Political Hotels

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hotel history is created for adult audiences.

(00:03):
Content may not be suitable for all listeners.
Discretion is advised.
You're listening to Hotel History.
We take you with us through the sordid history and scandals
of some of the world's most famous and infamous hotels.
I'm D'Etta.
And I'm Yael.

(00:24):
Let's get started.
This episode is all about political hotels.
Because guess what season we're in?

(00:46):
It's November.
It's an election year.
It's everyone is going crazy and we need a distraction.
Exactly.
So this is not political as of today.
But we're going to go over some very famous well-known hotels

(01:10):
that some political scandals went down.
Yes.
Yeah, not just scandals, but also historic moments.
And all kinds of things.
So, you know, might as well start with probably the most
famous political scandal that has ever happened at an American

(01:32):
hotel.
And we actually had the pleasure of visiting this hotel in October.
It was really exciting to go.
And of course, we're talking about Watergate.
Watergate.
I don't know why I said it that way.

(01:53):
And if anyone doesn't know Watergate Hotel, or they only
know of the scandal, by the way, it became so famous that no
one knew it was a hotel.
Yeah, or at least the younger people didn't because I
certainly did not know that it was a hotel.
Yeah, I just thought it was an office building.
I had no idea that it was this entire complex that consisted of

(02:18):
hotel and apartments and office building and all of these things.
I actually always thought it was a term used to describe something.
Oh, yeah, because it had already become like describing things as
whatever gate was already a popular thing whenever we were kids.
Yeah.

(02:39):
Yeah.
But for those who don't know, this hotel became very infamous after
what happened.
The hotel became infamous because of President Nixon.
And if you don't know who that is, take out your Google.
I thought you were going to say take out your encyclopedia.

(03:00):
And take your Wikipedia.
Oh, okay, Granny.
He was a president.
Anyway, the Watergate Hotel before the Nixon scandal was apparently
very controversial when it opened in 1965.
I had no idea it opened that.

(03:21):
I thought it opened years before that.
Yeah, no, it was actually still a relatively new hotel when the
scandal happened.
So it was new and popular, I guess.
So the Watergate Hotel, according to the National
Museum of Art and Design, was actually controversial from the
beginning of its plans.

(03:42):
Even when it opened in 1965, it was designed by celebrity Italian
architect Luigi Moretti.
And he designed it to be very curvy and sprawling.
Like whenever you look at it, a photo of it, you can see just curves,
curves, curves.
And this was really shocking to Washington, D.C. society.

(04:07):
I guess they're so used to all of their like neo-Greco-Roman boxy
styles of buildings that they just could not conceive of this
modern Italian architecture.
It definitely is unique.
Even today, when you look at it, you go in and it kind of takes you

(04:27):
by surprise a little.
Like, it kind of looks boring, I would say sometimes when you
get there or maybe because we went out there.
But it has a very interesting look.
And then you kind of look, you notice all the curves more and all
the details.
It grows up.
Yeah, I liked it.

(04:49):
Definitely.
It was, yeah, it was not at all what I was expecting.
I had never seen a photo of it, like the, the, the, the, the
from afar, you know, so I had no idea what to expect when we got
there.
But it was not that.
Yeah.
And it, it also is a complex.
So it's not just a hotel, but it has a few other buildings where

(05:13):
people did live there.
And even though it had, you know, the people critique the design
that it was very different, it actually became, you know,
the playground for a lot of actors and models and congressmen
and Supreme court justices who also lived in the Watergate

(05:36):
apartments.
Yes.
So it's a group of six different buildings in the foggy bottom
neighborhood of Washington, DC.
And it's, so you, you don't just have the hotel, but you also
have apartments on either side, and then you also have this

(05:57):
office building that had a lot of, you know, different
companies in it, including which the democratic national
committee, which will come into play here in the key.
Yeah.
Very important.
But the whole thing was built throughout a few years.

(06:19):
It wasn't just built right away.
Yes.
Yeah. The hotel itself, I think opened in 65 and then other
buildings started to open up as the years went on.
It says like between 1963, 1971.
Yeah.
But it became an incredibly popular living area, like

(06:40):
members of Congress, different members of different presidential
administrations.
So like it would sometimes be given the nickname, like the
Little White House because of how many people from an
administration were living there.
And some famous occupants over time have included Alfred S.

(07:01):
Bloomingdale, Bob and Elizabeth Dole, Placido Domingo, Ruth
Bader Ginsburg, Alan Greenspan, Monica Lewinsky.
She stayed there.
I guess her mother actually lived there and she stayed
there briefly.
Robert McNamara, Condoleezza Rice, Ben Stein and John

(07:21):
Warner and Elizabeth Taylor.
And if you're unfamiliar with a lot of these, you can Google
them.
Most of them are political figures with a few celebrities.
It's hard because I think people who are listening who
aren't familiar with like American politics or who are

(07:43):
much younger because I don't even recognize some of these.
Yeah, they're going to be like, who is Bob Dole?
Why should I care?
No relation to the banana company.
No, no.
We're going to let that.
Yeah.
So lots of politicians in here.
Surely to God, everyone still remembers Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

(08:05):
She hasn't been gone that long.
RBG.
I mean, Condi Rice, you got to remember her.
I don't think the younger generation knows who any of
these people are.
They probably definitely don't know who Ben Stein is.
Who's Ben Stein again?

(08:26):
The clear eyes guy.
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
When your eyes.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Permanently in my brain.
I mean, he obviously he did other things besides eyedrops
commercials, but that is what he will forever be in my mind as.

(08:51):
So this hotel that was becoming really popular amongst like the
DC crowd soon became popular for a different reason.
The scandal that overshadowed everything was the Nixon
scandal.

(09:12):
Let's get into that.
So we're going to kind of try to try to do like a timeline of events.
It's an extremely complicated situation and we're not going to be able to talk about every single
thing that happens because we do try to keep these a listenable amount.

(09:32):
Like you could do an entire podcast, probably just on this scandal.
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
But we're going to do our best to get to hit the important stuff.
So I don't even know it so well, but yeah, go.
Yeah.
So on January 27th, 1972, G.

(09:53):
Gordon Liddy, who was the finance counsel for the committee for the reelection of the
president, also known as CRP or pronounced creep, which is so fitting.
Oh, how appropriate.
Yeah.
And former aid to John Ehrlichman presented a campaign intelligence plan to CRP's acting
chairman, Jeb Stuart McGruder.

