Preview: Gabby Giffords on Before & After with Lester Holt Dateline NBC ยท 19 Oct 2026 Source: https://www.nbcnews.com/dateline Transcript: https://podcasts.opennash.com/shows/dateline-nbc/preview-gabby-giffords-on-before-after-with-lester-holt-510dfb/ (via OpenNash Podcasts, machine-generated) I'm Craig Melford. Cheers, cheers. I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half full. Search Glass Half Full with Craig Melford from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Kate Snow, NBC News anchor and host of the NBC News podcast, The Drink. This month, I'm having a non-alcoholic Guinness with filmmaker, actor, and writer Ed Burns. You know him from movies like Saving Private Ryan and 27 Dresses, but you will not believe what it took to get his first movie made, including tracking down legendary actor director Robert Redford. Ed and I talk about how he built his career on his own terms and the staying power of independent filmmaking. And of course, I had to ask, what's the secret to his decades-long marriage to supermodel Christie Turlington? We talk about all of it. I hope you'll join us for the drink. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Lester Holt with a special preview of my new podcast, Before and After. In this week's episode, I sit down with Gabby Giffords, the former Arizona congresswoman married to Senator Mark Kelly. Back in 2011, Gabby was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a Tucson grocery store. She suffered a devastating brain injury that left her with partial paralysis and aphasia, a condition that sometimes makes it difficult to speak. But as I learned, Gabby still has a lot to say about her recovery, her gun safety organization, Giffords, and her hope for the future. I can't believe we've never met. How is that? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I I wanted to meet you because I wanted to know what it's like being Gabby Giffords. Funny, funny, funny. I'm Gabby Giffords. Yoga twice a week, French horn, Spanish lessons, biking, 240 for the gym, pool therapy, and I'm traveling 60 on the road. Are we talking about an average day you Do all that? And how does it make you feel? Love it. Love it, love it. Yeah. This is a point I think I want to bring in Emma Brown. Hi, Emma. Hi. Um, you work with Gabby. Yeah, the executive director of Giffords. Yeah. Gabby has a condition called aphasia. Gabby, I'll I'll turn it to you on that. What does aphasia mean for your life? How does it affect you? Aphasia really sucks. The words are there in my brain. I just can't get them out. I love to talk. I'm Gabby, and I'm so quiet now. I don't experience you as all that quiet in real life. What, what, what? And chicken, chicken, chicken. When Gabby was shot, um, she was in a coma for a few weeks. And when she woke up, those were the only two words that she could say. The word Chicken chicken. And what? Yeah, the word what. No one knows why. No one knows why. But those those were the only words that she could say, and she rebuilt her vocabulary from there. Right after you were shot, I flew out to Arizona and I was anchoring the news from there. Tonight from Tucson, the massacre that's left a nation stunned. Six people are dead, and a congresswoman fights for her life. I'm sure you've been told this, that there was some erroneous reporting that you had died. Oh, no way, Jose. Yeah. How long before you realize what had happened and the extent of your injuries? What is happening to me? What is happening to me? Gabby will, um, and Senator Kelly will tell a story of, um, after she had woken up, they hid the newspapers from her because it was too much, you know, to take in. And I think he walked into the bathroom right in And The hospital and cried, yeah. Cried and um said to Mark, What is happening to me? You know, realizing what had what had happened and the extent of her injuries. Did you understand how badly You were? You have tracheotomy Scar The bullet. Went through your head? I was thinking as I came here, all the shootings that happened after yours. There was Las Vegas. There was El Paso. And I think about the survivors, people like yourself, and how you managed to figure it out. And you put 1 foot in front of the other, and you take back What's yours. Are You still recovering? What's that look like? A lot of homework. A lot of homework. It sounds hard. I'm tough. Thanks for listening. Search Before and After with Lester Holt to hear the full episode now. Friday night on an all new Dateline. They stab my wife about four or five times. He said she died trying to help a stranger. Gotta live with that every day. The hunt for a killer puts a city on edge. The race was on. It just floored me. An all-new Dateline Friday night at 9/8 central only on NBC.