Share This Episode
CBS Sunday Morning Jane Pauley Logo

CBS Sunday Morning 11/1

CBS Sunday Morning / Jane Pauley
The Truth Network Radio
November 1, 2020 1:53 pm

CBS Sunday Morning 11/1

CBS Sunday Morning / Jane Pauley

On-Demand Podcasts NEW!

This broadcaster has 331 podcast archives available on-demand.


November 1, 2020 1:53 pm

Conor Knighton explores how the study of grizzly bears’ hibernation may hold critical clues to advancing human health. David Pogue looks at the explosion in popularity of chess during the pandemic. Susan Spencer examines the mental health toll of COVID-19. Mo Rocca reports on the life of first lady and humanitarian Eleanor Roosevelt. Major Garrett looks at an Election Night tradition, the concession speech. Faith Salie accompanies a 104-year-old voter to the polls. Ben Mankiewicz interviews comedy legend Bob Newhart. John Dickerson offers advice on weathering Election Day stress, and Lee Cowan looks back on the career of Sean Connery.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Line of Fire
Dr. Michael Brown
Hope for the Caregiver
Peter Rosenberger
Building Relationships
Dr. Gary Chapman
The Line of Fire
Dr. Michael Brown
Hope for the Caregiver
Peter Rosenberger

Our CBS Sunday morning podcast is sponsored by Edward Jones. College tours with your oldest daughter. Updating the kitchen to the appropriate decade.

Retiring on the coast. Life is full of moments that matter, and Edward Jones helps you make the most of them. That's why every Edward Jones financial advisor works with you to build personalized strategies for now and down the road. So when your next moment arrives, big or small, you're ready for it. Life is for living.

Let's partner for all of it. Learn more at edwardjones.com. Good morning. I'm Jane Pauley and this is Sunday Morning. We begin with some good news. Thanks to our return to standard time during the night, most of you got an extra hour to sleep in. Nice?

Sure. But nothing like the lengthy slumber enjoyed by some burly creatures snug in their lairs, as Connor Knighton will explain. For the past few months, bears have been packing on the pounds, getting ready for their annual self-imposed self-quarantine. The first time I got to see them during hibernation, I was old.

They were so cool. At Washington State University, scientists study the mysteries of hibernation. Underneath all of that fat might be everything from diabetes treatments to tools for space travel. A long winter's nap ahead on Sunday morning. There you go. From there, it's on to one of the greatest comic legends of our time. His name is Bob Newhart and he's talking this morning with our Ben Mankiewicz. Hello? Bob Newhart had not one but two hit TV shows named for him. Not bad for an accountant. If I had been with Enron, they would still be in business.

I mean, the government could never have figured out my book. Laughs and a few surprises. That's it. I've had it. All right? All right. With the trailblazing comedian. I'm leaving.

Later on Sunday morning. And then we consider a question of mind over matters. Those matters being the daily challenges of living with COVID and the emotional toll it's taking.

Susan Spencer consults the experts. From hoarding hand sanitizer to living in lockdown. The battle for our physical health is doing a number on our mental health. It's not too exaggerated to say that this could be a second pandemic. Mental health pandemic? Yeah. That's what a lot of us are expecting. All over the world.

Feeling a little anxious lately? Ahead on Sunday morning. David Pogue watches the big move chess has made toward crowd appeal. Lee Cowan looks back on the life of Sean Connery, the very first James Bond in the movies. Malaraka remembers a first lady, who many consider first among equals. Faith Salie meets a voter who puts no shows to shame. Along with Steve Hartman and more on this Sunday morning, the first of November 2020.

We'll be back in a moment. Much as we humans may welcome any chance to sleep in, we're practically insomniacs compared to animals that hibernate. It's a curious phenomenon that is beginning to yield some of its secrets.

Here's our counter-nighten. For a bear, Brooks Falls at Katmai National Park in Alaska is like one of those conveyor belt sushi restaurants. During the summer months, diners are treated to a seemingly endless supply of salmon. This summer, the alpha of omega-3 consumption was a bear known as 747. The recent winner was the winner of Katmai's annual online fat bear week contest. Jumbo jet size 747 is estimated to weigh 1400 pounds. But of course, all those pounds serve a purpose. Bears have an enormous appetite. It's virtually unstoppable and they will eat and eat and eat to gain that fat mass to survive hibernation. Heiko Janssen is a professor of integrated physiology and neuroscience at Washington State University, home to the country's only dedicated bear research center. Located in Pullman, Washington, the center houses 11 grizzlies and these big mammals on campus are helping scientists unlock some of hibernation's mysteries. But first, let's clear up a hibernation of misconception. I'm getting awfully sleepy.

Likewise, boo-boo. I can hardly wait to hibernate. The common cartoon concept of hibernation involves bears going to sleep in November and then waking up for the first time in spring. I set the alarm clock for like spring.

But that's not quite what happens. They actually don't sleep all the time. They have a fairly regular sleep wake pattern and and they will get up in the den.

