PTFO - The News Anchor America Needed

Summary

Podcast Summary: "PTFO - The News Anchor America Needed"

Podcast Information:

• Title: The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
• Hosts: Dan Le Batard, Stugotz
• Episode Title: PTFO - The News Anchor America Needed
• Guests: Connie Chung

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1. Introduction

The episode titled "PTFO - The News Anchor America Needed" features an in-depth interview with Connie Chung, a trailblazing Asian-American journalist. Hosted by Pablo Torre, the conversation delves into Connie Chung's illustrious career, personal struggles, and enduring legacy in the realm of journalism.

2. Career Milestones

Connie Chung recounts her journey to becoming the first Asian network news anchor and the second woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News alongside Dan Rather. She reflects on the significance of her role in breaking racial and gender barriers in the media industry.

Notable Quote:

• [02:10] Pablo Torre: "Connie Chung was a television star in ways that young people today cannot possibly appreciate."
• [35:56] Connie Chung: "I could not have been happier. I thought, boy, I've reached the pinnacle."

3. Experiences in Journalism

a. Navigating a Male-Dominated Industry

Connie discusses the challenges she faced in a predominantly male newsroom. To gain acceptance and credibility, she adopted a tough demeanor, often engaging in "trash talk" and preemptively addressing inappropriate behavior from male colleagues.

Notable Quote:

• [05:32] Connie Chung: "I was a trash talker. And it was really because I wanted to be one of the guys."

b. Notable Interviews and Encounters

Connie shares anecdotes from her interviews with high-profile figures such as Donald Trump and Bobby Knight. She highlights the often volatile nature of these interactions and her strategies for maintaining professionalism under pressure.

Donald Trump Interview:

• [19:19] Connie Chung: "He is the stable, able, stalwart traditionalist, and I am the crazy one."
• [27:36] Connie Chung: "I feel guilty that I did it and I actually didn't tell her I lost it."

Bobby Knight Interview:

• [22:17] Donald Trump (impersonator): "I'm going to do it, and I'm going to do it my way."
• [24:30] Pablo Torre: "Bobby Knight literally slaps you in the face."

Connie recounts a particularly memorable interview where Bobby Knight openly criticized her, showcasing her ability to handle confrontational situations with composure.

Notable Quote:

• [21:19] Pablo Torre: "I'd hate to be on the other end of one of her fastballs."
• [23:36] Connie Chung: "Pretty good line. I thought it was hysterical."

c. Struggles with Management and Co-Anchor Dynamics

Connie details her tumultuous relationship with Dan Rather, describing how Rather viewed her as a rival rather than a co-anchor. This tension ultimately led to her departure from CBS Evening News.

Notable Quote:

• [37:06] Connie Chung: "And you're encountering that when you get to the anchor chair."

4. Personal Life and Challenges

a. Cultural Expectations and Filial Piety

Connie opens up about living with her parents due to cultural expectations of filial piety, highlighting the personal sacrifices she made to pursue her career.

Notable Quote:

• [13:49] Connie Chung: "I was the last of their five daughters. They expected me to hang in there."

b. Struggles with Motherhood and Adoption

Despite her professional success, Connie faced personal challenges, including difficulties in conceiving a child. Her pursuit of motherhood led to attempts at adoption, which were fraught with obstacles until the eventual joyful arrival of her son.

Notable Quote:

• [40:50] Connie Chung: "I thought I had lost face. You know, it was a profound feeling."

c. Maintaining Professionalism Amid Personal Turmoil

Connie reflects on balancing her demanding career with personal life struggles, emphasizing the emotional toll of her public persona.

Notable Quote:

• [41:10] Pablo Torre: "So it was humiliation, is the feeling?"
• [41:13] Connie Chung: "Huge, yeah. So humiliated."

5. Legacy and Impact

Connie Chung discusses the unexpected legacy of her name, sharing stories of individuals named after her and the cultural impact she has had on generations of viewers and aspiring journalists.

Notable Quote:

• [45:29] Connie Chung: "So she goes off to UC Berkeley, Ferris Mart. She's in the cafeteria and somebody says, Connie Wong. And she turns around."

She also touches on the honor of having a service area and a weed strain named after her, illustrating the diverse ways her influence has permeated popular culture.

Notable Quote:

• [44:17] Connie Chung: "I do have a strain of weed named after me, and I don't know how it came about."

6. Reflections and Conclusions

In concluding the interview, Connie Chung reflects on her retirement and the resurgence of her legacy. She acknowledges the role of her husband, Maury Povich, in supporting her career and personal life, leading to a fulfilling closure with the birth of their son shortly after her departure from CBS.

Notable Quote:

• [48:14] Connie Chung: "Back when I was working, I was used to this big pace and occasional adulation, but now I'm getting it."
• [49:15] Connie Chung: "I can't believe it."

Connie emphasizes the importance of perseverance and staying true to one's mission, as instilled by her father, in achieving both professional success and personal fulfillment.

