KRISTEN WELKER:
This Sunday: Meet the Moment. Conversations with people who are having an impact in Washington and beyond.
HODA KOTB:
I never thought in my 50s that I would be sitting in that chair, doing that job. I mean, how could that be possible?
KRISTEN WELKER:
Former TODAY Show co-anchor Hoda Kotb on stepping away from Studio 1A and how she's finding meaning in her next chapter.
HODA KOTB:
I'm learning how to sleep again. I hadn't done that in decades. I'm learning new skills. And I feel like it's my whole kind of be-a-beginner-again era.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Plus: Let them.
MEL ROBBINS:You don’t change other people by trying to change them. You change other people and the world around you by changing yourself.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Bestselling author and podcast host Mel Robbins went from hitting rock-bottom to having one of the most popular podcasts in the world. And: Full plate.
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
For me, searching for my Ethiopian identity through food, through the place I was living in, in Harlem in New York City, what would that taste like? That was a journey for me.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Award-winning chef Marcus Samuelsson on his journey as an immigrant in America.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Do you think the American dream is still available to immigrants today in the way that it was for you when you first got here?
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
I think the American dream is alive. You just have to fight and battle for it more than ever.
KRISTEN WELKER:
And: Defying gravity.
JON M. CHU:
Even though it's a fantasy, even though it's a fairy tale, it's our access into a human experience. What does it feel like when you believe so deeply, when you love so deeply, when you sacrifice everything?
KRISTEN WELKER:
Jon M. Chu, director of the blockbuster "Wicked" movies, on how he's working to amplify Asian-American voices in Hollywood.
JON M. CHU:
What is the movie that I can only make? What's the thing that scares me the most? And the thing that scared me the most was my cultural identity crisis, talking about being an Asian American.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Welcome to Sunday, and a special edition of Meet the Press.
ANNOUNCER:
From NBC News in Washington, the longest-running show in television history, this is a special edition of Meet the Press with Kristen Welker.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Good Sunday morning. On this special edition of Meet the Press, we are bringing you four of our “Meet the Moment” conversations. Shining a spotlight on people making an impact in Washington and beyond: Hoda Kotb, former TODAY show anchor; best-selling author and podcast host, Mel Robbins; world-renowned chef Marcus Samuelsson; and Jon Chu, the director of "Wicked" and "Wicked: For Good.” For decades, Hoda Kotb has been a force on your television screen, reporting from war zones with “Dateline” to toasting life’s lighter moments with Kathie Lee on TODAY. At 53 years old, Hoda shattered barriers, making history alongside Savannah Guthrie as the first all-female anchor duo in the show’s history. But earlier this year, after 26 years at NBC News, Hoda shocked the world with her decision to step away from the anchor desk. I caught up with Hoda for a “Meet the Moment” conversation about why she left and what she’s discovered about embracing change in every season of life.
[BEGIN TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
I just want to get caught up with you. You made this monumental decision to step away from The TODAY Show, one of the most coveted roles in all of broadcast news. You'd been at NBC for 26 years. How are you doing? What is life like right now?
HODA KOTB:
First of all, my time at NBC lives in me. You know, certain things you carry for the rest of your life. And I get to carry that. So for 26 years, I did similar things every single day. And one day, Kristen, in January, I woke up, and my alarm didn't go off at 3:30. And I went downstairs to my office. And Haley ran down. And she looked at me. And she said at 5:00 a.m., she said, "You really are here." And I think in that tiny moment, I was like this decision was right on so many levels. And post-TODAY Show, look, I've lived my life on one track. And I realize that when you switch chapters, you can be a beginner all over again. I'm learning how to sleep again. I hadn't done that in decades. I'm learning new skills. I'm learning how to be a mom who's there almost all of the time. I'm learning all these things in my 60s. And I feel like it's my whole kind of be-a-beginner-again era. It's like “start all over.”
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, I want to talk about the next thing, but before we get there, I have to talk about the extraordinary career that you've had, and the way that you got started. You've talked about, you've written about the fact that when you were just beginning, you had this big dream to be a broadcast journalist, and you got rejected 27 different times.
HODA KOTB:
Yeah. To my face.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But you didn't give up, Hoda.
HODA KOTB:
I didn't.
KRISTEN WELKER:
So many people would've given up. It would've rattled so many people. When that first news director gave you a shot in Mississippi, what was that moment like?
