The Press Box - Ep. 95: 'Keepin' It 1600' With Savannah Guthrie

Episode Date: April 21, 2016

Jon and Dan break down New York’s big winners, Trump's "reset button" (3:00), Bernie's bleak outlook (12:00), Hillary's hopes for Sanders support (18:00), and new ways to recruit millennial voters (25:00). Then, ‘Today’ co-anchor Savannah Guthrie joins (28:00) to discuss covering the White House beat and the transition into mainstream television. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to another episode of Keeping at 1600. I'm John Favre. I'm Dan Pfeiffer. And today we have our friend and the co-host of the Today Show, Savannah Guthrie. Very excited to have Savannah on. A good friend of ours, very, very smart person. I'm excited to talk to her. Yes.

We also want to give a shout out before we start to the upcoming premiere of After the Throne. which is Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan's show, part of the Ringer network. It's going to be on HBO now, HBO Go, both probably, right after Game of the Thrones. It's on Monday. So I'm excited for that. I'm very excited for Game of Thrones on Sunday. Yeah, it couldn't be more long time, Andy and Chris, podcast fan, on their old Grant Land podcast back in the...

Just don't tell us the details of your podcast virginity story. It still exists on the internet, so don't you worry. Okay, so we had big primary this week in New York, and this is a very Empire Strikes Back primary in that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton massive victories in New York, expected, but probably, at least in Trump's case, it was a bigger victory than expected, right? Yeah, I think so. I think there's also a reminder that has won. Huge win for form like they're supposed to.

Trump was supposed to do well here. He did well here, which is they should do well in these states, and they did very well in these states. And it's a huge win for both of them and their past the nomination. Yeah. I mean, here's one thing I think Trump did well between Wisconsin and New York, right? Like, we know, and probably the Trump campaign, or like Paul Manafort or some smart person on that campaign, knows that, knew that they were going to win big in New York, even though they were going to win big in New York, even though they lost big in Wisconsin because of demographics, right?

And they knew that the momentum and the narrative didn't really mean anything for their results. But they know that the media can't resist a narrative and can't resist the momentum narrative. So they use that period to say that they were retooling and having a staff shake up and doing all the things you're supposed to do when you're down and out to kind of regain the momentum so that when they won New York like they thought that they were going to do, I think they also benefited from the narrative like, oh, well, he helped turn his campaign around and look at the big victory he got, which you and I and a lot of people know is complete bullshit. But, you know, I think it works with a lot of the media. Yeah, Trump understands, obviously, as we've seen throughout this cycle, Trump understands how the media works, and he knows that this is a tried and true, that shakeup or a change.

You have some kinds of the press can say, see, for weeks now, and we will give them the benefit of the doubt. and the neutering of Corey Lewin right to the media fans. But the other thing is, if Trump did not hire Paul Manafort, did not, and had it be run by like a gaggle of monkeys, he would have done just as well in New York. Some would argue that the mild step up in his previous campaign staff, but... He may have done better. Right, he may have been better, like. Trump had clearly gotten outwitted by cross-seasoned.

So, you know, if he's on the... If this is a pretty great story in one of the papers, the one of the papers was 1976, so there were all these people in their late 80s or advising these campaigns because they're the only people on the Republican side, and they can find you knows how to deal with a contestant convention. Yeah, I saw that.

Paul Manafort and Paul had. There's like an 88-year-old guy who's advising Kasek. We found the only guy who was alive at the convention in 76. I'll tell you what year it is right now, but yeah, he's helping them out. So, yeah, so they're bringing on, they brought on Manafort and Wiley to do this stuff. And I also read in the Wall Street Journal that he is bringing on a speechwriter,

which means that this is my last podcast. Can you imagine? You'll just be a future guest when Tate and I host this going forward. I can't wait to see who that speechwriter is. And he's using prompters. The much maligned prompter is going to be part of Trump's repertoire now. Well, I mean, basically, once you've done that, you might as well be Obama.

