"Shouldn’t Have Resigned" - Ken Khachigian Reveals Nixon’s Paranoia, Reagan’s Mistakes, Bush’s Secrets | PBD Podcast

Ken Khachigian, a legendary political strategist and speechwriter for Nixon and Reagan, reveals untold stories from the White House. From Nixon’s explosive temper to Reagan’s secret influences, this deep dive into presidential politics is a must-watch for history buffs. ---- 🇺🇸 PURCHASE THE VT VETERANS DAY COLLECTION: ⁠https://bit.ly/40qVbpt⁠ https://bit.ly/40qVbpt?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=product_shelf 📕 PBD'S BOOK "THE ACADEMY": ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XC5ftN⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3XC5ftN 📰 VTNEWS. AI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3Zn2Moj⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3Zn2Moj 👕 PURCHASE THE NEW VT POLO SHIRTS: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3Y4Npig⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3Y4Npig 🇺🇸 VT USA COLLECTION: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/47zLCWO⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/47zLCWO 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3ze3RUM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3ze3RUM 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/47iOGGx⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/47iOGGx 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4e0FgCe⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4e0FgCe 📱 CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3MGK5EE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3MGK5EE 📕 CHOOSE YOUR ENEMIES WISELY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XnEpo0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3XnEpo0 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4d5nYlU⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4d5nYlU 🎓 VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XC8L7k⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3XC8L7k 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3XjSSRK⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3XjSSRK 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:12Speaker 01

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• 0:16Speaker 02

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• 1:07Patrick Bet-David?

  So we were planning on doing this interview today all in Armenian. And I said, most of our audience, they're English speaking, you know, well, maybe we'll make a couple of comments about Armenians here in a minute. But let me tell you why I'm sitting down with a legendary, yes. I'm sitting down with a legendary Armenian who has been in many rooms that you would love to be in while major decisions are being made. Let me unpack it for you. So think about your name is President Nixon. You're under a lot of scrutiny. Watergate. You're about to go be doing the interview with Frost Nixon. Everybody's like, oh my God, you're going to resign, they're going to fire, you got to impeach, all this stuff's going to be happening to you. And you're assigned as a chief researcher and you're there preparing him for the interview with Nixon. That's my guest today.

• 1:51Patrick Bet-David?

  And I imagine if you get a phone call from a two-time governor in California, who was one of the sexiest man alive at the time, loved an actor, married to beautiful wife, gets into politics, wins as the president of SAG, is doing stuff for GE on the road, going up there, talking about how America is the greatest country in The world and this man, this this man named President Reagan calls you and says, I want you to be my chief speechwriter. And he says, what, you want me to be the chief speech? I want you to be my chief speechwriter. I want you to write my inaugural address. I want you to, if some of these things were working, I want you to be there for me. This is the man. So imagine those conversations behind closed doors, decisions being made, all of this going on at the same time.

• 2:31Patrick Bet-David?

  This man has personally witnessed, and he's got a book that just came out called Behind Closed Doors. The, the one and only Ken Khachikyan. I say like that in Armenian, English, I may say Ken Khachikyan. It's great to have you here.

• 2:45Speaker 04

  Good to be here, Patrick.

• 2:47Patrick Bet-David?

  So what a resume. I mean, what a life you've lived.

• 2:49Speaker 04

  It's amazing. I never, never thought it could happen. It's been an amazing life.

• 2:53Patrick Bet-David?

  From Armenian parents.

• 2:55Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Who escaped the genocide, who were from Turkey, Armenians from Turkey, come here. They raise a son who is from Visalia, which I know Visalia right outside of a, I want to say McFarland, probably close to Bakersfield, maybe forty minutes away from Bakersfield. Fresno area, great area. And then you go to Cal, you go to UC Santa Barbara or Cal State Santa Barbara? You go to UC Santa Barbara.

• 3:19Speaker 04

  UC Santa Barbara.

• 3:20Patrick Bet-David?

  And you go to Columbia, I think you become Columbia Law School. And then you come out and at the time, somehow, some way Nixon gets a hold of you, right? If you don't mind sharing that story, how that took place, and it will go to, into a bunch of questions I got for you.

• 3:33Speaker 04

  Well, I was a second year law student at Columbia. I loved politics. I loved it there ever since I was in high school. I went to Boise State, California Boise State, when I was in high school. Actually, I saw Nixon when I was at UC Santa Barbara. Uh, we're on the debate team and I cornered him when he was running for governor for two minutes. I read Six Crises and I was bored with law school, but anyway, I had to finish law school.

• 3:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Who was he when you, when you saw him? Was he already president or was he?

• 4:02Speaker 04

  No, no, he was running for governor. He had lost, he had lost for president, he was running for governor.

• 4:06Patrick Bet-David?

  What year is this?

• 4:07Speaker 04

  Nineteen sixty-two.

• 4:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, got it.

• 4:08Speaker 04

  And he was campaigning in Santa Barbara and I was on the debate team and we, after he spoke, we cornered him just for two minutes. Anyway, I just saw him. And anyway, flash forward nineteen sixty-seven.

• 4:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Was two minutes long enough where you made an impression that he remembered you or not?

• 4:25Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no, no. But he made an impression on me.

• 4:27Patrick Bet-David?

  The other way around. Got it. Okay.

• 4:29Speaker 04

  He gave me some time. And I liked the man, then I read his book Six Crises. 1967 now, flash forward, I'm in law school, second year law student. He's running for president again. Now, he has been. He lost in 60, he lost in 62. He was not the frontrunner for president in 1967. Nelson Rockefeller was the frontrunner. George Romney was the frontrunner. And Ronald Reagan had just been elected governor in California in 66. And everybody thought he might be president. So Nixon was below the pack. But I liked him and I thought, you know, this might be an opportunity to get involved in a presidential campaign.

• 5:10Speaker 04

  So I'm a law student, so I write and I read an article in the New York Times and says it's the new Nixon. And he has a younger crowd around him and he's developing a new personality. So I wrote a letter to him at his law office. I typed it out on a typewriter. Remember typewriters?

• 5:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course I do. I learned how to type with a typewriter.

• 5:31Speaker 04

  I wrote a letter on the typewriter and sent it to his law office in New York. I didn't get an answer back. I thought, that's pretty rude.

• 5:40Patrick Bet-David?

  You did not get an answer?

• 5:41Speaker 04

  No. And so I called his office and they were very polite. They said, well, maybe it got lost in the mail. Why don't you send it again? Well, I kept a carbon copy. You know, you had to keep carbon copies in those days.

• 5:54Patrick Bet-David?

  How old are you at this time?

• 5:55Speaker 04

  I'm 23 years old. Second, second year law student.

• 5:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 5:59Speaker 04

  So I rewrite the letter, type it out all over again. Now, my wife's working on Wall Street, two blocks from his law office. She's at 30 Wall Street, he's at 20 Broad Street. So I type it, she said, she hand delivers it to his law office. And about three weeks later, I get a, finally get an answer back from Pat Buchanan. Pat Buchanan's working for him as an aide to Nixon. And he says, you know what, I'm sorry, your letter got mixed up, come in for an interview. I still have that letter. And I have an interview with Pat Buchanan. He kids me to this day, he says, I thought you were a spy for Rockefeller. Cause you're at Columbia Law School. So we have an interview.

• 6:43Speaker 04

  It didn't go great, but still he let me come in for.

• 6:47Patrick Bet-David?

  What does that interview look like? What is that, what do you ask, I mean, at that point?

• 6:52Speaker 04

  Well, he's asking me questions, uh, cause I was portraying myself, uh, from a, uh, I said, I have an expertise in farming. Cause I grew up on a farm.

• 7:00Patrick Bet-David?

  I saw you.

• 7:01Speaker 04

  Then he starts asking me questions about the Brandon, uh, plan and things like that. I didn't know about that stuff. And I said, oh, I acted really stupid. But basically he saw in me an eager, someone who's eager. Uh, there's a word in Armenian, jar big.

• 7:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Jar peak.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 7:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Jar peak is sharp, eager.

• 7:20Speaker 04

  Resourceful.

• 7:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Right, yeah, right.

• 7:22Speaker 04

  And clever. So, uh, he saw someone who wanted to move up. And, uh, so he said, come on in and you can volunteer. Well, there was only about 15 people there working in the office. Cause people weren't crazy about Nixon back then. So I said, I'll do whatever you want me to do. I don't want to start at the top. So I started answering correspondence, but every chance I got, I would volunteer to work, do this, do that. I provided research. And Martin Anderson, who was at Hoover Institution at the time, doing domestic policy advice for Nixon. Um, uh, saw that I was a sort of an eager beaver, Columbia Law student.

• 8:00Speaker 04

  And, and when Nixon started doing well, um, and then he won the primaries and then come that summer, they offered me a job. And, uh, I got hired to work in the campaign in the summer of 1968, working for, guess who? Alan Greenspan.

• 8:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  And Alan Greenspan was, um, the domestic policy advisor for Nixon in the campaign. Now Alan Greenspan was a economic consultant at the time.

• 8:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Yep.

• 8:30Speaker 04

  Uh, he was sort of a odd character.

• 8:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Who would he have been today? Who is he today?

• 8:39Speaker 04

  Well, I mean, today, you know, he was federal, he was head of the Federal Reserve.

• 8:45Patrick Bet-David?

  No, I totally get that, meaning a Alan Greenspan at that time, if you compare to an Alan Greenspan of today, who is today's Alan Greenspan?

• 8:53Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 8:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Is there a way to make that comparison, or?

• 8:56Speaker 04

  No, I can't even think of it. I mean, Alan Greenspan played in the, he played the clarinet and I think he played the clarinet in Woody Herman's jazz band back in the, in the 60s or in the 50s, along with Nixon's law partner. That's how they knew each other. And then he became an economic consultant. He was sort of a nerd, economic nerd.

• 9:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he sharp when you met him? Was he as sharp, like, were you like, this guy's impressive?

• 9:25Speaker 04

  Well, he was, he was sharp, but he was, he was sort of spacey, sort of a space cadet, you know what I mean? He was out there in Never Never Land. He wanted me to quit law school. He said, you know, you should quit law school because we're going to win this election and we'll get you a job in the White House. I said, after all this time, my four years of undergraduate work, two years of law school, you're going to have me quit law school after all this? That's crazy. No, I'm not going to quit law school. He was, he was out in this other world, but he was, he was a genius. I mean, you could tell. He was, he was very cerebral.

• 10:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Did he think highly of himself? Was he arrogant?

• 10:06Speaker 04

  No, no, no.

• 10:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Did he flirt with grand oars?

• 10:08Speaker 04

  No, no, not in the least. No, no, no. He was down to earth. He was very cerebral, very smart. And, but I didn't just report to him. I reported to a lot of others as well, but I, but he was my direct boss.

• 10:21Patrick Bet-David?

  So when you're doing this, what is your intention? What are you trying to be? Are you, here's a guy that is in debate, right, you're in the debate groups and all the stuff that you're doing at Columbia, right, you're, you're going through where you're studying politics, you have the interests. Who do you want to be? Are you in the back of your mind saying, one day I'm going to be a congressman, a senator? Are you saying, I'm going to be a speechwriter? Am I going to be a dog president? Who am I going to be? What's the dream?

• 10:46Speaker 04

  That's an interesting question, because before I got involved in any of that, When I was in high school, I was, I was, or let's say when I first got into freshman year of college, I was, I thought I was, my goal was to become a US Senator. But by the time I got to this point in my life in the Nixon campaign, I just wanted to get a job in the White House. And I wanted to somehow make a difference. I didn't know where I was going to end up, to be honest with you. I wanted to have a, I wanted to be in the White House and I wanted to, I wanted people

• 11:26Speaker 04

  to see that I could help them make a difference in some way. And I didn't know where I was going to end up. I wasn't like a lot of my colleagues who were searching for power or, or looking to move up to be on the top. I just wanted people to notice that I was an eager beaver wanting to help out. I wanted to get noticed, but also I had a family too. I wanted real life.

• 11:56Patrick Bet-David?

  What, what age did you get married?

• 11:58Speaker 04

  I got, I was not quite 20, I was 19 years old.

• 12:03Patrick Bet-David?

  You got married at 19, so do you have kids already or not?

• 12:05Speaker 04

  No, I was between my sophomore and, and junior year in college, but we didn't have kids until I was, I think, what, 25?

• 12:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so you guys waited six years?

• 12:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, we waited till I got out of school.

• 12:19Patrick Bet-David?

  So now you, at this point, you're, when I'm looking at the history to see what happened in 1962, it says in 1962 Reagan was dropped by GE.

• 12:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 12:31Patrick Bet-David?