HODA KOTB:
I just – I wept, man.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You did. You cried.
HODA KOTB:
I wept. I cried because he looked me in the eye and he said something I'll never forget, after watching my tape. He looked at the tape. And he said, "I like what I see." I was like, "You do? Oh my God. Oh my God. Nobody likes this. You liked it?" Like, I couldn't believe it. I mean, imagine having 27 guys tell you no when you're asking them to dance, and the last guy says yes. And you're like, "Wait. What?" So this guy said yes to me. And I knew in that moment, like, was going to work my tail off. I was going to prove he was right. I was going to prove those others were wrong. Like, I was going to work it, work it, work it. And I wasn't the best. I wasn’t – I was green. I didn't know what I was doing. But nobody was going to outwork me. Nobody.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, and you put in years of work in local news. And then you finally got a big shot at NBC. 1998. A correspondent for Dateline.
HODA KOTB:
Yeah. Shocking, right?
KRISTEN WELKER:
Which is extraordinary. Did you feel like, "I've made it?”
HODA KOTB:
I felt like I got the job, and I wasn't ready. Like, I got the job, and everybody was better. I got the job, and everyone was a better writer. I got the job, and everyone was a better interviewer. And I wasn't wrong. I was new. And it was terrifying to me. So I had made it, but I was terrified. And I wondered if I was going to float or if I was going to sink.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But you floated. And you soared.
HODA KOTB:
Yeah.
KRISTEN WELKER:
And then you – you faced really what was the biggest challenge of your life in 2007, diagnosed with breast cancer. How did you push through that? And what did you learn about your own strength in that moment?
HODA KOTB:
Yeah. I think in the beginning, I was terrified. I thought that was it. I thought, "I don't know what's going to happen after this." And then something happened. After I'd gone through the surgery and did all the stuff, I was in my house, and I literally had this four-word epiphany. I popped up. And I got, "You can't scare me." I got this weird crazy courage that came after it. And I was like this. I was like – I felt like more confident than I had ever felt before. Why? Because my life now had a beginning and an end. And I got to decide in this time, "What am I going to do? How am I going to live this life? What am I going to do going forward?" And so in that moment, I made a big decision that changed the course of my life here at NBC.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You asked for The TODAY Show, the fourth hour.
HODA KOTB:
Girl, I asked for it. I never asked for anything here. I was always working hard. "They'll see me. I'm still here. They're going to give me a raise." It doesn't work like that.
KRISTEN WELKER:
And you made history in 2018, along with Savannah Guthrie.
[BEGIN TAPE]
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE:
We are kicking off the year right because Hoda is officially the co-anchor of “TODAY.” Let’s give her a round of applause.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
What did that moment feel like, to rewrite the history books?
HODA KOTB:
Yeah. It was incredible. To realize that it had an impact on women mattered. And another lady said to me, "My little girl now knows that when she turns on the television and looks for two people, a man doesn't always have to be the one with the authority who's bringing her the news. It can be women too, two women, in fact." And it just – it felt empowering, and amazing, and magical. And also it was good journalism, and good television, and it just worked on a regular level. I mean, I never thought in my 50s that I would be sitting in that chair, doing that job. I mean, how could that be possible? But now we're showing that, women, it doesn't matter how old you are because what's inside you, the spirit part of you is there, and it'll come out no matter.
KRISTEN WELKER:
And the greatest blessing, I would assume, in your life, also happened in your 50s, which is that you became a mom.
HODA KOTB:
Yeah.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You adopted your two beautiful girls, Haley and Hope. What was that like the first time you held baby Haley in your arms?
HODA KOTB:
I remember it so clearly. We were at the adoption agency. And I heard her first. They open up these big doors. And a woman is carrying your child, who's a month old. And when they placed Haley in my arm, she was right here, it fit like a puzzle piece fits in life. I felt like I was home, probably for the first time.
KRISTEN WELKER:
And you have all of these blessings in your life, and yet you have also known incredible heartache. I know that you lost your father suddenly to a heart attack.
HODA KOTB:
Yeah.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Hoda, what do you think he would say, looking at your life right now, how full it is, full of love, and success? And now you're charting a new course. What would he say?
