Exclusive Sit-Down: Carlos With the Next VP?

The Carlos Watson Show is a half-hour daily interview show, available on YouTube, that goes deep with politicians, actors, entrepreneurs, thinkers and more. In the spirit of OZY, we want you to see more and do more. When you watch this show, we want you to come away learning something new, rethinking your assumptions … then texting your mom and your best friend to tell them about it.

Born to teachers in Miami, Carlos Watson has an insatiable appetite for learning that’s led him to an Emmy-winning journalism career and to found two companies — including OZY. Things didn’t always look so promising: Young Carlos was so rebellious that he was kicked out of kindergarten. But he went on to find his academic stride, earning degrees from Harvard and Stanford Law School. Now he’s a journalist and television host who’s earned praise for his ability to persuade high-profile guests to open up on a wide range of topics on camera — interviewing everyone from presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush to Jameela Jamil, Heidi Klum and Bill Gates.

3. What Have We Seen So Far?

As Carlos puts it, growing up as a young Black man, he didn’t have the luxury of not listening to points of view that might have conflicted with his own. That informs his interview style today, as a talk show host who actually listens — and isn’t afraid to engage and push back, rather than just read from a list of questions. Across a wide spectrum of celebrity guests, many come away from the tapings saying: “I’ve never said that publicly before.”

Subscribe to OZY’s YouTube channel for an exclusive sneak peek at upcoming episodes, starting with an interview with the woman of the moment: Rep. Karen Bass. She’s on the short list to be Joe Biden’s running mate. If you can help us get to 50K YouTube subscribers by the end of the day today, we'll be giving one of our new subscribers the chance to attend a live taping over Zoom with Carlos and a celebrity guest next week.

5. Listen Up

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Times like these encourage us to examine the racial history of this country and the impact it’s having today. OZY is proud to partner with The Great Courses Plus to offer a free month to take classes like America’s Long Struggle Against Slavery taught by historian and scholar Richard Bell.
Sign up through OZY today for one free month.

With Biden due to announce his vice presidential choice in the coming days, this Los Angeles congresswoman is a top contender. In an exclusive interview just days before Biden’s expected announcement, we spoke to her about her unlikely journey, and what it would mean to be VP. All the buzz, she says, is “very scary, but humbling.”

2. Activist From the Jump

Bass was a precinct captain for Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential run in 1968 — at age 14. She went on to be active in the antiwar and international solidarity movements, before finding her calling with a social justice nonprofit during the crack cocaine epidemic.

3. Political Rise

Bass first ran for state assembly in 2004, then rose quickly in Sacramento, becoming America’s first Black female state House Speaker. One problem: There was a financial crash and she had to negotiate deep budget cuts with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. After hitting her term limit in the state house, she seized an open Los Angeles congressional seat in 2010. While unquestionably liberal, Bass is not known as a bomb-thrower. “She’s not an ideologue. She’s a practical realist,” then-Sen. Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican who worked on an African trade bill with Bass, told OZY for our 2017 profile of the congresswoman.

More recently, she’s used her consensus-building skills to become chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and lead Democrats’ efforts on police reform amid this year’s racial justice protests. But now that her spotlight is heating up, so too are efforts to dig into her past. She’s currently taking flak, for example, for having visited Cuba at age 19 and for comments she made at a Church of Scientology event 10 years ago.

4. Touched by Tragedy

Both Bass and Biden know what it’s like to lose children. Biden’s first wife and daughter died in a 1972 car crash, and then his son Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. Bass lost her 23-year-old daughter, Emilia, and son-in-law in a car wreck in 2006. “The most difficult part of it was, and it was the same with [Biden], is when those accidents happened, both of us were in public life,“ Bass tells Carlos. “So you don’t have an opportunity to grieve privately.“

5. Martial Artist

Bass tells Carlos one thing it might surprise people to know: She has earned brown belts in both taekwondo and hapkido. Does she use those skills in politics? “Not in terms of physical fighting, but there’s a lot of the mental part of martial arts that you learn,” Bass says. “You learn how to navigate conflicts. And one of the goals of a martial artist is to not fight.”

