Ron Reagan

[0] Hey there, and welcome to a unique and I think a bit unusual episode of Conan O 'Brien needs a friend.

[1] As you're probably aware, I'm not a political comedian.

[2] That's not my milieu.

[3] I usually keep my opinions to myself.

[4] But yesterday was a terrible day at the Capitol, the storming by an insurrectionist mob of the Capitol building.

[5] And it was such an upsetting day for me and my family and just everyone I know.

[6] And I think for any sentient American, it was a very upsetting day.

[7] So we realized at that point, and this is unusual, that a while ago, I had seen Ron Reagan Jr., former President Reagan's son, giving an interview and a documentary, and I was watching him, and I'm a history buff, and I thought, I'd really like to talk to him.

[8] He seems like he's very smart and, of course, also, he's very funny and witty.

[9] And so we arranged to set up an interview with him that was going to be just a regular interview.

[10] And then the interview was scheduled for today.

[11] And today is the day after the insurrectionist attack on the Capitol building.

[12] So it just so happens that I was talking to Ron Reagan, Jr. at this perfect time.

[13] So we decided to make it kind of a special episode.

[14] We're just going to talk about what happened at the Capitol.

[15] We're going to also just talk about what's happened to the Republican Party in general.

[16] And I think Ron Reagan Jr. has a good perspective on that and a unique perspective on that.

[17] And we are going to let this go out unedited.

[18] It's not going out at the usual time.

[19] And all I'll say is if you're not interested in hearing any discussion of politics, now.

[20] If this isn't what you want from Conan O 'Brien needs a friend, you don't have to listen.

[21] We'll be back with a regular show on Monday.

[22] But this is something I wanted to talk about.

[23] So it's in your hands now.

[24] And I really, really do, I'm looking forward to this conversation.

[25] So let's get started, Ron Reagan, Jr. Today's conversation is a little different.

[26] I often talk to comedians about comedy.

[27] I occasionally stray.

[28] And this is a complete, Accident, but I think a very fortunate one, I happen to be watching a documentary on the Reagan's and the Reagan era in office, and I was watching the documentary, and I'm an amateur history buff, and lo and behold, Ron Reagan Jr. appears often throughout the documentary, and I'm watching him, and I'm saying, there's a guy that's had a lot of therapy who appears very, Very, he just has a, you're extremely likable, and you're also someone who seems very nuanced and just a good human being.

[29] And I thought, I'd like to speak to Ron Reagan, Jr. I went to my bookers and I said, do you think he'd want to talk to me?

[30] This is all before the events that just transpired at the Capitol, the charging.

[31] Something happened?

[32] Yeah.

[33] Now, Ron, I know you don't get out a lot.

[34] I was out of the country.

[35] I was in the basement.

[36] Let me start with about four years ago, Donald Trump was elected president, the real estate tycoon.

[37] How does that happen?

[38] Well, listen, we have to catch you up on a lot.

[39] And Gilligan's Island still canceled.

[40] Oh, no. Well, there's the headline.

[41] I love the idea that I have to fill you in on everything.

[42] But yesterday was indeed a, you know, a dark day for our nation.

[43] A mob, instructionist mob, charging the Capitol, invading the Capitol.

[44] Four people are dead.

[45] Many people injured.

[46] I think many people at the Capitol Hill police are injured.

[47] And it's just a tragedy that easily avoidable tragedy.

[48] And I realized that you were on the schedule to talk.

[49] And I thought, maybe this should be a different conversation.

[50] Maybe this is the perfect time to talk to you, Ron.

[51] And first of all, I looked at everything that was transpired yesterday, and I realized, oh, my God, what happened to the Republican Party in this country?

[52] And I know that this is a common source of discussion, but who better to be talking to right now?

[53] I think, than you.

[54] I think that you are the, I was thinking about this yesterday.

[55] Who's a Republican figure from the recent past who could have materialized yesterday and gotten that crowd's attention?

[56] I don't think a recent Republican president could have done that.

[57] I think Ronald Reagan, your father, still has that place in the hearts and minds of many Americans.

[58] And I think if he had materialized and said, please shut up and go home, they'd have done that.

[59] Am I, do you feel the same way?

[60] No, I don't.

[61] I think we're way past that now.

[62] I wish it were true.

[63] I wish somebody else.

[64] Maybe it's wishful thinking on my part, but I think your dad obviously is, I guess the point I'm making, he's held in, he's still held in very high regard by rank and foul Republicans everywhere.

[65] And so maybe that's wishful thinking on my part.

[66] Well, you know, I think you're, you're certainly right that he had more moral authority or if you like characterological authority to do something like that.

[67] But I think we're way past that now.

[68] I think that's there's no chance for the.

[69] These are people who, you know, who wanted to do what they did and they were given permission to do what they did by the president of the United States.

[70] Who clearly knew what he was doing, knew what he was inciting.

[71] And then when it happened, sat back in a, enjoyed it for hours.

[72] Yeah, apparently he was watching in the Oval Office and by several accounts, happy that people were wearing his merchandise, which sounds like I'm making a joke, but I'm not.

[73] He really is on a purely pathological level.

[74] He's happy to see people.

[75] There were more Trump flags than there were American flags, and I think he's proud of that.

[76] Yeah, I think we make a lot of mistakes with Donald Trump.

[77] One of them is acting as if his presidency has something to do with, you know, policy and statesmanship or anything else, as opposed to simply being a grift, which it always has been.

