Podcasts about secretary buttigieg

Original air date: April 24, 2024 The latest in our series of Bernard L. Schwartz PolicyForum events is here. In conjunction with the New Republic, we host Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for an insightful conversation with DSR Network CEO David Rothkopf and The New Republic Editor Michael Tomasky. Don't miss this fascinating conversation as Secretary Buttigieg gives his unique insight into some of the greatest challenges facing our country today. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Original air date: April 24, 2024 The latest in our series of Bernard L. Schwartz PolicyForum events is here. In conjunction with the New Republic, we host Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for an insightful conversation with DSR Network CEO David Rothkopf and The New Republic Editor Michael Tomasky. Don't miss this fascinating conversation as Secretary Buttigieg gives his unique insight into some of the greatest challenges facing our country today. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Group texts are the scourge of modern communication technology, sure, but when you find yourself somehow looped in on a juicy conversation you know you're not meant to be privy to, who wouldn't stick around to see how it continues?That's the situation Atlantic editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg (likely "JG" in Mike Waltz' phone or Signal app contacts) found himself in two weekends ago when he was inadvertently (we presume) looped into a curious mixture of Trump Cabinet officials, Pentagon brass, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (and later we learned, another unqualified individual - Joe Kent, as the New York Times reports, "Trump's nominee to run the national counterterrorism center has been acting as a chief of staff to Ms. Gabbard. A confirmation date for Mr. Kent has not been set."Today a Senate subcomittee got to grill Gabbard and CIA director John Ratcliffe on this, and while Ratcliffe insists the conversation wasn't classified, he and she both answered (and dodged) questions as if the information in the conversation was. "You can't have it both ways," exclaimed Senator Mark Warner (D-Va). The one consistent response from Trump officials has been to be smug and disimssive in smearing Goldberg - while also not denying he was erroneously looped in. It's always the journalists with that tribe and never the scandal they created, after all.For his part, Goldberg not only exonerated himself with Jen Psaki, he made the rounds to CNN, and to The Bulwark with Tim Miller, where he claimed an undercover CIA operative was identified (though he's not revealing that agent's name). But remember ... not classified. *wink*Meanwhile, a foul-mouthed Pete Buttigieg did a rare social media take on his own before landing on CNN to weigh in further. Secretary Buttigieg, someone who in a military and political capacity, had to handle classified information, knows the ins and outs of NIPR and SIPR, but the general public of course doesn't. A friend of mine with a two-plus decade career in service gave me a primer on it overnight, insisting "I have a government-issued “secure phone”. It's an iPhone. What makes it “secure” is the Microsoft Azure platform that holds my email certificates; but that's still only NIPR - USG SIPR isn't broadcast in any form via a cellular tunnel. My gov phone is basically software-hardwired to a VPN to the gov non-secure  network. It's ridiculous. To put signal on my gov phone I'd have to establish an Apple ID with my gov email (but the gov server would filter the confirmation, so it wouldn't/shouldn't  happen) or login to Apple with my personal account on my gov device (I ain't doing that) - and no, Signal isn't available on a ‘government device storefront' so yeah - the whole thing is ridiculous."The whole Chinese spy balloon stuff seems kind of trivial now, no?

With a new administration beginning in Washington this week, the importance of pragmatic and effective state and local officials is clearer than ever. That was the message from former U.S. Secretary of Transportation and NewDEAL alum Pete Buttigieg when he spoke at our 2024 Leaders Conference. His remarks are a vital reminder of the key role state and local policymakers play in delivering results and making everyday life better for the American people. After his opening remarks, Buttigieg, who was then appearing in his official capacity as Secretary of Transportation, joined MSNBC's Symone Sanders Townsend to look towards the future, sharing advice for how the country can move forward into a new, brighter future. This conversation is an excellent reminder of the type of leadership the country so desperately needs at this moment.   IN THIS EPISODE:  [01:04] The former secretary's insights on the importance of pragmatic and effective state and local officials. [01:55] Why our work is not done and some key areas to consider.  [03:10] “The Big Deal” from the Biden-Harris Administration. [06:50] Why former Secretary Buttigieg believes that local leaders are so important for the present moment. [07:30] Staying abreast of the different ways that people get their information. [10:30] Understanding the nature of infrastructure work.  [14:25] Buttigieg's posture towards his successor.  [17:00] What a new administration might mean for federal infrastructure funds.  [19:27] Insight into former Secretary Buttigieg's journey to the Department of Transportation.  [22:35] Why a lot of his work in infrastructure and transportation has been nonpartisan in nature. [24:13] The term middle class and why it has become largely meaningless. [29:08] What is most important: making the lives of everyday people better.   

When Secretary Pete Buttigieg first joined us at the City Club in 2019, he was "Mayor Pete" of South Bend, Indiana, and already emerged as one of the nation's most visionary politicians. In 2021, he was sworn in as the nation's 19th Secretary of Transportation and is the first openly gay person confirmed to serve in a president's Cabinet. During his tenure as Secretary, he has worked to achieve organizational excellence in the department's operations, and his focus as Secretary has been to deliver the world's leading transportation system for the American people and economy.rnrnIn his first year at the Department, he prioritized supporting the development and passage of President Biden's signature Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Since the law's passage, Secretary Buttigieg and his team have focused on effectively delivering the investments provided by this legislation, enabling the most significant improvements in U.S. transportation infrastructure in over half a century.rnrnSecretary Buttigieg served for seven years as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, taking a leave of absence from the mayor's office for a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014. He lives in Traverse City, MI with his husband Chasten, their two children, Gus and Penelope, and their dog.

Secretary Buttigieg joins Surveillance to discuss the Alaska-Hawaii merger and stories around transportation and labor. He is joined by Bloomberg's Jonathan Ferro, Lisa Abramowicz, and Annmarie Hordern.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We kick things off today with a story about those "frequent flyer" programs offered by the airlines which is now being looked at by the U.S. Government and why.  Also today you'll meet one of our newest friends musician Tony McGhee.  A chance meeting last week put me in touch with this very talented drummer and writer.  You won't want to miss out. Meanwhile, if you want to reach out to us on social media you can hook up with us all day on Twitter or "X" @IOB_NewsHour and on Instagram. Facebook? Sure were there too.  Here's what we've got for you today: Secretary Buttigieg wants to know more from the airlines; The confusing world of U.S. jobs; Wall Street closed mixed and we'll share what happened; Some restaurant news from Red Lobster; Some retail news from pharmacy chain Rite Aid; The Wall Street Report; More labor troubles for Amazon. For the interview you'll meet professional drummer Tony McGhee who now lives in Central Iowa but works his craft across the U.S. and parts of Europe. I had no idea of how deep his story was and, frankly, I was blown away. You can hook up with Tony McGhee here on his Facebook Page and check out his music on Amazon, Spotify and more.  Let's go! Thanks for listening! The award winning Insight on Business the News Hour with Michael Libbie is the only weekday business news podcast in the Midwest. The national, regional and some local business news along with long-form business interviews can be heard Monday - Friday. You can subscribe on  PlayerFM, Podbean, iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio. And you can catch The Business News Hour Week in Review each Sunday Noon Central on News/Talk 1540 KXEL. The Business News Hour is a production of Insight Advertising, Marketing & Communications. You can follow us on Twitter @IoB_NewsHour...and on Threads @Insight_On_Business.

Episode #452 Cycling News/Updates - Ride For Magnus, Sepp Kuss to repeat at Vuelta?, Colorado's Ride Triathlon News/Updates - IM Frankfurt, Heart Health and Aging Triathletes, Locally - Outdoor Divas this weekend and Boulder Sunset next Ask A Coach - What should I do about my performance plateau?     303Cycling News and Updates: Photo by Ryan Muncy Ride for Magnus - White Line Foundation - https://www.thewhiteline.org/ The White Line Foundation has identified three ways we can help on a local, state and national level. If you click on this the link you will be directed to a link to sign two emails and a petition.   1. A letter to Secretary Buttigieg demanding vehicle technology (already available) be mandated to detect cyclists and pedestrians making the car brake. 2. A letter to your local representative demanding tougher sentences on motorist killing cyclists. 3. A petition to fastrack the construction of a protected bike lane from Boulder to Lyons on Highway 36.   https://www.bicyclecolorado.org/ride-for-magnus/   Sepp Kuss Goes for the Repeat at the Vuelta a España—the Final Grand Tour of the Season   Colorado's Ride - https://coloradosride.com/ Exciting updates for the 2024 ride: A new day one (1) route option to ride to the "Molas Pass Return" A new day two (2) route option for those seeking more miles. A new day five (5) route with less miles on Hwy 160. A new camping venue in Pagosa Springs, CO. Durango Fairgrounds is allowing indoor camping for 2024, due to an outdoor town camping ban. As of July 1, 2024 the Silverton Express route has closed. The Molas pass route is expected to close August 1, 2024.     303Triathlon News and Updates:   2024 Ironman Frankfurt European Championship Pro Preview   What a New Study Tells Us About Heart Health for Aging Triathletes   https://www.withoutlimits.co/coeuroutdoordivastriathlon   https://register.bbscendurance.com/event/boulder-sunset-triathlon-2024   Ask A Coach: Last week's question was about the niggle turned into a season upending injury. Be patient, Be positive, Be creative   Peter: Coach, I have increased my training volume by adding more workouts to my schedule as I train IRONMAN 70.3 New York in 6 weeks. I'm doing 5 swims, 5 bike rides and 4 runs - about 16-20 hours per week. Initially I thought I was seeing an increase in performance, but recently I have plateaued across the board. I am also now dealing with an overuse injury with my hip. I am not doing any strength or mobility training. What do you advise?   Rich: Hi Peter, a couple of things stand out to me. First you are doing a fairly high volume of training, even for a 70.3. My first question is are you getting enough recovery and tissue care to fully restore and come back stronger? If you are doing 2-3 workouts per day, you need a ton of recovery to make adaptations to get faster and stronger. Without adequate recovery and tissue care you are doing more breaking down than building back up. That will eventually lead to performance plateaus and perhaps regression or injury.   The second concern is that you do not have any strength or mobility in your current regimen. Without a proactive regimen of strength and mobility, we tend over use some muscles in our sagittal plane movements of running, cycling and swimming and neglect other muscles that need to be a part of that function. It is very common to compensate and recruit the wrong muscles for the job and then the ones that are supposed to be used, get weak and atrophy and can eventually lead to an overuse of muscle that was supposed only have a support role.   Similarly lack of mobility creates risk of injury but is also likely limiting your performance. If your latissimus dorsi (lats) is tight, you may experience swim form issues and inability to get into a good streamline position and get a good catch. Tight hip flexors can cause hip pain and limited range of motion resulting in loss of bike power and running extension as you push off.   In summary, I think you may have more performance potential if you take some of that time you are spending on extra swim bike and run sessions and apply it to strength and mobility training. An take any remaining time, and get extra sleep. We didn't get into nutrition as a part of your recovery process, but that's a topic for another question.   Train With Coach Rich: Rich Soares Coaching TriDot Signup - https://app.tridot.com/onboard/sign-up/richsoares RunDot Signup - https://app.rundot.com/onboard/sign-up/richsoares

Climate change is putting pressure on trails, bridges and roads across the West. The Mountain West News Bureau spoke this week with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg about federal efforts to help address the issue.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg visited a federally-supported port facility in Manitowoc on Tuesday, and on Wednesday, he made two stops in Milwaukee that were open to the news media. Buttigieg hailed Biden Administration infrastructure spending but didn't discuss the Democratic ticket.

[This blog will always be free to read, but it's also how I pay my bills. If you have suggestions or feedback on how I can earn your paid subscription, shoot me an email: cmclymer@gmail.com. And if this is too big of a commitment, I'm always thankful for a simple cup of coffee.]I'm 37, which means I'm in a period of my life in which many of my friends—if not most of them—either have kids or plan to have kids. And I love it. I love to see the joy my friends are experiencing. I love baby showers. I love the chance to peruse through a registry and pick the perfect gift. I love it when my friends tell me about the latest thing their kids have done: things that make them proud, things that make them laugh, things that give them hope.I am absolutely the friend who genuinely enjoys watching whatever videos and pics you captured of your kiddo doing something cute or hilarious, and you're just dying to share it with someone.I love occasionally babysitting my friends' kids. I love spoiling them. I think it's really wonderful when I get to play Aunt Charlotte.I love all this because I think kids are awesome: their curiosity about the world, their general goofiness, their perspectives, their insatiable desire to learn, it's all delightful.Every child is our collective future. It's why I gladly desire our taxes go to public schools in order for them to improve and thrive. It's why I want guaranteed paid family leave for every family. It's why I want accessible childcare and accessible housing options and universal health care.It's why I don't want to live in a country that would ever punish a child for not being able to afford a school lunch or afterschool activities or basic school supplies.Every investment in America's children is an investment in our nation's future, and by extension, it means I benefit directly from ensuring children have all they need to be happy, healthy, and productive citizens someday.But I don't want kids. There was a time when I did. At some point, I realized that I don't see having children in my future, not because it's not an option but solely due to my lack of desire to have children.Maybe that'll change someday. Maybe I'll wake up one morning in the future and suddenly have the desire to be a parent. I'm not saying it won't happen.But I doubt it.I don't really feel the need to outline the reasons why I don't want children. I think it's more than enough to simply understand that about myself because that decision is up to me and only me. And no one else gets a say in that decision, and thus, no one else is entitled to an explanation for why I don't want kids.It is good enough that I simply don't want kids. It is inherently sufficient that I don't want to be a parent, for any reason.In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Republican vice presidential candidate J.D. Vance stated his belief that our Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, is one of the “childless cat ladies” who “want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.” He continued: “If you look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is run by people without children.”Of course, this isn't true on its face. Vice President Harris is definitely a parent, and Vance's comments so angered Kerstin Emhoff, the former wife of Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff, that she released a statement which included this: “For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective, and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful for it.”Likewise, Secretary Buttigieg and Chasten Buttigieg are the parents of two beautiful children. When the Secretary recently appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the beloved host asked him about Speaker Mike Johnson's atrocious record on LGBTQ rights. The Secretary's answer was absolutely perfect:“Look, I'll work with anybody who can help us get good transportation available to the American people, but—I don't know, maybe we'll just have him over. Our little house isn't that far from the Capitol, and if you could see what it's like when I come home from work and Chasten's bringing the kids home from daycare or vice-versa and one of us is getting the mac ‘n' cheese ready and one of us is microwaving those little freezer meatballs—that are a great cheat code if you got toddlers and you gotta feed them quickly—and they won't take their shoes off and one of them needs a diaper change… everything about that is chaos, but nothing about that is dark. The love of God is in that household.”(By the way, just as an aside, there are a wealth of great choices for the running mate of Vice President Harris, but can y'all see why I so badly want this man on the ticket?)Anyway, I have no idea if Rep. Ocasio-Cortez wants kids someday, and it's absolutely none of my business. Because that choice is hers, and hers alone. It's very strange to me that anyone else would believe that is their business.I love this country, and I'm proud to be an American — and I believe part of that means I have a responsibility to do my part in ensuring that every child in this country has whatever they need to grow up into well-rounded citizens. I take that seriously.But I will damned if someone is gonna tell me or anyone else that we don't matter because we don't have children. I will not tolerate someone telling step-parents and adoptive parents and foster parents and anyone personally caring for children that they don't and don't matter.Moreover, it's exceedingly weird and creepy and cruel when someone insists that a woman must bear children in order to meaningfully engage in public life.Mr. Vance claims to be a follower of Christ, and that's between him and God, but I gotta tell y'all: as a Christian myself, one who actually reads my Bible, his horrible and reductive views—on women, on childcare, on the worthiness of families that don't look like his—are entirely abhorrent and bereft of Christ's love.I'm giving thanks that Vice President Kamala Harris and her family are showing the country that not all families need to look alike to be loved and respected and that not all women have to be alike to be truly free.That's the country I want every child to grow up in — where their worth is inherent and honored.To me, that's a country worthy of the children we all love.If you agree, please consider donating to the Vice President's campaign.Charlotte's Web Thoughts is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Charlotte's Web Thoughts at charlotteclymer.substack.com/subscribe

NEWS: We've got 99PI Power Broker Breakdown merch! Visit 99pi.org/store.This is the seventh official episode, breaking down the 1974 Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Power Broker by our hero Robert Caro. This week, Roman and Elliott sit down with Pete Buttigieg, the US Secretary of Transportation. One of his major responsibilities as Secretary is overseeing the implementation of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, which has contributed billions of dollars to infrastructure projects around the country.Secretary Buttigieg was also responsible for several major infrastructure projects when he was mayor of South Bend, Indiana. And he's talked about the importance of acknowledging and dismantling the racism built into transportation systems around the country — somewhat paraphrasing The Power Broker — and has gotten a lot of pushback for it.On today's show, Elliott Kalan and Roman Mars will cover the second half of Part 5 and the first section of Part 6 (Chapters 27 through Chapter 32), discussing the major story beats and themes.The Power Broker #07: Sec. Pete ButtigiegJoin the discussion on Discord and our Subreddit.

#89 Have you ever had a canceled flight, extreme delay, lost luggage or damaged wheelchair? Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the head of the U.S. Department of Transportation, is back again here at Erika Taught Me, and he is pioneering new airline passenger rights that airlines don't want to know about. Why? You could get automatic refunds and compensation not available before. Secretary Buttigieg also discusses the initiative to allow family seating without extra fees and improving customer service. Time to read the fine print!  I'm running a free “Save $1,000 Challenge” to teach you creative strategies to save money. It's 5 days long and starts on Monday. Grab your free spot here: https://Erika.com/go Thanks for tuning in and come back every Tuesday for a brand-new episode! Make sure you hit the follow button to get notified. Prefer to listen on the go? Listen wherever you get your podcasts. https://www.erikataughtme.com/follow Prefer video or want closed captions?⁠⁠ Watch this episode on YouTube. https://youtu.be/9-M9rcp6fUo Did you enjoy the episode?⁠⁠ Please leave us a review here⁠⁠ https://erika.com/review : (just scroll to the bottom and tap on “leave a review”) It really helps the podcast especially since we're just getting started. Even just a sentence is perfect! Follow the podcast @erikataughtme across platforms.  ⁠Connect with me on Instagram.⁠ https://www.instagram.com/erikankullberg For more information, go to⁠ https://erikataughtme.com   Get on my personal finance & investing course priority waitlist here https://erika.com/3D-money  Get my Mastering YouTube course, to learn how to grow a YouTube following and monetize it https://erika.com/mastering-YT  ⁠Get more of my free resources. https://erika.com/all-links

If you save up your miles or credit card points for vacations, you may be treating them a bit like savings. But unlike money in your savings account, a company can change the value of those points. Today, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joins Marketplace’s David Brancaccio to make the case for greater transparency in airline and credit card rewards programs. Also: the San Francisco Fed President on the future of interest rates. Support our nonprofit newsroom today and pick up a fun thank-you gift like our new Shrinkflation mini tote bag or the fan favorite KaiPA pint glass!

If you save up your miles or credit card points for vacations, you may be treating them a bit like savings. But unlike money in your savings account, a company can change the value of those points. Today, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg joins Marketplace’s David Brancaccio to make the case for greater transparency in airline and credit card rewards programs. Also: the San Francisco Fed President on the future of interest rates. Support our nonprofit newsroom today and pick up a fun thank-you gift like our new Shrinkflation mini tote bag or the fan favorite KaiPA pint glass!

