Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Pete Buttigieg On Full-time Fatherhood, Airport Regulations, Epstein Files, Presidential Polls +More

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INTERVIEW: Pete Buttigieg On Full-time Fatherhood, Airport Regulations, Epstein Files, Presidential Polls +More · The Breakfast Club

0:00
Speaker 1: I don't know. Every day up waiting, click your ass
0:03
Speaker 1: up the breakfast club.
0:05
Speaker 2: You don't finish for y'all done morning.
0:08
Speaker 3: Everybody is DJ Envy, Jess, Hilario, Charlamagne the guy. We
0:12
Speaker 3: are the breakfast Club. We got a special guest in
0:14
Speaker 3: the buildings. Indeed, it's back, Pete.
0:16
Speaker 4: Boody, Judge, welcome back.
0:17
Speaker 2: Hold on, now you got out the White House and
0:20
Speaker 2: got a bed immediately.
0:22
Speaker 4: He didn't have that bed last time.
0:23
Speaker 5: No, you know, there were very few days that I
0:26
Speaker 5: didn't have to shave the whole time that that I
0:28
Speaker 5: was in office. And then, uh then suddenly I didn't
0:31
Speaker 5: have to worry about that. So I started out just
0:33
Speaker 5: not shaving every day. And then we went on a vacation.
0:35
Speaker 5: I came back with a beard. I thought, I'm gonna
0:37
Speaker 5: keep this for a while. Chasting's very very pro My
0:41
Speaker 5: daughter doesn't like it. She keeps telling me to shave
0:43
Speaker 5: it because she says it's too scratchy when I kiss
0:46
Speaker 5: her good night. But her brother hasn't waited in yet,
0:49
Speaker 5: so he might be the swing vote in the household
0:51
Speaker 5: swing vote.
0:52
Speaker 2: Now do they make you do? They tell you look
0:54
Speaker 2: clean when you work for the White House? Because you
0:58
Speaker 2: want television. Do they say that.
0:59
Speaker 5: I don't think they have to you just you know,
1:01
Speaker 5: you're just I don't think I was ever told to shave,
1:05
Speaker 5: not since I was in the military anyway, then it
1:07
Speaker 5: was the thing. In fact, I remember when the when
1:09
Speaker 5: there was the first Trump government shut down. I saw
1:12
Speaker 5: all the guys in my reserve unit a few weeks
1:15
Speaker 5: later a football game, and everybody had beards all of
1:17
Speaker 5: a sudden because we could because we didn't have to
1:19
Speaker 5: shave for that. But uh uh no, it's interesting, right,
1:22
Speaker 5: I think in the nineteenth century, to be in politics
1:23
Speaker 5: you had to have a beard. It was a thing, right,
1:27
Speaker 5: and then almost nobody did anyway, but that.
1:32
Speaker 4: You wear a tie.
1:35
Speaker 5: You know, when I got home from work, I always
1:37
Speaker 5: first thing I did was even when I got in
1:39
Speaker 5: the car on the way out from the office, the
1:41
Speaker 5: tie had to guys like, I don't know, I just
1:44
Speaker 5: wanted to breathe a little more. So I'm happy to
1:46
Speaker 5: not have to wear a tie as much.
1:47
Speaker 1: You know, I saw you in the Flamran podcast with
1:49
Speaker 1: my guy Andrews Showtz. I didn't know that you had
1:51
Speaker 1: mixed race kids.
1:52
Speaker 4: I don't know. I didn't know that.
1:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, we don't put a lot of pictures
1:56
Speaker 5: of them on the internet or uh, you know, there's
1:58
Speaker 5: a lot of privacy obviously goes into that. But yeah,
2:01
Speaker 5: they're about to turn four. They keep out like every day,
2:04
Speaker 5: they ask me is my birthday? They've just transformed our
2:09
Speaker 5: lives in so many ways. It's been amazing.
2:11
Speaker 1: And I saw you say, you know, you ask yourself constantly,
2:13
Speaker 1: how can I be a good dad for kids who
2:16
Speaker 1: have a different racial identity than I do? How can
2:19
Speaker 1: I help them navigate that? And for whatever reason, there
2:21
Speaker 1: was a little bit of backlash of those comments.
2:23
Speaker 4: And I don't know why. I thought those are great
2:25
Speaker 4: questions to ask youself.
2:27
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, I was just talking about how
2:30
Speaker 5: I feel about it, And yeah, I think anytime you
2:32
Speaker 5: talk about something that sensitive, somebody's ready to pounce. Somebody's
2:36
Speaker 5: ready to pick it apart and tear you up over it.
2:39
Speaker 5: But yeah, obviously, you know we're white, our kids are
2:42
Speaker 5: mixed race. They're going to be as they grow older,
2:45
Speaker 5: there's going to be dimensions of their lives that I
2:48
Speaker 5: will do everything I can as a father, as a
2:51
Speaker 5: loving father to make sure that they succeed. But there
2:53
Speaker 5: will be parts of their lives that I can't really
2:58
Speaker 5: draw on personally experience to help guide them through. And
3:02
Speaker 5: so it's a lot of making sure that they have
3:05
Speaker 5: mentors and role model, role models, other examples in their
3:08
Speaker 5: lives to to help them navigate all of that. But
3:11
Speaker 5: it's it's just been such a blessing and you know,
3:14
Speaker 5: it's a new challenge every day, but it's the best
3:16
Speaker 5: hardest thing in my life.
3:17
Speaker 1: Well. Also, of those people who who the black friends,
3:20
Speaker 1: you go, oh, you wouldn't believe.
3:22
Speaker 5: So the advice that came in from like the first moment,
3:26
Speaker 5: I had a navy buddy who saw a couple of
3:29
Speaker 5: pictures of them from a thing we were at the
3:31
Speaker 5: White House on it said we got to talk about
3:33
Speaker 5: hair and I wanted to make sure that because you
3:38
Speaker 5: I mean just hair products alone. And by the way,
3:41
Speaker 5: being a girl dad was intimidating to begin with, right,
3:45
Speaker 5: and then there's everything that comes with that, finding the
3:47
Speaker 5: right products for for us, our little guy, for Penelope,
3:51
Speaker 5: our daughter, just learning all of that. Like you know,
3:56
Speaker 5: nobody in my immediate family of white relative knows a
4:01
Speaker 5: lot about that, but lots of friends.
4:03
Speaker 4: You know, not breed.
4:04
Speaker 5: I gotta figure it out.
4:06
Speaker 6: Can't out of oil, shame oisture, and didn't get the
4:08
Speaker 6: white tooth cone. Don't get the small teeth because that's
4:10
Speaker 6: gonna pull a hair. Got thicker hair.
4:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, we learned that the hard way. Yeah, we can't do.
4:14
Speaker 5: And then we got the young king. For him, it's
4:17
Speaker 5: like a three step sequence. It's it's uh, it's the
4:19
Speaker 5: leaving conditioner. Then he got the oils right, yes, good,
4:23
Speaker 5: and then there's there's the essential oil. And then there's
4:25
Speaker 5: there's the curling cream. Although by step three now he's
4:28
Speaker 5: he's a little older, but he was really fighting us
4:30
Speaker 5: on the third step.
4:30
Speaker 6: He's like learning you learn.
4:33
Speaker 1: Now we gotta get pizza of money. I do not
4:34
Speaker 1: want you are your husband playing them your hair?
4:38
Speaker 4: No sore you doing every day? Yeah?
4:41
Speaker 5: Well get ches? Does it more often than I do?
4:43
Speaker 5: Because can you?
4:48
Speaker 6: Hell no, I.
4:49
Speaker 4: Need to see the half round the He looks like, right,
4:55
Speaker 4: you're right, Jesus. I was gonna say before you walked in.
4:58
Speaker 4: It's funny.
