The Bulwark Podcast - Katie Couric: Not A Libtard

Episode Date: February 21, 2024

Couric revisits the impact of her Sarah Palin interview, and shares her views with Tim on the evolution of the GOP, the #MeToo movement in the media, and Kamala's tendency to rely too much on her talking points.

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enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash RentSafeTO. Hey, everybody. We've got a great show for you today with the legendary Katie Couric. And I just, I have to come to this. I succumbed to a caricature of Miss Couric, I think back in my Republican operative days, and she was charming and interesting and thoughtful. So I think you're really gonna enjoy this conversation. I just wanted to share a couple

quick programming notes for you guys. People have been asking about the next level Sunday interview I've been doing. I'm going to be trying to do interviews like that here in this space on Wednesdays like this one with Katie Couric that's off the news cycle a little bit and take a broader picture about career arcs or about issues that I care about or interviews like we did last week with Dean Phillips. And so if you're looking for news of the day, flaming hot takes on Wednesdays, go over the next level feed on your podcast app of choice with me, JVL, and Sarah. We are still going to be popping over

there every Wednesday. On top of that, if you haven't listened to Sarah's Focus Group this week, the Focus Group podcast had a group of black voters that have some doubts about Biden, as well as two-time Trump voters who have some doubts about Trump. It was super illuminating. I've already seen it cited on Morning Joe and Pod Save America. And so it's influencing the conversation out there. It's illuminating. Make sure to check out the focus group this week. Lastly, we do have two podcasts for subscribers only. The secret podcast with Sarah and JVL and Just Between Us with Mona Charon and special guests. I got to tell you, every time I pop on to a secret podcast, it's a little freeing. You get to work out some maybe half-formed thoughts, and I think you get a more full picture

of how we're thinking about the issues today. So if you want to support The Bulwark, that's the way to do it. You just go to thebulwark.com forward slash free trial. You can get 30 days for free. You get access to those secret podcasts, the handful of articles we have behind the paywall, sometimes JVL's triad. And that's a way just to support what we're doing here. So if you're interested in those additional pods, make sure to go to thebullwork.com forward slash free trial, get a free trial today. We'd really appreciate it. Up next, the legend, Katie Couric. Enjoy it, and I'll see you right back here tomorrow. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast.

I'm your host, Tim Miller, and I am just so honored to have with me Katie Couric, the great Katie Couric, 15 years co-anchor of the Today Show, the first woman to solo anchor an evening newscast at CBS. In 2017, she founded Katie Couric Media. It's multimedia. There's a newsletter. There's the Next Questions podcast. There's Instagram Lives. Sarah Longwell was on one of those recently. We'll get into all of them. Katie, thank you so much for doing this. You're welcome, Tim. It's great to be with you. My first question, I have to warn you, is a bit of a gotcha. Okay. Oh, no. Are you ready? Oh, no. Here it is. What newspapers and magazines do you read? When it comes to establishing your worldview, I was curious what

newspapers and magazines you regularly read before you're tapped for this podcast to stay informed about the world. Well, I always read the Bulwark newsletter, for one. And I follow the old adage, know your audience, Tim. And are you serious? Can you name a few others specifically? My media diet? I am. I'm serious. I love the Washington Post. I love the 202. I love Axios. I love the New York Times. I love the New Yorker. I do love our newsletter, Wake Up Call. Subscribe at katiecouric.com. And I like Apple News. I like the Daily. I really get a lot of news and information from a cross-section of publications. I also sometimes watch Fox News

to see what their take is on the news of the day and some right-wing media outlets that I don't necessarily agree with because it's important for me to hear what Americans are listening to who may be tuning into those channels or reading those publications. Yeah, I feel very informed. Unfortunately, I'm spending too much time on my phone and that digital timer that says like how much phone time or whatever it is you're spending, it's way too much to be healthy. But I feel reasonably well-informed. And I can't believe Sarah Palin couldn't answer that question. I go even darker than Fox. If you want advice, I have a podcast diet of Candace Owens and Charlie Kirk and Bannon. I want to know what's happening out there in the real right-wing world. Yeah, that's smart.

