Thank you very much, Brett, Thank you, miss Speaker.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Thank you to Mike Us Brett Baer. You can get
a link to buy his new book, To Rescue the
American Spirit Teddy Roosevelt in the Birth of a Superpower
on our show page at Newtsworld dot com. News World
is produced by gingishtreet sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producers
Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for
the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to
(26:22):
the team at gingrashy sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld,
I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate
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of Newtsworld consign up for my three free weekly columns
at gingrishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm net gingrich.
This is Newtsworld.
On this episode of News World. Many of us watch
him on Fox News, so I'm thrilled he would take
time out of his amazingly busy day and talk with
me about his new book, To Rescue the American Spirit,
Teddy Roosevelt, and the Birth of a Superpower. I'm, of
course talking about Brett Bhaer. He's the author of six
New York Times bestsellers, including two others in this current series,
(00:28):
To Rescue the Republic and To Rescue the Constitution. I'm
really pleased to welcome my guest, who has been amazingly
busy covering everything that's going on, Brettbear. He is the
chief political anchor for Fox News Channel and the anchor
and executive editor of a special Report with Brett Baer.
He's also host a Fox News audio, the Brettbear Podcast. Brett,
(01:01):
welcome and thank you for joining me again on News World.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Mister speaker, It's always great to be back with you.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
Now, before we dive into the book, obviously with anything
going on, I just have to ask you, with all
of your best experience, what's your reflection on the last
couple of days.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I just think it's a major moment. We'll see how
it pans out in the long term. But call it
historic seems like we're sliding it a bit. The fact
that President Trump and his administration could get all sides
to get to this point, to get those images of
twenty living hostages and the reuniting with the families. You know,
(01:39):
I think it changed the world for that short part.
I do believe that it could be a paradigm shift
in the region. There seems to be just by talking
to people in the region that I've talked to for
many years. By him, there's buy him to try to
get to a solution. So I think just reporting on
(02:00):
its facts is historic and big, but I think we
have a lot yet to report about what it's going
to look like in the Middle East. Could change the
face of the Middle East.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
I thought it was astonishing and I don't remember any
president who quite achieved all that on one day, so
it's pretty remarkable. But now home and he's home to
a government shutdown. You're a real pro about these things.
What's your sense of what happens there?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
You know, there is this standoff, and it is almost
reversed about what we've seen before. Democrats previously have been
very pro continuing resolution and clean crs and funding the
government to battle another day on the specifics of appropriation.
Now it's exactly the opposite. You know, as far as
the political fallout, I'm not sure you know who's going
(02:48):
to feel it most right now. I think Democrats may.
But I think that now as the checks are going
to stop coming out to folks, that there's going to
be increasing pressure and we'll see which side blinks.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
You of course cover the daily news to a remarkable degree,
but you also have this passion for presidential biographies, and
every time I've interviewed you have been fascinated because you
pick up things that nobody else has picked up. Tell
us why you chose.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Theodore Roosevelt each one of the presidents that I've written about,
I looked the speaker at at soda straw moment that
maybe was overlooked in history, that perhaps changed our perspective
of how we as a country operated or how we
look at that particular president. For Teddy Roosevelt, the entire focus,
(03:38):
the thing that makes him so consequential is that he
chose to make America broader in the world, decided that
we needed to be forward leaning in the way that
we dealt with the world. He was also a larger
than life figure, who I mean is just chuck full
of stories and anecdotes, which makes for great page turning
(03:59):
in writing, and he was prolific in writing himself. But
I think that his ability to sense that the US
needed to be forward leaning was kind of what brought
me to him at the turn of the century. A
president that was looking to the new world and saying
America needed to lead in the world.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
He's fascinating, h because he's past so much stuff in
his life and he believed in such an active, energetic approach.