They might stretch a little bit. In fact, pregnant females give birth and nurse their cubs during hibernation. The more fat a mom puts on going into the den, the bigger the cubs are that are born and the more cubs she can produce. But what scientists don't fully understand is how bears can get so heavy and yet stay relatively healthy. Bears eat a ton, get fat, don't get diabetes.

Exactly, right. They exhibit some of the signs that type 2 diabetics exhibit but then all of that reverses itself. In the lab at WSU, fat cells are analyzed for clues about how the bears beat diabetes.

Grad student Hannah Hapner believes the answers could have implications far beyond the bear world. Hopefully what I'm doing will assist in us figuring out how that works and then developing treatments for those human metabolic diseases as well. A treatment for type 2 diabetes may be hiding in hibernation and if we humans could ever find a way to lower our own metabolic rate the same way that bears do, well then the skies would no longer be as limiting. This is the first time that men have been put into hibernation before departure. In 2001 A Space Odyssey, some of the crew goes into hibernation to conserve food and water en route to Jupiter.

According to Jansen, it's not that far-fetched. Even lowering our metabolic rates by a few percentage points would have a huge benefit to the amount of stuff you simply had to carry on a spacecraft. Although so much snoozing would present its own set of challenges. Humans that would be laying down for six months would lose a tremendous amount of bone but bears aren't losing bone mass. They're not becoming osteoporotic like humans would.

Why? Nobody really knows. The WSU center opened in 1986 to help answer those types of questions. The grizzlies either come from the greater Yellowstone region where encounters with humans have put them at risk for being put down or they were born on site. Since the researchers control the diet they start shrinking the portions in the fall to mimic what would be happening in the wild.

It's mostly a mix of kibble and apples with one occasional treat. They will do almost anything for a large bolus of honey. I can't believe that's the bear stereotype that's true.

It's like of all of them I would have been like all right the Winnie the Pooh thing is ridiculous. That's true they love honey. They love honey. Here you go John.

Up, up, here we go. For a few squirts of honey the bears kick out their paws for a final pre-hibernation blood draw. They'll be examined again in April but for the next several months it's pretty hands-off. They'll be monitored on camera while they laze around. With so much uncertainty in our world from the pandemic to politics it's hard not to be a little envious of hibernators. For humans it's bound to be a challenging winter but for the bears it'll be a blur.

They essentially get to skip it all curled up in their dens awaiting a sunnier spring. It's the challenge of our COVID times. How to assert your mind over matters of health and work and family and more.

Not surprisingly it's a challenge that's stressing a lot of us out as Susan Spencer can tell us. When it comes to wearing a mask Seattle writer Wendy Sparrow was way ahead of the curve. I've been wearing a mask during flu season for an allergy season for like years and people would look at me when I would walk into a store and they would stare at me. Masks and hand sanitizer both are part of Sparrow's lifelong mental health battle with OCD or obsessive compulsive disorder. I plan for all the worst things that could happen. I have first aid kits everywhere.

I have like multiple ones in my house. First aid kits? Yes first aid kits. I mean somebody could get their head locked off and I could just probably get it back on with the first aid kits I have around. You described yourself as suffering from something called contamination phobia.

Can you explain what exactly that is? As far as like germs go up until I can see somebody like sneeze or something I'm usually okay with it. I don't go to hazmat levels of cleaning unless somebody is sick and then I kind of lose my mind. She's been accused of overreacting for as long as she can remember until COVID-19 came along.

One of my friends online commented to me the other day and she goes how does it feel to have mask wearing normalized finally and I was just like I'm not going to get stared at anymore. But as gratifying as you might think that would be she says the pandemic actually has made her OCD worse. It's much harder to control symptoms and habits and stuff like that when you are genuinely you know at risk for these things.

I mean how do you how do you tell yourself no that that's too much hand sanitizer when I at this point there's no such thing as too much hand sanitizer. We're in the midst of a mental health epidemic right now and I think it's only going to get worse. You don't think the worst is over?

No not at all. No I think in a way the worst is yet to come in terms of mental health. Dr. Vivian Pender is president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association. There's going to be tremendous grief and mourning for all the lost people and the lost opportunities and the lost dreams and hopes that people had. She says the pandemic is aggravating mental illness among those already battling it and taking a toll on the rest of us too. Anxiety always rises in the face of uncertainty and we're living in very uncertain times. More than half of American adults say their mental health has suffered because of the pandemic.

Prescriptions for antidepressants shot up 14% after the initial outbreak. You could argue that given all that's going on having a mental health issue is just a normal reaction. Absolutely and so what we really have to be careful of when we're talking about mental health during this time is what's an actual anxiety or depressive disorder and what is just a stress response that makes sense given how uncertain the world feels. Atlanta psychiatrist Dr. Sarah Vinson says her days are packed with returning patients and first-timers concerned there's something seriously wrong. How do you know when you should really worry about it? A big thing that differentiates just sort of typical stress versus a disorder is if there's actually impairment.

