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Has the Media Surrendered to Trump? (feat. Chuck Todd)
01:14:49
Chuck Todd, former moderator of Meet the Press and host of The Chuck ToddCast, joins Dan to assess how the news media has responded to Trump 2.0. His read? Not great. He and Dan lament cable news' tired playbook, discuss Craigslist's indirect role in electing Donald Trump, and question whether broadcast news may be in the early stages of a kleptocracy. Then, turning to the Democratic Party, Chuck and Dan debate which fights Democrats should focus on, what voters will want from the party in 2028, and whether the right is exploiting President Biden's decline to undermine the left's faith in journalism.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:21]
Chuck Todd
Welcome.
- [01:22]
Dan Pfeiffer
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 gonna 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.
- [02:10]
Chuck Todd
Dan Pfeiffer, it's good to see. I think I was one of your guests in the first month of your launch, if I'm not mistaken.
- [02:16]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes, you were. You were. It was a very highly listened to and quite controversial episode, if I remember correctly.
- [02:22]
Chuck Todd
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.
- [02:31]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes, that is true. That is true. That. That is what Twitter X has done for us. You were the host of Meet the Press. I'm going to do what Chuck Todd would do is I'm a start with the news of the week here. We are recording Donald Trump's 101st day in office. We are coming at the to the close of a series of media retrospectives looking at his hundredth 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 hundredth 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?
- [03:13]
Chuck Todd
By the way, I love the word consequential. How often I now hear this word consequential.
- [03:19]
Dan Pfeiffer
Where else are you hearing it?
- [03:20]
Chuck Todd
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.
- [03:40]
Dan Pfeiffer
Okay.
- [03:40]
Chuck Todd
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. Because 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 rabid on us.
- [04:00]
Listener
Right.
- [04:00]
Chuck Todd
You're like, yeah, it's consequential at the moment. Anyway, I don't know if you, if you get the point, I'm trying to say, but I just, I do, I do.
- [04:06]
Dan Pfeiffer
It's a way to say that he matters without saying that he is bad or good.
- [04:10]
Chuck Todd
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.
- [04:20]
Dan Pfeiffer
And it hasn't.
- [04:21]
Chuck Todd
And it hasn't. And in fact, the legacy has somehow led the to the Republican Party to no longer even believe in half the policies they used to believe in the Bush era. No, I look at the, you know, the poll that I Sort of been obsessed over of all the polling, even though they've all been very similar, has been Pews, 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 are don't like the execution of Donald Trump, but that they have yet, 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. How his execution though is something that, that the, 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? The nothing, whatever the Democrats haven't penetrated yet. You know, 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. Nonvoters are usually lower information voters. And what I mean by that is they're just not paying attention. 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, 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 gonna make sure everybody knows this is my economy now. Right. Like you're like, okay, 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.
- [07:08]
Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, which this is the blame buying thing is interesting because Trump did today on Wednesday, he truthed that this was Biden's stock market. It's the overhang of Biden's economy and all of that.
- [07:19]
Chuck Todd
Dan, I'm old enough to remember when the surge in the stock during the transition was supposed to be Donald Trump's stock market surge. So I'm very confused. Yes.
- [07:30]
Dan Pfeiffer
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, Right? No, he's not consistent on this.
- [07:39]
Chuck Todd
Yeah, I know. We're shocked that Donald Trump isn't consistent.
- [07:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
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.
- [08:01]
Chuck Todd
No, I mean, the facts were on his side. But, but he, but in this way, I mean, I really believe that Trump could have convinced many people that, hey, this inflate, you know, we're still recovering from Biden's inflationary mess and all this stuff and. Nope, not anymore.
- [08:17]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, there was a failure to manage expectations, for sure. Like there's a way in which he could have said, this is gonna take, you know, this like Obama used to say all the time, we didn't get in this mess overnight. We're not gonna get out overnight, and it's gonna take time. But he, 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.
- [08:40]
Chuck Todd
Right. It wasn't his.
- [08:41]
Dan Pfeiffer
It's not like he rhetorically messed it up. He substantively messed it up.
