CBS News
Transcript: House Speaker Mike Johnson on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” Oct. 13, 2024
The following is a transcript of an interview with House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” that aired on Oct. 13, 2024.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And we go now to House Speaker Mike Johnson, who joins us from Benton, Louisiana. Good morning to you, Mr. Speaker.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE MIKE JOHNSON: Hey Margaret, great to see you.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Sir, we know there have been these two devastating hurricanes just in the past 16 days. You have visited some of these disaster zones yourself. And Punchbowl News quotes you as saying that Congress may eventually have to pass an aid package that could reach as high as $100 billion. Last Sunday on this program, Thom Tillis, the senator from North Carolina, said to us he’d like for Congress to provide some certainty by voting now on aid and then come back after the election to do more. Lawmakers aren’t scheduled to come back for another month. Why do you think it can wait?
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Well, it can wait because remember, the day before Hurricane Helene hit, made landfall in Florida, and then went up through the states and wound up in Senator Tillis’s state of North Carolina, Congress appropriated $20 billion additional to FEMA so that they would have the necessary resources to address immediate needs, and so we put that into the coffers. I just checked Margaret as of this morning, less than 2% of that funding has actually been distributed, right around 2% of it, so we need FEMA to do its job. That- those funds, that money is provided so that storm victims can have the immediate necessities met. And then what happens after every storm is that the states have to assess and calculate the actual needs, and then they submit to Congress that request. As soon as that is done, Congress will meet and in bipartisan fashion, we will address those needs. We’ll provide the additional resources. But it would be premature to call everyone back now, because these storms are so large in their scope and magnitude, it’s going to take a little bit of time to make those calculations. In North Carolina, I was there in the worst hit areas around Asheville with Senator Tillis and Senator Budd, Chuck Edwards, the congressman that represents that area, the devastation is broad, and people were still being rescued 13 days out from the storm. That was just a few days back. So they still have a lot to do. It’s going to take a long time to make those calculations, but Congress is ready to act, and we will.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, the FEMA Director says there’s only $11 billion left from that $20 billion that was allocated. So that’s a different accounting than this 2% you say was distributed.
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Yeah. So they’ve obligated some funds, but they’ve only distributed 2%, and when I was there on the ground, and you should go, I mean, bring the cameras and talk to the people there, they’ll tell you, don’t- don’t take politicians words for this or the administration’s word, talk to the people there on the ground they had not been provided the resources almost two weeks out from the storm that they desperately needed. And when I was there 13 days, post- you know, post the storm hitting that state, people are still being rescued. They’re stuck in the higher elevations in the mountains because the roads are down and all the rest. So they need every- every available resource and all hands on deck. The rescue and recovery efforts are still going on, and then we address the rest of it. But FEMA was slow to respond. They did not do the job that we all expect and hope that they will do, and there’s going to be a lot of assessment about that as well in the days ahead.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But hurricane season, as you know, last through the end of November, you’re from Louisiana. You’ve dealt with this before. NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is forecasting this could be one of the busiest seasons on record. So why not get ahead of this? Isn’t it a bit of a gamble to wait?
SPEAKER JOHNSON: No, it’s not. Margaret, as I just said, Congress can’t meet and just send money on a guess or an estimate of what the damages are. The way supplemental disaster funding is provided is that, you know, the state sends in actual needs. It’s assessed by Congress and then handed out that way. But again, remember, they have billions, tens of billions of dollars that were already sent to FEMA, one day before Helene made landfall. So they have plenty of resources. And in fact, the administration Secretary Mark- Mayorkas said himself, DHS, FEMA is division- division of Homeland Security. He said just a few days ago on his telecast to the media that they have what they need right now. Everyone understands and knows more will be necessary. But if we meet in a few weeks, right after the election, when Congress is set to go back, that is about the right amount of time where we’ll be able to handle those needs.
MARGARET BRENNAN: And that $100 billion is a correct assessment that you made?
