The Press Box - How to Cover the Senate With Leigh Ann Caldwell and Angus King

Episode Date: February 4, 2021

Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker seek to better understand how we cover and report on the Senate. They are joined by NBC News reporter Leigh Ann Caldwell (3:00) and Senator Angus King (36:00) to discuss their approach on Capitol Hill. Hosts: Bryan Curtis and David Shoemaker Guests: Leigh Ann Caldwell and Angus King Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, media consumers. Brian Curtis and David Shoemaker of The Ringer here. This is our second special episode of the press box. And David, we're doing something a little different today. I don't know if you guys listening to this have been watching as much MSNBC and CNN and Fox as you did in the days leading up to the election or at any point over the last two years. Brian and I still do if I can speak for you, Brian, as a sort of. you know, it's a regular journey. It's not a regular day, I guess,

if we don't get our several hours of reps of cable news in. But if you have been watching, you probably notice that the cameras are spending a lot more time in the halls of Congress and outside Senate chambers and less time with just like graphics of Donald Trump tweets on the screen. Certainly the mechanics of the way that we're being governed right now, now is much more Senate-centric than it was in the not too distant past.

Absolutely. And then part of that is, of course, that it's a 50-50 Senate. Part of is that every single vote becomes a climactic as Joe Mansion or maybe Lisa Murkowski on board crossover event. Though it seems kind of unlikely now, the Democrats may nuke the filibuster. And then, of course, David, don't forget what Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley did both before and after January 6th. Well, yeah, I mean, obviously,

the Cruz and Holly aspect is, I mean, I guess that's still kind of going to be ongoing. And we have an impeachment trial that's coming up, too. I mean, I think at the very, at its most basic, there is a,

the narrative of Washington, D.C. has shifted from what did our president do today to is our government functioning for us, right? And because of that, the news itself has, you know, refocused on the Senate. David and I realized we didn't have much of an idea about how you cover the Senate. Yes. So we wanted to go get two people.

We wanted to get a reporter who's on the beat. And then we wanted to get an actual senator. And hopefully between them, they could tell us a little bit about how that chamber is covered. First up, David, the reporter. She is Leanne Caldwell. You can see her reporting on NBC News and MSNBC. She also writes for NBCNews.com. We convinced her to come on and talk to us about how she does her job.

Now, part of what's interesting here is that to cover the Senate, you have to kind of physically be present inside the Capitol building. I can't think of any other part of journalism other than maybe sports writing that relies so much on just walking up to people and asking questions. How does that work in the Senate exactly? Here's Leanne Caldwell. All right, Leanne, since you're at the Capitol as you're talking to us, we thought it'd be fun to start by asking you to take us through your schedule on a day like today. When do you get to the Capitol? And then what happens? So my day actually starts at home. I have usually early morning live TV hits that in COVID time has become acceptable to do via Skype. So my day usually starts at around 7, have a 7 a.m. hit, usually an 8 a.m. hit. And then after that, I rush to the Capitol.

And I'm here most of the day and every day is unpredictable. And I am here anywhere from four or five until four, five, six, seven, sometimes midnight. Depends on what's going on. So my day is dictated on what's happening on the hill, what the story is, what my TV schedule is, all of those dynamics. You kind of got to work through. What's so interesting to me is you have one of the handful of journalism jobs where you actually walk up to your subjects and ask a question. I think you were talking to Rick Scott from Florida yesterday. What is the art of stopping a senator in the hallway to ask a question?

First of all, it's amazing. That's why this is the best beat in Washington. The White House beat is the most prestigious, but the Capitol Hill beat, it's like scrummy, it's fun, it's accessible. it's the best. So we hang out in hallways all day. We either hang out in the basement or in hallways just waiting for lawmakers to come by. And the art of stopping them, they expect to be stopped most of the time. So you walk up and you just ask them a question. If they don't want to talk, though, they have this trick, which isn't a trick, because it's so obvious. They pretend like they're on a phone call. And so they can't talk to reporters because they're busy on the phone. And then,

you know, some are more chatty than others. Some love to talk to the press. Some never do. But it's just so accessible. Walk up and just start talking to people asking questions. It's amazing. The cell phone trick is amazing. I assume that you honor that as if it's, I mean, the formally saying I have no comment, but I guess what happened? You probably weren't there, but what did they do in the days before cell phones? And I guess by extension, how did you learn the ropes of how to do this job? Is there someone guiding you along in your first few reps? They're just like you have to stand here and this is where they're going to come out and they're going to pretend to ignore you and pretend to not hear you, etc. Yeah, there are, there's rules also.

There's not rules where you can talk to people and not talk to me, but there's rules about like cameras and there are rules actually where you can stand, especially the closer you get to the Senate floor. And when you start this job on the Hill, it's super overwhelming. There's just so many people to learn the rules of like how the whole thing operates and the House has different rules from the Senate and the rules matter on knowing when they're going to vote and how many votes they need and that sort of thing. And I remember when I first started covering the hill for like the first five months, by the end of the week, I thought I was hung over

without drinking anything. I was so emotionally and mentally and physically exhausted because it's so overwhelming. But yeah, you always, there's always some reporters who are so fantastic at their job and you watch them. And that's a lot of how you learn is by watching other people do their jobs and mimic it or try to do it in a better way. So we heard the reporters hang out in two main places. There's a spot off the Senate floor, which is, I guess, near the elevator. And then you guys post up at the bottom of the escalators somewhere sort of near the subway entrance. Is that right? Yes. Yes. Those are the two main spots. there's a strategy. So you, if you're in the basement, you have more time with the member,

but there's sometimes more reporters there. But they have, it's a longer walk from the subway or from this like area up to the elevator for them to get into the capital to go vote. So you could probably get a whole like 45 seconds. If they don't stop, you can just walk with them. and perhaps get a couple questions in. But on the second floor, it's very close. It's not as cold there. It's much more beautiful. It's a much better place to stand.

