August 22, 2019 • 36 mins
Ron is joined by his ex-girlfriend Doris Kearns Goodwin.
Credits:
Ron Burgundy: Host, Writer, Executive Producer
Carolina Barlow: Co-Host, Writer, and Producer.
Producers: Whitney Hodack, Jack O'Brien, Miles Gray, and Nick Stumpf
Executive Producer: Mike Farah
Consulting Producer: Andrew Steele
Coordinating Producer: Colin MacDougall
Associate Producers: Anna Hossnieh and Sophie Lichterman
Writer: Jake Fogelnest
Production Coordinator: Hannah Jacobson
This episode was Engineered, Mixed and Edited by: Nick Stumpf
Music Clearance by Suzanne Coffman
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
N bergen wrong berg and talking and saying anything wrong back,
and he's not playing any game today. Not fine today?
(00:25):
Does that sound right today? That reading of today? Yeah,
it's exactly how it's pronounce Today. We are interviewing a
woman who is very important. She's a very very smart woman.
She's um this episode is on. H Okay, I'm gonna
(00:46):
own up. I forgot who we're interviewing today? Are you?
I have a feeling it's not Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You
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
(01:06):
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,
(01:27):
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
(01:48):
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
(02:10):
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
(02:31):
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,
(02:54):
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
(03:14):
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
(03:46):
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
(04:08):
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
(04:30):
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,
(04:54):
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
(05:22):
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
(05:43):
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
(06:04):
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,
(06:29):
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
(06:54):
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
(07:15):
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
(07:36):
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
(07:57):
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
(08:18):
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
(08:40):
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
(09:02):
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,
(09:27):
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,
(09:50):
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
(10:10):
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
(10:33):
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,
(10:55):
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
(11:16):
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,
(11:38):
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
(11:59):
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
(12:20):
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.
(12:41):
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
(13:02):
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
(13:25):
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.
(13:46):
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.
(14:07):
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
(14:29):
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.
(14:49):
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
(15:11):
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
(15:32):
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.
(15:53):
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
(16:15):
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
(16:35):
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
(16:56):
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,
(17:18):
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
(17:43):
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
(18:04):
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.
(18:26):
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
(18:47):
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
(19:10):
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
(19:33):
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
(19:54):
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
(20:15):
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
(20:35):
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
(20:57):
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
(21:18):
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
(21:38):
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
(22:00):
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
(22:20):
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
(22:41):
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.
(23:03):
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
(23:25):
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.
(23:50):
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
(24:12):
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
(24:34):
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
(24:56):
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
(25:17):
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
(25:40):
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
(26:02):
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
(26:22):
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,
(26:43):
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,
(27:05):
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
(27:28):
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
(27:49):
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
(28:10):
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
(28:31):
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
(28:54):
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
(29:16):
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.
(29:38):
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
(30:00):
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,
(30:21):
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.
(30:41):
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
(31:03):
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.
(31:24):
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.
(31:49):
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,
(32:10):
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,
(32:30):
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.
(32:51):
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
(33:12):
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
(33:32):
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,
(33:56):
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
(34:20):
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
(34:41):
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.
(35:05):
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
(35:33):
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
(35:54):
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
N bergen wrong berg and talking and saying anything wrong back,
and he's not playing any game today. Not fine today?
(00:25):
Does that sound right today? That reading of today? Yeah,
it's exactly how it's pronounce Today. We are interviewing a
woman who is very important. She's a very very smart woman.
She's um this episode is on. H Okay, I'm gonna
(00:46):
own up. I forgot who we're interviewing today? Are you?
I have a feeling it's not Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You
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
(01:06):
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,
(01:27):
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
(01:48):
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
(02:10):
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
(02:31):
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,
(02:54):
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
(03:14):
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
(03:46):
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
(04:08):
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
(04:30):
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,
(04:54):
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
(05:22):
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
(05:43):
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
(06:04):
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,
(06:29):
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
(06:54):
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
(07:15):
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
(07:36):
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
(07:57):
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
(08:18):
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
(08:40):
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
(09:02):
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,
(09:27):
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,
(09:50):
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
(10:10):
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
(10:33):
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,
(10:55):
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
(11:16):
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,
(11:38):
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
(11:59):
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
(12:20):
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.
(12:41):
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
(13:02):
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
(13:25):
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.
(13:46):
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.
(14:07):
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
(14:29):
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.
(14:49):
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
(15:11):
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
(15:32):
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.
(15:53):
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
(16:15):
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
(16:35):
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
(16:56):
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,
(17:18):
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
(17:43):
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
(18:04):
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.
(18:26):
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
(18:47):
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
(19:10):
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
(19:33):
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
(19:54):
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
(20:15):
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
(20:35):
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
(20:57):
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
(21:18):
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
(21:38):
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
(22:00):
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
(22:20):
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
(22:41):
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.
(23:03):
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
(23:25):
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.
(23:50):
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
(24:12):
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
(24:34):
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
(24:56):
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
(25:17):
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
(25:40):
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
(26:02):
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
(26:22):
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,
(26:43):
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,
(27:05):
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
(27:28):
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
(27:49):
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
(28:10):
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
(28:31):
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
(28:54):
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
(29:16):
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.
(29:38):
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
(30:00):
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,
(30:21):
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.
(30:41):
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
(31:03):
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.
(31:24):
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.
(31:49):
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,
(32:10):
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,
(32:30):
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.
(32:51):
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
(33:12):
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
(33:32):
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,
(33:56):
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
(34:20):
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
(34:41):
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.
(35:05):
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
(35:33):
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
(35:54):
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
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations.
The Nikki Glaser Podcast
Every week comedian and infamous roaster Nikki Glaser provides a fun, fast-paced, and brutally honest look into current pop-culture and her own personal life.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.