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Speaker 1: My mom loved and loved Tony. My mom heard Tony on Fresh Air years before I met him and heard the whole story about his dad and how his dad was a drug dealer. And she called me while I was living in London and she said, I have the perfect guy for you. How many times has your mother said I've got the perfect guy for you. My mom once told me she thought that I was going to marry John Hamm, which, um, I'm still holding on too there. But Katie turns mom wasn't entirely wrong, she just didn't know it at the time. Katie, the host of Katie Ter Reports on MSNBC, had a fairly unorthodox upbringing. Her parents were helicopter journalists in the nineteen eighties in Los Angeles, and she was often brought along on the wild ride. So when her mom heard this guy on a podcast in the story of his own crazy childhood with his drug smuggling father, Katie's mom thought, Wow, this man with a crazy family is perfect for my daughter. And then Katie promptly forgot about this conversation until she met Tony years later, and I told her I started dating him, and she's like, oh my god, it's the guy that I told you to date. I'm Joe Piazza and this is committed. Katie and Tony ultimately met at work. Katie was covering the Trump campaign for NBC and MSNBC. This weekend, I'll be with Clint Eastwood in California, tremendous group of people. I'm going to Arizona this weekend. I'll be all over the place. You were one of the only candidates who didn't campaign during the fourth of July. Pretty much all of them were up in New Hampshire and you were not there. You've had no campaign events really this week, no campaign events planned for next week that we know of so far. You're not campaigning that much. How can anybody take you seriously if you're not out there showing your face. Because I'm doing television with you, and I am up there actually a lot, and I watched them up there walking the streets and it didn't mean anything. And I was actually getting more news coverage than anybody else by far, because I'm the one that brought up the whole situation. And Tony was working at the network as a writer. After spending years working for Newsweek, Tony still considered himself a writer with a capital W, a very serious writer, even though he was just starting to dabble in television. So I was sitting in the makeup room and I had like half of my face done, my hair was in curlers, and I'm just obsessively scrowing through my phone because this is the Trump era and you have to pay attention. And I looked up at the television and they're on screen on mute. Was I think the most handsome man I've ever seen in my entire life. He had this thick brown hair, and he had a nice square jaw, and he wore glasses and a tweed blazer. He looked very right early, like Indiana Jones. And I yelled in the middle of the makeup room, who the fuck is that? Nick up girls women were they all looked up and they said, oh, that's Tony. We all have a crush on Tony. And I said, does he work here? How have I never seen him before? How don't how do I not know him? And they said, yeah, he does this or that and blah blah blah, and in a couple of minutes later walks well. But before the couple of minutes later, I think necessary context is I had the glasses on and the blazer on because I was at that time aggressively identifying as a writer with a capital W who was going to be very serious and professorial, and only was doing TV because the print writing world was collapsing all around me and I still needed to make money, and so I was like, Okay, I'll try it. That's how it. So it's important to know that the fact that the TV was on mute is really key to us meeting she liked what she saw. She would not have liked what she was hearing because I was terrible, terrible, terrible at TV and I knew I was terrible. So when I walked off set after that appearance and into the makeup room, I walked in as I do all the time in those days, which is dejected and disappointed in my own performance. I didn't care. I just was like I was shocked into silence, and I saw him standing next to me, and I couldn't even say anything. I was just like giggling. And one of the stylists said, Tony, have you met Katie? And he looked over at me and he said something like, oh, you covered frump crazy interview, and I just remember being completely like running from the makeup room to my friend Brad, who worked at nightly news at the time, and saying, who is Tony to Cople, Let's google him right now, And and I walked out of there, still in my own head, still thinking about how terrible my appearance was on TV, how desperately I needed to make TV work, how much I hated the fact that I had to make TV work because I still was so in love with writing. And then it wasn't until like eleven PM, eleven thirty maybe even me night that night that I had a drink by myself at home and I thought, huh, that girl in the makeup room, why did they introduce me. They've never introduced me to anybody. There might be something there. So then I googled her and then I think I followed you. I didn't follow me on Twitter at midnight, and I thought, oh, it's on. I was following me on Twitter. But I was not. I was going to play a game, you know. I wasn't going to fall him back immediately. I was gonna let it simmer for a minute, and then I would follow him back, and then he would reach out and so eventually I follow HI back. Thing wasn't Maybe the next day I didn't write that long, and I thought he would, damn me, he would slide into my d M. And he never did. Yeah you know you never did. Yeah I never did. Why were you following? If you were never going to slide into the d M? What was wanted to follow? I didn't know what I was doing, all right. What you need to know here is that at this time, Tony like a real sad sack. He was a divorced dad living in a sad sack studio apartment. He was a writer who was watching the world print collapse around him, and he had no idea what he was going to do next. He'd also just read this guest essay in the New York Times about a divorced dad who thought he was never ever going to date again. And I was like, yes, this is me. I'm forlorn. I'm on a canoe of solitude for the next fifteen twenty years. And then then because I had younger kids at the time, I was divorced, and it was like, this is my lot. I won't be dating anytime soon anyway. So we see each other in the hallway a couple of days later, and he smiles at me in this organic way, and I smiled at him in this immediately organic way, and there was like there was just like there was a spark there. Something good must have happened, like and this is just my good luck, like something good must have happened to me in the immediate moments before seeing her. That made my confidence go up, because then when I saw her, I was like, hey, oh, how's it going. But still he didn't reach out. So I, being the impatient person I am, said fuck it, I'm gonna email him. And I remember that I want to linger on this moment because there was a there's a short hallway by the makeup room. There was a short hallway on the makeup room, and I and then and I came around a corner and she came around the corner, so there was no time to like see each other in the distance, get all awkward and nervous and pretend to check your phone or look away. We just locked eyes and I remember it in slow motion, which was like I remember the feeling. It was immediate. It was just like it was it was like I knew him already, even though I didn't know you at all. It was there was a spark, was chemistry. So Katie spends a long time crafting an email that she thought was very clever and very witty, inviting Tony out to drink any and a manner of beverages gentleman's choice, a coffee, a dakary, a Fanta. Do you like me? Check yes or no? And I wisely chose. It was actually in the middle of a conference call which Frump campaign coverage. It was it was one year but in my ear, and I was like, also on this date with this hot guy. And then we got to the point in the conversation where we couldn't continue with small talking, like in a normal relationship you would shift into where you're from, what your parents do. And because I had googled her and I presumed she had also googled me, I just cut to what I would have preferred her to do, which is like, look, we have crazy parents. I this right here was so wildly refreshing for Katy to hear, and for Tony to say out loud, any of you with crazy parents, myself included. And I am married to a man with not crazy parents. And he still doesn't totally get me, but any of you who do have crazy parents will understand just how much easier it is to be with someone who also has a wacky family. As I mentioned earlier, Katie's parents were the first helicopter newspilots in Los Angeles, and they covered some completely crazy stuff, from the O. J. Simpson Chase to the l A Riots, often with Katie along for the ride. Her dad was brilliant and volatile, but often abusive, and Katie writes about this so beautifully in her book rough Draft. Grabbed the book to read the whole story. And Tony he understood having that kind of childhood because his own dad was a multinational drug smuggler who used his drug money to fund Tony's fancy education and relatively privileged childhood. Let's say you just did I hear you? And I said yeah, And that was the end of it. That was the end of it, and we didn't talk about it again. And it was like, for me, it felt like a relief not having to like explain my whole childhood. And I think you felt the same because I was so tired heard of telling people who don't have a crazy childhood, like the Beats of my childhood and the predictable reactions of like oh, oh wow, and then like going back to the you know, the parents for that boyfriend or girlfriend for you, and having to explain to the parents that you're not used to this Thanksgiving because nobody's throwing biscuits at each other and storming out and saying you're never coming back. So so the whole background conversation we just sort of put in a box and we slid it to the side. And then what did we talk about after that? I don't I don't know. I think we got kind of tipsy and then you ran off. We got we got tipsy, and then I was like looking at the clock and I had to go relieve the babysitter who had my older kids. And so Tony just put it out there. He just put it right out there on the table over Jackers on their first date. But Tony didn't want to tell Katie the reason he was leaving to me that was the absolute kryptonite for the relation ship. So I was like, I can't tell her. I've already got the way I saw it was like everyone wants the relationship to be a blank sheet of paper, and then you write the future together on your blank sheet of paper. But my sheet of paper already had scribbles on it. They were straight and marks, and there was writing on it. And I didn't want to tell her that yet, that she wasn't getting a clean piece of paper. She knew because she suggled him. But there's not a lot on the internet about it. I mean, you had pictures of like the made cards to Dad on your desk, and it says you live with your book said you live with your family in Brooklyn. I mean it's family implies children, fine, but I think the giveaway was she lived with your parents and extended you know, aunts and uncles, which would have been other package right well, which probably would have been better. Actually it would have been worse. There's so much work and I'm ready to launch. Then you're