The Astrologer Who Managed The Reagan Presidency

what's important for you to know for your purposes. And this week we are talking about someone who might be controversial on this podcast, So I want to lead in here before we introduce the subject by talking about my methodology, because we're about a dozen episodes or so. In so far, the focus on this podcast has always been the worst people in history, which I define as the shittiest one

percent of human beings who have ever lived. Now, there's about one hundred and seven billion people in the total estimated human population, which gives us a big pool to draw from, which is how I can internally justify covering Adolf Hitler one week and Harvey Weinstein the next, even though they're not, you know, quite on the same spectrum of awfal. So our next subject today hasn't killed anybody, she didn't cause a genocide, she's not a mass rapist.

I still think I can justify putting her in that top one percent, although she's probably near the bottom of that one percent. Have y'all ever heard of a lady named Joan Quiggly? No, sounds familiar, But I don't know why. I thought you were going to say, like Margaret Thatcher. No, because she's got blood on her Yeah, she said in the bottom of the one percent. I was like, there's totally a Margaret Thatcher episode. But she's more in the middle, right,

She's up there, Joan Quiggly, Joan Quiggly. Now, Joan Quigley does have a little bit of a connection to Margaret Thatcher because Joan Quigley has a very deep connection to Ronald Reagan because Joan Quigley was Ronald Reagan's astrologer. Really yep, yeah, I can't wait. We're in so. I we were talking about it today because I read her book and it made me really hate her, And I don't know, some people may disagree that she's terrible, So we'll get into

that too. Part of this podcast will be y'all telling me if I'm a crazy person judging her unfairly, or if you guys think she's awful too. But regardless of what we conclude, I've named this episode Joan Quiggly History's greatest monster. So let's dive into it. Joan Cecil Quigley was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on April tenth, nineteen twenty seven, at four to seventeen PM. That time is critical because if you don't know the exact minute of

someone's birth, you can't properly cast their horoscope. This is something I learned by reading four hundred pages of Joan Quigley. Explain astrology to me. You read the whole thing? Oh yeah, no, I have. Of course she a good writer. No, oh, she's not. I'll give it in fairness, she's not like bad like it's not. I'm not. I was never distracted by the writing quality of the book. How did you decide to read that? I realized that Ronald Reagan's astrologer

had written a book, and then I bought it. How did you find out Ronald Reagan had an astrologer? I was drunk and browsing the internet at some point, and like I came across some little listical article talking about like wacky facts about US presidents. I think that's I remember that. She was also an astrologer to several other notable people. Was she an astrologer to the stars? Yes, oh yes, yes, yeah, I know, I know a little bit, but I don't know enough. Keep telling us. Yeah, well yeah.

So Jones' father, John was a former lawyer who moved to San Francisco and bought a fancy hotel. His wife is named Zelda, which is like, if you know the nineteen twenties, that's like the name to have if you're a rich lady. It's like, that's like Jackson is today, Jackson Jackson. Oh god, yeah, just jack Like they're all club promoters. Okay. Yeah. So he and his wife Zelda raised their daughters as high society ladies. They had a penthouse on Knob Hill in San Francisco and went to

a private school. The Quigly Girls, as they were known, had chauffeurs to take them to school. Parties generally enrolls royces. In her obituary, The Los Angeles Times said that she had quote come from the Creme de la creme of San Francisco, gentility and her fancy, rich lady bonafides would prove critical in earning her Nancy Reagan's trust. Joan went to Vassar. She got a degree in art history. Her mom was apparently an astrology nerd, and that's where Joan

caught the bug. She spent a year as a secret apprentice to a soothsayer named Jerome Pearson. Her dad hated astrology, and so she had to hide her chart making and star watching while publicly doing normal aristocratic stuff like whatever the Junior League is. I don't know what the junior League is. Probably you dance with people, dance with other rich people, like Catilians, but with a sportier sounding name. Yeah, that's my guess. Katillion is the only word that came

into my mind when I read Junior league. I don't even know what one is. It's a club for rich people. I wonder if it's only women. Like the picture in my head is that scene from Gone with the Wind where the lady in the big dress descends the staircase. Yeah, yeah, something rich people do so they can hang out and wear fancy clothes. Do you have to wear a bustle? Ye? It's probably kind of racist. Oh, definitely, there's no Yeah, yeah, okay.

So once Joan is out of college in junior league or whatever and moves out of her dad's house, she starts writing an astrology column for seventeen magazine, which I didn't realize went back that far. And what year is this? Like the forties? Yeah, this is in like the forties seventeen, which back in the forties. Yeah, yeah, because they had just invented teenagers, right, yeah, they're like, now they need a magazine. Oh, people who live in past twelve. I

guess we gotta figure the thing out. Her gig at seventeen didn't last long, though, because she didn't like writing horoscopes for tabloids. She runted to read the stars of the rich and famous and was kind of disgusted by the idea that poor people might use astrology. I should ask you this point, are either of y'all into astrology? I mean, tangentially. We've done a couple of night calls where we talked about astrology a bunch and sort of why it's interesting whether you believe in it or not.

I personally do not believe in it, but I've also said it's probably some of a a virgo and the boring is and I love virgos, and I specifically aimed for a virgo with one of my kids. Got locked down that ago very please, how do you aim for that? You know? Noulate, N Well, it's really more like ten. Oh yeah, what do you think about astrology? I'm not into astrology, but I like a good friend of mine for back home in Texas who's like an accountant, is

really into astrology. It's just one of those grounded people I know. So I don't think an issue. Well, what's your sign's entertaining? If I may, I don't. I don't know. What's your birthday? March? March? What? Twenty second? I think you're a Pisces. Maybe I'm wrong. I have no true astrology nerd would know. I know, but I you know, we talked about this, liked it. It's like, even though I don't believe in or like astrology, especially if you live in Los Angeles, you meet a lot of people

but maybe are into astrology. There's also a thing I don't like where people are sort of like misogynistic about like, oh, women are so dumb they believe in astrology. Plenty of men believe in astrology. There's plenty of dumb men who believe in astrology. There's plenty of dumb men who believe in it, like trickle down economics. I think it's like it's like sports or something. It's just like a thing

to keep life more entertain than it is. I'll tell you, I believe in it way more than I believe in chakras. When people get and I'm just like, Wow, they took you for a fool, because astrology you can, you know, entertain yourself with for free, so it can't actually be that. Yeah, I think so we've decided as soon as you're spending money on it, then it's a day. Yeah. Yeah, And

that that's kind of how I feel about it. Like I don't have any issue and I I like, I tried to as I edited this podcast make sure that I was not just attacking people astrology, because like, it's whatever you get do to get through the day. I've I've been superstitious about stuff when I've been in whatever, when you need it. Sometimes, yes, life, anything you're into. If you're doing it for Ronald Reagan, you're on the

wrong side of amen, Well that may be one. And I'm also I'm trying to be fair to the Reagan's in this, although I'm not a Ronald Reagan fans. You do a history podcast about history, A's greatest monster we're going to cover. We're going to hit on the Reagans on this, but I think they're I think they're victims of Joan Quickly in this, and we'll get to that in a second. Like we like Joan Quickly, Now, yeah, who scams the scammers? Ye? This is a complicated one.

If it was just one other person sitting here, that wouldn't but two other people, I feel like we can make the historical judgment. I think I didn't finish school, so I don't know how historians make judgments, but I think this is it. I'm absolutely positive that this is exactly how it should be done. Fantastic. Okay. So Joan didn't like doing horoscopes for poor people, and didn't like doing horoscopes for anyone who could just afford to buy

a magazine. Her obituary in The Economist notes that quote she did not make forecasts or cast up horoscopes for ordinary people, only for corporate figures, celebrities, and those who guided the destinies of nations. I wish the economist was exaggerating about that. The sad truth is that Joan Quigley

was probably the most influential astrologer of the twentieth century. Now, Donald Reagan was Ronald Reagan's Treasury Secretary starting in nineteen eighty one and the White House Chief of Staff from nineteen eighty five to eighty seven. And it's real funny that Donald Reagan worked so closely with Ronald Reagan. Were they related? So their last names are spelled differently? What Donald Reagan is ourg Donald Reagan? Yeah, Donald Reagan. I'm

gonna call him Donald. Yeah, I should call him Donald Reagan. Still yeah, still confusing. So yeah, Donald Reagan was the chief of staff, which is like, that's a big job. That was Steve Bannon's job until like a year ago. Now, Jesus Christ, Okay, So Donald Reagan was the White House Chief of Staff from eighty five to eighty seven. He was a big trickle down economics guy. He was very

importantly the administration. But he was forced to resign in nineteen eighty seven because he couldn't protect the President from the fallout of the Iran Contra affair. So in nineteen eighty eight, he published a memoir called for the Record, where he revealed to the world the White House's quote most closely guarded secret. No, not Ronald Reagan's growing senility. Not the fact that we've been selling missiles too. Iran

joan quickly, this is a quote from Donald Reagan. Virtually every major move and decision that Reagan's made during my time as White House Chief of staff was cleared in advance with a woman in San Francisco who drew up horoscopes to make certain that the planets were in favorable alignment for the enterprise, can tinued, would that there had been some other explanation, But there wasn't astrology, was it. It was a daily, sometimes hourly factor in every decision

affecting the President's schedule. What what I didn't know anything. I love this. I didn't know the depth of this. Was she like living at the White House? Or was she just was he calling from San Francisco? It was Nancy who would call, Yeah, and we'll well, we'll get into a little bit about how it worked. But yeah, like she notes a number of times in her memoirir

and Donald Reagan backs it up. She had absolute control of her when Air Force one took off and landed, she could make it circle in the sky if she wanted it to land at a different time, because the stars said that was better. Well, hey, she went to Vassar, she had her art history degree. She obviously knew a thing or two. Yeah, yeah, no, the am Vassa is famous for its air force. That's what I meant undergraduate.

