Speaker 1: Hi Brian, Hi Katie, and hello listeners. Last week the
Speaker 1: podcast took us to Austin, Texas, and this week we're
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C. We're such world travelers, Brian, we
Speaker 1: are Katie. And in fact, on the plane over here,
Speaker 1: I sat next to a very nice guy named Grant
Speaker 1: Francis from Yes and he was about to download an
Speaker 1: episode of our show. Seriously, seriously, and you just saw
Speaker 1: him downloading it now, I just I was looking at
Speaker 1: his phone. Of course. As a matter of fact, I
Speaker 1: am actually the co host of that podcast. Thank you
Speaker 1: for the impression of my nasal voice. That is sort
Speaker 1: of what I said, hopefully a little less obnoxious. No no, no, no,
Speaker 1: But that was so cool. It was really cool, and
Speaker 1: he was very nice, and he said that he liked
Speaker 1: a couple past episodes of our show. So it was
Speaker 1: very nice to meet a listener. And Grant, thank you
Speaker 1: very much for listening. I second that, Grant, thank you
Speaker 1: for downloading our podcast, and we're glad you're enjoying it. Me.
Speaker 1: We're here in Washington to interview the junior senator from
Speaker 1: the state of Alabama, Senator Doug Jones. He's Alabama's first
Speaker 1: Democratic senator in twenty five years exactly. And this all
Speaker 1: came about because Jeff Sessions quit his Senate sy to
Speaker 1: become Donald Trump's Attorney General. I wonder whether he's still
Speaker 1: glad he left. By the way, anyway, there was a
Speaker 1: special election to replace Sessions, and Alabama, as many of
Speaker 1: our listeners know, because our listeners are very smart, is
Speaker 1: a deeply read state that went overwhelmingly for President Trump
Speaker 1: in two thousand sixteen. The empty seat was expected to
Speaker 1: go to a Republican candidate, any Republican candidate, quite easily.
Speaker 1: But but as our listeners are very smart listeners probably
Speaker 1: remember last fall, several women gave on the record accounts
Speaker 1: accusing the GOP candidate Roy Moore of making sexual advances
Speaker 1: toward them when they were teenagers. And by the way,
Speaker 1: the Washington Post just won a Politzer Prize for its
Speaker 1: coverage of that story. As congratulations to my friend to
Speaker 1: the Washington Post. So, Doug Jones defeated Roy Moore, and
Speaker 1: Alabama's African American voters in particular came out in overwhelming
Speaker 1: numbers in support of Jones, but not so much the
Speaker 1: white voters in Alabama. No, he only got thirty of
Speaker 1: the white vote, which was enough but barely enough to
Speaker 1: win so anyway, In today's show, we'll get to know
Speaker 1: Alabama's newest senator from his teenage years and newly integrated
Speaker 1: public schools to his role in prosecuting to Ku Klux
Speaker 1: Klan members responsible for an infamous nineteen sixty three Birmingham
Speaker 1: church bombing that killed four young black girls, and full
Speaker 1: disclosure Doug Jones. Senator Jones is a good friend of
Speaker 1: my second cousin, Henry Frozen and his lovely wife Caroline
Speaker 1: down of Birmingham, Alabama. And uh so I have a
Speaker 1: little bit of a connection with him through my cousin Henry,
Speaker 1: through your Gothic Southern roots. That's right. So here we
Speaker 1: are in his office, and it was it was very
Speaker 1: exciting to be able to interview Senator Jones to come
Speaker 1: to the Capitol. I always get a kick out of
Speaker 1: being here, no matter how many times I've been. And
Speaker 1: our first question to him was a very simple one.
Speaker 1: What is it like when Mr Jones comes to Washington
Speaker 1: here you are, Yeah, yeah, it's it's as exciting as
Speaker 1: it's ever been for me. What's exciting about it? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, a part of It is just surreal. And
Speaker 1: part of it the excitement is is just literally, you know,
Speaker 1: starting my career here, I mean with Senator Heflin from Alabama,
Speaker 1: who I just really looked up to his entire life
Speaker 1: and still do look up to him for advice in
Speaker 1: many ways. And to have walked off the Senate floor,
Speaker 1: which I think is a real place of reverence as
Speaker 1: a twenty six year old Senate staffer with him, and
Speaker 1: to come back in his seat, you know too many
Speaker 1: years later, but still to walk back on it is.
Speaker 1: I get chills every time I walk in and to
Speaker 1: just you know, walk off the elevator and those the
Speaker 1: pages open, those double doors, and to walk onto the floor,
Speaker 1: it's just remark it's just amazing. I'm just honored. I'm
Speaker 1: humbled to be here. It's just as exciting as actutive
Speaker 1: ever thought it might be. You're getting kind of Yeah,
Speaker 1: it will, it will absolutely. And I noticed here in
Speaker 1: your office, your new office, there's a picture and a
Speaker 1: place of honor above the man of you and Senator
Speaker 1: Heflun Yeah, he was. He was an amazing guy. The
Speaker 1: day I was sworn in, and I wore a pair
Speaker 1: of his cufflings. Uh. The only time I've worn him
Speaker 1: I got from his son who Uh Tom, Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: I think because well, first of all, you have to remember,
Speaker 1: the Senate is a far different place today than it
Speaker 1: was then. And in those days, you know, bipartisanship was
Speaker 1: really more than a catch slogan and a campaign or
Speaker 1: a sound bite. Uh, they really did it. And you know,
Speaker 1: you had regular order in which bills went through committees
Speaker 1: and there were hearings, and you get it to the
Speaker 1: Senate floor and you have the opportunities for amendments and
Speaker 1: real debates like the Senate was designed to do. And
Speaker 1: we just don't do that anymore. I mean there are
Speaker 1: senators that have been here for two and four years
Speaker 1: that really have never seen regular order. You know, that's
Speaker 1: what it is. And so that's he had that ability
Speaker 1: I think as a as a Southern Senator to really
Speaker 1: bridge the gaps a lot, to reach across the aisle.
Speaker 1: You know, he voted in with President Reagan a lot,
Speaker 1: he voted with President Clinton a lot. He was just
Speaker 1: a really great role model and would uh and and
Speaker 1: back home in Alabama. Uh, he was loved by all
Speaker 1: sorts of folks. I'll never forget in nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 1: When he first ran this was seventy eight, he had
Speaker 1: done the judicial article that the quote I always remember
Speaker 1: was from the director of the Alabama Civil Liberties Union
Speaker 1: with that, you know, pretty liberal group in Alabama and elsewhere.
Speaker 1: But his comment in a Time magazine article was that
Speaker 1: Judge Heflin is the kind of public servant of which he,
Speaker 1: his mother, and his grandmother can all agree. That says
Speaker 1: it all to me. If you can bridge that span
Speaker 1: of generations, you're really doing the right thing. I know
Speaker 1: we could probably spend hours talking about what happened, but Senator,
Speaker 1: you know, you're just describing what it was like here
Speaker 1: when you were a Senate staffer, and now it seems
Speaker 1: completely dysfunctional. Yes, no, I won't say it's completely dysfunctional,
Speaker 1: but it's it's close. Um. The budget process is just horrible.
Speaker 1: It is just something that we should not You should
Speaker 1: not be funding the government of the United States on
Speaker 1: a kick the can down the road basis, and everybody
Speaker 1: trying to put must have um, you know, special things
Speaker 1: in a in a budget bill and a must pass bill.
Speaker 1: I think it's a long time coming. Um. I can't
Speaker 1: really pinpoint one thing I think you go back to
Speaker 1: the Clinton in peachment and how folks really started attacking
Speaker 1: uh President Clinton, Uh and the first lady at the time.
Speaker 1: I think that carried over some and folks attacked George W. Bush,
Speaker 1: except for you know, after nine eleven and in people
Speaker 1: rallied around. But since that time and with the election
Speaker 1: of Barack Obama, it just seems that everything has become
Speaker 1: more and more and more polarized and rancor us and
Speaker 1: the votes that are done are really political messaging votes.
Speaker 1: A lot even on nominees their political messaging votes. Um.
Speaker 1: I will say, Katie, there's a lot more collegiality in
Speaker 1: the Senate that goes on that that people don't see,
Speaker 1: and that has been very good for me to be
Speaker 1: able to see. You often see the dueling press conferences,
Speaker 1: or you see you know, one senator from either party
Speaker 1: going on the floor and railing against whatever or railing
Speaker 1: for something. But what you don't often see as work
Speaker 1: going on with staff and behind the scenes, UM, in
Speaker 1: the committee level. You don't see when we take votes
Speaker 1: over there people on both sides of the all talking
Speaker 1: to each other, not just hidden back in the cloak rooms,
Speaker 1: but they're they're talking about their kids, and they're talking
Speaker 1: about different There's a lot more of that, but it
Speaker 1: just comes to when it comes down to the schedule
Speaker 1: of the Senate. The majority leader controls that, and I
Speaker 1: think the majority leader, whether it has been Republican or Democrat,
Speaker 1: has controlled that in a little bit more political way
Speaker 1: than what the Senate has traditionally done in the past.
Speaker 1: There's been a lot of discussion about members of Congress
Speaker 1: not spending time together because they're so quick to go
Speaker 1: home and you know, run for re election and the
Speaker 1: fundraising needs are so But you're saying, have you been
Speaker 1: able to spend time with people from you know, Republican
Speaker 1: senators in a social way? Some not as much as
Speaker 1: as as I would like. I've some for lunch, We've
Speaker 1: met for breakfast. Um, most of that time has been
Speaker 1: spent on the floor when we're over there for a vote,
Speaker 1: just talking or at a committee uh level. But that's
Speaker 1: that's right. People leave. I get out of here on
Speaker 1: on Thursdays. I've told you I've been here three and
Speaker 1: a half almost four months now. I don't know what Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. It looks like anymore, because I I get
Speaker 1: to the office I have a really full schedule. I'm
Speaker 1: back and forth to the Capitol, or I'm back and
Speaker 1: forth to the dirks in our heart building for for hearings. UH.
