Interview With An Icon: Katie Couric On The State of Media, Institutional Distrust, Cancer Advocacy & What Actually Creates Happiness

Katie Couric is a journalist and the first woman to solo-anchor a major network evening newscast. We explore the disintermediation of news media, institutional distrust, and the fragmentation of shared truth in America. Katie shares her experiences navigating the CBS boys club, her perspective on the Sarah Palin interview, the craft of asking great questions, her cancer advocacy work after personal tragedy, and what she's learned about happiness. Along the way, Katie admits she's never been addicted to anything—until now. With four decades of perspective, Katie doesn't hold back. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: Bon Charge Get 15% OFF all my favorite wellness products w/ code RICHROLL👉🏼https://www.boncharge.com AG1: Get their best offer ever – Welcome Kit, D3+K2, Flavor Sampler, plus a FREE bonus gift ($126 in value!)⁠https://www.drinkAG1.com/richroll Prolon: Get 15% OFF plus a FREE bonus gift👉🏼https://www.prolonlife.com/richroll BetterHelp: Get 10% OFF the first month👉🏼https://www.betterhelp.com/richroll Rivian: Electric vehicles that keep the world adventurous forever👉🏼https://www.rivian.com On: High-performance shoes & apparel crafted for comfort and style👉🏼https://www.on.com/richroll LMNT: Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase👉🏼https://www.drinklmnt.com/richroll Check out all of the amazing discounts from our Sponsors👉🏼https://www.richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Speaker 00

  I think people need to gather together and actually have conversations that enable dialectical thinking, like two things could be true at once, or has some nuance to a conversation, like getting out of your bubble. And I think everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but they're not entitled to their own set of facts. I mean, there are some things that just are empirically true, and some things that are false.

• 0:48Rich Roll?

  Katie Couric, people, this is what's happening. And I gotta say, I could not be happier about it. If you're tuning into this on the day that I put it up, I happen to be in Florida, speaking at a wellness-themed event called Udemonia, which means that I recorded this introduction almost two weeks in advance. So I can't actually give you an honest life update from last week, other than to maybe fill in a few gaps. As some of you guys know, I've been working on this book, which I really want to keep under wraps until it's done. In fact, I made a promise to myself to not talk about it until then. And I made that promise to myself for a couple of reasons. First, because I think talking about the thing that you're working on has a way of releasing just enough dopamine to give you

• 1:33Rich Roll?

  this sense of satisfaction that makes you feel like you're doing the thing, or that you have done something that you actually haven't. And also because creativity is a fragile thing, and I think it needs to be protected. So that's what I'm trying to do. So, things like laundering it in conversation, or in public, in my experience at least, has this tendency to... Put off the muse and also invite all kinds of opinions into the equation that if you're not careful, end up causing you to question yourself or to intrude upon that precious creative process. So suffice it to say that I'm going to keep this subject matter of all of this under lock and key until the appropriate time. But I can share

• 2:16Rich Roll?

  that this book has absolutely been kicking my ass. By far, the hardest and most ambitious project that I've ever signed up for and something that I've been working on for over two years at this point. And it's really brought me to my knees more times than I can count. And I think that's due in part because I'm kind of taking a big swing with this thing, which has left me with moments thinking that I must be insane. Like, why did I make this commitment to this thing? I don't know if I can possibly live up to the promises that I've made around this creation. And maybe I should just return the book advance and give up on it altogether. But per Steve Pressfield's advice, I've been

• 3:01Rich Roll?

  taking a little contrary action to do my best to approach it like a pro, to show up for the blank page day after day, which is a lot harder than it was when I was writing Finding Ultra all those years ago, because my life is just so much more complicated than it was then, with so many things competing for my time and for my attention, not the least of which is my day job doing this podcast. But I guess I'm bringing all of this up now because this project is finally, literally, again, after two years of toil, just starting to take a form that I feel good about. There's a very long way to go. This book is not going to be out for a long time, but I do have a sense that I'm making progress and that it's moving in the right direction, which is something, believe me,

• 3:45Rich Roll?

  I was definitely questioning up to about two weeks or so ago. And so the lesson for me, again, I suppose, is about the power of stick-to-it-iveness, of sticking with things, of staying true to a vision when you finally find a vision for yourself, or for a project, or for a goal, or an ambition, or an aspiration. And that no matter what, not letting frustrations and obstacles and second guessing insecurities and life competing demands derail you, because breakthroughs always tend to linger on the other side of our biggest setbacks, if we're willing to just stay in the game and see ourselves through it.

• 4:27Rich Roll?

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• 5:11Rich Roll?

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• 5:33Rich Roll?

  Look, there's a good chance that if you are like me, a member of Generation X, or even a boomer, or a millennial for that matter, basically for as long as you can remember, Katie Couric is somebody you can't remember not knowing. This constant media presence and consummate broadcast journalist who seem to magically appear every time you turned on the TV to check out the news. And that's because Katie is an icon. This is somebody who has done it all. She's anchored the news on three of the four major broadcast networks, ABC, NBC, and CBS, where she was the first woman to solo anchor a network evening newscast. Katie's also co-hosted 60 Minutes and The Today Show. She's interviewed all the presidents, been twice named on Time's 100 Most Influential

• 6:18Rich Roll?

  list. She co-founded Stand Up to Cancer, produced countless documentaries and specials, and now she's doing all of it outside the mainstream media ecosystem that made her America's sweetheart.

• 6:31Rich Roll?

  All on her own and on her own terms. So today I have the great honor of sitting down with this legend to talk about her background and career and what it all means to her and the ways that media has changed, both for the worse and for the better. We discuss how institutional distrust and post-truth politics are impacting the world, the threats posed by authoritarianism and AI and what to do about it, how she sees the future of journalism and her role in it, as well as her perspective on the famous Sarah Palin interview and her rules for conducting a great interview generally. We also talk about the many ways cancer has affected her life and how these experiences

• 7:12Rich Roll?

  spurred her into this role as an amazing advocate. Katie's a kick in the pants and as you might expect, somebody who's just super fun to hang out with. So this is a treat. So Terry, any longer I will not. Please enjoy me and Katie Couric in conversation.

• 7:31Rich Roll?

  I'm so delighted to be in your presence. Just in terms of thinking about your career, you're somebody who, you know, we both grew up in DC. We're not quite the same age, but you know, near enough. And I'm sure you hear this all the time, but you're somebody who's kind of been in my life as far back as I can remember, just this sort of constant media presence and quite iconic in all the things that you've done. I mean, you've worked at all the networks, you've had every job.

• 7:59Speaker 00

  Except for Fox.

• 8:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's true. You haven't done it before. Well, there's time.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  I don't think they'd have me.

• 8:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Everything is up for grabs right now, I think.

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Yeah, it seems that way, doesn't it?

• 8:13Rich Roll?

  It's pretty crazy. And that's kind of where I'm headed with this. I mean, you know, you truly are this iconic media figure with just a, you know, an unimpeachable legacy in terms of all the things that you've done and all the people that you've spoken to. On the one hand, this is like my internal conflict. On the one hand, I think it's super cool that you're like a digital creator, like you're just like the rest of us out there, like doing a podcast, Substack, a newsletter, like all the things that you do. You also have your production company and you make these documentaries, et cetera. But at the same time, I'm like... Yeah, but shouldn't Katie be like, you know, like in that seat that we always, you know, knew her to hold? And I'm curious, like, like, what was the impetus or the decision to be independent

• 8:58Rich Roll?

  and to have your own media company? Do you feel like you wish you were back there? Are you happy doing what you're doing right now? Like, and maybe that's a lead in to kind of talking about the, you know, media landscape at the current, at the current moment.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  Well, I am very happy doing what I'm doing now. Um, and I'm very happy I did what I did. I am grateful for the more traditional broadcast journalism career I had. I worked at ABC as an intern. I worked at CNN as an assistant assignment editor and associate producer. I then went to Miami. I was a local news reporter covering crime and all kinds of things. Then I went to DC. I was a local news reporter in Washington. That's when I got discovered by Tim Russert and hired to cover the Pentagon with Fred Francis, which was an incredible learning experience.

• 9:58Speaker 00

  Then got tapped for the Today Show, did that for 15 years and then decided or was lured to CBS, to the evening news, and kind of had this idea that I wanted to make history and be the first solo female anchor.

• 10:14Rich Roll?

  Which you did.

• 10:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, and that was sort of a very mixed experience for me at CBS, which we can talk about later. But, you know, I, I got these jobs, Rich, that I never in a million years imagined I would. You know, I just wanted to be a reporter. I wanted to have a career. I really, you know, I came of age in the feminist movement in the seventies. I wanted to be financially independent, not beholden or dependent solely on my partner or my husband. And so. My career exceeded my wildest expectations. So I get this job on the Today Show for 15

• 10:56Speaker 00

  years and I loved it. But 15 years is a long time to be in any job. Yeah. And, and I had this opportunity to, to go to CBS and I did. And I did that for five years and then did a syndicated talk show because I kind of missed having a job that where I could show more, more personality. Doing, doing the evening news is like 22 minutes and it's pretty straight. You just kind of read the intros to the pieces and maybe ask one or two questions to the correspondent and that's it.

• 11:27Rich Roll?

  But the impetus or the motivation to leave the Today Show when you did and go to CBS, was the motivation, at least in part, this notion of like, I want to do serious stuff like the Today Show, you know, sort of being a little bit fluffier and?

• 11:43Speaker 00

  Well, you know, back then, I think, uh, the Today Show was actually kind of set the stage for the news of the day. I mean, this was when there was much more of a monoculture and very few choices. Remember, this was before the internet.

• 11:59Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 11:59Speaker 00

  Uh, or at least as the internet was, was surfacing. And I did so many really serious interviews on the Today Show from grilling David Duke to talking to presidents to having debates with senators on Capitol Hill to talking about, you know, bombings of abortion clinics. I think people don't, I think people sometimes don't have the ability to see what Walt Whitman says, you know, we, we contain multitudes, right? And I did a lot of serious reporting. Um, went to Iraq, went to, you know, covered Desert Storm.

• 12:41Speaker 00

  And it wasn't so much to be taken seriously because I think people did respect me on the Today Show and appreciated the work I did. They saw my lighter side. Yes, we did cooking and, you know, I sang with Darlene Love and Jimmy Buffett and we, you know, so I think people saw that I could have fun, but I think they also saw my serious side. But I think this opportunity to be the lone female on an anchor desk in this male bastion that was an evening newscast.

• 13:15Speaker 00

  Seemed appealing to me and I also was excited to do stories for 60 Minutes, which was kind of one of my childhood dreams. And so it maybe would be to be taken a little bit serious, more seriously, even more seriously, I would say, but also to just face a new challenge.

• 13:39Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 13:39Speaker 00

  You know, try something new, try a new network, try a new job. And I think probably in hindsight, it wasn't the best fit for me. I was lured over by Les Moonves to kind of freshen up the evening news. You know, to have this less sort of stintorian voice of God like, good evening. You know, and to have a little more warmth, a teeny bit more personality. But I think that probably wasn't what traditional news viewers wanted. You know, CBS has, I think, more conservative viewers. They have more, I think, kind of traditional news consumers.

• 14:20Speaker 00

  And so I think both externally with the audience and internally with the makeup of the folks at CBS, it was sort of like the body rejected the organ a little bit.

• 14:35Rich Roll?

  I mean, CBS strikes me, at least at that time, as very much a boys' club. And, you know, we kind of all know what happened with Les Moonves. And maybe even more particularly at 60 Minutes. Like, it just, you know, it was a sort of culture that maybe was not ready for what you were bringing to the table.

