Pod Insights SNAFU with Ed Helms Jordan Klepper and Teapot Dome About this episode Jordan Klepper gives a shit about politics. Ed takes him through Teapot Dome, one of the most sensational political scandals of early American history, a tale of presidential corruption and bribery that's absolutely nothing like our world today.
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2:05 Speaker 04 He literally got an entire herd of cattle at one point from one of these tycoons.
2:10 Speaker 05 You gotta start asking questions.
2:11 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, it's gonna raise a couple of questions.
2:13 Speaker 05 You show up at the cabinet meeting, and there's 400 cattle there. Where'd you get these? Like, don't worry about it.
2:18 Speaker 04 Why do you smell like, uh, like cow shit?
2:21 Speaker 05 It's these layers. I have to wear all these layers. What am I gonna do? I'm wearing these layers.
2:29 Speaker 04 Welcome to Snafu, a show about history's greatest screw-ups. I'm your host, Ed Helms. And this week, I am talking to an Emmy-winning comedian, writer, producer, and contributor, and co-host of The Daily Show. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the amazing, insightful, and dare I say, delightful Jordan Klepper. Welcome, Jordan.
2:56 Speaker 05 Oh, thank you. Dare you say it. I'm glad you said it.
2:58 Speaker 04 I dared. I dared.
3:00 Speaker 05 You took the swing. Everybody wondered. They were all wondering, is Ed, is he gonna, is he gonna cross the Rubicon and say delightful? He did it, right, right off the bat.
3:07 Speaker 04 Don't, don't make me a liar.
3:10 Speaker 05 I know, this does, I was gonna say, I had-
3:12 Speaker 04 It's a high bar.
3:13 Speaker 05 I was gonna take you down today, Ed. I have, I have just a stack of, of information about you and about your past that I was gonna use against you, wield it with, with certainty and aggression. But now that you've labeled me as delightful, I'm gonna set it aside and I'm gonna be kind.
3:27 Speaker 04 Delight me, Jordan. All right. Now, before we get into today's Snafu, I'm just curious a little bit about your background. We've, we've known each other a while. We obviously share The Daily Show as I was on the show back in the early 2000s, a long time ago. I'm curious sort of what your path to The Daily Show was.
3:48 Speaker 05 You know, The Daily Show, I was, I was a fan of The Daily Show. I remember in college, watching it, watching John. That was like my first into giving a shit about politics and the world around me. Up until that point, I was sort of just a kid in Kalamazoo, Michigan, who only cared about what was happening within a two-mile radius, which in Kalamazoo, Michigan, was not a lot. It was mostly, it was mostly Little League and people talking about Derek Jeter.
4:12 Speaker 04 Can I say, anybody from Kalamazoo, Michigan, you have to say their full name and from Kalamazoo, Michigan, and you immediately sound like a Depression-era business mogul. Jordan Klepper from Kalamazoo, Michigan. It just is, it's got such a great zinger vibe to it.
4:29 Speaker 05 It sounds like a Dr. Seuss town. In fact, the buttons in Kalamazoo, Michigan say, "Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo." You approach Kalamazoo with the disbelief that it actually exists, and the people there will, will sell you a button to try to prove we are a real thing. We are a small town in southwest Michigan. Embrace the weirdness of it all.
4:50 Speaker 04 You're in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and you're just a comedy fan?
4:54 Speaker 05 I'm a comedy, yeah, I think, basically, I'm a Who's Line Is It Anyway improv guy in high school. But I'm a nerd who gets a math scholarship to go to the tiny liberal arts college, Kalamazoo College, as a math major with eyes towards finding something that's inspiring to me. And I find, I find comedy, I find improv. I finally got on stage in my, my college life, did some improv jokes and people thought I was funny. And that drug sent me to Chicago and on a path to, to kind of find and forge this comedy career, which for the longest time, which was like nine years in Chicago, learning improv, touring with The Second City, takes me to New York, where I start doing stuff with the Upright Citizens Brigade,
5:39 Speaker 05 and, and a lot of comedy. And you know, like, the New York life was writing gigs for MTV shows. It was creating my own little videos and, and trying to get whatever I could out there, finding a little bit of success, but like, it's like 14 years, 10 in Chicago, and then I'm in New York for four years. And The Daily Show comes a knockin' when John Oliver steps aside.
6:03 Speaker 04 Now, did you always have an inkling towards sort of commentary or satire or political engagement of any kind? Or was that really a product of joining The Daily Show?
6:15 Speaker 05 For me, it was always exciting to do shows that were commenting on something that was happening. You jump into The Daily Show and that just gets bumped up tenfold. And, and my reading level, which I thought in Chicago and in New York was a pretty good, I was like, I'm pretty well informed. I like walk into those offices at The Daily Show. And Crimea was invaded the first day I walked in and John wanted to do a piece on Crimea. And I'm like, I don't know where Crimea is. I don't know. I thought I, you know, I skim a couple New York Times articles every day and now I'm like, oh shit, I'm so behind. Somebody get me, somebody get me a map and a tutor. I, I can't do this job.
6:52 Speaker 04 You know what I will say? That's something I miss from my years on The Daily Show. I could, like, like a couple of years into The Daily Show, I could step into any, like, topical conversation about politics or sort of current events and just be on fire. Like, I had everything at random access, because you're just steeped in it day after day. You're studying it, you're, you know, you're, you're engaged in policy discussions, like, whatever's going on. You know everyone's names in Congress. You've gone to the conventions. You've, it's just like, it's really fun. It feels like you're kind of near the, the sort of like, burning hot
7:34 Speaker 04 sun of American sort of political current events. Well, it's a very, very cool job. You are obviously crushing it and have been for a very long time. Keep up the great work. Let's get into today's snafu, shall we?
