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Who's Talking to Chris Wallace
Defense Bill Passes Despite Clashes Within GOP; GOP Candidates Gear Up For First Debate, Frontrunner Trump Threatens To Skip; Goldie Hawn Opens Up To Chris Wallace. Aired 10-11p ET
Aired July 14, 2023 - 22:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[22:00:00]
CHRIS WALLACE, CNN HOST: Tonight, the Republican presidential race is shaping up. Donald Trump is out to a big lead and a growing list of opponents is out to stop him. We're turning to Republican Party Chair Ronna McDaniel who's got a tough job, keep the GOP united despite the controversial frontrunner.
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WALLACE: Do have any problem with the Republican Party nominating somebody who's under federal indictment.
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WALLACE: We'll ask her about Trump threatening to skip the first GOP debate.
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DONALD TRUMP, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: Why would I let these people take shots at me?
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WALLACE: And the message she thinks will beat Joe Biden in 2024.
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RONNA MCDANIEL, CHAIR, RNC: Don't you think maybe he should skip a vacation once in a while and say, how do I ride this ship? Maybe don't go to the beach, Joe.
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WALLACE: And later --
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GOLDIE HAWN, ACTRESS: You think just because I'm a movie star, I don't have feelings.
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WALLACE: -- comedy icon Goldie Hawn on making her own rules in both her professional and personal life, including --
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HAWN: I'm happy to share this with you. It is a brain break.
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WALLACE: Her role of a lifetime, helping children with their mental health.
Good evening and welcome back to Who's Talking. Tonight, we start with the divide inside the Republican Party. On Capitol Hill, hard right members clash with moderates over a massive defense bill. Well, on the campaign trail, the GOP presidential candidates are fighting for a place on the debate stage next month, as frontrunner President Donald Trump continues to hedge and whether he'll show up.
Tonight, we're getting answers from the woman in charge, RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel.
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WALLACE: Let's start with the big subject right now, and that's the Republican presidential debates with the first one now just a little bit more than a month away. You have made it clear if you want to be on the debate stage, you want to participate, you've got to sign a pledge to support the eventual nominee. And it's not just Donald Trump who's given you trouble on that. Take a look.
CHRIS CHRISTIE, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's only the era of Donald Trump that you need somebody to sign something on a pledge. So, I think it's a bad idea.
WILL HURD, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I won't be signing any kind of pledges and I don't think that parties should be trying to rig who should be on a debate stage.
ASA HUTCHINSON, REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I don't think the pledge is good. I don't think it's the right thing for the party. I think it's meaningless at this point.
WALLACE: Are you standing firm on this? If you want to participate in the Republican presidential debates, you have to sign this loyalty pledge?
MCDANIEL: It's the Beat Biden pledge. And what we're saying, and the debate committee has met for over two years, people from Alaska to Illinois to Tennessee, is if you're going to stand on the Republican National Committee debate stage, you're going to make sure that our number one priority is beating Joe Biden. So, if you don't want to support the Republican nominee, go run as an independent, go run for a different party. But this is the Republican Party nomination and you should be able to support the nominee and beat Biden. WALLACE: Are you saying even Donald Trump?
MCDANIEL: Everybody has to sign the Beat Biden pledge, everybody. It's across the board. The rules aren't changing. We've been very vocal with them.
WALLACE: What about somebody like Governor Chris Christie, who says, I'll sign it and I'll take it as seriously as Donald Trump did in 2016?
MCDANIEL: It's not just the pledge. It's not just a piece of paper. Intense is going to be part of it too. And I think the debate committees, we're going to continue to meet before we get on that debate stage and they don't want somebody saying, well, I'm blatantly lying. You have to be willing to say, I'm going to support the eventual nominee of the Republican Party, whomever the voters choose.
WALLACE: Now, former President Trump has given another reason why he might skip at least the early debates. Hear that is.
TRUMP: I like to debate. I mean, I probably am here because of debates. I don't mind it at all. But when you're 40 points up, why would I allow people at 1 and 2 percent and 0 percent to be hitting me with questions all night? You know, I don't think it's fair.
WALLACE: If the frontrunner, who at this point is far ahead of the rest of the field, decides to skip the debates, isn't that going to really cut into the credibility and the importance of these debates?
MCDANIEL: I think these debates are critical. I hope he joins the debate stage. I think the voters deserve to hear from anybody running for president. I think he'll be on the debate stage. I know his consultants, some of them are saying, just skip it. I think any time we can get in front of the American people is good for our party and --
WALLACE: And what if he skips it?
