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Bill Kurtis
187 Plays1 year ago
This is Move The Needle with Rob Kaplan. Where we talk to people who lead, innovate, and inspire. Today on the Move The Needle, Rob talks with Bill Kurtis, America's anchorman. You probably know him from NPR's Wait, Wait...Don't Tell Me, or one of the many documentaries he's produced and hosted for his cable network. Bill has had a great career as a journalist and an entrepreneur.
Bill traveled the world for the Peabody Award-winning PBS series The New Explorers and documentaries that have taken on the most pressing environmental issues of our time. Kurtis Productions has created programs for the A&E Network, including the long-running, award-winning Investigative Reports and Cold Case Files, and American Greed seen on CNBC.
Bill anchored the prime time news broadcasts on CBS-owned WWBM-TV Chicago and co-anchored the CBS Morning News from 1982-1986. He also served as a CBS network correspondent.
Currently, he can be heard on NPR Radio as the co-host of the celebrated weekly news quiz, Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me. And as the host of the daily news magazine, Through the Decades, taking a look back at each day through the lens of history.
He also provided the satirical narration for the feature film comedy Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.
He has authored Bill Kurtis: On Assignment, a review of major news stories he covered accompanied by his own photographs. Using his background as a lawyer, he wrote, The Death Penalty on Trial: Crisis in American Justice, exploring the issues surrounding capital punishment.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:06
Speaker
This is Move the Needle with Rob Kaplan, where we talk to people who lead, innovate and inspire. You got a phone call from a station in Chicago that watched a gather a tape of your time on the air, particularly covering this tornado. Yes, I had sent the tape out, but they also had seen a broadcast early in the morning, the very first one out of Topeka in the morning. Mike Wallace was doing the morning news.
00:00:34
Speaker
They were impressed by the law degree and the license. Today, everybody's a lawyer, it seems like, but then it was unusual.
Meet Bill Curtis: A Renowned Journalist
00:00:42
Speaker
Today on Move the Needle, Rob talks to Bill Curtis, America's Anchorman. You probably know him from NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me for one of the many documentaries he produced and hosted for the AME cable network. But Bill has had a remarkable career as a journalist and entrepreneur.
00:01:11
Speaker
So even before Anchorman, I knew of Bill Curtis. I used to watch him on television when he was a newscaster. And that's probably why, like many others, I was so tickled when I watched the movie Anchorman. And I think, man, I know that voice. That's Bill Curtis. In the years since then, I've tracked very closely the documentaries he's made and all the work he's done on different series as an independent producer.
00:01:40
Speaker
I'm thrilled today to be joined by Bill Curtis. Bill is a highly accomplished reporter, news person for the last several decades. He's also a producer and business person in the media business and has produced a whole range of shows that most of our listeners have watched at one time or another.
00:02:06
Speaker
He also is very well known, which we'll talk about as we talk with Bill. He is the voice of Anchorman and you'll recognize the voice as soon as you hear it. Bill, it's an honor and we're thrilled to have you on Move the Needle. Well, thank you, Rob. Now, Bill, you were born in Florida, but you wound up going to college at my alma mater, University of Kansas. How'd you find your way from Florida to Lawrence,
Bill Curtis' Early Life and Education
00:02:34
Speaker
Kansas?
00:02:34
Speaker
The year was 1940, and we were ready to go into World War II. My dad had been in the service since 1936. He also was from Kansas, Emporia State Teachers College, but wanted to fly. So he got a job with the Marine Corps, went to Pensacola and the Naval Training Facility there, became an instructor. So he was up and running when I was born in 1940.
00:03:04
Speaker
But during the war, why he wound up in Okinawa and points east, and my mother and I then went back to her home, which was in Wayside, Kansas, a little rural town, and the home place with about five aunts and an uncle. And since all the men were serving in the service, why they essentially raised me.
00:03:34
Speaker
And it was about four years before my dad came home. And then we began traveling, moving around. That's the military life. Wind up for junior high and high school in Independence, Kansas. So you went to college in Kansas, and then you went on to go to law school, not that far away at Washburn University School of Law. Yes. And what made you go to law school that you think you were going to become a lawyer? I did. Boy, I did.
00:04:03
Speaker
My part-time job was by the time I graduated from law school in 1966, I had 10 years experience in radio, had the big voice. And so I was able to work part-time going to school and law school part-time at the TV station. There's only one in town. And that was very easy and the nice way to pay your way through. For those of us from Kansas,
00:04:32
Speaker
And I grew up, and I remember this, Topeka, Kansas is the state capital, but it's also famous in terms of history for some extremely serious tornadoes.
