First Ladies Who Weren't Wives, Part One: The Niece Will Have To Do

Ridiculous History

iHeartPodcasts

History, Society & Culture

4.3 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 January 2025

⏱️ 52 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

For more than two hundred years, the American public has elected not just a president, but a family. While the position of First Lady of the United States is not outlined in the Constitution, you literally cannot be the President without someone at your side. As a result, the position of FLOTUS wields immense, subtle power -- often in ways the public does not understand. In the first part of this continuing series, Ben, Noel and Max explore the intricate, bizarre -- dare we say, ridiculous -- stories of people who quietly saved the world while a president took credit.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Ridiculous History is a production of IHeart Radio. Welcome back to the show, ridiculous historians.
0:29.2	Thank you so much, as always, for tuning in.
0:32.5	That's the first gentleman of our podcast, our super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
0:38.9	I have actually always dreamed of being a house husband.
0:42.4	Oh, who has a gentleman?
0:43.7	That's a posh gig right there.
0:45.5	In late stage capitalism, are you kidding?
0:48.2	What are we doing here, you guys?
0:50.1	I am Ben Bullitt.
0:51.6	That's Mr. Noel Brown.
0:53.5	Hello.
0:54.2	Hello, hello, sir.
0:55.5	We are talking about something that was in the news again quite recently, the historical concept here in the United States of something called the First Lady.
1:10.1	So every-a-flotus, which I think is fun to say.
1:14.0	Yes, Flotus and Potus. What a power couple.
1:17.1	So historically speaking, every single U.S. President so far has had a person close to them assuming the role of first lady.
1:30.1	Generally, most of the time, especially in recent years,
1:34.2	the First Lady of the United States, or Flutus, as you pointed out,
1:38.3	has been the spouse of the current president,
1:42.0	but that was not always the case.
1:44.5	That's right. And just really quickly, I just thought it might be worth mentioning for
1:47.8	anyone overseas or anyone here in the United States who maybe isn't up on this kind of stuff.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.