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- [00:02]
Chuck Todd
You're listening to DraftKings Network.
- [00:27]
Dan Le Batard
Welcome to South Beach Sessions. These are supposed to be up here. This is Chuck Todd. He is Emmy nominated, Emmy winner, two decades at NBC, half of that time at Meet the Press. A Miami guy, a gambler. I think we're going to get along just fine. Chuck Todd and I thank you for being with us. You're now independent. Chuck toddcast is available wherever it is you get your podcast. How has that whole process been the independence, the leaving of mainstream media, the seeing of a fractured media climate where everything seems to be collapsing?
- [01:02]
Chuck Todd
Well, I feel like I grabbed a lifeboat while there were still lifeboats. There are not many lifeboats left. As we watch, some of our colleagues again feel like they're going through this. It's one of those things that's both liberating.
- [01:18]
Where I don't feel like I'm going to tick off another host of another show or an executive or all of that stuff. So that part of it I love. I miss the newsroom. At the end of the day.
- [01:34]
I enjoy running a newsroom. I miss that aspect of it probably more than anything. But there are no sour grapes because the grapes are gone. Right? There's nothing left in that end. So I'm enjoying. All of a sudden, I feel like I've overcommitted. I went from under committed to over committed. But my whole view of where we are right now is I hope to be a consolidator, but if I get consolidated, that's okay. I mean, we're in a moment and I think we all know it. And it's a cycle of media, new technology, fragmentation, consolidation, new technology, fragmentation. Life magazine was mainstream media until we had moving pictures.
- [02:14]
Dan Le Batard
I just read about that in the Atlantic, that there's always been this kind of thing, but the Atlantic was putting that under the headline, is media headed for an extinction level event. Talking about local news and lifeboats, it does feel like in my lifetime that this is the scariest it's been.
- [02:35]
Chuck Todd
So. And I look at local news. I mean, I sort of. I have this cheap line. A man named Craig decided classifieds ought to be free. Yada, yada, yada. Donald Trump became president. And I do think the destruction of local media destroyed community. And I also believe it's going to come back because we either are going to rebuild community or it's gone. And I don't think we want our community gone. We got to rebuild this. But this local news piece is the. I think that there are all sorts of media was built on a lot of things. And it turned out local news was an important pillar. That when you knocked that one out, I think the whole thing collapsed because I think local media gave national media credibility. And if local media is not there, who's there to give? National. National media, you're too far away to be credible to the average person. Local media, when they either confirmed the stories you were reporting or writing or reporting about sort of a version that you did, gave. And if, you know, I found this out as Meet the Press host, I'd go and do Meet the Press, and people would say, I love you and Jane. And I'm like thinking, quickly, who's Jane? Well, Jane's the local anchor who throws to my show. And I went, they see us as the same. So I need to have good relations with that local reporter, and that local reporter needs to be credible or I'm not credible. And those people are gone. Now what do we do?
- [03:57]
Dan Le Batard
I feel like you and I have a lot in common. One of the things that we have in common is that we were a bit naive 10 years ago about what was headed this way. Underestimated it, got overwhelmed and run over by it because believe.
- [04:13]
Chuck Todd
Do you regret your life on social media?
- [04:15]
Dan Le Batard
Do I regret my life on social media? I regret social media has been good to me. I know it's a toxic waste dump.
- [04:24]
Chuck Todd
I feel the same way. It was really good to me. But I also think it's been totally destructive of credibility.
- [04:31]
Dan Le Batard
How so? Because I don't believe it has harmed my credibility. I believe it has harmed my mental health. I believe that some things have happened with social media that are corrosive in ways that I had underestimated.
- [04:45]
Chuck Todd
I think it is triggering and it's like, you know, you say to yourself, and you know this logically, don't pay attention. Don't pay attention. And then you find your, you know, and you'd get sucked in. And I allowed myself to get sucked in early. That's where I. There's all the positive sides. And I agree, social media connected me to far more interesting people than I would have been able to be connected with otherwise. So I still am pro in the grand scheme of the idea. I don't know, though. Look, I look at social media, we're doing an experiment on the human brain, and I think we know the result. It's not a successful experiment.
- [05:18]
Dan Le Batard
I mean, we're addicted. Humans are addicted to this in a way that I believe is the greatest globally undercovered addiction that we've ever experienced.
- [05:32]
Chuck Todd
Every single study around the world has Shown that young people. Social media has been bad for mental health on young people. It hasn't mattered if the study was done in a rich country, a poor country, a ethnically.
- [05:49]
Sort of monolithic country, or a very diverse. It hasn't mattered. This has been destructive to the young human brain. It's like, what is it? Marijuana is not good for you before the age of 25 while your brain's forming. Maybe overusing. It may not be good for you after 25, but there's certainly some evidence there. Social media feels like something while you're emotionally maturing, you shouldn't be on it. It's totally destructive to the brain.
- [06:18]
Dan Le Batard
Take me through. You mentioned liberation, but take me through the scary parts of leaving something that had been your home and your known for 20 years.
- [06:27]
Chuck Todd
Well, it's a weird thing. I'll put it another way. I could live another 30 years and my obituary lead's going to be Meet the Press.
- [06:38]
I think I'm going to have a much more interesting life over the next 30 years. But that doesn't mean that that's what you're known for better or for worse. That's what you know. So in that sense you're like, boy, this was an identity. It wasn't just me. It was, I used to joke my first name was Meet. And so that took a little bit of.
- [06:59]
Sort of, hey, I'm not the center of attention. And I say that, you know, in my little world of politics that that was the case. But so at first I was nervous about that. Then you realize, nope, this whole thing's coming crashing down. And I avoided a whole bunch of. And look, I watched a lot of you and I both watched a lot of our, A lot of colleagues not handle the moment. So I always look at it. It's like I survived the Trump era. I still, I still. Nobody's trying to take my name off of stuff.
- [07:34]
Or is still willing to hire me. So in that sense I feel pretty good about it. But at first it was because it had become an identity. And sure it was like, so I had to mourn the loss of that version of myself. But I sort of, I loved my 10 years to meet the Press. I don't miss it. I miss an occasional Sunday interview, but I don't miss everything else. And if you said you could go back, I wouldn't take it.
- [08:01]
Dan Le Batard
What do you miss? What? You mentioned the newsroom.
- [08:04]
Chuck Todd
I miss the newsroom. I miss just the community.
- [08:07]
Dan Le Batard
The 15 like minded people.
- [08:08]
Chuck Todd
Correct. Not even like minded, but just stimulated to.
- [08:11]
Dan Le Batard
Well, When I say like minded, I mean caring about the same things. I don't mean civilians.
- [08:16]
Chuck Todd
In fact, I was obsessed with like trying to build a newsroom. I used to say the most important diversity I looked for was geographic because geographic diversity and socioeconomic diversity gives you everything else. If you go through that, you'll end up, by definition, you'll end up with a room that also looks diverse if you go with that. So in that sense, that was always the newsroom I tried to build. But that's what I miss, because I miss, well, should we do this angle of the story or this angle of the story, or should we pursue this or what's missing over here? It just that sort of thing. And, you know, brainstorming with ChatGPT ain't the same.
- [08:55]
Dan Le Batard
What are the specifics of the heartbeat of a newsroom that you're talking about? Like what your path is a bit of an unusual one, I would say. I don't know what you consider unusual about your.
- [09:06]
Chuck Todd
Well, I didn't go local. I started at a trade publication called the hotline. In the 90s. It was sort of the Internet before the Internet. Now in hindsight, we were doing, we were sort of the, we were doing newsletters before anybody knew that was a big business. Trust me, I didn't make the. None of the people that were a part of that startup, none of us made a ton of money.
- [09:27]
So I do. It's, it's the, it is the. I, like I always said, I used to get paid to try to see around corners. And it was that room of people that you got together every morning to try to figure out which corner should we try to look around to see if we're finding the right story?
- [09:44]
Dan Le Batard
Your interest in all of this comes from your late father, correct? At what age? Like when did you realize.
- [09:52]
Chuck Todd
So it goes back. My dad was always kind of a political junkie. We always had.