HODA KOTB:
I always wanted to hear the words from him, "I'm proud of you." And I think now, looking at what I've built, based on the foundation he built for me, like this is all because he and my mom built this for me, this foundation. I think he'd be incredibly proud of me as a mother. Like, I did that. I think he would be super proud of me that I took a risk in my professional life too, and tried something new, because that's what he did. He took risks. I think he’d be proud to know – I talk to him sometimes about it. This sounds weird, but on my last day of work, when I woke up that morning, I heard what sounded like him say, "Everything's going to be just fine." And I literally jumped up from my bed because it was weird. And I was like, "Oh my God. Is he here? Is he watching over me?" And I think he is. And I think he always has.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, he's probably watching over what you're doing now with immense excitement in addition to all of that pride, Hoda, and this wellness venture that you have embarked on to help people have better, healthier, more joyful lives. Joy 101 is what it's called. And I was looking at this app that you have, which is so powerful. There are so many resources on it. What drew you to this space?
HODA KOTB:
I feel like we, women, need something. We're tired. I feel it. It's like everyone's hunched over. And they're walking around like that. It's like take off the backpack. You don't even know you're hunched over, because you've been walking like that for years. And let's figure out how we can make each other feel better. It's like 10 minutes, 15 minutes and you're done. That's it. To me, it's like a magic wand.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, the thread throughout your whole life is that you face your fears. And you don't let it stop you. What is next for you, Hoda?
HODA KOTB:
What's next? What's next is walking my kids to school in the morning, and holding their hands. What's next is sitting in the bleachers at a Friday night high school football game with my kids, and going to the concession stand. What's next is building this fun business brick by brick, and helping women. What's next is tomorrow. I think short term now. And I like it. I like having that short vision. It's all I want is what's happening next. And it's all – it’s filled with goodness.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
And when we come back, my conversation with best-selling author and podcast host Mel Robbins.
[BEGIN TAPE]
MEL ROBBINS:
I think that the thing that stands in people's way is discouragement. This sense that it is hopeless. This sense that, "There's nothing I can do." That is a lie that you have either been sold or that you're telling yourself.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
Welcome back. Mel Robbins will be the first to tell you she’s not a therapist, but she has made it her mission to give people simple, practical tools to live better lives. Whether it's through “The Mel Robbins podcast,” one of the most popular podcasts in the world; through viral online videos, reaching more than 35 million followers, or bestselling books like “The Let Them Theory,” a deceptively simple idea that’s changing the way millions of people think and live. I sat down with Mel Robbins for a “Meet the Moment” conversation about how she turned her own darkest moment into a self-help movement.
[BEGIN TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
How would you, in the most simple terms, describe what the "Let Them" theory is?
MEL ROBBINS:
The "Let Them" theory is very simple. If you stop trying to control and change other people, suddenly you have more time, energy, and power in your own life to focus on yourself and improving it. That's it. That releasing control gives you so much control and peace back.
KRISTEN WELKER:
It's not “let it go” because you follow "Let Them” with “Let Me.” Why is that an important component?
MEL ROBBINS:
Yeah, so there's two parts to the theory. The first one is "Let Them," and that's the part everybody loves because right now life is so overwhelming. And let's face it, other people are super annoying. They're very frustrating. You can go through your day, and from traffic, and you're gripping the wheel, or people walking slow, or talking close, or the meetings that are scheduled at six o’clock on a Friday, the guilt trips, it is going to drain all of your energy. And other people are the number one cause of stress in your life. But here's what the "Let Them" theory taught me: They don't have to be. See, you get to decide how much somebody else affects you. You get to decide how much brain space they take. You get to decide whether traffic or inconsiderate behavior or the headlines stress you out. And so "Let Them" is where you recognize. And it’s so simple – you don't even have to read the book. You can start using it after our conversation. The moment you're stressed out, or frustrated, or whatever, you just say, "Let Them." And you'll notice you're always stressed by other people. And the second you say, "Let Them," you recognize, "Okay, I can't control this person. So why am I going to let it bother me?" And then you say, "Let Me." And “Let Me” is where you take your power back and you remind yourself. And this is a very old idea. The "Let Them" theory is a modern take on ancient wisdom.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Forty-one years old, you say you hit rock bottom.
MEL ROBBINS:
Yes.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You were out of a job. Your husband was struggling as well, professionally. You very candidly discuss the fact that you think you were drinking too much –
MEL ROBBINS:
Oh, 100%.
