August 6, 2024 • 19 mins
In this episode, Liz sits down with Congressman Jeff Jackson from North Carolina. Jeff shares insights on his journey in public service, his candidacy for Attorney General, and his commitment to honesty and decency in politics.
Rep Jackson discusses the diverse and representative nature of North Carolina, both demographically and politically, as well as his unique upbringing in Chapel Hill. He reflects on his experience in the Army, inspired by the events of 9/11, and the values instilled in him by his family and community.
Delving into his personal life, Jeff talks about the incredible support from his wife and the joy he finds in being a father. He also shares his thoughts on the importance of staying informed, offering advice to young people interested in politics.
In a rapid-fire round, we learn about Jeff's favorite things, from his preferred ice cream flavor to his ideal vacation spot. Finally, Jeff reflects on the concept of joy and how he finds it in feeling useful and productive in his role as a public servant.
Join us for an inspiring and heartfelt conversation that goes beyond politics to explore the humanity behind the headlines.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Music.
(00:11):
I'm Liz Fershnoff-Tolley, and welcome to the Capital Coffee Connection podcast.
And I'm excited because today I have a special guest who is a congressman from
North Carolina, Jeff Jackson.
And what I'm excited about is that I've never met him until today,
but I've heard about him, and he has been very successful on social media to
(00:32):
explain really important things, not about Democrats or Republicans,
about just the facts of what is going on on Capitol Hill.
And so this gave me an opportunity to get to know you a little bit about you.
But what I really appreciated was just how clear and precise and short your
explanations have been. So I want to say thank you for that.
(00:52):
I learned a lot. And I want to welcome you. And, you know, I know that you are
also a candidate right now for attorney general in North Carolina,
and you've served in the state legislature.
You have 20 years in the Army. me. I mean, you're a public servant.
And I just want to say also thank you for that. And as a way of just...
(01:13):
Bragging for you, I also read that you were named one of Charlotte Magazine's
Charlatans of the Year in 2020.
So you've gotten some good notice. And I just want to say thank you for being
here. Well, it's my pleasure.
I've only served in Congress for a year and a half. This will be my one and only term in Congress.
But honestly, it's been such a joy. I found so much more joy and,
(01:33):
frankly, productivity here than I expected.
And I've really, a part of that has been sharing it with other people and seeing
the resonance of that. And that there would be an interest in that type of political
communication that wasn't, you know, filled with anger and filled with outrage.
That's been a cool lesson that the country is still really interested in being
(01:53):
spoken to in a normal tone of voice.
That's great. Right. Well, that's kind of the purpose, longer than a two-minute explanation.
But the reason why we started this podcast was to be able to talk with elected
leaders from both sides of the aisle and look into who they are,
their heart, their humanity,
try to stay away from the politics and the policy, which entrenches sides,
but to be able to really just sort
(02:14):
of relate to one another and have good conversations. I think it's great.
I mean, it does feel like in some moments here we have lost a bit of a shared humanity.
It's a cliche, but it's so true that there is more unites us than divides us.
And if it's nothing other than let's talk about our kids for a little bit,
let's talk about where we're from for a little bit and finding connection there,
(02:36):
then you start there. Yeah, I don't think a lot of kids go to the playground
and ask the other kid, what party are you from before you're going to play soccer or football, right?
I read this quote of yours, and I'd just like to start with this,
which is, you said, before politics comes principle.
Without adhering to the basic principles of honesty and decency,
there can be no political debate and no political progress.
(02:57):
As a soldier, a former prosecutor, a husband and a father, commitment to those
principles has been non-negotiable in my life.
We may disagree on certain policies, but my primary mission is to represent
the people of North Carolina with honesty and decency, and hopefully we can all agree on that.
Well, I appreciate you starting there because that's where I start.
(03:18):
And I think of foundational political principles for our country like liberty
and equality, but there's a set before the pre-political principles.
And if we're going to articulate them, I think saying honesty and decency sort
of gets you in the ballpark. You don't get to have liberty.
You don't get to have equality.
You don't get to have civil government without first having a commitment to
(03:42):
principles of being an honest person, being a decent person.
And maybe there was a point in my life where you didn't have to campaign on that and assert that.
But these days, it feels really important to stand up in front of everybody
and say, hey, before anything else, you can count on me to be honest with you.
And I want you to hold me to that. There's something to be said as an elected
official and a candidate for giving people the ruler with which you want them to measure you.
(04:07):
That's the ruler with which I want them to measure me. Yeah,
it's a nice way to say it with the ruler and it makes very good sense. So thank you.
Talk a little bit about the people of North Carolina, because I hope that people
are watching this all over the country, the world.