I can't stomach that, but maybe you could do a little briefing for you. A download for me. Actually, that would be interesting. I'm not sure if this is something that Bulwark does in their publications, which I really like and enjoy and appreciate everything you all are doing. But it might be, do you kind of say messages from the dark side? What is being said in ultra right-wing media? I love this. In the green room, you're like, I've struggled with these interviews because I always want to be the interviewer and it's already happened. We're one minute in,

you're turning the mic away. No, no, please keep doing it. Please. It's great. You know, maybe it's a new product for us. This is a good advice from Media Entrepreneur. I do it, you know, kind of maybe once a quarter. I'll say, hey, I'm going to just listen to Candice for three months and then write a long article about that. But maybe there's more of a shorter kind of daily brief because I do think it's useful to hear what they're talking about. I think that would be smart, very instructive and super helpful. You could have uncovered, you know, the Taylor Swift conspiracy theories long before they kind of got attention on mainstream media because, you know, you've got your finger on that scary pulse. Yeah. I want to go back to Palin because this was formative for me. I rewatched the whole interview last night. And in some ways, it was worse than I

remembered, just about her preparedness on other questions besides the reading question. And in some ways, it was better. She was far less radical then than she is now. But I'm interested in your perception, because as a consumer, to me, it really was the first moment where I kind of knew that I was part of something that has a little bit of a dark side that I hadn't really been tuned into because I remember vividly watching your interview and then going to talk to my other colleagues and some family members and being like, I am alarmed about this. This person is totally unprepared and this is concerning. And getting back from them, no, I was also alarmed by Katie Couric

and she was too mean to her and the media is out to get her. And I remember thinking this and it took me eight years after that to come around to the fact that maybe me and these people that I was on a political tribe with aren't actually as aligned as I thought. I was just kind of wondering, as this was all happening, I've kind of forgotten that it was multiple days.

What were you thinking, not just about Sarah Palin, the person, but did it say anything to you about the right and like the state of being? I think it was interesting because this was in 2008 of not sort of being dismissive or judgmental, even my facial expressions were so neutral. Yeah. And I really was asking her questions that I thought were fair. They weren't gotcha questions, honestly. They were questions about public policy that someone who's running for vice president ostensibly should know. And I remember immediately after that interview, I got very little pushback from Republicans.

Now, of course, in some corners and some of your, you know, aforementioned people with whom you were speaking might have had an issue with me. But for really for the first couple of weeks, I think people were uncomfortable with her level of knowledge and her ability to talk even somewhat fluently about big issues. I also think it was exacerbated, quite frankly, by her speaking style. Yeah. You know, I think because she had sort of this word salad habit of answering questions with kind of strange speech patterns. Colloquialisms and yeah. Yeah. And just sort of just kind of the way I can't even explain it sort of it was almost her syntax and cadence.

Right. explain it sort of, it was almost syntax and cadence, right? I think that added to the feeling that she was honestly just out of her league in terms of understanding some key issues. So I remember not being attacked very much. And then I think as time went on and she started accusing me of asking gotcha questions and she started kind of punching back a bit, then I think a certain segment of the population became more sympathetic to her. But, you know, this was an era when you could actually, on a mainstream news outlet, do a serious interview, and it would be taken seriously. Yeah. And it wouldn't be dismissed out of hand because I represented the lamestream media or whatever. Or I was a libtard or whatever. Yeah. And so I think it was maybe one of the last impactful interviews only because the country was not nearly as polarized as it is now.

