The Nation & The South Featuring Chuck Todd and Ed Fields

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Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.

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Thanks in advance for supporting the podcast of our time. I hope you enjoy this episode as well.

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The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.

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Hello, and welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.

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And today, I have two distinguished gentlemen, two young men on the program as guests.

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One has been renowned as a political commentator.

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You probably have seen him if you pay attention to politics,

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especially around the time when I was real active in it.

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And he's still one of the sharpest minds in the political commentary game,

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I guess for lack of a better term.

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And then the other is actually a public servant in the sense that he is an advisor

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for one of our city's mayors.

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That sounded kind of awkward, didn't it? One of the Southern mayors,

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he's been an integral part in advising and shaping the direction of that city.

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And of course, you know, I just teased at the beginning, and we'll get into

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the details when the interviews start. But it was really, really an honor to

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have both of them agree to come on.

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And I hope that you enjoyed the conversations that I had with those gentlemen.

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If you are enjoying this podcast, please continue to listen, but also subscribe.

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Tell others about it. You know, write positive reviews about it.

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You know, send your comments about it. And you can do all that on www.momenterik.com.

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If there's an episode that you want to catch up on, you can do that on the website.

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If there's a particular guest that's like, I heard that so-and-so was on this

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podcast, you can look that up and find that episode on this website.

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So please go to www.momenterik.com and feel free to browse, check out all the

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features. If you want to know a little bit about me, you can do that also.

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But just your continued support would be greatly appreciated because in this time,

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in this day and age, we need to continue to support independent voices like

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mine to talk about what's really going on and to highlight people that's really doing the work.

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So I thank you for that.

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All right. Now that I've got that out the way, it's time to get this show started.

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And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.

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Thanks, Erik. President Trump announced a two-week ceasefire with Iran and Israel,

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mediated by Pakistan, to halt a six-week regional war and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

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U.S. Special Operations Forces successfully rescued a downed F-15 weapons systems

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officer from the mountains of Iran during a high-stakes mission that faced fierce resistance.

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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired U.S. Army Chief of Staff Randy George.

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In a rare address, First Lady Melania Trump forcefully denied any personal or

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victim-based connection to Jeffrey Epstein.

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Republican Clay Fuller defeated Democrat Sean Harris to win a Georgia runoff

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election to succeed Marjorie Taylor Greene in the U.S. House of Representatives.

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A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general filed a federal lawsuit challenging

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President Trump's executive order that restricts mail-in voting procedures and

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tasks the USPS with verifying voter eligibility.

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President Trump's 2027 budget proposal prioritizes increased defense spending

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while cutting non-defense programs by 10%,

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specifically targeting the privatization of airport security and a $152 million

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project to transform Alcatraz into a high-security federal prison.

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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed legislation allowing the state to designate

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groups as terrorist organizations.

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A Nevada judge issued an injunction preventing Kashi from offering unlicensed

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sports betting contracts, and a federal appeals court ruled that New Jersey

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cannot block the operator from offering sports prediction markets.

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A federal judge blocked the Department of Education from forcing 17 states to

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provide extensive student admissions data intended to track compliance with

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the Supreme Court's ban on affirmative action.

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The U.S. Department of Education is terminating several civil rights resolution

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agreements that protected transgender students in specific school districts.

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And the U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for the Justice Department to dismiss

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the criminal contempt of Congress case against Trump's ally, Steve Bannon.

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I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News.

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All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. Now it is time for my guest, Chuck Todd.

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Chuck Todd is a renowned political analyst and the host of the Chuck Toddcast,

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the weekly podcast offering in-depth interviews with political figures and experts.

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A six-time Emmy Award winner, Todd was NBC News chief political analyst and

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moderator of Meet to Press from 2014 to 2023.

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He also hosted Meet the Press Now, a daily show on NBC News Now,

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providing timely political analysis to a digital audience.

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Known for his sharp insight and encyclopedic knowledge of politics,

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Todd has co-moderated multiple presidential debates, including the record-breaking

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2019 and 2020 Democratic debates.

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He previously served as NBC News' chief White House correspondent and hosted

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the Daily Rundown on MSNBC.

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Todd is the author of two books and has contributed to The New York Times,

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The Washington Post, and The Atlantic.

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He teaches how Washington works as the inaugural scholar-in-residence for the

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University of Southern California's Capitol Campus in Washington, D.C.

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Todd resides in Arlington, Virginia, with his wife, Christian, and their two children.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have,

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as a guest on this podcast, Chuck Todd.

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All right. Chuck Todd. How are you doing, sir? Erik Fleming.

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It's a pleasure to be here.

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I always say this. Personally, I'm doing great. So it means I have the luxury

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to worry about how everything else feels like it's going to you know where some

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days here in Washington.

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Well, I understand. And you're you're right in the epicenter of all that stuff.

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I guess I'm kind of in the in the fault line a little bit being here in Atlanta.

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But but so I definitely share your sentiments personally.

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Everything's cool politically. Not so much.

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But but, you know, you and I have have seen a number of these things.

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And and we know that there's hope on the other side. And we'll get to that some

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in some part. I'm glad to hear you have optimism.

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I always try really hard to have it, you know, because if you don't have optimism,

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then we're in deep trouble. That's exactly right.

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All right, look, so let's go ahead and get this started, because I know that

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you're a very important man, and I want to maximize the time that I've got with you.

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And so let's start off with a quote. This is from Plato, and I want you to give

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me your response to this.

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No, this is not from Plato. This is from somebody else. Oh, no, it is from Plato.

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One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end

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up being governed by your inferiors. What does that quote mean?

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Well, I look at it as if you don't vote, you don't have a right to complain.

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Right. And if that's why sometimes you got to make a choice between two entities

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that you're not thrilled with, because ultimately, if you want skin in the game

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and you want to be able to.

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Complain from the high ground, you better vote. You better participate. Yeah.

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All right. Now, my next icebreaker, as I refer to it, is called 20 questions.

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So, I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.

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We'll go with, my son's about to turn 19, my youngest, so we'll do 19. All right.

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What are some values you think most people share, even if they express them

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differently? I think we're all basically have the same moral and ethical lines that we draw.

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I think sometimes we will twist our morality and our ethics a little bit sometimes

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to out of defensiveness about our politics sometimes.

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But ultimately, you know, I'm, I am a, I think most of us have,

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have, you know, are, are living within sort of reasonable boundaries of what's

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ethical, what's moral, you know, you make laws not for the 95%,

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you make laws for the 5%, right?

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Most people don't want to murder people.

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So why would you have a law against it? Well, because if you don't and you have

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no opportunity to have accountability and there's certainly some boundaries

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that are necessary for all of society to feel safe and secure.

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And I know that seems – I just – you know, you –.

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I always sometimes try to look at politicians that I disagree with,

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and I think, what if they were my neighbor?

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And I think, and then I look at them, and if I think they'd be a good neighbor,

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then I'm going to more likely at least hear what they have to say.

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If I don't think they'd be a good neighbor, then they're probably not a good

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person. And it's sort of a test I've always sort of put in my own head.

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I'll give you another one that I do with individuals. I think to myself,

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if I called them, if I, if I was arrested and I need to be bailed out of jail.

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Would they, would they show up?

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And then there's sort of two tests, would they show up and would they not talk about it?

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And I've always had three categories of friends and acquaintances, right?

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You have those that would show up, not say a word and just, you know,

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those that would show up and let everybody know that they did it for you,

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but they'd be there, but they'd make sure you never forgot it.

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And there are those that wouldn't return the call, right? Because they couldn't

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be bothered. But the point is, is that I think most of us want to be good.

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We want to do the right thing when it's there. So I choose to believe that maybe

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the Trump era has delivered an MRI.

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I've always, I call the Trump era an MRI for all of us, right?

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We're learning about a lot of people, a lot of institutions,

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a lot of people and how they handle a moment like this.

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But I still genuinely believe that, that we're mostly, you know,

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I used to say that about Congress.

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I said, you know, Congress agrees on 90% of the things they do.

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It's the 10% that we're constantly arguing about.

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And I'm still mostly want to believe that. Yeah.

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And, you know, personal experience, that's, you know, state legislatures,

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same way, deliberative bodies.

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The part that makes the news is the part where we disagree because,

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you know, I still have memories of just sitting back during the appropriations

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process with that long stick and just hitting the button, you know,

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just keep the process going, you know.

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And that test you have, I've never articulated it that way, but I have that same scale in my mind.

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Yeah, I think about that with friends.

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Who would show up? You know, I sit there, who would show up?

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You know, and yeah, sorry about that. Didn't mean that. That's all right.

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All right. So did your penchant as a child to play the game,

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kill the man, give you an advantage in becoming a political journalist and commentator?

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And full disclosure, in Chicago, where I grew up, we played the same version,

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but we were very specific as far as making sure who we were.

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We called it kill the man with the ball because we didn't just want people to get hit for no reason.

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Yeah, we play. I mean, I remember playing a version of that.

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I have to tell you, I think that is not what I think gave me.

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Here's what I always credit. I credit two things in my ability,

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in what I think has been my ability to understand sort of politics.

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One is I grew up in a mixed religious family.

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My mother's Jewish, my father was not.

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More importantly, my father's family didn't know, I think my mother,

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for many of them, was the first Jewish person they'd ever met.

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And I grew up with more of that tension than I fully realized until later in life.

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You know, and I start to remember something, you know, like,

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huh, why did, why did my grandfather's girlfriend always serve pork only when my mother came?

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It was like these weird sort of passive aggressive things. And then I understood

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why my mother didn't like to come with my dad and I when we'd go visit his dad

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and certain things like that.

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But I watched how my parents navigated that on both sides because there were

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family members that were very critical of my mother because she wasn't raising me Jewish enough.

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And I'd see the criticism on, you know, it was this constant.

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And so, and then I grew up in Miami in the seventies and eighties,

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which I look back at as saying, Hey, we went through all of this.

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Who's an American, the other rising, everything before everybody else did.

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And we kind of figured it out. And now Miami's Hong Kong or Singapore, right?

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One of the coolest spots on earth, right? To go hang out. And we kind of figured it out.

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And so it has allowed me, like, I feel like I understand the Trump divide today

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better because of when I grew up, the time and era I grew up and the actual

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location that I grew up and the unique circumstances of my own,

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parentage, if you will, right?

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Where, look, I didn't grow up in a mixed race climate, but mixed religion gives you a taste of it.

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So I'd like to think that I was better than the average white guy in at least

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understanding some otherizing that other people took place. Yeah.

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Yeah. When did you realize that you were pretty good at analyzing politics?

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So...

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Well, I know when I got into it, I had a cousin stay with us.

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It was a summer for my freshman year in high school.

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And I had a cousin who was coming down and he needed a place to stay.

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He was working on a campaign.

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And Florida used to elect, used to have eight to 10 statewide elected offices.

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They've since consolidated it all into what they call the CFO now.

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There used to be, and there was an elected secretary of state,

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an elected secretary of education, and they still have the elected secretary

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of agriculture. but it's much more limited.

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I think they just do agriculture and AG and CFO now, plus governor.

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But it used to be about more of like what California does and even Texas.

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And so he's working on one of those campaigns. And I just got, I just love the numbers.

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And look, I'll just, you know, I was kind of a seam head for baseball,

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you know, and was totally in every Sunday.

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My dad and I would be, we scour the, in the Sunday sports section,

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they'd give you the weeks, like all of the statistics for all of the,

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all of the hitters and the pitchers and the major leagues.

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And, and we had our own little sort of contest, you know, he read about these,

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this new thing called rotisserie baseball.

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And of course it becomes the pre, the precursor to fantasy baseball.

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So I was always kind of a numbers kind of into it. And it was,

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it was sort of shadowing my cousin who was kind of like a brother to me.

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I was an only child on that campaign that sort of where I realized it was a strategy, right?

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It was sort of a, you know, all right, where you got to go find these voters, where this.

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So that's sort of where I got into it.

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I don't, I don't know when I, when I decided I was good at it.

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I just sort of started to make a living at it pretty early in, in, in college.

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So, you know, and it just sort of, I always credit that.

00:19:17.676 --> 00:19:23.456
The internet with my big break, the, you know, sort of web 1.0 where all of

00:19:23.456 --> 00:19:26.696
the older journalists didn't have time to write for the internet because they

00:19:26.696 --> 00:19:27.876
wanted to be in the newspaper.

00:19:28.336 --> 00:19:31.676
And suddenly it was a bunch of us 20 somethings that got the opportunity.

00:19:31.956 --> 00:19:36.296
So I feel like it was around there. Yeah.

00:19:37.276 --> 00:19:42.136
Yeah. Something about, there's definitely a correlation with being a baseball nerd in politics.

00:19:42.856 --> 00:19:46.416
Oh, I've come across a few, a few of the, And a few of these guys,

00:19:46.636 --> 00:19:49.956
Tom Davis, a former Republican congressman, is like a total seam head.

00:19:50.116 --> 00:19:54.956
Sherrod Brown could tell you more about the Guardians and Indians baseball history

00:19:54.956 --> 00:19:58.116
than any person alive. And he's like, he goes deep.

00:19:58.876 --> 00:20:02.016
A former, Steve Israel goes, it is, you're not wrong. There is a,

00:20:02.216 --> 00:20:03.776
there definitely is a correlation.

00:20:04.076 --> 00:20:10.036
One of my favorite arguments was with a colleague. He was a state senator.

00:20:10.616 --> 00:20:16.056
And we must argue for about 15, 20 minutes about the merits of the DH in baseball.

00:20:16.536 --> 00:20:21.396
And he was so passionate against it. And I was like, you got to get with the times, man.

00:20:21.436 --> 00:20:26.016
He said, no, no, no, the pitchers should bat all that. I mean, he was hot. So.

00:20:26.576 --> 00:20:30.396
Yeah. Well, if your pitch is Shohei Otani, I'm all for it. That's right.

00:20:31.076 --> 00:20:35.316
The pitchers back in the day were more like Shohei, but not the guys.

00:20:35.536 --> 00:20:38.836
Well, and you know, most pitchers, because you and I both know this,

00:20:38.836 --> 00:20:43.476
you know when you were in in little league the best player played every position

00:20:43.476 --> 00:20:47.256
he had to play shortstop he had a pitch that's right so just about every pitcher

00:20:47.256 --> 00:20:52.196
was probably the shortstop on her team or the catcher as well that's right yeah

00:20:52.196 --> 00:20:54.876
yeah i think i read something where,

00:20:55.516 --> 00:21:02.096
paul skenes was the catcher on this all-star team and pete crow armstrong was the pitcher.

00:21:04.636 --> 00:21:10.196
It is amazing all right so now we're going to take a a turn,

00:21:11.186 --> 00:21:13.706
The warmup is over. Yeah, the warmup's over. The nice stuff.

00:21:13.826 --> 00:21:15.746
Now we got to get into the nitty gritty stuff.

00:21:16.206 --> 00:21:22.026
Did the arrest of Don Lemon and Georgia Ford alarm you as an independent journalist? It did.

00:21:22.886 --> 00:21:27.106
Because, you know, the biggest concern I have in this independent space right

00:21:27.106 --> 00:21:31.926
now, the good news is, I think the word independent has kind of a halo effect.

00:21:32.146 --> 00:21:35.586
You know, in politics, if you're a first-time candidate and you get to call

00:21:35.586 --> 00:21:39.666
yourself small business owner, boy, automatically someone's going,

00:21:39.726 --> 00:21:41.006
oh, yeah, you know what's going on.

00:21:41.006 --> 00:21:45.226
There's this halo effect for small businessmen, small businesswoman,

00:21:45.246 --> 00:21:47.326
or even successful business.

00:21:47.426 --> 00:21:53.686
There's a competency that voters automatically ascribe to somebody like that.

00:21:53.846 --> 00:21:57.946
And I think right now, in this very polarized and partisan climate,

00:21:58.646 --> 00:22:02.666
being an independent, I'm a political independent, I'm an independent journalist.

00:22:02.746 --> 00:22:03.646
I think it's very helpful.

00:22:04.126 --> 00:22:09.246
The downside of this independent status and the downside of not working at a

00:22:09.246 --> 00:22:12.906
big news organization is those protections, those legal protections.

00:22:13.946 --> 00:22:17.286
I worry about this a lot and what happened to Don Lemon.

00:22:17.446 --> 00:22:22.226
And it's like, look, you know, there's I had a debate with a colleague of mine

00:22:22.226 --> 00:22:24.386
and he's like, well, Don Lemon's an activist.

00:22:24.686 --> 00:22:27.906
And I said, you know, one person's activist is another person's journalist.

00:22:29.046 --> 00:22:32.766
And discerning that, you know, and I said, what's Thomas Paine?

00:22:33.326 --> 00:22:36.706
Was he a journalist or was he an activist, right? Did it matter,

00:22:37.486 --> 00:22:40.386
right? You know, he had a voice, he had a platform, and he used it.

00:22:41.546 --> 00:22:45.006
At the end of the day, plenty of good journalism.

00:22:47.294 --> 00:22:52.414
Tracks with activism, meaning they're there to chronicle what is happening and

00:22:52.414 --> 00:22:56.574
the arrest of him and the sort of the let's it wasn't just an arrest.