• 14:56Speaker 00

  I think I was very different than sort of what they were used to. I mean, they had female correspondents, people like Leslie Stahl, Meredith Vera worked there. Diane Sawyer worked there for a time. But I think particularly the head of 60 Minutes when I came, um, just wasn't picking up what I was putting down, if you know what I mean. He wasn't really, he wasn't that into me. I should have in hindsight probably met with him to see how much he would embrace. I think he felt like maybe I was being forced on him and on the show because of Les Moonves. And, um, it was, you know, it was also a different, every network has its own personality in a way.

• 15:40Speaker 00

  And NBC, I think was, and maybe because I was also in a really powerful position at NBC, it seemed much more collaborative and less kind of old boys network. And CBS, I remember when there was a producer give me a tour of 60 Minutes and he said, just so you know, our mantra here is someone else's success diminishes you and someone else's failure elevates you. And I was like, what? And I said, well, aren't there-

• 16:13Rich Roll?

  This is a zero sum game happening over there.

• 16:15Speaker 00

  And I was like, aren't there enough good stories to go around? But I think honestly, that was the mentality there.

• 16:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But you did like eight or 10 stories a year, right? For 60 Minutes when you were there?

• 16:25Speaker 00

  I probably did maybe four or five.

• 16:27Rich Roll?

  Oh, you did?

• 16:28Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. But I had to kind of beg for them, Rich. Like I would come up with stories and I remember I said, hey, there's this new singer. I think we really should profile her. She's kind of the next Madonna. She went to a private Catholic school on the Upper East Side. She's kind of outrageous. She's incred, you know, her musicality is unique and I think she's going to be a huge deal. I think we should profile her.

• 16:55Rich Roll?

  Lady Gaga?

• 16:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 16:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 16:58Speaker 00

  And they called me and they said, not for us. And I was like, all right. You know, I kind of am the sort of person, I want to, I want to do it first. I don't want to do it after everybody under the sun has done a profile.

• 17:12Rich Roll?

  Well, you're on the right side of history with that one.

• 17:14Speaker 00

  Well, so pro, so fast forward, she's on the cover of Rolling Stone. She gets a lot of attention for wearing a meat suit. I still don't know quite what that was about. And she just explodes, right? So about a year later, I get a call from the booking producer who I know and still am friends with, and she said, you know, that Lady Gaga story, now we want to do it. And I said, wow, well, you know, everybody and their brother has done this story, but maybe we can come up with a different angle. Like, how does a Catholic girls' school on the Upper East Side of New York create a star like this? And her backstory is really

• 17:53Speaker 00

  interesting. So I go over to 60 Minutes because the CBS Evening News was in a different, a different building. And I look at the big whiteboard that has the stories that are being worked on and the correspondents who are assigned to them. And I see Lady Gaga, and my eyes go to the right, and it says Anderson Cooper. And I was like, wait, what? And so I went to the head of the show, Jeff Fager, and I said, so confused, you know, I came up with this, this story a while ago. And he said, oh, yeah, we decided to move

• 18:35Speaker 00

  things around. So I was getting constantly, it happened with Hillary Clinton, it happened with other stories, too. I just got gas-

• 18:44Rich Roll?

  You were getting boxed out.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  I was, yeah, I was getting boxed out and gaslit all at once.

• 18:50Rich Roll?

  When I think of CBS News or 60 Minutes specifically, I think of that movie, The Insider, the Jeffrey Wagon story, because it's such a, it's such a lens into 60 Minutes. And, you know, I think as just an average, you know, consumer of, of network news over the course of my lifetime, our reference points are what we see in movies and television, you know, and whether that's broadcast news, or, or, you know, The Insider, or that show, The Newsroom, and now we have The Morning Show, right?

• 19:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:22Rich Roll?

  Like, like, this is our way of going behind the scenes at these places. When you see those things, like, are they, do they reflect reality at all? Like, The Morning Show is a weird one, because- I don't know, it seems like it's taking itself very seriously.

• 19:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 19:36Rich Roll?

  At a moment where that is of, like, that world is of declining cultural relevance.

• 19:41Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I think they actually, it is, that world has declined significantly. You're totally right about that in cult, in the culture. But I think they do kind of take various issues that these networks are grappling with. You know, I, I just watched the third episode last night, so it's kind of fresh in my mind.

• 20:04Rich Roll?

  Oh, morning show, yeah.

• 20:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, especially as, as everything's become so much more fragmented. Kind of how do you, how do you stand out? And this woman Mia wanted the job as the head of news and she's saying truth is really being destroyed and she's just sort of a journalist with a capital J. But then the head of the network wants it to be much more.

• 20:27Rich Roll?

  Entertaining.

• 20:28Speaker 00

  Entertaining. And then they have this whole thing where a sponsor pulls out because they don't like the, you know, the way Jennifer Aniston's character covered something. So they're kind of echoes of those things happening in real life in modern media right now, as we have seen over the last couple of months. So I appreciate that they're kind of talking about some of these issues and, um, you know, which are pretty relevant to the landscape today.

• 21:00Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that show's a little soapy, but I think you're right. I did watch the third episode as well.

• 21:06Speaker 00

  You did?

• 21:06Rich Roll?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:07Speaker 00

  And I was upset that she didn't get that job and then.

• 21:09Rich Roll?

  But you knew she wasn't going to.

• 21:10Speaker 00

  Ah, well, I thought she was, but then I thought, what's her name? Stella was gonna stick up for her and actually win and, and she was gonna be put in that job and that was upsetting. But, but you're, you're right about the soapiness, like Stella is sleeping with whatever her name is, boss's husband and, I mean, that's where sort of the soapiness.

• 21:32Rich Roll?

  But that, that sets, that sets up, you know, these power plays in the C-suite, right?

• 21:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:37Rich Roll?

  Like, there's all the, there's sort of backroom brokering for jobs and promotions and things like that.

• 21:42Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:43Rich Roll?

  I mean, is that something that is accurate? I'm, I'm sure because these jobs are so high paying and they're so powerful.

• 21:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, I think in certain cases, probably, I mean, I think this is. You know, on steroids and the having an affair with your boss's husband. I don't know. That's that seemed a little farfetched.

• 22:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, but you know, there were plenty of, you know, sexual scandals going on.

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Well, you know, the first season, they just went full on Matt Lauer and got Steve Carell to play him. And, you know, it's funny because I think they've said that Jennifer Aniston's character is based on Diane Sawyer. But a lot of people think, I think it's a composite, actually. I don't think it's based on anyone in particular. But, I mean, that that hit very close to home. I mean, with with the whole Matt Lauer of it all.

• 22:35Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 22:36Speaker 00

  I was long gone. You know, I left in 2006, and this happened to him 11 years later.

• 22:43Rich Roll?

  But you worked closely with him for a long time.

• 22:45Speaker 00

  I did. I did for 15. Well, not 15 years, probably 12, maybe. He was the newsreader. I was first with Brian Gumbel. And then, and then Matt ended up, I think, taking Brian's job in 95.

• 23:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 23:01Speaker 00

  Probably. Yeah.

• 23:02Rich Roll?

  But at that time, like, you were there at the peak of those shows, holding a certain place of cultural relevance that they don't anymore, as we were talking about. But The Morning Show sort of assumes that that's still the case, I guess, in some level. And it's hard. It's hard to like, kind of buy into that illusion, I suppose. But that brings us to where we are now. So you're out in the digital landscape as an independent, like, media personality who's running this, you know, 360 degree, like, media conglomerate, you know, of your own design on some level.

• 23:36Speaker 00

  That makes it sound a lot bigger than it is.

• 23:37Rich Roll?

  But if you go to your website, it's like, it's like going to any news site. Like, you've got entertainment and news and like, all kinds of stuff. So you're, you're kind of hitting, you know, every category as you go. In this landscape where, you know, you came up where, yes, it was very consolidated. There were the three networks and there was the person every night who said, good evening.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  Right.

• 23:57Rich Roll?

  Which is weird. Like, it's still weird. You know, like, don't you want normal people? Like, I think part of this new era is like, oh, we just want, we want to feel like we, you know, are hearing from somebody who's actually a human being.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  Well, you know, it's funny you say that, Rich, because one of my things in an effort, which was my mandate, to make the evening newscast less stilted and stuffy and more approachable and accessible, you know, I I said, who says good evening except for Mater D's, you know? So I said, hi, everyone. And that was like

• 24:31Rich Roll?

  Like radical?

• 24:32Speaker 00

  You know, that was so radical.

• 24:34Rich Roll?

  Strange.

• 24:34Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, you know, and I tried to have a much more sort of casual persona, but it just, it didn't work.

• 24:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. But this shift from consolidated and, you know, kind of gated, you know, these, you know, media being gated with gatekeepers to this disintermediated landscape that's very populist and, and without gatekeepers. Like there's pros and cons to all of these things, right? Like, so obviously there's never been more information available to everybody, but without gatekeepers, then anything goes, right? And so we're in this very strange post-truth moment where everybody has self-selected their information silo and we're increasingly living in, in, you know, disparate alternative realities.

• 25:26Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 25:27Rich Roll?

  And you can't like make sense of that without connecting it to our, this, this decline in our ability to, to communicate and, and the impact that that's having on our society and the coherence of, of a democratic republic.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  Yes, to all of the above.

• 25:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like, so what is your like?

• 25:49Speaker 00

  I mean, it's

• 25:50Rich Roll?

  Your thesis on, you know, what is happening? And the relationship between the media landscape and what we're seeing politically?

• 25:56Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. All right, well, so many thoughts, as they say. I, I actually am trying to develop a documentary about, you know, sort of the fall and perhaps rise again of journalism, depending on how you see it and how it ultimately shapes out. Cause it's still sort of the wild, wild west. And I mean,

• 26:21Speaker 00

  Obviously, these silos, you know, these self-made media ecosystems and echo chambers are exacerbating polarization. There's just no question about that. You know, everything I get basically reinforces my point of view. And sometimes I'll look at other things because they're not served up to me. And I try to read, you know, the Wall Street Journal editorial page to see what people like that are saying, or, you know, I let Peggy Noonan and I read the New York Times. Washington Post has kind of gone downhill, which makes me sad. It's

• 26:58Speaker 00

  our hometown paper, Rich. But I think that it's obviously creating this extremely divided country. But I think the other thing you have to add to it is the President of the United States. You know, I think that this probably would be happening, let's say, Bill Clinton was president, or Barack Obama, or George W. Bush. I think people have different political points of view, but I think that Donald Trump has just poured gas on our whole, not only media landscape, but on our whole kind of sense of who we are as Americans

• 27:43Speaker 00

  and what we think of what's going on. And, you know, sometimes I think, gosh, am I, because of the algorithms, because of the people I talk to, because of the company I keep, because of my values, am I, am I being unfair? But I don't think I am. And maybe somebody who disagrees with me doesn't think they are because of what they're reading and listening to and the people they're talking to every day. So I honestly feel like we are living in parallel universes, and it's, it's really hard. And

• 28:22Speaker 00

  I have chosen, because I'm an independent journalist now, without any corporate overlords telling me to take it easy, or like what Bob Wright once did when I was on the Today Show, "Why were you so harsh with Condi Rice about Russia?" I told him to basically stay out of my journalism and I'll stay out of his executive suite, which, you know, now they're all kind of mushed together because of everything that's happened with ABC and the lawsuit and pulling off Jimmy Kimmel and now what's happening at CBS.

• 28:54Rich Roll?

  With Barry, you mean with Barry Weiss?

• 28:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, not only Barry Weiss, but also when you look at, you know, the Ellison's, which I think may be a much bigger TikTok play, right? That's really, I think, because how important is CBS News at this point? Not really super important anymore.

• 29:11Rich Roll?

  But it's an important piece in a larger puzzle that the Ellison's are putting together, where digital media properties and legacy media properties, you know, assembled, create a juggernaut that allows them to, you know, on some level, like have a lever on like public opinion.

• 29:29Speaker 00

  Oh, I agree, but I just don't know how important the news component is for, you know, this whole, this whole kind of land grab that they're doing, right? With Paramount and now they're talking about Warner Brothers and, and now I guess they're part of TikTok. I'm not really up to speed on sort of this whole group of Trump cronies that are, have, will have control of TikTok.

