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Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app today. Two MVP candidates going head-to-head when Lamar Jackson leads the Ravens into Buffalo against Josh Allen and the Bills. Cuts it to the outside, he's gone! Touchdown! Now that's a CBS Sports Sunday. It all begins at 6 Eastern with the NFL today.
Sunday on CBS and streaming on Paramount Plus. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley and this is Sunday Morning. Today marks the last full day in office for President Joe Biden before the transfer of power to the man who is both his predecessor and his successor, President-elect Donald Trump. So this morning with Nancy Cordes, we'll be looking back at the legacy President Biden leaves behind while Robert Costa looks ahead to the promises and prospects of a second Trump administration. It's been the highest honor of my life to lead you as Commander-in-Chief. After 52 years in Washington, Joe Biden's long political career is coming to an end. It's hard to imagine that somebody is going to have the same faith in American establishment and institutions that I think drove him in the course of his presidency. Ahead this Sunday morning, the Biden legacy. Congratulations.
Thank you. Beyond the White House, Washington is bracing. Trump is a little bit crazy, but he's not stupid. For the return of President Trump. What should they be expecting now on day one of this presidency? I think it's going to be shock and awe.
But how different will another term be later on Sunday morning? A groundbreaking soap opera comes to CBS in a few weeks with Nancy Giles. We go behind the scenes at Beyond the Gates. Where are we? This is the diner on our show. Let's set our opening frame.
It's been more than 25 years since a TV network launched a new soap opera. It's kind of a risky thing. How do you feel about that? Let's go. Excited. The first episode is just like, whoo! Action. Creating a soap opera takes a village. Quiet, please.
We'll see how it happens later on Sunday morning. Quiet on the set. When the Palisades fire tore through his neighborhood, actor Steve Guttenberg took on an unlikely role.
He talks with Lisa Ling. Tuesday morning at 9 o'clock I was having a cup of coffee. And everything was beautiful and clear.
And then at 9.45 the sky was black. Tuesday, January 7th, gave Steve Guttenberg the role of a lifetime. Thank you for talking to us live, sir. What's your name?
My name is Steve Guttenberg. I'm here. How could you not help? I mean, there's a fire over there. How could you not go get a pail of water and a shovel?
How could you not? Ahead on Sunday morning, Steve Guttenberg's newest credit. Thanks, you guys. Tracy Smith has an update on the hugely destructive California wildfires and considers what comes next. Plus, commentary from historian Douglas Brinkley and more on a very busy Sunday morning on the 19th of January, 2025. We'll be back after this. Featuring shocking testimony from first-hand witnesses, hosts, journalist, podcaster and UFO researcher Andy McVillan, that's me, and producer Elle Scott take us back to the nights in question and examine all of the evidence and conflicting theories about what was encountered in the middle of a snowy Suffolk forest 40 years ago.
Are we alone? Encounters is a podcast which is going to find out. Listen to Encounters exclusively and ad-free on Wondrey Plus.
Join Wondrey Plus in the Wondrey app or in Apple Podcasts. After 36 years as a senator, eight as vice president, and four as the 46th president of the United States, Joseph R. Biden's career almost certainly ends tomorrow when Donald Trump assumes the presidency for the second time. We've asked correspondent Nancy Cordes to look back. I, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., do solemnly swear. When Joe Biden's presidency began four years ago. At this hour, my friends, democracy has prevailed.
Few imagined it would end like this. Mr. President-elect and former president, Donald, congratulations. His inauguration took place just two weeks after rioters had stormed the Capitol to disrupt the certification of his victory. When Joe Biden came into office, he said that he was going to defend democracy against autocracy.
That was job one for him, and everybody knew what he meant. Franklin Foer is a staff writer for The Atlantic and wrote a book about Biden's first two years in office. When you called him the last politician, what did you mean by that exactly?
I was thinking about the way in which our politics is this war of attrition between these two sides that despise one another. People are saying, you know, Biden just doesn't get it. You can't work with Republicans anymore.
