"Reagan was much more of a pragmatist and an improviser than many on the right appreciate."
Jacob Weisberg, chairman and editor-in-chief of The Slate Group, the former editor of Slate magazine, and author of The Bush Tragedy and Ronald Reagan: The American Presidents Series: The 40th President, 1981-1989 (Times Books, 2016), offers a fresh take on the Reagan presidency.
Comparing Reagan to today's Republican party, Weisberg says Trump is "directly at odds" with Reagan. For one, Reagan was behind the last major immigration bill in the late 1980s, and Weisberg says he really accepted the idea of a "porous border" of Mexican immigrants who move back and forth between families in Mexico and agricultural jobs in Southern California and elsewhere.
"Reagan was humble. Reagan was a kind man. Having spent a long time reading his writing, Reagan’s a very hard person to not like. Trump is a very hard person to like."
Weisberg also wrote a book on George W. Bush. When asked to compare the two Republican presidents, he said George W. Bush adopted Reagan as a sort of "political father." W. Bush was very motivated by rejecting his father's politics and perhaps mistakenly interpreting the pure, conservative ideology of Reagan, according to Weisberg.
"Of the things affecting him during his first term, I don’t agree with @oreillyfactor that Alzheimer’s was a big factor." @jacobwe on Reagan
— Brian Lehrer Show (@BrianLehrer) January 6, 2016