• 29:50Rich Roll?

  You would think the DOJ or the FTC would step in, you know, to prevent some kind of...

• 29:56Speaker 00

  I have, I have a lot of faith in Pam Bondi and Brendan Carr.

• 29:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that happening. But I think what's interesting about, I mean, there's so many threads to pull with that, but on the one hand, you have the ways in which, you know, power operates in this current climate where they're going to be conciliatory to the administration in order for certain mergers and deals to get rubber stamped and approved, right?

• 30:20Speaker 00

  Right.

• 30:20Rich Roll?

  But at the same time, also, there is a little bit of a 360 thing going on where... These digital properties, whether it's TikTok or Barry Weiss's The Free Press, like, you know, these were independent organizations that weren't affiliated with anything legacy media oriented. But now they're now coming back around to become part of that. Like, it's all, it's like a full circle kind of situation.

• 30:46Speaker 00

  I mean, there's still independent media that is going to, like, I don't know if you follow Midas Touch Network, for example, and I've interviewed those guys a couple of times.

• 30:55Rich Roll?

  And the Bulwark.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Yeah, the Bulwark.

• 30:57Rich Roll?

  Pod Save America, you know, the Crooked Media guys and things like that.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating to watch. I just read that Donald Trump is going to be on 60 Minutes. And I am so curious, A, who will be doing the interview? And B, what kind of interview it will be?

• 31:15Rich Roll?

  Now that Ellison owns CBS.

• 31:17Speaker 00

  How much is he going to be challenged? How much are they going to be breathing down the correspondent's neck? It's very dystopian.

• 31:36Rich Roll?

  To me, it's nonpartisan, though, because nobody should be celebrating a situation in which the, you know, the fourth estate is kowtowing to power. Like, this is the whole point of the journalistic enterprise.

• 31:51Speaker 00

  Don't you think that a 60 Minutes correspondent, I mean, do you have total faith that they're going to really vigorously challenge Donald Trump?

• 32:01Rich Roll?

  No, I don't. I don't have faith that they will, which is the point, because it's an example, it's an illustration of what's happening right now. So whether you support Trump or don't support Trump, you should be supportive of, you know, independent, you know, journalistic, you know, ecosystem of integrity that is always going to challenge those who are occupying seats of power, right? And we don't have that. So what does that mean? And where does that lead us?

• 32:27Speaker 00

  Well, I think you still do, but he probably wouldn't go on any of those platforms like.

• 32:34Speaker 00

  You know, I don't think Donald Trump would be interviewed by someone who he perceives is not a friendly questioner.

• 32:41Rich Roll?

  Of course not, but the fact that it's 60 Minutes makes it fascinating.

• 32:44Speaker 00

  That's what I mean.

• 32:45Rich Roll?

  Because this is the place where you're gonna be in the hot seat, no matter who you are, right? And if that doesn't go down, what does that say about what 60 Minutes is?

• 32:54Speaker 00

  Well, I think it's gonna be a real inflection point, honestly, for that show. And my hope is that respectfully, but vigorously, he is challenged on many of the things that he has done and he believes and, you know, it's gonna be fascinating. But what I was saying about sort of what I'm doing now, I feel like, as I said, nobody's saying, hey, Katie, will you take it easy on this, that, or the other thing? When I see something is happening and I think people need to be aware of what is happening,

• 33:38Speaker 00

  then I don't want to sugarcoat it. And I want to bring in people who talk about the dangers of what's happening. And, you know, whether it's saying the election was rigged, or, you know, inciting an insurrection, or pardoning the January 6 rioters, I mean, we could go on and on and on. In fact, I was thinking about every month, because there's so many things happening, that I should post, like, everything that Donald Trump has done since the inauguration, or even before, right? Because I think people are just being overwhelmed, it's so much, and they forget about it. And the news cycle, you can only cover so much.

• 34:23Speaker 00

  And then, like, hey, whatever happened to this story from three weeks ago?

• 34:27Rich Roll?

  Sure, we just move on. I mean, when you think back to Watergate, or the Pentagon Papers, or any of those seminal scandals that, you know, overnight destroyed political careers, you know, immediately, they seem almost quaint in comparison to... What we're seeing on the daily and there's so much of it. What is that word? What is that term? Is it like gish gallop? Where there's just a waterfall of stuff?

• 34:52Speaker 00

  I don't know that word.

• 34:53Rich Roll?

  You just can't get your hands around it. So it's impossible to, you know, redress any of these things because tomorrow there's a whole nother set of these things and we just sort of move on. And there doesn't seem it's in addition to being in this sort of post-truth world. We're in a post-consequences world, right? Like where nobody is being held accountable for any of these sorts of things. And so many of them, you know, violate these, these, the social contract on some level. And so we're, we're seeing the envelope pushed in what's acceptable. And it comes from the top. And then it speaks to what you were saying earlier about like, well, what does this say about who we are as Americans and what our country stands for?

• 35:31Speaker 00

  Not only is it, are there no consequences. It is, I think, embraced and encouraged. You know, I was thinking about that with the, with the meme of the AI video of Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries where they put a sombrero on him and put these, you know, voiceover of them talking. And, you know, it's funny because, you know, there was a time where people would be outraged by that. And I think a certain segment of the population is outraged or at the very least uncomfortable. Right? And then you've got a whole other group that are sort of, think it's great and so funny

• 36:14Speaker 00

  and hilarious and are portraying people who find it offensive as humorless. Right? So it's all kind of gotten topsy-turvy. And I think a lot of it is kind of this constant struggle about sort of, were, were sensitivities too heightened? You know, during some of these social movements like Black Lives Matter and Me Too and that happened. And, and sort of cancel culture that was really going on. And now this, this overcorrection and this cultural whiplash where.

• 36:51Speaker 00

  It's seen as great to be an asshole, right?

• 36:57Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm. As long as your assholedom is directed at owning the libs.

• 37:03Speaker 00

  Yeah, right.

• 37:04Rich Roll?

  And the hangover for the excesses of the progressive left seems to have a very long tail, because this is ammunition or fodder for a lot of this stuff. A lot of the sort of glee around this behavior that it's like, do we really want the leader of the free world behaving this way? Is this in our best interest? Is this what leadership is all about? Is this the example that we're setting across the world? And also for the next generation about, shouldn't the person who occupies that office be somebody aspirational that we can look up to?

• 37:45Speaker 00

  I talked to David Frum about this on my podcast.

• 37:49Rich Roll?

  He's very good on this.

• 37:50Speaker 00

  I really liked David Frum. And we were talking about.

• 37:53Rich Roll?

  And like conservative guy, like Republican.

• 37:57Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. Speechwriter for George W. Bush. And we were just talking, because he and I, I guess, are about the same age. I'm about 10 years older than you are. But having been in journalism for a long time, there were always disagreements and always people were angry and a lot of anger, of course, about the Iraq War and weapons of mass destruction and anger at Bill Clinton's behavior. And there are always these kind of pivotal moments during any administration. But there's always been a certain amount of decorum. And he and I were talking about this coarseness and this kind of the President of the United

• 38:40Speaker 00

  States acting in such an undignified, what I would say, kind of gross way. If. That has opened up this new way of being a president. If we can ever turn back the clock and get that kind of decorum back. You know, we were talking about how Gavin Newsom is now being much more pugnacious. But I said to him, I still think there are lines that Gavin Newsom wouldn't cross. That Trump just punches right through with abandon and with absolutely zero shame. Can you imagine like being so overt about craving a Nobel Peace Prize?

• 39:20Speaker 00

  It's so weird to me, like, like this idea that you talk about, like, of course, I'm sure anyone in his position or anyone, you know, who's a huge leader, that is, you know, the ultimate honor, but to campaign for it so, so shamelessly, it's so embarrassing to me.

• 39:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, well, a couple of things. I mean, first of all, you know, the celebration of vulgarity, like, this is not, this is not a good thing for our country.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  I don't think it is.

• 39:51Rich Roll?

  And as interesting as it is to see Newsom, you know, put his, you know, step into playing this game, I mean, Trump is one of one in terms of like, you know, how he operates on social media. So it's interesting and somewhat comical to see Newsom try to like play the same game.

• 40:07Speaker 00

  Well, he's pretty, I have to say, he's pretty good at it.

• 40:10Rich Roll?

  He is good.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  He's got a very good social media person.

• 40:13Rich Roll?

  But to your point, like, is this what we want? So we want, now we want, now in order to be a leader and to, you know, engender like support and popularity, is this what you have to do now? You know, maybe it is, like, but I'm not excited about that.

• 40:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:28Rich Roll?

  And I think once you erode, you know, these sort of ethical mores around leadership, it's hard to restore them in the same way when we see the overreach of executive power. Like, you know, once you claw that, you can't, you're not getting it back, right? It's not going back to any of the other branches.

• 40:46Speaker 00

  Uh, I don't know. I still hold out hope that somebody who really believes in separation of powers and, you know,

• 40:54Rich Roll?

  You're hopeful, optimistic.

• 40:56Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, I have to be because otherwise I'm just, I just.

• 41:02Speaker 00

  I'm in despair. And yeah, I hope so. I mean, but I do think, let's say Gavin Newsom ran against whoever, hopefully not Trump, right?

• 41:14Rich Roll?

  Anything is, like, literally, and it seems like anything is possible.

• 41:18Speaker 00

  I don't think people want to behave this way. I think people really think the President of the United States should comport herself or himself a certain way. And I think right now, with all the power concentrated among the GOP and MAGA specifically, and this cohesiveness that you see among Republicans, I think it's sort of a last ditch effort to say, we have no power, we gotta fucking do something. And if it's to punch him and mock him, and if this is the only thing these people really understand, we're gonna do a little of that.

• 41:58Rich Roll?

  Have to play on their, on their playing field.

• 42:01Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 42:02Rich Roll?

  But to Fromm's point about decorum, like, yes, we both grew up in Washington. I've said this before on the podcast, but, you know, my dad was a government lawyer. But, you know, if you grow up, like, in DC or the suburbs, like, you're surrounded by government employees, people that work for the various, you know, they work in the administration or they work in one of the departments, et cetera. Every four years, like, a bunch of people disappear and a bunch of new people show up.

• 42:29Speaker 00

  Yeah. I grew up with a lot of career government people.

• 42:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah, me too, me too. You know, there would be parties and barbecues and, you know, there's Democrats and Republicans and everybody's getting along fine. They may disagree on policy or whatever, but it never interfered with, you know, the comedy of, comedy, C-O-M-I-T-Y, of, like, being neighborly. You know what I mean? Like, it, there was a decorum to it. There was a, it was civilized. Like, people could reach across the aisle and communicate with each other. And that just seems impossible now. Like, I don't know what it's like living in Washington now.

• 43:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, I have a lot of friends who still live in DC and they're not really that involved in politics anymore, but I don't know what it's like either. And, you know, my parents died and we sold our house a long time ago. My brother lives in Charlottesville, my sister lives in Boston, and so I don't... I don't know that many people anymore in DC who are working for the government. But I mean, it kind of started with the Tea Party, right?

• 43:35Rich Roll?

  I think it started before that. Didn't it start with the Moral Majority and Jerry Falwell? I mean, that was sort of the original.

• 43:41Speaker 00

  I'm talking about this lack of civility.

• 43:44Rich Roll?

  Oh, I see.

• 43:44Speaker 00

  I think sort of really kind of bubbled up with the Tea Party. And then I do think it has been exacerbated by income inequality. Then you get this carnival barker like Donald Trump coming into the picture, knowing he's a brilliant marketer. Like, he really knows how to, I think, hit people where it hurts, right? And he's very clever that way. You know, I worked with him at NBC. He was on The Apprentice and I went to his friggin wedding.

• 44:16Rich Roll?

  You did?

