This is the President

it’s just like Mad Men but with Roanld Reagan instead of Don Draper!

Because on this episode of This is the President, we delve into an entirely new collection of presidential recordings - the Ronald Reagan Dictaphone Library. For the kids out there, a dictaphone was a device that you’d use to record letters so your secretary would type them while you were drinking highballs with the newest steno pool employee on your lap. Except not in Reagan’s case. Maybe while Emmanuel Lewis was sitting in Nancy’s lap.

But we digress….

On the morning of March 3, 1981, a newly inagurated Ronald Reagan was recording a number of letters to supporters and well-wishers. One of these well wishers was Buddy Ebsen, better known as Jed Clampett from The Beverly Hillbillies - and a long time Republican.

But Buddy wasn’t just wishing his pal Ronald Reagan have a great presidency - no there was more on Jed Clampett’s agenda. You see, Mr. Ebsen had just produced his first big time play, “Turn to the Left.” And was inviting the President and Nancy to the opening in California.

So, what starts out as a normal letter dictated by Roanld Reagan on March 3, 1981, soon takes a turn, as we discover that shortly after writing ths letter, Reagan tried to pull a few strings for his old friend Jed.

Remember that time when President Reagan joked about bombing the Soviet Union and almost started a global thermonuclear war?

Well, if you don’t, you will after you listen to our first remote edition of TITP, broadcasting at you all the way from the land of the Twin Cities - Minnesota! That’s right, Harmon was on vacation, but was so excited to do a TITP episode that we called on the TITP tech team to put their heads together to figure out how we could make this work. And they did it!

On this episode, Harmon and I will talk about the aforementioned Reagan “joke”, the difference between Minnesota and Wisconsin, and the current goings on in Washington, DC.

“Station, this is your President, do you hear me?”

Thus begins one of the most historic telephone calls to space (as trumpeted by the Trump White House) as President Trump (still painful to say that) has a teleconference with US astronauts in April 2017 to congradulate them on their record setting space stay.

But that’s not all Trump has to say in this phone call, oh no. He also uses the opportunity to talk about great American made products, dealing with politicisna and, of course, the role of his daughter Invanka, as handbag - we mean - sceience advisor.

So pop open a pack of freeze tried ice cream and a tall glass of Tang and settle down to hear this historic phone call for yourself.

Sponsoring this episode is the book Cannabis: The Illegalization of Weed in America by New York Times best selling Author Box Brown. Pick up a copy at Amazon or whereever your buy your favorite books.

This episode also brought to you in part by our other podcast Comedy History 101.

Like This is the President? Why not  subscribe to the podcast over at iTunes! Hey - and while you’re there, leave us a comment or rate us!

Don’t cost nothing!

You wanna be starting something?

Then get this Thriller - it’s the Gipper and Michael Jackson appearing together for the very first time on stage.

The date: May 14, 1984 The cause: President Reagan awarded The Gloved One an award for his work on a national campaign against drunk driving

If the thought of President Reagan making a bunch of Michael Jackson references is your bag, then this episode of This is the President is going to be right up your alley. Of course, there’s a lot of Reagan’s speech that kind of comes of creepy here in 2019 after the revelations of Leaving Neverland.

Nonetheless, there’s a job that needs to be done, and Harmon and I are here to do it, as we listen to Reagan’s speech and weigh in with our own interpretations. This, of course, naturally leading to us scouring the internet during the episode for the best (and worst) Michael Jackson jokes.

Happy President’s Day everyone!

I know what you’re thinking - isn’t EVERY DAY President’s Day?

I mean, they get to be the leader of the Free World, they can sign all sorts of bills, they can even declare national emergencies if they don’t get their way. It might seem great, what with all that free Executive Time, but being the President of the United States is tough work. There’s a lot going on behind the scenes.

Let’s take meet and greets, for example. Most Presidents have a meet and greet time slotted into their daily schedules. This is when they get to meet with foreign dignitaries, members of congress, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the board members of the National Tuirkey Federation - EVERYONE.

Sometimes the President even has to meet with people from the other side of the ideological spectrum. This was the case in point on November 12, 1987 when President Ronald Reagan welcomed the new spokesmen for the Christmas Seals Foundation into his office. All in a day’s work, right? But the irony is that the new spokespeople for Christmas Seals were not other than those 1960s iconoclasts and flaming liberals, The Smothers Brothers!

What happened when the former Governor of California meets his political opposites? Download this episode and see!

Walls. Seems like people can’t get enough of them. So in this weeks episode, we’re going to talk about them.

This time, however, we’re going to be talking about a wall that’s no longer around - the Berlin Wall. Well, parts of it are still around and covered with colorful drawings that make it much less frightening than when it was first erected in 1961.

Two years later, President John F. Kennedy made a visit to Berlin and delivered his famous “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech. But, since then, rumours have been circulating as to the real meaning of the speech. The urban legend has it that what Kennedy actually said was “I am a jelly donut”, as the Berliner was the name given to a local pastry.

So was it true?

In order to help get to the bottom of this mystery, our special guest on this episode is comedian Sandy Wieding, a fourth generation Berlin native and former East German. We’ll talk about the real meaning of “Ich bin ein Berliner”, what type of donuts Germans like and what it was like to grow up as a child in East Berlin.

