Latest / BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback / Episode 458 BOB DOLE The Life That Brough Him There (Part 39) A Bonus Show: A couple of stories by Bob Dole

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Episode 458 BOB DOLE The Life That Brough Him There (Part 39) A Bonus Show: A couple of stories by Bob Dole · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

• 0:25
  And like I want to bring in Carl Rove, of course.
• 0:27
  Carl, I would love to know a little bit more about your reflections about Senator Dole because since you were president of College Republicans and then all the way through, you must have known him very well.
• 0:40
  Well, I was the twenty-year-old executive director of the College Republicans when I met Chairman Robert Dole of Kansas, the the uh chairman of the Republican National Committee.
• 0:50
  Uh I want to pick up on something Josh uh talked about.
• 0:53
  He had a terrific sense of humor.
• 0:54
  It was very sardonic, and it was softened by the fact that most of the time uh it was aimed at himself.
• 1:01
  And uh I remember meeting him the first time, of course, he he had a he str thrust out his hand, he had a pen in it, so you couldn't shake his hand and you realized uh that that that war wound had left him unable to, you know, literally shake your hand.
• 1:16
  And he had to literally teach himself how to write with his left hand.
• 1:19
  He'd been brought up as a righty and had to teach himself to write with a left hand.
• 1:23
  And uh but he was an imposing figure and a hot and a deep partisan who nonetheless had deep relationships with uh Democrats and uh worked in common cause on great issues.
• 1:35
  He learned Carl, he learned to write with his left hand after that injury.
• 1:39
  Yeah.
• 1:40
  Um many times just encountering him in Washington, D.C.
• 1:44
  and elsewhere.
• 1:45
  Uh I saw the pen in his right hand as well.
• 1:47
  So your story is well taken.
• 1:49
  Well what did it mean to him to be a proponent of the American uh with disabilities act that was passed in nineteen ninety?
• 1:57
  What you you you see a concrete ramp outside of a building in any town in America today.
• 2:02
  It's there because of people like Bob Dole, Carl.
• 2:05
  And George H.
• 2:05
  W.
• 2:05
  Bush.
• 2:06
  That's right.
• 2:07
  That's right.
• 2:07
  Um Yeah, th this it it the that was one of his great accomplishments.
• 2:12
  Think about the big things that he worked on.
• 2:14
  Um the Americans for Disability uh Act in 1990, because he knew firsthand uh the challenges uh that they faced.
• 2:22
  He was a big part of the uh uh effort that that saved Social Security.
• 2:27
  Ronald Reagan and his effort to save Social Security with a grand compromise in 1983, uh in which reforms were made, but taxes had to be raised.
• 2:37
  And Dole did it.
• 2:38
  He led the effort to do that because he grew up in Russell, Kansas, which had been devastated by the Depression, and he knew how many people depended upon Social Security for the final years of their lives.
• 2:49
  He also was uh very involved with food stamps.
• 2:52
  He wanted to make certain that poor kids had a good lunch at school and that we had adequate funding for the food stamp program, work requirements, absolutely cut down on the fraud and the abuse, but there were people he recognized in our society who who couldn't get access to a food.
• 3:07
  I just want to point out to viewers that um Vice President Kamala Harris and her husband Doug M.
• 3:12
  Dorf are uh entering the building, and now the president and first lady, President Biden, and Dr.
• 3:17
  Joe Biden have arrived as well.
• 3:19
  You will hear from him as well.
• 3:20
  Carl, before they get underway with speeches, I wondered what your reflections are about how he dealt with losing the presidential election in 1996.
• 3:31
  You know, in 1996, I was the political aid to the young governor of Texas, George W.
• 3:36
  Bush, and in the final stages of the campaign, the Dole campaign, became concerned that they were in trouble in Texas.
• 3:41
  We told them they were gonna be okay, but they insisted on coming to Texas, and they had a rally in Houston.
• 3:46
  And I went down with Governor Bush, and uh I we were driving out on I-10 towards the the shopping center on the west side of town, and literally miles before we got to the shopping center where the rally was gonna be held, there were cars on the frontage road and people walking miles to get to the rally.
• 4:01
  We arrived, Dole arrived, it was during this famous period where he was literally campaigning around the clock, so he was completely exhausted and had could barely speak, got up and gave a a a rousing speech to this crowd.
