Fresh Air - Best Of: Liz Cheney / Dave Davies

Episode Date: December 9, 2023

Former congresswoman Liz Cheney says a second Trump presidency would be an "existential threat" to democracy: "There's simply no defense, no excuse for putting that power back in the hands of Donald Trump." Her new memoir is Oath and Honor. Also, Terry Gross interviews Dave Davies, Fresh Air's longtime fill-in host. He's cutting back on his workload at the show. We're paying tribute to him by listening to clips of some of his memorable interviews.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

From W.H.Y.Y. in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, Liz Cheney talks about Republican congressmen who enabled Trump's false claim he won the election. She lost her leadership position in the House after voting to impeach Trump. She was one of two Republicans who served on the House Select Committee that investigated the January 6th attack. She's written a memoir. You're also likely to recognize our other guest. This is Fresh Air. I'm Dave Davies, in today for Terry Gross.

Today, Dave's not in for me. He's with me, so I can interview him. Dave has been doing interviews on our show since 2001. This year, he fulfilled his goal of doing fewer interviews. This is our tribute to him. That's coming up on Fresh Air Weekend. of the moment American democracy began to unravel, and the story of the most dangerous man ever to inhabit the Oval Office, and of the many steps he took to subvert our Constitution, unquote. Cheney was one of two Republicans who served on the House Select Committee investigating January 6th. Her book is in part about that investigation. She also reveals new information about what she witnessed behind the scenes in the House of Representatives Republican Conference before and after Trump and his enablers challenged the election results, and Mike Johnson, who was the chair of the Republican Study Committee and then vice chair of the House Republican Conference, which is the second highest ranking member of the House leadership. Johnson is now House Speaker. Liz Cheney worked closely

with Johnson and McCarthy, serving as chair of the House Republican Conference, the third highest ranking member of the House leadership. She was ousted from that position because she voted to impeach Trump in 2021. It wasn't a big surprise when she lost her primary campaign last year to a Trump-endorsed candidate in a state, Wyoming, that overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Her new memoir is titled Oath and Honor, a Memoir and a Warning. The warning is about the threat to our democracy if Trump is reelected in 2024. We recorded our interview last Monday. Liz Cheney, welcome to Fresh Air. You write, so strong is the lure of power that men and women who had seemed reasonable and responsible were suddenly willing to violate their oath to the Constitution out of political expediency and loyalty to Donald Trump. One example you give is Kevin McCarthy, who was House Speaker

at the time of the election and of the denial that Trump won. Two days after the election, he told you Trump knows that it's over. So you're convinced that Trump knew. On November 5th, two days after the election, when the vote was likely to soon be called for Biden, you say McCarthy appeared to be dealing in reality. But a few hours later on Fox News, McCarthy said, President Trump won this election. So everyone who is listening, do not be quiet. We cannot allow this to happen before our eyes. What was your reaction when you heard that? First of all, thank you so much for having me, Terry. It's always wonderful to be on with you. You know, I was surprised, to put it mildly, because, of course, you know,

he and I had spoken and Kevin had been clear that, you know, he talked to Trump and that Trump knew that he'd lost. And so I was surprised. And a number of my colleagues were, of course, surprised. And some were, frankly, angry. And I began hearing from them concerned that, you know, there was no evidence for this idea that somehow the election had been stolen. And yet here was the leader of the Republicans in the House out echoing the claims that Trump had been making. You write that sometimes Kevin McCarthy had Trump secretly dialed in to meetings, not informing the entire Republican conference. So the entire Republican conference was having a meeting.

McCarthy secretly dialed Trump in. So Trump was listening to this meeting. When? How often did that happen? During what kind of discussions? What can you tell us about that? So during COVID, the meetings that the House Republican conference had normally, you know, and prior to that, been having in person, we had to switch to phone calls.

