Has the Media Surrendered to Trump? (feat. Chuck Todd)
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Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. Politics and media are inextricably entwined. The politicians who succeed are usually the ones who best understand how the media is changing. If you want to understand what's happening in politics and where it's going, you must understand the media environment. That's why I'm talking to veteran journalist Chuck Todd, the former host of Meet the Press, for our Sunday show this week.

Chuck left NBC earlier this year to explore the greener pastures of independent journalism, to pursue a new model for saving local news, and to host his podcast, The Chuck Toddcast. So he's got a foot in both camps, old media and new media. Chuck is also one of the political press's biggest defenders and detractors, when appropriate. Chuck is a giant political junkie who knows everything that's happening in every race at every level. Today, we're going to discuss the changing media environment,

how the press is covering Trump, and whether Democrats have figured out how to communicate in this new era. Chuck Todd, welcome to the show. Dan Pfeiffer, it's good to see you. I think I was one of your guests in the first month of your launch, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, you were. You were. It was a very highly listened to and quite controversial episode, if I remember correctly. I don't know. Every episode you guys do is controversial to somebody.

You know, the deal, the beauty of social media is if you want to be controversial, somebody will help you be controversial. Yes, that is true. That is true. That is what Twitter slash X has done for us.

You were the host of Meet the Press. I'm going to do what Chuck Todd would do. I'm going to start with the news of the week here. We are recording this on Donald Trump's 101st day in office. We are coming to the close of a series of media retrospectives looking at his 100th day. There are 100 days in the White House. There are two themes that run

through this. One is that he has the lowest poll numbers of almost any president at this 100th day and is in a big political mess. And the second one is that he is the most consequential president at this mark in his presidency. What do you make of those two assessments? By the way, I love the word consequential. How often I now hear this word consequential.

Mitch McConnell. Well, because Mitch McConnell defenders won't say he was a great senator. They'll say he's one of the most consequential senators. The point is the word is such a beautiful word because you don't it's a way to

impart importance without necessarily saying they were good or bad. Well, they're consequential. Okay. Right. You know, the point is, is that it really is such an interesting subjective word. And I kind of look at it as a bit of a weasel word. Right. But personally, because I think the word and I get it right. Cause he is consequential.

Sure. And so's, you know, so's a wild animal in my yard consequential in the moment. Right. That's going rapid on us. Right. You're like, yeah, it's consequential at the moment. Anyway, I don't know if you get the point I'm trying to say, but I just I do. I do. It's a way to say that he matters without saying that he is bad or good. Right. George W. Bush, I used to say really consequential president because at the end of the day, at the time, you were like, well, doesn't look like Iraq's going to age well.

We'll see. And it hasn't. And it hasn't. And in fact, the legacy has somehow led to the Republican Party to no longer even believe in half the policies they used to believe in the Bush era. Now, I look at the poll that I sort of been obsessed over of all the polling, even though they've all been very similar, has been Pew's because Pew had a large enough sample to have some interesting little

they were able to, I think, correctly find the following, right? And which you see tidbits up there, which is people don't like the execution of Donald Trump, but that they're not yet souring on his goals, right? And I think the Pew poll did the best job of at least showing that where, you know, what he's trying to do, there's still support for out there. His execution though,

is something that voters don't like at all. And then you see that when you see, oh, the Democrats are not, it's not a seesaw, right? Trump goes down, Democrats go up. You're not seeing that yet, right? Nothing, whatever, the Democrats haven't penetrated yet. The best way you could say it is Democratic messaging has yet to penetrate or they're just not focused on it or there is no unified Democratic message, which is probably closer to being the correct answer.

And then the other thing that I found interesting in the Pew poll is they did this subset. They did the subset of non-voters. And what was interesting, because this to me tells me about the media climate. So at the start of his presidency in Pew, non-voters from 2024 approved, gave him a 44% job approval. So skeptical, but 44. Now he had collapsed down to 31 job approval among people that didn't vote.

What that tells me, because that's non-voters are usually lower information voters. And what I mean by that is they're just not paying attention. It doesn't mean they're dumb. These are people that are busy or just aren't as engaged. But what they're getting, they don't like. Right. So it does tell me that it's all bad for Trump right now. Right. His media environment. I mean, Dave Portnoy is out there complaining about him. Right. He doesn't even have a unified voice.

His the right wing machine is not even unified in celebrating his first hundred days. So I just think this has been political malpractice, how they've handled this first hundred days, because there were ways to make this better. And they have just I mean, can you imagine?

If you didn't have George W. Bush to blame for the economy after 100 after the 100 days taking over in the Obama presidency. And Donald Trump said, yeah, I'm going to make sure everybody knows this is my economy now. Right. Like you're like, OK, brother, it's all yours. You don't get to blame Biden anymore because you have actually impacted the direction of this economy. And every voter now knows it.

I mean, which is the blame buying thing is interesting because Trump did today on Wednesday. He truth that this was Biden's stock market. It's the overhang of Biden's economy. And I'm old enough to remember when the surge in the stock market during the transition was supposed to be Donald Trump's stock market. So I'm very confused.

Yes. I mean, he took credit for stock market surges when Biden was president based on what he said to be polling that suggested he would win. So no, he's not consistent on this. Yeah. I know. We're shocked that Donald Trump isn't consistent.

The blaming Biden thing is interesting because as you point out, it was for most of Obama's first term, voters in polling blamed Bush as much or more than Obama for the state of the economy. Now there was a certain set of facts there, which was the economy collapsed before Obama was president. No, I mean, the facts were on his side, but in this way-

I mean, I really believe that Trump could have convinced many people that, hey, we're still recovering from Biden's inflationary mess and all this stuff. And nope, not anymore. Yeah, there was a failure to manage expectations for sure. There's a way in which you could have said, this is going to take, this is like Obama used to say all the time, we didn't get in this mess overnight, we're not going to get out overnight. And it's going to take time. But launching the tariffs...

was the thing that, I mean, when you look, there's a world where he could have just not decided to blow up the economy himself. Like, that's the thing, right? It's not like he rhetorically messed it up. He substantively messed it up. Correct. His chief architect, right, with this tariff regime, Oren Kass, wrote this op-ed in the New York Times that laid out a much more reasonable way to have tried to execute this, which is essentially saying,

You put out what you're going to do, but you give everybody six months. You actually don't do anything until October, until the fall, and you give yourself time for both business to prepare itself and perhaps trade deals to take place. But that's not the Donald Trump way. And if you actually are an advocate of this policy, you should be really angry with Donald Trump because he may tarnish the whole idea of

for decades. Yeah. As we're recording this, the Republican Senate may pass a resolution of disapproval on the Trump tariff. So it's all going to depend on if enough senators show up. I didn't expect this to happen until...

until the spring of next year. I mean, that just shows you. Because people would be, yeah. Because you think they'd be separating for the election? So I do. You know, my three, you know, my three early primary guys that I'm obsessed with are Tillis, Cassidy, and Cornyn, right? None of the three are MAGA Republicans. All three are going to face primary challenges in Senate races. And the right, the assumption right now is they're going to lose their primaries. You can't beat MAGA in a primary. I think the evidence so far has been true.

