YouSaid · the spoken record

John King

lines on the record: 54
first: 2022-11-07
most recent: 2022-11-07
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Have a good health care plan. I did though. I don't know because of the heartwarming support from people who do live cruel everyday MS lives who have said thank you for helping. And so... Now that I've dropped my foolishness and that I'm public about it, I will do anything I can to help people and anything I can to advocate for anybody. Anybody who is dealing with a struggle that might be invisible to somebody else, we all just need to be empathetic about that. I hope it makes me a better and a more empathetic person. It's sometimes physically and occasionally mentally challenges me. But that motivates me. That motivates me. Okay, I have something inside that's fighting me. I'm going to fight back.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Invisible to me have some similar challenge. If I see someone who's a little nervous, then put my mask on. If that makes them less nervous, great. So that's why I did it. I'm in awe of people like you. And I feel I've done a lot more speaking out about it now. I feel guilty in some ways. Number one, because I'm so late to the fight. Number two, one of my concerns was I'm blessed. I understand now the spec fully, the spectrum of MS. And it is with me every second of every day, and sometimes it complicates my days. And I may fall down the stairs, or I may have things happen to me. But I also know how cruel this disease is to most people. And so I'm lucky. I'm lucky. I work at a company.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Will I be able to do my job? Will I be able to go to the park with my kids? And then I got caught in the secret. When you get caught in the secret, then you can't find a way out. And I thought if I... Where I've just been thinking about it a lot. I was not planning to say it, but I just said on live television, you know, I'm immunocompromised because of the medications I take. I'm grateful that people can get a vaccine or wear a mask and come sit with me again because it's nice to actually be in the company of people and have human conversations. And why is it so hard to put on a mask? It doesn't take my freedom away. And how many people out there.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It affects me every second of every day. I hope it makes me stronger and I hope it makes me more empathetic and I hope that as I always say there's a blessing in every challenge. You learn about yourself and it teaches you things. There are days when I have a hard time walking. There are days when I can't feel my hands. Today happens to be one of them. My hands are very tingly right now. And I'm not sure sometimes. So when I pick something up, it is second nature for us to reach out for a cup of coffee or a bottle of water while we're having a conversation. We don't even think about it. Our brain's thinking about it, but we're not conscious of that. It just happens. I have to grip this thing. I have to grip it. And sometimes I'll grip it so much that I will, like someone will say, what's wrong with him? And so I didn't disclose it for the longest time because I was petrified at first. It's not any great reason. I was afraid.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I could take it with me. Well, I've done many things. I've been a bartender. I've been a cook and a dishwasher, but I also once worked for a moving company that specialized in pianos. Put that puppy on my shoulder and get out of here.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Some point, I might want to do something different. I don't say that in a bad way. Like, I'm leaving CNN. No, it's just like do you want to do something else? Is there another chapter? And is it similar? Do you do some television or some, I miswriting? I used to work for the AP. I used to write more. I miss that. So there'll be another chapter for me. I hope it comes on really good terms where we have an election cycle and I say, you know what? Can I work for you part-time maybe? Or do I just leave?”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's a fantastic question. You know, I never thought I would be here this long, and that's not a, I don't mean that in any negative way. I've loved my ride here, and I've done different things. I've anchored a few different shows, some of which have failed miserably, some of which have done okay. I'm almost 60 years old.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've been through some of the cycles of this place. This place is the world's leading news organization for a reason. We have reached, nobody else has. We have experienced nobody else have. We have talented group of people and we're constantly being challenged and pushed by young people, one of whom will take my job someday. That won't be in a bad way. It'll be in a good way. And yes, like everything else in life and all around us, there's a little bit of turmoil, a little bit of uncertainty. And that's life. We'll be okay.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I say we may not agree with everything that happens in the next two days or two months or two years, but we have to do our jobs. And if it ever comes a point where we're uncomfortable doing our jobs, that's when you shake hands and say thank you. Can I give you move on?”