Nixon White House Tapes — Conversation 278-004
Date: Thursday, September 9, 1971 at 1:20 PM
Participants: Nixon, Richard M. (President); Haldeman, H. R. ("Bob")
Recording device: Old Executive Office Building
Source: https://www.easynixon.org/tapes/278-004

This transcript was generated automatically by AI (WhisperX) and has not been reviewed for accuracy. Do not cite it as authoritative.

[0:01] Now, let me know if any of you got any capture reactions.
[0:09] I particularly, before I see Connor, he must have looked pretty good.
[0:23] I looked at him at times.
[0:35] Just saying, revenue sharing, government reorganization, welfare reform, economic.
[0:43] Now this session, as I said, I already wrote all of it.
[0:47] If you look at that first part, you can see what you really need.
[0:54] I'm just thinking, Roosevelt had, basically, what he called a speech doctrine.
[1:00] Actually, the experts in lecture and comparison, he wrote a riot of cheer lines.
[1:05] And at the present time, I do that.
[1:07] You see, and I shouldn't have to.
[1:10] I shouldn't do that.
[1:11] That's something that we don't have.
[1:13] But you see, Ray doesn't have that ability.
[1:15] You would agree with me now.
[1:16] And in South Park, he says you should kill people.
[1:22] But the cheer lines are so essential.
[1:24] Like the way you get a cheer line from those, I said, let us be proud of that.
[1:28] Let us do the, well, that makes me cheer.
[1:30] And you've got to say it that way.
[1:32] I wonder if we do the year follow-up to New York to have a cheer line speech doctor.
[1:38] I don't want a guy who won't quite be able to speak.
[1:41] But a guy who basically can continue to speak and say, all right, this is good material.
[1:46] Who's got it?
[1:48] Like the way I took that.
[1:50] If you'll read the text of what we had on welfare, where I said, I rewrote that, let us get rid of the system that makes it more profitable for a man to go on welfare than to go to work.
[2:04] But I mean, the way that we addressed it previously, it was part of a long sentence.
[2:10] You know, just driving in.
[2:11] But no law, see?
[2:13] So Ray did a terrible job writing this monument.
[2:15] I'm sure he won't be fighting back.
[2:20] But there we go.