00:22:56.574 --> 00:23:02.794
It was kind of it was an attempt to to showcase it in some sort and demean,

00:23:02.954 --> 00:23:08.274
you know, I'm not going to sit here and say that how Don Lemon does his podcast

00:23:08.274 --> 00:23:10.214
versus how I do it the same way.

00:23:10.614 --> 00:23:16.234
But that doesn't mean his form is any more or less journalism than my form is,

00:23:16.594 --> 00:23:18.494
right? So it was very alarming.

00:23:18.954 --> 00:23:21.474
And I'll just be honest with you, Eric, I've been working. I mean,

00:23:21.594 --> 00:23:27.634
one of the things that I'm, I want to try to build is a sustainable network

00:23:27.634 --> 00:23:32.134
that is somewhat of an ad network, but also can provide,

00:23:32.514 --> 00:23:36.334
because I think, look, the last thing being associated with,

00:23:36.474 --> 00:23:40.514
with one of these big corporations, I would have defended just three years ago.

00:23:41.352 --> 00:23:45.092
You know, when my friend Richard Engel got kidnapped, Comcast was not going

00:23:45.092 --> 00:23:48.272
to allow him to wither away and die and disappear.

00:23:48.552 --> 00:23:55.812
And they had the contacts and the muscle to force the government to do everything that was possible.

00:23:56.672 --> 00:24:00.912
There's some security there. There's plenty of my friends in the freelance world

00:24:00.912 --> 00:24:02.252
who don't have that kind of protection.

00:24:02.252 --> 00:24:06.672
So I worry about the lack of those resources. At the same time,

00:24:06.952 --> 00:24:12.692
there was a, I don't want to call it censoring, but there was a smothering effect.

00:24:13.772 --> 00:24:17.092
You know, when these corporate entities who have their own, look,

00:24:17.412 --> 00:24:21.352
I sit here and say left brain and right brain, I'll rotate using them.

00:24:21.352 --> 00:24:26.192
It's a rational decision that Disney does not want to pick a fight with the

00:24:26.192 --> 00:24:30.332
Trump administration over a part of their business that's less than 5% of their

00:24:30.332 --> 00:24:32.412
bottom line, which is ABC News.

00:24:32.852 --> 00:24:38.252
But settling that lawsuit against that ridiculous, frivolous lawsuit against

00:24:38.252 --> 00:24:44.292
George Stephanopoulos, they created the conditions with which suddenly everybody

00:24:44.292 --> 00:24:46.152
in that space lost credibility.

00:24:47.452 --> 00:24:51.672
So I worry about us not having enough legal protection in this independent space,

00:24:51.672 --> 00:24:54.232
that we could all get sued out of existence.

00:24:55.032 --> 00:24:57.952
And that in some ways is a tactic, right?

00:24:58.072 --> 00:25:05.312
That's a feature for one part of this world. So I was very alarmed and it is,

00:25:05.472 --> 00:25:10.052
I know that myself and others were trying to figure out, I got a friend of mine,

00:25:10.172 --> 00:25:12.992
Tara Palmieri, who's been doing terrific work on Epstein.

00:25:13.612 --> 00:25:18.252
She looked into getting insurance, some legal protection and couldn't get insured

00:25:18.252 --> 00:25:21.072
because they said, well, you're covering Epstein, right?

00:25:21.152 --> 00:25:24.532
They were just worried that these rich people could sue her out of existence and all of that.

00:25:24.732 --> 00:25:27.312
And that's the chilling effect of that arrest.

00:25:27.992 --> 00:25:31.732
And that's what I don't want to see get mainstream. yeah,

00:25:32.792 --> 00:25:37.132
You said the most successful politicians are the ones who embrace their best

00:25:37.132 --> 00:25:40.852
traits while turning their liabilities into lovable attributes.

00:25:41.232 --> 00:25:47.772
And yet many a candidate tries to run as something they aren't simply because the strategy dictated.

00:25:48.052 --> 00:25:52.332
The hardest thing to do in politics is campaign as someone you aren't.

00:25:52.632 --> 00:25:55.432
People can spot an imposter from a mile away.

00:25:55.912 --> 00:26:01.212
So the question is, would it be fair to say that President Trump embodied that rule?

00:26:02.792 --> 00:26:09.552
Look that's the thing right he's not one thing that people i think no matter how long you know,

00:26:10.132 --> 00:26:13.712
there that expression he is who he is right he

00:26:13.712 --> 00:26:21.172
he you kind of know who he is and so i always said he's one of the lines i've

00:26:21.172 --> 00:26:26.492
also used under me he's authentically inauthentic meaning we know he's sort

00:26:26.492 --> 00:26:30.452
of a salesman who's just going to tell us anything we want to hear but i think

00:26:30.452 --> 00:26:32.812
for a certain group of voters, they're like, yeah,

00:26:32.932 --> 00:26:37.352
well, the other politicians do that, but they don't tell us. At least he admits it.

00:26:37.792 --> 00:26:41.532
Right. He will every once in a while break that fourth wall and say it.

00:26:42.492 --> 00:26:45.592
I think there's a lot. This is this is one of the problems.

00:26:45.672 --> 00:26:51.452
I think there is a lot to learn from Trump that many a candidate on both sides

00:26:51.452 --> 00:26:52.412
of the aisle hasn't learned.

00:26:52.592 --> 00:26:56.632
For instance, there's not a media outlet that Trump won't talk to.

00:26:57.818 --> 00:27:01.858
I don't see any politician today practicing that. And you're sitting there going,

00:27:02.098 --> 00:27:08.058
why was Trump, why did Trump have the ability to talk to, to create a coalition

00:27:08.058 --> 00:27:11.098
of a lot of voters who voted Obama?

00:27:11.718 --> 00:27:14.978
Well, he was willing to go anywhere and willing to talk to anybody.

00:27:15.798 --> 00:27:19.278
And to me, if you're running for elective office, you should have that attitude.

00:27:19.278 --> 00:27:22.938
And if, if you are, if you don't want to deal with hostile media,

00:27:23.078 --> 00:27:24.158
then don't get into politics.

00:27:24.678 --> 00:27:27.778
You should run towards it, not run away from it.

00:27:27.938 --> 00:27:32.918
If you've decided to run, it kind of means you think you have some answers,

00:27:32.918 --> 00:27:35.238
so you shouldn't be afraid of the confrontation.

00:27:35.238 --> 00:27:40.998
So I think that because Trump is so toxic as a character to many people,

00:27:41.038 --> 00:27:43.738
there's a fear of ever looking like you emulate him.

00:27:44.218 --> 00:27:47.758
But there are things to borrow from him, right?

00:27:47.978 --> 00:27:53.258
Which is, you know, say what you mean, you know, sometimes speak,

00:27:53.378 --> 00:27:56.338
speak bluntly, but you better mean what you say.

00:27:56.898 --> 00:28:00.838
I do think over time, and this is, eventually that does wear it out.

00:28:00.958 --> 00:28:05.958
And I think he's at, I do think he's, I think there are times when presidencies

00:28:05.958 --> 00:28:09.158
end, but we just don't know it yet. And then in about a year,

00:28:09.258 --> 00:28:11.338
we look back, oh, the presidency ended then.

00:28:12.018 --> 00:28:15.918
I remember with George W. Bush. Yeah, the 2006 midterms.

00:28:16.038 --> 00:28:20.218
But when you actually look back, his presidency came to an end when he got involved

00:28:20.218 --> 00:28:21.458
in that Terry Schiavo mess.

00:28:22.558 --> 00:28:25.718
And people were like, wait a minute, you know, you've got Iraq,

00:28:25.798 --> 00:28:30.858
you've got this, you're, what do you, you know, hey, this has gotten too far.

00:28:30.878 --> 00:28:35.298
And the Republicans have too much unified power. And then voters said no more, right?

00:28:35.478 --> 00:28:38.938
And, you know, So Haley Barber, since you're an old Mississippi guy,

00:28:39.358 --> 00:28:41.918
Haley Barber is one of my favorite savings sayings in politics.

00:28:42.138 --> 00:28:43.598
Good gets better, bad gets worse.

00:28:44.498 --> 00:28:49.658
And sometimes, you know, and and and I do think we will look back and say Trump's

00:28:49.658 --> 00:28:50.838
presidency probably ended.

00:28:51.940 --> 00:28:56.280
You know, maybe it ended on Liberation Day, you know, when we look back.

00:28:57.920 --> 00:29:03.340
Or maybe it ended the day that a second person was murdered in Minneapolis by an ICE agent.

00:29:03.500 --> 00:29:08.060
But, like, you could tell when people just sort of lose where they're just,

00:29:08.180 --> 00:29:09.820
there's no recovering from it.

00:29:10.060 --> 00:29:13.640
Joe Biden, I think in hindsight, the Afghanistan withdrawal. He never recovered.

00:29:13.940 --> 00:29:15.840
Yeah. With a certain group of voters.

00:29:16.680 --> 00:29:21.140
You know, which also tells me that he didn't come in with a strong base of support,

00:29:21.300 --> 00:29:24.020
right? His support was a mile wide, but an inch deep.

00:29:24.800 --> 00:29:28.780
And that and because you find that out when times are tough.

00:29:28.900 --> 00:29:33.040
One thing about Trump is that he certainly has a depth of support with the with

00:29:33.040 --> 00:29:36.020
the with the shrinking group of people that still support him. It's deep.

00:29:37.160 --> 00:29:44.460
But I do think that his consistent sort of blow, you know, sort of overselling

00:29:44.460 --> 00:29:48.140
and under delivering is finally caught up with. Yeah.

00:29:49.260 --> 00:29:55.720
You said someday the public might actually revolt against undemocratic,

00:29:56.020 --> 00:30:00.820
the undemocratic system of seniority that allows Congress to keep the old ways

00:30:00.820 --> 00:30:04.340
of Washington ingrained into the culture of Congress.

00:30:04.620 --> 00:30:09.240
So will the 2026 midterms be that bellwether election?

00:30:09.900 --> 00:30:14.700
Hmm. I don't think so yet. I think we're, I think we've, look,

00:30:14.800 --> 00:30:20.380
we've, we've been, both parties are kind of, have, have become reactionary parties.

00:30:20.880 --> 00:30:26.660
Right. And it really, right. You could argue it started in 06, right.

00:30:26.760 --> 00:30:33.720
It was a reaction to, to Bush and, you know, the Democrats were unified against what they didn't like.

00:30:33.960 --> 00:30:36.360
They weren't necessarily unified for what they were for.

00:30:36.980 --> 00:30:40.220
The Republicans did the same thing in 2010, right?

00:30:40.440 --> 00:30:44.320
They, they sort of, they, they, they knew what they didn't, right?

00:30:44.400 --> 00:30:46.540
They were unified and opposing Obama.

00:30:46.680 --> 00:30:51.080
So it was reactionary. And we've been in this reactionary mode now for 20 years.

00:30:52.282 --> 00:30:56.702
And I think we're not through it yet. So, I mean, you sort of,

00:30:57.102 --> 00:31:02.302
you know, just like in 2010, when that sort of first wave of Tea Party conservatives

00:31:02.302 --> 00:31:08.482
succeeded, there was tension inside the party, but it got papered over by the success in November.

00:31:09.022 --> 00:31:12.702
I think 26 is a mirror image of that for the Democrats.

00:31:13.102 --> 00:31:17.582
They're going to have a lot of success in November. but we we're starting we

00:31:17.582 --> 00:31:22.282
see in these primaries that there's there's a there is a divide that's real

00:31:22.282 --> 00:31:30.602
right and it's you know i think it's not as clean as left versus center i think some of it is.

00:31:31.902 --> 00:31:38.582
Is is a little bit of of establishment versus outsider right it's more insider

00:31:38.582 --> 00:31:40.682
outsider than it is left versus center.

00:31:41.551 --> 00:31:44.791
Because I look at somebody like Molly McMorrow, I keep calling her Molly,

00:31:45.171 --> 00:31:51.131
Mallory McMorrow in Michigan, she's not the most progressive,

00:31:51.131 --> 00:31:56.431
but she's got the best outsider credentials of the three, I think.

00:31:56.611 --> 00:31:58.111
At least she's the right combination.

00:31:58.631 --> 00:32:03.511
And I think that you're seeing that she's sort of getting a little more,

00:32:03.651 --> 00:32:09.311
so almost splitting the anti-establishment vote with Abdul El-Sayed a little bit.

00:32:09.311 --> 00:32:15.311
But I think that we're not done, you know, I think both parties are too big

00:32:15.311 --> 00:32:17.711
for the coalitions they represent, right?

00:32:17.751 --> 00:32:21.731
We'd be in a much better place if we were a four-party, four-major party system.

00:32:21.891 --> 00:32:26.091
We basically have two political parties shoved into one on the left and vice

00:32:26.091 --> 00:32:29.851
versa on the right, right? You have sort of a Chamber of Commerce party,

00:32:30.111 --> 00:32:33.911
a Nationalist party on the right, you know, with sort of, I think,

00:32:34.031 --> 00:32:35.631
Nikki Haley and Donald Trump.

00:32:35.791 --> 00:32:39.331
And then you kind of have a progressive sort of Greens, however you want to

00:32:39.331 --> 00:32:41.451
look at it, with a Bernie or an AOC over here.

00:32:41.751 --> 00:32:46.591
And then you got sort of your, I don't know, think Josh Shapiro or even Gavin Newsom.

00:32:46.711 --> 00:32:50.311
You know, he may rhetorically be anti-Trump, but he's a pretty business,

00:32:50.651 --> 00:32:53.271
you know, sort of liberal pro-business guy.

00:32:53.891 --> 00:32:59.131
And that's sort of your four divides, right? And, and I think both parties are

00:32:59.131 --> 00:33:03.731
neither side as a majority within the party. And that that's where the tension comes.

00:33:03.831 --> 00:33:06.411
And, you know, I wish we were a four party system.

00:33:06.551 --> 00:33:09.511
I think I actually think it would alleviate some of the polarization.

00:33:11.351 --> 00:33:16.371
You said another Chuck Todd quote, you said every election matters.

00:33:16.831 --> 00:33:20.211
Anyone that tells you otherwise doesn't understand politics.

00:33:20.851 --> 00:33:25.771
That said, not every election sends sweeping messages that are easy to discern.

00:33:26.231 --> 00:33:33.731
But every election provides lessons worth learning. So what will be the lesson of the 2026 midterms?

00:33:34.071 --> 00:33:37.631
I don't know yet because we don't know,

00:33:38.806 --> 00:33:42.906
I'm pretty convinced it's going to be a Democratic sweep. The question,

00:33:43.086 --> 00:33:50.206
though, is, how do Democrats, do they think they got a mandate to oppose Trump?

00:33:50.946 --> 00:33:56.886
Do they think they have a mandate to work with Trump where they can,

00:33:57.046 --> 00:33:58.806
but check them where they can't?

00:33:58.806 --> 00:34:06.846
Where they also does this, you know, 26 is more consequential if it leads to

00:34:06.846 --> 00:34:10.626
an eventual two-term president being elected.

00:34:10.906 --> 00:34:16.166
So, for instance, I think 06 is more consequential now in hindsight for the

00:34:16.166 --> 00:34:19.506
Democrats because it led to Obama in two terms.

00:34:20.346 --> 00:34:26.526
Right. And it was basically it was the election that sort of sweeped away the

00:34:26.526 --> 00:34:27.666
20th century Democrats.

00:34:27.966 --> 00:34:30.986
Right. It sort of pushed aside most of the Clinton wing.

00:34:33.086 --> 00:34:39.666
So that's why I just think, do Democrats think they don't have a brand problem

00:34:39.666 --> 00:34:41.346
if they win both the House and Senate?

00:34:41.386 --> 00:34:45.086
Or do they behave like they know they still have a brand problem even though

00:34:45.086 --> 00:34:48.366
they win both the House and the Senate? I think I kind of know what's going to happen.

00:34:49.106 --> 00:34:53.726
And I think that's going to be the difficulty.

00:34:54.646 --> 00:35:00.286
I've, I've compared the era we're living in to the period of history between

00:35:00.286 --> 00:35:01.746
Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln.

00:35:02.886 --> 00:35:06.646
We had seven presidencies in 24 years.

00:35:07.856 --> 00:35:11.576
And it was this consistent, every new president thought they were the one that

00:35:11.576 --> 00:35:12.776
was going to bring the country together.

00:35:12.956 --> 00:35:16.676
They had the answer without dealing with the real issue.

00:35:16.856 --> 00:35:21.516
Right. There was one issue and yet all these politicians kept trying to dance around it.

00:35:21.716 --> 00:35:25.376
And in fact, the public got so frustrated with it that they got rid of one party.

00:35:27.176 --> 00:35:30.576
And because the abolitionists were like, man, the Whigs are just,

00:35:30.696 --> 00:35:31.816
they're not, they're too weak.

00:35:32.156 --> 00:35:35.876
They cannot stand up to these guys. Right. We ended up getting a new party and

00:35:35.876 --> 00:35:42.076
Lincoln comes along and you need, I mean, I look at that and say, look, look what it took.

00:35:42.216 --> 00:35:47.436
It took a brand new political party to break the polarization of the 19th century

00:35:47.436 --> 00:35:54.736
and to actually directly deal with the issue at hand with slavery and the larger

00:35:54.736 --> 00:35:56.316
question of who gets to be an American.

