Speaker 1: Wait that ans up in the morning Breakfast club morning.
Speaker 1: Everybody is DJ Envy Angela Ye, Charlemagne the guy we
Speaker 1: are to breakfast Club. We got a special guest in
Speaker 1: the building. Yes, indeed, the friends in the room. He's
Speaker 1: been up here several times. Listen, I say it all
Speaker 1: the time. He's the only person from the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: who comes during the off season, when when it's not
Speaker 1: an election year, even though it is an election year,
Speaker 1: but when it's not an election year, Secretary Pete comes.
Speaker 1: That's right, well, Secretary Pete, thank you for joining us
Speaker 1: this morning. Thanks for having me on. How are you man?
Speaker 1: Pretty good in New York? Absolutely too. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a really exciting time for the work we're doing.
Speaker 1: So how do you like the position? You know, since
Speaker 1: you started, how has it been for you? Stressful and
Speaker 1: non stressful? All gray hair tell us about it? Definitely
Speaker 1: more gray. I mean what I say is it's it's
Speaker 1: the best time but also one of the toughest times
Speaker 1: for transportation. It's the best time because we're making investments
Speaker 1: that we haven't been able to do in my lifetime.
Speaker 1: The funding that's in the infrastructure package, So there's in
Speaker 1: my view, there's never been a better time to be
Speaker 1: in charge of transportation policy, and there's not a better
Speaker 1: job to have in the federal government. The other side
Speaker 1: of the coin is we've actually been through more disruptions
Speaker 1: to the transportation system in the last couple of years
Speaker 1: than at any time, with the partial exception of nine
Speaker 1: to eleven, than any time since World War Two. We've
Speaker 1: had container shipping issues, We've had cancelations and delays in
Speaker 1: our airports. We've had a number of disruptions everything from
Speaker 1: trucking and supply chains to passenger travel. But we've been
Speaker 1: working through those and the causes of those are mostly temporary.
Speaker 1: Most of it have something to do with the pandemic.
Speaker 1: So as we're tackling those issues, the investments that we're making,
Speaker 1: the repairs that we're making, the improvements that we're making
Speaker 1: to the transportation system, that's permanent. So the reasons that
Speaker 1: the job has been demanding are I think less enduring
Speaker 1: than the reasons to be really excited about about the work.
Speaker 1: I love the job. It's definitely a complicated time for transportation.
Speaker 1: It's been almost must be a sucky jobs, says all
Speaker 1: must sucky job at this point, and the reason I
Speaker 1: say that is right when you going off is that's
Speaker 1: when everything started to happen, and things that you can't control, right,
Speaker 1: Like you mentioned cargo, you can't control that. You can't
Speaker 1: control what's going on in the world right now, and
Speaker 1: it has to be so difficult to try to fix it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's part of what we sign up for when
Speaker 1: we go into public policy, right. You want a job
Speaker 1: like this so that you can tackle. You come in
Speaker 1: with a list of things you wanted to do, and
Speaker 1: then there's all the things to get thrown at you.
Speaker 1: And that could be a labor issue in our rail system,
Speaker 1: it could be a pandemic, It could be an extreme
Speaker 1: weather event. It could be a terrorist attack. By definition,
Speaker 1: you don't know. But part of the job is to
Speaker 1: be ready for that and to help work through that.
Speaker 1: You wind up dealing with a lot of things that
Speaker 1: you don't control, and it turns out you can take
Speaker 1: some of the things you do control and use those
Speaker 1: tools to help. So you look at something like the
Speaker 1: supply chain issue. Yeah, a lot of that global supply
Speaker 1: chain imbalance is caused by factories shutting down in China
Speaker 1: and then more ships making their way across the specific
Speaker 1: than our ports are ready for. But it turns out
Speaker 1: there are things we could do, working with the ports,
Speaker 1: working with the companies, working with the tools we have
Speaker 1: to not exactly fix everything overnight, but make it better.
Speaker 1: Right now, there's less than ten ships I think, bearing
Speaker 1: down on the West coast this time. A year ago
Speaker 1: there there were about one hundred, and some of the
Speaker 1: work we did helped with that. It's been almost a
Speaker 1: year since the infrastruction law, that's right, Yeah, I signed
Speaker 1: it in November. So what have the updates been? So
Speaker 1: one year in, we've been standing up all of the
Speaker 1: different programs that have created and starting to move the
Speaker 1: money out, something like one hundred billion dollars already moving
Speaker 1: in order to fix roads, fixed bridges, airports. We were
Speaker 1: just in Orlando. We're improving the airport there. We're just
Speaker 1: in Detroit. We announced a project there. We're putting one
Speaker 1: hundred million in to help Detroit take I three seventy five,
Speaker 1: which cuts right through it. They destroyed a couple of
Speaker 1: neighborhoods when they built it, and it's just like a gash.
Speaker 1: It just kind of slices those mostly black neighborhoods. Apart
Speaker 1: from from downtown. We're gonna lift it up and turn
Speaker 1: it into a boulevard and use it to reconnect the community.
Speaker 1: We're doing a project in the Inland Empire Fontana, California,
Speaker 1: part of the region that doesn't get as much attention
Speaker 1: as La. You got kids who have to walk basically
Speaker 1: on a highway. There's this road that has no gut
Speaker 1: or no curve, no sidewalk, and in order to get
Speaker 1: to high school, they're they're competing with cars and trucks,
Speaker 1: and we're funding an improvement that's going to fix that.
