Elizabeth Ralph is deputy editor at Politico Magazine.

Ronald Reagan’s sons have one thing to say to Donald Trump: We knew Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was our father. And you’re no Ronald Reagan.

The conservative 40th president has been a touchstone in practically every presidential race since he left office, but this year, from Scott Walker’s fawning tweets to Jeb Bush’s custom T-shirt, Reagan fever seems to have reached a new high. And you can bet it will be a main feature of the debate tonight, at the Reagan Library in California.


But if you ask Reagan’s sons Ron and Michael, they’re not so keen on the comparisons. In two exclusive interviews (both published below), which span what the former president would think of the 16-strong Republican field (“I think he’d be kind of appalled”) to who’s most like Reagan (“Rick Perry. … They have the same hat size”) to what Reagan would think of Jeb Bush (“lacks charisma”), the sons of the former president both reject the idea that any Republican today really is the next Ronald Reagan. Plus, as Ron Reagan, a liberal political commentator, points out, “my father never went around comparing himself to someone else.”

Not only is the whole party “certainly getting him wrong as a Republican,” says Ron, the idea of comparing Trump to his father disgusts him. “I can’t think of two people who are more diametrically opposed. This egotistical, narcissistic guy with the weird comb over swanning in his private plane. … I mean, look in the mirror, fat boy. Look at that hair, you’re ridiculous! Where do you get off talking on anybody’s appearance? It’s just so unchivalrous. My father would recoil at that sort of thing.”

Michael Reagan, a conservative political strategist who hosted a talk radio program for 26 years, also questioned the idea that Republican candidates today are just like his father, especially Trump. “It’s interesting to see how many of them … recreate my father in their image and likeness instead of his,” he says. “Ronald Reagan would never take 11 million people or three million people or a million people and throw them out of the United States of America.” Plus, Michael says, talking about Reagan all the time is just bad strategy: “I have a 32 year-old daughter named Ashley. She knows who Ronald Reagan is, but name another 32 year old who does.”

And as for Donald Trump being the next Ronald Reagan? That’s ridiculous, says Michael. “To say what he said about Carly? … Is that the face we want for the Republican Party? If that’s the face, then the Democrats have to be going, ‘Go Donald!’”

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RON REAGAN (for the Q and A with Michael Reagan, go to page 2)

Elizabeth Ralph: Do you think that the Republican Party is getting Reagan wrong and misremembering his policies?

Ron Reagan: They’re certainly getting him wrong as a Republican. I mean, everyone knows the usual suspects: Pretty liberal abortion law in California. Talking to Gorbachev and the Evil Empire. Raising taxes, for that matter.

But really, the GOP these days is no longer a legitimate political party. They’re not interested in governing anymore. My father certainly was. The idea of shutting down the government because you’re peeved about Planned Parenthood, that’s not a thought that ever would have crossed his mind. The idea of a few million dollars going to an organization like that that does a lot of good work for people should be a pretext to shut down the government would just be unthinkable to him.

I also think he would have been much better on climate change. The hole in the ozone was discovered back during his administration. He didn’t hesitate to move on that. It didn’t hurt that his friend Margaret Thatcher had a degree in chemistry. She could explain things to him, I’m sure.

ER: You mentioned earlier that you felt a kind of disgust that Republicans had appropriated your father in this way.

RR: That was about the comparisons between Donald Trump and my father. You listen to what Ann Coulter has to say—of course, it figures that she would make the comparison between my father and Donald Trump. Just on a human being kind of level, I can’t think of two people who are more diametrically opposed. This egotistical, narcissistic guy with the weird comb over swanning in his private plane. I picture my father on a horse at the ranch, maybe cutting some wood in his old blue jeans.

ER: What you hear of him is that he was a really nice guy.

RR: Yes. Trump doesn’t seem to be able to help himself from making comments about women that are just—this latest thing with Fiornia, I mean, come on. Are you kidding? I mean, look in the mirror, fat boy. Look at that hair, you’re ridiculous! Where do you get off talking on anybody’s appearance? It’s just so unchivalrous. My father would recoil at that sort of thing. He would never ever make a comment about a woman’s appearance. It wouldn’t matter if she were on the other side politically. That would just be unthinkable to him.