And their media consumption. This had been Donald Trump, and I think we've seen time and time again when Donald Trump does interviews with traditional news outlets and kind of whiffs on a variety of topics or says things that leave a lot of people scratching their heads. It doesn't seem to have an impact because the cult of personality has, pardon the expression, trumped, I think, competency. Just a note for the producers. I think we're going to need Katie Couric saying, LibTard is our cold open for YouTube. That might be my new ringtone. I want to play one of the audio from this, because when you talk about this,

it was a very substantive, her answers weren't substantive, but what you were asking her, it was during the financial crisis, so there was a lot on that, but then it also gets into foreign policy. And this question really, given what's happening now, jumped out at me and shows the scope of history as these things go. Should you play the Gaza clip? What happens if the goal of democracy, Governor Palin, doesn't produce the desired outcome?

For example, in Gaza, the U.S. pushed hard for elections and Hamas won. Yeah, well, especially in that region, though, we have got to protect those and support those who do seek democracy and do seek protections for the people. Not really an answer. We do support democracy, but you're asking about how Hamas won when there was democracy. It just struck me listening to that, that this is really diminished now in our politics, right? This notion that these sorts of things matter, but you can see like listening to something from, what is it now? 16 years ago, right? And you're asking a legit question. How do we balance this, right? Our support for democracy for the fact that if you push for democracy in these regions, they might elect folks that are hostile to us. And we see the end game of that with what

happened in October now. And it was just, she had no interest in actually thinking about that in any complex way. And that was true in question after question. I think I was really trying to ascertain her accumulated knowledge and ability to be a critical thinker and, you know, her honestly governing philosophy and how she looked at something. Listen, these were not easy questions. You know, sometimes when I was writing the questions, I would say, gosh, that's a hard question. I'm not sure how I would answer that question. I'm really glad I'm not running for president or vice president. But to

really have the worldview and the experience and the acumen to be able to think on your feet and have some kind of cohesive answer seem to be out of reach for her. And I think personally that that's something we need to demand of our highest elected officials. And when you're trying so hard to be eloquent, that's when you can't be eloquent because you're trying to think of every word. And I think she was so proud of the fact that she had met with Ahmadinejad and could say his name and pronounce it correctly that I was like, wait, what? And it was just very hard to get a coherent answer from her. I think she would have been such a potent political force if she had gone back to Alaska and just really done her homework, just inhaled foreign policy and really sought to understand domestic policy. And she's clearly not a dummy, but I just think her inexperience was breathtakingly on display. The other thing that was breathtaking for me watching it, re-watching it, the interview

goes on forever. I've forgotten how long it was. I don't know. Why did they give you so much time? Yeah. I did it in New York and then I followed her in Ohio. And in New York, we were talking about international issues and foreign policy. In Ohio, it was a focus on domestic issues. And I'm shocked that they did the second sit-down. But I think by then, Steve Schmidt and et al. were so kind of fed up with the whole thing and with her that in a weird way, I think they were like, yeah, go ahead. We don't care.

Giving her the rope. Okay. I'll ask Nicole about that if we can get her around here. Yeah. So the other thing though that was striking, over the course of the interview, she supported the bailouts. She supported the need to address climate change. Said that they were doing that in Alaska and we recognize that humans are impacting it.

She had a little bit of a hedge there, but she acknowledged that humans are impacting it. She had a little bit of a hedge there, but she acknowledged that humans are impacting it and said, we need to address it. She talked about welcoming immigrants in Ronald Reagan's shining city on the hill. She talked about being the daughter of a science teacher and having respect for science. She held a couple hardline views on abortion. She talked about a gay, a lesbian friend that she had. To me, that was like the deterioration of the party over 15 years. And, you know, to now, where we are, you know, that hasn't sunk in for a lot of people, particularly on the left, right? That they're like, oh, this was always, you know, these guys were always racist. They're always conspiracy mongers. And Pagan had her weaknesses in that

interview. But compared to now, I mean, extremely stark. It's astounding. It's astounding. I mean, as somebody who has been a journalist for upwards of, gosh, 40 years, something like that. I'm trying to think. Yeah, 40 years, 40 plus years, Tim. You're going to be a grandmother soon. I know. God, I'm old as dirt, Tim. What can I say? But anyway. You look great. And it must be for someone like you. I mean, I'm a pretty moderate person, even though I, you know, have traditional liberal stance on things like reproductive rights and LGBTQ issues. I can't believe how craven the Republican Party has become. And it's so frustrating. I was reading about Lindsey Graham. Maybe it was in the bulwark. I can't remember. I read so much stuff. I can't always remember. We write about Lindsey a lot. So, you know. But it was about Lindsey kind of being the person who's able to read the political winds. So,