MCDANIEL: Then he skips it. That's his choice. I mean, nobody's mandated to be on a debate stage. He skipped it before. I think he should be on the debate stage.
WALLACE: Mr. Trump faces federal charges for mishandling top secret, classified documents and refusing to give them back to the government. And there's even a tape of him showing them, certainly seeming to show them, to people without security clearances.
TRUMP: Wait a minute. Let's see. I just found, isn't that amazing? This totally wins my case, you know, except it is highly confidential, secret.
These are the papers. This was done by the military, given to me. I think we can probably, right?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I don't know. We'll have to see. Yes, we'll have to try to figure out a -- TRUMP: Declassify it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.
TRUMP: See, as president, I could have declassified it. Now, I can't.
WALLACE: Does that take trouble you?
MCDANIEL: What troubles me is the double standard in justice. I think he deserves the presumption of innocence. He has not made his case. I think we need to wait. But I do think as soon as Trump does something, it's automatically he's guilty. If Biden does it, it's automatically he's innocent in our media world.
WALLACE: There are big differences between the two cases.
MCDANIEL: So, let's take away Clinton.
WALLACE: Without getting into the whataboutism game and --
MCDANIEL: But that is the game. That is the game.
WALLACE: Well, it isn't necessarily the game. I mean, I'm really asking you just on that tape, he's talking about a tape, he's saying, I could have declassified this as president. Now, I can't. He's showing it to people without a security clearance. I'm not asking you whether he's --
MCDANIEL: Well, I'm not in that room. I think he deserves to be able to present his case. And we deserve the presumption of innocence. But Hillary Clinton was found with 22 top secret documents. Donald Trump was found apparently or allegedly with 17. Why is there one standard justice for her and different for him?
WALLACE: Let me ask you a question. Do you have any problem with the Republican Party nominating somebody who's under federal indictment?
MCDANIEL: I think the presumption of innocence stands. And I think there's a lot of Republicans who are very troubled.
At the end of the day, Chris, though, it's not up to me. It's up to the voters. They're going to make their decision. They're going to hear this. And they're going to decide if this is an issue for them come November or come the primary process. I'm not seeing this in the polling right now creating an issue.
WALLACE: I want to play something that you said on November 10th, 2020, which is one week after the election, when news outlets had all projected Joe Biden was the winner of the 2020 election.
MCDANIEL: Okay.
WALLACE: Here you are.
MCDANIEL: It's been rigged from the beginning, rigged from the laws that were being passed in the name of COVID to create a poorer selection, rigged in the sense that they kicked Republicans out of poll watching and observing. Why do you do that if you have nothing to hide?
WALLACE: When did you stop being an election denier?
MCDANIEL: I think saying there were problems with 2020 is very real. I don't think that's election denying.
I mean, Chris, I'm from Wayne County. We had a woman send a note saying, I'm being told to backdate ballots. We had to look into that. That's deeply concerning. When you have friends who are poll watching and being kicked out, that's deeply concerning. We have every right to look at that.
And I think everybody should have a little more concern about, listen, look at --
WALLACE: Wait a minute. Are you saying as the chair of the Republican Party, that you still have questions as to whether or not Joe Biden was the duly elected president in 2020?
MCDANIEL: Joe Biden is the president.
WALLACE: No, I didn't ask you whether he's the president.
MCDANIEL: No, I don't think that -- I think there were lots of problems.
WALLACE: Do you think he won the election?
MCDANIEL: I think there were lots of problems with 2020.
WALLACE: Do you think he won the --
MCDANIEL: Ultimately, he won the election.
WALLACE: Pardon?
MCDANIEL: Ultimately, he won the election, but there were lots of problems with the 2020 election, 100 percent.
WALLACE: And that's fair.
MCDANIEL: But I don't think he won it fair. I don't. I'm not going to say that. I think when you look at -- let's look at the Hunter Biden laptop. 51 people in the intelligence agency signed a letter saying it was Russian disinformation. That's what the public disseminated was being told. That's not true. That's a lie.
WALLACE: So, you're suggesting that he may not be the legitimate elected president?
MCDANIEL: I'm saying the American people were not given the information they deserve before that election.
WALLACE: A few weeks after the 2020 election, it was just before December 14th when the formal certification would happen, the president and his lawyer called you to talk about organizing fake electors, electors and states that Biden won who might -- who would vote for Donald Trump, if it were to get to that point in the Congress on January 6th.
