Alexis Coe

[00:00:00] Matt Blumberg: Welcome to Country Over Self, defining moments in American history. Each episode we welcome a notable historian to tell us the story of a president and a choice that president made to strengthen the country without regard to the impact of that decision on himself, his power, or his party.

Welcome to Country Over Self, Defining Moments in American History. I'm your host, Matt Blumberg, and I'm very excited to be here today with Alexis Koh. Alexis is an award winning New York Times best selling presidential historian and senior fellow at New America, a bipartisan think tank. She frequently appears on CNN, MSNBC, CBS.

History, PBS, lots of other networks. she has an amazingly fresh approach and style. And I think, in, in a lot of ways marks a generational shift in historians. And she is also the author of the brilliantly titled, I'm holding this up for people who are watching this, book about George Washington called you never forget your first, biography of George Washington, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

And I'll also hold up again for those who are watching. This is. Not a 900 page brick, which I love a good 900 page brick. I got a whole bunch of them on my shelf upstairs, but I think I got as much out of 237, not even 205 pages of very well written text. You never forget your first as I have any biography of a president.

So Alexis, thank you for joining me today. 

[00:01:41] Alexis Coe: Thank you for having me. I hope I'm able to do that again. I'm, I'm working on a new book and 

[00:01:46] Matt Blumberg: I'll ask you about that at the end. You can, you can tease that. 

[00:01:52] Alexis Coe: I passed that page count though. I can tell you that. 

[00:01:56] Matt Blumberg: so look, today is the second to last episode of this podcast.

and I'm so excited to talk about our first president, George Washington. I think most people would have expected me to start the series with Washington and then Lincoln. and, but I think in a lot of respects, it's going to be more interesting to have ended with Lincoln and then Washington. So, some one, some historian, I don't think it was you, but it's possible it was, you described Washington once as the founding guest father.

[00:02:23] Alexis Coe: Oh, that was me. That was 

[00:02:24] Matt Blumberg: you. Okay. and it's true in so many respects, obviously, he was the first leader of lots of things, but he really set I feel like he set a lot of the norms and traditions that have carried the country forward for most of its, its life. So with regard to Washington and the topic of country over self, a lot of these episodes I've picked like one vignette to go deep on, but there's so many vignettes from Washington's public life that I think are worth discussing.

So the, so there are a bunch that come to mind with a very, Consistent theme for me, so resigning his military commission, declining to become king, declining to be called like whatever the weird thing was Adams wanted to call him, that was kingly, his decision to be president in the first place, his decision to run for a second term.

his decision to not run for a third term. And for me, all of these, things are about sort of seeding power. and they're all quite remarkable, I think even today, but particularly in the context of the day. and if there are one or two of these vignettes that were, that has a particularly good story to tell, I'd love to hear you tell it, but I'd love to sort of dive thematically into, into all of them as a bundle and hear your thoughts on, on his motivations, how cognizant.

Was he of history and precedence? obviously the impact of the decisions on history and his reputation, fairly well documented but hearing from you about that is great and just at the end of the day how altruistic were these decisions like was he was he really just putting country above self or was he just being coy or Did it just happen to go along with his life goal of just just please let me go back to mount vernon and retire under my vine and fig tree so Let me just throw that to you there for starters.

[00:04:11] Alexis Coe: I think it changes over time. I won't say that he had an evolution, but I will say that of all the presidents I have studied, which is essentially all of them, I have never encountered one with a healthier relationship to power. Washington was a man who could be satisfied. He had proven what he needed to prove.

He understood it was better to go out on a high note. He had various retirements, I think I even say his second retirement, his third retirement in the book. And that was really important to him. He had a chip on his shoulder. We were, before we hopped on, we were talking about Nixon very briefly, and they are similar in a lot of ways.

Washington is also similar to Benedict Arnold. You have these men who came up and felt like they didn't get what they were entitled to. and the difference is at that point, you have a choice. Everyone has this choice in life. Nothing is perfect. Your life story is near origin story. It's not what you wanted it to be, but you have this moment where you decide what it will be or what you'll, you'll attempt to make out of it.

