The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - PTFO - The News Anchor America Needed

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

Turning on the news right now feels utterly surreal. But it didn’t always have to be this way. Because Connie Chung — tenacious TV broadcaster and author of a new memoir — set a gold standard in the pre-internet era. For being unafraid of powerful men. For getting scoops at the bar. For trash-talking. For calling out Donald Trump’s childishness to his face. For withstanding the boorish behavior of Bobby Knight and unearthing the inner pain of Michael Jordan. And, yes, for shutting down the richest man on Earth... even after he jumped over a chair. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre, and today we're going to find out what this sound is. Do you really feel like a philanthropic person? I feel very philanthropic. I really do. Do you? And I'm a young guy. Look, you know people don't believe that. Right after this ad.

You're listening to Giraffe King's network. To be on the internet with you, having truly grown up watching you. Really? Yes, of course. What do you mean, really? No. Seriously. I am one of the millions upon millions of Americans who trusted Connie Chung with telling us what the f*** is happening in our world. Wowzer.

You were the person inside my television. Oh my gosh. I can't believe it. It's something that I'm meaning to talk to you about specifically because what this book did was reveal things about you that I could not get by watching you on television. Right. Like what you actually felt. Well, you know what?

That was a gigantic challenge. When I wrote what is commonly known as the s***ty first draft, when I submitted it to my publisher, she said, you're just telling the facts. And I said, well, that's what I do. You're reporting? Yeah. And she said, no, you can't, you've got to tell how you feel. And I thought, oh, gosh, give me a break. If I had known that I wouldn't have written the darn thing. Connie Chung was a television star in ways that young people today cannot possibly appreciate.

Because when I was growing up in the early 90s, back in my day, there was no internet, there were no cell phones, no social media, no YouTube, obviously. And so watching the news meant turning on your television by pressing a button after dinner. At which point, almost inevitably, this person would crackle into view. Today, Connie Chung is a tireless 78-year-old who insisted, by the way, on standing up for our entire in-person interview here because it had been a long book tour, understandably, and she had been sitting too much. And at this very moment in American political history, there are few people I wanted to stand up and talk to me more than Connie Chung. Who wasn't only the first woman to co-anchor the CBS Evening News, with Dan Rather, the man who

had succeeded Walter Cronkite, who had hired Connie as a correspondent. Connie was also the first ever Asian network news anchor, and the reporter responsible for the first federal prosecution of a civil rights era murder case, and also, as you'll see in a bit here, simply one of the toughest television interviewers of all time. And I've been thinking about Connie ever since her husband, Mori Povich, yes, daytime television icon, Mori Povich, casually mentioned her memoirs to us in studio a year ago. I'll call her though if you want me to. Well, we might need to. She's not writing her memoirs. if you want me to. Well, we might need to. If she's not writing her memoirs. I was going to say.

You will not be surprised to learn that Connie Chung and Maury Povich, this paragon of journalism and this paragon of the alleged opposite, are in fact opposites themselves. But it's not in the way that you'd expect. But it's not in the way that you'd expect. He is the stable, able, stalwart, traditionalist, and I am the crazy one. And he has to curb my enthusiasm all the time because you know what he says to me? You can't do that. And I say, why? You do a crazy program every day. You're determining the paternity of every child in America.

Who is the daddy and who's not the daddy? You are not! What? What? What? What? Now, come on. I can do it. And he says, no, you have a reputation to uphold. But it's clear now that, and you write this in the book, that this whole time you write, I looked like a lotus blossom, but I talked like a sailor with a raw sense of humor.

That is just not merely a personality trait, but a learned skill of sorts. I was a trash talker and I... It was really because I wanted to be one of the guys. And at that time, there were so many guys in the newsroom. I mean, in fact, everybody in the newsroom at CBS was a man. All my competitors were men. Everybody I covered were men. You know, Capitol Hill and the White House and Pentagon and State Department, all men.

