Today on The Breakfast Club, Pete Buttigieg On Full-time Fatherhood, Airport Regulations, Epstein Files, Presidential Polls. Listen For More!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I don't know. Every day up waiting, click your ass
up the breakfast club.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You don't finish for y'all done morning.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Everybody is DJ Envy, Jess, Hilario, Charlamagne the guy. We
are the breakfast Club. We got a special guest in
the buildings. Indeed, it's back, Pete.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Boody, Judge, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hold on, now you got out the White House and
got a bed immediately.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
He didn't have that bed last time.
Speaker 5 (00:23):
No, you know, there were very few days that I
didn't have to shave the whole time that that I
was in office. And then, uh then suddenly I didn't
have to worry about that. So I started out just
not shaving every day. And then we went on a vacation.
I came back with a beard. I thought, I'm gonna
keep this for a while. Chasting's very very pro My
daughter doesn't like it. She keeps telling me to shave
it because she says it's too scratchy when I kiss
(00:46):
her good night. But her brother hasn't waited in yet,
so he might be the swing vote in the household
swing vote.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Now do they make you do? They tell you look
clean when you work for the White House? Because you
want television. Do they say that.
Speaker 5 (00:59):
I don't think they have to you just you know,
you're just I don't think I was ever told to shave,
not since I was in the military anyway, then it
was the thing. In fact, I remember when the when
there was the first Trump government shut down. I saw
all the guys in my reserve unit a few weeks
later a football game, and everybody had beards all of
a sudden because we could because we didn't have to
shave for that. But uh uh no, it's interesting, right,
(01:22):
I think in the nineteenth century, to be in politics
you had to have a beard. It was a thing, right,
and then almost nobody did anyway, but that.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
You wear a tie.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
You know, when I got home from work, I always
first thing I did was even when I got in
the car on the way out from the office, the
tie had to guys like, I don't know, I just
wanted to breathe a little more. So I'm happy to
not have to wear a tie as much.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
You know, I saw you in the Flamran podcast with
my guy Andrews Showtz. I didn't know that you had
mixed race kids.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I don't know. I didn't know that.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Yeah, you know, we don't put a lot of pictures
of them on the internet or uh, you know, there's
a lot of privacy obviously goes into that. But yeah,
they're about to turn four. They keep out like every day,
they ask me is my birthday? They've just transformed our
lives in so many ways. It's been amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And I saw you say, you know, you ask yourself constantly,
how can I be a good dad for kids who
have a different racial identity than I do? How can
I help them navigate that? And for whatever reason, there
was a little bit of backlash of those comments.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
And I don't know why. I thought those are great
questions to ask youself.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
I mean, you know, I was just talking about how
I feel about it, And yeah, I think anytime you
talk about something that sensitive, somebody's ready to pounce. Somebody's
ready to pick it apart and tear you up over it.
But yeah, obviously, you know we're white, our kids are
mixed race. They're going to be as they grow older,
there's going to be dimensions of their lives that I
(02:48):
will do everything I can as a father, as a
loving father to make sure that they succeed. But there
will be parts of their lives that I can't really
draw on personally experience to help guide them through. And
so it's a lot of making sure that they have
mentors and role model, role models, other examples in their
lives to to help them navigate all of that. But
(03:11):
it's it's just been such a blessing and you know,
it's a new challenge every day, but it's the best
hardest thing in my life.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Well. Also, of those people who who the black friends,
you go, oh, you wouldn't believe.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
So the advice that came in from like the first moment,
I had a navy buddy who saw a couple of
pictures of them from a thing we were at the
White House on it said we got to talk about
hair and I wanted to make sure that because you
I mean just hair products alone. And by the way,
being a girl dad was intimidating to begin with, right,
(03:45):
and then there's everything that comes with that, finding the
right products for for us, our little guy, for Penelope,
our daughter, just learning all of that. Like you know,
nobody in my immediate family of white relative knows a
lot about that, but lots of friends.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
You know, not breed.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
I gotta figure it out.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Can't out of oil, shame oisture, and didn't get the
white tooth cone. Don't get the small teeth because that's
gonna pull a hair. Got thicker hair.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Yeah, we learned that the hard way. Yeah, we can't do.
And then we got the young king. For him, it's
like a three step sequence. It's it's uh, it's the
leaving conditioner. Then he got the oils right, yes, good,
and then there's there's the essential oil. And then there's
there's the curling cream. Although by step three now he's
he's a little older, but he was really fighting us
on the third step.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
He's like learning you learn.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Now we gotta get pizza of money. I do not
want you are your husband playing them your hair?
Speaker 4 (04:38):
No sore you doing every day? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (04:41):
Well get ches? Does it more often than I do?
Because can you?
Speaker 6 (04:48):
Hell no, I.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Need to see the half round the He looks like, right,
you're right, Jesus. I was gonna say before you walked in.
It's funny.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Jess was like, so what is Pete doing now? And
I was like, that is a good question. What is
Pete doing now that you're out the White House? Besides
being a dad and a husband? So what are you
doing now?
Speaker 5 (05:08):
So being a dad and husband is number one for
the and it's the first time in a while I've
been able to put the kind of time in it
that I want to. This is the first time in
fifteen years that I haven't either been in office or
on the ballot, and I'm making the most of that.
But you know, this is obviously not a time in
the life of our country where you can just sit
still or kind of hang out and not be involved.
(05:28):
So I'm speaking out, continuing to go on podcast, go
on TV. Right, I've got a sub stack where I'm
writing thoughts on some of the issues that are coming up,
thinking about doing a book, so keeping busy. But I
have to say, at a personal level, it's been good
not to be on that treadmill Washington just away. I'm
(05:50):
not saying I don't I miss the impact we were
able to have. I miss getting up in the morning
and knowing that, you know, I could make a decision
that could make a whole city better off through a
transportation project we were doing or something like that. I
miss that, But I don't miss the negativity. I don't
miss the way that Washington is so inward looking It
(06:11):
was always about you know, what did this senator have
for breakfast? What are you going to do to keep
these people happy? That most people have never even heard of?
But you know that kind of thing I don't miss.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
What made you not seek the Senate seat in Michigan.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Well, for one thing, I was thinking about the family,
like being at home for the first time in a
long time. And you know, I remember one day that
was really kind of the decision day in a way,
when I'd kind of set for myself, like what are
we going to do? I was talking about it with Chastain,
and then it was bedtime, and the way story time
(06:45):
works in our house is we get into one of
their twin beds and daughter's on my right, Gus our
son is on my left, and I was reading I
don't know, Cat in the Hat or something, and he
just started curling up, fell asleep on my chain, and
I thought that that's a vote, Like he's telling me
something about where I'm needed most. And I also thought,
(07:10):
you know, the message I want to get out there.
I don't have to be in the United States Senate
to do that. Obviously, I care about who the next
senator is. I'm going to be very active in supporting
a good candidate for Senate because so much for our
state and our country depends on us us having a
good senator to replace Wi stab Now who's and sorry,
Gary Peters, who's uh retiring? But I just didn't think
(07:34):
that had to be me.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Why do you think it was so much backlash for
you going on the Flagrant podcast?
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Well, in a way, it's reliving what it was like
a few years ago when I started to go on
Fox News a lot, so a lot of people in
my party said, you can't do that. You're you know,
you're you're participating in this right wing media system. That's
you know, that's not giving people good information. And my
response was always, you know, I can't blame somebody for
(08:02):
not agreeing with my positions if they've never heard them,
So of course I got to go on right wing media.
Now you fast forward a few years to these podcasts
and Flagrant. By the way, I don't consider Flagrant to
be right wing, but that's the whole point, right. A
lot of these podcasts, a lot of these shows, they're
not for people who are looking to get politics in
their face all the time, but they are where a
lot of people get their information or get exposed to
(08:24):
people with political ideas. And I thought, okay, you know,
if President Trump was going on this show to reach
listeners and viewers, why wouldn't we be putting forward a
different set of ideas, especially because when I got there
and I was talking to these guys, many of them
voted a different way than I did. Yeah, we agreed
a lot on what was happening next, on the problem
(08:44):
with tilting the tax code to favor the rich, and
that was before the bill pass. Now the bill pass,
we know and we've seen it. Problems with cutting services,
making it harder to get your phone and phone call answered,
on social security, all of these same, right, So we
could just have a conversation, and yeah, I think some
people still, you know, I remember a few people saying like,
(09:06):
why are you platforming these guys who have said something offensive?
And I'm just thinking, like, they're platforming me. It's their show.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
It's the stupidest thing when people say how are you
platform how? They already have a huge platform.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
So why not go on.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
There and you know, let people hear what it is
you have to say, give people another you know.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
Option, right, Yeah, especially because fewer and fewer people are
getting their news from traditional sources. I spent part of
the spring teaching at the University of Chicago. There's an
Institute of Politics there that David Axelrod set up. He
asked me to spend time with the students.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
There, and I came after you, Oh were you there?
Speaker 5 (09:40):
I came. I think it's a great experience, and you
learned so much talking to these students. One thing one
of the things I would often do is to kind
of show a hands just where to get your information.
The number of students who said television news was zero,
like literally zero. Out of those students said they just
like sat the way I was when I was growing
(10:01):
up or still do. Sometimes like turn on a TV
show and watch it. Right, they might see something from
TV go into their feed, get clipped. But in terms
of where people are getting our information, we got to
find people where they are.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I wanted to ask go back about your previous duties
the airports. It seemed like the airport's gotten a lot worse.