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Key Takeaways:

• Connie Chung's pioneering role as an Asian-American woman in journalism.
• The challenges of navigating a male-dominated industry and dealing with powerful personalities.
• Personal struggles with cultural expectations, motherhood, and maintaining professionalism.
• The enduring legacy and cultural impact of her work and persona.
• Insights into overcoming adversity and the importance of familial support.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• [05:32] Connie Chung on adopting a tough persona: "I was a trash talker. And it was really because I wanted to be one of the guys."
• [22:17] Donald Trump (impersonator) on doing things his way: "I'm going to do it, and I'm going to do it my way."
• [35:56] Connie Chung on reaching career pinnacle: "I could not have been happier. You know, I thought, boy, I've reached the pinnacle."
• [48:14] Connie Chung on legacy and happiness: "Back when I was working, I was used to this big pace and occasional adulation, but now I'm getting it."

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This episode offers a comprehensive look into Connie Chung's remarkable career and personal journey, highlighting her resilience, integrity, and the significant mark she has left on American journalism.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're going to find out what this sound is.

[Connie Chung]

Do you really feel like a philanthropic person?

[Donald Trump]

I feel very philanthropic. I really do. And I'm a young guy.

[Connie Chung]

You know, people don't believe that.

[Pablo Torre]

Right after this ad.

[Connie Chung]

You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network.

[Pablo Torre]

You can get the most important meal of the day any time of day. I'm Talking about the $5 big deal breakfast meal from Jack in the Box, available all day and all night. A breakfast Jack with a freshly cracked egg, a hash brown and French toast sticks for five bucks. Sounds good. For breakfast, lunch and dinner at Jack. Every bite's a big deal. Order Jack's five dollar Big Deal Breakfast Meal now. To be on the Internet with you having truly like grown up watching you.

[Connie Chung]

Really?

[Pablo Torre]

Yes, of course. What do you mean really?

[Connie Chung]

No, seriously.

[Pablo Torre]

I am one of the millions upon millions of Americans who trusted Connie Chung with telling us what the is happening in our world.

[Connie Chung]

Wowzer.

[Pablo Torre]

You were the person inside my television.

[Connie Chung]

Oh my gosh, I can't believe it.

[Pablo Torre]

It's something that I'm meaning to talk to you about specifically because what this book did was reveal things about you that I could not get by watching you on television.

[Connie Chung]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

Like what you actually felt.

[Connie Chung]

Well, you know what? That was a gigantic challenge. When I wrote what is commonly known as the first draft, when I submitted it to my publisher, she said, you're just telling the facts. And I said, well, that's what I do.

[Pablo Torre]

You're reporting. Yeah.

[Connie Chung]

And she said, no, you can't. You've got to tell how you feel. And I thought, oh, gosh, give me a break. If I had known that, I wouldn't have written the darn thing.

[Pablo Torre]

Connie Chung was a television star in ways that young people today cannot possibly appreciate. Because when I was growing up in the early 90s, back in my day, there was no Internet, there were no cell phones, no social media, no YouTube, obviously. And so watching the news meant turning on your television by pressing a button after dinner, at which point, almost inevitably, this person would crackle into view.

[Donald Trump]

This is the CBS Evening News with.

[Pablo Torre]

Dan Rather and Connie Chun.

[Connie Chung]

Good evening. Dan is off tonight. The FBI put out a warning today that organized crime from Russia is now the greatest long term threat to the security of the United States.

[Pablo Torre]

Today. Connie Chung is a tireless 78 year old who insisted, by the way, on standing up for our entire in person interview here because it had been a long book tour, understandably, and she had been sitting too Much. And at this very moment in American political history, there are few people I wanted to stand up and talk to me more than Connie Chung, who wasn't only the first woman to co anchor the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, the man who had succeeded Walter Cronkite, who had hired Connie as a correspondent. Connie was also the first ever Asian network news anchor and the reporter responsible for the first federal prosecution of a civil rights era murder case. And also, as you'll see in a bit here, simply one of the toughest television interviewers of all time. And I've been thinking about Connie ever since her husband, Maury Povich. Yes, daytime television icon Maury Povich casually mentioned her memoirs to us in studio a year ago. I'll call her, though, if you want me to. Well, we might need. She's not writing her memoir. I was gonna say she's not writing her memoir. You will not be surprised to learn that Connie Chung and Maury Povich, this paragon of journalism and this paragon of the alleged opposite, are in fact, opposites themselves. But it's not in the way that you'd expect.

[Connie Chung]

He is the stable, able, stalwart traditionalist, and I am the crazy one. And he has to curb my enthusiasm all the time because you know what he says to me? You can't do that. And I say, why? You do a crazy program every day for determining the paternity of every child in America. Who's the daddy and who's not the daddy?

[Pablo Torre]

You are not.

[Connie Chung]

Now, come on, I can do it. And he says, no, you have a reputation to uphold.

[Pablo Torre]

But it's clear now that. And you write this in the book, that this whole time you write I looked like a lotus blossom, but I talked like a sailor with a raw sense of humor.

[Connie Chung]

Yep.

[Pablo Torre]

That is just not merely a personality trait, but a learned skill of sorts.

