Summary
➡ The text is about a person who was adopted and had to face many challenges, including living in the shadow of his famous adoptive father, Ronald Reagan. Despite this, he carved his own path, becoming a successful radio host. He also had a strong bond with his biological siblings and managed to stay away from the drug scene in Hollywood. He faced criticism and ridicule, but he persevered and made a name for himself in the radio industry.
➡ The text is about a talk show host who had the opportunity to interview significant figures like Charles Carroll and Mikhail Gorbachev. He shares his experiences with Gorbachev, who became almost a family friend, visiting his father’s ranch and attending family events. He also discusses a movie where Dennis Quaid played his father, Ronald Reagan, and his own book, “Twice Adopted,” which details his journey of faith and personal struggles, including being sexually molested as a child.
➡ A man recounts his traumatic childhood experience of being molested and how it affected his life. Despite his struggles, he managed to achieve great things, including setting five world records in powerboat racing and becoming an honorary member of the 94th Congress. He also discusses his relationship with his father, Ronald Reagan, and the challenges his father faced as a Republican politician. The man draws parallels between his father’s presidency and Trump’s, noting that Republican leaders are often attacked and how they handle these attacks is crucial.
➡ The speaker discusses the likability and strength of his father, who was able to unite people with his personality, even those who disagreed with him politically. He also compares his father’s situation to Trump’s, highlighting the importance of understanding history to avoid repeating past mistakes. The speaker criticizes the lack of unity within the Republican Party and emphasizes the need for cooperation between political leaders. Lastly, he shares a personal anecdote about his father’s humor and resilience after being shot.
➡ The speaker emphasizes the importance of maintaining relationships despite political differences, using his own family as an example. He recalls how his father, despite having different political views, still welcomed his children to the dinner table. He also shares a story about his father’s approach to diplomacy, highlighting the need for finding common ground rather than focusing on disagreements. The speaker concludes by promoting his Twitter account and the Reagan Legacy Foundation.
Transcript
Mike, thank you so much for joining me. It’s great to be with you. We’re going to go back and see it a second time also, because, as you know, at the big event at chinese theater, there was a lot of people. So I was talking to a lot of people afterwards, before and so on, and the movie. So I want to go back and see it. You know, Ashley wants to see it. Joe wants to see it. My son wants to see it. His wife wants to see it again. Kind of pieces it. Oh. Because there’s a lot of things in the movie.
It’s good to go back and see it twice, because you do miss things in the movie, and it’s good to see, oh, connect all. All the dots. And I was. I was happy to. I was happy to go through it. I mean, because I lived so much of it. I lived it, you know, back in the 1940s, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties. All through that time, I kind of lived it, you know, it was really hard for me to watch, you know, with my mother sitting there. Cause she has dementia. And Penny told me, the lady, my friend who played Nancy Reagan, your mother, told me, better prepare for the ending.
I was like, what is she talking about? I got to prepare for the ending. Whatever she was. It might be kind of rough on you. And I’m like, now that nothing’s rough on me. And then, boom. It was like. It hit me like a cinder block that last ride on the horse. And I’m just staring at my mother in a wheelchair. I look over at my dad. He’s crying. And I never see my dad cry. And it just. It really impacted me, man. And I just want to say that I feel for you, and I’m going through it now.
Well, don’t feel bad, because we were crying, too. I mean, we. We were crying, too. And the ending with him on the last ride was phenomenal, the way they, in fact, did that and so much of that, when people see the movie, understand, the dialogue is dead on. That actually happened with Nancy. She wouldn’t tell dad, and. And dad knew. He instinctively knew when he was told, you know, we can’t do this anymore. He instinctively knew that. And what’s great is young America’s foundation bought the ranch in 1998. And it’s exactly the way it was the last day my dad was there.
When you walk into the ranch house, the soaps in the dish, the clothes are in the closet, all those things, it has not changed since he left in 1998 because he didn’t know he wasn’t going back because of Alzheimer’s. And so they kept it the way it was. And so what happens is they use as a fundraising tool to raise money to put people on high school and college campuses for speaking. That’s what they do. In fact, I’m speaking to 260 college kids at the ranch center in Santa Barbara, I think, October 16. So I do a lot of those things.
When did your father pass away? How long ago has it been? 2004. Wow. So January 5. And he was in his nineties, correct? 94, I think he was, yeah, 94. Did he have Alzheimer’s? For like ten years, was it? Or how long. Yeah, yeah, he announced it. The letter you saw was 1994. And so ten years, you know, after the letter and what Nancy had to go through and you couldn’t show that in the movie, is the fact that here she has Ronald Reagan as her husband. Iconic. You couldn’t put him in a facility because you got these things called cell phones, and people would take pictures and they’d be on the Internet, they’d be everywhere.
And she did not want that to happen to her husband, our father. And so she had to keep him at home and have doctors and nurses at the house, which is not cheap either. Uh, to be able to take care of him during, during those ten years, if you will. So it was really tough on her. The part that really. That got me, or that the initial part that set off the avalanche of tears was the fact that he looked at the White House and the little snow globe thing in the. I guess it was in the fishbowl.