[78] It started as a grift and it continued as a grift, and this is part of the grift moving forward, or so he hopes.

[79] You know, he's got 70, whatever, million people who voted for them.

[80] If he can get half of those people to send him six bucks a month, you know, for his newsletter or, Twitter rant or whatever the hell he's offering up, whatever his next scam will be, he's going to be a very rich man, or so he hopes.

[81] This has all been about monetizing this.

[82] And the other thing I think we really have to start coming to grips with, though, is not just looking at Donald Trump, who's floridly mentally ill. I mean, I was listening to John Harwood this morning on television, who's a long time CBS, I think it is, or anyway, White House correspondent, who is using the words mentally ill to describe Donald Trump, the president of the United States.

[83] But this has been obvious from the get -go.

[84] I mean, who would have thought that being a failed casino mogul and grifter and talk show or game show host?

[85] Well, let's not bring talk show.

[86] Yeah, talk shows.

[87] Game show host, though, would not be qualifications for the presidency.

[88] Who knew that somebody with that background wouldn't work out as president of the United States?

[89] Well, all of us should have known that.

[90] And some of us did.

[91] And it was very frustrating to be on shows, news shows, and talk about how unacceptable it would be for Donald Trump to enter the Oval Office and have experienced fine reporters.

[92] dismiss that and want to talk about horse race stuff.

[93] You know, is his message resonating with this or that demographic?

[94] Who the fuck cares, you know?

[95] Okay, you know.

[96] Who the hell cares whether his message is resonating with any.

[97] Ron, I don't know.

[98] He's insane.

[99] Ron, I don't know how you were raised.

[100] But we don't, we don't use language like that on the podcast.

[101] I won't.

[102] If you say no, I won't do it anymore.

[103] Well, apparently your mom and dad were just walking around the house saying, where is the fucking milk?

[104] wearing no clothes just fuck naked where's the fucking milk where's that fucking joint who bogarded that joint you really have to do the voice though to get the full impact of that you'd have to do the you know Nancy where's my fucking bomb I do have to say Ron talking to you it is distracting you do very much have your dad's voice and Kate and I'll add I'll say as well I noticed this uh I've noticed this many times before but you have uh his charm as well and I'm just it's very just it's really funny when you swear because I imagine him because I shape shift your dad yeah um you know let me ask you uh I have to ask you what would your father think of Donald Trump what would he think of what transpired yesterday?

[105] What would Ronald Reagan make of all of this?

[106] Well, as of yesterday, yesterday, he'd be ashamed of.

[107] I mean, he'd just be appalled and ashamed.

[108] But he's not, you know, my father wasn't a stupid guy.

[109] My father read people pretty well.

[110] And he would have seen through Donald Trump in about 30 seconds.

[111] As should we all have seen through Donald Trump.

[112] Listen, how did this man end up where he ended up?

[113] He started out with a racist lie about Barack Obama.

[114] Well, that should have disqualified him right there.

[115] You know, this bullshit lie about Barack Obama that he kept up for years, pretending that he was conducting some big investigation, that should have disqualified him right there, but not in today's Republican Party.

[116] Would have 20 years ago, but not in today's Republican Party.

[117] Today's Republican Party, it's all about winning.

[118] And if Donald gets us the win, we'll go with him.

[119] I would pause.

[120] grabbing and all.

[121] Okay.

[122] Well, again, I don't know how you were raised and I don't know what kind of language was using at the president of the United States there.

[123] Well, I just, please, again, with the language.

[124] But I do agree that, you know, I think there's an attempt by, I am a hack amateur historian and I've noticed that there's an attempt to find, well, okay, what's the precedent for this in American history?

[125] And people will look at the Republican Party and they'll look for dog whistles and they'll look for things.

[126] and they'll find, you know, trace evidence here and there.

[127] And I think, you know what, this, there isn't.

[128] I don't see it.

[129] I don't see, I know that there have been people that have tried to see, well, this is a longstanding, something that's come to fruition.

[130] But Donald Trump is, to me, he begins and ends with Donald Trump because I grew up, I came of age in the 80s.

[131] I was in college when your father became, I was in high school when your father became president and he was president all through my college years and I go to this liberal arts, fancy schmancy college in the East Coast and of course everybody was, oh, he's the madman, he's insane, he's gonna blow up the world.

[132] And I wasn't overtly political in college.

[133] I was more interested in learning how to be a comedian, but I, that was just the general, How did that work out, by the way?

[134] Well, let's put it this way.

[135] I'm on a podcast now.

[136] But you're on a podcast with me, Coen.

[137] So, but my point, my point is that I, that was the thinking.

[138] And then as time has gone by, I've read quite a bit about your father.

[139] I've read about his administration.

[140] And I know that, uh, there are.

[141] many actions he took that people disagree with violently to this day or virulently to this day.

[142] There are many things he did that I thought were actually quite sensible.

[143] But there were so many things about him that I didn't understand when I was younger that differentiate him so strongly from this guy we have now.

[144] And I know that that's the understatement of the year.

[145] But your father wrote in longhand on legal pads his own speeches often.

[146] And I've been to the Reagan Library, I've checked them out.

[147] He passionately believed in what he believed in.

[148] And it was not an extension of himself or his ego.

[149] It was something that he passionately, now you can agree with him or disagree with him, but it was something, you know, an idea that came to him in the 1950s that he really passionately believed in.

[150] And this is, and he could admit he was wrong at times and he did.

[151] He liked having powerful people around him with strong opinions.