- [09:57]
He was a conservative who would also made sure that we got the New Republic and we got National Review. He would make me watch both conventions. He'd say, I don't agree with Jesse Jackson, but he's a great speaker. You should listen to what he has to say. You should listen to these. So he was one of those type of. I never felt, and I always try to do this with my kids. I never felt like he was trying to push me in a direction. He said, this is what I consider good conservative politics. This is what I consider good liberal politics. And he said, you take a listen. I had a cousin stay with us when I was in eighth grade, somewhere between eighth and ninth grade. And he stayed with us. He was helping a. Do you remember a politician named Larry Hawkins?
- [10:36]
Dan Le Batard
I do not. I was not very politically minded growing up.
- [10:39]
Chuck Todd
So back in the 80s, sometime in the 90s, Florida stopped electing. We used to have like eight or nine statewide elected officials. We'd have the secretary of education, that was an elected office. It wasn't just agriculture that we have now. They put like seven of them under the cfo, that chief financial officer position. But it used to be they were all separate offices. So a cousin of mine was running a guy's campaign, Larry Hawkins, he was this county commissioner based in the south part of the county here in Dade county or Miami Dade now. And big liberal.
- [11:15]
And so he. Every night he and my father would get drunk and debate politics. My dad being a conservative and I just, I was the bartender. Judge away. It's fine. I'm aware my dad was an alcoholic. He died of alcoholism. And it is. I'm self aware on that front, but I just found it fascinating. I started that cousin. Became more like a brother. I was an only child. Became more like a brother. My dad dies like two years later. So.
- [11:45]
It was sort of. That was formative. And I always say I'm lucky to live. I joke. I was born in Miami and graduated high school in Miami. And I look at my growing up in Miami in the 70s and 80s, I think helps me understand American politics today because we went through all this.
- [12:06]
Dan Le Batard
Stuff way back time.
- [12:07]
Chuck Todd
Every, you know, Miami's always been the city of the future.
- [12:10]
Dan Le Batard
It's what Billy Corbyn says. Billy's 20 years ahead of it's time.
- [12:14]
Chuck Todd
It is. I mean, you know, when I tell people that in 1980 Dade county passed a English only initiative, they're like, what? I said, oh, yeah. I said that was, you know, I had neighbors who were like the people yelling speak English. That sort of crowd, or the bumper stickers that said the last will, the last American that leaves Miami please bring the flag. It was a very toxic atmosphere. We had three race riots in the decade of the 80s. And now we're the coolest city in the world. In theory, we're Singapore. Now we're some combination where we're this global city. So that's my optimism. But I always turns out, I think I feel like I have a better grasp of what America's going through now because of growing up here in the 70s and 80s. I don't know if you feel that way.
- [13:06]
Dan Le Batard
Yeah, for sure. There's Just all sorts of stuff that you get subjected to here that doesn't happen in homogenized communities.
- [13:14]
Chuck Todd
No. And in fact, I think more. I think it's sort of why I'm like, will you guys just hurry up and get through this episode? Because it'll be pretty good on the other side.
- [13:24]
Dan Le Batard
When you say it was formative, you're talking about the. You used the word formative, and you had in there your father's death, you had alcoholism and you had politics. Which of those was most formative?
- [13:38]
Chuck Todd
So.
- [13:40]
It just sort of probably easily my relationship with my father. And he was.
- [13:49]
I don't want to say he's Willy Lohman, meaning, like totally unsuccessful, but he didn't have an easy time. There's a variety of reasons. I'm not going to go into it. So there was always an early part of me that felt as if I'm trying to live the life he never got to have or that he should have pursued, and he never did for a variety of reasons. I've since gotten over that. I think that frankly haunted me for a little bit. That's just my own psyche, but that's what I mean by formative. But we just passed the anniversary. We're taping here three or four days after the anniversary of his death. It's now almost 40 years, and yet it's. It is the single fork without it. I don't go to school in Washington, D.C.
- [14:36]
I stay here in Miami. I'm probably on a music scholarship, probably not doing. I mean, there's just. It's such a fork in the road for me, and for a variety of reasons.
- [14:45]
Dan Le Batard
Are you comfortable walking me through whatever parts of it you're comfortable walking me through? 16 years old is a really tough age. I mean, it's a tough age, but.
- [14:55]
Chuck Todd
Here'S what I would say. I don't know any different. And this was what anybody. I have a good friend of mine, a parent friend whose husband passed away. Their kids were 15 and 17. And she was asking me about this, and I'm like, you don't know any different. And don't screw up the relationship between the mother and the sons and that stuff.
- [15:19]
I was never gonna only have one kid because of the experience I went through not having a sibling.
- [15:27]
My mother and I's relationship, it's just a tough thing. She was grieving a husband.
- [15:34]
And we were. She was. I feel for my. Even more so now looking back for her. She had to file for bankruptcy. We didn't have a lot of money. She was trying to figure out her next career. She got a real estate license and actually did quite well. Did pretty well here.
- [15:57]
But it was.
- [16:01]
Look, I think everybody goes through stuff like that. We just don't know what time of our life we go through those things. I don't think you ever get over losing your parent.
- [16:11]
Everybody just does it at a different time in their life. And so I don't presume to say my time was tougher than somebody else's because it's just. I actually think it weirdly it grows you up in a hurry.
- [16:25]
That's the bummer. Maybe.
- [16:30]
I don't know, maybe I'm more successful because of it. Maybe I was a little more.
- [16:34]
Dan Le Batard
Oh, you do know you do.
- [16:36]
Chuck Todd
Oh, I think I am. No, no, no, I do. And it's not lost on me. I always think about this with a lot of you ever noticed how many successful people have this weird father issue? Either father was gone. I always say this. Barack Obama wrote a whole book about searching for his father. Bill Clinton punched his stepfather in the face and his other. His real father dies before then. You had George W. Bush, had his own daddy issues. So I actually think fathers and sons. I'm not going to pry, but I'm sure there are things that you have with your father.
- [17:03]
Dan Le Batard
Well, I would assume when you're talking right, it's different. My father's still alive, but I only learned in adulthood, deep in adulthood because I grew up later because I didn't have some of these things that grow you up a little bit too fast. I felt sort of responsible for some of my mother's emotions in places where my father wasn't emotionally available. And I imagine you had some of that if you're at 16 and an only child and now she's not just grieving, but you're what's left of that love.
- [17:36]
Chuck Todd
It's not an easy relationship for anybody after me.
- [17:41]
Whether it's my kids and their relationship with their grandmother or my wife and her relationship with the mother in law. So it's just because we. You. It's when you go through something like that and again I go back, we all go through it. Just we don't know what time of our life we go through it. And in that sense it was very formative and it shaped every. Shaped a lot. You don't realize it, but it shapes you quite a bit.
- [18:04]
Dan Le Batard
How about in terms of money and economic success and the drive to get there?
- [18:12]
Chuck Todd
So what it does, right, you see that we were struggling and all that stuff. So I'm Probably. I say this, yes, I love gambling, but I'm weirdly risk averse because I'd rather. I'm always thinking about where am I getting health care. I mean.
- [18:30]
My father died of hepatitis C is what he technically died of cirrhosis of the liver, but he had hep C and this is in 1988. And now there's a pill. Just take a pill, you're cured. Back then they had no cure. He was on the transplant list but never stable enough.
- [18:49]
Month after he dies, our health insurance gets canceled because you can cancel a whole county. So all of a sudden I went the first six or seven years of adulthood without health insurance. And it was one of those things where that's all I think about. Well, we can't have that because that literally bankrupted. It would have bankrupt. My dad died five days before we would have run out of insurance money.
- [19:15]
And I remember my mother having a conversation with the administrator and they were telling her about this and she said, well, does he have how much? And they're thinking, you need to go see a therapist if you're asking about. And you're like, well, what choice do I have? Like, are you telling me that I have to bankrupt myself to potentially keep him alive another week? Right. Like that's a really messed up conversation to put somebody through at any point in time. So it's made me weirdly risk averse. And so you want to talk about the hardest, the toughest reason to leave.