Why do you think that is? Or are we just
hearing about it more? And these are the problems that
have been having for the last ten twenty years.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I read audifew yesterday. They blamed it on you. They
said that, of course you. I said, under you, the
Department of Transportation allocated over eighty billion dollars for DEI grants, Okay,
instead of putting money into.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, so the actual airlines, Yeah, airports, airports.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Obviously, I think that's bullshit. Let's break it down. First
of all, quote unquote the I grants. We're talking about
transportation funding that they're now getting rid of. So, Milwaukee
sixth Street, we funded a project thirty four million dollars
to help make a set of improvements to a very
(11:09):
dangerous street where there been a lot of crashes and
that has divided the community. We provided funding. They're also
going to improve the sewer while they're added. I mean,
this is bread and butter stuff that's going to make
the city better off. Trump administration killed that grant because
the application talked about equity. It talked about one of
the reasons for funding this project being that that neighborhood
(11:31):
had been underinvested in. There was a project in Missoula, Montana,
connecting East Missoula across Highway two hundred. By the way,
the Republican Senator from Montana supported that project and wrote
me a letter saying we had to fund it, and
we did. This administration killed it just because it was
part of a program that mentions equity. So when they
talk about quote unquote DII grants, often they're talking about
(11:54):
fixing roads and bridges that happened to go into a
black neighborhood or a low income area. Meanwhile, we'll talk
about aviation. I'm pretty sure on the first Secretary of
Transportation in thirty years or more to have the air
traffic control workforce growing instead of shrinking on his watch.
And that was hard because we've been losing air traffic controllers.
(12:17):
They've been retiring. It's just been hard to get as
many to come in as we're going out. I don't
know whether that number is still going up now. I
know that from the beginning they all got an email
saying you should think about taking a buy out and
quit your job. Then they were told that email was
never for them. So I don't know exactly what's going
on over there now. What I know is that we
(12:38):
left the air traffic control system better than we found it,
but it's still got a lot of problems. So the
answer your question is really it's both. There are new
problems that we're seeing, you know that I'm seeing just
as a now regular member of the traveling public. But
there are some issues that have been in the making
for ten twenty thirty years. We did what we could
to improve it. But honestly, that's or who I obviously
(13:01):
disagree with on lots of things. I want them to
succeed on this. I mean, for one thing, I fly
a lot, but also for the sake of the country,
I want them to succeed in improving that.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
But it seems like a lot.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Of the problems that we've been having, especially when we
see these floods in these.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Storms, are problems that we keep seeing, right, you know,
you look at areas in Texas or even New Jersey.
They flood the same every time. So it's just like,
why can't we fix those problems. It's not like it's
new problems. These are problems that are reoccurring.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
So what we did was we set up funding to
do things like take a road that's getting washed out
every year and instead of putting it back the exact
same every time, and putting a bunch of money into that,
move it to where it's not going to be as vulnerable.
They're going after that kind of thing too, because they're
systematically deleting any reference to climate change or sustainability from
(13:52):
anything in the government. And what that means is, I
think these projects are in danger.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
No matter the eighty billion dollars that was allocate they said,
four hundred awards from twenty twenty one to two thousand
twenty four. What did that actually go to because they're
calling it DEI grants, But where did it go?
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Where did it go to?
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Yeah, so I don't know how they got the eighty number,
eighty billion numbers. So what I tell you, I mean
if maybe if you're counting like any project that was
connected in any way to taking care of people who
had been underinvested, and that'd be one way to do it.
We had this whole idea of making sure that that
a good share of the grant money went to neighborhoods
or communities that were cut out in the past. So
(14:32):
but again there are these these specific projects. East Toledo.
We were a project to connect East Toledo to downtown Toledo,
get people across this high crash corridor where they were
having dozens of crashes, and it came under the heading
of reconnecting communities or reconnecting neighborhoods, which this administration considers woke.
(14:52):
They're trying to cut it. To me, it's definitely important
that it's going to a disadvantage area. It's also just
a good project. It's a good safety project. So they
want to call it DEI I would call it good policy.
And this this war on anything that has anything remotely
to do with diversity, I think has gone to such
(15:14):
an extreme. People are starting to feel it because it's
starting to come for them.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So how would you respond to people who have concerns
that these equity initiatives delayed urgent aviation upgrade.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
It's just not true. I mean, you know, the person
who launched the contract, for example, to modernize the tech
backbone of the fifth that was me. We did that.
It's a big agency. We did a lot of things.
We did roads, we did bridges, we did aviation, we
did port I mean, you know, you can do a
lot of things at the same time. That's what we did.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Now, now all of this is coming from the New
York Post, so and it just came out jetterda If
I'm giving you a chance.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Oh yeah, so that that specific article. Actually it's I
can't believe I'm saying this, but I would actually say
it's worth reading because if you read it, you'll see
a bunch of anonymous people, mostly from the airline industry,
complaining with no kind of specific facts or figures, followed
by a whole bunch of which, like the post does
(16:12):
they put it at the bottom of the article, a
whole bunch of facts and figures showing something different, which
was our response. But yeah, obviously the airline industry was
not a big fan of mine, right because I was
a tough regulator. I mean, we moved the rule to
make sure that you can get your money back if
your flight gets significantly delayed. We had really tough penalties
(16:34):
on airlines that were holding back on people's refunds. We
pushed them on things like disability, making sure if they
mangle your wheelchair that they have to take care of you.
The current administration froze that rule. That's something we pushed on.
So obviously, you know, my replacement is an airline lobbyist,
or he was an airline lobbyist. Obviously, the airline industry
is happier with the new guy who was an airline
lobbyist than with somebody like me who was a tough regulator.
(16:57):
But that's the kind of inside baseball that drives these articles.
I think it's very telling that none of the people
who were throwing stones in that article actually put their
name to their quote.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
So earlier this year, when like you know, there was
like plane crashes and stuff, is there a part of
you that's like, I hate to see that, but I
told you so.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Look, you know, aviation's still safer than driving or any
other form of transportation. But it's the nightmare scenario for
anybody who cares about transportation, Definitely, anybody who ever had
the job I had to have a plane crash happened
in this country. One of the things that was really
important to me was during my time in office, we
had four billion emplayments, four billion times that somebody got
(17:38):
onto a commercial passenger airline and zero crash fatalities. And
it's everybody's job to keep that up. And I do
worry about what will happen if you got air traffic
controllers who were being distracted by all this political nonsense
getting an email telling them that they're going to get
bought out then being told that doesn't apply in that
(18:00):
like firing it people like they did on day one.
Of course I'm worried about that, you.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Know, I always wanted to know and maybe you can
help people out.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
You have more private.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Planes crashing than a commercial plane.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Right, is that because the reg I guess whatever, the
regulations are less lenient.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Why is that?
Speaker 5 (18:20):
Yeah, there is a higher standard for a jumbo jet
that's got three hundred people on it then for recreational
plane where somebody's flying Assessana or even a private jet.
And I think, look that, you know, if you think
about how we manage risk, that makes sense up to
a point. But there's also got to be a floor.
There's got to be a baseline that no matter what,
if you have an airplane in the national airspace, it's
(18:41):
got to have these safety checks.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
You said once that most flight delays stem from weather
an airline issues, not infrastructure.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Yeah, infrastructure or air traffic control as usually number three.
So if you think about why or when are you
most likely to get to have a problem, Yeah, weather's
number one. A lot of times it's the airlines, especially
when I was there, A lot of times the airlines
didn't have enough staff. They've improved that. Then you go
down the list, then you get to more issues around
infrastructure technology. If there's not enough air traffic controllers on duty,
(19:14):
the airport will respond by reducing the number of flights
that can come or go so that it's safe. That's
what happened to a lot of people at Newark. So
it's a factor, it's not the number one factor.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So how confident are you that infrastructure, I guess plays
a minimal role.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
I wouldn't say minimal. I mean one of the reasons
we pushed so hard to get that infrastructure build one
was to make improvements right, things like stuff you might
never notice when you're on a plane, like taxiway geometry.
So it's making sure that the way the taxiway is
lined up makes it less likely that two planes would
ever be at risk of colliding. Things like whether a
(19:51):
plane has to wait to take off by lining up
at the end of the runway or whether it can
go around it. These you know, these kind of super
technical engine nearing questions that can actually really have an
effect on safety that matters. The technology matters. Look some
of these control towers. I mean, I went into these towers.
They make it work with some pretty antiquated systems. I
(20:12):
mean we're talking about dramatically older computer equipment than anything
in this room.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
For example.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
Now they've got they've gotten the results, but that of
course that system is going to show its age over time.
The airports themselves, that's why we push so much money
into the airports to improve them. And America should have
better airports than we have. In some cases, we've we've
upped our game. Look at LaGuardia, right, I came into
LaGuardia yesterday, really really impressive.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Especially if you remember what it used to.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
Yeah, planes is another story. That's you know, that's down
to the to the airlines to keep their fleet up
today and everything in between. But but yeah, no, don't
get me wrong, the infrastructure matters. I just made a
point of making sure everybody knew if it was the
airline that was responsible, they had to own it and
they had to pay out.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Did you ever look into other nations, like you know,
when you go to other countries, I see a lot
of times they have things that preventative, things like if
the ground is too cold, they have things that they spray.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Onto the ground. That's connected to the ground to make
sure there's no wise or if.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
It's too hot.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I feel like we should have some of that.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
With as much money as we spend, as much money
that we have, why don't we do you look at
those other nations to see how the infrastructure works, so
oh for sure.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
Yeah, you can learn so much going to other countries.
I mean you look at Japan and the train system
they have there, and by the way, their high speed train,
they've had that since the sixties. This is not some
you know, new fangled technology, which is why we push
to get that done in the US. There's Las Vegas
projects going out to southern California that should be done
in this decade.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Why are we so behind?
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Why are we so ghetto? Americans just ghetto comparing to
other places. Why?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Bro, they have this thing where, you know, to avoid
ice that is connected. It almost like heats the road
so it's not slippery in these other places, And I'm like,
how we don't have that, you know, it's just the.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Weirdest thing, you know, we did. I remember one project.
It was in New Hampshire where they already had a
power plant. There's a way to connect it up to
route some of the heat. They were just venting the
heat through the cooling tower, and there's a way to
put that in the sidewalk, and then it saved the
city tax payer money to clear the road. So there
have been things like that going on. I think the
bottom line is you get what you pay for. And
America has had a problem with investing in shared things
(22:21):
or public things for a long time.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
So where has this money gone?