But I'm very curious if one year from now, is it an asset for Tom Tillis that he's not MAGA? Is it an asset for John Cornyn that he's not MAGA in a Republican primary? I'm skeptical, but now I'm curious to watch to see if voters change. I mean, that's interesting because it's still in a Republican primary. You're talking about the highest turnout. I know.

Republican voters. And there's one exception, and this could work for Cornyn, perhaps, I guess, but there's the one exception of someone who beat Mac in a primary is Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia. Yeah. But he obviously has high approval and 100% name ID, and he was running against a terrible candidate. And governors, you want to know the single toughest thing to do is stop a governor from winning reelection?

It's it is it is probably harder than anything. I mean, look at it's one of these things. If you're a true junkie listening to Dan and I here, go look at the history. Governors are harder to prevent from their first reelection than probably any other elected official there is out there.

As you pointed out, we have not had a seesaw effect. As Trump has gone down, Democrats have not gone up. Our party's approval rating is still at its lowest level. Although there have been gains for the Democrats in the generic ballot, up three, I think, in the most recent average I saw, which is not great, but it is an improvement of where we were six months ago.

What do you make of the sort of internal debate within the Democratic Party about whether we – the James Carville play dead, the sort of David Shore focus on the economy and tariffs only, the –

The sort of Chuck Schumer, don't be in charge of the shutdown, the go after them on everything or the Bernie Sanders AOC fight the oligarchy. Just what's your sort of take on what Democrats are doing and perhaps if you have thoughts on what they should be doing? Well, can I quote Barack Obama that don't do stupid shit? Yeah. You know, idea two, which is I think that's the position I'd be in this early, which is just don't do stupid shit.

Don't get out of your way. It's a little bit of Carville, a little bit like, but I look at it this way. I think a good, loud, messy debate would be healthy for the party. Now, you and I are old enough to go back to the, I'm obsessed with the 88 to 92 experience, right? Which was, you know, 88 was one of those moments where Democrats just couldn't believe they got crushed. It was one thing to lose, but they got crushed and it became this massive debate

External fight. Right. And so you had Bill Clinton essentially deciding to start almost an alternative party in the DLC at the time. He picked a fight with the Jesse Jackson wing of the party purposely. Right. In many ways to to differentiate himself.

And there was a knockdown drag out fight at times. Ron Brown was the DNC chair. God, I remember it's so funny to see how close Ron Brown and Bill Clinton came once he won the presidency. But there was a time when Ron Brown was DNC chair where they saw Bill Clinton in the DLC as an arch enemy, right? As trying to upend what they were doing. But what's interesting about that experience, and I would argue also the experience you had in 05, 06, and 07, which was also a similar period of democratic introspection, that

I would argue all of this is what you should, everybody should strike their own path to see what's working. This is a spaghetti at the wall moment. What's good for AOC may not be good for Wes Moore, but what's good for Wes Moore may not be good for what's Pete Buttigieg. So, and at this point, I think the party is searching for a way. I think party leaders ought to be trying different things. I think the two people with the hardest job are Jeffries and Schumer, right? Because they have the titles of,

So there's this expectation that they should be the leader, but what are they leading? It's really hard. So I'm empathetic that it's hard for them to play leader, but right now they're the leader because there's nobody else.

So, you know, Schumer could be a better communicator. I don't know how Schumer became a bad communicator. He used to be a great communicator. The role changed. And I don't know. Yeah, it's fair. I mean, and it may be that he was a good communicator in the previous way that communicating took place. He has really struggled because I think he made the right decision. I mean, I don't think the government's open right now, by the way, if they should. I'm convinced that Trump would have just selectively opened certain parts of government

there wouldn't have been, maybe I'm wrong, but I'm a cynic on that one. I do think that you might have been handing them an opportunity, not a potential loss. So I think his tactic was correct, but how he messaged it absolutely made it seem worse. So I can't sit here and say any one idea is a bad idea and how everybody's doing, because I kind of think this is a

I think there needs to be a thousand flowers here and let's see which ones bloom. I would just stay for the record here that while I am quite old, I was in middle school and early high school during the 1988 to 1992. Am I that much older than you? I feel like you're poor. No offense, Dan. I apologize. I wish I were your age then. You have an old soul. I'm an old soul. Exactly. But I do know that period. And what is interesting about that is

The idea behind the DLC and Bill Clinton was that the party had gone too far left. We had defined ourselves out of the mainstream with the American people, and we had to change in order to win election. One big issue, law and order. Yeah. And welfare. Right. It was government support, but it was law and order. Right? And if you think about it, think about the two things Bill Clinton had to do in his 92 campaign. Right? He had a mentally...

questionable person was put to death. He needed to show he was pro death penalty. And, you know, it's still a, it is still a controversial decision to some people that he made, but not to the voters, right? He was trying to virtue signal, Hey, I'm a different type of Democrat. I'm not afraid of the death penalty. I'm not afraid of using these things. And then of course this, the so-called sister soldier moment where he sort of had this cultural pushback, but you know, that, that moment to me,

Is I wonder if somebody is going to try a Bill Clinton playbook. Right. I think Gavin Newsom is kind of trying it right now. Right. Which is which is try really hard to almost pick a fight to show you're not a conventional progressive Democrat, at least on cultural issues. I don't know if that's going to be effective this time.

But I do expect to see a few candidates try it or a few Democrats try it. I think that there's a flaw in that thinking, in my view, which is in 1988, the vector of American politics was left-right. And in 2025, it's inside-outside. And so I just don't think the voters – Trump is a perfect example of this, right? He is a very heterodoxical politician, at least in the way voters view him.

They think he is more liberal on social issues than he actually is because he's a billionaire from New York. He talks about protecting Social Security and Medicare, ran to the left on Social Security and Medicare in the Republican primary, and has these elements of populism to it, but then is far right on a whole bunch of other things like immigration. And I just don't know that people will think about – if that is Newsom's plan and I don't know that it is, I think that's a mistake. Right.

Well, it's interesting. So let me throw something else at you. I have the other, my main thesis about 2728 is that the Democratic primary electorate is going to prioritize two things, new and electable. Now, the problem with electability is how subjective it is, right? You know, that is sometimes in the eye of the beholder, but some of that can bear out in polling and some of that. And if I were to, new and electable is arguably how Barack Obama

won, right? He made the case, hey, I'm new, and let me prove to you that I'm electable. And if I recall, the 06 cycle was actually the cycle that proved he was electable because Barack Obama was invited to every red state Democratic. I think you were working Tim Johnson, right? I don't think you guys invited- I was Evan Bayh in the 06 cycle. We weren't up. Evan Bayh, you were Tim Johnson in 02, right? Okay. 02, yeah. But if I recall-

There were a lot of red state Democrats that invited Barack Obama to campaign for him in 06. Not many who invited Hillary Clinton. Right. And that was sort of the first piece. You know, so there he was able to create this case that, hey, I can go anywhere around the country. Oh, and oh, by the way, I'm also new.