We replayed our interview with Secretary Buttigieg and then had open phones the rest of the show.

The latest in our series of Bernard L. Schwartz PolicyForum events is here. In conjunction with the New Republic, we host Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for an insightful conversation with DSR Network CEO David Rothkopf and The New Republic Editor Michael Tomasky. Don't miss this fascinating conversation as Secretary Buttigieg gives his unique insight into some of the greatest challenges facing our country today.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The latest in our series of Bernard L. Schwartz PolicyForum events is here. In conjunction with the New Republic, we host Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg for an insightful conversation with DSR Network CEO David Rothkopf and The New Republic Editor Michael Tomasky. Don't miss this fascinating conversation as Secretary Buttigieg gives his unique insight into some of the greatest challenges facing our country today.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Author Steve Goreham  of  Green Breakdown – The Coming Renewable Energy Failure was back on Veronica LIVE to updated us on the latest climate change stories. Steve also shared his thoughts on Secretary Buttigieg's Biden administration for a push toward EVs only in our future.

Stocks rise; Secretary Buttigieg says government is starting the process of releasing funding for Maryland; Fitch warns about bank multifamily loan exposure; Japanese yen falls.

It's Super Tuesday! Republicans in 15 states are voting for their preferred Presidential candidate while Democrats hold their own primaries and caucuses across multiple states. Target reported better-than-expected results in the holiday quarter. CEO Brian Cornell discusses the retailer's plans to open new stores and navigate food and beverage inflation. Even Cookie Monster has an opinion: “Me hate shrinkflation!” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg discusses airline safety and manufacturing standards in light of Boeing's recent issues. Secretary Buttigieg weighs in on border security, party politics in Washington, and job creation across the country. Plus, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has admitted, they “definitely messed up,” on the company's AI Gemini training, and Jeff Bezos has replaced Elon Musk as the world's richest person–for now.  Megan Cassella - 03:39Brian Cornell - 11:48Secretary Pete Buttigieg - 26:56 In this episode: Pete Buttigieg, @SecretaryPeteJoe Kernen, @JoeSquawkBecky Quick, @BeckyQuickCameron Costa, @CameronCostaNY

Friday on the NewsHour, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's death sparks global outcry. Also: The U.S. tries to reassure NATO allies, a judge hands down millions in penalties for Donald Trump in his civil fraud case, Secretary Buttigieg on one year since a toxic train derailment, Brooks and Capehart analyze the week's political news, Iowa's Caitlin Clark breaks an NCAA record and more. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg testified before The House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee today who grilled him on a summer of air travel troubles, rail safety and the administration's push on electric vehicles. Secretary Buttigieg said that flight cancellations are down to pre-COVID days and touted thousands of infrastructure projects in all states. The state of air travel in the United States was the focus though, with the FAA without a head administrator and the looming government shutdown which would have a large impact on air traffic controllers.   FOX's John Saucier speaks with Chad Pergram, FOX News Chief Congressional Correspondent, about the testimony from the Secretary, where the spending bill fight stands and later touches on the Senate relaxing their dress code.  Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg testified before The House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee today who grilled him on a summer of air travel troubles, rail safety and the administration's push on electric vehicles. Secretary Buttigieg said that flight cancellations are down to pre-COVID days and touted thousands of infrastructure projects in all states. The state of air travel in the United States was the focus though, with the FAA without a head administrator and the looming government shutdown which would have a large impact on air traffic controllers.   FOX's John Saucier speaks with Chad Pergram, FOX News Chief Congressional Correspondent, about the testimony from the Secretary, where the spending bill fight stands and later touches on the Senate relaxing their dress code.  Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg testified before The House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee today who grilled him on a summer of air travel troubles, rail safety and the administration's push on electric vehicles. Secretary Buttigieg said that flight cancellations are down to pre-COVID days and touted thousands of infrastructure projects in all states. The state of air travel in the United States was the focus though, with the FAA without a head administrator and the looming government shutdown which would have a large impact on air traffic controllers.   FOX's John Saucier speaks with Chad Pergram, FOX News Chief Congressional Correspondent, about the testimony from the Secretary, where the spending bill fight stands and later touches on the Senate relaxing their dress code.  Click Here To Follow 'The FOX News Rundown: Evening Edition' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

HOUR 1Does inflation Reduction Act turn 1 year old / (Market Watch ) https://www.marketwatch.com/story/yellen-to-tout-explosion-in-u-s-factory-construction-as-she-marks-inflation-reduction-acts-anniversary-980f3d50?"A victory of former President Donald Trump in next year's election could reshape the U.S. government and significantly increase his presidential powers." / (NPR) https://www.npr.org/2023/08/07/1192432628/conservatives-mull-how-2nd-trump-presidency-could-reshape-the-federal-government"Former President Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants have until the end of next week to turn themselves in. They are expected to be booked at the Fulton County jail, the sheriff's office said." / (CBS News) https://www.cbsnews.com/video/trump-18-indicted-co-defendants-expected-to-be-booked-at-fulton-county-jail-sheriff-says/Tom overviews Astrology and the 12 cycles of ages 26,000 years and we're entering the Age of Aquarius in 2050 / (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astrological_ageGOP Presidential contenders / (FOX News) https://www.foxnews.com/politics/fox-news-power-rankings-front-runner-contenders-2024-gop-primary-fieldHOUR 2U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg visited Anchorage on Tuesday as part of a three-day tour of the state / (ANS) https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2023/08/15/transportation-secretary-takes-tour-port-alaska/Mat-Su Borough Assembly filing window opening soon / https://matsugov.us/elections?highlight=WyJlbGVjdGlvbnMiXQ==&template=msb_bolideAll Anchorage School District campuses — from elementary through high school — will have multiple drug overdose kits to help curb the opioid problem infesting the state of Alaska, according to officials." /(ANS) https://www.alaskasnewssource.com/2023/08/15/anchorage-school-district-beefing-up-training-availability-opioid-overdose-kits-schools/Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson overviews his meeting with U.S.  Secretary of Transportation Pete ButtigiegTodd Smoldon from Gov Dunleavy's office re ASD overdoes kits and Secretary Buttigieg's Alaskan visit 

The Monologue: Jay Inslee lied about gas prices again -- but will the media amplify this time? The Interview: Tracy Taylor is running for Auburn City council. She explains why she's the perfect person for the job.The Monologue: Dan Goldman admits Biden family discussed business dealings.The Interview: Kimberley Strassel (author of "The Biden Malaise: How America Bounces Back from Joe Biden's Dismal Repeat of the Jimmy Carter Years") excoriates the Biden record.LongForm:  Lucas Tomlinson (Fox News) breaks down the political implications of the bombshell whistleblower testimony and why the media is ignoring it. But for how much longer can they ignore it?Quick Hit: Ten Republicans inexplicably helped kill a bill that would have forced Secretary Buttigieg to tell us how often he uses private planes, plus Mitt Romney loves hot dogs.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has assured Americans that air travel in the United States will bounce back following a series of mass delays and cancellations over the holiday weekend. Due to pandemic-related staff shortages, airlines say they are struggling to provide enough crew to get their planes off the ground in a timely manner, if at all. Critics have highlighted that the issue stems from structural failures within the Federal Aviation Administration, with many pointing their fingers at the man in charge, Transportation Secretary Buttigieg. Secretary Buttigieg joins the Rundown to share the steps the airline industry is taking to address the system-wide problems impacting travelers, how the Inflation Reduction Act is making electric vehicles more affordable for the average consumer, and his goal to modernize the U.S. railways. An eventful week for the Biden administration both domestically and overseas. The President traveled to Europe for the NATO summit, where world leaders promised Ukraine would eventually be granted NATO membership after the war. Meanwhile, in the States, the Secret Service closes its investigation into who brought cocaine into the White House, despite reportedly finding no evidence and providing no answers. FOX News Sunday Anchor Shannon Bream joins to break down all the major stories this week, including major membership decisions made at the NATO summit, why the FBI and other government agencies cannot communicate with social media companies due to a recent ruling, and how the Secret Service's cocaine conclusion is leaving many Americans skeptical, as the White House is supposed to be one of the most highly secured buildings in the country. Don't miss the good news with Tonya J. Powers. Plus, commentary from host of OutKick's Tomi Lahren is Fearless, Tomi Lahren. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has assured Americans that air travel in the United States will bounce back following a series of mass delays and cancellations over the holiday weekend. Due to pandemic-related staff shortages, airlines say they are struggling to provide enough crew to get their planes off the ground in a timely manner, if at all. Critics have highlighted that the issue stems from structural failures within the Federal Aviation Administration, with many pointing their fingers at the man in charge, Transportation Secretary Buttigieg. Secretary Buttigieg joins the Rundown to share the steps the airline industry is taking to address the system-wide problems impacting travelers, how the Inflation Reduction Act is making electric vehicles more affordable for the average consumer, and his goal to modernize the U.S. railways. An eventful week for the Biden administration both domestically and overseas. The President traveled to Europe for the NATO summit, where world leaders promised Ukraine would eventually be granted NATO membership after the war. Meanwhile, in the States, the Secret Service closes its investigation into who brought cocaine into the White House, despite reportedly finding no evidence and providing no answers. FOX News Sunday Anchor Shannon Bream joins to break down all the major stories this week, including major membership decisions made at the NATO summit, why the FBI and other government agencies cannot communicate with social media companies due to a recent ruling, and how the Secret Service's cocaine conclusion is leaving many Americans skeptical, as the White House is supposed to be one of the most highly secured buildings in the country. Don't miss the good news with Tonya J. Powers. Plus, commentary from host of OutKick's Tomi Lahren is Fearless, Tomi Lahren. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has assured Americans that air travel in the United States will bounce back following a series of mass delays and cancellations over the holiday weekend. Due to pandemic-related staff shortages, airlines say they are struggling to provide enough crew to get their planes off the ground in a timely manner, if at all. Critics have highlighted that the issue stems from structural failures within the Federal Aviation Administration, with many pointing their fingers at the man in charge, Transportation Secretary Buttigieg. Secretary Buttigieg joins the Rundown to share the steps the airline industry is taking to address the system-wide problems impacting travelers, how the Inflation Reduction Act is making electric vehicles more affordable for the average consumer, and his goal to modernize the U.S. railways. An eventful week for the Biden administration both domestically and overseas. The President traveled to Europe for the NATO summit, where world leaders promised Ukraine would eventually be granted NATO membership after the war. Meanwhile, in the States, the Secret Service closes its investigation into who brought cocaine into the White House, despite reportedly finding no evidence and providing no answers. FOX News Sunday Anchor Shannon Bream joins to break down all the major stories this week, including major membership decisions made at the NATO summit, why the FBI and other government agencies cannot communicate with social media companies due to a recent ruling, and how the Secret Service's cocaine conclusion is leaving many Americans skeptical, as the White House is supposed to be one of the most highly secured buildings in the country. Don't miss the good news with Tonya J. Powers. Plus, commentary from host of OutKick's Tomi Lahren is Fearless, Tomi Lahren. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this 149th episode of The G2 on 5G, Anshel and Will Cover:1. Vodafone rolls out 5G Standalone in four cities (5G Ultra plan)2. AST SpaceMobile Successfully Tests 10 Mbps speeds from its satellite with AT&T and Nokia in Hawaii.3. Sierra Wireless and Amdocs aim to simplify private 5G networks4. July 1st deadline looms for airlines, with Secretary Buttigieg warning of flight delays5. Can traditional TV stations in the US participate in the 5G ecosystem?6. Ericsson slashes 5G growth outlook for 2028 by 400 million connections.

