Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing,
Speaker 1: My chance to talk with artists, policymakers and performers, to
Speaker 1: hear their stories. What inspires their creations, what decisions change
Speaker 1: their careers, what relationships influenced their work. George Stephanopolis was
Speaker 1: communications director for Clinton's presidential campaign. Governor Clinton has a
Speaker 1: character problem, but I take it that you Clinton has
Speaker 1: no smart and maybe a little too handsome for the job.
Speaker 1: Stephanopolis handled political fire storms calmly and with confidence, said
Speaker 1: that he had problems right and he he has talked
Speaker 1: about the draft and to some people as a character problem.
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton's passed his character tests throughout his life and
Speaker 1: throughout this campaign, and he's shown it through his commitments
Speaker 1: to real fights and what he's gonna do in his campaign.
Speaker 1: After the election, he became Clinton's White House Communications director
Speaker 1: and then the President's Senior Advisor for Policy and strategy. Today,
Speaker 1: at fifty four, he is chief anchor for ABC News,
Speaker 1: anchor of ABC's Good Morning America, and host of ABC's
Speaker 1: This Week with George Stephanopoulos. If you've read his autobiography
Speaker 1: All to Human, you know there was little in Stephanopolis's
Speaker 1: early life that would foretell his later successes. There was
Speaker 1: no idea when I was a kid. I mean, to
Speaker 1: the center was an idea. It was I was going
Speaker 1: to go into my family's business, which I would have
Speaker 1: been a priest, my father, my grandfather, my uncle, my godfather.
Speaker 1: But I sort of knew when I was in high
Speaker 1: school that wasn't gonna happen. And after that, I was
Speaker 1: always interested in public affairs and politics, and you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about current affairs at home, but I didn't
Speaker 1: really know what I wanted to do. I would say
Speaker 1: until my I was sort of out of college, and
Speaker 1: college I was doing both journalist him and politics. I
Speaker 1: was a radio broadcaster, sportscaster actually, but also had an
Speaker 1: internship which did really make a difference for me. I
Speaker 1: went in my junior college, I went and interned from
Speaker 1: my local congresswoman, and I kind of got the bug on.
Speaker 1: You know, I came from a suburban Cleveland high school,
Speaker 1: had a good group of friends, but it wasn't people
Speaker 1: weren't That's why I was born. But I was living
Speaker 1: in Cleveland, Ohio at the time, and uh that you know,
Speaker 1: that wasn't what people were interested in. And then you
Speaker 1: go to d C and there's all these young people
Speaker 1: who kind of care and talk and fight and debate
Speaker 1: about the same things. And that was really exciting as well.
Speaker 1: So I started out in politics, and uh, actually, when
Speaker 1: I finished graduate school, I I was trying to think,
Speaker 1: should I now go journalism or politics more full time?
Speaker 1: I was about twenty five then, and uh, I actually
Speaker 1: applied to ABC News, applied to Nightline and got a
Speaker 1: very kind but very terse, one line rejection letter from
Speaker 1: Rick Kaplan. At nine Line, I got hired by my
Speaker 1: member of Congress, had Finn to be he was, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had been at ABC for a long time and
Speaker 1: it was his copple then and I got my jobs
Speaker 1: in politics, and one thing led to another there and
Speaker 1: I loved it and was happy to do it. Uh
Speaker 1: And it really was passionate about it. When I left
Speaker 1: the White House in nine first, early I was I
Speaker 1: guess I was what thirty five, thirty six? Then I
Speaker 1: felt much older and I know why, oh yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, White House hears are dog years multiplied. But
Speaker 1: I also knew I had a better sense of what
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be than what I wanted to
Speaker 1: be after I left the White House, I knew I
Speaker 1: didn't want to be someone who just hung around Washington
Speaker 1: trading off of what you'd done forever. And I knew
Speaker 1: that in order to feel my age again, I had
Speaker 1: to start a different career. And whose idea was it
Speaker 1: to ABC? I think part of the reason, probably the
Speaker 1: biggest reason I went to ABC, is when I met
Speaker 1: with Ruinardge. I got what they called the full Ruin,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, you brought you in and it
Speaker 1: was will be the last time I saw him pretty much,
Speaker 1: but you know, sold me on ABC. And one of
Speaker 1: the pitches he made is that we have, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a pretty good history of taking people who had who
Speaker 1: had been in politics and actually training them to do journalism.
Speaker 1: Diane Sawyer although she had come later, but also coach Nixon. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: and it was it was a good pitch. I didn't
Speaker 1: know when I started that I would, you know, end
Speaker 1: up going full time, but I knew I had the opportunity.
