Dave Davies

Terrific historian.

Yeah, and it's interesting because Garfield was kind of an accidental hero.

I mean he was initially going to nominate someone else for the presidency and the convention got deadlocked and people were so captivated by his speech they turned to him.

I didn't remember anything about James Garfield.

I'm sure most of us don't.

But when I saw you in that suit and that big beard and that long coat and vest and bow tie, I thought, yes, that's the picture we've seen of James Garfield.

Talk a little bit about –

Well, I want to play a clip.

And to set this up, Garfield was a Republican and the Republican Party had been the dominant party in Washington for years.

But it was a party beset by corruption.

You know, patronage, employment, self-dealing were kind of the rule of the day.

There was no such thing as civil service, which Garfield was determined to change.

And the scene we're going to listen to is where Garfield had been president a short time and his opponents within the party were blocking all of his cabinet appointments in the Senate because he refused to give these corrupt politicians the control of key federal jobs, especially the port collector in New York because that was a big center of money and patronage.

Anyway, in this scene, there's a bunch of senators and cabinet members gathered in the White House, and they're all arguing with each other because you, as Garfield, are determined to stick with this fight that they think he's never going to win.

They think he should just give in and play ball with the machine.

You've been listening quietly while they argue, and then you finally erupt with a stern message.

Let's listen.

And that's our guest, Michael Shannon, in the new Netflix series, Death by Lightning.

That's a powerful speech.

You want to talk a little about that moment?