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Get up to $350 off with code DEEPSLEEP at eightsleep.com. Good morning. Jane Polly is off this weekend. I'm Lee Cowan. And this is Sunday morning.
Fifty years ago this spring, a company called Apple, You might have heard of it. was founded in suburban Northern California with pioneering technological advances and its trademark sleek designs. Apple has influenced the way billions of people live their lives. Making Apple. one of the most valuable companies in the world.
Currently worth nearly four trillion dollars. This morning David Pogue looks back at five decades of innovation. 50 years ago, two guys named Steve met for the first time on this California street. Steve was there. I'll be Steve Jobs.
You were Steve. And in the back of Steve's mind, computers were important. But some dark times were ahead. Yeah, it was bleak, to be honest. Ahead on Sunday morning.
The rise, fall, and I scroll. and rise of Apple. On the subject of winning collaborations, a new novel has brought together a most unlikely duo. as Tracy Smith will explain. And the Oscar goes to Viola Davis.
She's an Oscar-winning actor. He's a big-time author. But together, they click. Me and James couldn't be any more different. And yet, meeting, writing this book, I just.
Like them.
So magic kind of happened. Magic, yeah. I think magic can happen a lot if people would just stay open. Two legends, one heck of a story. Later on Sunday morning.
Yeah. It's hard to believe that in this day and age, some 48 million Americans still don't have enough to eat. and 14 million of them. are children. Given that startling reality, this morning We explore the state of food insecurity in America, and we'll meet one woman.
Who took it on? It's Janice. I've actually met her. Turns out the outgoing CEO of the nation's largest hunger relief organization. We're going to put the hams in here as well.
It's hardly done with helping hunger, or any number of other issues, too. I am not everything. But Lee, I'm really something. Yes, you are. I don't have to be everything and I will find the path to value.
The path that Claire Babineau Fonteneau has already walked just might surprise you. Pure travels. Coming up. on Sunday morning. David Martin this Sunday looks at the twisted path that triggered the fighting with Iran.
while Robert Costa provides perspective on that nation's very complex history. Luke Burbank visits the set of television's NCIS, the hugely popular crime series now approaching its 500th episode. Plus, Jolene Kent talking with Lloyd Blankfein. former chairman of Goldman Sachs. about his storybook journey.
And a lot more on this Sunday morning for the 8th of March. 2026. We'll be right back. We begin this morning with David Pogue. and a milestone birthday for a company.
that is among the most profitable, influential, and scrutinized. in the world. At this moment. Two and a half billion people own Apple products, a population bigger than China's. I had to ride my bike through cherry orchards to Sega to elementary school.
There was nobody here. But it all started on a sidewalk near Cupertino, California. Is it accurate to say that The story of Apple kind of began on this spot.
Well, it kind of started when I was born. In nineteen seventy one, engineering prodigy Steve Wozniak met a charismatic, rebellious high schooler named Steve Jobs. We met right here, and who was to know there was going to be a company in the future? In nineteen seventy five few people had ever even seen a computer, but Waz built one it was little more than a circuit board and Jobs proposed selling it. Steve Jobs wanted a company and he did it, and I was his resource.
They sold 150 of Waz's first computer.
So I am proud. To introduce to you they sold six million of his second. The Revolutionary. Apple 2. It was so far above any of the other computers coming out.
We didn't foresee the future the way it turned out, but we said, for today, we're taking a step forward ahead of others. Apple took a very big step forward in 1984.
Now I'd like to show you Macintosh in person. The Macintosh was Jobs' passion project, the first affordable computer with a mouse, menus, and friendly graphics. But darker times were ahead. After a power struggle with CEO John Scully, Steve Jobs left Apple for 11 years. the company began sliding into irrelevance.
Yeah, it was bleak, to be honest. The company had very little cash. Uh and we had lost our way. After Jobs returned in 1997, He hired Tim Cook as his new head of operations. I saw in Steve Something I'd never seen in a CEO before.
He is a once in a thousand years kind of person. The opportunity is so great. Jobs and his team pulled off what's widely regarded as the greatest turnaround in business history. You know, we basically completely restructured the company and set it on the path for where it is today. John Rubinstein was Jobs' new head of hardware.