And he says, this means something to me. And I thought to myself, oh, my gosh, like, president of the United States. And he just remembers, that means something to me. And he couldn’t put it together. I mean, that. That hit pretty hard. Yeah, it. You know, I’ve told people about my story with my dad during Alzheimer’s, and, you know, when I eulogized him, you know, what did I say? You know, the hug. My dad and I got to know each other through hugging. You know, back in 1990s, I had never told him I loved him, but I remember he never told me he loved me.
I said, you know, if you only get dad to say he loves me, I’ll really. I’ll be a good kid. I’ll serve the Lord and what have you. And a voice came to me, next time you see your dad, hug him. And so when I saw my dad, I would interview him on his book in american life. And he came down to San Diego, where I was doing a radio show, and I got up and I put my arms around him, and I. I hugged him and said, I love you. Dad. Scared the hell out of him.
He looked secret service, I’m being attacked by my own child. And he said. He said, well, I love you, too. I thought to myself, that’s all I ever had to do was say, I love you. And so we began hugging each other from that point in time, about 1991, and we would hug each other. And when he finally got to a point or got to a point where he couldn’t say my name, I think I was the only one in the family not concerned with that. Because when he saw me, he would open his arms to hug me, and I would hug him back.
And that’s what we did all the time up until his death. Did it affect you more? You. You were adopted, correct? Did that affect you more that he couldn’t say, I love you? Did he not say, I love you to any of the kids? Because my dad has a hard time showing his feelings as well. He. I think it has to go back to those type of men back then. My dad has a really hard time showing his feelings. The fact that he was crying in the theater, believe me, was a huge thing for me, because looking at my dad wipe his tears, showing the funeral services for your dad and all that and what he was going through, I.
I knew what my dad was thinking is exactly what I was thinking, and he suppresses a lot of stuff. Do you think that’s what it is? I think it’s generational, that generation. They show it in different ways. You just have to figure out what they’re. How they’re showing it. Uh, dad showed it by taking me out to the ranch every Saturday morning, picking me up and putting me the right front seat of the car and driving out to the ranch, riding horses, shooting ground squirrels, swimming, all the things I do with my dad any given Saturday morning.
So that’s the way he showed it. But as an eight year old, nine year old child, you’re not into interpreting. So, you know, they don’t say it. You want to hear it. They’re doing it in their own way. So I think a lot of it is generational. I think being adopted might be to an extra point because you wake up one morning and found out somebody gave you away, and you’re trying to figure out, why did somebody give me away? What did I do? And you have to start dealing with that. But, you know, everybody has issues, and that’s why I figured out everybody’s got issues.
I have a ton. Yeah. And so, yeah, my wife said something to me a long time ago. She said, don’t let someone else’s attitude determine yours for the remainder of your day. And so many of us do that. We let something else determine. My dad said he didn’t love me, so I’m gonna go out and fail just to prove that, you know, that was a bad thing. You know, I was. I was adopted. My parents didn’t want me, and they gave me away. So you know what? I’m going to fail and go from there. And that’s what’s really sad.
But I have met my birth brother. I have a birth brother. We share the same mother and a birth sister. We share the same father. My brother Barry lives in Columbus, Ohio. So Saturdays is game day college football, because if you live in Columbus, Ohio, there is nothing else to do. You’re watching college football. So we’re talking every Saturday, and we’re great friends. And he was a writer for Laverne and Shirley when he was 21 years old. Oh, my gosh. I remember that show right around the corner. Right around the corner. And he walked away from Hollywood back when he was 21 because drugs were coming in.
He said, I have a chance. Put it up my nose or leave. And so he ended up leaving. Wow. So let me ask you this. I mean, did you have a lot of accomplishments and accolades yourself? I mean, did. Did. Did. Having your dad, Ronald Reagan, being adopted and having the father, Ronald Reagan, the president of the United States, it almost seems like you’re forever going to live in that shadow. But you said no, and you, you. You trailblaze your own way, and you did. You have your own accomplishments. Like I said, you were number one in the afternoon rush limo was number one in the morning.
You were number one in the afternoon in the nineties talk show hosts. I mean, you were. You were a legend. I mean. I mean, I told my parents, I’m gonna be talking to Mike Reagan, you still love. I used to listen to all the time, you know, that type of stuff. And I mean, you, you made your own way. But it’s, but again, it’s not the easiest thing. You know, everything you do, people say it’s only because if your parents were, like, when I started in radio, Tom, like us, I never like this. I used to listen like us.
When I started a radio, Tom Lycus went off on me. Heres another rich kid worth the money. Heres another kid with a famous name. Only reason hes getting the radio is because of his father. And I go, ill give you that. Okay. But 27 years later, and when I went off the air in 2009, like on the air, did another monologue congratulating me, how surprised he was I lasted, how good I was. So it was great to hear Tom Lycus, who railed on me back when I started, come out and apologize when, in fact, I left because of the job that, in fact, I did.
