Jack Tame is one of the best political interviewers on screen in NZ.
He is always well researched, incredibly quick on his feet and will give a devastating question with a professional smile.
He’s also painfully polite, so if you screw up here, you have no one to blame but yourself.
I’m not going to say Todd Muller’s first major live TV interview was a train-wreck, but it sure as hell was a car crash.
For his first interview, Todd Muller should have been in the studio with Jack, he was in Wellington and it made the interview disjointed and Muller looked panicked.
Halfway through I felt like I should be ringing for Lifeguards because it looked like Muller was drowning.
Jack gave him a very fair go but Todd sounded like a very nervous head master with no clear plan what to do next.
Like Oliver Driver and Guy Williams, Muller has all the false confidence of a tall person and waves his hands around a lot, the way CEOs do when they get basic bitch media training.
Even the right wing panelist, Ben Thomas, admitted that was Muller’s worst interview to date. It was funny that Ben was on the show because of course Ben works for Matthew Hooton and Matthew Hooton is currently under suspicion for using his media platforms to plot against Bridges, so having Ben commenting on Muller was like having Ivanka replace Donald Trump Jr to provide neutral commentary on a Trump rally.
After watching Muller’s under prepared and over cooked interview, I think Jacinda will destroy him come the debates for the election.
Hooton will be banging his head against the wall after this poor showing by Toddy, not too late to get your RNZ job back Hoots!
After that performance by Muller, Simon’s 29% must be starting to look really good to National about now.
Whatever you want to say about Simon Bridges, and I have said lots of very negative things and I would never vote for him in a million years, you knew where and what he stood for.
I have no idea what a Todd Muller National Party would do other than look daft in a MAGA hat.
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Yeah, after his performances so far, I am shocked that this guy got the backing he did in chiNational’s caucus.
Holy moley – they must have been desperate for their jobs to dump Bridges for this muppet.
Criticised the Govt on Nat Radio yesterday for not having a plan. Then when asked about chiNationals plan —he had nothing.
You don’t last long at the great Poker Table with a fist full of duds and a strategy of bluffing. This turkey is simply awful.
Simon and Paula must be enjoying the schadenfreude at the minute.
Thanks, Martyn the the cover of this ‘car wreck’
I have to admit that we didn’t watch this Q+A last night for fear that it was just another polished turd that Hooten put out to gleam up this android looking stool pigeon for the almost terminal NATZ Party again but I now will watch the podcast today- so thanks for that coverage of the car wreck.
A brilliant summation MB.
I too watched it and could not believe the Todd Muller on Q&A was the same Todd Muller I watched presenting his shadow cabinet. We definitely saw another side of Muller and it wasn’t all that attractive.
Immediately afterwards I wrote …”frenetic, breathless, excitable, little substance, full of platitudes and ums and ahs (which Bridges did so often), arms waving, occasionally looking like a possum caught in the headlights, talking over Tame so many times, over-selling his team (“phenomenal” etc etc when there’s quite few old hacks there he has dredged up from the last time they were in government! and none have yet proved themselves), giving answers that did not relate to the questions – electioneering instead…
Oh dear, is this frying pan to the fire????
And then the panel – so Ben’s a Hooton employee, is he? Hardly an appropriate choice.
Adams and Willis on Morning Report today were not much better than their Leader. They too – especially Willis – were excitable and gushy but offered little substance.
And what is so special about Amy Adams, aka Motor-mouth? An odd portfolio too when Jacinda’s got Covid 19 pretty well sorted. If Amy was that valuable to Todd, why give her a job with a near-sunset clause in it?
She should have gone with her first instincts and retired. There’s nothing much in it for her from here on in.
I was shocked when Adams said that she has had a rest this past year and now won’t be resigning. Have we Taxpayers being paying her to have a rest. If she wanted to have rest she should have been on the Job Seekers Benefit. The Nats have no decency.
To be fair to Todd, Jack needs to stop butting in and interrupting the man and let him have a chance to answer the questions. I gave up watching simply because of that reason.
Its the journalist job to keep the subject on task and to answer the question being asked. I bet if Jacinda was floundering her answers like Muller was, you’d have a different point of view. BTW, hows Grandma?
Yes Todd Muller is simply an ‘epitome of a car salesman’.
Especially as he wildly swings his arms around saying ‘Shane Reti is an outstanding MP’???
It’s as if he is describing ‘the merits of buying a Mercedes Benz to a buyer’ he is a car salesman for sure.
I won’t buy a car from this turkey.!!!