- [19:51]
The hardest decision to make about leaving Comcast, giving up the benefits because I don't want to ever leave my kids in a situation like that.
- [20:02]
Dan Le Batard
What is your relationship with alcohol?
- [20:06]
Chuck Todd
I'm just very leery of it. I'm barely a social drinker and I say barely, but I'm very careful with it.
- [20:16]
I'm very happy to see gummies become a thing. That is what helps me sleep at night.
- [20:21]
Dan Le Batard
I would imagine there are all manner of scars. And again, I've pried more than you said on the front end.
- [20:27]
Chuck Todd
I didn't want to talk too much. No, I don't mind talking too much of it. But it's funny, I'm a. I remember trying to figure out if my father was an alcoholic or not. And when he got diagnosed, they told him, you have to stop drinking. And I remember asking him, I said, was that hard? And he lived for about six months after his diagnosis and obviously stopped drinking. And he goes, no, I just missed a cold beer after being outside in the Florida heat. That was it. And he's like. And My father was one of those that he had his first drink at 11am and there were different things. It was a Bloody Mary at 11:00am Might be something this, and then it was beer later in the afternoon. But he was also that generation. All of his friends, they got drunk at lunch. I mean, I think about. I'm pretty convinced that we would have had the Internet 30 years sooner if people hadn't drank at lunch all the time. This is what society did in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. All these supports, you know, people, that was. That was what folks did.
- [21:26]
But I'm, you know.
- [21:30]
I don't know how I feel about the idea alcoholism is how much of it is it, how much of it can be helped and how much of it can't be helped.
- [21:39]
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- [21:49]
Dan Le Batard
Boom.
- [21:50]
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- [22:15]
Chuck Todd
You're back.
- [22:15]
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- [22:52]
Tony (Miller Lite Ad Voice)
Tony, my guy, it's that time of year.
- [22:54]
Chuck Todd
It's the holidays.
- [22:55]
Tony (Miller Lite Ad Voice)
The holidays are here, dude. I was just. The other day with my dad, we were talking about what we're gonna do for the holidays. And you know what? Even in the planning of our holidays, you know what we did? We cracked open a nice cold Miller Light. Whether it's the can, whether I'm at a restaurant and I get that draft with the nice. The golden color and the nice little. The little head at the top. Oh, my God. All right, now I want to leave this ad, read in the middle and go share a Miller Light with my boy. Dude, can we do that?
- [23:17]
Chuck Todd
All right, let's go right now.
- [23:18]
Tony (Miller Lite Ad Voice)
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- [23:54]
Chuck Todd
Holiday cheer.
- [23:55]
Tony (Miller Lite Ad Voice)
Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Co. Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 cars per 12 ounces. That's right.
- [24:02]
Dan Le Batard
Have you explored the roots of why you're risk averse?
- [24:08]
Chuck Todd
I think I know why I'm risk averse. I think it's when you have.
- [24:14]
When you go through a situation where suddenly the bot. I'll put it this way. I always want to be in a position where if everything collapses around me, I'm going to be okay.
- [24:23]
Dan Le Batard
Interesting to leave NBC though, when you did. Can you take me through the choice and the decision making on that? Because a lot of people are afraid of change in just risk averse people, just people. A lot of people choose the unhappiness they know over the potential of the happiness that could be unknown.
- [24:42]
Chuck Todd
I'll just say it this way. I've been lucky enough to. When you work for a startup for a long time, then you work for an UPS for a network. When I got hired by NBC, it was right when they were trying to make MSNBC something better, something different, something a little more forward leaning, a little more newsy, little more. At the time, they wanted to be smarter than cnn. That was the goal, whatever that meant. That meant, well, we're not going to beat them in the ratings, so let's win the critics. And.
- [25:14]
We were always growing. And then streaming came along and I was the first NBC show to go on streaming. We created a magazine show, Meet the Press Now. So it was pretty clear it was a growth enterprise until it wasn't. So it became easy to Leave. It was like I could stay and be a potted plant a couple of times a year. Hey, let's bring in the old guy to tell us about how elections work. Which I did in 2024. And it was, you know, I love election nights. That's, you know, it's my Super Bowl. And, you know, I just did a. This year, experimented with a live stream. We had half a million viewers. I was like, hey, this is great. I don't have to give up election nights anymore. So I'm glad to do that. But NBC stopped being a place that was going to grow. They're just shrinking. And as I call what's happening to broadcast television and cable news in general is what happened to FM radio in the 90s.
- [26:13]
The great disruption of FM radio was the Walkman, when you didn't have to listen to radio to get music. And I was one of those guys, man, she's only rock and roll. WSHE 10 o' clock got the let out. Leto 3.5, 3.5. And I had to get. I was gonna take my, you know, oh, I gotta get my mixtape of this Led Zeppelin song or this whatever it was. I'm giving you a little hint of I would graduate to Uncle Luther at the tail end of high school. I will concede. But.
- [26:43]
Once we got the Walkman, then FM radio had to go to talk, right? And they were basically desperate to keep people. And then eventually, and it was a good business, Clear Channel consolidated. It grabbed a lot of cash. Now Clear Channel's iHeartRadio and it ain't what it was. And I have a feeling that's. So you're gonna see more of this consolidation because there's still cash to be made on the people that have our age and older who still will turn on television to just watch things. But it's clearly not a growth business. So it's no fun to be someplace that shrinking. And I just. That would have made me crazy. So the decision to leave was easy when you realized they weren't interested in growing anymore.
- [27:28]
Dan Le Batard
You have several honorary degrees, but I read that you were six credits short of your degree for financial reasons. How harmful was that to you to be that close?
- [27:45]
Chuck Todd
So.
- [27:47]
It'S one of those where I'm not proud of it, but it was meaning I couldn't afford. I ran out of money. I double majored for a while at gw. And so I have more credits than I need, but not the right credits, which is why the six that I need.
- [28:03]
And then all of a sudden, life Gets in the way. And this is advice I give to young folks because I got a job. I got a full time job my junior year in college writing for this political publication. You wanted to be a newspaper guy. If you, in your junior year in college, you got a job that you wanted, what are you focusing on?
- [28:21]
Dan Le Batard
No, that's what I did when I got the internship at the Herald. I got out of all of my classes because I had that job at the Herald.
- [28:28]
Chuck Todd
It was just suddenly, it just drove you. And so. And there's a lot of guys in our business where this is. They get the job. You know.
- [28:38]
I could make the college basketball going pro. Early argument.
- [28:43]
If college is about finding your career path and you find your career path, why delay going on the path? That's how I would defend it, but there's always been a part of me going, jesus, it's six effing credits, right? But I'm an honorary alum at Miami these days, which just gives me the privileges of giving them more money. An honorary doctorate at gw.
- [29:11]
So it is sort of strange that I don't have it.
- [29:17]
But one of the things, you know, I used to try to avoid talking about it when you're younger because you think, oh, it's going to be a demerit.
- [29:27]
There's no reason to hide it.
- [29:29]
Dan Le Batard
Oh, I was just more interested in the specifics of the financial struggle.
- [29:33]
Chuck Todd
Oh, well, it was just. I mean, I was on. I had cobbled together 75% of the cost at GW through scholarships and playing in the pep band that gave an extra 2,500 bucks a semester.
- [29:46]
But suddenly it was like, well, I have this full time job. The classes I meet don't meet at the time. I can do the job, so I can't do it yet. And I kept saying, I'll do it later, I'll do it later, I'll do it later. And then eventually life happens. You get married, you have a kid. I remember at one point when I had the money to go do it, I'm always like, I don't need you away another three hours a night while you're doing this stuff. And then you ask yourself, what's the cost benefit other than pride?
- [30:18]
Dan Le Batard
That's an interesting one, though, because at some point you decided to either talk about it or not have it be something that felt like a weight.
- [30:27]
Chuck Todd
It stopped being a weight.
- [30:31]
But it's funny how sometimes it's always the favorite way people come after me if they disagree with something. Well, you didn't even go to College or you didn't finish college. What do you know? Okay, you're right.
- [30:42]
Dan Le Batard
I was the host of Meet the.