  This is the part where GE didn't like the fact that he was talking too political and they're just saying, sell how great GE is, he's selling how great America is. It's like you're on a rally. And he formally registered as a Republican. In 64 US presidential election Reagan gave a speech for presidential contender Barry Goldwater. That was eventually referred to as a time for choosing. We've seen the speech.

• 12:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 12:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Many, many times. So is the temperature high in America with politics? Is that like, I want to be like him when I grow up one day. I want to be on the big stage one day.

• 13:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Or not really, not for you.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  You're talking to me?

• 13:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 13:03Speaker 04

  No, no. At that point, I was focused on getting my, just going to college, doing, just trying to get by. I had to pay for my own education. We got married. My parents gave us $300. My wife's parents gave us $300 and said, now you're on your own.

• 13:25Patrick Bet-David?

  They were loaded. They give you a lot of money.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right.

• 13:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Very rich oil family from the Middle East. Congratulations.

• 13:32Speaker 04

  Yeah. So from that time, we were on our own. We paid for everything, college loans, working summers, working jobs, whatever it is. So we were just trying to get through school, get through college, get through law school. No, I didn't have any big grandiose schools in life.

• 13:50Patrick Bet-David?

  So when you started working as a, you said 15 people helping out. Pat gave you a job. He was, he first started because you're Columbia. Maybe you're on the Rockefeller side because school affiliation linking there. Okay. And then you're like, we'll give you the job. You're in, you haven't yet made a name. You're like, let me just get to work and show you what I'm all about.

• 14:07Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 14:08Patrick Bet-David?

  So at what point do you get your opportunity where you're working directly with Nixon? When did you make the impression on him?

• 14:13Speaker 04

  I didn't get to work with Nixon directly until after he resigned.

• 14:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Until after he resigned?

• 14:19Speaker 04

  Yeah. You know, the White House is a very structured organization. You have, you have very few people have direct contact with the president. You have a massive organization, but you have very few people have very direct contact with the President of the United States. It's a very insular circle that has real direct contact with the president. So that's the same with the Nixon White House and with the Reagan White House. It doesn't matter. So in the Nixon White House, I never had a one-on-one conversation with the president.

• 14:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Never?

• 14:51Speaker 04

  Never, never.

• 14:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Not even after he resigned?

• 14:54Speaker 04

  No, after he resigned, yes.

• 14:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Pre you did not.

• 14:57Speaker 04

  Pre I did not.

• 14:58Patrick Bet-David?

  And why is that? Is that because, because I don't think Trump is like that. Is that because he didn't trust people? When you watch the Nixon movie with Anthony Hopkins, I don't know if you've seen it or I'm sure you haven't seen it. Why haven't you seen, you've never seen it?

• 15:10Speaker 04

  No.

• 15:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, it's actually a pretty good movie to watch. I loved it. I love watching the Nixon, I'm assuming you've seen Frost, Nixon.

• 15:17Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Frost, the movie.

• 15:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course I have.

• 15:19Patrick Bet-David?

  When you watch the movie, uh, you're in it. I mean, Gabriel plays you in the movie. But when you watch Nixon and you see the first time, you know, the role his wife plays and he's almost giving up. I don't know if I'm gonna pull it off. He comes back, he runs, he wins the debate, John F. Kennedy, the tanning bed. He looked good, shave, four o'clock, all this stuff that you hear. And then when he's going through, you don't, you don't feel like he's a guy that trusts a lot of people. You feel like he just didn't trust anybody, that he was typically by himself because he didn't know who he could trust and who he couldn't trust. Did he give you the vibes of an overly paranoid guy?

• 15:52Speaker 04

  No, uh, you know, that's interesting. People say that. It's just, it's just the way, uh, no, no, uh, you know, he was open to a lot of people. He's open to ideas. It's just the way the, uh, the situation is structured. I, I wrote memos to him in the sixty-eight campaign that got to him, even though I was just twenty-three years old. He was always open to ideas and open to, it's just that, uh, you can't have people, um, uh, swarming into candidates and swarming into the president, uh, or else you won't have an organization. I don't know how many people, uh, come on to you in your organization.

• 16:32Speaker 04

  I don't know how many people have access to you to tell you what to do or to tell you how to run your organization. Uh, or, or if you have, uh, a structured organization, uh, or when you had your, your insurance company. If you had, if, if, if you had junior people able to come on and talk to you directly. Uh, maybe you did, maybe you didn't. But, uh, I don't know if Jamie Dimon allows junior people come and talk to him. I mean, it's just, it, it, and if he doesn't, is he paranoid? I don't know. I, I don't think you can call people paranoid just because they have an organizational structure. Uh, I didn't find him to be paranoid when I got to know him.

• 17:14Speaker 04

  So that's a bad rap on Nixon that I always feel.

• 17:18Patrick Bet-David?

  I should think it's a good quality. I don't think it's a bad quality. I find it as a, I, I, I, I think, you know, here's Schickso. Okay, here's paranoid.

• 17:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Here's naive. Okay, I'm okay with you being here. You cross this, then you're miserable.

• 17:34Speaker 04

  Right.

• 17:35Patrick Bet-David?

  But if you're here, everyone's taking advantage of you. And this, I don't think you're ready to be a president. I think you need to be a little bit here to size everybody up and study body language and look at somebody and know where they're at. And Nixon gave me a vibe that he was like that.

• 17:50Speaker 04

  Well, he studied people very carefully. And as I say, even paranoics have real enemies. But he did study people very carefully. He was very shrewd at studying people and very good at studying people and knowing their traits. And at the end of the day, it worked for him really well.

• 18:06Patrick Bet-David?

  So you got close to him after he resigned?

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 18:10Patrick Bet-David?

  And who made the phone call? Did Buchanan make the introduction to him? Or did he reach out to you directly?

• 18:15Speaker 04

  What happened was, he resigned and left the office on August 9. Of course, we were all depressed and down. Okay, who was close to him then was Ron Ziegler, his press secretary, went with him out to San Clemente after he resigned, along with a handful of other people. Jack Brennan, his military aide. Diane Sawyer was with him as one of the aides, press aides. And after about 10 days, eight or nine, 10 days, Ziegler called me up and said, "Look, we need some help out here. We're short-staffed." And I was still on the White House staff. Now President Ford was president.

• 19:00Speaker 04

  And they said they were short-staffed. Can you, you know, Ken, you're loyal to the president. You showed that during the impeachment process. Can you come out and help us out? Because we really have a lot of problems. So I flew out there on a military plane. And I had my first one-on-one meeting with Richard Nixon. I was, you know, it was really unnerving to me. Because now, here's the President of the United States and I'm having my first one-on-one meeting. And he was, they were after him for back taxes. He had no job. They wanted to disbar him in California. He had no income. They wanted to disbar him in New York. There were subpoenas floating all over the place.

• 19:43Speaker 04

  I had my law degree. Of course, they depended on that. They had no, they had no structure of a budget in San Clemente. And they, they wanted me to help put his financial life in order. And so I sat down with him. And I'm depressed because I'm 29 years old. And I didn't know what the hell was gonna go on with my life. And here he was, he had lost the most precious thing he ever wanted to achieve in his life. And I thought, what, how, what is this gonna be like? I'm in San Clemente now, sitting one on one with him. And you know what? He says to me, one of the first things he says, Ken, don't get down. Don't, we have to look ahead.

• 20:28Speaker 04

  We can't look back. We have to look forward. And I thought, oh, my gosh. Here I am. I'm feeling low and depressed and thinking my life is shattered because I'm gonna probably lose my job at the White House. And everything he's lost is gone. There, he's lost his income. He has no, he has no job.

• 20:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he a millionaire at the time?

• 20:51Speaker 04

  Huh?

• 20:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he a millionaire at the time?

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Oh, I don't think so, no. He, he, he had, he had property, but they were trying to go after him on his property. He had to, he had to get rid, he was gonna have to get rid of his property because they felt that he had improperly used federal funds to build up his property in Florida. And so that-

• 21:16Patrick Bet-David?

  This reminds me of somebody.

• 21:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's right.

• 21:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Except add a couple of zeros.

• 21:21Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:21Patrick Bet-David?

  It just reminds me.

• 21:22Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, no, no. Exactly. No, no, they were after him. They wanted to.

• 21:25Patrick Bet-David?

  But it sounds like they were successful with him, though.

• 21:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 21:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you think they were successful with trying to destroy Nixon?

• 21:32Speaker 04

  Uh, well, not in the end because he was so resilient. He was mentally resilient and, you know, we can get into that because this is how we came back. We, we started that he was already planning his comeback mentally. He was, he was looking ahead. That's what is, the whole point of that conversation was he was already looking forward and looking ahead. And, um, in that, those dark recesses of his life, and at that moment, he was thinking ahead as, how am I going to rebuild my life? How am I going to come back?

• 22:04Patrick Bet-David?

  So this is August 8th of 74. You're 29.

• 22:07Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 22:08Patrick Bet-David?

  He's 61, okay? And he's losing the job that he always wanted to have. This was what he wanted to do for a long, long time.

• 22:16Speaker 04

  Right.

• 22:17Patrick Bet-David?

  He wasn't shy about it. His dream was to be the president. And how much after he gets resigned on August 8th are you sitting face to, face to face across from him?

• 22:26Speaker 04

  Um, we're, this is 10 days later and I've got about, uh, this is about an hour and a half meeting. I, I'm sure I have notes somewhere. And I'm, uh, sitting down with him saying, here's your financial situation. Here's what our options are. Plus, I'm trying to organize the staff, uh, staff budget. We're going to, we have certain monies that we can get. There's transition funds and here's the staff we can organize. And it's at that point that he says, he's been told by Ziegler how loyal I was and he knew I was loyal. And I worked on the anti impeachment and then he says, look, um, uh, I'm going to write a book, a memoir.

• 23:07Speaker 04

  Uh, and if that happens, I, I'd like you to come out here and work with me on my memoirs. And I said, I'd really love to do that.

• 23:14Patrick Bet-David?

  And what, at that time, how are you getting paid?

• 23:17Speaker 04

  I'm still on the White House staff, working for Jerry Ford.

• 23:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 23:21Speaker 04

  And, and, but 10 days later, I return to the White House, and then I get fired.

• 23:26Patrick Bet-David?

  10 days later, August 18, you go back to the White House and you get fired?

• 23:30Speaker 04

  Roughly in that timeframe.

• 23:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it because they found out that you went and had a meeting with Nixon?

• 23:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, of course.

• 23:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Why? Because they were like, why are you meeting with Nixon and you didn't tell us about it?

• 23:37Speaker 04

  No, no, no, no. They, they, no, no, they knew I was out there, but they, they were eventually going through the White House staff and decided, well, now who on the White House staff?

• 23:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Loyal is to him, they're getting rid of him.

• 23:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, they got rid of Pat Buchanan, they got rid of me.

• 23:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Who's they? Is they Ford?

• 23:54Speaker 04

  Yeah, Ford's people, yeah.

• 23:56Patrick Bet-David?

  So.

• 23:57Speaker 04

  They didn't want us around.

• 23:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Isn't Ford's people Nixon's people?

• 24:00Speaker 04

  Well, of course, Nixon appointed Ford.

• 24:03Patrick Bet-David?

  That's what I'm saying. So when you're saying Ford's people are getting rid of Nixon's people, it's another way of saying Nixon's people who were against him revealed themselves by getting rid of the people that were fully loyal to Nixon.

• 24:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 24:16Patrick Bet-David?

  That's a better way of saying it.

• 24:17Speaker 04

  We were baggage because they didn't want anybody around who was supported the anti impeachment.

• 24:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Was there friction between Ford and Nixon where Ford didn't like Nixon?

• 24:28Speaker 04

  I have no idea what, what, what went on be, uh, between the two of them. I think there was afterwards, there was a little bit of bad blood, unfortunately.

• 24:38Patrick Bet-David?

  From Nixon to Ford or Ford to Nixon?

• 24:40Speaker 04

  I think Ford to Nixon.

• 24:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Ford to Nixon?

• 24:42Speaker 04

  Yeah, because, well, after the pardon, uh, Ford took a lot of heat and I think he felt like, I think Ford felt like he, he may have lost the presidency because of the pardon.

• 24:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. So he kind of blamed it on Nixon, you know, I was.

• 24:57Speaker 04

  Even though he got the presidency because of Nixon.

• 25:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 25:00Speaker 04

  It's, it's sort of a 50 50 situation.

• 25:02Patrick Bet-David?

  That makes sense. So going back to Nixon, so how many total hours would you say you've spent with Nixon? Just the two of you, total hours?

• 25:09Speaker 04

  You mean in my lifetime?

• 25:11Patrick Bet-David?

  In your lifetime?

• 25:12Speaker 04

  Oh my.

• 25:12Patrick Bet-David?

