Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio. The last few years have seen
Speaker 1: drastic changes in the rapidly evolving landscape of cable and
Speaker 1: streaming television. You know the times have changed when even
Speaker 1: the news is making news. At CNN, there were reports
Speaker 1: of chaos and uncertainty, the sudden resignation of President Jeff Zucker,
Speaker 1: followed by the installation of his successor, Qus Licked, and
Speaker 1: drastic changes to their lineup. One of the biggest changes
Speaker 1: moving my guest Today. CNN Tonight anchored Don Lemon to
Speaker 1: Mornings after a decade in prime time. Shortly after, Lemon
Speaker 1: made some controversial comments on air and was unceremoniously fired
Speaker 1: from the network seventeen years into his tenure. Now, he
Speaker 1: has released a book, I Once Was Lost My Search
Speaker 1: for God in America, a day deeply personal journey of
Speaker 1: his faith through difficult times that also takes a hard
Speaker 1: look at politics.
Speaker 2: And religion in America Today. The Emmy winning journalist launched
Speaker 2: a new series earlier this year, The Don Lemon Show,
Speaker 2: on streaming podcast platforms and on YouTube. I wanted to
Speaker 2: know how he made the decision of where to launch
Speaker 2: his new show.
Speaker 3: YouTube is the number one network in the world. It
Speaker 3: has surpassed Netflix. It's because everyone has that computer in
Speaker 3: their pocket, and that is the new television. It's the
Speaker 3: same thing you watch it, but it's just a different
Speaker 3: form of distribution. So if I can go there, create
Speaker 3: content and pretty much do exactly what I want to do,
Speaker 3: why not. That's why I chose YouTube. Also, Alec, I
Speaker 3: have some contractual obligations. As you know, you're in the business,
Speaker 3: you have non competes and all of that. So I
Speaker 3: had to find a place where I could go and
Speaker 3: do what I do and create model cable non network
Speaker 3: that doesn't compete with my contract at the old.
Speaker 1: Now I want to touch on that, I'm going to
Speaker 1: We've got two things here overacy, career and faith. The
Speaker 1: book is called I Once Was Lost, and I went
Speaker 1: to your book signing event where you were interviewed by
Speaker 1: Zucker who was very funny.
Speaker 2: By the way, I was surprised. He's very good.
Speaker 1: So you go to YouTube oversely, there's a noncompete aspect
Speaker 1: in there. But to describe your career in television and
Speaker 1: when that ended? What ended you started at CNN, what
Speaker 1: year two thousand and six, and you started doing what
Speaker 1: I started as.
Speaker 2: Let's see, Oh wow, it's been so long ago.
Speaker 3: Two thousand and six, I was the afternoon anchor on
Speaker 3: CNN Newsroom from one to four in the afternoon, and
Speaker 3: you did that for how long? I did that for
Speaker 3: about eight years or so?
Speaker 2: Eight years? Yeah, yeah, thirteen to fourteen. I moved on.
Speaker 2: I moved to New York.
Speaker 3: I was in Atlanta, and you move on to do
Speaker 3: what show I moved on to do. I did weekend
Speaker 3: evenings for a while to sort of create, you know,
Speaker 3: get my own voice, develop my own voice. And then
Speaker 3: Jeff Souker took over and said, hey, you're pretty talented.
Speaker 3: Who was in charge before Zucker Jim Walton was ahead
Speaker 3: of the network here, and Zuker took over and he
Speaker 3: wanted you want in the evening? He put you on
Speaker 3: in the evening.
Speaker 2: Yes, I went to Zucker because I did.
Speaker 3: I hated Atlanta and I'm a New Yorker even though
Speaker 3: I grew up in Louisiana, I'm a New Yorker by heart.
Speaker 3: And I said, hey, listen, it's been great working here.
Speaker 2: I'm out of here.
Speaker 3: I said, I can't live in Atlanta anymore. So thanks,
Speaker 3: you know, I'm glad you just took over the network.
Speaker 3: Blah blah blah blah, he said. He said, yeah, he said,
Speaker 3: you don't have to You're moving to New York. And
Speaker 3: that was it, and you did the evening on the weekends,
Speaker 3: and then you did your evening show starting when how
Speaker 3: long was it?
Speaker 2: So weekends?
Speaker 3: I did the evenings on the weekends for a while.
Speaker 3: I think I did the evenings for you know, five years.
Speaker 3: Look the afternoon. I'm sort of, you know, sort of
Speaker 3: mixing that in the evening because I started the evening
Speaker 3: in Atlanta and then I continue the evening in New York.
Speaker 3: And Jeff would sort of mentor me, you know, because
Speaker 3: he's he watched twenty four hours a day son breaking news.
Speaker 2: Tell you.
Speaker 3: He would say, breaking news, I need you to stay
Speaker 3: on for another hour. We're going to blow out the
Speaker 3: medical show and need you to stay on and do this,
Speaker 3: repeat the breaking news.
Speaker 2: You know. Or he didn't coach at style. No, no,
Speaker 2: not at all, because he liked my style. He liked
Speaker 2: me being me.
Speaker 3: He's he would if anything, he would say, lean into it,
Speaker 3: so he would say, you know, recap, tell the audience.
Speaker 3: You know it's breaking news, what it is. He wouldn't
Speaker 3: tell me what to say. He would say a good
Speaker 3: question might be something like this, and I wouldn't ask it,
Speaker 3: you know, exactly as he would say if I wanted
Speaker 3: to do it. But he wouldn't get upset if I
Speaker 3: didn't do it. So you could do audibles like quarterbacks,
Speaker 3: Yes I could. And then he started. I had me
Speaker 3: filling in on every single show. I'd fill in the afternoon,
Speaker 3: I'd fill in the morning, I would do my evening show,
Speaker 3: and he would send me on big stories.
Speaker 2: And he was He really developed me.
Speaker 1: And you started doing your show, the big show, the
Speaker 1: evening show.
Speaker 3: Win I started doing my show. Aaron Burnett went out
Speaker 3: on maternity leave and Jeff said, I want you to
Speaker 3: take over for her from maternity leave. So her entire
Speaker 3: couple months she was off, I filled in at seven
Speaker 3: o'clock show. It was me and I did my weekend
Speaker 3: shoe So I was working seven days a week and
Speaker 3: I didn't mind it.
Speaker 2: I loved it.
Speaker 1: Actually, you're doing the mornings, and you're doing and morning shows,
Speaker 1: which have become so bizarre to me, I know, I
Speaker 1: said to people, And I love all these people meant
Speaker 1: I love Katie Cork. But the last time I watched
Speaker 1: the Today Show was when Katie Cork was on with
Speaker 1: lour and they did a I guess maybe it was
Speaker 1: for Halloween. They all dressed up and clothing and they
Speaker 1: sang diamonds are a Girl's best friend as she's walking
Speaker 1: down a staircase, a glittering staircase or whatever, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I'm done. I don't know, I want the news, maybe
Speaker 1: tell some jokes or whatever. But they turned it into
Speaker 1: an entertainment show. But mornings it's obviously a different ball game.
Speaker 1: Even weekends, maybe you're a different ballgame. So what adjustments
Speaker 1: do you have to make in your style to be
Speaker 1: on in the evening?
Speaker 2: Oh? Well, I'm an evening guy.
Speaker 3: The only reason I did the mornings is because and
Speaker 3: you told me, you know, when I did the like,
Speaker 3: she said, no one wants to see you in the morning,
Speaker 3: And you were right. I'm not a morning person. I'm
Speaker 3: not very good in the morning. I'm not good on coffee.
