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Piers Morgan Live
Morning King Matt Lauer; Dr. Mehmet Oz on Relationship Between Health, Nutrition and Sex Life
Aired May 30, 2012 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNY DEUTSCH, CNN HOST: I'm Donny Deutsch sitting in for Piers tonight, and I've got to tell you I am really pumped about our guest. First up, a man I truly admire.
It must be so cool to be Matt Lauer. This is Matt Lauer, today, hello, I'm Matt Lauer on "Today." Wow, this is so cool. Look at this.
MATT LAUER, HOST, NBC's "TODAY": Man, you look like hell.
(LAUGHTER)
DEUTSCH: Well, I'm going to ask Mr. Lauer which is more cutthroat, the race for the White House or the morning TV awards?
LAUER: This show is not where I want it to be right now. I want to make it better.
DEUTSCH: You look good up there.
Plus a house call from America's doctor, Dr. Oz. He's giving me the results of the 15-minute fitness test I took today. Now I'm going to find out exactly what we all need to do to change our health.
DR. MEHMET OZ, SURGEON AND AUTHOR: If someone you loved, someone you cared for, was putting what you're putting in your mouth in their mouth, what would you tell them? Because that's fundamentally the answer you have to give yourself.
DEUTSCH: Plus "Only in America," the typo that's gone viral.
This is PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT.
Good evening, I am not Piers Morgan, I'm Donny Deutsch filling in for Piers while he's in the U.K. And tonight I'm turning the tables on one of the -- actually, I think the best in the business, Matt Lauer is going to answer my questions. This should be good.
Are you sure you want to do this? You could still --
(CROSSTALK)
LAUER: Keep in mind I have a lot of opportunities to get you back on my show. You be nice, you be kind think about this before, think before you leap. DEUTSCH: By the way, you do that all the time. I have never seen you take shots at any other guest as much as you do me. Is that because you --
LAUER: No, you're easy. You're easy pickins.
DEUTSCH: Right.
LAUER: And when you sit on our show, you sit between two kind of very opinionated ladies.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: And you always throw yourself out there, and I think you do it on purpose, knowing you've got a big target on your back. So it makes it more fun. It's good. You've got a thick skin.
DEUTSCH: OK. I'm going to embarrass you before we get going.
LAUER: Let's go.
DEUTSCH: Because I have a feeling after that we're just going to bust on each other. And when I was running a business I -- I would always say you can always tell about the company as soon as the elevator doors open. And that's the way the "Today" show is. You know I have an insider's perspective from there a few days a week, and you walk on to that set, everybody is nice.
The energy is up. And there's something in those walls. And this is what people don't know. It's because of you.
(CROSSTALK)
DEUTSCH: Let me finish, I just -- I need to pay you this compliment because --
LAUER: Am I going to get a word in here?
DEUTSCH: No.
LAUER: No.
DEUTSCH: Absolutely not. It is the way you treat every crew member, please, thank you, there's no hierarchy. That doesn't exist in most businesses or more sets. It is -- I've just always been impressed by that.
LAUER: I appreciate that. I take that as a huge compliment. I don't think I'm the person who started it. And I think when I got there it was that way, it has always been thus. Think about it. Think about the dynamic. You're asking people to wake up in an ungodly hours, the crew members are getting up at 1:00 in the morning, they're driving from their homes, wherever they live. They're getting there at 2:00.
They've done a full day's work by the time I get there and get my make up on and get to be pampered on the air. You know, why wouldn't you say thank you and please to those people? And then when you talk about the way we treat other people who come through the "Today" show you're asking people to give you a moment of their time and come to our studio and give you their insight on a subject, I just don't understand treating people differently.
And I think it's not only -- I hope it's not only the way we treat people when they come to the the "Today" show but when you meet people on the street as well. You know I get a lot of people who come up to me on the streets just as you do. And sometimes I'm with my family, and sometimes with my friend, and the way I've always viewed it is the way it was taught to me. It was taught to me by people like Brian and Tom Brokaw, and those are your customers.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: And you treat your customer the way you do, if you would have a tire store, and somebody who come on the street and want to talk about the tires, you give them the time of day.
DEUTSCH: You -- but, Matt, you know this business. You are the exception, not the rule.
LAUER: Well, you know what --
(CROSSTALK)
DEUTSCH: That's what it is.
LAUER: Then it's the way I was brought up and I'm not going to --
DEUTSCH: This is the last nice thing I will say.
LAUER: That's good.
DEUTSCH: Then we're --
(CROSSTALK)
LAUER: Thank you.
DEUTSCH: No, seriously, you and I have talked about this. You have a big responsibility. To me your job on television, your specific job, is the most personal with viewers of anybody. You literally get America up in the morning.
LAUER: Right.
DEUTSCH: You really do. You kind of lens the day for them. And that's a big -- that' s a big load. That's a big burden.
LAUER: And you know it's always been made apparent to me when people do approach me or they come up and talk about it. I've been around Brokaw, for example, when people come up and say, I watch you on the news, or I get my news from you, and when they come up to me or they come up to Ann or Al, or Natalie or anybody else who does another one of the morning shows, they ten to say, I start my day with you, and it's a -- it's a subtle difference but it's a big difference.
DEUTSCH: But it's (INAUDIBLE).
LAUER: There's no question about it, what they're saying is they're giving you that moment of their day when it's most important. They've been asleep, they want to know that the world hasn't disappeared while they were sleeping, and they want to know what they're going to need to get through their day.