But I was watching in preparation for our, interview with Savannah Guthr. I was watching the Today Show this morning. He's been practicing on a teleprompter, and he plans to hire us. I think you're doing that out of order. So who wrote the speech? What is on the teleprompter? A little late for a round of edits. Yeah, exactly. No, so I think that, so Trump was projected by the smart delegate projection people,

538, redistrict, all these places, to get around 71 delegates in New York. He's going to end up with 89, 90. They still have a few left to allocate. I don't know. Obviously, it was a predicted win, but I also sort of think that he is back in the driver's seat here. I think we're going to have a primary on Tuesday that he's going to do very well in Pennsylvania,

Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware. Those are also going to be good states for him. And then he's going to hit a bit of a rough patch again. Indiana is going to be tough for him. And then there's a couple Western states without too many delegates that I think Cruz probably wins. You know, and then we get to California. But I don't know.

It's not just a momentum thing, but I sort of think, I think we discount what it's going to look like if he finishes on June 7th a few, you know, 50, 60, 70, even 100 delegates short of 1237, but with a big enough distance from Cruz in the popular vote in the amount of delegates, and if he doesn't do anything too crazy, which is a huge if, I think it's very, it's much harder at that point for the party to say, no, we're denying you the nomination.

All the time. All the time. The capacity of the Republican Party every week's different. That's our, that's our privileged punts in our new pundit. We also, we're mainly just receivers and on Twitter, away from them, and I have to give it to, is, I would feel a little bit differently if it was, if Trump had never run in cruises position in the party. They're all the same people, in fact, movement. So, like, it's, you know, they're sort of damned if they do, damned if they don't.

I mean, my belief is if Trump acts like he has in these last two weeks and doesn't, and doesn't say, you know, if he acts like that and he's disciplined, I think he gets it. I think the party doesn't take it away from him. If, however, he has another week where he is like saying crazy shit about women and his staff has beaten. up reporters and all the other awful stuff that happened that a couple of weeks ago, then I think it becomes much easier for them to take it away, right? Like there does need to be a change in the storyline for something that Trump does that's crazy for them to do this.

Well, they also took a poll that it's something like 70% of Republicans now think that the person who won the most popular votes and won the most delegates, the candidate who won, who won those things, should get the nomination. So I think it's very tough to take it away unless he actually, acts like a lunatic, you know? Strategy. He's running a two-tiered strategy right now, which is two-tieres more strategy than he's run

from much of this campaign, but is he, Kwali and these guys going out, they're meeting with the R&C, the delegate game. At the same time, Trump is going out publicly and trying to delegitimize a process

that takes it away from him. Yes. Which I think is smart, because it raises the stake for his people and makes it, if his people believe, and they will believe, I think if he keeps saying this,

that, And it's not a hard argument to make, that the person who gets the most votes and the most delegates should be the nominee, and anything else is corruption, thie, et cetera. In a contested convention, if, you know, 40% of somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 to 45%, depending on the day, or not just the Republican nominee, but for the House and the Senate, too, because these people will stay home. So if you're one of our friends in the hashtag never Trump movement, what's your next move? foreign country. I think the only thing I sort of have to decide what game you want to play. I think I would pick these districts in California

where my neighbor is here in San Francisco, I'm over the next, by either case occurs in those districts. So your best bet, if you have any at all, if you think this is the death of the party, I think your move is probably find a third party candidate to run on the libertarian ballot. a Republican conservative that you believe in to run on the Libertarian Party ballot and give your congressional Republicans and Senate Republicans other than Trump.

I think that makes sense. Moving to the Democrats, is it over? Yes, and it's been over for a long time. I know. I mean, so Hillary won a resounding victory in New York. I think she, her final margin beat the polls by a couple points. Sanders people had, I don't think they predicted an outright win, but they needed one. They needed not just a win, but a win by a lot.

