This is the President

It’s that time of year, everyone - there’s a brisk wind in the air, the leaves are changing colors, pumpkins sprout on every porch and something batshit crazy happens during the elections.

I’m talking, of course, about the dreaded October Surprise!

The odd thing is that we had cut this episode together BEFORE the recent events in the United States - so we’re going to have to talk about that insanity in the next episode. This time, however, Harmon sets the Presidential Time Portal (tm) for 1964, the year of LBJ’s first “official” presidential election.

That year, the White House was rocked by the Walter Jenkins scandal, where one of LBJ’s most trusted aides was arrested by the Washington, DC police force while trying to “make friends” in a YMCA bathroom.

We’ve covered this story in a previous podcast, but without Harmon, so I wanted to get his whole take on these events. We’ll also discuss the meaning of Rocktober and why Metallica is mandatory.

Especially after the events of the past few days, it’s hard to believe that there are people who are paid to make the president funny. Does the current White House resident, for example, really need people to write jokes for him when he’s hanging out with Kanye?

It turns out sometimes they do.

Which brings us to this weeks episode. This time around, we interview David Litt. Mr. Litt was a head speechwriter for the Obama White House and charged with the task of making the president a funny man. He’s recently written a memoir of his White House years, Thanks Obama: My Hopey, Changey White House Years and shared some of his thoughts on the challenges of writing for Kanye’s newest BFF.

But that’s not all! Oh no. Harmon and Scott will also analyze the Trump Kayne summit, Harmon expresses his love for Steely Dan and Scott helps to correct the historical record on the drunkenness of General (and later President) Grant.

Well, well….and how was YOUR weekend?

Our long national nightmare is now over and we’ve got a shiny new Bro-Judge installed on the Supreme Court. A “non-partisan” judge who starts waving around conspiracy theories at the drop of a hat (ie: let’s all blame the Clintons). Well, this is going to be fun.

But don’t worry - we here at This is the President will be right here by your side. In today’s episode, we wanted to take a look at another controversial Supreme Court appointment - this one from 50 years ago. It was the summer of 1968 when President Johnson decided to throw his weight behind nominating his pal Abe Fortas as the Head Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Let’s just say that the Senate was not amused - so much so to the point that they forced Fortas to testify before them. The first time in history that a judge from the Supreme Court was called in this manner - sound familiar?

Download this episode to listen in on Fortas advising President Johnson on exactly what type of book he needed to take his oath of office on and how the Johnson’s walked away with a little souvenir after that fateful day in Dallas, Texas in November, 1963. We’ll also hear from Senator Strom Thurmond with his opinions on Fortas and discuss the Abe Fortas Film Festival that Thurmond threw on the floor of the Senate.

ALSO - Check out our newest segment - Amazon Reviews of Donald Trump products!

As Harmon so eloquently puts it in this episode - hard to believe that so many bat-shit crazy things happened this week WITHOUT Trump.

Indeed, my friend, indeed.

The major batshit crazy thing that happened last week was, of course, the Kavanaugh Supreme Court hearings in Washington, DC. In just a few short hours, “Renate Alumnus”, “Devil’s Triangle” and “I like beer” soon became catchphrases around The Swamp.

Scott and Harmon take the time to discuss their impressions of what President Trump called a “trauma” and add in their thoughts, and try to come up with some catchprases of their own.

For comparison with the “trauma” of the Kavanaugh hearings, Harmon and Scott dial the Presidential Time Portal (tm) back to 1971, to listen in to a phone call between Richard Nixon and Attorney General John Mitchell. In this (surprisingly good quality) phone call, Nixon and Mitchell as they discuss their current pick for the vacant Supreme Court seat - Senator Howard Baker. Is Baker up to the task? Or is he just a playboy with a jackass record? Listen in and decide for yourself!

Things just keep getting weirder and weirder.

One week we’ve got a description of the president’s penis from a porn star, the next we’ve got a Texas candidate for Senate referencing the Clash. As the Chinese saying goes, “May you live in interesting times.”

And an interesting time indeed is what Harmon and Scott have on this latest episode of This is the President. We’ll touch on the highlight from the Texas senate debates, the onset of fall, the ubiquity of “Getting the Led Out” across the globe and wrap it all up with a look back at some recently unearthed Nixon conversations from 1972 where the president is discussing his vaunted debating skills.

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

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!

So legendary reporter Bob Woodward’s book about the Trump presidency is released on September 11 - do you think they’re trying to tell us something?

I didn’t ever thank we’d get an actual President Trump phone call on this podcast - at least, not while he was in office, but, sometimes history works in mysterious ways.

