September 21, 2024 • 31 mins
BIO: Ken Khachigian, author of Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan & Nixon, is the director Emeritus of the Richard Nixon Foundation Board of Directors, veteran of nine presidential campaigns and Chief Speechwriter and Senior Political Advisor for President Reagan. Khachagian was the Chief Speechwriter, trusted political adviser, favorite scribe to Ronald Reagan and “go-to” counsel for Reagan and Nancy Reagan in campaigns and political crisis. He served in Richard Nixon’s White House and with Nixon as he emerged from Watergate, assisted with Nixon’s memoirs and led preparation for his interviews with David Frost. A successful attorney, he earned respect as California’s premier Republican strategist in elections for governor, senator, and attorney general. He is an honors graduate of U.C. Santa Barbara, from which he received its Distinguished Alumni Award. Khachigian is listed among 100 Armenians who have changed the world.
His Website may be found by clicking on the following link:
https://www.reaganandnixon.com/
His Website may be found by clicking on the following link:
https://www.reaganandnixon.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Warning the following podcast might be too truthful for most liberals.
Listener discretion is therefore advised. Good morning, This is Mark Gallar,
the host of the Tea Party Power Hour. I have
a very special guest for you today, mister Ken Kachigian.
(00:28):
Ken is the director emeritus of the Richard Nixon Foundation
Board of Directors. He's the veteran of nine presidential campaigns
and the chief speech writer and senior political advisor for
President Reagan. Kachigian was the chief speech writer, trusted political advisor,
favorite scribe to Ronald Reagan and go to Council for
(00:52):
Reagan excuse me for Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan in
both campaigns and political crisis. He served in the Richard
Nixon White House and with Nixon as he emerged from Watergate,
assisted Nixon with memoirs and led preparation for his interview
with David Frost. A successful attorney, he earned respects California's
(01:13):
premier Republican strategist and elections for governor, senator, and Attorney general.
He is an honors graduate of UC Santa Barbara, from
which he received its Distinguished Alumni Award. Kachigean is listed
among one hundred Armenians who have changed the world. He's
(01:34):
here to talk to us about his brand new book,
Behind Closed Doors in the room with Reagan and Nixon.
Mister Kachigian, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Thank you very much, good to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Can you tell me when we look at the Biden
presidency why for so long his administration and the media
protected him from accusations that the mental mental acuity just
wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
You know, this is the cover up. This, this is
one of the greatest cover ups. Amazing. You know, I
I Mark they you know, I lived through a period
when they called the Watergate cover up such a massive,
horrible thing. And and here we've had a minimum of
(02:27):
a year and a half, if not two years of
the White House, in the Congress, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck
Schumer and uh and and and of course the national
media covering up what was an obvious cognitive decline of
the president of the United States, who had the nuclear
(02:49):
football in his hands where we could get into a
conflagration with the world powers and uh and and so
you're asking the reasons for that, And that's because they
wanted to keep power in the hands of the left wing.
There's no other question, there's no other answer for that.
(03:11):
And they're lust for power and their desire to main
power in their hands, and I give it up, even
at the risk of endangering, endangering the world and democracy
as we know it. It is just absolutely amazing. And
(03:33):
when they give lectures and talk about the danger of democracy,
it was right there in the in the in Nancy
Pelosi's cute little hands that she you know, she waves
around when she talks. It was right there in her hands.
When she's constantly telling us how the Joe Biden's brain
(03:56):
was functioning just perfectly. It's it's it's it's just terrifying
to me what was going on all this time to
think that if Premier Sea moved on Taiwan, or if
Putent decided to move on more than one or two
(04:19):
NATO countries, what Joe Biden's mind would do. It would
have frozen up because he was in total cognitive decline.
And the national media was in an unwritten conspiracy with
the White House because of one thing. They wanted to
(04:39):
conspire to keep the Democrats in power.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
If Joe Biden had not imploded during his debate with
Donald Trump and his poll numbers would have remained high,
would they still be telling us how he's just fined
from a cognitive standpoint.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Absolutely, because they would have tried to drag him across
the finish fine and then figure that they can make
him last another few months and then make Kama Harris
president of the United States and put to another vice
president in place and keep power for another four years.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
What parallels do you see between the Reagan assassination attempt
and the Trump assassination attempts?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I don't, I don't. I'm not sure. You know, you uh,
In the Reagan assassination attempt, you had this fellow Hinckley
who was who was trying to him President Jodie Foster
(05:47):
and uh in the In the Trump assassination attempt, you
me you had an actual political uh motive involved uh
in both of them, although you're not you know, we
haven't had enough quite an analysis in either of those,
you know, he's attempt yet to see to see if
(06:14):
there's more political motivation behind them or not.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
What do you make of the FBI and the Secret
Service being so non forthcoming with answers about these two attempts.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well, probably because of their embarrassment that, especially at that
first one regarding Trump, was so obviously feeble and amateurish
(06:51):
in the protection that in their failings, that that is
amazingly the quality of the failed quality of the protection
was so extraordinary when there are reports that they saw
(07:12):
this guy crawling up there and uh with a rifle
and people saying, you know, hey, what's what this guy
crawling on the roof and everything, and and nobody, nobody
reacted to it. And you would think that So that's
the kind of thing that I mean, you can make
(07:36):
you you can't believe there you put wouldn't put this
in the movie is so stupid. You wouldn't submit it
for a Hollywood screenplay because it was so stupid. But
I think they're just embarrassed mainly. I I don't I
don't even put any conspiracy theories behind. But what they're
they're doing other than there really just plainly embarrassed about.
