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The Death of America's Worst President · Conspiracy! The Show

0:10
Speaker 1: Welcome to Conspiracy The Show with the hosts Adam Todd
0:15
Speaker 1: Brown and Conye mc snadden. Hey, welcome to Conspiracy the Show.
0:25
Speaker 1: I'm Adam Todd.
0:26
Speaker 2: Brown, I'm Connor mcspadden.
0:28
Speaker 1: And we are talking about the death of Warren g. Today.
0:32
Speaker 1: From the song Regulators. A lot of people claim Nate
0:35
Speaker 1: Doggs showed up and saved him when he was about
0:38
Speaker 1: to be shot at that dice game. I disagree. I
0:41
Speaker 1: think it's a cover up.
0:42
Speaker 2: I do too, and I think Snoop gave Nate cancer
0:46
Speaker 2: just so he could keep you know, yeah, stacking cheddar
0:49
Speaker 2: off his legacy. What am I even talking about?
0:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have no idea what.
0:52
Speaker 2: Actually, no one should ever say stacking cheddar.
0:55
Speaker 1: Sincerely, stacking cheddar if you are the thing you do
0:58
Speaker 1: with cheddar, if you are at.
0:59
Speaker 2: The funeral for the man who invented cheddar, you should
1:02
Speaker 2: not say stacking cheddar.
1:04
Speaker 1: We are actually talking about the death of Warren G. Harding,
1:08
Speaker 1: arguably the worst president of all time. He's up there
1:11
Speaker 1: remains to be seen. Though we have a contender in
1:15
Speaker 1: office right now.
1:16
Speaker 2: I still think Andrew Johnson gets it for basically securing
1:20
Speaker 2: the legacy of racism, for generations to come.
1:23
Speaker 1: Johnson or Jackson Johnson, Oh Johnson.
1:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, Lincoln's vice president. Oh yeah, yeah, he really he
1:28
Speaker 2: really goofed up that whole reconstruction thing.
1:31
Speaker 1: He sure did.
1:32
Speaker 2: But this guy's pretty bad.
1:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, Warren Harding. This episode is actually say what you
1:37
Speaker 1: will about Johnson very little sexting. Yeah, this episode's actually
1:43
Speaker 1: going up on the ninety fourth anniversary of the death
1:46
Speaker 1: of Warren G.
1:47
Speaker 2: Hard What's actually gonna be the ninety fourth episode of
1:49
Speaker 2: the Warren g. Anniversary podcast. It we're not affiliate with them,
1:53
Speaker 2: So we're going to talk.
1:55
Speaker 1: A little bit about his awful, awful presidency and how
2:00
Speaker 1: he ended up getting elected, and then the conspiracy theories
2:03
Speaker 1: around his death. How many other conspiracy podcasts are hitting
2:07
Speaker 1: up the Warren G. Harding topics. Yeah, you come to us,
2:10
Speaker 1: come to us for the timely news.
2:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the unsigned height column of conspiracy theories.
2:16
Speaker 2: What did John Oliver just do a dramatized piece about him? Whatever?
2:21
Speaker 1: All right, we were on it first, So this let's start.
2:27
Speaker 1: Let's just dive in to his and this is kind
2:30
Speaker 1: of timely just when you take into account what kind
2:33
Speaker 1: of president we have in office now. Yeah, and the
2:36
Speaker 1: parallels between sort of how they are, not really how
2:41
Speaker 1: they took power, but what their situation was like beforehand.
2:44
Speaker 2: How they were given it mistakenly.
2:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
2:48
Speaker 2: Yeah.
2:49
Speaker 1: In nineteen twenty, Warren G. Harding was a small town
2:53
Speaker 1: newspaper publisher who had served a single term in the
2:57
Speaker 1: Senate when he was handpicked by Republican Party bosses to
3:01
Speaker 1: run for president, largely because he was inoffensive and could
3:05
Speaker 1: deliver his home state of Ohio for the GOP. So
3:08
Speaker 1: the inoffensive part definitely sets him apart from Trump.
3:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, they didn't really do their due diligence on that,
3:15
Speaker 2: because right getting ahead of ourselves, there's some pretty offensive
3:19
Speaker 2: things going on.
3:20
Speaker 1: He did some really offensive shit. Yeah. But in the
3:23
Speaker 1: aftermath of the First World War and the end of
3:25
Speaker 1: the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, which was kind of a nightmare,
3:28
Speaker 1: voters wanted a return to normalcy, and Harding promised that,
3:34
Speaker 1: but instead he set in motion a chain of events
3:37
Speaker 1: that set him up to be one of the worst
3:38
Speaker 1: presidents of all time.
3:40
Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually a fun factor by the Woodrow Wilson presidency,
3:44
Speaker 2: as he was ill in his later months in office.
3:47
Speaker 2: Sometimes his wife would take some papers and to have
3:49
Speaker 2: him sign or whatever, and she'd been alone in the
3:51
Speaker 2: room with him. And if you look at the handwriting,
3:52
Speaker 2: it looks like it matches up with her handwriting. So
3:54
Speaker 2: some people call her the first female president.
3:56
Speaker 1: Oh nice, it's kind of a fun fact. I did
3:58
Speaker 1: not know that.
3:59
Speaker 2: Yeah. Uh so this guy was just one of these
4:02
Speaker 2: like Andrew Pok type dudes where they're just like, ah shit,
4:04
Speaker 2: we forgot to find a good candidate. Look, he'll be
4:07
Speaker 2: a capable stooge, you know, like, let's just prop him
4:10
Speaker 2: up exactly.
4:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh, this this is where it starts sounding familiar.
4:17
Speaker 1: Harding felt woefully underqualified for the job, and was so
4:21
Speaker 1: nervous about it that he surrounded himself with old friends
4:24
Speaker 1: from his hometown. Most were unqualified for the jobs he
4:28
Speaker 1: gave them, and many of them were corrupt. Yeah.
4:31
Speaker 2: I mean I feel like if I if I, if
4:33
Speaker 2: I just bullshit in my way into the presidency, even
4:36
Speaker 2: if I just became like a comptroller, I'd be like, Okay, fuck,
4:39
Speaker 2: I don't Yeah, I don't necessarily need all the guys
4:42
Speaker 2: that called me gay in middle school hanging out and
4:45
Speaker 2: just saying like won't.
4:46
Speaker 1: You just do it? Yeah? Yeah, I don't. I don't
4:49
Speaker 1: know that i'd hire any school friends. Yeah, I mean
4:53
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of school friends left. I
4:54
Speaker 1: mean I still know people, yeah, from school, but we
4:57
Speaker 1: don't have I've whittled.
4:58
Speaker 2: It down to about five or six, which I think
5:00
Speaker 2: think is about the adulthood customary number.
5:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's a reasonable number. And you grew up,
5:05
Speaker 1: you're still in the same area where you went to school.
5:07
Speaker 2: I'm in southern California. Yeah, you know, I'm within striking distance.
5:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I went to school in Illinois. I'm not fucking
5:12
Speaker 1: going back there.
5:13
Speaker 2: Yeah. And just to like, what so we can remember
5:16
Speaker 2: when we did the keg filled down. Yes, we talked
5:19
Speaker 2: about this the last time I was here.
5:21
Speaker 1: I did almost do stand up at my twentieth and
5:24
Speaker 1: twentieth high school reunion.
5:26
Speaker 2: Oh my god, there's a video that goes viral on
5:28
Speaker 2: Reddit comedian bombs at twentieth high school. I would have
5:31
Speaker 2: a bad set just to just to get those up votes. Baby. Yeah,
5:34
Speaker 2: our cringe is kind of get shut down to server issues.
5:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like I would have killed, but I
5:39
Speaker 1: also would have just shpit on a lot of people. Oh. There,
5:42
Speaker 1: there's no way I was going to pass.
5:43
Speaker 2: That perhaps perhaps I should not be advertising this, but
5:47
Speaker 2: I have a lot of issues about the way I
5:49
Speaker 2: was treated in my high school by the higher ups
5:51
Speaker 2: in the administration. So I want nothing more than to
5:55
Speaker 2: get successful enough to be asked to speak at a
5:57
Speaker 2: graduation and just scorched there. It's one of my one
6:01
Speaker 2: of my few fantasies I cling to.
6:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, that would be nice, aren't I guess my twenty
6:06
Speaker 1: fifth reunion is on a boat, so I'm definitely not
6:09
Speaker 1: going to that.
6:10
Speaker 2: Yeah fuck that? Where are we going to? International waters
6:13
Speaker 2: in the ocean? Yeah?
6:15
Speaker 1: Hard pass? So uh. One of the examples of Harding's
6:19
Speaker 1: picks for his cabinet to head the Veterans Bureau, he
6:22
Speaker 1: picked Charlie Forbes, who, just a few years after World
6:26
Speaker 1: War One was a man he'd met while vacationing.
6:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, and even probably worse than Forbes was. For his
6:33
Speaker 2: best albums of the nineties, he put Okay, computer by Radio,
6:37
Speaker 2: I mean, how much more of a basic bitch you
6:39
Speaker 2: have to be?
6:39
Speaker 1: It's so over such a such a basic pic.
6:43
Speaker 2: This this dude kind of strikes me as just being
6:46
Speaker 2: one of these unlovable people, where when as soon as
6:48
Speaker 2: someone's nice to them. They just latch onto them, you know.
6:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
6:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
6:53
Speaker 1: This guy Forbes sold hospital supplies to willing Purchaser's important
6:58
Speaker 1: side note, these were not surplus hospital supplies. He just
7:02
Speaker 1: sold shit hospitals needed to other people who had more
7:06
Speaker 1: money to offer. These were supplies that were used by
7:09
Speaker 1: veterans hospitals. He did this without approval from Congress or
7:13
Speaker 1: the President. So that's definitely the guy you want to
7:15
Speaker 1: put in head of Veterans Bureau. He also Forbes also
7:21
Speaker 1: benefited from a program of hospital construction where he would
7:25
Speaker 1: take his cut from the inflated income of the contractors.
7:28
Speaker 1: And in these schemes he was assisted by the Veterans
7:31
Speaker 1: Bureau auditor James Kramer. Harding's attorney general, Harry Daughtry was
7:36
Speaker 1: running a peace.
7:38
Speaker 2: Collusion Jerry.
7:41
Speaker 1: Harding's attorney General, Harry Daughtry, was running a prohibition criminal operation,
7:47
Speaker 1: among other operations. Jesse Smith, an unofficial member of the
7:51
Speaker 1: Justice Department and later Assistant Attorney General, specialized in kickbacks,
7:55
Speaker 1: whiskey distribution, and political favors.
7:58
Speaker 2: And Harding's sounds like a dope kickpack. You got fucking
8:01
Speaker 2: political favors and whiskey.
8:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's that's the party.
8:05
Speaker 2: Kickback right there, popping Spotify playlist I'm down, He's kicking
8:08
Speaker 2: back for real. Yeah.
8:10
Speaker 1: Harding himself readily admitted to reporters that he was in
8:13
Speaker 1: over his head and quote a man of limited talents,
8:18
Speaker 1: don't say that in public, not for the president. No,
8:21
Speaker 1: why would you do that? Yeah?
8:22
Speaker 2: Well, are you think you think that's gonna make people like?
8:24
Speaker 2: All right, Look, he said that he doesn't know what
8:26
Speaker 2: he's doing. We got to go easy on him, right
8:28
Speaker 2: that is, it's not going to invite sympathy.
8:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it didn't. It definitely didn't work for Trump. Yeah. No,
8:34
Speaker 1: No one wants to hear like if a fireman shows
8:37
Speaker 1: up at your house when it's on fire, you don't
8:39
Speaker 1: want him to be like, I don't know how good
8:41
Speaker 1: I am at this and you can.
8:43
Speaker 2: Pull out if it's like your first year, like week
8:45
Speaker 2: working as a cashier, like I'm new here. I'm sorry.
8:47
Speaker 2: I fucked up this return. By the way, my first
8:50
Speaker 2: day of work ever in my life was a Memorial
8:53
Speaker 2: Day at Ross Dress for Less, and I was just
8:55
Speaker 2: fucking it up. I had to re ring this entire
8:57
Speaker 2: gigantic order and then this this sweed old black lady
9:01
Speaker 2: was was the lady that was I was checking out
9:03
Speaker 2: she wasn't good all right for her age especially God damn.
9:06
Speaker 2: And I was just checking out her stuff and I
9:08
Speaker 2: had to I fucked it up, had to do everything over.
9:10
Speaker 2: Manager had to come over like three times. I'm like,
9:11
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry, it's my first day, and she's like, sweetie,
9:14
Speaker 2: I can tail And I was just like, oh. I
9:17
Speaker 2: held out of that for the rest of the fucking
9:19
Speaker 2: year and a half. I wasted my life there. But yeah,
9:22
Speaker 2: as in the presidency, you want to inspire confidence.
9:25
Speaker 1: You want to you know, yeah, you want people to
9:27
Speaker 1: feel good. You want to be firm your ability to
9:30
Speaker 1: do the job.
9:30
Speaker 2: We just had a world war. You want all the
9:32
Speaker 2: other leaders of the of the of the planet just
9:35
Speaker 2: being like, oh, okay, yeah we do you know, don't
9:37
Speaker 2: fuck with America. He's like, yeah, you could run away
9:40
Speaker 2: with this whole thing. I don't know what's going on.
9:43
Speaker 1: Uh he uh. Even if Harding wasn't directly implicated in
9:47
Speaker 1: a lot of these scandals, which he wasn't, he took
9:50
Speaker 1: very much a hands off approach to holding these people responsible.
9:55
Speaker 2: He was ghost writing the whip. In terms of corruption. Yeah, exactly,
9:59
Speaker 2: you might say.
10:00
Speaker 1: And so just across the board, his cabinet was one
10:03
Speaker 1: of the worst in American history, and of course, because
10:07
Speaker 1: we're talking about the twenties, also a huge racist that
10:11
Speaker 1: you know that comes with the territory. Uh. Some historians
10:16
Speaker 1: argue against this because he voiced a little bit of
10:19
Speaker 1: support for some anti lynching legislation, but he also came
10:23
Speaker 1: out in favor of eugenics and in opposition to social equality,
10:29
Speaker 1: which is a phrase that back at the time just
10:32
Speaker 1: meant interracial marriage.
10:34
Speaker 2: Well, he actually only voiced anti lynching amendments to that
10:38
Speaker 2: bill because one of his cabinet officers had a rope
10:41
Speaker 2: company and they wanted to sell the surplus to make whips. Yeah.
10:47
Speaker 2: Pretty gross.
10:48
Speaker 1: He was also considered a serial womanizer, having really mistresses or.
10:52
Speaker 2: In twenties more like horror twenties.
10:55
Speaker 1: Right there it went U had uh fathered at least
11:02
Speaker 1: one illegitimate child. Also, but the biggest scandal of the
11:07
Speaker 1: Harding presidency by far, it's also one of the biggest
11:10
Speaker 1: scandals in presidential history in general. The teapot dome scandal,
11:15
Speaker 1: which I didn't know shit about until we started researching this. No,
11:20
Speaker 1: nor I I mean I had heard of it, but
11:23
Speaker 1: i'd never This is like.
