well today in washington and the nation mourn the death of former kansas senator bob dole flags at the white house and across the country are at half staff today to honor his life of service dole died yesterday after a battle with lung cancer he was a fierce party loyalist in a mate and as major garrett reports he was widely admired on both sides of the aisle before and after his 1996 presidential campaign i accept your nomination to lead our party once again to the presidency bob dole was the l
ast presidential candidate who served in world war ii and in the 96 campaign he said america needed more of the greatest generation's grit and values and i know because i was there and i have seen it and i remember but it didn't work baby boomer president bill clinton painted dole as a fixture of the past and easily won a second term growing up in russell kansas dole was a star athlete in high school and joined the army as a college freshman he suffered grievous wounds in italy that would cost h
im the use of one arm neighbors raised money to pay for several surgeries and later sent him to congress when i needed help the people at russell helped and i think [Music] gerald ford put dole on the ticket in 1976 in the vice presidential debate dole blamed democrats for wars on their watch if we added up the killed and wounded in democrat wars in this century the backlash hurt dole and ford who would eventually lose to jimmy carter dole spent 27 years in the senate quitting his post as majori
ty leader in an all-out bid to defeat clinton my time to leave this office has come and i will seek the president with nothing to fall back on but the judgment of the people and nowhere to go but the white house or home with that defeat dole became the only person to lose as a presidential and vice presidential nominee thank you so much six years later his wife elizabeth was elected to the senate and he became an unlikely tv pitch man for soft drinks with britney spears easy boy courage and even
viagra like erectile dysfunction when donald trump secured the nomination in 2016 dole became the only living gop nominee to endorse him donald trump can win dole was a farm belt fiscal conservative party loyalty came easy culture war rhetoric did not he wielded power quietly and over the years with humor and humility qualities of what feels like a bygone era of national politics so major joins us now to talk a little bit more about bob dole's legacy a major senator dole was very much part of s
ort of the old guard of the republican party can you explain his role in shaping the gop so bob dole rolls in the republican party in the 60s and 70s he went through the traumas of watergate and the the things that sort of gave the republican party an identity crisis in the late 70s he was a big backer of ronald reagan though he ran against him for the republican nomination in 1980 and he was pulled ever closer over the years to ronald reagan type of conservatism but he even clashed in the mid 1
990s with newt gingrich and his more firebrand orientation of conservatism and what surprised me in 2016 when i saw him in cleveland at the republican convention that nominated donald trump was that bob dole was there and what did that tell me that told me that bob dole was first and foremost a republican a party loyalist and he saw what many other republicans in that establishment wing of the republican party didn't see as he said to me in that little brief clip donald trump can win and for bob
dole that was the most important characteristic that donald trump brought to the campaign and eventually the presidency that he could win and put push together and push forward republican politics and republican policies it doesn't mean bob dole endorsed everything that donald trump did or his orientation rhetorically or otherwise to the presidency itself but he was always someone loyal to the republican party and its acquisition of and maintenance of power and bob dole played that game very ha
rd and very intensely in washington he's looked back on as sort of a softer maybe less combative republican but he fought pretty aggressively on the senate floor i watched it when i first started covering congress in the early 1990s so bob dole is a transitory figure in the republican party yes he was more eisenhower republican more nixon republican in the 60s and 70s more reagan in the 80s less gingrich in the 90s but full on board at least outwardly with donald trump in 2016 and going forward
so you know so you explain why he backed donald trump but you also said in your package there that you know he didn't go much for sort of the culture wars um so certainly backing donald trump would give would would be an important factor when it comes to being a member of the party as it looks today loyalty is very important for the party as it looks today but would bob dole be seen as a republican if he was in office now based on his politics not really and that's one of the transformer transfo
rmative qualities if you will of donald trump's influence on the republican party bob dole would be probably regarded as someone less republican than trumpists believe republicans ought to be and he got an early foreshadowing of the rhetoric that donald trump would eventually use in 2015 and 2016 to secure the republican nomination in the presidency how did he see that well in 1996 when he ran successfully for the republican nomination the person who stood in his way most was pat buchanan and pa
