USA Today’s Susan Page on Queen Elizabeth’s Legacy [Extended Interview]
The Takeout with Major Garrett
CBS News
4.6 • 586 Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Major interviews Susan Page, USA Today’s Washington Bureau Chief, to discuss her latest book, “The Queen and her Presidents”. The book highlights Queen Elizabeth’s relationships with several presidents throughout her multi-decade tenure. Page details the Queen’s impact on multiple world events like the Suez Canal as well as the World Wars.
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| 0:30.2 | Susan, I love to talk to reporters about books they write. |
| 0:32.8 | And the first question I always ask is what nugget or nuggets are you most proud of |
| 0:37.1 | that readers can find in this |
| 0:38.7 | book? You know, there are a couple. Let me tell you one and not say it's necessarily my favorite. |
| 0:45.2 | Okay. President Trump, when I interviewed him for the book, told me about a phone call that Queen |
| 0:50.1 | Elizabeth made to him that had never been reported before. It was in the aftermath of the leak of these memos by the British ambassador making devastating |
| 1:01.0 | assessment of Trump during his first term that resulted in the ambassador being no longer the ambassador. |
| 1:07.0 | And the queen called and he described the conversation's way she apologized well she didn't |
| 1:12.9 | exactly apologize but she thought he was a fool she didn't say he was a fool but and clearly she |
| 1:18.5 | had managed to smooth those very troubled waters without actually throwing her ambassador under the |
| 1:24.5 | bus and this phone call had never surfaced before and that anecdote that nugget as I've |
| 1:33.0 | having read the book is a through line through her queenship doing that thing you just described |
| 1:40.6 | smoothing waters without doing one thing overtly or another. |
| 1:45.4 | You know, when I was thinking about this book, it was a quote from President Clinton |
| 1:49.9 | in his memoirs that made me think maybe there was a book here. And in his, after he met with the |
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