So is this getting in your way? Is this making it difficult or impossible even for you to do your work, fulfill your responsibilities in your household, sleep at night and when that continues for weeks at a time that's when you should think maybe this is more than just a stress response. Dr. Vinson splits her time between private practice and a public clinic where unfortunately business is booming. If I wanted to try to make an appointment how long would it take me? Our wait list at the county clinic is around three or four weeks. So if someone is having a serious mental health issue it's going to take weeks to see anybody? Unless they go to an urgent care or that sort of thing because the people that we already have are taking up more of our time.

Across the country long waits are standard fare due mostly, Dr. Pender says, to a lack of money and a chronic shortage of providers. Mental health services have been underfunded for a long time and they're still underfunded. One recent study found more than half of behavioral health organizations have closed programs due to COVID-19 while 65 percent have had to reschedule or turn away patients all of which affects some groups more than others. How do you evaluate the entire mental health system in terms of meeting this challenge for people of color?

I would definitely probably give it a D minus if not an F. That's why retired California school teacher Valerie Andrews recently launched a non-profit for women of color facing mental health challenges. She's battled anxiety and OCD her whole life but didn't get a diagnosis until she was well past 50. Do you have a sense of what treatment is available in the community today?

Very little. There's no availability. If you don't have insurance for most people it's too expensive or there's too much negativity around it or there's not enough people that look like them to talk to so all of those factors come into play. Like Wendy Sparrow Andrews says the pandemic has aggravated her OCD but even so after the death of George Floyd she managed to take a very big step. I went to my first march, Black Lives Matter march. But your OCD centers around a fear of getting sick and in a protest you're with hundreds thousands of people. I would have thought that would have been terrifying. It really was.

I did double masks, I did you know double gloves, carried my hand sanitizer with me. My daughter who's a nurse was with me so we didn't stay long but it was important enough to get out there and have my voice heard. An inspirational note to which all of us in this COVID-19 struggle now can relate. There's always hope and I think the world needs to feel that right now but also people with mental health issues. Even if you're just like thinking 2021 please get here already. There are better days ahead.

This isn't going to be forever. If you've ever considered taking up chess now's the time to make your move. David Pogue shows us why. The pandemic reduced most professional sports to shadows of their former selves but it's done wonders for one game.

Maybe the last one you'd ever guess. It's chess. A boom is taking place in chess like we have never seen maybe since the Bobby Fischer days and it's happening all because the pandemic has driven people indoors and they're looking for something incredible, constructive, educational to do. Maurice Ashley is a chess grandmaster and a commentator for chess championships.

People have this misconception that it's slow, it takes a long time, it's boring, why would you want to watch grass grow? Yeah. But chess is not like that, well not all the time like that anyway. I'm about to wrap him up. No time soon forget about that dream. It's definitely not like that in New York City's Washington Square Park where you can play a pickup game for five bucks. Lights out. With old timers like David Solomon Reed. Your move. He's been playing here for 40 years.

When you guys go back and do the editing I want the heading to be I am the last lion of Washington Square Park, the last. If there's a boom in chess they're not seeing it here, the players just aren't getting the same traffic they once did. A good four or five dollars before the pandemic. Now it's like slow because a lot of tourists are not allowed to come here as far as the flights coming in and out. So now it's down to what on a good day?

Oh god I think I'd squeeze $200, $150, $200 on that. So where's the boom? You probably saw this coming. It's online. By June 2020 the number of people joining chess.com had tripled from the previous year. The signups grew by a million people a month. I couldn't really see my friends as much so I was kind of looking for that competitive advice to continue in my life and you know I found that through chess.

One of the new members was graduate student Richard Hamilton. The idea is you're playing total strangers? Yeah you're playing with it's kind of cool sometimes it's like Iran or you know Albania some countries that the average American maybe can even point out on the map. But the chess explosion isn't just people playing.

Oh my god it's the most beautiful mate I've ever seen. It's also people watching. Chess has been around for over a thousand years and people are just starting to watch at explosive rates now. As a teenager Alexandra Botez won six national titles in both Canada and the U.S. Today at 25 she makes a six figure income playing chess live on Twitch. A website where you watch entertaining gamers play video games. But in the pandemic chess is one of Twitch's fastest growing spectator sports. Oh my god sell me.

It's very high energy you know you're yelling when you lose a piece you're excited when you win sometimes people will put bets on the line and it's much more interactive and you feel like you're actually watching a kind of sport. At one point you actually threatened to shave your eyebrows? Yeah I need to get 2300 because this ain't gonna be a good look. And I said that if I don't reach a certain rating goal in a one month period I would shave off my eyebrows. It was very motivating. She got to keep her eyebrows.

Welcome everybody I hope we're all ready to behave because we got CVS Sunday morning filming things today. And along the way she's amassed a huge following of fans. About 200,000 people a day log on to watch her play chess.

Thank you so much Del for the five months I appreciate it. And a lot of them pay five dollars a month to support her channel. Becoming an online chess star requires more than good chess chops. You have to multitask like crazy.