not. No, you found talk. No, that's that's that's not the guy you want to go on another date with. But Katy, Katy, you didn't say anything. I thought, if you'd let him go, releave the babysitter and pretended you didn't know, I was like, see you later by and waited for him to tell you were on a second date. And the second date went really well, although I thought it was kind of because it was quiet the whole time. And we met at eight o'clock and I thought, okay, we'll go get dinner. I'm starving and and he mentioned nothing about dinner. So when we saw each other, I said, we get some food. I'm like really hungry. Also, it was the heat of summer, and she wore awesome white jeans and a white top. And I had no even if I knew anything about style, I had no money to make style happen, and so I had like a corduroy shirt on. He looked very handsome, although I definitely I definitely had fall clothes on. He had the quarter roy suit pretty brutal. Anyway, we went to get dinner and I was like, you know, I was itching for a steak, and he ordered like rice and beans, private side of rice and beans and spinach, and I remember thinking, is he a man of Rexic? Like I see not eating Later I found out it because you had no money. I had no money, so I was making I was making a meal out of the sides. I was like five plus seven plus eight then, but it was still a very good second date. And he we kissed and it was very romantic, and he told me his favorite song was Travis Tritz It's a great day to be alive. And I thought, okay, well that's questionable, but I still like you. And then I had to go. The older kids were going. They go to school overseas, and so as we were leaving, going walking back. I was living in a hotel at this time, and he walked back to the hotel and he said, listen to I tell you something. I'm about to go. I've got these kids and I said, I know, I googled you. And he said, but but they're moving to Israel and I said, oh, that I did not know. And it explained like this kind of hang dog look that he said. He had this sad look at his eyes, and suddenly it all felt very obvious. And then I got to Israel, and because I'm an immature person, I found a street sign on like a walk that I was taking to the neighborhood when the kids were in actual school, and the street sign said he I n E s S. Locally, it's pronounced Penis Street. And he said, I'm gonna send this picture to this girl that I've been on two dates with. I said, We've been on two dates and you're already sending me dick pics. What's wrong with you? I was like, yes, this she's awesome, this is I love her. I would have really appreciated that kind of dick pic. What if? What if I would have fallen in love right there too. You did have a deal breaker for him? You you tell him? When did you tell him? Oh? My god, Okay, I think it was this. This was a little bit too much, suky. We're sitting in a in a sushi restaurant in by n y U. It's on Ninth Street, and this was this was the date that if if in our trajectory, if I think we both kind of sensed like, if we're going to do it, this was gonna be the night we were going to do it. Do it? Actually, this is going to be like potentially there was already pretty a pretty heavy make out in the hotel room before we went dinner. Yeah, but we didn't do it. Didn't do it. We didn't We didn't do it. But there was a lot of anticipation, a lot of excitement, a lot of excitement in the air, electricity in the air. So we're sitting in the dinner. I've had maybe slightly too much sacky, just enough to make me loosen a bit on guarded, and I think I stupidly blundered into it and was like, I thought it was gonna be a deal breaker when I had two kids, but looked like we're going to have sex tonight. I said, well, you know that's not a deal breaker, and your your dumbass, was like, well, what is a deal breaker? Is a deal breaker? And then she lays it on the table and I said, no more kids, if you don't want any more kids, and I took a breath. So I was like, this is a lot to put on someone on the fourth This is I would never do this on the fourth thing, And like, I'm how old does I two? I guess I don't remember, was thirty one or thirty two? I was starting to think about kids, you know, right, yeah, as a woman in her thirties, us, yes, I think you should lay that out on the table. I didn't know what the rules of engagement were yet. We're a woman dating in her thirties, and I just kind of blurted it out and I said, you don't want more kids? And his face went ghostly white. Because he had two kids, and he was like, I don't know if I want more kids. And I remember thinking, wow, like this is over before it started, and I said, so that's fine, you know, like we're not having sex tonight. I think I said we're not having sex tonight. The second I said we're not having sex tonight, I was like, we're definitely gonna have sex, definite. And we definitely had sex that night, definitely the first time. It was electric because it felt so wrong, like it was going, yeah, the relationship was going nowhere. So it was just fun sex. We had more sex and more sex, and then you were like, wait, no, maybe I'll have some more kids. Yeah. But then I did have a wobble. I did have a wabble. We did have a woman. Tony did have a wobble. Wobble got nervous. At this point, his kids were four and six, which still very young, and all he wanted to do was be a great dad to them, and so he told Katie that he couldn't do it. He didn't think that he had the bandwidth to have any more kids, Like, I couldn't contemplate anything more until I knew that they their bond with me was intact and that I was doing right by them and that that felt stable and secure. Tony was also really nervous, and understandably so about supporting a family. I was doing a lot of stuff for MSNBC. I was traveling on the road, and the work was getting some attention, but no one was making me job offers. My future was not at all secure, and so I told her, like, this is a shitty situation. In fact, think you were fired at that point from technically you technically fired from Yeah. They were like, they were like, your position doesn't exist as a writer anymore, but but keep going around on the got a literal pink slip in December and somehow managed to talk your way out of not because because so I was at the time, I was part of the enterprise unit, and then they eliminated that and they put me in the investigative unit, and then they eliminated the job there. And I was like, do you know I have other jobs? And they were like, no, we'll get back to you. And they were like, all right, we'll keep you on to go to that assignment and we'll let you know. And then any at any time, like I was, I was a guy in a cartoon running and like the bridge was collapsing behind me. I was in danger and nothing had been sorted out. So I felt like I cannot possibly continue in good faith with you because I don't know if I'm gonna be able to have more kids. We will get to all of this after a quick break. Yeah, So we were at the n A convention. Yes, they were both covering the n r A convention when Tony told Katie that he didn't think he wanted any more kids. Yeah, And so he said, in the middle of the night, and we were sleeping in this hotel which had only provided us to twin beds, and I promptly got out of the twin bed that we had been sharing because we were crazy in love and you know, I can't sleep apart from each other at all, and I slept in the other twin bed and I said, I guess it's over. And we woke up the next morning, and I think both of us were still in a bit of shock, because like there was no going forward from this. And I went to go do my assignment that day and he went to go do his assignment that day. I remember calling my mom in the middle of it and saying, this is what happened with Tony, and my mom loved and loved Tony, and I said that he said he didn't want to have kids, and she was like, well, you gotta kind of loose at the end of that. And so at the end of the day, I get a text message from you saying can we talk? And I went to meet him and he's sitting by a grenade launcher. Yeah you really loved those metaphor are we going to get into the foxhole together? And so we sitting by this grenade luncher and I sit down with him and and he says, I think I've made a big mistake. You decided to get into the foxhole with me, and you were wondering if I was still willing to be in it with you. And I said, yeah, I think you didn't make a mistake. And we made up and I told you my mom told me to cut you loose, and you didn't believe me, and I said, she likes grandkids more than she likes the idea of you. And then some boy scouts went to go to Seeda Flame floor and that was that was that was, that's it, that's it. I actually like that story of the grenade launcher better, even better than your proposal story, which is very sweet. But I like, I like, I like that that one. That one better because it's it's like too good to be true. I know, it really is sticks up and then gets back together. At the n r A convention, it's very surreal. That convention is incredibly really the best thing that ever happened at an A convention. And after that it was on. Katie ended up moving into Tony's roach infested Brooklyn studio apartment. Yeah, it was very small. It was like the Divorced Dad special in Parks, Brooklyn. Well, then I got to get the goats out of here, and I laughed because I knew he met cockroaches, but he was unwilling to say cockroaches because they would really crawl around. They were big fat cockroaches. And I started going and stay at my feet and they'd run away. And it was such a small place that pile pans up under underneath the stove for the cockroaches would come out, so they would They were not but they got around. It was they got around. It was also so small that the bathroom had like the kind of stink you see on like a like a like a boat, like a sailboat. Think it's like a little corner. And then there was only one room and then half a wall where the bed was. And I remember one of my older son's friend came over after soccer. He came into the house and he was like, where's the rest of it? Where's it? Where's the other stuff? It was just small. It was small. It was very small. It was charming, though, And I didn't need anything more. I don't know, I didn't care. I just wanted to be next to you. Oh that's true. They eventually found another, bigger, less roachy apartment once Tony got a steady job at CBS and Tony getting this job was probably mostly due to some really good advice that Katie gave him, involving a tight black T shirt and push ups. The time I would look up at ABC and every time they had a correspondent out, it was like a handsome guy and a tight black T shirt who looks like they who looked like they had just in push ups. I was. I was pretty dejected. I was wearing thick, chunky glasses every day and like the corduroy coat that we went on our date with and and I was trying to look right early and it wasn't working at all. And I was getting on TV regularly, but no one was paying attention. No one wanted to, you know, make it official with me and give me a contract or a real paycheck. And so her advice was, no glasses, push your hair up real high, throw the coat into your bag, put on a black T shirt, and do a hundred pushups. And she said this because I was at the border in Arizona doing a primary story ahead of the boat there and I was half joking with him, not really being you were not joking. History is like it's it's funny, but it's also kind