Speaker 1 (22:24):
When you hear about the you know, the money that
you allocated and the money buy and allocated the infrastructure,
But where does the money go.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
It's going to exactly this kind of stuff. Right. The
Portal North Bridge is well underway in New Jersey. I
don't know. You know, a lot of the projects I
signed off on, I don't know their fate, but I'll
tell you every day when I'm taking the kids to
school or to camp, I passed by a project that
we signed off on. In my time, these things take
a while, right, So I signed off on it probably
two or three years ago. Now the workers are there
(22:51):
installing it. Characteristically right for a three year old boy.
Gus is like, why is that worker not working? That's
an excavator, Like there's a role like, we look at
it every day and I see taking shape. But these
things take shape over three years, five years, not one year.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
You know.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
The post is that reportedly you remarked that modernizing air
traffic control might simply allow airlines to fly more planes, Like,
could you elaborate on it?
Speaker 5 (23:14):
Yeah, that's not a thing that I said. I mean,
the least of our problems was airlines wanting to add fly.
Our big problem actually was airlines couldn't keep up with
the flights of the day themselves at schedule, and then
if we caught them in unrealistic scheduling, we're going to
enforce on them. But now what I will say is
we should have good alternatives. So you should be able
to get a flight. We should also be able to
(23:36):
take a good train. You should have a safe, effective
highway so that people have more options and not less.
Same with transit. Right yesterday from Laguardi, I took the
I took the bus the M seventy I think it is,
and then then you get to the subway, which was fine.
But in most countries if you're Boston, oh then yeah.
(23:57):
Well the thing I was always pro transit, but they
wouldn't let me do transit most of the time. You
know that they wanted me to be in the vehicle
and security protocols. I get it.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
But he thinks, you, Paul, Pete, it's not like you
was rich before.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Really think you say that I didn't say that people
four would come in, you know, be you know you're
coming the truck and all that.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
But now right, But but my point is in most countries,
most modern countries, you're in the biggest or one of
the biggest cities in that country, and you get to
the airport, you're going to have a one seat ride
to downtown. We're one of the very few places where
you don't have that. We should m hm.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Why do people get so mad at equity and initiative
program like like why like why is that such a thing?
Like why can the New York Post, you know, post
this article and put this headline and then people say
that is a detriment. Pete boud to judge and anything
he wants to do in the future politically, like you know,
especially if you ran a national camp.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Look, I think for years there has been this politics
of saying that if you do anything to try to
make a situation more fair, well, black people usually for
black people. That's going to make it worse. Right, if
you care about recruiting more black people to have a
chance to get a job, then you know you're somehow
(25:24):
lowering standards. When that's not what we were doing when
we were going to HBCUs saying we want you to
apply to work at the FA or work at USDOT,
we were saying, we want to let you know this
job exists and show you the path so that you
can meet that same high standard that everybody has to meet.
But there's a lot to be gained by characterizing it
(25:45):
as something else. Right, This idea that anything that we
do to deal with those fairness issues is at your expense.
These numbers that they're thrown around in the post, right,
make it sound like that money went to somebody else
and it didn't go to you. They're trying to do
this same thing with Medicaid. They're trying to make people
feel like, well, this is just for lazy people who
shouldn't be on Medicaid, when we know for a fact,
(26:07):
because they did this in Arkansas, that what winds up
happening is it kicks off people who are eligible should
be getting the Medicaid, but they get buried in paperwork,
and that stops them from getting their benefits. There's this
It's a classic kind of pitting people against each other. Look,
I get that sometimes these honestly in their vocabulary and
(26:27):
their style, like some of these programs got out of hand.
I've sat through some trainings that just made it seem
they seem like something out of a Republican caricature of
what Democrats do. But they've now taken it so far
to the other extreme that people in Toledo or Missoula, Montana,
or Milwaukee aren't going to get their roads or their
(26:49):
sewers fixed because the Trump administration and the Republicans thought
that the program that funded it had something to do
with diversity. Right, that's hurting everybody. You do this right,
everybody's better off and nobody's worse off.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
What's wrong? I guess my old thing.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
What's wrong with diversity? America is a diverse nation. Diversity
built this country.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
Look, the opposite of diversity is uniformity. And I don't
want to live in a country with more uniformity. I
want to live in a country where there's lots of
different perspectives, different values, different ideas, different politics. But what
we are headed toward now is more uniformity. Look at
what just happened with CBS, right, Oh my god, Yeah,
you've got somebody canceled who happens to be one of
(27:32):
the most effective critics of the president working for a
corporation that happens to have business in front of the
government because they're trying to get their merger rooms. Sure,
this is not that complicated to figure out all the
pieces coming together, and the net effect of it is
one less voice on the air that's different than the
person running the government. But the thing is, in my experience,
(27:56):
that's never been what people left right or center want
in this country. I mean, if anything, it was you know,
my conservative and libertarian friends that i'd be arguing with
over beers in college who would talk about things like,
you know, the government trying to impose censorship on people,
or or federal agents snatching people off the streets, or
(28:19):
any of these things. I used to think of those
as a libertarian fever dream that was never going to happen.
Now we see it happening under a president who claims
to be conservative. So I would like to believe that
one thing we could agree on as a country is
we want less uniformity and more diversity of thought, more
support for all the different things that different people. I mean, again,
(28:40):
you've spent a minute in New York City and it's
exhilarating to see all of the different kind of styles
and backgrounds, and you know that with that comes to
different ideas that that's part of what makes America great.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
I think it's had.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's hard to have these conversations because when you use
words like authoritarian strategy, a lot of people don't even
really understand what that is. And yeah, when you can say, oh, yeah,
Colbert got canceled, but you know he was losing a
lot of money for the network, you can just talk
it up to something else. But then you've got to
look at PBS being defunded, in NPR, being defunded, in
(29:15):
the Wall Street Journal, you know, being sued.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
This is all in a matter of like days.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
This is systematic, yes, right, And they're doing basically any
place where there is independence, whether they're talking about PBS
or a law firm or a university, any place that
is independent is being put in a position where they
have to look over their shoulder because they might do
something that's inconvenient for the government. Hey, and again when
I say that, I sound like my libertarian buddies twenty
(29:41):
years ago. But that's what's happening, and left, right and center,
we should be able to come together and say, wait
a minute, we don't I don't care wherever you come
down on, like taxes or medicare or abortion, like, all
of us should be able to agree that we don't
want that, and that if we move in that direction,
if we live in the kind of country where a
(30:02):
TV show or a university could get shut down because
the government doesn't like them, this isn't America anymore.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
How do you feel about the Epstein files.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I feel that Democrats should never stop talking about the
Epstein files.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I think it is the one thing that builds a
bridge between Democrats and that magabase they've been trying to
reach everathin Trump one reelection.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
I think that's right. Look, I think there's some folks
who might say this is the distraction or this isn't
the bread and butter of what we care about. But
what I would say is, let's say, what you really
care about is legislation policy. That's your thing. You see
all these headlines about Epstein. But you think, to yourself,
what I care about is how the Congress is dealing
with healthcare, taxes, etc. Okay, well, Congress just got shut down.
(30:49):
The Republicans just shut down the United States House of
Representatives for two months in order to avoid having to
vote on Donald Trump blocking the Epstein files. So even
if you don't give a shit about the news story
or the sensationalism of it, this now affects you because
(31:11):
one of your branches of government is not operational between
now and September, because Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republicans
would rather shut that branch of government down than let
the Epstein files come out. Let that sink in. It's
also another example among many, many examples of Donald Trump
(31:33):
saying he's going to do something on day one, and
then something very different happens. Right. Said he's going to
lower prices on day one, opposite happen he's pushing him
up with tariffs. Said he's gonna bring peace to the
Middle East on day one, get peace with Russia on
day one. I don't know if anybody really took him
seriously on that, but that's what he says. And then
he says day one, these Epstein files are going to
come out, because at the time it was in his
(31:56):
interest to pretend that he was going to do that,
and now it is in his interest to block those
files coming out. And I don't think it's unreasonable to
ask why why.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
Do you think the Biden administration never put him up?
Speaker 5 (32:09):
I don't know. I was not close to the you know,
the DOJ or how any of that worked. I know
some a lot of stuff came out, but if there
is really more, and I don't know, but they were
waving around these binders right at press conferences.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
You think it would be mutually as shored destruction could be.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
I mean, look, we already know that there were Democrats, Republicans, like,
there are all kinds of people mixed up with this guy, right,
I think most Americans say, okay, let the chips fall
where they may, like, we gotta.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Know you're in everybody, give rid all of them, anybody.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
Who's an abuser, anybody's committed, like of course, right. And
it does feel like something in this moment where none
of us can agree on much, that all of us
can agree on that. And it's especially weird with Trump,
right because it's not. It's not some wild liberal conspiracy
claim that he was involved with Jeffrey eppste There's pictures,
pictures still coming out now after all these years, not
(33:03):
to mention the pictures and footage that were there years ago,
and not just him like shaking hands, getting his picture
taken with the guy, but like ogling women with him, right,
like dancing and like grooving with And now he found
out it was at his wedding, so obviously there's something there.
It's not even arguable that there's something there. So I
(33:24):
think you're right that we should be pounding on that,
even if it's not a central policy priority of the party.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
I asked some other people that were in the Biden
administration why they didn't, you know, release it, and they
said that they don't dwell in conspiracy. And I'm like, well,
now you're not dwelling in conspiracy. You're talking about an
obvious cover up. And this is the first time that
I've seen Trump supporters be agitated and angry about anything,
So to me, this should be they Democrats should treat
this issue away. Republicans treated transgenders in women's sports.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Never stop talking about it.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
Never, Yeah, I mean why let it go right when
there's obviously something too. And again, it's affecting the entire
government now because we don't have a House of Representatives
because the Speaker sent them home because he didn't want
to do anything to impact Trump's ability to block these files.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
I think that's crazy. What what is their reasoning? I
saw that. You know they're taking a reason, but what
the what is their reasoning?