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, strategy sounds like a nightmare. But also I'm like, wow, I didn't know the Reagans had like a restputant. Yeah, it's very rare, like a lady Rasputant. So I'm also maybe I like respect her as a history scammer. If Joe had moved to d C and been fucking all I guess the husbands in DC of all of the powerful government people like Resputant did to the ladies in the noble court in Russia, this would be a very different podcast. In fact, she had to

do so much less work working remotely. You know, you can't be understated how great they draw up the stars. Yeah yeah, and she was not shot and drowned in the Volga, which is spoiler, sorry, but you probably should have been. Yeah, it wouldn't have been the worst thing so far. I'm not really hating this lady. But let's keep going. Let's let's get into a little bit. So Donald notes that nobody other than some people very close to the president knew about this relationship, including his Secret

Service detail. He even sort of mentions that he thinks they'd be kind of pissed to realize that, after all their years of carefully guarding the president, like Nancy, had been talking about his moves ahead of time with this astrologer over an unsecured phone line. He said, quote, surely they would think that posed a security risk, which it did, and that'll be a thing later. It actually kind of

led to a grand Soviet US astrology duel. But that's a moment for I'm yeah, that's for later in the podcast. I'm getting out of myself. Yeah, So, when mister Reagan dropped the truth about President Reagan's astrologer, it hit Capitol Hill like a bomb. The story sort of faded to just a general political fable. Now, like I think most people vaguely hear that the Reagans were into astrology, but

they don't know much about it. But at the time it was as huge as story as it would be now, although now it would only be a story for a day and a half that best, maybe not even that. So Nancy Reagan insisted that it hadn't been a big deal. She claimed that her use of Joan had just been a silly affectation, nothing serious. This made Joan very angry in her mind. Not only had she not hurt the Reagans, her astrology had been the secret power behind the throne.

So Joan decided to write a memoir of her own, and on March first, nineteen ninety, she published what does Joan Say? My seven years is White House Astrologer to Nancy and Ronald Reagan. This is the book that I read for this podcast, What does Jones Say? What does Jones John? About three hundred something pages, had a lot to say. I don't think it sold well. I wound up having to order a very old hardcover copy of

it that had never been opened. There's no kindle edition of it, so I had to underline the words the old fashioned way. It was terrible taking notes on books before Kendall's strenuous Yeah. Anyway, Joan made me work because her book wasn't a success, and I may hate her for that. She opens her memoir by saying, this is a book I never thought I would write, which I think is a lie because she published it really quickly

after Nancy Reagan's memoir. Joan claims that when Donald Reagan spilled the beans on her existence quote, I rejected all suggestions that I document my Reagan years. I said as little as possible to the media. I tried above alt to keep from damaging the president I had admired and served for seven years with total dedication. But then she claims that Nancy Reagan's memoire, My Turn, forced her to reconsider. She said it reads like fiction, and much of it

as evasive. That is the beginning of what would become several hundred pages of throwing shade at Nancy Reagan. To my eyes, Jones memoir serves two purposes. Number one to allow her to take credit for every achievement of the Reagan era, and number two, to shit on Nancy Reagan. Now.

I know at this point you might be wondering how credible is this lady, and obviously she's an unreliable narrator, but multiple people do back up the fact that she not only advised the president, she was actually the arbiter of his schedule. Donald Reagan, who was again chief of staff and would know, admitted in his memoirs that Joan had total control over win Air Force one took offen landed.

He wrote that he, or in this case, she, who controls the president's schedule, controls the workings of the presidency, which seems accurate. In his book The Acting President, CBS correspondent Bob Scheffer related a story that also backs up

Jones's importance. This is Bob Sheefer. The only real hitch the campaign team had to deal with during those weeks of planning in the fall of nineteen eighty three was a conflict over when the president should formally declare his Candidacylee Water in particular, wanted it done right away, but he was repeatedly told that Miss Reagan did not feel the time for that announcement was propreties. I think it's propitious, propitious,

thank you. That baffled him, and when he finally continued to press for an explanation, Michael Deaver took him aside and disclosed that Nancy's reluctance was based on the astrologer's warning.

So there's a lot a number of people. You can find stories of saying that, like, yeah, we had to change the time at the last minute, or we had to do something at like midnight or three in the morning or whatever, and when they would trace it back because Nancy Reagan said, no, he can't go out at that hour, like he has to go out now, or he has to do this now. Was this because Joan was insinuating that he would be assassinated if he Okay, bingo boiler, Sorry no, no, no, this is this is

like immediately the next paragraph. So no, you landed on it. So I'm going to get into how this weird little relationship started. It kicked off in the nineteen seventies because Joan was on the MURV Griffin show. Murf Griffin was I be fair to call him like a late light host, right, Yeah, like Jimmy Fallon of his era, but probably more talented. Yeah, and I'm sorry if there's Jimmy Fallon fans out there,

I mean, he's history's greatest monster yeah at this point. Yeah, but yeah, MERV Griffin, you know, was one of those really connected people. So he liked Joan quickly, and she did his astrology a bunch, and he also knew an actress named Nancy Reagan, and he knew wh her back when she was an actress and her husband was an actor, and then he continued to know them after her husband became the governor of California. Mervy knew that Nancy believed in astrology. Joan claims he asked if he could give

her number to Nancy, and she said yes. This is from Joan. The first time Nancy consulted me mostly about personal problems. She had given me her exact birth time, so doing her horoscope was easy. I remember I described to her in detail the matter that she intended asking me about before she asked it. From the beginning, my accuracy impressed her. So Joan did her work on Nancy, and Nancy was astonished at you know, how well it worked or whatever, And so they had a little relationship

going on for a while. The Reagan's had always superstitious. In nineteen sixty seven, when Ronnie was inaugurated as governor, his inauguration was scheduled for twelve ten am in the morning at the advice of a different astrologer. So like this has been a thing in their life for a while. So in nineteen eighty Reagan ran for president. One. In her memoire, Nancy claims that Joan volunteered her services, which just amounted to a few phone calls and advice on

wind to time certain events. Joan, however, claims that she advised the Reagans extensively, particularly during then candidate Reagan's first presidential debate with a guy named John Anderson. Anderson has been forgotten and buried in history, as we all will be someday, but he was Ronald Reagan's opponent in his first debate, and this was important because Ronald Reagan was a very old presidential candidate. No one had ever been sixty nine and running for president before, so it was

important that he looked good and not seem old. Joan took great care in timing their debate. She also claims that she warned Nancy that the stars had told her that someone was going to tamper with Ronald Reagan's microphone, and apparently, according to Joan, Nancy found that the microphone had been tampered with and turned down, and Jones says that if Ronald had used the microphone without fixing it, he would have sounded weak and therefore old what it

makes sense? Yeah, yeah, I mean it's kind of age shaming to say that that weakness and age are correlated. But I guess she's not necessarily wrong. I mean, we also saw how that can be wielded very powerfully in a presidential campaign. Weakness and age and you know, fallibility. Yeah, like that's that. This is one of the ones where I want to like attack her, but she may not be wrong about it, right, I kind of think she's But also, like, what if the mic wasn't turned down

and they just turned his mic up? You know, so he was allowed to me to be a smart move. That's still a smart move. Yeah, And this is Nancy doesn't say anything about this, so I don't. It's we're kind of have to take Jones's word that this microphone thing happened. She does, however, take credit for Ronald winning his debate against Carter, or rather, she says, I cannot

claim any credit for his winning the Carter debate. However, I was definitely responsible for Carter's losing that crucial contest, because she claimed she picked an astrological time that made it impossible for Carter to win. Is sort of the inauguration of her taking credit for everything that happens during

this time. So Ronald Reagan was elected, and Joan stopped hearing from Nancy Reagan because at this point, you know, Ronald Reagan's the president, and all the president's advisors are saying, don't associate with astrologers. That's going to end badly for us politically. If you know we're people, find out that you're consulting an astrologer on things, it's just not going to be good. But then on March thirtieth, nineteen eighty one, some guy shot President Reagan in a vital area his body.

President Reagan nearly died. I don't really like Nancy Reagan, particularly her involvement in the War on drugs, but one thing you can say for her and her husband is that they were very much in love. By the reports of everybody who knew the two of them, the assassination attempt sort of broke Nancy Reagan. Most people would turn to something comforting, either drugs or God or drugs made out of God. After that kind of shock, Nancy turned

to astrology. So this is where we get into the thing that I think makes Joan kind of a monster. And so we're going to delve into that. But first, do you guys like products and services? Who does it them? Oh? Man? In currency? Oh yeah, Well, we're gonna sell some things to you for you to spend your currency on ad break and we're back. So it has been a long opening so far. Nothing bastardy inherently about what Joan Quigley's done. She's just been doing astrology for people who like having

astrology done. You know whatever, It's fine, We're getting to wear I think she does something awful. So Ronald Reagan is shot on March thirtieth, nineteen eighty one. Nancy Reagan freaks out in exactly the same way anyone who's spouse gets almost assassinated would freak out. Now, both Nancy Reagan, because I read Nancy's memoo, or at least the chunk that deals with this. Both Nancy Reagan and Joan agree that the aftermath of President Reagan getting shot is when

their working relationship in the White House started. Okay, they both have a different recollection of how that happened. So I'm going to read excerpts from both jones memoir and Nancy's memoir, and y'all can tell me which seems more credible to you. All right, So I'm going to start with Joan. It's gonna be quick. Okay, this is what she's said that day. I remember it verbatim. First she asked, could you have told about the assassination attempt? Yes, of

course I could had I been looking. However, I haven't been following your charts or tracking the mundane material for Washington. I'm sorry. Had I been looking, I would have warned you. She then said, and she's this is Nancy talking to her. I'm getting terrible press. It's so unfair. I'm really a very nice person. Can you tell me what to do?

I'm willing to pay you. So. In Jones's version of events, Nancy Reagan asks, because you have predicted my husband's assassination attempt, and then immediately asks after that, can you make me popular? All right? So that's Joan's recollection. Here's Nancy Reagan in her memoire, my turn, and now it is her turn. That joke wasn't even a joke. I said it, and you can't take it back. Here's Nancy Reagan. I remember, as if it were yesterday, my reaction to what MERV

told me. On the phone MERV Griffin he had talked to Joan, who had said that she could have warned me about March thirtieth. According to Mirv, Joan had said the president should have stayed home. I could see from my charts that this was going to be a dangerous day for him. Oh my god, I remember telling MERV I could have stopped it. I hung up the phone, picked it up again and called Joan. MERV tells me you knew about March thirtieth. I said yes, She replied, I could see it was a very bad day for

the president. I'm so scared. I told her. I'm scared every time he leaves the house, and I don't think I can breathe until he gets home. I cringe every time we step out of a car or leave a building. I'm afraid that one of these days somebody is going to shoot at him again. So what do you guys, Who do you guys think is credible here? Which story do you believe? I mean, so, Joan is basically like,

I wasn't looking, so I don't know. So I didn't know ahead of time, right, And then Nancy kind of comes back at her, being like, well, I'd like you to sign on for my own purposes to give me better publicity, you know, to kind of milk the stars, if you will, forge and try to get stop my husband from getting shadow again. Meanwhile, Yeah, and then Nancy is like she just wants to protect her husband. She'll do anything. Joan saw it coming reached out via merv exactly.