- [30:43]
Chuck Todd
That's okay. What do I know? You're right. That's okay, people. You know, if that's. I thought we just. I thought the cultural revolution that just happened in this country is that we have to stop sending kids to college.
- [30:54]
Dan Le Batard
I mean, at this point, it's funny to see that technology is such that kids going to college are just using AI to do their exams. So it becomes largely a waste of money unless someone's really interested.
- [31:06]
Chuck Todd
So I heard a good interview with my kid. One of my oldest is a senior at the University of Miami. My youngest is a freshman at SMU in Dallas. And I was just at a talk with the president of SMU and he. He articulated what I hope is true. He goes. You know, I think. He goes. I think the AI ification of everything is actually going to make college, that the liberal arts are going to become back in vogue because you've actually got to learn that college is going to be back to sort of learning what information.
- [31:48]
Powers AI and that that's the way a student has to understand what college is and whether a college can successfully wean students off of using AI to learn sort of essentially the core information. Before AI got ahold of it, I thought it was an interesting thesis. I am curious over the next decade.
- [32:12]
What people think college is supposed to be for them.
- [32:15]
Dan Le Batard
I can't even imagine. And it wasn't talking to some people. I'm going to say fairly recently that I realized that you could get through college just typing things, having papers done for you.
- [32:30]
Chuck Todd
You know what's happening now. A lot of people are picking up scam MBAs.
- [32:34]
Dan Le Batard
I imagine you could cheat your way.
- [32:36]
Chuck Todd
Through college pretty easily and especially if you're doing an online course. Right. And more professors are trying to figure out how to. How to sort of either prevent or you embrace it. Okay, use AI for this and tell me why this or something like that. But there's. Yeah, the next few years are gonna have a lot of the scam. Scam degrees out there.
- [32:59]
Dan Le Batard
So you were a drum major?
- [33:01]
Chuck Todd
I was the drum major. Miami Killian.
- [33:03]
Dan Le Batard
So you're at Miami Killian. And this is for how long? Thinking at this time you're gonna go into politics or you still don't have that bug yet?
- [33:12]
Chuck Todd
Oh, I thought I was. So I was a French horn player. I was pretty good. I did all the. I had all the.
- [33:22]
When magnet schools first became a thing in Dade County, I went to a music magnet school for middle school. We called them junior highs. Remember, back then? And so I played the French horn because my father played the French horn. And he said, he goes, you can be a trumpet player and be really good and not get a music scholarship. You can be a good French horn player. Not great. And get a music scholarship, because not as many kids play the French horn.
- [33:48]
So there was a time I thought I was gonna. But I wanted to be a performer. And then I realized I was never gonna be good enough. And there's this moment as a musician where I think, you know, you know, and I'll never forget, I was in a state, sort of one of those. I was playing horn next to this other guy who was not as proficient as I was. I was technically better, but he made a better sound. And you're just like. You know that you can learn everything about an instrument, but can you make just like a singer? You just know you can carry a tune, but can you fill the room? And I remember the moment, I'm like, oh, if I pursue this, then I'm going to be eventually teaching music. And while I loved all of my music teachers and I one time said this the wrong way, and I got a whole bunch of shit. Sorry for the. Apologies for saying that, but I was like, I didn't want to be a band director. I loved my band directors. I didn't want to be one. That's just not what I wanted to do. And that was. I realized that was where I was going. I was like, no. So at that point, that's when I pivoted. I probably would have gone to either Florida State or Miami, pursuing music, pursuing that as a profession. And instead, my dad dies, and I decided to take a turn, apply to just schools in D.C. that would allow me to major in music so that I at least could pay for school.
- [35:09]
Dan Le Batard
Were you running away, like, when you say you ended up there? Were you trying to get away from the feeling of whatever it is, was drowning here?
- [35:18]
Chuck Todd
I didn't think of it that way. I remember I had a chance to go, so I accept to go to gw. They offer me a little extra money so I suddenly can. Can afford it. And I had a French horn professor that was working at the University of Miami, and he was like, I think you can get a full scholarship here if you want to go, and then you can live at home. And I remember going to my mother, and it was my mother who said, no, you should leave. You shouldn't feel. And I give her A lot of credit for that. She didn't have to say that. She could have. Many a mother would have literally said, oh, you get to stay here and get a full scholarship at the University of Miami. Why don't you stay? And so she was very encouraging of going. And obviously she was right.
- [36:01]
Dan Le Batard
What was their relationship with work, your parents, what do you remember of how they worked?
- [36:07]
Chuck Todd
So my parents were really, I will say this, and.
- [36:13]
I don't know what would have happened to their relationship if I moved after I left for college. That's always something you don't know as a kid, but you always wondered, I don't know if they stayed for me, but I always felt as if I was each of their best friends.
- [36:31]
So I don't know. My mother worked all the time. My mother worked two jobs. She worked, remember Midway Mall. She was the marketing director there during the day and then she worked at a hosiery store called Park Lane at night. As a kid I used to go to school then I'd basically do my homework in the back room of the Dadeland Mall, Park Lane. And you know, I was a kid, sort of raised at malls. That was my babysitter. But all I remember, my mother worked all the time. My father never could sort of hold a good career. He was this really smart guy who, he just had a crappy father. That was my father's problem. My grandfather was screwed up. My father, there's a long story that I'm not going to get into. It's not worth it. But, but my father in some ways had all the privileges in the world, but then had an absentee father who. And an alcoholic mother.
- [37:24]
Dan Le Batard
Do you think that you had something close to the career that he would have wanted, where his passions were?
- [37:32]
Chuck Todd
Yes. Yeah, this is what I think he, I think he, you know, his favorite, his favorite person was George Will. Like that was like, you know, or you know, and back then still like that was, you know, who he read and all. So he, I think he would have.
- [37:47]
It's a bummer. He doesn't know what I do. Of course, both my wife and I fathers died some 30 years ago. Neither of us want. We've had the conversation. What do you think they would have thought of Trump.
- [38:06]
Back then? I knew what he thought of Trump. That version of Trump he thought was a joke. But man, I've watched so many 70 year olds become pro Trump that I don't know what that answer would have been had he lived today.
- [38:20]
Dan Le Batard
But the choice of politics, like he would have been wildly proud of you?
- [38:25]
Chuck Todd
I think so. 100%. 100%. I think he would have been absolutely tickled, but I don't know if I would have pursued it if he were alive.
- [38:35]
Dan Le Batard
So take me through that. And you sort of did already.
- [38:39]
Chuck Todd
Yeah, I just don't know. I don't know if I would have.
- [38:42]
Dan Le Batard
Like, what? How do you think? So you think you just stay here longer?
- [38:46]
Chuck Todd
I don't know. Maybe. Or maybe I work in politics because that was something I thought I wanted to do at first. I never thought I wanted to be a journalist. I always thought I wanted to work in politics. Wanted to run a presidential campaign, wanted to do that. Never wanted to run for office, but always wanted to work in politics. And I had, I got. I worked on an early campaign in college and then just got this internship with the Hotline and thought, that's more fun, that it's more fun to report on both sides than to throw yourself in on one side.
- [39:15]
Dan Le Batard
What do you remember about the emotions of doing Meet the Press for the first time or getting the job or any of the high point emotions on, like, how the hell did I get here at this seminal American program whose legacy I must now protect?
- [39:35]
Chuck Todd
It was not an aspiration. Never thought of it until Tim Russer died. And then somebody said, well, why don't you do the show? I said, what are you talking about? I said, I didn't. You know.
- [39:49]
And then, you know, now it's. I still feel in a. Huh. I'm one of 12 people have done that. And it's the longest running show on earth. Continuous weekly television show. No other one. Right. So no matter what you say in the history of television, it has stood the test of time.
- [40:10]
So, yeah, I am prouder of it. The further I get away from it. When you're in it in the moment, you both feel a little bit of poser complex. You're like, do I belong here? And all this stuff. And I will say it took me and I'm, you know, and I. And I remind this of Kristen Welker, who I'm very close with. Like, there'll be a moment where you realize you really own the show, but it takes a few years. Like, I still felt like I was house sitting for a while, and then there's just a moment when it's, you know, when all of a sudden you realize it's your show, it's your credibility on the line. And that's an empowering moment when you realize it.