(10:15):
Great name.
McGruder sounds like that SNL skit where they it's like MacGyver, but they, but the Saturday
Night Live version of MacGyver.
Do you remember that?
I feel like I do, but for some reason I'm blanking.
I feel like that his name was something close to McGroot.
It was like McGruber or something.

(10:37):
Anyway, that is not really.
So he so G.
Gordon Liddy, who, by the way, my entire childhood, I knew G.
Gordon Liddy just as that Republican guy who liked to yell on his talk show on the radio.
I had no fucking clue that he was a criminal of Watergate fame.

(11:04):
But doesn't it track?
Yes.
Yes.
But it's just insane.
Anyway, the first time I saw his name, I was like, wait, no, no, surely not.
Yeah.
Same guy.
Anyway, so G.
Gordon Liddy is presents some plans to McGruder, the attorney general, John Mitchell and presidential

(11:33):
counsel, John Dean.
Apparently he presented them with several different plans, but this is the one that
stuck.
The plot involved extensive illegal activities against the Democratic Party.
According to Dean, this marked quote, the opening scene of the worst political scandal

(11:54):
of the 20th century and the beginning of the end of the Nixon presidency.
So on May 28th, 1972, the plan that G.
Gordon Liddy hatched is put into motion.
A team of burglars working for President Nixon's re-election campaign, which is

(12:15):
organized and led by G. Gordon Liddy, former CIA agents, E. Howard Hunt and James McCord
and former FBI agent Alfred C. Baldwin III.
They bugged two phones and took photos in and near the Democratic National Committee
chairman's office.
The phone taps were monitored from Baldwin's hotel rooms, first room 419 and later room

(12:40):
723 at the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodge across the street.
So we actually get two hotels for the price of one.
I was going to say a lot of it's involved here.
The wiretap was successful, but soon needed repairs.
So the team had to set a second break in for June 17th, 1972 to replace the malfunctioning

(13:02):
phone tap.
And while they're in there, you know, collect some more information.
This is, it's still like, I knew the general idea of this one.
I'm like, none of these people can claim that they don't know this is illegal.
I'm just surprised this is the first time it happened.
Maybe it's not.

(13:24):
Sometime after midnight on June 17th, this is their second burglar, quote unquote,
burglary, Watergate Complex security guard Frank Willis noticed tape covering the latches
on some of the complexes doors leading from the underground parking garage to several offices,
which allowed the doors to close, but stay unlocked.

(13:46):
He removed the tape believing it was nothing.
When he returned a short time later and discovered that someone had re-taped the locks,
he called the police.
Which why would there just be, who would just tape a door like several doors and that,
that be nothing like too trusting of a security guy?

(14:07):
Yeah. Police dispatched an unmarked police car with three planes, close officers,
Sergeant Paul W. Leeper, officer John B. Barrett and officer Carl M. Schoffler.
Schoffler? Sure. Who were working the overnight shift.
They were often referred to as the bum squad because they often dressed undercover as hippies

(14:27):
and were on the lookout for drug deals and other street crimes.
Poor hippies.
Oh yeah. They thought this was something else.
Yeah. So Alfred, so Baldwin, the guy who was staying at the Motor Lodge across the street,
he was on spotter duty. So he was supposed to be the lookout across the street,
but he was distracted watching "Attack of the Puppet People" on TV.

(14:54):
Oh my God.
Okay. How did they know that detail?
It probably, it was in his interrogation.
It's probably amazing.
Watching attack of the puppet people and did not observe the arrival of the police car in front of
the building. And he didn't see the plain clothes officers actually investigating the sixth floor

(15:15):
where the DNC was. But by the time he did notice unusual activity and radioed his team, it was too
late. So the police arrested five men identified as Virgilio Gonzalez, Bernard Barker, James McCord,
Eugenio Martinez, and Frank Sturgis. They were criminally charged with attempted burglary

(15:42):
and attempted interception of telephone and other communications.
The Washington Post reported that the police found lockpicks, door jimmies,
almost $2,300 in cash in hundred dollar bills with the serial numbers in sequence.
That's not suspicious. A short wave receiver that could pick up police calls,

(16:04):
which did them no good. 40 rolls of unexposed film, two 35 millimeter cameras, and three pen
sized tear gas guns.
What? That's so specific.
They were so prepared and all of that did them no good. Like they still got caught and arrested.

(16:24):
And then later the Post reported that they actually had $5,300 on them.
Why would you take your cash to the burglary with you?
I have a lot of questions about the whole thing. Like, was this really worth it?
Yeah. I hope they got paid more than $5,300 between the five of them. Like I hope the rest

(16:49):
of the money was elsewhere. Because even in 1972, that's still not enough for five people
to burgle the Democratic National Committee.
No way.
So following the apprehension of these five people in the break-in, both the press and the

(17:11):
Department of Justice connected the money found on them to the Committee for the Re-election of the
President, the fundraising organization of Nixon's reelection campaign.
Subsequent investigations and revelations during trials prompted the US House of Representatives
to grant the House Judiciary Committee investigative authority. And the Senate established

(17:35):
the US Senate Watergate Committee, which conducted hearings related to the incident.
So everybody's like, oh, there's something here. And this is more than it is. This is not just a
burglary. Like there's more going on here. So Nixon's own reaction to the break-in, at least
initially, was skeptical. Watergate prosecutor James Neal thought that Nixon hadn't known in advance

(18:01):
of the break-in because there was a conversation tape that was taped on June 23rd between the
president and his chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, in which Nixon asked, who was the asshole that did
that? So they had this taped conversation where it sounded like Nixon had no idea about it.

(18:22):
However, Nixon subsequently ordered Haldeman to have the CIA block the FBI
investigation into the source of funding for the burglary. So way to look innocent.
A few days later, Nixon's press secretary, Ron Ziegler, described the event as, quote,

(18:44):
a third rate burglary attempt. On August 29th at a news conference, Nixon stated that presidential
counsel, John Dean, had conducted a thorough investigation of the incident, even though he
had actually not conducted an investigation whatsoever. Nixon also said, quote, I can say
categorically that no one in the White House staff, no one in this administration presently employed

(19:08):
was involved in this very bizarre incident. So even with all of this going on, Nixon gets
reelected come November in a landslide victory. So everybody, I guess, was just like, oh, poor Nixon,
they're picking on him. I guess, I don't know. I guess the scandal just wasn't big enough.

