Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Pete Buttigieg Addresses Mysterious Drone Sightings, Travel Inflation, Future Career Moves + More

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INTERVIEW: Pete Buttigieg Addresses Mysterious Drone Sightings, Travel Inflation, Future Career Moves + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club Morning.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Everybody is DJ Envy, Jess, Larry Charlamagne, the guy we
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: are to Breakfast Club. Angela Riet of course is checking
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: in with us as always, and we got a special
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: guest in the building. Secretary of Transportation Pete Booey Judge,
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: welcome back.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Thanks, good to be back.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: Good morning.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: How are you man same to you? Dump right in.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Right in?
• 0:25
  Speaker 4: Secretary Pete, you are the Secretary of Transportation. What do
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: you know about these manned SUV side drones flying over
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: New Jersey? John John kirbyed the National Security Communications Byers, said.
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: They were manned yep, yesterday. What do you think it is?
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: So?
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  Speaker 5: I mean, we're helping law enforcement work through it all
• 0:41
  Speaker 5: mainly a homeland security issue. Our job is to make
• 0:43
  Speaker 5: sure that any restricted airspace nothing comes in there that
• 0:46
  Speaker 5: shouldn't be there. That includes airspace over an airport. Sometimes
• 0:50
  Speaker 5: another area could be restricted because it's sensitive. For example
• 0:53
  Speaker 5: that's close to the Trump Golf Club, there's temporary flight
• 0:56
  Speaker 5: restrictions there. Bigger picture is we're going to have more
• 1:00
  Speaker 5: and more drones. Obviously, if it's man that's different. But
• 1:04
  Speaker 5: we're gonna have more and more things entering the airspace.
• 1:06
  Speaker 5: We got to work to make sure that's safe. This
• 1:08
  Speaker 5: is not a world where anything flying is either an
• 1:11
  Speaker 5: airplane or a helicopter. The drones are getting bigger. That look,
• 1:16
  Speaker 5: it can be a good thing to have these resources
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: to deliver, for example, in a really hard to reach area,
• 1:22
  Speaker 5: you make deliveries. But we're talking about potentially millions of
• 1:26
  Speaker 5: these coming into the airspace. And what we're trying to do,
• 1:29
  Speaker 5: especially on the FAA side, is coordinate all that make
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: sure it's safe.
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: Is that they're manned, Like who's man's is this?
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: Who are these people like? And why is it okay?
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: And why wouldn't they inform the public beforehand?
• 1:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so they know more than I do on the
• 1:43
  Speaker 5: law enforcement side about the identity of the aircraft.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: But it is true.
• 1:48
  Speaker 5: Sometimes you look up at something you think it's one thing,
• 1:50
  Speaker 5: turns out it's another. I think that's what they've been
• 1:51
  Speaker 5: working through on the law enforcement side.
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump was on with Joe Rogan. They had a
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: whole conversation about aliens, not the kind you want to
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: deport ax. Then Cliff High said, thirty nine days after
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: that interview, we were going to start having an alien
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: invasion around December third, that's when all of these sub
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: side drones which I've even seen started getting seen over Jersey.
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: Is it an alien invasion?
• 2:15
  Speaker 5: I mean no disrespect to New Jersey when I say that.
• 2:18
  Speaker 5: I think it's very unlikely that an alien invasion would begin.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: Watch him out. We lived it, I know, but nobody.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: I love New Jersey.
• 2:29
  Speaker 5: I'm just saying I don't think that's the kind of
• 2:32
  Speaker 5: main point of entry that an extra terrest.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Unless there's something we don't know, Jersey Shore or something
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Winter time, right, American dreaming might go with skiing because interview,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: I would think I would I would.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: Go for someplace in the Pacific where there's no inhabited
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: space for a couple one hundred miles, so that I
• 2:52
  Speaker 5: could kind of get my bearings before I go anywhere.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Anyone's going to see.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Me right in their intelligent life.
• 2:58
  Speaker 5: Well, you still want to take your time. I'm kind
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: of set up set up shop a little bit.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: What have they've been watching us for you already?
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: Maybe I don't know.
• 3:05
  Speaker 6: You know, anxiety making my anxiety.
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: Secretary people know something you want to take the secretary
• 3:09
  Speaker 4: transportation just sub sized anything flying in the sky.
• 3:13
  Speaker 5: You know about there's like millions of things in the
• 3:16
  Speaker 5: national air space, right, So I do actually, we do
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: have a we do have a big board at the
• 3:20
  Speaker 5: USDOT which has the dots kind of show you the
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: tracking of of commercial aircraft.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: But no, I don't necessarily know all that.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, how are you feeling. I'm sorry to started
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: like that. How are you feeling? How was everything?
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 3:34
  Speaker 5: It's an interesting time. I mean, work wise, what we're
• 3:39
  Speaker 5: focused on is we have more grants. We're working to
• 3:42
  Speaker 5: get out the door, make sure we take the funding
• 3:44
  Speaker 5: that's in the President's Infrastructure package and assign it to
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: projects that are going to make a difference. So we
• 3:49
  Speaker 5: have more announcements coming on that, and then the things
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: we've already announced. It can take years to go from
• 3:56
  Speaker 5: a press release saying, you know, congratulations, we're going to
• 3:58
  Speaker 5: work on the let's say, the Hudson River Tunnel and
• 4:02
  Speaker 5: it actually happening. So we're trying to move that along.
• 4:04
  Speaker 5: We're trying to finalize a lot of policies we set
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: into motion we just didn't want a few days ago.
• 4:08
  Speaker 5: On airlines again, how airlines treat people and what kind
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: of compensation you ought to get that was launching a policy.
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: We're also finalizing some policies that we launched a while ago.
• 4:19
  Speaker 5: So we're busy. We're going to stay busy for the
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: next thirty eight days that we have in these jobs.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: And we got to talk about the election. How do
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: you feel after the election? What do you think could
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: have been done to make sure that we, the Democrats,
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: would have got a win.
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: Look, it's tough, and I gotta be careful how I
• 4:34
  Speaker 5: talk about it because I'm here as a federal official,
• 4:36
  Speaker 5: so I can't totally get into campaigns and parties.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: But I'll say this. I think all politics and all.
