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Episode: How to Save America with Peggy Noonan

Author: The Free Press
Duration: 01:02:29

Episode Shownotes

Peggy Noonan does what we try to do every day at The Free Press: tell the truth, make sense of things plainly and without pretension, frame the news in a way that helps the reader make sense of things, and put things in a historical context that gives the day-to-day

depth and meaning. The very annoying thing about Peggy Noonan is that she makes the thing that we know is so very hard look so very easy. And she does it week after week after week in The Wall Street Journal—which adds up to more than 400 columns over the last 25 years. In her newest—and ninth—book, A Certain Idea of America, she collects 80 of her best columns published over the last eight years. Now, the idea that old newspaper columns might be good fodder for a book sort of seems like a weird idea, given that newspapers are most famous for being the next day’s fish wrapper. But somehow this book feels urgent and timeless. Which means that Peggy Noonan’s old columns are better than most people’s brand-new ones. That’s probably because she knows a thing or two about rhetoric and American politics. She was a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. She helped President George H.W. Bush get elected. She consulted for the TV show The West Wing. In today’s conversation, we talk about how Peggy understands Trump’s win and the political revolution that we’re living through, what it feels like to lose in a values war, and what it feels like to defend things like civility and decency in 2024. We also talk about Trump’s appointments so far, Peggy’s first meeting with Trump, and how, despite our troubles, America remains a good and great country—and why it’s so important for young people to know that. If you liked what you heard from Honestly, the best way to support us is to go to TheFP.com and become a Free Press subscriber today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Summary

In this episode of 'Honestly with Bari Weiss,' Peggy Noonan reflects on her career and her new book 'A Certain Idea of America,' which highlights pivotal columns over the past years. The discussion revolves around the decline of civility in politics, influenced by Donald Trump's presidency and the ongoing culture wars. Noonan emphasizes the need for a positive narrative about America to inspire future generations while critiquing the current political standards and rhetoric. Throughout the conversation, themes of gratitude and historical context emerge, as Noonan articulates her vision for America amidst challenges.

Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (How to Save America with Peggy Noonan ) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.

Full Transcript

00:00:00 Speaker_02
From the Free Press, this is Honestly, and I'm Barry Weiss. As the host of this show, I have a job to do, and that job requires me to be somewhat removed.

00:00:09 Speaker_02
It also occasionally, of course, requires me to read ads for things like BetterHelp and ExpressVPN.

00:00:15 Speaker_02
But mostly what it means is that I need to have a little bit of distance from the person that is sitting across from me, distance that allows me to maintain my journalistic integrity.

00:00:24 Speaker_02
But a few nights ago, I had the distinct pleasure of sitting across from none other than Peggy Noonan. And just for a moment, I had to bow down before the queen. Peggy Noonan is quite simply the master.

00:00:38 Speaker_02
She does what we try and do every day at The Free Press, which is to tell the truth and to state it plainly and without pretension, to frame the news in a way that helps the reader make sense of things, and ideally to put things in historical context that gives the day-to-day depth and meaning.

00:00:56 Speaker_02
The very annoying thing about Peggy Noonan is that she makes all of this, the thing that we know is so very hard, look so very easy. And she does it week after week after week.

00:01:08 Speaker_02
Over the past 25 years, Peggy's written a column in the Wall Street Journal. She's written more than 400 columns. That's like 8 million tweets, which is my preferred medium.

00:01:20 Speaker_02
In her new book, A Certain Idea of America, she collects 80 of them published over the last eight years.

00:01:27 Speaker_02
Now, the idea that old newspaper columns might be good fodder for a book sort of seems like a weird idea given that newspapers are most famous for being the next day's fish wrapper.

00:01:37 Speaker_02
But somehow, this book feels poignant and urgent and timeless all at the same time.

00:01:44 Speaker_02
And even in this uncertain political moment, and one that she's worried about, gratitude is a theme that runs through this conversation and through all of her writing.

00:01:55 Speaker_02
I guess what I'm trying to say is that Peggy Noonan's old columns are better than most people's new ones. And this new book isn't all she's written. She's written nine books on American politics, history, and culture.

00:02:06 Speaker_02
She, of course, was a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. She helped President George H.W. Bush get elected. And she's consulted for the TV show The West Wing. Suffice it to say, she knows a thing or two about rhetoric and American politics.

00:02:20 Speaker_02
I sat down with Peggy for a live free press book club in New York City. I asked her how she understands Trump's win and the political revolution that we're living through.

00:02:30 Speaker_02
I asked her what the American people saw in the person that's about to be our 47th president. I asked what it feels like to lose in a values war or a culture war, and what it feels like to be defending things like civility and decency in 2024.

00:02:45 Speaker_02
I also ask about Trump's appointments, including Pete Hegseth and Matt Gaetz. I'll note that right after this convo, Gaetz removed himself from the appointment. And she tells us about how she met Trump just a few weeks ago.

00:02:59 Speaker_02
Also in this episode, the best thing about Jews, the best thing about WASPs, the best American founding father, and so much more. Stay with us. Today's episode is brought to you by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE.

00:03:20 Speaker_02
FIRE believes that free speech is the foundation of a free society. This freedom is fundamental. It drives scientific progress, entrepreneurial growth, artistic expression, civic participation, and so much more.

00:03:35 Speaker_02
But free speech rights don't protect themselves, and that's where FIRE comes in. Proudly nonpartisan, they defend free speech and the First Amendment where it's needed most, on campus, in the courtroom, and throughout our culture.

00:03:48 Speaker_02
If you believe in that fight, and if you believe in the principles of free speech, consider joining FIRE with a gift before the end of the year. Your donation will help FIRE continue their critical work, and it's tax deductible.

00:04:00 Speaker_02
Visit thefire.org slash donate today to make your gift and join the free speech movement.

00:04:07 Speaker_04
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00:04:15 Speaker_03
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00:04:26 Speaker_03
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00:04:43 Speaker_03
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00:04:50 Speaker_04
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00:05:01 Speaker_04
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00:05:09 Speaker_02
Peggy Noonan, thank you for being here tonight.