This week on Breaking Battlegrounds, we are joined by friend of the show, Congressman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota. Later in the program, we speak with Dr. James Bosbotinis, a UK-based specialist in defense and international affairs.-Dusty Johnson brings an energetic and optimistic style to Washington as South Dakota's lone voice in the U.S. House of Representatives. A recognized leader in issues related to rural America, agriculture, and welfare reform, he serves on the Agriculture Committee and as Chairman of the Commodity Markets, Digital Assets, and Rural Development Subcommittee. As a member of the Transportation & Infrastructure Committee, Dusty has been focused on finding solutions to the supply chain crisis through his Ocean Shipping Reform Act which passed the House in 2021. Appointed to the Select Committee on China, Dusty addresses the 360-degree threat posed by China, especially their ownership of American ag land and ag businesses and control over tech. Prior to being elected to Congress, he served as chief of staff to the Governor and as vice president of an engineering firm specializing in rural telecommunications. Dusty lives in Mitchell with his wife and three sons.-Dr James Bosbotinis is a specialist in defence and international affairs. He has particular expertise in the study of contemporary maritime strategy, assessing naval and air force developments, geopolitical analysis, and generating understanding of the connections between maritime strategy and national policy. Dr Bosbotinis has extensive experience encompassing academic and policy-relevant research and analysis for a range of customers, including UK government bodies. He has written widely on issues including the development of British maritime strategy, maritime airpower, Russian maritime doctrine, naval and wider military (including nuclear) modernisation, long-range strike technologies (including hypersonic weapons) and their impact on strategy, and China's evolving strategy. He is the Book Reviews Editor of The Naval Review, and an Associate Member of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies, King's College London.”-Connect with us:www.breakingbattlegrounds.voteTwitter: www.twitter.com/Breaking_BattleFacebook: www.facebook.com/breakingbattlegroundsInstagram: www.instagram.com/breakingbattlegroundsLinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/breakingbattlegrounds- TranscriptionSam Stone: [00:00:11] Welcome to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, up first as our guest today, a returning guest and friend of the program. Welcome to Congressman Dusty Johnson, the lone representative from South Dakota. He serves on the as chairman of the Commodity Markets Digital Assets and Agriculture Committee. Or sorry, I am all over the place reading this today. He serves on the Agriculture Committee and as chairman of the Commodity Markets, Digital Assets and Rural Development Subcommittee and as a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He's also been doing a lot of work as part of the Select Committee on China. Dusty, thank you so much for joining us and welcome to the program.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:00:53] Well, thanks for having me again. I'm glad I didn't flunk the first appearance.Chuck Warren: [00:00:57] We are, too. I've been horrible for ratings. All right. So China has made a secret agreement with Cuba, which is about 100 miles south of Florida. For those of you who bet on geography that they're going to do electronic eavesdropping facility in Cuba, is this alarming or should it be?Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:01:16] It is alarming. It's alarming for two reasons. Number one, I mean, they're going to have the capability to do all kinds of electronic surveillance across the southeastern United States from there. That's going to give them access to stuff that they don't otherwise have. They can't get this same stuff from space. They could get it from balloons. But obviously, balloons are pretty easy to to bring down. So this is going to give them new capabilities, particularly to scoop up information communications from military sites in the southeastern United States. But the second reason it's concerning is that it shows additional provocation by Xi Jinping. They just keep pushing the envelope. They keep pushing us. They want us to know that they're going to be the bosses of the next 100 years. And it's a problem. I mean, we have a rules based international system was largely erected by the United States after World War II and our allies. And China hates it. They just hate it. They don't think those rules of fair play make any sense. They want to knock down that system and build a new international system with their values at the core of it. And all of these provocations are just part of a longer term strategy. And I would just say this by way of closure. They have a strategy. I'm not sure our country does. I think we just we don't have a thoughtful and deliberate plan on how to make sure that the next century continues to be part of, you know, an American century.Chuck Warren: [00:02:46] Speaking of that, so now we're talking about Cuba. Is the United States with really no strategy neglecting Central and South America, which China seems to be focusing on?Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:02:58] Yes. Yeah, we. So many Americans. I mean, we're in a little bit of an isolationist time. People want to, you know, America first. And listen, of course, when we make policies, we should look first to how is it going to impact America, How is it going to strengthen American prosperity and security? But America first can't mean America. Only some people will sometimes say, well, why would we care about Guyana? Why would we care about, you know, Qatar? Why would we care about Ukraine? But when we recede from international leadership and create a vacuum, China is all too willing to step up and fill that void. They love it. They love it when Americans put our head in the sand. They what I would call the Southern globe. They really are trying to be the dominant force there. China is the largest trading partner with every single South American country. That's it used to be America, and now it's China. In public opinion surveys, increasingly, citizens of African nations are saying that it is China that is the leader of the world and not the United States.Sam Stone: [00:04:03] Well, and that is a matter of world opinion, not U.S. Opinion, too. I think we have to take that into consideration. You can't be the leader of the world just because the people in your country say so.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:04:14] Right. Yeah, that's a really good point. And I just think a world where people think China is in charge is a more dangerous world for freedom. And the thing that I've loved about America through the last 247 years is that to a greater degree than any other country in the history of the world, we have been on the side of the right guys, of the good guys, and we've fought for values. And, you know, we haven't been perfect, but we've gotten it right way more often than anybody else has. And that is not China's track record.Chuck Warren: [00:04:46] Well, and it's interesting. China has sort of become the world's loan shark. It's loaning money to these third world countries for ports, infrastructure. When they can't pay it back.Sam Stone: [00:04:57] They kneecap.Chuck Warren: [00:04:57] Them. They kneecap them. Exactly. And trademarked that term. And so we do that. And so that brings me to we talked about I feel the United States for decades has ignored Central and South America. Right? I mean, we have every abundant resource in the world in our hemisphere. We seem to ignore it. And now you have The Washington Post came out this morning with the Saudi crown prince privately threatened a major economic pain on the US amid a showdown over oil cuts. Leaked intelligence show. And now you have Saudi Arabia inviting China over. We just dropped the ball here. I mean, I don't I don't think I have felt this insecure about our ability in the world right now since I have the late 70s.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:05:44] And I would tell you, this sort of sense of populism that's growing on both sides of the aisle is contributing to that. Free trade is out of vogue. It used to be that that was a key Republican value, that a willing buyer, a willing seller, that kind of free trade without undue government intervention that made both sides more prosperous. Again, it's voluntary. I mean, they're only going to enter into it if they if it makes their individual lives or country stronger. Correct? At least in theory. I mean, Colombia is the fifth largest market for American corn. Is that because Colombia's a top five nation in population or wealth? No, is because Colombians have some unique tastes for corn. No, it's because we have a free trade agreement with Colombia. And so the invisible hand just kind of wants this American product to flow toward that country. And this administration, the Biden administration has no trade policy, Zero. There have been no there's been no progress on any trade deal in the last two and a half years. And the world when I have people come to my office from other countries, they they want to do business with America. They want to buy our beef, our dairy, our corn. They want to buy our manufactured goods. And we are not making it very easy for them. And you're right, that kind of stepping back of American leadership is absolutely. Injuring American competitiveness.Sam Stone: [00:07:14] Well, they want to buy our products because our products are well made. They're safer than food coming from China. Know all of those things. We have this really good capitalist system, but at the head of it is a government that has no idea what it's doing and keeps making radical course changes between administrations. That has to be throwing out all of our allies for a loop.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:07:37] That it is they they still realize that, you know, when we lead, we're the best leader in the world. There's nobody else can bring to the table what America does. They get a little nervous when they feel like America is too inward focused. Tony Blair, former prime minister of the United Kingdom, told me a few months ago that America's political division is a global security threat, that when our Republicans and our Democrats are bickering, the rest of the world gets concerned. And when we're getting along, when America is united, the whole world just breathes a sigh of relief. Oh, thank goodness. Mom and dad, they're the cops on the beat. There's going to be more security. There's going to be more free trade. There's going to be more prosperity across the globe. When we drop the ball, everybody feels it.Sam Stone: [00:08:30] How much is what China is doing right now is really reminiscent of an economic version, if you will, of the Empire Building of the 18th and 19th and early 20th century. How did they how do Chinese people view what they're trying to do in their territorial ambitions? Have you gotten any information on that from your briefings? I mean, do they have real popular support in their country for this sort of muscular foreign diplomacy?Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:09:00] We heard from two survivors of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Last week, it was the anniversary of the massacre. And what was most interesting to me about that briefing wasn't just replaying the terrible events of that day, but about how little awareness there is among the Chinese people about the actions of their government. The Great Chinese Firewall is for real. It is very difficult for everyday Chinese people to gain understanding of what their government is doing. And this is the most sophisticated surveillance state that has ever been constructed with human knowledge. And I don't I think Americans don't understand how bad it is. I mean, there are regions in China where you can only get toilet paper in a public restroom by scanning your ID. They want to know where you are. They want to know what you're doing. They want to know how much toilet paper you're using. This is an almost breathtakingly deep invasion of people's privacy, so people are not comfortable speaking out there. There is not a free media. And I not only do they not understand what their government is doing today, there is almost no historical memory of the fact that this has been a repressive and oppressive regime for decades. It is a major problem. The Chinese people are not are not an adversary to our nation. It is just Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party.Sam Stone: [00:10:35] Well, and that brings up a good point. You talk about the digital wall that they've created. I mean, one of the ways that we've really advanced towards ending the Cold War and ending the antagonism with the Soviet Union was with Voice of America, with other communications, where they started seeing on TV the lies their government was telling. Because their government says everyone in America, its poor, it's racked by race riots. All the time. It's a terrible place to live. And then I talked to one ex-Soviet who said, hey, they showed us that. But then they're saying these are the ghettos and everyone has cars and none of us had cars. How do we break through the digital wall? I mean, is there a way for us to start trying to to direct more information to these folks?Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:11:25] Yes. And I think things like low earth, low orbit satellites can can play a role in giving people access to Internet that doesn't go through the great Chinese firewall. It can help, you know, one, 1.5 billion Chinese people understand that their regime is evil and is working to make them subservient every single day. But that requires an investment like putting satellites up in space and giving people access to, you know, the World Wide Web. This is not something that happens for free. And I think in our political system right now, if somebody said, well, we want, you know, X hundreds of millions or, you know, a few billion dollars to be able to deploy these satellites like the Voice of America to cut through these tyrannical regimes. What do you all think? I mean, I think a lot of Americans would say, well, why do I care what's going on in Hong Kong? Why do I care what's going on? I mean, I just it seems like it doesn't affect my life.Chuck Warren: [00:12:24] And well.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:12:25] The so I think we've got some information sharing we got to do. Well.Chuck Warren: [00:12:28] We're almost out of time here for this first segment. But I think my final comment here real quick is there's just so much going on in the world. You're saying, how much can I handle mentally? I think that's a big part of it. Now, we're with Congressman Dusty Johnson, South Dakota. This is breaking battlegrounds. Find us at breaking battlegrounds, dot vote or your favorite podcast. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren and Sam Stone. We are honored to have friend of the show, Congressman Dusty Johnson, Republican from South Dakota, a true leader in Congress. And folks, are you concerned about your retirement? You probably should be. Things aren't getting cheaper. Social Security going to have to be altered some, whether you like it or not, in the future. That's why Sam and I are recommending to you Yrefy? They are a great opportunity to help students pull out of their private loan college debts, and you can get up to a 10.25% return. That's right, 10.25%. So learn more about how to make your investment dollar go further better than the stock market, actually. And that's why we suggest you call Why Yrefy at eight, eight, eight. W Yrefy two four? Again, call eight, eight, eight Yrefy two four and tell him Chuck and Sam sent you.Sam Stone: [00:14:00] Congressman, thank you for sticking with us, folks. He's going to be on for one more segment after this. Also. So, Congressman, we very much thank you for your time this morning. But one thing we wanted to touch on before we move on to other topics is we've been talking about China. You're part of the China Select Committee. We had Congressman Dunn on the program a couple of weeks ago, and he told us something that I actually was not aware of and hadn't heard that all those little South Pacific islands that MacArthur used as essentially the latter to Japan and that we would, quite frankly, need in a war between Taiwan and China to be able to effectively operate in that theater. The Chinese, just like you were talking about in South America, they're making both economic and military overtures and essentially weaponizing that ladder against us. Can you tell us any more about that or is what are they doing? Because it seems very clear that they are gearing up for an attack on Taiwan.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:15:01] Everything you said is absolutely spot on. And we talked about in the first segment about American leadership receding a fair amount across the broader world. There are diplomats who say, oh, you know, from from these smaller countries who say, when I talk to the Chinese, I get an airport. When I talk to the Americans, I get a scolding.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:15:22] And.Sam Stone: [00:15:24] I'll take the airport. Thanks.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:15:27] Yeah. And that's what they're saying now. They know that the airport is going to be built in a very shoddy manner. They know that there's this loan shark mentality that you described, but these are poor countries. And there are times when they've got their backs up against the wall where they don't really know what else to do. They also don't get the sense that this is I mean I mean, Americans have a tendency to view things in pretty stark terms in kind of black and white. I think, by the way, that's when we look at the Chinese Communist Party. We are right to look at them as the bad guys. I think it is that simple. I think Xi Jinping is every bit as big a villain and a tyrant as the famous tyrants of the 20th century we all learned about in third grade. And so I do think that that we are right to look at it in those terms. The rest of the world, you know, these poor countries, they're not so sure. They're trying to make sure their people are fed. And so when these overtures that you're talking about are made, they are far more open to them because America is a little missing in action. Now, I think we have an opportunity here to step up our game because they don't want to cut these deals with the Chinese, but we have to give them an alternative. One more thing in there have been some recent years where where China's Belt and Road initiative invested more money in the developing world than the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund combined. And so it's not just America that's getting outspent by the Chinese. It's really the entire free developed world. We just were getting lapped.Chuck Warren: [00:17:00] Do you think the American public, especially those under the age of 40, really understand what communism is?Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:17:05] No, and in part because both political parties are free to use those terms whenever they think that it will provide a short term political benefit. So we really don't I mean, there's not a deep understanding of different political philosophies. No, it is with some communities. It's very clear. I mean, Carlos Gimenez from Florida is on the Select Committee on China with Neal Dunn and myself. And he having spent some time early on in his life in Cuba, I think does understand the backbreaking poverty that can be caused by communism, by socialism. So it's not I mean, it is not unusual among Cuban Americans or among people who emigrated from Eastern Europe for them to understand those concepts. But native born Americans, we just don't get it.Chuck Warren: [00:17:56] I want to switch subjects real quick here. Let's talk about Isgs for a moment. So there's a report out today by the Texas Public Policy Foundation that says under Biden, oil and gas investment is down 80%, 80%. So we just talked earlier about Saudi Arabia threatening economic sabotage on the American economy because Biden doesn't know what he's doing. And now you have these folks that are afraid to put capital on new oil and gas wells, refineries, pipelines, etcetera. We have a problem here because we can be you know, look, there's two things. America should always be self-sufficient on food and energy. There's no reason for it. How do we turn this around?Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:18:38] And that is really well said. I do think food and energy are they are the very base of the pyramid. It's hard to build anything upwards if you don't have those as the foundation. And we know that it's almost impossible to cite big projects, whether they be energy or infrastructure in this country. The same project that you can get done in two years in France or Germany takes you five years to get done in this country. I mean, France is not generally considered a paragon of regulatory efficiency. So when we are getting our butts kicked by France, I think that is a should be a major wakeup call. And this is bipartisan, by the way. We've had Secretary Buttigieg come to our transportation committee and talk about how we need to streamline permitting. We have clearly, Senator Manchin has tried to be a leader on this issue. We have really made no meaningful progress until last week. Where the debt ceiling deal, the Fiscal Responsibility Act, which I think was pretty unfairly maligned by, you know, far right conservatives for the first time since the 1970s made major improvements in how we can streamline these things. It gives a shot clock for environmental review on energy projects and other projects. So you can't take five years to complete an environmental impact statement. It makes sure that there's a federal government, one agency who's the coordinator who's trying to drive these decisions to fruition. I mean, it does a lot of things that we've been talking about for a long time, but we need even more of it because I think affordable energy is a is an American competitive advantage and we are squandering it.Sam Stone: [00:20:21] Yeah, that's also very well said. It's a huge advantage. We have just about a minute here before we go back to break. We're going to be coming back for our third segment with more from Congressman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota. Congressman, how do folks follow you and your work? Stay in touch with both what you're doing at the Capitol and while you're at home there in South Dakota?Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:20:41] Well, at Rep Dusty Johnson, so Rep, Dusty Johnson kind of on all of the social media platforms, not TikTok, because that's just Chinese malware, but basically everywhere else, that's where we're at. And we'd love to have people join the conversation.Sam Stone: [00:20:56] I did a thing not too long ago for a group of folks asking about different social medias. I went through the purpose of each one of them. I got to Tik Tok and I said, If you have this, throw away your phone.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:21:06] Yep, yep. It's true.Sam Stone: [00:21:09] Congressman, thank you so much. We're going to be coming back here with more from Congressman Dusty Johnson on breaking battlegrounds in just a few moments. We want to touch a little bit on something else that's going on that the congressman has been working on, particularly relating to food security here in the United States and to our our food systems. That has been a major focus of his. And thank goodness we do have some folks in there focusing on it. Folks, make sure you download and tune in to our podcast only segment. You can get that wherever you get your podcasts. We are doing quite a bit on that these days. Those segments keep getting longer and longer and Chuck and I have a nice argument for you at the end of this one. So folks, breaking battlegrounds. Back in just a moment. Welcome back to Breaking battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. On the line with us right now, Congressman Dusty Johnson of South Dakota. Congressman, one of the things that you've been working on really since the pandemic has been our food supply security, its supply chain crisis overall. You've been working on the Ocean Shipping Reform Act. Tell us what's going on in both of those areas, because I think Americans still don't realize how fragile our supply chain has been ever since 2020 and continues to be right now.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:22:37] There are a lot of factors that make that supply chain pretty fragile. I mean, we're 80,000 truck drivers short. We only have five major ocean carriers. And so if 1 or 2 of them decide that they're not interested in fairly hauling American products to market, we've got a problem. We had done somewhat of an underinvestment in infrastructure over the previous 20 years. I think that's beginning to move back in the right direction. So we do listen. We have some work to do. And just to give you an example, during the kind of the 18 months after the worst of the pandemic, so we've moved past the worst of health issues, but we were still dealing with some economic fragility. 60% of containers that were going back to Asia were going back empty. This at a time when we had American food products literally rotting on the on the on the docks there because the foreign flagged ocean carriers just wanted to make a quick turn. They didn't want to haul American goods. They wanted to get back, grab Chinese iPhones and bring them back quickly. And I totally get it in a in a true free market system. Okay.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:23:49] Listen, you get to decide how you want to make your money. If you can make more money doing that, I guess, good on you. But these guys are using American ports. And I just think at some point you need some basic reciprocity. And we pass the Ocean Shipping Reform Act. It was signed into law last year that said, there has to be if you're going to use American ports, you've got to play by some very basic rules of the road, like not ignoring American goods just because you think it's convenient to do so. And then we're also passed out of committee two weeks ago, a bill that would allow trucks if they add a sixth axle to increase weight so we can have those truck drivers when they're on the road do so safely. It doesn't cause more damage to the roads, it doesn't cause more accidents. It just allows those hardworking men and women to to work smarter and more efficiently. But we've got about 100 other things like that we've got to do throughout the system. If we fail to act, we're just going to give China that much more control over the global economic system.Sam Stone: [00:24:48] Congressman, how much do you think and you touched on this earlier, talking about China, but also talking about just our investment, whether it be a low orbit satellite system here in the southwest. We desperately need some new consideration for desalination and pipelining of water. The power grid across the country is very vulnerable and needs to be hardened. There are all these major infrastructure needs or or project needs here and around the world that we should be participating in investing in. How much more would the American public trust our government if we just started getting these things done?Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:25:29] There is a sense that the era of big projects in America is kind of in the rear view mirror. And I think that's sad because I think the story of the 20th century in this country was so much about big projects, big dreams coming to fruition. I mean, rural electrification. The universal service where we everybody got a dial tone. The interstate highway system. We connected every one of the states. The the damn system that provides, you know, 15 or 20% of the electricity for this country. I mean, it was just major homerun after major homerun where we said this is America, this is the land of builders. And now it's like you can't I mean, you can't get anything built without spending, you know, ten years in litigation.Chuck Warren: [00:26:20] Right. Right.Chuck Warren: [00:26:21] And and it's people it.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:26:22] Makes me sad because we need we need to bring back that American swagger of just competence and construction. That doesn't mean we're going to roll over any landowners rights, but I think it does mean that these getting a maybe answer after ten years is obnoxious. Let's give these companies a yes or no so they can figure out what to go invest in.Chuck Warren: [00:26:44] Well, maybe he's the third worst answer. The best answer is yes. Second best, no. The worst answers may be and that's what we keep doing and what's finally what's funny is the progressives want to keep pushing these things that delay these projects, which would help a lot of low income and middle income families. And I sort of have to agree with Sam. Sam thinks this is on purpose because they want to break America. Congressman 30s, tell us what's going good in America right now.