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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. We have a very special hour starting right now. It's the start of WNYC's spring pledge drive. For today, the drive is actually this hour only. Our goal is to raise all the money we normally would in a conventional whole day of fundraising, but during just this hour. Lucky us. How are we going to do that?

Well, every contribution during this hour will be matched, dollar for dollar, by the Tiger Baron Foundation, which supports arts and culture, and environmental health in the New York area. We have four great guests this hour, beginning in just a second, with the great Judy Woodruff from PBS, then Roy Wood Jr. from The Daily Show, who did that hilarious but also very meaningful comedy routine at the White House Correspondents Dinner last month.

As Judy comes on, any donation you can make to WNYC this hour will be matched, dollar for dollar, by the Tiger Baron Foundation. That can be a new membership, renewal, upgrading a little bit, or simply making an extra contribution, anything will count and will be matched. Thank you for considering it. Just go to the homepage, @wnyc.org, or call us on the phone at 888-376-WNYC, as we try to accomplish this feat of a whole normal day's fundraising for the main membership drive in this one hour of the show, with the dollar-for-dollar match.

@wnyc.org. Thank you for calling us on the phone, if you prefer to talk to a human being, at 888-376-WNYC. 888-376-9692. Enough about that, for now. At the end of last year, Judy Woodruff ended her tenure as sole anchor and managing editor of the PBS NewsHour. She will stay on with the network through next year, as a senior correspondent covering the 2024 presidential election. She first came to prominence covering the Jimmy Carter campaign, in 1976.

She will host a series called Judy Woodruff Presents: America at a Crossroads. Judy, it's so great of you to give us a few minutes here this morning. Welcome back as a guest to WNYC.

Judy Woodruff: It's great to be back with you, Brian. May I just say-- I love pledge day, pledge hour, pledge week, whatever we're calling it.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. Today, it's just pledge hour. Folks, help make this work. About your new series first, America at a Crossroads. The title rings true in so many ways, obviously. What kinds of Crossroads do you think you'll focus on?

Judy Woodruff: Well, we have begun, Brian, to try to look at as many different parts of the country as we can, frankly, to get out of Washington, out into the heartland, the East Coast, the West Coast, the South, the North, the Pacific Northwest, frankly, to talk to people about how they think the country is doing, why they think we are so divided, politically, culturally, in many ways, how it is that families can't even sit down at the dinner table over Thanksgiving, and other special occasions.

We've just seemed to have come to a point where we're not just divided, and more divided than we've been in a long time, but we're personally divided. I'm trying to understand why that is, whether people think it's a good idea, and whether they do, or not, what they think we could do to move through this?

Brian Lehrer: What do you expect to be your part of covering next year's presidential campaign?

Judy Woodruff: Well, I'm going to be working on this project, principally, trying to spend time with voters and with people who are looking at the American electorate overall, trying to understand what it is that is moving people to make the decisions they do when they go into the voting booth, or when they send in their ballot. It's sort of lifting up the top layer, or two, or three, and asking people some harder questions, maybe deeper questions about what motivates them.

What are they worried about, what do they think about, what do they really think about some of our political leaders on the national stage? Do they think we can do better? What do they admire? Again, what they worry about. It's going to be an attempt to peel back a layer or two, to get a better understanding of what's going on.

Brian Lehrer: Now, obviously, Judy, so much has changed since you covered the Jimmy Carter campaign for NBC News, and really made your first public mark at that time. One way is that the Democrats are planning to move the first primary season vote from Iowa to South Carolina. Am I right that it was the Carter campaign that put Iowa on the map as a potential Kingmaker state?

Judy Woodruff: Well, actually, it was George McGovern, four years earlier, in 1972. There was even activity there in the '60s, that I didn't cover as a reporter, but Carter was the one who put it on the map, in the sense that he went on to become president. You're right. It's a big change for the Democrats, to be not so much turning their back on Iowa, but they're saying, "We want to go to a place that we think is going to help us more, that it's going to be more representative."

As you know, there's still pushback from the folks, the Democrats in Iowa, they think this is a mistake. We'll see what happens, but you're absolutely right. The party has changed. The priorities of the party, in some ways, have changed, and certainly, the electorate has changed in the last 50, 60 years.

