Political History with Doris Kearns Goodwin

tried her, right, Caroline? Did you try her? We triedberg but her business manager said, um, this is weird. She said you two had a falling out. I was, I was confused. She said you two were no longer on speaking terms. You heard that right? For two whole years. If you if you came to the Saddle Creek Diner on a Monday morning, you'd see me and baby Ruth in a corner eating breakfast and talking shop. You're talking shop. You wouldn't understand it, Carolina, Okay, it's lost stuff, all right?

Did you understand it? Not really? But I let her talk, and boy can she talk. She can talk you through the Saddle Creek's Lumberjack Special for sausage links and to pancake piles. Later, she's still going on and I'm sorry to ask you, but why did you guys stop hanging out? Um, I would say scheduling conflicts? Well, I mean after we had a huge fight, she said that she couldn't see me anymore. So that was our scheduling conflict. Oh, got it? So yeah, if I saw today, I feel like bygones

would be bygones. So exactly how did you guys leave it? It? For word? Well, if memory serves, she said something like, if you start a food fight in this diner, I will never speak to you again. And you started a food fight in the diner. Yes, we did, or I did? Who can remember the specifics anymore. It's it's hard to have a food fight when you're the only one throwing food. You know, it feels like you're the apple in that situation. But to get people to join, you have to just

throw more food. I mean, omelets, jellos, a cup full of eyes. I mean, nothing was getting this crowd going. How old do you think most of how old were the most of the people in the diner? Oh, I mean everyone was in there early to late seventies except for one grand kid. Yeah, so that's probably not the best participants for a food fight, you know what I mean. Ruth knows that I'm here if she every wants to rekindle our friendship. I'm available for breakfast literally every morning. Well,

actually we record the podcast in the morning. Any morning works. There is literally nothing going on in my life right now that I would prioritize over breakfast. Huh. I just want to let that lie. Yeah, I'm out there. This is really important to me, and I put a lot of effort into it. Now, after a quick commercial break, we'll have Ariana Grande in the studio, I mean her music in the studio. We'll have music reviews with Ariana Grande in the building, her music, not her physical or

spiritual being. Okay, so stay tuned next to meet Oriana Grande and we're back time for music reviews. This is our music written segment. Yes that Braun introduced to me minutes ago, that I crafted myself. Ariana Grande is just drop in deuces left and right. I'm sorry, I don't know if you meant what is? What is? What are trying to say? I mean dropping hit hit after hit. I mean, thank you next, thank you Next. I'm familiar

with the song. It's as if she's inside my brain when I'm eating munchkin donuts from Duncan's thank you next, thank you next. I say that after I eat a munchkin, like, thank you to that munchkin, yes, and then next onto the next munchkin. I identify with Ariana. How so, how do you? The world wants a piece of us? I can't leave my house without someone, you know, hounding me about my love life. So it's very simple. You can't leave the house, yes, Like, do you think you have

paparazzi following you? Yeah? I do. Well, just one person, this crazy guy who lives on my street. He's harmless. You just asked me questions all the time. Sometimes he takes in my car if I leave it unlocked. I'm sorry. Well, let's take a listen to thank you next you day, dank you everyone, dank you for all you, thank you, thank you everyone, thank you for all you. Okay, that was not the song we were talking about, and you crafted this music segment. You know what, I'm not going

to disagree with you, all right. I've been listening to that song thinking it was Ariana Grandes thank you next, but you love it? I well, I love Ariana Grundie number one. I love thank You next, even though I'm not familiar with it, and I love the song we just played, so I love all three. This music segment is a disaster. I knew you were going to say that, but I love your participation for the first time. Thank you in our review segments. Well, I think that's the

end of our music review. But up next we have a woman who, like Arianna, takes no bologna. Be right back, listeners and thank you next, Thank you next, I mean, welcome back to the Ron Burgundy Podcast. We are joined today by the highly esteemed Doris Kerns Goodwin. She is a Pulitzer Prize winner and one of the country's top scholars on American presidents and h Honestly, we we only got her for an interview because we lied and said this was npr um Well, so anyway, anyway, um, Doris