[Connie Chung]

I was a trash talker. And it was really because I wanted to be one of the guys. And at that time, there were so many guys in the newsroom. I mean, in fact, all. Everybody in the newsroom at CBS was a man. All my competitors were men. Everybody I covered were men. You know, Capitol Hill and the White House and Pentagon and State Department, all men, and white for that matter. I had decided that the only way I could be one of the boys is to literally talk like them, you know, act like them. And it was not a conscious decision. It's just something I acquired through osmosis because they would make such sexual innuendos at me. So I would do it to Them. And it was really disconcerting, and they didn't know what to do about it, so they would kind of just stand down.

[Pablo Torre]

You were preemptive at times.

[Connie Chung]

Yes. I would lob something at them before they could lob it at me.

[Pablo Torre]

There's a part of your book you write about a guy at Channel 5 in D.C. and it's page 73. Could you read this part? Uh. Oh, would you mind? Is that possible?

[Connie Chung]

No. Sure.

[Pablo Torre]

It's the bracketed part.

[Connie Chung]

Okay.

[Pablo Torre]

From your missilette.

[Connie Chung]

Okay. Bill gave me the look. I could see the sperm swimming in the whites of his eyes. His long nose was pointing at me like a golden retriever's, his thin body shaking as dogs do when they're determined to chase a bird. You want me to go on?

[Pablo Torre]

I think the gist that I wanted.

[Connie Chung]

To establish is that I could see the sperm swimming in the whites of their eyes.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, that's what I found out today. We did it in five minutes. That you had this ability to diagnose from up close and from afar. It seems the intent of these people, who were both colleagues but predators and also for you, in the end, a form of prey as well as you were not some shrinking, you know, Violet.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah, well, but I mean, I think every woman has seen the sperm, you know, swimming. Swimming through the whites of their eyes. It's like a. You know, you can see it and.

[Pablo Torre]

That was a good dance. Katie Chung just did a sperm motility dance.

[Connie Chung]

There you go.

[Pablo Torre]

This is hard for me to even say aloud because it's a mad lib of a sentence. What was it like when Henry Kissinger flirted with you?

[Connie Chung]

It was so gross. I mean, really gross. I. You know, because he had this belief that he was a sex symbol, frankly. So he thought that he was some kind of a hot person just because of his brain. It was so creepy. I mean, I wouldn't even have helped him cross the street if he had asked me to. I don't know. And there were a lot of creepy.

[Pablo Torre]

Old men just to run through some of the list here. And this is before my time, but again, as an attempted student of history, when I learned that it's not just Henry Kissinger.

[Connie Chung]

Oh, no, you're a Harvard guy.

[Pablo Torre]

You know, in my history class, I didn't learn that at a dinner, Jimmy Carter pressed his leg up against yours and sort of just was hoping some magic would happen.

[Connie Chung]

I don't know what he was thinking, but he had just given that interview with Playboy magazine that said he lusted in his heart and I saw this look on his face after he pressed his knee against mine. And I thought, really?

[Pablo Torre]

These are only a couple of examples among many. But in 1972, just to be very clear here, you're a reporter who is aggressive and principled and unrelenting, and you're covering the George McGovern presidential campaign.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And so this is against Richard Nixon. The point being that you wind up as Connie Chung, young hotshot rising Star reporter on St. Michael's island off Maryland. And it's just. Again, this is a mad lib, Connie.

[Connie Chung]

Cause it's who.

[Pablo Torre]

Who is there at the island.

[Connie Chung]

Oh, yeah. It's crazy. Warren Beatty and his girlfriend Julie Christie. Both major stars. Movie stars at the time, certainly. And McGovern asked me if I wanted to join them for dinner. And he said his wife Eleanor was not gonna be there. And I thought, well, this is not cool. But I thought, well, maybe I'll find out something. Maybe he'll tell me something that everybody else doesn't know. So we have dinner. I excuse myself to go to the lady's room, bathroom or whatever, and on my way back, he tries to kiss me, and I.

[Pablo Torre]

In the middle of a presidential campaign.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

And you're the reporter who every. I mean, again, it's just bizarre. Bizarre. Did you have a diagnosis as to what had. What was that moment?

[Connie Chung]

I was clueless. But you know what? When I was on this book tour, a woman told me that she had also encountered McGovern at one point and that he propositioned her. And basically, she said, why don't you go to a prostitute? So I thought she was pretty darn bald.

[Pablo Torre]

Let's be solutions oriented here.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah. Or get a dog.

[Pablo Torre]

What about a dog?

[Connie Chung]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pablo Torre]

But the point here that I bring it up to make is also that this is across the political spectrum. Right. McGovern is. Is. Is a lion of liberalism. Carter too. Right. It's not just Kissinger. It's. It's men. Yes, it is. Men and Washington. And there you are being called at the same time just to get the full scorecard here. You know, alternately, dragon lady, yellow journalist. O, S E. Could you explain Oscar?

[Connie Chung]

Old slant eyes, which was like old blue eyes. Frank Sinatra was old blue eyes. And I. Someone said to me, you're osc. Old slane eyes.

[Pablo Torre]

You did do it your way.

[Connie Chung]

I did.

[Pablo Torre]

It turned out I did, but it.

[Connie Chung]

Was kind of crazy. I mean, but it was rampant. I think every woman who was alive then experienced the same thing. I was not unusual, really. Not by any means unusual. It was Just all over the place. It was constant. It was daily. And I think all the women in my era just plain put up with it.