But maybe not to do your job because the elevators are right by the Senate floor. So sometimes you have like a split second. And so if you miss them, if you're looking down at your phone and the person you need walks off the elevator and runs into the Senate floor, you just missed, wasted an hour of your time waiting for that person. We were talking a lot about the details of your day-to-day job. It also strikes me that, like, I mean, you talked about having to work incredibly long days, and then you maybe do, I mean, how many times the most you'd possibly pop up on MSNBC in a given day as well, like five times or something like that, unless something really extraordinary

was happening, I assume. To what degree is your day mapped out? I mean, you told us about your hours, but do you know exactly what's going on in the chamber, what votes are being done? I mean, do you and your editors and whoever else just have like a pretty comprehensive outline of everything that might happen in a given day, or is there a lot that's left up to chance? It's a combination of the two. And our job is really interesting because we have a team of reporters and producers

who work together, and we don't really have to answer to anyone. Like, we don't really have to answer to editors. Like, we determine our day ourselves. Like, what we think is most important. And for the correspondence, the people who have to go on TV, a lot of time their day is scheduled around when you are scheduled to go on television. So you have to work your reporting around that. And sometimes that conflicts with, oh, shoot, I need to be at that press conference, but I also

need to be on television at the same time. So we work with our team, make sure someone's there. We always work it out. But the Senate schedule, like the Senate schedule and the House schedule are usually set for the most part the night before. But then sometimes a vote will pop up within the hour, especially in the Senate that we didn't know about. But that's just kind of how you roll with it. So it depends on, like, when the Senate votes, because that's the opportunity to get lawmakers to talk, because that's when they're out in the hallways and you can stop them. So that's a really critical time, regardless of what they're voting on, if it's important or not important at all. It's our opportunity to talk to them about whatever we're working on that day. And kind of a related

question, when you have news pop up during the day, it's like today we're doing the pandemic stimulus bill. They're pushed to maybe strip Marjorie Taylor Green from her committee assignments. And those stories are popping up during the day. How do you just find out about these things? Are you just staring at your phone all day as you walk around? Or how do you know? Yeah, pretty much. So today was actually a big day.

It was super stressful. There was so much happening. There was meetings with Biden. He was talking to House Democrats on the phone. Senate Democrats were going to the White House. Marjorie Taylor Green controversy. House Republicans were huddling about. that. They're actually huddling right now about that. So there was so much happening. And I was

tracking. Oh, and then impeachment is next week. So I was literally tracking three slash four stories at the same time, reaching out to my sources in the House and the Senate about all four of these stories at the same time. And it was a lot today. I'm not going to lie. A lot to keep track of. So you're constantly talking with people, you're following Twitter, you're seeing what news alerts pop up, your colleagues flag you to things, what's happened. It's like, it's constant. Is it, I mean, we're kind of circling around the same questions, I guess. Let me just get more general, and I promise this isn't a question I ask everybody. We're interviewing you because you do a job that, like, frankly, people that listen to this podcast, and Brian and I don't

understand. I mean, we see you on TV. That's like, probably half of a percent of what you do on a given day. What's something about your job that you wish that everybody knew or something about just the goings-on of the Senate around you? Is there anything that you're just like, I wish every interview could start with me like setting up with this sentence? So there's so much that we know that doesn't get reported, especially when you're on television, you have 90 seconds, two minutes.

to talk about this story. And there's so many other details and nuance that's really hard to get in. So, you know, I feel like the TV talk is like the tip of the iceberg of what we know and what's happening. Because it also gets too confusing if you tell everyone everything that's happening at that moment. But we also stand around for a really long time. time to get information. Like, today with this Marjorie Taylor Green's story, I had to reach out to so many sources and people just weren't responding. I had to, you know, I spent a lot of time trying to get parts of this story.

And it was difficult because people weren't really wanting to talk about this story. Sometimes we stand out in hallways and stake out meetings that are happening behind closed doors and reporters will stand there for hours sometimes. to get Speaker Pelosi to give you a five-word response when you throw her eight questions. So it's not just getting up there and talking on TV about what you have. It's hours and hours of trying to get information before you actually get on television to give your 90-second spiel. Also, when you're doing something like Marjorie Taylor Green, you have a TV network you're expected to appear on. have a website, you also have a Twitter account. Where does that news go if you get a scoop on a story like

that? It's a really good question. So we also have to inform the rest of the network about our reporting that we get. So we have, we call them DLs. So there's all these buckets, email buckets that we have to send our information to the rest of the network. And so that is critical. Because then everyone knows what's happening. And so they know, do we want to use this on television? Do we want to talk to Leanne about this on television? And then that's when, like, the digital team knows, okay, are we going to put this on the website? Should we, you know, let's incorporate this into a story.

So I would say, like, the most important thing we do is any reporting we get, we send out to NBC News Network so that, you know, five, six, seven hundred people have access to this information. And then it can go in kind of like the appropriate buckets of on the website. You know, if they don't take me on TV, then it goes in like an anchor script or something like that. And then Twitter is crucial for those little tidbits that also don't make it on in stories or on news can be very incremental, which is the nice thing about Twitter. And if it's, let's get Leanne on TV, do you need to go find a column to stand in front of so we can have the proper congressional backdrop? There's so many columns. Don't ask me about my art history class because I can't name the types. But yes, there's two buildings where the cameras are set up. One is on the house side. One is on the Senate side. And they're adjacent to the Capitol, connected through tunnels. And they both are big retouched. with gigantic columns.

