The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz - South Beach Sessions - Chuck Todd

Episode Date: December 4, 2025

For 20 years, Chuck Todd has been a ubiquitous face of politics in the United States, most visibly as the host of Meet the Press through the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations. Now, as traditional media struggles to keep up with the digital age, he's left it behind. On South Beach Sessions, Chuck unwraps the influence of his father on his career - that's where his love of politics (and sports) came from - and explains why, growing up, he never thought he'd be a journalist. He and Dan also discuss the frailty of our current media ecosystem, reminisce a bit about the (better) old days, and what's next. Listen, watch, and subscribe to "The Chuck Toddcast".  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to Draft Kings Network. This is Chuck Todd. He is Emmy nominated, Emmy winner, two decades at NBC, half of that time at Meet the Press, a Miami guy, a gambler. I think we're going to get along just fine. Chuck Todd and I thank you for being with us. You're now independent. Chuck Toddcast is available wherever it is you get your podcast. How has that whole process been?

The independence, the leaving of mainstream media, the seeing of a fractured media climate, where everything seems to be collapsing? Well, I feel like I grabbed a lifeboat while there were still lifeboats. There are not many lifeboats left as we watch some of our colleagues again feel like they're going through this. It's one of those things that's both liberating on, you know, where I don't feel like I'm going to tick off another host of another show or an executive or all of that stuff. So that part of it I love. I miss the newsroom. At the end of the day, I enjoy running a newsroom.

I miss that aspect of it more than, probably more than anything. But there are no sour grapes because the grapes are gone. Right? There's nothing left in that end. So I'm enjoying, all of a sudden I feel like I've overcommitted. I went from undercommitted to overcommitted. But, you know, my whole view of where we are right now is I hope to be a consolidator, but if I get consolidated, that's okay. I mean, we're in a moment, and I think we all know it.

And it's a cycle of media. New technology, fragmentation, consolidation, new technology, fragment, you know, Life magazine was mainstream media. And so we had moving pictures. I just read about that in the Atlantic, that there's always been this kind of thing. But the Atlantic was putting that under the headline, is media headed for an extinction? level event and talking about local news and lifeboats, it does feel like in my lifetime that this is the scariest it's been. So, and I look at local news.

I mean, I sort of, I have this cheap line. A man named Craig decided classifieds ought to be free, yada, yada, yada, Donald Trump became president. And I do think the destruction of local media destroyed community. And I also believe it's going to come back because. We either are going to rebuild community or it's gone. So, and I don't think we want our community gone, we got to rebuild this. But this local news piece is the, I think that there are all sorts of media was built on a lot of things.

And it turned out local news was an important pillar that when you knock that one out, I think the whole thing collapsed. Because I think local media gave national media credibility. And if local media is not there, who's there to give national media, you're too far away to be credible to the average person. local media when they either confirm the stories you were reporting or writing or reporting about sort of a version that you did gave. And if, you know, I found this out as meet the press host. I'd go and do meet the press and people say, I love you and Jane. And I'm like, thinking quickly, who's Jane? Well, Jane's the local anchor who throws to my show.

And I went, they see us as the same. So I need to have good relations with that local reporter. And that local reporter needs to be credible or I'm not credible. And those people are gone. Now what do we do? I feel like you and I have a lot in common. One of the things that we have in common is that we were a bit naive 10 years ago about what was headed this way. Underestimated it got overwhelmed and run over by it because believe.

Do you regret your life on social media? Do I regret my life on social media? I regret. Social media has been good to me. I know it's a toxic waste dump. Oh, I feel the same way. It was really good to me, but I also think it's been totally destructive of credibility. How so?

Because I don't believe it has harmed my credibility. I believe it has harmed my mental health. I believe that some things have happened with social media that are corrosive in ways that I had underestimated. I think it is triggering. And it's like, you know, you say to yourself and you know this logically, don't pay attention, don't pay attention. And then you find your, you know, and you'd get it. sucked in and I got allowed myself to get sucked in early. That's where I, there's all the positive sides and I agree, social media connected me

to far more interesting people than I would have been able to be connected with otherwise. So I still am pro in the grand scheme of the idea. I don't know though. Look, I look at social media, we're doing an experiment on the human brain and I think we've know the result. It's not a successful experiment. I mean, we're addicted, humans are addicted to. this in a way that I believe is the greatest globally undercover addiction that we've ever experienced?

Every single study around the world has shown that young people, social media has been bad for mental health on young people. It hasn't mattered if the study was done in a rich country, a poor country, a ethnically, sort of monolithic country, or a very diverse, it hasn't mattered. This has been destructive to the young human brain. It's like, what is it? Marijuana is not good for you before the age of 25 while your brain's forming. Maybe overusing it may not be good for you after 25, but there's certainly some evidence there. Social media feels like something while you're emotionally maturing, you shouldn't be on it. It's totally destructive to the brain.

Take me through, you mentioned liberation, but take me through the scary parts of leaving something that had been your home and you're known for 20 years? Well, it's a weird thing. Let me, I'll put it in another way. I could live another 30 years and my obituary leads going to be Meet the Press. I think I'm going to have a much more interesting life over the next 30 years, but that doesn't mean that that's what you're known. For better or for worse, that's what you know.

So in that sense, you're like, boy, this was an identity. It wasn't just me. It was. I used to joke my first name was meat. And so that took a little bit of sort of, hey, I'm not the center of attention. And I say that, you know, in my little world of politics, that was the case. But so at first I was nervous about that. Then you realize, nope, this whole thing's coming crashing down and I avoided a whole bunch of.

And look, I watched a lot of, you and I both watched a lot of our, a lot of colleagues not handle the most. moment. So I always look at it. It's like, I survived the Trump era. I still, I still, nobody's trying to take my name off of stuff and like, or is still willing to hire me. So in that sense, I feel pretty good about it. But at first it was, because it was, it had become an identity. And sure, it was like, so I had to mourn the loss of that version of myself. But I sort of, I, I loved my 10 years to meet the press. I don't miss it. I miss an occasional Sunday interview, but I don't miss everything else.

And if you said you could go back, I wouldn't take care. What do you miss? What you mentioned the newsroom. I miss the newsroom. And it's just the community of the 15 people. Correct. Not even like minded, but just. Stimulated you.

Well, when I say like minded, I mean caring about the same things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. In fact, in fact, I was obsessed with like trying to build a newsroom. I used to say the most important diversity I looked for was, geographic, because geographic diversity and socioeconomic diversity gives you everything else. Once you, if you go through that, you'll end up, by definition, you'll end up with a room that also looks diverse if you go with that. So in that sense, that was always the newsroom I tried to build, but that's what I miss.

Because I miss, well, should we do this angle of the story or this angle of the story? Or, you know, should we pursue this or what's missing over here? It's just that sort of thing. And, you know, brainstorming with chat GPT ain't the same. What are the specifics of the heartbeat of a newsroom that you're talking about? Like what your path is a bit of an unusual one, I would say. I don't know what you consider unusual about your. Well, I didn't go local.