Speaker 3: Caffeine makes me jittery. I don't know what I'm saying
Speaker 3: or doing. So I did it because my company asked
Speaker 3: me to do it, and I was being a team player,
Speaker 3: but it was not a good fit for me. The
Speaker 3: adjustment is is that you're constantly sleeping, you have.
Speaker 2: To get up. I'm a night oul.
Speaker 3: I don't go to go to bed until two or
Speaker 3: three in the morning, and I'm up at you know,
Speaker 3: maybe ten right before I would you know, i'd have
Speaker 3: to wake up when I mean, when I was doing
Speaker 3: the mornings, I had to wake up at four in
Speaker 3: the morning, right, I know what it'll be. It was really,
Speaker 3: really tough. So that's really the adjustment. I'm a cool
Speaker 3: cat at night. I like it, and I like that
Speaker 3: that late time slot. Working at night, I do too,
Speaker 3: and I get my best Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I do movies.
Speaker 1: And the guy said to me, we're in a black
Speaker 1: box theater shooting this movie for all these scenes inside
Speaker 1: this theater for a month in Florida. And he says, so,
Speaker 1: no windows, know nothing, no light dependent at all. He goes,
Speaker 1: we can shoot whenever we want. He goes, what time
Speaker 1: you want to go to work?
Speaker 2: Love it? And I said none, I'm going to shoot
Speaker 2: noon to midnight. Yeah, and we did. We shot noon
Speaker 2: to midnight for four weeks. I was in heaven. I
Speaker 2: was like man, I'm just getting going.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I like about seven or eight at night, like
Speaker 3: my best work. I don't wake up that late, but
Speaker 3: my best work is at night. So having that ten
Speaker 3: o'clock slot was perfect for me. And then you know,
Speaker 3: I was on until midnight every night, but that was
Speaker 3: when I would get that energy.
Speaker 2: And you're like being solo. Oh, I love the co
Speaker 2: anchors for a while. It's tough. You didn't like that format.
Speaker 3: No, I'm a team player, but not in that way.
Speaker 3: I have my own flow and everybody can't keep up
Speaker 3: with me, you know.
Speaker 1: And and doubles tennis, they're not the best partner. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at your game, and you got to you gotta have
Speaker 1: a good part of that. You have to have someone
Speaker 1: who can keep up with you.
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't mean that in a you know,
Speaker 3: I'm not diminishing anyone, but someone like a Kara Swisher personal. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like someone like a Kara Swisher or a Joy Behar
Speaker 3: or someone they could keep up with me. They get
Speaker 3: my sense of humor and they don't take anything personally
Speaker 3: and they can give it or take it as good
Speaker 3: as they give it, right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: I love that kind of it. They didn't want to
Speaker 2: demonize or criminalize your moderances. No, because they they under
Speaker 2: they they their pals and they get me. It's not personal.
Speaker 3: It's just we're just we're just sitting having a conversation
Speaker 3: and people say all kinds of things and conversations and
Speaker 3: it's not personal. It's just your talking. And when you talk,
Speaker 3: you say things. You go, ah, I don't.
Speaker 4: Mean that, Okay, all right, right, so I said some shit,
Speaker 4: that was great, whatever, and you just move on. But
Speaker 4: you can't do that with everybody, because you know, especially
Speaker 4: like younger folks, everything is like a personal affront.
Speaker 1: Well, you walk in on the set of a project,
Speaker 1: and when you're around young people, I find that there's
Speaker 1: a potential for certain difficulties. So I've never had any
Speaker 1: problems with this myself. I never had any I've had
Speaker 1: other problems obviously, but not that one. And you walk
Speaker 1: onto the set, especially of a film, and you're there
Speaker 1: and people they're tents, and you don't realize how tense there.
Speaker 1: They're scared younger people. You come on and there. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've made whatever number of movies, I've made one hundred movies,
Speaker 1: ninety movies, whatever, I take pictures with people now, but
Speaker 1: I got taught by somebody famous. You put your arm
Speaker 1: out and they hook their elbow around your elbow, and
Speaker 1: they go, why do you want to do that? A
Speaker 1: few of them would say, and I say, I can't
Speaker 1: put my hand behind your body, and you got it.
Speaker 1: My hand can't be hidden behind your back in the photogo.
Speaker 1: All the games you've got to play?
Speaker 2: Now? Which are which?
Speaker 5: Was?
Speaker 2: I'm concerned? No, but you're right about that. You said
Speaker 2: you've done so many movies. I had been.
Speaker 3: I think I was doing the afternoons from six about nine,
Speaker 3: and then I started doing the weekend evenings, and so
Speaker 3: I've been doing the weekend evenings. I'd been solo, I
Speaker 3: should say, from about two thousand and nine to twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three or twenty twenty two, and so I was
Speaker 3: just used to my own flow and people, you know,
Speaker 3: were used to me just being me, and so I
Speaker 3: had been there for quite some time solo anchor.
Speaker 2: And you know, people come in and they're like they
Speaker 2: you know, they don't get it.
Speaker 1: You know, now when you do a show like that
Speaker 1: for people who don't know, because I find this behind
Speaker 1: the scenes very interesting. You come in there, you come in.
Speaker 1: The show was on the air at ten. The big
Speaker 1: show was on a ten. You did the past two
Speaker 1: with Chris and then everybody thought that was very entertaining
Speaker 1: the two of you.
Speaker 3: It's the biggest compliment that people say about that and
Speaker 3: about my show. They say that was the last appointment
Speaker 3: television for the network. Was that handoff and then going
Speaker 3: on the show.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But the thing that people don't understand is you
Speaker 2: get there what time?
Speaker 3: It would depend if I if I had a pre tape,
Speaker 3: I would go in earlier. But at the end I
Speaker 3: moved across the street from the office, so it would
Speaker 3: take me literally a minute, minute and a half to
Speaker 3: be on the set because I lived and it was
Speaker 3: in huts and yards.
Speaker 2: So I would go to work probably about eight eight thirty.
Speaker 2: So you're not there at three o'clock writing.
Speaker 3: No, I'm doing that from home, got it because basically
Speaker 3: my office is not much further from the set than
Speaker 3: my home was. But before that, I would probably get
Speaker 3: to work about six, right And the reason I did
Speaker 3: that part of it was because of Jeff.
Speaker 2: Jeff said, why are you working on the show so early?
Speaker 2: Your show?
Speaker 3: Why are you guys in the morning meeting the morning
Speaker 3: meetings at nine in the morning. Your show is twelve
Speaker 3: hours away, a half a day away. Everything's going to
Speaker 3: change exactly, So what are you doing? And I found
Speaker 3: that when I would study for all of this stuff
Speaker 3: and just study, study, study, and over prepare, and then
Speaker 3: by the time the show came about at ten o'clock,
Speaker 3: it would be a whole different show.
Speaker 2: And I'd say, why the hell did I would I
Speaker 2: do this? You've got to be more plodet to learn
Speaker 2: to be nimble.
Speaker 1: Now you're there doing a show like that. How much
Speaker 1: do director about technical directors with cameras in a studio?
Speaker 1: Are there directors, segment producers, writers, who's got your ear
Speaker 1: in terms of content while you're doing the show?
Speaker 2: So it's my executive producer? And how many of those
Speaker 2: did you have when you were on the big show?
Speaker 3: I had one executive producer who is and then Maria Spanella,
Speaker 3: and then I had my own personal producer, and then
Speaker 3: there were segment producers. And so if there was a
Speaker 3: segment that someone had prepared and they needed to be
Speaker 3: in the control room, usually they stood there anyways, and
Speaker 3: so the segment producer would get in my ear. But
Speaker 3: usually it was the executive producer, but sometimes they would say,
Speaker 3: you know, I would say it was nineteen times and they'd.
