House Calls Podcast

What Does It Mean To Really Listen?

With guest Judy Woodruff,

Journalist

Hello and welcome to House Calls. I'm Vivek Murthy, and I have the honor of serving as U.S. Surgeon General. I'd like to introduce you to Judy Woodruff, a journalist who spent nearly a decade anchoring the "NewsHour" on PBS. Today we'll be talking about the importance of seeing all sides, especially in our divided world. For many of you, my guest today won't need an introduction. You likely know Judy Woodruff from her decades as a journalist and anchor for the "PBS NewsHour." From the election of Jimmy Carter to the election of Joe Biden, from the war in Vietnam to the war in Afghanistan, and thousands of stories in between, Judy has helped us understand America and the world during increasingly complex times. In 2023, Judy began the next part of her career pursuing a new challenge: understanding how America has become so divided, and how we can come together again. In her new series, "America at a Crossroads", she's looking for answers from ordinary Americans to understand how they see their role as citizens in bridging our divides. In our conversation today, we talk about how the key to healing these divisions rests on our ability to listen and connect. We pull from our life stories, especially about our mothers, for lessons about how to build connection, and we touch on the lessons that journalism offers for how we can listen and learn from one another. To help get the word out about "House Calls", we appreciate you rating "House Calls". And you can always reach out to us at housecalls@hhs.gov. Judy, I'm so excited to have you on "House Calls," thank you for joining me.

This is a complete role reversal, I'm not sure why I agreed (Vivek laughs) to do this, but now that I'm here I'm glad to be here. (laughs)

Well, thank you for taking a risk and being with us, I appreciate it. And I gotta say, as somebody who has watched you for so many years on television and had the privilege of being interviewed by you several times as well over the last few years, it's just such a joy to be able to talk to you. And you and I both recently came from Arizona State University, in fact, where we were there for commencement.

Right.

And I watched you get an honorary degree there and heard all these incredible accolades that they shared with the audience, and it is just extraordinary the breadth of work you've done over your career covering presidential campaigns from 1976. And as several people have put it, a number of people publicly, also being one of the voices of civility and kindness in a world that can increasingly feel caustic and unkind, so I'm just so grateful for who you are, for what you've done, and that we're gonna have this conversation today.

Well, that's very, very generous of you. And by the way, I also watched you receive an honorary degree and speak to a very large class of undergraduates with an inspirational message. So it is a role reversal for me, but I am really looking forward to our conversation.

Well, Judy, you recently stepped down from your anchor role and have taken on a new project. And I'm excited that you still continue to work in journalism 'cause we need you in the world.

Thank you.

But this new project I find it to be particularly interesting. You're looking at what's causing and driving the division and polarization in our country. And I'd love to understand a little bit about where you've been so far and what you're finding.

Well, we started this project, you are absolutely right, after I stopped anchoring at the end of 2022. It took us a few weeks to get going. Part of the reason is actually the fault of President Biden because I'd been trying to get an interview with him and it didn't come through until February of 2023. And so, it took a little bit of time to get that organized and done but I was very glad to have the chance to sit down to interview him. But we got fully underway, I think it's fair to say, with this project. We're calling it "America at a Crossroads", trying, as you say, to understand why we seem to be so divided right now. I mean, we've all been through, the country has been through division, we've certainly been through a terrible civil war. We've come through that, we've been through debates and huge disagreements over the war in Vietnam, over civil rights and any number of other issues but this era, in particular, to me, seems and feels very personal. People seem to have a darker view of people on the other side and I'm trying to understand why that is. And so I thought, even though I'm stepping aside, stepping down from anchoring which I've loved to do for a long time, I wanted to keep on reporting. And the thing that just compelled me to go out and talk to people about it was this division, this ugly nature that is now, I think many people defines American politics. I'm wondering, is that truly who we are? Is that really what Americans want? Because that's what's coming across in the media. So we are traveling, we've been to several parts of the country, we've been to my birth state, as it turns out, Oklahoma. We've been to Wisconsin, we've done reporting in California. We're about to be in Pennsylvania, Ohio. We're gonna be in Mississippi and other parts of the south. So we've got a lot on the books that we're planning to do. And it is a big ambitious project.

I mean, I'm so glad you're taking this on because I also find that when I travel around the country, this division and polarization seems to be on everyone's mind, and they sense it, young people, old people, everyone in between. But people aren't always sure where it's coming from or if we can do something about it. And I know that you have a lot of places to visit, in the places you've been to so far, are there any clues that are surfacing as to what may be driving, especially, the personal nature of this division?