  If you were to put a number to it.

• 25:13Speaker 04

  Thousands.

• 25:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Thousands of hours with him? Okay. What are the different, um, situations you've spent the time with? Dinner, golfing, reading, vacation, business? What would you say, I mean, thousands is a lot of time.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  Uh, thousands would be mostly in the office.

• 25:33Speaker 04

  We didn't, we didn't socially, we didn't play golf together. We had dinners, rarely, maybe four or five times, six times, and that would have been traveling. When I went with him, I traveled with him to London and Paris in the post-presidency when he went, he had a speaking engagement in Paris and in London, and he asked me to travel with him. I went with him when his first grandchild was born. I accompanied him to New York and we had dinners, but we didn't socialize in that way. We spoke on the phone

• 26:15Speaker 04

  huge amounts of times in his post-presidency to talk politics, to talk about what was going on with Reagan's presidency, Carter's presidency, what was happening in politics. But mostly it was during the time working on the memoirs and preparing the Frost Nixon interviews. There was just hundreds and hundreds of hours accumulated over those years.

• 26:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Were there any situations like this, like this picture here?

• 26:42Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:43Patrick Bet-David?

  We're looking at, a lot like that?

• 26:44Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 26:45Patrick Bet-David?

  So is he?

• 26:46Speaker 04

  Just like that.

• 26:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Is he, is he, is it a conversation? Are you asking him questions? He's telling you? Are you writing for him? Many times where you're asking him, what do you think about this, Mr. President? What do you think about that? What's constant processing and asking him questions? Or is he just having an open conversation with you?

• 27:03Speaker 04

  Well, now, there we're probably talking about the book and what's certain parts of the book. I was responsible for his campaigns throughout the book, was responsible for the chapters on probably the Supreme Court appointments and all the various campaigns. And so on those various chapters, I'd be going through the sequences of the research I was doing on the books. But then, because he would get bored with talking about, talking about the book, and this was 1976, and you had the presidential primaries going between Reagan.

• 27:45Speaker 04

  And Ford in late seventy-five and then seventy-six throughout, then you had the presidential campaign of seventy-six, he would get bored working on the book and say, hey, you know, let's talk about the New Hampshire primary, let's talk about the primary in Pennsylvania or the primary in some other state, or he'd get digressing and talking about politics, or he just loved just talking about what happened in the past or about personalities. You know, one time I remember he's talked about the nineteen sixty campaign and for just right out of the blue, he said, you know, I, instead of putting Henry Cabot Lodge

• 28:25Speaker 04

  on the ticket, I should have put Thurston Morton, he was the senator from Kentucky, I should have put Thurston Morton on the ticket, and I might have won. What a, what a, what a revelation that was. Can you imagine that?

• 28:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 28:40Speaker 04

  Piece, I'm, I'm giving you a piece of history.

• 28:42Patrick Bet-David?

  That's crazy.

• 28:43Speaker 04

  That I didn't even put in my book.

• 28:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 28:45Speaker 04

  That's a, that's a real piece of history I'm telling you right now.

• 28:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Unbelievable. What was he like behind closed doors when you're having a conversation with him?

• 28:51Speaker 04

  Oh, he was fascinating. I mean, when out of the blue, somebody talks about Winston Churchill, or something, somebody that Dwight Eisenhower said, or that, something that he learned from Willie Brant, or that he had a conversation with Willie Brant. Now, that was not always, but he loved talking about domestic politics, or, or things about Jack Kennedy. He had, he had stories about Jack Kennedy, but it was always, and I loved talking politics.

• 29:23Patrick Bet-David?

  What stories did he tell? Like, do you remember any stories he told you about Jack Kennedy that stuck till today?

• 29:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, he, he was friends with Kennedy, and he said, you know, we talked about Kennedy, talking about Kennedy's women. He said, you know, he said about Kennedy and women, he says, it's not women that'll do you in, it's drinking. He felt that it was drinking that would do politic, politicians in back in those days. Then he went through, I remember him going through a list of politicians that had, it wasn't this, I don't know, maybe this is a family. A family program, but of politicians that may have had problems with women. But he said, back in those days, that it's the drinking that got to him. So, but he-

• 30:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Meaning like if you got, you drank too much, you fooled around, you were irresponsible-

• 30:10Speaker 04

  No, uh, no, the drinking affected your judgment, is what he would say.

• 30:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 30:17Speaker 04

  A lot of smart politicians back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, he said, that drinking affected their judgment.

• 30:23Patrick Bet-David?

  I thought he drank. Now, was Nixon a drinker, or?

• 30:26Speaker 04

  Uh, he had a scotch at night, but I never saw him when he was boozy. I never did that.

• 30:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 30:33Speaker 04

  I think those were a lot of mythologies, but, uh-

• 30:37Patrick Bet-David?

  So, let me, that's the stuff that we see on who we are told Nixon is versus your experience. How different is the misconceptions we have of Nixon versus you have spent a few thousand hours with him?

• 30:50Speaker 04

  The big misconception is, about Nixon, is that he's cold and unapproachable. That's what people always say about Nixon, is that this notion that you said he's paranoid. That he's cold, he's unapproachable, you can't have a conversation with him, he's not warm. He's, every, every politi- just about every politician I know is wary of strangers. Because they're not quite sure what's going to come of that relationship, or contact. Especially in this modern age, when you can be recorded on an iPhone or whatever.

• 31:34Speaker 04

  But, still, once you got the, your first contact with Nixon, he was more than approachable. He was, the conversations flowed freely. Especially if you started talking about it, something that he was comfortable with, about politics, or baseball, or, or his family. So, I found him to be very, very approachable. We had, we had the greatest conversations. I'm gonna go back and just flashback just a minute about these conversations. Conversations we had, it was about politics. This is where I learned about Reagan so much is that discussions about the primaries in seventy six, because he educated me about Reagan.

• 32:18Speaker 04

  And we would talk about Reagan and Ford, what Ford was doing wrong, what Reagan was doing right, and what Reagan was doing wrong. And he'd make, he made political assessments. The guy was, I used to say about Nixon, when he wasn't involved with his own campaign, he could, he could make excruciatingly bright strategic judgments. When, when politicians are trying to make judgments about their own campaigns, they lose their, they lose their ability to, to not be balanced in, in how they make decisions. But when they're not involved with their own campaigns, they can be very open and neutral.

• 33:02Patrick Bet-David?

  When you're spending time with them, who did you know? And by the way, I mean, there's two things when interviews like this has happened. Either you're only going to tell the good, which makes for a boring conversation, and the audience is going to walk away and we're going to lose them. Okay? And they're going to say, oh, he's just going to say all the good. And we're not going to hear. I watched a documentary the other day. I was, I was falling asleep. I'm like, please, give me something. Like, if they ever make a documentary about me, please don't make it just all good. Tell some of the horror stories, man. Like, no one walks on water. There's got to be some shit that they're dealing with that, you know, people want to know. So, you know, when it comes down to Nixon, what were some, like, who was, who were the people that really pissed him off?

• 33:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Who were the people that, you know, really agitated him or got under his skin? Or what were some areas, like, you know, you read rumors about some of, was he a womanizer? Did he like the girls? Was he good with the ladies? Did the ladies like him? Was he a, you know, guy who would curse a lot behind clothes? Or was he a smoker? What was attractive about him? Was he a sports guy? What, what were some of those things about Nixon that wasn't, you know? Coming from a standpoint of somebody that loves him, you're obviously a fan of his. And by the way, you know, many people now that Nixon's no longer with us, say Nixon was one of the better presidents that we ever had. Nixon should have never resigned. Nixon should have never caved. Nixon should have stood up and, you know, took the, you know, things that were coming

• 34:32Patrick Bet-David?

  after him. There's a lot of people agree with a lot of good that he did for the economy, a lot of good that he did for the economy, but no one walks on water. What were some of those things about Nixon?

• 34:42Speaker 04

  Well, I actually talk about it in the, uh, my book, during the Frost interviews. He was quick to anger during the Frost interviews when his staff let him down. Especially, uh, he, uh, he was very angry. There was a scene in there where he felt that we had not provided him the information. He, he got very upset with, uh, he exploded in anger at, uh, Diane Sawyer. Uh, when I, uh, it was, it was sort of unfair in a lot of ways.

• 35:20Speaker 04

  I think he, he was, uh, uh, I have to say it was sort of, it was not childish, but it was explosive anger that, uh, shouldn't have, he shouldn't have done because she had made an honest mistake and, and didn't provide him this information. And I had said, you know, there was this piece of information that we had that could have helped you in the interview that you just did and she didn't provide it. And then he, he, he just exploded all of a sudden and he cursed. I'll say this about him, his cursing was, it was, it was moderate.

• 36:05Speaker 04

  He, he never used the, he never spoke, he never used foul words.

• 36:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 36:11Speaker 04

  No.

• 36:12Patrick Bet-David?

  So no F words, no B words, no shit, no stuff like that?

• 36:15Speaker 04

  No, shit, yes, but, but no F.

• 36:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Would he say he's such an asshole? Would he say stuff like?

• 36:20Speaker 04

  No, he'd say that, but not, but no.

• 36:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Get the F out of you motherfu-

• 36:24Speaker 04

  No, never that.

• 36:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 36:26Speaker 04

  Never, never heard him use F words.

• 36:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 36:29Speaker 04

  Ever.

• 36:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Ever?

• 36:31Speaker 04

  Ever.

• 36:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 36:33Speaker 04

  No.

• 36:34Patrick Bet-David?

  He would have been a bad rapper if he got into hip hop.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  You know, but, uh, but he would, uh, you know, say somebody's an asshole or, you know, uh- Doesn't give a shit or something like that.

• 36:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 36:46Speaker 04

  But never, never used the F word, not once.

• 36:49Patrick Bet-David?

  I've heard pastors use those words.

• 36:50Speaker 04

  Not a single time.

• 36:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 36:52Speaker 04

  The entire time I knew him and.

• 36:55Patrick Bet-David?

  But he had a temper, so he got upset at Diane Sawyer, you were there with him.

• 36:58Speaker 04

  I was there and I calmed him down and you know, he would, look.

• 37:04Speaker 04

  In front of, in front of those of us who were, I, I think he felt comfortable with. He would, he would rise to anger and I, I understand that. I think you probably do that from time to time with your own staff.

• 37:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Walk on water, I never lose my cool, I'm very calm. Rob, you know.

• 37:26Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's people, there's people in the booth behind here howling now.

• 37:30Patrick Bet-David?

  They're not laughing, they're actually, they better not be laughing, I swear to God, if you're laughing, we're gonna have a problem. See, this is the part though, this is the, this is the part where people see that the person doesn't, you have the biggest job in the world. You are the number one story around the world, you're getting fired. How many movies and Rob, how many, can you type in how many movies and documentaries and books have been written about Nixon? I mean, if, if you were to talk about the number of times he's been referenced in a movie, I mean, this is, this is a powerful name, right? So you're under pressure, some of the guys that you gave a job to have turned against you. They're causing you to lose your job, you're like, you would have never had a job without me, I chose you, I gave you this opportunity.

• 38:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Now you're flipping on me, these are, these are tough situations to be in. But that instance with Diane Sawyer and Nixon, what was the specific thing that?

• 38:22Speaker 04

  Well, she had, there was a piece of information that he could have used in the interview with.

• 38:29Patrick Bet-David?

  That would have helped him?

• 38:30Speaker 04

  That would have helped him.

• 38:31Patrick Bet-David?

  With Frost?

• 38:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 38:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you remember what it was or?

• 38:33Speaker 04

  It had to do with the June 23rd tape.

• 38:38Speaker 04

  That there was something his, the former deputy director of the CIA could have provided. And it's, again, I describe it in the book.

• 38:51Speaker 04

  That, that, who had warned him that he didn't want the FBI to get a foul of CIA operations. And he thought that would have been beneficial to him in the interview with Frost. And she had neglected to provide it, and I had remembered it. Now, look.

• 39:17Speaker 04

  She had done such a stupendous job in preparing him for those interviews.

• 39:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Stupendous is a good word. She had done a great job.

• 39:25Speaker 04

  Like 99% of everything that she had done.

• 39:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Some people in Armenia listen to this. Their English may be their fourth language. I just want to say complimentary of Diane, so you're being complimentary of her.

• 39:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, she had, she, she had a work ethic better than just about anybody. And she had done so much. And she had overlooked this one little thing. And I almost felt bad that I had brought this up.

• 39:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Did it bother her? When she, in the moment, was she crying in tears?

• 39:52Speaker 04

  It almost brought her to tears, yes.

• 39:54Patrick Bet-David?

  But it didn't?

• 39:55Speaker 04

  That it didn't. And, and he, and, and, but I have to say this. He calmed down right away.