Speaker 5 (34:17):
I think the reasoning is they don't want to deal
with it.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
What they say to people, I don't even know.
Speaker 5 (34:21):
Maybe they said, actually, that's a good question. I haven't
even seen them, let alone a convincing explanation. I haven't
seen any X. Well, why would they bother? Right? We
all know why. So there's just no reason to even
bother coming up with an excuse.
Speaker 6 (34:35):
So what what are your thoughts on former US President
Obama saying that the Democrats needs need to toughen up,
you know, in action.
Speaker 5 (34:45):
I think he's right, although that just reminds me of
one other thing, right, which is the distraction machine. So
Trump says, we're going to re lease the files, are
going to lease the files, We're going to release the files.
And he says, we're not going to release the files
and people are mad, including Maggas saying, wait a minute,
you said you're going to release this information and you're not.
And what does he do, Like we're going to arrest Obama.
That has nothing to do with anything, but it's the
(35:07):
distraction machine. But yeah, as to what President Obama actually said, Look,
we have to be a party that is not pulling punches,
that is ready to ready to call things out for
what they are internally and externally. I think people want
to know that somebody's fighting for them. At the same time,
(35:28):
my personal theory of politics is you don't have to
be a dick about it. And what I mean by
that is that when I encounter people in actual real
life who voted the other way, relatives or even someone
might come up and say hello in like an airport
or something, I'm more likely to have somebody come up
and say, you know, I'm from the other party, but
(35:51):
it's nice running into you. Then to you know, come
up and give me the finger or something like that.
Why would that be Because we're humans and for the
most part, don't want to In real life we're actually
around each other. We don't want it to be any uglier.
Than it has to be. And yet you go online,
you go on TV, you get into those spaces and
(36:12):
it's different. Right. So I think the challenge for us
is we should never back down from a good fight
over what the right thing to do is and what
the wrong thing to do is. But we can also
demonstrate a way to do it that's actually inviting people
into our coalition, saying like we want you and maybe
you don't agree with us on ten percent of the
(36:33):
stuff for thirty percent of the stuff, or maybe you've
voted the other way last time, like all the more
reason we want you with us this time around. And
we need to be inviting where I think people have
viewed us as kind of frankly scolding, like we're scolding
people for not being up on the latest cultural developments
or not being the right kind of progressive or whatever
(36:55):
it is. That has to change too.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
My biggest problem with democratic they it's like everything they're
saying now, you should have been saying two three years ago,
Like we've been seeing the Democrats with coward. So yeah, yes, y'all,
it should have been tough ened ub. You know Jake
Tapple with the Original Sin and you read that book,
and you see, everybody knew that there was that Biden
was too old to run, but nobody said anything. But
now everybody wants to speak of his press secretary Karine
(37:18):
John Pierre, and she's an independent now. And you know,
I'm like, yoh, why weren't y'all saying this two three
years ago? All these things that y'all are saying, we
the people had been saying.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
I would say also that there are a lot of
things we were fighting for then that we're fighting for now.
The medicaid stuff is a good example, the transportation stuff, right,
I was, you know, sometimes we were taking hits for
people thinking we were caring too much about taking care
of neighborhoods that were underinvested in or hurt in the past.
I believe that it was the right thing to do then.
I believe it's the right thing to do now. But yeah,
(37:50):
we have to show a level of toughness in order
to be just, in order to be credible, I think,
and in order to go up against these guys who
obviously you can fault them for all kinds of things,
but they definitely project toughness.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
And they won the culture war. Like every time I
hear Democrats talk. They talk about the work that they've done,
which is true, but what do you do when the
work isn't enough?
Speaker 5 (38:12):
Yeah, well, look, I think that we need to bring
it back to everyday life, and culture is part of that.
But so we're just the basics of policy. Like right now,
it's going to be harder to buy a house because
Donald Trump just added to the deficit in order to
get task cuts for billionaires, and that means that interest
rates are going to be higher. Right now, it is
(38:35):
growing more difficult to get healthcare because the premiums just
went up because how Republicans changed the Obamacare substance, or like,
you don't have to be a policy buff for these
things to hit you. And by the way, I think
all these things that have happened are small compared to
what's about to happen. This AI development that's happening right
(38:57):
now is not just something people should care about if
they're interested in tech. This is not just like a
nerdy fascination. This is going to affect how all of us.
It already is right, maybe in useful ways like you
ask chat GPT for anything, but also in terms of
jobs starting to dramatically change, right this is a level.
(39:20):
I mean, we lived through one version of this in
the nineties when I was growing up in Indiana and
trade and automation happened and it changed what was going
on in the auto industry. I think that this will
be ten times or one hundred times more disruptive. And
if Democrats are caught up in yesterday's culture war or
defending institutions that were getting pretty old and trying to
(39:41):
look like the protectors of a status quo that wasn't
serving anybody well, instead of offering some kind of answers
for how you're supposed to make a living and how
you're supposed to fit into your community when you've got
technology changing everything. If we don't have answers on that,
then we're definitely going to be left behind.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
So what did the Fujita party look like?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Like? Is it more Pete Boudha Judge or is it
more Mundani? Is it more Josha Perro or is it
more aoc like? What does it look like?
Speaker 5 (40:09):
Look, we're always going to be a big tent party.
I think my style is different from some of the
others in the party, and that's fine. Like we're each
going to be putting forward the version of the message
that's truest to who we are. And I think that
a younger generational leaders, many of whom are politically moderate,
some of them are politically pretty far left. What they
(40:31):
have in common is they are who they are. You
can feel it, you can just see it. That I
think is the future of the party.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
And my last question, you know, Republicans clearly a fumbling
the ball. Trump is clearly fumbling the ball. Do Democrats
have the proper team now to recover to fumble and
actually score?
Speaker 5 (40:47):
It was only one way to find out. But that
moment is on us, right, and it's going to get harder.
I mean, they're even changing the rule. They know they're
fumbling the ball because right now the Trump administration is
trying to get Texas to change the way the maps
are drawn so that they don't lose the House because
they think they're going to lose the House. Right, So
we can see signs that there's a huge opportunity here.
(41:10):
But Democrats also need to figure out that we're not
playing like normal Democrat Republican left right politics like we
all grew up with. This is the media environment's different,
the state of mind of the American people is different,
that the game is different. It's I don't want to
torture your metaphor, but it's like they fumbel the ball
and we need to figure out whether we're actually whether
(41:32):
it's actually suddenly turned into a game of football instead
of you know, soccer instead of football or something we.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Don't even know.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
It's probably a free and fair election in twenty six
or twenty eight.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
Yeah, and again, look at what they're doing in Texas, right,
so never mind, you know, things they could do to
manipulate the election in a really sinister way, like this
is a way to manipulate the election in broad daylight.
If they change the maps in Texas, which by the way,
could technically be legal. That doesn't require anybody going in
and tampering with a voting machine, that doesn't require anybody
(42:04):
changing election results, and yet it changes what happens. And
there's a reason why they are thinking about resorting to that. So,
you know, we can't be my side, can't be precious
about all of the norms and routines that we were
used to and expect to win. There are things we're
not going to do. We're not going to lie we're
(42:25):
not going to demonize unpopular minority groups in order to
get ahead, Like we're not going to do the things
they do. But that means that our version has to
be ten times better.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
People to judge ladies and gentlemen. So what's next for
people to just what do you have your eyes?
Speaker 4 (42:41):
You run of a president? Stop cutting on.
Speaker 5 (42:43):
It's twenty twenty five. You got to give me at
least one year to not be running for anything and
not be in office so I can drop the kids
off at school and be a human being, and then
you know, we'll figure it out. But what I am
definitely doing now and going to keep doing is speak
out about this stuff and try to show versus tell
a way of fighting for what's right that I think
our party would benefit from.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
I think you're pulling out with thirteen percent right now,
look at but do you keep you look at stuff
like that was crazy? But you're pulling at thirty percent,
that's a pretty good number.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
I try not to look at that too much.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
Yeah, people, you should look at other polls.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Pet you're married, first of all, just chill out, he said,
it's no.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
I don't know why I keep coming back.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I don't know why exact I don't know why.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
We appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Whenever you come people, I tell you this all the time, man,
but you know, you never stop talking to our audience.
And that means something, you know, because I feel like
politicians only come around when they want something.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
They only come around when it's a campaign season.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
The fact that you come and just you know, keep
us abreast of what's going on all the time.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
I truly do appreciate it, apreciate it absolutely right, And they.
Speaker 6 (43:55):
Don't forget those handsteps because I want to see if
it works.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
We're doing we're doing the conditioner and then the leaving
conditioner at night, and then in the world it is
it is.
Speaker 6 (44:05):
I know, it's a whole job. It's a whole job,
all right, because you got the detangle and all that.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
So look, yeah, we should talk after this.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Actually have a couple of questions people to judge.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
It's the breakfast club.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
The breakfast Club
I don't know. Every day up waiting, click your ass
up the breakfast club.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
You don't finish for y'all done morning.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
Everybody is DJ Envy, Jess, Hilario, Charlamagne the guy. We
are the breakfast Club. We got a special guest in
the buildings. Indeed, it's back, Pete.
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Boody, Judge, welcome back.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hold on, now you got out the White House and
got a bed immediately.
Speaker 4 (00:22):
He didn't have that bed last time.
Speaker 5 (00:23):
No, you know, there were very few days that I
didn't have to shave the whole time that that I
was in office. And then, uh then suddenly I didn't
have to worry about that. So I started out just
not shaving every day. And then we went on a vacation.
I came back with a beard. I thought, I'm gonna
keep this for a while. Chasting's very very pro My
daughter doesn't like it. She keeps telling me to shave
it because she says it's too scratchy when I kiss
(00:46):
her good night. But her brother hasn't waited in yet,
so he might be the swing vote in the household
swing vote.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Now do they make you do? They tell you look
clean when you work for the White House? Because you
want television. Do they say that.