But again, you start that year, you know, people talk about my dad, but was great about the premiere where, you know, chinese theater and my mom has her handprints and footprints there. Jane Wyman was my mother. So there’s only two of us ever born or raised in a family where the father would become president United States and the mother become an Academy Award winning actress. And that was just my sister Maureen and myself. No one else has lived that life. So you start to understand why you can go out and give a great speech somewhere and you go to Q and A.
And the first question is, how was it to be raised by Ronald Reagan? You kind of get that, you know? So were you like, I guess, were you competitive with Rush Limbaugh or were you guys friends? I mean, did you guys get along? I mean, you guys were probably neck to neck, right? No, I mean, no Rush. Nobody was neck and neck with Rush. I mean, Rush was so big, so very, very big. But Rush, I have a foundation, regular legacy foundation. And Rush wrote $100,000 check to it back GosheN early 2000, maybe late 1990s, for what we do with providing scholarships to men and women to serve on the USS Ronald Reagan Bric project in Normandy, France, and other things that we do.
So he really supported in that way. But the only time I met him is when I met him down in Florida, told him what we were doing, and then I was, he didn’t say he would give anything. Also, I got a check for $100,000 from Rush Limbaugh for the foundation, which was really terrific. And great of him. But, you know, Rush again, like Ronald Reagan. Like Elvis Presley, like that. I gotta go through it. You become so famous, you can’t do anything. I mean, you have to rent golf courses so you could go out and play around to golf without people bothering.
And I grew up with Jay Wyman, Ronald Reagan. Where I never went to a football game. I never went to a baseball game. You didn’t have, like, a normal upbringing, really. I know you. You were in boarding school, right? You went to boarding school. Yeah, that’s. Yeah. Because my parents were actors, so a lot of us with the boarding school, and so, you know, Sunday night, you were boarding school. You came home on Friday or Saturday afternoon. Can you explain any, like, for me and my. What is boarding school exactly? Because when. Because jail told me about boring school.
I was like, jail? Really, jason? Like. Like a military institute? Like, what is it? I would. I wouldn’t know, but I went to boarding school. Went to Chadwick when I was in first grade, second grade, I think I was only regular school about, I think, third grade and fourth, fifth. I went back to boarding school, to a military. St. John’s military academy. We called it St. John’s manager. Alcatraz, run by the Sisters of Mercy. So again, it. Parents. A lot of parents did that. Hollywood parents put their children in those schools because they were acting. They’re on location.
They were at home, and they wanted you to have, you know, they wanted to have the discipline. They would. Wouldn’t be able to do it at home. That now, that’s their thinking process. Your thinking process is my parents are asses that’s sending away. And I would imagine for you, it affected you just as much because you’re adopted in the first place, and then you’re getting sent away for school. It was our generation back then that coined the phrase, we’re only here for the photo. Shit. Okay. I. Because I would imagine, like, you being adopted and then also being sent away from borders, I had to mess with you psychologically, right? You were kind of.
Yeah, because kids. Yeah, because kids would say I was the. I was illegitimate Reagan. I was a bastard. Right? I was referred to as the bastard child. So I hear people being ridiculed in school today, and I said, you think you’re the first ones to be teased in school? You’re the first ones have gone through this in your life. I was referred to as a baftor illegit. I’m still on social media. People still refer to me as the illegitimate Reagan. You should make that your handle. On Twitter. So you go, like, own it. But I was referred to as the bastard.
And that really worked. That was terrible on me because I started. I got to a point. I write my. One of my books. I got to a point. I said, maybe my parents don’t know. Maybe my parents don’t know. I’m a master born out of wedlock. So your mind starts just going through crazy, crazy, crazy stuff. But you know something? I look back and say, hey, my dad did a great job. My mother, my mother. I am the way I am because of my mother. Politically, maybe because of my dad, but I am the way I am because of my mother.
But, like, radio, when I start radio and started doing it, everybody loved Ronald Reagan. So every time somebody asked me a question, because back then, used to take calls, you know, you were kind of considered the alternative media of the nineties, right? I mean, that’s kind of because I remember those talk. The talk shows were that. And then you had, like, coast to coast am. Those were really big. Those were getting really big in the nineties, right. I mean, it would be like what we call today alternative media and the Internet era. But back then, you were the alternative media, correct? Yeah, I was.
Yeah. Yeah, we were. I mean, I was the first one hired by, you know, the big kahuna now on the block, which is I heart now, but it’s been all the operations. And then Russ came on, and Sean and Doctor Laura and all the others, you know, came on board. But it was, you know, it was something that I could do. And again, I got into it having lunch. ABC one day with my wife, and a friend of ours who worked there met George Green. And I was walking out the door, and George said to me, hey, you’ve got a great personality.
Ever thought about doing radio? I said, george, every morning when I wake up, that’s all I think about when nobody’s ever called. Wow. And then he said, well, Michael Jackson, radio talk show host, back on KBC at the time. South African. Yeah. Not the singer. He’s. He’s. No, he’s taken. He’s taken Monday, Tuesday off. You want to sit in for him? And I went, I guess I just stepped in it. I guess I will. Oh, wow. So this kind of. This kind of went organically. Yeah. And my first interview was Charles Carroll on the road with Charles Carroll.