That for me, still has been and still is the hardest thing to understand. We've actually turned to scholars and academics, people who have have studied this, psychologists, sociologists, looking beyond political science to understand what is it about human nature that is causing people to think so negatively about other people. And couple of things that have surfaced and one of them is literally human nature. That people, after a time, when you take on the identity of your group, whether it's, in the past we identified by where we lived, where we'd gone to school, where we'd grown up, the neighborhood we lived in, the church we belong to and go to on Sundays, maybe the book club, the bowling league, whatever. But today the sociologists say that Americans are identifying more and more than ever before by their political party. So increasingly, instead of people saying, "Well, I'm from Ohio and I went to X school "and my family is from so and so," people will say, "Well, I'm a Republican or I'm a Democrat." Not true of everybody, there's still people out there who are kind of in the middle but many more people are saying that. And once they identify that way and they look around, so much of what's in the news media right now is R versus D. It's Republican versus Democrat. And literally, a sociologist we talked to, she's based now at John's Hopkins, after having been at the University of Maryland, she's done a lot of research, has written a couple of books on this. And she says people are taking on the mantle of the party. They're identifying with, what she called, almost a tribe. They identify with the R Tribe or the D Tribe. And she weaves human nature into it. I mean, I guess there are decades old experiments that sociologists have done showing how people, I guess it was a group of fifth grade boys were at a summer camp and they did an experiment about, they kept them apart and then they had them come together and played a game of baseball or something, they just became very adversary in their attitudes toward one another. So they ground this in psychology, in sociology, but they say now it has taken on a larger-than-life identity for many people, in that they think of themselves principally as Republican or Democrat. And if I'm that, then that means you're the other side and you're the other, and therefore I don't trust you. So this to me was one of the most interesting pieces of scholarship that we came across that I hadn't been aware of.

Well, that's fascinating and disturbing at the same time. And it makes me think if that indeed is the case, that people are just identifying much more strongly with their political tribe, do you have a sense of how we should go about addressing that? Is this solution to weaken the reliance on that tribe? Is it to strengthen their reliance on other forms of affiliation or create other sort of modes of belonging that actually may bring people together or diversify identity? But how should we think about how to address it?

Yeah, I would love to say that I'm in a position of already having solutions but I'm not there yet. But what I can say is that the experts that we've spoken with, the scholars who are doing all this research, are looking at different ways of getting people to loosen that identity, if you will. And at the very least, getting them to listen to and talk to people who they now view as their worst adversary. And having experiments around, well, do you start a conversation with what you disagree on or is it better to talk about, "Well, where did you grow up? "And where do you like to go on vacation?" Rather than the toughest issues on which people disagree. In other words, without going directly to issues like abortion, immigration, race, and so on. Trying to have a lighter conversation and then work your way into that. But it's still, it's very much a work in progress. We've looked at the work of several different psychologists who are looking at this. I don't think anybody fully has an answer yet. But there are, you may wanna ask about this Dr. Murthy, but there are a number of groups around the country called the Bridging, so-called Bridging Movement, where they're trying to get people to come together and they're trying everything from town meetings, to coffee shops, to experimental conversations over a mug. I mean, a beer or something. I mean, a cup of coffee. So a lot is going on right now, experimenting with how to get people to talk to each other. Because right now there are families that can't even gather at Thanksgiving because there's just such fierce disagreements inside the family over politics.

Oh, I'm so glad you're working on this 'cause it does feel like if we can't understand the roots of this and design solutions, it'll be hard for us to really not only function as a society but I'm thinking about the future threats that may come, whether it's the growing threat of climate change, another pandemic down the line, ongoing challenges we have with inequality, economic inequality and otherwise. And addressing these big, thorny problems is hard when people are increasingly feeling divided and like it's us versus them. So I'm so glad that you're working on this. I'm curious what inspired it. I mean, you've lived through I think Washington DC through its various stages and I think perhaps at a time where there was more collaboration or it felt like there was more of a human connection between people. But I'm curious, how you've seen this town evolve and if any of what you've seen inspired you to focus on this project.

Well, I don't go back to the Garfield administration but I do go back pretty far. I came to Washington because I'd covered Jimmy Carter as governor of Georgia and then I moved over to NBC and lo and behold, he happened to be running for president. And then he was elected, I was covering his campaign for NBC. So I came to this city in 1977, which was almost, I don't know, five decades ago, a long time ago. And you know what I observed, especially back in the 70s, 80s, 90s, is the two parties very much having disagreements over every issue you can think of. How much money government should spend on healthcare? What should the size of taxes be? I mean, what should the tax rate be? What should, you know, foreign policy. I mean, there were so many issues that Democrats and Republicans disagreed on during President Carter's administration. Big arguments over the Iran hostage crisis which was an enormous international challenge. And again, any number of things and he tried to bring, for example, conservation and saving energy to the forefront. He used to give fireside chats wearing a sweater, he was ridiculed for that because he was talking about we need to start thinking about conserving energy way ahead of his time. But a lot of disagreements. I watched that during his administration. I watched it during the Reagan administration. But you also saw some Democrats and some Republicans getting together. For example, President Reagan would have Tip O'Neill who was then the speaker of the House, a Democrat, big Democrat from Massachusetts over for a cocktail occasionally during the week. It's not that they agreed on everything but they were at least able to have a conversation. After Reagan, President George H. W. Bush who came out of serving in the Congress and had a lot of Democratic friends. And he would have them over often to just sit and shoot the breeze and talk about what was going on. None of these were in public, they were in private but we knew about them. So we knew he had these conversations. After that, Bill Clinton, triangulation, you know there were some connections with Republicans but it was very, you know, it was a contentious time, no question. But somehow over time, and I do trace it back to the early 90s when I saw the two parties, I think it started with a "Contract for America." And there was just this sense at that moment from Republicans that whatever they proposed, they were not gonna go along with anything that President Clinton was proposing. And it was just a R versus D. And that continued, Republicans feeling Clinton was illegitimately elected, that George H. W. Bush should have occupied the White House at least for another term. Then you had the election of 2000 with, it went to the Supreme Court. Yes, George W. Bush ultimately won but a lot of Democrats felt that was an unfair election, the total popular vote was Al Gore, so why did it go in the, so you had that bitterness. And then along came Barack Obama with Republicans saying, you know, frankly, the whole movement around he wasn't born in the United States. Some of that we heard from Donald Trump before he ran for president. And then on to the Trump presidency where the country became even more divided, to where we are today. So you asked me what I've seen, I've seen a transformation from a place where yes, Republicans and Democrats disagreed but were at least able to talk to each other and have a conversation to today where they can barely sit down and negotiate. It becomes a huge deal whether there can even be a meeting between President Biden and the Republican leaders on the hill. So it feels to me as if we've crossed the Rubicon, if you will, in terms of American politics.