• 44:17Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 44:18Rich Roll?

  Oh, my God. I need to know about that.

• 44:21Speaker 00

  Yeah, in Palm Beach. She only asked me because I was anchoring the Today Show. I dressed as him one Halloween. I'm just like, oh, God, please burn those pictures wherever they are. But I just think that the way he operates and the politics he practices are the politics of hate and division. You know, you've heard him say, at Charlie Kirk's memorial service of all places, "I don't love my opponents, I hate them." And, you know, the enemy within. He is, I want to do a piece or a deep dive into Viktor Orban because he's kind of his role model and his hero. And I think he's kind of following what he did in terms of shifting what was happening in Hungary.

• 45:06Rich Roll?

  Well, with the income inequality and, you know, the ways in which that is accelerating the distance between the haves and the have-nots. You know, if you're somebody who is looking around and not seeing a lot of opportunity and you're in a town where there's a lot of unemployed people and, you know, nobody's going to college and, you know, people can't pay their bills and, you know, health. Yeah, of course. So a guy comes along and, and he's tapping into your anger and your disenfranchisement. And, and it doesn't even matter if he's going to solve the problem because he's a, you know, a vessel for all of that, you know, anger and resentment. And he represents that. So of course you're going to support that person and you're going to.

• 45:52Rich Roll?

  gleefully celebrate every time, you know, he, he gets one over on the libs or whatever, right? Like it doesn't matter as long, you know, chaos is fine. Like, let's just blow it up because it doesn't look like any of this is serving me anyway.

• 46:05Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. That's true. I mean, as you're talking, it makes me think because of, you know, the news I consume, the people I talk to, the what's fed to me through algorithms. You know, I do get comments on my social media posts about, we love him, you know, he's our guy. Some lady wrote to me, I was promoting my David Frum podcast and talking about the thing in Quantico and the James Comey stuff and how every day is something shocking happens, sometimes multiple times a day. And she said, you know, I really liked you and supported you when your husband got sick. And now I just think you're bitter

• 46:49Speaker 00

  and irrelevant. And, and it just made me think, you know, I need to, I do need to talk to more people who feel this way and really interrogate why. I think there's, there's some psychological things, reasons. I think there's some socioeconomic explanations. But I also think it's because of their news consumption and where they're getting their information and their Facebook page and if they're watching Newsmax or Fox News and, you know, and I, I think I just blocked her and deleted the comment, but I wish I had

• 47:29Speaker 00

  said, Mary, Joe, whatever your name is, I really appreciate that you prayed for me or that you cared about me when my husband was dying of cancer, you know, thank you for that. And

• 47:46Speaker 00

  You know, I I'm trying to tell people information that I think they should know. And

• 47:57Speaker 00

  I'd love to talk to you sometime.

• 47:59Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's a

• 48:00Speaker 00

  You know?

• 48:01Rich Roll?

  It's a very difficult not to unravel because I think the the response to that would be

• 48:10Rich Roll?

  the liberals always think that it is a function of information. Like, if I can just get the right information in front of them, they'll see the world that I

• 48:19Speaker 00

  Well, I don't think it's just that.

• 48:20Rich Roll?

  Like, they're not getting the right information, right? And I don't know that that's really the solution. I think it's much more complicated and

• 48:27Speaker 00

  But I said that was just part of the

• 48:29Rich Roll?

  Sure.

• 48:29Speaker 00

  Part of the puzzle. You know, some of it is the company, you know, Bryan Stevenson talks a lot about being proximate, right? And I think we don't, to your point earlier about what life was like in Washington back in the day, we don't really co-mingle that much with people who are different than we are.

• 48:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and that's a problem.

• 48:46Speaker 00

  And by the way, when we do, we usually avoid those conversations because they're just too uncomfortable.

• 48:52Rich Roll?

  So it's not unrelated to the loneliness epidemic and our relationships with our phones and our device. Like, we're just

• 49:00Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 49:01Rich Roll?

  We're not in community in the way that we used to be.

• 49:03Speaker 00

  I could not agree with you more.

• 49:04Rich Roll?

  We think that we are because we're scrolling and we think we're connected to all these people, but we're not. And that's really, I think, at the, that's like ground zero.

• 49:13Speaker 00

  I think it's a part of it, you know? I think it plays a big role. I think, to your point, it's it's more complicated than that. But, you know, in 2017, I tried to do a documentary about loneliness and social isolation and how societies change. And Vivek Murthy, the Surgeon General, you've probably had him on this podcast.

• 49:35Rich Roll?

  A couple of times, yes.

• 49:36Speaker 00

  I like Vivek. And, you know, it was even before that. And I was just thinking about how our society has changed and how little time we spend. And this was even before, I mean, this iPhones had come out, what they were in, really came out in 2010 in a big way, right? But I couldn't agree more. And these cultural institutions, you know, Christian nationalism is on the rise, but a lot of people don't go to church or places of worship or get together, see people face to face and You know, I was just reading about something my friend told me called bed rotting. Do you know what that is?

• 50:19Rich Roll?

  No.

• 50:20Speaker 00

  So bed rotting is what a lot of young people, and by the way, I'm guilty of bed rotting myself, Rich. It's when you are in bed and you spend hours on your phone before you even get up in the morning.

• 50:36Speaker 00

  Sometimes that happens to me. I gotta, I gotta put my phone in a different room because I start reading and I have to say, most of the stuff I'm reading, I think it's worthwhile to read. You know, I'm reading articles and opinion pieces and an occasional recipe I see pass by, but you know, this idea of wasting so much time on your phone and these, these kids are just lying in bed, bed rotting. It's crazy. And, but I, I think the loneliness epidemic is, is something that we really need to explore. And I was going to kind of look at other cultures and also look at places that are trying to fight it. But this was a while ago.

• 51:20Speaker 00

  Nobody was interested. They thought it was too much of a downer.

• 51:23Rich Roll?

  I think we're getting a taste of the solution. Thanks in large part to Jonathan Haidt and what he's doing in schools and, and the fact

• 51:32Speaker 00

  I'm interviewing him next month.

• 51:33Rich Roll?

  There really, there are phone free schools now and the teachers, the teachers are like making videos about like how incredible, you know, like how it's like unreal how different it is and the kids are happier and it's like, all we had to do was this one thing and look what happens.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  The idea that that didn't happen sooner is so insane to me. I remember taking my daughter to look at colleges and we went to UVA because that's where I went to school. And neither of my kids went to UVA, but that's all right. And we went to Larry's.

• 52:05Rich Roll?

  That little comment alone, like I, I got a window.

• 52:08Speaker 00

  We went to Larry Sabato's class. You must know Larry Sabato.

• 52:11Rich Roll?

  I don't.

• 52:12Speaker 00

  He's a political science professor, like beloved, really.

• 52:16Speaker 00

  I mean, he has been radicalized by Donald Trump. I'll say that, I think. Anyway, we're going to his class because he's a very popular teacher. And even back then, so this was in like 2014, and I noticed so many people were on their computers like shopping at J. Crew. And I was like,

• 52:35Rich Roll?

  Oh, during the lecture, you mean?

• 52:36Speaker 00

  During the lecture. And I was like, this is terrible. Your parents are paying for this, or you're, you have a, whatever, however you are here, and you're not paying attention. I mean, of course, everybody does that to a certain extent. But the fact that I said to Larry, can you, can you cut off the Wi-Fi? And just so people can't be on the internet while you're teaching. But the idea that it was okay for kids to have phones in school, and that they were told not to use them LOL, it was so ludicrous to me, that it took so long for these schools to do something about it.

• 53:13Rich Roll?

  Well, only a few are doing anything about it right now.

• 53:16Speaker 00

  I think New York State just did something.

• 53:18Rich Roll?

  Oh, did they?

• 53:19Speaker 00

  Kathy Hochul, yeah.

• 53:20Rich Roll?

  Well, it's just like anything. It's like smoking, or, you know, we don't, we don't realize until later, like, the ill that we have, you know,

• 53:27Speaker 00

  It's funny. Going back to CBS, though, in 60 Minutes, I remember, so it was like 2009. And I said to one of the producers who I really liked, who is really, has still, still a good friend of mine, I was like, hey, let's do a story on how cell phones are tearing families apart, and how they're changing our relationships with each other.

• 53:54Rich Roll?

  And?

• 53:55Speaker 00

  It didn't happen, because it was too soon, to your point. Like, I've always had a little spidey sense, I think of, I think just because I'm older and I've followed so many stories throughout my life, I've always had a spidey sense of like, What is going to surface? What aren't we thinking about that's going to be a problem later?

• 54:15Rich Roll?

  So what is your spidey sense telling you now? What are you early on? Yeah. That democracy is unraveling? That there's a, we're sunsetting democracy?

• 54:25Speaker 00

  I can't really credit my spidey sense for that.

• 54:28Rich Roll?

  Trading it for authoritarianism? I don't know that you're early on that idea.

• 54:31Speaker 00

  I was gonna say, I can't, I can't say that. What are other big issues? Gosh, I don't know, because everything, I think, to your point, is so chaotic. And there's so many things that are hard to focus on. I'm working on a documentary right now about disparities in medical research between men and women. And sort of whether it was the, you know, women's health study at NIH, which was stopped prematurely, or all kinds of statistics about women are diagnosed with diseases four years later than men. Women were only required to be included in clinical trials in 1993.

• 55:12Speaker 00

  And I just thought it would be a really interest, because I think women do live longer, but they don't live better. And had we been treated as, you know, different beings with different, you know, biologies, and not just small men with boobs, I think we'd be a lot further in mitigating some of these illnesses and diseases that strike women that just have not been sufficiently studied or tested on.

• 55:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah. It's a real problem. I've had a bunch of women, experts, medical doctors, come on the show and talk about that. We just, we actually just put up a compilation episode where they're basically echoing everything that you said. Like, all of the, all of the research is done on men. And how it impacts women is almost an afterthought. Like, they're shoehorning it in. And it's not acknowledging, like, the complexity and differences in women's brains and their hormonal systems, et cetera.

• 56:13Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 56:14Rich Roll?

  And the impact on Alzheimer's and diseases and all of these sorts of things.

• 56:17Speaker 00

  So glad you're bringing this up, because two out of three people who get Alzheimer's are women, and yet only 12% of the funding is spent on female-specific Alzheimer's disease. And the other statistic I always love is that...

• 56:32Speaker 00

  Erectile dysfunction, I just like saying that anyway.

• 56:36Rich Roll?

  It gets all the money.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  Which affects nineteen percent of men.

• 56:40Rich Roll?

  Uh huh.

• 56:40Speaker 00

  Has gotten five times the funding as PMS that affects ninety percent of women. I mean, that's just sort of an example. And I was even looking at something about South Carolina and abortion laws and what's going on there. And everyone was saying, well, you know, are they requiring men to get vasectomies? Right? I mean, it just, it's crazy. The world is crazy. But I, I think I'd love to look at that compilation video.

• 57:08Rich Roll?

  Do you know Dr. Lisa Moscone?

• 57:10Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 57:10Rich Roll?

  In New York?

• 57:11Speaker 00

  Yes, I do.

• 57:11Rich Roll?

  She's sort of.

• 57:12Speaker 00

  Is she the head of the NYU Women's Health Center now?

• 57:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 57:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:16Rich Roll?

  I believe so. I don't want to.

• 57:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, I'll look. We have, we have a bunch of experts and we're going to be talking to a lot of patients. Another, you know, issue that, that gets very little attention or funding is postpartum depression or even postpartum psychosis. I remember covering that Andrea Yates story. I don't know if you remember that, but that was.

• 57:35Rich Roll?

  I don't remember that one.

• 57:36Speaker 00

  In Texas. And it was a woman who had five children. Her husband, Rusty, worked for NASA. And one day she just killed all her kids. And it was so horrific. And she, she killed her oldest son last and drowned him in their bathtub. I think he was seven years old and she chased, I, I. It's one of those stories that.

