Jordan Klepper and Teapot Dome

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. Subscribe to the SNAFU YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@SNAFUPod Buy the SNAFU book: www.snafu-book.com http://www.snafu-book.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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  paid for by Genentech and Novartis.

• 2:05Speaker 04

  He literally got an entire herd of cattle at one point from one of these tycoons.

• 2:10Speaker 05

  You gotta start asking questions.

• 2:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it's gonna raise a couple of questions.

• 2:13Speaker 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.

• 2:18Speaker 04

  Why do you smell like, uh, like cow shit?

• 2:21Speaker 05

  It's these layers. I have to wear all these layers. What am I gonna do? I'm wearing these layers.

• 2:29Speaker 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.

• 2:56Speaker 05

  Oh, thank you. Dare you say it. I'm glad you said it.

• 2:58Speaker 04

  I dared. I dared.

• 3:00Speaker 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.

• 3:07Speaker 04

  Don't, don't make me a liar.

• 3:10Speaker 05

  I know, this does, I was gonna say, I had-

• 3:12Speaker 04

  It's a high bar.

• 3:13Speaker 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.

• 3:27Speaker 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.

• 3:48Speaker 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.

• 4:12Speaker 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.

• 4:29Speaker 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.

• 4:50Speaker 04

  You're in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and you're just a comedy fan?

• 4:54Speaker 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,

• 5:39Speaker 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.

• 6:03Speaker 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?

• 6:15Speaker 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.

• 6:52Speaker 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

• 7:34Speaker 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?

• 7:49Speaker 05

  Ooh, I love it.

• 7:54Speaker 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.

• 8:24Speaker 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.

• 8:29Speaker 04

  Right. Are you ready?

• 8:32Speaker 05

  I'm ready. Let's jump in.

• 8:33Speaker 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?

• 8:55Speaker 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.

• 9:07Speaker 04

  Jordy Bean?

• 9:08Speaker 05

  Jordy Bean because I was thin as a string bean.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 9:11Speaker 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.

• 9:25Speaker 04

  You can't give yourself a nickname, that's illegal.

• 9:27Speaker 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.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  That's a very cool nickname. That's the problem with nicknames you pick yourself, is like, they're too cool.

• 9:44Speaker 05

  They're too cool.

• 9:45Speaker 04

  Hey, man, here comes old Truck. What's he gonna do? He's got some good improv up his sleeves.

• 9:50Speaker 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.

• 10:00Speaker 04

  Sure. But you hauled good improv skills.

• 10:03Speaker 05

  Ain't that the truth? 60 wheels, baby.

• 10:06Speaker 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."

• 10:22Speaker 05

  This guy, that's a fun guy to hang out with.

• 10:24Speaker 04

  I guess, I guess so. Yeah. He's just sort of like a yes man. Like, alright, I'm in, whatever you got.

• 10:32Speaker 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.

• 10:54Speaker 04

  All right. Any guess who we're talking about?

• 10:56Speaker 05

  Oh, God, I.

• 10:59Speaker 05

  No, I'm at a loss.

• 11:01Speaker 04

  Well, it's the 29th president of the United States, Warren G. Harding.

• 11:06Speaker 05

  That's Harding.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  That's who we're, it's Harding. We're talking about Harding.

• 11:09Speaker 05

  It's classic.

• 11:10Speaker 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.

• 11:37Speaker 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.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  Also, like, kind of a nice, uh, little, uh, silver lining to an affair. Like, you just get a trip to China.

• 11:55Speaker 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.

• 12:04Speaker 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.

• 12:15Speaker 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.

• 12:26Speaker 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.

• 12:50Speaker 05

  Florence Harding. She had to be a Flo, right? You take Flo. Yeah.

• 12:54Speaker 04

  Yeah. At that, at that time, of course, she's a Flo.

• 12:57Speaker 05

  You go with Flo. You go with the Flo.

• 12:59Speaker 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?

• 13:19Speaker 05

  Oh, is that?

• 13:20Speaker 04

  I guess he's in there. He's like hanging, he's hanging out the window there.

• 13:25Speaker 05

  I mean, they might not have had zoom technology, but the photographer could have walked up a little closer, correct?

• 13:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:31Speaker 05

  This, I assume this wasn't a, a moving locomotive.

• 13:34Speaker 04

  Yeah, you know, I, I, I think you're right.

• 13:36Speaker 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?

• 13:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 13:42Speaker 05

  I mean, yeah, yeah, you see that, you look at that.

• 13:45Speaker 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?

• 14:14Speaker 05

  Oh God, I, well, yeah, I hate to say it, I think we're on a downward spiral with Canada.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  I don't know why, it's so random.

• 14:21Speaker 05

  I don't know what it is.

• 14:21Speaker 04

  It's so random. Like, why the hate, Canada? Why are you coming at us with so much hate?

• 14:26Speaker 05

  Yes, so what? We talk about making you the 51st state or throwing tariffs on you.

• 14:30Speaker 04

  It's because we love you.

• 14:31Speaker 05

  Yes, we're the fun older brother who's ribbing you right now. Enjoy it. You're part of the conversation, welcome.