- [08:44]
Chuck Todd
Correct. His chief architect, Right. With this tariff regime. Orrin Cass wrote this op ed in the New York Times that laid out a, a much more reasonable way to have tried to execute this, which is essentially you, 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 you know, if you actually are an advocate of this policy you should be really angry with Donald Trump because he, he may tarnish the whole idea for decades.
- [09:23]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. As we're recording this, the Senate is. May pass a, the Republican Senate may pass a resolution of disapproval on the Trump tariffs that it's all going to depend on if enough senators show up.
- [09:33]
Chuck Todd
I didn't expect this to happen until, until the spring of next year. I mean, because it shows people would be right. Yeah, right.
- [09:41]
Dan Pfeiffer
Because you think they'd be separating for the election.
- [09:43]
Chuck Todd
So I do. You know, my three favorite, 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 Thom 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.
- [10:19]
Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, that's interesting because it's still in a Republican primary. You're talking about the highest turnout 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 Mag in a primary is Brian Kemp, the governor of Georgia.
- [10:34]
Chuck Todd
Yeah.
- [10:35]
Dan Pfeiffer
But he obviously has, well, high approval and 100% name ID, and he was running against a terrible candidate.
- [10:40]
Chuck Todd
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.
- [11:02]
Dan Pfeiffer
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 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 sort of Chuck Schumer 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.
- [11:52]
Chuck Todd
Well, can I quote Barack Obama? The don't do stupid shit.
- [11:56]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [11:56]
Chuck Todd
You know, idea too, which is. I think that's the position I'd be in this early, which is just don't do stupid shit. Right. Don't get out of your way. It's a little bit of Carville, a little bit like. But, 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. 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, was, 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 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. Got. 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 as every. What 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. So there's this expectation that they should be the leader, but they. What are they leading? Right. 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 world. 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. That, 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 used selectively open certain parts of government. There wouldn't have been. Maybe I'm wrong, but I'm, I'm a cynic on that one. I do think that there was. That this might, you might have been handing them an opportunity, not a. Not a potential loss. So I think his tactic was correct, but how he messaged it right. 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.
- [15:00]
Dan Pfeiffer
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 1988-1992.
- [15:08]
Chuck Todd
Am I that much older than you? I feel like you're poor. No offense, Dan.
- [15:12]
Dan Pfeiffer
I'm an old soul.
- [15:12]
Chuck Todd
I wish I were your age. Then you have an old soul.
- [15:15]
Dan Pfeiffer
I'm an old soul. Exactly.
- [15:15]
Chuck Todd
Fair enough.
- [15:17]
Dan Pfeiffer
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.
- [15:31]
Chuck Todd
One big issue. Law and order. Yeah.
- [15:33]
Dan Pfeiffer
And. And welfare and.
- [15:34]
Chuck Todd
Well, 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 to. 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's 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 gonna be effective this time, but I do expect to see a few candidates try it or a few Democrats try it.
- [16:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think that there's a, 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. Right. 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 like these elements of populism, but then is far right on a whole bunch of other things like immigration. And I just don't know that people think, will think about if that is Newsom's plan. And I don't know that it is. I think that's a mistake.
- [17:31]
Chuck Todd
Well, it's interesting. And 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 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.
- [18:17]
Dan Pfeiffer
I was in the 06 cycle.
- [18:19]
Chuck Todd
We were not Evan by. You were Tim Johnson in O2. Right. Okay. But if I recall, there were a lot of red state Democrats that invited Barack Obama to campaign forum in OH6, 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, 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, with the 2020 race and what happened there. And the Democratic Party always wants new. Right. That has been the hallmark of when, when there's not an incumbent involved. You know, I, 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 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, I, 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.
- [20:08]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think I would put a, maybe this goes along with new, but I think the Democratic activists and donors are just 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's 106 or whatever it was days, is that we got out, communicated and we need someone who can go on the, we will talk about someone who can go on Joe Rogan until the end of time, but it's something bigger than that.
- [20:40]
Chuck Todd
Somebody who can go to the Chuck Todd cast.
- [20:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
Somebody who can go on the Chuck Todd cast. That's, that's, that's where the real metal is made. Yes.
- [20:46]
Chuck Todd
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.
- [20:56]
Dan Pfeiffer
And it was. I mean it helped Obama. Obama was on Monday Night Football. He was.
