WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.819 Welcome back to another deep dive. Today, we 00:00:02.819 --> 00:00:05.799 are opening up a file that I think is, well, 00:00:05.940 --> 00:00:08.839 it's arguably one of the most misunderstood in 00:00:08.839 --> 00:00:10.900 American political history. I'd agree with that. 00:00:11.039 --> 00:00:13.320 If you lived through the 1980s, you lived through 00:00:13.320 --> 00:00:16.019 this. If you've studied history, even casually, 00:00:16.140 --> 00:00:18.199 you've seen the photos. Yeah. We are talking 00:00:18.199 --> 00:00:22.059 about Nancy Reagan. Nancy Reagan, a figure who 00:00:22.059 --> 00:00:25.679 is somehow... Both incredibly visible. I mean, 00:00:25.699 --> 00:00:27.739 you can probably picture that specific shade 00:00:27.739 --> 00:00:30.039 of red dress right now. Oh, absolutely. And yet 00:00:30.039 --> 00:00:32.859 for a long time, she remained, you know, totally 00:00:32.859 --> 00:00:36.259 opaque to the public. Exactly. I feel like culturally 00:00:36.259 --> 00:00:38.780 we have these two cardboard cutouts of her and 00:00:38.780 --> 00:00:40.780 they just don't seem to fit together. Right. 00:00:40.859 --> 00:00:43.460 On one side, you have the adoring wife. You know 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:45.740 the look. It actually has a name. The Gaze. The 00:00:45.740 --> 00:00:48.340 Gaze. Yes. Staring up at Ronald Reagan like he's 00:00:48.340 --> 00:00:50.399 the only person in the universe. Totally submissive. 00:00:50.399 --> 00:00:52.700 Just happy to be there. Right. The devoted helpmate. 00:00:53.259 --> 00:00:56.079 The traditionalist who just wanted to bake cookies, 00:00:56.140 --> 00:00:58.060 though she probably didn't actually bake them 00:00:58.060 --> 00:01:00.659 herself. Probably not. And support her man. That 00:01:00.659 --> 00:01:02.920 was the image she projected. And then on the 00:01:02.920 --> 00:01:05.180 other side, you have the caricature that the 00:01:05.180 --> 00:01:08.780 media and her critics built. Queen Nancy, the 00:01:08.780 --> 00:01:12.579 woman with a $200 ,000 chana, the designer gowns, 00:01:12.579 --> 00:01:15.579 the just say no finger wagging, and the woman 00:01:15.579 --> 00:01:18.340 who supposedly ran the White House with an iron 00:01:18.340 --> 00:01:21.609 fist. And the astrologer. We can never. ever 00:01:21.609 --> 00:01:24.329 forget the astrologer how could we i mean that 00:01:24.329 --> 00:01:26.689 is the plot twist to end all plot twists it really 00:01:26.689 --> 00:01:28.909 is but here's the thing when we actually went 00:01:28.909 --> 00:01:31.870 through the stack of biographies the memoirs 00:01:31.870 --> 00:01:37.349 from staff the declassified schedules those caricatures 00:01:37.349 --> 00:01:39.549 just fall apart they do or at least they turn 00:01:39.549 --> 00:01:41.689 out to be masks for something much more interesting 00:01:41.689 --> 00:01:44.980 and much more complex. What you find when you 00:01:44.980 --> 00:01:46.640 dig into the archives is that she wasn't just 00:01:46.640 --> 00:01:49.120 a wife and she wasn't just a socialite. She was, 00:01:49.200 --> 00:01:51.620 in many practical ways, a co -president. And 00:01:51.620 --> 00:01:53.439 I don't use that term lightly. It is a heavy 00:01:53.439 --> 00:01:55.459 term. Yeah. But looking at the evidence firing 00:01:55.459 --> 00:01:57.799 chiefs of staff, dictating the president's schedule 00:01:57.799 --> 00:02:00.239 down to the minute, reshaping foreign policy 00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:02.200 toward the Soviet Union. I mean, it's hard to 00:02:02.200 --> 00:02:05.459 argue against it. Exactly. So that is our mission 00:02:05.459 --> 00:02:08.020 for this deep dive. We want to move past the 00:02:08.020 --> 00:02:11.000 caricature and really unpack the psychology of 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:13.419 Nancy Reagan. We're talking about a woman driven 00:02:13.419 --> 00:02:16.719 by a fierce, almost terrifying need for security 00:02:16.719 --> 00:02:19.479 and control. And we need to understand how that 00:02:19.479 --> 00:02:22.539 specific psychological need shaped the American 00:02:22.539 --> 00:02:25.219 presidency in the 1980s. To understand that, 00:02:25.280 --> 00:02:27.800 though, we can't start in the White House. We 00:02:27.800 --> 00:02:29.699 can't even start in Hollywood. We have to go 00:02:29.699 --> 00:02:32.199 back to a very unstable childhood that, well, 00:02:32.240 --> 00:02:34.280 it effectively created the Nancy Reagan we know. 00:02:34.889 --> 00:02:36.830 Because she wasn't born into power. No, not at 00:02:36.830 --> 00:02:39.210 all. And this is the part that usually surprises 00:02:39.210 --> 00:02:41.870 people who only know the Queen Nancy era. She 00:02:41.870 --> 00:02:43.909 was born Anne Frances Robbins in New York City, 00:02:44.030 --> 00:02:47.750 July 6th, 1921. Though in classic Hollywood style, 00:02:47.909 --> 00:02:51.099 she often told people she was born in 1923. A 00:02:51.099 --> 00:02:53.199 little resume editing right from the start. I 00:02:53.199 --> 00:02:55.699 love it. Exactly. Control the narrative from 00:02:55.699 --> 00:02:58.479 day one. But the key event here isn't the date. 00:02:58.580 --> 00:03:01.360 It's the family dynamic. Her father, Ken Robbins, 00:03:01.479 --> 00:03:04.319 was a used car salesman. And her mother, Edith 00:03:04.319 --> 00:03:06.780 Luckett, was an actress. They split up pretty 00:03:06.780 --> 00:03:08.419 much immediately after she was born. And the 00:03:08.419 --> 00:03:10.580 father. He just removed himself from the picture. 