I think it might have been you all and just how much he has changed. And honestly, I was thinking about John McCain, baffling and really sad to me and outrageous. He didn't vote for the Ukraine aid. Right. This is central to his ideology. And if you're McCain, you just have to be rolling over in your grave. Lindsey doesn't vote for the Ukraine aid because of some silly Donald Trump art of the deal thing that's like,

it should be alone, not aid. And this was central to the McCain-Graham ideology. And then a few days after that, you have the Navalny assassination,

whatever you want to call it. I mean, we've done that how do you sleep at night Lindsay Graham thing for so long. But it is just taking that lens

from 2008 to now as outraged as some on the left were about Palin then, it's objectively just gotten way worse. Oh, definitely. Definitely. And I don't know. It's just I've never seen anything quite like this.

The idea that Republicans would work so hard to work out a bipartisan immigration bill and to only see it scuttled because Trump doesn't want anyone to sign it. I mean, they took the challenge of attaching what aid to Ukraine and Israel to an immigration bill, and then they do it, they work for weeks. And then because Trump says, don't support it, and PS, we want to use this as an election year weapon, it just doesn't pass. And I don't know. And then the whole thing about this realignment of what has been the world order since World War II, and I'm not a historian, Tim, but I think people need to take seriously this desire to completely neuter NATO and to befriend Russia. I just don't get it. And I think there was a piece in the New York Times, and maybe you can

help me understand this, Tim, why the ultra right wing is suddenly cozying up to Russia. And again, is it just there being Donald Trump's collective lapdogs on this issue? But I cannot for the life of me and my friends and I talk about this, understand this desire for a complete realignment with Russia and Vladimir Putin. Can you take a shot at that? And I know I'm co-opting your podcast. Yeah, no, please. Let's do it. No, I love it. I think it's two things. I think some of it is Trump's perversion of the Republican Party and people just following Trump and his weird idiosyncrasies. But I think that there is more to it than that. There is just this hostility on the right to globalization, right?

And to this kind of elite culture of where, you know, New York and London and Berlin and Hong Kong, you know, it's all merging into kind of one culture. And we want to protect our own kind of unique American rugged culture. And it's a rejection of the elites. It's a rejection of globalization. And in some ways, I think they see Putin as an ally in that,

right? Like Putin is also a, is anti-woke. Anti-woke. Yeah, exactly. Anti-globalist, anti-elite,

anti, he doesn't want the little mermaid to be black. You know what I mean? I think it goes to all of that. But it's also, I mean, it's like isolationism on steroids. And it's one thing to bemoan globalization and the negative impact it's had on our domestic economy and on top of the transition from an industrial to a more technical society. But I think the ramifications of this are huge. And to be saying that because he's anti-woke

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Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete.me. now at a special discount for our listeners today get 20 off your delete me plan when you go to join delete me.com slash bulwark and use promo code bulwark at checkout the only way to get 20 off is to go to join delete me.com slash bulwark and enter code bulwark at checkout that's join delete me.com slash bulwark code bulwark. You talked recently to Kamala Harris. I'm prefacing this question for all the listeners. I'm not comparing Kamala Harris to Sarah Palin. They have very different people. They have very different strengths. Kamala Harris would never post a meme of a smiling Vladimir Putin laughing at dead journalists, for example, Sarah Palin did this week. But the one area when you were talking about the Palin interview and how she kind of got in

her head a little bit, and you got to spend a lot of time with Kamala, because I kind of feel like that might be happening with her. And so you spent a lot of time with her for the interview, where I think that she is super talented and obviously way more prepared than Sarah was when she was in Alaska and a prosecutor. And yet, publicly sometimes, it seems like the little hamster wheel is rolling up there and she's trying to figure out the right thing to say. I was wondering what your impressions were getting to spend a lot of time with her. First of all, I was very appreciative that she was willing to sit down with me. I didn't spend a lot of time with her.

