January 20, 2025 • 36 mins
The author of ‘The JFK Conspiracy: The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy’ Brad Meltzer joins the show. Donald Trump Sworn In as 47th President
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI AM six forty Bill Handle in the
Morning Crew. It is a Monday morning, January twentieth. Boy,
what a day today. Martin Luther King Day, which we're
not paying enough attention to the legacy of doctor Martin
Luther King, which we sort of should. But also today
(00:24):
is an auguration of the forty seventh President of the
United States, Donald Trump. And that is actually a bigger
story than other inaugurations because it's Donald Trump, and because
any president can move where America is going to some extent,
and he's going to move where America is going to
a great extent. So Donald Trump part of his story
(00:47):
was the assassination attempt at one of his rallies, and
it came very very close, as you know, within an
inch of killing him. And we've had assassinations before. Probably
the most famous assassination in history was Abraham Lincoln, but
we've had assassinations after that, and many attempted assassinations. One
(01:10):
of the assassination stories, the biggest one in the modern
era was JFK. And obviously it was since Pearl Harbor.
It was if I can think of three major events
that have happened in the last eighty years. Pearl Harbor
the assassination of John F. Kennedy nine to eleven. Brad
(01:33):
Meltzer is an author and a historian who's been on
with us several times. I'm a huge fan of his.
It's a new book called The JFK Conspiracy, The Secret
Plot to Kill Kennedy. We're not talking about nineteen sixty three,
November twenty two. We're talking about days after Kennedy was
(01:55):
elected president. Brad, thanks for joining us as always, and
I'm going to just throw it to you and let
you start with the story because it is so fascinating.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, and always good to be back. This is as
you said three years before. Lee Harvey Oswald takes this
famous shot, and it's Sunday morning in nineteen sixty right
after JFK is elected, and JFK's headed to church. But
what he doesn't know is there's a formal postal work
and named Richard Public who wants to kill him and
has packed his car with seven sticks of dynamite, and
(02:28):
Publics follow JFK to Palm Beach, Florida because he thinks
JFK security is weakest there and he's right about that.
So as JFK leaves his house, all this assassin has
to do is hit the little trigger mechanism he's built
and boom will go to the dynamite and what saves
his life. I don't want to ruin it, but it
has to do with Jackie. And it's part of one
(02:49):
of the craziest JFK stories you've never heard, although now
I think about it, that's actually chapter one of the
JFK conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So let's talk about number one one. I JFK was
so vulnerable, and he was at the he was at
the estate that his father had Bill Joseph Kennedy or
had bought. And if you look at it and it's
beach front and thirty three thousand square feet agers. I mean,
(03:18):
let me tell you, JFK was pretty wealthy. I mean,
his dad was insanely wealthy and they lived in big,
big homes. So he was there right after the election.
A matter of fact, wasn't he there taking actually waiting
for the vote count to come?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah? You know this was he was there for that,
and he traveled there all the time. And what's amazing
about it is when you know the Secret Service took over.
They're like, okay, you know, we haven't really dealt with
a second home before. This is something new for them.
It's also new for JFK. I mean, you know, Eisenhower's
a guy who got off the plane and the schedules
said go to the car, and he went to the car.
(03:57):
JFK lands in Palm Beach. And when he gets off
the plane, he sees there's all these adoring fans waiting
by the fence on the runway. So he doesn't go
to the car. He doesn't care what the schedule is.
He goes racing over to kiss babies, signed babies, do
everything you do with babies. This is not your dad's president.
And the Secret Service realizes quickly and so they're like, okay,
(04:19):
we're going to turn a one way street the other
way so cars can't come flying straight at this mansion,
at the estate, and you can put guards in the front,
but in the back of this estate is the ocean,
the entire ocean. They're like, how do we do that?
So right from the moment it begins, they realize that
adjustments have to be made, and you know, when they
(04:42):
get to Florida, they're sweating. They're sitting out in the
Florida sun. They're in their Secret Service suits. JFK comes
up to one of them and says, hey, hey, man,
what size shure do you? Walks inside, goes and gets
a short sleeve shirt, brings it out for him. The
Secret Service has barely been guarding JFK for twenty four hours,
and they're already wearing his clothes. This is going to
(05:03):
be a very different Secret Service experience.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And what are the things I love the stories of JFK.
He used to sneak out of the White House, jump
in his car and drive around and leave the Secret
Service behind. Just it was a different presidency, and certainly
Jackie Kennedy was an extraordinary first lady. And I have
(05:28):
a question. This guy Pavlick was arrested, right, and this
was no sort of you know, minor attempt at a presidency.
I mean we see that all the time where the
authorities go, yeah, there really wasn't a lot there. I mean,
we're going to arrest him. The attempt was there, There
was a conspiracy. I mean, this was the real thing
(05:49):
in terms of the assassination attempt. And then the question
I want to ask you when we come back. You know,
why wasn't this news? You think this would be extraordinary news.
And we'll be right back with Brad Meltzer, the author
of The JFK Conspiracy, The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy.
I started reading it, and what Brad does is write
(06:11):
these histories that are so readable. They are just a
lot of fun. I know, I'm blowing smoke up various
parts of your body and I don't do that usually, Brad,
but your books are that good. Okay, now you say
thank you, Bill, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I appreciate you more than you know.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Excellent, all right, that's the appropriate response. Brad Meltzer is
the author and with Josh Mensch, is the author of
a new book, The JFK Conspiracy, The Secret Plot to
Kill Kennedy. And this was a plot that well, it
is going to kill Kennedy within days after he won
the presidency. And the guy who was arrested was a
(06:54):
guy by the name of Public, Richard Public. And this
was a no joke assassination at I mean, this would
have happened had it gone off and he was arrested.
And Brad, how is it possible that this isn't even
covered that this is that you're actually almost breaking the news.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
As always, you asked the right question. I mean, why
do we not know this story? You know, the Secret
Service at the time said it was the closest the
sitting president has ever come to being killed while he
was there. And here's why, because the story was big
news in Florida. I was on the front page there,
but back then it took an extra day to go national.
And on the day that this story is about to
(07:34):
go nationwide, two planes collide over New York City. Everyone
on board dies except for one young boy who's the
sole survivor, and America becomes obsessed with this kid, Will
he live? Will he die? It knocks this JFK story
off the front page, buries it inside until my friend
Josh mentioned, I are like, you know what, this will
(07:56):
be a great idea for a book. We should tell
this story.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And part of the story also is the credit that
is not given enough to Jackie Kennedy, who was an
extraordinary woman in her own right, and it is and
I used, I'm starting to read this book and man,
the facts about her. I mean, she was responsible for
a lot of the aura around JFK, which I didn't
(08:24):
know is she spoke I knew she spoke fluent French,
and I knew she spoke Spanish, but I didn't know
she spoke German on top of that. I mean, just
you know, so let's spend a minute talking about the
connection Jackie Kennedy with all of this.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, and Bill, you know you hit it on the head.
