Does Donald Trump think he's a modern-day Andrew Jackson?
Americano
The Spectator
4 • 714 Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2017
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With Dr Adam Smith. Presented by Freddy Gray.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to The Spectator's Americano podcast, a series of discussions about American politics and the Trump presidency in 2017. |
| 0:13.0 | I'm Freddie Gray and I'm Deputy Editor of The Spectator. I'm joined today by Adam Smith, who is senior lecturer in American history at UCL, and we're going to be talking |
| 0:22.4 | about Trump's Civil War gath, and why and whether he thinks he's actually Andrew Jackson reincarnate. |
| 0:28.7 | Adam, Donald Trump caused quite a stir this week when, in an interview with the Washington Examiner, |
| 0:34.1 | he said, I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have |
| 0:38.9 | had the Civil War. |
| 0:40.3 | He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. |
| 0:43.0 | He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. |
| 0:46.6 | He said, there's no reason for this. |
| 0:50.0 | Let's put aside the ridiculousness of historical counterfactuals. And can I ask you, what's |
| 0:55.9 | wrong with Donald Trump's opinion about Andrew Jackson, the Civil War? Well, I don't know whether |
| 1:00.1 | you can really dignify it with the term opinion. I mean, I don't imagine this is a terribly |
| 1:04.9 | thought through historical perspective. I mean, he's clearly come to the view that Andrew Jackson is the guy that he wants to sort of embody. I mean, he's clearly come to the view that Andrew Jackson is the guy that he wants to sort of embody. |
| 1:14.6 | I mean, he's put his, Andrew Jackson's portrait in the Oval Office, hasn't he? |
| 1:18.3 | And I imagine that probably Steve Bannon has had something to do with this, because Steve Bannon, who is a sort of intellectual in a way, and certainly know something about American history is a great admirer of Andrew Jackson. So probably that's where |
| 1:32.2 | this is where this is coming from. It wasn't clear from that quote that you just read out that |
| 1:38.1 | Trump realized that Andrew Jackson was dead for 16 years by the time the Civil War came out, |
| 1:43.3 | although I believe he later sent out a tweet clarifying this, |
| 1:45.9 | acknowledging that Jackson had been dead for 16 years. |
| 1:50.1 | All Bannon said the tweet out. |
| 1:51.2 | Or Bannons or somebody. |
| 1:53.3 | But if your question is, if this was a history exam, |
... |
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