00:35:57.376 --> 00:36:00.236
And I kind of think we're having the same debate right now, right,

00:36:00.296 --> 00:36:05.596
that the fundamental divide, right, that is who gets to be an American and what does that mean?

00:36:06.236 --> 00:36:10.096
And I still think we're having this, we're having this fight at the moment.

00:36:10.956 --> 00:36:14.676
So I think we're still a few election cycles away from, you know,

00:36:14.776 --> 00:36:20.616
I don't think we've stumbled onto Lincoln or Washington or Eisenhower just yet or FDR, right?

00:36:20.796 --> 00:36:24.796
You know, there's a feeling that, you know, we haven't found that.

00:36:24.956 --> 00:36:28.716
I don't know whether we're not exhausted enough yet, whatever it is,

00:36:28.796 --> 00:36:32.676
but I think, you know, part of it is, is just simply.

00:36:33.855 --> 00:36:38.115
Neither party has been losing an election by enough to force themselves to change.

00:36:38.395 --> 00:36:42.575
When you only lose by a little, you think, well, geez, if I just raised a few

00:36:42.575 --> 00:36:47.915
more dollars, knocked on a few more doors, you know, ran a few more ads, maybe I would have won.

00:36:48.055 --> 00:36:50.415
And so you don't have to change things that much.

00:36:50.895 --> 00:36:54.155
But it all depends on whether you want to have a governing mandate or not.

00:36:54.415 --> 00:36:59.455
You know, I think the hallmark of the presidents of my young,

00:36:59.635 --> 00:37:06.015
of our childhood, essentially, where they always strove to try to be 60% of presidents.

00:37:06.235 --> 00:37:10.295
That didn't mean they would win 60% of the vote, but if they weren't close to

00:37:10.295 --> 00:37:12.935
60% in job approval, they didn't think they were doing well,

00:37:13.035 --> 00:37:14.395
right? I think that was the Reagan mantra.

00:37:14.575 --> 00:37:16.695
I think that was Bill Clinton's mantra. I do.

00:37:18.035 --> 00:37:21.555
George W. Bush sort of changed the equation to 50% plus one.

00:37:22.835 --> 00:37:26.155
Obama is the last one that got close to 60, right? He got into the 56,

00:37:26.155 --> 00:37:32.275
57 range, but we're living in this sort of 50% where now just 45% job rating

00:37:32.275 --> 00:37:34.855
is considered survivable these days.

00:37:35.055 --> 00:37:40.655
So I don't, I'm not convinced yet that we're there. I think we're going to have

00:37:40.655 --> 00:37:42.955
another reactionary midterm. Just think about it.

00:37:43.295 --> 00:37:46.975
Every single election in the 21st century,

00:37:47.115 --> 00:37:51.755
but two have essentially been a referendum on some party in power.

00:37:52.235 --> 00:37:54.655
Either, you know, we threw out the party in the White House,

00:37:54.795 --> 00:37:57.395
threw out the party controlling the Senate, or threw out the party controlling the House.

00:37:57.875 --> 00:38:02.235
It's an unprecedented amount of time that we've done that, which means we know

00:38:02.235 --> 00:38:06.255
what we don't want, but we haven't found what we're looking for yet. Yeah.

00:38:06.855 --> 00:38:14.035
So to follow up on a scale, would it be a blue tsunami, a blue wave, or a blue high tide?

00:38:15.536 --> 00:38:18.976
I'd probably bet on wave for now. I think that's, is that the middle,

00:38:19.116 --> 00:38:20.316
is that the middle ground? Yeah.

00:38:20.896 --> 00:38:23.696
I think I would bet wave for now.

00:38:24.696 --> 00:38:31.296
Let me think of what, what tsunami tsunami would mean for me,

00:38:31.736 --> 00:38:35.716
six to eight Senate seats and 40 plus house seats.

00:38:36.056 --> 00:38:37.976
I just don't know if the math's there.

00:38:39.316 --> 00:38:42.916
Now this war is pretty, this war is only going to get more unpopular.

00:38:42.916 --> 00:38:49.416
Like the the economy the reason why i think this we're already maybe sitting at wave is,

00:38:50.336 --> 00:38:55.016
this this is not going to turn around this economy doesn't turn around even

00:38:55.016 --> 00:39:01.536
if the war stopped right now the infrastructure that was destroyed in the gulf the amount of you know,

00:39:02.236 --> 00:39:08.876
we may be insulated from from a supply shock in this country but not a price shock Right.

00:39:09.096 --> 00:39:11.496
You know, our oil is still going to be on the global market.

00:39:12.036 --> 00:39:14.356
So we're the prices are going to be higher.

00:39:14.996 --> 00:39:19.536
And that's just going to be as we've seen. Right. That's just going to hit inflation. And we know.

00:39:20.955 --> 00:39:25.155
Voters, three presidencies ended in the 70s because of inflation,

00:39:25.395 --> 00:39:27.875
right? Inflation does not know partisanship.

00:39:28.175 --> 00:39:31.275
They just, it is, the voter gets angry when they're paying more.

00:39:31.435 --> 00:39:36.475
So I think even if this war ends tomorrow, it's it. So I think it's blue wave.

00:39:36.655 --> 00:39:41.955
For tsunami, and I think it's four Senate seats and 25, you know,

00:39:41.995 --> 00:39:45.715
anything over 20, that feels like a wave with the way these numbers,

00:39:45.955 --> 00:39:47.375
with the way these districts are drawn.

00:39:47.815 --> 00:39:51.315
But I wouldn't rule out tsunami. I think tsunami is more likely than a,

00:39:51.455 --> 00:39:54.335
than just sort of a, where I

00:39:54.335 --> 00:39:57.195
think a tsunami is more likely than the Democrats just winning the house.

00:39:57.555 --> 00:40:03.035
How's that? Yeah. Yeah. Cause that, that would be to me, the tide just, you just win the house.

00:40:03.515 --> 00:40:06.995
That's right. That would, that's just sort of, that's, that's the end table

00:40:06.995 --> 00:40:08.815
stakes, right. For playing poker, right.

00:40:09.095 --> 00:40:11.535
It's just the ante. Yeah. You want everybody's ante. That's it.

00:40:12.075 --> 00:40:16.355
Yeah. All right. So last question, and I've been asking everybody this,

00:40:16.495 --> 00:40:22.115
this year to end, finish this sentence. I have hope because.

00:40:23.275 --> 00:40:27.255
I have hope because we've been through this before as a country.

00:40:27.495 --> 00:40:32.855
We get through this as voters. The only issue, Erik, the only issue in every

00:40:32.855 --> 00:40:37.155
one of these lessons that we've done in America, it's the great Churchill quote

00:40:37.155 --> 00:40:38.335
that I'm going to butcher here, right?

00:40:38.495 --> 00:40:42.595
Which is the Americans will always do the right thing after they've exhausted every other path.

00:40:44.235 --> 00:40:50.675
I really believe that about us. And the only question is how many people have

00:40:50.675 --> 00:40:56.935
to get hurt before we sober up and sort of get the country back on track and

00:40:56.935 --> 00:40:58.995
sort of get us back on the rails.

00:40:59.895 --> 00:41:04.915
I hope it doesn't take a civil war. And I don't say that willy-nilly and I'll just throw it out there.

00:41:05.055 --> 00:41:09.695
And I, you know, our divides are not so clean geographically.

00:41:09.875 --> 00:41:14.395
So I actually think We've been sort of in a cold cultural civil war, right?

00:41:14.495 --> 00:41:19.415
If you want to call it that for a bit of time now.

00:41:20.839 --> 00:41:23.799
Know, it just, how many people have to get hurt before we get it right?

00:41:24.259 --> 00:41:29.379
You know, and the, think about what it took with F with the onset of the industrial revolution.

00:41:30.279 --> 00:41:33.819
You know, we had to have kids dying, doing child labor.

00:41:34.259 --> 00:41:39.359
We had to have factories sort of go up in flames without any worker where people

00:41:39.359 --> 00:41:41.539
said, wait, wait, wait, wait a minute, this industrialization,

00:41:41.679 --> 00:41:46.199
look, we're all for it, but can we put some standards in? Can we protect people? Right.

00:41:46.759 --> 00:41:51.299
It always comes down to Erik, how many people have to get hurt before we think,

00:41:51.479 --> 00:41:53.259
whoa, whoa, whoa, let's, let's, let's.

00:41:53.619 --> 00:41:59.739
And, and that's, it's a sad truth about the human condition is that sometimes

00:41:59.739 --> 00:42:04.959
it, Mitch McConnell has this expression, you know, it shouldn't take a second

00:42:04.959 --> 00:42:07.479
kick in the head by a mule to learn a lesson.

00:42:07.959 --> 00:42:11.379
Well, I think we Americans sometimes need the second kick in the head by the mule.

00:42:12.019 --> 00:42:15.839
Yeah. Sometimes we just, we got to get kicked in the head and in the butt too.

00:42:16.919 --> 00:42:20.779
You know, it just. But we'll get there. I just, I can't, I'll give you another,

00:42:20.979 --> 00:42:23.379
I'll give you both dark, I'll give you some dark optimism. Okay.

00:42:24.119 --> 00:42:28.639
I know we're going to survive climate change as a species. We will.

00:42:29.239 --> 00:42:34.139
The question is, if in a hundred years there's six billion people on this planet

00:42:34.139 --> 00:42:37.099
instead of nine, did we survive climate change?

00:42:38.339 --> 00:42:44.759
6 billion of us did. You see where I'm going, right? Like there's going to be collateral damage.

00:42:44.959 --> 00:42:48.739
How much, when do we say enough is enough, right?

00:42:49.099 --> 00:42:53.759
Every era in this country's history has been defined by violence and death before

00:42:53.759 --> 00:42:54.739
we've done the right thing.

00:42:55.139 --> 00:42:59.499
Civil rights movement, women's suffrage movement, industrial revolution,

00:42:59.719 --> 00:43:02.399
labor rights movement, obviously the civil war.

00:43:04.199 --> 00:43:08.859
You know, it's not done in a legislature.

00:43:10.039 --> 00:43:15.299
Yeah. All right. Well, Chuck, I enjoyed this.

00:43:15.559 --> 00:43:18.279
And this was well worth the wait.

00:43:18.919 --> 00:43:22.279
Thank you. Thank you for asking. I appreciated the platform.

00:43:22.499 --> 00:43:24.499
Yes. And the thoughtful conversation.

00:43:24.839 --> 00:43:27.619
Yes. Are you going to always, do you miss running, do you miss being in office?

00:43:29.279 --> 00:43:35.119
Some days. Some days, you know, you can't. I wish I had the guts to run.

00:43:35.579 --> 00:43:42.559
Well, sometimes it's not really guts. I think your passion kind of leads you

00:43:42.559 --> 00:43:45.259
to take that step forward.

00:43:45.579 --> 00:43:49.819
I've never looked at anything I did being courageous. I just looked at it as

00:43:49.819 --> 00:43:53.379
like, this is the right time to take that step.

00:43:54.099 --> 00:44:00.319
And, you know, I've had more missteps, you know, but once you win one thing,

00:44:00.499 --> 00:44:05.739
then it's like, that's the legacy. That's now, now in this era that gets you

00:44:05.739 --> 00:44:07.579
a page on Wikipedia, you know what I'm saying?

00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:11.459
But it's, you know, I've never looked at it as being courageous.

00:44:11.459 --> 00:44:14.599
I just look at it as like, this is something I've wanted to,

00:44:14.639 --> 00:44:16.139
something I wanted to do.

00:44:16.719 --> 00:44:20.419
And I just decided this was the moment to take that chance.

00:44:20.719 --> 00:44:26.259
And I was very fortunate at least a couple of times to be in an elected position, right?

00:44:27.113 --> 00:44:30.993
Think everybody should be a public servant for, for two years, some doing something.

00:44:31.173 --> 00:44:34.973
It may not always have to be elected, but service to your community,

00:44:35.173 --> 00:44:38.053
service to your, to your, to your government.

00:44:38.493 --> 00:44:42.313
You know, if you believe in it, you know, that's how you, it,

00:44:42.413 --> 00:44:46.773
I think, I wish we had mandatory national service in this country.

00:44:47.013 --> 00:44:55.513
I think it would, and it would be an opportunity for us to get to know each

00:44:55.513 --> 00:44:57.013
other in different ways.

00:44:57.553 --> 00:45:00.793
The military works pretty well that way, but I don't want us all to have to

00:45:00.793 --> 00:45:04.953
become a member of the military for us to see that we all bleed the same color of blood.

00:45:05.673 --> 00:45:09.373
Right. And I just think about the Peace Corps. I remember that was one of my

00:45:09.373 --> 00:45:12.393
biggest battles in the legislature.

00:45:12.613 --> 00:45:16.773
Well, I say one of my biggest. It was it was a pet project of mine was trying

00:45:16.773 --> 00:45:22.273
to get people's service in the Peace Corps to count toward their state retirement.

00:45:23.413 --> 00:45:28.233
And just the pushback I got was crazy. I said, do you understand what that generation

00:45:28.233 --> 00:45:32.773
of people did, you know, to bring you peace in your lifetime?

00:45:32.773 --> 00:45:36.753
They literally were out trying to make the world a better place,

00:45:36.933 --> 00:45:41.773
which is to be a higher service than going to boot camp and,

00:45:41.773 --> 00:45:47.273
you know, and serving, serving your country in the military for a few years.

00:45:47.353 --> 00:45:49.753
I mean, they served, they served our nation and the planet.

00:45:50.798 --> 00:45:54.398
Absolutely. But I could get into war stories long.

00:45:54.618 --> 00:45:58.738
Look, man, how can people get in touch with you? How can people tune into your

00:45:58.738 --> 00:46:00.078
podcast, all that stuff?

00:46:00.298 --> 00:46:05.558
Well, I have the Chuck Toddcast, thechucktodcast.com.

00:46:05.678 --> 00:46:10.398
You can wear all the different things. I've got sort of multiple podcasts that I do.

00:46:10.518 --> 00:46:14.498
I have a regular three times a week with the Chuck Toddcast on YouTube,

00:46:14.678 --> 00:46:19.698
Spotify, Apple, both in audio and video form. I have a sports history podcast

00:46:19.698 --> 00:46:23.678
that I do with the longtime sports journalist, J.A.

00:46:23.798 --> 00:46:26.258
Adande. He and I, we just started. It's called Dynastic.

00:46:26.798 --> 00:46:31.998
Every month we do a deep dive on an iconic franchise. We started with the Dodgers last month.

00:46:32.738 --> 00:46:37.338
And I do something with a new independent startup news organization called Newsphere,

00:46:37.498 --> 00:46:40.358
N-O-O-S-E, N-O-O-Sphere.

00:46:40.918 --> 00:46:44.798
All independent, everybody, you know, we sort of, it's basically an alternative

00:46:44.798 --> 00:46:46.638
to Substack. Instead of everybody eating

00:46:46.638 --> 00:46:50.478
what they kill, it's all shared subscription. I'm an investor in that.

00:46:50.578 --> 00:46:56.338
I do a Sunday night talk show, you know, just a random day of the week we picked Sunday, right?

00:46:57.898 --> 00:47:01.938
But, and in fact, I just interviewed by the time this airs, David Miliband,

00:47:02.098 --> 00:47:03.878
who runs the International Rescue Committee.

00:47:05.018 --> 00:47:10.238
And just how heartbreaking it is, the amount of countries not wanting to help

00:47:10.238 --> 00:47:12.738
refugees around. We have more refugees than ever around the world.

00:47:13.478 --> 00:47:18.318
I think there's some sort of crisis on every continent right now in some form

00:47:18.318 --> 00:47:20.818
or another, whether displacement or whatever.

00:47:20.998 --> 00:47:23.378
And we just talked about the Peace Corps.

00:47:24.467 --> 00:47:27.507
Know the united states gutting usa id

00:47:27.507 --> 00:47:31.327
when the u.s doesn't do humanitarian doesn't

00:47:31.327 --> 00:47:36.287
lead on humanitarian causes no one does yeah yeah and it's a it's a real vacuum

00:47:36.287 --> 00:47:41.967
so so newsphere all the your favorite independent places youtube all that stuff

00:47:41.967 --> 00:47:46.327
for the check podcast and same places to go find dynastic so i'm let's just

00:47:46.327 --> 00:47:50.367
say i'm personally having a great time in the media, in this independent media space.

00:47:51.767 --> 00:47:55.707
Let's hope, let's hope the world, let's hope we can get a better world to cover.

00:47:55.887 --> 00:47:58.207
Yes, yeah, yeah, that's the goal.

00:47:58.727 --> 00:48:01.167
All right, well, Chuck, again, thank you.

00:48:01.727 --> 00:48:05.547
My rule is once you've been on, you have an open invitation to come back.

00:48:06.307 --> 00:48:09.947
So, you know, if there's something pressing that you say, look,

00:48:10.027 --> 00:48:13.187
I need to talk about this and I want to kind of bounce it off,

00:48:13.367 --> 00:48:16.007
Erik, feel free to come on, man. We'll make that happen.