Jackie Kennedy. We've turned her into cliche. Will you say
to her about her? Oh, she's got great she's got style,
as if that's all she's got, And she's absolutely so savvy,
and she's the secret weapon in this book. It's the
part that people are going to love the most, you know,
And we don't hold back. We show you the the
affairs that JFK was having. We show you when Jackie
(09:03):
was pregnant and she's hemorrhaging. JFK is nowhere to be found.
He's basically on his way to a plane. He's on
a plane headed to Florida. And I kept asking myself,
if I was researching the book, if their marriage is
such a mess here, why did they keep calling a camelot?
Why is a camelot? Is that year one? Did they
call it that year two? And I finally discovered Bill
(09:25):
that the word camelot is never used until after JFK
is dead. It's after his assassination that Jackie grants one
interview to Life magazine. She has the reporter come to
her house. He's there until after midnight, and she tells
him this exclusive story. She says that when JFK was
alive and they were in the White House and his
(09:46):
back was hurting him, that basically to calm him down
and ease his pain, she'd put on one record, his
favorite song about a place, of course, called Camelot. And
we forget that Jackie, at the beginning of her career
was a reporter, so she was a member of the press.
She was hounded by the press, but make no mistake,
she was a master of the press. She was the
(10:07):
one who inserted that word into the lexicon. She's the
reason we call it camelot because she wanted to write
JFK's legacy before anyone else could. She is as savvy
as could be. And my wife said, you know the
Jackie parts of this book, they're her favorite parts of
the book. You'll see when you get there.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, no, I've already started that. And the Camelot came
out of the musical Camelot. Do I have that right?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Of course, yeah, no, it was. It was a play,
and they had a record of the play of the
great you know song, and that was the thing that
calmed them down. And from what's wild is then that
becomes the reality. And listen, Jackie and JFK were the
first celebrity presidents. And I don't mean in the way
of you know, being popular. Every president's popular, but in
(10:53):
that celebrity Hollywood way, right of fame and beauty and
money and all the stuff. And I feel like we've
been chasing that. And for some it's the Reagans who
represented that, for some the Obamas, of some the Trumps,
but all of them had in a weird way been
cosplaying JFK and Jackie. But the irony is it's a
(11:13):
useless pursuit because Camelot was never real, It never existed.
But what was real, and especially on this day, what
we should be, you know, we should talk about is
the best thing JFK did give us, which was hope.
And in that inaugural address, probably the greatest in Abraham
Lincoln's you know, amazing one, JFK in the time when
(11:33):
the country was divided in two, you know, in nineteen
sixty make no mistakes. You know, it's titilating for me
to come on and say, hey, we found a secret
plot to kill JFK. No one knows about. But we
tell these stories because of what they tell us about
today and right now where we are. And I love
the fact you and I were talking on inauguration day
for this, because yeah, and that's why.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I was divided, and that's why you're here and a
lot of people after the JFK assassination, everybody in the
country had voted for John Kennedy, everybody. In reality, it
was the closest race, I think, or one of the
closest race in the history of the United States. And
one of the stories is there were one hundred thousand
votes that came out of Chicago that Bailey, Richard Bailey
(12:17):
had in fact created out of Cook Cemetery. But it
was very, very close race, and it was even to
the point where Nixon could have asked for a recount.
It was that close. And people don't give him enough
credit for saying, I'm not going to put the country
through this. So let's talk a little bit about the
(12:38):
Secret Service and how it changed after the assassination, because
it just just revolved, I mean just turned around into
another another agency that was not the same as it
was before.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, let's talk about the Secret Service. You know, one
of the other people you're gonna read about in the
book who's amazing is Hill. And Clint Hill gets as
signs right as JFK is elected. They say, you're designed
to Presidential Protective Detail. That's the PPD. It's what every
Secret Service agent wants going to the White House guard
the president. And they say, no, sir, you're not guarding
(13:14):
the president. You're assigned to the first Lady. And he
thinks he's got a demotion. He thinks, oh my gosh,
I'm going to tea parties. This is going to be terrible.
He doesn't realize it's been a sign to Jackie Kennedy.
And when all of this happens, and one of the
things we do at the end of the book is
we start with this spot that you know, to kill JFK,
butle we end with the real assassination of JFK. But
(13:34):
we show it through Jackie's eyes. You see it through
the Great Clint Hill's eyes. Who's sitting next to her
and guarding her. And you know, when it was done,
as I mentioned, the head of the Secret Service said,
this was the closest anyone came to killing the president.
Of course they made adjustments, of course they did. But
you know, on that day in Dallas, there was it
was the perfect storm. And when you look at the
(13:56):
Secret Service. I talked to them, they said, Secret Service
has studied assassins since the beginning of the Secret Service.
And they divide into two categories presidential assassins, hunters and howlers.
And a howler makes a lot of noise, says I'm
coming to kill you, but they rarely take action. A
hunter is very different. A hunter rarely says a word,
(14:20):
but they're the ones who tend to pull the trigger.
And if you look at the assassins from Abraham Lincoln
to JFK the four men who have successfully killed presidents,
all four of them are hunters. Richard Pavlick here thinks
he's a hunter, but he's a bit of a howler
and he opens his mouth, and that's of course what
he gets caught.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
And if I'm not mistaken, correct me, if I'm wrong.
One of the most iconic pictures of the assassination of
JFK is Jackie Kennedy on the back of the limousine
reaching and Clint Hill is reaching for her. He's behind her,
and everybody at that time thought that he was trying
(14:58):
to reach her or she was trying to grab him
to get in the car, and she was actually going
for a piece of her husband's skull. And that's what
really happened. Am I right about that?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
That's exactly right. She's trying to hold her husband's head together.
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Wow, what a story, all right. The book The JFK Conspiracy,
the secret plot to kill Kennedy eminently readable. I love
the work that Brad does. Again, thank you, And I'm
gonna wait for your next book, by the way, and
I'm sure you're already working on it right.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Working on it. And I have to say thank you
for always supporting us. You've been with us. I've been
doing this for two decades now and you've always been
someone i've looked up too. So thank you for supporting
us all this time.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, it's my pleasure. You deserve it. I mean, you're
you're that good. And again, I don't say that very often.
All right, thanks Brad. We are watching live on virtually
every network, all the local station the inauguration and the
swearing in of the President elect who will soon be
(16:01):
the president once again, President Donald Trump. And they have
a big ceremony that comes in Hey can you mute?
And because I'm thank you, and the number of dignitaries
who are in the room have come in. Milania Trump
(16:23):
came in and by herself, by the way, baron his well,
she had an escort, baron his their son who is
seven foot nine or eight foot three or whatever. He's
a pretty tall kid. And the President elect has already
walked in the room. We are going to hear and
see the swearing in ceremony where the Chief Justice is
(16:47):
going to swear in our new president, and we're going
to have an inaugural address. And then interestingly enough, well
it's kind of it's cold out there, I mean really cold.