(08:02):
I worked with the Secret Service when they protected Nixon
and and and President Reagan and and and all the
agents I worked with on the whole were dedicated and
professional and and very very capable. So I just I
(08:26):
don't know, I just think there was just some a
true failure in preparation. And I don't know things have
changed in the beer, in the how they do things.
So maybe it's just a whole change in process. Maybe
they're just overwhelmed. And I just think this is a
(08:47):
matter of sheer embarrassment.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Oh well, it certainly was embarrassing. Once again, the name
of the book is behind closed Doors in the Room
with Reagan and Nixon. As someone who was behind closed
Doors with Reagan and Nixon, what advice would you have
for Donald Trump in this current campaign.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Well, for one thing, I really I really think he could.
He could turn this into a route. I really do.
He has he has advantages in several of them. But uh,
he has to guess to change his mode of operation.
(09:29):
I think and and and one is to to get
more focused. And I just I guess I'm not the
first person that's giving him as his advice. And I
and I would we would listen. But he's got he's
got some issues that are on central on people's minds,
(09:52):
and there are critical issues are the number one is
the economy and Dick Nick and let's say this to him,
if he could grab him by the scruff of his
neck and take him aside. And that was before you know,
James Carvill ever thought of this in his whole life.
Nixon was advising this to Reagan in nineteen eighty. It's
(10:15):
the economy is the central factor. An economy that's having problems.
And no matter what they say, I mean, even with
the Fed cutting fifty, they're fifty whatever the fifty, the
interest rates by half a point today, that's that's a
(10:39):
signal that the economy is still in distress. And who
brought him to distress was Joe Biden Kamala Harris. So
the economy is still in trouble. That means the Fed
is trying to protect us from a recession. And who
brought us there is Joe Biden. So inflation, the economy
(11:01):
is still the critical issue. And and uh uh Trump
Potter be hammering that home every single day. And so
every time he talks about crowd the crowd sizes and
uh uh Haitians eating dogs and and and the color
of you know which race, uh Kamala Harris is and
(11:24):
and things like that, he's he's detracting away from uh
the economy, uh, the our national defense being in disarray,
the tax system being a drain on people's uh ability
to to survive, and and the borders and about crime.
(11:50):
Then he's hurting himself. So and then the final thing
is is I think another advantage is that is that
I think he has the ability to speak. I know
that people might disagree with me here, but I think
he could mock a Harris throughout the rest of the
(12:11):
campaign for her her feeble ability to communicate because she
asks to stick to the teleprompter. I think I think
Trump can has an ability to speak extemporaneously. Now, now
people will say, well, when he does that, he meanders
and he gets off message. Now, if he would, if
(12:32):
he would do that, if he would, if he would
speak semporaneously and stay on, have a stump speech and say,
Chris stawn message, get those five message points down narrowly
and stick to him with him maybe twenty twenty five
(12:53):
thirty minute stump speech everywhere he goes with maybe a
new twist every day with an insert that makes some news.
And and then and and then, just mank Harris, when
are you going to take those teleprompters down, Kamala. There's
no teleprompters when you're dealing with putin. You know, when,
(13:14):
when when you're over there negotiating with with NATO. You
can't have a teleprompter in front of you. I don't
need teleprompters. And that just show that he's he's got
leadership capabilities that she doesn't have, which is all true.
That's what he's got going for him that she doesn't have.
And I think he could win this election and a breeze,
(13:36):
But that would be my advice to.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Stop talking about the stolen election from twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Stop you get away from there. That's that's old history. Yeah,
that's that's that's past stuff. And and people have you know,
that's uh, that's shopling stuff. It's it's he needs he
needs to give some thought to what's going on in
(14:02):
twenty in the next year and get away from get
away from old stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Even when I was a boy and my dad used
to tell me that people vote their pocketbook.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, there's no question. Hey listen, I'm thinking my I
think my pocketbook every day, and I don't have the
same problem as.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Everybody else, does.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
You know. It's it's it's it's it's just a natural
human equality. You see a corner, if you see a
quarter on the sidewalk, what are you gonna do, You're
gonna pick it up or walk by.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Texas I'm talking to you a few miles from Texas
A and M University, And we used to have a
basketball coach here named Shelby Metcalf, and we were playing
Texas Tech one day and for some reason, I'm not
sure of, the Texas Tech players started throwing money at
the Texas A and M basketball players, and Shelby Metcalf said, so,
(15:04):
show some class boys, don't pick up anything smaller than
a quarter. I love what you're saying there about picking
up the quarter on the side of there right now.
