Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. Stacy Abrahams, Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show. Thanks for having me again. I don't even
Speaker 1: know where to start, because every time I see you,
Speaker 1: I feel like you're doing more and more things. So
Speaker 1: let's start with the book. Okay, level up? Um, very
Speaker 1: few people can say that they have run for governor.
Speaker 1: And also is it a three times New York Times
Speaker 1: best set off or four? Well? Forgive, I mean it's
Speaker 1: as counting four times four times New York Times besiness
Speaker 1: an advocate and my I love that? Um, you like? Yes?
Speaker 1: He's my first question? Maybe is that? As like you
Speaker 1: do so well writing, why why stress yourself with politics?
Speaker 1: I love writing, but I also love people, and people
Speaker 1: do better when they have good leadership. People do really
Speaker 1: well when they have leaders that like them, and so
Speaker 1: I want to be one of those people who actually
Speaker 1: likes people and wants to help them from the office
Speaker 1: of governor. Okay, people feel that. Level up A book
Speaker 1: about essentially small businesses and how to grow them and
Speaker 1: the challenges that you do. You share the fact that
Speaker 1: you had businesses that failed. Most politicians will always just
Speaker 1: be like, no, that didn't fail. I pivoted it's the pivot.
Speaker 1: People love the pivot. One of the big things you
Speaker 1: learn about when reading the book is just how many
Speaker 1: small businesses fail. Now. I don't know if I'm in
Speaker 1: the minority here, but I sometimes wonder if there's too
Speaker 1: much of an obsession with starting your own business in America.
Speaker 1: Like it. It feels like there's this thing. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's attached to the American dream, but it
Speaker 1: feels like everyone is told you have to start your
Speaker 1: own business. Is there a reason you chose to start
Speaker 1: your own business and not to just work in a
Speaker 1: field that was already you know, business that already exists. Oh,
Speaker 1: I like paychecks. They made me very happy. I was checks.
Speaker 1: I was a tax attorney, and that was a nice paycheck.
Speaker 1: And then I began what my mother has called my
Speaker 1: trajectory of downward economic mobility. When I left there, it
Speaker 1: became deputy city attorney for Atlanta when I decided to
Speaker 1: run for office, though I couldn't. I didn't feel right
Speaker 1: staying in my job as a lawyer for the city
Speaker 1: when I was running for a political office, and so
Speaker 1: I left and I became what I call a redeluctant
Speaker 1: entrepree newer. I had to find a way to pay
Speaker 1: for my mortgage since I was going to leave my job,
Speaker 1: and that's when I started my business. And for a
Speaker 1: lot of people, starting a small business isn't this Horatio
Speaker 1: Alger story. It's not because they all want to be
Speaker 1: many moguls. It's often circumstances. A mom who needs to
Speaker 1: take care of her kids but also needs to make
Speaker 1: a living, and so she starts a business in her
Speaker 1: in her front, in her kitchen. It's people who need opportunities.
Speaker 1: And so my mission is to say, regardless of why
Speaker 1: you start your small business, here's what you need to
Speaker 1: know about it, because these are the things no one's
Speaker 1: going to tell you. Shark Tank is not going to
Speaker 1: happen for most of us. So here's what we need
Speaker 1: to do, and that it's going to be difficult in
Speaker 1: Georgia right now. Of the businesses in Georgia are small businesses.
Speaker 1: Of the employees are employed by small businesses. And so
Speaker 1: if we don't understand small businesses, we're in a lot
Speaker 1: of trouble. And if we don't do our work to
Speaker 1: prop them up and to help them, support them as
Speaker 1: they grow, and more importantly, help them scale then we're
Speaker 1: actually hurting the very people we say we want to
Speaker 1: help in our economy. If you were to become the
Speaker 1: governor of Georgia, people are screaming as I say that
Speaker 1: and cheering right now. If you were to become the
Speaker 1: governor of Georgia, what are some of the first steps
Speaker 1: you think you would take to help small businesses? If
Speaker 1: you say them, awesome, all businesses in Georgia. What do
Speaker 1: you think could change? Where can government step in and
Speaker 1: and and wei should that? Um? You know, sort of
Speaker 1: that marriage end between the government helping a small business
Speaker 1: whilst also making a business of business. First thing we
Speaker 1: need to do is to expand medicating Georgia, which sounds
Speaker 1: like a completely counterintuitive answer to the question you ask.
Speaker 1: It does, but Georgia spends billions of dollars and what's
Speaker 1: called uncompensated care we pay for people who can afford healthcare.
Speaker 1: Part of that is the fact that we have failed
Speaker 1: to take money that belongs to Georgians and reinvested in healthcare.
Speaker 1: But Medicaid expansion and george will create sixty six or
Speaker 1: sixty thou new jobs. When you expand medicaid, you create
Speaker 1: small businesses and it's an infusion of capital that comes
Speaker 1: from commerce, not from loans. Number two, we should we
Speaker 1: should teach young people how to start busicists, even if
Speaker 1: they don't ever want to start one of their own.
Speaker 1: They should know what it looks like, and then should
Speaker 1: it makes the better employees. If you understand how business works,
Speaker 1: then you understand why your boss who has two employees
Speaker 1: cannot pay you what your friend at Coca colaonics. And
Speaker 1: so it's it's creating that that lexicon and that understanding.
Speaker 1: And the third is encouraging financial systems to actually loan
Speaker 1: money when you have to do that in communities that
Speaker 1: don't have it. After the Great Recession, Black communities in
Speaker 1: particular lost banks and they never came back. And so
Speaker 1: when the p p P loans came out a good
Speaker 1: intention of government, the money went to places that we're
Speaker 1: not willing to lend to the very communities that needed.