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:27:06] Well, research and development, technology, I mean, those are really the things that make people's everyday lives better. Government tries to screw that stuff up, but thank goodness we're failing and innovation continues.Chuck Warren: [00:27:21] We're with Congressman Dusty Johnson. Congressman, thank you for joining us today. You can find him on all social media, on Twitter at Rep. Dusty Johnson, same thing on Instagram, same thing on Facebook. Congressman, thanks a million.Sam Stone: [00:27:33] Never on TikTok.Chuck Warren: [00:27:34] Never on TikTok. It's communist. Thank you, Congressman. We appreciate it.Congressmen Dusty Johnson: [00:27:38] You bet. Thank you.Chuck Warren: [00:27:38] Bye bye. Bye.Sam Stone: [00:28:06] All right. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Folks, are you concerned with stock market volatility, especially with Joe Biden in office? What if you could invest in a portfolio with a high fixed rate of return that's not correlated to the stock market? A portfolio where you know what each monthly statement would look like with no surprises, you can turn your monthly income on or off, compound it, whatever you choose. There's no loss of principle. If you need your money back at any time, your interest is compounded daily, you're paid monthly and there are no fees. So go to investyrefy.com that's invest the letter Y, then refy.com or call them at 88yrefy 24 and get yourself in line to earn up to a 10.25% fixed rate of return. That's right, folks. 10.25% fixed. It's the best deal out there in investing today. So give them a call.investyefy.com or 888 y refy 24 and tell them Chuck and Sam sent you? All right, Chuck. Next up, a guest I'm very excited to talk to doing some very good work in the area of military affairs particularly, he is a specialist in defense and international affairs. They focus on maritime and Air Force developments. Welcome to the program, Dr. James Bosbotinis, He and thank you for joining us this morning. You have some fantastic pieces out on hypersonic weaponry that's being developed. Can you tell us first what is a hypersonic weapon?Dr James Bosbotinis: [00:29:29] Thank you very much. And, uh, it's my pleasure to be speaking to you today. A hypersonic weapon is basically a missile that travels at speeds of in excess of Mach five or faster than the five times faster than the speed of sound. The difference between a hypersonic missile as attention is being drawn to now and a traditional ballistic missile which travel at speeds above Mach five and have been in service, uh, for decades now, is that the new generation of hypersonic weapons that are being developed? Hypersonic glide vehicles and hypersonic cruise missiles can maneuver within the atmosphere. Which complicates detection, tracking and defense.Sam Stone: [00:30:27] That's one of the first questions. Thank you. That was one of the first questions I was going to ask, because obviously a traditional ICBM is actually coming in faster than than these things go. And we have developed some systems to try to at least target those and be able to shoot them down. But your concern, you say, with these.Sam Stone: [00:30:46] Is.Sam Stone: [00:30:48] There's almost no way to for our current defense systems, our ship point defense systems, our national defense systems to deal with this threat as it evolves at this time.Dr James Bosbotinis: [00:31:00] Defense against the latest hypersonic threats at present is very limited. The United States has said it has a nascent capability against, for example, hypersonic glide vehicles, with the Sm6 deployed on US Navy warships. And it's working to develop a glide phase interceptor, which will enter service later this decade, and that will be capable of intercepting the latest hypersonic threats that are being developed, as we have seen most recently in Ukraine. The Patriot Air defense. Air and missile defense system does offer a capability against the Russian kinzhal The Kinzhal is described as a hypersonic weapon system. And strictly speaking, it is. It travels faster than Mach five. But. It's a sort of entry level hypersonic system. It's an it's effectively an air launched ballistic missile. It's an air launched version of the Russian Iskander Ground launched tactical ballistic missile. So it it falls within the intercept capability of existing systems such as Patriot. The higher end systems glide vehicles such as the Chinese DF 17 or a hypersonic cruise missile. They are much more taxing.Chuck Warren: [00:32:30] Why should Americans, our brothers and sisters, the United Kingdom, freedom loving countries be concerned about Russia and China having hypersonic missiles? Explain to them what is the danger of them in practical terms.Dr James Bosbotinis: [00:32:46] A hypersonic weapons by virtue of their speed, their flight paths, their unpredictable trajectories and maneuverability, make detecting, tracking and engaging them very difficult. So they are particularly well suited to striking very high value targets. It's why the United States, for example, is working to develop its own hypersonic weapons capability. If you want to hit something that is extremely high value, such as an aircraft carrier or a deeply buried, hardened command facility, a hypersonic weapon provides. That effective means of penetrating an adversary's own missile defenses and striking it. Are not a panacea. They're not going to be silver bullets. They form part of a wider strike complex, but because of those particular characteristics, they pose particular challenges. And that is why they are eliciting so much concern in terms of potential adversaries deploying them.Chuck Warren: [00:34:02] The United States obviously omits and shows its power around the world through our aircraft carriers. There are amazing vessels. They show amazing presence. Why would a hypersonic missile mean to our aircraft carrier presence throughout the world? Let's say Russia or Iran have one. What does that mean?Dr James Bosbotinis: [00:34:24] It provides a potent means of targeting the carrier. But a carrier is inherently an extremely difficult target to prosecute. It's mobile. A US carrier will be moving hundreds of miles a day. The maritime environment is inherently dynamic, and to find, fix, track and target a carrier is difficult. You need a very robust supporting kill chain or intelligence surveillance reconnaissance systems that can locate the carrier, keep track of it and help cue long range strike systems onto it. And those systems can be targeted kinetically so reconnaissance aircraft can be shot down. They can be targeted for electronic warfare and cyber means. So the system can be disrupted in a in a variety of means. But. Assuming that it's still functioning, the adversary can launch a hypersonic missile, which because it travels so much quicker than a long range than other subsonic long range strike systems, the time a subsonic cruise missile would take to travel, say, 600 miles in an hour. A hypersonic missile can do in, say, ten minutes. So because it's compressing the time that it takes to travel to the target, it means that the carrier and its strike group have a much shorter window in which to detect, track and engage the incoming threat. So that is why hypersonic weapons are seen as posing such a challenge to time critical targets such such as an aircraft carrier.Chuck Warren: [00:36:07] You need people who think on their feet.Sam Stone: [00:36:09] Yeah. One of one of your recent articles on that same point, it's not just compressing the time that a carrier or carrier group has to deal with an incoming threat, But the potential for these missiles to be used in both conventional and nuclear configurations means that for political decision makers, these may compress the time in ways that really, really restrict their ability to react to a situation intelligently. Right.Dr James Bosbotinis: [00:36:39] Yes, there's always the problem with dual capable systems, that is weapon systems which are both nuclear and conventional, that when one is traveling towards you, you don't know whether it is a nuclear weapon on its way or a conventional weapon. And that poses all sorts of challenges in terms of escalation control. Uh, for example, the Chinese DF 26 intermediate range ballistic missile is both conventional and nuclear. And if one is launched in the event of hostilities at Guam, uh, there is no way of telling until it detonates what warhead it it is carrying. So with any dual capable long range strike system that discern that, discerning whether it is nuclear or conventional is a particular problem. And, uh, certainly hypersonic missiles would be would be no different. And, uh. The Russian Kinzhal system, which is being employed against Ukraine, is a dual capable system. And. It's likely that other hypersonic weapon systems will also be dual capable.Chuck Warren: [00:37:56] With Dr. James Bosbotinis, he is a United Kingdom based specialist in Defence and International Affairs. He is co CEO of JB Associates, a geopolitical risk advisory. What have we learned about Russia's military capabilities in Ukraine?Dr James Bosbotinis: [00:38:13] We have learnt that pre-war assessments governing how Russian military modernisation efforts have proceeded over the past decade or so were. Overoptimistic, shall we say, the rush, the deep, deep structural flaws in the Russian military, which are reflective of the wider Russian state, have not been addressed. The Russian. The Russian military. Has. Made fundamental errors. For example. In the employment of the ballistic and cruise missile forces. They spent 20 plus years developing a doctrine of how to employ these. And when war broke out, they didn't actually use them as they had written about how they would use them, which was extremely fortunate for Ukraine. The Russians haven't conducted large scale combined arms training. Their air force does not train to anywhere near the level of Western air forces. They haven't developed the joint command structures, all various issues. Their logistics system is, as we have seen.Sam Stone: [00:39:39] When I was about 11 years old, I had a chance to visit still the Soviet Union, and we were there with a group of writers who were it was the start of glasnost. They were talking about some of the environmental damage. We came back. Everyone was plowed drunk one night from a Georgian restaurant in Moscow. One of the big writers in front of us was trying to open his door to his hotel room. He fell into the door, the door frame and all fell into the room, splintered apart. He rolls over, laughing. He looks back at us and says, And you were afraid of our missiles. I think that in certain sense still describes the nature of Soviet manufacturing and weapons propaganda.Dr James Bosbotinis: [00:40:14] Yes, a lot of Russian weapons systems are not anywhere near to the same standard of equivalent Western missile systems or other weapon systems. On the other hand, they're the they're long range strike systems. They're iskandar's. They're cruise missiles, for example. They have worked uh, it's a question more of the human element in how in how the weapons are employed rather than the actual effect themselves. When a when an Iskander hits a target, it is detonating and it is causing damage and their cruise missiles have proved devastating. But the Russians, instead of launching these weapons at critical national infrastructure targets at the start of the war. Air defense systems, command and control facilities, they used them against civilian targets and firing, for the most part, firing a ballistic missile or a cruise missile against a civilian apartment block is apart from being an absolute war crime, it's also a complete waste of a weapon system. So they didn't actually employ their systems, right? Had they employed them differently, we could have seen a very different. Progression of the conflict.Sam Stone: [00:41:35] Do you think that's partially because they were trying to simply get the Ukrainian people to force a capitulation at that point? Or because that seems like the only reason you do that instead of targeting military assets.Dr James Bosbotinis: [00:41:50] Yes, indeed. The operational planning was guided by completely false assumptions. The Russian government, the Russian government thought that a Ukrainian resistance would collapse after about three days and the Ukrainian people would simply greet the Russians with open with open arms. And so perhaps they thought that there's no need to conduct air strikes against infrastructure targets. Yeah. Dr..Sam Stone: [00:42:20] Dr. James Bosbotinis is a UK based specialist in defense and international affairs, particularly focus on maritime and Air Force development. Dr. How do folks follow you and your work?Dr James Bosbotinis: [00:42:29] I'm on Twitter, I'm on LinkedIn. I write on a freelance basis for a variety of publications.Sam Stone: [00:42:36] We appreciate you having having you on the program here today. I want to bring you back on again in the future. Thank you so much. We're running out of time here in the program, Dr.. But I very much appreciate your time this morning. Well, welcome to the podcast. Only segment of breaking battlegrounds. Want to say thank you to both of our guests today, Congressman Dusty Johnson and Dr. James Bosbotinis. Good discussions there from both of them, Chuck. But there's obviously some really big news kind of stirring the country right now. Broke last night with the indictment of Donald Trump on a number of charges, which are frankly hard to deny that that he did do those things. And it's hard, hard to say he didn't commit a crime, on the other hand. The prosecution. I have a real issue with the prosecution of Donald Trump. When you're not prosecuting Hillary Clinton, when you're not prosecuting everyone else who's taken the documents, it's this way.Chuck Warren: [00:43:40] It's again, a double standard. And that's the problem with it. You know what? I understand and this could be wrong, is he was contacted by our archives and he delivered in January 20th, 22, 15 boxes of documents that they said should not have been taken from the White House. So he gave those back. And then through tips or something, I don't know. It's a little unclear. He supposedly had more documents and that's hence we end up getting a raid in August. So the question is, you know, what they're saying is different versus other people is that when he was approached about it or confronted however you want to term it, he sort of dug his heels on some documents. Now, again, you and I have discussed this. I have always believed that there was such chaos in that White House in the last days that who knows what's packing those boxes, right? Well, yeah. I mean I mean, who knows? I mean, stuff gets thrown in boxes all the time. I mean, they're talking about finding pictures within there and Newsweek and and magazines. So it tells me this wasn't a really well conceived conspiracy to take documents. So the question is, I think.Sam Stone: [00:44:52] They were just throwing everything in the offices in boxes and moving.Chuck Warren: [00:44:55] Out the door. And I think and I think they're going fast because they were disputing 2020. So I think that was their focus plus running the country. And then I think, oh my goodness, it's Sunday and we got to leave Tuesday or whatever. And but I.Sam Stone: [00:45:07] Also don't think that's terribly different than what ends up getting taken out of there by every previous president. Yeah.Chuck Warren: [00:45:13] And and that's what I just don't know. I really wish they would tell us what these documents supposedly are that are endangering national security.Sam Stone: [00:45:19] I mean, my problem with that is claiming it's endangering national security at all, because at the end of the day, Donald Trump is not some foreign asset or weapon that whole narrative has been garbage. If anything, he kept these things for ego. You know, I mean, it's as many presidents do, have a giant ego and they want to be able to, you know, show people after their career this letter they got from the president of France or whatever.Chuck Warren: [00:45:46] Well, there's going to be so much more to come. Again, it does show why Hillary Clinton is not biased, why DOJ is protecting Hunter Biden. These are concerning matters. And if you're going to apply the rule of law, I want it to be applied. Even Steven, I don't want you to be picking who you decide should be prosecuted and who should not. And right now, I think this is the problem for DOJ. Now, I think it's really funny. Look, if you prosecuted.Sam Stone: [00:46:17] Clinton, I would have no problem with them.Chuck Warren: [00:46:19] Prosecuting. I think I think a real funny thing is here's the Biden administration saying we didn't know anything about it till we saw the indictment come through. Oh, come on. Just just I mean, just it's just better say I don't know. It's just such a lie. And the thing is, it puts when they do that.Sam Stone: [00:46:32] Well, they can't be honest because they're using the DOJ to target their political adversary.Chuck Warren: [00:46:36] So if you are a Trump supporter or are you inclined to believe the government is doing rotten things, making a statement like that, people like, come on, of course you know about this, right? And so it will be interesting. You know, we still have the investigation of January 6th. We still have the Georgia investigation, which I'd be surprised if indictments don't come out of that. I mean.Sam Stone: [00:47:01] They're going to.Chuck Warren: [00:47:02] It's a big it's a becoming. Is it becoming just such white noise now that people are ignoring it? That's my.Sam Stone: [00:47:08] Question. It's white noise right up until the point where they actually convict him and lock him up. I mean, which they're really threatening, like lengthy prison sentences with some of this. Yeah. I mean, so we'll see how this plays out. But I got to say, I mean, yeah, I agree. He broke the law and there should not there should be consequences when you break the law. But on the other hand, if the consequences apply only to one side, then you don't have a law.Chuck Warren: [00:47:31] You just. Well, that's.Chuck Warren: [00:47:32] Well, that's that's not rule of law. Yeah. And that's the problem with it. So, you know, it's got to be clearly implemented for everybody or not at all. And that's what apparently that's not what we're even at. We're just like we're going to depending who the political party opponent is, we're prosecuting.Sam Stone: [00:47:48] So this is this is a really politicized federal law enforcement and DOJ right now. And it's really damaging to.Chuck Warren: [00:47:54] It really needs to be cleaned up. It would be I would truly be interested in Congress passing something about some sort of lack of a better term term limits in the DOJ.Sam Stone: [00:48:07] Yeah, absolutely.Chuck Warren: [00:48:09] Something has to be done. It's too entrenched with bureaucratic attorneys.Sam Stone: [00:48:12] Well, you know what I was thinking about the other night and I didn't realize it at the time, but I remember some of these articles from the time period Clinton towards the end of his term, and then Obama went big with this. They didn't place people leaving their administration in your typical political appointee positions. They got them jobs inside the bureaucracy in all these agencies. And now we're seeing the the fruit of having ceded all the federal agencies with political Democrat political activists rather than people who were there to actually do the job. They are infiltrated in every bureaucracy from the mid levels up. Right. And that's a hard thing to dis entrench.Chuck Warren: [00:48:54] Exactly. Exactly.Sam Stone: [00:48:56] You're talking about trenches switching topics here, Chuck, But there was a big announcement recently by the governor of Arizona about our water situation here, where they project a 4% deficit in water over the next hundred years.Chuck Warren: [00:49:11] How much was.Sam Stone: [00:49:11] It? 4% over 100 years. So we're not talking end of the world stuff. But the way they did the press conference, it certainly made it sound that way. And they made a big announcement about we're going to stop new construction in Arizona. Now, what they meant was new construction outside of areas served by water grids. Right. If you're on the Phoenix Water or Tucson Water, Flagstaff, water, whatever, that wasn't what they were talking about. But the way they present it, I really believe the environmentalist movement is pushing for planet wide population reduction. They don't want any new growth. They don't want any of this stuff. And this governor fell in this trap. And all week long I've been dealing with businesses from across the country going, hey, we were considering Arizona. We don't think that's viable. Now, if what your governor just said, they botched this thing from top to bottom. Katie Hobbs is utterly incompetent when it comes to handling the routine business of government, because you could have put this out in a press release with nothing else, instituted the exact same policy. We're not going to allow growth in these wildcat areas where you don't have water. That's that is smart policy. Right. But the implementation of it and how she went about it. So Ham handed that it's literally hurt the state of Arizona and that ties to what we're talking with Congressman Johnson. Look, the solution to all of this. The entire US Southwest needs water enhancements. We need new water, whether from the Snake River to the north, the Mississippi, Missouri's to the east or from the Gulf of Mexico, You.Chuck Warren: [00:50:44] Know, And the.Chuck Warren: [00:50:45] Technology is there to.Sam Stone: [00:50:45] Do it. Yeah, it is. But the problem.Chuck Warren: [00:50:47] Is you're gonna have a bunch of environmentalists sue, which you're going to delay at 10 to 20 years. And this is literally issues you can resolve in two years.Sam Stone: [00:50:54] It absolutely is. And that's the other point we brought. I brought this up with one of the other congressmen we've had on the program. But I don't understand why we don't just declare if something is environmentally beneficial and taking the southwest off of groundwater and off of river water would be massively environmentally beneficial. Augmenting our river water, taking us off of groundwater would help the environment here tremendously, period. No question. In that case, why? Why are these why are they allowed to sue on Nepa or any of this other stuff? The project should go forward. You just do the engineering reviews and you're done.Chuck Warren: [00:51:31] Well, it should be like something. Eminent domain. Yeah, that's.Sam Stone: [00:51:33] What I mean.Chuck Warren: [00:51:34] Come on in. And just this needs to be done and it's just ridiculous.Sam Stone: [00:51:37] Like in this case, Look, all your lawsuits. No, you know, we don't even entertain those things in this type of situation because it is an issue of national security and safety for our citizens here in the southwest and to have an assured water supply.Chuck Warren: [00:51:49] And it helps the environment.Sam Stone: [00:51:51] And it helps the environment.Chuck Warren: [00:51:52] Yeah. What do you say? You support helping the environment, but you're fighting something that can absolutely help the environment, right?Sam Stone: [00:51:59] That that is the ridiculousness of the modern environmental movement, which to me is frankly just a eugenicist movement in hiding.Chuck Warren: [00:52:07] Let's finish one last topic here. The Tampa Bay Rays are a third through the season and they are almost 30 games above 500.Sam Stone: [00:52:16] Chuck, I'm a Red Sox fan and this is the podcast segment, so I can say what I really feeling right now, which is f**k you, man. Seriously, they are. No, they're amazing.Chuck Warren: [00:52:25] They're amazing. They are an amazing organization.Sam Stone: [00:52:28] What they do with no money, I mean, no money.Chuck Warren: [00:52:32] And you sort of get the sense the Diamondbacks have taken a page from them, what they've building up on their farm system.Sam Stone: [00:52:36] I've said for years, if you if you watched and do what Tampa does, but just add a little money to the mix where you can keep some of your best players from time to time and you don't watch them go to the Padres. That's that's the that's the formula.Chuck Warren: [00:52:49] I agree.Chuck Warren: [00:52:49] I agree.Sam Stone: [00:52:50] Well, in which the Diamondbacks can go lock up Corbin Carroll right now.Chuck Warren: [00:52:55] Well, they have, haven't they.Sam Stone: [00:52:56] Did they? Yeah. Did I miss.Chuck Warren: [00:52:57] That? Was that the ten year deal?Chuck Warren: [00:52:59] I don't. Corbin Carroll? Yeah.Chuck Warren: [00:53:00] Corbin Carroll, ten years.Sam Stone: [00:53:01] We're looking at the girl in the studio who's getting married to a professional ballplayer. And she doesn't.Chuck Warren: [00:53:05] She knows.Chuck Warren: [00:53:05] Nothing. She knows nothing. Corbin She hasn't.Sam Stone: [00:53:08] Even given us an update on the Idaho murders.Chuck Warren: [00:53:10] I believe. I believe Corbin Carroll signed a ten year deal. That's what everybody's been going on about early. They just tied him in. So. Okay.Sam Stone: [00:53:15] Well, thank goodness for that. Yeah.Chuck Warren: [00:53:17] By the way, anything before we close off on the Idaho murders that we should be aware of?Kiley Kipper: [00:53:20] No, not too much. I think they had like a few 20 days ago or something like that. They had 60 days to determine if he was going to get the death penalty or not. And then Brian Kielburger has now come out and said that he doesn't want cameras in the courtroom. So now that's the whole hot discussion is like, well, then let's have them, because why does he not want why do we care what he says?Speaker4: [00:53:40] Chuck.Sam Stone: [00:53:41] You okay with the death penalty? In this case?Chuck Warren: [00:53:44] I'm always okay of the death penalty.Speaker4: [00:53:46] It's a rare.Chuck Warren: [00:53:47] Exception that I'm not okay with the death penalty.Sam Stone: [00:53:50] And that's the final.Sam Stone: [00:53:51] Word today from Chuck.Chuck Warren: [00:53:54] Maybe with those 9% shoplifters you wrote about.Sam Stone: [00:53:56] Oh, yeah. No, we can start with them for sure.Sam Stone: [00:53:59] Right?Sam Stone: [00:54:00] Retail theft off with his head.Chuck Warren: [00:54:03] Sam, closing here. How much does it cost the average American annually for shoplifting?Sam Stone: [00:54:07] Yeah. So go go on. Our substack folks, because we ran the numbers on this Capital One putting out a survey and then I broke the numbers down $318 per person.Chuck Warren: [00:54:17] That's probably.Chuck Warren: [00:54:17] Undercounted and.Sam Stone: [00:54:18] That's undercounted. If you read the article, you realize that's the direct cross from the losses that they're taking from shoplifting. Then you add in all the additional security, the other measures that they're putting in place. Those things all cost money, too. There's probably a lot, as we saw with Lululemon, that's not reported because of politics, essentially where they're fired, two employees for even just reporting a theft to the police. I doubt they're reporting their numbers accurately and probably there's a bunch like them. This might be a $5,600 per person a year tax is what we're facing.Chuck Warren: [00:54:53] Well, and folks, if you are purchasing from Lululemon, realize there is a shoplifting tax assessed on your clothing, whether whether they listed or itemized it or not, you're paying for.Sam Stone: [00:55:03] It before they go to Lululemon, though, Chuck, and this is a free plug. Isn't your former assistants, Katrina, doesn't she have a a clothing line or company that she.Chuck Warren: [00:55:12] Works with a clothing line in Salt Lake knowing the ownership, they will not tolerate shoplifting.Chuck Warren: [00:55:17] So okay.Sam Stone: [00:55:18] What's the name? Do we do you know? Do I know?Chuck Warren: [00:55:21] We'll tell We'll put.Chuck Warren: [00:55:22] It on our social.Sam Stone: [00:55:23] On our substack. Yeah. Hey, look. Good opportunity to pay pay for a product from someone who actually feels the way you do.Chuck Warren: [00:55:29] Exactly. Well, folks, we hope you have a great weekend. We hope you enjoyed our guests today, both wonderful people to have on the show and we hope you share it. You can download our podcast, go to breaking battlegrounds, dot vote, share it, rate it. We'd appreciate it. Help our audience grow. Have a great weekend. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit breakingbattlegrounds.substack.com