I started at a trade publication called the hotline in the 90s. It was sort of the internet before the internet. Now in hindsight, we were doing – we were sort of the – we were doing newsletters before anybody knew that was a big business. trust me I didn't make the none of the people that were a part of that startup none of us made a ton of money so I do it's it's the it is the I like I always said I used to get paid to try to see around corners and it was that room of people that you got together every morning to try to figure out which corners should we try to look around to see if we're finding the right story

your interest in all of this comes from your late father correct At what age? Like, when did you realize? So it goes back. My dad was always kind of a political junkie. We always had he was a conservative who would also make sure that we got the New Republic and we got National Review. He would make me watch both conventions.

He'd say, I don't agree with Jesse Jackson, but he's a great speaker. You should listen to what he has to say. You should listen to these. So he was one of those type of, I never felt, and I always tried to do this with my kids, I never felt like he was trying to push me in a direction. He said, this is what I consider good conservative politics. This is what I consider good liberal politics. And he say, you take a listen.

I had a cousin stay with us when I was in eighth grade, summer between eighth and ninth grade. And he stayed with us. He was helping a – do you remember a politician named Larry Hawkins? I do not. I was not very politically minded growing up. So back in the 80s, sometime in the 80s in the 90s, Florida stopped electing – we used to have like eight or nine. statewide elected officials. We'd have the Secretary of Education, that was an elected office.

It wasn't just agriculture that we have now. And they put like seven of them under the CFO, that chief financial officer position. But it used to be they were all separate offices. So a cousin of mine was running a guy's campaign. Larry Hawkins, he was this county commissioner based in the south part of the county here in Dade County or Miami-Dade now. And big liberal. And so every night he and my father would get drunk and debate politics.

My dad had been a conservative human law. And I just, I was the bartender, judge away. It's fine. I'm aware my dad was an alcoholic. He died of alcoholism. It is, I'm self-aware on that front. But I just found it fascinating. I started, that cousin became more like a brother.

I was an only child, became more like a brother. My dad dies like two years later. so it was it was sort of that was formative and I always say I'm lucky to live I joke I was born in miama and graduated high school in Miami and I look at my growing up in Miami in the 70s and 80s I think helps me understand American politics today because we went through all this stuff way out of time way every you know Miami's always been the city of the future it's what Billy Corbyn says 20 years ahead of its time. It is.

I mean, you know, when I tell people that in 1980, Dade County passed a English-only initiative, they're like, what? I said, oh, yeah. I said that was, you know, I had neighbors who were like that people yelling, speak English, that sort of crowd or the bumper stickers that said the last, well, the last American that leaves Miami, please bring the flag. It was a very toxic atmosphere. We had three race riots in the decade of the 80s. And now we're the coolest city in the world. You know, in theory, right? We're Singapore now.

We're some combination where we're this global city. So that's my optimism. But I always turns out I think I feel like I have a better grasp of what America's going through now because of growing up here in the 70s and 80s. I don't know if you feel that way. Yeah, for sure. There's just all sorts of stuff that you get subjected to here that doesn't happen in homogenized community. No, and in fact, I think more, I think it's sort of why I'm like, well, you guys just hurry up and get through this episode because it'll be pretty good on the other side. When you say it was formative, you're talking about the, you use the word formative, and you you had in there your father's death, you had alcoholism, and you had politics, which of those was.

most formative. So it just my, it just sort of probably, it easily my relationship with my father. And he was, he was, I don't want to say he's Willie Lohman, meaning like totally unsuccessful. But he, you know, he didn't have an easy time. There's a variety of reasons. I'm not going to go into it. So there was always an early part of me that felt as if I'm trying to, you know, live the life he never got to have or that he should have. pursued and he never did for a variety of reasons. I've since gotten over that. I think that, frankly, haunted me for a little bit. That's just my own psyche. But that's what I mean by formative. But we just passed the anniversary. We're taping here three or four days after the anniversary of his death.

It's now almost 40 years. And yet it's still, it is the single four. Without it, I don't go to school in Washington, D.C. I stay here in Miami. I'm probably on a music scholarship, probably not doing... I mean, it's such a fork in the road for me and for a variety of things. Are you comfortable walking me through whatever parts of it you're comfortable walking me through? 16 years old is a really tough age.

I mean, it's a tough age in general. But here's what I would say. I don't know any different. And this was what anybody... I have a good friend of mine, a parent friend who's husband passed away. kids were 15 and 16 and 17 and she was asking me about this and I'm like you don't know any different and don't screw up the relationship between the mother and and the sons and that stuff I have two I was never going to only have one kid because of the experience I went through

not having a sibling um my mother and I's relation it's just a tough thing she was grieving a husband I'm great and and we were she was I feel for my even more so now looking back for her she had to file for bankruptcy we didn't have a lot of money she was trying to figure out her next career she got a real estate license and actually did quite well did pretty well here and you know it's but it's it was you know look I think everybody goes through stuff like that, we just don't know what time of our life we go through those things. I don't think you ever get over losing your parent. Everybody just does it at a different time in their life. And so I don't presume to say my time was tougher than somebody else's because it's just, I actually think it weirdly, it grows you up in a hurry. That's the bummer, maybe. I don't know. Maybe I'm more successful. Because of it. Maybe I was a little more.

Oh, you do know. You do. Oh, I think I am. No, no, no, no. I do. And it's not lost on me. I always think about this with a lot of, you ever noticed how many successful people have this weird father issue? Either father was gone. I always say this Barack Obama wrote a whole book about searching for his father. Bill Clinton punched a stepfather in the face and his real father dies before then. You had, George W. Bush had his own daddy issue. So I actually think fathers and sons, I'm not going to pry, but I'm sure there are things. that you have with your father. Well, I would assume when you're talking, right, it's different. My father's still alive, but I only learned in adulthood, deep in adulthood, because I grew up later because I didn't have some of these things that grow you up a little bit too fast. I felt sort of responsible for some of my mother's emotions in places where my father wasn't emotionally available. And I imagine you had some of that.

If you're at 16 and an only child, and now she's not just grieving, but. you're what's left of that love. It's a, it's a, it's not an easy relationship for anybody after me. It's, I've know, you know, whether it's my kids in their relationship with their grandmother or my wife and her relationship of the mother-in-law. So it's just because we, you, it's when you go through something like that. And again, I go back, we all go through it. Just, we don't know what time of our life we go through it. And, and in that sense, it was very formative and it shaped it, you know, it shaped a lot.

You know, you don't realize it, but it shapes you quite a bit. How about in terms of money and economic success and the drive to get there? So what it does, right, you know, you see that, you know, we were struggling and all that stuff. So I'm probably, I say this, yes, I love gambling, but I'm weirdly risk-averse. Because I'd rather, I'm always thinking about where am I getting health care. I mean, we got, my father died a hepatitis C is what he technically died of, cirrhosis of the liver, but he had a hep C, and this is in 1988, and now there's a pill. Just take a pill. You're cured. Back then, they had no cure. He was on the transplant list, but never stable enough. Month after he dies, our health insurance gets canceled because you can cancel the whole county. So all of a sudden, I went the first six or seven years of adulthood. without health insurance.