00:05:11 Speaker_00
Oh my goodness, thank you. And thank you, all of you. on a busy Tuesday night. Thank you all for coming. They had nowhere else to be.

00:05:20 Speaker_02
This is where they wanted to be. Well, Peggy, I want to start with, I guess, a question about how much things have changed. When I think of the word civilized, I think about you. You don't curse, at least not in public.

00:05:35 Speaker_02
You are from a generation of public figures who value things like grace and good manners and tastefulness and discretion and incrementalism and everything that we don't have right now in our public life.

00:05:49 Speaker_02
And I guess I want to ask, when did all of the things that you so emblemize and stand for fall so out of fashion?

00:05:58 Speaker_00
Oh, what's the wonderful cliche we're all using now? slowly and then suddenly, you know? I guess- How we went bankrupt. Yes, yes. It's Hemingway, right? I think it's from The Sun Also Rises anyway.

00:06:14 Speaker_00
I think things have a way of deteriorating slowly and then there are moments when you can see the deterioration. I think our political life more or less started to become a rougher, base is the wrong word, but a rougher and less elevated thing.

00:06:33 Speaker_00
about 2015 when maybe everybody's frustrations rose so much that it was inevitable that they'd throw off what they had experienced as shackles and which we experience as standards and expectations.

00:06:49 Speaker_02
What does it feel like emotionally to sort of realize that something significant, what we call standards, what does it feel like that that, at least for now, feels out of reach or lost?

00:07:04 Speaker_02
And I think maybe for other people in this room who feel that way, how do you cling to those or really elevate those virtues in a moment where so many other people have sloughed them off?

00:07:15 Speaker_00
I've worried about two things, about the falling of standards in two areas. Only one is politics, the other is journalism, where the old standards have been replaced by something less impressive. That is way too diplomatic.

00:07:36 Speaker_00
I am not sure how mainstream journalism fully reclaims the best of its old standards while still, you know, ages change, while still traveling into the modern. Politically, I think sometimes, what will it take?

00:07:54 Speaker_00
There are plenty of people in politics still who uphold the sort of presentation of adulthood They tend to be, I think, more governors.

00:08:04 Speaker_00
State by state, the governors and state legislators are very often just presenting themselves in public in a more sort of adult way. It's funny that the states are higher in this or better in this than the feds, maybe on the federal level.

00:08:22 Speaker_00
somebody at some future point will come forward and radiate the old dignity, but also in a way so interesting and compelling that he or she will help bring the old dignity back. Maybe.

00:08:41 Speaker_02
Before we move on, is there anyone that you're thinking of that has the potential to do that?

00:08:46 Speaker_00
No, I just realized as I was talking, I was thinking of pieces. I was thinking sort of of pieces of people. And actually, I was just thinking of a certain look as opposed to the inner thing. I don't know.

00:09:01 Speaker_00
I meet so many young people who are so deeply impressive throughout the country, maybe one of them.

00:09:09 Speaker_02
Before we talk about your new book, A Certain Idea of America, I want to talk about your book that's had the biggest impact on me. And I imagine your most famous book.

00:09:17 Speaker_02
And that book is, of course, what I saw at the Revolution, which is a book about your time in the Reagan administration as a, I forget what the title was, special assistant, speechwriter. It was a speechwriter.

00:09:29 Speaker_02
And I just always loved that title so, so much. And you see so many headlines that are ripoffs of that title. And 40 years later,

00:09:37 Speaker_02
We are here, of course, living through a different kind of revolution, with a different kind of outsider in the figure of Donald Trump that just pulled together an extraordinarily unlikely coalition of voters who swept in, and not just won the presidency, but has won the House and the Senate, and arguably is sort of ushering in a title change of the culture.

00:10:01 Speaker_02
And I wonder if you could just spend a minute thinking about the revolution that you witnessed and the one that we are living through right now, because I feel, as I'm sure you do, that there are some obvious differences between the two.

00:10:15 Speaker_00
You know, I just came up on the train from Washington. And every time I am in Washington, I somehow wind up staying around the White House. And when I see it, I have a feeling of immense poignance, but also a protectiveness.

00:10:32 Speaker_00
And I noticed things like Lafayette Square, the park right across from the White House that has the big statue of Andrew Jackson that somebody tried to spray paint or tear down in the past few years.

00:10:45 Speaker_00
It's gotten a little bit shabby looking, the whole park, and it used to look better and greener and crisper and it wasn't all surrounded by cheap fences to keep the people out. Do you know what I mean?

00:10:59 Speaker_00
A good thing about Donald Trump is he's the kind of guy who would look at Lafayette Park and say, we need a gold toilet here.

00:11:09 Speaker_00
He would say that marble is too cheap, first of all, get rid of that pedestal, but he would say the grass should be much nicer and we should be taking down the fences and this should be pretty and people should go and bring their kids there.

00:11:25 Speaker_00
He would actually have that thought. It actually, I know for a fact, disturbs him that Washington's physical look has so deteriorated. The revolution that I was part of, 1980, 1988, was a revolution in the old world.

00:11:38 Speaker_00
America looked absolutely the same in America. absolutely the same in the days after that revolution. It was a revolution within a party.

00:11:55 Speaker_00
The conservatives of America had laboriously over 20 years taken over the Republican Party, and suddenly they had this rather dashing, shining new president. I did a Q&A last night with a guy named Fred Ryan at the Reagan Institute.

00:12:16 Speaker_00
in Washington, and Fred and I were remembering that we worked for the person who was then the oldest president in American history. I think Reagan was sworn in just after turning 70, which was so incredibly old then.

00:12:35 Speaker_00
But Reagan's White House was full of young people. We apparently were the youngest presidential staff ever. And Fred and I marveled over the fact that we had significant positions, and we were in our 20s and early 30s.

00:12:53 Speaker_00
There's a very good thing about that. It's good to have the young there, believing and fighting for and bringing not just their energy, but their freshness. Anyway, how does that compare to now?

00:13:06 Speaker_00
Now, this revolution feels like a more cultural revolution. as if America is changing the way it looks and how it experiences itself and who it is. They sometimes confuse me, Trump and those around him.