Kerns Goodwin, thank you for joining us. Well, Ron, my old friends, it's hard for me to believe that it's now six years since you told the world in your best selling book how I had helped you with the

chapter on history. Remember, and you said while we were presumably in the middle of having an affair, and so all of a sudden, then I've been stopped on the street in an airport by thousands of your fans were thrilled to hear what you said, which is that you claimed that my enthusiasm for the work was only outpaced by my enthusiasm for love making, which you could barely equal. So here we are, at last, here we are finally

talking about it. I'm glad, I mean we for those of you listening that it's It's obviously no secret we had a torrid love affair, um, which you know. I don't know how you feel about it, um, but those were some of the best seven months of my life. And uh, and I'm sorry for the way it ended. I really am end well. He never said, he just said that, you know, if if I were willing to come back, I could come back any time. So it's still a mystery, I suppose to both of us. Those

things you can never figure out. And Doris, now that we have this moment, I was actually going to ask you to marry me. Oh Gods of five women, and you are the top of my list. Well, I'm proud to know that, and that will make it a little easier to bounce back perhaps anyway. Gosh, my family still loves you. My family still asks about you all the time. They're like, how did you let Doris get away? Well? Here I am, so this is the beginning again. Do you remember when you do? Remember when you cut up

all my ties when we broke up? You know the other thing I remember? Don't remember that, but some things I mun't doing. Anger that I put out of my mind because I'm such a nice person in my mind. Yes, But the other comment that you had was that my my teeth were as sharp as my intellect. So that's a pretty scary thought. Whatever that, Well you did you did have a tiger lady tattooed on your right shoulder, if I recall. I don't know if you had removed or not. No, clearly. I mean now, when I got

married and had my children, you know that. You know I had to be an umber presidential historian for God's sake. I can't have those things on my shoulders. There's no question. Because you might tell I, well, I've already you just have. Yeah, I already had. If it's already out there um doors. I have to ask, so you you've won a Pulitzer.

What a what a crazy thing? What's what's that cash? Like? Well, it's not what you may imagine because I wanted in and I think then it was three thousand dollars, So that's not. Well, it certainly won't buy something big. But you know what it does get most importantly, it gets you your first line in your obituary. So that's probably pretty priceless. I'll take that over thirty thousand, fifty thousand,

maybe a lot more, even pretty incredible. I think a lot of people have the impression that that's that's big cash money, Like you go out and you buy a Lamborghini, an exotic bird or something. I don't think that with your first big check. Oh if I if I ever yes, Like you know, if I if I signed a big contract like one of those NBA players, I would I'd buy an exotic bird. What about your doing? You wouldn't pay that off? Well, I wouldn't pay that no, No,

Well now you know him, right, Carolina. So but you know the weird thing is that the very year I won the Pulitzer, speaking of exotic birds, I grew up in Rockfell Center, Long Island, and there was a string of robberies of exotic birds in various pet stores, including one in Rockville Center that year where a kacka doo or some crazy exotic bird was worth was stolen. So maybe I was involved in that too somehow. What if that's worth all your pulletz er money? Right, I know,

I know, so it's just a crazy coincidence. But no, I don't think i'd get an exotic bird or Lamborghini. Okay, well, but we're different. We always were different. We always were Yang and Yang, yang and yang. Um. Now, so you, of course you won the Pulitzer for a book on on FDR and eleanor Roosevelt during World War Two. What if you can recall in European what's the cutest thing

they ever did for each other as a couple. Well, I'm not sure cute would be the word, but what I think is the best thing they did for each other was she was Fdr, like to say, a welcome thorn in his side. She was always willing to question our relationship exactly. She was always willing to argue with him, and as a result, she made him a better person.