1. Terry Crews, “The Distractor”

You know Crews from Brooklyn Nine-Nine, White Chicks … and blowing up the internet by warning about “Black supremacy” in the wake of the racial justice protests sweeping the nation. But his road to stardom is a remarkable one: From growing up poor in Flint, Michigan, to walking on to the football team at Western Michigan, to the NFL, Crews always had an artsy side — he earned extra cash by drawing portraits for teammates. But after leaving the game, he was flat broke, so he picked up and moved to Los Angeles to attempt an acting career. He has battled depression and a pornography addiction on his way to stardom — and is now a lightning rod. How will he explain his inflammatory comments?

To his friends and family, he’s Sean, but to the rest of us, he’ll forever be “Spicey,“ the alter ego Melissa McCarthy memorably played while miming the tight-buttoned White House press secretary on Saturday Night Live (if only his podium really did have wheels!). Spicer never quite found rhythm under Donald Trump — his very first press conference included him having to lie for the president about crowd sizes, and he admits to Carlos that he made mistakes at the podium. Still, Spicer has found his legs since leaving the West Wing, even making it into the final six on Dancing With the Stars. And now the former Republican National Committee spokesman is living his best life as host of his namesake show, Spicer & Co., on Newsmax TV. Will he say “Black Lives Matter”? And does he think his former boss will win again in 2020?

3. Malcolm Gladwell, “The Mischief Maker”

It’s impossible not to have a fascinating conversation when talking with Gladwell, the famed New Yorker writer whose work, from books such as The Tipping Point and Blink to his Revisionist History podcast, sheds light on the strange world we live in. The son of a Jamaican mother and an English father, Gladwell grew up in Canada and bounced around a series of American newspapers and magazines before finding his stride ... a testament to the fact that even the most talented among us benefit from experience, an idea he elucidates with his famous “10,000 hour“ rule to mastering a craft.

4. Baker Mayfield, “The Disrupter”

Most remember him for his cocky persona on the college football scene, including taking an Oklahoma flag and pinning it at the heart of the Ohio State Buckeyes logo at midfield. But Mayfield is actually the ultimate scrapper, a real-life Rudy who walked on not once but twice at some of football’s most competitive schools before becoming the Heisman Trophy–winning quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners. Now Mayfield is in the NFL, the No. 1 pick in the 2018 NFL draft by the Cleveland Browns, trying to prove once again that he belongs.

5. Andrew Yang, “The Outsider“

The New York City entrepreneur made waves as a Democrat running in the 2020 presidential campaign, going from the virtually anonymous founder of the nonprofit Venture for America to a political rock star who body-surfed atop his fervent followers, the Yang Gang. Buoyed by his signature proposal, universal basic income, and his argument that the United States was facing a pivotal moment where massive job loss and technological gain would require a refocusing toward “Humanity First“ policies, Yang outlasted most in the massive field of contenders but dropped out after placing eighth in the New Hampshire primary. Still, as unemployment runs rampant amid the coronavirus pandemic and a stimulus bill remarkably like UBI was passed in March, many see Yang as a visionary just a few months ahead of his time. And, as Yang tells Carlos, he is already in talks with Joe Biden about taking a new position in the administration — if the Democrats win.

6. Bethenny Frankel, “The Hustler”

She had a tumultuous childhood, often spending time at the racetrack with her father, before becoming an entrepreneur in Los Angeles. Her big break came as the runner-up on The Apprentice: Martha Stewart in 2005, before becoming a central cast member of The Real Housewives of New York City. Those appearances led to a series of shows built around her dynamic character, as the author of four self-help books and the founder of both Skinnygirl, a lifestyle brand, and Bstrong, a disaster relief organization.

7. Maggie Siff, “The Badass”

She is the ultimate actress, having played powerful characters in some of the best shows on television, from Mad Men and Billions to Sons of Anarchy, where she won a Critics Choice Television Award for best supporting actress in a drama series. The 46-year-old Bronx native got an English degree from Bryn Mawr College and an M.F.A. in acting from the NYU Tisch School of the Arts, showcasing her skills in regional theaters before breaking through on hit TV programs in the mid-2000s.

You tell us who you’d like to see on the show by emailing us, or tagging #CarlosWatsonShow on social media. There are plenty of good choices already in the OZY family, whether we’ve profiled them on our site, hosted them at OZY Fest or followed their rise on the TV show Breaking Big. Should we sit down again with Bill Gates for an update on the pandemic? Should we get political with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Kellyanne Conway? Learn White House secrets with Michelle Obama? Talk hoops with Giannis Antetokounmpo, or football with Lamar Jackson? Cook up something special with Padma Lakshmi or Eddie Huang? Cut through the BS with Trevor Noah? We want to hear from you.

9. Quiz Time

Which Carlos Watson Show guest would see him or herself on TV and think: “Oh my God, I look like an angry leprechaun!” Answer at the bottom of this email.

At the peak of his powers, the celebrated performer became the first Black man to host a nationally televised variety show in America in the fall of 1956 on NBC. The show did well in the ratings, but NBC struggled to find national sponsors because of fears that their products would be boycotted in the South. “Madison Avenue,” Cole later quipped, ”is afraid of the dark.” The show lasted just 13 months.

From its humble beginnings in Dayton, Ohio, in 1967, the show became a national sensation by pushing the envelope. Donahue sprinted around the studio, interviewing audience members, and covering previously unheard-of topics from cross-dressing to interracial lesbian couples who have children by artificial insemination.

It was clear from the very first minute of her first episode in 1986 that Winfrey was something entirely different, and within two months, the show had passed Donahue in the Nielsen ratings. She would go on to transform the entire talk show genre, focusing on self-improvement, intimate personal issues and connecting with her audience as no host had previously.

4. The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

The Comedy Central show may have started with Craig Kilborn, but it was Stewart who became an icon by mastering the art of skewering the news during his run as host from 1999-2015. Stewart always bristled at the notion that he was young people’s first source for news, but for many he was. And by calling out BS so skillfully and getting under the skin of the powerful with humor, he shaped the media landscape that exists today.

The Carlos Watson Show has been described as "Oprah meets Jon Stewart." Watch here and reply to this email to let us know what you think.

1. Them Too

Since protests kicked off more than two months ago in the U.S., protesters in countries around the world — including France, Britain and South Africa — have used its rallying cries to confront their own difficult histories, toppling statues and refusing to let their own governments off the hook or paint police brutality as an American problem. Three officers in France have been charged with manslaughter over the January death of a Black delivery driver in custody.

2. On the Court

In Japan, biracial athletes like Louis Okoye have been key to keeping the conversation about systemic racism going, calling out discrimination in professional leagues and pointing to early stereotyping that goes on even in school sports classes.

3. Teaching the Truth

In New Brunswick, Canada, the local Black Lives Matter chapter says it’s gotten officials to agree that they’ll incorporate Black history into school curriculums in a meaningful way, hoping that changing the way history is remembered can alter the public’s outlook and make lasting change.

4. Favela Fight

Brazil’s slums are a prime target for violent police, who last year killed more than five times the number who died at the hands of U.S. cops. But the focus on worldwide police brutality sparked by the George Floyd protests — and outrage over the death of a Black Brazilian teen shot by cops — spurred Brazil to ban deadly police raids into the favelas last month.

5. Down Under

Police in Sydney arrested six people who organized a BLM rally this week, saying their right to protest didn’t trump pandemic safety rules against large gatherings. Protesters showed up, but a police presence swiftly overwhelmed the gathering, which focused on indigenous man David Dungay, who died in police custody in 2015.

There are many voices we need to elevate at this time; click here to tell Carlos who you think the world should be hearing more from on his show.

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