Wild Card with Rachel Martin - John Dickerson

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

John Dickerson made a name for himself as an anchor at CBS News. Last year, he left the world of broadcast news to pursue stories that put his values of generosity, curiosity and integrity at the core of his work. He talks to Rachel about remembering his own mortality and forging his own independent path in the world of journalism.To listen sponsor-free and support the show, sign up for Wild Card+ at plus.npr.org/wildcard See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

One of the great things about growing up with parents who weren't around is that every day after school, you could do all kinds of things. And that was the one that's the most legal. When you see what can be done with the same passages in the Bible that I read, we're not the same passages, but at least the same Bible. And you see how it can be so misused to do the exact opposite of what is plainly not only written there, but in the behavior of Jesus. around whom this behavior is supposedly built, it's just completely contrary to what he said and what he did. I'm Rachel Martin, and this is Wild Card. The show where cards control the conversation.

My guest this week is journalist John Dickerson. John Dickerson has a reputation in my business for being not just a good journalist, but a good human. So imagine how happy I was when I got to sit on stage with him this summer at the Aspen Ideas Festival to play Wild Card in front of a live audience. John spent 16 years at CBS News as the anchor of Face the Nation, CBS This Morning, and the CBS Evening News, a job he resigned from last year. We talked about everything from his famous TV anchor mother to the state of journalism today. How do you feel?

I feel on the precipice of a huge mistake. First three, this is the memories round. One, two, or three? I want two. Two. You're feeling two. Okay. Hmm. What's an experience from childhood when you realized your parents were human? Well, my parents got divorced when I was 13, so I could, we could be here till breakfast.

For experience, I realized they were human. So that was the huge dose, right? That's a lot of humanity. That's a lot of humanity. My mother was the first woman news correspondent for CBS News, a woman named Nancy Dickerson, right? And she was very tough. She was extremely tough. She had to be.

I think you undoubtedly ran into some of the vestiges of what she experienced, trying to be a woman in a tough business, where the men do not cover themselves in glory in the way that they behave. So you have to be really tough. So to see her cry was more than when you would normally recognize your own parents' vulnerabilities or that they cried like you did too, because when you're a little kid, you cry all the time. Did you see her cry? Did you see her cry?

No, that's not true. But although we did have lots of – we had rigorous spanking in my family. There was – oh, yeah. I was once spanked for not brushing my teeth. Yeah. It was a, this was, I got the belt. Oh. I know.

This is the story. This conversation is taking a dark turn. Yeah. Anyway, I don't remember the occasion of her, her crying, but it was such a shock because she was like, she was very tough. And also because she was on television and because she was always in the public eye, you know, she would come to breakfast fully made up. There was no, there was no. like, you know, kick back and be different at home because she was kind of always on. Yeah.

So my mom and I had a really bad relationship until I graduated from college. And then somehow, despite every bone in my body and fiber in my being, I'm suddenly, like, becoming a journalist. Yeah. Which is the greatest joke. The fact that I ended up being angered at the CBS Evening News where she started out, I mean, she's rolling around on the shag carpet of heaven just in peals of laughter because this was not the expected root. A, because I had such antipathy towards her, and B, because I wasn't that great at much of anything, except for sort of causing trouble. So the fact that this all ended up the way it did is quite a surprise. We

became friends when I started out in journalism. Then we became close. She had a stroke in 1997, so she didn't see any of my television career. But she was sick for about a year and a half, and we spent my wife, Anne, who's here and I, spent every weekend going up from D.C., where I was a correspondent for time, and would spend the weekends with her. And when she died, I got all of her papers, which included her journals back to when she was, well, just basically when you can first begin writing. And so I wrote a book about discovering her life because her entire television career

took place essentially before I was either born or old enough to know what it meant. So it was always something I heard about but never experienced. And then I wrote the book as I was beginning my career at time. And it was wonderful. It was cathartic. It was a real shame that I couldn't talk to her about these things. You know, she was with LBJ the night he came back from Dallas at his house. As he's trying to get the telephone to work, he's president.

