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Speaker 1: On this episode of Newts World. In their new book, Underserved,

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Speaker 1: my guests present a tangible blueprint for conservatives who understand

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Speaker 1: the need for a new and viable political plan of action,

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Speaker 1: the one that addresses the needs of the underserved communities

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Speaker 1: that make up these United States of America. Relying on

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Speaker 1: the concept of the Party of Lincoln and the conservative

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Speaker 1: principles set forth over centuries by the movement's most recognized

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Speaker 1: thought leaders, Underserved examines President Lincoln's intentions for reconstruction, President

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Speaker 1: Grant's aims to implement that vision, and Frederick Douglas's influence

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Speaker 1: on both men in the process. From education and workforce

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Speaker 1: development to criminal justice reform and health care disparities. Underserved

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Speaker 1: makes a bold statement about what is necessary to see

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Speaker 1: a change in the current state of affairs and presents

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Speaker 1: a realistic action plan to make it happen. Joining me

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Speaker 1: today are the authors of Underserved, Jaron Smith and Chris Polkerton.

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Speaker 1: Together they worked on some of the Trump administration's most

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Speaker 1: powerful and innovative policy wins for underserved communities, including establishing

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Speaker 1: permanent funding for historically black colleges and universities, instituting opportunity zones,

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Speaker 1: and passing the first step back, all of which are

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Speaker 1: discussed in a new book. Jiron and Chris, thank you

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Speaker 1: for joining me on Newts World.

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Speaker 2: Thanks for having me us a speaker.

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Speaker 3: Thank you very much. Excited to be here.

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Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting you guys come together from

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Speaker 1: pretty different backgrounds. Let's saing a minute and talk about

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Speaker 1: both of them. Jaron, why don't you describe your own

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Speaker 1: background and how you ended up we are today.

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Speaker 4: Sure, I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, born and raised. I was

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Speaker 4: born on the east side of Cleveland to a single

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Speaker 4: parent household by my father. I did have the blessing

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Speaker 4: of having both of my parents raised me. It's just

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Speaker 4: that I spent my time my mother on the weekends

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Speaker 4: and my dad had me during the week The big

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Speaker 4: difference maker for me was my dad sent me to

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Speaker 4: a Catholic school to get an education, and with that

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Speaker 4: education I was able to kind of use that in

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Speaker 4: sports to be one of the first people in my

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Speaker 4: family to go to college, which brought me here to Washington,

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Speaker 4: d C. Where I attended Howard University. While at Howard,

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Speaker 4: having grown up a Democrat and seeing Al Gore lose

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Speaker 4: his election against President Bush, i got more curious about

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Speaker 4: the Republican Party, but in doing so I got an

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Speaker 4: opportunity to work for Congressman J. C. Watts, and at

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Speaker 4: the end of the summer, after working for him, I

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Speaker 4: decided to become a Republican And from that moment I

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Speaker 4: got opportunities to work with a number of other members,

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Speaker 4: including Vice President Pence, Senator Tim Scott, Jim Jordan, and

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Speaker 4: Steve Scalise.

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Speaker 2: And then I did.

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Speaker 4: Some advocacy worked for American for Prosperity before being recruited

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Speaker 4: to the Trump White House to manage his urban affairs

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Speaker 4: and revitalization policy. When it was in that position that

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Speaker 4: I was able to kind of do some amazing work

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Speaker 4: on behalf of the president around criminal justice reform opportunities,

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Speaker 4: all to receive us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it did strike me at the time

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Speaker 1: that President Trump was doing a great deal more to

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Speaker 1: improve the lives of poor Americans, in the lives of

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Speaker 1: poor neighborhoods than anybody in the news media wanted to

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Speaker 1: give them credit for. And you were one of the

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Speaker 1: driving forces and doing that. But Chris, your experience was

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Speaker 1: really different from Jian. So what about year background.

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Speaker 3: I grew up in the DC area. I went to

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Speaker 3: Gonzaga High School just down the block from the Capitol. So,

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Speaker 3: as I tell people, you know, the Jesuits got me early.

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Speaker 3: And then I continued to go to a Jesuit college,

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Speaker 3: Fairfield University. And the motto that you Asuits really as

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Speaker 3: men for others, and so components of that were always

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Speaker 3: part of my professional development and my professional interest with service.

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Speaker 3: So I went on to law school and my first

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Speaker 3: job out of law school I was a prosecutor in

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Speaker 3: Manhattan in the District Attorney's office.

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Speaker 2: There.

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Speaker 3: Continued to work in government at Securities and Exchange Commission,

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Speaker 3: and then went into the private sector. And when I

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Speaker 3: had the opportunity to rejoin government, it was at the

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Speaker 3: Small Business Administration, working for Linda McMahon, and that was

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Speaker 3: just a tremendous opportunity. It was her general counsel. Working

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Speaker 3: for Administrator McMahon was an honor, and I learned so

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Speaker 3: much about leadership from her and when it comes to

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Speaker 3: the underserved communities, her heart and how he could really

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Speaker 3: lift up this country by really lifting up small business

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Speaker 3: and being as supportive as possible. When she stepped down,

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Speaker 3: I took over the acting administrator role for approximately a year,

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Speaker 3: and in that work I had the opportunity to spend

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Speaker 3: a lot of time with folks over at the White House,

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Speaker 3: including Jiron, And in particular, one of the efforts that

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Speaker 3: Jiron spearheaded under the leadership of Secretary Carson and the

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Speaker 3: direction of the President was the White House Opportunity and

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Speaker 3: Revitalization Council. And so while I was acting administrator, I

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Speaker 3: worked with Jiron on a number of the issues that

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Speaker 3: he mentioned, and then joined the White House in March

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Speaker 3: of twenty twenty after the new SBA administrator had been confirmed.

