Chris Matthews - host of Hardball with Chris Matthews - came to the University of Southern California on Friday to discuss his new book, "Tip and The Gipper: When Politics Worked." USC Professor and historian Kevin Starr moderated the discussion, which also included former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Former California Assembly Speaker Robert “Bob” Hertzberg was also at the event, which was put on by the USCPrice and the USCSchwarzenegger Institute, and spoke at the end.

After opening remarks by the global director and academic director of the Institute and by Schwarzenegger himself, Starr would ask Matthews a question about the book and then ask Schwarzenegger about the same or a smilier concept in California. In this article, however, Neon Tommy will only go through what was said about the book and not what was discussed about California, the present state of U.S. and global affairs or the question and answer period.

The book is about the relationship - how they were friends and how they were able to work together in Washington even though they were on different sides of the political spectrum - between President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O’Neill, a Democrat. The two were would drink together “after 6.” Schwarzenegger said “they protected each other” by “sharing victories.”

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Matthews knew both men and he said he was friends with Ronald Reagan and he worked for O’Neill. About the book, Matthews said, “…this is not some frickin bromance story here, this is about two guys who are professionals in their 70s that knew this had to get done. No more screwing around.” He continued by saying, “They knew they had to fix social security; they did it. They knew they had to fix up the tax system. They got the rate down to 28 percent…Tip really did help Reagan in the Cold War. I got all that in there. But, they knew it was time for action and for deals.”

Starr then brought up about Matthews’ view of Reagan. Matthews said, “In our generation, we grew up with Reagan as a very popular guy in our lives.” He then said he later read what Reagan was about, but said we “really liked him,” after saying he introduced a television show. He added, “I wouldn’t have worked against him, except I worked for Tip.”

Matthews said he was a “total, frightening partisan,” but said O’Neill wanted to make deals and added that deals were made and tasks were accomplished.

Starr spoke to Matthews about Lebanon and how the two handled the situation, which is a chapter in the book. Matthews talked about how the U.S. sent Marines into the country to get Yasser Arafat out and move him to Tripoli, Libya. That was successful. Reagan then, however, put Marines back in Lebanon for diplomatic purposes, but Matthews said that was a “mistake.” He indicated that our Marines were targets because the United States backed Israel. He said, “…I can’t defend Reagan on the Middle East. He was dynamite on two things: Get the government off your back by cutting taxes and cutting government. He hated big government and he hated Congress, hated Congress, but yet he never wanted to go to war with them. He knew we could never have a nuclear war, in fact, he hated mutual assured destruction. And he was so glad to get rid of it….”

Matthews said Reagan was smart and had the, “human instinct that [Gorbachev] was not Molotov,” meaning that he knew Gorbachev was different than previous Soviet rulers. 

“I think that the meeting Tip had with Gorbachev is one of the great moments,” Matthews said. He then described the meeting, where O’Neill led the U.S. delegation to meet with Gorbachev and had a note from the president - Reagan - for the Soviet leader. The author then went into more of the meeting and then discussed meetings between Reagan and Gorbachev.

 

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