10-2-24 *INTERVIEW* Mike Viqueira DC Bureau Chief for News Nation on The VP Debate

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
All right, let's switch gears. I just want to get
that in.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
I'm very, very pleased to welcome to the show for
the first time, Mike Vikara.

Speaker 1 (00:06):
And Mike runs.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
The DC Bureau for News Nation, which my listeners know
is the television network that my wife and I watch
most now when it comes to getting our news, and
we have for quite some time. And Mike has won
Emmy's and he's been at many big networks, and it's
just too long a resume to go through all of it.

Speaker 1 (00:27):
I'm very grateful to have you here on the show. Mike,
thanks for being here.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Well, it's great after an introduction like that, I have
to say that I am very pleased to be here.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
All right, there you go.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Uh So, I want to actually get a little bit
of DC inside Baseball from you know, on the reaction
to the debate last night, and I will give you
the very my very short summary of my takeaway, which
was jd. Vance was the clear winner other than on
the one question of January sixth, but for the night,

(00:58):
he was the winner.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
And it was primarily.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Because, in my opinion, he so much exceeded expectations of
how he would be perceived as a as a person
in that he came across polite and friendly and gentlemanly
and smart. I think people knew he was smart, but
they thought he would come across as an ogre and
attack dog and just a bastard who you wanted to

(01:20):
punch in the face. And he didn't. So that's my take.
But what's the take inside the Beltway and your take?

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Of course, well, sure, I mean, I'm a swamp creature,
deep state all the way roth, you know, But I
would say that he standed off the rough edges, didn't
he We didn't hear anything about cat cat owning, childless
women running the country. We didn't hear anything about well,
we heard a little bit about Haitians who were here

(01:49):
legally in Ohio and their dietary habits and so forth.
He came off as cibyl. You know. Typically vice president
their role is to be servers. Their role is to
be the attack dog. And certainly everything that we've heard
or many things that we've heard from JD. Vance over
the course of the last couple of months since he
was nominated and been on the campaign trail of nominated

(02:12):
back in July and Milwaukee, would lead us to believe
that he was going to be on the attack this time,
and certainly he threw some he threw some bombs towards
Kamala Harris, but not towards the individual that was on
the other side of the states with him two steps
away and govern and that is Governor of course, Tim
Walls of Minnesota.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
And that was there was some parallel there, Mike, right, Like,
Walls didn't attack Vance very much. It was Walls talked
a lot about Trump, even down to the extent of
there was some economic point he was making and he said,
and that's Wharton, his alma mater, which of course is Trump's,
not Vance's.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Right, And and that was something that actually Kamala Harrison,
her debate with Donald Trump, brought up Wharton and was
widely interpret as a way to trigger Donald Trump, which
it did. Wharton Economics, you know, a lauded and vaunted
school of economics at the University of Pennsylvania that had
a less than flattering view of the President Trump's or

(03:09):
former president of Trump's economic plant.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Of both of them.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Exactly, yes, well, you know, I mean, but this was
tin Vance was basically the candidate that many Republicans were
hoping that Donald Trump would turn out to be, you know,
after the horrific and unspeakable shooting at Butler, Pennsylvania, just
before the Saturday before the Monday of the convention in July,
and that is an individual who stayed away from personal

(03:33):
attacks and who would stick to the issues and sort
of police people who say, a lot of us say
that we want to hear more civil debate. We want
people to get along, we want people to compromise, we
want people to come together and solve problems for the country.
That's what we say as a public in general. But
what people seem to respond to is more red meat

(03:55):
for the racious base of each respective party. And so
whether or not this is going to be effective in
moving the needle what we saw last night in this
largely civil, sort of old school, serious minded debate, at
least relatives of what we've seen for the last several
presidential cycles, whether that's going to move the needle. I
have some questions, But certainly Jade events did himself and

(04:15):
the leader at the top of the ticket, Donald Trump,
I didn't think he did them any harm whatsoever and
may have come out on top. Will this be determinative
in any way, I don't think so. Yes, Tim Walls
was nervous at the start. I think that was evident.
He stumbled a couple of times, in particularly the question
when he was challenged about the sort of discrepancy or

(04:36):
misspeaking as he put it. Others would term it an
intentional deception, saying he was in Tianam Square in China
at the time of the Tiana and Square protest, when
it was in fact not in Beijing itself. So you know,
there were some stumbles. But again, I think Tim Walls
found his footing in the second half of the debate,
and to the extent that folks weren't watching baseball and

(04:57):
had stayed on that long. I think it was as
largely a draw after that point. But you know, give
me jd Vance, no question about.