Speaker 1: And so when you started you started ABC win January
Speaker 1: commentator and Charlie Gibson on that first day was the
Speaker 1: inauguration coverage gave me kind of a hard time do
Speaker 1: you know why? Yeah, I yeah, absolutely got it from
Speaker 1: all of them. I got it from I got it
Speaker 1: from Charlie a little bit. I got it from Ted Copple,
Speaker 1: who once came of office and just looked me in
Speaker 1: now and asked me why I'm here and whether I
Speaker 1: really felt I could, you know, sort of do the job.
Speaker 1: Be fair and and be objective. They were fair. Oh
Speaker 1: definitely got hazed a little bit from by Peter, but
Speaker 1: he was but you know, I they gave also gave
Speaker 1: me the chance to prove myself. And and did you
Speaker 1: worry that you could be fair? I didn't worry about it.
Speaker 1: But I realized that it was the only way if
Speaker 1: I was committed to doing this full time, it was
Speaker 1: the only way to do it. And I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what actually worked for me, And this is probably different
Speaker 1: from people who grow up and begin their career as journalists,
Speaker 1: is I couldn't pretend that I didn't have personal opinions.
Speaker 1: I couldn't pretend I wasn't a democratic paid it right
Speaker 1: and and one I accepted that as opposed to trying
Speaker 1: to be the journalists. And some journalists don't vote, and
Speaker 1: you know, are so rigorous about We're not going to
Speaker 1: allow any part of our life to show that kind
Speaker 1: of uh choosing of one side or another. I sort
Speaker 1: of accepted that and then said, but my job is
Speaker 1: to analyze things and report on them and tell people,
Speaker 1: with the benefit of my experience, help them put this
Speaker 1: all into perspective and then they can go make up
Speaker 1: their own minds. And by by not pretending that I
Speaker 1: was someone else, it freed me up inside. But I
Speaker 1: want to get to later on the nature of what
Speaker 1: it is to analyze things from a journalistic standpoint. But
Speaker 1: I want to stay with this track of this. So
Speaker 1: you write the book, and I'm willing to bet you
Speaker 1: keep the gloves on. You write the book, and you're
Speaker 1: very kind of cautious what you write. But nonetheless, people
Speaker 1: viewed when you wrote the book that you kind of
Speaker 1: you you had some um rigorously honest opinions of the
Speaker 1: Clintons in your time there. And did you feel when
Speaker 1: the book came out, because I know that I would
Speaker 1: feel this way that in one sense, you've done enough
Speaker 1: of that in the book already, so now that when
Speaker 1: you're on TV, did it make you kind of cautious
Speaker 1: and you kind of pulled your punches on the air.
Speaker 1: But no, I mean, it's now what was happening then
Speaker 1: is and this was actually, you know, part of the journey. UM.
Speaker 1: I decided to write the book when I first left
Speaker 1: the White House, and it was supposed to be a
Speaker 1: relatively lighthearted but honest kind of adventure story of this,
Speaker 1: you know, your life, my life, and you know, and
Speaker 1: that had a you know, quite a happy ending. And
Speaker 1: actually and I worked on the book throughout and it
Speaker 1: was in um whenever it was whatever January that all
Speaker 1: the Monica lewhisky stuff broke, and I was called on
Speaker 1: the day of broke. I remember again, I think I
Speaker 1: know I was in Alabama. I was going to try
Speaker 1: to I was gonna say the city, and I'm not
Speaker 1: positive it was Birmingham or Montgomery, but I in Alabama
Speaker 1: that morning. I had spoken at a college, and when
Speaker 1: all this stuff broken, I had to go on Good
Speaker 1: Morning America that morning and talk about it. And one
Speaker 1: of the promises I had made myself when I started
Speaker 1: to be a commentator was not that I would disavow
Speaker 1: by any means I don't think it was honest my
Speaker 1: my previous views, but that what I owed the audience
Speaker 1: was to sort of tell them the same kinds of
Speaker 1: things I would say if this were a meeting inside
Speaker 1: the White House, like you know, what does this mean?
Speaker 1: Which I felt was a way to be true to
Speaker 1: my beliefs, but also to give an added perspective. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I I saw that stuff come out that
Speaker 1: that morning and I had actually I said what I thought,
Speaker 1: which was true. I said, if these revelations, if these charges,
Speaker 1: if these accusations are true, if I think I said,
Speaker 1: if a couple of times, uh, they're serious and they
Speaker 1: could lead to impeachment. Did you know they were true?
Speaker 1: I didn't know. It was you know, it was compartmentalized,
Speaker 1: you know. I mean, whatever he did, he was good
Speaker 1: at it. But the thing was that was a sort
Speaker 1: of a my first taste of while even when I
Speaker 1: felt I was just sort of laying it out as
Speaker 1: I saw it, that was seen as you know, hugely controversial.