[152] He liked working with other powerful leaders and listening to them.

[153] And so when people try and draw any kind of line, and I noticed some of that in the documentary in which you were speaking, and I thought, you know, I just don't see it.

[154] I don't see it.

[155] And I say that to anyone who, like me, disagrees with strongly, with some of the things that your father believed in.

[156] But I think as a...

[157] I think he cared a lot about this country, I think, as many of our presidents have, and I think what we've got now, as evidenced yesterday, as someone who just wanted to see Trump merchandise, and he didn't care if it was on people who were smashing the Capitol.

[158] No, absolutely.

[159] My father loved the country, and he thought he was serving the country, and he thought he was the president of all the people and wanted to help all the people.

[160] Of course, he made mistakes.

[161] Of course, he was wrong about stuff, as are we all.

[162] Trump himself, you're right, is sui generis.

[163] There I go with the naughty language again, but he is unique in a sense.

[164] But if you want to, if you want to search for the origins of today's Republican Party, go back to the civil war.

[165] Yep, exactly.

[166] We're still fighting the civil war.

[167] And there's a reason why most of the red states are still down there in the confederacy.

[168] And there's a reason why the people storming the Capitol, many of them, were carrying Confederate flags.

[169] Yes.

[170] You know.

[171] Yeah, see, go ahead.

[172] I was just going to say, and they might as well have been carrying Nazi flags.

[173] Yeah.

[174] You know, these loser -trader flags, slaveholder flags, you know, there's no honor in that.

[175] It's not about heritage.

[176] You want to talk about your heritage?

[177] It's slavery, folks.

[178] Yeah.

[179] Get used to it.

[180] Now, Germany has dealt with its past.

[181] Time, you know, Alabama and Mississippi do the same.

[182] Yeah.

[183] You know, it's interesting.

[184] I was in Germany about, I want to say, two and a half years ago, I'm thinking of it now just because you brought it up.

[185] and I was walking through Berlin and I was stunned in a good way, but stunned by the degree that the German people have gone to to acknowledge what happened in their history in the 20th century, and there are plaques everywhere on the sidewalk when you're walking around that say on this spot, this family was taken from their home and murdered in 1942.

[186] It's very powerful.

[187] They have, it's incredibly impressive what they've done to say, this is part of who we are and what happened and we will continue to acknowledge it.

[188] And we will, we will take a hydraulic drill and we will put it into the sidewalk wherever we think this happened.

[189] And I think you're right.

[190] I think we are, people say this is a maybe.

[191] a civil war that's this is like the civil war.

[192] And I keep thinking the one difference is that you could literally draw a line across the country, the Mason -Dixon line, and say everyone on this side is a unionist and everyone on this side is a Confederate.

[193] Right now, I think if there was a civil war, it would be New York versus people 25 miles outside New York.

[194] Boston versus people five miles outside Boston, you know, it really is a very, very strange situation where I'm sure you've experienced this.

[195] You can drive 10 minutes out of your neighborhood in Los Angeles and see MAGA hats and not see one in your own neighborhood, which means, I don't know what it means, frankly.

[196] I live in Seattle, so it's even more extreme here, really.

[197] As soon as you cross over the mountains or even before you get into the foothills, suddenly you're in Trump again.

[198] The city itself is as blue as blue can be.

[199] But yeah, it's city versus rural.

[200] You know, one of the big questions that we've all had, or at least I've had for years, is, you know, who are these people who are so gullible that they can be convinced by somebody like Donald Trump?

[201] John Cleese, a comedian, you may know, John Cleese said to me a couple of years ago, I think it was.

[202] He said, you know, it's like being with people watching professional wrestling.

[203] and you suddenly realize they think it's real.

[204] And it's like, how do you have a conversation with somebody like that who thinks this grift is actually something real?

[205] So who are these people?

[206] And we tend to look at it, I think, in economic terms.

[207] Well, they're the downtrodden and they're the out of work and they're the, well, you know, there may be some of that going on.

[208] You know, they're racists.

[209] Well, many of them are.

[210] or we think of it in political terms, they're anti -abortion, they're anti -choice.

[211] Well, most of them probably are.

[212] But I don't think that's it.

[213] I think it's something much deeper in human nature.

[214] Some people are authoritarian by nature.

[215] Right, right.

[216] And other people, you and I, perhaps, are not.

[217] And we're always going to be on the opposite side of that spectrum.

[218] And it's very difficult for people like us whose natural inclination is to seek comedy with other people, to get together and discuss, who consider themselves rational and reasonable and open to new facts and information.

[219] And then you talk to people who want none of that.

[220] They already know everything they need to know about everything that's important to them.

[221] And you're the enemy and everything you say is a lie and there's no real information.

[222] It's all fake news.

[223] I don't know how to talk to people like that.

[224] You know, this brings up my next point, which is, it's really interesting.

[225] I couldn't sleep last night.

[226] I was so upset.

[227] And I have a, I have a 17 year old daughter and a 15 year old son and watched all of this unfold with them.

[228] They were doing online schooling here at the house.

[229] And I pulled them away from their computers and said, no, this is more important.

[230] And I can't believe your teachers are continuing with class.

[231] This is historic.

[232] And you have to see this.

[233] And so we watched it.

[234] It's deeply depressing and upsetting.

[235] And then I got angry.

[236] And my anger personally is not at Trump because I think he's mentally ill. And I, if someone, if I'm driving down, the street and someone runs out in front of my car and starts throwing feces on it and screaming crazy things and I realize they're mentally ill. I'm not angry with them.