And he said, you know, I could be the operator. not working. He's like, I could be, you know, we could be in World War III and I couldn't get Dean Rusk on the phone. And she came home and she took a piece of a mimograph paper and just typed out all our memories. And this is what I found in the box. So it was, I was very lucky to have had that experience and that we were friends at the end. So it's just funny. There are many NBC, ABC, CNN. CBS. You could have worked anywhere. I could have, any gin joint, and I ended up doing, yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, we're moving on.

Next three, still memories, one, two, or three. Well, I tell you, two really did me in the last time, so I'll go. It was a good one. I'll go with number three, please. Three. Three. What activity gave you a sense of freedom as a kid? Oh, wow.

This is, so I had a dirt bike, they call them, it's just a bicycle now, but back then we tried to upgrade it and make it sound. and we lived at the bottom of a very big hill, and I had a mongoose bicycle, which was like the kind that you would go over jumps and things. And so I would bike to the top of the hill, and then I would come down,

and it was a white, it was kind of an S curve, and it was long. It was like three quarters a mile. And when you took the first turn, it kind of like slingshotted you into the second one. And so you could get some real speed and if you could do the turns correctly, you just felt like you were flying. And I would do

that endlessly after school when I was, this is in McLean, Virginia. So that was one of the great things about growing up with parents who weren't around is that every day after school, you could do all kinds of things. And that was the one that's the most legal. But, because I, anyway. Did you Did you get hurt? What was your relationship with risk? This is such a great question. With respect to the bicycle, I think if we rolled the tape, we'd be like, he's barely moving. But I had the sense, yes, I had this sense like I am free.

Right, exactly. But just to answer your risk question, I also grew up with rifles. And like this is now, we lived in Washington. essentially across the Potomac from where I grew up. Like, I mean, after school, it was like me and my 22. I mean, I, like, could have hit myself. I'm from Idaho, dude. Yeah, I guess that was.

There were a lot of guns in my childhood. Yeah, yeah. So that and bows and arrows, a lot of shooting of things with bows and arrows. And we lived, this is the, like, 70s in McLean. We, how some of the land next to our house had an abandoned car. Really? Yeah. Have you guys been to McLean, Virginia?

This does not track with my experience. If there is an abandoned car in McLean for more than 10 minutes, the cops are there, AAA is there, and the National Security Agency is like helicopters. But I remember us because I grew up with this wonderful family who basically raised me because my parents were away a lot and at dinner parties and stuff. So they raised me, they lived at the top of the hill, and I remember standing with the McDonald boys around this abandoned car thinking, what would happen if we dropped a match into the gas tank?

Who knows? Who knows? What could possibly transpire? But did you light the car on fire? No, he didn't like the car on fire. However, one of the McDonald's did take a magic marker and lit it and threw it into, again, more abandoned vehicles. A laundry truck. You remember when the dry cleaning used to be delivered to the house or in some places anyway.

Some reason it was parked there. Anyway, it caught the thing on fire. Dang. Yeah, that wasn't me, though. Honestly. Where are the McDonald boys now? Oh, they're doing fine. They're fine.

They're fine. They're fine. They're not in federal prison. Sure. Probation system is very robust. Okay. So, you conquered those. The next one, the last one in the memories round, is up to you all.

You all get to pick, by the sound of your applause, which question John will ask. We'll answer next. So let's do one. What's the biggest risk you've taken? Who wants that one? Tepid. Tepp it, John. Number two.

When's the time you realized you were on the right path? We got some woo's. Number three, what period of your life do you often daydream about? Interesting. So interesting to me. Which questions capture people's imaginations? Daydreaming, John Dickerson, what period of your life do you find yourself often daydreaming about? Huh.

They're all related to my wife. One was the first time I met her. which was, the memory is only slightly clouded because it was not a condition of absolute sobriety. But I think it's true, do we agree on this, that I asked her to marry me, I think, the first time I met her. But we were friends, and then I didn't, and then we didn't start dating for a couple years later after that. But they're all actually, they're all about my wife. You find yourself going back to that. Yeah, yeah, those memories.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's really, I'm very lucky. That's a very lovely thing. Okay, so this is the part of the show where we usually pull out of the game and talk about whatever the guest is promoting or what's going on in their work or creative life. And so, John Dickerson, you've had a really, a big pivot. You left CBS News in December. How, how. How. Is that change sitting with you six or so months later?