Speaker 1: We're doing the elimination of railroad crosses, literally hundreds and
Speaker 1: hundreds of projects, so getting those under way who has
Speaker 1: been the work of the last year. It's a five
Speaker 1: year bill, so the bill, the presence sign has five
Speaker 1: years of funding. We're just through year one and it's
Speaker 1: really I mean, it's still the very beginning of a
Speaker 1: lot of what we're working on, but we're starting to
Speaker 1: see the results now. Secretary Pete, another issue always is
Speaker 1: this right making sure that black owned businesses also have
Speaker 1: access to getting some of those contracts to get these
Speaker 1: where it done. So where are we with that? Because
Speaker 1: I know that's something that's been needing improvement. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of work to do here,
Speaker 1: a lot of progress that we've made. The first part
Speaker 1: is the contracts that we directly control out of the
Speaker 1: depart in a transportation So we set a goal for
Speaker 1: STB Small Disadvantaged Businesses of twenty percent. There's a more
Speaker 1: ambitious goal than we've been able to set before, and
Speaker 1: so far we're beating that goal. But I have to
Speaker 1: say for every dollar that we contract out of the
Speaker 1: department directly, there's about ten dollars that go out indirectly.
Speaker 1: In other words, we fund a transit agency like the
Speaker 1: MTA or a state department of transportation or a city
Speaker 1: that's rebuilding a bridge or an airport, and then they
Speaker 1: do the actual contracts. So we're working with them to
Speaker 1: make sure that they are inviting more businesses to the
Speaker 1: table that haven't had a seat before. Black owned businesses
Speaker 1: have enormous potential right now to do all kinds of work,
Speaker 1: not just if they're directly involved in construction and engineering,
Speaker 1: but if you're involved in let's say accounting serving one
Speaker 1: of the companies that is doing the construction right there's
Speaker 1: opportunity there too. So we're actually in the middle right
Speaker 1: now of the process of redoing the policy for dB
Speaker 1: disadvantaged business enterprises where there's a history of discrimination and
Speaker 1: we have legal authority to pay particular attention to creating
Speaker 1: opportunity there. You can go online. I know the website
Speaker 1: regulations dot gov probably does not sound like what a
Speaker 1: lot of people are excited to check out on Monday morning,
Speaker 1: but there is a chance right now through the end
Speaker 1: of this month to weigh in. If you're involved with
Speaker 1: a black owned business or any kind of MB your
Speaker 1: dB and you've had an experience trouble getting certified, a
Speaker 1: problem getting a seat at the table, or you have
Speaker 1: a success story to share about how public work, maybe
Speaker 1: being part of a construction project help you build your business.
Speaker 1: Now is a great time to enter public comments about
Speaker 1: your experience through Regulations dot gov on our DBE rule,
Speaker 1: because that will be part of what we use to
Speaker 1: make decisions about how to update the rule. Bottom line,
Speaker 1: nobody has a better track record of creating jobs and
Speaker 1: opportunity for people who have been left out in the past,
Speaker 1: including women in construction, including black building trades workers, than
Speaker 1: businesses who are owned by people who've been left out.
Speaker 1: The past, and I'm really excited about what we can do.
Speaker 1: But it's not going to happen on its own. That's
Speaker 1: why we're putting a lot of effort and emphasis on it,
Speaker 1: and I think we're gonna have a lot of results.
Speaker 1: I just sat down with the National Association of Black
Speaker 1: Women in construction. They have incredible success stories about how
Speaker 1: they've created an opportunity, but also about what it's like
Speaker 1: trying to get a seat at the table. Last week
Speaker 1: I was in Philadelphia, we had at meeting. We have
Speaker 1: a whole set of regional meetings that we're doing around
Speaker 1: the country basically to make clear, make transparent what the
Speaker 1: opportunities are actually going to look like. Because there's been
Speaker 1: a pattern in the past where you kind of had
Speaker 1: to already be in the business, already be connected, already
Speaker 1: be doing business with unit's a government to feel like
Speaker 1: you were in the know about what the next opportunity
Speaker 1: was going to be. So we're trying to make that
Speaker 1: more transparent. So I don't have any illusions about the
Speaker 1: work ahead, but I think we're going to be really
Speaker 1: proud of the opportunities that we create if we stay
Speaker 1: very focused on it. Now, I saw you in Philly.