Speaker 1 (05:04):
It, right.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
I think I think Vance was the clear winner. I
put I put it this way earlier, Mike to my listeners.
If you think of it as a boxing match, Uh,
Vance definitely won, but he didn't win by knockout. He
won in decision. Was it a split decision? Was a
unanimous decision for me? I probably unanimous decision. And by
the way, Mike, I'm unaffiliated lean libertarian, and I'm not

(05:26):
voting for Trump or Harris, just so you know where
I'm coming from.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
So I'm not.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Like grinding some partisan acts. When I say I think JD.
Vance won the debate, I just think he won the debate.
And I'm not a JD.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Vance fan.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
It was interesting also, I do you you heard me
talk about that breaking news about about political betting being
allowed in the United States now, And I watched these
betting odds a lot, And you know, during the Trump
Harris debate, the betting odds moved rather steadily and quickly
against Trump towards Harris throughout the debate and for another

(05:58):
couple of days after the debate last night, there wasn't
much of an immediate reaction, but since then there's been
a small but noticeable movement in the betting odds from
Harris being like up one and a half point percentage
points in betting odds now, I'm not talking about polling
to being tied. So it seems to have moved the
needle a little a little. Now, let me switch gears

(06:20):
with you for a second, though. You you've won Emmys,
and you've been on CBS and NBC and all these
networks even overseas. I I was pretty disappointed in the
in the behavior of the moderators last night.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
What did you think?

Speaker 3 (06:37):
Well, you know, I full disclosure. I worked very closely
with both those moderators, Nora o'donnald And and Margaret Margaret Brennan.
They were when I was at CBS. Yeah, I'm about
to have a relatively brief time. I worked for a
while with Nora when she many years ago she was
at NBC. I think that they made a big mistake,
did CBS. I'm sure it wasn't their decision to dec

(07:00):
player beforehand that they were not going to fact check
and they were going to depart from what we had
seen for the previous two presidential debates, one in June
on June twenty seventh, it turned out to be so
disastrous for Joe Biden, and then the one last month
between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, where they would were
going to mute the mikes, no question about it, and

(07:20):
that's the way it was going to be. When you
allow for a seat of the pants sort of judgment
about when you're going to when you're going to cut
the mics, when you're going to fact check and you're
going to do it on an ad hoc sort of
what appears to be an arbitrary basis, then you're asking
for trouble. And I think that's what they got last night,
in particular the question about, you know, over the Haitians

(07:41):
and whether or not they're illegally under the temporary protective
status that has been in place for quite some couple
of decades now three decades.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
Yeah, but that was unnecessary in a sense. I thought
it was unnecessary fact checking by by Nora or Margaret,
whichever one did it, I think was noaura, but because
I don't think he said at the time that those
people were here illegally in any case.

Speaker 1 (08:07):
And then he was talking about the app and I.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
Don't think Vance said something that was factually wrong there.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
I might I have to listen to it again.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
It certainly wasn't any of the kind of egregious lies
that you get from from Donald Trump. And if CBS
is going to promise not to fact check, then they
got to not fact check. And then when gd Vance
pushed back and said, wait, you have this wrong, and
then they cut his mic off, cut his mike.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
Yeah, it was bad. It was an unforced error by CBS.
And you know, I think sort of an instinct took over,
an old school journalistic instinct that we can't just you know,
sit here and and I guess they perceived that something
was said wrong. I'll go back and listen to it again. Myself,
I thought that he had said illegal. But again, I'm

(08:51):
going to go back and listen to it since you're
raising it right now, and I think, yeah, it was
not forced ror. They didn't need to do that. They
should have just made a cut and drive from the beginning.
And if you shouldn't get their debates with Joe Biden
and Donald Trump and Kamala Harris and Donald Trump without
an incident like that by controlling the mics and just
keeping a uniform across the board. And I think that
they and they might have I don't know what they

(09:12):
were trying to prove by not doing that, and then
by breaking their no fact check role right.

Speaker 2 (09:17):
The other thing that kind of bothered me about the moderators,
and I want to get your take on this. So
there were many times where one candidate or the other said,
I want to respond to that, and especially in the
first half of the debate, and often especially to Vance,
but to both of them, but more events, they said, no,

(09:39):
we have other questions we want to get to, as
if they were prioritizing getting through all their questions rather
than actually letting the guys debate at an event that
happened to be called a debate, And I thought that
was a mistake.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Well, I think that the flip side of that is
people who put on debates often come under fire afterwards
for the things that they didn't bring up. Right. For example,
last night, I don't think we've heard about the porch strike, right,
and you know, that's an urgent question that has dire
consequences if it continues for the economy and Christmas shoppers
and people kitchen table issues across the country, and they

(10:17):
didn't get to that. And so I think you're damned
if you're doing you're damned if you don't a lot
of and a lot of these circumstances, because they do
come under criticism for not getting to foreign policy, for example,
although ironically that was the first thing I would date
last night, and climate change, which a lot of people
on the left are always disappointed when that isn't an
issue that was front and center. So we had foreign

(10:39):
policy and climate change right right from the jump, Yes night,
but we didn't get to the economy as much as
some people would like, and certainly didn't get to the
booming or the actual in progress port strike that's in
the second day right.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
We also we also didn't get to China. We also
didn't get to Ukraine. And this is my own, my
own kind of personal bias. I mean, there was probably
some stuff to talk about regarding Hurricane Helene and what
government might do there and all these various things. I
don't know that that would have been a very important
question for debate, But there's something the climate change aspect
was moronic. I mean, I think most people, I don't