You mentioned in the book that when Nixon resigned he
kept looking forward. What did you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, well, it proves his results, it proved his resilience,
and that it taught me a lesson in life.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
That he didn't want to He didn't want to really
live the past. And he said, you know, Ken, don't.
We can't look behind. We have to look forward. We
have to move ahead. Here he had lost the most
precious thing in his whole life, the presidency. He was broke,
(15:53):
he had no job, he had no income. They were
just barring him. In California and New York they were
going after him for back taxes. And yet in the
midst of all that he was he was looking taking
forward look in his life. And so that's an important
(16:15):
thing in the book that I write about, is that
beginning with the memoirs and the Frost interviews, all that
was a he calculated decision for him to reclaim his
life and to recommit himself to move and ahead, which
he did. You know, if you look at it, he
(16:35):
ended up writting nine best selling books. And then through me,
as I write in the book, the Things that People
Never knew that started how he started advising Reagan in
the secretly advising Reagan in the nineteen eighty campaign. In
nineteen eighty four campaign.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
What was Nick liked? Did he have a good sense
of humor? Did he tell a joke now? And then?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Uh, he didn't. He didn't intentionally tell a joke, but
he would, he would. He had He had some sayings
that would uh, sayings from the past that that were funny,
funny sayings out of politics. And and then sometimes he'd
(17:28):
say he'd come off saying something that he didn't he
didn't think was funny that but a lot of us
thought was funny and U but he was not a
natural I would say he was a storyteller. He was
not a jokester, but he was a good storyteller, meaning
(17:50):
that a political storyteller. So to me, those stories were fascinating.
So he would be telling stories about if he was
telling a story about thee. Charlie Halleck in Indiana from
(18:10):
the nineteen fifties or nineteen sixties, to me, that was fascinating.
Or when he said, you know, he pauses the talking
about the nineteen sixties campaign and saying that, you know
that he maybe he should have put Thriston Morton on
(18:32):
his ticket instead of Henry Cabot Lodge. That would have
been the better decision on his part. And to me,
that was see that to me, and that was those
were fascinating stories. So and so it was not he
(18:53):
was not necessarily a telling jokes. He was telling political stories.
So but with Reagan, you know, Reagan would uh it
was good at telling jokes or baseball stories or sports
stories or stories that he told on the speaking circuit
(19:17):
over the years. So there were two different people in
that way, but they're both fascinating, and I mean, you
couldn't you couldn't do anything but learn a lot of
things from them, and by just sitting down it was Look,
they were the two giants of the last quarter of
the twentieth century. So you weren't gonna you weren't gonna
(19:42):
miss an opportunity to be with then, I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I'm sure now I kind of get the impression that
Nixon was a very prim and proper man. You told
a story in the book about some politician had announced
something about having a testicle removed, and that Nickson. I
thought that that was very inappropriate. And if he read
in the President's Secret Service by Ronald Kessler, he was
(20:06):
talking about various presidents that had had affairs LBJ JFK.
But he said the one thing he was certain of
is that Nixon was not the type of man who
would have an affair. So yeah, so I got the
impression that, unlike some of our presidents, he was a
very prim and proper man and tried to do what
(20:26):
was right, you know, Watergate aside. The whole idea was
is that Nixon was a you know, the type of
a type of person who had principles and stuck to them.
So I thought that was fascinating. So now and again
the testical joke. There was actually another one that came up,
(20:47):
I think the same, along the same lines. He had
given an autographed copy of golf Ball to someone or
maybe it was Kennedy, and then the president said, and
now the vice no, I think it was it was
an and the vice president would like to give you
one of his balls or something like that. I can't remember.
But so it seems like Nixon was always falling into that,
(21:08):
into that trap so.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Well that I don't think that was in the book.
I don't remember that one.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Okay, But no, no, no, no, I wasn't saying it
was in your book. I wasn't saying it was in
your book. I read it somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Now, let me skip over all these inappropriate jokes. How
would you compare Watergate to the law fair that's happened
against Trump.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Well, you can certainly argue that law for started uh
with Watergate. My we're now learning things. We're now learning things.