Right. So and the reason I assume it's new and electable is I think there'll be a desperation to win. Right. Trump just exhausts everybody, just like we saw with Biden, with the 2020 race and what happened there. And the Democratic Party always wants new. Right. That has been the hallmark of when there's not an incumbent involved. You know, I've always believed the rise of Bernie Sanders had nothing to do with his politics.

and his ideology and everything to do with Hillary Clinton was the known candidate. Who's the, who's the new, all right, we'll try that. I, you know, it, I think, I think there were a lot of people who could have been the alternative to Hillary had they run. They just, most people just didn't run. And he was, he was really the only viable alternative that was out there. So I do think new will be the, will, will matter to, you know, and that, and what I mean by that is I don't think there's a name you and I will discuss today that,

That might be that candidate, right? Like, you know, think about Pete Buttigieg. Pete Buttigieg in 2017, who had him in the finals for the presidential nomination in 2020, right? That, you know, so I look around it. Maybe it's Abigail Spanberger, right? Maybe it's somebody we haven't thought of, a state senator that goes viral and pulls an upset in Kansas or Nebraska or Iowa, right? That's to me just as viable as Cory Booker figuring out a way to win the nomination.

I think I would put a – maybe this goes along with new, but I think the Democratic activists and donors are always going to put a lot of stock in the communications talent.

Like, can you get attention? And I think one of the lessons of the people will take from the Biden presidency and maybe probably unfairly. So of Kamala Harris is 106 or whatever it was days is that we got out, we got out communicated and we need someone who can go on the, we'll, we'll talk about someone who can go on Joe Rogan until the end of time, but it's something bigger than that. Um,

Somebody can go to the Chuck Todd cast. Somebody can go on the Chuck Todd cast. That's where the real metal is made. No, but actually what it really is, is can you go everywhere? Not just specific places, right? Like, you know, I've always thought that that was Donald Trump's secret sauce. He said no to nobody. And it was, I mean, it helped Obama. Obama was on Monday Night Football a month before NASA president. Obama would say no to nobody, right? Like that. Yeah.

That, you know, I used to think it was Chris Christie's, you know, special powers until he had his own, you know, he, you know, he cost himself. But that used to be an advantage for him because he was willing to go anywhere.

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Talking about just how various potential 2028 Democrats are approaching this, Gretchen Whitmer, who has sort of brought out an approach, I think, to this that is surprising a lot of people. Whitmer versus Pritzker, right? Like two opposite ways to go. Like Pritzker or Chris Murphy or anyone else who is all full bore anti-Trump all the time. Whitmer was in the White House last month.

Sort of ended up in an unfortunate situation where she, unbeknownst to herself, ended up in an executive order signing targeting individuals for criminal prosecution. Was caught by the New York Times hiding her face with binders. But then she was there to talk about a –

an important project for Michigan. That project was announced this week. She was there. She didn't plan to speak at the Trump rally, but Trump did invite her on stage and she went up on stage and didn't, um, praise Trump, but was grateful for the, uh, but seemed somewhat, she wasn't rude to him for sure. What do you make of her approach? Presuming as I do that she plans to run for president when her term as governor is up. Well, look, I think, you know,

Well, let me throw the question back at you. I was at dinner with a very prominent Democratic donor who then held very prominent ambassadorships in the last two Democratic administrations, which I know actually doesn't give you a lot of clues because that's actually still a pretty reasonably long list. But you know that- Yeah, I won't. Even if I have a guess, I won't make it. Don't say it because I don't want to do that. But it's the type of person. Yep. That's why I'm telling you this. You know who these... This is... I always say these people are...

the conventional wisdom, and I don't say that disparagingly, like, you know, they're moving with where, and this person said to me, oh, that photo op, that she's dead. She's never living that down. It's over. And I'm like, really? I thought that was a little extreme, right? That, that it was over. I will say this. I'm a believer that you got to lean in. I, I, I think you're, you're building your presidential campaign. You should do it in the same way that good football teams build their bill, use the draft, which is you double down on strength and

Don't try to be something you're not. OK, don't try to don't try to be something that your team's not built for. Don't try to be a politician that's off the brand. Right. So her brand is what that she is willing to go, you know, talk to red voters and blue voters. So her brand is the swing state person, all of that. So the problem is.

She got caught apologizing, essentially, for being with Trump. Right. The first the folder is kind of a version of a. Oh, I didn't mean I didn't. I'm trying to reach out, but I'm embarrassed there. Or even at the National Guard ceremony when her first instinct was I wasn't planning on speaking. I thought that was a moment of weakness, which is no. You got to be comfortable in your own skin. This is your strength. Right. If she's in there, it's because she can win.

Right. It's because she can govern in a sort of from the middle out. I'm not saying she's a centrist, but that that's so I think that the tactically, I think what she's done is right. Her execution, though, right. You look at it, her individual performance, it's like Chuck Schumer. He made the right decision. But you stepped on yourself because of how poorly you communicated. You know, you kind of communicated a flip flop there. No, we're going to force a shutdown. Oh, no, we're not. That's that's a terrible idea.

you know, here's Whitmer. If you're trying to show you're willing to reach across the aisle and you're going to work with whoever you got to work with, then don't act like you're embarrassed when you get caught doing it. Right. So I don't know, you know, you're, you, I think you, you, you're pretty good at identifying problems like that. Do you think that's going to be something that lingers for her that it, it becomes, it's sort of like it sits in that you're like, well, you did the right thing, but why are you embarrassed about it?

Right. I think she has plenty of time to fix it. It is going to, that picture will linger with the sort of people you had dinner with the people who will those donors. Right. And I wonder, and the kind of people that you're seeking endorsements from in wherever the primary is going to be this time, South Carolina, I guess, and Nevada, um,

Like when you're sitting down with a state senator. Do we know the primary calendar? We do not. By the way? We do not. That's what I thought. It does not exist because it was a one-year deal to – Where is J.B. Pritzker? So he goes to New Hampshire because he didn't know where else to go, did he? Yeah. I mean that's what the – it's not on the list but it's what the press thinks of. I think people assume it will not be Iowa. So it's – Right. You might as well go to New Hampshire. And does Vegas still – like yes, it will be very important.

But nobody there's it's so hard to get an event in Vegas because people they're not it's not a it's not a political community that's used to it yet. Right. You know, there's an established right. You know, the five people I need to get an audience of 50 in a New Hampshire event. Right.

Oh yeah, I got so-and-so on speed dial. I go to the Puritan back room and I get 50 people from Manchester to do it and we are good to go. Yeah, that's why you do it. So the point on Whitmer is, I think that the, there's plenty of time to fix this. I agree with you that the, like the question it will raise for people if she can't prove otherwise over the coming period of time and she'll have plenty of time to do it is political instincts, right? Did she, the way that she played it

did not work for her the way it should have. Like you either got to double down on it. She said, lean into it, find a moment in the oval. I have no problem. Like if you want to work with, for, with the Trump administration, trying to get something for your state, like that is still your job. I get that. That is, that's why you were elected. And by the way, my guess is she promised she'd do that. Right. It's been, it's been a big thing. She's been working on from the very beginning. So she should deliver that. And I very sympathetic to the, where the situation Newsom was in after the fires, uh,

Where you have this capricious, vengeful president who might deny lifesaving aid to your state. So you have to do that dance. I get that. I think once you find yourself even accidentally in the Oval Office while the president is targeting two individuals for criminal prosecution because they spoke out against him, you would have to use – some people say she should have yelled in that moment. But then you got to go to the mics afterwards and condemn that.