What was it like working with him? He was could be absolutely brutal. He wanted to get the best out of the team, and he wanted us to do the impossible sometimes. And we would pull it off. Jobs and chief designer Johnny Ive met every day to obsess over the details of their products' designs.
We're here and I'd like to show you what this thing looks like. Come on in. And a golden age began. This is iMac. The whole thing is translucent.
You can see into it. It's so cool. The iMac became the best-selling computer in history. The iTunes Store was the first successful online music store, and it turned the music industry upside down. What is iPod?
Hi pod. Is an MP3 music player. And the iPod was the first Apple product to sell in the hundreds of millions. There were hundreds of songs in the iPod.
So, what were you gonna do? Just like by hand, you know, clicking a hundred times, and instead, if you scroll the wheel. Paola Antonelli is a curator of design at MoMA, New York's Museum of Modern Art. There are many, many Apple products in the MoMA collection, dozens of them. Definitely, there's a pleasure.
There's really a moment of wonder and design is for all of us and Apple's success is a testament to that. And then, in 2007, Steve Jobs announced three new products: an iPod. A phone. and an internet communicator. An iPod.
A phone. Are you getting it? They got it. It was three devices in one, the iPhone. I just take my finger.
And I scroll.
Okay. Nobody had ever before touched their data. The iPhone changed everything. It became our camera, our T V, our newspaper, our game console. It gave rise to Uber, Airbnb, DoorDash, Venmo, and Tinder, and it fueled the rise of social media, raising concerns about screen time, mental health, and isolation.
It's so much more intimate. In 2010, the iPad was another massive hit. And it's so much more capable than a single-productive. But Steve Jobs was dying. As he succumbed to pancreatic cancer, Jobs asked Cook to succeed him as CEO.
He called me over to his house. And his advice to me was Never asks what I would do. Just do the right thing. And I'll never forget that. For Cook, the right thing was a new emphasis on sustainability and inclusiveness, and a deep dive into services like Apple Pay.
Apple TV and Apple Music, which now generate over $100 billion a year. Since Cook took over, Apple has roughly tripled in size, and its stock is up 1,600%. You guys changed the world multiple times with the work you were doing. It wasn't what we set out to do, we set out to save the company. But it's what the side of the side benefit of that was we changed the world.
But challenges lie ahead. a reliance on China for its manufacturing. the threat of presidential tariffs, and the perception that Apple is lagging in artificial intelligence. It was all about collaboration and the f Cook believes that Apple's traditional values will see it through. Are there any values and principles in place today that date all the way back to the two Steves?
Ideas about building something insanely great was there in the early days, that you say no to a thousand things, to say yes to the one that's truly important, and that when you do something, you should do it at an excellence level that isn't where good isn't good enough. Steve Wozniak would agree. Apple's reputation definitely is sprung from From us and the culture, it's hard to be 100% perfect, but I I still admire Apple the most of all the tech companies. If you had to say it in brief, What has Apple's effect on the world been? It's the sum of what everyone has done with all the products that we've made.
The artist. It's the musicians, it's the everyday people. who have done remarkable things to change the world. That's the reason we look forward to the next 50 and the next 100. As fighting with Iran moves into its second week, we have two reports.
Robert Costa will offer some perspective on Iran's complicated history in a moment, but. First, David Martin. We'll look at just how we got here. A drone strike in Baghdad during President Trump's first term set him on a collision course with Iran. I think it probably started with uh Salamani.
Qasim Suleimani. the leader of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. second in stature only to the Ayatollah. Right there would probably be the starting point. At the time, killing Soleimani was the most devastating blow America had ever struck against Iran.
He was an indispensable person for Iran. Retired general and CBS News contributor Frank McKenzie commanded the operation. A person they had counted on for many years to give advice on actions against Americans was no longer able to do that. It marked a turning point that only has become evident over time. When Donald Trump returned for a second term, he picked up where he left off.
ordering the first ever American attack on Iranian territory. Joining an Israeli air campaign against Tehran's nuclear program by dropping bunker buster bombs. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu wanted to strike again to eliminate the rest of Iran's nuclear program along with its stockpiles of ballistic missiles. When he met with President Trump just before New Year's, he looked and sounded like a man getting everything he asked for.
You've never had. a friend by President Trump. in the White House. It's not even close. And speaking of Iran, I hope they're not trying to build up again because if they are we're going to have no choice but very quickly to eradicate that buildup.