The interview itself was a half hour. And so it wasn't to the degree that I spent with then Governor Palin. But I think that Vice President Harris tends to revert sometimes to talking points. And she's got, you know, sort of these bullet points in her head. And instead of kind of approaching a question with a fresh take, or at least a fresh way of saying the same take, that is where I think there's room for improvement. I think she did a good job because I said, you know, let's just sound like we're having a cup of coffee, you know, let's just pretend like we're having a cup of coffee, you know, and I really just want to kind of go through some stuff with you and have a conversation. Yeah. And I think she was able to do that. I pushed her on a couple of points about whether aid to

Israel should be conditional. But I do think the more she can just speak extemporaneously, she's obviously highly intelligent. She's privy to a lot of meetings. And the less she speaks from perhaps a fear of saying the wrong thing or being misconstrued or being memefied or, you know, whatever, the better off she'll be. And I think the more she gets out there, the better she'll be. But I see what you're saying. I think there is no comparison in terms of the depth of knowledge

and the level of experience. But I agree with you. I feel like sometimes she does get in her head and reverts to just saying what she said before because she has to be uber careful. And I think, you know, I sympathize with her. Think about it. I mean, social media was kind of in its infancy when I interviewed Sarah Palin.

You can only imagine the memes and the soundbites. And, well, you know, it was used to great effect on SNL. SNL. But you can only imagine. So I think that a lot of politicians, it's in some ways paralyzed them from having just a really spontaneous conversation. And I guess it was ever thus, Tim, because people would have soundbites taken out of context, etc. But I think it's just has been amplified so much because of social media that it's hard to have a conversation that's nuanced and people are fearful it will be taken out of context.

Yeah, what worries me about it with Kamala, which is I think maybe a more apt comparison is kind of to my old boss, Jeb, a little bit, and to Hillary, which is they just weren't natural at this kind of, you know, type of media thing. Like you'd get Jeb around a room with eight people talking policy and he would just be... He'd geek out. Yeah, he'd own the room, you know, he would feel like the alpha, he'd be asking questions, asking tough follow-up questions. And then you get him in front of a camera on a debate stage, and it just didn't. The words were okay, but the performance, the confidence, whatever, I just wasn't there in a lot of ways, the same way that was with his brother. And people said

this about Hillary forever, and I just don't know. Is that fixable? Unfortunately, is that just a natural part of politics? And Kamala is in such an important role here, given the age of President Biden. Is there a way to break through and change that narrative? Or is it just kind of that's what Kamala is going to be, do you think? I guess the question is, are people willing? Are they coachable, right? Yeah. You know, I don't think it's a natural thing for a lot of people. I think it's a gift and a hard-won skill. Now, if somebody said to Jeb, hey, you're so good in a small crowd. How can we help you channel that personality and that fluency and that level of ease to a debate or to an interview?

What would he have said, Tim? I'm fucking doing it, Tim. Aren't I already doing that, Tim? What do you mean? What do you want me to do? It's hard. It's natural. Give me some lines. Help me do it.

I think he got better. He got better with reps. I think Mitt Romney got better with reps. Mitt Romney was terrible, by the way, and has become very comfortable. So I do think that there's some examples, but you first have to accept it. It's like Malcolm Gladwell says, you know? Yeah. And I think a lot of people don't think they, you know, they'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about? Exactly.

