In his 16 years with NBC News, Lester Holt has covered his share of politics, but he’s never been a part of convention coverage. That changes in a big way this year, as Holt, along with Savannah Guthrie and Chuck Todd, will anchor NBC’s prime time specials. He’ll also anchor NBC Nightly News from the RNC, which begins today and the DNC, which begins next Monday in Philadelphia.
But, as can happen in this job, Holt’s trip to Ohio took a detour, to France. On his final leg into Cleveland Sunday, Gayle King and Trevor Noah were on his flight. We caught up with Holt in NBC’s skybox at the Quicken Loans Arena after Sunday’s Nightly News.
TVNewser: You arrived today, after being in Nice, and next week you will report from Philadelphia, before leaving a week later for Rio. Did you know that this job was going to require this much travel?
Holt: I joke with people that ‘well, that’s a 30 minute job, how hard can that be?’ The answer is really, really, really hard. I’m a reporter at heart so I always want to be where the story is. It just seems we’re in this period right now of rapid fire big events. The days of the 24-hour news cycle are so over. Now it’s four hours. Here I was in Nice, France, biggest story on the planet. Until it wasn’t. Turkey suddenly became our lead story. The Republican National Convention. How long have we been talking about this? You know, could it be contested? What’s going to happen? Boom. Our lead story tonight is Baton Rouge. I haven’t seen anything like it.
TVNewser: This your first time anchoring the prime time network specials from the conventions…
Holt: I probably shouldn’t say this but this is my first convention for the network.
TVNewser: Really?
Holt: Yeah. My other roles for the conventions never took me to the conventions. Obviously, at MSNBC I covered a ton of politics but never got here. So this is my first convention since my days in local news.
TVNewser: What’s been the biggest surprise in the last year since you became the anchor of Nightly News?
Holt: That it really is a 24-hour job. It’s a huge demand, you always have to be plugged in. You’re always part of the conversations about coverage. But it’s a very competitive environment we’re in and you know that intellectually, but when you’re in the trenches you feel it every day.
TVNewser: The commission on presidential debates is going to have to decide soon on who their debate moderators are going to be. Have they reached out to you? Is that something you’d be interested in?
Holt: No one’s reached out to me, but of course, who wouldn’t be? I moderated one of the Democratic debates with Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. And I always say it was one of the scariest things as I was doing it, but afterwards, it was one of those great things in your career. It’s a new muscle that you exercise and at the time you don’t know how it’s going, I could be getting beat up on Twitter right now, but it’s exhilarating.
TVNewser: What’s it like have your son Stefan who followed in your footsteps in TV news back in New York, anchoring at WNBC, working in the same building?
Holt: I’m not seeing him as much as I thought I’d be seeing him, despite the fact that our studios are about 60 feet apart. I don’t see him on the elevator. But I’m incredibly proud of him. He’s doing a terrific job and he’s doing it all on his own and I’ve given him space and he’s a true professional in his own right.