- [21:00]
Chuck Todd
Obama was a would say no to nobody. Right? Like that. That. You know, I used to think it was Chris Christie's, you know, special powers until very he had his own. You know, he beat, you know, he cost himself. But that used to be an advantage for him because he was willing to go anywhere.
- [21:23]
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- [22:36]
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- [23:09]
Dan Pfeiffer
Talking about just how various potential 20, 28 Democrats are approaching this. Gretchen Whitmer, who has sort of brought out what an approach, I think, to this that is surprising a lot of people.
- [23:21]
Chuck Todd
So she, Whitmer versus Pritzker, right? Like two opposite ways to go.
- [23:25]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes.
- [23:26]
Chuck Todd
Yeah.
- [23:26]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right. 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 a executive order signing targeting individuals for criminal prosecution, was caught by the New York Times hiding her face with binders and. 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 praise Trump, but was grateful for the, 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?
- [24:16]
Chuck Todd
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.
- [24:36]
Dan Pfeiffer
But, you know, even if I have to guess, I will, I won't make it.
- [24:39]
Chuck Todd
Don't say it because I don't want to do that. But it's, but it's the type of person.
- [24:43]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yep.
- [24:43]
Chuck Todd
That's why I'm telling you this. You know who these. This is. I always say these, 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 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. Don't try to be something you're not. Okay. 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 mo. The swing state person, the. 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, oh, 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. But 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.
- [27:05]
Dan Pfeiffer
I think she has plenty of time to fix it. It is gonna. That picture will linger with the sort of people you had dinner with, the people who will.
- [27:12]
Chuck Todd
Those donors. Right.
- [27:13]
Dan Pfeiffer
And I wonder the kind of people that you're seeking endorsements from in wherever the primary is going to be this time. South Carolina, I guess, in Nevada, like when you're sitting down with a state senator.
- [27:24]
Chuck Todd
Do we know the primary calendar?
- [27:26]
Dan Pfeiffer
We do not. We do not. That's what I thought because it was a one year deal to.
- [27:31]
Chuck Todd
Where is JB Pritzker? So he goes to New Hampshire because he didn't know where else to go. Could. Did he?
- [27:36]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I mean, that's what the. It's not on the list, but it's what the press thinks of they. People assume it will not be Iowa. So it's right as well go to New Hampshire. And does Vegas still, like. Yes, it'll be very important, but nobody there's.
- [27:50]
Chuck Todd
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, oh, the five people. Hey, I need to get an audience of 50 in a new Hampshire event, right? Oh, yeah, I can. I got so and so on speed dial and this, I go to the.
- [28:07]
Dan Pfeiffer
Puritan back room and I get 50 people from Manchester to do it and we are good to go. Yeah, that's what, that's why you do it. So the point on Whitmer is I think that the she. 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 the Trump administration trying to get something for your state that is still your job. I get that.
- [28:48]
Chuck Todd
That's why you were elected. And by the way, my guess is she promised she'd do that.
- [28:51]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right. It's been a big thing she's been working on from the very beginning. So she should deliver that. And I'm very sympathetic to the situation Newsom was in after the fires where you have this capricious, vengeful president who might deny life saving aid to your state. So you have to like do that dance. I get that. I think once you, 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. You don't. 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, there's a nimbleness. I think that there will be.
- [29:29]
Chuck Todd
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.
- [29:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
Oh, there are plenty. Plenty of them.
- [29:46]
Chuck Todd
Yeah.
- [29:46]
Dan Pfeiffer
Just.
- [29:47]
Chuck Todd
But you're absolutely right. You've got. And that's, 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 she. If you tell me, I always. I do the coma test. If I'm in a coma, I wake up and you tell me Gretchen Whitmer's the nominee. Oh, well, she must have prioritized this. Right. You know what I mean? Like, you're just. And the party bought into the idea that, hey, we need somebody who can win and we need somebody who's willing to. Willing to. To. To work with. With red voters as much as there were blue voters. Right. Like, so I get it. And that's why it's just poor execution. That's really what it was on both cases.
- [30:24]
Dan Pfeiffer
We should also stipulate that any. 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. 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. 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.