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Speaker 3: And that's really where my journey with Jiron began and

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Speaker 3: where all the work that we did together is accounted

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Speaker 3: for in the book. And we began to discuss these

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Speaker 3: things after we left the administration and really just saw

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Speaker 3: so many lines of connection between the work of Lincoln

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Speaker 3: and Reconstruction, which ultimately led to the book.

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Speaker 1: I'm berkers. Would you say that your background, Chris, so

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Speaker 1: that you were sort of naturally a republic enemy. Was

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Speaker 1: your family Republican or what was your journey?

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Speaker 3: Yeah? We were so. I grew up in Montgomery County

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Speaker 3: in Maryland. You may remember Countie Morella was the congresswoman there,

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Speaker 3: and so my family was Republican. My grandfather grew up

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Speaker 3: in southern Maryland and he ended up being the first

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Speaker 3: member of our family to go to college, grew up

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Speaker 3: on a farm out there, And for me it was

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Speaker 3: always really interesting because he came in, got an accounting

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Speaker 3: degree and a law degree, and then was interested in

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Speaker 3: coming back and actually running for Congress to help those communities,

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Speaker 3: particularly the Chesapeake Bay community where he was from and

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Speaker 3: actually where I live now. When I was in college,

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Speaker 3: I ran for town council and so was actually elected

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Speaker 3: as a Republican back in nineteen ninety three. So although

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Speaker 3: I hadn't worked on the hill or had those experiences,

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Speaker 3: I was this sort of Republican but with this service

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Speaker 3: mode of the Jesuits. And I think that's been illustrated

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Speaker 3: in a lot of the work that I've recently been

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Speaker 3: able to do, and particularly working with John.

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Speaker 1: Now by contrast, you run, you really came out of

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Speaker 1: a Democratic background, and I would have thought going to

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Speaker 1: Howard would sort of lock you in, But in fact,

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Speaker 1: if I understand it correctly, it's at Howard University that

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Speaker 1: you become a Republican. What happened? How did that occur?

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Speaker 2: One thing I loved about the university.

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Speaker 4: They had this mantra around pursuit of truth as one

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Speaker 4: of their models is truth and service. And for me,

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Speaker 4: when I went to college, my goal was initially to

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Speaker 4: get a finance degree because I saw that in the

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Speaker 4: community I grew up in, there weren't a lot of

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Speaker 4: black owned stores or businesses that at least that I

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Speaker 4: knew about, and so I wanted to help galvanize more

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Speaker 4: capital than low income parts of Cleveland o'high.

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Speaker 2: And I could do that though, maybe own the bank,

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Speaker 2: but it.

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Speaker 4: Was in learning about economics, and also my high school

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Speaker 4: studies at I Gotholic school around the transdentalists and Ralph Emerson,

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Speaker 4: all of these kind of philosophers. It never occurred to

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Speaker 4: me that they were more right of center and kind

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Speaker 4: of undergirded the Republican Revolution, And so when I went

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Speaker 4: to college and started talking about ideas, it made me

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Speaker 4: very curious to learn more about Republicans, even though traditionally

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Speaker 4: in black neighborhoods you're taught that Republicans are for the

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Speaker 4: rich when they're racist, and so vote for Democrats. They'll

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Speaker 4: at least do something for you. It may not give

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Speaker 4: you much, but they'll give you a little bit. And

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Speaker 4: I entertained that notion. Of course, my first year at

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Speaker 4: Howard was the Bush Gore election, and I voted for

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Speaker 4: al Gore. But two things maybe more curious. One I

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Speaker 4: saw Al Gore speak at Howard and he sounded like

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Speaker 4: a Baptist preacher, came out as I.

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Speaker 2: Don't know, not inauthentic. You know.

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Speaker 4: I was kind of shocked that he kind of changed

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Speaker 4: the way his speech pattern because he was speaking to

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Speaker 4: a black audience. But I still voted for him. But

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Speaker 4: at eighteen, when I saw that he lost his own state,

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Speaker 4: it made me curious, you know, how could you run

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Speaker 4: for president lose your own state. So when I had

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Speaker 4: an opportunity to meet a friend of my football coach,

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Speaker 4: a guy named Marcus Sokowitz, and we had lunch and

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Speaker 4: he told me what he did. And I didn't know

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Speaker 4: much about Washington or lobbyists or anything like that, but

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Speaker 4: we had a whole conversation about politics, and I was

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Speaker 4: curious to learn more about Republicans. And he was like,

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Speaker 4: I have a great opportunity for you, maybe to work

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Speaker 4: for a congress from J. C. Watts, And that one

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Speaker 4: summer working for J. C. Watts. He had a deputy

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Speaker 4: for staff named ol Roy Saylor who went to more

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Speaker 4: Housees from Detroit, and he had me do poverty statistics

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Speaker 4: because I was really focused on how can we empower communities?