5:00
Speaker 3: Jess was like, so what is Pete doing now? And
5:02
Speaker 3: I was like, that is a good question. What is
5:04
Speaker 3: Pete doing now that you're out the White House? Besides
5:06
Speaker 3: being a dad and a husband? So what are you
5:08
Speaker 3: doing now?
5:08
Speaker 5: So being a dad and husband is number one for
5:10
Speaker 5: the and it's the first time in a while I've
5:12
Speaker 5: been able to put the kind of time in it
5:14
Speaker 5: that I want to. This is the first time in
5:15
Speaker 5: fifteen years that I haven't either been in office or
5:18
Speaker 5: on the ballot, and I'm making the most of that.
5:22
Speaker 5: But you know, this is obviously not a time in
5:24
Speaker 5: the life of our country where you can just sit
5:25
Speaker 5: still or kind of hang out and not be involved.
5:28
Speaker 5: So I'm speaking out, continuing to go on podcast, go
5:32
Speaker 5: on TV. Right, I've got a sub stack where I'm
5:35
Speaker 5: writing thoughts on some of the issues that are coming up,
5:37
Speaker 5: thinking about doing a book, so keeping busy. But I
5:43
Speaker 5: have to say, at a personal level, it's been good
5:46
Speaker 5: not to be on that treadmill Washington just away. I'm
5:50
Speaker 5: not saying I don't I miss the impact we were
5:53
Speaker 5: able to have. I miss getting up in the morning
5:55
Speaker 5: and knowing that, you know, I could make a decision
5:58
Speaker 5: that could make a whole city better off through a
6:00
Speaker 5: transportation project we were doing or something like that. I
6:03
Speaker 5: miss that, But I don't miss the negativity. I don't
6:06
Speaker 5: miss the way that Washington is so inward looking It
6:11
Speaker 5: was always about you know, what did this senator have
6:13
Speaker 5: for breakfast? What are you going to do to keep
6:15
Speaker 5: these people happy? That most people have never even heard of?
6:18
Speaker 5: But you know that kind of thing I don't miss.
6:21
Speaker 4: What made you not seek the Senate seat in Michigan.
6:24
Speaker 5: Well, for one thing, I was thinking about the family,
6:26
Speaker 5: like being at home for the first time in a
6:28
Speaker 5: long time. And you know, I remember one day that
6:32
Speaker 5: was really kind of the decision day in a way,
6:35
Speaker 5: when I'd kind of set for myself, like what are
6:37
Speaker 5: we going to do? I was talking about it with Chastain,
6:40
Speaker 5: and then it was bedtime, and the way story time
6:45
Speaker 5: works in our house is we get into one of
6:47
Speaker 5: their twin beds and daughter's on my right, Gus our
6:51
Speaker 5: son is on my left, and I was reading I
6:54
Speaker 5: don't know, Cat in the Hat or something, and he
6:57
Speaker 5: just started curling up, fell asleep on my chain, and
7:00
Speaker 5: I thought that that's a vote, Like he's telling me
7:04
Speaker 5: something about where I'm needed most. And I also thought,
7:10
Speaker 5: you know, the message I want to get out there.
7:13
Speaker 5: I don't have to be in the United States Senate
7:15
Speaker 5: to do that. Obviously, I care about who the next
7:17
Speaker 5: senator is. I'm going to be very active in supporting
7:20
Speaker 5: a good candidate for Senate because so much for our
7:24
Speaker 5: state and our country depends on us us having a
7:26
Speaker 5: good senator to replace Wi stab Now who's and sorry,
7:29
Speaker 5: Gary Peters, who's uh retiring? But I just didn't think
7:34
Speaker 5: that had to be me.
7:35
Speaker 1: Why do you think it was so much backlash for
7:38
Speaker 1: you going on the Flagrant podcast?
7:41
Speaker 5: Well, in a way, it's reliving what it was like
7:43
Speaker 5: a few years ago when I started to go on
7:45
Speaker 5: Fox News a lot, so a lot of people in
7:47
Speaker 5: my party said, you can't do that. You're you know,
7:51
Speaker 5: you're you're participating in this right wing media system. That's
7:54
Speaker 5: you know, that's not giving people good information. And my
7:58
Speaker 5: response was always, you know, I can't blame somebody for
8:02
Speaker 5: not agreeing with my positions if they've never heard them,
8:05
Speaker 5: So of course I got to go on right wing media.
8:07
Speaker 5: Now you fast forward a few years to these podcasts
8:09
Speaker 5: and Flagrant. By the way, I don't consider Flagrant to
8:11
Speaker 5: be right wing, but that's the whole point, right. A
8:13
Speaker 5: lot of these podcasts, a lot of these shows, they're
8:16
Speaker 5: not for people who are looking to get politics in
8:19
Speaker 5: their face all the time, but they are where a
8:21
Speaker 5: lot of people get their information or get exposed to
8:24
Speaker 5: people with political ideas. And I thought, okay, you know,
8:27
Speaker 5: if President Trump was going on this show to reach
8:30
Speaker 5: listeners and viewers, why wouldn't we be putting forward a
8:34
Speaker 5: different set of ideas, especially because when I got there
8:36
Speaker 5: and I was talking to these guys, many of them
8:38
Speaker 5: voted a different way than I did. Yeah, we agreed
8:41
Speaker 5: a lot on what was happening next, on the problem
8:44
Speaker 5: with tilting the tax code to favor the rich, and
8:48
Speaker 5: that was before the bill pass. Now the bill pass,
8:50
Speaker 5: we know and we've seen it. Problems with cutting services,
8:54
Speaker 5: making it harder to get your phone and phone call answered,
8:58
Speaker 5: on social security, all of these same, right, So we
9:00
Speaker 5: could just have a conversation, and yeah, I think some
9:04
Speaker 5: people still, you know, I remember a few people saying like,
9:06
Speaker 5: why are you platforming these guys who have said something offensive?
9:10
Speaker 5: And I'm just thinking, like, they're platforming me. It's their show.
9:13
Speaker 1: It's the stupidest thing when people say how are you
9:14
Speaker 1: platform how? They already have a huge platform.
9:17
Speaker 4: So why not go on.
9:18
Speaker 1: There and you know, let people hear what it is
9:20
Speaker 1: you have to say, give people another you know.
9:22
Speaker 5: Option, right, Yeah, especially because fewer and fewer people are
9:26
Speaker 5: getting their news from traditional sources. I spent part of
9:29
Speaker 5: the spring teaching at the University of Chicago. There's an
9:32
Speaker 5: Institute of Politics there that David Axelrod set up. He
9:35
Speaker 5: asked me to spend time with the students.
9:37
Speaker 4: There, and I came after you, Oh were you there?
9:40
Speaker 5: I came. I think it's a great experience, and you
9:45
Speaker 5: learned so much talking to these students. One thing one
9:47
Speaker 5: of the things I would often do is to kind
9:48
Speaker 5: of show a hands just where to get your information.
9:51
Speaker 5: The number of students who said television news was zero,
9:55
Speaker 5: like literally zero. Out of those students said they just
9:58
Speaker 5: like sat the way I was when I was growing
10:01
Speaker 5: up or still do. Sometimes like turn on a TV
10:03
Speaker 5: show and watch it. Right, they might see something from
10:06
Speaker 5: TV go into their feed, get clipped. But in terms
10:10
Speaker 5: of where people are getting our information, we got to
10:12
Speaker 5: find people where they are.
10:14
Speaker 3: I wanted to ask go back about your previous duties
10:19
Speaker 3: the airports. It seemed like the airport's gotten a lot worse.
10:22
Speaker 3: Why do you think that is? Or are we just
10:23
Speaker 3: hearing about it more? And these are the problems that
10:26
Speaker 3: have been having for the last ten twenty years.