So. Okay, so that was your first interview. But not many people know this. At least the younger generations don’t know this. You actually sat down with Gorbachev, correct? Yeah, we actually did that. Not, not on radio like, we sat down in different events, about two or three different events during the 1990s, because I met him at the ranch. Met him a couple of times in events. He came to your dad’s ranch? Oh, yeah, he was at the ranch. His hat backwards all day long. Nobody would tell him he was wearing his hat backwards, which is kind of funny, but he was there.
I met. They were at the library. So I met him at the library. My kids have a picture with him when they were like very young at the library. So we got, he really became kind of almost a friend of the family in some cases. And so we did a couple of them. But again, in the movie, when you go to the movie, when you see the movie, and he’s sitting down with my father in Reykjavik, and he says to my father in Reykjavik, you know, my grandmother was a Christian, and she used to go to church every day.
And she’d come to the Kremlin and visit me and say, mikhail, I went to church today. I prayed for the atheist. I prayed for you. That story comes from one of those meetings I had with, with Mikhail Gorbachev at an event we did in San Francisco where he dropped that one. Nobody knew until that day. A couple of the Reagan writers were there, fell out of their chairs. They never knew that his, his grandmother was a Christian and prayed for him every day. And where that comes into place is my dad used to end every meeting with, if it’s God’s will.
And I asked him the question, did you see God in the room? And said, I never saw God in the room. And I said, but was there God in your life, in your family’s life? And he told me his wife Raisa’s parents were killed by the Gestapo having iconic photos in their home. His parents had iconic religious photos in their home, too, hidden behind pictures of Lenin and Stalin. Wow. So they lived. But his grandmother was a Christiane who went to church every day. And he told me that story. And so I shared that story with Mark and everybody.
That’s how that got into the movie was that story. So they were really. Ronald, your dad and Gorbachev probably became pretty good friends, right? I mean, he was going to the ranch. Well, he probably liked your dad a lot. Your dad seemed very charismatic, very personable. And I would imagine Gorbachev will really like the guy. That’s, that’s. They got. Hey, listen, they got along. Hadn’t been for Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, Maggie Thatcher, Lech Balenca, Vacohabel, Pope John Paul II, the Berlin Wall would still be up and the cold War would still be raging, if you will.
And so they formed, they formed an alliance, if you will, and in their own way, kind of a friendship. In fact, I was saying to Cameron the other day, my son, I said, you remember, who was sitting behind you at the funeral, he says, mikhail Gorbachev, you know, and when we do did these events, Mikhail Gorbachev and I, his daughter would come because she was running his operation in Russia or San Francisco, wherever it was at the time. And Colleen, my wife, would sit next to her. Gorbachev, when they started giggling at us, he would Gorbachev, his wife, mice my daughter.
They’re the ones giggling. So let me ask you about the movie, because I just, how well did Dennis Quaid play your father? Like, were you pleased with that and be honest, or were you like, ah, pretty good, not too good. But was it, or was it just right on? Nobody’s ever going to be able to do Ronald Reagan as, as Ronald Reagan. They’re just not gonna be able to do it. But I thought desk way did a great job. He did a lot of homework. I mean, I met with him four or five years ago and spoke to him and what have you.
I thought he did a great job. Penelope should get, you know, best supporting actress award for Nancy. She did a great job. John Voight, in telling the story crusader was great. The book’s a great book. And so the way the story is laid out and the way they get into it, I thought was tremendous. But I think John, I mean, Dennis Quaid was terrific doing, playing my father. And that’s a, that’s a tough role. It’s like, you know, what name you play? Doubtless, what’s the name of playing Muhammad Ali? It’s like you, yeah. You stepping into those shoes.
I mean, how do you, yeah, it’s the toughest thing in the world. How do you do it? That’s why maybe it took so long to get this movie off the ground. 1213, 1415 years. You know, I remember the first time we sat down to have lunch, mark and all of us, the producers, you know, get together just listening to my stories and taping my stories, so, and to see them roll out into the movie was terrific. Des did a great job. I was telling you earlier, Penelope asked me at the end, you know, did we treat your mother okay? I said, well, let me tell you a story.
I said, back in the 1940s, you know, they married, they got divorced. I said, 1980s. My dad was on national tv giving a speech. I said, I called my mother. I said, mom, what do you think of dad’s speech? She said, michael, I didn’t like it in 1940s. What makes you think I’d like it today? I said, so you treat her perfectly is what you did. That’s who she was. But yet she voted for him twice. By the way, one of my granddaughter’s name is Penelope also. Oh, wow. Let me ask you this, Mike. I mean, your book, and I’m going to go into the similarities and commonalities of Trump’s era and your dad’s era after this, but I want to talk about your book for just for a second, because twice adopted.
I mean, can you give me, why did you pick that title? What’s the meaning behind that twice adopted really issue? It came to me just when they asked, it was the publisher said, what do you want to name it? I went twice adopted. I just came out of my mouth. And the meaning really is because you read my first book on the outside looking in. I really walked away from God when I went through as a child, I hated everybody. I hated myself, I hated God, I hated my parents. I hated everybody. And twice the doctor, me, I finally, instead of running away from God, I ran to him with the help of my wife, Colleen, with the help of one pastor, Jack Hayford, and what have you, I ran to him.