of horrible. Was also kind of the plot of an eighties and nineties romantic comedy where you take off the girl's glasses and she goes from geek to sheet like he's all that. Yeah, So anyway, Tony does it. He did the push ups, he put on the tight black T shirt. He's just up his hair and just a reminder, and you can google this to fact check me, Tony is pretty hot. Yeah, he was a smoking hot single dad. So there he is wearing his tight black T shirt, and the very next day, ABC News called with a real job offer. I'm sure I'm still terrible as a TV person, but I look good. And maybe ABC News was always going to call. Maybe their intention that they noticed the guy with the corduroy I got on in the thick glasses. They were like, he's our guy. I don't know, but the timing was that I did that appearance in that look at her recommendation and they called that week. Maybe it wasn't the shirt, but it probably was. And he was able to parlay that offer from ABC into another offer from NBC. And then you can take those two and your stock is high and and you know, play the mark a little bit. And I went to the CBS and I was like, this is where I want to be. What do you think? I thought that you, in your personality and what you like, your style would match more at CBS. CBS just sixty minutes and Sunday Morning, and if you were able to get onto one of those shows, you would be golden. And look what happened. You got onto Sunday Morning and you were golden. It worked out very well. So I mean, lessons here are even if you're not really sure. If you're sure about the person but not sure about the future, kids, just go for it. That's the m H and N. Yeah, and you probably shouldn't go well. But I mean, if you're really really into the person, you can't imagine being happy without this person, then you're gonna want all that they want. I think, I guess, I don't know. Maybe the other thing is that that money is very important when you choose a job, but maybe not as much as path and trajectory and fit, like if youre good there. So Tony gets the job, they get out of the Cockroach invested studio, and then they decide to Elope, we will get to all of this after a quick break. We decided we want to get married. And after the Trump campaign and I was writing a book, I was like, I don't have any energy or desire to plan a wedding. I don't want to do it. Don't to think about who's gonna sit where, don't want to think about who I have to invite and who I want to invite, particulars of who doesn't like who in all the drama that goes to the wedding. And I looked at you one night and I said he's just a lope. We pleased just a lope, and you said, yes, that sounds great. And so I dream dream for me best resort in America, because I thought, I'm not spending money on a wedding, I can spend a little bit of money on on the nicest resort in America. And what we found was a place in Utah, the northern end of the of the Grand Canyon. And it was a place that very fancy. When you called to book a reservation, they would say flying private, and we're like, no, we're flying Delta. Can we send Can we send you a car? And no, we got a Chevy Malibu. Like we're good. Yeah, I got like I got, I got a lot of Avis points from the campaign trail. I'm there, and we were saying this, like this this hotel. I spent more money on this hostel than I spent on anything in my life. They used this very fancy hotel as a home base to hike up to an ancient rock formation, where the manager of the hotel acted as an officiant to marry them. And he kept calling Tony. Tom kept like the paper was blowing in the wind, and I guess I wrote my name too fast and so he kept, you know, thinking the N why was an M and take Tom? I was like, no, I take Tony. But it was nice. We wrote our own vows and we mine were shitty and I'm gonna we said them to each other. I've got to for because I love you, and it was perfect. But I I, for a person who has made his living with words, have utterly failed this woman. At key moments with toasts, vows, public declarations, did a really nice, really nice I know, it's really nice. That was really good. Yeah, I did that very well. I Here's were great. Here's were great. But like I, I'm so glad that I am going to be able to make it up to you. At our tenth wedding, he said something once about how he likes I'm just saying marred provocatively, which I thought it was a bit of an insult at the time. I was like, what do you mean, I'm marred provocative like acne scarring on my face. He's like, I just love looking at your face. It's like it's just so interesting and so beautiful. And I said, yeah, but my acne scaring and he said, no, you're marred provocatively. Or provocatively marred, and I remember thinking like, that's a horrible thing to see so right early. But I used it in our vows. I forgot how I use. You're going to get a better vows for me at our tenth we're gonna read, we're gonna re up. Yes, we're gonna up. We're gonna be able to afford. No, no one is affording. That's a one time deal. We're and we're gonna I'm gonna get another shot of this. I'm going to repropose and I'm gonna do the vows again, and they're going to be I thought it was perfect the first time, all the way around a standard, and then they were all great, okay, good, never mind, never mind. Then I love what you talked about in the book about the struggle to choose life over your career. Do you think being with Tony made helped you figure out how to choose your life over your career? Yeah? I do think so. I think that there was something about him that felt so right that the decision was an easy one. I mean, I wasn't between the options of going to the White House and covering Trump or staying in New York and being married to this guy, like I obviously I would choose this. I mean I did have some like wonderers that should I have done trying to do both? You know what could I have commuted? But no, I mean I wanted I spent my whole life chasing after this career and dropping everything for this career and moving across the world for this career, or spending you know, just dropping everything and going somewhere for seven weeks, for for five hundred and ten days, you know, just completely subservient to it, surrendering to it. And at whatever age thirty three, I can't remember anything anymore you have kids in your brain goes so much. Thirty three, I thought, if I keep doing this, if I say no to this thing that I have here, I don't know what I'm going to get a better chance. And when I look at my future, I want a family more than I want this career. I'd love to have both. I'm gonna choose one or the other. I'm gonna choose the family can figure something else out to do that. That's a pre pandemic depth right there, and reflection, self knowledge, self knowledge. Of course, at the time, I hope that I would be able to do both. When Katie and Tony decided to start having kids of their own, they had a built in deadline based on the presidential election. I want to do everything possible to make my career work in the structure that I have built around it. I said, we can have a baby as long as we get pregnant by September twenty. If I'm pregnant by September, I will be back at work if I have the baby in in in the spring. If I take five months off time, I was taking three months off. Yeah, right, I take months off, six months off, whatever. I'll be back by the fall of twenty nineteen. And that's when things start getting geared up for the for the campaign season. That's when the serious debates start. It's a few months before the primaries. Like, I can catch up at that point, I won't miss any of the important stuff. Yeah, it really weighed heavily on me. Looking back, I don't think it should have, but I did at the moment. And Tony, what were these deadlines like for you? Were you just just like, yes, yes, we can do this, or was that stressful? Also, trying to make a baby is stressful. It was definitely stressed. There was one night would used to be a lot of fun and then it was suddenly not any fun. It was like so fun, and it was like, this is the one thing you're not you know, we have to have any any worries. We're trying to get pregnant, do whatever you want. And then but for some reason, as soon as that, as soon as all the restrictions come off, you would think it becomes instantly fun. But but like I don't know, like the future is there in the room with you, and so it's like it really affects. We had some bad, bad bad Like we've had great interactions, we've had some bad interactions where like you're contemplated, like I we got into big fights, really big fights, like we're in highly high interactions that we had highly delicate, highly delicate sexual situations. There. There have definitely been times where it's been like this feels like a job. I can't work like this, Like job, I'll give you a job, the job of not being answered to every time you speak to me. But there's also I also we did work for it. It was kind of job like because there was certain windows. Of course, everyone who's gone through this nose he drove across the state once I did so. I did an evening news appearance in some terrible weather storm deep in New Jersey, deep in New Jersey, and then drove like many, many, many hours to be with her for like thirty minutes and then just get right back in the car and drive for the morning show at the other end of New Jersey. I remember that CBS Finance was like, you don't qualify for the suc and I was like, well, what, I really needed it. I think I had to eat that expense. There's nothing sexy about trying to make a baby. It's not fun. It is the worst. But Katie did get pregnant. I had a great pregnancy. I love being pregnant so much with Teddy that I never wanted to stop being a pregnant I felt sexy, I felt bouncy. I was like I couldn't eat everything I thought. I loved cheese puffs and I loved oranges, and I just felt glowy and beautiful. My hair was thick and my skin gut better. I thought it was the the greatest experience of my life until I gave birth. And like I knew giving birth was going to be hard, but I I just assumed naively that my body knew what it was doing. Your body and knows what it's doing, and I thought there was very little chance that i'd have I didn't even consider a C section. It was like, there's no wa, I'm gonna have a C section. My body works, it always has word and why would it not work here. I've been able to do whatever I need to do. And it went I got induced because my doctor said, you know, there's a lot of literature that says we get induced to thirty nine weeks, you don't get a C section, And so I said, okay, sure, and she induced me, and it immediately feels I felt like it went sour, like I feel well, I gotta I got a fever. I was shivering. The contractions were insane like that, there was no build. It went from zero to insane in a second. And I kept pushing back and saying I don't want to C section, and they were like, you know, I had a couple of times where like ten doctors would come in the room and You're like, this is not good, but there should you any And finally, I think the second time that all the doctors showed up in the room. They said, you don't really have a choice say longer. We got to get the baby out, and they started wheeling mean the o R and I was hysterical, like his hysterical. I couldn't and I just I completely fell apart. I'm this always prided myself, I'm being such a strong person and willing to face anything, and this I suddenly could not face. And they said, your husband will be