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The Whole Story with Anderson Cooper
The First Spouse, Melania and Doug. Aired 8-9p ET
Aired October 06, 2024 - 20:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[20:00:32]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Hey, welcome to THE WHOLE STORY. I'm Anderson Cooper.
In so many ways the 2024 election season has been unprecedented and unpredictable. Part of the unusual nature of the campaign includes who will end up as the presidential spouse, traditionally known as the Office of the First Lady.
If former president Donald Trump wins, Melania Trump will return to the East Wing for the second time after exiting four years ago. Now, this has only happened once before in the country's history. And then there's Vice President Harris's husband, Doug Emhoff, potentially the first man to ever serve in this role.
Over the next hour, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins, who covered the Trump White House as a reporter, takes a closer look at the history of the first spouse and how it may be redefined by the next person who will hold that title.
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KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): As a White House reporter, it can be easy to overlook the first lady. But that role, and those who have occupied it, have long had a deep influence on the West Wing and the country. It can be part diplomat.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now to the coach steps America's first lady. Wherever she goes, she is touring up a wealth of information to pass onto the president.
COLLINS: Full-time campaigner.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A mother or to the lady bird special or Whistle Stop tour in the south where Democratic defections threaten.
COLLINS: And sometimes even fashion model.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mrs. Dwight Eisenhower models her glittering inaugural ball gown.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fresh and full of enthusiasm the first lady has a sampling of her role for the next four years.
COLLINS: A view that hasn't evolved much over the last 75 years. More than 50 women have served in the position since that very first inauguration in 1789.
LISA KATHLEEN GRADDY, CURATOR, SMITHSONIAN'S NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY: Martha Washington complaints sometimes feeling like a state prisoner because she was so observed and commented on.
COLLINS: It's kind of a thankless job.
GRADDY: It's as a kind of no win job.
COLLINS (voice-over): The role of first lady has typically included White House traditions like hosting world leaders, planning state dinners and congressional balls.
LAURA BUSH, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Welcome to the 2007 White House Easter Egg Roll.
COLLINS: To the annual Easter Egg Roll, to choosing the administration's China.
GRADDY: It's a way that the first lady can show her own preferences, tastes, exercise that soft power of diplomacy and politicking.
COLLINS: And being in charge of the White House Christmas decorations. But there's no doubt it's a high pressure role filled with scrutiny that's unpaid and ill-defined.
ANITA MCBRIDE, AUTHOR, "U.S. FIRST LADIES MAKING HISTORY AND LEAVING LEGACIES": We're in the President Woodrow Wilson House where Mrs. Wilson hosted first ladies. First Ladies are really known for oftentimes rising above the politics.
COLLINS: And it's a tough job. It's not clearly defined find what your role is as first lady.
MCBRIDE: You have no position description and no salary. You're not on the federal payroll. You get to pick and choose what you want to do, or nothing. Americans have come to expect that the position is one that you could make a difference and you do have influence, and it is partner to the presidency. There's no closer confidant to a president than their spouse.
KATE ANDERSEN BROWER, AUTHOR, "FIRST WOMEN: THE GRACE AND POWER OF AMERICA'S MODERN FIRST LADIES": Americans want a first lady who represents a sense of peace and calm and can be there in times of peril. They want someone who's maternal, warm. They want someone who is beautiful and well-dressed and a good representative of our country. And it's impossible to be all of those things for everyone given the women's movement, given how we are trying to have more gender equality that we still have this role.
Very answer equated old-fashioned role where we have women who have graduate degrees, who are spending the majority of their time picking out China, and what they're going to wear, and seating placements. It mirrors women's place in American society and that there are two steps forward, one step back. JACQUELINE KENNEDY, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: Well,
there's the China room and the gold room and the library, which isn't finished yet.
COLLINS (voice-over): In 1962, 32-year-old Jacqueline Kennedy ushered in the modern era when she gave the first televised tour of the White House by a first lady.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mrs. Kennedy has been showing us about the White House and all the changes that she's made therein.
BROWER: Jackie Kennedy understood people's fascination with her, and so by opening up the White House and bringing in cameras for that first time in 1962, she transformed our expectations.
COLLINS: And more than 50 years later, another first lady would also a upend those expectations.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, Mrs. Melania Trump.
COLLINS: Melania Trump is wearing this Jackie Kennedy-esque 1960s suit.
KATE BENNETT, AUTHOR, FORMER CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: We are a country that has sort of trained on what the first lady is wearing. And that was a real sort of big moment to see her emerge in that light blue suit with the gloves.