00:13:20 Speaker_00
One of the things they're doing right now, it would seem commonsensical to me that Donald Trump, having won a fabulous victory, now we're still, it wasn't a landslide, it was a victory in the

00:13:36 Speaker_00
He got the popular vote, first Republican in 20 years, but it was a close victory. It'll apparently be a victory by 1.5% of the vote. But they got closely the House and not so closely the Senate.

00:13:51 Speaker_00
So it does, I think it can totally be claimed as a mandate, but there's mandates and there's mandates. This is not FDR in 1932 and it's not Reagan in 80. So I would think Donald Trump right now would be

00:14:06 Speaker_00
very eager to feel personally triumphant, even triumphalist. It's utterly understandable that the people around him feel that way. They worked hard for what they've done.

00:14:19 Speaker_00
But if they were cannier or more able to control themselves, the biggest thing they would be doing now would be quickly, as they are, rolling out appointees whose names everybody has to sort of lean back and think, whoa, that's an impressive person.

00:14:41 Speaker_00
Like Matt Gaetz. So I was at a speech, and I arrive at the speech. See, this is how classy Peggy Noonan is, yes. I arrive at a speech, and I put on my phone, once I landed, and I see Pete Hegseth is going to be Secretary of Defense. That makes no sense.

00:15:06 Speaker_00
So I go and I make my speech, and I say in the speech, Pete Hegseth, he's a Fox News fellow, he's a nice man, two tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, culture warrior.

00:15:19 Speaker_00
Fine, the world needs culture warriors, but that is not the bio of the guy who runs the three million man and woman, highly bureaucratized, deftly bureaucratized,

00:15:34 Speaker_00
bureaucracy, that is, the Department of Defense, which runs all of the branches of the service, which is so complex. The office was held by George C. Marshall, by Frank Carlucci, by Bob Gates.

00:15:52 Speaker_00
These were substantial and serious men who understood that thing that they'd been running. They also were serious diplomats because the head of the Department of Defense has a huge and growing each year diplomatic function.

00:16:09 Speaker_00
The president can always go over and meet with the president of Germany, sends the Department of Defense chief to that. Okay, so Pete Higgs, that's crazy, so I said that in the speech. And everybody sort of laughed and made those noises like I agree.

00:16:26 Speaker_00
And after the speech, I was talking with an audience member who came up to me with a phone, and he said, Matt Gaetz is going to be the new Attorney General. And I said, stop teasing me, because I knew I'd been tough on Hegseth.

00:16:40 Speaker_00
And he said, no, I'm serious, and showed me the headline, which happened while I was speaking. And I thought, why are Trump and his people doing the opposite of what they should be doing, which is impressing us?

00:16:54 Speaker_00
You know why they should be impressing us? First of all, they're Americans, and they love Americans, and it makes everybody feel better. But you want to rub it in somebody's face? Be much better than they expected. That's what they ought to be doing.

00:17:09 Speaker_00
Instead, they're going lower than most people had anticipated. So what the heck is that?

00:17:16 Speaker_02
Are there any appointees, just very briefly, that you feel excited about?

00:17:20 Speaker_00
Excited, no, but a feeling of good. Susie Wiles as Chief of Staff, a serious, stable, orderly, grown-up, mature human. Good news. Who ran a good campaign. God, the bar is so high.

00:17:40 Speaker_00
Yeah, who ran a good campaign and who knows something about executive responsibilities and functions. Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, just fine. There are a few others, I can't remember their names, but that highly recommends them.

00:17:57 Speaker_00
Cabinet appointees should be normally impressive people whose names you can't really remember. It's like a good sign. Matt Gaetz, you can remember.

00:18:09 Speaker_02
Peggy, when I think back on political rhetoric over the past eight years between lock her up, grab her by the pussy, and on the other hand, unburdened by what has been, the rhetoric has not exactly been soaring. And I went back and I read

00:18:25 Speaker_02
really crying in the office today, both at what we've lost, but also at the beauty of the words, what you wrote for Reagan.

00:18:32 Speaker_02
And I just want to read a few lines, of course, maybe their most famous you've ever written, from when the Challenger exploded. The crew of the space shuttle Challenger honored us by the manner in which they lived their lives.

00:18:44 Speaker_02
We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them this morning, as they prepared for their journey and waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of Earth to touch the face of God.

00:18:54 Speaker_02
I would love for you to talk a little bit about what has happened to our language and the degradation of language over the past decade of American life.

00:19:05 Speaker_00
I will start out with bitching about something. I agree with what you said about the banality now of political speaking and rhetoric. You didn't feel the joy of Kamala Harris? You know, she started out OK.

00:19:23 Speaker_00
A little behind the eight ball, but she started out OK. But it quickly turned into something unimpressive.

00:19:30 Speaker_00
By the way, Barry, did you see someone had a poll out today saying they polled Democrats and found that she was the most popular choice for the presidential candidacy of 2028? That is just so crazy.

00:19:47 Speaker_00
I gotta admit to you, I read the headline and the first line, so maybe it was the onion and I didn't know it.

00:19:53 Speaker_02
But it's like the Republicans, they're crude but clear, and Kamala Harris, it's just word salad. My sister and Nellie, one of them said it's word-shaped air. It's nothingness. It's nothingness. What's going on here?

00:20:07 Speaker_02
The left seems to not be able to say anything clearly, and the right seems to almost be too clear in what they want to say.

00:20:14 Speaker_00
Yeah, I know what you mean. You know, Barack Obama was considered a great rhetorician and a spellbinding speech giver, but I have to tell you, nothing he ever said ever stuck in my mind. It all seemed rounded. Like no edge.

00:20:34 Speaker_00
rounded and sort of elegant in a way, or intending to be elegant, and there were nice words. and there was a feeling of aspirational somehow, but it never really, to my mind, wound up being a thought.

00:20:54 Speaker_00
I used to, when Obama was first coming in, 2007, 2008, 2009, he had this reputation as a political speaker, I would watch him give a speech,

00:21:06 Speaker_00
and think, that's kind of good, but I would also find on the internet, print out the speech, and an hour later read it.

00:21:15 Speaker_00
And there was something so interesting in that Obama giving a speech was so much better than the speech, because Obama himself was compelling, but was very careful not to say anything that was compelling. It was an odd thing.

