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Master Plan

Episode 3: President Rambo | The Kingmakers

Master Plan

The Lever & David Sirota

News, Politics, History

5.0592 Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Emboldened by a landslide election, the president’s men began to see themselves as 1980s action-movie heroes, willing to break the law to get what they want. The result was the Iran-Contra affair, a secret arms deal that ignited a constitutional crisis. Would Congress roll over and play dead — or actually do something? TRANSCRIPT & BONUS MATERIALS: Click here to read a transcript and to explore bonus archival documents related to the episode. Get Master Plan episodes early and ad-free by becoming a paid subscriber. Enjoy bonus episodes, exclusive content, and support this show. Visit levernews.com/upgrade. To leave a tip for The Lever, click here. It helps us do this kind of independent journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Selling your car can be super simple.

0:02.0

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0:08.0

Just bring along your final settlement agreement.

0:10.0

If only they could make parallel parking simpler.

0:13.0

To the right bit, mate.

0:15.0

Yeah, back. Back a bit more. A bit more.

0:18.0

Oh, no, too far. We buy any car, selling made simple.

0:23.6

To sell your car today, enter your reg number now at we buy any car.com.

0:31.6

The lever.

0:33.6

That's what I'm going to say, what it's all about.

0:36.6

Why don't I tell you what,

0:39.2

what is the situation? And then I'll take your questions. It was late November 1986.

0:44.8

Ronald Reagan's Attorney General, Ed Meese, had hastily called an impromptu press conference at the

0:50.2

White House to address a political emergency. On Friday afternoon, or Friday at noon, the president asked me to look into and bring together the facts concerning...

1:01.4

These should have been high times for the Reagan administration.

1:04.3

After spending his first term clawing power back from Congress, the Gipper was re-elected in a landslide in 1984, and he was now entering

1:13.2

the final half of his second term.

1:16.0

But just before Ed Meese's emergency press conference about an unfolding scandal, Reagan

1:21.3

and his revolutionaries had suffered a brutal political setback.

1:25.1

President Reagan returned to the White House tonight.

1:27.1

It was not a very

1:28.0

happy homecoming for him because he now faces a Democratic majority in the United States Senate.

...

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