And it was one of those things where that's all I think about. Well, we can't have that because that literally bankrupt would it would have bankrupt. My dad died five days before we would have run out of insurance money. It was the, it was, and I remember my mother having a conversation with the administrator, and they were telling her about this, and she's like, well, does he have? And they're thinking, you need to go see a therapist if you're asking about, and you're like, well, what choice do I have? Like, you're asking, are you telling me that I have to bankrupt myself to potentially

keep him alive another week? Right? Like, that's a, that's a really messed up conversation to put somebody through at any point in time. So it's made me weirdly risk averse. And so you want to talk about the hardest, the toughest reason to leave, the hardest, the hardest decision to make about leaving Comcast, giving up the benefits. because I don't want to ever leave my kids in a situation like that.

What is your relationship with alcohol? I'm just very leery of it. I'm barely a social drinker, and I say barely, but I'm very careful with it. I'm very happy to see gummies become a thing. That is what helps me sleep at night. I would imagine they're all manner of scars. And again, I pride more than you. You said on the front end that you didn't want to talk too much about this.

No, I don't mind talking too much of it. But, you know, it's funny. I remember trying to figure out if my father was an alcoholic or not. And when he got diagnosed, they told him, you have to stop drinking. And I remember asking him. I said, was that hard? And he lived for about six months after his diagnosis and obviously stopped drinking. And he goes, no, I just missed a cold beer after being outside in the Florida heat.

That was it. And he was like, and my father was one of those. He had his first drink at 11. am. And there were different things. It was a Bloody Mary at 11 a.m. might be something this. And then it was beer later in the afternoon. But he was also of that generation. All of his friends, they got drunk at lunch. I mean, I think about it. And Matt, I'm pretty convinced that we would have had the internet 30 years sooner if people hadn't drank at lunch all the time. Like, this is what society did in the 60, 70s and 80s. All these, you know, people, that was that was what folks did. but I'm you know I don't know how I feel about the idea of alcoholism is how much of it is it

how much of it can be helped Tony my guy it's that time of year it's the holidays the holidays are here dude I was just the other day with my dad we were talking about

what we're going to do for the holidays and you know what we did we cracked open a nice coal miller light whether it's the can whether I'm at a restaurant and I get that draft

with the nice The golden color and the nice little, a little head at the top. Oh, my God. Right now, I want to leave this ad read in the middle and go share a Miller Lite with my boy, Tony. Dude, can we do that? All right, let's go right now. All right, we're leaving. All right, we'll finish this and we'll do it.

Middle of light, it just fits. It's the taste you can depend on, brood for flavor, simple ingredients, that malted barley, the rich, balanced coffee notes. Dude, the iconic golden color. And at 96 calories and 3.2 cards per 12 ounces, it lets you enjoy the season without weighing you down. The original light beer since 1970. Still hitting different, 50 years later. You look great, Miller Lite.

You don't look at day over 30. Hey. The best holiday beers are the ones you don't expect. Miller Lite, great taste, 96 calories. Go to Miller Lite.com slash beach to find delivery options near you. Or you can pick up some Miller light. Pretty much anywhere they sell beer. Tiz Miller time.

See what I did there? Holiday cheer. Celebrate responsibly, Miller Brewing Company, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 96 calories. And 3.2 cars per 12 ounces. That's right. Maybe it's just a phase you're going through. You'll get over it. I can't help you with that.

The next appointment is, In six months, you're not alone. Finding mental health support shouldn't leave you feeling more lost. At CAMH, we know how frustrating it can be trying to access care. We're working to build a future where the path to support is clear, and every step forward feels like progress, not another wrong turn. Visit camH.ca to help us forge a better path for mental health care. Have you explored the roots of why you're risk-averse?

I think I know why I'm risk-averse. I think it's when you're, because you, when you go through a situation where suddenly the bot, I'll put it this way. I'm always want to be in a position where if everything collapses around me, I'm going to be okay. Interesting to leave NBC, though, when you did. Can you take me through the choice and the decision-making on that? Because a lot of people are afraid of change in general, not just risk-averse people, just people. A lot of people choose the unhappiness they know. over the potential of the happiness that could be unknown.

I'll just say it this way. I've been lucky enough to when you work for a startup for a long time, then you work for an ups for a net. When I got hired by NBC, it was right when they were trying to make MSNBC something better, something different, something a little more forward-leaning, a little more newsy, a little more, at the time they wanted to be, quote, smarter than CNN. That was the goal. whatever that meant.

That meant, well, we're not going to beat them in the ratings, so let's win the critics. And we were always growing. And then streaming came along. And I was the first NBC show to go on streaming. We created a magazine show, Meet the Press Now. So it was pretty clear. It was a growth enterprise until it wasn't. So it became easy to leave.

It was like I could stay and be a potted plant a couple of times a year. Hey, let's bring in the old guy to tell us about how elections work, which I did in 2024. And it was, you know, I love election nights. That's, you know, it's my Super Bowl. And, you know, I just did this year experimented with a live stream. We had half a million viewers. I was like, hey, this is great. I don't have to give up election nights anymore.

So I'm glad to do that. But NBC stopped being a place that was going to grow. They're just shrinking. And as I call, what's happening to broadcast television and cable news in general is what happened to FM radio in the 90s, right? You know, the great disruption of FM radio was the Walkman when you didn't have to listen to radio to get music. And I was one of those guys, man, she's only rock and roll. WSHE, 10 o'clock got the let out. No 3.5.

And I had to get, I was going to tape my, you know, I got to get my mixtape of this Led Zeppelin song or this, whatever it was. I'm giving you a little hint of, I would graduate to Uncle Luther at the tail into high school. I will concede. But once we got the Walkman, then FM radio had to go to talk, right? And they were basically desperate to keep people. And then eventually, and it was a good business, Clear Channel, consolidated it, grabbed a lot of cash. Now Clear Channel's Iheart radio. And it's, it ain't what it was.

And I have a feeling that's so you're going to see more of this consolidation because there's still cash to be made on the people that have our age and older who still will turn on television to just watch things. But it's clearly not a growth business. So it's no fun to be someplace that's shrinking. And I just, that would have made me crazy. So the decision to leave was easy when you realized they weren't interested in growing anymore. You have several honorary degrees, but I read that you were six degrees, six credits short of your degree for financial reasons. How harmful was that to you to be that close? So it's one of those where I'm not proud of it, but it was, meaning I couldn't afford.