- [30:59]
Chuck Todd
I think that was my first NBC scoop for them was. Was reporting that Mark Warner wasn't running.
- [31:04]
Dan Pfeiffer
Which was a gigantic deal. I was working for Evan by at the time.
- [31:06]
Chuck Todd
It was a big deal.
- [31:07]
Dan Pfeiffer
Real visions of being the thinking of Evan By. Why.
- [31:10]
Chuck Todd
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.
- [31:20]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, two reasons. One, he told me he was gonna 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. But yeah, that was the thought was that was the kind of electable 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, like, we don't know.
- [31:47]
Chuck Todd
But by the way, but, but that, but that didn't mean that people weren't wrong.
- [31:52]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right.
- [31:53]
Chuck Todd
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, you know, and. And frankly, I thought, well, anyway, he did. Obama always knew the limitations of his ideology. He may have believed, you know, which is something that I think is. Is. Is a lost art these days to.
- [32:14]
Dan Pfeiffer
Know where the public is going to be.
- [32:17]
Chuck Todd
Yeah. To sort of be able to balance. Look, I have some views. You know, 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 gotta. You got to start, 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.
- [33:16]
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- [34:32]
Dan Pfeiffer
Dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks or auto and home insurance. With usaa, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a'@usaa.com bundle restrictions apply. Let's transition a little bit to the state of the media today. 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.
- [35:06]
Chuck Todd
Basically, it's. It's pretty much the original newsletter, right? Yeah.
- [35:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
Four newsletters. It's what Playbook and everything else is based on.
- [35:13]
Chuck Todd
It's all derivative. The Note was a derivative. All these things were derivative of the original Hotline.
- [35:18]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, 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.
- [35:29]
Chuck Todd
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 building volunteers, but I had, you know, all sorts of weird relationships with people who liked clipping papers and faxing them to me for in exchange for a free subscription to the Hotline. And they got up either they bought the bulldog edition at 1 o'clock in the morning and sent me stuff or whatever. But yeah, that was our Internet that we built.
- [35:52]
Dan Pfeiffer
You're at the Hotline and then NBC as political director, then host of Meet the Press, White House correspondent, ultimate sort.
- [36:00]
Chuck Todd
Of establishment media gave.
- [36:02]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yes, exactly. That's what you're saying. And now you have left NBC, you're an independent journalist, and I kind of.
- [36:08]
Chuck Todd
Love it out the water. Tell me.
- [36:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
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?
- [36:28]
Chuck Todd
So, you know, it's a look, it's a good question. I've sort of, you know, I've soured on traditional media because traditional media doesn't want to grow anymore. And it's not that. You know, one of the things I said about leaving NBC is, you know, 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 we're 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 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. And I don't know if that's 2030 with cable, right? Where, you know, it's. It's going to be it. So I. Look, I'm. I'm. 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, in. 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 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. 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 get a. So I just enjoy this format more. Right. So just as personal, you know, thing. But the other part is I've. You talk about the hotline. 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. The late Doug Bailey and I used to laugh at all the time. 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. The photograph, magazines proliferated. And we had a slew of magazines in the tens, the twenties and the thirties. 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, it turned into consolidation. We're now at a look. Streaming and the ability to sort of instantaneously 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 gonna broadcast from the Gobi Desert, you know, right? Or we're gonna 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. A circulation of 50,000 or less, a majority of their revenue was classified. And so it just gutted. It just gutted. And I do think that national media has never been fully trusted by people, but local media gave it where our character references. Right. When local media sort of reporting what we're reporting. Oh, okay. Right. You know that, yeah, I, you know, I know those guys, or, 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 local is why, you know, 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. Right. They don't understand your life. So I'm, I'm, you know, that's the, you know, 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 been, it's filled the vacuum, but it's. 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 they're. You're helping them live their lives versus national news, which I think is your civics, you know, telling you what you know, what you need, you know, 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. That's why this is exciting to me, because I can both create a podcast independently, own it, and pursue this. You know, I'm just Trying. I enjoy the fact that I don't have to ask permission to some corporate parent to do anything right now.
- [43:16]
Dan Pfeiffer
The local thing is really interesting in terms of how it affects 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. Like when I worked for Tim Johnson in 2002, senator from South Dakota, he only won reelection because we were able to run a campaign where he was in 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 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 impact in what's happening in politics.