And it is a vulnerable time of their day, I truly think, and so it does take a certain approach and I try to bring that to the table.
DEUTSCH: So when the alarm goes of at -- 4:10.
LAUER: 4:10, 4:10.
DEUTSCH: But you wake up at 4:08, which is, you know --
LAUER: Between 4:08, 4:07 and 4:10, I -- my eyes -- my eyes open up no matter what. It's -- I'm a pure creature of habit. I hate it, to be honest with you. And lately more and more, my eyes wake up at 3:10 and 3:15, and I don't sleep the way I used to and it makes it harder and harder each morning.
DEUTSCH: So when you're getting dressed, and you're putting on that, you know, Barbisol --
(CROSSTALK)
LAUER: Yes.
DEUTSCH: What are you -- what do you think -- I mean, it's like it's -- what are you literally --are you thinking about what I'm going to do with the kids this weekend or are you -- are already fashioned the show in your head?
LAUER: I'm thinking about what's changed. You know, I went to bed with one show. I knew what to expect when I went to bed based on what had happened by that time of the day. I can be guaranteed that while I was sleeping, just like while America is sleeping, the world changed, and it may change in little ways, it may change in big ways.
So the first thing I want to know, and I've already checked that on my iPhone, because that's my alarm clock, is how -- is my work load going to change in the morning. What segments did I think I was going to do that are no longer in the show and what's new on my plate. And then how do I want to approach those segments. Who am I going to talk to on our staff when I get in the morning.
How am I going to get the information? You know, what do I need to read in the paper? What Web sites do I have to go to in the morning. And you know the interesting thing about my day and I think it may not be the same with a lot of other jobs is when the alarm goes off at 4:10, I've got to get mentally in tune right off the bat. I don't have a large time or a large amount of time to kind of ease into it. The day starts pretty quickly. DEUTSCH: Yes. And a little inside baseball for people, the segment that I do a couple of times a week with the professionals, we'll get that segments that -- the topics the night before.
LAUER: Right.
DEUTSCH: Invariably the next morning they change. You've changed them. And I watch you, it's very interesting. During the commercial break, when starting, and I was sitting there, I'm -- I'm watching you, this is what I'm doing now, and I --
LAUER: Right.
DEUTSCH: And obviously you just -- not to be too toady, but I'm watching what you're doing, and you're really going over everything. You're not just, OK, what's up next? You were teeing it up. This is just one segment, out of two hours and you're never stopping.
LAUER: No. Well, I mean, clearly the show moves very quickly. And you -- the segment you're talking about is the segment I probably put more work into on any given week than any other because it's got five topics within one segment, and my job there is to tee it up for you guys. You know, it's funny the way you say I tee it up.
What my job is to basically say to you, look, here's the topic, or say to the viewers, here's the topic in as few sentences as I can deliver, because I don't want a lot of time of me talking, I want to hear what you guys have to say. And then I have to kind of understand where you might go with that topic so that I can follow it up and refocus you. You in particular because you tend to get off the subject a lot.
(LAUGHTER)
LAUER: But -- so I'm trying to figure out where you might go with this and what follow-up question viewers would want to hear, and you know, I think those subjects they either live or die in the first 30 seconds of them.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: I can tell when I'm setting a subject up and I'm looking at your eyes and I'm looking at Nancy and looking at Star, if that segment, that subject is going to live or die just by the interest level in your eyes.
DEUTSCH: Now let me challenge you, because I see you in that segment, and I -- you're biting your lip, and you're almost in a way you --
LAUER: Yet it's not my job to give my opinions in that segment.
DEUTSCH: Well, but --
LAUER: Although you guys try to lure me into that.
DEUTSCH: What would be wrong if in that -- once again I'm not saying your absolute political views because you're kind of -- I see you. You're biting, you want -- so what would break the rules if Matt Lauer engaged?
LAUER: It doesn't and I do. I mean you'll hear me oftentimes by my follow-up questions. I'll say, no, no.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: I think you're missing the point. And let's use an example. I mean one of the comments you made the other day was about Chris Hayes.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: Over on another cable network.
DEUTSCH: In my very gentle way.
LAUER: Exactly.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: Who made some comments about fallen soldiers.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: And saying that we don't necessarily have to call them all heroes. Now if I start to hear your comments and hear Nancy's comments, and I don't think you're sticking to the point.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: That I think is germane and important, I will jump in there. And I think viewers by that, if they listen carefully, will know how I feel about it.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: I think that's a general rule of thumb, by the way. I think, you know, I do try to stay down the middle and yet I think over the course of time, if people watch our show and more importantly listen to --
DEUTSCH: They can (INAUDIBLE). Yes.
LAUER: They're going to know where I stand on certain issues by the questions I ask, the way I ask them or the questions I don't ask.
DEUTSCH: Where you stand. Let's talk about some of the characters. I want to -- I'm going to ask you, for each personality, you're going to give me one word on some of this.
LAUER: Word association?
DEUTSCH: Word association. A very clever thing we do on TV. Let's go back --
LAUER: You know the classic story about that? Bryant Gumbel and Yogi Berra on the "Today" show and Bryant says to Yogi, "Yogi, we're going to play some word association, I'll give you a name, you give me the one word." And he goes, "OK." And he goes, "Mickey Mantle," and Yogi says, "What about him?"
(LAUGHTER)
DEUTSCH: OK.
LAUER: So I'll give you those kind of answers.
DEUTSCH: Bryant Gumbel? Bryant Gumbel.