But what makes North Carolinians special?
It's very representative of the whole country in a lot of different respects,
demographically representative as far as the makeup of various minority communities,
(04:33):
a pretty good match on the rest of the country, culturally pretty representative
in that we have a large rural population.
Actually, the second largest in the country, Texas is one and North Carolina is two.
Healthy size, over 10 million people. The geological diversity is a good sample
of the rest of the country.
We've got the beach. We've got the Piedmont. out. We've got the mountains.
(04:54):
We have all four seasons in equal measure.
So I sort of feel like it's a microcosm of the whole country.
And then obviously politically, it's just split right down the middle.
I mean, it's basically dead center 50-50.
It makes it interesting. It makes it interesting.
And you are from North Carolina. You were born and raised in Chapel Hill?
I was raised in Chapel Hill. I was born in Florida. We moved when I was five
(05:14):
years old. So I spent all my formative years in North Carolina.
And how was it? What did your parents do and what was growing up like in North Carolina?
Dad was a doctor. Mom was a nurse. And we went to North Carolina.
We went to Chapel Hill so that my dad could do some more medical training.
And the idea was he was going to be there for a few years and then move.
And of course, he's still there.
And I spent my whole childhood there. What was cool about it was I had no concept
(05:38):
growing up that I was in a college town really.
Or I knew I was in a college town, but I didn't understand how different that
made my friend group, and just the social setting.
So I had to sort of grow up and come back for law school before I realized like,
oh no, this is not a normal experience.
Not all kids grow up in a town like this. A bunch of my friends in high school
(05:58):
got perfect scores on the SAT.
Like I didn't, but really the smartest people I've ever been around were the
folks that I went to high school with. And I had no appreciation for that really at the time.
Yeah. And when you were in In high school, did you have, or elementary school,
a teacher that was somebody that was really special, that inspired you,
that to this day still is part of what you're thinking?
(06:19):
And who you are. I had some teachers who really challenged me in high school.
I had an AP bio teacher who really challenged me. And I remember thinking it was my junior year.
Hey, if I can make it through this class, I really am ready for college.
That was a real academic sort of is the class that makes at some point you realize
you don't really know how to study and you have to learn how to really study
(06:40):
that not all of this stuff is going to come easy.
And you've just got to sit down and develop your, your bandwidth.
And he was one of the people who did that. But I'll tell you,
the people who had the biggest influence on me were the folks my age,
were my classmates and friends who I was on the debate team with in high school.
Spent a lot of time hanging out with those guys and going to debate tournaments
around North Carolina. That was really formative.
(07:02):
And I'm sure it helps with what you do today because it's not only speaking.
It's actually how you think and how you research and facts because I debated back in the day too.
You're right about the research. It taught me to read the newspaper and to read
it critically because in between debate tournaments, you have to gather evidence
and the evidence comes in the form of clippings about current events.
(07:23):
That's when I started reading the newspaper all the time.
And then what inspired you to go into military and to serve our country?
It wasn't really part of the plan, but I remember my sophomore year of high
school watching the Trey Towers come down and deciding that I probably needed
to enlist and put some good thought into it.
I was in Atlanta for college, drove out to a strip mall where they had the recruiting station.
(07:47):
Right next to the recruiting station was a subway station.
So I had a meatball sub and I thought about what I was about to do.
And I remember so well walking in.
I remember the sound the door made as I walked into the recruiting station and
it was totally empty except for one recruiter sitting all the way in the back.
And he pounded his fist on the table and he pointed at me and he stood up and
he goes, we've been waiting for you, son.
And I thought, hey, this is great. And you believed him. I totally believed
(08:11):
him. I'm getting special treatment. Yeah. This is great.
That was the beginning of an amazing journey. I enlisted and did,
they let me enlist then, but delay my basic training until that summer.
So I did basic training and came back and finished my senior year of high school
or senior year of college, and then finished my training after I graduated.
And then was sent straight to Afghanistan and was like, ah, 22 years old,
(08:35):
walking around Afghanistan with a grenade launcher.
I mean, it was a heck of an experience. Yeah, but there's something in there,
which I don't understand, which was besides, oh, I'm going to go and fight,
you know, like that there are many people that would have thought after the
trade towers came down, oh, I want to do something, but you actually went and
did it and you took a chance.
And obviously, was that something your parents instilled in you?
(08:55):
What was that power? power.
They were pretty surprised when I told them I had made the decision.
It wasn't really something that ran in my family.
I remember having a conversation at one of my first drills, because I had to
start going to drill once a month while I was in college, with another soldier
because he asked me why I had enlisted.
And I said, I think I'm going to lead a pretty good life in this country,
(09:16):
and I just want to make sure that I've earned it.