On this week's episode of The Weeds, we sit down with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to talk about transportation policy in America. From subways and buses to cars and safer roads, listen for more about the future of public transportation and the policies that can curb traffic deaths. Plus, more from Vox's Marin Cogan and her reporting on the deadliest road in America.  Related Reading: How a stretch of US-19 in Florida became the deadliest road for pedestrians - Vox Cars transformed America. They also made people more vulnerable to the police. A driver killed her daughter. She won't let the world forget.    Credits: Jonquilyn Hill, host Sofi LaLonde, producer Cristian Ayala, engineer A.M. Hall, editorial director of talk podcasts Want to support The Weeds? Please consider making a donation to Vox: bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's pod is a Candid Conversation with US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. We'll talk what to look forward to as the Infrastructure & Jobs Act comes to our towns and cities, what we should be paying attention to after the recent train derailment in East Palestine, and we'll get a little insight on how Secretary Buttigieg is able to handle all the disinformation and spin thrown at him, and what we take from his innate skill to bring into own lives.  Guest social: https://www.transportation.gov/meet-secretary/secretary-pete-buttigieg Twitter: @SecretaryPete | @PeteButtigieg Insta: pete.buttigieg Please RATE and SUBSCRIBE so we can grow the show, open the dialogue, and inspire change moving forward!   All show links here!: https://linktr.ee/politicsgirl   Thank you to today's sponsors! www.lomi.com/politicsgirl PromoCode: PoliticsGirl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For the first episode of the Newcomer podcast, I sat down with Reid Hoffman — the PayPal mafia member, LinkedIn co-founder, Greylock partner, and Microsoft board member. Hoffman had just stepped off OpenAI's board of directors. Hoffman traced his interest in artificial intelligence back to a conversation with Elon Musk.“This kicked off, actually, in fact, with a dinner with Elon Musk years ago,” Hoffman said. Musk told Hoffman that he needed to dive into artificial intelligence during conversations about a decade ago. “This is part of how I operate,” Hoffman remembers. “Smart people from my network tell me things, and I go and do things. And so I dug into it and I'm like, ‘Oh, yes, we have another wave coming.'”This episode of Newcomer is brought to you by VantaSecurity is no longer a cost center — it's a strategic growth engine that sets your business apart. That means it's more important than ever to prove you handle customer data with the utmost integrity. But demonstrating your security and compliance can be time-consuming, tedious, and expensive. Until you use Vanta.Vanta's enterprise-ready Trust Management Platform empowers you to:* Centralize and scale your security program* Automate compliance for the most sought-after frameworks, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR* Earn and maintain the trust of customers and vendors alikeWith Vanta, you can save up to 400 hours and 85% of costs. Win more deals and enable growth quickly, easily, and without breaking the bank.For a limited time, Newcomer listeners get $1,000 off Vanta. Go to vanta.com/newcomer to get started.Why I Wanted to Talk to Reid Hoffman & What I Took AwayHoffman is a social network personified. Even his journey to something as wonky as artificial intelligence is told through his connections with people. In a world of algorithms and code, Hoffman is upfront about the extent to which human connections decide Silicon Valley's trajectory. (Of course they are paired with profound technological developments that are far larger than any one person or network.)When it comes to the rapidly developing future powered by large language models, a big question in my mind is who exactly decides how these language models work? Sydney appeared in Microsoft Bing and then disappeared. Microsoft executives can dispatch our favorite hallucinations without public input. Meanwhile, masses of images can be gobbled up without asking their creators and then the resulting image generation tools can be open-sourced to the world. It feels like AI super powers come and go with little notice. It's a world full of contradictions. There's constant talk of utopias and dystopias and yet startups are raising conventional venture capital financing.The most prominent player in artificial intelligence — OpenAI — is a non-profit that raised from Tiger Global. It celebrates its openness in its name and yet competes with companies whose technology is actually open-sourced. OpenAI's governance structure and priorities largely remain a mystery. Finally, unlike tech's conservative billionaires who throw their money into politics, in the case of Hoffman, here is a tech overlord that I seem to mostly agree with politically. I wanted to know what that would be like. Is it just good marketing? And where exactly is his heart and political head at right now?I thought he delivered. I didn't feel like he was dodging my questions, even in a world where maintaining such a wide network requires diplomacy. Hoffman seemed eager and open — even if he started to bristle at what he called my “edgy words.”Some Favorite QuotesWe covered a lot of ground in our conversation. We talked about AI sentience and humans' failures to identify consciousness within non-human beings. We talked about the coming rise in AI cloud compute spending and how Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are positioned in the AI race.Hoffman said he had one major condition for getting involved in OpenAI back in the early days when Musk was still on board.“My price for participation was to ask Elon to stop saying the word “robocalypse,” Hoffman told me. “Because I thought that the problem was it's very catchy and it evokes fear.”I asked Hoffman why he thought Musk got involved in artificial intelligence in the first place when Musk seems so worried about how it might develop. Why get the ball rolling down the hill at all, I wondered?Hoffman replied that many people in the field of artificial intelligence had “messiah complexes.”“It's the I am the one who must bring this — Prometheus, the fire to humanity,” Hoffman said. “And you're like, ‘Okay, I kind of think it should be us versus an individual.'” He went on, “Now, us can't be 8 billion people — us is a small group. But I think, more or less, you see the folks who are steering with a moral compass try to say, how do I get at least 10 to 15 people beyond myself with their hands on the steering wheel in deep conversations in order to make sure you get there? And then let's make sure that we're having the conversations with the right communities.”I raised the possibility that this merely suggested oligarchic control of artificial intelligence rather than dictatorial control. We also discussed Hoffman's politics, including his thoughts on Joe Biden and “woke” politics. I asked him about the state of his friendship with fellow PayPal mafia member Peter Thiel. “I basically am sympathetic to people as long as they are legitimately and earnestly committed to the dialogue and discussion of truth between them and not committed otherwise,” Hoffman said. “There are folks from the PayPal years that I don't really spend much time talking to. There are others that I do continue because that conversation about discovering who we are and who we should be is really important. And you can't allow your own position to be the definer.”I suggested that Thiel's public views sometimes seemed insincere.“Oh, that's totally corrosive,” Hoffman said. “And as much as that's happening, it's terrible. And that's one of the things that in conversations I have, I push people, including Peter, on a lot.”Give it a listen.Find the PodcastRead the TranscriptEric: Reid, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm very excited for this conversation. You know, I'm getting ready for my own AI conference at the end of this month, so hopefully this is sort of a prep by the end of this conversation, we'll all be super smart and ready for that. I feel like there've been so many rounds of sort of AI as sort of the buzzword of the day.This clearly seems the hottest. When did you get into this moment of it? I mean, obviously you just stepped off the Open AI board. You were on that board. Like how, when did you start to see this movement that we're experiencing right now coming.Reid: Well, it's funny because my undergraduate major was artificial intelligence and cognitive science. So I've, I've been around the hoop for multiple waves for a long time and I think this kicked off actually, in fact, with a dinner with Elon Musk years ago. You know, 10-ish years ago, Elon and I would have dinner about once a quarter and he's like, well, are you paying attention to this AI stuff?And I'm like, well, I majored in it and you know, I know about this stuff. He's like, no, you need to get back involved. And I was like, all right. This is part of how I operate is smart people from my network tell me things and I go and do things. And so I dug into it and I went, oh yes, we have another wave coming.And this was probably about seven or eight years ago, when I, when I saw the beginning of the wave or the seismic event. Maybe it was a seismic event out at sea and I was like, okay, there's gonna be a tsunami here and we should start getting ready cause the tsunami is actually gonna be amazingly great and interesting.Eric: And that—is that the beginning of Open AI?Reid: Open AI is later. What I did is I went and made connections with the kind of the heads of every AI lab and major company because I concluded that I thought that the AI revolution will be primarily driven by large companies initially because of the scale compute requirements.And so, you know, talked to Demis Hassabis, met Mustafa Suleyman, talked to Yann LeCun, talked to Jeff Dean, you know, all these kind of folks and kind of, you know, built all that. And then it was later in conversations with Sam and Elon that I said, look, we need to do something that's a for pro humanity. Not just commercial effort. And my price for participation, cause I thought it was a great idea, but my price for participation was to ask Elon to stop saying the word robocalypse. Because I thought that the problem was that it's very catchy and it evokes fear. And actually, in fact, one of the things I think about this whole area is that it's so much more interesting and has so much amazing opportunity for humanity.A little bit like, I don't know if you saw the Atlantic article I wrote that we evolve ourselves through technology and I'm, you know, going to be doing some writings around describing AI as augmented intelligence versus artificial intelligence. And I wanted to kind of build that positive, optimistic case that I think is the higher probability that I think we can shape towards and so forth.So it's like, okay, I'm in, but no more Robocalypse.Eric: I appreciate the ultimate sort of network person that you tell the story through people. I always appreciate when the origin stories of technology actually come through the human beings. With Elon in particular, I'm sort of confused by his position because it seems like he's very afraid of AI.And if that's the case, why would you want to, like, do anything to sort of get the ball rolling down the hill? Like, isn't there a sort of just like, stay away from it, man, if you think it's so bad. How do you see his thinking? And I'm sure it's evolved.Reid: Well, I think his instinct for the good and the challenging of this is he tends to think AI will only be good if I'm the one who's in control.Eric: Sort of, yeah.Reid: Yeah. And this is actually somewhat replete within the modern AI field. Not everybody but this. And Elon is a public enough figure that I think, you know, making this comment of him is not talking at a school.Other people would, there's a surprising number of Messiah complexes in the field of AI, and, and it's the, I am the one who must bring this, you know, Prometheus, you know, the Fire to humanity. And you're like, okay, I kind of think it should be us, right? Versus an individual. Now us can't be 8 billion people, us as a small group, but I think more or less you see the, the folks who are steering with a moral compass try to say, how do I get at least 10 to 15 people beyond myself with their hands on the steering wheel in deep conversations in order to make sure you get there and then let, let's make sure that we're having the conversations with the right communities.Like if you say, well, is this going to, you know, institutionalize, ongoing, um, you know, power structures or racial bias, something else? Well, we're talking to the people to make sure that we're going to minimize that, especially over time and navigate it as a real issue. And so those are the, like, that's the kind of anti Messiah complex, which, which is more or less the efforts that I tend to get involved in.Eric: Right. At least sort of oligarchy, of AI control instead of just dictatorship of it.Reid: Well, yeah, and it depends a little bit, even on oligarchy, look, things are built by small numbers of people. It's just a fact, right? Like, there aren't more than, you know, a couple of founders, maybe maximum five in any, any particular thing. There is, you know, there's reasons why. When you have a construction project, you have a head of construction, right?Et cetera. The important thing is to make sure that's why you have, why you have a CEO, you have a board of directors. That's why you have, you know, you say, well, do we have the right thing where a person is accountable to a broader group? And that broader group feels their governance responsibility seriously.So oligarchy is a—Eric: a chargedReid: is a charged word. And I,Eric: There's a logic to it. I'm not, I'm not using it to say it doesn't make sense that you want the people to really understand it around, around it. Um, I mean, specifically with Open AI, I mean, you, you just stepped off the board. You're also on the board of Microsoft, which is obviously a very significant player.In this future, I mean, it's hard to be open. I get a little frustrated with the “open” in “Open AI” because I feel like there's a lot that I don't understand. I'm like, maybe they should change the name a little bit, but is it still a charity in your mind? I mean, it's obviously raised from Tiger Global, the ultimate prophet maker.Like, how should we think about the sort of core ambitions of Open AI?Reid: Well, um, one, the board I was on was a fine one and they've been very diligent about making sure that all of the controls, including for the subsidiary company are from the 501(C)(3) and diligent to its mission, which is staffed by people on the 501(C)(3) board with the responsibilities of being on a 5 0 1 board, which is being in service of the mission, not doing, you know, private inurement and other kinds of things.And so I actually think it is fundamentally still a 501(C)(3). The challenge is if you kind of say, you look at this and say, well, in order to be a successful player in the modern scale AI, you need to have billions of dollars of compute. Where do you get those billions of dollars? Because, you know, the foundations and the philanthropy industry is generally speaking bad at tech and bad at anything other than little tiny checks in tech.And so you said, well, it's really important to do this. So part of what I think, you know, Sam and that group of folks came up with this kind of clever thing to say, well, look, we're about beneficial AI, we're about AI for humanity. We're about making an, I'll make a comment on “open” in a second, but we are gonna generate some commercially valuable things.What if we struck a commercial deal? So you can have the commercial things or you can share the commercial things. You invest in us in order to do this, and then we make sure that the AI has the right characteristics. And then the “open”, you know, all short names have, you know, some simplicities to them.The idea is open to the world in terms of being able to use it and benefit from it. It doesn't mean the same thing as open source because AI is actually one of those things where opening, um, where you could do open source, you could actually be creating something dangerous. As a modern example, last year, Open AI deliberately… DALL·E 2 was ready four months before it went out. I know cause I was playing with it. They did the four months to do safety training and the kind of safety training is, well, let's make sure that individuals can't be libeled. Let's make sure you can't create as best we can, child sexual material. Let's make sure you can't do revenge porn and we'll serve it through the API and we'll make it unchangeable on that.And then the open source people come out and they go do whatever you want and then wow, you get all this crazy, terrible stuff. So “open” is openness of availability, but still with safety and still with, kind of call it the pro-human controls. And that's part of what OpenAI means in this.Eric: I wrote in sort of a mini essay in the newsletter about, like tech fatalism and it fits into your sort of messiah complex that you're talking about, if I'm a young or new startup entrepreneur, it's like this is my moment if I hold back, you know, there's a sense that somebody else is gonna do it too. This isn't necessarily research. Some of the tools are findable, so I need to do it. If somebody's going to, it's easy if you're using your own personhood to say, I'm better than that guy! Even if I have questions about it, I should do it. So that, I think we see that over and over again. Obviously the stakes with AI, I think we both agree are much larger.On the other hand, with AI, there's actually, in my view, been a little bit more restraint. I mean, Google has been a little slower. Facebook seems a little worried, like, I don't know. How do you agree with that sort of view of tech fatalism? Is there anything to be done about it or it's just sort of—if it's possible, it's gonna happen, so the best guy, the best team should do it?Or, or how do you think about that sense of inevitability on if it's possible, it'll be built?Reid: Well, one thing is you like edgy words, so what you describe is tech fatalism, I might say as something more like tech inevitability or tech destiny. And part of it is what, I guess what I would say is for example, we are now in a AI moment and era. There's global competition for it. It's scale compute.It's not something that even somebody like a Google or someone else can kind of have any kind of, real ball control on. But the way I look at it is, hey, look, there's, there's utopic outcomes and dystopic outcomes and it's within our control to steer it. Um, and even to steer it at speed, even under competition because.For example, obviously the general discourse within media is, oh my God, what's happening with the data and what's gonna happen with the bias and what's gonna happen with the crazy conversations, with Bing Chat and all the rest of this stuff. And you're like, well, what am I obsessed about? I'm obsessed about the fact that I have line of sight to an AI tutor and an AI doctor on every cell phone.And think about if you delay that, whatever number of years you delay that, what your human cost is of delaying that, right? And it's like, how do we get that? And for example, people say, wow, the real issue is that Bing chat model is gonna go off the rails and have a drunken cocktail party conversation because it's provoked to do so and can't run away from the person who's provoking it.Uh, and you say, well, is that the real issue? Or is it a real issue? Let's make sure that as many people as we can have access to that AI doctor have access to that AI tutor that where, where we can, where not only, you know, cause obviously technology cause it's expensive initially benefits elites and people are rich.And by the way, that's a natural way of how our capitalist system and all the rest works. But let's try to get it to everyone else as quickly as possible, right?Eric: I a hundred percent agree with that. So I don't want any of my sort of, cynical take like, oh my God, this version.I'd also extend it, you know, I think you're sort of referencing maybe the Sydney situation where you have Kevin Rus in New York Times, you know, communicating with Bing's version of ChatGPT and sort of finding this character who's sort of goes by Sydney from the origin story.And Ben Thompson sort of had a similar experience. And I would almost say it's sad for the world to be deprived of that too. You know, there's like a certain paranoia, it's like, it's like, oh, I wanna meet this sort of seemingly intelligent character. I don't know. What do you make of that whole episode? I mean, people really, I mean, Ben Thompson, smart tech writers really latched onto this as something that they found moving.I don't know. Is there anything you take away from that saga and do you think we'll see those sort of, I don't know, intelligent characters again,Reid: Well for sure. I think 2023 will be at least the first year of the so-called chatbot. Not just because of ChatGPT. And I think that we will have a bunch of different chat bots. I think we'll have chatbots that are there to be, you know, entertainment companions, witty dialogue participants.I think we'll have chatbots that are there to be information like Insta, Wikipedia, kind of things. I think we'll have chatbots that are there to just have someone to talk to. So I think there'll be a whole, whole range of things. And I think we will have all that experience.And I think part of the thing is to say, look, what are the parameters by which you should say the bots should absolutely not do X. And it's fine if these people want a bot that's like, you know, smack talking and these people want something that you know, goes, oh heck. Right?You know, like, what's, what's the range of that? And obviously children get in the mix and, and the questions around things that we already encounter a lot with search, which is like could a chat bot enable self-harm in a way that would be really bad?Let's really try to make sure that someone who's depressed doesn't figure out a way to harm themselves either with search or with chat bots.Eric: Is there a psychologically persuasive, so it's not just the information provided, it's the sense that they might be like walking you towards something less serious.Reid: And they are! This is the thing that's amazing. and it's part of the reason why like everyone should have some interaction with these in some emotional, tangible way. We are really passing the Turing test. This is the thing that I had visibility on a few years ago because I was like, okay, we kind of judge, you know, intelligence and sentience like that, Google engineers like it.I asked if it was conscious and it said it was because we use language as a way of doing that. And you're like, well, but look, that tells you that your language use is not quite fully there. And because part of what's really amazing about, “hallucinations”—and I'm probably gonna do a fireside chat with the gray matter thing on hallucinations, maybe later this week—where the hallucination is, on one hand it says this amazingly accurate, wonderful thing, very persuasively, and then it says this other thing really persuasively that's total fiction, right? And you're like, wow, you sound very persuasive in both cases. But that one's true and that one's fiction.And that's part of the reason why I kind of go back to the augmented intelligence and all the things that I see going on with in 2023 is much less replacement and much more augmentation. It's not zero replacement, but it's much more augmentation in terms of how this plays. And that is super exciting.Eric: Yeah. I mean, to some degree it reflects sort of the weakness in human beings' own abilities to read what's happening. Ahead of this interview, I was talking to the publicly available ChatGPT. I don't know if you saw but I was asking it for questions and I felt like it delivered a very reasonable set of questions. You know, you've written about Blitzscaling, so [ChatGPT] is like, let's ask about that. It's, you know, ask in the context of Microsoft. But when I was like, have you [ChatGPT] ever watched Joe Rogan? Have you ever been on a podcast? Sometimes maybe you should have a long sort of, you should have a statement like I'm doing right now where I sort of have some things I'm saying.Then I ask a question. Other times it should be short and sweet. Sometimes it, you know, annoys you and says oligarchy, like explaining to the chat bot. [In an interview, a journalist] can't just ask a list of like, straightforward questions and it felt like it didn't really even get that. And I get that there's some sort of, we're, we're starting to have a conversation now with companies like Jasper, where it's almost like the language prompting itself.I think Sam Altman was maybe saying it's like almost a form of plain language like coding because you have to figure out how to get what you want out of them. And maybe it was just my failure to explain it, but as a journalist replacing questions, I didn't find the current model of ChatGPT really capable of that.Reid: No, that's actually one of the things on the ChatGPT I find is, like, for example, you ask what questions to ask Reid