And from what you're saying, it also seems like people are feeling this in their day-to-day lives, that kind of division, whether as you mentioned folks having anxieties about having Thanksgiving dinner with family members who may disagree with them. So this has really come all the way down to the level of families and communities. You know, I wanna step back for a moment and just ask you about your own personal journey and how you came here. You've obviously, this is the latest chapter in an incredible book of chapters that's filled with career contributions on your end. But how did it all begin? Like, did you know it at a very early age that you wanted to become a journalist?

I did not. I was the daughter of a, my father was in the army, he was enlisted, he joined the Army when he was 15 and said he was 17, served in World War II. And so, I was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma but we received orders to go to Germany when I was turning five. So I only lived in Oklahoma for not even five years. We were in Germany for three years, back to the U.S., to a military base in Missouri, Fort Leonard Wood for a year. Then to New Jersey, Red Bank, New Jersey, Fort Monmouth, New Jersey for less than a year. Back to Oklahoma, my father orders to go to Taiwan. We spent two years in Taiwan.

Oh my gosh.

We came back to the United States, I spent time with my grandparents in North Carolina while my family settled at Fort Gordon, Georgia, where I moved to Augusta, Georgia. By the time I entered seventh grade, it was my seventh school, the seventh year of school so a lot of moving around. But I've been reminded since that it's a great way to learn resilience. That if you move, you have to learn how to make friends quickly and be prepared to move on. It's one reason I've stayed in one place for as long as I have as an adult because I think there are benefits to it but I also think there's a downside to having to move all that much. But to answer your question, I grew up high school years in Augusta, Georgia, very much in the deep south. Parents, military. Neither parent went to college. My mother didn't even finish high school. And so for me, the message from her was constantly, you're gonna get an education, you're gonna get an education, diapers and dishes can wait. And so I took that to heart. I didn't know what I was gonna do but I knew I was going to college and wasn't sure what I was gonna study. I had a couple of teachers in high school who said I was good at math. I loved science, I love biology, physics and math. And so, I started out majoring in math but I had an instructor in my freshman year who basically didn't think women should be taking calculus. And so, it was pretty clear but the meantime, I was taking a course in political science, fell in love with political science, transferred from a small woman's college in Raleigh, North Carolina to Duke. Graduated from Duke with a degree in political science, was working on Capitol Hill in my summers but I was advised I shouldn't come to Washington to work in politics because it was 1967/68 and women were not given serious jobs. And I didn't wanna be a gopher. So then I went back to Duke my senior year and I had a professor who said, "Well, would you ever think about covering politics?" So here I was just a few months from graduation and I had a professor say, "Did you ever think about journalism?" And the truth is, I hadn't, I'd never taken a course. Duke didn't offer journalism but I thought, "Okay, I'll try television, maybe they'll take somebody who's never written an article for a school paper. Long story short, I was hired as a newsroom secretary for the ABC affiliate in Atlanta. Went to work there right out of college, cleaning the film, answering the phone, taking dictation, trying to learn every way that I could. But the news director would say to me when I'd wanna go out with a crew, his comment was, "Why would you wanna do that, Judy? "Just remember, we already have a woman reporter." So the fact is, it was an era when-

As if there was only room for one, right?

Yeah, there was only, I mean, women weren't welcome in math, politics or journalism. But that's how I fell into it. I did fall in love with it just watching the reporters go out, cover stories, come back, be very engaged with what they were doing. And I felt make a contribution by reporting. And so then I was hired after a year and a half as the reporter covering the Georgia State legislature. And mind you, I had had no experience at that point reporting but it was just an incredible experience. So I went and covered the Georgia legislature, covered city politics at a time when the Civil Rights Movement was very active. It's where I met John Lewis, Julian Bond, some of the great national figures and American Civil Rights era movement. And then just learned how to cover rural politics as well through the Georgia legislature. So you can probably imagine what that was like.

Gosh, I have so many questions to ask you based on that. I wanna ask you about this professor who suggested that you think about covering politics. I mean, that was a time when most of the faces you were seeing on TV covering politics were men.

Were men, white men by the way.

White men, so I'm curious, tell us a little bit about that professor and how did he or she sort of have the courage and the insight to suggest that to you? And how much did that influence or impact your life?