Speaker 1: You know, people said I was portraying and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. I didn't believe, so, but it was
Speaker 1: I got that sense of whoa this is. It's not
Speaker 1: always going to be no matter what you're saying. It's
Speaker 1: damned if you do damned if you don't in that content,
Speaker 1: because when I read the book, and I remember it
Speaker 1: came out, people said there was that tone of betrayal,
Speaker 1: and that's a you know, I understand people who have
Speaker 1: that position on principle that you know, if you work
Speaker 1: for a White House, you shouldn't write about it, or
Speaker 1: you know, you should wait twenty years or something. I understand.
Speaker 1: I don't agree with that position, but I I understand it.
Speaker 1: Once that happened, I had written about a hundred fifty
Speaker 1: pages by that point, and I had to throw him out.
Speaker 1: Not because the incidents had changed, but you know, the
Speaker 1: filter definitely changes. I mean they once when something like
Speaker 1: that happens, you have to go back and look look
Speaker 1: back at everything through the filter of what you now know,
Speaker 1: even though you still try to be honest at the moment.
Speaker 1: That's exactly it. And I mean, I don't want to
Speaker 1: ask you to revisit that and talk about your experience then,
Speaker 1: but what effect did that have on you long term
Speaker 1: in your your view of politics, Because for me, that
Speaker 1: was the beginning, not Watergate. You know, it's it's so
Speaker 1: interesting Clinton impeachment that began to me to slowly turn
Speaker 1: my view of American scene For me, it felt more
Speaker 1: like a progression. You know what. One of the one
Speaker 1: of my my takeaways from that whole time is, you know,
Speaker 1: I remember in those men I worked for Clinton for
Speaker 1: about six years. Liberals, real liberals, always distrusted him, um,
Speaker 1: you know, especially after the ninety four election and the
Speaker 1: child family and there, and welfare reform and all those things.
Speaker 1: But it was somehow was the act of impeachment that
Speaker 1: actually galvanized and united all Democrats around him because it
Speaker 1: was seen as overstepping and and I think that the assassination, yeah,
Speaker 1: political assassination, and it I think that was one time
Speaker 1: when the majority of the country, or enough of majority
Speaker 1: of the country, even those who deplored what what President
Speaker 1: Clinton did, felt that, you know, this is going too far.
Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine this now, but I mean that
Speaker 1: in the course of impeachment, as the president is being impeached,
Speaker 1: his party picks up seats in the House. That's how
Speaker 1: that's how much the country jacks. But I don't see
Speaker 1: that as the moment. I see that as a building.
Speaker 1: You know, this is this kind of thing had been
Speaker 1: building up for for some time, and I saw, well,
Speaker 1: the public of our opportunity, the intense partisanship, and you know,
Speaker 1: the the the idea of hesitate to use your your word, assassination,
Speaker 1: but where everyone was looking for a scalp all the time,
Speaker 1: the Nixon that's possible, but you know when you look
Speaker 1: back and then Republicans will say, we'll wait a second, no,
Speaker 1: look what happened to Bork And that was really the
Speaker 1: original sin going through his records, going through his movie
Speaker 1: records was where it all Thomas began. Thomas then comes up,
Speaker 1: and it's just one thing builds after. Were you glad
Speaker 1: you weren't there when all that was coming down? I mean,
Speaker 1: that's kind of a question that answers like you wonder
Speaker 1: what it must have been like to I mean, my
Speaker 1: admiration for him is that he survived. I really don't
Speaker 1: give a damn what people do in their personal lives.
Speaker 1: What's the preferred way for the president to take the
Speaker 1: edge off? You wanted to drink, you wanted to take
Speaker 1: prescriptive medication. If the way he takes the edge off
Speaker 1: as he likes women, then I'm like, okay, I'll take
Speaker 1: that of the three, choose one of the three. And
Speaker 1: I think I'm not asking I'm not asking you to chime.
Speaker 1: All this stuff was always people's behavior and their and
Speaker 1: their personal lives that never really really bothered me. But
Speaker 1: I also think that when I see him, I I
Speaker 1: just have this tremendous He's like Chuck Yeager to me,
Speaker 1: how you crash that jet fighter and you get out
Speaker 1: and you're alive? He survived and and just never so
Speaker 1: so goddamn that is the thing. And you know, he
Speaker 1: used to tell this story about getting pushed down as
Speaker 1: a little kid, just always bouncing bouncing right back up
Speaker 1: and in so many ways that that resilience is is
Speaker 1: a big story of his life and his presidency. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, and that's a great you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's an invaluable political strength you wanted in your presidence
Speaker 1: because every presdent is going to make a mistake. So obviously,
Speaker 1: when you were on one side of the aisle, so
Speaker 1: to speak, and though you came over there, do you
Speaker 1: find yourself doing things that you hated when other reporters did?