ER: People talk about how Donald Trump is just a symbol of the new media age, where in order to break through, you have to make comments like that.

RR: The media decides what the new media era is, of course. Trump may be exploiting it, but it’s all the rest of us that decide what this is. We’ve decided that we want to pay a lot of attention to this guy—who, frankly, we all know is an idiot. He’s been around for a long time. He doesn’t know anything about anything. Maybe real estate, I’ll give him that. Other than that, not really a clue about anything. He was the head of the whole birther movement, for God’s sake. He was the chief flack for that. He’s a joke. He’s not even admired among people like him. Other titans of industry and billionaires and what-have-you, they don’t respect Donald Trump. He’s like the class clown kind of guy. So why are we giving this guy the time of day? It’s amusing that we are. It’s certainly not helping the Republican Party any. But really, why are we pretending this is a serious man who may end up in the Oval Office? No, he’s not. No he won’t.

ER: Why do you think his poll numbers are so high? Just because the media covers him so much?

RR: His polls are high because he’s got a Republican Party where 16 people are running. He’s made the most noise. The media has given him the most attention. So he’s the guy who’s on people’s minds now. Most people aren’t really thinking about the presidential election at this point. It’s too early. They may not think about it until the day before they go to vote anyway. So they just see this guy. He’s admittedly tapped into the Republican id. His initial comments about immigrants are what a lot of these people think, or at least a good chunk of the Republicans think. I mean, it’s racist, basically. But there you go. It’s no coincidence that white supremacists seem to like him. They’re not just motivated by the color of his hair.

ER: He talks about your dad a fair amount, too. He wrote some pretty harsh things about Reagan in The Art of the Deal. Now he’s all over him.

RR: I so don’t care what Donald Trump has to say about my father. I don’t really care about what Donald Trump has to say about anything, but certainly not that.

ER: What do you think your father would think of this 16-candidate field, full of …

RR: Full of weirdos, charlatans and people who aren’t really running for president? I think he’d be kind of appalled. I hope that if he’s floating around somewhere, he’s amused, being separated from all this.

As long as we’re doing a thought experiment, if he were actually an active politician today in the Republican Party, he’s so much more talented than most of these guys. They wouldn’t be running, basically, if he had decided to do so. He’s sort of in a different league than most of these folks.

ER: What put him in a different league? What was it that he had?

RR: Charisma and a sort of seriousness of purpose too. He really wasn’t running just to get attention. You can probably use up one hand counting the people in the field who are really just doing that. Mike Huckabee, for instance. He’s not really running for president. He’s running for another television show. Trump! I think Trump would be alarmed if he found out that he was actually going to be elected president and would actually have to take responsibility for stuff.

ER: What do you think he would think of Jeb Bush? Analysts say, despite the polls, Jeb Bush is still the front-runner.

RR: Jeb Bush’s problem—and I think my father would have been very nice about it, of course, because he knows the family and he would have tried to put a good spin on it—but I think his frank appraisal as a performer would be that Jeb Bush lacks charisma and doesn’t connect with people well. That’s really going to hurt him. It has hurt him. He’s just not taking off. Trump aside, to me the other big story in the horserace on the Republican side is that Jeb Bush, the presumed front-runner, the guy who all the establishment wanted and they were giving him money already, just doesn’t really connect with voters. He doesn’t excite people. He doesn’t have charisma. I don’t care how much money you have, money doesn’t buy charisma.

ER: I watched the first debate, which was very entertaining. He didn’t really stand out.

RR: I don’t know him, but I suspect part of the problem is—unlike Bernie Sanders, let’s say—he’s not authentic in any way. He is, like a lot of these guys, a manufactured candidate. His positions are not things that are heartfelt and genuine. They are poll tested and focus grouped and massaged into pleasing shapes, at least to the Republican primary voter. But they’re not things that come from his gut. People can tell. It’s a performance out there, but you’ve got to be performing as yourself.