The way it stands now, to catch Hillary and pledge delegates, Bernie Sanders would need to win every remaining contest by 18 points. He has only done that twice, once in New Hampshire, and once in Vermont. And if he doesn't do that, then his only option is to convince a few hundred superdelegates that they should come back him, the candidate with fewer votes and fewer delegates. So I just, I mean, I know, it's like, we're all corrupt members of the establishment, but I just, I don't know how, I don't know how he goes, how he does this. I think you, I'd say a couple things to this.

One, New York was a resounding victory. It was an exclamation point. It didn't like it's still a right. For pretty, I think for, I think for Parker's all, I think the good reason is, it's not, it is over, but it's not, it's like, you're 30 games out of first place, you're not mathematically eliminated yet, but you're not making up 30 games in the last 50 games or whatever it is, right? But, you know, it's not there, it's not for them to call it over.

The second reason is they have a, the other reason, and the bigger reason, is that Hillary has to find a bridge to get these standard supporters over even though it's over. Yeah, I mean, look, I think, I think he should keep running, right? Like, look, she ran until June, in 2008 until the last contest. He should run until June. There's no good reason for him to get out of the race. He's going to win some states again.

He's probably going to win. He might win all the states in May that have contests because there's a very favorable states for him. He's going to keep building a crowd. He's going to keep building a movement. He's going to be able to get his message out. And he's earned that right to do that. I mean, I think he should keep running.

Yeah, I saw Sanders strategist Ted Devine on TV last night or the night before. estimate now more than million people are in the states that have not yet voted and they should have a right to vote for but have played it out to the end too because your people deserve the chance to do that. You know, I do, you hear sort of two

strong standards campaign. One is, and then we'll reassess at the end and then we're going to a year popular vote. And that's not going to happen, but I think we've both been in this position that when you losing a campaign is hard. It's really hard.

And particularly if you ever, you know, people get into the race and they have net, and then you get to sniff the overall. right whether you're the candidate or the staff and you think like we could win and then you're like pictures and then when that's hard to do that and so there's like they are and it could take a few weeks to do that and i think in terms of sanders like some people have you know i was like they should i said that they should both stop attacking each other um now look i think that sanders can sanders should go out and continue to point out differences between he and hillary on policy positions

I don't think he should pull back on his message about, you know, the influence of money in politics. All I think he should do is there's a line he said many months ago before it got fairly nasty, where he said, Hillary on her worst day is 100 times better than any Republican, you know? And I think he should probably start saying that more to just start reminding his own supporters that, you know, by the way, we have a lot of differences. I think I'd be a better president than her. but at the end of the day, here's what our ultimate goal is. I mean, that's what I think his, I think that's his sort of only role here. Hillary, I actually think, when you're the presumptive nominee or you're going to win this thing,

it's actually more on you to try to unite the party and reach out to the other side supporters. And I think we did a lot of work doing that in 2008, but she probably has quite a few things to do, don't you think? And I think it's going to be a little bit, I mean, I think that our race was in the very beginning, getting so losing swift. But the difference here is that both Clinton and Obama were operating within a certain party and its institutions were legit. The Sanders campaign, not, we ran against Clintonism, like Obama disagreed with that came from the 90s, and against the Democratic Party. We're running against Anthony Pelosi or Harry Reid or the DNC. Sanders has run against

the Obama's real. Now you're going to have, you know, just, you know, the establishment itself or a bunch of corporatist, you know, neolom. I know. I guess we're neol liberals, apparently. Yes. Yeah. If you point out delicate math, you are a neoliberal. I should say, though, this is one thing that I'm wondering.