Speaker 2: Go ninety ninety and I'm going because sometimes you don't
Speaker 2: realize what you say right.
Speaker 3: You'll just read something wrong or you just say something wrong,
Speaker 3: and so they would correct me. But it was mostly
Speaker 3: the director and the executive producer and mostly the director
Speaker 3: who would say, Okay, thirty seconds out, ten seconds out
Speaker 3: camera two, so start on camera two and I'm going
Speaker 3: to turn you to three. Stand by, you know, the
Speaker 3: whole thing, three two and go camera one, turn and
Speaker 3: then you do that that sort of thing, right, And
Speaker 3: then you know, they would say it yeah, and you'd
Speaker 3: say you know, and it's fourteen people and they'd say
Speaker 3: graphic and I'd go, take to look at your screen,
Speaker 3: that it's up on the screen right now, blah blah
Speaker 3: blah blah blah, and then you talk about blah and
Speaker 3: then they'd say on cam and then I'd look back
Speaker 3: up and go, okay.
Speaker 2: Then just someone's directing your performance. Yeah, directing. They just
Speaker 2: just to know where I'm going technically, right, but they're
Speaker 2: directing your your tone or no.
Speaker 3: If I was off on something, someone would say something
Speaker 3: she'd say like, all right, was it up wash your tone?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Or yeah, you're you're dragging a little bit. Are
Speaker 2: you tired? Whatever you want us to bring?
Speaker 3: You want us to bring your coffee, diet coke or something, yeah,
Speaker 3: or I'm gonna send makeup in.
Speaker 2: You're shiny, but that sort of thing. That's it small small.
Speaker 1: Now I'm assuming that when lickt comes in, this is
Speaker 1: just zas Love wants things his way. This is his
Speaker 1: magiemem it. Now it's going to be my CNN. So
Speaker 1: Zuker's gone and he brings Licked in. And when Zuker's
Speaker 1: gonna gone? How much advanced notice did you have the
Speaker 1: Zuker was leaving? Oh that I mean that was in
Speaker 1: the news, right, so not much. Did you know when
Speaker 1: he was going to be gone and someone else was
Speaker 1: coming in? Who was going to run the company? You
Speaker 1: didn't know.
Speaker 2: No, no one, no one. No one gave you any dance.
Speaker 3: No, it was in the it was in the morning meeting.
Speaker 3: When it happened. I was in LA and I forget
Speaker 3: what I was doing. It may have been award season
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 2: I forget.
Speaker 3: I was in La doing a project for the network,
Speaker 3: and I took the Red Eye, and I got home
Speaker 3: and went to sleep, and I woke up to a
Speaker 3: lot of text messages.
Speaker 2: And I was like, wait, what is this. It always
Speaker 2: happens that way. That happened that way.
Speaker 3: When when Chris was let go, Chris linked and my
Speaker 3: executive purser is at don Jeff just resigned in the
Speaker 3: morning meeting, and I was like, wait what And then
Speaker 3: he called me and he said I didn't have a
Speaker 3: chance to tell you whatever, blah blah blah. And you
Speaker 3: know he called everybody afterwards, but I don't think he
Speaker 3: really had any notice himself, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, I kind of equate him.
Speaker 1: This is just my opinion, by the way, which is meaningless,
Speaker 1: but I kind of equate him with Ronnie Meyer when
Speaker 1: they let Ronnie Meyer go for similar reasons his personal life,
Speaker 1: and you want to sit there and you want to go, well,
Speaker 1: I'm running a company now and I'd like this guy
Speaker 1: to go. And that's my excuse to let him go.
Speaker 1: And I really was going to bring it another guy
Speaker 1: because I want my I want to run my CNN,
Speaker 1: but he's gone, like universal. I think Ronnie Meyer hit
Speaker 1: the point where he was making like forty million dollars
Speaker 1: a year, and they were like, no, yeah, we need
Speaker 1: you to go.
Speaker 2: Look, I'll let you say that. But you're a smart guy.
Speaker 3: So but here, you know, Jeff is the last of
Speaker 3: a TV executive, the celebrity TV executive Mavericks. Right, everyone
Speaker 3: is so risk averse now they're afraid, you know, they're
Speaker 3: with the stockholders wanting all that. He really protected us
Speaker 3: from the overlords, right from the corporate you know overlords.
Speaker 3: He really did his guts, his guts and he's like,
Speaker 3: you know, this is journalism. I understand what you do
Speaker 3: because he did what they did, right. He ran NBC
Speaker 3: and he understood it. But he's really a journalist at
Speaker 3: heart because he started at the Today Show and he
Speaker 3: started in the news president there. He had a good
Speaker 3: run there, and then he went to run the news
Speaker 3: division at NBC, and then he entertainment. Then he ran
Speaker 3: the entire network. So he really and we didn't realize it,
Speaker 3: you know, until he was gone.
Speaker 1: When Licked comes, like most executives I have assumed when
Speaker 1: you're the top tier talent, the show that they come
Speaker 1: is it like dinners and whining and dining and getting
Speaker 1: to know each other and everything's war and you don't
Speaker 1: really know where it's going to go, and then it
Speaker 1: goes the wrong way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a little of that. Yeah, there's a little
Speaker 2: of that. It's polite, it's polite, yeah in the beginning. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then things changed, right.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I just find that odd because I
Speaker 1: just feel like I won't name names, but I've known
Speaker 1: a couple of people who are execs at film studios,
Speaker 1: especially TV, where the that conveyor belt is moving and
Speaker 1: they can't press pause. They have a plan which seems
Speaker 1: to be everybody's plan now. Years ago it was a plan.
Speaker 1: Now it's everybody's plan, which is, if I can't raise revenue,
Speaker 1: I got to cut costs. So it's just a lot
Speaker 1: of firing, a lot of budget cutting.
Speaker 3: But don't you think to a certain extent that when
Speaker 3: your job is protected and mentioned in the First Amendment,
Speaker 3: that there should be some exemption from that whole thing.
Speaker 3: Like I don't think the news division should be solely
Speaker 3: or wholly in large part driven by revenue and numbers,
Speaker 3: numbers and ratings. It shouldn't because you're supposed to give information,
Speaker 3: you're supposed to hold people who are in power, hold
Speaker 3: themto account.
Speaker 1: But you told me that when we were at the
Speaker 1: book party. I raised my hand, I asked the question.
Speaker 1: I said, the networks and traditional media, mainstream media, have
Speaker 1: they lost young people? And you said, they haven't lost,
Speaker 1: but they're losing. And then you went on to talk
Speaker 1: about the people who are considered through some research who
Speaker 1: quoted to being about being the most informed. People get
Speaker 1: their news from where.
Speaker 2: They get their news digitally? Right, Yeah, and listen.
Speaker 3: The older people get their news from, you know, they watch,
Speaker 3: they sit and they watch cable news all day. They
Speaker 3: watch six thirty or they you know, they they're watching
Speaker 3: the morning shows or they're doing that. Younger people are
Speaker 3: getting their news on TikTok or whatever. But the most
Speaker 3: informed people are they'll go on digitally. They'll watch something
Speaker 3: on YouTube, They'll watch whatever, even if they go to
Speaker 3: you know, Twitter or TikTok or whatever. But then they'll
Speaker 3: do their research and they are media literate and more
Speaker 3: media savvy. I find the people who sit in front
Speaker 3: of the television all day have an unconscious or built
Speaker 3: in bias because you can tell from whatever network they're watching.
Speaker 3: But by the time they get to the arguments around
Speaker 3: the table the panels, they don't know what they actually
Speaker 3: came there for, what the point of the whole segment was.
Speaker 2: That's what they conveyed to me.