Speaker 1: You know, I think I am both helped and hurt
Speaker 1: by having spent the you know, the first twenty years
Speaker 1: of my career in politics. Um, I think it helps
Speaker 1: me in that. You know, I have been inside those
Speaker 1: rooms where the decisions are made, and I do tend
Speaker 1: to believe that most politicians public servants most of the
Speaker 1: time are well motivated trying to, you know, do the
Speaker 1: best they can according to their vision and what right
Speaker 1: and wrong is. Um. And you know, there are times
Speaker 1: when so I don't have that that deep ingrained skepticism
Speaker 1: gene that, you know, if you're gonna be a great
Speaker 1: investigative reporter, you kind of need. I think that kind
Speaker 1: of you know, sometimes it handicaps me in that way.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, having that empathy and understanding, I
Speaker 1: think sometimes gives me a better sense of how things
Speaker 1: are are gonna play out. UM And no, I'm I
Speaker 1: have tried to be you know even you know, I
Speaker 1: do the Sunday Show and I'll ask tough, direct questions
Speaker 1: and follow up. How many times have you interviewed Obama? Oh? Gosh, several,
Speaker 1: you know a lot. I mean, I I don't know
Speaker 1: the exact number. Your experience working with in the White House,
Speaker 1: What what kind of color does that cast? What kind
Speaker 1: of a shade does that cast on your view with
Speaker 1: him and what he's done. I'm gonna ask you to.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kind of ask you to evaluate him, but
Speaker 1: I'm asking you more to. But what's been like covering him?
Speaker 1: You know, it's I think he's been, you know, a
Speaker 1: president of pretty momentous times. Um. I've had some very
Speaker 1: contentious interviews with him. But I come at it from
Speaker 1: the perspective of, you know, again, he's he's gonna beat
Speaker 1: you if you try to take a cheap shot, uh,
Speaker 1: in interview, and I think that basically you haven't done that.
Speaker 1: You've seen other people do that. Yeah, and you know easily.
Speaker 1: But we ended up getting into pretty long contentious argument. Um.
Speaker 1: It was during the health care fight we got into
Speaker 1: this argument. I was questioning about the idea that the
Speaker 1: mandate was attacks he said, well, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: forcing people, you know, the money to spend their money. Um.
Speaker 1: And he just was not having it. And we went
Speaker 1: at it for like you know, in TV as an eternity,
Speaker 1: it's like twelve minutes and uh, I probably just exaggerated,
Speaker 1: may have been six, but went back and forth and
Speaker 1: and he was so insistent on it, and I was
Speaker 1: insistent on my side. And I even had a dictionary
Speaker 1: definition of tacks and the minute the camera went off,
Speaker 1: he said, you lost when you pulled out the definition.
Speaker 1: And you know, I get the last word on this story.
Speaker 1: This is you know, the story that makes me look good.
Speaker 1: Of course, when they went to the Supreme Court, the
Speaker 1: way they won the argument was by arguing that the
Speaker 1: mandate was attacks and that's how they got John Roberts
Speaker 1: wrote and said, when you said, you're welcome, but no,
Speaker 1: I you know, I think he you know, he came
Speaker 1: in and time of incredible crisis, the worst economic crisis
Speaker 1: of our adult lifetime. I don't think I would have
Speaker 1: made every choice that he made through that. And in fact,
Speaker 1: if I'm honest with myself, I probably would have been
Speaker 1: on the side in the White House arguing, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe you shouldn't do healthcare now. But you know he
Speaker 1: puts and and and and and and he got it through.
Speaker 1: Um uh. But I you know, I I'm a little
Speaker 1: wistful about him leaving when he's done, because I don't
Speaker 1: think he's been given enough credit. He just hasn't. I
Speaker 1: think he said, when you presidents are in their time,
Speaker 1: that's dude. You're very right. You're you're far wiser than
Speaker 1: I am about that. I just feel like that. And
Speaker 1: it's not about race. I just feel like I feel
Speaker 1: that people's fatigued. They're fatigued. Americans are fatigued by war.
Speaker 1: They're fatigued by UH and and and you know, and
Speaker 1: this is also a progression. And the the he came
Speaker 1: in making a promise that could not be kept. This
Speaker 1: idea that you can bring together the country in this
Speaker 1: environment was is fanciful. Um. But it's that's that progression
Speaker 1: of seeing the hardening of partisan lines over the last generation,
Speaker 1: I think makes it. You know, you sort of look
Speaker 1: at when's the last second term president who you know?
Speaker 1: Clinton got it, I guess towards the very end. But
Speaker 1: he was also impeached that you know, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: the whole country by the time he's finished disappearing victory
Speaker 1: from you know, you know, sick and tired. So with you,
Speaker 1: with you, with your from your standpoint? Now, are you
Speaker 1: excited about or not excited about her? Indifferent to another
Speaker 1: Bush Clinton? I'm fascinated by the whole idea and number
Speaker 1: one and number two, I'm I what I'm most interested
Speaker 1: in is seeing how the country reacts. Part of me
Speaker 1: just can't believe it. I mean, my whole adult life.