- [43:58]
Chuck Todd
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 gonna be 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 subscribed 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 and 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. This is if we want what we have. The. The people that want to be informed will always find a way to be informed. The problem in our politics today is, is that we don't have a way to accidentally inform people and you know, which is the stuff they would catch. There's this great study that I'm obsessed with. It involves newspapers where. 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 came out in a, in bigger numbers than those that did not receive the paper. So there's something to accidentally informing people that we're missing.
- [45:54]
Dan Pfeiffer
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. But now that. Or Twitter, if you were one of the people who engaged with Twitter.
- [46:04]
Chuck Todd
But now that, now they've turned off the algorithm.
- [46:06]
Dan Pfeiffer
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 gonna be, to know when a movie was and to know the score of the baseball team. And in turning on the newspaper of the paper, you were going to bump into some sort of civic information. You bumped into that. That's why everyone cared about the headlines, right? Yes, we still fight about headlines all the time, but no one cares about headlines anymore because no one looks. The paper's not sitting on the newsstand now.
- [46:32]
Chuck Todd
Headlines matter for whether you get a YouTube click or not. They do.
- [46:35]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, they also matter in terms of this is a fight 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 commonly understand it, has collapsed for a while, then you didn't either. You 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, which I think is a lot of what's happening in independent journalism.
- [47:09]
Chuck Todd
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, 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.
- [47:26]
Dan Pfeiffer
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 read this newsletter to help explain what's happening, give context, and hope 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 yeswedan to unlock a 30 day free trial of MessageBox. 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@crooked.com yeswedan.
- [48:23]
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- [49:39]
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- [49:55]
Chuck Todd
Well.
- [49:55]
Dan Pfeiffer
Now that you're an independent journalist, I assume you can speak even more freely than you have otherwise appearance 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?
- [50:08]
Chuck Todd
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, 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, 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 gonna, they're gonna think and they're gonna look behind him and nobody's following. Right. You know, I'm just, you know, it's come up quite a bit the, the issue when, when myself and Jake and a few others, you know, were upset when you guys didn't allow Fox into the pool for a, for a Ken Feinberg interview. I don't know if you remember that, remember that incident. And I remember one of my motivations, Chuck.
- [51:03]
Dan Pfeiffer
I do.
- [51:04]
Chuck Todd
Yeah. And. Right. But the point is, you know, this is where it's like, I, I, I just, like, we, we were genuine in why we were fighting. It was like, the shoe's going to be on the other foot. Right. We, you know, 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.
- [51:23]
Dan Pfeiffer
And are you surprised by that? Like, like, it's not surprising to me that Fox has to come to their defense.
- [51:28]
Chuck Todd
But, no, there's been no everybody.
- [51:30]
Dan Pfeiffer
Reflective action.
- [51:31]
Chuck Todd
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. You've got a, you've got, it's like, you know, I'm haunted by what the managing partner for Paul Weiss said when he said, look, we, we looked for allies and instead they were poaching our clients. Right. Look at what certain news organizations are doing, their virtue signaling on, saying, well, all right, we'll, we'll, we'll call it, we'll call the Golf, 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's the First Amendment. Look, how they kicked AP out of the pool was the issue. Look, they can decide, 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. It's 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 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, you're, you end up having to litigate your sourcing and 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.
- [53:21]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, this is sort of my take on it. I think a lot of individual reporters are doing a lot of very good journalism and they're digging deep and they're telling detailed stories about the deportation plans or that New York Times story that went, or the 60 Minute story that went through all the Venezuelans who were sent to the gulag in El Salvador. 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 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.
- [54:02]
Chuck Todd
It's early stages kleptocracy. I have a guest earlier this week, a specialist in this. I mean, you know, people, 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.
- [54:17]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, it's pay to play. We're doing pay to play. I mean, essentially 60, I mean, 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.
- [54:35]
Chuck Todd
Can I just second one. I hate interrupting your thoughts.
- [54:37]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [54:37]
Chuck Todd
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. 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.
- [55:05]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yep. 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 is going down there where they're in secular decline.