[Pablo Torre]

It's clear to me in this book, and even just our conversation now, that you were not collapsing onto fainting couches.

[Connie Chung]

Oh, no.

[Pablo Torre]

When this happened.

[Connie Chung]

No.

[Pablo Torre]

You were in again. The boys on the bus. It was the boys on the bus. And Connie. Yeah, well, you could hang. You learned to go to the bar. Yes, because that's what it meant to report.

[Connie Chung]

Apparently. I didn't know that I was tucked in bed early until I realized that the guys were getting scoops. And the way they were getting scoops was drinking at the bar every night with the McGovern people. And they would get them to spill the beans. So I thought, oh, forget about going to bed early. I'm going down to the bar, too. You know, I learned how to drink in college, so why not? Why not apply what I learned in college?

[Pablo Torre]

Absolutely.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

You know, I do want to point out that while a lot of this was happening, you were living with your parents.

[Connie Chung]

Can you imagine how embarrassing.

[Pablo Torre]

I mean, just paint the picture, though. You're in D.C. your family's there, and as all this is happening, you go.

[Connie Chung]

Home, and you go home to Mommy and Daddy. It really is amazing. Yeah. But, you know, that's how incredibly Chinese I am and the whole Asian thing of filial piety. I was such a good daughter. I was the last of their five daughters. They expected me to hang in there. My excuse is that I was on such a rigorous schedule of hopping all over the country with the McGovern campaign and then covering Watergate day and night, covering Nelson Rockefeller when he was vice president, that it made it easy for me to just live at home because I would plop home and just be able to sleep. You know, I was embarrassed to write that in the book, but it was the truth. And I have to tell the truth.

[Pablo Torre]

One of the most relatable parts, really. Oh, yeah. I lived at home for several years after college.

[Connie Chung]

You did?

[Pablo Torre]

Both for filial piety reasons and also broke reasons.

[Connie Chung]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

I was a fact checker, you know, and it wasn't. My cousin's in the Philippines. Still, you know, so many of them live at home, as so many people in Asia do. It's not weird over there, but in America. Connie, I want to point this out, too. We're both first generation Americans. We are both the first members of our family born in these United States.

[Connie Chung]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

The place in your book where I was sort of thinking deeply about that is the part where your dad is this force of ancestral weight and in this case, pressure insofar as he gave you a mission.

[Connie Chung]

He did. He did indeed.

[Pablo Torre]

How would you explain the mission?

[Connie Chung]

He was very proud of the fact that he was able to basically manipulate a way to get out of China. During the Sino Japanese war, they had lost three boys in China. They had a total of nine children. Five of them died as infants and three of them were boys. And you know, in China, that's verboten. I mean, you can't. You don't want girls. All you want are boys because they carry on the family name.

[Pablo Torre]

Right? Right.

[Connie Chung]

He wrote me a letter and I was already in the news business. And he said, maybe you can someday carry on the name Chung the way a son would. I think I took that mission seriously and tried to be the son my parents never.

[Pablo Torre]

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[Donald Trump]

Today I sell very great condominiums in New York. I have the best casinos in the world. They're the best. What, Drug Tower?

[Connie Chung]

Maybe if you can try and answer this question without giving me the normal spiel.

[Donald Trump]

Huh? What is the normal spiel?

[Pablo Torre]

I don't know.

[Connie Chung]

Well, the normal spiel is. Well, the fact is that many rich and powerful people do try to remain anonymous. But you became very public, very clearly by your own design.

[Donald Trump]

I don't know if it was by my own design.

[Connie Chung]

You mean the publicity?

[Donald Trump]

I do developments which get a lot of publicity. I mean, if Trump. If I didn't do Trump. I mean this. If Trump Tower weren't a great building on Fifth Avenue and 57th street by.

[Connie Chung]

A young tower, one building in New York City with zillions of buildings.

[Donald Trump]

Trump Tower was built by a young guy. No, I don't, I don't think it was by design, though. I think that it happens, but I don't.

[Connie Chung]

Innocent?

[Donald Trump]

No, I want to be innocent. I've always wanted to be innocent. My entire life has been devoted to being innocent.

[Connie Chung]

Is it little?

[Donald Trump]

Not a lot, but I don't know that it was by design.

[Pablo Torre]

Okay, so what do you feel? What do you remember now, watching that.

[Connie Chung]

Back now, what happened was the producer of the program that I was doing at the time said, we have an interview booked with Donald Trump. And I said, why? He was a tabloid king. He would create publicity that would put him on the front pages of either the New York Daily News or the New York Post.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Connie Chung]

And I said, I don't see any reason why does anybody care what he has to say? And the producer said, no, you should, you know, we've got it booked. Go ahead and do it. So I went ahead and did it afterwards. Trump was not happy with it.

[Pablo Torre]

I was going to ask about the aftermath.

[Connie Chung]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

How did that feel?

[Connie Chung]

Do you really feel like a philanthropic person?

[Donald Trump]

I feel very philanthropic.

[Pablo Torre]

I really do.

[Donald Trump]

And I'm a young guy, you know.

[Connie Chung]

People don't believe that.