It's sitting with me really well. I mean, and that has only some portion of that is obviously what's happened at CBS. And I'm very sad for the people who are no longer at CBS and for the people who are still there. But for me, it's allowed me, I mean, I spent my first career, part of my career at time and that it's late. And I still write for the Atlantic. but I'm not an anchor. I'm a, like, I don't, being an anchor is very, very, very hard, and it requires a certain sets of skills, and like, I don't have them.

I'm, I mean, look at this. I've got the notebook out. I've got my legs nearly in a pretzel shape. My hands are moving so much you could churn butter. So, and then suddenly, 60 Minutes was amazing where I then went, and then I'm behind an anchor's desk. Anyway, it was, I'm now behind my desk writing, and I really, I really enjoy it.

I love it. I've got several different projects. And now, because of Substack, you can run these. I started a podcast basically to be a review of the week. I love it. I feel like disappear in my office and do it all day, and it's fun. I don't know how much longer I will do it, but it reacquaints me with what I believe and you believe about what we are here to do.

I also have a podcast. about these notebooks, which I've carried for 35 years, which is called navel-gazing. Nice. Which is why perhaps I'm still going on with this answer. But anyway, so yeah, I enjoy it. And Anne and I get to hang out. And I'm about to start writing a book. So, yeah, I like it.

So our friend, Katie Couric, also a former anchor of CBS Evening News? Yes, we're in the club. has hung her own shingle, as have many journalists, broadcast journalists in particular. What do you think about that? I mean, as a person who has now recently hung your own shingle, I mean, what is it, what do we as a society gain from having individual curators of our news and information? What to be lose in the dissolution of trust in the mainstream institutions of media? I think it offers us a chance to regain trust.

If you can develop a personal relationship with the audience, where sometimes which is built by talking about going down a bike, you know, when you were 12, which is to reconnect the bonds that used to just be implicit, which is to say, I have lived a life that has some connections with yours. I am on the level. I am struggling to figure out what this information is on your behalf because I respect you and your attention. Your attention is not something I come and steal.

It's not something I freak you out so you pay attention. I recognize that your attention is something golden. We talk about paying attention for a reason. It's a valuable commodity, and that's the way I'm going to do my job. And if I'm messing it up, you let me know. And then you go try and do it. And some of the sloppiness or unfamiliarity of when you do it, when you hang your own shingle, when it doesn't have all the production values,

hopefully actually adds to that sense of authenticity. and they can smell out BS pretty quickly in that format. The other format with which you and I are both familiar, I mean, when you look at it sometimes, I mean, the whole thing is kooky. I mean, it's the swirling lights and the music and the this and the thatting. That doesn't scream authenticity. No, it's a lot of theater.

Yeah. So I think, you know, there are lots of downsides. We don't have huge fact-checking. apparatuses, but hopefully the authenticity means, if you mess something up, you can come back the next day and say, you know, I'd got this wrong, or I was too focused on this part of the Iran deal, I was being unfair to the, and people will forgive me. Yeah, there's a transparency that doesn't exist in the same way. That's right. With institutions. So I think that's, I think it's great. And I also think people are starving for something other than what they're getting from the legacy media.

So what do you think, when you've experienced this very personally, the corporate takeover of media and the mergers and the big conglomerates, when you talk to journalism classes, as I'm sure you do, do you tell kids to go into journalism? Well, yes, for a couple of reasons. there are independent journalism operations. So if you were taught the values and believe in the values that you and I grew up with and believe in, you can take those anywhere. Now, we need journalism classes to enforce those values. You're also not fighting with, you know, the person who says, well, I know there's this story about, you know, a single missile that killed 87 people in Sudan. But, like, it's the back half of the show. And, you know, viewers have had a tough, you know, there's been a lot of heavy news at the top of the show.

so, we're going to run this story that's like a little softer. That may be what the audience wants, but by your values, which are what are the 19 things that happen in the world today that are the most important and then people need to know about to feel like they're connected to their world, not just the political world, but connected. Our job in journalism is to connect people with knowledge. And so that sometimes can mean wonderful, exciting, interesting knowledge, not always the most disastrous things, but if, you know, in the place that is the greatest humanitarian disaster, on the planet, if a single missile is killing 87 people in a hospital, people should know about that.