- [55:22]
Chuck Todd
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, you know, where's the pay it forward? We were there when you had no revenue during COVID brother. You know, 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 gonna 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.
- [56:15]
Dan Pfeiffer
Right. It's very problematic. Okay. Second, my second issue with the coverage 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 they'll just. There'll be no. Yeah, so what Objective journalists in anything, it'll just be a bunch of MAGA people. And for the individual reporters, like, this is their livelihood. So I still believe they should stand up. But the calculation is not pure calculation.
- [56:41]
Chuck Todd
How many Republican senators have told me, well, if I'm not there, you won't imagine who replaces me. Right. It's the same mindset.
- [56:47]
Dan Pfeiffer
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 sort of. I keep using the term traditional because I think mainstream is a sort of a Sarah Palin esque term that I don't really love, but sort of traditional.
- [57:03]
Chuck Todd
Is the fairest you can do. Legacy feels negative, too. Yeah, yeah.
- [57:08]
Dan Pfeiffer
The traditional political press is incapable of telling, like, 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 are exceptions to this, or some people do it very well, others who 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 of, I think.
- [57:41]
Chuck Todd
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. 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 no, the one party has lost their mind and, and will be able to, quote, unquote, revert back in. 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, 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. 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. That's right. Yes.
- [59:19]
Dan Pfeiffer
Do you say you vacillate on to lean 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.
- [59:31]
Chuck Todd
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, 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? Like it's a minimum decade before we earn the trust back of our key allies. I think we are, he has launched a nationalism in a lot of places. Right. Nationalism out of survival the way many countries I think are going to view this. And so I just, so when I, 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. 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.
- [60:55]
Dan Pfeiffer
Earlier this month you were on Chris Ciliza. You were talking to Chris Ciliza, a fellow substacker 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.
- [61:10]
Chuck Todd
You know just what 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 me. So. And you know, now, were there pundits on MSNBC and CNN who 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.
- [62:04]
Dan Pfeiffer
Reportedly, he did. Yes.
- [62:06]
Chuck Todd
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.
- [62:14]
Dan Pfeiffer
That's what I want.
- [62:14]
Chuck Todd
Everything they could. 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 2023. 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 Trump. J. Trump. And if, if the com. If everybody had been asked the same question and Nikki Haley was the person standing over there, there'd have been a chorus of Democrats who would have said he can't run for reelection.
- [63:14]
Dan Pfeiffer
There's a tension in what you just said there. And I want to get. 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?
- [63:32]
Chuck Todd
Yeah, you know, it's a good question whether it's about just simply electability or. But I do think the, 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 issue. You know what I mean? Like, it, 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 Zients speak to my, my class of kids a couple weeks ago, and of course, they all asked. And Jeff Zients 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. Which, by the way, both things can be true. Yeah.
- [64:34]
Dan Pfeiffer
I guess let's put aside whether the media, like there was some room or.
- [64:38]
Chuck Todd
Like, and 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. And why I get my back.
- [64:58]
Dan Pfeiffer
You Right.
- [64:59]
Chuck Todd
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.
- [65:14]
Dan Pfeiffer
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.
- [65:40]
Chuck Todd
Can you define media?
- [65:42]
Dan Pfeiffer
Well, I mean, I think he meant the people in the room.
- [65:45]
Chuck Todd
Right. Look, do I think the people in the White House press.
- [65:48]
Dan Pfeiffer
Media is my word, not Alex's.
- [65:49]
Chuck Todd
As paraphrasing, 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, 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 dared do that, good luck getting your interview that you were hoping to get with Biden or Harris, etc. 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.
- [66:45]
Dan Pfeiffer
Do you think this was one of the other contentions out there is that the Democratic Party covered this up? This was a, like, well, what's there to cover up?
- [66:53]
Chuck Todd
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 COVID 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 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. You know, look, I had a cabinet secretary and I said this on a, after, 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, and said, 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, 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 COVID 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 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 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 gonna come across very well. By the way. I don't know if you saw those comments that he made.
- [69:01]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, there are a lot of people now who are out there saying they told. I did, I did. There are a lot of people out there saying that they told people. The thing that I try to tell people is based on my many years in Washington, is that Washington, D.C. 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.