Even if it puts at risk the other project, like there's right. There's a nimbleness. I think that there will be. Can you think of a moment? Do you remember a moment during your your years where a candidate, you know, got caught in something? It's like, oh, boy, why don't you go clean it up there at the end? I feel like there's one of those happened during the Obama years, but I can't. Oh, there are plenty of plenty of them. Right. I mean.

Yeah. But you're absolutely right. And that's why it's like I struggle with the Whitmer because I think, again, her brand is I work with everybody. And I think that's her. If you tell me, I do the coma test. If I'm in a coma, I wake up and you tell me Gretchen Whitmer is the nominee. Oh, well, she must have prioritized this. Right. You know what I mean? Like you're just in the party bought into the idea that, hey, we need somebody who can win and we need somebody who's willing to

willing to work with red voters as much as there were blue voters, right? So I get it. And that's why it's just poor execution. That's really what it was on both cases. We should also stipulate that anyone, like I agree with your coma test, but-

Just we have no idea what voters are actually going to want when the primary even starts. Like the example I always use is after Bush won in 04, the entire consensus was we need someone who can win a red state. And in that vision was a white man, right? That's what like people cannot fathom or a lot of our younger listeners and staff that Mark Warner was the toast of the town in the year 2005. People were clamoring over themselves to work for Mark Warner. They're like, that was my first one. That was one of them.

I think that was my first NBC scoop for them was reporting that Mark Warner wasn't running. Which was a gigantic deal. I was working for Evan Bayh at the time. It was a big deal at the time. We had real visions of being the next Mark Warner. The next Mark Warner. And look, let's be honest. Why did you go work for Evan Bayh? Because you cared about the state of Indiana's policies? Sure. But you thought maybe-

That was a presidential campaign. Well, two reasons. One, he told me he was going to run for president. And two, almost as importantly, I had just helped make Tom Daschle the first Senate leader to lose reelection in 50 years. And so if someone's offering me a job, I'm taking that job. So-

But yeah, that was the thought, was that was the kind of flexible candidate. And then two years later, Barack Hussein Obama from the South Side of Chicago via Indonesia and Hawaii wins the nomination and wins the presidency in a landslide. And so we don't know what that is. But by the way, but that didn't mean that people weren't wrong. Right. They had to figure out how to win some red states. Well, it turns out you needed a better communicator. If you have a good communicator, they can win a red state. And frankly, I thought, well, anyway, he did...

Obama always knew the limitations of his ideology. He may have believed, which is something that I think is a lost art these days. To know where the public is going to be? Yeah. To sort of be able to balance, look, I have some views. I always say this, I get frustrated. People think they know my political views. I'm like, no, you don't. I said, I just know how things get done. And I just believe you get most things done from the middle out.

But on some issues, if I told you my position, you'd think I'm some radical lefty or some radical this or whatever.

But the longer you live, right, the longer you see this town operate, you realize, well, if you want anything to stick, you got to you got to like take Obamacare. That was not the way he wanted to pass health care. Right. Not even structurally necessarily. But he decided, no, I want to do it. So what's the best way to politically get it done? Right. And that's all I think voters are looking for. Are you a pragmatist enough to get to your goals? We don't care how you do it as long as you achieve a goal.

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You were the editor of The Hotline, which is when you and I first met, a publication that was literally faxed to my office. And every person in Washington ate their lunch while reading The Hotline, printed out on a piece of paper. It's pretty much the original newsletter, right? Yeah. It's what Playbook and everything else is based on. It's all derivative. The note was a derivative. All these things were derivative of the original Hotline.

But actually more valuable than these things because the internet was nascent. And what you would do is it would tell you what was happening in every state and every district because you pull what was happening. And we went out of our – we had to create a network of people that – I mean –

Dan, if I told you, I mean, it's no different than, you know, building volunteers, but I had, you know, all sorts of weird relationships with people who liked clipping papers and faxing them to me for an exchange for a free subscription to the hotline. And they got up either. They bought the bulldog edition at one o'clock in the morning and sent me stuff or whatever. But yeah, that was our internet that we built. You're at the hotline and then NBC, uh, as political director, then host of meet the press, uh,

White House correspondent. Ultimate sort of establishment media game, right? Yes, exactly. That's what I was going to say. And now you have left NBC. You're an independent journalist. How's the water? Tell me. It's great. I'll be honest with you. The more the merrier. I want to ask you about your decision to do it because I think it says something not just about your journey, but maybe how media has changed over the 25 years that you and I have known each other. So just how did you end up hosting a podcast like I do?

So, look, it's a good question. I've soured on traditional media because traditional media doesn't want to grow anymore. And it's not that... One of the things I said about leaving NBC is the last year was hard because it was the first time I worked anywhere where there wasn't an environment to grow. Now, I've had to lay people off. I've been at cuts, but every other...

sort of time that there was a sort of a media recession, right? Where you had to tighten the belt.

but you would tighten the belt on some legacy media project or older media project, but you would double down and invest on what the new was. Right. And there was always, and even, even my last two years of, of meet the press, I was focused on streaming. Right. I was focused on getting the show ready for like, it was clear we're headed here, you know, and, and it felt like a, it felt like where, where people were going to recover from cable, right. You know, cable was it cable feels like,

I call cable news FM radio for the 90s, right? There's still money to be made, but you can feel that its relevance is slowly receding. FM radio, right? Radio had impact in the 90s, but you knew its relevance was receding, right? Howard Stern or Rush Limbaugh could make some waves, but by the turn of the century, radio was almost irrelevant as a medium. And I don't know if that's 2030 with cable, right? It's going to be it.