KRISTEN WELKER:
– during this period. What was that moment like and why was it so pivotal for you?
MEL ROBBINS:
What happened to me is that when my husband's restaurant business started to go under and it took our life savings, liens hit the house, we've got three kids under the age of ten, I lose my job, I had never envisioned a life where I would face bankruptcy, I would be an alcoholic, I would be on the verge of divorce, that I would be losing everything that I cared about. And what's interesting about rock-bottom moments is you hit something solid inside you. That's how you know it's bottom. And what you hit is the resolve to change. See, you can either wait for things to get worse before they get better, or you wake up one day and say, "I don't want this to get worse. Nobody's coming. And if this is going to change, I have to take responsibility for changing it myself." And so what that moment taught me, because the simplest things were so hard. Getting out of bed, the bills. I hadn't opened my bills in six months. I hadn't asked for help. I hadn't stopped drinking. I hadn't looked for a job. I would wake up every morning and lay in bed like a human pot roast, feeling sorry for myself, staring at the ceiling going, "I hate my life. I hate my husband. I hate myself." And it felt easier to just avoid the things that I knew I needed to do. And I think this is one of the core things that I try to teach, which is you already know what you need to do. And if you don't, go to AI and just put in your problem. It'll give you ten things to do. The problem's going to be that you're going to wait to feel ready. And I've got news for you. Motivation is garbage. It's never there when you need it. You have to teach yourself this life-changing skill. And here's the life-changing skill: You have to train yourself to do things that you don't feel like doing. And for me, that started with teaching myself to get out of bed on those mornings that I didn't want to.
KRISTEN WELKER:
With the “5 Second Rule.”
MEL ROBBINS:
Yes.
KRISTEN WELKER:
This was transformative for you.
MEL ROBBINS:
So I was watching TV and I saw this rocket ship launch across the TV screen, and it gave me this, at the time, stupid idea. "Okay, I know what I'm going to do. Tomorrow morning I'm going to launch myself out of bed like a rocket." And my thinking was I'll move fast enough so I won't be in the bed when the anxiety and the depression and the overwhelm pins me there. And the very next morning the alarm rang. And I'm going to show you something. In life there is a five-second moment that defines your whole life. It's this moment between inspiration and discouragement, confidence and self-doubt, courage and fear. Have you ever noticed that you can know what you need to do but then you make a fatal mistake and you stop, and you hesitate, and you think about how you feel about it? And within five seconds of thinking about something, you no longer do it. Psychologists have lots of fancy terms for this like a bias toward thinking, a bias towards action. All I knew is that I was stuck in this habit of hesitating. And that morning, for whatever reason, as the alarm went off I remembered the dumb rocket launch idea and I started thinking, "I don't want to. It's cold." This was a Tuesday morning in February, 2008. "How is this going to help? I hate my husband." And I started reaching for the snooze button, something I had done for six months in a row. I'd hit that sucker four or five times a morning. Kids would miss the bus. They'd be waking me up. That's how you know you're failing at parenting –
KRISTEN WELKER:
Oh, wow.
MEL ROBBINS:
– when your kids are waking you up after they miss the bus.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Wow.
MEL ROBBINS:
But for whatever reason, I just started counting backwards. Five, four, three, two, one. And I stood up and it worked. And what's interesting is it felt like a victory, and it was. It was the first time in six months that the procrastination, the anxiety, the fear, the shame didn't win. I did. The better part of me, the knowing part of me did. And this is the important thing: Fear kills action, but action kills fear. And to me what's exciting about whether you're using "Let Them" and “Let Me” or you're using five, four, three, two, one or any of the things that I talk about on social media or I share on The Mel Robbins Podcast, what's exciting is that you are so much more powerful than you think. You have so much capacity to change your life for the better.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You talk about your podcast. And it's one of the most listened to podcasts in the country.
MEL ROBBINS:
Or world.
KRISTEN WELKER:
In the world.
MEL ROBBINS:
I'm going to claim that.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Yeah, in the world. TIME Magazine said about you, quote, "What Robbins sells is not just advice. She's offering her listeners a reason to believe in themselves." Is that how you see your work and what you're doing?
MEL ROBBINS:
Yeah. I think that the thing that stands in people's way is discouragement. This sense that it hopeless. This sense that, "There's nothing I can do." That is a lie that you have either been sold or that you're telling yourself. And if you have all the information, again, if you can create a list today of all the things you could do to ruin your life, you can create a list of all the simple things you could do to improve it.