You start crying like a little baby. You trash talk you joke for six to eight hours at a time. It's not traditional chess the ones who are the best are also incredible at chess and also incredible at entertaining. On one hand Maurice Ashley can't wait for the return of chess tournaments played in person. Chess players want to sit across the board. They want to see the player they're playing. They want to shake hands. They want to go after the game and hang out and talk about what fun that was.

Maybe go over the game where they made mistakes and then maybe go have a brewski. But overall he's thrilled to see how the internet has brought this ancient game to millions of new fans. So this is not a pandemic bubble that's gonna pop. Oh no no pandemic bubble for chess not at all.

This is a pandemic rocket ship that has taken the game to new levels. Of all of America's first ladies Eleanor Roosevelt was truly a first among equals. Charting her own distinctive course both during and after her White House years. Mo Rocca has her story.

Ladies and gentlemen the most admired woman of our time Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. In 1960 the chairman of the board asked the first lady of the world if she had one word of encouragement for viewers of his Frank Sinatra ABC special. That one word would be hope. Just hope?

Yes it's the most neglected word in our language. Yes hope. High hopes. Those high apple pie in the sky hopes. Propelled Roosevelt to become a globe-trotting humanitarian.

Man must have freedom in which to develop his full stature. And for 12 years America's first lady emphasis on first. She's the first first lady to cross the country by air. She's the first first lady to have press conferences.

And as David Michaelis chronicles in his new biography published by Simon & Schuster a Viacom CBS company. Eleanor Roosevelt was also the first first lady to write a daily newspaper column and host a weekly radio show. We still see in the youth of today an absolute faith in their own ability to work out our destinies. Of all the monikers titles assigned to her which was the one that was her favorite? She registered herself over and over again as homemaker or housewife. She thought that you were a genius if you could make a home anywhere you were.

Feeling at home with herself was a lifelong journey for Eleanor. She was born in 1884 into material wealth and emotional scarcity. She wasn't allowed to show fear. She wasn't allowed to cry. If she was upset she was told to go in the bathroom put her head over the tub and cry there. She adored her father the brother of future president Teddy Roosevelt but he struggled with addiction. Her mother said to be the second most beautiful woman in New York openly mocked Eleanor for her serious demeanor calling the young girl granny. It was a way of saying not just you look old and sour you look like something I don't want to be and I don't want my family to have anything to do with.

It was a real excommunication. And what did that do to Eleanor? Well she herself would say I wanted to sink into the floorboards. Orphaned at the age of nine she was engaged at 19 to her fifth cousin the ambitious Franklin Delano Roosevelt. What did Franklin see in Eleanor? Well she had one thing she was the president's niece.

He worshipped Theodore Roosevelt. Meeting Eleanor was the moment where he could say to himself by god I'm marrying that woman and I'm going to be president United States myself. The marriage would become one of history's great political partnerships.

She immediately feels useful. Useful and therefore loved and I think the great disconnect for them was in discovering that they could only be useful to each other but might not make each other happy as inimits. Although they would have six children Franklin would find romantic love with other women. Eleanor would seek intimacy with both men and women. Throughout Eleanor's life she channeled her own hunger for affection into compassion and service to others. She was a noticer of other people who didn't like to be noticed herself.

She much preferred the attention to be on you than on her. During World War I while Franklin served as assistant secretary of the navy Eleanor visited Arlington National Cemetery daily to bear witness to the burials of fallen American soldiers. If nobody turned up she felt absolutely it was her duty to stand by that grave and to observe everything and listen to Taps. I was just thinking I began every morning for a number of years when I was writing this book listening to Taps and Taps is sort of the Eleanor Roosevelt anthem because in it she was able to connect through sorrow and pain to the country in its most sorrowful and painful moments.

Loss. It's what her life was primarily based on. By the time Franklin was elected president he had been stricken by polio. Eleanor became his eyes and ears going right to the source of the country's pain during the depression meeting minors in Appalachia challenging southern democrats to support anti-lynching legislation and during World War II visiting internment camps where Japanese Americans were imprisoned simply because of their race. She brought back the truth. He always trusted that she was going to give the truth that others might not or they might sugarcoat.

The first lady was often alone at the wheel driving herself cross-country. People looked into her eyes and saw somebody who was listening to them and who is somehow seeing them in ways that they maybe had never been seen. She was letting you know that your government belonged to you but more importantly you belong to your government and you had something to do.

Democracy was a two-way street. After Franklin died Eleanor spent more time in this stone cottage at Val-Kill, New York, her longtime sanctuary but she never retired. Now here is Mrs. Roosevelt. In 1959 she hosted her own public television show. Now I'd like to know what your opinion is on that question. Now in her 70s she held forth with younger leaders like Senator John F. Kennedy.

There are 17 million Americans who have a substandard diet. It so happens that David Michaelis's mother Diana Teed Michaelis worked on the program and a four-year-old David once met Mrs. Roosevelt. I was trying to get a stick of gum off the first lady off my mother's boss. She was fresh out of juicy fruit and that's the memory but what I took away and feel still is this feeling of a person from whom goodness was literally pouring forth from these eyes that were alive and radiant.