Speaker 1: As soon as the order of business is done, there's
Speaker 1: a reception for somebody in Alabama, or there's a fundraising
Speaker 1: reception for someone else, or for me. Go back to
Speaker 1: my little place at nine o'clock at night, read the
Speaker 1: briefing books for the next day, get up and do
Speaker 1: it all over again. So there's not as much I
Speaker 1: think people do miss, you know, the weekends where folks
Speaker 1: didn't feel compelled to go home. But it's the world
Speaker 1: we live in today that's not as much. Congress. I
Speaker 1: think that as much as anything is the demands of
Speaker 1: our the people that we represent. They want to see us.
Speaker 1: You used to run a campaign against somebody who gets
Speaker 1: detached from the people at home. They don't go home anymore.
Speaker 1: They stay in Washington, d C. And you run against
Speaker 1: the Beltway. So people started going home, and people started
Speaker 1: demanding they want to see their U. S. Senator, even
Speaker 1: if they didn't vote for him or her. They want
Speaker 1: to see, they want to talk, they want to be
Speaker 1: able to reach out at least that's my philosophy. So
Speaker 1: we're we're getting back home a lot, uh and starting
Speaker 1: to try to move around. When you talked about rising partisanship,
Speaker 1: you mentioned the opposition to President Obama, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk more about race later. But how much of um,
Speaker 1: the intense opposition to him do you think was driven
Speaker 1: by the fact that he was the first African American president. Well, personally,
Speaker 1: I think it was. I think there was a good
Speaker 1: bit um, but that kind of bubbled up from the ground.
Speaker 1: I don't I don't. I don't abscribe that to any
Speaker 1: of the in the Senate. I really don't believe that.
Speaker 1: I think it was just a political thing and that
Speaker 1: folks saw an opportunity because there was such opposition there
Speaker 1: were You couldn't find anybody in Alabama that would ever
Speaker 1: say that they were opposed to President Obama because of
Speaker 1: his race. But you always knew that that was an
Speaker 1: underlying part of a good bit of the opposition. There's
Speaker 1: no question, ever admit that nobody's ever gonna mean, not
Speaker 1: many people. But when Donald Trump raised the issue of
Speaker 1: his birth certificate, do you think he was playing the
Speaker 1: race card? Yes, absolutely, I think he I think I
Speaker 1: think it was playing a race card. But I also
Speaker 1: think he was playing a Trump card, for lack of
Speaker 1: a better term. I mean, I quite frankly think that
Speaker 1: that was as much as anything, because he knew that
Speaker 1: there was a base out there that that believed that
Speaker 1: there were a lot of people that really believed that
Speaker 1: and thought that and it was so bogus. But Trump
Speaker 1: saws an opportunity to play that card to build his
Speaker 1: uh stature some And then you know, it was only
Speaker 1: after it got completely debunked and he saw it was
Speaker 1: gonna be a negative for him that he very timidly said,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, well maybe I was not right. I don't
Speaker 1: even think he said that seat of Donald Trump. He's
Speaker 1: been president for a little over a year. Now, how
Speaker 1: do you think he's doing so far? But before you
Speaker 1: tell us that, have you met him? Yeah? I have.
Speaker 1: He called me the day after the election, was very nice, um,
Speaker 1: you know, congratulating me on the win, said he was
Speaker 1: looking forward to having me to the White House and
Speaker 1: to work together. There was no you know, there was
Speaker 1: nothing you which begs a very nice call. Uh. It
Speaker 1: took about a month I think when we the first
Speaker 1: government shut down. I mean, think of this how many,
Speaker 1: how many how many senators get sworn in and then
Speaker 1: they have a chance to shut the government down after
Speaker 1: a month. I mean, that's just was crazy. Um. And
Speaker 1: when we voted back up, he called over here and
Speaker 1: asked that I and Senator Mansion go to the White House,
Speaker 1: and so we went over there that afternoon, and again
Speaker 1: it was just a pleasant conversation. Um. You know, General
Speaker 1: Kelly was there, there were a couple of other folks
Speaker 1: in the room, and there was not any kind of
Speaker 1: hard bargains. You know, DACA and immigration was the biggest
Speaker 1: issue driving things at that point, but there was none
Speaker 1: of that. There was a little bit of talk of that.
Speaker 1: There was some talk about infrastructure. I told him about
Speaker 1: some specific infrastructure issues with sewers and things like that
Speaker 1: in Alabama that I thought he should know about. So
Speaker 1: it's just a little pleasant call. That was the only
Speaker 1: that's been the only time I've seen the legislative folks
Speaker 1: a couple times. And you you actually were there. Wasn't
Speaker 1: just a call, no, no, no, we went over there.
Speaker 1: We were we sat in the Oval office, and you know,
Speaker 1: we were there, and he just he wanted to the
Speaker 1: southern kind of call. Yeah, that's what I mean. We
Speaker 1: called on him. He called on up and and and
Speaker 1: so we but we were there. They were literally holding
Speaker 1: a vote for me and Joe because the President just
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to talk a little bit. And I
Speaker 1: think he enjoyed the talk, and we we kicked around
Speaker 1: a few things. We were there about forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: I guess, and and literally had to just like zoom back,
Speaker 1: and he was pleasant to us. It was it was
Speaker 1: a nice conversation. I had no no complaints about that
Speaker 1: conversation at all. President Trump has been in office a
Speaker 1: little over a year. How do you think he's doing
Speaker 1: so far? Well. I think it's a mixed bag. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think the President is doing some a lot of
Speaker 1: what he said he was going to do, and and
Speaker 1: in that respect, respect, you've got to, you know, give
Speaker 1: him some high marks, even though I don't like a
Speaker 1: lot of the things he's doing. I don't like a
Speaker 1: lot of the rollbacks he's doing by executive orders and
Speaker 1: those kind of things. I don't like the fact that
Speaker 1: e p. A Is being dismantled right before our eyes.
Speaker 1: I don't like the fact that he has done some
Speaker 1: things on foreign policy that I think has has diminished
Speaker 1: the United States of America standing in the world. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you know that all of the tariffs, I
Speaker 1: think all of the just things he's done in Europe
Speaker 1: to just basically pull away from, you know, being the
Speaker 1: world leader and the moral leader of the world that
Speaker 1: we've always been, I think that that is pulling back.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, he showed some toughness in Syria.
Speaker 1: Uh he is. I didn't particularly like the name calling
Speaker 1: with North Korea, and that scared me to death. But
Speaker 1: there's you know, he's at least I think they're planning
Speaker 1: some things and people are a little bit more hopeful
Speaker 1: now about some resolution with North Korea about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he brought Kim john n ostensibly or apparently to the table,
Speaker 1: and I think people have mixed feelings about it. You
Speaker 1: think it's a good thing, Well, I think, Look, any
Speaker 1: time that you can deflate the tensions that we had
Speaker 1: there about four or five months ago, I think that's
Speaker 1: a good thing. Now. I think people got very concerned,
Speaker 1: as did I. And this was before I was elected.
Speaker 1: When you started seeing Twitter wars, which was just silly
Speaker 1: junior high school name calling rocket man, you know, just
Speaker 1: all sorts of things beneath the dignity of the President
Speaker 1: of the United States. On the other hand, I also
Speaker 1: know enough about the United States government to know there
Speaker 1: was a lot going on behind the scenes. And so
Speaker 1: I think between what the administration has done, uh and
Speaker 1: what the world has kind of done as well, because
Speaker 1: we're not the only ones putting pressure on North Korea.
Speaker 1: Their their economy isn't the shambles. They're incredibly poor. Um,
Speaker 1: they need the world. They need the world a lot
Speaker 1: more than the world needs them. And so I think
Speaker 1: there was a combination of things that is, at least
Speaker 1: for the time being, kind of ratcheted down the threat level.
Speaker 1: That's not to say that their North Korea is not
Speaker 1: still a threat, because they certainly are. And I don't
Speaker 1: take the recent events of pulling back and suspending their
Speaker 1: nuclear testing as anything more than what is normally done
Speaker 1: in anticipation of more talks. I mean, that's fairly standard
Speaker 1: for even a road nation like like North Korea. Right now,
Speaker 1: we'll see how that goes. And we've now started trade
Speaker 1: wars with China when we really need China to help
Speaker 1: us with North Korea. It's a real complicated thing, which
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, Katie, is is all of those
Speaker 1: answers you gotta figure a year ago. I'm just a
Speaker 1: lawyer in Birmingham alumn Okay, So so keep all this
Speaker 1: in mind when I'm I'm waxing eloquent. I'm still learning
Speaker 1: a lot. But the criticism has been that you shouldn't
Speaker 1: reward Kim jongun with a presidential meeting without having demonstrated
Speaker 1: real meeting progress. I don't disagree with that at all.
Speaker 1: And we're not there yet. We that meeting is not
Speaker 1: taking place. I think what's come out of the administration
Speaker 1: is he would like to I don't have a problem
Speaker 1: with that, but we'll see. Because I am of the
Speaker 1: camp that certainly, uh, there needs to be something more
Speaker 1: than oh, we're going to suspend right now before the
Speaker 1: leader of the free world meets with someone like, uh,
Speaker 1: the North Korean leader. Sounds like you're willing to give
Speaker 1: President Trump some some prompts on a few things. Sure,
Speaker 1: I mean, he's you know, look, he's the thing. He's
Speaker 1: being treated unfairly in the media. I'm not sure I'll
Speaker 1: go that far, because I think he treats the media
Speaker 1: a lot more unfairly than the media treat him. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't buy into the fake news argument or anything
Speaker 1: like that. Um. I've got my own criticism some of
Speaker 1: the media where I think the media focuses on issues
Speaker 1: that sell newspapers and podcast and you know, and and
Speaker 1: thist not this one, of course not um. But you know,
Speaker 1: so there there's a combination of things. Um. Has he
Speaker 1: been treated unfairly in certain circumstances, Yes, But at the
Speaker 1: same time, you know, there's some things he he has
Speaker 1: said and done that I think is fair game. A
Speaker 1: lot of what he's done is fair game. So I
Speaker 1: don't think overall, I don't think he's been treated unfairly
Speaker 1: at all. On the other hand, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: when did we think that we were going to use
Speaker 1: the term the president in the same sentence as a
Speaker 1: porn star? I mean what what? Yeah, no, no, I
Speaker 1: I get it. It's it will almost daily make your
Speaker 1: head explode. I mean that and all the other allegations
Speaker 1: that that have come up, and the collusion and and
Speaker 1: whether a lawyer is going to flip or not flip
Speaker 1: flip on what I mean. It's there is a cavalcative
Speaker 1: things that are are disturbing. I think for people to
Speaker 1: look at and there's a lot I know of a
Speaker 1: lot of investigations, and so in that context, I don't
Speaker 1: think that there's an unfairness at all with that. My
Speaker 1: concern is that the president is able to use his
Speaker 1: social media platform to basically say, just don't look at
Speaker 1: any of that. It's all fake. Well it's it's not
Speaker 1: all fake. I mean, there are facts out there, and
Speaker 1: sooner or later, there's a lot of facts that are
Speaker 1: gonna come out. We just don't know where they're gonna land.