KRISTEN WELKER:
It's emotional for you. This is personal for you.
MEL ROBBINS:
Yes, it's very personal for me because I see it. We have anywhere between 9 to 11 million people that listen to this show every week. And we are at a moment in time where people do not have time for themselves, so it does not – I do not take it lightly that teachers and nurses and EMTs are finding time to listen to something that reminds you of what matters to you. That reminds you that you do have power. That reminds you that your relationships and being a good friend are important, and that matters.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You have also talked about your concerns about social media. You have more than 35 million followers, which is just remarkable.
MEL ROBBINS:
I think so too. But you know one of the best things about the success? It came late in life. When you have an experience in your 40s where you almost lose everything that matters to you you don't forget that. I know what it feels like to have groceries scan, and I know that I don't have money. And I'm hoping there's some glitch in the check card and somehow it's going to go through. And it doesn't. And you have to grab your three kids and walk out of there. That is a moment that you never forget. And so I am grateful that all of this happened later because I have not forgotten what matters. And what matters to me is my family. What matters to me is my friendships. What matters to me is that I wake up every day and I'm proud of the person that I am and I know that I'm doing the best that I can, and I'm fast to apologize when I screw things up. And my hope is that by sharing some of the things that I'm learning, sharing openly about the mistakes that I've made as a parent, as a spouse, as a human being, if I can save anybody else the headache and heartache that I caused myself and other people because I just didn't know, I didn't know how to do better, then that to me is a life well lived.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:And when we come back, award-winning chef Marcus Samuelsson.
[BEGIN TAPE]
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
When the farms and the restaurant are getting raided, we have to deal with that. Not just as something that we see on social media, but something that is actually, it’s real emotion.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
Welcome back. Throughout his 30 years in America, chef Marcus Samuelsson has made a name for himself in the kitchen and on your TV screen. From his prestigious James Beard Awards to helming the first state dinner of the Obama administration, Samuelsson has been a key voice in bringing African and Black cuisine to the forefront in America. I sat down with Samuelsson in his brand new restaurant Marcus DC, right here in the nation’s capital. In our “Meet the Moment” conversation, I talked to him about his journey from being born in a hut in Ethiopia to becoming one of the most renowned chefs in the world.
[BEGIN TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
Marcus Samuelsson, welcome to Meet the Press.
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
Welcome to Marcus DC.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Thank you. It is such an honor to be here and to be sitting with you. You have an absolutely extraordinary story. You came to the United States 30 years ago.
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
Thirty years ago.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Yes.
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
Yes.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Yes. Thirty --
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
I can't even believe it --
KRISTEN WELKER:
– years ago.
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
Yes.
KRISTEN WELKER:
When you hear that, it really hits you, right?
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
Yes.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You were born in Ethiopia in the middle of a civil war. You were adopted by parents in Sweden. You grew up there. You have now become a renowned chef who really puts a focus on Black and African cooking. Why has it been so important to you to build on that goal of showcasing African and Black food to the world?
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
I think it's an evolution. You know, sometimes when you are adopted -- my experience of being adopted is, it's almost like your identity, you can live it backwards, right? When I decided to be a chef, it was really for my Swedish grandmother, Helga. She raised us all around good cooking. And I fell in love with it. The deliciousness of her cooking, but also the storytelling. And when I became a chef, there was only one cuisine in the world that people told us was important. It was French cooking. And as a young Black chef, I never saw anyone looking like me. So I found more identity around Black excellence, whether it was Prince, or whether it was Basquiat, or whether it was incredible American pop culture, right? So I studied these French books. I traveled. I worked in Japan. I worked in Switzerland. I worked in three-star Michelin in France. And I had to learn several different languages. And everywhere I was-, I was the only person of color. And I had a lot of questions around that. Where do I fit in? What is my restaurant going to look like? Do I cook African food? Do I cook Swedish food? Do I cook French food? But the Black experience is obviously not monolithic. You can be Black from Haiti. You can be Black from Jamaica. You could be Black from America, from Africa. And for me, searching for my Ethiopian identity through food, through the place I was living in, in Harlem in New York City, what would that taste like? That was a journey for me.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You speak with such pride about being an immigrant and you've said one of your most memorable experiences, of all of these remarkable experiences you've had, is the day that you were sworn in –
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
Yes.