00:03:10.979 --> 00:03:13.759 Vanished. So abandonment number one. Right. But 00:03:13.759 --> 00:03:16.580 then comes the second, perhaps more significant 00:03:16.580 --> 00:03:20.229 blow. Her mother, Edith. is a working actress 00:03:20.229 --> 00:03:24.050 in the 1920s that doesn't mean glamorous trailers 00:03:24.050 --> 00:03:27.030 and movie sets that means the vaudeville circuit 00:03:27.030 --> 00:03:30.610 that means touring the road it's a grind it's 00:03:30.610 --> 00:03:33.169 a grind and you can't take a toddler on the road 00:03:33.169 --> 00:03:37.270 in those conditions so for six years nancy or 00:03:37.270 --> 00:03:39.710 anne as she was technically named is left with 00:03:39.710 --> 00:03:42.370 an aunt in bethesda maryland that's a long time 00:03:42.370 --> 00:03:44.250 for a child to be separated from their mother 00:03:44.250 --> 00:03:46.389 right especially in those developmental years 00:03:46.389 --> 00:03:49.020 we're talking ages Two to seven or eight. Exactly. 00:03:49.180 --> 00:03:52.020 It's an eternity in kid time. She would travel 00:03:52.020 --> 00:03:53.719 to New York occasionally to see her mother on 00:03:53.719 --> 00:03:55.780 stage, and she talks about watching her from 00:03:55.780 --> 00:03:58.120 the wings. Wow. There's this really poignant 00:03:58.120 --> 00:04:00.259 image she describes in her memoirs of watching 00:04:00.259 --> 00:04:02.319 her mother putting on makeup, transforming into 00:04:02.319 --> 00:04:04.599 someone else. And little Nancy would pretend 00:04:04.599 --> 00:04:06.780 to be an actress herself. Of course. She was 00:04:06.780 --> 00:04:08.520 emulating the mother she couldn't live with. 00:04:08.639 --> 00:04:11.139 It sounds like she was trying to become the person 00:04:11.139 --> 00:04:13.620 her mother would want to be with. Or maybe trying 00:04:13.620 --> 00:04:15.960 to speak her language. Or trying to enter her 00:04:15.960 --> 00:04:18.540 mother's world the only way she knew how. You 00:04:18.540 --> 00:04:20.680 know, historians and psychologists who have analyzed 00:04:20.680 --> 00:04:23.500 her life point to this unstable environment as 00:04:23.500 --> 00:04:25.759 the root of her lifelong craving for security. 00:04:26.120 --> 00:04:28.300 It makes sense. She learned early on that people 00:04:28.300 --> 00:04:31.180 leave, that security is fragile, and that you 00:04:31.180 --> 00:04:34.220 have to work very hard, you have to perform effectively 00:04:34.220 --> 00:04:37.910 to keep the people you love close to you. But 00:04:37.910 --> 00:04:41.250 then her fortune changes. I mean, dramatically. 00:04:41.370 --> 00:04:43.829 It's like a plot twist in a movie where the orphan 00:04:43.829 --> 00:04:46.519 suddenly finds out their royalty. It really is. 00:04:46.620 --> 00:04:49.699 In 1929, her mother remarries. And not just to 00:04:49.699 --> 00:04:53.000 anyone. She marries Loyal Davis, a very wealthy, 00:04:53.139 --> 00:04:55.600 very prominent neurosurgeon in Chicago. Talk 00:04:55.600 --> 00:04:58.339 about a status upgrade. Massive. They move to 00:04:58.339 --> 00:05:01.000 Chicago. And suddenly, Nancy isn't the Onandan 00:05:01.000 --> 00:05:02.959 kid in Maryland anymore. She's living in high 00:05:02.959 --> 00:05:05.420 society. She's attending the girls' Latin school. 00:05:05.620 --> 00:05:07.839 She's living in a luxury apartment on Lakeshore 00:05:07.839 --> 00:05:09.600 Drive. Yeah, and she gets a new father figure. 00:05:10.120 --> 00:05:12.879 Loyal Davis. And the name Loyal is almost too 00:05:12.879 --> 00:05:15.170 perfect, isn't it? A little on the nose. He was 00:05:15.170 --> 00:05:17.949 a man of extreme discipline, arch -conservative 00:05:17.949 --> 00:05:20.870 values, and rigidity. He was the establishment. 00:05:21.170 --> 00:05:24.269 And Nancy didn't rebel against him. She worshipped 00:05:24.269 --> 00:05:26.610 him. She wanted to be his daughter. Desperately. 00:05:26.810 --> 00:05:30.750 At age 14, Loyal Davis formally adopts her. She 00:05:30.750 --> 00:05:34.089 becomes Nancy Davis. She effectively erases Anne 00:05:34.089 --> 00:05:36.670 Frances Robbins. A completely new identity. She 00:05:36.670 --> 00:05:39.149 gains the security, the status, and the ideology 00:05:39.149 --> 00:05:41.569 that would define the rest of her life. It's 00:05:41.569 --> 00:05:43.589 fascinating because usually when a stepparent 00:05:43.589 --> 00:05:46.689 comes in with strict rules, the teenager rebels. 00:05:47.069 --> 00:05:50.889 But she leaned in. She leaned in because he offered 00:05:50.889 --> 00:05:53.230 safety. He offered a world that wasn't going 00:05:53.230 --> 00:05:56.329 to disappear. And he imprinted his conservative 00:05:56.329 --> 00:05:59.129 political views on her very, very deeply. It's 00:05:59.129 --> 00:06:00.810 interesting, though, because she still had that 00:06:00.810 --> 00:06:03.689 connection to the acting world through her mother. 00:06:03.790 --> 00:06:06.250 I read that her godmother was Alan Nazimova. 00:06:06.370 --> 00:06:09.230 Which is a huge deal. Alan Asimov was a legend 00:06:09.230 --> 00:06:11.970 of the silent film era. She was eccentric. She 00:06:11.970 --> 00:06:14.209 was famous. She was wealthy. And because of her 00:06:14.209 --> 00:06:16.069 mother's connections, young Nancy is hanging 00:06:16.069 --> 00:06:18.089 out with people like Spencer Tracy and Walter 00:06:18.089 --> 00:06:20.810 Houston. So it wasn't just a fantasy. It wasn't 00:06:20.810 --> 00:06:23.410 just a fantasy. It was her social circle. She 00:06:23.410 --> 00:06:26.949 was straddling these two worlds, the rigid conservative 00:06:26.949 --> 00:06:30.029 wealth of Chicago and the glamorous artistic 00:06:30.029 --> 00:06:33.029 chaos of the theater elite. So it makes sense 00:06:33.029 --> 00:06:35.069 that she heads to Hollywood. She goes to Smith 00:06:35.069 --> 00:06:37.990 College first, studies drama, and then heads 00:06:37.990 --> 00:06:40.569 west. But she wasn't exactly a superstar, was 00:06:40.569 --> 00:06:43.810 she? She was. Solid. She signed with MGM in 1949. 00:06:44.050 --> 00:06:46.750 But if you look at her filmography, she was almost 00:06:46.750 --> 00:06:50.129 immediately typecast. She played the loyal wife 00:06:50.129 --> 00:06:52.550 and mother. Which is foreshadowing at its finest. 