And white for that matter. I had decided that the only way I could be one of the boys is to literally talk like them, you know literally talk like them, you know, act like them. And it was not a conscious decision. It's just something I acquired through osmosis because they would make such sexual innuendos at me. So I would do it to them.

And it was really disconcerting and they didn't know what to do about it. So they would kind of just stand down. You were preemptive at times. Yes. I would lob something at them before they could lob it at me. There's a part of your book you write about a guy at Channel 5 in DC, and it's page 73.

Could you read this part? Would you mind? Is that possible? No, sure. It's the bracketed part. Okay. From your bracketed part. Okay From your misalette, okay Bill Gave me the look I could see the sperm swimming in the whites of his eyes His long nose was pointing at me like a golden retrievers his thin body shaking his dogs

Do when they're determined to chase a bird you want me to go on? I think the gist that I wanted to establish. Is that I could see the sperm swimming in the whites of their eyes? Yeah, that's what I found out today. We did it in five minutes. That you had this ability to diagnose from up close and from afar, it seems, the intent of these people who were both colleagues but predators and also for you in the end, a form of prey as well as you were not some shrinking, you know, violet.

Violet? Yeah. Well, but I mean, I think every woman has seen the sperm, you know, swimming through the whites of their eyes. It's like a, you know, you can see it. Yeah. Yeah. Those are good dance. Kadi Chung just did a sperm motility dance. There you go.

This is hard for me to even say aloud because it's a mad lib of a sentence. What was it like when Henry Kissinger flirted with you? It was so gross. I mean, really gross. I did, you know, because he had this belief that he was a sex symbol, frankly. So he thought that he was some kind of a hot person just because of his brain. It was so creepy. I mean, I wouldn't even have helped him cross the street

if he had asked me to. I don't know. And there were a lot of creepy old men. Just to run through some of the list here, and this is before my time, but again, as an attempted student of history, when I learned that it's not just Henry Kissinger. Oh no, you're a Harvard guy, you know. In my history class, I didn't learn that at a dinner, Jimmy Carter pressed his leg up against yours and sort of just was hoping some magic would happen.

I don't know what he was thinking, but he had just given that interview with Playboy magazine that said he lusted in his heart. And I saw this look on his face after he pressed his knee against mine. And I thought, really? These are only a couple of examples among many, but in 1972, just to be very clear here, you're a reporter who is aggressive and principled and unrelenting, and you're covering the George McGovern presidential campaign. Yeah. And so this is against Richard Nixon. The point being that you wind up as Connie Chung, young hotshot, rising star reporter on St. Michael's Island off Maryland.

And it's like, again, this is a mad lib Connie, because it's who? Who is there at the island? Oh, yeah. It's crazy. Warren Beatty and his girlfriend, Julie Christie, both major stars, movie stars at the time, certainly. And McGovern asked me if I wanted to join them for dinner. And he said his wife Eleanor was not gonna be there.

And I thought, well, this is not cool. But I thought, well, maybe I'll find out something. Maybe he'll tell me something that everybody else doesn't know. So we have dinner. I excuse myself to go to the ladies room, bathroom, or whatever. And on my way back, he tries to kiss me.

In the middle of a presidential campaign. Yeah. And you're the reporter who every, I mean, again, it's just... Bizarre. Bizarre. Did you have a diagnosis as to what was that moment? I was clueless. But you know what? When I was on this book tour, a woman told me that she had also encountered McGovern at one point and that he propositioned her. And basically she said, why don't you go to a prostitute?

So I thought she was pretty darn ballsy. Let's be solutions oriented here. Or get a dog. What about a dog? Yeah, exactly. The point here that I bring it up to make is also that this is across the political spectrum, right? McGovern is a lion of liberalism.

Carter too, right? It's not just Kissinger, it's men. Yes. It is men and Washington and there you are being called at the same time, just to get the full scorecard here, you know, alternately dragon lady, yellow journalist. OSE? Could you explain OSE? Old Slant Eyes, which was like old blue eyes. Frank Sinatra was old blue eyes.

