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Speaker 1: joining me now is a I guess you could argue
Speaker 1: a new politician to the scene. His name's Joel Willett.
Speaker 1: He's running for the US Senate in Kentucky. He got
Speaker 1: on my radar. He's kind of out of nowhere where
Speaker 1: Telsea Gabbert took away a whole bunch of people's national
Speaker 1: security clearances, even folks who were had served in the
Speaker 1: intelligence community were in the private sector but still had some,
Speaker 1: you know, some clearances, because that is a normal thing
Speaker 1: we've done in our government for decades. And there appeared
Speaker 1: to be some sort of connection. The minute mister Willett
Speaker 1: agreed to think about running for office, Suddenly it seemed
Speaker 1: as if the government decided to give him another headline.
Speaker 1: In some ways, I think they may have even given
Speaker 1: him an assistance with getting more attention in some ways
Speaker 1: for his candidacy, but he's also you know, we want
Speaker 1: to highlight interesting first time candidates who are not coming
Speaker 1: from sort of a typical place, hard left, hard right,
Speaker 1: things like that, And Joe Willett got on my radar
Speaker 1: and he agreed to sit down.
Speaker 2: Mister Willett, nice to meet you. Yeah, thank you, Chuck.
Speaker 1: So let's start with how you got in a service. Look,
Speaker 1: we're taping just before Veterans Day. You're a veteran. I'm
Speaker 1: a huge advocate that feels as if that the people
Speaker 1: best equipped to what I call to I'm looking for
Speaker 1: more pastors for patriotism in this country right that. I
Speaker 1: think the military community and the intelligence community, where you
Speaker 1: have to be Team America before your Team Red or
Speaker 1: Team Blue, is probably as good of a place to
Speaker 1: find these pastors for patriotism as you can find.
Speaker 2: But tell me how you got what got you into service? Yeah?
Speaker 2: I love that term. Atn't heard it before, so I'm
Speaker 2: probably gonna steal.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm using it over and over. I'm obviously a
Speaker 1: little proud of it, so I'm going to use it
Speaker 1: probably too much.
Speaker 3: But you know, well, my grandmother took me to church
Speaker 3: every weekend growing up and was heavily involved with my
Speaker 3: church for a long time. So it resonates. So yeah,
Speaker 3: thank you for the opportunity to tell my story. I
Speaker 3: am Joel Willett running for the US and in Kentucky.
Speaker 3: Your listeners can catch all the parts of the story
Speaker 3: at Joelferkentucky dot com if I miss something here. But
Speaker 3: I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and my path to
Speaker 3: service was perhaps common in some ways and uncommon in others.
Speaker 3: My dad was a Union iron worker. He was a
Speaker 3: Golden Gloves boxer. My mom worked in hospitals taking care
Speaker 3: of people. But we had some Kentucky struggles growing up.
Speaker 3: The lights didn't always come on when I got home
Speaker 3: from school. I learned, you know, early in my adolescence
Speaker 3: that both of my parents were struggling with addictions to opioids,
Speaker 3: and I would eventually lose my father to a fenteral
Speaker 3: overdose in twenty nineteen. It wasn't just my family, It
Speaker 3: was tens of thousands of Kentucky families over the past
Speaker 3: couple of decades. But I was one of the lucky
Speaker 3: ones because I had incredible grandparents on both sides of
Speaker 3: my family. I had my grandmother's church, but I also
Speaker 3: had the institutions of this country, public education, our military,
Speaker 3: our civil service, some of these things that I believed
Speaker 3: to be some of the greatest tools for achievement and
Speaker 3: economic mobility in the world. And when the attacks of
Speaker 3: nine to eleven happened, I was a senior in high
Speaker 3: school and a few months after that, after months of
Speaker 3: begging my mom to sign the paperwork, she relented and did,
Speaker 3: and I joined the Army National Guard when I was
Speaker 3: seventeen years old, and I served in the Military Police Corps.
Speaker 3: I was able to graduate from the University of Louisville
Speaker 3: and from the University of Kentucky, and that launched a
Speaker 3: career once I left the Army in the intelligence community,
Speaker 3: I spent some time with the FBI working on canterterrorism
Speaker 3: and then was recruited into Essentral Intelligence Agency into the
Speaker 3: Director to Operations, where I represented this country here at
Speaker 3: home and abroad in the Balkans, Baltic, Southeast Asia, Western
Speaker 3: European capitals.
Speaker 2: I speak Russian. Do with that which you will, and
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Finished my last year in government in the White House
Speaker 3: Situation Room as a nonpartisan civil servant, there to provide
Speaker 3: intelligence and crisis management support to the president who was
Speaker 3: then President Obama and Vice President Biden. There to serve
Speaker 3: the presidency, not the president, and the true spirit of
Speaker 3: our civil service. I left government twenty fifteen in part
Speaker 3: to be able to take care of a lot of
Speaker 3: my family that remained in Kentucky, went into the private sector,
Speaker 3: have since been running businesses that have put hundreds of
Speaker 3: people to work every day. So, Chuck, I truly got
Speaker 3: to live my American dream and have been, you know,
Speaker 3: living that life as a private citizen for some time now,
Speaker 3: and it's been increasingly hard to sit on the sidelines
Speaker 3: and watch working families across this country, working families like
Speaker 3: the one that I grew up in, eating steamrolled by
Speaker 3: a political and economic system that I think continues to
Speaker 3: treat them as acceptable losses. So, as you said, I
Speaker 3: started exploring a run for the Senate. This administration found
Speaker 3: out about it, and, as it is wont to do,
Speaker 3: began trying to act revenge on people, no matter how
Speaker 3: long they had served, no matter what they had served,
Speaker 3: but because they had said mean things about Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: And we're thinking about standing up against some of what
Speaker 3: we're saying today, and they revoked a security clearance and
Speaker 3: you know, came after me the way they've come after
Speaker 3: so many others.
Speaker 1: What made your democrat? Why'd you pick a party? Yeah?
Speaker 2: When did you pick a party?
Speaker 1: Do you remember when you've said, you know what I think,
Speaker 1: I am a Democrat? Or and this is why I'm
Speaker 1: doing it? What give me your reasoning for?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a.
Speaker 3: It was a long, maybe a short evolution out of
Speaker 3: being a conservative, which is, you know, I would freely
Speaker 3: admit to holding some conservative views as a as an
Speaker 3: interested teenager or even in high school. But my journey
Speaker 3: away from that came, perhaps shockingly to some people, through
Speaker 3: military service. The military exposed me to people from all
Speaker 3: walks of life, nationalities, sexual orientations, all of that, and
Speaker 3: I began seeing, you know, what I have since come
Speaker 3: to believe is, you know, this source of strength in
Speaker 3: our military and in our country, which is the diversity
Speaker 3: that we have. But it was also seeing the lies
Speaker 3: of the Iraq War.
Speaker 2: I you know, I.
Speaker 3: Could see something very different than what the George W.
Speaker 3: Bush administration was saying publicly, you know about this status
Speaker 3: or the state of our military, our readiness to fight
Speaker 3: such a war, and then you know, we we we
Speaker 3: later come to learn that much of the rationale for
Speaker 3: going to war in Iraq was a house of cards,
Speaker 3: and I continue to see that, you know, some twenty
Speaker 3: years later, as one of the most disastrous foreign policy
Speaker 3: decisions we've made, certainly in my lifetime. So that began,
Speaker 3: you know, a of reassessment for me away from you know,
Speaker 3: what was the Republican Party or conservative viewpoints. And I
Speaker 3: would say that the journey into being, you know, a
Speaker 3: Democrat is something that happened much later.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: I'm sure somebody will fact check me on this, but
Speaker 3: if my memory serves me, the first time I registered
Speaker 3: as a Democrat to vote was in twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 3: it was in response to what I saw as the
Speaker 3: clear and present.
Speaker 2: Danger of Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: And I have been proudly a Democrat since that time
Speaker 3: because that is the party that I see standing up
Speaker 3: for a strong America, for an America that works for
Speaker 3: everybody and not just the wealthiest.
Speaker 1: You know, hearing your story talking about your personal story,
Speaker 1: your parents struggles with opoioid's, the tragedy of your father,
Speaker 1: the strength of your grandparents, I'm sure I'm not the
Speaker 1: only person who they start to think. I wonder what
Speaker 1: he thought of Hillbill the book Hillbilly Elegy by a
Speaker 1: gentleman by the name of JD.