Do you know that, his name is David Paletz and he only recently retired from teaching at Duke. And I've asked him that question and he says he doesn't really remember why he said that. I'm not even sure he remembered saying it to me but I'm very clear that I had a conversation with him because I was, I had been planning, I had a very distinct plan. I wanted to go to work in Washington right after graduation. But I had been given this signal, as I mentioned, from the women I met on Capitol Hill who said, you'll be the coffee girl. You're not going to be treated seriously. And I shared that with him and his reaction was, maybe it was because he had read something or seen something that day, that week, I don't know. But he was one of those professor, he was young, and he was one of those professors whose students often turn to for advice. But it is a very good question because I never, I had never written for the Duke paper, I had never The Chronicle. I had never thought about journalism as a career. I mean, my family frankly, was not a newspaper reading family. My parents were, you know they were doing what they were doing. And it wasn't, I mean, I did read and I did watch television news but I wasn't, I just hadn't thought about journalism, about writing as a career. So this was a turn for me but it was almost as if a light bulb went off when he said that. And I started exploring it, thinking about it and I thought maybe, maybe that would be a way, it would be an entryway into politics. To write about it, to report on it. I just had a very poor understanding of what I was getting myself into, frankly.

Well, that story just reminds me of how we never really know when we encourage somebody else to go in a direction of, what impact that will have on their life. And I say that 'cause sometimes I feel like when I talk to folks today, sometimes they feel like, well, I don't wanna intrude on someone else's life or on their decisions and offer this suggestion, I don't know how they'll take it. And I imagine perhaps that professor didn't know how you'd receive that suggestion either. But sometimes when you see a flame of hope and possibility and potential within someone else is sometimes saying something and encouraging them to perhaps pursue that can make all the difference in the world. And I'm so glad your professor spoke up.

Well, I mean, of course I am too, absolutely. And in retrospect, as I'm listening to you say this and the question, maybe he saw at the time that I was not going to be a fierce advocate for one side or another. I wasn't already aligned clearly with one political party or another. Maybe he saw somebody who would be comfortable asking questions which is what reporters do and digging for information. But I don't know, but what you say is a very important observation that people who have been through life and when you're having a conversation with someone who's starting out or mid-career, you can sometimes underestimate the impact that you have. I've had young people come up to me and say, "I remember that conversation we had 20 years ago "when you said so and so," and I'll be a little bit taken aback 'cause I know the person and I know the conversation but I'll be surprised that it carried the weight that it did.

And speaking of influential people, I wanna come back to your mother. You have spoken in the past about just what a powerful role she played in your life. And not just in you becoming an extraordinary journalist but just in shaping how you thought about yourself and how you carried yourself and your willingness and dedication to pursue and complete your education. Tell us a little bit about your mother and what was she like and how did she come to have that kinda influence in your life.

Well, she was pretty remarkable. She was born in Missouri, in southwest Missouri, very much a working class family. Her grandparents on her mother's side were farmers and again, a very poor area near Springfield, Niangua, Missouri. And when she was three, they moved to Tulsa. They actually moved around more than that I've learned recently. And when she was 14, her father died. So her mother with five children, young children, I guess ranging from 16 to eight or something, seven or eight, was left with these children. And my mother ended up dropping out of school, didn't finish 10th grade to help take care of her siblings. Two younger brothers and I guess the older sisters were starting to, one older sister and the others were younger, but she was always working. She was working at home to take care of her siblings. At some point, she worked at Douglas Aircraft during World War II. They had a bomber plant. I've recently looked into all this about what was going on. As everybody knows, the country ramped up during the war and Tulsa already had a Douglas Aircraft facility but they rapidly expanded it. And women were hired, of course, because the men were overseas. So my mother worked there for a time during the war. And then she worked as an elevator operator for a time in one of the office buildings in downtown Tulsa. I was born soon after the war and she was completely dependent after that. She stopped working soon after that and was really dependent on my father for the rest of her life. I mean, she once knew how to drive a car but then when she drove it through the back of the garage at the house, she said, "I'm never driving again." Which you can kind of understand but that meant she depended on other people to get around for the rest of her life. So she was pretty quiet except when with us, she would talk a lot. But if you met her, you would say she was pretty quiet and that she was shy. But I knew her to be very, very strong and very, and always trying to help others. And I remember her constantly at the dinner table, she was the one who never sat down. She wanted to make sure everybody's meal was perfect. Did you have what you needed? Was there anything more you, I'd say, "Mother, please sit down so we can all enjoy "the meal together." But she was all about doing for others. She loved children. After my father died when he was in his mid-60s, she was in her early 60s. She lived another 25, 30 years and did a lot of babysitting and she loved children. And so I regretted that we were never in the same city after my children came along 'cause I was in Washington. She was in Georgia. She was pretty amazing, quite amazing.

She sounds incredible. And what a source of strength for you in your own quiet way.

For sure.

And that, you know, it does remind me also that I think, sometimes I worry that in society sometimes we have a stereotype of what strength looks like, that it looks like someone who's loud, someone who's aggressive but so many times there are these quiet examples of strength in our communities and your description of your mother makes me think of my own mother who also never really sat down around the dinner table. And we had to try to get her to sit down 'cause she was always trying to serve us and take care of all of us. But in her own ways, she was our fiercest advocate. And if where there was ever a threat to us, she was the first one to jump up and to try to protect us. But from the outside you wouldn't know that because she did spend most of her time with us at home, taking care of us. And she did have her own career in different ways, she worked as a real estate agent at times. She managed my dad's medical office at times. But she wasn't the stereotype of strength but she's one of the strongest people I know, so.