In some ways, there's a parallel I think with Trump,
just in the sheer explosion of human energy.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I agree, and I make those comparisons in the intro
and the kind of my summary in the book. There
are some similarities with President Trump, that larger than life figure,
the person who loved interacting with the press and was
controversial at times, but also captivated the American people to
(04:54):
the point where there was this sort of joy about
it all. He was not and he did not like
to go with the status quo. He saw that all
throughout his life as a police commissioner, as a legislator
in the New York State Legislature, as New York Governor,
as Vice president, and then obviously he's president as the
result of assassination of President McKinley.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
I couldn't help but think of the parallel in terms
of peacemaking with Teddy's role in bringing in Japan and
Russia to Portsmouth and getting them to negotiate and end
of the Russo Japanese War. Different style in a way,
but very similar effort to get to peace and to
get foreign countries to pay attention.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It was largely overlooked he brokers this agreement in the
Russo Japanese War, and it seemed maybe obscure at the
moment in the big picture, but that is actually the
moment that I think it's America's entry into a larger
global role, and the world sees the US as the
(05:59):
person and the country that could bring that together.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
You know.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
In the wake of that, he then does something that
Ronald Reagan would echo, peace through strength. He wants to
show how powerful the US is. Proceeds to paint all
of the battleships from gray to white, and it calls
it the Great White Battleships and sends them out around
the world in a tour to show the magnificent navy
(06:24):
that the US has, and it had an effect, and
the world paid attention and suddenly we were bigger.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
Am I correct that he did not actually have the money
to go all the way around, and he said, I
want to send the ships out, and the Congress is
either going to provide the money or they're going to
sit out there.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
That's exactly right. And when he started out, they didn't
know how far they were going to go because they
were unfunded. But after its magnificent launch and the sun
opens up, it's just a beautiful thing. It's perceived in
the world's eyes. It's a big deal in Congress laments
and moves forward in terms of presidential leadership with a
reluctant Congress. That's one of the great stories in American history.
(07:06):
That's true. How he rolled the dice and they came around.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
You open up things I had never thought about. And
I really like the degree to which you see Roosevelt
not just as president, but is this extraordinary cultural figure
capturing a version of America at a moment when we
were really trying to think through identify ourselves. Can you
talk a little bit about his eighteen ninety nine Strenuous
(07:31):
Life speech. Preson sort of captures the essence of Roosevelt.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Yeah, it really does. It's his entree into how he
feels about life. He thinks that you should take life
and really be dedicated to it. He later obviously does
what later became the Man in the Arena speech after
leaving the presidency, but that same theme of the American
(07:55):
heart declaring it good. The country's bristling with opportunity, and
he wants to take it by the horns. Each one
of these presidents I wrote about has some effort to
go through, some cross to bear in there. Growing up
some crucible teddy. Roosevelt was horrific asthma, and they didn't
think he was going to mount to much. In fact,
(08:16):
his parents tried everything to break the asthma. They even
had him smoking cigars and drinking strong coffee, which was
supposed to get rid of it. It didn't have made
him sick, but they made him go outside and breathe
the fresh air, and that's what led him to the
Great Plains later in North Dakota. He is this free
spirit who engages a bristling bustling, expanding America, and he's
(08:41):
almost a caricature of what America would become.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
In terms of his scale. I think, if I remember correctly,
he wrote a book about the birds of New York.
When he was still in his teens. He writes a
two volume history of the Naval War of eighteen twelve,
which is still because it Saturday first right piece of work,
and he did that, I think in his early twenties. Man,
(09:23):
this is a guy. I think he wrote forty some books.
Altogo did amazing.
Speaker 2 (09:27):
He was really prolific, especially when it came to that.
For most of his life he believed he was going
to be a scientist. That outdoor part to solve the
asthma got him interested in specimens and birds and all
kinds of things, and his father said it was a
good idea. He collected specimens and almost had a museum
in their house to the point where they traveled overseas.
(09:50):
His brother Elliot would room with him. And Elliott came
to their father and said, Dad, I need my own room.
And the father said, you can't have your own room.
Why do you need your own room? And he walked
him back to the room and there was Teddy Roosevelt
on this European trip, had collected all these dead birds
and entrails in the bathtub and all this stuff that
(10:11):
had become a museum in the hotel, and the father said, Elliott,
you can have your own room. So he always wanted
to be a scientist. But that was something that he
always thought he wanted to continue, and that stream of conservationism.
Really as president, he makes big strides and changes the
way America looks today based on what happened back then.
Speaker 1 (10:34):
Why do you think he organized the rough Riders to
go to Cuba.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
First of all, he was very into helping Cuba fight
off Spain. He believed that we were not answering the
call and their need. And having been out west and
having interacted with these characters out there, he fell in
love with them. But he also had his Northeastern college guy,
(11:00):
the college Dandies, who wanted to join up with him.