I find Nancy's more credible. And if it depends on how much money Joan was making, I think if Joan needed the income from Nancy Reagan, then I kind of believe in her reaching out. But if she was really doing fine, it sounds like maybe she had a trust fund. I don't really know why she would, especially because even though I do like astrology, I wouldn't put any stock

in it. It seems like a big risk for her to take, you know, I think, and I get the feeling from the memoir and from the stuffing the end to I think Joan wanted to feel close to power. Yeah. I think that's what it is is. Joan wanted to be influential. She wanted to use her powers to direct the progress of history. And what I think is if Nancy Reagan's version of things is true and MERV Griffin

didn't counter her at least when she recalled this. Then this lady reached out to MERV because he knew that MERV was going to talk to Nancy. Joan reached out to MERV and said, oh, I predicted what happened to President Reagan. I saw it coming in which case? So in which case, one of two things is true. Either astrology does work, and this lady legitimately saw that President Reagan was in mortal danger, had the first lady's phone number and didn't reach out and call her, or astrology

doesn't work that way. And Joan just lied to MERV Griffin because she knew Nancy would hear from him. Wasn't she just saying I could have predicted it if you had had me on the job already. That's what her memoir. That's what Joan says in her memoir. Nancy's like saying that Joan called MERV Griffin and was like, I could have stopped it. Yeah, according to what MERV said to Nancy Reagan, Joan told MERV the president should have stayed home. I could see from my charts that this was going

to be a dangerus day for him. I'm going to go ahead and believe Joan. Yeah, me too, because really, yes, because I think that it's way more credible that she would say I wasn't looking. If I had been, then I could have predicted it, because why would you know? Yeah, I think that that's way more likely because if she had known, she would have also tried to reach out because she because it would have achieved the same purpose.

But Okay, the reason I believe Nancy's account is because they both admit that Nancy stops calling Joan after Ronald wins the presidency. But after the assassination attempt, wouldn't you think that Nancy would kind of start reaching out. But I think Nancy would start reaching out if one of her friends says this astrologer tells me she predicted I think Nancy was probably just looking for clues. She was admittedly in freak out mode. She was admittedly in freak

out mode. But it also she she's presented with a solution, which is that this lady predicted the assassination, and I could have stopped it if I'd kept talking to her. But don't you think that it also makes Nancy seem like a more reasonable person if she claims that, well, Ben Merv, who everyone loves, called me and said, you know, like astrology's not bullshit as opposed to having to admit I was so freaked out that I reached out to my old astrologer that I only had to drop because

it was like kind of tacky. Well, she doesn't say that she dropped Joan because it was kind of tacky. She's actually totally positive about Joan, like Nancy Reagan's never anything but nice, like the bodies are buried. Yeah, I mean I don't know, like Joe never. Joe never talks about the bodies being buried. Joe she got paid off to just take this money for this memory invited to

pro Joan people. Oh yeah, this is what I want, because I can't be mad at somebody for like scamming Nancy Reagan, because Nancy Reagan sucks so bad that like she but but tell us more. If there was only money at stake, I'm just I wouldn't care if it turns out that Joan was like Nancy Reagan, Like the stars say, you should like pretend the AIDS crisis isn't happening, Like then I'll turn on Joan again. Not quite that, but it does tie the war on drive. I think

some of that is just Nancy Reagan. Yeah, that's yeah, some of that's Nancy Reagan. I feel like I think she called MERV so that she could get Nancy because she knew that if Nancy heard from her, like she would like be like, oh, I could have stopped this, Like like that rings truer to me. The Nancy Reagan calling Joan and being like could you have predicted it? And can you make everyone love me? I still believe Joan.

I don't know. I know people who are very obsessed with their astrologers, and I think some that's true that they'll get sort of like not great readings and then something scary happens and they reach out almost like a therapist. That is plausible too. I just have trouble believing number one, that the conversation immediately swung from can you stop my

husband from dying? To can you make America love me? No, I don't think I think they're the same thing, because she's like, if my husband dies, I'm not first lady anymore, so like I both need my husband to stay alive and then to be the most you know, because she's an actress. She just wants to be playing the part of the first lady that everyone loves. Yeah, I guess part of it comes down to whether or not you believe. And she's a shitty actress, which is why Well and

Ronald wasn't a great actor. But they are both not good actors, which is why they're not believable. I mean, in fairness, they were like two good actors back then. Yeah, but they were the not good actors who snitched on people at the Blacklist trials. So we knew that we been knew there about it. Yeah, I don't know, So okay, so we're you guys are coming down on Joan was

just responding to a legitimate job offer. And I'm thinking Joan was trying to like sneak her way back into the Reagan's life by taking advantage of an assassination attempt. So that's where we are right now, all right, So we'll see where everyone's opinions line up at the end of this story. So I should probably note right now for the sake of completion, Joan does claim at another point in her memoir to have foreseen something terrible and not told Nancy Reagan about it. She claims that she

predicted Nancy Reagan's cancer and said nothing. Nancy's horoscope had indicated to me months in advance that she would develop breaths cancer. I didn't want to alarm her by coming right out and telling her I knew well too well with a warrior she was, so I did what I always do in such cases. I advised her to have monthly checkups and frequent mammograms, certain that the doctors would discover it the minute it developed, which strikes me as a little bit of a dick move, But I don't know,

maybe that's astrologer's standard practice. I mean, the odds of it of getting breast cancer if you're a woman are so high that it's a pretty safe bet to say at some point you'll get cancer. But I mean, if she told Nancy Reagan, I see that you're going to get cancer, what could Nancy Reagan have done other than exactly what she advised her to do. I mean, what can you do if you know you're about to get

cancer other than see a doctor. Yeah, And I think this again may tie back to the fact that I don't think she foresaw any of this, and she's just claiming later after the fact. To have foreseen someone's cancer to make her sound good doesn't make her sound good though, No, it makes her sound terrible. There's no way to say, I knew you were going to get cancer, didn't tell you. But again, I'm not like surprised that the Reagans would take all their advice from like an amoral scammer, because

that's what they are. Yes, and we'll we'll, I mean, yeah, we're we're in that all moral California scammers. I also feel like they were coming from like California, where it's like nineteen eighty, like who doesn't have a personal skeletrap? Well, yeah, which is part of the thing. Like they're like one, she's always got these she's got all these pictures in the book where it'll be like someone some senator or whatnot, and she'll be like, Senators such and such didn't have

an issue with my astrology because he had an astrology. Okay, if she had had like a like a priest on call or whatever. Yeah, it seems like it's kind of the same thing. Yeah, I mean, maybe more acceptable to Middle America if she's got a priest than if she's don't They love horoscopes, Yeah, who doesn't. Evangelicals might not. Yeah, And I would say the difference between a priest and a horoscope is that a priest And I'm not into religion either, but a priest doesn't claim to be predicting

the future for you. A priest can just be like like the priests the most presidents talk to. They're not like being like, hey, what time should I take my plane off? Like should I do this meeting? They're like, what does God say about bombing people in the Sudan or whatever? And apparently God's fine with it. But yeah, anyway, we've we've gotten past the assassination attempt and Joan's prediction

of Nancy Reagan's cancer. So yeah, after the assassination attempt, Joan, you know, gets the offer to become the astrologer for the Reagan White House and she decides to take it on. She says that, you know, she knew that if she took the Reagans on quote, I would be giving up all my time and effort, like those who take part in any administration, sacrificing the rewards they command in the private sector in order to serve their country. Was she

exclusive to the Reagans. No, oh no, she's this is nonsense. This is just one of their client and she was paid extraordinarily wealthy. You know how much do you know? Yeah, three thousand dollars a month in nineteen eight, which is today nine thousand dollars a month. What who else were her clients? That's what I want to know. She doesn't go into much detail. MERV. Griffin was definitely one of them, but she was like a lot of famous San Francisco

socialites and stuff, wealthy people. And this, this is a big trend in the book, is Joan bragging about how selfless she is for working for the Reagans. She claimed that Nancy begged her to take them on for free because the Reagans didn't have much money, but they eventually settled on a sum, which, again Joan claims were basically poverty wages, but which was about nine grand a month in modern money, which is in my mind, a lot of money. She remarks regularly, like pretty much every chapter,

how heroic she is for taking just this pittance. Quote. I charged Nancy a monthly fixed fee because she needed much more of my time than she could afford. This was very generous. On my part because I often worked longer than full time for a while, when an emergency would arise, I was working as long as nine hours uninterrupted. Oh my good, Oh my god. Yeah, And this is I guess another call out to the Dorito's people. If they want to sponsor the podcast, I will work nine

hours uninterrupted on a Dorito's themed monster podcast. We're trying to get the Dorito's people. Though Doritos comes through, Yeah, I feel like they're the perfect chip for dictator based comedy. We do. Moncho's might be in the running, but I think Dorito's is more of like the you know from De la crame as you might say, Yeah, yeah. Someone on Twitter came up with a great hashtag Nachos not Nazis, which I think, yeah, yeah, we can, we can sell

some Dorito's. Anyway, back to the Reagans, so yeah, in Nancy's version of events, which again, nobody's credible here, which is why I'm grateful to have y'all's perspective on the matter, because I just wound up hating Joan in this book. But you're right, Nancy Reagan does not deserve to be taken seriously or literally at her own word either. So Nancy claims that Joan became a crutch and something of

a therapist, but nothing more. You know, she would call her when she was anxious about something or a meeting that Ronnie was going to have. And I can't not call him Ronnie now because I read that a thousand times, and I think that Nancy is lying about this. I don't think she's lying about using Joan as a therapist. That does not seem out out of the pale at