10:28
Speaker 1: I read audifew yesterday. They blamed it on you. They
10:32
Speaker 1: said that, of course you. I said, under you, the
10:35
Speaker 1: Department of Transportation allocated over eighty billion dollars for DEI grants, Okay,
10:41
Speaker 1: instead of putting money into.
10:43
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the actual airlines, Yeah, airports, airports.
10:48
Speaker 5: Obviously, I think that's bullshit. Let's break it down. First
10:52
Speaker 5: of all, quote unquote the I grants. We're talking about
10:56
Speaker 5: transportation funding that they're now getting rid of. So, Milwaukee
11:01
Speaker 5: sixth Street, we funded a project thirty four million dollars
11:05
Speaker 5: to help make a set of improvements to a very
11:09
Speaker 5: dangerous street where there been a lot of crashes and
11:12
Speaker 5: that has divided the community. We provided funding. They're also
11:15
Speaker 5: going to improve the sewer while they're added. I mean,
11:17
Speaker 5: this is bread and butter stuff that's going to make
11:19
Speaker 5: the city better off. Trump administration killed that grant because
11:24
Speaker 5: the application talked about equity. It talked about one of
11:27
Speaker 5: the reasons for funding this project being that that neighborhood
11:31
Speaker 5: had been underinvested in. There was a project in Missoula, Montana,
11:36
Speaker 5: connecting East Missoula across Highway two hundred. By the way,
11:39
Speaker 5: the Republican Senator from Montana supported that project and wrote
11:43
Speaker 5: me a letter saying we had to fund it, and
11:45
Speaker 5: we did. This administration killed it just because it was
11:47
Speaker 5: part of a program that mentions equity. So when they
11:51
Speaker 5: talk about quote unquote DII grants, often they're talking about
11:54
Speaker 5: fixing roads and bridges that happened to go into a
11:57
Speaker 5: black neighborhood or a low income area. Meanwhile, we'll talk
12:01
Speaker 5: about aviation. I'm pretty sure on the first Secretary of
12:05
Speaker 5: Transportation in thirty years or more to have the air
12:09
Speaker 5: traffic control workforce growing instead of shrinking on his watch.
12:14
Speaker 5: And that was hard because we've been losing air traffic controllers.
12:17
Speaker 5: They've been retiring. It's just been hard to get as
12:19
Speaker 5: many to come in as we're going out. I don't
12:22
Speaker 5: know whether that number is still going up now. I
12:24
Speaker 5: know that from the beginning they all got an email
12:29
Speaker 5: saying you should think about taking a buy out and
12:31
Speaker 5: quit your job. Then they were told that email was
12:33
Speaker 5: never for them. So I don't know exactly what's going
12:35
Speaker 5: on over there now. What I know is that we
12:38
Speaker 5: left the air traffic control system better than we found it,
12:40
Speaker 5: but it's still got a lot of problems. So the
12:42
Speaker 5: answer your question is really it's both. There are new
12:45
Speaker 5: problems that we're seeing, you know that I'm seeing just
12:48
Speaker 5: as a now regular member of the traveling public. But
12:51
Speaker 5: there are some issues that have been in the making
12:54
Speaker 5: for ten twenty thirty years. We did what we could
12:57
Speaker 5: to improve it. But honestly, that's or who I obviously
13:01
Speaker 5: disagree with on lots of things. I want them to
13:03
Speaker 5: succeed on this. I mean, for one thing, I fly
13:05
Speaker 5: a lot, but also for the sake of the country,
13:08
Speaker 5: I want them to succeed in improving that.
13:10
Speaker 4: But it seems like a lot.
13:11
Speaker 2: Of the problems that we've been having, especially when we
13:13
Speaker 2: see these floods in these.
13:14
Speaker 3: Storms, are problems that we keep seeing, right, you know,
13:17
Speaker 3: you look at areas in Texas or even New Jersey.
13:20
Speaker 3: They flood the same every time. So it's just like,
13:23
Speaker 3: why can't we fix those problems. It's not like it's
13:26
Speaker 3: new problems. These are problems that are reoccurring.
13:29
Speaker 5: So what we did was we set up funding to
13:31
Speaker 5: do things like take a road that's getting washed out
13:33
Speaker 5: every year and instead of putting it back the exact
13:36
Speaker 5: same every time, and putting a bunch of money into that,
13:39
Speaker 5: move it to where it's not going to be as vulnerable.
13:43
Speaker 5: They're going after that kind of thing too, because they're
13:45
Speaker 5: systematically deleting any reference to climate change or sustainability from
13:52
Speaker 5: anything in the government. And what that means is, I
13:54
Speaker 5: think these projects are in danger.
13:56
Speaker 1: No matter the eighty billion dollars that was allocate they said,
14:00
Speaker 1: four hundred awards from twenty twenty one to two thousand
14:04
Speaker 1: twenty four. What did that actually go to because they're
14:07
Speaker 1: calling it DEI grants, But where did it go?
14:09
Speaker 4: Where did it go to?
14:10
Speaker 5: Yeah, so I don't know how they got the eighty number,
14:12
Speaker 5: eighty billion numbers. So what I tell you, I mean
14:15
Speaker 5: if maybe if you're counting like any project that was
14:19
Speaker 5: connected in any way to taking care of people who
14:21
Speaker 5: had been underinvested, and that'd be one way to do it.
14:24
Speaker 5: We had this whole idea of making sure that that
14:26
Speaker 5: a good share of the grant money went to neighborhoods
14:29
Speaker 5: or communities that were cut out in the past. So
14:32
Speaker 5: but again there are these these specific projects. East Toledo.
14:35
Speaker 5: We were a project to connect East Toledo to downtown Toledo,
14:40
Speaker 5: get people across this high crash corridor where they were
14:43
Speaker 5: having dozens of crashes, and it came under the heading
14:46
Speaker 5: of reconnecting communities or reconnecting neighborhoods, which this administration considers woke.
14:52
Speaker 5: They're trying to cut it. To me, it's definitely important
14:56
Speaker 5: that it's going to a disadvantage area. It's also just
15:00
Speaker 5: a good project. It's a good safety project. So they
15:02
Speaker 5: want to call it DEI I would call it good policy.
15:06
Speaker 5: And this this war on anything that has anything remotely
15:12
Speaker 5: to do with diversity, I think has gone to such
15:14
Speaker 5: an extreme. People are starting to feel it because it's
15:17
Speaker 5: starting to come for them.
15:18
Speaker 1: So how would you respond to people who have concerns
15:21
Speaker 1: that these equity initiatives delayed urgent aviation upgrade.
15:26
Speaker 5: It's just not true. I mean, you know, the person
15:29
Speaker 5: who launched the contract, for example, to modernize the tech
15:34
Speaker 5: backbone of the fifth that was me. We did that.
15:38
Speaker 5: It's a big agency. We did a lot of things.
15:40
Speaker 5: We did roads, we did bridges, we did aviation, we
15:43
Speaker 5: did port I mean, you know, you can do a
15:46
Speaker 5: lot of things at the same time. That's what we did.
15:48
Speaker 1: Now, now all of this is coming from the New
15:49
Speaker 1: York Post, so and it just came out jetterda If
15:51
Speaker 1: I'm giving you a chance.
15:52
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, so that that specific article. Actually it's I
15:54
Speaker 5: can't believe I'm saying this, but I would actually say
15:56
Speaker 5: it's worth reading because if you read it, you'll see
15:58
Speaker 5: a bunch of anonymous people, mostly from the airline industry,
16:03
Speaker 5: complaining with no kind of specific facts or figures, followed
16:09
Speaker 5: by a whole bunch of which, like the post does
16:12
Speaker 5: they put it at the bottom of the article, a
16:14
Speaker 5: whole bunch of facts and figures showing something different, which
16:17
Speaker 5: was our response. But yeah, obviously the airline industry was
16:20
Speaker 5: not a big fan of mine, right because I was
16:23
Speaker 5: a tough regulator. I mean, we moved the rule to
16:27
Speaker 5: make sure that you can get your money back if
16:29
Speaker 5: your flight gets significantly delayed. We had really tough penalties
16:34
Speaker 5: on airlines that were holding back on people's refunds. We
16:37
Speaker 5: pushed them on things like disability, making sure if they
16:40
Speaker 5: mangle your wheelchair that they have to take care of you.