00:48:16.747 --> 00:48:19.247
I guess I need to ask, Ole Miss or Mississippi State?

00:48:20.389 --> 00:48:25.789
Well, I went to Jackson state, so I guess, I don't know.

00:48:25.929 --> 00:48:31.949
You know, I like, I was, I like Mississippi state football. I like Mississippi state basketball.

00:48:32.609 --> 00:48:38.549
I mean, uh, baseball, but Ole Miss basketball was always kind of thing.

00:48:38.709 --> 00:48:44.029
It's, it's kind of cool to ring a cowbell and to be up there at state,

00:48:44.149 --> 00:48:47.049
but it's, it's also an experience to walk through that grove.

00:48:47.049 --> 00:48:50.169
So, you know, I kind of give them equal balance.

00:48:50.309 --> 00:48:53.749
But to me, Jackson State is better than both of them.

00:48:53.909 --> 00:48:56.889
So, you know, Walter Payton went to my school.

00:48:57.089 --> 00:48:59.229
So, you know, I was just going to say sweetness.

00:48:59.489 --> 00:49:01.469
Yeah, it's my favorite part. We're

00:49:01.469 --> 00:49:04.549
doing a deep dive on Dynastic on the Pittsburgh Steelers and sort of.

00:49:04.949 --> 00:49:08.289
And one of their secrets to their early success is they were one of the few

00:49:08.289 --> 00:49:14.149
NFL teams that spent that spent real money scouting HBCUs back in the 60s and

00:49:14.149 --> 00:49:18.409
70s. And, and essentially they, they found a whole bunch of hall of famers.

00:49:18.549 --> 00:49:23.009
Yeah. The Steelers, the Kansas city chiefs and AFL and the Dallas Cowboys.

00:49:23.429 --> 00:49:26.649
You could trace their success to the HBCUs.

00:49:27.209 --> 00:49:31.889
Fun fact before I let you go, fun fact, and you can dive into you want to.

00:49:32.749 --> 00:49:36.849
What do you, what color, when you look at Ole Miss's football uniform,

00:49:37.049 --> 00:49:39.369
what color do you consider the pants?

00:49:40.815 --> 00:49:46.295
The powder blue? Well, the powder blue is the jersey, but the pants.

00:49:48.275 --> 00:49:51.195
Hmm. Did they just wear white pants with stripes?

00:49:51.655 --> 00:49:57.875
No, they wear, they look silver, but. It's gray, right? It's actually gray.

00:49:58.315 --> 00:50:02.215
And is it gray for what we think it is? Yes. The blue and the gray?

00:50:02.455 --> 00:50:08.795
Yeah. Well, it's a tribute to the students that, there was a division of students

00:50:08.795 --> 00:50:13.695
at Ole Miss that fought for the Confederacy, all the males too, and they all died.

00:50:14.635 --> 00:50:21.675
And so the uniform, the pants will always be university gray because that was

00:50:21.675 --> 00:50:25.395
the name of the unit that died in the Civil War.

00:50:25.795 --> 00:50:30.035
So I just threw that out there since you like sports history and all that. Interesting.

00:50:30.735 --> 00:50:32.855
There's an uncomfortable fact.

00:50:35.995 --> 00:50:38.655
Chuck, I will let you go, man. Good luck on the recruiting trail,

00:50:38.775 --> 00:50:41.375
Pete Golding. on those things, right? Exactly.

00:50:42.835 --> 00:50:45.555
Well, thank you so much, man. I appreciate it. You got it. All right.

00:51:06.344 --> 00:51:13.244
All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my guest, Ed Fields.

00:51:13.984 --> 00:51:18.464
Known as a level-headed diplomat, creative risk-taker, and inspirational leader,

00:51:18.884 --> 00:51:24.724
Ed Fields has a breadth of leadership experience as an executive in both for-profit

00:51:24.724 --> 00:51:26.904
and not-for-profit organizations.

00:51:27.884 --> 00:51:33.004
Ed served as campaign manager for Birmingham Mayor-elect Randall Woodfin's historic

00:51:33.004 --> 00:51:34.744
run to become Mayor of Birmingham.

00:51:35.064 --> 00:51:40.944
Currently serves as senior advisor and chief strategist for the City of Birmingham Mayor's office.

00:51:41.484 --> 00:51:47.124
Previously, Ed co-founded and led Relax. It's handled a nationally recognized

00:51:47.124 --> 00:51:52.704
award-winning association and event management company for eight years before selling the company.

00:51:52.704 --> 00:51:57.804
He has also served as an executive and strategic partner in organizations such

00:51:57.804 --> 00:52:02.004
as the Birmingham Regional Chamber of Commerce and Alabama Media Group.

00:52:02.324 --> 00:52:06.964
A transplant from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Ed received his undergraduate degree

00:52:06.964 --> 00:52:10.024
in business administration from Alabama State University.

00:52:10.904 --> 00:52:15.304
And earned his master's of business administration from the University of Alabama's

00:52:15.304 --> 00:52:17.364
prestigious Manderson School of Business.

00:52:17.364 --> 00:52:21.644
He has also received his Institute of Management designation,

00:52:22.404 --> 00:52:25.184
a nonprofit management certification from the U.S.

00:52:25.884 --> 00:52:30.524
Chamber of Commerce. Ed currently serves as chairman of the University of Alabama

00:52:30.524 --> 00:52:34.644
Coverhouse School of Business African-American Alumni Network.

00:52:35.504 --> 00:52:41.064
Ed is an alum of Leadership Alabama, the Bloomberg Harvey City Leadership Initiative,

00:52:41.384 --> 00:52:44.364
as well as Harvard's Young American Leadership Program.

00:52:44.364 --> 00:52:49.224
Ed is the recipient of the Innovation and Diversity Award from the Birmingham

00:52:49.224 --> 00:52:53.884
Business Alliance, the Encouraging Diversity Award from Cox Radio,

00:52:54.184 --> 00:53:00.064
and Minority Business Advocate of the Year from the City of Birmingham and Alabama

00:53:00.064 --> 00:53:03.164
State University's Top 50 Under 50.

00:53:04.158 --> 00:53:09.258
Ed recently served as executive producer for As Goes the South,

00:53:09.518 --> 00:53:14.038
a film about Birmingham highlighting a new generation of black and brown leaders,

00:53:14.698 --> 00:53:15.818
in Birmingham, Alabama.

00:53:16.298 --> 00:53:19.738
And so we're going to talk a little bit about that film as well.

00:53:21.338 --> 00:53:28.758
So without any further ado, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest on this podcast.

00:53:40.968 --> 00:53:44.788
All right, Ed Fields. How you doing, my brother? You doing good?

00:53:45.408 --> 00:53:49.308
I'm great. I'm great. Honored to be here, brother. Thank you for the invitation.

00:53:49.608 --> 00:53:53.788
Well, I'm thankful that you accepted it. I understand I'm supposed to say happy

00:53:53.788 --> 00:53:55.288
National Poetry Month to you.

00:53:56.908 --> 00:54:02.028
That's something that you take very seriously. So I know that you normally do

00:54:02.028 --> 00:54:06.268
that like every year, kind of write some poems and stuff.

00:54:06.888 --> 00:54:11.488
Although it seemed like I lost track in 2022. Have you kind of stopped that

00:54:11.488 --> 00:54:14.408
or are you just, I'm just not in the right place?

00:54:14.868 --> 00:54:19.848
I do love poetry. And to be honest with you, I want to continue to hold myself

00:54:19.848 --> 00:54:22.788
accountable to doing things that I love to do, like write.

00:54:23.088 --> 00:54:28.048
And so I'm not sure what happened in 2022. I know I had a big year in 23 personally,

00:54:28.328 --> 00:54:29.528
dealing with some family challenges.

00:54:30.128 --> 00:54:33.488
And ironically enough, I wrote more then than I did the previous year,

00:54:33.628 --> 00:54:36.248
which is probably great. I was probably just happy, brother,

00:54:36.308 --> 00:54:38.348
living life. Yeah, I got you.

00:54:38.988 --> 00:54:44.088
All right. Before I do my normal icebreaker, I do have a question for you.

00:54:44.488 --> 00:54:47.968
Why do you hate text messages? Oh, man.

00:54:49.068 --> 00:54:51.028
You want to start with that, huh? Yeah.

00:54:52.744 --> 00:54:58.144
And I think text messages are, let me start here by saying that they're a central

00:54:58.144 --> 00:55:01.784
part of the communication, the way we communicate today.

00:55:02.304 --> 00:55:07.724
And they can be very, very useful. I think that people are overusing the instrument,

00:55:07.964 --> 00:55:11.384
the tool, the medium in ways that it was not intended to.

00:55:12.024 --> 00:55:17.404
And I think they're incredibly disruptive. What I dislike most about text is

00:55:17.404 --> 00:55:23.704
the expectation of a response, the immediacy of a response. that's the primary thing I don't like.

00:55:23.984 --> 00:55:26.224
So I sent you a message, right?

00:55:26.544 --> 00:55:30.524
Six hours prior on something that's not essential. And so what it is,

00:55:30.564 --> 00:55:34.944
is a hack to basically get to the front of the line of a person's attention and workflow.

00:55:35.224 --> 00:55:40.984
And if I prioritize my workflow, my goals, my efforts, and I'm constantly short

00:55:40.984 --> 00:55:45.224
circuiting that or hacking it by allowing people in front of the line,

00:55:45.224 --> 00:55:49.004
that are really, really impacting productivity and goals.

00:55:49.164 --> 00:55:55.324
So that's thing one. The other thing I really don't like about them is how invasive

00:55:55.324 --> 00:56:01.244
they are just because they show up and we always have our phones and so many

00:56:01.244 --> 00:56:03.104
people allow it to take prominence.

00:56:03.264 --> 00:56:08.684
And so I think they're invasive. I think they shift expectations and they are incredibly...

00:56:10.524 --> 00:56:14.524
For workflow. Personally, the mayor, so I work with Mayor Randall Woodford every day.

00:56:14.924 --> 00:56:19.424
He is a power texter. That brother is literally running the city through phone

00:56:19.424 --> 00:56:22.744
and text. He's a master at that.

00:56:23.044 --> 00:56:28.144
But if I have to scroll down three screens to be able to go and click on a text

00:56:28.144 --> 00:56:31.984
and then go up and down in the text to find the actionable item,

00:56:32.144 --> 00:56:33.564
I personally am struggling.

00:56:34.104 --> 00:56:37.224
So it's just really hard to manage all of that.

00:56:37.324 --> 00:56:40.504
So I could go on and on about text messages i see you

00:56:40.504 --> 00:56:43.804
you seem to have a well structured defense

00:56:43.804 --> 00:56:46.544
into your uh disdain for uh

00:56:46.544 --> 00:56:49.224
text messages i thought you're gonna say something like my

00:56:49.224 --> 00:56:52.164
dad it's like i want to hear your voice i don't want to read no text

00:56:52.164 --> 00:56:54.864
messages i want to talk to my son i thought you were gonna

00:56:54.864 --> 00:56:58.864
go like that i'm the one i'm the one who's telling folks to put the phone down

00:56:58.864 --> 00:57:04.764
sometimes well the only the only negative thing i can say about text messages

00:57:04.764 --> 00:57:10.464
is that you know when you're If you're in a relationship and you're trying to

00:57:10.464 --> 00:57:14.524
convey one thought and the other person reads it as something else,

00:57:14.884 --> 00:57:21.924
that could either get a whole bunch of crazy text messages or a phone call.

00:57:22.344 --> 00:57:27.464
But other than that, I've learned to adapt with the times, brother.

00:57:27.784 --> 00:57:33.404
And if you're going to write a lot of stuff, just send me an email, though.

00:57:33.824 --> 00:57:35.804
Don't put all that on my phone.

00:57:36.504 --> 00:57:40.804
But I understand. I had to get that out because I saw that when I was doing

00:57:40.804 --> 00:57:43.924
my research and I was like, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and ask him that question.

00:57:44.204 --> 00:57:45.764
I'd like to see what his response is.

00:57:46.344 --> 00:57:50.184
All right. So now it's time for my normal icebreakers. And what I want you to

00:57:50.184 --> 00:57:51.864
do is respond to this quote first.

00:57:52.524 --> 00:57:58.484
If a mission makes sense to me, I will find ways to achieve its goals ethically

00:57:58.484 --> 00:58:01.384
and with appropriate dashes of swagger.

00:58:03.816 --> 00:58:08.036
That's one of my lines. Yeah. That's one of my lines.

00:58:08.156 --> 00:58:13.056
That's actually, you know, in working on my profile, I think I have that on

00:58:13.056 --> 00:58:18.076
my LinkedIn profile, but in working on my own sort of personal mission and approach

00:58:18.076 --> 00:58:21.556
to life, I've discovered a few things about myself.

00:58:21.716 --> 00:58:25.976
And I've learned that I'm, for the most part, a jack of all trades, a master of nothing.

00:58:26.216 --> 00:58:31.036
And so when I hear that quote, it reminds me that I'm agnostic.

00:58:31.036 --> 00:58:33.316
You know, I never saw myself getting into government.

00:58:33.756 --> 00:58:37.596
I got marketing background. I'm into poetry. It doesn't really matter what the

00:58:37.596 --> 00:58:40.656
thing is. The thing is, can I love it?

00:58:41.236 --> 00:58:46.616
And I love so many things, Eric. And so if I can love it and I can bring my whole self to it, i.e.

00:58:46.656 --> 00:58:52.316
The dash of swag, then I can really achieve really substantial things.

00:58:52.456 --> 00:58:56.356
And so that's sort of a grounding statement for me. You got you.

00:58:56.896 --> 00:58:59.876
All right. So the next icebreaker I do is called 20 questions.

00:58:59.876 --> 00:59:03.556
So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.

00:59:04.416 --> 00:59:08.176
7, of course. Okay. Number 7.

00:59:09.096 --> 00:59:13.116
What do you consider the best way to stay informed about politics,

00:59:13.456 --> 00:59:15.716
current events, health, etc.?

00:59:16.970 --> 00:59:20.630
Do I consider the best way to stay informed? Well,

00:59:21.210 --> 00:59:31.450
the answer today is to identify a diverse set of sources and bookmark them, tag them,

00:59:31.930 --> 00:59:37.070
drag them up into your algorithm, and to have a constant check-in,

00:59:37.230 --> 00:59:43.570
meaning that you have periodic moments where you check into what those sources are saying.

00:59:44.350 --> 00:59:48.350
The other thing that I would suggest and that I've been experimenting with through

00:59:48.350 --> 00:59:50.390
my, I'm a Google guy through and through.

00:59:50.670 --> 00:59:56.690
So I use Gemini and within that AI platform, you can create what they call gems.

00:59:56.910 --> 01:00:01.850
So you can literally build your own publication from all manner of sources into

01:00:01.850 --> 01:00:06.350
one dashboard sort of look that's different. And it's AI driven.

01:00:06.530 --> 01:00:10.790
So it changes every day a little bit. So I think that's the best way to get

01:00:10.790 --> 01:00:14.530
information is to go ahead and curate it yourself since we don't have reliable

01:00:14.530 --> 01:00:21.290
national media that can be trusted and that can deliver the sort of dynamic

01:00:21.290 --> 01:00:23.330
information we need these days.

01:00:23.330 --> 01:00:27.350
They seem to be analog in a world that is changing rapidly.

01:00:27.810 --> 01:00:32.370
So long answer, but I have lots of thoughts about our media environment and

01:00:32.370 --> 01:00:40.090
what it means for our publics and for the civic education and infrastructure of our nation. Yeah.

01:00:41.090 --> 01:00:48.390
So you kind of answered this one a little bit, but did you ever think as a young

01:00:48.390 --> 01:00:52.470
man growing up in Milwaukee that you would be in politics, let alone be in a

01:00:52.470 --> 01:00:53.750
position of power and government.

01:00:55.757 --> 01:01:03.657
No, no. It was foreign to me. All this is kind of esoteric, mumbo jumbo, people wearing suits.

01:01:03.997 --> 01:01:06.757
You know, I grew up in a blue collar family, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

01:01:07.577 --> 01:01:11.997
Dad was a lineman for most of my childhood. Mine was a stay at home a few years

01:01:11.997 --> 01:01:15.897
when middle class families, lower middle class families could afford to do that.

01:01:16.657 --> 01:01:20.797
And no, man, everybody was blue collar around me. So honestly,

01:01:20.817 --> 01:01:23.737
there was a healthy bit of resentment. It wasn't always expressed,

01:01:23.977 --> 01:01:27.697
but I could tell my dad was a union person and, you know, you could tell how

01:01:27.697 --> 01:01:29.497
he felt about the suits at the power company.

01:01:30.197 --> 01:01:33.877
Now I'm with the suits at the power company up at CBC.

01:01:34.197 --> 01:01:39.137
Right. So I've kind of gone through this identity shift in understanding that

01:01:39.137 --> 01:01:41.997
you can end up in a lot of places you didn't plan to.

01:01:42.277 --> 01:01:45.017
So no, government was certainly not one of them.

01:01:45.197 --> 01:01:47.717
I always thought I'd be an entrepreneur and I did become an entrepreneur,

01:01:47.717 --> 01:01:51.037
but I didn't have any relationships with folks.