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Speaker 4: And he showed me that despite presidencies, some of the communities,

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Speaker 4: like the one I grew up in, the poverty or

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Speaker 4: the mobility statistics stayed the same in between Republican and

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Speaker 4: Democratic presidents. And so learning that like Republicans of JC

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Speaker 4: wise cared about the poor, and that all the Republicans

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Speaker 4: I met that summer weren't racist, and they actually align

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Speaker 4: more with me on individualism. And I didn't even believe.

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Speaker 4: I didn't even notice, but I've always believed the limited government.

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Speaker 4: I didn't know that's a Republican party platform. But I

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Speaker 4: got to learn all that that summer, and then I

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Speaker 4: decided that we needed more representation in our party and

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Speaker 4: the Republican Party from people like me who grew up

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Speaker 4: in an urban area form a minority community. And I

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Speaker 4: used to joke to all of my how we're friends.

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Speaker 4: When they said, man, how did you become a Republican?

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Speaker 4: I was like, well, you know, if a Republican president

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Speaker 4: happens to become president. Our community still need people to

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Speaker 4: talk to him, advise him about the issues that's happening

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Speaker 4: in our community. Little as I know, I basically kind

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Speaker 4: of charted out my path twenty years before I actually

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Speaker 4: did it.

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Speaker 2: But that's how it happens.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty amazing. Hi, this is newt. In my new book,

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Speaker 1: March the Majority, the Real Story of the Republican Revolution,

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Speaker 1: I offer strategies and insights for everyday citizens and for

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Speaker 1: season politicians. It's both a guide for political success and

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Speaker 1: for winning back the Majority in twenty twenty four. March

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Speaker 1: to the Majority outlines the sixteen year campaign to write

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Speaker 1: the Contract with America. Explains how we elected the first

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Speaker 1: Republican House majority in forty years in how we worked

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Speaker 1: with President Bill Clinton to pass major reforms, including four

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Speaker 1: consecutive balance budgets. March to the Majority tells the behind

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Speaker 1: today at Gingishtree sixty dot com slash book. Now, the

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Speaker 1: two of you end up at the White House and

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Speaker 1: you end up working together, and you were really focused

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Speaker 1: a lot both on the response to COVID but also

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Speaker 1: in trying to help people break out. What was it

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Speaker 1: like to work in the Trump White House?

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Speaker 4: Well, I can answer that one. I was amazed about

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Speaker 4: the mixture of people. You know, when when we first started,

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Speaker 4: you had individuals who never worked in politics, who had

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Speaker 4: mostly a business background. You had individuals that were a

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Speaker 4: part of the conservative movement that I was a part of.

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Speaker 4: Some people call it the Tea party movement that happened

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Speaker 4: in the early two thousands. And then you had individuals

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Speaker 4: who had worked in like the Bush administration, who had

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Speaker 4: more establishment or moderate leadings. And in having that type

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Speaker 4: of diversity, we had very great processes called public pccs.

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Speaker 4: They're basically polse coordinating councils where you can debate an

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Speaker 4: issue and depending on if you're able to get agreement,

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Speaker 4: you would either a advance it up to more senior

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Speaker 4: leadership to help make a decision. If senior leadership can't

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Speaker 4: make a decision, then ultimately the President would make the decision.

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Speaker 4: But that process, to me, created an environment of great

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Speaker 4: policy solutions. And that's what you saw come out of

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Speaker 4: the Trump administration. A lot of people who had dedicated

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Speaker 4: their life to service getting the real opportunity to kind

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Speaker 4: of promote ideas. And the way that the Trump administration

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Speaker 4: work is they welcome really good ideas that would move

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Speaker 4: the country forward, and so we're able to kind of

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Speaker 4: do things that were innovative, but we also were very intentional.

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Speaker 4: President ran on reform and NAFTA, so he had USMCA,

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Speaker 4: you know, he ran on helping forgotten communities, and so

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Speaker 4: all the things that we did on the American worker

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Speaker 4: to criminal justice reform, to other things like opportunity zones

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Speaker 4: were all about forgotten communities. And so I really enjoyed

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Speaker 4: working there just because it was an environment that really championed.

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Speaker 2: Those who produced outcomes.

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Speaker 4: And for me, I like a Mari based system because

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Speaker 4: it gives me all the energy in the world to

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Speaker 4: just work and keep trying to move the ball forward.

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Speaker 1: So, Chris, what was your experience like You've been over

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Speaker 1: at the Small Business Administration, so you've seen a more

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Speaker 1: traditional government bureaucracy, but now you find yourself sort of

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Speaker 1: at the center of decision making in the White House.

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Speaker 1: What was that transition like?

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Speaker 3: So my transition was interesting because I had been at

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Speaker 3: the w White House quite a bit once I took

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Speaker 3: over the role as the acting Administrator. So I went

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Speaker 3: from being general counsel to an agency to attending cabinet

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Speaker 3: meetings on a very frequent basis. And the insights that

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Speaker 3: I received from those meetings and then the people that

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Speaker 3: I met the White House really illustrated sort of the

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Speaker 3: heart of the administration. And I think that's something that

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Speaker 3: the media doesn't focus on. But the heart of the

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Speaker 3: administration was done with in conservative ways, in efficient ways.