(11:15):
think most people actually care about it. I think most
people who hang out with Nora O'Donnell at cocktail parties
probably think it's a think it's a real issue.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
But I thought it was a complete waste of time.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
And then she jumped in with this editorial comment about
what scientists think that was kind of our own weird
form of fact checking that was completely inappropriate and wrong.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, well, it's an article of faith among among many
people on the Democratic side. Yeah, and you know, just
as immigration is an article of faith on the Republican
side and many people in the Republican and to be honest,
obviously that made cut across party lines a little bit more.
You know, it moves votes. Abortion moves votes. Maybe abortion
isn't something of Republican candidates often want to talk about,

(11:58):
at least not in the post real world and the
post Dobbs world. I should say so. I think that
you know, moderators are picking and choosing Andy there may
be some personal bias involved in terms of what they
believe are important issues. Yes, obviously it's impossible to sanitize
and homogenize and pasteurize our personal views out of anything,
and I think that's been something that's become apparent to

(12:20):
a lot of people over the last couple of decades
with the perforation of media and all different kinds of
viewpoints that are out there. But you know, I mean
it's important to some people. Some people I gather you
are among them, feel as though it's not an issue
where it's not a real issue anyway.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Well, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
I just I don't think it's high enough priority to
have taken that kind of spot for those just joining
we're talking with Mikey Kara, who is the head of
the DC Bureau for News Nation, and he's spent many
years at CBS News and NBC News and all kinds
of other places. My colleague Mandy Connell just walked into
the studio. Her show is next, and I think she
wants to ask you something.

Speaker 4 (12:57):
I missed the first part of that question, if it
was about topics selection. When Nora O'Donnell said the number
three issue is about the state of the democracy, I
actually went onto the internet and I started googling top
issues for voters in twenty twenty four. I found none, zero,
zero polls that put that remotely in the top fifteen,

(13:19):
let alone the top three. So in choosing a topic
like that to give it that much, that's where people
start to perceive that this set of moderators was out
of touch. So I guess you were addressing how those
decisions are made. Is it a group effort behind the
scenes when you do a debate, Is it the moderators
choosing the top who's making those choices?

Speaker 3 (13:41):
It's a committee? Okay, There are producers, there are managers,
there are meetings and hours of meetings and days and
days leading up to it that you sort of triage
the questions, you triage the topics. Okay, you've got me
googling really quick. So because I can remember democracy showing
up in state by state poles, it might not be
on a national poll, but I'm looking at you now

(14:05):
in a national poll and I do not see it
in the top five anyway. So yeah, I mean you
might be right. And one of the things I mean
defending democracy and on the democratic side is code for
January sixth and everything that came after. I think the
Democrats would argue that it was a winner for them
politically anyway in the midterm elections in twenty twenty two

(14:27):
along with Dobbs. For sure it was, And so I
think that they have some evidence of empirical evidence, at
least from two years ago, to demonstrate that it works
for their side. And be honest with you, a lot
of people are still upset about January. As someone who's
there right there with the gathering shall we put it
outside the Capitol on my third day of work here

(14:49):
at News Nation, which is across the street from the
US Capitol, you know, there are people that feel very
strongly about it. I do not see it just I get.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
All that, and don't mean interrupt you.

Speaker 3 (14:58):
Mike.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
We're just about we're just about out of time. I
get everything you said. I understand it all. But the
fact that some people are upset about it. I think
the point you made was interesting. A lot of folks
on the left think it's very important, think it works
for them politically, and then suddenly, even though it's not
anywhere high in these polls or in the polls Mandy

(15:20):
looked at, it's not it doesn't show up at all,
Suddenly it becomes a topic. And I think that's Mandy's point,
is that the topics between that one and climate change.
And I'm not pointing a finger at you, Mike, you're
not on that committee. I'm just trying to get we're
both trying to get insight from someone who's been in
the business as you have, right, and so those topics
show up, and it makes it feel like the moderators

(15:41):
are clearly on one side, even in.

Speaker 1 (15:43):
The topic choices. Give you the last twenty.

Speaker 3 (15:45):
Seconds, Well, again, I would say that I think many
people would point to the twenty the midterm elections two
years ago and say that it does move outs. It
does it is something that they're concerned many people are
concerned about, you know. I think it can point to
other issues that are near and dear to the Trump
side of the equation, or the Magi side of the equation,

(16:06):
if you will, that we're brought up as well, and
where there are different differences of opinion on foreign policy,
for example in Ukraine, although.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
We didn't hear it, No, we didn't crane, which is interesting.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
In the Middle East given what was happening, which was
the first question right out of the box. But obviously
there are stark differences. Well not so much when it
comes to Headlog, but when it comes to Gaza, yes,
there are stark differences. So I take your point as
to the point, and I'm going to keep googling, all right.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Mike Vikiera runs the Washington bureau for News Nation. Folks,
I encourage you to watch News Nation on your cable TV.
That's the news cable news channel that Kristin and I
watch most by far these days.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
It's just a great network.

Speaker 2 (16:43):
In their prime time lineup is fabulous. Mike, thanks so
much for spending time with us.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
Ros all right,