01:01:51.037 --> 01:01:56.597
And I grew up in an era where we said F the police and that was attached to government.

01:01:56.597 --> 01:02:02.657
And that's what's been in my body literally until I walked into City Hall November

01:02:02.657 --> 01:02:08.397
28th, 2017, and started to have relationships with people that I either didn't

01:02:08.397 --> 01:02:11.057
understand or didn't like on principle.

01:02:11.877 --> 01:02:14.717
Okay. Well, you're now in your second term.

01:02:15.557 --> 01:02:20.617
Third. Oh, third term. I'm sorry. I thought it was third term, but I don't know why.

01:02:21.037 --> 01:02:25.517
I got confused about the elections. So now you're in your third term with Mayor

01:02:25.517 --> 01:02:27.497
Woodfin. How's that going?

01:02:28.817 --> 01:02:33.557
Going great. He won his re-elect about six months ago with 75% of the vote.

01:02:33.677 --> 01:02:36.117
So we have people with us and we are with people.

01:02:36.577 --> 01:02:39.177
We have, you know, he was 36 when he was elected.

01:02:39.677 --> 01:02:42.257
I was 42. I just turned 51.

01:02:42.797 --> 01:02:47.977
And so we have the benefit of being young veterans in this public space,

01:02:47.977 --> 01:02:49.777
which is really important, I think,

01:02:49.877 --> 01:02:52.877
for the community, but specifically in terms of how things are going.

01:02:52.877 --> 01:02:58.957
And we are finally starting to see the impacts of some of the early decisions we made.

01:02:59.337 --> 01:03:04.757
I think that we have all started to live life really more dynamically,

01:03:04.757 --> 01:03:09.037
which makes us more attuned to what people are going through,

01:03:09.197 --> 01:03:13.557
whether it's some of our leadership team having special needs kids or having

01:03:13.557 --> 01:03:16.397
children at all and moving from house to house.

01:03:16.397 --> 01:03:21.817
And I think the lived experience of people who are in positions of so-called

01:03:21.817 --> 01:03:26.897
power is really, really important, or at least their proximity to people so

01:03:26.897 --> 01:03:29.157
that they can feel it, not just think it,

01:03:29.677 --> 01:03:32.237
not just want to do a thing, but you got to feel it.

01:03:32.237 --> 01:03:38.717
And I think that we have had enough time to feel at a personal level and professionally

01:03:38.717 --> 01:03:43.297
what it's like to move through the city, to see the impacts of our decisions,

01:03:43.577 --> 01:03:47.037
maybe even forgive ourselves for some of the things we didn't do as well initially,

01:03:47.037 --> 01:03:50.577
knowing that we have this unexpected,

01:03:50.877 --> 01:03:51.997
frankly, third term.

01:03:52.257 --> 01:03:54.897
Unexpected to me. We didn't know he was going to do a third term.

01:03:55.557 --> 01:03:59.537
And we're fortunate that he did. But the clock is ticking from my perspective,

01:03:59.817 --> 01:04:03.537
irrespective of what he chooses to do next. And we don't know if he would ever run again.

01:04:03.937 --> 01:04:08.677
But I've got to run. I've got to act. And I need to serve him in the city as if he's not.

01:04:08.837 --> 01:04:13.877
And so what does that look like to count down to November 27, 2029?

01:04:15.817 --> 01:04:23.277
Yeah. So in that process, what does it take to be an effective chief strategist and senior advisor?

01:04:24.370 --> 01:04:27.950
Right. Fancy title. What does it really mean? So generally speaking,

01:04:28.090 --> 01:04:32.330
a chief strategist, which is one of the fastest growing titles or sea level

01:04:32.330 --> 01:04:37.650
roles in the nation, is really designed to do a couple of things.

01:04:37.650 --> 01:04:40.590
But if I had to boil it down to one thing, it is this.

01:04:40.970 --> 01:04:47.110
It is giving your CEO the capacity to drive their agenda.

01:04:47.750 --> 01:04:51.490
You know this as a former elected official, as an entrepreneur.

01:04:52.110 --> 01:04:56.090
There's a lot of things you want to do, but so much of our time is taken up

01:04:56.090 --> 01:05:00.710
into things we just have to do. And the CEO's role is one of those.

01:05:00.870 --> 01:05:05.630
You're running an enterprise that has compliance and a lot of other things baked into it.

01:05:05.970 --> 01:05:10.830
That small margin of time and energy and effort you want to put into the things

01:05:10.830 --> 01:05:15.050
that distinguish your tenure as a CEO require a partner.

01:05:15.050 --> 01:05:20.830
That partner is somebody who has a unique set of skills or a unique set of information

01:05:20.830 --> 01:05:27.130
or a unique set of resources that they can bring to bear to shift an organization,

01:05:27.370 --> 01:05:31.950
to help bend the organization to the will of the CEO that's in place.

01:05:32.170 --> 01:05:36.050
The other part of that, the distinctive part of that is what I would say,

01:05:36.210 --> 01:05:42.570
the blue ocean planning, the strategic thinking about the future state of the organization.

01:05:42.570 --> 01:05:48.230
What does it look like if the CEO has been successful and then working backwards

01:05:48.230 --> 01:05:51.170
from there to partner with the operating leaders?

01:05:51.570 --> 01:05:56.350
Sometimes the role is intended to create tension in the organization because

01:05:56.350 --> 01:05:59.290
we're trying to get from the current state to a different state.

01:05:59.850 --> 01:06:04.910
It's either new products, new policies, maybe even whole new teams or divisions.

01:06:05.450 --> 01:06:10.930
Somebody has to help architect that alongside the CEO so that the CEO can take

01:06:10.930 --> 01:06:13.050
that and put that into the organization.

01:06:13.450 --> 01:06:17.030
So if you've seen one chief strategist, you've seen one chief strategist because

01:06:17.030 --> 01:06:22.110
they really are going to be unique to whoever they are, whoever that CEO is.

01:06:23.092 --> 01:06:27.732
So that's how I would describe the role broadly, and then specifically for me,

01:06:27.852 --> 01:06:31.332
what it means for Wuffin, because I don't have a political background here.

01:06:31.452 --> 01:06:37.072
So I came to this role as a communicator, as a civic leader, primarily.

01:06:37.312 --> 01:06:40.692
I mean, civic leadership is my bread and butter. That is my career.

01:06:40.892 --> 01:06:41.972
That is my deepest passion.

01:06:42.632 --> 01:06:47.472
Also, as a former entrepreneur and a really, really great producer as it relates

01:06:47.472 --> 01:06:50.412
to events and really any engagement, I'm a producer at heart.

01:06:50.412 --> 01:06:55.912
Now moving to executive production in a variety of ways. So all that said.

01:06:56.985 --> 01:07:01.345
My role with him has really been to help partner around our P3s,

01:07:01.405 --> 01:07:02.425
public-private partnerships.

01:07:02.705 --> 01:07:07.645
So when the mayor goes out and speaks to Brookings or speaks to the African-American

01:07:07.645 --> 01:07:12.805
Mayor's Association or goes to speak to some entity that has a resource attached

01:07:12.805 --> 01:07:16.105
to them, and they really want to get engaged with Birmingham because they're

01:07:16.105 --> 01:07:17.425
excited about the prospects,

01:07:17.625 --> 01:07:19.465
what does it mean to be a living laboratory,

01:07:19.765 --> 01:07:22.645
an ethical, civic laboratory for the nation?

01:07:22.645 --> 01:07:30.005
And my job is to run alongside him, sometimes ahead of him, sometimes right behind him.

01:07:30.105 --> 01:07:34.945
But I'm right there with him to help design and architect what those relationships can look like.

01:07:35.365 --> 01:07:41.865
Because we see a lot of really, really high profile, charismatic leaders do well on stage.

01:07:42.005 --> 01:07:46.465
When they step off, they got to have a team that can execute. I'm a part of that team.

01:07:47.705 --> 01:07:52.545
Rarely doing the actual execution. My job is to be able to navigate what I call Woodfin world.

01:07:52.805 --> 01:07:58.305
You know, he's got the administrative world in City Hall. He's got a great chief of staff and team.

01:07:58.885 --> 01:08:03.545
He also has a political world with some great political strategists and people

01:08:03.545 --> 01:08:05.805
who do OPPO and all kinds of stuff.

01:08:05.965 --> 01:08:10.545
My job is to have deep relationships there. And then he's got the external sort

01:08:10.545 --> 01:08:14.885
of national relationships as well between some of the entities I named and a

01:08:14.885 --> 01:08:20.625
bunch of others. My job is to have a whole look at the map for him and to help navigate that.

01:08:20.865 --> 01:08:24.385
And he's so dynamic. It takes a lot of energy to keep up with him,

01:08:24.445 --> 01:08:28.825
frankly. But that's part of my role. And then separate from that is the strategic communication.

01:08:29.065 --> 01:08:32.805
So all the public communications roll up to me.

01:08:33.025 --> 01:08:36.685
I don't do hardly anything daily. I have a couple projects. For the most part,

01:08:36.825 --> 01:08:40.085
we have a director of communications, an office of public information,

01:08:40.525 --> 01:08:44.825
and about a dozen other public information officers across the cities, you know.

01:08:45.688 --> 01:08:50.328
Dozen departments. And my job is to have a strategic framework and to put resources

01:08:50.328 --> 01:08:54.088
in place to support them and then to partner externally with groups who want

01:08:54.088 --> 01:08:59.868
to come and do the world games or have some other major initiative that's going

01:08:59.868 --> 01:09:02.668
to impact the brand or the identity of the city.

01:09:02.808 --> 01:09:07.788
And so my job is to be the constant sort of thought partner and to smooth and

01:09:07.788 --> 01:09:11.288
to find consistency across the many things that are happening.

01:09:11.468 --> 01:09:14.088
So I'm mostly in the river as things are coming in it.

01:09:14.608 --> 01:09:18.208
Every once in a while, I get to direct something, but I'd be lying if I said

01:09:18.208 --> 01:09:21.788
I'm sitting up here with the Geppetto string and making everything happen.

01:09:22.608 --> 01:09:24.668
Sometimes, brother, I'm just holding on for dear life.

01:09:25.568 --> 01:09:30.028
Well, that's most of us. You mentioned it about politics, you know,

01:09:30.428 --> 01:09:34.148
referring to me, you know, I was fortunate enough to be a young one too.

01:09:34.328 --> 01:09:41.108
And so you, you know, you have to have energy and you have to have a focus to do what you got to do.

01:09:41.468 --> 01:09:46.468
So I understand it's not easy, but you seem to be navigating it pretty well.

01:09:46.848 --> 01:09:54.548
So you said that you had a goal to demystify public leadership.

01:09:54.948 --> 01:10:00.768
And the mayor has said that he compares municipal government to a participatory

01:10:00.768 --> 01:10:02.788
sport or is a participatory sport.

01:10:03.228 --> 01:10:08.948
How have you, do you feel that it's still an ongoing process to do that in Birmingham,

01:10:08.948 --> 01:10:11.388
or have you turned a corner?

01:10:11.968 --> 01:10:15.328
Oh, it's an ongoing process. It always has been and always will be.

01:10:15.768 --> 01:10:17.848
This is human beings, right? And,

01:10:19.023 --> 01:10:24.663
The real, I guess what you hear from him and from me is sort of a philosophy or theory of the case.

01:10:24.823 --> 01:10:29.183
Like, what does it mean? What is my role? What is their role? Whoever they are.

01:10:29.423 --> 01:10:32.663
And so, yes, have we turned a corner?

01:10:33.723 --> 01:10:37.583
That's not the frame I will put this in. I think it is, are we getting better

01:10:37.583 --> 01:10:39.923
in our relationship, right? This is more like that.

01:10:40.103 --> 01:10:44.603
I had a conversation yesterday with some folks who were sort of talking about

01:10:44.603 --> 01:10:48.863
who's right and who's wrong and sort of standing on business and all of that.

01:10:49.023 --> 01:10:52.983
I said, man, look, if you talk to somebody who's been married 50 years,

01:10:53.103 --> 01:10:54.743
you'll never hear them talk about that.

01:10:55.143 --> 01:10:58.143
You'll never hear them talk like that because sometimes you're going to take

01:10:58.143 --> 01:11:01.503
a loss and it's for the sake of the relationship.

01:11:01.863 --> 01:11:06.903
And we know that right now we had a national crisis in our relationship as a

01:11:06.903 --> 01:11:10.923
country in terms of the social contract between one another at every level.

01:11:11.243 --> 01:11:15.363
People hollering at each other at school board meetings, people fist fighting

01:11:15.363 --> 01:11:18.023
in state legislatures, which has probably always been the case.

01:11:18.023 --> 01:11:19.723
They used to do duels back in the day.

01:11:20.103 --> 01:11:23.923
But the point is, there's plenty of evidence that the social contract between

01:11:23.923 --> 01:11:27.403
people in our society has broken down substantially.

01:11:27.963 --> 01:11:33.303
And our job in the city of Birmingham is to reclaim that legacy that so many

01:11:33.303 --> 01:11:36.903
people found in black and white footage and to make sure that people see it in full color.

01:11:36.903 --> 01:11:41.703
That there is a generation of people who know what it's like to link arms with

01:11:41.703 --> 01:11:45.223
other people and to figure things out together civilly.

01:11:45.403 --> 01:11:51.003
And to do that in a way that's also pretty dope, really dynamic, fun, innovative.

01:11:51.563 --> 01:11:54.943
Those are the things we hold to be true. And so when the mayor says...

01:11:56.725 --> 01:12:01.345
Or democracy is a participatory sport. He's just saying that there's no one

01:12:01.345 --> 01:12:03.525
entity that's going to be able to play this game alone.

01:12:04.165 --> 01:12:08.925
One of my favorite books that I would recommend for your listeners is by Simon

01:12:08.925 --> 01:12:13.825
Sinek, who's pretty well known on social media, but he's also an author.

01:12:13.945 --> 01:12:15.785
He wrote a book called The Infinite Game.

01:12:16.065 --> 01:12:19.505
And I love how he frames winning and losing.

01:12:19.745 --> 01:12:24.845
And nobody can say that they're winning in life or winning in their marriage.

01:12:24.845 --> 01:12:28.985
You can have a moment where you feel like you're doing really well but there's

01:12:28.985 --> 01:12:35.945
no definition of the end game being win or loss it's how you're doing and so

01:12:35.945 --> 01:12:38.485
you score differently and I think that,

01:12:39.423 --> 01:12:45.323
Part of the dissonance that we're seeing in our politics is because we're keeping score the wrong way.

01:12:45.643 --> 01:12:50.583
And we're not doing the math that says that the more we do what we're doing

01:12:50.583 --> 01:12:52.603
right now, the more we all lose.

01:12:53.603 --> 01:12:57.383
Because the math has changed in some regards. It's game theory.

01:12:57.523 --> 01:13:00.423
It's a fancy term. But basically, the if and thens have changed.

01:13:00.543 --> 01:13:01.823
The impacts of them have changed.

01:13:01.963 --> 01:13:06.163
And I wish we would get more serious about the collapse of the middle class.

01:13:06.763 --> 01:13:10.803
Because so much of this is tied to the economics of the country and the fact

01:13:10.803 --> 01:13:16.423
that the majority of everyday folk, like how I grew up, we were able to go to

01:13:16.423 --> 01:13:18.863
Red Lobster once a month. It was a working-class family, man.

01:13:19.163 --> 01:13:21.343
With no pension, no trust funds.

01:13:21.763 --> 01:13:25.943
We had what we had. But we were able to do a couple of basic things because

01:13:25.943 --> 01:13:30.923
you made a fair ways as a lineman who graduated from high school and raised

01:13:30.923 --> 01:13:35.863
a family and have a house and have a little equity in your home as long as you save a little money.

01:13:36.163 --> 01:13:41.203
I mean, we can't do that now. We have to go to work, have a decent salary,

01:13:41.203 --> 01:13:43.643
and then go drive Uber on the side.

01:13:44.043 --> 01:13:49.263
And then you got a child care crisis and health care crisis and a bunch of other things happening.

01:13:49.263 --> 01:13:55.243
So we have to repurpose the commons, as some of our more academic folks say,

01:13:55.323 --> 01:13:59.023
but we have to repurpose our public institutions to serve people better.

01:13:59.023 --> 01:14:02.963
So if you look at our innovations, our policy innovations like the Birmingham

01:14:02.963 --> 01:14:04.703
Promise and a bunch of others in Birmingham,

01:14:05.103 --> 01:14:09.523
you'll find that we're taking tax dollars, we're putting some policy around

01:14:09.523 --> 01:14:16.023
that, and we're converting resources so that we can build wealth in communities

01:14:16.023 --> 01:14:17.283
that perhaps have not had it.

01:14:18.286 --> 01:14:22.906
We're just to take away the impediment so that people can compete better or more.

01:14:23.086 --> 01:14:27.326
So that's a long way of saying we haven't turned a corner.

01:14:27.586 --> 01:14:30.566
We are simply getting better in how we do what we do.

01:14:31.166 --> 01:14:36.746
All right. All right. So now let's get to this documentary that you were one

01:14:36.746 --> 01:14:41.066
of the executive producers, one of the other executive producers I've known

01:14:41.066 --> 01:14:44.306
from being in Jackson and Noel Didler.