[237] I really am not because they're mentally ill. The people I'm furious with are the cruises and the Hollies, McConnell for so long, Kevin McCarthy, Pence, Rubio, Cotton, Tucker Carlson, Hannity, Murdox, everybody who said there's money in this.

[238] The guys that are egging on the person throwing shit on your windshield.

[239] Yeah.

[240] In other words.

[241] And I think those are the people that, you know, to watch the Cruz and Holly leave that lockdown and come back up and double down on this idiocy.

[242] I think it's the angriest I've been since Schitt's Creek went off the air.

[243] I was furious then.

[244] I just thought there was more in there.

[245] At least one more season.

[246] There's two more seasons in there.

[247] And this is bullshit.

[248] Now I'm really angry.

[249] Now I even forget what happened at the Capitol.

[250] Well, you're right, though, to single out those people.

[251] And every one of their names ought to be on a list, and it ought to be in the front page or the newspapers all over the country.

[252] These people are traitors.

[253] These people are traitors.

[254] And they have no right to serve in our government.

[255] They are anti -democratic.

[256] You know, they're talking about the Republican Party splitting, you know, the few principled Republicans, and those are the quavering Mitt Romney's who, you know, buck up their courage to murmur a few, you know, disagreements with Trump or whatever.

[257] You know, I don't give them a lot of credit either.

[258] I think the bunch of them just need to go.

[259] But they say two Republican parties, they'll split the principled ones and then the crazy ones.

[260] Well, let's just be honest here.

[261] We have the Democratic Party.

[262] Let's just call them what they are.

[263] They're the anti -democratic party.

[264] Yeah.

[265] They're not for democracy anymore.

[266] You know, so.

[267] So I'm curious because you grew up in this world of Republican royalty.

[268] I mean, and probably met everybody in the Republican sphere.

[269] And I have, you know, I, as I am not a political comedian, but I have enjoyed interviewing Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.

[270] I've also enjoyed interviewing McCain.

[271] I loved talking to John McCain and Bob Dole.

[272] And so I loved getting to meet George Bush, Sr., when I gave a speech at Dartmouth, and he was there, and he was very kind of me, and we spoke for a long time, George Bush Sr. And I just, I, so I didn't have like a knee -jerk reaction.

[273] I would have been really, yeah, you know, thrilled to meet your dad.

[274] And.

[275] Oh, you liked him just fine.

[276] Well, I mean, I mean, he, I'm serious.

[277] He was, uh, he's, uh, he's, uh, such a naturally funny, uh, funny person.

[278] And, uh, and also, I mean, you can speak to this.

[279] And, and you are, I give you a lot of credit for this.

[280] you are, I said earlier, you seem like someone who's had a lot of therapy, you have a good perspective on your parents.

[281] You clearly love them and you also see the pluses, the minuses, which is what we all do as we get older and we do any kind of work on ourselves at all.

[282] And I look at your dad and I think what I always sensed from him was that he would be kind to anybody.

[283] Now, people can say, well, hold you.

[284] Hold on, Conan.

[285] What about certain policies that I'm talking about, I really do feel that he himself in a personal space would have been kind to anybody.

[286] Yes.

[287] Yes, you are correct there.

[288] And you're absolutely right about policy wise when it was sort of abstract groups of people that could kind of fade into something else.

[289] But one on one personally, I have never in my life did I see him ever be unkind to anybody.

[290] He was really, you know, just an incredibly decent human being.

[291] And, you know, what's interesting is, again, contrasting everything I've heard and some things I've witnessed personally.

[292] Trump is very, he's not that.

[293] Well, just because you're, just because you've introduced this potty mouth that you clearly learned from your parents, he, he treats people like shit.

[294] He treats people around him like shit.

[295] Sure, he does.

[296] anyone who works for him and then who is he going to be who's he going to suck up to an oligarch who murders people right well who else but who may build a trump tower in moscow you know you know i would say or reaad if he opens a place in moscow i bet it's going to be a good location just based on his so i'm not saying i won't stay there i'll stay there it's probably going to be a fine hotel.

[297] So we've all been in the situation, right, where you're in a room, whether it's a board room or a writer's room or whatever it is.

[298] There's a group of people and you've got to get stuff done.

[299] And one of you is pathological.

[300] And people realize that.

[301] You know, you get that vibe.

[302] This person's a little crazy.

[303] But by the end of the day, everybody is sort of bending to accommodate the pathology.

[304] You know, everybody's sort of, because you don't want it to get even more crazy.

[305] So don't, you know, let's mollify the nut job here.

[306] Mistake, but that's what's been happening to us nationally for the last four years.

[307] We've been stuck in one man's pathology, and many of us, not all of us, but many of us have tried to somehow make it okay.

[308] You know, if we can just put enough people grownups around him, you know, it'll be okay.

[309] Well, it's not going to be okay because he's the boss.

[310] He's the president of the United States.

[311] He's running the show and he can fire all those people.

[312] And guess what?

[313] He does.

[314] There was a school of thought, as you recall, there was a school of thought in 2016 that, you know, we all woke up.

[315] Trump is president.

[316] What?

[317] I don't understand.

[318] But then there was a quick readjustment, which I'll admit, I did to a degree, which was I thought he'll get.

[319] good people around him, which is what they always say.

[320] They'll get good people around him and maybe it'll be kind of be okay.