Speaker 1: There's you know, kind of Bush and Clintons running front.
Speaker 1: What is it? What is the statistics? You know, you
Speaker 1: go back to nineteen fifty two and there I don't
Speaker 1: think there's been a ticket on the Republican side that
Speaker 1: didn't have a busher in Nixon. Huh, Nixon fifty two,
Speaker 1: fifty six, he loses, it's seventy two, and then you
Speaker 1: don't have seven seventy six Still, then he's on him,
Speaker 1: and then he's on as the veep. Then he's the
Speaker 1: present eight. Then this then loses to Clinton, Clinton, and
Speaker 1: then he's back in two thousand, then he's back in
Speaker 1: there's a couple of skips. It was that there's where
Speaker 1: there's not an incumbent, the open ones incredible. But but
Speaker 1: but and you know, there's a lot of evidence out
Speaker 1: there that people complain about it. On the one hand,
Speaker 1: there was a fascinating focus group that Peter Hart broadcast
Speaker 1: out of Denver and and Dan Boss wrote about in
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. And these people talk about Bushes and
Speaker 1: Clinton's and you know, to be fair in this one,
Speaker 1: they were slightly more negative towards Bush. But there was
Speaker 1: this fatigue on on both sides, and you hear that anecdotally,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't seem to move people's opinions. Romney decided
Speaker 1: to bow out. I was just I was more surprised
Speaker 1: that he took the jump to get to come back
Speaker 1: in because he had been burned, because he had had
Speaker 1: his chance. Because he had he and his family had
Speaker 1: said in such emphatic ways. I mean, what was an
Speaker 1: Romney's eleven knows in such an emphatic ways that they
Speaker 1: would never do it again because he was so crushed
Speaker 1: by the lass. Although that can cut both ways, um,
Speaker 1: but they were making that quote about that without reciting
Speaker 1: that thing about Reaga came back won the third time
Speaker 1: Reagan and Nixon won on his third time. I was
Speaker 1: disappointed that Romney didn't run because as a as a
Speaker 1: moderate Democrat myself, I'd say to myself, he's the one
Speaker 1: I could have lived with, like when McCain ran, until
Speaker 1: he picked Palin as a running MANE I thought, if
Speaker 1: you want, I could live with that. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to kill myself. You know what I'm saying. There's other
Speaker 1: Republicans that they won. I would have had to. You know,
Speaker 1: you saw what happened once he started to run. He
Speaker 1: had a fair amount of support, but what that that
Speaker 1: second day he had the Wall Street Journal editorial board
Speaker 1: whack him out. Though Stephanopolis is a born commentator, you
Speaker 1: get the sense that he could have done anything in life.
Speaker 1: President Clinton once called him a master of the universe.
Speaker 1: Take a listen to our archive more in depth conversations
Speaker 1: with artists, performers, and newsmakers like Brian Williams. Yes, the
Speaker 1: Brian Williams who I talked with back in two thousand.
Speaker 1: Dinner could not start in our household until Walter Cronkite said,
Speaker 1: house that's the way it is. Take a listen that.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, Dot Org. I'm at like Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to here's the thing. My guest today is
Speaker 1: George Stephanopoulos. He spends his weekday mornings as the anchor
Speaker 1: of ABC's Good Morning America, talking with everyone from policymakers
Speaker 1: to YouTube sensations. At first, he wasn't sure it was
Speaker 1: such a good fit. They came to me and said,
Speaker 1: would you think about it? And it was after, you know,
Speaker 1: Charlie had announced he was going to leave and Diane
Speaker 1: was going to take his job, and um, I just
Speaker 1: said no, and why I liked what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I didn't think I could do the other job that
Speaker 1: I just didn't think it matched my Absolutely no, and
Speaker 1: I was just going to get to the second, tell
Speaker 1: the whole thing. You're far more charming than you think.
Speaker 1: She was actually saying no, you're not going to do it,
Speaker 1: because also we had to. Our girls were marks are
Speaker 1: still pretty young, but they were much younger than we
Speaker 1: had a really nice, sort of great life and d
Speaker 1: C rhythm and didn't want to upend it. What changed?
Speaker 1: You know, you've probably seen this at various times in
Speaker 1: your career. I don't know if it works exactly the
Speaker 1: same way. It probably does. There's great power and saying no.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you have to mean it when you say it,
Speaker 1: and I did mean it, but they just kept saying, well,
Speaker 1: you just think about it, and you know, I'll be honest.