To be that young and to be able to say something like that, it's pretty cool, pretty special.
Speaking of special, your family. How amazing is your wife?
Because you're traveling you're not only here in DC where we are today,
but you're running for an office which requires you to be busy.
And you have three beautiful children. So how does she balance?
(09:38):
Because I do care about her. And then we can hear about how you balance.
And how strong and wonderful is she to support you?
I just don't have quite the right superlatives here. I mean,
what we're doing right now in our lives is fundamentally unsustainable.
And when I describe it to other people, it's very obvious that it's not like
a healthy thing to put a family through.
But there is a fixed end date on it. We know, date certain, when we will be
(10:03):
through this, which is how we're able to do it.
When I am gone, which is most of the time, between Congress campaigning and
National Guard, I'm gone three-fourths of the time.
She works full-time. And we've got a five-year-old, a nine-year-old, and a 15-year-old.
And she does all the youth enrichment stuff, right? So it's not enough for them
(10:23):
to just be going to school and going to camp.
She's got to sign them up for extra stuff. She's always in motion.
And we try to touch base a couple of times a day. And every time,
like you just did, somebody says, hey, thank your wife for us.
I make sure to pass that along to her when we talk at night.
And people are so great. I've been campaigning around the state.
Everywhere I go, people are really thoughtful about mentioning her and their
(10:47):
remarks, like when they introduce me or something like that.
It's just been awesome. Awesome. And we've got a community of friends.
We don't have either of our parents living there in Charlotte,
which is a bit of a burden, but it's been made up for by all these people.
So she's holding this thing together with her bare hands. And look,
sometimes when I walk in after being gone for a week, she high fives me,
walks out the door and I don't see her for a few hours and that's fine.
(11:08):
She goes in just perfect. Yeah. Takes care of herself. Get Starbucks and just
slowly walk all the aisles of Target and come back with some pillows or something. That is fine.
But we're very conscious of the fact that this is not normal. This will not last.
And we're going to, we're going to come back together as soon as we're done
with this thing in November. Yeah.
When you are at home though, you are dad. I mean, you understand that when you
(11:31):
open that door, you're dad.
Yeah. The kids hit me real hard as soon as I walk in the door, which is great.
It's great. And then they want to be on the trampoline and their favorite,
my five-year-old daughter, her favorite thing is for me to be the monster on the trampoline.
So I try really hard when she comes up and says, will you be monster on the trampoline?
Even if I'm working and say, say yes, maybe in five minutes,
(11:52):
but the answer is going to be yes. Yes.
Okay. And I'm going to just switch from that to what is the best advice you've
ever received, the worst advice you've ever received, or from just your communication
with people and especially young people, advice you give?
I remember my dad gave me some advice about public speaking once because it
was a piece of advice that he had been given. He goes, Jeff, you can be inaccurate.
(12:19):
You That always stuck with me. And I've given that to a few other people.
Particularly when you're in my line of work, you listen to a lot of people's boring speeches.
And so I try very hard not to be a very dull person when I speak.
I can't remember particularly bad advice that I've received.
I'm sure I could if I thought about it. I have the occasion to speak with a
lot of young people who tell me they're interested in politics and maybe interested
(12:40):
in running for office one day. It's happened several times a week.
I give them very specific advice relating to something that we discussed.
I say, please subscribe to a newspaper, any at random as far as I care, right?
But just please, I say, get a, they say a physical newspaper.
I say, no, of course not. A digital subscription to a newspaper is fine.
(13:00):
If they're young, if they're, you know, 15, 16, I say, ask your parents for
a birthday gift, a digital subscription to newspaper.
They'll love it. They'll definitely do it. And they say, well,
do I got to read it every day?
I say, no, of course not. You're just going to hit that thing a couple of times
a week, and you're going to start learning who the characters are in this drama.
It's important. It's a good one. Okay, so now we're going to go to a short section
(13:22):
before we finish. Rapid questions, just so people can get to know you.
And the first question is, what is your favorite sound?
It's when my daughter yells, Dad, when I walk in the door and she runs over.
That's pretty great. Favorite color?
Forest green. Okay, good. Favorite smell? Cinnamon biscuits.
Saturday morning. Out of the oven. Cinnamon rolls, not cinnamon biscuits.
(13:45):
Out of the oven. Cinnamon rolls, out of the oven, yes.
Who is your biggest cheerleader? Probably dad.
Yeah, probably dad. Favorite ice cream flavor.
So in our family, we have usually mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream in the fridge.
And I got one kid who won't eat the mint chocolate chip and one kid that won't
(14:06):
eat the cookies and cream.
So we have to have both at all times. And so it's a tie between those two.