Speaker 1: Well, the shows which are moderated shows, which are these
Speaker 1: s mash pits, and everybody's going at it. I think
Speaker 1: more and more people have realized now that it's not
Speaker 1: worth their time. I always say to people, what do
Speaker 1: I watch? I said, I watch Wolf Blitzer straight. I
Speaker 1: call them straight, no chaser, right, right, right, it's just
Speaker 1: like happening now. Just tell me what the stop stories
Speaker 1: are and then I want to go have dinner with
Speaker 1: my wife. You know, give me ten fifteen minutes on
Speaker 1: my couch. I watch The Inn every night. Every night. Yeah,
Speaker 1: watch Blitzer. I watch MSNBC only when I come home,
Speaker 1: I watch Blitzer. I go to dinner, I come back
Speaker 1: and I watch Lawrence o'donald ever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, every night.
Speaker 3: I like Lawrence, I like Rachel, I like But I
Speaker 3: think it's different when you're in primetime, as you know,
Speaker 3: it's just like when you do you know, in primetime
Speaker 3: you do sitcoms or whatever. It's different than something that's
Speaker 3: on during the day, right, And I think that's the
Speaker 3: same thing with cable news now. I don't believe that.
Speaker 3: For networks, that's a different thing. You got six thirty
Speaker 3: and it's straight, no chaser, good evening and we're gonna
Speaker 3: start in Afghanistan and whatever it is. And then but
Speaker 3: at night, if you're watching cable, it's more of a
Speaker 3: personal experience and it's a longer sort of flow. And
Speaker 3: people they wanted to be appointment television, and they wanted
Speaker 3: to be someone familiar with, someone they trust, someone who
Speaker 3: can actually maybe tell them a little bit how they feel.
Speaker 2: People would say, I.
Speaker 3: Wasn't sure about it, don and I watched you and
Speaker 3: I said, you know what, that guy's right, and I.
Speaker 2: Think that's okay.
Speaker 3: I don't agree with everything, hardly anything that Sean Hannity says,
Speaker 3: but he's perfect for a primetime cable show, right, he's
Speaker 3: and he's a star.
Speaker 2: I don't little O'Reilly.
Speaker 1: We had a great delivery, and he was a real broadcaster.
Speaker 1: I didn't agree with the word he said either.
Speaker 3: I've always said that about Bill O'Reilly. He's a great performer.
Speaker 3: And I would watch him and I would take notes
Speaker 3: and go that guy is good and the same thing,
Speaker 3: and people are gonna, you know, gonna go, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 3: I can't believe he said that. Same thing with Megan Kelly.
Speaker 3: I don't agree with anything she says. She's turned out
Speaker 3: to me the biggest troll.
Speaker 2: And and is she she flipped up. Oh my gosh,
Speaker 2: it's embarrassing. I went to a book party of first
Speaker 2: with my wife, but when.
Speaker 3: She was same, we were at that same party. Yeah,
Speaker 3: on the rooftop of a hotel somewhere. Yeah, But she
Speaker 3: at that time, I think she was on at eight
Speaker 3: or nine o'clock or whatever at night.
Speaker 2: She was perfect for that hour. She's a great performer.
Speaker 3: She comes on and she's energy whatever, and you know,
Speaker 3: the morning Speaking of people being out of position, the
Speaker 3: morning show is not her position, I believe, just like
Speaker 3: it wasn't. I was in position as well. And that's
Speaker 3: the thing about a good media or news executive.
Speaker 2: They know what.
Speaker 3: Positions people should be playing, So you need that sort
Speaker 3: of a personality.
Speaker 2: Same thing with Chris. Chris is a star. He's great
Speaker 2: for cable news at night. Chris Cuomo, he's great for
Speaker 2: cable news at night. I thought I was.
Speaker 3: Great for cable news that night, you know, and people
Speaker 3: wanted to tune in, they wanted to tune into us.
Speaker 3: Rachel Maddow perfect cable news host.
Speaker 1: But I think that people when I watched news, having
Speaker 1: grown up and having had news having a very sacred
Speaker 1: place in my life, it was sacred. The news was
Speaker 1: very important to me. And now when I see the news,
Speaker 1: it's just weird. There's a chemistry. You have to have
Speaker 1: a chemistry with that person, you know, like I used
Speaker 1: to listen to He's a good friend of mine. I
Speaker 1: love Kurt Anderson. And when Kurt had that show Studio
Speaker 1: three sixty on NPO, I.
Speaker 2: Loved that show.
Speaker 1: That was my favorite podcast, along with This American Life
Speaker 1: for Kurt Anderson.
Speaker 3: And you don't feel you have that connection to any
Speaker 3: of the news folks with you.
Speaker 1: I love watching you on TV. I'm not just saying
Speaker 1: that I thought you were great. I mean were you
Speaker 1: had the right chemistry. I mean beyond you being a
Speaker 1: handsome guy and being stylish and being this and that.
Speaker 2: Thank you, but you had a great delivery.
Speaker 1: It was really it was easy to watch you where
Speaker 1: there's people that I watch and I go, well, maybe
Speaker 1: a little less of you.
Speaker 3: But it's the same thing with knowing who's a good
Speaker 3: reporter and who's a good anchor. Very few people can
Speaker 3: do both, and people don't realize it. They don't understand
Speaker 3: that like anchoring a show, it's another world. It's not
Speaker 3: easy and you have to hold someone's attention. But I
Speaker 3: think now in this day and age, people think that, Okay,
Speaker 3: they're a good reporter, so therefore they're a good anchor,
Speaker 3: and I disagree with that. You can have someone who
Speaker 3: can anchor a show who is not necessarily the best
Speaker 3: journalists in the world, but they're interesting. But when there
Speaker 3: are big breaking news stories, then you throw to the
Speaker 3: person who's the good report.
Speaker 2: The YouTube thing is on what time? Now, you're on
Speaker 2: the air? Went I'm on the air?
Speaker 3: Well, it lives forever on YouTube. But I do a
Speaker 3: five o'clock show every day, which was not how I
Speaker 3: envisioned doing it. I do a five o'clock live show
Speaker 3: every day where I just talk to the subscribers and
Speaker 3: talk to them about things that's happening and what they
Speaker 3: should know before they, you know, go home or have dinner.
Speaker 3: But then I just started one at ten am, which
Speaker 3: is sort of a hot topic show where I'm trying
Speaker 3: to get away from the politics, you know, and the
Speaker 3: hard news and do things that are a little lighter.
Speaker 2: But everything in.
Speaker 3: The zeitgeist now is politics. You know, they're eating the
Speaker 3: dogs or eating the cats. That goes over, you know,
Speaker 3: it all spills over.
Speaker 2: Author and anchor Don Lemon.
Speaker 1: If you enjoy conversations with famous broadcasters, check out my
Speaker 1: episode with the legendary Dan Rather.
Speaker 5: When the first faint edge is what we came to
Speaker 5: know is Watergate. You can do merge. I was skeptical
Speaker 5: that it would reach the Oval Office itself. You never
Speaker 5: met anybody who had more respect for the office of
Speaker 5: the Presidency in the United States than I do. It
Speaker 5: was very difficult for me to accept that the president
Speaker 5: himself would be involved in a way. However, as time
Speaker 5: went along, facts begin to first whisper, then they begin
Speaker 5: to speak in full voice, and then the facts begin
Speaker 5: to shout. It isn't just lower level campaign oppertunities, It
Speaker 5: isn't just lower level members of the administration. That this
Speaker 5: probably goes into the Oval Office itself.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Dan Rather, go
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break, Don
Speaker 1: Lemon tells us how a tragic event led to him
Speaker 1: rethinking his relationship with God and with his faith. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing. Don
Speaker 1: Lemon's new book, I Once Was Lost My Search for
Speaker 1: God in America details his very personal examination of his faith.
