Twenty years after his death, a new documentary on former President Ronald Reagan is shining a light on his presidency and how he “navigated the Cold War and changed the world forever.”
Narrated by actor Dean Cain, NewsNation Films’s “Reagan: Portrait of a Presidency,” recounts the highs and lows of the 40th commander in chief’s time in office, mostly in his own words through speeches and rare archival footage.
NewsNation and The Hill are both owned by Nexstar Media Group.
The 90-minute special, which premieres on Saturday at 9 p.m., highlights Reagan’s “most iconic moments of the 1980s,” including his handling of inflation and the economic crisis, the space race and the end of the Cold War. It also tackles his response to the AIDS crisis, his recovery from a 1981 assassination attempt and 1986’s Iran-Contra scandal.
And it gives a peek at behind-the-scenes moments: showing Reagan chopping wood and riding horses with wife Nancy at their ranch in California, which became known as the “Western White House.”
George Will, the conservative columnist and a NewsNation senior political contributor whose analysis is featured in the documentary, said its release comes at a time when parallels can be drawn between the Reagan era and the current election-year political climate.
“The country again is demoralized,” said Will, who assisted Reagan with his debate prep ahead of the 1980 presidential election.
“Reagan understood the importance of putting a spring back in the step of Americans,” he added.
Beginning high school in 1980 just as Reagan was about to enter the Oval Office, Cain called the former Hollywood actor-turned-politician his “favorite president.”
“He was just such an incredible leader during such an important part of my life, and it’s such an important part of American history,” said the former star of the TV series “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.”
Fifty-seven-year-old Cain later got a chance to meet Reagan amid the success of “Superman” in 1994 and was gifted jelly beans, famously the former president’s favorite treat.
Reagan “always believed in reaching across the aisle,” Kirby Hanson, a special projects coordinator for the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Library, said in the film.
“He should’ve been called ‘The Great Negotiator,'” Hanson said.
Reagan, who died in 2004 at 93, was “a steadying captain who calmed the passengers of a rattled nation, rattled by the 1970s, by the loss in Vietnam, by Watergate, and then by the disastrous Carter presidency,” Will said.
“We got to the 1980s and people needed to be calmed, and Reagan calmed the country, and then he calmed — to some extent — the sea itself, by putting us on the path to ending the Cold War,” the Pulitzer Prize winner added.
The premiere of the Reagan documentary will be followed by a “Reagan: The Post Show” special featuring Will and NewsNation chief Washington anchor Leland Vittert.
More documentaries could soon be coming from NewsNation Films, including one on former President Clinton.
Cain, a prominent supporter of former President Trump, said although the project focuses on one of the country’s most famed GOP presidents, the documentary can appeal to Republicans and Democrats alike.
“I think, even back then, you could see sort of the bipartisanship that really took place. People weren’t vilifying each other.”
“Reagan wanted to work across the aisle,” Cain said. The film, he added, can show that “we’ve been through tough times before. There’s ways to handle it in a bipartisan way that we can all come together, as opposed to this crazy division that we’ve got going on now.”
Will, a critic of Trump, called Reagan a “tough act for people to follow,” saying “no one who’s come since has put Reagan in the shade, to put it very politely.”
“The interesting thing is, I think the country misses Reagan, and a rising faction within the Republican ranks… tend to disparage Reagan,” Will, 83, said.
“The only people disparaging Reagan now are self-styled conservatives who refer to their opponents as ‘zombie Reaganites,’ who believe in markets more than government allocating wealth and opportunity, and who believe that limited government, limited in its goals and in its competence. So the critics of Ronald Reagan today are on the right,” the longtime Washington Post columnist said.
“We need his cheerfulness, we need his amiability,” Will said of Reagan. “Now more than ever.”
“Reagan: Portrait of a Presidency” premieres Saturday at 9 p.m. ET on NewsNation.