Speaker 2: Vance.
Speaker 1: Some people may recognize him as the current Vice president,
Speaker 1: and some people may wonder if the same person wrote
Speaker 1: that book. And I'll set that aside. I'm curious what
Speaker 1: you made of that book and how much of what
Speaker 1: Jdvan shared in that book resonated with you.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I first became aware of that book in twenty nineteen
Speaker 3: when I lost my father, and you know, an attempt
Speaker 3: to process my own emotions around that, because Chuck, it was,
Speaker 3: you know, one of the most debilitating things that had
Speaker 3: ever happened to me, because no matter how long I
Speaker 3: had expected that phone call, nothing really prepares you for it.
Speaker 3: And I would say, my life for six years has
Speaker 3: been a project and trying to understand how this country could,
Speaker 3: you know, create my life, which I see as a
Speaker 3: truly uniquely American life, coming from Valley Station, Kentucky, to
Speaker 3: the halls of the West Wing in twelve years, to
Speaker 3: leadership and business. If my life is uniquely American, so
Speaker 3: too was my father's death because people do not die
Speaker 3: from fentyl overdoses in a statistically significant way in other
Speaker 3: parts of the world, yet it's the leading cause of death,
Speaker 3: I believe in the United States for people ages eighteen
Speaker 3: to forty four. So I became aware of he'llbiliology during
Speaker 3: that time, and I would say, there are a lot
Speaker 3: of similarities between my story and JD.
Speaker 2: Vance's.
Speaker 3: I my heart aches for, you know, the life that
Speaker 3: he describes, you know, living growing up, and so much
Speaker 3: of it resonates with me. And I understand that, you know,
Speaker 3: he similarly felt a need to serve his country, and
Speaker 3: you know, I will have to transition now to say
Speaker 3: that there are major differences between my story and JD. Vance's,
Speaker 3: and that being that I didn't turn into a giant
Speaker 3: asshole at the end of it.
Speaker 1: Boy, I didn't see that landing. I didn't see the
Speaker 1: play landing that abruptly.
Speaker 4: That was may have crashed it a little bit, but
Speaker 4: I was just going to say I had one of
Speaker 4: those landings yesterday actually, while flying back from Miami, where
Speaker 4: it was the first I think a runway that he
Speaker 4: wasn't used to using it.
Speaker 1: It was like Boa, like we all hit the ground
Speaker 1: road WHOA, that was an early morning flight, so it
Speaker 1: woke me up. No. I mean, look, it is very
Speaker 1: hard to square jd Vance, the author jd Vance, the
Speaker 1: conservative pundit of twenty sixteen, right with the person that
Speaker 1: ended up in the United States Senate, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of making a what appears to be a political deal, right,
Speaker 1: And look, that's yeah. I've always slightly hesitant on motive,
Speaker 1: in assuming motive because none of us can crawl inside
Speaker 1: anybody's head right on motive. But he just looks from
Speaker 1: the outside. O. This stuff doesn't doesn't compute. But what
Speaker 1: does compute, frankly, is the fact that these so many
Speaker 1: of these stories exist and why politicians have had a
Speaker 1: hard time figuring out how to use government to fix this.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about that. Like I would assume for you,
Speaker 1: if you get elected that a priority is going to
Speaker 1: be okay, how do we deal with it? I mean,
Speaker 1: take the issue a fentyl. You got a president who's
Speaker 1: manufacturing is using the fentyl crisis, which is real, and
Speaker 1: ascribing it to the Venezuelans, which has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with this, right, and getting us potentially to screw up
Speaker 1: yet another Latin American country. With interventions that will only
Speaker 1: cost us cause this country problems for decades to come,
Speaker 1: and our distrust in that region of the country. And
Speaker 1: it's like, how many times do we have to screw
Speaker 1: up our relationships with Latin America with this? But what
Speaker 1: is you know, you've you've it sounds like for the
Speaker 1: last six years in particular, you've really wanted to understand
Speaker 1: both the struggles people have with fentanyl, how it gets
Speaker 1: into this country. What should we be doing differently to
Speaker 1: stop fentanyl from getting into this country? And is it
Speaker 1: Is it possible? You know, are we trying to like
Speaker 1: stop the weather right Like is this impossible? And instead
Speaker 1: we've got to go about this another way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think we certainly have to go about it
Speaker 3: in a different way than we've attacked this problem or
Speaker 3: any other of the drug crises that we've had in
Speaker 3: this country.
Speaker 2: Over the years.
Speaker 3: But you know, let me start with kind of the
Speaker 3: supply side of this, where we you know, that's where
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's conversation around it seems to end. And unfortunately
Speaker 3: for many Americans, he's not the only president that has
Speaker 3: stopped the conversation.
Speaker 1: There.
Speaker 2: We talk about, you.
Speaker 3: Know, a drug war, and usually what we mean there
Speaker 3: is attacking the supply and where the stuff is coming from.
Speaker 2: Yes, we have to secure our borders.
Speaker 3: Yes we have to go after and chase to the
Speaker 3: ends of the earth the supply of this stuff, whether
Speaker 3: we find it in a factory in Beijing or whether
Speaker 3: we find it being pushed from boardrooms in some of
Speaker 3: the largest companies and richest families.
Speaker 2: In this country. And you know, we've had many, many.
Speaker 3: Kentuckians lose a father or a brother because of unregulated
Speaker 3: capitalism and doctors who had very perverse incentives to continue
Speaker 3: pushing highly addictive opioids and poison uh into our community.
Speaker 3: So I think we've we've got to pursue the supply
Speaker 3: of this in many different directions.
Speaker 2: We've made some progress on that and uh.
Speaker 3: But but it's the demand side of it. Why are
Speaker 3: people turning to these drugs? Why do people want to
Speaker 3: use them? And I think it is that that we
Speaker 3: need to that there is so much more that this
Speaker 3: country could do. When I talk to you know, friends
Speaker 3: in Europe about you know, what's going on with with
Speaker 3: with drugs and addiction here, and they're like, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: drug addicts, you know, they often not because they're terrible people,
Speaker 3: but because they're literally out of their minds while using
Speaker 3: do some destructive things, whether they steal or or a
Speaker 3: public nuisance or wrecked cars and all these things. These
Speaker 3: are stories that are just so vivid, vividly remembered in
Speaker 3: my life and in my family's life.
Speaker 2: In European friends are like, wait, you send those people
Speaker 2: to jail.
Speaker 3: Why don't you send them to the hospital, because it
Speaker 3: sounds like that's probably what they need. In Kentucky, we've
Speaker 3: had three years of declining overdose deaths from synthetic opioids.
Speaker 3: We've got down to like fourteen hundred and ten.
Speaker 2: This past year.
Speaker 3: A lot of that progress was made because we invested
Speaker 3: heavily in this state and medicaid expansion, and it was
Speaker 3: access to medicaid that paid for treatment that helped people,
Speaker 3: paid for some NARCAN community awareness, and also paid for
Speaker 3: treatment for addicts. And I do think that is just
Speaker 3: something we have to invest more in because you know,
Speaker 3: we want people to have good lives and good opportunity
Speaker 3: in this country. And you know, young men, especially account
Speaker 3: for I think eighty percent of what we call deaths
Speaker 3: of despair, which are deaths from overdoses of some form
Speaker 3: or another, or from suicide. And I think this can
Speaker 3: all be tied back to people see their prospects of deming,
Speaker 3: who see that no matter how hard they work, they're
Speaker 3: not going to be able to get ahead. And that's
Speaker 3: something that has to change. And I think that once
Speaker 3: we have a seen economic policy in this country for
Speaker 3: the working class upon whose backs all of this prosperity
Speaker 3: was built, only then we be able to truly address
Speaker 3: these problems with addiction.
Speaker 1: So when you think about the things that could have
Speaker 1: helped your father, you know, what's an intervention that we're
Speaker 1: doing now? I mean, you know, I lost my father
Speaker 1: at sixteen. I'm sorry alcoholism and hepatitis C in the
Speaker 1: late eighties when we didn't have a pill to take
Speaker 1: to sol hepatitis CE.
Speaker 2: You just died.
Speaker 1: So you know, I've got it's always what of?
Speaker 3: For me?