Speaker 1: But this is not Lemma's first foray in the publishing world.
Speaker 2: I've written three books.
Speaker 3: This is a fire debut at number one New York
Speaker 3: Times during the George Floyd thing when that all happened
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one.
Speaker 1: And the first thing I said to you when I
Speaker 1: came backstage to just give you a quick carget the
Speaker 1: book party was you should write another book.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I don't know, man, it's tough, Alec,
Speaker 3: It's so tough, and you don't know.
Speaker 2: You know it was. It was easier in the sense.
Speaker 3: What was easier was the selling of the book, when
Speaker 3: I had that big engine behind me of CNN, where
Speaker 3: I could mention at any moment, you know, it's in
Speaker 3: my book, and by the way, you can go buy
Speaker 3: it and blah blah blah blah blah. Or in the
Speaker 3: commercial break, I would say throw my book up, and
Speaker 3: as we go to commercial and say, by the way,
Speaker 3: my book is on sale and you can get it
Speaker 3: at Barnes and Noble or any book store. They were fine,
Speaker 3: that would help them. And so I was able to
Speaker 3: do that with that book. I can't do it with
Speaker 3: this book. I have to sell this book, which is good.
Speaker 5: For you know.
Speaker 2: I don't mind.
Speaker 3: I can't do it on YouTube, can Yeah, of course
Speaker 3: I do it on YouTube. I think some people are
Speaker 3: getting sick of it. But writing it is hard. It's
Speaker 3: like you're putting your heart out there. It's like you're
Speaker 3: wearing your heart outside of your body, not in the
Speaker 3: way that you have kids. But you don't know how
Speaker 3: people are going to receive it, if they're going to
Speaker 3: trample on, if they're going to trash you, if it's
Speaker 3: going to sell.
Speaker 2: It's just the whole thing. And you know, it's.
Speaker 1: More personal than anything you might do because it's you
Speaker 1: and I make a movie. Somebody else is directing the movie,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. Now, you come from a
Speaker 1: I don't want to say religious so that you use
Speaker 1: the word. You want to describe the family you came
Speaker 1: from in terms of faith.
Speaker 3: Well, I came from a family who was faithful. Let's
Speaker 3: put it that way. They had faith. My mother was
Speaker 3: not as churchy as they say, as my aunt was,
Speaker 3: she's got Alzheimer's now a holy roller. You know, she'd
Speaker 3: never missed a sermon. She was on the usher board
Speaker 3: and all of that stuff. My mom was in the choir,
Speaker 3: but she wasn't quite as religious as her the rest
Speaker 3: of her family. But my grandmother was as well. You know,
Speaker 3: there are members and you pay their dues. I'm sure
Speaker 3: my mom still pays dues for the church. She just
Speaker 3: doesn't go as often as you know one would think.
Speaker 3: But I went to I grew up Baptist. I would
Speaker 3: go to church, and then I'd go to Sunday Bible
Speaker 3: School in the Baptist Church, and then I'd go to
Speaker 3: vacation Bible School in the summer in the Baptist Church.
Speaker 3: And during the week during the school year, I went
Speaker 3: to the Catholic school and we would do Catechism, and
Speaker 3: then we'd have Mass on Friday every Friday, and then
Speaker 3: if it was a special holiday, we'd have Mass then.
Speaker 3: And then in the morning we would line up like
Speaker 3: a military school, hand out front of the hands on
Speaker 3: the shoulder, and we'd line up by height, and then
Speaker 3: we'd have the announcement and we'd do the Star spangled
Speaker 3: banner and the pledge allegiance, and then we would pray,
Speaker 3: and then we'd go to class in lines like a
Speaker 3: military school. And then you would before you go to
Speaker 3: a recess or whatever. You talked about it in the
Speaker 3: book how much you liked pray. I liked it because
Speaker 3: it was because it gave you discipline, and you had
Speaker 3: a regimen, and we're part of something. You were part
Speaker 3: of something, and there was a stability there that you had.
Speaker 3: You know, Okay, we got to go to the recess.
Speaker 3: We stand up, we pray that we're going to be
Speaker 3: safe at recess, and then we all line up and
Speaker 3: we go down to the yard and we have the recess,
Speaker 3: and then we come back. And then before we went
Speaker 3: to lunch, we pray, you know, over our meal, and
Speaker 3: then we come back and we pray whatever. So and
Speaker 3: then if an adult enter the class, you'd say good afternoon,
Speaker 3: mister ball Win, and you'd stand up, and we did
Speaker 3: not sit down until mister Baldwin.
Speaker 2: Would say you were told to good afternoon class. You
Speaker 2: may be seated, you may be seated. It was a
Speaker 2: different world, amazing, right, you know my faith.
Speaker 1: I'm a Catholic and I'm still Catholic, and I go
Speaker 1: to church periodically. I go into waves and I go
Speaker 1: to hear that man speak. Yeah, I'm in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and Father Torchison, who was the head guy there at
Speaker 1: Saint Monica's, I go hear him speak. I go went
Speaker 1: to the city and go to Blessed Sacrament on seventy
Speaker 1: first Street off of Broadway, and watch this a couple
Speaker 1: of guys speak. But my guys in East Tampton who
Speaker 1: came out for the swing mass in the summertime. So
Speaker 1: I go down in the summer and I get my
Speaker 1: community and I wait for him as he came out
Speaker 1: of the recessional before everybody else mobbed him, and I
Speaker 1: said to me, he's alone.
Speaker 2: I get him a lot.
Speaker 1: I pulled him aside from the other people with a
Speaker 1: recession and I go, I want to do the confession
Speaker 1: the reconcilly face to face. And he literally he's like
Speaker 1: this kid from Rosedale Queens. She goes, ah, you want
Speaker 1: to do that? He goes, oh please, I go no,
Speaker 1: I want to do that. I want to please. I
Speaker 1: can't stand that, because are you sorry for what you did?
Speaker 1: In the name of the father room the son the
Speaker 1: only spit you're absolved. Oh please, don't make me do that.
Speaker 1: Like we were pals. That's why we're not in that
Speaker 1: racket anymore. We're friends.
Speaker 2: And I thought, oh God, I can't believe that much
Speaker 2: of this church has changed. Change. You want to do that?
Speaker 2: You know, if you want to do that? Please? He said,
Speaker 2: get away. I don't want to talk about that nonsense.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Oh God, who's going to hear
Speaker 1: my confession on him?
Speaker 2: See, my friend.
Speaker 3: I still can remember my the priest's voices in my
Speaker 3: We have Father Hines, I can remember his big deep
Speaker 3: and then we had Father Elwood, and I can just remember.
Speaker 3: Their voices are stuck in my head because I was
Speaker 3: in Catholic Church so much.
Speaker 1: But but what I want to switch to this idea
Speaker 1: that obviously with what I've been through in recent couple
Speaker 1: of years, this very difficult situation I was dealing with.
Speaker 1: It was painful on a level I can't even give
Speaker 1: words do. I literally can't even describe to people how
Speaker 1: much I suffered from that. And you were is the
Speaker 1: summoning of your faith in your adult life and in
Speaker 1: recent years when there was tough times for you, did
Speaker 1: you get into digging for help in that direction.
Speaker 2: Yes, I did.
Speaker 3: But first of all, I want to say I'm happy
Speaker 3: that you that's over, and you know everyone was praying
Speaker 3: for you and we all got what was happening.