And the one on the House side is a little bit more yellow than the one on the Senate side. I prefer the Senate better than the House. It's less, it's more white. But I don't get a choice. That's where the cameras are. When it comes to your interactions with the senators themselves, do you, you know, we've just come out of a four-year stretch where members of the media weren't, you know, the most glorified people on the hill.

Do you feel like do you feel like the congresspeople that you interact with have a pretty healthy relationship with the concept of what you do and I feel like it's part of their sort of obligation to

to interact in a productive way? Yeah, I think that you know, what was happening coming from the Trump administration and talking about the media being the enemy of the people and really trying to is so distrust in the press. That was a very specific tactic so that people didn't believe the bad things that were written about him. But on the Hill, there was not that attitude at all.

You know, there's a great give and take between the people we cover and reporters, and there is this long-standing understanding that still exists, even through the last tumultuous four years, that it is our job, you know, the First Amendment, freedom of press, it's our job to report on you and hold you accountable, and it is your job, it's our job to ask questions. You can answer them or not,

or you can answer them however you want. But there was always this mutual understanding. And, you know, as long as, like, we are, I try to be as fair as possible and your reputation matters. And you build that over time and so that these people trust you, but also know that you are going to hold them accountable. It's not, you know, I have a belief. I'm very specific that I don't like to befriend my sources because I want to also, like, write critically or say critical things about. them and not feel bad about it. And that's something that's really important to me. Everyone has a different take on how they do their job. But, you know, attacking someone, just for the sake of

attacking someone, is a lot different than holding someone accountable because of what they're saying and they are accountable to, you know, hundreds of thousands of people, sometimes millions of people, depending on what state you're from. So there was not a lot of pushback from members, be going along with the Trump rhetoric that the media is dangerous or the enemy of the people. David, just permit me two more questions about the hallway exchanges because I'm just fascinated by these. All right, Leanne, you need a comment from Congressperson or Senator X, but you don't want that guy from the other network to hear you asking this question to Congress person X. What do you do in that instance? So that is a very good question. So in addition to there's a couple of things. In addition to the two main places you can stand, there's also other less trafficked areas that you could go or you learn their route so that you know when to catch them so that you're not around a lot of people. And if there's other reporters around that you don't want to hear, you just don't ask your question at that time.

You wait until they walk away and maybe follow them or get them at a different time. Yeah, you have to be very strategic and also what your questions are if you're working on something that you don't want other people to know because there are a lot of times our other reporters around. So I have to make the call. Do I want to ask this question now and get a response or do I want to wait and get something more exclusive? So there's strategies to keep people, you know, at bay.

The other thing I heard was about these unwritten rules that you can follow a senator onto the elevator or even follow them onto the subway, but they have to kind of ask you or kind of wave you in to continue the conversation. You wouldn't just jump in after them. Is that pretty much how it goes? You are not allowed to ride in an elevator with the senator unless you are in. invited onto the elevator with the senator. So, so many times that is there out. Like, like I said, you have from in the basement area, from them getting off the train or walking from the office buildings until they get to the elevators, you have that time

to talk to them because once they're in the elevator, it's like their safe space. There are elevator operators who shut the door in the middle of a conversation if the senator doesn't want to talk anymore. So you have to, you know, it's this weird, like, barrier this, that they have. And you can ask, can I join you on the elevator? And most of the time they say no. Sometimes they say yes. But yes, you have to ask to write an elevator with the senator. And that is so often gets them out of tough questions that they don't want to answer is the elevator doors shut in our faces. And just a comical shrugging of the shoulders from the other side.

You know, I'm sure that feels again. Sorry, elevator doors are closing. One of the reasons why we're talking to you right now is because the sort of gravity in D.C. is shifting more in your direction in this administration, especially in the first, you know, 90 days or so. I mean, there's a lot of questions about what the Senate's going to do. in a lot of different ways. Do you feel that gravitational shift?

I mean, you've been doing this for a minute. I mean, do you, and your producers say, like, on, you know, inauguration day, were you just like, okay, like, let's get a little bit more ready than we were before, or the cameras are going to be on us more? I mean, do you feel a difference? Yeah. Yes and no. I mean, yes, actually, I should say, because the story for the last four years,

was the White House. Half of our job on Capitol Hill for the last four years was asking senators to respond to the latest presidential tweet. And now we don't have that sort of dynamic now. The Capitol Hill lawmakers are what's driving the story for the most part. There's an evenly divided Senate, something that is very rare, hasn't happened since 2001. and that was just for a few short months. There's a, you know, a slim majority in the House of Representatives where Democrats just have, you know, a few seats, a few votes to give them in any random issue. They don't have a lot to lose.

They can't lose many votes. So there's always going to be this tension now. The tension has moved to Capitol Hill because of this, even though it's not really a divided government. this is where things are expected to happen. And yeah, I mean, you could tell it by our MSNBC hits. My colleague and I were on every hour, and sometimes we're both on every hour. There's a huge demand for what's happening on Capitol Hill right now. I saw you say this to the Hill.

You said, I decided when I was 10 years old, when I was watching the Summer Olympics, I wanted to be Bob Costas. Now, how do we get from wanting to be Bob Costas to wanting to cover Congress? I know. I wanted to be a sports reporter. I wanted to go to the Olympics and cover the Olympics. But the Olympics have always been during election years. But this year, it's not during an election year. So who knows, maybe I'll get to go to Tokyo. Feel free to send any messages to NBC Sports through this podcast. We're a vehicle for that. Exactly. I will gladly raise my hand. But I think I was in college. The shift was in college. It was because of why I was a swimmer growing up, and I swam in college.