Washington emerges from that. Those two do not. and so what we have is someone who was the first son from the second marriage, meaning that when his father died. And he was barely a double digit. He got basically nothing and became the head of his mother's household. And so he didn't get to go to Appleby's school in England.

He didn't get to, have the paid commissions that his half brothers did. He struggled. He had to drop out of school at 14. And from that time on, he would later say, that he was very conscious. He would call his deficient education. He had something to prove. He wanted to be, definitely wanted to be at the center of his country's story.

It just didn't really matter which story, which country, all of that was up for Grimms for a long time. And then it worked itself out. He wanted to be, one of the most prominent British subjects in America. When that didn't work out, he was ready to be, one of the richest men in Virginia because he had a great retirement plan.

Her name was Martha Washington. Then as we get on, and I'm getting a little bit ahead, I'll pace it out. But as time goes on and he, Gets what he wants. He's recognized. He's respected. He's rich. He's, he's got carriages galore hundreds of enslaved people. Every, he's on the board. He's on, he's all, he's all of these things.

Then things start to shift for him. 

[00:07:12] Matt Blumberg: I don't think I've ever heard anyone compare him to Nixon or put him in the same bucket for anything. And that's, that's such an interesting way of thinking about it. Sort of going back to the story of origin. But so let's double click on your comment that he had a very healthy relationship with power.

What do you mean by that? 

[00:07:32] Alexis Coe: There are, Washington would try as hard as he could. And if he succeeded, fantastic, then he would demand the maximum honor payment, whatever it was. And if he didn't, he knew when to walk away. And so we have this, we have the Virginia militia, which he's leading, and he's in his late twenties.

He's, And this is like my favorite Washington's, one of my favorite Washington stories from his youth. He has led this expedition into the wilds of the Ohio with, the half king. So, you always went into these, into these sort of, backcountry with, Indian escorts. And he was supposed to just sort of rendezvous with the French, give a diplomat a letter, all is fine.

That did not happen. But we don't find out that didn't happen until page Six of a letter he writes to the last Virginia governor because he's complaining about his pay for the first, the first few pages and how he deserves this equal pay because any British, anyone who grew up in England, it ranks above him.

So he's complaining about that and then he's Oh, by the way, there was this diplomatic incident that started a world war that started the French and Indian war, seven years where we don't talk about that a lot, but it's a big war and it's a world war. He started it and had he not led the revolution, he would be best known for that.

But then he realizes, okay, this is never going to happen for me. So dysentery does happen for him. It lands him in Richmond. He hears that the, a six months elder, his elder, Martha Washington is a widow. open to suitors, but not really looking for it because she's in a very nice position. She has two young children.

Her husband had no other heirs, no siblings, father was gone. She's in charge. She does not need, there are a lot of men writing her very gross letters about how they want to lay in bed with her and have babies with her. And she's no, thank you. But Washington is hot to trot because even though he won, he, started this world war, Men struggle to describe Washington, I'm the lone woman biographer, in over a hundred years and it shows and they talk about the, it's like a romance novel, like the rippling muscles in his jaw and how nice his thighs were.

And it's like a little bit embarrassing to read, but I just summarize it as saying he was, he seems to have been like an athlete. I think they want to avoid the word graceful, which I have no problem with. So he was graceful. It was, I'm not a huge sports person, but I will go to any. sporting event, because it's, it's amazing to watch these people.

And every description lines up with that. He could ride a horse. Jefferson was loathed to give him a compliment. He said he could ride a horse really well. So he, he charms Martha. Things move very fast. And then he's happy because He's essentially the richest man in Virginia because the second she marries him, everything goes to him.

That's how it works. He writes these letters to all the different purveyors in London saying I am in charge now. You're dealing with me. Purveyors who never would have taken his account before. He's able to, he's, he's leasing Mount Vernon. He's able to actually acquire it. It's, it's a whole situation.

When he, when he goes to the Second Continental Congress, when he is A year before they meet, they write their last letter to King George. They think he's going to, they say, Oh, we love you so much. Like they still think it's parliament. He's a little bit like, I don't know what's going to happen. He hasn't been in uniform for a long time.

in the, the second when, when they're actually choosing a general, he stuffed himself into his old uniform and he's Oh no, I couldn't possibly, but he could very possibly and did. That is different when it's time to actually go to the constitutional convention. And when it's time to be president, he does not want it.