00:06:52.689 --> 00:06:54.589 It really is. She was in movies like The Next 00:06:54.589 --> 00:06:57.300 Voice You Hear. where she plays a pregnant housewife 00:06:57.300 --> 00:06:59.759 who hears God on the radio. It's very wholesome, 00:06:59.899 --> 00:07:02.879 very 1950s. Or Donovan's Brain, which is this 00:07:02.879 --> 00:07:05.399 sci -fi B -movie where she plays the baffled 00:07:05.399 --> 00:07:07.639 wife of a scientist whose body is being possessed 00:07:07.639 --> 00:07:11.040 by a disembodied brain in a tank. Baffled wife 00:07:11.040 --> 00:07:13.199 seems to be the lane Hollywood picked for her. 00:07:13.529 --> 00:07:15.730 She was the reactor, never the actor, if you 00:07:15.730 --> 00:07:17.329 know what I mean. Critics were actually kind. 00:07:17.509 --> 00:07:19.370 The New York Times called her delightful and 00:07:19.370 --> 00:07:21.649 convincing. But she wasn't setting the world 00:07:21.649 --> 00:07:24.029 on fire. She wasn't Marilyn Monroe. Not at all. 00:07:24.370 --> 00:07:27.230 She famously said later, I was never really a 00:07:27.230 --> 00:07:30.290 career woman, but became one only because I hadn't 00:07:30.290 --> 00:07:32.350 found the man I wanted to marry. That brings 00:07:32.350 --> 00:07:34.389 us to the meet cute, or maybe the meet scheme, 00:07:34.529 --> 00:07:36.430 depending on how cynical you want to be. This 00:07:36.430 --> 00:07:38.470 is one of the great debates among biographers. 00:07:38.709 --> 00:07:41.949 So it's 1949. The Red Scare is heating up in 00:07:41.949 --> 00:07:44.899 Hollywood. The blacklist is real. Very real. 00:07:45.079 --> 00:07:47.980 Nancy Davis sees her name on a list of communist 00:07:47.980 --> 00:07:50.740 sympathizers in a Hollywood trade paper. Which 00:07:50.740 --> 00:07:53.939 would be a career killer. Yeah. Even for a solid 00:07:53.939 --> 00:07:56.139 actress. Absolutely. Now, it turns out it was 00:07:56.139 --> 00:07:58.699 a different Nancy Davis. Common name. But she 00:07:58.699 --> 00:08:01.699 is frantic. So who does she call to clear her 00:08:01.699 --> 00:08:03.740 name? The president of the Screen Actors Guild. 00:08:03.939 --> 00:08:06.639 Ronald Reagan. Of course. She asks for a meeting 00:08:06.639 --> 00:08:08.720 to get this cleared up. They meet for dinner. 00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:11.680 He explains it's a mistake. The guild will protect 00:08:11.680 --> 00:08:14.139 her. He'll take care of it. And the rest is history. 00:08:14.300 --> 00:08:17.079 But I feel a but coming. But some biographers 00:08:17.079 --> 00:08:19.220 argue she knew exactly what she was doing. She 00:08:19.220 --> 00:08:21.540 was the daughter of loyal Davis. She was well 00:08:21.540 --> 00:08:24.399 connected. She could have fixed a clerical error 00:08:24.399 --> 00:08:26.480 regarding her name without a personal dinner 00:08:26.480 --> 00:08:28.860 meeting with the president of the guild. The 00:08:28.860 --> 00:08:31.779 suspicion is that she used the scare as a pretext 00:08:31.779 --> 00:08:34.299 to get in a room with him. She saw her target. 00:08:35.059 --> 00:08:37.460 Ronald Reagan was handsome. He was charming. 00:08:37.580 --> 00:08:39.539 And he was a leader. He was the ultimate security 00:08:39.539 --> 00:08:43.120 object. She later said, my life began with Ronnie. 00:08:43.320 --> 00:08:45.299 And I think she meant that quite literally. She 00:08:45.299 --> 00:08:47.480 felt like a half person until she found him. 00:08:47.600 --> 00:08:53.100 So they get married in 1952. And this detail 00:08:53.100 --> 00:08:56.179 stuck out to me. The wedding had only two guests. 00:08:56.730 --> 00:08:58.730 William Holden and Brenda Marshall. That's it. 00:08:58.730 --> 00:09:01.190 That's it. No family, no big reception. That 00:09:01.190 --> 00:09:03.789 feels incredibly isolated for two Hollywood actors 00:09:03.789 --> 00:09:05.970 who know everyone. It sets the tone for their 00:09:05.970 --> 00:09:08.450 entire life. It was an exclusive club of two. 00:09:08.690 --> 00:09:11.169 They were notoriously insular. They didn't really 00:09:11.169 --> 00:09:13.470 need other people. They didn't have a wide circle 00:09:13.470 --> 00:09:16.090 of intimate friends who were let inside. It was 00:09:16.090 --> 00:09:18.850 Nancy and Ronnie against the world. They were 00:09:18.850 --> 00:09:20.889 total opposites, though. How did that dynamic 00:09:20.889 --> 00:09:24.610 work? On the surface, yes. Ronald was the eternal 00:09:24.610 --> 00:09:27.590 optimist. He was sunny. He believed things would 00:09:27.590 --> 00:09:30.110 just work out. He was the guy who could sleep 00:09:30.110 --> 00:09:33.970 soundly before a big speech. Nancy was the worrier. 00:09:34.250 --> 00:09:37.090 She was the pessimist. She was the one anticipating 00:09:37.090 --> 00:09:39.429 the disaster. She did the worrying so he didn't 00:09:39.429 --> 00:09:41.990 have to. Exactly. They completed each other. 00:09:42.230 --> 00:09:45.190 He could float because she was holding the string, 00:09:45.309 --> 00:09:48.370 checking for storm clouds. But that puts a tremendous 00:09:48.370 --> 00:09:51.789 burden on her. If he is the good cop of his own 00:09:51.789 --> 00:09:54.629 life. She has to be the bad cop. And that intensity, 00:09:54.789 --> 00:09:58.929 that us against the world vibe, that had to have 00:09:58.929 --> 00:10:01.629 fallout. And the fallout usually lands on the 00:10:01.629 --> 00:10:03.370 kids. It was very difficult for the children. 00:10:03.429 --> 00:10:04.690 You have to remember the structure. You have 00:10:04.690 --> 00:10:06.789 Michael and Maureen, Ronald's kids with Jane 00:10:06.789 --> 00:10:08.750 Wyman, his first wife. Right. And then Nancy 00:10:08.750 --> 00:10:10.750 and Ronald have Patty and Ron. The relationship 00:10:10.750 --> 00:10:14.470 there was strained, is putting it mildly. Patty 00:10:14.470 --> 00:10:16.330 Davis in particular seems to have been a lightning 00:10:16.330 --> 00:10:19.029 rod. Patty was the rebel. She completely rejected 00:10:19.029 --> 00:10:21.820 their conservatism. In the 60s and 70s, she went 00:10:21.820 --> 00:10:23.940 full counterculture. I read she lived with the 00:10:23.940 --> 00:10:27.200 Eagles for a while. She did. She joined the nuclear 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:30.759 freeze movement, which was explicitly protesting 00:10:30.759 --> 00:10:33.399 her father's policies. She wrote books that were 00:10:33.399 --> 00:10:35.740 very critical of her parents, portraying Nancy 00:10:35.740 --> 00:10:38.559 as cold and controlling. For long periods, Nancy 00:10:38.559 --> 00:10:40.860 was estranged from her children. It feeds into 00:10:40.860 --> 00:10:42.759 that Queen Nancy narrative later that she was 00:10:42.759 --> 00:10:46.029 cold, but inside the marriage, it was warm. They 00:10:46.029 --> 00:10:48.289 were famously affectionate. He called her Mommy. 