[321] Maybe the whole, you know, and I don't think I'm the only one, I think a lot of people, including, I think, Obama was somewhat hopeful that he'll grow in the office.

[322] Nothing like that happened.

[323] It all, it immediately went to shit and got progressively worse.

[324] And, you're right.

[325] It's, and then it's just been watching people.

[326] Actually, they've had cervical discs removed so they can bend over backwards, you know?

[327] People can contort and twist and pretend that what's happening isn't happening.

[328] It's a little frightening, isn't it, to see so many members of Congress.

[329] People who have been elected to high federal office here.

[330] People who have responsibility, who write our laws, decide how much We pay in taxes and things like that.

[331] So many of them turn out to be such sniveling, spineless, supine little sucks.

[332] Look at Lindsay.

[333] Hey, can I say that was a beautiful sentence?

[334] Snippling, supine, servile little sucks.

[335] Servile is good, too.

[336] Did I throw servile in or did you say that?

[337] Servile is yours.

[338] Guess what?

[339] I think we should write, hey, Ron, I think we should write songs together.

[340] I really do.

[341] I think you and I sitting at a piano, Supine, servile, sniveling, little sucks.

[342] He's a servile, little.

[343] Put supine in there and you got a hit kid.

[344] You got a hit kid.

[345] Oh, God.

[346] Yeah, but yeah, yeah, I mean, all of these people, they're elected Ohio, people voted for all of these people.

[347] And really, what little whips, I mean, Lindsay Graham, my God, you know, I mean, I'll be really obscene here.

[348] Really, what I want to ask Lindsay Graham is, does Donald, Trump's ass tastes like Vladimir Putin's dick?

[349] Because I figure you ought to be the one to hold on, I'm doing the math.

[350] I'm trying to do the math on what happened there.

[351] So Lindsey Graham's, uh, dick, wait, how, who's, I don't think his dick was involved at all.

[352] Fantastic.

[353] Uh, you know, when I got you on the show.

[354] You didn't expect dicks.

[355] I was expecting a high -minded conversation about the horrors of what happened at the Capitol yesterday.

[356] And you've done nothing but true to the Reagan name and your blue humor.

[357] Clearly.

[358] Once again, a disappointment.

[359] I bet you were a disappointment to your father, too.

[360] I get the sense you were not a disappointment to your father.

[361] I don't think I was.

[362] What's that?

[363] I don't think I was.

[364] I don't think you were.

[365] No, no. Concerned about the atheism, but, you know.

[366] Yeah, let me ask you quickly about that because I'm endlessly fascinated again with just getting any kind of peak into the history of presidents.

[367] You announced to your parents at a fairly young age that you did not believe in God.

[368] Is that right?

[369] Yeah, I think I was about 12.

[370] That's my memory anyway.

[371] Who says that at 12?

[372] You know, me, when I don't want to go to church on a Sunday morning and miss a football game.

[373] I think I'd probably been 10 when I'm real.

[374] About the time that you know for sure there's no Santa Claus, you begin to think, yeah, there's another white -bearded big guy in the sky.

[375] We got stories about him, knows who's naughty and who's nice.

[376] You get coal and you're stalking for eternity.

[377] if you cross him, but he's an awful lot like that other guy, and that guy was fake.

[378] So, you know what?

[379] I'm not going for this story.

[380] So I'm just picturing your dad and your mom.

[381] We all know them.

[382] We can visualize it.

[383] They're sitting in the living room.

[384] You come in your shorts with your baseball cap on sideways.

[385] Yeah, yeah.

[386] And you say, hey, mom, hey dad, just occurred to me. There's no God in heaven.

[387] There's just an endless black void.

[388] We're here, but for a moment, and then we disappear into nothingness.

[389] We're all Adams.

[390] What happens?

[391] Actually, he came into my room to say, hey, get dressed.

[392] We're going to church.

[393] And I said, I'm not going.

[394] And he looked at me and said, we'll get dressed and headed out the door.

[395] I said, no, no, no, no, really?

[396] I'm not going.

[397] And he stared at me for a moment and just decided, okay, well, we've got to go.

[398] And they went to church.

[399] And then, of course, I knew when he came back that we were going to have a discussion, and we did.

[400] And I said, look, you know, I don't believe what you'd believe.

[401] And I'd be a hypocrite and would dishonor your church, in a sense, by going to church and faking it.

[402] Right.

[403] And if there is a God, he's going to know I'm faking it.

[404] So none of this makes any sense to me. And I'm not going anymore.

[405] And he tried to, you know, he tried to convince me a little bit.

[406] But he was wise enough to not try and strong arm me to do it.

[407] He knew that this had to be a free choice.

[408] Right.

[409] And, you know, he hated my choice, but he would honor it.

[410] Did he, I'm just picturing you, it's the late 60s, early 70s.

[411] You're putting on your music in the house?

[412] Yeah.

[413] Tell me about that.

[414] I mean, what's it like when Ronald Reagan...

[415] When I said, hey, dad, do you want to hear Jimmy Hendrix's version of the National Anthem?

[416] Yeah.

[417] So, yeah.

[418] And so was there ever a time where you just, you realized, oh, my God, they can't hear the rest of this out?

[419] I know where this song is going and it needs to stop.

[420] Well, it's going to Country Joe and the Fifth.

[421] saying, give me an F. And that's what I would sprint to the...

[422] Oh, this is the Woodstock album.

[423] So you're listening to Woodstock and Cuttwee Joe's spelling out fuck.