Speaker 1: The what if is, oh, my goodness, if you just
Speaker 1: lived ten years longer than there'd have been a cure
Speaker 1: and he would have survived. When you think about the
Speaker 1: things that we're doing now, if they had been available
Speaker 1: even ten years ago, do you think your father there
Speaker 1: would still be a lot? Well?
Speaker 3: I know that as a civil servant, you know, living
Speaker 3: on an okay salary, but in a very expensive city
Speaker 3: in Washington, d C. It was very tough to get
Speaker 3: access to resources. And so I always say, you know,
Speaker 3: we confronted my father and checked him into you know,
Speaker 3: dollar store rehab and Elizabethtown, Kentucky. You know it was
Speaker 3: there were professionals there were doing the best they can,
Speaker 3: but it wasn't the most well resourced facility, and a
Speaker 3: lot of desperate people showed up there. But even that
Speaker 3: bought us some valuable years with my dad. He was
Speaker 3: able to see his granddaughter, you know, grow up in
Speaker 3: his best moments, you know, in my in my recollection
Speaker 3: were always when he was a heavily involved father, and
Speaker 3: it was as my you know, my life and his
Speaker 3: started going in very different directions when I was a teenager.
Speaker 3: And this is because you know, there was a free
Speaker 3: fall that happens in this country. You know, you grow up,
Speaker 3: you have some roof over your head or some access
Speaker 3: to basics, You get good public education, and you've got
Speaker 3: some opportunities if you make just even marginally okay choices
Speaker 3: in this country.
Speaker 2: And my dad's path, you know, wound through a.
Speaker 3: Union and I got him jobs that were relatively you know,
Speaker 3: well paying when he could work. But you know, obviously
Speaker 3: there were mornings in the union hall where he didn't
Speaker 3: have work in the you know, earlier mid nineties. But
Speaker 3: it was it was you know, surgeries and things like
Speaker 3: that that started to get these pain pills into his system.
Speaker 3: And then as his economic prospects dimmed, those that became
Speaker 3: a way to medicate away some of what I'm sure
Speaker 3: was existential pain for him. I was going to provide
Speaker 3: for his family. I was going to provide for his kids,
Speaker 3: for son and his daughter, my sister. So to answer
Speaker 3: a question specifically, yeah, we are doing a lot more today.
Speaker 3: There's a lot more awareness about it than there was before.
Speaker 3: This is an uncomfortable thing to talk about, as I'm
Speaker 3: sure it has been for you, you know, opening up.
Speaker 1: And and it takes Look, you're never going to get
Speaker 1: over it. I you know, my wife and I both
Speaker 1: lost parents at different times of our life, and we
Speaker 1: always say, you know, the thing, the thing that you
Speaker 1: learn when you lose body like that, no matter when
Speaker 1: you lose it, it doesn't matter, it's always painful in it.
Speaker 1: You never get over it. You just sort of you
Speaker 1: live with it. Right, right, that's what we do. You
Speaker 1: just learn to live with it, and then you wonder
Speaker 1: what can how do you learn from it? Right? How
Speaker 1: do you how do you try to try to try
Speaker 1: to move on? You know, you brought up Medicaid. I
Speaker 1: mean you feel you're I take it your concerned that
Speaker 1: these Medicaid cuts are just going to make it that
Speaker 1: much harder. You know, do you feel like Kentucky needs
Speaker 1: more facilities that do rehab or they have enough facilities,
Speaker 1: they need more resources to staff those facilities.
Speaker 3: I think it's both, and I'll just zoom out to
Speaker 3: healthcare large. We need more doctors, we need more health
Speaker 3: care facilities. Uh. This administration passed an unconscionable four trillion
Speaker 3: dollar tax cut to put money back in the pockets
Speaker 3: of the already ultra wealthy, like the ten billionaires that
Speaker 3: serve in Donald Trump's cabinet. I find is saying those
Speaker 3: billionaires are not like the average Kentucky voter. They do
Speaker 3: not like the average Kentucky voter. And they paid for
Speaker 3: all of this by taking money out of healthcare programs
Speaker 3: that as our governor has been front and center in
Speaker 3: the press sounding the alarm about this. These cuts put
Speaker 3: thirty five rual hospital pills in this state under threat
Speaker 3: of closure for people, you know.
Speaker 2: To lose access to that healthcare.
Speaker 3: Even people who maintain health insurance through their employers are
Speaker 3: going to have to drive farther, wait longer. These communities
Speaker 3: are going to lose you know, one of the largest
Speaker 3: employers in their communities. So yeah, we have a shortage
Speaker 3: of health care access in the state of Kentucky and
Speaker 3: in many parts around the country. And I think Republicans
Speaker 3: in this administration have shown just play in simply in
Speaker 3: recent months that they do not care. So I do
Speaker 3: think that we need to increase the supply of healthcare.
Speaker 3: We need to invest in more of what people actually need,
Speaker 3: and in Kentucky that does mean you know, more access
Speaker 3: to addiction treatment and overdose prevention.
Speaker 2: But again, I think the root causes of all this happened.
Speaker 3: Way earlier in life, and I would again tie it
Speaker 3: to increasing inequality and dimming prospects for working families.
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Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting I know that the next and
Speaker 1: perhaps you know the fear of AI displacement for sort
Speaker 1: of middle class white collar workers is now you know,
Speaker 1: there's like a whole new group of folks that are
Speaker 1: learning what blue collar workers were worrying about during audit.
Speaker 1: The rise of the initial rise of automation and robotics,
Speaker 1: right plus the global the global trade system in the
Speaker 1: nineties and in the early odds, and that created this displacement.
Speaker 1: Now we've got AI. Displacement's going to hit another chunk
Speaker 1: of workers. This attempt to bring manufacturing back, frankly doesn't
Speaker 1: involve many individuals, right, It is more of a robotics
Speaker 1: and automated situation. So, you know, how do we You know,
Speaker 1: we can't go backwards. We're not going to force companies
Speaker 1: to use humans if it's cheaper to do an automated thing, right,
Speaker 1: That's just not how capitalism works. Well, what's what should
Speaker 1: we you know, what what is what are the jobs
Speaker 1: in the next twenty years that we ought to be
Speaker 1: trying to get our communities prepared for, get our public
Speaker 1: education system geared towards you know, because I think about
Speaker 1: think about the last thirty years, and we thought all
Speaker 1: of our kids needed to learn to code, right, And
Speaker 1: it turns out whatever coding you've learned, it.
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter anymore. AI is going to do it.
Speaker 1: And so I can tell you this as a parent,
Speaker 1: You're petrified, am I am my kids?
Speaker 2: You know, my kids going to have a future and
Speaker 2: what does that look like?
Speaker 1: It sounds like you have younger kids, both of mine
Speaker 1: are in college. What do you think about is the
Speaker 1: jobs of the future and how should government be thinking
Speaker 1: about it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, for the record, my son is is sixteen and
Speaker 3: this is obviously a very uh.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're right as a moment conversation. Yes, I have
Speaker 1: a freshman. I have a senior in college and a
Speaker 1: freshman in college. Oh wow, yeah, good stuff.
Speaker 3: So so look it We've always had I mean, America
Speaker 3: is the innovation engine of the world.
Speaker 2: We have always innovated.
Speaker 3: And with every wave of you know innovation, from you know,
Speaker 3: the industrial age to you know, the assembly line to
Speaker 3: even modern management theory and efficiency in factories and in business,
Speaker 3: there's there's always been displacement and we've always found, you know,
Speaker 3: ways to innovate even around that, and people have always found,
Speaker 3: you know, new ways to to to labor and to work.
Speaker 3: And I think there is some there are some reasons
Speaker 3: to believe. And I'm someone who spent a lot of time,
Speaker 3: you know, running a technology company over the past couple
Speaker 3: of years I've had the chance to, you know, when
Speaker 3: I lost my security clearance, some of the you know,
Speaker 3: the most strident and well known right wing trolls on
Speaker 3: Twitter told me that I should learn to code. I'm like, yeah, thanks,
Speaker 3: I did that six years ago. You know already did that.
Speaker 3: So I say that only to say that I've you know,
Speaker 3: spent a lot of time playing around, experimenting with and
Speaker 3: understanding AI tools and you know, their implications in the workplace.
Speaker 3: I am less bullish about the immediate, you know, wide
Speaker 3: scale impacts of this, because there are a lot of
Speaker 3: implementation issues, or a lot of data quality issues, hallucination issues,
Speaker 3: and all these sorts of things that I think even
Speaker 3: companies who have made a decision to lay off and
Speaker 3: displaced workers thinking they're going to be replaced with AI,
Speaker 3: are going to see and relatively short order that that
Speaker 3: it is not the panacea that they might think it is.