00:10:48.470 --> 00:10:50.870 She called him Ronnie. Mommy, great. It was a 00:10:50.870 --> 00:10:52.830 closed ledge of affection that didn't always 00:10:52.830 --> 00:10:55.990 extend to the next generation. They were so focused 00:10:55.990 --> 00:10:58.629 on each other, the kids often felt like interruptions. 00:10:58.789 --> 00:11:01.830 So Ronald moves from acting to politics. Yeah. 00:11:01.889 --> 00:11:04.090 And Nancy becomes the first lady of California 00:11:04.090 --> 00:11:07.720 in 1967. Was she ready for that? She was reluctant. 00:11:07.799 --> 00:11:09.860 She didn't love the campaigning. She didn't like 00:11:09.860 --> 00:11:12.379 sharing him. But once she was in, she was fierce. 00:11:12.779 --> 00:11:15.200 And this is where we see the first flashes of 00:11:15.200 --> 00:11:17.039 the controversy that would follow her to Washington. 00:11:17.179 --> 00:11:19.460 The house, right. The governor's mansion in Sacramento. 00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:22.120 It was an old Victorian house. Nancy took one 00:11:22.120 --> 00:11:25.139 look at it and basically said. No way. Not happened. 00:11:25.259 --> 00:11:27.519 She called it a fire hazard, said it wasn't fit 00:11:27.519 --> 00:11:30.259 for a family, so they moved to a wealthy suburb 00:11:30.259 --> 00:11:32.139 instead. Which I'm sure went over great with 00:11:32.139 --> 00:11:34.980 the taxpayers. Critics called her snobbish. It 00:11:34.980 --> 00:11:37.399 reinforced this idea that she was too good for 00:11:37.399 --> 00:11:39.399 the people's house. It was the first time the 00:11:39.399 --> 00:11:41.139 public started to see her as high maintenance. 00:11:41.539 --> 00:11:45.980 And then came the press. In 1968, Joan Didion, 00:11:46.139 --> 00:11:48.340 I mean one of the sharpest writers of the century, 00:11:48.500 --> 00:11:52.059 wrote a piece called Pretty Nancy. Ooh. That 00:11:52.059 --> 00:11:54.340 sounds like a compliment, but knowing Joan Didion. 00:11:54.340 --> 00:11:56.259 It's loaded. It was definitely not a compliment. 00:11:57.120 --> 00:11:59.779 Didion spent a day with Nancy and wrote this 00:11:59.779 --> 00:12:03.220 scathing profile. She portrayed Nancy as artificial, 00:12:03.559 --> 00:12:05.860 out of touch, basically a plastic doll with a 00:12:05.860 --> 00:12:08.840 frozen smile. Wow. She described Nancy plucking 00:12:08.840 --> 00:12:11.039 imaginary lint off her dress while talking about 00:12:11.039 --> 00:12:14.340 the poor. That ladle artificial stuck. And it 00:12:14.340 --> 00:12:16.559 hurt Nancy deeply. It made her incredibly defensive 00:12:16.559 --> 00:12:19.019 through the media, a grudge she carried all the 00:12:19.019 --> 00:12:21.120 way to the White House. Let's jump to that transition, 00:12:21.299 --> 00:12:24.370 the 1980 election. Reagan wins. They arrive in 00:12:24.370 --> 00:12:27.629 Washington in 1981, and the vibe change from 00:12:27.629 --> 00:12:31.200 the Carters to the Reagans was significant. Whiplash. 00:12:31.340 --> 00:12:34.480 Absolute whiplash. Jimmy Carter was the guy carrying 00:12:34.480 --> 00:12:36.759 his own luggage, turning down the thermostat 00:12:36.759 --> 00:12:38.759 in the White House, wearing cardigans to save 00:12:38.759 --> 00:12:42.340 energy. The malaise era. The mood was austerity. 00:12:42.460 --> 00:12:44.799 The Reagans wanted to bring back the glamour. 00:12:44.799 --> 00:12:47.500 They were thinking Kennedy -esque Camelot. But 00:12:47.500 --> 00:12:49.559 the timing was terrible. Because the economy 00:12:49.559 --> 00:12:52.200 was in the tank. A deep recession. People were 00:12:52.200 --> 00:12:55.360 losing jobs. Interest rates were sky high. And 00:12:55.360 --> 00:12:58.019 here comes Nancy arriving in town, deciding the 00:12:58.019 --> 00:13:00.460 White House is in disrepair, which to be fair 00:13:00.460 --> 00:13:03.320 to her, it actually was, and launching a massive 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:06.590 renovation. And then. The China. Oh, the China. 00:13:06.929 --> 00:13:09.809 This is the stuff of PR nightmares. It is taught 00:13:09.809 --> 00:13:12.029 in crisis management classes on what not to do. 00:13:12.149 --> 00:13:14.769 She ordered a new state China service from Lenox. 00:13:14.870 --> 00:13:19.490 4 ,370 pieces, red with etched gold bands. And 00:13:19.490 --> 00:13:24.789 the price tag. $209 ,508. Over $200 ,000 for 00:13:24.789 --> 00:13:28.710 plates. In 1981, money. Now here's the nuance. 00:13:28.929 --> 00:13:31.620 This was paid for by... Private donations. It 00:13:31.620 --> 00:13:33.480 wasn't tax dollars. Okay, that's an important 00:13:33.480 --> 00:13:35.580 distinction. The Knapp Foundation paid for it. 00:13:35.740 --> 00:13:39.059 Yeah. But the optics, absolute disaster. Because 00:13:39.059 --> 00:13:41.299 at the exact same time this news breaks, the 00:13:41.299 --> 00:13:43.539 Reagan administration is proposing budget cuts 00:13:43.539 --> 00:13:46.100 to school lunches. Oh, right. This is the infamous 00:13:46.100 --> 00:13:49.360 ketchup is a vegetable moment. Exactly. The administration 00:13:49.360 --> 00:13:52.120 proposed classifying ketchup and pickle relish 00:13:52.120 --> 00:13:54.700 as vegetables to save money on school lunch requirements. 00:13:55.120 --> 00:13:58.639 So the media juxtaposes these two things. Nancy's 00:13:58.639 --> 00:14:01.679 $200 ,000 gold -rimmed china versus classifying 00:14:01.679 --> 00:14:03.840 ketchup as a vegetable for poor kids. That's 00:14:03.840 --> 00:14:07.240 brutal. It solidified the Queen Nancy nickname. 