Brian Lehrer: I'm curious, behind the scenes a little bit, or maybe you've spoken about this publicly, how hard it was for you at PBS, to cover the 2020 election with the Trump campaign's false claims that the election was rigged. I'm thinking about how we all want to present both parties' arguments in an election, because we're nonpartisan in our roles, but there, we had one party doing this post-election Blitz, based on a lie.

You had to call it out, we all had to call it out, but that risked leaving many Republicans who believe the lie thinking that you, and we, might be biased against them. How hard was that truth versus balance line, to walk?

Judy Woodruff: It's a very good question, Brian. In so many ways, this was the hardest election for me, that I've ever covered. I covered the 2000 election, which was hard in a different way, because as you know, it wasn't resolved until 38 days later, by the Supreme Court, but this one was tough. It was because of what was being said by the Trump campaign and by people who supported him, but frankly, it was also complicated by the pandemic. We didn't have access to people in person.

We were depending on phones, Zooms, and virtual conversations, to cover. There weren't many rallies, as you know. Of course, the big rally at the capitol, that turned into a mob and an assault on the Capitol. It continues to be a challenge to this day, because I believe in covering news straight and covering it directly, letting people speak, giving them a voice, and hearing all sides, but frankly, as journalists, when people are making statements that are demonstrably false, we have to find a way to point that out.

That's been a journey for me, and for all of us in the press and at the News Hour, and it remains so today. We're trying, every day, to figure out how do we reflect the views of a former president that, in so many ways, have been proven not to be accurate.

Brian Lehrer: A recent New York Times article about you recall us that you left NBC for PBS in 1983, after a story you had prepared for weeks ran at about three minutes, and it was a last straw for you, I guess, in the commercialization of network news. How would you tell that story, of how you transitioned to your first public television job?

Judy Woodruff: Well, that's the shorthand version, Brian, but that actually did happen, believe it or not, it was 40 years ago. I'd been working for NBC. I was doing Today's show interviews for them out of Washington. It all came to kind of a head, when one day, I was preparing an interview with the Secretary of State, George Shultz, and something happened in the news, and we ended up squeezing what was going to be a seven-minute interview down to three minutes or something.

It may be a slight exaggeration, but not much. I was already thinking about the new program being created over on PBS, by Jim Lehrer and Robin McNeil. They were expanding the MacNeil/Lehrer Report to a whole hour, and I was intrigued by that, but that was the straw that broke the camel's back. I decided, "Okay, it's time to take this plunge and see what this whole new approach to news is going to be like, a full hour, longer segments, more in-depth."

As much as I love my experiences at NBC, I thought this seemed like something that was worth jumping into. I did, and I have to say, it was the best professional decision I ever made.

Brian Lehrer: A last thought, and that was before the polarized cable news channels, or the free for all of the internet. How do you see the special role of public television and perhaps, by extension, public radio, today?

Judy Woodruff: Well, I see it, frankly, as so much of what I saw back in 1983 and that is a place of some reason and maybe calmer voices, respectful listening. Yes, we ask tough questions, and yes, we hold the powerful accountable, our public officials and others. That's what our job is as journalists, but we do it in a way that's respectful and that allows people to speak, and to state what they believe.

Yes, to your question a moment ago, it's our job to point it out when something doesn't square with the facts, but people need to hear what our elected officials and others are saying. They need to hear these stories. They need to hear what people are saying and then make up their own minds. It's not for us to shout down whatever it is that somebody's saying or doing. It's for us to illuminate it, to shine a light on it, and again, hold them accountable.

In the end, it's the voters, it's the electorate that should be making these decisions about how they're going to vote.

Brian Lehrer: Judy, I hear the sirens in the background. I hope the fire's not in your building. [chuckles] We thank Judy Woodruff, who has now passed the torch at the PBS News Hour Anchor Desk to Amna Nawaz and Geoff Bennett. She will now host a series called Judy Woodruff Presents: America at a Crossroads, staying on through next year as a senior correspondent covering the 2024 presidential election in that way. Judy, we'll be watching. Thank you so much for coming on.

Judy Woodruff: Thank you, Brian. Wonderful to speak with you. Take care.

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