00:21:30 Speaker_00
Kamala Harris deliberately, you would think somebody running for office would want very much to invite you into their mind, into their thinking, into their approach of problems and challenges.

00:21:47 Speaker_00
But everything she said was designed to make you not know what she thought. or what her approach was. So at this point, it does strike me as a deliberate strategy of the left. Sound quasi-lofty, but don't really say a thing.

00:22:06 Speaker_00
This for me, by the way, the most irritating thing was President Biden's, you might call it a line, but you might call it a tick. Biden has spent the past two years saying, there is nothing that divides us as much as there is that unites us.

00:22:25 Speaker_00
But there was no context. He never named what unites us. He never named what divides us. But he just kept insisting on saying it as if we'd all go, That never occurred to me. Oh, my God. So at this point, I'm just irritated with the left.

00:22:42 Speaker_00
Josh Shapiro, the governor of Pennsylvania, has made such a good impression on people, in part because actually when you listen to him, you kind of know what he's saying. So that's pretty fabulous. And, you know, it comes as a relief.

00:22:58 Speaker_00
Trump really wants you to know what he means. He tells you. He tells you to a degree that makes you go lean backwards a little bit.

00:23:06 Speaker_02
It's like the colleague that told me the day he was preparing for a colonoscopy. I'm like, I don't need to know that. I love you, but I don't need to know that. I mean, it's like there's this TMI quality.

00:23:18 Speaker_02
It's like, I don't need to know what you're thinking about every single thing.

00:23:21 Speaker_00
Trump is an interesting character. You know, I never met Trump until two or three weeks ago. Did I ever tell you that? Well, you just buried the lead. Oh. Here's what happened.

00:23:33 Speaker_00
In 2015 and 2016, when he was deciding to or had decided to run for president, was running,

00:23:40 Speaker_00
His office and his aides did what they would do with anybody else in journalism, which was reach out and say, we want to know you, we want to meet you, come on in, meet the boss, have lunch. And I always said, no, I don't want to.

00:23:56 Speaker_00
And the reason was I had a feeling that up close he would be charming and funny, and that there would be something endearing, and that it would mess with my swing. I didn't want to see him up close. I didn't want to see him far away.

00:24:16 Speaker_00
I wanted, had this intuitive sense, see him at a middle distance. And I felt I saw him clearly at a middle distance. So the years pass, and the tweets happen, and he attacks me at rallies, and it's fabulous.

00:24:34 Speaker_00
About two, I mean, it was really interesting. I'll look back on it kind of warmly in a weird way. So two or three weeks ago, he came to the Wall Street Journal for an editorial board meeting. And my instinct kicked in again, don't go.

00:24:50 Speaker_00
But then I corrected myself. I've been writing about him for eight years. occasionally clubbed him like a seal. He has occasionally clubbed me. And it would be so wrong if he came to my newspaper and he couldn't

00:25:08 Speaker_00
go there and take retribution or do whatever he wanted to do. It just struck me as the fair, right thing. And so I went. And so we're waiting for him. He came late. He's a guy on a campaign.

00:25:23 Speaker_00
And we're sitting around nervously because it's the Wall Street Journal. It's what we do. So I'm sitting next to Paul Gigault. And in a silence as we nervously wait, Paul says, how many times have you met Trump? And I said, I've never met Trump.

00:25:40 Speaker_00
And he said, you've never met Trump? And he went, whoa, like, oh, we're going to have a drama here. And suddenly I thought, oh, gosh, maybe it will be a drama. You know, maybe, like, you don't know how Trump acts, like, when he's going to be horrible.

00:25:56 Speaker_00
I mean, up close. So anyway, at a certain point the doors fly open and the entourage comes in and there's Trump, who in person in that blue suit and the tie is huge. And the hair is huge, everything is huge.

00:26:14 Speaker_00
And he like blows by others and he just says to me, you are wonderful. You are the most remarkable woman. And I was, In a funny way, it was like listening to Joe Biden. It was like going backwards again.

00:26:34 Speaker_00
And then he sat down with us and he was not to go off. I mean, he went on and off the record, but off the record, he was hilarious, rude, inappropriate, said things about foreign leaders that should not be said to a bunch of journalists.

00:26:51 Speaker_00
And I just sat back and thought by the end, honey, your intuition was right. If you'd met him in 2015, you would have loved him and not seen him.

00:27:02 Speaker_02
Okay, it's amazing to me that he ran up to you and said... I think maybe I exaggerated, but I would have loved him for a while. but that he ran up to you and said, you're the most wonderful person in the world.

00:27:12 Speaker_02
Let us remind everyone in this room about what you have written about Trump. There's a lot we could quote, but here's a column he wrote in January, 2021. He is a bad man and not a stable one. And he is dangerous. America is not safe in his hands.

00:27:32 Speaker_02
You called him the devil and also wrote about his apprentices, the devil and his apprentices, let me be clear. This of course was days after or the day after what happened on January 6th.

00:27:42 Speaker_02
You wrote, as for the chief instigator, the president of the United States, he should be removed from office, you wrote, by the 25th amendment or impeachment, whichever is faster.

00:27:51 Speaker_02
This with only a week and a half to go would be a most extraordinary action. but this has been an extraordinary time. You go on in this column to call Josh Hawley and Ted Cruz, I thought this was funny, punks practicing punk politics.

00:28:03 Speaker_02
They are like people who know the value of nothing. They are careless inheritors of the nation. I could go on.

00:28:10 Speaker_02
I'm not going to because I want to ask, you know, not really to revisit that time because I remember reading that and thinking, hell yeah, go Peggy. But you're someone who trusts in the wisdom of the American people.

00:28:22 Speaker_02
And the American people have just gone and reelected the person that you wrote about that way on January 7th of 2021. What are they seeing maybe that you didn't from a middle distance?

00:28:35 Speaker_02
And have you, especially having met him a few weeks ago, revised your judgment of the man?

00:28:42 Speaker_00
I wrote that piece. I'm very proud of it. I wrote that about 20 hours. No, it went up on the internet about 20 hours after January 6th.