Speaker 3: Even still, I do accept the premise that we are
Speaker 3: going to have some massive changes in the economy, uh
Speaker 3: and in the jobs that are available to people. And
Speaker 3: I think that there are there are two things we
Speaker 3: need to wrestle with. Is one like, okay, if a
Speaker 3: business finds a more efficient way to do something, well, great,
Speaker 3: they're going to have more profits. But now we're going
Speaker 3: to have more people on snap benefits. Now we're going
Speaker 3: to have more people, you know, needing Medicaid because they
Speaker 3: don't have healthcare. Because you know, all this activity in
Speaker 3: the economy has to come from somewhere. It has to come,
Speaker 3: you know, from from consumers buying things. And what I'm
Speaker 3: increasingly worried about is just that that the broad consumer
Speaker 3: base in this economy is just going to be completely
Speaker 3: left behind because the wealthy have enough at the top
Speaker 3: to continue pumping money into these businesses and these experiments
Speaker 3: and buying really expensive things.
Speaker 1: Now we're seeing it right now, You're where the high
Speaker 1: end consumer market is doing just fine. Yeah, but middle
Speaker 1: and long people are pulling back. People are saving money,
Speaker 1: and it's like this income and equality line is gap
Speaker 1: is just getting bigger and bigger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so tax policy is I think the number
Speaker 3: one thing that can address this. You don't have a
Speaker 3: situation where, you know, the America's first billionaire he died
Speaker 3: a billionaire, John Rockefeller in nineteen thirty seven. Bill Gates,
Speaker 3: fifty years later became the fifteenth billionaire, and thirty eight
Speaker 3: years since then, we now have seven hundred and fifty right,
Speaker 3: and you know, all of the gains in the economy
Speaker 3: since the early nineties or like fifty two percent of
Speaker 3: them have been captured by the top one percent. So
Speaker 3: there has to be a reckoning with this growing inequality.
Speaker 2: One, it's im moral.
Speaker 3: But two, anywhere in the world in history where you
Speaker 3: see fascism grow, it does so in the fertile fields
Speaker 3: of wealth inequality, and people get desperate, they turn to
Speaker 3: strong men who.
Speaker 2: Say I alone can fix it right now. And that's
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: I look at I talk about the fall of Turkey
Speaker 1: in Venezuela all the time to former democracies.
Speaker 2: I guess you could take Turkey.
Speaker 1: Is slightly higher on the democracy rating scale than Venezuela is.
Speaker 1: Buttheles right Air Dowan and Hugo Javez before Maduro, but
Speaker 1: Ugoshaves who sort of started this revolution. Both of them
Speaker 1: used frustration and poor communities to go after the so
Speaker 1: called elites right in Istanbul or Caracas. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I assume this is your experience overseas, that this it is.
Speaker 1: There is a pattern here right where when they when
Speaker 1: there's a belief when the gap between rich and poor
Speaker 1: gets so big, you can weaponize the poor against the
Speaker 1: elites and the pitchforks will come. But democracy leaves.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's replaced with corruption and crony capitalism, every hypocrisy.
Speaker 2: Of some sort.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So we we do have to reckon
Speaker 3: with our tax policy that that I think has concentrated
Speaker 3: wealth at the top.
Speaker 2: That you know is certainly what does.
Speaker 1: That look like? Because I've heard this before and in frankly,
Speaker 1: you know, we you know, this is what we did
Speaker 1: one hundred years ago when we have all these robber barons.
Speaker 1: We passed the Amendment on the income tax. That was
Speaker 1: not about taxing Americans. That was about tax making sure
Speaker 1: the rich paid something back to this country that they
Speaker 1: were taking from it. And that's when property taxes became mainstream.
Speaker 2: Was back then.
Speaker 1: So what is what is today's answer? Because I agree
Speaker 1: that tax policy is probably the that's what a small
Speaker 1: d democracy should do in that sort of capitalism with guardrails.
Speaker 1: What what what large areas are you thinking when it
Speaker 1: comes to comes to tax policy and trying to close
Speaker 1: the income inequality gap without it coming across as redistribution, right,
Speaker 1: there's that fine line there, right.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: Well, one easy answer is something that that Ronald Reagan
Speaker 3: actually did and then in the late part of his
Speaker 3: second term, which is ensure that capital gains, you know,
Speaker 3: gains from investment were taxed same rate as your labor.
Speaker 3: I see no reason why people working forty eight sixty
Speaker 3: hours a week and are subject to payroll taxes. And
Speaker 3: you know, even if they don't make enough money to
Speaker 3: actually be subject to income taxes, they're paying a lot
Speaker 3: into to FIKA and into payroll taxes. And even in
Speaker 3: the you know, Reagan years, they found a way to say, hey, no,
Speaker 3: we're going to make sure that Okay, if you're if
Speaker 3: you're just putting money, you're making money off of money,
Speaker 3: well that's going to be taxed in the same way
Speaker 3: that making money off of you know, your labor or
Speaker 3: breaking your knees, you know, welding iron together and setting iron.
Speaker 3: Is that we're going to tax the same And that
Speaker 3: actually happened in this country for two years until George H. W.
Speaker 2: Bush undid that policy. And I don't remember if it
Speaker 2: was eighty eight or ninety, but one of those years
Speaker 2: check up on me.
Speaker 3: I think that that is a fairly easy place to start.
Speaker 3: And then the second thing, you know that we just
Speaker 3: have to deal with, are you know, the strategies that
Speaker 3: the ultra wealthy use to live off of their unrealized gains.
Speaker 3: You know, people will say, if I, if I have
Speaker 3: stock and it appreciates in value, but I haven't sold
Speaker 3: the stock, I didn't actually make any money. That's true,
Speaker 3: except that you also collateralized that stock and borrowed a
Speaker 3: lot of money from banks to be able to live
Speaker 3: off of. You know, you you accessed some value from
Speaker 3: that appreciation and that gain. And so I think even
Speaker 3: a simple policy like removing this by borrowde wealth preservations
Speaker 3: strategy that wealthy people use could also go some way
Speaker 3: and uh in curing or or making this a more
Speaker 3: equitable system.
Speaker 2: Basically, if you, if you UH obtain cash.
Speaker 3: Flow from those unrealized gains in any way, at that
Speaker 3: point it would be subject to tax.
Speaker 2: So these are kind of simple things.
Speaker 3: I think there's a lot of other complicated things that
Speaker 3: I'm sure academics and tax policy experts have a spectrum
Speaker 3: disagreement about. But I think you know, to your last
Speaker 3: point about redistribution, this is where democrats often get in
Speaker 3: trouble because everybody sees that, oh, well, we're going to tax,
Speaker 3: We're going to tax everybody more, uh, you know, hard
Speaker 3: working people, and then we're just going to do handouts
Speaker 3: to people who don't want to work.
Speaker 2: And this is just silliness, right.
Speaker 3: I believe that that's a myth for the most part,
Speaker 3: that most people receiving, whether they're SNAP benefits or medicaid
Speaker 3: or whatever.
Speaker 2: Actually do want to work.
Speaker 3: And I think forty million people on SNAP benefits, fifteen
Speaker 3: million of them do work full time. They don't make
Speaker 3: enough to actually be able to afford groceries. So I
Speaker 3: think we got to do away with some of those
Speaker 3: myths about the working poor in this country.
Speaker 2: But separately, rather than handing people.
Speaker 3: Money to go buy things, we as a country need
Speaker 3: to invest some of those proceeds into building more.
Speaker 2: We don't have enough high quality education in this country.
Speaker 3: We have an energy grid that is increasingly falling behind
Speaker 3: for the demands that are going to be placed on
Speaker 3: it by an aiicentric economy. We don't have enough hospitals
Speaker 3: and doctors. As I alluded to earlier, we need to
Speaker 3: invest in all of these things heavily, and infrastructure in
Speaker 3: this country.
Speaker 1: No, And it does seem though that there is a
Speaker 1: collective agreement on that. And yet you've seen this. This
Speaker 1: Congress doesn't function very well at the moment because we're
Speaker 1: in this you know, we're in this like forever cold
Speaker 1: war between red and blue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it.