Mark that if we knew then what we knew now,
(21:59):
we we've been much better to defend ourselves. Uh. In Watergate,
we had a better defense for President Nixon. My colleague
Jeff Shepherd from the White House days is becoming a
real Watergate scholar and he's through Freedom of Information Act
(22:22):
as an earth a great many things about what has
gone on during that time and how corrupt the judge
Jack Sirika was in a meeting he had, for example,
(22:42):
he had been having secret meetings with the prosecutors and
with the Archibald Cox of the Special Prosecutor, with Leon
Jaworski has uh who followed him. And then uh, these
(23:03):
secret what they call in the law expartey meetings our
unconstitutional violation of the fifth and sixth Amendment to the
Constitution when you have these when when the judge has
secret meetings with the prosecutors where the defendants lawyers or
not in the chambers with them, that's unconstitutional. And uh,
(23:29):
that's that's not proper. And we could the lawyers could
have been, uh could be disbarred for for doing that.
And then when you think about, uh, you know, we
tried to bring this up back in it in the
day that uh, the special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was when
(23:50):
he was appointed. We try to bring this up. The
press wouldn't they were They didn't have much to do
because to do with it because they were so adversarial
to Nixon. But the special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, was Jack
Kennedy's head of opposition research in the sixty campaign, and
(24:13):
then he brought on board with him five of the
top prosecutors in the Bobby Kennedy's Justice department. So the
scene was set pretty much to get Nixon scalp out
of that prosecution office. And one of the other things Shephard,
(24:36):
my colleague, has found out was that the Cox had
met with the chief judge the in the DC Court
Circuit Court of Appeals, so that any appeal that went
out of Syrica's court would go to a panel of
(24:57):
judges that would assure UH the Crica's appeals, Any appeals
out of Cirrica's court would not be overturned against UH
any appeals from Cox. So, I mean, it was just
it was a setup almost from day one, it seemed
(25:21):
against Nixon. So the concept of being able to manipulate
and use the federaljudicial system against Nixon was not necessarily
out of line with with what you see today where
if you really want to get a president and UH
(25:42):
and you have a press, yeah, you have to have
the media working with you on this. Uh if if
if if you don't, if you don't have any media
in our case, in the case that you have one
cable network at least out there, and some social media,
(26:05):
uh a few social media out there supporting Trump. But
the vast vast majority of media out there, cable and
uh and and uh uh network television and newsweeklies and
(26:25):
and uh uh newspapers are out there against against Trump,
and they're supporting all this lawfare. Then uh, you can't
fight it. So it's and and of course, back in
the Nixon days, all that press was adversarial and they
wanted Nixon's scalp going back to the fifties and sixties.
(26:48):
So that's that's the main thing. When you have the
the media basically an informal conspiracy with the folks are
out to get the president, and it's it's it's almost
a game set match.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Oh yeah. The only time I can think of the
media not fully protecting a president was on the Monica
Lewinsky thing, and that's only everybody loves a good sex story.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Well, yeah, they they they they they they didn't they
didn't they wanted Clinton. I mean, they wanted the salvage
Clinton of course, and so yeah they I mean when
you think about that, had that been the thing? You
(27:38):
think about that if that was a Republican uh the
gonor Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, well think of the shooting. If it had been
Kambla Harris, they'd still be talking about it. But now
we've had two attempts and they brush him under the rug.
I'd like to know, because we don't have a lot
of time left. Motion was for writing this book this
many years later? And what is your hope that the
modern student of politics will get.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Out of this? Uh? Motivation was one was quite simple
one I had. I had to make a living in
all the intermediate years. So that was the reason for
the delay in writing it all these years. But then
(28:29):
it turned out to be a sound reasoning behind it,
because it allowed me all the perspective of having all
the in between time to learn from history what happened
by going to the archives, to see records that I
(28:51):
wouldn't have seen before, to read the oral histories of
my colleagues, and to read the other a lout of
big fees, and to see how others had embellished, embellished,
their embellished and their own careers and distorted history, and
(29:14):
and now I had my course. I kept a diary
of the eighty campaign, recorded diary. I kept diaries when
I worked with Nixon. I kept meticulous records throughout the
whole Reagan years. And of course I had the benefit
(29:35):
of all these memoirs and everything else. So I was
and then an ad Reagan's diaries. So it turned out
to be very beneficial to have this thirty years or
forty years in between to write it all because they
gave me the perspective of history. So now this is
(29:58):
an extraordinary accurate portrayal of the Nixon in Reagan years.
And I think it's a roadmap. Uh it's a I
think one thing that's a political roadmap for victory for
Republicans if they go through this book, because they yet
a lot of advice from Nixon in in Reagan on
(30:19):
communication and strategy and tactics of politics. If they read
it very carefully and and they learn about especially through Reagan,
they learn about the values of his economic thinking. Uh
So there there's extreme value in this in this book
(30:43):
that that benefits from the perspective of having the delay
in writing.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Once again, the name of the book is behind Closed
Doors in the Room with Reagan and Nixon by Ken Kajigian,
and I would recommend that everybody get a copy of
it and start sending emails to Donald Trump and.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Go to my website. Go to my website. Please, it's
it's ww dot Reagan and Nixon dot com. Reagan and
Nixon dot com. Okay for more information?