[Donald Trump]

Oh, I think people believe it. See, it gets to a point where some people can never be satisfied. Connie, perhaps you're one of those people.

[Connie Chung]

He said that I didn't know what I was talking about. That I was.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, a lightweight, sure.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah. Lightweight. Uh huh. And you know how he likes to call women nasty. He just didn't have a very wide vocabulary. So he was using the same adjectives then. In subsequent years, Pablo Maury would play in celebrity golf tournaments with Donald Trump. Trump would be there. He'd introduce Maury to his wife, Melania. He completely ignored my presence, despite Maury trying to introduce me. It was just really quite extraordinary. If I may. It seemed like a childish way to respond.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, yeah. Which is to say that anything that's happened since, as much as it is on one level, utterly surreal, is also, in this way, exactly a version of what you had experienced.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

You know, there was a quote in your book that is attributed to Joe DiMaggio.

[Connie Chung]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

About how you were athletically as an interviewer. The quote is, I'd hate to be on the other end of one of her fastballs.

[Connie Chung]

Do you know who told me that was our podiatrist who was best friends with Joe DiMaggio. He said they were. He and DiMaggio were watching an interview that I was doing, and that's when he said it.

[Pablo Torre]

You know, it's funny the way sports does come up in your book. Oh, because it recurs.

[Connie Chung]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

And it comes in. If I may. If I may establish a bit of the frame here. It comes both as a matter of assignments that were foisted upon you, someone who's perpetually trying to prove your credibility and your seriousness with journalism, but also clearly, as a matter of these characters, like, let's just go to Bobby Knight in this NBC documentary.

[Donald Trump]

I'm going to do it, and I'm going to do it my way.

[Connie Chung]

There are times Bobby, and I can't do it his way. And what does he do then?

[Donald Trump]

I think that if rape is inevitable.

[Pablo Torre]

Relax and enjoy it.

[Donald Trump]

I mean, that's just an old term.

[Pablo Torre]

That you're going to use. So you said very little in that clip. And he did not need you to say a lot to know that he had said something that he should not have said.

[Connie Chung]

Right.

[Pablo Torre]

What was going through your mind as he said it?

[Connie Chung]

I can't believe this. I mean, I couldn't believe he actually said what he said. And this was after he threw a folding chair across the court and was accused of trying to strangle one of his players during practice. Everybody knew that Bobby Knight had an uncontrollable temper. He didn't suffer any consequences, really, at that time. It was much later that he kind of blew up and was blown off the court. But one of the funniest things of Pablo was a sports journalist was interviewing Bobby Knight. And he asked Bobby Knight, what do you think of Connie Chung? And he said, if she were on fire, I wouldn't even piss on her.

[Pablo Torre]

Which you gotta admit. Yeah, pretty good line.

[Connie Chung]

Pretty good line. I thought it was great. I thought it was hysterical.

[Pablo Torre]

You know what's crazy about that interview is that that was the headline. Yeah, but the subhead, arguably, should have been the fact that this happened. I've never hit anybody.

[Connie Chung]

Haven't you gone up to a kid and gone, whack?

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, yeah, I went down. I went down the line of our kids one time.

[Connie Chung]

What'd you do?

[Pablo Torre]

And just hit him on his shoulder, Whacked him.

[Donald Trump]

Come on, let's go, let's go, let's go.

[Connie Chung]

Thanks. I needed that. That was a nice soft touch you had there.

[Pablo Torre]

Well, this, for Christ's sake, isn't like interviewing some politician that wants to be on television.

[Donald Trump]

I don't give a damn whether you.

[Pablo Torre]

Ever put this on television or not. So just for the record here, Bobby Knight literally slaps you in the face.

[Connie Chung]

Whack.

[Pablo Torre]

And you handle it as if you had, again, the litany of equivalent circumstances that you'd experienced in D.C. you were like, yeah, I know how this goes.

[Connie Chung]

Give me an uppercut now. Go on. Go ahead. You know, I mean, it's like, woo. Jesus.

[Pablo Torre]

That's wild.

[Connie Chung]

It is wild.

[Pablo Torre]

It's unbelievable that that was on television. So at this point, I just need to observe that. For all of the ways that Connie Chung had been mistreated, obviously, by American presidents in private and hall of Fame coaches in public, she loved her job. She found it thrilling, actually. She became obsessed with the craft of it, the taking of chances, the competition to score, the big get. She was, in her own way, doing her father and her family name proud, as he had requested in writing to her. And America, in response, loved watching Connie Cheung work. Her interview with Gary Condit, for instance. The embattled congressman from California was watched by more than 23 million people. Roughly the same number also watched her interview embattled figure skater Tanya Harding. And the list, which extends deep into sports, now goes on. I just don't know if I've ever seen somebody grill the greatest athlete of all time, for instance, like you did with Michael Jordan.

[Connie Chung]

Gambling has cut short or even ruined a lot of professional sports careers. Can you give it up?

[Donald Trump]

Can I give up what?

[Connie Chung]

Gambling.