And so that's what I knew was sports. And then I took political science in college. I minored in it, and I was like, oh, I really like this. And I couldn't decide, actually. I knew I wanted to, I had always thought I was going to do journalism. But then in college, I was like, maybe I want to do politics and not journalism. And then I realized I could do both political journalism and it's kind of the best of both worlds. So I think it was like just, you know, a natural evolution of me seeing that there was more to the world than just sports because that's all I knew for the first 20 years of my life.

Well, we work for a website that they cover sports and politics. Actually, probably more sports. But on this podcast, we take on both in an even-handed way, we like to think. So if you ever want to do... Well, politics is like the greatest sport, right? Exactly. And if you ever want to draw by the podcast again in the future and just give your takes on on the Olympics or anything else, the door is always open to you.

I guess, Brian, should we pivot to the siege? I mean, I know we don't have to take up too much for time. Do you want to take it? No, absolutely. Yeah, Leanne. So you were in the vicinity of the Capitol. Is that fair to say on January 6th? The day it was stormed to tell.

Tell us what happened and what your day was like. Yeah, sure. Well, the day started knowing that it was, I should have known that it was going to be a bad day. My car, I had to get a car service because I had to be there at 6 a.m. I got a flat tire, had to get an Uber, lost my ID to get into the Capitol on my way there. It was a mess. I finally made it. But, you know, I was hanging out in the Capitol right before the whole process was going to start at 1 o'clock.

It was like in the 12 o'clock hour. Senator Schumer had just finished a press conference doing a victory lap because Democrats had just won two Georgia seats the night before. And then at around one o'clock, I was like, oh, I need to get back over to Cannon one of the columned buildings to be prepared to go on TV. And so I had left the Capitol to go be near a camera because that was my job. I had to go talk on TV. And then on my then right when I was getting wired up, a Capitol Police came over and said, everyone get out. You're being evacuated. Scream to all the media. So we were the first to be evacuated in the entire Capitol complex. And then I spent the next five hours, really, in a different

house office building, you know, trying to report and stay in touch with people and figure out what the heck was going on and our team who some of them were in the Capitol still and everyone had these different roles and in these different places. So it was a long, confusing, depressing, disheartening, like really troubling day. Yeah, I can imagine. It's always so interesting to me with that because there's a huge story, right? You're a journalist. There's this giant story that is literally happening around you. So on the one hand, of course, you want to cover that in every way. But I would think that was so unique, at least on your beat, but there is a personal safety element too, and your safety is important to you and people who love you, how do you square those

two thoughts in your mind? Well, it's funny because I kept getting so many text messages and DMs, like, are you safe? Are you okay? And I didn't, because I wasn't in the capital complex, we were in this, like, safer space surrounded by Capitol Police, I never felt an immediate threat. So I didn't feel a need to immediately respond to people because I was trying to do my job. And then finally my husband is like, can you please respond? Everyone is asking me that if you were okay and if you were alive, will you just tell me that you're alive? And I'm like, yes, sorry, I'm alive. Everything's okay. It's just crazy and busy. So there was that component that I didn't realize at the time because I knew I was okay and you don't realize that everyone else doesn't know that.

But it's also like the Capitol, I mean, you spend so many hours here, and this is such a beloved place for even us as journalists. It's like the symbol of the First Amendment, like the access we get and how open we are and we can do our jobs here and walk anywhere in the Capitol and talk to lawmakers anytime we want. And the fact that all of that was attacked and some of my colleagues in the press were also being attacked because they were members of the press. You know, specifically Aaron of the New York Times, she's a photographer.

She was beat up and her cameras were stolen. So there were so many different layers to it. Like not only this like symbol of democracy, but also symbol of like freedom of the press and it's where we spend our days and people we know were impacted and in danger. It was really intense. I don't think I really realized it until the next morning. I had to be back at work at like six o'clock. And my first live shot was for CNBC. And they were like, you have one minute to summarize what happened yesterday. And I was like, I don't think I can do that. I think it was the worst live shot of my life because I was like, what do I say in one minute? So, yes, it was, you know, everyone here is still grappling with it.

I mean, that's so harrowing. I mean, at some point, though, you just like, I guess do your job, right? I mean, you can, you kind of power your way through it. Yeah. What was, I assume it feels a little bit different now, right? I mean, is there, is any of that, what, what's lingering? I mean, what sort of, I mean, is there still an anxiety about going to work? Well, it's such a militarized zone right now.

It's still, it's difficult to get here. You know, it's fortified with fencing and barbed wire. So there's just that aspect that is a reminder every day. You know, the more you talk to lawmakers and staff, like, the anger is subsiding a little bit, but it still exists. And there's still damage in parts of the Capitol, including the, you know, broken glass in the front doors and doors on the house side. And there's people, there's members like Senator Mitt Romney who are trying to get that preserved, so it's not replaced. So it is a constant reminder. But I think one of the hardest things is the Capitol Police,

actually. There is just, you know, morale is really, really down. You can see it in them. You know, they feel like they failed. They also have been working so much overtime to meet the demands for security at this moment. And so they haven't been able to like take time away and, you know, sort through what happened to them. It's just, you know, there's still this feeling of like sadness and disbelief that what happened actually happened here. You can see Leanne Caldwell's reporting on NBC and MSNBC and read her on NBCNews.com. Leanne, thanks so much for coming on the press box. Thank you.