So look, I'm sort of in, I sort of have a split personality here, right? I've got it. I want to, I still feel like I've got something to say in the political analyst space. I, and the one thing I was doing that I enjoyed the most at NBC was the podcast. I do think the Sunday show interview and frankly, the television interview as we know it in traditional media is just useless. I know that people are trying to make it useful, but there's whether it's,

whether it's politicians who are trying to use the medium to raise money or it's journalists trying to use the interview to become influencers, whatever it is, right? The podcast is the one, you know, for political discussions, having the 30 minutes, having the nuance, right? Feels like it's just a more fulfilling time, both for the guest. I mean, every elected official I've interviewed so far, and whether it's in my previous version of the podcast or now,

They, you know, it's been easier to book them for this than it was for the Sunday show. Right. Because they, they, the Sunday show felt like a stress test. Right. And you were, you were worrying about so many other things where this, you feel like you, you get a, so I just enjoy this format more. Right. So just as personal, you know, thing, but the other part is I, I've,

you talk about the hotline, I, you know, I didn't own the hotline, but I felt like an entrepreneur, right? I felt like I was part of the ownership group. I wasn't trust me, this newsletter craze happened and we didn't make any money off of it. You know, that that's always something I've the late Doug Bailey and I used to laugh at all the time. Um, but I do think we're in a moment of, you know, if you look at the history of, and I just go back to

sort of the late 19th century going through the last sort of 130 years of media, it's been a series of fragmentation and consolidations, right? When we figured out how to reproduce the photograph, magazines proliferated. And we had a slew of magazines in the 10s, the 20s, and the 30s. When the initial beginning of radio

Man, there were radio stations all over, all locally owned, you know, but in each case over time, you got consolidation, right? And every time a new technology came, there'd be some fragmentation, cables, another one over time, you turned into consolidation. We're now at a look streaming and the ability to sort of instantaneously, uh,

Be anywhere you want to be interview anywhere you want to interview. I mean, think of this. It wasn't that long ago, Dan, that NBC used to have something called where in the world is Matt Lauer? And it was a big deal because it was like, we're going to broadcast from the Gobi desert, you know, right. Or we're going to broadcast from the South pole.

Well, anybody with a phone can do this now, right? Like there is no limits, right? So that is notice that there's no where in the world is Al Roker or, you know, I say this because that's, you're like, so what, right? You know, there's some Instagram feed that's probably been doing this for the last 10 years, right? Showing you in all these places. So I do think that I spent a year sort of on this journey to figure out why do they hate us? How did we lose trust?

And the ultimate conclusion I came to was the loss of local, that the gutting of local news. I mean, I have this sort of cheap hot take line, which is a guy named Craig thought classifieds ought to be free, yada, yada, yada. Donald Trump became president. And it's, you know, because it turned out any news organization, newspaper that had a circulation of 50,000 or less, a majority of their revenue was classifieds. And so it just gutted.

It just got it. And I do think that national media has never been fully trusted by people, but local media gave where our character references, right? When local media sort of was reporting what we're reporting. Oh, okay. Right. You know that. Yeah. I, you know, I know those guys are, you know, my kid goes to school with that guy's kid or, you know, there was just a little bit more familiarity and I think it gave us trust. And I think the loss of, of local is why, uh,

The farther you are away from a politician or the farther you're away from a media person, the more you assume they don't know how you live. They don't understand your life. So when I'm not making content, that's what I'm focused on is I want to try to scale local news. I want to try to find a revenue stream because I don't think nonprofit's the answer. I think it hasn't worked. It's filled the vacuum.

But unfortunately, I think a lot of these nonprofit news organizations are making too much what I call journalism for journalists and not enough service journalism. And I think local news really needs to be in service of the people that live in a community, meaning you're helping them live their lives versus national news, which I think is your civics telling you what the macro view of the world is. And I have a thesis that youth sports and high school sports...

can be the glue and the revenue stream that could be the future of local news. So in short, that's why this is exciting to me because I can both create a podcast, independently own it, and pursue this. I enjoy the fact that I don't have to ask permission to some corporate parent to do anything right now. The local thing is really interesting in terms of how it's affected our politics. I did an interview with Jon Tester after he lost, and one of the things we talked about was

how much the decimation of local news in these red states has hurt Democrats. When I worked for Tim Johnson in 2002, a senator from South Dakota, he only won re-election because we were able to run a campaign where he was within the local press all the time, so people knew who he was and what he did, as opposed to the caricature of him. And so, like Tester was saying, how much that had changed from when he first won in 06 or whatever it was, to now was there just wasn't

those people who could tell your story to people in a non-polarized way. And so this has a huge, huge impact in what's happening in politics. No, and I think if... And look, this is not just about starting a local news organization that is only focused on trying to figure out what's happening at city council meetings. It's also just simply about helping people. Where do I find a restaurant I can take my family out tonight that isn't going to break the bank? And hey, did you know this store's got...

The newspaper was an incredible device for people-

And what I think the biggest mistake we all made as journalists was assuming most people subscribe to the paper to pay for news. No, most people subscribe to the paper, not because of the news. It was basically in order to understand what the hell was going on in the community, right? Whether it was movie listings, TV guide, coupons, you know, whatever it is that that was a bigger part of the purchase than I think

we journalists want to admit, right? And so I think that we have to get out of this phase. The people that want to be informed will always find a way to be informed. The problem in our politics today is that we don't have a way to accidentally inform people, which is the stuff they would catch. There's this great study that I'm obsessed with. It involves newspapers, and it still worked, which is

a couple of college academics did this, you know, saw that there's a correlation that if you get a newspaper delivered to your house, you're more likely to vote. So they wanted to say, okay, what if we just force fed a newspaper to people? Would it increase that group of people's voting history? And sure enough, it did. They sent the paper to a whole bunch of people that didn't vote in their last election. And just the simple act of throwing away the newspaper, at least told them when the election was and the, those people voted.

came out in bigger numbers than those that did not receive the paper.

So there's something to accidentally informing people that we're missing. That's something we've 100% lost because like on a national political level for a while there, you could be accidentally informed of something related to politics from Facebook or Twitter if you were one of those people who engage with Twitter. But now they've turned off the algorithm. Right. So now you don't get that. I think you had to get the paper to know what the weather or turn on the local news to know what the weather was going to be, to know when a movie was, and to know the score of the baseball game. Right.

And in turning on the newspaper, picking up the paper, you were going to bump into some sort of civic information. You bumped into something. That's why everyone cared about the headlines. We still fight about headlines all the time, but no one cares about headlines anymore because the paper's not sitting on the newsstand. Although now headlines matter for whether you get a YouTube click or not.

They do matter. Well, they also matter in terms of – this is a fight I've – back when I was still fighting with reporters that they matter more in the social era than they do because people are only seeing the clip when they scroll. But the thing that's interesting now is that because the internet, as we commonly understand it, has collapsed –

Like for a while, then you didn't need this. We could find all those things on the internet. But because Google is such a disaster right now because of AI slop and ads and everything else, the world has become so much more confusing that you need curated information again, right? Which I think is a lot of what's happening in independent journalism.

And I do think that there's a way. And again, I think we know consolidation is coming. I just don't know what it looks like on Substack, right? I don't know what it looks like on YouTube, but it's coming. And that's part of, and you guys are in some ways, you're planted a flag and I hope to be a consolidator. That's the bottom line. More of my conversation with Chuck Todd when we come back. But first, if you love Pod Save America, you're fascinated by politics and the media, you'll love my newsletter, The Message Box. I wrote this newsletter to help explain what's happening. Give me a like, share this video, and I'll see you in the next one.

give context, and help you know what you can do about it. I will tell you where to donate money, which campaigns to support, and how to win political arguments with the people in your lives.

In the months ahead, I'll unpack the tactics that Democrats need to win from the national level to grassroots efforts in your local community and offer a perspective that cuts through the chaos. If you want to follow along and be part of the conversation, head to the world's most cringeworthy website, crooked.com slash yes, we Dan to unlock a 30 day free trial of message box. If Donald Trump's making everything more expensive, I'm going to make it just a little bit cheaper with this 30 day free trial at crooked.com slash yes, we Dan.