• 4:14
  The crowd was going wild.
• 4:16
  You could just tell he was he was pushing every nerve, stretching every uh fiber of his body to get this done.
• 4:23
  We rode back in the uh car to the airport, and with us was a a supporter of Dole's who had been talking to the staff, and he said, Oh, Senator, very excited.
• 4:32
  I hear you're closing in California, that you're looking great in Ohio, and critical battleground states are coming your way, and this one was just so exciting.
• 4:40
  And Dole, who was bone-tired, in a very quiet voice, said, They don't need a lie to me.
• 4:45
  I'm a fighter.
• 4:46
  He knew he was gonna lose.
• 4:48
  But you know what?
• 4:50
  Uh he was gonna give it his all.
• 4:51
  And after he gave it his all, he then turned his life to the service of others in things like building the World War II memorial, literally greeting veterans personally when they came to visit the mall, uh the the new uh uh monument on the mall, uh veterans' causes left and right, uh speaking out for for civility in politics, uh for a willingness to work across party lines on big issues.
• 5:17
  Uh but it was remarkable to me, and I'll never forget that moment.
• 5:20
  I knew what a great spirit he had in him that he would he would fight on even in the face of defeat.
• 5:25
  Well said.
• 5:25
  Carl, let's pause for a moment here.
• 5:54
  Bob Dole, the life that brought him their uh podcast.
• 5:58
  And this is a couple of stories that I just wanted to include in a little special show uh that I wanted to use and just didn't find a place to put them.
• 6:06
  There Bob Dole in his oral history talking about his meeting with the president of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, and then in an earlier meeting when he met with Daniel Ortega, the president of Nicaragua.
• 6:20
  And Daniel Ortega served as president of Nicaragua from 1985 to 1990, and this is when the bulk of this is when President Ronald Reagan is trying to hold the communist government there, and of course he's funding the freedom fighters there, which of course led to the Iran counter scandal, as you know.
• 6:36
  And uh that scandal and his opinions of it, he's also gonna talk about social security and his belief that Pat Morningland deserved a lot of credit for saving social security.
• 6:49
  And I just thought these were fascinating stories.
• 6:51
  We also found a little clip of his meeting with Daniel Ortega.
• 6:54
  We couldn't find one on Sonic, unfortunately.
• 6:57
  So anyway, and then I found that Carl Road clip all of which I thought were stories that we hadn't able to use, uh that they were just too good not to package together to let you hear them because they're they're really kind of insightful about uh about the interlinking of these two dictators, uh the gamesmanships that go on sometimes in international uh diplomacy, and of course about Bob Dole himself.
• 7:24
  So here's Bob Dole telling two really amazing stories and then one other story about uh Social Security uh in this special edition in our final uh like a bonus show for Bob Dole, the wife that brought him there.
• 7:40
  Two dictators you met with.
• 7:41
  I want to I want to make sure we get them on the record.
• 7:43
  Because of course you you had a meeting with Saddam.
• 7:46
  Yeah, and Mosul.
• 7:48
  And what happened at that meeting?
• 7:50
  What was the see we landed in Baghdad and they picked us up in one of his planes, took us to Mosul.
• 7:56
  There were five of us.
• 7:59
  Remember Metzen Baum and Al Simpson, was it McClure, one of the anyway?
• 8:06
  We had this letter from Bush, which in effect was saying, you know, be careful with Israel.
• 8:13
  You know, you're getting a little aggressive.
• 8:16
  We have strong ties with them.
• 8:17
  We have want to continue good ties with you to do that.
• 8:20
  Just a one-page letter.
• 8:23
  And we weren't getting the meeting.
• 8:27
  So King Hussein of Jordan put in a plug, and then we got to Egypt, and Mabari called Saddam on the phone.
• 8:36
  He said, you know, I've got these guys here, I know I know this Bob Dole, you know, all this stuff.
• 8:41
  And you ought to speak to them.
• 8:43
  So that's how it really happened.
• 8:46
  And we got there and we thought we were gonna see him in Baghdad, we put him on their planes, took us to Mussel, took us to this, as I remember, big hotel where he was there and surrounded by all these guys with machine guns.