So the inauguration, which normally happens outside in front of
the Capitol Building, has now been brought into the rotunda.
And instead of two hundred thousand people outside that witness
(17:13):
the inauguration, of which there are thousands and thousands of
guests who have tickets. We're talking six hundred are in
the rotunda, and some of them are obligatory, for example,
members of Congress. Certainly, you have the former president, former
vice president spouses. Here comes Joe Biden and vice presidential
(17:37):
candidate Harris or was previous vice specially e dential candidate
Harris and he is Joe Biden has just walked into
the room and he is getting applause from most of
the people that are therein virtually everybody is applauding him
because that's just what you do. And then the President
(17:58):
himself will walk in and as you look at this room,
I mean it is crowded, but six hundred people. So
how about all those people that were given tickets to
the inauguration.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Two hundred thousand of them?
Speaker 1 (18:13):
How many two thousand, two hundred thousand had tickets to
the inauguration? Is that right? Wow? So where are they
going to go? Well, you've got the arena. What's the
name of the arena where there's going to be an event,
a rally kind of an.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Event, Capital one Arena. About twenty thousand I believe are
going to that one.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Okay, So now you have everybody else who has been
screwed by the weather because they moved it inside twenty
degrees outside tonight. The inaugural, the inaugural balls, just a
bunch of events that every president does. Who shows up
where I don't see Mike Johnson who is standing waiting
(18:57):
for the president to come down, and it's a you know,
did you notice the fellow who was singing? I didn't.
I wasn't listening to the song that singer whatever the
hell he was singing. He had an open collar shirt,
didn't even have a tie. This is an inauguration of
(19:18):
a president. I don't get it. There's JD. Vance who
has now walked up to the area his wife. A
lot of spouses go to these virtually everybody who is invited,
and these are invitees that are obligatory that tradition has. Obviously,
(19:39):
there's no law regarding the inauguration. One of the things
about the inauguration, you don't need a Bible, you don't
need so help me God, that's not part of the
swearing in. It doesn't have to be. The Chief Justice.
Calvin Coolidge, for example, was sworn in by his father,
(20:00):
who was a notary. He was at his farm in Vermont.
It was kerosene lamps. They didn't have electricity. The news
came up. He was home and he was sworn in
by his dad as the President of the United States,
and he went to bed. So the stories if we
have a chance, and maybe we'll do those tomorrow, because
(20:21):
the inauguration is such a major, major deal in America,
and we get so much information and so much the
flavor of what the next president is going to do,
and we are going to hear a lot about what
the president the executive orders that the president is going
to sign, and we usually have day one signatures because
(20:46):
there's a lot of rhetoric about during the campaign on
day one I will sign. Well, in his case, that's
going to happen, and major changes in American policy will happen,
which any president can do with these executives orders, and
you're going to see and well, major changes in policy,
for example, immigration changes where the president has said we
(21:09):
are going to deport eleven million illegal immigrants. Well he
also got a little realistic and said, we're only going
to go after initially, We're going to go after those felons,
those have been convicted accused of crime, and the raids
are actually starting and probably today, which certainly didn't happen
(21:30):
under Joe Biden's administration. Oil and gas policy is going
to change completely because this president is not particularly believing
even in climate change. He's a big fan of fossil
fuel in the oil industry. So there'll be a lot
of drilling going on. They'll be executive orders that are
going to be undone. I just talked about executive orders
(21:53):
earlier that a president has enormous power. Here comes President
Trump looking to the dais where he is going to
be sworn in by the Chief Justice. He has just
kissed his wife perfunctorily. Just was that an air kiss,
(22:14):
by the way.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Well it was because the brim of her hat was
too big. You couldn't get to her cheek.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Well he could have gone under it. Now maybe it
wouldn't have looked so presidential.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I also don't mess up the makeup.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah. Probably. He is shaking hands with JD. Vance and
where I don't see the Chief Justice there He came
in earlier. Okay, he was in there.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Kavanaugh was going to do the oath of office for JD.
Vance and then Chief Justice Roberts will administer it to Trump.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Okay, So are we going to I'm going to let
you make the call on this. Are we going to
hang around for the JD vance? No, we'll come back
to it.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
We'll do the Trump inauguration and then his his inaugural
address as well.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Well, yeah, and the inaugural address. Know how long it's
going to go? The longest, William Henry Harrison two hours?
I mean, how the hell do you do two hours
outside in January? It actually was March in those days
in Washington, d C. Ronald Reagan did it. It was
seven degrees outside when Ronald Reagan had his second inaugural,
(23:22):
When JFK had his inauguration, it was I think in
the twenties, and it was Robert Frost, who I think
was Poet Laureate of the United States, great great poet,
Robert Frost, and he had so windy he had his
poem that he had written in front of them, and
the pages just blew off, and so he had to
(23:44):
do one of his poems by his memory. And Robert
Frost at that time was no youngster either. So let
me and tell me. The TV is behind me, So
you're going to have to interrupt me. When he speaks, well.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
I will tell you that they're running behind schedule because
Trump was supposed to be sworn in according to this
our timeline that we received yesterday or late last night.
Trump was supposed to be sworn in at eleven forty
seven and Vance was supposed to be sworn in at
eleven thirty six Eastern time. And Vance hasn't been sworn
in yet. But so they're running about ten or fifteen
(24:21):
minutes behind.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, and speaking right now is Senator Amy Clothes. I
had no idea what she is saying, or it doesn't
really matter. And Bill, we have some new news right
now that Chris Berry's going to deliver for us. Bill.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Just a few minutes ago, there was a statement from
President Joe Biden basically his final, his absolute final pardons.
Kind of interesting. He is exercising his he says, he's
exercising his power under the Constitution to pardon his brother
James Biden, his sister in law Sarah Jones Biden, along
with some other members of the family Valerie Biden, Owens,
(24:58):
John t Owens, and Francis Biden. The President said the
issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an
acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing. He just says
that he believes in the rule of law and he's
optimistic that the strength of the legal institution will prevail.
But he felt as though it was necessary to do
these preemptive pardons because of partisan politics.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, and those are very unusual, thanks Chris. Preemptive pardons
are pretty unusual. Usually it's after the fact, it's for
criminal issues. Usually it's for individuals, not big political figure.
Short of Richard Nixon being pardoned by Gerald Ford for
the Watergate issue. All right, so we're waiting. And by
(25:43):
the way, did President Biden flip off Trump as he
said that as he was pardoning. Probably not, but you
he wanted to so back again. The longest the longest
inaugural speech was William Harry Harrison William Henry Harrison at
(26:04):
two hours. The shortest one was George Washington one hundred
and thirty five words, basically, Hi, I'm president, you're not.
Now let's get to work. And it used to be
that March fourth was the inauguration. They changed its January twentieth.
(26:26):
It's always the twentieth, except in those days on March fourth.