Speaker 3: Is very dysfunctional. And even when you can have consensus,
Speaker 3: or even when you have you know, broad agreement on issues,
Speaker 3: you know, progress remains elusive. And I believe that it
Speaker 3: is just that this system has been captured by the
Speaker 3: political and economic elites that are entrenched interests. We have campaigns,
Speaker 3: you know, bought and paid for. Elon Musk invested forty
Speaker 3: something million dollars in getting President Trump reelected, and all
Speaker 3: of these parties you know, are looking out for their
Speaker 3: own interests, and they are the ones you know, funding politics.
Speaker 3: And we have tried to have grassroots campaigns over the
Speaker 3: you know, the past decade, but these relentless text messages
Speaker 3: and emails and candidates like myself have to send two
Speaker 3: people who already probably don't make much.
Speaker 2: No chip in five bucks to save democracy.
Speaker 3: And then a lot of that just goes back to,
Speaker 3: you know, paying for campaign consultants and all the absolute
Speaker 3: fundraiser makes the money. Yeah, it's absolute nonsense. And I
Speaker 3: think that that, you know, we have to start electing
Speaker 3: people to the Senate who understand the struggles of the
Speaker 3: working poor in this country. We talk about how much
Speaker 3: representation matters, you know, especially as Democrats, and we mean
Speaker 3: that in a variety of different ways, but one way
Speaker 3: in which we don't explicitly talk about it is do
Speaker 3: poor people see themselves.
Speaker 2: In any of the people that are elected to represent them?
Speaker 3: And I would say that they do not, because you know,
Speaker 3: many people who seek office year after year, cycle after
Speaker 3: cycle and win or lose. I just don't think they
Speaker 3: have much in common with the people who who they
Speaker 3: are trying to represent.
Speaker 2: And I think that that representation matters a lot.
Speaker 1: So, And I'm not like asking you to throw shade
Speaker 1: at potential primary opponents I may already have. Yeah, sorry,
Speaker 1: why did why does Andy Basheer succeed and why did
Speaker 1: an Amy McGrath fail in twenty twenty?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean there's there are a lot of you know,
Speaker 3: contributing factors, and you know why you should ask Amy
Speaker 3: what her assessment of that race is.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that she had all.
Speaker 1: The money in the world, all that money in the world.
Speaker 1: This was not a she didn't This was not a
Speaker 1: financial issue. So this became a you know, the you know,
Speaker 1: an old marketing slogan was that the dog that doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how much money you throw behind the dog food,
Speaker 1: if the dogs won't eat the dog food.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's not gonna work. Why didn't it work? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Again, she would probably be much more uh, you know,
Speaker 3: qualified to share an assessment with you on that. I
Speaker 3: will say Amy McGrath. McGrath has an incredible life story.
Speaker 3: She's a patriot that you know, has served her country
Speaker 3: and she she's been in this fight. I think my
Speaker 3: assessment is that in a place like Kentucky, and it's
Speaker 3: a state that has been you know, that has put
Speaker 3: its faith in its trust in Donald Trump, you know,
Speaker 3: three times three three elections in a row, and it
Speaker 3: you know, voters here believed the promises that he made
Speaker 3: and believed that he was going to be looking out
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 2: And when when.
Speaker 3: Democrats don't actually offer an alternative vision, when they sometimes
Speaker 3: speak in ways that sound just kind of republican but
Speaker 3: just a little less republican, I don't think voters can
Speaker 3: really tell the difference, and so if you got people
Speaker 3: on the fence, they're going to just vote for the
Speaker 3: Republican and Andy Bisheer, didn't you know do that? This
Speaker 3: is a governor who led with his values in both
Speaker 3: of his campaigns. He didn't shy away from talking about
Speaker 3: hard things, but he explained his choices, his decisions and
Speaker 3: reasons for different things, and decisions he would make and
Speaker 3: policies he would advocate for. And even people who disagreed
Speaker 3: with Andy Bushier said that they trusted him and they
Speaker 3: thought that he would look out for them. And then
Speaker 3: he has shown up. We've had fourteen natural disasters or
Speaker 3: something declared in the state of Kentucky over the past
Speaker 3: couple of years or during his administration. This isn't a
Speaker 3: guy who hides in the governor's mansion. He's been out,
Speaker 3: He's been present with people, and I think that even
Speaker 3: when they disagree with them are in marginal things, that
Speaker 3: he has their back on the major thing.
Speaker 2: So I think that that's probably the big difference.
Speaker 1: What do you think is the best way to win
Speaker 1: win over somebody who voted for Donald Trump in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four to vote for Joel Willett in twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would just ask those voters do they see
Speaker 3: more of themselves in Joel Willett or in Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump's net worth has increased three billion dollars according
Speaker 3: to the most recent estimates since January twentieth. How's your
Speaker 3: bottom line doing Kentucky? Wages are stagnant, costs are up,
Speaker 3: you can't afford groceries. They're actively trying to take your
Speaker 3: health care. This man went to the Supreme Court this
Speaker 3: week to try to get permission to not give people
Speaker 3: money to buying groceries in this administration, sure that Republicans
Speaker 3: in the Senate couldn't negotiate a deal with Democrats so
Speaker 3: that Americans wouldn't be faced with this unconscionable choice between
Speaker 3: being able to afford groceries or seeing a doctor when
Speaker 3: they get sick. And I would just ask voters to
Speaker 3: keep asking themselves why that is?
Speaker 2: Do you believe that this man has your back?
Speaker 3: And I think there is ample evidence at this point
Speaker 3: between his ballrooms, his own increase in his wealth, and
Speaker 3: these other policies he does.
Speaker 2: Not definitely has a gilded age feeling to it.
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Speaker 1: something you should really think about it, especially if you've
Speaker 1: got a growing family. Well, it leads me, and look,
Speaker 1: this is by the time this airs, the shutdown is over,
Speaker 1: it's behind it. So we're taping when they're in the
Speaker 1: middle of it ending. And I'm one of those who
Speaker 1: are empathetic to I get. I understand the rationale on
Speaker 1: both sides of this argument inside.
Speaker 2: The Democratic Party.
Speaker 1: One that says, hey, they're squirming, why give up now?
Speaker 2: The other that.
Speaker 1: Says he's taking away snap benefits, he's putting the travel
Speaker 1: system under duress. Somebody's got to be the adult in
Speaker 1: the room here. And oh, by the way, if you're
Speaker 1: trying if the whole point of this was to bring
Speaker 1: more attention to healthcare, that's been a mission accomplished. And
Speaker 1: then now the burden is on them to either deal
Speaker 1: with this or watch out. In twenty twenty six, this
Speaker 1: becomes a certainly a populist issue. So obviously you could
Speaker 1: see I can argue one side of this. I understand
Speaker 1: the other that, hey, the shutdown's gone politically really well
Speaker 1: for the Democrats, and Trump has made all sorts of
Speaker 1: mistakes like advocating to not pay snap benefits even when
Speaker 1: a judge says to do it, and the Speaker of
Speaker 1: the House is abdicated responsibility, right, Like, I can I
Speaker 1: get the arguments and I couldn't I hear both of them.
Speaker 1: Where do you fall on this argument? And I'm mindful
Speaker 1: that you're in a Democratic primary at the moment.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I'm not someone who is going to ever
Speaker 3: play hide the ball with the people that I want
Speaker 3: to vote for me and the people that I want
Speaker 3: to represent. So in that spirit, I believe that the
Speaker 3: deal that was just struck is a betrayal of working families,
Speaker 3: in this country. And I'm absolutely disgusted by this choice,
Speaker 3: with the with the eight Democrats who who broke pretty
Speaker 3: angry about this, I am very fired up, Chuck. I
Speaker 3: went to bed mad and angry last night. I woke
Speaker 3: up this morning the same exact way. And while yes,
Speaker 3: there are you know arguments there, I you know, we're
Speaker 3: fond of, you know, saying in sports and when we're
Speaker 3: trying to encourage people to to you know, get in
Speaker 3: there and fight and play a game, we said, well, hey,
Speaker 3: you can't win if you don't play. But I want
Speaker 3: to quote my favorite, probably one of my favorite TV
Speaker 3: series of all times, The Wire, and I'm sure this
Speaker 3: was a David Simon line, but one of the characters
Speaker 3: told the police chief, you can't lose if you don't play,
Speaker 3: and that is I think some of the energy Democrats
Speaker 3: needed here. If the Republicans wanted the government and open,
Speaker 3: they found ways to force through the you know, the.