I enjoyed it. So many interesting things there, David. In particular, just the physical nature of the Senate beat that you are, again, the phrase shoe leather reporting gets thrown around. lot, usually in a comic way. According to Leanne Caldwell, it is still shoe leather reporting in the United States in it. You are standing around and then running and grabbing people, and that is a lot of the way you get news. Yeah. And I mean, Leanne did not paint herself as doing anything, you know, above and beyond or extraordinary. She's incredibly good at her job. I think

anyone that's seen her work knows that. But you can understand why there's a sort of, why people in the media, people in the Washington, D.C. media and TV news, why they're so impressed by people like her, right? I mean, you remember, I don't even remember when it was. Sometime in the last year, there wasn't there a time where, was it Casey Hunt

that was like following someone down, a congressman down the hall to try to get an answer? And the clip of her, the question was long forgotten. The clip of her doing the job was on the MSNBC bumpers for like six months, right? I mean, it was just like, this is what journalism is. And you can see why, I mean,

talking to Leanne, how, how, how just the being there aspect of it is actually a really significant, you know, really, impressive job.

All right, David, that's the reporter. Next up, the senator. What do you know about Angus King? Angus King. Let's see. What do I know about him?

I know he's a senator from Maine. That's right. He's moustachioed. I think that's the first time I've gotten to use the word moustachioed on this podcast. He's an influential senator. He's an independent. I guess that's the important thing. He's not technically a Republican or a Democrat.

And he's he's, he's, I mean, we see him a lot or as much as anybody else on, on, you know, as a talking head being interviewed. I mean, he's, he's the subject of a lot of journalism. He is a senator of, you know, great significance. And one thing that was interesting for our media podcast purposes is that long before he was a politician, he was the host of a PBS talk show in Maine called, and wait for it, Maine watch. Main watch. and I have seen some clips of Main Watch in the Angus King era and he had the same blonde hair that William Hurt had in broadcast news if you remember that in the mid 80s. And on that show, he interviewed politicians.

He was doing the interviews. And it gave him this very interesting perspective about how the media works that is way, way different and I think way deeper than your average member of the Senate. So I talked to Angus King about that. He talked about what he was doing during the Senate. of the Capitol, just like Leanne did. Here is Angus King. All right, back in the 70s, long before you were a senator, you were an aide to another senator, William Hathaway of Maine. What do you remember about the Capitol Hill Press Corps of the 70s? It was much simpler. It consisted of many fewer people. You had the AP, the UPI, the Washington Post,

the New York Times, and the three major networks. And that was it. There was no cable. There were no podcast. There was no, you know, online streaming. And it was a much, much simpler media landscape. And Brian, I don't know if you want to go into this, but I frankly think that one of the reasons the country's in the terrible polarized situation that it's in today is because of the change in that media landscape. In the 70s, we all, everybody in America got their facts from one person. Can you guess who that was? I'm going to guess Walter Cronkite. That's exactly right.

And the problem now is with the multiplicity of information sites, people can choose the source of information that they agree with, confirmation bias. And the result is we have a country that doesn't share the same reality. There are 50, 60 million people who still think Donald Trump won the election because that's the information that they're being given, and they're choosing their source of information, as we all do, in order to buttress our own point of view. It's a serious problem in the country. And it's not like we can change the First Amendment or license, you know, make it so, you know, I think I've had people suggest we reinstall the fairness doctrine. I don't think you can do that. I think the only solution is that we have better consumers of information.

So how do we do that? How do we teach people to be better consumers, given, as you say, that all these bad facts turn into a literal siege of the Capitol on January 6th? Well, I think it has to start in school, and it has to start in the home. If you think about it, we had about a thousand years to develop a kind of gestalt of printed information. Editors, libel laws, fact checkers, limitations on who could afford to buy ink by the barrel. and we all developed a kind of unconscious mental assumption of credibility of what we read and see. The problem is, in my view, we've carried over that assumption to things that we can't believe, even though that we're seeing them. So I think it has to be education.

I worked a lot with kids in Maine on digital education back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, And we preached what we call digital literacy. Even back then, how do you distinguish between fact and fiction on the internet? How do you tell a website that is posing as one thing and turns out to be another? We need to train our young people to be critical thinkers and to say, wait a minute, that doesn't sound right. Let me check another source and see if that will be borne out by other. sources of information. What I said on an Instagram post the other day, the truth will indeed make us free. We just have to work harder to find it. It's fascinated to be about your career.

Before you ran for office, for almost two decades, you were the host of a statewide TV show in Maine called Main Watch. What is Main Watch? Well, it's pretty easy. It was a direct, unabashed, a shameless copy of the of McNeil Lairor of the PBS News Hour. I mean, I worked for a PBS station in Maine. It was always part-time. I did, I practiced law, had a business, and did all kinds of things. But every Thursday night, I was the Jim Lairer of Maine and would interview politicians. I moderated debates with George Mitchell and Bill Cohen and gubernatorial debates and all of that.