If it fell on a Sunday, it would be the
next day. Also, the under God part, which you're going
to hear the president utter during the end of his
swearing in, doesn't exist in the Constitution. The actual language
(26:47):
of the swearing in when he defends I will defend
the Constitution in the United States to the best of
my ability. That language that is in the Constitution under
God didn't exist, still doesn't exists. Also it does. The
Bible that the president puts his hand on has great
(27:07):
historical significance. Now it's not necessary, it isn't as a
matter of fact, Herbert Hoover did he have a Bible
or not. I don't think he did. And he didn't
say so help me God. He just put up his
hand and say I affirm, which you can do that
in court, by the way, when you are being sworn
(27:29):
in as a witness, So help me God, put up
your hand and say I affirm. So that is kind
of interesting. John Quincy didn't take his oath on a Bible.
He was a law book instead, and it had the
Constitution in it. As I said earlier, a judge doesn't
have to do it. Now, the Chief Justice the United
(27:52):
States swears in a new president, and that's become historical.
That is simply the way we do it, not necessary
at all. As a matter of fact, as I said,
you had a federal judge, not the chief Justice, and
that was Sarah Hughes who inaugurated President Vice President Lyndon
(28:13):
Johnson at the time of the Kennedy assassination. And it
was done on the airplane air Force one, as the
body of JFK had been put on the airplane in
the back, and it was an extraordinary moment. It was
hotter than hell in that airplane. They didn't have air
(28:33):
conditioning in the plane, and the sweat was pouring through,
and they got Sarah Hughes, who was a federal judge
to swear Lyndon Johnson in and Jacqueline Kennedy an extraordinary
woman in her own right. I mean the book that
Brad Meltzer wrote, the JFK Conspiracy, which I just interviewed Brad,
The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy, well well worth reading,
(28:57):
and he talks about when an extraordinary woman Jackie Kennedy
actually was one of the most extraordinary, if not the
most extraordinary first ladies. And as you read it, you'll
see what I'm talking about, and what he's talking about.
She was standing next to Lyndon Johnson, and she was
(29:18):
wearing ink outfit with the blood of her husband all
over it, and she wanted to be there. That's an
extraordinary photo if you take a look at that. Probably
one of the most fun inauguration was Andrew Johnson, vice
(29:38):
president in eighteen sixty five, who became president when Abraham
Lincoln was assassinated. Just within weeks after he became the president,
and Andrew Johnson was dead drunk, falling down drunk as
he was sworn in as the president March fourth, eighteen
(30:03):
seventy three. You listened Grant his second inauguration. Now today
they're moving inside the rotunda because it's so cold outside.
And the last time I happened was Ronald Reagan who
also moved in because it was seven degrees. Today is
twenty degrees in Washington, and they're moving in, and we
(30:23):
understand that was President Trump's call. March fourth, eighteen seventy three.
Those were the days when it was in March until
it was changed to January twentieth, twentieth. It was so
cold when Grant was inaugurated his second time that the
food and the champagne that they brought out to give
(30:45):
to the guests froze. And they had hundreds of caged
canaries that were brought in for the reception because they
didn't have a lot of heat in those days, and
those canaries froze to death. That's cold. A couple of
other fun facts about the inauguration. Theodore Roosevelt, who became
(31:11):
president when McKinley was assassinated and he was sworn in
his second time in nineteen five, he ran again. He
became president at forty two, and he was actually a
few months younger than JFK. But JFK was the youngest
elected president we've ever had at forty two. Theodore Roosevelt
(31:32):
became president because he was vice president with the assassination
of the president and what he did Theodore Roosevelt and
I didn't know this until I had read this. This
is a fascinating bit of history, and I went wow.
Theodore Roosevelt wore one of Abraham Lincoln's rings for the inauguration.
(31:54):
John Hay, who was roosevelt Secretary of State, who had
been Lincoln's private secretary and wrote the first biography of Lincoln.
He was there when Lincoln was assassinated. The ring was
given to Mary Todd Lincoln, who then gave it to Hayes,
(32:15):
and Hayes let Roosevelt wear it for the inauguration. And
that is absolutely extraordinary. In days, traditional the presidents would
wear a top hat, I mean serious formal dress. They
wore the morning coats, morning being the tails and the best.
(32:37):
If you see those, those are really neat and a
top hat. I mean, it doesn't get more formal than that.
John F. Kennedy was the last president to have a
top hat. At his inauguration in nineteen sixty nine or
sixty one, Lyndon Johnson said no, no, we're not gonna
(32:57):
wear top hats. Another interesting bit. This is fascinating. I
love this. Now we know that Ronald Reagan loved jelly beans,
actually belly jellies. He made them famous where the whole
country went crazy when he was a governor of California.
He developed this jelly being jelly belly habit after he
(33:19):
quit smoking. So at his inauguration in nineteen eighty one,
three tons of red, white, and blue jelly bellies were
used in the inauguration, and the blueberry jelly belly was
created for the purpose of that inauguration. Ronald Reagan has
(33:42):
both the coldest inauguration and history inauguration day and the
warmest at the same time. January twentieth, nineteen eighty one
was the warmest fifty five degrees in Washington, d c.
The second was in nineteen eighty five, the coldest inauguration
(34:02):
day on record. And there have been presidents who have
been inaugurated in location other than Washington, private residence, a farmhouse,
and that was Calvin Coolidge, his dad's farmhouse in Vermont,
at an airplane. Lyndon Johnson. The first inauguration did not
happen in the Capitol Building. It was the Congress Hall
(34:27):
in Philadelphia, which was the Capitol building, and that was
the first capital of the United States. And who are
we hearing now? Oh the invocation by Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
And now we are and now Graham is taken over.
I'm sorry, Dolan is done and Pastor Graham is taken over.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Okay, fair enough, all right, So what we're gonna do
at this point? When do you want Gary and Shannon
coming up? Do we do it right now? Let's do
it now?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Way to get back on the air.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Oh you got it. Gary and Shannon are taking over
and they will have some tremendous analysis.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
I heard right now, except that Jeff Bezos's wife is
showing a lot of boobs and I have yet to
have eyes on her on her outfit.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
See, this is why I love Shannon, because this is
the kind of news that she does. You just that
is not true. It is a matter of observation. Yeah, no,
I understand. I would not have mentioned boobs.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
But oh yeah, you're too You're way too classy for that.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Oh yeah yeah, And I like I can in this
day and age. I mean, jelly bellies aren't off the table,
but but jelly bellies are presidential. All right, guys, I'm
going to throw it to you and you take over,
and you're going to do the rest of the inauguration
ure it comes Gary and Shannon, I'll see everybody tomorrow
(36:03):
where we're gonna go in a total different direction. I'm
not even say kfi. Gary, Shannon, you pick it up.