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Well, now that you're an independent journalist, I assume you can speak even more freely than you have otherwise about how your former colleagues in the traditional press are doing their job. What's your take on how people are covering Trump right now? Are they doing a good job?

Well, I think it's difficult because I just happen to know many of these journalists know they don't have the support of their corporate bosses. And so it is created-

This is, it's real. Okay. I don't, I'm not going to get into, I don't want to get into names that I, for a variety of reasons. But it's obvious, right? The, the, this is, we can feel it. Right. And, and the reporters themselves are frustrated because they're not sure. It's one of those moments where they're going to, they're going to think, and they're going to look behind them and nobody's following. Right. You know, I'm just,

You know, it's come up quite a bit. The issue when myself and Jake and a few others, you know, were upset when you guys didn't allow Fox into the pool for a Ken Feinberg interview. I don't know if you remember that incident. Yeah.

And I remember one of our motivations was- Oh, I do remember quite well, Chuck. I do. Yeah. And right. But the point is, this is where it's like, we were genuine in why we were fighting. It was like, the shoe's going to be on the other foot, right? It's inevitable. And so the lack of anybody coming to AP's defense has just been heartbreaking to me.

and watching the AP have to- And are you surprised by that? It's not surprising to me that Fox has to come to their defense, but there's been no attempt at collective action. None. And I think the fear, of course, was that the collective action wouldn't matter. And that's, I think, the difficulty here, right? It's like, I'm haunted by what the managing partner for Paul Weiss said when he said, look, we looked for allies and instead they were poaching our clients.

Right. Look at what certain news organizations are doing. They're virtue signaling on saying, well, all right, we'll we'll we'll call it. We'll call the Gulf whatever name you want us to call it. And you're just like, you know, on one hand, I understand that it's your mission that you're trying to be above this and that you're not trying to get caught into this. But, you know, ultimately, the First Amendment is the First Amendment. Look how they kicked AP out of the pool was the issue. Look, they can they could do what they want.

But it was the rationale was clearly unconstitutional. If you can't stand up for that basic principle, then get out of journalism, right? Like that should, that is, you know, what hill do you die on? That hill. Die on that hill. Because if you die on that hill, then it's done anyway, right? Like what's the point? So I've been, I don't think it's fair. And I'll say this, I, you know, I certainly think there's been plenty of good individual journalism, but you can feel,

There's not a comfort level of how do you cover this Trump White House and covering the Trump White House is hard because, you know, the public stuff is not true. So the best way to report is behind the scenes, which then in itself becomes your you end up having to litigate your sourcing, litigate all this. And it's like so it it is both a I think it's both easy to report on Trump because everybody does talk.

A lot of times off the record or on background or stuff like this. But it is hard because of how aggressive the West Wing is in essentially trying to exploit the unpopularity of the traditional media. Yeah, I am like this is where we might take on. I think a lot of individual reporters are doing a lot of very good journalism and they are digging deep and they're telling detailed stories about.

You know, the deportation plans or that New York Times story that went or the 60 Minutes story that went through all the Venezuelans who were sent to the gulag in El Salvador. Like there's a lot of very good stuff happening.

There's three problems, I think, with the overall coverage. One is, and this is unconscionable, is what the corporate parents at like Disney and Paramount are doing to basically pay off Trump for reasons that have nothing to do with the journalism, but because they have other business before the government. It's early stages kleptocracy. I have a guest earlier this week, a specialist in this. I mean, you know,

People on the right get upset at me that I'm using the word, but I don't know how else, what else do you call it? That inaugural fund is just that. Yeah, it's pay to play. We're doing pay to play. I mean, essentially 60 minutes, the number one news brand in all of the industry for 50 years is going to, by the end of this period, probably help fund Donald Trump's library so that the owners of the Paramount Corporation can get billions of dollars. Like that is what's going to happen. So that's one. And can I just, I hate interrupting your thought, but just very quick on this.

Traditional media, you already have alienated the right. Doing this isn't going to help you with the right. And all you're going to do is alienate the people that still trusted you. And now nobody's going to trust anything out of those major traditional media outlets. It's a huge... And can I just tell you, individual members of those traditional outlets are seething over this and are demoralized and depressed. And it's...

across the board, Dan. Anyway, sorry. Yeah. And it is, but so this is, and they don't, I don't think the corporate parents care because as the media economics have changed, the amount of money that these media outlets are bringing in for the parent company has gone down. Right. And they know it's, it's, it is going down. There were, they're in secular decline. You know why I'm bitter about this? You know, I'm bitter about this because during COVID we were the only revenue they had. Yep. And, and, and they took our revenue.

We all took pay cuts. They took our revenue and applied it elsewhere. And then when elsewhere got, yeah, it's time for media, the news divisions have to put on a raincoat, but where's the pay it forward? We were there when you had no revenue during COVID, brother. No sports, nothing. We were the revenue and it did. The news divisions generated all this sort of

it kept them afloat in certain instances. So some of us individually are very bitter about their behavior because it's like they have a total memory loss that this is the whole reason why you are conglomerate. Some things are down, but you're going to have some things that are up. And then when some things go down, you have other things that are up. I thought that's why you wanted to be a multi, you know, national corporation. Sorry. Right. It's very problematic. Okay. Second, my second issue with the coverage is, is what you brought up that they're not sticking with the AP.

I understand, and I've talked to some reporters about this, that the fear is that there'll be no –

Yeah, so what? Objective journalists in anything. It'll just be a bunch of bag of people. And for the individual reporters, this is their livelihood. So I still believe they should stand up. But the calculation is not pure cowardice. You know what I mean? Republican senators have told me, well, if I'm not there, you won't imagine who replaces me, right? It's the same mindset. Yeah, yeah. But then they just act like that. That's right. But the third thing I think is still a challenge we have is I'm not sure that much of...

I keep using the term traditional because I think mainstream is a Sarah Palin-esque term that I don't really love. Traditional is the fairest you can do. Legacy feels negative too. The traditional political press is incapable of telling. They're very good at identifying the trees in Donald Trump's forest, but they're incapable of describing the forest in appropriate terms.

Right. To what exactly? To talk about what is there exceptions to this or some people do it very well, others do it less well. But like we are undergoing a fundamental assault on democracy as we know it. And people are really struggling to describe that in very true ways for whatever reasons. And there are cultural reasons, there are professional reasons, the reason of self-interest. But the full source, I think this is the biggest dividing line among the opposition to Trump.