Speaker 5 (00:59):
I don't think they have to you just you know,
you're just I don't think I was ever told to shave,
not since I was in the military anyway, then it
was the thing. In fact, I remember when the when
there was the first Trump government shut down. I saw
all the guys in my reserve unit a few weeks
later a football game, and everybody had beards all of
a sudden because we could because we didn't have to
shave for that. But uh uh no, it's interesting, right,
(01:22):
I think in the nineteenth century, to be in politics
you had to have a beard. It was a thing, right,
and then almost nobody did anyway, but that.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
You wear a tie.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
You know, when I got home from work, I always
first thing I did was even when I got in
the car on the way out from the office, the
tie had to guys like, I don't know, I just
wanted to breathe a little more. So I'm happy to
not have to wear a tie as much.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
You know, I saw you in the Flamran podcast with
my guy Andrews Showtz. I didn't know that you had
mixed race kids.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I don't know. I didn't know that.
Speaker 5 (01:53):
Yeah, you know, we don't put a lot of pictures
of them on the internet or uh, you know, there's
a lot of privacy obviously goes into that. But yeah,
they're about to turn four. They keep out like every day,
they ask me is my birthday? They've just transformed our
lives in so many ways. It's been amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
And I saw you say, you know, you ask yourself constantly,
how can I be a good dad for kids who
have a different racial identity than I do? How can
I help them navigate that? And for whatever reason, there
was a little bit of backlash of those comments.
Speaker 4 (02:23):
And I don't know why. I thought those are great
questions to ask youself.
Speaker 5 (02:27):
I mean, you know, I was just talking about how
I feel about it, And yeah, I think anytime you
talk about something that sensitive, somebody's ready to pounce. Somebody's
ready to pick it apart and tear you up over it.
But yeah, obviously, you know we're white, our kids are
mixed race. They're going to be as they grow older,
there's going to be dimensions of their lives that I
(02:48):
will do everything I can as a father, as a
loving father to make sure that they succeed. But there
will be parts of their lives that I can't really
draw on personally experience to help guide them through. And
so it's a lot of making sure that they have
mentors and role model, role models, other examples in their
lives to to help them navigate all of that. But
(03:11):
it's it's just been such a blessing and you know,
it's a new challenge every day, but it's the best
hardest thing in my life.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
Well. Also, of those people who who the black friends,
you go, oh, you wouldn't believe.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
So the advice that came in from like the first moment,
I had a navy buddy who saw a couple of
pictures of them from a thing we were at the
White House on it said we got to talk about
hair and I wanted to make sure that because you
I mean just hair products alone. And by the way,
being a girl dad was intimidating to begin with, right,
(03:45):
and then there's everything that comes with that, finding the
right products for for us, our little guy, for Penelope,
our daughter, just learning all of that. Like you know,
nobody in my immediate family of white relative knows a
lot about that, but lots of friends.
Speaker 4 (04:03):
You know, not breed.
Speaker 5 (04:04):
I gotta figure it out.
Speaker 6 (04:06):
Can't out of oil, shame oisture, and didn't get the
white tooth cone. Don't get the small teeth because that's
gonna pull a hair. Got thicker hair.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Yeah, we learned that the hard way. Yeah, we can't do.
And then we got the young king. For him, it's
like a three step sequence. It's it's uh, it's the
leaving conditioner. Then he got the oils right, yes, good,
and then there's there's the essential oil. And then there's
there's the curling cream. Although by step three now he's
he's a little older, but he was really fighting us
on the third step.
Speaker 6 (04:30):
He's like learning you learn.
Speaker 1 (04:33):
Now we gotta get pizza of money. I do not
want you are your husband playing them your hair?
Speaker 4 (04:38):
No sore you doing every day? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (04:41):
Well get ches? Does it more often than I do?
Because can you?
Speaker 6 (04:48):
Hell no, I.
Speaker 4 (04:49):
Need to see the half round the He looks like, right,
you're right, Jesus. I was gonna say before you walked in.
It's funny.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Jess was like, so what is Pete doing now? And
I was like, that is a good question. What is
Pete doing now that you're out the White House? Besides
being a dad and a husband? So what are you
doing now?
Speaker 5 (05:08):
So being a dad and husband is number one for
the and it's the first time in a while I've
been able to put the kind of time in it
that I want to. This is the first time in
fifteen years that I haven't either been in office or
on the ballot, and I'm making the most of that.
But you know, this is obviously not a time in
the life of our country where you can just sit
still or kind of hang out and not be involved.
(05:28):
So I'm speaking out, continuing to go on podcast, go
on TV. Right, I've got a sub stack where I'm
writing thoughts on some of the issues that are coming up,
thinking about doing a book, so keeping busy. But I
have to say, at a personal level, it's been good
not to be on that treadmill Washington just away. I'm
(05:50):
not saying I don't I miss the impact we were
able to have. I miss getting up in the morning
and knowing that, you know, I could make a decision
that could make a whole city better off through a
transportation project we were doing or something like that. I
miss that, But I don't miss the negativity. I don't
miss the way that Washington is so inward looking It
(06:11):
was always about you know, what did this senator have
for breakfast? What are you going to do to keep
these people happy? That most people have never even heard of?
But you know that kind of thing I don't miss.
Speaker 4 (06:21):
What made you not seek the Senate seat in Michigan.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
Well, for one thing, I was thinking about the family,
like being at home for the first time in a
long time. And you know, I remember one day that
was really kind of the decision day in a way,
when I'd kind of set for myself, like what are
we going to do? I was talking about it with Chastain,
and then it was bedtime, and the way story time
(06:45):
works in our house is we get into one of
their twin beds and daughter's on my right, Gus our
son is on my left, and I was reading I
don't know, Cat in the Hat or something, and he
just started curling up, fell asleep on my chain, and
I thought that that's a vote, Like he's telling me
something about where I'm needed most. And I also thought,
(07:10):
you know, the message I want to get out there.
I don't have to be in the United States Senate
to do that. Obviously, I care about who the next
senator is. I'm going to be very active in supporting
a good candidate for Senate because so much for our
state and our country depends on us us having a
good senator to replace Wi stab Now who's and sorry,
Gary Peters, who's uh retiring? But I just didn't think
(07:34):
that had to be me.
Speaker 1 (07:35):
Why do you think it was so much backlash for
you going on the Flagrant podcast?
Speaker 5 (07:41):
Well, in a way, it's reliving what it was like
a few years ago when I started to go on
Fox News a lot, so a lot of people in
my party said, you can't do that. You're you know,
you're you're participating in this right wing media system. That's
you know, that's not giving people good information. And my
response was always, you know, I can't blame somebody for
(08:02):
not agreeing with my positions if they've never heard them,
So of course I got to go on right wing media.
Now you fast forward a few years to these podcasts
and Flagrant. By the way, I don't consider Flagrant to
be right wing, but that's the whole point, right. A
lot of these podcasts, a lot of these shows, they're
not for people who are looking to get politics in
their face all the time, but they are where a
lot of people get their information or get exposed to
(08:24):
people with political ideas. And I thought, okay, you know,
if President Trump was going on this show to reach
listeners and viewers, why wouldn't we be putting forward a
different set of ideas, especially because when I got there
and I was talking to these guys, many of them
voted a different way than I did. Yeah, we agreed
a lot on what was happening next, on the problem
(08:44):
with tilting the tax code to favor the rich, and
that was before the bill pass. Now the bill pass,
we know and we've seen it. Problems with cutting services,
making it harder to get your phone and phone call answered,
on social security, all of these same, right, So we
could just have a conversation, and yeah, I think some
people still, you know, I remember a few people saying like,
(09:06):
why are you platforming these guys who have said something offensive?
And I'm just thinking, like, they're platforming me. It's their show.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
It's the stupidest thing when people say how are you
platform how? They already have a huge platform.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
So why not go on.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
There and you know, let people hear what it is
you have to say, give people another you know.
Speaker 5 (09:22):
Option, right, Yeah, especially because fewer and fewer people are
getting their news from traditional sources. I spent part of
the spring teaching at the University of Chicago. There's an
Institute of Politics there that David Axelrod set up. He
asked me to spend time with the students.
Speaker 4 (09:37):
There, and I came after you, Oh were you there?
Speaker 5 (09:40):
I came. I think it's a great experience, and you
learned so much talking to these students. One thing one
of the things I would often do is to kind
of show a hands just where to get your information.
The number of students who said television news was zero,
like literally zero. Out of those students said they just
like sat the way I was when I was growing
(10:01):
up or still do. Sometimes like turn on a TV
show and watch it. Right, they might see something from
TV go into their feed, get clipped. But in terms
of where people are getting our information, we got to
find people where they are.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
I wanted to ask go back about your previous duties
the airports. It seemed like the airport's gotten a lot worse.
Why do you think that is? Or are we just
hearing about it more? And these are the problems that
have been having for the last ten twenty years.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
I read audifew yesterday. They blamed it on you. They
said that, of course you. I said, under you, the
Department of Transportation allocated over eighty billion dollars for DEI grants, Okay,
instead of putting money into.
Speaker 4 (10:43):
Yeah, so the actual airlines, Yeah, airports, airports.
Speaker 5 (10:48):
Obviously, I think that's bullshit. Let's break it down. First
of all, quote unquote the I grants. We're talking about
transportation funding that they're now getting rid of. So, Milwaukee
sixth Street, we funded a project thirty four million dollars
to help make a set of improvements to a very
(11:09):
dangerous street where there been a lot of crashes and
that has divided the community. We provided funding. They're also
going to improve the sewer while they're added. I mean,
this is bread and butter stuff that's going to make
the city better off. Trump administration killed that grant because
the application talked about equity. It talked about one of
the reasons for funding this project being that that neighborhood
(11:31):
had been underinvested in. There was a project in Missoula, Montana,
connecting East Missoula across Highway two hundred. By the way,
the Republican Senator from Montana supported that project and wrote
me a letter saying we had to fund it, and
we did. This administration killed it just because it was
part of a program that mentions equity. So when they
talk about quote unquote DII grants, often they're talking about
(11:54):
fixing roads and bridges that happened to go into a
black neighborhood or a low income area. Meanwhile, we'll talk
about aviation. I'm pretty sure on the first Secretary of
Transportation in thirty years or more to have the air
traffic control workforce growing instead of shrinking on his watch.