And I love when people go through, you know, like, what I went through and others went through. And. And, you know, they. They say I accepted Jesus, my lord and savior. If I don’t do it every day, I forget. Right, right. Like, it’s. It’s a daily issue. It’s not like a. Yeah. Like, I did it, and I’m good. It’s like, I do it every day because. Just a lot of stuff. Yeah. And so twice in doctors, I went back. I read back to God instead of running away from goddess. And I’m blessed because I was raised Catholic by my mother.
1954. My mother, my sister and I were all baptized Catholic. My wife now is Catholic. My son’s a Catholic. My daughter in law is Catholic. My daughter’s Catholic. You know, so we’re all. And that’s what mother, my mom wanted. We lost her in 2007. So that’s the name of the book, twice adopted. In the book, you talk about going to boarding school and you. And there are some things that. And I talked to you before we started recording, if you’re comfortable talking about this. Um, you were, uh, molested as a kid, right? I was sexually molested, yeah.
Okay. It wasn’t. It wasn’t a boarding school, was a day camp. Day camp. Day camp. After school program. Okay. And this person, uh, took photos of you and held it as a way to keep you silent, saying that, what, he would air them out or actually, he’s gonna take me to dinner. Mom thought, he’s gonna take me dinner. He took back to his apartment. He takes me up the Santa Monica mountains and taking nude pictures of me. How old was this man? He’s probably his thirties. Forties. Thirties, probably. And you were old. How old are you? Third grade.
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. But that’s normal. That’s not abnormal. That’s normal. You know, twelve years old, you’re like, too old. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so them. It’s normal. He took. Yeah. Took photos of me and then a couple of days later, took me back to his apartment and had a, what I now know as a dark room back at that age, magic. And took a piece of paper and put it in three different pans and came up photo of the mountains. That was magic to me. He said, would you like to do that? I said, yes.
So he put the tongs in my hand, put a piece of paper in the tongs, and then moved my arm from, you know, one pan to the second pan and third pan. What came up was a naked picture of me. And I literally went into shock. And he molested me again. And. But before that, he said, wouldn’t your mother like to have a copy of this? And so I basically, in my mind, ran away from home. And you know what? It’s interesting, because what I finally told my dad on Ashley’s fourth birthday at the ranch. April 12, 1984.
87. This is before he had Alzheimer’s, correct? Or did you tell him while he had Alzheimer’s? No. And it’s easy because my dad. My dad wrote, and I think in his diary, Mike’s back, because it’s now out of my system. I hadn’t told anybody. I was afraid. You know, it takes a child seven times to tell an adult what’s happened to them before the first person even listens. Wow, seven times. And so you were harboring this your entire life? Yeah, from about 19, what, 8th, 3rd grade till 1987. I was afraid I’d say if I told anybody, you know, it’d be all damage that that did to you psychologically had to be just off the charts.
It was. I was. Again, I was using that for failure. Yeah. You know, I was trying to. I was trying to earn my own way. I was doing things, but they didn’t have suppress what I was going through inside. You know, during the eighties, I said five world records in powerboat racing. Yeah. This is my next question. Yeah. A lot of people don’t know this stuff. I was, I was five world records. I was the opera world champion in 1967. So like, like boxing for me, I use those type of things that happen in my life to fuel my achievements.
It really pushed me to do greater things. I went off to be, I always say in my book, I almost named it, bullied into champion because I was bullied so severely. And so many things happen to me as traumatic things happen to me, like you as a kid that I feel like that’s, I took it out of my opponent. So I got, I got to do something to get this done. So. Yeah, like the output world championship in 1967 with Rudy Ramis and what have you together? A boat. We won the race. Nobody thought, what kind of boat racing? So I’m someone like me that knows nothing about boat racing.
What kind of boat? I think sailboats. I think motor. No, it’s power boats. Power boats. So it was like, it was like a 20 foot, you know, v bottom outboard with 312 50 bp mercurys. Wow. So, you know, he run 9100 miles an hour. You set records. Oh, well, that was, I won the, I won the opera championship was good enough. But then in the 1980s when dad became president, everybody thought I was going to be the next Billy Carter. So I had the press after me all the time, and I couldn’t really, I was in the boat business for years selling sea ray boats and what have you.
But now I had Secret Service. So you had six guys with guns around you 24 hours a day. Hard to be doing that. And so I couldn’t really find a job. And so a friend of mine, Larry Smith, who owns Scarab and designed scarab boats, much like the cigarette boats, we were all friends. So why don’t we do a series of long distance races, do it for charitable causes and go after records that have already been set and break them and reset them. And we did that. First thing we did was on the Mississippi River, New Orleans of St.