• 58:03Rich Roll?

  Something about that.

• 58:03Speaker 00

  I will never forget. And I went down to Texas, I think it was Houston, and I met Rusty Yates, her husband. And he showed me around their house. It was the eeriest, most upsetting thing. And he showed me where the little boys, where their Lego sets were and where the baby's room was. And then he said, do you want to see the bathroom? And I said, no, I can't, I, I, I can't do that. But my point is that, and there was another story in Massachusetts where, where a woman, you know, killed her kids and then jumped out the window.

• 58:47Speaker 00

  But these things haven't been studied, you know? They don't know how to, but imagine if for thirty or forty years.

• 58:57Speaker 00

  Scientists and medical researchers had focused on the brain chemistry in postpartum women. That's another area we're gonna look at because it's just really upsetting and so many, it's so incapacitated for so many new mothers. And not only is the science not there and the research, but there's such a stigma about it too, you know? So, anyway.

• 59:22Rich Roll?

  We're not exactly in the best moment when it comes to funding medical research.

• 59:29Speaker 00

  Oh, my God. I know. We're gonna have to talk about something fun eventually because this is like such a bummer, but no, I'm glad you brought it up because it's super important for people listening. So, yes, the NIH funding is being cut, I think, by 40%. And, you know, much of my adult life, after I lost my husband to colon cancer and my sister to pancreatic cancer, has been spent really focused on cancer, raising money for cancer research, getting to know a lot of scientists, increasing awareness. And, you know, I started stand-up to cancer with some other pissed-off women who were just very frustrated at the pace

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  of progress. So, I have been in this world, you know, not like scientists have, but I have gotten such a deep, profound appreciation for what these people do and how tirelessly they work, day in and day out, and how tard it is and how complicated these diseases are, not just cancer, which is like a million diseases and a million different biologies, but all these neurodegenerative diseases and heart disease, anyway. And the fact there's so much wrong with cutting medical research in this way.

• 1:00:49Speaker 00

  Not only are we in a huge inflection point with AI, you know, merging with basic biology and other, you know, immunotherapeutic approaches and, you know, I know you are interested in medicine and I want to talk to you about this actually, but I'll talk to you in a minute. To pull the rug out from under these scientists, to stop, and patients, stop clinical trials. It is such a disservice to our country and we're also already witnessing a significant brain drain. Scientists aren't going to stay here if their projects aren't funded. They're, you know, France is saying, "Come to France." Other countries are saying, "We will fund

• 1:01:28Speaker 00

  your research." It is so foolhardy and disgusting, but there is a move on Capitol Hill with, I think it's pretty bipartisan, to try to reinstate some of the funding into NIH.

• 1:01:41Rich Roll?

  That's, that's good to know. I mean, that's the other thing. When you grow up in DC, you grow up around kids whose parents were scientists at NIH. Like, a lot of my friends' parents were researchers at NIH. And, you know, listen, that was a long time ago. And I'm sure there's, you know, some bureaucratic bloat and all of that. But the idea that these people are somehow, you know, co-opted by Big Pharma and are, you know, working at the behest of these corporate interests for, for their own personal enrichment is kind of insane. Like, these people have devoted their lives to science and they are immersed

• 1:02:21Rich Roll?

  in these research projects that are expensive and complicated and take many, many years. And, and a lot of this has been interrupted and disrupted. And so, a lot of that science is lost. And it's quite tragic for anyone who is depending upon, you know, cures and therapies for, you know, whatever they're suffering from right now.

• 1:02:42Speaker 00

  It's a travesty. Honestly, it's, it's, it's a travesty. And some of these clinical trials have been either shut down or delayed. And, you know, when you're sick, I know very well from my husband and my sister, and when you're sick, you know, every day matters and you're just praying. I remember when Jay was sick and he was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer and it was bleak. The prognosis was very bleak.

• 1:03:12Speaker 00

  But I was just every day perusing the internet like praying, is there something going on? I would call like these pharmaceutical companies in Israel. I called Burt Vogelstein, who's discovered the Ashkenazi Jew gene at Johns Hopkins. He was not very encouraging, but I do love you, Burt, now, but you weren't that nice back then. But anyway, you know, just desperate. And I know what it's like. I know what it's like just saying, you know, anything, please, just do anything that will extend my life. You don't even have to cure me, extend it. So I can go to my daughter's wedding, or I can be at my child's

• 1:03:50Speaker 00

  fifth grade, you know, kindergarten graduation, I don't know. And or that can help me until something better comes along. But, you know, how can something better come along when they aren't funding the science? It's so maddening to me.

• 1:04:13Rich Roll?

  So your husband passed away when he was 41?

• 1:04:16Speaker 00

  Forty-two.

• 1:04:17Rich Roll?

  Forty-two from colon cancer. Your sister in 2001 from pancreatic cancer?

• 1:04:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, she was 54. She was running with, I'm always, you know, posthumously so proud of her. Everyone said she would be the first female governor of Virginia.

• 1:04:34Rich Roll?

  She was a Virginia state senator, right?

• 1:04:36Speaker 00

  She was a Virginia state senator, and then she was running for lieutenant governor with Mark Warner.

• 1:04:41Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 1:04:41Speaker 00

  Who I also really admire. And she was diagnosed just out of the blue, you know, with with advanced pancreatic cancer. And in a world glimpse of my bizarre life, and I was had just done The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and I was in the green room. And the publicist said, you need to call your sister right away.

• 1:05:10Speaker 00

  And you know how your like, heart stops and I, I call my Emily, I had two sisters, Emily and my other sister, Kiki, AKA, she's really Clara, but I call her Kiki. And I called Emily and she said, don't worry, it's not about mom and dad. Cause I think my parents were getting older and I was always so afraid of losing my parents. Like, I just adored my parents. She said, it's not about mom or dad, it's about me. She said, I have pancreatic cancer and it's all over my liver. Well, I knew then and there, if you have metastatic disease, that that is an, a dire situation.

• 1:05:53Rich Roll?

  You're not coming back from that.

• 1:05:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. So I forget why we were talking about that.

• 1:05:58Rich Roll?

  Well, just, I'm just trying to help the audience understand your relationship with this disease because it's impacted you so up close and personally, like your husband, your sister.

• 1:06:09Speaker 00

  And then I was diagnosed.

• 1:06:10Rich Roll?

  You a couple of years ago, diagnosed with breast cancer and, and.

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  Early stage.

• 1:06:14Rich Roll?

  Your husband, that like, didn't he have like a liver tumor?

• 1:06:17Speaker 00

  Yes, he did, three months before I got married. I know, it's like.

• 1:06:20Rich Roll?

  So this is like.

• 1:06:21Speaker 00

  The message that, don't date Katie Couric. Do not become romantically interested in me.

• 1:06:29Rich Roll?

  You know, stand up for cancer, but like cancer's following her around, like beware.

• 1:06:33Speaker 00

  I remember when John Mulner, my, my husband, you know, I said, oh God, you know, I could see the New York Post, like with my face on, on, on a black widow, you know, spider saying, what's wrong with her? And he was like, thanks, I really appreciate your concern, but anyway.

• 1:06:50Rich Roll?

  But in the interest of pivoting away from depressing topics, Katie.

• 1:06:54Speaker 00

  Well, wait though, I do want to talk to you real quickly about colon cancer.

• 1:06:57Rich Roll?

  Okay.

• 1:06:58Speaker 00

  Because I just did this funny spoof of the Sydney Sweeney thing.

• 1:07:01Rich Roll?

  This is what I was, I was teeing you up for this because I was like, this is the fun part.

• 1:07:04Speaker 00

  Sorry, sorry, I thought you were moving on to a different topic, but then I have something serious to talk to you about.

• 1:07:08Rich Roll?

  The less depressing aspect of this was you spoofing the Sydney Sweeney jeans ad. So like.

• 1:07:14Speaker 00

  That was fun. Did you find that funny?

• 1:07:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it was great.

• 1:07:16Speaker 00

  I hope people found it funny.

• 1:07:18Rich Roll?

  Actually, and even on your Instagram where you post, I think it was your Instagram, what was the brand of the jeans, American?

• 1:07:26Speaker 00

  American Eagle.

• 1:07:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like they were like, I, we approve this message.

• 1:07:30Speaker 00

  Yeah, I thought that was funny. I also thought it would be really a smart PR move for them. I think I suggested this to my assistant because they called my office to ask if I wanted a pair of jeans. And I said, Alyssa, ask them if they would want to donate this. I did this with the Colon Cancer Alliance, not with Stand Up To Cancer, but a specific colon cancer group. I said, why don't you have Sydney Sweeney present me with a check for colon cancer research? Like, give us a million dollars. How good, you know, what good PR for American Eagle? But I don't know if they're gonna, they're gonna buy that. But it was-

• 1:08:08Rich Roll?

  They should have done that. I mean, it was all, it's all PR and there was such a swirl of controversy around that. That would have ameliorated that immediately, I think. But it was very savvy on your part, you know, to like meet the moment of culture.

• 1:08:19Speaker 00

  I can't take credit. I can't take credit.

• 1:08:21Rich Roll?

  Explain it for somebody who doesn't know what we're talking about.

• 1:08:23Speaker 00

  So I was approached by the Colon Cancer Alliance. I know the head of it, my friend Michael, and he said, hey, you know, we do this lead from behind campaign every year. One year, Ryan Reynolds got a colonoscopy. You know, and I do a lot of this stuff, too.

• 1:08:38Rich Roll?

  You famously, you know, had your colonoscopy done on television. This was like a big thing.

• 1:08:43Speaker 00

  I know, which was, you know, it's funny, looking back on it now. I really just wanted to explain to people, like, this disease is preventable if it's caught early.

• 1:08:52Rich Roll?

  It had a huge impact in testing. Like, there was a giant spike.

• 1:08:55Speaker 00

  20% increase in colon cancer screenings. They called it the Kurek effect.

• 1:09:00Rich Roll?

  I mean, 20% by you just demonstrating that.

• 1:09:03Speaker 00

  But it's one of those things, Rich, where you can't like do it once. You have to kind of, well, first of all, the age has been lowered to 45. And as people, you know, get older and more and more, you know, every year, a lot of people turn 45, you have to kind of keep reminding them. That just happened, the lowering of the age has happened a couple of years ago. But I also took Jimmy Kimmel to get a colonoscopy. I gave a commencement address at the University of Massachusetts Medical School because I think I've been so associated with cancer advocacy. So they invited me. And I said, hmm, who could I get to get a colonoscopy this year? Maybe Tom Brady, he's turning 45 and I'm sure a lot of you Patriot fans would like

• 1:09:46Speaker 00

  me to make sure it's done without anesthesia because he had just left Boston. That got a big laugh. But anyway, they approached me about doing this and it was Ryan Murphy's, Ryan, sorry, Ryan Reynolds' production company. They had come up with this idea and they asked me what I'd do it. And I said, sure, if you think it'd have an impact. So I did it. But, you know, I wanted to mention to you because one of the things I'm super concerned about, and this is actually taking a little bit of a negative turn after our fun, fun Sydney Sweeney conversation is, you know, a lot of people under the age of 50 and even under the age of 40 and sometimes 30 are being diagnosed with cancer, like early onset

• 1:10:31Speaker 00

  cancer, specifically really mostly digestive cancers, but also breast cancer. They are really increasing the incidence. And I read that in the next five years, the number of people under the age of 50 diagnosed with colon cancer is expected to double. And they don't understand why scientists are studying it. They don't, they don't know if it's the microbiome, if somehow microplastic, if it's over prescription of antibiotics. I don't know if you've had this conversation on your show.

• 1:11:04Rich Roll?

  Not with respect to colon cancer specifically, but just the impact of environmental toxins, ultra-processed foods, just, you know, the dysbiosis of the microbiome, all of these things.

• 1:11:15Speaker 00

  So you know all the things I'm talking about.