Where do you think that light comes from? I think it comes out of fearlessness. There's finally a lack of fear of being who you are so that you can be that person for millions of people. Eleanor Roosevelt died on November 7, 1962, mourned by millions the world over. A once uncertain child of privilege turned global champion of the dispossessed. You must have wondered what would her message to people be today? Live your life imaginatively, excitingly. Be yourself.

Be the best possible version of yourself while you're here. It's not going to be for very long. This is Intelligence Matters with former acting director of the CIA, Michael Morell. Bridge Colby is co-founder and principal of the Marathon Initiative, a project focused on developing strategies to prepare the United States for an era of sustained great power competition. The United States put our mind to something we can usually figure it out. What people are saying and what we kind of know analytically and empirically is our strategic situation, our military situation is not being matched up with what we're doing.

Follow Intelligence Matters wherever you get your podcasts. The Good Fight, the final season, now streaming exclusively on Paramount Plus. It happened yesterday. Word of the passing of Sean Connery. With Lee Cowan, we take a look back. If you spent the 60s watching only James Bond movies, you'd think the world was filled with egomaniacal villains and there was only one man who could defeat them. Mr. Bond. James Bond.

Who are you? Bond. James Bond. Some would say Sean Connery was the best Bond. At the very least, he set the standard for all the 007s who would follow. Do you expect me to talk? No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die. His secret was his ability to escape danger, but what are we going to do now? Well, we can swim or... Be dangerously suave at the same time.

This is no time to be rescued. Maybe it was his Scottish accent or maybe it was his sly humor. Looking for shells? No, I'm just looking. Whatever it was, it never got old. When People magazine declared him the sexiest man alive, he was just shy of 60 years old. It was the same year he was playing Harrison Ford's father in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Junior? Yes, sir.

It is you, Junior. Those roles, the ones where he wasn't playing Bond, he seemed to relish the most. Break out the raft. Flash them to the deck.

We'll use them as shelters until the fleet arrives. It wasn't because he didn't like playing a secret agent, but because he could do so much more. And yet, his only Academy Award came from playing a streetwise Irish cop in The Untouchables. He pulls a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue.

That's the Chicago way. He embodied Hollywood, and yet the older he got, the more he distanced himself from it. But he's so far away. God, I hate getting older. Except for some voiceover work, his last film appearance was in the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Three years after, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth in Scotland. He once said that, more than anything else, I'd like to be an old man with a good face, like Alfred Hitchcock or Picasso. Sir Sean Connery's piercing but welcome face surely has matched theirs and more. Tens of millions of us have already voted in this election, and Steve Hartman catches up with a few of them at a place rich with history. How grateful they must be. The people, women mostly, who flock here to Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York, just to stand in her presence. It was really amazing.

Like, I wasn't just reading from a textbook anymore. I was with her. Emma Mitiga came to the grave of Susan B. Anthony for what has become a Rochester tradition, showing the suffragist in a very tangible way that her work was not in vain. After Anthony died in 1906, her grave went mostly unnoticed until four years ago, when about 10,000 people showed up to put their I Voted stickers on her headstone, a gesture that came with unintended consequences.

Unfortunately, the gummy residue of all that affection was damaging the marble. So this year, they covered her headstone with a plexiglass sleeve, allowing for layers of tributes for generations to come. She worked so hard her whole life. Sarah Campagna brought her daughter, Clara.

She died not even knowing if it would happen. We're not going to have children that'll take those next steps for us if we don't educate them now. Karen Moretti says we also need to educate a lot of adults, like her. Yes, I haven't always been so passionate. It's almost like we took it for granted. Were you in our car on the way coming here?

Because I said to her, I can't believe I was so clueless for many parts of my life. And now I am so passionate. During our day at the grave site, we saw that passion take many forms, from downright jubilation to overwhelming emotion.

The only constant was the way people put on their stickers, all of them with such tenderness as of rubbing liniment into the injustice. And it was healing, which is why I believe voting should always be a two-step process. First, a ballot, and then a nod to all those who made the sacred right possible. Just two days to go before America decides. But whether we'll know by Tuesday night exactly what we've decided is a very big question. Major Garrett now, on the outlook for TV's election night tradition. Father knows best, and the Gary Moore Show will not be seen tonight, as CBS News brings you its nationwide election coverage. Election night, one of the few remaining events when the entire nation gathers around the electronic campfire.

Sorry, forgive me for interrupting. Ohio falls for Bill Clinton. To learn the nation's political future together.

We could be in for a long night. Whether the winner is expected. President Nixon has been re-elected. Well, there's a roar of approval here.

Or expectations are upended. Word there is that Hillary Clinton has called Donald Trump to concede. We watch because we are part of it. This presidential race is still not decided. This is bigger than the Super Bowl, bigger than the World Series.

Presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin. Because the big difference is you may get completely caught up in the drama of those other sporting events, but we are participants. We're not spectators in this. The big election night, 1952. A new tone for election nights in the television age. A UNIVAC is a fabulous electronic machine. CBS pulled out all the technological stops. Before the space age was a well-known term, CBS introduced Remington Rand's UNIVAC. This is not a joke or a trick.