And he describes going to the inauguration in New York, which was the site of the first government of the president's house of everything, he describes it as, as going to his execution. I think that summarizes it really well because he had, he was made, he was the most famous man in the world. Never people had not, people had walked away from power before when their time was up, but he didn't have to.

This was a whole, this was an unwritten book and so it was, it was amazing. 

[00:12:28] Matt Blumberg: This is the line from, from King George that you quote in your book. that says, Washington walks away from his military commission. So this is post revolution pre presidency. He'll be the greatest man in the world. So he's already the greatest man in the world.

[00:12:43] Alexis Coe: That's, that's hard to beat. 

[00:12:46] Matt Blumberg: Especially when the King of England in that day calls you the greatest man in the world. 

[00:12:50] Alexis Coe: Yes. He of all people. 

[00:12:52] Matt Blumberg: So why did he do it? Why did he go run the, I guess the next step for him was running the constitutional convention. 

[00:12:59] Alexis Coe: Right. Which he walked into like a. he was a mark, basically, they, the founders and, soon to be framers as soon as they entered that that convention, they tried to get him to go and he said, No, I'm not involved with government anymore.

I am retired Mount Vernon in the eight years that the war took. It took a long time. And he had been the general for the entire time the British had switched generals almost every year. It definitely contributed to America's success. And he said, I'm not going, Martha did not want to leave Virginia. She was, she never wanted to leave Virginia.

She especially was not going to leave after this. She didn't want any part of public life. So there's a lot working against it. But at the same time, he obviously felt like you can't lose the country over some dumb things. And the articles of confederation, they were not working. And the, we weren't paying back our debts.

So he would write these like really dramatic letters to John Jay and say Oh my God, everything is lost. We worked so hard and they're just blowing it. So when this happens, he says, fine, I'll show up, but I'm not involved. And then they make him the president of the constitutional convention. He's fine, but I'm just sitting here, which he did for the most part.

He just sat on a platform in a very big chair. And watched everyone duke it out for, I think, seven weeks. And then finally went home and he was like, I'm out. See you later. The thing was, there was so much to figure out, right? There was so much to write down that they looked at Washington. They knew they had to address the executive.

And they thought, okay, how about we do this? We just let him figure it out when he's there, because of course he's going to be president. And so they basically, they have four things in there. And then he goes home and, and they're like, okay, so you're going to be president? He says, no. And everyone goes on a campaign, doesn't matter where, what they believe about government, which at this time is already becoming pretty pronounced, these differences.

There was partisanship from the beginning. As soon as you lay down arms against another entity, then you're picking, you're picking up the verbal and, and sort of diplomatic ones against each other. And so Washington is getting visits, he's getting letters from Hamilton, James Madison, who's sort of a neighbor in Virginia.

He's rolling by, he, he spends Christmas with Washington. He will not leave this family alone. And so finally he, he, He says, okay, I'll do it. but he, he understood that it was probably going to ruin him and it didn't, it just ruined a lot of his friendships. 

[00:15:46] Matt Blumberg: Well, and I mean, it's where he spent essentially the last eight years of his life.

what, how much ego was there in him? Or is that sort of what you're getting at with the, with talking about his, his family of origin and the comparison to Nixon? was it a little, not, not to compare him to to Trump, but a little bit of the, I alone can fix it. I alone can do it. I am George Washington.

Or is that a misread? 

[00:16:13] Alexis Coe: Well, that's also Buchanan esque and one can even say Biden esque at this point. I think they all have that. a sort of depressing question I get asked a lot is aren't the presidents all sociopaths, which is a bummer. If I wanted to study sociopaths, I would have gotten a doctorate in something useful.

I'm not doing that. I'm studying people who are in extraordinary circumstances. Washington, I would say, his relationship to power is one thing, the ego is another. I'll, I'll answer it from the side, which is there's another letter. I think that I cite in the book where Washington is explaining why he's going to break, not really break, laws around enslaved people in Philadelphia, the second site of the government.