Speaker 1: You've been a practicing lawyer your whole life and a
Speaker 1: former U S attorney, were also a defense attorney, So
Speaker 1: I was curious to ask you about how you've felt
Speaker 1: when you see what's going on with the president's lawyer,
Speaker 1: Michael Cohen, and what kinds of things, Senator, would you
Speaker 1: be looking for if you were in charge of this investigation. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's a that's a that's a pretty loaded question. Um.
Speaker 1: First of all, let me let me let's let's back
Speaker 1: up just a little bit, because having a search warrant
Speaker 1: executed on the office and the home of a lawyer
Speaker 1: and the hotel room and the hotel is it there's
Speaker 1: a number of steps that you have to go through,
Speaker 1: and you know you have to. So let's go back,
Speaker 1: and you know, the Special Counsel presented some evidence to
Speaker 1: the Justice Department that, however they got it, they believe
Speaker 1: showed that there was some potential criminal activity. Remember, it's
Speaker 1: just a probable call standard, it's not proof beyond a
Speaker 1: reasonable doubt or anything like that. And so the Special
Speaker 1: Counsel presented that to Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General
Speaker 1: who's in charge of that. That was appropriate for them
Speaker 1: to do. In any major investigation. When you're subpoenaing as
Speaker 1: many witnesses and as many documents, the odds are you're
Speaker 1: going to find something outside of your lane that you
Speaker 1: see as a potential problem. It happens in every major investigation.
Speaker 1: And the Special Council stand up situation though his lane
Speaker 1: is is such that unless it's really related, he shouldn't
Speaker 1: be doing it. So he presented it to the Dag
Speaker 1: and Rosenstein says, this is not in your lane. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna move it to where it needs to be.
Speaker 1: So that's step number one. Everybody did their exact right thing.
Speaker 1: They did exactly what the law requires. Rosenstein then assigns it,
Speaker 1: they look at it, and I can to the U.
Speaker 1: S Attorney for the Southern District, who I understood me
Speaker 1: have recused himself. But let now they're there are prosecutors
Speaker 1: on the ground, just like in my office in Birmingham
Speaker 1: where that are looking at this and are evaluating this
Speaker 1: evidence for probable cause to see that a crime was committed,
Speaker 1: that Mr Cohen may have been involved in the crime,
Speaker 1: and that there are documents in his possession that they
Speaker 1: can't really get hold of or they don't believe they
Speaker 1: can get except through the use of a search warrant,
Speaker 1: which is a pretty extraordinary procedure. And so there's layer
Speaker 1: upon layer of review within the Justice Department in order
Speaker 1: to get approval to then go to a judge who
Speaker 1: has to review it independently before that search warrant is issued.
Speaker 1: So Mr Cohen's in trouble, I mean, he's I mean,
Speaker 1: there's some real issue now. I've seen in my in
Speaker 1: my lifetime, in my career, there have been any number
Speaker 1: of search warrants issued that resulted in no criminal charges
Speaker 1: for whatever reason. Could that be the case here? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: But the fact is the rule of law is prevailing
Speaker 1: at this point, and I'm convinced the rule of all
Speaker 1: will prevail and if there's a problem there, he will
Speaker 1: get charged. If there's not a problem, and I'm convinced
Speaker 1: the rule of all will prevail and that case will
Speaker 1: be closed. But it's a really that's and that's just Cohen.
Speaker 1: And then you've got Mueller's special counsel doing their own work,
Speaker 1: and unknown Bob Mueller a long time. Um, he is
Speaker 1: the consummate professional. Everybody up here believes that and knows that,
Speaker 1: at least here in the Senate, he is moving efficiently.
Speaker 1: He is doing so without a lot of leaks, which
Speaker 1: is incredibly important. Um. And so you know there's gonna
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some things yet to fall. They're doing
Speaker 1: a lot of work. Where that goes, no one knows,
Speaker 1: and we shouldn't continue to speculate about that. Until said that, though,
Speaker 1: if you were President Trump, would you be more worried
Speaker 1: about Michael Cohen or Bob Muller. Well, I think that
Speaker 1: anytime somebody's lawyer is subpoena and you would have to
Speaker 1: worry about that because there are potentially things that could
Speaker 1: come to light that are generally you would have thought
Speaker 1: privileged that may not be a crime, but you just
Speaker 1: don't want them to do that. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: it's a little bit inconsistent from what I'm hearing right
Speaker 1: now is that I'm not worried about Michael Cohen flipping. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, if somebody has not done anything wrong,
Speaker 1: you know, you should be the first to say, Michael,
Speaker 1: please cooperate, give him everything, look at all this, And
Speaker 1: instead it's like, oh, I trust him, He's not gonna flip.
Speaker 1: That's a little bit disturbing, and it tells me unfortunately
Speaker 1: for the President, he is not listening to his lawyers
Speaker 1: because I guarantee his his personal lawyers are just cringe
Speaker 1: every time something like that is said, because it makes him.
Speaker 1: I think he's not versed enough in this world of
Speaker 1: federal criminal law to understand the terminology, and he's saying
Speaker 1: things that really make him look bad. I would I
Speaker 1: would be I would be locking him in a safe
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm just telling you, I would. You know.
Speaker 1: The worst thing is to have clients out there on
Speaker 1: Twitter and talking I like that because they it always
Speaker 1: comes back to haunt you. You know, Katie in the
Speaker 1: church bombing cases and one of the things that we
Speaker 1: did in Charity's case. After he was interviewed, he called
Speaker 1: a press conference and we used his statements as evidence
Speaker 1: against him, but with a number of things he said.
Speaker 1: So you know, all the clients should listen to their lawyers,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk more about that case in a moment.
Speaker 1: But one last thing. You said that everybody up here
Speaker 1: respects Bob Mueller. That said Mitch McConnell won't bring up
Speaker 1: legislation to protect Mueller's investigation in case the President at
Speaker 1: some point decides to fire him. Why do you think
Speaker 1: he's said, I don't know. I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: that there's a bipartisan bill that I think is a
Speaker 1: very reasonable bill. I don't know. It's got to come
Speaker 1: out of committee. I think it might this week. And
Speaker 1: one reason maybe because Senator McConnell doesn't think it would
Speaker 1: ever pass the House, UH and the President would never
Speaker 1: sign it. From my standpoint, that's not a reason not
Speaker 1: to put it up. I think the Senate of the
Speaker 1: United States needs to speak on that issue and let
Speaker 1: folks know where they stay end uh, and if they
Speaker 1: stand with trying to protect the Special Counsel as a
Speaker 1: body Uh, they ought to say so if they don't
Speaker 1: want to do that, they need to be on record
Speaker 1: and to say that they don't. And when you heard
Speaker 1: that about Mitch McConnell, I mean, what did you think.
Speaker 1: I just was disappointed. Um, there may be things in
Speaker 1: his mind that I just don't know. I would hope
Speaker 1: that that would come up. I would hope that that
Speaker 1: if that can get through the committee in a bipartisan way,
Speaker 1: there would be enough pressure from his own caucus to say,
Speaker 1: you know, bring to this, this to the going back
Speaker 1: to this regular order business. I think that there are
Speaker 1: times when the Senator of the United States needs to speak.
Speaker 1: Let the chips fall where they're going to fall, but speak,
Speaker 1: let that message go forth, and it doesn't matter whether
Speaker 1: the House would go along with it or the president.
Speaker 1: We're an independent body and we need to speak. We'll
Speaker 1: be back shortly with Alabama Senator Doud Jones right after
Speaker 1: this time to dig into the listener mail bag, everybody.
Speaker 1: Thank you to our listeners who responded to our request
Speaker 1: for dispatches from rural areas. We wanted to hear from
Speaker 1: folks and communities that have been impacted by factory closings.
Speaker 1: The opioid epidemic and or battles over immigration. So we
Speaker 1: got this voicemail from an anonymous listener who I think
Speaker 1: really sums up some of the challenges in rural America
Speaker 1: right now. And let's listen. My parents live in Skinny Ollis,
Speaker 1: New York, which is adjacent to Cortland that used to
Speaker 1: be the home of Wilf Tennis rackets, broadway truck and
Speaker 1: a sewing machine company. And unfortunately to town is completely
Speaker 1: dried up since it's been so impoverished. The opioid epidemic
Speaker 1: is run rampant through um these towns. Lack of funding,
Speaker 1: lack of business, lack of trade brings fewer dollars to
Speaker 1: the community, which means there's less police present, which makes
Speaker 1: it even more prone to high crime. But the setting
Speaker 1: it's so rampant that um, I believe it's also causing
Speaker 1: many people their lives from from suicide. We really appreciate
Speaker 1: that call, and sadly, Brian, what that gentleman was talking
Speaker 1: about is all too true. In fact, there's something called
Speaker 1: deaths of despair which talks about people taking their own
Speaker 1: lives or turning to drugs or alcohol, and many people
Speaker 1: are dying in record numbers. In my White working Class
Speaker 1: or White Anxiety episode, Erie, Pennsylvania has its suicide rate
Speaker 1: has skyrocketed and the average ages of forty seven year
Speaker 1: old white male. It's a huge problem in many rural
Speaker 1: and rust belt community all over the country. That's right.