It's an experiment. We think it's going to work. It predicted the night's winner, General Dwight D. Eisenhower. But speaking that night before Eisenhower.

The people have rendered their verdict and I gladly accept it. Illinois Governor Adlai Stevenson, resoundingly defeated, gave the first nationally televised concession speech in American history. It is traditionally American to fight hard before an election.

It is equally traditional to close ranks as soon as the people have spoken. So he's got that understanding of his responsibility and setting a tone, I think, that becomes an example for all the people who concede afterwards. Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences and he has prevailed.

And those same themes you hear throughout. We have fought the good fight. We fought hard. We've come to an end. We accept this result. We will work together. And once the decision is made, we unite behind the man who is elected. Florida goes Bush. The presidency is Bush.

That's it. But not every election night has a concession speech. Bulletin, senior Gore aide confirms Gore withdraws concession.

That's bulletin material with a capital B. Some elections don't even end on election night. About 10 minutes ago, the vice president did call the governor and retracted his concession. We put Florida back in the undecided category. I think like most people in the country, I went to bed with a scene on my TV showing the vote count in Florida. I woke up the next morning, turned on my TV and realized that nothing had changed and we still didn't have a president. Moments later, Tallahassee attorney Barry Richard got a call from George W. Bush's team. A lawsuit had been filed in Palm Beach County and Bush needed a lawyer. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

I have with me this afternoon Mr. Barry Richard of Tallahassee, Florida. The recount transfixed the nation. If we don't figure out the count right on this, we're a banana Republican. Voters who never heard of or thought about ballot design came to know about the butterfly variety. Some say when they went to select Gore, they mistakenly punched Buchanan. Everybody knows about the Chads now. And hanging Chads. Does the Chad have to be punched all the way out? Do you look at a dimple? Is that enough? In a flash, Barry Richard became one of the most recognized lawyers in America. You can keep counting forever.

You know, when do you stop? As soon as I stepped out of my office door, there were a mass of reporters walking backwards in front of me wherever I went. The confusion and chaos continued for 36 days, ending only when the United States Supreme Court handed down a 5-4 ruling, stopping a hand recount of ballots in Florida, ensuring George W. Bush would win the state's electors and therefore the presidency. Could what happened in Florida back then happen today? This year, several states will count millions more mail-in ballots after November 3rd, and that could delay final results for a day or more. Already, in excess of 400 lawsuits have been filed about election rules.

Unlike in 2000, lawyers for both campaigns stand ready to fight over any perceived infraction. But for former Bush attorney Barry Richard, that's not the biggest difference he sees between this year's election and the contest between George W. Bush and Al Gore. It never even was a consideration for a candidate to say that he wouldn't accept the ultimate results once they were known. We want to make sure the election is honest, and I'm not sure that it can be. Donald Trump, as candidate and now president, has repeatedly refused to say if he would accept the results of an election he did not win.

The only way we're going to lose this election is if the election is rigged. Remember that. Back in 2000, just a day after the Supreme Court's ruling, Al Gore addressed the nation. Just moments ago, I spoke with George W. Bush and congratulated him on becoming the 43rd president of the United States.

And I promised him that I wouldn't call him back this time. Let there be no doubt, while I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it. I think it really did put to rest what had been, at that point in our modern history, the most tumultuous election. We just voted. Doris Kearns Goodwin says whether we know the winner on election night four more years or a day or two later, this year's losing candidate has a responsibility greater than any nominee in modern history to help heal the nation, or at least try. This is the final responsibility that they have to bear. They had a responsibility to their supporters, a responsibility to try to win this election. And now this larger responsibility is to help the country get through this moment and then finally to bring a closure to it. And now, my friends, in a phrase I once addressed to others, it's time for me to go. Thank you, and good night, and God bless America.

Think voting isn't worth the effort? Faith Salley has someone she'd like you to meet. This is my friend Ruth Rosner.

Ruth Rosner. We meet here at this Manhattan bakery every weekend. I love their pastries.

I love their soup. Everything. A lifelong New Yorker, Ruth is 104 years old. Why do you think you've lived so long?

Just bad luck. She has a lot to say, especially about politics. This is the most important thing I could do. But over the past week, people have had a lot to say about her. Do I want to vote?

I want to vote more than anything. My family had the honor of escorting her to vote. I posted to social media, and the story of Ruth to the booth blew up. What's it like to be a viral star?

It's very good. I get people taking pictures of me, and millions of people know who Ruth is. Oh, this is my dad holding me. Ruth was born in 1916, four years before women even had the right to vote. This is my mother, who was one of the first women elected to the New York City Council.

Clearly, civic duty runs in her blood. Do you remember your first vote? I think it was the second time that FDR ran. Ruth voted for Biden this year and cast her first ballot in 1936. In all, she's voted for president 22 times. Truman, Clinton.

But this year, she says, is different. Carter, Obama. This is hands down, without exception. And I'm talking about the First World War, the Second World War, and every other election before or since.