• 4:40
  Speaker 5: Policy is about everyday life. And if people don't feel
• 4:45
  Speaker 5: that that's what we're talking about, then they lose touch
• 4:48
  Speaker 5: with what we have to say. And I think we
• 4:50
  Speaker 5: have a responsibility. I tried to do all of our
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: policy making in terms of everyday life. Whether we're doing
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: a billion dollar project, how's it going to make your
• 4:57
  Speaker 5: commute better? Or whether we're doing a regular how's it
• 5:00
  Speaker 5: going to make your life safer? We have to communicate
• 5:04
  Speaker 5: about that too, and that gets harder and harder with
• 5:06
  Speaker 5: the noise machine and the culture wars, and I think
• 5:09
  Speaker 5: a lot of folks aren't following kind of mainstream media
• 5:12
  Speaker 5: to get their news anyway. It's just getting tougher and
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: tough to have that conversation. I still believe, at risk
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: of sounding naive, I still believe that if you do
• 5:21
  Speaker 5: the right thing in time, you get credit for it.
• 5:23
  Speaker 5: I saw that happen with Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act,
• 5:27
  Speaker 5: where the first time I was running for office in
• 5:29
  Speaker 5: twenty ten, we got destroyed over that issue. By twenty eighteen,
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: it was a winning issue, and even Donald Trump and
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: a Republican Congress couldn't tear it down because the American
• 5:41
  Speaker 5: people wanted to understood that it was helping them. I
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: think there's a lot of things like that that we're
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: doing right now. But the simple truth is most of
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: the stuff with infrastructure, most of the stuff we launched
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: in the first half of this decade, is going to
• 5:57
  Speaker 5: deliver most of its benefits in the second half of
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: this day. That's when they cut the ribbon on the
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: bridge that we fixed, or open the airport terminal that
• 6:04
  Speaker 5: we funded, or people realize that something like the refund
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: policy we're doing on airlines is working for them. All
• 6:10
  Speaker 5: these ev factories I've toured, many of which, by the way,
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: are in Red States, Indiana, Kentucky, Kansas. Most of those
• 6:18
  Speaker 5: when I've toured them, they've been construction sites, and they're
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: going to be. They're already creating all these jobs in
• 6:23
  Speaker 5: the building trades to build them, but the manufacturing jobs
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: in them they're coming online in like twenty twenty five,
• 6:29
  Speaker 5: twenty twenty six, twenty twenty seven. So we're in this
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: stage where you're not always getting credit for good work.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: I want to ask one question before you jump at Angelo,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: what is your thoughts on electric costs. A lot of
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: people feel that electric vehicles are just as bad as
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: the gas vehicles, with the batteries, with the things that
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: you know to get rid of them, dispose of them.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: A lot of people are not sold on them, and
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: a lot of manufacturers people are not necessarily wanted to
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: buy them. They're on lots, can't sell them. There's huge discounts,
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  Speaker 2: and I mean New Jersey now have taxes on them.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: At first, at first that was a good thing that
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: you didn't if you bought an electric vehicle, you wouldn't
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: be taxed. But now they're starting to tax it. So
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: what are your thoughts on electric vehicles and the public's
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: view on them.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: So I still think it's the future.
• 7:10
  Speaker 5: And I would point out, even with ups and downs
• 7:12
  Speaker 5: in the market, every year more people in America choose
• 7:15
  Speaker 5: to buy them than the year before, so.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: It is growing.
• 7:17
  Speaker 5: But look, it's not for everybody, and we never said
• 7:19
  Speaker 5: it would be for everybody right away. Our goal is
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: by the end of the decade, it's about half and
• 7:23
  Speaker 5: a half. If everybody got an electric vehicle tomorrow, America
• 7:26
  Speaker 5: wouldn't be ready. We don't have the chargers but on
• 7:27
  Speaker 5: the grid instruct and which is why we're trying to
• 7:31
  Speaker 5: build it. Another thing that we launched in the first
• 7:33
  Speaker 5: half of this decade that will be coming online in
• 7:35
  Speaker 5: the out years is all these chargers were supporting. The
• 7:38
  Speaker 5: first couple hundred are up now, but eventually thousands and
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: thousands to join the to get to that goal of
• 7:43
  Speaker 5: half a million. Right now nationally we're two hundred thousand.
• 7:46
  Speaker 5: We're adding a bunch anyway, It's just not true environmentally
• 7:50
  Speaker 5: that it's the same.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Okay, Does people feel like it's just the same or
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: it's worse.
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: The thing that's screwing us up day by day in
• 7:59
  Speaker 5: this country is climate change and that is happening because
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: of carbon pollution, and EV's are one of the ways
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: that we can cut that because they don't spit out
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: carbon pollution. Are there issues with the materials that go
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: in the batteries, absolutely, But one really important thing to
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: remember is that material can be reused. You can recycle
• 8:15
  Speaker 5: the batteries, which will become more and more relevant as
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: you have more old cars. Right now, there's not a
• 8:20
  Speaker 5: lot of end of life evs right but there will be,
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: and then the next generation of vv's those batteries can
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: be made with them. There's I mean, any manufactured product,
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: there's environmental issues associated with manufacturing them. I don't mean
• 8:31
  Speaker 5: to wave that away, but handling that compared to handling
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: a climate situation that is almost certainly part of why
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: things like Hurricane Helene and Milton are worse than before.
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: Why are getting heat waves in the Pacific Northwest that
• 8:47
  Speaker 5: aren't even supposed to be statistically possible. Why one of
• 8:50
  Speaker 5: our big projects is dealing with the damage of her
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: Superstorm Sandy here.
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: That is happening now.
• 8:56
  Speaker 5: That is not theoretical, that is real, And EV's aren't
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: the answer to all of it.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: But they're helping.
• 9:01
  Speaker 5: And the thing I care about just as much as
• 9:04
  Speaker 5: that is the job growth. I was back in South Bend,
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: where I grew up, where I served as mayor, about
• 9:08
  Speaker 5: a week ago. When I was mayor, they were telling
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: us that manufacturing was done. We're gonna make things in
• 9:16
  Speaker 5: this country anymore. Definitely, if you were in a union
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: like the electrical workers, they told you, you know, you
• 9:22
  Speaker 5: might as well give up few people a year get
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: into an apprenticeship program.