And I, someone said to me, you're OSE, old slant eyes. You did do it your way. It turned out. I did. But it was kind of crazy. I mean, but it was kind of crazy. I mean, but it was rampant. I think every woman who was alive then experienced the same thing.

I was not unusual. Really. Not, not by any means unusual. It was just all over the place. It was constant. It was just all over the place. It was constant. It was daily. And I think all the women in my era just plain put up with it. It's clear to me in this book, and even just our conversation now, that you were not collapsing onto fainting couches when this happened.

You were in, again, the boys on the bus. It was the boys on the bus and Connie. You could hang. You learned to go to the bar. Yes. Because that's what it meant to report. Apparently, I didn't know that. I was tucked in bed early until I realized that the guys were getting scoops. And the way they were getting scoops was drinking at the bar every night with the McGovern people and they would get them

to spill the beans. So I thought, forget about going to bed early, I'm going down to the bar too. You know, I learned how to drink in college so why not, why not apply what I learned in college? Absolutely. Yeah. You know, I do want to point out that while a lot of this was happening, you were living with your parents. Can you imagine? How embarrassing.

I mean, just paint the picture though. You're in DC, your family's there, and as all this is happening, you go home. You go home to mommy and daddy. It really is embarrassing. Yeah, but you know, that's how incredibly Chinese I am. And the whole Asian thing of filial piety. I was such a good daughter. I was the last of their five daughters. They expected me to hang in there. My excuse is that I was on such a rigorous schedule of hopping all over the country with

the McGovern campaign and then covering Watergate day and night, covering Nelson Rockefeller when he was vice president, that it made it easy for me to just live at home because I would plop home and just be able to sleep. You know, I was embarrassed to write that in the book, but it was the truth. And I have to tell the truth. One of the most relatable parts. Really? Oh yeah. I lived at home for several years after college.

You did. Both for filial piety reasons and also broke reasons. Yes. I was a fact checker, you know, and it wasn't... My cousins in the Philippines still, you know, so many of them live at home, as so many people in Asia do. It's not weird over there, but in America, Connie, I want to point this out too, we're both first generation Americans. We're both the first members of our family born in these United States.

Yes. The place in your book where I was sort of thinking deeply about that is the part where your dad is this force of ancestral weight and in this case pressure insofar as he gave you a mission. He did. He did indeed. How would you explain the mission? He was very proud of the fact that he was able to basically manipulate a way to get out of China during the Sino-Japanese War.

They had lost three boys in China. They had a total of nine children. Five of them died as infants and three of them were boys. And you know, in China, that's verboten. I mean, you can't, you don't want girls all you want are boys because they carry on the family name. Right. Right. He wrote me a letter and I was already in the news business and he said, maybe you can

someday carry on the name Chung the way a son would. I think I took that mission seriously and tried to be the son my parents never had. You got more muscular. I have lost 10 pounds. Have you? Yeah, using my Peloton. I've had the Peloton in my house. So my daughter, she wanted me to get a Peloton.

I did. She used it a couple of times. Great endorsement. But once she left to college and the Peloton was just sitting there in my office and it wasn't being used, I said, you know what? I got to use this and I have lost 10 to 12 pounds, Billy. So I started using Peloton as a bike. Obviously that's like what they're known for.

But recently I discovered all of the other classes that they have. They have like a series of weightlifting classes. They have programs, which for me, the programs is great because I don't have to think about what I'm doing. If not, I just go and I pick a class at random and I don't know that I'm actually accomplishing anything. I would like some recommendations on classes

because I keep going to the same class. Okay. It's the Grateful Dead class, by the way. You do like a four-week core program with Emma Lovewell. Right. I would recommend that one. Okay. Anyone can do that. Any level starts out, you know, easy and then you work your way up.