Speaker 2: So thank you for standing tough. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3: So, yes, I've always been a faithful person, but as
Speaker 3: my mother is, I'm not a churchy person, but I'm
Speaker 3: a believer and I've always prayed and hoped and had faith,
Speaker 3: and I've had to summon it more often than not.
Speaker 3: I don't wear it on my sleeve because I don't
Speaker 3: believe in that. I don't believe in pushing my faith
Speaker 3: my religion on anyone else, and it's a personal thing
Speaker 3: for me. I had a crisis of faith in twenty
Speaker 3: eighteen when my sister died suddenly in an accidental drowning,
Speaker 3: and that was I started thinking about this.
Speaker 2: How old was she?
Speaker 3: She was I think fifty nine and at the time,
Speaker 3: and I started to question God, like why would God
Speaker 3: do that? You know, it's supposed to be a benevolent God,
Speaker 3: and I know there are bad things that happened all
Speaker 3: the time, and you realize that intellectually until something happens
Speaker 3: to you right, and you go, why did this happen
Speaker 3: to me?
Speaker 2: And so I asked why? Why? Why?
Speaker 3: And I dug deep and then I said why not?
Speaker 3: And I tried to figure out, you know, why this
Speaker 3: was why you.
Speaker 2: Read that somewhere It wasn't aver quote in the book
Speaker 2: about someone said well why there was a quote in
Speaker 2: the book. But also I'd heard that before.
Speaker 3: But also Anderson Cooper's mom, Gloria Benderbilt, said the same thing.
Speaker 3: She said, you know, people would go why me, why me?
Speaker 2: Why me? Why not me?
Speaker 3: And then there was in my family there was a
Speaker 3: similar sort of saying why not you so figure out
Speaker 3: why it happened to you? Why this is happening to you,
Speaker 3: And there's a reason, and maybe it's just to make
Speaker 3: you stronger.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I would much prefer not to go through such things.
Speaker 3: And so I started questioning, why would God take my sister.
Speaker 3: She has beautiful kids, she has beautiful grandkids. She was
Speaker 3: so proud of her grandson, who was a great basketball player,
Speaker 3: a great football player.
Speaker 2: She went to every game like what why? Why? Why son?
Speaker 2: That happened?
Speaker 3: And then after I started thinking about this book, and
Speaker 3: then the George Floyd thing, happened, and I had pitched
Speaker 3: this George Floyd book and no one wanted to buy it,
Speaker 3: not George Floyd, but about racism, and no one wanted
Speaker 3: to buy it. And then you know, the thing happened
Speaker 3: and everyone's.
Speaker 2: Like, can you write that book? And I'm like, okay,
Speaker 2: So I wrote it. It was number one.
Speaker 3: But I started having this sort of crisis of faith,
Speaker 3: and then I started writing the book, and it was
Speaker 3: going to be sort of this, you know, a coda
Speaker 3: to the last book, and where I was just going
Speaker 3: to you know, move from racism and a little bit
Speaker 3: more into religion. And I was going to interview religious
Speaker 3: figures and people folks like you, and talk about their faith.
Speaker 3: And then when I left CNN, it became something else.
Speaker 3: I think it became a much better and more personal book.
Speaker 3: So yes, it's a long story short, a long story long.
Speaker 3: I have had, you know, points in my life where
Speaker 3: I had to lean on my religion and the Lord,
Speaker 3: and I don't really talk to people about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting when you work in this business. It
Speaker 1: could be anywhere a film and television or news of
Speaker 1: whatever medium, cable or a streaming network. You're around and
Speaker 1: you said, this word a lot in the book cynical.
Speaker 1: You're around a lot of cynical people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's our journalists are generally right. Generally you're
Speaker 2: right there, of course they are.
Speaker 1: And you sit there and you think, what's it like
Speaker 1: to go minute to minute through an experience with a
Speaker 1: bunch of cynical people, Like, was there anybody at work
Speaker 1: who was faith based even to some degree you could
Speaker 1: talk about it with? Was it all just family and
Speaker 1: close friends and tim?
Speaker 3: It was all just family and family and close friends,
Speaker 3: But mostly it was just me Alan, right, I didn't
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's an inside job.
Speaker 3: And I remember, you know, things would get so tough
Speaker 3: because doing what I did was a very stressful. There's
Speaker 3: a high pressure job, high wire job, every night live
Speaker 3: and you're like, oh, something comes out of your mouth
Speaker 3: and there's always something Why did you say this?
Speaker 2: Why do you do this?
Speaker 3: Other people hate you here, other than mad at you here?
Speaker 3: You got to give this response here, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, Like why most people just go to
Speaker 3: nine to five job, they go home. It's like you
Speaker 3: screwed up up, you know, you round it up, you know, yeah,
Speaker 3: so and then you get over it. And then when
Speaker 3: that would happen to my sister and all the other
Speaker 3: things that would happen, I would count. I would say,
Speaker 3: you know, God got my steps, one, two, three, and
Speaker 3: I would just count my step.
Speaker 2: I would take step by step, by step by step, and.
Speaker 3: I would count my steps to the studio sometimes, especially
Speaker 3: when my sister died, because you never knew when it
Speaker 3: was going to hit you, and so I would have
Speaker 3: to like think about things that go, you know, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, steps. Okay, tonight,
Speaker 3: I'm going to talk about you know, Trump and you know,
Speaker 3: very fine people on both sides, both sides, and I
Speaker 3: would just have to keep and I would say, Lord,
Speaker 3: when I get there, help me see both sides, or
Speaker 3: help me whatever. And then I would just I would
Speaker 3: just pay it and say, okay, you know, get the
Speaker 3: IFB on it. And then I'd say, okay, God, here
Speaker 3: we go. Just don't let it happen. Don't let me
Speaker 3: get sad during the middle of a segment of start
Speaker 3: crying or whatever, and so let me be focused or whatever.
Speaker 3: And then you know, the music would come up and
Speaker 3: I would just I would say, and when they would
Speaker 3: say go, that's when I would snap out of it.
Speaker 1: Right with this New Mexico event, I sat there saying
Speaker 1: to myself, what do you want me to do? There
Speaker 1: must be something you want me to do, you want
Speaker 1: me to change, you want me to do.
Speaker 2: This or that.
Speaker 1: I prayed harder for them to dismiss the case prior
Speaker 1: on the gun charge, and they denied us. So when
Speaker 1: I go to trial and I didn't get my way before,
Speaker 1: and I begged God, I begged, I'll never forget. I
Speaker 1: watched the crown and the Queen of England is on
Speaker 1: her knees praying next to her bed, and I go,
Speaker 1: if the Queen of England can get on her knees
Speaker 1: and pray, why can't I? And I got on my knees.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I'm crying, and I go, Please, what do
Speaker 1: you want me to learn from this and do from this?
Speaker 1: I said, please make this case be dismissed on this charge.
Speaker 1: And later on it played out the way it played.
Speaker 1: I go, if you take your hands off the steering
Speaker 1: wheel and stop white knuckling the steering wheel and trying
Speaker 1: to control and manage everything, maybe something wonderful with results.
Speaker 2: Yes, that was the hand of God.
Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes you just have to say, you know, as
Speaker 3: you said, take your hands off the wheel and just
Speaker 3: pray that you're going to be okay.
Speaker 2: What do you want me to do? I'm okay with
Speaker 2: whatever it will is show me. So did you let me?
Speaker 2: I'm going to be a journalist. Did it change it?