Speaker 1 (31:13):
All right, I will put that on the show as
it goes out through the podcast players and that way
they can just click on it and be magically transported there.
Once again, Ken, thank you for being on the show.
It was an honor.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Great thanks Mark. Take care YouTube you've been listening to
The Tea Party Power Hour with Mark gla
Warning the following podcast might be too truthful for most liberals.
Listener discretion is therefore advised. Good morning, This is Mark Gallar,
the host of the Tea Party Power Hour. I have
a very special guest for you today, mister Ken Kachigian.
(00:28):
Ken is the director emeritus of the Richard Nixon Foundation
Board of Directors. He's the veteran of nine presidential campaigns
and the chief speech writer and senior political advisor for
President Reagan. Kachigian was the chief speech writer, trusted political advisor,
favorite scribe to Ronald Reagan and go to Council for
(00:52):
Reagan excuse me for Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan in
both campaigns and political crisis. He served in the Richard
Nixon White House and with Nixon as he emerged from Watergate,
assisted Nixon with memoirs and led preparation for his interview
with David Frost. A successful attorney, he earned respects California's
(01:13):
premier Republican strategist and elections for governor, senator, and Attorney general.
He is an honors graduate of UC Santa Barbara, from
which he received its Distinguished Alumni Award. Kachigean is listed
among one hundred Armenians who have changed the world. He's
(01:34):
here to talk to us about his brand new book,
Behind Closed Doors in the room with Reagan and Nixon.
Mister Kachigian, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Thank you very much, good to be here.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
Can you tell me when we look at the Biden
presidency why for so long his administration and the media
protected him from accusations that the mental mental acuity just
wasn't there.
Speaker 2 (02:06):
You know, this is the cover up. This, this is
one of the greatest cover ups. Amazing. You know, I
I Mark they you know, I lived through a period
when they called the Watergate cover up such a massive,
horrible thing. And and here we've had a minimum of
(02:27):
a year and a half, if not two years of
the White House, in the Congress, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck
Schumer and uh and and and of course the national
media covering up what was an obvious cognitive decline of
the president of the United States, who had the nuclear
(02:49):
football in his hands where we could get into a
conflagration with the world powers and uh and and so
you're asking the reasons for that, And that's because they
wanted to keep power in the hands of the left wing.
There's no other question, there's no other answer for that.
(03:11):
And they're lust for power and their desire to main
power in their hands, and I give it up, even
at the risk of endangering, endangering the world and democracy
as we know it. It is just absolutely amazing. And
(03:33):
when they give lectures and talk about the danger of democracy,
it was right there in the in the in Nancy
Pelosi's cute little hands that she you know, she waves
around when she talks. It was right there in her hands.
When she's constantly telling us how the Joe Biden's brain
(03:56):
was functioning just perfectly. It's it's it's it's just terrifying
to me what was going on all this time to
think that if Premier Sea moved on Taiwan, or if
Putent decided to move on more than one or two
(04:19):
NATO countries, what Joe Biden's mind would do. It would
have frozen up because he was in total cognitive decline.
And the national media was in an unwritten conspiracy with
the White House because of one thing. They wanted to
(04:39):
conspire to keep the Democrats in power.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
If Joe Biden had not imploded during his debate with
Donald Trump and his poll numbers would have remained high,
would they still be telling us how he's just fined
from a cognitive standpoint.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
Absolutely, because they would have tried to drag him across
the finish fine and then figure that they can make
him last another few months and then make Kama Harris
president of the United States and put to another vice
president in place and keep power for another four years.
Speaker 1 (05:17):
What parallels do you see between the Reagan assassination attempt
and the Trump assassination attempts?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
I don't, I don't. I'm not sure. You know, you uh,
In the Reagan assassination attempt, you had this fellow Hinckley
who was who was trying to him President Jodie Foster
(05:47):
and uh in the In the Trump assassination attempt, you
me you had an actual political uh motive involved uh
in both of them, although you're not you know, we
haven't had enough quite an analysis in either of those,
you know, he's attempt yet to see to see if
(06:14):
there's more political motivation behind them or not.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
What do you make of the FBI and the Secret
Service being so non forthcoming with answers about these two attempts.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Well, probably because of their embarrassment that, especially at that
first one regarding Trump, was so obviously feeble and amateurish
(06:51):
in the protection that in their failings, that that is
amazingly the quality of the failed quality of the protection
was so extraordinary when there are reports that they saw
(07:12):
this guy crawling up there and uh with a rifle
and people saying, you know, hey, what's what this guy
crawling on the roof and everything, and and nobody, nobody
reacted to it. And you would think that So that's
the kind of thing that I mean, you can make
(07:36):
you you can't believe there you put wouldn't put this
in the movie is so stupid. You wouldn't submit it
for a Hollywood screenplay because it was so stupid. But
I think they're just embarrassed mainly. I I don't I
don't even put any conspiracy theories behind. But what they're
they're doing other than there really just plainly embarrassed about.