7:49 Speaker 05 Ooh, I love it.
7:54 Speaker 04 All right. Well, given your day job involves a gosh darn lot of keeping up with political dramas, I thought it would be perfect to journey into a snafu today involving one of the wildest early political scandals our country has ever seen. In fact, before Watergate, it might have been the biggest, most sensational scandal America had even been through, filled with all kinds of presidential corruption and bribery, which will surely remind you of absolutely nothing going on right now.
8:24 Speaker 05 Yeah. Do you want me to connect this to anything? Because it feels like sci-fi right now, what you're pitching me, Ed.
8:29 Speaker 04 Right. Are you ready?
8:32 Speaker 05 I'm ready. Let's jump in.
8:33 Speaker 04 All right, great. We begin our journey in 1920 alongside a man who several contemporaneous publications described as, quote, "milk toast." This description, of course, refers to a man of weak character who is indecisive and/or easily influenced, all of which will come into play very shortly. Milk toast is kind of a rude nickname. Did you have any nicknames, Jordan Klepper?
8:55 Speaker 05 I, you know, milquetoast would have been a fine one for me. I would have, I would have accepted milquetoast. I think I bet as pale as what I can imagine the delicacy of milquetoast is. I was Jordy Bean to begin with.
9:07 Speaker 04 Jordy Bean?
9:08 Speaker 05 Jordy Bean because I was thin as a string bean.
9:10 Speaker 04 Okay.
9:11 Speaker 05 I have this weird long head, so that became the case. And then when I got into an improv group, I gave myself a nickname, Truck, which was absurd to the people there. And I was called out for the absurdity of giving yourself a nickname.
9:25 Speaker 04 You can't give yourself a nickname, that's illegal.
9:27 Speaker 05 That was the argument. And yet that becomes in and of itself, a bit about giving yourself a nickname. And now, fast forward 15 years later, I'm Truck to a small group of people in Chicago. And I proudly, I proudly did it myself.
9:39 Speaker 04 That's a very cool nickname. That's the problem with nicknames you pick yourself, is like, they're too cool.
9:44 Speaker 05 They're too cool.
9:45 Speaker 04 Hey, man, here comes old Truck. What's he gonna do? He's got some good improv up his sleeves.
9:50 Speaker 05 Oh, that guy's got great improv. And Truck, of course, was somebody who, who at that time drove his parents' Dodge Intrepid. So I've got nowhere near a Truck.
10:00 Speaker 04 Sure. But you hauled good improv skills.
10:03 Speaker 05 Ain't that the truth? 60 wheels, baby.
10:06 Speaker 04 Well, underneath the feeble exterior of this particular person was a sexual miscreant with a penchant for scandal. In fact, he's on record having told the press, quote, "It's a good thing I'm not a woman. I would always be pregnant. I can't say no."
10:22 Speaker 05 This guy, that's a fun guy to hang out with.
10:24 Speaker 04 I guess, I guess so. Yeah. He's just sort of like a yes man. Like, alright, I'm in, whatever you got.
10:32 Speaker 05 You know what? Honestly, in the 1920s, for a phrase that starts, "It's a good thing I'm not a woman," dot, dot, dot, that was probably, that's probably the nicest answer you're going to find. Like, oh, that's, well, that's a modern man right there. How lovely. He didn't bring in any other minorities to, to make fun of, or hound, perhaps, that comes later in the story. Right now, that's a, that's a, that's a PG answer for 1920.
10:54 Speaker 04 All right. Any guess who we're talking about?
10:56 Speaker 05 Oh, God, I.
10:59 Speaker 05 No, I'm at a loss.
11:01 Speaker 04 Well, it's the 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding.
11:06 Speaker 05 That's Harding.
11:06 Speaker 04 That's who we're, it's Harding. We're talking about Harding.
11:09 Speaker 05 It's classic.
11:10 Speaker 04 Yeah. His wife's biographer pegged his number of mistresses at seven, including the wife of one of his best friends. In fact, the steamy affair was so problematic, none other than the Republican National Committee paid the woman a $2,000 monthly stipend on top of a $25,000 trip to Japan and China, just so she'd be far out of the spotlight while our Mr. Milk Toast campaigned for the American presidency.
11:37 Speaker 05 We were doing that back then. We were sending, we were sending women who were having affairs to Japan. I mean, that's a long trip. That's a very long trip.
11:46 Speaker 04 Also, like, kind of a nice, uh, little, uh, silver lining to an affair. Like, you just get a trip to China.
11:55 Speaker 05 You know, it was hard enough and so expensive to see any other culture at that day and age. Probably your most effective bet was to sleep with the president and see if the government would pay for it.
12:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, there you go. $25,000 trip to China and Japan. That was the cheapest rate you could get at the time. A lot of powerful men have affairs.
12:15 Speaker 05 Here we go. Ed, I told you we can't talk about this. Ed, we can't talk about this. Okay? Don't put this on me. You said, oh, we're just gonna talk history. We're gonna talk history. We can't go into all of my infidelities, Ed. Please.
12:26 Speaker 04 It's dangling right in front of us. You're, you are known for having thousands of affairs. No, but honestly, it's well into the summer of 1923, uh, and we're, and Harding is nearing the end of his first term. All those swirling allegations of misconduct are starting to threaten his reelection. So, he and the first lady Florence Harding, isn't that like a fairy tale name? I love that.