00:14:08.139 --> 00:14:10.120 She was seen as Marie Antoinette. And the clothes 00:14:10.120 --> 00:14:13.139 didn't help. No, she loved fashion. Reagan red 00:14:13.139 --> 00:14:15.820 became her signature color. She wore Galanos, 00:14:16.019 --> 00:14:18.980 Bill Blass, Oscar de la Renta. The problem was 00:14:18.980 --> 00:14:21.259 she wasn't just buying them. She was borrowing 00:14:21.259 --> 00:14:24.039 them. And borrowing is in heavy air quotes here. 00:14:24.139 --> 00:14:26.860 Heavy air quotes. She would accept thousands 00:14:26.860 --> 00:14:29.320 of dollars in designer gowns. She claimed they 00:14:29.320 --> 00:14:31.340 were loans to promote American fashion and that 00:14:31.340 --> 00:14:34.039 she would return them. But often she didn't or 00:14:34.039 --> 00:14:36.320 she kept them for a long time without disclosing 00:14:36.320 --> 00:14:38.600 them. And that's not legal. And that violated 00:14:38.600 --> 00:14:40.879 the Ethics and Government Act. Did she ever get 00:14:40.879 --> 00:14:44.120 caught? She did. Years later, after they left 00:14:44.120 --> 00:14:46.419 the White House, the IRS and ethics committees 00:14:46.419 --> 00:14:49.279 investigated. The Reagans ended up having to 00:14:49.279 --> 00:14:51.960 pay back taxes and interest on something like 00:14:51.960 --> 00:14:56.259 $3 million worth of fashion items and gifts that 00:14:56.259 --> 00:14:59.960 hadn't been reported properly. Wow. That is staggering. 00:15:00.159 --> 00:15:02.279 But she was savvy. She knew she was bleeding 00:15:02.279 --> 00:15:06.080 public support. So in 1982, she goes to the Gridiron 00:15:06.080 --> 00:15:08.559 Dinner, which is this annual press roast, usually 00:15:08.559 --> 00:15:12.419 pretty stuffy. Nancy comes out on stage dressed 00:15:12.419 --> 00:15:15.179 as a bag lady. Wait, really? The first lady? 00:15:15.279 --> 00:15:17.679 Yes. She's wearing mismatched clothes, feathers, 00:15:17.860 --> 00:15:19.919 rain boots. She looks ridiculous. And she sings 00:15:19.919 --> 00:15:22.220 a parody song called Secondhand Clothes to the 00:15:22.220 --> 00:15:24.460 tune of Secondhand Rose. And at the end, she 00:15:24.460 --> 00:15:27.480 smashed a plate on stage. That is bold. It was 00:15:27.480 --> 00:15:29.500 brilliant. She proved she could take a joke. 00:15:29.539 --> 00:15:31.360 She proved she wasn't this humorless ice queen. 00:15:31.460 --> 00:15:33.740 The press loved it. It bought her a huge amount 00:15:33.740 --> 00:15:36.220 of goodwill. It was a masterclass in changing 00:15:36.220 --> 00:15:39.220 the narrative. So she's navigating this PR minefield, 00:15:39.279 --> 00:15:42.139 trying to fix her image. But then, just a few 00:15:42.139 --> 00:15:44.679 months into the presidency... everything changes 00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:48.860 march 30th 1981 the assassination attempt we 00:15:48.860 --> 00:15:51.919 cannot overstate how this event rewired nancy 00:15:51.919 --> 00:15:54.659 reagan's brain she gets to the hospital george 00:15:54.659 --> 00:15:56.799 washington university hospital and she sees him 00:15:56.799 --> 00:15:59.580 she said later i had never seen a face like that 00:15:59.580 --> 00:16:03.480 with my husband in it it was chaos reagan was 00:16:03.480 --> 00:16:06.080 gray he was struggling to breathe he had a bullet 00:16:06.080 --> 00:16:09.480 in his lung yeah And yet, famously, he looked 00:16:09.480 --> 00:16:11.299 at her and cracked a joke. He told her, honey, 00:16:11.379 --> 00:16:13.639 I forgot to duck. Which is the ultimate Reagan 00:16:13.639 --> 00:16:16.220 optimist moment. Even on death's door, he's the 00:16:16.220 --> 00:16:18.759 performer. Right. But for Nancy, the pessimist, 00:16:18.759 --> 00:16:21.440 the worrier, this was the apocalypse. This was 00:16:21.440 --> 00:16:23.840 her worst nightmare coming true. The one thing 00:16:23.840 --> 00:16:25.879 she feared most. The one thing she was supposed 00:16:25.879 --> 00:16:29.730 to do, keep him safe, had failed. She lost 12 00:16:29.730 --> 00:16:32.490 pounds in weeks. She started sleeping with one 00:16:32.490 --> 00:16:34.429 of his shirts because the smell comforted her. 00:16:34.629 --> 00:16:37.289 She was absolutely terrified every time he left 00:16:37.289 --> 00:16:39.070 the White House. And this is where she pivots 00:16:39.070 --> 00:16:41.789 from socialite first lady to the protector. She 00:16:41.789 --> 00:16:45.490 decided her primary job above policy, above parties, 00:16:45.590 --> 00:16:48.210 above everything else was to keep him alive. 00:16:48.509 --> 00:16:50.570 And if the Secret Service couldn't guarantee 00:16:50.570 --> 00:16:53.570 it. She needed something else. She needed an 00:16:53.570 --> 00:16:56.590 edge. Enter the astrologer. Enter Joan Quigley. 00:16:56.690 --> 00:16:58.909 Now, I think a lot of people hear astrology and 00:16:58.909 --> 00:17:00.990 they think she checked her horoscope in the newspaper 00:17:00.990 --> 00:17:05.190 over coffee. But this wasn't that. No, this was 00:17:05.190 --> 00:17:08.069 an operational dependency. Nancy had dabbled 00:17:08.069 --> 00:17:09.950 in astrology before, like many in Hollywood. 00:17:10.269 --> 00:17:13.230 But after the shooting... Merv Griffin, the TV 00:17:13.230 --> 00:17:15.609 host, told Nancy that Joan Quigley had actually 00:17:15.609 --> 00:17:17.910 predicted that March 30th would be a dangerous 00:17:17.910 --> 00:17:20.150 day for the president. Oh, that is the worst 00:17:20.150 --> 00:17:22.309 possible thing she could have heard. Yeah. It 00:17:22.309 --> 00:17:25.289 validates the fear. It tells her this could have 00:17:25.289 --> 00:17:27.869 been prevented. Completely. Nancy believes Quigley 00:17:27.869 --> 00:17:30.670 has the answers. She hires her. Quigley is on 00:17:30.670 --> 00:17:33.369 a retainer, $3 ,000 a month paid through a private 00:17:33.369 --> 00:17:35.930 fund, and she starts dictating the president 00:17:35.930 --> 00:17:38.049 of the United States schedule. How deep did this 00:17:38.049 --> 00:17:40.390 go? Was it just avoid Tuesdays? It was incredibly 00:17:40.390 --> 00:17:42.690 granular. Quigley would provide color code and 00:17:42.690 --> 00:17:46.670 calendars. Green for good days, red for bad days, 00:17:46.769 --> 00:17:50.609 yellow for be careful. No. This determined when 00:17:50.609 --> 00:17:53.849 Air Force One took off. It determined when he 00:17:53.849 --> 00:17:56.950 gave speeches. It determined the timing of cancer 00:17:56.950 --> 00:17:59.609 surgery. It even determined the timing of the 00:17:59.609 --> 00:18:02.430 Geneva summit with Gorbachev. Scheduling the 00:18:02.430 --> 00:18:04.509 Cold War was determined by the alignment of the 00:18:04.509 --> 00:18:08.289 planets. Effectively, yes. If Quigley said, don't 00:18:08.289 --> 00:18:11.049 travel on the 14th, the president didn't travel 00:18:11.049 --> 00:18:14.150 on the 14th. And this was a state secret. Strictly. 