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Well, look, that’s my guesstimate. You know, I was on the ground in the worst hit areas in Florida. I went where Helene made landfall. Whole communities are wiped out there. It’s devastating. It goes all the way inland. The agricultural areas are devastated by it as well. And then you go up to the Carolinas, Tennessee, Georgia, it is a broad scope. As Governor Kemp said, in Georgia, it was as if a 250 mile wide tornado ripped through his state. So this is going to take some time to recover from. You mentioned, I’m from Louisiana. We’re still dealing with the after effects of Katrina almost 20 years later. So these are big ones.
And it’s going to take a lot of work, but the good news is, you know, the heartening thing about this Margaret, when you’re there on the ground, you talk to the people, you’re reminded of the American spirit, and people pull together, communities, pulling together, churches, nonprofits, Samaritan’s Purse, all the rest, they’re doing extraordinary work there, and it it makes you encouraged to be among the people, even in despite of that devastation, they’re pulling together, and that’s that’s the great thing about all this.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We have some new CBS polling out this morning, and it shows a majority of voters do trust their state’s election system. Only a quarter of voters think there will be widespread fraud in this upcoming 2024 election, but half of Donald Trump voters want him to challenge the election results. If Harris wins, most of the Vice President’s backers want her to accept the results no matter who wins.
MARGARET BRENNAN: You are the Speaker of the House, which means you are one of the officials with some say about the security situation leading up to January 6th and election certification. Can you assure the country, we will not see the violence that this country experienced in 2021? What are you doing to stop it?
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Yes, I don’t think we’ll see anything like that. I certainly pray and hope that’s true. There’s a lot of great work that’s been done at the federal, state and local level to prevent the chaos that ensued after 2020. The Covid election year, when all the states were changing their laws and regulations without the legislatures approving that. That brought up constitutional questions. There were all sorts of concerns about fraud and irregularity and all those things. The good thing is, and I think everybody should be encouraged, that since that time, most of the state legislatures went to work to shore up their systems to ensure that those kinds of things didn’t happen in the future. And I think that that’s going to give us a high degree of certainty, and certainly hope that this will be a free and fair and legal election. I think everybody on both sides should be praying and hoping for that, and that’s what I hope and expect. And so when we get to January 6th, as you know, the Constitution, our laws require us to get this done on a certain timetable, and we will. Congress will follow the Constitution. I guarantee you that I’ve made a career of that. You know, I’ve demonstrated it over and over and over throughout my life, and as Speaker of the House. And we will take care of this so everybody can can have a sense of certainty about that. Now look, there are members on both sides of the aisle who may object to slates of electors. That is commonplace now. In fact, Democrats have objected to slates of electors after every single Republican presidential victory this century. So there’s nothing really irregular about that. And when people say that they’ve got to watch it closely, they’re saying that they’ll do their job. So–
MARGARET BRENNAN: but back in–
SPEAKER JOHNSON: We’re going to have the peaceful transition of power. Yeah, I believe President Trump’s going to win, and this will be taken care of.
MARGARET BRENNAN: But back in 2020 you supported a legal challenge to the outcome of the election. The Supreme Court rejected that attempt to challenge it. Since then, the Electoral Count Reform Act has been passed. Are you certain that at the nation’s capital, the lawmakers who you work with, won’t be challenging the outcome?