And you just eat whatever they don't eat.
Yeah. Right? Yeah, they make the choice for me. Yeah, exactly.
Finish it, check it, taste it. But if you had one meal that you could have,
that was only one, what would be your perfect meal?
I mean, what I had today, chipotle.
(14:26):
You get the bowl with the brown rice and the black beans and the chicken and
the corn and the cheese and the guac.
That's it. Yeah, and the bag of chips. With the water to drink.
I don't even need soda. That's great.
Said by a guy who's on the road a lot. And there's chipotle available.
There's chipotle available. They know me at certain chipotles along the interstates of North Carolina.
(14:47):
That's a good thing. I'm going to go with it's a good thing.
Way to meet your constituents, right? Could be worse.
There are some counties where it's just McDonald's. And so I have been to plenty
of McDonald's. I hear you.
I hear you. And do you have time to exercise at all? Every morning.
Every morning. That's something that I've made a change with this campaign.
Last campaign and the one before that, I lost a bunch of weight.
(15:09):
And so this time we were very intentional about, all right, I'm going to make
sure. I've got a little gym in my garage.
That's every morning. Good for you. And do you listen to music when you work out? I do not. Okay.
If you were to listen to music, what would you listen to?
90s rock. 90s rock. And it's the music that was popular when I was a teenager,
so not a coincidence that I like it, but I do sort of wonder. Nobody told me,
(15:31):
When I was in high school, hey, this is going to be the last great decade for rock and roll.
Oh, okay. I don't really know what happened. I've got some theories.
Boy, it just dropped off real hard. When you are home, do you have a favorite
household chore, something you're good at or you like to do?
Yeah, go around and I turn off all the lights that my kids weave on.
I find that very satisfying.
I'm not even going to go there because I don't think that's a chore,
(15:51):
but okay, I'm just going to give it to you.
What is your superpower? My superpower is that I bounce back pretty quick.
That, and that's particularly useful when you're on a campaign,
you're going to take a hit just about every single day and you need to be able
to be functional within, you know, a couple of minutes after getting some bad news.
I think I'm reasonably good at that, but it gets better with practice.
(16:13):
So when I'm asking people to run for office, that's something that we talk about,
that your skin gets thicker over time, that your resilience gets better over time.
Your, Your bounce back gets faster over time.
Last of these questions, which is if you and your wife could go away anywhere
in the world, where would you all vacation?
Leave your kids at home, just two of you. We did Zion National Park before I
(16:37):
ran for Congress because we knew that we were going to be campaigning for a
while. That was wonderful.
I would probably pick another national park.
It would be a national park somewhere out west. Nice. I'm not sure if that's
what she would pick, but that would be my opening offer to her. Okay.
But you could, you can negotiate. Well, I'm fine with it. And at this point,
I think she should get wherever she wants to go. Just pointing that out.
(16:57):
No, I would make a subtle suggestion at this point on a position to dictate terms.
Yeah. So this is the last question that I've asked everyone.
And I know you got to go and vote. So I want to get to this last question,
which is really important.
To me, which is what is joy? How do you define joy?
What brings you joy? It could be personal, politically, through your work.
(17:20):
And how do you, if you, Jeff, have joy, do you share your joy?
For me, I've known for a long time that feeling useful is joy for me.
And so it's about, can I be in a position where I feel like I'm being as useful as possible,
which is why I found found congress to be a joy and
honestly it surprises people back home i start all of my speeches with
(17:42):
that and it makes the room go quiet when i tell them i
have found so much joy up here and so much productivity and
they're always like how could you say that i say because you don't know about
my committees i'm on two pretty bipartisan committees armed services and science
and you don't see the work that those do because the work isn't intended to
upset you so it doesn't get broadcast it won't get amplified but if you could
(18:03):
see the work that actually happens you would feel better about Congress.
And people are always like, I would feel better if I saw more.
You would feel better if you saw more.
If you have a compunction to be a useful person, this is a wonderful place.
It's not wonderful all the time. And there are eras in which it's particularly
(18:25):
more or less productive.
And I'm just objectively in a less productive era for Congress by all metrics.
But still to be here, the United States Capitol, be able to be a part of some
of these decisions, just be part of some of these conversations.
If you like feeling useful, it's a wonderful job.
I have spoken to a lot of people who serve as attorney general because I happen
(18:46):
to be running for that, and they say the exact same thing about being attorney general.
Yeah. They say, hey, it's one of one, not one of 435.
And so you really get to be as useful as you can possibly be every day.
That's a wonderful thing. That's a wonderful thing.
To have that purpose, is to know every day you're doing what you're supposed
to be doing, how irreplaceably wonderful.