Speaker 1: How do you do that though, because you know, the
Speaker 1: conversation was about how do you diversify federal contract and
Speaker 1: black and brown people, So how do you go about
Speaker 1: doing it? So the first thing that we did just
Speaker 1: when we were there was talking about some of the
Speaker 1: challenges they face. So for example, access to capital. If
Speaker 1: you're trying to get started or you haven't had these
Speaker 1: kind of big business opportunities, just being able to get
Speaker 1: capital funding or cash flow right, if you're a giant
Speaker 1: multinational corporation and one of your vendors takes two, three
Speaker 1: four months to pay, or now one of your customers,
Speaker 1: then you can absorb that. If you're a small business
Speaker 1: and a lot of these businesses starting out or businesses
Speaker 1: that are just trying to break their way in, they
Speaker 1: need prompt payment right, stuff like that. So we're talking
Speaker 1: about those direct issues that can be on an obstacle,
Speaker 1: but also we've got to have conversations with the prime
Speaker 1: contractors that are bringing on a lot of these black
Speaker 1: owned businesses as subs about how to be more inclusive
Speaker 1: and how to get some of these subs to be
Speaker 1: in a position where someday they can be the primes
Speaker 1: we're talking to a lot of state leaders. I was
Speaker 1: at convening Friday in Florida with all of the state
Speaker 1: departments of transportation in their heads saying that you know,
Speaker 1: we're counting on you to create more of these opportunities.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of different pieces of it, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things that we're doing in parallel,
Speaker 1: including this DV role that that that I was just
Speaker 1: mentioning that we hope there's a lot of public input
Speaker 1: on because then we can actually update the formal processes
Speaker 1: around contracting, the way the directories are built, just even
Speaker 1: the expectation of the requirement that you check to see
Speaker 1: if there are any new minority owned businesses that could
Speaker 1: be doing the work that you're about to open a
Speaker 1: contract for before you before you sign the contract. I
Speaker 1: was going to ask too, what you know, what the
Speaker 1: what the airlines? I mean, it's been horrendous. It's been horrible.
Speaker 1: People have been missing, you know, birthdays and weddings and
Speaker 1: funerals and families and what are we going to do
Speaker 1: to fix that. I've gotten better, though, yeah, I notice
Speaker 1: has gotten bet Over was still bad, like you know,
Speaker 1: and week and like she said, prices are high. So
Speaker 1: what are we doing to fix that? Are they finding
Speaker 1: me airlines? And right, so what do we do? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it did get better, but it was tough over
Speaker 1: the summer. We got big holiday seasons come up that
Speaker 1: are going to test whether these improvements are going to hold.
Speaker 1: There's three sets of things we're doing. First, finds, so
Speaker 1: airlines are required to do things like offer you a refund,
Speaker 1: give you a refund if your flight gets canceled, and
Speaker 1: a lot of the airlines that were slow to do that,
Speaker 1: or they drag their feet, or they didn't do it
Speaker 1: at all. So we're subjecting them to find because we
Speaker 1: enforce that rule that that you got to get a refund.
Speaker 1: That's part one. Part two though, is the rules themselves
Speaker 1: need to be tougher, So we'll enforce the rules that
Speaker 1: are on the books. But we need to raise the floor.
Speaker 1: So that's another thing that we have in the process
Speaker 1: right now. It takes a while, it's a it's a
Speaker 1: very ponderous legal process. You got to go through a
Speaker 1: lot of comment periods. But we've got that open right
Speaker 1: now on things like raising the floor. How long of
Speaker 1: a delay counts as a serious enough delay that the
Speaker 1: airline's got to give you a refund, so we're on that.
Speaker 1: And then the third part that has really helped is
Speaker 1: actually much simpler than the rulemaking process. It's just transparency.
Speaker 1: So we set up a website that makes clear which
Speaker 1: airlines will do what when you get stuck with a delay,
Speaker 1: For example, will they give you a voucher for a female?
Speaker 1: Will they book you on another flight? Will they book
Speaker 1: you on another flight even if it's only on another
Speaker 1: airline that there's a free flight, things like that. And
Speaker 1: I wrote a letter to the CEOs of the airlines said, look,
Speaker 1: in a week or two, we're going to put this
Speaker 1: website up, So now would be a good time to
Speaker 1: fix your problem. Yeah, now it would be a good
Speaker 1: time to up your game. And they did. We went
Speaker 1: in two weeks from zero out of the top ten
Speaker 1: airlines to nine out of the top ten airlines that
Speaker 1: will offer you at least offer you food or hotel
Speaker 1: or something like that. So, in addition to the enforcement side,
Speaker 1: which is very powerful but takes a long time sometimes
Speaker 1: to line up the pieces legally, we found that just
Speaker 1: transparency and we're going to add other things to this.
Speaker 1: You can check it out on our website transportation dot com.
Speaker 1: It's a passenger dashboard, just to give you the information
Speaker 1: so you can make a decision when you're thinking to
Speaker 1: ask for Sometimes you don't know it exists. I know,
Speaker 1: you know what I learned when my bags get delayed coming. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if it takes more than twenty minutes, you get Miley's
Speaker 1: credit there you go, right. So I always will go
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, my bag to forty minutes to
Speaker 1: come out, and I'll go right online and I get
Speaker 1: it immediately, right, But you have to go in and
Speaker 1: ask for it, right, yeah. Yeah, And you have to
Speaker 1: know that and that that doesn't follow any of this protocol.
Speaker 1: That's not given nothing back. So i'd invite you to
Speaker 1: check the dashboard. I don't want to pick winners and
Speaker 1: losers here, but it's really interesting. You know, we got
Speaker 1: a little green check marks, a little red exes on
Speaker 1: who does what and uh, look, some airlines have decided
Speaker 1: we're going to offer less customer service and we're going
Speaker 1: to be really cheap. And as long as everybody knows
Speaker 1: that going into it, if you're empowered to make a decision,
Speaker 1: that's fine. But what we can have happened is First
Speaker 1: of all, we have to have a floor where I
Speaker 1: don't care how cheap the ticket is. There are certain
Speaker 1: things you can do to a passenger, like leave them
Speaker 1: completely stuck and not offer them a refund. But also
Speaker 1: as you're making those choices, we've got to make sure
Speaker 1: it's transparent. We got to make sure it's clear, and
Speaker 1: we have more work coming up on things like like
Speaker 1: these fees, these little extra fees that aren't part of
Speaker 1: the airfare, but you wind up paying for them, and
Speaker 1: that's part of the cost to try ailing on a
Speaker 1: certain airline. It's they got to be upfront about that.