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Look, we’ll see what happens. I can just tell you that we’re going to follow the law, and we will ensure that our colleagues follow the law. The Electoral Count Act and the Constitution itself requires. The reason for the objection in, you know, the last election cycle in 2020 was what I referenced earlier, is that we had all sorts of changes to election laws in the states and choosing electors the mechanism by doing that under article two, section one, clause two says that only the state legislatures can choose those systems. So when elections officials and secretaries of state and some state court judges and whomever the governors, when they changed their rules because of Covid, they did it in an unconstitutional manner. And that was an important legal question. The Supreme Court never addressed it, because, remember, they just rejected all that on standing. But we’re not re-litigating–
[CROSSTALK]
MARGARET BRENNAN: But 62, no I’m not
SPEAKER JOHNSON: We’re talking about 2024-
MARGARET BRENNAN: Exactly, and 62 legal challenges, as you know, failed with the Trump challenges to
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Yeah but not on that basis, Margaret. Margaret, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Not on that basis. That legal question is, I think, objectively proven to be true. Obviously, everyone knows the legislatures weren’t meeting in 2020 because of Covid. So it’s article two, section one, clause two, everybody google it and read it says only the legislatures can make those rules. But look, I’m comfortable to tell you that this year–
MARGARET BRENNAN: – But on the security picture
SPEAKER JOHNSON: That’s not an issue, right?
MARGARET BRENNAN: On the security picture at the nation’s capital, what measures are you taking?
[CROSSTALK ENDS]
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Yeah. Look, we have an all hands on deck approach on this. The Capitol Police and the Architect of the Capitol and everyone have done extraordinary measures. They’ve hardened the facilities around the building to prevent anything in the future from foreign terrorists or anyone else who might want to, you know, try to invade the Capitol, okay. That’s taken care of. But I think the greater issue and the bigger story is that you’ve had really great work done in most of the states to shore up their systems and to make sure that that we have a free and fair election. Now look, as President Trump says all the time and I agree, our side, what we say at the rallies you’ve heard is we’ve got to make it too big to rig. I think that’s really important. I think there is going to be some cheating in this election. I think noncitizens are going to vote. Look, case in point–
[CROSSTALK]
MARGARET BRENNAN: You know that it is against–
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Glenn Youngkin, the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia
MARGARET BRENNAN: The law for noncitizens to vote in federal elections that’s established law.
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Of course it is, of course it is, but of course it is. But here’s the problem, there’s a number of states that are not requiring proof of citizenship when illegals are noncitizens register to vote. We know that’s happening. Look, Glenn Youngkin in Virginia, I was going to say he issued an executive order to clean up their voting rules heading into the election. Less than 30 days out, a couple of days ago, the Obama, I mean, the Biden administration, Department of Justice, Biden Harris administration, sued the governor and the state, the Commonwealth of Virginia, to try to prevent them from cleaning up their voter rolls. Their voter rolls. See, that kind of thing creates a lot of doubt and concern in the minds of a lot of the American people. Why would they do that?
MARGARET BRENNAN: But respectfully, Speaker –
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Everybody should want the law to be followed
MARGARET BRENNAN: Absolutely. respectfully, Speaker, you both, in the course of this interview, said that you do believe that states have taken measures that will help the integrity of this election
SPEAKER JOHNSON: That’s true-
MARGARET BRENNAN: – and then you just also seem to undermine confidence in the integrity of the state elections–
SPEAKER JOHNSON: No, no. Margaret. Hold on. Wait a minute. Wait, wait just a minute. It’s not me undermining it. It’s the actions of the Biden-Harris administration and some of these states. Noncitizens are not allowed to vote under federal law
MARGARET BRENNAN: Right
SPEAKER JOHNSON: But the states have prohibited it. We passed the SAVE act. You know, in the house, the SAVE Act says you gotta have proof of citizenship before you register to vote. And Chuck Schumer and the Democrats blocked that in the Senate. We could have prevented this, the questions that people have about that, but the Democrats chose not to. They opened the border wide. A lot of people theorize that that was so that they could have non citizens to vote. These are realities, Margaret. I wish it weren’t true, but that’s what’s, that’s the concern that people have. And Wisconsin–
[CROSSTALK]
MARGARET BRENNAN: – But, but. People can have lots of concerns, but it is already law that noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections.