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This is the subject now of a criminal investigation, the fake electors.
Have you been asked to speak to either to --
MCDANIEL: I'm not talking about anything like that. As you know --
WALLACE: Have you been asked -- let me ask you the question. You can then -- have you been asked to speak -- have you spoken to either the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, or to his grand jury?
MCDANIEL: I'm not talking about anything having to do with that investigation.
WALLACE: So, you're not denying?
MCDANIEL: I'm not saying anything. I talked to the January 6th committee. I'll say that. You know that.
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WALLACE: Still to come, McDaniel's strategy to win back the White House, and it may not make Donald Trump happy.
Plus, I press her on hot button issues dividing Republicans, including what limits to set on abortions.
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MCDANIEL: I think nine months abortions are out of step.
WALLACE: And six weeks is out of step?
MCDANIEL: I think that's different.
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[22:15:00]
WALLACE: It's Politics 101. The way to win elections is get swing voters on your side. But former President Trump was asked recently how he plans to turn around independents who don't like Joe Biden who are being hurt by inflation but won't vote for Trump.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you say to that female independent suburban voter who feels that way, to win her back?
TRUMP: First of all, I won in 2020 by a lot, okay? Let's get that straight. I won in 2020.
WALLACE: Is that a winning play in 2024? Your first answer is let's re-litigate 2020?
MCDANIEL: Well, I didn't hear the rest of his answer.
WALLACE: That was this first dance.
MCDANIEL: I do think for suburban women, there's huge issues. I'm one of them, right? I mean, when you see right now, Chris, eighth graders and fourth graders, two-thirds of them are not reading proficient or math proficient, two-thirds, think about that. I know this. And the states that were shut down, like my state of Michigan, where my kids were pandemic kids, they were not in school for two years. Our kids are suffering.
There's a mental health crisis. We had 101,000 people die of fentanyl in 2021. A lot of them are kids. It's coming across our border. I think there's a lot of movement that we can see with suburban women just talking commonsense and certainly being pro-child and pro- education.
WALLACE: Those are all really good issues. Donald Trump didn't say any of that.
MCDANIEL: Well, I didn't hear the rest of his answer.
WALLACE: But forget that answer. Do you really think that's what the Republican Party needs to be --
MCDANIEL: I think the voters right now are hurting. They want to talk about the issues that they're seeing. They're making what --
WALLACE: Not 2020?
MCDANIEL: I think they want to talk about the issues that they're seeing right now. I know this. I see this every day. How much are we being hurt by inflation, the average family? What did they say? The middle class just lost $2 trillion. The average family has lost $10,000 under President Biden. They're paying $2,000 more just in energy costs. Go to the grocery store. I don't know if Joe Biden has gone to the grocery store because he spent 40 percent of his presidency on vacation. But go buy eggs. Go buy milk. It's hurting a lot of people right now.
WALLACE: Let me just say, first of all, as somebody who covered Ronald Reagan for six years in the White House, no president is ever on vacation. The job travels with them. And if we want to do rounds of golf, I think Donald Trump hasn't been --
MCDANIEL: Well, let me ask you this, Chris. Don't you think maybe he should skip a vacation once in a while and say, how do I ride this ship? He's not. Maybe don't go to the beach, Joe. Maybe look at the books.
WALLACE: I think that would have been a much better answer for Donald Trump than to say, I won in 2020.
President Biden has decided to lean into what was originally a Republican attack line, Bidenomics, and to say he owns it.
MCDANIEL: He does own it.
WALLACE: Is that a mistake?
MCDANIEL: It's a huge mistake. But, I mean, let's just talk about the average family. As I said, the average family's made $10,000 less since Biden has taken office. It's less than three years, $2,000 more in energy costs. Inflation is way up. 74 percent of the country thinks we're not going in the right direction. Joe Biden is destroying our economy. And you know who's hurting? The middle class. They're hurting.
And he doesn't get to say to us, you know what, your life is okay and you're fine and don't worry about it. I'm doing a great job, because we feel it.
WALLACE: But the White House says that the economy has added 13 million jobs since he became president. Inflation fell for 11 months in a row. And even the flood of people crossing the border has diminished significantly. Don't they have a story to sell?
MCDANIEL: So, let's just talk about 13 million jobs. What a dishonest number, because the entire country was jobless during the pandemic. So, to take that benchmark and say you've created jobs, when we all had to shut down our businesses and leave our jobs during the pandemic, is a ridiculous benchmark. So, it's dishonest.
