Jason Roberts
Appearances
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And I think Harding, on some level, he cared about her. He was very fond of her. And I think it is telling that he doesn't leave Florence Harding for Carrie Phillips, even though she's repeatedly demanding, like, I want you to leave her. And he doesn't. So...
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
You know, is it political calculation like, oh, you know, if I end this relationship and I marry my mistress, that's the end of my political career? Or is it just at some level? It's like he really did care for Florence Harding.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And, you know, maybe emotionally and psychologically, she provided him with a level of stability that Carrie Phillips, as much as I think he did love her, she could not provide.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So she lives another year and she'd always had these kidney issues. I think she had a kidney removed and the other kidney was like often getting infected. And she almost actually died in the White House at one point. She was bedridden for months with a kidney infection and pulled through. So she lived another year and two months and then I think ultimately died from Lowe's. kidney problems.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So it's unfortunate because it would have been interesting to see how she would have responded, you know, to the NAM Britain allegations and the other scandals.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
I think in many ways he was the right man for the time, or at least he was the right man that I think people were looking for. at that time, after eight years of Wilson, after the First World War. And I think what people forget is just how much of a mess the country was in going into the 1920 election.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So, you know, you go back 1918, 1919, you know, 1918, you know, the end of the war, you have a flu epidemic that kills over 700,000 Americans, I think 100 million or so people worldwide. You have Woodrow Wilson not prepared for the end of the war. So he really had no plans for converting the economy back to a peacetime economy.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And then when all these like wartime contracts are, you know, canceled, you know, it's chaos. We have a post-war depression. I mean, at one point, like inflation is through the roof. We have labor strikes all over the country. We have anarchists setting off bombs.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And then kind of the most historians would say the excessive counter reaction, you know, was a Mitchell Palmer's Red Scare where we're just going to round up people and arrest them with little or no evidence. And it turns out most of the people he arrested died. weren't terrorists, weren't anarchists. You have race riots throughout the country in 1918, 1919.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And this is the period where, you know, you're seeing the rise of the Ku Klux Klan, lynchings are on the rise. So it was, I mean, it was a really unstable, chaotic period. Business people weren't happy. Workers weren't happy. Farmers weren't happy. No one's really, you know, happy. And also you have Woodrow Wilson for... the last year and a half of his presidency, he's basically AWOL.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
I mean, he has a series of strokes and he's incapacitated. I mean, he's president in name only. So the government, I mean, basically grounds to a halt.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Yeah. I mean, Harding was, you know, he's basically trying to win an election and he knows people are upset over these issues. So he's trying to say, I'm going to take you back to a better time before Wilson, before the Great War. But I think the appeal of Harding was, you know, he wasn't a rabble rouser. He wasn't a demagogue. Interestingly enough, he never attacked Woodrow Wilson personally.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And people around him said, go after him. go after the fact that he's AWOL, he's an invalid, attack him personally. And at one point, Harding says to the people around him, if you think I'm going to become president stepping over the broken body of Woodrow Wilson, you've got the wrong man. I will disagree with him on policy, but I will not attack him personally.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And I think people really like that about Harding. And it is kind of appealing today that
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So Teapot Dome, it happens during his presidency. So Teapot Dome was an oil reserve in Wyoming controlled by the federal government. Originally, the Navy Department controlled it. And then Albert Fall, the Secretary of Interior controlled. convinces Edwin Denby, the Navy Secretary, to basically transfer authority over to the Interior Department. And Harding signs off on this.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And basically what we find out after Harding dies is that Albert Fall allowed oil companies to drill at Teapot Dome, which they were not supposed to do, but he allowed them to drill there. in exchange for approximately $400,000 in bribes. But that doesn't come out until after Harding dies and fall. Eventually, he goes to prison over Teapot Dome.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
The best evidence is that Harding didn't know anything about it at the time of his death.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Yeah. And we do know that at one point, I mean, before he's taking these bribes, he's heavily in debt. I think he's behind on his mortgage payments on his ranch. And then all of a sudden, like, wow, he's got all this money. Where did this money come from? I would note about Teapot Dome, for all the attention that historians devote to it, it didn't really resonate with the people.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Basically, what happens when they hold hearings is... We also find there were prominent Democrats that worked for some of these oil companies that were involved in Teapot Dome. So they hold these hearings and ultimately it flames out. You know, Calvin Coolidge is president and people don't blame him.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So I don't think it resonates with the public the way, say, Watergate would resonate with the public in the 1970s.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So it starts to come out, I think, in the final months of Harding's administration. I believe, interestingly enough, Harry Daugherty is telling Harding he's hearing bad things about Charles Forbes. And there's an account of...