KRISTEN WELKER:
– as a U.S. citizen. Why was that so meaningful for you? And why is that so much a part of what you bring to every dish, every restaurant?
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
I would say, besides my kids being born and day we got married, I would say that's the most important day in my life because it was also a sign of a journey that I do belong, I have a place because I wanted -- you know, immigrants, we choose to come to America. Especially for me, I could live in a very comfortable country. And I love Sweden as well. But in America, I was allowed to hold onto my Ethiopian identity, my Swedish culture, but also at the same time be an American. And as a chef, I can cook from all of these experiences, right?
KRISTEN WELKER:
Do you think the American dream is still available to immigrants today in the way that it was for you when you first got here?
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
I think the American dream is alive. You just have to fight and battle for it more than ever. And I know we will because the American dream, it's not a four-year cycle. It's much larger than that. It's something that the imperfection, or the perfection of my American journey doesn't have an end to it. You know, my kids are born and raised in Harlem. They are truly born in America. But they're equally proud of their Swedish and Ethiopian background. And that's what it means to be American.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Let's talk about this beautiful space where we're sitting right now –
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
Yes.
KRISTEN WELKER:
– Marcus DC. How do you hope people feel after they eat one of your meals here?
MARCUS SAMUELSSON:
I don't hope. I know people feel great, fantastic because guests, our restaurant, we're very privileged and very excited about how busy we are in these very difficult times, right? I know a lot of restaurateurs, not just in D.C., are working extremely hard. And, you know, the restaurant community, we always have to respond to what happens around us, right? When the unknown of cost of goods, we have to deal with that. When the labor market goes up and down, we have to deal with that. When the farms and the restaurant are getting raided, we have to deal with that. Not just as something that we see on social media, but something that is actually, it’s real emotion. We know people in our community, in our very industry. And the cooks and the servers are not the ones that are creating issues. They're hard-working people, extremely passionate about being Americans and contributing. The cooks, the gardener, the server, the person who makes the beds at this hotel, they're not the ones creating issues. They're actually the ones that are adding to the American experience.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
And when we come back, our “Meet The Moment” conversation with the director of the blockbuster "Wicked" movies, Jon M. Chu.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Welcome back. You know this show as the place where elected officials come to face tough questions. But for its 1950 Christmas broadcast, Meet the Press flipped the script. Democratic Senator Paul Douglas was invited to sit in the moderator’s chair. And for one day, the reporters found themselves on the receiving end of the questions they usually asked.
[BEGIN TAPE]
MARTHA ROUNTREE:
Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, members of the press, and Senator Douglas. During 1950 Meet the Press has been very fortunate in having on its press panel some of the outstanding reporters on Capitol Hill. Through their sharp questioning, Meet the Press has kept you abreast of the news. In fact, it has made news. A newspaperman cannot report on the men and women who formulate our national and international policies without the background to interpret the information, which he gathers. We have many letters from you viewers asking about the news people who appear on Meet the Press, what they think, and what they are like. Today, we are going to give you a chance to hear for yourselves. Senator Douglas has been promised the opportunity to question our reporters today, and for this time only our press panel will be on the receiving end. The reporters will do the answering and, Senator Douglas, if you run out of questions, our Meet the Press panel always has a good reserve and they will take over. In the meantime you are on your own, as long as you can think of questions to ask. So let's have the first questions.
SEN. PAUL DOUGLAS:
Well, Miss Rountree, first may I say that it is a novel experience for a politician to have the chance to question the members of the press. Until this afternoon the shoe has always been on the other foot. Previously, the politicians who have been unwary enough to accept the invitation to appear on this program have been thrust into the limelight, have been quickly stripped of their clothes, and then like St. Simeon of old, exposed to the whizzing of arrows, some of them poisoned, which come from the crossbows of the men and women of the press. It is a tribute to the healing powers of Christmas that has led the directors of this program to reverse the roles and permit a member of the most abused of American classes, a public official, to question his tormentors. This is as unusual as it would be for a man to bite a dog. But I shall not aim any poisoned arrows. In the first place, I have no grudges to pay off since I have been treated better by the press than I deserve; and secondly, I also, believe it or not, am affected by the spirit of Christmas myself, and, hence, I would like to keep the discussion on an urbane and friendly basis.