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: I was there.
• 9:25
  Speaker 5: Now they're gonna have five hundred people working on an
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: EV battery factory that is multi billion dollars in Saint
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: Joe County. That is bigger than anything that happened in
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: the auto industry, any investment in the auto industry since
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: the Kennedy.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Years, like since before I was born.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: It's happening right now.
• 9:43
  Speaker 5: So the other exciting thing was like, let's make sure
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: these EV's are made in America. And I gotta say,
• 9:47
  Speaker 5: I'm not gonna guess what the next administration will do,
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: but I wonder when they're really confronted with the decision
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: of whether to make through on their threats and wreck
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: this e the industry that is employing people in places
• 10:03
  Speaker 5: like where I grew up, whether we're talking about auto
• 10:05
  Speaker 5: workers or whether we're talking about electrical workers a lot
• 10:08
  Speaker 5: of other people, are they really going to pull the
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: rug out from under those workers, many of whom are
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: in red states. I guess we're about to find out.
• 10:15
  Speaker 7: You know, I'm not going to have you violate the
• 10:18
  Speaker 7: Hatch Act. But I think one of the things that
• 10:22
  Speaker 7: has been up for discussion is what's going to happen
• 10:26
  Speaker 7: with the Democratic Party. You're, of course a part of
• 10:28
  Speaker 7: the Democratic administration, and recently I was asked who would
• 10:32
  Speaker 7: be a good DNC chair And you might not like this,
• 10:35
  Speaker 7: but I thought of you. There are a lot of
• 10:37
  Speaker 7: people who are jocking for this position, who the country's
• 10:43
  Speaker 7: never heard of. But you had a really phenomenal moment
• 10:47
  Speaker 7: during this campaign cycle debating undecided voters. The video went viral.
• 10:53
  Speaker 7: You're able to communicate in tough places. You come here,
• 10:57
  Speaker 7: you go on Fox. You're able to communicate the message
• 11:00
  Speaker 7: in ways that I think a lot of the Democratic
• 11:02
  Speaker 7: Party avoids. Can you talk about whether or not that's
• 11:06
  Speaker 7: something that you would be interested in it?
• 11:07
  Speaker 6: If not, who you think would be.
• 11:09
  Speaker 7: Good, not in your official capacity, in your personal capacity,
• 11:12
  Speaker 7: who you think would be the type of chair they
• 11:15
  Speaker 7: need to see to preserve frankly, whatever they've built in
• 11:18
  Speaker 7: that pay.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: So well it's not going to be me. I care
• 11:21
  Speaker 5: about that a lot, but it's just not It's not
• 11:25
  Speaker 5: what I'm going to be doing right now.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: I'm following it a lot.
• 11:28
  Speaker 5: I can't get into party stuff too much this time,
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: but what I'll say is, you know, whether you're talking
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: about what goes on the party campaigns or the policy side.
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: And even though we're about to be out of the administration,
• 11:39
  Speaker 5: we've got leaders in obviously communities, we've got governors, and
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: we've got people on Capitol Hill who are going to
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: I think, show what leadership from my side of the
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: aisle looks like, and I think a lot of it
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: will be you know, you're mentioning an experience I did
• 11:57
  Speaker 5: on a channel called Jubilee, which I got a ton
• 12:01
  Speaker 5: of feedback about. That was great because there's different people
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: than the folks who were watching what I might have
• 12:06
  Speaker 5: to say on Ciena and or Fox News or MSNBC.
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: How many people who.
• 12:11
  Speaker 7: Like a point It was a lot like millions.
• 12:15
  Speaker 5: Oh the experience, Yeah, it was like twenty was like
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: in a room with twenty five people, and what it
• 12:21
  Speaker 5: reminded me of was what it was like being mayor
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: where you know, I didn't somebody stops at you in
• 12:26
  Speaker 5: the parking lot at the grocery store because they want
• 12:29
  Speaker 5: to know why you you changed the trash pick up
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: from the front of the house to the back of
• 12:34
  Speaker 5: the house, and they're mad at you. You got to
• 12:35
  Speaker 5: explain it, and you can't go to talking points, right
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: And I think a lot of the best voices we
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: have are people who are.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: Having to have those kinds of conversations.
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: In their communities, absolutely, and.
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: Not the stuff that's that's dominating the attention of a
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: place like Capitol Hill.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: You know, I.
• 12:54
  Speaker 5: Back when I was running, I talked a lot about,
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: you know, needing to have perspectives from outside of Washington.
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: When I got to Washington, I noticed two things. One
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: in all humility, like that town is full of a
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: lot of really good people, public servants who come to
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: work every day trying to do the right thing and
• 13:10
  Speaker 5: who care about this country. But also it is a
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: very self absorbed place, like even more than any other
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: kind of scene that I've seen, more than any city,
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: more than Hollywood, like it is a place where like
• 13:24
  Speaker 5: everybody wants to talk about what this senator had for breakfast.
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: You know what, I chasten I got there, we start
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: reading like write ups the next day online about like
• 13:34
  Speaker 5: you know, where we're having dinner and stuff like.
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: It's just very like.
• 13:39
  Speaker 5: Inward looking. Sometimes we've got to get out of that.
• 13:42
  Speaker 5: And that's part of why I will be out of Washington. Well,
• 13:46
  Speaker 5: not that I'm invited for the next four years, but
• 13:48
  Speaker 5: I think it will be helpful to be out of Washington.
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: For the next few years for me. Well, you know,
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: you're a very cerebral person.
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: Everybody knows that, Secretary Pege, So I know that you've
• 13:55
  Speaker 4: thought about your future.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Check what is the future for Secretary Peace?
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: That's just like, no, no, it's true. I mean, obviously
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: there's a lot of different things I might do. People
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: are putting all kinds of ideas in my head. But
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: you know, I got thirty eight days to do this job,
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: and I got to stay really focused on that. And
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: then I'm not going to just jump into something just
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: so I can do it, or just try to have
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: an office.