COLLINS: Kate Bennett is an author and former CNN White House correspondent.
BENNETT: Are we all set?
COLLINS: Who covered Melania's time as first lady.
BENNETT: Melania Trump in designing that suit with Ralph Lauren and her stylist knew what it was going to look like in photographs. She wanted to think of the most iconic first lady that Americans think of and reflect that or at least plant that seed, and like, oh, is she going to be the next Jackie?
COLLINS: But even as Melania harken back to a former era with her style as first lady, she also blazed a new path for herself from the very beginning.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: First Lady Melania Trump surprises with her decision to delay moving into the White House.
BROWER: It's unprecedented that she won't immediately move into the White House.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The incoming first lady Melania Trump, she's going to stay in New York for the rest of the school year so their son Barron can finish school in New York City. MCBRIDE: She established a different precedent. She took a lot of
criticism for that, but she removed that burden of precedent for anyone that came after her, who might want to do the same thing.
MARY JORDAN, AUTHOR, "THE ART OF HER DEAL: THE UNTOLD STORY OF MELANIA TRUMP": That's Melania. I do what I want.
COLLINS: Mary Jordan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author of "The Art of Her Deal."
You write in your book about why she was so delayed in part in moving to the White House. She was renegotiated her prenuptial agreement with Donald Trump.
JORDAN: So, Melania, when she got married to him, he wasn't in politics. So she dug her heels and said, hey, I didn't sign up for this. You want me on the campaign trail, you got to do a little more, and mainly she was interested in the share for Barron. She wanted Barron to be considered more like the children from his first marriage, Ivanka, Donald Junior and Eric. And it really bugged her that she felt her kid got second trip.
He's a tough negotiator. So was she.
COLLINS (voice-over): When Jordan released her book in June of 2020, Melania Trump's then chief of staff, Stephanie Grisham, said, quote, "This book belongs in the fiction genre." By 2021 Grisham had resigned and published her own scathing book about the Trump White House.
MELANIA TRUMP, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: I have been Donald for 18 years, and I have been aware of his love for this country since we first met.
COLLINS: For many Americans, the first time they may have heard Melania Trump's voice was when she took center stage at the Republican National Convention in July 2016.
JORDAN: We all remember the disaster when she spoke at the convention and many lines were plagiarized, lifted from Michelle Obama's speech.
MICHELLE OBAMA, FORMER FIRST LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: You work hard for what you want in life. That your word is your bond, that you do what you say you're going to do.
M. TRUMP: You work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond, and you do what you say.
ERIN BURNETT, CNN ANCHOR: Parts of Melania's speech came directly from Michelle Obama's 2008 convention remarks.
MCBRIDE: There were worthy allegations of plagiarism of Mrs. Obama. Such a tough way to start.
COLLINS: But as she faced scrutiny in public, Melania remained deeply influential in private.
How much influence would you say she has on him?
JORDAN: At certain times a lot. He brought in his vice presidential picks the last time, ran all through Melania, and Melania said, I think Mike Pence because some of the others are going to be gunning for your job.
COLLINS (voice-over): But her most crucial political move may have been when she sat down with Anderson Cooper in October 2016.
M. TRUMP: Don't feel sorry for me. Don't feel sorry for me. I can handle everything.
COLLINS: That was just 10 days after the now infamous "Access Hollywood" tape leaked, the one in which her husband joked about grabbing women by the genitals.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.
BILLY BUSH, ACCESS HOLLYWOOD HOST: Whatever you want.
COLLINS: That damaging tape surfaced just three weeks before the election. And Melania stepped in as a lifeline for the campaign.
M. TRUMP: I said to my husband that's, you know, the language is inappropriate. It's not acceptable, and I was surprised because that is not the man that I know.
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They were kind of a boy talk and he was lead on, like egged on from the host to say dirty and bad stuff.
JORDAN: She went on TV and she backed him up. She minimized it. It's just locker room talk. She had a lot of power at that moment and if she said the wrong thing or she walked or she said it disgusts me, too --
COLLINS: He could have lost the election.
JORDAN: Yes.
COLLINS (voice-over): Now, in 2024, the former first lady is facing a new wave of scrutiny.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Mrs. Trump, are you going to return to the campaign trail with your husband?
M. TRUMP: Stay tuned.
BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: Where's Melania Trump?
BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Melania Trump still has barely appeared anywhere to support her husband this year. She didn't attend his hush money trial in New York. COOPER: She did speak at two political fundraisers for the Log Cabin
Republicans. She was paid more than $237,000 for just one of those events.
COLLINS: She didn't speak at the convention and introduce her husband. What did you make of that?
BENNETT: So she does like to have the attention, but it's on her terms, her music, her lighting, her clothes, where she stands, what she looks like. Those are all things that are really orchestrated by her herself, not by the campaign, not by the producers of the convention, not by her husband and that's what makes her very uniquely Melania.
COLLINS (voice-over): Melania, adding to the intrigue with her forthcoming memoir.
M. TRUMP: I believe it is important to share my perspective. The truth.
COLLINS: In the lead-up to her book's release, she's posted these promotional videos addressing motherhood, life in the White House, and even her views on abortion rights, which stand in stark contrast to her husband's.
M. TRUMP: There is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right. That all women possess from birth. Individual freedom. What does my body, my choice really mean?
COLLINS: The former first lady also addresses the assassination attempt on her husband in Butler, Pennsylvania.
In her book and then the videos that she's been putting out to help promote it, she does raise questions about Trump's assassination.
M. TRUMP: I can't help but wonder, why didn't law enforcement officials arrest the shooter before the speech? There is definitely more to this story. And we need to uncover the truth.
COLLINS: It's a pretty conspiratorial book promotion.
JORDAN: But it got eyeballs. And she's a Trump and it's great marketing. They keep on her calling her the sphinx. What is that face she's making? Is she angry? And then what does she think? Every marriage is different. Theirs is just more different than we've ever seen.
COLLINS (voice-over): Coming up, lessons from Melania's last time as first lady.
M. TRUMP: I wish people would focus on what I do, not what I wear.
COLLINS: And later, what life as the first gentleman could look like for Doug Emhoff.
BENNETT: Whether or not man or woman, Doug Emhoff has the personality to really make something of the role.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Can you picture yourself the first lady?
M. TRUMP: Yes. I would be very traditional, like Jackie Kennedy. I will support him. I will do a lot of social obligations.
COLLINS: That was then 29-year-old model Melania Knavs in a 1989 ABC interview. She had just started dating real estate developer and reality TV star Donald Trump as he flirted with the idea of running for president under the Reform Party ticket.
TRUMP: You'd have a lot less gridlock in Washington if I decided to do this and if I want.
COLLINS: On January 22nd, 2005, Melania Knavs became the third Mrs. Donald Trump in an opulent wedding ceremony and star-studded party at Mar-a-Lago, where the guest included Bill and Hillary Clinton. That next year, Melania gave birth to Barron Trump in March 2006.
JORDAN: He's everything to her. They are little cocoon. They're inseparable, very close.
VAUSE: Here are the Trumps with 4-year-old Barron at Trump Tower in 2010, on CNN's "LARRY KING LIVE."
BARRON TRUMP, MELANIA TRUMP'S SON: I have to go to school now?
M. TRUMP: Yes. We will have lunch and then you go to school.
B. TRUMP: Now I'm going to go?
M. TRUMP: Yes. First you will have lunch and then you go to school.
TRUMP: And you can do reading, writing, and arithmetic.
LARRY KING, FORMER TV HOST: He has an accent.
M. TRUMP: He does. He spends most of the time with me so.
COLLINS: Barron Trump, he was always a figure in the Trump White House. He was their child who live there. He's now 18 years old. He's going to school in New York.
BENNETT: If she becomes first lady again, it's going to be interesting because having a child in the White House won't be a factor. That might be a situation where she shows up for important events, state dinner, these trad roles rolls that's sort of the things that first lady is expected to do. But Washington might not be where she wants to be for another four years.
COLLINS (voice-over): Paintings of the first ladies are on full display at the Opaline Bar where they even have a special first lady's cocktail menu. That's where I met with author of "Free Melania," Kate Bennett.
When you were writing your book, you went to her hometown in Slovenia. What did you take away from how Slovenia shaped the Melania Trump that she is today?
BENNETT: The small country that's sort of been influenced or led by communism. The Slovenian people therefore are pretty stoic. They've been through a lot and I think that really reflected in Melania's character in growing up. She's not American. She is formal in her mannerisms.
JORDAN: In her hometown, the little town in the former Yugoslavia where the mother would go to work in the early morning shift at the clothes factory. They used to call her Mother Jackie Kennedy. She was so good looking, so well-dressed, she wore high heels across the bridge. She walked to the factory and she worked all day there. And then she came home and took care of the kids.