He ordered his own built up. The U.S.
now has more military air power in the Middle East than at any time since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, all while President Trump's envoys were negotiating with the Iranians. What would Iran have had to do to avoid war? Iran would have had to actually negotiate in good faith. Put concessions on the table, which they were not going to do. They're of the opinion that if they can negotiate, then they can avoid being struck.
But they could not avoid being struck by Israel. And, according to Secretary of State Rubio, the US decided it couldn't wait any longer. We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces. And we knew that if we didn't preemptively go after them before they launched those attacks, we would suffer higher casualties.
the tactics Iranians had relied on since the days of Suleimani, turned out to be based on a false premise. They accepted that they'd be able to spin it out in time until it became impossible for us to keep that force structure in the region. Ropado. They are masters of it, and they played a number of presidents brilliantly. They just didn't play this one well.
Iranian students holding some 60 American embassy employees hostage at the embassy compound in Tehran. This is Robert Costa. If you ask many Americans about Iran, they recall 1979. It was a dramatic year. With a revolution, a US hostage crisis.
and an embattled president. The United States of America is breaking diplomatic relations. with the government of Iran. The tensions of that time have since been seared into our collective memory.
Sometimes by Hollywood. The latest chapter in this standoff: the U.S. and Israeli strikes. On Iran.
So far, the attacks have led to the death of Iran's supreme leader. and have turned the Middle East into a battlefield. Amid the carnage, questions linger.
Well, most of the people we had in mind are dead. For President Trump, who ordered the strikes, and for Iran. From what you can track, inside Iran, how are they responding to the US and Israeli attacks?
Well, the response has been bifurcated. You saw people coming out honking their horns, dancing in the street, but you also saw millions turn out to mourn. the death of the supreme leader.
So we're at an unpredictable juncture. Totally. Robin Wright is a long time writer for The New Yorker, who has deeply covered Iran for decades, and is one of the few American journalists to meet the recently killed Ayatollah, Ali Khomaneyi, who was a key figure in the revolution. Do the Iranian people want to maintain the revolutionary fervor of 1979 or not. I think 80% of the population Probably Have questions?
Or don't out. 80. 80%, yeah.
So most people. Most people don't. Like Theocratic rule. They don't like the loss of personal freedoms. Iran is one of the most highly educated populations in the world.
They're really well connected with the outside world. Two women have won the Nobel Peace Prize. Five filmmakers have won awards at Khan since the revolution. This is still a very vibrant culture. And most people don't want to think about politics or be burdened by politics.
So I think there is a wish for something different. But Robin Wright says the Trump administration faces significant challenges in explaining its rationale. in executing the military campaign and in dealing with Iran. President Trump has told me in recent days he believes there could be a diplomatic solution. But it is so far unclear who will lead Iran.
or who could cut a deal with the US. All this leaves Iran under siege and at a crossroads, grappling with its present, its future. And it's past. While the 1979 revolution is well remembered, antagonism toward the U.S. dates back to a 1953 CIA-backed coup of Iran's democratically elected government.
That led to the reinstallation of the Shah and the unrest that led to his overthrow. You first went there in nineteen seventy three. What is the through line? looking back over 50 plus years of covering Iran. through all of this.
Iranians want to be the ones to decide their future. They may disagree on what that future looks like. But they want to determine. And so that's the through line. When you look at it's not just the forty-seven years of the revolution.
It's really the past 126 years of what it's tried to do. Long before the Shah and the Islamic Republic, Iran was a place with ancient influence. Persia was the first great empire. in the world. And Cyrus the Great, the first great emperor anywhere in the world, bringing together.
parts of three continents. Free the Jews of Babylon. Was all for the support of minorities, was the first one to say power is based. If legitimate. only on the will of the people.
For the New Yorker's Robin Wright, the will of the people has always been part of Iran's story. Then And now. What are we missing about what could happen here? inside Iran.
Well, Iran has many Nelson Mandelas in the younger generations, but no African National Congress with the infrastructure, with the years of experience, with a military plan, with people Who are united in cause. Iranians are so diverse in what they want, they know what they don't want. but they don't know how to create an alternative. but not an organized activist effort. Exactly.
For more than 20 years, NCIS has not only been a staple of the CBS primetime lineup. but also among the most watched scripted series in all of television. This morning, Luke Burbank looks into the crime show's body of work. Sweetheart. To your left, left.