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: Just so I can have it. I know what I
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: care about.
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: I care about how places like where I grew up
• 14:23
  Speaker 5: in Indiana and where I live now in northern Michigan,
• 14:28
  Speaker 5: how places like that can grow, how we can replicate
• 14:32
  Speaker 5: the story of the city that I served in that
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: started out that decade being told we were dying and
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: ended like growing and creating jobs, and now it's happening
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: in a whole new way, largely because of what happened
• 14:40
  Speaker 5: in to the Biden administration.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: I care about that.
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: I care about big picture of democratic reforms and how
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: we change all of the things that make us not
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: that democratic. And I'm not just talking about the whole
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: kind of question of authoritarianism that I think all all
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: of us are rightly worried about. I'm talking about stuff
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: that happens out in the open, in terms of how
• 15:03
  Speaker 5: our districts are drawn and how our campaigns are paid for,
• 15:06
  Speaker 5: and the electric stuff I.
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Talk about a lot.
• 15:08
  Speaker 5: I care about that. I care about making sure that
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: our generation comes out ahead. Because if you were born
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: when my parents were born, there's a ninety percent chance
• 15:19
  Speaker 5: you were going to come out economically ahead of your parents.
• 15:22
  Speaker 5: If you were born when I was born in the eighties,
• 15:24
  Speaker 5: it's a coin flip. So you know, I care about
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: stuff like that. I care about the information environment, kind
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: of what Angela and I were just talking about about
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: the different spaces we go into. But how I do that,
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: whether that's as an elected official or something more political
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: or something a little more out of that space, that's
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: something I will have time to figure out after January twenty.
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: Is it about the money of the service, because you know,
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: you can get to the bag, like you know, your
• 15:48
  Speaker 4: secretary Pete now, so you can write a book, you can,
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: it's on a podcast. There's a lot of things you
• 15:52
  Speaker 4: can do to actually get money. You got kids, man,
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: you're married with kids.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I need a paycheck, That's right. I
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: didn't you know.
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: It's not like I'm a millionaire and you know, but
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: I'll figure that out that like that'll be okay. Chasing
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: has also reminded me that.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: You know, we will get money.
• 16:07
  Speaker 5: We need to, you know obviously, you know, have a
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: living and take care of our kids. And also, you know, Chasin,
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: you know, we're like any working couple like he you know,
• 16:16
  Speaker 5: I talked to him on the way to the studio here,
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: like he is solo wrangling two three year olds getting
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: them to school. In the middle of a snowstorm. And
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: I just have some catching up to do there in
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: terms of doing my well. Yeah, which is totally fair, right,
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: and and he's been great, but so I'm gonna be
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: a little more focused on that. Plus, our kids are twins,
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: a boy and girl are twins. They're three. They're old
• 16:41
  Speaker 5: enough to not just to notice, but like to care
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: when I'm gone. So I'm I'm looking forward to some
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: period of time when I'm posting at home able to think.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: But before we do any of that, like, we got.
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: Thirty eight days of real work, because every day we're here,
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: we're gonna wish we had it back later on to
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: get more done, to get more dollars out the door,
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: to give Morgan policies done.
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: So we're pushing hard.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: I do have to ask about congestion price. And I mean,
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: you talked about New York and the tunnel that they're building,
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: but they're saying this congestion price in New York City
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: could be the guinea pig for the country for different
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: cities of people driving in. A lot of people are
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: against it, right, It's what grocries expensive, gas expensive, everything expensive, right,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: everything is high. This is just going to be another
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: thing that you know, citizens Americans have to pay. What's
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: your thoughts on that, because it's going to hurt a
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: lot of people.
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: So the bottom line is, I've got to This sounds
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: like a cop out, but it's only because federally, it's
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: very important to respect that this is a local decision.
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: So from a federal perspective, they've done everything they need
• 17:41
  Speaker 5: to do. We went through a process of I think
• 17:45
  Speaker 5: more than twenty thousand pages of verification to evaluate whether
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: it's met its legal requirements, and it has. Now it's
• 17:54
  Speaker 5: still up to the city, the state, the region to
• 17:56
  Speaker 5: decide if they want to do something. But like from
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: a Department of Transportation perspective, they've demonstrated that to the
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: satisfaction of our department. I know that sounds like a
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: bureaucratic answer, but part of why I'm answering that ways
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: because I respect the fact that that's a local decision.
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: What I will say is there's a handful of places
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: that have done it, but mostly in other places around
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: the world, London, Singapore, Stockholm. The usual pattern has been
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: that people there's a lot of controversy about it beforehand.
• 18:26
  Speaker 5: People in the end have have preferred to have it
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: after the fact once they're.
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: Used to it.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: But every city is different.
• 18:34
  Speaker 7: I had some questions around you're just thinking of legacy
• 18:38
  Speaker 7: and how things are being left. There's a lot of
• 18:42
  Speaker 7: folks who have come in as Secretary Department of Transportation,
• 18:45
  Speaker 7: and one thing that has remained pretty stagnant is the
• 18:49
  Speaker 7: utilization of dB so the disadvantage business enterprise. I'm from
• 18:53
  Speaker 7: Washington State and there was a disparity study done this
• 18:56
  Speaker 7: year looking at all of these numbers. And I think
• 18:59
  Speaker 7: the one time you met my dad, like he ran
• 19:01
  Speaker 7: up on you, was like, hey, Secretary Pete, and he
• 19:03
  Speaker 7: had questions about this. He's dedicated his life to this,
• 19:05
  Speaker 7: so it's something that we're really passionate about. But when
• 19:08
  Speaker 7: you look at how the Federal Highway Administration funds contracts,
• 19:13
  Speaker 7: only one percent of those contracts are going to black
• 19:16
  Speaker 7: owned firms, the Federal Transit Authority it's one point zero
• 19:22
  Speaker 7: and then state funded contracts zero point two percent. And
• 19:25
  Speaker 7: this is it doesn't matter if it's a Democratic governor
• 19:28
  Speaker 7: or a Republican governor. This is something that's remained pretty stagnant.