all for me. But I do think that Nancy's fibbing about Joan not having a big role in the administration because Donald Reagan's account backs up Joan's claim that she was important and she was making major calls. It is interesting to me that Nancy's only nice to Joan in her memoir. She says Joan was and emotionally supportive and expresses admiration for how she handled the press when the

story broke. It's interesting to me that Joan spends her whole book attacking Nancy Reagan and making her look like a monster with quotes like Nancy was almost totally innocent of history. I was often surprised by how little she knew about it. She was in no way an intellectual or deeply reflective, which I don't disagree with, but is not a nice way to refer to the person who's the only reason that you're noteworthy. Well maybe she thinks it's not the only reason she's noteworthy. Yeah, And also

is the difference between a politician and a psychic. Yeah, it's a plain dealer. Yeah. Yeah. And Joan makes a big point about how much Nancy Reagan hated Eli with Sell, the Holocaust survivor and author, and what he won. Was it a nobel I think? Yeah. She says that Nancy Reagan hated elizzl because of he made a big fuss when Ronald Reagan laid a wreath at a cemetery where Nazis are buried, which is a reasonable thing to be

angry about if you're a Holocaust survivor. When Roselle became vocal about it and sparked an out cry, Joan claims that Nancy said, he acts like he's crazy. It's his fault. He's a fanatic. And after this point Joan chimes in to say that she doesn't think Nancy was a racist in the most racist way possible. To be fair, Nancy was not a religious bigot. She liked her wealthy Jewish friends as well as her friends of other religions. Ooh oh no, but is that a way to know it's

just terrible. It's terrible. And that's one where I feel like Nancy's I'm sure Nancy's awful about this. Well, I mean, that's the thing is I'm like, is she just trying to like call attention to how awful Nancy is while still rottin. I think she recognizes it. I think she legitimately she probably doesn't know anyone that isn't an anti Semite, so she's like on a scale of aism, this was just you know, she just hated him, but you know,

her her wealthy Jewish friends. As long as you're rich. Yeah, And I don't think Joan Quickly ever talked to anyone who wasn't rich. And that's what I'm saying. So she's never met a non racist person in her life, yeah, because I mean it's telling that she doesn't consider the Reagans to be rich, right, because like they had a ranch in Santa Barbara, but they're not old money. Yeah, yea.

She that's the line for her because she's you know, San Francisco old money, and I'm sure some East Coast people would be like, well, that's California, right, right, Yeah, the astors are really raking her over the coals, and they're all making fun of the Reagan being president is so good, the talk of the Junior League. Yeah, exactly. Speaking of the Junior League, I am pretty sure those wealthy Jewish families aren't allowed at the Cotillions. Yeah. I

was gonna say, they're definitely not allowed in the Junior League. Yeah, so yeah. Joan quickly claims her first big job was to make Nancy Reagan likable. Nancy was being pilloried by the press from the White House China. She planned to buy to her expensive clothes. Her every movement was ridiculed and criticized. Everywhere she said brought more public disapproval. So Nancy was embarrassed at being a political liability and begged

for Jones help. I want everyone to love me. Where Nancy's first words after I agreed to work with her on a professional basis. I had to smile. The words were so typical of a person with her kind of horoscope. Dude, want now, I'm going to go home and look up like what Nancy Reagan's sign was. Because based on that, what am I thinking? Scorpio, I'm gonna find out why? Yeah, okay, research, This is important, extra research that I didn't do because

I'm a hack and a frog. Yeah. So Joan claims that she asked Nancy what charities Nancy wanted to work for. Nancy kind of vaguely expressed an interest in drug rehabilitation programs in the Foster Grandparents program, and Joan claims that she's responsible for focusing Nancy Reagan. I told her that these two charities would be what she would be known for from now on, that she would talk about them whenever she granted interviews and make them her personal crusade.

She must be a kind of ministering angel of mercy, a sort of supernational mother figure. I told her to set her staff to ferreting out appealing letters from children, for instance, and make a point of answering them. Or she could respond to some needy person, making sure this same time that the story would be well publicized in the media. Oh man, which is such a rich person? Right about needy person? Like, what do you mean by needy?

That was the foster grandparents thing too. I wonder, I mean that sounds like I guess it's a program to help like connect underprivileged kids to like older men and women who could be like So she really wanted to just focus on issues that you can put on a mug. Yeah. Yeah, it is only superficial things that she could be beloved for. And Joan Quigley was like, yes, but you can't be casual about it. If you're going to talk about drugs,

you've got to be a drug warrior. You've got to be like lecturing the nation and claims basically to be why Nancy Reagan became the face of the war on drugs during the nineteen eighties, Well, apparently Nancy was a cancer, just like oh, that's for sure. Ronald was the Aquarius, the age of Aquarius. I mean the cancer's cancers are. So they're water signs and they're very they do need a lot of approval and they're very sensitive to being reject So there are two water signs together. We water

signs together. Well, water signs are you know, they're fluid, like there's you know, I'm just now I'm speaking personally about the water signs. I know, but they're kind of mercurial, like their temperament can change on a dime. They have moods. They're moody people. Molly and I are Earth's signs around.

It's interesting that you say that water signs are fluid because Nancy Reagan, the water sign was a major factor in the escalation of the War on drugs, which is why so many people have to take pissed tests to prove their sobriety. WHOA, and while you were all reeling from that connection, we have to break for some more ads, so please pull out your credit cards and spend some money. We're back and we're talking about Joan Quiggly, History's greatest monster,

or maybe not. We'll be deciding that by the end of this podcast. One way or the other. It fits into the behind the Bastard's theme. Either Joan Quiggley's a bastard or Ronald Reagan the bastard behind the bases, which in a way makes her less of a bast I mean, it's like, still, she's the power behind the throne, and the throne is evil, so I mean the war on

drugs thing I don't love. Right now, Nancy Reagan is remembered for like just say no, yeah, she's you know, criminalizing all that stuff, and also for being a horrible homophobe, Yes, super homophobic. And there's because Joan is very conservative that comes across and this thing. So I like, she doesn't say. There's not a word about gay people in this. There's not a word about the AIDS crisis in this, So I like, I can't say anything about that because Joan

didn't consider it worth talking about what they did. Yeah, and if you're an astrologer and you saw the AIDS crisis coming and did nothing, then I'm going to go ahead and say that's what I'm saying. She's a monster too. And again, if you're like taking all the credit for making Nancy Reagan the person she is, then like you're taking credit for a lot of garbage. Actually, I'll say

this in Jone's defense. I don't think she could have predicted the AIDS crisis because that would have been doing the horoscopes of a bunch of low income gay people, and Joan quickly did not work for port. But astrology

too is seeing world trends. Yeah, you know, you can focus on an individual chart, or you can focus on the planetary alignments, and she she throughout her book she's very inconsistent about what astrology can do, because sometimes she'll say, when something goes badly for Reagan, she'll say, like, the stars were just so fucked up with that thing that there was no way that anything anyone could have done, no intervention. But she'll also claim that, like, you can

make anything successful if you pick the right time. That's all, which is it, Joan, That's all New age bullshit, is like it's infallible except sometimes yeah, but in this case nothing could be right. Yeah, So there's there's a lot of inconsistencies within it. But again, I don't have any issue with astrology until you start determining when the president speaks to national tragedies. From which point made me start? Do you guys think Alex Jones is the Joan Quigley

of the Trump administration? Oh shit, you know that's not a bad point. I saw him give a speech at the Republican National Convention, like outside of the main convention floor. I have never seen a human being get that red because he's screaming, and it's like it was terrifying. But I feel like with Trump too, it's like he also like he cribbed so much from Reagan, and he also does so much based on what he sees on TV. Yeah, he's also the president who just watches TV all day

and he's superstitious. Yeah, he's definitely supersticititious. And I'm sure they've got Alex Jones on a hotline. And I gotta say I'm glad that Trump does not have one thing Ronald Reagan had is personal charisma. Like if you ever talk to anyone, even people who didn't like him, who had face to face conversations, he was very good. He was he was fun. He was good at charming people. Right.

That's so weird because I never got that from him ever when you guys hung out, when we hung out stories when he got shot and he was like dying and being wheeled in for Sara, Like he like looked up at the surgeon and he said, oh, I sure, hope you're a Republican. It's like like little folk like that's not funny Trump would, is it. I think it's endearing in the moment. I don't think. I don't know.

I mean, look, he's not as bad as Trump. I think in terms of interpersonal relationship, I think Trump Reagan to me, like his charisma is I don't know. I think it was more like the same thing with like George W. Bush. It was like people were like, oh, his folksy charisma, and I was like, what are you talking about? Like, I don't see that. He just seems

like an idiot. But I think Reagan was more like George, you know, he he seemed like like an old man who used being old to like fake convey stateliness to be that's an aspect of it, like one thing old white man. It's hard to say how much of Trump's unpopularity is due to the media cycle, and like if Trump had been president in nineteen eighty one, would he be more popular because we just wouldn't have as much focus on it. But Reagan was more popular than Trump, right,

which I don't know. I mean imagine Reagan though, that was I mean, that's one of the things about you know, making a very like vanilla joke of like I hope you're a Republican as opposed to like firing off some crazy ass tweets where you're just so offensive exactly. Well, I guess it's more like if Reagan were president now, he'd be tweeting some crazy racist shit all the time. I know what I mean. It would be because he wouldn't know how to use Twitter because he's too old.