But he isn't going to. He's going to just skirt them as much as possible, which is if you are in Philadelphia and you're an enslaved person of a certain age, or you've been there for six months, you're free. That's the law. 

[00:17:18] Matt Blumberg: That's when he has them on this rotation coming up from Mount Vernon. Five 

[00:17:21] Alexis Coe: months and 29 days.

He's going to take them across state lines, bring them back. In the various letters orchestrating this, justifying it, even to Lafayette, who's constantly trying to get him to emancipate the enslaved people, Washington constantly says they're better off with me in my care, under my love and guidance, than they are anyone else, including themselves.

That is an extraordinary amount of ego. I think he was a reluctant revolutionary. These were all businessmen. I always say, these aren't, we're not gonna, these aren't Black Lives Matters, these aren't, these aren't MAGA. These aren't extreme people who are protesting in the street, who are yelling at the top of their lungs.

These are business people who have a lot to lose and they're just fed up with a system they think is, is, is fundamentally against them. So the, so risk taking is different than ego and it's different with than a relationship with power. It's complicated, but I don't think complexity is a liability. I think it just makes it all more fun.

[00:18:32] Matt Blumberg: It's a feature, not a bug. 

[00:18:33] Alexis Coe: Exactly. 

[00:18:35] Matt Blumberg: Let's talk about his decision to run for a second term and then his decision not to run for a third term. 

[00:18:42] Alexis Coe: No, 

[00:18:43] Matt Blumberg: in the book you talk about that, had he left. after one term, he would have been leaving on a high note, right? He had gotten the whole thing going.

The executive branch was working. The Supreme Court had 10 approved justices. they admitted a couple of new state, I mean, just, you go down the list of things that happened in four years, pretty extraordinary, administration by any standard. why, why, why didn't he leave on the high note? 

[00:19:11] Alexis Coe: It was up to him, he would have.

He really wanted to. The problem was we had

inspired an age of revolutions. And that brought certain international instability and a lot of people trying to drag us into wars because we were supposed to be in the war. We had signed different, agreements with, let's say France, who greatly aided us in winning the war, certainly in Yorktown.

That was not what Washington wanted to be fighting in New York at the time. And if he had been, who knows? What would have happened. That was all Rochambeau. That was French strategic insights. So there was a lot going on. And even at this point, people he knew were his political enemies. Madison, Jefferson.

Even they thought he should serve another four terms. Or another four years, not another four terms, another four years. And I was thinking about FDR, this morning. And, and I think at the end of it, his second term is so different than his first. Every second, usually second terms are like mandates.

And, For Washington, it was, it was getting insular. He had a pretty diverse cabinet. He invented the cabinet. He didn't invent it out of thin air. There were lots of models, but it wasn't exactly what the, what the framers had wanted. He invented this cabinet. He loved to watch people fight it out. It didn't, I don't know if he, He would even to this day said that he had sort of like birthed partisanship, but he certainly did.

He never declared a political party, but you could very much tell he was a federalist. Yeah. He was very much a federalist. It'd be like if AOC didn't say her party and you're like, I don't think you're a Republican, ma'am. So he, he has this diverse cabinet second round. Absolutely not. It's just peop it's yes men.

It's people who agree with him. He feels really personally attacked by, the rise of partisan newspapers, which you could write under a pseudonym, and so and people very much did. My favorite is Porcupine. Jefferson was constantly writing about the about Washington than denying it, even though Hamilton was like, like a cipher, he would get out and you'd be like, this word is the same, he uses this turn of phrase.

and eventually Washington came around to this idea and basically wrote a burn letter to Jefferson and said, we're never, we're never speaking. And, we're never ever getting back together again. And then they don't, and they die estranged. So I think that he felt this obligation and he would have never quit.

A term was four years. but by the end he was definitely done. Martha was a hundred percent done much earlier. She wrote this sad letter saying, I think this is a role better suited for a younger woman. And also I didn't know we were going to do this when I married him. This is not, this is not what I was in for.