• 14:38Speaker 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?

• 15:10Speaker 05

  You know what? I think we all know you bury that thing so deep.

• 15:14Speaker 04

  So deep.

• 15:15Speaker 05

  As deep as you possibly.

• 15:16Speaker 04

  You try to, yeah, you try to find a cave and fill it with concrete.

• 15:21Speaker 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.

• 15:28Speaker 04

  That's the right advice, obviously.

• 15:30Speaker 05

  Yes, that's the American advice.

• 15:32Speaker 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.

• 16:02Speaker 04

  Yes, that's right. Jordan Klepper, do you know much about the Teapot Dome scandal?

• 16:09Speaker 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.

• 16:14Speaker 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.

• 16:57Speaker 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?

• 17:13Speaker 05

  Oh wow.

• 17:13Speaker 04

  Wait, is this?

• 17:15Speaker 05

  That's Teapot Dome?

• 17:16Speaker 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.

• 17:33Speaker 05

  Um, yeah, if you got, without a spout.

• 17:35Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:36Speaker 05

  I mean, we're just talking, we're talking crackles. I'm seeing, I'm seeing castle.

• 17:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 17:39Speaker 05

  I'm seeing, I'm seeing some phallic representation there.

• 17:42Speaker 04

  I mean, but you have to admit, you have to admit, it does also look short and stout.

• 17:49Speaker 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.

• 17:55Speaker 04

  Here is its handle. Here is its spout.

• 17:57Speaker 05

  But there is no handle, Ed.

• 17:59Speaker 04

  I know, you're right. It's not.

• 18:00Speaker 05

  Now I'm supposed to trust you?

• 18:01Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 18:01Speaker 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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  Oh boy, this is tight. I knew I shouldn't have had that extra helping of mashed potatoes last night.

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• 21:08Speaker 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.

• 21:47Speaker 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?"

• 21:53Speaker 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.

• 22:27Speaker 05

  He was a man in the 20s.

• 22:29Speaker 04

  Yeah, exactly. He was just a dude in the 20s. Now we've got a photo of him.

• 22:33Speaker 05

  Ooh, I like this.

• 22:34Speaker 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.

• 22:45Speaker 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.

• 22:57Speaker 04

  I agree.

• 22:58Speaker 05

  Right? Look how thick that coat is.

• 23:00Speaker 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.

• 23:18Speaker 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.

• 23:24Speaker 04

  Wool.

• 23:25Speaker 05

  Wool suits that you know they're not washing. The dry cleaning industry had not come into full fruition.

• 23:31Speaker 04

  No, they didn't have those chemicals.

• 23:33Speaker 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.

• 23:45Speaker 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.

• 24:29Speaker 04

  And it's just a couple of blocks away from me right now, which is just a meaningless factoid.

• 24:34Speaker 05

  Does anybody know that? I'm in New York. Would I have known that? Would people who live on Dohini Drive know that?

• 24:41Speaker 04

  They probably don't know for whom Dohini Drive is named. But now they do.

• 24:48Speaker 05

  You really are providing service, Ed. You really are.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  And they're thrilled. This is really the point of this podcast, is just to give people useless information.

• 24:56Speaker 05

  Can you tell me why Third Avenue is called Third Avenue? Is there a story behind that here in Brooklyn?

• 25:01Speaker 04

  That one's tricky. Yeah. There was a Arnold J. Third was a local bridge-building tycoon. No.

• 25:14Speaker 05

  He was a poker aficionado, if I recall.

• 25:16Speaker 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.

• 25:45Speaker 05

  We should say that. That's the, yeah, exactly.

• 25:49Speaker 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?

• 26:00Speaker 05

  I, you know, I gotta believe it's blind eye.

• 26:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 26:02Speaker 05

  I am, I'm often confused about how people communicated pre-cell phone era.

• 26:06Speaker 04

  Right.

• 26:07Speaker 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.

• 26:19Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 26:19Speaker 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.

• 26:27Speaker 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.

• 27:02Speaker 05

  So, yeah. You gotta start asking questions.

• 27:04Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, it's gonna raise a couple of questions.

• 27:06Speaker 05

  You show up at the cabinet meeting and there's 400 cattle there. Where'd you get them?

• 27:10Speaker 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?

• 27:17Speaker 05

  I have to wear all these layers. What am I gonna do? I'm wearing these layers.

• 27:19Speaker 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?

• 27:50Speaker 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.

• 28:18Speaker 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.

• 29:03Speaker 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?

• 29:31Speaker 05

  Yeah, when you get that deal.

• 29:32Speaker 04

  Or your shady oil pickups?

• 29:34Speaker 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?

• 29:46Speaker 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?

• 30:07Speaker 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.

• 30:22Speaker 04

  Right.

• 30:22Speaker 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.

• 30:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 30:32Speaker 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.

• 30:38Speaker 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

• 31:18Speaker 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?

• 31:32Speaker 05

  Oh my God. This is a, this is a time do we have.

• 31:35Speaker 04

  This is a very nerdy question, but.

• 31:36Speaker 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.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  Sure.

