rodney king. what do you think when you see it? stay alive. i knew i had to no threat. this was a lynching on video. we the jury in the above entitled action find the defendant i think the verdicts lit a match. the tinder was already in place, very dry. are you able to forgive those cops? have you let those demons go? did you hang onto the money or did you throw it away? can we can we all get along? can we get along? march 3rd, 1991, 25-year-old rodney king is thrust from obscurity to a national symbol of police brutality. the brutal beating that took place here along foothill boulevard in los angeles, california, would reverberate across the country. a city in flames. entire neighborhoods burned to the ground. now, two decades later, what s it like to be the man whose beating seen around the world ignited one of the worst race riots in u.s. history? rodney king usually begins his day on a skateboard. the exercise, he says, keeps his muscles from stiffen
in asia and in after from from this can a and in central america. central america. into that storm marched an humble illinois native with a background as diverse as the country that he loved. he had studied economics at eureka college, he had been a radio broadcaster a labor leader a corporate spokesman and governor of california but most hollywood star. and we called him the gipper. ronald wilson reagan assumed center stage well-prepared to play what journalists lou cannon later called the role of a lifetime. through dynamic policy and sound wisdom and inspirational words, he launched the reagan revolution and he showed us how to be the very best americans we could be.
go through of dealing with a loved one with alzheimer s disease after he left the white house. president reagan s mother had had alzheimer s disease and he was very devoted to his mother. and i can remember that lou cannon who is really the definitive broggographer of ronald reagan who has been covering him as a journalist and a writer from the time he was running for governor of california in 1966. lou cannon s mother died and he talked with president reagan about it and he said well, you know, she was she had had a long life and so forth. president reagan said to lou, lou, it s never easy to lose your mother. he had gone through that experience where he had you know, his mother had been out of mental contact with him. and then he, himself, saw himself going into that situation. i was at a program at the reagan library at the summer 1994, a
we talked to her in 2009. it was the kind of access that any journalist would love to have. in particular with mrs. reagan who was then 87 when we talked to her and she had brought all the energy, an tree i canthat y to the project. she wanted to tell the story of her husband and her role in his life, in his presidency. one of the things that was so remarkable about the two of them, we knew at the time that she had an important role. what you were reporting and what our friend lou cannon and other biographers have learned is how profound the role was, but the reagan love affair. the letters in the book published a few years ago, he was not only a brilliant writer, but that relationship. i want to play a little bit of your interview with stu spencer about the reagan relationship. they re hugging and they re kissing and, you know, it s
mitch mcconnell, the senate republican leader yesterday was saying in joking that he believes investment is really a latin word for washington spending and that basically this is just a way for the president to cloak more government spending in the idea that he wants to invest in the future. there s going to be a big battle about that. i think that s what s interesting in what you just played, it follows perfectly in what the president was doing last night in talking about good news, optimism. this was a page out of ronald reagan s playbook, morning in america, 1984, his re-election campaign. i think back to the president s vacation in hawaii an aides were telling us one of the books he was reading was a biography by lou cannon who kronalled ronald reagan for a long time a role of a lifetime. ronald reagan had a gift of connecting with the american people. this president has struggled somewhat with that. he also found a way to get through those midterm elections