- [40:52]
Dan Le Batard
What an interesting place for the performer in you to end up, though.
- [40:55]
Chuck Todd
Well, it's funny, I never was a great performer. And I now wish I could go back and redo my French horn career because I think I'd be better at it. Because I used to get super nervous doing solos and it wouldn't be my best performance. And I always thought, which is probably why I always thought of myself as a behind the scenes person. And then all of a sudden.
- [41:21]
You realize this stuff's not that hard.
- [41:24]
Dan Le Batard
Well, it is hard if you strangle art with things like thought and nerves. Like, you got to let it fly, right? You've got to like, the kid next to you making that beautiful sound. Probably wasn't strangling whatever it is he was doing with desire or want or no.
- [41:39]
Chuck Todd
And for all I know, he never pursued it as a profession, but he made a much better sound than I ever could have. And I remember thinking, huh, that'll get you in first chair in the New York Philharmonic. That ain't gonna get me first or second chair.
- [41:53]
Dan Le Batard
What an unbelievable moment of clarity, though. Crushing, but.
- [41:56]
Chuck Todd
Oh, it was crushing, but it was.
- [41:57]
Dan Le Batard
Like, what self awareness to be like, okay, better than me. I'm not even gonna be able to try and work my way into bed. No.
- [42:04]
Chuck Todd
And I had a professor at gw, which GW had a great system because they worked with the National Symphony. And those guys, being a professional musician, you don't make a ton of money. And I remember, like, so here this guy was in the National Symphony, one of the five big ones, full time job, it's a union job. He had to teach on the side in order to support his family of four kids. And so they were the GW so hero. And he would sit there and say, you know, you're technically as good as I am. I said, I know, I just don't produce as good of a sound. And it was just one of those where, you know, and I did. I felt very much like I had mastered the instrument. But there is a reason certain. You know, you sit there and you'll see, like, there'll be better musicians who are not as good of performers. Because whatever it is, there's an it, and we all know it in a lot of things in life and in music, whatever it is that the sound you make, you can't teach that. You can teach how to breathe and you can sort of teach how to fill up your. You know, as much as you can fill up. But if you don't have that, whatever that is, it's not gonna happen.
- [43:22]
Dan Le Batard
So the first couple of years of Meet the Press are just babysitting and sprinting on a treadmill. It's not a reflection of filming because it's.
- [43:31]
Chuck Todd
You know, it's funny. I had a new. I was the pick of a new network president. So then all of a sudden you've been through a network when they change leaders and the new leaders have their people.
- [43:47]
So all of a sudden I'll just say the first year or two, I felt like I was competing to produce my own show. I had a lot of producers, and that's what happens for anybody in the first year or two of anything. You have to take, and you have to take notes from a whole bunch of people. I'm sure when you did the first time you anchored a show on espn, you felt like you had accept a lot of notes from. From executives, that maybe today you'd be like, I appreciate it.
- [44:15]
Dan Le Batard
Well, my. My experience was different. That wasn't quite at espn, although what you're saying about a change in leadership certainly resonates with me. But for me, it came earlier than that. For me, that stuff was more when it is that I was learning. By the time I was choosing espn, I was choosing it on my own terms.
- [44:32]
Chuck Todd
So you. As if your formative years and understanding relationships with executives and when something's yours or not happened locally.
- [44:40]
Dan Le Batard
Yes, because I was always trying to please sort of sports editors and father figures. And that's what I was doing. I was really eager to please.
- [44:51]
Journalistic entities that mattered to me more than television. I didn't really respect the tv.
- [44:56]
Chuck Todd
Who were you trying to. Oh, neither did I when I went into it. I didn't respect the tv.
- [44:59]
Dan Le Batard
Oh, but you were on a different thing, right? I'm doing a show with my father. I'm doing like this radio show. That is a silly thing that ESPN has welcomed in because it's different. And it wasn't upon getting there that I got the nerves. It was just sort of. I got a lot of notes. I remember one time doing ESPN radio in my 20s. It's Sunday morning, it's 7am I assume no one's listening. And the president of ESPN calls my producer, who I lost for the rest of the show, just screaming about something that I was about to talk about, saying, do not talk about that. Then I ended up getting into an argument with him after that show because the people I respected were newspaper like they were not television.
- [45:43]
Chuck Todd
Who do you try to please today? Who? When somebody.
- [45:46]
Dan Le Batard
My wife. My wife. I spend all my time trying to please my wife.
- [45:49]
Chuck Todd
No, but like as a performer. So If a.
- [45:54]
Is there somebody out there that. If they say, boy, that was a really good segment. That matters to you.
- [46:00]
Dan Le Batard
Man. That's a good question. Because my standard was formed in writing, and so.
- [46:08]
Because I'm so hard on myself and because writing is so lonely, generally speaking, if I meet my standard, I'm pretty sure it's going to meet the standard of others in writing. Okay. This other stuff is more subjective, but it's also the thing I chose because writing was hard and lonely and was a bit of a suffering to get to that fulfillment. And I wanted something that was more communal, had more laughter in it. I was choosing the. The last 20 years of my career were basically choosing. I need something that's a little bit more fun.
- [46:39]
Chuck Todd
Do you miss a column, though?
- [46:41]
Dan Le Batard
I miss the fulfillment of it because what you just asked me about, like, who do you need to hear from? That was a good segment. Like, all of this is cotton candy. It's not.
- [46:51]
Chuck Todd
I've always felt all audio and visuals. I feel the same way. I chose to start writing a weekly again on a substack, and I'm not charging. I'm not doing anything, and I'm literally just doing it to get that habit back. Do you write?
- [47:07]
Dan Le Batard
I am doing an assortment of things right now to open up the portal to the ability to write a book, which has been my greatest. It's my last professional conquering that has been the biggest of the demons, because I'm scared to go back into the hole of how I wrote, which was obsessive compulsive. It's a very meticulous sculpting. I don't let it flow. I'm. I'm mercilessly editing as I go, which just becomes a story.
- [47:34]
Chuck Todd
I admire that you care still to write a book. Do you think people want books?
- [47:40]
Dan Le Batard
Oh, I wouldn't be writing it for others, though.
- [47:42]
Chuck Todd
No. I know that.
- [47:43]
Dan Le Batard
I feel.
- [47:44]
Chuck Todd
Don't do it for anybody else.
- [47:45]
Dan Le Batard
No, it's something that. I mean, I don't have kids. And not only do I not have kids, my little brother didn't have kids. So whatever's left of my Cuban heritage, whatever's left of what my family did with this story, if I don't write it. So you want to write that story? Well, just the whole thing.
- [48:06]
I have been doing an assortment of very vigorous exercises. I won't bore you with the details and tapping into portions of, like, sciences and stuff that I don't have any understanding of to lubricate whatever it is that's inside of me. That hasn't let this flow more freely. That would be less constipated, less lonely. That would be a joy instead of a suffering. I can't do it if I'm. I can't choose it if all. All it's going to be is suffering. I have to. And with the goal of, oh, it'll be really fulfilling after you've done it.
- [48:41]
Chuck Todd
Because, you know, what's interesting about you is that you would have, I think, transitioned really well to being sort of more of a general columnist, doing sort of like a hybrid of what you did and what Hiaasen would do at his peak at the Herald and sort of dabbling both in culture, politics, sports.
- [49:03]
Dan Le Batard
Do you.
- [49:04]
Chuck Todd
Do you. If you had the opportunity to do that, would you.
- [49:07]
Dan Le Batard
That's an easier form of writing for me. Right. Like bite sized writing, when I think of it.
- [49:12]
Chuck Todd
Six to 800 words.
- [49:14]
Dan Le Batard
The reason that a book is so formidable, like the things that were most painstaking for me were magazine features where someone else was trusting me with their story. And now I want to hold that as the treasure of vulnerability that it is. So I'm thinking magazine pieces. 3,000 words, 5,000 words, 7,000 words. When you think of a book that way, you feel like you're at the foot of Mount.