01:14:44.306 --> 01:14:50.826
And, you know, so I was I was glad that there's that Jackson connection. Always.

01:14:51.786 --> 01:14:56.866
There's always going to be a Mississippi connection. Somewhere. Yes, sir.

01:14:58.326 --> 01:15:02.306
That's right. So what was your motivation for doing As Goes to South?

01:15:02.686 --> 01:15:06.986
Well, first of all, give an honor and just just recognition to Noel.

01:15:07.406 --> 01:15:12.166
Noel is longtime resident of Jackson, Mississippi, taught at Jackson State.

01:15:12.166 --> 01:15:16.146
Is a sort of a liberation movement person. She's an organizer,

01:15:16.366 --> 01:15:23.706
a policy advocate, and a native of Guntar, India, who honors people wherever

01:15:23.706 --> 01:15:26.186
she is. Her job is always a center of people.

01:15:26.366 --> 01:15:31.286
So I've learned so much about her from human-centered design to dignity and

01:15:31.286 --> 01:15:33.686
how we talk about it and think about it and portray it.

01:15:33.826 --> 01:15:37.886
So just a shout out to my partner on that and one of my dearest friends now.

01:15:38.026 --> 01:15:42.506
So I met her when she was sort of an advisor and working more closely with Mayor

01:15:42.506 --> 01:15:45.766
Lumumba and I was with Mayor Woodfin.

01:15:46.146 --> 01:15:52.546
We wrote a policy document in 2019, just as all those presidential candidates

01:15:52.546 --> 01:15:55.166
were coming around trying to get endorsements from our young,

01:15:55.286 --> 01:15:58.366
charismatic Black mayors in urban South.

01:15:58.706 --> 01:16:03.086
And so we basically asked, what is the Black agenda and what's the Southern agenda?

01:16:03.406 --> 01:16:07.586
And we didn't do that through any formal political organization.

01:16:07.586 --> 01:16:11.766
It was literally a couple of advisors who got a few of their mayors to co-sign

01:16:11.766 --> 01:16:13.906
on some letters on a letter.

01:16:14.086 --> 01:16:20.166
Also, which also included Mayor Cantrell in New Orleans and former Mayor Steve Benjamin.

01:16:21.293 --> 01:16:24.873
Of North and South, out of South Carolina. So all that said,

01:16:24.893 --> 01:16:26.693
we basically put this letter together.

01:16:26.953 --> 01:16:31.513
They started responding. Six out of the 12 Democratic candidates for president

01:16:31.513 --> 01:16:34.313
actually signed, actually responded.

01:16:34.793 --> 01:16:39.353
They, they answered our questionnaire. We held some conference calls and eventually

01:16:39.353 --> 01:16:45.453
we saw one of those respondents, Joe Biden, take serious some of our questions,

01:16:46.453 --> 01:16:49.493
and he ended up getting the endorsement of our mayor.

01:16:49.893 --> 01:16:52.773
And I think, no, Mayor of Moomba with another person.

01:16:53.553 --> 01:16:57.213
But anyway, we found some success in that. And so in talking with Noelle,

01:16:58.073 --> 01:17:05.173
it was actually her who made the recommendation that our next project together be a film.

01:17:05.253 --> 01:17:13.333
Because in her early time with Mayor of Moomba, she had worked with Dream Hampton,

01:17:13.633 --> 01:17:15.593
who y'all may know famously, who did the R.

01:17:15.693 --> 01:17:19.113
Kelly series and a dear friend of Jay-Z.

01:17:20.473 --> 01:17:28.753
She had connected the folks in Jackson with some rather famous performers to

01:17:28.753 --> 01:17:33.153
do a video, the remix of the Optimistic song that Brandy was on with Common

01:17:33.153 --> 01:17:34.893
and Kareem Riggins and all that.

01:17:35.513 --> 01:17:39.713
So anyway, they had a really good time with the team that shot that video.

01:17:40.153 --> 01:17:44.733
Noelle suggested that we engage them in a narrative change piece.

01:17:44.873 --> 01:17:48.153
Which sort of lined up with some other things that I was thinking about.

01:17:48.433 --> 01:17:51.313
So that's really how it happened. It happened through a relationship.

01:17:51.313 --> 01:17:56.233
It happened fairly organically, but it has always been centered around.

01:17:57.473 --> 01:18:02.993
Getting the nation to pay better attention to what is going on and what can

01:18:02.993 --> 01:18:09.853
happen if we think about the progressive South more dynamically and more contemporaneously, too.

01:18:10.013 --> 01:18:14.313
So a lot of this is also about this generation coming together and how do we

01:18:14.313 --> 01:18:18.473
portray it, not by hero worship for our charismatic elected officials,

01:18:18.673 --> 01:18:21.113
but really for the collectives that are around them.

01:18:21.113 --> 01:18:24.073
To your earlier point, there are a lot of people in the background doing some

01:18:24.073 --> 01:18:27.933
really important, incredible work, and they're not often seen.

01:18:28.133 --> 01:18:31.053
So this film was intended to do a few things.

01:18:31.253 --> 01:18:37.213
It was intended to portray a collective of young Black folks.

01:18:37.313 --> 01:18:40.453
This is a Black-centered film, although it is not exclusively Black.

01:18:40.573 --> 01:18:43.433
We're simply saying that we're the central characters and that there are a lot

01:18:43.433 --> 01:18:45.513
of other really cool people doing good work too.

01:18:45.773 --> 01:18:50.633
So we portray those characters as well as a bunch of other characters that are not Black.

01:18:51.213 --> 01:18:55.433
And what is the dialogue between them and around them?

01:18:56.053 --> 01:19:00.653
The other thing we really want to do, Eric, was to showcase the city in a way

01:19:00.653 --> 01:19:05.853
that wasn't just intellectual or academic or about policy. But what does it feel like?

01:19:06.353 --> 01:19:09.493
Too often, people come to Birmingham and they are just blown away.

01:19:09.613 --> 01:19:11.273
Oh my God, it's so beautiful here.

01:19:11.433 --> 01:19:15.513
Oh my God, it's kind of cool. I didn't know it had a cosmopolitan vibe.

01:19:15.633 --> 01:19:17.093
I didn't know it was modern.

01:19:17.233 --> 01:19:21.473
I didn't, it's like, do we have to put everybody on a plane to get them here

01:19:21.473 --> 01:19:24.733
for them to see and feel what we see and feel?

01:19:25.113 --> 01:19:29.273
And so that's one of the reasons we did the film the way we did it.

01:19:29.373 --> 01:19:36.453
So it's bright colors, very little black and white footage, and includes some

01:19:36.453 --> 01:19:42.433
faces, all shades of skin tones that people are frankly just surprised to see.

01:19:42.433 --> 01:19:45.773
It's been one of my biggest surprises in doing the film is seeing people be

01:19:45.773 --> 01:19:48.013
surprised about what they see.

01:19:49.092 --> 01:19:53.832
Terms of the immigrant community, in terms of just a mosaic of people that are

01:19:53.832 --> 01:19:57.112
here. I guess people still think it's just black and white.

01:19:57.372 --> 01:19:59.432
That's one of the reasons that we did the film.

01:20:00.232 --> 01:20:03.872
Yeah, because when I saw it, it was like.

01:20:05.017 --> 01:20:07.797
Guess the best thing to say was i felt it

01:20:07.797 --> 01:20:11.397
was a love letter to america from birmingham right

01:20:11.397 --> 01:20:14.237
it's like you know it's like we're

01:20:14.237 --> 01:20:20.197
still here and the last time you may have checked us out things were a little

01:20:20.197 --> 01:20:25.457
different but this is who we are now right and i thought that was that that

01:20:25.457 --> 01:20:33.077
was pretty cool yeah you know so why is birmingham because because the film's only 45 minutes long,

01:20:33.177 --> 01:20:36.957
so I want people to see it, so I can't get too deep into it.

01:20:37.077 --> 01:20:41.837
But why is Birmingham the epitome of the New South, in your opinion?

01:20:42.557 --> 01:20:47.537
Well, I have a little bit of bias because I'm sort of all baked up in it at this point.

01:20:47.857 --> 01:20:50.857
But that's really not the argument we're making.

01:20:51.577 --> 01:20:55.177
We are saying that Birmingham is an exemplar, right?

01:20:55.357 --> 01:20:58.277
And we're saying that, but we're not saying we are it. We're saying that there

01:20:58.277 --> 01:21:02.317
are other cities and other communities that have these elements as well,

01:21:02.377 --> 01:21:04.097
and they deserve to be seen and heard.

01:21:04.897 --> 01:21:09.897
And so I wanted to set that frame. This is not intended to be so Birmingham-centric.

01:21:10.097 --> 01:21:14.877
It ended up by default. So the background is, the title of the film is As Goes

01:21:14.877 --> 01:21:16.937
the South, and it's based on the W.E.B.

01:21:17.097 --> 01:21:22.797
DuBose quote, which is about, which is 100 years old, as goes the South,

01:21:23.017 --> 01:21:27.897
so goes the nation, effectively saying, However, the South moves,

01:21:28.077 --> 01:21:31.677
that is our litmus test for how the country will move.

01:21:31.977 --> 01:21:38.017
And so people should understand the broader frame that the worst policies in human,

01:21:38.477 --> 01:21:43.977
certainly in the Western Hemisphere, but the worst policies that were even replicated

01:21:43.977 --> 01:21:49.877
by Nazis and others were originated right here in America, specifically the South.

01:21:51.262 --> 01:21:56.462
And today, contemporaneously, some of the worst policies that you've seen executed

01:21:56.462 --> 01:21:58.682
by the current administration, federal administration,

01:21:59.042 --> 01:22:05.022
were first executed out of the South, whether it's the anti-DEI work in Florida

01:22:05.022 --> 01:22:11.322
or maternal health issues and what they're doing with women or limiting women's

01:22:11.322 --> 01:22:12.702
ability to choose in Georgia.

01:22:13.122 --> 01:22:19.402
So across the board, it's still the South, always has been, and the argument is it always will be.

01:22:19.402 --> 01:22:23.322
On the flip side, as goes the nation, so goes the South,

01:22:23.882 --> 01:22:27.602
on the degree of human resilience, of creativity,

01:22:28.022 --> 01:22:33.742
of even when you consider how people got to this country, particularly Black

01:22:33.742 --> 01:22:39.962
folks, but just the connection, legacy, and lineage, the storytelling.

01:22:41.233 --> 01:22:45.433
The South uniquely as well. So that's a really important piece to understand.

01:22:45.673 --> 01:22:47.953
We ended up doing the film primarily in Birmingham.

01:22:48.213 --> 01:22:52.793
The original vision was, let's do a little bit of Jackson. We got these other cities.

01:22:53.333 --> 01:22:56.373
We got people all over the country, I mean, all over the South.

01:22:56.993 --> 01:23:02.493
Let's go get a little bit of each. It just wasn't practical from a budget and time standpoint.

01:23:02.753 --> 01:23:07.133
Plus, we were so deep in Birmingham, we thought that we could tell a story that

01:23:07.133 --> 01:23:12.273
people can see enough of and think, wow, that reminds me of somebody I know.

01:23:12.613 --> 01:23:17.213
Some of the creative artists that we have in the film doing the found art objects.

01:23:17.533 --> 01:23:20.833
No matter where you're from, you're listening to this, there's some character

01:23:20.833 --> 01:23:24.913
that maybe sits on the street corner and paints, or maybe they're that person

01:23:24.913 --> 01:23:27.473
who rides the bike all the time with a camera around their neck.

01:23:27.553 --> 01:23:32.153
There's some character that you grew up seeing that is such a key feature of

01:23:32.153 --> 01:23:34.713
your community, but you won't see them on the news.

01:23:34.873 --> 01:23:36.913
You won't see a feature piece on them.

01:23:37.473 --> 01:23:42.593
This film is intended to really also lift those folks up because they are representing

01:23:42.593 --> 01:23:47.453
the character of a community that we think other people will see themselves

01:23:47.453 --> 01:23:49.693
in from their community perspective.

01:23:50.333 --> 01:23:53.413
Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, you know, you're a producer. I mean,

01:23:53.533 --> 01:23:56.453
now, you know, you can make it in sequels.

01:23:57.253 --> 01:24:02.593
We've talked about that. Yeah, you can do that. Right now, we're just trying to socialize this one.

01:24:02.673 --> 01:24:06.253
Right now, we're doing film screenings in cities really around the country.

01:24:06.253 --> 01:24:08.813
I'm sitting here at Cornell University right now.

01:24:08.893 --> 01:24:14.853
In a few hours, we'll be doing a spring colloquium to be a campus-wide screening

01:24:14.853 --> 01:24:19.333
and then a talk back with Noelle and I. So we want to socialize these ideas.

01:24:19.613 --> 01:24:21.693
We've done a discussion guide around it. We've.

01:24:25.660 --> 01:24:27.160
Showcases people, again, some

01:24:27.160 --> 01:24:30.840
of the characters in the film have never had a bio written about them.

01:24:31.040 --> 01:24:35.580
And so we wrote a bio and put their photo in our booklet and tried to lift them up.

01:24:35.900 --> 01:24:40.120
And we're doing a bunch of other things around the film. If we have time, I'll share with you.

01:24:40.340 --> 01:24:46.700
But we have this set of efforts, information, resources that we wrapped around

01:24:46.700 --> 01:24:50.100
the film to distinguish it from just another content piece.

01:24:50.220 --> 01:24:54.420
Because, man, there's a lot of great important and work that people are doing in film.

01:24:54.760 --> 01:24:58.760
I never really sought out to be a filmmaker any more than I sought out to be a government person.

01:24:59.680 --> 01:25:05.200
But I do see the opportunity to advance my core mission around sort of the social

01:25:05.200 --> 01:25:10.180
contract between us and this civic infrastructure piece. That's my deepest passion.

01:25:10.960 --> 01:25:14.760
And people are taking note. So at some point, we'll get some distribution.

01:25:15.000 --> 01:25:18.820
We'll figure out where this needs to live permanently. This is not a commercial

01:25:18.820 --> 01:25:22.040
effort for Noel and I, so it's not about money for us.

01:25:22.220 --> 01:25:25.880
It's really about how do we continue to reinvest in this project and knowing

01:25:25.880 --> 01:25:27.820
that, well, she's cooking up the next idea.

01:25:28.560 --> 01:25:31.420
She's my pusher. Everybody should have a pusher in their life.

01:25:32.000 --> 01:25:35.000
Let's do the next thing. Let's go a level higher. She's that for me.

01:25:35.120 --> 01:25:38.840
And I think I'm a bit of a muse for her in some regard.

01:25:39.060 --> 01:25:44.700
So pray that for everybody, find a good, stay active, pursue your life mission.

01:25:45.180 --> 01:25:51.460
And if you do that, you will interact with people that may be unexpected co-conspirators,

01:25:51.660 --> 01:25:55.560
partners, comrades, and something you never thought you'd do.

01:25:55.700 --> 01:26:00.840
So I feel very fortunate to be on this project, but really on this journey with

01:26:00.840 --> 01:26:05.760
her and a few other people like Mayor Woodfin and other aspects of my career and life. Yeah.

01:26:06.440 --> 01:26:08.440
So I got a couple other questions.

01:26:09.180 --> 01:26:12.120
What does it mean to be Southern? Yeah.

01:26:12.948 --> 01:26:16.628
Interesting because you and I are from the Midwest, but we've managed to put

01:26:16.628 --> 01:26:18.068
down our roots here in the South.

01:26:18.808 --> 01:26:23.828
And I think what it means to be Southern, although we don't have children now

01:26:23.828 --> 01:26:29.428
and they're Southern, is to, I guess, be a couple of things.

01:26:30.248 --> 01:26:34.088
There's an authenticity in the South that is distinctive.

01:26:34.408 --> 01:26:40.168
Not that other people aren't authentic, but it is different in terms of what

01:26:40.168 --> 01:26:42.468
it looks like, feels like, sounds like in the South.

01:26:43.008 --> 01:26:50.088
I also just think the traditions around food are very unique and very special in the South.

01:26:50.388 --> 01:26:54.608
And lastly, it's really about the relationship to land that is most different.

01:26:55.108 --> 01:26:59.068
Because of the history of this country, particularly around the indigenous communities,

01:26:59.708 --> 01:27:07.208
it's so weird to me that people don't appreciate how much of our language,

01:27:07.548 --> 01:27:10.328
the land that we claim, the land that we talk about,

01:27:10.848 --> 01:27:14.828
Appalachia and all these words, they're native land. They're like indigenous.

01:27:15.208 --> 01:27:19.548
And so I think the complicated relationship to land and body,

01:27:19.728 --> 01:27:23.848
when you consider the South, I think it's just altogether different.

01:27:24.088 --> 01:27:27.868
So I don't mean to go too deep on that, but sort of reading Dr.

01:27:28.048 --> 01:27:33.068
Monte Perry's book, South to America, and it's reminding me of what the themes

01:27:33.068 --> 01:27:35.488
and threads are that run through it all.

01:27:35.628 --> 01:27:41.848
And I do think land and body and our relationships to our own and to one another's,

01:27:41.968 --> 01:27:45.588
particularly from a racial and ethnic perspective, is really,

01:27:45.668 --> 01:27:49.068
really deep and distinctive and different than anywhere else in the country.