And that was hard because we've been losing air traffic controllers.
(12:17):
They've been retiring. It's just been hard to get as
many to come in as we're going out. I don't
know whether that number is still going up now. I
know that from the beginning they all got an email
saying you should think about taking a buy out and
quit your job. Then they were told that email was
never for them. So I don't know exactly what's going
on over there now. What I know is that we
(12:38):
left the air traffic control system better than we found it,
but it's still got a lot of problems. So the
answer your question is really it's both. There are new
problems that we're seeing, you know that I'm seeing just
as a now regular member of the traveling public. But
there are some issues that have been in the making
for ten twenty thirty years. We did what we could
to improve it. But honestly, that's or who I obviously
(13:01):
disagree with on lots of things. I want them to
succeed on this. I mean, for one thing, I fly
a lot, but also for the sake of the country,
I want them to succeed in improving that.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
But it seems like a lot.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
Of the problems that we've been having, especially when we
see these floods in these.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
Storms, are problems that we keep seeing, right, you know,
you look at areas in Texas or even New Jersey.
They flood the same every time. So it's just like,
why can't we fix those problems. It's not like it's
new problems. These are problems that are reoccurring.
Speaker 5 (13:29):
So what we did was we set up funding to
do things like take a road that's getting washed out
every year and instead of putting it back the exact
same every time, and putting a bunch of money into that,
move it to where it's not going to be as vulnerable.
They're going after that kind of thing too, because they're
systematically deleting any reference to climate change or sustainability from
(13:52):
anything in the government. And what that means is, I
think these projects are in danger.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
No matter the eighty billion dollars that was allocate they said,
four hundred awards from twenty twenty one to two thousand
twenty four. What did that actually go to because they're
calling it DEI grants, But where did it go?
Speaker 4 (14:09):
Where did it go to?
Speaker 5 (14:10):
Yeah, so I don't know how they got the eighty number,
eighty billion numbers. So what I tell you, I mean
if maybe if you're counting like any project that was
connected in any way to taking care of people who
had been underinvested, and that'd be one way to do it.
We had this whole idea of making sure that that
a good share of the grant money went to neighborhoods
or communities that were cut out in the past. So
(14:32):
but again there are these these specific projects. East Toledo.
We were a project to connect East Toledo to downtown Toledo,
get people across this high crash corridor where they were
having dozens of crashes, and it came under the heading
of reconnecting communities or reconnecting neighborhoods, which this administration considers woke.
(14:52):
They're trying to cut it. To me, it's definitely important
that it's going to a disadvantage area. It's also just
a good project. It's a good safety project. So they
want to call it DEI I would call it good policy.
And this this war on anything that has anything remotely
to do with diversity, I think has gone to such
(15:14):
an extreme. People are starting to feel it because it's
starting to come for them.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
So how would you respond to people who have concerns
that these equity initiatives delayed urgent aviation upgrade.
Speaker 5 (15:26):
It's just not true. I mean, you know, the person
who launched the contract, for example, to modernize the tech
backbone of the fifth that was me. We did that.
It's a big agency. We did a lot of things.
We did roads, we did bridges, we did aviation, we
did port I mean, you know, you can do a
lot of things at the same time. That's what we did.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Now, now all of this is coming from the New
York Post, so and it just came out jetterda If
I'm giving you a chance.
Speaker 5 (15:52):
Oh yeah, so that that specific article. Actually it's I
can't believe I'm saying this, but I would actually say
it's worth reading because if you read it, you'll see
a bunch of anonymous people, mostly from the airline industry,
complaining with no kind of specific facts or figures, followed
by a whole bunch of which, like the post does
(16:12):
they put it at the bottom of the article, a
whole bunch of facts and figures showing something different, which
was our response. But yeah, obviously the airline industry was
not a big fan of mine, right because I was
a tough regulator. I mean, we moved the rule to
make sure that you can get your money back if
your flight gets significantly delayed. We had really tough penalties
(16:34):
on airlines that were holding back on people's refunds. We
pushed them on things like disability, making sure if they
mangle your wheelchair that they have to take care of you.
The current administration froze that rule. That's something we pushed on.
So obviously, you know, my replacement is an airline lobbyist,
or he was an airline lobbyist. Obviously, the airline industry
is happier with the new guy who was an airline
lobbyist than with somebody like me who was a tough regulator.
(16:57):
But that's the kind of inside baseball that drives these articles.
I think it's very telling that none of the people
who were throwing stones in that article actually put their
name to their quote.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
So earlier this year, when like you know, there was
like plane crashes and stuff, is there a part of
you that's like, I hate to see that, but I
told you so.
Speaker 5 (17:16):
Look, you know, aviation's still safer than driving or any
other form of transportation. But it's the nightmare scenario for
anybody who cares about transportation, Definitely, anybody who ever had
the job I had to have a plane crash happened
in this country. One of the things that was really
important to me was during my time in office, we
had four billion emplayments, four billion times that somebody got
(17:38):
onto a commercial passenger airline and zero crash fatalities. And
it's everybody's job to keep that up. And I do
worry about what will happen if you got air traffic
controllers who were being distracted by all this political nonsense
getting an email telling them that they're going to get
bought out then being told that doesn't apply in that
(18:00):
like firing it people like they did on day one.
Of course I'm worried about that, you.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
Know, I always wanted to know and maybe you can
help people out.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
You have more private.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Planes crashing than a commercial plane.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
Right, is that because the reg I guess whatever, the
regulations are less lenient.
Speaker 4 (18:20):
Why is that?
Speaker 5 (18:20):
Yeah, there is a higher standard for a jumbo jet
that's got three hundred people on it then for recreational
plane where somebody's flying Assessana or even a private jet.
And I think, look that, you know, if you think
about how we manage risk, that makes sense up to
a point. But there's also got to be a floor.
There's got to be a baseline that no matter what,
if you have an airplane in the national airspace, it's
(18:41):
got to have these safety checks.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
You said once that most flight delays stem from weather
an airline issues, not infrastructure.
Speaker 5 (18:50):
Yeah, infrastructure or air traffic control as usually number three.
So if you think about why or when are you
most likely to get to have a problem, Yeah, weather's
number one. A lot of times it's the airlines, especially
when I was there, A lot of times the airlines
didn't have enough staff. They've improved that. Then you go
down the list, then you get to more issues around
infrastructure technology. If there's not enough air traffic controllers on duty,
(19:14):
the airport will respond by reducing the number of flights
that can come or go so that it's safe. That's
what happened to a lot of people at Newark. So
it's a factor, it's not the number one factor.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
So how confident are you that infrastructure, I guess plays
a minimal role.
Speaker 5 (19:28):
I wouldn't say minimal. I mean one of the reasons
we pushed so hard to get that infrastructure build one
was to make improvements right, things like stuff you might
never notice when you're on a plane, like taxiway geometry.
So it's making sure that the way the taxiway is
lined up makes it less likely that two planes would
ever be at risk of colliding. Things like whether a
(19:51):
plane has to wait to take off by lining up
at the end of the runway or whether it can
go around it. These you know, these kind of super
technical engine nearing questions that can actually really have an
effect on safety that matters. The technology matters. Look some
of these control towers. I mean, I went into these towers.
They make it work with some pretty antiquated systems. I
(20:12):
mean we're talking about dramatically older computer equipment than anything
in this room.
Speaker 4 (20:17):
For example.
Speaker 5 (20:19):
Now they've got they've gotten the results, but that of
course that system is going to show its age over time.
The airports themselves, that's why we push so much money
into the airports to improve them. And America should have
better airports than we have. In some cases, we've we've
upped our game. Look at LaGuardia, right, I came into
LaGuardia yesterday, really really impressive.
Speaker 4 (20:39):
Especially if you remember what it used to.
Speaker 5 (20:42):
Yeah, planes is another story. That's you know, that's down
to the to the airlines to keep their fleet up
today and everything in between. But but yeah, no, don't
get me wrong, the infrastructure matters. I just made a
point of making sure everybody knew if it was the
airline that was responsible, they had to own it and
they had to pay out.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Did you ever look into other nations, like you know,
when you go to other countries, I see a lot
of times they have things that preventative, things like if
the ground is too cold, they have things that they spray.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Onto the ground. That's connected to the ground to make
sure there's no wise or if.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
It's too hot.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I feel like we should have some of that.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
With as much money as we spend, as much money
that we have, why don't we do you look at
those other nations to see how the infrastructure works, so
oh for sure.
Speaker 5 (21:23):
Yeah, you can learn so much going to other countries.
I mean you look at Japan and the train system
they have there, and by the way, their high speed train,
they've had that since the sixties. This is not some
you know, new fangled technology, which is why we push
to get that done in the US. There's Las Vegas
projects going out to southern California that should be done
in this decade.
Speaker 2 (21:43):
Why are we so behind?
Speaker 4 (21:44):
Why are we so ghetto? Americans just ghetto comparing to
other places. Why?
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Bro, they have this thing where, you know, to avoid
ice that is connected. It almost like heats the road
so it's not slippery in these other places, And I'm like,
how we don't have that, you know, it's just the.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Weirdest thing, you know, we did. I remember one project.
It was in New Hampshire where they already had a
power plant. There's a way to connect it up to
route some of the heat. They were just venting the
heat through the cooling tower, and there's a way to
put that in the sidewalk, and then it saved the
city tax payer money to clear the road. So there
have been things like that going on. I think the
bottom line is you get what you pay for. And
America has had a problem with investing in shared things
(22:21):
or public things for a long time.