00:28:52 Speaker_00
And, you know, there are times in life when you see something and, boy, you feel it and you think it and you are gonna say it and you say it as clear as you can. And what I thought then is what I think now, what that day was.

00:29:13 Speaker_00
I will add, in fairness, I have a sister who's very, I had two sisters who were seriously pro-Trump And one passed away a year and a half ago, and the other one is very much here.

00:29:26 Speaker_00
And we have talked about January 6th, and what it was to me, and what it was to her. And she feels it was a really, really bad thing. And they got carried away, and they all got arrested, and they all served time. And you know what?

00:29:46 Speaker_00
It was one of those things, but it doesn't portend anything. That's how she feels about it. And you know what? You can fairly say, yeah. Oh, she also said, nobody came in with guns and shot people. They acted out.

00:30:01 Speaker_00
They'd hit you on the head if they could, but they couldn't find anyone to hit on the head. Well, that's how she saw it. For me, it is a very different thing and does portend. And I think Donald Trump wound those people up

00:30:19 Speaker_00
and sent them in knowing who they were and the mayhem they meant to bring. And we, to this day, don't know what would have happened if the wilder ones of them had met up with Nancy Pelosi. So it was just so bad. We are a 50-50 country.

00:30:41 Speaker_00
The country does not like how things have been run the past four years. they did not take to Kamala Harris. Even with that, it's still 50-50. But it was decisive because it was 50.1 versus 49.9, so there you are.

00:31:01 Speaker_02
what did the American people see, or what were, maybe another way of saying it is, why were they willing to overlook things that even a lot of Trump fans felt were bad?

00:31:12 Speaker_00
In a funny way, I don't think they're overlooking them. They are accepting them. Do you mean his mammoth flaws? I mean... I mean, they are accepting them. They know for, you know...

00:31:27 Speaker_00
In my experience of Trump supporters, in a funny way, most of them, not all, but most are not illusioned about him really in terms of they think he's a brander, they think he's a bullshitter, they think he's a New York real estate guy, which by definition means a person of ill repute.

00:31:50 Speaker_00
Thank you. There is nobody in America who supports Donald Trump who thinks he didn't pay off the hooker. Do you know what I mean? They don't have illusions in that way. Here is the one illusion that I do see that stays.

00:32:07 Speaker_00
There are some eccentric people who compare him to Lincoln and Washington, except Lincoln and Washington weren't that good and that strong.

00:32:19 Speaker_00
And, you know, there are the strange people who do the religious paintings and there are the people who think he's anointed in the way of King David. But that's kind of a small group.

00:32:30 Speaker_00
But the illusion about Donald Trump that I think is prevalent among a lot of Trump supporters is that he cares about them. and that he really is on their side, I think. And that's a big part of his appeal, that he's on their side.

00:32:49 Speaker_00
When the woke mob comes, he's on their side. When the neocon warriors come, he's on their side because they've sent some boys and it didn't work out so well earlier in the century. When the bad guys come, he's on their side. My read on Donald Trump is,

00:33:08 Speaker_00
He is not on your side. He's on Donald Trump's side. He's having the time of his life.

00:33:13 Speaker_00
He has impulses and opinions that he acts on, but he also has a shrewd understanding of the views and wants of the audience, and he meets it, and the audience has given him a hit show.

00:33:26 Speaker_00
I'm sorry to put it so bluntly, but I think that is what drives him.

00:33:35 Speaker_02
After the break, I ask Peggy about the central divide in American life between the haves and the have-nots. Stay with us. Today's episode was made possible by Ground News. America's trust in the media has been on a long and steady decline.

00:34:03 Speaker_02
especially over the last few years. If you listen to this show, you know that's something that we care about and talk about a lot.

00:34:10 Speaker_02
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00:34:23 Speaker_02
That's why ground news is so important. Their app and website allow us to access the world's news in one place, to compare coverage with context behind each source.

00:34:34 Speaker_02
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00:34:44 Speaker_02
Check it out at groundnews.com slash honestly to get 50% off the Ground News Vantage Plan for unlimited access. Ground News is subscriber funded. By subscribing, you're supporting transparency in media. and our work in the meantime.

00:35:20 Speaker_02
Therapy can help all of us accept all parts of ourselves, so you can take off the mask, because masks, they should be for Halloween, not for your emotions. If you're thinking about starting therapy, consider giving BetterHelp a try.

00:35:32 Speaker_02
It's entirely online, and it's designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. You can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge.

00:35:46 Speaker_02
Take off the mask with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash honestly today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, B-E-T-T-E-R-H-E-L-P dot com slash honestly.

00:36:02 Speaker_02
Eight years ago, you identified a dynamic that I think perhaps better than, there's so many explanations, right, for the seismic change we're living through. It's the center versus the periphery, it's the tower versus the square.

00:36:17 Speaker_02
The way you identified the distinction is between the protected and the unprotected. And I wanna read a little piece of a brilliant column that you wrote in 2016. The protected make public policy, and the unprotected live in it.

00:36:35 Speaker_02
And the unprotected are starting to push back powerfully. The protected are the accomplished, the secure, the successful, those who have power or access to it. They are protected from much of the roughness of the world.

00:36:47 Speaker_02
More to the point, they are protected from the world they have created. They are figures in government, politics, and media. They live in nice neighborhoods. in safe ones.

00:36:56 Speaker_02
Because they are protected, they feel they can do pretty much anything, impose any reality. They're insulated, and this is what Rob Henderson calls the luxury beliefs. They're insulated from many of the effects of their own decisions, you write.

00:37:10 Speaker_02
The attitude of the top half, the protected, is you're on your own. Get with the program, little racists. Social philosophers are always saying the underclass must remoralize, but maybe it is the overclass that must remoralize.

00:37:25 Speaker_02
I don't know if the protected see how serious this moment is or their role in it. Brilliant. Is this election the ultimate repudiation of that protected class or of what other people call our elite?

00:37:40 Speaker_00
Yeah. 2016 was the absolute rise of the unprotected and seizing of power. And by the time they had seized power, they had lost so much respect for the people on top. And 2024 is a serious rebuke of the protected.