And we had always done some of our meetings when Congress was in recess and members were back in their districts. It wasn't unusual to have a conference call of all of the Republicans. And there were a couple of occasions where Kevin mentioned to me that, in fact, the president was listening in on the calls. And it was clear to me in a couple of those instances that he probably had told other members, but not everyone knew, but he had probably told a select few that this was the case because there would be, you know, sort of even more than the normal level of flattery of the former president if people knew that he was on the call. So I think it was just sort of a standard way of operating. I don't know how many times it

happened. I just know there were a couple of times when Kevin told me that, in fact, that was going on. So you think that the person who is now the Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, played a very destructive role after the election in trying to overturn the results. What's your reaction to knowing that now he is the leader of the House Republican Conference? You know, it concerns me greatly. And what concerns me is that Mike is not who he appears to be. You know, and I talk in the book about my own experience as we've been discussing with learning that and realizing that. I think that the reason that he was elected unanimously by the House

Republicans was a couple of things. One, the House Republicans had been through so many days without a speaker, and I think people were exhausted by that. And secondly, I think people didn't know the full details of his record. But I think that someone who is willing to take action that he knows is wrong, you know, one of the things that I asked him as we were going through the whole debate about the amicus brief was, you know, whether or not people who signed onto the brief who were members of the bar would be, you know, raising significant ethical questions for themselves when they were, you know, asserting facts to the court about which they actually had no knowledge, no evidence. That raised serious ethical questions for any attorney who signed that amicus

brief. And, and I, so I think there are serious, serious questions about his veracity, and about his willingness to, to take action that he knows is wrong in order to, to placate Donald Trump. And I think it's a dangerous thing to have someone occupy the Speaker's chair, who has done the things that he did. You expected that January 6th would be violent. And your father, who was listening to Trump's speech at the Ellipse right before the attack on the Capitol, he heard Trump tell the crowd that they should, quote, get rid of the Liz Cheney's of the world. So your father, Dick Cheney, former vice president, former secretary of defense, said, you're in danger. You need to think about whether to go forward with your

remarks. But you had expected violence and you had personal security with you that day. Did that help when the Capitol was attacked? Well, I think a couple of things. First of all, and as I talk about in the book, there was a broad concern about the potential for violence. And we had a meeting of House Republicans on January 5th, where one of our Republican colleagues, Debbie Lesko from Arizona, specifically raised this point and specifically asked then-Leader McCarthy to ensure. that there were hundreds of thousands of Trump supporters who were coming to Washington because they thought that the election, in fact, you know, could be changed, that the result could be changed on January 6th. And, you know, she said, what's going to happen when they realize that that's not true? And when she asked Leader McCarthy this question, you know, he said that he was going to go back and, you know, speak again to the sergeant at arms. He talked about some of the provisions that they had already

been making, streets being closed, etc. So there was both a sense of the very real potential for violence, but also there were a number of occasions where from Leader McCarthy, we got assurances, and he talked about this after the 6th as well, you know, that people, you know, believed, frankly, that, well, the notion that somehow Speaker Pelosi, for example, had failed to yield warnings, I think is the lie to that notion is that Leader McCarthy and other Republicans were having the same briefings that she was and reporting back that, in fact, you know, they believed that precautions were being taken. Now, I think it's important to note that on this topic of violence, one of the things that we really learned through of the potential for violence and the threats and in fact, the weapons that were found in the crowd, that that information was passed up the

chain at the White House to the chief of staff and to the president. And at the end of the day, the person who sort of had the best knowledge, the only real knowledge of exactly how violent it was going to be, you know, was Donald Trump. So this is one of the reasons why you've said that it was really Trump who was responsible for January 6th and that basically that all roads lead back to him and that he intentionally didn't ask people to stop. I want to ask you about something. Do you want to contradict anything I just said? No, I think both the fact that, you know, if you look at what many of the criminal defendants have actually said, they say hundreds of them have said that they were there, they broke into the Capitol that day, they were there because Donald Trump sent them. And then, as you mentioned, of course, you know, he failed to tell people to leave for hours while the attack was underway. Something that you're famous for, a line that

you said, is on January 6th, when the Capitol was under attack, Jim Jordan said that we need to get the ladies off the aisle. And then he held out his hand to you saying, let me help you. And you swatted his hand away and said, get away from me. You effing did this, meaning you're one of the people responsible for this attack. So you say that at the first House Republican conference call after the election, the first meeting after the election, Jordan said the only thing that matters is winning, implying he was willing to do anything to win and not pay that much attention to the legal arguments. Now he's trying to impeach Joe Biden as head of the House Judiciary Committee. What's your't want to comment specifically on the evidence having not seen it. think it's interesting that just a few days ago, Speaker of the House Johnson indicated that there was not sufficient evidence to move forward. And that was maybe a week ago. And so I would be very curious to know exactly what's changed in the last week. But I'm also confident that one of the things that's happening is that Donald Trump is telling them the House Republicans to move forward to impeach Biden,