• 9:04
  And I remember we uh we talked a lot about uh, you know, some of the good relationships, some of the stuff he was buying from America, like wheat and stuff like that.
• 9:17
  We talked to him about the letter we were presenting from President Bush.
• 9:21
  I think Al Simpson got in a few old jokes.
• 9:25
  Uh and then he said uh I doubt it.
• 9:31
  Simpson doesn't care.
• 9:32
  Uh then he suggested we go on a helicopter ride.
• 9:36
  He said, the people really love me and I won't take you out in the countryside.
• 9:41
  So I said, Well, I think I need to visit him in a and to his credit, Metzenbaum says, No way we're gonna go up on a helicopter with that guy.
• 9:51
  So we declined.
• 9:53
  And so I was happy I took Mets and Baum along.
• 9:57
  There was some reported story that some previous delegation who had visited ended up mysteriously.
• 10:03
  I don't know the truth to it.
• 10:05
  But anyway, he was uh, you know, I can't, other than just a nice, pleasant meeting, he wasn't hostile, didn't and this of course was obviously before the invasion.
• 10:17
  Oh, yeah.
• 10:18
  Wait, yeah.
• 10:19
  Then when that occurred, uh did you went over?
• 10:22
  Uh weren't you?
• 10:23
  Did you accompany the president at one point or uh uh didn't you go over there uh between between the and before the liberation of Kuwait, wasn't there uh during that period those several months when um I thought at some point you visited the troops in um Oh well that may have been, yeah.
• 10:45
  But I I was also in I think Kuwait on the same trip, I'm not sure.
• 10:50
  Okay.
• 10:50
  And then I did I did go over there with uh Clinton, but that was another time.
• 10:55
  That was the Bosnia-NATO thing.
• 10:58
  Uh I did go with Bush.
• 11:02
  Yeah, what did we go?
• 11:03
  We went to the Thanksgiving?
• 11:04
  Yeah, it's Thanksgiving.
• 11:06
  Thanksgiving.
• 11:06
  In between the uh, yeah, I remember being out in the desert somewhere, I've got lots of sand, I remember that.
• 11:13
  And he was pumping up the troops, yeah.
• 11:15
  I remember that, yeah.
• 11:16
  That's that's right.
• 11:19
  What year was that?
• 11:20
  That was uh Oh well it'd be it would have been 90 in the fall uh uh the the fall of ninety because the uh the war began in January of ninety one.
• 11:29
  Yeah, that's right.
• 11:30
  And later Elizabeth and I went with uh Hillary and Bill just to visit the troops.
• 11:36
  So uh and of course you also had a encounter with Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua while he was in power.
• 11:45
  Yeah.
• 11:47
  As I recall, I wasn't a that was more of a confrontational meeting.
• 11:53
  Uh because it's not the government of the United States, it's in the case of the people of Nicaragua, what is what they can do.
• 12:08
  But what about the right?
• 12:18
  But we have you in the car.
• 12:23
  In the Bulgarians, we could help the people in the carables.
• 12:36
  Now the theme of parliament.
• 12:38
  Well, let me indicate that we were uh quite disappointed that uh what we hope might be a serious meeting, sort of turned in, at least at the start, sort of a circus.
• 12:48
  Uh, we'd made a request uh ten days ago to see President Ortega, so it wasn't any last minute.
• 12:55
  Uh we'd asked for a private session.
• 12:57
  Uh we we've had serious discussion with President Oscona.
• 13:01
  We'll have a serious discussion tonight with uh President Arias.
• 13:05
  We are members uh of the United States Senate.
• 13:08
  We are seeking information, and I think we all agree that uh this is not a very appropriate way to conduct uh serious business.
• 13:19
  Not as bad as Milosevich, but uh I met with him a couple of times too.
• 13:24
  What was that like?
• 13:26
  Well, he was uh I think you could say it all because uh Mrs.
• 13:31
  Evans I left Congress.
• 13:34
  Uh we didn't he didn't we didn't understand him, da-da-da.
• 13:38
  And no, I guess I was still there because we were trying to get something passed, and Joe Biden was helping him.
• 13:45
  But he had the little dining room there, and we were in the next room, and the doors were open for lunch, and we were there about eleven o'clock with the ambassador.