01:27:49.708 --> 01:27:56.448
So do you agree with Charles Blow and others that there needs to be a remigration to the South?

01:27:57.870 --> 01:28:01.530
Well, that's happening already. I think the market will dictate.

01:28:01.770 --> 01:28:05.190
Look, I don't think there needs to be. I'm not even sure what that means.

01:28:05.670 --> 01:28:08.110
Why would there need to be? You know why he says that?

01:28:08.970 --> 01:28:14.390
So his argument is that, you know, for black people,

01:28:14.710 --> 01:28:20.130
because of our history in the South and because a lot of us,

01:28:20.350 --> 01:28:24.650
you know, generations before us fled the South because of the conditions.

01:28:25.250 --> 01:28:30.730
And now when you look at the South and the challenges that it's having compared

01:28:30.730 --> 01:28:31.970
to the rest of the nation,

01:28:32.550 --> 01:28:38.050
that this is a prime opportunity for Black people to come back and not only

01:28:38.050 --> 01:28:42.050
reassert political power, which in some cities like Birmingham,

01:28:42.350 --> 01:28:47.590
like Jackson, like Atlanta, they have, but to reassert the economic power.

01:28:47.890 --> 01:28:52.650
If you have a... You know, when I saw the film that he did, it was kind of like...

01:28:53.828 --> 01:28:59.388
This is kind of a watered down milquetoast appeal from the RNA, right?

01:29:00.208 --> 01:29:05.328
And, you know, but I mean, but he did it personally, right?

01:29:05.488 --> 01:29:08.848
He, you know, he highlighted his relatives, people he went to school with,

01:29:09.028 --> 01:29:13.368
all that kind of stuff, people that never left and then talked to people that

01:29:13.368 --> 01:29:15.268
were like him that went somewhere else.

01:29:15.888 --> 01:29:20.768
And so that, I think that was kind of the gist of what he was trying to do.

01:29:20.768 --> 01:29:26.608
And so, you know, when you see something like, as goes the South,

01:29:26.828 --> 01:29:32.848
and you see how attractive Birmingham is, or it puts people in a different perspective,

01:29:33.168 --> 01:29:39.608
it kind of fits along what he was saying in a general collective about all the Southern states.

01:29:40.368 --> 01:29:44.848
You know, I have a different perspective than most people I know aren't walking

01:29:44.848 --> 01:29:47.888
around thinking about and may not even like, but I'm going to go ahead and say

01:29:47.888 --> 01:29:49.008
it right here on your podcast.

01:29:50.768 --> 01:29:55.688
I think that those of us who are very aware of these dynamics,

01:29:55.948 --> 01:30:01.368
so Charles Blow and a lot of others may have a deeper appreciation and understanding

01:30:01.368 --> 01:30:06.888
of what it means to reclaim our birthright and reclaim our legacy.

01:30:06.948 --> 01:30:09.188
That's true. I would never refute any of that.

01:30:09.588 --> 01:30:13.248
My bigger argument, and this is what I've learned from Randall Woodfin and what

01:30:13.248 --> 01:30:16.088
I've learned of being in politics and understanding this.

01:30:16.568 --> 01:30:19.888
Knocking on doors, man, it's two different worlds.

01:30:20.388 --> 01:30:24.388
We exist in a world where people are online and there's these pundits and there's

01:30:24.388 --> 01:30:26.848
millions of comments and there's a lot of that.

01:30:27.168 --> 01:30:30.448
And so all this conversation is cool. But when you go knock on doors and talk

01:30:30.448 --> 01:30:33.388
to real people, man, it's like a whole other world.

01:30:34.582 --> 01:30:37.562
So many of us don't even know what history we're talking about.

01:30:37.682 --> 01:30:39.862
What are we talking about? They don't even know that there's a birthright.

01:30:40.162 --> 01:30:43.042
They know it generally sounds good, but what does it mean?

01:30:43.222 --> 01:30:48.362
Because I think that we have crossed the threshold of what it means to know our history.

01:30:48.582 --> 01:30:53.902
I think that we have lost an entire generation of understanding of what our history is.

01:30:54.682 --> 01:30:56.462
And I'm saying the majority of us.

01:30:58.062 --> 01:31:02.282
So, again, people may not like that, but I think the majority of Black folks

01:31:02.282 --> 01:31:05.262
right now are walking around, particularly of a certain generation,

01:31:05.622 --> 01:31:09.962
they do not have that same relationship to our history.

01:31:10.282 --> 01:31:15.042
And we need to understand that. Just as a quick aside, one of the internal arguments

01:31:15.042 --> 01:31:19.782
we've had or debates about this film, not Noelle and I, but what I've had with other people,

01:31:20.462 --> 01:31:24.422
is as I do work in the Civil Rights District and support the district in my

01:31:24.422 --> 01:31:30.082
own way on behalf of the city, yes, we want to update and correct people's perspective

01:31:30.082 --> 01:31:32.082
of Birmingham from black or white.

01:31:32.582 --> 01:31:34.422
But look at the demographics, y'all.

01:31:35.222 --> 01:31:40.762
There's at least a sizable population, maybe even equal, of people who have

01:31:40.762 --> 01:31:41.942
never seen that footage.

01:31:42.182 --> 01:31:46.602
They haven't seen the footage of dogs and hoses or the four little girls.

01:31:46.722 --> 01:31:47.782
They haven't seen it for two reasons.

01:31:47.922 --> 01:31:52.122
One is, if it's not showing up in their algorithm, when else would they see

01:31:52.122 --> 01:31:53.662
it? Because they're not teaching it in schools.

01:31:55.043 --> 01:31:59.563
Wholesale. They're not. And so if they're not teaching in schools and if it's

01:31:59.563 --> 01:32:01.903
not showing up in the algorithm, how do they know?

01:32:01.983 --> 01:32:06.163
Because we sure ain't telling it in our houses, rent large.

01:32:06.323 --> 01:32:09.143
I'm talking about average people. The average person ain't hearing it.

01:32:09.223 --> 01:32:11.903
They're not telling it and they're not hearing it. The second part of this though

01:32:11.903 --> 01:32:18.463
is we have a generation now that has grown up with Mother Emanuel shooting,

01:32:19.063 --> 01:32:22.883
mosque, temples, mass shooting, Sandy Hook.

01:32:23.543 --> 01:32:29.843
What's four little girls? What's dogs and hoses in a park up against that massive

01:32:29.843 --> 01:32:34.783
set of things that have happened that they just live with? And black and white, no less.

01:32:35.363 --> 01:32:38.863
So I want us to be clear about both things.

01:32:39.023 --> 01:32:44.003
That's a long way of saying, I don't know that we need to be as concerned about

01:32:44.003 --> 01:32:47.323
people moving to the South if they don't know what it means.

01:32:47.823 --> 01:32:52.183
There is an opportunity from a population density, and I get that around political

01:32:52.183 --> 01:32:56.483
power, because we see other people doing that in other parts of the country.

01:32:56.703 --> 01:33:01.383
There are certainly some white folks, white right-wingers, conservative white

01:33:01.383 --> 01:33:06.883
folks in particular, that are definitely populating some rural areas and making

01:33:06.883 --> 01:33:08.523
it an enclave for their people.

01:33:08.903 --> 01:33:12.123
But I don't know that that's necessarily the strategy for us.

01:33:12.203 --> 01:33:15.123
What we need to be focused on is our institutions, our civic power,

01:33:15.303 --> 01:33:21.103
and making our legacy organizations is more relevant to a new generation of

01:33:21.103 --> 01:33:23.563
people that we're going to be counting to lead this way forward.

01:33:24.483 --> 01:33:30.943
Yeah, I feel what you're saying. And the only pushback I would have on that,

01:33:31.043 --> 01:33:34.463
and it's not a total pushback in the argument because you have a lot of truth in that.

01:33:34.763 --> 01:33:38.403
But I think there's an issue about relativity.

01:33:38.683 --> 01:33:43.323
And you kind of touched on it when you talked about the 16th Street bombing

01:33:43.323 --> 01:33:46.803
as compared to, say, the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub,

01:33:46.943 --> 01:33:49.283
right? Yeah. Or Emanuel Church.

01:33:50.723 --> 01:33:54.703
I think it's relative because you and I were both young once.

01:33:55.043 --> 01:34:01.023
And so when our grandparents would tell us a story, we look at that gray hair and all that stuff.

01:34:01.163 --> 01:34:04.783
And we think, God, that was a long time ago. That can't be affecting us.

01:34:04.863 --> 01:34:05.463
You know what I'm saying?

01:34:05.763 --> 01:34:11.023
But in the real time, that was only like 20, 30, 40 years ago for some folks, right?

01:34:11.363 --> 01:34:15.043
Especially when you talk about our generation and now the younger folks, 60 or 70.

01:34:15.543 --> 01:34:19.563
But that's still, in the span of time, it's not a long time.

01:34:19.563 --> 01:34:23.723
And so, you know, but people get caught up in America. There's a relatively

01:34:23.723 --> 01:34:27.083
issue in America because America is only 250 years old.

01:34:27.283 --> 01:34:32.663
So all this stuff has happened and we're just 50 years older than the whole

01:34:32.663 --> 01:34:35.723
Greek civilization that we celebrate all the time. Right.

01:34:36.203 --> 01:34:44.823
So in the span of time, people don't don't make that equation as far as like how close that is.

01:34:44.823 --> 01:34:49.283
And, you know, even though somebody living is telling that story,

01:34:49.583 --> 01:34:54.123
they might look at it as like, oh, you know, somebody told them that story or whatever.

01:34:54.563 --> 01:34:57.763
So when you see movies like Sinners and all this other stuff,

01:34:57.983 --> 01:34:59.923
it puts a modern spin on it.

01:35:00.223 --> 01:35:05.123
But at least, you know, people now are getting getting.

01:35:05.463 --> 01:35:09.683
And so, you know, I'm not totally discounting what you're saying,

01:35:09.703 --> 01:35:14.103
but I do think that part of our issue is that our people.

01:35:14.823 --> 01:35:18.883
Young people don't make the connection that this is more recent than they think.

01:35:20.023 --> 01:35:25.603
And so that's where a lot of the detachment comes from. But that's a whole nother

01:35:25.603 --> 01:35:27.763
podcast. You can come back down and we can talk about that.

01:35:28.743 --> 01:35:33.703
Last question. I want you to finish this sentence for me. I have hope because.

01:35:35.266 --> 01:35:44.826
I have hope because I have relationships with young people who I believe are as equipped,

01:35:44.846 --> 01:35:51.446
as motivated, and want to be prepared as any other generation that have come before us.

01:35:51.446 --> 01:35:57.326
I have hope because I believe that we do have a bench of upcoming leaders that

01:35:57.326 --> 01:35:59.686
can lead the way. I have hope in them.

01:36:00.406 --> 01:36:06.926
Yeah. So you mentioned that you're at Cornell right now. How can people see As Goes the South?

01:36:07.146 --> 01:36:12.826
How can they, you know, attend a screening or get get, you know,

01:36:12.926 --> 01:36:14.646
how can people see this movie?

01:36:15.406 --> 01:36:21.546
Yeah. So soon we will share an updated slate of public screenings.

01:36:21.666 --> 01:36:25.186
So we have screenings that we're still doing around the country.

01:36:25.186 --> 01:36:29.526
And so that's actually available on our Web site as goes to south film dot com.

01:36:30.046 --> 01:36:32.886
It may be a few more months before we get to

01:36:32.886 --> 01:36:35.806
a place where the film is readily available for anyone to see

01:36:35.806 --> 01:36:38.646
eric we're right now one of our strategies is to

01:36:38.646 --> 01:36:44.266
get as much of a run in the film festival circuit as we can in order for us

01:36:44.266 --> 01:36:49.306
to do that several of these festivals have rules that it can't be publicly available

01:36:49.306 --> 01:36:54.146
for everybody in all these markets where the festivals take place So we're holding

01:36:54.146 --> 01:36:57.586
back on a public release until we run that gamut.

01:36:57.806 --> 01:37:03.286
And for now, we want people who are interested in this story to host screenings.

01:37:03.286 --> 01:37:06.406
If possible, Noelle and I will come and be a part of a screening,

01:37:06.426 --> 01:37:10.746
but we don't have to. We're happy to share the film with organizations that

01:37:10.746 --> 01:37:13.146
want to do screenings. We'll provide you with a link.

01:37:13.426 --> 01:37:17.366
We'll provide you with a resource guide and put you in a position to use this

01:37:17.366 --> 01:37:21.866
as a tool to educate young people or just to have a community conversation.

01:37:22.226 --> 01:37:24.586
There are so few cities that have...

01:37:26.219 --> 01:37:30.399
Messages like this, apparently almost surprised and shocked that this film has

01:37:30.399 --> 01:37:34.239
had the impact that it has because of partially because it's really good.

01:37:34.399 --> 01:37:39.439
I know that I'm proud of the work, but you talk about in context,

01:37:39.439 --> 01:37:44.359
it's also because there's a dearth of this sort of hopeful, authentic,

01:37:45.039 --> 01:37:48.959
real content that centers us in a way that's not quippy.

01:37:49.119 --> 01:37:52.739
It's not too short. It's not too long. It's just sort of in that sweet spot.

01:37:53.239 --> 01:37:57.739
So, and we got a dope soundtrack too. And so people want to feel it in as much

01:37:57.739 --> 01:38:01.139
as they want to see it. And we want to put people in a position to do it.

01:38:01.519 --> 01:38:06.499
Hit us up on the website. We're on Instagram and LinkedIn at AsGoesTheSouth.

01:38:07.099 --> 01:38:10.799
Or you can email us, AsGoesTheSouth at gmail.com.

01:38:11.259 --> 01:38:20.279
And if you really bought it, you can shoot me a text, 205-401-7324, 205-401-7324.

01:38:20.659 --> 01:38:21.959
I promise you I'll respond.

01:38:22.519 --> 01:38:25.559
Yeah, but do it at your own risk, ladies and gentlemen. and do it at your own risk.

01:38:26.019 --> 01:38:28.919
Ed Fields, I appreciate you taking the time, brother.

01:38:29.139 --> 01:38:34.339
Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you and getting with Noel to put this film together.

01:38:35.119 --> 01:38:42.199
We have to have an off-air conversation about some reactions I have about the

01:38:42.199 --> 01:38:43.919
film, but it's positive.

01:38:44.359 --> 01:38:48.559
But I just, we don't have time, so I have to hit you back on it.

01:38:48.999 --> 01:38:55.739
But again, I greatly appreciate you taking this time to talk about it and talk

01:38:55.739 --> 01:38:57.019
about what you do in the city.

01:38:57.859 --> 01:39:00.519
Absolutely. Well, thank you. Thank you for a podcast of our time.

01:39:00.679 --> 01:39:04.119
It's critically important. I appreciate that. Thank you. All right,

01:39:04.239 --> 01:39:05.479
guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other.

01:39:17.427 --> 01:39:23.767
All right, and we are back. And so I just want to thank Chuck Todd and Ed Fields

01:39:23.767 --> 01:39:25.147
for coming on the program.

01:39:27.007 --> 01:39:32.567
Enjoyed talking to those gentlemen and really, really, really,

01:39:32.607 --> 01:39:35.487
really appreciate them gracing this podcast.

01:39:35.487 --> 01:39:45.707
It was, as you may have picked up, I've been trying to connect with Brother Todd for a while.

01:39:46.527 --> 01:39:53.567
We both kind of started, well, let's say, yeah, we started about the same time,

01:39:53.587 --> 01:39:55.007
even though he's a little younger than me.

01:39:55.267 --> 01:39:58.087
We, you know, kind of got our moment.

01:39:58.527 --> 01:40:03.527
There was an opportunity for our stars to cross, especially when I was running

01:40:03.527 --> 01:40:06.227
for U.S. Senate. That didn't happen.

01:40:06.767 --> 01:40:10.587
There were some opportunities when I worked for the ACLU. That didn't happen.

01:40:11.627 --> 01:40:13.887
But we got this interview done.

01:40:15.507 --> 01:40:19.427
I'm really, really grateful to doing that. And as you can tell,

01:40:20.047 --> 01:40:24.367
you know, we have affinity not only for politics but for sports.

01:40:24.887 --> 01:40:28.167
So please check out the Chuck Toddcast.

01:40:28.727 --> 01:40:31.807
Please, you know, because he's based in Washington every day.

01:40:32.107 --> 01:40:37.267
Check out, you know, his sports podcast and anything else that he's doing.

01:40:37.767 --> 01:40:45.147
And, you know, he's very, very cerebral and very, very frank.

01:40:45.767 --> 01:40:49.427
When it comes to his thoughts about politics.

01:40:49.667 --> 01:40:55.127
I mean, that conversation, the conversation I had with Chuck and with Ed Fields,

01:40:55.387 --> 01:41:01.607
I mean, I could have talked to those guys for like hours, but y'all can't sit in your car.

01:41:01.807 --> 01:41:07.647
You can't vibe any more than you already do, which again, I greatly appreciate.