So he put them together in this cornucopia of fighters
that became the Rough Riders, And the stories of that
are really just chuck full of these anecdotes of these
two sides of the wild West and the Northeast College
guys fighting in San Juan What he was always about
(11:24):
was leadership. It wasn't charge, it was follow me up
the hill. He came back from that literally a hero
and somebody that the world paid attention to. Now, I
will say, to be all fair, he had a number
of press reporters that traveled with him, so the stories
coming out were very focused on that group. So it
(11:44):
was pretty good early days of a podcast or something
with the reporters.
Speaker 1 (11:48):
Really well, you know, there's a great story in one
of the biographies in Roosevelt. Well, they get down to Tampa,
try to get to Cuba. The whole thing's chaos is
badly organized. Roosevelt commanders a ship and noticed the two
leading war correspondents trying to get to Cuban says, oh,
why do you come ride with me?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
That sound like Trump or what?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Yeah? And the biographer clothed by saying, and so the
greatest self propagandist of the nineteenth century merrily sailed off
to war with two war correspondents in tow. Trump would
have admired that. And I have a hunch that Trump,
probably to some extent, seasoned Roosevelt a four runner of
what he would do.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
Definitely, I joke about having all those reporters. There clearly
was heroism and there were big acts, and obviously some
of those rough riders didn't make it back, but the
stories of that live on forever. And he was savvy
enough to see that as he was commander in that
ship to go over to Cuba. You know, he also
didn't fit a mold. Sometimes you didn't know what Teddy
(12:51):
Roosevelt was going to do. So that's the battle between
you know, Republican and conservatism and progressivism. He had this
thought that you have to be the leader, but you
also have to take care of the lowest among us,
and he brought that to the presidency.
Speaker 1 (13:07):
One of the things you bring up, I'd never seen
the story of how Roosevelt operated after McKinley was shot
in Buffalo, and he'd gone up there, he'd been faithfully
by his side, and then thought he was recovering, so
he went off hiking, and all the stuff I've read
about Roosevelt, I have never read this section.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Yeah, So he gets the word that McKinley's been shot
at the Buffalo Exposition, makes his way there, but is
told and his friends say, he never really thinks, oh
this is the end. He doesn't think that this is
how he's going to become president, and almost it's in
his mind that that's not going to happen. The doctors
say that he is recovering McKinley, and to the point
(13:49):
where they say, go ahead, continue your family vacation. He
goes on to the Adirondacks and he is way out
of civilization when a shot rings out as he's hiking
on the top of Mountain Mercy, the tallest of those peaks,
and it is a local guy who has been sent
to get him with a telegram saying the situation has
gotten well worse. By the time he makes it down
(14:12):
and gets in the carriage, with a treacherous ride to
the train station, they reach him again to say McKinley
had died. So by the time he gets to Buffalo,
he pays his respects. He says to the cabinet he's
not going to change. He's going to continue on with
the McKinley policies, which lasted for some time, but not
that long, because he is an individual man. I mean,
(14:34):
he is I think the beginning of the real progressive movement,
and it's I think part of his energy level. But
also I have to take one divergence in terms of
the point you make, which is exactly right that in
many ways Teddy Rosat is a bigger impact as a
cultural figure. Somebody once said he was probably the most
(14:56):
popular president since Washington. Share briefly the whole story of
Teddy's bear. I tell you the entire life story of Teddy.
Roosevelt has this kind of larger life figure, and he
sets up Sagamore Hill in New York as his home base.
(15:17):
It's his escape, and he is a hunter. He has
it lined with bison and polar bears. And I talked
to Tweed Rose about his great grandson, and he said,
there was nothing like being in this house. There were
so many things for kids to play with, you know.
When the kids there were six, all five with Edith,
one from Alice. When they lived in the White House,
(15:40):
it was NonStop fun. There were times during the Oval
Office where he'd be meeting with dignitaries and at four
o'clock in the afternoon, the kids would come in and say, paw,
it's time, and he would wish goodbye to whoever he
was with, and he would go play with the kids.
And there were animals that ended up in the White House.