11:25
Speaker 2: Oh, you see the documentary on the History Channel. You're like,
11:28
Speaker 2: I'll skip, I'll wait for another Hitler one, you know, yeah, exactly.
11:31
Speaker 2: It's not a sexy one, right, especially.
11:34
Speaker 1: Because of the name. I mean, the name is interesting,
11:36
Speaker 1: but it doesn't sound scary.
11:38
Speaker 2: It doesn't sound like it's gonna like it's gonna have
11:40
Speaker 2: anything exciting really, right.
11:42
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like watergate gate. Watergate was an impressive scandal. Yeah,
11:46
Speaker 1: name and just an impressive.
11:48
Speaker 2: I also don't like that every we use the suffolx gate,
11:52
Speaker 2: even when it's extraordinarily aesthetically unpleasing to the ear, you know,
11:56
Speaker 2: right right, like it's travelgate or like you know, trooper
11:59
Speaker 2: Gate and all this shit, and it's like, well, someone
12:01
Speaker 2: said we should start changing them to a lago, you know,
12:04
Speaker 2: like Russia lago, And I think that's fun.
12:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like that better. Or rama. Just put rama
12:10
Speaker 1: at the end, Russia rama. Oh yeah, yeah, it'd be fun.
12:14
Speaker 2: Tune into racial maddows Russia rama.
12:17
Speaker 1: So the teapot Dome scandal, it was the most defining
12:19
Speaker 1: scandal of the Harding presidency and became synonymous with government
12:23
Speaker 1: corruption and the greed and influence of oil companies the
12:28
Speaker 1: Teapot Dome. It was also called the Oil reserve scandal
12:33
Speaker 1: or the Elk Hills scandal.
12:35
Speaker 2: I mean Teapot Dom and Elk Hills just sound like
12:37
Speaker 2: boring suburbs.
12:39
Speaker 1: Right, and I think they are. They're like boring suburbs
12:41
Speaker 1: in Wyoming.
12:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, less geological. Well, these were like the Navy
12:45
Speaker 2: oil reserves, right.
12:47
Speaker 1: Uh, I think I don't know if these were, but
12:50
Speaker 1: there are. Yes. The Teapot Dome is a geological feature
12:55
Speaker 1: in Wyoming, name for nearby teapot rock and the side
12:59
Speaker 1: of an oil field. In nineteen fifteen, President Woodrow Wilson
13:03
Speaker 1: designated that oil deposit as Naval Oil Reserve Number three.
13:07
Speaker 1: Reserves one and two are in Elk Hills and Buena
13:10
Speaker 1: Vista Hills, respectively.
13:12
Speaker 2: Oof listener meet up right.
13:15
Speaker 1: These reserves were created to guarantee that the Navy would
13:17
Speaker 1: have a sufficient supply of oil in wartime. However, their
13:21
Speaker 1: establishment was controversial. Oil interests believed that the reserves were
13:25
Speaker 1: unnecessary and could be developed privately. Also, private wells surrounded
13:30
Speaker 1: the naval reserve fields, siphoning off their underground deposits.
13:34
Speaker 2: So his cabinet is stealing oil from the Navy and
13:39
Speaker 2: medical supplies from the dying.
13:41
Speaker 1: Right, good guy, yeah, crazy? They call him our worst President.
13:45
Speaker 1: Albert Fall, one of President Harding's poker pals, was appointed
13:48
Speaker 1: as Secretary of the Interior in nineteen twenty one. He'd
13:52
Speaker 1: been a lawyer, a mining and timber company representative in
13:55
Speaker 1: the New Mexico Territory, and later a US Senator. During
13:58
Speaker 1: this time, he heavily in mining himself. As a US Senator,
14:02
Speaker 1: he fought the conservation movement. When Fall tried to open
14:06
Speaker 1: Alaska's oil, coal, and timber to extensive private development, the
14:09
Speaker 1: conservationists were quick to organize and defeat his plans. Similarly,
14:14
Speaker 1: when Fall tried to move the National Forests and Federal
14:17
Speaker 1: Forestry Service under his control of the Department of Interior,
14:21
Speaker 1: conservationists blocked him again.
14:23
Speaker 2: I actually think I signed that move on dot org petition,
14:25
Speaker 2: and I remember.
14:26
Speaker 1: Not one to give up, he turned his attention to
14:28
Speaker 1: the naval oil reserves. Persuaded Secretary of the Navy Edwin Denby,
14:32
Speaker 1: and President Harding to transfer the naval oil reserves to
14:35
Speaker 1: the Interior Department. He then secretly, and without competitive bidding,
14:40
Speaker 1: leased the Teapot Dome oil rights to Harry Sinclair's Mammoth
14:44
Speaker 1: Oil Company, and the Elk Hills oil rights to the
14:47
Speaker 1: Pan American Petroleum Company, owned by Edward Doheny, a longtime friend.
14:52
Speaker 1: When the news became public in nineteen twenty two, conservationists
14:55
Speaker 1: and small oil producers in Wyoming who objected to the
14:59
Speaker 1: secrecy and la of competitive bidding, raised a storm protest.
15:03
Speaker 2: Wait, I wanted to steal that oil from the Navy.
15:06
Speaker 1: What's the Navy doing with it? The World War's over,
15:08
Speaker 1: It's never gonna happen again. Yeah, we're fine. The Senate
15:13
Speaker 1: approved a resolution calling for an investigation. Fall argued that
15:17
Speaker 1: his actions were perfectly reasonable and beneficial to the Navy
15:21
Speaker 1: since the reserves were threatened by privately owned oil wells
15:24
Speaker 1: that were siphoning off their oil.
15:25
Speaker 2: Oh, were they doing something like there'll be blood?
15:27
Speaker 1: Like kuwaits I drink your milkshake exactly. He also argued
15:33
Speaker 1: that the secrecy was essential to protect the storage of
15:36
Speaker 1: the oil at bases in California and Pearl Harbor. When
15:39
Speaker 1: the Senate opened its investigation, Fall delivered a truckload of
15:44
Speaker 1: documents to the committee, snarling the investigations In a massive
15:48
Speaker 1: paper and he then resigned from office in January nineteen
15:51
Speaker 1: twenty three.
15:52
Speaker 2: That's the guy who pays his speeding ticket in pennies.
15:55
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, and everyone gives him credit for it on
15:58
Speaker 1: the internet, and you're like, guy's a huge ass.
16:01
Speaker 2: The people that count those did not make the traffic laws.
16:03
Speaker 1: Right right, That almost minimum wage worker had nothing to
16:07
Speaker 1: do with it.
16:08
Speaker 2: Although I will say if I work at the office,
16:10
Speaker 2: I'm just like, yeah, I'll count the pennies all day,
16:11
Speaker 2: that's probably easy. I'll put on a podcast. That's usually
16:14
Speaker 2: what I was going to be doing, and I want
16:15
Speaker 2: to push paper and try to collect debts from people.
16:17
Speaker 1: Exactly. So, the investigation, led by Senator Thomas Walsh got
16:22
Speaker 1: underway in October nineteen twenty three. They couldn't seem to
16:26
Speaker 1: find anything objectionable in the materials delivered by Fall, and
16:30
Speaker 1: at this point Walsh begins to dig into reports of
16:33
Speaker 1: improvements to Falls Ranch. In January nineteen twenty four, testify testifying,
16:39
Speaker 1: testifying before.
16:40
Speaker 2: They testifying before the committee, Dude, it was wicked corrupt.