16:42
Speaker 5: The current administration froze that rule. That's something we pushed on.
16:45
Speaker 5: So obviously, you know, my replacement is an airline lobbyist,
16:48
Speaker 5: or he was an airline lobbyist. Obviously, the airline industry
16:51
Speaker 5: is happier with the new guy who was an airline
16:54
Speaker 5: lobbyist than with somebody like me who was a tough regulator.
16:57
Speaker 5: But that's the kind of inside baseball that drives these articles.
17:00
Speaker 5: I think it's very telling that none of the people
17:02
Speaker 5: who were throwing stones in that article actually put their
17:06
Speaker 5: name to their quote.
17:08
Speaker 1: So earlier this year, when like you know, there was
17:10
Speaker 1: like plane crashes and stuff, is there a part of
17:11
Speaker 1: you that's like, I hate to see that, but I
17:14
Speaker 1: told you so.
17:16
Speaker 5: Look, you know, aviation's still safer than driving or any
17:21
Speaker 5: other form of transportation. But it's the nightmare scenario for
17:25
Speaker 5: anybody who cares about transportation, Definitely, anybody who ever had
17:28
Speaker 5: the job I had to have a plane crash happened
17:30
Speaker 5: in this country. One of the things that was really
17:32
Speaker 5: important to me was during my time in office, we
17:34
Speaker 5: had four billion emplayments, four billion times that somebody got
17:38
Speaker 5: onto a commercial passenger airline and zero crash fatalities. And
17:46
Speaker 5: it's everybody's job to keep that up. And I do
17:49
Speaker 5: worry about what will happen if you got air traffic
17:52
Speaker 5: controllers who were being distracted by all this political nonsense
17:56
Speaker 5: getting an email telling them that they're going to get
17:58
Speaker 5: bought out then being told that doesn't apply in that
18:00
Speaker 5: like firing it people like they did on day one.
18:05
Speaker 5: Of course I'm worried about that, you.
18:07
Speaker 2: Know, I always wanted to know and maybe you can
18:09
Speaker 2: help people out.
18:10
Speaker 5: You have more private.
18:11
Speaker 2: Planes crashing than a commercial plane.
18:13
Speaker 3: Right, is that because the reg I guess whatever, the
18:17
Speaker 3: regulations are less lenient.
18:20
Speaker 4: Why is that?
18:20
Speaker 5: Yeah, there is a higher standard for a jumbo jet
18:23
Speaker 5: that's got three hundred people on it then for recreational
18:27
Speaker 5: plane where somebody's flying Assessana or even a private jet.
18:30
Speaker 5: And I think, look that, you know, if you think
18:32
Speaker 5: about how we manage risk, that makes sense up to
18:35
Speaker 5: a point. But there's also got to be a floor.
18:37
Speaker 5: There's got to be a baseline that no matter what,
18:39
Speaker 5: if you have an airplane in the national airspace, it's
18:41
Speaker 5: got to have these safety checks.
18:44
Speaker 1: You said once that most flight delays stem from weather
18:47
Speaker 1: an airline issues, not infrastructure.
18:50
Speaker 5: Yeah, infrastructure or air traffic control as usually number three.
18:53
Speaker 5: So if you think about why or when are you
18:55
Speaker 5: most likely to get to have a problem, Yeah, weather's
18:57
Speaker 5: number one. A lot of times it's the airlines, especially
19:01
Speaker 5: when I was there, A lot of times the airlines
19:02
Speaker 5: didn't have enough staff. They've improved that. Then you go
19:06
Speaker 5: down the list, then you get to more issues around
19:08
Speaker 5: infrastructure technology. If there's not enough air traffic controllers on duty,
19:14
Speaker 5: the airport will respond by reducing the number of flights
19:18
Speaker 5: that can come or go so that it's safe. That's
19:19
Speaker 5: what happened to a lot of people at Newark. So
19:23
Speaker 5: it's a factor, it's not the number one factor.
19:25
Speaker 1: So how confident are you that infrastructure, I guess plays
19:27
Speaker 1: a minimal role.
19:28
Speaker 5: I wouldn't say minimal. I mean one of the reasons
19:30
Speaker 5: we pushed so hard to get that infrastructure build one
19:32
Speaker 5: was to make improvements right, things like stuff you might
19:35
Speaker 5: never notice when you're on a plane, like taxiway geometry.
19:39
Speaker 5: So it's making sure that the way the taxiway is
19:43
Speaker 5: lined up makes it less likely that two planes would
19:46
Speaker 5: ever be at risk of colliding. Things like whether a
19:51
Speaker 5: plane has to wait to take off by lining up
19:53
Speaker 5: at the end of the runway or whether it can
19:56
Speaker 5: go around it. These you know, these kind of super
19:59
Speaker 5: technical engine nearing questions that can actually really have an
20:02
Speaker 5: effect on safety that matters. The technology matters. Look some
20:06
Speaker 5: of these control towers. I mean, I went into these towers.
20:08
Speaker 5: They make it work with some pretty antiquated systems. I
20:12
Speaker 5: mean we're talking about dramatically older computer equipment than anything
20:16
Speaker 5: in this room.
20:17
Speaker 4: For example.
20:19
Speaker 5: Now they've got they've gotten the results, but that of
20:21
Speaker 5: course that system is going to show its age over time.
20:23
Speaker 5: The airports themselves, that's why we push so much money
20:25
Speaker 5: into the airports to improve them. And America should have
20:29
Speaker 5: better airports than we have. In some cases, we've we've
20:33
Speaker 5: upped our game. Look at LaGuardia, right, I came into
20:35
Speaker 5: LaGuardia yesterday, really really impressive.
20:39
Speaker 4: Especially if you remember what it used to.
20:42
Speaker 5: Yeah, planes is another story. That's you know, that's down
20:44
Speaker 5: to the to the airlines to keep their fleet up
20:47
Speaker 5: today and everything in between. But but yeah, no, don't
20:50
Speaker 5: get me wrong, the infrastructure matters. I just made a
20:53
Speaker 5: point of making sure everybody knew if it was the
20:57
Speaker 5: airline that was responsible, they had to own it and
21:00
Speaker 5: they had to pay out.
21:01
Speaker 3: Did you ever look into other nations, like you know,
21:02
Speaker 3: when you go to other countries, I see a lot
21:05
Speaker 3: of times they have things that preventative, things like if
21:08
Speaker 3: the ground is too cold, they have things that they spray.
21:10
Speaker 2: Onto the ground. That's connected to the ground to make
21:12
Speaker 2: sure there's no wise or if.
21:14
Speaker 4: It's too hot.
21:15
Speaker 2: I feel like we should have some of that.
21:17
Speaker 3: With as much money as we spend, as much money
21:19
Speaker 3: that we have, why don't we do you look at
21:20
Speaker 3: those other nations to see how the infrastructure works, so
21:23
Speaker 3: oh for sure.
21:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, you can learn so much going to other countries.
21:27
Speaker 5: I mean you look at Japan and the train system
21:29
Speaker 5: they have there, and by the way, their high speed train,
21:31
Speaker 5: they've had that since the sixties. This is not some
21:34
Speaker 5: you know, new fangled technology, which is why we push
21:37
Speaker 5: to get that done in the US. There's Las Vegas
21:40
Speaker 5: projects going out to southern California that should be done
21:42
Speaker 5: in this decade.
21:43
Speaker 2: Why are we so behind?