00:04:47
Speaker
This is Topeka, Kansas, and this is the aftermath of the most destructive tornado ever to strike the state capital. It sliced a path of death and damage a half mile wide and 15 miles long. 17 were killed, 3,500 people were homeless, 500 homes and 50 businesses destroyed. Damage estimated at $100 million.
00:05:07
Speaker
Well, I had been studying for the bar tax class and the news director of WIBW TV asked me, you know, I'm going on vacation. He said, could you come out and do the six o'clock for me? And so I can leave early.
00:05:24
Speaker
Well, it proved to be fortuitous.
Career Breakthrough: Tornado Reporting
00:05:27
Speaker
I get out there. We do the 6 o'clock news. And by 6.30, we have some front coming in from Manhattan, Kansas, 60 miles to the west. And General Manager Charlie Ross said, why don't you stick around? Let's go back in at 7.
00:05:45
Speaker
We'll give an update, and if there's a warning, fine. None of us particularly alarmed. We didn't have all the remote cameras back in 1966, but we did have a safety system with human observers that went out to their places at the edge of town.
00:06:08
Speaker
to send in to the radio stations primarily. Here's a big cloud, here's the storefront, and God forbid if there was a twister that hit the ground.
00:06:20
Speaker
I'm all set to go at 7 o'clock. We didn't want to break in to Lost in Space, which was a very popular show. Right. I remember it. When you're the general manager, one, you don't want complaints, and two, you don't want to lose any commercials. So we were going to go in in about 15 seconds and then jump out. So about 7 o'clock.
00:06:47
Speaker
I hear a two-way radio from one of our cameramen, and he said, I'm at the southwest edge of the city. We have a tornado, and it's on the ground. And there are animals that are flying in the air. In fact, it was a Shetland pony farm, and the poor ponies were impaled on the fence. Oh, boy. So I knew immediately, whoa,
00:07:12
Speaker
this is serious, and that it fell to me to sound the alarm. It was a moment, but because you realized the next words that you would say meant life and death, and you had to get people into the basement. So I said, for God's sake, take cover.
00:07:32
Speaker
And you broke in and this is on television. Live. And this is covering the market area for that station. That's right. Since we were the 75% of the market was watching us since we were the only TV station in town with a popular show. And little did we know, but people were moving to the basement. And after checking in later, even to this day,
00:08:00
Speaker
I'll get reports of thank you. And thank you. I believed you. We went to the basement and you saved our lives. So you're you're about to finish law school. I gather you're toward the end. You do this report and I gather this experience changed your career and the direction of your
A New Chapter in Chicago
00:08:23
Speaker
career. Yes. And life. I had already accepted a job with a law firm in Wichita, Kansas.
00:08:31
Speaker
It was a hard decision because, you know, you go to law school, here's three years to become a lawyer. Shouldn't you try it out for just a little bit? At the time, the networks like CBS News were just growing. Murrow had come back at the end of the war. He still ruled broadcasting with radio with all his boys. And so Douglas Edwards was doing a 15 minute newscast.
00:08:59
Speaker
It was not clear the path that the networks were going to take. Now, in just a year or so, you've got the Vietnam War.
00:09:10
Speaker
They would be very, it will become a living room war. You have the Civil Rights Movement. There was no manual to cover for television, the Civil Rights Movement, but these things put it on a very fast track. So you got a phone call from a station in Chicago that watched, I gather, a tape of your time on the air, particularly covering this tornado? Yes, I had sent the tape out.
00:09:38
Speaker
But they also had seen a broadcast early in the morning, the very first one out of Topeka in the morning. Mike Wallace was doing the morning news. They were impressed by the law degree and the license. And I was, you know, today everybody's a lawyer, it seems like, but then it was unusual. And so I'll find out. So they asked you to come to Chicago. And was it a hard decision or you knew this was a great opportunity?
00:10:07
Speaker
It had been a hard decision. I mean, it was really, I was really struggling with it because it meant the rest of my life. And, you know, I like to say, it was as if God was talking and looking down and he'd say, what do I have to do to convince you broadcasting is responsible. And the responsibility of facing the disaster and being able to affect
00:10:34
Speaker
life and death decisions was really what turned me. And during those years, I'll mention, I mean, this was, as you mentioned, the Vietnam War. Unfortunately, the assassination of Martin Luther King, the assassination
00:10:49
Speaker
of Bobby Kennedy, the Democratic National Committee, riots in Chicago. And I gather you were dispatched to cover those and other key events. Yes. It was a crucible for me because I landed without a lot of experience on the ground as a reporter. So suddenly I land the day that Richard Speck
00:11:14
Speaker
was ready to go to trial. Richard Speck killed eight student nurses. Chicago is still tingling with fear. You know, it was a trial of the century, and I come in with a law degree. Well, I'm ready to go.
