Did Ronald Reagan Create Trump? (Part 5)

0:02Ronald Reagan knew how to go big and go bold. He truly was the great communicator. He was still feeling the afterglow of the landslide election win, the Cold War shifting in America's favor. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. President Reagan today publicly ridiculed last week's report from Congress that he was responsible for the arms for Iranians wheeling and dealing. We did not trade weapons or anything else for hostages. They actually saw the first signs of Alzheimer's in 1989. When he dies at home at the age of 93, not remembering that he had been president of the United States. It's not Reagan's party anymore.

0:45Donald Trump destroyed Ronald Reagan. I thought he was great, his style, his attitude, but not great on trade. Will we be the party of conservatism? Or will we follow the siren song of populism? Only one man has the proven experience we need. Together, we'll make America great again. Thank you very much.

1:10Did Reagan create Trump? That's the question at the heart of our final episode of our members miniseries on Ronald Reagan. Yeah, it's a question worth asking because while Reagan left the White House in 1989 as the Cold War peacemaker, His legacy has also reshaped American politics in ways that I think we're still living with today. Well, Katty, we're going to look at the Iran-Contra scandal. We're going to look at the moment that the presidency nearly collapsed, a secret arms deal with Iran, money funded into the Contras in Nicaragua. Oliver Stone at the head of that, shredded documents in the White House basement.

1:50And how did Reagan survive that? How was it not his Watergate? Yeah, somehow he did manage to do that. And was it charm, myth-making, or simply the fact that he seemed perhaps a little detached from the details of actually running the government? And, Caddy, while that scandal was unfolding, he was negotiating a nuclear arms agreement with Mr. Gorbachev. He was also going to the Berlin Wall, giving that very famous speech, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down the wall. And all the while we were embracing tax cuts for the rich. Billionaire politics was really starting to enter the fray, which has gone exponential here in 2025.

2:31And we swapped. We went from sunny optimism, Katty Kay, to grievance and anger of the Trump presidency. Yeah, so that's why in the last episode of our Reagan series, we are asking whether Reagan permanently changed the Republican Party. And did he set the stage for Trump, who embraced those tax cuts, that billionaire politics, as you call it, Anthony, that increase in income inequality in the country? And is that where some of today's mood in American politics really comes from? OK, that's all coming in our final episode. Reagan, the birth of Trump. Here is a preview. We should end the series with looking at Reagan's legacy in terms of today and today's Republican Party, because there are obviously similarities and there are obviously clear differences between the Republican Party of today and the Republican Party of Ronald Reagan's time.

3:27And for several decades after Reagan left office, the gold standard of being a Republican politician running for office in America was to be compared to Ronald Reagan. If you could be the next Reagan, you were a sure thing for getting into office. But actually, if you look at Ronald Reagan today, do you think he could be elected president in today's Republican Party? Would the Make America Great Again movement elect Ronald Reagan and all of the things that Reagan did in office? so you know this is again the big debate right so the consensus is no way uh rise of populism a guy like donald trump would have bullied ronald reagan and uh would have beaten reagan for the nomination if you put the two of them up together given the winds of what's going on right now in the society i'm going to be the contrarian and disagree with that i think that these are personality contests.

4:23And I think that Reagan was a very agile, very adept guy and very versatile. And he had a very smart campaign staff. Assuming he had the same campaign staff and Trump had his campaign staff. I think Reagan would have impressed people with his versatility, his ambidexterity in terms of dealing with things. Remember, I've said this about the Bush family in this series. They're congenial people. They're diplomats, cannot handle Donald Trump. Reagan wasn't exactly that. He was a little bit tougher. He was a little, he could have been a little bit more detached and a little meaner than the Bushes, frankly.

5:03He was less of a country club Republican. He was less of a country club Republican. Not a silver spoon guy. And by the way, he knew how to fight. He knew how to fight and he would have been dropping bombs on Trump in a way that these current politicians are not equipped to do. I know it's contrarian to say this, but I think Reagan would have given Trump a run for his money, Katty. But that suggests then, Anthony, that the shift to the right that the Republican Party has taken over the last decade or so and that the Republican voters have taken over the last decade or so, the disenchantment with globalization, the disenchantment with immigration, the disenchantment with a free trade agenda, the dissatisfaction with America's role as a leader in the world after the forever wars in the Middle East, the reluctance to be involved in multinational organizations like NATO and lead the world as the great superpower, that that shift is not actually fundamental is what you're suggesting, because that is what all of those things is what Reagan and Reaganism embodied and symbolized and fought for.

6:14And that is what the Republican Party of today, Republican voters of today have rejected when they voted for Donald Trump. It's not just that they voted for Donald Trump, the personality, They've voted for a rejection of what we now think of as conservative Reaganist policies on the domestic and on the international front. But what you seem to be saying is that a personality like Reagan could bring that party back to what Reagan represented. Again, this is the malleability of Reagan. I think Reagan was very good at sensing the shifting sentiments that go on in a society. I think that he would have altered his views a little bit.

6:54I don't think he would have came at it from the 1980s view of Republicanism, but I think he was a very versatile guy. He would have looked at the society where it is today. This is what we got right. This is what we got wrong. Stay with me. I'm on the side of good. This is sort of rhetoric of darkness. I think it's very appealing. Ultimately, we're going to be writing about this 50 years from now. Americans got angry because they felt left out. And it was really post Reagan. It was the last 30 years of globalization, 30 years of trade deals and things that we did on the international stage where the Americans, a very large portion of them, felt left out.

7:36It wasn't during the Reagan era. He was very sensitive to the unions. He got shot coming out of a union meeting at the hotel. Hell, he was sensitive to the working people. There were a lot of blue dog Democrats that supported him. And I think he would have shifted himself. And I think he would have been successful in combating somebody like Donald Trump. I think you're right, Anthony, that his optimism is something that Americans always have gravitated to, except in the last few years when they have chosen as their president, somebody who fed kind of fear and anger. and division and is so unlike Ronald Reagan.

8:17And if you want to answer the question of whether Reagan produced Trump, you can look at some of the policies. You can look at the beginnings of economic inequality that started growing under Ronald Reagan that then fed people's economic disconsent during the 1990s with the growth of globalization as well. I guess the question is, is Trump the anomaly in American political history or is Reagan now consigned to history and are Americans going to carry on electing leaders who are more in the Trump mold or will they go back to people who make them feel good about the country and good about other Americans?

8:55You know, it's such a good question and of course I don't know the answer to it, but I'm willing to bet on the optimism. I'm willing to bet that there will be a break in the action of these social media algorithms, and I think there'll be a return to something more normal. I think that this society, on its current course trajectory, I think there will be smart people that come in here and try to intervene and set the society back in a direction that is more community-related. At least I'd like to believe that. But I will say this. I don't think Reagan created Donald Trump because when he left office, economy was booming.

9:37We brought down the Berlin Wall. I think the Francis Fukuyama end of history narrative created Donald Trump. And that happened in the 90s. People said, okay, it's the end of history. Democratic capitalism has won. No more history. It was a cockiness. It was a cockiness about the situation. No more history. So therefore, let's move all of our factories to China. They're eventually going to embrace our system because our system is better than the other systems. You know what we did, Katty? We didn't fully understand how good China was going to be at taking our technology, taking our manufacturing wisdom and replicating it and frankly, many ways making it better.

10:20and they did a brilliant job of moving a billion people, a half a billion to a billion people out of poverty into some level of middle-class affluence and they crippled us. And we didn't see it coming. That happened after Ronald Reagan. If you enjoyed that, you can sign up to hear the whole series at therestispoliticsus.com and become a founding member.

10:50Thank you.