00:38:03 Speaker_00
And yet, God bless them, they don't know it. They just, they don't know it, they just haven't noticed.

00:38:13 Speaker_00
It was a powerful rebuke of the media, the media of which I am part, have been saying for at least five years now, don't do that, don't go with him, it's the wrong path. I wish they understood.

00:38:27 Speaker_00
There are more people sympathetic to people living rough lives in America and supporting Donald Trump than those people know. I believe, and I understand they're supporting Trump, but I wish they understood.

00:38:42 Speaker_00
There's an old farm saying, any jackass can knock down a barn, but it takes a man to build one. Any angry movement can say, down, tear it down, but it takes real dedication and gifts and commitment and even selflessness to build one.

00:39:07 Speaker_00
They have no sense of what it is they are going after and what will replace it. And I'm very much afraid of a carelessness on the part of powerful Trump supporters. that will be allowed and gleefully chuckled at by Trump and others.

00:39:29 Speaker_00
You know what I mean? There's a sort of, with all populist revolutions, there's a tearing down feeling. Boy, I'm disturbed by tearing down from the left. I don't want to tear down statues. I don't want to tear down historical reputations.

00:39:45 Speaker_00
or the real reasons for America's invention and being and what it meant, I hate that from the left. But I got a feeling I'm going to hate the tear it down stuff that I see on the right too.

00:40:00 Speaker_02
This is the most beautiful and perfect segue to the title of your book. I am far less literate than you, so I didn't catch the reference.

00:40:08 Speaker_02
Would you explain to people where the title of this book comes from, and then maybe talk a little bit about what your certain idea of America is?

00:40:16 Speaker_02
Because I feel like that idea is maybe, at least for some people, a little shrouded right now by the political events of the moment.

00:40:24 Speaker_00
Shrouded. But yeah, that's exactly it.

00:40:28 Speaker_00
The title of this book comes from the famous first sentence of the War Memoirs of Charles de Gaulle, which I read some time back, and which is most happily translated as, all of my life, I've had a certain idea of France.

00:40:50 Speaker_00
That struck me as such a beautiful sentence. First of all, it was so de Gaulle. De Gaulle was a fabulous and wonderfully, legitimately conceited man who had a mystical connection to his country.

00:41:06 Speaker_00
And you knew the moment you read it that all of his life he did have a certain idea of France, that it was good, that it needed to be continued in history, that it needed his labors, but also his commitment.

00:41:24 Speaker_00
I also was struck by that sentence when I read it because I thought all of my life I've had a certain idea of America, and it is very similarly

00:41:33 Speaker_00
that it is good, it is great, it was an advancement in the history of man, it is a project we must continue. Full stop. Part of what I try to do for a living now is In a funny way, I feel almost beyond partisanship.

00:41:52 Speaker_00
I don't really care if it's Dems or Reps, but I care very much about America continuing, about Americans in a very bad day, if a very bad day comes, being able to hold together. And I feel very strongly about kids in America who, when I was a kid,

00:42:16 Speaker_00
I came from a difficult and troubled family, but partly through the great movies of America, I got this impression that America itself was a really good, nice place. And I felt when I opened the door of my house to go out into America,

00:42:36 Speaker_00
I was going into a good place. It kind of gave me a break, a healthy place. I mean this seriously. I feel now that kids from very harrowing families, and boy, we're not making fewer harrowing families with kids growing up in them in America.

00:42:55 Speaker_00
I fear that those kids get a dark sense of life from the family and then open the door and have no sense that some relief comes from the outside.

00:43:06 Speaker_00
because they're joining an unjust country, one that is slightly obsessed with its sins and that reads its own history without a respect for it. And so I worry about kids going into this country.

00:43:23 Speaker_00
So I'm always sort of trying to push back a little bit against that.

00:43:28 Speaker_02
One of the themes that courses through all of your work and so many of the essays in this book is gratitude. And maybe you've already answered the question, but where does that come from in you?

00:43:38 Speaker_02
It's really gratitude and your own faith are two things that come through in so much of your best writing here. Talk to me about those virtues and where they come from.

00:43:49 Speaker_00
Well, faith is a blessing. You're lucky to have it. You're blessed. Gratitude, I don't know, just seems to me realistic, right?

00:43:58 Speaker_00
If you work hard and you are rewarded for it, if you've had some of the blows of life, but many of the fortunate strokes of life, you ought to feel a lot of gratitude. You just should. And you ought to love the other humans. Do you know what I mean?

00:44:17 Speaker_00
I feel great affection for people, and I think we all should.

00:44:21 Speaker_02
To me, if you think about, in a positive way, a kind of itchiness for progress as being typical of the liberal ethos, I think gratitude for the past is essential to the small c conservative ethos. You write this in the book.

00:44:40 Speaker_02
True conservatives, I think of which there are very few right now, tend to have a particular understanding of the fragility of things. They understand that every human institution is in its way built on sand. It's also frail.

00:44:55 Speaker_02
They see how thin the veil is between civilization and chaos and understand that we have to go through every day, each in our own way, trying to make the veil thicker. It's just the most perfect, I think, encapsulation of that ethos.

00:45:09 Speaker_02
I know, you're shocked you wrote that. It's incredible.

00:45:12 Speaker_00
I really like it. I just say, that's good. You're like, that's damn good. I hope someone paid you for that. You know what's one of the nice things about doing a collection?

00:45:22 Speaker_00
You can go back through 400 columns and think, you know how we're all haunted by the idea of wasted time? Yes. Yeah, that we didn't accomplish enough or do enough or make the best use of the time.

00:45:35 Speaker_00
When you go over a collection of the work you've been doing, you actually feel, oh, Why didn't waste that much time? Do you know what I mean? You feel, oh my gosh, I was productive enough. You feel kind of good about it.

00:45:48 Speaker_02
OK, well, you write in this book about your relationship with your great aunt, Jane Jane, who came here from Ireland and worked as a maid on Park Avenue. And her life was very difficult. But this is what you write about her.

00:46:00 Speaker_02
She gave me a sense of the romance of life, the romance of politics and history, the sense that history is a big thing and has glory in it.