WALLACE: Republicans have their own problems on the issues. In the CNN 2022 midterm exit polls, 60 percent of voters said abortion should be legal. And most or all cases compared to 37 percent who said it should be illegal in most or all cases. You say Republicans have to talk about the Dobbs decision, overturning Roe v. Wade in strong and clear terms. But if you believe the polls, and they've been pretty consistent on this, politically, you're on the wrong side of the issue.
MCDANIEL: I disagree. I think when you talk to voters and we poll them, most voters want commonsense limitations. They disagree with the Democrats' extreme positions on abortion at nine months, eight months, laws that are in place in states like California and New York.
WALLACE: Well, all right. Let me ask you, is a six-week abortion ban a commonsense solution?
MCDANIEL: It's going to be different state by state, and it's going to be up to the voters of that state. But I think a commonsense consensus place that a lot of us can land wherever you are on the issue that we're seeing in our polling is 15 weeks. And when you know a baby feels pain, that there should be protection of the unborn beyond that. And Democrats won't come there. Ask a Democrat, where is your line.
[22:20:00]
What does an abortion you are against, nine-month, eight-month, seven- month? I think nine-month abortions are out of step, a due date abortion.
WALLACE: And six weeks is out of step?
MCDANIEL: I think that's different. That's what the voters in Florida wanted.
WALLACE: Well, that's what the voters in New York wanted.
MCDANIEL: That's fine. But I'd say the majority of Americans think that that's extreme.
WALLACE: There are other social issues. I want to play a video that has been run by the DeSantis campaign that hits Donald Trump for being too soft on LGBTQ issues.
MCDANIEL: Okay.
WALLACE: Here it is.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I cannot think of anything more horrifying.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It really has shut down drag.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Just produced some of the harshest, most draconian laws that literally threaten trans existence.
WALLACE: What do you think of that?
MCDANIEL: Guess what? I'm not going to comment. This is the campaign. The RNC has to stay neutral. And this is going to be up to the candidates to put forward their messaging. And it's going to be up to the voters.
WALLACE: Are you comfortable when you're trying to get those suburban voters you talk about with a video like that?
MCDANIEL: This is going to be up to the campaigns and the voters. And the RNC has to stay neutral on this. I don't get to comment on everybody's campaign and their strategies. This is going to be up to the voters as they make their play to win these elections.
WALLACE: Finally, let's talk about your record at the RNC. Since you became chair in 2017, Republicans have lost a net of seven governorships, 19 House seats, three Senate seats, and the presidency. How do you explain it?
MCDANIEL: So I view the RNC as a body that's made it better than it would have otherwise been. And we don't do commercials. We don't pick the candidates. The voters do. We don't pick the place. The consultants and the pollsters do. But we are the ground game. When you look at 2022, 4 million more Republicans turned out. We would have won the Electoral College. We were the top voter in Arizona, New Hampshire and Georgia. And I think that's a --
WALLACE: You lost seats in the Senate, you had a very --
MCDANIEL: That's a big part of the RNC. What I know is if you're the infrastructure and we build the road that all the candidates drive on and in every battleground state except Pennsylvania, a Republican got to the finish line, then the road that the RNC built worked. It put candidates in a position to win. But we can only put candidates in a position to win. They've got to get themselves across the finish line. You need the car and the road to get there.
But we also do have to recognize as a party we can't win without every Republican, but we also need independence. Our country is migrating. We are migrating to red states for the most part. We're leaving blue and purple states. So, blue and purple states are getting bluer and the path to the White House runs through independence.
So, we have to be able to attract independence. They're 42 percent of the country now into our party if we're going to win the Senate and the presidency in 2024.
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WALLACE: Another part of McDaniel's strategy, break with Donald Trump's long opposition to early voting, to narrow the Democrats' advantage there. The RNC is now openly pushing for Republicans to cast their ballots in person or by mail ahead of Election Day as part of its Bank Your Vote initiative.
Coming up, Goldie Hawn, we know her as the adorable and often ditzy comet, but you're about to meet the real Goldie, anxiety, and all.
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HAWN: I get emotional now about it because it still sits here.
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[22:25:00]
WALLACE: She danced her way into our hearts --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's Dan, Goldie.
HAWN: That's Dan, Goldie.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: -- and cracked us up along the way. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAWN: Excuse me, is green the only Colby's comment?
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WALLACE: Goldie Hawn's bubbly persona set the gold standard for a generation of comedic actresses.
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HAWN: I'm going.
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WALLACE: But unlike her often ditzy characters, she bucked the Hollywood gang.
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HAWN: You think just because I'm a movie star, I don't have feelings.
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WALLACE: Both in her career, calling her own shots, and in her personal life alongside her long-term partner, actor Kurt Russell.
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KURT RUSSELL, ACTOR: Forever and ever.
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WALLACE: Now --
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HAWN: I'm happy to share this with you. It is a brain break.
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WALLACE: -- she's embarked on the role of a lifetime, helping children with their mental health.
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HAWN: I feel happy too.
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WALLACE: Goldie Hawn, welcome. I am delighted to get to meet you and to sit down and talk with you.
HAWN: Thank you. WALLACE: All right, I want to start with something that people don't know about you, or most people don't. In 2003, you started a classroom program called Mind Up to help kids dealing with stress, anxiety, depression. How does it work?
HAWN: The program basically is based in neuroscience. Because one of the reasons why it is is because I asked the question, why don't we ever teach children about their brain? They learned mostly at this point about the emotional system of the brain. They learned about the prefrontal cortex, they learned about the amygdala, they learned about the hippocampus, where they remember. And with that, we have actually shown them these different parts of the brain actually respond to various activities.
So, everything that we teach them, whether it's being mindful of your senses or taking three brain breaks a day, they now can tell you -- a second grade can tell you what a Fallot affects the brain, and how it allows them to think better when they're more grounded, more relaxed and more conscious. Because they know that the prefrontal cortex is actually the thinking brain. It's where you can learn better, make better decisions, better analyze things and actually feel better.
[22:30:02]
So, we give them these tools.
WALLACE: That is fascinating, that idea that if you teach them about the biology --
HAWN: Yes.
WALLACE: -- and the -- of the physiology of your brain, it is going to help you deal with the emotions that you feel.
HAWN: Exactly. Because what's happening now is that children will know when they're stressed. Now they realize it. Sometimes they'll come up to the teacher and say I think I need a brain break. They can control that through interestingly enough breath and breathing changes the brain. It isn't just a fun thing to do.
I mean, the other times, basically, we say we breathe anyway, but conscious breathing is different. And once you breathe deep and you understand how to do that, then it quiets the brain. And once the amygdala which we call the barking dog in there when they're little, is that you calm down and then relax, in which case then the prefrontal cortex opens up, lights up, and now the (inaudible) in there goes (inaudible), now I can think. And they know how to do that now. Self-regulation.
WALLACE: So MindUp is taught in schools across the country and in countries around the world. This is big deal for you. This is your life right now, MindUp.
HAWN: It's 100 percent of my life. It's 100 percent of my heart. And what happened after 9/11 and I thought the children were going to have some silent stress and some issues, we needed to start now. And now 20 years later after this, all of the turning a blind eye to our children's mental state has really grown into an epidemic. And it's too much not to walk away from it. You have to. You see differences in children in the classroom and there's no way to walk away from it. So that's why I'm still here 20 years later.
WALLACE: The interesting thing, one of the reasons that this resonates so much with you is as a kid you say that you suffered from anxiety and panic attacks, a lot of it based on all the talk during the cold war when you and I were kids in the '50s about the threat of atomic bombs and nuclear attacks.
HAWN: Yeah. You know, it's great you get to go down and get to the visual aids and you're going to learn about, you know, corn in Iowa or something like that, agriculture or whatever. I was so happy we went down and then there is a 16-millimeter stretch going and what I heard then was 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, and an explosion. And now we're looking at all of the devastation of children working for monies, blood everywhere and crying, and I started to shake. That put me in a traumatic state realizing my mortality and also that I might not live and that Russia was going to bomb us and that we didn't have much time. And I get emotional now about it because it still sits here.
WALLACE: Most people I think will be surprised to see this is who Goldie Hawn really is. Most of us who saw you when you first started you were the goofy blonde on "Laugh In."
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UNKNOWN: Hey, has anybody seen Goldie?
HAWN: Yes, I did (inaudible). I brushed my teeth this morning.
DAN ROWAN, ACTOR & COMEDIAN: What do you think about the fact the country seems to be moving further to the right?
HAWN: Well, at least it'll save flying time to Europe.
And now to news in the future 20 years from now. Let's see that would be 1968, 1970, 1971, 1972.
UNKNWN: That's 1998, Goldie.
HAWN: That's 1998, Goldie.
UNKNOWN: Wait minute, aren't you -- you're supposed to shake my hand.
HAWN: Well, if I do that, you'll want to do this.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: So, question. Who was the real Goldie? That girl or this young woman filled with anxiety and panic attacks?
HWAN: Well, I was still, you know, the first thing that happened when I became anxious and had panic attacks and didn't know what was going on with my brain, I went to a psychologist and was with him for about eight years. I didn't leave him because I was learning so much about myself and how to deal with success, number one, and really how to feel more comfortable in my skin.
WALLACE: But I guess what I'm asking is does that -- I mean you were adorable and you were goofy and you were ditsy and you were utterly charming. Was that all an act or --
HAWN: I was full of joy, which is really why I really didn't know what was wrong in my mind because I had lost my smile, okay. So, that's why I was trying to recover who I really was.
WALLACE: Well, in 1969 you are in a movie and you play a young woman named Toni who's in a relationship and the movie was called "Cactus Flower." Take a look.
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HAWN: Oh, sure, you'll take me away for another fun-filled weekend at some motel.
WALTER MATTHAU, ACTOR: No more weekends and no more motels. Toni, I'm going to marry you.
HAWN: How do you mean marry?
MATTHAU: You know, marry with a judge, the blood tests, the license, that kind of marry right away.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[22:35:02]
WALLCE: And you won the Oscar for best supporting actress. And I read recently that you always regretted the fact that you were at that moment in London making another film and so you missed your big night.
HAWN: I not only missed it. I forgot it was on television. I had no even belief that I would ever win. First of all, it was a comedy. It was really hard to win an Academy award for a comedy. And also, for me, I thought my first movie, I mean, come on. Are you kidding me? It wasn't even possible. So, I forgot about it, and I went to sleep. So, I was awakened at about 3:00 in the morning or whatever. And they said, Goldie, you got it. And I said, I got what? And they said you got the Academy award. I went, what? So, I didn't get the joy out of receiving it, but I have a lot of joy for getting it, still.
WALLCE: That brings us to the next chapter. In 1980, you produced a movie called "Private Benjamin" in which you star as a rich, young woman who somehow finds herself in the army. Take a look.
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HAWN: I think they sent me to the wrong place.
EILEEN BRENNAN, ACTRESS: Uh-huh. HAWN: See, I did join the army but I joined a different army. I
joined the one with the condos and the private rooms. What? No, really, my -- my recruiter, Jim Ballard --
BRENNAN: I don't care. I don't care what your lousy recruiter told you, Benjamin. Now, I'm telling you there is no other army.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: You know what, it's pretty good still. It's pretty funny.
HAWN: It's so good.
WALLACE: So, how big a deal was that? In 1980, a woman producing vehicles for herself?
HAWN: It ended up being a big deal, but I didn't look at it like that. I never did. I mean, I was practically thinking. I thought why do we need it? Made enough movies. We have producers there. And I said, why don't we just produce it. And it was actually a financial idea. So, why do we have to pay another producer to do this when we know what we're doing? I didn't have a plan, let's put it that way. It's just -- get it done. Just go in there and get it done. Be practical about it. Find out the right people to do it, and do we really need a producer?
WALLACE: Yeah, but Goldie, it was a big deal because this is Hollywood in 1980, a town totally run by men, and suddenly the word goes out that there are three women who are calling their own shots, you, and Barbara Streisand and Jane Fonda, and that was a paradigm shift.
HAWN: It was a paradigm shift definitely. But I guess -- I guess you could say I was fearless. I was fearless when I went to New York and stood on 10th Avenue with a little suitcase and had no place to sleep. I was 19 and I went to become a dancer on Broadway. I didn't run home because I had no place to sleep. I figured it out. So, my point is we figure it out. I wasn't afraid. I wasn't afraid to say I want to do something or create something or have an idea and go pitch it somewhere. I mean, I was driven by the love of what I was doing but also by the subject matter. I'm not political, but I do have ideas about what matters and what I think actually could be told in a funny way that actually could bring sunlight to some problems.
WALLACE: Next up, from films to family. Goldie opens up about her decades long relationship with partner Kurt Russell including a first date moment that got this reaction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HAWN: What? Are you crazy? I like to have fun, but I'm not that crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP) (COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:40:00]
WALLACE: Goldie Hawn bucked the system not only as a producer but also as part of a Hollywood power couple. She and partner Kurt Russell have been together 40 years. But despite their romance they have never married. We pick up our conversation at the start of their love affair.
In 1983, you auditioned an actor named Kurt Russell for a movie you were producing called "Swing Shift." Is it true that on your first day, you invited Kurt Russell back to your home?
HAWN: Yes, I did. I invited him back to my home because it was being fixed up and I wanted him to see because actually what we did was is he invited me out to dance because we were going to learn to do, you know, the jitterbug, you know, and all that stuff. And we were going to learn to dance together and I went, ah, that's going to be so fun. And so, we went to the Playboy Club because they had a big band there then and that's when it was in Westwood.
So, we went there, we had so much fun, it was so great. Oh my God, we're dancing and talking and, ah, I just liked him a lot. So, we ended up, I said, come on, I want to show you my house, I'm redoing it. So, he came there, and I remember I was so excited because I just did the floors. And I brought him in, well, I kind of broke in a little bit. I don't forget how it was locked and I didn't have a key or anything, and now I jumped on his back, just like, you know, like little girls do with their dads, right?
And I jumped on his back and he looked at me and he said, what was that? I said I'm just so excited. I was so excited. I was excited to be in my house. I was excited to be there. And then we went upstairs and we kissed. I showed him my bedroom.
[22:45:01]
Ah, it's so sweet. And suddenly the police came in.
WALLACE: This is not where I thought this story was heading.
HAWN: No, I know, and the police came in and I open the door and then the two of us came out and we sat on the steps and we looked down and we -- he said, oh Goldie, is it? Yes, we've got a, you know, a signal that, you know, somebody broke into the house. And I said, well, I did but, you know, we're fine. Everything's fine.
And then we sat there on the stairs and they left. And I said, well, if we were really together what would we do now? And I said probably go down and get some cookies and milk. And that bedroom was the bedroom we conceived our son.
WALLACE: That night?
HAWN: What?! Are you crazy?! No. I had to get to know him a little better.
WALLACE: Oh, okay. (Inaudible).
(LAUGHTER)
HAWN: I'm not that crazy.
WALLACE: Okay. Okay.
HAWN: I like to have fun but I'm not that crazy.
WALLACE: A few years later, you two are now together and you make a movie called "Overboard." So, the question I have, which people have been asking for more than 40 years -- we're going to get into it -- why aren't the two of you married?
HAWN: Why should we get married? Isn't that a better question?
WALLACE: Well, I suppose. But why aren't you married?
HAWN: Because we have been married and because when it doesn't work out it ends up to be big business. Somebody has to own something, it's always ugly. Somebody has to, you know, actually take a look and say how many divorces are fun? How many divorces actually --
WALLACE: None I've ever heard.
HAWN: -- don't cost money? How many divorces make you even hate the person more than you did before? How many divorces have hurt children?
WALLACE: But you've been together for 40 years, you're not going to get divorced.
HAWN: Well, how did you know that then?
WALLACE: Well, I suppose that's a good question.
HAWN: I mean, no one knows.
WALLACE: But I do want to ask two questions. Is part of it making a statement that you want to show you don't play by society's rules?
HAWN: No. No. I never made a statement in my life. No. Nothing like that.
WALLACE: Is part of a superstition that it's all gone well and why rock the boat?
HAWN: That could be part of it. I think that could be part of it. Our children really, we asked them and they said no.
WALLACE: You asked them whether they'd be happy if you got married.
HAWN: Do you think we should get married? They liked us the way -- they like it the way it was. They've been through divorce. It's not fun for them. And there is an independence that I think is interesting when two people aren't fused together. I like the idea that I can wake up in the morning and make decisions every day if I want to be here.
WALLACE: Sort of every day you're making the choice do I want us --
HAWN: Yeah, I mean, you know, relationships are hard. They're not always easy. There are all kinds of hurdles we go through. There are things that we believe and things we don't believe and we agree on. So, I think, you know, ultimately staying independent with independent thinking is important so you can hold onto yourself and you can actually have that -- that feeling.
WALLACE: For someone who's had such a great career, I was fascinated as I studied up on you how much time you have spent away from the business. In the early '90s, you took four years off to help your mom who was dying of heart disease. And then from the early 2000s on you were -- didn't do any movies for 15 years. And the question I guess I have is what does all that say about where Hollywood ranks in your life, in the scale of your priorities?
HAWN: I always thought when I turned 50 that it was like what else am I going to do? What else am I going to learn in life? I just want to feel right about what I do. And when you get to a certain age and a certain time in your career, sometimes it's time to start looking outward instead of always at yourself.
And for me I was asking a lot of my friends what's the third section of our life going to look like? Because I was just looking at doing something extraordinary, doing another thing, learning something else. So, my philosophy is don't get stuck in what you're doing because it's not who you are, it's what you do.
And this is all I think about every day. I have great children. Kurt and I raised them well. We have amazing grandchildren. I now want to take my life and look at how I can help others.
[22:50:01]
WALALCE: And I want to ask you about that. You've had four children. What kind of a mom were you?
HAWN: I was -- well, my kids will say I was stern, but I did -- I guess you could say as Oliver used to say and Katie, we knew when we were in trouble when your nostrils flared up.
(LAUGHTER)
But, you see, I picked my battles. I wasn't a nagging mother, and you know, that's what it is -- I was a fun mom, and Kurt was a perfect balance because he was fun too, but he was strong. So, they knew where they came from.
WALLACE: I have to ask you one question about Katie, Kate Hudson, who obviously became a big star. At any point as she was following that path, did you ever have any qualms about her getting into what you knew firsthand was a really rough business?
HAWN: No, not at all. I raised her tough. She's nobody's fool. No, is something she didn't always take, and sometimes yes is a better thing to say than no, because when you're saying no to that -- Kate, she's going to -- her eyes make her bigger and stronger.
WALLACE: I read an article in "Variety" recently where you talked about the death of the movie star and you said that people used to be in awe and that that's gone here in Hollywood. Do you miss that?
HAWN: I don't know that I really meant that just about Hollywood. I think what I mean is that who are our heroes? What happened to them? Basketball, you hear every bad thing that ever happened to anybody who gets successful. One of the things that I think we're missing is awe. Awe, wow, that feeling, it's such a beautiful feeling. And that's what I want our kids to be able to feel, people looking at movie stars, that's an example.
Awe, Elizabeth Taylor, or, oh, now we're so familiar with everyone that we feel like, you know, we know them. We feel like, oh, my god, there's so and so. And some people, yes, but I think awe is something we're missing in our society today.
WALLACE: Well, there is still awe about Goldie Hawn, you have 3.5 million followers on Instagram, and sometimes you post videos including some, you say you started out as a dancer, of you dancing.
HAWN: You have to dance through life. Happiness is an inside job and we have to find the things that make us happy so we can consistently deep-down go dig it out.
WALLACE: Up next, what television's biggest night and some of our guests have in common.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[22:55:00]
WALLACE: Finally, tonight, the nominees for the 75th Emmy Awards were announced this week and we want to congratulate some of our guests who earned themselves nominations. Bryan Cox for "Succession," Henry Winkler for "Barry," Carol Burnett for her variety show, "90 Years of Laughter," Padma Lakshmi for "Top Chef" and Michael Imperioli for "The White Lotus."
Last fall I sat down with Imperioli and we talked about his first Emmy win for his memorable role as Christopher on the hit show "The Sopranos" and the head-shaking thing he did after he won.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: You win an Emmy for your work that season and then you throw your Emmy in the garbage.
MICHAEL IMPERIOLI, ACTOR: It was more of a symbolic gesture. So, we won the Emmy. Drea de Matteo and I won that year for supporting actor/actress and the show for the first time won Best Show after five seasons.
WALLACE: Okay.
IMPERIOLI: It did not win Best Show until that year so everyone was in a good mood. And we, you know, we had gone to the Governor's Ball and the HBO party and then we had our own party at the hotel and wound up in someone's room and it's like 5:00 in the morning. And my wife, you know, she said to me, you know, I bet you're very proud of yourself, huh, you know, people congratulating you, making a big deal over you, fussing over you, kissing your ass. She goes, I'm not impressed.
She said if you had any balls, you'd take that statue and throw it in the garbage. You know, we were pretty loaded by that, you know, by that hour, and I said I don't care, you know. And I, you know, I didn't want to do that but I had to show, you know, some bravado. And I said, I don't care about that, I took it like this is, you know, the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills, the trash can, so you know, it wasn't like I went into, you know --
WALLACE: A garbage can --
IMPERIOLI: Into a compost thing and stuffed it in. So, I took it and put it in the garbage pail in the hotel room, and then went to sleep and then woke up and I said I'm ordering some breakfast. She said yeah, get me, you know, yeah, order me something, get some coffee and she said don't forget to take your Emmy out of the garbage can.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: We hope Michael's future Emmy stay out of the trash.
[23:00:00]
And good luck to all of our guests at the awards ceremony on September 18th. Thank you for watching.
