Before longtime chief White House correspondent and Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd sat for an on-campus interview with the NPR podcast Full Disclosure last week, he took time to meet with some of Richmond’s students. Before the show, about 20 students from various majors — including journalism, political science, and leadership studies — had the opportunity to talk with Todd in a Booker Hall classroom.  

Todd queried the group about campus culture as the students went around in a circle introducing themselves.  

“Does everybody feel like they can say what they want?” he asked. 

Several students said that many different political views are heard on campus.  

Senior CJ Blastos, the current Richmond College Student Government president, told Todd about Gary L. McDowell Institute, a Jepson School program that embraces diverse viewpoints across the faculty and student body to explore important questions in ethics, law, and politics. 

“You’ll hear all sorts of perspectives,” Blastos said. “Everybody comes together and you read one book that’s assigned. You have pretty extensive, thoughtful discussions. It’s been one of the highlights of my time here.” 

Todd engaged the students on a variety of topics, including the two-party system. He said that according to a recent Gallup poll, 27% of Americans registered as Democrats, 27% registered at Republicans, and 45% of American registered as no party — the highest number ever recorded. 

“We don’t like these parties,” he told the students. “I think they’re too big for the coalitions they represent. We’re a four-party country. We just have a two-party system.” 

Todd, who left NBC and now runs The Chuck ToddCast, also spoke about the importance of reaching people through a variety of media. 

“He made political apathy seem like an accessibility issue,” said senior Maria Byrnes, a journalism major and editor of the City and State section of UR’s student newspaper, The Collegian. “Journalists can make people care about politics by meeting them where they are and offering them digestible information through a variety of mediums.” 

Todd told her it is never a bad time to go into journalism — which inspired her. 

“I'm used to pessimistic attitudes about AI stealing writing jobs and the news industry collapsing,” she said. “It meant a lot to hear from such an accomplished journalist that there is always hope for a career in journalism.”  

After meeting with the students, Todd sat in front of a live audience on the Camp Concert Hall stage for an interview with Roben Farzad, a past Robins School journalist-in-residence and the host of the Full Disclosure podcast. Approximately 450 people attended the taping, and the episode is now available.