I ran out of money. I double majored for a while at GW. you. And so I have more credits than I need, but not the right credits, which is why the six that I need. And then all of a sudden life gets in the way. And this is advice I give to young folks because I got a job, I got a full-time job my junior year in college writing for this political publication. You wanted to be a newspaper guy. If you, in your junior year in college, you got a job that you wanted, what are you focusing on? No, that's what I did. When I got the internship at the Herald, I got out of all of my classes because I had that job at the

Harold. It was just suddenly it just drove you. And so, and there's a lot of guys in our business where this is, they get the job. You know, I could make the, I could make the college basketball going pro early argument. If you, if college is about finding your career path and you find your career path, why delay going on the path? That's my, that's how I would defend it. it. But there's always been a part of me going, Jesus, it's six effing credits, right? But I'm an honorary alum at Miami these days, which just gives me the privileges of giving them more money. An honorary doctor to GW. So it is sort of strange that I don't have it. But one of the things, you know, I used to try to avoid talking about it when you're younger. because you think, oh, it's going to be a demerit. There's no reason to hide it. Oh, I was just more interested in the specifics of the financial struggle.

Oh, well, it was just, I mean, I was on, I had cobbled together 75% of the cost to GW through scholarships and playing in the pet ban. That gave an extra $2,500 a semester. So, but suddenly it was like, well, I have this full-time job. The classes I meet don't meet at the time. the job so I can't do it yet. And I kept saying, I'll do it later. I'll do it later. And then eventually life happens, right? You get married. You have a kid. I remember at one point when I had the money to go do it, I'm always like, I don't need you away another three hours, you know, a night while you're doing this stuff. It was and then you ask yourself, what's the cost benefit other than

pride? That's an interesting one though, because at some point you decided to to either talk about it or not have it be something that felt like a weight. It stopped being a wait. But it's funny how sometimes it's always the favorite way people come after me if they disagree with something. Well, you didn't even go to college or you didn't finish college. What do you know? Okay.

You're right. I was the host of Meet the Press. That's okay. What do I know? You're right. That's okay. People, you know, if that's, I thought we just, I thought the cultural revolution that just happened in this country is that we have to stop sending kids to college.

I mean, at this point, it's funny to see that technology is such that kids going to college are just using AI to do their exams so it becomes largely a waste of money unless someone's really interested in order. So I heard a good interview with the – my kid – my oldest is a senior at the University of Miami. My youngest is a freshman at SMU in Dallas. And I was just at a talk with the president of SMU. And he articulated what I hope is true. He goes, you know, I think, he goes, I think the AIification of everything is actually going to make college that the liberal arts are going to become back in vogue because you've actually got to learn that college is going to be back to sort of learning what information powers AI. and that that's the way a student has to understand what college is and whether a college can successfully wean students off of using AI to learn sort of essentially the core information before AI got a hold of it. I thought it was an interesting thesis.

I am curious over the next decade how what people think college is supposed to be for them. I can't even imagine. And it wasn't until talking to some people, I'm going to say fairly recently, that I realized that you could get through college just typing things, having papers done for you. Well, you know what's happening now. A lot of people are picking up scam MBAs. I imagine you could cheat your way through college pretty easily. And especially if you're doing, you know, an online course, plenty, right? And, you know, more professors are trying to figure out how to how to sort of.

either prevent or you embrace it. Okay, use AI for this and tell me why this or something like that. But there's, yeah, the next few years are going to have a lot of the scam. Scam degrees out there. So you were a drum major? I was the drum major. Miami, Killian. So you're at Miami, Killian, and this is for how long?

Thinking at this time you're going to go into politics or you still don't have that bug? Oh, I thought I was, so I was a French horn player. I was pretty good. I did all the, I had all the, I, I, um, when magnet schools first became a thing in Dade County, I went to a music magnet school for middle school. We called him junior highs, remember back then? And so I played the French horn because my father played the French horn. And he said, he goes, you can be a trumpet player and be really good and not get a music

scholarship. You can be a good French horn player, not great, and get a music scholarship because not as many kids play the French horn. So there was a time I thought I was going to, but I wanted to be a performer, and then I realized I was never going to be good enough. And there's this moment as a musician where I think you know. You know, and I'll never forget, I was in a state, sort of one of those. I was playing horn next to this other guy who was not as proficient as I was. I was technically better, but he made a better sound. And you're just like, you know, that you can learn everything about an instrument but can you make just like a singer you just

know you can carry a tune but can you fill the room and i remember the moment i'm like oh if i pursue this then i'm going to be eventually teaching music and while i loved all of my music teachers i one time said this the wrong way and i got a whole bunch of shit sorry for the apologies for saying that but i was like i didn't want to be a band director i loved my band directors. I didn't want to be one. That's just not what I wanted to do. And that was, I realized that was where I was going. I was like, nope. So at that point, that's when I pivoted. I probably would have gone to either Florida State or Miami, pursuing music, pursuing that as a profession. And instead, my dad dies and I decided to take a turn, apply to just schools in D.C.

That would allow me to major in music so I at least could pay for school. Were you running away? Like when you say you ended up there, were you trying to get away from the feeling of whatever it is was drowning here. I, you know, I don't, I didn't think of it that way. I remember I had a chance to go. So I accept to go to GW. They offer me a little extra money so I suddenly can can afford it. And I had, I had a French horn professor that was working at the University of Miami. And he was like, you know, I think you can get a full scholarship here if you want to go and then you can live at home. And I remember going to my mother. And it was my mother who said, no, you need to, you should leave. You shouldn't feel you. And I, and I,

I give her a lot of credit for that. She didn't have to say that. She could have, many a mother would have literally said, oh, you get to stay here and get a full scholarship at the University of Miami. Why don't you stay? And so she was very encouraging of going. And obviously she was right. What was their relationship with work, your parents? What do you remember of how they worked? So my parents were really, I will say this. And I don't. know what would have happened to their relationship if I moved after I left for college. That's always something. You don't know as a kid, but you always wondered. I don't know if they stayed for me, but I always felt as if I was each of their best friends. So I don't know. My mother worked all the time. My mother worked two jobs. She was, she worked, remember Midway Mall? Yeah. She was like the marketing director there during the day, and then she

worked at a hosiery store called Park Lane at night. As a kid, I used to, you know, go to school. Then I, you know, basically do my homework in the back room of that, of the Dayland Mall and Park Lane. And, you know, I was a kid sort of raised at malls. That was my babysitter. But all I remember, my mother worked all the time. My father never could sort of hold a good career. He was this really smart guy who, he just had a crappy father. That was my father's problem. My grandfather was screwed up my father. There's a long story. That I'm not going to get into.

It's not worth it. But my father, in some ways, had all the privileges in the world, but then had an absentee father and an alcoholic mother. Do you think that you had something close to the career that he would have wanted where his passions were? Yes. This is what – I think he – I think he – you know, his favorite person was George Will. Like that was like, you know, or, you know, and back then still, like that was, you know, who he read and all. So he, I think he would have, it's a bummer he doesn't know what I do. Of course, both my wife and I's fathers died some 30 years ago.

