Welcome to the show. Thank you for joining us.
From your point of view, as somebody who has to watch this
and-and report on it every single day,
where do you see the shutdown ending?
I actually believe it might actually end this weekend.
I think there's an actual real chance
that it looks like the president is finally realizing
he's not gonna get his way.
Uh, I think he's finally seeing...
I mean, that was the whole point of these Senate votes.
-Show him... It was a bit of show-and-tell. -Right.
Um, some presidents need show-and-tell on that front.
(laughter)
I-I don't know what you're talking about. Um...
-And so, they showed him. -Right.
And they showed him that, "Oh, look. The Democratic bill
-got more Republican votes than your bill." -Wow.
Um, so, it's clear to me, he's looking for an exit ramp.
They're all... They want out of this.
-Everybody wants out of this in Washington. -Yes.
And I actually think that that may be by the weekend.
I actually think this thing could open up.
Is-is it true that you were at the White House
when he gave that address to the country?
-That prime-time address? -He hosted a bunch of us
for lunch, uh, uh, pro... beforehand...
-Right. -...uh, for an off-the-record, um,
uh, an off-the-record conversation.
What-what is... what is the purpose
of those off-the-record conversations?
If you are the press. I've always wanted to know.
If you can't tell us what it's about, what-what's the purpose?
Well, uh, the purpose is they're trying to make us seem
smarter on the air, I think. "Oh, we think the president..."
"This is what's going into his thinking on the speech." Right?
"A-a person close... a person close
to the president' brain once said to us..."
Uh, look, I've done these with President...
I've done these with President Obama,
and I've done these with President Trump.
The best part of 'em are actually
when it's not about the speech.
It's when you're finding about other things,
-or you're finding about... -Interesting.
You know, you do actually get an opportunity,
-"What are you thinking over here with Syria?" -Right.
Or "What are you thinking, uh, on this front?"
So it... They actually are helpful.
I think, off the... Look...
politicians are rarely honest on the record,
so, you're better off getting them off the record.
You have a chance of getting some, uh,
I think, idea of what the truth is.
But-but what is your relationship with him?
-Because, I mean, we... -It's a great question.
-We at the show... -(laughter)
-We at the show can... -What is your relationship with him?
I have no relationship with him. He does not see me,
-he does not know me, and this is how I enjoy my life. -Yeah.
-(laughter, applause) -You, on the other hand...
-I want your life. -You, on the other hand...
He mentioned you at a rally. It was that infamous rally...
-Uh-huh. -...where he's talking up, and he's like,
"I was on a show, Meet the Press,
with sleepy-eyes Chuck Todd, that sleepy son of a bitch."
-Yeah. -That's the president of the United States, like,
just straight-up dissing you, and then you have to go
and just be a journalist with him.
Does he even remember that, or does he think it's a joke?
-Or does just...? Is it just like a show? -Oh, that stuff.
That stuff. Look, I always say this.
You know, we just lost, uh, the great Mean Gene Okerlund.
Um, you know, remember who Mean Gene was?
-(applause and cheering) -So, world wrestling...
Mean Gene was the guy that always interviewed Hulk Hogan.
-Right. -And look, Donald Trump has viewed the press
-as his Mean Gene Okerlund. -Wow.
It's all game. It's good for ratings, isn't it?
"You know, me calling you, that's good for you."
And you're like, "Yeah, but it's not fun
"when you daughter asks you,
'Why is the president calling you an S.O.B., Dad?'"
-Right. -Um, which, on that one,
that's... that was... it was...
she was the first one to see it on social.
-Wow. -And we were just having dinner.
Um, actually, an actual family dinner,
our cheap hamburger place that we all love.
And you're like, you know, I... the "sleepy eyes," fine,
you take it, you grow your thick skin, all that stuff,
you're like: I don't have to explain to my daughter
why you have to attack me.
That is not fun, when you have to explain to your 14-year-old.
My favorite, though, response was when my mother called me up
and said, "You know, the president owes me an apology.