[Donald Trump]

Oh, sure. If it affects my life or the way I play the game or jeopardize my family or my financial status or whatever, or the security of my family. Sure. I give it up in a minute to solidify my argument is, you know, whatever I've lost, I've always given it back to my wife. So whatever check I make here, honey, I'm sorry for the Embarrassment. I'm sorry for what I've caused for, you know, losing this amount of money. You know, here, take it. Do what you have to do with it. I wasted it. So this is yours. This is the kids. This is whatever. I didn't have to tell you that. But that tells me, and I'm sure that I'm not a Gamma Holic. I know where I am. I know what I'm doing. But if I feel I've done something that has embarrassed the family, I want to correct it. But yet I want to move on from it too, as well.

[Connie Chung]

All right, I'm going to play shrink here, see? All right.

[Donald Trump]

Okay. I'm supposed to play patient or what?

[Connie Chung]

When you said that you give your wife the 57,000 or the 108,000 that you lost, you know, that says to me, you feel guilty about it.

[Donald Trump]

I feel guilty that I did it and I actually didn't tell her I lost it. That's where the guilt come from.

[Connie Chung]

Oh, you didn't tell her?

[Donald Trump]

No.

[Connie Chung]

But then when you do give her that money, you do tell her, right? But when you lost it, at the.

[Donald Trump]

Time you lost it, I was really embarrassed to tell anybody. Cause I lost. That's the most embarrassing thing is that I lost.

[Connie Chung]

Do you think you have a gambling problem at all?

[Donald Trump]

No, because I can stop gambling. I have a competition problem.

[Connie Chung]

Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack.

[Pablo Torre]

I just want to observe that Michael Jordan, while being grilled, looks very comfortable with you.

[Connie Chung]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

And that is also part of what made you a special interviewer.

[Connie Chung]

Wow, that's so interesting, you know, because I didn't. I mean, I had met him many times because he would have these Michael Jordan tournaments, and Maury and I would.

[Pablo Torre]

Go, yep, golf tournaments.

[Connie Chung]

Yes. And Maury would say, I played with Michael Jordan. And he meant golf, not on the court. You know? And one of the craziest things I used to say with Maury, what celebrity are you playing with? And he says, I'm the celebrity.

[Pablo Torre]

You, in a sense, were another big star talking to a big star. And I wonder if that how you wielded that. Were you aware that I'm Connie Chung coming in to do this interview? Like, no, we're both, to quote your husband, I'm the celebrity, Pablo.

[Connie Chung]

It's very strange, but I was just putting one foot in front of the other, trying to get what I thought was what we in television news called the get. And at that time, Michael had so much going on, you know, with his father's death, with gambling, with Juanita, his wife. So I don't know. I was just thrilled when he said, okay. I couldn't believe it.

[Pablo Torre]

I do want to get to another part of your oeuvre to just paint with all the colors on this because it's you. It's the richest man in the world, and it's a chair.

[Connie Chung]

Is it true that you can leap over a chair from a standing position? It depends on the size of the chair. I'll cheat a little bit. Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

The fact that you got Bill Gates to again, to his credit. Completely clear.

[Connie Chung]

Completely clear.

[Pablo Torre]

A chair.

[Connie Chung]

Wasn't that amazing.

[Pablo Torre]

You could get these people to do quite a bit, Connie, is what I learned.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah. But you know what? After we sat down and started talking, I started peppering him with questions about the smaller companies that Microsoft was gobbling up. He walked out.

[Pablo Torre]

He walked out of the interview. Yeah.

[Connie Chung]

And I was thinking, wait, whoa, hey, dude, where'd you go?

[Pablo Torre]

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[Connie Chung]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

And her news managers, trying to please and not challenge them.

[Connie Chung]

He's so right. He is so. He's spot on.

[Pablo Torre]

And he says, lord knows, not that way with me. That's what he says, for the record. But I do want to introduce this dichotomy to people, which is that you are the person going after the powerful, holding them to account, and also someone who is tortured at work because you're not saying no to these things that you don't want to do.

[Connie Chung]

Yes. It's that patriarch thing and someone who has power in many ways over me that I couldn't quite, you know, bucket buck the system, buck the person, because I saw them as this patriarchal leader who I had to be obedient to. And it was that way with both my parents. And Maury is absolutely right. It was that way with, with these men who were in management. And I thought that. I thought they had my back and they had my best interests in mind. But as you well know, management, they're cya, you know, in many ways. Yeah. And that's why I think I couldn't quite figure out how to deal with management.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah, well, they're trying to cover their ass. They're trying to cya, cover your ass as a principle in life. And you're encountering that when you get to the anchor chair. Right. And again, just the job of network anchor is this hallowed. It's the ultimate, as you say, a dream job.

[Connie Chung]

It was.

[Pablo Torre]

And you begin to realize, even as a fill in, who gets to say good morning is contractually negotiated and always the right of the man.

[Connie Chung]

Well, when it came to the Today show, it was. I substituted for Jane Pauley during her pregnancies. And Brian Kummel had it contractually in writing that he could say, good morning.

[Pablo Torre]

This is today, Monday, Jan. 4, 1982.

[Connie Chung]

And he could say, have a good day at the end of the two hour program. But she could not, and she fought it, but she didn't win that battle. And when I substituted, I also tried to fight it, but I couldn't win that battle either.