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
reporter coming to the White House and he sees Harding like yelling at someone and he's shaking this person and he's saying like you know you lying SOB how could you do that to me and then it turned out it was Charles Forbes that he was confronting and then not long after that Forbes flees to Europe he submits his resignation so there's a debate about that where some critics look at that and say Harding let him get away with it like
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
You know, not only should he have fired him, the law should have came down hard on Forbes. There should have been an investigation. There should have been legal consequences. Defenders of Harding say, well, wait a minute. He confronted him. He forced him to resign. And at that point, they didn't have all the evidence.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
You know, so it probably would have been, they believe, premature for Harding just like, oh, we're going to investigate you. We're going to arrest you.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Yeah, and I think a large part of this is it's tragic for Harding, I think, on two levels. I mean, one level is... Forbes was a friend of his you know, so he trusted him. So I think it was a case of Harding trusting the wrong person The other part of it was and I think to me this is like the most tragic part of the scandal Harding loved veterans.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
He loved Helping disabled veterans he and his wife Florence would visit them in the hospital. They would house them at the White House and You know, they'd host parties for them and the Veterans Bureau was meant to help these disabled veterans. And so I think it hit Harding really hard that, you know, he trusted this person to help veterans and this person betrayed his trust.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Exactly. So yeah, he was a big supporter of the 19th Amendment when he was a senator. And yeah, he is now widely seen as having a very strong record on civil rights for that time, especially compared to Woodrow Wilson. He appoints African Americans to government jobs. He supported anti-lynching legislation in the Senate. And I think especially...
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
He goes down south to Birmingham, Alabama, of all places, and gives a powerful speech in support of civil rights, especially criticizing voter suppression in the South, which is just, I mean, remarkable for that time, and I think took great courage for Harding to do that.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Yeah, I mean, in many ways, yeah, economically, under him, you will go from an economic downturn to an economic boom. And I actually think even more impressive economically, especially fiscally, is he takes a national debt... And he is able to reduce that national debt and he takes budget deficits and he turns them into budget surpluses by the end of his presidency.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So the government is taking in more money than he's spending. So it looks especially impressive today where whoever's president, you don't see that.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
At least not since Bill Clinton.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Yeah, I think it's one of the great moments of the Harding administration. I think it's one of the reasons I think people love Warren G. Harding, you know, if they love him, is it kind of shows his humanity. It shows like his sense of justice and mercy. And, you know, and he kept saying to his aides, like, we need to release Eugene Debs from prison. This wasn't right.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
He was just expressing his First Amendment rights under the Constitution. Yeah. And so he arranges the release so Debs can spend Christmas Day with his family. And the only condition on the release was, you got to come see me at the White House. And they meet at the White House. And we don't know what was said. But Eugene Debs comes out and says to the press, Warren G. Harding is a good man.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Well, I think one reason he goes is he wanted to travel out West. He was also thinking ahead to the 1924 election. So he thought this would be a great opportunity to basically glad hand with the people. And he also, I think he wanted to get away from the situation in Washington, D.C. So certainly get away from Charles Forbes and his scandal. Get away from some other scandals.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So I think part of it was... Political getting ready for the 1924 election. And then also part of it was personal. I want to explore the West. This will be my opportunity to relax, unwind and really do what I do best, which is meet with the people and give speeches.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Yeah, they did lose seats in that election.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
He will in San Francisco. Yeah, he will die of a heart attack in his hotel.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
He looked healthy, looked vigorous and strong. He had a history of health problems. He had gone, I guess, over the years to the Kellogg's Sanitarium in Michigan for health issues. He had a history of high blood pressure, high sugar, high cholesterol. I think his favorite food was waffles. Covered in like beef gravy. Yeah, he liked these foods that were high in cholesterol.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