And then, you know, I was 50 years old when I first ran for office, for public office, which was governor. And somebody said, well, you know, you were on public broadcasting for all those years. Why did you decide to finally run for office? I said, I finally realized my questions were better than their answers. As a journalist, I bet you can dig that. Yeah, absolutely. And I was going to ask you about that. So you have all these politicians across the day.

desk from you. And what did you learn about the art of asking questions to politicians? Well, that in itself is a great question. What I learned as something I know you know, you have to try to get to the heart of the matter in a hurry. My program was a half hour. I had, you know, 28 minutes or 26 minutes to get to get to a complex subject. So I had to really, there were two things. One, you've got to really think about what you want to ask. And number two, you've got to be able to do it on the fly. You can have a script, but the conversation takes an entirely different bend, and you have to be ready to follow up and ask a good question, even if it's not something you had planned. But here's the interesting thing. I then ran for

governor and was elected governor in 1994, and after being governor for two or three years, I suddenly realized that my experience as a talk show host was very relevant to being a leader. And here's why. Because if you're in a leadership position and the higher up you are, the more true this is, everything you know, you learn from other people. You know, the governor's not at the vaccination site. She has to learn what's going on at the vaccination site from her medical director or from the director of the vaccination site. And that means asking good questions. Because otherwise you're going to be subject to whatever people want to spin. And so I realized that asking penetrating questions to try to get at the heart of the matter, I believe, is an essential leadership skill. And you won't find that in any leadership manual. I used to teach it. And I never ran across it. But for me, I thought it was a very important part of my job because I had to be able to cut through the bullshit and get the right answer.

Otherwise, I'd make bad decisions. So it's helpful in governing. And I would think it would be also helpful when you're doing press because, you know, again, it feels like you were a batter and you could almost see whether the pitch coming at you was a fastball or a curveball from the interviewer because you're like, I asked, I asked those kind of questions. I know exactly what you're trying to do. Yeah, I think there was some of that. And I had an interesting policy when I was governor every morning at 11 o'clock that I was in the office, we opened the doors in any member of the press that wanted to come in and ask me anything could. and it was my chief of staff hated it. She would go and hide in her office because she was so worried about what I would say. And sometimes I would have something to announce. But other times it was just, you know, whatever's on your mind and we just talk.

Now, there were times when I said things I shouldn't have that I wished I hadn't. You know, you sort of live by the sword, die by the sword. But by and large, it helped me to communicate with main people. It was accessibility is something that I think is important for public officials. And I just, I felt it was a, it was a great way to run the business. As I say, it wasn't always perfect, but the other, here's something else I learned. If you have a, if you have a TV camera and they're asking you a really tough question, you don't want to really answer, give them a really long answer and never take a breath,

because they can't edit it. That's an inside politicians' tip. Right. To just avoid the soundbite at all costs. Just give them. Exactly. Just keep talking. And there are people up there that are still puzzling over some of my answers.

So I read in Politico that you were paid 20 bucks an episode for Mainwatch at the outset. That was what attracted me to do it because I had just opened a law practice. And in my first month of practicing law, I grossed $100. And so when they came to me and said, how about doing this show for a couple of weeks, we'll pay you $20 a pop. I said, sold. You know, that was 40% of my monthly gross right there. And, you know, I got the amount up after a while over 15 years. The other funny story is, so I decided to run for governor.

I've been on television for 15 years. Two stories. One is I'm making one of my early speeches to the Bitterford Rotary Club. And a guy came up to me afterwards and he said, you know, I've been watching you on TV for years. I never knew you had ideas before. Actually, as I thought about it, I thought that was sort of a compliment. That meant, you know, I was being a neutral journalist. But the other piece was, so I took a poll when I decided to run for governor.

And name recognition, you know, got on TV for 15 years. It came back. I claim it was 11%. My chief said it was 9%. But in either case, it wasn't very a big number. But I used to say it may only be 11%, but it's a quality 11%. Is that PBS obvious?

Absolutely. Very engaged, right? Likely to vote. You know, all those qualities. But the other thing that it did for me that was important, and you can appreciate this as a journalist, it forced me every week to dive in and take seriously important issues. So, you know, in fact, to be honest, one of the things that motivated me was a couple of shows that I did in Maine, in the early 90s,

on some of the issues that were facing Maine that I didn't feel were being adequately addressed. So there's nothing wrong with going into office having thought about in a fairly systematic way, most of the issues that you're going to have to wrestle with. I mean, that was a, that turned about, that turned out to be an important, important part of the job. These weren't new, this wasn't like I was a business guy coming totally from, you know, left field and saying, I want to be governor. I'd already thought a lot about a lot of the issues that were confronting Maine at the time. One more question about Maine watch. And then I'll ask you about the Senate. I grew up in the 80s, child of the 80s. So the 80s anchor man was a character in my, you know, adolescent.

the hair, the voice, everything. Did you have any of the qualities of an 80s anchorman? I had amazing sideburns. There was, you know, I had a lot of hair, and I looked back at some of those pictures in those days, and it wasn't very attractive. But in any case, yeah, no, I'm afraid I have to lead guilty. The other thing I learned I used to, after every program, I would add Lib a promo for the following weeks program, and I learned to look into the camera and do 26 seconds. Bingo, I could usually do it in one take.

Wow. You're a one take guy. Well, I found, I don't know about you, but I found the more takes you do, the worse they get. That's true. You make a minor mistake the first time. You do it the next time you make a bigger mistake. I once saw a correspondent. I was covering a Democratic convention in Maine, and I saw a guy do a stand-up for one of the – I think it was – he was a national. This was Jimmy Carter versus Ted Kennedy or something, and this guy was a national. He did the take something like 16 times.

I mean, it was really painful to watch. So you served two terms as Maine governor. You take a break. And then in 2012, you're elected to the U.S. Senate. What struck you about the press corps at the U.S. Capitol? Well, I think the first thing that strikes you is when you get off the little subway or if you're walking over from the office building, it's a there's this phalanx of people. Sometimes it's as many as 40 or 50 people, all, you know, holding their phone and sticking it in your face. you feel like, you know, you're a walking target of some kind.