Speaker 1: What was causing these flight cancelations and delays. So yeah,
Speaker 1: like a lot of things in our economy, part of
Speaker 1: it had to do with staffing, hiring, being able to
Speaker 1: find people. What's frustrating about that, I think for a
Speaker 1: lot of us is we put billions of dollars into
Speaker 1: saving the airline industry and one of the conditions was
Speaker 1: you can't fire people if you're taking this federal money. Now,
Speaker 1: they they lived up to that, but they let a
Speaker 1: lot of people go into early retirement, including pilots that
Speaker 1: are hard to replace. It takes a very long time
Speaker 1: to qualify a pilot, both in general and then specifically
Speaker 1: on any given type of aircraft. Right, So when the
Speaker 1: demand came back, and we're glad it did, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's a good thing. It's a good sign for our
Speaker 1: economy that so many people want to fly, but it
Speaker 1: came back faster than they were prepared for, and our
Speaker 1: messages you've got to be We're glad that demand is back,
Speaker 1: but you've got to be prepared to service and tickets
Speaker 1: that you're selling. You're collecting money on this. Another thing
Speaker 1: that we've talked about is scheduling, realistic scheduling. So if
Speaker 1: you know that you don't aren't going to have the
Speaker 1: staff on this route, don't schedule has many flights, and
Speaker 1: we've been pushing them a lot on that, and I
Speaker 1: think that's that's gotten better and that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons we aren't seeing the cancelation rate. So before, you know,
Speaker 1: we were seeing three to four percent. That doesn't sound
Speaker 1: a lot, but the difference between one or two percent
Speaker 1: where we are now and four percent is the system
Speaker 1: starting to break down because it just can't ever exactly
Speaker 1: like you said, but the prices are so expensive now,
Speaker 1: prices through the roof soces for the inflation. So how
Speaker 1: do we come on bad inflation now? Because people are
Speaker 1: not making much Now, I'm like, this is ridiculous. Well,
Speaker 1: this gets to the bigger story, right, of all the
Speaker 1: different things where prices are high, and part of it
Speaker 1: is that the costs are higher. I get that. I mean,
Speaker 1: obviously one of the biggest expenses for an airline is fueled, right,
Speaker 1: But that's not enough to explain all of it. So
Speaker 1: part of what's happening, same with gas itself. Right, You
Speaker 1: look at the price of oil and the price we're
Speaker 1: actually paying at the pump, and the spread between those
Speaker 1: two things is higher than it used to be. And
Speaker 1: so we also have to have a conversation about a
Speaker 1: lot of corporate profits that are getting fatter on the
Speaker 1: margin there. And that's that's a big part of what's
Speaker 1: happening across the economy that we need to talk about
Speaker 1: when it comes to inflation. Because we've got some friends
Speaker 1: in Congress, for example, on the other side of the
Speaker 1: aisle who love talking about inflation but refuse to offer
Speaker 1: any solution. Can you still call those people friends? I'm
Speaker 1: being polite. It's a lot of fascism in there right now?
Speaker 1: Can you call those people friends? When the democracy look,
Speaker 1: I think we need to call something what it is,
Speaker 1: and when somebody is threatening democracy, we need to call
Speaker 1: that out. I also think, I know that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people definitely in Congress, in the Republican
Speaker 1: Party who are horrified by what's happened to their own
Speaker 1: apart speak out because they're afraid, because they don't vote
Speaker 1: like they are fraid. No, And so you know, my
Speaker 1: job as a policymaker is to sit down and work
Speaker 1: with them on anything where they're willing to do the
Speaker 1: right thing, which they did. On infrastructure for example, we
Speaker 1: had you know, a lot of Republican Senators and a
Speaker 1: handful of Republican House members come over and vote with
Speaker 1: Democrats and work with the president on it. And what
Speaker 1: are the solutions to regulating these corporations pack is getting
Speaker 1: fatter while everybody's paying more and not come at any Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: on something like energy, we had an idea. President put
Speaker 1: forward an idea called use it or Lose it, which
Speaker 1: is basically, if you're sitting on these permits at these
Speaker 1: leases but you're not doing anything to produce energy, then
Speaker 1: at a certain point you don't get to keep sitting
Speaker 1: on it. That didn't go very far, largely because it
Speaker 1: was blocked by the allies that the big oil companies
Speaker 1: have in the House in the Senate. We've got to
Speaker 1: have more again, more transparency about the practices of some
Speaker 1: of these companies, and we got to keep working toward
Speaker 1: a tax code that's fairer when it comes to these things.
Speaker 1: But again, the people who will talk about inflation all
Speaker 1: day don't necessarily back any of those things that would
Speaker 1: make a difference. We think that the best thing we
Speaker 1: can do for inflation is created breathing room for people. Right.