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Look, there's uncertainty in the building. Maybe my optimism blinds me to this, but this idea that there's incredibly low morale, I don't see that. We work in the news business. This is a building full of curious people. This is a company full of curious people. Do they have questions? You bet they do. Do they have concerns? Of course they do. The place where they work is changing before their eyes. Do I have people sitting in a corner unable to do their job because they're worried about something? No. No, I have a team of mostly young people. They're mostly young women. They're fabulous. And yes, every now and then one of them pulls me aside and said, you've been here a long time. Are we okay?”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, and if he did, and he said something like that, I would shake his hand and say, thank you so much. Have a nice day. I'm moving on. But that has not happened. I would not stay here for one second if someone told me to go in any direction, in any direction. I don't know, Chris all that well. In my dealings with him, he's a good man who has to make a lot of tough decisions, tough decisions anyway. We have a new boss, a new bigger management company, and that changes always hard getting to know you part and investigating. And we're in the middle of not a recession, but in a very tough economy. And so tough decisions have to be made. Am I going to agree with every one of them? Probably not. Am I right? I don't know. But they're good people making tough decisions. And as someone who's been here a long time, I view my job as going out into the newsroom every day and saying there's nothing we can do about those things.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“My job has not changed at all, and nobody has told me to move to the center or to do this or to do that. Nobody has ever told me in any of my jobs, put your thumb on the scale this way or move this way.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If after this election we have people in power who think that they get to overrule the voters, that's dangerous, and that's going to be a hard thing for our business too, because you're trying to cover people objectively. They've been newly elected. They won an election. We need to respect and honor that. That's the will of the people. And then we need to watch very carefully what they do. To your point about, do they really believe it? That's the first test, right? And again, the optimist in you hopes that they win an election and then they go, oh, actually the system works. Yeah. And they don't go and try to rip it apart. We'll see. That'll be one of the many stories we have to worry about after the midterm.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“People can keep redefining what the end is And then how we count. Math is math. That doesn't mean if you're close enough, you ask for your recount. You check the machines. You go to court. We need all of those things. We need all of those legitimate process based, court based, rule of law based appeals. Donald Trump had all of those. He used all of them. He lost every one of them. That should be it. That should be it. If anybody has a case to make about, wow, this system is horrible, it would be Al Gore. And El Gore fought and fought and fought. And when he was done, when there was no place else to go? He was an American, not a Democrat, and he said, I'm done. I don't agree with this, but we're done. Do we have to have an endpoint?”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's an enormous chunk of people. Washington Post New York Times calculations are 300 plus and you have all these candidates running for Secretary of State who will be the ones who administer state elections. Important states like Nevada and Arizona and Michigan are not only still saying that Donald Trump won in 2020, which he did not, that maybe we need to rethink how we do this. And some of them think about, well, the voters said that, but maybe the legislature can overturn that. These are dangerous things being proposed, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. And so you see the Liz Cheneys and the Adam Kinsingers out there. It's a little bit of Don Quixote right now in their own party in the sense that they are tilting against windmills in the Republican Party because there's tiny minority right now. But what they're doing is important, and I don't say that as a partisan statement, I'm a sports fan, right? Baseball goes nine innings unless the score is tied. When the referee blows the whistle, you stop. And so if we have a political system where...”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've met over the last 30 years are saying we just elected this guy mayor, or you should see this woman who's the new lieutenant governor of X. That's what I always look for. Once I come up here after election, is there somebody new and exciting out there, whatever their party? That we want to look at.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, and that encourages some people and it makes some people incredibly rich, and it creates all new businesses and entrepreneurs, and it scares a lot of people. And Donald Trump has used the grievance politics part of that, whether it's demographics, black or brown people, economics, global trade, your fear about what are you going to tell your kids, those jobs going to be there. He has put it on steroids without a doubt. He created none of this. He has magnified a lot of it. And so can we be unified in this moment? I mean, look, I'm an optimist. I live an optimist because of my own personal story, because of the gift that I've had in this job and my prior job. I don't see it right now. And you said who? I always look around. That's why I always look around. One of the things I'll study when I have time to come up for air, probably on a vacation because I'm a geek, is who won the governor's races or who's an interesting rising star that people I trust out in the state?”