(19:33):
Well, also at the time I was reading that this kind of this, the charge of this was kind of being
led by the media. And at the time, the public, much like now, the public didn't have great trust in
the media at this particular time in US history. And so they were just like, oh, it's the liberal

(19:56):
media trying to find any way to bring Nixon down. We don't believe that this was connected to him.
So I'm thinking it's that. So numerous revelations and Nixon's efforts to impede the investigation

(20:19):
in 1973, led the House to initiate impeachment proceedings against him. Witnesses testified
that Nixon had sanctioned plans to cover up his administration's involvement in the break-in,
and that there was a voice-activated taping system in the Oval Office. The televised Senate
Watergate hearings garnered nationwide attention and public interest. The Supreme Court's ruling

(20:43):
in the United States versus Nixon compelled Nixon to surrender the Oval Office tapes,
which revealed his complicity in the cover-up. The House Judiciary Committee approved three
articles of impeachment against Nixon, who subsequently resigned from office on August 9,
1974, becoming the only US president to do so. His successor, however, Gerald Ford,

(21:06):
pardoned him a month later. Why? I guess he thought it was just be, I don't know,
be a disgrace for a president to... Yeah, his disgrace. Yeah, his disgrace. Like,
you made your choices, buddy. So, and also a lot of the tape, even though they did finally,

(21:33):
you know, they subpoenaed the tapes and finally got the tapes that had been from the Oval Office,
a lot of like chunks of the tapes had actually been deleted by Nixon's secretary, who claimed
that she had accidentally pushed the pedal that erases tape on her little machine while she was

(21:56):
like trying to answer the phone or something. And like they could tell from the setup that that
is absolutely not like that wouldn't have happened. And she was just like, oopsie daisy,
I erased some stuff, my bad. Wow. Yeah.
Yeah. So what happened to Nixon after this? He gets pardoned and he just lives on his merry way.

(22:24):
Yeah, I guess. Yeah. I mean, I obviously, he, I don't think worked in politics ever again. It's
a little hard to come back from that. Yeah. Oh, shit. But yeah, like once you're pardoned
by the president, you're pardoned. So he didn't have to pay for anything. Everybody else involved

(22:47):
did. Like a lot of people had to like were dismissed from the White House. A lot of those
people that were involved, he like made them resign or fired them because it was starting to look bad
for him. And all of the people involved in the burglary were indicted. The people that they

(23:08):
figured out had hired them to do that. Like those that I mentioned, like G. Gordon Liddy and MacGruber,
MacGruber, MacGrueder, and all of them, you know, were charged and indicted. Like, so everybody else
had to, but even so, I think MacGrueder only spent like seven months in prison for his part in it.

(23:28):
Oh, so even then, like people didn't get a ton of punishment.
I feel like that's just like, if you're powerful, you just have that ability to make things disappear
for people. Yeah. And it's not right.

(23:51):
It's not right. Why are you above the law? But yeah, there is a plaque on the sixth floor of the
office building portion of the Watergate Hotel commemorating the break-in and the sixth floor
space houses a private exhibit also commemorating the break-in. So when we went to the hotel,

(24:13):
we didn't see it. No, they, I think that area was occupied at the time, so they can't let us see it,
but they did have a separate smaller little area, like hallway archive kind of dedicated to it as
well. Yeah, that was really nice. And the front desk lady was really nice. She gave us a lot of

(24:36):
information, a little tour. And the hotel was just, I really liked it in the end. Yeah, it's been
renovated quite a bit, obviously since the seventies. And I really, I enjoyed the vibe that they had
going on now. Like the downstairs bar area was really cool and fun. Yeah, the red chairs and

(24:59):
the bottles on the wall. It was really nice. They have a rooftop bar. That was, I was surprised.
That had a great view of the Potomac and the city, like the Washington skyline. That was nice. Yeah.
And can we talk about the name of the area? Foggy Bottom? Like why? I imagine a lot of fog

(25:27):
rolls in off the river. Oh, I just, I mean, yeah, that makes sense. It's a good reason why, but
I'm just like, how can you take any place seriously by calling it Foggy Bottom? That's so true. Where
do you live? I live in Foggy Bottom. Man, it's tough here in Foggy Bottom. That sounds like a

(25:47):
euphemism for something like that a baby has, like, oh, she had a case of the Foggy Bottoms.
You know what I mean? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I feel like it doesn't, it's like, but why not
just Foggy Town? Use some Desiton, that'll clear it right up. Foggy Land. Foggy Banks. Yeah, Foggy Banks.

(26:11):
Or Foggy River. There's so many things. Foggy Bottom, it's like, you're just asking for trouble.
Like Nixon was like, this is a great, this is where it's going to happen. I don't know.
I love it. But yeah, but like you were saying earlier, the name Watergate and the suffix

(26:35):
gate have since become synonymous with and applied by journalists to controversial topics and scandals.
So it really became intrinsic almost to... What happened recently that was a gate?
Yeah, there was one not that long ago. Russia Gate. Video game gate. Russia Gate. There was Russia Gate.

(26:58):
There was like some video game gate. GameStop gate? Maybe. There was something else. There's like
but now I hear it. I feel like now. Yeah. Did they name Bill Clinton's scandal a gate?
No, they just... I think that they named that a whore. A whore gate.

(27:32):
Whore gate. I'm cutting that out because Monica Lewinsky doesn't deserve that.
No. Oh, oh, oh, oh. I was not referring to Monica Lewinsky. I was referring to Bill Clinton.
Oh, he's the whore. No. Good. Oh, and my literally in my head, I was like, yeah, no, he's the scandal.

(27:55):
So I'm just going to read through some of these famous gates and you guys can, if one of these
names piques your fancy, you can go look it up. We've got Celeb Gates, Closet Gates, Comics Gate,
Donut Gate, Dorito Gates, Driver Gates, Elsa Gates, Gamer Gates. Yeah. So there's so many gates

(28:15):
out there. Like it really just took off as a term. So yeah, that's the Watergate scandal.
So our next hotel is the Willard, which is also in D.C. and we got to visit it. And

(28:42):
it was probably one of the most beautiful hotels I've ever seen. Absolutely gorgeous. If you ever
have a chance to go there, it's it has this beautiful promenade called Peacock Alley and
just insanely gorgeous. It has a really cool little historic archive hallway,

(29:03):
just everything you could want. It has like a little museum in the hotel. It's the ceilings
are huge. Everything is so detailed and ornate and beautiful. And you're let it like walk around a
little. They weren't so don't go there. Don't do that. Yeah, they like really were kind of made it

(29:26):
open and inviting for you to check it out. It's known as the most historic hotel in Washington,
D.C. So we will probably do a full length on it on at some point in the future. It has so much. But
we're mentioning this specific hotel because Martin Luther King Jr. finished writing his speech

(29:46):
in the lobby. So you can just imagine some of the historical figures that are just hanging out in
this lobby. I know I feel like at some point if you stood there and in the 60s, you probably would
see like insane amounts of just, I don't know, everyone from history walking through those doors.