M. TRUMP: I'm from Slovenia, and I grew up there as a teenager, and I left it 15 years ago.
KING: To come?
M. TRUMP: Went to Milan and then Paris. And then I went to New York. I came to New York 10 years ago.
KING: You want to be a model?
M. TRUMP: Yes, I was modeling.
BENNETT: Then she got work as a catalog model, a fit model, she did a billboard for cigarettes.
JORDAN: She is the first first lady to have ever posed nude.
COLLINS: Melania talks about those pictures in clips promoting her new memoir.
M. TRUMP: Why do I stand proudly behind my nude modeling work? The more pressing question is, why has the media chosen to scrutinize my celebration of the human form in a fashion photo shoot?
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COLLINS: But Melania wasn't the only former model in the Trump family. There's also Ivanka Trump, who is 11 years younger than Melania, and is Donald's daughter from his first marriage to Ivana Trump, also a model in her own right.
JORDAN: Melania called Ivanka the princess, and Ivanka called Melania the portrait. The portrait was because she didn't speak. She was as interesting as the painting on the wall.
COLLINS: Wow.
JORDAN: And then I think people mistake her silence for she's not that smart. She's quite savvy. This is a woman who came to this country in 1996, 26-year-old model. That's old, sadly, to try to still be making it as a model. And she ended up in the White House.
COLLINS (voice-over): Once inside the White House, Melania kept her parents close, moving them into the third floor of the White House residence.
JORDAN: You know, it's kind of funny when they were in the White House, she was very close to her mother, her father, and Barron, and they would be up in the private port of the White House, all speaking Slovenian. And I heard that Donald would walk by and just -- it made him crazy because he had no idea what they were talking about.
COLLINS: Her mother passed away recently. What was the impact like that been on her, do you think?
JORDAN: Single most important person to Melania is her mother.
M. TRUMP: She was my dear friend, an irreplaceable treasure, a gift bestowed on me by the universe. And for that, I'm entirely grateful.
COLLINS (voice-over): It was Melania's mother who helped her through some of her toughest moments, Jordan says, particularly the alleged cases of a sexual encounter with a porn star Stormy Daniels and the 10-month long extramarital affair with Playboy model Karen McDougal. Both liaisons happened while Melania was home caring for newborn baby Barron, according to court testimony.
Donald Trump has continued to deny both affairs.
JORDAN: Her mother, who was quite religious, she was very traditional and she believed in the vow of marriage and it's my understanding that her mother was saying, you know, he's not a lot for you. Look at this, you have house in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. You have Bedminster, you have Trump Tower. You have a jet plane. So it was a huge, huge blow when she lost her.
COLLINS: Coming up, the first lady's turbulent time in the White House.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Breaking news, Melania Trump making a surprise visit to children at the border. But did she hurt the message he was trying to send with an unfortunate wardrobe choice?
BENNETT: "I really don't care, do you" jacket.
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M. TRUMP: I'm very excited to announce Be Best, an awareness campaign dedicated to the most valuable and fragile among us, our children. The three main pillars of Be Best will include well-being, social media use, and opioid abuse.
JORDAN: The good thing is that she was trying to do, but it was very hard to explain what Be Best was.
BROWER: She did an anti-cyberbullying campaign.
M. TRUMP: I'm honored to open this important summit on cyberbullying prevention.
JORDAN: That became kind of a laughing point because her husband was bullying people online, and here his wife saying it's terrible, this cyberbullying.
BROWER: There was no concrete benchmarks, there was no actual results.
BENNETT: The thing she was really good at were the things she really reveled in. She loved restoring items in the White House with the White House Historical Association? She loved the holiday decor. Her tenure as first lady was unusual in a lot of ways. She had about seven to 10-person staff in the East Wing.
MCBRIDE: She did have a very small staff. The average modern times has been around 25, 26, positions.
BROWER: She had half the number of people working in the East Wing than Michelle Obama did.
BENNETT: Literally I'm her first line of defense.
STEPHANIE GRISHAM, FORMER WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY TO MELANIA TRUMP: Literally right next door to her always. Whether she likes it or not.
COLLINS: In 2019 CNN got a rare glimpse of the first lady's office in the East Wing with Melania's then press secretary, Stephanie Grisham.
GRISHAM: I think that while she is the first lady of the United States, her privacy is important. I've learned from her that we don't have to tell everybody everything. We just don't, and it worked out fine. This is the chief of staff's office. And then advance and operations, and back here is calligraphy. They're very, very busy, especially during state dinners.