You've been listening to The Bill Handle Show. Catch My
Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am, and
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
You're listening to Bill Handle on demand from KFI AM
six forty KFI AM six forty Bill Handle in the
Morning Crew. It is a Monday morning, January twentieth. Boy,
what a day today. Martin Luther King Day, which we're
not paying enough attention to the legacy of doctor Martin
Luther King, which we sort of should. But also today
(00:24):
is an auguration of the forty seventh President of the
United States, Donald Trump. And that is actually a bigger
story than other inaugurations because it's Donald Trump, and because
any president can move where America is going to some extent,
and he's going to move where America is going to
a great extent. So Donald Trump part of his story
(00:47):
was the assassination attempt at one of his rallies, and
it came very very close, as you know, within an
inch of killing him. And we've had assassinations before. Probably
the most famous assassination in history was Abraham Lincoln, but
we've had assassinations after that, and many attempted assassinations. One
(01:10):
of the assassination stories, the biggest one in the modern
era was JFK. And obviously it was since Pearl Harbor.
It was if I can think of three major events
that have happened in the last eighty years. Pearl Harbor
the assassination of John F. Kennedy nine to eleven. Brad
(01:33):
Meltzer is an author and a historian who's been on
with us several times. I'm a huge fan of his.
It's a new book called The JFK Conspiracy, The Secret
Plot to Kill Kennedy. We're not talking about nineteen sixty three,
November twenty two. We're talking about days after Kennedy was
(01:55):
elected president. Brad, thanks for joining us as always, and
I'm going to just throw it to you and let
you start with the story because it is so fascinating.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
Yeah, and always good to be back. This is as
you said three years before. Lee Harvey Oswald takes this
famous shot, and it's Sunday morning in nineteen sixty right
after JFK is elected, and JFK's headed to church. But
what he doesn't know is there's a formal postal work
and named Richard Public who wants to kill him and
has packed his car with seven sticks of dynamite, and
(02:28):
Publics follow JFK to Palm Beach, Florida because he thinks
JFK security is weakest there and he's right about that.
So as JFK leaves his house, all this assassin has
to do is hit the little trigger mechanism he's built
and boom will go to the dynamite and what saves
his life. I don't want to ruin it, but it
has to do with Jackie. And it's part of one
(02:49):
of the craziest JFK stories you've never heard, although now
I think about it, that's actually chapter one of the
JFK conspiracy.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
So let's talk about number one one. I JFK was
so vulnerable, and he was at the he was at
the estate that his father had Bill Joseph Kennedy or
had bought. And if you look at it and it's
beach front and thirty three thousand square feet agers. I mean,
(03:18):
let me tell you, JFK was pretty wealthy. I mean,
his dad was insanely wealthy and they lived in big,
big homes. So he was there right after the election.
A matter of fact, wasn't he there taking actually waiting
for the vote count to come?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah? You know this was he was there for that,
and he traveled there all the time. And what's amazing
about it is when you know the Secret Service took over.
They're like, okay, you know, we haven't really dealt with
a second home before. This is something new for them.
It's also new for JFK. I mean, you know, Eisenhower's
a guy who got off the plane and the schedules
said go to the car, and he went to the car.
(03:57):
JFK lands in Palm Beach. And when he gets off
the plane, he sees there's all these adoring fans waiting
by the fence on the runway. So he doesn't go
to the car. He doesn't care what the schedule is.
He goes racing over to kiss babies, signed babies, do
everything you do with babies. This is not your dad's president.
And the Secret Service realizes quickly and so they're like, okay,
(04:19):
we're going to turn a one way street the other
way so cars can't come flying straight at this mansion,
at the estate, and you can put guards in the front,
but in the back of this estate is the ocean,
the entire ocean. They're like, how do we do that?
So right from the moment it begins, they realize that
adjustments have to be made, and you know, when they
(04:42):
get to Florida, they're sweating. They're sitting out in the
Florida sun. They're in their Secret Service suits. JFK comes
up to one of them and says, hey, hey, man,
what size shure do you? Walks inside, goes and gets
a short sleeve shirt, brings it out for him. The
Secret Service has barely been guarding JFK for twenty four hours,
and they're already wearing his clothes. This is going to
(05:03):
be a very different Secret Service experience.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
And what are the things I love the stories of JFK.
He used to sneak out of the White House, jump
in his car and drive around and leave the Secret
Service behind. Just it was a different presidency, and certainly
Jackie Kennedy was an extraordinary first lady. And I have
(05:28):
a question. This guy Pavlick was arrested, right, and this
was no sort of you know, minor attempt at a presidency.
I mean we see that all the time where the
authorities go, yeah, there really wasn't a lot there. I mean,
we're going to arrest him. The attempt was there, There
was a conspiracy. I mean, this was the real thing
(05:49):
in terms of the assassination attempt. And then the question
I want to ask you when we come back. You know,
why wasn't this news? You think this would be extraordinary news.
And we'll be right back with Brad Meltzer, the author
of The JFK Conspiracy, The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy.
I started reading it, and what Brad does is write
(06:11):
these histories that are so readable. They are just a
lot of fun. I know, I'm blowing smoke up various
parts of your body and I don't do that usually, Brad,
but your books are that good. Okay, now you say
thank you, Bill, go ahead.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I appreciate you more than you know.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Excellent, all right, that's the appropriate response. Brad Meltzer is
the author and with Josh Mensch, is the author of
a new book, The JFK Conspiracy, The Secret Plot to
Kill Kennedy. And this was a plot that well, it
is going to kill Kennedy within days after he won
the presidency. And the guy who was arrested was a
(06:54):
guy by the name of Public, Richard Public. And this
was a no joke assassination at I mean, this would
have happened had it gone off and he was arrested.
And Brad, how is it possible that this isn't even
covered that this is that you're actually almost breaking the news.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
As always, you asked the right question. I mean, why
do we not know this story? You know, the Secret
Service at the time said it was the closest the
sitting president has ever come to being killed while he
was there. And here's why, because the story was big
news in Florida. I was on the front page there,
but back then it took an extra day to go national.
And on the day that this story is about to
(07:34):
go nationwide, two planes collide over New York City. Everyone
on board dies except for one young boy who's the
sole survivor, and America becomes obsessed with this kid, Will
he live? Will he die? It knocks this JFK story
off the front page, buries it inside until my friend
Josh mentioned, I are like, you know what, this will
(07:56):
be a great idea for a book. We should tell
this story.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
And part of the story also is the credit that
is not given enough to Jackie Kennedy, who was an
extraordinary woman in her own right, and it is and
I used, I'm starting to read this book and man,
the facts about her. I mean, she was responsible for
a lot of the aura around JFK, which I didn't
(08:24):
know is she spoke I knew she spoke fluent French,
and I knew she spoke Spanish, but I didn't know
she spoke German on top of that. I mean, just
you know, so let's spend a minute talking about the
connection Jackie Kennedy with all of this.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yeah, and Bill, you know you hit it on the head.
Jackie Kennedy. We've turned her into cliche. Will you say
to her about her? Oh, she's got great she's got style,
as if that's all she's got, And she's absolutely so savvy,
and she's the secret weapon in this book. It's the
part that people are going to love the most, you know,
And we don't hold back. We show you the the
affairs that JFK was having. We show you when Jackie
(09:03):
was pregnant and she's hemorrhaging. JFK is nowhere to be found.