That's not the way it works anymore. Folks, I'm going to say something outrageous. I know how to make government work. Biden had this very antiquated sense of how he could get things done. He felt like in order to save American democracy, he needed to prove that this old-fashioned style of politics could still deliver important, meaningful, tangible things for the American people. In many ways, he did deliver.
Any positive tests for COVID? His administration oversaw the successful rollout of the COVID vaccines. The stock market steadily rose to record highs, while unemployment fell to a near-record low. Overseas, he expanded NATO, strengthened alliances in Asia with the goal of containing China, and cobbled together lasting support for Ukraine in its war against Russia. It's on the duty of the president to defend what is best about America. He did so while racking up major legislative victories, including massive new investments in clean energy and semiconductor manufacturing.
I believe to my core there isn't a single thing this country cannot do when we put our mind to it. And he scored a win that had eluded his predecessors, signing a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. A lot of that money came New Jersey's way.
You bet. New Jersey governor, Democrat Phil Murphy. We're the most densely populated state in America. So moving people and things is more important to us probably than any other state.
And President Biden did just what he said he would do. He would almost call it a renaissance in American infrastructure. And there's all sorts of projects around our state. Most notably, the $16 billion Gateway Tunnel Project, which will expand the century-old tunnels under the Hudson River and double train capacity between New York and New Jersey.
It's the largest project of its kind in U.S. history. It will take time to feel the full impact of all we've done together. But the seeds are planted and they'll grow and they'll bloom for decades to come. I think it's a very successful presidency. I think history will treat him very, very well. And yet he was sort of embattled from the start. Even during some of these major milestone accomplishments, why do you think that is?
I think it's a fair question to ask, is this fair? And frankly, I don't think it is, but it is what it is. I mean, the numbers don't lie. Biden's approval ratings started out strong, but they sank six months in after the deadly withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. His polling was pushed down further by high inflation, a record surge in illegal border crossings, and a war in Gaza that divided his party.
Forty thousand people dead. And then there were the persistent questions about his age that dogged him from the moment he took office. Do you think he was aware that he was slowing down a little bit? Anybody who had eyes could watch him walk across the stage and they could see that his gait was stiff. They could see that he shuffled like an old man. And so he knew he was an old man as well. But I think that he probably overestimated his own political skills because he's come back from the dead all of these times.
Dealing with everything we have to do with, look, if we finally beat Medicare. Democratic leaders pressured Biden to leave the race after his disastrous debate performance last June. With just three months to mount her own campaign, Vice President Kamala Harris lost the popular vote and every swing state. Democrats also lost their majority in the Senate, meaning Republicans will now control the White House and both chambers of Congress with the power to undo some of Biden's work. And so the man who launched his campaign with a warning about Donald Trump... If we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation. ...suddenly finds that his legacy is largely in Trump's hands. He was going to prevent Donald Trump from ever returning to the White House.
And now at the end of his presidency, it's clear by any measure that he failed at his number one objective. And Donald Trump's returning. Donald Trump is back. Daytime TV fans, rejoice. There's a new soap opera coming to CBS in just a few weeks. Nancy Giles takes us Beyond the Gates. Once upon a time, soap operas ruled daytime TV. During their heyday, there were more than a dozen of them. Who do you think you are to tell Erika Kane to Beth Lamer?
I wrote the book. Now, just a handful remain. But next month, CBS will do something that hasn't been done in over 25 years. Here we are.
Launch a new one called Beyond the Gates. Are you feeling the pressure of that at all? I actually don't feel the pressure. I've always felt that it would be something that would happen. And just to get the flip side, you had doubts. What were your doubts? The fact that networks don't greenlight soaps anymore.
They've been canceling them. Sheila Duxworth is an executive producer and president of this CBS NAACP production. Michelle Valjean is an executive producer, head writer, and showrunner.
I am so proud of each and every one of you. This series will follow the lives of the Duprees, a prominent family living in a gated community just outside of Washington, DC. You've never seen a soap like this. You just haven't. You've never seen black people looking like this in the middle of the day. I'm done being disrespected.
Done. Plenty of love triangles, plenty of people you love, people you love to hate, all of that. It's really juicy. Duxworth says she's been hooked on soap since she was a kid. Let's set our opening frame. And getting this show made has been a labor of love decades in the making. She hopes that in between all the drama, the audience learns something.