(08:02):
I worked with the Secret Service when they protected Nixon
and and and President Reagan and and and all the
agents I worked with on the whole were dedicated and
professional and and very very capable. So I just I
(08:26):
don't know, I just think there was just some a
true failure in preparation. And I don't know things have
changed in the beer, in the how they do things.
So maybe it's just a whole change in process. Maybe
they're just overwhelmed. And I just think this is a
(08:47):
matter of sheer embarrassment.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Oh well, it certainly was embarrassing. Once again, the name
of the book is behind closed Doors in the Room
with Reagan and Nixon. As someone who was behind closed
Doors with Reagan and Nixon, what advice would you have
for Donald Trump in this current campaign.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Well, for one thing, I really I really think he could.
He could turn this into a route. I really do.
He has he has advantages in several of them. But uh,
he has to guess to change his mode of operation.
(09:29):
I think and and and one is to to get
more focused. And I just I guess I'm not the
first person that's giving him as his advice. And I
and I would we would listen. But he's got he's
got some issues that are on central on people's minds,
(09:52):
and there are critical issues are the number one is
the economy and Dick Nick and let's say this to him,
if he could grab him by the scruff of his
neck and take him aside. And that was before you know,
James Carvill ever thought of this in his whole life.
Nixon was advising this to Reagan in nineteen eighty. It's
(10:15):
the economy is the central factor. An economy that's having problems.
And no matter what they say, I mean, even with
the Fed cutting fifty, they're fifty whatever the fifty, the
interest rates by half a point today, that's that's a
(10:39):
signal that the economy is still in distress. And who
brought him to distress was Joe Biden Kamala Harris. So
the economy is still in trouble. That means the Fed
is trying to protect us from a recession. And who
brought us there is Joe Biden. So inflation, the economy
(11:01):
is still the critical issue. And and uh uh Trump
Potter be hammering that home every single day. And so
every time he talks about crowd the crowd sizes and
uh uh Haitians eating dogs and and and the color
of you know which race, uh Kamala Harris is and
(11:24):
and things like that, he's he's detracting away from uh
the economy, uh, the our national defense being in disarray,
the tax system being a drain on people's uh ability
to to survive, and and the borders and about crime.
(11:50):
Then he's hurting himself. So and then the final thing
is is I think another advantage is that is that
I think he has the ability to speak. I know
that people might disagree with me here, but I think
he could mock a Harris throughout the rest of the
(12:11):
campaign for her her feeble ability to communicate because she
asks to stick to the teleprompter. I think I think
Trump can has an ability to speak extemporaneously. Now, now
people will say, well, when he does that, he meanders
and he gets off message. Now, if he would, if
(12:32):
he would do that, if he would, if he would
speak semporaneously and stay on, have a stump speech and say,
Chris stawn message, get those five message points down narrowly
and stick to him with him maybe twenty twenty five
(12:53):
thirty minute stump speech everywhere he goes with maybe a
new twist every day with an insert that makes some news.
And and then and and then, just mank Harris, when
are you going to take those teleprompters down, Kamala. There's
no teleprompters when you're dealing with putin. You know, when,
(13:14):
when when you're over there negotiating with with NATO. You
can't have a teleprompter in front of you. I don't
need teleprompters. And that just show that he's he's got
leadership capabilities that she doesn't have, which is all true.
That's what he's got going for him that she doesn't have.
And I think he could win this election and a breeze,
(13:36):
But that would be my advice to.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Stop talking about the stolen election from twenty twenty.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Stop you get away from there. That's that's old history. Yeah,
that's that's that's past stuff. And and people have you know,
that's uh, that's shopling stuff. It's it's he needs he
needs to give some thought to what's going on in
(14:02):
twenty in the next year and get away from get
away from old stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:12):
Even when I was a boy and my dad used
to tell me that people vote their pocketbook.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Yeah, there's no question. Hey listen, I'm thinking my I
think my pocketbook every day, and I don't have the
same problem as.
Speaker 1 (14:25):
Everybody else, does.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
You know. It's it's it's it's it's just a natural
human equality. You see a corner, if you see a
quarter on the sidewalk, what are you gonna do, You're
gonna pick it up or walk by.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Texas I'm talking to you a few miles from Texas
A and M University, And we used to have a
basketball coach here named Shelby Metcalf, and we were playing
Texas Tech one day and for some reason, I'm not
sure of, the Texas Tech players started throwing money at
the Texas A and M basketball players, and Shelby Metcalf said, so,
(15:04):
show some class boys, don't pick up anything smaller than
a quarter. I love what you're saying there about picking
up the quarter on the side of there right now.
You mentioned in the book that when Nixon resigned he
kept looking forward. What did you mean by that?
