Ronald Reagan: Cheating Death and Igniting a Revolution (Part 3)

0:28The year is 1980. crushing burden of inflation off of our citizens. President Reagan was shot in the chest by a gunman outside the Washington Hotel. There is a big standoff with the air traffic controllers. If they do not report for work within 48 hours, they will be terminated. Only one man has the proven experience we need. Together, we'll make America great again. Thank you very much.

0:57Hey, it's Katty. And you might know that Anthony and I are in the middle of our latest mini-series. It's all about Ronald Reagan. You can hear it by signing up at therestispoliticsus.com. It's episode three this week. And in that episode, we're covering Reagan beating Carter and becoming president of the United States in 1980, the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan and the beginning of what became to be known as Reaganomics. What I found sort of fascinating in this episode, Anthony, was the whole account of the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan. It's so quintessentially Reagan, how he manages.

1:35He's there being kind of wheeled into hospital with his blood coming from his side. He's actually much more severely wounded than people realized at the time. And yet he still manages to find the kind of quips that make him famous. That is what makes a Karan a great politician, somebody who can, in the moment of crisis, rise to the moment and be themselves in a way that endears them to the American public. And he does just that. And, Katty, we're also going to address, in addition to that, wit and his love affair for Americans in America, his ability to be bipartisan, the relationship with Tip O 'Neill and other Democrats, and the idea that he was going to use the power of his persuasive skills to win bipartisan consensus on a lot of legislation at that time.

2:26We could do with some of that today, right? Yes, exactly. And that's the big issue. There's a comparison and contrast here. How did we get to where we are 40 short years later from where we once were in America? Here's a clip from the series. The time is 24 minutes past two on the 30th of March 1981. It's the Hilton in Washington, D.C. And Reagan is leaving a trade union event through the VIP exit. The president's arm can be seen waving above the police hats circling around him. But then, in just two seconds...

3:07Reagan feels a blow to his upper back. He's struggling to breathe. Blood begins to fill his mouth. The street is a blur with shouts and sirens. And within seconds, he's shoved into a car and raced to hospital. It's confirmed. Rawhide down. The president has been shot. I was a student in the UK back then, but even I remembered, in the midst of exam flurry and all the things that students are preoccupied with, that news had a standing still. It was one of those moments where you can still remember where you were when Ronald Reagan was shot. Where were you, Anthony? Well, I was walking in the school.

3:51I was in the 11th grade at the local public high school here, and I was walking in the hallway, and one of the assistant principals was telling people the president has been shot. He's been taken to the George Washington Hospital emergency room. And I remember the palpable fear because it was only 18 years earlier that we had lost the president to an assassination, John F. Kennedy. And so there's a phenomenal book about this called Rawhide Down. And so Rawhide Caddy was his call sign. They called him Rawhide because he was a cowboy. He had that rugged, heavily lined face. And so Rawhide Down was the call signal.

4:33We're heading for the hospital, is what they said over the radios as they were going there. Del Quentin Wilbur wrote a great book about this. And this is where Reagan really shined, Caddy, because he gets to the hospital. The bullet is near his heart. He's leaking blood. His lung is collapsing. And he's in the hospital. And Nancy Reagan sees him. He uses that famous line, honey, I forgot to duck. Everyone's trying to laugh, but he's very, very pale. They're rushing him into the emergency trauma center. Of course, the doctor that's about to operate on him is a staunch Democrat. And Reagan looks up at him as they're about to put the anesthesia to knock Reagan out.

5:17He says, I hope you're all Republicans in here. And that doctor looks at Reagan and says, sir, we're all Republicans today. And then they put him out. And of course, they get the bullet out of there and they say how close the bullet was to hitting his heart, which of course would have killed him. And now he's got a convalescent. He's hurting, Cady. He is hurting in that hospital. And his staff is trying to figure out how are we going to get this 69-year-old guy back in place to let everybody know he's strong and vigorous. And of course, they're figuring out a way to stage all of that. And he returned so triumphantly to the Congress.

5:58He gives that joint session, that joint speech to the Congress. And Tip O 'Neill says, I'm going to give him everything he wants. I'm not going to be able to stop the momentum of Ronald Reagan. The man who pulled the trigger is, you know, virtually a footnote now in history, 26-year-old John Hinckley. He was mentally disturbed. He had been obsessed with the film Taxi Driver, a film where the main character plots to kill the president. And of course, also, he was obsessed with the actor in that film, Jodie Foster. Reagan survived and recovered fully, but there were three agents who were shot. Two of them went on to make full recoveries.

6:34But James Brady, who was his press secretary, suffered a partial paralysis and was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life and actually campaigned to have gun controls placed in America and became famous for that afterwards. But you're right. It made Ronald Reagan a legend, not just because he was shot and because he survived, but precisely because of what you just said, because of those quips about I hope you're all Republicans and honey, I forgot to duck. And in a way, we now associate that shooting incident with these kind of funny one lines that Reagan managed to muster in the face of death.

7:09Yeah, I mean, it just it speaks to his courage, but it also speaks to he's an actor and he knows he's under stress and he's got to perform. He's got to perform the way people are expecting to perform with some witticism and some sunny optimism. And his popularity soars after this near death experience. Hope you enjoyed that clip. The first three episodes of the series are out now. You can sign up at TheRestIsPoliticsUS.com to listen to our telling of Ronald Reagan and his legacy.