[424] Yeah.

[425] And he says, give me an F, give me a you, give me a C. And you start running towards the record player?

[426] That's pretty much it.

[427] I didn't have a record.

[428] Now, you have to understand, I didn't have a record player of my own for a long time.

[429] Right.

[430] So, like, at that age, it was the, it was the scary.

[431] for the whole house.

[432] So not only is country Joe, you know, asking me for an F, he's also broadcasting that to my mother who's in the house of the room.

[433] So, yes, I'm screeching down the living room to get to the...

[434] Give me a you.

[435] Yeah, give me an F, give me a you.

[436] And then you can...

[437] Yeah, you can jump, knock the record off the table, and say, he was spelling fungible.

[438] He was talking about fungible g -funky.

[439] Let me ask you, you, everyone today is wondering, where do we go from here?

[440] Where do we, what do we do?

[441] And obviously there are options.

[442] There's a second impeachment, which no one thinks can be, I don't know that you could get that together in two weeks time.

[443] The 25th Amendment, I think, is a better bet.

[444] But the problem, he has steadfastly, I mean, assiduously replaced everybody on his cabinet one by one with people who, I mean, if you have a strong cabinet, if you have forceful, strong -minded sane people in your cabinet, which many presidents want, I mean, Lincoln is the best example, but many presidents have had strong, forceful -minded people in their cabinet who would look at this situation and say, you are not fit to govern, and we are, a majority of us are invoking the 25th Amendment.

[445] And although Congress, I guess, has to get involved by the time they do, you've kept him, you've relieved him of office and the two weeks have expired.

[446] But I don't see that happening with these people.

[447] No, I don't see it happening because I don't know that it can happen without the agreement of at least some Republicans.

[448] And certainly with the 25th Amendment, you'd have to get Mike Pence and half the cabinet.

[449] to agree to remove him from office as unfit.

[450] And I just, I don't know that that happens.

[451] But imagine how pissed off Mike Pence must be right now.

[452] Oh, he is apparently curious.

[453] He was curious, yeah.

[454] He was calling, apparently calling Trump saying, you got to call in the National Guard and rescue us here.

[455] And Trump was basically saying no, you know?

[456] So, and this is an interesting aspect of this.

[457] So Pence calls the Pentagon.

[458] And Pence and a few other national security.

[459] types themselves activate the Washington, D .C. National Guard, which is not their legal right to do.

[460] The president is supposed to be the one to do that.

[461] But apparently they're now going around him in many ways.

[462] He's no longer, not that he ever functioned as president anyway, but people are now ignoring him, I think, in the White House.

[463] Yeah, that was stunning when you looked over the, I don't if it was the signatures or the people that were on the order to call in the National Guard, and the president's name is nowhere there.

[464] Isn't there, yeah, though he's the one that would normally have to do that.

[465] Right.

[466] So, but he did essentially, he did essentially tell Pence, go down the street, go into that building over there and conduct the business that you have to conduct today.

[467] And then once Pence was in the building, he told a crowd, run over to that building.

[468] Yeah.

[469] And don't show weakness.

[470] And don't show weakness, which I would imagine if Pence is capable of it, he would be furious and enraged at this point.

[471] Well, yeah.

[472] You'd think.

[473] I'd be enraged, too.

[474] My favorite part of that speech at Trump's yesterday, that was the part where he pretended he'd be with them, the mob.

[475] You know, I'll be there with you.

[476] Oh, yeah, sure you will, you brave fellow.

[477] Sniveling little coward.

[478] You know, running.

[479] scurrying back to the White House.

[480] It'd be great if he was in that one of those bubbles, you know, that the lead singer for the flaming lips uses.

[481] He crowdsurves in.

[482] Yeah.

[483] And he's just, he's on top of the mob and he's perfectly protected and he's supplied with there's cheeseburgers in there and there's, you know, whatever, whatever chicken McNuggets, all spilling and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, on top of them all, I'd have paid to see that.

[484] Not a lot.

[485] Not a lot, but yeah, for a minute or two.

[486] Yeah, I really want most of my money in real estate.

[487] I don't really want it in that.

[488] But I don't know where we go from here.

[489] He needs to be removed.

[490] Yeah.

[491] He needs to be removed quickly.

[492] I don't know if that can happen, but he needs to be.

[493] And there needs to be an accounting for this.

[494] The people that broke in there, they need to be arrested and charged with serious.

[495] I'm hoping that that is happening.

[496] I woke up this morning.

[497] morning, and that's the first thing I thought was, I hope the FBI, Capitol Hill Police.

[498] I hope the government is using face recognition.

[499] I hope they're looking for these people.

[500] Well, they can get some of the faces off the Capitol, off of the selfies that were taking to the Capitol police.

[501] You know, what the hell was that about?

[502] Taking selfies with people who are invading the Capitol building.

[503] Opening, apparently, in some instances, opening the doors for.

[504] them and letting them in.

[505] Right.

[506] This is a scary aspect of this.

[507] Well, the other aspect that I don't think escaped anybody is that if, and this is sadly, but it's just true if, if that many Black Live Matters protesters had stormed the Capitol, we'd have 600 dead people today.

[508] Yes, absolutely.

[509] 600 dead protesters.

[510] And that's something that no one can deny.

[511] You just cannot deny it.

[512] If you ever doubted white privilege, here was a perfect example.