He's basically on his way to a plane. He's on
a plane headed to Florida. And I kept asking myself,
if I was researching the book, if their marriage is
such a mess here, why did they keep calling a camelot?
Why is a camelot? Is that year one? Did they
call it that year two? And I finally discovered Bill
(09:25):
that the word camelot is never used until after JFK
is dead. It's after his assassination that Jackie grants one
interview to Life magazine. She has the reporter come to
her house. He's there until after midnight, and she tells
him this exclusive story. She says that when JFK was
alive and they were in the White House and his
(09:46):
back was hurting him, that basically to calm him down
and ease his pain, she'd put on one record, his
favorite song about a place, of course, called Camelot. And
we forget that Jackie, at the beginning of her career
was a reporter, so she was a member of the press.
She was hounded by the press, but make no mistake,
she was a master of the press. She was the
(10:07):
one who inserted that word into the lexicon. She's the
reason we call it camelot because she wanted to write
JFK's legacy before anyone else could. She is as savvy
as could be. And my wife said, you know the
Jackie parts of this book, they're her favorite parts of
the book. You'll see when you get there.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, no, I've already started that. And the Camelot came
out of the musical Camelot. Do I have that right?
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Of course, yeah, no, it was. It was a play,
and they had a record of the play of the
great you know song, and that was the thing that
calmed them down. And from what's wild is then that
becomes the reality. And listen, Jackie and JFK were the
first celebrity presidents. And I don't mean in the way
of you know, being popular. Every president's popular, but in
(10:53):
that celebrity Hollywood way, right of fame and beauty and
money and all the stuff. And I feel like we've
been chasing that. And for some it's the Reagans who
represented that, for some the Obamas, of some the Trumps,
but all of them had in a weird way been
cosplaying JFK and Jackie. But the irony is it's a
(11:13):
useless pursuit because Camelot was never real, It never existed.
But what was real, and especially on this day, what
we should be, you know, we should talk about is
the best thing JFK did give us, which was hope.
And in that inaugural address, probably the greatest in Abraham
Lincoln's you know, amazing one, JFK in the time when
(11:33):
the country was divided in two, you know, in nineteen
sixty make no mistakes. You know, it's titilating for me
to come on and say, hey, we found a secret
plot to kill JFK. No one knows about. But we
tell these stories because of what they tell us about
today and right now where we are. And I love
the fact you and I were talking on inauguration day
for this, because yeah, and that's why.
Speaker 1 (11:52):
I was divided, and that's why you're here and a
lot of people after the JFK assassination, everybody in the
country had voted for John Kennedy, everybody. In reality, it
was the closest race, I think, or one of the
closest race in the history of the United States. And
one of the stories is there were one hundred thousand
votes that came out of Chicago that Bailey, Richard Bailey
(12:17):
had in fact created out of Cook Cemetery. But it
was very, very close race, and it was even to
the point where Nixon could have asked for a recount.
It was that close. And people don't give him enough
credit for saying, I'm not going to put the country
through this. So let's talk a little bit about the
(12:38):
Secret Service and how it changed after the assassination, because
it just just revolved, I mean just turned around into
another another agency that was not the same as it
was before.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Yeah, let's talk about the Secret Service. You know, one
of the other people you're gonna read about in the
book who's amazing is Hill. And Clint Hill gets as
signs right as JFK is elected. They say, you're designed
to Presidential Protective Detail. That's the PPD. It's what every
Secret Service agent wants going to the White House guard
the president. And they say, no, sir, you're not guarding
(13:14):
the president. You're assigned to the first Lady. And he
thinks he's got a demotion. He thinks, oh my gosh,
I'm going to tea parties. This is going to be terrible.
He doesn't realize it's been a sign to Jackie Kennedy.
And when all of this happens, and one of the
things we do at the end of the book is
we start with this spot that you know, to kill JFK,
butle we end with the real assassination of JFK. But
(13:34):
we show it through Jackie's eyes. You see it through
the Great Clint Hill's eyes. Who's sitting next to her
and guarding her. And you know, when it was done,
as I mentioned, the head of the Secret Service said,
this was the closest anyone came to killing the president.
Of course they made adjustments, of course they did. But
you know, on that day in Dallas, there was it
was the perfect storm. And when you look at the
(13:56):
Secret Service. I talked to them, they said, Secret Service
has studied assassins since the beginning of the Secret Service.
And they divide into two categories presidential assassins, hunters and howlers.
And a howler makes a lot of noise, says I'm
coming to kill you, but they rarely take action. A
hunter is very different. A hunter rarely says a word,
(14:20):
but they're the ones who tend to pull the trigger.
And if you look at the assassins from Abraham Lincoln
to JFK the four men who have successfully killed presidents,
all four of them are hunters. Richard Pavlick here thinks
he's a hunter, but he's a bit of a howler
and he opens his mouth, and that's of course what
he gets caught.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
And if I'm not mistaken, correct me, if I'm wrong.
One of the most iconic pictures of the assassination of
JFK is Jackie Kennedy on the back of the limousine
reaching and Clint Hill is reaching for her. He's behind her,
and everybody at that time thought that he was trying
(14:58):
to reach her or she was trying to grab him
to get in the car, and she was actually going
for a piece of her husband's skull. And that's what
really happened. Am I right about that?
Speaker 2 (15:08):
That's exactly right. She's trying to hold her husband's head together.
It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Wow, what a story, all right. The book The JFK Conspiracy,
the secret plot to kill Kennedy eminently readable. I love
the work that Brad does. Again, thank you, And I'm
gonna wait for your next book, by the way, and
I'm sure you're already working on it right.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Working on it. And I have to say thank you
for always supporting us. You've been with us. I've been
doing this for two decades now and you've always been
someone i've looked up too. So thank you for supporting
us all this time.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Yeah, it's my pleasure. You deserve it. I mean, you're
you're that good. And again, I don't say that very often.
All right, thanks Brad. We are watching live on virtually
every network, all the local station the inauguration and the
swearing in of the President elect who will soon be
(16:01):
the president once again, President Donald Trump. And they have
a big ceremony that comes in Hey can you mute?
And because I'm thank you, and the number of dignitaries
who are in the room have come in. Milania Trump
(16:23):
came in and by herself, by the way, baron his well,
she had an escort, baron his their son who is
seven foot nine or eight foot three or whatever. He's
a pretty tall kid. And the President elect has already
walked in the room. We are going to hear and
see the swearing in ceremony where the Chief Justice is
(16:47):
going to swear in our new president, and we're going
to have an inaugural address. And then interestingly enough, well
it's kind of it's cold out there, I mean really cold.
So the inauguration, which normally happens outside in front of
the Capitol Building, has now been brought into the rotunda.