• 19:32
  Speaker 7: I'm eager to know you know what you all have
• 19:35
  Speaker 7: done what you all planned to do. I know that
• 19:37
  Speaker 7: there's a civil rights lead on this, but this has
• 19:40
  Speaker 7: not changed much and it's tragic. I'm terrified about what's
• 19:44
  Speaker 7: going to happen because as soon as Donald Trump was elected, Walmart, Starbucks,
• 19:48
  Speaker 7: everybody's saying, you know, to hell with DEI we can't
• 19:51
  Speaker 7: afford to do that or be in those positions as
• 19:54
  Speaker 7: black folks.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Right, So this is really important.
• 19:57
  Speaker 5: If you look at, for example, the black middle class
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: in Atlanta, part of how that was built was because
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: the mayor at the time that the airport was going
• 20:03
  Speaker 5: up insisted that black owned businesses had a shot at
• 20:07
  Speaker 5: the work that was going on, and they did, and
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: whole companies grew out of that. I've been there, talked
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: to second generation people who are now leading those construction
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: companies and working on new work at the airport where
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: their parents had worked on the original rounds. So I've
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: seen the opportunity to can create. Here's what we've done.
• 20:23
  Speaker 5: We've boosted our goal for the dollars that directly or
• 20:26
  Speaker 5: contracted by our department. We had a over twenty percent
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: goal on SDB Small Disadvantaged Businesses and we beat it.
• 20:34
  Speaker 5: So we've been able to generate I think we're now
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: in the billions in terms of doing better than before.
• 20:41
  Speaker 5: But a lot of those statistics that you've found show
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: how when the federal dollars go out to the states
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: or they go out to the communities, those states and
• 20:51
  Speaker 5: communities may not have the same level of commitment to
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: making sure that there's that dB participation. We have been
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: able to do a lot of things to encourage that,
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: including updating the entire rule, the whole regulatory framework for dbes.
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: We immediately got sued and right now there's an injunction
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: that's affecting in certain jurisdictions how much we can pursue
• 21:12
  Speaker 5: that work. By the way, they've done this for other
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: departments too. They went after the Small Business Administration's program,
• 21:19
  Speaker 5: they went after the NBDA, which is part of commerce.
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: We think that we know that we're on good legal ground,
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: but we're gonna have to fight for it, and we're
• 21:29
  Speaker 5: gonna stay committed. But to some of the numbers you're mentioning,
• 21:33
  Speaker 5: a lot of this does happen closer to home, and
• 21:35
  Speaker 5: so we've got to set a tone that says, wait
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: a minute, it's important to create these opportunities locally. By
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: the way, there's the business side, but also the labor side.
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: I've seen a lot of I've seen some labor unions
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: and locals that are doing it right. And you see
• 21:48
  Speaker 5: people who just would not have had a chance to
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: get these good paying jobs in the building trades, and
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: there are things that can be done to help make
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: sure they get a shot, making sure there's more apprenticesh
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: so you can earn while you learn, so you don't
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: have to have money to take time off to be
• 22:03
  Speaker 5: in the apprenticeship program. For a lot of working women,
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: I mean working parents in general, but definitely for working women,
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: it's important to.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Have childcare set up.
• 22:11
  Speaker 5: In Pittsburgh, they set up a childcare center at the
• 22:13
  Speaker 5: construction site of the airport terminal that they're doing, and
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: it means that more people who just would never have
• 22:18
  Speaker 5: had a chance to be part of that are part
• 22:19
  Speaker 5: of that.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: So we're being intentional about it.
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: But look, the next administration has not shown any signs
• 22:26
  Speaker 5: of being enthusiastic about this. We're still defending what we've
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: done in court and I would say we've done a lot,
• 22:33
  Speaker 5: but we got a long way to go. And what
• 22:35
  Speaker 5: that means, what that says to me, is there is
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: going to have to be a lot at the state
• 22:38
  Speaker 5: and local level to keep the momentum up.
• 22:42
  Speaker 4: You know, somebody in the upcoming administration is going to
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: take credit for something you implemented.
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: So what is it we will see from them that's
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: actually you.
• 22:50
  Speaker 5: So there's sixty six thousand projects we got started. If
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: I went to three projects a day for the rest
• 22:55
  Speaker 5: of my life, I would not live long enough.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: To see them.
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: A thousands of them are complete, but most of them
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: aren't it.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: These things take years.
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: So you know when you look at I mean there's
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: these big signature projects. You know, the Hudson River Tunnel
• 23:12
  Speaker 5: that might be the biggest project east of the Mississippi
• 23:14
  Speaker 5: in our lifetimes. There's album is that going to take
• 23:18
  Speaker 5: very long time. We're sixteen billion into Jesus.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: So it won't even be just you won't even see
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: that in this administration.
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: But some things are will be underway, are underway now,
• 23:28
  Speaker 5: will be done sooner. The Portal North Bridge, which is
• 23:30
  Speaker 5: another key key bridge.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: It all comes back to New Jersey.
• 23:34
  Speaker 7: See, yeah, let's spiral them again.
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: I think you know, you can go on down the list.
• 23:45
  Speaker 5: Big thing that the the High speed rail. You know,
• 23:48
  Speaker 5: I cut I broke ground on a high speed rail
• 23:49
  Speaker 5: project from Las Vegas to southern California. They're aiming to
• 23:53
  Speaker 5: be done by twenty twenty eight. That's an aggressive timeline,
• 23:56
  Speaker 5: but that's what they think they can do. So all
• 23:59
  Speaker 5: of that, Yeah, somebody else is going to cut the
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: ribbon on that. But look, we've already seen people who
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: voted against the Biden infrastructure package show up and try
• 24:09
  Speaker 5: to take credit at these things. We're about to see
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: that at.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: A whole new level.
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: And I'm going to be there to remind folks that
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: some people were with us, even some Republicans were with us,
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: and a lot of people were against us, and we
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: were trying to get this money out the door.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Is that trans Atlantic tunnel shit real?
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: The New York, the London that can get you between
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: the cities in an hour anything, it's gonna cost a
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: nineteen trillion to build.
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: I call that more of a concept of a plan. Okay, okay,
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: it'd be pretty amazing. But yeah, some of those hyper
• 24:39
  Speaker 5: I mean, it's very exciting to think about. But the
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: things you have to do, the pressurization, the tunneling, I mean,
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: you know, kind of hard to hard on today's technology.