• 1:11:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's when you see these spikes, look around at the world that we're living in. It's not conducive to our health.

• 1:11:24Speaker 00

  Right. But, you know, there are so many theories floating around out there. And when I found out I was doing this podcast and was going to meet you. I did a little research on you, right? And I know that you're, that you're an ultra marathoner or you're an ultra sports?

• 1:11:42Rich Roll?

  Yeah, done like some ultra, ultra endurance competitions and things like that.

• 1:11:47Speaker 00

  Anyway, last month, so I just wanted to tell you this because I think it's just, you know, knowledge is power. Last month I interviewed a doctor, and I don't know if you saw this in the New York Times, but he did a study among marathon runners and ultra marathon runners. And in many of my interviews about this, like at South by Southwest with early onset oncologists and, and cancer folks, they were saying, a lot of these people are uber healthy, right? They are fit, they eat right. It's not like they're, you know, these schlubby people who are overweight and consume red meat constantly. A lot of them are marathon runners.

• 1:12:27Speaker 00

  So this guy in Virginia did a study and he said, the number of marathon runners and ultra marathon runners who had polyps or full-blown colon cancer or precancerous, precancerous, precancerous polyps, cancerous polyps or full-blown colon cancer was much higher among this group than the general population. And they're trying to figure out why. I thought it was so fascinating. And I remember somebody saying, is it because marathon, is it something that they're eating? You know, these meal replacement bars that are so ultra-processed? Is there something about, that happens to you physically when you're running in terms

• 1:13:10Speaker 00

  of how your blood is circulating and going to your legs? And I, I, I just, so all I wanted to say is when I read that, I thought, I'm going to tell Rich to make sure he talks to his doctor.

• 1:13:25Speaker 00

  And and that you're getting screened regularly.

• 1:13:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I haven't been screened in a while, so I will. I did. I did see that New York Times article.

• 1:13:33Speaker 00

  Did you see it?

• 1:13:33Rich Roll?

  And obviously, that was a big topic of discussion in the the running corner of the Internet.

• 1:13:39Speaker 00

  I'm sure. And what were people? I'm curious. I'm not in that corner.

• 1:13:42Rich Roll?

  Well, it's it's just like it's it's just like politics. Everybody uses it as ammunition for whatever they already believe. Like, this is why running is bad. Or, you know, oh, they're overstating this, and they don't really know what it doesn't, you know, nobody's getting to the bottom of it is point. And I think, you know.

• 1:13:59Speaker 00

  And this was a very preliminary study.

• 1:14:01Rich Roll?

  It could be anything, but like.

• 1:14:02Speaker 00

  I just thought it was worth noting.

• 1:14:04Rich Roll?

  It's important enough to know, like, that the one thing you can do is go and get screened and tested more regularly.

• 1:14:10Speaker 00

  Yeah. And also, this deserves more research and more funding. And, you know, so this guy is gonna try to do more testing about it. But I just found it really fascinating, because you wouldn't think.

• 1:14:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you would think it would be the other way around. Maybe it's because they're just they're eating a lot more food because they're burning calories and they're just running more through their system. I mean, it could be a million things. Yeah, it's it's interesting. I would be fascinated to learn more. Like, obviously, it's in my interest that I could study.

• 1:14:39Speaker 00

  Well, I just thought about you.

• 1:14:41Rich Roll?

  I don't know what that guy's funding is like, but.

• 1:14:42Speaker 00

  When I read you're an ultra runner, whatever that means. What does that mean, anyway? Like, you do double marathons or something?

• 1:14:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's been a minute. Like, I haven't done. I just had. I just had spinal fusion surgery a couple of months ago, so I'm not doing anything right now, except gaining weight. But in my late 40s and early 50s, I did a bunch of like, long races, like, like, double Iron Man type stuff, or whatever. But good to know. I want to shift gears to. I want to talk about some fun funner stuff.

• 1:15:13Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:15:13Rich Roll?

  Like, I interview people for a living, you know, so it's like, I'm not gonna let you, like, get out of that chair without, like, learning a little bit about the art and the craft of, like, how to talk to people effectively.

• 1:15:24Speaker 00

  I think you're pretty good at it.

• 1:15:25Rich Roll?

  Well, you know, I have my own. I just started doing it and found my own way into it. But you come from, you know, rigorous journalistic standards, and what you do is a little bit different. But you've talked. I mean, listen, you've interviewed every president, all these foreign leaders, like, all kinds of people over, you know, literally, almost like 40 years at this point. So what have you learned about how to approach, whether it's a challenging interview or?

• 1:15:52Rich Roll?

  You know, a different kind of conversation about what could possibly make it great? Like, what do you, when you go into sitting down to talk to somebody, like, what are you thinking about? What's important to you? How do you approach these things?

• 1:16:06Speaker 00

  Well, I think a lot of times, sort of overall, I'm thinking about what do I want the audience to get from this interview? Like, are there certain things that we'll be discussing that I think are informationally important for people to know? So that's sort of my north star. But I also think, and I'm sure you've found this, there are so many different kinds of interviews, right? There are some that demand more challenging questions, you know? There are some people who are more slippery, who don't answer the question. So I would say, like, listening is critical.

• 1:16:50Speaker 00

  Like, you really have to listen to people and make sure you're hearing an actual response to the question, like with politicians. So I would say, I mean, so let's say a politician or, you know, somebody who's talking about something technical, preparation is key. Like, I really appreciate that you knew my sister died and that you knew that I had been diagnosed with breast cancer, for example, and that you had gone to my website. First of all, like, the person who you're talking to really appreciates that, because you can tell when someone is not prepared, right? It's a turnoff, for me, anyway. I don't know how you feel when you're being interviewed.

• 1:17:33Rich Roll?

  Sure, of course. But, I mean, that's even like, what you just said is like, the basis level of preparation. Like, I think you owe it to the person who's sitting across from you to come armed and ready to speak to them, but...

• 1:17:48Speaker 00

  But you'd be surprised at the number of people who are not prepared, or who kind of, I think in a format like this, you have no choice. But I think you sometimes get in situations and you're like, wow, they, they really didn't prepare. So preparation, I think, is key. And I also think, you know, you want to talk about things that the person hasn't been asked 800,000 times before. Like, that's not very interesting for that person. So you may want to go... You know, try a different angle. So that's what I try to do. And then, you know, a lot of people are nervous during interviews. It sounds like you interview people who have done this a lot, for the most part.

• 1:18:31Speaker 00

  But it's really important for people who aren't experienced at this, to really make them feel comfortable. And I think the way to make people feel comfortable is, you know, first of all, I think you have to exude sort of a certain level of empathy, right? But I also think it's important for people to feel like you really, actually are really interested in what they have to say. And that you have empathy. And, you know, I just interviewed Emma Willis, and I had interviewed her before for a Town and Country thing, and she wrote something about caregiving. And I think we just had a really good conversation because she

• 1:19:14Speaker 00

  knew that I really cared about what she was talking about, and that I also cared about her as a person. So I know that's kind of all over the map, but I think that I always tailor my my approach and my questions differently, depending on who I'm talking to.

• 1:19:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, if you're gonna sit down with Yasser Arafat,

• 1:19:40Speaker 00

  Oh, God, that was scary.

• 1:19:42Rich Roll?

  That's gonna look different than...

• 1:19:43Speaker 00

  Ahmadinejad, who I used to remember his name when I was at CBS with I'm a Dinner Jacket. Because I'd see his name on the prompter, and I'd be like, fuck me, fuck me, fuck me, it's coming. And then I'd see Mahmoud, and then I'd always say, Mahmoud, okay, I got Mahmoud. Ahmadinejad, I'm a Dinner Jacket.

• 1:20:01Rich Roll?

  That is like something that you would see in one of those TV shows. You got the earpiece in, and somebody's talking to you, and you're trying to make sure that you say the name right.

• 1:20:09Speaker 00

  I got so mad, I ended up being very close friends with this guy I worked with at CBS, a writer named Jerry. And I remember early in my time there, when I was just getting crucified by the press, and people inside the building were not really into me. And he, without telling me, there was a story, and he put the word sputum. In the prompter as part of the story, I can't remember what the story was. But sputum is not a word that you say sort of in normal conversation, right? I was so mad because I thought he was just trying to like trip me.

• 1:20:49Rich Roll?

  Trying to fuck with you or something?

• 1:20:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, I really did. I still am not 100% sure he wasn't. I know he likes me now, well, kind of. And, but, you know, sputum. What is sputum? It's like saliva, right?

• 1:21:04Rich Roll?

  Yeah, like when you're spit, right? He could have just said, you're spit, you're saliva.

• 1:21:08Speaker 00

  Or something, but I mean, if you saw sputum for the first time on a teleprompter, would it throw you a little?

• 1:21:14Rich Roll?

  I guess it would depend on the context. You know, I don't, I don't know what you were reporting on.

• 1:21:20Speaker 00

  I can't remember the story and why it was even included.

• 1:21:23Rich Roll?

  When you think back on, on all the people that you've talked to, like what are there ones that stand out in your mind? I mean, it's, it's gotta be like the, the Sarah Palin interview has to be one. I mean, that, that's kind of one for the ages, right?

• 1:21:37Speaker 00

  Well, I think it was a time where if someone came across as sort of flustered or not having the intellectual depth required for the second most powerful person in the country, that that mattered. I, I don't know if an interview like that would have the same impact today. I think that was a moment, a moment in time where people were like, wait a minute. And I don't know if it had been.

• 1:22:08Rich Roll?

  Who could be second in command and, and, and could possibly, you know, end up being president was struggling to answer basic questions.

• 1:22:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I was very intentional about that interview. I did a whole podcast with my producer, Brian Goldsmith, about it. And why it had such an impact. And I think it was just this moment in time. Barack Obama was sort of flatlining a little bit. She, as you recall, gave a mesmerizing and extraordinarily charismatic speech at the Republican convention. And she was just this breath of fresh air, you know? And the, what's the difference between a, what does she say? A pig and a soccer mom lipstick? And so I just, I think everybody had the sense that.

• 1:23:00Speaker 00

  She might be all sizzle and no steak, as they say. And so I really was intentional about the questions I asked her that would indicate her sort of critical thinking skills and her accumulated knowledge and her understanding of how government works. And I remember saying, I am not going to react. I almost had a Parkinsonian affect and I just was very, you know. But it's so ironic to me that the question that everyone remembers is what it was.

• 1:23:34Rich Roll?

  What news sources that you.

• 1:23:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was sort of an establishment. I think it was in establishing your worldview because I was sort of interested in what makes somebody so ideological in either way, like what shapes them, right? You know, for you, it might have been your parents. I don't know, you know, or where you went to college, who knows, right? And I said, as you've established your worldview, what newspapers and magazines have you read that really have influenced you? I can't remember it specifically. And that's when I think she just wanted me out of her way.

• 1:24:15Rich Roll?

  Well, it wasn't that question. It was the follow up question where she said she.

• 1:24:20Speaker 00

  Anything and everything, whatever they put in front of me.

• 1:24:23Rich Roll?

  And then, you know, you're, it was, and you did this a couple of times. I rewatched it and it was the follow up of like, can you name anything? Like, what do you mean specifically? Like using the word specific, like name some, you know, things, you know, like really like not letting her.

• 1:24:38Speaker 00

  But I sort of did it in a way, and I don't know if you noticed, but this is sort of, I thought was a little artful. I said, I'm just curious, like, can you name a few, like specifically, what sort of things do you read? So it wasn't so like. Specifically, give me some names.

• 1:24:55Rich Roll?

  No, it didn't. It didn't feel like you were hammering her.

• 1:24:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:24:57Rich Roll?

  It was, and it was a walk and talk, you know, it wasn't like you were sitting across from each other with light. So it was a little more informal or casual. I feel like in 2025, that would have been like on a podcast. It wouldn't have been, you know, on, on like network television, but because we don't live in a monoculture, I mean, that was like a moment, like that just traveled the world and then, you know, it just became the topic of many of Saturday Night Live skit and.