And she clearly must had a big influence on you.

Oh, absolutely. And she still does today. And you know, I talk to her every day, I talked to her this morning.

Great.

And she always checks on, it's funny, you know? My mom went early on when I left for college. You know it was the first time I was away from home for an extended time so she always checked on me if I was ever leaving town or doing something. Wanna know, "Okay, when is your flight taking off? "When are you coming back?" And she would call me when she thought the plane was landing to see how the trip flight was. And you know my life has changed so much since then and I travel all the time now for work, et cetera. But if I don't send her my itinerary so she knows when my flights are leaving and departing, she'll get a little upset and she'll often call me as soon as I land just to say, "I wanna make sure you got in okay." And it's so sweet and so endearing but it just reminds me that there are a few things more powerful than a mother's love. And I'm so glad that we both had that in our lives.

For sure. I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean, and of course, when my mother passed in 2013, I was filled with regret because even though I tried to talk to her as much as I could, I always felt it should have been more. I mean, I should have made more time, I should have gone to visit more but my work, you know, the journalism is a crazy skit, involves a crazy schedule, you are on the road or if you're not on the road, you're worrying about what the next story is. But I'm so blessed that I had her in my life for as long as I did. And it sounds like you feel exactly the same way about your mom.

I do, I feel really blessed.

And you and I are speaking on the day after Mother's Day, so.

We are, yeah. And just what an important day to just remember all that moms bring into our lives. But you know, in some ways, and I think it sounds like you feel this way too but like every day is the day to remember that and to try to keep those people close to us. And sort of as I get older, I'm aware of not only my mortality but my parents' mortality as well. And often think, and I think a lot of people struggle with this question of how to balance work, especially work that takes you away from your parents and siblings and friends. You know, with the need to be close to the people we love and I struggle with that too. I live in Washington DC but my parents and sister do not and that is a struggle to figure out how to keep people within relationships at the center of our life, even as we try to do good work in the world, so.

Yeah, no question. I mean, I think a lot about that too because I think, I mean, you obviously have an incredibly demanding job-

You do as well.

Day in, day out. As a journalist, and especially when I was anchoring, I mean, today it's still demanding but in day-to-day anchoring, you really are never, ever resting. I mean, none of us, once you're a journalist, you're kind of on call all the time. And it is somewhat different from other professions I think. I mean, I have friends who are lawyers and in business and do other things, certainly people in medicine and you know about this feel they're on call. But there is that real tug between your work which you love and it's important that you're there because you're serving in whatever way you're serving. But there's family too.

Yeah, that's right.

And I certainly don't feel I've ever completely figured it out. Whenever anybody asks, I just say every day, every day is a puzzle, how do I work it out today?

Well, that's reassuring to hear that that I'm not the only one who hasn't figured this out. I wanna also ask you just about something else that's been on my mind a lot over the years which is the concept of success. And related to that, the question of what truly brings us happiness. And as you think about your own life and career, I imagine you started with a certain conception of what success would be if you made it. If you look back though, like on your life, like what is your definition of success now and how has that evolved over time?

I think for me, the definition now would be that you're able to contribute and to make a difference in someone else's life or maybe many people's lives but at least one other person's life and to do it in a way that means you gave up something yourself. I mean, I think, to me, I define success around giving and making a contribution. And I know there are plenty of other accepted definitions of success you know, who got to what rung on what ladder. And there's a lot of defining that goes on in our business in journalism and government and politics and medicine and so on and so on. But for me, that's it. And I think, I wouldn't say that was always my definition. I think starting out it was, goodness, where can I get a job as a reporter? What kind of reporting can I do? How can I contribute in a way that's meaningful as a journalist? And that still is important to me. But I do as I've gotten on in years, for me, so much has to do with what have you done for others, what difference have you been able to make in somebody else's life or someone or other people's lives, that defines success.

I love that definition of success. And it does I think track with some of the greatest and most fulfilling moments that we have in our life, right? It's often when we're giving and contributing and helping others or supporting others. And those tend to last a lot longer in terms of gratification I find than when we're solely getting something. You know, you're a parent as well and as you've raised your children, how have you talked to them about success with this understanding of success being anchored around growth and contribution? And I'm curious how they've received it. I may or may not be asking for personal advice here but we'd love to know how you've done this.

Yeah, I don't know that I've ever had one, I haven't had one conversation with each one, we have three children, about it. But I would say over time, I've tried to convey the message that you don't have to be the top of the ladder as the outside world defines it in order to feel that you're making a difference, as long as you believe you are, you're doing the work that you love and you feel you're making a difference, that that's what matters. Now, I should say that one of our children has significant disabilities. He, Jeffrey, was born in 1981, he's now 41 years old. He was born with spina bifida, hydrocephalus, a pretty mild case. But then he went on to have a medical procedure when he was a teenager that didn't turn out as it was intended. And so he was left pretty much significantly disabled, profoundly disabled, uses a wheelchair. This went from being somebody who skied and swam and rode a bike to somebody who's in a wheelchair, can't use one arm, visually impaired, speech impaired.

Oh my gosh.