There we go. It's awards season again in Hollywood, and the cast and crew of NCIS are celebrating maybe the rarest prize of all in television, longevity. Very nice. One more time. There we go.
On Tuesday, March 24th, the 500th episode of NCIS will air on CBS. This is ridiculous. In its 23 seasons on the air. Then syndication and now streaming. Viewers have watched some 3.3 trillion minutes of the show.
NCIS, and this is not a drill. And with multiple spin-offs, it's the number one franchise in the world. Should have said that. Much easier. Yet early on.
The joke was that NCIS was just CSI misspelled. NCIS anything like CSI? Only if you're dyslexic. The pilot was shot Paramount. Steve Binder is NCIS's longtime showrunner.
You know, the first eight years. Like, where do you work? Your mother's favorite TV show. That's why I never said the name because they'd go, huh? And then I feel bad about myself.
Season seven, I started to think, like, this thing can go forever. Like, what's. You know, as long as these actors want to keep doing it, is actually what I thought. We're with NCIS? Stands for Neville Criminal Investigative Service, yeah.
The show that's spun many other shows actually began in 2003 as a spin-off itself from the show JAG. Legendary T V producer Don Belisario created and ran NCIS with a strong ensemble cast led by Mark Harmon as Leroy Jethro Gibbs. I think Gibbs enjoys this wild sex. That would explain the three wives. But the show struggled until Kate Todd.
Sasha Alexander was our female lead in the first two years of the show. She wanted to leave. Sean Murray plays special agent Timothy McGee.
So then Don got the great idea of, well, I think what we'll do is we're going to kill you in the season two finale. I thought I'd die before I ever heard comedy. Yeah. close-up. Take a bullet right in a close-up.
It's something that you just never saw happening on nware TV. What? Plot twist. Of course, plot twists. Hello, plot twists.
Like the elaborate departure of a key character, which, on other shows, could end the series. I'm not going back, then. But for NCIS fans, speculating which character might be the next to go has become part of the show. It's sad to say goodbye. But the new people coming in is actually a feature, not a bug.
And I think it was, oh, oh, okay, we can try these different things and do these different things. And as long as we follow a certain set of. guidelines and rules. The evolution that comes from new characters and new energies and new relationships, the audience seems to still like. I'm really gonna miss you, Anthony DeNozo.
After Michael Weatherly left the show in 2016, Wilmer Valderama joined as Nick Torres. I am Special Agent Torres. His backstory inspired by Valderama's actual life growing up in Venezuela. The only English I knew was uh. From watching reruns of American television, I was raised there for about 10 years.
And um you know I grew up watching You know, Chips and Charlie's Angels, you know, and I used to watch them all in Spanish, but I will say that the impression I had of the United States, the American flag, the way of service, the American dream, for us in Latin America, coming from where I was coming from, you know, a place that was fracturing politically and economically. You know, this did feel like the happiest place on earth. We're federal agents with a higher calling. Our only loyalty is to the truth. According to Katrina Law, who became a series regular in 2021, the chemistry between cast members has been a key ingredient to the show's success.
I'm not gonna lie, that's one of my favorite things about being on the show is that we have amazing chemistry on camera, off camera, and it just makes coming to work so much fun. I definitely thought this was going to be more of your standard procedural, definitely more like case of the week, and seeing these relationships develop, that's what keeps me coming back. And I think it's what keeps the audience coming back too. Deanna Reasonover plays the show's forensic expert. How about we play a game of good news, bad news, DNA edition?
Brian Dietson is the show's medical examiner. Really sorry I yelled at you earlier. For Dietsen, those off-screen friendships were all the more important when he had a near-fatal dual embolic stroke. I've been very fortunate, very lucky to be here. But to see people step up and say, what do you need?
How can we help? And Diana, she lived uh down the street from me and so she gave me would give me rides to and from work and uh It was incredible. It must have blown someone's mind at like a stoplight. It's like these two characters from NC. Yeah, it's just like out of context.
We just drive in somewhere. Keep our lab coats on. Hello, we're the lab coat crew. Bruh! But just what is it that's made NCIS such a success for so many years?
What do you mean by that? Is it the story arcs, the Easter eggs for fans in every episode, the cast chemistry? Care to elaborate?
