It is Ryan Seacrest here.Everybody needs some variety in life.That's what I love about Chumba Casino.They know how to keep things fresh and exciting.All their games are free to play.Like Spin Slots, Bingo, and Solitaire.
You can claim free daily login bonuses too.And they release new games every week.So spice things up with ChumbaCasino.com now for your chance to redeem some serious prizes.Sponsored by Chumba Casino. No purchase necessary.
VGW Group, void where prohibited by law.18 plus terms and conditions apply.
Bada, bada boom, sold.Huh?Just sold my car on Carvana.Dropping it off and getting paid today.
What, you still haven't sold yours?You told me about it months ago.
Don't have another car yet?
I could trade it in for this car I love.
Come on, what are we waiting for?
Let's go.Whether you're looking to sell your car right now or just whenever feels right, go to carvana.com and sell your car the convenient way.Terms and conditions apply.Good morning, William.
How are you doing?I'm great.Thanks so much for having me on.I really appreciate it.
Dude, this book is so important because as a martial artist, the one thing that my Sabanim would always teach us is that if you don't know the history, you don't know the present.
And you're putting us in a place where it's time that we get to know the building blocks of where we are today.
I hope so.I think that's it matters.And I think there's great stories in here of this book that help anybody to meet their moment.
Yeah, because you know what, in all honesty, for even for the past two to three presidential elections, I have never seen as many former presidents coming together as one.You just don't hear of that kind of stuff.
And when you put all of these in your book, it's like they're all here.They're all here.We're going to talk about them.
That's, I mean, so when I started this process to think about leadership, I've been fascinated with decision-making my entire life, but this aspect of looking at presidents of why, what was it about them in their key moments of crisis?
What was elevated out of them in that moment?What was it?Was it a sense of courage?Was it optimism?Was it judgment?And I wanted to try to tease that out of these leaders to show that for our own purposes, to help us meet our own moment in that sense.
What can we learn from these leaders in those moments that'll help us in our own journeys?
I've always called it an outer body experience.Something happens inside their heart where all of a sudden it takes over.I mean, did you experience that in research?
A thousand percent.So I think that there's moments like Theodore Roosevelt who, 42 years old, was the vice president of the United States.William McKinley is assassinated and he's thrust into the White House.
Two months later, he gives a State of the Union address where he, something, issues that were intrinsically important to him was the eradication of natural resources and this aspect of
water and irrigation issues in the West and trying to turn growth into the West, to allow the West to grow.And he felt that that was the next phase in the American development.
He took on those issues at a moment where they weren't part of the mainstream of American history.I think there's lessons for any president or any of us that there are things that we can take on and have courage.
And what I showed in the book is that it was his courage to take on those issues.
And it really, it defined not only him, but it defined the United States for generations to come, because we're the benefit of all of that in terms of national parks and just the beauty of America that he was able to save by having that forethought and having the courage to act in that way.
Can you imagine sitting down with him and talking about the future?Because it seems like, yeah, sure, he knows about the past, but his vision to me was so far into the future.
I mean, look at what he did with the Panama Canal and see how important it is even today.Who would have ever sat down to have that conversation?
I mean, that's why he's one of the six people in this book.And I think he may be one of the, if not for me, one of the top in terms of that, because he just had a vision.
And it's interesting to think of what would have happened if he had run again in 2008.He had basically served the portion of William McKinley's term, and he had the ability to run again.
Ultimately, he did run again in 1912, but to think about where America could have gone for another four years of Theodore Roosevelt, I think it's a missed opportunity, I think.
But he is someone that not only just had forethought, but he was also just an incredible person.As they said, he was the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.
He just had that infectious personality, but he also had the ability to have vision.Honestly, that's a rare combination in our presidents.
Well, look at your own personal visions of forethought, because you've been with President Bush as well as Obama.That's two completely different playing fields and lenses.I mean, I can't imagine what you went through with your visions.
Certainly, I think you serve the leader and I think it's important to do, both of those leaders were doing the right thing.
And the things that I was working on were particular things that I felt very attached to, that I felt that was moving America forward.And I think that's, you get to see that leadership up close.
And I think that having those types of experiences are invaluable to writing a history like this.You're in the rooms where things were happening, things and decisions were happening.
And I think that that's one of the key takeaways for me, is because it helps color the narrative in this book, because you've walked those hallways and seen these things happen.
And I think those, I'm grateful for those experiences, because they've made me a better historian, but also a better leader.
How do you find focus in the lens of courage if you're in the center of controlled chaos?
I think that that's a great question.Look at someone like John Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
briefly during the book, but the sense of courage that he exhibited in those moments, I think, yeah, I think that there's a master's class in him in terms of nuclear annihilation and how close we came to that in that moment with the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
there's a lesson in there that if you're writing a second book here, a contributing second volume in this, someone like Kennedy and his decision-making and courage around the Cuban Missile Crisis, that would be front and center for me.
Wow.Mom used to tell me all the time that it's not just the President of the United States, it's the people that surround the President.Did you find that in your research?