And instead of two hundred thousand people outside that witness
(17:13):
the inauguration, of which there are thousands and thousands of
guests who have tickets. We're talking six hundred are in
the rotunda, and some of them are obligatory, for example,
members of Congress. Certainly, you have the former president, former
vice president spouses. Here comes Joe Biden and vice presidential
(17:37):
candidate Harris or was previous vice specially e dential candidate
Harris and he is Joe Biden has just walked into
the room and he is getting applause from most of
the people that are therein virtually everybody is applauding him
because that's just what you do. And then the President
(17:58):
himself will walk in and as you look at this room,
I mean it is crowded, but six hundred people. So
how about all those people that were given tickets to
the inauguration.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Two hundred thousand of them?
Speaker 1 (18:13):
How many two thousand, two hundred thousand had tickets to
the inauguration? Is that right? Wow? So where are they
going to go? Well, you've got the arena. What's the
name of the arena where there's going to be an event,
a rally kind of an.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Event, Capital one Arena. About twenty thousand I believe are
going to that one.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
Okay, So now you have everybody else who has been
screwed by the weather because they moved it inside twenty
degrees outside tonight. The inaugural, the inaugural balls, just a
bunch of events that every president does. Who shows up
where I don't see Mike Johnson who is standing waiting
(18:57):
for the president to come down, and it's a you know,
did you notice the fellow who was singing? I didn't.
I wasn't listening to the song that singer whatever the
hell he was singing. He had an open collar shirt,
didn't even have a tie. This is an inauguration of
(19:18):
a president. I don't get it. There's JD. Vance who
has now walked up to the area his wife. A
lot of spouses go to these virtually everybody who is invited,
and these are invitees that are obligatory that tradition has. Obviously,
(19:39):
there's no law regarding the inauguration. One of the things
about the inauguration, you don't need a Bible, you don't
need so help me God, that's not part of the
swearing in. It doesn't have to be. The Chief Justice.
Calvin Coolidge, for example, was sworn in by his father,
(20:00):
who was a notary. He was at his farm in Vermont.
It was kerosene lamps. They didn't have electricity. The news
came up. He was home and he was sworn in
by his dad as the President of the United States,
and he went to bed. So the stories if we
have a chance, and maybe we'll do those tomorrow, because
(20:21):
the inauguration is such a major, major deal in America,
and we get so much information and so much the
flavor of what the next president is going to do,
and we are going to hear a lot about what
the president the executive orders that the president is going
to sign, and we usually have day one signatures because
(20:46):
there's a lot of rhetoric about during the campaign on
day one I will sign. Well, in his case, that's
going to happen, and major changes in American policy will happen,
which any president can do with these executives orders, and
you're going to see and well, major changes in policy,
for example, immigration changes where the president has said we
(21:09):
are going to deport eleven million illegal immigrants. Well he
also got a little realistic and said, we're only going
to go after initially, We're going to go after those felons,
those have been convicted accused of crime, and the raids
are actually starting and probably today, which certainly didn't happen
(21:30):
under Joe Biden's administration. Oil and gas policy is going
to change completely because this president is not particularly believing
even in climate change. He's a big fan of fossil
fuel in the oil industry. So there'll be a lot
of drilling going on. They'll be executive orders that are
going to be undone. I just talked about executive orders
(21:53):
earlier that a president has enormous power. Here comes President
Trump looking to the dais where he is going to
be sworn in by the Chief Justice. He has just
kissed his wife perfunctorily. Just was that an air kiss,
(22:14):
by the way.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Well it was because the brim of her hat was
too big. You couldn't get to her cheek.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Well he could have gone under it. Now maybe it
wouldn't have looked so presidential.
Speaker 3 (22:23):
I also don't mess up the makeup.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
Yeah. Probably. He is shaking hands with JD. Vance and
where I don't see the Chief Justice there He came
in earlier. Okay, he was in there.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
Kavanaugh was going to do the oath of office for JD.
Vance and then Chief Justice Roberts will administer it to Trump.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
Okay, So are we going to I'm going to let
you make the call on this. Are we going to
hang around for the JD vance? No, we'll come back
to it.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
We'll do the Trump inauguration and then his his inaugural
address as well.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Well, yeah, and the inaugural address. Know how long it's
going to go? The longest, William Henry Harrison two hours?
I mean, how the hell do you do two hours
outside in January? It actually was March in those days
in Washington, d C. Ronald Reagan did it. It was
seven degrees outside when Ronald Reagan had his second inaugural,
(23:22):
When JFK had his inauguration, it was I think in
the twenties, and it was Robert Frost, who I think
was Poet Laureate of the United States, great great poet,
Robert Frost, and he had so windy he had his
poem that he had written in front of them, and
the pages just blew off, and so he had to
(23:44):
do one of his poems by his memory. And Robert
Frost at that time was no youngster either. So let
me and tell me. The TV is behind me, So
you're going to have to interrupt me. When he speaks, well.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
I will tell you that they're running behind schedule because
Trump was supposed to be sworn in according to this
our timeline that we received yesterday or late last night.
Trump was supposed to be sworn in at eleven forty
seven and Vance was supposed to be sworn in at
eleven thirty six Eastern time. And Vance hasn't been sworn
in yet. But so they're running about ten or fifteen
(24:21):
minutes behind.
Speaker 1 (24:22):
Yeah, and speaking right now is Senator Amy Clothes. I
had no idea what she is saying, or it doesn't
really matter. And Bill, we have some new news right
now that Chris Berry's going to deliver for us. Bill.
Speaker 4 (24:36):
Just a few minutes ago, there was a statement from
President Joe Biden basically his final, his absolute final pardons.
Kind of interesting. He is exercising his he says, he's
exercising his power under the Constitution to pardon his brother
James Biden, his sister in law Sarah Jones Biden, along
with some other members of the family Valerie Biden, Owens,
(24:58):
John t Owens, and Francis Biden. The President said the
issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an
acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing. He just says
that he believes in the rule of law and he's
optimistic that the strength of the legal institution will prevail.
But he felt as though it was necessary to do
these preemptive pardons because of partisan politics.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah, and those are very unusual, thanks Chris. Preemptive pardons
are pretty unusual. Usually it's after the fact, it's for
criminal issues. Usually it's for individuals, not big political figure.
Short of Richard Nixon being pardoned by Gerald Ford for
the Watergate issue. All right, so we're waiting. And by
(25:43):
the way, did President Biden flip off Trump as he
said that as he was pardoning. Probably not, but you
he wanted to so back again. The longest the longest
inaugural speech was William Harry Harrison William Henry Harrison at
(26:04):
two hours. The shortest one was George Washington one hundred
and thirty five words, basically, Hi, I'm president, you're not.
Now let's get to work. And it used to be
that March fourth was the inauguration. They changed its January twentieth.
(26:26):
It's always the twentieth, except in those days on March fourth.