(30:10):
Yes, because this hotel is in is in downtown D.C. So it is, you know, very, very close to the White
House and all kinds of political areas. So you're absolutely going to be seeing, you know, political
figures, world leaders. Yeah. And although everyone calls it the Willard Hotel, apparently the

(30:33):
full name is the Willard Intercontinental Washington. The Willard is shorter. Yeah.
It is a historic luxury. I'm not going to say this name, right?
Boo Arts Hotel? Bow Arts. What does that mean? Bow Arts? That's just the architecture style. Yeah.

(30:59):
OK, that makes sense. OK, that's very specific because it does have a specific style. It's
located in, as you mentioned, downtown D.C. and it was founded in 1847, but it was also it had many
variations. It wasn't all just one hotel and that it just lived on for till now. In 1816, it started

(31:26):
out as a boarding house and then became a hotel, actually became a couple of different hotels.
And then until it finally became the Willard in 1847. Oh, OK, that's where I got confused because
I thought it was 1901. And then the current building was erected in 1901. Yeah, that's the OK.

(31:49):
Yeah. So technically the current build, it's really from 1901. The current building is, but the hotel,
the Willard Hotel has existed since 1847, but it doesn't have to have the same building to be the
same entity. The hotel is an entity. In my head it does. But you know why it's also confusing?

(32:13):
Because when you go into the little museum, it has like a timeline, but even in the timeline,
it's going back and forth. But yeah, it's not so easy to follow along.
Yeah. So back to Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous speech, I Have a Dream speech,

(32:39):
in which King called for equal civil and economic rights and an end to racism in the United States.
He delivered that speech to over 250,000 civil rights supporters from the steps of the Lincoln
Memorial in Washington, D.C. I didn't know that's where he did it. Yeah. The speech is one of the

(32:59):
most famous moments of the civil rights movement and among the most iconic speeches in American
history. Does anyone not know that speech? God, I hope not. I feel like we're entering that era of
someone not knowing who MLK is. Absolutely. Yeah. So what is less known is that he finished that

(33:22):
speech in the Willards Lobby in 1963. So imagine you're writing your most famous speech and then
you're like, got to finish it. I'm going to walk to the Lincoln Memorial. I'm kidding. I doubt he
was just walking to the Lincoln Memorial by himself. Definitely not. So this is interesting.
So the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was partly intended to demonstrate mass support

(33:49):
for the civil rights legislation proposed by President John F. Kennedy in June. And King
originally designed his speech as a homage to Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and timed it
to correspond with the centennial of the Emancipation Proclamation. Perfect. You knew what he was doing
there. The speech was drafted with the assistance of Stanley Levinson and Clarence Benjamin Jones.

(34:14):
Jones had said that the logistical preparations for the march were so burdensome that the speech
was not a priority for us. And that on the evening of Tuesday, August 27, 12 hours before the march,
Martin still didn't know what he was going to say. That's actually crazy. It's crazy, but God,
do I identify with that? Like, yeah, absolutely. Deadline motivated. Yeah. But when it comes from

(34:42):
the heart, speech is just like, you can prepare six months in advance. I never heard like a good
speech and they were like, yeah, we knew exactly what we were going to say. It always is like off
the cuff. Well, and that's how this ended up going because even though he did like, you know, write
a speech towards the end of the speech, he went off script and started improvising. And so a lot

(35:06):
of what he said towards the end, he was actually, he pulled from other speeches he had already given
and he just kind of improvised it all together. And it worked out beautifully. I wish that when
I improvised, it went that well. It takes talent. And okay, this is really interesting. So why did

(35:29):
Dr. King write his speech in the lobby? I didn't know this, but Dr. King wrote the speech in the
lobby because the FBI would often bug his hotel room. And the staff of the Willard gave him
seclusion by building a barrier of plants in the lobby so he can work on the speech without notice
and the bellhops and front desk employees would hide him around the lobby, changing his location

(35:53):
as he worked. Holy crap. So this is an example of when a hotel actually is helping progress.
Yeah. Again. And it's crazy. It's not just the location, but the assistance of the hotel.
Dr. King's family makes pilgrimages to the Willard Intercontinental to mark anniversaries

(36:15):
of the March on Washington. Wow. Which is so sweet. I hope they treat them nicely. The Willard
has, I'm sure they do. The Willard has an MLK suite with a view of Pennsylvania Avenue, which is
where the whole place is. But because of renovations, it's not clear which room is actually his in
1963. Yeah. It must've changed a lot since then, but that's crazy. That actually,

(36:44):
like imagine, you see, I mean, if you hung out in the lobby long enough back then, you can see
something. Yeah. And the lobby is really big. So like in my head, if I hadn't been there and
someone was just telling me this, I would be like, how big is this lobby that you have? And I would
be like, how big is this lobby that you could hide somebody in it? It's pretty substantial. Like,

(37:06):
yeah, you could absolutely move somebody from corner to corner and put a pretty decent barrier
up and nobody would realize that you had taken part of the lobby away because there's still
plenty of lobby left. Yeah. And also I don't know how it looked exactly back then. I know now it's
exactly back then. I know now it's like there were a lot of hidden places, right? There

(37:30):
was that bar. When you go there, there's, you can see there's like another level. You're
going to really hide in some corners in that hotel lobby. So that's cool of them.
Yeah, that's so cool. And also, I mean, to be, have such an important task at hand because

(37:53):
JFK was really like relying on there being a big turnout to this march to help like put
pressure on Congress to pass his civil rights legislation. So to know that like you have
a hand in this and Dr. King was like 16th of 18 speakers. So he's, you know, pretty

(38:18):
much one of the headliners to have that much pressure put on you. And then to also know
that the FBI is freaking bugging your room and not even be able to like have a sense
of privacy and, and the, and your own little space that you have in Washington, just awful.