There were horses that were on the second floor. There
(16:02):
were bicycles that were going down the hallway, and he
had this larger than life laughter that you would hear
through the halls of the White House. And you know,
some of those figures obviously came back in these stories.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
It's funny because when I go occasionally to the East Room,
I find myself thinking about that the kids rode horses
on a rainy day, they're inside the White House.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Inside the White House.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
There's just sort of classically did on Roosevelt. Part of
the tragedy of his life was that he splits the
Republican Party in nineteen twelve. Although fascinatingly it's the beginning
of having primaries. He wins the primaries. It's just that
the old machine States stick with Taft and Roosevelt I
(16:47):
think was enormously frustrated by what was going on in
Europe and his sense that Wilson just didn't get it.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Yeah, and his fight against passivism and his battles with
Woodrow Wilson continue after that. But a lot of people
point to the fact that the Bullmost Party and its
surge when he runs gives Wilson the win at that time,
at that crucial time. So historians will look back and
say Conservatives bristled at Teddy Roosevelt in that time. You know,
(17:17):
he didn't provide a challenge in those primaries. The machine
which Teddy Roosevelt fought against every step of the way
as legislature, a police commissioner, as governor, as vice president,
as assistant secretary of the Navy, all of the machine
circled around and it changed the dynamic.
Speaker 3 (17:37):
As obviously Woodward Wilson would eventually lead to World War One.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
And Roosevelt's case something that I think forgotten that history.
But he actively supported African Americans, the first president to
actually have dinner in the White House with an African
American leader, and he really did represent an effort to
bridge beyond slavery and segregation in a way which tragically
(18:18):
Woodrow Wilson totally reversed as a guy born in Virginia,
Wilson was totally for segregation. But it does strike me
that part of Roosevelt's progressivism was this sense of inclusion
that really had a big impact.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I agree with you one hundred percent, Ryan kill Me
kind of went down that road with his book, and
I think that where Teddy Roosevelt was about increasing the
tents and not shrinking it, and some of those policies
crossed over, and I think he didn't see skin color
at that time. What really was interesting is that he's
(18:53):
president at forty two years old. He dies at age sixty,
his son Quentin dies in war in a plane crash,
and he really never physically recovers. He says he does,
and he still gives speeches, but the broken heart eventually
leads back to his death. In January of nineteen nineteen.
(19:14):
Died in sleep, and his vice president said he had
to go in his sleep because Teddy Roosevelt would have
fought it off in the daytime set.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Also, I think been weakened when he went to the
Amazon and on that trip apparently caught a whole bunch
of tropical diseases.
Speaker 2 (19:30):
They've survived it, but that trip down the Amazon was
really death defying, and at the time people thought crazy.
But he came back with all kinds of anecdotes, another
book about the Amazonian flora and fauna, and barely survived.
But he did survive.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
I suspect part of the difference was he had done
Africa earlier, but the part of Africa he was in
was dramatically less disease. Written had he gone up the Congo,
he'd have understood the Amazon basin. I think he underestimated
how really difficult that was going to be. And I
think at one point they thought he's going to die
on the Amazon trip.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
A one hundred percent and there are amazing stores. How
he survives, has to go by himself in a canoe
to get down river as he's fighting malaria and other diseases.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
It's so hard to igine anybody having quite the frontiersman outlook,
because you pointed out earlier this is a guy who
has asthma and is weak when he's like a teenager,
and just besides by sure will power that he's going
to strengthen himself and strengthen himself until he's able to
be a frontiersman, a rancher, hunter, extraordinary character.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
He was larger than life. He's only five ten, but
he was larger than life. That time out West really
pardoned him. He got a lot of grief for wearing glasses.
They called him four eyes. But he was a boxer
and when somebody came at him, he took him down
the story of being in a bar and some guy
with two guns comes up and says, four eyes, you're
(21:02):
gonna pay the bar tab and Teddy Roosevelt laughs and
the guy says, no, I'm serious, and Roosevelt hauls off
and hits him and then hits him again. The guy
falls and hits his head on the bar, passes out,
and the whole bar erupts saying, we hate that guy.
They took him out to the shed, and that was
the beginning of his time in North Dakota.