(19:08):
I will just end on thank you. You get the last word. I appreciate everything
and I appreciate meeting you.
Good luck with everything and continue to be a voice of reason,
clarity, heart, hope, humanity, and joy. And thank you. It is a pleasure.
Music.
Hi, it's Liz. Please join me every Tuesday for coffee to talk about heart and
(19:32):
humanity with our elected leaders.
Remember to hit subscribe to get an alert when a new episode is live and for
exclusive content. Ciao.
Music.
(00:11):
I'm Liz Fershnoff-Tolley, and welcome to the Capital Coffee Connection podcast.
And I'm excited because today I have a special guest who is a congressman from
North Carolina, Jeff Jackson.
And what I'm excited about is that I've never met him until today,
but I've heard about him, and he has been very successful on social media to
(00:32):
explain really important things, not about Democrats or Republicans,
about just the facts of what is going on on Capitol Hill.
And so this gave me an opportunity to get to know you a little bit about you.
But what I really appreciated was just how clear and precise and short your
explanations have been. So I want to say thank you for that.
(00:52):
I learned a lot. And I want to welcome you. And, you know, I know that you are
also a candidate right now for attorney general in North Carolina,
and you've served in the state legislature.
You have 20 years in the Army. me. I mean, you're a public servant.
And I just want to say also thank you for that. And as a way of just...
(01:13):
Bragging for you, I also read that you were named one of Charlotte Magazine's
Charlatans of the Year in 2020.
So you've gotten some good notice. And I just want to say thank you for being
here. Well, it's my pleasure.
I've only served in Congress for a year and a half. This will be my one and only term in Congress.
But honestly, it's been such a joy. I found so much more joy and,
(01:33):
frankly, productivity here than I expected.
And I've really, a part of that has been sharing it with other people and seeing
the resonance of that. And that there would be an interest in that type of political
communication that wasn't, you know, filled with anger and filled with outrage.
That's been a cool lesson that the country is still really interested in being
(01:53):
spoken to in a normal tone of voice.
That's great. Right. Well, that's kind of the purpose, longer than a two-minute explanation.
But the reason why we started this podcast was to be able to talk with elected
leaders from both sides of the aisle and look into who they are,
their heart, their humanity,
try to stay away from the politics and the policy, which entrenches sides,
but to be able to really just sort
(02:14):
of relate to one another and have good conversations. I think it's great.
I mean, it does feel like in some moments here we have lost a bit of a shared humanity.
It's a cliche, but it's so true that there is more unites us than divides us.
And if it's nothing other than let's talk about our kids for a little bit,
let's talk about where we're from for a little bit and finding connection there,
(02:36):
then you start there. Yeah, I don't think a lot of kids go to the playground
and ask the other kid, what party are you from before you're going to play soccer or football, right?
I read this quote of yours, and I'd just like to start with this,
which is, you said, before politics comes principle.
Without adhering to the basic principles of honesty and decency,
there can be no political debate and no political progress.
(02:57):
As a soldier, a former prosecutor, a husband and a father, commitment to those
principles has been non-negotiable in my life.
We may disagree on certain policies, but my primary mission is to represent
the people of North Carolina with honesty and decency, and hopefully we can all agree on that.
Well, I appreciate you starting there because that's where I start.
(03:18):
And I think of foundational political principles for our country like liberty
and equality, but there's a set before the pre-political principles.
And if we're going to articulate them, I think saying honesty and decency sort
of gets you in the ballpark. You don't get to have liberty.
You don't get to have equality.
You don't get to have civil government without first having a commitment to
(03:42):
principles of being an honest person, being a decent person.
And maybe there was a point in my life where you didn't have to campaign on that and assert that.
But these days, it feels really important to stand up in front of everybody
and say, hey, before anything else, you can count on me to be honest with you.
And I want you to hold me to that. There's something to be said as an elected
official and a candidate for giving people the ruler with which you want them to measure you.
(04:07):
That's the ruler with which I want them to measure me. Yeah,
it's a nice way to say it with the ruler and it makes very good sense. So thank you.
Talk a little bit about the people of North Carolina, because I hope that people
are watching this all over the country, the world.
But what makes North Carolinians special?
It's very representative of the whole country in a lot of different respects,
demographically representative as far as the makeup of various minority communities,
(04:33):
a pretty good match on the rest of the country, culturally pretty representative
in that we have a large rural population.
Actually, the second largest in the country, Texas is one and North Carolina is two.
Healthy size, over 10 million people. The geological diversity is a good sample
of the rest of the country.
We've got the beach. We've got the Piedmont. out. We've got the mountains.
(04:54):
We have all four seasons in equal measure.