16:45
Speaker 1: Dowheeny revealed that he had loaned Fall one hundred thousand
16:48
Speaker 1: dollars in that his son Edward Doheeny Junior, together with
16:51
Speaker 1: his son's close friend Hugh Plunkett, had delivered the cash to.
16:54
Speaker 2: Fall in a satchel who to plunk it Sorry.
16:58
Speaker 1: However, Doheeny denied that alone had any connection to the
17:01
Speaker 1: Elk Hills lease. Similarly, Sinclair acknowledged that he'd given fall
17:05
Speaker 1: some livestock, but denied any connection to the teapot Dome.
17:11
Speaker 2: Who takes bribes in the form of cattle? What are
17:13
Speaker 2: you an Indian farmer? Like?
17:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, no shit, yeah, Indian as in like other country.
17:18
Speaker 2: Too, yeah yeah yeah, not a Native American farmer. They
17:22
Speaker 2: don't have land anymore. We saw to that, all right, No,
17:25
Speaker 2: I mean the fucking briefcase of cash. Yeah that what
17:29
Speaker 2: that's how you lend friends money exactly.
17:31
Speaker 1: Yeah.
17:31
Speaker 2: You couldn't have gone through Western Union, I assume was
17:34
Speaker 2: the PayPal of the twenties. That probably would have worked.
17:37
Speaker 1: So Congress asks Harding to take action and cancel these
17:41
Speaker 1: leases and name special counsel to investigate and prosecute those
17:45
Speaker 1: responsible for any wrongdoing. That doesn't happen. Instead, Warren Harding
17:49
Speaker 1: dies like a fucking idiot in August nineteen twenty three,
17:55
Speaker 1: right in the middle of this investigation, so nothing ever
17:59
Speaker 1: happens to him, But that's kind of where the conspiracy starts. Ye,
18:03
Speaker 1: people wonder if maybe he was killed because of this
18:08
Speaker 1: mounting scandal and what it.
18:11
Speaker 2: He hasn't surrounded himself with a lot of moralists, so right,
18:14
Speaker 2: it doesn't. I'm not seeing a lot of people that
18:16
Speaker 2: would feel remorse about doing this.
18:20
Speaker 1: And so this investigation finally winds down and nothing really
18:27
Speaker 1: happens to anyone in.
18:28
Speaker 2: Nineteen twenty nine, and then the Great Depression happens and
18:30
Speaker 2: they're like, I don't know whatever, you got away with it,
18:32
Speaker 2: Like there's breadlines and shit.
18:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dowheeny was convicted of a oh.
18:37
Speaker 2: No, Fall, I know he escaped Argentina. I think.
18:42
Speaker 1: Fall became the first cabinet member convicted of a crime
18:44
Speaker 1: while in office, was fined one hundred thousand dollars and
18:46
Speaker 1: sentenced to a year in prison. But Dowheeny was acquitted
18:50
Speaker 1: of offering the same bribe. Always insisted that it was alone.
18:54
Speaker 1: And then Savage Alert foreclosed on Falls ranch over the loan.
19:00
Speaker 1: Oh kicked Fall out of the house. That guy ends
19:03
Speaker 1: up destitute, and eventually in nineteen twenty nine, Dolheny's son
19:07
Speaker 1: was murdered by Plunkett, who then committed suicide. He may
19:10
Speaker 1: have feared that he'd be sent to prison for helping
19:12
Speaker 1: to deliver the cash to fall Weird. Yeah, so so
19:17
Speaker 1: that was the teapot Dome scandal. It's not that crazy
19:21
Speaker 1: of a scale. I mean, it's kind of run of
19:23
Speaker 1: the mill.
19:23
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's it's kind of the shit that you'd expect, like, Okay,
19:25
Speaker 2: we're gonna use their power and influence to you know,
19:28
Speaker 2: sell those de private developers. They're gonna they're gonna pay
19:31
Speaker 2: a little bit too much for it, and then the
19:33
Speaker 2: rest is gonna get back channel back to me. That's
19:35
Speaker 2: pretty textbook corruption.
19:36
Speaker 1: Right, standard stuff. Yeah, but there's another scandal that has
19:42
Speaker 1: come to define the Harding administration, and that's all of
19:46
Speaker 1: his affairs with various women because there was there was
19:50
Speaker 1: no snapchat back then, so your messages were on paper
19:54
Speaker 1: and they stuck around for fucking ever.
19:57
Speaker 2: By the way, if you haven't yet treated yourself, go
19:59
Speaker 2: check out the the sex letter that Tupac sent to Madonna. Yeah, yeah,
20:03
Speaker 2: fucking awesome, really great. And he also just has like
20:07
Speaker 2: cool handwriting.
20:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, that guy, he was, he was quite the poet. Yeah,
20:11
Speaker 1: with his prison sex letters, Harding not so much, right,
20:17
Speaker 1: everyone knows Harding had not. Ever, scholars all agree that
20:22
Speaker 1: he had extramarital affairs with at least four of four women,
20:26
Speaker 1: two of them close friends of his wife.
20:29
Speaker 2: Are there like specifically like extramarital affair scholars just like
20:34
Speaker 2: and you know, and then the little uh you know
20:36
Speaker 2: what are those called the cova cova canchin on the
20:40
Speaker 2: bottom of the screen where it tells you who they are.
20:42
Speaker 2: There's a name for it, and I just love it.
20:44
Speaker 1: I don't know what that name is. Fuck all right,
20:46
Speaker 1: God damn, it doesn't matter. We're ruined.
20:49
Speaker 2: Just pops up on the History channel like trist experts
20:53
Speaker 2: and it's just the ancient aliens guys, and he's like, yeah,
20:55
Speaker 2: I gotta pay the bills, so I do I do
20:57
Speaker 2: some pussy research.
20:58
Speaker 1: I'm sure that exists.
21:00
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:00
Speaker 1: So, in the days following his death, legend has it
21:03
Speaker 1: that his wife, Florence burned many of Harding's personal papers,
21:07
Speaker 1: public documents, books, the contents of a safe deposit box,
21:11
Speaker 1: and a stuffed suitcase.
21:13
Speaker 2: Many Florence was definitely the name of a woman who
21:15
Speaker 2: I feel like would be so defeated and just accept
21:17
Speaker 2: her husband cheating on her, right, that's just kind of
21:20
Speaker 2: a sad like old time. You're like, oh, well, i'd
21:22
Speaker 2: stay at the house name, you know.
21:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, you would think that, But it may not be true.
21:29
Speaker 1: Many so a number of these papers actually survived, but
21:34
Speaker 1: it is true that she feared a lot of these
21:37
Speaker 1: would be misconstrued and would harm her husband's legacy. In
21:42
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, historian Francis Russell gained access to these
21:45
Speaker 1: letters from Harding to his longtime mistress, Carrie Fulton Phillips.
21:49
Speaker 1: The Harding family sued to halt their publication, fearing that
21:53
Speaker 1: publishing them would further tarnish his legacy and hurt the
21:56
Speaker 1: entire family, and to the dismay of many historians, thistlement
22:00
Speaker 1: was reached in which the Harding family, who owned the
22:03
Speaker 1: copyright to the letters, agreed to donate them to the
22:06
Speaker 1: Library of Congress in return for a guarantee that they
22:09
Speaker 1: remain sealed for fifty years. And this was to protect
22:13
Speaker 1: the younger generation from knowing how much fucking Warren Harding
22:18
Speaker 1: was doing.
22:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never understood the good of the whole egodis well,
22:22
Speaker 2: won't release him until, you know.
22:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, like people are gonna find out people hear about shit.
22:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's just like get it out of the way.
22:29
Speaker 2: I mean, are you just like, let me put this
22:30
Speaker 2: off till after I die?
22:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah, till the kids are And like,
22:36
Speaker 1: I can't imagine stop having kids who aren't going to
22:38
Speaker 1: be mortified by this at some point.
22:39
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I can't imagine this guy, in between, you know,
22:42
Speaker 2: hiring a bunch of corrupt people and cheating on his wife,
22:45
Speaker 2: had the time to be a super dope grandpa. Like,
22:47
Speaker 2: how much do you really like the guy?
22:49
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, he was probably a huge piece of shit.
22:52
Speaker 2: Yeah.
22:53
Speaker 1: In twenty fifteen, the Library of Congress released letters between
22:57
Speaker 1: Harding and his mistress featuring a character named Jerry. Guess
23:01
Speaker 1: who Jerry is? This direk it's Warren's hard thing. Yeah, yeah,
23:10
Speaker 1: that was that was fine. Swish Yeah, nailed it.
23:14
Speaker 2: Dex Jerry, They're all decks.
23:18
Speaker 1: These letters were written a decade before his presidency, so
23:22
Speaker 1: he was he was fucking around from Jump Street.
23:25
Speaker 2: Yeah.
23:26
Speaker 1: Also in twenty fifteen, The New York Times broke the
23:30
Speaker 1: news that DNA testing had confirmed that Harding fathered a
23:33
Speaker 1: child with a second paramour, Nan Britain during the same
23:38
Speaker 1: period in which he was penning love notes to Phillips.
23:41
Speaker 1: The correspondence is intimate and frank, and perhaps the most
23:45
Speaker 1: sexually explicit ever by an American president until we see
23:50
Speaker 1: that video of Trump pissing on those beds with the
23:52
Speaker 1: Russian prostitutes.
23:53
Speaker 2: Oh. I thought the story was that he was being
23:54
Speaker 2: pissed on.
23:56
Speaker 1: Oh was it?
23:56
Speaker 2: Maybe?
23:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's even better.
23:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and anything would be delightful. Thank god
24:02
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton didn't have Snapchat because we would have seen
24:04
Speaker 2: his dick.
24:05
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we yeah, that that trial would have gone
24:08
Speaker 1: a whole different way.
24:09
Speaker 2: Oh yeah.
24:10
Speaker 1: Uh. Harding alternates between Victorian declarations of love and unabashedly
24:16
Speaker 1: carnal descriptions.
24:18
Speaker 2: Yes, that's what I like to do. I like to
24:21
Speaker 2: get I like to get real overbos and they're just good.
24:23
Speaker 2: Just then you're just throwing the gills, you know, like
24:25
Speaker 2: the real blunt stuff.
24:26
Speaker 1: Cunt throw a cunt at the end, Yeah.
24:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, would it's fuck your cunt?
24:33
Speaker 1: Oh I was supposed to do? Where is it there,
24:36
Speaker 1: cunt dinger?
24:37
Speaker 2: Oh you got a cunt digger?
24:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, whenever someone says the word she got she's.
24:40
Speaker 2: Got some real cut Dingers boobs instead of clits.
24:46
Speaker 1: So shortly after Harding won his party's nomination for president,
24:50
Speaker 1: Phillips threatened to release their correspondence and demanded money in
24:54
Speaker 1: exchange for her silence. To keep her quiet, the RNC
24:57
Speaker 1: paid for Phillips and her husband and who like did
25:01
Speaker 1: her husband not? Like he was cool with all this?
25:03
Speaker 2: I mean maybe they got married afterwards.
25:05
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I suppose. The RNC paid for Phillips and
25:08
Speaker 1: her husband go on a lengthy trip to Japan and
25:11
Speaker 1: provided her with a gift somewhere between twenty and twenty
25:13
Speaker 1: five thousand dollars, which would be closer to two hundred
25:17
Speaker 1: and ninety seven thousand today. Harding himself offered her a
25:20
Speaker 1: stipend of five thousand dollars a year as long as
25:24
Speaker 1: he was in public service. Oh shitty deal for her.
25:27
Speaker 1: That didn't last.
25:28
Speaker 2: This was this is really the golden age of like
25:31
Speaker 2: howin you know? Because that really was you could do
25:34
Speaker 2: this shooting like yeah, I'm sure my grandkids will be embarrassed,
25:36
Speaker 2: but I can get away with it right now?
25:37
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, No one gave it. It was like almost expected.
25:41
Speaker 1: It seemed like yeah, and the RNC wasn't just keeping
25:47
Speaker 1: this affair quiet. Phillips was also an outspoken supporter of
25:52
Speaker 1: Germany in World War One and sought to bring Harding
25:55
Speaker 1: around to her point of view. She hounded Harding throughout
25:59
Speaker 1: his Senate viatorial career about his votes and positions, sending
26:03
Speaker 1: newspaper clippings that demonstrated her strong opposition to America's anti
26:07
Speaker 1: German stance.
26:08
Speaker 2: I've heard of a lobbyist, but this sounds like a throbbyist. Yeah.
26:15
Speaker 2: Let me send you this newspaper article on about why
26:17
Speaker 2: you know we should be sympathetic to the armies of
26:20
Speaker 2: Germany and World War One, And then I'm going to
26:22
Speaker 2: include a mimeograph of my cooter. No, a Daguerio type
26:27
Speaker 2: of my butthole.
26:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what they had back then, the garyotypes.
26:32
Speaker 2: Yeah.
26:33
Speaker 1: By the time Harding was elected president in nineteen twenty, though,
26:37
Speaker 1: all these worries about Phillip's German sympathies seem to have
26:40
Speaker 1: gone away. There's actually a ticket to the inauguration ceremony
26:45
Speaker 1: in her name, and the affair had ended. But Harding
26:48
Speaker 1: continued to see Phillips socially and even in private. His
26:51
Speaker 1: latest January nineteen twenty two Harding asked Carrey's brother to
26:54
Speaker 1: tell her that he would be here all this month
26:56
Speaker 1: and would be able to see her anytime, except also,
27:00
Speaker 1: I'll be dead soon. He added. A book released in
27:03
Speaker 1: two thousand and nine contained some of the letters, with
27:05
Speaker 1: the salacious parts were dacted. Yeah, that's shitty books, author
27:09
Speaker 1: Jim robinall.
27:10
Speaker 2: I guess that guy just hates selling books.
27:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly hates fun. The book's author, Jim Robinolt, made
27:17
Speaker 1: a strong case for the theory that Phillips was a spy,
27:20
Speaker 1: building on the FBI investigations of Phillips and her husband
27:24
Speaker 1: and scouring the letters for clues to her pro German activities.
27:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, are you going to write that incode while you're
27:31
Speaker 2: talking about what you're going to do to his nuts?
27:33
Speaker 2: You know?
27:34
Speaker 1: Like, so, let's get into the actual conspiracy, Warren Harding.
27:37
Speaker 2: Does van Jizmark. I've been working on that for twenty minutes,
27:42
Speaker 2: and I was very anti claimactic.
27:44
Speaker 1: Now I feel like it was worth the wait. Okay, so, oh.
27:47
Speaker 2: We're skipping over the masturbating calling your name.
27:50
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, there's if you go to New
27:53
Speaker 1: York Times has an article with all of the letters.
27:57
Speaker 1: Warren Harding wrote, it was posted July thirteenth, twenty fourteen,
28:03
Speaker 1: and uh, it's got poetry. There's some passages where he
28:08
Speaker 1: talks about masturbating to her while calling her names.
28:12
Speaker 2: So much creepier. You know, you can just you could
28:14
Speaker 2: say the name in the head, you know, when you're
28:16
Speaker 2: creating your own ye little movie.
28:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's and you could also just I feel like,
28:21
Speaker 1: just leave it at I was masturbating to you and
28:24
Speaker 1: maybe not even tell her the calling out your name, yeah,
28:27
Speaker 1: because that's.
28:27
Speaker 2: Not hiding like Florence Florence.
28:33
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start calling out Florence's name when I'm masterbate.
28:36
Speaker 2: Are you Are you cheating with a grandmother at a munch? Wait?
28:41
Speaker 2: I thought you had a new shawl.
28:43
Speaker 1: So let's get to the conspiracy Warren Harding died either
28:47
Speaker 1: at seven ten, seven twenty or seven point thirty on
28:51
Speaker 1: August second, nineteen twenty three. Rumors started spreading right away.
28:56
Speaker 1: For one thing, no one present at the time of
28:59
Speaker 1: his day could give the correct time of death. No
29:02
Speaker 1: one seemed to be sure who was on hand in
29:04
Speaker 1: the San Francisco hotel room where he died. Most of
29:07
Speaker 1: all the four physicians who had been caring for Harding
29:11
Speaker 1: for the previous week, could not agree on the cause
29:14
Speaker 1: of death. It had something to do with his heart
29:17
Speaker 1: or maybe it was a stroke, which again not what
29:20
Speaker 1: you want to hear from the professionals.
29:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it seems to me like people just hated
29:26
Speaker 2: this guy so much and no one really gave a
29:28
Speaker 2: shit that They're just like, okay, good riddance, Like that
29:31
Speaker 2: seems kind of sketchy whatever.
29:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the I think the world was just kind
29:36
Speaker 1: of happy to be done.
29:37
Speaker 2: Yeah with this.
29:39
Speaker 1: Take of a president dudge the billet there, poor guy
29:44
Speaker 1: would suck to be that shitty at your job.
29:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, you would hope that even if you're like,
29:48
Speaker 2: you know, working in the mail room somewhere, be like,
29:50
Speaker 2: oh man, you know, we always talked to the break
29:52
Speaker 2: room about Game of Thrones and it was pretty superficial conversation.
29:55
Speaker 2: But imagine being the leader of the free world and
29:57
Speaker 2: people are like, man.
29:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, whatever, now we have two. Isn't there a second?
30:01
Speaker 2: I'll tell you when he died too late?
30:03
Speaker 1: Right. On the other hand, it could have been both.
30:08
Speaker 1: It could have been his heart and a stroke, which
30:11
Speaker 1: might have been exacerbated by the tomaine poisoning.
30:14
Speaker 2: Or maybe he was having a stroke thinking about Florence
30:16
Speaker 2: and then all.
30:16
Speaker 1: Of a sudden having a stroke and then he had
30:20
Speaker 1: a stroke for real. Tomaine poisoning apparently, is what we
30:24
Speaker 1: used to call food poisoning. I don't know why that changed.
30:27
Speaker 2: I think I think we nailed it through. I think
30:28
Speaker 2: food poisoning is a little better.
30:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little more accurate. Adding to the confusion
30:33
Speaker 1: and mystery, there was no autopsy this part's great Missus
30:36
Speaker 1: Harding would not permit it. Within an hour of his death,
30:40
Speaker 1: he was embalmed, rouged, powdered, dressed, and in his casket.
30:46
Speaker 1: By morning, he was on a train headed back to Washington,
30:49
Speaker 1: d C. Good rits, you corrupt piece of.
30:52
Speaker 2: Shit, dude. So that how ready to go? Is the
30:55
Speaker 2: White House fucking mortuary team? It just on call, like
31:00
Speaker 2: firefight and they're like, go, go go, today's the day,
31:02
Speaker 2: just like a NASCAR pitker like yeah, that's crazy, okay,
31:09
Speaker 2: if the American flag draped and we're good to go.
31:12
Speaker 1: Although he had a well known high blood pressure issue
31:16
Speaker 1: and an enlarged heart, he also had countless enemies, most
31:19
Speaker 1: of his own doing so, there were lots of lots
31:22
Speaker 1: of suspicion in the air after he died. He he
31:26
Speaker 1: smoked a lot, he ate a lot, he drank a lot.
31:29
Speaker 1: He didn't really exercise. He played golf and fucked yeah,
31:32
Speaker 1: and then played poker again.
31:34
Speaker 2: Remind you of anybody exactly.
31:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was short of breath all the time, and
31:39
Speaker 1: for a considerable amount of time he had to sleep
31:42
Speaker 1: propped up on pillows in order to breathe. During his
31:44
Speaker 1: final trip west, his lips were often blue. So there
31:48
Speaker 1: is a good chance this guy just died.
31:51
Speaker 2: But also if if if I want to kill a
31:53
Speaker 2: guy and I'm seeing like this dude is a fat
31:55
Speaker 2: tube of shit. He's got to sleep vertically. He has
31:58
Speaker 2: sleep apneat. You know, he's always eating bacon in with
32:01
Speaker 2: one hand and a Marlboro on the other hand. I'm like, yeah,
32:03
Speaker 2: no one's gonna fucking nobody likes him. Do not investigate,
32:06
Speaker 2: you know, Yeah, it kind of it sets it up
32:08
Speaker 2: to be a perfect crime.
32:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like, why I look into it? We know
32:12
Speaker 1: what happened.
32:13
Speaker 2: Yeah.
32:14
Speaker 1: So in the summer of nineteen twenty three, barely two
32:18
Speaker 1: years into his first term, multiple members of his administration
32:22
Speaker 1: are under investigation, most notably Albert fall, Harding departs on
32:26
Speaker 1: this tour of the West and Alaska, hoping that it
32:30
Speaker 1: will kind of rehab his image, and he and his
32:33
Speaker 1: wife Florence set out on their tour, accompanied by two doctors.
32:36
Speaker 1: Charles Sawyer, a homeopathic physician because we didn't know anything
32:41
Speaker 1: back then, yeah, and doctor Joel Boone, a naval officer
32:44
Speaker 1: assigned to the White House. Sawyer, or Doc Sawyer, as
32:49
Speaker 1: he was known in the Harding family, was a homeopathic physician,
32:53
Speaker 1: considered a quack by some. He believed in herbal preparations, purgatives, laxatives,
32:59
Speaker 1: and other oak remedies. Doctor Joel Boone, who was kept
33:03
Speaker 1: at a distance from the jealous and possessive Sawyer, uh,
33:08
Speaker 1: you know, was just a regular doctor who believed in
33:10
Speaker 1: regular medical shit, which was also probably was.
33:13
Speaker 2: Also pretty like no, you don't feed him fucking herbs.
33:17
Speaker 2: Put the leeches on it.
33:18
Speaker 1: Like a leech on his tongue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'll
33:20
Speaker 1: take care of it. Well.
33:21
Speaker 2: I mean, if this doctor is well known in the
33:23
Speaker 2: Harding family, like maybe the wife's like, look, this guy's
33:25
Speaker 2: been fucking around on me. The country's going to shit.
33:27
Speaker 2: I don't want to deal with this anymore. Frankly, I
33:29
Speaker 2: want to get my money and go write a book
33:30
Speaker 2: and fucking live up the rest of my life on
33:32
Speaker 2: a ranch with some new guy. Can you just put
33:35
Speaker 2: some rice in those herbs and then we'll just just
33:40
Speaker 2: keep fucking the real doctor away and then call it
33:43
Speaker 2: a day.
33:44
Speaker 1: By all accounts, the trip was successful, except for the
33:47
Speaker 1: part where his lips were blue all the time.
33:49
Speaker 2: Apparently, Well, I mean, go to Alaska and keep your
33:51
Speaker 2: lips pink.
33:52
Speaker 1: I mean that's yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Uh.
