Debategate | The Reagan Era
Whistlestop: Presidential History and Trivia
Slate Podcasts
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 October 2016
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Whistlestop host John Dickerson revisits October 28, 1980 and the lies, blame and competitive advantage that were swirling around during the Carter-Reagan Debategate scandal.
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Whistlestop is Slate’s podcast about presidential campaign history. Hosted by our political correspondent and Political Gabfest panelist John Dickerson, each installment will revisit a memorable (or even a forgotten) moment from America's quadrennial carnival.
Podcast production and edit by Jocelyn Frank. Research by Brian Rosenwald.
Email: whistlestop@slate.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop a podcast of campaign curiosities. |
| 0:06.6 | I'm John Dickerson, host of Face the Nation. Did Ronald Reagan beat Jimmy Carter in the one and only debate in the 1980 presidential campaign because he had the Carter Playbook beforehand? |
| 0:29.0 | It seemed like a small moment in presidential history, this debate over whether Reagan had the Carter |
| 0:35.2 | playbook, but as the presidential campaign of 2016 turned into a discussion of stolen emails |
| 0:40.9 | from the Clinton campaign produced to the world by WikiLeaks, we returned to the |
| 0:45.8 | Whistlestop vault to remind ourselves about this episode in 1980. |
| 0:51.8 | It ultimately spawned a congressional investigation and a two-volume |
| 0:56.4 | 2,400 page congressional report. |
| 1:00.3 | Our whistle stop today is October 28th 1980 and Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan |
| 1:04.3 | are sparing off in their first and only presidential debate. It's a week before the |
| 1:08.8 | election. Can you imagine one debate, no early voting, and it's a week before the election and all the |
| 1:14.8 | voting takes place. The stakes were high and the winning line of the night came |
| 1:19.2 | about an hour and 15 minutes and 37 seconds to be precise into the contest. We'll start with Carter and |
| 1:26.7 | then listen for Reagan's winning line. |
| 1:30.3 | In the past the relationship between Social Security and Medicare has been very important to provide some modicum of aid for senior citizens in the retention of health benefits. |
| 1:44.0 | Governor Reagan, as a matter of fact, began his political career campaigning around this nation against Medicare. |
| 1:51.0 | Now we have an opportunity to move toward national health insurance with an emphasis on the prevention of disease, an emphasis on outpatient care, not inpatient care. |
| 2:02.0 | An emphasis on hospital cost containment to hold down the |
| 2:05.2 | cost of hospital care for those who are ill. An emphasis on catastrophic health insurance |
| 2:11.4 | so that if a family is threatened with being wiped out economically |
| 2:14.2 | because of a very high medical bill, then the insurance would help pay for it. |
| 2:19.9 | These are the kind of elements of a national health insurance important to the American people, |
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