These areas right outside of Washington, DC in the suburbs are some of the most affluent populations of black folks that you'll find in America. A lot of people do know that, but a lot of people don't. My God, you made fools of us all, didn't you?
The last time a black family was featured prominently on a soap opera was Generations in 1989, the show where Valjean, an Emmy Award winning writer, got her start. So Sheila, when she called and there was the opportunity, I didn't think it would go anywhere, but I jumped at it. Wow. Why are these stories so important to be told? Well, because they haven't been told before.
Black people go through the same thing that white people go through. We get betrayed, we betray. We tell secrets, we keep secrets. We love, we hate.
That's the kind of mess that I really like to get into. So where are we? This is the diner on our show.
It's called Orphe jeans. It's a gathering place for everybody in every economic bracket in this show. This is kind of the soul and the heartbeat of it. Veteran actors Clifton Davis and Tamara Tooney play Mr. and Mrs. Dupree.
If Anita asked, I'd run through fire then and now. Tell me about the family. You're the focus of the soap. The Dupree family has been a fixture in this community from the very, very beginning. We are the bulwark. We're the strong man.
But that doesn't mean we don't lose our minds along the way. I ordered your usual. Should be honey sec. Their oldest daughter is played by Daphne du Pley. You're going to be all right, sissy. Carla Moseley plays the younger daughter, a self-described wild child.
You sorry son of a bitch. Because she is such a storm, she encompasses so much, it's always like, what's she going to do? And that's just fun. It feels like freedom. There's a lot of dysfunction because that's what soaps thrive on, right?
But you'll also see a healthy family, right? Foundation, love, respect. When we visited the set last month, production was just getting underway. A crew of more than 200 worked around the clock to make this show a reality.
I was there, George. Whose home are we in right now? Right now we're in the Dupreeze home. Bruton Jones is the production designer. This is a Danny Dupreeze room.
I love the colors. That's the diner? That's the diner. And oversaw the creation of 27 sets. Can we talk about this gentleman here?
Yes, we can. His name is Paul Cheeks, a real architect back in the 50s. And this is like one of those gems that we were able to create and acknowledge. And no home would be complete without... Oh, man, an elevator.
That is fantastic. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm going to go stand in the elevator.
Oh, look at this. It'll take you where you want to go. Next stop, wardrobe. Jerissa Featherstone is the head costume designer and says clothing can tell a story of its own. It just feels at home.
I know these people. It's about family. It's about fashion. We love to get dressed. And last but not least, hair and makeup.
Hair designer Wonkiah Hinkson and makeup artist Stevie Martin say, historically, their departments have often lacked people who knew how to work on actors of color, but not here. I wanted everyone, of course, to see themselves on television and to see how we can wear our hair and how different natural hair textures can also be just as beautiful as straight. What's the feedback you're getting from the actors about getting up from your chair and knowing that they look their best?
Oh, they love it. Because when you look good, you feel good. So this kind of care and elevation of your work and of your worth, how does that make you feel when you hit the stage and when you're starting to do your scenes? Proud. So good. Always so proud. Proud, confident. Definitely, that's a great one.
You're ready to give it everything you've got. Our girl has seen the light. Starting next month, the audience will weigh in. Hit or miss, Sheila Duxworth says the show will have an impact. I do think that it will change lives.
I think that TV has that power to do that. I really do think it's going to open a lot of eyes. I think it's going to change a lot of perspectives.
And I think it's going to bring a lot of people together. As a new administration prepares to take office, Erin Moriarty shares the story of a woman who once wielded a very different sort of power, not far from the White House gates. I'm the chosen party giver For the White House clientele And they know that I deliver What it takes to make them gel And in Washington, I'm known by one and all As the hostess with the mostest on the ball In Call Me Madam, the 1953 movie version of Irving Berlin's hip musical, it was no secret that Ethel Merman was channeling a real person, a wealthy widow by the name of Pearl Mesta. Is it fair to say that probably in the 40s, early 50s, she was one of the best known women in America?
