Harry S. Truman's Battles with the Bosses (An Encore Presentation)
Whistlestop: Presidential History and Trivia
Slate Podcasts
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 15 November 2017
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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.
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Podcast production and edit by Jocelyn Frank. Research by Brian Rosenwald.
Email: whistlestop@slate.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains explicit language. |
| 0:03.5 | Hi, WhistleStop fans. This is Jocelyn, the producer of the pod. |
| 0:06.9 | I'd like to welcome you to this special encore presentation of WhistleStop. |
| 0:11.3 | The episode you're about to hear originally came to your ears about one year ago. |
| 0:16.2 | As you look back on this date last year, enjoy this look back even further. |
| 0:21.8 | Take it away, John. |
| 0:28.7 | Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop, formerly a podcast of presidential campaign curiosities, and now an inquiry into the presidency. I'm John Dickerson of Face the Nation. |
| 0:38.8 | In November of 2016, President-elect Donald Trump orchestrated the retention of |
| 0:43.4 | 800 or so jobs at the carrier plant in Indiana. Trump said he would save 1,100 jobs, but that |
| 0:50.2 | wasn't the real number. This fact was pointed out by Chuck Jones, the leader of Steelworkers Local 1999. |
| 0:57.4 | In response to this, Donald Trump took on the labor leader in two tweets |
| 1:01.5 | that read, talking, reduced dues. |
| 1:05.7 | Imagine a hothead president punching down like that, |
| 1:08.7 | taking on labor leaders, not exactly a fair fight bringing |
| 1:11.6 | the full power of the Trump train down upon the head of a single man. This reminded me of |
| 1:16.8 | another intemperate moment in history when Harry Truman went even further using the full power |
| 1:21.8 | of the presidency, the emotional weaponry of post-war patriotism, and language even hotter than President-elect Trump, |
| 1:29.1 | who may be a norm-buster, but who will have to act more outrageously if he's going to top Harry S. Truman's |
| 1:35.2 | battle with the railroad and mining union bosses in 1946. Our whistle stop today is the 24th of May, |
| 2:03.4 | 1946, and President Harry Truman asks his press secretary, Charles G. Ross, to clear all the networks for a coast-to-coast fireside chat that evening about his dispute with the railroad labor leaders. And he hands his press secretary a dozen-page holograph on ruled tablet paper, the kind of tablet paper kids use in school. |
| 2:12.1 | Here's what I'm going to say, the president said, to his friend, Ross, who had graduated in the same year from Independence High School in Missouri. |
| 2:15.0 | That was the same year, by the way, the best Truman graduated. |
... |
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