(38:39):
It's crazy, but good, good on the Willard. That's that like, wow, that's what life's
about. Yeah. You know, seeing something and doing something.
So that brings us to our final political hotel, which is the Washington Hilton. The Washington

(39:06):
Hilton opened in March of 1965. So this is also a fairly new hotel compared to the historic
hotels in Washington. And it opened, it is north of downtown DC. So it's a little bit
further out from the white house than, than like the Willard or the Mayflower. So this

(39:31):
hotel was the site of the assassination attempt on president Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley
jr. on March 30th, 1981. As a result, the hotel is sometimes colloquially referred to
by the locals as the Hinckley Hilton. It was kind of cute.

(39:52):
It's kind of cute. Yeah. So this story is fucking nuts. I had no idea about some of
the details of this. The story starts with Hinckley, our man, Hinckley, John Hinckley
Jr. Jingleheimer Schmidt, developing, developing erotomania for the child actress, Jodie Foster.

(40:20):
I didn't know what erotomania was. So I had to look it up. It's, it's like an obsession.
Or yeah, like you, yeah, you develop this like obsession and this belief that this person
who is basically out of your league or would like never notice you or you'd never have
a chance with, uh, you develop unrequited love for them. However, you don't really seem

(40:43):
to realize that it's unrequited. You think that they secretly like you love you back.
Or if you haven't met them, then you think, oh, if they could just meet you, or if you
do this, then you know, this thing for them that they will love you. So while living in
Hollywood in the late seventies, Hinckley saw the film Taxi Driver at least 15 times.

(41:07):
Oh my God. Apparently identifying strongly with protagonist Travis Bickle portrayed by
Robert De Niro. The story involves Bickle's attempts to save a child prostitute played
by Foster toward the end of the film. Bickle's attempts, Bickle attempts to assassinate a
United States Senator who is running for president over the following years. Hinckley trailed

(41:30):
Foster around the country, going so far as to enroll in a writing course at Yale in 1980
after reading in People Magazine that she was a student there. He wrote numerous letters
and notes to her in late 1980. He called her twice and refused to give up when she indicated
that she was not interested in him. Is Jodie Foster's number not unlisted? You know, it's,

(41:59):
I mean, this was like 1980. Who knows? You know, this guy sounded like he's on a mission.
Yeah, he was going to get a hold of it. Yeah. That's crazy. So Hinckley was convinced that
he would be Foster's equal if he became a national figure. So he took some inspiration

(42:26):
from Taxi Driver and began stalking then president Jimmy Carter. He was surprised how easy it
was to get close to the president. He was only a foot away at one event, but he was
arrested in October 1980 at Nashville International Airport and fined for illegal possession of

(42:46):
a firearm. Carter had made a campaign stop there, but the FBI did not connect this arrest
to the president and did not notify the Secret Service. So the Secret Service issue started
way before Trump. Yeah. His parents briefly placed him under the care of a psychiatrist.

(43:08):
So even his parents were like, Oh God, Oh God, Oh God. Yeah. Hinckley turned his attention
to Ronald Reagan, whose election he told his parents would be good for the country. He
wrote three or four more notes to Foster in March of 1981. Foster gave these notes to
a Yale Dean who gave them to the Yale police who sought but failed to track Hinckley down.

(43:34):
On March 21st, 1981, this is a little foreshadowing, new president Ronald Reagan, who had taken
office on January 20th and his wife, Nancy, visited Ford's theater in Washington, DC for
a fundraising event. In his autobiography, Reagan recalled, quote, I looked up at the

(43:56):
presidential box above the stage where Abe Lincoln had been sitting the night he was
shot and felt a curious sensation. I thought that even with all the Secret Service protection
we now had, it was probably still possible for someone who had enough determination to
get close enough to the president to shoot him. How right you are, sir. Oh my God. Yeah.

(44:18):
So that was March 21st that he went to Ford's theater and had, you know, was having a moment
with Abe Lincoln's box. On March 28th, a week later, Hinckley arrives in Washington,
DC by bus and checked into the Park Central Hotel. He originally intended to continue
on to New Haven in another attempt to infatuate Foster. He noticed Reagan's schedule that

(44:44):
was published in the Washington Star and decided it was time to act. Hinckley knew that he
might be killed during the assassination attempt and he wrote but did not mail a letter to
Foster about two hours prior to his attempt on the president's life. In the letter, he
said that he hoped to impress her with the magnitude of his action and that he would

(45:05):
quote, abandon the idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart
and live out the rest of my life with you. So if only you would love me, I wouldn't have
to kill the president. Oh God. On March 30th, Reagan delivered a luncheon address to the
two representatives of AFL-CIO, which is a national trade union center at the Washington

(45:31):
Hilton. The Secret Service was very familiar with this hotel. They inspected it more than
a hundred times for various presidential visits since the early seventies. It was actually
considered the safest venue in Washington because of its secure passageway that was
enclosed called President's Walk, built after the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy.

(45:57):
So Reagan entered the building through the passageway at about 1.45 p.m. waving to a
crowd of news media and citizens. The Secret Service had required him to wear a bulletproof
vest to some events, but he was not wearing one for this speech because his only public
exposure would be the 30 feet between the hotel and his limousine. And the agency did

(46:18):
not require vests for agents that day. No one saw Hinckley behaving in an unusual way.
Witnesses who reported him as fidgety and agitated apparently had him confused with
another person there that the Secret Service had been monitoring. So I guess somebody there
was acting weird, but it wasn't Hinckley. Maybe that other guy was like, I have an idea.

(46:41):
He's like, you know what? So at 2.27 p.m. Reagan exited the hotel through the President's
Walk on Florida Avenue where the reporters waited. He left the T Street Northwest exit
toward his waiting limousine as Hinckley waited within the crowd of admirers. The Secret Service

(47:02):
had extensively screened those attending the President's speech, but greatly erred by allowing
an unscreened group to stand within 15 feet of him behind a rope line. See, why would
you do that? Why would you let anyone unscreened anywhere near the President? Even if it's
only from the hotel exit to the limo. The agency uses multiple layers of protection.