12:50 Speaker 05 Florence Harding. She had to be a Flo, right? You take Flo. Yeah.
12:54 Speaker 04 Yeah. At that, at that time, of course, she's a Flo.
12:57 Speaker 05 You go with Flo. You go with the Flo.
12:59 Speaker 04 Yeah. So Warren and Flo set off on a two-month adventure to show some serious leadership and earn back voters' trust face to face. There's even a semi-wholesome photo of Harding at the helm of a locomotive in Alaska here. Do we have that photo handy? Can we take a look?
13:19 Speaker 05 Oh, is that?
13:20 Speaker 04 I guess he's in there. He's like hanging, he's hanging out the window there.
13:25 Speaker 05 I mean, they might not have had zoom technology, but the photographer could have walked up a little closer, correct?
13:31 Speaker 04 Yeah.
13:31 Speaker 05 This, I assume this wasn't a, a moving locomotive.
13:34 Speaker 04 Yeah, you know, I, I, I think you're right.
13:36 Speaker 05 Although I tell you, I tell you, you zoom in on this right now and I look and I'm like, oh yeah, that guy fucks. Right?
13:42 Speaker 04 Right.
13:42 Speaker 05 I mean, yeah, yeah, you see that, you look at that.
13:45 Speaker 04 Look at that glove, look at that, that creepy glove that he's wearing. Yeah, I don't know, he's a, he's got a lot going on there. Well, so he called this giant PR stunt, the voyage of understanding, and it surprisingly held some historical significance. It was the first ever instance of a sitting president visiting the remote regions of Alaska as well as Canada. How are we doing with Canada right now? Do you think, do you think relations are better or worse than they were back in 1923?
14:14 Speaker 05 Oh God, I, well, yeah, I hate to say it, I think we're on a downward spiral with Canada.
14:19 Speaker 04 I don't know why, it's so random.
14:21 Speaker 05 I don't know what it is.
14:21 Speaker 04 It's so random. Like, why the hate, Canada? Why are you coming at us with so much hate?
14:26 Speaker 05 Yes, so what? We talk about making you the 51st state or throwing tariffs on you.
14:30 Speaker 04 It's because we love you.
14:31 Speaker 05 Yes, we're the fun older brother who's ribbing you right now. Enjoy it. You're part of the conversation, welcome.
14:38 Speaker 04 So throughout this tour, it wasn't just the scandalous affairs that were weighing on old Warren G. Harding. There was also something else going on, something way worse. During the boat ride in Alaska, Harding anxiously asked his Commerce Secretary, Herbert Hoover, yes, that Hoover, for advice. He said, and I quote, "If you knew of a great scandal in your administration, would you, for the good of the country and the party, expose it publicly or would you bury it?" Jordan, what's the right answer here?
15:10 Speaker 05 You know what? I think we all know you bury that thing so deep.
15:14 Speaker 04 So deep.
15:15 Speaker 05 As deep as you possibly.
15:16 Speaker 04 You try to, yeah, you try to find a cave and fill it with concrete.
15:21 Speaker 05 Fill it, fill it with concrete and then, and then you blame whatever remnants on whoever you want to go down, whoever you're running against next.
15:28 Speaker 04 That's the right advice, obviously.
15:30 Speaker 05 Yes, that's the American advice.
15:32 Speaker 04 So while Hoover emphatically said, you gotta, you gotta tell the American people they deserve to know, but to your point, Harding ignored this sage wisdom and tried to keep this mysterious scandal under wraps. It wouldn't stay hidden for very long. As massive political scandals tend to do, it started to emerge. There was a dark cloud forming over Harding's presidency, and this cloud was very much in the shape of a teapot.
16:02 Speaker 04 Yes, that's right. Jordan Klepper, do you know much about the Teapot Dome scandal?
16:09 Speaker 05 The Teapot Dome scandal? I'd like to say that rings a bell, but I don't think I know a thing about it.
16:14 Speaker 04 It's like eighth grade history. It just has like, I can picture sort of like political cartoons of the ti- of the day with like a teapot, of which there were many, but, but it feels evocative. I remember before digging into this, I was like, yeah, what exactly is that? Well, it is, it is one of the biggest scandals in American political history. So let's rewind a bit. So he's on this tour in 1923 to sort of bolster his reelection, but now let's go back to 1921. What exactly was Teapot Dome? Well, first off, Teapot Dome is a real place. It's a landmark rock formation in Wyoming that sort of resembles a teapot.
16:57 Speaker 04 The specific location was one of three major oil reserves designated by the US government in the early 1900s as emergency oil supplies for the Navy. Now, I think we have a photo of this teapot formation, and can we take a look?
17:13 Speaker 05 Oh wow.
17:13 Speaker 04 Wait, is this?
17:15 Speaker 05 That's Teapot Dome?
17:16 Speaker 04 I think this is a modern photo. This is Teapot. This is, um, there's actually, there are old photos of Teapot Dome where the spout is still intact. The spout was knocked off by a tornado in 1962, but this, uh, and I think this is, this is after that.
17:33 Speaker 05 Um, yeah, if you got, without a spout.
17:35 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:36 Speaker 05 I mean, we're just talking, we're talking crackles. I'm seeing, I'm seeing castle.
17:39 Speaker 04 Yeah.
17:39 Speaker 05 I'm seeing, I'm seeing some phallic representation there.
17:42 Speaker 04 I mean, but you have to admit, you have to admit, it does also look short and stout.
17:49 Speaker 05 And you know what? I don't have to admit that. You know what? Frankly, it looks tall to me. Everything around it makes it look tall, not short.