And I think that's what makes it hard. And I also think debates are so stupid. And, you know, these debates, Tim, with eight or ten candidates, and they're so performative and there's so much theatrics. And how much can you really truly talk about issues and policies in these really kind of debates where the moderators lose all control? They're interrupting each other. It's like, who's going to get the best soundbite? Who has the best rehearsed spontaneity, you know, where they are going to make a joke or mock somebody. So that's such a hard situation. You know, I think Mike Bloomberg would have been a fantastic president. He just couldn't deal with the debate stage. You know, I mean,

He was horrible. That's really what we needed. And Jeb, we needed Mike Bloomberg run as a Republican. So we could have had him as a comparison point. Yeah. Because we're doing better than him. But Mike Bloomberg is if he would have been such a kick ass president, in my view. And yet the theatrical nature of a debate was just something that he couldn't master. Yeah. One more thing on Kamala. Her strength, and the White House has been doing good at putting her out there on this, is talking about abortion. And listening to your interview, I thought, here's where she was strongest. Let's just play one clip from that. What I have seen traveling our country, listening to women who have been directly affected because of these laws, is the stories of women having miscarriages in toilets, Katie.

There's a woman in Texas who I've spent some time with. She wanted to become pregnant. She wanted to have children, but she was having a miscarriage. She went to the emergency room. She was denied care because the hospital workers were so afraid that they might get sued or be committing something against the law, that they would not give her care. It was only when she went back because she had developed sepsis that they gave her care. Women around our country are experiencing a profound harm because of these laws as a result of that Supreme Court decision. Here where she's giving specific examples, you know, talking about the women, I'm curious, A, if you just kind of respond to how she talked about that, this is going to be just such a

critical issue this year. And these stories, I know these are the kinds of stories that you're telling at your outlet. Is that personalization a way to kind of solve this, get away from talking points? I think so. But it's, you know, like with this fragmented media landscape, I mean, are people paying attention? Are they listening to that? Are they, someone told me last night, I was in an event about a mom in Nebraska, I believe, who is serving jail time for helping her daughter. And I guess there was something on Facebook chat about it.

I've got to look into that because I wasn't that familiar with the story. But there are stories like this happening all over the country. And clearly, I think that is a huge leverage point for the Democrats. And we've seen that people are irate and that they're turning out to vote on this issue. You know, it used to be pro-life, quote unquote, was a single issue that would, you know, sometimes meant a single issue voter. And now we've got reproductive rights and abortion rights advocates becoming single issue voters too, when heretofore they weren't. So I think tapping into that population is a really smart thing to do. But, you know, obviously they're going to have

to go beyond that, especially as Joe Biden and the Biden administration is losing traction with young voters, Black voters, and Hispanic voters. So, you know, they need to do it all hands on deck. And of course, then with the special counsel report, it seems to be even more critically important that a lot of surrogates get out there. And I really hope that President Biden does some interviews where he's asked hard questions, because I think if he doesn't, I think it's going to make the situation even worse for the White House. And it's going to make people suspect the worst if he's not able to do an interview with a serious journalist asking about world issues. I hope that they make him available. I think it's so important.

Katie Couric Media, maybe, would be a good place to do that. Yeah. Well, you know, I would love for him to do an interview with me and to talk to me about various issues. I was talking to some friends the other day, Tim, and we were saying, you know, just as Sarah Palin's strange syntax and cadence kind of made her even more difficult to understand. I do think President Biden's stutter at times plays into this idea that he has a hard time expressing himself or is having memory issues. And I think sometimes that actually exacerbates the perception.

The whisper for me too. I want to talk a little bit about your career before I lose you. You take over CBS, its first woman anchor. It was before this Me Too movement and before, I think, this awakening about how women are treated in the workplace, but also in media. And I just kind of wonder if you look back on that with any little bit of resentment or feeling that, man, maybe had this been five years later, people would have appreciated more of what I was trying to do instead of, you know, nitpicking my outfits or the types of stories that we were running. I'm wondering how you look back on that now. Well, it was definitely a difficult period for me, but I also think it was a transitional time in the culture, as you point out.