I was astonished. There were four or five thousand newspaper stories about her a year. Astonishing, says writer Meryl Gordon, because Pearl Mesta was known mainly as a hostess who gave dazzling parties in the nation's capital, mixing power brokers from both sides of the political aisle with Hollywood and Broadway stars and even members of the Supreme Court. Pearl became friends with a lot of the Supreme Court justices, so she's dancing with William O. Douglas. In the 1940s and 50s, Gordon says, Pearl Mesta was a woman who knew everyone, and it's the title of her new book. She made herself very popular. She bought her way into society in Washington, didn't she? She did, but she was also smart about it. Pearl figured out how to make friends with the right people. I'm having a couple senators over.
Maybe you'd like to join us? She was born Pearl Skirvin. Her father, an oil man and real estate developer, made and lost several fortunes in Oklahoma. She moved to Pittsburgh after marrying George Mesta, a steel magnate, and when he died in 1925, she left Pearl, then in her mid-30s, a fortune that today would be worth more than $260 million. She spent that fortune in Washington, D.C., says Marie Ritter, making herself famous. She was known as the social queen of Washington, I guess. How old were you the first time you went to a Pearl Mesta party?
Twenty. Marie Ritter is a conservationist and retired journalist. She invited me to a party because she wanted press coverage. No other reason. Not because she thought I was charming or anything, no. It was the press badge she cared about.
And why? Why did she want reporters there? She wanted to be known.
Come on. I've never met anybody like Pearl Mesta, and I've never heard of anybody like her. She was a phenomenon. Sally Quinn, who covered events like Mesta's as a style section reporter for the Washington Post, says Mesta instinctively knew that work in Washington wasn't just conducted in the halls of Congress. You sit next to somebody at dinner. You know that if you've been trying to get them on the phone if they're at the White House or the Journal, trying to get them on the phone, you can't.
The next day you'll be able to call and get them on the phone. By the late 1940s, Mesta had become as famous as many of her guests. She inspired a made-for-TV movie with Shirley Booth in the lead role. Thank you, Mr. President. It was so nice of you to come.
Good night, Pearl. Mesta was even featured on the cover of Time magazine. Cover of Time magazine?
Oh my gosh, it was a huge deal. The coverage, however, wasn't always kind. But they talked about things, described her in a way that you would never describe a male, her ample bulk. Her jowls, her, I mean, it was surprisingly cruel, and I'm not really sure why. It was almost like people were trying to take her down a notch. What made Pearl Mesta such a power in Washington was her uncanny ability to recognize political talent before others did. Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, Lyndon Johnson were all early guests at her home. She had a real nose for who was going to be powerful.
I mean, she was all over them long before they were who they were. In 1949, after Harry Truman was elected president, he rewarded Mesta by naming her envoy to Luxembourg. Her Excellency, the Ambassador from the United States of America!
That's how Madame Mesta inspired a hip musical. But the appointment didn't go down as well at the State Department. She was belittled, she was cut out of meetings. Our distinguished guest for this evening is Madame Pearl Mesta, United States Minister... Mesta was asked about the difficulties she faced on an interview program that aired on CBS at the time. Have you found being a woman a handicap in performing your ministerial duties? To a certain extent, it's a handicap because we have to prove ourselves, and we have to prove that we can do a job.
I think maybe we have to work just a little bit harder than the men do. Still, Mesta thrived in the post, continuing to give parties, including a monthly event for American GIs based in Europe. This went on for four years. She estimated that 25,000 soldiers came to her parties. Gordon says that only when researching her new biography did she realize what the hostess managed to accomplish behind the scenes. It is a great thing to be an American woman. Pearl Mesta, a staunch feminist and believer in civil rights, broke barriers in 1949 by insisting that Truman's inaugural balls be integrated. She made an enormous effort to be inclusive at her parties, at parties she organized for Democrats, at a period which many people weren't comfortable having black folks to their homes, and she did that.
And it was leading by example. She wasn't a civil rights crusader. It's just that these were her friends, and she wanted them part of her life. Mesta's star began to fade during the Kennedy years. I guess many people took her seriously.