- [69:20]
Chuck Todd
Let me ask you, do you guys feel like you guys should have, should you guys have used your voice more to drive him out of the race?
- [69:27]
Dan Pfeiffer
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 5, 10 minutes and he was great. And I interviewed him for the election. He was totally fine.
- [69:46]
Listener
Right.
- [69:46]
Dan Pfeiffer
There was not even a question there. And I had 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 White House Correspondent Center Weekend 2024. And he was like, I was at a White House reception and he was bad, 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. But he just like your concern. You look at that, especially someone with my perspective is, man, that's a guy who's gonna struggle in 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 Correspondence 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 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 Tor report came out, is that if Biden really was having these mental lapses all over town, everyone would know it.
- [70:55]
Chuck Todd
Well, and now you're getting. Reporters have to have sources to report stuff. 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?
- [71:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
Because he has obviously had good moments and bad moments. Do I often. 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. I can argue.
- [71:28]
Chuck Todd
Look, it's all obvious now. And it's, you know, I, 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, with bookings and other stuff. So I was in a weird spot, you know, to, to not. I was sort of a walking ghost, right? So I had to be. I had to be careful. But it was, you know, it's one of those things where I think news organizations were 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.
- [72:10]
Dan Pfeiffer
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 29.
- [72:20]
Chuck Todd
But can I just tell you, as a journalist, I hate. Nope. I know you didn't mean it this way. I hate the idea that you think we're. That someone tries to get an interview because they might think it's good. I just think your boss is with Joe Biden. Like, 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. Like, you know, like, I really think most journalists think that way and, in fact, are disappointed if other viewers aren't as interested. Right. Like, 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.
- [72:54]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. That's fair.
- [72:54]
Chuck Todd
That's. I just think there aren't other bookings that are.
- [72:57]
Dan Pfeiffer
That your network bosses were thinking that way or the boss.
- [73:01]
Chuck Todd
And you're not wrong. Yeah, anyone's boss. Not just my network. Old network.
- [73:05]
Dan Pfeiffer
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, the Oval Office on Tuesday night, about the hundredth 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?
- [73:25]
Chuck Todd
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, That I haven't seen anybody do, that I actually still want to do with him, which is accept, you know, the problem with him. So, for instance, the third term. Nonsense.
- [73:40]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [73:41]
Chuck Todd
If you ask him, he's going to play with the topic almost the way a cat plays with, with a, with a dead mouse. You know, I, in fact, I promise you, if I phrased a question like the following to Donald Trump, why is, 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 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, I, you know, I'm not, I'm not there on Trump third term. The way it's some other people are. But here's what I wish would be asked to him and the interview that which is, 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.
- [75:07]
Dan Pfeiffer
I like that. So you know what this means, Donald Trump, Come on, Chuck Todcast.
- [75:12]
Chuck Todd
You know, I don't think it's a zero percent chance. You know how they operate. I, you know, I mean, he, he believes he can handle any interview. And if you get and his staff, if he wants to do something, his staff will never stop him.
- [75:24]
Dan Pfeiffer
Yep. 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 Pod Save America. Great to talk to you as always.
- [75:36]
Chuck Todd
It's great to talk to you, Pfeiffer. I love it.
- [75:38]
Listener
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- [76:47]
Repatha Ad
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- [76:52]
Chuck Todd
Welcome back to Listen to youo Heart. I'm Jerry and I'm Jerry's Heart. Today's topic, Repatha Evolociumab Heart. Why'd you pick this one? Well, Jerry, for people who have had a heart attack like us, diet and exercise might not be enough to lower the risk of another one. Okay, to help know if we're at risk, we should be getting our ldlc, our bad cholesterol checked, and talking to our doctor. I'm listening. And if it's still too high, Repatha can be added to a statin to lower our LDL C and our heart attack risk. Hmm. Guess it's time to ask about Repatha.
- [77:24]
Narrator
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- [77:28]
Chuck Todd
Get medical help right away if you.
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Narrator
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- [77:39]
Chuck Todd
Like symptoms back pain, high blood sugar.
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Narrator
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- [77:44]
Chuck Todd
Listen to your heart. Ask your doctor about Repatha. Learn more@repatha.com or call 1-844-repatha think you.
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Narrator
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