I had such a prominent role on the Today Show and was kind of the big dog because I was the most experienced anchor on that show when I left that I thought there was much less sexism in the world than there really was. And I think it was a confluence of things when I look back on it. I can actually look and opine on it in a very detached way. It was this notion that Les Moonves wanted to humanize the news and make it less voice of God, make it more approachable and kind of less formal, which I think set me up to this idea that I lacked gravitas because I was taking that approach, which I have always said is Latin for testicles. And I think there was a lot of resentment internally for me at CBS because it was such a traditional network and people actually rose within the network and I was kind of

an outsider. And I think there was a lot of baked in sexism internally and externally at the time. And do I look back and resent it? No, I don't really resent it because I do think my doing that made it easier for Nora O'Donnell, for example, to step into that role. And I think that I was able to make it less of a novelty to have a woman in that role and doing it hopefully with confidence and competence. So, you know, sometimes I feel like, you know, I wish, I wish it had been different. And I wish maybe I had been done things a little bit differently, you know, maybe not try to change things so quickly, because it's really, you know, those things move at a glacial pace. And I think I tried to really stir it up pretty significantly right away.

And I think having an anchor with lipstick was shocking enough for some people to really toy with the format was probably a bridge too far. But, you know, regrets, I have a few. But then again. Okay. Self-criticism is good and healthy. I have plenty of self-criticism. We could do another hour on my self-criticism. But I'm going to take one more pass at resentment. See if I can find it underneath there anywhere with the accusations and what happened with Matt Lauer as far as the Me Too thing.

You have to look back at that at least with some exasperation. It's just like at the time, the way you were treated publicly versus the way he was treated. Now looking back in retrospect. You mean with Me Too? No, I mean, he ends up having Me Too accusations. But I'm saying before that, credible Me Too accusations. I'm saying before that, you know, you get all of this criticism and, you know, all the public scrutiny on your behavior versus him, the lack of it, that doesn't bug you now in retrospect? No, I mean, I think it's such a, so apples and oranges, honestly. I think one is sort of systemic sexism and another is systemic and institutionalized misogyny and permissive culture. So I don't know. I don't really compare the two at all.

Yeah, I don't really even connect has suffered a huge, huge loss, and he has paid dearly for his mistakes. I think what I look back on is why a reckoning about mostly male behavior in the workplace didn't come earlier. And I think, and that's sort of a whole separate issue from societal views on the role of women. You know, I kind of would separate those, but having started in TV news in 1980, there were structures in place or a lack of structures in place that permitted a lot of these men behaving badly stories that went on for way too long. And I think part of it, I write about this in my book a little, Tim, this was the first generation of women entering the workforce, you know, en masse. And I think that there was this adjustment period and you, you know, I was watching lessons in chemistry on Apple. And I think that takes place in the forties and fifties. And you look back on how women were

treated then the few women who wanted to work and it's just, it's stunning. So I'm really glad Me Too happened. And I'm really glad I think it's changed behaviors in workplaces, not enough. And I think there are a lot of sort of more blue collar workplaces where there haven't been enough changes. But I sort of see the big picture and the cultural evolution without internalizing it or personalizing it too much. I love that. That's great. We could have had more women's suits and a few more gay suits, I think might have helped. Because for example, and I told my husband that we were doing this. And a few more black suits.

Yeah, black suits. I was saying to my husband, I was like, I'm interviewing Katie Couric. Like, what do you think I should ask?'s like she got screwed she said the gays loved her on the evening news i'm just like i don't maybe not enough days we're watching the evening news was maybe the problem i think it was starting to be in decline and that wasn't my fault okay i want you just to give us a update on katie couric media and then I'm closing with a couple rapid fire questions. Okay. So give us a pitch on Katie Kirk Media. Oh, God. Okay. All right. Very quickly, I've done a lot of things in network news, and there wasn't a lot of places for me to go. But I really love working. I really love journalism. So I decided since I saw a long time ago, the decline of linear television, that I would

do a digital first media company. My husband was an investment banker and has a very sharp business mind. So he is our CEO and he and I built this media company. I didn't want to call it Katie Couric Media, but I guess I was in the business when you could actually have the ability to almost become a household name, whereas today it's much more difficult to break through.