A lot of our impressions and the impressions that you just talked about are from Sanders supporters on Twitter. And I just don't know what percentage of his supporters, you know, are, I think that Sanders himself and a good portion of his supporters are a little more like we were in 08 running against Clintonism and Clinton as the establishment than the whole entire infrastructure

of the Democratic Party itself is my guess and then I think there's another segment of them who are exactly what you just said running against the whole establishment, the whole Democratic Party thinks everyone's a sellout thinks the ASEA, you know, the Affordable Care Act was a sellout that it was written by lobbyists,

all this kind of stuff. But I just, I think, there's a split in his supporters in that way. And I think Sanders is probably on the more helpful side of that split, but then it's sort of incumbent upon him to try to bring the rest, bring at least as many people as possible along with him. Yeah, I've constant annoying admonitions to other people, which is your Twitter timeline is not a poll, right? So what people tweeted us is not representative anything. And Matt Iglesias at Vox did a pretty smart piece a few weeks ago, something, and they get all these, you know, quote-called Bernie Bros.

The campaign itself, I think, has been a bit split. I thought the accusing the DNC and the Hillary Victory Fund of the campaign finance violations for a pretty standard thing into that narrative. I agree. And, you know, there's going to be a moment where Bernie Sanders is going to be a national committee funded by the DNC and speaking. Yeah.

And what do you think she should do? I would say broadly, the Clinton campaign has some really not-named Barack Obama. Because a lot of these people that, like in Obama's second year ago, being Democrats, then behind them. So the 18 to 24, you know, mid-20s to mid-30s, but you need the next group of eight to be Democrats. And that's a worrisome thing. And I think they have to look hard at that. Yeah. And I think it also, I think that the consultants and media people and all that kind of stuff have to change the way they think about how to attract millennials.

Because in this race, a 76-year-old who's been in Congress for 26 years. dominated the youth vote, right? And he did not even have to use a snazzy new Snapchat filter to do so. Right. So like... He did not dab on Ellen. He did not dab on Ellen. Our Cardinal sin here at us, keeping 1600.

No, and so like I think that all the things you're told to do as a candidate to reach out to millennials, like that has to be rethought. And I think there's much more of an emphasis on it. And I don't think it's as ideological as people think. either. I think it's candidates who are comfortable in their own skin, who speak like normal human beings, who don't sound like they're just regurgitating talking points. Like, I think there's, the word has been so overused now that it's awful, but there's an authenticity factor here that I think is Bernie has it, and I think, you know, and Obama had it as well. I think that

Hillary in our campaign should do would be, I think that would be an important thing to do. I think it'd be good for the party to do that. You know, he has a message that resonates with a lot of people, not just our core voters on the economy, and having him do that in prime time would be good. Two, I think how we pick our nominee, you know, whether that is those primaries, I think is something that a system, I don't think it is given Hillary Clinton an advantage, but I think that that should be looked at. I mean, super delicates are a dumb thing, and so they should look at that.

The third thing is Hillary Clinton should pick a proud... Totally. the, you know, you can already see... Don't go picking Tim Cain. Right. You know, it's just like, let's find the old... And I like Tim Cain. Let's find the white male senator from a swing state.

Right. Don't do that. No. And they're great people, but I just don't, I don't think that's what she needs. Like... Yeah. I think it's like... I mean, I would see she should pick Tom Perez because he was on our podcast.

And if anyone else wants to be on the VP short list, tweeted us, we will put you on the podcast. I mean, Sherrod would be... Sherrod would be a great. pick, but his wife has pretty much ruled that out. I would think this is going to sound crazy, and they're, and that would make some of these not work, but one, I would think very hard about picking another woman, right? Yeah.

I think that, like, the conventionalism would be cannot do that, must-balance ticket, right? And I think, you know, if she picked Elizabeth Warren, all of her Bernie Sanders support, right? Yeah. Could be Amy Klobuchar, could be, you know, like, pick a progressive. and be bold about it, and I think that will help her with the standard of support and help her generally as she hits into the fall. Yes, so Elizabeth Warren, you should come on our podcast and talk about your possible selection as vice president.

Okay, as promised, we have Savannah Guthrie, the co-host of the Today Show, formerly of the White House Press Corps. Thank you so much for joining us, fresh off a morning with the Trump family. Oh, that's right. It's such a pleasure to be with both of you guys. I just can't. It's shocking to me that you're now both members of the media. The immediate establishment.