And I think you see the people like George Washington after his first term, he wanted to retire, but he had his lieutenants, probably the best cabinet in American history and Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton talking him out of retiring because they needed him to keep the unity of the country together for four more years.
We were a nascent nation and we needed that maturity of four more years of his leadership.He got us through the Jay Treaty and a treaty with Britain that really lasted until the War of 1812.
But Britain has been our natural ally for two centuries or more.So he had forethought, like you talked about, that vision for where America needed to go.And I think Having lieutenants like that who can talk to you, who can give you good advice.
It's a lonely position, right?You're the president's by themselves.And I think having really good people around you is invaluable to being president.I've seen that up close and I would echo that.
Washington could have easily been a four-term president, but it took all the way up to FDR to get that.I mean, it's like, wow, it took that long to have a president stay in office that long.
Well, it's because people valued Washington's precedent.Thomas Jefferson had the ability, he was asked in 1808 whether he was going to run again.And he made clear, I'm paraphrasing, but very clear that Washington set the precedent for that.
And I think everyone honored that.Obviously, FDR was a different time.We were going through a Great Depression.We were going into a world war. World War II, he was the right leader at the right time to do that.
And I don't think anyone would balk at that time because they knew that he guided us through two of the most difficult, not only in the 20th century, but in our history, difficult crises of that time.
But also in 1951, America realized that a constitutional amendment was established to ensure that two terms.So that precedent is clear.
And the precedent is clear that in the United States Senate, where often there's not a lot of compromise, there's not a lot of agreement, that every year they read his farewell address, which came out of his decision to step down as a means to take his wisdom and his two-term precedent and what we can learn from that document in our own time.
And that's every year is either Republican or Democrat, it flips every year. reads that and expresses what that means in our own time.
And I think that president of Washington, I think was the most important decision by any president in American history because it set the tenor for what everything was.He was the first leader in 2000 years to give up power.
And what it did was show that the office didn't belong to one person, it belonged to the American people.
Step into the world of power, loyalty, and luck.I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse.With family, cannolis and spins mean everything.Now, you wanna get mixed up in the family business.Introducing The Godfather at champacasino.com.
Test your luck in the shadowy world of The Godfather slot.Someday, I will call upon you to do a service for me.Play The Godfather now at champacasino.com.Welcome to the family.
No purchase necessary.VDW group.Void where prohibited by law.18 plus.Terms and conditions apply.
Nah, not quite. Eh, sell my car in Carvana.It's just not quite the right time.
Crazy coincidence.I just sold my car to Carvana.
I told you about it two days ago.
When you know, you know.You know, I'm even dropping it off at one of those sweet car vending machines and getting paid today.
Oh, great deal.Come on.What's your heart saying?
You're right.When you know, you know.
Sold.Whether you're looking to sell your car right now or just whenever feels right, go to carvana.com and sell your car the convenient way.Terms and conditions apply.
You know, I've been blessed with the opportunity to talk to a lot of presidential speechwriters.So I have to ask this question because I don't know the answer.Who wrote the fear itself speech?
So it was it was a speechwriter in the in in in. in the office of the speech writing that wrote that speech.It was his first big speech of the administration.He had been with Reagan for a number of years at that point, probably five or six years.
And it didn't have his official moment or speech in that speech.
in that, and when he started writing that, that was supposed to be the aspect of writing for, he knew he was writing for history here because Reagan wanted to say what he wanted to say there.
And what was interesting about that was the fact that he had to go toe-to-toe with the National Security Council, end with the State Department because they didn't want Reagan to say, tear down that wall.
And he felt strongly when he went in a pre-advanced meeting, Mr. Robinson went in pre-meeting to Berlin.That's what people, people didn't want to see the wall anymore.And that's what Reagan understood that his own bureaucracy didn't understand.
And it took him standing up to have that message and Reagan backing him up despite the whole interagency process saying, don't say this, don't antagonize Gorbachev.So, Robinson was very clear about that.And Peter Robinson, in that sense,
Really helped make history in his own way along with with with Ronald Reagan because 29 months later the wall fell see that this is the very reason why this book is so important to today's modern-day history because if I were to sit down with a Generation alpha or even Z or X right now?
They would not understand because I live this Ronald Reagan moment I was there when when that speech was done and everything that took place afterwards and when that wall came down and and your book really gives it back to us going
Hey, maybe I need to do a little bit more research on this so I too can experience it in my own way.
And that's the goal of this book.This book was to bring leaders and readers back into the spaces and places where history happened, where Ronald Reagan made the decision.
You sit with him in the Oval Office when he makes his decision to say, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.You're there on the, the storm brewing outside as it happens in the summer in Washington, D.C., those summer storms.
and you feel that energy from him saying that this is what I want to say and that's what Peter Robinson built the speech around was this aspect of that.
I think it's helpful for leaders and readers and students to understand what was it about Reagan that made him say that.It was his optimism.It was a hopeful hopeful spirit in terms of telling Gorbachev to do that.It wasn't confrontational.