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah, well, it proves his results, it proved his resilience,
and that it taught me a lesson in life.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
That he didn't want to He didn't want to really
live the past. And he said, you know, Ken, don't.
We can't look behind. We have to look forward. We
have to move ahead. Here he had lost the most
precious thing in his whole life, the presidency. He was broke,
(15:53):
he had no job, he had no income. They were
just barring him. In California and New York they were
going after him for back taxes. And yet in the
midst of all that he was he was looking taking
forward look in his life. And so that's an important
(16:15):
thing in the book that I write about, is that
beginning with the memoirs and the Frost interviews, all that
was a he calculated decision for him to reclaim his
life and to recommit himself to move and ahead, which
he did. You know, if you look at it, he
(16:35):
ended up writting nine best selling books. And then through me,
as I write in the book, the Things that People
Never knew that started how he started advising Reagan in
the secretly advising Reagan in the nineteen eighty campaign. In
nineteen eighty four campaign.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
What was Nick liked? Did he have a good sense
of humor? Did he tell a joke now? And then?
Speaker 2 (17:05):
Uh, he didn't. He didn't intentionally tell a joke, but
he would, he would. He had He had some sayings
that would uh, sayings from the past that that were funny,
funny sayings out of politics. And and then sometimes he'd
(17:28):
say he'd come off saying something that he didn't he
didn't think was funny that but a lot of us
thought was funny and U but he was not a
natural I would say he was a storyteller. He was
not a jokester, but he was a good storyteller, meaning
(17:50):
that a political storyteller. So to me, those stories were fascinating.
So he would be telling stories about if he was
telling a story about thee. Charlie Halleck in Indiana from
(18:10):
the nineteen fifties or nineteen sixties, to me, that was fascinating.
Or when he said, you know, he pauses the talking
about the nineteen sixties campaign and saying that, you know
that he maybe he should have put Thriston Morton on
(18:32):
his ticket instead of Henry Cabot Lodge. That would have
been the better decision on his part. And to me,
that was see that to me, and that was those
were fascinating stories. So and so it was not he
(18:53):
was not necessarily a telling jokes. He was telling political stories.
So but with Reagan, you know, Reagan would uh it
was good at telling jokes or baseball stories or sports
stories or stories that he told on the speaking circuit
(19:17):
over the years. So there were two different people in
that way, but they're both fascinating, and I mean, you
couldn't you couldn't do anything but learn a lot of
things from them, and by just sitting down it was Look,
they were the two giants of the last quarter of
the twentieth century. So you weren't gonna you weren't gonna
(19:42):
miss an opportunity to be with then, I'll tell you that.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
I'm sure now I kind of get the impression that
Nixon was a very prim and proper man. You told
a story in the book about some politician had announced
something about having a testicle removed, and that Nickson. I
thought that that was very inappropriate. And if he read
in the President's Secret Service by Ronald Kessler, he was
(20:06):
talking about various presidents that had had affairs LBJ JFK.
But he said the one thing he was certain of
is that Nixon was not the type of man who
would have an affair. So yeah, so I got the
impression that, unlike some of our presidents, he was a
very prim and proper man and tried to do what
(20:26):
was right, you know, Watergate aside. The whole idea was
is that Nixon was a you know, the type of
a type of person who had principles and stuck to them.
So I thought that was fascinating. So now and again
the testical joke. There was actually another one that came up,
(20:47):
I think the same, along the same lines. He had
given an autographed copy of golf Ball to someone or
maybe it was Kennedy, and then the president said, and
now the vice no, I think it was it was
an and the vice president would like to give you
one of his balls or something like that. I can't remember.
But so it seems like Nixon was always falling into that,
(21:08):
into that trap so.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Well that I don't think that was in the book.
I don't remember that one.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Okay, But no, no, no, no, I wasn't saying it
was in your book. I wasn't saying it was in
your book. I read it somewhere else.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
Now, let me skip over all these inappropriate jokes. How
would you compare Watergate to the law fair that's happened
against Trump.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Well, you can certainly argue that law for started uh
with Watergate. My we're now learning things. We're now learning things.
Mark that if we knew then what we knew now,
(21:59):
we we've been much better to defend ourselves. Uh. In Watergate,
we had a better defense for President Nixon. My colleague
Jeff Shepherd from the White House days is becoming a
real Watergate scholar and he's through Freedom of Information Act
(22:22):
as an earth a great many things about what has
gone on during that time and how corrupt the judge
Jack Sirika was in a meeting he had, for example,
(22:42):
he had been having secret meetings with the prosecutors and
with the Archibald Cox of the Special Prosecutor, with Leon
Jaworski has uh who followed him. And then uh, these
(23:03):
secret what they call in the law expartey meetings our
unconstitutional violation of the fifth and sixth Amendment to the
Constitution when you have these when when the judge has
secret meetings with the prosecutors where the defendants lawyers or
not in the chambers with them, that's unconstitutional. And uh,
(23:29):
that's that's not proper. And we could the lawyers could
have been, uh could be disbarred for for doing that.