Speaker 1: And a lot of these areas have a lack of
Speaker 1: access to drug treatment and mental health treatment. So all
Speaker 1: of these problems are really compounded by the lack of
Speaker 1: resources for people who need help. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the things we tried to do in this episode
Speaker 1: is to actually hear from people in these communities and
Speaker 1: understand the struggles that they're dealing with as this economic
Speaker 1: transition has left many of them out in the cold.
Speaker 1: As always, thank you so much for calling, Thank you
Speaker 1: for your honesty, and we really really appreciate your feedback.
Speaker 1: It's important for us to hear from all of you.
Speaker 1: Next up your Brain on tech, more specifically tech addiction.
Speaker 1: That's a topic from America inside out that will be
Speaker 1: tackling next on this podcast. Is technology causing all of
Speaker 1: us to somehow lose our humanity. We want to hear
Speaker 1: from those of you who think you have a real
Speaker 1: problem with tech like quite honestly, I did. Maybe you're
Speaker 1: hooked on your martphone or someone close to you is
Speaker 1: when did you realize this was an issue? How is
Speaker 1: it impacting your life, your relationship, the way you spend time,
Speaker 1: or maybe you've put your foot down and refused to
Speaker 1: get a smartphone, or you've gone back to a flip phone.
Speaker 1: We want to hear about that as well, So call
Speaker 1: and leave us a message at nine to nine to
Speaker 1: to four four six three seven, or you can email
Speaker 1: us at comments at current podcast dot com. Or you
Speaker 1: can check out our episode from last August with Gene
Speaker 1: Twingy on tech Addiction. I thought it was a particularly
Speaker 1: interesting and insightful one. That's episode number thirty six on
Speaker 1: your podcast player. Let's talk a little bit about your backstory, Senator,
Speaker 1: because you're the first Democrat to win the ruby red
Speaker 1: state of Alabama since and um, you grew up obviously
Speaker 1: in Birmingham and such a tumultuous time and really the
Speaker 1: height of the civil rights movement, and I'm curious what
Speaker 1: you remember growing up. And I was also interested to
Speaker 1: read that you come from a family of George Wallace. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they were supporters, supporters, what sort of gave you an
Speaker 1: epiphany growing up that this mentality needed to be challenged.
Speaker 1: I think that there was a combination of of a
Speaker 1: lot of things. And my family was a pretty conservative.
Speaker 1: They were George Wallace backers, but they weren't haters. They
Speaker 1: weren't a vowed racist. And there was a big difference
Speaker 1: because Wallace was not only race baiting, but he was
Speaker 1: also running against the federal government zone and there was
Speaker 1: this protection that Alabama has. You know, people often say
Speaker 1: Missouri is the show me state in Alabama's to make
Speaker 1: me state, and that's there's a there's been some truth
Speaker 1: to that over the years. I was nine years old,
Speaker 1: for instance, in sixty three, and as the world change,
Speaker 1: it seemed that kids changed easier than parents did. Parents
Speaker 1: and grandparents who had grown up in a society in
Speaker 1: which there were norms. Me. You can call it America's
Speaker 1: on or part out or whatever you call it, but
Speaker 1: that's where things were. You know, when I was in school,
Speaker 1: you know, we started having integrated schools. It was freedom
Speaker 1: of choice plans, and I think kids adapted. My school
Speaker 1: did a pretty good job I think of adapting to
Speaker 1: those things, the band, the football team, everything that sounds
Speaker 1: like you did a good job too. I thought it
Speaker 1: was very moving to read accounts from African American students
Speaker 1: who went to school with you and the kind of
Speaker 1: person you were and the way you reached out to
Speaker 1: them in a way that quite frankly, many of your
Speaker 1: white classmates didn't. Well, I think the goal was going back.
Speaker 1: You know, we had a predominantly white high school, we
Speaker 1: had an all black high school in the photo courts
Speaker 1: combined them all. And the one thing I learned in
Speaker 1: my like freshman and first part of my sophomore year
Speaker 1: and high school was what how much fun high school
Speaker 1: can be? And and so I think there were with
Speaker 1: me and others wanted to make that high school experience
Speaker 1: what it should be. It should be fun, you know,
Speaker 1: you should do all the things that teenagers do, both
Speaker 1: good and bad. And the only way to do that
Speaker 1: is to try to reach out and to talk to people,
Speaker 1: and to try to accommodate. When you've got two schools
Speaker 1: coming together and they've got different, completely different traditions, trying
Speaker 1: to mold those two, you can't force one on the other.
Speaker 1: The student council president, I was, you know, what what
Speaker 1: can I say? You should say it's you know, it's
Speaker 1: interesting that the KKK has played a significant role in
Speaker 1: your life for a long time. I mean, I remember
Speaker 1: reading in law school. You would cut class to see
Speaker 1: this this case, this church bombing case, which you resuscitated
Speaker 1: as the U S attorney much later in your career.
Speaker 1: Can you describe that case, why it was so important
Speaker 1: to you, and what ultimately happened with it and what
Speaker 1: you saw when you were a law student. Well, what
Speaker 1: I saw when I was a law student it was
Speaker 1: a dramatic courtroom drama. I mean, I wanted to be
Speaker 1: a trial lawyer. To me, lawyers, you know, weren't weren't
Speaker 1: people sitting at desk closing loans and things like that,
Speaker 1: and they's they're great. I'm not saying anything bad about
Speaker 1: any of that. Laws. We love lawyers all all kinds.
Speaker 1: But to me, lawyers were Perry Mason and people in
Speaker 1: courtrooms and you know, and the Atticus Finch, the drama,
Speaker 1: the justice. All of that came from being a trial lawyer.
Speaker 1: And that's what I so when I cut classes, it
Speaker 1: was not just because it was a significant historical case.
Speaker 1: And by the way, can you just quickly parenthetically described
Speaker 1: that case for our listeners to remind them. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three, September fift on a Sunday morning,
Speaker 1: a bomb exploded at him been placed outside underneath the
Speaker 1: steps of the sixteenth Street Baptist Church and right but
Speaker 1: by it was the large oneow that led straight into
Speaker 1: the ladies lounge in the basement of the church, and
Speaker 1: there were five young girls. They're getting ready for a
Speaker 1: youth worship service and that momb killed four. Uh. It
Speaker 1: was a Sunday morning, between Sunday school and church. It
Speaker 1: was gonna be a youth worship service and those girls
Speaker 1: were down there to be part and to get ready
Speaker 1: for that. And it was a real, I believe, turning
Speaker 1: moment a Birmingham had just gone through uh, fire hoses
Speaker 1: and dogs in the spring of sixty three. What what
Speaker 1: people forget is that the schools of Birmingham were gonna
Speaker 1: were integrated like five days before that bombing, which was
Speaker 1: really I think that the catalyst for for why that
Speaker 1: bomb was planted there. And the case went unsolved despite
Speaker 1: incredible efforts of the FBI and prosecutors at the time,
Speaker 1: they just couldn't quite make it. There was only a
Speaker 1: five year statue of limitations in federal court. So the
Speaker 1: case was closed, and then a young Alabama Attorney General,
Speaker 1: Bill Backsley opened it up in nineteen seventy one when
Speaker 1: he was sworn in as Alabama's a G. Brought the
Speaker 1: case against Robert Chambliss, known as Dynamite Bob Um. You
Speaker 1: can't make this up, you know, in ninety seven, and
Speaker 1: that's when I thought, Okay, this is not a just
Speaker 1: a historical case. Baxley is one of the great trial lawyers.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a trial lawyer. So just like
Speaker 1: three years before, I'd been with Supreme Court Justice William O.
Speaker 1: Douglas on a trip when he took to Alabama University
Speaker 1: of Alabama and I and then talking about advice for
Speaker 1: a young trial lawyer, he said, go watch trials, Go
Speaker 1: see good trial lawyers ply their trade. And so that
Speaker 1: was the perfect opportunity. And I sat in the balcony
Speaker 1: most of the time. I sneak up in the balcony
Speaker 1: and watched from above the testimony and Bill's dramatic closing argument,
Speaker 1: in which everybody in the courtroom was in tears. He
Speaker 1: convicted Chambliss. Chambliss went to his grave from prison, never
Speaker 1: ever talking about the cases, and you know, it kind
Speaker 1: of stayed on a shelf for twenty four years, And
Speaker 1: it was right before I became the U S Attorney
Speaker 1: in nine seven that publicly it was announced that it
Speaker 1: was reopened. And you know, I'll never forget the day
Speaker 1: when I read that it was gonna be open. I
Speaker 1: told my wife, you know, Louise, this is kind of
Speaker 1: why you go back to be a public servant, because
Speaker 1: this is an opportunity here and it's gonna define how
Speaker 1: we do things in the States. So it's amazing. How
Speaker 1: hard was it to prosecute the cases of the two
Speaker 1: other individuals. You know, it sounds harder than it was.
Speaker 1: It was hard to investigate. There were so many people
Speaker 1: had died, witnesses, potential witnesses we were tracking down. We
Speaker 1: didn't have any real physical evidence. So putting the pieces
Speaker 1: of that puzzle together was extraordinary. And we you know,
Speaker 1: Bobby Frank Cherry was one of the defendants. He made
Speaker 1: certain admissions over the years that people came forward and
Speaker 1: told us about. We found in a tape recording that
Speaker 1: had been made of a of a bug that had
Speaker 1: been put in Tommy Blanton's apartment talking to his then
Speaker 1: wife about the bombing and what he was doing that weekend.
Speaker 1: So things just fell in place for us, so that
Speaker 1: when we finally got to trial, we had a process
Speaker 1: that we stuck to consistently, and it everything worked really good.
Speaker 1: We had a good judge, the defense lawyers were lawyers
Speaker 1: that we trusted, and they trusted us, so there was
Speaker 1: not a lot of really anger or anything. It was
Speaker 1: a very methodical presentation, and I just felt very good
Speaker 1: that at the end of the day we painted a picture.