He looked Gorbachev in the eyes during those summits.He got to know the man.What was supposed to be a 15-minute meeting with Gorbachev in his first summit, he extended to over 75 minutes because he wanted to get to know him.
He wanted to do that personal diplomacy. And that's, I think that's what matters because this book brings out the drama, the nuance, and that's what I was hoping to do, exactly what you were saying.
As a historian, as somebody who is in love with the history of our government, how do you feel in moments of, here are these people that had well-scripted out lectures and speeches and positive attitudes, to somebody who doesn't even want a teleprompter, to somebody that doesn't even want a script?
It's like, I can't, I feel so sorry for historians right now because it's like, there's no documentation.
I mean, I think it's interesting for historians now because I had the benefit of looking at Thomas Jefferson and George Washington's letters, or even Abraham Lincoln in today's society.I mean, it's text.There's the social media aspect of this where
to have to figure out how to get that information about what presidents were thinking and how they were.
We have memos and there'll be presidential memos, but there's so much that happens outside of that or people picking up a phone and calling someone and we don't have a transcript of that.So, I think history will be interesting writing that.
I think we'll rely on oral histories.We'll rely on piecing this together in many ways.
But there's so much of what is happening in the recent presidencies that we're going to miss, especially if presidential administrations are not documenting that stuff.So there's something to be missed there for sure.
Thomas Jefferson, would you say that when he invested in the West, that was a Beatles moment because it changed everything?
changed everything.It changed that we became moving towards a continental nation.
It ultimately became, James Polk made us a continental nation, but this gave us, it removed a barrier of any threat from a foreign nation in the continental United States by getting rid of France as a threat to us in a geopolitical in the space.
And I think what's interesting about not only Jefferson's take on that and what he had done to make America a continental nation, but it was also a hundred years later, Theodore Roosevelt and his work around the stewarding our natural resources and expanding the West to have irrigation and have growth.
that really was, in my view, was kind of rounded out Jefferson.So it gave us the great national parks that we see today that Jefferson would have loved.I mean, he himself was a naturalist in that sense.
So it really took 100 years for Theodore Roosevelt to kind of bring us full circle, but certainly made America the form and shape that it is today.
For Abraham Lincoln to have his golden moment, wasn't there some darkness going on around him for him to really kind of get into that moment to put that speech together?
Certainly he lost his son a year earlier.His other son was sick, on the verge of, in that day, could have died while he was on the train ride to Gettysburg.He was getting updates from via telegram from Washington, from his wife.
He wanted those updates.And before he gave his speech at the cemetery dedication in Gettysburg, he found out that his son was feeling better. and that certainly lifted his spirit himself.
And interestingly, he left Gettysburg and became really, not deathly sick, but very sick himself with a form of, I think it was a form of smallpox or some kind of variation of that after Gettysburg.
But he was going through a period of mourning when he was on his horseback as part of the procession to the Gettysburg speech site, he had a black armband around his arm in memory of his son.
And I think he was dealing with that in the middle of the Civil War.And you see the pictures of Lincoln, right?In the sense of, When he came into office in 1861, he still looked fresh.
He had that beard, but by 1863 and even later as 1864, 65, you see that how that three, four years transformed him physically.
And when you take on the death of your children and trying to keep the union together was an incredible period of time for Abraham Lincoln.
I'll tell you what, one of the things that really inspired me about this book, and you're going to think I'm a total freak here, is the more and more I read about these presidents, the more and more I went onto Google to see their handwriting.
And you were there.You got to study all of this stuff, because there's something to be said about the handwriting of a president.
I think so too, yeah.I mean, I think if you look at even today, you see someone like President Trump has a very unique handwriting as well.And I think that there's aspects of that.Yeah, I think, yes, I totally agree with you.
It's not particularly a focus in this book about that, but I would say that having looked at these and seeing presidents, I think if you put the 46 across the board, 45, 46 across the board, I think they're own unique.
And I think there's probably a book in there, right?That could get at the psychology of that in some capacity.So maybe we'll save that book for another time.
You got to come back to this show anytime in the future.The door is always going to be open for you.
I'm grateful to you for that.That's very kind.Well, you be brilliant today, okay? Thanks so much, you too.
Every day when you log in to ChumbaCasino.com, the ultimate online social casino, you get a free daily bonus.Imagine if you got daily bonuses in other parts of your life.I chose french fries over loaded french fries.
I asked Stuart from accounting about his weekend, even though I don't care.
I updated my operating system without having to call tech support.
Collect your free daily bonus at ChumbaCasino.com now.
Nah, not quite.What's up?Sell my car in Carvana.It's just not quite the right time.
Crazy coincidence.I just sold my car to Carvana.
I told you about it two days ago.
When you know, you know.You know, I'm even dropping it off at one of those sweet car vending machines and getting paid today.
That's a good deal.Great deal.
Come on, what's your heart saying?
You're right.When you know, you know.Sold.
Whether you're looking to sell your car right now or just whenever feels right, go to carvana.com and sell your car the convenient way.Terms and conditions apply.
Sign in