In this episode of This is the President, Harmon and I will be discussing some of the best parts of the recent Bob Woodward/President Trump tape that was released recently. We’re almost on top of the news cycle!

But presidential hatred of reporters and The Washington Post is nothing new, as you’ll hear when we listen in on what President Nixon has to say about journalists as we take the Presidential Time Portal back to 1972.

We’ve even updated our opening song with brand, spanking new Trump sound bites.

This is one episode you don’t want to miss!

This episode is brought to you 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 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!

Hey everyone, we're back!

What'd we miss? Anything? lol. 

Well, turns out we did miss only one of the first times that President Trump has been actually recorded on tape,, which is kind of the premise of this here podcast.

Whoops. 

So we're playing catch up now, which is why we've brought you an episode packed with nothing but Omarosa goodness. Things are really starting to get ugly in the Trump White House, as everyone  has turned to covertly taping each other in order to save their own asses.

Really, who could blame them?  

Also, Harmon and Scott discuss the state of the missing presidential portraits at the US border and attempt to do English/Scottish accents. 

This episode is brought to you by Blinkist, 

Blinkist is the only app that takes thousands of the best-selling nonfiction books and

distils them down to their most impactful elements, so you can read or listen to them in

under 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! 

We'd also like to welcome another sponsor, Words Over Chair - a full service creative agency with offices in Brooklyn and Berlin.

I think we're now through the looking glass people. We've now got the "President" on tape talking to his personal lawyer about funneling cash money into a private corporation to buy someone's silence. And the worst part? Nobody seems to care.

The even worse part? THIS EXACT SAME THING HAS HAPPENED BEFORE. Nearly 50 years ago, President Nixon was discussion the very same issue with his own personal lawyer, John Dean. Only this time an actual amount of money was mentioned - $1,000,000 in 1972 dollars, which is almost $6,000,000 today. Whew. That's a lot of greenbacks.

And we all know, they are only two organizations who routinely turn to cash to organize their business transactions: the mafia and drug lords. Which one was Nixon and which one is Trump. Listen to the tape and YOU make the call.

In addition, Harmon and I will be discussing the brutal heat of a New York summer and Harmon will also give details of where you can see him at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival throughout August.

This episode is brought to you by Words Over Chair Productions and Comedy History 101.

Be sure to subscribe to the podcast over at iTunes!

This past week, President Trump finally had his day in the diplomatic spotlight when he hosted North Korean leader Kim Jong Un  and declared that North Korea was "no longer a nuclear threat."

Of course, there was no verifiable proof that the North Koreans had done anything along those lines, but really that's no longer a surprise coming from the Commander in Cheeto. 

So we thought this was a perfect opportunity here at This is the President to look at a similar moment in history - when President Nixon announced on July 15, 1971 that he would be scheduling a meeting with the leaders of the People's Republic of China to normalise relations between the two countries. 

But this wasn't a sudden event from out of the blue. Nixon's team had been working on this proposal for months. In addition, the Ping Pong Diplomacy incident helped move detente between the two nations quickly forward. This episode features a pair of Nixon phone calls from April, 1971, including one where Nixon mentions the Ping Pong incident, and another from the same day between Henry Kissenger and Nixon where they discuss the China diplomatic moves and Nixon's love of classical music is on full display. 

Harmon and Scott also discuss some of the motivations behind North Korea's appearance at the bargaining table and how the Master of the Deal might be getting mastered behind his back and the 1980s.  

This episode is brought to you by Words Over Chair Productions and Comedy History 101.

Did you ever record your own family while they sat down to dinner to eat? It was kind of a thing in the 1970s. It was also kind of a thing back in the 1960s as well. But, in this case, this wasn't an ordinary family dinner. 

That's because this dinner was held at then Senator John F. Kennedy's house in Washington, DC. The occasion for this January 5, 1960 dinner? A sort of celebration and look forward to the 1960 presidential campaign, for which JFK had just declared himself a candidate.

In addition to the Kennedys, the party featured Washington Post honco Ben Bradlee, his wife Toni Bradlee and James Cannon, a reporter for Newsweek magazine. 

Luckily for history (and This is the President), Cannon brought along a portable tape recorder and recorded the dinner conversation for posterity. There's a few interesting tidbits here, including Kennedy's take on his role in politics and a denial of having Addison's Disease (which he did, in fact, have). 

In addition, of course, there's lots of other goodness from Scott and Harmon, including their takes on the Korea talks, the Royal Marriage Conspiracy and the Oldest Pub in London.