Speaker 1: The pieces of those puzzle at the end were pulled
Speaker 1: together in closing arguments that showed beyond a reasonable doubt
Speaker 1: that those two guys were guilty. That must have been
Speaker 1: an extraordinarily important moment for the city of Birmingham, and
Speaker 1: for the state of Alma, and for the country. Really,
Speaker 1: and yet here we are. I was in Charlottesville, Virginia
Speaker 1: senator when that so called all right, really white supremacist
Speaker 1: neo Nazi rally took place, and I remember listening to
Speaker 1: Reverend Tracy Blackman from Ferguson, Missouri the night before at
Speaker 1: an interface service when there were scores of white, predominantly
Speaker 1: white men, many of them young, and Brooks brother Khakis
Speaker 1: and Isazad you know, what do you call this lacast
Speaker 1: shirts uh looking all neat and clean with their torches,
Speaker 1: their tiki torches. And she said, the clan is rising
Speaker 1: again because we never cut the head off. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you saw those scenes from Charlottesville, my my, my heart sunk.
Speaker 1: I mean, you just you cannot believe that that's still going.
Speaker 1: You see the images, you see that the chance, I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just stunning to me. And remember a year
Speaker 1: before that it was Dylan Rufe going into another church
Speaker 1: in Charleston, South Carolina and killing nine p people um
Speaker 1: and talking about the race war things that we heard
Speaker 1: from the nineteen sixties and and all the Confederate battle
Speaker 1: flags that are flying and things like this. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I would say you didn't cut the head off,
Speaker 1: because you know, I think that Mars Desent some mothers
Speaker 1: really did an incredible job about the organized clan. This
Speaker 1: is not this is different. The rise of social media
Speaker 1: has allowed you know, hate groups to come up as
Speaker 1: Internet groups that can get together when they talk among themselves.
Speaker 1: You know, even as early when I was your attorney,
Speaker 1: I was there from one I would give speeches to
Speaker 1: uh PTA groups, to say, monitor to your kids. I mean,
Speaker 1: those were old days of a O L group chats
Speaker 1: and things like that, not anywhere like it is today.
Speaker 1: But to monitor that because you were beginning to see
Speaker 1: the rise of folks who harbored these feelings. There were
Speaker 1: a lot of lone wolves that we saw in the
Speaker 1: early two thousands, uh in Texas, in Illinois and other
Speaker 1: places that were committing these hate crimes. It's certainly one
Speaker 1: of those things that I don't understand. But yet I
Speaker 1: from an intellectual standpoint, I can see the rise. With
Speaker 1: the social media presence that we have now, it just
Speaker 1: breeds that kind of kind of interaction. So but but
Speaker 1: it's and and that's hard to cut because you can
Speaker 1: you can change laws, you can prosecute people, you can
Speaker 1: do all those things, but that doesn't change somebody's heart.
Speaker 1: What was your reaction when President Trump said that there
Speaker 1: were fine people and almost almost yelled at the TV,
Speaker 1: I'm Mr President, there are no fine people among white
Speaker 1: supremacists and clans and neo Nazis. They're not They're not
Speaker 1: fine people. So why do you think you said that
Speaker 1: I have no idea? Well, you really have no idea.
Speaker 1: You don't think he was trying to appeal to that group,
Speaker 1: used it as part of his face. You know, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna go there, you know, I I just
Speaker 1: I see that, and intellectually you can ways say that.
Speaker 1: I have no idea. Sometimes politicians say stupid things to
Speaker 1: not to just try to appeal, but to try to
Speaker 1: play both sides. I don't want to accuse him of that,
Speaker 1: although I've probably done it in the past. I just
Speaker 1: think that that was just all button moronic statement. Book.
Speaker 1: And what really bothered me about at the most is
Speaker 1: that the president had such an opportunity to drive a
Speaker 1: stake in somebody's heart, to say, to to cut the
Speaker 1: head off a little bit about Donald Trump, of all
Speaker 1: people could have done that, and if he'd done it
Speaker 1: the right way, it would have been so significant. And
Speaker 1: he missed that opportunity. And whether he intended or not,
Speaker 1: it did embolden people. There's no question that that statements
Speaker 1: like that, uh and and to some extent his campaign
Speaker 1: emboldened that aught right in the neo Nazi folks. In
Speaker 1: words matter asked someone from Alabama, you know, Brian Stevenson
Speaker 1: is opening his lynching museum, and in this episode for
Speaker 1: Naccio that I did about Confederate monuments. Uh. He talked
Speaker 1: about the history we've neglected by E. Lynch ing, Uh,
Speaker 1: slavery and the long Tail and the Jim Crow South.
Speaker 1: How do you feel about Confederate statute, Senator, Well, one,
Speaker 1: I'm going down to this weekend for the e g
Speaker 1: I opening is but most of the events and I
Speaker 1: can't wait. You know, my my personal view is that
Speaker 1: I am not a fan of those monuments. I think
Speaker 1: from a personal standpoint, they should be removed from public places. Uh.
Speaker 1: That's a personal thing of mine. What I have said, though,
Speaker 1: is that I don't believe that the Congress. I don't
Speaker 1: believe a state legislature should tell a community what to
Speaker 1: do with those If it was up to me, I
Speaker 1: would put them in a historical place, because they are
Speaker 1: part of a history that you can't erase, and you
Speaker 1: can't you can't deny that history, good or bad. But
Speaker 1: I would move them to historical places, whether it's a battlefield,
Speaker 1: it's a cemetery or whatever, away from public display where
Speaker 1: they're being a government is paying for them. At the
Speaker 1: same time, I think local people are in the best
Speaker 1: position to do that. The city council's the county commissions.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the Alabama legislatures uh prerogative, for instance,
Speaker 1: to pass a law that says that you, Mr. Mayor
Speaker 1: and the city council, despite the fact that you were
Speaker 1: elected locally by your people, and you're gonna answer to
Speaker 1: them that you can't move that monument that's been up
Speaker 1: for fifty years, that was put in your community when
Speaker 1: it was a far different community. Because that's the legislation.
Speaker 1: That's exactly any any statute or monument that was placed
Speaker 1: before nineteen seventy seven, it would be against the law
Speaker 1: to remove that. That is no place for the Alabama legislature.
Speaker 1: I don't care what they say. It is just not
Speaker 1: a place that should be a local decision. I don't
Speaker 1: think Congress should intervene in any of that, but historical
Speaker 1: places where, in my opinion, my personal opinion, that's where
Speaker 1: they ought to be. When you ran in Alabama, you
Speaker 1: really shocked the world by winning in such an overwhelmingly
Speaker 1: Republican state. On the other hand, opponent was an alleged pedophile,
Speaker 1: and he still got forty eight and a half percent
Speaker 1: of the vote, including eighty percent of Evangelical Christians. He
Speaker 1: won white women by twenty nine, even though there's compelling
Speaker 1: evidence that when he was in his thirties he went
Speaker 1: after a fourteen year old girl. How do you explain
Speaker 1: I was going to say with that wind up? The
Speaker 1: question is what up with that? Yeah, I I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't completely explain that except for this, and this
Speaker 1: is just my again trying to do a little bit
Speaker 1: of a deep dive. And where we where things were.
Speaker 1: We always believe that is the number of people in
Speaker 1: the race went up, then things were going to tighten up.
Speaker 1: We're gonna win that election. I'm absolutely convinced we were
Speaker 1: gonna win that election. The worst day of the campaign
Speaker 1: was when those those allegations came up, because this is
Speaker 1: what I think that we're safe for you, Yes, absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1: You know my staff the campaign, they were all dancing
Speaker 1: on tables and I said, get off, guys, because let
Speaker 1: me tell you what's going to happen. Because now all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, attention is going to be drawn. The
Speaker 1: race is going to turn tribal. And I hate to
Speaker 1: use that word. I don't like that work, but it's
Speaker 1: so appropriate. And because now people started thinking about it,
Speaker 1: in those terms. You know, in a lot of places
Speaker 1: in America, not just in Alabama, but when you start
Speaker 1: making allegations against somebody you've supported in the past, they
Speaker 1: tend to support them. And then in a in an
Speaker 1: era in which the leader of the United States has
Speaker 1: said nothing but fake news, it's real easy to say,
Speaker 1: that's fake news. They're just making this up. It's the
Speaker 1: Washington Post. We don't like them. It's just the liberal
Speaker 1: elitist um outsiders the same thing. And and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, people started looking at so many people tell me,
Speaker 1: since the election, I say so many people. There were
Speaker 1: a lot who said, look, I'm gonna give you a chance.
Speaker 1: I want you all to work together. I didn't vote
Speaker 1: for you because I didn't want to lose the seat.
Speaker 1: And that's what I think we have to overcome in America,
Speaker 1: that we that we get away where that tribal party
Speaker 1: means more than common decency, and that allegations that were
Speaker 1: in very credible. I would have haken as a prosecutor
Speaker 1: that case any day of the week, and and and
Speaker 1: even on Sundays and and just gone to a grand
Speaker 1: jury and a court with it and convicted him. But
Speaker 1: it became very tribal. When that happened, we just had
Speaker 1: to stay in our lane and talk about issues. What
Speaker 1: you said was was just really extraordinary. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: saying that we've become so tribal that even though there's
Speaker 1: overwhelming evidence that your opponent was and is a pedophile,
Speaker 1: it actually helped him and hurt you. Yes, yeah, it
Speaker 1: drove up. Now, did I get more votes? Didn't drive
Speaker 1: up some votes for US, Absolutely, but I think it
Speaker 1: made the election more tribal and more people came out.
Speaker 1: The more people that came out, it was going to
Speaker 1: be more difficult for us UH to to win the election.
