Welcome to our expert interview. I'm here today with Eduard. Eduard, perhaps you can introduce yourself. >> I'm Eduard van de Bilt. I teach American History at the University of Leiden and the University of Amsterdam and I specialize in American political history and political theory. >> So, how did TR and FDR changed domestic politics? >> In a way they re-established the presidency as a major political power. Instead of a few, a limited number of senators, presidents had to call the shots politically and in combination with, say, they're strong and charismatic personalities, the savvy media strategy helped them regain power, bring it back to the White House and use the White House and the presidency, in the words of Theodore Roosevelt, as a bully pulpit claiming the political agenda for the President. In a way they tried to create rhetorical presidencies, giving speeches. Obama liked to stimulate the country and show themselves to be the true representatives of the people. >> And how did they change the role of government? >> They did more than simply talk, in a way. They helped create the regulatory, or reestablished the regulatory straight tradition in American politics. A regulatory state takes care of it's people, and in that sense, they just try to realize their populous claims and rhetoric by coming up with the institutional framework that protected the people against, well, for instance and foremost, the business interests. I guess, Teddy Roosevelt created the FDA, the Food and Drug Administration, having read Upton Sinclair's The Jungle in 1906. A book detailing the problems of Chicago's meat packing industry. He created the agency that looked into the quality of the food that Americans were consuming. While he also worked on, say, the conservation movement, protecting nature against the advance of capitalism. Franklin basically expanded the regulatory state tradition in his effort to cope with the aftermath of the 1929 Wall Street crash. He created the kind of agencies like the National Labor Relations Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Housing Authority to implement the programs that would protect the people against the consequences of the 1929 crashed. And in that sense, both contributed to that tradition that served to protect the people against business interests. >> Was their foreign policy the same? >> Well there are certain similarities, strong presidencies also created, in this case, strong interventionist policies, while Theodore made sure that American interest were preserved in Latin American countries such as Panama and Venezuela. Franklin in a way made sure that isolationism in relation to Europe was off to the side. Both in a way worked as mediators, they became involved in the global power struggle that was going on, trying to defend American interests, and set America up, the United States up, as a major player in this foreign relations field. >> So far we've talked about the two presidents, but how did Eleanor fit in this larger Roosevelt legacy? >> Eleanor has a similar legacy, she was a very activist first lady. She served well particularly among democratic first ladies as a kind of role model. She, like Theodore and Franklin, had a pretty savvy media strategy too. Even as a First Lady, she had a call in the newspapers, she gave press conferences, often women only press conferences. She was extremely activist. She defended early on, she was a member of the NEACP, and after 1945 became one of its board members, but her activist policies went beyond her white house years because she would continued to support the civil rights movement, she would defend Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, but as a member of the first U.S. delegation to the U.N. for instance and a Chair of the U.N. Human Rights Committee that came up with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, she remained actively involved, and, in that sense, remained a role model for first ladies. >> This is a very impressive legacy. Are there any downsides? >> Well, their legacies came at a certain cost. I guess the three were so strong, had such strong personalities, that they, in a way, created a charismatic mythology about their leadership, that later presidents and first ladies found difficult to follow. They also personalize politics to such an extent that, you can raise questions about that element of their legacy's. And, of course, they, in Franklin's and Theodore's case they created, perhaps, over the interventionist foreign policies. In general you could make the argument that Theodore and Franklin in particular contributed to what scholars call the problem of an imperial president. An imperial presidency in which the White House, Becomes too powerful in relation to congress, creating dangers that the U.S. is still struggling with, in a way. >> Edward, thank you very much for joining us on the Rooseveltian Century today. >> You're very welcome.