So I sort of feel like it's a microcosm of the whole country.
And then obviously politically, it's just split right down the middle.
I mean, it's basically dead center 50-50.
It makes it interesting. It makes it interesting.
And you are from North Carolina. You were born and raised in Chapel Hill?
I was raised in Chapel Hill. I was born in Florida. We moved when I was five
(05:14):
years old. So I spent all my formative years in North Carolina.
And how was it? What did your parents do and what was growing up like in North Carolina?
Dad was a doctor. Mom was a nurse. And we went to North Carolina.
We went to Chapel Hill so that my dad could do some more medical training.
And the idea was he was going to be there for a few years and then move.
And of course, he's still there.
And I spent my whole childhood there. What was cool about it was I had no concept
(05:38):
growing up that I was in a college town really.
Or I knew I was in a college town, but I didn't understand how different that
made my friend group, and just the social setting.
So I had to sort of grow up and come back for law school before I realized like,
oh no, this is not a normal experience.
Not all kids grow up in a town like this. A bunch of my friends in high school
(05:58):
got perfect scores on the SAT.
Like I didn't, but really the smartest people I've ever been around were the
folks that I went to high school with. And I had no appreciation for that really at the time.
Yeah. And when you were in In high school, did you have, or elementary school,
a teacher that was somebody that was really special, that inspired you,
that to this day still is part of what you're thinking?
(06:19):
And who you are. I had some teachers who really challenged me in high school.
I had an AP bio teacher who really challenged me. And I remember thinking it was my junior year.
Hey, if I can make it through this class, I really am ready for college.
That was a real academic sort of is the class that makes at some point you realize
you don't really know how to study and you have to learn how to really study
(06:40):
that not all of this stuff is going to come easy.
And you've just got to sit down and develop your, your bandwidth.
And he was one of the people who did that. But I'll tell you,
the people who had the biggest influence on me were the folks my age,
were my classmates and friends who I was on the debate team with in high school.
Spent a lot of time hanging out with those guys and going to debate tournaments
around North Carolina. That was really formative.
(07:02):
And I'm sure it helps with what you do today because it's not only speaking.
It's actually how you think and how you research and facts because I debated back in the day too.
You're right about the research. It taught me to read the newspaper and to read
it critically because in between debate tournaments, you have to gather evidence
and the evidence comes in the form of clippings about current events.
(07:23):
That's when I started reading the newspaper all the time.
And then what inspired you to go into military and to serve our country?
It wasn't really part of the plan, but I remember my sophomore year of high
school watching the Trey Towers come down and deciding that I probably needed
to enlist and put some good thought into it.
I was in Atlanta for college, drove out to a strip mall where they had the recruiting station.
(07:47):
Right next to the recruiting station was a subway station.
So I had a meatball sub and I thought about what I was about to do.
And I remember so well walking in.
I remember the sound the door made as I walked into the recruiting station and
it was totally empty except for one recruiter sitting all the way in the back.
And he pounded his fist on the table and he pointed at me and he stood up and
he goes, we've been waiting for you, son.
And I thought, hey, this is great. And you believed him. I totally believed
(08:11):
him. I'm getting special treatment. Yeah. This is great.
That was the beginning of an amazing journey. I enlisted and did,
they let me enlist then, but delay my basic training until that summer.
So I did basic training and came back and finished my senior year of high school
or senior year of college, and then finished my training after I graduated.
And then was sent straight to Afghanistan and was like, ah, 22 years old,
(08:35):
walking around Afghanistan with a grenade launcher.
I mean, it was a heck of an experience. Yeah, but there's something in there,
which I don't understand, which was besides, oh, I'm going to go and fight,
you know, like that there are many people that would have thought after the
trade towers came down, oh, I want to do something, but you actually went and
did it and you took a chance.
And obviously, was that something your parents instilled in you?
(08:55):
What was that power? power.
They were pretty surprised when I told them I had made the decision.
It wasn't really something that ran in my family.
I remember having a conversation at one of my first drills, because I had to
start going to drill once a month while I was in college, with another soldier
because he asked me why I had enlisted.
And I said, I think I'm going to lead a pretty good life in this country,
(09:16):
and I just want to make sure that I've earned it.
To be that young and to be able to say something like that, it's pretty cool, pretty special.
Speaking of special, your family. How amazing is your wife?
Because you're traveling you're not only here in DC where we are today,
but you're running for an office which requires you to be busy.
And you have three beautiful children. So how does she balance?
(09:38):
Because I do care about her. And then we can hear about how you balance.
And how strong and wonderful is she to support you?
I just don't have quite the right superlatives here. I mean,
what we're doing right now in our lives is fundamentally unsustainable.