17:55 Speaker 04 Here is its handle. Here is its spout.
17:57 Speaker 05 But there is no handle, Ed.
17:59 Speaker 04 I know, you're right. It's not.
18:00 Speaker 05 Now I'm supposed to trust you?
18:01 Speaker 04 Yeah.
18:01 Speaker 05 You've, you've already instilled that there's more information that's being hidden away. And now I have to trust you about this so-called spout and handle on this rock formation?
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21:08 Speaker 04 In 1921, the newly elected Harding made an interesting move. He shifted control of these oil reserves from the Navy to the Department of the Interior. Now, why in the hell would he want to do that? Mind you, this was a time when there was a lot of debate on whether to conserve the country's natural resources or to allow private industry to take hold of these resources and milk America dry for the benefit of, yes, you guessed it, private industry. Now. Enter a character named Albert B. Fall. Harding's new Secretary of the Interior.
21:47 Speaker 05 The Fall Guy? Does he become the Fall Guy? Is this one of those American stories where it's like, "My name is Mudd?"
21:53 Speaker 04 Kind of. And this is a point of contention. So Fall actually does become the Fall Guy of this story. And a lot of people think that that is the origin of the term Fall Guy. That is disputed. It is apparently not the origin, but it's awfully convenient. He's Harding's new Secretary of the Interior and a former senator from New Mexico. Fall was also a rancher, lawyer, and poker addict. Wasn't everybody in the 20s? Who downed plenty of whiskey, didn't everybody in the 20s? In the midst of prohibition.
22:27 Speaker 05 He was a man in the 20s.
22:29 Speaker 04 Yeah, exactly. He was just a dude in the 20s. Now we've got a photo of him.
22:33 Speaker 05 Ooh, I like this.
22:34 Speaker 04 He's very scandalous. Doesn't it look like he's holding something creepy? Whether it's his genitals or... He looks like he's hiding something.
22:45 Speaker 05 He looks, I mean, well, the handlebar mustache definitely alludes to a man who is hiding something. Although the quality of that coat, I always... I'm always, it's amazing the quality of the clothing of that time.
22:57 Speaker 04 I agree.
22:58 Speaker 05 Right? Look how thick that coat is.
23:00 Speaker 04 But the crazy thing is, like, everybody wore a suit all the time in the 20s. Like, even, you would see even like, like, a dirt, poor farmer, like, out, working in the fields. Like, they're wearing a suit for some reason. Or like, you know, like, beggars on the street of New York City. They're wearing suits! Like, everybody had suits.
23:18 Speaker 05 And the sweat, God, the smell of the 20s. It feels like that's something you can't encapsulate. They can only imagine, if everybody's wearing three-piece suits.
23:24 Speaker 04 Wool.
23:25 Speaker 05 Wool suits that you know they're not washing. The dry cleaning industry had not come into full fruition.
23:31 Speaker 04 No, they didn't have those chemicals.
23:33 Speaker 05 No. So they're, they're just, they're sweating away the smells of this man, of this Fall Guy. I can only imagine.
23:45 Speaker 04 Now Harding had campaigned on a slogan of return to normalcy. Fall was not on board with normalcy. Turns out, he really coveted power and wealth. And to get it, he needed access to those reserves. Almost immediately, he secretly commenced his money grubbing intentions. He leased the naval oil reserves at Teapot Dome, and also a place called Elk Hills and Buena Vista, California, to two private oil tycoons. Harry F Sinclair of Mammoth Oil and Edward L. Dohini of Pan American Petroleum. Now, you may know the name Dohini from Dohini Drive here in Los Angeles. It is the same Dohini.
24:29 Speaker 04 And it's just a couple of blocks away from me right now, which is just a meaningless factoid.
24:34 Speaker 05 Does anybody know that? I'm in New York. Would I have known that? Would people who live on Dohini Drive know that?
24:41 Speaker 04 They probably don't know for whom Dohini Drive is named. But now they do.
24:48 Speaker 05 You really are providing service, Ed. You really are.
24:51 Speaker 04 And they're thrilled. This is really the point of this podcast, is just to give people useless information.
24:56 Speaker 05 Can you tell me why Third Avenue is called Third Avenue? Is there a story behind that here in Brooklyn?
25:01 Speaker 04 That one's tricky. Yeah. There was a Arnold J. Third was a local bridge-building tycoon. No.
25:14 Speaker 05 He was a poker aficionado, if I recall.
25:16 Speaker 04 Of course. So these deals that our dear friend Albert B. Fall made with Sinclair and Dohini, these deals were made without competitive bidding. And Fall justified this by saying it was, quote, "for the public good and national security." But then, all of a sudden, a weird thing started to happen, which is that his bank account started looking very, shall we say, well-oiled.
25:45 Speaker 05 We should say that. That's the, yeah, exactly.
25:49 Speaker 04 Thank you. At the time Harding doesn't know his Secretary of the Interior is being like shady as hell. Uh, do you, do you believe that? Do you think he was totally oblivious or do you think he was just turning a blind eye?
26:00 Speaker 05 I, you know, I gotta believe it's blind eye.
26:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
26:02 Speaker 05 I am, I'm often confused about how people communicated pre-cell phone era.
26:06 Speaker 04 Right.
26:07 Speaker 05 So the fact that they had no easy way to communicate, I'll give them a little leeway. I don't know how fast these horses are back in those days. Uh, that, that train looked like it wasn't moving very fast either. So, you know, I'll, I'll give them, perhaps he's not up to the moment.