Speaker 1 (21:23):
Those are the kind of things that become legends.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
When he campaigns for governor in eighteen ninety eight after Cuba,
they actually have a bugler on the train who blows
the cavalry charge as they leave each station.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
And he brought rough riders each stop. He pointed out
a couple of the guys that were with him on
that journey in San Lan.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
To your point earlier, but he was such a reformer
that the machine in New York was desperate to get
rid of him, and that's how he ends up on
the ticket with McKinley and McKinley's great political advisor, Mark Hanna,
who's a great businessman for some reason wasn't around. And
when he gets back he learns that they named Roosevelt
vice president. Of the story is he said, utilize there's
(22:07):
only one heartbeat between that damn cowboy in the White House.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
But they thought they could take this reformer, put him
in a spot. This is the days before the Dick
Cheney vice presidency where the vice president was just kind
of a figureheaded nothing much more, and put him in
that slot and control them because they believed that he
was such a reformer and troublemaker that he could be
a problem for the party.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Then he probably would have been. I think given your
schedule and all the things you're doing, you also have
a pretty serious upcoming book tour and will to invite
people to come and hear you and have a chance
to meet you, because again your a national figure because
of your show. And you're going to be correct me
if I hit this wrong. October twenty fifth, you're going
to be at the Vero Beach Book Center.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
I am big, big store.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
And then on the twenty sixth, you're going to be
at the Barnes and Noble in the Villages. Is that right?
It is you're cross crossing the country.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
I am, I am.
Speaker 1 (23:06):
Then I go to California and you're going back on
the twenty seventh to the Nixon Presidential Library, and the
following night you'll be in Seebe Valley at the Ronald
Reagan Presidential Foundation.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
You know, I've done this tour.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
That's quite a tour.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
It is, it is. I've done this kind of path
in each one of these books, and it has been
very successful. They've been three number one, so I figured
why change. There's just a lot of history buffs that
go to all of those spots that show up in
big numbers. And I love to talk about the book
and take questions and they all do it well.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
If you're a serious book writer, you realize you have
to spend as much time selling the book as you
spent writing it. That's what a lot of authors don't
quite get. They're so exhausted when they're done writing. They're
just kind of go, oh my god, I can't do this.
Speaker 2 (23:52):
That starts the journey. That's right.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
You're also a great golfer.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
I played in.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
College and you managed to keep it up right. And
the little white ball have had a long relationship. I
just have to have, because golf tasts time. To stay
as good as you are takes time. And you have
a show every night, which is I think probably the
high point of news delivery at Fox and does a
great job routinely makes it seem like it's just normal,
(24:18):
although I suspect you work at it pretty hard and
then you write books and then you go sell books.
I mean, how do you organize your time the golf?
I usually do one time a week, either at balls,
or I player with my son or something transpires. I
just try to keep it up and see if you
can hold onto that handicap. Right now, I'm a walking wallet.
(24:39):
I'm essentially passing money friends. But the show, I have
a great staff and we do work on it, and
it is different every day, and it's like drinking from
the fire hose, so that takes time.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
The books have been just a labor of love, and
I have a real great blueprint. I have a super
researcher who just parts at presidential libraries and gets these
nuggets that become the blueprint and the quilt of how
we look at this book. And it usually it takes
about a year and a half. I pingpong back and
(25:11):
forth with my co author and we come up with
a plan. The first book on Three Days in January
A by Dwa D. Eisenhower, took three years, three and
a half years. But then I kind of got this
blueprint and this soda straw look at different moments of
presidential life, and I've figured it out down to a year.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Half the amazingly competent I know you're going to continue
to educate the country. I want to thank you for
joining me. Your new book To Rescue the American Spirit,
Teddy Roosevelt and the Bertho Superpower is available now on
Amazon and in bookstores everywhere. And want to remind our
listeners they can watch Special Report with Bredbaar weeknights at
six pm Eastern on the Fox News Channel.
Speaker 2 (25:53):
Thank you very much, Brett, Thank you, miss Speaker.
Speaker 1 (25:59):
Thank you to Mike Us Brett Baer. You can get
a link to buy his new book, To Rescue the
American Spirit Teddy Roosevelt in the Birth of a Superpower
on our show page at Newtsworld dot com. News World
is produced by gingishtreet sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producers
Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for
the show was created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to
(26:22):
the team at gingrashy sixty. If you've been enjoying Newtsworld,
I hope you'll go to Apple Podcasts and both rate
us with five stars and give us a review so
others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners
of Newtsworld consign up for my three free weekly columns
at gingrishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm net gingrich.
This is Newtsworld.
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