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I wish I knew the answer. I don't know the answer. That is it all because of Trump? No. Did Trump put a lot of things on steroids? Yes. The politics of grievance. I mean, I trace this, you know, I go back just in my experience when Ross Perot talked about the giant sucking sound. He was onto something, right? He was on to the stress of the American people about change. Whether it's the manufacturing jobs gone, whether it's the demographics of your neighborhood changing, whether it's technology making you afraid. And we live this every day and now exponentially think just, I mean, again, this is your wheelhouse, not mine. Technology is changing during this conversation.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But that's the daily American life is I thought I bought it, you know, that's not the car I thought I was buying. I think that's the mood of the country.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Joe Biden got elected for all these numbers, Kara. Joe Biden got elected because he was the adult who was going to calm things down. No tweets, no bleach. We're going to calm things down. And things aren't calm. You can look at any economic indicator you want, any poll you want. That's how I look at elections. What the American people in 2020 bought what they thought was going to be a period of relative calm and stability, a grown-up. And we haven't had common stability. Now, is that all Joe Biden's fault? Of course not.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Inflation in the economy by far. In our latest, you say, how much do you rely on polling? This is one thing you look at when it's like this. It was 51% of likely voters. A majority of likely voters said the economy and inflation was their number one concern and abortion was second at 15%. You know, would I pour those exact numbers in cement? No. But when you have a 15 and a 51, that tells you something. And that's the challenge for the Democrats, trying to break through. The American people are exhausted. After COVID, you're still exhausted. You're frustrated. You're anxious. You're worried about your kids in school. You might be worried about your job. You might still be worried about your health care or your situation. Then along comes inflation.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Does Mehmet Oz win Pennsylvania because the suburbs swing back enough? Do Democrats hopes in North Carolina and Ohio and Wisconsin fade because the suburbs come back to Republicans? Is Kerry Lake, the next governor of Arizona? Because Phoenix, Arizona has become a big suburb, essentially that's where all the people are. Close elections are won in the suburbs, especially the statewide ones. That was the repudiation of Trump. It was the election of Biden, and 2022 is going to tell us a lot.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's really the suburbs. The places that made George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush president and made Donald Trump president the first time he won the suburbs by a smaller margin, but he won them enough over Hillary Clinton to become president. They revolted against him in 2018 and then again in 2020. Did the moderate Republicans in the suburbs who George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis in those suburbs on the Willie Horton ad on crime, soft on crime, big on taxes, right? The old traditional tax and spend Democrat, soft on crime Democrat. Does that work?”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hold your own. Look, if Democrats can hold the House and hold the Senate, that's historic. If they can hold the Senate and keep the Republican margin in the House below 10 seats, I would say based on as a student of politics, based on historical data, that would be a decent night, better than decent night. I understand a partisan Democrat would not agree with the statement because you just lost the house. But history would say that's a pretty good night.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That would be a big idea. Think about it, we have a Democratic president who came into power with a Democratic House in a Democratic Senate. If he loses both, if the Democratic president lost both the House and the Senate in the same midterm, it took Obama lost the House in 2010 and then in 2014. The same thing happened to Trump. Trump lost the house, didn't lose the Senate until after the presidential election. So if both chambers went in the same midterm, then you would also assume some of these blue governors are getting flipped as well. That would be a very big night for Republicans. We'll see when we get there.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“12 to 25 is where they started. You have some now saying it could be 25 or 30. I could share a text or two with Republicans saying we're going to get 40. It's their job to be bullish and to be cheerleaders. It's my job to count votes. Maybe they get there, maybe they don't. But that would be if, look, if Republicans get more than 25. And get the Senate and sweep governors, then you might call this a red wave election. I would urge caution. I would everybody just to, you know, let's take this. If we can say that at midnight Tuesday, that it is or it isn't based on the facts, okay. But let's not try to, again, let's not try to write that unless we're sure.