Saw the interview and yup Muller looked at a loss how to answer every time he was asked a question and after a pregnant pause just replied with vague bullshit.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/q-and-a/
Here’s the ‘muppet show’ of ‘Muller vs Tane’ – to watch for yourself.
Just watched the first 10 mins OMG this guy is a munter. Can’t wait to see him come up against Jacinda, she’s gonna make mincemeat of him literally.
Just another Disaster that Jacinda has to protect us from.
I watched this from my perspective as small business owner without staff. The video delay was a major problem, and Jack Tame having the habit of talking over the top of Muller while Muller was struggling with the delay will be obvious to anyone watching. But yeah he certainly needs to tone down the arm movements!
I think anyone suggesting this was a car crash of an interview might be suffering a degree of tribal left confirmation bias. A lot of what he said will resonate very strongly with people wanting to work for a living rather than rely on the state to pay them a wage or benefit. I voted National once 30 years ago so no tribalism here, but this guy is saying stuff that will resonate with many people looking for security, assuming you can believe he actually has the ability to get the ideas into action.
“I voted National once 30 years ago”
Don’t fall off the wagon now. We still need your vote!
Wow I must have watched a different interview than people commenting on here.
Jack Tane came across as a liar and massively biased towards Natz.
“Any one here working for Muller’. Sounds an honest and professional opening line/question. And he should have known the Hooten link in all this. So he LIED or obfuscated whilst making out he was being the honest broker. Absolute crook or ignorant. Neither looks good.
He’s yet another presstitute who probably is the CIA’s pick to control NZ media, ala Guyon Espiner.
NO change then, NZ media utterly and totally devoid of professional credibility and Tane I’m afraid for my money is one of the worst still working in the spot light.
Well observed. A pity more people commenting here don’t see the blinding obvious.
Jack Tame is a younger nastier version of Hoskins.
Day 1. Todd who?
Day 2. MAGA or Nat in the Hat day.
Day 3. Hooten Day.
Day 4. Amy Day or Back to the Future day,
Day 5. Pauls a MAORI day.
These guys are the gift that keeps giving. Keep them on as worthy successors to the Simon and Paula show. Can’t wait for day 6!
DAY 6! Mark and the Hosk have a paddy day or Todd explains day.
Half way through i swear i saw him glancing sideways for the ‘exit’ doors …..the tongue was stuck on the back of the throat and the brain was stuck in neutral. He was poorly researched simply because you can’t research nothing …zero minus zero equals zero.
There was no saving this interview and by anyone’s standards this was about as soft as it gets…
It was interesting to note that when Laila Harre starting listing National’s team of proven non- performers, Kaye , Woodhouse , Brownlee etc and how they had achieved nothing in 9 long years, both Ben Thomas and Jack Tame ganged up on her and spoke over the top of her to quickly shut her down.
Obviously only their opinions count !!
Fun for Hooton. He went to the car yard and left with what he thought was a goer. It struggled on the way home up a couple of little rises. He arrives home and checks to find it’s not the big powerful farmer type V8 Commodore he thought it was, it’s only 850cc with 3 cylinders. He does more checks and finds one cylinder isn’t even working. Bugger!
It’s fortunate I did not hear the Muller interview.
But there was one statement of his just recently that annoyed me alot. Now I don’t know what it is about National MPs but they all seem to want to beat a Mantra Drum to the point of absolute dreariness(aka mind numbing)of wanting to ‘fix’ the economy.
Looking at the past 9 years there was a National government I am certain the ONLY ‘fixing’ National did was ‘fixing’ the economy alright but in favour of the rich and those who donated heavily to the NZ National Party. So National ‘fixed’ the economy but not for the poor.
And so to me National claiming to want to ‘fix’ the economy reeks of dirty deals and riding rough-shod over the low income workers who are the taxpayers and the very people National MPs in the past have disparaged and ridiculed.
Lets be assured when it comes to National and their ‘mantra’ of claiming to fix what a previous government left behind that they will always ridicule anyone and everyone who doesn’t vote for National. And so lets include in Todd Muller’s OCD claim of ‘fixing the economy’ that he will have to admit the previous National government did a botch up of the ‘fixing the economy’ in the 9 years there was a National government.
But here is my hope at the next election and that is National consign to the history books the OCD need to blame everyone else but the faces staring back at them in the mirror.
They need to acknowledge they are not perfect. But for their “I am more holier than thou’ attitude shows an arrogance that will result in no-one wanting to vote for them.
A Muller transNational Party will say climate change is an issue, but not a very big one and do just enough to be sure it can’t be accused of doing nothing.
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