you know, as a way to sort of level the impeachment playing field, if you will. So, but I do think one of the key questions is, how is it that Speaker Johnson has gone so quickly from talking about, you know, the fact that they did not have enough evidence yet to move forward with an inquiry to suddenly now saying, well, they are going to move forward. My guest is Liz Cheney. Her new book is called Oath and Honor, a Memoir and a Warning. We'll hear more of our conversation after a break. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Let's get back to the interview I recorded with Liz Cheney last Monday.

Her new book is called Oath and Honor, a Memoir and a Warning. One of the things I really wonder about is are there Republicans who have sided with Trump in places where Trump is clearly legally out of bounds? Are they siding with him because they believe he's a great leader or are they afraid of him? I'd be very interested in hearing what you have to say about that. I think that's one of the key questions of this moment of American politics and history. And I think you have a very small number of members of the House, certainly, who actually believe in Trump's lies. Very small. I mean, probably you can count them almost on one hand. who have made a political calculation that they're going to go along. And some of those are going along, you know, you've got now, I think, over 80 members of the House who've endorsed Trump for the 2024 nomination. And so, you know, some of those are pretty vocal. They know that

what Trump is saying is not true, but they've made a political calculation. And then you've got probably an even larger number who are just trying to stay silent and who will – some of them will say to me, for example, thank you for what you're saying. Thank you for speaking the truth. I just can't for whatever reason. And there are a lot of rationalizations. And there's a whole school of thought, which I write about in the book, where Senate Leader McConnell, somebody whom I've known for many, many years, someone for whom I have a lot of respect. I think that he's been a master tactician and has had repeatedly, you know, urged me directly that, well, we just need to ignore Trump and he'll go away. And I think now we're seeing the real consequences of that. He's not going away. And in fact, given the significance of the threat that he poses, when you have leaders of the Republican Party who suggest that we don't need to speak out, you know, then there's really no question. Why would you expect voters then to think, well, yes, this threat is very grave if you have so many Republicans who are either supporting

him or are simply staying silent? You are now like persona non grata among Republicans. You were ousted from the Wyoming Republican Party, and you haven't ruled out a run for president. You haven't ruled out running as an independent or maybe a third party run. If you ran and didn't win, do you think you'd be taking more votes away from Trump or Biden? Do you think, I know if you ran, because you've said this, that if you ran, it would be to defeat Trump, to take votes not I'm going to get engaged and involved in that way. What I do know is that I'm going to do everything I can to stop Donald Trump. And I think that we're in a situation today as a country that we can't look at our politics through the lens that we have for the last, you know, many, many years. And we have to recognize given this existential threat that is now arising within the country, you have to put partisanship aside. And I think we're at a moment where Republicans and Democrats and independents have to be willing to

say, look, we're going to come together and work on behalf of the Constitution. And whether that means a third party run, whether that means helping to ensure that we elect people who believe in the Constitution to the House and Senate, regardless of party, whether it means supporting someone else as an opponent to Trump, you know, I'm going to do whatever it takes and whatever is necessary to make sure that he's defeated because the threat's that grave. If you didn't run yourself, would you vote for Biden over Trump if that was the best way of defeating Trump? Well, I'm certainly never going to vote for Trump.

And we don't know yet exactly, you know, who the nominees will be on either side, frankly. I think that there is a chance that Donald Trump is not the Republican nominee, although each day that goes by, that chance becomes slimmer. So I'm not going to endorse today. I will just tell you I would never again vote for Donald Trump, and I will do everything that I can to make sure that he's not our president again. Did you vote for him twice? I did. So I'm curious, like, what did you see in him in the sense that, you know, certainly even before the first election, he was so litigious as a businessman.