-(audience aw'ing) -Wow.
-(applause) -I'll let you figure out...
-Wow. -So, I was like, "Mom, I don't know what to do.
I'll... I'll let him know."
Let's talk a little bit about the press.
-Yes, sir. -Right?
You are in a position at Meet the Press
where a lot of politicians come to your show
and speak to you directly.
It's always been one of those institutions where you go:
All right, this is us, head to head,
speaking to the press and the nation.
Recently, there's been a few stories
where people have asked if the press is doing enough
-Mm-hmm. -to, I guess, in a way,
you know, indemnify themselves from the attacks
that Trump levels at them, you know, fake news, et cetera.
One of those was, like, the BuzzFeed story.
BuzzFeed came out and said: You know, Michael Cohen
was told to lie to Congress by President Trump.
-Then, in a rare move, -Mm-hmm.
Robert Mueller comes out and says: No, that's inaccurate.
And the media blows up.
Do you think that the press has to do more
to make sure that their stories are correct?
Do you think that, like, cable news shouldn't be reporting
what has been reported until they verify it themselves?
How do you think you can fix this?
Or is it something that's always gonna happen now and again?
I kind of think this is un-fixable,
and in some ways-- there's two ways to look at it.
We can sit here and wring our hands and say,
"Why can't BuzzFeed have The New York Times editors
-edit their stories? -Right.
Right. Which is essentially, I feel, like sometimes
what they expect.
"How come you at NBC News, Chuck Todd,
can't verify their reporting?"
-Right. -I actually will look at it this way.
That, look, we live in this open-source world.
Social media, we live in an open-source world.
Guess what? Within 24 hours,
as loudly as BuzzFeed landed
is as loudly as it was retracted.
-Right. -And I think the biggest beef
people have with the press is, when a mistake is made,
the retraction's a whisper.
-Yes. -It was always on page A2.
In this case, I would say, whatever you want to say, I...
Would I get rid of social media tomorrow, all those things?
There's a lot of things I would love to fix.
But this is the world we live in.
Donald Rumsfeld once said, right, "You go to war
with the army you have, not the army you want."
The system worked as best as it could.
-Right. -The system worked.
You-you saw that it got out of hand and...
whatever it is, but as loudly as it landed
is as loudly as it was pulled back.
In that sense, that's as best as we can hope for
in this media environment.
It's interesting that... it feels like the media
and the news has found a way to adapt
to reporting on President Trump.
You know, I remember when he first started,
people gave him the benefit of the doubt.
People would say a lot of,
"Well, what I think he meant to say is..."
and, "You know, this is..." "Well, I think the meaning..."
And-and what's been interesting is, let's say, with the shutdown
in particular, I find that news has been very quick to say,
"The shutdown, President Trump blaming the Democrats,"
even though he said he's creating the shutdown
-and he will own the shutdown. -Right.
And the news never used to do that.
They would say: The president says this...
But they wouldn't say that he directly contradicted himself.
Is that something you had to learn as a news anchor?
I think it's one of those things where...
there was this sense that the press, for a long time--
I would say sort of between Watergate and now--
that the press, um...
it wasn't necessarily that you covered up for the powerful,
but you explained the powerful.
-Right. -You know, so one of my favorite anecdotes
is, apparently, in the '70s and '80s
whenever you would hear somebody report
about a member of Congress being drunk,
they wouldn't say that, they'd say:
So and so was tired tonight on the Senate floor.
Um, and that was... my point is,
is there was a lot of examples like that where there was this,
as you just put it, "Well, what the president meant to say..."
and, "You know, he uses that rhetoric this way,"
and I think there was a lot of that.
It just became a habit, (stammers)
I think, obviously, a bad habit.
I can tell you this: Everybody's handling
the Trump era in different ways.
I have just a simple motto which is,
"Say what you see."
It's as simple as that.
Our job in Washington--
The ultimate job of a reporter
is to write what you observe, right?