21:44
Speaker 4: Why are we so ghetto? Americans just ghetto comparing to
21:47
Speaker 4: other places. Why?
21:48
Speaker 3: Bro, they have this thing where, you know, to avoid
21:51
Speaker 3: ice that is connected. It almost like heats the road
21:54
Speaker 3: so it's not slippery in these other places, And I'm like,
21:56
Speaker 3: how we don't have that, you know, it's just the.
21:58
Speaker 5: Weirdest thing, you know, we did. I remember one project.
22:02
Speaker 5: It was in New Hampshire where they already had a
22:03
Speaker 5: power plant. There's a way to connect it up to
22:05
Speaker 5: route some of the heat. They were just venting the
22:07
Speaker 5: heat through the cooling tower, and there's a way to
22:09
Speaker 5: put that in the sidewalk, and then it saved the
22:11
Speaker 5: city tax payer money to clear the road. So there
22:13
Speaker 5: have been things like that going on. I think the
22:15
Speaker 5: bottom line is you get what you pay for. And
22:17
Speaker 5: America has had a problem with investing in shared things
22:21
Speaker 5: or public things for a long time.
22:23
Speaker 4: So where has this money gone?
22:24
Speaker 1: When you hear about the you know, the money that
22:26
Speaker 1: you allocated and the money buy and allocated the infrastructure,
22:29
Speaker 1: But where does the money go.
22:30
Speaker 5: It's going to exactly this kind of stuff. Right. The
22:32
Speaker 5: Portal North Bridge is well underway in New Jersey. I
22:35
Speaker 5: don't know. You know, a lot of the projects I
22:36
Speaker 5: signed off on, I don't know their fate, but I'll
22:38
Speaker 5: tell you every day when I'm taking the kids to
22:40
Speaker 5: school or to camp, I passed by a project that
22:43
Speaker 5: we signed off on. In my time, these things take
22:45
Speaker 5: a while, right, So I signed off on it probably
22:47
Speaker 5: two or three years ago. Now the workers are there
22:51
Speaker 5: installing it. Characteristically right for a three year old boy.
22:54
Speaker 5: Gus is like, why is that worker not working? That's
22:57
Speaker 5: an excavator, Like there's a role like, we look at
22:59
Speaker 5: it every day and I see taking shape. But these
23:01
Speaker 5: things take shape over three years, five years, not one year.
23:04
Speaker 4: You know.
23:05
Speaker 1: The post is that reportedly you remarked that modernizing air
23:08
Speaker 1: traffic control might simply allow airlines to fly more planes, Like,
23:13
Speaker 1: could you elaborate on it?
23:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's not a thing that I said. I mean,
23:19
Speaker 5: the least of our problems was airlines wanting to add fly.
23:24
Speaker 5: Our big problem actually was airlines couldn't keep up with
23:26
Speaker 5: the flights of the day themselves at schedule, and then
23:28
Speaker 5: if we caught them in unrealistic scheduling, we're going to
23:30
Speaker 5: enforce on them. But now what I will say is
23:32
Speaker 5: we should have good alternatives. So you should be able
23:34
Speaker 5: to get a flight. We should also be able to
23:36
Speaker 5: take a good train. You should have a safe, effective
23:39
Speaker 5: highway so that people have more options and not less.
23:42
Speaker 5: Same with transit. Right yesterday from Laguardi, I took the
23:46
Speaker 5: I took the bus the M seventy I think it is,
23:48
Speaker 5: and then then you get to the subway, which was fine.
23:51
Speaker 5: But in most countries if you're Boston, oh then yeah.
23:57
Speaker 5: Well the thing I was always pro transit, but they
23:58
Speaker 5: wouldn't let me do transit most of the time. You
24:01
Speaker 5: know that they wanted me to be in the vehicle
24:03
Speaker 5: and security protocols. I get it.
24:05
Speaker 4: But he thinks, you, Paul, Pete, it's not like you
24:11
Speaker 4: was rich before.
24:13
Speaker 3: Really think you say that I didn't say that people
24:18
Speaker 3: four would come in, you know, be you know you're
24:20
Speaker 3: coming the truck and all that.
24:21
Speaker 5: But now right, But but my point is in most countries,
24:29
Speaker 5: most modern countries, you're in the biggest or one of
24:32
Speaker 5: the biggest cities in that country, and you get to
24:34
Speaker 5: the airport, you're going to have a one seat ride
24:37
Speaker 5: to downtown. We're one of the very few places where
24:40
Speaker 5: you don't have that. We should m hm.
24:42
Speaker 1: Why do people get so mad at equity and initiative
24:45
Speaker 1: program like like why like why is that such a thing?
24:48
Speaker 1: Like why can the New York Post, you know, post
24:51
Speaker 1: this article and put this headline and then people say
24:53
Speaker 1: that is a detriment. Pete boud to judge and anything
24:56
Speaker 1: he wants to do in the future politically, like you know,
24:58
Speaker 1: especially if you ran a national camp.
25:00
Speaker 5: Look, I think for years there has been this politics
25:05
Speaker 5: of saying that if you do anything to try to
25:09
Speaker 5: make a situation more fair, well, black people usually for
25:13
Speaker 5: black people. That's going to make it worse. Right, if
25:16
Speaker 5: you care about recruiting more black people to have a
25:19
Speaker 5: chance to get a job, then you know you're somehow
25:24
Speaker 5: lowering standards. When that's not what we were doing when
25:27
Speaker 5: we were going to HBCUs saying we want you to
25:29
Speaker 5: apply to work at the FA or work at USDOT,
25:32
Speaker 5: we were saying, we want to let you know this
25:35
Speaker 5: job exists and show you the path so that you
25:38
Speaker 5: can meet that same high standard that everybody has to meet.
25:42
Speaker 5: But there's a lot to be gained by characterizing it
25:45
Speaker 5: as something else. Right, This idea that anything that we
25:48
Speaker 5: do to deal with those fairness issues is at your expense.
25:51
Speaker 5: These numbers that they're thrown around in the post, right,
25:53
Speaker 5: make it sound like that money went to somebody else
25:58
Speaker 5: and it didn't go to you. They're trying to do
25:59
Speaker 5: this same thing with Medicaid. They're trying to make people
26:01
Speaker 5: feel like, well, this is just for lazy people who
26:04
Speaker 5: shouldn't be on Medicaid, when we know for a fact,
26:07
Speaker 5: because they did this in Arkansas, that what winds up
26:10
Speaker 5: happening is it kicks off people who are eligible should
26:12
Speaker 5: be getting the Medicaid, but they get buried in paperwork,
26:15
Speaker 5: and that stops them from getting their benefits. There's this
26:18
Speaker 5: It's a classic kind of pitting people against each other. Look,
26:22
Speaker 5: I get that sometimes these honestly in their vocabulary and
26:27
Speaker 5: their style, like some of these programs got out of hand.
26:32
Speaker 5: I've sat through some trainings that just made it seem
26:35
Speaker 5: they seem like something out of a Republican caricature of
26:38
Speaker 5: what Democrats do. But they've now taken it so far
26:42
Speaker 5: to the other extreme that people in Toledo or Missoula, Montana,
26:46
Speaker 5: or Milwaukee aren't going to get their roads or their
26:49
Speaker 5: sewers fixed because the Trump administration and the Republicans thought
26:53
Speaker 5: that the program that funded it had something to do
26:56
Speaker 5: with diversity. Right, that's hurting everybody. You do this right,
27:00
Speaker 5: everybody's better off and nobody's worse off.
27:02
Speaker 4: What's wrong? I guess my old thing.
27:04
Speaker 1: What's wrong with diversity? America is a diverse nation. Diversity
27:07
Speaker 1: built this country.