And then there's like a core program two that you can do after core program one if you want to do that. Yeah, if you graduate. Wait a second. You have to graduate course one to get to course two, the harder course? Well, you can start a course two if you want, but I eased my way in, I did course one first. Then you can do some strength classes with Andy, love a strength class with Andy, he really puts me through it.

I get up and I'm like a sweaty mess, and I'm kind of disgusting and I love it. You know the thing about Peloton's dugouts? What? Peloton coaches, they walk the walk. Really? Yeah. Do they talk the talk? They have sub three hour marathon runner coaches.

They have military trained athlete coaches, former college basketball player coaches, and so many other well rounded coaches on their team. All this experience really shows in their classes. You're never short of challenging. You can do some resistance band classes. I got some resistance bands lately. You're my teacher.

Am I? Yeah. You know, no I'm not. Well, I just go with the program so then I don't have to think because I don't know I don't know what I'm doing. Anyways what's the like Mr. Olympia right is that what it's called? Yes. The one where you go and you're like lifting like shining boulders. Yeah. We should talk to Magnus again. That's Mr. Olympia. Yeah. Yes. What did I say? Olympus. Did I? I don't know. Anyways find your push, find your power with Peloton at OnePeloton.com.

I want to convey to people who maybe weren't of conscious memory when you were doing some of your most, let's call them, name-making interviews. We'll start, I think, with a voice that is, like you, quite relevant still today. I sell very great condominiums in New York. I have the best casinos in the world. They aren't that great. Come on. They're the best. What, in Trump town? Maybe if you can try and answer this question without giving me the normal spiel, huh? What is the normal spiel? I don't know the normal spiel is Well, the fact is is that many rich and powerful people

Do try to remain anonymous, but you became very public very clearly by your own design I don't know it was by my own design. You mean the I do developments which get a lot of publicity I mean if I don't know I mean this if Trump Tower Tower weren't a great building on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street by a young guy. Trump Tower was one building in New York City with zillions of buildings. Trump Tower was built by a young guy in a very important location. No, I don't think it was by design though. I think that it happened. You're so innocent. Come on. No, I want to be innocent. I've always wanted to be innocent.

My entire life has been devoted to being innocent. This is a little Donald. But I don't know that it was by design. I want to be innocent. I've always wanted to be innocent my entire life Okay, so what do you feel what do you remember now watching that back now What happened was but the producer of the program that I was doing at the time said we have an interview Booked with Donald Trump and I said why? He was a tabloid king. He would create publicity that would put him on the front pages of either the New York Daily News or the New York Post. And I said, I don't see any reason. Why does anybody care what he has to say? And the producer said, no, you should, you know, we've got it booked. Go

ahead and do it. So I went ahead and did it. Afterwards, Trump was not happy with it. I was going to ask about the aftermath. Yes. How did that feel? Do you really feel like a philanthropic person? I feel very philanthropic. I really do. Do you?

And I'm a young guy. You know, people don't believe that. Oh, I think people believe it. See, it gets to a point where some people can never be satisfied, honey. Perhaps you're one of those people. He said that I didn't know what I was talking about, that I was... Oh, lightweight, sure. Yeah, lightweight.

Uh-huh. And you know how he likes to call women nasty? He doesn't have a very wide vocabulary, so he was using the same adjectives. Then in subsequent years, Pablo, Mori would play in celebrity golf tournaments with Donald Trump. Trump would be there. He'd introduce Mori to his wife, Melania. He completely ignored my presence. Despite Mori trying to introduce me, it was just really quite extraordinary.

If I may, it seemed like a childish way to respond. Yeah, yeah. Which is to say that anything that's happened since, as much as it is on one level, utterly surreal, is also in this way exactly a version of what you had experienced. Yeah. You know, there was a quote in your book that is attributed to Joe DiMaggio. Yes. About how you were, athletically, as an interviewer.

