There was a rare occurrence during the “Sunday shows” window this weekend, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio appeared on NBC News, CBS News, and ABC News.
It just doesn’t happen that often that Meet the Press, Face the Nation, and This Week with George Stephanopoulos have the same guests.
So, what better time than now to compare apples to apples and take a look at how each interview — Kristen Welker, Margaret Brennan, and Stephanopoulos — handled their discussions with the man of the hour.
ABC News
Stephanopoulos is a frequent target of those on the political right for his past history working for the Clinton Administration.
So, I think it’s fair to say Rubio’s guard was slightly up with Stephanopoulos. Not to say that it wouldn’t be a recurring theme throughout the Sunday morning political affairs gauntlet he undertook.
Stephanopoulos began his interview with a slightly different approach than the others did, asking what legal authority the United States had to “run Venezuela” — directly quoting President Donald Trump in the process.
One of my favorite attributes of George Stephanopoulos was on display in the follow-up after — and this will become a theme — Marco Rubio failed to answer the question.
Stephanopoulos’ give a damn is busted when interviewees don’t answer his questions. He doesn’t care if the viewer thinks he looks like a jerk by asking the question again. Truthfully, I like the somewhat passive-aggressive nature in which he asked the follow-up — stating “Let me ask the question again” before reiterating the question. It lets the viewer know “Hey, if you weren’t paying attention, this dude just completely sidestepped what I asked. And if you didn’t catch it, I’m gonna put him on notice that I know that he knows he didn’t answer. So we’ll do it again. He wasted your time, I didn’t.”
It is safe to say that Rubio didn’t like the line of questioning from Stephanopoulos. Because he tried to assert dominance by stating “I’ve explained it twice, I’ll explain it to you one more time.” Which is funny because he didn’t answer the question either time he “explained it.” Had he said “I got a Chick-fil-A sandwich last night. It was good. Pickles got hot while it was in that little foil pouch, though. That stunk. Nobody wants hot pickles,” it would have been as close to the “explanation” he gave to the first two questions from the This Week host.
To be transparent, I could feel my blood pressure rising while watching the interview because of the insistence of Marco Rubio’s insistence on not answering the questions asked by Stephanopoulos, and then acting incredulously when the anchor reiterated that he hadn’t answered at all.
Luckily, Stephanopoulos was much calmer than I. He remained professional, asking succinctly-worded questions of the Secretary of State, that let him no choice but to either answer the question or make a very clear sidestep.
The one knock I’ll make against the ABC News anchor is that he asked several close-ended questions. He really opened the door for Marco Rubio to give him blunt “yes” or “no” answers. Which could have brought the discussion to a standstill.
Luckily for Stephanopoulos, Rubio had clearly undergone several hours of training to hammer specific talking points and never took the exit ramp to answer with one-word responses.
Grade: B+
NBC News
Welker started her interview with what she called “the big picture question: Is the United States at war with Venezuela?”
I’m a firm believer in coming out gun’s-a-blazin’, especially when you have the Secretary of State on the other side of the screen, after the nation just captured the leader of another country.
I don’t know, however, if that’s the best question to lead with. Because, I think even the most casual observer would likely say “No, we’re not at war with Venezuela.”
And Rubio did, too, scoffing at the question.
Now, her second question is the best question of the interview, when she point-blank asked Rubio, “Are you running Venezuela right now?” Furthermore, she held Rubio’s feet to the fire when he spoke for more than 90 seconds and never even remotely approached answering the question.
So, she reframed it. And nailed Rubio down by asking, “Is it you? Is it Secretary (Pete) Hegseth? Who will be running the country, specifically?” When he tried to skirt the question again, Welker badgered him for an answer, questioning, “Are you involved in that?” when Rubio tried to make a laundry list of those who are briefed about the oversight of the South American country.
For brevity’s sake, I’ll stop there. This is a major news story. There are very few times in an interviewer’s career when they get this opportunity. Kristen Welker rose to the occasion for NBC News and Meet the Press in a big way.
Grade: A+
CBS News
Now, throughout each of the interviews, it was clear that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would rather be preparing for a colonoscopy than answering questions about the operation to capture Maduro.
That was particularly on display with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation.
After he really didn’t answer the first two questions, Brennan questioned why the U.S. had left the majority of the Maduro regime intact, while only arresting Maduro and his wife.
I saw a lot of pushback and mockery of this question from Brennan on social media, largely from conservative influencers and media members. But those reactions have a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation: it’s a legitimate question. If reason for why the operation was approved was to topple the regime, is only removing the figurehead enough? That’s the essence of the question from Brennan.
Now, where she misstepped was her follow-up when Rubio scoffed at the question, dismissing it as absurd. Rubio’s response largely hinged upon “well, the Democrats are already complaining about this one operation, how would we pull off five of them?”
So, I think the follow-ups could be one of two options: you could either lean into the contentiousness and get mildly sarcastic and ask “Is the United States’ foreign policy influenced by how Democrats will react to military operations?” which likely doesn’t help open Rubio up to sharing any uncovered information or new ground — but would almost assuredly lead to a viral moment — or you could ask the more logical rebuttal, “If removing a regime that cozies up to narcoterrorists and foreign adversaries was the goal, do you feel like you’ve accomplished that goal when senior members of that regime are still in place and at large?”
That puts Rubio in a box that he can’t wiggle out of. Unless you let him.
In my opinion, I thought Brennan was too accommodating of Rubio. While he scoffed at her questions, she didn’t do a great job of steadying the ship and getting the question that I think she was trying to get across through to him. I also don’t know that Rubio especially wanted to field any of those questions, either.
But hindsight’s 20/20. It’s easy to judge after the fact.
One quick side note is that I usually really enjoy Margaret Brennan’s interviews because she isn’t a “remarks” interviewer. She doesn’t spend a ton of trying to impress her guests with her knowledge, she spends the time trying to get their knowledge. And she, at times, was guilty of spending just a bit too much time getting to her questions with set-up statements.
Those are the only real knocks I had. Despite the criticism from the online right, which I mentioned I don’t think is 100% fair, I thought this was a solid interview.
Grade: B
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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.