So you don't have to, if you have those values and you hang your own shingle, you can do that, and people can vote it up or down. But if you're going into journalism and you care about those stories, you know, you have a place to do it. And you know, you don't have a place to do it at the networks anymore because they just aren't there aren't any jobs. All of the new, you know, the new ownership has gotten rid of lots and lots of jobs. Secondly, journalists are a lot of fun to be around, and that's great. You're with curious people who are curious about weird things, and they're usually pretty articulate, so they're just fun to be around. And then the other thing is curiosity, critical thinking, just a sense of inquiry and life's wonder. That's not a bad

like flashlight to have to just take into the world. So even if you end up living some other life and you don't do any journalism at all, it's a good training ground for just being a human in the world. And in fact, you could argue, like, we should all take journalism classes. Yeah. Round two, cards are blue. That has no bearing on anything. Insights, John, insights. One, two, or three?

One. One. What emotion do you understand better than all the others? Humility. Humility. No, that's a joke. All right. Dude!

My sincerity gets the best of me. I was like, let's go. Let's go. Is judgment an emotion? It's such a why. I will accept any definition. Yes. Okay.

So judgment is, I think it's judgment. And again, the way you've cleverly asked the question, it's not just which one do you experience, but which one do you think you, maybe not have a handle on in the sense that you can... No. But you at least are so familiar with it, you know, right. You know all of its contours.

So the family that I grew up in that we talked about earlier, extremely judgmental about people's appearances, about who they were. And at the dinner table, to the extent that I was there with my siblings, was a constant judgment of everybody and everything, each other. Often, we don't need to get all this, but the divorce happened in part because of a lot of judgments. So I was pickled in judgments. And also, you know, that period where I wasn't such a wonderful person,

it was also, you know, judgments about other people. So and then I'm in the judgment business, basically, right? Yeah. Yeah. And part of the way you, I think I'm less judgmental. Well, also, the older you get, you are, the more you're acquainted with your own drastic failures, so you get a little less judgmental. But you have to give yourself some grace in order to give others grace. Yeah. And so, and it also has to do with my religion as well. I mean, as a Christian, grace and giving grace to other people is, you know, it's basically like the main thing. It's the kind of the thing. It's the thing. Like, I mean, public displays of performance Christianity notwithstanding, love and grace to others is just the big, it's the thing. So, but that doesn't mean that I don't struggle with it mightily.

And was it a conscious separation? Did you, do you remember noticing that pattern in your family and deciding, I'm not going to do that anymore? Yeah, I wish. No, I basically had to be kind of a jerk. and also, you know, in our business and in, I mean, you know, like when you deal with sources, especially in politics, like a lot of times you're fighting. A lot of times you're in. Yeah, it's acrimonious. It's very acrimonious.

And so in that sense, Iowa was raised right. Like, I couldn't, you know, but that's not a good way to behave outside of the office. And, you know, there were times where I just in otherwise comfortable circumstances. is I would, you know, engage a little too vociferously in debate. And that's just not fun to be around. And once I sort of started to pick up on that with the help of some consultation from Anne, I started to, you know, just maybe be a little bit better about it. And then I think also when you lose parents, when you have setbacks in life,

when you recognize, you know, that other people are motivated and have things that are going on in their lives that have nothing to do with you. but that you might have judged them. Just experience tends to accumulate and send you a lot of signals that your judgments probably were like totally wrong. Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't like to be wrong. Yeah. It's kind of a endemic to the trade. Mm-hmm. Next three. One, two, or three. Three.

Three. What's a quality you're drawn to that you don't possess? A quality, not a skill. Like horse riding is a quality I don't possess, but I could. And you're drawn to the horse rider people? Oh, yeah. Really? Well, I think it goes back to that bike, you know, to be able to ride across this. I don't, you must have some horse riding in your blood somewhere. I mean, I'm from Idaho. There are

horses there, but it was more, I was more, I was a lot of combines. There are no horses, only asses. Uh, anyway, does that count? I mean, no, okay, that's fine. What was it in quality? What's a quality you're drawn to? Like in people. What are you drawn to that you don't possess? Witt.