Speaker 1: That's why we cared so much about cutting the cost
Speaker 1: of prescription drugs. Thirty five dollar insulin. We could have
Speaker 1: had that and student Loanda absolutely right. That creates some
Speaker 1: breathing room when you're facing these higher prices on groceries, gas,
Speaker 1: you name it, even for gas itself. Right. It's one
Speaker 1: of the reasons why we're pushing to make electric vehicles cheaper.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying everybody can go get an EV tomorrow,
Speaker 1: but part of how we can give people alternatives is
Speaker 1: to make sure everybody can afford an EV. Some of
Speaker 1: the people who are beating us up over EV's being
Speaker 1: too expensive. Voted no on a bill that would have
Speaker 1: made them cheaper. That did make them cheaper. So we've
Speaker 1: got to look at who actually has ideas and proposals
Speaker 1: to create that breathing room because prices are going up here.
Speaker 1: Prices are going up around the world. By the way,
Speaker 1: It's not like this is a US thing. You know,
Speaker 1: you go to England, Germany, I'm they're pushing ten percent
Speaker 1: on their inflation. Now, there are a lot of sit
Speaker 1: you know that many of the analysts the banks predict
Speaker 1: that it's going to go down, but we're not comfortable
Speaker 1: with that until it happens. It's why we're pushing to
Speaker 1: create a little more space, a little more room, and
Speaker 1: lower the everyday cost people are basing on everything from
Speaker 1: healthcare to housing to transportation. I think that defaults. You
Speaker 1: was saying that the parent that COVID might get really
Speaker 1: bad coming up this winter. Are you guys preparing for
Speaker 1: that too. Look, it's it's got this seasonal quality to it, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, this is still where this is. I guess
Speaker 1: our our third time now dealing dealing with it, and
Speaker 1: so we don't know everything. We know that we're dramatically
Speaker 1: better protected than we were before. So the level of
Speaker 1: loss of life that used to come with the COVID
Speaker 1: surge is different now with so many people being vaccinated
Speaker 1: and hopefully boosted. It's it's definitely a time for people
Speaker 1: to get that booster if they're eligible. But yes, we
Speaker 1: got to prepare for that because you know, another thing
Speaker 1: that can happen even if you aren't going back to
Speaker 1: the days when there were a lot of mandates and
Speaker 1: shutdowns and that, yeah, exactly, you still you're still out sick,
Speaker 1: it can't come to work. And if you're you know,
Speaker 1: back to the airline example, if you have just barely
Speaker 1: enough flight attendants and barely enough pilots to fly the schedules,
Speaker 1: if there's no disruption or no complications and you have
Speaker 1: you know, even five percent of your availability go down
Speaker 1: because people have to take the five days, ten days
Speaker 1: whatever while they're sick with COVID. That's going to affect
Speaker 1: the system. So we are working to try to get
Speaker 1: ahead of that. It was good to see you without
Speaker 1: Demings in Orlando. Yeah, she's terrific. Yeah, And you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people run up for the Senate don't
Speaker 1: feel they're getting support from from Democrats. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that's why you was down in So I was
Speaker 1: there on the official side talking about the airport and improvements.
Speaker 1: So she we were with two members of Congress, her
Speaker 1: and then Darren Soto, who represent that area, and I
Speaker 1: thought it was very important to be with them. First
Speaker 1: of all, there were things they thought it was important
Speaker 1: for me to see, and she wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that I met with the workers, and I met with
Speaker 1: the leaders of the airport, of the economic development folks,
Speaker 1: the tourism, I mean, think about Orlando, right, that's part
Speaker 1: of the countrys been a mess iel. Glad you guys
Speaker 1: fixed that because let me tell you something. People have
Speaker 1: been missing flights Orlando. Yeah, so Florida actually has more
Speaker 1: demand than they did before the pandemic. Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's and and there's some airspace challenges so Florida. I
Speaker 1: don't want to get too I don't want to geek
Speaker 1: out here, but but if if you look at the
Speaker 1: national airspace in Florida, you have more storms than usual, right,
Speaker 1: including the hurricane. Part of why we were there was
Speaker 1: to look at the hurricane damage, and you have just
Speaker 1: a lot of traffic, and you have military operations because
Speaker 1: there's so many military bases there, that can mean that
Speaker 1: you have to change air traffic and space launches. This
Speaker 1: is actually they're actually we're getting to where there were
Speaker 1: enough space launches, commercial space launches that that can start
Speaker 1: to have an effect on the system. So we're working
Speaker 1: through that anyway. Yeah, so so Valdemic's is one of
Speaker 1: the members of Congress who supported this infrastructure law, and
Speaker 1: now we're getting the funding out to places like Orlando
Speaker 1: where they're building a new terminal. Um. Yeah, I can't
Speaker 1: talk about that while I'm while I'm wearing this suit,
Speaker 1: but you can't. You can't officially. The thing with the
Speaker 1: Hatch Act is I can do one at a time.
Speaker 1: So if I'm at a campaign event, I can. I
Speaker 1: can campaign. If I'm here as a secretary, than I can't.
Speaker 1: But but you know, it's definitely fair game to talk
Speaker 1: about where we agree with the votes that people have
Speaker 1: taken as members of Congress or as members of the
Speaker 1: Senate and the good policy that's going on including that,
Speaker 1: because what we're what we're seeing right now is a
Speaker 1: lot of folks who voted no on the infrastructure deal.