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KRISTEN WELKER:
Just remarkable. That was Christmas Eve, 1950. And you can watch the full episode from 1950 — with the reporters' answers — on MeetThePress.com. When we come back, my conversation with filmmaker Jon M. Chu.
[BEGIN TAPE]
JON M. CHU:
But to change culture, it takes time. You cannot force people to do that. We can't have a debate and just say, "Everyone agrees with that." I'm sick of having a debate and conversation about it. Just do it and prove it.
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KRISTEN WELKER:
Welcome back. Hollywood director Jon M. Chu has built a career on turning stories about outsiders into celebrations of belonging, from his groundbreaking hit “Crazy Rich Asians” to the vibrant cinematic world of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights.” Now, Chu is taking on his most ambitious project yet: “Wicked: For Good,” the second chapter in his epic adaptation of the beloved Broadway musical. Take a look. I sat down with Chu for a “Meet the Moment” conversation about following his own yellow brick road and finding strength in every twist and turn.
[BEGIN TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
“Wicked” has become a cultural phenomenon. It's the most profitable Broadway film adaptation of all time. It was nominated for ten Oscars, including Best Picture. It was named one of the Top Ten Films of 2024 by the American Film Institute. What does that mean to you personally?
JON M. CHU:
My whole life, I've been trying to prove myself that I can be here, that I can be in this business. And I think I was always searching for that kind of validation. But through the process of making movies and doing it over – and I had a whole long career before ever doing “Wicked” – I think I got killed many times. I felt like I couldn't go on many times. I felt like maybe I don't deserve to be here many times. But I think through the process of making this movie, I've learned so much from Elphaba and Glinda and from Cynthia and Ariana. I think I've gotten to let go of that idea of proving yourself. We were too in it. It was too long to wait for validation. So we had to give ourselves that.
KRISTEN WELKER:
So you learned to trust yourself?
JON M. CHU:
Absolutely.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Well, when you were 23 years old, you're just starting out, you'd actually gotten two movie deals.
JON M. CHU:
Yup.
KRISTEN WELKER:
And then they fell through. Did you think, Jon, in those years that you were going to give up? That you couldn't make it in this business?
JON M. CHU:
Absolutely. There were days where I was like, "Am I a fool?" Those were times when I would go into USC – they asked me to speak at USC, because this is the guy that just came out of college and got his deal – and we pull in, and I drop my friend off who's going to school there. And I sit in the loading dock, and I'm watching all these kids excited about making a movie. And I feel like nothing. I feel like – and I just started to weep. It was probably the first time I cried in 20 years or something at that point. I was like, "These people think I'm a complete fake."
KRISTEN WELKER:
And then came “Crazy Rich Asians.” How did that change your life?
JON M. CHU:
So I had to learn every movie I was doing. And there's a certain point where I remember, I was making “Now You See Me 2” with Mark Ruffalo and Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman. And I hit my 10,000 hours like they say, but I felt it. And it was the first time I felt like, "Oh, I don't have to prove myself. I know I can hang with these people." And then I was looking at what I was doing. I was like, "Oh, anyone could make this movie. What is the movie that I can only make? What's the thing that scares me the most?" And the thing that scared me the most was my cultural identity crisis, talking about being an Asian-American. It was my whole life, even my parents sort of were saying, "Make sure people don't even think about that about you so that you fit in." So to actually put a spotlight on it, oh my gosh, people are going to start saying, "Ni-hao" to me. They're going to start sending me Asian scripts all the time instead of just seeing me as a director. So to go back was really difficult, but at the same time, it felt like it was the thing I had to do. And so I found this book, “Crazy Rich Asians” about an Asian-American girl going to Asia for the first time. I understood that story. The romantic comedy part of it, sure, whatever. The wealth part of it, sure, whatever, but self-worth about somebody of this generation figuring out their cultural identity of both American and Asian, to me that was something that I could tell.
KRISTEN WELKER:
And Asian-Americans are underrepresented still in Hollywood, in film and TV. What do you think needs to happen to change that, having wrestled with all of those really complex emotions that you have?