The quote is, I'd hate to be on the other end of one of her fastballs. Do you know who told me that was our podiatrist who was best friends with Joe DiMaggio? He said they were, he and DiMaggio were watching an interview that I was doing and that's when he said it. You know, it's funny the way sports does come up in your book. Oh. Because it recurs. Yes.

And it comes, if I may establish a bit of the frame here, it comes both as a matter of assignments that were foisted upon you, someone who's perpetually trying to prove your credibility and your seriousness with journalism, but also clearly as a matter of these characters, like let's just go to Bobby Knight in this NBC documentary. I'm going to do it and I'm going to do it my way. There are times Bobby Knight can't do it his way. And what does he do then? I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it.

I mean, that's just an old term that you're going to use. What was, so you said very little in that clip and he did not need you to say a lot to know that he had said something that he should not have said. Right. What was going through your mind as he said it? I can't believe this. I mean, I couldn't believe he actually said what he said. And this was after he threw a folding chair across the court

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

You know? Which, which, you gotta admit. Yeah. Pretty good line. Pretty good line. I thought it was great. I thought it was hysterical. What's crazy about that interview is that that was the headline.

Yeah. But the subhead, arguably, should have been the fact that this happened. I've never hit anybody. Haven't you gone up to a kid and gone, whack? Oh, yeah. I went down the line of our kids one time. What'd you do? And just hit them on the shoulder, whack them. Come on, let's go, let's go, let's go.

I needed that. That was nice soft touch you had there. Well, this for Christ's sake didn't like interviewing some politician that wants to be on television. I don't give a damn whether you ever put this on television or not. So just for the record here, Bobby, Bobby Knight literally slaps you in the face. Yeah, I got whacked. And you handle it as if you had, again, the litany of equivalent circumstances that you'd experienced in DC. You're like, yeah, I know how this goes. Give me an uppercut. Now. Go on. Go ahead.

You know? I mean, it's like, whee! Jesus. That's wild! It is wild. It's unbelievable that that was on television. So at this point, I just need to observe that for all of the ways that Connie Chung had been mistreated, obviously, by American presidents in private and Hall of Fame coaches in public, she loved her job. She found it thrilling, actually. She became obsessed with the craft of it, the taking of chances, the competition to

score the big get. She was, in her own way, doing her father and her family name proud, as he had requested in writing to her. And America, in response, loved watching Connie Chung work. Her interview with Gary Condit, for instance, the embattled congressman from California, was watched by more than 23 million people. Roughly the same number also watched her interview, embattled figure skater Tanya Harding. And the list, which extends deep into sports now, goes on. I just don't know if I've ever seen somebody grill the greatest athlete of all time, for

instance, like you did with Michael Jordan. Oh gambling has cut short or even ruined a lot of professional sports careers. Can you give it up? Can I give up what gambling? Oh sure if it affects my life or the way I play the game or jeopardize my family or My financial status or whatever or the security of my sure. I give it up in a minute to solidify my argument. It's whatever I've lost, I've always given it back to my wife. So whatever check I make, here honey,

I'm sorry for the embarrassment, I'm sorry for what I've caused, for losing this amount of money, here take it. Do what you have to do with it. I wasted it. So, this is yours, this is the kids, this is whatever. I didn't have to tell you that, but that tells me, and I'm sure that I'm not a gambaholic.

I know where I am, I know what I'm doing, but if I feel I've done something that has embarrassed the family, I want to correct it but yet I want to move on from it too as well. Alright, I'm going to play shrink here, see? Alright? Okay. I'm supposed to play patient or what?

When you said that you gave your wife the $57,000 or the $108,000 that you lost, you know, that said to me, you feel guilty about it. I feel guilty that I did it and I actually didn't tell her I lost know. That says to me, you feel guilty about it. I feel guilty that I did it and I actually didn't tell her I lost it. That's where the guilt come from. Oh, you didn't tell her. But then when you do give her that money, you do tell her. Right.