• 40:03Patrick Bet-David?

  If you're telling the story, if Diane's listening to this.

• 40:05Speaker 04

  It was an outburst.

• 40:06Patrick Bet-David?

  If Diane's listening to this, would she remember this moment?

• 40:10Speaker 04

  She might have, I don't know. I gave her, I sent her a copy of the book, and she may or may not have remembered it.

• 40:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you guys still talk, or no?

• 40:16Speaker 04

  We've talked a few months back, but we're not in constant communication.

• 40:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. And obviously Diane's so.

• 40:23Speaker 04

  She's a private person.

• 40:24Patrick Bet-David?

  She's a private person.

• 40:25Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. She, she lived a pretty public life. Going on TV, doing interviews. She did some of the biggest interviews of all time. If you type in the biggest interviews ever done, she's on the list of many of those interviews.

• 40:35Speaker 04

  That's a different, there's public persons and private persons, though. Public persons also have a private life.

• 40:42Patrick Bet-David?

  For sure, but for sure, but you're saying she didn't want her personal life to be out there. She kind of didn't want the fame. She was good at the job.

• 40:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 40:50Patrick Bet-David?

  But when she was gone, she was gone.

• 40:52Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 40:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. Okay. What else with Nixon? What else did you see where moments where, you know, something bothered him?

• 40:59Speaker 04

  He could be, look, I think there's times when he could be, um, say something snarky about, um, uh, another politician, uh, that, uh, maybe sounded petty, but I don't, I think that's, that's a quality that's not above anybody. It's, um, um, or maybe would, uh, it would be, let's say gossipy. He was not above political gossip. Let's put it that way.

• 41:36Patrick Bet-David?

  He was not?

• 41:37Speaker 04

  No.

• 41:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  So if you're talking about, you know, me trying to say, yes, he didn't walk on water, but, but that's not a horrible trait in my judgment. That's, that's something people do all the time. Uh, but I didn't, I can't give you anything. He didn't drink to excess in front of me. He was not a womanizer. Um, he was a, he was a very generous man. He did good things with me.

• 42:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Would he ever talk to you, like, for example, would he ever sit there behind closed doors? And you're in a, not an economy background, but you had some stuff you did with Greenspan. So you have an economy where you're coming and saying, here's a budget, here's how much money we got, we're gonna deal with this. So you understand money well. Would he say to you ever, any questions behind closed doors, second guessing, saying, you know what? You know, when I said we're gonna, this, this going off of gold standard is gonna be temporary, I should have never done it. You know, when it came down to this, I should have never resigned. Did he ever tell you, I should have never resigned? Did he ever say any of that stuff?

• 42:44Speaker 04

  Well, he did talk about he shouldn't have fired Haldeman and Ehrlichman, that's for sure. That he felt that, he mentioned that more than once. That he felt that was a bad decision that he made.

• 42:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Why?

• 42:58Speaker 04

  Because it didn't, it didn't, it didn't change anything. He said that they were his, they were loyal to him, they were his, he said it was like cutting off his right arm and his left arm. And that, that he felt that that was a mistake that he made, that it didn't make any difference, it didn't make any difference in his presidency, it didn't help him, it didn't help him out any, and it just, it just hurt them. And I think in

• 43:39Speaker 04

  the end, it probably worked to his disadvantage in a lot of ways. It turned Ehrlichman against him. It hurt Haldeman a lot, although Haldeman didn't turn against him. But I think, he got nothing out of it, is what he meant. And he said that any number of times, that...

• 44:01Patrick Bet-David?

  But who's the one that turned against him? Not Haldeman? Who turned against?

• 44:06Speaker 04

  Well, Ehrlichman got, was, in the end, was bitter, more bitter about it.

• 44:09Patrick Bet-David?

  But did either one of them like come back and destroy him?

• 44:13Speaker 04

  No.

• 44:14Patrick Bet-David?

  And come in any of them?

• 44:15Speaker 04

  No.

• 44:16Patrick Bet-David?

  So why was he second guessing that decision there? Is it because he liked them?

• 44:18Speaker 04

  No, because...

• 44:19Patrick Bet-David?

  He misread them?

• 44:20Speaker 04

  They were the most important people on his staff.

• 44:23Patrick Bet-David?

  So why did he fire them initially?

• 44:25Speaker 04

  Because there was a lot of pressure, because there was all this pressure on them, that, that, at the time, the Washington Post and all the, they had been testifying for the Senate Watergate Committee, and a grand jury was after them. There was a lot of public attention put on them, that they had participated in the instruction of justice, that Ehrlichman had participated in this plumbers' operation and everything, and that they were at the center of a lot of the illegal, allegedly at the center of a lot of the illegal activities in the White House. And that, so they were, they were anchors around Nixon's neck. And so there was...

• 45:11Speaker 04

  I can't remember who all was saying, he was probably getting some internal advice that, look, uh, these are, this is just negative to you, Mr. President. You've got to get rid of these two guys and, uh, because it's just, uh, uh, uh, negative to your presidency.

• 45:27Patrick Bet-David?

  So it was escape, he, he needed to fire somebody to say, it's like a football team's got a bad record, they fired a coach.

• 45:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 45:34Patrick Bet-David?

  So it's like, let's fire these guys to make it some like, well, it wasn't me, it was really them that did it.

• 45:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, and it, and, and some-

• 45:40Patrick Bet-David?

  That mess with them.

• 45:41Speaker 04

  And it doesn't help. Yeah. Uh, so let's, oh, okay, so the, the baseball team's not doing any good, so you fire the general manager, and it doesn't make any difference. Right?

• 45:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Instead, what should he have done? When he tells you that and it goes down, and what does he say? Does he say, I should have done this, I should have done-

• 45:57Speaker 04

  I should have kept them, is what he said, because he leaned on them so much, he leaned on their advice. Uh, Bob Haldeman was the guy he talked to, the first guy he talked to, uh, uh, in the morning, the last guy he talked to at night.

• 46:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, wow.

• 46:12Speaker 04

  And so-

• 46:12Patrick Bet-David?

  These guys are very big influential people in, in this administration.

• 46:15Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, no, no, they were the two key guys that he, I mean, uh, that he talked to all the time.

• 46:20Patrick Bet-David?

  What did they end up doing afterwards? What, what big job did they have after Nixon? Did they ever have another big job or nobody trusted them?

• 46:27Speaker 04

  Both of them went to prison. And then they both wrote books and I can't remember, uh, uh, or-

• 46:34Patrick Bet-David?

  They both went to prison?

• 46:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 46:36Patrick Bet-David?

  How long did they, do you remember how long they, was it a good amount?

• 46:38Speaker 04

  It was, uh, I think several months, they were, I mean, they were not, wasn't years and years, I can't remember.

• 46:45Patrick Bet-David?

  So Nixon took responsibility for this happening with these guys? He felt like it was his fault that they went to jail?

• 46:50Speaker 04

  I think it was, he felt it was his fault that, that they, uh, I think they, he felt they got a bad rap. And I think a lot of them got bad raps, that's a whole different story, that, uh-

• 47:03Patrick Bet-David?

  So, did they ever have another job, Rob? They went to what he was found guilty and imprisoned for 18 months, released. He returned to private life, owns a successful businessman.

• 47:11Speaker 04

  Well, Haldeman really, Haldeman went to, had another.

• 47:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that Haldeman or?

• 47:17Speaker 04

  Haldeman. This is Haldeman. Yeah, he had another job afterwards.

• 47:21Patrick Bet-David?

  So he came back and went in business. He was fine, he died from cancer at 60 something.

• 47:24Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:25Patrick Bet-David?

  How about?

• 47:26Speaker 04

  Erlichman wrote books, and I don't know if he had a real job. He wrote books.

• 47:31Patrick Bet-David?

  He was also in jail for a year and a half. By the way, did you ever see them after the Watergate scandal? Were you ever there where they reunited afterwards? Or they would?

• 47:41Speaker 04

  I saw Haldeman.

• 47:42Patrick Bet-David?

  You saw Haldeman?

• 47:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Him and Nixon were together afterwards?

• 47:45Speaker 04

  No, I just saw Haldeman.

• 47:47Patrick Bet-David?

  And how was?

• 47:47Speaker 04

  Personally, one on one.

• 47:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, I'm sorry, got it. But never with Nixon? They never reunited with Nixon?

• 47:53Speaker 04

  No, they did, they did reunite, but I wasn't with them.

• 47:55Patrick Bet-David?

  All three of them?

• 47:56Speaker 04

  No, I don't think I ever saw Erlichman again.

• 48:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Is it because Erlichman was like done with it?

• 48:02Speaker 04

  As far as I know.

• 48:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. And when you met with Haldeman, how was he? Was he?

• 48:06Speaker 04

  It was a very interesting meeting. Haldeman, we were all terrified of Haldeman in the White House.

• 48:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Why?

• 48:16Speaker 04

  He was a very, because he was a very, they called him Sweet Old Bob. Because it was, because it was the initials for S O B.

• 48:31Patrick Bet-David?

  So he was a tough guy?

• 48:32Speaker 04

  Because he was very stern, very, he had very strict rules. And he, he wasn't, he had a very stern demeanor and personality. And he wasn't very, you know, he ran things all by the rulebook. So I never had, I had one conversation with him the entire time I was in the White House. And then I knew he was gonna call me to get some, a piece of information. And I was scared, I was frightened, that, I was nervous that he was gonna call me for this piece of information.

• 49:12Speaker 04

  That I would screw up and I'd get in trouble. And even though it was just a simple, he was gonna call me to ask me how the press treated some piece of information. So people were.

• 49:23Patrick Bet-David?

  He had a reputation.

• 49:24Speaker 04

  Reputation.

• 49:25Patrick Bet-David?

  What caused the reputation though? Did he have blowups or?

• 49:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, just don't screw up around Haldeman, you get in trouble.

• 49:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 49:32Speaker 04

  He's just a tough guy. He's, he ran a tight ship and even those people who worked for him knew that he was stern and ran a real tight ship. So, anyway, so Bob was just.

• 49:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Was, was he Nixon's number one general?

• 49:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, he was chief of staff.

• 49:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. And then how about Ehrlichman? What role did he play?

• 49:55Speaker 04

  He was head of domestic, head of domestic council. He was the head of domestic affairs. But he was, he was the lead, he and Haldeman went to school together and Haldeman brought him into the campaign to run the advance operation. But then Ehrlichman ran the whole domestic affairs operation. So he ran all the domestic, so he oversaw the entire domestic council and all the domestic legislation and everything else.

• 50:25Patrick Bet-David?

  So Ehrlichman was not as feared as Haldeman was?

• 50:29Speaker 04

  Well, he didn't have the, he didn't have the same role as Haldeman in terms of running staffing or anything else.

• 50:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 50:40Speaker 04

  But they were, the two of them were known as, quote, "the Germans."

• 50:43Patrick Bet-David?

  The Germans? Were they German?

• 50:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, Ehrlichman, Haldeman.

• 50:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Right. So they were Germans, but born here, obviously?

• 50:49Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 50:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. So UCLA alumnis and, interesting. So how about Ford? Did he have a relationship with Ford? Would he talk about Ford or they were not that close?

• 50:59Speaker 04

  Well, they were close. They came into Congress, I think Ford came into Congress, I think in 48, and Nixon came in in 46, and they were colleagues throughout the years in Congress. And they were always, you know, close friends and.

• 51:22Speaker 04

  Colleagues throughout all those years, they weren't, I don't think they were pals, real close pals, but they were friends. I mean, they didn't so, I don't know that they socialized together that much. But he wouldn't have chosen him as vice president if he didn't have trust in him, or feel that he was, you know, could be safe around him, or anything else.

• 51:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Did he trust Reagan? Was he, was he a fan of Reagan?

• 51:48Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah, very much so. Well, once he got elected, he was. He was wary of Reagan in 68 because he viewed Reagan as a, as a potential challenger. So, once he got elected president, and Reagan was not a political threat to him, yes. But as long as Reagan was a political threat to him, that was a different story.

• 52:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Were you having a room with the three of them?

• 52:16Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 52:18Patrick Bet-David?

  How was that when you guys were together?

• 52:19Speaker 04

  It's on the cover of the book.

• 52:20Patrick Bet-David?

  How was that when you guys were together?

• 52:21Speaker 04

  Oh, that was a, that's the last chapter of the book. It's an amazing story. It's, I call it "The Lions Gather." And it was fantastic.

• 52:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Didn't you have a nickname? The Lions, they called you, what was your nickname?

• 52:34Speaker 04

  Oh, oh, no, Anora.

• 52:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. I read another nickname for you that said, what was the other nickname I read for you? There was another nickname I saw. There you had, let me see if I can find this or not. But they had a nickname for you. Maybe you don't know this nickname. You're gonna find out about it years later.