Hoffman in a podcast interview, and you'll get some generic ones. It'll say like, well, what's going on with new technologies like AI and, and what's going on in Silicon Valley? And you know, and you're like, okay, sure.But those aren't the really interesting questions. That's not what makes me a great journalist, which is kind of a lens to something that people can learn from and that will evolve and change that'll get better. But that's again, one of the reasons why I think it's a people plus machine. Because for example, if I were to say, hey, what should I ask Eric about? Or what should I talk to Eric about and go to? Yeah, gimme some generic stuff. Now if I said, oh, give me a briefing on, um, call it, um, UN governance systems as they apply to AI, because I want to be able to talk about this. I didn't do this, but it would give me a kind of a quick Wikipedia briefing and that would make my conversation more interesting and I might be able to ask a question about the governance system or something, you know, as a way of doing it.And that's what AI is, I think why the combo is so great. Um, and anyway, so that's what we should be aiming towards. It isn't to say, by the way, sometimes like replacement is a good thing. For example, you go to autonomous vehicles and say, hey, look, if we could wave a wand and every car on the road today would be an autonomous vehicle, we'd probably save, we'd probably go from 40,000 deaths in the US per, you know, year to, you know, maybe a thousand or 2000. And you're like, you're shaving 38,000 lives a year, in doing this. It's a good thing. And, you know, it will have a positive vector on gridlocks and for climate change and all the rest of the stuff.And you go, okay, that replacement, yes, we have to navigate truck jobs and all the rest, but that replacement's good. But I think a lot of it is going to end up being, you know, kind of, various forms of amplification. Like if you get to journalists, you go, oh, it'll help me ask, figure out which interesting questions to add.Not because it'll just go here, here's your script to ask questions. But you can get better information to prep your thinking on it.Eric: Yeah. I'm glad you brought up like the self-driving car case and, you know, you're, are you still on the board of Aurora?Reid: I am.Eric: I've, you know, I covered Uber, so I was in their self-driving cars very early, and they made a lot of promises. Lyft made a lot of promises.I mean, I feel like part of my excitement about this sort of generative AI movement is that it feels like it doesn't require completeness in the same way that self-driving cars do. You know? And that, that, that's been a barrier to self-driving cars. On the flip side, you know, sometimes we sort of wave away the inaccuracy and then we say, you know, we sort of manage it.I think that's what we were sort of talking about earlier. You imagine it in some of the completeness that could come. So I guess the question here is just do you think, what I'm calling the completeness problem. I guess just the idea that it needs to be sort of fully capable will be an issue with the large language models or do you think you have this sort of augmented model where it could sort of stop now and still be extremely useful to much of society?Reid: I think it could stop now and be extremely useful. I've got line of sight on current technology for a tutor, for a doctor, for a bunch of other stuff. One of the things my partner and I wrote last year was that within five years, there's gonna be a co-pilot for every profession.The way to think about that is what professionals do. They process information, they take some kind of action. Sometimes that's generating other information, just like you see with Microsoft's co-pilot product for engineers. And what you can see happening with DallE and other image generation for graphic designers, you'll see this for every professional, that there will be a co-pilot on today's technology that can be built.That's really amazing. I do think that as you continue to make progress, you can potentially make them even more amazing, because part of what happened when you move from, you know, GPT3 to 3.5, which is all of a sudden it can write sonnets. Right? You didn't really know that it was gonna be able to write sonnets.That's giving people superpowers. Most people, including myself—I mean, look, I could write a sonnet if you gave me a couple of days and a lot of coffee and a lot of attempts to really try.Eric: But you wouldn't.Reid: You wouldn't. Yeah. But now I can go, oh, you know, I'd like to, to, um, write a sonnet about my friend Sam Altman.And I can go down and I can sit there and I can kind of type, you know, duh da, and I can generate, well, I don't like that one. Oh, but then I like this one, you know, and da da da. And, and that, that gives you superpowers. I mean, think about what you can do for writing, a whole variety of things with that. And that I think the more and more completeness is the word you are using is I think also a powerful thing. Even though what we have right now is amazing.Eric: Is GPT4 a big improvement over what we have? I assume you've seen a fair bit of unreleased, stuff. Like how hyped should we be about the improvement level?Reid: I have. I'm not really allowed to say very much about it cause, you know, part of the responsibilities of former board members and confidentiality. But I do think that it will be a nice—I think people will look at it and go, Ooh, that's cool. And it will be another iteration, another thing as amazing as ChatGPT has, and obviously that's kind of in the last few months. It's kind of taken the world by storm, opening up this vista of imagination and so forth.I think GPT4 will be another step forward where people will go, Ooh, that's, that, that's another cool thing. I think that's—can't be more specific than that, but watch this space cause it'll be cool.Eric: Throughout this conversation we've danced around this sort of artificial general intelligence question. starting with the discussion of Elon and the creation of eventually Open AI. I'm curious how close you think we are with AGI and this idea of a sort of, I mean, people define it so many different ways, you know, it's more sophisticated than humans in some tasks, you know, mini tasks, whatever.How, how do you think we're far from that? Or how, how, how do you see that playing out?Reid: Personally amongst a lot of the people who are in the field, I'm probably on the, we're-much-further-than-we-think stage. Now, some of that's because I've lived through this before with my undergraduate degree and the, you know, the pattern generally is, oh my God, we've gotten this computer to do this amazing thing that we thought was formally the provence of only these cognitive human beings.And it could do that. So then by the way, in 10 years it'll be solving new science problems like fusion and all the rest. And if you go back to the seventies, you saw that same dialogue. I mean, it, it's, it's an ongoing thing. Now we do have a more amazing set of cognitive capabilities than we did before, and there are some reasons to argue that it could be in a decade or two. Because you say, well, these large language models can enable coding and that coding can all, can then be self, reflective and generative, and that can then make something go. But when I look at the coding and how that works right now, it doesn't generate the kind of code that's like, oh, that's amazing new code.It helps with the, oh, I want to do a parser for quick sort, right? You know, like that kind of stuff. And it's like, okay, that's great. Or a systems integration use of an API or calling in an API for a spellchecker or whatever. Like it's really helpful stuff on engineers, but it's not like, oh my God, it's now inventing the new kind of training of large scale models techniques.And so I think even some of the great optimists will tell you of the great, like believers that it'll be soon and say there's one major invention. And the thing is, once you get to one major invention, is that one major invention? Is that three major inventions? Is it 10 major inventions?Like I think we are some number of major inventions away. I don't, I certainly don't think it's impossible to get there.Eric: Sorry. The major inventions are us human beings build, building things into the system or…?Reid: Yeah. Like for example, you know, can it do, like, for example, a classic, critique of a lot of large language models is can it do common sense reasoning.Eric: Gary Marcus is very…Reid: Exactly. Right. Exactly. And you know, the short answer right now is the large language models are approximating common sense reasoning.Now they're doing it in a powerful and interesting enough way that you're like, well, that's pretty useful. It's pretty helpful about what it's doing, but I agree that it's not yet doing all of that. And also you get problems like, you know, what are called one shot learning. Can you learn from one instance of it?Cause currently the training requires lots and lots of compute processing over days or in self play, can you have an accurate memory store that you update? Like for example, you say now fact X has happened, your entire world based on fact X. Look, there's a bunch of this stuff to all go.And the question is, is that one major invention is that, you know, five major inventions, and by the way, major inventions or major inventions even all the amazing stuff we've done over the last five to 10 years. Major inventions on major inventions. So I myself tend to be two things on the AGI one.I tend to think it's further than most people think. And I don't know if that further is it's 10 years versus five or 20 years versus 10 or 50 years versus 20. I don't, I don't really know.Eric: In your lifetime, do you think?Reid: It's possible, although I don't know. But let me give two other lenses I think on the AGI question cause the other thing that people tend to do is they tend to go, there's like this AI, which is technique machine learning, and there's totally just great, it's augmented intelligence and then there's AGI and who knows what happens with AGI.And you say, well first is AGI is a whole range of possible things. Like what if you said, Hey, I can build something that's the equivalent of a decent engineer or decent doctor, but to run it costs me $200 an hour and I have AGI? But it's $200 an hour. And you're like, okay, well that's cool and that means we can, we can get as many of them as we need. But it's expensive. And so it isn't like all of a sudden, you know, Terminator or you know, or inventing fusion or something like that is AGI and or a potential version of AGI. So what is AGI is the squishy thing that people then go, magic. The second thing is, the way that I've looked at the progress in the last five to eight years is we're building a set of iteratively better savants, right?It just like the chess player was a savant. Um, and, and the savants are interestingly different now. When does savant become a general intelligence and when might savant become a general super intelligence? I don't know. It's obviously a super intelligence already in some ways. Like for example, I wouldn't want to try to play, go against it and win, try to win.It's a super intelligence when it comes, right? But like okay, that's great cause in our perspective, having some savants like this that are super intelligence is really helpful to us. So, so the whole AGI discussion I think tends to go a little bit Hollywood-esque. You know, it's not terminator.Eric: I mean, there there is, there's a sort of argument that could be made. I mean, you know, humans are very human-centric about our beliefs and our intelligence, right? We don't have a theory of mind for other animals. It's very hard for us to prove that other species, you know, have some experience of consciousness like qualia or whatever.Reid: Very philosophically good use of a term by the way.Eric: Thank you. Um, I studied philosophy though. I've forgotten more than I remember. But, um, you know, I mean…Reid: Someday we'll figure out what it's like to be a bat. Probably not this time.Eric: Right, right, exactly. Is that, that's Nagel. If the machine's better than me at chess and go there, there's a level of I, you know, here I am saying it doesn't have an experience, but it, it's so much smarter than me in certain domains.I don't, I, the question is just like, it seems like humans are not capable of seeing what it's like to be a bat. So will we ever really be able to sort of convince ourselves that there's something that it's like to be, um, an AGI system?Reid: Well, I think the answer is um, yes, but it will require a bunch of sophistication. Like one of the things I think is really interesting about, um, as we anthropomorphize the world a little bit and I think some of this machine. Intelligence stuff will, will enable us to do that is, well what does it mean to understand X or, or, or, or no X or experience X or have qualia or whatever else.And right now what we do is we say, well it's some king of shadowy image from being human. So we tend to undercount like animals intelligence. And people tend to be surprised like, look, you know, some animals mate for life and everything else, they clearly have a theory of the world and it's clearly stuff we're doing.We go, ah, they don't have the same kind of consciousness we do. And you're like, well they certainly don't have the same kind of consciousness, but we're not doing a very good job of studying like what the, where it's similar in order it's different. And I think we're gonna need to broaden that out outcome to start saying, well, when you compare us and an eagle or a dolphin or a whale or a chimpanzee or a lion, you know, what are the similarities and and differences?And how this works. And um, and I think that will also then be, well, what happens when it's a silicon substrate? You know? Do we, do we think that consciousness requires a biological substrate? If so, why? Um, and, you know, part of how, of course we get to understand, um, each other's consciousness as we, we get this depth of experience.Where I realize is it isn't, you're just a puppet.Eric:  [laughs] I am, I am just a puppet.Reid: Well, we're, we're talking to each other through Riverside, so, you know, who knows, right. You know, deep fakes and all that.Eric: The AI's already ahead of you. You know, I'm just, it's already, no.Reid: Yeah. I think we're gonna have to get more sophisticated on that question now.I think it's, it's too trivial to say because it can mimic language in particularly interesting ways. And it says, yes, I'm conscious that that makes it conscious. Like that's not, that's not what we use as an instance. And, and part of it is like, do you understand the like part of how we've come to understand each other's consciousness is we realize that we experience things in similar ways.We feel joy in similar, we feel pain in similar ways and that kinda stuff. And that's part of how we begin to understand. And I think it'll be really good that this may kick off kind of us being slightly less kind of call it narcissistically, anthropocentric in this and a broader concept as we look at this.Eric: You know, I was talking to my therapist the other day and I was saying, you know, oh, I did this like kind gesture, but I didn't feel like some profound, like, I don't, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I did it. It felt like I did the right thing should, you know, shouldn't I feel like more around it?And you know, her perspective was much more like, oh, what matters is like doing the thing, not sort of your internal states about it. Which to me would, would go to the, if the machine can, can do all the things we expect from sort of a caring type type machine. Like why do we need to spend all this time when we don't even expect that of humans to always feel the right feelings.Reid: I totally agree with you. Look, I think the real question is what you do. Now that being said, part of how we predict what you do is that, you know, um, you may not have like at that moment gone, haha, I think of myself as really good cause I've done this kind thing. Which by the way, might be a better human thing as opposed to like, I'm doing this cause I'm better than most people.Eric: Right.Reid: Yeah, but it's the pattern in which you engage in these things and part of the feelings and so forth is cause that creates a kind of a reliability of pattern of do you see other people? Do you have the aspiration to have, not just yourself, but the people around you leading better and improving lives.And obviously if that's the behavior that we're seeing from these things, then that's a lot of it. And the only question is, what's that forward looking momentum on it? And I think amongst humans that comes to an intention, a model of the world and so forth. You know, amongst, amongst machines that mean just maybe the no, no, we're aligned.Well, like, we've done a really good alignment with human progress.Eric: Do you think there will be a point in time where it's like an ethical problem to unplug it? Like I think of like a bear, right? Like a bear is dangerous. You know, there are circumstances where pretty comfortable. Killing the bear,But if the bear like hasn't actually done anything, we've taken it under our care. Like we don't just like shoot bears at zoos, you know? Do you think there's a point where like, and it costs us money to sustain the bear at a zoo, do you think there are cases where we might say, oh man, now there's an ethical question around unpluggingReid: I think it's a when, not an if.Eric: Yeah.Reid: Right? I mean, it may be a when, once again, just like AGI, that's a fair way's out. But it's a when, not an if. And by the way, I think that's again, part of the progress that we make because we think about like, how should we be treating it? Because, you know, like for example, if you go back a hundred, 150 years, the whole concept of animal rights doesn't exist in humans.You know, it's like, hey, you wanna, you want to torture animal X to death, you know, like you're queer, but you're, you're, you're allowed to do that. That's an odd thing for you to do. And maybe it's kind of like, like distasteful, like grungy bad in some way, but , you know, it's like, okay. Where's now you're like, oh, that person is, is like going out to try to go torture animals! We should like get them in an institution, right? Like, that's not okay. You know, what is that further progress for the rights and lives? And I think it will ultimately come to things that we think are, when it gets to kind of like things that have their own agency and have their own consciousness and sets of existence.We should be including all of that in some, in some grand or elevated, you know, kind of rights conceptions.Eric: All right, so back back to my listeners who, you know, wanna know where to invest and make money off this and, you know.Reid: [laughs] It isn't from qualia and consciousness. Oh, wait.Eric: Who do you think are the key players? The key players in the models. Then obviously there are more sort of, I don't know if we're calling them vertical solutions or product oriented or whatever, however you think about them.But starting with the models, like who do you see as sort of the real players right now? Are you counting out a Google or do you think they'll still, you know, sort of show?Reid: Oh no. I think Google will show up. And obviously, you know, Open AI, Microsoft has done a ton of stuff. I co-founded Inflection last year with Mustafa Suleyman. We have a just amazing team and I do see a lot of teams, so I'm.Eric: And that's to build sort of the foundational…Reid: Yeah, they're gonna, well, they're building their own models and they're gonna build some things off those models.We haven't really said what they are yet. But that's obviously going to be kind of new models. Adept, another Greylock investment building its own models, Character is building its own models, Anthropic is building its own models. And Anthropic is, you know, Dario and the crew is smart folks from Open AI, they're, they're doing stuff within a kind of a similar research program that Open AI is doing.And so I think those are the ones that I probably most track.Eric: Character's an interesting case and you know, we're still learning more about that company. You know, I was first to report they're looking to raise 250 million. My understanding is that what's interesting is they're building the models, but then for a particular use case, right?Or like, it's really a question of leverage or like, do people need to build the models to be competitive or do you think there will be... can you build a great business on top of Stability or Open AI or do you need to do it yourself?Reid: I think you can, but the way you do it is you can't say it's cause I have unique access to the model. It has to be, you know, I have a business that has network effects or I'm well integrated in enterprise, or I have another deep stack of technology that I'm bringing into it. It can't just be, I'm a lightweight front end to it because then other people can be the lightweight front end.So you can build great businesses. I think with it, I do think that people will both build businesses off, you know, things like the Open AI APIs and I think people will also train models. Because I think one of the things that will definitely happen is a lot of… not just will large models be built in ways that are interesting and compelling, but I think a bunch of smaller models will be built that are specifically tuned and so forth.And there's all kinds of reasons. Everything from you can build them to do something very specific, but also like inference cost, does it, does it run on a low compute or low power footprint? You know, et cetera, et cetera. You know, AI doctor, AI tutor, um, you know, duh and on a cell phone. And, um, and so, you know, I think like all of that, I think the short answer to this is allEric: Right. Do you think we are in a compute arms race still, or do you, do you think this is gonna continue where it's just if you can raise a billion dollars to, to buy sort of com GPU access basically from Microsoft or Amazon or Google, you're, you're gonna be sort of pretty far ahead? Or how do you think about that sort of the money, the money and computing rates shaping up?Reid: So I kind of think about two. There's kind of two lines of trends. There's one line, which is the larger and larger models, which by the way, you say, well, okay, so does the scale compute and one x flop goes to two x flops, and does your performance function go up by that?And it doesn't have to go up by a hundred percent or, or two x or plus one x. It could go up by 25%, but sometimes that really matters. Coding doctors, you know, legal, other things. Well, it's like actually, in fact, it, even though it's twice as expensive, a 25% increase in, you know, twice as expensive of compute, the 25% increase in performance is worth it. And I think you then have a large scale model, like a set of things that are kind of going along need to be using the large scale models.Then I think there's a set of things that don't have that need. And for example, that's one of the reasons I wasn't really surprised at all by the profusion of image generation, cuz those are, you know, generally speaking, trainable for a million to $10 million. I think there's gonna be a range of those.I think, you know, maybe someone will figure out how to do, you know, a hundred-million version and once they figured out how to do a hundred-million dollar version, someone also figured out how to do the 30-million version of that hundred-million dollar version. And there's a second line going on where all of these other smaller models will fit into interesting businesses. And then I think a lot of people will either deploy an open source model that they're using themselves, train their own model, get a special deal with, like a model provider or something else as a way of doing it.And so I think the short answer is there will be both, and you have to be looking at this from what's the specific that this business is doing. You know, the classic issues of, you know, how do you go to market, how do you create a competitive mode? What are the things that give you real, enduring value that people will pay for in some way in a business?All of the, those questions still apply, but the, but, but there's gonna be a panoply of answers, depending on the different models of how it playsEric: Do you think spend on this space in terms of computing will be larger in ‘24 and then larger in 25?Reid: Yes. Unquestionably,Eric: We're on the, we're still on the rise.Reid: Oh, yes. Unquestionably.Eric: That's great for a certain company that you're on the board of.Reid: Well look, and it's not just great for Microsoft. There are these other ones, you know, AWS, Google, but…Eric: Right. It does feel like Amazon's somewhat sleepy here. Do you have any view there?Reid: Well, I think they have begun to realize, what I've heard from the market is that they've begun to realize that they should have some stuff here. I don't think they've yet gotten fully underway. I think they are trying to train some large language models themselves. I don't know if they've even realized that there is a skill to training those large language models, cause like, you know, sometimes people say, well, you just turn on and you run the, run the large language model, the, the training regime