I think my age group didn't. She died in 1975 at 92 years old. No one since, says Sally Quinn, has taken her place. I don't think Washington could handle Pearl Mesta today.
Quinn doubts that in the current environment, anyone could pull off what Pearl Mesta once did so brilliantly, getting Democrats and Republicans to sit down at a dinner table and see eye to eye. Are we missing out on something, not having that? No, terribly. It's just awful. It's awful that people can't get together and talk. Nearly two weeks since the start of those devastating fires in and around Los Angeles, Tracy Smith looks at some of the sobering lessons that endure in the embers.
The monster that roared through L.A. County last week is still alive. But firefighters seem to have it cornered. People have started returning to their homes or what's left of them.
And insurance, if they had it, is a whole other battle. And the focus now is turning from what happened to why it happened and what in the world is next. This disaster is as bad as just about anybody here can remember. But is it really just the new normal? Nature is telling us, I can't take this anymore.
I cannot support you if you keep treating me this way. John Valiant is the author of Fire Weather on the Front Lines of a Burning World. And he says climate change is making disasters like the wind-driven L.A. fires fiercer. This is not an anomaly.
This is the future? We can expect fires of this intensity and worse in the future. The types of fires we've seen over the past 10 years are qualitatively different from the previous 100 years. Wait, wait, wait. The types of fires are different?
Yeah. How has fire changed? In a number of ways. The most potent and frightening way, the most obvious to the layperson, you know, people like us, is it moves faster and with greater intensity.
And you talk to any firefighter with any sense of history and they are seeing different behavior that is, in many cases, unfightable. And Valiant says the cause is something science has been telling us for decades, the CO2 that our combustion engines keep pumping into the atmosphere. We don't feel it. We don't smell it.
We don't notice it. But if you were to take the car engine that brought me here and set it up on the floor here and fired it up, we would go deaf and then we would die from its emissions. And that's under the hood of every internal combustion engine car.
And there are hundreds of millions of them. So the emissions from fire, these trillions of fires that we make every day, has created this artificially warm climate. And so, he says, we get more intense fires, stronger hurricanes, and hotter heat waves.
We're going to lose everything and we're not joking. Climate scientist Peter Kalmes has been sounding much the same alarm for years. So do you feel like you're sitting on all this science and you're trying to share it with the world and no one's listening? That's exactly how I feel, yes. We met him in 2022 near his home in Altadena, California, just as he was about to move his family to North Carolina. Was part of that move because you were worried about wildfires?
Yeah. So for a few years, I wanted to move to someplace a little bit less fiery. But I want to make it clear, I don't think there's any place safe from climate change. Kalmes learned that firsthand last year when North Carolina was trashed by Hurricane Helene. And the California fires were a disaster for him as well. His old house in Altadena and his friends' homes all burned to the ground.
I'm hopeful that if there's a silver lining to this tragedy, it's that the public will wake up and get angry and say, we need to do something about this, enough is enough. Scientists like Peter Kalmes have been warning the world about impending climate disaster for years now. But on January 6th, as the fire closed in on Altadena, perhaps the most effective warning came from this guy. Edgar McGregor's been picking up trash in Altadena every day for more than five years.
He's also into meteorology and runs a Facebook page about weather. Days before the fires even started, he warned his Facebook followers about dangerous conditions. And on January 6th, he posted a video telling them to drop everything and get out of town.
This is imminent. Do not wait for an official evacuation notice. If you think you should leave, get out. Get out. You literally said, get out? I said get out.
I stood in the middle of my street at home, filmed myself with the mountains on fire behind me and told people, this is serious, get your social security cards, get the deed to your home, get out. Like this is the big one. I'm not joking around.
This is not going to blow over. Jen Seifert, an Altadena mother of two, didn't need to hear that twice. How much of a difference do you think Edgar made? I think, I think he, well he definitely saved my family's life. We all listened to him.
We were like, this kid knows what he's talking about. Her own house somehow survived. Her neighbors weren't so lucky. My best friends, like they've lost everything. But they're alive. They're alive. Maybe that's... Because, probably because of Edgar, I would imagine.
