Harry S. Truman's Battles with the Bosses | The Oval Office
Whistlestop: Presidential History and Trivia
Slate Podcasts
4.8 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 14 December 2016
⏱️ 45 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Host John Dickerson visits May 24, 1946 and President Harry S. Truman's challenges to labor bosses and his action-hero-style presidency.
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. |
| 0:05.8 | Hello and welcome to Whistle Stop, formerly a podcast of presidential campaign |
| 0:10.2 | curiosities, and now an inquiry into the presidency. |
| 0:13.7 | I'm John Dickerson of Face the Nation. |
| 0:20.2 | In November of 2016, President-elect Donald Trump orchestrated the retention of 800 or so jobs at the carrier plant in Indiana. |
| 0:29.4 | Trump said he would save 1,100 jobs, but that wasn't the real number. |
| 0:33.0 | This fact was pointed out by Chuck Jones, the leader of Steelworkers Local 1999. In response to this, |
| 0:39.9 | Donald Trump took on the Labor leader in two tweets that read, first, Chuck Jones, who is |
| 0:46.1 | president of United Steelworkers 1999, has done a terrible job representing workers. No wonder |
| 0:51.4 | companies flee the country. The second tweet read, |
| 0:55.2 | If United Steelworkers' 1999 was any good, they would have kept those jobs in Indiana. |
| 1:00.1 | Spend more time working. Less time talking. Reduce dues. Imagine a hothead president punching |
| 1:07.5 | down like that, taking on labor leaders, not exactly a fair fight bringing the |
| 1:11.7 | full power of the Trump train down upon the head of a single man. This reminded me of another |
| 1:17.0 | intemperate moment in history when Harry Truman went even further using the full power of the |
| 1:22.0 | presidency, the emotional weaponry of post-war patriotism, language even hotter than President-elect Trump, |
| 1:29.0 | who may be a norm-buster, but who will have to act more outrageously if he's going to top Harry S. Truman's battle |
| 1:35.4 | with the railroad and mining union bosses in 1946. |
| 1:41.2 | Our whistle stop today is the 24th of May, 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. |
| 2:03.8 | 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. |
| 2:12.6 | That was the same year, by the way, the best Truman graduated. |
| 2:15.8 | Get it typed up, said Truman. I'm going to take the |
... |
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