Hello and welcome back to the re-education.

This is Eli Lake.

And our topic today is American Bullshit, a brief history comparing P.T. Barnum to Donald Trump.

My guest is the great Michael Rappaport, the actor, the comedian, and of course, the host of the I Am Rappaport podcast.

Thank you. and of course the host of the I Am Rapaport podcast. General Tom Thumb.

Is that me?

That's you.

Mr. Barnum, I'm almost inclined to terminate our agreement.

Charles is not from England and he is not a dwarf. He's a midget.

My apologies, matter. A midget he shall be able.

But sir, why am I Tom Thumb?

Ah. I named you after Sir Tom Thumb night of the round table. He lived in a tiny golden palace and he had a door one inch wide.

Mama, from now on, I am General Tom Thump.

Mr. Barnum, do you really think that anyone's going to want to see such a small boy?

Ha ha ha ha. I think one of two will. You've just I didn't want it to win.

You've just heard a snippet from the 1986 made-for-television movie about the Life of America's First Great Showman, the Henry Ford of American Bullshit.

I'm of course talking about P.T. Barnum, the inventor of the American circus, first great huckster, a con man, promising to amaze and dazzle if you just pay for a ticket. One of his first

traveling exhibitions in 1835 featured Joyce Heth, a slave that he purchased in Kentucky, who he claimed was 161 years old,

and was the nurse to George Washington. Now this was a hoax, but it was an incredibly irresistible

hoax. The year that Barnum put on the Heth Show was also the centennial of George Washington's birth.

Americans couldn't get enough of it.

And with that, the career of America's greatest showman was born.

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