The Newsroom - Jeff Daniels Answers 'Why Is America The Greatest Country?'

To the surprise of the cast, a few Newsroom fans in the crowd reenact the opening scene to the Newsroom at PaleyFest.

[TCH-]

Jeff Daniels is always laid-back, yet, confident and comfortable in his own skin. He knows his craft well, performs it expertly, and I just plain like him. Anything Mr. Daniels does is done so well.

[TiboFPS]

Jeff Daniels looks as happy as a little kid

[randomidea]

To get a standing ovation from Aaron Sorkin must feel great!

[ShawnaGraham]

That speech couldn’t have hit our problem as a country more on the head then anything! His delivery makes it even more. Jeff Daniels is an amazing actor not given his dues imo

[CriticalRoleHighlights]

That speech is even more relevant now than it was when it was written.

[RYk]

Man, Sorkin did an amazing job with that speech. Unfortunately this sort of self-awareness is pretty uncommon for the people that are in charge in the real world.

[andrewcooper]

I've just watched The Newsroom from the Paley Centre 2013 and it still resonates with newness.Would it not be amazing if they did a season 4 now. Imagine the storylines and blockbuster scenes the writers would have a field day.

[nitush]

that's it! Aaron Sorkin is a musician in words! in other words-
he's a word composer.
I can like shows, there ideas, the dynamics, the word games, but on the news room I just LOVE
hearing the words woven into each other, each sentence into another. AMAZING! which empowers
the message of the power of words.
(excluding the curse words which I hate hearing)
thank you Aaron for 3 great seasons of romantic idealism painted so well.

[warrenshapiro]

The greatest speech in a TV show, ever ever ever! Love this clip! thanks for sharing it!

[pat]

I think about ... Jeff Daniels from The Newsroom perform an amazing monologue written by Aaron Sorkin about how America isn't the greatest country in the world It rings so true and makes me so sad that we haven't taken the 1st step yet .

[wightangel]

Jeff Daniels is so underrated it is criminal.

[ericadamcik]

I asked him this question after seeing him in a Broadway play a few years back.
He answered "That's a whole long speech that I've have to re-memorize all over again."

It was the perfect answer!

[tallulahmlocean]

I miss this show and I just discovered it a month ago!

[HousefEl]

I was lucky enough to just finish watching this right around midnight before it got taken off of Amazon Prime a couple days ago. A shame it only went 2 and a half seasons

[chumark]

Someone give the woman asked the question an award.

[skyhigh]

This is perfect. It reflects my own opinion of what was once a great country.

[neethy]

I just finished the show and am having withdrawals. this was lovely

[samsolitaryroll]

I love my country even if it's not the best in the world.

[johnpoelking]

Say it again Jeff.no one gets tired of brilliance.!!

[secondstomarsMBH]

One of my greatest days was when I was on a Youtube comments section and some idiot had said something like (about America) "we gave the world the American language.We're the greatest country in the world. We gave the world Democracy" something stupid like that.

So I figured, fuck it, I'm never gonna get another opportunity to use the speech again, so I rewrote it a little to fit it being a reply to his comment, but mainly left it intact, I'm not American, I'm a Brit, so I changed it from "we" to "you" and then I posted it.

Got a couple of good reactions from commentators, nothing major, but most of them were kinda in shock and awe at how I'd basically destroyed his whole argument, with this whole long speech full of stats. (I had made sure to state that; these stats were from around 2012 and I doubted they'd gotten any better).

Additionally cool that most people didn't know it was from The Newsroom.

But yeah, felt bloody awesome being able to use it and getting some love back for it.