There were so many lawsuits against him and so many lawsuits that he filed. He made claims about his finances that weren't true. He bragged about being able to grab women by their genitals because he was a celebrity and they let you do that if you're a celebrity. There were sexual harassment allegations, sexual assault allegations surrounding him. Two ethics czars, one from the George W. Bush administration, one from the Obama administration, had many ethical, really serious questions about what kind of president he'd be and whether he was qualified to serve. And by the second, after his first term, we'd seen, you know, some of the actions he was capable of. So why did you want to vote for him for a second term? Well, I certainly wish I hadn't. And, you know, I think that, you know, certainly I was representing

Wyoming and the policies that the Trump administration, not necessarily him, but the policies the Trump administration put in place in areas like energy policy, land use management policy, some of the things that really mattered for my constituents in Wyoming, some of the issues that mattered with respect to national security in terms of defense spending. There were issues that I'd been working on that I thought were very important for Wyoming. I still think are important for Wyoming and for the country. And I think what people need to know now going into this next election is that just can't be an option. And as Republicans and as Americans, we have to be able to find a way where we can advocate for those kinds of policies where we aren't having to choose someone who's shown that he has a complete lack of respect for and willingness to abide by his oath to the Constitution.

But this is probably a real dilemma for elected leaders like yourself. You say you voted for him a second time because that's what your constituents wanted. And in fact, in Wyoming, I mean, Trump won by a landslide in the second term, right? He did. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's interesting because, you know, when I went back and looked at the numbers, you know, his percentage in the general in Wyoming and my percentage in the general in Wyoming in 2020 were very, very close, very significant. Wyoming gave him the largest majority, largest margin of victory of any state in the country. And again, look, I think that from a conservative standpoint, there were policies in his administration because of a number of the people that he had in place at cabinets and around the administration that were good policies. Now, the issue, though, is that right now we're faced with a choice between,

you know, if you have to say, look, the country can sustain several years of bad policies, we cannot sustain somebody willing to torch the Constitution. And no matter where you are in terms of saying, I made the decision at this moment or this moment, once you get through January 6th, once you get through him trying to seize power and overturn an election, that's a line that can never be crossed, and there's no defense for that. Well, be well, and thank you so much. Thank you, Terry. Liz Cheney's new book is called Oath and Honor, A Memoir and a Warning. We recorded our interview last Monday. My next guest is Dave Davies, who you probably know as a longtime interviewer on Fresh Air,

and he was a frequent host of Fresh Air Weekend. Dave has been an indispensable member of our team for many years. The last few months have been a period of transition for Dave, having fulfilled his wish to cut back from a couple of interviews a week on our show to doing occasional interviews. We're grateful to still have him on the show, even if it is only occasional. Before the year ends, we want to pay tribute to him and ask him to share some stories from his broadcasting and newspaper career. I've known Dave since 1983, when he joined WHYY's newsroom covering city politics. From there, he moved to the commercial all-news Philly radio station, and then to the

newspaper world, covering city and state politics and government for the Philadelphia Daily News, where he worked for 20 years and became one of Philly's preeminent city news reporters. In 2010, he returned to WHYY full-time, splitting his position between the news department and Fresh Air. But he'd started doing interviews on our show back in 2001, even before his official return to radio. Dave has also been my savior. When I got a bad cold and lost my voice, when a family member was sick and needed my help, when I needed a vacation, Dave was there to guest host.

When I or anyone on the show needs advice about an especially perplexing question relating to journalistic ethics, he's our go-to guy. I really admire his ability to think clearly on and off the air, to explain complicated issues in a clear, engaging way, to know when to be skeptical and how to convey his genuine empathy. He's a great storyteller, even while asking a question. Dave, it's really going to be fun to talk to you as an interviewee. So let's begin. You started doing fresh air interviews while you were very personal and you're not asking about corruption or campaign spending? You're asking about deeply personal things that are very sensitive to ask somebody to talk about in a public way. Yeah, they're different in many ways.