• 52:52Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 52:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Who knows? I saw nicknames. I'll find that. I'll tell you what the nickname I saw. Oh, the line of, Hachim was, had an act in California, election, 80, 80, he's registered, regarded as a line of California GOP politicians.

• 53:06Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 53:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. So, how many?

• 53:08Speaker 04

  I had a lot of nicknames. People who worked for me probably gave them to me.

• 53:13Patrick Bet-David?

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• 53:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Go to VTMerch.com, place your order for Veterans Day. These things are going to go very quickly and you'll get a custom mug that'll be sent your way.

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• 54:54Patrick Bet-David?

  How often were you with the three of them together with Nixon and?

• 54:58Speaker 04

  Oh, just that one time.

• 54:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, got it.

• 55:00Speaker 04

  And it was, that's such a fascinating meeting. That's why it's the last chapter of my book.

• 55:04Patrick Bet-David?

  What is this picture? What's this moment here?

• 55:07Speaker 04

  That's, that's the end of the meeting. And it was at the, it was two days before we opened the Nixon Library. I was, I oversaw the opening of the Nixon Library in 1990. We opened the library on July 9th.

• 55:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Tell you, you're a very good looking man. Look at that picture right there. Look at that smile. You look like Hollywood lawyer. Look at that, big time.

• 55:30Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, somebody said they'd never seen me so happy.

• 55:37Speaker 04

  I don't know.

• 55:40Patrick Bet-David?

  So after you working with Nixon, was your relationship with Nixon would help you get President Reagan to make you the chief speechwriter?

• 55:49Speaker 04

  Yes, yes.

• 55:50Patrick Bet-David?

  That's obviously sign that Reagan trusted Nixon to call and say, "Who do you recommend?" And Nixon made the recommendation, I would assume.

• 55:58Speaker 04

  It was not directly to Reagan, it was indirectly.

• 56:02Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you mean indirectly?

• 56:05Speaker 04

  When Nixon finished the memoirs and was basically, had gotten... The purpose of the memoirs and the Frost interviews was to get Watergate behind him, to reinvent his life, to restructure, to get his, to get his financial house in order. He got paid a lot of money for his memoirs and the Frost interviews. And then, by that time, he didn't, he didn't need a staff like he did for the memoirs or anything else.

• 56:47Speaker 04

  Plus, he was bored living in San Clemente because people had a hard time coming out to see him. So that's when he wanted to move to New York. That's in 19, late 79, early 80. So I was going to be out of a job. So I, he kept me on, Nixon kept me on in 79 throughout this, as a consultant, part-time. And then I started looking for work. And then I had friends in the Reagan campaign that he started up for president in late 79. These are old pals that actually had also had worked for Nixon previously. And so I had some consulting arrangement with them as well.

• 57:32Speaker 04

  Nixon said, I'm gonna, then he announced to me, I'm moving to New York, because I gotta be where the action is. And he said, about this time, he said, I'm gonna introduce you to Stu Spencer, Stuart Spencer. Stu Spencer ran Reagan's gubernatorial campaigns in 1966, and was his political advisor for all those years. The Spencer Roberts, Spencer Roberts Organization. So Stu Spencer was previously Reagan's campaign managers. And Stu Spencer was somebody that Nixon knew from political campaigns.

• 58:11Patrick Bet-David?

  He managed Nelson Rockefeller's campaign in 64.

• 58:14Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 58:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 58:16Speaker 04

  And, but, but Stu Spencer had also run Jerry Ford's campaign in 1976. So even though he had run Reagan's campaigns previously, he was no longer on Nancy Reagan's Christmas card list. So he was, but he had an office in Newport Beach, and had a lot of political contacts. And so Nixon said, go, go sit down with Stu Spencer, and see what, see if he's got any work for you. So I met with Stu in 19, in 1979, and Stu said, well, why is Dick Nixon sending you to see me? And I said, well, he said, you had a lot of contacts.

• 58:55Speaker 04

  So I started meeting with Stu, and I had actually did a little help with him writing some stuff. I write about this in the book. And, so, Stu and I stayed in touch, and in 1980, Reagan's campaign started getting into trouble in August and September. It wasn't doing well.

• 59:23Speaker 04

  And Nancy and, and, and Ron Reagan said, we've got to do something to get things in order, especially Nancy did, because she was sort of the boss. And she said, you know what, we, even though we unhappy with Stu, we got to get Stu back. And so they called Stu up, and Stu said, okay, if you're going to get me back, even though we've had all these problems with each other in the past, the problem with your campaign is you're trying to run it from the headquarters. If I'm going to be in this campaign, I'm going to run it from the, I'm going to run it from the plane. You can't run it from the headquarters.

• 1:00:06Speaker 04

  And if I'm going to run it from the plane, I have to make, I have to, I get to choose the, the policy person, the, the, the press person, the, the person who runs the campaign tour, then I get to have a speechwriter with me. And that person turned out to be me. So Stu Spencer, this-

• 1:00:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Interesting guy, by the way.

• 1:00:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:30Patrick Bet-David?

  He's 97 years old. Last time he voted for a Democratic president was in 1947, 48, Truman. And in 2020, he voted for Biden over Trump.

• 1:00:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, he doesn't like Trump.

• 1:00:40Patrick Bet-David?

  No, he's not a fan of Trump?

• 1:00:42Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:00:42Patrick Bet-David?

  So, okay, so you get into the Reagan family. You're, you're now his chief.

• 1:00:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'd, I'd been begging to get involved in the Reagan campaign for months and months and months. And they were, they were not letting me get the job I wanted, by the way.

• 1:00:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Did they give you a reason why? Was it because just-

• 1:01:00Speaker 04

  Oh, they said, we don't have the money. We're having trouble with our budget. You know, blah, blah, blah. They were giving me all kinds-

• 1:01:08Patrick Bet-David?

  What was your first meeting with them? When's the first time you met him?

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  Uh, first time I met, well, first time I met him was at UC Santa Barbara again. I was student body president, and I introduced him. I, I got him to speak to the campus. And I, that was one of my jobs. I got to introduce whoever spoke to the campus.

• 1:01:26Patrick Bet-David?

  And who was he then, the governor?

• 1:01:27Speaker 04

  He was, no, he was running for governor.

• 1:01:29Patrick Bet-David?

  And this is sixty three, sixty?

• 1:01:31Speaker 04

  Sixty six.

• 1:01:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Sixty six. And was UC Santa Barbara a party city, party school back then, or not really?

• 1:01:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, well, yeah, it was a party school. But I was married, so.

• 1:01:40Patrick Bet-David?

  I mean, UC Santa Barbara had a reputation when I was in my early twenties, late teens.

• 1:01:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. Great bookstores.

• 1:01:46Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:01:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Long bookstores. Doesn't matter what you wanted, everybody you wanted was there. There was something in the water, I don't know what it was.

• 1:01:54Speaker 04

  Well, okay, I'm gonna start interviewing you now.

• 1:01:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, I will plead a fifth, is what I will do if we go through that.

• 1:02:01Speaker 04

  So I, I introduced Reagan at the, at the, to, to the student body back in sixty six. That's the first time I met him, so.

• 1:02:12Speaker 04

  But that, that was, we, we had no conversation with each other, other than I talked to him on the stage for two minutes. But.

• 1:02:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Pleasant guy?

• 1:02:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, oh yeah, he was genial, always genial. But, uh, then I briefed him, uh, I, I did have a consulting arrangement with them. In early, in, in nineteen eighty, I briefed them on issues, along with several other people. But then I lost all contact with them because they had all these BS issues with their budget and this, that and the other. So I didn't get hired until there was five and a half weeks left in the campaign, when Stu Spencer says, "I get to choose the speechwriter."

• 1:02:55Speaker 04

  That's how I got involved.

• 1:02:56Patrick Bet-David?

  So now you're in.

• 1:02:57Speaker 04

  Now I'm in.

• 1:02:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Speechwriter.

• 1:02:59Speaker 04

  I'm on the airplane.

• 1:03:00Patrick Bet-David?

  You're on the airplane with him.

• 1:03:03Speaker 04

  Critical.

• 1:03:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Tell me.

• 1:03:05Speaker 04

  It's critical because that's where the, that's where the campaign is being run.

• 1:03:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 1:03:11Speaker 04

  Day to day.

• 1:03:13Patrick Bet-David?

  On Air Force One?

• 1:03:14Speaker 04

  No, no, it's not, no, this is, this is, he's a candidate. He's a governor.

• 1:03:19Patrick Bet-David?

  He's a governor, you're on the plane with him.

• 1:03:21Speaker 04

  I mean, we called him governor, he was ex-governor, but.

• 1:03:24Patrick Bet-David?

  How many, how many hours did you spend with him versus Nixon? Was it more Nixon than Reagan?

• 1:03:28Speaker 04

  Oh, uh, I. One-on-one, I've spent probably in aggregate more hours with Nixon because I worked on his book with him.

• 1:03:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 1:03:38Speaker 04

  But I did spend a lot of time with Reagan, yes.

• 1:03:40Patrick Bet-David?

  With Reagan. Was Nancy more present when you're talking to Reagan than Pat being present when you're talking to her? I can see that.

• 1:03:51Speaker 04

  Yes, yes.

• 1:03:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Did she give you vibes of a control freak or somebody that was just protective of her husband?

• 1:03:57Speaker 04

  Both.

• 1:04:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Give me examples of control freak.

• 1:04:07Speaker 04

  This is why people need to read my book.

• 1:04:11Speaker 04

  I called her the chief of staff when she joined the campaign, which was a positive thing. Because he trusted her. He trusted nobody more than he trusted Nancy Reagan.

• 1:04:29Speaker 04

  He called her mommy.

• 1:04:32Speaker 04

  And when I first joined the campaign, she wasn't on the plane. She was still in Los Angeles. And then she joined us a week later and things were wobbly, wobbly, wobbly. But then she came on the plane and it steadied him because he always, he just needed her by his side.

• 1:04:55Speaker 04

  But there was like an occasion I describe in the book where, for example, I was under great pressure to get this speech to him. We were on our way to Lima, Ohio. It was a Lima or Lima, I can't remember how they pronounce it now.

• 1:05:22Speaker 04

  And we were doing a speech and we're 45 minutes away and we're under pressure and the plane's on final approach and we're trying to get the speech. And I'm under pressure trying to type it in the back and we have to write it, but on the half sheets to get to him. And she walks back to me and she says, Ken, where's the speech? Ma'am, I'm working on it. We're trying to get it done. Where's the speech? I'm almost done. She says Ronnie is looking for the speech. So you get the feeling now.

• 1:05:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Urgency, let's go. Where is it at? I need it.

• 1:06:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, he needs it right away. And I get it, rip it out of the typewriter. The secretaries have to type it up. They have to put it on half sheets, get it up to them, take it up to them. So that's how, that's how, that's her role is being a control freak and being like in charge all at one time.

• 1:06:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Was this a she thing or was this him? Like, you know, certain CEOs are afraid of firing people.

• 1:06:25Speaker 04

  That's him being telling, asking her to do it.

• 1:06:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, got it. So it's she, it's.

• 1:06:30Speaker 04

  He can't be a confrontation.

• 1:06:32Patrick Bet-David?

  I got it. So he, so he was a guy that would avoid conflict. If he needed to fire somebody, he couldn't do it. Nancy can he fire this person?

• 1:06:39Speaker 04

  Exactly.

• 1:06:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Interesting. So it's not her doing, taking the initiative. He was relying on her and delegating to do, to do the tough job.

• 1:06:47Speaker 04

  Several times.

• 1:06:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow.

• 1:06:50Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:06:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Wow. Do you ever have a moment where President Reagan gave you direct criticism, one on one?

• 1:06:56Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:06:57Patrick Bet-David?

  When was that?

• 1:06:58Speaker 04

  Once. It was, it's a, it's a famous moment in, in the book. And that it's a, it's a very, makes a big, very big difference in policy. And that's when, it's prior to the First Geneva Summit with Gorbachev. And he brought me in. I was back in California, but he's going to prepare a speech before the General Assembly to the United Nations in the fall of 1985.

• 1:07:36Speaker 04

  And I get called in, in, I think the speech is in October of 1985, September, October of 1985. And the the basic speech is written by his speechwriting staff. And I get called in because they want me to shape it up and put it in his words and make sure it's edited properly. So I get called in from California. And I have two meetings with him. And I'm assuming it's the the initial speech is written by Ben Elliott, the head of the current speechwriting staff. And it's a pretty tough anti-communist speech.