Well, don't ask Gary Cole, who plays supervisory special agent Alden Parker. I'm superstitious about it. It's like the old baseball metaphor. You don't talk to the guy who's throwing a no-hitter. You sit on the other side of the bench.
You just let him do his thing until it's over with. You'll just have to tune in March 24th to find out. You cannot be in an environment like this and get the work done successfully. And be sane. Unless there is love involved.
That's what I saw when I got here. That's what I still see. There's a vibe, for lack of a better word, that is. That is positive, supportive, and just, you know, the old corny phrase of, we're in this together. For some thirty years, the Department of Agriculture has released an annual report.
on the number of Americans living with food insecurity. The Trump administration ended that report. calling it redundant and overly politicized. But getting rid of the data hasn't erased the problem of hunger. or the desire to fix it.
There's a traffic jam of shopping carts here at the Community Food Share near Boulder, Colorado. Mm-hmm. 33-year-old Shannon Patrick. waited patiently. She knows the routine.
She's a reluctant regular here.
So how long do you think this will last? Um the way my 12-year-old is growing, probably a week, just a week. Are you gonna go down? Shannon is a single mother of three. Woo!
So you wanna take this? Yeah. working full-time as a behavioral technician. helping kids with autism. But despite her profession and her education, Shannon barely gets by on her two thousand dollar a month salary.
Tech on rent, student loans, clothes for the kids. and there's very little left. For food. I thought that if I got my bachelor's degree, if I got my master's degree, that that would open up so many doors. I wouldn't have to rely on the government, but it just seems like it's not.
Like that. Like most dealing with food insecurity, she'd Rather not talk about it. But she agreed for us. because she wanted to show others They're not alone. It's just like this feeling that society puts on you that you're less than or you're dirty because you have to get this assistance.
And I feel almost guilty that, like, I have these children and I should be able to take care of them, but um. I'm failing. Mm-hmm. doing everything you can. I can't imagine what more you could do.
That's gotta be hard on you though. Yeah. Have you opened the next one? Almost 48 million Americans don't get enough to eat. And look at this little tiger.
Shockingly, about 14 million of those. Our kids. There's a notion of earned hunger. The reality is that that simply is not manifestly true. That hunger happens here oft times in spite of a lot of hard work.
Nigel! Claire Babineau Funton. Is the CEO of Feeding America. That's the nation's largest hunger relief organization. Just two years into her tenure, the pandemic hit.
During COVID, one of the areas that Congress had the most bipartisan engagement on. was hunger. Food insecurity rates went down to one of the lowest rates we've ever had. Is that right? That's right.
And most people have no idea that it's true, but it is. But what happened after COVID? I guess we thought it was done. If nothing else, she says, COVID proved that hunger Can indeed be fixed. You do a red gravy.
Yeah, yeah, we'll do a red gravy with it. We caught up with Claire at one of the hundreds of pantries and food banks under the Feeding America umbrella. Here at Southern Louisiana's Second Harvest Food Bank. Good job, people. Out of kitchens like this one.
Feeding America distributed nearly 6 billion meals last year. Billion. But it still fell short. And see in the shot of the camera. a lot of food.
Yeah. And that probably leads to a misconception. Um that there's enough food, that there's not enough food.
Some of the saddest things I've ever seen. with food bankers. is when they have to turn people away. Claire was the first of her family to go to college. She put herself through law school, too.
And then She hit a bump in the road. I went into my refrigerator, my little teeny weenie apartment, and I realized that I. I literally Head. Nothing. Cheat.
It's interesting how something can happen. that long ago and um and how it can feel like it's happening right now. She'd heard of the Salvation Army. She didn't want to go. She had to go.
I can remember barely talking above a whisper. And then I remember this lady. She walked up to me and she just had this beautiful warm smile, and she said, You need some help, baby. And I say Yes, ma'am. The power of that single act of kindness followed Claire the rest of her life.
She went on to become a tax attorney. Rising to Executive Vice President and Global Treasurer, For Walmart. No small job. I've actually met her. But in 2015, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.
It was a tap on the shoulder, she says, to reprioritize her life.
So she quit Walmart. and made a leap she thought her parents would understand more than anyone. Mary Alice and Warren Babineau are both gone now. but in their hometown of Appaloosis, Louisiana? The family was known for helping shelter, feed, and love almost any child they knew was in trouble.