(47:27):
Local police in the outer layer briefly check people, then the Secret Service agents are
in the middle layer. They check for weapons and then more agents form an inner layer immediately
around the President and Hinckley penetrated the first two layers. As several hundred people

(47:52):
applauded Reagan, the President unexpectedly passed right in front of Hinckley. Reporters
standing behind a rope barricade 20 feet away asked questions as Mike Putzell of the so
many great names today as Mike Putzell of the Associated Press shouted, Mr. President,
Hinckley assumed a crouch position and rapidly fired a 22 caliber revolver six times in 1.7

(48:18):
seconds, missing the President with all six shots. But not quite. So the first round hit
White House Press Secretary James Brady in the head above his left eye. Yeah. The small
explosive charge in the round exploded on impact. God, that sounds awful. A DC police

(48:42):
officer Thomas De La Honte recognized the sound as a gunshot and turned his head sharply
to the left to identify the shooter. And as he did so, he was struck in the back of the
neck by the second shot, the bullet ricocheting off his spine. So he fell on top of Brady
screaming, I'm hit. Hinckley now had a clear shot at the President, but Alfred Antonucci,

(49:06):
a Cleveland, Ohio labor official who was standing nearby, saw Hinckley fire the first two shots.
So he hits him in the head and wrestles him to the ground. Upon hearing the shots, special
agent in charge Jerry Parr almost instantly grabbed Reagan by the shoulders and dived
with him towards the open rear door of the limousine. Agent Ray Shattuck trailed just

(49:29):
behind Parr to assist in throwing both men into the car. The third round overshot the
President, instead hitting the window of a building across the street. Parr's actions
likely saved Reagan from being hit in the head. Oh, wow. As Parr pushed Reagan into
the limousine, Secret Service agent Tim McCarthy turned his attention toward the sound of the

(49:51):
gunfire, pivoted to his right and placed himself in the line of fire. McCarthy spread his arms
and legs, taking a wide stance directly in front of Reagan and Parr to make himself a
target. McCarthy was struck in the lower abdomen by the fourth round, the bullet hitting
his right lung, diaphragm and liver. The fifth round hit the bullet resistant glass of the
window on the open rear door of the limo as Reagan and Parr were passing behind it. The

(50:15):
sixth and final bullet ricocheted off the armored side of the limousine, passed between
the space of the open rear door and vehicle frame and hit the President in the left underarm.
The round grazed a rib and lodged in his lung, causing it to partially collapse before stopping
less than an inch from his heart. Holy wow. Damn. Okay, first off, the fact that that

(50:40):
dude managed to get off six shots and didn't directly hit. Okay. He's not even shot. Yeah,
he was right to think that he might not make it out of that situation alive. He had not
practiced nearly enough, thank God. Thankfully, a lot of fast thinking from everyone around

(51:04):
and that people didn't just run away. They actually saw Hinckley and tried to take him
down. Yeah, his Secret Service agent, Tim McCarthy. Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. You've got that
you've got the Secret Service agents grabbing the President and getting him away. One acting
as a human shield, but then also there were two citizens that were there for the speech,

(51:31):
not Secret Service people that beat the crap out of Hinckley and were taking him to the
ground. Is that how he got caught, right? Yeah, yeah. He got caught. Four, sure. Within moments
of the first shot, a different Secret Service agent, Dennis McCarthy, no relation to the

(51:53):
other McCarthy, dove across the sidewalk and landed directly on Hinckley as others pushed
Hinckley to the ground. Another Cleveland area labor official, Frank J. McNamara, joined
Antonucci and started punching Hinckley in the head. Dennis McCarthy later reported that
he had to strike two citizens to force them to release Hinckley. So they were just going

(52:14):
to beat him till he died, it sounds like. Secret Service agent Robert Wanko, Wanko,
deployed in Uzi, concealed in a briefcase to cover the President's evacuation. So they
brought out the big gun for that and to deter a potential group attack. Man, that is, that

(52:36):
is some action. So the day after the shooting, Hinckley's gun was given to the Bureau of
Alcohol, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which traced its origin in just 16 minutes. They
figured out that the gun had been purchased at Rocky's Pawn Shop in Dallas, Texas in October

(52:59):
of 1980. What a surprise. Surprise, surprise. Texas is out again. It had been loaded with
six Devastator brand cartridges, which contained a small aluminum and lead azide explosive
charges designed to explode on contacts. But the bullet that hit Brady was the only one

(53:23):
that exploded on April 2nd after learning that the other bullets could explode at any
time. Volunteer doctors wearing bulletproof vests removed the bullet from De La Honti's
neck. Oh my God. So anybody with a bullet still in them is like a ticking time bomb
because it could explode any time. Oh, so crazy. After the Secret Service first announced

(53:51):
shots fired over its radio network, Reagan, whose code name was Rawhide, was removed from
the scene. Why is that his name? Why is that his name? He was removed from the scene by
agents in the limousine, which was nicknamed stagecoach. No one knew that Reagan had been

(54:13):
shot after par searched Reagan's body and found no blood. He stated that Rawhide is
okay. We're going to crown, which is the White House. He preferred the White House's medical
facilities to those of an unsecured hospital. But Reagan was in great pain from the bullet
that had struck his rib and believed that his rib, he thought that his rib had cracked

(54:33):
when par pushed him into the limousine. So they didn't realize yet that he had been shot.
But when the agent checked him for gunshot wounds, Reagan started coughing up blood.
Oh, no. So the president thought he had cut his lip, but par assessed that the cracked
rib had punctured Reagan's lungs. And so then they diverted to George Washington University

(54:56):
Hospital, which the Secret Service periodically inspected just in case they needed it. So
the limousine arrived there less than four minutes after leaving the hotel, while other
agents took Hinkley to a DC jail and Nancy Reagan, code name Rainbow, left the White
House for the hospital. Wow. They need to make a movie about this. I think they did.

(55:21):
I'm sure they did. They did. I feel like there is one. We'll Google it. Although par had
requested a stretcher, none were ready at the hospital, which did not normally station
a stretcher at the emergency entrance. Reagan exited the limousine and insisted on walking.
He acted casually and smiled at onlookers as he entered the hospital. When he entered
the hospital, he started having difficulty breathing and he fell to one knee. So then

(55:48):
they assisted him the rest of the way. The physician to the president, Daniel Rouge,
had been near Reagan during the shooting and arrived in a separate car. Believing that
the president might have experienced a heart attack, Rouge insisted that the hospital's
trauma team operate on Reagan as they would any other patient. When a hospital employee
asked Reagan, asked Reagan aid, Michael Deaver for the patient's name and address, only when

(56:13):
Deaver stated 1600 Pennsylvania to the worker realized that the president was in the emergency
department. My God. The medical team cut Reagan's thousand dollar custom made suit in order
to examine him. Reagan complained about the cost of the ruined suit, which was cited by
an assistant to a press brief in a press briefing to reassure the public that the president

(56:37):
was in stable health. Military officers, including the one who carried the nuclear football,
you know, the case with all of your coat stuff in it, they unsuccessfully tried to prevent
the FBI agents from confiscating the suit that he that was cut off of him because Reagan's

(56:58):
wallet and other possessions were in the suit, which they were confiscating as evidence.
But the gold codes card that has the nuclear codes on it was in Reagan's wallet. So the
military is like trying to stop the FBI from taking this wallet with the golden codes in
it. And they did not manage to stop them. And the FBI didn't return it for two days.