Everybody in the beautiful Altadena group is alive because of Edgar right now. Jen Seifert had never met Edgar McGregor in person, so we asked if she wanted to shake his hand. I'm sorry. It's okay.
I'm so happy. Jen, Edgar. Edgar, Jen. Hi. Hi.
I've seen all your poems. Yes. Hi. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
This is horrible. I'm so appreciative of you. Thank you. And you saved my family and you saved so many people.
So thank you. The fires, experts say, are a warning on a much bigger scale, that the earth will continue to get drier and more volatile unless we do something about climate change. But of course, warnings only work when people listen. Have we just pushed nature too far? The upside to all of this is nature is inviting us sternly to re-engage.
It's only going to get hotter. And so nature is saying, wake up. We are in this together.
It behooves all of us to focus on the real causes and to understand that this really can happen to us, to you and to me, not just to people we know or people on TV. Just hold her. That's it. Wait a minute. Peter, this is a girl.
Should we be doing this? Michael, just hold her. Wait here so I can get the diaper off. Oh.
Look at something so small create so much of something so disgusting. That's Steve Guttenberg in Three Men and a Baby, a movie that helped make him a box office star some years back. But in the past few days, Guttenberg has assumed a new role. Lisa Ling tells us how he's become the unlikely face of the fires devastating Los Angeles. It's an important announcement I wonder if I could just make.
On January 7th, as the Palisades fire exploded, a man interrupted a reporter's live shot. Thank you for talking to us live, sir. What's your name? My name is Steve Guttenberg. Steve Guttenberg, one of the biggest movie stars of the 1980s and 90s.
May the force be with you. And then these cars were going on fire. He had been moving cars so emergency vehicles could get through. He can't remember how he got to safety.
Thank you, guys. So this part of Sunset was just... Stacked with cars. Stacked with cars. Yeah. Couldn't get through. So I was moving some of these cars over there and then a lot of these cars just didn't have keys in them. Locked. Right. So it's like...
Many days later, much of his hometown reduced to ruins, he was still there to help protect his and his neighbors' homes. What is it in you that is compelling you to stay here? You know, it's not often in life that you feel like you can make a difference. And I really feel like I can make a difference. I'm able-bodied, I'm strong, I have a heart and I care.
And this is what I'm supposed to do today. If you know Steve Guttenberg, you know he's a helper. Seven years ago, he put everything on hold to care for someone with whom he was deeply in love. His father. I'm going to try to get through this interview without crying.
Okay. Because I lost my dad. What was your dad's name? His name was Douglas. Hi Douglas. And you know when you say a person's name who's passed, they come around.
I believe they're not always with you because they've got other things to do. But Douglas is here. And so is Stanley, my dad. Tell me about Stanley. What was your dad like?
How would you describe him? My dad was the greatest. He was the first man who ever held me. First guy I ever looked in his eyes. And I fell in love with my dad. Guttenberg has written a book about his journey as a caregiver for the man he considers his hero.
It's called Time to Thank. My dad and his dad weren't close. My grandfather was cold. He wasn't a kissing, hugging type of dad to my father. So my dad was the opposite.
A kissing and hugging dad who worked jobs that weren't exactly touchy-feely. He was an Airborne Army Ranger. He was a New York City policeman. He was a powerlifter and a weightlifter. And he did handstands for 20 minutes. His dad was also a hands-on parent.
So it was to Steve's surprise that when he wanted to move to L.A. at only 17 to try to become a movie star, he was allowed to do it. My parents gave me $300 and said, you got two weeks. And I got a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial. And my parents let me stay another two weeks and I got a little movie.
Not liking school is uncooperative? The Chicken Chronicles. I got more commercials and I actually stayed a year before I quit and went back to school. He wasn't in school for long before Hollywood beckoned him back. I was at a party in my suite at Albany State and got this call from my agent. Everybody was a little inebriated. And my agent said, I got an audition for you. It was called Boys from Brazil.
And it was going to be starring Greg Peck and Larry Olivier and James Mason, Uta Hagen. It's hard to turn that down, right? Yeah, you know, I asked my dad. My dad said, you know, just go down and do the audition.