Speaker 1: We had an energy of a base out there, and
Speaker 1: we were getting more and more people. But when it
Speaker 1: started becoming like that and and that was the focus,
Speaker 1: whether it was true or not true, that those were
Speaker 1: all issues, and a lot of folks in Alabama you
Speaker 1: know it, it really didn't help. When Republican senators that
Speaker 1: they thought they were helping me, I think some of
Speaker 1: them when they were You're saying, well, we're gonna kick
Speaker 1: him out of office if he comes up here, well
Speaker 1: then there it gave some people a chance to think, Okay,
Speaker 1: we'll get a do over. Let's go ahead and vote
Speaker 1: from more because I don't want I don't want a Democrat,
Speaker 1: and we'll get a do over because surely they're not
Speaker 1: gonna seat him. Now. That is opposed to others like
Speaker 1: Senator Shelby, who I thought was very very statesmanlike, who said, look,
Speaker 1: I'm going to write in I cannot vote for this man,
Speaker 1: and I'm going to write somebody. And he never said
Speaker 1: we're gonna expel him or do anything like that. That
Speaker 1: was afi It certainly was. It was. And now I've
Speaker 1: known Senator Shelby a long time when when he was
Speaker 1: a Democrat, and I've known him since he was a
Speaker 1: state senator in Tuscaloosa and I was a young Alabama
Speaker 1: student there, so we go way back. But it was
Speaker 1: a profile's encourage moment for let's talk about this tribalism
Speaker 1: that you describe, Senator that very much, sir fist. During
Speaker 1: your campaign, I did a six hour documentary series for
Speaker 1: National Geographic. Did I mention? I did a six hours
Speaker 1: I'm just learning about it, but a one was on
Speaker 1: white working class anxiety. That was this on the sixth
Speaker 1: hour documentary that you've done on white working class anxiety
Speaker 1: in this country. And I'm curious if if you have
Speaker 1: an explanation why we have become so tribalistic and is
Speaker 1: there anything that can be done about Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot that can be done about it. Number
Speaker 1: one is that people. I think if we've become tribalistic,
Speaker 1: a lot what cause of social issues and they're deeply
Speaker 1: held cultural beliefs and on those social issues, and you're
Speaker 1: not going to change a lot of people own those issues.
Speaker 1: But what I think folks need to do more is
Speaker 1: trying to focus on things we have in common and
Speaker 1: they are even even on those issues, you can find
Speaker 1: some common ground on things. But I think, you know,
Speaker 1: for a lot to people, it's just not a question
Speaker 1: of talking to people. I hear political people all the
Speaker 1: time saying, well, we we lost touch because we didn't
Speaker 1: talk to this group or that group. Now that's not
Speaker 1: really yet. You didn't listen to them and and you
Speaker 1: didn't hear their concerns and you didn't understand. And that's
Speaker 1: what I think. One of the things that we did
Speaker 1: we talked about the kitchen table issues, and that's what
Speaker 1: really I think binds people in America right now, like
Speaker 1: like their health care. Everybody wants to be you know,
Speaker 1: have good health care for themselves and for their families.
Speaker 1: I think wages and income. They see this incredible wage
Speaker 1: gap that we've got right now and they don't quite
Speaker 1: understand that, and they want to know how they can
Speaker 1: have that better life. I think education for their children
Speaker 1: is a driver as well. Um, And we've let politicians
Speaker 1: so talk about those cultural issues that divide us that
Speaker 1: they've dominated the political scene, at least in the South.
Speaker 1: I can imagine, by the way, if Hillary Clinton we're
Speaker 1: sitting here right now, she would say, well, I talked
Speaker 1: about health care and education, jobs every damn day of
Speaker 1: that campaign. Why did it work for you? And it
Speaker 1: didn't work for me? Well, because she did. I don't
Speaker 1: think that they listened as much of people coming back
Speaker 1: to them. And at the end of the day, there
Speaker 1: was also this incredible focus on the foibles of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: It was a personal attack on Donald Trump day in
Speaker 1: and day out. I didn't do that with Roy Moore.
Speaker 1: It would have been real easy for me to do that,
Speaker 1: but I stayed on my message of issues. There were
Speaker 1: other people attacking him. I didn't have to do that,
Speaker 1: you know. But in fairness. I mean, Hillary Clinton was
Speaker 1: being attacked relentlessly by Donald Trump. I get that. I
Speaker 1: get that, but I think you lose the messages. And
Speaker 1: so when you lose the messages among that political noise
Speaker 1: like that on the personal attacks, then it gives people
Speaker 1: they really get lost in what they're voting for, and
Speaker 1: they're just going to vote for the personality sometimes. And
Speaker 1: that's just a very simplistic way of looking at. All
Speaker 1: I can tell you is that I wanted to stay
Speaker 1: very focused. You only heard me really one time. You
Speaker 1: have a speech, uh in which I really put what
Speaker 1: I hope to be a stake in his heart. But
Speaker 1: I really focused on issues, and I think that's I
Speaker 1: think that's what public servants should be doing. You're reading
Speaker 1: White Working Class by Joan Williams, which really was my
Speaker 1: bible for this hour, and she talks a lot about
Speaker 1: cultural condescension and cultural cluelessness. There seems to be a
Speaker 1: basic lack of respect. I think, you know, and let's
Speaker 1: be honest, the leader of this country is largely responsible
Speaker 1: for the porsening of our discourse. Question. Uh So it
Speaker 1: goes both ways. But there's also a lot of coastal
Speaker 1: elite snobbery towards people who really provide the backbone of
Speaker 1: this country in many ways. And and that's my people.
Speaker 1: That's where I grew up in the steel mills of
Speaker 1: Fairfield and then the you know family in the in
Speaker 1: the in dirt poor areas of Alabama and they absolute
Speaker 1: he feel that way. And by the way, I haven't
Speaker 1: even started that one yet. It's so good. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: it's a very quick read. My wife gave you. The
Speaker 1: one I'm doing now is an interesting book. No, it's
Speaker 1: it's it's called Harry and Arthur about Harry Truman and
Speaker 1: Arthur Vanderberg, Republican senator and the Democratic president, and how
Speaker 1: they put their politics aside in order to rebuild the
Speaker 1: world after War two with the Martial Plan, and how
Speaker 1: the United States of America became not only the economic
Speaker 1: and global leader of the world, but the moral leader
Speaker 1: of the world. And we're seeing a slide of that
Speaker 1: a good bit right now. I'm going to great book.
Speaker 1: So speaking of a foreign policy Vandenburg and Truman, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you're knew the Senate, but we didn't want
Speaker 1: to ask you about Syria as well the US as
Speaker 1: well as the British and the French conducted this very
Speaker 1: limited one night operation that hit three targets related to
Speaker 1: chemical weapons. But we basically accepted the status quo that
Speaker 1: Aside is leading the country so long as he kills
Speaker 1: people with guns and torture rather than chemicals. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: So do you think there's still a role for us
Speaker 1: to push to get a side out. Do you think
Speaker 1: we should get more involved somehow, or do you think
Speaker 1: we should basically accept the way it is? You know,
Speaker 1: I think that what's obviously a troubling thing is that
Speaker 1: I'm not sure there's been a real good, serious strategy
Speaker 1: for a long time. Do you I think I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: His strategy was very as good. Things were moving in ways,
Speaker 1: and you saw things happen in Libya and other places,
Speaker 1: and it was an interesting changing world that we saw
Speaker 1: in a matter of a few years, and and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I sade, I think if you saw
Speaker 1: what happened, it would appear that Asad was going to
Speaker 1: be just the next one to fall, And it didn't happen,
Speaker 1: and so by that I think it took people a
Speaker 1: little bit by surprise, and they he became entrenched. Um
Speaker 1: I supported those strikes on the chemical weapons because it
Speaker 1: is a problem. I don't know where the future is
Speaker 1: at this point. I think that, uh, if the President
Speaker 1: is going to do anything additional, uh, it's going to
Speaker 1: appear that he is trying to regieme change. And I
Speaker 1: think that that's gonna have to involve Congress. I think
Speaker 1: there's a there's only so far that he can go
Speaker 1: with that, and I think it's gonna be a tough situation.
Speaker 1: We've got, you know, you know, we're we're in a
Speaker 1: kind of a proxy war with the Soviet Union right now,
Speaker 1: and uh, yeah, yeah whatever. I'm still you know, I'm
Speaker 1: still living in those old days and to me, to me,
Speaker 1: they're almost one and the same, Okay. I mean when
Speaker 1: you really look at what happened with the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: and you look at what Putin is doing right now,
Speaker 1: you know, they're just it's just two p's in the pot.
Speaker 1: It's that we say in the South. Um. So, I
Speaker 1: think that that's gonna be a real challenge for America
Speaker 1: in the in the coming years. Are you gonna support
Speaker 1: my pump has nomination here today? I haven't completely made
Speaker 1: up my mind. I Uh, I have got some grave
Speaker 1: concerns about some things that he's said and done in
Speaker 1: the past, which well, I think for the gay community,
Speaker 1: for the Muslim community, it gives the those immunities a
Speaker 1: real sense of that they would have a Secretary of
Speaker 1: State that is not looking out for their best interest.
Speaker 1: On the other hand, I think his role as CIA director,
Speaker 1: there's not been anything that would disqualify. I met with
Speaker 1: him the other day, Uh did oh, yeah, absolutely, well,
Speaker 1: he had a I'd like to kind of keep that
Speaker 1: a little bit more private, but he was consistent with
Speaker 1: his public testimony. He made very once. I think, uh,
Speaker 1: you have to take somebody at their word to some extent,
Speaker 1: his comments to me were reassuring about that that doesn't
Speaker 1: always carry the ball, but they were certainly reassuring. And
Speaker 1: I think, you know, sometimes when you say things in
Speaker 1: a political sense and you change jobs, it makes a difference,
Speaker 1: you know, for trails they do. It's it's crazy, but
Speaker 1: you know, I was a prosecutor, and then I was
Speaker 1: a defense lawyer, and then I was a prosecutor again,
Speaker 1: and that was so people would say the same thing
Speaker 1: about me, the things I said about the government when
Speaker 1: I was defending somebody, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: I became the government, so I put a lot of
Speaker 1: things in a big context. And we'll see. I'm working
Speaker 1: with the staff and we're trying to do a little bit, uh,
Speaker 1: And I'll have my mind made up in the next
Speaker 1: probably twenty four hours or so, if not less. But
Speaker 1: it's a it's a tough that's that's probably the toughest
Speaker 1: vote I'll take. Will you call us and let us
Speaker 1: know so we can update this podcast, of course, will Thursday. Um,
Speaker 1: I know we're almost out of time, but I have
Speaker 1: to ask you about this ground swell of opposition we've
Speaker 1: seen from primarily young people about gun violence in this country. Senator,
Speaker 1: I know you're a staunch proponent of the Second Amendment.