I mean, for example, during World War Two, she sent so many memos to General Marshall in the War Department about discrimination in the army that he had to assign a separate general whose only task was to deal with Eleanor Roosevelt's memos. And she had. She had, Oh you'll love this. She had weekly press conferences where the only rule was that female reporters could come to her press conferences. So all over the country's stuffy publishers had to hire

their first female reporter. An entire generation got their start because of Eleanor Roosevelt. So um, that relationship was huge. What were the numbers in that female press pool at that time? Would you say? That is a question. I don't know, but I would bet. I would bet. We're talking twenty thirty. Maybe I don't know. You know, I will come back and tell you this. See, this is why you're so challenging. You asked me questions I don't know the answer to. I might have known it, and

I don't think I've ever known it. Okay, Well, then, Run's had a contentious history with female reporters, so it's very progressive. You've grown a lot. I've grown a lot. I've learned that that many of the female reporters are finest reporters. That's what I've learned. Yes, you're a quick study years quick thirty years exactly. No, but it's pretty exciting. I meet people sometimes and they'll say their mother or their grandmother, that was their first job and they became

a it's all because Eleanor. Yeah, she was a pain in the neck. You know. She would bring people to his dinner party sometimes, so she wanted him to talk to who are maybe more liberal or doing more radical things than he wanted, and she plunked them down beside him. You know, at times he was thinking, oh, no, I just want to relax, because she never really relaxed. He loved his cocktails at night and she cocktails. Didn't He

have a set cocktail hour at like five pm. Even even even during the war, it was this one his hour to unplug. Is that correct? Not only you're absolutely right, He's all right. Ron needs that just a quick recap of feminist history. He told me the other day that he hopes one day I win the right to vote. And you said, I said, you probably picked them for years ahead of the cur He knows about he knows about the cocktail Hour. I mean, the great thing was

that FDRs cocktail Hour. There was a rule that you could not talk about the war. You could gossip, you could talk about politics, and it was so important to him to have It was such a heavy, terrible time. They had to they had to decompress at some level. Absolutely, And because he wanted his favorite regulars to be at the cocktail party, he actually wanted them to live in the White House to be ready for the cocktail Hour. So the second floor of the White House becomes the

most exclusive residential hotel you can possibly imagine. All the cocktail guys are living there, living there during World War two. So it was pretty cool. I got to go back and stay in the room where Winston Churchill had lived during World War Two. When Hillary Clinton was there, she heard me talking about how I wished I knew where

everyone had lived during World War Two. So she invited my husband and me to a sleepover in the White House and I figured out that yes, Chelsea Clinton was sleeping where Harry Hopkins is Foreign Policy Adviser FDRs was. The FDRs people were not his people. FDR was sleeping in the room that Clinton's latest lept in and we were in Winston Churchill's bedroom, so I was sure he was in the corner drinking his brandy and smoking his cigar. Churchill enjoyed a stiff drink. I'm sure more than one.

He was great fdr his drink of choice. I'm gonna guess slow gin fizz. Well, he had his own sort of weird concoction of a martini that he would make. He was a mixologist. He had a special mixture, and he was the lame hipsters who called themselves. He was always a visionary, always a bunch those guys in the face and you might do it some days. Sorry, we're getting off track, Okay, keep going, um, Doris, you're also considered a sports journalist. Of you were you were a

Brooklyn Dodgers fan growing up. I heard why baseball? What's interesting about it? Just the good looking guys. No, it's not really just the hunks. I mean, they're not so hunky, many of them. No, it's got much deeper roots. My father loved baseball. I was the third girl in the family. He taught me when I was I was He taught me how to keep score so that he would come home for work in Brooklyn during the day, and I could record for him the history of that afternoon's Brooklyn

Dodger games. So when your father listens to you for you know, play by play, inning by inning, and he thinks and he makes you think he's telling you a fact, I'm telling him a fabulous story. It makes you think something's magic about history. It's where my love of history

came from. In fact, I'm convinced I learned how to tell a story from those nightly sessions and my father because at first I'd be so excited I would blurt out the Dodgers wall and or the Dodgers lost, which took much of the drama of this long telling away. So I learned you had to tell a story from beginning to middle to end. And then of course the Dodgers abandoned us and went to I was just going to say, when they left, were you able to to still,

you know, pull for them or did it? Did it just? Oh? No, no, it broke I mean well, I used to send letters to Walter O'Malley, the owner. We used to we used to have petitions against him when I was a little girl. Then finally I went to Harvard, and I went to Benway Park, and a park so reminiscent of Ebbittsfield. Became an equally irrational Red Sox fan. And we've had season tickets from more than thirty five years. So baseball's huge part of my life. I wake up thinking about them