00:18:14.309 --> 00:18:16.890 Nancy knew how it would look. She knew the public 00:18:16.890 --> 00:18:18.930 would think they were crazy, so they kept it 00:18:18.930 --> 00:18:21.049 totally under wraps. Well, someone had to know. 00:18:21.559 --> 00:18:23.960 The staff had to know. You can't just move the 00:18:23.960 --> 00:18:25.640 president's schedule without telling the chief 00:18:25.640 --> 00:18:28.279 of staff. The staff knew and it drove them crazy. 00:18:28.559 --> 00:18:31.319 Specifically, Donald Reagan, the chief of staff. 00:18:31.519 --> 00:18:34.099 This brings us to the power behind the throne 00:18:34.099 --> 00:18:36.700 section. Because this wasn't just about stars. 00:18:36.880 --> 00:18:39.880 It was about access. Donald Reagan was a powerful 00:18:39.880 --> 00:18:43.519 man, a former CEO of Merrill Lynch. He was a 00:18:43.519 --> 00:18:46.299 master of the universe type. He liked order. 00:18:46.400 --> 00:18:49.039 He liked hierarchy. And suddenly he's trying 00:18:49.039 --> 00:18:50.900 to schedule a press conference. And Nancy is 00:18:50.900 --> 00:18:53.559 saying, no, Ronnie can't go out on Tuesday. The 00:18:53.559 --> 00:18:56.660 stars aren't right. Or his void of moon is in 00:18:56.660 --> 00:18:59.140 the wrong place. That's lead to a clash. It was 00:18:59.140 --> 00:19:02.339 a war. Donald Reagan resented her involvement. 00:19:02.579 --> 00:19:05.380 He saw her as a meddler. He called her the dragoon. 00:19:06.099 --> 00:19:09.059 Nancy saw him as a liability who wasn't protecting 00:19:09.059 --> 00:19:11.099 her husband enough, especially when the Iran 00:19:11.099 --> 00:19:13.720 -Contra scandal broke. Ah, okay. She felt Reagan 00:19:13.720 --> 00:19:15.680 was arrogant and was letting Ronnie take the 00:19:15.680 --> 00:19:18.200 fall for the arms for hostages deal. So how does 00:19:18.200 --> 00:19:20.859 this end? It ends with a phone call. They are 00:19:20.859 --> 00:19:22.940 arguing about the schedule. Nancy is demanding 00:19:22.940 --> 00:19:26.660 he resign. The conversation gets heated. Donald 00:19:26.660 --> 00:19:29.740 Reagan in a moment of frustration makes the fatal 00:19:29.740 --> 00:19:31.960 mistake of hanging up on the first lady. You 00:19:31.960 --> 00:19:34.680 do not hang up on Nancy Reagan. You do not. When 00:19:34.680 --> 00:19:36.720 the president heard about it, he was furious. 00:19:37.180 --> 00:19:39.460 He felt it was a deep disrespect to his wife. 00:19:39.579 --> 00:19:42.819 He fired Reagan shortly after. This cemented 00:19:42.819 --> 00:19:44.859 the idea that Nancy was the associate president. 00:19:45.180 --> 00:19:47.759 If you crossed her, you were gone. She had already 00:19:47.759 --> 00:19:50.319 helped push out campaign manager John Sears back 00:19:50.319 --> 00:19:53.420 in 1980. She pushed out national security advisors. 00:19:53.539 --> 00:19:55.640 She was the H .R. Department of the White House. 00:19:55.819 --> 00:19:58.299 But she also used that influence on policy. Yeah. 00:19:58.559 --> 00:20:00.660 Particularly regarding the Soviet Union. This 00:20:00.660 --> 00:20:03.680 is her most significant political legacy. She 00:20:03.680 --> 00:20:06.039 knew that history would judge Ronald Reagan on 00:20:06.039 --> 00:20:09.339 whether he was a warmonger or a peacemaker. The 00:20:09.339 --> 00:20:11.819 hardliners in the administration, the hawks, 00:20:11.839 --> 00:20:14.220 wanted to keep the pressure on the evil empire. 00:20:14.759 --> 00:20:17.380 They didn't want to talk. Nancy wanted him to 00:20:17.380 --> 00:20:19.539 talk to Gorbachev. She was the dove. She was 00:20:19.539 --> 00:20:22.380 the pragmatic dove. She pushed him to soften 00:20:22.380 --> 00:20:24.359 his rhetoric. She allied herself with George 00:20:24.359 --> 00:20:26.700 Shultz, the Secretary of State. She believed 00:20:26.700 --> 00:20:28.799 that a personal relationship with Gorbachev could 00:20:28.799 --> 00:20:31.500 end the Cold War. She whispered in Ronnie's ear 00:20:31.500 --> 00:20:35.200 constantly, do it for your legacy. Be the peacemaker. 00:20:35.500 --> 00:20:37.220 Which brings us to the other relationship in 00:20:37.220 --> 00:20:40.359 that equation. Nancy and Arisa Gorbacheva. The 00:20:40.359 --> 00:20:43.099 First Lady Wars. These two did not get along. 00:20:43.819 --> 00:20:46.640 Raleza was the wife of Mikhail Gorbachev. She 00:20:46.640 --> 00:20:49.759 was an intellectual lecturer on Marxism -Leninism. 00:20:49.819 --> 00:20:52.819 She was sharp, opinionated, and she did not defer 00:20:52.819 --> 00:20:55.319 to Nancy. She didn't play the adoring wife role. 00:20:55.519 --> 00:20:58.119 No. She would come to the U .S. and lecture Nancy 00:20:58.119 --> 00:21:01.140 on the failings of the American system, on the 00:21:01.140 --> 00:21:04.200 superiority of socialism, on history, on architecture. 00:21:04.759 --> 00:21:07.720 And Nancy probably didn't love being lectured. 00:21:07.839 --> 00:21:10.759 Nancy reportedly asked her staff, who does that 00:21:10.759 --> 00:21:14.210 dame think she is? She found Reza tedious and 00:21:14.210 --> 00:21:17.009 preachy, but, and this is credit to her discipline, 00:21:17.269 --> 00:21:19.809 she sucked it up. She orchestrated the social 00:21:19.809 --> 00:21:21.849 side of the summits perfectly. Let me give an 00:21:21.849 --> 00:21:24.130 example. There is a famous moment at the Washington 00:21:24.130 --> 00:21:26.890 Summit. Nancy invited Van Cliburn, the pianist. 