This is it. Ruth, when we walked over for you to cast your vote, I could not keep up with you. Well, I was just, boy, oh boy, oh boy. Not even COVID could keep her home, which says a lot since her own dad died in the 1918 flu pandemic. You could have thought, you know what, I'll skip this election.

No, never. If you skip this one, you're going to deserve what you get. After casting her vote and exiting to cheers, Ruth sat down on her walker to cry. It really seemed to mean something.

And if this masked centenarian can do it. Thank you so much. She wants you to do it too. God bless America, my home sweet home.

Yes, vote. Buddy, are you okay? I'm sorry, Papa. Just need some alone time.

Buddy, I think we have to talk. His role in Elf helped make Bob Newhart a comedy legend. He's been making us laugh for some 60 years now.

More than enough reason for Ben Mankiewicz to pay him a visit. Do you know that you were profoundly influential? Not profoundly, no.

All right, just influential. That's it, I've had it. I'm not taking this anymore, all right? I'm so sorry I called you. I'm leaving, go. We start with a word of warning. Do not try to flatter Bob Newhart.

Newhart is still making an impression or doing one. That's like a Columbo ending. Oh, that's right. That's what you just did.

Appreciate your time. One more thing, sir. I spoke to Newhart last week at the LA home he shares with his wife, Ginny.

You're one of these typical Hollywood players, woman after woman. Yeah. How long have you and Ginny been married? 57 years.

Why do you think that is? Laughter. There's something about laughter and the longevity of a marriage. While the world has changed a great deal since he burst onto the scene in 1960, Bob Newhart seems not to have gotten the memo.

He's been getting laughs the same way he did at the start. I had a television show, which some of you may have seen, apparently not too many of you saw. He's an original observationalist. Sure, he looks like your dad's boss at the dealership, but he's got a subversive streak delivered with perfect deadpan timing. We were seen in Albuquerque on what they call a delayed broadcast at two o'clock in the morning.

And you may laugh at that, but we were the top in our time slot. It's a school of standup whose graduates include Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. Born just outside of Chicago during the Great Depression, Newhart's stammering style was no act. That's how he talked as a shy kid with a wry wit. How'd you know you were funny?

People would tell me I was funny. After serving in the Army, Newhart became an accountant, an accountant who wasn't good with numbers. If I had been with Enron, they would still be in business.

I mean, the government could never have figured out my book. Mr. Wilkinson, which I still remember his name, he said, these are not sound accounting principles. I said, I don't think I'm cut out for accounting. And that's when I decided to, okay, let's find out if I'm any good. I had a kind of a strange theory of accountancy. His failure became success.

I had always felt if you got within two or three bucks of it. He hit it big in 1960. His debut album, The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart, won three Grammys, including a Shocker Album of the Year. You beat out Harry Belafonte, Nat King Cole, and Frank Sinatra.

Yeah. And then you met Frank later. Yeah, we got to know Frank.

My stammer's getting even worse as I'm discussing this. I don't think Frank was thrilled that he stand up comic and beat on his album. Newhart's trademark is his cadence. He takes his time, he pauses, and he has those phone calls. Hi, Abe, sweetheart, how are you? His favorite?

A publicity man talking to his client, Abe Lincoln, before the Gettysburg Address. You changed four score and seven to 87? Why do you change the speeches all the time? You said 87 years. Yeah. I know it's the same.

It's the same thing. I have on the wall the Abe Lincoln routine written out. They want to put that in the Smithsonian.

Your 1960 Abe Lincoln routine is going into the country's preeminent museum. Pretty good. Yeah, now that you bring it up. Yeah. Hello? That disarming style suited him perfectly on TV, first in the Bob Newhart Show as a psychologist married to Suzanne Plachette. I'm going to bed, unless you have another surprise for me. I did have, but you're sure not going to get it now.

Part of CBS's powerful Saturday night lineup, all in the family, M.A.S.H., Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, Carol Burnett. That was something. It was a murderous road. Yeah, we used to get Super Bowl numbers. There were only three networks at that time, and some people claimed two and a half networks.

Which one was the half network? I may have to work for them one day. I'm sorry, Bob, when I come home from a full day of working, I just don't feel like cooking. Emily, after looking at this food, I don't feel like eating. You and Suzanne Plachette, I still think, appeared to have the best television marriage I've ever seen. We had a chemistry.

It was wonderful. Bob, tell me about Amy. It's late, Emily.

No, it's not. The second show, Newhart, came in the 80s. He plays an innkeeper in Vermont that ran for eight seasons with a classic ending. The entire show was a dream.

Honey. And he wakes up in bed with his first TV wife. Was it always the plan to end the show the way you did?

No, again, it was my wife's idea. And the audience went nuts. They started applauding me before they found out Susie and I were both in bed. All right, Bob?

What is it? Well, you created an indelible TV moment, so thanks for doing it. She did, I doubt it. You really should wear more sweaters. Yes, yes, I raise Buddy. Bob Newhart has legions of new fans. From Elf. You're going to help me make it fly. To the Big Bang Theory. It's really you. I really like Big Bang Theory.