00:11:28
Speaker
So they send me down. I cover that. Then we move into 1968. Protesters come in for the Democratic National Convention. That goes worldwide with its, you know, police riot into the crowd. And then spinning out of that was the conspiracy trial for the seven defendants, the protesters, you know, Abby Hoffman, Jerry Rubin and David Dellinger, Tom Hayden.
00:11:58
Speaker
And I gather your reporting attached to the Chicago affiliate, but your your reports are being carried on national news. I was the guy in the courtroom. I won't say no television station wants to assign a reporter strictly to a trial that is going to last six months because they lose him on the street. But this was important enough that I went in and I stayed. It was
00:12:25
Speaker
Great, great education because you have Judge Hoffman who was afraid that these guys were going to disrupt justice and the trial. Bill Kunstler, the defense attorney, the most flamboyant protesters in the country, and they were ready to go. So it was both entertaining
00:12:49
Speaker
and also very important in the law. I recognize Bill Curtis from the years that
00:12:59
Speaker
reports on either the Manson trial or other significant news events. And so he was a very recognizable face and name for a number of years. I wasn't as aware of all the different assignments that he had taken in Los Angeles and Chicago and his work as an independent producer. Well, when I arrived, news was defined by the newspapers.
00:13:29
Speaker
And everybody said, well, it's a great newspaper town for news. So we had to establish not only a new look, but a new practice. And that is we want to break stories. We want to have an investigative unit. We want to go out and do more than just read the paper and go out and cover those stories.
00:13:54
Speaker
So by the time 1978 comes around, I had a focus unit, which was an investigative unit. I went out to a guy who was serving with special forces at Pleiku, up around the, you know, the military zone. He said, yes, he was suffering from sexual dysfunction, headaches, again, these nebulous kind of
00:14:20
Speaker
symptoms that you really couldn't find a reason for. And we were sitting in his living room, shooting the interview.
00:14:29
Speaker
And he had a little five-year-old boy who walked in and he put his hand on his knee and his small finger, the tip of it was just hanging by skin. It was a congenital problem, birth defect. And my cameraman, I glanced at him and kind of pointed, he zooms in on the child's finger. Later when we would
00:14:55
Speaker
play the hour-long documentary that we did for a congressional armed services committee. But they sent their staffers. So the staffers, they go to a military, nobody really cared, until 10 minutes in.
00:15:14
Speaker
I hear, oh my God, and it goes quiet. And you could hear a pin drop for the rest of the hour. That said it all. You could see, oh my God, we poisoned our own troops. The white defoliant was falling on them.
00:15:39
Speaker
related to that story, or related to Vietnam aspect of that story, you also did a lot of work on the children of American soldiers left behind in Vietnam. Yes. It was by accident, we were the first ones back to Vietnam five years later in 1980. And we're there for the Adrian story. And they're going to take us out to the
00:16:07
Speaker
you know, the Mekong, and show us how we took out 270,000 acres of the mangroves that are very, very valuable, or were, that Ryan left. So I'm walking across the street. We have nice, flexible, you know, freedom to do what we want. And right in front of the old Senate and the
00:16:34
Speaker
Continental Palace, you know now it was falling down on the caravel where all the CBS people stayed On Tudo Street. I was walking across and they looked down and here is a child and the child is Probably eight or nine years old and has an American face Yeah, and I follow the child back to the curb and I said, we're
00:17:00
Speaker
And there is the mother selling steaming sandwiches and rice on the corner. And I went to her and I said, his father's American. And she nods her head. Here? No, he left. And she said, but I can't talk now because there was a communist monitor watching us wherever we went. And then again, you know, I say to myself, my God,
00:17:30
Speaker
this is what happened. You know, when we pulled out so fast at 75, we had to leave the children behind. Turns out there were 15,000 of these children of war, our GIs, but it's a little different because we had to move so fast. A lot of the fathers of these children wanted them
00:17:54
Speaker
wanted to bring the mother and the child to the United States. So when I started checking out, somebody who says that you have a child there, instead of hanging up, they wanted more information.