• 1:08:21Speaker 04

  And I'm assuming he still wants it to be a pretty tough anti-communist speech because this is Ronald Reagan. So I edit the speech and work it out and I make it the tone just pretty much the way it's supposed to be. And I finalize it, get the final edits in, have my secretary ship it in to him the night before. And then we have a meeting. I don't think you have, I don't know if you have the picture of it. It's a picture of of us sitting around in the Oval Office. I'm sitting right next to him in the Oval Office. And there's several of us in the meeting.

• 1:09:06Speaker 04

  It's in the Oval. Anyway, there's me next to him and there's Pat Buchanan, Don Reagan, John Poindexter, and Bud McFarlane. And so I sit down and think I'm going to get a pat on the back for doing a nice speech for Reagan. First thing he does is he says, "Ken, if we're going to have a different relationship with Gorbachev, we can't be using this harsh rhetoric regarding the Soviet Union." And I go, "Whoa, where'd this come from?" All of a sudden... Reagan's going soft on communism.

• 1:09:48Speaker 04

  And I'm getting spanked in front of all these other guys. And, uh, and I'm, it's really, you know, I mean, my feelings are getting hurt. And I think I'm getting sabotaged by somebody in the White House. And then he starts going on and on about that he doesn't like the language. It's too tough. And it doesn't, it just doesn't sound like him at all. And so he wants it changed. This is, the meeting is around 10 o'clock or whatever it is, somewhere around there. I've got a flight going back to California at five. So now I've got just about four hours to re-edit this whole speech and change the language.

• 1:10:30Speaker 04

  And all this time, I thought I'm being sabotaged. Well, it turns out that this is a whole change in philosophy that he wants a different

• 1:10:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Strategy?

• 1:10:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:10:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Strategy?

• 1:10:43Speaker 04

  Strategy approach to Gorbachev before the summit. Now, I, I write a whole chapter on this because I found out years later, talking to Bud McFarland, that the influence on him was from Lady Thatcher, who told him he needs to have a different view towards Gorbachev. And then Nancy, Mrs. Reagan, wanted him to soften up. Anyway, that's when I got, that's a long way of telling you that, you asked me if I ever got negative vibes from him. That's when I got.

• 1:11:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Aside from that?

• 1:11:14Speaker 04

  No, aside from that, uh...

• 1:11:16Patrick Bet-David?

  You ever saw him lose his cool?

• 1:11:18Speaker 04

  Uh, yes.

• 1:11:20Speaker 00

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• 1:11:37Speaker 02

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• 1:12:04Speaker 04

  Not badly, but just he was angry. He got angry about, in private, when he felt that he was, this is again towards the end of his administration, and complained about, not angry in the sense of his voice rising or anything else, but he was angry about how he got taken by his staff on raising taxes in 1982. That bothered him.

• 1:12:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Really?

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:12:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Why?

• 1:12:47Speaker 04

  Because he was lied to by his staff. His staff manipulated him.

• 1:12:52Patrick Bet-David?

  When you say staff, is there a name or two?

• 1:12:55Speaker 04

  Well, there are several of them. Richard Darman, Jim Baker.

• 1:13:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Jim Baker?

• 1:13:02Speaker 04

  David Gergen, they all worked together.

• 1:13:05Patrick Bet-David?

  And they lied to Ron?

• 1:13:06Speaker 04

  David Stockman. Well, they manipulated him in ways that they wanted him to go. Let's put it that way.

• 1:13:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Would you say...

• 1:13:16Speaker 04

  I write about it, so I don't, it's not like I'm telling you something.

• 1:13:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Would you say Jim Baker, James Baker, I read his book, phenomenal story of who he was, tough guy. What was your impression of Jim Baker when you were around him?

• 1:13:26Speaker 04

  He was a very pleasant guy, he's very affable, and I always, basically I always got along with him. And very charming, you know, comes from Texas, he has that Texas charm, but he can be very tough. But we had...

• 1:13:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he an SOB? Was he a qualified SOB?

• 1:13:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, he could be. We crossed swords later on in the 84 campaign, but then we, you know, basically, I think he decided that he and I would be, we're better off not getting in a pissing match with each other, but I think at the end of the day, he preferred not to have to do battle with me. But it's clearly we had different views of where Reagan should go, and he wanted Reagan to be much more...

• 1:14:26Speaker 04

  Had a softer view of America than I did. And, oh, I want to take that. He wanted Reagan to be less Ronald Reagan than Ronald Reagan was. Let's put it that way.

• 1:14:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Jim Baker, some people say he was, uh, he was the first Dick Cheney before there was a Dick Cheney. Would you agree with that?

• 1:14:47Speaker 04

  I don't know what that means.

• 1:14:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Meaning he, you know how they say Dick Cheney was, uh, the, the guy that was making a lot of decisions behind closed doors with Bush? And Jim Baker was the one that ran the show, or no?

• 1:15:00Speaker 04

  Well, there's, there's a lot to do with that. I, but I think, yes, I would say that, but not in a positive way.

• 1:15:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Not in a positive way?

• 1:15:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, because, uh, again, as I write about it in the book, especially on domestic policy issues, uh, he did things, uh, it's not just him. He brought in people, uh, that worked against Reagan's interests. And I write about it in the book. And I'm, I, it's important that people read about it. It's, it's, it's that, and Reagan talks about decisions that were made that were not, uh, in Reagan's interests. And he, now Reagan doesn't name names because he, he, he didn't realize what was going on. And, um, and it's just that I found information in the archives.

• 1:15:49Speaker 04

  And I, and when I researched the book, uh, I found, uh, more and more information that, uh, led, uh, me to, uh, find factual reasons to believe that Reagan was, uh, you know, he was, uh, taken to the woodshed on these things.

• 1:16:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you ever read the book, The Man Who Ran Washington?

• 1:16:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, I did.

• 1:16:09Patrick Bet-David?

  What did you think about it?

• 1:16:10Speaker 04

  Well, I thought it was, uh, a fluff job on Jim Baker. He, he embellished his, a lot of it was good in the sense that it exposed a lot of things about him, and a lot of it was a fluff job.

• 1:16:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Was, was Baker more a Bush guy or Reagan guy?

• 1:16:29Speaker 04

  Well, he was more, uh, look, he was, he was, he was, he did his job. He did mostly what, uh, he was, he was a, he was a, he was a Reagan guy in the sense that if he was required to do something that Reagan really wanted to do, he did it. But if he could get away with doing something that he believed that Reagan should do, even if Reagan didn't, did not want to do it, and he could get away with Reagan doing it, he would get, he would do it.

• 1:17:08Speaker 04

  And that was like the tax package in 82, um, raising taxes. They all thought that was in Reagan's interest and, and they convinced it was in Reagan's interest and Reagan called it one of the worst mistakes of his presidency. And he told me that twice.

• 1:17:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Behind closed doors, how did Reagan feel about Bush?

• 1:17:31Speaker 04

  He liked him.

• 1:17:32Patrick Bet-David?

  He liked him?

• 1:17:33Speaker 04

  Yes, he did.

• 1:17:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Did he trust him?

• 1:17:34Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:17:35Patrick Bet-David?

  He trusted him?

• 1:17:36Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 1:17:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Senior?

• 1:17:38Speaker 04

  Yes. He liked Bush and he, he felt Bush was a good vice president and he trusted him and liked him.

• 1:17:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you?

• 1:17:46Speaker 04

  I didn't, I didn't know any different.

• 1:17:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you ever read the story about Bush Senior and his son Neil, meeting with Hinckley's brother, coming down to dinner a day before the shooting, the same day as shooting, and then that guy canceled?

• 1:18:03Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:18:03Patrick Bet-David?

  You've never heard of that? Um, trying to see what, Rob, can you play the clip? I think, uh, Tripoli talks about that. No, not that one. I, I texted it to you and there was an article written about this. I mean, if you're saying no, that means he never brought it up. Um, it's, you follow Joe Rogan? You know who Joe Rogan is?

• 1:18:24Speaker 04

  Yeah, I know, he is, yeah.

• 1:18:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. Rob, I texted it to you. So if you just look at your texts, you'll find it. I texted it to you, uh, right before us getting into it. It's a clip, uh, that just came out, I want to say last week. I don't know if you have it, Rob, or not?

• 1:18:37Speaker 05

  I don't have it on my.

• 1:18:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. So there is a clip of, uh, um, let me find this thing for you. Uh, hang on one second. Is this it?

• 1:18:50Speaker 05

  No.

• 1:18:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, it's on Twitter. If you go on Twitter, you should be able to find it. Um, let me see here.

• 1:18:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Let me see here.

• 1:19:03Patrick Bet-David?

  It's very interesting, and then I went and looked at it, I'm like, is there really any credibility behind this? And then you see some of the stories about, um, uh, so funny, Rob. I literally watched this before we went live. So your impression is, they were good? There was no issues there?

• 1:19:19Speaker 04

  No, no, no. I, I, and I have high regard for Bush himself. It's just that, uh, when he brought Baker in, see, Baker brought in people to work for him that didn't, did not have Reagan's interests in, uh, in their heart. They were, they were, they felt like they were independent. Uh, I mean, again, you have to read my book. This guy, Darman, uh, was, was a terrible influence, and Baker gave him a free hand. And it was, uh, it was just destructive to Reagan's, um, uh, domestic presidency, in my judgment.

• 1:20:04Speaker 04

  And it's, it's a story that needs to be told. And he was an abrasive personality.

• 1:20:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Baker or the guy that he brought in?

• 1:20:11Speaker 04

  Darman. And, and, and Darman admits, admitted in, in private conversations with reporters that he didn't want public, until I found them, that he wanted to change, that he, he, he, he came to the White House to change Reagan's economic program. Now, he had no business doing that. He had absolutely no, you don't come to the White, you don't come to work for the president to change his economic program. Do you want somebody to come to your organization and, and, uh, secretly try to change what you're doing? That's wrong. They can't come to work for, uh...

• 1:20:51Patrick Bet-David?

  But how do you not catch that? How do you, as the president, not catch that?

• 1:20:54Speaker 04

  Because you're trusting your chief of staff.

• 1:20:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, when you, but you still get criticized for the person you hired. That's, I've made a lot of bad hires. How did Reagan hire somebody that he didn't trust like Baker? Did he have a relationship with Baker? Or was Baker, would Baker be somebody that was part of the swamp?

• 1:21:13Speaker 04

  That's, that's, that's a good question. Baker's working, he's working the press all the time, and Reagan's a really trusting man. And he's assuming that the staff's doing the best thing for him. And plus, at the end of the day, they convinced him he was doing the right thing. Look, Reagan called me in, in December of 1981, to consult on his 82 State of the Union address. And he gives me this long lecture about how Lady Thatcher

• 1:21:53Speaker 04

  screwed up by raising taxes in Britain, how she, by changing her mind, by reneging on her plan that she had cut taxes, by raising taxes. Well, he gave me this long economic lecture about what a stupid mistake she made. She should have never done that. And I thought, boy, good for him. He's sticking by his guns. He's not going to raise taxes this next year. And then he signs on to this Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act, TFR, in 1982.

• 1:22:31Speaker 04

  Now, once he does that, he's gonna, he's gonna sign on to this bill. He starts calling in. He calls in Marty Anderson, and he calls in Lynn Offsager, and he calls me in. And he calls us all in, in order to tell us, I don't want you guys arguing against me on this, out in public, because I'm changing my mind, obviously. They've convinced him that he's not actually raising taxes. "Mr. President, you're not, these are only excise taxes. They aren't real tax increases, because they aren't income taxes." And then they've

• 1:23:11Speaker 04

  convinced him that we're going to get $3 in budget cuts for every dollar of excise tax you raise.

• 1:23:20Speaker 04

  And then in 1988, when we're working on the his the speech farewell speech to the Republican convention, he's he's he does pounding on his damn desk to me, he says, "The fellas misled me." He says, "Damn it." He says, "They promised me $3 in budget cuts for every dollar of tax increase. Instead, for every dollar of tax increase, I got $1.70

• 1:23:56Speaker 04

  or excuse me, for every I got $1.70 in revenue and I got $1.70 of tax increases for every dollar in budget cuts. I got just the opposite." And he felt that he got screwed and he got lied to.

• 1:24:15Patrick Bet-David?

  That's part of his legacy, though. He raised taxes. A lot of people say that, and it's unfortunate because it stays. And years later, they're like, "You say Reagan's such a great president." He raised taxes, right?

• 1:24:25Speaker 04

  That's right.