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JORDAN: She does love a lot about being first lady. She thinks it's an honor. She knows she's one of the handful of people who go down in history books. She's the only one who grew up speaking another language. And she's really proud of that. She likes a lot of the job. She likes meeting foreign leaders.
COLLINS: Foreign leaders like French President Emmanuel Macron and First Lady Brigitte Macron. Their state visit in April 2018 came just a few months after the Stormy Daniels hush money payments and the Karen McDougal catch-and-kill stories, both came to light.
BENNETT: She had sort of disappeared for a while. She kind of re- emerged at the state visit. And the first thing we saw her in was this big brimmed white hat. COLLINS: As the first lady said very little publicly, speculation
swirled around the intention behind her outfits. Did the large brimmed hat allow her to keep her distance? Was the pink placebo blouse at the 2016 debate a message in the wake of the "Access Hollywood" scandal? And what about that white Pantsuit at the 2018 State of the Union address?
BENNETT: I think if you were to ask her, did you mean to wear a white suit as some sort of sign that you're trying to signal to Democrats that you're, you know, secretly with them. She'd say, no, I just wore white suit. But she knows exactly what she was doing. She realized what she wore could draw attention. She used that very strategically, sometimes to her detriment. We can think about the Africa trip was out of a magazine.
COLLINS: When she went to her first solo trip to Africa and she was criticized for wearing the hat.
KATIE ROGERS, NEW YORK TIMES WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Right. I had written a story about how she had worn a pith helmet on a Safari in Kenya and it is a symbol of British colonial rule. It represents some really dark ideas, and she didn't like that line of coverage. And she met us in front of the Great Sphinx.
M. TRUMP: I wish people would focus on what I do. Not what I wear.
ROGERS: But then she walked away from us and started posing against the backdrop of the pyramid and it was literally a fashion show, photo shoot.
COLLINS (voice-over): But what may have been seen as bold fashion statements before led to legendary backlash in June 2018.
ANA CABRERA, FORMER CNN ANCHOR: First lady appearing to express disapproval of her husband's zero tolerance policy that has led to children being ripped from their mothers' arms at the U.S. border.
ABBY PHILLIP, CNN ANCHOR: The first lady, Melania Trump, has been urging her husband to end this practice.
COLLINS: Less than 72 hours after she made a rare public statement where she weighed in on immigration, the president signed an executive order halting his own policy. The next day --
DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: The first lady coming to him and saying, you got to do something helped spur the 180 that he made.
BLITZER: We're following breaking news, the first lady of the United States, Melania Trump, today she made an unannounced visit to one of the detention centers in Texas along the border with Mexico, where she's been meeting with children.
M. TRUMP: And then also like to ask you how I can help to these children to reunite with their families as quickly as possible. COLLINS: What could have been a shining moment showcasing a
compassionate first lady and a tempering force in her husband's administration quickly turned into what may have been her worst.
TAPPER: Melania Trump making a surprise visit to children at the border. But did she hurt the message she was trying to send with an unfortunate wardrobe choice.
BENNETT: A lot of Melania Trump's wounds were self-inflicted, like the jacket. "I really don't care, do you" jacket.
BROWER: This is a big moment for her and the headlines are all about the jacket. These images were being seen around the world and again, I think it's a sign that nobody was there to really protect her or that she wasn't going to listen to the very small group of people that she had around her. I think it says a lot about how Ill-prepared she was for the role.
COLLINS: She got back from that trip. She went straight to the Oval Office which obviously normally she would go into the East Wing. She walked straight into the Oval and it wasn't long after that Trump himself posted, defending her trip, but also her clothing option.
BENNETT: She said it was a message to the media. To this day I think the thing is a mystery.
GRISHAM: The jacket took on a bit of a life of its own.
COLLINS: Melania's closest aide, Stephanie Grisham, in 2019.
GRISHAM: I would find it laughable me giving her clothing advice. We all give her the best advice that we can all the time. And then she's going to do, you know, what she feels is best.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Please welcome, Stephanie Grisham.
COLLINS: By 2024, Melania's chief of staff, a self-proclaimed former Trump true believer, described her breaking point with the first lady.
GRISHAM: On January 6th I asked Melania if we could at least tweet that while peace protest is the right of every American, there's no place for lawlessness or violence. She replied with one word, no. I became the first senior staffer to resign that day.
