Professor Nicole Hemmer
speaker
296 appearances
5 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Jun 2025
Professor Nicole Hemmer’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Yeah. And he in that in that same address, he talked about the importance of truth and straight talk. Those are the two terms that he used. And he really pledged that he would be honest to the American people after all of the deception and dishonesty that had been uncovered.
Yeah, by the 1970s, when Ford steps into the office of the presidency in 74, the president is the star in a way that even surpasses what Franklin Roosevelt did because of television, right? So it's not just the voice of the president that people are hearing. They're seeing him on this televised bully pulpit that Ford had actually pushed against in Congress for more opportunities for Congress
to have access to television because he and many others in Congress felt that TV had given the presidency too much power, too much power to set the presidential agenda, too much power in the public imagination at the expense of Congress. So Ford had been pushing in the 1960s for
using the equal time clause of the FCC in a way that would allow members of Congress like himself to be on television more. So he understood what this had done in terms of shifting the attention to the presidency. What he didn't understand were all of the behind the scenes mechanisms that into the production of the president as a television star.
And this is what he struggled with, is that he had a very small press operations as a representative from Michigan, very, very tiny. And they served many different roles. They weren't just focused on communications. When you go into the White House, you have an entire team of people that are constantly thinking about your image and your message and the staging and the presentation.
And like that is a constant focus of the presidency by the 1970s. But it's not when he was representative. So it's really a significant transition in terms of communications expectations.
It does. And that's where, again, remembering that people had watched these events. behind-the-scenes conspiracies actually play out over the previous two years.
They had seen all of these internal efforts to undermine opponents and create political discord, not just with the break-in and the cover-up of Watergate, but remember, the Watergate investigation exposed a range of different unethical and corrupt and dirty tricks that the Nixon administration was pursuing on a regular basis.
So the assumption immediately is that, of course, this is the next chapter, that Gerald Ford was nominated vice president because he made this agreement with Nixon or that somehow along the way they had this negotiation where they had this agreement that, OK, Ford would step in, Nixon would step down as long as he got that pardon. And so there are many different theories that start to circulate.
But historians have not found any evidence that that actually happened, that there was any kind of discussion or an arrangement or even an understanding between Ford and Nixon about a pardon.
All of the documentary evidence really points to this notion that Ford believed it was in the best interest of the country to move forward, not go into another trial, a criminal trial, that he thought that would have people relive the wounds of Watergate. And really set a precedent that could be destructive down the road as well.
Absolutely. And that takes root because, again, it's this particular moment where people are so cynical. And the press is very cynical. But it's also at this moment when all of his advisers and all of the expectations for presidents are that they present a polished image, right?
So there's this constant... And these are the two legacies of Richard Nixon that he has to grapple with, is that the operations of politics more broadly, but specifically the White House, have become a well-crafted machine, focusing on cultivating a very specific... presidential image that is then sold and packaged and sold to the American people and to journalists.
Then, on the other hand, the legacy of Nixon is that this is all a fabrication and it could be hiding not just, you know, gaffes, but those gaffes could be insight into a bigger corruption or bigger scandal that might be hidden behind the scenes. And so it's this pressure to have a polished communication effort as well, and more attention, right? The cameras are on him.
He's pursuing this Rose Garden strategy to try to bring, restore faith and prestige and integrity to the president, but he does that via the media, right? So he has to have this apparatus, while at the same time, people are concerned that that apparatus is the problem. It's part of the problem of corruption and hiding misdeeds as well.
Absolutely. So it's November of 1975 and Chevy Chase is debuting his new impersonation of Gerald Ford. And if you watch it, he doesn't dress like him. He doesn't try to impersonate, you know, the sound of his voice or any of his mannerisms. All he does is knock things over and he's klutzy.
And that's how, and you have, you know, this unpresidential seal that's on a podium, but that's really all that they're doing. But anyway, this was really new in terms of directly tackling saying, I'm Chevy Chase, right? And that's how he, or sorry, I'm Gerald Ford. So this starts in November and it made Ron Nussin, Gerald Ford's press secretary, it just made him cringe.
And then, but then he thought like, is there a way we can use this? And so that March, he and the president decided that they're going to invite Chevy Chase to perform at the White House Correspondents Dinner. And the president actually tries to turn the tables and says, I'm Gerald Ford and you're not, right? And so he sees this as a way to kind of tap it and try to reverse the narrative.
It's this battle of co-optation. Al Franken saw Ron Nussin when they were in the New Hampshire primary. And he said, you know, we should have you on the show. And Ron Nussin considered the offer. And ultimately, after the success of that March dinner, when Gerald Ford was in person, you know, kind of turned the tables on Chevy Chase, he decided that he would guest host the show.
And so Ron Nesson guest host the show in April. The opening, you know, that live from Saturday night was something that was phenomenal. pre-filmed from the White House, but Gerald Ford does make an appearance.
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