And there's no, I mean, again, it sort of reminds me of those days back when I was governor and everybody would be welcome to come in the office and ask whatever they wanted. So it's a, it's a, the other piece is, of course, a lot of, most of the people that are at the Capitol are at the top of their game. These are, you know, skilled reporters who've been at it for a long time. I would start naming them. but then I'd forget somebody and not get in trouble. But these are top-notch reporters.

They ask good questions. They're persistent. And there's just a variety. I mean, you never know. One day it's a reporter from Fox News, and the other day it's New York Times or CNN or, you know, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. Absolutely.

What does it feel like to be that wanted? I don't think, I don't think wanted is it. the term I would use, that implies affection. And I think targeted would be a better, a better term. Targeted. What does it feel like to be that targeted? Well, it's a little disconcerting because you know that you can make an offhand comment and it'll come back to bite you in some way with your colleagues or it may not be exactly

what you want to try to communicate. I mean, I learned, for example, one of the things I've learned, and it gives me some sympathy with the press, when I was doing my own program, controversy sells. You know, a conflict on the program was what made a really good program. And I remember we'd be in the studio and we'd be sort of warming up and I'd have my two or three guests sitting there and they'd start going at it and I'd say, shut up, wait, I want this on the air. I don't want this, you know, don't lose this. So the problem with that is, Brian, that the reciprocal is that boring but important doesn't sell. And so the tendency, I go home to Maine, and most people think, for example, all U.S. senators hate each other. That, you know, they use the word, is it really as toxic as it seems and, you know, that kind of thing?

and you guys can't get anything done. Well, we do get things done. I mean, we got a massive budget bill done at the end of the year, which included the biggest energy package in like 15 years. We got the National Defense Act. I've been involved in cyber policy. It had 26 or 27 recommendations of our Cyber Solarium Commission. It's the most significant piece.

The National Defense Act this year, if it only had the cyber, would have been the most significant piece of cyber legislation in 20 years. But it gets no press. It gets no attention because what gets the tension is the conflict, you know, Mitch McConnell versus Chuck Schumer. And it's sort of boring, you know, hey, you got a big energy bill passed. Oh, yeah.

Well, tell us about, you know, the impeachment. Before we talk today, you were in the Senate chamber casting a big vote on the budget resolution and starting the reconciliation process. So you walk out of the Senate chamber and do you stop and talk today? to reporters? I was approached by one reporter today who didn't really want to talk about reconciliation. She was doing the feature on Chuck Schumer, and she wanted to know about, you know, how he's doing. And I said, I think he has the toughest job in Washington.

He's nominally the majority leader of an organization that doesn't really have the majority. I mean, he has zero margin for error. It's not like he's got 56 or 57 votes, and he can lose one here or there. He can't lose a single vote. And that's, you know, the vote today on the reconciliation, 50 to 49. If I don't know who was missing, it sounds like one of the Republicans was missing, but if they'd been there, it would have had to have Kamala Harris come over and break the tie. So that's a tough job.

So then all these interactions inside the Capitol are now socially distanced between you and reporters? Pretty much. Yeah, everybody has a mask on, except Rand Paul, of course. and the reporters all have masks on, and we stand apart. What I enjoy doing, I'll walk out of the elevator and see eight or nine reporters gathered around, you know, Lindsay Graham or, you know, Mark Warner or somebody, and I always walk by and say, you're listening to this guy? I mean, seriously, I'd like to throw in my little editorial comment that screws up their recording. Now, you said your strategy when you were governor of Maine was to give them a long paragraph,

when you didn't want to answer a question. What is your line in the Capitol hallway when you don't want to stop and answer something? Usually I say something like you're talking to the wrong guy. They'll ask me, they'll say, you know, what do you think about whether, what the strategy on reconciliation is? And I said, you know, you're going to have to talk to Mitch McPowler

or Chuck Schumer. I'm, you know, I'm a kid. I hate, I don't know what it is about me. And my staff has always disparate of this characteristic. I hate saying no comment. I just, I just, it just, it just, it just, it just grates me. So sometimes I'll, I'll say, you know, and, and when I say it, it's true. I mean, people will ask me about, you know, issues of what's the strategy of the caucus. And I, I'm only one member of the caucus. So it's, it's got to be, that really, that's a question for the leadership. I want to close by asking a little bit about the events of January 6th. Where were you when the seizure the capital began? I was in a small office in the basement of the Capitol preparing to speak on the floor. I was scheduled to speak during the debate on the election returns.

And I was working, you know, thinking about what I was going to say, writing an outline on the back of an envelope, which is usually what I do. And suddenly I was listening. No, I know. I was watching the floor. which I don't usually do, but I was watching the floor on a TV monitor to track when I had to go up and speak. I'm pretty careful about COVID, and I didn't want to sit on the Senate floor with a whole bunch of other people until it was necessary for me to be there. And then all of a sudden, I saw everybody leave and turned the volume up and saw that, you know, that somebody said we're adjourning subject to the call of the chair.

And then I turned on tune in radio on my phone and listened to the news feed and realized what was going on. So I just stayed put. I was in the bowels of the Capitol. I didn't think it was much likelihood people would find me. I turned off the light, locked the door, and hoped if anybody came by, they'd think it was an abandoned room. But then people started to miss me. my staff and the leadership, you know, where's, where's king? Because everybody was assembled in this other room.

So finally, after about two hours, they came and got me. And with a bunch of police officers and soldiers, marched me over to this huge room, which was full of like 200 people. Now, we are having this pandemic, right? So I walked in, took one look at the room. I literally didn't get five feet in the room and turn right around and said, I'm not staying here. This is crazy.