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Speaker 3: I mean, I know, just remember hearing the President talking about,

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Speaker 3: you know, the importance of the homelessness crisis and working

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Speaker 3: on those issues and caring about those issues, but then

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Speaker 3: also caring about small business and then caring about workers.

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Speaker 3: But it wasn't just talking about it. It was all right,

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Speaker 3: how do we start to develop these public private partnerships

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Speaker 3: do so in a very conservative, free market fashion. And

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Speaker 3: Jeran alluded to some of those things. He alluded to

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Speaker 3: the pledge to the American worker, Pledge of the American

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Speaker 3: Worker didn't cost America any money. What the President did

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Speaker 3: was bring in all of these companies, and these companies

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Speaker 3: put together or already had existing training programs and identified

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Speaker 3: opportunities for folks to work. And working with Ivanka Trump

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Speaker 3: and others, he ended up getting up to about sixteen

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Speaker 3: million jobs being available through this program. And so when

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Speaker 3: you look at things like the Department of Labor in Woa,

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Speaker 3: he was looking at efficiencies and how do we do this.

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Speaker 3: These impacts really were felt across the country. It was

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Speaker 3: a tremendous opportunity to work inside a White House. I

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Speaker 3: joke around with folks that my first interaction with the

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Speaker 3: White House was I'm fifty years old and in eighteen

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Speaker 3: eighty I sent a letter to President Reagan after listening

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Speaker 3: to the State of the Union, asking for an invitation

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Speaker 3: to the White House. And I didn't get one, but

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Speaker 3: I did get one back in twenty twenty, and wow,

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Speaker 3: was it really an amazing experience.

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Speaker 1: So it took forty years for your learn to finally

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Speaker 1: get to the.

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Speaker 3: Job right, it did, but it was well worth the way.

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Speaker 1: But now let me ask you something I really haven't

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Speaker 1: had a chance to ask anybody about this. You guys

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Speaker 1: are both working on a very positive plan. You're trying

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Speaker 1: to implement the President's vision, and all of a sudden,

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Speaker 1: COVID comes along and changes just about everything. How did

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Speaker 1: you guys reorient your focus to try to cope with

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Speaker 1: the COVID disaster and the economy and the challenge of

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Speaker 1: COVID as a public health problem.

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Speaker 4: What was a number of different things that happened up

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Speaker 4: until when we had the shutdown. Chris and I had

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Speaker 4: an initiative caught Opportunity.

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Speaker 2: Now.

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Speaker 4: What we were doing was we were trying to organize

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Speaker 4: around on opportunity zones. Opportunity zones allowed for us to

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Speaker 4: create an executive order called the White House Opportunity Revitalization Council.

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Speaker 4: When that executive order gave priority points for programs that

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Speaker 4: go to underserved communities for economic development, education and workforce,

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Speaker 4: community safety, and entrepreneurship, were able to kind of prioritize

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Speaker 4: funding for those different types of programs in opportunity zones,

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Speaker 4: and so that gave us leverage through the council to

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Speaker 4: create public private partnerships. But what we needed was a

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Speaker 4: ground up approach, and so the Council was going to

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Speaker 4: work on this initiative that Chris was spearheading and I

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Speaker 4: was advising on, called Opportunity Now, and the focus was

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Speaker 4: to actually go on the ground in fifteen cities and

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Speaker 4: have a convening where we brought state, federal, and local

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Speaker 4: program managers for underserved communities alongside with philanthropists and the

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Speaker 4: business communities to develop revitalization plans for their low income communities.

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Speaker 4: Were able only to do that in one city, which

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Speaker 4: was Charlotte, and this happened in February, right before the shutdown.

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Speaker 4: We had even planned to go to Atlanta, Detroit, would

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Speaker 4: to spend some time in Philadelphia, and we had done

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Speaker 4: some pre planning there. But when the pandemic happened, happened

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Speaker 4: almost overnight. I came into the office and someone who

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Speaker 4: worked with me at HUD was like, Hey, you know

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Speaker 4: they shut down a lot of the schools.

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Speaker 2: You know, we may need to.

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Speaker 4: Retrofit those schools for hospital capacity. And so I started

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Speaker 4: kind of socializing that idea with Jared Kushner, and before

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Speaker 4: I know it, I found myself very involved with helping

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Speaker 4: create capacity in some of the early states that were

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Speaker 4: having trouble, like New York Louisiana, and then that sent

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Speaker 4: me down a whole different avenue once the country was

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Speaker 4: shut down, of working specifically with FEMA and AHHS to

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Speaker 4: create infras structure for pandemic preparedness. And I did that

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Speaker 4: for about a month, maybe the whole month of March.

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Speaker 4: By the time of April came around. And mind you,

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Speaker 4: Chris has another side of the story because he's in

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Speaker 4: the White House right now while I'm at FEMA, so

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Speaker 4: we're kind of separate but doing different roles, so he

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Speaker 4: can probably tell you more about what his role was.