Speaker 4 (22:23):
So where has this money gone?
Speaker 1 (22:24):
When you hear about the you know, the money that
you allocated and the money buy and allocated the infrastructure,
But where does the money go.
Speaker 5 (22:30):
It's going to exactly this kind of stuff. Right. The
Portal North Bridge is well underway in New Jersey. I
don't know. You know, a lot of the projects I
signed off on, I don't know their fate, but I'll
tell you every day when I'm taking the kids to
school or to camp, I passed by a project that
we signed off on. In my time, these things take
a while, right, So I signed off on it probably
two or three years ago. Now the workers are there
(22:51):
installing it. Characteristically right for a three year old boy.
Gus is like, why is that worker not working? That's
an excavator, Like there's a role like, we look at
it every day and I see taking shape. But these
things take shape over three years, five years, not one year.
Speaker 4 (23:04):
You know.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
The post is that reportedly you remarked that modernizing air
traffic control might simply allow airlines to fly more planes, Like,
could you elaborate on it?
Speaker 5 (23:14):
Yeah, that's not a thing that I said. I mean,
the least of our problems was airlines wanting to add fly.
Our big problem actually was airlines couldn't keep up with
the flights of the day themselves at schedule, and then
if we caught them in unrealistic scheduling, we're going to
enforce on them. But now what I will say is
we should have good alternatives. So you should be able
to get a flight. We should also be able to
(23:36):
take a good train. You should have a safe, effective
highway so that people have more options and not less.
Same with transit. Right yesterday from Laguardi, I took the
I took the bus the M seventy I think it is,
and then then you get to the subway, which was fine.
But in most countries if you're Boston, oh then yeah.
(23:57):
Well the thing I was always pro transit, but they
wouldn't let me do transit most of the time. You
know that they wanted me to be in the vehicle
and security protocols. I get it.
Speaker 4 (24:05):
But he thinks, you, Paul, Pete, it's not like you
was rich before.
Speaker 3 (24:13):
Really think you say that I didn't say that people
four would come in, you know, be you know you're
coming the truck and all that.
Speaker 5 (24:21):
But now right, But but my point is in most countries,
most modern countries, you're in the biggest or one of
the biggest cities in that country, and you get to
the airport, you're going to have a one seat ride
to downtown. We're one of the very few places where
you don't have that. We should m hm.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Why do people get so mad at equity and initiative
program like like why like why is that such a thing?
Like why can the New York Post, you know, post
this article and put this headline and then people say
that is a detriment. Pete boud to judge and anything
he wants to do in the future politically, like you know,
especially if you ran a national camp.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Look, I think for years there has been this politics
of saying that if you do anything to try to
make a situation more fair, well, black people usually for
black people. That's going to make it worse. Right, if
you care about recruiting more black people to have a
chance to get a job, then you know you're somehow
(25:24):
lowering standards. When that's not what we were doing when
we were going to HBCUs saying we want you to
apply to work at the FA or work at USDOT,
we were saying, we want to let you know this
job exists and show you the path so that you
can meet that same high standard that everybody has to meet.
But there's a lot to be gained by characterizing it
(25:45):
as something else. Right, This idea that anything that we
do to deal with those fairness issues is at your expense.
These numbers that they're thrown around in the post, right,
make it sound like that money went to somebody else
and it didn't go to you. They're trying to do
this same thing with Medicaid. They're trying to make people
feel like, well, this is just for lazy people who
shouldn't be on Medicaid, when we know for a fact,
(26:07):
because they did this in Arkansas, that what winds up
happening is it kicks off people who are eligible should
be getting the Medicaid, but they get buried in paperwork,
and that stops them from getting their benefits. There's this
It's a classic kind of pitting people against each other. Look,
I get that sometimes these honestly in their vocabulary and
(26:27):
their style, like some of these programs got out of hand.
I've sat through some trainings that just made it seem
they seem like something out of a Republican caricature of
what Democrats do. But they've now taken it so far
to the other extreme that people in Toledo or Missoula, Montana,
or Milwaukee aren't going to get their roads or their
(26:49):
sewers fixed because the Trump administration and the Republicans thought
that the program that funded it had something to do
with diversity. Right, that's hurting everybody. You do this right,
everybody's better off and nobody's worse off.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
What's wrong? I guess my old thing.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
What's wrong with diversity? America is a diverse nation. Diversity
built this country.
Speaker 5 (27:08):
Look, the opposite of diversity is uniformity. And I don't
want to live in a country with more uniformity. I
want to live in a country where there's lots of
different perspectives, different values, different ideas, different politics. But what
we are headed toward now is more uniformity. Look at
what just happened with CBS, right, Oh my god, Yeah,
you've got somebody canceled who happens to be one of
(27:32):
the most effective critics of the president working for a
corporation that happens to have business in front of the
government because they're trying to get their merger rooms. Sure,
this is not that complicated to figure out all the
pieces coming together, and the net effect of it is
one less voice on the air that's different than the
person running the government. But the thing is, in my experience,
(27:56):
that's never been what people left right or center want
in this country. I mean, if anything, it was you know,
my conservative and libertarian friends that i'd be arguing with
over beers in college who would talk about things like,
you know, the government trying to impose censorship on people,
or or federal agents snatching people off the streets, or
(28:19):
any of these things. I used to think of those
as a libertarian fever dream that was never going to happen.
Now we see it happening under a president who claims
to be conservative. So I would like to believe that
one thing we could agree on as a country is
we want less uniformity and more diversity of thought, more
support for all the different things that different people. I mean, again,
(28:40):
you've spent a minute in New York City and it's
exhilarating to see all of the different kind of styles
and backgrounds, and you know that with that comes to
different ideas that that's part of what makes America great.
Speaker 4 (28:54):
I think it's had.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's hard to have these conversations because when you use
words like authoritarian strategy, a lot of people don't even
really understand what that is. And yeah, when you can say, oh, yeah,
Colbert got canceled, but you know he was losing a
lot of money for the network, you can just talk
it up to something else. But then you've got to
look at PBS being defunded, in NPR, being defunded, in
(29:15):
the Wall Street Journal, you know, being sued.
Speaker 4 (29:17):
This is all in a matter of like days.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
This is systematic, yes, right, And they're doing basically any
place where there is independence, whether they're talking about PBS
or a law firm or a university, any place that
is independent is being put in a position where they
have to look over their shoulder because they might do
something that's inconvenient for the government. Hey, and again when
I say that, I sound like my libertarian buddies twenty
(29:41):
years ago. But that's what's happening, and left, right and center,
we should be able to come together and say, wait
a minute, we don't I don't care wherever you come
down on, like taxes or medicare or abortion, like, all
of us should be able to agree that we don't
want that, and that if we move in that direction,
if we live in the kind of country where a
(30:02):
TV show or a university could get shut down because
the government doesn't like them, this isn't America anymore.
Speaker 4 (30:10):
How do you feel about the Epstein files.
Speaker 1 (30:12):
I feel that Democrats should never stop talking about the
Epstein files.
Speaker 5 (30:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
I think it is the one thing that builds a
bridge between Democrats and that magabase they've been trying to
reach everathin Trump one reelection.
Speaker 5 (30:25):
I think that's right. Look, I think there's some folks
who might say this is the distraction or this isn't
the bread and butter of what we care about. But
what I would say is, let's say, what you really
care about is legislation policy. That's your thing. You see
all these headlines about Epstein. But you think, to yourself,
what I care about is how the Congress is dealing
with healthcare, taxes, etc. Okay, well, Congress just got shut down.
(30:49):
The Republicans just shut down the United States House of
Representatives for two months in order to avoid having to
vote on Donald Trump blocking the Epstein files. So even
if you don't give a shit about the news story
or the sensationalism of it, this now affects you because
(31:11):
one of your branches of government is not operational between
now and September, because Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republicans
would rather shut that branch of government down than let
the Epstein files come out. Let that sink in. It's
also another example among many, many examples of Donald Trump
(31:33):
saying he's going to do something on day one, and
then something very different happens. Right. Said he's going to
lower prices on day one, opposite happen he's pushing him
up with tariffs. Said he's gonna bring peace to the
Middle East on day one, get peace with Russia on
day one. I don't know if anybody really took him
seriously on that, but that's what he says. And then
he says day one, these Epstein files are going to
come out, because at the time it was in his
(31:56):
interest to pretend that he was going to do that,
and now it is in his interest to block those
files coming out. And I don't think it's unreasonable to
ask why why.
Speaker 4 (32:06):
Do you think the Biden administration never put him up?
Speaker 5 (32:09):
I don't know. I was not close to the you know,
the DOJ or how any of that worked. I know
some a lot of stuff came out, but if there
is really more, and I don't know, but they were
waving around these binders right at press conferences.
Speaker 4 (32:24):
You think it would be mutually as shored destruction could be.
Speaker 5 (32:26):
I mean, look, we already know that there were Democrats, Republicans, like,
there are all kinds of people mixed up with this guy, right,
I think most Americans say, okay, let the chips fall
where they may, like, we gotta.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Know you're in everybody, give rid all of them, anybody.
Speaker 5 (32:41):
Who's an abuser, anybody's committed, like of course, right. And
it does feel like something in this moment where none
of us can agree on much, that all of us
can agree on that. And it's especially weird with Trump,
right because it's not. It's not some wild liberal conspiracy
claim that he was involved with Jeffrey eppste There's pictures,
pictures still coming out now after all these years, not
(33:03):
to mention the pictures and footage that were there years ago,
and not just him like shaking hands, getting his picture
taken with the guy, but like ogling women with him, right,
like dancing and like grooving with And now he found
out it was at his wedding, so obviously there's something there.
It's not even arguable that there's something there. So I
(33:24):
think you're right that we should be pounding on that,
even if it's not a central policy priority of the party.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
I asked some other people that were in the Biden
administration why they didn't, you know, release it, and they
said that they don't dwell in conspiracy. And I'm like, well,
now you're not dwelling in conspiracy. You're talking about an
obvious cover up. And this is the first time that
I've seen Trump supporters be agitated and angry about anything,
So to me, this should be they Democrats should treat
this issue away. Republicans treated transgenders in women's sports.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Never stop talking about it.