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, historically, people out there may disagree and have their own standard of partisan. Certainly, if partisan Democrat would say we have to hold the House, we have to hold the Senate, and we have to hold these big key governors' races. Sure. But history says that the party in power, I mean, look, Barack Obama and Donald Trump both lost the House in their first midterm election. Obama lost 63 seats. Back to your point about gerrymandering. They draw the lines in a way now that there are not so many competitive districts. But there are, because of the late shifts in the campaign, if they are correct, there are some Republicans who think they could win 25 or 30 seats. That would be a big night for Republicans.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's conceivable that a Republican candidate like Donald Trump did in 2020 could come out and say, I'm ahead, we're done. But we're not done. We're not done. So the challenge on us, it's an unfortunate challenge because, again, the system should be based on respect for math and respect for process. But we may have to say we just showed you Doug Mastriano, it's above my pay grade whether you take that live. Do you take that to live television if you know that what's the person's going to say that's above my pay grade? But if it happens or if the world knows because of social media and everything else that you use the Mastriano example, he's claimed victory. We have to say he is leading in the votes now counted But. We have a lot more votes to count, and we have the 20. There you have the 2020 experience to say,”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Need to be very transparent about that because that is a real risk. We call them red mirage or blue mirage. If you go back to election night in 2020, there was a point in the night where Joe Biden was leading in Ohio and Texas and another Red State that escapes my mind at the moment. And I was getting all these texts from Democrats. Oh my God, oh my God, we're going to win Ohio. We're going to win Texas. And I was texting back, no, slow down, slow down. Some states count the mail-in ballots first. And in those states, if the voting patterns track 2020, Democrats will jump out to a big lead. Those votes are real. So what you're seeing is not fake. It's just not contextual. It's not a full picture because they haven't counted election day ballots yet. Sure. Then you have a state like Pennsylvania, which cannot process the early votes until the polls close. And so they'll count election day votes first. And you're absolutely right. In a place like Pennsylvania, we're going to have to watch this in Arizona as well. The Republican candidate when we get to midnight, 1 a.m. election night or 1 a.m. would be Wednesday morning.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And so we could list 100 other political problems and discourse problems. And they all come back to respect and understanding. And if you don't have to respect the other side, if you never have to listen or win the votes of the other side, you don't learn to respect them and have respectful disagreements as opposed to, in our politics today, if you oppose somebody somehow you're unaware and you're evil. That's a cancer in our politics, and one of the major sources of that is the way we draw house districts.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because they're so partisan now. Both parties are guilty of this. Republicans have had a bigger edge in recent years because they control more governorships and more legislatures. But you can go back in time and find the Democrats doing it as well. The biggest cancer in American politics is that it's all about your primary. If you're in a red district, you just need to win the Republican primary. So what do you do? You flank right. If you're in a blue district, you need to win the Democratic primary. What do you flank left? And you don't talk to the other side.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not all of them, but most of them have changed at least a little bit. So that makes Election Night harder. Back to the other point, we will see when we're done counting, and it's going to take a week or more to finish the house. Remember what happened in 2018? The Pelosi speaker election, California took more than a week, and Washington State, and you have the rank choice balloting in Maine and in Alaska that could take some time. In the months after that, I can better answer your question. Have these districts become even more predictable? Because the legislature, to the victor go the spoils. I would say beyond that, If you ask John King who's done this for 38 years, the biggest problem in American politics, I would say it's how we draw house districts. Right.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, number one, it complicates this election night, the first election after a census. Nobody's running in the same district So you will see all the time, and it is mathematically correct. Republicans need a net gain of five seats. To take back the house. That is fact based on the current House majority. But it's actually not factual if you lay out the map because those seats don't exist. Everybody's district is different. So it's correct and it's a fair shorthand way of saying it. A literalist would say that's not true because they're all 435 districts are different. So it's more challenging explaining the results because you're not comparing apples to apples because every one of these house districts has changed at least a little bit.