-Our next guest is a former advertising executive, author,
and a regular on MSNBC's "Morning Joe"
and "Deadline: White House."
New episodes of his podcast, "On Brand With Donny Deutsch,"
are available Thursdays.
Please welcome back to the show Donny Deutsch, everybody.
♪♪
[ Applause ]
Thank you. Welcome back. -Great to be back.
-Nice to see you! Human beings!
-I -- I -- Look at -- Wow. Hey, guys.
-It's a big deal, right? It's not a lot of people.
-It's a big deal.
It's -- I -- You know, I come in 30 Rock
A couple days a week, you know, to do "Morning Joe"
and do Nicolle Wallace's show,
and I haven't been back since March, whatever, of last year.
And I understand this chair is new tonight.
-This is new. -This is new. I love it.
-Yeah, you're the second --
our second chair guest in over a year.
-I love it. I love it. I love it.
-It's nice to have people this close again.
It's a little strange to look over a chair
to a person who had been made to sit in the center of a couch.
-You know, yes. I have to tell you.
Being in the city, the city feels alive.
-It does feel really different. -In the last week, I don't know
if you guys feel it, it just -- it's, like, popped.
And it just feels so damn good. It really does.
-It's really nice. Now, I do have to ask.
Congratulations on your podcast. -Thank you.
-But I think the question anyone with a podcast
deserves to be asked is,
what made you think the world needs another podcast?
-[ Laughs ] You stole my open.
I was about to say,
"Not that the world needs another podcast..."
-Right. -They don't.
You know, the premise of this one's, I think --
-It is a nice, specific brand. -It is.
It basically -- The premise of the podcast
is that everything is a brand.
Every person, every politician, every product, every company,
every religion, every institution.
Anybody with a Facebook page is a brand.
So every week, I break down what are, kind of,
I see as the ten brands of the week.
It could be a person. It could be a company.
And then I interview a big brand in and of themselves.
You know, I've done Michael J. Fox and Don Lemon,
and Denis Leary is dropping tomorrow.
And I got Hunter Biden next week.
So we're doing a lot of -- a lot of fun people.
It's interesting. -And, now, this --
You have a background in advertising.
And is this how you first started
seeing everything as a brand?
-Yeah, I -- That's --
I've kind of had an identity crisis in my career.
I've done a bunch of different things.
So, for about 25 years, I ran an ad agency, built brands.
And then for the last 15 years on television,
I've been kind of analyzing political brands
and, you know, every brand, way -- which way, you know,
kind of aspect in life, where everything is going in.
So kind of everything has come together.
-Certainly, no one in politics
is more of a brand than Donald Trump.
And it strikes me that, right now,
the GOP is having trouble
being a brand independent of Donald Trump.
Do you feel like that's even an effort they're making?
And do you think it's an effort that, if you were in charge,
they should be making?
-What I don't understand about the GOP --
Because they are Donald Trump, and beyond that,
they're not -- they're the party of "no."
The party of resentment. They don't stand for anything.
What I don't get is how dumb it is
because Trump is a losing proposition right now.
He's got 75% of the party,
which translates to 30% of the population.
He's not electable again.
He cannot get any swing voters.
So what I don't get is why they're so beholden to him
in that it's a loser.
He's an absolute loser going forward.
And that's beyond the indictments that are coming.
Obviously, you talked about it earlier in the show
with my old buddy Michael Cohen --
about Michael Cohen.
But it's a loser. But the party is lost.
They've fallen down, and they can't get back up.
-Now, I want to ask, as well,
about the mayoral race that's heating up in New York.
You had actually at one time in your life
considered running for mayor.
What made you decide that was not for you?
-Um, I would have loved to run for mayor.
I really think I could have been a great mayor.
I love the city. I grew up in Queens.
I could raise money. I'm a centrist.
I just think, you know, putting my family through it --
You know, it's a -- Donald Trump was a unicorn.
Everybody goes, "Well, Trump ran, and, you know,
he had all this stuff." That was part of his brand.
You know, he was Teflon in that way.
And not that I've done anything horrible,
but I have led my life as a colorful private citizen,
and I just didn't need all that color out there.
So I took a pass. I took a pass.
-Do you think New York right now needs a --
You talked about being from New York and loving New York.
Do you think New York's mayor right now
has to be a cheerleader for the city?
Do you think that enthusiasm for the city
is what's needed post-pandemic?
-Has to be a cheerleader, has to be a builder,
and has to juggle in that on the one sense,
it's a progressive city,
but on the other sense, people want to be protected.
And they still, you know --
You know, we're not a "defund the police" city.
And it's a city of businesspeople also,
and it's a city of everything.
So you need someone, I think, down the middle.
Can't go too far left. Certainly can't go too far right.
We operate best down the middle.
-Let me ask about the brand of New York City
and how it has not been effective for people
with presidential ambitions, in that Giuliani, Bloomberg,
de Blasio all thought, "Hey, if I could be mayor of New York,
I'd make a great president," and it seems like the rest
of the country said, "No, thank you."
Do you think that's based on the candidate
or based on the fact that the rest of the country
is less enamored with what it takes to run New York?
-I think those are the candidates.
I mean, Bobby Kennedy was a senator from New York,
and he would have won, you know, I'm sure,
had that tragedy not happened.
I think it always comes down to the human being.
I don't think the country goes, "We --"
Look. We elected a peanut farmer from Plains, Georgia.
You know, we elected a governor who was an actor.
So it's the person. I don't think New York
has a stigma -- "We can't elect a New Yorker."
It's just -- You named those critters,
and I think that was the answer right there.
-Hey, I want to ask about, you know, this last year.
And I think it's probably a trend over longer
than just a year -- don't get me wrong.
But we've seen a lot of brands get behind social issues.
Now, I think one good question --
if it's anything more than just surface presentation
of "we support these causes"
and maybe sort of empty tweets and Instagram posts
as opposed to, you know, actual initiatives.
But is this -- Are you surprised that advertising has become
so tied to the social issues of the day?
-No, and they're not -- Look.
I think most CEOs are decent people,
but they're not necessarily doing it from the heart.
They're doing it from their bottom line,
in that, as you know, every advertiser wants
18 to 34, 18, you know, to 49.
They're not going after old fellas like me.
And young people -- that's price of entry for them.
They want their companies to have social consciousness,
and so, you know, companies used to stay out of it,
but now when it comes to things like basic things
like racial equality and voters' rights,
you better be in there, you know?
And what's interesting, the companies --
Republicans used to be friends of companies and vice versa,
and now it's the Democrats, so it's interesting to see.
-Would -- Do you remember your earliest ad campaign?
-My earliest ad ca--
Yeah, you know, I did a campaign for the local Pontiac dealer.
Remember the dealer association ads?
Remember the good old guys and things like that?
If you're from New York, you'd know that.
-Was this a case where you were putting dealers --
car dealers on TV? -Yes.
That -- I come from humble beginnings.
[ Laughter ]
If you can do business with car dealers,
you can do business with anybody.
But one of my earliest campaigns I'm most proud of
was for IKEA furniture.
And we show -- this is '93 -- a gay couple,
two dudes shopping for furniture,
just matter of fact.
And at that point, you just -- you didn't see it on television.
You had Billy Crystal on "Soap." You didn't see it.
I got so many letters from people saying just
thank you for just showing guys, you know?
It was a breakthrough campaign, something I'm very proud of.
-Well, it's really nice, as always, to have you here.
Thank you for coming back to the building for us.
-Appreciate it. So great to be back, man.
-It's nice, right? It's nice to be around human beings.
Thank you so much.
New episodes of "On Brand With Donny Deutsch"
are available Thursdays across all podcast platforms.