(57:20):
So I imagine the Pentagon was shedding a brick. Oh, my God. Well, how are they so just so
many questions like, first of all, why does the president have a wallet other than that?
To carry the gold codes? Yeah. Have a gold code tissue or something like a whole wallet.

(57:45):
What are you buying? No one's going to let you buy it. The medical personnel found that
Reagan's systolic blood pressure was 60 compared to the normal 140, indicating that he was
in shock. And they knew that most 70 year olds in the president's condition would not
survive. But Reagan was in excellent physical health and had been shot by a 22 caliber bullet

(58:09):
instead of a larger 38 as they first feared. So they were able to operate on him and everything
turned out OK. When Nancy Reagan arrived in the emergency room, Reagan remarked to her,
money, I forgot to duck, borrowing boxer Jack Dempsey's line to his wife. While intubated,

(58:33):
he scribbled to a nurse, quote, all in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia, borrowing
a line from WC Fields. Although Reagan came close to death, the team's quick action and
pars decision to drive to the hospital instead of the White House likely saved his life.
Within 30 minutes, Reagan left the emergency department for surgery with normal blood pressure.

(58:55):
So he he then had his emergency exploratory surgery to make sure all of his organs were
OK and remove the bullet. He lost over half of his blood volume in the emergency department
and during surgery. Yikes. But the bullet was successfully removed and he was OK. In

(59:16):
the O.R. Reagan removed his oxygen mask to joke, I hope you are all Republicans and the
doctor and the doctors and nurses laughed and the surgeon who was a Democrat replied
today, Mr. President, we are all Republicans. Meanwhile, the FBI took over the investigation

(59:41):
and on Saturday, agents obtained a warrant and searched Hinkley's hotel room. According
to agent Thomas J. Baker, quote, what we found in Mr. Hinkley's room was bizarre on the desk
so that we could find him was his entire plan. He had left a map of where he was going. He
had the morning paper open with the president's diary. He publicized the fact that Reagan

(01:00:03):
would be speaking to a union group in the ballroom of the Washington Hilton. Strangest
of all was a statement, a letter to actress Jodie Foster proclaiming that he was committing
a historic act, a presidential assassination to impress her, end quote. According to Baker,
our follow up investigation, which lasted weeks, traced Mr. Hinkley's history over

(01:00:27):
the previous months. We determined that he had traveled the country, gone to firing ranges
and in fact was obsessed with Miss Foster. He had planned and committed an assassination
attempt on the president. He was a mentally disturbed man.
Oh yeah. No shit. That is an understatement. I have a question. Did Jodie Foster put out

(01:00:50):
a statement like, Oh, so sorry. Question. Good question. I would be like horrified if
someone did that to me or not to me, but used me as an excuse to do that to someone else.
Oh my God. Especially the president. I would be so horrified. Let's see. The first result

(01:01:11):
is a article entitled load, please. Jodie Foster and the trauma that has stopped her
doing theater for 40 years. The actress has always avoided speaking out about the stalker
who shot Ronald Reagan in a bid to impress her until now. She was 18 at the time of the

(01:01:37):
shooting and has never since returned to the stage. So this is a, an article from El Pais.
Wow. So definitely had an effect on her. Yeah. So Hinkley apparently was quoted as stating

(01:02:00):
that the shooting was quote, the greatest love offering in the history of the world.
Ugh. Eww. Yuck. I also like, I don't know Jodie Foster as like the young 1970s actress.
I know her as, you know, the older actress and panic room and yeah. Silence of the Lambs

(01:02:25):
and like, I also just watched the true detective night country was really good. So it's weird.
It's weird that someone would be, it sounds bad, like so obsessed with her. I mean, she's
amazing. She's an amazing actress, but still it's like, yeah, just bizarre. It's crazy.

(01:02:49):
So apparently she was in college, you know, she's in college at this time and she was
in theater in college and was in doing this play. The play happened in two weekends and
I did the first weekend and in between the first weekend and the second weekend, John
Hinkley shot the president, she says. So for years she introduced clauses in her media

(01:03:12):
interviews that prohibited any mention of the subject. So she would not talk about it
for four decades, basically. It's then she says the world fell apart. There were secret
service people everywhere. I had body guards and I had to be taken to a safe house and
I was in the middle of these two weekends of this play and I had the dumb idea of the

(01:03:34):
show must go on. So I was like, I have to do that second weekend. However, Foster says
that during that second weekend, there was a terrifying incident that left her traumatized.
There were people everywhere, cameras everywhere and there was a guy in the front row and I
had noticed that it was the second night that he'd been there. And I decided to the whole

(01:03:54):
play yell, fuck you, motherfucker. I just decided that I was going to use this guy,
she says. And then the next day it was revealed that this particular guy had a gun and he
had brought it to the performance. And then he was on the run and I was in a class and
the bodyguard guy came and threw me onto the ground while I was in the class, which was
really embarrassing because there were only 10 people there. Wow. She reflects. It was

(01:04:20):
a traumatic moment and I've never admitted that maybe that has something to do with how
I never wanted to do a play again. Well, yeah. Oh my God. I never want to like do anything
again. Did you know that Hinkley was granted probation in 2016? What? Yeah. What? I don't

(01:04:43):
know. After years of successive prison benefits, Hinkley was granted probation in 2016. Did
he get it? Yeah. Is he free? Hinkley. So when was this article written? This article is
from this year. This is from June of this year. It says Hinkley, who is now 69 years

(01:05:10):
old. He was 25 when he shot the president was fully released from court restrictions
in June, 2022. A few days later, he had his first TV interview with CBS. In the interview,
of course he did. In the interview, he expressed remorse for his actions and said that he did
not remember what feelings led him to shoot Reagan. Oh, okay. He also said he was sorry

(01:05:33):
for all the lives affected by his actions and apologized to his family, Reagan and the
family of James Brady, the White House press secretary who was hit in the head by a bullet
and left partially paralyzed for life. He also asked Foster for forgiveness. I know
that they probably can't forgive me now, but I just want them to know that I am sorry for
what I did. When asked what led him to shoot the president, he did not mention his obsession

(01:05:58):
with the actress and simply replied, quote, it's something I don't want to remember.
I can't believe that this man is walking as a free man because you can't just try to kill
the president and everything. You can't just try to kill the president and not have to

(01:06:18):
be in prison forever. Forever. Yeah. Forever. Like Jesus, if the president can't even keep
his attempted murderer behind bars, then what luck will the rest of us have? Oh my God.
If I was Jodie Foster, I'd be terrified. Oh my God. That's so dangerous. What about

(01:06:41):
he gets his obsession again? Yeah. Like it sounds like he doesn't like maybe he's, I'm
sure he's had, I hope he's had a ton of therapy in the 40 years or whatever that he was in
prison, but yeah, no, there's, so I don't know very much about errata mania, errata mania.