26:19 Speaker 04 Okay.
26:19 Speaker 05 Informed, but, uh, I don't know. You've given me very little, little to rest my hat. I want it terms, in terms of trusting Warren G. Harding.
26:27 Speaker 04 Well, it turns out there's actually good reason to believe that Harding was relatively unaware at this time. President Harding was quite busy dealing with the extensive aftermath of World War I, jostling through labor disputes and flirting with women not named Florence. Still, you'd think he might've noticed when Fall started receiving gifts and loans totaling over $400,000, which in today's dollars would be a little over $7 million. He literally got an entire herd of cattle at one point from one of these tycoons.
27:02 Speaker 05 So, yeah. You gotta start asking questions.
27:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, I mean, it's gonna raise a couple of questions.
27:06 Speaker 05 You show up at the cabinet meeting and there's 400 cattle there. Where'd you get them?
27:10 Speaker 04 Why do you, why do you stink? Why do you smell like, uh, like cow shit? Just be honest, Fall. Like, what's going on?
27:17 Speaker 05 I have to wear all these layers. What am I gonna do? I'm wearing these layers.
27:19 Speaker 04 Yeah, I guess we all stink a little bit, right? It's wool. We're wearing wool. Okay. But it's not just how much money he was receiving. It was how obvious he was about it. I mean, the guy was living large in DC, buying up ranches, handing out cash, strutting around like a Gilded Age Gordon Gekko with a bolo tie. Now, are you a frugal guy? Like, if you fell into this kind of money, would you be chill about it? Or would you be like, like, putting on like a zoot suit and hitting the nightclubs?
27:50 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah, see, I don't think I'm creative enough to spend money like that. My mom told me, when I, when I got, I got a show after The Daily Show and I got a, I was like, oh, my God, I got a TV show. What do I do with this? My mom was like, you need a good chair. She goes, what I would buy would be an Eames chair. And I was like, I don't even know what an Eames chair is. And then I Googled it. And for the next two weeks, all I thought about was Eames chairs. And that was the thing I bought. I was like, oh, you know what I will buy? I'll buy a chair that I'll have for the rest of my life. So that's, that's the one fancy thing.
28:18 Speaker 04 That advice, I love, because it's just sort of like, yes, like little creature comforts. They're important. And that kind of make, there's these little things that just make your life experience nice. Um, all right. So now, speaking of making instant millions, according to a Senate survey, the three reserves, uh, those, these big oil reserves held an estimated 435 million barrels of oil, which at the time would have been equivalent to the amount of oil produced by the country as a whole up to that point in time. Now, crazy fact, that number was well under the actual amount of oil that was dredged up eventually from those sites. Elk Hills alone has produced more than 1 billion barrels in its 100 years of existence.
29:03 Speaker 04 Meanwhile, whispers began reaching Congress of some shady stuff going on. On April 14th, 1922, The Wall Street Journal broke the news of the Teapot Dome, as a few local Wyoming boys noticed trucks with the Sinclair logo roaming about. Uh, yeah, so, I don't know. Um, I mean, I, I, I understand the power of branding, but maybe you don't put your logos on your shady truck deliveries?
29:31 Speaker 05 Yeah, when you get that deal.
29:32 Speaker 04 Or your shady oil pickups?
29:34 Speaker 05 That's what gets it. Nine times out of 10, it's that person who wants to strut. You strut, you know, don't do it. Don't wear that fancy, don't wear that fancy suit. I think that's like a plot in The Godfather, one of The Godfathers, right?
29:46 Speaker 04 Weirdly, I think that the, the, the flagrancy of like using your Sinclair trucks to transport sort of ill begotten oil speaks to the fact that they didn't think there was any risk here. Like it was like, almost like a cultural thing. It's like, yeah, yeah, we're just doing shady business and then everybody knows it. Who cares?
30:07 Speaker 05 I mean, it's, it speaks to one of the, the truest thing, not to bring up Mr. Donald J. Trump, but if we're to connect the two comments, like when, when Trump got called out for not paying taxes, you know, he, he holds that up to like, yeah, because I'm smart.
30:22 Speaker 04 Right.
30:22 Speaker 05 I think there's always been an idea with the, the billionaire class that like, proof of my expertise and acumen come in the fact that I get away with shit.
30:31 Speaker 04 Yeah.
30:32 Speaker 05 And so like you see that there, it's like, oh my God, how'd you get away with that? It's like, I'm smart. This, this is what I get for being so smart.
30:38 Speaker 04 Yeah. Just, let's not even bother asking the questions of character about any of that stuff. Oh boy. Uh, that's a black hole that we could go down, but I'm gonna keep going. Um, one Wyoming Senator, John B. Kendrick, was pestered with questions from other local oilmen, uh, mostly as to why they never had a shot at leasing the land at Teapot Dome. Suspicions kept growing. They grew and grew. The Denver Post followed soon after with a front page expose calling the events, quote, "one of the baldest public land grabs in history." Finally, the floodgates were opening, which led to a congressional investigation
31:18 Speaker 04 that took over two years. Now I find congressional investigations like this seriously badass, at least when they're like well intentioned and well executed. Um, do you, do you have a favorite congressional investigation?
31:32 Speaker 05 Oh my God. This is a, this is a time do we have.
31:35 Speaker 04 This is a very nerdy question, but.
31:36 Speaker 05 The way they're framed, I mean, you think about Watergate, you think about, uh, uh, you know, the, um, what was it? The, the, the Oppenheimer, when, when, when he was investigated? And I think all that Red Scare stuff, they're not always used in the best of, of, of best of ways. And I think like the Mueller investigation was such a, you know, I think that's the, or the, or the January 6th investigation.