33:55
Speaker 1: Until all of that changed in late July, when Harding
33:59
Speaker 1: fell ill from his doctor said food poisoning from a
34:02
Speaker 1: crab dinner in Vancouver. When they arrived in San Francisco
34:06
Speaker 1: on August second, Harding was immediately put in bed.
34:09
Speaker 2: It was truly the darkest lobster fest this nation has
34:12
Speaker 2: ever done.
34:15
Speaker 1: Florence had been reading Harding an article. Most counts say
34:19
Speaker 1: she left the room and went across the hall to
34:22
Speaker 1: her suite, so they had separate room. Well, I guess
34:24
Speaker 1: if he was sick. Yeah, A nurse came into a
34:26
Speaker 1: minister Harding his medicine and either found him already dead
34:30
Speaker 1: or walked in at the precise moment that he died.
34:33
Speaker 1: Which one of those is way cooler than the other. Oh. Yeah,
34:36
Speaker 1: Like I want to walk in and see the death rattle.
34:39
Speaker 1: That's rad.
34:39
Speaker 2: You want to see the light leave the eyes? Yeah, yeah,
34:41
Speaker 2: because I think then that's when you can see a dementtor. Right.
34:44
Speaker 1: Yeah. I want to try and catch that soul in
34:46
Speaker 1: a whip cream container, use it to haunt others.
34:50
Speaker 2: Wait, wait, and real quick, I want to test that
34:52
Speaker 2: seven Grahams thing. Have you heard that, like the Seven Grams?
34:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a Will Smith movie about it.
34:57
Speaker 2: Oh?
34:58
Speaker 1: Is it Will Smith? Yeah, it's Will Smith.
35:00
Speaker 2: If it's not, you're in trouble.
35:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. The nurse sent for doctor Boone, he does
35:05
Speaker 1: not remember Sawyer being in the room. In fact, Boone
35:07
Speaker 1: claimed that Harding was already laid out with a sheet
35:09
Speaker 1: over him by the time he arrived, but Herbert Hoover
35:12
Speaker 1: said Sawyer was there, noting that Sawyer appeared to be
35:15
Speaker 1: lying on the bed with Harding. That's weird regardless of
35:20
Speaker 1: who was where. When four doctors signed a statement swearing
35:23
Speaker 1: that he died of a heart attack or a stroke,
35:26
Speaker 1: who can be sure, we're just doctors.
35:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, and there's no he was just immediately embalmed. They're like,
35:32
Speaker 2: all right, let's get him out of here.
35:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, good enough for science.
35:34
Speaker 2: Hey, someone get the chief justice. We got to swear
35:36
Speaker 2: on the other guy, thank god.
35:38
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's kind of where this conspiracy theory comes from,
35:41
Speaker 1: because no one can really agree on when he died
35:44
Speaker 1: or how he died. Doctor Sawyer ends up dying very
35:49
Speaker 1: nearly the same way as Harding while Florence Harding was
35:53
Speaker 1: visiting his home, and once that happened, the theory becomes, well,
35:58
Speaker 1: maybe Florence poised and Warren Harding and then poison Sawyer
36:03
Speaker 1: also because he was her accomplice at the.
36:06
Speaker 2: Very least, the writers of House of Cards of the
36:08
Speaker 2: Harding family some money.
36:10
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, Florence definitely had motive. One book postulated that
36:14
Speaker 1: she killed him to save his reputation. That's where the
36:18
Speaker 1: rumor that she burned all his dogs.
36:20
Speaker 2: How much of a fu you have to be to
36:21
Speaker 2: save your reputation, you have to die exactly. It's like
36:24
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson, like he was probably probably wasn't gonna shake
36:27
Speaker 2: the whole kid fucking thing, but yeah, I know that
36:28
Speaker 2: he's dead, Like okay, yeah, let's go see this is
36:30
Speaker 2: it in theaters.
36:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true, though he was never gonna shake that, no, Florence.
36:36
Speaker 1: There's also the possibility he was killed or ordered to
36:39
Speaker 1: be killed by a member of his administration to keep
36:41
Speaker 1: him from testifying or being investigated for corruption. During that
36:45
Speaker 1: last trip, Harding asked Hoover whether a president who became
36:49
Speaker 1: aware of corruption in his own administration had an obligation
36:53
Speaker 1: obligation to expose it. How stupid was this guy? Like
36:57
Speaker 1: he asked that question.
36:58
Speaker 2: Asking for a friend. If you get soonempregnant and you
37:02
Speaker 2: don't have abortion money, what should you tell your girlfriend
37:04
Speaker 2: that you need the loan for ran? Like?
37:08
Speaker 1: Idiots? Yeah, it seems like this guy just got sick
37:11
Speaker 1: and someone was like it's time.
37:14
Speaker 2: Well, thank god Herbert Hoover did a great job running
37:16
Speaker 2: the country after you exactly.
37:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, out of the pot into the frying well.
37:21
Speaker 2: What's one nice thing about reading things like this is like, Okay,
37:23
Speaker 2: we've been through this before, like you know, so we've
37:25
Speaker 2: been awful forever. Yeah, we got it. Okay, instead of Russians,
37:28
Speaker 2: it's Germany and World War One, and instead of you know,
37:30
Speaker 2: Trump hotels being sold for ludicrous sums of money to
37:34
Speaker 2: foreign foreign entities, and then you're having the money laundered
37:36
Speaker 2: through the United States government. It's like, oh yeah, there's
37:38
Speaker 2: a rock and Wyoming and we're just gonna give the
37:40
Speaker 2: oil that Sinclair, which is, by the way, the official
37:43
Speaker 2: gas station of towns that run on meth exactly.
37:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, Saint Clair.
37:47
Speaker 2: I saw a bunch of Sinclair's in Montana and you're like, okay,
37:50
Speaker 2: that makes sense to this is scandal money because guys
37:52
Speaker 2: are out of the fucking way.
37:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, you see a Saint Clair, don't stop too long, no, no
37:56
Speaker 1: matter how quaint it looks.
37:58
Speaker 2: I once had to try to buy a phone card.
37:59
Speaker 2: It is Claire gas station among the lowest moments because
38:03
Speaker 2: the hotel we were staying at first of all, did
38:05
Speaker 2: not have like key cards. They just had a physical key.
38:08
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I picked up at the bar I was
38:10
Speaker 2: performing at, and then I tried to get on the internet.
38:12
Speaker 2: No Wi Fi they have. If you have an ethan
38:14
Speaker 2: in a cable, you can get the dial up. You
38:16
Speaker 2: can use the dial up unless you have a phone
38:18
Speaker 2: cores a phone card.
38:20
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's insane.
38:21
Speaker 2: It's pretty brutal.
38:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, traveling is a bit so fuck you.
38:24
Speaker 2: Warren G. Harding Conny Spaden, professional anecdote teller.
38:30
Speaker 1: So uh there is uh okay. So this is what
38:35
Speaker 1: Herbert Hoover said of the uh that incident where he
38:39
Speaker 1: asked him the question. One day after lunch, when we
38:42
Speaker 1: were a few days out, Harding asked me to come
38:46
Speaker 1: to his cabin. He plumped at me the question which
38:50
Speaker 1: sidebar I have never heard that plumped at me.
38:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, that, I mean, that's that's what did he do?
38:57
Speaker 2: The truffle shuffle and quo I.
38:59
Speaker 1: Need to know if that's a thing we still get
39:01
Speaker 1: to say. He plumped at me the question, if you
39:04
Speaker 1: knew of a great scandal in our administration, would you,
39:08
Speaker 1: for the good of the country and the party, exposed
39:11
Speaker 1: a public he or would you bury it?
39:13
Speaker 2: May or may not be a good Warren G. Harding impression.
