Jacob Soboroff began his new MS NOW show by playing a wild video of his very first election coverage, where he said he was certain he’d be fired after an interviewee cursed live on the air.

Connect With Jacob Soboroff aired its first episode Saturday, as former 11 a.m. host Ali Velshi moved to 11 p.m. weekdays.

“For my first day here, the thing that made me feel comfortable and safe, and at home, was being out in the world with so many of you, and I hope to bring whatever that thing is that we have developed together into the studio every weekend,” Soboroff said. “What is that thing?”

He continued:

It’s a connection. A connection that I have felt countless times with countless people reporting for you, including a decade ago, on the first time I really felt it, on my inaugural election night here, when young people inside the University of Iowa Field House in Iowa City showed up in record numbers. They argued with each other, they even dropped an F-bomb on the air as they debated the future of the country, in one of the weirdest forms of exercising the franchise you could possibly imagine.

On the archival footage, a student asked how Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was going to fix the Department of Veterans Affairs, “because the V.A. is so f*cked up.”

Anchor Brian Williams stepped in, saying, “You know, when you listen in to caucuses, you take the good with the bad*ss” as  Soboroff is heard saying, “Sorry about that.”

Williams continued, “— and that people often speak the way they do out on the street. And we apologize. I know Jacob apologizes. We all join him in apologizing for a bit of French that snuck in to our English language translation there.”

“Again, apologies from us here in the field house, as well,” Soboroff said. “Obviously, as I said, this is what democracy looks like. It ain’t pretty, and people get very heated out here.”

Cutting back to the studio, Soboroff said, “I swear to you, in that moment I thought I was about to get fired, but it turned out it was just the beginning. It was the start of connecting with all of you, the start of sharing experiences together, the start of feeling seen and understood by you guys,” he told the audience.

Watch above via MS NOW.

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