31:56 Speaker 04 Sure.
31:57 Speaker 05 Slash presentation congressional hearings felt like such a.
32:02 Speaker 05 Such a, I, I think they were framed as such a partisan affair.
32:05 Speaker 04 Right.
32:06 Speaker 05 And such, such theater that you almost forget the functionality of them all.
32:11 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's pretty heartbreaking when that happens. I, I, I agree. There was one, one of my favorites is definitely, we covered it in Snafu season two. Frank Church, a senator from Idaho, led the investigation into um, COINTELPRO and all of the malfeasance of J. Edgar Hoover and, and how sort of corrupt the FBI had become at that time. And it, he just was so, had so much sort of integrity and character and was so respected uh, in the senate and he had an incredible staff and the people that were working for him on that investigation. And it really, uh, it really accomplished a lot. And it was perceived as nonpartisan at the time.
32:53 Speaker 04 And it's became the only reason that we have any congressional oversight over the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, all of these intelligence institutions that up to that point had been operating in total secrecy. Uh, which also basically total impunity for, for whatever corrupt practices were going on. And, uh, and it's, it's really cool. Like, like people like Frank Church, uh, there, they seem hard to come by these days.
33:22 Speaker 05 To go full circle on this, I told you how I got into the world of improv and comedy and it was doing improv. And my roommate, fellow improviser in college was Frank Church, the grandson of Senator Frank Church.
33:36 Speaker 04 No way!
33:37 Speaker 05 A hundred percent.
33:38 Speaker 04 Oh, that's so cool. Are you still in touch?
33:40 Speaker 05 I am still in touch.
33:41 Speaker 04 Is he from Idaho? Did he grow up in Idaho?
33:44 Speaker 05 He grew up in New York, cause if, if, I, I don't want to bastardize Frank's life, but I feel like uh, Frank Church was such a hero in Idaho, uh, and, and ran for, I think ran for president as well. Um, or attempted to. And then, um, his, his son, my Frank's father became a large, uh, uh, priest. Uh, cut it to the stars in New York. And so.
34:07 Speaker 04 Wow, fascinating.
34:08 Speaker 05 Yeah. And so Frank, my Frank, grew up in, grew up in New York and then came to Kalamazoo. That's, that's so wild.
34:13 Speaker 04 That is wild.
34:14 Speaker 05 I'm realizing, all right, now I have, I have newfound guilt for the lack of respect I gave my friend Frank Church back in college.
34:21 Speaker 04 Did you bully a young Frank Church?
34:25 Speaker 05 Oh, yeah. Oh, your family was important. Yeah. Why haven't I ever heard of him?
34:28 Speaker 04 Sorry. Sorry for all the wedgies, Frankie. Why are we now just like denigrating this poor guy?
34:33 Speaker 05 I think we're celebrating. We're celebrating Frank Church. The history of my Frank Church, your Frank Church.
34:37 Speaker 04 All Frank Churches.
34:39 Speaker 05 Our Frank Church.
34:39 Speaker 04 All the Frank Churches.
34:44 Speaker 04 Diving back in, Albert Fall had actually already stepped down as Secretary of the Interior in January of 1923. So, you know, he could enjoy his new ranch as well as help Sinclair and Doherty with other oil deals abroad. Clearly, Fall had pulled some corrupt shit. Might be worth mentioning here that President Harding was really feeling the heat by this point in his presidency, particularly relating to a few crooked folks he had appointed in his administration. Now, have you ever heard of Harding's Ohio Gang?
35:17 Speaker 05 No.
35:17 Speaker 04 All right.
35:18 Speaker 05 Should I have?
35:18 Speaker 04 No.
35:18 Speaker 05 As a Michigan boy, as a Michigan boy, we don't, we don't give much respect to anybody from Ohio. So perhaps it's not my own ignorance, it's just my own prejudice.
35:26 Speaker 04 There you go. Yeah. So this was the nickname for some of Harding's appointees, basically because he'd hired or appointed so many of his buddies from his days in Ohio. And a lot of them were ruffling feathers and drumming up scandals from all angles, from influence peddling to selling illegal permits for confiscated government alcohol. These dudes were just awful, basically. So it kind of makes sense that Albert Fall and his oily mustache twirling fit right in. And yes, if you recall the photo earlier, Fall had a big ol' snot mop.
35:59 Speaker 05 Oh, God. Handlebar.
36:02 Speaker 04 Yeah.
36:02 Speaker 05 I mean, even, even if we're besmirching the guy, I don't think we want that image in our head.
36:07 Speaker 04 I mean, it's funny, but it's gross.
36:08 Speaker 05 It's funny, but yeah, it's, it's one of those things. It's like moist. We're like, okay, that might be the right word, but I don't want to hear it.
36:14 Speaker 04 So President Harding said at the time, "I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends, my goddamn friends, they're the ones who keep me walking the floor nights." Now, that's very godfather-y.
36:29 Speaker 05 That is. I like, you really leaned into it, too. The performance there was nice.
36:33 Speaker 04 Thank you.
36:35 Speaker 05 Yeah, my friends, just when I think about they pull me back in. Who, the Ohio guy? I thought I made that clear.
36:43 Speaker 04 I do wonder though, like someone, you know, you look at these presidents, whether it's a Trump or a Barack Obama or somebody, you're like, how many good, like, close friends are they able to maintain at that, at that point? I would think someone like Trump is like so hard to get close to and so hard to sort of like feel a sense of trust with, even if you're, if you match his core values, whatever they are, like, it just seems, I don't know, they're, they're so, their, their life is so public and, and it's so committed to the public eye.
37:17 Speaker 05 Yeah, I mean, I think like, yeah, the usage of a friend as somebody who you could truly be honest with and empathize with and you could like be vulnerable with. I see people like Trump who sees almost everybody as like a means to an end.
37:30 Speaker 04 Yeah.
37:31 Speaker 05 Everything has a loyalty test.
37:32 Speaker 04 Right.
37:32 Speaker 05 And even things, you know, not to besmirch any of his relationships, but those don't seem to be the most friendly and open. Those seem transactional as well. And you're like, oh, what happens to a human who doesn't have a, like, an emotional sounding board or compatriot that isn't tied up into your own personal success?
37:51 Speaker 04 Are you expressing, are you, are you starting to express some, some deep compassion for Donald Trump?
37:56 Speaker 05 Oh my God, I stumbled on it. We've, we've created a monster and I just want to give him a hug.
38:01 Speaker 04 Yeah, that's what, probably all he needs.
38:03 Speaker 05 Just give him a hug, man.
38:05 Speaker 04 Group hug. I want in on that.
38:07 Speaker 05 Come on, man. Let's do it. Let's, let's break through this. Come on, you could be a better person.
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40:11 Speaker 09 Hi, I'm Jenna Oshkowitz. You might know me from Glee. This is At the Table, the food allergy podcast, a show about food, connection, and what it really looks like to live with food allergies. Each episode, we hear stories from real people like Daniel.
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41:09 Speaker 04 At this point in our tale, we are sort of, we're coming full circle. So as you recall, we sort of started with this, this voyage of understanding and then we jumped in 1923, then we jumped back to 1921 and sort of told the unfolding of the Teapot Dome scandal under Harding's administration. Now, now we're back, we're back on the trip with President Harding and suddenly he began complaining of shortness of breath and then suddenly he was just gone. A surprise heart attack took him very swiftly in August of 1923 at the ripe young age of 57. So there would be no reelection for Mr. Harding after all.
41:53 Speaker 04 Now, what do you think happened to the Teapot Dome scandal in light of Harding's passing?
41:59 Speaker 05 Boy, that is a great question. My guess is the Fall guy rides away and he, to a very successful life and the story moves on to other more pressing things.
42:08 Speaker 04 Yeah.
42:09 Speaker 05 As in, there's, there's, there's never accountability. I guess that's what I've learned to believe in American politics is that accountability is a rare, rare mineral.
42:18 Speaker 04 That's very elusive. You're largely correct here. There was a whole lot of legal wrangling over the course of several years and at long last, the Supreme Court ruled in 1927 that the leases had been illegal and all of the oil reserves were returned to government control. In 1929, Albert Fall was convicted of accepting bribes from Sinclair and served one year in prison, which sounds light until you consider this was completely unprecedented at the time. Fall was the first cabinet member in US history to go to prison for crimes committed in office. Also, I can only imagine a year in prison in 1923 is pretty bleak.
43:02 Speaker 05 I can't imagine there's making a lot of space for for rec time or rehabilitation.
43:08 Speaker 04 Yeah. Now, the one nice thing about this was that it sort of set the standard that even cabinet members aren't above the law. And I truly hope that ethos carries through. I think it's a little wishy washy at times, but it's nice to see some little measure of accountability, even if it feels small. Now Sinclair and Doherty were totally acquitted of their charges of conspiracy to defraud the government, although Sinclair did end up serving six months in prison for contempt of court and contempt of Congress. Why? Because he hired private investigators to follow and intimidate the jury during his trial. These guys just have, they feel like they're just like they can do anything.
43:53 Speaker 05 Come on, oil man. Come on, relax. You got the win.
43:57 Speaker 04 Yeah, this is the golden age of oil barons where they can just do whatever the fuck they want. I mean, they're just, they're all the Elon Musks of their day, I guess.
44:06 Speaker 05 Yeah, 100%.
44:08 Speaker 04 So needless to say, damage was irrevocably done. Public trust in the government tanked. Harding's legacy, despite dying a quite popular president, his legacy was permanently stained. In 1948, Arthur M. Schlesinger, a Harvard historian, put out a poll amongst fellow historians and government officials to assess the greatest and worst presidents up to that point. Harding landed dead last and continues to place near the bottom of the barrel in annual polls to this day. And teapot dome became shorthand for political corruption ever more, which is
44:48 Speaker 04 kind of funny. It's like, I like how scandals, ever since Watergate, every scandal, you just add the word gate at the end of it, and it becomes like that's the scandal. But I wonder if before Watergate, it was like, you know, it was like the firehouse dome scandal. Like everyone just added the word dome to stuff.
45:08 Speaker 05 Now, now I feel like Qatari jet is just so much cleaner.
45:11 Speaker 04 Oh, good. That's a good one.
45:13 Speaker 05 Yeah.
45:14 Speaker 04 Although that's not a scandal. That's not a scandal. It's literally not a scandal.
45:18 Speaker 05 Honestly, you are right. Yes, there has been no kerfuffle on the other side of it. We're just, we're just moving on.
45:23 Speaker 04 Yeah, we're just moving on. It's kind of refreshing. There's no such thing as a scandal anymore.
45:30 Speaker 05 It's just like, that's why, why are we gonna waste time? Bother everybody, spend years looking into this. Just keep moving on.