Neither of us want to, we've, we've had the conversation. What do you think they would have thought of Trump? And there's the, back then I knew what he thought of Trump. that version of Trump he thought was a joke but man I've watched so many 70 year olds become pro-Trump that I don't know what that answer would have been had he lived today but the choice of politics like he would have been wildly proud of you I think so 100 percent 100 percent this I think he would have been absolutely tickled but I don't know if I would have pursued it if he were alive so take me through that take

I mean, you sort of did already. Yeah, I just, I just don't know. I don't know if I would have. Like what? How do you think, so you think you just stay here longer? I don't know. Maybe, or maybe I work in politics because that was something I thought I wanted to do at first. I never thought I wanted to be a journalist.

I always thought I wanted to work in politics. Wanted to run a presidential campaign. Wanted to do that. Never wanted to run for office. But always wanted to work in politics. And I had, I worked on an early campaign in college and then just got this internship with the hotline. I thought that's more fun, that it's more fun to report on both sides than to throw yourself in on one side. What do you remember about the emotions of doing Meet the Press for the first time or getting the job or any of the high point emotions on like,

how the hell did I get here at this seminal American program whose legacy I must now protect? it I never it was not an aspiration never thought of it until Tim Russer died and then somebody said well why don't you do the show I said what are you talking about I said I didn't you know um and then you know I I now it's I I still feel in a huh I'm one of 12 people who have done that and it's the longest running show on earth continuous weekly television show no other one, right? So no matter what you say in the history of television, it's, it, it has stood the test of time. So yeah, it's, I am prouder of it the further I get away from it. When you're in it in the moment, you, you both feel a little bit of poser complex, right? You're like, do I belong here and all this stuff? And I will say, it took me, and I'm, you know, and I, and I remind this of Kristen Walker, who I'm very close with. You're like, there'll be a moment where you realize you really own the show, but it takes a few years. Like, I still felt like I was house sitting

for a while. And then there's just a moment when it's, you know, when all of a sudden you realize it's your show, it's your credibility on the line. And that's an empowering moment when you realize it. What an interesting place for the performer in you to end up, though. Well, it's funny. I never was a great performer. And I now wish I could go back and redo my French horn career because I think I'd be better at it because I used to get super nervous doing solos

and it wouldn't be my best performance and I always thought which is probably why I always thought of myself as a behind the scenes person and then all of a sudden I you realize this stuff's not that hard well it is hard if you strangle art

with things like thought and nerves like you gotta let it you gotta let it fly right You've got to, like, the kid next to you making that beautiful sound probably wasn't strangling whatever it is he was doing with desire, want, or. And for all I know, he never pursued it as a profession, but he made a much better sound than I ever could have. And I remember thinking, huh, that's, that'll get you in first chair in the New York Philharmonic. That ain't going to get me first or second chair. What an unbelievable moment of clarity, though, crushing. Oh, it was crushing, but it was like.

What self-awareness to be like, okay, better than me. me. I'm not even going to be able to try and work my way into better. No, and I had a professor at GW, which GW had a great system because they worked with the National Symphony and those guys. Being a professional musician, you don't make a ton of money. And I remember, like, so here this guy was in the National Symphony, one of the five big ones, full-time job. It's a union job. He had to teach on the side in order to support his family of four kids. And so they were. the G.W. So here, and he would sit there and say, you know, you're technically as good as I am. I said, I know. I just don't produce as good of a sound. And it was just one of those where you fit, you know, and I did. I felt very much like I had mastered the instrument. But there is a reason certain, you know, you sit there and you'll see like there'll be better musicians who are not as good of performers because whatever it is, there's an it. And we all know it, and a lot of things in life. And in music, whatever it is, that the sound you make, you can't teach that.

You can teach how to breathe and you can sort of teach how to fill up your, you know, as much as you can fill up. But if you don't have that, whatever that is, it's not going to do it. So the first couple of years of Meet the Press are just babysitting and sprinting on a treadmill. It's not a moment of reflection of joy, fulfillment. Because it's, you know, it's funny. I had a new, I was the pick of a new network president. So then all of a sudden, I'm, you've been through a network when they change leaders. And the new leaders have their people.

And sometimes, you know, so all of a sudden, I'll just say the first year or two, I felt like I was competing to produce my own show. I had a lot of producers. And that's what happens for anybody in the first year or two of any. anything. You have to take and you have to take notes from a whole bunch of people. I'm sure when you did the first time you anchored a show on ESPN, you felt like you'd accept a lot of notes from executives that maybe today you'd be like, I appreciate it. Well, my experience was different. That wasn't quite at ESPN, although what you're saying about a change in leadership certainly resonates with me. But for me, it came earlier than that. For me, that stuff was more when it is that I was

learning. By the time I was choosing ESPN, I was choosing it on my own terms. So you feel as if your formative years and understanding relationships with executives and when something's yours or not happened locally? Yes, because I was always trying to please sort of sports editors and father figures. And that's what I was doing. I was really eager to please, you know, journalistic entities that mattered to me more than television. I didn't really respect television. Who were you trying to do? Oh, neither did I when I went in. to it. I didn't respect the TV. Oh, but you were, you were on a different thing, right? I'm doing a show with my father. I'm doing like this radio show that is a silly thing that ESPN has welcomed

in because it's different. And it wasn't upon getting there that I got the nerves. It was just sort of, I got a lot of, I got a lot of notes. I remember one time doing ESPN radio in my 20s. It's Sunday morning. It's 7 a.m. I assume no one's listening. And the president of ESPN calls my producer, or who I lost for the rest of the show just screaming about something that I was about to talk about saying do not talk about that and then I ended up getting into an argument

with him after that show because the people I respected were in newspaper like they were not television people who do you try to please today who when somebody Oh my wife I spend all my time trying to please my wife

she's the very top of the list So if a is there somebody out there that they say boy that was a really good segment that matters to you? Man, that's a good question because my standard was formed in writing and so because because I'm so hard on myself and because writing is so lonely, generally speaking, if I meet my standard, I'm pretty sure it's going to meet the standard of others in writing, okay?

This other stuff is more subjective, but it's also the thing I chose because writing was hard and lonely and was a bit of a suffering to get to that fulfillment and I wanted something that was more communal, had more laughter in it. I was choosing that the last 20 years of my career were basically choosing, I need something that's a little bit more fun.

Do you miss a column though? I miss the fulfillment of it because what you just asked me about like who do you need to hear from, that was a good segment. Like all of this is cotton candy. Yeah. I've always felt all audio and visuals.

I feel the same way. I chose to start writing a weekly again on a substack. And I'm not charging. I'm not doing anything. And I'm literally just doing it to get that habit back. Do you write? I am doing an assortment of things right now to open up the portal to the ability to write a book, right? Which has been my greatest, it's my last professional conquering that has been the biggest of the demons.

Because I, because I'm scared to go back into the hole of how I wrote, which was obsessive compulsive. It's a very meticulous sculpting. I don't let it flow. It's I'm, I'm mercilessly editing as I go, which just becomes a cycle. I admire that you care still to write a book. Do you think people want books? Oh, I wouldn't be writing it for others, though. No, I know that.