Oh, did you say self-hating members? Okay. Absolutely. Well, you'll fit right in then. Well, this is important for a Sunday today, host. I love it. I love it. Take that.

So we want to get to all the politics of the week, but just start a little bit about you for all of our listeners who, just to make them understand that you didn't just appear on the Today Show for the first time in your life. What actually made you choose journalism? Because I know you also had a legal career and studied law and could have easily gone down that path. What made you jump into the media? Well, you know, I started in news and started in TV right out of college. I actually got my degree in print journalism.

And it was my big dream to be a magazine writer, Time Magazine or Newsweek or something like that. But I happened to just get a job at a TV station, a local station, behind the scenes. And through that, I was able to kind of put a tape together. And so one thing led to another, and my first journalism job out of school was at a local TV station. And then I was kind of on that track for a while, probably five or six years working in different local news markets. And then I got kind of tired of it and was sort of things. thinking that I wanted to pursue the legal path, and I decided to go to law school. So I went to Georgetown law, and I continued to work in news just part-time because I needed a part-time job,

and I practiced a short time, and then I just – this is the shortened version of it, but basically I just felt like, you know, my dream job was to be a legal correspondent, and I felt like if I don't go for it right now, I'll never have the guts to do it again. So I left my legal job and I had a clerkship lined up and I told the judge, I'm sorry I'm not going to come work for you this fall. I'm going to go pursue my career in television. And he was like, are you crazy? And do you have a job offer? And I said, no, I don't. But I just feel like, this is it. I got to go try. And so that's what I did. And I ended up going to court TV and covering trials around the country. And then ultimately NBC hired me as a general assignment reporter. And I was in Washington. And then

And eventually they put me on politics beat in the White House, which is when I ran into you people. Jokers. That was like 20 years all summed up in one minute. That was pretty good. That's pretty good. What do you miss most about being in the White House press corps besides the two of us? Getting yelled at by Dan Pfeiffer is always the joy that I really... I'm pretty sure I never yelled at you.

I think we had a morning date every morning. Yes. It really was, although. Pro tip, don't call Dan before he's had his breakfast. You'll find him a much more pleasant conversation if he's had his breakfast already. Dan, both of you guys were working like 20 hours a day. I don't even know how you did it for all those years. But, yeah, so yeah, I used to call Dan all the time.

He was on my list of people I called. And Savannah, you also reached out to me once in a while. And look, I am known for being a poor leaker. I never really gave any reporters anything. I just say that because Dan's on the line. But there was one. That's exactly what a good leaker would say. There was one reporter I always leaked to, which was Savannah Guthrie, when she called,

when you called and asked me what the soup of the day was going to be at the White House mess so that you could then announce it on your show with Chuck Todd. That was it. That was right. I would, like at 8 in the morning, I would scurry away from my desk down to the White House mess. ask them what the soup was going to be, and then email Savannah. And that was my press interaction for most of the White House. And it was actually quite valuable because, you know,

Dan's Plunkies in lower press would try to just give me the daily soup menu that was generic, where John went the extra mile to find what the actual soup du jour was. This was some of the important work we all did together at the White House. But if you asked me, what do I miss about the White House? I mean, you know, it's totally grueling, all-consuming beat, but it's very exciting, and you get to travel the world, and you see things that you would never otherwise see. And, you know, on occasion, you get to raise your hand and ask a question of the leader of the free world. And, you know, that doesn't get much better than that. Just so you know, the White House soup of the day is raising and cage and gumbo.

We never wanted the American people to know. I know. That actually was true. was some spin about the soup because they didn't want everyone to know how hoity-to-oity it was. You know, you got a chance to, how do you plan about what your question would have 10 people a question? You know, that moment will be. Yeah, it's incredibly stressful.