t buchanan back in 1996 as he did in 1992 talked about two very important things building a wall in the southern border reducing illegal and legal immigration and the industrial decay and the loss of sort of middle-class blue-collar jobs in america much of that rhetoric donald trump agreed with then but he harnessed and used in a way much more combative than pat buchanan did in 1992 and 1996 and bob dole ran against that in 96 saw that coming never embraced it thought it was dangerous for the re
publican party but when donald trump did it in 2015-2016 bob dole saw that it was a winning message and because it was a winning message and because that meant moving forward republican party politics he endorsed trump and that became i think one of the more interesting latter events in dole's life and strictly based on the fact that donald trump could win and he believed that the party apparatus however it was constructed made him the nominee and if he's the nominee of the party and i'm a party
person then i've got to support him but he saw it early with pat buchanan in 92 and 96 and many people forget they think that sort of donald trump was this originalist on the idea of industrial decay moving the republican party towards blue-collar workers in the industrial midwest and hitting very hard on immigration and illegal immigration in particular pat buchanan was there in 1992 and 1996. let's talk a little bit about what no doubt shaped the man in his politics senator dole suffered seri
ous injuries fighting in world war ii how did that impact his time in washington and his legacy it's really interesting anne-marie i've covered a lot of people in politics in washington and there's a big difference between those who have fought and seen war up close and those who haven't and those who haven't treat war treat politics rather as if it were war and the risks and the costs are so high and everything is a battle to the finish people who have actually been in war who've been wounded w
ho have seen the horrors of war know that politics isn't like it at all and they have a bit of a emotional and psychological distance from it and they sort of laugh about how seriously people take politics because they know politics is calmer politics is the mean by which you debate and resolve issues without going to war but having faced war themselves and seen it and felt the effects of it as bob dole did and others i've covered from either the vietnam or the world war ii generation they know
that the stakes are nowhere near as high as people in politics you've never served pretend that they are or represent that they are and that distance that psychological and emotional distance from the hardcore intensity of politics acting as if everything is at stake gives them a better perspective and a bit of humor bob kerry was always humorous about politics and mistakes involved bob dole was his two was as well i've never met anyone who's actually served and faced bullets and face the real l
ife consequences of battle treat politics as seriously as those who are in politics who've never served and pretend everything is at stake that is fascinating um you tweeted a photo of uh yourself with bob dole the early from the early 90s do you have any personal stories um of your interactions with bob dole you mentioned his humor and uh i i think that you know for me um his humor is one thing that sort of really stands out and obviously that's what helped to make him a great pitch man eventua
lly but you know personal stories from you so i started covering congress in 1990. this picture is probably from 91 or 92. i'm a very wet behind the ears completely unexperienced amateur covering congress and i always remember going in and making the rounds in the morning and one of the rounds i would make to was then to the minority leader's office bob dole and he would come through and always say the very same thing every morning when anyone was in the office how we doing how we doing how we d
oing and he was just genial and relaxed and very informal about himself about the grandeur of the office he was that way when he was senate majority leader the most powerful republican of the united states senate he never took all the trappings of office all together that seriously i didn't ask for that picture bob dole's office sent it to me it's the only picture i have ann marie with the politician lots of people in washington have lots of pictures of themselves with famous people i don't bob
dole sent it to me and i've just kept it around and i uncovered it a couple of years ago and not only that i thought wow who's that kid on the left but i thought look how vigorous and youthful bob dole looks and i just kept kept it around because it was as i said in my tweet it was a different era and the relationship between reporters and those who covered congress was different congress itself organized itself took its job day to day much more seriously yes it was partisan but it was much more