I mean, when I'm reporting, usually what I'm doing is asking questions to elicit information and quotes that I will use among information from many sources in the story. So that interview is a part of what's eventually going to be part of the story I tell. In the case of a fresh air interview, this is the product. It also means that my questions matter. I mean, they are going to be heard by the listener, so they need to be coherent and I can't stumble through it. And it's one of the reasons that I write out most of my questions beforehand. I may not read them on the air, but it helps if I think through how I'm going to ask this in a coherent way, particularly if I'm setting up a film clip or a story. I mean, you really want to make sure because while you're doing an interview on fresh air, the audience is always in your mind. And if you're

listening to an answer and something isn't clear because the guest is using shorthand for something or it's just not quite working, you have to intervene in some way to make sure the audience stays with it. So it's a very, very different experience. And it took some years to really get comfortable with it. I want to talk with you about some of the other jobs you have held besides being a reporter or an interviewer. Let's start with, and I think this was in Philly, you drove a taxi. And this was in the years before Uber and Lyft. So like if you wanted to hire somebody to drive you, it was either a limo or a taxi. Were you ever scared? Yeah. Yeah. There were a couple of times.

Two guys got in the cabin at night in Philly, and one of them was talking about, there's a code, I don't remember what it is now, that you say into the radio to the dispatcher when you're in trouble and you need police. And this guy knew what the code was, and he was talking about it. And I think he was just messing with me, but it made me very nervous. There was another time when I picked up a woman who was quite drunk, who said she needed to go to this hotel she lived in to get the money to pay me. This was actually during the day. And the place that she took me to was a really, really funky place. It's now been demolished. I guess you might call it an SRO, I mean, a single room occupancy place.

And she disappears into this place to go get the money. And I'm out there waiting. And it's not the safest of neighborhoods. So I get outside of the cab and try get the money. And I'm out there waiting. And it's not the safest of neighborhoods. So I get outside of the cab and try to lean against it like I'm a tough guy. And I'm not a tough guy. But I want to look like don't mess with me. And she doesn't come out. She doesn't come out. So I decide I've got to go in and find her.

So I go in. And it's this dark place. There's the stairwell. She's on the fourth floor. I've got to go up. It was very unnerving. The funny thing is that when I found her, she's flinging herself against this door because she says she's locked out and she's trying to break the door down because she's got to get in to get her check so we can cash that and I can get paid. So I quickly realized that it's in my interest to make sure that she gets through the door.

So I said, step back. And I kicked the door in. Oh, no. Yeah. I figured she was responsible. We're going to break the door. So now I was part of the we. And I had a fairly significant fare on the meter at that point.

I didn't want to just walk away from it. I would have had to cover that. And so she goes in. She gets the check. And then the building manager comes up, attracted by the commotion. And he says, in, she gets the check, and then the building manager comes up, attracted by the commotion, and he says, hey, what's going on here? And then she points at me and says, he knocked the door down. Anyway, I explained, look, I explained what happened. We get the check, we got it cashed, and we ended up having a nice conversation. Never saw her again,

but one of those weird experiences that can happen when you're driving a cab. You spent time as a welder in a shipyard in Philly? What was that like? I think one of the happiest days of my life was when I got laid off. It was hard work. And it was on a shipyard on a river in a bitterly cold winter. And when you're building a ship, it's all steel around you, and it's all so freezing cold. But it was interesting work. I mean, it was interesting to learn about welding. It was interesting to see how ships are made.

We worked on container ships on oil tankers. But, yeah, it was not a career I wanted to have. Okay. We're going to take a break here, and then we'll talk some more with my guest and fellow Fresh Air interviewer, Dave Davies. I'm Terry Gross, and this is Fresh Air Weekend. Let's get back to my interview with Dave Davies. This is an interview that's very special to me because Dave has been my long-term colleague here on Fresh Air. He's contributed so many great interviews to our show, and this year he fulfilled his wish to do fewer interviews. We wanted to pay tribute to him and have him share some stories

about his long career in broadcasting and in the newspaper world. So I want to play an excerpt of an interview with Robert Caro, who's famous for his biographies of Robert Moses. That book was called The Power Broker, and for his multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, President Johnson. And, you know, Caro's biographies are so well researched and so detailed, yet compelling, and very long as well, hard to prepare for. So the excerpt that we're going to hear is him talking about when he interviewed former First Lady, Lady Bird Johnson, about LBJ's extramarital affair with someone named Alice March. Do you want to pick it up from there? Sure. Alice Marsh, she was originally Alice Glass, and she was someone that LBJ knew. And Carroll concluded that they had in all likelihood had had an affair. They had an association for