• 13:56
  And about eleven, after a rather long heated discussion, the dining room doors closed.
• 14:03
  So we knew we weren't A, staying for lunch, and B, the meeting was over.
• 14:08
  But at the Ortega meeting, you know, I wonder who went with me then.
• 14:11
  I don't have.
• 14:14
  But obviously we weren't supporting Ortega, you know, and uh I can't remember who was that in the Reagan years?
• 14:22
  Yeah, must have been, yeah.
• 14:24
  85.
• 14:25
  All the Contra aid and all this stuff, and my good friend Biden and and uh other Democrats are violently opposed to aid the Contras.
• 14:38
  What do you think?
• 14:39
  No, we stopped in Honduras, too, a trip in uh El Salvador, yeah.
• 14:45
  What do you think with Reagan's actual role in a rare Contra?
• 14:50
  Because I've heard so many, you know, everyone's got a theory.
• 14:54
  And and one of the actually pretty good theories is that someone said, we've talked to, someone said, Well, first of all, Bill Casey mumbled, yeah and Ronald Reagan was deaf.
• 15:06
  And I can imagine Casey going in and mumbling something and Reagan nodding his head.
• 15:12
  I just read the day with one Reagan, they quoted what one Reagan said, when I m make a mistake, it's a butte.
• 15:18
  And that was his answer to the whole Ronald Contra thing, and he got away with it.
• 15:22
  So I don't know whether you ever knew what was happening.
• 15:28
  I mean, I think Ali North is sort of a wild card in the whole thing.
• 15:32
  There's another theory.
• 15:33
  Remember, they made the switch.
• 15:35
  If Donald Reagan, there are a lot of people who believe that if Jim Baker was still chief of staff instead of Donald Reagan, the reincontre never would have happened.
• 15:44
  Oh, well, that's just another possibility.
• 15:47
  Yeah.
• 15:48
  I don't know why Donald Reagan wanted to be chief of staff so badly.
• 15:52
  I know Nancy didn't like it, but Well, I think her judgment was proven pretty correct.
• 15:57
  But he was always kind of leaning over the president like he's, you know, I'm right here, the two leaders of the whatever countries, and he's right in the middle.
• 16:09
  But you know, I we always got a lot of she always liked Donald Reagan for some reason.
• 16:14
  Yeah.
• 16:15
  And he double-crossed us on the budget.
• 16:17
  I remember uh I think I've told you this before.
• 16:21
  He came up the next day with champagne and chocolates and all the stuff to my office.
• 16:26
  This is what yeah, you had gone out on a limb and got was that the Pete Wilson vote or yeah, and then we got butchered by uh Trent Lott and Gingrich and the house crowd.
• 16:37
  Jack Kemp.
• 16:38
  Yeah.
• 16:40
  No new I don't know what too much spending or something.
• 16:44
  I don't know.
• 16:45
  Oh, we were gonna cut Social Security.
• 16:48
  Not not cut it, but slow the rate of growth, which this town's a cut.
• 16:53
  And had we done that, we wouldn't be looking at, you know, the problem we're looking at today with Social Security, but we probably lost a couple of Senate seats over it.
• 17:03
  So we talked to Alan Greenspan this morning, had a wonderful conversation with him.
• 17:09
  And I I gather, although we didn't really ask him specifically, that in this climate today you you couldn't do what you did in 1983.
• 17:19
  Do you think it's possible?
• 17:21
  It's too political.
• 17:23
  When you get when you get Claude Pepper on your side, you know, Mr.
• 17:27
  Sr.
• 17:28
  And get a guy like Greenspan chairing a commission, and people like Moynihan, who had a lot of clout with liberal moderate Democrats.
• 17:41
  By the way, Greenspan went out of his way to credit you and Moynihan with being the people who were really responsible for saving the commission.
• 17:48
  Yeah, like we did on you know with January 12th, 1983.
• 17:53
  When we just almost at the same time blurted out, we can't we can't let this happen or something.
• 18:00
  But uh and I never thought like I the Pat's gotten the credit he deserves.
• 18:06
  Like I told you, I tried to get AARP to run a piece about Pat Moyna and Social Security.
• 18:12
  He was dead, you know.
• 18:15
  Didn't want it to be a lot of people.