I feel. Don't do it for anybody else. No, it's something that, I mean, I don't have kids. Like, I don't, and not only do I not have kids, my little brother didn't have kids. So whatever's left of my Cuban heritage, whatever's left of what my family did with this story, like if I don't write it. So you want to write that story? Well, just the whole thing. I want, I have been doing an assortment of very vigorous exercise.

I won't bore you with the details. And tapping into portions of like sciences and stuff that I don't have any understanding of to lubricate whatever it is that's inside of me that hasn't let. this flow more freely, that would be less constipated, less lonely, that would be a joy instead of a suffering. I can't do it if I'm, I can't choose it if all it's going to be is suffering. Like I have to, and with with the goal of, oh, it'll be really fulfilling after you've done it. Because, you know, what's interesting about you is that you would have, I think, transitioned really well to being sort of more of a general columnist, doing sort of like a hybrid of what you did and what hyacin.

would do at his peak at the Herald and sort of dabbling both in culture, politics, sports. Do you, do you, if you had the opportunity to do that, would you? That's an easier form of writing for me, right? Like bite-sized writing when I think of it. Six to eight hundred words. The reason that a book is so formidable, like the things that were most painstaking for me were magazine features where someone else was trusting me with their story. and now I want to hold that as the treasure of vulnerability that it is.

So I'm thinking magazine pieces, 3,000 words, 5,000 words, 7,000 words. When you think of a book that way, you feel like you're at the foot of Mount Everest. Right. Everything is that. So I have been working to try and unlock that. But no, to do a – the work I'm presently doing has me doing that writing for myself in bite-sized chunks to make it all more manageable. So I'm doing that. I'm just not doing that in a newspaper column because I don't even know who's reading that.

Well, that's true. But it's, you know, it's funny. You know, I hear all this stuff about, oh, influencers are the future. I said, you mean, columnists? Today's, I mean, you know, I would argue that everybody always had an influencer in their life, but we used to call them columnists. Yeah, those are the Roycoe was an influencer. I mean, those are the people I grew up.

Those are the people I grew up. Here we had Dave Barry and Carl Hyacin, you know. We had had Pope and the paper. I mean, those were influencers. My father was obsessed with Lewis Rukeiser that came on before the Muppets. So I used to have to watch that before we watched the Muppets. Well, the columnist learning is the formation of just about everything that I do, like the reporting and whatever it is. The barometer for what's interesting to others.

Well, who became pretty good at talk radio, columnists, who became good at podcast, talk radio. I mean, it's all derivative of, you know, the original hot take was the newspaper editor. Where are your biases, like where you, objectivity is a human illusion, we can aspire. I always say we're born with original bias. Where are you born, who you're born, all that is stuff. So what does that mean? What are my biases? these.

Journalistically, like when you were trying to do the job, right? Your NBC and MSNBC got dismissed as liberal, wherever it is that the country went. Sometime. Yeah. You are fact-based, I think of you as fact-based, but most people who are- The Peacock created a branding, fair or unfair, of left-of-center, right? I've always said I'm an incrementalist. I'm probably, I'm going to do a name drop here.

apologies for the humble brag, but Bono called me a radical centrist. Oh, hold on a second. Bono called me a radical centrist, and I said, is that meant to be a compliment? He goes, I'm not sure. I said, well, I appreciate it. Meaning, but what that really means is I do believe that if you're going to govern for 350 million people, you've got to do it in baby steps. and that if you look at our history, it's actually you have to go a little bit at time. You try to jump too far ahead.

The backlash becomes worse. So our history shows that incrementalism ends up actually eventually creating hockey stick moments culturally. But I always viewed that my job was to, I viewed Meet the Press as the sort of the same sort of mindset that Lawrence Spivak used to say, which is you just try to take the other side of whoever you're interviewing. And because that's, you want to find out how well do they know their own topic. And if you, so I viewed myself as always trying to be devil's advocate questioner. What's interesting is how over time, the questions I asked made people think that that was my politics. And we lost this, journalists lost where, and this is where social media created the illusion that we were somehow taking sides when I would argue

most of us, on the Sunday shows at least, were simply doing the devil's advocate mindset of questioning. And to me, the viewers that got it, got it. But it partisans weaponize that to try to discredit us in our attempts at being accountability. But I used to say that that was there's a meet the press type interview, but I would never do that interview as a podcast. Because I think a podcast, even this, these are intimate decisions. People are choosing to listen to you. And you're inside their head. Literally, we are inside their head. Don't stress them out. If you stress them out, they're not going to listen to you. So, and there's a way to get, I do think that, I mean, I think Trump's a great example of this. I think the mistake, I look back at all my Trump interviews. And the ones that were the most effective were the ones where I gave him rope, the ones that were least effective or were the ones where I was trying to be a Mr. Accountability. And there's something to be said for always handing people rope that nine times out of ten you'll learn more than if you try to whack them.

You were criticized for talking too much during one of the Democratic debates, right? Like where you were sort of hosting, but you talked more than the primary candidates or no? Well, I guess because we are 10 on stage and I had to play the effing traffic cop. So, no, I resent the production of that debate to this day. We had to do back-to-back debates two nights in a row here. It was actually in Miami. Ten candidates. And that was one of, I'm not going to get into too much of the politics behind the scenes there,

but I was the one that wasn't afraid to offend the viewer on questions. And there were other people I was co-moderating with who would refuse to ask certain questions because they didn't want to be associated with asking a question like that. So I had to basically, I was, I had to ask all the hard questions. What are you proudest of in terms of how you did your job? Like when you look back over the last 20 years? The simplest thing. Somehow I have not been canceled in the Trump era. I take that as a that was not an easy, turns out that's not an easy feat. And I feel like I haven't lost my way. I didn't go down some partisan rabbit hole. I didn't end up some sleaze bag. So I guess I

look at it that I feel like over time I navigated it as well as could be navigated in the situation that we were in. So and I do think that I do think that what we did at Meet the press sort of did more to push to push things forward and give a better understanding of what was happening than others but you know that's my that's my bias did relationships or the relationships you have get in the way of being able to do the meet the press job 100% as objectively and again I'm saying objectivity as a human illusion no no I here's where every once in a while you'd say to yourself, all right, is this question worth asking for the grief it's going to cause?

And I wish I had a better example of that. Nine times out of ten, I went ahead and asked the question. But there would be, all right, I don't, I'm not, no, that's going to, I'm not going to get into that. I don't need a social media firestorm. I don't need to be the center of attention. So there would be times I might pull a punch because I knew that it would be about me rather than about the topic, which bothers me. And it's fact that that's when I knew it was time for me to leave me to press.

I'll tell you the moment it happened. James Comer, Mr. House Oversight guy now. Washington Post, New York Times, Politico, one of them did a story about how James Comer was suddenly doing the mainstream media shows. This was 22, 23. And he said, yeah, I did Chuck Todd and I got a lot of grief in my district. And I'm like, you didn't do Chuck Todd. You did meet the press. And that's when I realized I can't be, it can't be Chuck Todd's Meet the Press.