Speaker 1: The Republicans who did not join the Republicans who voted
Speaker 1: yes with the Democrats on getting this stuff done are
Speaker 1: still there to take credit when when we actually announced
Speaker 1: that that we're building the bridge, or we're fixing the airport,
Speaker 1: or we're doing the thing. It's really striking to see that.
Speaker 1: And so I do think it's important just to keep
Speaker 1: keep reminding people that, you know, the things that happened
Speaker 1: on the floor of the House and the Senate, that
Speaker 1: the present size, those have consequences, and you know, we're
Speaker 1: here for a very specific reed. We're able to say
Speaker 1: yes to these projects for this very specific reason that
Speaker 1: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law was passed and signed. And you
Speaker 1: know this is this is something that people need to
Speaker 1: bear in mind when they're asking, Okay, is my government
Speaker 1: doing anything at all that that I expect of my
Speaker 1: government to deliver for me? So if republic with that saying,
Speaker 1: with Republicans take over the House and Senate, how hard
Speaker 1: did they make your job? So look, my job is
Speaker 1: to work with whoever's in the House and Senate try
Speaker 1: to get stuff done. I'll say that the legislation that
Speaker 1: Republicans in the House and Senate have proposed so far
Speaker 1: is not in line with what we're trying to do.
Speaker 1: For example, one of the things they've they've put forward,
Speaker 1: or they seem to be aligning on as a strategy,
Speaker 1: is that they might be willing to have another crisis
Speaker 1: over the debt limit where there's a threat of shutting
Speaker 1: down or even defaulting unless there are a number of
Speaker 1: cuts in They could even affect things like Social Security
Speaker 1: or medicare right. So at a policy level, again I'm
Speaker 1: not talking about campaigns, but at a policy level, that's
Speaker 1: a pretty big disagreement. The pressure mounting for you and
Speaker 1: regarded the twenty twenty four because I know you said
Speaker 1: you didn't want to do anything else in government other
Speaker 1: than this, But the Democrats have a very weak bench,
Speaker 1: and I see how you move like you know, you'll
Speaker 1: come to places like the breakfast club, you'll go to
Speaker 1: Fox News like you're talking to a big swap of
Speaker 1: the American public. So it is it growing louder for
Speaker 1: Secretary Pete to run in twenty twenty fourth president? I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I already have a job, and we already have a president.
Speaker 1: So the best thing I can do is support this
Speaker 1: president that I really believe in in the agenda and
Speaker 1: the vision that the administration has, and as long as
Speaker 1: he trusts me to do this work on transportation, try
Speaker 1: to deliver on that. I mean, look, every job I've had,
Speaker 1: and I'm not trying to be cute about the politics,
Speaker 1: I know there's a lot of political chattery that goes on,
Speaker 1: but every job I've had, especially in public life, the
Speaker 1: best thing you can do is just try to be
Speaker 1: good at that job, and then whatever you want to
Speaker 1: do next, you're going to be better off if you've delivered.
Speaker 1: And delivering, you know, to our earlier conversation is hard
Speaker 1: as hell, but also incredibly rewarding when you're working on
Speaker 1: stuff like are you concerned with more celebrities coming up
Speaker 1: as being president that doesn't necessarily know politics, that really
Speaker 1: doesn't know what they're doing. We have another situation like
Speaker 1: in Donald Trump. Yeah, it's we're seeing a lot of this, right. Look,
Speaker 1: I think there's something to be said for outsider enter.
Speaker 1: I was. I was. I came into national politics as
Speaker 1: an outsider, a different kind of outsider. I was involved
Speaker 1: in policy as a mayor, but I was not part
Speaker 1: of Washington. And I don't think you have to be
Speaker 1: you know a Washington lifer to be effective. Um, but
Speaker 1: I do think you have to care about public policy.
Speaker 1: I mean, you see some people now who just don't
Speaker 1: seem like they care. And I think Kanye's running in
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. God, okay, great, why not? Look In
Speaker 1: the end, I think what people most want to know
Speaker 1: is what do you care about? And who do you
Speaker 1: care about? And when I'm coming to work every day,
Speaker 1: the focus that we have is the person who's stuck
Speaker 1: at the airport because because their online didn't take care
Speaker 1: of him. The person who lives ridiculously far away from
Speaker 1: from where they work and relies on transportation because that's
Speaker 1: what it takes in order to live somewhere you can afford.
Speaker 1: Or the person who is paying way too much in
Speaker 1: order to live where they can get to work because
Speaker 1: they don't have a good transportation option to do otherwise. Right,
Speaker 1: And we're thinking about them and how we can make
Speaker 1: life a little easier for them. I'm thinking about somebody
Speaker 1: who is talented and skilled, maybe doesn't have a college degree,
Speaker 1: but has a lot of skill that needs to be
Speaker 1: put to work and can make six figures if they
Speaker 1: get a shot at the building trades but because because
Speaker 1: nobody in their family ever has Maybe maybe there it's
Speaker 1: a working mother and it's not obvious to her how
Speaker 1: to get the childcare so that she can work a
Speaker 1: construction shift that starts at six in the morning but
Speaker 1: pays really well and could help her raise her kids.