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Speaker 4: But essentially, I got called back to the White House

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Speaker 4: because we saw that the pandemic was really affecting underserved communities,

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Speaker 4: and so I came up with the idea to take

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Speaker 4: the initiative that we were working on with Secretary Carson

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Speaker 4: with the revitalization and the Opportunity Now movement and harness

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Speaker 4: all those resources towards the pandemic. And so when I

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Speaker 4: came back and started to work with Chris, Chris got

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Speaker 4: tasked with another important part, which was preparing working with

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Speaker 4: Congress and preparing the Cares Act, and Chris significant the

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Speaker 4: time negotiating PPP. But I'll let Chris kind of talk

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Speaker 4: a little more about that, and then maybe we can

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Speaker 4: go back and talk about the social unrest that didn't

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Speaker 4: happen a month later, as it relates to George Floyd.

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Speaker 3: The paycheck Protection Program, as everybody knows, was pasted as

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Speaker 3: part of the Cares Act and ultimately was decided to

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Speaker 3: be run out of the Small Business Administration, and it

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Speaker 3: ended up being a massive program, and certainly a massive

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Speaker 3: program for the SBA. The phrase that a lot of

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Speaker 3: SBA folks say it was, you know, fourteen years of

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Speaker 3: loans in fourteen days that basically came out of the SBA.

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Speaker 3: And the SBA is a small agency, and you know,

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Speaker 3: people think it's very bipartisan, and I think it is,

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Speaker 3: because you know, small business ends up being a very

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Speaker 3: bipartisan issue. But they were really the tip of the spear.

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Speaker 3: And so when I came into the White House, I

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Speaker 3: had the opportunity to work closely with some folks on

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Speaker 3: the Hill, with the National Economic Council and the great

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Speaker 3: folks that were there and sort of across the board,

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Speaker 3: to say, all right, how do you get this massive

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Speaker 3: program to kind of run through this agency? And so

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Speaker 3: we continued on that with respect to PPP, and then

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Speaker 3: a lot of people had different ideas about the Cares

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Speaker 3: Act money. And when Dron came back from his detail

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Speaker 3: over at AHHS, we started working really closely with the

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Speaker 3: Opportunity and Revitalization Council and mister Speaker. One of the

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Speaker 3: most amazing things about that group was that not only

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Speaker 3: was it, you know, working under the direct direction of

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Speaker 3: the President, it was made up of cabinet members. These

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Speaker 3: weren't staffers, these weren't deputies, and they were going through

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Speaker 3: their own agencies programs finding where they were opportunities for

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Speaker 3: us to look at their budgets, to look at their

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Speaker 3: programs and use them more efficiently. And we literally drown

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Speaker 3: and I sat down with omb and found old grants

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Speaker 3: that hadn't been paid out, and started finding poc of

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Speaker 3: money that we're years old and saying, look, there's a

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Speaker 3: way to kind of take this and use it in

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Speaker 3: a really efficient and intentional fashion. And that really ended

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Speaker 3: up kind of becoming a big part of the book,

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Speaker 3: based on some of the policy recommendations that we ultimately

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Speaker 3: ended up making and thought about.

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Speaker 1: Until you the way you explained, you all probably moved

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Speaker 1: as rapidly as any federal bureaucracy in modern times, it's astonishing.

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Speaker 1: What was the key to that? How are you able

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Speaker 1: to do that?

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Speaker 4: I think that we mobilize O and B. First of all,

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Speaker 4: you know, working in a White House, I argue that

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Speaker 4: it takes you about a year to kind of learn

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Speaker 4: the tricks of the trade on how to be able

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Speaker 4: to get those agencies to kind of move forward, because

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Speaker 4: it's hard if you don't know what questions to ask.

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Speaker 4: And O and B to me is an important part

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Speaker 4: of the White House establishment because they help you learn

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Speaker 4: what programming flexibilities are available in an agency, and so

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Speaker 4: if you're trying to move an initiative work, they can

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Speaker 4: help you actualize it. They have people who work directly

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Speaker 4: with those agencies on every specific program and they know

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Speaker 4: a lot of the history. And so by the time

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Speaker 4: we were in the year four, I had become really

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Speaker 4: good at navigating the different agencies. But you only can

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Speaker 4: navigate them to a certain extent. That's why one of

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Speaker 4: our biggest recommendations it needs to be drastic reform and

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Speaker 4: the audit of all the underserved programs, because we spend

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Speaker 4: a lot of money and these programs don't work together

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Speaker 4: when they create barriers for the private sector. Some of

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Speaker 4: them are probably outdated, others need to be merged, but

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Speaker 4: it is a hard thing to kind of have them

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Speaker 4: work in concert, which is why you see a lot

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Speaker 4: of money goes out, but you're not seeing that real

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Speaker 4: return on investment in some of these communities. In fact,

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Speaker 4: if you look at economic mobility, that issue has to

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Speaker 4: continue to rise. It's less economic mobile go on through time.