39:15
Speaker 2: There's really no way to know.
39:16
Speaker 1: Who knows no way to know. My natural reply was
39:19
Speaker 1: publish it and at least get credit for integrity on
39:22
Speaker 1: your side.
39:23
Speaker 2: Well, then let me plump you this.
39:26
Speaker 1: He remarked that this method might be politically dangerous. I
39:29
Speaker 1: asked for more particulars. He said that he had received
39:33
Speaker 1: some rumors of irregularities centering around assistant attorney General Smith
39:39
Speaker 1: in connection with cases in the Department of Justice. He
39:42
Speaker 1: had followed the matter up and finally sent for Smith
39:45
Speaker 1: after a painful session. He told Smith that he would
39:48
Speaker 1: be arrested in the morning. Smith went home, burned all
39:51
Speaker 1: his papers, and committed suicide.
39:53
Speaker 2: Wow, he was really plumping some tough questions.
39:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, he plumped the shit out of him.
39:57
Speaker 2: He plumped a couple of mistresses too. Hey, O fuck
40:01
Speaker 2: do you have to I mean, I guess if it's
40:02
Speaker 2: like this or like disgracing your family and life in prison,
40:05
Speaker 2: I kind of get it.
40:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, but the I wonder if Harding saw that coming, like, oh,
40:12
Speaker 1: I better warn this guy. Yeah, like you had to
40:14
Speaker 1: know he might just go home and commit suicide.
40:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, he might go Vince Foster.
40:18
Speaker 1: Yeah. Harding probably handed him a gun. Enjoy your nights.
40:22
Speaker 2: Hey, here's your Christmas bonus.
40:25
Speaker 1: Use it wisely, spend it all in one place.
40:28
Speaker 2: Where's the serial number? There isn't one. Get to work.
40:31
Speaker 1: So yeah, he goes home and commits suicide. Most people believe, though,
40:36
Speaker 1: that Harding was talking about Albert Fall, and Fall eventually
40:40
Speaker 1: only received one year for his part in the scandal
40:42
Speaker 1: due to a lack of concrete evidence, but there was
40:45
Speaker 1: also his corrupt Attorney General Daughtry. Could Harding have been
40:49
Speaker 1: talking about another undiscovered scandal. He was accused by opponents
40:53
Speaker 1: of the administration of having been complicit in the Teapot
40:55
Speaker 1: Dome affair by failing to intervene, he was cleared of wrongdoing.
41:00
Speaker 1: It could have been as mistress Carrie Phillips and all
41:02
Speaker 1: her ties to Russian or German spy ring. Maybe his
41:06
Speaker 1: doctor was just really incompetent. We will never know exactly
41:10
Speaker 1: how or why Warren G. Harding died. We can just
41:13
Speaker 1: all agree probably for the best.
41:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll never know, and most people will probably never
41:19
Speaker 2: carry Yeah.
41:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, we went out on a limb just by doing
41:23
Speaker 1: this episode.
41:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we're glad we did it. I will make
41:26
Speaker 2: it my life's work to see that I never think
41:29
Speaker 2: about this again.
41:30
Speaker 1: I will see to it that this is our most
41:32
Speaker 1: downloaded episode of all time.
41:34
Speaker 2: No, I think it will be.
41:35
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bring I'm gonna bring Harding hysteria back. You
41:38
Speaker 1: remember Harding hysteria.
41:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, all the hard hats out there. Yeah, make America
41:43
Speaker 2: corrupt suck again.
41:45
Speaker 1: So that's the that's the conspiracy surrounding Warren Harding.
41:50
Speaker 2: This is one of those ones where it's like you
41:51
Speaker 2: can't there's no clear line of what happened, but it
41:54
Speaker 2: was definitely something.
41:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a book that came out a few
41:57
Speaker 1: years after that really pinned the blame on his wife,
42:01
Speaker 1: but that book was eventually kind of discredited. So yeah,
42:05
Speaker 1: it's one where it's it's like, I hope it.
42:07
Speaker 2: Was the wife. She deserves to kill the president and
42:09
Speaker 2: then just you.
42:09
Speaker 1: Know, yeah he had that coming. Yeah for sure, no
42:13
Speaker 1: matter who did it, he kind of had it coming. Yeah,
42:16
Speaker 1: but it's this is like this.
42:17
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't want it to be one of
42:18
Speaker 2: those other cabinet members that got away with it, you know,
42:20
Speaker 2: more or less like, Okay, that's not good. But if
42:23
Speaker 2: the wife did it, then she just lives happily ever after.
42:25
Speaker 1: Badass. Yeah that's dope. Yeah, this is kind of like
42:27
Speaker 1: the Kurt Cobaine thing, where the investigation into the death
42:32
Speaker 1: initially was so sloppy and poorly done that there's almost
42:38
Speaker 1: no chance of ever really finding out.
42:41
Speaker 2: I really think that, like, uh, celebrity coroners are in
42:44
Speaker 2: bed with conspiracy websites and they just give us some
42:47
Speaker 2: of your Amazon click through money, and we'll just do
42:49
Speaker 2: this thing real quick and dirty.
42:51
Speaker 1: You know, probably that wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, all right,
42:55
Speaker 1: should we get out of here?
42:56
Speaker 2: I think?
42:57
Speaker 1: So? What do we have to plug?
42:59
Speaker 2: Going on Mean Boys podcast on iTunes. It's the only
43:03
Speaker 2: good scripted comedy podcast in the world, the only good one,
43:06
Speaker 2: only good one. I've not heard another good one.
43:08
Speaker 1: No, it's surprising how many podcasts are really fucking bad. Well,
43:13
Speaker 1: even the ones that are way at the top of
43:14
Speaker 1: the charts. It's like, have you listened to other podcasts people?
43:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're not good. You're doing the right things. Stick
43:19
Speaker 2: with them popstick with Mean Boys. Yeah, because it's like,
43:23
Speaker 2: are you not cognizant of the fact that people are
43:24
Speaker 2: listening to this ideally to be entertained in some way.
43:28
Speaker 1: And to stay awake while driving. Yeah, Like kick up
43:31
Speaker 1: the monotone a little bit, just you.
43:34
Speaker 2: Know, even if it falls flat, failing can be funny too. Yeah,
43:38
Speaker 2: for you, don't take yourself too seriously, fucking try Yeah, God,
43:41
Speaker 2: just plump yourself that while you're recording.
43:45
Speaker 1: Plump yourself this question before you record.
43:48
Speaker 2: Plump not what y'all country could do for you, but
43:51
Speaker 2: ask instead what you could do for your plump tree.
43:54
Speaker 1: Ah. So yeah, listen to mean Boys. Subscribe to the
43:56
Speaker 1: rest of the on Pops podcasts on patreon com slash
44:00
Speaker 1: on Pops. It's five dollars a month. That's cheapest.
44:03
Speaker 2: Shit, twelve episodes a week that are better than ninety
44:06
Speaker 2: percent of what's on iTunes.
44:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, at least absolutely, And uh, you have a show
44:10
Speaker 1: coming up in or will this Oh that will have
44:14
Speaker 1: passed never mind. We have a show August twenty third
44:18
Speaker 1: on Pops at the alex Theater. That's August twenty third,
44:22
Speaker 1: and then bi weekly from there, so September sixth, September twentieth,
44:25
Speaker 1: Connor's on the September twentieth show. All gonna be good shows,
44:29
Speaker 1: So come out to that. And uh, I think that's it.
44:32
Speaker 1: This is fun. Yeah, good times. Let's get the fuck
44:35
Speaker 1: out of here, Connor say goodbye, goodbye, goodbye everybody.
44:38
Speaker 2: You love it brow