And almost no short term memory, he has to work around all those things. So he's pretty much, he's told me he doesn't want me to call him my hero so I try not to do that anymore because it, and the disability community by the way, doesn't believe in that term because they want to be treated as everybody else. But Jeff, my son, is pretty amazing in that he's been through what he's been through. It happened 24 years ago, 25 years ago. But he goes about his life doing as much as he can, staying as active as he can, working in a part-time role. He lives in a supportive community, a group home not too far from Washington DC And so we see him a lot. So his life is circumscribed by most definitions and yet he's very, very aware of the world and so I've encouraged him to, he loves to see what's going on in the news and call to tell me about it. You know, he'll call and say, "Mom, did you know so and so," often he'll call right before I'm going on the air and say, "Mom, did you see that President Biden or President Trump "said this or that?" And I'll say, "Jeff, thank you so much." And sometimes he'll actually give me news I didn't know about it. But he follows what's going on, he's curious. He knows what happened to him, he understands it. And yet he hasn't been bitter. He's tried to be, he is positive, he's very outgoing. He loves talking with people, he's constantly on the phone reaching out to people. And so I admire him so much for that. So his definition, I think for him, it's a definition of something that is a kind of success. It's how do you have a meaningful life after you've been dealt such a terrible hand? And in his case, it's by being connected to people and he is beautifully connected to people. We have another son who's, after years of saying he didn't wanna work in politics, is now working in politics. So that's been an interesting journey to watch. I think he was very affected by what happened to his brother. And then we have a daughter who happens to be adopted from Korea. She's now in her early 30s, she is a social worker. And so she's giving in her own way, working especially with families, with young children who face very difficult circumstances. So I'm very, very proud of all three of them.

And you should be. I mean, they sound like three beautiful human beings. And you and your husband raised them well. So congratulations on that, I know it's not easy being a parent.

The second guessing never stops. I mean, I'm always saying, "What could I have done? "Well, why wasn't I there when so and so?" I mean, one of the stories I tell is when Jeff, our first child was 11 months old, 12 months old. I was out in California covering Jerry Brown's senate race or something, this was 1982. And my husband found me, got on the phone, this is pre-cellphone, got me on the phone at the governor's office and said, "I just wanted you to know "that Jeffrey took his first steps." And I burst into tears because I wasn't there to see it. So, you know, there's always that trade off that you mentioned a minute ago.

Yeah, no, that is tough and I remember before I had my first child, my friend called me up and said, "So excited that you're gonna be a parent "but just know that being a parent is signing up "for a lifetime of worry and doubt." And I said, "Oh, boy." But that has turned out to be right. Although the benefits certainly have far outweighed those concerns.

For sure.

But it's true, it's hard to know if you're ever fully getting it right. But I hope, and this is what I hold onto, but I hope in the end what makes the greatest difference to our kids is the love that we give them and them knowing that we're always there for them and that we're a source of support and really unconditional support. And that's you know, of all the many things my parents did for me, it's that I hold onto the most, you know and some of my darkest moments, it's just knowing that they've always been there for me and they always will be. And that feels like having someone in your corner, there's really nothing like that. - I can't imagine. I mean, and I heard you speak a little about having family, having loved ones in your corner when you're facing adversity in your life. I heard you speak about that at the commencement address at Arizona State. And it made me think again about people who don't have that kind of support network in their lives. They don't have people, whether family or close friends who are there for them. And so, all the more reason, those of us who do value and treasure those relationships, those friendships and family but there are people in the world who don't have that. And I mean, all of us, I think need to think about them as well.

You're exactly right and this is something that we've been talking about more and more publicly, and we launched a campaign on us couple weeks ago, is on the broader concern around loneliness and isolation in our country and how there are so many people who don't have the kinda connections that you and I are talking about here. And that has real impacts for their mental health and their physical health so I think a big part of what we need to do as a country now, and really as a world, is rebuild our sense of connection and community. And it's not only about the people you're biologically related to. It's about how we help widen our circle of belonging and check on others and look to support one another, realizing that we all need people at some point or another in our life. And you know, in my own life, I know that if it wasn't for certain key teachers who looked out for me, certain neighbors who looked out for my family, I don't know that we would be where we are today, that we would have the opportunities that we would've had. And speaking of creating a better future, I wanna come back full circle to where we started this conversation which is around how we heal the division and polarization we see in our country. And so many times where I've watched you on the screen, I've seen just a wonderful example of how to have a conversation and listen to someone while being kind and being civil, being honest and thoughtful and asking sometimes questions about issues that may not be clear, that may be disagreement or might be controversial but there's a way to do that without being disagreeable. And I wonder what you think we can learn as a society from journalists like you who do this well about how to dialogue with one another again in a way that can bring us back together.