Speaker 1: That situation changed me a lot in terms of my
Speaker 1: feelings about having my children and getting remarried and having
Speaker 1: so many kids, which is something that I you know,
Speaker 1: I kind of knew what I was doing, and people
Speaker 1: don't think you do. Then they go, you wake up
Speaker 1: one morning and somebody goes, oh, hypede on a stick,
Speaker 1: and oh guess what?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: It's like, it's not all silly, and COVID happened, the
Speaker 1: strike happened, and overlapping with the strike was also my
Speaker 1: problem in New Mexico. What it made me do is
Speaker 1: people would say, my god, now you can get back
Speaker 1: to your old life, and I go, I don't want
Speaker 1: to get back to my own lives.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm asking you. This is my life. Now,
Speaker 2: are you kids? Are you more compassionate? Yes?
Speaker 1: If compassion means everybody I meet, I have to say
Speaker 1: to myself, they're going through somebody. Now I want to
Speaker 1: switch the topic or to you and fame and bet carpets.
Speaker 3: But I understand how you feel, especially about because people
Speaker 3: when they meet me, they say you're different than what
Speaker 3: I read about, because people often let their enemies and
Speaker 3: their detractors define them, and you know, similarly to you,
Speaker 3: the right wing media hates me, so they write the
Speaker 3: worst shit about me, And then people meet me who
Speaker 3: are conservative and even Trump supporters, and they're like, wa,
Speaker 3: you're not at all like what I read about in
Speaker 3: the New York Post And you're like, no, I'm not
Speaker 3: that person at all.
Speaker 1: Is it funny how you can be somewhere in a
Speaker 1: kind of benign setting. You're walking through a park and
Speaker 1: with my kids at some store, and you see people
Speaker 1: and you see the way within under a second, with
Speaker 1: in a fraction of a second, you see them regard
Speaker 1: you in a way with their eyes where you who
Speaker 1: know they're maga.
Speaker 2: Republicans and they're like, oh god, it's him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I go walking to them and their kids playing,
Speaker 1: and I go, what's this little one's name? And you
Speaker 1: try to charm them and they're totally freaked out and
Speaker 1: they're like, my god, I can't normalize you like I
Speaker 1: can't handle it right now. You're an asshole when you
Speaker 1: have to remain an asshole.
Speaker 2: I know that. I know that very well.
Speaker 1: Journalists and anchor Don Lemon, if you're enjoying this conversation,
Speaker 1: tell a friend and be sure to follow Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing on the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts. When we come back. Don Lemon shares his
Speaker 1: thoughts on the cancel deal with Elon Musk and the
Speaker 1: X platform. Following just one broadcast, I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing. Don Lemon's recent wedding
Speaker 1: to his partner of eight years, Tim Malone, was heavily
Speaker 1: covered in the press. The pair are often photographed on
Speaker 1: the red carpet and at stylish events like New York
Speaker 1: Fashion Week. I wanted to know how a serious newsman
Speaker 1: navigates his relationship with fame.
Speaker 3: That is not why I got into the business, It says,
Speaker 3: you know, right, And I didn't get into this business thing.
Speaker 3: I was going to make a lot of money, but
Speaker 3: you became. But I became famous, And you know what,
Speaker 3: I'm enjoying my life. I'm happy. And if that fame
Speaker 3: if that comes with it. If I get a better
Speaker 3: table at a restaurant, then so be it. But does
Speaker 3: that enjoy it? Yeah, I'm enjoying it. And there are
Speaker 3: so many people who came before me who didn't get
Speaker 3: to do that. And just because I'm a journalist, it
Speaker 3: doesn't mean that I'm not a person. It doesn't mean
Speaker 3: that I don't enjoy getting out and meeting people. Doesn't
Speaker 3: mean that I don't enjoy going on red carpets. Are
Speaker 3: going to you know, beautiful events. Why wouldn't I. I'm
Speaker 3: a human being. I think it's okay. Just because you're journalist,
Speaker 3: it doesn't mean that you're not, you know, a full person,
Speaker 3: a multi dimensional person, and I am. And so you
Speaker 3: know what, I'm just enjoying my life. I'm grateful that
Speaker 3: i'm here. I don't know how many days are ahead
Speaker 3: of me, and while i'm here, I'm going to get
Speaker 3: the best out of it.
Speaker 2: The only reason you're on those red carpets is you're
Speaker 2: good looking. That's the I think it's about you. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's I don't know. I think it's both.
Speaker 3: Yes, But I also think I'm there because I am
Speaker 3: enjoying it. If I wasn't enjoying it, I wouldn't be there,
Speaker 3: wouldn't I enjoyed my job. I enjoyed what I you know,
Speaker 3: my profession and what I did, and I think that
Speaker 3: that shines through and so I think that that's what
Speaker 3: made me, you know, a star, so to speak, right
Speaker 3: in this business.
Speaker 2: Even those your warmth, No, why would I? That's important.
Speaker 1: There's a magic mist that has to exude from you.
Speaker 1: It has to be admitted by you on camera, whether
Speaker 1: it comes through your eyes or anywhere you have to
Speaker 1: convey to your audience.
Speaker 2: There's no place out I'd rather be than here with
Speaker 2: you right right?
Speaker 1: Would when you do see that, you go, Hi, I'm
Speaker 1: don Lemon, and tonight I want to tell you Abeppa.
Speaker 2: They're with you, yes, and you know I couldn't wait.
Speaker 3: I would tell them like I couldn't wait to get
Speaker 3: here to tell you this story today.
Speaker 2: So let's go.
Speaker 1: It's like the journalists equivalent of someone walking up to
Speaker 1: and going, would you like to dance?
Speaker 2: Charlie? Dance? There's an engagement between you when you're running. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, two quick things. One is the election. And I
Speaker 1: believe that everybody who talks and kind of piles on
Speaker 1: online or anywhere about Trump is completely wasting their time.
Speaker 2: What else are there to say about him? Do you
Speaker 2: believe in poles?
Speaker 3: I believe poles are a snapshot in time. I believe
Speaker 3: in polls less so now than I did before. We
Speaker 3: all learned our lesson from twenty sixteen and then twenty
Speaker 3: twenty as well. But I think this time is going
Speaker 3: to be surprising. I think it's going to be surprising.
Speaker 3: I think she has a real chance. We had no
Speaker 3: chance with Biden. I admired, I my operation for him,
Speaker 3: but he was old. But I think there's a hidden
Speaker 3: vote for Trump with black men. I think even with
Speaker 3: some women that you know, they still love him. And
Speaker 3: I think with college students, I don't I know, and
Speaker 3: I don't get it either.
Speaker 2: I don't get it, but I.
Speaker 1: Don't get Also, is it there's a person who came
Speaker 1: in who knew nothing about government. He held no office, not
Speaker 1: even a mayoralty, not a governor, or as an executive,
Speaker 1: not a legislator in Congress or a state house. He
Speaker 1: knew nothing about government, and he served in the White
Speaker 1: House for four years and he still doesn't know anything.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't know.
Speaker 2: You know that people are what they do, we're shocking.
Speaker 2: To me, it shouldn't be shocking. But the folks on
Speaker 2: his side.
Speaker 3: Say she's not qualified and she has no experience, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, wait, do you know who you're supporting?
Speaker 2: Am I? Are you insane? She's a senator, vice president,
Speaker 2: she's the attorney general. She's a bright woman. Yeah, she's
Speaker 2: everything he isn't ye?
Speaker 1: All right, Musk, I just want to say with Musk,
Speaker 1: you know, Musk is like we were joking before you
Speaker 1: got in here. The Musk to me is like Howard
Speaker 1: Hughes meets Mickey Rooney. He's like this loopy, nutty guy
Speaker 1: that's constantly slamming the door in his hand and screwing
Speaker 1: himself up public relations wise. But he's also an engineering
Speaker 1: genius or whatever, and he's made all this money and
Speaker 1: sold cars, which is one of the most difficult things
Speaker 1: on earth to do, is to create a car and
Speaker 1: sell it to this country. When you went in to
Speaker 1: talk to him, I mean, obviously you were poised to
Speaker 1: work with him or for him at that company and
Speaker 1: do your show on X and that blew up. But
Speaker 1: when you were there, did you say to yourself, he's
Speaker 1: not much different? From a lot of other network executives.