Louis Olympic Committee raised 500,000 bugs much for the Olympic team. Cystic fibrosis. We did one for them. We did juvenile diabetes, a statue of Liberty foundation. So I set five world records during the 1980s doing that. And that also got into radio about the same time. So, you know, a lot of people don’t know that. No, you have your, you definitely have your all your own accolades and achievements that are, I mean, very impressive. You’re also an honorary member of the 94th Congress. Yeah. Newt Gingrich. How do you become an honorary member? Newt Gingrich named Rush Limbaugh and myself honorary members of the hut.
Of the, you know, that 94th Congress. It was great because Rush wouldn’t talk to the new members. I think at night. I spoke to him in the morning. So we were, I was there when they were all sworn in, what? Back in 1994 when Republicans took over Congress for the first time in like forever. So it was great to be part of the 94th Congress. Got a little pin, all this kind of stuff. And it’s just Rush and I. Only two members, honorary members of 100, 400. The only thing. The only thing I’ve ever been an honorary member of.
I remember when I won my first title, there was a gang. A gang, you know, pastors are like, hey, man, you’re an honorary member now. I was like, no, thank you. I was like, I don’t need that. That’s the only thing I got. I’ll give you. I’ll give you one. You don’t know. Okay? And I don’t have the picture here is at home. However, one of the great things that I like is the fact Muhammad Ali wrote about me in his book. Really? Yeah. Wow. I’m actually doing something with his nephew. Um, we’re working together. And it happened back after I won the opera world championship in 1967.
He was going through all this stuff, name change, don’t not go in the military, all these things. And I was doing an event, and he walked in and I was great heavyweight boxing fan. And at the time. And so I went up to him, introduced myself. I said, I’m Mike Reagan. I. And he introduced himself. And I said, just to let you know, I support you. He says, reagan. He said, you a relation to Ronald Reagan, the governor? I said, yeah, it’s my dad. You know, he rails against me every single day. He doesn’t like me.
I said, well, I don’t care. I like you and I support you what you’re doing. Right? And so he wrote about that meeting in his book, and I thought, that’s really cool. Muhammad Ali wrote about me. That’s cool. I have his autograph. Heck, with Jane Wyman. He wrote about me in his book. Oh, that’s awesome. Wow, man. No, I mean, yeah, I’m actually discussing some, some shows with his nephew right now that we’re going to do. And he has some incredible stories about Muhammad Ali. And I do as well, but, and I never even met the guy and I still have an incredible story, but I’ll save that for another time.
But let me just pivot real quick, Mike, on something that I kind of want to relate, if there is any relation, the Ronald Reagan presidency to what Trump is going through now. And I just want to know your outlook on this and see, because it’s been said by my guests that the cold War, the, especially the ending of the Cold War, and you could probably guess which guest said this, has said that. That’s really when we won World War three. And where we’re at right now is World War four. Do you agree with that? Well, in world War four, the fact is, you go back, commonality is both Republicans need to understand they’re always going to be attacked.
Yeah, my dad, my dad was attacked when he was running for governor of California. My dad was attacked when he was running for president, United States. It’s how you deal with those attacks and what, and what, in fact, how you handle them. And you can handle them and be angry or you can sit there and be, what Ronald Reagan was kind of like awakened a nod. There they go again. I’ll go back, people, when my dad was sworn in January 20, 1981, and the hostage went free, that doesn’t happen in a vacuum. But if you go back and watch that campaign, what was the left saying? He’s a warmonger.
He’s going to start world war three. He’s going to make Iran into a parking lot, all these things, a glass factory. But you’ll never find anything Ronald Reagan said denying anything that was being said because he understood that there’s a bigger audience than the people in front of you. He understood when they were saying that about him, there was a bigger audience worldwide hearing that message, and he did not deny it. And I think that was part of the reason you saw the hostage go free on that date, because they weren’t sure if he wouldn’t turn them into a parking lot and what have you.
And, and so it’s how you handle it. And I think part of Donald Trump’s problem is he attacks it. Yeah. Different way. He just, and, yeah, he goes after it and attacks people, you know, who say things instead of letting it just. Well, I think it’s, I think it’s an art form, the way your father handled it. You know, he was so positive. I mean, how could you not like the guy? Everyone liked him when they met him. And I, I mean, I remember as a kid, I was like, I remember watching he’s a very personable man.
And watching the movie, I was like, how could you not like the guy, you know? Yeah. That’s why Trump needs to work on that. That’s why. Because the end of the day, people vote for the most likable candidate. Right. That’s at the end of the day. And with my dad, you run into more people, democrats who voted for my dad because they liked him, they didn’t have to agree with him. They liked him. And you like in the movie, something would never happen today in the movie, after dad shot and he’s in the hospital, that story wasn’t made up.
When he woke up, it was tip O’Neill sitting there with a rosary, praying with my dad. Wow. So he united everybody with his personality. Yeah. So here you go. Those things wouldn’t happen to him. That’s what’s really sad, is Kip O’Neill, even though they fought each other, you know, till 06:00 there was time for Chardonnay. But after 06:00, it was good. But again, Tip O’Neill was in the hospital room with my dad, saying, with his rosary, saying prayers for my dad. And so many of those things just would not happen today, which is really, really sad.