I've always viewed it. It has to be Meet the Press with Chuck Todd. And unfortunately, I do think we have personalized all media so much. Nobody calls it the NBC, you know, the NBC Nightly News, it was Brian Williams, or was Tom Brokaw, it was Lester Holt, now it's Tom Yamas, right? Or it's David Muir. We personalize this where I still thought I was a custodian to an institution. So under that definition, I did say to myself, well, there were things I wouldn't say because the host of meet the press can't say that. That's what I mean when I say I'm liberated. Now I feel like, okay, I can say this now because I don't, I didn't want it to reflect on meet the press. You viewed yourself as a caretaker and a curator. Correct. That's 100% true.

And you came up almost everything you learned was about don't make yourself the story. Correct. I mean, this was our generation. I would argue this is what journal. No, no, don't insert yourself into the story. Now, look at this woman, Olivia Newsy, who's writing about falling. in love with RFK Jr. And this is now being seen as, oh, she's having a moment and she's now, I would never hire her to be a journalist at any news organization I ran. She already proved

that she, she's going to fall in love with her, with her potential subjects. Like I just, I say that not, you know, she should be able to make a living. God bless her. And the definition of journalist is whatever anybody wants to be it these days. I'm not going to sit here and say otherwise. If you can't separate yourself from that, then you probably need to become an activist and not a journalist. If you told me you wanted to go work for RFKJ, fine, then go work for them. But don't use the credibility of journalism because you'll end up hurting everybody. I'm surprised, given your credentials here, that you're not comfortable telling anyone else how to be a journalist. When I can hear the disgust in your voice as you're saying, that's not journalism.

Because I go, I've thought about this. And it's like I am sensitive to, I'm a middle-aged white guy giving you my take on how it should work. I also believe that there is a spectrum of journalism. I'm not going to participate in activist journalism, but sometimes activist journalism gets results. I'm not a big fan of access journalism. But how do you become a beat writer in a sports room without access? So I can't sit here and tell you never do access journalism. That's why I'm being a little bit.

That's why I'm a little caught. I'm both, do I think I have more credibility of how to build a newsroom? Yeah, I do. I think I'd be better at it than just about anybody else on the planet. That I have self-confidence about. But I'm not going to sit here and say her type. I'm just saying I wouldn't hire her in a news organization that I worked at. what do you believe is the fairest criticism of how you did meet the press like the criticism that

someone you respect you took to heart because you're like yeah that person knows what they're talking about and that seems like a fair appraisal um that's um we sometimes pursued a headline in the 24-hour news cycle rather than that and this this would and this was the pressure I felt from executives to write you at how many headlines did your interview generate and the Sunday shows always were measured on that and so you end up feeling as if well I've got to ask these questions because I know they'll make news when it undermines what could have been a better interview if I had gone down you know so that to me would be the the sort of of always asking about, you know, what are you running for next or are you doing this

where it was more about just getting a quick news headline. Well, but you also have to keep up in a changing technological age with something that's a bit of a library, a museum. Correct. And I think that that, you know, it used to be, I had an executive say, don't treat meet the press like a Faberje egg either, right? And so, but I think that was, I law, I, you know, it's funny, the reason I I love podcast interviews is because they're an hour.

I always do an hour, 45 minutes to an hour. My favorite Meet the Press interviews were the ones that went 30 minutes or more. I think I did 10 of those total. Because what the viewers told us, and we'd sit there, I'd get the minute by minutes. You ever seen minute by minutes? No, no. Yeah, but you would get them because an executive would want to show them, and you would find out, and you would see people leaving after minute nine or minute 10 with certain people.

And the executive producer would sit there and say, well, when we book so-and-so, we can't go more than eight to ten minutes. And you're just like, that was the part where, and here's the thing, ad rates are set by rate. I mean, it does matter to the bite. Like, you have to be aware of the bottom line. I'm not afraid of business. That is something that I've always, and it's what I think gave me an advantage why I was more willing. And in fact, I always wanted more say over the business side of meet the press, not less. And I used to fight for it because I didn't, you know, I'm not bothered by underwriters. I'm, I'm, look, I did my, I did all the history of television news in the 1956 NBC conventions. There's a logo for Union 76 on the table. I'm like, you want to put Boeing's logo on my desk? If you give me 15 extra minutes of show, I'll do that. That doesn't bother me. Boeing's already advertising. That doesn't mean I'm building airplanes. So I was, you know, I don't mind. I understand the business side, but I would like to have it, can't we find a way that actually creates better content. So if you can give me, like, I'm a huge fan of the underwriter

model so that, hey, you're going to buy extra, add, I don't have to have five commercial breaks. I can only have to have two because you're underwriting the whole show. It means I get to have longer segments. That's, everybody wins. You have seen, or you just said that your obituary will have meet the press on top. Is it what you're proudest of professionally or is there something else along the path that you're prouder of than that? I mean, you know, I think some of my personal, I'm, I'm proud of helping to build the hotline, but it's not what it was. I'm a founder of you ever heard of Sports Business Journal. Yeah, sure. I'm a founder of that. That was sports business daily. But no, I mean, meet the press is, you know, it, please, it open, it is open, it opens

doors that you don't realize it opens. You didn't know there were doors available to you until you do that in different walks of life. And I'm experiencing that now. The opportunities that I have as an independent journalist are because of that. So, no, I, it deserves to be in my lead. I'm not going to, I'm not going to, assuming I don't do anything outrageous or something. Tell me about your gambling. I don't know. I'm just a, I'm just a sports gambler. But when did it start? How did it start? Tell me the backstory. You must miss the dirty days of gambling when it wasn't quite so normalized and you had to go meet your bookie behind a Walmart. No, I never had a bookie. I was an early, I had an account. My first, I mean,

I do pools and stuff, but my first gambling account was one of those Caribbean countries. It was called intertops. I think they're still around today. But I opened that sucker in 99 the minute a friend of mine told me about it. But my first gambling memory was my mother had a childhood friend, the parent of a childhood friend. His name was Manny. And it's always a guy named Manny that's going to introduce you to gambling. Especially in Miami. Right? There's always a Manny or Manny. Maybe Armando, but Manny. If your bookie's named Manny, then you have a good bookie, right? And I'm like eight or nine at the time. And you know, this is, and he would call me up. I, like, I was at some, like, Thanksgiving dinner, and he, and we were talking football,

and he was like, oh, you were watching that game? I was sort of a college football fanatic, and I'm like, yeah, I think so-and-so's going to win or something like this. Anyway, he apparently tailed me, and he won a bunch of money. So during bowl season, he calls up our house, and he had never called up our house before, and he says, and he wants to talk to me to get my take on his picks for the bowl game. You're eight or nine years old? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, we were.