If you get it, you'll decide. And I got the job. Gutenberg says it was Lawrence Olivier who taught him humility. But it was his dad who helped him get his big break in a little film about a bunch of misfits joining the police force. You make me sick.
Thank you, sir. I make everybody sick. I told my dad that I had a screen test coming up for this movie Police Academy. And he said, well, you should wear my Police Academy shirt. I said, yeah. And I remember going to the screen test and I was up against another actor who was really talented. And the director said, Mac, hold on here, boy. Did you make that shirt?
I said, no. It's my dad's real Police Academy shirt. About half a day later, my agent called me and said, you got it.
And maybe it was because of that cadet shirt that my dad gave me. He made a duplicate of himself from all these spare parts. That's incredible. This guy's a genius.
Gutenberg would go on to become one of the busiest actors of his generation with more than 100 films and TV shows under his belt. This is the deal. Michael.
You're going to have to wash where the poop was. Now come on. All right.
Come on. All the while, his dad was there, ready to bring him back to reality, often calling before the rest of LA got out of bed. You never miss that 6 AM call.
No. I always had to be home at 6 o'clock. Even if I got home at 5 to 6, I had to answer that phone. He was my anchor. So when his dad was diagnosed with kidney failure while living in Phoenix, Gutenberg got in his car, driving 400 miles every week to care for his father.
The drive really gave me time to think and time to thank. Steve Gutenberg and his siblings even became home dialysis techs, but only he couldn't accept the inevitable. I gave him a hug. Something didn't sound right. We had a nurse with us, and the nurse put a stethoscope to him. She said, he's gone.
I said, no. And I started doing CPR on him, and I just couldn't accept it at that moment. When would you say you finally let him go?
I'd probably let him go a year later. It's hard to believe that he's gone. I still think that he's here. He is.
Just say his name. Stanley. And right now, he thinks his father is sending along some helpful advice. Do you feel Stanley's presence with you? Yeah, I feel my dad's around. Yeah, I really do. I feel my dad is here with me. And I think he's also saying, Stephen, enough. Get out of there. So far, his home is still standing, but Steve Gutenberg says it's time to listen to his dad.
You know, the truth is, no matter how big your house is, no matter how much money you have, how expensive your car, at the end of it, you're walking down the street with a little suitcase of a few things that you saved, and you're looking for someone to tell you where to go. Yeah. Right? What's old is new again in Washington, D.C., as Donald Trump prepares to once again take the oath of office.
Here's correspondent Robert Costa. Four years ago, Donald and Melania Trump bid farewell. Hopefully it's not a long-term goodbye. We'll see each other again. Many in both parties believed Trump was heading into a permanent political winter, especially after he sought to overturn the 2020 election. Mike Pence, I hope you're going to stand up for the good of our Constitution and for the good of our country.
And if you're not, I'm going to be very disappointed in you, I will tell you right now. And a mob of his supporters attacked the Capitol. USA! USA! Goodbye. We love you. We will be back in some form.
But the 45th president saw the moment differently, as a pause, not an end. USA! USA! USA! Well, I want to thank you all very much.
This is great. And now the Trumps are back. To rescue our economy, I will sign. The soon-to-be 47th president is promising mass deportations, trade tariffs, tax cuts, and a smaller federal government. America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate.
I think it's going to be shock and awe. He's going to parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, swing those doors open at the Oval Office, and sign a hundred or more executive orders that overturn the damage of the last four years. Indiana's Jim Banks, a staunch Trump ally in the House during the first term, was elected to the Senate last year. Has he changed as a person at all, or is it the same Trump? Well, I don't think he's changed at all, but I think he learned a lot of lessons. He's making it very clear to Republicans in the Senate and the House, we have a short window of time to get the things done that we need to get done.
That's a different attitude than 2017. But there were a lot of things that President Trump wanted to accomplish in those first two years that we never got around to. He's not going to miss the moment this time. You say, Senator, he has a short window to get things done. Is he effectively a lame duck? He can't run for reelection again.