I think he might be mutton dressed as lamb on Twitter. But I'm saying he at least for sure was saying crazy racist, homophobic shit behind closed doors, behind closed doors. But I think that's the I mean, not that it makes it any better, but that it makes it easier to be a charming person. Ye fit in the you know, that's like what people think is charming about you, which is obviously Donald Trump's voters are like, I love when

he talks about a politics. He grabs them by the pussy and that's what I like, you know, But I do think there's different kinds of racism and they're all toxic. But like with Trump, you've got this more like I'm going to be like, but news organizations are still like a racially charged incident, you know, like they still won't say he's being a racist, even though he's like using

racist terms and saying racist things. People still are like, but he's the president, so we're going to treat it with like the import of like the president saying something but it's all the same platforms the Republican Party has always had, which are like homophobia, racism, and like hating

poor people. Well, and I think more to the point, what you're getting at, which which is interesting in that it ties in here is one of the things that has been so dangerous in regarding the intersection of the press and this presidency, is that we traditionally treat the presidency as this August position. There's like something special about the president, like that there's a certain level of respect

that you should have for the president. And that's obviously nonsense as it occurs to Donald Trump, because he's just an asshole on Twitter. Well, it's nonsense in general. It was nonsense then, yeacause this guy had a fucking astrology

telling his plain to ser full in the sky. The stars weren't and all like the great presidents of history were like slave owners, so like they were not keeping their racism secret, you know, or rampaging alcoholics or too fat to get out of a bathtub, like they're just what they're just doing, which is just disgusting, right, And I think the thing about Reagan was it was like we're casting a guy who looks like he should be the president to play the president on television, but he

doesn't actually like know or care. Well, that's where the astrologer becomes an important That's where the astrologer but comes back in let's get back to let's get back to astrologer. When we were last talking about the astrology stuff, we were getting into the fact that, yeah, Joan quickly insisted that Nancy Reagan make drug policy be like her big thing, and of course Nancy becomes the face of the just

Say No campaigns. You know, during the Reagan administration, the number of people behind bars for nonviolent drug offenses increased from like fifty thousand to several hundred thousand, like four thousand nineteen ninety seven. So, yeah, Nancy Reagan wasn't making policy on that, but she was the face of it, and she had a significant role in setting public opinion. And some of that's on Nancy, and some of that's on Joan Quigley, some of that's on Ronnie. Yeah, most

of it's on Ronnie because Joan and Nancy weren't making policies. Well, I feel like it's also it's always like frowned upon for the president to like listen to his wife, you know, and make policy based on that. But she gets her little pet projects right, but like incarcerating drugs, incarcerating everybody, yeah, the homie things, yeah uh so yeah. In addition to urging Nancy to make anti drug policy a cornerstone of her first ladyship, Joan insisted that Nancy avoid doing any

interviews with fashion magazines. I think she mainly includes this part so that you can take another shot at Nancy or another shot at seventeen magazine. She doesn't mention in magazine by name. It's just like screw magazines, magaziness. Poor people go to form those only read gold. Yeah. She says that not talking to fashion magazines was quote the hardest thing for her to give that up. She tried to wheedle me into letting her do it, but I

was firm. Joan claims at the time she picked for Nancy to do her public appearances and her anti drug speeches and stuff for as perfect as possible. She's very proud of this work and says it's the reason that Miss Reagan's reputation improved throughout her husband's time in office. Here's Joan again, quite typically, when Nancy thanked me for turning her image around, I said, and it was something

she was already aware of. Nancy Joe Kennedy paid between one and two million dollars in nineteen sixty for what I have done for thousands. In nineteen eighty one, she claims Joe Kennedy had to pay publicists to make Jackie Oh popular. Wish Oh. Come on, everybody would have loved Jackie no matter what she did. She was fucking Jacklino Nasis like, go to hell, John quickly. And then she said to Nancy, really, you must admit it has been a present. And again she was getting nine thousand dollars

a month in modern dollars. It's so hard because when you're paying for astrology, any number seems both ludicrous and completely safe. You know what I mean, nine thousand. If you're if someone's giving you nine thousand dollars for this, it seems easy to argue that that's a tiny amount. And they're saying, I'm the only person who can give

you this information right also, I mean it. Joan Quigley does not sound like a feminist, but in a way advising the first lady to not push her cause in fashion magazines is kind of a feminist stamp, and it would be taken way more seriously if you avoid that channel entirely. Like I'm kind of behind that. Yeah, I'm not against that part. But also I'm like, Nancy Reagan just wanted to be in fashion magazines. That's how she wanted to be first Lady, so she could be on

the cover of Vogue or whatever. And if she'd just been on the cover of Vogue and not been talking about drugs, yeah, maybe would be in a better place in the country. Should have stuck to fashion. Yeah, and more, I guess more to the point, what irks me is just like I'm sure that to Joan Quiggly, nine thousand dollars a month was a pittance, but like that's just further makes me dislike her, because it's like, like three families could have lived on what you just for this one.

Joe Gurritos wants to pay us all to do astrology. No, and you know, as horrible as Joan Quigley is, is as good as cool ranch Dorito's taste after a hot day not eating doritos. Okay, let's let's move back on. Can we co opt this for our podcast? So now, I like really wanted to if you guys get a Dorito sponsorship, I just got to say, super, We're going to try our best. I interviewed an influencer and I was like, how do you get brands to sponsor you? And she was like I just like at them and

I'm like, hey, sponsor me. And I was like that works, and I was like I'm going to start. Yeah, now, brands all the time listening this should hashtag at Dorito's in the podcast and try to try tos for putting us in this whole world where we all need to be sponsored by brand to exist. Hell world, don't you mean na choantastic world? I mean a cool a cool ranch where it is a cool ranch. Well, Santa Barbara, you brought it back there before. Yeah, I salute you

for that. Uh So Yeah. She own claims that her advice made Nancy Reagan more popular, and it's hard to argue with that, at least in the fact that Nancy Reagan did get a lot more popular. She started with like a fifty seven percent approval rating after her first year, but rose to seventy one percent by nineteen eighty five. So whether or not it was Jones doing Nancy Reagan

was a lot more popular by Ragie. She was right about not doing the fashion magazines too, because the fashion magazines would have just been a list of like what expensive things she was doing exactly and wearing. But also as the eighties, I thought that's all anybody wanted. No, I think, I mean, I think she's trying. I think Joan was trying to create the illusion of substance where she found none. Well, you know, the main way, that's what Jane would say, Yeah, right, true, big way to

create the illusion of substance is to not talk that much. Hmm, that's true, or to just appear. I mean when she had Nancy kind of choose her projects and then mention those all the time. She's also kind of editing out anything else Nancy might want to say, totally go over way less. Well, she's giving her talking points. Yeah and yeah, and Joan work started with Nancy Reagan's image, but it did not end there. As the months and years went on,

Nancy came to rely on Joan more and more. It's hard to say what influenced her husband's worsening health had on this, but Joan's involvement in the Reagan administration became extensive. Here's a quote from Joan. I was responsible for timing all press conferences, most speeches. The State of the Union

addresses the takeoffs and landings of Air Force one. I picked the time of Ronald Reagan's debate with Carter and the two debates with Walter Mondale, all extended trips abroad, as well as the shorter trips in one day excursions. In other words, Reagan did not leave the White House without Jones say so. She also helped the Reagans make major health decisions. Quote. I delayed President Reagan's first operation for cancer from July tenth, nineteen eighty five to July thirteenth,

and chose the time for Nancy's mistectomy. So she's got an unbelievable amount of influence. Did anyone think it was weird that they were having like press conferences at like twelve twenty five or something, you know, they did? There were like that's one of the quotes from earlier as people talking about it, it it was weird the times they would set for things, and nobody really knew exactly why, but there would be myths, like Nancy said, this isn't

a good time. That seems like like some smoking gun of that. Yeah, that Joan was picking the times that they were weird times. No, it's one of those things. Like it's definitely like no one who is who is close to the administration is refuted any of this. Like Nancy said, it wasn't that big idea. It's true, but Donald Reagan's like, no, like the thing, Yeah, it sure was a thing. It's important that you understand. Joan quickly never claimed to be clairvoyant, which is how Donald Reagan

described her. I don't think Donald Reagan was an astrology guy. She claims that a clairvoyant is a mystic or a psychic, while Joane sees herself as basically a scientist, and this is her view of astrology. I based my astrological analysis on the data provided by astronomers and charts calculated by computers.

My conclusions are based on this accurate scientific material, in the same way your doctor supports his diagnosis by the laboratory reports, or an economist bases his predictions on statistics. So Joan didn't have a computer of her own, this

was the eighties. She would send a lot of the information that she was calculating off to third party companies who had computers, which means that in addition to the unsecured phone call she was having with Nancy Reagan about the president's secret schedule, she was also sending off that information to strangers. Was she saying in her was she like sending postcards basically saying the President wants to have Air Force one launching it to this place on this

date at this time. All she says is that no one could have figured out what they were talking about based on the info she gave those people. But we're having to take her word from it, right right, So I'm just setting that up that there's a severe breach in the President's information security as a result of this astrology thing that's going on. So Joan is a serious lady. She had nothing but contempt for astrologers who write for newspapers and magazines like she used to do when she

was young and needed the money. She rages that there are at present no forced standards for astrologers and that unworthy people cannot be prevented from assuming what should be a respected title. So she's very angry about popular astrology, which is, you know, the astrology that people can afford if they can afford a newspaper. Miss quickly spent a large chunk of her book trying to convince us that

astrologers have been historically necessary in government. She points out that most great kings had astrologers, that Isaac Newton believed in astrology, that Einstein believed in astrology. So like, she spends a lot of her book trying to convince you that it's fine for an astrologer to be advising the president. Now. In her view of the world, every achievement of the Reagan era, and also every human achievement in general, was made possible by the combination of the stars being in

the right position. She credits the miracle of flight to the fact that Neptune and Pluto were together in the air sign of Gemini in the early nineteen hundreds. That's true, Okay, good, good to know. I thought it was like people, Oh yeah, everybody met the air and dying until they got it right. But no, it's good. That's magnets, yeah, stars. I could go back and forth about like all the different things

Joan believed. I wound up putting a lot more of that in the first draft of this that I trimmed out just because, like, let's keep it to the Reagans. It is important. You know that. She claims to put in a huge amount of work to the charts that she was doing so. For example, exact birth times are

necessary for good horoscopes. Since Ronald Reagan was born back in the olden times before people kept track of when babies were born, Joan had to rectify him, which is the term she uses for some reason for figuring out someone's birth time using backwards math. So she claims to have calculated both Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan's birth times. Did Joe tell me tell you how what backwards math is? Like, I'm dying to know about back It's a little bit

of magic, are you? I got that quote? When you don't know what time of day an individual was born, and for serious astrology, the exact birth time is indispensable. You must figure it out from such clues as the known events of that person's past, their appearance in psychological and physical characteristics, not already explained by the other factors in their horoscope. Oh it's not math at all. No, no, no, she claims to know the exact manner. Oh so it's

like reverse. She's like, oh, he seems like he was born in around twelve twenty five, so exactly, it seems like an afternoon or yeah, seems like a fourth using personality to be like okay, yeah, sure, yeah yeah, And everyone who could have proved her wrong on this has been dead for decades because Ronald Reagan was born in like the teens. Yeah, you know clocks then either, So we have to cut for some what are those things where people sell stuff and other people learn about products

and service Doritos. We're having a Dorito's break now, so you guys have a crunch tastic time listening to these taste ads, and we're back. So we were just talking about how Nancy Reagan figured out what she claimed to be Ronald Reagan's exact time of birth, uh, and also Gorbachov's exact time of birth so that she could do their charts, which which comes up later. But let's let's veer back right now and talk about the Challenger Space

shuttle disaster. I ran across some Twitter, unverified Twitter comments by people claiming that Ronald Reagan's astrologer had picked the time for the Challenger Shuttle launch. I found no evidence of that, but Joan does claim that she's the reason the President ordered an investigation of NASA after the Challenger disaster.