My father was always himself out there. I never had the experience with my father of spending time with him backstage, then watching him go out on stage and transform himself into another person. It was just a slightly amplified version of who he was backstage. It really helps when you don’t have to fake.

ER: Do you think that’s one thing Trump is actually good at? Not faking it?

RR: In his way. He’s a huckster. All of his books have been about The Art of the Deal and selling people an image. I don’t know if he’s even really talented at any of that stuff, but let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he is. That’s what he brings to the table here, then. He’s a con man. So sure, like any snake oil salesman he can con a segment of the electorate. The Republican Party is now 28 percent of the electorate or something. He’s got a third of 28 percent. He’s got—what, 8 or 9 percent of the electorate? I don’t think he’s going to get much more, frankly. That doesn’t get you into the White House.

ER: Who do you think will be the nominee?

RR: I don’t know. I really honestly don’t know. I would say Jeb probably even now is the likely choice. There doesn’t seem to be anybody else. I thought that Kasich might bust through. After that first debate, I thought here’s a guy who’s got a little momentum and maybe he can do something with it. Now it seems like maybe he’s a better pick for vice president. There just aren’t that many alternatives to Jeb. And yet, Jeb does not excite the base.

ER: What about Rubio or Walker? Carson is up there now.

RR: Walker just seems to be in over his head. Carson is not real. Carson isn’t any more real than Trump. Talk about somebody who doesn’t know anything, Carson really doesn’t know anything. He’s having his moment because he has a personable manner, I think. He says these outrageous things, but nevertheless he’s not going to go far.

Rubio, to me, is a possible VP pick. I just have trouble seeing him in the big chair. He strikes me as young and fresh, but a little too young, you know? A little too wet behind the ears. Obama was young, but you didn’t get the sense that he was really young. There was more gravitas there. Rubio doesn’t give you that—at least I haven’t seen it. He looks like somebody’s kid brother out there. I don’t see the American people going for somebody like that unless they had something really really great going for them in another way, and I don’t see that from him.

ER: You mentioned you’re reluctant to do this kind of interview, about your father and current politics? Why is that?

RR: It just gets old. It seems to me to be kind of an obvious angle to take, because the Republicans keep bringing up my father and they have for a long time. It’s for pretty obvious reasons. Who else do the Republicans have who they can hold up as a hero? I mean, unless you want to go back to Abraham Lincoln. And they may not have that much affinity for him! It’s not going to be Nixon. It’s not going to be H.W. Bush. It’s not going to be W either, for various reasons. So it’s my father. He’s their touchstone. He’s their fetish. They’ve all got to sort of genuflect to him.

It’s senseless, too. The man has been out of office now for a quarter of a century. I mean, who knows what Ronald Reagan would be if he were around today and running for president? My guess is that he would not be exactly the way he was back then. We grow. People move on. So the idea of comparing yourself to him is really sort of meaningless. I’ve gotten tired of talking about it.

I do remind people, though, that my father never went around comparing himself to someone else. He didn’t go around comparing himself to Eisenhower. It strikes me as odd that these people are so eager to pretend to be another person, and suggests that they aren’t fully developed themselves.

ER: You mentioned Bernie Sanders. What do you think about the Democrats? Hillary and Bernie?

RR: I like Bernie. I used to do a radio show for Air America and I would have Bernie on every week. This was before we were all ‘feeling the Bern.’ He’s always impressed me as an unusual politician, in that he just pretty much told you what he thought about something. There was no B.S. There’s a real authenticity there to him, which I think is pretty much lacking in everybody else I see on either side at this point.

ER: Did your father ever talk about the fact that he used to be a liberal?

RR: Oh yes, he did. He had a version of the story that he’d tell us. It always featured the line that he didn’t leave his party, his party left him. Although since he was an enthusiastic Democrat through the FDR era, I’m not really sure that makes any sense whatsoever. I think there were just things going on in his life at the time when he did, during the ‘50s, become a Republican that pushed him in that direction. Seeing a lot of his paychecks go to taxes I think was a big blow to him.

ER: Do you think Hillary’s got any charisma?