Speaker 2: Big bullshit bill back in July.
Speaker 3: They did that right with without getting the support that
Speaker 3: you know they wanted from Democrats. They could have funded
Speaker 3: and reopened the government the same way. Not sure there
Speaker 3: would have been some procedural issues and delays and things
Speaker 3: like that. They could have gotten it done if they
Speaker 3: wanted to. Democrats did not need to go support this.
Speaker 3: And yes, it is terrible to watch people potentially lose
Speaker 3: their their SNAP or food stamp benefits. I was on
Speaker 3: food stamps as a kid. I know what that's like.
Speaker 3: You know, when my parents had to make decisions between
Speaker 3: being able to afford groceries or putting gas in the
Speaker 3: car to get to a job so they can make
Speaker 3: money to buy more food. I get that personally, but
Speaker 3: it is not Democrats that have made those choices. It
Speaker 3: was not Democrats going to the Supreme Court to try
Speaker 3: to get permission to not pay SNAP benefits. That was
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. That was Republican enablers in Congress. Democrats had
Speaker 3: a very radical idea throughout this shutdown. Maybe in the
Speaker 3: most prosperous country on earth, with thirty trillion dollars in GDP,
Speaker 3: we can have a country where people can afford groceries
Speaker 3: and be able to see a doctor if you get sick.
Speaker 3: That seemed like a pretty noble fight to me. And
Speaker 3: I don't understand, you know, when we've had millions of
Speaker 3: voters across this country, in Virginia and New Jersey, in
Speaker 3: California and New York show up just this week, right,
Speaker 3: you know, over the past seven days, rather to support
Speaker 3: a party that it's a.
Speaker 2: Fighting for them, to just immediately turn.
Speaker 1: Around and say, why why do you assume the fight's over?
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a temporary opening. You know. I
Speaker 1: could if you made me have to message it sort
Speaker 1: of on your I would say something like, look, we're
Speaker 1: not going to we're not going to make people have
Speaker 1: to ration food because this administration is going to do it.
Speaker 1: But we're going to keep fighting for healthcare and come January,
Speaker 1: if they don't do this, we're shutting this place down again.
Speaker 2: And what's wrong? What is wrong with that strategy?
Speaker 1: Because you do sort of try to strike I could
Speaker 1: argue that it strikes the balance between you know, helping
Speaker 1: in the immediate term and again I think, look, we're
Speaker 1: playing with fire with what's going on with their traffic
Speaker 1: control and not paying these folks and and all of
Speaker 1: this stuff.
Speaker 2: And I take it we had a we had a
Speaker 2: crash here and right, we don't know if.
Speaker 1: That had an was that impacted by right and we
Speaker 1: can't say for sure, but we know we've put these
Speaker 1: people under duress meaning they've got to work with a
Speaker 1: promise to be paid right, which I've never met the
Speaker 1: landlord that said that, hey, I'm gonna post date this
Speaker 1: check just you know, I just don't know when I
Speaker 1: have to get to post date it. Do you not
Speaker 1: accept the premise that there's time to fight keep fighting
Speaker 1: for this in two months?
Speaker 3: I think when you look at the eight Democrats who
Speaker 3: voted for this, it sort of betrays the parties thinking
Speaker 3: that they don't really buy this premise either. None of
Speaker 3: those people are facing reelection next cycle. To my knowledge,
Speaker 3: find me one person who wants to run on this
Speaker 3: compromise right now next cycle.
Speaker 2: I don't think you find that Democrat any.
Speaker 1: What's the running the compromise? I think the question is
Speaker 1: whether you're running. You know, you get to keep running
Speaker 1: on healthcare? I would argue you do, oh.
Speaker 3: Sure, because but the problem is you've got tens of
Speaker 3: millions of Americans who are absolutely now going to see
Speaker 3: premium increases or they're going to go without health care.
Speaker 2: That is now a fact that is going to happen.
Speaker 3: And you know a lot of people are like, oh,
Speaker 3: do you trust Republicans that they're actually going to give
Speaker 3: you a vote on this or whatever. It's like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I think you know, Thune has been very public that
Speaker 3: there is going to be a vote and it's going
Speaker 3: to happen on such and such date and all that.
Speaker 3: So take them out the where there's going to be
Speaker 3: a vote. Is that going to accomplish? Do you think
Speaker 3: magically Republicans are going to extend these enhanced subsidies?
Speaker 1: I think enough, because I think they're petrified of this.
Speaker 1: I think they're absolutely petrified of the impact. Commiss I
Speaker 1: think they're looking her way out. Yeah, we'll see, right.
Speaker 3: And so I don't have that level of faith right
Speaker 3: now because they are beholden to Donald Trump. And this
Speaker 3: is a man who who who found his affordability narrative
Speaker 3: for a maximum of five hours one night before he
Speaker 3: the next day said.
Speaker 2: Don't talk to me about affordability.
Speaker 3: I mean they are going to do whatever he says,
Speaker 3: and until he's out there saying the impersonation is.
Speaker 1: Noted there, Joel, I see that.
Speaker 2: It's incredible. Check you.
Speaker 1: Got to keep that up.
Speaker 2: What bory is it?
Speaker 1: Just have or do you have others that you're pretty
Speaker 1: good at?
Speaker 3: Oh well, we'll save those for future besodes. My wife
Speaker 3: hates my impersonations by the way. Oh, she's got to
Speaker 3: be the biggest fat she can't do that to you.
Speaker 1: I just want to discourage it. And I've got a
Speaker 1: shared brown impersonation that I've always been really proud of.
Speaker 2: Ground to be.
Speaker 1: I just need, you know, with the men and the
Speaker 1: working men and wavebow. You know, you got to you
Speaker 1: gotta have the dignity of work. There rol.
Speaker 2: That does very good and quick aside.
Speaker 3: I was was able to uh see Carl Rove and
Speaker 3: Paul Lagala do a fireside chat last last fall, and
Speaker 3: both of them, I mean, Karl Rove has an uh,
Speaker 3: you know, an incredible impersonation of Donald Trump and an
Speaker 3: even better one of George W. Bush, the president that
Speaker 3: he served so firstly, and Paul Lagala busted into a
Speaker 3: Bill Clinton uh that would deceive anyone. And I just
Speaker 3: thought that was very impressive that the presidents that they
Speaker 3: had served, that they had just kind of embodied their
Speaker 3: voice so realistically.
Speaker 1: Well it makes you wonder did they embody their voice
Speaker 1: or did the do the president's embody the voices of
Speaker 1: their chief strategistic Yeah, you know who's pulling this strength now,
Speaker 1: I'm kidding I'm kidding on that front. So I take
Speaker 1: it that if there's no deal on healthcare, you'd say,
Speaker 1: you think that this that these that shut down the
Speaker 1: government in January again.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I don't see what choice.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, I say this as a civil servant,
Speaker 3: and and and perhaps I should you know, lead with my.
Speaker 2: You know, I understand I've lived through shutdowns. I had.
Speaker 2: I was always a.
Speaker 3: You know, a an essential employee doing government shutdowns and
Speaker 3: had you know, pay at risk, and they got paid. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it always came back. But even if there was like
Speaker 3: a you know, a temporary you know, blip in it,
Speaker 3: you you you're not getting paid that much anyways, right,
Speaker 3: and you you continue to show up and it's it's
Speaker 3: work that you care about. But ultimately, you know, you've
Speaker 3: got to be able to afford things. And I don't
Speaker 3: want to use public servants as a as a political
Speaker 3: football in that way. But we cannot be the only
Speaker 3: party that cares about that.
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 3: One side of the spectrum right now is letting Donald
Speaker 3: Trump just run rough shot over the entire federal government,
Speaker 3: dismantling civil servants, civil service that we fought so hard
Speaker 3: to build in an a political way, in this country,
Speaker 3: and uh, you know, so I get Tim Kane when
Speaker 3: when he's trying to support federal workers, but you know
Speaker 3: the same is true from our corner, and so so
Speaker 3: I do think this is uh, we have to keep fighting.
Speaker 2: But like Democrats have to read the room the do
Speaker 2: you think Schumer should resign as party leader?
Speaker 3: I I think that there are very valid and open
Speaker 3: questions about that.
Speaker 1: I want.
Speaker 2: I don't know Chuck Schumer. I've not met with Chuck Schumer.