Speaker 1: And as governor, I would pay attention to that. I
Speaker 1: would say, we need to use these small these Black
Speaker 1: owned banks, or these Latino owned banks, these community banks,
Speaker 1: we need to use those as depositories. So when money
Speaker 1: comes the next time, there's someone in the community who's
Speaker 1: ready to loan it. Let's talk about politics, which is
Speaker 1: everything in America all the time. Um, you are running
Speaker 1: for a seats that in a state that has become,
Speaker 1: i mean, one of the lightning rods of American politics, Georgia.
Speaker 1: What's interesting about this race is the fact that Governor
Speaker 1: Kemp has put into place multiple restrictions on how people
Speaker 1: can vote, when people can vote. He's reduced the availability
Speaker 1: of voting for people. Republicans will argue the same thing.
Speaker 1: They will say, no, all we're trying to do is
Speaker 1: show up the vote, even though we agree there has
Speaker 1: been no widespread vote of fraud. How do you begin
Speaker 1: tackling an issue like this where A you're running, so
Speaker 1: you want to make it better for yourself slash fair
Speaker 1: for everybody. But how do you how do you how
Speaker 1: do you find that balance of saying, two people, listen,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to do this for everybody, and I know
Speaker 1: that I hope I will benefit. But you get what
Speaker 1: I'm saying. There's that there's that paradox of of of
Speaker 1: the messaging that you're trying to get out. I reject
Speaker 1: the paradox voting. The process of voting is nonpartisan. Everyone
Speaker 1: should have access to the ability to vote. It should
Speaker 1: be easy to vote, it should be accessible. There should
Speaker 1: be a freedom to vote. Any impediment to that is wrong.
Speaker 1: That's full stop. I don't care who you vote for
Speaker 1: when I'm focusing on the voting system. My focus should
Speaker 1: never be on who you cast your ballot for voting itself,
Speaker 1: the process is nonpartisan. Now, when you get in there,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do everything in my power to convince
Speaker 1: you I'm the person to pick. But the fight for
Speaker 1: the right to vote is something that should cut across
Speaker 1: every demographic, every ideology, every community. We are a stronger
Speaker 1: nation when we allow people to participate. And if we've
Speaker 1: ever doubted that the war that Putin is waging against Ukraine,
Speaker 1: President Zelinsky said it. I'm gonna paraphrase them, and probably poorly.
Speaker 1: He said, this isn't a war in Ukraine, is a
Speaker 1: war on democracy in Ukraine. When we allow democracy to
Speaker 1: be overtaken by those who want to choose who can
Speaker 1: be heard, and those choices are not based on anything
Speaker 1: other than animous or inconvenience, then that is wrong. My
Speaker 1: mission is to make certain that everyone can cast the ballot,
Speaker 1: even people who don't like me, especially those folks. They
Speaker 1: should be able to go and cast their ballots. My
Speaker 1: job to make sure that more people who like me
Speaker 1: show up. But that's campaigning, that's not voting rights. Before
Speaker 1: I let you go, I have to talk to you
Speaker 1: about the mosque, yes, because I mean I was, I
Speaker 1: was on social media and then I see the picture
Speaker 1: of the mask. Then the picture gets deleted. This is
Speaker 1: what I found interesting, and maybe you'll correct me wrong.
Speaker 1: It's like it feels like with politicians. You have a
Speaker 1: team around you. Everyone's trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: solve the crisis or fix a problem. People say ridiculous
Speaker 1: things like God said it was like I hold my
Speaker 1: breath when I take the picture I and and it
Speaker 1: creates this weird um uh. It creates a situation where
Speaker 1: people feel like leaders on following the rules, or people
Speaker 1: you know are punished differently from leaders, etcetera, etcetera. Why
Speaker 1: did you say, yeah, I messed up, and and that's
Speaker 1: that and going forward? Do you think you'd be able
Speaker 1: to maintain that without at the same time letting your
Speaker 1: enemies use that as your you know, like, don't vote
Speaker 1: for Stacey Abrams. She messes up my responsibility In that instance,
Speaker 1: if I created any appearance that I did not take
Speaker 1: children's lives, state seriously, that's a mistake. But your job
Speaker 1: fundamentally is to acknowledge when you make a mistake and
Speaker 1: try to make it right. We have this this narrative
Speaker 1: that we have invincible leaders. That's just not true. What
Speaker 1: we have our humans who want to do a job,
Speaker 1: and we have to hold them accountable for the job
Speaker 1: they do. But we have to have grace when they
Speaker 1: make mistakes and trust that their intentions were right. But
Speaker 1: you can't trust someone's intentions if they never tell you
Speaker 1: what they were saying. I'm sorry. Saying I made a
Speaker 1: mistake is about being honest about your intention. I intended
Speaker 1: to do something I did not quite do it. So
Speaker 1: let me tell you about the gap, and let me
Speaker 1: tell you how I'm gonna make it better the next time.
Speaker 1: I need to remember that for the next time I
Speaker 1: mess up. I have a lot of practice. I wrote
Speaker 1: a book about it. Yeah, I'm just I'm just gonna pivot.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm gonna do. All I think of when
Speaker 1: I read it, says level Up. It's the first book
Speaker 1: I can dance to when I just read the type
Speaker 1: level Up Level Up, Level Up, Stace Abrams, thank you
Speaker 1: for taking the time, Thank you for joining us on
Speaker 1: the show. Thank you for having me. Stacy Abrams and
Speaker 1: Laura Hodgson's book Level Up is available right now. Watch
Speaker 1: the daily show weeknights at eleven central on Comedy Central,
Speaker 1: and stream full episodes anytime on Paramount Plus. This has
Speaker 1: been a Comedy Central podcast.