about productivity than partisanship those days have certainly waned it's much more about partisanship than productivity i think the country has seen that and bob dole and many of the lawmakers of his generation cared much more about the productivity of congress what it actually got done than its partisan orientation those days have certainly ebbed and atrophied where we are much more in an environment of intense partnership partisanship and much less conscious of the productivity of congress b
ob dole and those of his era thought it was it should be prioritized exactly the opposite more on productivity less on partisanship you know before i let you go just going back to his injury and that that little uh clip in sound bite in your story where he's giving the speech and he talks about how the people in his community helped him when he was in need and then he becomes a little bit emotional you know and um i i when i watched that i thought to myself you know here is someone expressing a
very intimate connection with his constituents and i wondered if that also had an impact on the way he did politics absolutely bob dole cared deeply about wrestle kansas for sure and kansas in general he was always a fearsome advocate for the interest agriculture and otherwise of the state of kansas when he was in congress and you saw in that clip something that i think anyone who remembers either in their family or in their acquaintanceship the world war two generation the stoicism that very ra
rely breaks but when it does it breaks kind of like a flood opening um bob dole did not ruminate on his runes from world war ii he did not make it a big part of his political persona others did the profiles about bob dole always spoke in rich detail about how difficult it was for him to recover from those injuries and how many different surgeries were required experimental drugs were used the doctors who intervened not just in russell kansas but elsewhere to save his life he never spoke of that
or rarely spoke of that but the profiles about him always did that's very typical of that generation not to wear the banner or the sash of hero or heroism to always say i'm not the hero those who died alongside me they are the true heroes always reflecting that idea of heroism in another direction and then in rare moments recognizing all that other people did for him you saw him break down bob dole was not a heavily emotional person and i think like a lot of those from that generation they wore
the humor that they brought to whatever they did in public life as a way to shield themselves from the deeper emotions and sometimes grief associated with that combat service and the wounds and the hard road back so he was very much a product of that generation and the 96 campaign was for this country a kind of way to look to the future and look at the past bob dole said proudly in 1996 i reach back to that greatest generation and i will harness all of that spirit and those values and that grit
bill clinton said i've already been elected as the first baby boom president and i'm going to continue my bridge to the 21st century and not look back all of our future is ahead of us and we don't need to rely on those old somewhat dusty values bob dole said no i know what they are they are real they are vibrant and they are part of the american experience the difference in 96 is he said that with a soft less aggressive rhetoric than donald trump used in 2015 and 2016 and the aggressiveness of t
hat rhetoric from donald trump harnessed an audience that bob dole tried but never found particularly rallying to his rhetoric or approach in 96. major before i let you go you may not have any insight into this but you talked about his humor and uh i'm wondering if you know what his reaction was to dana carvey on snl playing him in the way that he did all i know is that bob dole never ever criticized those who made fun of him in a generous sort of way in the public sphere he was very much like g
eorge herbert walker bush in that regard again that's a product of that generation they were just glad to be talked about they were like whoa yes i'm in public life but now i'm someone who is uh treated satirically on a very popular comedy show in america isn't that great this is part of the american experience they never took it personally and they certainly appreciated those who paid close attention to their mannerisms their characteristics and how they did things and look bob dole will be the
first to admit he had a temper and he had a temper that had a mean streak that sometimes came out harmfully to him politically he did in 1976 with that talk about democrat wars yikes people really pulled away from that democrat wars what do you mean world war ii world war one korea yikes people really kind of pulled back from that and very famously against george herbert walker bush in a live interview when they were battling for the republican nomination in 1988 he said to bo to george herbert
walker bush stop lying about my record in a very aggressive hard tone before the new hampshire primary that also struck people as edgy and intense and maybe not temperamentally suited to the white house so yes bob dole had humor he took people's ribbing very well but he also had that kind of caustic quick to anger side that when it flashed kind of pushed people back a little bit wow so fascinating major thank you very much sure
Comments