in the morning. When they lose. I don't even want to read the newspapers. It's it's unhealthy, but it's a happy unhealthiness. I went to I went to Finnway Park one time. I bought it. I was so excited to go there, and I sat behind a pole. The guy sold me a ticket that was behind a pole. I mean, that's the problem when you go to an old stadium. But it's got charm right, And it does have charm. And I really studied the layers of paint on that and the rest you could. I bet you didn't you

engrave something on it? That ron was there. I don't know how I'm going to say this, but I've carved a little heart R B plus d kg. I this is it now. Finally I'm going to have to go woman right field. You got it? Yes, So Doris, let me ask you are you? How are you feeling about the current takedown of democracy, good or bad plus and minus definitely bad. I mean, I think it's a really rough time for our country right now. But as an historian, I feel like things are going great. No, maybe I'm

just living in a bubble. Well that it's a what about you, Carolina? Do you think things are going great? Oh? No, I think things are going terribly. Okay, you're with me that. But the thing is what I can say that makes us feel better, I hope, is that history provides a perspective. Because people will sometimes come up to be in the airport and say, are these the worst of times? And

I can honestly say, of course not. And talk about what it was like for Abraham Lincoln when he first went into office, and um, the country is about to split into in fact, it's already splitting up, and six thousand people are going to die in a civil war, Or what it was like for FDR when he comes in and the depression is at its height and the banks have collapsed and you can't even get your money out of the banks. And yet somehow we came through

those times. And and the great thing that I think gives us hope, right now about the difficulty of democracy here is that what Lincoln said when he was called a liberator, he said, don't call me that. And it's after the Emancipation Proclamation he said, it was the anti slavery people that did it all. It's always the citizen movements that make things better. So it was the anti

slavery movement during the nineteenth century. It was the progressive movement at the turn of the twentieth century that made it possible for Teddy Roosevelt and FDR to do what they did. Civil rights movement made it possible for LBJ, women's movement, environmental movement, And now we need a movement for political reform. And I think we saw in the mid terms more people voted than for, more women came into office than in a long time, more veterans. That's

really important. You know, in in the nineteen sixties and seventies, three out of four Congressmen and senators were veterans. They've been in World War Two and the Korean War. They knew how to go across party lines. They knew too, you know, somehow put a purpose beyond partisan or regional or racial divisions. And now we've got to get back to that. But I think there's there's an impulse in the country. The citizens are more active in politics they've

been for a while. So that's my optimism about the country. We're not as fragile as as people think we are this democracy. Is it true that Babe ruth eight thirty hot dogs in the dug out during a Yankee game? Was that your next question? Now? I'm just going to my next question because she just said a lot of really inspiring, really amazing it was. Oh I didn't I didn't hear it. I just wrote down my baby ruth question. Yeah. Yeah, he's skipping back from baseball. You know, that was the

question before, which is fine. I just popped in my head. I'm like, I gotta you know what, I've always wonder if that's just a myth. Did Babe ruthy get all those hot dogs in the dugout? I think? You know, I think the stories about some of these larger than live figures, they usually have some reality. So whether it was thirty or twenty five or twenty he was a big eater that that we know, we can say that as in a story. Just look at his body and

you'll know that it's so probably eight thirty hot dogs. Yes, I would put that down and you tell the next person you are a Harvard grad and you taught there. Um for those listeners, that's Harvard University. Where is that located? Pittsburgh? Yeah, yeah, you know, I know a little east of Pittsburgh. Let me ask you this. Maybe you're not at liberty to say, are you? Are you sick of all the know it alls the running around that place. Well, you know what