- [49:35]
Chuck Todd
Every chapter is 5,000.
- [49:36]
Dan Le Batard
Mount Everest. Right. Everything is that. So I have been working to try and unlock that. But no, to do a. The work I'm presently doing has me doing that writing for myself in bite sized chunks to make it all more manageable. So I'm doing that. I'm just not doing that in a newspaper column because I don't even know who's reading that.
- [50:00]
Chuck Todd
Well, that's true. But it's funny, I hear all this stuff about, oh, influencers of the future. I said, you mean columnists? Today's. I mean, I would argue that everybody always had an influencer in their life, but we used to call them columnists. Yeah, those. Royko was an influencer.
- [50:18]
Dan Le Batard
I mean, those are the people. Jimmy Breslin, those are the people. I grew up here.
- [50:22]
Chuck Todd
We had Dave Barry and Carl Hiason. You know, we had Ed Pope in the paper. I mean, those were influencers.
- [50:30]
My father was obsessed with Louis Rukeyser. That came on before the Muppets, so I used to have to watch that before we watched the Muppets.
- [50:38]
Dan Le Batard
Well, the columnist learning is the formation of just about everything that I do, like the reporting and whatever it is, the barometer for what's interesting to others.
- [50:49]
Chuck Todd
Well, who became pretty good at talk Radio columnists who became good at podcasts, talk radio. I mean, it's all derivative of the original. Hot take was the newspaper editor.
- [51:02]
Dan Le Batard
Where are your biases?
- [51:06]
Objectivity is a human illusion. We can aspire.
- [51:09]
Chuck Todd
I always say we're born with original bias. Where are you born, who you're born, all that stuff. So what does that mean? What are my biases journalistically?
- [51:19]
Dan Le Batard
When you were trying to do the job, NBC and MSNBC got dismissed as liberal. Wherever it is that the country went. You are fact based. I think of you as fact based.
- [51:32]
Chuck Todd
But most people who are peacock created a branding fair or unfair of left of center right. I've always said I'm an incrementalist. I'm probably. I'm gonna do a name drop here. So apologies for the humble brag, but Bono called me a radical centrist.
- [51:52]
Dan Le Batard
Oh, hold on a second.
- [51:53]
Chuck Todd
Look at me, Louis.
- [51:57]
Bono called me a radical centrist. And I said, is that meant to be a compliment? He goes, I'm not sure. I said, well, I appreciate it.
- [52:05]
Meaning. But what that really means is I do believe that if you're going to govern for 350 million people, you gotta do it in baby steps. And that if you look at our history, it's actually, you have to go a little bit at a time. You try to jump too far ahead, the backlash becomes worse. So there is a. Our history shows that incrementalism ends up actually eventually creating hockey stick moments culturally. But I always viewed that my job was to.
- [52:36]
I viewed Meet the Press as the sort of. The same sort of mindset that Lawrence Spivak used to say, which is you just try to take the other side of whoever you're in interviewing because you want to find out how well do they know their own topic. And if you. So I viewed myself as always trying to be devil's advocate questioner. What's interesting is how over time, the questions I asked made people think that that was my politics. And we lost this. Journalists lost where? And this is where social media created the illusion that we were somehow taking sides. When I would argue most of us on the Sunday shows at least, were simply doing the devil's advocate mindset of questioning. And to me, the viewers that got it, got it. But partisans weaponize that to try to discredit us in our attempts at being accountability. But I used to say that that was Meet. There's a Meet the Press type interview. But I would never do that interview as a podcast, because I think a podcast, even this. These are intimate decisions. People are choosing to listen to you. And you're inside their head. Literally, we are inside their head. Don't stress them out. If you stress them out, they're not going to listen to you. And there's a way to get. I do think that, I mean, I think Trump's a great example of this. I think the mistake. I look back at all my Trump interviews and the ones that were the most effective were the ones where I gave them rope, the ones that were least effective, or were the ones where I was trying to be Mr. Accountability. Absolutely. And there's something to be said for always handing people rope that 9 times out of 10, you'll learn more than if you try to whack them.
- [54:23]
Dan Le Batard
You were criticized for talking too much during one of the Democratic debates. Right. Like you were sort of hosting, but you talked more than the primary candidates or. No.
- [54:35]
Chuck Todd
Well, I guess because we are 10 on stage and I had to play the effing traffic cop. So, no, I resent the production of that debate to this day. We had to do back to back debates two nights in a row here. It was actually in Miami, 10 candidates.
- [54:53]
And.
- [54:55]
That was one of. I'm not going to get into too much of the politics behind the scenes there, but.
- [55:02]
I was the one that wasn't afraid to offend the viewer on questions. And there were other people I was co moderating with who would refuse to ask certain questions because they didn't want to be associated with asking a question like that. So I had to, basically I was, I had to ask all the hard questions.
- [55:20]
Dan Le Batard
What are you proudest of in terms of how you did your job? Like, when you look back over the.
- [55:27]
Chuck Todd
Last 20 years, the simplest thing, somehow I have not been canceled in the Trump era. I take that as a. That was not an easy turns out, that's not an easy feat. And I feel like I haven't lost my way. I didn't go down some partisan rabbit hole. I didn't end up some sleaze bag. So I guess I look at it that I, I feel like over time I navigated it as well as, as could be navigated in the situation that we were in. So.
- [55:58]
And I do think that.
- [56:04]
I do think that what we did at Meet the Press sort of did more to push things forward and give a better understanding of what was happening than others. But that's my bias.
- [56:16]
Dan Le Batard
Did relationships or the relationships you have get in the way of being able to do the Meet the press job 100% as objectively and again, I'm saying objectively Creativity is a human illusion.
- [56:29]
Chuck Todd
No, no, no.
- [56:32]
Here's where.
- [56:34]
Every once in a while you'd say to yourself, all right, is this question worth asking for the grief it's going to cause?
- [56:44]
And I wish I had a better example of that. Nine times out of 10, I went ahead and asked the question.
- [56:54]
But there would be. All right, I'm not. No, I'm not going to get into that. I don't need a social media firestorm. I don't need to be the center of attention. So there would be times I might pull a punch because I knew that it would be about me rather than about the topic, which bothers me. And in fact, that's when I knew it was time for me to leave Meet the Press. I'll tell you the moment it happened. James Comer, Mr. House Oversight Guy, now.
- [57:28]
Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, one of them did a story about how James Comer was suddenly doing the mainstream media shows. This was 22, 23. And he said, yeah, I did Chuck Todd. And I got a lot of grief in my district. And I'm like, you didn't do Chuck Todd. You did Meet the Press.
- [57:48]
And that's when I realized I can't be. It can't be Chuck Todd's Meet the Press. I've always viewed it. It has to be Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. And unfortunately, I do think we've personalized all media so much, nobody calls it the NBC Nightly News. It was Brian Williams, or it was Tom Brokaw. It was Lester Holt. Now it's Tom Yamis. Right. Or it's David Muir. We personalized this where I still thought I was a custodian to an institution. So under that definition, I did say to myself, well, what. There were things I wouldn't say because the host of Meet the Press can't say that. That's what I mean when I say I'm liberated now. I feel like, okay, I can say this now because I didn't want it to reflect. On Meet the Press, you viewed yourself.
- [58:38]
Dan Le Batard
As a caretaker and a curator.
- [58:40]
Chuck Todd
Correct? That's 100% true.
- [58:42]
Dan Le Batard
And you came up. Almost everything you learned was about don't make yourself the story.
- [58:48]
Chuck Todd
Correct. I mean, this was our generation. I would argue this is what journalism. No, don't insert yourself into the story. Now, look at this woman, Olivia Newsey, who's writing about falling in love with RFK Jr and this is now being seen as, oh, she's having a moment. And she's. Now, now, I would never hire her to Be a journalist at any news organization I ran. She already proved that she's going to fall in love with her potential subjects. I say that she should be able to make a living, God bless her. And the definition of journalist is whatever anybody wants to be at these days. I'm not going to sit here and say otherwise, but.