The revolution was one thing that was not pleasant, but this is incredible. I don't like this at all. and then he's ready. He's also, he is older, but he's fine. Like he, two years later when, we're worried about a French invasion, he is leading the military for, Adam. So he's, he's fine.

He, he loves to, he talks a big game. Oh, I'm so tired. I'm so old. I can't possibly go to this wedding. Like he uses it as an excuse, but he's doing great. It's really that he sort of sets himself up. He sort of sets himself up to die. He doesn't help the situation, and then he does. And he, at that point, had outlived every man in his family by, by quite a bit.

He knew his days were numbered. 

[00:23:07] Matt Blumberg: So, If you just pick the decision not to run for a third term, was that a great moment of virtue or country of herself? Or was that just, hey, it's time for me to retire folks. 

[00:23:21] Alexis Coe: No, that was, that was him. I'm going to lose it if I stay in this job any longer. I hate everyone.

I'm tired. And all the man wanted to do was, was. plan out farm work, build 18 side barns. That's, that's, that was his passion and he had been kept away from it. He, he just wanted a life, on his forced labor camp. He did not want to be anywhere else. And he was a little bit nervous. So I will say that while this was, selfish in a lot of ways if, if, if any sort of service that's extraordinary can be described that way.

He also was very forward thinking and he knew that the things that he did would inform the rest of the presidents and he hoped that there would be very many. And we're coming up on our 250th. We might even make it to 251. He was worried he would die in office and that would look awfully king like. And, and there was constantly this fear of, monarchical, claws getting into America.

That was his way of ensuring that he had set the right precedent. He was very aware of that. 

[00:24:52] Matt Blumberg: Yeah, it does seem from everything I've read that he was very aware. Of the impact he was having on history. 

[00:24:59] Alexis Coe: They all are though, when I, to bring it to the present, but to bring it to the present, I wrote a piece I never thought I would write in, in July about Joe Biden, where I called for him to resign.

I wrote an op ed, I called for him to resign. To step aside and resign. And I did so by appealing to him. Not just, 

[00:25:17] Matt Blumberg: not just to step aside as a candidate, but to actually resign the presidency. To 

[00:25:20] Alexis Coe: resign the presidency. And I did so because I didn't think in two months that enough people would know who Kamala Harris is compared to someone who's been running for president since I was like five years old and Home Alone 2.

And I was, there were a lot, and, and he, the concerns that caused everyone to slowly rise up and say you should step aside is, It is the reason he probably shouldn't have stayed in office. And, and he just did every, everything I thought would happen, happened. You had to go big and it was still probably not going to work out.

But I, the reason I appealed to, to legacy was I was, I was going for his outside, outsized ego because in the last two years of a first or second term, presidents are absolutely terrible. obsessed with their legacy. They talk about it all the time in their letters, like there's a dramatic shift in the primary sources.

[00:26:18] Matt Blumberg: Even in a, even in a first term. 

[00:26:20] Alexis Coe: If they know that it's probably limited, if they're realistic about it, for whatever reason, James K. Polk did not. This is something that was invented later. He didn't go into the presidency thinking he would only serve one term. And with this four point agenda, it's a great story.

It's a great talking point. He sort of decided that while he was in office, they become really aware of what this looks like because it's the, the attention, the scrutiny is, I, I, I get a lot more than I want and it's so minimal. I can't even imagine. It must be absolutely horrible. And it, it certainly seems that way from what they, their, they, they feel a lot of empathy for themselves.

don't see themselves having creed in a lot of situations, but they, they do sort of, they're looking at what can I do? And we see that now we see that every, that's why you see pardons on the last day. 

[00:27:18] Matt Blumberg: Right. So let's go back to Washington for a minute. one of the, so you just said a minute ago, he didn't want to die at office.

one of the things that I had always thought before reading your book, and then, it explicitly in your book is that he didn't have any biological heirs, right? He had two stepchildren from Martha's first husband, but had no, children of his own. And you, you noted that that gave him a distinct political advantage.

So I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Like, how much did that matter? Would he have behaved differently? Would the country have viewed him differently? 

[00:27:55] Alexis Coe: It mattered to him. And we've already talked about it. We have given an example of, of a couple examples, I think already of, of his relationship with enslaved people and with laws around them.