Witt. Witt. Which is not a dumb pun like the one I just made, but people who are subtly super dry wit. Like where you've moved on to the next sentence and then you're like, wait a minute. Right. That was, look at that what he just slipped in, you know. And that person doesn't even need affirmation for it. No.

They're sort of just doing it for their own place. They've moved on. Yeah. They've just like, yes. Oh, that is so winning. No big thing for them. Yes. And it's always something that demonstrates a kind of sideways view of the world.

Like there's an entire personality in a well-placed witticism. And that I find very winning. Okay, I'm going to take that. And if they can ride a horse while doing it. Then that would be the best. Okay, wait. Here are. The last three.

One, two, or three. Three. What do you long for? The ability to have an experience and not have an opinion about it. Give me an example of what it is like to have an experience and to always have an opinion about it. Like what does that look like in practice and why is that vexing? Well, because I started out as a writer and because, now because of Substack and because of these notebooks and because everything is copy, as Nora F.

Everything is material. Yeah. So the only way I really understand things is if I write about them or if I try to figure out what the story is, where they are and the story with. And I also believe that writing begins long before you ever sit down to the page. And so if I'm a lot of the journalism that I've done will have phrases in it or ideas in it that have been kind of in my pocket over the years as I've thought about things

or as I've come to, you know, recognize something. And I've been really blessed to have a bunch of different opportunities to write and report about things from politics to music, to family, to... And so I'm always thinking, like, there's stuff I can put in my pockets that I can use later. Yeah. And I also... And you long not to have to...

feel utility about experiences? Well, it doesn't make me very, like, I'm never at, I'm not, I'm not very good at being at rest. Yeah. And I'd like to be at rest sometimes. I mean, I can read a book, but I'm having opinions about the words that I'm reading.

Touching. Yeah, yeah, right. And that's wonderful, right? The engagement you have, your sense of imagination, your empathy, all of that is interacting with the words. So I love it. And, but I also, think I also might, I also might enjoy things more if I wasn't always running them through, you know, whatever's happening in this squirrel hatch up here.

Yeah. The last round. Oh, the red round. I know these cards, the color seems intimidating. It's not, it's a warm red. Okay. It's a warm, inviting red. Uh, here we go. Beliefs. Oh. One, two, or three. Uh, uh, one, two, or three. Uh, uh, uh, what? One. One. Have your feelings about God changed over time? Yes. I've realized that this side of the room has been getting my shoulder, for which I apologize. But if I spend all my time talking like this, I'm not talking to you, so I'm sorry about that.

You're stalling just now? What's that? No, a little bit, a little bit, but I also really do feel bad. So when my parents were married, I remember asking them, you know, again, this is the brain that will not turn off. I couldn't fall asleep because I was like, what the hell? What God? What? Yeah.

So I asked my dad, and he basically, they both came in to take a night to me because they'd been out as they always were, and I was in bed, and I asked them back out. And my dad basically, he had this amazing memory, and he basically explained the, the cycle of life of a blue crab.

He loved crabs. We lived in McLean, but near Maryland and the crabs. Anyway, he told me the entire life cycle of a crab, And he basically said, like, that doesn't happen by chance. That's the design of some creator. And I think it worked at the time. So I think that worked. And without going into the whole, my feelings about God have changed.

I've spent a lot of time reading and thinking about God. I was lucky enough to go down. I'm a Catholic, and I've spent a lot of time reading the works of Thomas Merton. And I got to go down to the Abbey at Gitsemone, where he was a, a monk and see his hermitage and give a talk down there. And Merton's view of God is that it is shot through with doubt. And so, and that represents, you know, my experience. The doubt is inherent in the idea of God and of faith.