Hey sweetie, how you doing?
So much though. Claire. ended up with 107 siblings. 107. And my mom always had this watchful eye.
On any given Sunday, the Babinos took up nearly an entire pew here at the church.
Some of them were biological, some adopted, some fostered, but Claire won't tell you which is which. I don't answer that question, mostly because in the not answering, I get to say this. That is the least important thing. about our family. My parents truly believed in feeding the neighborhood.
That's one of Claire's multiple sisters. Cynthia. I will never forget one day a young man came to the home directly from the hospital with his hospital gown. He said, Mrs. Babino said, if I'm hungry, come to the house.
and I will get food. And my response was, absolutely, and I prepared a meal for him. This past Christmas, you know how to get it done, about two dozen Babinos gathered at the old family house. to make food boxes for a nearby senior center, just as their mom used to do. As long as we do this, we keep the things that she thought were important, we keep those alive.
Seeing need is something Claire was taught. Healing it is something she's practiced. and recognizing need. even in herself. is opening the door to her next chapter.
After more than seven years, Claire will be stepping down as Feeding America's CEO next month. For what? She's not really sure. At 61, she and her husband, with two grown kids of their own, might even start being foster parents themselves, she says. I am deeply committed to this work and I will always be committed to this work as long as there work to be done.
Okay. Back in Colorado, Shannon Patrick is part of that unfinished work. The kids are cared for. But who is there to care for her? Do you ever go hungry so they don't have to?
I do. There's times when I just don't eat dinner and I'll make them dinner. Do you want to help me crack the X? Yes!
Okay. Not this week. Breakfast burritos for dinner. Vegetable, Growie. everyone seemed happy.
Yeah. Next week. The family's hunger clock. Resets. back to zero.
That doesn't mean we're bad people or that we're less worthy. We still should be able to eat. Just because we're low income doesn't mean that we don't deserve to do the same things as other people. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop.
With Mint, you can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments, but that's weird.
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See full terms at mintmobile.com. Viola Davis is one of the most acclaimed actors of her generation. But Tracy Smith has discovered that Davis has another creative love, one she's pursuing with author James Patterson. On yet another sunny winter day in Southern California, Viola Davis is home and happy to be here. Are you a homebody?
Homebody, totally. I'm total introvert. Total introvert. What do you like about being at home? I like just being.
I just like to be regular. I don't want to put on makeup. I don't want to try to be anyone else other than myself. But when she does leave home, she has a tendency to make magic. They all turn down.
Viola Davis can light up a red carpet. She can turn bad guys into superheroes. Complete the mission, you get time off your prison sentence. Fail the mission, you die. and make us believe she helped negotiate Michael Jordan's shoe deal.
Isn't that why you came to my home? Yes, it is. A shoe is just a shoe. until my son steps into it. And now she's stepped into the publishing world with a new novel, Judge Stone.
She co-wrote the book with superstar author James Patterson, who knows a thing or two about collaboration. Me and James couldn't be any more different and yet meeting writing this book, I just. Like them.
We just connected.
So magic kind of happened. Yeah. Magic, yeah. I think magic can happen a lot if people would just stay open. Yes.
Judge Stone is a legal thriller about a respected black female circuit judge in a small Alabama town who presides over a highly controversial case when a teenage girl named Nova is raped and has an illegal abortion. Why? Touch on the subject of abortion when you know it's a lightning rod for some people. That's exactly what I'm saying. That's why.
To make it so it's not a lightning rod. And that's why, I think that's why this story is so good, why it's so powerful. because we're going into areas that people aren't talking and then we need to talk about it. To help flesh out the character of the victim, Davis says she drew on her own experience with sexual assault. I felt a responsibility to women who have been sexually assaulted and raped.
Especially children. as I am one of them. and what they also deserve. is the truth of how it made them feel. The new book, Judge Stone, comes out tomorrow, and James Patterson says he has high hopes.
You know, every book you start, you want it to be. Great. And sometimes you have to settle for not so good or very good. And in this case, I think we settled for great. And they both know all about great.
Look, I only have a few minutes. Not to be disagreeing, but If we're talking about something floating around between this priest and my son, it ain't my son's fault. This was Viola Davis as an agonized mother in the 2008 film Doubt, opposite Meryl Streep, who became a close friend during filming. Miss Merrill Street. I think we clicked on doubt.