I mean. I think to some extent, the whole idea that people have that just because you went to Harvard you're smarter than other people is nuts. I look at lots of young people who just feel like, if I don't go there and want to get there, my life will be it's it's it's it's a school. It's a good school. I remember when I was working for Lyndon Johnson and I was helping him on his memoirs, and I was living for a while at the ranch, and he would I was twenty four years old, and he

would always call me Harvard. He'd say, Hey, Harvard, come over here. I've got a question for you. But yeah, it was fine, and he didn't really like the Harvards think they wouldn't deal well with him, But he was fine with me. But I'll never forget one time he he wanted me to go in this car that had near his lake, like l b J. And right before we took off in the car, yeah like LBJ. Yes, of course, so he the Secret Service day to him,

be careful. The brakes aren't so great. We didn't check them, and we're going down a hill towards the lake, and all of a sudden the car goes into the water. And I wasn't afraid. Somehow, I just figured I'm here with the President's gonna fine. And of course it was an amphibious car. So it suddenly starts floating in the water. But I didn't scream, and so he says to me, what's wrong with you, Harvard? Don't you Harvard people know enough to get scared when something scary. So he was

mad at me because I hadn't screamed. But I somehow he really wanted to freak you out with his amphibious We did this to a lot of people. This was part in fact, when when Brian Cranston played lb J and this wonderful play and movie, all the way. I had told him about this story of the amphibious car.

So they have a scene in the HBO movie where he takes Hubert Humphrey, his vice president, in the car and they go in the water and you see Huber Humphrey with his suit on in the water, floating with his amphibious car, which is on display now at the ranch. Oh gosh, if I want a pulletzer, I'd buy that amphibious car. Hey. Maybe now we've figured out the answer, you know, not the Coca do. I'd go all in on Lbj's amphibious car. You have collection agencies after you,

why don't you just pay off? We'll get to that later. Um, but I think that's fascinating the President Johnson, he hired you even though you were actively against the Vietnam War? Was that? Did that create friction there? It did, But it was a wonderful thing in a certain sense that he was able to do that. What happened is I was chosen while I was a graduate student at Harvard as a White House Fellow. It's a fabulous program and still exists today. For those who aren't familiar with the

Vietnam War. Yeve we won that one didn't know, Carolina. You have to deal with him. You have to deal with him as you do I understand. Anyway, what happens is I get chosen as a White House fellow. We have a big dance at the White House. He does dance with me. But it's not that weird because there's only three women. No, not not well, sort of like you know Texas. You know, you go towards the floor and you come up, but there are only three women out of the sixteen white s wels. So it wasn't

weird that he asked me to dance. But while we danced, he whispered that he wanted me to be assigned directly to him in the White House instead of to another cabinet officer. So that all seemed fine. But then a few days later a friend of mine and I previously very much involved in the anti war movement, had written an article against l b J which we'd sent to the New Republic but heard nothing, and it suddenly appeared right after the dance with the title how to Remove

lb J from Power. So I was certain he would kick me out of the program, but instead, surprisingly he said, oh, bring it down here for a year and if I can't win her over, no one can. So I did eventually end up working for him in the White House and then accompany him to his ranch to help him on his memoirs. You know, never fully understanding why he had chosen me to spend so many hours with. I like to believe it was because I was a good

listener and he was great storyteller. At sabular stories. There was a problem with these stories that you might understand that half of them aren't true, but they were great done the last and I loved listening to them. Um. But also I worried that part of it was that I was then a young woman and he had somewhat of a minor league womanizing reputation. So I was constantly chattering to him about steady boyfriends, even when I had

no boyfriends. And everything was perfect until one day he said he wanted to discuss our relationship, and he took me to a picnic on the lake, you know, with red check cable cloth. No, no, this was just in this normal car. We didn't get into that one. But while we seemed to be the lake a lot in these stories. Anyway, he started out with all these romantic trappings around him, saying, Doris more than any other woman I have ever known. And my heart sank. And then

he said, you remind me of my mother. It was pretty embarrassing given what was going on in my mind. Goodness, that happens to me a lot does. Were with Ron too well, actually picnic once and I was really concerned that I was going to get hit on. But and he just tried to entire me. No, I said, you remind me of my grandmother. She was a real piece of work. What's fun for you two to be together? It sounds good. We have a great back and forth. I can hear it. I am Carolina's lb J to