JON M. CHU:
I think we just need more. I think “Crazy Rich Asians” was great, because it cracked the door open or showed a path for the other people who needed to invest money in this. I'm not sure if it was for us. I think it was for everyone else to say, "Oh, these actors have value.” So in my mind, that was just an avenue to open up what other people looked at us. Now it's all of our turns to like, all right, let's own our stories and tell every version of our story we could, so that nothing was dependent on just one movie. And so I think we're in that process. I think we have to be careful to expect too big of a change too quickly. Of course, we want that, but to change culture, it takes time. You cannot force people to do that. We can't have a debate and just say, "Everyone agrees with that." I'm sick of having a debate and conversation about it. Just do it and prove it.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You're talking about kind of where the future of filmmaking goes. And obviously, a part of that is the technology. It's AI as well. “Taxi Driver” screenwriter, Paul Schrader, said that he thinks Hollywood is "only two years away from the first AI feature." And he's ready to make it. What do you make of that? And would you make a film that had AI actors?
JON M. CHU:
Listen. I grew up around technology. Technology gave me a lot of opportunities. Technology is the great democratizer of access to being able to tell stories. Otherwise, the people who own the exhibitors are the ones that are allowed to tell you whether you get to say and have space in this place. But that's no longer the case because of technology. And I've been through all the debates of, "You can't go digital. You can't do this, you can't do that." And always you can't stop the change of technology, the evolution of that. These are tools that empower us. I think we're looking at the wrong thing. I think AI is a distraction. I think – well, AI is many things – but I think AI as a generator is a distraction. Okay, that can be a tool. We'll have a category of that, whatever. You know what the most dangerous part? It's that AI is being used in the algorithm that is capturing and cultivating our brains. When you go on, we always used to say, "Follow your curiosity. Whatever makes you feel curious, go there." That's been our guiding light. Our instincts will follow it all. But our incentives have changed, and now they have figured out how to capture our curiosity, rage, hate, whatever, violence. That's going to capture us. And so now we can't trust our curiosity because of this AI creation that's invading what we look at. So much so, like we lived in analog days and the digital age, so we can kind of have a perspective. When I look at my kids, they don't know. We can say algorithm, but they don't know the before times, so they don't know the freedom of what that is. I think the AI in this algorithm is way more poisonous, and the fact is, our whole businesses, our whole industry, our whole economy is built around capturing the minds of us now. We should be talking about that. How do we change the incentive from just provoking people on a one-line thing that could be totally fake? It doesn't matter. We're paying people to get those clicks. So we can talk about generative AI. We can do all that stuff, and that debate will be happening. The original sin of capturing all these other creative things and mining that, of course, but oh my God, we have to pay attention to this thing that we have maybe this much of a window to at least get in control of. Because we won't know the difference after a certain period of time.
KRISTEN WELKER:
You talked about the magic of going to a movie theater. Do you worry that part of that is being lost because of streaming, which is a platform that obviously you are on as well? But you love that experience of being in a movie theater.
JON M. CHU:
I think movies are one of our last analog spaces. It's a space that we have to protect. When you go into a movie theater, you have to make a choice to go in. You have to leave your phone. You have to go into the dark. You have to take effort, and then you have to just sit back in the dark and watch something for two hours through someone else's perspective. That is maybe one of the last spaces we have to do that. It is a part of our culture. We built it in to be a place where we can question the things we're going through or ask questions or spread some sort of joy or hope. And in a time where I think the vision of who we are is sort of lost in the news now. It's all over the place. We're getting such hard things coming at us that – I mean, that's why I love the segment is it gives you light in this crazy information age – that I feel like in a movie you actually are forced to have that space. So I think it's more than just entertainment. I think it's when we don't have a vision for who we are, the loudest, strongest person in the room out in the airwaves gets the power. And not many people can get that kind of power. But you know what? Movies can. Movies can be louder. And so if you can spread the idea like, "Hey, this is who we can be," that's why I love “Wicked.” Because “Wicked,” even though it's a fantasy, even though it's a fairy tale, it's our access into a human experience. What does it feel like when you believe so deeply, when you love so deeply, when you sacrifice everything? That we still have the capacity to do that. It makes you believe that we can still do that. And I believe that fully. It's what my parents taught me. It's what America has taught me. And the space in the movies are the thing that set horizon lines for all of us to be able to know that that still exists for us. So I think that space is very important.
[END TAPE]
KRISTEN WELKER:
That's all for today. Thanks for watching. Have a very Happy New Year. We'll be back next week because if it's Sunday, it's Meet the Press.