Overall a lot of chocolate. You bonded over chocolate. Oh man, we ate the hell out of that chocolate. Let me tell you. You know the rules maybe, but that don't cover I know what I won't except what you gotta accept and you work with it.
In this film, Davis was only on screen for about eight minutes, but her performance was so riveting it earned her an Oscar nomination. It's not all that surprising when you hear about the work she always puts in before the cameras roll. You write bios for your characters? Yeah, we're trying to figure out who they are. And so you write and you write and you write and you write and somewhere in there something clicks.
In fact, Viola Davis wanted to write long before she wanted to act, even as a little girl growing up in Central Falls, Rhode Island.
Now Yeah. I wanted to be a writer when I was nine years old. It was my fantasy. I don't know why, maybe because I love the Bopsy twin books. I was like, Oh, I can make a life of that.
Her new book centers around an impoverished young girl struggling with her own self-worth, and to Davis, that's familiar ground. How much of your own story influenced these characters? All of it. Every single bit of my story influenced all of these characters. I feel that it is my duty to honor six year old Viola.
I can't Sort of think about her dimples without thinking about the fact that she always felt ugly. Oh never Viola Davis says she carries the pain she felt as a six-year-old into every role, like the series How to Get Away with Murder. And this one. It's not easy for me to admit that I've been standing in the same place for 18 years.
Well, I've been standing with you. I've been right here with you, Troy. In a way, she turned her own insecurity into dramatic power and eventually Oscar Gold. And the Oscar goes to Viola Davis. Davis won the best actress Oscar for fences, and probably could have won another for the accepted speech.
and to my husband and my daughter. I'm so glad that you are the foundation of my life. Speaking of her husband and daughter, she shares a house with both, plus one very pampered pup. Here comes Bailey. Come on, baby.
Come on, my meat, baby. Oh, hi, sweetheart. This is my baby cakes. Yes. Why did you decide to get Bailey?
Well, really, it was my daughter. Who Desperately wanted a dog, and guess who never walks a dog now? I mean, she does walk the dog, but you. You know how kids are.
So it seems Viola Davis is one of the most decorated dog walkers in the world with her egot status, having earned an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. And now she's sure to add best-selling author to those accolades. But to her, the real award is something else.
So going back to this writing of novels, is this The start of another career for you? Perhaps I don't know. I I don't. I don't know what this chapter in my life is about. You know, maybe a little bit more writing, or maybe travel.
You know, maybe just being a regular person. I think I've earned that. You know, Egot is not going to be on my gravestone. Just put it that way. No?
I don't think there's enough space. But beloved, There's enough space for Beloved. You know. Yeah. From his humble beginnings to the executive suite at finance giant Goldman Sachs.
Lloyd Blankline's rise to wealth and power. is truly the stuff of the American dream. No surprise then that he's telling his story in a new book. And he's talking about it. with Joel Linkent.
It's been a long time since we've had a bad event. It's been 17 years since the financial crisis. Lloyd Blankfein, the former CEO of Goldman Sachs, led the bank through that historic crisis. He says it happened before, so it'll happen again. Think of it as kindling on the floor of a forest.
Eventually, some spark will happen. that in different times might not have set the forest on fire. But when this kind of kindling accumulates, Some spark will do that. Will that happen eventually? Inevitably, it will happen.
What was not inevitable was the Bronx-born Brooklyn-bred billionaire's path to the top of the C-suite. My grandmother lived with us. We lived in, you know, small night. I mean, I shared a bedroom with either my sister or my grandmother until I went off to college. Blinkfein grew up in public housing in the Brooklyn neighborhood of East New York.
The neighborhood became more dangerous. The high school I went to eventually was shut down as a failing high school, but it was pretty much failing when I was there. His father held down two jobs, including as a clerk at the post office, to get a 10% bonus. He worked the night shift. I barely saw him.
I wish I had known him better. Blinkfein says he only visited his father at work once, just before he retired. Dad was sitting with a row of other guys. And behind him was this huge machine wrapped in plastic. I said, what is that?
It was electronic mail sorter. That could have done his job much faster without any risk of making a mistake. And I looked at that and I said, it was so sad for me, thought to myself, I don't know if I'll do something, be the most consequential person in the world. but I didn't want to do something inconsequential.