And so we know that this is not, what I'm saying is, is not applicable to him and his person in totality. Washington was very sensitive. to what he believed was right and wrong, and his own moral code. Certain things fell outside of it, and one thing that fell inside it was this idea that he set the example to the fullest degree possible, that he leave no box unchecked.

He thought, okay, if I don't have errors, there's nothing to inherit here. No one is, and we, he did not explicitly say, I do not want political dynasties, but he was not excited about them. And most of the founders thought that they would not see dynasties, which is very funny. James Monroe writes about it extensively.

Who follows James Monroe, who follows his presidency, John Quincy Adams, our first dynastic son. And the other thing. that sort of needles me about the emphasis on biological children when it comes to him. And I think in a similar way, Vice President Harris, but, but less so because she became their stepmother later, but we're not keeping score here.

Washington became stepfather to these children who had no father and no grandfather. when they were two and four. And there is no way you can read his letters and think that he did not love them like they were his own. And to a degree where it was like, He was almost a tiger mom at certain points. He wanted, he also could give them everything.

He could give them something that he had not had, which was the proper education, all the finest clothes, an entree to society. But he couldn't give them the most important thing that he did have, which is adversity. And he, and that was more for Jackie, his eldest, he had a stepdaughter who he absolutely loved and she, had various issues, and she died at a young age.

And also reading that letter is, is devastating. You can, he's not a very emotional man, but he talks about how sad it was and he, he sort of goes through her death because she had a very patsy, they're all named patsy, they, she fell to the floor and they, and, and. He describes it and you can tell he's traumatized by it because imagine finding your child and watching them die, particularly when you know there's nothing to be done.

It's devastating and you feel that. So I think there's nothing that I feel from him except too much concern. And then when Jackie dies at Yorktown, he's not in the military. He joins for about two weeks as a sort of secretary and basically just trying to, get back escaped enslaved people and he dies to classic Jackie and then the Washington's raise Jackie's kids all over again.

And those are the first children. Those are the people in, the president's house that the country thinks of as Washington's children. So these sorts of titles just didn't matter. And, and that's true for a lot of the founders. Madison had an adopted son, many of them biological connections only become important to us later.

[00:31:37] Matt Blumberg: Other than Adams? 

[00:31:38] Alexis Coe: Yes. Yes. 

[00:31:42] Matt Blumberg: last question about Washington before I do a few kind of rapid fire closing questions. What do you think was the toughest decision he made as president? And how did he approach that decision? Like how political was he as opposed to acting, out of, out of virtue or out of necessity?

[00:32:05] Alexis Coe: Oh, they're all so tough. Whenever someone comes down really hard. on, a moral decision that a president made. I always like to get counter and give them a set of options. Say, well, you have to do something. You're president. They're terrible decisions. The options are not good. So I don't know if I can really say what was the hardest decision.

I can tell you what I think was the dumbest decision. 

[00:32:31] Matt Blumberg: Dumbest or least popular with That is 

[00:32:33] Alexis Coe: another way to phrase that. with the whiskey rebellion. The Whiskey Rebellion was It was wildly unpopular and made him look more foolish than he had probably in his entire adult life. The Whiskey Rebellion was an alleged rebellion that was happening.

in rural Pennsylvania and the environs because, and it's just the irony is it's so thick.

A bunch of farmers, so like granary distillers, whiskey makers, were suddenly told they had to pay taxes. And they said no. You know why? Because they didn't pay taxes, they didn't have representation, they didn't have money. They traded. That's how they got goods. Money was not something that they dealt in.

They were renting. Why weren't there landlords being, so they, they had a, tax collectors come around, they tar and feather. It's not like there weren't precipitating incidences, but. Washington said, okay, I want to comment. I want you, the governor, to make them pay. And the governor is no.

So then Washington sidesteps the constitution. He calls Hamilton, who's left government and is practicing law in New York. He calls him out to lead the army, to go confront. this rebellion. And Washington, president of the United States, who really is in his heart of hearts a general, and that's sort of why he also struggles as president.