But when you lost it, at the time you lost it. I was really embarrassed to tell anybody, because I lost. That's the most embarrassing thing, is because I lost. That's the most embarrassing thing is that I lost. Do you think you have a gambling problem at all? No, because I can stop gambling. I have a competition problem. Quack, quack, quack, quack. I just want to observe that Michael Jordan, while being grilled,

looks very comfortable with you. Yes. And that is also part of what made you a special interviewer. Wow. That's so interesting. You know, because I didn't, I mean, I had met him many times because he would have these Michael Jordan tournaments and Maury and I would go. Yep, golf tournaments.

Yes. And Maury would say, I played with Michael Jordan and he meant golf. Not on the court. You know, one of the craziest things I used to say with Maury, what celebrity are you playing with? And he says, I'm the celebrity. You, in a sense, were another big star talking to a big star. And I wonder if that how you wielded that. Were you aware that I'm Connie Chung coming in to do this interview? Like, no, we're both to get to quote your husband, I'm the celebrity.

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

because it's you, it's the richest man in the world, and it's a chair. Is it true that you can leap over a chair from a standing position? It depends on the size of the chair. I'll treat a little bit. Yeah! The fact that you got Bill F***ing Gates to, again to his credit, completely clear. Completely clear.

A chair. Wasn't that amazing? You could get these people to do quite a bit, Connie, credit, completely clear. Completely clear. A chair. Wasn't that amazing? You could get these people to do quite a bit, Connie, is what I learned. Yeah, but you know what? After we sat down and started talking, I started peppering him with questions about the smaller companies that Microsoft was gobbling up. He walked out. He walked out of the interview.

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what do you think is the most striking part of Connie's book? He says the big contrast in her life was how she was so dogged and aggressive as a reporter uncovering stories It's so dutiful and submissive when it came to her parents Yes, and her news managers trying to please and not challenge them He's so right. He is so he's spot spot on. And he says, Lord knows not that way with me. That's what he says for the record. But I do want to introduce this dichotomy to people, which is that you are the person going after the powerful, holding them to account, and also someone who is tortured at work because you're not saying no to these things that you don't want to do.

Yes, it's that patriarch thing. because you're not saying no to these things that you don't want to do. Yes, it's that patriarch thing. And someone who has power in many ways over me, that I couldn't quite, you know, buck it. Buck the system, buck the person, because I saw them as this patriarchal leader who I had to be obedient to. And it was that way with both my parents.

And Maury is absolutely right. It was that way with these men who were in management. And I thought that, I thought they had my back and they had my best interests in mind But as you well know management their Cya, you know in many ways. Yeah, and that's why I think I couldn't quite

Figure out how to deal with management. Yeah. Well, they're trying to cover their ass. They're trying to CYA, cover your ass as a principal in life. And you're encountering that when you get to the anchor chair, right, again, just the job of network anchor is this hallowed, it's the ultimate, as you say, a dream job. It was. And you begin to realize even as a as a fill in who gets to say good morning is contractually negotiated and always the right of the man. Well when it came to the Today Show it was. I substituted for Jane Pauley during her pregnancies and and Brian Gummill had it contractually in writing that he could say, good morning.

This is today, Monday, January 4th, 1982. And he could say have a good day at the end of the two hour program, but she could not. She fought it, but she didn't win that battle. And when I substituted, I also tried to fight it, but I couldn't win that battle. And when I substituted, I also tried to fight it, but I couldn't win that battle either. You know, I don't think we could give full consideration as you do in the book to the chapter that is you sitting next to Dan rather.

You becoming the first Asian to be a network news anchor, the second woman of all time, the first at CBS Evening News. This is Walter Cronkite's program. This is the man that you worked as a correspondent for, the ultimate journalist. Yes, my idol. Oh, still today, I hope that you are not alone in revering Walter Cronkite.

