Maggie Rodriguez

CBS's Rodriguez Urges John Kerry to Denounce Offshore Oil Drilling
By Kyle Drennen | May 12, 2010 | 12:22 PM EDT
Maggie Rodriguez and John Kerry, CBS In an interview with Senator John Kerry on Wednesday's CBS Early Show on the Gulf Coast oil spill, co-host Maggie Rodriguez hit from the left on new energy legislation proposed by the Massachusetts Democrat: "correct me if I'm wrong, your legislation calls for expanding offshore drilling at a time when polls show most Americans no longer support it. Why do you believe it's necessary to do that?"

A CBS News poll flashed on screen showing that only 46% Americans now support offshore oil drilling in the wake of the spill, as opposed to 62% supporting it in 2008. Kerry responded by pointing out that his bill would "actually restrict the current plan of the President" to expand offshore drilling. Rodriguez pressed further: "Are you saying it does not call for expanded offshore drilling?" Kerry reiterated: "I'm saying that it restricts the current law and it restricts the President's current plan."

Kerry began the interview by touting his desire to restrict oil production: "we have to really take the steps that we've been talking about for 30 years, for too long now, to move away from our energy dependence on fossil fuels, and particularly on imported fuel....The importance is now to move to the new economy." Apparently anything short of an all out ban on offshore drilling was not enough for Rodriguez.

Later in the segment, spurred by Rodriguez, Kerry proclaimed: "we're not going to stop drilling all of a sudden....it isn't going to disappear until we put our bill in place."
CBS's Rodriguez Praises Girl Who Wants to Be President: 'You Sound Like President Obama'
By Kyle Drennen | May 11, 2010 | 5:49 PM EDT
Maggie Rodriguez and Fatima Ptacek, CBS Late in Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez interviewed 9-year-old actress Fatima Ptacek and wondered: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Ptacek replied: "I definitely want to be the first female president. But I also want to be a lawyer, so I can protect those innocent people." Rodriguez gushed: "Oh, that's good. You sound like President Obama."

Rodriguez then remarked: "So he [Obama] went to Harvard. Where do you want to go to college?" Ptacek predictably responded: "Harvard."

Later in the interview, Rodriguez mentioned a recent television appearance by Ptacek: "And you've gotten to do some really cool things. What was it like to be on Sesame Street with Michelle Obama?" Ptacek declared: "It was an amazing experience, Michelle Obama is very sweet, very down to earth. She's great." Rodriguez asked: "Did she give you any words of wisdom?"
CBS 'Early Show' Sees Kagan As Not Liberal Enough, Maybe on the Right
By Kyle Drennen | May 11, 2010 | 12:56 PM EDT
Harry Smith and Joe Biden, CBS In an interview with Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Harry Smith lamented President Obama's nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court: "Liberals feel let down because she would be filling a seat left by John Paul Stevens, they don't feel like she's enough – has enough gravitas to fill his shoes."

In his first question to Biden, Smith fretted: "Some people have said she's a person so careful as to leave no footprint. Do you really know what you're getting? Do the American people know what they're getting?" Smith went on to question Kagan's qualifications: "she's never been a public defender, she's never been a prosecutor, she's never been a judge. Most of her career has been in Washington or in an ivy or ivory tower."

In an interview with Republican Senator Jeff Sessions immediately following the Biden interview, co-host Maggie Rodriguez went so far as to wonder if Kagan would have a conservative influence on the court: "When she worked for the Clinton administration, Ms. Kagan asked the President to support a ban on all abortions of viable fetuses except when the mother's health was at risk. And some analysts have used that example to show that she may actually shift the court to the Right, compared with Justice Stevens. How do you respond to that?"
CBS's Rodriguez to Kagan Friend Eliot Spitzer: Is Moderate Label 'Accurate'?
By Kyle Drennen | May 10, 2010 | 5:27 PM EDT
Maggie Rodriguez and Eliot Spitzer, CBS In the 7:30AM ET half hour on Monday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez lobbed softballs to disgraced former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer about his college friend and Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan: "She's been labeled as moderate. If you had to put a label on her, would you say that one is accurate?" A headline on screen read: "Who is Elena Kagan?"

Spitzer replied: "I guess you could say moderate....it's very hard to pigeon hole her." Rodriguez's question was prompted by his insistence that Kagan "is not an ideologue of the Left or the Right and that is clear from what she did as dean of Harvard Law School. Just a perfect temperament to be a justice." Of course, during Kagan's tenure as dean of Harvard Law, she pushed for military recruiters to be barred from campus because of her opposition to 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' policy.   