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Speaker 4: We've been trying to close that gap, but one of

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Speaker 4: the key things that President Trump's working on was kind

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Speaker 4: of closed in that wage gap. We was able to

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Speaker 4: kind of increase the wages for low income people in

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Speaker 4: a way that hadn't happened in about thirty or forty years,

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Speaker 4: and that's what we're up against. But certainly this whole

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Speaker 4: experiment made me and Chris think about our Marshall Plan

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Speaker 4: for lack of a better word, with these low income areas,

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Speaker 4: which is why we got to start thinking about Lincoln

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Speaker 4: and reconstruction. Because we keep punting this issue, but we

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Speaker 4: have to kind of think about the future and how

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Speaker 4: we want to give everyone the best chance at pursuing

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Speaker 4: the American dream, because it's at our core belief that

438
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:43,920
Speaker 4: our greatest asset as a country is our people, and

439
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:46,919
Speaker 4: we want all people to have that access. But just

440
00:25:47,040 --> 00:25:49,640
Speaker 4: the tell of two cities and across the country, whether

441
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:52,520
Speaker 4: it's rural or urban, we want to help close that gap.

442
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:12,840
Speaker 1: In your new book, Underserved, you really start by talking

443
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 1: about Lincoln's vision of reconstruction, which I think is a

444
00:26:15,480 --> 00:26:19,719
Speaker 1: very interesting place to begin. Why did you all decide

445
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:21,600
Speaker 1: that was the right starting point?

446
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 3: From my perspective, you got to start with where Lincoln started.

447
00:26:25,480 --> 00:26:28,359
Speaker 3: He was born in a prairie, he was self educated,

448
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:33,120
Speaker 3: and what he saw as really moving the country forward

449
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:37,240
Speaker 3: was opportunity. One of his first campaigns, he talked about

450
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:41,520
Speaker 3: this fictional city of Huron. In Huron, there was going

451
00:26:41,560 --> 00:26:43,720
Speaker 3: to be a port city, and there was going to

452
00:26:43,720 --> 00:26:45,679
Speaker 3: be all of this trade, and there was going to

453
00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:49,760
Speaker 3: be opportunity for small businesses to develop and workers. And

454
00:26:49,800 --> 00:26:53,199
Speaker 3: that's what he envisioned for the district he was running in.

455
00:26:54,040 --> 00:26:57,280
Speaker 3: That was sort of a microcosm of what he envisioned

456
00:26:57,320 --> 00:26:59,439
Speaker 3: for the country. Of course, you know, he had to

457
00:26:59,480 --> 00:27:03,199
Speaker 3: address the humanity of slavery, but he always maintained a

458
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 3: real practical economic view of what would happen once the

459
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,920
Speaker 3: peace was made. You look at things like the more

460
00:27:11,119 --> 00:27:16,000
Speaker 3: Land Act back in eighteen sixty two, and obviously, mister speaker,

461
00:27:16,040 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 3: with your tremendous history professor background, you know, these are

462
00:27:20,320 --> 00:27:24,800
Speaker 3: things that ultimately ended up helping communities all across the

463
00:27:24,840 --> 00:27:27,520
Speaker 3: West and other areas to create these, you know, at

464
00:27:27,560 --> 00:27:31,200
Speaker 3: the time, vocational schools. So that's really what he had

465
00:27:31,400 --> 00:27:36,240
Speaker 3: envisioned for the entire country, for both the freedmen as

466
00:27:36,280 --> 00:27:40,040
Speaker 3: well as poor white Southerners. And so it became this

467
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:43,479
Speaker 3: opportunity for all, which is really when you look at

468
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:46,720
Speaker 3: the program that john and I were talking about, opportunity Now,

469
00:27:47,200 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 3: that was the same idea.

470
00:27:48,800 --> 00:27:54,560
Speaker 1: So in a sense, you're picking up where Lincoln was

471
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:57,119
Speaker 1: forced to leave off because he was killed. Do you

472
00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,959
Speaker 1: think it would have made a significant difference if he'd survived.

473
00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:01,080
Speaker 2: I think so.

474
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:05,640
Speaker 4: I mean, we see that because of that gap between

475
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 4: Lincoln and Grant and Andrew. Johnson's presidency also is the

476
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:14,879
Speaker 4: beginning of setting up the Jim Crow era, and a

477
00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:19,600
Speaker 4: number of dominoes fell, which were failures of reconstruction. You

478
00:28:19,720 --> 00:28:23,560
Speaker 4: had the movement of black people getting politically involved, but

479
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:28,240
Speaker 4: the Jim Crow era and poll taxes kind of changed

480
00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:32,359
Speaker 4: that whole landscape and So our thought process is that

481
00:28:32,480 --> 00:28:34,920
Speaker 4: if Lincoln would have been successful, that would have got

482
00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 4: ahead of those issues that may be held the South

483
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 4: back from dealing with this post integration piece, and so

484
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,400
Speaker 4: that's one of the things I think would have been helpful.

485
00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 2: The second piece is.

486
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:53,000
Speaker 4: That economic opportunity is to me the north star of America,

487
00:28:53,440 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 4: being able to take advantage of opportunity and empower oneself.

488
00:29:00,960 --> 00:29:04,280
Speaker 4: This is why we think like financial literacy and things

489
00:29:04,320 --> 00:29:06,440
Speaker 4: like that need to be taught in schools because it's

490
00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:09,560
Speaker 4: in the dna of being an American, being able to earn,

491
00:29:09,720 --> 00:29:12,320
Speaker 4: being able to keep your potential and make some money

492
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 4: off of it, in raw a life for you and

493
00:29:13,960 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 4: your family. We feel as that a whole number of

494
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:20,920
Speaker 4: individuals in the black community got left out of that process.