Speaker 1: You know, Uh, there there would have been a cost
Speaker 1: to saying no meant I could do what I was
Speaker 1: doing for a long, long, long long time young but
Speaker 1: it probably meant that that's all I would do. Because
Speaker 1: you're saying they're telling you we need you to do
Speaker 1: this for the company and steppingson and you're saying, no,
Speaker 1: it takes on a life of its own. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: your that's your choice, you know, So that was part
Speaker 1: of it. H What did you think that that job
Speaker 1: required that you didn't have? Because I'll tell you something interesting.
Speaker 1: This is a true story, but I'll never forget. I
Speaker 1: was in Tokyo and I was promoting this film and
Speaker 1: I get a phone call. And I don't want to
Speaker 1: go into the particulars of who's on the other end
Speaker 1: of the phone that have it all played out, but
Speaker 1: they basically said to me, you know, the Good Morning
Speaker 1: America was never more successful than when an actor hosted
Speaker 1: the show, which was David Hartman, and they said, would
Speaker 1: you consider becoming the host of Good Morning America? One
Speaker 1: of them I was thirty six years old. I wondered also,
Speaker 1: as we both know, if they were doing to pressure
Speaker 1: someone to sign their contract, who was holding out on
Speaker 1: a contract or something, because you never know whether people
Speaker 1: are using it for some other purpose. And I thought
Speaker 1: about that. I mean, I do this podcast, I've i've
Speaker 1: i've I've done well, I've done things outside of this
Speaker 1: because I always say it's it's it's a nice way
Speaker 1: to kill an hour and talk I'm interested in their career,
Speaker 1: but like, what did you think? Well, it was that
Speaker 1: I had never as a as a journalist, never covered
Speaker 1: or done things that I wasn't personally interested in. I'd
Speaker 1: always you know, basically done politics and public policy and
Speaker 1: public fairs, which is you know that Barger game. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I and I that's the way I like to
Speaker 1: start my day. I like to start my day by
Speaker 1: reading two hours of everything going on in the world
Speaker 1: and then you know, using it. And I knew that
Speaker 1: you know, by definition, the morning shows have some of that,
Speaker 1: but it's also a lot of things that you know,
Speaker 1: you wouldn't expect me to talk about, you know, home
Speaker 1: decorating or I like to cook, but it's not something
Speaker 1: I want to do on TV every morning. And you
Speaker 1: have to find a way to talk about home decorating
Speaker 1: in the Good Morning America style. What I found and
Speaker 1: to develop a skill. I was lucky in that, um,
Speaker 1: I learn how to do what I do differently, and
Speaker 1: I was very lucky and that they changed the show
Speaker 1: around as I was doing this as well and sort
Speaker 1: of broadened out the team, which made it possible for
Speaker 1: me to basically be nothing but myself on the air um,
Speaker 1: and that is actually could be the straight man. The skill,
Speaker 1: the skill is to see who you are, be who
Speaker 1: you are. The world is going to come to you
Speaker 1: every morning. There's gonna be all kinds of different things happening. Handsome, ernest,
Speaker 1: reacts as you normally would do whatever happens, and that's
Speaker 1: you know, that's actually kind of fun. I guess the
Speaker 1: perfect borning show host should be a combination of you
Speaker 1: and your wife, somebody with your knowledge about public affairs
Speaker 1: as someone with her time. Yes, she's so funny. What
Speaker 1: does she think about you doing the job. She didn't
Speaker 1: want me to do it first. She glad you did.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we loved Washington, and I've been going back
Speaker 1: and forth Washington in New York my whole career. But
Speaker 1: we really love New York. We love living here. Kids
Speaker 1: love it, and the kids love it and we have
Speaker 1: a great you know, not going with a great life here.
Speaker 1: What's the tough part about doing that job? Because famous
Speaker 1: talk show host? So I've been doing their shows and
Speaker 1: they've been They've confided in me, like I'll come on,
Speaker 1: and I wanna you know, I want to I'm eager
Speaker 1: to please, So I want to queen a play bowl
Speaker 1: with them and come up with some stuff with some
Speaker 1: bits and whatever. We work the segments and they'll lean
Speaker 1: over and say, thank God, here here, you know, you're
Speaker 1: so funny. And then they'll say to me, what torture
Speaker 1: it is pretending people are special? Who aren't that specially
Speaker 1: when they come on. You know, that part doesn't bother me.
Speaker 1: What bothers me is when people come on and they
Speaker 1: expect you to do their job. They're in entertainment here,
Speaker 1: they're in entertainment, and you know they got a job
Speaker 1: to do and can come do it. I really respect
Speaker 1: professionals who, you know, know that talent is one thing,
Speaker 1: but work is important. Had a weird thing for me.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not that big of a deal, but
Speaker 1: it's slightly weird. How in the arc of my lifetime
Speaker 1: the Evening News a guy or a woman for that matter,
Speaker 1: sitting behind the desk. I mean, Maureen Dowd made it,
Speaker 1: had a nice column about this, sitting behind the desk
Speaker 1: and telling you what happened today, which is a dated concept.