SPEAKER JOHNSON: It is a law. That’s correct, but we have to make sure the law is followed. And that is the whole point. That has always been the whole point of the SAVE Act and all the measures that we’ve tried to ensure. I believe, by my count, we have about 16 million illegal aliens in the country since Mayorkas and Harris and Biden opened the border wide. And because of that, there’s concern, because those people are distributed all around the country, as you know, there’s concern some of those people will try to participate in the elections. Look, some of our House races. I believe the Republicans are going to win the house, grow the house majority, win the Senate and the White House. But in some of our House races, I mean, I have a colleague who was elected by six votes in 2020. Some of these are decided by hundreds or a few 1000s of votes. So if you have non citizens participating against the law, and you have no mechanism in some states to stop it. That is the root of so much of the concern. And of course, you know, in California, they have ballot harvesting right? Ballot harvesting is notorious for opening the door for fraud in Wisconsin, they’re going to put—
MARGARET BRENNAN: — Mr. Speaker, you seem to be
SPEAKER JOHNSON: – In some counties unmanned ballot boxes in public parks, again
MARGARET BRENNAN: Contradicting yourself. The states are run by the state government–
SPEAKER JOHNSON: No. I’m stating the facts, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: – Not the federal government.
SPEAKER JOHNSON: That’s right. That’s correct. And that’s yeah we hope and pray-
MARGARET BRENNAN: So if your issue is with certain governors, shouldn’t you be talking to them?
SPEAKER JOHNSON: We have been- we have been and the Republican governors have done heroic work. They’ve done their own audits of the voter rolls to try to ensure and do their best duty to make sure that this is a free, fair and legal election. We’re calling on all the governors to do the same thing, Democrat governors as well, and Democrat led states in the legislature, they need to do the same thing. A lot of good work has been done since 2020, but there’s still questions out there. So what we have to do, and we have been at the congressional level, is try to force as much as possible, voter integrity measures. Try to encourage that that would be taking place in every state. Because you’re right, your point is well taken- these elections– are are handled by the individual states–
MARGARET BRENNAN: – But you’re not convening Congress until after the election, you said, Sir, so you won’t be able to do any of what you are talking about in theory.
SPEAKER JOHNSON: Hey, Margaret, Margaret, we’ve been doing this for almost four years since the 2020 debacle, that’s what’s been happening. And the Republican led states and the Republican governors have done an extraordinary job. Some of the Democrats have not. It has not been seen as their top priority, and that’s the reason for the controversy and the concern. But again, I’m going to reiterate what I said in the outset. In spite of all that, I think it’s going to be too big to rig. I think we’re going to have a free and fair and legal election across the board. I certainly hope and pray that’s true. And I think every member of Congress joins in that- that- that hope and concern.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, thank you for your time. We’ll be right back with a lot more Face the Nation. Stay with us.
Former Microsoft CEO and LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has consistently ranked among the world’s wealthiest billionaires.
Despite his vast fortune, friends say Ballmer is still the kind of guy who complains about the cost of a hotel minibar. The billionaire has no superyacht, no fancy wardrobe and still lives in the four-bedroom house where he and his wife raised their three sons. Still, there’s no doubt that having a net worth north of $120 billion-plus has impacted Ballmer.
“I am fundamentally changed. I know I am,” Ballmer said.
Ballmer’s beginnings
Growing up in suburban Detroit, Ballmer was a shy, anxious kid. His father, a Swiss immigrant, worked a mid-level job at Ford. Ballmer went to Harvard, where he managed the football team and struck up a close friendship with another Harvard student: Bill Gates.
Gates dropped out to start a software company, while Ballmer went in a different direction: sales and marketing at Procter & Gamble, selling Duncan Hines brownie mix, blueberry muffin mix and Moist ‘n’ Easy snack cake mix. But baked goods, he found, were not his calling, so Ballmer went to Stanford Business School. He was midway through his first year when he got a call from Gates, who wanted to recruit Ballmer for his chaotic software startup.
60 Minutes
“But software for microcomputers, it was not a thing at the time in any way, shape or form,” Ballmer said.
Nevertheless, Gates was convincing, and Ballmer left school to join his friend.