many, many years after that in which she was a good friend and political advisor. And he felt he had to research that side of the story. And so he went to this town where Alice Marsh had lived and asked a lot of questions. And he knew when he started asking questions that would get back to Lady Bird, Lyndon Johnson's widow who was still alive. And this clip is him describing what happened when Mrs. Johnson asked her folks to tell Robert Caro that she wanted to talk to him. And so he came for a conversation after he had been investigating this woman that Lyndon Johnson had had this relationship with. And Lady Bird Johnson knew that he'd been investigating. Right, because word had to have gotten back to her.

Yeah. So let's hear that excerpt. Secretary says she'd like, Mrs. Johnson would like to see you out at the ranch this Saturday. So I went out there. So she summoned you for this? Yes. Oh. So she sits at the head of the table, and I'm sitting at her right hand. My stenographer's notebook where I take notes is to my right hand.

So I'm looking down at the stenographer's notebook, which is, if you can picture it, it means I'm looking away from her. And without a word of preamble, she starts telling me about Alice Glass and how important her influence was in Lyndon's life. And, you know, she talks about how elegant, how beautiful and elegant she was. She says something like, it's quotes in the book, I remember her in a succession of lovely dresses and me and less lovely. She says, you know, everything Alice told him, he had long, when he comes to Congress, she meets him when he's a new congressman and his arms are very long and ungainly. She says, make an advantage of that by wearing always French cuffs with beautiful cufflinks. And he did that for the rest of his life. And there are times in his life where she saved his political career, one in particular.

Alice Marsh did. Alice Marsh did. But she's talking about this Lady Bird. And during the whole time she's talking to me, I can't bear to look up at her. I just sit there writing notes. So she speaks admiringly of this woman who probably had an affair with her husband. You know, and it's interesting because you spent so much time talking to Lyndon Johnson's little brother, Sam Houston Johnson, and wanting to get the real story from him.

Were you prepared to just leave it there with Lady Bird? I mean, not ask about the pain it might have caused? Let's say I didn't ask any questions at that interview. It's the only interview that I can remember where I didn't ask any questions. And in fact, I couldn't bear to look up at the person I was interviewing. And so you didn't feel like that was something you just needed to get to the bottom of? Well, from my point of view, I had gotten to the bottom of it

because I had seen and could document how she said, for example, a number of times in which she saved his political career. You know, he relied on her. During the war, he's on her during the war. He's in Australia. So that was Robert Caro after he'd published a memoir about writing massive biographies of powerful people. And that was Dave Davies doing the interview. It was recorded in 2019 after the

memoir was published. David, obviously made a really big impression on you that when Lady Bird Johnson was talking about basically the importance of President Johnson's mistress in his life, that Carol couldn't even look at Lady Bird and didn't ask her any follow-up questions. Have you had an experience in your interviewing career where you couldn't bear to look at the person and it was so personal you didn't even ask follow-ups and you couldn't bear to look at the person and it was so personal you didn't even ask follow-ups and you didn't want to ask about the pain that that experience caused you know you know i'll just tell you one thing that comes to mind um i don't know if this is so relevant or useful but um i'd gotten a tip about a tyrannical boss in the city's water department.

Those are the toughest stories to write because they involve stories that are very hard to verify. There's often no – there's little documentation. But this person had told me that this boss was just such a tyrant and how he had really berated and abused this one guy who had a special needs son. And I don't remember all the details, but I thought, well, this is worth pursuing. And so I called this guy time and time and time again. He wouldn't call me back. And I finally just, you know, I had his address and I went up and knocked on his door and he opened it and he knew who I was. And he said, all right, come in. And we sat down at his kitchen table and he started talking about a little bit. And soon, he was just weeping. I mean, full out bawling. And what he said,

he was absolutely right about, which was, if you write this story, it'll be a story in the paper, and some people will read it, but nothing's going to happen to this person. And my life's really going to be ruined. I need this job. And I walked away from the story. I just thought he is right. I mean, this person's not going to be fired or prosecuted. It's just, and he is going to endure terrible personal cost. And that was one where I just said, yeah, you know what? I've put a lot of hours in here. Not going to do this story. And I'm sure you always felt good about that decision afterwards. I think it was the right call. Yeah. But it's tough. I mean, I think a lot of reporters just have the ability to summon a level of detachment that says, you know, not my problem where the chips land.