[513] right you know if they had been black had they been muslim i think joe scarborough this morning said if they were muslim there had been snipers on the roofs picking them off you know i mean it's yeah yeah so there but there needs to be accountability for these people on on both sides here the police the police as well for for what they did and how they reacted but um but i don't know we got a hundred million people in this country or so uh who apparently are okay with this guy uh seven any whatever million voted for him.

[514] I assume there are others.

[515] And that's a third of the country.

[516] Third of the country is bat -shit crazy.

[517] Third of the country believes that Joe Biden is some sort of Satanist pedophile because that's what Facebook told them or something like that, you know.

[518] Well, that's another, I mean, clearly we have to, I have been of the opinion for several years now that we are a primitive people that were just gifted with the attention.

[519] atomic bomb, and we don't know what to do with it, and we're just setting it off left and right.

[520] I think that's the power of social media.

[521] I don't think, you know, if it takes 10 ,000 years for evolution to catch up in any way and turn us into, help us adapt to a new condition, we're only 10 years into that 10 ,000 years, and we've been gifted with something that has immediately made us, I don't know, rendered us, maybe rendered, I don't want to say it, but in the darkest moments, I think, has this new power, this superpower to know what everybody's thinking at any time rendered democracy untenable.

[522] I hope not.

[523] Yeah, you have to ask yourself when ever a new technology evolves or develops, not just what are the best people on earth going to do with this.

[524] You always have to ask yourself, what are the worst people on Earth going to do with this?

[525] Yeah.

[526] What are the worst people on Earth going to do with a nuclear weapon?

[527] Going to do with the Internet?

[528] Going to do with poison gas.

[529] Going to do with a weaponized virus.

[530] You know, you always have to foresee what the worst will do with something like that because they will.

[531] You know, our computer systems now and our government have been hacked into by the Russians at a very deep level that's going to take years and years to sort out, I suspect we'll probably just have to start over from scratch.

[532] I don't know anything about computers, as you know, and neither do you, but...

[533] Okay, let's not include me. Let's not include me. I want to point out to our listeners that it was very nice for me to see Ron struggle a little bit with the technology to talk to me remotely, only to be told by my people, don't worry, Conan is so much worse, which filled me. It was just to make me feel good, though.

[534] No, no, no, no, trust me. It was not.

[535] Sona, tell him.

[536] It was not to make you feel good.

[537] It was completely honest.

[538] And you're even younger than I am, too.

[539] I don't know, but let's face it, you're in much better shape.

[540] A trained dancer, you know, you know, yeah, you could kick the shit.

[541] that of me in about eight seconds.

[542] You're a big guy.

[543] You're a big guy.

[544] Oh, no, no. That just means I would go down much faster in heart.

[545] Like a big tree.

[546] Yeah, like a big tree.

[547] But cushioned by my pompador, which is saved me at the end.

[548] That's what, you know, that's what I would do.

[549] If I could talk to your dad and have a long conversation and hear some of his stories about old Hollywood and some of his political stories, I would love that.

[550] But then I would quickly get to hair product, hairline.

[551] How do you do it, Mr. President?

[552] Because I've built an entire career on this pastry on top of my head, and I've got to keep it going, and you managed to do it.

[553] You are one of the few people who has his cartoons haircut.

[554] Yes.

[555] Yes.

[556] I looked at editorial cartoons in 1982, and I also looked at the Bob's Big Boy logo.

[557] And I said, I went, I pointed to the Reagan and the Bob's Big Boy, and I said, get me that.

[558] to get me one of those.

[559] Because guess what?

[560] Ladies are not going to go for it.

[561] It'll keep the ladies away.

[562] It'll keep the ladies away, but it's going to look good on merchandising.

[563] God bless me, it did.

[564] It worked for Trump, though.

[565] You know, he's got.

[566] I don't know what that.

[567] I don't respect that thing.

[568] I'm a hair.

[569] I'm a connoisseur of hair, and I don't, I think that is low back hair that's been combed up and over.

[570] I think you may write.

[571] And I don't mean to be superficial, but when somebody shows up with hair, like that.

[572] That's a bright red flag waving.

[573] I'm sorry.

[574] Who where, who does that with their hair?

[575] Well, you're on.

[576] Crazy people do that.

[577] No, okay.

[578] Okay, Ron, you're getting into again a very delicate area.

[579] Your hair is a natural kind of, it does, listen, in about a month when I haven't had a haircut for, you know, several months, my hair is going to look.

[580] We're both Irishmen with thick hair.

[581] It does that after a while.

[582] It just kind of goes, blah, you know.

[583] To me ask you a question, and it's sort of at the end here, which is your perspective on, I'm constantly thinking, could people in the past have made it in the political world of today?

[584] And you see what a Ted Cruz, what a Josh Hawley, what these people have to do, the ways in which they have to contort themselves to make it.

[585] And I think could, you know, if your dad were starting out today as a 35 -year -old guy, could he have survived in this kind of climate?

[586] You know what I mean?

[587] Not as a Republican.

[588] No. No, it all started to really go south, I think, in the mid -90s with Newt Gingrich, when they just decided to weaponize everything and become obstructionists.

[589] And then you had, of course, the first or the second Bush, administration where they lied us into a war and then started torturing people.

[590] And then it just sort of spiraled completely out of control.

[591] When Obama was elected, somebody asked me when Obama was elected, well, or before, if Barack Obama is elected president, do you think that means that we're not a racist country anymore?

[592] If a Barack Obama is elected president, we're going to find out exactly how racist a country we are.