I think it's very well written. And also in the back of my head, I was like, I know how to do that. I'm a wet Christ.

Next month, a 1992 show off the record showcasing his greatest bits will be available for streaming. Up until the pandemic, you were still performing. Yeah, it's a narcotic. Yeah, people would say, why do you still do it? I said, yeah, you're right. I'm tired of making people laugh. I hate it. I have some bad news for you. I've been sitting here for an hour and I'm sorry to say that I laughed quite often. I'm sure that's very disappointing.

I have a theory that when it's all over, all those nice words they have for death and you go up, I've been led to believe to heaven and there's God. And he said, what did you do? I said, well, I made people laugh.

Yeah, get in that real short line over there. The whole world is watching America decide its future. With just two days to go, we continue our look at how others see us. Holly Williams has the view from the Middle East, but we begin with Raimi and Asensio in China. Beijing's relationship with Washington is arguably one of the most important for the world, but it's been tough to find officials to go on record about the US election.

It's just too sensitive. Still, we did find one popular Chinese voice under the spotlight, sharing humor and finding truth. America is kind of like my wife.

China is like my mom and now they don't get along and they both have nuclear weapons. Joe Wong is one of China's best known stand up comedians and a naturalized American. In 2010, he met then Vice President Joe Biden at a roast. Anybody here who's waiting for Trump? No, he hopes Biden wins. Do you think most of the people in China prefer one candidate over another? A lot of people support Trump. They feel that it'll make it easier for China to surpass the US. That is why Trump has a nickname in China. It's called nation builder Trump. Trump is the builder of a nation. The nation is just China.

Yeah, exactly. Who is our biggest foreign adversary? I would say China. President Trump explicitly blames China for America's devastating COVID outbreak, as he told Lesley Stahl on 60 Minutes. They should never have allowed this plague to get out of China and go throughout the world. Just one of so many US-China flashpoints. Taiwan's vibrant democracy.

Forced re-education for Muslim Uyghurs in Xinjiang. And Beijing's territorial claims in the South China Sea. Victor Gao is a prominent China policy advisor. If Trump wins, he will be completely unhinged and unrestrained. And he may go after his so-called enemies at home in the United States or his enemies abroad in the world. If Joe Biden is elected... President Biden may be invited immediately to visit China. We will be able, I believe, for our two great nations to have wisdom and sanity and reason.

Anybody who's waiting for Biden. Back at the bar, Joe Wong thinks China's people care more about issues closer to home, their health and wealth. China just got the coronavirus under control and people are busy building up their businesses or going to school. These everyday stuff instead of the election in America. But whoever wins, it's a safe guess that Washington's most important foreign relationship, if anything, will grow even more important in the years to come.

This is Holly Williams. President Trump has claimed plenty of victories in the Middle East, including the recent accord signed by Israel and two Gulf states, the moving of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the killing of ISIS leader Abubakar al-Baghdadi, and stripping the ISIS extremists of their last pocket of territory in Syria, an achievement that Middle East expert Dr. Sanam Vakil says President Trump has exaggerated. We defeated ISIS in the Middle East. We have defeated 100 percent of the caliphate. Is that true?

No, not at all. If it had been defeated, the U.S. would have departed from Syria militarily and it's still there. President Trump has moved the U.S. even closer to its longtime ally, Saudi Arabia, a dangerous policy, according to Amy Pope, who was deputy homeland security adviser to President Obama. He really wants a much more transactional relationship. Even the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi by men connected with the Saudi Arabian crown prince was less important than military sales, according to President Trump. We're not going to give up hundreds of billions of dollars in orders. Do you think that the rulers of Saudi Arabia are worried about a post-Trump Middle East?

I'm sure they are. I believe they really love this relationship with President Trump. The opposite is true for Saudi Arabia's arch enemy, Iran. President Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and squeezed the country with more economic sanctions, though experts say it's backfired, provoking Iran. We saw that specifically last summer, where Iran began to attack tankers in the Persian Gulf. Joe Biden says if he's elected, he'll rejoin the Iran nuclear deal, but he cannot undo President Trump's decision to assassinate Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. The Iranians retaliated with ballistic missiles targeting US troops. But many believe Iran is simply biding its time to take further revenge. And in Syria, President Trump opened the door to a Turkish military incursion that targeted America's allies, the Syrian Kurds. I think Middle Eastern allies are feeling quite nervous that the US is not the same reliable partner they thought it was. Putting America first means bringing US troops home, according to President Trump.

His critics say even if he loses the election, the damage done in a fragile region may be irreparable. I'm Jane Pauley. Please join us when our trumpet sounds again next Sunday morning. Well, I need it.

And maybe you do, too. From the newest interior design trend, Barbie Corps, to the right and wrong way to wash your armpits. Also, we're going to get into things that you just kind of won't believe and we're not able to do in daytime television, so watch out. Listen to Drew's News wherever you get your podcasts. It's your good news on the go.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-01-28 19:49:06 / 2023-01-28 20:09:51 / 21

Get The Truth Mobile App and Listen to your Favorite Station Anytime