(01:07:05):
Is that how you say it? Yeah, I think so. But is it curable? I don't think it matters.
I'm sure it doesn't matter to Jodie Foster. No, no, it's like your brain is not normal.
So you can probably be susceptible to some other mania. Yeah. No, or whatever. I'm not

(01:07:31):
a doctor, but all I know is that man should be behind closed doors. I have a question.
Is he going to be banned from the Washington Hilton if he ever goes there? I hope he is
banned from Washington DC entirely. I imagine he just wants to just visit it. He hasn't

(01:07:54):
been to any drop rallies lately, has he? They got to check all the roofs now. Oh gosh. There's
a new threat in town. I mean, he was pretty good at getting pretty damn close to the president,
to two presidents. He got to within a foot of Jimmy Carter. Oh yeah. But this was a long

(01:08:18):
time ago. I feel like things changed. Yeah, but the assassination of JFK was still pretty
fresh. That happened in 63. This is happening in 1980, 1981. So even though it's been a
minute since the president has been assassinated, it's still much fresher to them than it is

(01:08:40):
to us. Yeah, that's true. So out of all the scandals, what do you think is the biggest
one? I got to say, I think the assassination. Yeah. I really thought that Watergate was
going to be the big one, but I think the assassination attempt. Yeah. It's way more shocking and

(01:09:04):
crazy. Yeah. Because I mean, I guess attempted murder is always a bigger deal than attempting
to steal information from the Democratic National Committee. Yeah. I feel like today it would
be so much easier. They would just like. You just need a good hacker. Well, also they just,

(01:09:31):
they let everyone's online. You know, you can just like catfish a democratic whatever.
So we went to DC recently and we have an upcoming episode with the Mayflower Hotel. We have

(01:09:55):
a collaboration with them, but we got to see all these other hotels. And I guess without
giving too much away, is there any story with the Mayflower we can mention? Oh man, there's
going to be so many great stories whenever we do the episodes that I'm pretty sure is

(01:10:16):
going to be a multiple part series for the Mayflower. You know, I really love the story.
Just like to give you a little teaser, there will be espionage for sure. Oh, from World
War II. There's yeah, there's some really cool stories with that. Not just about spies,

(01:10:45):
actual spies staying at the Mayflower, but also with spy training happening. And every
single, I feel like every president has stayed there. But for like some, this is, it's not
that scandalous. I don't think it's that scandalous, but who am I to judge? But they say that when

(01:11:09):
Trump made a speech there that they saw the Russian, the rumors of like the Russian guy,
like the Russian ambassador or something was in the hotel at the same time. And so yeah,
that's supposed to be tied into the whole Russian collusion. But then it wasn't really,

(01:11:29):
because the guy's like, yeah, they didn't really talk. And then he quickly left or something.
Yeah. So it wasn't as scandalous as it sounds. And then I think in the book, it mentions
that because there is a book talking about history there. They mentioned JFK stayed there
and there's the rumor that Marilyn Monroe stayed there at the same time. And that, you

(01:11:56):
know, Oh yeah. And so, you know, he would have needed to be able to sneak her into his
room if they were staying there at the same time for their illicit affair. It's possible.
It is possible. Cause you know, hotels have lots and lots of little back way routes that
the public doesn't get to see. So it's totally possible that something like that could have

(01:12:22):
happened. I wonder, you'd have to like be a detective and find the old ledgers and like,
yeah, what year was, what month it was like, did they know each other then or was it just,
because a lot of famous people did stay in the same place. Yeah. So it could absolutely

(01:12:45):
just be coincidence that these two well-known people who have been linked to romantically
might've just by coincidence stayed there at the same time. Oh, but we know the hotel
also has some other scandal with Spitzer, Elliot Spitzer. Oh yeah. Yeah. He was, he

(01:13:10):
was governor of New York. I think. Yeah. And you know, we love a good prostitute story.
Yeah. And this guy who's so anti prostitution, well guess what he's spending his money at?
Prostitutes in the hotel. Of course he's projecting. You know, it was so, you know, Anthony Weiner.

(01:13:35):
So he was my congressman in New York and he would go to all the high school graduations.
He was on my high school graduation. Wow. And you know what I realized about Anthony
Weiner and Dick Cheney and George Bush and the Boner guy, Boner guy, the last name with

(01:14:00):
the Boner Boner. I have a theory. I have a theory. Don't vote for a president that has
genitalia in their name. Crazy. It's a bad policy. Logic. Just logical. Stay away from
it. Like I like that you're, you're lumping George Bush into that. I'm sorry. Hello. Is

(01:14:26):
it not correct? I mean, once you've put him into the category with all the others, absolutely.
I don't know that I would have come up with that, like that particular type of Bush right
off the bat. Is that not what people think when they hear his name? That is the only
thing I think about when I hear it. Like there's one Bush. It's like you should be embarrassed

(01:14:50):
by that. And then you're, you're the craziest thing. Your last name is Bush and then your
VP Dick. Come on. Yeah. I mean that together. Absolutely. Yeah. Just the jokes write them.
So there you have it folks. I hope we lighten down this very tense election cycle. It puts

(01:15:18):
a smile on your face. And when you feel like the world is burning down around you, just
remember that we can't take anything serious. We didn't start the fire, but our president
was a burning Bush. I'm starting to connect that in there somewhere. I don't think it

(01:15:40):
landed. Thanks for listening to Hotel History. You can follow us on most social media platforms,
Patreon and Substack by searching for Hotel History or Hotel History podcast. If you like

(01:16:00):
what you hear, please leave us a five star review on Apple podcasts and Spotify so we
can reach more listeners.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club

On Purpose with Jay Shetty

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Political Hotels