her Doris Kern's Goodwin sometimes. In fact, I think you should call me lb J from now on. Okay, that's going to be confusing, but it might. We'll table that for now. You'll still be wrong for a little while long. I'll still be wrong for I think it's impressive though, that at President Johnson, despite your political stance, he was still welcoming because he thought you were a smart cookie. Yeah. No, I mean, how much of it had to do with

the fact that I was a young woman. How much of it had to do with the fact that I was from that Harvard place, and he always knew the history might be written by the Harvards. But it turned out to be the formative relationship in my life, because that's what really made me a presidential historian, because I wrote my first book on him, and then after that comes Kennedy's, after that comes af DR and then Lincoln,

and then Teddy and taft. I mean, I've spent all these years, as I say, living with these dead presidents. My only fear is that in the afterlife it's going to be a panel of all of them, and all of them want to tell me everything I got wrong right or I missed about them. And then the only fear I have after I've not answered their questions or that haven't told them the right thing, is the first person to scream will be lb J. You know. How come that damn book on the Roosevelts was twice as

long as the book he wrote about me. So this afterlife may not be as much fun as it's been, but it's been great fun to study dead presidents in my whole life. I wouldn't change it for anything. I catapult back into another time era I can learn about what it was like to live, you know, in the nineteenth century and the twentieth century. It's great. When when is your Millard Fillmore book coming out? That? How don't you know that's next? He's my favorite character because of

his name Millard. Nobody has about that. He couldn't be elected now with the name of Millard Fillmore. No, well, I you should call him Millie. Maybe I don't know. I mean, he interests historians only because of his name. But I think I have to really care about the person. That's why I don't know who I'm doing next. And I like them to write diaries and and keep letters so that you can really go back into their emotional lives. And any of our president day presidents don't do this.

Here's the problem. In the afterlife, Millard Fillmore is going to be like, why didn't you write a book about me? Yeah, there'll be a lot of them up there, or maybe they'll be glad I didn't write about them. But no, that's not true, because I never choose somebody that I don't want to live with over a period of time. I could never write about Mussolini or Hitler or you know, one of the bad Or Buchanan, one of those crazy,

bad presidents. So I just want to wake up with them in the morning, think about them when I go to bed at night, and they're gonna make mistakes like everybody does. I'll be mad and disappointed at them. Basically, I'll respect and feel enormous affection, especially toward Lincoln. I mean, he's the best. Did you Is it true that Taft got stuck in his bath? It is a true story. I mean it's a story that's true enough that it can be told again. And he weighed about three pounds

or you know what. There's a children's book that's probably not true, which is adorable. However, my grandchildren loved it. Oh that's a children's book. Yeah, that's a child No, but there's a story that's real that he had a tub. There's a picture of him in a tub being made by four workmen. Oh no, I've read it. You've read the child didn't realize it was a children's book, though. They explode and finally out of the tub, and you may remember and then he's like Ferdinand, you know, with

the flowers. He's sitting with nothing much on on the grass. So you do remember these things you reading excellent, Doris. We can't thank you enough for coming on the podcast. We got to rehash some old ground and thank you for being forthright. I really appreciate it. And and like I said, I I had a ring in a box ready for it was going to go down to a knee. Um, oh my god. I was gonna ask your father permission. Uh. I even had a Brooklyn Dodger hat that was going

to wear. Oh my god. And this is now a vision that will be in my head. Yes, and that's a good thing. Right. We can both imagine what might have been. That's what historians do all the time. We try to think what might have been if somebody had made a different decision, if somebody had died and somebody had lived. So just think about the both of us living in a one bedroom apartment, just screaming at each other, throwing plates against the wall. But I well, it's it's exciting.

It's like, who's afraid of Virginia Wolf? Oh see, look he's he throwing these literary analogies. You see, he's gonna surprise me. Who is afraid of Virginia Wolf? Not me? Yeah? Same here? Not me? What fun to talk to you again. It's really it's it's great to catch up, Doris. I mean, I'm telling you the one thing that I think we need more than anything today is humor among one of our leaders. I mean, Abraham Lincoln had it, and and that's why we need to be able to laugh at ourselves,

you know. And somebody yelled at one point you you were too faced, Mr line can in a debate, nil back. If I had two faces, do you think I'd have this face? I mean, that's what we need. These people take themselves. He was not a no oh no, I'm telling you. I was on John Stewart one night or Pulbert. I think it was Stewart first. And I mentioned when the book first came out a team of rivals that I there's a picture of Lincoln before his beard and his hair is kind of wild, and he looks really rugged.