He's what? I told you what to do. Why are you questioning me? He rides out with them. He rides out. Can you imagine? Like he is a king. And then halfway through he realizes, Oh, this is a bad look. And he turns around. Usually he's all about optics. there's a very funny parody song, on YouTube and it's, you he'll save children, but not the British children.

And I always think that's the worst line in this brilliant song because he totally would have saved the British children. The optics would have been amazing. Imagine, imagine that story. So he turns around and when Hamilton gets to Braddock's field where Washington had this very famous battle, there's no one there.

There's no rebellion. It's not happening. So the time, the resources, and of course it was written about. Jefferson is having a field day in his letters, which you all can read on Founders Online in addition to in my book. He's saying can you, can you even conceive of this, this stumble? It's the first time he's ever done this.

Jefferson would later say he's leaving us holding the bag. He never gets blamed for anything. So it was really unusual. So that's why I sort of think of it as his dumbest move. and 

[00:35:33] Matt Blumberg: why, what do you think was behind it? What was his calculus or, or did he just. I mean, sometimes we're all whiff. 

[00:35:41] Alexis Coe: I think he went too hard.

I think he went too hard. I think he was, he was not, he became a statesman and he was a very controlled general. A very controlled general is not a natural politician. It takes so much self control to be a politician, to be a really effective one, to be a diplomatic one. And that he just made the wrong calculation.

And I think he was sort of, sort of, He was pumped to ride out with Hamilton relive his glory days. 

[00:36:14] Matt Blumberg: It would be interesting to, to read a book or write a book sometime about, comparing the generals who became president and then not the ones who were like barely generals, but you know, Grant, Eisenhower, Washington, because it is a very different.

Very different, game as, as political as the military is. It is, it's quite different. 

[00:36:33] Alexis Coe: Very different. Yes. 

[00:36:34] Matt Blumberg: Yeah. All right. I would love to close with four kind of rapid fire questions. 

[00:36:39] Alexis Coe: Okay. 

[00:36:40] Matt Blumberg: All right. So we talked about Washington today. If we were talking about country over self and had to pick a different president, who would you most want to be talking about?

[00:36:54] Alexis Coe: Country over self. The first person who comes to mind is Jimmy Carter.

And how come? He was a little too good to be president in the same way. he was not good at negotiating and he, he was a, he was real type. I, he used to manage the white house tennis schedule. Why was he doing that? He didn't have time for that. He, he was, yeah, I think, I think that is someone who.

Who I think of in that way, I think of in that way. But I think a lot of them, very rarely are the, are the presidents, these terrible figures, these caricatures that people imagine where they're just like, Hmm, I'm gonna go do evil now. That's not what they're doing. They really do think that they, for the most part, are doing the right thing.

They're just agrees of that. Obviously Nixon is at one end of the spectrum and, and other people are at the other end of the spectrum. 

[00:37:59] Matt Blumberg: Yeah. So that's, that's, my second question is who's at the other end of the spectrum. And I think your answer is Nixon, if not, Nixon, 

[00:38:06] Alexis Coe: Buchanan, Johnson, all, all those guys.

[00:38:15] Matt Blumberg: you may have already answered my third question, when you talked about your, your call for Biden to resign. but how, how do you think history is going to view his decision to leave the race? In light of now, now that we know how it turned out 

[00:38:35] Alexis Coe: based on on how he did it, which was a half application of my brilliant plan,

I think I'll tell you what I think the biography would have looked like before, let's say we go to 2022 in this fantasy, right? I'm better at looking back than looking forward. If we'd gone to 2022, one midterms most successful midterm sweep, that in, in decades, he's been a very successful rival to FDR as far as getting, most progressive president.

A lot of similarities there. We're looking at top 15 ranking in the C SPAN, survey that's about to land in my mailbox. We do it every four years when a president is leaving office.

He could have resigned and, that would have had a different effect as well. I think if any of those situations had happened, any point between those two big events,

this period from the debate, all of that, his age, it would have been a chapter. Now, everything I've just described, a career that started at 29 of public service and is ending now. His 80s. It's like that will now be a really crammed, impressive chapter that is a prelude to everything that came after it.