LAUER: Two words. Consummate professional.
DEUTSCH: Yes. Super guy also.
LAUER: Two other words. Best friend.
DEUTSCH: Katie Couric?
LAUER: Extraordinarily talented. I mean, you know, I --
(CROSSTALK)
LAUER: No, not all. You know, I get along with her so well these days. I get along with her very well, although --
DEUTSCH: You know -- you guys were really good friends. Yes.
LAUER: It was a little easy when we worked together. We had our fantastic moments and we had our moments where it was a little more tense. But she is without a doubt one of the most incredibly talented people I've ever met and to this day, when we're in the same room together, we make each other laugh. I think that's the nicest compliment I can pay her.
DEUTSCH: She's got great energy. I mean she just -- you know, I saw her in a restaurant a couple of weeks ago, she just lights it up. She really --
LAUER: And she's always thinking about what can happen next, and always think -- when we get together for dinner which we do fairly often or lunch, Katie has 1,000 ideas for subjects, for shows, for the way -- the things she wants to do in her life I've always admired that about her.
DEUTSCH: We'll get back to -- Meredith Vieira.
LAUER: Wow, that's -- it's going to take more than a couple of words. Also remarkably talented. The most real person I've ever had the pleasure of working with. I hit it off with Meredith the moment I met her for the first time. I knew that not only would we enjoy each other's company on the air but that we would become just true friends, and that's been the case. I adore Meredith.
DEUTSCH: All right. How about that thug, Al Roker? LAUER: Exactly the same guy off the air as he is on the air. I know I'm breaking all the rules here with the one word, but you know oftentimes young people -- I hate to sound old and say that, but I do get a lot of people who are starting out in the business who come to me and ask me for advice. And one of the people I bring up a lot is Al. You know a lot of the young broadcasters will say, who should I pattern myself after?
And I say you shouldn't pattern after anybody, you be yourself, the whole trick, the whole thing that makes people successful on the air is if they can get in front of a camera and when that red light goes on, they can be the same person they -- that they are off the camera. Al is that guy.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: Al is the same guy off camera that he is on camera, what you see is what you get, and I think that's what has made him so successful.
DEUTSCH: Mike Fox gave me some advice when I was starting on TV. He said they're going to know anyway, be who you are.
LAUER: Yes.
DEUTSCH: And the camera doesn't lie.
LAUER: Which is hard sometimes because, you know, with that comes the idea that you have to then take the criticism. And it's not like we're actors playing a role. If Tom Cruise goes out and plays a role in his next movie, and people say, I hated the character, they're hating the guy he's playing.
DEUTSCH: In your case it's the human being.
LAUER: If you or if I go on and we do a television show, and we're being ourselves and people say, "I Hate Matt Lauer," well, then they hate me because that is me.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: And that's a harder thing to swallow sometimes.
DEUTSCH: Ann Curry.
LAUER: The biggest heart in broadcasting. Incredibly talented, but again, feels, cares, is concerned about other people more than anyone I've met.
DEUTSCH: All right, buddy. We're going to take a break. When we get back, I want to know how Matt Lauer became the Matt Lauer, but first someone has got a question for you, Mr. Lauer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDERSON COOPER, ANCHOR, CNN'S "ANDERSON COOPER 360": What would I ask Matt Lauer? I would ask Matt Lauer, does he ever wish sometimes when he's sitting there with Ann Curry and Al Roker, that he could just get as drunk as Hoda and Kathy Lee doing that fourth hour?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LAUER: Too many kids on Ritalin? Maybe electric shock is --
TOM CRUISE, ACTOR: Too many kids on Ritalin, Matt?
LAUER: I'm just saying. But aren't there examples where it works?
CRUISE: Matt. Matt. Matt. You don't even -- you're glib.
LAUER: Where you made personally --
GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT: My job is to protect this country, Matt. And I'm going to within the law.
LAUER: There were people who probably last year at this time would have placed a bet that you might not even be around. And I mean literally.
MARTIN SHEEN, ACTOR: Yes. I would -- I would support that. Sure.
LAUER: To come back at 25, how do you view it?
LINDSAY LOHAN, ACTRESS: It's crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEUTSCH: Those were some of the Matt Lauer's great moments. I was watching you you watch, and you get -- you were getting a kick out of it.
LAUER: Well, yes, you look back at some of those things, I mean the Tom Cruise thing is -- you know, has -- became larger than life, and just one of those moments where a live interview -- actually it wasn't live, pardon me, it was a taped interview, where you knew that something was going to get enormous amount of attention.
DEUTSCH: Well, as it's -- as it's happening --
LAUER: Yes.
DEUTSCH: You just sat there, and you just didn't make -- what's going through your mind? You see the biggest star in the world kind of become unhinged.
LAUER: Right. Yes.
DEUTSCH: What's going through your mind at that moment?
LAUER: Let him keep going.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: You know -- you know, I think the idea there was to not rise to the level of energy that he had, was to try to remain calm and try to keep making what I thought was a very simple point, and -- but also at the same time, just giving enough rope so that it continues.
I mean you don't want a moment like that to come and go in 30 seconds. You realize you've got someone at a moment where he's going to give you things you don't expect to get, and so the idea is to not take too much advantage of it, you don't want to -- you know, you don't want to do something --
DEUTSCH: You don't want to exploit it.
(CROSSTALK)
DEUTSCH: You just let it happen.