Speaker 1: Like people like that, and I think the look I
Speaker 1: work in a building full of people who are deeper
Speaker 1: on every aspect of transportation policy than I am, because
Speaker 1: they've been doing it their whole lives. I think of
Speaker 1: myself as a policy guy, but my job is to
Speaker 1: connect up the priorities of the people who sent us
Speaker 1: here to do this work with all of that machinery
Speaker 1: of government that's designed to deliver better answers, whether it's
Speaker 1: a better design subway line or a more affordable way
Speaker 1: to drive to work or a light rail, you know,
Speaker 1: whatever it is. So I think that's the biggest question
Speaker 1: we have to ask about anybody who is in public services.
Speaker 1: What do you care about? And then, yeah, do you
Speaker 1: understand how to use this machinery of government, which it
Speaker 1: turns out, I mean, I spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: just navigating my own agency. It's really complicated, But can
Speaker 1: you use it in order to get things done. What
Speaker 1: about as a transportation secretary, Let's just say when the
Speaker 1: hurricane Ian was about to hit Tampa and everybody knew
Speaker 1: it was coming, but some people couldn't get out. Let's
Speaker 1: just say you couldn't have access to transportation or didn't
Speaker 1: have the financial ability to be able to take yourself
Speaker 1: and your family out of the area. Would that have
Speaker 1: anything to do? Let you do a little bit. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So we try to help on situations like this. Just
Speaker 1: Friday or Thursday, I went up with the Coast Guard
Speaker 1: and we looked at the impacts on the bridges, for example,
Speaker 1: over there, and we were able to release about fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars of funding to help or to get to
Speaker 1: work on getting those bridges ready. But what we're really
Speaker 1: focused on doing is, you know, before it comes to that,
Speaker 1: before you you're you know, twenty four hours out from
Speaker 1: the hurricane making landfall. Have we invested in things like
Speaker 1: evacuation routes to make it easier. So we have a
Speaker 1: part of the President's infrastructure package called Protect and it's
Speaker 1: about seven billion dollars for resilience so that we can
Speaker 1: either build build a bridge that's going to be more
Speaker 1: sturdy if there's a storm, or design things in a
Speaker 1: different way, because one thing that's happening is you got
Speaker 1: climate change. You got more and more impacts, and you'll
Speaker 1: have a road that gets washed out or destroyed, and
Speaker 1: then they'll fix it just the way it was, and
Speaker 1: then we'll get destroyed again and then they'll fix it
Speaker 1: just the way it was. Right, we need to do
Speaker 1: something better or smarter. In the West, it means wildfires.
Speaker 1: I saw part of I seventy in Colorado was like
Speaker 1: a climate change double whammy. First you had a drought,
Speaker 1: then you had a wildfire, and then there was nothing
Speaker 1: holding the hill, the mud on the hillside in place.
Speaker 1: Then you had a flood. I guess a triple whammy.
Speaker 1: And then that meant that there's this mud slide that
Speaker 1: took imite out of out of service. And that's a
Speaker 1: road that's critically important for supply chains because you're going
Speaker 1: through those mountains. There's no other there's no other way
Speaker 1: to go. You don't have an alternative. So we're investing
Speaker 1: in things that will help communities be ready for when
Speaker 1: disaster strikes, as well as trying to be there afterwards.
Speaker 1: Question when you do interviews right, and you're not allowed
Speaker 1: to talk about things like the midterms. How does that
Speaker 1: help Democrats in the midterms? Well, look, I think the
Speaker 1: good policy is good politics. Like, if we're doing things
Speaker 1: that makes sense and we can explain it, then people
Speaker 1: will appreciate that. And in that way, there's no difference,
Speaker 1: or there's not a lot of difference between coming out
Speaker 1: on a campaign trail and saying I think you should
Speaker 1: vote for this person, which is not what I'm doing today,
Speaker 1: and what I am doing today, which is saying, here's
Speaker 1: what we're working on as an administration. Here the policies
Speaker 1: we think are good. Some folks voted for it, some
Speaker 1: folks vote voted against it, and this is what we
Speaker 1: believe in. It's odd, but is there for a very
Speaker 1: good reason, right, I mean, the reason we have these
Speaker 1: rules is so that you don't go out using the
Speaker 1: powers of the federal government and push a political outcome
Speaker 1: on people. So I respect it. Shouldn't you go isn't
Speaker 1: at the whole point? Look, we can take we can
Speaker 1: take a different I can go put on a different
Speaker 1: hat later when you know my flight wasn't paid for
Speaker 1: by the taxpayer, and and talk about politics. But it's
Speaker 1: it's I think it's okay to have those things be separate.
Speaker 1: I think the important thing, though, is that I don't
Speaker 1: ever want to say something in one context that I
Speaker 1: would be embarrassed to have repeated in another context. So
Speaker 1: it's also just really important that we're consistent and we're
Speaker 1: clear about what we care about and what we believe
Speaker 1: in last question, do you feel like Democrats are rising
Speaker 1: to the urgency at a moment because we know it
Speaker 1: as a real threat to democracy, and like the midterms
Speaker 1: are right around the corner, but it doesn't seem like
Speaker 1: there's a sense of urgency coming from the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: about it. I think we have a sense of urgency.