Is this issue that you just identified? Because I think, you know, I've always said, you know, the biggest riddle we have to solve in America is there's a 60% majority that would like to have an alternative to Donald Trump. It's it's great. The problem is that 60% can't agree on anything. Right. And you have about half who believe that this is we are in a existential moment and you have half that simply believe that.

that no, the one party has lost their mind and will be able to quote unquote revert back. And I think that's the tension that you, I think that tension bears out in the press. I think you have some in the press that see it as a existential crisis and some that view this as a Republican Party crisis.

that will go away when Trump goes away. I'll be honest, I vacillate on this. I go back and forth. I think the party is a kleptocracy right now. I mean, just look at how Trump and the meme coins and, you know, hey, you know, if you buy this meme coin now, you get money here. So you can't succeed in the Republican Party without paying off Trump. So that is the beginnings of a kleptocracy. Are we Erdogan? No. No.

Are we early stages Orban? Maybe. Right. So that's when I say I find myself vacillating back and forth. I do think our democracy isn't going to go away tomorrow because I think our local it's too it's too ingrained in so many places. Right. So that's I think you've I always I feel like that issue is the is the real tension, even among those that know we're on the wrong path.

The question is, it's sort of it's in the party. Yes. Do you say you vacillate on to lead one way or the other? I mean, it seems to me that we are in a pretty bad place. Doesn't mean we can't get out of it, but we're the direction we are headed and we are only 100 days in seems quite concerning.

Yeah, I'm like more devastated on an international way than I am domestically. Like I can, we heal politically, we can heal quickly domestically. I think we've created problems that are going to, internationally, that are going to take a generation to rebuild. And that is whether it's trust with other countries, what we've done to Canada, I think is something that is going to be problematic for beyond one, you know, it's going to take

America electing a Republican president that isn't a Democratic and a Republican president back to back that is so opposite of Trump. You know what I mean? It's a minimum decade before we earn the trust back of our key allies. I think he has launched a nationalism in a lot of places, right? Nationalism out of survival.

the way many countries I think are gonna view this. And so I just, so that's when I say I vacillate, I think the damage internationally, I don't think people fully appreciate how bad it is and how long that will take to recover trust. I mean, you know, America's been trying to get trust back in Latin America for 50 years and we set ourselves back quite a, you know, every time we take one step forward, there's usually something that puts us two steps back. So,

I that's how I vacillate because I think domestically we'll recover faster than we will internationally.

Earlier this month, you were on Chris Eliza. You're talking to Chris Eliza, a fellow sub-stacker and podcast host, but about that. You said that the supposed media cover-up of Biden's decline was a right-wing manufactured, right-wing premise in order to stain the media. I think the idea that the media was covering it up is absurd. Well, that's what I get. I am angry about... That's what I'm upset about. It's the idea that the media... The media is the reason why the public thought he was too old, because the media showed you

him shuffling every day. And the media didn't have the interviews with him and would tell you, the media would show you that, hey, he's using the short staircase, right? You know, how is it that Fox even had the clips to show, right? It was the media. So, and, you know, now, were there pundits on MSNBC and CNN who said,

essentially tried to shame any member of the press that would bring this up. Yes, that was true. I mean, Joe Scarborough did this, right? He was very aggressive as a defender of Joe Biden whenever it seemed like it was necessary, whenever this would pop up. But this idea that it wasn't an issue, my goodness, Dean Phillips did run for president on this issue. Now, there were certain pundits that he did. Yes.

Well, I mean, but that's and you're and you're right. Like, but I would argue it was it's the Democratic Party that's responsible for this. They're the ones that's what I want to get to. And this is the party's fault. It you know.

The media is not an organ of the Democratic Party. And there's too many Democrats who wish the media was. And there are too many people in the media who sometimes think that is their job. And my frustration is that, look, it wasn't. David Ignatius had a front page column that they put on the front page when they did it that he shouldn't run again. That column ran in the front page of The Washington Post in October of twenty twenty three.

You know, so the idea that that somehow the media was all in cahoots to is just nonsense. Now, I know how this happened. You know how this happened. Everybody's personal interaction with Biden was good enough when you thought the alternative was Donald J. Trump.

And if if if everybody had been asked the same question and Nikki Haley was the person standing over there, there would have been a chorus of Democrats who would have said he can't run for reelection.

There's a tension in what you just said there. And I want to get back to the media coverage. But the tension is, did they say that because Donald Trump is so dangerous that we can't possibly talk about how old Joe Biden is? Or is it because Democrats thought that Joe Biden, that Donald Trump could be beaten and Nikki Haley could not? You know, it's a good question, whether it's about just simply electability or... But I do think that...

It goes to one of Joe Biden's favorite expressions. Don't judge me by the almighty, judge me by the alternative, right? I think there were plenty of Democrats who were assessing Biden's situation based on, well, Trump's manic, Biden's slower. Okay, they both have issues. You know what I mean? Like it became...

it became more of a reactionary response. Like my point is I understand the human, you know, look, I don't, I don't want to violate an off the record, but I Jeff science speak to my, my class of kids a couple of weeks ago. And of course they all asked and Jeff science answer off the record was the same answer. He's given on the record, you know, which is in my dealings with him, Joe Biden was fine. Right. And if you've noticed so many people from that West wing usually word it that way. Well, in my experience, right. It was fine. Um,

Which, by the way, both things can be true. Yeah, I guess at...

Let's put aside whether the media, like there was some room where like, and that's why the reason I'm upset about this is that we know what Fox only wants the right. They're trying desperately to make the media part of the democratic party to create distrust in, in, in legitimate journalists in order to get their pablum believed by, by, by, by their viewers. So this is why I get my backup. Right. This is why I get my backup about it.

It's an intentional business strategy that so what if the truth isn't there? We're just trying to discredit that. And look, I take it as a badge of honor. They get obsessed with trying to discredit me because I think they know I have plenty of legitimacy.

But there is another sort of conversation around Biden happening. Alex Thompson of Axios stood up at the White House Correspondents' Dinner this weekend where he won an award for his coverage of Biden's age. And he said that essentially that the media had sort of failed here, that they had not done enough reporting on Joe Biden's mental capacity up until prior to the debate. Can you define media? Well, I mean, I think he meant the people in the room. Yeah.

Right. Look, do I think the people in the White House press is my word, not Alex's? No. And that's the thing. Like, you know, this is where and this is where I get, you know, you're sort of like, well, what's the media these days? How do you define it? You know, is it is it the the White House press corps? Yeah, I could argue that the White House press corps didn't make this an issue and they could have. Where's the president today? How come he's not doing a public event today? How come he hasn't done a press conference today?

You know, there wasn't that. So I will, I accept that, that that didn't exist in that press room. And I think,

This is where the Biden White House created a chill among reporters, meaning if you dare do that, good luck getting your interview that you were hoping to get with Biden or Harris, et cetera. So there was a there was a they made it clear there was a price to pay, I think, to some reporters. So, yeah, I do think some some pulled their pulled their punches in that press room because they were daily interacting with the Biden press shop.

Do you think this was one of the other contentions out there is that the Democratic Party covered this up? This was like, what's your cover up? I mean, I say this in that. Was there a Parkinson's diagnosis that nobody reported on? Do you know what I mean? Like, what's the cover up? What I would say, forget cover up. It was obvious that he could. It wasn't up for a second term. He himself promised. I can't tell you how many people who I've talked to who that were on stage with him when he said that.

transitional president and what they all heard and what they all believe they heard that were standing on that stage with him. They all heard one term. And so I think it's the people in the West Wing. Look, I had a cabinet secretary and I said this after the debacle of the debate because I felt like I could share it, but it was an off the record. I had a cabinet secretary who asked me at the end of 22, he can't run again, right? And this cabinet secretary

you know, instead, you know, I said, do you ever get any FaceTime with him? He says, nope.