LAUER: You don't want to exploit it but you also want to find out something about Tom Cruise that you didn't know before. And it was one of those moments that kind of lived in infamy. And then we have since gone way passed that and I think Tom realized in hindsight that it wasn't perhaps his best moment. And he has been incredibly gracious after that in talking about it.
DEUTSCH: I want to go to one more clip. This is your opening day for Matt Lauer, in 1997.
(CROSSTALK)
LAUER: He's doing this just for the haircut?
DEUTSCH: Young ingenue.
LAUER: Yes.
DEUTSCH: And let's take a quick look at that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KATIE COURIC, MSNBC ANCHOR: Special Monday morning for our friend, Matt Lauer. So how did that sound? Want to hear it again? One more time let's hear it.
LAUER: Go ahead, play it back. Can you?
ANNOUNCER: This is "Today" with Katie Couric and Matt Lauer. And Matt Lauer.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
LAUER: I think -- I think the takeaway for viewers at home is that's what waking up at 4:10 in the morning does to you over the course of 17 years.
DEUTSCH: That looked like "Good Morning, Phoenix."
(LAUGHTER)
LAUER: I mean you lose all your hair. You --
DEUTSCH: You look better now, though.
LAUER: You know, it's --
DEUTSCH: You really do.
LAUER: I look at -- that's an out-of-body experience. I look at that tape, I don't remember it, I don't know who that guy was. I only know that he was panicked as to what he was getting into, he's taking over for Bryant Gumbel, and sitting next to this incredibly talented, you know, Katie Couric. So it was a -- that was a very, very nerve racking time for me.
DEUTSCH: Wow. Wow. How do you -- when you're -- the thing that you're best at is, if I go back to the part of the interview that made you -- not that made you, I think the first thing that really made big news when you had Hillary on, and you were asking her about the scandal, Monica Lewinsky, very tough questions.
As a guy who's learning this business, what's the technique? You know you've got to ask the very, very tough questions, so is there a way, is there -- is there a method? You say, OK, well, first I'm going to prop them up, what's the Lauer --
LAUER: No, I think there's always -- you know, there are many different ways to get results. And, you know, there is the iron fist, there is the velvet hammer. And then there's the way that you would do it if you were at a cocktail party or if you're in someone's home or if you ran into someone in a restaurant. Very few people walk up to someone and go right between the eyes.
I don't think that's a -- you know, a method that yields great results. I've always felt that there is a way to ask a question. And it's not beating around the bush, it's putting a question in a way that people say well, this makes common sense. I know where he's going, I know what he wants to ask, when you have a Jim McGreevey, and he's on, and you want to ask him, how could he have thought he would get away with what he was doing with state troopers standing outside hotel rooms.
When you have Hillary Clinton and you need to ask her what she knew and how much she knew about Monica Lewinsky. When you have Lindsay Lohan and you -- and you have to ask her, is she clean and sober? Sometimes a direct approach is fine but other times you do have to show that you care about them as a human being before you go in for what would be considered the kill.
And I don't consider myself to be someone who goes for the kill anyway. That's just not my style. DEUTSCH: No. But the tough questions which you do ask. If you have -- think about everybody you interviewed.
LAUER: Yes.
DEUTSCH: After you missed a question.
LAUER: It happens every single interview.
DEUTSCH: All right. You made a one that sticks with you. If you're going to pick one, the one that you go, you know what, how did I not ask that?
LAUER: You know, normally it's there. Normally it's there in terms of what I want to get to, a lot of times it's a time restraint, a lot of times it's the interview goes in a direction that I didn't expect it to go, you know, one of the things I always say back to these people who are getting in the business is the worst thing you can do and you know this very well, because you're doing it right now, the worst thing -- no, I'm kidding. The worst thing that you can do --
DEUTSCH: I got to -- no, I'm never thinking about the next question.
(CROSSTALK)
LAUER: No, the worst thing you can is go in with an agenda and a set scheduled of questions.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: Say, I've got these 10 questions, these are what I'm going to get through. Because then what you're not doing is listening.
DEUTSCH: Listening, yes.
LAUER: And you're not taking the time to let the interview become organic and go where it should go, and so oftentimes, to get back to your question, I don't ask a question that I really wanted to ask because I found something else that interested me at the moment and then perhaps I ran out of time.
DEUTSCH: All right. We're going to come back. When we come back the $25 million question, what made you stay with "Today"? Did we just answer that question, by the way?
(LAUGHTER)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
LAUER: Truth be told I was developing an idea for a new show where viewers could tune in every morning and see someone they know lose a little more of his hair every single day right in front of their eyes, and I thought I don't have to do that I can just stay here and do that.
No, this is my family, I love this job. I love working with you guys. And all the people behind the scenes I'm excited, let's keep going.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DEUTSCH: That was Matt Lauer big moment, announcing he's staying at "Today." And Matt is back.
Hey, you made jokes about the hair. Does it bother you?
LAUER: It did in the beginning. It started to bother me when it started to go. And now I couldn't be -- no, I don't want to say I'm happier about. I never think about it, Donny. I'm a guy who doesn't own a comb or a brush. I get out of the shower, I dry my -- I comb my hair with a towel. And no, I think it's taken so much weight off my shoulders, it's something I just -- it never crosses my mind. It doesn't bother me one bit. It really doesn't.
DEUTSCH: $25 million a year. Four years, I guess, I'm going to do the quick math. $100 million. That's a lot of money. What are you going to do with it? I mean that's -- that's real -- that is like a serious chunk of dough. So now you've always been very wealthy, and that's just -- that's crazy wealth. So --
(CROSSTALK)
LAUER: Let me stop you. First of all, I have not heard anybody come up with the right amount.