First of all, the White House reporters do not get together at all because even though we're all the media writ large, you know, these are all competitive networks. So, you know, we all want to ask the best question and we don't compare notes. And part of the stress is you don't know, A, if you're going to be called on, and B, in what order? If you're the first person called on, in some ways it's the easiest because the most pressing news of the day question, you know, is yours to ask. If you're 10th on the list, a lot of times everything's been kind of chewed over, maybe you had five questions on your list, but the other reporters already asked them, so you're kind of scrambling and stressing. I think we always, you're trying to make news, which is another way of saying you want the president to say something new or at least in a different way than he's ever said it before. And you want to have a genuine interaction with the president.

And I always tried and wanted to ask a question that I hoped would be at least challenging or thought-provoking because no reporter wants to ask a question. that just elicits the same old talking points. Now, Dan, I know you want to just have the president say the talking points, but this is where we're sometimes at odds because we want to have something that's a little bit different or at least a little more expressive. And all of your thinking that you do about the question is designed around that, how to elicit something new or revealing. How frustrating was Obama to you guys in?

reciting talking points versus saying something truly interesting? Well, you know, I mean, the president is extremely disciplined and he knows how not to make news. And he also, I think, would be the first to acknowledge that he's not a fire and brimstone type of speaker. I mean, he can be, I think we've all seen him in those settings. But by and large, he's a pretty even-tempered speaker. And it's funny, I used to, you know, I'd have to write a package of a news piece for nightly news every night, and they'd give me a minute 30. And, I mean, honestly, the president could say something like the sun came out today, and it took 15 seconds for him to say it, and my piece would be half over, you know. So it was always a big challenge to, you know, use a couple sound bites from the president and still pack in all the information I had to get in there.

So he always is a little bit of a challenge that way. The biggest trick if you get a chance to interview him is that he also gives very long answers. And, you know, it's a tried and true technique of folks in Dan's job. You know, White House press offices, they don't give you unlimited time with the president. So one of the biggest challenges of interviewing any president, but particularly this president, is trying to cover a lot of ground with not much time with a president who gives long answers. We'll be cutting him off when he's on this podcast. Thank you.

It's the only speed round. Yes. Yeah, I'd like to tell you that that was, you know, look what I have said. This is this. Yeah, let me go back to the beginning with the dinosaurs. You always knew that a broad question about the Middle East, I would just like hang my head because it's like a three-century explanation of Middle East.

And that's the trick about it. I mean, you can't, that's what's so when you're thinking about what questions to ask. One of the key things you have to think about is I can't. not ask an open-ended question that's going to elicit, you know, a mini lecture because that's not going to cover any new ground. And that's not what we're trying to do here. We're trying to get something new or get him to say more about something than he said before. So that was always challenging. And when you are sitting across from him, you can see the person from the press office out of the corner of your eye glaring at you when you start going over your time. And the other

thing that's hard about it is that, you know, especially with a president who's long-winded, and I think most of them are, you have to interrupt. And that's always a really tricky thing, because, first of all, when you sit down across from the president, there's just a natural intimidation factor. Do you respect the office and it's, you feel that it's rude to interrupt? On the other hand, if you don't interrupt, you will get one question. And so, you know, that always would propel me to jump in there, even when it's not my nature. So moving from, so President Obama, interviewee, slightly different than that. What's it like to interview Trump and how is it different from interviewing Obama?

Well, it's night and day, I knew this to say. You know, I mean, first of all, you have to give Trump his due. He does a lot of media interviews, and the media is always complaining about lack of access to candidates, as you well know, and, you know, whatever anybody thinks about him, he has really been very accessible to all kinds of media. So, you know, we find ourselves doing an interview with him. You know, sometimes it feels like once a week, sometimes more often than that. You know, I think that he does a lot of phone interviews, and those are particularly challenging because when you're sitting across from someone, you have all of these range of human cues. it's easier to jump in, it's easier to interrupt or interject, it's easier to have an interaction.