And it was it was, you know, and those stories were reported about how cabinet secretaries don't get FaceTime with the president. Right. They limited the interactions because they wanted to limit the conversations. Right. Nobody had it hard that he wasn't available. Right. It was always just whispers or, huh, he's not. It was what he wasn't doing that turned out to be the evidence. Right. He wasn't able to do this or he wasn't able to do that or he wasn't able. I mean, the Super Bowl interview, which again, again,

Plenty of this is why I'm like, it's not as if it was hidden. This is why I take this idea that it's this such this black and white, that the media was part of the cover up versus never. Please. All the conversation around this. Wow. You don't even want to do a Super Bowl interview. Is it that difficult? Are you that concerned? Right. Like, yeah, it was all out there in the ether. That's why.

The fault belongs to the Democratic Party. It's Joe Biden. It's Joe Biden. It's Nancy Pelosi. It's Chuck Schumer. It's Ron Klain. It's Jeff Zients. It's everybody that was around him. And and, you know, I do think that it's a weaker defense. Like I saw Rahm Emanuel coming out and saying, well, I said I told people I don't think that's going to come across very well, by the way.

I don't know if you saw those comments that he made. Yeah, there are a lot of people now who are out there saying they told me. I did. I did. There are a lot of people out there saying they told people. The thing that I try to tell people is based on my many years in Washington is that Washington DC doesn't do conspiracies. It only does collective failures. And there was no meeting where people decided to get together and do this. It's just a collection of people making the wrong decision over and over again. Let me ask you, do you guys feel like you guys should have, should you guys have used your voice more to drive them out of the race?

Yeah, we've talked about this. We've talked about this. You know, I went – I had not – if I look at myself self-critically –

I had not spoken or seen Biden since he called me right before the election. I talked to him for like five, 10 minutes and he was great. And I interviewed him for election. He was totally fine. Right. There was no, not even a question there. And I talked to a bunch of people who had gone to work on the campaign who had told me he's great. Then we get to the white house and I didn't see him again until a white house correspondence in our weekend, 2024. And he was, it was like, I was at a white house reception and he was,

He was quite bad in it. And he told the same story twice. And he just seemed mostly old. Not in no way did I look at that and say, that man cannot do the job of president. I had real concerns that he could not do it for four more years. Right. But he just like, you're concerned. You look at that. If something with my perspective is, man, that's a guy who's going to struggle on the campaign trail in a presidential campaign.

But I also thought to myself, well, it's Friday. This is a super bizarre event the night before the White House Correspondents' Center. I knew he was coming from speech prep and going back to speech prep on a Friday evening.

Even Barack Obama was not a great communicator on a Friday evening. And so, you know, I trusted the people who I talked to who said he was fine. And I also believed, and I said this at the time after the Robert Hur report came out, is that if Biden really was having these like mental lapses all over town, everyone would know it. Well, and now you're getting, you know, reporters have to have sources to report stuff. Yeah. That's another problem, right? Is that you might have a like, boy, this looks one way.

And every time you try to report it out, you got a different answer. Right. And because he has obviously had good moments and bad moments. Like, do I, you know, I often, my, we talked a lot on this podcast before the debate about how his age was a huge problem. I had a lot of thoughts that I shared publicly and privately about things that he should do to address that. Should I have been more concerned that he wasn't doing them? Probably. Right. Like I can argue. Look, it's all obvious now, you know, and I, and I, you know, it's,

You know, I got ridiculed for even hosting Dean Phillips for a podcast, you know, and yet I was like, oh, great. I guess I've, you know, but I was already, look, I was in a weird position. I was post Meet the Press. So I was trying not to compete with bookings and other stuff. So I was in a weird spot, you know, to not, I was sort of a walking ghost, right? So I had to be careful, but it was, you know, it's one of those things where I think news organizations are,

We're trying to get interviews with the president. And you can't tell me that didn't have an impact on what might be said publicly versus what you might know privately. Which is so funny because one, Biden wasn't doing very many interviews. And two, it's not like a Biden interview was a giant rating spoon in the way a Trump interview in 2017 was or an Obama interview in 2009. Okay, but can I just tell you?

As a journalist, I hate... I know you didn't mean it this way. I hate the idea that you think that someone tries to get an interview because they might think it's good. I just want to get an interview with Joe Biden. They may think that. I just wanted a Joe Biden interview because I'm trying to... There's a whole bunch of questions I have for him. I really think most journalists think that way and, in fact, are disappointed if other viewers aren't as interested. It's more the opposite. They hope viewers are as interested in something as they are. But anyway, I just... It is...

a lot of us don't think of the ratings thing first. Yeah, that's fair. I'm not saying there aren't other bookings that are that way. Your network bosses were thinking that.

No, and you're not wrong. Yeah. Anyone's boss, not just my network, old network. Let's just, because you brought that, because we talked about presidential interviews. This is him, I thought. Do you think, I was watching Terry Moran's interview with Donald Trump in the Oval Office on Tuesday night about the 100th day. Do you think it is possible, and you've interviewed him, but do you think it's possible to do a good, productive, constructive interview with Donald Trump? It all depends on what you're trying to do. I mean, I've...

I'll tell you the interview that I never got to conduct with him that I haven't seen anybody do that I actually still want to do with him, which is the problem with him. So for instance, the third term nonsense. If you ask him, he's going to play with the topic, almost the way a cat plays with a dead mouse. In fact, I promise you, if I phrased a question like the following to Donald Trump,

Why is Japan a country? How come we don't own Japan? We bombed them. We beat them in World War II. You know what Trump would probably say? You're right. And you could create a headline. Donald Trump thinks Japan ought to be American territory, right? Is he really serious about it? Or is it like the movie Anchorman where he'll accept any premise so you can be careful? So I do think there's a responsibility as a journalist that

You know, be careful asking something that feels like a shiny metal object that might make you feel like you get a cheap headline that actually isn't really that substantive, like Trump third term. I'm sorry. I just, you know, I'm not there on Trump third term the way some other people are. But here's what I wish would be asked to him in the interview, which is, why'd you choke on January 6th? So what I would do is I think the trick to interviewing Donald Trump is to hand him rope.

I think the mistake that I've made and many others make is to try to bring him into your reality when maybe you're better off helping the viewer see his reality. I like that. So you know what this means? Donald Trump, come on Chuck Toddcast.

I don't think it's a 0% chance. You know how they operate. He believes he can handle any interview. And if he wants to do something, his staff will never stop him. Well, I think that is a great place to end it. I would love to see you do that interview with Donald Trump on your podcast. Chuck Todd, thanks for being on Positive America. Great to talk to you as always. It's great to talk to you, Pfeiffer. I love it.

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