Speaker 1: I think that the concern is how do we make
Speaker 1: sure to let me put it this way, Sometimes when
Speaker 1: something is sometimes something can be so big that it's
Speaker 1: hard to make it out and you actually have to
Speaker 1: break it down into something smaller, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So what I mean by that is that the stakes
Speaker 1: for our country right now, in terms of our own democracy,
Speaker 1: in terms of our future, in terms of our standing
Speaker 1: in the world, they're so enormous that if you try
Speaker 1: to talk about it that way all day. Climate too
Speaker 1: it's it's so exhausting that that I think it can
Speaker 1: actually shut people down a little bit. On the right,
Speaker 1: right wing media does it all day. Well, they say
Speaker 1: that the democracy is about to be over, but they
Speaker 1: blame democrats. That's that's true. And one of the things
Speaker 1: that I think is really important is that facts still
Speaker 1: have to matter. We have to make sure that there
Speaker 1: are actives actually such thing as true and false. And
Speaker 1: you look at what happened last January, you look at
Speaker 1: what's happening right now with people denying the legitimacy of
Speaker 1: elections that actually happened where you know, part of how
Speaker 1: democracy works is when you lose, you admit it. Yeah
Speaker 1: I've lost. Losing sucks, you don't enjoy it. But part
Speaker 1: of your job is to acknowledge that reality. Because the
Speaker 1: whole idea of democracy is rules and policy choices that
Speaker 1: we all have to live by, and that means we
Speaker 1: all live by things we don't always agree. That's the
Speaker 1: whole that's the whole concept, right. But I don't think
Speaker 1: there's any confusion about what's at stake. I do think
Speaker 1: there's there's a need to connect all these big picture
Speaker 1: questions to very concrete things and I think actually right
Speaker 1: wing media sometimes is a little better about that. I
Speaker 1: have a TV in my office where I got it
Speaker 1: kind of splits into four quadrants, and I can see
Speaker 1: the three big cable networks, and I'm usually watching one broadcast,
Speaker 1: and every time I glance up at it, or almost always,
Speaker 1: what you see on Fox is more of a story
Speaker 1: from a specific place that is meant to make you
Speaker 1: angry about this big picture fear real or imagined, and
Speaker 1: it just puts you in a different state of mind,
Speaker 1: whereas we I think on my side of the aisle,
Speaker 1: tend to prefer to talk in terms of the concepts
Speaker 1: the ideas right, And I do think there's some work
Speaker 1: to do there, But that's part of what I love
Speaker 1: about my job, because there's nothing abstract about saying, Joe
Speaker 1: Biden signed this bill, and you're getting a better airport, right,
Speaker 1: or if you like this new subway stop that's coming
Speaker 1: to your neighborhood. It's there because Democrats with a few
Speaker 1: Republicans helping out in Congress, in the House and in
Speaker 1: the Senate, voted on this bill, send it to the
Speaker 1: President's desk, and he signed it. In my department implement
Speaker 1: right like this is happening in your life. This isn't
Speaker 1: like some conceptual debate about conservatism or free market princess.
Speaker 1: This is like, we're fixing this problem. And I see
Speaker 1: the number one issue is the economy. Yeah, when it
Speaker 1: comes to the elections coming up, and so we can
Speaker 1: see who's voting for and against people to have more
Speaker 1: money in their pocket. Well, that's the thing I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, let's look at the choice. And again I'm
Speaker 1: saying that's not election wise, but legislation wise. Look at
Speaker 1: the choices that are being made. Right. So, the last administration,
Speaker 1: their number one economic policy was tax cuts for rich people,
Speaker 1: and they did it. It's one of the promises they kept.
Speaker 1: They didn't keep a lot of promises right then drain
Speaker 1: the swamp and they didn't build the wall. But they
Speaker 1: kept two promises, and those two promises represent two things
Speaker 1: they really care about. They kept their promise to cut
Speaker 1: taxes for the rich, and they kept their promise to
Speaker 1: take away the right to choose. Those are two things
Speaker 1: they said they would do. They took power, and then
Speaker 1: they did it. And what we're doing is working to
Speaker 1: keep promises. And I know there's some unfinished business in
Speaker 1: terms of promises that we've made. But we promised to
Speaker 1: get an infrastructure built on and we've done it. We've
Speaker 1: promised to act in ways that would reduce child poverty.
Speaker 1: We've done it. We promised, the President promised to get
Speaker 1: people back to work after we lost millions of jobs.
Speaker 1: More people are working in the private sector now than
Speaker 1: at any point in American history. So I guess you
Speaker 1: could say both administrations back to back have come in
Speaker 1: with a set of promises. People should think about which
Speaker 1: promises are kept. But like you said, democrats are terrible
Speaker 1: that messaging. I mean, you didn't say that verbatim, but
Speaker 1: you essentially said democrats are terrible that I think we
Speaker 1: think in ways that we got to work a little
Speaker 1: harder to to um the second message. But it's okay.
Speaker 1: I can tear you, Pete. That's what you're working on.
Speaker 1: It's okay to say that. Look, I hear you, I
Speaker 1: hear you, right, Thanks yours, We appreciate it, and thank
Speaker 1: you for always stopping through. That's pleasure with you. Thank
Speaker 1: Secretary Pete. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning,