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tv   Story of Cool  MSNBC  September 2, 2018 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT

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forces people into real innovation, technology, that's out of competition. >> whatever fuels the next great relativeliry, be it a new idea, or just a need to win, we, the consumers, will be the judge of who comes out on top. this is an msnbc special series. >> cool. elusive. essential. iconic. >> cool is -- >> knowledgeable, authoritative, confident. >> it's the confidence that a person have in hisself. >> original. >> kind of wafer thin. >> cool is who you are, it's created. >> it's one of those things
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where you see it, you know it. >> cool is authenticity, full staff. >> it's one of the few ways we have of distinguishing ourselves from our parents and there's the act of associating one's self with one's peers. that's the kind of judo move that lies at the heart of foundation of coolness. >> you can't plan coolness. it just is. ♪ ♪ >> whatever it is or isn't, cool is power. harness it and it will take you to the top. ♪ ♪ >> can you lead the pack and still be cool? can you have the power and still play the outsider? whether from the mainstream or
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at the margins, cool is a force. >> i think in any leader the quality of cool has to come through, because, by definition, you are getting other human beings to buy in and go in the direction that you wanted them to go. >> it's a certain swagger, how you comport yourself and also how you engage people. >> i'm talking directly to you. no filter here. just me to you. >> the coolest people on earth are the people who are completely true to themselves. >> when leaders have it, they can revolutionize our culture. what is "it?" >> the word and concept of "cool" both come out of african-american jazz culture in early '40s and incredibly surprising comes from one man, legendary jazz saxophonist, lester young, the first to say,
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i am cool. he meant, i am relaxed in this environment in my own style. all these writers who were jazz fans became obsessed with it. norman mailer. jack. >> you see someone, hi, you look elsewhere for someone else, all insane, everything is coming everywhere in the sound of the jazz. >> it winds up crossing over in the con. we have ""westside story"" in 1957. there is a definition of cool. ♪ just play it cool, boy, real cool. >> which goes all the way back to lester young, whose idea of cool was that you take your emotions out. sylvester young's invention of cool was sort of a rebellion without being overtly protesting. there is a direct line from cool that comes out of jazz, comes out of african-american culture and its creation to barack
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obama. >> in no other country on earth is my story even possible. >> i may be slightly biased here because i work for the guy. if you look up the definition of cool, i'm pretty sure there should be a picture of barack obama. the guy is -- he's just cool. >> no? ♪ i am so in love with you >> the powerful thing about the obama campaign in 2008 was everyone counted him out. the people that really fueled the activism, the on the groundwork were kids, were young people. artists like this. >> just before super tuesday a portrait appeared that helped
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transform obama from senator to symbol. the man behind the message, shepherd ferry, a controversial street artist flexing his political activism out of a studio. >> shepherd ferry. >> good to see you, man. >> i've heard it said the campaign didn't ask you to do the poster. >> yeah. i didn't think the campaign would necessarily want to work with me because i thought maybe i was too controversial a figure. i come from public enemy, nwa. everybody i am associated with is motorcycles an antagonist. i made the image and eventually made half a million stickers and 300,000 posters all given away. >> all on your own dime. >> yeah. sort of like, what are you doing? that guy is going to be out of the running shortly anyway, why bother? i did it really because i believed in it. >> that hope poster was in many ways trying to speak for a generation. a generation that had eight
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years of bush. eight years of war. barack obama became, in many ways, a symbol. that poster helped solidify that. >> listening to obama speak, i felt, this is a guy who cares deeply about the well-being of the average person and the nation. he's as much of a patriot as anyone could be. to portray him in a deracialized way and patriotic way, my hope was it would connect with my audience and maybe spill over to a broader audience but it did that way beyond what i could of imagined. >> you filled the dam up with all that creativity and all that amazing art and used that poster and wow, broke down the wall with that poster. you captured everything in one moment. >> i wasn't sure if obama could be the president when he first ran because i just wasn't sure
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if the country had made it that far. i wasn't sure that the country was ready for obama to be president. >> it was just a cool cat who was also very smart. i think that quality came through every time we saw him speak. we wanted to follow him and that made obama one of the greatest leaders of my life. [ chanting ]. >> there would be plenty of challenges during obama's presidency from senate opposition to tense showdowns over his policies. >> i wouldn't feel comfortable if i didn't have at least one heckler. >> for the most part, obama didn't confront. for better or worse he played it cool. >> he survived eight years of constant attack on his character, his legacy, his wife, on his family without losing his cool. >> the attitude of cool, particularly in the african-american community is
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one that embodies the sense of confidence, calmness, coolness, reflectiveness, even under the worst conditions. >> you're the first african-american president. there's all this pressure to be a great president compared to every other president who was a white male. >> why don't you get a drink with mitch mcconnell, they ask. >> everything has to be the perfect pitch and the perfect tone. >> really? why don't you get a drink with mitch mcconnell? >> you know, you never want to be seen as sort of like the angry black guy, right? you want to present a sense of level headedness, coolness. >> you're at my house. [ laughter ] >> he was calm. he was laid back. >> he seems very calm. >> they call him no drama obama. >> president obama did a really great job using his pop culture cachet to cope with the
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obstructionism he faced. >> if i were him i'd be mad all the time. i'm not him. i'm daniel day-lewis. >> he was definitely cool, seeing a person under fire like that handle it with grace. we all got hypnotized a little bit by his coolness and thought everything was all right and it's not. >> one of the important parts of obama's presidency is the affordable care act known as obamacare. when it finally came time to sign people up, there was one small glitch. >> the first 24 hours of this new healthcare law going into effect were a bit rocky. in the federal website crashed. >> our numbers were down, young people weren't enrolling. we needed a water cooler moment. this was not going to happy with a "meet the press" interview. we had to do something very different. there happened to be an extremely popular internet talk
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show called "between two ferns." we looked at what we needed to do, which was reach healthy young men, which by and large was his audience. we went for it? my guest today is barack obama -- president barack obama. >> good to be with you, zach. >> there was a moment -- >> president obama looked around, are we really doing this? >> i have to know. what is it like to be the last black president? >> we got out the word, through very silly weird jokes. we got out the word. >> let's get this out of the way. what did you come here to plug? >> have you heard of the affordable care act? >> oh, yeah, i heard about that. the thing that doesn't work? >> affordable.gov works great now. >> the traffic shot up because of the video. it was not just creating the water cooler video, the best internet advertising any white
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house has ever done before, a weird "between two ferns" interview. >> nice. >> now, where were we? >> obama's cool came down to more than just temperament. he was tuned into his audience and had a new means of reaching them. >> who wants a selfie? >> obama wasn't the first president to master a medium of his time. ♪ you're one-of-a-kind you're headed down the highway when the guy in front
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this bed. tweets, chats, our medium and now the medium of our president, too. obama was the first president to take advantage of these 21st century soapboxes. he wasn't the first to craft his image whether bona fide or not.
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when tv first came on the world came crashing into the lives of americans. nothing would ever be the same in our culture or our politics. >> the old era is ending, the old ways will not do. >> it's old school. >> tv essentially launches around 1948 and grows and grows throughout the '50s. the politics of the '50s are fairly dismissive of television and catering to the print press. the place this starts to transform is in 1960 and transformed largely by jack kennedy. >> jfk very much was the first president always ready to be on camera. we remember that classic nixon-kennedy debate, where one was ready to be on camera and one wasn't. >> my god, they've got it on there now. >> monday, september 26th, 1960, kennedy and nixon were scheduled to face off in the first ever televised debate. they were virtually tied in the
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polls. pressure was running high. >> i think i better shave. >> one of them had been preparing for this moment his whole life. >> hear me now speaking. is that about the right tone of voice? >> one of the reasons kennedy had such an enormous leg up is that his father had been a long term believer in the power of media. his father was a financial expert, a diplomat, and a hollywood mogul. he famously says about jack kennedy, we will sell jack like soap plates. >> what's the most important part of selling a product? the packaging. ♪ everyone is voting for jack >> kennedy is marketed the way you'd market a movie star. his theme song is sung by frank sinatra. his campaign is built around appealing to people on television. ♪ he just keeps rolling along
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>> the candidates need no introduction. the republican candidate, vice president, richard m. nixon and democratic candidate, senator john f. kennedy. >> there was richard nixon on television looking fairly unkempt. >> our medical care for the age is -- is much better handle than at the present time. >> at least compared to this physically cool and then strategically cool younger guy. >> research has shown that if you watched the debate you thought kennedy won, if you listened to the debate you thought nixon won. his projection of school, that kind of complex power and composure won the day visually. >> he may have lost on points in terms of the debate but he won where it counted on image. >> as we move into a medium