You're to say what you see.
Don't try to explain it and do back flips.
Say what you see. Why is the president--
You know, why is the president tweeting about this?
Explain why he's doing it.
Go ahead and show, maybe, what he's saying,
but give it context and explain it.
Say what you see.
I think too often we covered-- "covered up" is the wrong word--
We-we sort of--
-We almost rounded the edges of what we saw. -Right.
We gave a better picture because it's almost like,
-"Ugh. That's an ugly picture. -Right, right, right.
The country doesn't want to see that.
We should, we should make it better."
You know what? Rip the Band-Aid off.
Let's see it.
(cheers and applause)
-One... -And by the way,
too long, you and your colleagues
were the ones ripping the Band-Aid off.
And that was actually a problem.
We needed to rip our own Band-Aid off.
-Huh. That's interesting. -And you, I would say,
in many ways, sat-- the satirists,
I think in that way, led the way for us.
You know what? There's nothing wrong
-with ripping the Band-Aid off. -It's interesting.
You did it with a sense of humor.
Um, maybe we could use a sense of humor, too, but...
You have done a lot, though, to change the idea
of how you create news and what you allow on the news.
One thing that I found particularly impressive
and revolutionary was you were,
-you were hosting a show on climate change, -Mm-hmm.
and you came out and you said,
"We're not gonna have any climate change deniers
-as part of this discussion." -Right.
You got a lot of flack from a lot of people on the right.
-Yeah. -A lot of conservatives who said, "Why are you--
"Why are you censoring these voices, Chuck Todd?
Why are you not allowing these people on your show?"
-We had a robust debate about taxes. -Right, but...
That's the debate.
The debate is what do you do about this?
But not for climate change. Why not?
Um, well, I also didn't invite anybody
who didn't believe in the moon landing,
and I also didn't invite anybody who was a flat Earther.
-Is that all right? -(cheers and applause)
But when somebody says to you, "Chuck Todd,
the press should be giving everyone an equal voice."
-That is-- No. I think we are-- -(laughter)
-Our job is to be fair. -Right.
Our job is to be fair to the facts that are there,
fair to the-- Look, I think it is an open debate:
How do we price carbon?
Okay? It is an open debate.
We're seeing the Yellow Jacket protesters in France.
That is real.
The middle class shouldn't have to pay for this alone.
-There's no doubt. -Right. Right.
This is a real debate.
How do we do this? That's a real debate.
How do we mitigate climate change?
How do we-- If we're gonna build sea walls,
where to we build them and who pays for that?
That is the debate I had.
I had a, I had an-an array of people
who said, "Oh, no, all government.
No, no, no, no, no. Don't put--"
-But that was the conversation. -Right.
That's the debate, right?
Which is, how are we gonna do this?
Where do we find the money? And you pays for it?
-Mexico. -The deb-- Always.
-Man, if Mexico's economy gets humming, -(laughs)
I guess they're gonna solve all the world's problems.
-Right? -Right. But you ask
who's gonna pay for it, who's gon-- That's the debate.
But the debate is not:
Is man-made climate change a real thing?
Here's what I don't get.
It's simply an insurance policy.
Like, why would you not want it?
Let's say you don't believe in it.
What's wrong with, "Well, maybe." You know?
-What's wrong with a little insurance policy? -Right.
I mean, uh, you know, it's like,
I had a relative on their deathbed,
didn't really believe in religion
but on their deathbed they did.
It's like, well, okay, it's an insurance policy.
You know? I mean, you know, what's wrong--
-Climate, you know, mitigation, if... -Yes.
Even if you're not sure, it's changing in front of us.
-Right. -Okay. So if it's the--
if it's Mother Nature doing it,
-you've still got to adapt. -Right.
Thank you so much for being on the show, my friend.
Great having you here.
MTP Daily airs weekdays at 5:00 p.m. on MSNBC.
And Meet the Press airs Sundays on NBC.
Chuck Todd, everybody.
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