DEUTSCH: OK.
LAUER: So that number gets out there and then I'm supposed to answer it as if it's fact.
DEUTSCH: Well, you don't have to apologize about it.
LAUER: No, no, I'm just -- and I would never apologize for it. It's not fact.
DEUTSCH: OK.
LAUER: And so a lot of things were written during the whole contract kind of negotiation period or the decision to stay. I think 2 percent of what was written was true. And the number has never been true. So you know, it wasn't about the money, I promise you.
DEUTSCH: I know.
LAUER: I did not stay at the "Today" show because of money. I think there are other ways to make money. I stayed there because, as I said in the clip, I really do love the show, and despite the fact the alarm clock goes off at 4:10 and it's brutal, I still do like getting out of bed and you know, I think that I have fed off the company trough at NBC for a long time, and I had been the benefactor of great success there. Times are harder there right now. I think it's been well publicized. We are -- the show is not where I want it to be right now. The ratings are not where I want them to be.
DEUTSCH: What do you want to do with the show different?
LAUER: I want to make it better. I want to make -- I want to -- I want to, you know, reinvigorate the show in some ways that perhaps we have, you know, let up on in the past couple of years. And so to leave now seemed like leaving when work needed to be done. I think it would have been a lot easier to leave if we were soaring to new heights, but the competition is tougher. There are a lot of challenges out there and as a result, that just didn't feel like the right time to leave the people. I'm talking about mostly the behind- the-scenes people.
DEUTSCH: Yes.
LAUER: That I've spent almost 20 years of my life with.
DEUTSCH: You and I had a dinner talking about it, money didn't come up once. It was interesting. We were talking about, you know, were you going to stay, what you want to do --
(CROSSTALK)
LAUER: It's a matter of degree.
DEUTSCH: Money didn't come up.
LAUER: You know, in this business for some reason, they are very generous with people like me. And so it's a matter of degree. How happy do you need to be? I've always been happy. I've been happy when I made not a lot of money and I've been happy when I've made more money. So it's not about how much more money you can make. I promise you it's not about. It's about wanting to leave the show in a really good place. And although I think it's in a good place right now I think it could be in a better place.
DEUTSCH: So you --
LAUER: And that's why I stuck around.
DEUTSCH: You come to work now -- obviously you guys have been on top 17 years, "GMA" has had a couple of wins.
LAUER: Right.
DEUTSCH: How does that change when you come to work in the morning?
LAUER: Lights a little bit of fire under our butts, there's no question about it. We -- you know, the ratings -- the competition, and I don't mean them in particular, I mean the general competition, the fact that the environment is more competitive, has our full attention, it has my full attention.
DEUTSCH: Sure.
LAUER: You know I take responsibility for it. When people start to write articles about what might be wrong with the "Today" show you know where you should point the finger, point it at me because I have been there the longest. And it's my responsibility. I truly feel that way, and that's why I stick around, because I think there's more I can do, I can do it better. I still learn something every single day and so, you know, I want the responsibility of trying to make it better and trying to get us into a better place.
DEUTSCH: It's interesting, you just supported my opening thesis, at the end of the day, you're a leader, and it's like a corporation, a business. So what you just did, look, buck stops with me, not everybody does that. So I mean -- so kudos to you.
LAUER: You know, when -- if they're willing to give you the credit for things over a certain period of time and you have to be willing to say, then I deserve a lot of the blame when things aren't going exactly how we want them.
DEUTSCH: Little politics. You've obviously got a front row seat. You've interviewed both men, Obama and Romney. Why is this election not catching the same interest? There's something about it that is just --
LAUER: I think it's a little it's a victim of the last election and the last kind of experience that America had with Barack Obama and that entire wave of enthusiasm that swept a portion of the voting population. I think there was such excitement among a certain segment of voters last time that it's impossible to repeat.
He certainly can't repeat it. He is now a sitting president with a record to run on. And Mitt Romney -- I think the reason that there isn't this incredible electricity surrounding him is he has been doing this for a long time. He has been running for president for the better part of five and a half, six years now.
I think it will gain traction in the fall. I think it's hard to get really juiced up about the primaries and then with the incumbency. I think that come the conventions, which we're all gearing up for in August, I think there will be an urgency that will take hold.
DEUTSCH: Let's say you are moderating the debate and you get one question at each guy, one question to say it all -- I know it's kind of -- it's hard to come up with that. Where would you -- just as a guy, you want to know one thing from Romney, you want to know one thing from Obama, what comes to your gut?
LAUER: I think the thing that people out there want to know is do you understand how tough it has been and is out there on Main Street? I think there has been a lot of criticism of Mitt Romney perhaps because some of the things he said that lead people to think he may not get that. And I think there has been some criticism for Barack Obama that he has seemed above it and a bit aloof and has lost a little of that connection.
You know, Donny, for the first time in my adult life -- and I have been through a lot of these economic downturns as a 54-year-old man -- this is the time over the last three or four years where I personally know so many people who lost their jobs.
DEUTSCH: People our age.
LAUER: People our age who are struggling, and people in my family who have lost their jobs as a result of this. I think all any of us really wants to know from our leader who is going to lead the country for the next four years is do you get it? Do you understand the pain?
DEUTSCH: Do you think both these guys get it?
