-Hi, Shepard. Welcome to "The Tonight Show."
-What's up, man? A creative name, right?
"The News." A lot of thought. -I love --
-How did you get the rights to just calling it "The News"?
It's genius. -Many focus groups, man.
Just, you know -- These things come if you take time.
-Welcome to the NBC family.
We're excited to have you at the network.
You're at CNBC right now? -Yep.
-You are the first interview not on Zoom
that I've done in six months since we've been in quarantine,
so thank you for doing this.
This is really cool for me.
-I'm happy to do it.
But back when you were in quarantine
and your kids took over for The Roots,
those were great shows, man.
I loved those sitting at home in the box.
That was a lot of fun. -Oh, I'm happy.
Thank you. Yeah, they stole the show.
I had to push them off a little bit.
They were getting too big-headed.
I want to ask you about a couple things from over the weekend.
Obviously "The Times" obtained Trump's tax information.
Can you tell us about that and what is that news?
Explain the big takeaway there.
-We haven't confirmed it at CNBC, but from the reporting,
I feel like what stuck out for me was
he spent 70 grand on hair for television.
I'm not sure that there was great value.
But, seriously, you know, 11 of the last 18 years,
according to "The Times'" reporting,
he didn't -- he avoided paying taxes at all.
-Yeah.
-He had a lot more dealings with special-interest groups
in the United States and overseas
than we knew before this reporting,
though there's nothing new on any Russian parts of it all.
We know that Ivanka was receiving some consulting money
that cut down on his taxes.
And, you know, there was a lot of that sort of thing.
What does it all add up to?
I'm not sure it'll matter to his faithful.
The Never Trumpers are still Never Trumpers.
And whether the people in the middle pay attention to that
or not, I don't know.
But "The Times" says there's more investigating coming
and more reports, so we'll watch for it.
-Yeah.
Well, obviously the sad news
that Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away.
And over the weekend, Trump nominated conservative
Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
And he says that he wants her to be confirmed
before the election.
Do you think that's going to happen?
-It could. They say it's going to happen,
that they can make it happen in that amount of time.
She's the darling of conservatives.
The evangelical crew loves her.
He wants -- He's been talking from the very beginning
about how judges will be his legacy.
And whether it'll affect the election or not,
it probably will.
You just don't know which way it's going to play, Jimmy.
You know, will conservatives be so happy about it
that they come out and vote for more
or will Democrats and people on the left say,
"We can't let this happen again,"
and come out and vote in bigger numbers?
I don't think we'll know till we know.
-Yeah. Trump is now questioning the election --
the validity of the election should he lose.
-Well, of this, I'm certain.
There is nothing to indicate
that there's widespread voter fraud
on a local level or on the national level.
That's reportable, and that's factual.
The rest of it, I'm not exactly sure
what it is he's trying to accomplish.
Because there is no evidence of that.
I'm sure that there's some thinking
that if it doesn't go well maybe he'll be able to point to that.
He made these same sorts of accusations
before the last election regarding Hillary Clinton.
So sometimes you have to just watch what's happening
and listen to what they're saying just a little bit less.
Not just the President, but most of them, Jimmy.
-Yeah. Maybe he's just trying to hype up his base and be like,
"Yeah, it's going to be rigged, so you better get out there
and vote because it's going to be rigged,
and if we just win by a landslide,
then we won't have to have this conversation."
-And, also, "If I don't win, here might be the reason."
He's managed expectations in this way
throughout his business career.
You wonder if maybe he's taking a page from that now.
I don't know.
-The first presidential debate is tomorrow night.
It is going to be moderated by your former
Fox News colleague Chris Wallace.
What do you expect to see in the debate tomorrow night?
What should we expect?
-I expect Chris Wallace to be prepared.
Nobody who has watched Chris Wallace
thinks other than that he's a very tough,
very thoroughly prepared journalist.
And he's said repeatedly over the years,
to me and publicly,
"My job is to stay out of the way
and be unnoticed as much as possible."
But he's not one to let a falsehood or a misrepresentation
or a "look over here" kind of shiny object thing
just slide by the way.
He will hold them. Both of them.
He's not a partisan guy. He's searching for truth.
He's trying to speak truth to power
and trying to get information to the public.
That's what all journalists want to do.
It's not about Chris.
He'll be the first to tell you that.
It's about finding out what they are really about.
-That's a good segue into your new show.
You certainly couldn't have picked a more critical time
in our nation's history to start your new show.
There's so much news to cover.
Tell us about "The News with Shepard Smith."
-It'll be that simple. It'll be the news.
We're not going to have pundits. We're not going to have opinion.
We'll bring you facts. The facts, the truth, the news.
We'll try to bring it to you in context and with perspective.
When we see things that are not true, like that shiny object
I was talking about, we'll point that out.
And we'll cut through the disinformation.
Jimmy, there's so much of it. It's all over our feeds.
Sometimes people live in a world of just lies.
And when that's happening
and it rises to the public discourse, we'll point it out.
Look, there was a time when all newscasts
or most of them were just,
"Here are the facts, so you can decide for yourself.
Here's what's happening in the world
so you can plan for your family
and your business and your community and your church."
That's what we want to do.
We want to be a source of truth and honesty,
and we'll hold truth to power because that is our job.
The founding fathers didn't only put journalism
in the Constitution for no reason.
They put it there because it's important,
and journalists have a responsibility to get it right
and tell it straight, and that's what we're going to do.
-It premiers this Wednesday at 7:00 p.m.
You're going to be on every night.
Congrats on this and good luck with the new show.
I'll be watching.
-Thank you, Jimmy. Really appreciate it.
-Thanks again for coming on the show. Stay safe, please.
Shepard Smith, everybody. "The News with Shepard Smith"
premiers this Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. on CNBC.
Set your DVRs.