And the best day of your life, you write, is of your professional life, is when you get that job. How do you summarize what that was like compared to your expectations? I could not have been happier. You know, I thought I boy I've reached the pinnacle. It's a place where all of our worlds come together. Somalia, Bosnia. Healthcare, the economy. Stories such as the flood, the hurricane. And sometimes even a moment. That lets us the flood or the hurricane. And sometimes, even a moment.

That lets us all sit back and smile. But then it was all a struggle from then on, because I'd cover stories, and Dan Radler would want to cover those same stories and get pissed off that I was covering them instead of him. I think he would have disliked having not only, sharing the seat with anybody because he had been doing it by himself

and didn't want to move a few inches over for not a man, not a woman, not an animal or a plant. I mean, he did not want to share Walter Cronkite's chair with anybody, especially me, because I wasn't compliant. I was trying to establish a precedent in which the co-anchor would be able to share everything. You were trying to get an A. You were like, wait a minute, hold on, I can also report. Yes.

I can catch what I can, you know, eat what I catch. Right? Like why can't I do all of these things the way that, again, just for people who don't know, right? It's Peter Jennings at ABC. I'm Peter Jennings in New York just a short while ago. Astonishing news from East Germany. It's Tom Brokaw at NBC.

There has been so much budget talk this year. It's enough to make your eyes glaze over. And now it's Dan Rather plus Connie Chung. Connie Chung, the CBS Evening News team to cover your world. So there I was. The first episode Connie Chung ever hosted next to Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News was June 1st, 1993. It was historic. Two years later, CBS fired her from that dream job. And Dan Rather, according to one news executive, had come to see Connie Chung as his rival,

not his co-actor. And, in Connie's book, she goes on to describe Rather, telling her, quote, "'Just read the news on the teleprompter.'" End quote. Because, according to Connie, Dan Rather very explicitly wanted her to stay in studio, and therefore, leave all of that reporting, all studio, and therefore leave all that reporting, all the anchoring from the field that she loved to do, to him. Connie, of course, in response, was outwardly professional. You'd have no idea if you watched

these telecasts, as I did, that any of this was happening behind the scenes. But internally, of this was happening behind the scenes. But internally, she was despondent, furious even. Because what you should also know is that while all of this was happening, Connie had been spending years trying to conceive a child with Maury. It never worked, despite multiple medical interventions. And so around when Connie had started her job with the evening news, they decided to file the paperwork for adoption. Except that didn't come through either. Which is why work, Connie's job, remained pretty much her entire life. I found that when I was writing about it, someone, my nephew asked me, was it cathartic?

And I said, I better look up catharsis because I'm not really sure what it means. And I discovered that the original meaning was actually medical, that one expunges one's body of unwanted waste. And so I thought to myself, yeah, when I wrote about CBS and the whole experience with Dan Rather, that's exactly what I was doing. I was expunging myself of this piece of dung, and it actually felt pretty good afterwards. Again, this is the funny thing about television, which is that people at home don't always know how the people on camera, true to the theme of this episode, are actually feeling.

And so both of you were quite professional, always polished. That's what I think of still. But the tension and the way in which Dan Rather ultimately ousts you from the chair and from CBS, despite being who you are, as now we clearly understand, that's the sort of thing that can break a lot of people. I thought I had lost face. You know, it was a profound feeling when I got dumped from the program. I really felt I, because it was so public, I lost face. And I just wanted to crawl into a hole and dig my way to China again. So it was... Humiliation is the feeling.

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

been working on for two years was going to come through. And so it was shortly thereafter that our son was in our arms and he was less than a day old. So it was pretty darn wonderful. It was serendipity. was in our arms and he was less than a day old, so it was pretty darn wonderful. It was serendipity. After decades of relentless grinding through the 70s and 80s and 90s, Connie Chung finally stepped away from the job she loved. And she stepped away for about 20 years, give or take.