• 1:24:26Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, if I was the president, how I would do it? I don't know how you I would have a because when I do calls, I have lawyers who hold lawyers accountable. I don't know if that makes sense. So let's just say this lawyer's writing a contract form, you're looking at an agreement, and he'll send me the red notes and all this other stuff. Then I'll go to this lawyer and say, "Do you think this lawyer's doing a good job doing this?" And he holds him and is like, "No, he missed this one part." Then I'll go to this lawyer and I'll say, "How about this one part? Oh, I missed that one. I fix it." So sometimes you need like if you get the accountants that are doing numbers, financing taxes, you almost have another team over here that no one knows about, a shadow team that holds these guys accountable, or else sometimes you're not going to know everything about every law, about every IRS, about every code, about every CPA, every account. But if you

• 1:25:10Patrick Bet-David?

  can do that, that allows you to hold people accountable. This is the clip I was sharing with you that happened two weeks ago. This is literally the same day when Trump's interview dropped. This was dropped six, seven, eight hours prior to that interview. Rob, if you can play this clip. The gentleman that he's having on right there is a comedian talking to Rogan. Both of them are very good. He's very funny, but he is what he had to say. Go ahead, Rob.

• 1:25:32Speaker 06

  One of the things I wanted to talk to you about, I wanted to play this, but we decided we shouldn't play it. We don't want anybody to have any sort of a way to get it down. The episode of you when you're on The View.

• 1:25:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Make this.

• 1:25:42Speaker 06

  One of the things I wanted to talk to you about.

• 1:25:43Patrick Bet-David?

  No, that's not the one.

• 1:25:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, go ahead, Rob.

• 1:25:46Speaker 06

  Is related to Obama and Bush? The Bushes had dinner with the Hinckleys the night before Reagan got shot? What?

• 1:25:52Speaker 04

  Yeah. Is that crazy?

• 1:25:54Speaker 06

  Do you think, okay, I always thought Hinckley was a lone nut that was infatuated with Jodie Foster. I had the delusion back in 1981 that by shooting the president, I could impress Jodie Foster, which me saying that now is ridiculous, but that's what I believed back then.

• 1:26:08Speaker 04

  There's actually interviews, dude, where he said, Uncle George told me to do it.

• 1:26:12Speaker 06

  Oh, Jesus. Okay. Didn't they just let him out?

• 1:26:14Speaker 04

  Yeah, and now he's doing like playing in coffee beans because he's put out an album or something like that.

• 1:26:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Hinckley? So, by the way, so I go up, Rob, pull up the story that we saw. Bizarre connection between John Hinckley Jr. and the Bush family. Can we give credit to whoever wrote this? What is it called?

• 1:26:29Speaker 06

  It's called grunge.com.

• 1:26:31Patrick Bet-David?

  You ever heard of those guys, Rob, before?

• 1:26:32Speaker 06

  I have not.

• 1:26:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. Go a little lower to see who it is. And by the way, the story, matter of fact, this is the better way to do it. This was written on New York Times many, many years ago. So if you go more in the comments, at the moment, do I see raising one's arm? Go a little lower, Rob. At the bottom, it talks about the Bush connection. Go lower, go lower, go lower. If you type in Neil, why don't you just type in Ctrl F Neil? There, Scott Hinckley had met with Neil Bush earlier that year at a party and became friendly with the fourth child of George W. Bush. According to Garnet News Services, after news of assassination temp broke, Neil Bush canceled the dinner in the shooting aftermath. The media swarmed the Bush family on their connection to the Hinckleys. The fact that they had a dinner schedule with, you know, Scott Hinckley,

• 1:27:16Patrick Bet-David?

  and obviously Scott Hinckley, his brother's the one that tried to shoot him. You've never heard of this story?

• 1:27:21Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:27:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, can you go to John Hinckley's, um, go to John Hinckley's Wikipedia?

• 1:27:27Speaker 04

  Was the dinner with President Bush?

• 1:27:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Neil Bush, President Bush's fourth son.

• 1:27:32Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:27:32Patrick Bet-David?

  So if you can, there you go. So zoom in a little bit, Rob, right there, so I can read it. Right there, it says, uh, New York Times, the eldest Hinckley child, Scott 30, the vice president of his father's company and friend Neil Bush, the son of the president, Scott Hinckley, and a date had been invited to have dinner with the young Bushes home last night, but the dinner was canceled after the shooting. And that's New York Times, by the way, which is kind of weird. Like, you've never heard of this before? Wow. What do you think about this? Do you give any of this any credence, or it's like, nah, just, this is?

• 1:28:08Speaker 04

  So what if they did? What if they did have dinner?

• 1:28:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, you know, how Lyndon Johnson became a president and the one story that no president ever wants to leak is how John F. Kennedy got assassinated. I interviewed a guy named Jim Jenkins, who was one of the four men, right after John F. Kennedy died, that held his brain, held his... And these were the four military folks who held his brain. And they said, "Look", he said, you know, "He left the life", and he said, "Somebody had messed with it before it came to us." And I said, "What do you mean? Says somebody had messed with it before it came to us?" And I went through the rabbit hole. I interviewed another man who worked on that day, and I interviewed a bunch of different guys. I went through the whole thing. And a lot of people point to Lyndon Johnson

• 1:28:53Patrick Bet-David?

  being behind what happened to Kennedy. And the reason why it goes to Lyndon Johnson, Lyndon Johnson was a Texas guy. So, in this case, the fastest way to become a president is, God forbid something happens to the president, you're the president, right? The VP becomes the president. You know, so why would you meet with the brother, whose brother tried to kill the president?

• 1:29:15Speaker 04

  Now I see where you're going.

• 1:29:20Speaker 04

  It's just that, if you knew George, if you knew George H. W. Bush, he was such a gentleman, and such a... That would not, it would be so beyond the pale for him. Now, I don't know about his kids, but that would be something beyond anything he would ever...

• 1:29:45Patrick Bet-David?

  What was he like when you were around him?

• 1:29:46Speaker 04

  He was, he was such a nice... Look,

• 1:29:52Speaker 04

  I first connected with George H. W. Bush when I was in the Nixon White House. And he was head of the Republican National Committee. This was an interesting story.

• 1:30:07Speaker 04

  And I had to write speeches for people to support President Nixon against impeachment and Watergate issues. And so Bush was Republican National Committee. And so I had to write a speech for him defending Richard Nixon. So I wrote this tough speech for Bush and so he went out kicking somebody, you know, kicking butt and everything else. And he called me afterwards. So this is in 1974. I'm guessing, it had to be late 73 or somewhere in 74 when he was head of the Republican National Committee.

• 1:30:51Speaker 04

  And he had the courtesy to call me at the White House. And I was Deputy Special Assistant President, just a small fry. And to thank me for writing that speech, and people almost never did that. And he thanked me. It was a courtesy call. And he said, Ken, I just want to thank you for helping me with that speech. And he said, you know, that's a tough duty out there. I'm just, and he was carrying the water for Nixon and he didn't want to, because that was a tough job for him to do, but he was head of the Republican National Committee and you know he had to do it because he's loyal to President Nixon. And so I'm just saying that's the kind of guy he was. And every contact that I had with him when he was Vice President, when he was a candidate

• 1:31:35Speaker 04

  for, and when I saw him as President, he was just always the nicest gentleman I've ever known. I can't say anything else about him.

• 1:31:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. I had a moment where-

• 1:31:49Speaker 04

  I have different views about his other family.

• 1:31:51Patrick Bet-David?

  Who? Jeb?

• 1:31:53Speaker 04

  Or- W.

• 1:31:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, really? Did you have an interaction with him?

• 1:31:58Speaker 04

  Just indirectly, but I mean, I just wish that he was more active on behalf of his party, that's all.

• 1:32:07Patrick Bet-David?

  You mean today?

• 1:32:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:32:10Patrick Bet-David?

  And, you know, when you say that, are you yourself, because you've spent time with Nixon, with Reagan, with a lot of different, I think you even helped write, if I'm not mistaken, you were an advisor to McCain's camp?

• 1:32:21Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:32:22Patrick Bet-David?

  You were an advisor to a couple other people, right? If I'm not mistaken?

• 1:32:25Speaker 04

  McCain, Dole.

• 1:32:26Patrick Bet-David?

  McCain, Dole, some of these other guys. You've been around. So are you someone that's supportive of President Trump right now going against Kamala?

• 1:32:33Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:32:35Patrick Bet-David?

  So you're not, the Bushes are not fans of Trump. They haven't been since he made the comments that he made. He's not somebody that is liked by the Bushes. And the way he went after Jeb, that's like the last time you heard anything good from Bushes towards Trump.

• 1:32:49Speaker 04

  Look, President George W. Bush doesn't have to like Trump. He doesn't have to campaign for him. But there are hundreds of other Republicans he could be out there helping.

• 1:33:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Interesting.

• 1:33:05Speaker 04

  And he doesn't, he isn't out there doing it.

• 1:33:07Patrick Bet-David?

  And why do you think that is?

• 1:33:08Speaker 04

  I have no idea. But I wish he, he's got the ability to raise a lot of money. And he's a former President of the United States and I think-

• 1:33:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you have any reasons why you think he does? Everybody has a reason.

• 1:33:26Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:33:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Speculations?

• 1:33:28Speaker 04

  I think, I think probably the reason is, is that he'll be asked about President Trump. And I, I think there's ways to do that without, by, you know, you don't have to answer that question. Just saying, look, I'm out here to help, I'm out here to help Ken Calvert get elected Congress in Riverside County.

• 1:33:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that part of his duty, you think? Like when he ran, did other previous presidents help him out? I wonder, can you pull up which?

• 1:34:01Speaker 04

  I, I, here's what I'll say, is that President George W. Bush got elected because Republicans all over the country helped him. And everything good that happened to him was happened because Republicans all over the country, no matter how they felt about his politics, helped him. And I go back to Richard Nixon. In 19, throughout his career, he campaigned for Republicans, whether they're liberal, moderate, conservative, left wing, right wing, whatever.

• 1:34:42Speaker 04

  He campaigned for Jacob Javits, who was a liberal Republican. He campaigned for Barry Goldwater, who was a right wing Republican. He campaigned for Republicans all over the country. And so if you're part of the party and you owe your-

• 1:35:02Speaker 04

  You owe your livelihood to him and, and, look, people say to me, are you a Trumper? I say, look, I'm a Khachigian Republican. I believe in lower taxes. I believe in a strong national defense. I believe in anti-crime policies. I believe in a strong border. I believe in a strong foreign policy. That makes me, that's the kind of Republican I am. So, I think Nixon believed in that. I think Reagan believed in that. I think Trump basically believes in that. I can't defend every element of his personality. I don't have to. But I believe those things as against Kamala Harris being a left-wing nut.

• 1:35:41Patrick Bet-David?

  If she's a left-wing nut, you know, Arnold just came out saying he's endorsing her. Chaney's came out, they're endorsing her.

• 1:35:49Speaker 04

  Well, they're just angry at him.

• 1:35:52Patrick Bet-David?

  At, at Trump?

• 1:35:53Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, the Chaney's are. Liz is.

• 1:35:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Because of comments made.

• 1:36:00Speaker 04

  I guess, yeah. Yeah, I guess.

• 1:36:04Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think about Trump?

• 1:36:05Speaker 04

  I think there's a lot of ways he could improve. I think he could have made this a landslide, not a, a big landslide, but he could have won this election very, very, very comfortably.

• 1:36:19Patrick Bet-David?

  You think he will?

• 1:36:20Speaker 04

  I, I think if he wins, it's narrowly, but I think he could have done it comfortably. If he had changed a lot of things. But, but, you know, I'm not in the business anymore and, and-

• 1:36:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Have you already voted, or no?

• 1:36:36Speaker 04

  I, I voted. If I had to, you know, if I had to give my, if I gave my advice, I mean, I know Susie, I knew Susie Wiles when she was Susie Summerall. And, and, campaign worker that worked for me and others in the 84 Reagan, in the Reagan-Bush campaign. But, and I, and I like her. But, and, but if I called her up and gave her advice, and she'd probably listen to me. But it wouldn't matter because she'd pass it on and he'd, he'd ignore it, so.

• 1:37:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Last thing before we wrap up, were you ever there? I once had Michael Reagan at an event I called it Saving America Doing the Impossible. July of 2009, where I was dressed as George Washington. My wife was dressed as Lady Liberty and another one of my guys was dressed as Lincoln. And he said, "What would you like me to speak about?" I said, "Just tell stories about your father." And, you know, last time he's seeing him, he went to visit him and then he's leaving. He looks back, he forgot to hug him and he looks back, he's, you know, he's gone like this. And Michael comes, gets out of the car and goes hugs him and leave. Were you with him at the last days when his memory and he was going through, you know, challenging times or not really?

• 1:37:53Speaker 04

  No. Well, yes and no. Okay, I can clear up one thing. People ask me, "Was he losing it in his last days?" And I said, "No, he was, his brain was working perfectly at the end of his presidency." I met him in 1990, worked with him on some stuff in the 90 midterm elections. His mind was working good. I helped him on the 1992 convention speech and his brain was fine. But in 92, I did run into him at, I can't remember, it was a fundraising event.