LAUER: I don't know. I hope they do. It's important that they do, because if they don't, then I don't know that they are going to be able to come up with the solutions. Congress doesn't seem to be able to come up with them.
I think we want real empathy. We want someone who can take their jacket off and talk to real people and say, I understand your problem and I'm going to set out to fix it. It's easy to say it. It's much harder to actually do it.
DEUTSCH: It is interesting that they both have the same problem for different reasons. They seem disconnected.
I just want to take the last 40 seconds to sum you up to the audience that may not know, because you're about as devoted a dad as there is. I remember once being -- there's a little airport in the Hamptons. I was there. You were there, not flying in or not flying out, but with your little son just watching planes come in and out.
I don't know a guy more devoted to your kids. If you want to say one thing to your kids right now -- they are watching at home. They watch you on TV, and they probably at this point could give a crap whether you're on TV or not. But you want to say one thing to them, with America watching, just the one important message you say to your kids when they got to sleep at night.
LAUER: I think it's that all the stuff that we've been talking about on this show matters a little, but they matter a lot. I want to be defined by what I do from 9:00 until 4:10 the next morning, not by what I do from 4:10 to 9:00 in the morning.
DEUTSCH: Matt Lauer, a real gentlemen, thanks.
LAUER: Thanks.
DEUTSCH: Appreciate it.
Up next, Dr. Oz and two of my favorite subjects, sex and food, and in that order.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Real easy to do at home. Just d it around your belly button here. No fair looking.
DEUTSCH: OK, 32, right? (END VIDEO CLIP)
DEUTSCH: OK, that was the house call this morning for one of Dr. Oz's assistants. He gave me a fitness test and I'm anxious to hear whether I passed or not. Let's bring in the one and only Dr. Mehmet Oz, host "Dr. Oz Show." How are you, doc?
DR. MEHMET OZ, M.D., "THE DR OZ SHOW": Thank you very much, Donny.
DEUTSCH: That was not pleasant to look at.
OZ: I like that. Mike Hoagland (ph), by the way, who is a medical student who works on the show --
DEUTSCH: He pricked me four times, by the way. Honestly, dude, get it together.
OZ: He probably had trouble finding blood.
DEUTSCH: Yes, he did.
OZ: He's part of our medical unit, this crack group of folks who are the nuclear arsenal. They go out there and they come up with great new ideas to talk about health. And this 15 minute physical, which he put you through, something we do all over the country -- we started off in Philadelphia just recently, kicked it off at Temple University. What we do is we partner with a medical institution. And our goal is not preventive care. It's to diffuse the bombs.
DEUTSCH: Take me -- what happened with me? What did we do?
OZ: I'll walk you through it, but if I walk you through it, I'm going to extend it to everybody who is watching right now. Because the big message is not just telling Donny Deutsch what his numbers are, but to make sure everybody in America realized with just a few little bits of information, you can take away the risks of dying from some of the biggest preventable challenges we have.
So Donny Deutsch, I have your results right here. Like the Academy Awards.
DEUTSCH: Yes. Just get the kids away from the screen, because this is not going to be pretty.
OZ: OK, the number one thing we check, because it's the number one thing that ages us all, is blood pressure. Blood pressure is like a fire hydrant squirting away the delicate Teflon lining of your arteries. If it gets damaged, you have to harden those arteries to repair them.
Your blood pressure ideally would not be hypertension, which is 140 over 90. In fact, it would be optimally 115 over 75. The high number is how much force is hitting the arteries. The low number is when you relax how low does it go. Your number, 110 over 72, which is perfect.
DEUTSCH: See, mom, nothing to worry about. All right, one for one.
OZ: Second thing we get from that finger stick we did on you -- usually only one time we need to stick you, by the way -- is your blood sugar. Your blood sugar tells us whether you have little pieces of glass shrapnel pretending they are sugar molecules, scraping that same delicate lining of the arteries.
The blood sugar, if it's more than 125, it means you are a diabetic. If it's between 100 and 125, if you have been fasting, you're pre- diabetic. Eighty million Americans are diabetic or pre-diabetic.
DEUTSCH: If we solve that, we solve the health care problem, frankly. We solve obesity. It's just amazing.
OZ: They are all caused by obesity, which I'm going to get to. But think about this, if 80 million have diabetes or pre-diabetes -- 80 million, by the way, had the high blood pressure that I spoke to you about earlier or borderline -- we're left now with a problem that's mortgaging our nation's future. Donny Deutsch's numbers was 81.
Perfect. Mom, he is doing fine.
DEUTSCH: I'll be home soon, honey. That is not mommy.
OZ: Your cholesterol number was so good, there was no need to even fractionate it. It was under 100. So those are all great numbers. The reason, Donny Deutsch, before you leave the show --
(CROSS TALK)
OZ: -- legs in the air. The reason, to cut through all the other shenanigans, that your numbers are so perfect is because you're not overweight. That is probably the single most important message I'm going to deliver today. If you think obesity is about looking a little hotter, about being cooler -- obesity doubles the chance you'll have dementia problem. Think about that. You won't be as sharp as you get older.
Obesity dramatically increases the chance of cancer. Most people don't think about that. Number one way we can reduce cancer rates. And it increases heart disease, which we will talk about in a second.
Your waist size, which should always be less than half your height, was 33 inches. Now your height is -- you're about five-ten?
DEUTSCH: Yes.