• 1:25:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, Tina Fey. Well, you know, when she, when she showed up, when she was announced by McCain, the first thing I said to my colleagues, I was doing the evening news, I think in Ohio, I was on a remote. I go, oh my God, she looks just like Tina Fey.

• 1:25:38Rich Roll?

  There's your spidey sense.

• 1:25:39Speaker 00

  And then sure enough, Tina Fey plays her. That was an interesting, important interview. But I think now people, they, I tried to be, you know, just as I said, have no facial expression, but now that interview would be treated one way on certain media outlets and another way.

• 1:26:02Rich Roll?

  It was a hit job.

• 1:26:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:26:04Rich Roll?

  It was in bad faith.

• 1:26:06Speaker 00

  Yeah. But I think it much more so, or Katie Couric was out to get her.

• 1:26:13Rich Roll?

  But as evidence of how different the times were then, in the immediate aftermath of that interview, like nobody, it kind of built over time, right? The Republicans weren't upset about it initially.

• 1:26:25Speaker 00

  No, I think everyone.

• 1:26:26Rich Roll?

  It kind of every, it just sort of everyone accepted it at face value.

• 1:26:30Speaker 00

  I think people thought it was fair, you know, that my questions weren't gotcha questions, everyone but Sarah Palin herself. But I remember John McCain, I interviewed them together and he said, I thought that was a very fair interview. He was such a decent man, John McCain.

• 1:26:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah. If only.

• 1:26:50Rich Roll?

  If only.

• 1:26:51Speaker 00

  Remember when people were talking about Obama in a campaign rally? I don't know if you've seen this. Most, a lot of people have. And they were saying, you know, saying disparaging things about Barack Obama. He's a Muslim or that he's a terrorist or something. And John McCain said, wait a second. That's not true. He's an American. He's a fine man.

• 1:27:15Rich Roll?

  Sort of ethically stand up.

• 1:27:16Speaker 00

  We have policy differences, but he's a good man.

• 1:27:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that wouldn't happen today.

• 1:27:21Speaker 00

  No.

• 1:27:22Rich Roll?

  The tan suit. It's just, you know, these things that happened that were like so.

• 1:27:28Speaker 00

  Dumb.

• 1:27:29Rich Roll?

  That created all these controversies that, you know, today, like, it just seems strange.

• 1:27:34Speaker 00

  How about the birth certificate? That, you know, you go back to Donald Trump on this rampage about the birth certificate. He feels totally comfortable just lying, bald faced, lying about things. And, uh, you know, I think it, what's, what's still stunning to me is that Americans seem okay with it.

• 1:27:56Rich Roll?

  So what's the way forward? Katie, how are we, how are we solving these problems? A big problem is, is institutional distrust and distrust of the media.

• 1:28:06Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:28:06Rich Roll?

  On some level, we have to repair our faith in expertise and find some way to, you know, be able to agree on, on basic things if we, if we want to kind of survive as a, as a democratic republic.

• 1:28:21Speaker 00

  I couldn't agree with you more.

• 1:28:22Rich Roll?

  So how are we, how are we going to do? You're sort of eyes on deck, you know? You've talked to everybody. You've been everywhere. Like, I feel like you would have a, a sense or a grip on what ails us and, and what the antidote is.

• 1:28:38Speaker 00

  I think you're giving me too much credit. I think that, I guess, I mean, all the things we talked about, I think people need to gather together and, and actually have conversations that enable dialectical thinking, like two things could be true at once or has some nuance to a conversation. So I think that whole idea of Bryan Stevenson being proximate, like getting out of your bubble. I think there is this lingering feeling, maybe it's from Hillary Clinton and the deplorable comment, that.

• 1:29:17Speaker 00

  Coastal elites look down on people. And again, I think some of that is exacerbated by income inequality. Like, all these billionaires and people who are truly struggling. I think the Democratic Party, this is no big, you know, epiphany, has lost its way with working-class people.

• 1:29:41Rich Roll?

  100%.

• 1:29:42Speaker 00

  Um, I mean, there are some things that just are empirically true and some things that are false. And I think, what did Daniel Patrick Moynihan say? Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, but they're not entitled to their own set of facts? Well, now, everybody is entitled to their own set of facts. So how do you convince somebody that Tylenol doesn't cause autism? You know? I'm not saying that it doesn't deserve further study, whatever, but to make that statement, you know, when the one thing that has been shown to increase your risk of autism is

• 1:30:27Speaker 00

  high fevers. So it's really hard for me to kind of be that middleman, to kind of broker trust when I think so much of the lies are on one side.

• 1:30:46Rich Roll?

  Hmm.

• 1:30:49Speaker 00

  Do you?

• 1:30:51Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's despairing. You said earlier that, you know, you're in your own bubble. I am too. I think on some level, we all feel like we're the exception to the rule. And, you know, we're not, you know, we're not the one being manipulated. It's all these other people, right? And we're not really acknowledging the extent to which, you know, we've, we've selected our information silo, just like everybody else.

• 1:31:17Speaker 00

  Right.

• 1:31:18Rich Roll?

  I, you know, try to step outside of it and hear all different kinds of opinions, but, you know, my feed is what it is. And of course, it's reaffirming, like, my worldview. And the more it does that, the more, the more difficult it becomes to try to understand somebody else's point of view. And when you see something that doesn't make sense to you, you're like, well, why would somebody do that? Like, it's confusing to me. And I think- People on the other side are having that same experience. And I think, short of us finding a way to put our phones down, and to Bryan Stevenson's point, like, you know, get together in spaces that have nothing to do with our news feeds.

• 1:32:03Rich Roll?

  That seems to me to be the only way that we're gonna fix this problem. But in order to do that, we do need, we do, we need to like, solve economic inequality. We have to solve the housing crisis. Like, we don't have those after-school spaces, and we don't have the faith institutions that are central to the communities in the way that they used to be. And so, a lot of the, those places are, are kind of, have gone the way of the dodo, in some, in some sense. And we have to find a way back. Maybe it's, you know, mandatory public service when you graduate high school, Peace Corps, Teach for America, or something like that, where you're getting, you know, people out into the world, in the real world, and you're getting them to do it, you know, together in a way that's creating bonds

• 1:32:46Rich Roll?

  that we're, we're, we're not creating right now.

• 1:32:50Speaker 00

  Definitely, but I, you know, I don't know how that kind of usurps sort of this constant inundation of, of news that, you know, is confirmation bias or that aligns with your own point of view. But, you know, one side really respects experts and science and appreciates these people and thinks highly of them. And one side doesn't really feel that way.

• 1:33:23Rich Roll?

  It's hard, it's hard to get over that one.

• 1:33:25Speaker 00

  So, it's hard for me to find these, these threads of connection. Now, I think there's, obviously, you can't, I mean, these, all these groups are not monolithic. I think Democrats are particularly diverse in terms of how people feel, but... I think MAGA, I think, you know, I think there are a lot of people have arguments about what role should government play in our lives, you know, like Ronald Reagan said, government is the problem, right? And does private enterprise in certain situations do a better job? And I think, gosh, that's certainly ripe for conversation, right? And, you know, is there too much government waste? Is there, you know, has government let us down?

• 1:34:10Speaker 00

  All those things I think are really ripe for a full and rich conversation. But I think that those are, people are conservative and that's not necessarily who MAGA is, right? And MAGA is a very specific strain of populism that I'm not sure has necessarily, well, I guess they do have some, you know, views that are consistent, you know, about immigration, right? And I think somebody said to me, Trump has pinpointed a lot of the problems, it's just the solutions that he's pursuing.

• 1:34:54Speaker 00

  Like, I think most people will agree that the immigration system needed reforming. And in fact, there was bipartisan legislation that was about to be voted on and Trump said, don't vote on it because I think he wanted to use it as a campaign weapon. And it's hard for me to think there's not a better way to reform our immigration system than having masked ICE agents pulling families apart and, and, and, and by the way, targeting people who are American citizens and not giving due process.

• 1:35:36Speaker 00

  I mean, that's not the way to solve the immigration crisis.

• 1:35:40Rich Roll?

  No, it's not.

• 1:35:41Speaker 00

  You know, and...

• 1:35:42Rich Roll?

  Of course, there's a better way to do it.

• 1:35:45Speaker 00

  But a lot of people, I think, have no problem with it. You know, they're like, yeah, get them out of here and we don't care how you do it.

• 1:35:54Rich Roll?

  That's a rough one to swallow. I thought you were going to lead us out of the depressing part.

• 1:36:03Speaker 00

  I'm so sorry.

• 1:36:04Rich Roll?

  I don't think we're gonna solve this today.

• 1:36:07Speaker 00

  I know, but you're the one who asked me what the solution was.

• 1:36:10Rich Roll?

  I know.

• 1:36:10Speaker 00

  And I'm like, Jesus, I don't know.

• 1:36:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah, sorry about that.

• 1:36:16Speaker 00

  That's okay.

• 1:36:17Rich Roll?

  But we are gonna land this plane on a higher note. Because I want to pivot to, to, to advice. Like, you've lived this incredible life. You have reached the highest pinnacle of success. You've met, you know, experts in every field and world leaders, et cetera. And, and on some level, you've synthesized like all of this, you know, inspiration and lessons.

• 1:36:41Speaker 00

  Have I? I don't know.

• 1:36:42Rich Roll?

  I think you have.

• 1:36:43Speaker 00

  I don't know.

• 1:36:43Rich Roll?

  Do people, like, what have you learned from talking to all these people? Well, you wrote a book about it.

• 1:36:47Speaker 00

  Why? Oh, well, that was the best advice, that book.

• 1:36:50Rich Roll?

  Right, so this is, this is kind of like what I want to lean into now. This idea of, over the course of your life and all these people that you have spoken to, what is, you know, some of that, some of that advice that you think would be helpful to share?

• 1:37:06Speaker 00

  Oh, God.

• 1:37:07Rich Roll?

  Come on.

• 1:37:09Speaker 00

  Well, listen, I have spoken to so many people.

• 1:37:13Rich Roll?

  You're giving commencement speeches. This is right on the tip of your tongue.

• 1:37:17Speaker 00

  I mean, I guess when all is said and done, to me, the, the way to be a happy person, I think some of it, you know, I don't know if you read my book in preparation. I mean, I would be really impressed if you did that.

• 1:37:35Rich Roll?

  I actually didn't, because I was in DC caught up in family stuff.

• 1:37:39Speaker 00

  That's okay, that's okay. I think you might like it. I usually do. I think your wife might get a kick out of it, too. But I've told some of the stories from the book here today. You know, first of all, I think people have, you know, this constant search for happiness and fulfillment and, and meaning. I want, I just got on my Kindle Victor Frankl, because I can't believe I never read Man's Search for Meaning. I'm so embarrassed. I did read Primo Levy, Levy, Primo Levy's book about being a concentration camp. But, you know, this, this searching, this constant desire to be happy, I think it's pretty simple. I think, I think people find happiness having a life of service and purpose, you know,

• 1:38:24Speaker 00

  whatever that is, like...