[Pablo Torre]

You know, I don't Think we could give full consideration, as you do in the book, to the chapter that is you sitting next to Dan Rather. You becoming the first Asian to be a network news anchor. The second woman of all time, the first at CBS Evening News. This is Walter Cronkite's program. This is the man that you worked as a correspondent for. The ultimate journalist.

[Connie Chung]

Yes, my idol.

[Pablo Torre]

Oh, still today, I hope that you are not alone in revering Walter Cronkite. And the best day of your life, you write, is of your professional life, is when you get that job. How do you summarize what that was like compared to your expectations?

[Connie Chung]

I could not have been happier. You know, I thought, boy, I've reached the pinnacle. It's a place where all of our worlds come together. Somalia, Bosnia, healthcare, the economy.

[Donald Trump]

Stories such as the flood or the hurricane.

[Connie Chung]

And sometimes even a moment that lets.

[Donald Trump]

Us all sit back and smile.

[Connie Chung]

But then it was all a struggle from then on because I'd cover stories and Dan Ryler would want to cover those same stories and get pissed off that I was covering them instead of him. I think he would have disliked having not only any sharing the seat with anybody because he had been doing it by himself and didn't want to move a few inches over for not a man, not a woman, not an animal or a plant. I mean, he did not want to share Walter Cronkite's chair with anybody, especially me, because I wasn't compliant. I was trying to establish a precedent in which the co anchor would be able to share everything.

[Pablo Torre]

You were trying to get an A. Yeah. You were like, wait a minute, hold on. I can also report. Yes, I can. I can catch what I can. I can, you know, eat what I catch, right? Like, why, why can't I do all of these things the way that the. Again, just for people who don't know. Right. It's. It's Peter Jennings at abc. Hi, Peter Jennings in New York, just a short while ago, astonishing news from East Germany. It's Tom Brokaw at NBC.

[Donald Trump]

There has been so much budget thought this year. It's enough to make your eyes glazed over, right?

[Pablo Torre]

And now it's Dan Rather plus Connie Chung.

[Donald Trump]

Connie Chung, the CBS Evening News team to cover your world.

[Connie Chung]

So there I was.

[Pablo Torre]

The first episode Connie Chung ever hosted next to Dan Rather on the CBS Evening news was June 1, 1993. It was historic. Two years later, CBS fired her from that dream job. And then Rather, according to one news executive, had come to see Connie Chung as his rival, not his co actor. And in Connie's book, she goes on to describe Rather telling her quote, just read the news on the teleprompter, end quote. Because, according to Connie, Dan Rather very explicitly wanted her to stay in studio and therefore leave all that reporting, all the anchoring from the field that she loved to do to him. Connie, of course, in response, was outwardly professional. You'd have no idea, if you watched these telecasts, as I did, that any of this was happening behind the scenes. But internally, she was despondent, furious even. Because what you should also know is that while all of this was happening, Connie had been spending years trying to conceive a child with Maury. It never worked, despite multiple medical interventions. And so around when Connie had started her job with the evening news, they decided to file the paperwork for adoption. Except that didn't come through either, which is why work, Connie's job, remained pretty much her entire life.

[Connie Chung]

I found that when I was writing about it, I. Someone, my nephew asked me, was it cathartic? And I said, I better look up catharsis, because I'm not really sure what it means. And I discovered that the original meaning was actually medical, that one expunges one's body of unwanted waste. And so I thought to myself, yeah, when I wrote about CBS and the whole experience with Dan Rather, that's exactly what I was doing. I was expunging myself of this piece of dung. And it actually felt pretty good afterwards.

[Pablo Torre]

Again, this is the funny thing about television, which is that people at home don't always know how the people on camera, true to the theme of this episode, are actually feeling. And so both of you were quite professional, always polished. That's what I think of still. But the tension and the way in which Dan Rather ultimately ousts you from the chair and from cbs, despite being who you are, as now we clearly understand, that's the sort of thing that can break a lot of people.

[Connie Chung]

I thought I had lost face. You know, it was a profound feeling. When I got dumped from the program, I really felt, because it was so public, I lost face, and I just wanted to crawl into a hole and dig my way to China again.

[Pablo Torre]

So it was humiliation, is the feeling?

[Connie Chung]

Huge, yeah. So humiliated. And it didn't matter, you know, why or what. It's just I had a very public firing. Although I was offered a different job, I didn't take it because I had a big turnaround in my life. Only two days after I was fired, Maury and I discovered that our adoption that we had been working on for two years was going to come through.

[Pablo Torre]

Yeah.

[Connie Chung]

And so it was shortly thereafter that our son was in our arms. And he was less than a day old. So it was pretty darn wonderful. It was serendipity.

[Donald Trump]

This year, Santa's bringing the power of Energizer into his workshop.

[Pablo Torre]

Whoa. The Energizer Bunny's got so much power.

[Connie Chung]

Wait, he's powered up all the toys. I think that means we're done for the year.

[Pablo Torre]

I love this bunny. He's the hardest working helper the North Pole has ever seen. And he wants all your gifts to have the power of the number one longest lasting AA battery.

[Donald Trump]

So this holiday season, stock up on Santa's and the elves favorite battery, Energizer Ultimate Lithium.