- [59:32]
If you can't, if you can't separate yourself from that, then you probably need to become an activist and not a journalist. If you told me you wanted to go work for rfk, fine, then go work for him. But don't use the credibility of journalism because you'll end up hurting everybody.
- [59:49]
Dan Le Batard
I'm surprised, given your credentials here that you're not comfortable telling anyone else how to be a journalist when I can hear the disgust in your voice as it's not journalist.
- [59:59]
Chuck Todd
Because I go, I've thought about this and it's like I am sensitive to, I'm a middle aged white guy giving you my take on how it should work. I also believe that there is a spectrum of journalism. I'm not going to participate in activist journalism, but sometimes activist journalism gets results. I'm not a big fan of access journalism, but how do you become a beat writer in a sports room without access? So I can't sit here and tell you, never do access journalism. That's why I'm being a little bit, that's why I'm a little. I'm both. Do I think I have more credibility of how to build a newsroom? Yeah, I do. I think I'd be better at it than just about anybody else on the planet that I have self confidence about. But I'm not going to sit here and say her type. I'm just saying I wouldn't hire her in a news organization that I work at.
- [60:53]
Dan Le Batard
What do you believe is the fairest criticism of how you did meet the Press? Like the criticism that someone you respect you took to heart because you're like, yeah, that person knows what they're talking about. And that seems like a fair appraisal.
- [61:12]
Chuck Todd
That.
- [61:15]
We sometimes pursue the headline in the 24 hour news cycle rather than that. And this was the pressure I felt from executives too, right. How many headlines did your interview generate? And the Sunday shows always were measured on that. And so you end up feeling as if, well, I've got to ask these questions because I know they'll make news when it undermines. What could have been a better interview if I'd have gone down?
- [61:44]
So that to me would be the sort of always asking about what are you Running for next. Or are you doing this where it was more about just getting a quick news headline?
- [61:56]
Dan Le Batard
Well, but you also have to keep up in a changing technological age with something that's a bit of a library, a museum.
- [62:02]
Chuck Todd
Correct. And I think that. That it used to be I had an executive say, don't treat Meet the Press like a. Either. Right. And so. But I think that was. I.
- [62:14]
You know, it's funny, the reason I love podcast interviews is because they're an hour. I always do an hour, 45 minutes to an hour.
- [62:25]
My favorite Meet the Press interviews were the ones that went 30 minutes or more. I think I did 10 of those total because it. Because what the viewers told us. And we'd sit there, I'd get the. The minute by minutes. You ever seen minute by minute, and you see these. No, see, but you would get them because an executive would want to show them, and you would find out, and you would see people leaving after minute 9 or minute 10 with certain people.
- [62:47]
Dan Le Batard
Contaminant for that particular.
- [62:49]
Chuck Todd
And the executive producer would sit there and say, well, when we book so and so, we can't go more than eight to 10 minutes. And you're just like, that was the part where.
- [63:01]
And here's the thing. Ad rates are set. Buy rate. I mean, it does matter to the. Like, you have to be aware of the bottom line. I'm not afraid of business. That is something that I've always. And it's what I think gave me an advantage, why I was more willing. And in fact, I always wanted more say over the business side of Meet the Press, not less. And I used to fight for it because I didn't, you know, I'm not bothered by underwriters. Look, I did my. I did all the history of television news in the 1956 NBC conventions. There's a logo for Union 76 on the table. I'm like, you want to put Boeing's logo on my desk? If you give me 15 extra minutes of show, I'll do that. That doesn't bother me. Boeing's already advertising. That doesn't mean I'm building airplanes. So I was, you know, I don't mind. I understand the business side, but I would like to have it. Can't we find a way that actually creates better content? So if you can give me, like, I'm a huge fan of the underwriter model so that, hey, you're gonna buy extra ad. I don't have to have five commercial breaks. I can only have to have two because you're underwriting the whole show. It means I get to have longer segments. Everybody wins.
- [64:10]
Dan Le Batard
You have seen or you just said that your obituary will have Meet the Press on top. Is it what you're proudest of professionally, or is there something else along the path that you're prouder of than that?
- [64:26]
Chuck Todd
I mean, you know, I think some of my personal.
- [64:29]
I'm proud of helping to build the hotline, but it's not what it was. I'm a founder of. You ever heard of Sports Business Journal?
- [64:36]
Dan Le Batard
Yeah, sure.
- [64:37]
Chuck Todd
I'm a founder of that. I was Sports Business Daily, so. But no, I mean, Meet the Press is. You know, please. It opens, and.
- [64:47]
It opens doors that you don't realize it opens. You didn't know there were doors available to you until. You do that in different walks of life. And I'm experiencing that now. The opportunities that I have as an independent journalist are because of that. So, no, it deserves to be in my lead. I'm not going to. Assuming I don't do anything outrageous or something.
- [65:09]
Dan Le Batard
Tell me about your gambling.
- [65:12]
Chuck Todd
I don't know. I'm just a. I'm just a sports gambler, but.
- [65:14]
Dan Le Batard
So when did it start? How did it start? Tell me the backstory. You must miss the dirty days of gambling when it wasn't quite so normalized and you had to go meet your book.
- [65:23]
Chuck Todd
So I never had a bookie.
- [65:24]
Dan Le Batard
Walmart?
- [65:25]
Chuck Todd
No, I never had a bookie. I was an early. I had an account. My first. I mean, I do pools and stuff, but my first gambling account was one of those Caribbean countries. It was called Intertops. I think they're still around today. But I opened that sucker in 99 the minute a friend of mine told me about it. But my first gambling memory was my mother had a childhood friend, the parent of a childhood friend. His name was Manny. And it's always a guy named Manny that's gonna introduce you to gambling.
- [65:56]
Dan Le Batard
Especially in Miami, right? There's always a Manny or Armando, maybe Armando, but Manny.
- [66:01]
Chuck Todd
If your bookie's named Manny, then you have a good bookie, right? And I'm like 8 or 9 at the time. And, you know, this is. And he would call me up. I was at some, like, Thanksgiving dinner, and he. And we were talking football, and he was like, oh, you were watching that game. I was sort of a college football fanatic. And I'm like, yeah, I think so and so's going to win or something like this. Anyway, he apparently tailed me and he won a bunch of money. So during bowl season, he calls up our house and he had never called up our house before, and he says. And he wants to talk to me to get my take on his picks for the bowl game.
- [66:33]
Dan Le Batard
You're eight or nine years old.
- [66:35]
Chuck Todd
Yeah. No, we were.
- [66:36]
Dan Le Batard
What were you doing? What was happening? Not even. I. I mean, I wasn't in my we.
- [66:41]
Chuck Todd
I. I mean, I just loved all sports.
- [66:44]
Dan Le Batard
I was reading Bill James Abstracts when I was 12 or 13.
- [66:47]
Chuck Todd
I was into the lines. I was into the lines. And my father would play that off. He wasn't a gambler, but I just enjoyed the math part of it. You know, hey, can so and so win by six and a half, whatever it was. So I always took to it pretty quickly. But, yeah, I just, you know, God bless it. Now, I, as a gambler would say, I don't think we should have player props. I think all player props. I think it's too corruptible. And I say this, and I've thought about this.
- [67:22]
If you're a young athlete making a lot of money and you've got some friends who need a couple of bucks.
- [67:27]
Dan Le Batard
Well, that's what's happening.
- [67:28]
Chuck Todd
And you can help them out.
- [67:29]
Dan Le Batard
That's what's happening.
- [67:30]
Chuck Todd
I'm not. I. You know, it's sort of like, you know, the plot line to Les Mis. You gonna steal a loaf of bread to feed your kids? Are you gonna help? You know, it isn't as morally clear as you think.
- [67:42]
Dan Le Batard
That's what's happening with basketball guys. That's what's happening with the Dominican baseball players.
- [67:47]
Chuck Todd
So don't put them in that situation.