00:46:09 Speaker_02
great causes, acts of valor, and she was in love with America because it could be the stage of the love and the valor. America reminds you life is dynamic, not static, it moves, and there's something magical in this. Do you still feel that way?

00:46:24 Speaker_00
Absolutely. I said those words. I was the main speaker at the Al Smith dinner two years ago. It was a great honor, and it ruined two months of my life because that's how long it took to work on the speech while I was doing other stuff.

00:46:41 Speaker_00
But it was a great honor, and I seized on this thought. The dinner was being held at the Park Avenue Armory that year, two years ago.

00:46:55 Speaker_00
And the Park Avenue Armory in the 60s was just a few blocks from where my great aunt, Jane Jane, had worked as a maid. And she had gone to a local church that I go to in the 60s, and she had been such a humble person, the person I wrote of there,

00:47:16 Speaker_00
but a maid, I mean an Irish peasant girl who was thrilled to be a maid, thrilled to learn the things that she learned in a great house.

00:47:25 Speaker_00
And I just wanted to talk about her, and I said to the people, you know, you're passing these people on the street every day, and let me tell you what, how optimistic she felt about America, and look at me being here, coming from her family and talking to all of you.

00:47:45 Speaker_00
It was a great night, you know. Well, we talked a little baseball and other things, but it was kind of dreamy. I love it when life is a little dreamy.

00:47:55 Speaker_02
There's such a dreamy scene in this book where, I think you're at the New York Public Library, and it's the last time you see Tom Wolfe.

00:48:03 Speaker_00
Oh, yeah.

00:48:03 Speaker_02
Do you want to tell people about that? It's just such a beautiful scene.

00:48:06 Speaker_00
Oh, I walked into, it was an annual fundraiser for the New York Public Library, and I am a writer, and we support our libraries. And so I took part in this fundraiser, and I walked in. It was a glamorous event.

00:48:23 Speaker_00
I think held at the library, if I'm remembering correctly, yes. So they closed down the public library and they lit it up beautifully and they turned it into a cocktail space and a dinner space. It was so elegant. It was high New York. It was beautiful.

00:48:40 Speaker_00
And I walked in all dressed up and walked into the burbling cocktail area. And over on the side, I saw Tom Wolfe in his suit. in his white suit and his beautiful wife, Sheila.

00:48:56 Speaker_00
And I just stopped and veered towards them and went to them and kissed them hello and chatted with them for a moment. And Tom was funny and Sheila was so charming. She's so warm and deft with people.

00:49:12 Speaker_00
And Tom talked about everything, Trump and politics and TV. And then we all said goodbye for dinner was being called. And I walked towards a clump of people and they were all chattering with each other. And I said, turn around and look at that man.

00:49:31 Speaker_00
That man is Dickens. That man is Zola. Look at him just sitting with his wife on the side of the room. He was a great man. I wanted them all to notice it. And they did. Peggy Newton, are you ready for a lightning round? Does that mean like one sentence?

00:49:51 Speaker_00
It means like lightning. Okay.

00:49:56 Speaker_02
Best American president ever.

00:49:58 Speaker_00
George Washington, without him, there were no others. Full stop. And by how he lived and led, he taught the ones who followed how to do it. Without him, nothing.

00:50:12 Speaker_02
Best book of the American founders. You've read many of them. David McCullough's cited many times in A Certain Idea of America.

00:50:19 Speaker_00
Yeah. Thank you very much for that prompt. You're welcome. David McCullough's John Adams, which really is a great book. McCullough's so great in that he rescues historical reputations.

00:50:31 Speaker_00
Harry Truman was way, his reputation was lost until McCullough came by. John Adams too.

00:50:39 Speaker_02
Favorite musician. Favorite musician? Favorite musician.

00:50:44 Speaker_00
Okay, you know who sends me?

00:50:45 Speaker_02
I can prompt you here, too. Okay, go ahead. You talk about Joni Mitchell in the book. Lover. Who else? Who else comes to mind?

00:50:52 Speaker_00
Okay, you know what? You know what I've been thinking a lot about? George Gershwin. I've been thinking a lot about Rhapsody in Blue and how it expressed America going up like a rocket and also how it helped America become itself in the 20th century.

00:51:10 Speaker_00
I love Gershwin. I love him tenderly. I want to hug George Gershwin and his brother Ira. Chef's kiss. Favorite TV show?

00:51:22 Speaker_02
I know you've been binging the classics recently.

00:51:24 Speaker_00
I've been binging the classics, The Sopranos, Mad Men, Succession, which I also believe is a classic. I'm leaving one of them out. The Sopranos is the greatest production of television in the 20th century.

00:51:43 Speaker_02
Favorite biblical teaching or phrase?

00:51:48 Speaker_00
Phrase. This is the day the Lord, this is the day the Lord made. Oh, Father, help me out. Rejoice. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day the Lord made. Let us rejoice and be glad of it.

00:52:06 Speaker_01
I knew it by heart.

00:52:08 Speaker_00
I was testing you. Have you seen the new Martha Stewart documentary? I did. I watched it the other night.

00:52:15 Speaker_02
Hero or villain? Come on, Peggy. We've talked about, I mean, Martha Stewart's The Stumber.

00:52:31 Speaker_00
Admirable. Anybody who creates something from nothing, and the thing she created was a thing that helped other people enjoy life more and celebrate it more. Terrific.

00:52:45 Speaker_02
Favorite columnist. Who do you read that's not you?

00:52:49 Speaker_00
Oh boy, I read them all. Favorite columnist, I read old columns too. Dorothy Thompson was a great columnist. In the New York Times, I love Ross Douthat. I love Maureen. When the Mideast is Exploding, I pay a lot of attention to Tom Friedman.

00:53:05 Speaker_00
I love Bill McGurn and Dan Henninger in the journal. I like Ezra Klein a lot. But I read a lot of the free press. I read a lot of substacks. I love Nellie Bowles on Fridays. Well, me too.

00:53:27 Speaker_02
But I also love her every day of the week.

00:53:28 Speaker_00
Yeah, I read a lot. I really do try to get a sense of what people are chatting about. And you get a sense of what's true and what's not true through other people thinking aloud. Okay, few last questions. Lightning, best thing about wasps.