Speaker 1: You're yourself you're a hunter, um, but I'm curious if
Speaker 1: you think anything at all can be done at the
Speaker 1: federal level to decrease gun violence, and what do you
Speaker 1: think would be the most effective way to do that. Well.
Speaker 1: I think there can be some things, but there's a
Speaker 1: difference when can something be done and will it be done?
Speaker 1: I think the will it be done is a lot
Speaker 1: harder question because of the obvious political I think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of things that can be done. In fact,
Speaker 1: I may gave my maiden speech on gun violence. Um,
Speaker 1: you want to raise the age. I wanted to raise
Speaker 1: the age twenty one. I want to do something about
Speaker 1: universal background checks? What about semi automatic weapons? What about
Speaker 1: are fifteen? I mean you're a hunter. Is any hunter
Speaker 1: worth his or her salt going to use the semi
Speaker 1: automatic weapon? No? Yes, yes? Really? Oh absolutely. The first
Speaker 1: dear rifle I bought. See. One of the problems, Katie
Speaker 1: is people don't really understand the terminology. The first dear
Speaker 1: huh rifle I brought was a browning Um Safari three
Speaker 1: o eight. It has five rounds. It's a semi automatic
Speaker 1: fired and it and it comes out. I've got a
Speaker 1: nice scope on it. Great dear rifle. That's different than
Speaker 1: in Les Okay. That's that's different. But people have to
Speaker 1: also understand that in this day and age, there's a
Speaker 1: culture in the South in a lot of places that
Speaker 1: it's not just a question of hunting. People like to
Speaker 1: take and shoot. They go to target practice. I do
Speaker 1: that with my son. I don't Every time I shoot
Speaker 1: a gun is not at a deer or a turkey
Speaker 1: or a bird. It is I sometimes will go and
Speaker 1: we'll just shoot at a paper target. And I don't
Speaker 1: think that right now there is any appetite. And I
Speaker 1: think about talking about banning a R fifteens is a
Speaker 1: nonstarter and it causes people to go into corners. And
Speaker 1: so what I did in my maiden speech, which I
Speaker 1: thought was something that was important for a son of
Speaker 1: the South, to start talking about a gun owner and
Speaker 1: somebody that shoots guns regularly and has a safe that's
Speaker 1: got a lot of them in there, to talk about
Speaker 1: things that I think Kennan should be done. Raising the age.
Speaker 1: You know it's twenty one for pistols anyway, why not
Speaker 1: do that for semi automatic weapons? And that it seems
Speaker 1: insane to me. It's I don't know the answer why
Speaker 1: there's one and not the other. I think that you
Speaker 1: can do universal background checks, makes some exceptions uh to
Speaker 1: that that I think would be legitimate, but I think
Speaker 1: can do those. I think that there's I want to
Speaker 1: close the boyfriend loophole. Uh. Those are things that and
Speaker 1: we took some steps with trying to fix the next
Speaker 1: system to make it better and and when and a
Speaker 1: big step was getting away with the Dicky Amendment that
Speaker 1: would allow the system is the background checks, exact records.
Speaker 1: But we also got rid of the the amendment that
Speaker 1: will now allow the CDC to do some research on
Speaker 1: gun violence, which is insane by the way, they cannot
Speaker 1: study it as a public health epidemical issue and because
Speaker 1: of Congress and now we've removed that. Now it hadn't
Speaker 1: been funded to do that, but at least we've removed that.
Speaker 1: And Katie, that was a big deal. That was fault
Speaker 1: so bad, and that was a big step I think
Speaker 1: for Second Amendment guys to to step up and do so.
Speaker 1: I'm hopeful that down the road that we continue to
Speaker 1: have this And that's what I keep wanting to people
Speaker 1: to talk about as gun violence, not gun control. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about gun violence and suicides, uh, and accidents and
Speaker 1: homicides and the things that we can do to stop
Speaker 1: the number of deaths that result from a trigger being
Speaker 1: old on a weapon. So this week President Trump invited
Speaker 1: President Macron of France to the United States for a
Speaker 1: state dinner and bringing with tradition, he invited no Democratic
Speaker 1: members of Congress and no journalists to the dinner. Do
Speaker 1: you think that was a mistake? Absolutely? How can you
Speaker 1: how can you talk How can you stand in front
Speaker 1: of all the members of Congress at the State of
Speaker 1: the Union and talking about working together and finding common
Speaker 1: ground if you don't adhere to those traditions. I think
Speaker 1: it was a huge mistake on his part. Okay, another
Speaker 1: thing that's in the news. The chair of your party
Speaker 1: filed a lawsuit against the Russian government Wiki Weeks and
Speaker 1: the Trump campaign for conspiring to hurt Hillary Clinton by
Speaker 1: hacking the Democratic Party and disseminating Stone emails, Stone material.
Speaker 1: What's your reaction to that. Do you think the lawsuits
Speaker 1: the right thing to do? Don't think the lawsuit was
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. I haven't taught to Tom
Speaker 1: Perez since since he filed it. I don't think it's
Speaker 1: the right thing to do. I think he keeps it
Speaker 1: stirred up, and there's plenty of things out there right
Speaker 1: now that are working its way through that. Sooner or later,
Speaker 1: the public is going to know. Why do you think
Speaker 1: he did it? I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker 1: He you know, what I read was to try to
Speaker 1: preserve some right, but I'm not I'm not exactly sure.
Speaker 1: It's just not something that I felt like would be
Speaker 1: appropriate to do. There's a lot going on right now
Speaker 1: that it's gonna come out one way. I know, it's
Speaker 1: basically the statute of limitations is going to run and
Speaker 1: they need to file the lawsuit now or they're gonna
Speaker 1: lose their opportunity. And that they were, you know, hurt
Speaker 1: by this conspiracy in sixteen and also to prevent similar
Speaker 1: meddling in eighteen, they needed to kind of lay down
Speaker 1: a market. Well, that's where Congress ought to be acting, Okay,
Speaker 1: that that that's not up to a civil lawsuit to
Speaker 1: do that, and that lawsuit won't wind its way through
Speaker 1: the courts in time to have any effect on I
Speaker 1: think that's up to Congress, and people in both houses
Speaker 1: are now looking at the Russian meddling. I don't think
Speaker 1: the administration has done enough, but they are beginning to
Speaker 1: come around and start doing things now. And it is
Speaker 1: probably one of the hottest topics up on the Hill
Speaker 1: today because it is a very very serious problem that
Speaker 1: is going to continue unless we take some serious action.
Speaker 1: As someone who's spent his entire career dealing with lawyer
Speaker 1: years and with law enforcement and the FBI, what do
Speaker 1: you think of James Comey, Well, I have I have
Speaker 1: a lot of respect for James Comey. I did. I
Speaker 1: think he made some some mistakes. I'm not uh one
Speaker 1: of those Democrats who you know his flip flopped. I
Speaker 1: thought it was a mistake when he released the letter
Speaker 1: that he did eleven days before the election. Uh, I
Speaker 1: would have I would have reopened the investigation and just
Speaker 1: going about my work. Uh. You you don't try to
Speaker 1: do something. Would not have announced it. No, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: You dead. That's just not something that you do eleven
Speaker 1: days before a very high before any election, because whether
Speaker 1: it would or would not, the chances are it was
Speaker 1: going to affect the election. Whether it would have changed
Speaker 1: the outcome was not the determining uh factor. It should
Speaker 1: not have been released, and my view should not have
Speaker 1: been released. I was not persuaded by his public comments
Speaker 1: or his book about why he did it. Was interesting
Speaker 1: to me. You know, he kept saying that the FBI
Speaker 1: is above politics, and yet he did concede that he
Speaker 1: was probably influenced by his suspicion that Hillary Clinton would
Speaker 1: be elected. It was going to be elected, and it
Speaker 1: would taint not only her presidency, which is fair, but
Speaker 1: also taint the FBI and him for withholding it and
Speaker 1: that was just it just should have you just let
Speaker 1: the chips fall with a gonna fall, So that should
Speaker 1: not have been done. Having said that, though, I think
Speaker 1: that all he went through with the president that no,
Speaker 1: no FBI director should have gone through. You should not
Speaker 1: be demanded to take a loyalty test because the director
Speaker 1: of the FBI works for the people and for the
Speaker 1: Justice Department, not for an individual who happened to assume
Speaker 1: the presidency. So with things that occurred afterwards, I think
Speaker 1: he has Uh done exactly of the right things. I
Speaker 1: mean in that respect, I have a lot of respectful
Speaker 1: people make mistakes, and that happens. But I think he
Speaker 1: got uh. I don't think it was a good, good thing.
