THE FIVE-PART SERIES EXPLORES THE LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE RECOUNT 20 YEARS LATER, LESS THAN ONE MONTH AHEAD OF THE 2020 ELECTION
FIRST EPISODE AVAILABLE NOW AS PART OF THE CHUCK TODDCAST
Oct. 11, 2020 – Meet the Press and Chuck Todd are debuting a five-part podcast series re-examining the historic and infamous 2000 presidential recount and the impacts it has on elections 20 years later: Florida Florida Florida.
The first episode is available now from The Chuck ToddCast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms, with subsequent episodes being released daily this week.
With election security, voting irregularities, and mail-in voting all at issue this election season, this special The Chuck ToddCast series explores the lessons learned from Bush v. Gore and the Florida recount and its political relevance even two decades later. Over the course of the series, Florida Florida Florida explores the ten enduring political lessons from the 2000 recount that will play a role in the 2020 election, from the birth of conservative acts of civil disobedience, to the fight for the Supreme Court.
“Twenty years ago, the presidential election ended in an unprecedented legal, political and public relations fight centered on the state of Florida. … It wasn’t exactly a moment of high confidence in the electoral process,” Chuck Todd says at the top of the first episode. “I’m going to take you back to the 2000 presidential recount because it was probably, hopefully, the wildest election we’ll ever witness.”
Featuring original NBC News archival footage from Meet the Press, TODAY, and NBC Nightly News, this series looks at the 2000 election through the unique reporting of NBC News correspondents then and now.
For the series, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd is joined by two dozen key players involved in the recount and election coverage to discuss the historic battle, including Joe Lieberman, 2000 Democratic nominee for vice president; Sen. Ted Cruz, then a lawyer to George W. Bush’s recount effort; Amb. John Bolton, lawyer for Bush during the 2000 presidential recount; Laurence Tribe, an expert in constitutional law at Harvard Law School, who represented Al Gore in front of the U.S. Supreme Court during the recount; former Bush campaign staffer and current president of the American Conservative Union, Matt Schlapp; and more, along with NBC News’ Tom Brokaw, Lester Holt, and Pete Williams.
Election Night in 2000 made for unforgettable television moments with then Meet the Press moderator Tim Russert famously holding up his white board with the words “Florida Florida Florida” written on it, telling Brokaw, “Tom, actually, all Al Gore needs is Florida. All George Bush needs is Florida.” And as news networks retracted their initial call that Gore had won the state, then their call that Bush had won, NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw famously said, “We don’t just have egg in our face, we have got omelette all over our suits.”
Full list of those joining the podcast series include:
- Jeremy Bash, chief of staff to the Department of Defense and the CIA, National Security Issues Director for the Gore campaign
- Brad Blakeman, senior adviser to the Bush campaign
- Amb. John Bolton, lawyer for Bush during the 2000 presidential recount
- Steve Bousquet, former Capital Bureau Chief for The Miami Herald
- Tom Brokaw, anchor of NBC Nightly News during the 2000 recount, now an NBC News senior correspondent
- Al Cardenas, Florida Republican Party Chairman in 2000
- Sen. Ted Cruz, policy and legal adviser to the Bush campaign Republican
- Tad Devine, Democratic political adviser and former senior adviser to the Gore campaign
- Joe Geller, Democratic Florida state representative
- Barton Gellman, staff writer for The Atlantic, then a reporter for The Washington Post
- Ben Ginsberg, Republican recount lawyer who served as national counsel to the Bush presidential campaign
- Susan Glasser, staff writer for The New Yorker and co-author of “The Man Who Ran Washington” about James Baker, Bush’s point person for the recount
- Lester Holt, NBC Nightly News anchor and MSNBC anchor at the time
- Judge Terry Lewis, retired Florida Circuit Court judge who oversaw the Florida recount
- Joe Lieberman, former senator and 2000 Democratic nominee for vice president
- Betsy Fischer Martin, Executive Producer of Meet the Press during the recount
- Lucy Morgan, then Tallahassee Bureau Chief for the St. Petersburg Times
- Sandra Mortham, former Florida Secretary of State
- Nathaniel Persily, professor of law at Stanford University, specializing in voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration
- Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, former Republican Congresswoman
- Matt Schlapp, president of the American Conservative Union and former Bush campaign staffer
- Stuart Stevens, a Republican political consultant and member of Bush’s 2000 media team
- Mac Stipanovich, political strategist and adviser to then Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris
- John Sweeney, former Representative for New York’s 20th District
- Laurence Tribe, constitutional law expert at Harvard Law School, who represented Al Gore during the recount in front of the U.S. Supreme Court
- Pete Williams, NBC News veteran justice correspondent
- Judge Charles Wells, retired Chief Justice, Florida State Supreme Court
NBC News and MSNBC have released several chart-topping and award-winning original podcasts into their portfolio of hits including Bag Man, The Oath with Chuck Rosenberg, Dateline’s The Thing About Pam and Motive for Murder, Why Is This Happening? with Chris Hayes, The Chuck Toddcast, Into America and more. All original podcasts and showcasts are available via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn and more. NBC News Group is a top 10 podcast publisher in the Podtrac monthly rankings.
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