[Pablo Torre]

After decades of relentless grinding through the 70s and 80s and 90s, Connie Chung finally stepped away from the job she loved. And she stepped away for about 20 years, give or take. And it wasn't easy, but she wanted the time to raise her son Matthew. And after hosting a few other programs on TV here and there, yeah, Connie more or less retired. Think back to what her father had asked of her in that letter she told us about before. Many years ago, Connie had already done all that. She had carried the family name to every living room in America. Millions upon millions upon millions of them, as far as any woman could plausibly take it. And that was a legacy that couldn't possibly be topped. Or so it seemed. I don't even know what category this accomplishment goes into, but you now have a service area in New Jersey named after you.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah, I do. And it's pretty incredible. I actually have to go there sometime. When I go there, I want to go into the men's room stall and write on the inside for a good time. How was that, you think it's not a good idea.

[Pablo Torre]

Milepost 153 should be honored to have you graffiti the men's room at the Connie Junk service area. By the way, you're a weed strain.

[Connie Chung]

I do have a strain of weed named after me, and I don't know how it came about and I think I should get a cut. I'm described as easy to grow. I create a nice flower and a scent.

[Pablo Torre]

Yes.

[Connie Chung]

I don't cause the crazies too much?

[Pablo Torre]

No.

[Connie Chung]

And I'm good under stress. If you have a deadline, you know, smoke a little Connie Choing weed. And I'm low maintenance. I like that.

[Pablo Torre]

You're a good strain to wind down with at the end of the night.

[Connie Chung]

You bet. And I just saw online that you can get a, like a five pack pre roll for only $22 without turning.

[Pablo Torre]

Into a live read for a thing that does have, you know, some dry mouth.

[Connie Chung]

Yeah.

[Pablo Torre]

But again, whomst among us. But the last sort of tribute that I want to acknowledge here is the one that. And I say this as somebody whose tear ducts, per my genetic makeup, are generally constipated. But the Connies.

[Connie Chung]

Yes.

[Pablo Torre]

Can you explain for people who don't know the story that was in the New York Times, it's pretty remarkable.

[Connie Chung]

A woman named Connie Wong cold emailed me. She said her parents came from communist China. She was only three years old. Her parents say, we've got to give you an American name. What name would you like? And, you know, at only three, she knew what she saw on television. She said, connie or Elmo? And she said, I'm named after you. I'm named Connie after you. So she goes off to UC Berkeley, Ferris Mart. She's in the cafeteria and somebody says, Connie Wong. And she turns around. But a lot of women turn around, Asian women. And she finds there are all kinds of Connies. So she knows something's up. She decided to look into it. Connie Wong discovers that there are untold numbers of Connies who are named after me in the 1970s, in the 1980s and the 1990s, and I am blown away. She tells this story to the Sunday New York Times opinion section. And the photo editor brings together as many Connies as she can find in the New York area, asks me to come. Come to a New York Times studio. Oh, my God. It's confusing. Why your name Connie? You know, at least when I was born, you know, but I realized what it means is, you know, your parents want you to work hard and, like, be brave and take chances. Yeah, I did do that. Yeah. So thank. Thank you. Thank you. It's too much. We take an amazing picture. Three tiers of Connie's of about a dozen and me in the middle. I tell you, it has blown me away. And on this book tour, Pablo, I have met six new Connies. And I've also met a Connie Chung in drag. Oh, yeah. He told me that it takes him four hours to put on his makeup. And I said, dude, you got to get faster than I do mine in 15. So it's crazy when you think back.

[Pablo Torre]

To the way in which your dad, your parents, who you supported through all of this, when you think about how your father saddled you with this mission of continuing the good family name, when you look back at the impact you've had upon the Connie generation. Just the symmetry of this, what comes to mind.

[Connie Chung]

Back when I was working, I was used to this big pace and occasional adulation, but now I'm getting it. I think Pablo was much happier when I was depressed. I mean, I rose from the dead, frankly. I had been off the treadmill for about 20 years and, you know, didn't know what to make of my career. But once more, Maury encouraged me to sit down and write about it. And when I got this beautiful ending of this Connie legacy, I thought, this is a perfect denouement for the book. It's perfect ending.

[Pablo Torre]

Now people understand all of the reasons why. Yeah, you've inspired literally generations of people.

[Connie Chung]

I can't believe it.

[Pablo Torre]

It's true.

[Connie Chung]

I know it's crazy.

[Pablo Torre]

And I dare say that as somebody who grew up fantasizing in a strange way about co hosting a show with Connie Chung.

[Connie Chung]

Oh, we've done it.

[Pablo Torre]

I thank you for making a dream come true.

[Connie Chung]

Oh, come on. We've done it.

[Pablo Torre]

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time. Feeling overwhelmed? Struggling with mental health shouldn't be the norm. At Mindful Therapy Group, we specialize in connecting you with compassionate therapists that can support you through stress, anxiety, ADHD, and so much more. With in person and telehealth appointments available, we can get you seen in as little as 48 hours. To make things easier, Mindful Therapy Group accepts most health insurances, including Medicare, allowing you to focus on you and not your wallet. Visit mindfultherapygroup.com to start your mental health journey today.