- [67:50]
And obviously, you know, so. So look, I think you got to get rid of the player props, especially college Charlie Baker. I was interviewing him, the NCAA president, and he said, they got it. Because he said, here's the problem he can't weed out. It's not the players. It's the students who have no connection to the program, who serve as spies and basically get paid for tips. No different than TMZ pays people for tips to find out what celebrities having dinner somewhere so they can bring a camera. Oh, or an emt. Hey, I just had to go to. And you get paid for that tip by tmz? Well, you get paid for these gambling syndicates want people on these different campuses regardless of whether they're connect. Hey, can you find out which quarterback's dressed on Wednesday for practice or Thursday? And you find out that information. So that's the part he's struggling. How do you. How do you police that?
- [68:47]
Dan Le Batard
Well, you gave me the macro on your opinions on Gambling and sports. But you didn't give me any of the juicy stuff. I mean, you started at 8 or 9 years old and you've been gambling and you're risk averse, but you've been gambling for a while. So clearly this is something that calls you and you're interested in the.
- [69:05]
Chuck Todd
I'll be honest, I'm only Gamble football.
- [69:08]
Dan Le Batard
And tell me something about like, how you do that, like how long you've been doing it and what are the ones that hurt, the memorable ones that hu. Hurt that you.
- [69:16]
Chuck Todd
I don't. Well, because I weirdly, I enjoy the gambling, but I'm weirdly risk averse. So I never gamble more than a $200 a game now. Used to be even less than that when. When I didn't work at Meet the Press, and I'll just leave it at that.
- [69:34]
But no, I wish I don't have.
- [69:37]
Dan Le Batard
You don't have a bad. A legendary bad bead story you don't have.
- [69:40]
Shopify Ad Voice
Sure.
- [69:41]
Chuck Todd
But I'm like one of those. I've done so many. You know, the bad beats are memorable, but you know, you never forget the other stuff. I will say this. I never gamble on Miami games because I don't want to be doubly disappointed.
- [69:55]
Dan Le Batard
Really.
- [69:55]
Chuck Todd
Okay. I never gamble on Hurricane games and I refuse to do it. Will never do it, no matter how tempting, no matter how confident I am and how poorly our coach will cover spreads or anything like that. But I won't gamble on my. I wish I had. I just love it.
- [70:11]
Dan Le Batard
That's the only one, though. That's your only sacred cow, the University of Miami? The only one, yeah.
- [70:17]
Chuck Todd
The only sacred cow.
- [70:18]
Dan Le Batard
What do you remember about watching the 1988 World Series?
- [70:22]
Chuck Todd
Oh, I must have told that story. So that's the year my dad died. And I grew up a Dodger fan because we didn't have baseball. So my dad was a Dodger fan. Therefore I was a Dodger fan. In fact, we got the Miami News. Do you know why we got the Miami News in addition to the Miami Herald?
- [70:39]
Dan Le Batard
I don't.
- [70:40]
Chuck Todd
West coast box score. The only way you could get a.
- [70:42]
Dan Le Batard
West coast box store, it was the afternoon newspaper.
- [70:44]
Chuck Todd
It was the afternoon newspaper. And I think we were like the only people in our neighborhood, which is why it didn't last for, you know, eventually.
- [70:51]
Dan Le Batard
Yeah. No, the poor Miami Tom Archdeacon struggled even though they had some great writers.
- [70:56]
Chuck Todd
I was. I had. I remember when they. When they went out of business, I was literally had just signed up to be a delivery boy because it was an after School job that you could do.
- [71:06]
For the Miami News.
- [71:09]
And my dad was in and out of the hospital. So he was in ICU for 52 straight days, but he would be in and out of the hospital the first, that whole 88. So he made a deal with his doctor. Every Saturday, every Friday he got released so he could watch the Hurricane football games on Saturday. And that year, that's the year after the national title year, there was a Michigan game where Miami has to make a fascinating. An amazing fourth quarter comeback.
- [71:39]
The infamous Notre Dame game.
- [71:40]
Dan Le Batard
Oh, wow, that's the Jimmy Johnson game. That's the game at Michigan. Yes. And then the Notre Dame game.
- [71:46]
Chuck Todd
The Notre Dame game.
- [71:47]
Dan Le Batard
Cleveland Gary Fumble.
- [71:48]
Chuck Todd
The Cleveland Gary Fumble in air quotes.
- [71:56]
And then we were Dodger fans. And then somehow the Dodgers got in the World Series. And.
- [72:02]
I would go. He was on a breathing tube, but I would go to watch.
- [72:08]
The last two games. I didn't see that. I was at a high school football game because I was a junior in college, a junior in high school, and I was in the band, so we had to perform. And what I'll never forget about that is we were at Tropical Park. And over the speakers in game one of that series.
- [72:27]
They go. Miami native Jose Canseco hits a grand slam in the World Series. And the crowd goes crazy because we're playing Southwest High, which is where Conseco went. So. And I'm like all bummed out. Oh, man, that's a bummer. And then listen to the. To the thing on the way. But I. To watch, that was sort of a. It's a good memory. I didn't see the Gibson home run with him, but I was able to watch the rest of the game with him in the hospital room.
- [72:54]
Dan Le Batard
So that's the. That was the Hershey World Tour.
- [72:57]
Chuck Todd
Yeah, it's a Hershey World Tour.
- [72:58]
Dan Le Batard
He was just.
- [73:00]
Chuck Todd
In fact, they were showing when. That, When Yamamoto was pitching, going 3, 0. The last guys who went. Well, he didn't have to go 3 and O because they pitched in 5. They got that series done in 5. But it was like not since Hershiser, I think, had a Dodger done that much.
- [73:16]
Dan Le Batard
So the sports fandom begins with a connection with your father.
- [73:21]
Chuck Todd
Yeah, yeah.
- [73:22]
Dan Le Batard
As does politics.
- [73:24]
Chuck Todd
Look, I was. It is. It is. And my mother becomes a sports fan because in order to have conversations with her son, Chuck.
- [73:33]
Dan Le Batard
Thank you. Appreciate the work. Appreciate the time. The Chuck Toddcast is where it is. You get all that he's doing now. As a fiercely independent journalist, happy to have you around Hope you're around more. Hope you participate. We can learn some things from you on our show. So if you want to, I'm happy.
- [73:50]
Chuck Todd
To do bad chili cook off for you too, too. All right, Cody.
- [73:53]
Dan Le Batard
Okay. The Chuck Todd cast. Check it out. He is doing good work. Has been doing good work for a long time. Thank you, Chuck.
- [73:59]
Chuck Todd
Thanks, Dan.
- [74:10]
Tony (Miller Lite Ad Voice)
Tony, my guy. It's that time of year.
- [74:12]
Chuck Todd
It's the holidays.
- [74:13]
Tony (Miller Lite Ad Voice)
The holidays are here, dude. I. I was just the other day with my dad, we were talking about what we're gonna do for the holidays, and you know what?
- [74:18]
Chuck Todd
Know what?
- [74:18]
Tony (Miller Lite Ad Voice)
Even in the planning of our holidays, you know what we did? We cracked open a nice, cold Miller Light. Whether it's the can, whether I'm at a restaurant and I get that draft with the nice. The golden color and the nice little head at the top. Oh, my God. All right, now I want to leave this ad read in the middle and go share a Miller Light with my boy.
- [74:35]
Chuck Todd
Dude, can we do that? All right, let's go right now.
- [74:36]
Tony (Miller Lite Ad Voice)
All right, we're leaving. All right, we'll finish this and we'll do it. Miller Light. It just fits. It's the taste you can depend on. Brewed for flavor. Simple ingredients that multiple melted barley. The rich balanced coffee. Notes that dude. The iconic, iconic golden color. And at 96 calories and 3.2 cards for 12 ounces, it lets you enjoy the season without weighing you down. The original light beer since 1975. Still hitting different 50 years later. You look great, Miller. Like, you don't look a day over 30. Hey, the best holiday beers are the ones you don't expect. Miller Lake. Great taste. 96 calories. Go to millerlight.com beach to find delivery options near you. Or you can pick up some Miller Light pretty much anywhere they sell beer. Tis Miller time. See what I did there?
- [75:12]
Chuck Todd
Holiday cheer.
- [75:13]
Tony (Miller Lite Ad Voice)
Celebrate responsibly. Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 96 calories and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. That's right.