Speaker 1: I know you didn't have any trepidation.
Speaker 2: Well, let me say this.
Speaker 3: I am in ongoing and pending litigation out of him,
Speaker 3: so I can't really say a lot. But what I
Speaker 3: can say is that I went into this with the
Speaker 3: best of intentions, and at first I did not want
Speaker 3: to do it. It took some cajoling and some convincing,
Speaker 3: and finally I did. I did not work for him.
Speaker 3: He was not my boss. He was not hiring me.
Speaker 3: What I had was a content deal with him, a
Speaker 3: distribution deal where they would have a certain exclusive material
Speaker 3: for an amount of time and then it would go everywhere.
Speaker 3: So you know, why not do it? Because I wanted to.
Speaker 3: What I wanted to do was what he and they said,
Speaker 3: to get on the platform and to be a counter
Speaker 3: to all of the sort of right wing conspiracy theorists
Speaker 3: that are out there. And you know that, you know,
Speaker 3: lasted all of half a day. So it didn't work out.
Speaker 3: So I feel, you know, it's awful that it didn't
Speaker 3: work out. It wasn't great for me.
Speaker 2: It wasn't what you hoped.
Speaker 3: It wasn't what I hoped, But you know, I'd worked
Speaker 3: with difficult people, but usually that's in within the confines
Speaker 3: of a business that it does not play out publicly
Speaker 3: like it did. He's a very consequential person to the world,
Speaker 3: and he has a very big and powerful platform that
Speaker 3: can affect lives, livelihood and even people's safety, and one
Speaker 3: I believe must be and should be careful and more
Speaker 3: responsible with that.
Speaker 2: What do you hope people will take from this book?
Speaker 3: The biggest thing is that I want people to understand
Speaker 3: that we don't and shouldn't live in a theocracy, but
Speaker 3: it's going that way. And if you go through difficult periods,
Speaker 3: as you well know, if you trust the process, which
Speaker 3: is really called faith. People always say trust the process, right,
Speaker 3: which is really faith for me is that it's going
Speaker 3: to be okay. And if it's not okay, then usually
Speaker 3: we don't know about it, but usually things work out
Speaker 3: for the best. And I think it's you have to
Speaker 3: have the right mentality, and you have to have the
Speaker 3: right faith, and you have to have people around you
Speaker 3: who love you as you well know, as you are, yeah,
Speaker 3: and love you for who you are, love you for
Speaker 3: who you are, and so but I want people to
Speaker 3: get to know my story. I tell my story alec
Speaker 3: and America story through the lens of religion and faith
Speaker 3: in this country. And I wrote this book because of
Speaker 3: my love for the country and my love for God,
Speaker 3: and I wanted people to have an insight on how
Speaker 3: it shaped my life and my world. And I fought
Speaker 3: against the evangelical teachings that sought to marginalize me.
Speaker 1: I want you to read something. You always ask authors
Speaker 1: to read a piece of their book.
Speaker 3: Okay, this is an excerpt for my book, I Once
Speaker 3: was lost my search for God in America. These days,
Speaker 3: a lot of people here and abroad associate the American
Speaker 3: flag the most bellicose, narrow minded ideology. Because the ones
Speaker 3: waving that flag loudest and hardest are bellicose, narrow minded ideologues.
Speaker 3: They wave the flag as a symbol of the America.
Speaker 3: They envision a country that belongs to them by divine right,
Speaker 3: not the United States we all share. And to drive
Speaker 3: that point home, they carried the stars and stripes alongside
Speaker 3: the stars and bars of the Confederacy, a treasonous junta
Speaker 3: that literally tore the United States apart in a bloody
Speaker 3: effort to preserve slavery as an economic engine. The term
Speaker 3: Christian nationalism rings out with faux nobility, but it's a
Speaker 3: wolf in sheep's clothing, white supremacy, cloaked and evangelical religiosity.
Speaker 1: This section is some of the best writing in the book.
Speaker 1: I must say now, the other thing I want to
Speaker 1: say is for me, I want people to take that idea,
Speaker 1: how we can reframe all that discussion about what it
Speaker 1: means to be a patriot and be an American Menon,
Speaker 1: You're one of many people who pursued that in this book.
Speaker 1: But what I got from this book was your It's
Speaker 1: a call. It's a call to say to people, we
Speaker 1: all need to take a break from this world, this loud, cacaphanous,
Speaker 1: commercialized world, and take a moment to connect with something spiritual.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be a religion, to just connect
Speaker 1: to something where we can settle ourselves. How can you
Speaker 1: calm yourself and make yourself the better you on a
Speaker 1: day to day basis? I mean, I get this from
Speaker 1: this book book.
Speaker 3: Do you realize that you answered that question earlier when
Speaker 3: you said that, no matter how someone treats you or
Speaker 3: who they are, when you meet someone, you try to
Speaker 3: approach them as if they're going through something, going through
Speaker 3: what are they going through? And so as I write
Speaker 3: and here, I believe that what's important to convey is
Speaker 3: that we keep trying to Most people keep trying to
Speaker 3: find look at, you know, create God in their own image,
Speaker 3: when we should be looking for God's image and other people.
Speaker 3: And as long as you do that, I think that's
Speaker 3: the answer. That's how you settle yourself. You're talking about
Speaker 3: this about patriotism. I say in this book that as
Speaker 3: a black man, I have a complicated relationship with a flag,
Speaker 3: and as a gay man, I have a complicated relationship
Speaker 3: with a Bible. But I was able to overcome that
Speaker 3: by using critical thinking and trying to find love in
Speaker 3: my fellow man rather than judging people and trying to
Speaker 3: create God in my own image.
Speaker 1: You think you have your doubts about everybody comes out
Speaker 1: of It's like having a baby. You write a book
Speaker 1: and when it's done, you're like, oh, I'm never doing that.
Speaker 1: But the thing is that you write these books because
Speaker 1: I have a theory which is that these are bricks.
Speaker 1: These are bricks, and this is one of your bricks
Speaker 1: that you're building a library, a world library. These are bricks.
Speaker 1: I have a theory where when the aliens come and
Speaker 1: take over and destroy this world, they're going to erase
Speaker 1: every tape in every CD and every DVD that's just scarbage,
Speaker 1: and they're gonna pick up a book and they go, now,
Speaker 1: what's this and they're going to want to go there's
Speaker 1: more thoughtful, This is more you, more of your heart
Speaker 1: is in this. I mean, your work in television is exemplary.
Speaker 1: I mean I don't want you to give up writing books.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Alec. I think you're right.
Speaker 3: It's like we have all of these photographs in our
Speaker 3: cell phones, and then where do they go when we're
Speaker 3: not here? When I go to your house, right, your
Speaker 3: family's there, you're there, but I'm looking at the pictures
Speaker 3: on the wall and I go around and look and
Speaker 3: where's this from? Where's this moment from? But no one
Speaker 3: goes into your phone and does that. And that's the
Speaker 3: same thing that you're saying about the books and erasing
Speaker 3: things that are digital, because.
Speaker 1: Throughout the moment, yeah, thank you, thank you, My thanks
Speaker 1: to Don Lemon. Here's the Thing is recorded at CDM
Speaker 1: Studios in New York City. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Kathleen russo Zach MacNeice and Maureen Hobin. Our engineer is
Speaker 1: Frank Imperial. Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing that is brought to you
Speaker 1: by iHeart Radio