OZ: Five times 12, 60 inches, plus 10, 70 inches, right? Divide in half, 35 inches. If you keep your waist size below half your height, which everyone at home should be doing tonight I hope. Don't trust your belt size, because your belt size -- your --
(CROSS TALK)
DEUTSCH: The problem we have in this country, and all you have to do is walk through Disney World, is America is fat. Until we solve that problem, we're solving nothing.
I want to get off problems. I know you like to talk about sex. Because sex is a way to stay healthy. I struggle through this area. I have a lot of personal -- you say you have an amazing sex life. Your wife is gorgeous. What is the key, 26 years you said -- you've got four great children. What makes your sex life great? I'm genuinely curious about that.
OZ: First of all, Lisa is the brains of the family.
DEUTSCH: We know. Duh.
OZ: I do love her dearly, but sex is not just some by the way and -- sex is I think fundamentally important to any relationship you have with a person -- your partner in life. I think it bonds you. There are things it does that are unique occutosin (ph) releases, that cuddly hormone.
(CROSS TALK)
OZ: The other thing about it is not that it burns the calories off. Do you know how much the average sexual encounter burns off in calories?
DEUTSCH: Hundred.
OZ: Twenty three calories, takes about two minutes.
DEUTSCH: For me, it's probably about nine calories.
OZ: The reason that Lisa and I are able to be -- I think it's the same reason that so many couples can remain intimate -- is you have to reinvent the relationship at its very core.
DEUTSCH: Everybody says that. What does that mean? I am not looking for graphic details. But reinvent the relationship -- when you're with a couple, you guys -- you know what pleases each other. You get into a routine. What does that mean reinvent? Does that mean role play? Does -- what does that actually mean to reinvent the sexual relationship?
OZ: It involves all that. Can I just start at the very beginning? From the moment you get married, you have to begin challenging yourselves on that. Listen, when you get married, as a guy, you want exactly what you married. She is just what you desired. That is why you went after her. Then what happens? She starts to change.
DEUTSCH: As the guys do also.
OZ: No, but it's different with the guys. Women marry the guy they think he can become, and then he won't change usually. They're kicking you along the road trying to make you change to become the man you can become. So you're automatically moving away from each other. The beauty of a relationship -- a relationship is that you actually mold each other. That happens to happen sexually as well. You have chemical handcuffs on for the first five, six, seven years of your life. That makes sense. Thousand years ago, you couldn't take a chance with this, you have to be chemically bound to each other.
DEUTSCH: I want to really break it down. I want to take you out of doctor and be a friend for a second. If I was coming to you and saying doc, it's stale. I love -- I'm not married, just hypothetically. I love my wife, I'm just not that turned on anymore, but I don't want to leave her. What do I do? If you broke it down to real things, Donny, do this -- fantasize about other women -- Donny, do this, ask her what turns her on? I mean, give me some --
OZ: Role playing helps out. But you have to ask each other. What is it that I'm doing that works for you? What is not working? And that is a very difficult question to ask when you're about to be intimate. That needs to happen in a cold moment. When I say cold moment, it's a moment you're not already heat of the engagement.
You sit back and say, what am I doing that works for you? And very precisely help me figure it out. Most guys don't recognize the simplest things about improving a female orgasm. You don't get that taught in medical school. There are classes taught on this.
DEUTSCH: What is one thing a guy at home should take away from this?
OZ: Most women have the equivalent of a G-spot.
DEUTSCH: They do?
OZ: You have to excite that part of the female anatomy. Now you can't just go with your finger --
DEUTSCH: I've got to take a break, because that is the perfect tease. We're going to find out more about the G-spot, according to Dr. Oz. And we're going to talk about food. Maybe they are one in the same. Don't go anywhere.
OZ: Is that graphic picture up?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DEUTSCH: We are back with the great Dr. Oz, and talking about a very critical thing for our audience, about finding a woman's G-spot. Right here, we have organs we're going to get to in a minute. I can't leave our audience hanging. The CNN switchboard has been lighting up.
If a guy wants to figure it out --
I can't even do this.
OZ: I'll give you two seconds. It's not a button. You don't just push on a spot. When the prostate, which is, by the way, very sensitive as well, was not created in the female body, those same nerves moved to the front of the vagina. So if you put your finger in, being very graphic, and sort of go like this, that entire area about an inch or two above where you enter is generally sensitive.
The problem is that about a third of women have never had an orgasm. I mean, Donny, we have a sexual famine in America in part because people haven't spent the time -- it takes time, anything else in life, to learn how to excite each other.
So for women, I have to say something, please, do not trust a guy to do this. They don't know how to do it. We never learned how to do this. We can't even study our own bodies. If you haven't been able to teach yourself to pleasure yourself, you have to at least start there in order to figure out how you can get an orgasm.
Then you have to take the guy by the hand and literally teach him how to do it. Guy, don't be bashful about this. This is a very open and sensitive conversation.
DEUTSCH: One of things about getting older and having sex, it eases you to talk. When you're younger, you almost feel insecure about what feels good. There were so many bits I had. You're so fortunate we're doing this on CNN and not another venue, because the rails would have come off about nine times. That's fascinating.
OZ: This relates to sex because the most common complaint that I often hear is women say my guy is not interested in me. I say, why not? She says, he doesn't get an erection anymore. That's not an issue of men not being interested. Eighty percent of men who do not have a hard erection have a cardiovascular problem.
The blood is not going there because the blood's not going to their kidneys or their heart or their brain either. Let me explain why that's happening -- and it comes back to the thing we were talking about earlier. It's why we're going around the country doing these 15 minute physicals.