And that, in fact, your faith has to be sifted and sorted and knocked around by doubt. Because what ends up happening is the doubt strengthens it. it weakens it too and there are times when you are dry as he would say which included him which is a tough thing when you've devoted your entire life to a vow of poverty and and and uh but nevertheless um and so uh that doubt used to freak me out uh because i wouldn't know what to do with it and and so now um that is both a strength strengthening of that uh or it's funny i i am I feel stronger in faith and yet much more doubtful or wrestle with doubt a lot more, which is kind of an odd juxtaposition, which might not survive extensive interrogation.

Could I not do ever so slightly? Please, yeah. But it's not on the existence of some divine architect. I think there's a divine architect. I'm not sure that the stories and that are, you know, all line up. And so those sometimes make me go, oh, you know, and also when you see what can be done with the same passages in the Bible that I read, we're not the same passages, but at least the same Bible. And you see how it can be so misused to do the exact opposite of what is plainly not only written there, but in the behavior of Jesus, around whom this behavior is supposedly built, it's just completely contrary to what he said and what he did. So when you see that in such public fashion, you can think, wait a minute, maybe it's not real, maybe it's not that strong. Because if it was really strong, there's no way you could reconcile the actual behavior in the words with what's being done in his name.

So that seems kind of weak that you can't, that you can get away with this because it's really plain. But I also, I am a huge believer in grace in the world. I've experienced it. I've seen people who have no particular faith and aren't religious in a way behave towards other human beings with like this kind of love that it just glows because they are so generous and so thoughtful and caring that I feel that. My only way to process that is through religion. I mean, it was through some faith and also gratitude. Whenever I feel gratitude and I'm lucky enough to be grateful for a lot of things, it immediately goes to God.

I don't like, I can't talk my way out of that. So I just keep having those experiences. So that seemed deeper than where I was when I was hanging it all on the mating rituals of the blue crab. And I like the idea of learning to be in the discomfort of doubt and belief simultaneously. there's something very practical about that actually. Right, it's the world we live in, you know. And then the question is like, how do you get out of that? But the wonderful thing is if you are around people that you love

and who behave in a way that you admire, it'll sneak up on you. It'll like jump in front of you and you'll go, oh, right, that's the beauty of some supernatural thing because it's so beautiful. And being in the presence of grace is a really powerful thing. Okay. Next three.

Okay. One, two or three? Two. Two. How often do you think about death? I mean, this race that I have on my wrist is a memento mori. And essentially it means remember that you will die. Is that right?

So a lot. So a lot. The gladiators, their slaves, used to whisper that in their ears so they wouldn't, you know, so that they would be humble and not get too full of themselves. It's another Catholic thing. Anyway, so, yeah, I think about it a lot. And what is the utility of that? So for me, the reason I see grace in a lot of things is because I,

I think pretty often about the finite nature of our lives. And therefore, when you really get going, you can see the beauty and joy and wonder of all of these people. And all of the stories that you get people to tell are right at the heart of this, right? Are what is inside of us. And those stories land when you think, like, this is another human being and I am a human being.

It just brings like everything right down to the most elemental human life. level, and it puts you on guard for joy and beauty and gratitude, and you're just like on the balls of your feet. And they think also in our business, you know, there's a lot of stuff. There's an entire industry, and many of your colleagues who are there to make you fixate on things that are in the light of eternity, absolutely meaningless. And so that it also helps with perspective. So you spend less time on the things that your own anxieties will keep you thinking about,

and more time on the grace and beauty of, you know, other humans in the world you're in. I love the idea of being on the hunt for joy. Do you know Kate Boller? Oh, yeah. There's somebody on the hunt for joy, yes. And in part because of her, her, her, her illness. She had a terrible cancer diagnosis, but she has centered her most recent work on the pursuit of joy. And it is because she, like, lived in that line, that, like, liminal space between living and dying, that she's now, she does not take one thing for granted, man. Like, not one thing. Yeah.

And it's a lovely way to live. Yeah. Last one. You're almost done. Let's ask another deep one. Did I mention to you that they get deeper as we go? Did I forget to tell you that? Well, I get shallower as we go.

Perfect. I'll take the first one. Perfect. One. Oh, you just picked one. I picked one. I'm, yeah. What is your best defense against despair?