He smoked cigars he didn't drink as I think as much as people think he drank and Interestingly enough one of the causes for his health problems and his early death was that Harding basically worked himself to death and In the White House. So there's, you know, accounts saying like you get up at 8 a.m. and he would basically work until midnight.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Yes, definitely in many dimensions. I do think he's more complicated than people realize. And while I think the scandals are relevant and the scandals did happen, I think they overshadow other aspects of Warren G. Harding's presidency. And while I would not put him on Mount Rushmore by any means, I think he did have his fair share of accomplishments.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And one journalist who visited him in the White House said Warren G. Harding has like these 80, 85 hour days. So I think part of it was. He wanted to do the job well. But also, I think as you mentioned, he wasn't a great manager. So actually being an executive was something that was new to him. And people around him would say, you don't need to meet with these people.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
You don't need to read these letters. Other people can read them. You don't need to read over every document. But I think he had this insecurity, like, I'm not as smart as Woodrow Wilson or Theodore Roosevelt, so I have to work even harder than they do.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Well, I think that's an interesting question. And I think the problem is when we talk about Harding and Coolidge, the two get separated because they're two different personalities. Like Harding's extroverted, warm, outgoing. He loves people. He loves to talk and give speeches. And we know about his extramarital affairs, you know, versus Coolidge personality wise.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
He tends to be more shy, more introverted. He often says the bare minimum. And he kind of has like that New England, taciturn personality. And he has a kind of a different relationship with his wife. He never cheated on Grace, whereas Harding cheated on Florence. Though I would know, I think Warren G. Harding and Florence Harding, their relationship kind of foreshadowed
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt and Bill and Hillary Clinton, that it was, you know, a quote unquote political partnership. He actually, I mean, valued her political advice. Whereas Calvin Coolidge loved his wife, but he seems to have been very contemptuous of her intellect and her political ability, and he wouldn't let her talk about policy.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
He'd say, we don't share that promiscuously, Grace, when she'd say, what's your schedule today? So I think we too often focus on, oh, they're different personalities. But the reality is that Coolidge basically followed Warren G. Harding's policies. So you talk about reducing the debt, running budget surpluses, cutting taxes for business, high tariffs on imported goods.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
He's basically following Harding's policies. And I think what happens sometimes with the Coolidge supporters is they give credit to Coolidge for stuff that actually started under Warren G. Harding. that was already in place. So it's almost like being an actor and they give you the script and you just follow the script. So I think Coolidge was just basically following the script.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
I think where they might be different policy-wise, I think Coolidge was even more pro-business than Warren G. Harding.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
A pleasure to talk to you.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
that I think don't always get the coverage they deserve.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Psychologically, I mean, I'd say in terms of like his personality, this is actually someone I think who was really perfectly designed for American politics. If you were going to pick someone and say who would make the perfect politician, who would make the perfect candidate, I think Harding would be near the top of the list.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
I think as far as politicians go, he is one of the most skilled politicians we've ever had as president. And really one of the keys to his success was his personality. This was someone who was, if you met him, he was very warm. He was very likable. He was extroverted. people liked him because they knew he liked him. So men would meet him and they'd say like, this is a great guy. He's cool.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
I can golf with him. I can drink with him. I can smoke cigars with him. And women would meet him and like, wow, this guy, he's so good looking and he's so charming. So on a personal level, I mean, he was very successful at relating to people, getting people to like him. I think that's one thing that stood out about him. And he was also a very caring person, a very humane person.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So he was known for helping others, giving money to charity. When he ran his newspaper, the Marion Star, he never fired any of his employees. He paid them well. And the newsboys, as they were called, you know, when they're interviewed later. They all loved Warren G. Harding.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Well, I think the cabinet is, I think it's a little more complicated than people realize. So I think too often historians and others focus on, you know, the bad appointments he made in the cabinet. So that, you know, Albert Fall at the Interior Department, Harry Daugherty at the Justice Department, and then you have Charles Forbes.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
It's not really a cabinet office, but Charles Forbes at the Veterans Bureau. So there were these bad appointments. But actually he had a number of great appointments in the cabinet. Charles Evans Hughes as Secretary of State did a phenomenal job for Harding in foreign policy.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