• 1:38:36Speaker 04

  And it was the first time he didn't recognize me. And that was two years before he declared his Alzheimer's.

• 1:38:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Two years after the end of his presidency?

• 1:38:47Speaker 04

  No, that was four years.

• 1:38:49Patrick Bet-David?

  And you felt the major difference where he didn't recognize you?

• 1:38:52Speaker 04

  That was the first time, four years after his presidency. That was the first time he, I walked up to him and he drew a blank.

• 1:39:01Patrick Bet-David?

  What was the exchange like?

• 1:39:03Speaker 04

  I just walked up to him and normally if I walked up to him, he'd have a big grin on his face and say hello, "Oh, hi Ken." And he, I said, "Hello, Mr. President, wow, great to see you," or something like that. And he had this blank on his mind.

• 1:39:27Speaker 04

  Which, you know, it's like, I've had that running into high school classmates that I haven't seen for 50 years, but that's a little different. But this was, I mean, he, he never did, he never didn't know who I was.

• 1:39:45Patrick Bet-David?

  What was the gap between the last time, you said four years?

• 1:39:47Speaker 04

  No, it was, it was two years.

• 1:39:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it. Four years after the end of his presidency, two years of the last time he saw you?

• 1:39:54Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:39:55Patrick Bet-David?

  And was Nancy, did this happen accidentally, or was it a scheduled thing that you came to the house and?

• 1:40:00Speaker 04

  No, no, this was accidentally, but I mean, it was, I mean, I didn't, it wasn't a shock thing. I mean, I, I walked up slowly to him and...

• 1:40:08Patrick Bet-David?

  And did you try to explain yourself, like, what was the occasion?

• 1:40:11Speaker 04

  I just said, oh, you know, I, I told him who I was and I put, put it in context and then we started visiting a little bit and, and then, but I didn't, I tried not to make him feel uncomfortable, let's put it that way.

• 1:40:24Patrick Bet-David?

  What was Nancy like at that time, at the last days?

• 1:40:27Speaker 04

  I didn't have any real contact with her that much and so we, I, I didn't, you know, after the presidency, I didn't keep that much contact. I was so active with my other things. I was running political campaigns and I had my own business and I ran, oh geez, and I was running Governor Duke Magin's campaigns in California. I was helping with Attorney General campaigns and I guess I should have stayed in better contact with Reagan. I should have visited with him more. It's funny, I didn't, and, and he was not one to do phone calls. With Nixon, we talked on the phone all the time. We talked on the phone constantly.

• 1:41:12Speaker 04

  Reagan was not that kind of a relationship. Reagan, we didn't talk on the phone.

• 1:41:34Speaker 02

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• 1:42:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Interesting. And with Nixon, um, did you speak to Nixon, uh, when Pat passed away? Did you have an interaction with him at that time or no?

• 1:42:09Speaker 04

  No, that would have been awkward. He was so, he was devastated and I didn't, uh...

• 1:42:15Patrick Bet-David?

  It's the only time I think I've seen him cry. Like, there's videos of him, of him crying.

• 1:42:19Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, he was sobbing, yes.

• 1:42:20Patrick Bet-David?

  You ever seen that, have you?

• 1:42:21Speaker 04

  I've seen those, I've seen the videos, yes.

• 1:42:23Patrick Bet-David?

  You never spoke to him afterwards?

• 1:42:24Speaker 04

  I was at the funeral, obviously, and, uh...

• 1:42:27Patrick Bet-David?

  But did you guys ever have any exchange after the funeral or, or no?

• 1:42:32Speaker 04

  Well, probably, I'm sure, because I was, um, you know, I was, uh, on the board of his library foundation and, and we were still very close.

• 1:42:42Speaker 04

  At that time, I was with him and he was, uh, he was really, he felt a tremendous sense of loss because he depended on Pat. She was a very strong woman and she never did leave him or turn her back on him in any of the controversial things he was involved in. She stuck with him and he leaned on her and depended on her.

• 1:43:06Patrick Bet-David?

  That's the voice of Billy Graham.

• 1:43:08Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:43:09Patrick Bet-David?

  And this is, this is watching a man, that's like watching a man that's strong in tears. It's like Trump crying, you know, it's, it's a, you know, it's a very tough thing to see with folks like that.

• 1:43:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Between the two, just a wild question. Kirsten, I don't know what you'll say about this, if you even have an opinion. Some tells me you're not gonna answer this. You're gonna be very diplomatic about this answer, but I may be wrong. Who do you think was a better president, Nixon or Reagan?

• 1:43:35Speaker 04

  They were two different, two different presidents.

• 1:43:39Patrick Bet-David?

  You started diplomatic with your answer.

• 1:43:41Speaker 04

  There, you can't, there's no answer to that question. It's two different, they're, they had two different times of history. They were the two leading Cold War presidents. Nixon set the groundwork for Reagan to be a great president.

• 1:43:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Nixon set the groundwork for Reagan to be a president, a great president. Then indirectly, I take that as Nixon.

• 1:44:09Speaker 04

  No, I just saying that they worked in, they were collaborators.

• 1:44:16Speaker 04

  They were, they were-

• 1:44:17Patrick Bet-David?

  If there's no Nixon, is there a Reagan?

• 1:44:22Speaker 04

  I, I don't think there's an answer. You can't answer that question.

• 1:44:27Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, did you ever spend time with the young Roger Stone back in the days or no? Were you ever around Roger Stone?

• 1:44:33Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:44:35Patrick Bet-David?

  What was he like?

• 1:44:36Speaker 04

  He's just as crazy as the Luna's yesterday.

• 1:44:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Really, really? Do you have a Roger Stone story?

• 1:44:43Speaker 04

  No, just, he's just always, no, I don't have any special stories about him. Just he was, he was always a pain in the ass back in-

• 1:44:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Was he? Is that a, that's a picture of a-

• 1:44:57Speaker 04

  Oh, that, no, I know him back in the-

• 1:45:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Nixon days?

• 1:45:01Speaker 04

  Back in the seven, early seventies.

• 1:45:03Patrick Bet-David?

  He was a big Nixon guy.

• 1:45:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, but, yeah.

• 1:45:08Speaker 04

  Every, if Roger Stone's listening, every Roger Stone story, you gotta cut it by 80% and then cut for, cut half of that to 40%.

• 1:45:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, you're saying exaggeration is what you're saying.

• 1:45:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:45:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, you know, have you seen a recent movie about the president, Trump, that just came out? The Apprentice? I'm assuming you wouldn't see it.

• 1:45:31Speaker 04

  No.

• 1:45:32Patrick Bet-David?

  Roger Stone's in it. It's actually very interesting how they paint him to be.

• 1:45:36Speaker 04

  I love Roger.

• 1:45:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, well, he's super entertaining.

• 1:45:39Speaker 04

  No, I was just on his show, yeah.

• 1:45:43Speaker 04

  No, I love the guy. He's, he's, he's-

• 1:45:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Well-

• 1:45:48Speaker 04

  Look, the fun thing I've had, I've been in politics since 1968. I've had a wonderful career. The personalities I've been with-

• 1:46:00Speaker 04

  It's just I turned down Clint Eastwood to run his campaign for mayor.

• 1:46:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Clint Eastwood?

• 1:46:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, he called me up and wanted me to run his campaign for mayor.

• 1:46:10Speaker 04

  I turned him down.

• 1:46:14Speaker 04

  You know.

• 1:46:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Why? Did he scare you?

• 1:46:15Speaker 04

  No, no, no, I didn't have time. I said, I don't run mayoral campaigns. I'll get you somebody to do it for me.

• 1:46:23Speaker 04

  Just, but you know.

• 1:46:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Did Arnold ever reach out or no?

• 1:46:27Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 1:46:28Patrick Bet-David?

  You're not a fan?

• 1:46:28Speaker 04

  No, I said, he, I don't know why he didn't reach out. I think probably somebody told him I was more conservative than he was, but I have no idea.

• 1:46:36Patrick Bet-David?

  How was Dukmedjan?

• 1:46:37Speaker 04

  Oh, he's great. Wonderful man. And, you know, we had the biggest land, one of the biggest landslides in history. 1986.

• 1:46:48Speaker 04

  Just totally underestimated. He, there needs to be a book written about. I don't have, I should have written, I should have write a book about. Somebody needs to write a book. He had a great governorship.

• 1:47:01Speaker 04

  Had more integrity and probably the man of most integrity in politics that I've known. And.

• 1:47:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Respected? Was he a fighter? Was he a tough guy?

• 1:47:11Speaker 04

  Tough guy, respected.

• 1:47:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Is he the highest ranking? He's the highest ranking Armenian, right, in politics? Governor on the seat, right?

• 1:47:18Speaker 04

  Yeah, ever. Yeah, yeah. And we got, got him elected narrowly in 1982 and then got him re-elected by a massive landslide in 86.

• 1:47:29Speaker 04

  By 23%.

• 1:47:31Patrick Bet-David?

  23%?

• 1:47:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:47:33Patrick Bet-David?

  The chance of that happening today in California is not that high. There's, there's a guy there, I don't know if you're a big fan of or not, this guy named Newsom, I don't know if you've heard of him.

• 1:47:40Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:47:42Patrick Bet-David?

  You're not a fan of him, so, yeah. Well, look, it's been, it's been great having you on. We're gonna put the link to.

• 1:47:48Speaker 04

  Well, I hope I haven't disappointed you.

• 1:47:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Nah, I'm, I'm, I like stories. That's what I like. I like stories. I, I'm fascinated by politics. My parents, I grew up in a weird family where one side, they were communists, the other side, they were imperialists, and that was my introduction to politics. One side thought, you know.

• 1:48:07Speaker 04

  Yeah, your mom was a communist.

• 1:48:08Patrick Bet-David?

  She was. She was part of the Today Party. They were part of Today Party. Their bible was the Karl Marx Communist Manifesto, which I read and you had to kind of find out what that was all about, but now I see this game. It's a very interesting game. Very, very interesting game. This political game. Very. And I learned politics and business when I started competing and I'm like, wait a minute. You guys flipped on me. You were nice to me. Now you're a son of a bitch. What happened to you? Oh, because we're taking market. Oh, and you guys teamed up together? So this is all politics. No problem. Let's have some fun. And it was actually fun seeing what that was like. So anytime I hear stories like the ones you're telling me right now, fascinated by, but I appreciate it. By the way, do you know how this interview came out, happened? Somebody on Manect reached out to me and they said,

• 1:48:53Patrick Bet-David?

  uh, Rob, did you know the story? They reached out to me. They said on Manect, hey, you need to have him on. Ken's got to get on the podcast. I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. Yeah, let me look into it. And then I'm like, oh, wow. What an interesting story. Let's figure out a way to get this working and

• 1:49:07Speaker 04

  Well, you need to, you need to meet her. She's a jar big little Armenian girl.

• 1:49:11Patrick Bet-David?

  I gotta meet her if she's outside because and respect, that's the power of Manect, by the way. You have to respond back because people are paying for respond. That's why that app works so effectively.

• 1:49:22Speaker 04

  Yeah. Well, she's a jar big Armenian girl.

• 1:49:24Patrick Bet-David?

  I look forward to meeting her. Sir, it is a pleasure to meet you. I really enjoyed this two hours with you. I gotta tell you, good for you. You went two hours on a podcast. A lot of people can't do it. How old are you? How old are you?

• 1:49:37Speaker 04

  Eighty years old.

• 1:49:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Eighty years old. You did a two hour podcast. This is so impressive.

• 1:49:42Speaker 04

  Hey, I'm, I'm gonna go outside and tell you, I kicked Patrick's butt.

• 1:49:47Patrick Bet-David?

  By the way, no bathroom breaks, no edit, nothing. You gotta respect that. So, great to have you on. Absolute pleasure.

• 1:49:54Speaker 04

  All right, we'll have a cigar sometime, huh?

• 1:49:56Patrick Bet-David?

  I look forward to it. Take care, everybody. Bye bye, bye bye. One of the best decisions I ever made in my life was joining the US Army. When I served the 101st Airborne Division Air Assault, the level of pride of America being the greatest country in the world went to the roof. If you are a veteran, or if you support veterans, you have family members. Veterans Day, we have brand spanking new gear for you to choose from. A whole plethora of options of what to choose from with shirts that say, we support armed veterans. I am an armed veteran. Dog tags, shirts, hats, all of the different gears that we have. And for the first 250 people that place an order, you have the option of 12 to 15 brand spanking new mugs that we have. One says Angry Patriot, another one says Biz Doc, another one has got the US flag, another one has

• 1:50:40Patrick Bet-David?

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