According to Joan, the President had Nancy ask her whether or not the stars said NASHA should be investigated after seven astronauts died in an explosion, which, yes, regardless of what the stars say, someone should investigate. But yeah, Joan says that she analyzed the charts for the launch and the astronauts and said that there ought to be an investigation.

The Twelfth House indicated that sabotage, at worst or at least inexcusable negligence had been involved in the crash, which was obviously true because space shuttles aren't supposed to explode. That seems like a like a like an easy get for for Where was Joan before the Launch's interested in right in flight? Now? Yes, well get close to the stars. Yeah, it's weird that she didn't call that one right the same time, but she doesn't know when bad things are

going to happen. She also she only knows that she could have predicted them. Yeah, if she. If only I hadn't been doing if only you gave me more money, I would have known. Yeah, that this what happened. Yeah, so yeah, she's the reason there was an investigation in an assa after this. Now, older listeners may remember that Ronald Reagan was known as the Teflon President because many many scandals during his presidency didn't seem to stick to

him up until you know the very end. John quickly claims credit for this too, in a chapter of her book titled Astrology. Was the Teflon and the Teflon Presidency beautiful? It's great, It's a work of art. Really, here's Joan. For almost six years, the president dominated his press conferences, partly because he was well prepared, and finally because the times I chose for his press conferences enabled him to

appear at his best. She repeatedly insists that my control over the departure times at Air Force One when the President was aboard were absolute. Her most vivid story of sort of deflecting a scandal for the President came during the run up of his trip to Germany in nineteen eighty five. He was going to help shore up Helmet Cole, the German Prime Minister in a reelection campaign. There was a big photo op opportunity that was supposed to be

important to the German public. Where the two men were going to go to a cemetery in Bittberg where they'd lay to rest a wreath commemorating the dead of World War Two. It was a lovely gesture, but the President's team failed to account for the forty nine dead Waffen ss men buried there. This became a huge issue in America. I just talked about kind of Illeisel was very angry

about it. People marched in the streets. Israeli and American Jewish leaders were outraged, but Helmet Cole insisted the visit was necessary, and most Germans seemed to agree. Ronnie needed to support Cole because his re election was critical to write Reagan's Cold War strategy, something about where he wanted to put missiles. So bereft of good options, Ronald Reagan

turned to Joan Quigley. She claims to have suggested that the administration basically make a visit to bergen Belsen concentration camp before going to Bittberg, and that they would publicize that a lot more. She also claimed that the timing on when they visited Bitberg was critical, so she picked an exact like minute and like this is the minute

that Air Force one has to land. And what mattered was not the context of the president's visit or that he was laying a wreathit a cemetery that included dead asss men. What mattered was that astrologically the right time was chosen. Jones time didn't work out with the president's existing plan. They're supposed to have a picnic or something, so she canceled the picnic, and then she had the Air Force One fly around in circles for as long as it had to in order to land at Bitberg

at her chosen time. So she just had the Air Force One just circling for hours, waiting for the right astrological time, burning jet fuel. How did the public receive this visit? They didn't know. I don't know. It was actually a disaster. This is Michael Moore. One of the first times he shows up on TV is as at

a crowd of protesters at Bitburg. Hold. Yeah, yeah, but Helmet Cole was re elected in the controversy did eventually fade, which Joan credits to the fact that she had Air Force one burn enough fuel that yeah, they were able and at her specifically chosen astrological time. So again, people noticed at the time that the Reagans had really weird timing issues because there were like White House correspondents that

had worked with other presidents who didn't use astrologers. Joan notes that like or who did with their astrologers, gave them like times, you know, hour normal people till Yeah, because Joe, it's always like twenty minutes past the Yeah with you, because that's how you make it seem like it's a special time. Yeah. No, twelve twenty five. Yeah. I keep feel like we all keep saying twelve twenty five, Well there's probably an astrological Yeah, it's when the seventh

house is in the night House. Yeah. Well it's also Christmas when the moon is in the seven twelve twenty five wait what oh yeah wow yeah, yeah, that's when George, you should be an astrologer. Because you just did a whit on me. I was like, why I played it being an astrologer on AOL instant messenger when I was in like junior high almost got to charging people money,

and I was like, no, I can't do this. Well, stream of Bay, I know you could be that kind of astrologer, not this president but I'm saying, what if you did and then you like were able to bring it down, you know, because if you have that much power, right, you could be like, you know, serious saying I'm in the wrong. Oh so definitely. Donald Trump reads everything on the teleprompter like an anchorman. You know, you could just get him to say anything. Yeah. So I'm just maybe

I should be the presidential astrologer. Yeah, as long as he doesn't listen to this podcast, you can't get that job here, I know. Yeah. There's a quote in Jones book from Bill Plant of CBS which is fascinating to me because he was basically talking about how the White House correspondence would always wonder why the timing was so weird. We wondered if there was any strategy involved, and we were relieved to learn that the obvious reason was astrology.

Keep being quotes. It's like, why were you relieved at that? Like what was going on in the eighties could be something even weirder. Yeah, yeah, god, yeah, you're right. Just I mean I would have just assumed panic attacks, like every time someone's late, I'm like, oh, it's a panic attack, or I would have it was like to throw off the rhythm of the press Corps or something to keep people on their toes. Yeah, but you make people wait, it's like a power move. Yeah. So yeah. Joan takes

credit for being the Teflon in the Teflon presidency. She also takes credit for the being the only reason that Ronald Reagan stayed alive through his term. Quote, the fact that the cancer did not reoccur is due to the excellent time I chose astrologically. So she claims to have been the reason his cancer didn't come back, which I would give to the doctor, but whatever. She also takes credit to the fact that Ronald Reagan was not assassinated

during his time in office. While Reagan had times where he could have been assassinated, I was always able to protect him by warning him not to appear in public at vulnerable times. Now I'm angry at her for stopping Ronald Reagan from being and save your assassination wants for other more worthy people. You know, there's a lot of people. I got so into just hating her in the book that I was just angry at her for taking credit

for everything. Yeah. But again again, right, she's taking credit for like was that, Well, it's just it's like she talks about like the invasion of Grenada, and like there's no discussion about like whether it was morally right or like the people who died. It was all about like I had to make sure Air Force one landed at the right time. When he gave his speech about like the Grenada invasions, like that's not the thing to be concerned about. Joan quickly, well, that's varsity league. She's in

junior league. It's totally different to handle different things, you know. It's very frustrating. So yeah, Joan takes credit for everything good that happened during the Reagan administration. The only mistake she admits to making is in picking the time for Reagan's first debate with Walter Mondale during his nineteen eighty four re election campaign. Mondale is generally seen as winning that debate, but Joan actually kind of takes credit for

this too. So when she was charting it, she put his son in a prominent position in the location chart for the time and place in the debate. A reason that he had so little charisma and personality that the sun, normally indicative of these traits, would simply emphasize his deficit. Characteristics. Unfortunately, she claims that putting the sun in that position in his chart in the time she picked actually made Mondale unstoppably powerful in the first debate, which is why Reagan lost.

So that's good to know for Walter Mondale, if he's listening to this podcast, he had an even more powerful astrologer. Yeah, you know who just died before the second debate wis Yeah, well we're gonna get to some dueling wizards a little bit here. Well, maybe she's also responsible for hiding President Reagan from the public during the days after his biggest scandal, Iran Gate broke. For those of you who don't know, the Iran Conscious scandal started in nineteen eighty five when

a group called Hesbalah and Lebanon kidnapped seven Americans. America went to Iran and was like, hey, could you guys get hesbel At a chill out for like and give us these guys back, and if you do, we'll give you missiles which you can use to shoot at Iraq. Iran in Iraq were war at the time. We were also giving a Raq weapon so that they could shoot Iran. But President Reagan was like, why not arm both sides of the conflict and free some hostage at the same time.

So we had Israel sell weapons to Iran, and then we paid back Israel in more way weapons, and then there wound up being a bunch of extra cash leftover after this. And a guy named Alie North was like, oh, you know, we've got all these far right wing rebels in Nicaragua fighting the socialist government there. And there's an Act of Congress called the bowl In Amendment that says, we can't give the contras more money, but what if we just keep selling more missiles to Iran and give

the money to the Contras now? And so anyway, that's what they did, and it's different from what gangs do because everyone wore suits. So that's the Iran Contra scandal in a nutshell. The story broke in late nineteen eighty six and Americans got very angry that the president and his men had illegally funded a terrorist group linked to twelve hundred attacks. Joan claimed that the stars were too

bad for her to help with this scandal. The major cosmic forces had so turned against Reagan that what I had been able to do earlier was impossible for me to do. Then, so she just advised Nancy Reagan to not have the president talk to anybody, and Donald Reagan criticizes her during this for limiting the president's exposure to

the media and the public. This period, people were yelling basically for President Reagan to say something about this gigantic scandal, and he wouldn't say a word, which apparently all due to Joan Quickly saying don't talk to anybody, which I don't know. Maybe President Reagan would have made the choice to shut up no matter what, but I'm sure Joan telling him it was too dangerous for him to talk to the press about all these missiles he had sold

people did not help matters. So I think that goes in the Joan Quickly bad pile, if you're keeping track. But I mean, like, if he had said something, we don't know what he would have said, sorry, would have been nice. Maybe she knew him so well at that point that she knew that what he would say would

be even worse than just nothing. Yeah, And the way Joan puts this is the media was crying out for press conferences, which in my opinion, would have been disastrous to the president's interest in during which he would have been at a disadvantage, which again she doesn't express any care for the nation's interests or for the fact that an actual crime had been committed. It's just this is bad for the president, right, and that's my only concern.