• 24:48
  Speaker 5: Hard to see how that happens.
• 24:50
  Speaker 7: Well, speaking of concept of the plan, you are saying
• 24:53
  Speaker 7: that's what you have for your future. But you did
• 24:57
  Speaker 7: move to Michigan in twenty twenty. There is a term
• 25:01
  Speaker 7: limited governor, Big Rich, yes, Gretchen Whitmer, who is of
• 25:07
  Speaker 7: course not running. And then there is a mayor of
• 25:09
  Speaker 7: Detroit who's declared his gubernatory run but as an independent.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: So Democrats want you to run for governor of Michigan.
• 25:20
  Speaker 6: But have you thought about running for a governor?
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, you needn't say anything.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: The first time, he was lost to the.
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: Word I'm not here to make news on my future.
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: I honestly haven't you ruled anything. So taken that as
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: a maybe you, Like I said, people are I've.
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: Never They say you met about it this week? You
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: met with people Democrats in Michigan.
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: About I meet democrats? All, I'm a Democrat and I
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: live in Michigan. Like you know, Look, we moved there
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: because of family. We moved there, We bought a place
• 25:55
  Speaker 5: there four years ago. Are having our kids closer. Grandparents
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: has been here. But yeah, look I really care about
• 26:03
  Speaker 5: this date. I just can't I can't get into campaign
• 26:05
  Speaker 5: stuff or anything like that.
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: Is it something you're even interested in You're just gonna
• 26:11
  Speaker 4: keep it, But have it crossed your mind, like, Hey,
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: being governor of Michigan.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: Would be cool.
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: Look, I care about the place a lot, and I
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: told you earlier some of the other things I care about.
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of ways to work on that. You
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: can work on that in office, you can work on
• 26:23
  Speaker 5: that out of office. It's I'm not trying to be cagy.
• 26:26
  Speaker 5: I just I don't know, and I want to know.
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: I want to have a lot more of my mind
• 26:31
  Speaker 5: made up before I go around talking about stuff like
• 26:34
  Speaker 5: that on the radio.
• 26:35
  Speaker 7: If you thought about it, and I think I think
• 26:37
  Speaker 7: the most important thing is if you just in case
• 26:40
  Speaker 7: you missed it, you're a very public servant ish and
• 26:43
  Speaker 7: so even though you're like, oh, I could do this
• 26:45
  Speaker 7: thing politically and other things, you're you're good at this,
• 26:48
  Speaker 7: Like this is something that you're good at our well.
• 26:51
  Speaker 7: My friend Garland is also thinking about a run Gil Chris,
• 26:55
  Speaker 7: who's fantastic. But there's the one that I think strikes
• 26:59
  Speaker 7: a course for me is Mike Dugan saying he's going
• 27:02
  Speaker 7: to run as an independent. There are a lot of
• 27:04
  Speaker 7: folks who are upset about that because that could throw
• 27:06
  Speaker 7: the race potentially, which we've seen in larger elections than
• 27:10
  Speaker 7: just goobernatorials in the past.
• 27:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and look, he's also a phenomenal mayor. We've worked
• 27:16
  Speaker 5: a lot on a lot of things benefiting Detroit where
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: we've teamed up. But I just you got to keep
• 27:22
  Speaker 5: me out of hashtag jail here.
• 27:23
  Speaker 7: I can all right, Okay, we don't want to be
• 27:25
  Speaker 7: in Hatchack jail, even though it's in the state.
• 27:27
  Speaker 6: But when leave that alone, I'll let you let that
• 27:29
  Speaker 6: fly op portund like.
• 27:30
  Speaker 7: I'm not a lawyer for that one, Secretary Pete, but
• 27:33
  Speaker 7: I will ask you.
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: So you talked about thirty eight days left.
• 27:38
  Speaker 7: It's not just thirty eight days left for you, there's
• 27:40
  Speaker 7: also thirty eight days left for President Biden. Are there
• 27:43
  Speaker 7: things that you have before the president that you really
• 27:46
  Speaker 7: want to have happen for transportation? Are there other things
• 27:49
  Speaker 7: that you think this administration really needs to get done
• 27:52
  Speaker 7: before armageddon?
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: Yeah? You know, he just asked me for an update.
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: We've we've been writing up some of the latest on
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: what we think we can get out the door. There
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: are a number of grant programs and projects we think
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: we can make happen. Potentially, still hundreds of projects we
• 28:06
  Speaker 5: can announce before January twentieth, and anything we can do,
• 28:09
  Speaker 5: we have to do it right. We can't do it
• 28:12
  Speaker 5: half asked just to get out the door, so we
• 28:13
  Speaker 5: have to make sure we're picking the right projects or
• 28:15
  Speaker 5: being responsible with the money. But yeah, I think we
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: can do a lot more. And again there's some policies
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: we can still finalize, just as we have been doing
• 28:24
  Speaker 5: on everything from you know, worker protection, and it's amazing
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: how long it takes to get a federal regulation finalized.
• 28:32
  Speaker 5: And I understand why. A lot of it is that
• 28:34
  Speaker 5: everybody has to have their say. There's procedural requirements that
• 28:37
  Speaker 5: you have to go through, and you know, a human
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: being as to read every comment, even when there's thousands
• 28:42
  Speaker 5: of comments. So we have to do it right. But
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: we're working on things to keep up the record we've
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: had of protecting consumers, protecting workers. But what I already know,
• 28:53
  Speaker 5: even though we're not done, we will leave America's transportation
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: systems better than we found them. Fewer people are dying
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: on our roads. Long way to go, but fewer people
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: are dying on our roads. I think we've made a
• 29:06
  Speaker 5: lot of important advances on aviation safety. We've made major
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: advances on passenger protection, your ability to get a refund
• 29:12
  Speaker 5: or get your hotel covered or something else if you
• 29:14
  Speaker 5: get stuck. Airlines are suing over that, by the way, too,
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: we have to play some defense here, but we've done
• 29:20
  Speaker 5: that rail workers, and we came in something like less
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: than ten percent of railroad workers could even get sick leave,
• 29:27
  Speaker 5: and now that guarantee is available over ninety percent of
• 29:30
  Speaker 5: railroad workers.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: Supply chains.