Rodriguez wondered about Kagan's college days: "Can you think of a story or an anecdote from back then?" Spitzer recalled: "a friend and I were going back and forth about who could eat more, she goaded us into having a spaghetti eating contest." Rodriguez looked for the best way to spin the story to make it relevant: "I'm trying to take something from that, could it be that she's persuasive, can bring people together, which is what the President is hoping?" In response, Spitzer declared that once on the Supreme Court, Kagan "will get the fifth vote."
CBS's Week-Long Pressure on Republicans to Support Dem Financial Reform Bill
By Kyle Drennen | April 23, 2010 | 3:02 PM EDT
Maggie Rodriguez and Bob Schieffer, CBS On Friday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez declared that when it comes to financial reform legislation, "Democrats have all the leverage right now." Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer appeared on the show and observed that "They think this is the time to picture Republicans as trying to protect fat cat bankers, as it were."

In her first question to Schieffer, Rodriguez wondered: "Do Democrats have anything to lose by going for a vote on Monday even though the Republicans have said they'd like a little bit more time to work on a compromise?" Schieffer replied: "No, they have absolutely nothing to lose. They want to get this out and get it on the table as quickly as possible."

Following his comment about the image of Republicans supporting "fat cat bankers," Schieffer added: "it's one thing to oppose health care reform, but on this case, I think most people would agree that doctors are more popular than bankers, especially at this particular time when you've had this lawsuit filed against Goldman Sachs." The headline on screen throughout the segment read: "Financial Reform Face-Off; Obama Takes on Wall Street, GOP."
CBS 'Early Show' Guilts Viewers to Give Up Bottled Water for Earth Day
By Kyle Drennen | April 22, 2010 | 2:49 PM EDT

Maggie Rodriguez and Stephanie Soechtig, CBS In the 8:30AM ET half hour of Thursday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez introduced an Earth Day segment by proclaiming: "Americans throw away more than 30 billion plastic bottles every year....We have a film maker, Stephanie Soechtig, here with us, she has a documentary out called 'Tapped,' which looks the impact that all those bottles have had on the environment."

Rodriguez invited Soechtig to explain her mission: "What has your message been?" Soechtig responded: "we've been trying to educate people that bottled water's one of the greatest marketing scams of all time. 40% of bottled water is really just filtered tap water. And every day we throw away 30 million single serve bottles of water." A headline on-screen read: "Early's Earth Day; Filmmaker Says 'Get Off the Bottle!'"

Soechtig warned of the "tremendous impact" of bottled water on the environment: "there's a soup of plastic in the north Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, that's just littered with plastic. So this type of plastic getting out in the environment is hurting our sea life, it's hurting us....plastic is a byproduct of oil. So from the production of the plastic all the way through the disposal, it just has a tremendous carbon footprint."

CBS: 'Encouraging News,' GOP 'Changing Their Tone' on Dem Financial Reform Plan
By Kyle Drennen | April 21, 2010 | 4:17 PM EDT
Maggie Rodriguez and Rebecca Jarvis, CBS Cheering some Republican support for Democratic financial reform legislation on Wednesday, CBS Early Show co-host Maggie Rodriguez declared: "encouraging news out of Washington, that after a week or so of attacking this financial bill that the Democrats are proposing to regulate Wall Street, Republicans are changing their tone and they seem to be wanting to come on board."

Rodriguez turned to business correspondent Rebecca Jarvis and wondered: "Does it look, this morning, as though a bipartisan bill will emerge?" Jarvis replied: "Well, Maggie, it looks this morning like Republicans are warming up to the idea of a bipartisan bill on financial reform." She added: "With Obama, the President, coming here to Wall Street tomorrow to push the agenda forward, it looks like there will be a political expediency to getting the deal done." An on-screen headline read: "Financial Reform Push; Obama & Senate Take on Wall Street."

On Tuesday, the Early Show had on disgraced ex-New York Governor Eliot Spitzer to discuss financial reform. Co-host Harry Smith introduced him as "the sheriff of Wall Street."
CBS 'Early Show' Touts Government Regulation of Salt
By Kyle Drennen | April 21, 2010 | 12:41 PM EDT
Maggie Rodriguez and Jennifer Ashton, CBS At the top of Wednesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez proclaimed: "the truth about salt, why a new report wants the government to take salt off the table." She later introduced a segment on the topic by explaining: "Americans eat about 1 ½ tablespoons of salt every day....there's a major new push this morning to curb that habit."

