‘The country will survive whatever happens now’
For the past six years, David Rubenstein has been hosting private dinners for lawmakers at the Library of Congress, featuring interviews with prominent historians. Now a collection of those talks has been published Tuesday as “The American Story: Conversations With Master Historians,” by Simon & Schuster.
Rubenstein, 70, who was a White House staffer for President Jimmy Carter and then founded the Carlyle Group, has become what he calls a “patriotic philanthropist.” The billionaire has purchased rare copies of democracy’s documents – the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Emancipation Proclamation – and put them on public display. And he has helped finance the restoration of many of democracy’s monuments, from Monticello to the Lincoln Memorial.
After this interview, he headed to the Jefferson Memorial to announce a $10 million gift to build an underground education center “so when people go, they can actually learn about Jefferson.”
Questions and answers have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Question: You came to Washington, by my count, eight presidents ago, and in the wake of an impeachment battle with Richard Nixon. Does today feel like that felt?
Answer: When I came to Washington, Nixon had gone. He obviously had the challenge of the pardon, but I think there was a sense that (Gerald) Ford was trying to right the ship that had gone wrong. It was a different sort of set of circumstances. There was no Fox television. There wasn’t quite the hard-core support, the always Trumpers. There weren’t always-Nixoners. The news cycle was much different in those days. … And also I think that Nixon as a lawyer recognized certain things that a lawyer would recognize and he understood having been in government, certain traditions and certain things that you just can’t not do or things that you have to do. And I think it’s different today.
Q: A lot of Americans feel we’re now in a state of crisis, a big constitutional challenge. Do you think that’s true?
A: In every era, people always think this was the worst of times; this is the best of times; or this has never happened before. But the truth is, when you go back to history, we had times were much worse than this. The Civil War – I mean, the country was falling apart. In the early days of the country, with George Washington, it wasn’t clear that the country was going to survive. World War II, wasn’t clear what the outcome was going to be early on. So I would say this is a political crisis, but I don’t think ... the country’s in danger of falling apart. The country will survive whatever happens now, I think.
Q: Why do you think it’s a political crisis?
A: Well, because the two sides are at loggerheads, and I don’t see any easy mechanism for them to come together.
Q: What’s the lesson of history about how we get ourselves as a nation to a better place in our politics?
A: In my view, presidents, although they are only one person, they can have an enormous impact in the country. Lincoln,
Washington, Roosevelt, Wilson, Reagan – these people had a big impact. Clearly great men and great women can have a real impact on how a country goes a certain direction.
Q: What are the common qualities of those successful presidents?
A: You have to have some self-confidence. They have some sense that they need help from other people to get something done; they can’t do it all themselves. I think they have a sense that their ability to be successful depends on one thing: their ability to persuade people to follow them.
Q: Fifty years from now, what will the historian of this era be saying?
A: Well, it depends on what ultimately happens with President Trump. So if President Trump is not convicted, if he is reelected and if his second term turns out to be very successful, the economy continues, we stay out of wars, they might say great things. ‘Tough the first couple of years, but look how he came back.’ If he were to be convicted, which there’s no evidence that that’ll happen now, then people will say, ‘He was the only president ever convicted.’ So it’s too early to say.