I was raised by a single mom who had to put herself through school while looking after two kids. And she worked hard every day and made a lot of sacrifices to make sure we got everything we needed. My grandmother, she started off as a secretary in a bank. She never got a college education, even though she was smart as a whip. And she worked her way up to become a vice president of a local bank, but she hit the glass ceiling. She trained people who would end up becoming her bosses during the course of her career.
My mother had said me, "All right, you've been raised, so don't let anybody else raise you. You know the difference between right and wrong. Do right. And remember - you can always come home." And she continued to liberate me until she died. On the night she died, I went to the hospital. I told my mom, "Let me tell you about yourself. You deserved a great daughter, and you got one. And you liberated me to be one. So if it's time for you to go, you may have done everything God brought you here to do."
Going back to the discussion we were having about immigration reform, some of the most challenging discussions I've had are with activists who essentially would argue that any immigrant from Central America, let's say, who gets here to this country should be allowed to stay because their country is dangerous, their country is poor, and the opportunities for that mom and that kid are much greater here, and why would you send them back?
I think I was afraid of being a mother for many reasons. I wanted to be a good mom and I was fearful at one point of even working at the national level because I was afraid that I would disappoint a child or I wouldn't be as ready for a big position as maybe I should have been when I came to Fox.
I was raised in a spirit of the importance of service to your fellow man. My mom is a senator back home in South Africa. My father is a very caring and generous individual.
When you're walking down the street or in the car just listening to the radio, and you're, like , 'Oh, that's my song.' You want to say, 'Hey Mom!' That never changes.
Mom loved my brother more. Not that she didn't love me - I felt the wash of her love every day, pouring over me, but it was a different kind, siphoned from a different, and tamer, body of water. I was her darling daughter; Joseph was her it.
I have had viewers that come up to me, and they're, like, "You know, we used to watch ('Breaking Bad') as a family, and once the melted body came falling through the ceiling, my mom was just, like, 'I can't watch this show anymore. This is just way too disturbing for me.' So it's not for everybody.
What I remember thinking at that point, having gone through both the ups and downs of my first four years, and seeing the sea of people was, "What a remarkable country this is and how lucky am I that we live in a place where the son of a single mom, not born into any kind of fame or fortune, in a pretty remote state somehow can end up be in a position to - to make a difference."