that you read in the papers and then you make stuff.We've seen a lot of failures, of people trying to build these things and failing to do so, so, you know, there's, there's an expertise that you learn in doing it as well. And so I think—Eric: Sorry to interrupt—if Microsoft is around Open AI and Google is around Anthropic, is Amazon gonna be around stability? That's sort of the question that I'll put out to the world. I don't know if you have.Reid: I certainly don't know anything. And in the case of, you know, very, very, very, um, a politely said, um, Anthropic and OpenAI have scale with huge models. Stability is all small models, so, hmm.Eric: Yeah. Interesting. I, I don't think I've asked you sort of directly about sort of stepping off the Open AI board. I mean, I would assume you would prefer to be on the board or…?Reid: Yeah. Well, so look, it was a funny thing because, um, you know, I was getting more and more requests from various Greylock portfolio companies cause we've been investing in AI stuff for over five years. Like real AI, not just the, we call it “software AI”, but actual AI companies.For a while and I was getting more and more requests to do it and I was like oh, you know, what I did before was, well here's the channel. Like here is the guy who, the person who handles the API request goes, go talk to them. Like, why can't you help me? I was like, well, I'm on the board.I have a responsibility to not be doing that. And then I realized that, oh s**t, it's gonna look more and more. Um, I might have a real conflict of interest here, even as we're really carefully navigating it and, and it was really important cause you know various forces are gonna kind of try to question the frankly, super deep integrity of Open AI.It's like, look, I, Sam, I think it might be best even though I remain a fan, an ally, um, to helping, I think it may be best for Open AI. And generally to step off a board to avoid a conflict of interest. And we talked about a bunch and said, okay, fine, we'll do it. And you know, I had dinner with Sam last night and most of what we were talking about was kind of the range of what's going on and what are the important things that open eyes need to solve? And how should we be interfacing with governments so that governments understand? What are the key things that, that, that should be in the mix? And what great future things for humanity are really important not to fumble in the, in the generally, like everyone going, oh, I'm worrying. And then I said, oh, I got a question for you. And he's like, yeah, okay. I'm like, now that I'm no longer on the board, could I ask you to personally look at unblocking, my portfolio company's thing to the API? Because I couldn't ever ask you that question before. Cause I would be unethical. But now I'm not on the board, so can I ask the question?He's like, sure, I'll look into it. I'm like, great, right? And that's the substance of it, which I never would've done before. But that wasn't why, I mean, obviously love Sam and the Open AI team.Eric: The fact that you're sort of a Democratic super donor was that in the calculus? Or, because I mean, we are seeing Republican… well, I didn't think that at all coming into this conversation, but just hearing what you're saying. Looking at it now, it feels like Republicans are like trying to find something to be angry about.Reid: WellEric: These AI things, I don't quite…Reid: The unfortunate thing about the, the most vociferous of the republican media ecosystem is they just invent fiction, like their hallucination full out.Eric: Right.Reid: I mean, it just like, I mean, the amount of just like, you know, 2020 election denial and all the rest, which you can tell from having their text released from Fox News that like, here are these people who are on camera going on where you have a question about, you know, what happened in the election.And they're texting each other going, oh my God, this is insane. This is a coup, you know, da da da. And you're like, okay. Anyway, so, so all like, they don't require truth to generate. Heat and friction. So that was, wasn't that no, no. It's just really, it's kind of the question of, when you're serving on a board, you have to understand what your mission is very deeply and, and to navigate it.And part of the 501(C)(3) boards is to say, look, obviously I contribute by being a board member and helping and navigate various circumstances and all the rest. And, you know, I can continue to be a counselor and an aid to the company not being on the board. And one of the things I think is gonna be very important for the next X years, for the entire world to know is that open AI takes its ethics super seriously,Eric: Right.Reid: As do I.Eric: Does that fit with having to invest? I mean, there are lots of companies that do great things. They have investors. I believe in companies probably more than personally I believe in charities to accomplish things. But the duality of OpenAI is extremely confusing. Like, was Greylock, did Greylock itself invest a lot or you invested early as an angel?Reid: I was the founding investor as an angel, as a, as a program related investment from my foundation. Because like I started, I was among the first people to make a philanthropic donation to Open AI. Just straight out, you know, here's a grant by Wednesday, then Sam and Crew came up with this idea for doing this commercial lp, and I said, look, I, I'll help and I have no idea if this will be an interesting economic investment.They didn't have a business plan, they didn't have a revenue plan, they didn't have a product plan. I brought it to Greylock. We talked about it and they said, look, we think this will be possibly a really interesting technology, but you know, part of our responsibility to our LPs, which you know, includes a whole bunch of universities and else we invest in businesses and there is no business plan.Eric: So is that the Khosla did? Khosla's like we invested wild things. Anyway, we don't care. That's sort of what Vinod wants to project anyway, so yeah.Reid: You know, yes, that's exactly the same. So I put them 50 and then he put in a, I think he was the only venture fund investing in that round. But like, there was no business plan, there was no revenue model, there was no go to market…Eric: Well, Sam basically says, someday we're gonna have AGI and we're gonna ask you how to make a bunch of money? Like, is he, that's a joke, right? Or like, how much is he joking?Reid: It's definitely, it's not a 100% joke and it's not a 0% joke. It's a question around, the mission is really about how do we get to AGI or as close to AGI as useful and to make it useful for humanity. And by the way, the closer you get to AGI, the more interesting technologies fall out, including the ability to have the technology itself solve various problems.So if you said, we have a business model problem, it's like, well ask the thing. Now, if you currently sit down and ask, you know, ChatGPT what the business model is, you'll get something pretty vague and generic that wouldn't get you a meeting with a venture capitalist because it's like “we will have ad supported”... you're like, okay. Right.Eric: Don't you have a company that's trying to do pitch decks now or something?Reid: Oh yeah, Tome. No, and it's awesome, but by the way, that's the right kind of thing. Because, because what it does is you say, hey, give me a set of tiles, together with images and graphics and things arguing X and then you start working with the AI to improve it. Say, oh, I need a slide that does this and I need a catchier headline here, and, and you know, da da da.And then you, and you know, obviously you can edit it yourself and so on. So that's the kind of amplification. Now you don't say, give me my business model, right?Eric: You're like, I have this business model, like articulate it.Reid: Exactly.Eric: Um, I, politics, I mean, I feel like we, we live through such like a… you know what I mean, I feel like Silicon Valley, you know, has like, worked on PE everybody be able to, you know, everybody can get along. There's sort of competition, but then you sort of still stay close to any, everybody like, you, you especially like are good, you know, you you are in the PayPal mafia with a lot of people who are fairly very conservative now.The Trump years broke that in some ways and particular, and that, yeah. So how did you maintain those relationships?I see headlines that say you're friends with Peter Thiel. What is, what's the state of your friendship with Peter Thiel and how, how did it survive?I guess the Trump years is the question.Reid: Well, I think the thing that Peter and I learned when we were undergraduate at Stanford together is it's very important to… cause we, you know, I was a lefty. He was a righty. We'd argue a lot to maintain conversation and to argue things. It's difficult to argue on things that feel existential and it's ethically challenged is things around Trump. You know, the, you know, Trump feels to be a corrosive asset upon our democracy that is disfiguring us and staining us to the world. And so to have a dispassionate argument about it is, it's challenging. And it ends up with some uneven ground and statements like, I can't believe you're f*****g saying that, as part of dialogue.But on the other hand, you know, maintaining dialogue is I think part of how we make progress as society. And I basically sympathetic to people as long as they are legitimately and earnestly and committed to the dialogue and discussion of truth between them and committed otherwise.And so, you know, there are folks from the PayPal years that I don't really spend much time talking to, right?. There are others that I do because that conversation about discovering who we are and who we should be is really important. And you can't allow your own position to be the definer.It almost goes back to what we were talking about, the AI side, which is make sure you're talking to other smart people who challenge you to make sure you're doing the right thing. And that's, I think, a good general life principle.Eric: Well, you know, I feel like part of what my dream of like the Silicon Valley world is that we have these, you know, we have, Twitter is like the open forum. We're having sincere sort of on the level debates, but then you see something like, you know, the…Reid: You don't think it's the modern Seinfeld show I got? Well, not Seinfeld, um, Springer, Jerry Springer.Eric: Yeah, that's, yeah. Right. But I just feel like the sort of like, if the arguments are on the level issue is my problem with some of the sort of, I don't know, Peter Theil arguments, that he's not actually publicly advancing his beliefs in a sincere way, and that that's almost more corrosive.Reid: Oh, that's totally corrosive. And as much as that's happening, it's terrible. And that's one of the things that I, um, you know, in conversations I have, I push people including Peter on a lot.Eric: Yeah. Are you still, are you still gonna donate a lot, or what was, what's your, are you as animated about the Democratic party and working through sort of donor channels at the moment?Reid: Well, what I would say is I think that we have a responsibility to try to make, like with, it's kind of the Spider-Man ethics. With power comes responsibility, with wealth comes responsibility, and you have to try to help contribute to… what is the better society that we should be living and navigating in?And so I stay committed on that basis. And I do think there are some really amazing people in the administration. I think Biden is kind of a good everyday guy.Eric: Yeah.Reid: In fact, good for trying to build bridges in the country. I think there are people like Secretary Raimondo and Secretary Buttigieg who are thinking intensely about technology and what should be done in the future.And I think there's other folks now, I think there's a bunch of folks on the democratic side that I think are more concerned with their demagoguery than they are with the right thing in society. And so I tend to be, you know, unsympathetic to, um, you know…Eric: I know, Michael Moritz, it's Sequoia, that oped sort of criticizing San Francisco government, you know, and there's, there's certainly this sort of woke critique of the Democratic Party. I'm curious if there's a piece of it sort of outside of he governance that you're…Reid: Well, the interesting thing about woke is like, well, we're anti woke. And you're like, well, don't you think being awake is a good thing? I mean, it's kind of a funny thing. Eric: And sort of the ill-defined nature of woke is like key to the allegation because it's like, what's the substantive thing you're saying there? And you know, I mean we we're seeing Elon tweet about race right now, which is sort of terrifying anyway.Reid: Yeah. I think the question on this stuff is to try to say, look, people have a lot of different views and a lot of different things and some of those views are, are bad, especially in kind of minority and need to be advocated against in various… part of why we like democracy is to have discourse.I'm very concerned about the status of public discourse. And obviously most people tend to focus that around social media, which obviously has some legitimate things that we need to talk about. But on the other hand, they don't track like these, like opinion shows on, like, Fox News that represent themselves implicitly as news shows and saying, man, this is the following thing.Like there's election fraud in 2020, and then when they're sued for the various forms of deformation, they say, we're just an entertainment show. We don't do anything like news. So we have that within that we are already struggling on a variety of these issues within society. and we, I think we need to sort them all out.Eric: Is there anything on the AI front that we missed or that you wanted to make sure to talk about? I think we covered so much great ground. Reid: And, and we can do it again, right. You know, it's all, it's great.Eric: I love it. This was all the things you're interested in and I'm interested in, so great. I really enjoyed having you on the podcast and thanks.Reid: Likewise. And, you know, I follow the stuff you do and it's, it's, it's cool and keep doing it. 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For the first episode of the Newcomer podcast, I sat down with Reid Hoffman — the PayPal mafia member, LinkedIn co-founder, Greylock partner, and Microsoft board member. Hoffman had just stepped off OpenAI's board of directors. Hoffman traced his interest in artificial intelligence back to a conversation with Elon Musk.“This kicked off, actually, in fact, with a dinner with Elon Musk years ago,” Hoffman said. Musk told Hoffman that he needed to dive into artificial intelligence during conversations about a decade ago. “This is part of how I operate,” Hoffman remembers. “Smart people from my network tell me things, and I go and do things. And so I dug into it and I'm like, ‘Oh, yes, we have another wave coming.'”This episode of Newcomer is brought to you by VantaSecurity is no longer a cost center — it's a strategic growth engine that sets your business apart. That means it's more important than ever to prove you handle customer data with the utmost integrity. But demonstrating your security and compliance can be time-consuming, tedious, and expensive. Until you use Vanta.Vanta's enterprise-ready Trust Management Platform empowers you to:* Centralize and scale your security program* Automate compliance for the most sought-after frameworks, including SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR* Earn and maintain the trust of customers and vendors alikeWith Vanta, you can save up to 400 hours and 85% of costs. Win more deals and enable growth quickly, easily, and without breaking the bank.For a limited time, Newcomer listeners get $1,000 off Vanta. Go to vanta.com/newcomer to get started.Why I Wanted to Talk to Reid Hoffman & What I Took AwayHoffman is a social network personified. Even his journey to something as wonky as artificial intelligence is told through his connections with people. In a world of algorithms and code, Hoffman is upfront about the extent to which human connections decide Silicon Valley's trajectory. (Of course they are paired with profound technological developments that are far larger than any one person or network.)When it comes to the rapidly developing future powered by large language models, a big question in my mind is who exactly decides how these language models work? Sydney appeared in Microsoft Bing and then disappeared. Microsoft executives can dispatch our favorite hallucinations without public input. Meanwhile, masses of images can be gobbled up without asking their creators and then the resulting image generation tools can be open-sourced to the world. It feels like AI super powers come and go with little notice. It's a world full of contradictions. There's constant talk of utopias and dystopias and yet startups are raising conventional venture capital financing.The most prominent player in artificial intelligence — OpenAI — is a non-profit that raised from Tiger Global. It celebrates its openness in its name and yet competes with companies whose technology is actually open-sourced. OpenAI's governance structure and priorities largely remain a mystery. Finally, unlike tech's conservative billionaires who throw their money into politics, in the case of Hoffman, here is a tech overlord that I seem to mostly agree with politically. I wanted to know what that would be like. Is it just good marketing? And where exactly is his heart and political head at right now?I thought he delivered. I didn't feel like he was dodging my questions, even in a world where maintaining such a wide network requires diplomacy. Hoffman seemed eager and open — even if he started to bristle at what he called my “edgy words.”Some Favorite QuotesWe covered a lot of ground in our conversation. We talked about AI sentience and humans' failures to identify consciousness within non-human beings. We talked about the coming rise in AI cloud compute spending and how Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are positioned in the AI race.Hoffman said he had one major condition for getting involved in OpenAI back in the early days when Musk was still on board.“My price for participation was to ask Elon to stop saying the word “robocalypse,” Hoffman told me. “Because I thought that the problem was it's very catchy and it evokes fear.”I asked Hoffman why he thought Musk got involved in artificial intelligence in the first place when Musk seems so worried about how it might develop. Why get the ball rolling down the hill at all, I wondered?Hoffman replied that many people in the field of artificial intelligence had “messiah complexes.”“It's the I am the one who must bring this — Prometheus, the fire to humanity,” Hoffman said. “And you're like, ‘Okay, I kind of think it should be us versus an individual.'” He went on, “Now, us can't be 8 billion people — us is a small group. But I think, more or less, you see the folks who are steering with a moral compass try to say, how do I get at least 10 to 15 people beyond myself with their hands on the steering wheel in deep conversations in order to make sure you get there? And then let's make sure that we're having the conversations with the right communities.”I raised the possibility that this merely suggested oligarchic control of artificial intelligence rather than dictatorial control. We also discussed Hoffman's politics, including his thoughts on Joe Biden and “woke” politics. I asked him about the state of his friendship with fellow PayPal mafia member Peter Thiel. “I basically am sympathetic to people as long as they are legitimately and earnestly committed to the dialogue and discussion of truth between them and not committed otherwise,” Hoffman said. “There are folks from the PayPal years that I don't really spend much time talking to. There are others that I do continue because that conversation about discovering who we are and who we should be is really important. And you can't allow your own position to be the definer.”I suggested that Thiel's public views sometimes seemed insincere.“Oh, that's totally corrosive,” Hoffman said. “And as much as that's happening, it's terrible. And that's one of the things that in conversations I have, I push people, including Peter, on a lot.”Give it a listen.Find the PodcastRead the TranscriptEric: Reid, thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm very excited for this conversation. You know, I'm getting ready for my own AI conference at the end of this month, so hopefully this is sort of a prep by the end of this conversation, we'll all be super smart and ready for that. I feel like there've been so many rounds of sort of AI as sort of the buzzword of the day.This clearly seems the hottest. When did you get into this moment of it? I mean, obviously you just stepped off the Open AI board. You were on that board. Like how, when did you start to see this movement that we're experiencing right now coming.Reid: Well, it's funny because my undergraduate major was artificial intelligence and cognitive science. So I've, I've been around the hoop for multiple waves for a long time and I think this kicked off actually, in fact, with a dinner with Elon Musk years ago. You know, 10-ish years ago, Elon and I would have dinner about once a quarter and he's like, well, are you paying attention to this AI stuff?And I'm like, well, I majored in it and you know, I know about this stuff. He's like, no, you need to get back involved. And I was like, all right. This is part of how I operate is smart people from my network tell me things and I go and do things. And so I dug into it and I went, oh yes, we have another wave coming.And this was probably about seven or eight years ago, when I, when I saw the beginning of the wave or the seismic event. Maybe it was a seismic event out at sea and I was like, okay, there's gonna be a tsunami here and we should start getting ready cause the tsunami is actually gonna be amazingly great and interesting.Eric: And that—is that the beginning of Open AI?Reid: Open AI is later. What I did is I went and made connections with the kind of the heads of every AI lab and major company because I concluded that I thought that the AI revolution will be primarily driven by large companies initially because of the scale compute requirements.And so, you know, talked to Demis Hassabis, met Mustafa Suleyman, talked to Yann LeCun, talked to Jeff Dean, you know, all these kind of folks and kind of, you know, built all that. And then it was later in conversations with Sam and Elon that I said, look, we need to do something that's a for pro humanity. Not just commercial effort. And my price for participation, cause I thought it was a great idea, but my price for participation was to ask Elon to stop saying the word robocalypse. Because I thought that the problem was that it's very catchy and it evokes fear. And actually, in fact, one of the things I think about this whole area is that it's so much more interesting and has so much amazing opportunity for humanity.A little bit like, I don't know if you saw the Atlantic article I wrote that we evolve ourselves through technology and I'm, you know, going to be doing some writings around describing AI as augmented intelligence versus artificial intelligence. And I wanted to kind of build that positive, optimistic case that I think is the higher probability that I think we can shape towards and so forth.So it's like, okay, I'm in, but no more Robocalypse.Eric: I appreciate the ultimate sort of network person that you tell the story through people. I always appreciate when the origin stories of technology actually come through the human beings. With Elon in particular, I'm sort of confused by his position because it seems like he's very afraid of AI.And if that's the case, why would you want to, like, do anything to sort of get the ball rolling down the hill? Like, isn't there a sort of just like, stay away from it, man, if you think it's so bad. How do you see his thinking? And I'm sure it's evolved.Reid: Well, I think his instinct for the good and the challenging of this is he tends to think AI will only be good if I'm the one who's in control.Eric: Sort of, yeah.Reid: Yeah. And this is actually somewhat replete within the modern AI field. Not everybody but this. And Elon is a public enough figure that I think, you know, making this comment of him is not talking at a school.Other people would, there's a surprising number of Messiah complexes in the field of AI, and, and it's the, I am the one who must bring this, you know, Prometheus, you know, the Fire to humanity. And you're like, okay, I kind of think it should be us, right? Versus an individual. Now us can't be 8 billion people, us as a small group, but I think more or less you see the, the folks who are steering with a moral compass try to say, how do I get at least 10 to 15 people beyond myself with their hands on the steering wheel in deep conversations in order to make sure you get there and then let, let's make sure that we're having the conversations with the right communities.Like if you say, well, is this going to, you know, institutionalize, ongoing, um, you know, power structures or racial bias, something else? Well, we're talking to the people to make sure that we're going to minimize that, especially over time and navigate it as a real issue. And so those are the, like, that's the