Richard Darman

But I would have to go down to his office and kind of jawbone him about getting on board and here's where we're going to go.

And he always wanted me to go have a wrestling match with Dick Darman, who was the head of the Office of Management Budget.

One of the things within these administrations is there is jockeying always for position and status based on how close you are to the president.

You had to deal with that stuff all the time.

But you know what they said about the proposal? We don't have to give them anything, but what we need is a good PR package.

That's literally the word that's used by Richard Darman, who was head of office of management and budget.

And I mentioned his name because he had been my colleague at Harvard and then went to OMB and dissed the idea of helping Gorbachev.

And it's like watching amateur hour to look at the minutes of this meeting because it's a bunch of arrogant ignoramuses sitting around the table saying, we don't have to give anything to Gorbachev.

Oh, listen.

You and Dick Darman.

I, I voted against it.

Dick Darman was right there with you, Phil.

Thank you, Pat.

I appreciate you making up things.

Reagan, Bush One, and Clinton generally did a good job, and by the end of Clinton's term, we were running a budget surplus.

And so it's very important for your viewers and listeners to understand, in March of 1990, Richard Darman, the OMB director, came up with an idea that became pay-

And Richard Darman used to say to himself [chuckles] he was always described as Baker's aide.

Yeah.

Well, Darman was a very smart guy.

I know who this is, Goldman Sachs executive VP and secretary to the board.

This guy was a big right-hand guy to James Baker and Dick Darman and Bush, so he's a big Bushie.

But there he is, I guess because of his Goldman Sachs link.

We have Lynn Martin, president of the, uh, New York Stock Exchange.