And I couldn't ever quite do that. I respect that. I want to play another clip. And people who know you well from Fresh Air know that one of your specialties is sports. Like when we get a sports book or when it's like World Series time or spring training or Super Bowl or whatever, if there's an interview on Fresh Air about it, it's going to be yours. At least that's been the history of it. So this is a sports-related interview, and it's an interview with Joe Buck, who is still or was?

Is still. He's probably the best-known television sports broadcaster. And my question demonstrates why you do the sports interviews. So he's a play-by-play sports announcer, and when you interviewed him, he had done 19 World Series and four Super Bowls and was about to do his fifth. What else do you want to say about this before we hear it? Because I know what I want to say. I was interested in the craft of what he does. I mean that, you know, the ability to again and again while you're watching a game live describe what people are already seeing on their televisions in a way that kind of connects

with and enhances the experience. And there's no script for that, right? You're just watching the action and calling it live. And so I picked an example of that that I remembered. Yeah. And what I have to say, I'll say for after we hear the clip. So this is Dave interviewing Joe Buck. All right. Now, I want to play a call of yours, which is exactly about this, accentuating what the audience sees, not repeating it. This is from 2008, the National League Championship Series, Phillies versus Dodgers. Our program is broadcast from Philadelphia, so I'm a Phillies fan. I remember watching this game.

And it's a home run call. And I'm going to just say two things about what the audience sees because they're not going to hear this in your call. But what the audience sees is a home run. The batter is Matt Stairs. He's a beefy guy with a compact swing, powerful swing. It's a tense moment. The Phillies are making a comeback in an important game. So we see this compact swing drive the ball out. And then the other thing is this game is in Dodger Stadium, Chavez Ravine, where the bleachers are relatively small, and you can see the desert in the dark outside. And as the ball flies over the right field fence, you see the ball move from light into shadow. That's what the audience sees. Let's listen to

your call. Stairs rips one into the night, deep into right, way out of here. And Philadelphia Now, I've remembered that call for eight years because it's just a lovely piece of baseball poetry. Stairs rips one into the night as you see the ball disappear into the shadows. You know, writers have time to craft phrases like that. You've got to do it in the moment. Is there a technique? Are there muscles that you develop for coming up with that quick, evocative turn of phrase? Well, I think the first thing is you have to be prepared. And if you're prepared, you can be relaxed. And I'm not giving you a canned answer. I've never

thought about it in these terms, really. But I think if you are ready for a moment like that, and by ready, I mean you've got all the stats of stairs at your fingertips if you want to go there, you know who's on the mound. You're aware of the game situation. And now you can just sit back and watch. So that's Dave Davies interviewing Joe Buck in 2017. And Joe Buck had just published a memoir, right, Dave? Right.

So here's what I want to say about the interview. Your description of what happened with that play, your description of the ball disappearing into the shadows, you could see the desert, the dark desert, it's so much more vivid than what Joe Buck had to say. I had to listen to that tape

twice before I really heard, he rips one into the night. Because it's just... It goes by quickly. It goes by really heard, he rips one into the night. Because it's just... It goes by quickly. It goes by really quickly. But your description, that was totally imprinted in my mind. I just saw it. You're so good at describing things, and that's why we're playing that clip.

Well, you know, the thing is, I remember being impressed by it, because, you know, you and I listening to it now in the audience now, we're not seeing the play. But when you see it and when you see that ball go into the shadows and you hear say, you know, stairs rips one into the night, it just captures exactly what happened. So it kind of took a long setup. But without that, it doesn't really get the point. You grew up in South Texas. Describe the neighborhood that you grew up in or the part of Texas that you grew up in. Well, Corpus Christi, it's a coastal city. It was a working class neighborhood of, you know, single story frame houses, went to public schools. You

know, both of my parents grew up on farms. I mean, they actually spent a lot of their years in rural poverty. They were on farm, family farms during the depression and went through some rough years. That was up in West Texas. My dad was in West Texas. My mom was in Southern Oklahoma. And she used to tell me they would close school in the fall so everybody, all the kids could go out and pick cotton. Am I right in saying that your grandfather, one of your grandfathers drove cattle? Yeah, this is a fun little story. He was one of the last participated as he was probably about 13 in one of the last horse driven cattle drives that went down Main Street in Lubbock, Texas. I interviewed him about this when he lived when it was 90s. And when I first started in radio, I went and did an interview with him.