Rodriguez spoke with CBS medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton about the government intrusion and noted that there was "confusion" over "reports that the FDA might regulate salt." Ashton claimed: "there was a fair amount of misinterpretation of yesterday's news....the Institute of Medicine approached the FDA and asked for their assistance in working in conjunction with the food industry and other health services to help increase awareness about salt intake and hopefully, in the future, reduce the consumption of salt that Americans have."

However, near the end of the segment, after Ashton detailed the negative health effects of too much salt, Rodriguez observed: "So then there maybe is an argument for someone getting involved in making these companies put less sodium in their foods." Ashton agreed: "Exactly. And so we're going to be seeing more of that more aggressively from the government in the future."
CBS's Rodriguez: 'Young Revolution a la President Obama' Would Boost Conan O'Brien's TBS Show
By Kyle Drennen | April 13, 2010 | 1:05 PM EDT
Maggie Rodriguez and Dalton Ross, CBS On Tuesday's CBS Early Show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez described how comedian Conan O'Brien could attract viewers to his new late night show on the TBS cable channel: "if he can get this young revolution, you know, a la President Obama, to follow him, that could be huge."

Rodriguez made the comment after guest Dalton Ross, the assistant managing editor for Entertainment Weekly, observed that O'Brien was: "now competing with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, he's not expected to have these mass numbers. As long as he brings his younger audience, his albeit smaller, but passionate audience to TBS, it's going to be successful."

Ross thought Rodriguez's comparison of Obama and O'Brien supporters was "exactly right."
Sen. Scott Brown's Daughter Becomes CBS 'Early Show' Contributor
By Kyle Drennen | April 11, 2010 | 7:24 PM EDT
Ayla Brown, CBS

At the top of the 8:30AM ET half hour of Friday's CBS Early Show, co-hosts Maggie Rodriguez and Harry Smith welcomed a new contributor to the broadcast, the daughter of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, Ayla Brown. As Smith put it: "she's about to graduate from college and she's agreed to come aboard as a special contributor with us here on the Early Show."

Rodriguez led into the announcement by recalling: "...remember back in January, Ayla Brown made headlines sort of by accident when her father, newly elected Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, announced during his victory speech that she was 'available.'" Smith followed by mentioning Brown's previous appearance on the show: "And remember then a couple of weeks later, we asked Ayla, who's a veteran of American Idol, to sing for us here on the Early Show. She knocked it out of the park."

CBS's Harry Smith Shoots Some B-Ball With Presidential Pal
By Kyle Drennen | April 2, 2010 | 4:21 PM EDT
In addition to the softball interview CBS's Harry Smith conducted with President Obama on Thursday, the Early Show co-host also played some one-on-one with the commander in chief on the White House basketball court, declaring on Friday's show: "it's not just talk, there's a little action too, as we bring in Clark Kellogg of CBS Sports to check out the President's basketball skills." [Audio available here]

In honor of Good Friday, at the top of show, Smith used some religious language to describe where the game took place: "This is the sanctum sanctorum....I'm not sure anybody has ever really been down there with cameras before." Meanwhile, co-host Maggie Rodriguez pretended that Smith actually conducted a hard interview: "you ask him all the tough questions...Does he then proceed to take it out on you on the basketball court?"

At one point in the game, Smith jokingly asked the President: "the question is – that everybody wants to know, can you go to your right?" Obama replied: "I can go to my right, but I prefer my left." Smith laughed gleefully in response. Rodriguez remarked that it was Obama's "comfort zone."
CBS 'Early Show' Hits Obama From Left on Offshore Drilling
By Kyle Drennen | April 1, 2010 | 12:55 PM EDT
Bill Plante, CBS Introducing a segment on Thursday's CBS Early Show about President Obama's decision to open up some new areas to offshore oil drilling, fill-in co-host Jeff Glor warned that some of Obama's "closest allies are especially unhappy." In a report that followed, White House correspondent Bill Plante noted "Environmental groups are disappointed."

However, Plante also touted the idea that the move could help pass unpopular cap and trade legislation, a long-held liberal goal: "Many in Washington see this as a strategy to win Republican support for a climate bill aimed at slowing global warming." He later concluded: "The conventional political wisdom is that this is not the time to have another rancorous nasty debate, like the one over health care, on a climate change bill. But the betting here is that the President's energy policy may make it easier to have that debate."  

At the top of the show, co-host Maggie Rodriguez proclaimed: "President Obama's controversial offshore drilling proposal is making big waves. Critics say the risks are obvious, but not the rewards." In a discussion with CBS political analyst John Dickerson after Plante's report, she did little to hide her displeasure with the proposal: "Let's establish right off the bat that this will not – not even remotely free us from our dependence on foreign oil." Dickerson agreed: "You're exactly right."