[593] And indeed, we did.

[594] You know, look at the effort by Mitch McConnell to completely negate the presidency of Obama when he was in office and after, you know, to do away with the Affordable Care Act, having no replacement for it, by the way, which people keep forgetting, seven years of, you know, we're going to get rid of it, replace it with something better.

[595] Well, what is that something better?

[596] Well, we're working on it.

[597] Yeah.

[598] It's behind door number three.

[599] It's behind door number three.

[600] Yeah, I always go back to that moment And that wasn't not that long ago when Barack Obama was running against John McCain and it was late in the campaign and a woman in the crowd said to McCain, we can't vote for this man. He's a Muslim.

[601] And, you know, he's not from this country.

[602] He's a Muslim.

[603] He's an Arab, she said.

[604] He's an Arab, yeah.

[605] McCain stopped her and said, no, ma 'am, no ma 'am, no ma 'am, that is wrong.

[606] That is incorrect.

[607] Now, that's a good family man. I get an American.

[608] He's a good American.

[609] He's a good American.

[610] He's a good American.

[611] Yes, I get a chill at my spine when I remember that moment because that was only 10, what, 12 years ago, and I still get a chill up my spine when I remember that moment because it feels like something from 100 ,000 years ago.

[612] It just, it was a kind of, it was a moment of someone with the microphone in power who's desperately running a race against Barack Obama and wants to win, refuting someone who's there to vote for McCain and telling them, no, you're wrong.

[613] He's a good family man. And that's something that, I mean, again, I didn't agree with John McCain on lots of things politically, but that we really lost someone special, someone with a backbone.

[614] He did give us that.

[615] Yeah, yeah, give us, well, you can't use hand gestures on a podcast.

[616] The thumbs up and then turning to thumbs down to vote against, yeah, vote against Trump, which was a great moment.

[617] I have a great thumbs up story for my father, actually.

[618] So my father, when his last few years in office, decided that he was going to revive the thumbs up gesture.

[619] So he started going around the country, he was giving it so he would always thumbs up, thumbs up.

[620] And, okay, fine, it was very much my dad, you know, he's like a human thumbs up.

[621] And so my late wife and I were in the car with him coming back from some event where there were crowds in the side of the road was in Washington, D .C., in my memory.

[622] And somebody somehow got past the police barricade by the side of the road and rushed up to the limousine.

[623] And he was promoting a different hand gesture.

[624] So he's right on my dad's side of that.

[625] And he's snarly.

[626] like, shut out of the fuck.

[627] Like this.

[628] And my father gets the full blast of this, turns to us in the car and says, you see, I think it's catching on.

[629] So middle finger, thumb.

[630] It was a digit.

[631] It was pointed up, you know.

[632] He's giving me the number one up.

[633] Yeah, close enough.

[634] He's trying.

[635] He's trying.

[636] Well, this has been, I mean, on a dark day, and I woke up depressed today, as I think a lot of us did.

[637] But then I remembered that I was going to talk to you and that this was going to be a different conversation than we normally have.

[638] But I've always known you to be such a bright and such a quick and funny and warm person.

[639] And so just a delight to talk to you.

[640] And especially today, because it's one of those days where I want to talk to someone like you and feel a little better about things.

[641] Well, we've survived.

[642] That's the good news.

[643] But we've got a lot of work ahead of us here in this country.

[644] We've got, you know, Trump will be gone.

[645] Trump will be irrelevant.

[646] Trump ought to be in an orange jumpsuit at some point.

[647] But the people that back to them, people that stormed the Capitol, they're still out there.

[648] And they've got their guns and their anger and their lunacy, their conspiracy theories.

[649] And they're not going away.

[650] They're not going away.

[651] We're going to have to deal with them.

[652] yeah all right now I'm depressed again sorry what you do that for I was trying to end on this nice yeah but it was too up it was too up you know what you're right today so I just thought I'll bring it down yeah I gave your dad's the thumbs up and then you leaned into my limo and gave me the middle finger that's you uh hey Ron really so nice talking to you well thanks for having me and thank you and I didn't realize my Seattle is my wife's city I go there all the time I haven't during COVID but Maybe we'll hang there sometime.

[653] That'd be nice.

[654] Well, the next time you're out here.

[655] Yeah, absolutely.

[656] Are you in L .A.?

[657] I'm in L .A. Yeah, well, why would I ever come down there?

[658] I'm not wearing a shirt right now, and I'm doing a ton of cocaine.

[659] Once I get my shit together, I'll come up to Seattle, and it would be really nice to hang out.

[660] Okay, because I'm wearing Polar Tech and Trail running shoes.

[661] Well, I can drive alongside you while you.

[662] You run.

[663] Ron Reagan, Jr., thank you very much.

[664] Thank you.

[665] Thank you for having me. Conan O 'Brien needs a friend.

[666] With Sonam O 'Sessian and Conan O 'Brien as himself.

[667] Produced by me, Matt Goreley.

[668] Executive produced by Adam Sacks, Joanna Solitaraff, and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Chris Bannon at Earwolf.

[669] Theme song by The White Stripes.

[670] Incidental music by Jimmy Vivino.

[671] Our supervising producer is Aaron Blair, and our associate talent producer is Jennifer Samples.

[672] The show is engineered by Will Bechtin.

[673] You can rate and review this show on Apple Podcasts, and you might find your review featured on a future episode.

[674] Got a question for Conan?

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[678] This has been a Team Coco production in association with Earwolf.