• 29:33
  Speaker 5: You remember the first year they said Christmas was canceled,
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: all the ships were backed up. You know, we came
• 29:39
  Speaker 5: in and encountered the biggest set of transportation problems to
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: hit the country at once since nine to eleven, from
• 29:46
  Speaker 5: the airlines about to go out of business, to supply
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: chain you couldn't get toilet paper, all that stuff. Trains,
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: and every one of those has got better. I can't
• 29:55
  Speaker 5: say any one of them is one hundred percent fixed,
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: but every one of them is better, and just as important,
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: the trajectory is better used to be. When we talked
• 30:02
  Speaker 5: about our roads, our bridges, the condition of our infrastructure,
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: every we knew that every year, it was going to
• 30:07
  Speaker 5: get worse because the backlog was growing faster than we
• 30:11
  Speaker 5: could do the projects. That was the whole idea of
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: the infrastructure I call it the Big Deal. That was
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: the whole idea of the Big Deal was We're not
• 30:17
  Speaker 5: just gonna keep playing catch up. We're actually going to
• 30:19
  Speaker 5: change the trajectory. But the nature of my I mean,
• 30:22
  Speaker 5: the satisfying part about our work is that for the
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: next few years, I'll be able to look at things
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: still being built and improved because of what we didn't
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: because of what President Biden did. But the unsatisfying part
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: about it is the same the other side of the
• 30:34
  Speaker 5: same coin, that's it's going to take a while.
• 30:36
  Speaker 7: Well, I have one since you used to your talking
• 30:39
  Speaker 7: generics around the grants. Is there any way that we
• 30:43
  Speaker 7: can talk to the airlines about these ticket prices because
• 30:47
  Speaker 7: they're surging and that's.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Crazy, They're crazy.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Atlanta used to be two hundred, three hundred dollars
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: now six seven hundred dollars to fly to Atlanta.
• 30:54
  Speaker 6: I'm gonna throw one out that might get John Trump.
• 30:56
  Speaker 7: I don't know of their sponsor, American, Like the American Airlines,
• 30:59
  Speaker 7: tickets are like a thousand dollars more than everybody else's
• 31:02
  Speaker 7: right now.
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: Where you're trying to what route you're talking about, because
• 31:07
  Speaker 5: I'm wist saying, because it does depend like as a category,
• 31:09
  Speaker 5: it's actually one of the few areas where prices went
• 31:12
  Speaker 5: down a little bit instead of up with all the inflation.
• 31:14
  Speaker 5: But that's an average, right, if you're talking about a
• 31:17
  Speaker 5: certain airline or a certain route, and the biggest thing
• 31:19
  Speaker 5: that we can do about that is competition, right, I mean,
• 31:22
  Speaker 5: just that's how it's supposed to work. And the truth is,
• 31:25
  Speaker 5: even though the airline industry lobby will say, you know,
• 31:28
  Speaker 5: there's lots of there's all these flights, there's all these airlines,
• 31:31
  Speaker 5: all these routes, a lot of times for a particular route,
• 31:34
  Speaker 5: there's maybe two airlines actually serving those particular that particular combination, right,
• 31:39
  Speaker 5: so it turns into a duopoly. And you know, one
• 31:43
  Speaker 5: of the big problems we've had in the aviation sector
• 31:46
  Speaker 5: is we've gone from dozens of airlines to a dozen
• 31:51
  Speaker 5: airlines to now basically a big four and the low
• 31:55
  Speaker 5: cost airlines, which everybody's mad at because of the passenger experience,
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: but also it's really hard for them to compete it's
• 32:02
  Speaker 5: why we intervened on the merger that was proposed. Was
• 32:06
  Speaker 5: that blue because having even fewer airlines means you have
• 32:08
  Speaker 5: even fewer choices, and it means it's less likely you're
• 32:11
  Speaker 5: going to get a good airfare.
• 32:13
  Speaker 7: Well, the one that I'm thinking about, I'm based in Seattle.
• 32:16
  Speaker 7: The one that I'm thinking about mostly is Seattle to JFK,
• 32:20
  Speaker 7: and American has a partnership with Alaska Airlines. Alaska Airlines,
• 32:24
  Speaker 7: that same flight will be one thousand dollars less than American.
• 32:28
  Speaker 7: I don't understand that interesting. It's very weird, so something
• 32:31
  Speaker 7: to look at days. But it's to your point. It's
• 32:36
  Speaker 7: New York to Atlanta. It's LA to Atlanta very expensive. Yeah,
• 32:40
  Speaker 7: well Florida flights the almost three thousand dollars.
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw you.
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: Say Trump can't get rid of the new airline refint
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: rules though you said it's the law Atlanta.
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Right, that's right.
• 32:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it got put into the FAA bill, So it
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: would take an Act of Congress to get ready to
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: try to get.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Rid of the automatic refunds.
• 32:57
  Speaker 5: And I would love to be there if anybody in
• 33:00
  Speaker 5: Congress tries to get rid of that, because that's really important,
• 33:03
  Speaker 5: and the whole idea there was that not just that
• 33:05
  Speaker 5: you can get a refund, but you can get a
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: refund without having to ask, because what was happening was
• 33:09
  Speaker 5: it was on the books that you could get a
• 33:11
  Speaker 5: refund and cancelation or some of these situations we had
• 33:13
  Speaker 5: to ask for. You had to fight for it.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Sometimes an airline.
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: Would say, well, we'll give you five thousand miles, and
• 33:17
  Speaker 5: that sounds pretty good, but if you actually do the math,
• 33:19
  Speaker 5: that's worth like maybe fifty bucks and you're entitled to
• 33:22
  Speaker 5: you know, hundreds. So just saying okay, if you want
• 33:25
  Speaker 5: something different, like if you tell the airline, don't give
• 33:28
  Speaker 5: me the money back, I'd rather take a rebooking or
• 33:30
  Speaker 5: don't give me the money back.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: I'd rather take your miles.