BENNETT: I remember that day really well because I was at the White House. Later we would realize what she was doing was having a rug photographed. A rug that she had redesigned for the diplomatic room. That's what she did on January 6th.
COLLINS: That morning as --
BENNETT: That day.
COLLINS: Her husband was delivering the speech in the Ellipse and as rioters were attacking the Capitol.
BENNETT: She was doing a photoshoot. And I think at that point people could really understand who Melania Trump was. Much more aligned with her husband's politics than people thought.
COLLINS (voice-over): In a July 2022 statement responding to reports of her photoshoot on January 6th, Melania Trump writes, "Had I been fully informed of all the details, naturally I would have immediately denounced the violence that occurred at the Capitol building.
Coming up, Doug Emhoff, potentially the first man to ever serve in the role of first spouse.
DOUG EMHOFF, FIRST SECOND GENTLEMAN: Thank you. Thank you so much. Hello.
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D. EMHOFF: This is the official vice president's residence. Walter Mondale was the first vice president to live here.
COLLINS: In the fall of 2022, the country's first ever second gentleman, Doug Emhoff, gave CNN's Dana Bash an inside look at the vice president's home at the United States Naval Observatory.
BASH: This is a first.
D. EMHOFF: This is a mezuzah and this is on many Jewish homes, and it's the first mezuzah ever on the vice president's residence or the White House.
I'm only the first second gentleman because the country elected the first woman vice president. I'm here because I'm her husband. I'm here to support her.
KAMALA HARRIS (D), VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I could not be more proud to represent my beautiful state.
COLLINS: From standing by his wife's side after her California Senate win in 2016.
HARRIS: I'm Kamala Devi Harris, solemnly swear.
COLLINS: To holding the bible as she was sworn in as vice president.
HARRIS: The duties of the office upon which I am about to enter.
JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR, U.S. SUPREME COURT: So help me, God.
HARRIS: So help me, God.
COLLINS: There's never been any doubt about Doug Emhoff's unwavering support for his wife's career.
D. EMHOFF: Kamala Harris can smell weakness.
COLLINS: He's been racking up miles on the campaign trail, traveling from state to state, speaking as an effective surrogate for his wife.
D. EMHOFF: And she knows the best way to take a coward on is head-on.
COLLINS: Shaking hands at rallies and fundraising across the country.
D. EMHOFF: This country needed a leader to step into the void, step into the breach, and she did that.
COLLINS: From podcast to social media to even late-night and daytime talk shows, Doug Emhoff is seemingly everywhere.
ELLA EMHOFF, DOUG EMHOFF'S DAUGHTER: I mean, you're kind of a natural at it, though.
D. EMHOFF: Really?
E. EMHOFF: Yes.
D. EMHOFF: Hello.
COLLINS: But for many Americans the first that they may have actually heard from him was on this night.
D. EMHOFF: Hello to my big, beautiful, blended family up there.
COLLINS: As a primetime headliner on night two of the 2024 Democratic National Convention.
D. EMHOFF: She makes a mean brisket for Passover. It brings me right back to my grandmother's apartment in Brooklyn. You know, the one with a plastic cover couches.
COLLINS: Doug Emhoff spoke at the convention about his Fantasy Football League and supporting Harris, and, you know, has been much more of that kind of joyful warrior on the campaign trail.
MCBRIDE: Absolutely. He has embraced it, giving primetime speeches for a presidential spouse is a fairly new phenomenon. Barbara Bush was first primetime keynote speech and it's been (INAUDIBLE) since. But he talked about how we met his wife, what she's like as a family person, which is exactly what the role of a spouse is. To humanize them, tell us what they're like behind the scenes.
RON KLAIN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: The remarks he gave at the convention were very powerful. Hs enthusiasm, his energy is infectious. Rallies crowds.
COLLINS: Ron Klain has a deep history in Washington, most recently serving as Joe Biden's chief of staff.
KLAIN: He's not a public figure by nature. He's kind of a quiet, reserved person. He's fun but about someone who was out seeking the limelight. BENNETT: Doug Emhoff, I always call them the happiest man in
Washington. You know, he went from sort of being this corporate lawyer in Hollywood to being the guy who gets to throw out the first pitch of the baseball games or travel to the Olympics.
[20:45:07]
D. EMHOFF: I'm just as a kid from Central Jersey, who was playing literally, and here I am representing the United States.
COLLINS: Doug Emhoff was born October 13th, 1964 in Brooklyn, New York, just seven days before his future wife, Kamala Harris, was born across the country in her home state of California.