And I don’t think you ever get it back. I don’t know how you would. But people out of study history today, too many people think history started when they woke up this morning, right? Instead of looking back at real history and how we got to where we’re at. Because if you don’t fix that, it’s hard to fix it later on when you don’t understand it. When he woke up from the surgery, did he really say, uh, are you all republic? You all don’t happen to be Republicans? Or what did he say? Are you all, that’s before he went into surgery.
Before he went into. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But he’s the same way with us. I mean, like when I walked in at 10:00 the next morning, and he says to me, he said, michael, yesterday I was shot. I said that they had the world know you were shot yesterday, not a news alert. And he just kind of looked at me. He said, well, if you’re ever going to get shot, don’t be wearing a new suit. I said, why didn’t you tell me that? He said, well, yesterday was the first day I’d worn that suit. And last time I saw it, they had cut that suit off of me.
It was in the corner of a hospital room in shreds of. So if you’re ever gonna get shot. Don’t be wearing a new suit. And I said, well, thank you for the heads up. And I said, he said, that young man who shot me? Hinckley. I said, yes, john Hinckley. I understand his parents live in Denver. Yeah, I understand they’re in the oil business. Yes, they are. Dad, do you think they have any money? I said, yeah, dad, they’re in the oil business. They probably do have money. You think they’d ever buy me a new suit? Wow, man.
That says to me, this is 6 hours after he’s off the table, almost dead. That’s, that just says it all. Do you think there’s anything, any similarities or commonalities with what Trump’s dealing with today of what Reagan dealt with then? I mean, the communism, let’s say. I know that Russia was trying to spread communism throughout the whole world, it said in the movie. And then through mainly avenues like Hollywood and really trying to take over America from within. I mean, isn’t that kind of what we’re seeing now with like, China? Speaker two absolutely right. I mean, I talked to people on the Internet, on X or whatever his name this week.
And what, having tried to tell people, there’s a lot of concern, he’s afraid to go to the movie because they think the depiction of my father would be terrible because it’s Hollywood. And I told you can go to this movie. It’s safe to go see Reagan. It’s approved by the Reagan, this part of the Reagan family and what have you. There are commonalities, there are similarities, what they’re fighting. But again, it’s right now, like, I agree with Trump, Putin would not be worried in Ukraine if it wasn’t for the liberals. And this goes back. What’s the history? The history is back in 1994, we had a president, Bill Clinton instead to the Ukraine, give up your nuclear weapons, we’ll protect you.
And yet all these NATO countries and Russia agree, then give up their nuclear weapons and they’ll be protected. Then you had Obama in 2000, whatever it was, rubber stamp the agreement made by Clinton back in 1994. So what did they do? They gave up their nuclear weapons. Right. And under the guise that we would protect them. And guess what? We, you know, Russia had an open door. But what you don’t know is that at the same time, Obama took away the missile defense systems of Poland and Czech, so they have no missile defense systems because Obama had them give it up.
So you have the left creating this issue. And now we’re in this middle of this crap going on in Ukraine and all through that area, Middle east, we, because America made a deal. And guess what? Another one of our deals blew up in our faces. And now, now here we are. And again, that’s what I mean by knowing history, knowing that we asked them to give up their nukes, they did. It was like the karma coming back to us. Right. So again, I don’t think if you had Trump was in fact, in the White House, I think Putin would have made a move.
I think he would have gone anywhere. There’s a big difference between strength and weakness. Like my dad said before, wars in his lifetime, none of which were started because America was too strong. Correct. I’m just going to take a little more of your time, and I just want to ask, what kind of relationship did your father have with George Bush senior? Were they close or was he like a necessary evil that he had to deal with? I mean, did he like George Bush Sr. Were they friends? Did they get along? Just watch the eulogy at the funeral that George Bush gave.
He learned a lot from my dad, but they were, they were great pair working together. As I said, George, George Bush 41 was a great father and great grandfather, maybe not a great president. But again, you know, he gets attacked by conservatives, he gets attacked by republicans. And I sit back, go, you know, the Republican Party is the minority party. I don’t care where you go, it’s the minority party. We spend more time trying to get rid of our own people. Yeah. Than anybody else. They have problems uniting. Right. Yeah. We don’t unite. It’s like, hello.
What? You’re mad at Bush, and the reason is why? Okay. He ran a lousy campaign. You didn’t get reelected. He looked at his watch. He raised taxes. He did. Those are silly things. He shouldn’t have done them, but he did them. And we end up getting Bill Clinton. But what did Bill Clinton do? Last president to balance the budget. And he did that with who? Newt Gingrich. When was the last time a speaker of the House and the president worked together? Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. That doesn’t happen today. So I say to Republicans, quit kicking your own people out of the party.
My, my dad, like I said, my dad had two children, Patty and Ron. Neither one of them voted for him. Neither one was a piece of freedom party. The other one, I don’t think he had a party. They disagree with my dad politically. My sister Patty led a march on Washington when my dad was president, United States. He invited her and the other person lenient into the White House into the Oval Office for conference. But, you know. Wait, wait, wait. These are his children? Yeah. Did not vote for him. This is. No Patty. Patty and Ron are Nancy and dads.