Well, I would never call Donald Trump a lame duck. But the political reality is the midterms are right around the corner. Getting Congress to go along with his plans could be tricky. Yes, Trump has a bully pulpit. Putin said that he wants to meet with me as soon as possible. To pressure world leaders, business titans, and lawmakers.
But the Republican majorities are paper thin. I am your warrior. I am your justice.
I am your retribution. We will take care of it. Trump's sense of vengeance also hovers, and critics worry nominees, Kash Patel for FBI director and Tulsi Gabbard for director of national intelligence, could upend institutions. What do you say to progressives, to Democrats who still feel down about the election result? Look, this is a very pivotal moment in American history. And you don't have the time to moan and groan, you don't have the time to live in despair.
You gotta stand up, you gotta fight back. Democrats and Independents are adjusting to this new political reality. Trump is a little bit crazy, but he's not stupid. And Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, despite his many disagreements with Trump, says he's keeping an open mind. We don't want to count the everything he's doing. There are things that he's said over the years that make sense to me.
You want to lower the cost of prescription drugs in America, we'll work with you. For him, the art of the deal persists, to a point. Is Trump's transactional nature an up or a down?
No, they can set up. But when you are going to sell out the American working class, which I suspect will be the case very often, we're going to oppose you vigorously. President Biden, in his farewell address, gave Democrats a playbook of sorts for how to define Trump and his allies. An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence.
That literally threatens our entire democracy. You use the term oligarchs to describe some of the allies of President Trump, not a term we often hear in American politics. Well, you know why I use the word oligarchy, Bob? Because it's true. When Donald Trump is going to take office, he's going to have Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg at his side, the three wealthiest people in this country.
That's called oligarchy. Republicans say, hold on, and insist they have solidarity with working people. I grew up in a working class home, the son of a union factory worker, voted Democrat all of his life, hated NAFTA, and my dad was immediately captured by Donald Trump. It was foreign when he came down the escalator.
I thought my dad was crazy at the time. He was right, but he's one of those former union working class Democrat voters who is a solid Trump Republican voter today, and that has changed American politics in such a significant way, and I think American politics will be changed for the rest of my life. This summer will mark ten years since Donald Trump came down that golden escalator. And tomorrow's inauguration highlights what once seemed impossible. Trump has endured and dominated American life with his highs, his lows, his everything ever present. On the eve of President Joe Biden's departure from the White House, we've asked historian Douglas Brinkley for his assessment of our 46th president. When President Richard Nixon died in 1994, most Americans thought instantly of one word, Watergate.
They didn't think of the EPA, the vital government agency Nixon created, nor did they think of China, the country he visited as president, and strengthened diplomatic ties with. No, the country remembered him above all. I shall resign the presidency effective at noon tomorrow. For his foulest political blunder. Whether the same fate will befall Joe Biden remains to be seen. His achievements are tangible and numerous.
Enrollment in the Affordable Care Act has nearly doubled from four years ago. Biden got more federal judges confirmed than any president in a single term, save Jimmy Carter. His steadfast support for Ukraine and NATO expansion at a time of creeping autocracy in Europe was heroic. But Biden's mistakes cost him and his country dearly. He appointed an attorney general, Mary Garland, whose painstaking scrupulousness delayed and ultimately doomed the DOJ's prosecution of Donald Trump. Furthermore, Biden undermined his own credibility by pardoning his son after repeatedly vowing not to. Another broken promise proved far more consequential. Biden's implicit campaign pledge in 2020 that his presidency would serve as a bridge to a new generation of leaders rang hollow when he ran for re-election four years later.
So I've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. When he reluctantly handed the reins to his Vice President Kamala Harris, he put her in an inauspicious position from which she didn't recover. Biden's mistaken conviction that he and he alone could defeat the man he considered a threat to the Democratic order is the very reason that man will place his hand on the Bible tomorrow.
So help me God. Congratulations, Mr. President. Over his 50 years of public service, Joe Biden has proved himself a patriot.
But for all his basic decency, history may come to remember him for another trait, hubris. Thank you for listening. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. Good morning.
Whisper: medium.en / 2025-01-19 16:05:30 / 2025-01-19 16:23:48 / 18