Hmm, my best is, well, I, uh, gosh. I mean, the spiritual one is prayer. The human one is Anne. Hmm. Um, and my, and, and, and, and the kids, but, despair, you don't want to lay a lot of despair on them, right? You know? No.

So, so it has to be kind of, uh, they, they help you out secretly, you know, you're not telling them you're in despair, but, um, How do you take, do you find yourself in that place very often? You seem like an awfully, emotionally, well-balanced human on the stage at least. But if you have gone to those places, or if you just, I don't know, look around at the world and might feel a little bit bummed out. Yeah. How do you yourself get yourself? How do you get yourself out of that? In terms of the world, there's history, which I've spent a lot of time studying and writing about it and trying to think about it. I'm not a historian, but I, it's like being a fan of a football team. I've studied. the football team a lot. I don't play it, but I've studied a lot. There are amazing stories in American history of, so in terms of public life and despair we might get from public life, there are people, I mean, Frederick Douglass and John Lewis in particular, I mean, when John Lewis is standing on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, facing all of those policemen and those dogs,

and in his backpack, he has the seven-story mountain from Thomas Merton. And, and he's, And then another book called The American Political Tradition by Richard Hofstadter, which has a quote in the beginning of it by John Dos Passos, which says in times on ease when mankind feels quicksand under their feet, history can offer a lifeline from the past to the present. And essentially what others have gone through, you know, they got through it, you can get through it now. That's a simplification of it. But I mean, when Frederick Douglass can talk about hope after the Dread Scott decision, which basically says you're not a citizen or a human, that he can still talk about hope. hope and have hope. So that's the way I try to do it in a kind of intellectual public square kind of way. But I can imagine you doing that personally. Like just now when you said that, I'm like, oh, just conjuring John Lewis. You're right. Yeah. Conjuring that moment. Yeah.

Like, what, woe is me in whatever like sad thing I'm in in this moment. It's a great, it's a great point. On my office wall is a, is a picture of John Lewis, Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan. But it's, but that for that exact reason, it's, um, It's just a reminder. But despair, despair. I mean, also the work. Like a lot of times, and this is why I don't, this is why I need to learn how to have an opinion,

have something happen and not have an opinion. I mean, I process despair through working. Yeah. Which is probably not terribly super healthy, but. No, but I think it's also true for most people, that despair happens when you're, in your head too much. And you have to get out of your head. And whether that's work, it's a creative life or service to others, get out of your own head about the despair and try to look for action,

right? Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And also some, the small things, like, I wish I had an example of it, but there are some things in nature sometimes will, actually, you know, one of the best things and go take a walk. Yeah. It's amazing what a walk can do. So that helps. We end the show the same way every time with a trip in our memory time machine. In the time machine, you revisit one moment from your past.

It's not a moment you would change anything about. It's just a moment you'd like to linger in a little longer. What moment do you choose? God. I think this sticks. So I didn't know about this moment until the house where I grew up in, I spent a lot of time outside. There's something happening, happens to the trees in summertime when the wind's blowing just a little bit and the leaves are kind of turning. And there were tons of trees when I grew up, big old trees that had like, they all seemed to have their own story when you're a little kid.

and when you're little you learn about like what twilight looks like what summer light at eight o'clock looks like you don't really know that you're learning that but you are you're learning it for the first time you know what what what snow smells like and then you rest of your life you associate that smell with snow but you're not necessarily sure exactly that you learned it at 700 chamberch road we went back to the house i grew up in 30 years maybe after i'd left so it was a new owner and through a variety of circumstances we went there and we went in summer and when we arrived it hit me like a truck the light and those trees and just that feeling in summer when you're outside and the wind is blowing just a little bit and the weather is kind of so perfect

that you don't feel it and the way that light works against those trees that I didn't know I knew about that moment until I came back 30 years later, but now I think about it all the time. And sort of think back to whatever that little four-year-old was or whenever I first was standing outside, feeling it, not taking it in, not noting it, not knowing it, but embedding it in whatever cells are in my body. So that's one that comes back to me a fair amount. John Dickerson What a pleasure to be in conversation with you Thank you If you like this episode and I hope you did

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