00:18:11
Speaker
And that's still a very good story because now those kids are 21, they're 25, you know, they're more in their 30s. So let me roll forward. And I'm going to briefly mention in 1982, you became co-anchor of CBS morning news with Diane Sawyer. Yes.
00:18:30
Speaker
And you did that for a number of years, but I want to jump a little bit. Just a few years later, you made a big decision in addition to your reporting activities to start a production company.
00:18:52
Speaker
There are people looking to kill me. My uncle won't rest until he kills me or my mother. Hello, I'm Bill Curtis.
00:19:01
Speaker
His name is Philip Leonetti. For years, he was one of the most powerful members of one of the mob's most powerful families, the Bruno family, which controlled Philadelphia and Atlantic City. The uncle he says now wants him dead is Nicky Scarfo, one of the most vicious mafia chiefs ever in American history. In this edition of investigative reports, we hear from Leonetti's own lips, as he details a vivid tale of mafia takeovers and violence.
00:19:28
Speaker
Tell us, how did you decide to start a production company and in effect become an entrepreneur in addition to being a reporter?
From Anchoring to Documentaries
00:19:36
Speaker
Well, after I got to New York, everybody wants to be a network anchor, of course. Cronkite had been gone. He was my mentor. And I found that the politics within CBS news was not pleasant because, and I, you know, my job was anchoring.
00:19:56
Speaker
They had writers and reporters out into the field, and I wasn't doing what I really loved doing. And so I decided I'm going to leave. I'm going to go back to Chicago where I have a base, and there I'm going to start producing documentaries. And so I got back, and a bit off more than I could chew, of course. I wasn't a businessman. I was a reporter.
00:20:25
Speaker
That's why I am almost the only talent to leave the network and start. I'm not the only one, but there aren't many. And where you're able to choose your own story and produce it as you like. And to realize you got to do three things. One, you have to be able to produce a product that other people will want. And two, you have to
00:20:52
Speaker
sell it, find a distributor and you have to get funding in order to produce it. You either use your own money or you get an investors, I use my own money. The lucky thing again, lucky deal here was the cable. Cable was beginning to make its mark. Hadn't grown to where it is today.
00:21:18
Speaker
And they needed product. Yes. And the program director for A&E.
00:21:25
Speaker
was, had been in Chicago, knew me, knew my background, and said, why don't you come do some shows with us? We'll pay you and you create documentaries. Why do you want them? Well, right now they call us the World War II network because we use those old Nazi films, you know, because they're cheap, and reruns. But
00:21:50
Speaker
you give us an identity, our own identity, which was original documentaries, and they're cheaper than the reruns to do. And we start with investigative reports, sometimes reworking British documentaries, sometimes we had our originals our own. And within that genre, we began to grow. In the end,
00:22:15
Speaker
We have produced 500 documentaries over a period of about 20 years, I guess. It's kind of what I seem to be born to do. And over 35 years, over 35 years then, a typical week or month for you would look like what? When you're running the business, you work all the time, seven days a week. And then I was going out on one particular series that I really like called The New Explorers.
00:22:46
Speaker
And it was a PBS. One reviewer said, I remember it. Yeah, it's Nova with an adrenaline rush.
00:22:54
Speaker
And I put myself sort of like a 60 minutes style into the piece. And early on, I identified climate change as the next really, really big story that is going to move off the feature page onto the front page. We call it reshooting the world. It was just fun. But you're working all the time, thinking of stories, producing stories.
00:23:20
Speaker
We had great education. The Department of Energy stepped in and created an education program to go with these videos. One interesting thing is that I wanted to combine VCR, a story, with educational materials. DOE did the materials. I did the story and I went down to visit an elementary school.
00:23:45
Speaker
right in the middle of Robert Taylor Holmes, gang headquarters, drugs. And the teacher said, yes, we have our sirens go off and we are trained to go by the wall, just like they train tornadoes in warnings. But this is a safe zone for the kids. Over there, she pointed to
00:24:11
Speaker
a rainforest that they had created inside the school. And they would go in and listen to the sounds of the rainforest. I mean, it brings tears to your eyes. And a couple years ago, I ran into her and she said, you know, I'm still using
00:24:27
Speaker
those educational materials. So then I'm going to skip ahead while you're doing all this, somehow you get the opportunity to do the narration for, I guess I would call it zany, one of my favorite movies. There was a time, a time before cable, when the local anchorman reigned supreme.