And he's famous and that reflects on me, right. Yeah. Well, no one knew about her at this point, right, But to her, she knew she was the power. Yeah. Yeah, she didn't want it to go bad. She also claims to be responsible for beginning the end of the Cold War. Uh. Yeah, no,

that's a big one to say, credible. Yeah, I was heavily involved in what happened in the relations between the superpowers, changing Ronald Reagan's evil empire attitude so that when he went to Geneva, so that he went to Geneva prepared to meet a different kind of Russian leader and one

he could convince of doing things our way. See. Joan claimed she did Gorbachev's chart and figured out his birth time and figured out that he and Ronald had the potential to be best friends and bring peace to the world. Best friends. Yeah, best friends, Reagan and Gorbachev. You remember when they brought world peace? Yeah? Where we have world peace. It's now. Yeah, it's great, fair, that's perfect now. Yeah. So Jones saw that there was the potential for an

incredible collaboration between these two. She just had to cool Ronald Reagan's hot heart. So she incepted the idea of peace with the USSR into Ronald Reagan by bringing the idea up to Nancy Reagan. I'm going to read this orbatim because it's just just charming. Do me a favor. I told Nancy Ronnie can be so charming and persuasive. Get him to exercises super salesmanship ability on Gorbachev. Get him to sell arms reduction, democracy, human rights, and free

enterprise to the Secretary General. She added, it only makes sense for both sides to agree to reduce the grandiose military expenditures that are causing the national debt to rise in the USA and the Soviets and abysmal standard of living. Ronnie will be able to reason with Gorbachev and convince him of doing things our way, you know, freedom and free enterprise. Which, yeah, I wait, am I siding with Joan because she wants to curb military Sunday? I mean,

it's it's just the way she phrases it. It's a goof just get him to sell arms reduction. It's like how she says it, like it's a horoscope though. Yeah, yeah, like don't go on a trip tomorrow. Yeah, no, I don't disagree with like, I mean, that's obvious. It's the only good policy thing she said so far. Yeah, I'm not that good, like better than that in the fashion magazine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's not bad. I have trouble believing that.

That's what convinced Ronald Reagan to deal with Do you find it difficult? But you know, freedom and free enterprise. You have to give her the wins along with the lawsuits. You're right, you're right, You're right. That's fair. So Joan wound up had there was a big secret meeting in Rekkievic between Grbachav and Reagan. It was a big deal because you know, fucking cold, what is like red dawn yere So the fact that they were actually sitting down

and talking was a big deal. Joan did this in spite of the fact that she had no idea where Reikievic was. Nancy mentioned their meeting to her and asked if the president should go and Joan's first question was where on earth is Reikievic and how do you spell it? Which maybe ought to be like your your sign that you shouldn't be weighing in on this, But there, what's that Jay doing in there? It's true, it's a confusing ass Jay, and the why is a little weird too,

But Joan still did the work. And while the Reikievic meeting didn't end with any conclusive because President Reagan wasn't willing to give up his Star Wars missile defense plan, it was a big step towards thawing in the Cold War, and it led eventually to the signing of the Intermediate

Range Nuclear Forces Treaty or the IF Treaty. This treaty basically pulled a lot of short range nukes out of Europe and led to the elimination of something like twenty six hundred missiles, which, regardless of your politics, is a good thing. Twenty six hundred less nukes in the world

because of this treaty. So negotiations for the inf actually had been ongoing through back channels and shit since like nineteen eighty one, but by nineteen eighty seven, Gorbachev was ready to fly over to America and sign the treaty. The decision for whden where to host the meeting, of course, was Jones, so she plotted everything out and sent her recommendations.

The Russians agreed at first, but then they kept switching around the times and changing their plans, often at the last minute, until the dates for the summit and the times for the signing were fixed at, according to Joan, close to the worst possible astrological time to do it. Oh, this is probably not a coincidence. In fact, it was almost certainly the result of a great untold duel between

a US astrologer and the Soviet Union. Nancy had been Joan for years at that point, informing her about secret meetings with Soviet premiere months before they actually happened. There was zero informational security in this meeting. So not only is Joan sending off information about this to random computer people to have it computed, but like they're talking on an unsecured line. They did sometimes talk through the White House switchboard and gonna I'm gonna quote from Joan's recollection here.

Nancy always chided me for refusing to leave my full name and number with the switchboard. I told her it made me uneasy. I told her operators talked. She said I was silly to worry about something like that. I know, She said, all White House operators are secretive and reliable. Nancy told me she would give me an assumed names that I could always get through to her through the White House switchboard. She would choose the assumed name for me and put it on a list. This would automatically

give me access. The name she chose was Joan Frisco Ha. Ha Ha was from San Francisco. So Joan is convinced that their conversations were intercepted by the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union changed the time times of the treaty meeting in order to favor themselves and hurt Ronald Reagan as much as possible. Very well, maybe what happened now Astrology was illegal in the Soviet Union? Really Yeah, well they were.

Religion was illegal. So they're not big on superstition in the Soviet Union, so I think they are, which is why it has to be banned. Yeah yeah, yeah, well you forget astrology science. Well I was saying, maybe Resputant was still alive. Well, I think it does tie back to resputing. Yeah. I think that's probably a big part of why it was. So it seems like one of

the two. Either the Soviets found an astrology they hadn't in prison and had that person pick the worst times, or they just made sure to always fuck with the timing once that Reagan said it, because they knew that it would upset him that he wasn't doing that. I think that's what happened. But it's funner to think of it as like a I could sell a screenplay on

an astrology duel. But yeah, definitely in the United States, so there's any producers on them, or if Dorito's wants to back the first Dorito's feature film original content, Yes, favorite streaming platform this is. This is going to make us a lot of money. I'm so exciting, Okay, I hope so yeah, I mean that would just be a pittance, but I'll take it. I'll do that work on Yeah. Oh damn it, watch out, we're gonna take your sponsorship. No,

you're so much better at this than me. Yeah. So Joan blames the information leaking on Nancy's cunning ruse, calling her Joan Frisco. I think it's just as likely that it happened because she was they were talking on home phone lines or she was sending stuff off to computer people.

Either way, clearly wasn't a secure situation. Joan found the best time of day to do the signing, even with all of the Soviet fuckery, and she warned Nancy Reagan that since they weren't signing in a great day, she had to be super careful to use the exact time that Joan suggested for the day that they did sign it, but Nancy messed up and they signed like twenty minutes later.

Joan suggests this is because Nancy had just said cancer surgery, you know from the case answer that Joan claims she foresaw it didn't warn Nancy about, and then adds, under such circumstances, she can't be blamed for not arranging the signing with her usual foresight and precision, which is nice. It's the only break she gives Nancy Reagan in her whole book. So the IONF Treaty is probably one of the most inarguable accomplishments of the Reagan era. Thousands of

nuclear weapons were destroyed. Both sides were allowed to send advisors over to inspect the process. The whole world was made a little bit safer by the implementation of this treaty. Here's what Joan said about it. The execution of the if treaty signing time was flawed. The exact time I had asked for would have had the effect of filling up a tea cup nearly to the brim at the same time ensuring that the tea cup would not fill up too fast or spill over. Then Joan mixes the

shit out of her metaphors. What we now had, in effect was a car whose brakes had failed, checked through crowded intersections, just a classic filled tea cup car speed through an intersection. So Joan claimed that either the treaty was going in disastrously for the world, because she wrote this in nineteen ninety before all the effects, the treaty was going to end disaster, or it was going to be like a thoroughbred racing unchallenged towards the finish lines.

That's awesome. She only hedges her bets when she's talking about the future. Whenever she talks about a prediction she made in the past, it was always very clear to her. But Joan's not consistent. Is what I'm saying here, So yeah, to this day, I don't know how safe that treaty is for us or the world. I haven't had the heart to progress that signing chart as I did the other it was fine. I haven't had the heart and alsor they're not paying me anymore. They're not paying me anymore.

So yeah, Joan quickly wasn't sure that the IF treaty was a good idea, but she's damned sure that Nancy Reagan is a monster. At times, she writes about Nancy Reagan like Nancy was a vampire. Basically, I mean, is she wrong again? I guess not. No, she's not wrong. Two people can both be monsters. Yeah, two people can both be monsters. She claims that Nancy grew stronger as Ronald Reagan grew weaker, as if she was like feeding off of Ronald's essence again, you know, like a vampire.

Maybe she knows she was close to Nancy. Yeah. When I say she knows where the bodies are buried, I mean she was. She's a vampire. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I guess. Like to me, I get frustrated because I'm like, even if you're within an awful administration, you got to be loyal to the people who are the only reason that you're noteworthy, and like Nancy Reagan is the reason you got it brought into this. She was very nice to year in her shitty memoirs. You should be not a

monster to her. But again, the astrologer's job is to tell the truth and the politician's job is to, you know, try and make everybody happy. And that's that's fair because certainly Nancy Reagan doesn't deserve any equivocating here, that's right. Yeah, yeah, Okay, it's be real about Nancy Reagan. And she's polite but bad. See, I get too drawn in when I read someone's terrible memoirs, yea, And I don't. I don't hate Nancy Reagan as much as I ought to because her memoirs are better written.