And the officer said, oh, Senator, you must stay here. It's safe. I said, to hell I am. It ain't safe. And I went down to my own personal office, shut the, lock the door. But here's what's really sad, Brian. I had to sit there and think, now where should I sit that's not visible from any of the windows? I mean, how sad is that that an elected representative of the American people has to think that way?

So that's where, and then that's where I stayed till 8 o'clock. And the best thing we did, I give Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi just a ton of credit for bringing us back into session and finishing that night. It would have been terrible had we allowed those ruffians to drive us out to stop the process and to shut the capital down for a day. So we were all back at session at 8 o'clock. We finished about midnight or 2 in the morning, I think. but we did the business that we were there to do it. I think that was really important. Were you scared while the siege was going on?

It's funny. I didn't know enough to be scared. I didn't realize how serious it was until I saw the video later. At the time, I mean, I was apprehensive, I think, would be a better term. I never felt scared. But then I saw the video later and realized if those guys had found me, they might have killed me. I mean, it was a truly dangerous situation. They didn't get a hold, they didn't get their hands on any members, but there's no telling

what they would have done. I mean, that crowd was in a frenzy, and, you know, they killed a police officer, and somebody got trampled to death. I mean, it was, it was a, I guess I would say it was more dangerous in retrospect than I realized at the time. I wasn't like one of the house members that was trapped in the gallery that was They were really in immediate physical danger. I never felt that I was.

But looking back on it, I realized it was a dangerous situation. In the Instagram post, you mentioned you, you talked about how the siege, the riot, whatever we want to call it, was a result of, quote, our loss of consensus on what is true and a related loss of confidence in the sources of that truth. Is it fair to say that that erosion of truth comes from or was sped up by Donald Trump's continuing critique of the media? Absolutely unequivocally, yes. It was the most irresponsible action by an American leader that I've ever seen that I've ever know of in history. I was about to say during my lifetime, but I think you can go back to the beginning of this country. He was totally within his rights to say, you know, there was fraud. It was, you know, the election wasn't right.

I want recounts. I want lawsuits. But he did all that and it didn't get anywhere. And it was it was demonstrated through 60 judges, decisions, thousands of election workers, of state officials, Republican, and Democrat, that that wasn't true. when he kept doing that, it was a systematic undermining of the democratic system itself. This goes way beyond differing on immigration or abortion or something. This isn't about an issue.

This is about how our system works. And when you devalue elections, what's left? And what I said on the floor that night when I went back and made my speech at about 930 or so was, I don't countenance what happened here today. I don't approve of it. I don't support it, but I understand it. And I understand it because these people who followed this man faithfully and passionately were told for two months that something terribly valuable had been stolen from them.

And in fact, the morning in his speech, I just saw a little tape of it recently. he said, the country's being stolen from you. And if you tell people something valuable has been stolen from them, and they can't trust the courts, and they can't trust the politicians, and they can't trust the media, you only leave them violence as a remedy. And in fact, I did an Instagram three days before the attack and said, I talked about what was going on

and what the president was doing. And then I said, and the president and his enablers are calling their supporters into the streets to intimidate or worse. And worse is what happened. And to me, it was inevitable. It wasn't at all surprising

because he had left these people no other option. And to have done that is just, it's beyond irresponsible. And let's assume for a moment that he believes his lie. Even if in that case, at some point he should have put the country first and said, if I concede, it will calm things down and we can move on and I can run again in 2024. That's what Al Gore did in 2000. That's what Richard Nixon did in 1960.

They had legitimate beefs. They could have gone on and gone on and on. But they both made a decision that it was better for the country to have their opponent win and then live to fight another day. And so, yeah, is he responsible? Absolutely. But it's not only what he said. I think there's too much focus on his speech that morning. The real focus ought to be what he said from November 7th, which is when the networks call the election.

And it was pretty clear what the outcome was. that was the problem was from November 7th to January 6th. And don't forget, there's a tweet in late December, see you in D.C. on January 6th, it will be wild. Well, January 6 wasn't a random date. That was the ultimate act of our democratic process that he was deliberately inviting people to destroy. Trump. Senator Angus King, thank you so much for coming on the press box. All right, a couple of things there, David. Leanne told us that when she sees Congresspersons who do not want to talk, they're holding up their phone to their ear and sort of pretending to have a conversation. Oh, yeah. King's line is much better. He says, you've got the wrong guy. That is his answer when he doesn't want to comment. We need to start using that at the ringer. Like, we get an assignment from one of

the bosses, yeah, you got the wrong guy. I don't know. That's, that's going to be my new answer. It's such a, it's such a great deflection because no matter how well you know your beat, in the moment that he says that, you have to just think, it gives you just enough of a pause to be like, wait, am I actually talking to the wrong senator right now? Is he not the deciding vote? And then he's gone into the night. That would have make that a new press box catchphrase. You know, we've got, I think that's right. The sort of opposite is going to be, you got the wrong guy, David. I don't know. on a more serious note, what he said about January 6th really stuck with me, because there

are two threats going on at once. There's a siege of the capital in which elected officials are in mortal danger. And then when King is taken to the secure location, he's looking around and going, they're like 100 people in this room. And I don't want to get COVID-19. So you've got the immediate threat. And then you've got the lingering threat. And that just felt like all of the horror of January in one single anecdote.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's hard to imagine. So that's our special episode. He is David Shoemaker. I'm Brian Curtis. Production Magic, as always, by Erica Servantes. We're not done yet this week, folks. We are back Sunday night after the Super Bowl with instant reaction to the announcers, to the commercials, to the Super Bowl as a media event, which it probably is more than a football event at this point. Hope you'll join us, and I'll see you then, David. See you later, Brian.