00:21:27.450 --> 00:21:29.490 Now, Van Cliburn was an American, but he was 00:21:29.490 --> 00:21:31.849 a hero in Russia because he had won the Tchaikovsky 00:21:31.849 --> 00:21:35.190 competition in Moscow years earlier. A huge one. 00:21:35.349 --> 00:21:37.950 Nancy asks him to play Moscow Nights. A Russian 00:21:37.950 --> 00:21:40.569 classic. And as he plays, the Gorbachevs start 00:21:40.569 --> 00:21:43.079 singing along. Ronald Reagan starts humming. 00:21:43.339 --> 00:21:45.980 The tension in the room just evaporated. George 00:21:45.980 --> 00:21:48.140 Shultz said later you could feel the ice crumbling. 00:21:48.319 --> 00:21:51.359 Wow. Nancy weaponized the dinner party for the 00:21:51.359 --> 00:21:53.839 sake of DeConte. She played the hostess role, 00:21:53.980 --> 00:21:57.559 but with a strategic geopolitical endgame. While 00:21:57.559 --> 00:21:59.359 she's doing all this behind the scenes firing 00:21:59.359 --> 00:22:03.279 staff, managing the Cold War, she needs a public 00:22:03.279 --> 00:22:06.240 platform. Every first lady needs a cause. And 00:22:06.240 --> 00:22:09.799 Nancy's was big. Massive. Just say no. Where 00:22:09.799 --> 00:22:11.930 did that phrase actually come from? It sounds 00:22:11.930 --> 00:22:14.230 like a Madison Avenue marketing slogan. It was 00:22:14.230 --> 00:22:16.470 spontaneous, actually. She was visiting a school 00:22:16.470 --> 00:22:20.009 in Oakland in 1982. A little girl raised her 00:22:20.009 --> 00:22:22.509 hand and asked, Mrs. Reagan, what do I do if 00:22:22.509 --> 00:22:24.910 someone offers me drugs? And Nancy just said, 00:22:24.990 --> 00:22:27.690 just say no. And it caught fire. It became the 00:22:27.690 --> 00:22:30.930 catchphrase of the decade. She traveled 250 ,000 00:22:30.930 --> 00:22:33.569 miles. She appeared on different strokes. She 00:22:33.569 --> 00:22:35.809 hosted conferences with first ladies from around 00:22:35.809 --> 00:22:38.470 the world. It was a cultural phenomenon. But 00:22:38.470 --> 00:22:40.569 looking back, it gets a lot of criticism. It 00:22:40.569 --> 00:22:43.329 does. It's viewed by many experts today as overly 00:22:43.329 --> 00:22:46.250 simplistic. It treated drug addiction as a failure 00:22:46.250 --> 00:22:48.930 of willpower rather than a complex medical or 00:22:48.930 --> 00:22:51.980 social issue. Critics argued. It ignored the 00:22:51.980 --> 00:22:55.539 root causes, poverty, unemployment, the systemic 00:22:55.539 --> 00:22:58.279 issues driving the crack epidemic that was devastating 00:22:58.279 --> 00:23:01.920 cities at the time. It was a slogan, not a solution. 00:23:02.119 --> 00:23:04.400 It felt like a Band -Aid on a bullet wound. And 00:23:04.400 --> 00:23:06.660 then there is the silence, the other epidemic 00:23:06.660 --> 00:23:09.960 of the 80s, AIDS. This is the shadow over her 00:23:09.960 --> 00:23:13.460 legacy. The AIDS epidemic exploded during the 00:23:13.460 --> 00:23:16.319 Reagan presidency. Thousands of people were dying. 00:23:16.799 --> 00:23:19.119 And the administration was largely silent for 00:23:19.119 --> 00:23:21.180 years. And this was personal for them, right? 00:23:21.259 --> 00:23:22.859 Yeah. They came from Hollywood. They had friends 00:23:22.859 --> 00:23:25.680 in that community. They did. Rock Hudson, a close 00:23:25.680 --> 00:23:28.740 friend and Hollywood giant, died of AIDS. When 00:23:28.740 --> 00:23:30.960 he was dying in Paris, he reached out to the 00:23:30.960 --> 00:23:32.759 White House for help getting into a hospital. 00:23:32.880 --> 00:23:35.619 And the response was cool. That's rough. The 00:23:35.619 --> 00:23:38.839 criticism, and it is heavy, is that Nancy, who 00:23:38.839 --> 00:23:41.519 had the president's ear, didn't push him to speak 00:23:41.519 --> 00:23:43.710 out publicly until it was too late. Does the 00:23:43.710 --> 00:23:45.910 historical record show any movement from her 00:23:45.910 --> 00:23:48.750 on this? There are reports that privately she 00:23:48.750 --> 00:23:51.450 urged him to address it. She knew it was a disaster, 00:23:51.609 --> 00:23:54.329 but publicly she held the party line. She didn't 00:23:54.329 --> 00:23:56.589 want to alienate the conservative base. So it 00:23:56.589 --> 00:23:59.190 was political. The contrast between her hyper 00:23:59.190 --> 00:24:01.930 visibility on drugs and her invisibility on AIDS 00:24:01.930 --> 00:24:04.589 is something historians still critique her for 00:24:04.589 --> 00:24:07.269 heavily. It remains a major point of contention. 00:24:07.690 --> 00:24:09.970 So the Reagans leave the White House in 1989. 00:24:10.490 --> 00:24:13.369 They go back to Bel Air. But the story doesn't 00:24:13.369 --> 00:24:16.630 end there. No. And in some ways, her most humanizing 00:24:16.630 --> 00:24:19.609 chapter happens after the power is gone. First, 00:24:19.809 --> 00:24:22.160 there was her own health scare. Right. In 1987, 00:24:22.579 --> 00:24:25.019 actually, while still in office, she was diagnosed 00:24:25.019 --> 00:24:27.859 with breast cancer. She chose to have a mastectomy. 00:24:28.019 --> 00:24:30.099 And that was a controversial decision at the 00:24:30.099 --> 00:24:32.319 time. Some people thought it was too drastic 00:24:32.319 --> 00:24:34.920 compared to a lumpectomy. There was actually 00:24:34.920 --> 00:24:37.240 a bizarre backlash where critics said she was 00:24:37.240 --> 00:24:39.519 setting women back by not fighting to keep the 00:24:39.519 --> 00:24:41.619 breast. That seems incredibly unfair. It's a 00:24:41.619 --> 00:24:44.299 medical decision. It was. But the Nancy effect 00:24:44.299 --> 00:24:46.950 was real. Mammogram rates across the country 00:24:46.950 --> 00:24:49.369 spiked. She saved lives by being public about 00:24:49.369 --> 00:24:53.450 it. But then comes a real tragedy. 