there in a second. You know, he's just going to change into his scrubs. And I remember feeling like I'm never going to see him again because this is all over, Like I'm gonna die, the baby is gonna die, like this is this is, this is the end. You've made a dumb mistake. You shouldn't have gotten induced. You've put everything at risk. And they did the surgery, they got the baby out. I remember very I remember the moments waiting for the cry. I think it was one second. It felt like, you know, a minute to me, but I felt very relieved once I heard it and everything was fine. And then she the doctors sewed me back up. I thought she sent me back up. She stapled me back up, and it was it was violent, you know, like I couldn't move. I could not move. I saw other moms who had given birth vaginally and who knows what they went through, but also terrible, I can tell you, also terrible, different way. It was terrible, but they were you know, they could put on pants and they were walking. Yeah, you can put on pants. You can put on pants. You can't poop, but you can put on pants. They actually walked, They had their own, They walked on their own into the nursing room where you learn how to feature baby, which I also do. I was wheeled in and I remember thinking I look a lot worse than all these other moms. What did they do to me? And then I got infection. Kamala Harris called while I was looking at my infection. It was like, congratulations, baby, it's gotta and I were looking down at like the blood and the star tissue and I was just like thanks. And you still wanted to work because the molar report came out. You know, I'd covered the bar summary, which was totally misleading, and I had spent years covering the lead up to this thing. When I was on the campaign Trall when he said Russia, if you're listening, I pushed back on that question. I felt like this was a culmination two years of work that I had done, and I wanted to be a part of it. And so either he got exonerated completely or he was going to be indicted and in trouble, like something was going to happen. This was a moment of happening. It was a moment of happening exactly. And I thought, you know, you're on my doll and Thailan all like death's behind. Your brain is still functional. Yes you're bleeding, but like I can put some bandages on that. Yes you're bleeding from another area. I can wear a diaper, no big deal. We can go to the office. My mom can come with me. She can hold Teddy for an hour, and I can be on TV from two to three. Can do it? Like this is totally possible for me to do. I was gung ho. I thought, if they say yes, I'm I'm going to get in a cab and I'm going to go. Texted my boss and I said, you know, I'm there, Like, just give me the word I'm coming. Is it crazy? And he texted back almost immediately, which was unheard of for this boss at that time, and he said, you are crazy. You've been you had a baby four days ago. Stay home. I couldn't even I couldn't even look at you. You were like an insane human being. But so we went to the my Teddy's wellness appointment, got them all checked out. I had no idea what was going on. Tony was like, Mr nowat all in there and I walk out. We go to get a coffee in the neighborhood and I, you know, I'm just settling into you know, fine, like I'm not gonna be at work. It's okay, I'm going to spend this time to bond. And a viewer comes up and looks at me, and she doesn't like, doesn't even take in the carriage, the baby carriage. She said, I've been wondering where you were. I said, oh, I just keep birth. She said, God, it must be killing you to not be at work right now. This is this is the one who definitely had been like her prime was nine and she had been through the wars on working womanhood. And I was like, she understands it. She was she saw you, She definitely did. She wanted you in there. She would have called, she would have called, she would have driven you there to the news around. I don't think I could have done it. It might have been Murphy Brown and would have I could have done it was an hour of television. It would have been triumphant. It would have set back all progress for all the limit at your company. It would have felt like you were doing something in defiance of whatever, all the standard of not having to go work that everyone else had had. It's true, that's kind of a problem stuff like that. It's like, no one be a hero. We're all trying to live life, yet were trying to live our That's what I say to the guys in my office, because they offer the same amount of I'm off for women and men as long as you indicate that you're the primary caregiver. And everyone's a freaking primary caregiver. So I colleagues like Aimon Moydine, who's an anchor as well, take six months off. It shows the other guys in the office that they can do it too, and I think more and more people have been taking it, which is I think a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing. That's what they said. There is a reason that Sweden is a much happier country than we are because all of them I can take maternity leaf. And so my last question before my kids come in COVID happens You guys are all of a sudden, you're both on air journalists filming from your basement room right here, working right next to each other. What the hell did COVID due to your relationship? It revealed a lot. It revealed a lot. He'd broadcast in the morning, and the very beginning, I'd get up and I'd helped them do his makeup and like pretend I was his assistant, to give him scripts, and it was like cute and fun, and I'd like get on the owned to his his team, which had been spread out around the country, and help make sure that everything was in order. That lasted like three days, and you realized that I wasn't that helpful, and I realized that I'd like sleeping a little longer. And then I would come in and in the afternoons and he helped for a little while. And then the same thing, I realized, I don't really need his help. I could just do it on my own. And yet he still kept coming in here. He still kept like saying, this is the only quiet place in the house. Which is totally not true, and he would The only quiet place in the house was where I was doing a national broadcast. There's no other desk in that. How is that possible? The only quiet place in the house was right next to me doing a national television broadcast because their children right above us. And then there's our bedroom and there's no desk in there anyway, So he'd come down and he would sit here in this chair, except this is a plastic chair, as is a wood chair. We've agreed, and I would sit like three ft away from that with the television lights on, and I it's the middle of COVID. We're talking about terrible things, everyone's spirit of their mind. And during one interview, I'm talking to some woman I think something terrible it happened to her family, and I'm, you know, feeling awful for her and trying to talk to her about it. And Tony, just like as if he is alone, just farts as loud as you possibly could fart in two into a plastic care It reverberates around the whole room and it smells terrible. And I'm on national television and I am sure that I could hear it. Obviously, but the viewers could hear it as well, and I am desperately trying to keep my face together, wondering should I interrupt and say, I'm so sorry for that my husband's right here, or do I just ignore it and keep going. I decided to ignore it and keep going. Somehow I kept it together. Other times he would pass in front of the camera during commercial break, go to the bathroom, which is right here next to the camera, with the door open. That'spens to me all the time, during during my television hits, during my buck tour, my husband just pissing, just pissing, yes, and then he flush it, and I'd be like they'd be counting me down five four three two flush, and then like the flushing logo would pop up on the screen. Miraculously no one heard it. In my defense, there is no defense in my defense. In my own mind, I was alone. I didn't think anyone else. How does that? How does that sound? In my mind? In my mind, I was alone my wife, wife, who I love so much. I can't imagine a life with that that I had two more kids because I love so much. She's sitting two feet away from me. But in my mind I'm alone in my mind. I was alone. This is what This is what it revealed about relationship. If you could there was no right amount of time with the other because I wouldn't I'd want to get away. I'd want to be with her a lot, and I was. But then also other times I'd want to not see her, and I couldn't, like go to the kitchen and get a glass of water without running into her there and having to work to hear me leave the kitchen before he'd go up to get a glass of water. And I only found this out recently because I would be in a zone and i'd be in a writing zone, so I would just kind of I'd wait at the corner until she shuffled out, and I would go in and then I would get when I needed And you had to talk to your wife because zone I needed to be, because you were alone, you were alone in your mind, alone together, Alone together, that's her next book. Let's write that together. Yeah. I think if you can survive COVID, you're in a strong place. I think our marriage is better for every appropriated during COVID. I mean that's a good tie, right, Our Our marriage is better every year gets better, like like our whole every year has been a trust exercise that is paid off, and it gets stronger and stronger and stronger, honestly, like the intimacy gets deeper, the fights gets stupider, gets stupider, but also more frequent, and like the things that I like, I feel like I owe you for everything, and I feel like you owe me for everything. And it's like in that and as a result, we're braided into this really strong but the listener can't see me laughing hysterically like you've done. I would I would be still in that apartment and part flow. Probably you know I'd be I'd be scaring away the I probably would have quit the Trump campaign and got back to London. I don't know what. I just know that I don't know where I would be right now if not for meeting guy. My mom would be so disappointed. I would be less, less joyous, and no, I agree, I'm being sarcastic, but I would not be in the place that we're We're a really good team and we love each other and we have stupid fights which both of us end up apologizing for and in tiery ways. I love you so much. I'm sorry as long as as long as she apologizes, I will apologize about anything because I believe in peace with honor. Peace with honor is key to a healthy relationship. Always apologize, even if you think she's wrong. Apologize, guys. I feel like you just rewrote your vows. You don't have to wait till you're ten. This is great. You just just rewrote them right here, right right on the show. I love it. This episode was hosted and reported by Joe Piazza, with a very special thanks to Katie and Tony. Committed as produced by Ramsey Yount. The executive producers are Joe Piazza and Tyler Kling. Theme song by Tristan mcnewton. For comments, suggestions, or to be part of the show, give us a call at four zero four, that's fours year oh four, or send us an email at Joe at Committed podcast dot com. That's j O at Committed podcast dot com. You can pick up a copy of Katie Terr's new memoir, Rough Draft wherever books are sold. Committed as a production of iHeart Radio and produced in our studios located in Atlanta, Georgia. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: My mom loved and loved Tony. My mom heard Tony on Fresh Air years before I met him and heard the whole story about his dad and how his dad was a drug dealer. And she called me while I was living in London and she said, I have the perfect guy for you. How many times has your mother said I've got the perfect guy for you. My mom once told me she thought that I was going to marry John Hamm, which, um, I'm still holding on too there. But Katie turns mom wasn't entirely wrong, she just didn't know it at the time. Katie, the host of Katie Ter Reports on MSNBC, had a fairly unorthodox upbringing. Her parents were helicopter journalists in the nineteen eighties in Los Angeles, and she was often brought along on the wild ride. So when her mom heard this guy on a podcast in the story of his own crazy childhood with his drug smuggling father, Katie's mom thought, Wow, this man with a crazy family is perfect for my daughter. And then Katie promptly forgot about this conversation until she met Tony years later, and I told her I started dating him, and she's like, oh my god, it's the guy that I told you to date. I'm Joe Piazza and this is committed. Katie and Tony ultimately met at work. Katie was covering the Trump campaign for NBC and MSNBC. This weekend, I'll be with Clint Eastwood in California, tremendous group of people. I'm going to Arizona this weekend. I'll be all over the place. You were one of the only candidates who didn't campaign during the fourth of July. Pretty much all of them were up in New Hampshire and you were not there. You've had no campaign events really this week, no campaign events planned for next week that we know of so far. You're not campaigning that much. How can anybody take you seriously if you're not out there showing your face. Because I'm doing television with you, and I am up there actually a lot, and I watched them up there walking the streets and it didn't mean anything. And I was actually getting more news coverage than anybody else by far, because I'm the one that brought up the whole situation. And Tony was working at the network as a writer. After spending years working for Newsweek, Tony still considered himself a writer with a capital W, a very serious writer, even though he was just starting to dabble in television. So I was sitting in the makeup room and I had like half of my face done, my hair was in curlers, and I'm just obsessively scrowing through my phone because this is the Trump era and you have to pay attention. And I looked up at the television and they're on screen on mute. Was I think the most handsome man I've ever seen in my entire life. He had this thick brown hair, and he had a nice square jaw, and he wore glasses and a tweed blazer. He looked very right early, like Indiana Jones. And I yelled in the middle of the makeup room, who the fuck is that? Nick up girls women were they all looked up and they said, oh, that's Tony. We all have a crush on Tony. And I said, does he work here? How have I never seen him before? How don't how do I not know him? And they said, yeah, he does this or that and blah blah blah, and in a couple of minutes later walks well. But before the couple of minutes later, I think necessary context is I had the glasses on and the blazer on because I was at that time aggressively identifying as a writer with a capital W who was going to be very serious and professorial, and only was doing TV because the print writing world was collapsing all around me and I still needed to make money, and so I was like, Okay, I'll try it. That's how it. So it's important to know that the fact that the TV was on mute is really key to us meeting she liked what she saw. She would not have liked what she was hearing because I was terrible, terrible, terrible at TV and I knew I was terrible. So when I walked off set after that appearance and into the makeup room, I walked in as I do all the time in those days, which is dejected and disappointed in my own performance. I didn't care. I just was like I was shocked into silence, and I saw him standing next to me, and I couldn't even say anything. I was just like giggling. And one of the stylists said, Tony, have you met Katie? And he looked over at me and he said something like, oh, you covered frump crazy interview, and I just remember being completely like running from the makeup room to my friend Brad, who worked at nightly news at the time, and saying, who is Tony to Cople, Let's google him right now, And and I walked out of there, still in my own head, still thinking about how terrible my appearance was on TV, how desperately I needed to make TV work, how much I hated the fact that I had to make TV work because I still was so in love with writing. And then it wasn't until like eleven PM, eleven thirty maybe even me night that night that I had a drink by myself at home and I thought, huh, that girl in the makeup room, why did they introduce me. They've never introduced me to anybody. There might be something there. So then I googled her and then I think I followed you. I didn't follow me on Twitter at midnight, and I thought, oh, it's on. I was following me on Twitter. But I was not. I was going to play a game, you know. I wasn't going to fall him back immediately. I was gonna let it simmer for a minute, and then I would follow him back, and then he would reach out and so eventually I follow HI back. Thing wasn't Maybe the next day I didn't write that long, and I thought he would, damn me, he would slide into my d M. And he never did. Yeah you know you never did. Yeah I never did. Why were you following? If you were never going to slide into the d M? What was wanted to follow? I didn't know what I was doing, all right. What you need to know here is that at this time, Tony like a real sad sack. He was a divorced dad living in a sad sack studio apartment. He was a writer who was watching the world print collapse around him, and he had no idea what he was going to do next. He'd also just read this guest essay in the New York Times about a divorced dad who thought he was never ever going to date again. And I was like, yes, this is me. I'm forlorn. I'm on a canoe of solitude for the next fifteen twenty years. And then then because I had younger kids at the time, I was divorced, and it was like, this is my lot. I won't be dating anytime soon anyway. So we see each other in the hallway a couple of days later, and he smiles at me in this organic way, and I smiled at him in this immediately organic way, and there was like there was just like there was a spark there. Something good must have happened, like and this is just my good luck, like something good must have happened to me in the immediate moments before seeing her. That made my confidence go up, because then when I saw her, I was like, hey, oh, how's it going. But still he didn't reach out. So I, being the impatient person I am, said fuck it, I'm gonna email him. And I remember that I want to linger on this moment because there was a there's a short hallway by the makeup room. There was a short hallway on the makeup room, and I and then and I came around a corner and she came around the corner, so there was no time to like see each other in the distance, get all awkward and nervous and pretend to check your phone or look away. We just locked eyes and I remember it in slow motion, which was like I remember the feeling. It was immediate. It was just like it was it was like I knew him already, even though I didn't know you at all. It was there was a spark, was chemistry. So Katie spends a long time crafting an email that she thought was very clever and very witty, inviting Tony out to drink any and a manner of beverages gentleman's choice, a coffee, a dakary, a Fanta. Do you like me? Check yes or no? And I wisely chose. It was actually in the middle of a conference call which Frump campaign coverage. It was it was one year but in my ear, and I was like, also on this date with this hot guy. And then we got to the point in the conversation where we couldn't continue with small talking, like in a normal relationship you would shift into where you're from, what your parents do. And because I had googled her and I presumed she had also googled me, I just cut to what I would have preferred her to do, which is like, look, we have crazy parents. I this right here was so wildly refreshing for Katy to hear, and for Tony to say out loud, any of you with crazy parents, myself included. And I am married to a man with not crazy parents. And he still doesn't totally get me, but any of you who do have crazy parents will understand just how much easier it is to be with someone who also has a wacky family. As I mentioned earlier, Katie's parents were the first helicopter newspilots in Los Angeles, and they covered some completely crazy stuff, from the O. J. Simpson Chase to the l A Riots, often with Katie along for the ride. Her dad was brilliant and volatile, but often abusive, and Katie writes about this so beautifully in her book rough Draft. Grabbed the book to read the whole story. And Tony he understood having that kind of childhood because his own dad was a multinational drug smuggler who used his drug money to fund Tony's fancy education and relatively privileged childhood. Let's say you just did I hear you? And I said yeah, And that was the end of it. That was the end of it, and we didn't talk about it again. And it was like, for me, it felt like a relief not having to like explain my whole childhood. And I think you felt the same because I was so tired heard of telling people who don't have a crazy childhood, like the Beats of my childhood and the predictable reactions of like oh, oh wow, and then like going back to the you know, the parents for that boyfriend or girlfriend for you, and having to explain to the parents that you're not used to this Thanksgiving because nobody's throwing biscuits at each other and storming out and saying you're never coming back. So so the whole background conversation we just sort of put in a box and we slid it to the side. And then what did we talk about after that? I don't I don't know. I think we got kind of tipsy and then you ran off. We got we got tipsy, and then I was like looking at the clock and I had to go relieve the babysitter who had my older kids. And so Tony just put it out there. He just put it right out there on the table over Jackers on their first date. But Tony didn't want to tell Katie the reason he was leaving to me that was the absolute kryptonite for the relation ship. So I was like, I can't tell her. I've already got the way I saw it was like everyone wants the relationship to be a blank sheet of paper, and then you write the future together on your blank sheet of paper. But my sheet of paper already had scribbles on it. They were straight and marks, and there was writing on it. And I didn't want to tell her that yet, that she wasn't getting a clean piece of paper. She knew because she suggled him. But there's not a lot on the internet about it. I mean, you had pictures of like the made cards to Dad on your desk, and it says you live with your book said you live with your family in Brooklyn. I mean it's family implies children, fine, but I think the giveaway was she lived with your parents and extended you know, aunts and uncles, which would have been other package right well, which probably would have been better. Actually it would have been worse. There's so much work and I'm ready to launch. Then you're not. No, you found talk. No, that's that's that's not the guy you want to go on another date with. But Katy, Katy, you didn't say anything. I thought, if you'd let him go, releave the babysitter and pretended you didn't know, I was like, see you later by and waited for him to tell you were on a second date. And the second date went really well, although I thought it was kind of because it was quiet the whole time. And we met at eight o'clock and I thought, okay, we'll go get dinner. I'm starving and and he mentioned nothing about dinner. So when we saw each other, I said, we get some food. I'm like really hungry. Also, it was the heat of summer, and she wore awesome white jeans and a white top. And I had no even if I knew anything about style, I had no money to make style happen, and so I had like a corduroy shirt on. He looked very handsome, although I definitely I definitely had fall clothes on. He had the quarter roy suit pretty brutal. Anyway, we went to get dinner and I was like, you know, I was itching for a steak, and he ordered like rice and beans, private side of rice and beans and spinach, and I remember thinking, is he a man of Rexic? Like I see not eating Later I found out it because you had no money. I had no money, so I was making I was making a meal out of the sides. I was like five plus seven plus eight then, but it was still a very good second date. And he we kissed and it was very romantic, and he told me his favorite song was Travis Tritz It's a great day to be alive. And I thought, okay, well that's questionable, but I still like you. And then I had to go. The older kids were going. They go to school overseas, and so as we were leaving, going walking back. I was living in a hotel at this time, and he walked back to the hotel and he said, listen to I tell you something. I'm about to go. I've got these kids and I said, I know, I googled you. And he said, but but they're moving to Israel and I said, oh, that I did not know. And it explained like this kind of hang dog look that he said. He had this sad look at his eyes, and suddenly it all felt very obvious. And then I got to Israel, and because I'm an immature person, I found a street sign on like a walk that I was taking to the neighborhood when the kids were in actual school, and the street sign said he I n E s S. Locally, it's pronounced Penis Street. And he said, I'm gonna send this picture to this girl that I've been on two dates with. I said, We've been on two dates and you're already sending me dick pics. What's wrong with you? I was like, yes, this she's awesome, this is I love her. I would have really appreciated that kind of dick pic. What if? What if I would have fallen in love right there too. You did have a deal breaker for him? You you tell him? When did you tell him? Oh? My god, Okay, I think it was this. This was a little bit too much, suky. We're sitting in a in a sushi restaurant in by n y U. It's on Ninth Street, and this was this was the date that if if in our trajectory, if I think we both kind of sensed like, if we're going to do it, this was gonna be the night we were going to do it. Do it? Actually, this is going to be like potentially there was already pretty a pretty heavy make out in the hotel room before we went dinner. Yeah, but we didn't do it. Didn't do it. We didn't We didn't do it. But there was a lot of anticipation, a lot of excitement, a lot of excitement in the air, electricity in the air. So we're sitting in the dinner. I've had maybe slightly too much sacky, just enough to make me loosen a bit on guarded, and I think I stupidly blundered into it and was like, I thought it was gonna be a deal breaker when I had two kids, but looked like we're going to have sex tonight. I said, well, you know that's not a deal breaker, and your your dumbass, was like, well, what is a deal breaker? Is a deal breaker? And then she lays it on the table and I said, no more kids, if you don't want any more kids, and I took a breath. So I was like, this is a lot to put on someone on the fourth This is I would never do this on the fourth thing, And like, I'm how old does I two? I guess I don't remember, was thirty one or thirty two? I was starting to think about kids, you know, right, yeah, as a woman in her thirties, us, yes, I think you should lay that out on the table. I didn't know what the rules of engagement were yet. We're a woman dating in her thirties, and I just kind of blurted it out and I said, you don't want more kids? And his face went ghostly white. Because he had two kids, and he was like, I don't know if I want more kids. And I remember thinking, wow, like this is over before it started, and I said, so that's fine, you know, like we're not having sex tonight. I think I said we're not having sex tonight. The second I said we're not having sex tonight, I was like, we're definitely gonna have sex, definite. And we definitely had sex that night, definitely the first time. It was electric because it felt so wrong, like it was going, yeah, the relationship was going nowhere. So it was just fun sex. We had more sex and more sex, and then you were like, wait, no, maybe I'll have some more kids. Yeah. But then I did have a wobble. I did have a wabble. We did have a woman. Tony did have a wobble. Wobble got nervous. At this point, his kids were four and six, which still very young, and all he wanted to do was be a great dad to them, and so he told Katie that he couldn't do it. He didn't think that he had the bandwidth to have any more kids, Like, I couldn't contemplate anything more until I knew that they their bond with me was intact and that I was doing right by them and that that felt stable and secure. Tony was also really nervous, and understandably so about supporting a family. I was doing a lot of stuff for MSNBC. I was traveling on the road, and the work was getting some attention, but no one was making me job offers. My future was not at all secure, and so I told her, like, this is a shitty situation. In fact, think you were fired at that point from technically you technically fired from Yeah. They were like, they were like, your position doesn't exist as a writer anymore, but but keep going around on the got a literal pink slip in December and somehow managed to talk your way out of not because because so I was at the time, I was part of the enterprise unit, and then they eliminated that and they put me in the investigative unit, and then they eliminated the job there. And I was like, do you know I have other jobs? And they were like, no, we'll get back to you. And they were like, all right, we'll keep you on to go to that assignment and we'll let you know. And then any at any time, like I was, I was a guy in a cartoon running and like the bridge was collapsing behind me. I was in danger and nothing had been sorted out. So I felt like I cannot possibly continue in good faith with you because I don't know if I'm gonna be able to have more kids. We will get to all of this after a quick break. Yeah, So we were at the n A convention. Yes, they were both covering the n r A convention when Tony told Katie that he didn't think he wanted any more kids. Yeah, And so he said, in the middle of the night, and we were sleeping in this hotel which had only provided us to twin beds, and I promptly got out of the twin bed that we had been sharing because we were crazy in love and you know, I can't sleep apart from each other at all, and I slept in the other twin bed and I said, I guess it's over. And we woke up the next morning, and I think both of us were still in a bit of shock, because like there was no going forward from this. And I went to go do my assignment that day and he went to go do his assignment that day. I remember calling my mom in the middle of it and saying, this is what happened with Tony, and my mom loved and loved Tony, and I said that he said he didn't want to have kids, and she was like, well, you gotta kind of loose at the end of that. And so at the end of the day, I get a text message from you saying can we talk? And I went to meet him and he's sitting by a grenade launcher. Yeah you really loved those metaphor are we going to get into the foxhole together? And so we sitting by this grenade luncher and I sit down with him and and he says, I think I've made a big mistake. You decided to get into the foxhole with me, and you were wondering if I was still willing to be in it with you. And I said, yeah, I think you didn't make a mistake. And we made up and I told you my mom told me to cut you loose, and you didn't believe me, and I said, she likes grandkids more than she likes the idea of you. And then some boy scouts went to go to Seeda Flame floor and that was that was that was, that's it, that's it. I actually like that story of the grenade launcher better, even better than your proposal story, which is very sweet. But I like, I like, I like that that one. That one better because it's it's like too good to be true. I know, it really is sticks up and then gets back together. At the n r A convention, it's very surreal. That convention is incredibly really the best thing that ever happened at an A convention. And after that it was on. Katie ended up moving into Tony's roach infested Brooklyn studio apartment. Yeah, it was very small. It was like the Divorced Dad special in Parks, Brooklyn. Well, then I got to get the goats out of here, and I laughed because I knew he met cockroaches, but he was unwilling to say cockroaches because they would really crawl around. They were big fat cockroaches. And I started going and stay at my feet and they'd run away. And it was such a small place that pile pans up under underneath the stove for the cockroaches would come out, so they would They were not but they got around. It was they got around. It was also so small that the bathroom had like the kind of stink you see on like a like a like a boat, like a sailboat. Think it's like a little corner. And then there was only one room and then half a wall where the bed was. And I remember one of my older son's friend came over after soccer. He came into the house and he was like, where's the rest of it? Where's it? Where's the other stuff? It was just small. It was small. It was very small. It was charming, though, And I didn't need anything more. I don't know, I didn't care. I just wanted to be next to you. Oh that's true. They eventually found another, bigger, less roachy apartment once Tony got a steady job at CBS and Tony getting this job was probably mostly due to some really good advice that Katie gave him, involving a tight black T shirt and push ups. The time I would look up at ABC and every time they had a correspondent out, it was like a handsome guy and a tight black T shirt who looks like they who looked like they had just in push ups. I was. I was pretty dejected. I was wearing thick, chunky glasses every day and like the corduroy coat that we went on our date with and and I was trying to look right early and it wasn't working at all. And I was getting on TV regularly, but no one was paying attention. No one wanted to, you know, make it official with me and give me a contract or a real paycheck. And so her advice was, no glasses, push your hair up real high, throw the coat into your bag, put on a black T shirt, and do a hundred pushups. And she said this because I was at the border in Arizona doing a primary story ahead of the boat there and I was half joking with him, not really being you were not joking. History is like it's it's funny, but it's also kind of horrible. Was also kind of the plot of an eighties and nineties romantic comedy where you take off the girl's glasses and she goes from geek to sheet like he's all that. Yeah, So anyway, Tony does it. He did the push ups, he put on the tight black T shirt. He's just up his hair and just a reminder, and you can google this to fact check me, Tony is pretty hot. Yeah, he was a smoking hot single dad. So there he is wearing his tight black T shirt, and the very next day, ABC News called with a real job offer. I'm sure I'm still terrible as a TV person, but I look good. And maybe ABC News was always going to call. Maybe their intention that they noticed the guy with the corduroy I got on in the thick glasses. They were like, he's our guy. I don't know, but the timing was that I did that appearance in that look at her recommendation and they called that week. Maybe it wasn't the shirt, but it probably was. And he was able to parlay that offer from ABC into another offer from NBC. And then you can take those two and your stock is high and and you know, play the mark a little bit. And I went to the CBS and I was like, this is where I want to be. What do you think? I thought that you, in your personality and what you like, your style would match more at CBS. CBS just sixty minutes and Sunday Morning, and if you were able to get onto one of those shows, you would be golden. And look what happened. You got onto Sunday Morning and you were golden. It worked out very well. So I mean, lessons here are even if you're not really sure. If you're sure about the person but not sure about the future, kids, just go for it. That's the m H and N. Yeah, and you probably shouldn't go well. But I mean, if you're really really into the person, you can't imagine being happy without this person, then you're gonna want all that they want. I think, I guess, I don't know. Maybe the other thing is that that money is very important when you choose a job, but maybe not as much as path and trajectory and fit, like if youre good there. So Tony gets the job, they get out of the Cockroach invested studio, and then they decide to Elope, we will get to all of this after a quick break. We decided we want to get married. And after the Trump campaign and I was writing a book, I was like, I don't have any energy or desire to plan a wedding. I don't want to do it. Don't to think about who's gonna sit where, don't want to think about who I have to invite and who I want to invite, particulars of who doesn't like who in all the drama that goes to the wedding. And I looked at you one night and I said he's just a lope. We pleased just a lope, and you said, yes, that sounds great. And so I dream dream for me best resort in America, because I thought, I'm not spending money on a wedding, I can spend a little bit of money on on the nicest resort in America. And what we found was a place in Utah, the northern end of the of the Grand Canyon. And it was a place that very fancy. When you called to book a reservation, they would say flying private, and we're like, no, we're flying Delta. Can we send Can we send you a car? And no, we got a Chevy Malibu. Like we're good. Yeah, I got like I got, I got a lot of Avis points from the campaign trail. I'm there, and we were saying this, like this this hotel. I spent more money on this hostel than I spent on anything in my life. They used this very fancy hotel as a home base to hike up to an ancient rock formation, where the manager of the hotel acted as an officiant to marry them. And he kept calling Tony. Tom kept like the paper was blowing in the wind, and I guess I wrote my name too fast and so he kept, you know, thinking the N why was an M and take Tom? I was like, no, I take Tony. But it was nice. We wrote our own vows and we mine were shitty and I'm gonna we said them to each other. I've got to for because I love you, and it was perfect. But I I, for a person who has made his living with words, have utterly failed this woman. At key moments with toasts, vows, public declarations, did a really nice, really nice I know, it's really nice. That was really good. Yeah, I did that very well. I Here's were great. Here's were great. But like I, I'm so glad that I am going to be able to make it up to you. At our tenth wedding, he said something once about how he likes I'm just saying marred provocatively, which I thought it was a bit of an insult at the time. I was like, what do you mean, I'm marred provocative like acne scarring on my face. He's like, I just love looking at your face. It's like it's just so interesting and so beautiful. And I said, yeah, but my acne scaring and he said, no, you're marred provocatively. Or provocatively marred, and I remember thinking like, that's a horrible thing to see so right early. But I used it in our vows. I forgot how I use. You're going to get a better vows for me at our tenth we're gonna read, we're gonna re up. Yes, we're gonna up. We're gonna be able to afford. No, no one is affording. That's a one time deal. We're and we're gonna I'm gonna get another shot of this. I'm going to repropose and I'm gonna do the vows again, and they're going to be I thought it was perfect the first time, all the way around a standard, and then they were all great, okay, good, never mind, never mind. Then I love what you talked about in the book about the struggle to choose life over your career. Do you think being with Tony made helped you figure out how to choose your life over your career? Yeah? I do think so. I think that there was something about him that felt so right that the decision was an easy one. I mean, I wasn't between the options of going to the White House and covering Trump or staying in New York and being married to this guy, like I obviously I would choose this. I mean I did have some like wonderers that should I have done trying to do both? You know what could I have commuted? But no, I mean I wanted I spent my whole life chasing after this career and dropping everything for this career and moving across the world for this career, or spending you know, just dropping everything and going somewhere for seven weeks, for for five hundred and ten days, you know, just completely subservient to it, surrendering to it. And at whatever age thirty three, I can't remember anything anymore you have kids in your brain goes so much. Thirty three, I thought, if I keep doing this, if I say no to this thing that I have here, I don't know what I'm going to get a better chance. And when I look at my future, I want a family more than I want this career. I'd love to have both. I'm gonna choose one or the other. I'm gonna choose the family can figure something else out to do that. That's a pre pandemic depth right there, and reflection, self knowledge, self knowledge. Of course, at the time, I hope that I would be able to do both. When Katie and Tony decided to start having kids of their own, they had a built in deadline based on the presidential election. I want to do everything possible to make my career work in the structure that I have built around it. I said, we can have a baby as long as we get pregnant by September twenty. If I'm pregnant by September, I will be back at work if I have the baby in in in the spring. If I take five months off time, I was taking three months off. Yeah, right, I take months off, six months off, whatever. I'll be back by the fall of twenty nineteen. And that's when things start getting geared up for the for the campaign season. That's when the serious debates start. It's a few months before the primaries. Like, I can catch up at that point, I won't miss any of the important stuff. Yeah, it really weighed heavily on me. Looking back, I don't think it should have, but I did at the moment. And Tony, what were these deadlines like for you? Were you just just like, yes, yes, we can do this, or was that stressful? Also, trying to make a baby is stressful. It was definitely stressed. There was one night would used to be a lot of fun and then it was suddenly not any fun. It was like so fun, and it was like, this is the one thing you're not you know, we have to have any any worries. We're trying to get pregnant, do whatever you want. And then but for some reason, as soon as that, as soon as all the restrictions come off, you would think it becomes instantly fun. But but like I don't know, like the future is there in the room with you, and so it's like it really affects. We had some bad, bad bad Like we've had great interactions, we've had some bad interactions where like you're contemplated, like I we got into big fights, really big fights, like we're in highly high interactions that we had highly delicate, highly delicate sexual situations. There. There have definitely been times where it's been like this feels like a job. I can't work like this, Like job, I'll give you a job, the job of not being answered to every time you speak to me. But there's also I also we did work for it. It was kind of job like because there was certain windows. Of course, everyone who's gone through this nose he drove across the state once I did so. I did an evening news appearance in some terrible weather storm deep in New Jersey, deep in New Jersey, and then drove like many, many, many hours to be with her for like thirty minutes and then just get right back in the car and drive for the morning show at the other end of New Jersey. I remember that CBS Finance was like, you don't qualify for the suc and I was like, well, what, I really needed it. I think I had to eat that expense. There's nothing sexy about trying to make a baby. It's not fun. It is the worst. But Katie did get pregnant. I had a great pregnancy. I love being pregnant so much with Teddy that I never wanted to stop being a pregnant I felt sexy, I felt bouncy. I was like I couldn't eat everything I thought. I loved cheese puffs and I loved oranges, and I just felt glowy and beautiful. My hair was thick and my skin gut better. I thought it was the the greatest experience of my life until I gave birth. And like I knew giving birth was going to be hard, but I I just assumed naively that my body knew what it was doing. Your body and knows what it's doing, and I thought there was very little chance that i'd have I didn't even consider a C section. It was like, there's no wa, I'm gonna have a C section. My body works, it always has word and why would it not work here. I've been able to do whatever I need to do. And it went I got induced because my doctor said, you know, there's a lot of literature that says we get induced to thirty nine weeks, you don't get a C section, And so I said, okay, sure, and she induced me, and it immediately feels I felt like it went sour, like I feel well, I gotta I got a fever. I was shivering. The contractions were insane like that, there was no build. It went from zero to insane in a second. And I kept pushing back and saying I don't want to C section, and they were like, you know, I had a couple of times where like ten doctors would come in the room and You're like, this is not good, but there should you any And finally, I think the second time that all the doctors showed up in the room. They said, you don't really have a choice say longer. We got to get the baby out, and they started wheeling mean the o R and I was hysterical, like his hysterical. I couldn't and I just I completely fell apart. I'm this always prided myself, I'm being such a strong person and willing to face anything, and this I suddenly could not face. And they said, your husband will be there in a second. You know, he's just going to change into his scrubs. And I remember feeling like I'm never going to see him again because this is all over, Like I'm gonna die, the baby is gonna die, like this is this is, this is the end. You've made a dumb mistake. You shouldn't have gotten induced. You've put everything at risk. And they did the surgery, they got the baby out. I remember very I remember the moments waiting for the cry. I think it was one second. It felt like, you know, a minute to me, but I felt very relieved once I heard it and everything was fine. And then she the doctors sewed me back up. I thought she sent me back up. She stapled me back up, and it was it was violent, you know, like I couldn't move. I could not move. I saw other moms who had given birth vaginally and who knows what they went through, but also terrible, I can tell you, also terrible, different way. It was terrible, but they were you know, they could put on pants and they were walking. Yeah, you can put on pants. You can put on pants. You can't poop, but you can put on pants. They actually walked, They had their own, They walked on their own into the nursing room where you learn how to feature baby, which I also do. I was wheeled in and I remember thinking I look a lot worse than all these other moms. What did they do to me? And then I got infection. Kamala Harris called while I was looking at my infection. It was like, congratulations, baby, it's gotta and I were looking down at like the blood and the star tissue and I was just like thanks. And you still wanted to work because the molar report came out. You know, I'd covered the bar summary, which was totally misleading, and I had spent years covering the lead up to this thing. When I was on the campaign Trall when he said Russia, if you're listening, I pushed back on that question. I felt like this was a culmination two years of work that I had done, and I wanted to be a part of it. And so either he got exonerated completely or he was going to be indicted and in trouble, like something was going to happen. This was a moment of happening. It was a moment of happening exactly. And I thought, you know, you're on my doll and Thailan all like death's behind. Your brain is still functional. Yes you're bleeding, but like I can put some bandages on that. Yes you're bleeding from another area. I can wear a diaper, no big deal. We can go to the office. My mom can come with me. She can hold Teddy for an hour, and I can be on TV from two to three. Can do it? Like this is totally possible for me to do. I was gung ho. I thought, if they say yes, I'm I'm going to get in a cab and I'm going to go. Texted my boss and I said, you know, I'm there, Like, just give me the word I'm coming. Is it crazy? And he texted back almost immediately, which was unheard of for this boss at that time, and he said, you are crazy. You've been you had a baby four days ago. Stay home. I couldn't even I couldn't even look at you. You were like an insane human being. But so we went to the my Teddy's wellness appointment, got them all checked out. I had no idea what was going on. Tony was like, Mr nowat all in there and I walk out. We go to get a coffee in the neighborhood and I, you know, I'm just settling into you know, fine, like I'm not gonna be at work. It's okay, I'm going to spend this time to bond. And a viewer comes up and looks at me, and she doesn't like, doesn't even take in the carriage, the baby carriage. She said, I've been wondering where you were. I said, oh, I just keep birth. She said, God, it must be killing you to not be at work right now. This is this is the one who definitely had been like her prime was nine and she had been through the wars on working womanhood. And I was like, she understands it. She was she saw you, She definitely did. She wanted you in there. She would have called, she would have called, she would have driven you there to the news around. I don't think I could have done it. It might have been Murphy Brown and would have I could have done it was an hour of television. It would have been triumphant. It would have set back all progress for all the limit at your company. It would have felt like you were doing something in defiance of whatever, all the standard of not having to go work that everyone else had had. It's true, that's kind of a problem stuff like that. It's like, no one be a hero. We're all trying to live life, yet were trying to live our That's what I say to the guys in my office, because they offer the same amount of I'm off for women and men as long as you indicate that you're the primary caregiver. And everyone's a freaking primary caregiver. So I colleagues like Aimon Moydine, who's an anchor as well, take six months off. It shows the other guys in the office that they can do it too, and I think more and more people have been taking it, which is I think a wonderful thing. It's a wonderful thing. That's what they said. There is a reason that Sweden is a much happier country than we are because all of them I can take maternity leaf. And so my last question before my kids come in COVID happens You guys are all of a sudden, you're both on air journalists filming from your basement room right here, working right next to each other. What the hell did COVID due to your relationship? It revealed a lot. It revealed a lot. He'd broadcast in the morning, and the very beginning, I'd get up and I'd helped them do his makeup and like pretend I was his assistant, to give him scripts, and it was like cute and fun, and I'd like get on the owned to his his team, which had been spread out around the country, and help make sure that everything was in order. That lasted like three days, and you realized that I wasn't that helpful, and I realized that I'd like sleeping a little longer. And then I would come in and in the afternoons and he helped for a little while. And then the same thing, I realized, I don't really need his help. I could just do it on my own. And yet he still kept coming in here. He still kept like saying, this is the only quiet place in the house. Which is totally not true, and he would The only quiet place in the house was where I was doing a national broadcast. There's no other desk in that. How is that possible? The only quiet place in the house was right next to me doing a national television broadcast because their children right above us. And then there's our bedroom and there's no desk in there anyway, So he'd come down and he would sit here in this chair, except this is a plastic chair, as is a wood chair. We've agreed, and I would sit like three ft away from that with the television lights on, and I it's the middle of COVID. We're talking about terrible things, everyone's spirit of their mind. And during one interview, I'm talking to some woman I think something terrible it happened to her family, and I'm, you know, feeling awful for her and trying to talk to her about it. And Tony, just like as if he is alone, just farts as loud as you possibly could fart in two into a plastic care It reverberates around the whole room and it smells terrible. And I'm on national television and I am sure that I could hear it. Obviously, but the viewers could hear it as well, and I am desperately trying to keep my face together, wondering should I interrupt and say, I'm so sorry for that my husband's right here, or do I just ignore it and keep going. I decided to ignore it and keep going. Somehow I kept it together. Other times he would pass in front of the camera during commercial break, go to the bathroom, which is right here next to the camera, with the door open. That'spens to me all the time, during during my television hits, during my buck tour, my husband just pissing, just pissing, yes, and then he flush it, and I'd be like they'd be counting me down five four three two flush, and then like the flushing logo would pop up on the screen. Miraculously no one heard it. In my defense, there is no defense in my defense. In my own mind, I was alone. I didn't think anyone else. How does that? How does that sound? In my mind? In my mind, I was alone my wife, wife, who I love so much. I can't imagine a life with that that I had two more kids because I love so much. She's sitting two feet away from me. But in my mind I'm alone in my mind. I was alone. This is what This is what it revealed about relationship. If you could there was no right amount of time with the other because I wouldn't I'd want to get away. I'd want to be with her a lot, and I was. But then also other times I'd want to not see her, and I couldn't, like go to the kitchen and get a glass of water without running into her there and having to work to hear me leave the kitchen before he'd go up to get a glass of water. And I only found this out recently because I would be in a zone and i'd be in a writing zone, so I would just kind of I'd wait at the corner until she shuffled out, and I would go in and then I would get when I needed And you had to talk to your wife because zone I needed to be, because you were alone, you were alone in your mind, alone together, Alone together, that's her next book. Let's write that together. Yeah. I think if you can survive COVID, you're in a strong place. I think our marriage is better for every appropriated during COVID. I mean that's a good tie, right, Our Our marriage is better every year gets better, like like our whole every year has been a trust exercise that is paid off, and it gets stronger and stronger and stronger, honestly, like the intimacy gets deeper, the fights gets stupider, gets stupider, but also more frequent, and like the things that I like, I feel like I owe you for everything, and I feel like you owe me for everything. And it's like in that and as a result, we're braided into this really strong but the listener can't see me laughing hysterically like you've done. I would I would be still in that apartment and part flow. Probably you know I'd be I'd be scaring away the I probably would have quit the Trump campaign and got back to London. I don't know what. I just know that I don't know where I would be right now if not for meeting guy. My mom would be so disappointed. I would be less, less joyous, and no, I agree, I'm being sarcastic, but I would not be in the place that we're We're a really good team and we love each other and we have stupid fights which both of us end up apologizing for and in tiery ways. I love you so much. I'm sorry as long as as long as she apologizes, I will apologize about anything because I believe in peace with honor. Peace with honor is key to a healthy relationship. Always apologize, even if you think she's wrong. Apologize, guys. I feel like you just rewrote your vows. You don't have to wait till you're ten. This is great. You just just rewrote them right here, right right on the show. I love it. This episode was hosted and reported by Joe Piazza, with a very special thanks to Katie and Tony. Committed as produced by Ramsey Yount. The executive producers are Joe Piazza and Tyler Kling. Theme song by Tristan mcnewton. For comments, suggestions, or to be part of the show, give us a call at four zero four, that's fours year oh four, or send us an email at Joe at Committed podcast dot com. That's j O at Committed podcast dot com. You can pick up a copy of Katie Terr's new memoir, Rough Draft wherever books are sold. Committed as a production of iHeart Radio and produced in our studios located in Atlanta, Georgia. For more podcasts for My Heart Radio, visit the iHeart radio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