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where the world isn't about huge stadium speeches and barnstormers you're going like this and gesticulating wildly. now that it's a camera in front of your face, kennedy had an enormous advantage. >> kennedy understand how a message had to be delivered, cool is in the eye of the beholder. >> more than anything,it was this connotation of youthful ease. they were very adepartment at creating this notion of a romanticized ideal of what the white house was all about. >> despite the cultivated image, the reality was more complicated. >> the kennedys really had an acute understanding of the importance of a visual. family and playing flag football and on the boats and selling, a very active healthy robust person, when in fact he wasn't. >> the fact is, kennedy had a number of serious illnesses,
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going back to his youth, he had been often in the hospital, sometimes with serious problems. he had addison's disease and very bad back problems that kept him confined to bed or rocking chair, yet to the public, he seemed young and fit. >> at that time, the popular suit model was called a sak suit. a three button natural shoulder suit. jfk switched to a two button suit. he got rid of the three button suit. >> that was not necessarily a style thing because the two button suit made it's easier for him to wear his back brace. >> after he was first photographed wearing those two button suits, the three button suit was dead. everybody went out and burned their three button saks suits and got two button suits. the fact that he had an
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absolutely gorgeous wife, jacqueline kennedy, was cool enough. forget about the cuff links. >> i am the man who accompanied jacqueline kennedy to paris and i enjoyed it. >> images of his family appeared on the front page of newspapers. his press secretary talked about how if there was something bad going on they would get another picture of the kids playing under his death and look at the pictures of the kids and you won't think about the fact there is a cold war looming and dangerous things are happening. >> now, we must be ready for a new danger, the atomic bomb. >> on october 16th, 1962, as the cold war was heating up, it was revealed that the ussr was bringing nuclear capable missiles into cuba. >> unmistakable evidence has establishes the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island.
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>> so many of his advisors, particularly on the military side, were saying we have to take military action, we have to do something. >> let's do something to cuba, let's start pushing buttons and let's send troops in there. literally, the world was hours away from nuclear war. >> kennedy's answer to that was more diplomatic than military. >> we will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the course of worldwide nuclear war. >> let's lay back a little bit, give khrushchev some room, see if we can play this out so we don't actually come to blows. >> rather than attack the soviets on bay of cuba, kennedy ordered a naval blockade to keep the soviets from completing their mission. >> a strict quarantined on all
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navy military equipment is being initiated. >> he stood firm and called the soviets' bluff and it worked. >> had it not been for john kennedy, the public opinion was we were headed to worldwide destruction. cool leadership prevented us from worldwide chaos. i think america appreciated that about him. he was america's first cool president. >> in 1963, kennedy's life was tragically cut short. but the jfk mystique lives on. >> he was frozen in time, like amber. that's what we now have is this idea of him as very cool because he never got past that. >> kennedy's cool defined the start of the 1960s. as the turbulent decade wore on, his mythology wasn't the last to be shaped by violence. by violen.
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when john f. kennedy died in 1963, the notion of a cool president died with him, at least for a while. the country retreated to an earlier more familiar model of the commander in chief. >> the folks elected into the presidency for the next four elections tended to be older more experienced folks who had time in washington. these were all men who had this kind of leadership experience. they didn't need to be cool, they didn't want to be cool. >> but when cool left the white house after kennedy, it helped shape a new kind of leadership, from outside the establishment. an unprecedented prosperity swept across america, its benefits were not for everyone. >> there was this real feeling of anger on the part of many who felt that they as americans were not being heard. >> black americans were denied the basic rights of full-fledged
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citizens. by the mid-60s the tension reached the breaking point. leaders rose up against inequality. >> some sought justice through peace. >> this is a non-violent protest. we're on moral and spiritual forces. >> we need and organization ready and willing to take action by any means necessary. >> cool is not just how you act, how you are and what you say and what you do. >> the revolution will not be televised. >> always cool to stand up for yourself, people who do its on a big stage, sacrifice a lot. >> it will not be televised, the revolution will not be televised. the revolution will be live. >> a man who fought against violence is by violence destroyed by an assassin's bullet in memphis, tennessee.
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>> you see folks doing this work be assassinated, that is the sort of thing that compels more people to get involved. >> one movement was there to capture the deep anger and dissatisfaction. >> negroes here are frustrated by the slow pace of integration and have tried to come and form a third party, black panthers. their slogan is black power. >> the initial purpose really was to deal with police brutality, a major problem in california in the 1960s. >> the black panthers started patrolling the streets of oakland, monitoring police behavior and asserting their right to self-defense a stance some white people took as a threat. >> in america, the police are not there to protected our welfare or security or safety, there to contain us and brutalize us and murder us.
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>> when college students are putting together the black panther party for self-defense, they're drawing on rich history of resistance through oppression both through civil rights and black power. >> we'll show you how to -- in a practical manner and defend in a black community. are you gangs hip now? >> young people are drawn to the black panther party, drawn to the uniforms and drawn to the rhetoric, drawn to the leaders, handsome, charismatic and well-spoken really operating in a tradition unlike anything anyone had seen up to that point. ♪ >> the black panthers bejesus hell out of most americans at the time. that's never related to cool. >> what king represented was a
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very polished and buttoned up type of black cool. what the black panthers represented was a different kind of a steady cool. this was a cool that had more to do with celebrating the urban aesthetic. >> he was cute. i was very young at the time, i'd say around 14 or 15. that's where i really got started getting my first awakening as to what was going on politically. i became the first female recruit to walk into our office and ask to join. newton and bobby seal decided we need something that will distinguish us between everybody else. that's when the leather jackets came, mark was wearing the berets. i dusted mine off to be here today. that became the uniform. >> there was this strong sense of identity that was reflected. we're saying black is beautiful
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and we're actually wearing the color black. we are emphasizing the negroness of our hair by wearing the african hairstyle. >> it was a unifying force for us. we represented something and we had laws about wearing those clothes. if you're wearing this uniform, you're a servant of the people. >> they incorporate elements of black culture, an affirmation of dignity of black humanity. in process signify to the world james brown would sing about i'm black and i'm proud. ♪ >> what was cool for us then was to look more in line with what we really ar. that is african people. so, it was all about style. it hasn't been created yet so we created it. >> black panthers got the equation right.
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confident leadership matched with a look that amplified their message and got young people's attention. to the establishment, black panther party was a national menace. >> there can be no progress in america without respect for law. >> j. edgar hoover, the director of the fbi, would end up designating the panthers as one of the biggest threats to security of the united states of america. >> in the crackdown that followed, the panther's revolutionary image and message were met with force. >> we started to see people getting arrested. we found several of our members that had been murdered. for us who defended our very lives we dared to find who we are, we're a threat? >> but that determination to define themselves created a legacy.
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for those outside mainstream power, and those very much inside it. >>. ♪ okay, ladies >> that super bowl presentation, it brought me to tears to see that. they had berets, they had style. they had the dress. it made such a powerful statement that they remembered us. >> beyonce, the world's biggest pop icon revived the spirit of the panthers on a massive stage. with her celebrity power, she gut punched some americans, much like muhammad ali did decades earlier. earlier. ♪ [ screams ] ♪ [ laughs ] ♪ whoa, whoa, whoa.
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the vietnam hero and long-time senator. confirmation hearings set to begin tuesday for brett kavanaugh and democrats demand more more documents from his time in the bush years. back to the story of cool. a new kind of cool emerged in 1960s america. counter-culture cool. it was a time of empowerment. people who may never have considered speaking out found a voice and put it to use. in the protests, new leaders broke through with a vengeance. >> there is not a heavyweight who can keep up with me. i hit a man so fast slow motion camera can't detect the speed. >> muhammad ali is my favorite i
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ever watched. >> i am the greatest. >> not only did he know exactly who he was, willing to share who he was with the world. >> 15 times i told the crowd what round he's going down and this ain't no different. he'll fall at eight to prove i'm great. if he keeps popping up -- >> on february 1964, cassius clay defeated sonny lidstrom to become the champion of the world. it was a stunning upset. he was 22 years old and catapulted into instant celebrity. two days later, clay shocked the world again. he announced he was joining the nation of islam. >> why do you insist on being called muhammad-ali now? >> that's the name given to me by my teacher. that's a black man name. cassius clay is my slave name. i'm no longer a slave.
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>> muhammad-ali risked his fame. >> we came in they'vas slaves. >> everything in authority is made with white. we look at jesus, blonde hair and blue eyes and the colored angels must be in the kitchen preparing the milk and honey. >> muhammad's defiance came at a pinnacle in time he reached the pinnacle of success. he chose that time to thumb his nose at society and the culture. >> his popularity would be soon tested again and stakes were sky high. >> last week, people died more than any previously. >> in 1966, muhammad was drafted. instead, he went head-to-head
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with the united states government. on april 28th, 1967, he became a conscientious object tore. >> there is one hell of a lot of difference in fighting in the rain and going to one vietnam. in war, the intention is to kill kill kill and continue killing innocent people. >> he knew that that could very well be a career ending moment. >> ladies and gentlemen, mr. muhammad ali has just refused to be inducted to the special forces. >> muhammad-ali was stripped of his title? >> ali's stance would get him arrested and convicted. >> never been arrested or seen a jail. something new. >> it far from tarnished his name. his willingness to go to the mat for his beliefs would solidify
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him as an icon. >> it also resonated with young whites. ali become as cultural icon, someone who uses his voice to speak out against injustice and at great cost. >> ali was the baddest human being walking the face of the earth. he was the heavyweight champ. he had money and everything but more than willing to open up and share with the world who he was and what he cared about even if it meant being stripped of being what he wanted his whole life, the heavyweight champion of the world. >> the fact he was such a globally recognized athlete created a new paradigm for what athletes and stars could do. >> the anti-vietnam war movement continued to grow and so did ali's cool factor. the coolest people always have something to say. you love them because they have the courage and they have the confidence to say what's on
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their mind no matter where their career may end up. you have to salute the cool people have always spoke out. >> muhammad ali turned star power into political power, a re-brand that would repeat itself again and again. >> darling. >> hello. >> sally, i want you to meet van johnson, president of the actor's guild. >> how do you do? actor's guild. >> how do you do adults are just kids with much, much better toys. [ giggling ] the c-class sedan, coupe and cabriolet. the thrills keep getting better. the 2018 c-class sedan starting at $40,250. mercedes-benz. the best or nothing. you wouldn't accept an incomplete job from any one else. why accept it from your allergy pills? flonase sensimist relieves your worst symptoms, including nasal congestion, which most pills don't.
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i shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. >> the united states of america will not yield to international terrorism or to blackmail. >> it is the worst down turn on record. >> by the end of 1970s,
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americans were fed up with politics as usual. years of war, scandal and turmoil had left the country ready for a change. >> everybody's just kind of tired. they're tired of the war in vietnam, they're tired of economic difficulties. tired of generational conflicts. they're tired of the culture changing, often coming from the margins of society. >> many felt a yerarning for a simpler time. a time of strength, values, of heroes. >> what are you doing here? >> now, that's a silly question. >> reagan was what americans wanted when they were tired of cool or fearful of cool. he was sort of the antidote to the political manifestation of cool, which was the counter-culture movement. >> ronald reagan really capitalizes on this mood, riding an emerging anti-government,
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anti-tax cultural backlash movement. this is the sense of frustration that propels reagan ultimately to the white house. >> when he took the highest office in the land in 1981, reagan's first task was to brighten the bleak picture of america and turn back the clock to a more prosperous error. >> that budget is much more than a long list of numbers, part of a careful long term plan to make america strong again after too many years of neglect and mistakes. >> he sold the idea that prosperity and economic fruitfulness itself was very cool. >> probably reagan's most important and lasting achievement was what everybody called reaganomics. when i was in hollywood and used to film so many pictures a year,
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i'd stop at a certain point because the rest of the money would all go to the government. the theory said if you cut taxes, people will work more and be more productive and generate more for the economy as a whole. >> during the 1980s, where there was this drumbeat for money, power, greed, ronald reagan's policies fed into that. >> reagan comes along and said materialism is good. >> or as said in wall street -- >> greed, for back of a better word is good. >> reagan's policies put the pursuit of wealth front and center. >> promised to bump our nation a few way forward. >> they came from leadership or the lack of it that we have today in washington, d.c. it is time for a change. >> his image was a throwback to a fantasy past, straight out of an old western.
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>> he is a hollywood cowboy and he is riding in to actually bring back our belief in the greatness of america. if jfk was our first tv president -- >> i had a pitch on the way to the plate. >> reagan was our first hollywood president. taking a knack for drama from the big screen to the white house. >> it must be difficult for a man who has spent a lifetime -- >> this guy was an actor. this guy spent his whole life and career in front of a camera captivating audiences. >> there's almost and element of hollywood escapism in the picture he's trying to paint. >> it's morning again in america and under the leadership of president reagan, our country is prouder and better. >> ronald reagan does load up
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his speeches with an imagery and whole world view that seems to come out of like an old mgm film. >> we as americans have the capacity now as we had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to this last and greatest freedom. >> his staff would say, when they were trying to brief him. they would run lines with him. the great communicator. he didn't just communicate well. he directed well. he wrote the scene well. and then performed the scene well. >> some of his great lines come from movies. there's a debate in 1980. he grabs the microphone and says i am paying for this microphone. he had been denied the chance to speak. it came from spencer tracy state of the union. >> don't shut me off.
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i'm paying for this broadcast. >> ronald reagan. you have the sense of power from him. one of my favorite reagan moments was when he first got together with mchale. he knew reagan was an adversary. when the meeting broke up, reagan had totally charmed him. it was clear. i have a picture looking up at reagan like kind of with awe and administration. reagan was playing the role of a lifetime. president of the united states. >> tear down this wall. >> his lasting image would be of strength. grit. and a conservative cool that would inspire future generations. >> he made it cool to be republican. which growing up was not the
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easiest thing in the world to be. >> he has a special place for a lot of us. like leaders before him. he changed the story of cool in his time. the leadership always swings back and forth. where it will come from next, is anybody's guess. polident is specifically designed to clean a denture. the wonderful thing about polident is the fact that it's very, very tough on bacteria, yet it's very gentle on the denture itself. polident's 4 in 1 cleaning system consists
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of 4 powerful ingredients that work together to deep clean your denture in hard to reach places. it kills 99.99% of odor causing bacteria and it helps to remove stains. polident should be the first choice of every person that wears a denture, to clean their denture. but let's be honest, nobody likes dealing with insurance. which is why esurance hired me, dennis quaid, as their spokesperson because apparently, i'm highly likable. see, they know it's confusing. i literally have no idea what i'm getting, dennis quaid. that's why they're making it simple, man in cafe. and more affordable. thank you, dennis quaid. you're welcome. that's a prop apple. i'd tell you more, but i only have 30 seconds. so here's a dramatic shot of their tagline so you'll remember it. esurance. it's surprisingly painless.
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looking back, or looking forward. rising from the center or emerging from the margins. leadership, like cool. is hard to pin down. still there's one place that's been trying to teach it for over 200 years. the u.s. military academy at west point. >> i think it's important for them to understand and believe that my leader is confident.
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my leader is professional. my leader is someone who knows what they're doing. somebody who won't lose their head when things go bad. >> to maintain the coolness is something that people look for in their leader. >> for the cadets who make it here, standing for something is the first step. >> the mashlgty of people from my high school didn't really go military. it wasn't cool. they wanted to go be famous and go to l.a. i thought it was cool to join the army to fight for something worthwhile. >> it isn't cool in certain peoples eyes. it's a real gut check. what matters to you and pushing you. when you have somebody that tries to do the right thing regardless of who's watching or whornt at the moment it's the cool thing to do. >> perception is everything in the army. it comes down to when you show up if your uniform is perfectly
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squared away. and the first day of pt. >> perception is reality. when this comes to the role as a leader. if you're perceived as being somebody who cares. somebody who is strong and capable. then you are. and the perception. even if you're not, you have to fake the funk. until you become that individual. >> here, leadership is ab academic pursuit. out there, it's a matter of life and death. >> as much as i miss up here we'll go back to the mess hall. there's no enemy. knowing that i'll deploy and there will be bullets in the other direction. i need to be on top of my game and show my soldiers and peers i'll get them out safe. >> responsibility. heart. integrity. qualities that many leaders strive for.
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at west point, and everywhere else. cool leadership is about the keyword. leader. at a time when everyone is going that way, and you need them go this way. because it's the right way to go. >> each leader is a product of their time. and in turn shapes their era. kennedy gave us the first image of a cool leader. black panthers fought the power and found their own. ali showed how fearless a leader must be. reagan retro cool. and obama showed us that leaders can rise up against all odds. >> tonight it's my turn to say thank you. >> you can change the world. >> so, now what? >> the avenues to political leaders ship seem more unpredictable than ever. we have gone from a leadership
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style where we look up to our president. to a more pop ewe listic where we want to see the president as one of us. >> we'll bring the united states of america back. >> donald trump in many ways it was his familiarity to the american people achieved through his years on television that i think enabled his success. the way of seizing the nations attention in ways that might be more direct and immediate. than working up in the traditional political ladder. >> it could be that trump is the most entertaining president in history. because he understands that all people really want in these days of short attention spans, is to keep people constantly stimulated. we love entertainment so much. it changes our journalism and it changes politics. so, is it conceivable that future presidents will be more
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entertainers than politicians? absolutely. this is an msnbc special series. >> two, two, three -- ♪ >> cool. if you could only define it. >> define it would diminish what cool is. >> find it. >> everybody's trying to sell you cool. most of the time it don't work. you can't measure, you can't market. it is what it is. >> catch it. >> i just don't actually think cool exists. i don't think it's actually a thing. >> you could make a killing. >> cool ls

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