And when I describe it to other people, it's very obvious that it's not like
a healthy thing to put a family through.
But there is a fixed end date on it. We know, date certain, when we will be
(10:03):
through this, which is how we're able to do it.
When I am gone, which is most of the time, between Congress campaigning and
National Guard, I'm gone three-fourths of the time.
She works full-time. And we've got a five-year-old, a nine-year-old, and a 15-year-old.
And she does all the youth enrichment stuff, right? So it's not enough for them
(10:23):
to just be going to school and going to camp.
She's got to sign them up for extra stuff. She's always in motion.
And we try to touch base a couple of times a day. And every time,
like you just did, somebody says, hey, thank your wife for us.
I make sure to pass that along to her when we talk at night.
And people are so great. I've been campaigning around the state.
Everywhere I go, people are really thoughtful about mentioning her and their
(10:47):
remarks, like when they introduce me or something like that.
It's just been awesome. Awesome. And we've got a community of friends.
We don't have either of our parents living there in Charlotte,
which is a bit of a burden, but it's been made up for by all these people.
So she's holding this thing together with her bare hands. And look,
sometimes when I walk in after being gone for a week, she high fives me,
walks out the door and I don't see her for a few hours and that's fine.
(11:08):
She goes in just perfect. Yeah. Takes care of herself. Get Starbucks and just
slowly walk all the aisles of Target and come back with some pillows or something. That is fine.
But we're very conscious of the fact that this is not normal. This will not last.
And we're going to, we're going to come back together as soon as we're done
with this thing in November. Yeah.
When you are at home though, you are dad. I mean, you understand that when you
(11:31):
open that door, you're dad.
Yeah. The kids hit me real hard as soon as I walk in the door, which is great.
It's great. And then they want to be on the trampoline and their favorite,
my five-year-old daughter, her favorite thing is for me to be the monster on the trampoline.
So I try really hard when she comes up and says, will you be monster on the trampoline?
Even if I'm working and say, say yes, maybe in five minutes,
(11:52):
but the answer is going to be yes. Yes.
Okay. And I'm going to just switch from that to what is the best advice you've
ever received, the worst advice you've ever received, or from just your communication
with people and especially young people, advice you give?
I remember my dad gave me some advice about public speaking once because it
was a piece of advice that he had been given. He goes, Jeff, you can be inaccurate.
(12:19):
You That always stuck with me. And I've given that to a few other people.
Particularly when you're in my line of work, you listen to a lot of people's boring speeches.
And so I try very hard not to be a very dull person when I speak.
I can't remember particularly bad advice that I've received.
I'm sure I could if I thought about it. I have the occasion to speak with a
lot of young people who tell me they're interested in politics and maybe interested
(12:40):
in running for office one day. It's happened several times a week.
I give them very specific advice relating to something that we discussed.
I say, please subscribe to a newspaper, any at random as far as I care, right?
But just please, I say, get a, they say a physical newspaper.
I say, no, of course not. A digital subscription to a newspaper is fine.
(13:00):
If they're young, if they're, you know, 15, 16, I say, ask your parents for
a birthday gift, a digital subscription to newspaper.
They'll love it. They'll definitely do it. And they say, well,
do I got to read it every day?
I say, no, of course not. You're just going to hit that thing a couple of times
a week, and you're going to start learning who the characters are in this drama.
It's important. It's a good one. Okay, so now we're going to go to a short section
(13:22):
before we finish. Rapid questions, just so people can get to know you.
And the first question is, what is your favorite sound?
It's when my daughter yells, Dad, when I walk in the door and she runs over.
That's pretty great. Favorite color?
Forest green. Okay, good. Favorite smell? Cinnamon biscuits.
Saturday morning. Out of the oven. Cinnamon rolls, not cinnamon biscuits.
(13:45):
Out of the oven. Cinnamon rolls, out of the oven, yes.
Who is your biggest cheerleader? Probably dad.
Yeah, probably dad. Favorite ice cream flavor.
So in our family, we have usually mint chocolate chip and cookies and cream in the fridge.
And I got one kid who won't eat the mint chocolate chip and one kid that won't
(14:06):
eat the cookies and cream.
So we have to have both at all times. And so it's a tie between those two.
And you just eat whatever they don't eat.
Yeah. Right? Yeah, they make the choice for me. Yeah, exactly.
Finish it, check it, taste it. But if you had one meal that you could have,
that was only one, what would be your perfect meal?
I mean, what I had today, chipotle.
(14:26):
You get the bowl with the brown rice and the black beans and the chicken and
the corn and the cheese and the guac.
That's it. Yeah, and the bag of chips. With the water to drink.
I don't even need soda. That's great.