Well, I feel that's such a great compliment coming from you. I mean, 'cause you've thought a lot about this. If I've been able to do that, I'm very grateful for that because that's something I strive to do. I think it's so important as journalists that we treat everyone with respect. That there's no one out there that we look down on or that we think whose opinion is not worthy of being heard or being asked about. And so for me, it's just critical that journalists respect and listen, it's so important to listen to the people we're speaking with. And obviously there are time limits and there are different kinds of interviews, sometimes you have seven minutes to interview the surgeon general of the United States or eight minutes and 10 minutes, and you can't ask every question you want to and you wanna push the interview along. But to your point, the thesis that should underlie the work I think of journalism is respecting people. And frankly, I think many journalists haven't done enough of that. And many of us, I think tend to begin to think pretty highly of ourselves, you know? We've been well educated, we've worked in Washington, we've seen a lot, we think we know a lot. And I think it's important that we remember that we don't know everything, that there's still every day and certainly for me, every day is a learning experience. I'm learning new things. I try to be humble. I mean, certainly going into this project, trying to understand the country, I think it's so important for us not to go in thinking we've got it all figured out, that we're asking people and genuinely wanting to hear what they have to say, even if we think what they're talking about seems wrongheaded or seems just not based in a reality that we're familiar with but at least to listen and try to understand better where all that comes from.

Now that sounds exactly right and that respect, that word you mentioned, I think is so important that even if we disagree with people, being able to fall back on that respect and making sure that they feel that too and know that we still respect them, I think is important. Now I imagine in your career, just being a human being, you probably had to interview people that you disagreed with or you didn't like. How did you approach those situations? - Great question. I try to keep my personal views out of the work that I do. I just think it's so important, especially working at the "NewsHour" where I learned from Jim Lehrer and Robin MacNeil who were kind of giants in the business when I came to work there originally in 1983. And so it was just inculcated in us that we were not to share any of our views. And I wouldn't have done that anyway. I mean, I was taught, I go back to the dinosaur age when reporters were told keep your opinion to yourself. But if I am talking to someone who I think has ideas that are very different from mine, I try to listen, I try not to load the questions and to phrase them in a way that is accusatory or that in any way presumes that they're wrong or presumes that I know better than they do. So it's asking an open-ended, not loaded question that doesn't assume anything and giving them a chance to answer. Again, you're always, on television, you're so often up against the clock. Because you've got, in the case of the "NewsHour", you've got a whole hour or 54 minutes or whatever it is when you subtract the intros and the outros. And you've got that time and so you break it up into segments and you've got five, 10, 15 minutes for this interview and you know you have that clock going, your producer is talking to you in your ear. Eight minutes, seven minutes, six minutes, three. And if you go into that interview with a goal of learning something and you don't feel you're learning anything, then you may be pushing the person to an answer. But you still, under any circumstances, in my view, shouldn't be putting them trying to put them on the spot. Yes, pin them down to say something meaningful but not to assume that they're wrong and to give them a chance to say what they think. To me, it's up to the audience. If the audience listens carefully, they'll know what's happening. They'll know whether the person is A, answering the question, and B, whether they think the answer makes sense or not. And so, my job I've always felt is to make it possible for the audience to understand what's going on. Easier for the audience to understand. The way you do that is by pulling information and ideas out of people. And so when you do that, you're less likely to assume anything.

Yeah. No, and that part about listening I find especially interesting, I remember being in my first year in medical school, we had a course where we had to learn how to interview patients. And the I was so focused, I remember in my very first practice session, we did these not with real patients but with people who are acting as patients, but I remember I was so focused on the questions I was gonna ask. I was like, okay, I have to ask about this symptom or that symptom or the medication history and all of these things that at one point, in the middle of this practice interview, my mentor came over to me and he whispered in my ear, he said, "Listen more, listen more. "The patient will tell you what you need to know." And it became a really important lesson for me to keep with me. And what he was essentially saying is, if you give people the opportunity to speak to you and if you truly listen, they'll often help you understand like what it is that you want to know. And in this case, a patient will help lead you to the diagnosis. But it struck me that sometimes we can be so focused on what we are saying, what we're doing, that that listening can get edged out. So I love your focus on listening, that feels so vital.

And listening to you speak about this reminds me that we are all operating now under tighter and tighter deadlines because of technology. I mean, even physicians have a deadline, so to speak. They have a schedule that they're keeping and they have so much time to speak with each patient, whether they're in a hospital or in an office. Journalists, our time is limited. I mean, your time as surgeon general, we're all running around. And then with technology bombarding us with new information and a calendar to keep, a schedule to keep, I do think about the future and what our children and our grandchildren are gonna be dealing with. Are they gonna be able to, how well will they be able to function in a world that is just moving along at such a fast clip? Will they be able to have meaningful, thoughtful conversations where they can listen to someone without worrying about time's up?

Yes, no, I worry about that too. And I'm curious, you've been operating in this world that's been moving faster and faster and faster. Yourself are working a job that has such an incredible pace. What do you do when you need to find respite, when you need to renew and just have a break? Like, how do you build that into your life and what do you do to help yourself find sustenance again?

I will be very honest, I don't do a very good job of doing that. And yet, I'm conscious of needing time to myself. I mean, I enjoy being with people, I enjoy talking to people but I have this sort of inner clock or inner, maybe it's more like an inner message center that tells me, "Okay, Judy, you need to just be by yourself "for the next 20 minutes. "Just take a deep breath, sit there, "think, process what you've been listening to." I've been doing a lot of travel recently and some public speaking and interviews and if everything I'm doing all day long or most of it is in public, then I think, and certainly work in journalism is often in public much of the time. It's important for me to find that time to be by myself, to let it process, to let it work its way through so I can then figure out, okay, what was important that I just heard or that I just participated in? What do I need to take away from that? Because sometimes if it's coming at a blizzard pace, by the end of the day, I think, "Gee, there were six encounters there now, "what am I left with here?" And that's not a good place to be. I think we all need to not only have these experiences but then process them as well.