45:37 Speaker 04 Well, this, this does lead me to my favorite portion of this, this podcast, which is the sort of reflection here, Jordan. And I'm curious, uh, what, what are your takeaways? Have we learned any lessons? Or are there lessons we still need to learn from a teapot dome type scandal? Are there any parallels to the modern moment? We've touched on a few throughout the episode. What jumps to mind?
46:02 Speaker 05 Well, I mean, frankly, I was shocked that there was some amount of accountability. It's, it's humorous that the oil barons get off scot-free, except for trying to intimidate witnesses, which is, which is hilarious. But I did, the fact that like, there was sustained pressure and a governmental organization that continued to stay on it to punish somebody for, for, for abusing the public trust is, is refreshing to hear, but I think so sad in the light of what we are seeing right now. It, it seems as if like, oh, there's, there's no appetite for that. There's no bipartisan appetite for comeuppance for somebody abusing this. And like you said, I think you stumbled on it with the Qatari jet.
46:43 Speaker 05 It's like, we have such obvious examples of, of corruption. And there's also, you know, Donald, Donald Trump's personal, uh, what is it? Cryptocurrency as, as a form in which people are, are paying our government. These are scandalous things. I think back in that time period, like we are, it's a barrage of information that things are getting washed out with new information, new information, new information, and just a wash of devices that are in our pockets that make us forget the things that we perhaps could be or should be outraged by. I look back at that time and I'm like, oh, I feel like they were able to stick with a story.
47:20 Speaker 04 Yeah.
47:20 Speaker 05 Yeah, exactly.
47:21 Speaker 04 It's a great question. Yeah, I, I think you're raising a really, uh, A really meaningful question about contemporary mores, which is like, has our sort of ethical or moral compass degraded in recent time? Or are we just too overwhelmed to actually compute these things as they happen? And I can say honestly, like, I think exasperation is working in corruption's favor. There are a few points that, that I think Teapot Dome raises. For example, federal resources quietly getting funneled to private interests. What's happening now in this big, beautiful bill is this idea to literally just sell publicly
48:06 Speaker 04 owned land to private interests. And of course, those private interests won't be local ranchers or farmers or people who want to build their homes and live there. They will be these massive real estate conglomerates and/or mining interests or, you know, the people that can afford to buy huge swaths of land. And it's, so it's far more permanent than a sort of lease arrangement. And, and it's really, that one's an interesting one because it's starting, it really is fracturing a lot of Trump supporters. I think a lot of conservative folks are like, oh, hold on, this publicly owned land, this
48:48 Speaker 04 is land that we all own and that we all benefit from. You know, there's a, there's a, there's an impulse, I think, on the right to vilify government and vilify the sort of scale of government. And there's some good reasons for that, of course. But we forget, or I think a lot of times, someone with a right-leaning mindset might forget that, that government and the government ownership of things is actually public. It means that it's all of us. It means that we all are owners of, are sharing this thing. And when it comes to, to huge amounts of natural resources and/or just beautiful public land like Yellowstone or all of our national parks, our state parks, like, that is...
49:35 Speaker 04 That's publicly owned and it's amazing. These are incredible resources for all of us.
49:41 Speaker 05 There's conversations about where those lines are being drawn and be curious where the ramifications of something like the big beautiful bill and how that affects people like that who are using this public land in those ways aren't gonna see the kickbacks. I worry that what we talked about, is it so hard for us to have sustained attention on anything that isn't completely outrageous?
50:02 Speaker 04 Yeah. Jordan Klepper, what are you up to? What can you tell us about, obviously you're still crushing it on The Daily Show. What else do you have going on?
50:12 Speaker 05 That takes up a lovely a part of my time. And then when I have free weekends, I hit the road and I do a show called Suffering Fools, which is part stand-up, part TED Talk. I got a bunch of slides and try to make sense from some of these stories I've got from being out on the road. So that's a fun time to get out into all over America and tell some war stories.
50:32 Speaker 04 I love it. I really want to see that show. And if you're out there, anyone where in America, go see Jordan Klepper. The guy, he's, yeah, he's funny. He's smart. And I will say, you delivered on delightful.
50:47 Speaker 05 Pretty delightful, thank you.
50:49 Speaker 04 I mean, you were kind of delightful. I feel like I carried a lot of the delightfulness.
50:53 Speaker 05 You were very delightful, yes.
50:54 Speaker 04 But you met it. You met the standard and I appreciate it.
50:58 Speaker 05 Well, thanks for having me. And you know what? I learned something. I don't know if I like Harding any more than I did coming in and out, but I understand the man more. I'm more confused about Fall Guy, but I'm glad to see a little bit of a moment of accountability. So thank you for that.
51:12 Speaker 04 So glad to have you on the pod, Jordan Klepper. All my best, buddy.
51:16 Speaker 05 Thanks, Ed.
51:17 Speaker 04 Snafu is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Our post-production studio is Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim, Whitney Donaldson, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering. from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by The Collected Works. Legal review from Dan Welsh, Megan Halson, and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts,
52:01 Speaker 04 but especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman, Nikki Etor, Nathan Otowski, and Alex Corral. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screwups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to snafu-book.com. Thanks for listening and see you next week.
52:34 Speaker 01 The scariest part of Halloween isn't the full moon or a chainsaw starting up in the distance. It's running out of Reese's cups. Because when you open the door to four princesses, six superheroes, and three Draculas all reaching for your Reese's cups, things can get scary fast. Especially when you were kind of counting on some leftovers. So this Halloween, buy extra. Because your neighbor Jeff dressed like a kangaroo? That's scary enough. Running out of Reese's cups doesn't need to be.
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