Vince Coglianese is pulling out all the stops in his first few weeks hosting the Westwood One radio show — The Vince Coglianese Show — previously helmed by Dan Bongino.
After previously featuring a sit-down with Tucker Carlson, Donald Trump Jr., and Vice President JD Vance, Coglianese pulled his biggest guest yet. Last week, he featured a phone conversation with President Donald Trump.
Anytime you score an interview with a sitting President, it raises eyebrows. Especially when it’s only your second week in national syndication.
I listened to the interview between Donald Trump and Vince Coglianese to see how someone with the interviewing chops of the nationally syndicated radio host tackled the conversation.
To begin, Coglianese admitted it was a pre-recorded interview. Which I appreciate, because being upfront and honest is always the best policy. Plus, it sounds realistic that the President of the United States has a pretty busy schedule that might not be all that flexible. So, good start by admitting that it wasn’t live.
The first question from the Westwood One host was about his former colleague, Dan Bongino. He asked the President what the conversation was like when the topic of Bongino joining the administration as Deputy Director of the FBI was broached.
I thought it was a good opener. It is softening — not that Trump needs to be softened, he’s going to talk about whatever he wants to talk about before ultimately coming around to answer whatever question was asked — and also endearing to the audience that Coglianese is still in the process of capturing. Bongino was obviously a fixture for many taking in the conversation, so to hear insight into how someone they loved left his post to join the Trump administration is illuminating.
The next question centered on the “wins” President Trump has seen in his first 65 days in office.
“Let’s talk about your presidency, how things are going with you. We’re now 65 days in, if you can believe it. And although it doesn’t receive a lot of coverage, we’ve had a lot of positive news. Violent illegals are being rounded up and deported by the thousands. Border crossings down by 96%. manufacturing jobs up. Inflation is going down. Gas prices are way down. Egg prices are down. Orange juice prices are down. Is this, in your view, going better than your first term?
There are some things I didn’t love in the execution of this question. First, it’s wordy. Too wordy, in my estimation. I understand the idea is to highlight the victories that — in Coglianese’s opinion — don’t get enough attention. But those are things the President can say in his answer, rather than be led there by the host. A wise person once told me the best questions are two sentences or less. And I think that’s true.
When you’re in a bit of a time crunch — and despite never having interviewed a sitting President, I have to assume it’s always a time crunch — it’s my view that getting as many questions — especially short questions with more time for the guest to answer — is the best gameplan.
Also, giving the benefit of the doubt to Vince Coglianese, his use of the term “We’ve had a lot of positive news,” is likely from the perspective of “America has had a lot of positive news.” But when you use the term “We,” it sounds sort of buddy-buddy, “We’re on the same team!” to me. And while I think, obviously, there can be “friendly” interviews of any President, I’m not enamored with using the term “We”. Probably unimportant in the grand scheme of things, I know. But not a fan of that style of interview.
Despite not loving the second question, the follow-up was excellent. Coglianese pointed out that he had spoken with Vice President Vance last week, and asked President Trump what the differences between Vance and former Vice President Mike Pence are.
That’s a great question. For a variety of reasons. The answer is likely to create news headlines simply by Trump’s answer, which is going to bring more attention to the show first and foremost. But also one that I think listeners would like to have insight into. There’s only one person who can answer that question, and he’s on the phone line! It was a great use of time with the President.
The discussion continued by the Westwood One host asking what Vance and his delegation going to Greenland would entail in the coming days. And this is where I think Vince Coglianese made his biggest misstep in the interview.
During his answer, President Trump said, several times, that the island was something that the United States “has to have.” That’s a big statement for a President to make. This is the leader of the free world stating that — in no uncertain terms — the United States will do whatever it takes to acquire an autonomous territory of one of our allies.
There are lots of follow-up questions to his answer:
- “What does that mean, exactly?”
- “Why is Greenland so imperative to our national security?”
- “What measures are you prepared to take to ensure that we get Greenland?”
- “Where does acquiring the island rank on your list of priorities?”
I could go on, but I assume you get the picture. Instead, Coglianese followed up the answer by asking “Do you think the people of Greenland are eager to become American citizens?”
Is that a question we need the answer to right now? No. It might not even be an answer we ever need. Because the idea that — even if the people of Greenland want to join America (and by recent polling, they overwhelmingly do not) — that matters to how the United States would go about acquiring Greenland doesn’t hinge on whether or not they want to be American citizens.
Going back to the “this will create headlines” portion of the conversation, I think a better follow-up of just what, exactly, Trump means by saying the United States “has to have” the island means would have generated even more, and even bigger, headlines.
But a follow-up of “Do you think they’re looking forward to joining us?” is, first of all, presumptuous. And, secondly, unimportant.
I didn’t expect the conversation between Vince Coglianese and Donald Trump to be a hard-hitting, hard-news interview. That was never going to be in the cards. But I don’t think this was ultimately the best use of the time with the President, either.
I’m not 100% sure what the gameplan going into the interview was. Obviously, any time you can get the President of the United States on the show, you take it. But after you take it, there has to be a strong sense of where you’d like to steer the conversation, what questions you want the answer to the most, a prioritization of questions because you know you might only get a couple of them, etc…
I didn’t necessarily see that in this interview. It felt as the it was more of an opportunity to simply promote for a few days “Hey, we’re going to have President Trump on the show!”, which is a hell of a thing to promote to your audience, by the way. Was the substance there for the audience? Probably. They are going to think anything said is fantastic. That’s simply the world we live in today.
But later in the conversation, there were a lot of “rigged election”, “Russian collusion hoaxes”, and “liberal media” terms thrown around. There wasn’t a whole lot of new ground broken outside of the first few minutes of the conversation. There were a lot of things rehashed that the President has spoken on — at length — for years now.
If the mission was for Coglianese to endear himself to the President, I would say he did a truly great job. And I don’t say that cynically. If he’s setting himself up to be someone the President will go to when he wants to get a message out, that’s a great card to have in your back pocket.
But if this was the only time this year, for instance, that Vince Coglianese gets to interview President Donald Trump, I think the Westwood One host left some opportunities on the table.
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Garrett Searight is Barrett Media’s News Editor, which includes writing daily news stories, features, and opinion columns. He joined Barrett Media in 2022 after a decade leading several radio brands in several formats, as well as a 5-year stint working in local television. In addition to his work with Barrett Media, he is a radio and TV play-by-play broadcaster. Reach out to him at Garrett@BarrettMedia.com.
