the great historian wilentz has said of reagan that above all reagan supporters, unlike that what reagan did was give his supporters and battered democrats and the disgraced republican establishment a compelling way to the disorienting, often dispiriting trends of the 1970s. now, at this point, i've laid out the importance of reagan's ideas, and i've laid out the importance of the speech. but there are two things that are puzzling about the speech. the first is that while reagan small government, conservative, has consistently those ideas never particularly popular even before he was elected. let me give you the polling on whether the country wanted less government. the polling before reagan elected in the four years before he was elected in 19 eight and 1980, said the percentage of the people who thought that the government was spending either the right or too little on social programs was never less than 72%. and by may of 1981, just few months into the reagan, andrew kohut, the pollster, he had concluded that many people are either dubious or downright skeptical about the effectivenes

i was a young man in the reagan years, and it was no picnic for ronald reagan. i get it. i don't know it was the advent of the internet or social media or cable amplified it but men and women, i mean to tell you it was like nothing i had ever seen in my life. but nevertheless, we accomplish things that conservatives have been talking about for generations, and we did it all in four short years. [applause] somebody asked me the other day if i have any regrets, and i speak about that at the close of the book. the only regret i have is seeing virtually all the progress that we made it dismantled over the last two years. a military that was more robust than at any time since the reagan years now is facing flatlining of their budgets and shortages once again. and a political correctness that seems to be echoing down the halls of the pentagon. an economy that was ready to rebound after the worst pandemic in 100 years saddled with a mountain range of spending and debt that ignited the worst inflation in 40 years. a war on energy waged against an america that had achieved energy

but the last one i mentioned is the reagan library and the reagan library. when it first opened, it didn't much information about carter, but for some reason that i know not what someone convinced and nancy reagan to open the papers on the 1980 election the election where when carter was defeated by reagan and where the october surprise took place the time it took place. i don't think nancy reagan knew was in those papers. i think somebody's food, because that was a vast collection of papers and of them weren't very complimentary of ronnie. and so it was he had there was a lot of have which had said that i'd like the reagan people not been i had not been totally honest about jeannie went with me as she often did but have friends in dallas that we were we had lived for a while. we had friends who wanted to go to we sometimes travel together. one of them was an attorney. the other one was i was a medical doctor. they were people who knew a lot research and i never forget it. the archivist on duty was a young woman named amanda. i don't remember the rest of her

and so one of the first big reagan white house was athe celebration of reagan's birthday, at w a black tie affair, very f but this was considered a private party. which -- their wealthy fans -- france help pay for. -- friends helped pay for. they could be a lot more fun and a little looser and were not constricted by protocol, and could simply be with their personal friends, their daughters, their political allies coming over. and you know, reagan, use food interestingly to connect with a space. he was famous for eans jellybeans are entered -- an interesting story, because they seem to be a trivial candy, but actually, the back story is that he started eating jellybeans because he was weaning himself off of tobacco. here's a pipe smoker. and then he was jelly -- used jellybeans to judge people's character. if some of came into his office and began to pick out certain color of beans and not eat them, he would take note of that. it meant something of that person to him. it was also awake of using food to relate to his voters. he would say well, i like this simple, sweet candy, you like i

or nancy reagan. others really did not like it. president truman's wife went back to missouri every chance she got. i thought that was interesting, and that's the way personal dynamics within the first cap -- family can affect a much broader sphere. i won't say it impacted the world, but it can affect the administration, for better and for worse. you know of the role of indigenous people, the role of different cuisines coming together to form what we now think of as american cookery. in the early days our cooking was reliant on basically english recipes from books that were brought over. but those were compliant with indigenous ingredients, like venison, and corn, and wild turkey. ultimately, tomatoes, spices and herbs from some of the slaves and their cooks, the tools and techniques of the french. in this wonderful amalgam of cookery. and you know, one of the people that really begin to codify all of this was thomas jefferson's slave james hamilton, i'm sorry, james hamilton -- james hemmings, who jefferson brought to paris when h

and if you recall, in our last lecture on ronald reagan, i talked about how reagan was able to cut taxes and he was able to add to the defense budget, but he wasn't able to do both those things and increase government revenues that in fact, the opposite happened. we had these tremendous budget shortfalls which over 12 years came to skyrocket. they had sort of tripled the debt had tripled from about 1 trillion to 3 trillion. and this made it hard for anybody. we started to see this in george bush. seniors presidency, hard for anybody to do anything with government, because there was just so much debt and just the interest on the debt alone was doing what economists call crowding out room for other kinds of spending. and there was an underclass standing among all economists, liberal economists and conservative economists. that if you didn't start bringing down these deficits and at least paying down the debt somewhat, you know, you were not going to be able to have effective government. some conservatives actually wanted this. they thought this is a good way to stop all these big governmen

i cast my ballot for president reagan, that began to instill a love of public service. my dad modeled that. he was a small town mayor growing up. but that is about getting back to your community, not about holding a position of authority. it is really about how can you serve those around you. it started there. >> what do you remember your father telling you about why ronald reagan should be president? rep. moran: simply because you know, we are talking about liberty, we are talking about taking government out of our lives on a day-to-day basis so we can make good decisions for ourselves and our businesses, so we could have opportunities to work hard and have those decisions create opportunities. that is what it is about. government gets in the way most of the time. if we get government out of the way, people are left to be able to make their own decisions and see those decisions where fruit -- bear fruit down the road. my dad did that when we were in white house and started a business out of our garage. it was just him and a little vending truck and a bunch of candy and