01:41:08.027 --> 01:41:13.067
But I hope you appreciate that we were able to talk more than 5,

01:41:13.207 --> 01:41:17.747
10, 15 minutes that you would get on the network news because they were trying

01:41:17.747 --> 01:41:20.227
to get so many stories and all that stuff.

01:41:20.587 --> 01:41:24.867
So I hope y'all greatly appreciated the time that I spent with Chuck and with

01:41:24.867 --> 01:41:27.047
Ed Fields. Ed is such a deep brother.

01:41:27.927 --> 01:41:32.787
I, you know, is one of those brothers where it's like you can see the wheels

01:41:32.787 --> 01:41:34.627
turning and he's a creative.

01:41:35.527 --> 01:41:42.247
So he, his, his thoughts flow And I hope that you pick that vibe up and stuff.

01:41:42.427 --> 01:41:48.347
And he's very, very conscious about what he says. And he's pretty modest about

01:41:48.347 --> 01:41:54.447
who he is and the stature that he has in the city of Birmingham.

01:41:54.807 --> 01:42:00.687
To be a trusted advisor of any elected official, especially an executive,

01:42:01.227 --> 01:42:06.327
has to have a certain modicum of talent and trust tied into that.

01:42:06.327 --> 01:42:08.627
But to be humble about it.

01:42:09.853 --> 01:42:13.033
And, you know, understand that there's still some work to do.

01:42:13.593 --> 01:42:17.253
You know, there are a lot of people out there like that.

01:42:18.233 --> 01:42:23.933
But what we see on the national level, we're not getting that kind of quality,

01:42:24.133 --> 01:42:26.293
that kind of thoughtfulness.

01:42:26.593 --> 01:42:32.613
And so whenever I get to talk to somebody like Ed Fields, it's greatly appreciated,

01:42:32.873 --> 01:42:35.593
especially my background in politics.

01:42:36.773 --> 01:42:42.233
So I just thank those guys for coming on. It really, really was cool to have

01:42:42.233 --> 01:42:45.853
those conversations, and I hope that you enjoyed those interviews.

01:42:46.593 --> 01:42:57.733
Real quick, I just, I don't know how this story is going to end with the current administration.

01:42:59.420 --> 01:43:10.340
I just know we got to ride this thing out, man. The drama and the ignorance and the, I don't know,

01:43:11.200 --> 01:43:18.000
this whole concept that this is some kind of a game, it really just drives me nuts.

01:43:19.620 --> 01:43:24.940
And I know that a lot of you all listening, y'all feel the same way.

01:43:25.620 --> 01:43:29.120
And in some sense, y'all feel powerless about it.

01:43:30.040 --> 01:43:35.100
But I want to tell you that you're not totally powerless in this deal.

01:43:35.640 --> 01:43:41.980
You have a say-so. You have shown that whenever you've been asked to go vote,

01:43:42.300 --> 01:43:47.840
even in a district that is gerrymandered so a Republican can win comfortably,

01:43:48.880 --> 01:43:51.300
they haven't been winning comfortably this year.

01:43:51.500 --> 01:43:55.000
And that's because y'all have been going out in your respective states that

01:43:55.000 --> 01:43:56.620
have had elections already and voted.

01:43:56.620 --> 01:44:04.680
Whether it's a special election or regular primaries, you send a message and

01:44:04.680 --> 01:44:06.700
people are paying attention.

01:44:07.380 --> 01:44:11.420
And I hope that you will continue to do that.

01:44:11.440 --> 01:44:17.820
Even if your candidate didn't win, I hope you're still motivated to get out

01:44:17.820 --> 01:44:20.840
there and let your voice be heard.

01:44:21.880 --> 01:44:26.500
Please, please, please do not be discouraged if you supported,

01:44:26.700 --> 01:44:28.400
for example, here in Georgia, Sean Harris.

01:44:28.840 --> 01:44:35.300
He had an uphill battle to climb, but considering that Donald Trump won that

01:44:35.300 --> 01:44:44.640
congressional district by 37 points and the guy that just beat General Harris only won by 11,

01:44:45.340 --> 01:44:48.600
should tell you that there's hope.

01:44:50.067 --> 01:44:54.007
There is something moving, right?

01:44:55.327 --> 01:45:01.867
And it's because of you all. So I just want to really just encourage y'all,

01:45:01.967 --> 01:45:05.527
just fight through the noise, just fight through the foolishness,

01:45:06.287 --> 01:45:10.287
channel the anger into positive stuff.

01:45:10.687 --> 01:45:13.987
You know, if something's going on at your local school board,

01:45:14.067 --> 01:45:17.927
if something's going on at your local city council, or even at the county level,

01:45:18.607 --> 01:45:20.067
Make your voice be heard.

01:45:20.387 --> 01:45:23.807
Go out and show up at the meetings. Petition.

01:45:26.307 --> 01:45:31.947
Speak at those council meetings. Do, you know, take advantage of the public comment section.

01:45:32.187 --> 01:45:36.827
Just, you know, you don't have to wait for no Kings rally to have a demonstration

01:45:36.827 --> 01:45:40.587
about something that's going on that you don't like something nationally,

01:45:40.787 --> 01:45:44.407
something you don't like at the state, something you don't like at the county level.

01:45:44.407 --> 01:45:48.547
Most state legislatures are winding down if they started in January.

01:45:49.127 --> 01:45:52.487
There are some that have started later, so they're still kind of going in.

01:45:52.987 --> 01:45:58.527
You can participate in those, even those states that have what we call full-time

01:45:58.527 --> 01:46:03.867
legislators, where they meet kind of similar to the schedule at the U.S. Congress.

01:46:04.847 --> 01:46:07.707
Show up at the Capitol building, you know.

01:46:08.007 --> 01:46:13.907
If you can't physically go to the Capitol building, they got emails, they got phones.

01:46:15.247 --> 01:46:19.327
You know, when you see something or you hear something that makes you uncomfortable,

01:46:19.587 --> 01:46:23.187
that'll impact your friends, your family, your community.

01:46:24.681 --> 01:46:30.841
You have the right to challenge that. You know, we got a president that doesn't

01:46:30.841 --> 01:46:35.721
like anybody telling them no, but the reality of American politics is that you're

01:46:35.721 --> 01:46:39.021
probably going to be told more, more often than yes.

01:46:40.121 --> 01:46:44.441
Because a lot of times we might have ideas and say, hey, I want to do this.

01:46:44.901 --> 01:46:49.661
And somebody had to say, well, there's this thing called the Constitution.

01:46:49.661 --> 01:46:55.781
You might want to not violate that, whether it's at the state constitution or the U.S. constitution.

01:46:56.821 --> 01:47:00.761
Or it might be illegal. It might be against the law, right?

01:47:01.721 --> 01:47:08.421
You know, you got to have people to tell you no from time to time.

01:47:08.801 --> 01:47:13.201
And since his ego can't handle that, that's why we are in the mess that we're

01:47:13.201 --> 01:47:15.921
in. There were people that told him, Mr.

01:47:15.961 --> 01:47:21.821
President, do not agree with Netanyahu in attacking Iran.

01:47:22.261 --> 01:47:28.161
I understand there's a window of opportunity, but if the intelligence is good

01:47:28.161 --> 01:47:33.141
and this is something that's a regular basis, we'll pick another time to make this happen. Right?

01:47:33.681 --> 01:47:36.381
There were people that told him that. He said no.

01:47:37.081 --> 01:47:42.441
I just heard John Kerry in an interview say that the same pitch that Netanyahu

01:47:42.441 --> 01:47:46.501
gave Trump, he gave Obama, he gave Bush, he gave Biden.

01:47:46.781 --> 01:47:50.281
And all of them said, no, we're not doing it.

01:47:52.121 --> 01:47:57.761
You know, just saying, because it was obvious he didn't have a plan.

01:47:58.241 --> 01:48:00.321
He just acted on impulse.

01:48:01.923 --> 01:48:09.803
And for those of y'all that are trying to push for this 25th Amendment to kick in,

01:48:10.063 --> 01:48:15.363
your best bet is to hope that people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker

01:48:15.363 --> 01:48:23.863
Carlson and Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly and anybody else that's in that stratosphere,

01:48:24.263 --> 01:48:27.563
America first, Republican, MAGA, however you want to define it,

01:48:28.163 --> 01:48:31.763
They're the only ones that can put pressure on people to do that.

01:48:32.163 --> 01:48:38.043
That's not really a real option because you would have to get the vice president

01:48:38.043 --> 01:48:42.863
to go along with members of the cabinet to say, yeah, I don't think this guy

01:48:42.863 --> 01:48:44.843
is fit to do the job anymore.

01:48:45.403 --> 01:48:49.163
And then once they come to an agreement, then they got to present it to Congress.

01:48:49.903 --> 01:48:55.003
And considering that Mike Johnson is the worst speaker of the House ever,

01:48:55.263 --> 01:48:59.563
he actually believes that he's a member of the president's cabinet instead of

01:48:59.563 --> 01:49:05.823
being the leader of the House of Representatives, right?

01:49:07.583 --> 01:49:11.283
One of the most powerful people in the country, and he doesn't understand that.

01:49:11.443 --> 01:49:13.163
He's capitulated at power.

01:49:14.003 --> 01:49:19.323
There's no way the 25th Amendment will work. So I'm just telling you as somebody

01:49:19.323 --> 01:49:26.003
that's been in politics, somebody that understands the dynamics of how that's

01:49:26.003 --> 01:49:28.683
all supposed to play out, that's wishful thinking.

01:49:29.823 --> 01:49:34.083
But what you can do is make sure that all those people,

01:49:34.803 --> 01:49:40.803
that want to wear that MAGA endorsement, all those people that want to do like

01:49:40.803 --> 01:49:45.143
Mike Johnson and just do whatever Trump says, that they don't get in office.

01:49:46.023 --> 01:49:51.923
Especially in the U.S. Congress In those states that are running people for

01:49:51.923 --> 01:49:57.263
governor and all that Don't elect those people that are trying to out-Trump

01:49:57.263 --> 01:49:59.543
each other Don't go for any of them,

01:50:00.852 --> 01:50:09.872
I will send a message, right? In Georgia, you know, once the Democrats determine their nominee.

01:50:11.376 --> 01:50:18.036
You know, the Republicans are throwing out either Rick Jackson or Burt Jones or Butch Jones.

01:50:18.196 --> 01:50:22.336
I always get them mixed up. There was a football player named Burt Jones back

01:50:22.336 --> 01:50:25.356
in the day. He was the quarterback for the Colts when they were still in Baltimore.

01:50:25.976 --> 01:50:32.756
And he was from LSU. So, you know, I always mix their names up.

01:50:33.256 --> 01:50:38.116
And because Butch played for Georgia, the lieutenant governor.

01:50:39.276 --> 01:50:46.616
So, you know, but, you know, the Republicans, they're trying to out-Trump each other.

01:50:47.276 --> 01:50:52.196
So when it comes down, whoever wins, whoever you feel should be the Democratic

01:50:52.196 --> 01:50:56.376
nominee in Georgia, support that candidate all the way through.

01:50:56.556 --> 01:51:00.836
Convince your friends. It's like, aren't you tired of these folks trying to

01:51:00.836 --> 01:51:04.696
follow a guy that doesn't even know the basic concept of war?

01:51:04.696 --> 01:51:06.976
Of being a commander-in-chief?

01:51:07.676 --> 01:51:08.896
Come on, man.

01:51:09.796 --> 01:51:15.936
The guy that campaigned and said, I want to reduce your cost of groceries and

01:51:15.936 --> 01:51:21.996
then puts a tariff on every nation in the world, which will automatically raise

01:51:21.996 --> 01:51:24.476
your prices on everything,

01:51:24.776 --> 01:51:27.616
not just groceries, everything, right?

01:51:28.216 --> 01:51:32.436
You know, you're picking all these, you're picking people that every day,

01:51:32.436 --> 01:51:36.176
you know, We're saying, how does this person have a job?

01:51:36.396 --> 01:51:39.116
Oh, yeah, that's right. He's cool with the president.

01:51:39.856 --> 01:51:44.996
That's not how this is supposed to work. Then he gets mad because the one entity

01:51:44.996 --> 01:51:49.616
that seems like they can tell him no from time to time is the court system.

01:51:50.176 --> 01:51:52.956
Now he wants to get rid of all the judges that he don't like,

01:51:53.236 --> 01:51:57.716
including the ones he appointed on the Supreme Court, because they tell them no.

01:51:58.536 --> 01:52:01.816
Don't support anybody that supports that kind of guy.

01:52:02.576 --> 01:52:08.276
It's just real simple. It's going to take some time for us to undo the damage.

01:52:08.736 --> 01:52:12.996
You know, it's just an old adage. It's like it takes a long time to build something,

01:52:13.036 --> 01:52:14.656
but it doesn't take long to tear it up.

01:52:15.994 --> 01:52:20.194
Ten years that this guy has been in the political, 11 years now,

01:52:20.294 --> 01:52:24.014
I guess, that he's been in the political conversation.

01:52:24.774 --> 01:52:27.914
He's done nothing but destroy the institutions.

01:52:28.334 --> 01:52:36.334
It's almost like he's planning for, like, our 250th anniversary to be our last one.

01:52:36.894 --> 01:52:44.814
He wants to have UFC fights and military parades and fireworks and all this stuff.

01:52:45.454 --> 01:52:50.254
Sounds like he's trying to end the country as we know it with a bang.

01:52:50.734 --> 01:52:57.214
I think he put Elon Musk on the committee to even handle the celebration. I don't know.

01:52:58.214 --> 01:52:59.834
All I know is that.

01:53:01.483 --> 01:53:10.603
Never seen anybody deliberately try to destroy the very nation that they lead. I've never seen it.

01:53:11.023 --> 01:53:16.723
I think there's some people that have some delusions of grandeur to make their

01:53:16.723 --> 01:53:20.183
nation the most powerful nation on the planet,

01:53:20.183 --> 01:53:26.883
and they've done some heinous things to their citizens in order to keep power,

01:53:27.083 --> 01:53:32.463
but I've never seen anybody actively try to destroy the very nation that they

01:53:32.463 --> 01:53:36.203
lead and then turn around and try to say that it's hot.

01:53:37.243 --> 01:53:42.343
So there's a lot of damage that's been done. And so it's going to take some

01:53:42.343 --> 01:53:47.123
patience on our end when we elect people that are responsible to fix it.

01:53:47.883 --> 01:53:53.503
Because even with the change in Congress, we still got two more years of that guy.

01:53:55.043 --> 01:53:59.623
And by law, he can't be president anymore once his term is over.

01:54:00.023 --> 01:54:07.343
But if he's allowed to continue to destroy the institution, that can be up for question, right?

01:54:09.223 --> 01:54:14.683
So don't get frustrated. Don't get angry. Well, you can get angry.

01:54:15.143 --> 01:54:22.863
But channel that energy and maximize it to do the most good.

01:54:24.384 --> 01:54:27.084
We can't fix it all overnight, but we can start fixing on it.

01:54:27.684 --> 01:54:32.784
Got to get the right carpenters in. We got to get the right masons in.

01:54:32.884 --> 01:54:43.104
We got to get the right builders in to rebuild our institutions and even take

01:54:43.104 --> 01:54:50.504
advantage of the opportunity to reshape them so they can be more responsive to us. Right?

01:54:51.624 --> 01:54:55.984
Because, you know, those of us as a Christian faith, we're told that sometimes

01:54:55.984 --> 01:54:58.824
we're broken down so we can build a better person.

01:54:59.444 --> 01:55:04.024
They use Saul of Tharsis as an example.

01:55:04.264 --> 01:55:08.864
And next thing you know, he came back as the Apostle Paul. Right?

01:55:11.304 --> 01:55:16.344
So I know this is a tough time, but I promise you we're going to get through it.

01:55:18.164 --> 01:55:22.584
And the best way that we can get through it is just stay focused.

01:55:23.504 --> 01:55:27.884
Election Day is coming. November, the first Tuesday in November is coming.

01:55:29.024 --> 01:55:35.344
And despite whatever polls are out there and all that stuff, you do your part.

01:55:36.044 --> 01:55:41.784
And if everybody does their part, we can change this thing. We can reverse this

01:55:41.784 --> 01:55:44.024
structured course that we're on.

01:55:44.884 --> 01:55:52.024
And I will be right there with you. You know, I'm doing this along with other

01:55:52.024 --> 01:55:57.224
podcasters to be that voice to guide you and to give you encouragement.

01:55:57.744 --> 01:56:03.044
Some people can make you laugh at what's going on. Some people can give you

01:56:03.044 --> 01:56:04.624
more in-depth analysis.

01:56:05.364 --> 01:56:09.704
But we're all trying to do the same thing. We're trying to get to a point where

01:56:09.704 --> 01:56:18.264
this is going to get better and give us a chance to reshape this nation for the next 250 years.

01:56:19.856 --> 01:56:23.196
Lot, but this country is still worth fighting for.

01:56:23.816 --> 01:56:30.016
Your home, your community, your state, this nation is worth fighting for.

01:56:30.616 --> 01:56:38.156
So I'll end it on that, but I just had to say, don't be discouraged at all.

01:56:38.516 --> 01:56:41.316
Just focus. We'll make it through.

01:56:42.136 --> 01:56:44.176
All right, that's all I got. Thank y'all for listening.