Pecuniary Presidents

Talking Real Money - Investing Talk

Don McDonald

Education, Business, Investing, How To

4.5 • 811 Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2025

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tom Cock interviews Megan Gorman, author of All the President’s Money, exploring how U.S. presidents have handled their personal finances and the lessons investors can take from their successes and failures. Gorman shares stories of leaders from George Washington to Ronald Reagan, Eisenhower, Nixon, and Clinton, illustrating how factors like marriage, frugality, grit, emotional control, and adaptability shaped their financial outcomes. She notes that while the basic principles of money management haven’t changed since Washington’s time, achieving the American dream has become harder. The conversation touches on how some presidents leveraged post-office opportunities, the ethics of political financial activity, and the importance of aligned values in relationships for financial success. 0:05 Tom introduces Megan Gorman and her book All the President’s Money 1:16 Is there a link between being a good president and good with money? 2:16 Warren G. Harding as a bad president but skilled entrepreneur 3:22 Biggest lessons from presidents’ finances—marrying up and aligning values 5:56 Trump marriages and shared transactional values 6:15 How presidents historically made their money—land speculation, inheritance, entrepreneurship 8:40 Nixon’s failed frozen juice business and debt repayment 10:43 Eisenhower’s emotional control, poker skills, and marrying up 12:43 Gerald Ford as the master of the post-presidency pivot into celebrity and corporate roles 15:12 Debate over financial conflicts for presidents and members of Congress 17:13 Clinton financial evolution from poor money management to high net worth 19:38 The role of grit—Herbert Hoover’s rise from orphan to wealthy mining engineer 21:39 Woodrow Wilson’s lack of hustle contrasted with other hard-working presidents 22:30 Biggest takeaway—financial principles haven’t changed, but the American dream is harder to achieve today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Reality Radio for a really great future.
0:08.0	We're talking real money.
0:10.5	Where do you get your personal finance advice?
0:13.3	Well, I know some of it comes from a podcast because you're listening to one now.
0:17.3	Hi, I'm Tom Cock.
0:18.4	Thanks for joining us on Talking Real Money.
0:20.3	And today we're taking a little bit
0:21.8	different tangent than we normally do. We're not taking your questions. No Don McDonald,
0:26.2	giving him the day off. But you're going to see that this is a pretty interesting and I think
0:29.9	enlightening topic because if you look back at the leadership of our country, how did the presidents
0:36.3	do with their personal finances? So we're going to delve into that today with the leadership of our country, how did the presidents do with their personal finances? So we're
0:39.1	going to delve into that today with the author of an absolutely wonderful book. And if you're
0:43.2	still looking for a summer read, this is the one, all the president's money. The author is
0:47.9	Megan Gorman, and she joins us here on Talking Romney. Thank you for taking time to do this.
0:52.2	Oh my goodness, Tom. I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. This is a fascinating topic because everybody wants to know about everybody else's
1:00.0	money, right? What they do with it, how they made it, how they keep it, all that kind of thing. But I got to ask you
1:04.5	right up front. The question occurs to me is, is there a correlation between leadership and effectiveness politically and personal
1:16.6	finances? How do presidents do with their money? Is there a direct link between the people
1:20.8	that have been great as president and they've been great with their money? Yeah, you know what?
1:25.7	I get asked this question all the time. And then I got to tell you, the hard part is the answer is it depends, right? So when we look at one of the presidents who was ranked one of the worst of all time, we go right to Warren G. Harding. And probably all you know about Warren G. Harding is the teapot dome scandal. That or the fact that he had a mistress
1:44.6	in the White House. Those are the two things people think about when they come to him. But I'll tell
1:49.1	you, he was phenomenal with money. He was an entrepreneur, right? And an entrepreneur went back in
	...

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