Don’t think that “Fake News” is solely President Trump’s domain. Oh no….

As we listen in to this weeks phone call, you’ll hear TITP fave President Lyndon B. Johnson bitching about news coverage - even suggesting that a reporter be taken out and shot at one point.

Granted, Johnson was having a pretty tough week. This phone call, taken from February 5, 1968, was recorded during a time when Johnson was under a bit of stress.

Just a few weeks prior, the USS Pueblo, and all it’s crew, were captured in the waters off North Korea (yean, that North Korea) and accused of spying. Then, just a few days before this phone call, the North Vietnamese launched the Tet Offensive, immediately dismissing any notion that the end of the war was anywhere near.

This episode is brought to you in part by Blinkist. 

Blinkist is the only app that takes thousands of the best-selling nonfiction books anddistils them down to their most impactful elements, so you can read or listen to them inunder 15 minutes, all on your phone.

Get started with a FREE seven day trial. along with a 25% discount, for Blinkist today, by clicking here! 

And last, but not least, this episode is also sponsored by Words Over Chair Productions and Comedy History 101.

Like This is the President? Why not  subscribe to the podcast over at iTunes! Hey - and while you’re there, leave us a comment or rate us! Don’t cost nothing!

June 12, 1985 was vice presidents George H.W. Bush’s special day.

He was turning 61 years young, so the White House staff decided to suprise him with a cake and a couple of special presents.

Which unfortunately didn’t include the bag of crack that President Bush would so proudly hold up to American’s TV screens just a few short years later.

Those are just a couple of the memories that Harmon and I unleash when we talk about our newest dead president, George Herbert Walker Bush.

But that’s not all, in this episode, we also bring back a couple of favorite bits, Harmon’s Presidential Impressions and, of course, we go shopping for Trump products in the Amazon.

This episode is brought to you in part by Blinkist. 

Blinkist is the only app that takes thousands of the best-selling nonfiction books anddistils them down to their most impactful elements, so you can read or listen to them inunder 15 minutes, all on your phone.

Get started with a FREE seven day trial. along with a 25% discount, for Blinkist today, by clicking here! 

And last, but not least, this episode is also sponsored by Words Over Chair Productions and Comedy History 101.

It was a fine spring day in May of 1988 when country music (and just plain music in general) legend stopped by the White House to pay his respects to President Ronald Reagan - on their agenda: drugs.

Not the taking, as Johnny points out in this conversation, but rather the stopping thereof.

And that’s only one of the few small conversation nuggets you’ll find in our presidential appearance this week.

Johnny didn’t come alone - no, he brought June Carter Cash with him as well. But what’s surprising is who WASN’T able to make the photo session. Be sure to listen to the podcast to find out who could have made photo history with Reagan in the White House.

Also in this episode, Harmon and I continue our feature “Trump in the Amazon” where we read Amazon reviews and questions about Donald Trump products on Amazon. Up this time - and we swear we didn’t know this was “a thing” before we did this - the Trumpy Bear

This episode is brought to you in part by Blinkist. 

Blinkist is the only app that takes thousands of the best-selling nonfiction books anddistils them down to their most impactful elements, so you can read or listen to them inunder 15 minutes, all on your phone.

Get started with a FREE seven day trial. along with a 25% discount, for Blinkist today, by clicking here! 

And last, but not least, this episode is also sponsored by Words Over Chair Productions and Comedy History 101.

Like This is the President? Why not  subscribe to the podcast over at iTunes! Hey - and while you’re there, leave us a comment or rate us! Don’t cost nothing! !

Did you vote? No? Then what the hell is wrong with you!

Go now!

Then, once you’re done voting you can settle back and listen in to the glorious sounds of our Election 2018 special!

Harmon did an excellent job of piloting the Presidential Time Portal (tm) to take us back to December of 1983 when two great titans of statesmanship met for the first time - President Ronald Reagan and Rocky III/The A Team star, Mr. T! Yes, this really happened!

Mr. T was at the White House playing - believe it or not - Santa and helping out First Lady Nancy Reagan with her Just Say No to Drugs campaign (of course, this was at the same time when the US Government was importing cocaine from South America but we’ll leave that for another podcast).

So step into the voting booth and back out again into the world of 1983 with today’s edition of This is the President.

Harmon and I will also be discussing some of our predictions for the election and what the outcome could mean for the future of the United States - and the world, the inner workings of the Mr. T doll by Galoob, Rocky III vs. Rocky IV, and, in keeping with the spirit of election day, reading reviews of Trump products on Amazon.

This episode is brought to you in part by Blinkist. 

Blinkist is the only app that takes thousands of the best-selling nonfiction books anddistils them down to their most impactful elements, so you can read or listen to them inunder 15 minutes, all on your phone.

Get started with a FREE seven day trial. along with a 25% discount, for Blinkist today, by clicking here! 

This episode also brought to you in part by Plowdypod - the think tank that answers the questions that nobody asked, like “Would you rather be Trump’s wife or Putin’s mistress?” Check it out and subscribe on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

And last, but not least, this episode is also sponsored by Words Over Chair Productions and Comedy History 101.

Like This is the President? Why not  subscribe to the podcast over at iTunes! Hey - and while you’re there, leave us a comment or rate us! Don’t cost nothing!