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That you could say, look at the vote count, look what's happening, same thing happened in Pennsylvania, you could see the progression of what was happening. And we can say what is happening that sort of leans into that's where we're going to get without making that call just because it was a Arizona hadn't gone Democratic in so long and B, it's close enough that what's the point? Sometimes you make a decision to be extra cautious. And the way I always say it is we're in the middle of a fantastic book. Why do we need to think we need to write the last chapter? Let's just keep counting votes. We'll get there eventually.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So there were times during that every day we would come to work or even several times during the day, I go through it myself and I have a few minutes. I said, we could do this. We could do this and we could stand by it. And the take was it is so close that we're just going to wait. And we were talking to people in the state. And it was like there was no need to do it. Right.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right. One of the best in the business. So I was walking through and said, okay, I can get there. And again, it's not my decision, but had it been my decision, I would have stuck with our guys to say there's no reason to do this. We don't need to do this. We're going to be extra conservative, in part because we're just conservative anyway. We should be. We should all remember 2000 and Florida. And I do think that bar gets even higher now, Kara, because you do have a third of America because they've been told lies about 2020 who either believe or inclined to believe or at least open to the possibility that somehow the system's rigged or there are forces out there that are lying to you about this. So we should be conservative anyway. You should learn the lessons of 2000.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was in the studio that night, and they told me, you know, Fox has called Arizona. And so again, whenever I can, presidential nights are pretty crazy. Midterm nights even going to be more crazy because you have so much at play. So when I could find some time, I was like, that's curious. Let me look. And I went through and I was like, okay, I see it. I see it. We are more conservative. Or actually, I shouldn't say it that way. We are conservative. I'm not intimately involved with their process or the process they had then. That was obviously quite controversial there. They're still quite controversial there. So I don't know their exact process. I do know Chris. He's a very smart, incredibly smart guy. He's superb. One of the best in the business. Yes”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“David's our political director, and in the end they're his decisions, but there's a team of people, and they operate out of consensus. There's nobody can go rogue here and make decisions. But you mentioned, David. I mean, I'm blessed to work here. Because we have an amazing But there are so many people whose names you will never know behind the scenes who are busting their asses, and they're really great, talented, cautious, conservative people.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Reporters and say, Do you have any information we don't have? And don't spin me, but if you can prove to me, look at precinct X. We only have 2% of the vote in precinct X, and we think we're going to win that hugely. So I'm not saying that happens every time, but you have a list of options. If it's a close call, you triple, quadruple, and then keep checking from there. And then you make the call if you think you're right.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What do we know about the campaigning in that state? We identify key counties in Pennsylvania, Northampton County, Pennsylvania. That's my swing county, right? Or Luzerne County right next to it. What about the places where we know it's always really competitive? Do we have enough votes there? Do we need to reach out and talk to anybody in the States? We're about to call the state for John King's opponent. I'm making up a name so I don't pick a politician here. Let's call the King campaign. And say, you know, we think you're losing. Make your case.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, they have data analytics people, they have political people, they have polling people, they have math people just to triple check the math. It's actually a great group of people. They're different, but they all get along. They debate sometimes. I think we can call this. I think we want to wait. So what do they do? They go through past elections. They might look at some of the polling. Does this track what we saw with the caveat? Be careful about that. But it can be a piece of it. It can't be everything about it. How is the voter registration changed since the last election?”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Not at all cost. I was way back in my days at the AP, Walter Mears, who passed away last year, but a Pulitzer Prize winner at the AP. He covered Jack Kennedy when he was a kid. And I was 24 years old in my first campaign covering Dukakis. And Walter took me for a walk one day. And he said, kid, you break a lot of news. That's really great. Just remember, you'd rather be second than wrong. And I carry that advice with me every day of my life. And so does our team making the decisions.