And I said, he's really sexy. I've never been able to live that down. That's not your first thought about Abraham Lincoln. But look then, when Daniel day Lewis became Abraham Lincoln, I was right, and I got to know him and he became my friend, and I half fell in love with him, like I was in love with Lincoln and you can't say he's ugly, and he's Lincoln right, hottest politician though. I see Bobby Kennedy, he was pretty extraordinary. Oh you see you like that old fashioned type. I'll

take Tip O'Neil. He's like an FDR figure. But my husband was actually with Bobby when he died. He was very close friends with Bobby. And um, I'm looking at it weirdly as we're speaking. I'm looking at a picture. My husband died a year ago, and he was the most extraordinary character. He worked for JFK, lb J McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy, and he worked on the Ripples of Hope speech.

This is on Bobby's grave. He did the we Shall Overcome speech for lb J. Anyway, I'm looking at a picture as we're talking of Bobby and my husband in the campaign, as they're in California right before he died, and Bobby's looking pretty good. As you might say. Now, he was an amazing character. He would have been, I think, a really good president because he'd been through so much. All presidents that are great and my judgment, have gone

through adversity. In Lincoln had a near suicidal depression. Franklin Roosevelt abctousally lost his power to walk with his polio Teddy Roosevelt lost his wife and mother on the same day in the same house, and they all became better leaders. And of course that that was it. Yeah, that changed everything. And then they went away, disappeared on time, just exactly untime. He had a sense of timing absolutely. Yeah. Well, Doris, thanks again, great to catch up with you. Yeah, what

great fun for me too. I'm really glad we could do this. I'll see you guys soon. Alright, Okay, take care of Doris Kern's goodwin. Everyone on the Ron Burgundy podcast will be right back after this. Edward back on the Ron Burgundy Podcast. My final thoughts, Carolina, Wow, Doris, it was a real gossip, don't you think. What do you mean? I mean, oh, that t She just spilled about her old boss Lindon and that that guy FBI. So, I mean, yeah, she's a historian, but geez, I was like,

is any of that your business? She's go and through people's letters for grapsake? Well, you know what, that brings up a really interesting point. I mean, what are we allowed to access as historians? Accurate portrayal of history is so important. But should our leaders have a right to privacy? Certainly their families do, but what about post humans. I think that's all for today, folks. I'm tired, and frankly i'm a I'm missing a friend, Ruth. Ruth, if you're listening,

I know you are. Chrince Peter Ginsburg listens to our podcast. I love you. Please just text me back, just one emoji will suffice it a kissy face or or the two pink hearts. Let's see you at breakfast. And and you know what, Ruth, if you're going to ignore me, that's fine because I think Doris and I got it back on track today, So you know, Ruth, don't wait too long because I got good old DKG hot back on my trail. Oh, Doris, thanks again. It's great to reconnect.

And who knows, maybe we I don't know. I'm not gonna wait by the phone for either one of you because I got things to do, all right. This is Ron Burgundy, A k Lyndon Baines Johnson signing off one more time for the Ron Burgundy Podcast. The Ron Burgundy Podcast is a production of I Heart Radio and Funnier Dot. I'm Ron Burgundy, the host, writer and executive producer. Carolina Barlow is my co host, writer and producer. Our producers are Jack O'Brien, Nick Stump, Miles Gray, and Whitney hot Act.

Our executive producer is Mike Fair. Our consulting producer is Andrew Steele. Our coordinating producer is Colin McDougall. Our associate producers Anna Holsnian and Sophie Lichterman. Our writer is Jake Vogel missed. Our production coordinator is Hannah Jacobson. This episode was engineered, mixed, and edited by Nick Stout. Until next time, Mrs ron Berger