The star of the cabinet was Herbert Hoover at Commerce, who ironically he was seen as like the activist in the Harding administration. So a number of the appointments were very solid. I think often don't get the credit that they deserve and they're kind of overshadowed by the bad ones.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Yeah, the letters had been known about between Carrie Phillips and Warren G. Harding going back to the 1960s, though they weren't fully published. published until I think 2014, 2015 by the Library of Congress. And so now you can go to their website and all the letters are there. And usually what gets a lot of play is the graphic nature of the letters.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
He's very explicit about their sex life, their sexual activities. He had a nickname for his private part. He called it Jerry. So that gets a lot of play. But I think maybe those graphic accounts get too much play, Because I do think that most likely she was the love of his life, that it wasn't just some like tawdry one night stand for him.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
There's obviously the physical attraction, but I think he really did fall in love with her.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Yes. So she comes out with her book, The President's Daughter in 1927. And, you know, it's very sensationalistic. You know, there's a 30 year age gap. And She alleges that she would have these rendezvous with Harding in the White House closet and the Secret Service were used to pay child support. But there were historians over the decades who questioned her account.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And in fairness to those historians, what they focused on was we don't have hard, solid evidence, at least in the Carrie Phillips case, you have those letters. So there, you know, there was no doubt of an affair. So people said, you know, you basically have Nan Britton's word. You know, where's the letters? Though there's evidence that Hardy may have told her to destroy letters.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So some people said maybe she made it up. Maybe she knew about the Carrie Phillips affair. And then she took that and kind of ran with it and said, oh, I had an affair. So that was one of the allegations against her to say that it wasn't true. And you did have Secret Service agents who said, we never met Nan Britton. She was never in the White House. We never paid child support to her.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So I think there were reasons to question her account of the affair. And certainly... I think John Dean of Watergate fame wrote a book about Warren G. Harding. He questioned her account. The prominent historian, Robert Farrell, who wrote about Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge, he questioned her account. Other historians questioned her account.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
But ultimately, it's resolved in 2015 when the results of a DNA test come out. And the DNA test shows, as Mari Povich would have said, yes, Warren G. Harding, you are the father of Nan Britton's child. I mean, it's pretty clear that the DNA test is conclusive.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
The only thing I would say about it is that I think there was an affair, obviously, but I do think it's possible that she exaggerated parts of the affair. So she may not have been telling the truth when she said she met him in the White House and she had a rendezvous in the White House closet because you do have Secret Service agents who were interviewed later and they said, we never saw her.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Yeah, he was good at kind of juggling his political career with these personal affairs. And I mean, no one knew about it until after he died. So it's kind of similar to John F. Kennedy. It's like, I think Harding might have been flattered by the fact that she was obsessed with him, apparently, when she was a schoolgirl. You know, she would write, like, I love Warren G. Harding in her textbook.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And so people who knew her said, like, from the time she was a little girl, she had this, like, obsession with Warren G. Harding. So I'm sure it must have been flattering to him. Like, you know, wow, like, this girl, like, she loves me. You know, she's obsessed with me.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So I think there's some circumstantial evidence that eventually she did find out about. Warren G. Harding and Carrie Phillips. And I think there's some accounts that even talk about a confrontation or an argument between Carrie Phillips and Florence Harding. And I think there was like a diary that she kept where there's allusions to basically her talking about the infidelity of husbands.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
So she's not, I think she's not directly saying, oh, you know, my husband, Warren G. Harding, had an affair, but basically talking about how like, oh, you know, men aren't perfect and men do have these affairs. But, yeah, the relationship, I think, between Warren G. Harding and Florence Harding is very interesting.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
And I think historians try to wrap their heads around it because, you know, he's this, like, charming, good-looking guy. And, you know, she's five years older, and she looks much older than that. And so I think there's people who say, like, what's the attraction? What's the chemistry? Sure. And I think at some level... They did share a common bond. They did share a love of politics.
American History Hit
President Warren G. Harding: Scandals, Affairs & Cabinet Selections
Florence Harding, I think for her time, was very much a political activist. She supported women's rights, prisoners' rights, animal rights. She championed disabled veterans. So I think in many ways, She is kind of the precursor to Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor, Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton. You know, he sees her as a valued political partner.