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or maybe I should pick a different state because that one came up as an issue in the last campaign. But we're about to call this race or this place because we see this, this, and this. What do you think? And you find a rare moment on election night. You might see a wide shot where a panel's talking the side of the studio and you see me at the magic wall and I'm digging, digging, with my hands are going furiously. That's probably what I'm doing, looking to see, I agree, or I disagree. But technically, if you looked at the letterhead, I'm not on the decision team. They watch me. I can help them. We have an amazing team, and they're very conservative. Yes, you want to be first, but not at all costs.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have a fantastic team working on that. On election night, I will be sometimes asked my advice or sometimes asked to look around. We're thinking we're about to call. This is fictitious, but we're thinking we're about to call Arizona.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And they're fascinating. There's change happening under our feet that we will see on this election, and then we'll compare this election in the months and months and months after. That's actually when I learned the most Comparing it to past elections, then trying to figure out why? Why are so many Americans disaffected? Why are so many Americans going outside of their boxes? But on election night, look, to a degree, it is sports center. You're picking winners and losers. You're telling the score. And so that's just a fact of life. It is a horse race among these candidates, but you don't want to, it's not, but it's not a sport. And so even I'm giving you a conflicting answer.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, this is where John King, former APY guy, might give you a different answer than some people in television. My personal opinion on that would be in moderation. This is not a sport. This is not a game. I may use that word sometimes and I regret when I do. Sometimes you're on live television, you do this all the time. You're talking all the time. Every day you take this headset off and you walk away, even on a great day. You know, you could have said something better. I always call myself the world's most imperfect perfectionist. So I think music for pacing is great. Music to try to fake a drama We don't need to do that. Again, go back through the last 15, 20 years of American life. Our politics are dramatic. They are volatile. They're also incredibly consequential.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The President's approval rating or disapproval is always a North Star in midterm elections. So look at that. Again, don't obsess about it, but make sure you know it and understand which way is it going and then look at right track, wrong track? That tells you a lot about the country. Do people think it's going in the right direction? And then a Republican pollster probably 30 years ago said, you know what I use, even though I poll every day, I look at the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index because it's not political. It's just how you're feeling right now about your life when you're going grocery shopping and all that. So I do look at polling.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, I don't ignore it, but I always look, we've lived through the last five or six years of American life where there's been some suspect about the polling and there's no doubt. There's no doubt there's been an issue and those in the industry, they're having a hard time because technology is changing. People don't have landlines anymore. You have to introduce the whole cell phone dynamic. Then you have non-participation by some voters. Maybe some people think lying by some voters who are just resistant to quote unquote institutions, the big media or whatever. So I look at it, but I don't obsess about numbers. What I tell the young people who work for the show and who I meet here in the building is look for trajectories, right? Is the president going up or is the president going down? More than any horse race, especially this close to an election,”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Can you find a pattern that you can take across the country? Because then you can be a little bit more forward-leaning, even though we haven't counted the votes here yet. This town, this state or this district is a lot like, look, let's come back to the east as we wait to go to the west. So that's studying. It's studying and experience a combination thereof, and then always having an open mind that guess what? Things can change.”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Part of it is studying these districts. Who lives there? How much do they make? What's the demographic mix? What are the prior voting patterns? What has changed since the last election? A lot of these are Sunbelt states where we've seen some of the dramatic changes. But also if you think about New Hampshire could be very important in this election, Pennsylvania will absolutely be very important in this election. Wisconsin is critical in this election. Those are the older economy. Not that they're not transforming, but you still have all the stresses of globalization. And the stresses of trade, more white people, more older people. And so each state, some states have a lot of, there's a lot of similarities, and that's the challenge on election night. Can you find a pattern?”
2022-11-07 · On with Kara Swisher · How John King Gets Ready for Election Night · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT