Original subtitles

This is an ABC color presentation.

Hello, I'm Alec Baldwin. First up tonight, a conversation with actor and

comedian Mike Myers.

The former SNL star became a household name in a box office sensation with

immensely popular films like Wayne's World and Austin Powers, a series of

blockbuster movies with some of the most indelible characters of our time.

His latest project is the new Queen biopic, Bohemian Rhapsody.

Also tonight, former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards joins us.

Earlier this year, she stepped down from her post at Planned Parenthood, but

continues to be a passionate advocate for women's rights and the need to

more women in the American political system. We're glad you've joined us.

Myers and Cecile Richards coming up right now.

Are we going to show the clip? Do we have the clip? What's the clip of?

Let's watch this commercial.

Hi,

Joey. Hi, Jack.

Candy flavor.

Oh, it's Wrigley's. Yeah.

Well, you graduated to the big stick.

Wrigley Spearmint.

Spearmint straight.

Yeah, straight, Jack.

The name's Ned, Joey.

Yeah, real straight.

Look how adorable that boy is.

Thank you. I can't get over how much he looks like my son Spike. That's the

crazy thing. I think you could tell people that was Mick Jagger and they'd

it. Yeah. Is it kind of a young... It looked like my haircut was with a cool

whip. You have the same haircut. Yeah, pretty much.

But when you were a kid, was there a lot of funny in what you were doing? That's

obviously not funny.

Were you funny then?

You know, I grew up in a house, a Liverpool house.

Liverpool Irish, Liverpool Scottish house.

And my dad often, when kids would come into the house, and my dad didn't like

them, he'd be like, well, that guy Bruce, he can't come in anymore.

I'd go, why? He's not funny.

And I'd be like, what do you mean? He goes, well, to come into a Liverpool

house, you have to either have a song, a story, or a good joke.

He's got no sense of humour. He was out. He was out.

Were you funny as a kid?

I tried to be. I tried to be. I valued it more than anything.

There's two things I wanted to do.

I wanted to be in Python, and I wanted to play for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

And I still think I have a shot for the Toronto Maple Leafs. You still play

hockey, right? I still play hockey. I play floor hockey every Tuesday.

But when do you first realize you are funny? Because eventually when you have

that talent, people remind you of it again and again and again. How old were

and where were you when people said, you know, you really ought to pursue this?

Well, I grew up in government -subsidized housing.

And in the middle of this housing was a common area.

And there was a stairway that led to an underground parking lot. And that was my

stage. So the cement stairway that's raised became, that's where I did going

down the stairs and doing the canoe.

And I would just come up and down as different characters. And I just valued

It was just such an important thing to be funny. My brothers are super funny.

Paul and Peter are funny.

And I would say, hey, guys, wait up, kid, for so long.

And my mom never thought I was funny, which is hilarious.

My mom would say, oh, I see you trying, Mike. Yeah.

You're just not funny.

My mother doesn't even know the name of my movies.

Yeah. Cynthia, I loved you in The Search for Black November.

That's a great movie.

That is a great movie, though, I have to say. Black November is a great movie.

One of my favorites.

But my mom didn't even, with Wayne's World, she was like, oh, that Dana

funny.

Oh, we just got it, you know. But Americans do, don't they? They're slick.

They're slick.

They're a beat ahead.

Yeah. About the Commonwealth people.

When did you know you were funny?

When I made my brothers laugh.

I think. Would you know you were funny? You're going to make a living at it.

I would say after Austin Powers 2.

You know John Lovitz, right?

Or as a friend of mine says, the late John Lovitz. It's such a funny joke.

I love John Lovitz. One of the most naturally funny people.

He used to watch the show on Monday after the Saturday.

And I would hear laughing from his office. And I'd go, God, what's funny?

like to see what's funny. And he was watching himself.

And going, you've got to see this. This is so awesome.

And I said, if you could put that in pill form, I would actually try and get

prescription of that. Because that's the part I have. I'm only now starting to

like stuff that I've done. It takes a long time. Really?

Why?

I don't know. I think... Have you been insecure about it the whole run? The

whole, yeah.

It's remarkable.

Is it working?

I'll tell you where I felt good about it. So Barbra Streisand hadn't performed

in 22 years and she wanted Linda Richman, my character Linda Richman, to

the audience and sort of heckle support her and then be brought up to the stage,

right? Which is a huge honor.

Kathy Lee, eat your heart out.

And I was in Hawaii on vacation and I got a call, you know, because usually I

stay under a fake name and you can't get through. And all of a sudden it's,

hello, Mike, it's Barbara, right? And I was like, what?

I thought it was my brother Paul, right, calling.

And so she said, come and do this show.

And I did it.

But during the rehearsals, I went to the, you know, the loge area, the inside

part of the stadium, you know, in the hockey rink where all the concessions

I see her by herself crying.

And I said, Barbara, are you good? What's going on? And then she turned to

and she said, is it any good?

Nobody told me.

I said, any good?

You're Barbara Streisand, dude.

I'm not actually a natural Barbara Streisand fan. You've made me a fan just

through the rehearsal.

I'm a fan, but I'm not like a fan. But now I get it. It's like bell -toned,

perfect. And she was like, oh, thank you. And I just thought, oh, wow. It

of doesn't.

It's kind of a universal, as Lorne Michaels will always say, it's the 60

hum of I suck, I'm good enough, I'm suck, I'm good enough, until you reach

right oscillation.

And what was interesting when I was watching clips of you in performance,

were someone who your characters, you watch the clips with the sound off.

And the facial mask and the physical behavior of the character is very

and very commanding. Right. You watch your characters sing the a cappella.

Queen in the car with Carvey and the other two guys. And when you turn the

you're like this going... When you see you in a lot of the characters, but the

character's on top, he has the answer, he's the smartest.

He's a happy survivor.

Mr.

Powell.

My job is to acclimatize you to the 90s. You know, a lot changed since 1967.

No doubt, though, but as long as people are still having promiscuous sex with

many anonymous partners without protection, while at the same time

with mind -expanding drugs in a consequence -free environment, I'll be

a pound.

Do you think that the Austin Powers movies could be made now?

In the Me Too, Time's Up era, where Austin's a bit randy?

Well, I put it a different way. Do you think All in the Family could be made

now? Do you know what I mean? I don't know. I don't know. And where the joke,

you know, is he was so clearly on the wrong side of everything.

I mean, baked into Austin is everybody pointing out that he is.

Out of time, you know, I mean that it's sort of a Rip Van Winkle You know this

better than I ever will which is that there's certain character you put a

on he could say anything You know, he's jolly you can almost get away with it

Yeah, there is almost all of my characters have an after Basque of you

where they think they're hilarious again because I've always admired people who

are Confident I mean, I mean John Lovitz has a right to be confident, you know

because he is I remember

This is a little dark, but when Phil Hartman got murdered by his wife

Brynn, who I knew very well, and I spent many... He was sort of my closest...

Dana and Phil were my two closest friends at SNL.

And there was an impromptu wake at David Foster's house.

And it was hours after it happened, and I just kept saying, hold on, Brynn

killed Phil?

And then Brynn killed herself?

I couldn't, I still can't believe it.

And I just kept saying that. And then we got to the wake and I just said to

everybody, hold on, Brynn killed Phil and then Brynn killed herself?

And John Lovitz went, oh, come on, you're making it sound worse than it

And I was like, oh my gentle, are you kidding me?

That is the funniest joke I've ever heard in my life. We all hit the ground.

laughed for half an hour.

And I was like.

love it that he's the most naturally funny human being in the world and it

me i was sad of course but i knew that nobody would have loved that joke more

than phil hartman and it made me proud to be in a community of people as my dad

would always say it you know just wait till it gets funny that's what my dad

would say in the way that hartman

was what I saw early on when you were on and I would do SNL and in the way that

Hartman was one of the most deft people in terms of loading blanks in the

rehearsals and then he'd save the best when we were on the air.

I studied at the hem of Phil Hartman's garment. Yeah, me too, me too. I mean, I

sat beside him and I had a chance as I was there longer and I realized I wasn't

getting fired, although I thought I was every week and I could sit next to the

host. I stayed next to Phil, who was across from the host.

and literally studied him. And he had notation, Phil.

So he knew his characters and his instruments so well that he had, like,

on each script.

And I'd go, what's that? He goes, oh, that's Charlton Heston. But I'm only

to do that 7%. I'm going to put another thing on top of that.

I was like, oh, my God. He made things better than written.

But you have that same quality. I think you have a fantastic instrument.

You have great... The lines are good.

No, I do. Can I say a line in a funny way? Yes. Am I funny? No, because I

write. The people that are funny are people who write it.

Tina's funny. Carl Buck's funny. You're funny. You create this.

I'm an actor, and I say lines. If I say them in a funny way and you like them,

great. But I'm not as funny as a person because I don't write this stuff, and I

can't. But when you're on SNL, rather than going through all of the, you know,

the kind of well -known path and the audition tape and everything, and Lauren

and so forth, when you're on the show and in the beginning you're...

Probably giddy, I would imagine. You were very, very happy. I was scared. I

actually did an audition. I got recommended by Pam Thomas, Dave Thomas'

-wife, producer.

And I came in, and I had done work on Canadian television, a show called It's

Only Rock and Roll, and I did this thing called Wayne's Power Minute, which is

Wayne Campbell.

What do you think that they wanted you for?

They wanted you to come on the show.

If I had to guess, I guess they wanted to have a young Martin Short, you know,

at that time.

The small guy with lots of energy. No audition for them? I didn't audition,

It was all on people recommending. Because had I auditioned, I would not

been hired.

I'm the worst auditioner in the world. That's true?

Oh, terrible.

What about the writing and your performance?

You know, when I was first on the show, other than Conan...

As Lauren has often described, it is a little bit of the court of the Borgia in

which people go, here, I've got a drink for you, poison ring. Drink it up. You

seem thirsty.

It's competitive.

It's very competitive.

When I first handed in Wayne's World, I handed it in show three on

yellow legal pad, stapled, put it on the pile, 4 o 'clock in the morning, and I

thought if this doesn't work, I'll probably get fired.

And another writer came in and went through the pile.

And as a Canadian, I'm like, you can't go to the pile.

That's the pile, right?

Looked at it.

Says, is this yours?

Took it and took it off the pile and put it on the read -through table. He took

it off the pile.

I put it on the pile.

He left.

Didn't say anything.

Another writer came in and said, is this your sketch?

I was like, yeah.

He went through it and went, it sucks.

And threw it on the ground.

And I thought I was going to throw up.

But, you know.

I feel like a hand grabbed me by the scruff and went over and picked it up

put it on the pile. And I just thought, come on, dude.

You know, right through the script of the footage, you invite them to the

premiere of Waynesboro. Yes, I did. I put him in Waynesboro, too.

It's absolutely true.

Yes, I like Ruler, Ogre Ox and Makita Cop.

And then I think I would like a large with AIM.

When Wayne's World and Wayne's World 2 are done, I mean, nothing can prepare

for the leaps you can make in terms of income.

No. And I grew up in government -assisted housing in Toronto. You know,

sold encyclopedias. My mom worked in the office of a factory. But it was also a

weird time, too. I have to say, my dad was very ill.

When I got hired for Saturday Night Live, my dad had just burnt himself in a

bath in our government housing.

you had to put a little bit of hot and 10 things of cold for a shower. He was

the British Army, never had showers. But in his dementia, he poured himself all

hot and burnt the entire half of his body. How old was he then?

God, he died when he was 61.

He was 58.

Young. I'm 65.

I'm 55, by the way.

So every phone call I got during that period of time was either...

You're on Saturday Night Live or your dad is ill, you know, and he's wandered

into traffic. That was another one. So my dad lived the last part of his life

the burn unit, Scarborough General Hospital in Toronto.

So as all this stuff happening, I'm going up to Toronto to a burn unit where

have to go through an airlock and put on a hairnet, gloves and booties and

hearing people scream from the burn bath in whatever ring of hell that is.

So it was always.

such a strange thing so we didn't think they were going to make the movie didn't

think they're going to release the movie my dad died november 22nd 1991 died on

the thursday i did saturday night live on the saturday went up to toronto

out his coffin buried him on well we you know had the funeral for him on the

tuesday then on the thursday i went to los angeles to see the first cut of

wayne's world it's all just this crazy mixed emotions then the

movie is a big hit In February, my life has completely changed.

Took his ashes to Liverpool on Concord.

Flew to London on Concord, which my dad always wanted to go on Concord. And I

guess he did. You know what I mean? In the end, he did. In the end, he did.

flew up to Liverpool, spread his ashes on the Mersey.

And it's a big hit.

And it just was an odd time of craziness. Up and

down. Yeah. Up and down. It took me a long time to...

find an equilibrium after that.

Do you watch FNL?

I do. Every now and then? Every now and then. Online?

I'm assuming with kids who are asleep by 10 o 'clock. I am asleep by 10 o

'clock. Yeah, it's amazing.

You know, the days are long, but the years are short. You know, that's what

say.

And this is the happiest time of my life, by the way.

Like, by far the happiest time of my life.

I thought I was going to like having kids. I didn't know I was going to love

this much. You and your wife have three kids. Yes, we have three kids in the

last seven years.

And someone, I read somewhere, I heard somewhere that one of your kids turned

you and said, when are you going to do another Austin Powers?

Yeah. The other day I was reading, I don't know what I was reading to him,

anyway, something.

Ninja Turtles.

And he's falling asleep. And I go, all right, Spike, switch off the light. He

goes, will you stay for five minutes? Sure.

And then three minutes in, dada, yeah?

You going to do another Austin Powers?

I said, maybe.

He goes, okay.

Falls asleep, thinking I can escape. Dada, yeah?

Is it going to be from Dr. Evil's perspective this time?

I said, I think so.

That's good.

Am I a producer on this movie? Then it's Data, what's Dr.

Evil's lair going to be? And I said, an oil rig.

Falls asleep.

Data, what's an oil rig? Then he said, it should be the sewers.

I said, okay. And I'm thinking, that isn't a great idea.

He is obsessed with Austin Powers.

But he said something, because I thought... Not that I'm on this level,

know, of course I worship the Beatles. And as a public person, you wonder how

to, that would be a question I would have for you. How do you, how do you

of do it? Because my, like I said, my dad sold encyclopedias and the most

person in my gene pool supposedly is William Wordsworth. I'm related to on

on my mom's side. But otherwise, you know, when people talk about past life

regressions and they go, I was a king, I know I was a peasant. You know what I

mean? I definitely was making mud bricks, you know what I mean, in

lives. So it's an odd thing.

But I remember Danny Harrison, the story of him going to school and somebody

said, your dad's a Beatle.

And I'm going, what? Shut up. What are you talking about? And he came home to

George Harrison and said, are you a Beatle? And he's like, yeah, I am

He goes, why didn't you tell me? He goes, I suppose I should have, right?

And I thought, this is Kelly, my wife Kelly's idea was, you should just sort

tell him.

and then we should show him the movies.

And he's obsessed with them. Oh, my God. And he has an Austin Powers costume

that he'll wear out of the house and stuff.

And we're in our summer place, and it was raining, and we're under an awning

outside under a blanket. And he said, Dad, can I tell you a secret?

I said, sure. And he whispered in my ear, I'm your biggest fan.

And I was like, I can't. I think we might have done it right to make it.

a good thing, you know what I mean? My favorite moment is in the George

Harrison, the concert for George, and Danny's up there playing with all of

Yeah, killer, right? Oh, you cry.

You know, I got the last letter George Harrison ever wrote. That's what the

question was going to be. Okay, then. I want to hear that.

Tell us about the letter. So we were shooting Austin Powers 3, and we called

Big Friday because we had to change the schedule to have Tom Cruise play Austin,

Danny DeVito played Mini -Me, Kevin Spacey played Dr. Evil, Gwyneth Paltrow

played this character.

Oh, I don't remember.

What was it?

Nurse.

Norma.

Norma.

Sorry.

And Steven Spielberg is playing the director.

And Rob Lowe played.

Rob Lowe played. Did Rob Lowe play R .J. Wagner? He played number two, yeah.

But it was all in this one day. The movie within the movie. The movie within

movie. Austin, which is the movie version of Austin Powers.

And it was so much pressure. It cost $100 ,000 in just

rescheduling everything.

$100 ,000 well spent.

So I wake up and it's raining. And it's an outdoor shoot at Paramount. And I

thought, ah, crap.

We're dead because we only get them for one day. What are we going to do?

Jay calls me and says, you know, we've got 400 towels.

And then I switch on CNN and George Harrison has died.

And I thought, this is the worst day of my life. I love George.

I love them all. But George, I have the George, the six faces in Liverpool, one

of which is the George Harrison. And I have that face, you know what I mean?

And I get a phone call from Gavin DeBecker. Do you know Gavin DeBecker,

security guy?

But he's calling from a stairwell.

And he's like, letter, dead.

And I'm like, what is that? I thought somebody's trying to kill me or

And I thought, this is, it's raining.

George Harrison has died. I'm literally inconsolable and somebody's trying to

kill me.

I get into work.

Gavin got a letter and someone wants me dead.

Well, this is what I thought it was because it was from a stairwell from,

know, oldie worldie operation.

Giant phones, Soviet phone.

And so I get into work and Jay is.

The director, Jay Roach, is super doing this, which is always a bad sign, which

means he's having to sort things out.

And he's like, I think it's going to break. I think the weather broke. It

I get into the makeup trailer, and there's Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise,

these people.

And they're all like, it's great, Mike. Don't worry.

We'll go later if we have to. Oh, my God. It was just like, we do it. It's

funnier than written.

The sky's clear.

The towels work way better than written.

And I'm still thinking somebody wants to kill me, though, right?

Spielberg had broken his leg on a moped three days before, had pins in it, but

still showed up.

And he guest directs that day, right?

So all this stuff happens. We wrap out. Tom Cruise was amazing.

fantastic, and then there's a knock at the door, and it's Gavin, and he has a

letter, and I'm like, okay, I open it up, and it's the last letter George

Harrison ever wrote, it says, dear Mike, I've been looking all over Europe for a

mini -you doll, but I haven't found one, and it's like, I know you, Dr. Ebel

said, fricking, but it's actually frigging, as a foreign fish and finger

I'm like, and it turns out to be the best day of my life.

And, you know, when you talk about taking time away and having a sense of

you have enough, right around that time kind of went, I'm good.

You know what I mean?

Literally, like if you wanted to, as a joke, have a sense of accomplishment,

you'd have Steven Spielberg, Tom Cruise, all these people and get the last

letter. On the day that George Harrison died, I received the last letter. What

you're doing is working. Just to answer your question from before and to answer

with more clarity.

I'm very grateful for all the wonderful success.

It didn't bring my father back from the dead.

It didn't make certain people I love not kill themselves, for example, or

whatever.

For such a profound experience, you would hope that it has more otherworldly

supernatural powers than it does.

It doesn't make you understand who you are more. It doesn't prevent it, but it

doesn't. answer those cosmic questions.

I've enjoyed my personhood for the last 15

years, and I've thoroughly enjoyed my parenthood for the last seven years. And

it is, I think I finally have the balance between a public life and a

life. And literally, this is the happiest time of my life. Like, I'm so

for

the abundance and the ability to dial into it and to dial out of it.

So

Bohemian

Rhapsody is the It's not safe to say that it's a Freddie Mercury biopic. It's

about the band. No, it's about Freddie Mercury and the band, but it's Freddie

Mercury -centric.

And I've seen it, and it is fantastic.

I have a small part in it. I play the EMI record executive who tells them that

they can't do Bohemian Rhapsody because it's six minutes long, and it's a quasi

-operatic dirge full of nonsense words.

For me, a delicious irony was, of course, how much Bohemian Rhapsody was

Wayne's world and how, even on Wikipedia, I'm associated with that

held fast for them to include that in the cut of the film. I fought very hard

for that because that was the song of me and my friends in Scarborough, Ontario,

in the Dodge Dart Swinger that would drive around going downtown.

And we all had a Galileo, and it was a huge ga -ga -ga -ga -ga. Like, that

really is from my life.

Then to be called and they're doing a movie about Freddie Mercury.

I'm such a huge fan of Freddie Mercury and Queen.

And then would I want to play the EMI record executive who tells them they

have that song on the album after all of the trials and tribulations of getting

it. What's the line he has? You say six and a half minutes.

It goes on forever. Yes, it's a six.

Six -minute quasi -operatic derge comprised of nonsense words.

It goes on forever.

And he says... I pity your wife.

Six and a half minutes is forever. It's forever.

Yeah, yeah. You've never been on Broadway.

No. You never did a show on Broadway. No.

Why? Does it appeal to you? I would imagine you would just... It appeals to

I would love to do an evening with Dr. Evil.

Right. Or something like Mambo Mouth would be fun.

Several characters in an evening. But I'd love to do it. Yeah.

or a Billy Crystal -style thing where you're yourself.

I never thought about that. And talk about your career.

Oh, that's so interesting.

That's so interesting. I never thought about that. You're not married to the

character, and you could change it every night.

But I always thought that Broadway for you would be, because in that way,

not to make it all about this, but you've had enormous success. You've been

financially successful.

And now it's funny how there are some stars who make more money on Broadway

they do in the movies. Yeah. Well, this is what I was saying before about the

business has changed. You know what I mean?

That's great. The traditional brick -and -mortar comedy, It's not really where

it's at right now. It is more streaming wood than Hollywood.

You know, genuinely, I can't think of anybody that people would welcome with

open arms more than you. That's very nice. To come back and make films again.

Yeah. Go back and make those big movies, Mike. Yeah. Well.

Maybe. By me.

No one's more of a genius than Lauren to calculate. How much do you need to live

pretty well in New York? That's what I'm thinking. Right, and I also had to

borrow money off them. You did? I did. I went, it was my first half season. I

realized that I had no income for the summer, and I was making $1 ,000 a show

a writer, but I only did 10 shows.

And that if I got on, I got an additional $2 ,000, and I didn't get on

shows. The rent was so incredibly high, and I didn't have an income.

Somebody said, well, go talk to Lorne and borrow money.

I'm like, what?

So I waited outside his office for about eight hours, and then he came in and

said, how much do you need?

And I said, $5 ,000?

I don't know, right?

And he went, really?

What's your rent? And I had to tell him what my rent was. If you look for

another apartment, I know.

And then he went, okay. He goes, it'll be taken from your check in the new

And I thought, yeah, right.

They're going to miss $5 ,000, you know what I mean? And then I went to cash my

check. I went to the chemical bank. That's how long ago it was.

And I was the same cashier when I first got hired. You know, my name is Michael

Myers, right? And I wasn't a public person yet. And there was a killer named

Michael Myers from the Halloween film. So the lady was like, I'll cash the

just as long as you don't kill me.

And then the whole bank had to come over and look at it. But when I came back, I

put the check. She goes, hey, I saw you on the show. Okay. And then she went,

it's zero dollars.

Lauren took out the money.

He took it back.

And the people who do know your mother, who, A, combined a kind of very folksy

sense of humor with a tremendous intensity and integrity.

Everybody thought that Ann Richards had a lot of integrity and they believed in

her besides her being so charming.

When you think about your mom's career, what comes to mind for you?

I think that she was just an unapologetic, progressive Democrat,

on what? What do you think it was from?

I think she spent, you know, she spent like most of her life being a housewife,

taking care of us, you know. What was your dad doing?

He was out being a civil rights, you know, champion attorney.

So they were like -minded politically, very like -minded. Oh, very like

But, you know, he kind of got the glory and she was back home making the perfect

dinner party. And I think that's just when the women's movement came along and

she realized she could do something other than.

make the perfect dinner for her kids. She just never gave up. And I think part

of her deal was she felt like she not wasted those years, but that those were

lost years. And so she was always a big advocate for women saying, do not wait.

Don't wait till they call you and say you're the right one to run.

I mean, no one. It wasn't like the party said to her, you've got to be our

gubernatorial candidate. She had to beat two men in the Democratic primary to be

the nominee.

And I think so. She just realized you had like couldn't waste time. She had

run for anything prior to that. No, she had run for state treasurer. She was

very successful, but no one with the state treasurer did. What really

is she got tapped to speak at the Democratic Convention in Atlanta.

That was sort of it. Once she did that, she had the chance to do something

bigger. I'm going to do a movie. We could get Holly Hunter to play your

Oh, that'd be great. And get Holly Hunter, somebody really tough and

interesting. And she's there at the house. The kids are gone. The husband's

getting the glory, as you said. And she just stares into her casserole.

In the casserole, she sees the writing.

The macaroni says, run for governor.

It's kind of like that. Run for state treasurer.

That would take a lot of macaroni. Or county commissioner. It would take the

prop department a lot of time to arrange the macaroni to spell run for state

treasurer. County commissioner precinct three. But anyway, whatever. It

happened. And your dad?

So he's still in Austin.

He's a civil rights attorney.

The Republic of Austin.

Yes, exactly.

All my family finally ended up in Austin.

But it's funny because the reason she ran for office the first time is because

they asked my dad, and he is completely unsuited for public office.

I mean, he has suffered no fools.

And then he kind of turned to mom and said, well, you know more about

Why don't you do it? Oh, wow. And she said there was like this deafening

silence, and everybody went back to their drinks, and she just did it

Wow. Yeah. Now, what were you doing prior to when you took over Planned

Parenthood? What was your career before that?

I was a labor organizer for many years.

At Brown.

Yeah, and at Brown, yeah. And you wanted to organize the staff of the, you know,

you weren't organizing, there's no lettuce pickers out there in Providence,

Rhode Island.

In Providence, no, but there were, my janitors went on strike. The university

staff. Yeah, and the library.

Why did you want to do that?

Well, you know, I came from Texas. My family was into the cause, and it was

really funny to be a big, fancy Ivy League institution. I knew, you know, I

so out of...

out of the norm.

And I thought, well, if the janitors were gonna go on strike, we gotta help

them. What triggered it when you were there in Rhode Island? What happened?

I think I just felt like, you know, it was a just cause.

And I remember calling my dad and saying, I don't know what to do. The

are going on strike. And he says, well, they're on the right, then you gotta be

with them.

And that kind of started my career, so.

We were talking about the idea of a woman making another run, whoever that

woman may be.

For president.

For president. I'm sorry. The woman who would run and win and do a good job

needs to be what?

Do you think? Without singling somebody out.

They need to have what?

For me, at least for me to support a woman who's running for president, she

needs to be for women. And she needs to be for women's equality.

So I don't think just every woman is going to be an ideal candidate. But I

we have. I think they.

The exciting thing right now is it's not just going to be one woman running. I

think this next cycle, there are going to be a lot of women running for

president. And to me, that's what Hillary did for every woman, which is

out there and she did it.

And it's not going to be easy for the next woman, but it could be easier

Hillary went through it.

And, yeah, I look forward to the day when there are as many women in office.

And some of them will be great and some will be less than great. It'll be

normal. But you look right now, the outsides, I think, influence that women

the United States Senate are having and women in the House of Representatives.

You know, you see Amy Klobuchar, Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Maisie

Hirono, women who are finally, women are beginning to see women finally in the

spotlight holding their own. I think women in this country are on fire.

And they are ready for somebody else.

And so whether the nominee is a woman or not, I think women are going to be

literally, they're going to decide not only the midterms, but the next

presidential election. One of us can be dismissed.

Two of us can be ignored. But together, we are a movement and we are

unstoppable.

This is a slide that has never been shown to me before. I'm happy to look at

but it absolutely does not reflect what's happening at Planned Parenthood.

You're going to deny that we take those numbers out of your report?

I'm going to deny this slide that you've just shown me that no one has ever

provided us before.

I pulled those numbers directly out of your corporate reports. Oh, excuse me,

lawyers are informing me that the source of this is actually Americans United

for Life, which is an anti -abortion group, so I would check your source.

Then we will get to the bottom of the truth of that.

Planned Parenthood, I'm trying to think about the climate that it was forged in

and birthed in.

That began what year?

A hundred years ago. A hundred years ago. Yeah, exactly. And what were the

circumstances? Who founded it and why?

I mean, it was founded by Margaret Sanger and her sister Ethel. They opened

little, actually a little storefront birth control clinic here in New York.

And for 10 cents a piece, women could get... Totally illegal information about

how to prevent pregnancy.

But even though it was illegal, women lined up down the block.

Ten days later, Margaret was thrown in jail by a cop who was impersonating a

mother.

where she went to jail and taught all of her fellow inmates about birth control.

So that is really how Planned Parenthood formed. It's just continuing to do

things even when they said we couldn't. Having to deal with the church, I'm

sure. Oh, everything.

And now, I mean, it's one in five women in this country have been to Planned

Parenthood for health care. It's the most important reproductive health care

provider in America. I don't doubt that. And it's actually really popular. I

think that's the other thing, Alec, that's kind of a misnomer, people think.

That gets distorted.

Yeah, well, I mean, in fact, it's more popular now than ever before.

I think because people realize the president has tried to defund it.

And I think the exciting thing is not only that we're a good health care

provider under Obama, we President Obama, we got no copay birth control for

70 million women. And we now have the lowest teenage pregnancy rate in the

country in our entire history. Abortion is a modest amount of the percentage of

the work you do.

Absolutely. And like three percent of the right.

The other thing, though, is even the defunding that Congress has been trying

do, Paul Ryan is trying to do, Republicans, federal funding doesn't pay

abortion because of Henry Hyde. Now, I think that's wrong, but that's the law.

So actually what they're trying to get rid of is birth control.

cancer screenings, all the other work that we do. And I think the other thing

that's important, because we've gotten better at birth control and more women

have it, is we're at a 30 -year low for abortion in this country, actually the

lowest rate since the Roe decision.

And federal dollars don't pay for birth control. They don't pay for abortion.

They pay for birth control.

Right, but not abortion. No. But they do pay the legal fees, the settlement fees

for people accused of sexual assault, is what I was told, right?

Doesn't the Congress settle some of their sexual assault cases on behalf of

members of Congress? Yeah, I mean, if we began to make the list of all the

things we better use for family planning.

As we say years ago, my friends, they'd say.

Because I'm Catholic, and we get into the whole debate about abortion.

And my friends would say, if men could get pregnant, abortion would be a

sacrament. I'm sure you've heard that line before. I agree. I think Gloria

Steinem, she may be the author of that one. That was her line? Yeah.

No, and I mean, what I think is, look, if half of Congress could get pregnant,

we would absolutely quit fighting about birth control and Planned Parenthood and

all of it.

But I do think, look, the crazy thing is, I mean, money that goes for birth

control saves billions of dollars.

in unintended pregnancy and all the other complications of not being able to

birth control.

It's not a great deal. If I were president, we'd have the Manhattan

birth control. There you go.

We'd have the Apollo mission.

I don't know what you're thinking, but I like it. I could get behind that. No,

no, no, I can't. My wife told me she would divorce me if I did.

I love my wife madly, and she said to me... Don't do it.

She goes, you run, I'm going to run. That way.

In the other direction. So I know she's not kidding. I would love to run for

something, but I don't think that's in the cards. But where were you when Trump

won? Where were you election eve?

I was right here in New York City.

And were you monitoring it throughout the night and you were present?

I actually, I think I may even write about this in my book. I'm sitting in

booth at NBC with the earpiece in and they keep saying, we're going to come to

you. And I'm looking at the screen.

of the country and things are it's Pennsylvania too close to call you know

Wisconsin too close to call and they keep saying they're going to come back

me and finally I you know I could see what was happening and I said look you

know text me and took my earpiece out and left the Javits Center and called my

daughter because she was working for Hillary and like a lot of mothers and

probably fathers spent the next 12 hours consoling three distraught children who

thought the world was coming to an end.

And then we got up the next morning and made sure that Planned Parenthood's

doors were open.

And then because that's, you know, people talk about, you know, they stayed

bed for a week. It's like we didn't have the luxury of doing that.

In fact, it was really incredible.

That week after the election, those two weeks, we had like a 900 percent spike

in women trying to get IUDs at Planned Parenthood.

Because they were like going, I got to come in before they get rid of my birth

control. before this administration takes away everything I've got. And now,

course, the administration is trying to end the sex education program that has

led to the lowest rate of teen pregnancy. Why? What's their argument

Because they want to teach, well, and I can't even say teach because it's not

even teaching.

They want the program to be abstinence only.

The whole message is don't have sex.

Well, it's incredible because, one, at some point, most people do have sex.

And so it's good to teach them what healthy sex is like, what a healthy

relationship is, what contraceptive is. And we also know all the medical

research shows that young people who have sex education are less likely to be

sexually active until later. And when they do, they're more likely to use

contraceptives. So why wouldn't we? And most parents, they want their kids to

get sex education because God knows parents feel like they're not equipped.

All right, let me just finish by saying, so you're not quite sure you want to

run?

I'm not really, no, I'm not like focused on running, but I am focused on...

Facilitating other people running.

And women voting.

Millions of women are not going to vote in this November unless we actually ask

them to and tell them why it matters.

Women are worried. I feel like, look, women are marching.

They're knitting their pussy hats. They're going to town hall meetings.

But we got to vote because voting is the only way we're going to change things.

Anyway, good to see you. Thanks for doing this for me. Thanks a lot. I

appreciate it.

Cecile Richards' memoir, which came out earlier this year, is called Make

Trouble. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.

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