The

The Who is the most powerful person in America? Well, most people would say the president of the United States.

Who's the second most powerful? Some might say the chief justice of the Supreme Court or the Speaker of the House.

Some have argued that it's the White House official closest to the president, like the White House Chief of Staff.

How about someone even closer to the president? How about the First Lady?

Being First Lady is a tricky job. In some ways, it's not an official

constitutional job, and yet it is very much a real job. You're the wife of the most visible

person on earth, and that means that you're pretty visible. That means that you have a platform,

and you have some measure of influence on the most powerful man in the world, maybe the most

influence. We've had 44 First Ladies, and they've all approached the job differently. They've

made contributions in different ways. Our guest today is perhaps the world's foremost expert on

first ladies. She did, after all, work closely with one. She was Laura Bush's chief of staff. Her name is

Anita McBride. She runs the First Ladies Initiative at the Center for Congressional and

Presidential Studies at American University. She's founding member of the First Ladies Association

for Research and Education. She's written several books like Remember the First Ladies and U.S. First

Ladies making history and leaving legacies. So make sure you just check out her body of work.

Thanks for being on our show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to talk with you and

love that you're giving this attention to American first ladies.

Absolutely. So let's just jump into the history.

Martha Washington is considered our first first lady, even though the term hadn't even been

invented yet. And people talk so much about how her husband invented the presidency.

How did Martha Washington invent the role of first lady?

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