And then when you think about, uh, you know, we
tried to bring this up back in it in the
day that uh, the special Prosecutor Archibald Cox was when
(23:50):
he was appointed. We try to bring this up. The
press wouldn't they were They didn't have much to do
because to do with it because they were so adversarial
to Nixon. But the special Prosecutor, Archibald Cox, was Jack
Kennedy's head of opposition research in the sixty campaign, and
(24:13):
then he brought on board with him five of the
top prosecutors in the Bobby Kennedy's Justice department. So the
scene was set pretty much to get Nixon scalp out
of that prosecution office. And one of the other things Shephard,
(24:36):
my colleague, has found out was that the Cox had
met with the chief judge the in the DC Court
Circuit Court of Appeals, so that any appeal that went
out of Syrica's court would go to a panel of
(24:57):
judges that would assure UH the Crica's appeals, Any appeals
out of Cirrica's court would not be overturned against UH
any appeals from Cox. So, I mean, it was just
it was a setup almost from day one, it seemed
(25:21):
against Nixon. So the concept of being able to manipulate
and use the federaljudicial system against Nixon was not necessarily
out of line with with what you see today where
if you really want to get a president and UH
(25:42):
and you have a press, yeah, you have to have
the media working with you on this. Uh if if
if if you don't, if you don't have any media
in our case, in the case that you have one
cable network at least out there, and some social media,
(26:05):
uh a few social media out there supporting Trump. But
the vast vast majority of media out there, cable and
uh and and uh uh network television and newsweeklies and
(26:25):
and uh uh newspapers are out there against against Trump,
and they're supporting all this lawfare. Then uh, you can't
fight it. So it's and and of course, back in
the Nixon days, all that press was adversarial and they
wanted Nixon's scalp going back to the fifties and sixties.
(26:48):
So that's that's the main thing. When you have the
the media basically an informal conspiracy with the folks are
out to get the president, and it's it's it's almost
a game set match.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Oh yeah. The only time I can think of the
media not fully protecting a president was on the Monica
Lewinsky thing, and that's only everybody loves a good sex story.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Well, yeah, they they they they they they didn't they
didn't they wanted Clinton. I mean, they wanted the salvage
Clinton of course, and so yeah they I mean when
you think about that, had that been the thing? You
(27:38):
think about that if that was a Republican uh the
gonor Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, well think of the shooting. If it had been
Kambla Harris, they'd still be talking about it. But now
we've had two attempts and they brush him under the rug.
I'd like to know, because we don't have a lot
of time left. Motion was for writing this book this
many years later? And what is your hope that the
modern student of politics will get.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
Out of this? Uh? Motivation was one was quite simple
one I had. I had to make a living in
all the intermediate years. So that was the reason for
the delay in writing it all these years. But then
(28:29):
it turned out to be a sound reasoning behind it,
because it allowed me all the perspective of having all
the in between time to learn from history what happened
by going to the archives, to see records that I
(28:51):
wouldn't have seen before, to read the oral histories of
my colleagues, and to read the other a lout of
big fees, and to see how others had embellished, embellished,
their embellished and their own careers and distorted history, and
(29:14):
and now I had my course. I kept a diary
of the eighty campaign, recorded diary. I kept diaries when
I worked with Nixon. I kept meticulous records throughout the
whole Reagan years. And of course I had the benefit
(29:35):
of all these memoirs and everything else. So I was
and then an ad Reagan's diaries. So it turned out
to be very beneficial to have this thirty years or
forty years in between to write it all because they
gave me the perspective of history. So now this is
(29:58):
an extraordinary accurate portrayal of the Nixon in Reagan years.
And I think it's a roadmap. Uh it's a I
think one thing that's a political roadmap for victory for
Republicans if they go through this book, because they yet
a lot of advice from Nixon in in Reagan on
(30:19):
communication and strategy and tactics of politics. If they read
it very carefully and and they learn about especially through Reagan,
they learn about the values of his economic thinking. Uh
So there there's extreme value in this in this book
(30:43):
that that benefits from the perspective of having the delay
in writing.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Once again, the name of the book is behind Closed
Doors in the Room with Reagan and Nixon by Ken Kajigian,
and I would recommend that everybody get a copy of
it and start sending emails to Donald Trump and.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
Go to my website. Go to my website. Please, it's
it's ww dot Reagan and Nixon dot com. Reagan and
Nixon dot com. Okay for more information?
Speaker 1 (31:13):
All right, I will put that on the show as
it goes out through the podcast players and that way
they can just click on it and be magically transported there.
Once again, Ken, thank you for being on the show.
It was an honor.
Speaker 2 (31:24):
Great thanks Mark. Take care YouTube you've been listening to
The Tea Party Power Hour with Mark gla
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.