So this is what the liver looks like. Put your gloves on, if you don't mind. Why is that the liver is two different colors? Why is it that I can point to the liver and -- this is a normal-looking liver. OK? Notice how it's a little bit brownish, got some bile in it. They're all good things for us.
DEUTSCH: That's an actual liver. That's a human liver. Doc, that's a human livers?
OZ: All human livers. I spliced it up. Notice this liver, in my right hand, and it will look to the left for the viewers, it's beige. It's white. It's because it came out of someone who was overweight. This fatty liver -- having trouble with those gloves?
DEUTSCH: Yeah.
OZ: What kind of doctor would you have been?
DEUTSCH: I want to use one hand.
OZ: So this liver is much larger than the normal liver, because it's gotten swollen from fat. Basically this person because they were overweight, obese, turned their liver into foie gras. This is the message. I want you to focus on this, folks, because when you see this happen in your body, this liver that's fatty doesn't work well.
(CROSS TALK)
OZ: It may look from the outside, but what the liver does more than anything else is it filters toxins. When the liver can't remove toxins from your body, toxins in the water, the air, the food you may be eating, cigarettes, alcohol, it doesn't work anymore. So now those toxins hang in your body, they strip you of your energy. You don't feel good.
And they release toxic chemicals. This, my friend, is why we have a cholesterol problem in America. Not because we are born with it. What does that cause?
DEUTSCH: Bad liver.
OZ: The good news is this is reversible. The liver is our -- of all the organs we have, the one that's most likely to be able to reverse injury. Now, unfortunately, if you don't reverse it, you end up with this problem. This elegant structure here is a healthy human heart. Please --
DEUTSCH: That's a healthy heart.
OZ: It's about the size of your fist.
DEUTSCH: That's amazing
Isn't this stunning?
OZ: But when you have a liver that's turned to fat and making bad cholesterol, and that same belly fat is causing high blood pressure and problems with diabetes, you get a heart like this.
DEUTSCH: Oh, my goodness.
OZ: Compare these two, my friends.
DEUTSCH: That is stunning, guys. Look at that at home. That's just crazy. So somebody -- a healthy person is walking around with this. Somebody is actually working around with this.
OZ: Which is why I go so crazy about knowing your numbers. Because if you know your blood pressure, you know this is happening. It hasn't happened yet, but this is happening. If you know your blood sugar numbers, you know this is happening to you. Feel it. It's bloated. It's swollen, like this big Thanksgiving float meandering its way through life.
There are some things that are knowable in life, Donny, and some things are not knowable. Your numbers are knowable. They're usually --
DEUTSCH: Very quickly, if I want to get from that to the better heart, the five simple things to do?
OZ: Figure out the blood pressure issue. Getting it down is usually just a matter, for most people, of reducing some of that belly fat and dealing with some of the stress in your life, primarily not by changing what's stressing you, but how you respond to it.
The number two thing you have to do is figure out how to get rid of some of the belly fat, which is usually done by cutting out the white foods, white rice, white flour, white pasta, white sugar, all the white things that we know are addictive to us.
DEUTSCH: Everybody knows this, but they don't do it. You do this five days a week. I guarantee you, three quarters of the people are at home going like this. Yeah, got it, got it. But they're not doing it. They're not doing it.
What do we do? This is going to put this country under. This is the health care problem. You solve obesity -- there's no Democrats or Republicans arguing, it's over. Is there another button to push?
OZ: I'll give you the big button. So I have done over 500 shows now.
DEUTSCH: It's great show, by the way. It really is.
OZ: Thank you very much. Along the way, we were celebrating one of our shows. And we brought on people who had all lost 100 pounds. We filled the audience with them, couple hundred people. I asked them, how did you do it? Tell me the secret, because if you can teach me what motivated you to act differently, then we could share it with everybody.
They all gave me the same answer. Donny, I thought I'd have a hundred answers. I got one answer. We realized we were worth it.
Here's the question for everyone in America. I'm going to ask it for you right now. If someone you loved dearly, someone you cared for was putting what you're putting in your mouth in their mouth, what would you tell them? Because that's fundamentally the answer you have to give yourself. If you can answer that one question --
DEUTSCH: All right, guys, that's the question; are you worth it? Dr. Oz, you're the man. Thank you buddy.
OZ: Want the heart?
DEUTSCH: I'm going to bring that home with me.
Up next, Only in America. Tonight, one more reason to always use spell check.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
DEUTSCH: Each night, Piers ends with Only in America. It's his slice of life here. Tonight, I have got an Only in America my British bud would love. In politics, as in advertising, it's all about the message. As we have seen, sometimes the message can get jumbled. For Mitt Romney, it took a very embarrassing turn this week. The Romney campaign unveiled his new mobile app and would you look at that. That is right. Somehow they managed to misspell America. It reads "A Better Amercia." You would think someone along the way would say, hey, you know, "Amercia" is not a country.
Of course, Democrats having a field day with this one. But hey, I would say people in glass houses should not throw stones. Look no further than Vice President Biden. He's always good for some gaffes.
A few months back, the staff announced Biden would visit New England. The official press release said he'd be traveling to Boston, Massachusetts, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Providence, "Road Island" to attend campaign events. Rhode Island, look at the spelling. Mr. Vice President, come on, it's spelled R-H-O-D-E island.
I guess both sides need to brush up on their spelling or at least use spell check. That is it for us. I want to thank my buddy Piers for giving me a chance to sit in tonight. "AC 360" starts right now.