Yes, that is so true. That time to process and just let things percolate through your mind and your consciousness is so important. And I realize like back in the day, prior to mobile phones and social media and such, that time that we spent waiting for something, for example, at a restaurant, waiting for a friend to show up, at the bus stop, waiting for a bus, at school, waiting for your parents to pick you up, for the school bus to come, or just walking home from school. That was the white space in our life when we processed and we thought and we reflected. And a lot of that has been edged out. So yeah, that time you're speaking of is so valuable but harder to find.

And the devices that we carry, the smartphone, it's ever present, it's everywhere. As we know now, everybody walks down the street with their head down holding the phone, looking at it, or with EarPods, earphones in listening to maybe a podcast, maybe they're listening to music, we don't know, but they're not engaging, not looking around or having time to just be quiet and think or look. I mean, I think looking around. When I'm in a car, being driven somewhere, rather than constantly looking down at my phone or my iPad, I think I should be looking outside the car. I'm in a new city or I'm in a new place, I need to take this in and just think about it for a minute. So yes, I mean, I think what you call white spaces, they are all but gone now. You know you finish one conversation, then you pick up your phone to see what emails did you miss or what texts, you know?

Well, that is so true. And it feels like if you don't make an intentional effort to create some of that space, it won't show up in our lives on its own. Judy, as we close, I'm curious, you and I have both spoken about Our kids, about parenting, and you mentioned also that you wonder what the future's gonna look like for your kids, especially given everything from technology to the pace of life changing so fast. When you think about the world that our kids are gonna inherit, do you feel hopeful that it will be as good or better than the world that we're living in today?

I am at my core an optimist, so I have to believe that it will be better. I don't wanna go in any other direction than that. Having said that, I think the challenges are pretty daunting for reasons that we've just been discussing. I think technology will, at least for me, looks challenging. Now maybe this next generation will be very handy and it'll just ease right into it in the whatever the, what is it? 2.0, 3.0, 4.0 version of smartphones and they'll all have chips in their ears and we'll know the news by looking at our fingernails, I don't know. All that, maybe they'll handle it all very well. But I do think about the limits of human capacity to have time to think. I mean, I see it in myself as a journalist, I worry. I don't have enough time to think sometimes about what I'm doing, I'm just sort of rushing from one story to the next. So I do think about the next generation and the one after that, and I think, how are they gonna organize their lives? How are they gonna manage a flood? Think of all the information that we now have access to today that our grandparents, our parents, much less our grandparents didn't have access to. They led much simpler lives. What is our life gonna be like at 2.0 or 4.0 or 6.0 for our children and our grandchildren? So they've got a lot of adjustments to make and I guess the human body, homo sapiens, is able to keep adjusting but it's gonna require some work and some thinking. So I wish them well. I am an optimist, I think that the capability is there but I also you know, I'm kinda sobered. I have a sober optimism, maybe that's what it is.

Sober optimism, I like that. Well, Judy, as we wrap, I have a couple of rapid fire questions I'd love to love to ask you, some of these are on the fun side. But I'm curious, is there somebody that you have not interviewed that you would love to, like a dream interview? A person could be alive or not?

Yeah, oh my goodness. Martin Luther King.

Martin Luther King.

Yeah.

Wow. That would be an incredible interview.

I'd love to talk to him.

And what is the funniest thing that you've seen happen on set, whether it was caught on camera or not, but something you-

Well, one of the funniest things that happened to me and it was not live, thank goodness, is I actually fell asleep while I was interviewing somebody.

Oh my gosh.

I think my children were young, I hadn't had much sleep and it was a really not a fascinating subject. I think I was discussing international trade or something. The person was giving me a long answer and I just felt the eyelids go. Now I know the camera caught it but when they edited it, I think they edited it out, fortunately for me.

Did the person you were interviewing notice?

I'm sure they did but they didn't say anything. Or maybe that person, I think it was a he, I think he was so caught up in what he was talking about, he didn't even notice. I don't know, I don't know.

Oh my God, well, as someone who has been an exhausted parent and many times and at times now too, I totally can appreciate that. Well, Judy, listen, I've gotten so much out of this conversation with you but there are three words that are sticking in my head from things you mentioned. One is the word respect which is how you characterize the approach that you take to other people that you interview. Second is the word contribution which is how you think of success now, which I really love, and I think of it a form of service. And the third word is love. When you're talking about your mother and your children, I'm talking about how, the love you received from your mom and the love that you now have infused your kids with, that's a source of strength for them. Those three words are what I'm gonna keep with me at the end of this conversation. But I'm so grateful that we were able to do this today. Thank you for joining me on "House Calls", and I can't wait till our next conversation.

I can't wait. This has just been so much fun and interesting. And of course, I have a lot of questions for you Dr. Murthy.

Anytime, we can do that in another episode.

So when I do my podcast, will you come on in?

Absolutely, 100%.

It's a deal, it's a deal. Thank you, I've enjoyed it so much. Thank you.

Thank you, Judy. And take care. Thanks for joining this conversation with Judy Woodruff. Join me for our next episode of House Calls with Dr. Vivek Murthy.