RR: She’s not without charisma. I’ve been in a room with her a couple of times. She’s bright and charming one-on-one, funny. She’s got charisma, she does. It’s not high wattage kind of charisma like her husband or my father, or Obama for that matter. But it’s there.

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MICHAEL REAGAN (for the Q and A with Ron Reagan, go to page 1)

Elizabeth Ralph: Do you think the Republican candidates who reference him get your dad wrong?

Michael Reagan: Every one of them mentioned my father in one way or another, and it’s interesting to see how many of them, and how many of the people out there that they’re speaking to recreate my father in their image and likeness instead of his. For example, my father was quite the negotiator, my father was quite the person who found a way to work with people instead of a way not to work with people. He didn’t walk into negotiations with Tip O’Neill yelling and screaming at Tip O’Neill.

And Ronald Reagan would never take 11 million people or three million people or a million people and throw them out of the United States of America and then say, ‘Well the good ones can come back in. We’ll figure a way out.’ My father had a heart for everybody and understood America’s a melting pot. I think a lot of people don’t really understand that side of Ronald Reagan. It’s going to be interesting to be at the debate and listen to them talk about immigration. If I were to ask a question, my question would be, ‘Do you think Ronald Reagan would or would not throw the Dreamers out of the United States of America?’ And I believe Ronald Reagan would not.

ER: Why do you think the Republican Party feels the need to co-opt your father?

MR: That’s the last great leader they remember. Democrats have Kennedy; Republicans have Reagan. But the problem there is—I have a 32 year-old daughter named Ashley. She knows who Ronald Reagan is, but name another 32 year old who does. Republicans can pull up my father and talk about Ronald Reagan but they’re talking to an aging population within their own party. They’ve got to find a way to relate to the younger generation and who they are, and if they’re not relatable or likable to those 30, 32, 35 and 40 year-olds, then they find themselves in a lot of trouble. So the party can reach out and co-opt my father, but it remains an old party. The Grand Old Party. If they want to win, they have to find a way to relate to the Grand Younger Party.

ER: Do you think any of the candidates today can do that—relate to the Grand Younger Party?

MR: I think there’s probably candidates that can, but their problem is that they can’t figure out a way to put air back in the room. You’ve got your Ted Cruzes, your Marco Rubios. You have some great governors out there who’ve done great things for their states who can’t get the time of day because of Trump. The other day I Tweeted about how Rick Perry made Texas great again. John Kasich made Ohio great again. Jeb Bush made Florida great again. Walker made Wisconsin great again. And they can’t get traction because Donald Trump takes all of the air out of the room by saying he’s going to make America great again. Donald Trump has got everybody else running talking about Donald Trump, not talking about what they would do.

ER: What about Jeb? Do you think he can pull it off?

MR: The hardest thing he’s got to overcome is that he’s a Bush. He has to really take control of who he is—and to put out the tax plan and all these other things, that just puts people to sleep at this point in time. Fifty percent of people aren’t paying taxes anyways. It’s about charisma, and the only one with charisma right now is a guy named Donald Trump. He walks into a room and takes the air out of it.

One of the problems with the Republican Party today is that they have too many consultants and they’re over rehearsed. And they seem stiff during the debates because they’re trying to remember what it is they’ve accomplished. You should never have to remember what you’ve accomplished. This is one of the things that people love about Trump, good or bad. He’s off the cuff; he’s not looking at cliff notes. But you have everybody else going through the back of their minds on the cliff notes they’ve written down to answer questions when they should know the answer to them.

ER: Ann Coulter has been tweeting about how Trump is the new Reagan. What do you think about that?

MH: Ann Coulter has no idea what she’s talking about. Trump Republicans bash everyone in the building and blow it up on the way out. Ronald Reagan rebuilds the building as he goes through it. What about that 11th commandment? Thou shall not speak ill of another Republican. I guess there’s a 12th: thou shall speak ill of everybody. To say what he said about Carly? All the conservatives love Megyn Kelly, and they support Donald, who infers she’s on her menstrual cycle?

Within the Republican Party, women have been a major issue in every campaign I have been alive for. Back in 1980, my dad was running for president and my sister Maureen was campaigning for the Equal Rights Amendment. And the campaign pulled her in and they said ‘Maureen—you can’t be an advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment and be out campaigning for your father the same day. We need you here. We don’t want to lose the women vote in the Republican Party. What can we do to get you off the trail?’ My dad was in the room; and my sister looks at the three advisers and says, ‘If you can get your candidate to guarantee me, should he be elected, his first nominee for the Supreme Court will be a woman, I will stop campaigning.’ Reagan’s first appointment to the Supreme Court? Sandra Day O’Connor. Republican women have always been an issue in the campaign.

So it’s a good question for Megyn Kelly to ask Donald Trump because of the things he has said and still continues to say. At the end of the day, how does he get Carly to come out and support him? How does he get any one of these other possible candidates on the stage to come out and show unity at the end of the day? Is that the face we want for the Republican Party? If that’s the face, then the Democrats have to be going, ‘Go Donald!’

ER: Is he a better communicator than the other guys?

MR: They don’t communicate very well at all. They all co-opt Ronald Reagan but they don’t realize Ronald Reagan’s strength was communication. But how was it that he communicated? Ronald Reagan spoke to America in parables. Too many of today’s politicians in the Republican Party speak to us in soundbites. I think that’s a huge, huge difference. In his speeches, instead of saying, ‘Our taxes are too high,’ he told us a story about somebody. He made it personal.

ER: What do you think your dad would think looking at the debate stage?

MR: I think he’d look at the stage of Republicans and say, ‘First of all, you’ve got this many who believe they’re qualified to be president.’ But he’d also look at it and say, ‘Too many, too short.’ Too short a time for so many. You’re going to have 10 or 11 in one debate—two hours? You’ve got maybe six minutes, maybe? Whatever you’ve got to say, you’ve got to say it and nail it, because they may never come back to you. The reason that the surgeon is doing so well is because when they came back to him he had great answers. Everyone went, ‘That’s really nice. Soft spoken.’ He had answer for that. You’re only given a short amount of time.

People need to remember that when Ronald Reagan won in 1980, even though he had a great message, he was the lone conservative in a sea of moderate and liberal Republicans. You can’t have 17 people running, 14 of whom swear they’re Reagan Republicans and more conservative than my father and then be surprised when the more moderate wins the nomination. You have 14 people splitting the same vote. That’s what happened in 2012.

ER: Who’s the most like your father today?

MR: Probably Rick Perry in many ways. He’s a cowboy. My dad was a cowboy. I think they bought their boots at the same place. They have the same hat size. Great guy, and he really has accomplished a lot. But he can’t get off the schneid to move forward because of gaffes he made in 2012. This is what happens when you have so much media today—everything you say in the history of your life is used against you in the court of public opinion. Here’s a guy who can talk Californians into moving to Texas but can’t talk you into voting for him.

John Kasich is a great guy. Doesn’t everybody talk about a balanced budget? The only guy in the race who’s ever balanced a budget in Washington is the governor of Ohio. But conservatives can’t support him because he brought Medicaid into Ohio. It’s just ludicrous. We find ways not to like people. We loved Jeb Bush when he was governor of Florida. But because he supports Common Core, which used to be a state issue before it went to the Feds, we can’t like Jeb Bush. Bobby Jindal has taken a state that was ravaged by a hurricane and brought it back to life. But he made that one mistake after the SOTU a few years ago, and he can’t live that one down. And you have Scott Walker who just—nice guy, but he puts you to sleep.

I think Chris Christie is—there’s no consultant telling him what to say—I think he’s probably as close to a Trump who’s actually accomplished something in politics than anybody else on the stage. But what do we say about Chris Christie? You get mad because he hugged the president of the United States. The job of a governor is to kiss the proverbial butt of the president of the United States if he shows up and is going to give you a check to take care of your state that was just wiped out by a hurricane. That's your job! And yet we conservatives try to blame him for us losing the election because he put his arms around the president. We keep on looking for reasons not to like someone. Here’s a guy that got 51 percent of the Hispanic vote, over 50 percent of the female vote, won by 60 percent—but God forbid we ask him what he did right.

You look at these things, and you’re like, why are we finding reasons not to like people who’ve done really wonderful things in their states? Can you imagine a party that wants to balance a budget won’t get behind a guy who’s actually balanced a budget? Or a guy who sent people down to the border and who’s turned the state of Texas around by creating jobs?

ER: What do you think has created this attitude?

MH: I think talk radio, which I was in for 26 years, controls a lot of what goes on inside the conservative movement. Conservatives, when they don’t have a leader, they’re all over the map. They form their own little fiefdoms. And everyone’s got their own set of questions to see if you passed their test. You wonder sometimes if Ronald Reagan would pass all the tests today that he was able to pass back in the 1960s and 1970s and 1980s. As I’ve said at RNC lunches and dinners and so on when I go speak, ‘Hey, would you nominate Ronald Reagan today? Here’s a man who raised taxes, signed an abortion bill, signed no-fault divorce. My god he was a union leader in the Screen Actors Guild! If that man were alive today, would you refer to him as a RINO?’ And many people in fact would. What’s interesting is somehow they forgive Ronald Reagan because they loved him. But they have an absolute almost hated for a Jeb Bush or Kasich because of Medicaid in Ohio or whomever where. Ronald Reagan didn’t look for the bad in people; he looked for the good angels. And today we don’t.

ER: How do you think talk radio has come to control the party in this way?

MR: You have such a loud voice. That’s where conservatives go. 16 million of them show up. They start with Rush and they peel off during the day depending on who’s on. I was talking to a conservative the other day, and I was talking about immigration, and they said, ‘What do you think Laura Ingraham would say?’ That’s the problem. ‘What is Rush going to say about it? What is Sean going to say about it? What is Mark going to say about it?’ And they all use my father’s name. But if everybody on the planet knows you need an immigration policy, somebody needs to go in the room, find the areas of agreement and move forward from there. That’s what Ronald Reagan would do.

I spoke at an event in West Palm Beach two years ago. There were 400 conservatives in the room, and I said to them, ‘You know when Ronald Reagan was president, this party was a much more inclusive party.’ For example, you can’t walk across this country and not talk to a Hispanic who doesn’t love Ronald Reagan. But you can ask that same Hispanic what they think of the Republican Party and they just stare at you. Our message is coming out through talk radio, so all they hear is ‘get the hell out of my country.’ Nobody else in the party is saying anything else. They’re afraid to because they don’t want to be referred to as a RINO or get thrown off the bus the next day. So I said to the people in the room, ‘I don’t think you understand how exclusive you’ve become.’ I then invited all the blacks and Hispanics in the room to please now rise, and they all looked at each other. I said, ‘Do you notice the only blacks and Hispanics standing are serving you breakfast? Have you ever thought about having them at the table instead of them serving the table?’ And this is a real problem in the party: you can’t go to a group every two years and say ‘we love you.’

ER: Who do you think will get the Democratic nomination? Hillary?

MH: I’ve always said, for two years, I hope it’s Hillary, because I don’t think she’s likeable and relatable. And that’s what it takes. If talk radio would quit talking about Hillary, no one would be talking about Hillary. But she gets ratings. It’s all about ratings.

But I think we can beat her really easily. Joe Biden’s going to be tougher. No matter what you say about Joe Biden and the gaffes, he’s a nice guy. A friend of mine is his best friend, and I said to him, ‘I really hope Joe doesn’t run unless he’s 100 percent sure. If Joe is 100 percent sure he can win, run. If not become the elder statesmen, because right now in the world we live in there are no elder statesmen.’

ER: And if he runs and doesn’t win, he’ll just have put himself through another grueling campaign…

MH: What happens is that the last thing you’ll remember about your political life is that you lost. Being an elder statesman where you live forever, you go out on a really high note. When Joe got into and my dad got into it—it wasn’t personal like it is today. Today, your kids can be attacked. Everybody in your family can be attacked. Who wants to put their families through that? It’s a tough world.