Ballmer’s salary? $40,000 plus a 9% stake in Gate’s company.
Ballmer’s legacy at Microsoft
Together, Gates and Ballmer came to personify Microsoft. Enthusiasm became Ballmer’s trademark, and a meme after a video of a sweat-soaked Ballmer chanting “developers, developers, developers” went viral.
“That’s a guy who really wanted to fire people up. To say, ‘Hey, we love you. We want you to write software for Windows,'” Ballmer said.
Looking back on it now, Ballmer admits he feels a little embarrassed about it.
But “I personally feed off energy,” he said. “And it’s not everybody’s cup of tea, by the way. I mean, you know, some people are quieter. But it’s me.”
60 Minutes
Ballmer took over as Microsoft CEO in 2000 and his tenure was marked by wins and losses. He famously failed to take the challenge of Apple’s iPhone seriously when it launched, laughing at the idea in 2007.
“Gosh darn it. You know, the phone. Man, the phone. We should’ve been in the phone. We should’ve been the leader,” he said.
And yet during Ballmer’s tenure as CEO, Microsoft’s revenue more than tripled. He hung on to most of his stock and has seen his personal fortune soar.
From computers to basketball
Ballmer left Microsoft in 2014, the same year he bought the LA Clippers. People have asked if he always wanted to own a basketball team.
“Of course not,” Ballmer said. “Who the heck ever thinks you’re going to get enough money to own a basketball team?”
It’s different from running Microsoft, a company with revenues that are 20 times higher than those of the NBA. But Ballmer says he’s having more fun in this job, in part because it’s much easier to measure performance.
“People ask me ‘What’s the difference between business and basketball?’- Well, if you have a bad quarter you can say, ‘I’ll get him next time’ or ‘You don’t know what we got going on in the labs but it’s going to be great,'” Ballmer said. “Here, every 24 seconds you get a scorecard. ‘Did we score? Did we stop them from scoring?’ Every 24 seconds. At the end of the game if you lose it, you can never change it.”
This week on 60 Minutes, correspondent Jon Wertheim profiled Steve Ballmer, the former Microsoft CEO and current owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Ballmer is consistently ranked among the world’s top billionaires but doesn’t lead the high-flying life of some of his peers.
He bought a basketball team, which he admits is an extravagance, but he has no superyacht, no new wardrobe, and no new spouse. And Ballmer is giving away billions of dollars through a philanthropy he runs with his wife, Connie, called the Ballmer Group.
In an interview at their home in Washington, Steve and Connie Ballmer shared their vision for that philanthropy.
Steve Ballmer, who held on to most of his Microsoft stock after stepping down as CEO in 2014, has seen his net worth soar past $120 billion.
Connie Ballmer felt strongly that responsibility came with all that good fortune.
She first pitched the idea of a philanthropy to her husband 10 years ago, but Steve, by his own admission, was skeptical.
In essence, he felt that the government could handle the distribution of resources in the U.S. He felt the private sector couldn’t match the effectiveness of government and could not change people’s lives on a national scale. He said that, over time, Connie changed his thinking.
“Government does supply almost all the money to help people. [But] philanthropy has a role in helping to do proof points, prove where things are going, and step in where government won’t go,” Steve told Wertheim.
In 2015, the couple co-founded the Ballmer Group after Steve retired from Microsoft.
The Group’s mission is to improve economic mobility, particularly for kids and families in disadvantaged communities.
“We were both incredibly fortunate to be born in this country at this time and have so much privilege,” Connie told Wertheim. “Children have no voice. And they don’t get to vote on where they’re born and where they live.”
Her husband agrees. “Every kid deserves a shot,” said Steve. “Not every kid’s going to be successful. But if you’re born with parents who are less affluent, you should still have an opportunity to pursue your dreams.”
So far, the Ballmers have given away about $7.4 billion in grants.
They’ve taken a “cradle-to-career” approach, investing in a wide variety of causes: from early childhood and K-12 education to college access and readiness, career, workforce, and housing initiatives.