When it's on the phone, you know, he just kind of gives these long answers, and it's a very hard conversation going sometimes. And, you know, sometimes it's great because he answers very directly, and sometimes it's frustrating because he doesn't answer the question at all. And, you know, with politicians of all kinds, you've run into various frustrations. And, you know, it's, it's, I think for me, I'm always trying different approaches with him because we have a lot of opportunity to interview him. And I don't know that anybody's cracked the riddle. Yeah, I saw you guys trying this morning to kind of cut off some of his, like, stump speech-like answers around the town hall. It's sort of amazing that he can filibuster really well. And not just in a Barack Obama, now I'm going to start from the,

now I'm going to give you like my Thomas Friedman, the world is flat routine about the economy, but more like he will just go off in a completely different direction on something that you never asked about. Yeah, it's true. And then you try to rein it back in. And then what's amazing is, and you can't really read Twitter after you do any political interview,

but if I happen to see it, you know, people think, oh, why did you interrupt? You're so rude. Blah, blah, blah. And it's because you're just trying to get it back to the subject at hand. But all politicians do that. I mean, don't you guys teach that when you're, you know, trying to prep your person you're working for, for whether it's a debate or anything? You say, okay, they ask that, but you don't have to answer the question, just get around to what you want to talk about. That's what I assume. I imagine that going on. You're correct. Absolutely not. We say answer the question, honestly, forthrightly, because you love journalism.

Yeah, I don't think so. Something tells me it might be a little different than that. Blow off the question and just go say whatever you want to say. But I don't know, it's interesting and challenging. Yeah, I was going to say, so Trump presents like a bit of an even more unique challenge than just the typical politician who kind of filibusters you. And like in a general election, if we get to a Trump-Clinton race or something like that, Like, how do you strike the balance between, or how does the media, not just you particularly, but the media in general, strike the balance between treating both candidates fairly, but also continually highlighting some of the crazier shit that Trump says?

I mean, is that a challenge, has that been a challenge for you guys to like, okay, we got to go tough on him because clearly he's going beyond the bounds of what normal candidates say and do? but at the same time, you know, you can't just be attacking him constantly. So how do you guys deal with that? Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, I can't speak for the whole media, but I know that we try really hard to play it straight. And if it seems like we are challenging him more often than not, sometimes it's because there's more material there because he is taking positions that in some cases are so unusual or unorthodox

that you end up doing interviews that are just trying to get to the bottom of them or try to peel it back. Well, how do you suppose you'll deport 11 million undocumented immigrants or, you know, any number of his proposals you kind of have to drill down on? But I think our goal is always to just treat any candidate like they are a serious candidate for the presidential election. You know, just because you ask policy questions does not mean that you get answers. and, you know, there have been interviews that we've done that are real quick interviews on the Today Show that are all kind of horse race politics and they don't get very deep. And then there have been other times where we try to drill down on some policy issue. And, you know, sometimes we're more successful than other times. And that's probably true, actually, though, of any candidate, honestly.

just because he's more bombastic or flamboyant. You know, he's not that different in the sense that it's sometimes hard to get just a direct straight answer. I actually thought he was very direct today. I mean, I asked him point blank to think we should raise taxes on the wealthy, and he said, yes. And that was it. Which is funny since his tax plan does not do that. And it's, again, you know, decades of Republican orthodoxy. But that's, you know, but he did give a very straight answer on that.

I thought he gave a straight answer on the North Carolina law. He gave a straight answer on, he wants to, you know, have the abortion plank of the Republican platform changed to incorporate the exceptions that he has. So, you know, anytime a politician just answers the question, journalists are happy. He, you know, he does, I mean, to his credit, he makes news, right? Like, you know, as you point out, really giving the media something to. A lot of them are, yeah. Step me back away from Trump for a second. If you think about, you know, if you think about how this election has been car, you know,

are there things that you think the public as they think about making their decision? And on the flip side of that, do you think there are things that the candidates in their campaign staff could do, in terms of their media interaction? Yeah, definitely. I mean, first of all, you know, and we do them all the time, but I don't think these short little interviews are ultimately that helpful. And I can't say that we would stop doing them, but it would probably be more beneficial if we did a sit-down somewhere,

tape and interview, have a half hour with Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or whomever, and really get going on policy. And that's something that the media and the campaigns could do better. I mean, we would like to do those interviews. The campaigns sometimes want to do those and sometimes don't. But in terms of what would actually serve the voters, I think that the voters would be better served if we had interviews that weren't live for three minutes.