00:53:43 Speaker_02
Best thing about wasps. Not the insect. Oh, my gosh. What's the best thing about wasps?

00:53:50 Speaker_00
They had rules of life that still pertain and are still helpful. Well, I could go on, but I was once with a gentleman who would qualify as a high wasp fellow. And we were at a party and a woman said,

00:54:12 Speaker_00
walked up and said something rather rude to me, and then was rude again. And I just wasn't having her guff.

00:54:19 Speaker_00
And I answered her point for point, and felt, and then she left, and I felt obscurely defeated, as if I'd done something wrong, but I couldn't tell what it was.

00:54:31 Speaker_00
And so I turned to my friend and I said, John, you know how to do what I just didn't do right. What would you have said? And he said, Oh, I would have raised my brows and said, how extraordinary. Honey, only a wasp can teach you that. I'm telling you.

00:54:52 Speaker_02
And he was so right. Nelly calls it debutanting and tells me I need to learn how to do it. Peggy, what's the best thing about Jews? Best thing about Jews?

00:55:03 Speaker_00
Warmth, family, family. Jews and Italians are the same people and they don't know it. It's all warmth and family and food and closeness. Best thing about New York. You love New York. I do. In New York,

00:55:19 Speaker_00
You are never lonely because it is a concentrated place where the people live close and they're happy to be there. And if you're feeling lonely, you can walk the streets and see the other people and actually talk to them. It has a beautiful park.

00:55:35 Speaker_00
It has beautiful boroughs. It is alive and we got to keep it alive. And that'll be a job in the future. How do you take your coffee? I take my coffee with milk and real sugar. Two sugars and lots of regular milk. Classic. What is your deli order?

00:55:54 Speaker_00
Deli order? Yeah. Oh, deli order. Hmm. I believe a deli order should be, it's 8.48 and you should ask for scrambled eggs and sausage on a roll, and they wrap it up

00:56:12 Speaker_00
in that silver paper, and you take it away, and then you eat it while having a paper cup of coffee, and you feel very happy. I love you, Peggy. Last few.

00:56:26 Speaker_02
Favorite guilty pleasure.

00:56:28 Speaker_00
Oh, I can tell you right away, it's Haagen-Dazs ice cream. It's vanilla. It's vanilla Haagen-Dazs ice cream. And I experiment on Amazon with getting exotic caramel sauces.

00:56:41 Speaker_00
And when I'm having a hard day, I actually really think it's okay because at 9.30 tonight, I'm gonna have vanilla Häagen-Dazs ice cream with caramel sauce.

00:56:49 Speaker_02
And you're gonna deserve it. You predicted Taylor Swift would be the person of the year a little while ago.

00:56:55 Speaker_00
Yes. Who should this year's person of the year be? You know who it's going to be. It's going to be the man who's had either the biggest comeback in American political history, Donald Trump, or the second biggest comeback since Richard Nixon and

00:57:10 Speaker_00
1968, but there's no way it won't be Trump. And I wonder what journalists are going to do to find new depths of his psyche, to plumb new depths. I mean, haven't we done this for 10 years now? Haven't we read Maggie Haberman's book?

00:57:26 Speaker_00
Don't we know what that is? So it's going to drive profilers crazy.

00:57:32 Speaker_00
And one of the great things about political figures is that rightly, rightly, rightly, most of them protect their zone of privacy by not letting too many reporters get too close and ask too many questions.

00:57:48 Speaker_00
They don't want to share their inner psyche, their inner wounds, their joys. Donald Trump will. His favorite thing is to talk to reporters, and very often about himself. Somebody said to me recently, but he never goes deep. Wrong.

00:58:07 Speaker_00
He goes to the very bottom of Donald Trump. Now that's not deep, but he shows you everything that is there. To me, he hides nothing.

00:58:19 Speaker_02
Last question. Your son recently became a parent. You are obviously a mother. What is the most important advice you have for parents?

00:58:30 Speaker_00
Well, let me tell you what it was like to meet my grandson for the first time. His name is Peter. And my daughter-in-law went into labor just a few days, a week before we were starting. We really expected it.

00:58:46 Speaker_00
But labor began, and my son texted me, and he said, we're here, and the baby's coming. And we were all waiting, all the parents, by the phone.

00:58:57 Speaker_00
And then my son, by about 2 o'clock in the morning, I was still awake, and he sent me a text and said, the doctors all say it's going to be a while, like it won't be till tomorrow morning. So Mom, go to sleep, and I'll talk to you tomorrow.

00:59:13 Speaker_00
I fell asleep at 2. I woke with a start about 4.08am, how odd that I remember that, and just put on the phone, which I was sleeping next to, and there was a picture of a little baby.

00:59:29 Speaker_00
And it was my grandson, Peter, who had just been born and wrapped up and had his picture taken. All I can tell you is that I got in the next day to see him. And everything you expect to be true is true. You see the baby and you just love the baby.

00:59:45 Speaker_00
You hold the baby. I found myself humming the chords of a song I had not thought of in 30 years and didn't know I remembered. It was a cheap, popular song of the late 1960s. It was a sentimental song, not a cool song.

01:00:08 Speaker_00
It was by a fella named, I think, Ray Price, and it was called My Cup Runneth Over. And it was just about feeling love. And I'm humming the chords of this to a baby and thinking at first, what are these the chords to?

01:00:23 Speaker_00
And then realizing, oh my God, it's that old song. Well, there you are. Funny how potent cheap music is.

01:00:36 Speaker_02
Peggy Noonan, thank you so much for making the time and thank you all so much for being here. Thank you. Thanks for listening. If you liked this episode, share it with your friends and family and use it to have a conversation of your own.

01:00:57 Speaker_02
This conversation was a live book club hosted in New York City. It's something we're doing at The Free Press more and more in which me, Michael Moynihan, and your other favorite free pressers are hosting conversations with authors across the country.

01:01:11 Speaker_02
We have many more down the pike. To stay up to date on upcoming book clubs and other live events, go to The Free Press' website at thefp.com and become a subscriber today. We'll see you next time.