Andrew Ross Sorkin

By the way, meantime, you have the Federal Reserve sitting on their hands the entire time.

They're not flooding the system with money because they are worried about the politics of the moment, too, which I think also, by the way, interestingly relates to now when we talk about the independence of the Fed and all of these things.

So there was sort of this series of dominoes.

And I think at the point that we're now talking about where Hoover is talking to Roosevelt about the banks, he would have to capitulate.

He would have to almost admit that he didn't do the right things before.

And so he was trying to put it on Roosevelt and Roosevelt was trying to put it on him.

Right.

He's on the Mount Rushmore of Pod Save America here.

So I don't know if there was ever like a project 1932 or 1933.

But yes, I think there might have been some kind of project behind the scenes, if you will, to think through what were the levers that a president could pull that maybe hadn't been pulled before.

And you're right.

History has looked quite fondly.

on the powers that he ultimately took, but they look fondly upon them, I think, because they worked.

There was an effectiveness about him.

And I would also argue that it didn't seem... Now, at the time, if you go back, some people thought it was a power grab,

But it didn't seem like it was a capricious power grab for the purposes of their own power.

However it was communicated to the public, it was communicated in a way that I think the public did believe that he was doing this at their behest for them, not for him.

And it's an interesting sort of –

distinction to make.

And maybe it's a distinction without a difference.