the guy says well, and this is a guy reagan appointed who believed in reagan's agenda and the guy said well, we already have spent all this year's budget and we spent part of next year's but too so i really don't think we're gonna get around to cutting anything anytime soon. i mean, it was really an amazing admission once you're in the swamp. it's darn your possible to roll back the swamp right? so by 1984 reagan had pretty much given up on the third plank of his platform promises, which was to reduce the size of government and he succeeded in the other two, but he pretty much had to give up on the third one of reducing the bureaucracy. one very important thing happened between kennedy and reagan. congress had been appointing and creating these committees these bureaus these administrative agencies and empowering them, but once they got in place congress just let him go and basically it's chewed any oversight over any of these bureaucracies or administrative what steve bannon calls the administrative state at all. just let him go. so it then fell to the courts to try to handle these bu

earlier today, a freight car arrived at the reagan library. it is a made world war two model two freight car. one of the freight cars that was used to transport -- and other victims. the nazi regime, to the infamous concentration. it be part of an exhibit on the horrors of holocaust that will open here in march of next year. the car arrived today because is november 10th and it november 10th. that marks the anniversary of kristallnacht. tonight we welcome to our stage former united ambassador to the european gordon sondland former ambassador someone this car has a haunting significance. his parents unlike so many, were able to escape nazi germany into time. but they too could just as easily been taken away in one of these cars. instead, they were able to make their way to america where. they raised a family. their son would go on to a successful career in hotel business before as a united states ambassador to the continent. his parents once fled and ambassador, thank you for your service, for your assistance and the exhibit soon to come and fo

i'm a big ronald reagan fan. and so once up there, my book is about ronald reagan and what i think america needs new ronald reagan. i don't know who it but i think this would crazy things in the moment you have a new ronald reagan i move from the united i move from germany to the united states. reiner seidelman has written 26 books, the most recent is the power of capitalism. a journey through recent history across continents. thank you for joining us on c-span's book tv.

but ronald reagan was good. he said, "let's make--" but he didn't use it--or he used it a little bit. we seriously used it, right? crowd: yeah! - maga! - i'm a person who feels very strongly about things like integrity in government, doing something about the drug problem. - rudolph giuliani is now in his second day of private practice at the upscale law firm of white & chase. giuliani watchers agree his time in private practice is a holding action until he makes a bid for mayor. - rudy giuliani brought this whole idea, this shtick, about going after the mafia. he thought, "i could use the same method, "the same tactics, used in rounding up the mob-- i could use the same tactics in rounding up black people." - street crime is growing, driven by new york's soaring crack problem. half of the new yorkers surveyed in a recent poll said they were victims of some sort of crime in the last year. [punchy music] ♪ - by 1989, '90, it was a rough place. the '80s boom had kinda come to an end. the kinda horsemen of the ap

so reagan is also a master of of stagecraft and a master at storytelling. and so in 1982, he adds that we hadn't seen before. because just two weeks ago in the of a terrible tragedy on the potomac we saw again the spirit of american at its finest. the heroism of dedicated rescue workers saving crash victims from icy waters. and we saw the heroism of. one of our young employees, lenny scotney, who when he saw a woman lose your grip, the helicopter line dived the water and dragged her to. okay, you see there, president reagan adding this element, bringing in honored guests and then introducing them from the floor. i mean, these are these are stories typically of great american heroes. and so he's, again, turning the state of the union, something that we might on television. these are great stories these are great people to introduce, but it has very little to do with the constitutional directive. but it has a lot to do with that small c second constitutional presidency. president c which demands popular. right. and so we see these kinds of things starting to

but there was any strong desire to kick ronald reagan out to impeach ronald reagan. why was so and why did it happen to nixon? nixon resigned one step ahead of the impeachment. and so nixon resigned. why did it happen to nixon and not to reagan? and i would say the difference people liked and, you know, that might sound trivial. talking about, you know, great of government, but when you live in a democracy when you operate your politics on, the principles of democracy. well, every election is in essence, a popularity contest. do people like you and if they you, they'll cut you some slack. they cut reagan a lot of slack and they nobody was going to cut nixon any slack because he wasn't likable. and it's a it all sounds like junior high, but. but that's the way things often work. you know, i've often thought that that clearest gauge for if you want to know who people are going to vote for, who's going win an election, the question should who would you rather sit down and have a beer with that candidate or candidate b? and if a candidate gets the sides, that candidate i

i was at the on reagan presidential library. wondering if he could even win an election today, he would be considered too optimistic. anlincoln's modesty and humility would do him in. some folks said they want a fighter, you can go to a bar late on a friday night for that or an nfl football game, sit in the stands and watch a fight, i want i thinker who knows when -- i want a thinker who knows when to fight, perhaps they can fight their way to a small electoral college victory, the right person could fight and persuade his or her way to a mandate, a slippi slee sweeping landslide. reagan won every state but one. joining us now is former rnc chairman reince priebus. we welcome -- thank you for joining us. we have 2 announced candidates so far, how big do you expect the field to get on the republican side. >> thanks for having me trey, i think we'll have 6 or 7 candidates that start testing the waters, how many of those people actually get in, it hard to tell, i'm sure some are campaigning for cabinet posts or vp spots, but to you