His legacy is not his own. It is now tied to, as we already see, he's being blamed for Trump's presidency and his second term. I don't know, that's a whole different subject. We're still figuring all of that out. But I think that no matter what happens, he is going to be remembered instead of saving democracy as keeping the door ajar, leaving it, wide open.

And it's, it's not going to be pretty for him, particularly when you consider what, what it would have been. So instead of top 15, I'm, I'm going to guess he's at bottom 15 and nothing we ever learn about his presidency as we get access to archives, as things are declassified, everything will be viewed through this lens.

It has tainted everything. His enabler, like the people who were, anything I ever said, he was, he, the retention in this administration was amazing. Well, now I think maybe they felt like they had to be in this position, but, but the electorate did not vote them in. They voted Joe Biden in, and so you have to then view it that way.

Nothing is separate anymore. Yes. 

[00:41:30] Matt Blumberg: All right. So my last rapid fire question is, knowing everything you know about our history and our system of government, if you could wave a magic wand and, and make a change or two changes to our system to strengthen democracy, to strengthen our country, would What would you do?

[00:41:54] Alexis Coe: There are a lot of ways in which power is very tempting. We know this. And there are too many temptations baked in. So, for example, I think in 2017, I wrote an op ed for the Times that Congress had designated, had the power to designate their papers personal. Meaning that they would never be open to the public.

They are public servants. These are papers that are relevant to their work. Therefore, they should not have the power to make them private.

The pardon, it was never envisioned for a president to pardon a family member. Only two presidents have done it. Clinton, his half brother, and Trump, his, daughter's father in law. I think that there should be a spate, like, an overwhelming number of laws focused on these kinds of, of subtle abuses of power.

and just curtail it. We now know that not the honor system works until it doesn't. 

[00:43:07] Matt Blumberg: Right. The things that are custom as opposed to. 

[00:43:10] Alexis Coe: Yes. 

[00:43:10] Matt Blumberg: News based. 

[00:43:11] Alexis Coe: I would like less of that. I, I think that there has to be, you just have to take the temptation away. got to lock, lock the iPad. There's no screen time.

[00:43:23] Matt Blumberg: All right. before we go, what are you working on at the moment? 

[00:43:28] Alexis Coe: I'm wrapping up my fellowship project. how should a president be, which was a 13 stop discussion tour that I took this year. And, I am also wrapping up my third book, young Jack on young John F. Kennedy. 1917 to 1957, which is so much fun.

And I have found three, not just three new things. When you're a historian, particularly a presidential historian, and you cover men who have been very well covered, these shelves are not there. You hope to find one or two new things and then you hope that your perspective, sort of casts a lot of things in a different light.

No, sir. I have found three categories of new things and it's absolutely, and then within those categories, just a ton of stuff. And so it's been really exciting. It's taken me longer. I mean, they all take about five or six years. It's taken me a little bit longer. but I'm really thrilled to have that scholarship out and excited to see what the world is like.

And then I am excited. Though a little bit frightened now. I'm on the board of a lot of, 250th, celebrations and exhibitions, or 250th is coming up in 2026, and it, I have looked forward to it as a real moment, I, under three themes, which is, pride in the founding, reckoning for the ways we've fallen short, and an aspiration towards a better future.

Because I think that we can balance all, I, I'm sure we're all able to balance those things at once. I have the, utmost confidence in all of us. And I'm not, I'm still excited, but I'm, I'm more nervous about this than ever. 

[00:45:12] Matt Blumberg: Well, I look forward to, Jack for sure. and, especially for uncovering a whole bunch of new angles on Kennedy will be interesting.

and, the two 50th will hopefully be something that all Americans can come together on and celebrate. 

[00:45:28] Alexis Coe: I hope so. 

[00:45:29] Matt Blumberg: Thank you. Alexis, thank you so much for joining me today on Country Over Self. I really appreciate the conversation. 

[00:45:34] Alexis Coe: Thank you. It's been 

[00:45:35] Matt Blumberg: a pleasure. Thank you for listening to the Country Over Self podcast.

If you enjoyed this episode, please take a minute to give us five stars and leave us a review. If you have an idea for an episode or want to reach Matt directly, please email podcast at countryoverself. com.