-I want to congratulate you on three years of "Sunday Today."
-Thank you. -And this is a show that
allows you to be in-depth, conversational
with your subjects, and you actually recently
got the Tracy Morgan treatment yourself.
-Yes. You've been on the show. Fred's been on the show.
-Fred's been on the show. -Earlier adopters.
Thank you very much. Tracy was a couple of weeks ago.
He invited us over to his house.
-Yeah. -Beautiful home.
Brought our entire crew inside.
And, you know, Tracy's got his quirks, and he's the best guy.
And you go into the office to sit down for the interview.
And we sit down, and he said, "Willie,
did you notice anything about my office?"
And I'm like, "It's kind of dark in here."
And he's like, "That's because it's modeled directly
after Vito Corleone's office in "The Godfather.'"
True story. Complete with the shade. The blinds are down.
And it's like to --
You know, to the chair, it's all the same.
And as we're talking -- we're sitting down --
there's a trophy case between us.
And I look, and I'm like -- There's an Emmy in there.
And I've done my homework.
I'm like, "I know he was nominated.
I'm not sure he won an Emmy." And then I look down.
There's an Emmy, an Oscar, and a Heisman Trophy.
[ Laughter ]
And I'm like, "Tray, what's going on with those?"
He goes, "Willie, it's America. Money talks, baby."
But then I was like, "Is that someone else's Heisman Trophy
that he bought or just a replica?"
-You probably won't get to the bottom of that story.
But I'm jealous, because I've know Tracy for a very long time.
And before the television show "Shark Tank,"
the shark tank I heard the most
was Tracy talked about his shark tank.
Did you actually see the famous Tracy Morgan shark tank?
-I think the number is 20,000 gallons.
He has a 20,000-gallon shark tank in his backyard.
And they're like -- -Just like in "The Godfather."
-Exactly. Yeah.
He's got those blacktip reef sharks that were from Australia
they flew in and now live in his backyard
somewhere in New Jersey.
And we're sitting out there talking. It's all on camera.
He's happy to talk about it.
And he's like, "This is where I come to get my peace of mind.
This is where I chill." And he's like, "You know,
and sometimes I come out here to get freaky."
He's like -- And he goes,
"I'll say, 'Baby, tonight I'm Jacques Cousteau.'"
[ Laughter ] He's just the best.
-He is the best person to talk to.
In retrospect, I realize how boring our conversation...
I apologize. I apologize about it.
-Now the news guy's here to talk about NATO expansion.
It's gonna be great. -I do want to talk about
the crossover between news and comedy.
There have been "Morning Joe" sketches on "SNL" this year.
Mikey Day plays you.
Are you happy when you see yourself on the show?
-I mean -- Well, there's a thing where you wake up
on a Sunday morning, and you have 100 texts.
And you're like, "Uh-oh." "You were on 'SNL' last night."
And you're like, "Uh-oh."
It's okay. It's fine.
I'd like to get together with Mike maybe over coffee.
Mikey and I could talk through wardrobe.
We could talk through hair. -Yeah.
-I feel like there's a little mailing it in that's happening.
-Yeah. -Just for my part.
-I will say, yeah, the focus is very much on Joe and Mika.
You're very -- You're a side character.
-Right. And maybe that's okay. Right?
You're just -- You're not the focus of the sketch.
-I would say don't work too hard to get the crosshairs on you.
-Cancel the coffee for tomorrow downstairs? Okay, I will.
-"Morning Joe" is obviously
a show that Donald Trump has reacted to.
I think it's very safe to say that he --
I don't know if he's still watching it,
but it's a show he has watched with some amount
of religiousness over the years.
And the feedback loops seems to be that you --
If he has something to tell you, he just tells you.
Over the years, being in news, have you talked to him much?
-Yeah, I mean, I haven't talked to him in a couple of years,
since he really became president and late in his campaign.
But like you, probably,
if you live in New York and you're on television,
whether you were, like,
the overnight weather anchor on Channel 5,
he probably called you at some point
to talk through some things. -Yes. Yeah.
-And the crazy thing about -- This is going back years.
Is Trump would call. You'd get his assistant.
Rona would say, "I have Mr. Trump for you."
And you'd go, "Okay." And he would come through.
And you're waiting through 20 and 30 minutes
for the ask -- Or what's this about?
And it was never about anything. It was pure gossip.
Like, he was -- wanted to talk about the media industry.
"Did you hear about this? Did you hear about that?"
And he'd keep you on the line for like 30 minutes.
And he'd talk about politics, and he'd talk about, you know,
"Did you hear who's sleeping with who?"
And all that kind of stuff.
He was just, like, an old-school gossip guy
who would call you up on the phone at work.
And then he's like, "All right. That's all I got."
And hang up. I don't know what happened.
Yeah. That's it.
-Your father was a newsman, as well.
Wrote for "The New York Times." -"New York Times." Yeah.
-And wrote a story about Trump years ago.
-Yeah, so, he was a writer, my dad was,
for "The New York Times" in the '80s.
And in 1984, he wrote one of the earliest profiles.
I think Trump was like 37.
And like, "Who is this young brash guy?"
And so my dad wrote a piece for "The New York Times" magazine
that ended up on the cover.
And so Donald Trump views that as his crowning achievement.
Because what Donald Trump wants more than anything
is the approval of "The New York Times."
And he shows that every day on Twitter.
And, so, my dad wrote the cover story.
And if you look right there, that is my dad's story,
hanging in the office where he's putting in his office, I guess.
Something's happening there.
And so Trump, I think --
He could almost putt with his tie, I want to point out.
-It is. It is. It's a longer tie.
But, yeah, he's -- And I think because of that piece,
he's always had some weird --
My dad is Bill Geist, so he's also William.
So maybe Trump thinks I'm him or something.
So he's always been nice to me because of that piece.
But the funny thing is, all that mattered was that
he was on the cover of "New York Times" magazine.
And if you look inside and you read it,
my dad was doing in 1984 what people are doing now,
which is -- Trump tells my dad
he was number one in his class at Wharton.
And in the next sentence, my dad says, "I called Wharton.
He was not number one in his class.
Didn't receive any honors." You know what I mean?
It's, like, that real-time fact check
that is so in vogue over the last couple of years.
And it was happening in that piece 35 years ago.
-And yet none of us paid attention.
-I know. I know. It was all right there.
-It was all right there. -It was all right there.
-And we were like, "Who's on the cover? Oh, I like him."
Hey, thank you so much for being here.
Congrats on three years. Willie Geist, everybody.