D. EMHOFF: It took us 40-some odd years to finally meet. But here we are. I grew up in the suburbs of Jersey, gone to grandma's house in Brooklyn for the holidays. It's my mom's electric menorah, it's my three-piece Valore brown bar mitzvah suit. So it's all those cultural experiences, you know, going to junior summer camp. And I was athlete of the year at a Jewish summer camp.
COLLINS: When he was in high school, his family moved to Los Angeles where he worked his way through school including a job at McDonald's where he became employee of the month in 1981 as immortalized in this photo he shared on social media. After graduating from college and law school, Emhoff became a successful attorney.
ROGERS: He was a corporate lawyer in California. He made upwards of $1.2 million a year in entertainment law. He was good at it.
KLAIN: To members of the bar in California, he was very well known. Very well regarded. He's one of the of the leaders in a bar in Los Angeles.
COLLINS: And one day as Doug Emhoff showed around a new legal client. he found himself being set up on a blind date as the couple later explained, in a 2021 CNN interview.
HARRIS: My best friend set me up on a blind date.
D. EMHOFF: I met her friend for an hour in a business meeting. And by the end of the hour, it was like, you seem pretty cool, I might want to set you up with somebody. The, you know, Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris, the attorney general? We had a little back-and-forth old school texting and early.
HARRIS: And then you -- yes, you called me that morning. The next morning.
D. EMHOFF: So the next I violated every rule of dating, I believe. The next morning I'm going to an early meeting. I'm talking like 7:30, 8:00 a.m. I'm in the car, like don't do it, don't do it. I did it, leave this long rambling voicemail. Ended the call and I thought I'd never heard from her. But then.
HARRIS: I said, well, let me -- I'll call him back. And we ended up talking for like 45 minutes to an hour and just laughing the whole time.
D. EMHOFF: Laugh the whole time.
HARRIS: Just laugh the whole time.
D. EMHOFF: I pulled the move of e-mailing her with my availabilities for the next four months including long weekends. And I said something like, I'm too old, I had a ball, you're great. I want to see if we can make this work. Here's when I'm available next and I guess it worked.
COLLINS: Doug had been married once before and shares two children with his ex-wife, Kyrsten, his son Cole and his daughter Ella. His first marriage not without controversy.
Doug Emhoff did have to release a statement in August about his first marriage, and why it ended after allegations had surfaced in the media.
ROGERS: He had essentially been responding to reports that he had engaged in an extramarital affair during his first marriage, and he did something that is kind of rare these days, which is take accountability for his part and why his marriage ended and the bad decision making that had led to it.
COLLINS (voice-over): These days, Doug's first wife Kyrsten is one of Harris's biggest supporters.
SUNLEN SERFATY, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And Kyrsten Emhoff has been a defender of Harris in the past with numerous posts on social media about her campaign.
COLLINS: His first wife endorsed her, which I think anyone who has an ex-wife might be shocked, you know.
ROGERS: That's the hardest endorsement to get, I would venture to say. His first wife actually produced the video introducing him at the convention.
COLE EMHOFF, DOUG EMHOFF'S SON: This is my dad, Doug.
ROGERS: The one narrated by his son Cole.
C. EMHOFF: And then he met Kamala. The blind date that would dramatically change all of our lives forever. In 2014, Kamala became Mamala.
D. EMHOFF: There is a mom, Kyrsten, and then there's a Mamala, Kamala, and it just -- it evolved out of love and out of like we just want our own way to say mom.
COLLINS (voice-over): And they too have been active on the campaign trail.
BROWER: There is something really powerful for people to see because again being first lady, being second gentleman, whatever the role is, it's a reflection of Americans as they want to see themselves. And they are reflecting I think the idea that there are so many divorced people, so many kids growing up with step-parents, and they're making the best of it. And people want to see that.
[20:50:08]
COLLINS: Coming up, what Doug Emhoff's time as second gentleman may tell us about how he would handle the role of first spouse.
D. EMHOFF: The second gentleman. and I don't view it as being political. I really view this as being the second gentleman for all Americans.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Please join me in welcoming the second gentleman, Doug Emhoff.
D. EMHOFF: In this moment I'm here as a fellow congregant. A fellow mourner. And as a Jew, who feels connected to all of you, and --
[20:55:04]
TIM NAFTALI, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: The second gentleman of the United States, Doug Emhoff, choked up while speaking at a vigil for the six hostages found dead in Gaza.