So he buckled down in school, applied to Harvard, and got in when he was just sixteen. What do you take from your childhood that you applied to being CEO of Goldman Sachs? Every challenge I ever had, I wouldn't necessarily have volunteered for. But everyone that was foisted upon me turned out to be a blessing in some way because it gave me a different outlook, it made me more resilient. Blinkfein writes about his experiences in his new memoir, Streetwise.
His first finance job was in commodities trading. News court 5,000 to buy with the 38 tons. Back then, he says, trading floors were very different. I bought five and a half? People communicated by shouting.
I remember I used to interview people. I used to stand on one side of the trading floor. I'd have the interviewee stand on the other. And I used to make that person do part of the interview, shouting across the floor just to see if that person. Had the voice that could rise to the level that could carry across the trading room.
Today, you can hear a pin drop. When Goldman Sachs acquired the firm he was working for in 1981, Blinkfein began his ascent to the top, becoming the bank's chairman and CEO in 2006. It wasn't long before he was put to the test. No one alive on Wall Street, you write, has ever experienced anything as calamitous and dramatic as the global financial crisis of 2007-2008. Are we still feeling the effects of that?
I think it was regarded as producing unfair outcomes of the system. being I hate to use this overused word, rigged in favor of The higher and mightier, and people with political power, that was the perception. $440, $450 on $850. The crisis began with financial institutions backing high-risk subprime mortgages. that led to a massive housing bubble that eventually collapsed.
bringing with it both banks and consumers. How did the best minds in business and finance not see this coming? How did Roosevelt leave all those ships tied up together in Pearl Harbor? And not know that the Japanese were on a path to war. And hindsight is 20-20, but the nature of a bubble is that you're just not seeing it.
The government intervened in 2008, infusing $250 billion to stabilize the big banks. By contrast, it committed just $46 billion to help families avoid foreclosure. You had to get the banks out of distress so they performed their intermediation role of getting money out there. But for a lot of people, and I understand this, it wasn't punishment enough. Blinkfein was the public face of what was perceived as Wall Street greed in the crisis.
He and other bank executives got raked over the coals during congressional hearings investigating what happened. You are taking a position against the very security that you are selling, and you are not troubled. Senator, as I again. And you want people to trust you. Senator, I think people Why would people I won't trust you?
Then in twenty sixteen, Goldman agreed to pay five billion dollars as part of a settlement with the Justice Department for misleading investors about the quality of many of the mortgage backed securities it was selling. All the p institutions settled. Arguing with the government is never a winning proposition. You worked to achieve a settlement and that was something that was agreeable to all parties so that we could all move forward. Since leaving Goldman in twenty eighteen, Blinkfine still buys and sells stocks just for himself.
He was an early investor in the free press, which, like CBS News, is owned by Paramount Skydance. He supports his alma mater, Harvard, where he's given millions. I think education. Is the real accelerator for most people into the middle and upper classes. In the workforce, though, Blinkfein believes programs aimed at increasing diversity.
do not provide more opportunity. You write on page 234 of your book: special programs we ran for minorities at the firm were often counterproductive. That may be a provocation to other people. But I think if you brand something a remedial program, you're kind of also branding the people who go into that program. Was it branded as remedial in your view, the special programs for minorities at the farm?
If you name them that way, yes, they would. I do think that happens. And I think that happens. And I think that becomes counterproductive. But I think there's another alternative.
Just do the stuff, the programs that you do to advance the careers, the education for everybody. Do those very well, and guess what? That'll disproportionately help the people who need it the most, which might include the people that would have otherwise been in those DEI programs. As for the crisis that will define much of his legacy? Do you feel a sense of guilt or remorse about what happened?
Well, Not killed amen. I'm sorry. You wrote this heartfelt sentence in the book. Losing investors' money felt worse to me than losing our own. I still feel that way today.
I don't, you know, people, after I retired from Goldman, a lot of people said, Will you manage my money? And I didn't want that, I didn't want that, you know, I shed that responsibility. I didn't want to have it back again. I didn't want to disappoint people. Maybe that's from my childhood or from wherever.
So you feel a sense of great personal responsibility. I do. I always did. And if you want to call it guilt, or if you want, you can call it by other names. But I felt, I've always felt accountable.
I'm Lee Cowan. Thanks for listening, and please join us when our trumpet sounds again.
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