1994. Ronald 00:24:53.450 --> 00:24:55.470 Reagan writes that famous handwritten letter 00:24:55.470 --> 00:24:58.170 to the American people announcing he has Alzheimer's. 00:24:58.190 --> 00:25:01.900 The long goodbye. For a decade, Nancy Reagan 00:25:01.900 --> 00:25:04.980 went from being the glamorous first lady to the 00:25:04.980 --> 00:25:07.859 primary caregiver. And this wasn't just managing 00:25:07.859 --> 00:25:10.859 care. She was there. She protected his dignity 00:25:10.859 --> 00:25:13.640 with the same ferocity she used to protect his 00:25:13.640 --> 00:25:15.779 safety. She created a cocoon around him. She 00:25:15.779 --> 00:25:18.359 did. She filtered visitors. She made sure no 00:25:18.359 --> 00:25:20.259 one saw him when he wasn't himself. She wanted 00:25:20.259 --> 00:25:23.299 the world to remember the robust president, not 00:25:23.299 --> 00:25:25.500 the man fading away. And this changed how the 00:25:25.500 --> 00:25:28.460 public saw her. Completely. The dragon lady image 00:25:28.460 --> 00:25:31.319 softened. People saw a woman who was losing the 00:25:31.319 --> 00:25:34.740 love of her life by inches day by day. Her devotion 00:25:34.740 --> 00:25:37.539 was undeniable. It was tragic and it was human. 00:25:37.720 --> 00:25:39.759 And she made a surprising political move during 00:25:39.759 --> 00:25:42.000 this time. She did. This is where the protector 00:25:42.000 --> 00:25:44.720 role overrode the conservative role. She came 00:25:44.720 --> 00:25:47.240 out in support of embryonic stem cell research. 00:25:47.440 --> 00:25:49.299 Which was a huge issue at the time. It was the 00:25:49.299 --> 00:25:51.920 hot button issue of the early 2000s. The George 00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:54.259 W. Bush administration was against federal funding 00:25:54.259 --> 00:25:56.759 for it. The Republican Party was largely against 00:25:56.759 --> 00:25:59.500 it on religious and ethical grounds. But Nancy 00:25:59.500 --> 00:26:02.119 believed it could hold the cure for Alzheimer's. 00:26:02.140 --> 00:26:04.359 So she broke with her party. She broke with the 00:26:04.359 --> 00:26:06.480 party. She lobbied the White House. She publicly 00:26:06.480 --> 00:26:09.119 disagreed with George W. Bush. It showed that 00:26:09.119 --> 00:26:11.059 her loyalty was to Ronnie, not to a political 00:26:11.059 --> 00:26:13.299 platform. If she thought something could help 00:26:13.299 --> 00:26:15.740 him or help his legacy, she didn't care about 00:26:15.740 --> 00:26:18.980 the politics. And then the funeral in 2004. I 00:26:18.980 --> 00:26:21.099 think everyone remembers the images. She planned 00:26:21.099 --> 00:26:23.240 every detail, of course. She invited Margaret 00:26:23.240 --> 00:26:26.799 Thatcher. She invited Gorbachev. But the moment 00:26:26.799 --> 00:26:29.740 that defines her widowhood. was at the very end 00:26:29.740 --> 00:26:32.279 at the casket she had held it together all week 00:26:32.279 --> 00:26:36.079 the rigid composure she was famous for but as 00:26:36.079 --> 00:26:38.460 she was leaving the casket at the burial site 00:26:38.460 --> 00:26:42.500 in simi valley she broke She leaned over, kissed 00:26:42.500 --> 00:26:45.039 the coffin, mouthed, I love you, and she just 00:26:45.039 --> 00:26:47.740 collapsed into tears. It was raw. It was the 00:26:47.740 --> 00:26:50.299 moment the public finally understood the depth 00:26:50.299 --> 00:26:52.380 of that bond. She lived for another 12 years 00:26:52.380 --> 00:26:54.720 after that. She did. She reconciled with her 00:26:54.720 --> 00:26:56.759 children, Patty and Michael, which was a nice 00:26:56.759 --> 00:26:59.119 closing arc. She continued to protect the Reagan 00:26:59.119 --> 00:27:02.720 legacy until she died in 2016 at age 94. So let's 00:27:02.720 --> 00:27:04.519 unpack the legacy. Where did she stand? It's 00:27:04.519 --> 00:27:07.000 a fascinating trajectory. When she left the White 00:27:07.000 --> 00:27:09.920 House, her approval ratings were... Mixed. In 00:27:09.920 --> 00:27:13.099 1993, Siena College polled historians and she 00:27:13.099 --> 00:27:15.859 ranked nearly last among first ladies. But recently, 00:27:16.019 --> 00:27:19.240 she's climbed up to around 15th place. As we 00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:21.599 get distance, historians are recognizing that, 00:27:21.640 --> 00:27:24.680 like her or not, she was effective. She was powerful. 00:27:24.799 --> 00:27:27.299 She was essential to the Reagan presidency. It's 00:27:27.299 --> 00:27:29.960 the paradox of Nancy Reagan. Exactly. She projected 00:27:29.960 --> 00:27:32.859 this 1950s housewife image. I'm just looking 00:27:32.859 --> 00:27:35.400 at Ronnie. But she wielded more raw political 00:27:35.400 --> 00:27:38.000 power than perhaps any first lady since Edith 00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:40.000 Wilson. Which raises the big question for our 00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:42.819 listeners. Right. We elect a president? one person. 00:27:42.960 --> 00:27:45.500 But the reality is they bring a partner and that 00:27:45.500 --> 00:27:48.019 partner is unelected, unvetted and has total 00:27:48.019 --> 00:27:51.000 access. Nancy Reagan's primary motivation wasn't 00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:53.200 the Constitution or the party or the voters. 00:27:53.380 --> 00:27:55.519 It was the personal protection of her husband. 00:27:55.700 --> 00:27:58.160 So the question is, is the role of protector 00:27:58.160 --> 00:28:00.900 in chief a necessary burden that we just accept? 00:28:01.339 --> 00:28:04.160 Or is it a constitutional loophole that gives 00:28:04.160 --> 00:28:06.339 immense power to someone we never voted for? 00:28:06.579 --> 00:28:10.420 Something to chew on. Nancy Reagan, a complicated 00:28:10.420 --> 00:28:13.220 woman who loved a man, feared the world, and 00:28:13.220 --> 00:28:16.579 ran the White House to keep the two apart. Thanks 00:28:16.579 --> 00:28:18.579 for joining us for this deep dive. Always a pleasure. 00:28:18.819 --> 00:28:20.839 And to our listeners, next time you see a First 00:28:20.839 --> 00:28:23.500 Lady, look a little closer. There's always more 00:28:23.500 --> 00:28:25.380 going on behind the gaze. We'll see you next 00:28:25.380 --> 00:28:25.640 time.