COLLINS: Long before October 7th, 2023 became the deadliest day for Jews since the holocaust, Doug Emhoff had been combating antisemitism in the U.S.
D. EMHOFF: I was there at Auschwitz last year. It's informed the work that I have done with the administration on fighting antisemitism. People need to understand is hate is connected. We all need to push back together against it.
NAFTALI: Being the first spouse is a remarkable opportunity to do good. It's an opportunity to make the United States and to some extent, the world of a better place.
COLLINS: As second spouse, Doug Emhoff has championed other causes, too, from mental health access.
D. EMHOFF: It's OK to talk about it. It's OK to just confide in somebody and not feel shame.
COLLINS: To reproductive rights and gender equity.
D. EMHOFF: Men need to be allies. This is not, these are not women's issues. So I started talking about childcare. I started talking about family leave. I started talking about pay equity.
COLLINS: In 2020 after his wife won the vice presidency, he paused his successful legal career, but still carved out time to teach law at Georgetown.
D. EMHOFF: I hate bullies. I hate unfairness. I hate injustice and being imbued with that concept of justice. It drove me to be a lawyer.
COLLINS: That sense of justice was challenged when the Republican governor of Texas sent buses of migrants to the vice president's home in 2022 and 2023.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Busloads of migrants arrived outside Kamala Harris's Washington home in below freezing temperatures on Christmas Eve.
D. EMHOFF: It's shameful. It's shameful. These are human beings. These are people, not pawns.
Kamala Harris and her vision for the future. It's a future where everyone has a place.
CATHERINE RAMPELL, WASHINGTON POST OPINION COLUMNIST: Doug Emhoff, the second gentleman, represents sort of a modern version of masculinity. He exemplifies what it means to be a man in the 21st century particularly as women have gained additional achievements in the workforce and elsewhere.
COLLINS: On the world stage, Emhoff has represented the U.S. in places like the Philippines, South Korea, the Paralympics in Tokyo, and the Paris Olympics.
JORDAN: So many countries have had women elected to the top office, but not the United States of America. And Maggie Thatcher, you know, had Dennis behind her. So far, if you look at what he's done because she's been vice president in his four years, he's had time, he's been a surrogate. He's out there. He's raising money, he's given speeches. You know, where Melania doesn't give speeches, he will be more like what we've seen. Just a guy.
COLLINS: There's the video of Doug Emhoff from the State of the Union where they're still waiting on President Biden to walk in.
TAPPER: There we see the second the gentleman Doug Emhoff during his wave at his wife. And she seems to be smiling at her goofy husband.
COLLINS: Harris is standing up there and she looks up, and he is in the gallery and he kind of does this dorky wave to her.
ROGERS: He's along for the ride. He's happy to be there, you know. That's what I would say. It's like Doug Emhoff, happy to be here.
D. EMHOFF: Where's my jersey?
COLLINS: Why is he having so much about in Washington? It doesn't seem like other political spouses they see. I mean, it seems like they're being dragged to events. He seems he's like bouncing to events.
ROGERS: Yes. I think some of it's, you know, he gets a little bit of a pass because he's a novelty, I think. And I think also he has the benefit of being a second spouse, like, can you recall anything Karen Pence did as second spouse?
D. EMHOFF: Kamala Harris has the character and expertise that we need in a president. She's about moving us forward.
BENNETT: I think whether or not man or woman, Doug Emhoff has the personality to really make something of the role. He is a lawyer by trade. So I'm sure there will be maybe a more robust staff in the East Wing.
JAMAL SIMMONS, FORMER COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, VP KAMALA HARRIS: America will get its first first gentleman, Doug Emhoff, I think is fantastically prepared to do that role. He's really a guy's guy. He like sports. He likes to hang out with his friends, but he's been very supportive of his wife.
KLAIN: As first spouse, I think Doug will do the duties of the job. He will take care of the White House. He will make sure its properly decorated for various seasons.
SIMMONS: Regardless of the politics, the image of the two of them together is something that will change the way Americans think about how families work together, how men support their wives.
COLLINS (voice-over): And that left me wondering if Doug Emhoff does move into the East Wing what becomes of the Smithsonian's first lady's exhibit?
What happens if we have a first spouse, Doug Emhoff?
DR. ANTHEA M. HARTIG, DIRECTOR, SMITHSONIAN'S NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY: This is a history-making election, right, regardless of the outcome. But I think we'll be ready. We'll be ready to bring in our first tuxedo.