Speaker 1: We're all walking out with a device in our hand
Speaker 1: that tells us everything every ten seconds and a refresh button,
Speaker 1: and that is changing and morphing and diminishing. But the
Speaker 1: morning shows have not lost their important They become more well,
Speaker 1: you know. The good thing is that well, you know,
Speaker 1: it's one of the last places you were talking about.
Speaker 1: You watch television. We all tune in now for big events.
Speaker 1: You know, most of us watch the super Bowl, most
Speaker 1: of us watch, you know, the presidential debates, not so
Speaker 1: much the States of the Union, any kind of big
Speaker 1: live event the country, even the award shows like the
Speaker 1: Academy Awards, people would tune in on. The morning is
Speaker 1: the last place where people, actually, I think, on television
Speaker 1: get up to find out what happened while they were sleeping.
Speaker 1: My device has been off, and you know during the day,
Speaker 1: they're catching up all day long. And I gotta say
Speaker 1: that's one of the and it was one of There
Speaker 1: are two things have surprised me about how much I've
Speaker 1: ended up, you know, fitting into this job and also
Speaker 1: liking it. I really really love the idea that people
Speaker 1: are getting up and getting their first news from you.
Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah. And and secondly, and this is
Speaker 1: the thing I had to come to appreciate something I've
Speaker 1: heard in the last five years which I had never
Speaker 1: before heard, uh, you know, just from people on the
Speaker 1: street when they come up and talk to you. And
Speaker 1: most people are nice. Um is you know, thank you
Speaker 1: for starting my day and putting us in a good
Speaker 1: mood no matter what happens. You know, and the news
Speaker 1: isn't always good, but you guys just seem to you know,
Speaker 1: be able to have fun and do it in a
Speaker 1: in a that makes us feel. And I was a kid, James.
Speaker 1: I remember Barbara Walters. She got mad at me when
Speaker 1: I reminded her that when I was a kid watching her,
Speaker 1: But it was a big deal. Who you who you
Speaker 1: set the day up with? Now? Of course, um, I
Speaker 1: might have sat down with you before we started here,
Speaker 1: and I might have told you a story about how
Speaker 1: my car nearly going there. I had my car nearly
Speaker 1: hit other cars and we had to avoid all kinds
Speaker 1: of potholes and it was a very dangerous thing. And
Speaker 1: I mean I risked my life getting up here to
Speaker 1: sit down with you and talk to you today. And
Speaker 1: I'm wondering, um, or joking aside, what do you think
Speaker 1: happen there with Brian boy? I don't know what people
Speaker 1: in your I mean, you always newsman and and all
Speaker 1: of us in this business. Host, Good Morning America now,
Speaker 1: but you were a newsman, and everybody's been watching this
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out you know, you know, it's
Speaker 1: when something happens in your business. You know, we're all
Speaker 1: following every twist of this and trying to put it
Speaker 1: all together. You know, I'm not friends with Brian, but
Speaker 1: I see him around a lot. I like it got funny.
Speaker 1: He's a good guy, always respected his work. Um. And
Speaker 1: then you see this start to happen, and a couple
Speaker 1: of things have stunned me. Um. One, when you see
Speaker 1: the you know, the various clips, you're kind of you're
Speaker 1: surprised at the volume a little bit um and the
Speaker 1: the vividness, uh performance. Yeah. And then but also I
Speaker 1: gotta say I'm surprised. I didn't quite understand how it
Speaker 1: got into the broadcast because you know, we all are
Speaker 1: surrounded by big teams, and that was a little bit surprising. Online,
Speaker 1: I mean again, I don't believe I don't really rely
Speaker 1: too much on what I read on some of these venues.
Speaker 1: But what you're seeing online is this idea, which I
Speaker 1: find just very compelling, is he just was in this
Speaker 1: perch where there was no one to say no to him.
Speaker 1: He was his own boss. He had no censor and
Speaker 1: danger in all life though, when you when you when
Speaker 1: you don't have someone who can, whether your wife or
Speaker 1: your best friend, or your brother or sister. God knows,
Speaker 1: I've got a wife that lets the air out of
Speaker 1: me from town to town. Trust definitely that I definitely do.