• 31:57Speaker 05

  Slash presentation congressional hearings felt like such a.

• 32:02Speaker 05

  Such a, I, I think they were framed as such a partisan affair.

• 32:05Speaker 04

  Right.

• 32:06Speaker 05

  And such, such theater that you almost forget the functionality of them all.

• 32:11Speaker 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.

• 32:53Speaker 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.

• 33:22Speaker 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.

• 33:36Speaker 04

  No way!

• 33:37Speaker 05

  A hundred percent.

• 33:38Speaker 04

  Oh, that's so cool. Are you still in touch?

• 33:40Speaker 05

  I am still in touch.

• 33:41Speaker 04

  Is he from Idaho? Did he grow up in Idaho?

• 33:44Speaker 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.

• 34:07Speaker 04

  Wow, fascinating.

• 34:08Speaker 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.

• 34:13Speaker 04

  That is wild.

• 34:14Speaker 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.

• 34:21Speaker 04

  Did you bully a young Frank Church?

• 34:25Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. Oh, your family was important. Yeah. Why haven't I ever heard of him?

• 34:28Speaker 04

  Sorry. Sorry for all the wedgies, Frankie. Why are we now just like denigrating this poor guy?

• 34:33Speaker 05

  I think we're celebrating. We're celebrating Frank Church. The history of my Frank Church, your Frank Church.

• 34:37Speaker 04

  All Frank Churches.

• 34:39Speaker 05

  Our Frank Church.

• 34:39Speaker 04

  All the Frank Churches.

• 34:44Speaker 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?

• 35:17Speaker 05

  No.

• 35:17Speaker 04

  All right.

• 35:18Speaker 05

  Should I have?

• 35:18Speaker 04

  No.

• 35:18Speaker 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.

• 35:26Speaker 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.

• 35:59Speaker 05

  Oh, God. Handlebar.

• 36:02Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 36:02Speaker 05

  I mean, even, even if we're besmirching the guy, I don't think we want that image in our head.

• 36:07Speaker 04

  I mean, it's funny, but it's gross.

• 36:08Speaker 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.

• 36:14Speaker 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.

• 36:29Speaker 05

  That is. I like, you really leaned into it, too. The performance there was nice.

• 36:33Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 36:35Speaker 05

  Yeah, my friends, just when I think about they pull me back in. Who, the Ohio guy? I thought I made that clear.

• 36:43Speaker 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.

• 37:17Speaker 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.

• 37:30Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 37:31Speaker 05

  Everything has a loyalty test.

• 37:32Speaker 04

  Right.

• 37:32Speaker 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?

• 37:51Speaker 04

  Are you expressing, are you, are you starting to express some, some deep compassion for Donald Trump?

• 37:56Speaker 05

  Oh my God, I stumbled on it. We've, we've created a monster and I just want to give him a hug.

• 38:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what, probably all he needs.

• 38:03Speaker 05

  Just give him a hug, man.

• 38:05Speaker 04

  Group hug. I want in on that.

• 38:07Speaker 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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• 41:09Speaker 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.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  Now, what do you think happened to the Teapot Dome scandal in light of Harding's passing?

• 41:59Speaker 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.

• 42:08Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 42:09Speaker 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.

• 42:18Speaker 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.

• 43:02Speaker 05

  I can't imagine there's making a lot of space for for rec time or rehabilitation.

• 43:08Speaker 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.

• 43:53Speaker 05

  Come on, oil man. Come on, relax. You got the win.

• 43:57Speaker 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.

• 44:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, 100%.

• 44:08Speaker 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

• 44:48Speaker 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.

• 45:08Speaker 05

  Now, now I feel like Qatari jet is just so much cleaner.

• 45:11Speaker 04

  Oh, good. That's a good one.

• 45:13Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 45:14Speaker 04

  Although that's not a scandal. That's not a scandal. It's literally not a scandal.

• 45:18Speaker 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.

• 45:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, we're just moving on. It's kind of refreshing. There's no such thing as a scandal anymore.

• 45:30Speaker 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.

• 45:37Speaker 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?

• 46:02Speaker 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.

• 46:43Speaker 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.

• 47:20Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 47:20Speaker 05

  Yeah, exactly.

• 47:21Speaker 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

• 48:06Speaker 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

• 48:48Speaker 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...

• 49:35Speaker 04

  That's publicly owned and it's amazing. These are incredible resources for all of us.

• 49:41Speaker 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?

• 50:02Speaker 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?

• 50:12Speaker 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.

• 50:32Speaker 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.

• 50:47Speaker 05

  Pretty delightful, thank you.

• 50:49Speaker 04

  I mean, you were kind of delightful. I feel like I carried a lot of the delightfulness.

• 50:53Speaker 05

  You were very delightful, yes.

• 50:54Speaker 04

  But you met it. You met the standard and I appreciate it.

• 50:58Speaker 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.

• 51:12Speaker 04

  So glad to have you on the pod, Jordan Klepper. All my best, buddy.

• 51:16Speaker 05

  Thanks, Ed.

• 51:17Speaker 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,

• 52:01Speaker 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.

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• 53:32Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.