00:00So we're here at the Nixon Library, and President Nixon was the consummate statesman.
00:05And just a few days ago, you completed a major peace negotiation,
00:09and just a few minutes ago, you paid respects at President Nixon's memorial site,
00:14where the epitaph on his marker reads,
00:16The greatest honor history can bestow is the title of peacemaker.
00:20Was that the mentality that you embraced?
00:22Were you thinking of that sentiment as you were representing our country in Switzerland?
00:27Well, first of all, just because you brought up Nixon,
00:32I've got to say thank you to you and to Robert and to the entire Nixon Library folks.
00:37This is an amazing thing, and I'm very proud to be here.
00:40So thank you, not just for welcoming me, but for everything you do.
00:48So we were talking about this a little bit backstage,
00:50but I'm actually fascinated by Nixon as a character in history.
00:54I think that his historical legacy is enjoying a bit of a renaissance,
01:00but I think deservedly so.
01:02As I joked with Robert backstage, if Watergate happened tomorrow,
01:07it would be like a 12-hour news story.
01:09The idea that it would have taken down a presidency is crazy.
01:12And, by the way, if you look at the story of how the deep state took down Richard Nixon,
01:21it's not all that different from what the same groups of people,
01:26the same institutions tried to do to Donald Trump and the first Trump administration.
01:30There is a parallel.
01:37I also just, at a personal level, you know,
01:40okay, young senator, vice president,
01:44writes some best-selling books,
01:46is hated by the media.
01:47It kind of sounds like J.D. Vance.
01:49So I'm a little, you know, I've always liked,
01:50I've always liked Richard Nixon.
01:52But, okay, one other thing about Richard Nixon that I think is fascinating is,
01:56okay, the two biggest historical electoral college landslides in American history
02:02are, of course, Ronald Reagan in 1984, Richard Nixon in 1972.
02:07Okay.
02:08What you may not know,
02:10and, you know, some of my political data guys who are very into this
02:13have drilled into me,
02:15is that Nixon's coalition in 72,
02:19though if you look at the top-line numbers,
02:21you would say,
02:21well, that's exactly what happened in 1984.
02:23It's much different.
02:26Nixon's coalition in 72 is actually durable
02:29and much more closely resembles the Trump coalition of 2024
02:33than the Reagan coalition of 84.
02:36So what Reagan did in 84 is he ran up margins,
02:40basically with white Americans,
02:43and, of course, you know, he won a historic landslide,
02:46but the country's much less white today than it was in 1984.
02:51Nixon's coalition was unbelievably durable
02:55to the demographic change that we've seen in the United States of America.
02:58So this is a guy who could, you know,
03:00Reagan could not have won his landslide in 2024.
03:04Richard Nixon maybe could have won his landslide in 2024,
03:07and I think that there's a very important political lesson
03:11in that for all of us in the Republican Party.
03:13I think that there's a very important thing in the United States of America.
03:14I think that there's a very important thing in the United States of America.
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