00:24:56
Speaker
when people believed everything they heard on TV. This was an age when only men were allowed to read the news. And in San Diego, one anchorman was more man than the rest. His name was Ron Burgundy. He was like a god walking amongst mere mortals. He had a voice that could make a wolverine purr.
00:25:24
Speaker
And suits so fine they made Sinatra look like a hobo. In other words, Ron Burgundy was the foals. How did that happen? Well, the boy genius, Adam McKay, it was his first movie. He had been in improv classes at Second City here in Chicago when
00:25:44
Speaker
Walter Jacobs and I, my co-anchor, were writing high as the local anchors. And sort of had this idea with Will, they were partners, that, what do we do? You know, a movie. I turn out to be his favorite character. Not necessarily, you know, the wacky guy, Will did that, but well-respected anchorman.
00:26:09
Speaker
So he sent me the script and I had to call him and say, no, you know, uh, journalists don't do movies. I'm sorry, but the, you know, I've, I've been able to last this long and, uh, I've got to say no, but I will read it. And so on a plane, I started reading and it was so funny. I was laughing out loud. People were looking at me. So I called him and I said, you know, maybe what do we do next?
00:26:37
Speaker
He said, well, we'll put you on a microphone and you can, you have kind of an audition, you'll be reading to me. Well, I was reading to Adam, Will, Judd Apatow, God knows probably Steve Carell and Paul, I mean the ensemble out there. And the thing about humor is if you write it and tell one, a joke one time, it's not funny to you anymore.
00:27:05
Speaker
So they had written the script and kind of drained themselves of the humor that went with it. Not for me. And I started in reading it in my quote, audition, laughed after every line. And that just gave them a boost. And also it was the voice they were looking for.
00:27:28
Speaker
And how long did it take to do the role you played there? How many weeks or months did it take to execute that role? About 20 minutes. You're serious? Yeah. I mean, I'm not on camera. So they basically let you sit down like in a setting and you read your lines. Yeah. Yeah. In my own little audio booth. And to show you, this was what, 13 years ago,
00:27:54
Speaker
to show you the saturation it has made to generations now, especially the kids who love it. We were in Carnegie Hall last week.
00:28:05
Speaker
With wait, wait, don't tell me in the from NPR and and he said and Peters said somebody asked about Bill Curtis and He said well, he was the the Anchorman narrator And turns to me which was a cue to you know, give my first Take there was a time a time before cable when only men read the news and
00:28:33
Speaker
And in San Diego, that man was, and I paused and kind of pointed to the audience in unison. We have 2,500 people say Ron Burgundy. I mean, it's part of the culture now. So let me mention a couple other things. I'm going to step back and ask you some broader questions. You've obviously, you've written three books.
00:28:57
Speaker
on assignment, death penalty on trial, the prairie table cookbook. And I'll lead into the last one. You obviously are very still actively involved in the state of Kansas. And I know you run a ranch and a farm in Kansas. Tell me a little bit about that and some of the other things you do. Well, I fell in love with tall grass prairie.
00:29:20
Speaker
because deep rooted prairie plants native can go down 20 feet and be a storage repository of carbon. And I really see them and the natural world as our answer to get out of this problem of climate change. Well, so I'm invested. I bought my own ranch. And over the course of 20, 25 years, why
00:29:47
Speaker
You want to make a little money on it, and grass-fed beef fall right into what I was doing. And there again, as a businessman, I had to learn the beef business. That was a mistake, because it's hard. It's hard. Yeah, it is hard. It is hard.
00:30:09
Speaker
In the process of growing old and not having the time to devote to, I'm out of that beef business now. I'm turning it over to my daughter. So now she has the problems and the love. Beautiful. She lives there.
00:30:24
Speaker
So let's talk a little bit about the world today and let me start with the state of journalism.
The State of Modern Journalism
00:30:30
Speaker
I think it might be hard today to know exactly where to turn to get straight down the middle news. What's your assessment on what's happened to the news business? I feel very good.
00:30:40
Speaker
about the skill of the reporters that we see both at a network level and local. They have been trained at journalism schools that now teach everything from podcasting to convergence of these various forms of media. You know, I can't remember somebody doing a standup for a local newscast who made a mistake. Same goes with the networks. The problem is that
00:31:10
Speaker
We have polarized and politicized the big distributors. Yeah. So I was watching a documentary and maybe it's old, but I just started watching on Rupert Murdoch and what he did in Australia, then bringing that to the UK and then bringing that to New York City and the post and so on. And with the philosophy that rather than covering the news, the news has to be quote unquote sold.