If it fell on a Sunday, it would be the
next day. Also, the under God part, which you're going
to hear the president utter during the end of his
swearing in, doesn't exist in the Constitution. The actual language
(26:47):
of the swearing in when he defends I will defend
the Constitution in the United States to the best of
my ability. That language that is in the Constitution under
God didn't exist, still doesn't exists. Also it does. The
Bible that the president puts his hand on has great
(27:07):
historical significance. Now it's not necessary, it isn't as a
matter of fact, Herbert Hoover did he have a Bible
or not. I don't think he did. And he didn't
say so help me God. He just put up his
hand and say I affirm, which you can do that
in court, by the way, when you are being sworn
(27:29):
in as a witness, So help me God, put up
your hand and say I affirm. So that is kind
of interesting. John Quincy didn't take his oath on a Bible.
He was a law book instead, and it had the
Constitution in it. As I said earlier, a judge doesn't
have to do it. Now, the Chief Justice the United
(27:52):
States swears in a new president, and that's become historical.
That is simply the way we do it, not necessary
at all. As a matter of fact, as I said,
you had a federal judge, not the chief Justice, and
that was Sarah Hughes who inaugurated President Vice President Lyndon
(28:13):
Johnson at the time of the Kennedy assassination. And it
was done on the airplane air Force one, as the
body of JFK had been put on the airplane in
the back, and it was an extraordinary moment. It was
hotter than hell in that airplane. They didn't have air
(28:33):
conditioning in the plane, and the sweat was pouring through,
and they got Sarah Hughes, who was a federal judge
to swear Lyndon Johnson in and Jacqueline Kennedy an extraordinary
woman in her own right. I mean the book that
Brad Meltzer wrote, the JFK Conspiracy, which I just interviewed Brad,
The Secret Plot to Kill Kennedy, well well worth reading,
(28:57):
and he talks about when an extraordinary woman Jackie Kennedy
actually was one of the most extraordinary, if not the
most extraordinary first ladies. And as you read it, you'll
see what I'm talking about, and what he's talking about.
She was standing next to Lyndon Johnson, and she was
(29:18):
wearing ink outfit with the blood of her husband all
over it, and she wanted to be there. That's an
extraordinary photo if you take a look at that. Probably
one of the most fun inauguration was Andrew Johnson, vice
(29:38):
president in eighteen sixty five, who became president when Abraham
Lincoln was assassinated. Just within weeks after he became the president,
and Andrew Johnson was dead drunk, falling down drunk as
he was sworn in as the president March fourth, eighteen
(30:03):
seventy three. You listened Grant his second inauguration. Now today
they're moving inside the rotunda because it's so cold outside.
And the last time I happened was Ronald Reagan who
also moved in because it was seven degrees. Today is
twenty degrees in Washington, and they're moving in, and we
(30:23):
understand that was President Trump's call. March fourth, eighteen seventy three.
Those were the days when it was in March until
it was changed to January twentieth, twentieth. It was so
cold when Grant was inaugurated his second time that the
food and the champagne that they brought out to give
(30:45):
to the guests froze. And they had hundreds of caged
canaries that were brought in for the reception because they
didn't have a lot of heat in those days, and
those canaries froze to death. That's cold. A couple of
other fun facts about the inauguration. Theodore Roosevelt, who became
(31:11):
president when McKinley was assassinated and he was sworn in
his second time in nineteen five, he ran again. He
became president at forty two, and he was actually a
few months younger than JFK. But JFK was the youngest
elected president we've ever had at forty two. Theodore Roosevelt
(31:32):
became president because he was vice president with the assassination
of the president and what he did Theodore Roosevelt and
I didn't know this until I had read this. This
is a fascinating bit of history, and I went wow.
Theodore Roosevelt wore one of Abraham Lincoln's rings for the inauguration.
(31:54):
John Hay, who was roosevelt Secretary of State, who had
been Lincoln's private secretary and wrote the first biography of Lincoln.
He was there when Lincoln was assassinated. The ring was
given to Mary Todd Lincoln, who then gave it to Hayes,
(32:15):
and Hayes let Roosevelt wear it for the inauguration. And
that is absolutely extraordinary. In days, traditional the presidents would
wear a top hat, I mean serious formal dress. They
wore the morning coats, morning being the tails and the best.
(32:37):
If you see those, those are really neat and a
top hat. I mean, it doesn't get more formal than that.
John F. Kennedy was the last president to have a
top hat. At his inauguration in nineteen sixty nine or
sixty one, Lyndon Johnson said no, no, we're not gonna
(32:57):
wear top hats. Another interesting bit. This is fascinating. I
love this. Now we know that Ronald Reagan loved jelly beans,
actually belly jellies. He made them famous where the whole
country went crazy when he was a governor of California.
He developed this jelly being jelly belly habit after he
(33:19):
quit smoking. So at his inauguration in nineteen eighty one,
three tons of red, white, and blue jelly bellies were
used in the inauguration, and the blueberry jelly belly was
created for the purpose of that inauguration. Ronald Reagan has
(33:42):
both the coldest inauguration and history inauguration day and the
warmest at the same time. January twentieth, nineteen eighty one
was the warmest fifty five degrees in Washington, d c.
The second was in nineteen eighty five, the coldest inauguration
(34:02):
day on record. And there have been presidents who have
been inaugurated in location other than Washington, private residence, a farmhouse,
and that was Calvin Coolidge, his dad's farmhouse in Vermont,
at an airplane. Lyndon Johnson. The first inauguration did not
happen in the Capitol Building. It was the Congress Hall
(34:27):
in Philadelphia, which was the Capitol building, and that was
the first capital of the United States. And who are
we hearing now? Oh the invocation by Cardinal Timothy Dolan.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
And now we are and now Graham is taken over.
I'm sorry, Dolan is done and Pastor Graham is taken over.
Speaker 1 (34:53):
Okay, fair enough, all right, So what we're gonna do
at this point? When do you want Gary and Shannon
coming up? Do we do it right now? Let's do
it now?
Speaker 3 (35:03):
Way to get back on the air.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Oh you got it. Gary and Shannon are taking over
and they will have some tremendous analysis.
Speaker 5 (35:12):
I heard right now, except that Jeff Bezos's wife is
showing a lot of boobs and I have yet to
have eyes on her on her outfit.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
See, this is why I love Shannon, because this is
the kind of news that she does. You just that
is not true. It is a matter of observation. Yeah, no,
I understand. I would not have mentioned boobs.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
But oh yeah, you're too You're way too classy for that.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
Oh yeah yeah, And I like I can in this
day and age. I mean, jelly bellies aren't off the table,
but but jelly bellies are presidential. All right, guys, I'm
going to throw it to you and you take over,
and you're going to do the rest of the inauguration
ure it comes Gary and Shannon, I'll see everybody tomorrow
(36:03):
where we're gonna go in a total different direction. I'm
not even say kfi. Gary, Shannon, you pick it up.
You've been listening to The Bill Handle Show. Catch My
Show Monday through Friday six am to nine am, and
anytime on demand on the iHeartRadio app.
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