495
00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:26,000
Speaker 4: And again that there was an attempt to galvanize economic

496
00:29:26,040 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 4: empowerment through the Freedman's Bank after Grant took office, but

497
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:34,400
Speaker 4: that failed. So our thought process is that Lincoln probably

498
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:37,040
Speaker 4: would have been maybe a better manager with kind of

499
00:29:37,080 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 4: getting that set up the right way that may have

500
00:29:40,040 --> 00:29:42,840
Speaker 4: prevented some of the realities that end up happening, like

501
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,880
Speaker 4: Jim Crow and the lack of economic empowerment.

502
00:29:46,560 --> 00:29:50,320
Speaker 3: President Lincoln was not a perfect man. His ideas evolved

503
00:29:50,400 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 3: over time, and Frederick Douglas pushed him on a number

504
00:29:53,800 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 3: of different areas. But one of the areas of research

505
00:29:56,760 --> 00:30:01,479
Speaker 3: that we looked into. Douglas saw that Lincoln's development was

506
00:30:01,560 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 3: as a rail splitter, splitting logs, and he understood that

507
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:06,520
Speaker 3: you needed to put the thin edge of the blade

508
00:30:06,560 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 3: in first, and then you know, you could kind of

509
00:30:08,960 --> 00:30:13,560
Speaker 3: open up the opportunity. And so very few presidents have

510
00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:17,560
Speaker 3: had the political skills of a Lincoln. And we think

511
00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:20,080
Speaker 3: that based on what we've researched and how we've seen

512
00:30:20,120 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 3: his vision, he would have been able to handle this

513
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 3: and develop this opportunity for all. Certainly, when you look

514
00:30:28,400 --> 00:30:32,440
Speaker 3: at President Johnson, he was something of an accidental president

515
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 3: and certainly did not have the political skills nor the

516
00:30:37,000 --> 00:30:39,240
Speaker 3: will that Lincoln would have had had he been able

517
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:40,440
Speaker 3: to complete reconstruction.

518
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:42,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you almost get the sense that Johnson

519
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:48,920
Speaker 1: is pro Southern white and either and indifferent to whatever

520
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:54,680
Speaker 1: happens to African Americans in the former Confederacy. And it's

521
00:30:54,680 --> 00:30:56,960
Speaker 1: only when Grant comes in that you have a reversion

522
00:30:57,760 --> 00:31:00,760
Speaker 1: to the sort of Lincoln vision recently, I've been very,

523
00:31:00,840 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 1: very impressed. Brett Bair did a very interesting book on

524
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:08,680
Speaker 1: Grant and Reconstruction. I think I had not appreciated how

525
00:31:09,120 --> 00:31:15,160
Speaker 1: deep the conflict was. As the former slave owners tried

526
00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:19,840
Speaker 1: to reimpose some form of control what became ultimately segregation,

527
00:31:20,520 --> 00:31:25,000
Speaker 1: and as the Republicans actually up to using military force

528
00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:28,120
Speaker 1: against the ku klux fan. Grant was really trying to

529
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:32,200
Speaker 1: find a way to move the system towards Lincoln's vision,

530
00:31:32,720 --> 00:31:34,960
Speaker 1: but that the resistance was very, very deep.

531
00:31:35,680 --> 00:31:38,920
Speaker 4: Oh big tim And that's what we talk about those politics.

532
00:31:39,480 --> 00:31:43,440
Speaker 4: It honestly continued to be a political football that got punted.

533
00:31:43,880 --> 00:31:44,720
Speaker 2: Over the years.

534
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:50,640
Speaker 4: You'll see different administrations, because of tough times, make a

535
00:31:50,680 --> 00:31:53,840
Speaker 4: grand movement to try to do something different, but ultimately

536
00:31:54,480 --> 00:31:57,040
Speaker 4: we never moved close to kind of doing something that's

537
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 4: bold to really move the needle on community. I think

538
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,719
Speaker 4: a beautiful thing about history is that that also was

539
00:32:04,760 --> 00:32:08,040
Speaker 4: the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, and a lot of

540
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,360
Speaker 4: economic benefits happened for underserved communities there, and that really

541
00:32:11,440 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 4: kind of moved us into, you know, a huge economic

542
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:17,760
Speaker 4: power as a country. In many cases, especially as they

543
00:32:17,800 --> 00:32:20,760
Speaker 4: got unionized in the twentieth century. You know, some of

544
00:32:20,800 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 4: those job opportunities was left out of the black community,

545
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 4: and so not everyone had the opportunity to access that

546
00:32:26,960 --> 00:32:30,440
Speaker 4: type of economic mobility through a good economic pay from

547
00:32:30,480 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 4: those type of jobs. But yeah, certainly we think that

548
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:36,680
Speaker 4: if we would have had Lincoln, you know, we maybe.

549
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,920
Speaker 2: Have not had to deal with those segregation issues.