In 2022, the Ballmer Group gave $175 million to a nonprofit called StriveTogether that connects local communities to a nationwide network. The two organizations can share data and find resources to improve education and career outcomes for young people.
The Ballmers say they’re especially connected to the communities that they have personal links to, like Los Angeles County, home of the Clippers; Washington state, where they live; southeast Michigan, where Steve was born and raised; and Oregon, where Connie went to college.
Through the philanthropy, the couple has pumped $15 million into Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, and they’ve made a $24m investment in the Boys and Girls Club of America.
In 2022, Connie’s alma mater, University of Oregon, was given a $400 million grant to create the Ballmer Institute of Children’s Behavioral Health.
Wertheim asked the Ballmers what a “win” looks like and how they measure success.
“Each area is different,” Connie said. “[But] if we have less community violence. If we have more teachers of color in schools that need them. If we have more high school graduation rates. If we have better kindergarten readiness.”
At the end of the interview, Wertheim changed topics. Steve already owns one pro sports franchise. Could another be on the horizon?
“I told him that he and his next wife would have a good time with that,” Connie said with a laugh.
Steve Ballmer, in a fit of laughter, shot the idea down: “No, sir.”
“We’ve got enough sports…I can give my passion to this. I can work on the philanthropy.”
The video above was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Sarah Shafer Prediger.
When Rafael Nadal retires from professional tennis next month, the sport will lose a few things.
It will lose a powerful athlete whose explosions on the court were always about sending tennis ball-shaped torpedoes flying over the net — not about breaking the racquet. Absent going forward will be something of an obsessive player whose mid-game rituals were obvious to even casual fans, as was the effort he put into every point of every match. Tennis will bid farewell to a man whose humility stayed unwavering, even as he earned two Olympic gold medals and a staggering 22 Grand Slam singles titles, an extraordinary — and likely unrepeatable — 14 of them on Paris’s red clay.
And it will say goodbye to a tennis player whose childlike love for the game never dampened, even as he changed the very sport itself.
After more than two decades on the pro circuit, countless injuries — and just as many comebacks — Nadal announced on Thursday that his final tournament would be this year’s Davis Cup, where next month he will play for his home country of Spain.
During those last two decades, 60 Minutes correspondent Jon Wertheim has seen it all; he has covered Nadal for Sports Illustrated and the Tennis Channel since the tennis phenom was 18.
In 2019 for 60 Minutes, Wertheim met Nadal in his hometown on Mallorca, the Spanish island where he was born and still lives. The two shared a long sit-down conversation that was unusual on the tennis circuit: It was in Nadal’s hometown, not at a tournament, not when he had a match the next day, not when he was thinking about slicing backhands.
In that conversation, it became clear just how much love Nadal had for his sport.
“I never felt that what I was doing was a sacrifice,” Nadal told Wertheim through a Spanish interpreter. “I trained, yes. I have worked very hard, at the maximum, yes. But I have enjoyed every single thing. For me, a sacrifice means that you are doing the things that you don’t like doing. But I have done all of the things I enjoy doing.”
60 Minutes visited in December, the weeks that amount to the off-season in tennis. But rather than use the time to rest before the start of a new season, Nadal was working intensely, honing his southpaw forehand and double-fisted backhand.
Wertheim watched as Nadal played through his morning practice with his characteristic vigor, sending balls catapulting off his racket with an urgency typically reserved for matches. His relentlessness served him well on the court. It also took a toll on his body.
“I’m very happy that after all of the physical issues that I had to suffer through my career, which are a lot, I’m delighted to be where I am, being 33,” he told Wertheim in 2019. “This is something I value and that gives me great personal satisfaction.”
Over the years, Nadal experienced the gamut of physical injuries, occasionally taking extended time off to rehab. Each time, he seemed to push through and return to the top of his game.
In a way, struggling through adversity is what Nadal told Wertheim he liked most about tennis itself.