00:31:38
Speaker
you have to make it, dress it up so people want to quote unquote buy it. I don't know what your thought is on how big an impact has Rupert Murdoch had and that philosophy on the news business. An enormous impact. You say buy it. That means money. That means he's using the media to make money for himself and the corporation. Now there's a counter trend, which I know you're aware of where some
00:32:09
Speaker
news media is being taken over and turned into nonprofits. What do you think the trend is there? Do some of our investigative and news media need to become nonprofits? Where's the money going to come from to run them? My donations, I'm afraid. Well, the BBC gets a percentage of every dollar in taxes that the Brits pay.
00:32:36
Speaker
Are we willing to do that? I just don't think that it will work. Newspapers are on a terrible slide, and they have been so long. You need money to send people. We don't have foreign correspondence anymore. Now CNN does.
00:32:59
Speaker
It's just too expensive. It's too expensive to keep somebody living there. It's $100,000 and more, maybe $200,000 to put a bureau chief, even one person on the ground. Okay, so let me ask you, you must talk to reporters frequently and young reporters emerging in their careers. What's the advice you give to reporters on how to develop their career?
00:33:24
Speaker
They must set their own standards, whether it's management or something else, tells them, look, we want to, I've never had anybody in the business say, look, let's lean this story this way or sway. I mean, I've never experienced that.
00:33:40
Speaker
But if they look around and there are too many advertisements, they're not covering the right stories. They have to speak up and maybe go someplace where they're able to do that. And I gather your values heavily influence the way you did the job. Very much. Very much. You speak out and you're going to be tested.
00:34:03
Speaker
along the way. And you're going to have to recognize the tests and make your points, argue them. Take a chance, take a risk. So what is the next major media communications device?
00:34:22
Speaker
You know, on the phone, yeah, you can see the pictures, but you're not going to look at a half hour for a documentary that way. But you're finding the documentaries you've done, is there a role for that? Yes. And they may have found, and I say they, in the major networks, because they have the money, may have found the way to do it, to satisfy both
00:34:50
Speaker
headlines and in-depth reporting. It's called streaming. So you will see on a half hour show, they will actually plug. If you want to know more about that, go to our streaming network and on streaming while you can go in depth. That may be the answer. I use it all the time, putting the kids to sleep while they're waiting for them to go to bed. I do it all every night. We have a broad audience.
00:35:20
Speaker
listening to this we have students we have community leaders we have business leaders i think the thing that most of our listeners have in common is they are interested in the world and they have a motivation to make the world a better place
00:35:35
Speaker
Given your years of experience and many accomplishments, what advice would you give to folks listening to this about an action they can take that can help move the needle and improve either their community or their state or their country?
Call to Action: Combating Climate Change
00:35:51
Speaker
The media rules our lives in many cases because it sets a priority.
00:35:57
Speaker
on things that are important to us, not necessarily the most important things. Right now, climate change is the most important thing. We're going to lose 150 million people on the coasts with rising oceans. We're right now, deforestation in the Amazon, we're expelling more carbon than oxygen.
00:36:21
Speaker
And nobody seems to really care. They're still debating it. We're not going to care until it becomes a crisis. And that's how we make our decisions. Bill Curtis, thank you for all you've done. You're a great role model. You've been a great leader.
00:36:40
Speaker
a business person, reporter, entrepreneur. You've moved the needle and made the world a better place. So thank you for what you've done and what you will continue to do. And it's been a pleasure talking with you today. Oh, Rob. Well, you're a good questioner and you squeezed me dry. I don't have anything left.
00:37:03
Speaker
Next time on Move the Needle with Rob Kaplan. I thought people went door to door and put up yard signs in the fall.
00:37:11
Speaker
thought everybody's dad got voted on, whether they were continuing their job or losing their job. And that became a very familiar rhythm in my household. Rob talks to former Kansas Governor and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who literally has spent her whole life in politics. That's what's next on Move the Needle with Rob Kaplan.
00:37:41
Speaker
Move the Needle with Rob Kaplan is produced and edited by Sam Zaff and Scott Richardson and I'm executive producer Ronell Golden. We want to thank Michelle Brown and Zorik's team from Hello Studios for help with production and logistics. Do not forget to subscribe to Move the Needle wherever you get your podcasts and to Rob's YouTube channel. Until next time, this was Move the Needle with Rob Kaplan.