What were you doing? What was happening? Not even I. I mean, I wasn't. I, I mean, I just loved all sports. I was reading Bill James abstracts when I was 12 or 13, but not eight or nine. I was into the lines. And my father would play that off. He wasn't a gambler. But I just enjoyed the math part of it. You know, hey, can so-and-so win by six and a half, whatever it was. So I always took to it pretty quickly. But yeah, I just, you know, God bless it. Now, I, as a gambler, would say, I don't think we should have player props. I think all player props. I think it's too corruptible. And I say this. And I, I've thought about this. If you're, if you're a young athlete making a lot of money and you've got some friends who need a couple of bucks. Well, that's what, that's what's happening.

That's what's happening. I'm not, I, you know, it's sort of like, you know, the plot line to lay miss. Are you going to steal a low for bread to feed your kids? Are you going to help? You know, it isn't as morally clear as you think. That's what's happening with the basketball guys. That's what's happening with the Dominican baseball players. So don't put them in that situation.

And obviously, you know, so, look, I think you got to get rid of the player props, especially college. Charlie Baker, I was interviewing him, the NCAA president. And he said, they got it because he said, here's the problem he can't weed out. it's not the players. It's the students who have no connection to the program who serve as spies and basically get paid for tips, no different than TMZ pays people for tips to find out what celebrities having dinner where somewhere so they can bring a camera. Oh, or an EMT, hey, I just had to go to and you get paid for that tip by TMZ. Well, you get paid for these gambling syndicates want people on these different campuses regardless of whether they're connected. Hey, can you find out which quarterback's dressed on Wednesday for practice or Thursday?

And you find out that information. So that's the part he's struggling. How do you police that? Well, you gave me the macro on your opinions on gambling in sports, but you didn't give me any of the juicy stuff. No, what do you mean? You started at eight or nine years old. And you've been gambling and your risk averse, but you've been gambling for a while. So clearly this is something that calls you.

And you're interested in the... I'll be honest. I'm only gamble football. And tell me something about, like, how you do that. Like how long you've been doing it or what are the ones that hurt, the memorable ones that hurt that you... I don't... Well, because I weirdly, I enjoy the gambling, but I'm weirdly risk-averse. So I never gamble more than a $200 a game now.

Used to be even less than that when I didn't work at Meet the Press. And I'll just leave it at that. Um, but, um, no, I, I wish I, I don't have, you don't have a bad, a legendary bad bead story. You don't have, sort of like, but like, but I'm like one of those. I've done so many, you know, the bad beats are memorable, but, you know, you never, you never, you know, forget the other stuff. I'll, I will say this. I never gamble on Miami games. Because I don't want to be doubly disappointed. Really? Okay. I never gamble on hurricane games. And I refuse to do it. We'll never do it. No matter how tempting, no matter how confident I am, and how poorly our coach. which will cover spreads or anything like that. But I won't gamble on Miami. I wish I had. I just love it. That's the only one, though.

That's your only sacred cow? The University of Miami is the only one. The only one. Yeah, the only sacred cow. What do you remember about watching the 1988 World Series? Oh, I must have told that story. So that's the year my dad died. And I grew up a Dodger fan because we didn't have baseball.

So my dad was a Dodger fan, therefore I was a Dodge fan. In fact, we got the Miami News. Do you know why we got the Miami News in addition to the Miami Herald? I don't. The only way you could get a West Coast box store. It was the afternoon newspaper. It was the afternoon newspaper. And I think we were like the only people in our neighborhood, which is why it didn't last for, you know, eventually.

Yeah, no, the poor Miami News with Tom Archdeacon struggled even though they had some great writing. I was, I had, I remember when they went out of business, I was literally had just signed up to be a delivery boy. because it was an after-school job that you could do for the Miami News. So, and my dad was in the hospital, in and out of the hospital. So he was in ICU for 52 straight days, but he would be in and out of the hospital the first, that whole 88. So he made a deal with his doctor every Saturday, every Friday he got released so he could watch the hurricane football games on Saturday. And that year, that's the year after the national title year. There was a Michigan game where Miami has to make a fascinating and amazing fourth quarter comeback.

The infamous Notre Dame game. Oh, wow. That's the Jimmy Johnson game. That's the game at Michigan. Yes. And then the Notre Dame game they lose on the Cleveland Gary fumble. The Cleveland Gary fumble and air quotes. And then the world's – and then we were Dodger fans and then somehow the Dodgers got in the World Series.

And I would go, he was on a breathing tube, but I would go to watch the last two games. I didn't see that I was at a high school football game because I was a junior in high school. And we had to, I was in the band. So we had to perform. And what I'll never forget about that is we were at Tropical Park. And over the speakers in game one of that series, they go, Miami-N-N-Aid. Jose Konseco hits a grand slam in the World Series. And the crowd goes crazy because we're playing Southwest High, which is where Konseko went.

And I'm like all bummed out, oh, man, that's a bummer. And then listen to the thing in the way. But to watch, that was sort of a, it's a good memory. I didn't see the Gibson home run with him, but I was able to watch the rest of the games with him in the hospital room. So that was sort of a – that was the Hirschizer World Series. Yeah, that's a Hershizer World Series. to Hershey's right where he was just dominant. In fact, they were showing when Yamamoto was pitching, going three and oh, the last

guys who went through, well, he didn't have to go three and oh because they pitched in five. They got that series done in five. But it was like, not since Hersheiser, I think, had a Dodger done that much. So the sports fandom begins with a connection with your father. Yeah, yeah. As does politics. Look, I was, it is. It is, and my mother becomes a sports fan because in order to have conversations with her son.

Chuck, thank you. Appreciate the work. Appreciate the time. The Chuck Toddcast is where it is. You get all that he's doing now as a fiercely independent journalist. Happy to have you around. Hope you're around more. Hope you participate.

We can learn some things from you on our show. I'm happy to do bad chili cookoffs for you, too. All right. With Cody. Okay. The Chuck Toddcast. Check it out. He is doing good work.

He's been doing good work for a long time. Thank you, Chuck. Thanks, Dan. with the nice, the golden color and the nice little, a little head at the top. Oh my God. Right now, I want to leave this ad read in the middle

and go share a Miller Lite with my boy, Tony. Dude, can we do that? All right, let's go right now. All right, we're leaving. All right, we'll finish this and we'll do it. Middle of light, it just fits. It's the taste you can depend on, brood for flavor, simple ingredients,

that malted barley, the rich, balanced coffee notes. Dude, the iconic golden color. And at 96 calories and 3.2 cards for 12 ounces, it lets you enjoy the season without weighing you down. The original light beer, since 1975 still hitting different 50 years later you look great miller light you don't look a day over 30 hey the best holiday beers are the ones you don't expect miller light great taste 96 calories go to millerlight dot com slash beach to find delivery options near you or you can pick

up some miller light pretty much anywhere they sell beer tis miller time see what i did there holiday cheer celebrate responsibly miller brewing company milwaukee wisconsin ninety six calories and three point two cars per 12 ounces that's right