Speaker 5 (33:56):
Never, Yeah, I mean why let it go right when
there's obviously something too. And again, it's affecting the entire
government now because we don't have a House of Representatives
because the Speaker sent them home because he didn't want
to do anything to impact Trump's ability to block these files.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
I think that's crazy. What what is their reasoning? I
saw that. You know they're taking a reason, but what
the what is their reasoning?
Speaker 5 (34:17):
I think the reasoning is they don't want to deal
with it.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
What they say to people, I don't even know.
Speaker 5 (34:21):
Maybe they said, actually, that's a good question. I haven't
even seen them, let alone a convincing explanation. I haven't
seen any X. Well, why would they bother? Right? We
all know why. So there's just no reason to even
bother coming up with an excuse.
Speaker 6 (34:35):
So what what are your thoughts on former US President
Obama saying that the Democrats needs need to toughen up,
you know, in action.
Speaker 5 (34:45):
I think he's right, although that just reminds me of
one other thing, right, which is the distraction machine. So
Trump says, we're going to re lease the files, are
going to lease the files, We're going to release the files.
And he says, we're not going to release the files
and people are mad, including Maggas saying, wait a minute,
you said you're going to release this information and you're not.
And what does he do, Like we're going to arrest Obama.
That has nothing to do with anything, but it's the
(35:07):
distraction machine. But yeah, as to what President Obama actually said, Look,
we have to be a party that is not pulling punches,
that is ready to ready to call things out for
what they are internally and externally. I think people want
to know that somebody's fighting for them. At the same time,
(35:28):
my personal theory of politics is you don't have to
be a dick about it. And what I mean by
that is that when I encounter people in actual real
life who voted the other way, relatives or even someone
might come up and say hello in like an airport
or something, I'm more likely to have somebody come up
and say, you know, I'm from the other party, but
(35:51):
it's nice running into you. Then to you know, come
up and give me the finger or something like that.
Why would that be Because we're humans and for the
most part, don't want to In real life we're actually
around each other. We don't want it to be any uglier.
Than it has to be. And yet you go online,
you go on TV, you get into those spaces and
(36:12):
it's different. Right. So I think the challenge for us
is we should never back down from a good fight
over what the right thing to do is and what
the wrong thing to do is. But we can also
demonstrate a way to do it that's actually inviting people
into our coalition, saying like we want you and maybe
you don't agree with us on ten percent of the
(36:33):
stuff for thirty percent of the stuff, or maybe you've
voted the other way last time, like all the more
reason we want you with us this time around. And
we need to be inviting where I think people have
viewed us as kind of frankly scolding, like we're scolding
people for not being up on the latest cultural developments
or not being the right kind of progressive or whatever
(36:55):
it is. That has to change too.
Speaker 1 (36:58):
My biggest problem with democratic they it's like everything they're
saying now, you should have been saying two three years ago,
Like we've been seeing the Democrats with coward. So yeah, yes, y'all,
it should have been tough ened ub. You know Jake
Tapple with the Original Sin and you read that book,
and you see, everybody knew that there was that Biden
was too old to run, but nobody said anything. But
now everybody wants to speak of his press secretary Karine
(37:18):
John Pierre, and she's an independent now. And you know,
I'm like, yoh, why weren't y'all saying this two three
years ago? All these things that y'all are saying, we
the people had been saying.
Speaker 5 (37:27):
I would say also that there are a lot of
things we were fighting for then that we're fighting for now.
The medicaid stuff is a good example, the transportation stuff, right,
I was, you know, sometimes we were taking hits for
people thinking we were caring too much about taking care
of neighborhoods that were underinvested in or hurt in the past.
I believe that it was the right thing to do then.
I believe it's the right thing to do now. But yeah,
(37:50):
we have to show a level of toughness in order
to be just, in order to be credible, I think,
and in order to go up against these guys who
obviously you can fault them for all kinds of things,
but they definitely project toughness.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
And they won the culture war. Like every time I
hear Democrats talk. They talk about the work that they've done,
which is true, but what do you do when the
work isn't enough?
Speaker 5 (38:12):
Yeah, well, look, I think that we need to bring
it back to everyday life, and culture is part of that.
But so we're just the basics of policy. Like right now,
it's going to be harder to buy a house because
Donald Trump just added to the deficit in order to
get task cuts for billionaires, and that means that interest
rates are going to be higher. Right now, it is
(38:35):
growing more difficult to get healthcare because the premiums just
went up because how Republicans changed the Obamacare substance, or like,
you don't have to be a policy buff for these
things to hit you. And by the way, I think
all these things that have happened are small compared to
what's about to happen. This AI development that's happening right
(38:57):
now is not just something people should care about if
they're interested in tech. This is not just like a
nerdy fascination. This is going to affect how all of us.
It already is right, maybe in useful ways like you
ask chat GPT for anything, but also in terms of
jobs starting to dramatically change, right this is a level.
(39:20):
I mean, we lived through one version of this in
the nineties when I was growing up in Indiana and
trade and automation happened and it changed what was going
on in the auto industry. I think that this will
be ten times or one hundred times more disruptive. And
if Democrats are caught up in yesterday's culture war or
defending institutions that were getting pretty old and trying to
(39:41):
look like the protectors of a status quo that wasn't
serving anybody well, instead of offering some kind of answers
for how you're supposed to make a living and how
you're supposed to fit into your community when you've got
technology changing everything. If we don't have answers on that,
then we're definitely going to be left behind.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
So what did the Fujita party look like?
Speaker 1 (40:00):
Like? Is it more Pete Boudha Judge or is it
more Mundani? Is it more Josha Perro or is it
more aoc like? What does it look like?
Speaker 5 (40:09):
Look, we're always going to be a big tent party.
I think my style is different from some of the
others in the party, and that's fine. Like we're each
going to be putting forward the version of the message
that's truest to who we are. And I think that
a younger generational leaders, many of whom are politically moderate,
some of them are politically pretty far left. What they
(40:31):
have in common is they are who they are. You
can feel it, you can just see it. That I
think is the future of the party.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
And my last question, you know, Republicans clearly a fumbling
the ball. Trump is clearly fumbling the ball. Do Democrats
have the proper team now to recover to fumble and
actually score?
Speaker 5 (40:47):
It was only one way to find out. But that
moment is on us, right, and it's going to get harder.
I mean, they're even changing the rule. They know they're
fumbling the ball because right now the Trump administration is
trying to get Texas to change the way the maps
are drawn so that they don't lose the House because
they think they're going to lose the House. Right, So
we can see signs that there's a huge opportunity here.
(41:10):
But Democrats also need to figure out that we're not
playing like normal Democrat Republican left right politics like we
all grew up with. This is the media environment's different,
the state of mind of the American people is different,
that the game is different. It's I don't want to
torture your metaphor, but it's like they fumbel the ball
and we need to figure out whether we're actually whether
(41:32):
it's actually suddenly turned into a game of football instead
of you know, soccer instead of football or something we.
Speaker 4 (41:38):
Don't even know.
Speaker 1 (41:38):
It's probably a free and fair election in twenty six
or twenty eight.
Speaker 5 (41:41):
Yeah, and again, look at what they're doing in Texas, right,
so never mind, you know, things they could do to
manipulate the election in a really sinister way, like this
is a way to manipulate the election in broad daylight.
If they change the maps in Texas, which by the way,
could technically be legal. That doesn't require anybody going in
and tampering with a voting machine, that doesn't require anybody
(42:04):
changing election results, and yet it changes what happens. And
there's a reason why they are thinking about resorting to that. So,
you know, we can't be my side, can't be precious
about all of the norms and routines that we were
used to and expect to win. There are things we're
not going to do. We're not going to lie we're
(42:25):
not going to demonize unpopular minority groups in order to
get ahead, Like we're not going to do the things
they do. But that means that our version has to
be ten times better.
Speaker 2 (42:37):
People to judge ladies and gentlemen. So what's next for
people to just what do you have your eyes?
Speaker 4 (42:41):
You run of a president? Stop cutting on.
Speaker 5 (42:43):
It's twenty twenty five. You got to give me at
least one year to not be running for anything and
not be in office so I can drop the kids
off at school and be a human being, and then
you know, we'll figure it out. But what I am
definitely doing now and going to keep doing is speak
out about this stuff and try to show versus tell
a way of fighting for what's right that I think
our party would benefit from.
Speaker 1 (43:04):
I think you're pulling out with thirteen percent right now,
look at but do you keep you look at stuff
like that was crazy? But you're pulling at thirty percent,
that's a pretty good number.
Speaker 5 (43:17):
I try not to look at that too much.
Speaker 4 (43:19):
Yeah, people, you should look at other polls.
Speaker 1 (43:22):
Pet you're married, first of all, just chill out, he said,
it's no.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
I don't know why I keep coming back.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
I don't know why exact I don't know why.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
We appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (43:36):
Whenever you come people, I tell you this all the time, man,
but you know, you never stop talking to our audience.
And that means something, you know, because I feel like
politicians only come around when they want something.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
They only come around when it's a campaign season.
Speaker 1 (43:48):
The fact that you come and just you know, keep
us abreast of what's going on all the time.
Speaker 4 (43:52):
I truly do appreciate it, apreciate it absolutely right, And they.
Speaker 6 (43:55):
Don't forget those handsteps because I want to see if
it works.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
We're doing we're doing the conditioner and then the leaving
conditioner at night, and then in the world it is
it is.
Speaker 6 (44:05):
I know, it's a whole job. It's a whole job,
all right, because you got the detangle and all that.
Speaker 5 (44:09):
So look, yeah, we should talk after this.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Actually have a couple of questions people to judge.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
It's the breakfast club.
Speaker 2 (44:15):
Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
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