27:08
Speaker 5: Look, the opposite of diversity is uniformity. And I don't
27:13
Speaker 5: want to live in a country with more uniformity. I
27:16
Speaker 5: want to live in a country where there's lots of
27:18
Speaker 5: different perspectives, different values, different ideas, different politics. But what
27:21
Speaker 5: we are headed toward now is more uniformity. Look at
27:25
Speaker 5: what just happened with CBS, right, Oh my god, Yeah,
27:28
Speaker 5: you've got somebody canceled who happens to be one of
27:32
Speaker 5: the most effective critics of the president working for a
27:35
Speaker 5: corporation that happens to have business in front of the
27:39
Speaker 5: government because they're trying to get their merger rooms. Sure,
27:41
Speaker 5: this is not that complicated to figure out all the
27:44
Speaker 5: pieces coming together, and the net effect of it is
27:47
Speaker 5: one less voice on the air that's different than the
27:52
Speaker 5: person running the government. But the thing is, in my experience,
27:56
Speaker 5: that's never been what people left right or center want
27:59
Speaker 5: in this country. I mean, if anything, it was you know,
28:03
Speaker 5: my conservative and libertarian friends that i'd be arguing with
28:06
Speaker 5: over beers in college who would talk about things like,
28:12
Speaker 5: you know, the government trying to impose censorship on people,
28:16
Speaker 5: or or federal agents snatching people off the streets, or
28:19
Speaker 5: any of these things. I used to think of those
28:21
Speaker 5: as a libertarian fever dream that was never going to happen.
28:24
Speaker 5: Now we see it happening under a president who claims
28:27
Speaker 5: to be conservative. So I would like to believe that
28:30
Speaker 5: one thing we could agree on as a country is
28:32
Speaker 5: we want less uniformity and more diversity of thought, more
28:37
Speaker 5: support for all the different things that different people. I mean, again,
28:40
Speaker 5: you've spent a minute in New York City and it's
28:44
Speaker 5: exhilarating to see all of the different kind of styles
28:48
Speaker 5: and backgrounds, and you know that with that comes to
28:51
Speaker 5: different ideas that that's part of what makes America great.
28:54
Speaker 4: I think it's had.
28:55
Speaker 1: It's hard to have these conversations because when you use
28:57
Speaker 1: words like authoritarian strategy, a lot of people don't even
29:00
Speaker 1: really understand what that is. And yeah, when you can say, oh, yeah,
29:04
Speaker 1: Colbert got canceled, but you know he was losing a
29:07
Speaker 1: lot of money for the network, you can just talk
29:10
Speaker 1: it up to something else. But then you've got to
29:11
Speaker 1: look at PBS being defunded, in NPR, being defunded, in
29:15
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal, you know, being sued.
29:17
Speaker 4: This is all in a matter of like days.
29:19
Speaker 5: This is systematic, yes, right, And they're doing basically any
29:22
Speaker 5: place where there is independence, whether they're talking about PBS
29:26
Speaker 5: or a law firm or a university, any place that
29:29
Speaker 5: is independent is being put in a position where they
29:32
Speaker 5: have to look over their shoulder because they might do
29:35
Speaker 5: something that's inconvenient for the government. Hey, and again when
29:38
Speaker 5: I say that, I sound like my libertarian buddies twenty
29:41
Speaker 5: years ago. But that's what's happening, and left, right and center,
29:45
Speaker 5: we should be able to come together and say, wait
29:46
Speaker 5: a minute, we don't I don't care wherever you come
29:49
Speaker 5: down on, like taxes or medicare or abortion, like, all
29:53
Speaker 5: of us should be able to agree that we don't
29:55
Speaker 5: want that, and that if we move in that direction,
29:58
Speaker 5: if we live in the kind of country where a
30:02
Speaker 5: TV show or a university could get shut down because
30:06
Speaker 5: the government doesn't like them, this isn't America anymore.
30:10
Speaker 4: How do you feel about the Epstein files.
30:12
Speaker 1: I feel that Democrats should never stop talking about the
30:15
Speaker 1: Epstein files.
30:16
Speaker 5: Yeah.
30:16
Speaker 1: I think it is the one thing that builds a
30:18
Speaker 1: bridge between Democrats and that magabase they've been trying to
30:23
Speaker 1: reach everathin Trump one reelection.
30:25
Speaker 5: I think that's right. Look, I think there's some folks
30:27
Speaker 5: who might say this is the distraction or this isn't
30:29
Speaker 5: the bread and butter of what we care about. But
30:31
Speaker 5: what I would say is, let's say, what you really
30:34
Speaker 5: care about is legislation policy. That's your thing. You see
30:38
Speaker 5: all these headlines about Epstein. But you think, to yourself,
30:40
Speaker 5: what I care about is how the Congress is dealing
30:43
Speaker 5: with healthcare, taxes, etc. Okay, well, Congress just got shut down.
30:49
Speaker 5: The Republicans just shut down the United States House of
30:53
Speaker 5: Representatives for two months in order to avoid having to
30:58
Speaker 5: vote on Donald Trump blocking the Epstein files. So even
31:03
Speaker 5: if you don't give a shit about the news story
31:07
Speaker 5: or the sensationalism of it, this now affects you because
31:11
Speaker 5: one of your branches of government is not operational between
31:15
Speaker 5: now and September, because Speaker Mike Johnson and the Republicans
31:20
Speaker 5: would rather shut that branch of government down than let
31:24
Speaker 5: the Epstein files come out. Let that sink in. It's
31:28
Speaker 5: also another example among many, many examples of Donald Trump
31:33
Speaker 5: saying he's going to do something on day one, and
31:35
Speaker 5: then something very different happens. Right. Said he's going to
31:38
Speaker 5: lower prices on day one, opposite happen he's pushing him
31:40
Speaker 5: up with tariffs. Said he's gonna bring peace to the
31:43
Speaker 5: Middle East on day one, get peace with Russia on
31:45
Speaker 5: day one. I don't know if anybody really took him
31:47
Speaker 5: seriously on that, but that's what he says. And then
31:50
Speaker 5: he says day one, these Epstein files are going to
31:52
Speaker 5: come out, because at the time it was in his
31:56
Speaker 5: interest to pretend that he was going to do that,
31:59
Speaker 5: and now it is in his interest to block those
32:02
Speaker 5: files coming out. And I don't think it's unreasonable to
32:04
Speaker 5: ask why why.
32:06
Speaker 4: Do you think the Biden administration never put him up?
32:09
Speaker 5: I don't know. I was not close to the you know,
32:12
Speaker 5: the DOJ or how any of that worked. I know
32:15
Speaker 5: some a lot of stuff came out, but if there
32:17
Speaker 5: is really more, and I don't know, but they were
32:20
Speaker 5: waving around these binders right at press conferences.
32:24
Speaker 4: You think it would be mutually as shored destruction could be.
32:26
Speaker 5: I mean, look, we already know that there were Democrats, Republicans, like,
32:29
Speaker 5: there are all kinds of people mixed up with this guy, right,
32:34
Speaker 5: I think most Americans say, okay, let the chips fall
32:36
Speaker 5: where they may, like, we gotta.
32:38
Speaker 4: Know you're in everybody, give rid all of them, anybody.
32:41
Speaker 5: Who's an abuser, anybody's committed, like of course, right. And
32:45
Speaker 5: it does feel like something in this moment where none
32:47
Speaker 5: of us can agree on much, that all of us
32:50
Speaker 5: can agree on that. And it's especially weird with Trump,
32:52
Speaker 5: right because it's not. It's not some wild liberal conspiracy
32:58
Speaker 5: claim that he was involved with Jeffrey eppste There's pictures,
33:01
Speaker 5: pictures still coming out now after all these years, not
33:03
Speaker 5: to mention the pictures and footage that were there years ago,
33:06
Speaker 5: and not just him like shaking hands, getting his picture
33:09
Speaker 5: taken with the guy, but like ogling women with him, right,
33:12
Speaker 5: like dancing and like grooving with And now he found
33:14
Speaker 5: out it was at his wedding, so obviously there's something there.