• 1:38:28Speaker 00

  Doing something nice for people and kind of getting out of your own way. And I think, you know, self-care is so weird to me. I think it's important, obviously, you know, you have to take care of yourself because you have to be there for the people who depend on you and the people who love you and the people you love. But I have always found the most fulfilling thing for me is to feel like I'm doing something that, something positive, that I'll leave behind something good. And so I think, you know, when I was so powerless watching my husband die, I felt like I have to inform people and educate them about colon cancer

• 1:39:13Speaker 00

  and that they can do something about it. Or, you know, I've always been that person who sees the person by themselves. And I'm, I always want to go over there because I feel like, oh, I I don't want that person to be all alone. And I know they're feeling really awkward and weird. I'm going to go talk to that person, you know? And, you know, so there are ways, big and small, I think, to be just aware of, of people and aware of what they may be experiencing. And I think I just happen, I think my IQ isn't off the charts, but I do think I have very strong emotional intelligence. I'm just, I just am very aware of, of my surroundings

• 1:39:57Speaker 00

  and what people may be feeling, I think, most of the time, not always. So I guess for me, just, and this is really based on my life. It's, it's, it's having some meaning by doing something for someone else, you know? And I feel like you're, you're doing that by helping people understand the world or digging into conversations that people may learn something and maybe they'll be able to apply it to their own lives. I feel I'm serving a real purpose right now, trying to help people understand what's happening in this crazy world. And honestly, kind of telling them, we, we better pay attention to this. We don't want to be the frogs in the slow boiling water.

• 1:40:41Speaker 00

  And I had to kind of pick up the pieces after my husband died. I had a six-year-old and a two-year-old. And, you know, I always say to people, we're all terminal, right? And we all have a finite time, amount of time on the planet. And, you know, finding joy is an intentional act. You know, you have to, you have to try to do things that bring you joy. So, I mean, I don't know if that's advice, but also find, find, you know, find stuff that you love to do, like when it comes to work. I mean, I know you kind of had a, an interesting journey and-

• 1:41:20Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I had to wander around a little bit.

• 1:41:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, but you're obviously a smart guy, but you were waylaid. And I'm sure part of your being able to, to get your shit together was, like, why am I here? And what can I do to have a purpose driven life, right? I'm assuming.

• 1:41:41Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that I was doing an equation. It was a lot more confusing.

• 1:41:46Speaker 00

  But I mean, that's ultimately where you landed, right?

• 1:41:49Rich Roll?

  Yeah, of course. And, and I would echo everything that you said. I think that happiness is not something that you aim for. It's a byproduct of orienting your life around figuring out what brings you joy, what you're naturally interested in, curious about, and then marrying that to how it can contribute to the betterment of others. So, the service aspect with the, you know, kind of internal desire to do that thing, like that, that for me, like, that's the gift. Like, when you can find something you really love and then figure out how to make it part of a greater contribution, that's, that's where you're going to find happiness, meaning fulfillment.

• 1:42:34Rich Roll?

  They're all byproducts of those things. But I think service, like- Going into any dynamic, big or small, and looking to figure out how you're going to give more than extract, you know, and I think we're in kind of an extraction forward environment. Like, it's all about like, what's, what am I going to get out of this? And like, how am I going to be better off as a result of this conversation or this experience as opposed to like?

• 1:43:01Speaker 00

  Or what can you, yeah, what have you done for me lately?

• 1:43:03Rich Roll?

  Yeah, exactly. You know, and it's very transactional in that way.

• 1:43:06Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:43:06Rich Roll?

  But I think when you're service oriented and looking, looking for opportunities to give, like, to me, that's always the path towards greater happiness.

• 1:43:18Speaker 00

  And I think, you know, it's, it's, it's a luxury to be able to, to, you know,

• 1:43:22Rich Roll?

  Yeah, if you're

• 1:43:24Speaker 00

  to have this kind of privileged life.

• 1:43:26Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you're trying to put food on the table. It's of course, it's like, yeah, it's such a privileged perspective.

• 1:43:31Speaker 00

  This morning, when I was bed rotting, I saw this woman on some podcast talking about a recent Harvard study about the number one thing that created a happy life or that led to a happy life. What do you think that is?

• 1:43:49Rich Roll?

  Well, it had to be some kind of service oriented response. No? What?

• 1:43:57Speaker 00

  Relationships.

• 1:43:59Rich Roll?

  Ah.

• 1:43:59Speaker 00

  Like, the quality of your relationships, having a network of friends to support you, for you to support. This was what the Harvard study said. And it's, it's interesting because when my husband was really sick, you know, I mean, his quality of life was terrible. And I remember him saying, this is no way to live. And, and he said, you know, the only thing that really matters is your, your family and your friends. You know, he was an ambitious

• 1:44:37Speaker 00

  guy, you know, liked to be a natty dresser. You know, we all get caught up in the bullshit. And, you know, I think that just echoes what I saw with this Harvard study. It's really...

• 1:44:54Speaker 00

  It's really like your human connections and your friends and you know, people you can call when you're really sad or an emergency happens and you're no, you know, they're going to be there and they're going to really care. So I think that's, that's another thing that I've learned. And I think I've, I've learned again, you know, as I said, we're all terminal, you know, there, there are no guarantees in life and you really, you, you forget it, you know, it's like when you have a stomach ache and you're like, why didn't I not appreciate when I didn't have this miserable stomach ache or a terrible headache and I felt okay. And it's easy to forget these things, you know, because they pass and you have these

• 1:45:38Speaker 00

  moments of realization. But I do think like, I, I think losing Jay and losing my sister has given me such an appreciation.

• 1:45:50Rich Roll?

  What's really important.

• 1:45:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, not, but, but like, I woke up today and yeah, maybe I'm kind of creaky. I'm 68 years old, but I drove here and talked to a friend on my way and like, that's a good day. As my father-in-law says, like, he's 94, he was a ski instructor for many years in Aspen. He took last year off. He said he was on medical leave. He's the most wonderful guy. And I always say like, Herbie, what, what are you hoping for this year? And he'll say like, I'm hoping to be vertical. So, you know, I think every day we're vertical. We're pretty damn lucky and it's always nice to remember that.

• 1:46:33Rich Roll?

  Well, we got to get you.

• 1:46:35Speaker 00

  I gotta go back with my grandson.

• 1:46:37Rich Roll?

  You gotta stop scrolling on your phone when you wake up in the morning. I'm gonna get you to commit to that. I know it's like, I'm a journalist. I have to know what's going on for you. He's like, stop that. Like, I think that will.

• 1:46:47Speaker 00

  Oh, no, I have, I have a problem. I mean, you know, it's pretty clear to me. You have an addictive personality, Rich.

• 1:46:55Rich Roll?

  For sure.

• 1:46:55Speaker 00

  I have never found myself addicted to anything until now. And I am addicted to my phone.

• 1:47:02Rich Roll?

  I think on some level, everybody is, but I think that what that. What that means or what that does is it gives everyone a greater appreciation for the nature of addiction because we're people that are not, you know, classic addicts like addicted to drugs or gambling or whatever are getting a taste of like

• 1:47:23Speaker 00

  That dopamine, huh?

• 1:47:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah, and maybe hopefully, you know, my hope is that that makes people more empathetic about the nature of addiction broadly.

• 1:47:32Speaker 00

  Also, it's like that habitual, it's so habitual, you know, it's like you got this thing in your hand and you're like, and you know, I also gave a commencement address to my daughter's high school and I talked all about the importance of being bored because we're never bored anymore because we're always on our phones. If we have a moment to relax and we're in a restaurant waiting for a friend, we go to our phone. And there's a part of your brain that is responsible for creative thinking that it only lights up when you're not distracted, when you have a blank slate.

• 1:48:08Rich Roll?

  We're the last generation to know what it's like to grow up where you were compelled to be bored.

• 1:48:12Speaker 00

  Right. And that's why all your good ideas sometimes come in the shower because you're just there. It's just you and the water. And I'm afraid that it's going to really stymie our ability to be creative.

• 1:48:28Rich Roll?

  This is a pendulum swing, though. I think young people are very keen about this and they're on their own behest, like making decisions around like their digital hygiene that, you know, that we're not because they see what their parents are doing. So that makes me optimistic and hopeful.

• 1:48:46Speaker 00

  It's amazing, though, like my little grandson, who's 18 months old, you know, if Ellie is, has her phone anywhere near her, let's say she's making a call and he's been watching Miss Rachel a little bit, like just in very small amounts. And I mean, he sees that phone and he does a beeline and he's like tapping on the screen. So, you know, it starts really young.

• 1:49:15Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:16Speaker 00

  And that's really scary. And one thing I'll just tell you before I go is that, you know, for some reason, as I bedrock, I've been getting fed a lot of videos from the 80s. Like, hey, we're from the 80s. We, you know, we actually had landlines and talked to people on the phone, or we're from the 80s, we rode our bikes all day. And, you know, all this stuff that, and it does show how much life has changed. And then I think it ends by saying, wouldn't you like to be back in the 80s?

• 1:49:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Yeah. My kids are like, it sounds like it was a lot better. I was trying to

• 1:49:51Speaker 00

  Well, my daughter says that, too.

• 1:49:52Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I was trying to explain to them that we had a party line. Did you have a party line on your phone? Remember that? Like where you would pick up the phone, but you shared your phone line with some other stranger or whatever, and you could only call like when they weren't on the phone?

• 1:50:04Speaker 00

  You had a party line in Washington DC?

• 1:50:06Rich Roll?

  We did.

• 1:50:06Speaker 00

  That's so funny. I know that when you wanted to reach somebody and you got a busy signal, that like you were just screwed. Like you just have to keep calling and calling. And I remember one day I was going to a basketball game. I was cheerleader, which I know is a big shock to you. And I didn't have a white turtleneck and I had to borrow a white turtleneck from my friend Barbara Churney. So I did an emergency break in. And I got in so much trouble from her mom, because that was the only way you could break into a landline call.

• 1:50:39Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:50:39Speaker 00

  So the operator says, we have an emergency call from Katie Couric, or Katie. And her mom was on the phone. And I got, I mean, understandably, she was so pissed at me. But that's what you had to do when, when you got a busy signal. I mean, it's so crazy, isn't it?

• 1:50:55Rich Roll?

  It was a different time.

• 1:50:56Speaker 00

  And now I think landlines are coming back.

• 1:50:58Rich Roll?

  I think so. Well, let's get you back to your, your daughter and your grandchild. Did we accomplish anything? I don't know. But I loved talking to you. That was super fun. Do you feel like, how do you feel?

• 1:51:11Speaker 00

  I feel like we had a really nice conversation. And I feel a lot less inhibited now than I used to. I used to, you know, really have to be careful. And I'm sure some people don't agree with me or didn't like what I was saying, or, but I feel

• 1:51:31Speaker 00

  I feel comfortable expressing myself and having a point of view, and I feel like I've kind of earned the right to do that.

• 1:51:37Rich Roll?

  I think you have.

• 1:51:39Speaker 00

  And I really appreciate it. I really appreciated talking to you. It was fun.

• 1:51:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:44Speaker 00

  And next time you have to come on my podcast.

• 1:51:46Rich Roll?

  Anytime.

• 1:51:47Speaker 00

  Because I want to hear about swimming at Stanford. I want to hear about addiction that led to another addiction. And I want to hear about your heart situation and how that was such a wake-up call for you. And, you know, I'd like to talk to you about what you've learned from all these interesting people you've talked to.

• 1:52:08Rich Roll?

  I'm happy to share with you anytime.

• 1:52:19Rich Roll?

  All right, everybody. That's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. I really do hope that you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guest, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit today's episode page at richroll.com, where you will find the entire podcast archive, as well as my books, Finding Ultra, The Voicing Change Series, and The Plant Power Way. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is free, actually. All you got to do is subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review or drop a comment. Sharing your show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome as well and extremely helpful. So thank

• 1:53:02Rich Roll?

  you in advance for that. In addition, I'd like to thank all of our amazing sponsors, without whom this show just would not be possible, or at least, you know, not free. To check out all their amazing product offerings and listener discounts, head to richroll.com/sponsors. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo, along with associate producer Desmond Lo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis and Morgan McRae, with assistance from our creative director, Dan Drake. Content management by Shana Savoy, copywriting by Ben Pryor. And of course, our theme music, as always, was created all

• 1:53:46Rich Roll?

  the way back in 2012 by my stepsons Tyler and Trapper Pyatt, along with our cousin, Harry Mathis. Appreciate the love, love the support, and I'll see you back here soon. Peace. Plants.