I’m James. They’re Nancy. Dad, they didn’t vote for. But you know something? When we sat down for Thanksgiving dinner, they were at the table. They got. We sat down as a family. We said they were all at the table. They weren’t kicked off the table because they disagreed with their father politically against him. That’s a big lesson for everyone to learn here. Just that statement alone, that’s your dad’s own family. Daughter and son did not vote for him, and they were still allowed a Thanksgiving dinner. How many people are kicked out of their dinners because of they’re so polarized in politics right now? Everybody that I know.
Oh, everybody. And it’s crazy. You’re a Trump supporter. I want to talk to you again. You’re this supporter. I want to talk to you again. Republicans keep on talking about my father. We’ll start living him instead of just talking about him. You know, really understand who the guy was. And, you know, and it’s not that his children don’t love him. Everybody loves my dad. I mean, it’s not an issue. They disagree politically. Uh, my son, my son, my brother Ron’s an atheist, does commercials for atheism, all of these things. My dad was a Christian, you know, so I did.
But they were still at the table. We still said a prayer at the table, you know, at Thanksgiving, where we all got together at the ranch and we did these things. But today we spend time. Let’s. Let’s get rid of these people. Let’s kick them out of the party because we disagree with them. They didn’t do this when they should have done that. And you go, like, understand the Republicans. It’s real simple. My sister explained it to me in 1965, my dad was running for governor, and when I was 20 years old, and the only thing I really cared about, to be honest, I hope my dad wins because it could be easier to get dates.
I mean, I’m really. That’s all I’m thinking. I’m 20 years old. Hey, it’s a great pickup line. My dad’s a governor. How much better when he’s president. I said to my sister, I said, what’s the difference in Democrat, Republican? Oh, she said, that’s pretty easy. Republicans go to bed every night hoping you wake up and figure it out. Democrats go to bed every night hoping you never figure it out. Boom. So the important thing is, as long as we can all come to the table and break bread, that’s the way it should be. Figure it out.
Figure it out. If Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill can get together and give us the largest tax break in american history at the time, and how they do that. Ronald Reagan invited Tip O’Neill and his family to the White House for dinner. They went out there for dinner, and what happens is Gorbachev at his ranch, right? That’s huge. Well, yeah, Gorbachev at the ranch. Gorbachev, Reykjavik. Gorbachev, you know, and I was just a Reykjavik this summer with my family, went to the house where they met all these things during the summer, you know. But when they got together, dad and tip O’Neill didn’t argue.
Do you know what they did? My dad talked about the greatness of America, the goodness of her people. And Tip O’Neill said, before I knew it, I’m having a glass of wine telling an irish story with the president. I states, and now I’m telling you to put this piece of legislation on the floor. We don’t do that. We don’t find commonality. We find ways to be angry at each other instead of ways not to be angry at each other. Mike, thank you so much for joining me. It was an absolute honor and privilege, and I’ve heard nothing but great things about you from our mutual friend Juanito.
But I got to say, mike, where do people find you now? Or you just don’t want to be found at Reagan World at Reagan World is my twitter x account. Reagan world at Reagan World. And then reaganlegacyfoundation.org. do what we’re doing with our foundation, with the scholarship to the men and women who serve aboard the USS Ronald Reagan. Reagan legacy.org. reaganlegacyfoundation.org. Part of that, and one last, one last story to you that made it into the movie, okay, is 1976 when my dad lost in Kansas City. I said to my dad, why the hell did you even want to become president of the United States? He said, michael, for so long, I watched american president sit down with secretary general of the Soviet Union.
And every time we sit down with them, they ask us to give up something to get along with them. I want to be the first us president sit down with Secretary general of the Soviet Union. I was going to let him pick the table, the chairs to the place, because, Michael, that’s how I do things at that level. And while he was telling me the american president, what it was, I was going to have to give up to get along with them. I was going to get up, walk around the other side of the table, lean over and whisper in his ear, yeah, that’s why I wanted to become president.
I states now, remember in the movie nip? Yeah. He says, yeah, yeah. But he I don’t think you should get up and walk around, did he? He just said it for right there. Yeah. That’s where the story comes from. 1976. Understand 76. He didn’t know he was not going to run. He didn’t know he’s going to run in 1980. And that story, it was wreck of it takes place in 19, 187. So how many years later still? Dad tells me in 76 what he wanted to say. And he actually says it in 1987 in Reykjavik. He was waiting and that, and so I knew when in the movies I’m watching that, that scene and I see that, I said, I know what he’s gonna say because he told me what he’s gonna say back in 1976.
Wow. Yeah. So that, it was great to see that make it into the movie also. Wow, Mike, I really am privileged and thank you so much for joining me. I won’t take any more of your time. God bless you. And wow, man, an amazing interview. So thank you so much. And folks, go to Reagan world on X. That’s what it is now. Xdev at Reagan World. Yeah, at Reagan World. And then Reaganlegacyfoundation.org. thank you, Mike. Thank you so much. God bless. Thank you. Bye.
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