33:19
Speaker 5: It's not even arguable that there's something there. So I
33:24
Speaker 5: think you're right that we should be pounding on that,
33:25
Speaker 5: even if it's not a central policy priority of the party.
33:29
Speaker 1: I asked some other people that were in the Biden
33:31
Speaker 1: administration why they didn't, you know, release it, and they
33:33
Speaker 1: said that they don't dwell in conspiracy. And I'm like, well,
33:36
Speaker 1: now you're not dwelling in conspiracy. You're talking about an
33:38
Speaker 1: obvious cover up. And this is the first time that
33:41
Speaker 1: I've seen Trump supporters be agitated and angry about anything,
33:45
Speaker 1: So to me, this should be they Democrats should treat
33:49
Speaker 1: this issue away. Republicans treated transgenders in women's sports.
33:54
Speaker 4: Never stop talking about it.
33:56
Speaker 5: Never, Yeah, I mean why let it go right when
33:58
Speaker 5: there's obviously something too. And again, it's affecting the entire
34:03
Speaker 5: government now because we don't have a House of Representatives
34:05
Speaker 5: because the Speaker sent them home because he didn't want
34:07
Speaker 5: to do anything to impact Trump's ability to block these files.
34:11
Speaker 4: I think that's crazy. What what is their reasoning? I
34:14
Speaker 4: saw that. You know they're taking a reason, but what
34:16
Speaker 4: the what is their reasoning?
34:17
Speaker 5: I think the reasoning is they don't want to deal
34:19
Speaker 5: with it.
34:20
Speaker 4: What they say to people, I don't even know.
34:21
Speaker 5: Maybe they said, actually, that's a good question. I haven't
34:25
Speaker 5: even seen them, let alone a convincing explanation. I haven't
34:27
Speaker 5: seen any X. Well, why would they bother? Right? We
34:29
Speaker 5: all know why. So there's just no reason to even
34:33
Speaker 5: bother coming up with an excuse.
34:35
Speaker 6: So what what are your thoughts on former US President
34:39
Speaker 6: Obama saying that the Democrats needs need to toughen up,
34:43
Speaker 6: you know, in action.
34:45
Speaker 5: I think he's right, although that just reminds me of
34:48
Speaker 5: one other thing, right, which is the distraction machine. So
34:51
Speaker 5: Trump says, we're going to re lease the files, are
34:52
Speaker 5: going to lease the files, We're going to release the files.
34:54
Speaker 5: And he says, we're not going to release the files
34:55
Speaker 5: and people are mad, including Maggas saying, wait a minute,
34:57
Speaker 5: you said you're going to release this information and you're not.
34:59
Speaker 5: And what does he do, Like we're going to arrest Obama.
35:05
Speaker 5: That has nothing to do with anything, but it's the
35:07
Speaker 5: distraction machine. But yeah, as to what President Obama actually said, Look,
35:12
Speaker 5: we have to be a party that is not pulling punches,
35:15
Speaker 5: that is ready to ready to call things out for
35:18
Speaker 5: what they are internally and externally. I think people want
35:24
Speaker 5: to know that somebody's fighting for them. At the same time,
35:28
Speaker 5: my personal theory of politics is you don't have to
35:32
Speaker 5: be a dick about it. And what I mean by
35:34
Speaker 5: that is that when I encounter people in actual real
35:38
Speaker 5: life who voted the other way, relatives or even someone
35:42
Speaker 5: might come up and say hello in like an airport
35:45
Speaker 5: or something, I'm more likely to have somebody come up
35:47
Speaker 5: and say, you know, I'm from the other party, but
35:51
Speaker 5: it's nice running into you. Then to you know, come
35:54
Speaker 5: up and give me the finger or something like that.
35:56
Speaker 5: Why would that be Because we're humans and for the
35:59
Speaker 5: most part, don't want to In real life we're actually
36:03
Speaker 5: around each other. We don't want it to be any uglier.
36:08
Speaker 5: Than it has to be. And yet you go online,
36:10
Speaker 5: you go on TV, you get into those spaces and
36:12
Speaker 5: it's different. Right. So I think the challenge for us
36:15
Speaker 5: is we should never back down from a good fight
36:19
Speaker 5: over what the right thing to do is and what
36:21
Speaker 5: the wrong thing to do is. But we can also
36:24
Speaker 5: demonstrate a way to do it that's actually inviting people
36:27
Speaker 5: into our coalition, saying like we want you and maybe
36:31
Speaker 5: you don't agree with us on ten percent of the
36:33
Speaker 5: stuff for thirty percent of the stuff, or maybe you've
36:34
Speaker 5: voted the other way last time, like all the more
36:36
Speaker 5: reason we want you with us this time around. And
36:40
Speaker 5: we need to be inviting where I think people have
36:42
Speaker 5: viewed us as kind of frankly scolding, like we're scolding
36:47
Speaker 5: people for not being up on the latest cultural developments
36:52
Speaker 5: or not being the right kind of progressive or whatever
36:55
Speaker 5: it is. That has to change too.
36:58
Speaker 1: My biggest problem with democratic they it's like everything they're
37:01
Speaker 1: saying now, you should have been saying two three years ago,
37:03
Speaker 1: Like we've been seeing the Democrats with coward. So yeah, yes, y'all,
37:06
Speaker 1: it should have been tough ened ub. You know Jake
37:07
Speaker 1: Tapple with the Original Sin and you read that book,
37:10
Speaker 1: and you see, everybody knew that there was that Biden
37:13
Speaker 1: was too old to run, but nobody said anything. But
37:15
Speaker 1: now everybody wants to speak of his press secretary Karine
37:18
Speaker 1: John Pierre, and she's an independent now. And you know,
37:20
Speaker 1: I'm like, yoh, why weren't y'all saying this two three
37:23
Speaker 1: years ago? All these things that y'all are saying, we
37:25
Speaker 1: the people had been saying.
37:27
Speaker 5: I would say also that there are a lot of
37:29
Speaker 5: things we were fighting for then that we're fighting for now.
37:32
Speaker 5: The medicaid stuff is a good example, the transportation stuff, right,
37:35
Speaker 5: I was, you know, sometimes we were taking hits for
37:40
Speaker 5: people thinking we were caring too much about taking care
37:42
Speaker 5: of neighborhoods that were underinvested in or hurt in the past.
37:46
Speaker 5: I believe that it was the right thing to do then.
37:47
Speaker 5: I believe it's the right thing to do now. But yeah,
37:50
Speaker 5: we have to show a level of toughness in order
37:52
Speaker 5: to be just, in order to be credible, I think,
37:55
Speaker 5: and in order to go up against these guys who
37:57
Speaker 5: obviously you can fault them for all kinds of things,
38:00
Speaker 5: but they definitely project toughness.
38:02
Speaker 1: And they won the culture war. Like every time I
38:04
Speaker 1: hear Democrats talk. They talk about the work that they've done,
38:07
Speaker 1: which is true, but what do you do when the
38:09
Speaker 1: work isn't enough?
38:12
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, look, I think that we need to bring
38:17
Speaker 5: it back to everyday life, and culture is part of that.
38:20
Speaker 5: But so we're just the basics of policy. Like right now,
38:24
Speaker 5: it's going to be harder to buy a house because
38:27
Speaker 5: Donald Trump just added to the deficit in order to
38:29
Speaker 5: get task cuts for billionaires, and that means that interest
38:31
Speaker 5: rates are going to be higher. Right now, it is
38:35
Speaker 5: growing more difficult to get healthcare because the premiums just
38:39
Speaker 5: went up because how Republicans changed the Obamacare substance, or like,
38:43
Speaker 5: you don't have to be a policy buff for these
38:46
Speaker 5: things to hit you. And by the way, I think
38:48
Speaker 5: all these things that have happened are small compared to
38:52
Speaker 5: what's about to happen. This AI development that's happening right
38:57
Speaker 5: now is not just something people should care about if
39:00
Speaker 5: they're interested in tech. This is not just like a
39:03
Speaker 5: nerdy fascination. This is going to affect how all of us.
39:08
Speaker 5: It already is right, maybe in useful ways like you
39:12
Speaker 5: ask chat GPT for anything, but also in terms of
39:16
Speaker 5: jobs starting to dramatically change, right this is a level.
39:20
Speaker 5: I mean, we lived through one version of this in
39:22
Speaker 5: the nineties when I was growing up in Indiana and
39:23
Speaker 5: trade and automation happened and it changed what was going
39:26
Speaker 5: on in the auto industry. I think that this will
39:28
Speaker 5: be ten times or one hundred times more disruptive. And
39:33
Speaker 5: if Democrats are caught up in yesterday's culture war or
39:38
Speaker 5: defending institutions that were getting pretty old and trying to
39:41
Speaker 5: look like the protectors of a status quo that wasn't
39:43
Speaker 5: serving anybody well, instead of offering some kind of answers
39:47
Speaker 5: for how you're supposed to make a living and how
39:48
Speaker 5: you're supposed to fit into your community when you've got
39:51
Speaker 5: technology changing everything. If we don't have answers on that,
39:56
Speaker 5: then we're definitely going to be left behind.
39:58
Speaker 4: So what did the Fujita party look like?
40:00
Speaker 1: Like? Is it more Pete Boudha Judge or is it
40:03
Speaker 1: more Mundani? Is it more Josha Perro or is it
40:07
Speaker 1: more aoc like? What does it look like?
40:09
Speaker 5: Look, we're always going to be a big tent party.
40:12
Speaker 5: I think my style is different from some of the
40:16
Speaker 5: others in the party, and that's fine. Like we're each
40:19
Speaker 5: going to be putting forward the version of the message
40:21
Speaker 5: that's truest to who we are. And I think that
40:26
Speaker 5: a younger generational leaders, many of whom are politically moderate,
40:29
Speaker 5: some of them are politically pretty far left. What they
40:31
Speaker 5: have in common is they are who they are. You
40:33
Speaker 5: can feel it, you can just see it. That I
40:35
Speaker 5: think is the future of the party.
40:37
Speaker 1: And my last question, you know, Republicans clearly a fumbling
40:40
Speaker 1: the ball. Trump is clearly fumbling the ball. Do Democrats
40:42
Speaker 1: have the proper team now to recover to fumble and
40:47
Speaker 1: actually score?
40:47
Speaker 5: It was only one way to find out. But that
40:50
Speaker 5: moment is on us, right, and it's going to get harder.
40:54
Speaker 5: I mean, they're even changing the rule. They know they're
40:56
Speaker 5: fumbling the ball because right now the Trump administration is
40:59
Speaker 5: trying to get Texas to change the way the maps
41:02
Speaker 5: are drawn so that they don't lose the House because
41:05
Speaker 5: they think they're going to lose the House. Right, So
41:07
Speaker 5: we can see signs that there's a huge opportunity here.
41:10
Speaker 5: But Democrats also need to figure out that we're not
41:12
Speaker 5: playing like normal Democrat Republican left right politics like we
41:17
Speaker 5: all grew up with. This is the media environment's different,
41:20
Speaker 5: the state of mind of the American people is different,
41:22
Speaker 5: that the game is different. It's I don't want to
41:26
Speaker 5: torture your metaphor, but it's like they fumbel the ball
41:29
Speaker 5: and we need to figure out whether we're actually whether
41:32
Speaker 5: it's actually suddenly turned into a game of football instead
41:35
Speaker 5: of you know, soccer instead of football or something we.
41:38
Speaker 4: Don't even know.
41:38
Speaker 1: It's probably a free and fair election in twenty six
41:40
Speaker 1: or twenty eight.
41:41
Speaker 5: Yeah, and again, look at what they're doing in Texas, right,
41:44
Speaker 5: so never mind, you know, things they could do to
41:47
Speaker 5: manipulate the election in a really sinister way, like this
41:50
Speaker 5: is a way to manipulate the election in broad daylight.
41:52
Speaker 5: If they change the maps in Texas, which by the way,
41:55
Speaker 5: could technically be legal. That doesn't require anybody going in
42:00
Speaker 5: and tampering with a voting machine, that doesn't require anybody
42:04
Speaker 5: changing election results, and yet it changes what happens. And
42:08
Speaker 5: there's a reason why they are thinking about resorting to that. So,
42:12
Speaker 5: you know, we can't be my side, can't be precious
42:16
Speaker 5: about all of the norms and routines that we were
42:19
Speaker 5: used to and expect to win. There are things we're
42:22
Speaker 5: not going to do. We're not going to lie we're
42:25
Speaker 5: not going to demonize unpopular minority groups in order to
42:30
Speaker 5: get ahead, Like we're not going to do the things
42:31
Speaker 5: they do. But that means that our version has to
42:34
Speaker 5: be ten times better.
42:37
Speaker 2: People to judge ladies and gentlemen. So what's next for
42:39
Speaker 2: people to just what do you have your eyes?
42:41
Speaker 4: You run of a president? Stop cutting on.
42:43
Speaker 5: It's twenty twenty five. You got to give me at
42:45
Speaker 5: least one year to not be running for anything and
42:47
Speaker 5: not be in office so I can drop the kids
42:49
Speaker 5: off at school and be a human being, and then
42:51
Speaker 5: you know, we'll figure it out. But what I am
42:53
Speaker 5: definitely doing now and going to keep doing is speak
42:56
Speaker 5: out about this stuff and try to show versus tell
43:00
Speaker 5: a way of fighting for what's right that I think
43:03
Speaker 5: our party would benefit from.
43:04
Speaker 1: I think you're pulling out with thirteen percent right now,
43:07
Speaker 1: look at but do you keep you look at stuff
43:09
Speaker 1: like that was crazy? But you're pulling at thirty percent,
43:16
Speaker 1: that's a pretty good number.
43:17
Speaker 5: I try not to look at that too much.
43:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, people, you should look at other polls.
43:22
Speaker 1: Pet you're married, first of all, just chill out, he said,
43:29
Speaker 1: it's no.
43:31
Speaker 4: I don't know why I keep coming back.
43:32
Speaker 2: I don't know why exact I don't know why.
43:35
Speaker 4: We appreciate it.
43:36
Speaker 1: Whenever you come people, I tell you this all the time, man,
43:38
Speaker 1: but you know, you never stop talking to our audience.
43:41
Speaker 1: And that means something, you know, because I feel like
43:43
Speaker 1: politicians only come around when they want something.
43:46
Speaker 4: They only come around when it's a campaign season.
43:48
Speaker 1: The fact that you come and just you know, keep
43:50
Speaker 1: us abreast of what's going on all the time.
43:52
Speaker 4: I truly do appreciate it, apreciate it absolutely right, And they.
43:55
Speaker 6: Don't forget those handsteps because I want to see if
43:58
Speaker 6: it works.
43:58
Speaker 5: We're doing we're doing the conditioner and then the leaving
44:02
Speaker 5: conditioner at night, and then in the world it is
44:04
Speaker 5: it is.
44:05
Speaker 6: I know, it's a whole job. It's a whole job,
44:07
Speaker 6: all right, because you got the detangle and all that.
44:09
Speaker 5: So look, yeah, we should talk after this.
44:11
Speaker 2: Actually have a couple of questions people to judge.
44:14
Speaker 4: It's the breakfast club.
44:15
Speaker 2: Good morning, wake that ass up in the morning.
44:18
Speaker 4: The breakfast Club