So I said, okay, we can call it that. And we have a daily newsletter, well, Monday through Saturday, and the podcast, Next Question. I do a lot of interviews on YouTube with smart people from the bulwark and other places. And, uh, we also do pieces. We do branded partnerships, but they're brand supported because we have editorial control. But for example, I did a series that Mars partnered with us on people and their dogs because they have a huge

pet food part of their business. And it was fun for me to talk to people and do these beautifully produced pieces. So that is really our bread and butter in terms of our financial model. We work with purpose-driven global brands to do storytelling that they care about. And that allows us to also cover news and other stories that maybe brands don't necessarily want to be associated with. A lot of brands don't want to be associated with news. And we've got about 40 employees. And we have been very successful bringing in a lot of companies who really appreciate what we're doing. And yeah, we built something pretty great. And I don't have to work for the man anymore.

Tell your husband, I don't have to put up with the bullshit. Although I do get some negative comments on social media sometimes. And it's great being the boss of me. Yeah, I love that for you. You're ahead of the game again, the generational element. You know, this is where younger people are getting news, right? And on these Instagram lives, on YouTube, they're not sitting down and watching the nightly anymore. Sorry, Nora. So, you know, you're reaching those folks.

I think that's an important part about what you're doing. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I think because I did it when I did it in terms of my news career, I do think I've established a level of not only familiarity, but trust. And people know that they're going to get somebody who is searching for the truth and is asking the right questions, is prepared. And that's why I can get interviews with people like Kamala Harris.

All right, here we go. You ready for rapid fire? This is your career, rapid fire. I hate these, Tim. That's okay. If you don't have a good one, we'll just cut it. This is the magic of podcasts. Okay.

Okay, ready. A favorite person off camera. I've noticed in my interviews that sometimes in the green room, like you, we're extremely charming. We were talking about our hair, how I don't have any hair gel. Some people in the green room like you were extremely charming we were talking about our hair how i don't have any hair gel some people in the green room are very rude who who was somebody off camera that you interviewed that you're like wow they're great oh god that's so hard tim there's so many people who actually i know and like i mean okay i love cheryl crowe okay cheryl crowe see i would never have expected that

I'm happy that you gave that one that's a good one Sheryl Crow Amanda Shires I interviewed it was like this Amanda Shires I don't know if you know her but you should check out her music

she's amazing okay yes I love Amanda Shires she was amazing she's part of the high women yeah high women she was amazing in the green room oh my god

I met Amanda at the Kennedy Center Honors and her mom and her boyfriend. She's pretty great. Okay, final question. Final question. As you can tell, I'm new at this. You have a long career.

You're about to be a grandma. I need one piece of advice for me. You've now seen me in 40 minutes of action. How could I become a better interviewer? How could I become more like Katie Couric? Well, first of all, I think you did a great job. I think you make people feel comfortable. I think every interview has to be tailored for the interviewee. So clearly you prepared Tim because you watched my whole Sarah Palin interview. So I think be prepared and, you know, have fun and ask people some questions that they haven't been asked 20,000

times. And when you feel like they're falling back on talking points, you know you've done something wrong. That is great. Closing words. Congratulations on your upcoming grandmotherhood. I'm so grateful you took the time for this. Katie Couric, hope we can do it again soon. Invite me on an Instagram Live sometime. We can hang out again. I will, Tim. Great to be with you.

This was really fun for me. And I didn't take over too much, did I? I loved it. Actually, I love to talk. I don't know if you noticed, but I'm a white man. And so I have opinions. And so really, I could have just let you interview me and it would have been just as good for me, even better probably. But I'm glad it worked out how it did.

Well, thanks. It was really, really fun. The Bulwark Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown. I'm showing you the way home. You can hold my hand when you need to let go. I want a house with a crowded table and a place by the fire for everyone Let us take on the world while we are enabled And bring this back together when the day is done Estar