In his 2019 interview, Nadal said he enjoyed the “mental effort” of the game, the search for solutions when he was down in a set, the analysis needed to change a match’s dynamics. When he was losing, he wanted to understand what was going wrong, to analyze how his opponent was playing better that day.
If he came from behind to win, he said he found the victory even more satisfying than, say, trouncing a competitor in straight sets.
“Because you make the extra effort,” he said. “It means that you have the chance to compete again the next day. And the next day, you’re going to be playing better. Sometimes when I’m in the first round or second round, and I’m not playing well, I say, okay, just accept it. Don’t get frustrated. Just accept and focus.”
Focus has been a key element of Nadal’s game. To block out distractions — from the crowd, from his opponent, from his own head — he created rituals that he performs every match. He told Wertheim that about an hour before a match began, he talks with his coach. Then, he thinks to himself as he prepares the grips on his rackets and his physiotherapy bandages. Just before walking out on the court, he steps into an ice-cold shower.
On the court, a routine also precedes each serve. Nadal steps forward and leans his weight into his right foot while adjusting his shorts in the back. Then, while methodically dribbling the ball with the racquet in his left hand, his right hand picks at the shirt sleeve on his left shoulder, then his right. He gives a quick swipe to his nose before tucking the hair behind his left ear, then repeats it on the right side—nose swipe, hair tuck. With a final wipe of each cheek with his wrist sweatbands, he’s ready to serve.
Then, once back in his seat on the sidelines, there are the water bottles. He always places two bottles in front of his chair, setting one behind the other so they face the court diagonally. He turns their labels outward. Prior to the match and during changeovers, he takes alternating sips from each before putting them back in their places with precision.
It may seem like superstition, but Nadal explained it is all part of the way he disregards distraction.
“If I don’t do that with the bottles, then I sit down, I could be thinking of something else,” he told 60 Minutes in 2019. “If I do always the same things, it means that I am focused and I’m alert to think purely about tennis.”
Wertheim witnessed plenty of Nadal’s rituals in the two decades he has covered the tennis star. When Wertheim first profiled Nadal for Sports Illustrated in May 2005, the Spanish teen hadn’t yet won a major. But Wertheim saw the potential in Nadal’s passionate playing, writing, “[T]here’s every indication that Nadal … has begun a long residence at the top of the sport.”
And he did. Nadal entered the Association of Tennis Professionals’ top 10 that same year and spent 912 consecutive weeks inside the Top 10. He only dropped from it in March 2023 after injury sidelined him for most of the season.
One of Nadal’s most enduring legacies will be his rivalry with Roger Federer. They met across the net 40 times, facing off on European clay, hard courts oceans away, and London’s grass. That’s where the pair duked it out in one of the best matches ever played: the 2008 Wimbledon final, a battle that raged on the court for almost five hours, not counting the two rain delays. In the end, Nadal defeated Federer, who had claimed the title at Wimbledon the previous five years, and ended Federer’s 40-match winning streak at All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club.
But this duo might be most memorable because of their genuine friendship.
“We … know that this is a game,” Nadal said in 2019. “And there are many other things in life that are more important than a game, than a match. And of course, there have been some moments with more tension. But like everything else in life, both [Roger] and myself, we had very clearly in our minds that the human relations are more important than the tennis rivalry.”
When Wertheim spoke with Nadal for 60 Minutes five years ago, Federer had 20 majors. Nadal had 19. When he retires next month, he’ll walk off the court with 22 — two more than his old friend, and two fewer than the remaining member of the “Big Three,” Novak Djokovic. Of these three, it may be that his place in history matters the least to Nadal.
And in 2019, he told 60 Minutes he would be at peace, whenever he returns his last serve.
“I’m not worried about retiring at the end of my career,” he said. “I just want to be happy and enjoy playing as much as possible. And when I retire, I think fortunately there are many things in my life that will make me happy.”
The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer. It was edited by Scott Rosann and Sarah Shafer Prediger.