And it wasn't easy, but she wanted the time to raise her son Matthew. And after hosting a few other programs on TV here and there, yeah, Connie more or less retired. Think back to what her father had asked of her in that letter she pulled us about before, many years ago. Connie had already done all that. She had carried the family name to every living room in America, millions upon millions upon millions of them, as far as any woman could plausibly take it. And that was a legacy that couldn't possibly be topped. Or so it seemed.

I don't even know what category this accomplishment goes into. But you now have a service area in New Jersey named after you. Yeah. I do. And it's pretty incredible. I actually have to go there sometime. When I go there, I want to go into the men's room stall and write on the inside, for a good time.

How was that? You think it's not a good idea? Milepost 153 should be honored to have you graffiti the men's room at the Connie Junk Service area. By the way, you're a weed strain? I do have a strain of weed named after me. And I don't know how it came about and I think I should get a cut. I'm described as easy to grow. I create a nice flower and a scent. Yes.

I don't cause the crazies too much. No. And I'm good under stress. If you have a deadline, you know, smoke a little Connie Chung weed. And I'm low maintenance. I like that. You're a good strain to wind down with at the end of the night. You bet. And I just saw online that you can get a, like a five pack pre-roll for only $22.

That sounds pretty good. This is not turning into a live read. For a thing that does have, you know, some dry mouth. Yeah. But again, whomst among us. But the last sort of tribute that I want to acknowledge here is the one that, and I say this as somebody who's tear ducts hermogenetic makeup, are generally constipated. But the Connie's.

Yes. Can you explain for people who don't know the story that was in the New York Times? It's pretty remarkable. A woman named Connie Wong cold emailed me. She said her parents came from Communist China. She was only three years old. Her parents say you we've got to give you an American name. What name would you like? And you know, at only three, she knew what she saw on television. She said, Connie or Elmo.

And she said, I'm named after you. I'm named Connie after you. So she goes off to UC Berkeley, Fearsmore. She's in the cafeteria and somebody says Connie Wong. And she turns around, but a lot of women turn around, Asian women, she finds there are all kinds of Connies. So she knows something's up. She decided to look into it.

Connie Wong discovers that there are untold numbers of Connies who are named after me, in the 1970s, in the 1980s, and the 1990s. And I am blown away. She sells this story to the Sunday New York Times Opinion Section. And the photo editor brings together as many Connies as she can find in the New York area, asks me to come to a New York Times studio.

Oh my god. It's confusing why your name Connie, you know, when I, at least when I was born, you know, but I realized what it means is, you know, your parents want you to work hard and like be brave and take chances. Yeah. I did do that. Yeah, so thank you. Oh, thank you.

Oh my God. We take an amazing picture, three tiers of Connie's, of about a dozen, and me in the middle. I tell you, it has blown me away. And on this book tour, Pablo, I have met six new connies. And I've also met a Connie Chung in drag. Yeah, he told me that it takes him four hours to put on his makeup.

And I said dude You gotta get faster than I do mine in 15 It's crazy When you think back to the way in which your dad Your parents who you supported through all of this when you think about how your father saddled you with this mission of continuing Do you think about how your father saddled you with this mission of continuing the good family name? When you look back at the impact you've had upon the Connie generation, just the symmetry of this, what comes to mind? Back when I was working, I was used to this big pace and occasional adulation, but now I'm getting it.

I think Pablo was much happier when I was depressed. I mean, I rose from the dead, frankly. the treadmill for about 20 years. And you know, didn't know what to make of my career, but once I, Maury encouraged me to sit down and write about it. And when I got this beautiful ending of this Connie legacy, I thought, this is a perfect denouement for the book. It's a perfect ending. Now people understand all the reasons why, yeah, you've inspired literally generations of people.

I can't believe it. It's true. I know. It's crazy. And I dare say that as somebody who grew up fantasizing in a strange way about co-hosting a show with Connie Chung. Oh, we've done it. I thank you for making a dream come true. Oh, come on, we've done it.

This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out, a Metal Art Media production, and I'll talk to you next time.