550
00:32:39,040 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 3: I completely agree that President gran was one of the

551
00:32:42,080 --> 00:32:45,160
Speaker 3: most underrated presidents for how he was able to navigate

552
00:32:45,640 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 3: that time period. But I think just given what he

553
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 3: was faced with and given sort of what we saw,

554
00:32:52,480 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 3: kind of tying back that reconstruction period to our time,

555
00:32:56,760 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 3: Milton Friedman says that governments never learned, only people learn.

556
00:33:01,120 --> 00:33:03,880
Speaker 3: And we did a lot of research onto Toakville and

557
00:33:03,960 --> 00:33:08,680
Speaker 3: Burke and these underserved communities are part of the conservative philosophy.

558
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:11,360
Speaker 3: They all mention it, they all talk about it. But

559
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:17,120
Speaker 3: how do we translate it into this efficiency that we

560
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 3: kind of came about seeing during COVID while we were

561
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,640
Speaker 3: in the White House. And so our policy goals really

562
00:33:23,680 --> 00:33:26,800
Speaker 3: are to ensure that you take all of these programs

563
00:33:26,800 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 3: that have been around for so long, like Jeron was

564
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 3: talking about, and get to their core. What's the goal

565
00:33:33,360 --> 00:33:36,800
Speaker 3: use data, you know, you sort of private sector techniques

566
00:33:37,200 --> 00:33:39,640
Speaker 3: and get out of that government mindset that you can

567
00:33:39,720 --> 00:33:42,640
Speaker 3: just keep throwing money at a problem. It's all about

568
00:33:42,920 --> 00:33:44,920
Speaker 3: results and holding people accountable.

569
00:33:45,160 --> 00:33:47,520
Speaker 1: I really think what you all have done here is

570
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:51,560
Speaker 1: very important, not just for conservatives, but for any American

571
00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: who wants to figure out how do we get everybody

572
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 1: moving in the same direction. Have everybody have a chance

573
00:33:59,200 --> 00:34:04,400
Speaker 1: to pursue happening, Have everybody be empowered to have better lives,

574
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,160
Speaker 1: in a better sense of the future and a better

575
00:34:07,200 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 1: sense that they can be in control of empowering themselves

576
00:34:12,200 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: and having a chance to go out into work hard.

577
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:16,440
Speaker 1: And I think the fact that two of you came

578
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:20,160
Speaker 1: together as a team is very very helpful. Jeron and

579
00:34:20,200 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 1: christ I want to thank you for joining me. I

580
00:34:22,520 --> 00:34:25,600
Speaker 1: think it's fascinating what you're doing as a historian. I

581
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:30,760
Speaker 1: think that your insights into Lincoln and reconstruction and Frederick

582
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:34,600
Speaker 1: Douglass and the possibilities that we're there and the possibilities

583
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:37,799
Speaker 1: that are still here today, combined with the experience you

584
00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:42,240
Speaker 1: all had in harnessing government to actually do real things

585
00:34:42,239 --> 00:34:45,600
Speaker 1: in real time during the COVID crisis. The word you

586
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:49,719
Speaker 1: use here underserved harnessing the principles of Lincoln's vision for

587
00:34:49,800 --> 00:34:54,280
Speaker 1: reconstruction for today's for good communities. I think that's exactly

588
00:34:54,320 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 1: the right concept. And your book, Underserved is now available

589
00:34:58,280 --> 00:35:01,319
Speaker 1: at Amazon and bookstores everyone, and I think it's a

590
00:35:01,400 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 1: significant contribution to the policy debates of twenty four and

591
00:35:05,719 --> 00:35:09,080
Speaker 1: the policy actions of twenty twenty five. So thank you

592
00:35:09,200 --> 00:35:12,279
Speaker 1: both for joining us and for sharing your experiences.

593
00:35:12,560 --> 00:35:14,759
Speaker 2: Thanks so much. As a speaker, I really appreciate those

594
00:35:14,800 --> 00:35:15,279
Speaker 2: kind words.

595
00:35:15,320 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 4: It really means a lot coming from you, So thank

596
00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:19,239
Speaker 4: you so much for the opportunity to talk about it.

597
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 3: Thank you very much, sir.

598
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,520
Speaker 1: Thank you to my guests Jaron Smith and Chris Pilkerton.

599
00:35:26,920 --> 00:35:28,760
Speaker 1: You can get a link to buy their new book

600
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,600
Speaker 1: under Served on our show page at newtsworld dot com.

601
00:35:33,000 --> 00:35:37,000
Speaker 1: Newtsworld is produced by Gingrish three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our

602
00:35:37,040 --> 00:35:42,120
Speaker 1: executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson.

603
00:35:42,520 --> 00:35:45,680
Speaker 1: The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley.

604
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,880
Speaker 1: Special thanks to the team at Gingrish three sixty. If

605
00:35:49,920 --> 00:35:52,640
Speaker 1: you've been enjoying Newtsworld, I hope you'll go to Apple

606
00:35:52,680 --> 00:35:56,080
Speaker 1: Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give

607
00:35:56,160 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 1: us a review so others can learn what it's all about.

608
00:35:59,560 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my

609
00:36:02,840 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 1: three freeweekly columns at gingrishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter.

610
00:36:09,080 --> 00:36:11,360
Speaker 1: I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Nutsworld