Speaker 1: And you do. I mean, listen, I in my job,
Speaker 1: I sometimes chafe it some of the restrictions or you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the various checks and and and balances, but
Speaker 1: you know it's there for a reason. But I have
Speaker 1: a theory about him. What is it? And I don't
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I'm gonna expect you to know to
Speaker 1: see it this way, But I have a theory about him,
Speaker 1: which is And I would sit back and in a
Speaker 1: somewhat casual mode, and I would watch the whole American
Speaker 1: sniper thing play out, and you'd say to yourself, Well,
Speaker 1: what people want is they want us to have a sustained, honest,
Speaker 1: real palpable celebration of our fighting men and women who
Speaker 1: were over there. Now for many many you just war
Speaker 1: over there, whatever you want to call it, whatever the
Speaker 1: action was, they've been over there for a long long time, now,
Speaker 1: longer than any other battle we've ever had, absolutely, and
Speaker 1: it's a small, tiny person of the population that's been
Speaker 1: there for longer than ever before. When I was a kid,
Speaker 1: Emma Floria was my babysitter, and Emma Florio's family lived
Speaker 1: down the block from me, and the seminal moment was
Speaker 1: that her brother, Roland Florio, who worked in a medevac helicopter,
Speaker 1: who was due to come home in two weeks, get
Speaker 1: shot down and he was killed. So the reverberations of
Speaker 1: death in Vietnam lived in my neighborhoodraft and in my
Speaker 1: height exactly, and Vietnam and war and the draft lived
Speaker 1: in our lives. And now that's all gone. None of
Speaker 1: us have a dog in that fight, so to speak.
Speaker 1: That we're blood kin or our friends. That two year
Speaker 1: difference in our age is actually kind of significant. My
Speaker 1: first memory of all that, I mean, I was just
Speaker 1: a little too young for all that Vietnam stuff is
Speaker 1: actually I was the first class. I believe they go
Speaker 1: back and register for the draft again, but I came
Speaker 1: of age in that. I guess it was kind of
Speaker 1: a blessed era where we just didn't we didn't fight. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: See my theory about Brian was it because Brian's audience
Speaker 1: is an audience that's a middle class conservative moms and
Speaker 1: pops that aren't working around with their devices in their
Speaker 1: hands all the time. Maybe the device is something would
Speaker 1: make a phone call with. We're not checking what CNN
Speaker 1: says or Ariana Huffington says, and we all are creatures
Speaker 1: have have it. And they said then they go, they're like, no,
Speaker 1: my news. Brian tells me what the news is at
Speaker 1: six o'clock and millions of people watch Brian. Brian's got
Speaker 1: a good audience. And Brian, I think fell even unconsciously
Speaker 1: victim to something which was wrapping himself in the flag
Speaker 1: and in the glory of the military to please his audience.
Speaker 1: He kind of got a little drunk on and this
Speaker 1: is I'm there's a big swing I'm taking here. But
Speaker 1: I see his language and I see the way he
Speaker 1: plays it out, and I try to understand people as
Speaker 1: an actor, like what they're going through. And I thought
Speaker 1: he's trying to communicate to people here, He's trying to
Speaker 1: tell them something, and I think his audiences he's trying
Speaker 1: to connect. But because but it wasn't just the military stuff,
Speaker 1: but trying to connect to people through stories. And I
Speaker 1: think his crown up is to be a very pro military,
Speaker 1: conservative crowd. I think that's six o'clock News on NBC.
Speaker 1: It's it's an older, more conservative crowd. You having fun
Speaker 1: on that job? Is it fun most of the time?
Speaker 1: Most of the time? Yeah? And then you know, for me,
Speaker 1: I get I I get to you know, I'm lucky
Speaker 1: now and I've reached a point in my career, you know, hoping.
Speaker 1: You know, there's one of the cautionary tales of the
Speaker 1: whole Brian Williams episode is I don't think we all
Speaker 1: make mistakes. I don't think I don't think what I
Speaker 1: would do what he did, but in that case, but
Speaker 1: we all make mistakes, and you realize it can go
Speaker 1: like that. I'm familiar with that. Yeah. But what I
Speaker 1: what I love about is I get to do a
Speaker 1: lot of different things every day. All of life is
Speaker 1: kind of opened up to it. And on top of it,
Speaker 1: the job I've structured now as I still every other Sunday,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm doing this week and whenever big news happens,
Speaker 1: and I take this responsibility seriously. But you know, I
Speaker 1: really um and fulfilled by when when big things happen,
Speaker 1: having the chance to help explain it to people. Even
Speaker 1: though most people get, you know, more and more getting
Speaker 1: the news in other ways, they still are going to
Speaker 1: turn to you when when big things happen, and you know,
Speaker 1: to have the chance to be a part of that
Speaker 1: is you know, it's a it's a great privilege. You
Speaker 1: can hear George Stephanopoulos's commentary every other Sunday on ABC's
Speaker 1: This Week with George Stephanopoulos. George's daughters here his analysis
Speaker 1: every night when he joins them around the dinner table.
Speaker 1: He says, that's the big benefit of his very very
Speaker 1: early day. This is Alec Baldwin. You're listening to here's
Speaker 1: the thing and be thing to get any cho