It's just hard to get anything done in that time. It's just really hard to, for either side to get a good question and answer series going and for somebody to get into something that's complicated. So I think that's one thing. You know, if we made more of an effort to say, you know what, we'll give you 20 minutes of our air time. If you'll give us 20 minutes to sit down and really flesh out some of these issues. That's good. Moving to the lighter fluff portion of our interview, what's been your biggest? fan girl moment on the Today Show.

Who have you met that you've been most impressed by? Oh my gosh. There are so many, I have to say, and working at the White House is fun, but being at the Today Show has got to be the greatest job because everybody comes through there. But, well, for one thing,

we had Duran Duran give a concert, and my secret inner 13-year-old girl was flipping out because I was the kid who had all the posters, and, you know, I loved John Taylor and Simon LeBond, And so just the fact that we were hanging out and they knew my name was just amazing. And then, you know, I mean, Cole plays come on a few times and I love them.

And then, you know, we have actors come through. Kevin Costner was just here and he was so nice to me. And I'd still always kind of amazed that they even would know who I am. You know, just like, wait, I know you, but how do you know me? So I see, I, there's lots of, there's lots of times like that. But you can't be a big dork in your job. You have to just pretend that you're playing cool. Good.

Yeah, exactly. You always look like that. It happens to me all the time. I try to just, you know, act normal and not like the 14-year-old inner child that I truly am on some of those stories. You don't take Snapchats with them? No, no, but there's been a few where I got to get a picture. Like Dolly Parton came on. I had to get a picture with her.

I'm trying to think who else is. There's just a, I mean, everybody, sooner or later, everyone comes through there. So, you know, Robert De Niro, we just didn't interview with him last week. There's just, sooner or later, you meet all your idols. That's cool. Yeah. Before we let you go and get back to your very busy and important life, you know, we wanted. Oh, my goodness.

That is Sophie's choice. You know what? This line is getting sane. I look at the time. I've got to go. Oh, my God. You could have done our jobs. Great job, President Obama.

Thank you so much. I love all my co-hosts equally. I couldn't possibly possibly say who was my favorite. They're all different. You know, they all bring a little something different. Yes, I would never answer that. Okay, we didn't think so.

Yeah, we was worth a shot, though. But we are telling Chuck that you said Matt, so. He already thinks that anyway. Every time Chuck comes on with me and Matt now, he's like, oh, he's moved on. He's moved on without me. Chuckles, as you used to call him. Chuckles, I still call him Chuckles.

Look at Chuckles. He's all grown up on the Meet the Press. I know. Looking at you guys, we come so far from a wildly successful midday NBC cable show. That's right. Don't forget it. By the way, we've been reprising it lately.

We did it a couple days. We got the old Daily Rundown crew back together. Complete with soup, John, you'll be happy to know. I was going to believe. The biggest news here is that John was the White House Daily Soup. It was deep. We had to plug that leak for years. It was deep,

He called him Deep Broth, yes. That was his actual name. All right, Savannah. Now he's the statute of limitations period has run out, so you can't be mad at him, Dan. I'm not anymore. We ran into some bigger leaks a few years later with a man named Edward Stod. You're like, who told Savannah we were having foie gras soup today? That was me.

It was fabs. Well, Savannah, you have moved on to the Today Show. Chuck's moved on to meet the press, and Dan and I are on a podcast. So thank you. See, it worked out for everybody. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll talk to you soon. Thank you. It's really fun. Take care. Thanks, everyone, for listening.

This is another week of Keeping at 1600. You can find us on Channel 33, which is on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Stitcher. Be sure to watch After the Thrones, which premieres Monday on HBO Go, HBO Now, and thank you again. See everyone next week.