Speaker 3: You know, I get that, you know there is a
Speaker 3: lot going on behind the scenes, and you know, for.
Speaker 2: A party that is out of power, and so.
Speaker 3: You know that's that's not something I'm prepared to say,
Speaker 3: as we said here.
Speaker 2: But it is an open question. In my mind.
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like somebody, if you won, you would support
Speaker 1: keeping Chuck Schumer as a leader.
Speaker 3: If you had a vote, it would be a difficult
Speaker 3: vote for me to take today, I will say that before.
Speaker 1: I let you go. I'm just curious. You know. I
Speaker 1: just interviewed Governor Basheer earlier this weekend. It's on a
Speaker 1: new sphere, which is another sort of independent media outlet,
Speaker 1: and he said something interesting. I said, you know, I said,
Speaker 1: he was talking about tariffs, and this is a case
Speaker 1: where Andy Basheer, Mitch McConnell, and Ran Paul are all
Speaker 1: on the same page. And he basically said, if all
Speaker 1: three of us are agreeing on something, maybe there's something there.
Speaker 1: What do you make of Rand Paul? And I say
Speaker 1: this because if you win, that's a senator, you know,
Speaker 1: the States senators, you know, no matter even if you're
Speaker 1: from different parties, at times you need to work together.
Speaker 1: What do you make of him? And what do you
Speaker 1: make of his attempts at seeking a little bit of
Speaker 1: distance from from Trump World in a way that we
Speaker 1: haven't seen in the past.
Speaker 3: Ran Paul is an idiosyncratic senator to say the least.
Speaker 3: You know, his views will sometimes overlap in very weird
Speaker 3: or align, you know, in very strange and unexpected ways.
Speaker 1: It's a weird ven diagram, isn't it?
Speaker 2: It? Very much? Is I mean? But we have this
Speaker 2: in Kentucky with Thomas Massey as well.
Speaker 3: You've got liberals across the state celebrating Thomas Massey's willingness
Speaker 3: to stand up, you know, for the release of the
Speaker 3: Epstein files, which, by the way, this issue is not
Speaker 3: going to go away either.
Speaker 2: Those finals I believe will see the light of day.
Speaker 2: They have to. Voters are demanding it. But you make a.
Speaker 3: Broader point just about you know how we have to
Speaker 3: work together. No one senator can promise to get anything
Speaker 3: done on their own. You have to build relationships. You
Speaker 3: have to be able to work across the aisle. And
Speaker 3: I'm not somebody who presentds just to be some above
Speaker 3: it all centrist. I am not, and I, like I said,
Speaker 3: We'll always tell voters you know where I stand on things,
Speaker 3: and my mind is made up on something.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to hide from you what I believe
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 3: But that doesn't absolve me or any senator or any
Speaker 3: congressman of a responsibility to represent all the people in
Speaker 3: our states, because it is inevitable in a state like
Speaker 3: Kentucky if I win, you know, there are going to
Speaker 3: be lots of people here who did not vote for me,
Speaker 3: and they deserve a voice and they deserve.
Speaker 2: Representation as well.
Speaker 3: The problem that we have right now in this country
Speaker 3: is that you know, you can have seventy five million
Speaker 3: people vote for Kamala Harris and marginally more millions vote
Speaker 3: for for Trump, and they pretend that the score was
Speaker 3: one hundred to nothing, I know, and then all the
Speaker 3: other people didn't exist.
Speaker 2: You don't you didn't win that sualy.
Speaker 1: Not what our founders intended. They assumed it was going
Speaker 1: to be a messy compromise constantly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you know, we have to be able
Speaker 2: to do that.
Speaker 3: So you know, I would, I would work with you
Speaker 3: know which who would then be the senior senator from
Speaker 3: the state of Kentucky to take care of working families
Speaker 3: in this state. They deserve a voice, they deserve representation,
Speaker 3: and we need solutions minded politicians. And that's exactly what
Speaker 3: I would be.
Speaker 1: Outside of Kentucky. Who's the US Senator that so far
Speaker 1: you've been the most impressed with.
Speaker 3: You know, It's funny, somebody asked me, asked me that
Speaker 3: question a few weeks so, not who I was most
Speaker 3: impressed with.
Speaker 2: I was able to say a few.
Speaker 3: But I'm I'm gonna I'm going to continue to give
Speaker 3: Chris Murphy props. I have appreciated, you know, he's been
Speaker 3: a very level headed senator. He speaks passionately about you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of issues, but you know, particularly he's someone
Speaker 3: you know, I talked about, you know, my dad dying
Speaker 3: a uniquely American death from fentanyl. Well there's another uniquely
Speaker 3: American death, and that's to get killed at your elementary school.
Speaker 3: And you know, when you've got senators, you know, who
Speaker 3: are completely owned by the NRA, that that aren't you even
Speaker 3: looking out for response responsible gun owners anymore? You know.
Speaker 3: I've just been impressed with, you know, his leadership on
Speaker 3: that issue and other things, and somebody who I think
Speaker 3: is intelligent, whose heart's in the right place.
Speaker 2: And yeah, so I admired, admire that guy.
Speaker 1: And I take it that Governor Bursheer is your pick
Speaker 1: for president in twenty twenty eight because you got a
Speaker 1: you're going to be a home state guy. Is he?
Speaker 2: Is he running? Is running? I don't know. I don't
Speaker 2: think he's U I don't so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, look at you doing a little bit of blocking
Speaker 1: and tackling that I don't.
Speaker 3: Look at twenty twenty six, right, Yeah, of course, and
Speaker 3: that does have to be our folks.
Speaker 2: I will tell you this, I.
Speaker 3: Do not believe, and I know Gavin Newsom has been
Speaker 3: very public in saying this. I've been saying it privately
Speaker 3: for months that this administration intends to have free and
Speaker 3: fair elections in twenty twenty eight. And so if your
Speaker 3: listeners care at all about our two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: year experiment with democracy here or liberal democracy in America,
Speaker 3: it is imperative that we turn out in massive numbers
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty six. I believe it's one of our
Speaker 3: last chances to provide accountability for this administration and to
Speaker 3: ensure that Americans have a free and fair choice, whether
Speaker 3: that be for Andy Basheer or anyone else in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty eight.
Speaker 2: So I don't think the stakes could be any higher.
Speaker 3: And I will say Andy Basheer has been an incredible
Speaker 3: governor of this state, and he's shown a path to
Speaker 3: victory here for Democrats who want to lead with their
Speaker 3: values to respect him for that.
Speaker 1: Let me get chatty here on this because you worked
Speaker 1: in the intelgen's community, and I've been working with some people,
Speaker 1: former members of the intelligence community on an exercise on
Speaker 1: trust and media.
Speaker 2: And it's not just about media and journalists. It's more
Speaker 2: about the information ecosystem and what happens if you have
Speaker 2: bad intelligence. Like I'm working with people who are nervous
Speaker 2: that the information you know, we already know. There's a
Speaker 2: lot of misinformation and disinformation out there, and that if
Speaker 2: we don't figure out clean ways to get information, then
Speaker 2: we're going to make terrible national security decisions. Like how
Speaker 2: bad is the flow of intelligence these days? Do you
Speaker 2: is it in considering sort of how much we've alienated
Speaker 2: some of our key allies, you know, in the in
Speaker 2: the world of the Five Eyes, all the English language
Speaker 2: allies of ours that I get the impression that there's
Speaker 2: either concern that you know, we've got too many leaks
Speaker 2: in our system or all of our stuff. There's one
Speaker 2: country in particular that gets access to intelligence without telling
Speaker 2: them what what is? What do you feel like as
Speaker 2: the state of America, the American the intelligence that are
Speaker 2: are the intelligence community is getting these days? Yeah, I appreciate.
Speaker 3: That question more than you know, and and uh, you know,
Speaker 3: would would love to have an extended conversation about it,
Speaker 3: because I think that there are a lot of different
Speaker 3: forces that are polluting the information environment and leading to
Speaker 3: very poor information hygiene, not just in you know, our
Speaker 3: federal government with policymakers, but with our kids and with
Speaker 3: with school aged kids and people in university and and
Speaker 3: everything else. I would just turn to Russia as an
Speaker 3: example of this. During COVID. You may recall some of
Speaker 3: these images of Vladimir Putin setting at the end of
Speaker 3: a you know, a thirty foot table and an advisor
Speaker 3: you know, at the other end, and I, you know,
Speaker 3: equipped at the time that he had entered the uh
Speaker 3: late stage Howard Hughes phase of his government, his governing.