Speaker 1: What happened to him and the way it happened. And
Speaker 1: do you think when all of a sudden done that
Speaker 1: Hillary's biggest flaw was that the campaign became too personal
Speaker 1: and she attacked Trump too much. Well, I think she
Speaker 1: I think that, And I also think she took for
Speaker 1: granted a lot of votes in Ohio and Michigan and
Speaker 1: Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and some of those places, and she
Speaker 1: started focusing Uh, he started reading too many of the
Speaker 1: headlines that I'm gonna win. And so she thought, well,
Speaker 1: let's just really go to Arizona. Let's go to these
Speaker 1: other places, because if I can win there, it'll be
Speaker 1: a big win. Um. By the time that election came
Speaker 1: on that Tuesday, I was not I from my standpoint,
Speaker 1: I was beginning. Now, my wife will tell you I'm
Speaker 1: always the pessimist when it comes to my juries, being
Speaker 1: out and everything else. But I told the Downtown Democratic
Speaker 1: Club in Birmingham on the Friday before the election that
Speaker 1: they should not be celebrating that there was something out
Speaker 1: there in America that that Donald Trump was tapping. And
Speaker 1: it was a frustration that and people wanted to be heard,
Speaker 1: that they didn't feel like that they're being heard, and
Speaker 1: and I was very worried about that over the sense
Speaker 1: of the weekend, and I just felt like the campaign
Speaker 1: had not paid enough attention the folks that might make
Speaker 1: a difference. On the day of the election, I was
Speaker 1: texting with some people very high in the in the campaign, uh,
Speaker 1: and they told me it was gonna be tight. And
Speaker 1: I looked at my wife. I said, this is not
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Just be ready, It's not gonna happen. And
Speaker 1: and it was. It was. It was a pretty depressing
Speaker 1: night for us. But at the same time, it also
Speaker 1: from from our standpoint, my wife and I standpoint, Louis
Speaker 1: and I, it really kind of spurred us on for
Speaker 1: this race and what we did, because you know, elections matter,
Speaker 1: and elections have consequences. And as you saw the Women's
Speaker 1: March and you saw things build, you know, it was
Speaker 1: we've everybody felt like it's time to get back to
Speaker 1: the decency, the honorable thing to do, to give people
Speaker 1: a voice. Uh that in Alabama had not had a
Speaker 1: voice before, or at least in a long time. I
Speaker 1: didn't think. And so there was, you know, their silver
Speaker 1: linings to everything. And I think that now we're gonna
Speaker 1: see people energized. As as polarized as the country is,
Speaker 1: I think people are energized to make a difference. Do
Speaker 1: you think the Democrats are going to take the House
Speaker 1: in the Senate in two thousand eighteen. I have no idea,
Speaker 1: no idea. All right, when let's jump ahead to and
Speaker 1: your friend Joe Biden. You guys are big buddies. Now now, Katie,
Speaker 1: you know I'm not supposed to talk. I'm here in
Speaker 1: my Senate office building, so let's don't let's just don't
Speaker 1: talk about politics. Let's talk about policy, and let's talk
Speaker 1: about energizing people in America that come out and do
Speaker 1: the right things in the electoral project. You got to
Speaker 1: know Joe Biden because you worked with him in what Well, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I met Joe when I was in law school actually
Speaker 1: in the seventies, and we just stayed friends, and I'm very,
Speaker 1: very fond to him. I think he is one of
Speaker 1: this country's greatest leaders. He can talk to people as well,
Speaker 1: and I think that that's a very important thing. He's
Speaker 1: from Scranton, from Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he talks to folks,
Speaker 1: and he talked to but to working cast folks. And
Speaker 1: when he quotes his dad, who you know, had had
Speaker 1: a working class guy, um, people respond to that. I
Speaker 1: think Joe and and there's maybe and there's others too
Speaker 1: that have that ability. But I think that that's the
Speaker 1: kind of thing we need back in the Senate, in
Speaker 1: the House and the presidency. Um. In conclusion, your term
Speaker 1: wraps up at the end of or actually the beginning
Speaker 1: of the first the first turner, Well, let me ask this,
Speaker 1: let me ask this a different way as a Senator,
Speaker 1: what do you hope to accomplish in this term? Well,
Speaker 1: what do you hope to be able to deliver for
Speaker 1: the people of Alabama. I'm hoping I can deliver a
Speaker 1: number of things. I'm hoping I can I can help
Speaker 1: save our community hospitals. We're losing them, our rural hospitals
Speaker 1: left and right. I'm hoping I can help with a
Speaker 1: health care system that will deliver healthcare throughout the state.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping I can work with some of the poorer
Speaker 1: areas in the state where we have some serious sanitation
Speaker 1: issue us. I'm hoping that I continue to help attract
Speaker 1: business and industry to the state of Alabama. You know,
Speaker 1: working with Senator Shelby and others, We've got a growing
Speaker 1: economy in Alabama and Mobile and in Montgomery and Birmingham
Speaker 1: and Huntsville. But I want to grow that economy in
Speaker 1: the rural areas as well. So I'm hoping that I
Speaker 1: can convince people that, you know, the federal government is
Speaker 1: not a bad thing. For every dollar that we send up,
Speaker 1: we got a couple of bucks back, and they're good
Speaker 1: programs there. It's Medicaid, it's Medicare. I want to make
Speaker 1: sure that I save that for my folks because it's
Speaker 1: so important. We have a very unhealthy state. We have
Speaker 1: a poor state. I'd like to see the income go up.
Speaker 1: I'd like to help with a workforce development that's gonna
Speaker 1: help people in the twenty one century, that that if
Speaker 1: you don't go to college, you don't get a four
Speaker 1: year degree, you can go to a community college and
Speaker 1: you can get a trade and you can get a
Speaker 1: job at the new Toyota plant and makes fifty to
Speaker 1: a hundred thousand dollars a year and help build that
Speaker 1: middle class back that is shrinking mightily. I think Congress
Speaker 1: has an opportunity to to do a lot of things
Speaker 1: like that. We've got to save those programs that are
Speaker 1: not just safety nets, but that are vital to so
Speaker 1: many people in my state, and also do those kind
Speaker 1: of things around our defense system to protect the country.
Speaker 1: That's also good for Alabama's economy. I mean, I didn't
Speaker 1: vote to shut the government down. I was one of
Speaker 1: the few Democrats who didn't do that because a shutdown
Speaker 1: and government would have hurt the state of Alabama's economy
Speaker 1: a lot. We have too many we have a lot
Speaker 1: of government jobs that are dependent on on that coming in.
Speaker 1: So those are the kind of things that I hope
Speaker 1: that I can accomplish or at least start the process
Speaker 1: of accomplishing. UH. For the country. Senator. You know, people
Speaker 1: I think are so disillusion and so disheartened. And is
Speaker 1: there anything you, the young senator, relatively young senator from Alabama,
Speaker 1: that you can do to restore people's faith in institution
Speaker 1: like the federal government. Well, you know, look, I'm not
Speaker 1: a young senator. I'm a new senator, but I'm not
Speaker 1: a young I am the junior senator. UM. But I'm gonna,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna. You know, I think my role in in
Speaker 1: part is to continue to talk to people and and
Speaker 1: listen to people, and to talk about those institutions and
Speaker 1: the rule of law. I think I bring an interesting
Speaker 1: perspective having done those old clan cases, having done those things,
Speaker 1: having been in the Justice Department and then out and
Speaker 1: then back in and then back out, and now and
Speaker 1: my role as a U S Senator, UM, I want
Speaker 1: people to talk about the rule of law and respect
Speaker 1: the rule of law, and I want people to respect
Speaker 1: the institutions of government and to make sure that we
Speaker 1: can always have we have disagreements or how we get
Speaker 1: to a certain place, but we can also find that
Speaker 1: common ground that we can get to that place and
Speaker 1: everybody will be satisfied. I think that's a role that
Speaker 1: I can can do. I think our election, in part
Speaker 1: sent that message. And I've had so many people tell
Speaker 1: me I want you guys to work together. Send this message,
Speaker 1: not just not just to Chuck Schumer and the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: send it over to McConnell as well. You guys need
Speaker 1: to work together. And I've told people it's one thing
Speaker 1: to talk about reaching across the aisle, which is what
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do consistently and whatever I do, um,
Speaker 1: but in order to move forward, you've got to have
Speaker 1: somebody who's willing to accept that reach and work with
Speaker 1: you and not just try to yank you across the
Speaker 1: other side. It will be tough with the elections coming up,
Speaker 1: but I think that that's my role to say, Look,
Speaker 1: we can be decent to each other, we can care
Speaker 1: about each other. We can make sure that everyone has
Speaker 1: the kind of justice that those four little girls got
Speaker 1: uh with those convictions. We can do that for for DOCCA,
Speaker 1: we can do that for workers, we can do that
Speaker 1: for business leaders. None of those are inconsistent. They are
Speaker 1: not inconsistent with the American dream. And if we can
Speaker 1: do that then I think will be in in really good.
Speaker 1: But it's it's not going to be easy to get
Speaker 1: there with the way things are now. See, you were
Speaker 1: so inspiring and then you kind of were a debbut
Speaker 1: down at it. Yes, yes, yes, that's the old pessimist
Speaker 1: sneak in there. That's right. It's the it's the challenges
Speaker 1: and we we you've got to at the end of
Speaker 1: the day though, it's the glass half full, and that's
Speaker 1: way I'll do it up here. Thank you, Thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Great to be here in your office as well,
Speaker 1: and congratulations, Thank you. I appreciate thanks so much. Guys.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much to Senator Doug Jones and his
Speaker 1: entire staff for hosting us this week in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Also thank you to our traveling pod squad. That's our
Speaker 1: producer Gianna Palmer and our audio engineer Jared O'Connell, who
Speaker 1: was very sweet and helped carrying my bag, which was
Speaker 1: really overstuffed and super heavy. Thank you, Jerry. I can
Speaker 1: attest to that anyway. Nora Richie is our assistant producer
Speaker 1: Beth de Mos, Emily Beina, and Alice breast Nick make
Speaker 1: Magic Happen over at Katie Curic Media, and Mark Phillips
Speaker 1: wrote our theme music. Bryan and I are the show's
Speaker 1: executive producers. You can find me on social media under
Speaker 1: Katie Curict, Brian on a plane snooping at what podcasts
Speaker 1: you may be downloading. I tweet from the handle at
Speaker 1: Goldsmith b and remember to call in with your tales
Speaker 1: of tech addiction at nine to nine to four four
Speaker 1: six three seven. You can also email us as always
Speaker 1: at comments at kurk podcast dot com. And while you've
Speaker 1: got your typing fingers warmed up, we'd love it if
Speaker 1: you would leave us a review over at Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: and please subscribe to the show too and tell your friends.
Speaker 1: By all means, thanks so much for listening, and we'll
Speaker 1: be back here next week