Probably she had more money for a good ghost write. Ah, that's why. Yeah. So I don't want to defend Nancy Reagan anymore. I do want to make it clear that Quigley was terrible at predicting the future, because while she usually equivocated between you two points and would say like, oh, the treaty is either going to be a disaster or fine to kind of like sometimes she did make specific predictions in her memoirs about things that were going to happen in the future, and they are all wrong. Here's

one aiding the Contras wasn't popular in many circles. History will one day prove that Ronald Reagan was strategically correct. The Contras signed a peace treaty with the government in nineteen eighty seven. The leader they were fighting, Ortega, is still in charge of Nicaragua. Joan Quiggley said that if this remained the case, all of Latin America would fall

to communism, still waiting on that. She also includes the text of a letter she sent to Ronald Reagan saying that development of SDI the Star Wars Strategic Defense initiative, was a brilliant strategy. So he said he would go down in history with Lincoln and Roosevelt as the best American presidents, but he would be known as the greatest of America's presidents because while Lincoln just solved slavery and Roosevelt just solved World War Two, Donald Reagan would quote

bring peace to the world. Oh man, what if if only she'd been right. Yeah, Well, she wasn't right about any of that, because the Strategic Defense initiative was scrapped in nineteen ninety three for being expensive nonsense. World peace still has not happened. Yeah, but also Trump brought up the Star Wars thing like yesterday. Definitely made an impression on him. Yeah, yep, so she did say conduct the

course of history. Yeah. Well, in a way, she was a Charlatan, but she was working for Charlatan's Yeah, so he'd been working for the good guys. She probably would have done good guys stuff. I mean, just anything to advance her own interest, right, Yeah. She just seems like a self interested person. Yeah, that's she's definitely a self interested person. Most of my distaste for her comes from I feel like she was taking advantage of a scared lady whose husband had just gotten shot. Yeah, but who

cares if it's Nancy Reagan. Yes, you takes just a scared lady. Yeah. Maybe that's why Nancy got so bad. No, it was bad, she was bad. I mean, I think like a lot of it probably comes from the fact too, that if you don't view astrology as any in any way legitimate, which I'm barely saying I even I do. By the way, Rob is an aries not a Pisces, just to make that clear. But he is on the cusp,

so I wasn't that far off. But uh, I mean, I think it's easy to see people who do believe in astrology or who charge to make astrological predictions as manipulative. And but I mean they're different than clairvoyance. It's true because they're actually looking at something that they believe they can. Yeah, they're looking at math, and they're trying to apply logic to an insane world to make people comforted by the idea that there's like a structure and a float of

things and that you can predict what it'll be. I think they believe in their own abilities. Well yeah, And see, this is one of the things that I question is whether or not because Joan isn't entirely consistent number one in her claims about what astrology can do, because there will be times when she was like, there's nothing that could have changed the outcome this, and there's other times where she's like, you can guarantee the success of any

endeavor if you do this and this and this. She's a scammer, But she wasn't like giving the advice she was giving them was mostly about what time to do the bad things they were going to do, as opposed to being like, do this thing. Yeah, they were like, when you make the announcement about the horrible thing you're doing, do it at twelve twenty five. The only thing she claims that she was specifically giving advice that went beyond timing is for Nancy Reagan's war on drug stuff. Yeah.

I mean, I think you've done a great job of convincing me again that Nancy Reagan is one of his greatest monsters and we're getting behind a bastard here for Yeah. I mean, I think also she really used the fact that she was like, you know, the first lady to hide the fact that she was a horrible person and should be remembered as such. And just because she was insecure doesn't mean that she didn't I mean, everything she did. Yeah.

The Reagan's legacy has benefited so much from the nostalgia with conservatives that they look back on it as like the last great time. They were all in coke at that time too, for sure, And also we know people were maybe like not so cogent during points of the presidency and somebody maybe it was all over North, you know, somebody was in their ear being like, do this horrible thing, and they were saying yes. So you know, you still have the the president you can say like no, I

don't want to. Yeah. So I don't think we should put too much on the people that influenced the Reagans. I think we should really just lay the blame at the feet of the Reagans for being such assholes. Well, there's definitely a lot of blame to go around for the Reagans, I guess might I don't think Joan was the I don't think she's the one to blame. I think if we're gonna blame anyone, let's blame Aliver North.

I think she gets some blame, though, cause I think number one just for the war on drugs, not just for the war on drugs. I still think that Nancy's recollection of how Joan came back into her life rings truer to me than Jones does. And I think that

Joan was taking advantage of that. And I also think I think Joe knew that she was not as I think whether and I think she must have believed in astrology to some extent, obviously, but I think she knew that it was not as cut and dry and clear cut as she claims in her book, and I think getting involved in global geopolitics to the extent that she did with no qualifications. Yeah, but again that's what the Reagans did. That's a good point, you know, I mean,

especially Nancy. He definitely for Nancy. He'd been a governor at that point, but he wasn't a good governor, and he got cast in the role because he was like someone you know, he was like Trump. He was somebody that really evil. People were like, this guy will make a good face for our evil white supremacist and he seemed able to be manipulated, and he was able to

be manipulated, which made him a good you know. And I think people do kind of use the excuse of like, oh, maybe he was senile, And there's rumors he had Alzheimer's at a certain point in the presidency. Definite. But again it's like he still thought it was a good idea to be president. He wasn't like, hey, maybe I'm not the most qualified person. He like, let all those people gas them up. To be fair, if you have Alzheimer's or your senile, you're not going to be you can't

be held accountable for your decisions, even if they're terry. Right. But I'm saying, don't thinking had Alzheimer's when you became governor. I think you had ambitions. But you know, if your ambitions are like I'll do whatever it takes to stay in power and get into power, you probably shouldn't be in power. I don't disagree with that when it comes to Ronald Reagan or for Nancy. But I don't think that the fact that a number of unqualified people got

into national leadership excuses what Joan did either. But I don't, I don't. I just think if you're scamming the Reagans, like the Reagans deserve to be scammed, you know. And when I added up, it's like she she's mostly culpable for like being a bad friend. Yeah, as opposed to she's a bad friend, and you're not really someone's friend

if they're paying you to be their friend. But it's like compared to Info Wars, for instance, I mean, when you when you think about the statements she was actually making and the way that she was wielding the power that she had, she could have been so much worse. She could have been so much worse. She was saying what time to land the plane? She wasn't saying, like everybody who you think is like a child in a cage is an actor. That's true, and like that person

is in the ear. But ive Donald Trump, and he believes that stuff even though he's making the policy which is like more insane. Well, I will say, though, if you start comparing people from anyone from the Reagan administration to anyone from today's administration, all the people from back then are going to look better. We know, what did she do? But what did she do that was so bad? Bad? Just because the gloves are off, they were doing the same shit. It's just Nancy was going to choose a

bad policy to get behind. And I think that Joan was correct in saying that the war on drugs was a way to play the public and to create a cause and fabricate a solution that wouldn't be effective but would have the illusion of being this really incredible, like we're all going to be so happy this was passed. But what if Nancy Reagan, what if she was like, all right, choose like a b C and everything was

even worse. But what if Nancy had just done a bunch of fashion magazine interviews and nobody she'd never gone on. Well that's stupid, though, why should she? She was the first lady? Because I think that what Joan was saying

is that people need to take you seriously. You don't have the knowledge, You don't have the gravitas to be able to make people like you, because they're just gonna think you're and also because you're a bad person who has no substance and you're just like a homophobic, horrible socialite. Isn't it bad to tell someone who has no substance and horrible opinions on things to make their opinions count by becoming ac she was already Yeah, but she just

wanted to talk about fashion. Well, that wouldn't have ever made her possul being first ladies to talk about fashion and also pretend to care about some pet issue. It's like being a socialite on a super scale. So it makes sense that a socialite would have the best advice on how to be like a socialite. Yeah, well I guess this. This, this, this is not something we're gonna settle to either of our anyone's mutual agreement. I think she took advantage of Nancy Reagan in a moment of

weakness and light about having predicted her husband's assassination. Y'all are on a different side of that, and think that Nancy probably just called her up, called her up. I was gonna say. I think our side, our platform is fuck Nancy Reagan. I don't disagree with fun Nancy Reagan. But I add John quickly to that. John gets as scot Free. We're pro Joneses. You the listeners at home, will have to decide for yourselves who you think the

bastards in this story were. But I think we can all agree there were a lot of bastards everyone's talked about today. And Donald Reagan, by the way, is also kind of a dick, but we'll get into that. Yeah, I think we should be the people whose names we don't know yet. Yeah, those are the real Yeah, we didn't even watch Ollie North should take a lot more, That's what I'm saying. And if we're gonna blame someone for the Reagans, that's not the Reagans. It ain't the psychic.

Not the psychic I mean, but she's not. She's not a psychica. She's astrology, a planetary scientist, maybe the stars. Maybe the stars were misaligned and that's why they were all such terrible people. Yeah, true, because she's definitely it's just the way she writes things. I'm not saying she's likable. I'm just saying she's not as bad as the Rigans. And maybe maybe I'm not saying she's as bad as

the Reagans. I am saying she's history's greatest monster. Okay, this has been enlightening, and I'm glad y'all had a different opinion on all of this than me, because it's hard for me to have much perspective after three hundred pages of the Twelfth House and the Seventh by the way I should, I want to add one last thing. So the end of Joan Quigley's book is just a bunch of stuff on how astrology works in politics, and so she talks about all the different houses, which I

don't understand what any of that means. But there's like the twelfth House in politics is apparently all the poor people, but also journalists and saboteurs and like poor people, the homeless, drug addicts and journalists and the same a lot. No, she's the right astrologer for the Reagans for sure. Anyway, Uh, you guys want to plug your pluggables? Yeah, sure. Come listen to Night Call. It's on the Audio Boom network

of podcasts. And if you have a question, a comment, an astrological prediction, you can give us a call at two four oh four six night You can also text us at the same number, or you can email us at Night Call podcast at gmail dot com. Yeah, and we can do like some cross coverage. If you've got thoughts about the Reagans and astrology, you send them to Night Call and we will talk about them there too. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you so much for fun. Thank you guys for being on you

listeners at home. If you have an opinion over whether or not Joan Quickly is history's greatest monster, or if I'm being too hard on her, drop us a line at at Bastard's pod on Twitter and either yell at me or agree with me, whichever is your preference. You can also find us on the internet at behind the Bastards dot com. We'll have some pictures up there. Joan Quigley commissioned a drawing of like a presidential seal with astrological symbols on it. That's super kooky. We'll get a

picture of that for you. So yeah, I'm Robert Evans. You can find me on Twitter at I write Okay, please check us out. We're back every Tuesday. So next Tuesday we will be talking about someone probably with millions of deaths on their hands. Hey, when are you gonna get to some Freemasons? Yeah, they're all Freemasons. All right. This has been behind the bastards. I have been Robert Evans, and I love like forty percent of you.