Said by a guy who's on the road a lot. And there's chipotle available.
There's chipotle available. They know me at certain chipotles along the interstates of North Carolina.
(14:47):
That's a good thing. I'm going to go with it's a good thing.
Way to meet your constituents, right? Could be worse.
There are some counties where it's just McDonald's. And so I have been to plenty
of McDonald's. I hear you.
I hear you. And do you have time to exercise at all? Every morning.
Every morning. That's something that I've made a change with this campaign.
Last campaign and the one before that, I lost a bunch of weight.
(15:09):
And so this time we were very intentional about, all right, I'm going to make
sure. I've got a little gym in my garage.
That's every morning. Good for you. And do you listen to music when you work out? I do not. Okay.
If you were to listen to music, what would you listen to?
90s rock. 90s rock. And it's the music that was popular when I was a teenager,
so not a coincidence that I like it, but I do sort of wonder. Nobody told me,
(15:31):
When I was in high school, hey, this is going to be the last great decade for rock and roll.
Oh, okay. I don't really know what happened. I've got some theories.
Boy, it just dropped off real hard. When you are home, do you have a favorite
household chore, something you're good at or you like to do?
Yeah, go around and I turn off all the lights that my kids weave on.
I find that very satisfying.
I'm not even going to go there because I don't think that's a chore,
(15:51):
but okay, I'm just going to give it to you.
What is your superpower? My superpower is that I bounce back pretty quick.
That, and that's particularly useful when you're on a campaign,
you're going to take a hit just about every single day and you need to be able
to be functional within, you know, a couple of minutes after getting some bad news.
I think I'm reasonably good at that, but it gets better with practice.
(16:13):
So when I'm asking people to run for office, that's something that we talk about,
that your skin gets thicker over time, that your resilience gets better over time.
Your, Your bounce back gets faster over time.
Last of these questions, which is if you and your wife could go away anywhere
in the world, where would you all vacation?
Leave your kids at home, just two of you. We did Zion National Park before I
(16:37):
ran for Congress because we knew that we were going to be campaigning for a
while. That was wonderful.
I would probably pick another national park.
It would be a national park somewhere out west. Nice. I'm not sure if that's
what she would pick, but that would be my opening offer to her. Okay.
But you could, you can negotiate. Well, I'm fine with it. And at this point,
I think she should get wherever she wants to go. Just pointing that out.
(16:57):
No, I would make a subtle suggestion at this point on a position to dictate terms.
Yeah. So this is the last question that I've asked everyone.
And I know you got to go and vote. So I want to get to this last question,
which is really important.
To me, which is what is joy? How do you define joy?
What brings you joy? It could be personal, politically, through your work.
(17:20):
And how do you, if you, Jeff, have joy, do you share your joy?
For me, I've known for a long time that feeling useful is joy for me.
And so it's about, can I be in a position where I feel like I'm being as useful as possible,
which is why I found found congress to be a joy and
honestly it surprises people back home i start all of my speeches with
(17:42):
that and it makes the room go quiet when i tell them i
have found so much joy up here and so much productivity and
they're always like how could you say that i say because you don't know about
my committees i'm on two pretty bipartisan committees armed services and science
and you don't see the work that those do because the work isn't intended to
upset you so it doesn't get broadcast it won't get amplified but if you could
(18:03):
see the work that actually happens you would feel better about Congress.
And people are always like, I would feel better if I saw more.
You would feel better if you saw more.
If you have a compunction to be a useful person, this is a wonderful place.
It's not wonderful all the time. And there are eras in which it's particularly
(18:25):
more or less productive.
And I'm just objectively in a less productive era for Congress by all metrics.
But still to be here, the United States Capitol, be able to be a part of some
of these decisions, just be part of some of these conversations.
If you like feeling useful, it's a wonderful job.
I have spoken to a lot of people who serve as attorney general because I happen
(18:46):
to be running for that, and they say the exact same thing about being attorney general.
Yeah. They say, hey, it's one of one, not one of 435.
And so you really get to be as useful as you can possibly be every day.
That's a wonderful thing. That's a wonderful thing.
To have that purpose, is to know every day you're doing what you're supposed
to be doing, how irreplaceably wonderful.
(19:08):
I will just end on thank you. You get the last word. I appreciate everything
and I appreciate meeting you.
Good luck with everything and continue to be a voice of reason,
clarity, heart, hope, humanity, and joy. And thank you. It is a pleasure.
Music.
Hi, it's Liz. Please join me every Tuesday for coffee to talk about heart and
(19:32):
humanity with our elected leaders.
Remember to hit subscribe to get an alert when a new episode is live and for
exclusive content. Ciao.
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