• 33:32
  Speaker 5: Fine, great, but you have to choose. It's opt out
• 33:35
  Speaker 5: rather than opt in, and if you don't say anything,
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: you just get your money. I think it's common sense.
• 33:40
  Speaker 5: I think it's a good policy, and I'm really glad
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: that Congress packed us up on that and that some
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: of the other things they could undo, but that they
• 33:47
  Speaker 5: couldn't undo unless Congress went along with it.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: I know you to h yeah, ea questions I got
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: one more question, because you know, one thing I always
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: give you credit for is you are not afraid to
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: show up to speak to people who.
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: You may not agree with.
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: And you always come speak to people you know, regardless
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: of whether it's campaigns either or not. So we always
• 34:03
  Speaker 4: appreciate that. But to me, that's something you can't teach
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: like that has to be in you. So where did
• 34:08
  Speaker 4: that come from? Why aren't you afraid to show up
• 34:10
  Speaker 4: in spaces A lot of Democrats don't.
• 34:14
  Speaker 5: I think it comes from growing up in a place
• 34:16
  Speaker 5: where lots of people, including people I really like, don't
• 34:20
  Speaker 5: agree with me, but we're friends and we just talk
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: about it. And I think you get advised and counseled
• 34:30
  Speaker 5: not to take any risks when you get into a
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: job like mine, for very understandable reasons, right because anything
• 34:35
  Speaker 5: you say gets picked apart. But if you pay too
• 34:39
  Speaker 5: much attention to that, nothing you say, you don't say
• 34:42
  Speaker 5: anything interesting. You're not talking like you're talking to somebody
• 34:44
  Speaker 5: you actually know, and people feel that, they smell that,
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: and I think younger people especially feel that and smell that,
• 34:50
  Speaker 5: And so I think it's probably just because of how
• 34:53
  Speaker 5: it came up.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: Any last ones you're good.
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: I'm good. I asked about my plane take.
• 35:00
  Speaker 7: I'm like, if I can't give anything else one hundred
• 35:02
  Speaker 7: thirty eighties, I mean, I want to parton for Marylynd
• 35:04
  Speaker 7: most be as well. We'd love to have your sport
• 35:06
  Speaker 7: on that. But yeah, I just would like for things
• 35:09
  Speaker 7: to feel fair, especially now since Donald Trump said always
• 35:12
  Speaker 7: going to.
• 35:13
  Speaker 6: Be hard to increase the price of groceries.
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: You let's find out you did say something. Plan is
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: safe as oh, I think for politicians, do you think that?
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: I mean it doesn't mean you jump on a political
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: land mine every time you see one.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: Do those exist anymore?
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 35:28
  Speaker 5: I think so you still get in big trouble for
• 35:30
  Speaker 5: saying this or that or I don't know. But to me,
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: it's okay as long as you're if you're in a
• 35:36
  Speaker 5: controversy because it's something you actually did or said or believed,
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: and it's controversial versus like you put a foot wrong,
• 35:45
  Speaker 5: or you phrase something the wrong way, or somebody twisted
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: what you had to say. You know, I always wanted
• 35:49
  Speaker 5: to be held accountable based on results. This is part
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: of why I got especially fired up during Helene about
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: the hurricane Helen about the misinformation that was going on,
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: because it's one thing to to have it back and
• 36:01
  Speaker 5: forth over something that's actually happening, and it's another if
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: people aren't even looking at the same reality. So in
• 36:09
  Speaker 5: terms of what risks people take in politics, look, you
• 36:14
  Speaker 5: you also tend to take more risks when you're out
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: of power, and so I think you might see more
• 36:18
  Speaker 5: creativity from the team that just got beat. That's just
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: kind of the nature of things. But yeah, I mean,
• 36:26
  Speaker 5: for my time, it's always better to just say what
• 36:29
  Speaker 5: you think, explain yourself, and then if people don't like it,
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: at least they're mad at you over something real instead
• 36:34
  Speaker 5: of some misunderstanding.
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: Do you feel like Democrats, Well, we know they are,
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: But when did the Democrats get so out of touch
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: with the needs of the American people?
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: That'd be a whole other hour. I think.
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: I think it's I think that's only half fair. So
• 36:51
  Speaker 5: I think it's I think we are still the ones
• 36:53
  Speaker 5: who are more connected. If I just think about the
• 36:56
  Speaker 5: policies of our administration, like they have been all about
• 36:59
  Speaker 5: making people lives better, everything down to make it easier
• 37:03
  Speaker 5: to get a hearing aid two thousand dollars cap on
• 37:05
  Speaker 5: Medicare insulin thirty five dollars insulin. We did that for seniors.
• 37:08
  Speaker 5: We could done that for everybody if Congressional Republicans hadn't
• 37:11
  Speaker 5: blocked us. I think we were right on the things
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: that affect everyday life. But the half way I do
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: agree with you is I think we got sucked into this,
• 37:20
  Speaker 5: this kind of vocabulary and this like swirl over what
• 37:24
  Speaker 5: matters online and what matters in Washington. That meant a
• 37:28
  Speaker 5: lot of the folks that we get up in the
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: morning trying to help can't even hear us. Can't even
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: make sense of what we're saying sometimes. And if if
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: we can't, if we can't fix that, then it won't
• 37:42
  Speaker 5: matter what our policies are because nobody will even know
• 37:45
  Speaker 5: that's right.
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: I always say the language of politics is dad.
• 37:48
  Speaker 4: That's why there's only a few people, I feel in
• 37:50
  Speaker 4: the Democratic Party who are able to message what you're
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: talking about. Like, yes, y'all might have better policies, but
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: you know how a methage them. You know not how
• 37:57
  Speaker 4: to promote them, you know how to market them. I
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: think you want to working on it. Shute is Bright,
• 38:01
  Speaker 4: Secretary of Pete.
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: Thanks, well, we have the Secretary of Transportation. We appreciate
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: you for joining us. We're gonna call you in a
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: couple of weeks. Off them drones. Keep going, man, we
• 38:09
  Speaker 2: need it, We need answers.
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: It's people to judge.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: It's the Breakfast Club.
• 38:12
  Speaker 3: Good morning.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up Earth in the morning.
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: The Breakfast Club.