Speaker 1: Have you noticed his nails are suddenly super long?
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, right yet?
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, Well, when he grows a beard, we'll know
Speaker 4: that the transformation lenen beard.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but it is it is an isolated autocrat
Speaker 3: who behaves the way that he did during COVID, who
Speaker 3: also then makes the decision to invade Ukraine. And when
Speaker 3: you listen to Vladimir Putins speak about, you know, his
Speaker 3: reasons for invading Ukraine. Yes, he has this sort of
Speaker 3: imperialistic worldview about Russia and you know, glory of Russia
Speaker 3: and all these.
Speaker 2: Sorts of things.
Speaker 3: But he also routinely just says things that are untrue,
Speaker 3: and you don't know if that's propaganda. I believe at
Speaker 3: this point the Vladimir Putin's information environment has become massively
Speaker 3: polluted because everybody in the Siliviki and the intelligence community
Speaker 3: in Russia has figured out that like, this is what
Speaker 3: this man believes, this is what this man wants to hear,
Speaker 3: and that's what they tell him, and he's manipulated in
Speaker 3: those ways. So there are very real examples of the
Speaker 3: consequences of that type of government that we see with
Speaker 3: Russia and the atrocities that are being committed in Ukraine.
Speaker 3: So let's go from Russia to the US intelligence community,
Speaker 3: and then I'll just finish my response with kids. My
Speaker 3: security clearance was revoked, as we talked about it at
Speaker 3: the top of the show, and it was revoked because
Speaker 3: I said something mean about Donald Trump six years ago,
Speaker 3: and because they found out I was going to exercise
Speaker 3: political speech by potentially, you know, by considering a run
Speaker 3: for the US.
Speaker 2: Senate, just astablishing something you said six years ago. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: what they use.
Speaker 1: I mean, that is just like thought police stuff. Let's
Speaker 1: write out all the while. Yeah, it truly is.
Speaker 3: And you know, it was right wing Twitter that started
Speaker 3: that dug up some of this and started attacking me.
Speaker 3: And then I guess right wing Twitter runs our intelligence community.
Speaker 3: Now it's a very dangerous thing. Or a Loomer the
Speaker 3: CIA chief apparently, Yeah, exactly. And so what do I
Speaker 3: think the follow on effects of something like what happened
Speaker 3: to me? But it is since I mean James Comey
Speaker 3: being indicted and other people who were actively serving in
Speaker 3: the CIA being walked out by security because they ended
Speaker 3: up on some list that nobody knows how. So this
Speaker 3: is going to and perhaps already has a massive chilling
Speaker 3: effect throughout our federal government.
Speaker 2: And it's not just the intelligence community.
Speaker 3: I mean Donald Trump went to war with a weather
Speaker 3: forecast during his first administration. We might recall where he
Speaker 3: modified the course of a map rather than just saying,
Speaker 3: you know, I accidentally added an extra state in my comment.
Speaker 2: Right, So, up and down the civil service.
Speaker 3: You have people who know that if they speak truth
Speaker 3: to power like they're supposed to, they're.
Speaker 2: Just going to be out a job.
Speaker 3: And so that is dangerous for national security. It's dangerous
Speaker 3: for domestic security to not have expertise in the civil service.
Speaker 1: And what would you do if you're in that situation,
Speaker 1: You know you have the So literally a week before
Speaker 1: the head of Southern Command decided to resign rather than
Speaker 1: carry out these orders on these on these Venezuela on
Speaker 1: these boats out off the coast of Venezuela. I'd ask
Speaker 1: Jim Stavridi's former NATO superamaut Like commander, former head of
Speaker 1: Southern Command. I said, what happens if you get an
Speaker 1: order you're not on our pretent?
Speaker 2: Sure is legal?
Speaker 1: Right? We know we know that, you know if if
Speaker 1: you follow an illegal order, you're going to be held
Speaker 1: accountable to right. We have made that clear in our
Speaker 1: in our law. And he goes, well, you would, he goes,
Speaker 1: I'd probably resign and not go public about why I resigned.
Speaker 2: I'd simply resign.
Speaker 1: Let others And you know, there's there's this sort of
Speaker 1: there's always that that sort of a would you if
Speaker 1: you were in a similar situation, would you simply resign?
Speaker 1: Would you resign with a bullhorn? Or do you try
Speaker 1: to keep working within the system? Because it feels like
Speaker 1: there's no there's no perfect answer here.
Speaker 2: There is not.
Speaker 3: And I just want your listeners and American voters at
Speaker 3: large to understand that the admirals and the generals and
Speaker 3: the private first class is they're the privates first class.
Speaker 3: They're not coming to save you. If you think there
Speaker 3: is some massive resistance that's going to build up in
Speaker 3: this way, you are mistaken, and it's because these are
Speaker 3: gut wrenching decisions that have extreme amounts of personal consequence
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 1: The culture it tells you, Look, if you've got an issue,
Speaker 1: then you go ahead and resign, but you need to
Speaker 1: do it on your terms, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: And civil servants have an obligation I think, to resign
Speaker 3: rather than you know, carry out those things. Whether they
Speaker 3: speak about it at public or not would depend on, like, well,
Speaker 3: this is a super classified thing. What can I say.
Speaker 3: You know, there's whistleblower things. We have ostensibly protections in
Speaker 3: this country for that, but you're still all.
Speaker 1: Those inspectors general, so it's not even clear who you
Speaker 1: would report violations of the Constitution to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: In the military, you don't have the luxury of always
Speaker 3: just being able to resign, you know, admirals and generals
Speaker 3: and those sorts of things at various stages of their
Speaker 3: you know, contractual commitments to the country, but they can
Speaker 3: you know, resign and make a show of it.
Speaker 1: Look, the fact that the head of Southern Campan resign
Speaker 1: should have been a much bigger.
Speaker 2: Deal with the American public.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I don't think we I don't think
Speaker 1: that whatever's left of legacy.
Speaker 2: Media made a big enough deal about it.
Speaker 3: No, and the Defense Intelligence Agency who you know, the
Speaker 3: director there also gone because of you know, questioning the
Speaker 3: efficacy of the military strikes that we took on Iran.
Speaker 3: So there are a lot of a lot of things there,
Speaker 3: and there are a lot of problems. But I do
Speaker 3: think that you know, you do have obligations to not
Speaker 3: carry out lawful orders. And it's easy for me to
Speaker 3: say from the cheap seats over here at this stage
Speaker 3: in my life, I only, you know, hope that I
Speaker 3: would have had the courage of putting the same situation
Speaker 3: that i'm that I am asking other people to exhibit
Speaker 3: a day.
Speaker 1: Joe Willett, It's been a pleasure to get to know you.
Speaker 1: I sort of you come at this with a with
Speaker 1: a style that that is very appealing to me, I hope.
Speaker 1: But in that you seem like you think this stuff through,
Speaker 1: seems like you think before you speak. There's not many
Speaker 1: politicians that do that these days.
Speaker 3: I try, Chock, have been watching you for years, you know,
Speaker 3: I've only probably yelled at you through the television a
Speaker 3: few times, but you know, appreciate you having me on
Speaker 3: and for having a thoughtful conversation.
Speaker 1: I am I am a as I say. It's like,
Speaker 1: I'm as long as you're not yellow at me.
Speaker 2: The whole time. I didn't.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and my campaign job and my campaign will fire
Speaker 3: me if I don't remind people to go to Joelfurkentucky
Speaker 3: dot com.
Speaker 2: If you're at all interested in supporting this camp?
Speaker 1: Are you concerned that the big money people in DC
Speaker 1: won't invest in Kentucky because of what happened in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty with all that money.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm very concerned about that.
Speaker 3: You know, we invested on you know, ninety four million
Speaker 3: dollars in the in the race here and got results
Speaker 3: worse than we had ever gotten before. And I think
Speaker 3: that is on people's mind spot. There's an important difference
Speaker 3: here now. Andy Basheer has shown this path to victory,
Speaker 3: and we just have to have the right candidate walk
Speaker 3: down that path.
Speaker 1: Joe Willette, we'll be watching your primary, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: I know, fairly early, right may right, yeah, leave me
Speaker 1: So that is six months are going to fly by,
Speaker 1: So be safe from the trail.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Check how you done it.
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