Common Core isn't a test, but for some people it is, because they don't like the testing piece of it.

To some people, Common Core means what it actually is, which is a set of standards. That's not necessarily most people. To other people, Common Core is a new curriculum that's been implemented at their school that they don't understand. It's applying new teaching tools.

Whenever someone says to me, 'Are you for or against Common Core,' the first question I ask is, 'What do you think Common Core is?' You will get a different answer from every single person. You will literally get a different answer.

I had a moment where I left journalism, and I started getting interested in this issue and writing about it, where I felt there was a right side and a wrong side around a lot of these issues relating to education.

It comes down to what your priorities are, and if public education is about kids, then every decision we make should be focused on the question of 'Is this good for a child?' And that should be the driving focus and the priority when we decide what our policies should be and what our laws should be.

People say, 'Are you going to be beating up one side or the other side?' It's everybody. It's the entire education establishment that is in power.

Lester is the Rock of Gibraltar. Nothing can rattle him. I am not. I was always flying off the handle about things. And the one person who could calm me down and make me realize that none of this silliness mattered was Lester Holt.

Any time you challenge a big powerful person or special interest, there's going to be blowback.

As the ratings go up, so does advertising revenue.

Early on, even before he was the front-runner, TV news was giving Trump far more attention than other candidates and far more than he deserved.

The 800-pound gorillas of TV news are gone. When I was the White House correspondent at NBC, and Tom Brokaw was anchor, the reporters were protected.

This must be such a relief for the TV executives managing a business in decline, suffering from a thousand cuts from social media and other new platforms. Trump arrived on the scene as a kind of manna from hell.

I was not so interested in night-after-night coverage of Michael Jackson's death or Britney Spears' latest breakdown - topics that were 'breaking news' at the time.

Experience is a legitimate issue when John McCain raises it about Obama, and it's also legitimate for us to raise it about Palin.

It's understood in the newsroom: Air the Trump rallies live and uninterrupted. He may say something crazy; he often does, and it's always great television.

TV news has largely given Trump editorial control.

Trump doesn't force the networks to show his rallies live rather than do real reporting. Nor does he force anyone to accept his phone calls rather than demand that he do a face-to-face interview that would be a greater risk for him.

My friends in the TV news business are in a state of despair about Donald Trump, even as their bosses in the boardroom are giddy over what he's doing for their once sagging ratings.

Someone once told me I looked good in red, so I bought every piece of clothing in red and bright-red lipstick. I had huge hair, as big as I could tease it and spray it.

My second-grade teacher went around the class and asked everybody what they were going to be when they grew up. I said, 'I want to travel the world,' and he said, 'You'll be married and pregnant by 21, just like all the girls in this room.'

My mom was very much the product of a very paternalistic, deep-southern culture, but also a repressed feminist. Her way of being defiant was to raise us to be rebellious ourselves - basically, the opposite of who she had to be in her own life.

I've covered the White House and been yelled at by presidents.

I'm interested in full disclosure for people who give money to politicians. But I'm not a politician. I'm an advocate.

There's no reason why anyone's job should become untouchable for the rest of their life.