And he kind of knew these cowboys because he was on a farm. And a little guy like him who was a good horseman was valuable because they could ride these lighter horses, which were more nimble, which were really effective in cutting out cattle. And so he got a fair amount of work doing that. And he went on this trail drive. Yes, my connection with cattle drives is one of my favorite shows growing up was Rawhide. Rowdy Eats. Yeah, exactly, which was about a cattle drive,

and Clint Eastwood played like the assistant. Trail boss? Trail boss, yeah, the assistant trail boss. And this was before Clint Eastwood was famous as a movie star. That's right. Yeah. And so, you know, I was in elementary school and I just, like, loved that show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Great song. Oh, Frankie Lane sang the theme song. That was really great. But the other thing I'm thinking of is like it must be – it must feel like such a distance between your grandfather, you know, being a cowboy in a cattle drive and your work as a city journalist. Yeah. I think to a lot of my extended family, it have these cousins that I'm very fond of and never quite got that, you know, they moved up north. But, yeah, I sort of came up here and found a home in Philly and liked it. And, yeah, it's such a different world. It's very odd that I spent decades covering, you know, I drove a cab in Philly.

I spent decades covering politics. I know so many neighborhoods and so many politicians. And although I have great affection for Texas, I don't have the same kind of knowledge because I've been away for so long. But yeah, completely different worlds. I think our listeners will note that you don't seem to have a Texas accent. Did you ever? Probably did. My parents certainly did. It's funny. My mom used to – she used to use the expression – you know the expression, go jump in the lake? Yeah, sure. She would say that.

Not that there were any lakes where I lived, but in Brooklyn. When she would say that, I thought she was saying, go jump in the leg, you know, the limb, because she would say, go, go jump in the leg. And I thought that – so, yeah, my parents had Texas accents. And I remember in, I think, junior high and high school being aware that the people on television, like in the newscasters, spoke this standard English. And I kind of, I just decided to do that. And- How old were you when you decided to do that? I don't remember exactly. Probably in high school. I just kind of felt like that. You know, that's what sort of educated people sort of sounded like.

And if I woke you in the middle of the night, would you have a Texas accent? I doubt it. I doubt it. In fact, what's scary is occasionally I'll hear a Philly accent creeping into me. You know, that the long O like home becomes home. Yeah. I'm the home depot. Where did that come from? You hear something, you pick it becomes hame. Yeah. I'm the hame depot. Where did that come from?

You hear something, you pick it up. Yeah, yeah. Dave, I've had a really good time doing this. I'm really glad we did it. Yeah, you know, it's funny, Terry. You and I, we've worked on the same show for so long, but we don't work together much. We work in parallel, you know.

That's exactly right. You're doing a show or I'm doing a show, so we don't actually talk that much. And either you're super busy on deadline or I'm super busy on deadline or we're both super busy on deadline. So yeah, we don't get to talk that much, which is one of the reasons I so thoroughly enjoyed this because it was just a really focused conversation with you. And I got to learn things I didn't know about you. Thank you for giving me a chance to be here and letting me grow into the job. It's been a really meaningful thing in my life and I'm so glad you're still doing it. Thank you, Dave. And we have really treasured having you on the show and continue

to do so. Thank you for everything you've done on our show and we'll continue to do. Thank you, Terry. Dave Davies has been contributing interviews to Fresh Air since 2001, and there's more to come. Fresh Air Weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh Air's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Amy Sallet, Phyllis Myers, Roberta Schorach, Sam Brigger, Lauren Krenzel, Heidi Saman, Anne-Marie Baldonado, Thea Chaloner,

Seth Kelly, and Susan Yakundi. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Fresh Air's co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.