kind of anti Messiah complex, which, which is more or less the efforts that I tend to get involved in.Eric: Right. At least sort of oligarchy, of AI control instead of just dictatorship of it.Reid: Well, yeah, and it depends a little bit, even on oligarchy, look, things are built by small numbers of people. It's just a fact, right? Like, there aren't more than, you know, a couple of founders, maybe maximum five in any, any particular thing. There is, you know, there's reasons why. When you have a construction project, you have a head of construction, right?Et cetera. The important thing is to make sure that's why you have, why you have a CEO, you have a board of directors. That's why you have, you know, you say, well, do we have the right thing where a person is accountable to a broader group? And that broader group feels their governance responsibility seriously.So oligarchy is a—Eric: a chargedReid: is a charged word. And I,Eric: There's a logic to it. I'm not, I'm not using it to say it doesn't make sense that you want the people to really understand it around, around it. Um, I mean, specifically with Open AI, I mean, you, you just stepped off the board. You're also on the board of Microsoft, which is obviously a very significant player.In this future, I mean, it's hard to be open. I get a little frustrated with the “open” in “Open AI” because I feel like there's a lot that I don't understand. I'm like, maybe they should change the name a little bit, but is it still a charity in your mind? I mean, it's obviously raised from Tiger Global, the ultimate prophet maker.Like, how should we think about the sort of core ambitions of Open AI?Reid: Well, um, one, the board I was on was a fine one and they've been very diligent about making sure that all of the controls, including for the subsidiary company are from the 501(C)(3) and diligent to its mission, which is staffed by people on the 501(C)(3) board with the responsibilities of being on a 5 0 1 board, which is being in service of the mission, not doing, you know, private inurement and other kinds of things.And so I actually think it is fundamentally still a 501(C)(3). The challenge is if you kind of say, you look at this and say, well, in order to be a successful player in the modern scale AI, you need to have billions of dollars of compute. Where do you get those billions of dollars? Because, you know, the foundations and the philanthropy industry is generally speaking bad at tech and bad at anything other than little tiny checks in tech.And so you said, well, it's really important to do this. So part of what I think, you know, Sam and that group of folks came up with this kind of clever thing to say, well, look, we're about beneficial AI, we're about AI for humanity. We're about making an, I'll make a comment on “open” in a second, but we are gonna generate some commercially valuable things.What if we struck a commercial deal? So you can have the commercial things or you can share the commercial things. You invest in us in order to do this, and then we make sure that the AI has the right characteristics. And then the “open”, you know, all short names have, you know, some simplicities to them.The idea is open to the world in terms of being able to use it and benefit from it. It doesn't mean the same thing as open source because AI is actually one of those things where opening, um, where you could do open source, you could actually be creating something dangerous. As a modern example, last year, Open AI deliberately… DALL·E 2 was ready four months before it went out. I know cause I was playing with it. They did the four months to do safety training and the kind of safety training is, well, let's make sure that individuals can't be libeled. Let's make sure you can't create as best we can, child sexual material. Let's make sure you can't do revenge porn and we'll serve it through the API and we'll make it unchangeable on that.And then the open source people come out and they go do whatever you want and then wow, you get all this crazy, terrible stuff. So “open” is openness of availability, but still with safety and still with, kind of call it the pro-human controls. And that's part of what OpenAI means in this.Eric: I wrote in sort of a mini essay in the newsletter about, like tech fatalism and it fits into your sort of messiah complex that you're talking about, if I'm a young or new startup entrepreneur, it's like this is my moment if I hold back, you know, there's a sense that somebody else is gonna do it too. This isn't necessarily research. Some of the tools are findable, so I need to do it. If somebody's going to, it's easy if you're using your own personhood to say, I'm better than that guy! Even if I have questions about it, I should do it. So that, I think we see that over and over again. Obviously the stakes with AI, I think we both agree are much larger.On the other hand, with AI, there's actually, in my view, been a little bit more restraint. I mean, Google has been a little slower. Facebook seems a little worried, like, I don't know. How do you agree with that sort of view of tech fatalism? Is there anything to be done about it or it's just sort of—if it's possible, it's gonna happen, so the best guy, the best team should do it?Or, or how do you think about that sense of inevitability on if it's possible, it'll be built?Reid: Well, one thing is you like edgy words, so what you describe is tech fatalism, I might say as something more like tech inevitability or tech destiny. And part of it is what, I guess what I would say is for example, we are now in a AI moment and era. There's global competition for it. It's scale compute.It's not something that even somebody like a Google or someone else can kind of have any kind of, real ball control on. But the way I look at it is, hey, look, there's, there's utopic outcomes and dystopic outcomes and it's within our control to steer it. Um, and even to steer it at speed, even under competition because.For example, obviously the general discourse within media is, oh my God, what's happening with the data and what's gonna happen with the bias and what's gonna happen with the crazy conversations, with Bing Chat and all the rest of this stuff. And you're like, well, what am I obsessed about? I'm obsessed about the fact that I have line of sight to an AI tutor and an AI doctor on every cell phone.And think about if you delay that, whatever number of years you delay that, what your human cost is of delaying that, right? And it's like, how do we get that? And for example, people say, wow, the real issue is that Bing chat model is gonna go off the rails and have a drunken cocktail party conversation because it's provoked to do so and can't run away from the person who's provoking it.Uh, and you say, well, is that the real issue? Or is it a real issue? Let's make sure that as many people as we can have access to that AI doctor have access to that AI tutor that where, where we can, where not only, you know, cause obviously technology cause it's expensive initially benefits elites and people are rich.And by the way, that's a natural way of how our capitalist system and all the rest works. But let's try to get it to everyone else as quickly as possible, right?Eric: I a hundred percent agree with that. So I don't want any of my sort of, cynical take like, oh my God, this version.I'd also extend it, you know, I think you're sort of referencing maybe the Sydney situation where you have Kevin Rus in New York Times, you know, communicating with Bing's version of ChatGPT and sort of finding this character who's sort of goes by Sydney from the origin story.And Ben Thompson sort of had a similar experience. And I would almost say it's sad for the world to be deprived of that too. You know, there's like a certain paranoia, it's like, it's like, oh, I wanna meet this sort of seemingly intelligent character. I don't know. What do you make of that whole episode? I mean, people really, I mean, Ben Thompson, smart tech writers really latched onto this as something that they found moving.I don't know. Is there anything you take away from that saga and do you think we'll see those sort of, I don't know, intelligent characters again,Reid: Well for sure. I think 2023 will be at least the first year of the so-called chatbot. Not just because of ChatGPT. And I think that we will have a bunch of different chat bots. I think we'll have chatbots that are there to be, you know, entertainment companions, witty dialogue participants.I think we'll have chatbots that are there to be information like Insta, Wikipedia, kind of things. I think we'll have chatbots that are there to just have someone to talk to. So I think there'll be a whole, whole range of things. And I think we will have all that experience.And I think part of the thing is to say, look, what are the parameters by which you should say the bots should absolutely not do X. And it's fine if these people want a bot that's like, you know, smack talking and these people want something that you know, goes, oh heck. Right?You know, like, what's, what's the range of that? And obviously children get in the mix and, and the questions around things that we already encounter a lot with search, which is like could a chat bot enable self-harm in a way that would be really bad?Let's really try to make sure that someone who's depressed doesn't figure out a way to harm themselves either with search or with chat bots.Eric: Is there a psychologically persuasive, so it's not just the information provided, it's the sense that they might be like walking you towards something less serious.Reid: And they are! This is the thing that's amazing. and it's part of the reason why like everyone should have some interaction with these in some emotional, tangible way. We are really passing the Turing test. This is the thing that I had visibility on a few years ago because I was like, okay, we kind of judge, you know, intelligence and sentience like that, Google engineers like it.I asked if it was conscious and it said it was because we use language as a way of doing that. And you're like, well, but look, that tells you that your language use is not quite fully there. And because part of what's really amazing about, “hallucinations”—and I'm probably gonna do a fireside chat with the gray matter thing on hallucinations, maybe later this week—where the hallucination is, on one hand it says this amazingly accurate, wonderful thing, very persuasively, and then it says this other thing really persuasively that's total fiction, right? And you're like, wow, you sound very persuasive in both cases. But that one's true and that one's fiction.And that's part of the reason why I kind of go back to the augmented intelligence and all the things that I see going on with in 2023 is much less replacement and much more augmentation. It's not zero replacement, but it's much more augmentation in terms of how this plays. And that is super exciting.Eric: Yeah. I mean, to some degree it reflects sort of the weakness in human beings' own abilities to read what's happening. Ahead of this interview, I was talking to the publicly available ChatGPT. I don't know if you saw but I was asking it for questions and I felt like it delivered a very reasonable set of questions. You know, you've written about Blitzscaling, so [ChatGPT] is like, let's ask about that. It's, you know, ask in the context of Microsoft. But when I was like, have you [ChatGPT] ever watched Joe Rogan? Have you ever been on a podcast? Sometimes maybe you should have a long sort of, you should have a statement like I'm doing right now where I sort of have some things I'm saying.Then I ask a question. Other times it should be short and sweet. Sometimes it, you know, annoys you and says oligarchy, like explaining to the chat bot. [In an interview, a journalist] can't just ask a list of like, straightforward questions and it felt like it didn't really even get that. And I get that there's some sort of, we're, we're starting to have a conversation now with companies like Jasper, where it's almost like the language prompting itself.I think Sam Altman was maybe saying it's like almost a form of plain language like coding because you have to figure out how to get what you want out of them. And maybe it was just my failure to explain it, but as a journalist replacing questions, I didn't find the current model of ChatGPT really capable of that.Reid: No, that's actually one of the things on the ChatGPT I find is, like, for example, you ask what questions to ask Reid Hoffman in a podcast interview, and you'll get some generic ones. It'll say like, well, what's going on with new technologies like AI and, and what's going on in Silicon Valley? And you know, and you're like, okay, sure.But those aren't the really interesting questions. That's not what makes me a great journalist, which is kind of a lens to something that people can learn from and that will evolve and change that'll get better. But that's again, one of the reasons why I think it's a people plus machine. Because for example, if I were to say, hey, what should I ask Eric about? Or what should I talk to Eric about and go to? Yeah, gimme some generic stuff. Now if I said, oh, give me a briefing on, um, call it, um, UN governance systems as they apply to AI, because I want to be able to talk about this. I didn't do this, but it would give me a kind of a quick Wikipedia briefing and that would make my conversation more interesting and I might be able to ask a question about the governance system or something, you know, as a way of doing it.And that's what AI is, I think why the combo is so great. Um, and anyway, so that's what we should be aiming towards. It isn't to say, by the way, sometimes like replacement is a good thing. For example, you go to autonomous vehicles and say, hey, look, if we could wave a wand and every car on the road today would be an autonomous vehicle, we'd probably save, we'd probably go from 40,000 deaths in the US per, you know, year to, you know, maybe a thousand or 2000. And you're like, you're shaving 38,000 lives a year, in doing this. It's a good thing. And, you know, it will have a positive vector on gridlocks and for climate change and all the rest of the stuff.And you go, okay, that replacement, yes, we have to navigate truck jobs and all the rest, but that replacement's good. But I think a lot of it is going to end up being, you know, kind of, various forms of amplification. Like if you get to journalists, you go, oh, it'll help me ask, figure out which interesting questions to add.Not because it'll just go here, here's your script to ask questions. But you can get better information to prep your thinking on it.Eric: Yeah. I'm glad you brought up like the self-driving car case and, you know, you're, are you still on the board of Aurora?Reid: I am.Eric: I've, you know, I covered Uber, so I was in their self-driving cars very early, and they made a lot of promises. Lyft made a lot of promises.I mean, I feel like part of my excitement about this sort of generative AI movement is that it feels like it doesn't require completeness in the same way that self-driving cars do. You know? And that, that, that's been a barrier to self-driving cars. On the flip side, you know, sometimes we sort of wave away the inaccuracy and then we say, you know, we sort of manage it.I think that's what we were sort of talking about earlier. You imagine it in some of the completeness that could come. So I guess the question here is just do you think, what I'm calling the completeness problem. I guess just the idea that it needs to be sort of fully capable will be an issue with the large language models or do you think you have this sort of augmented model where it could sort of stop now and still be extremely useful to much of society?Reid: I think it could stop now and be extremely useful. I've got line of sight on current technology for a tutor, for a doctor, for a bunch of other stuff. One of the things my partner and I wrote last year was that within five years, there's gonna be a co-pilot for every profession.The way to think about that is what professionals do. They process information, they take some kind of action. Sometimes that's generating other information, just like you see with Microsoft's co-pilot product for engineers. And what you can see happening with DallE and other image generation for graphic designers, you'll see this for every professional, that there will be a co-pilot on today's technology that can be built.That's really amazing. I do think that as you continue to make progress, you can potentially make them even more amazing, because part of what happened when you move from, you know, GPT3 to 3.5, which is all of a sudden it can write sonnets. Right? You didn't really know that it was gonna be able to write sonnets.That's giving people superpowers. Most people, including myself—I mean, look, I could write a sonnet if you gave me a couple of days and a lot of coffee and a lot of attempts to really try.Eric: But you wouldn't.Reid: You wouldn't. Yeah. But now I can go, oh, you know, I'd like to, to, um, write a sonnet about my friend Sam Altman.And I can go down and I can sit there and I can kind of type, you know, duh da, and I can generate, well, I don't like that one. Oh, but then I like this one, you know, and da da da. And, and that, that gives you superpowers. I mean, think about what you can do for writing, a whole variety of things with that. And that I think the more and more completeness is the word you are using is I think also a powerful thing. Even though what we have right now is amazing.Eric: Is GPT4 a big improvement over what we have? I assume you've seen a fair bit of unreleased, stuff. Like how hyped should we be about the improvement level?Reid: I have. I'm not really allowed to say very much about it cause, you know, part of the responsibilities of former board members and confidentiality. But I do think that it will be a nice—I think people will look at it and go, Ooh, that's cool. And it will be another iteration, another thing as amazing as ChatGPT has, and obviously that's kind of in the last few months. It's kind of taken the world by storm, opening up this vista of imagination and so forth.I think GPT4 will be another step forward where people will go, Ooh, that's, that, that's another cool thing. I think that's—can't be more specific than that, but watch this space cause it'll be cool.Eric: Throughout this conversation we've danced around this sort of artificial general intelligence question. starting with the discussion of Elon and the creation of eventually Open AI. I'm curious how close you think we are with AGI and this idea of a sort of, I mean, people define it so many different ways, you know, it's more sophisticated than humans in some tasks, you know, mini tasks, whatever.How, how do you think we're far from that? Or how, how, how do you see that playing out?Reid: Personally amongst a lot of the people who are in the field, I'm probably on the, we're-much-further-than-we-think stage. Now, some of that's because I've lived through this before with my undergraduate degree and the, you know, the pattern generally is, oh my God, we've gotten this computer to do this amazing thing that we thought was formally the provence of only these cognitive human beings.And it could do that. So then by the way, in 10 years it'll be solving new science problems like fusion and all the rest. And if you go back to the seventies, you saw that same dialogue. I mean, it, it's, it's an ongoing thing. Now we do have a more amazing set of cognitive capabilities than we did before, and there are some reasons to argue that it could be in a decade or two. Because you say, well, these large language models can enable coding and that coding can all, can then be self, reflective and generative, and that can then make something go. But when I look at the coding and how that works right now, it doesn't generate the kind of code that's like, oh, that's amazing new code.It helps with the, oh, I want to do a parser for quick sort, right? You know, like that kind of stuff. And it's like, okay, that's great. Or a systems integration use of an API or calling in an API for a spellchecker or whatever. Like it's really helpful stuff on engineers, but it's not like, oh my God, it's now inventing the new kind of training of large scale models techniques.And so I think even some of the great optimists will tell you of the great, like believers that it'll be soon and say there's one major invention. And the thing is, once you get to one major invention, is that one major invention? Is that three major inventions? Is it 10 major inventions?Like I think we are some number of major inventions away. I don't, I certainly don't think it's impossible to get there.Eric: Sorry. The major inventions are us human beings build, building things into the system or…?Reid: Yeah. Like for example, you know, can it do, like, for example, a classic, critique of a lot of large language models is can it do common sense reasoning.Eric: Gary Marcus is very…Reid: Exactly. Right. Exactly. And you know, the short answer right now is the large language models are approximating common sense reasoning.Now they're doing it in a powerful and interesting enough way that you're like, well, that's pretty useful. It's pretty helpful about what it's doing, but I agree that it's not yet doing all of that. And also you get problems like, you know, what are called one shot learning. Can you learn from one instance of it?Cause currently the training requires lots and lots of compute processing over days or in self play, can you have an accurate memory store that you update? Like for example, you say now fact X has happened, your entire world based on fact X. Look, there's a bunch of this stuff to all go.And the question is, is that one major invention is that, you know, five major inventions, and by the way, major inventions or major inventions even all the amazing stuff we've done over the last five to 10 years. Major inventions on major inventions. So I myself tend to be two things on the AGI one.I tend to think it's further than most people think. And I don't know if that further is it's 10 years versus five or 20 years versus 10 or 50 years versus 20. I don't, I don't really know.Eric: In your lifetime, do you think?Reid: It's possible, although I don't know. But let me give two other lenses I think on the AGI question cause the other thing that people tend to do is they tend to go, there's like this AI, which is technique machine learning, and there's totally just great, it's augmented intelligence and then there's AGI and who knows what happens with AGI.And you say, well first is AGI is a whole range of possible things. Like what if you said, Hey, I can build something that's the equivalent of a decent engineer or decent doctor, but to run it costs me $200 an hour and I have AGI? But it's $200 an hour. And you're like, okay, well that's cool and that means we can, we can get as many of them as we need. But it's expensive. And so it isn't like all of a sudden, you know, Terminator or you know, or inventing fusion or something like that is AGI and or a potential version of AGI. So what is AGI is the squishy thing that people then go, magic. The second thing is, the way that I've looked at the progress in the last five to eight years is we're building a set of iteratively better savants, right?It just like the chess player was a savant. Um, and, and the savants are interestingly different now. When does savant become a general intelligence and when might savant become a general super intelligence? I don't know. It's obviously a super intelligence already in some ways. Like for example, I wouldn't want to try to play, go against it and win, try to win.It's a super intelligence when it comes, right? But like okay, that's great cause in our perspective, having some savants like this that are super intelligence is really helpful to us. So, so the whole AGI discussion I think tends to go a little bit Hollywood-esque. You know, it's not terminator.Eric: I mean, there there is, there's a sort of argument that could be made. I mean, you know, humans are very human-centric about our beliefs and our intelligence, right? We don't have a theory of mind for other animals. It's very hard for us to prove that other species, you know, have some experience of consciousness like qualia or whatever.Reid: Very philosophically good use of a term by the way.Eric: Thank you. Um, I studied philosophy though. I've forgotten more than I remember. But, um, you know, I mean…Reid: Someday we'll figure out what it's like to be a bat. Probably not this time.Eric: Right, right, exactly. Is that, that's Nagel. If the machine's better than me at chess and go there, there's a level of I, you know, here I am saying it doesn't have an experience, but it, it's so much smarter than me in certain domains.I don't, I, the question is just like, it seems like humans are not capable of seeing what it's like to be a bat. So will we ever really be able to sort of convince ourselves that there's something that it's like to be, um, an AGI system?Reid: Well, I think the answer is um, yes, but it will require a bunch of sophistication. Like one of the things I think is really interesting about, um, as we anthropomorphize the world a little bit and I think some of this machine. Intelligence stuff will, will enable us to do that is, well what does it mean to understand X or, or, or, or no X or experience X or have qualia or whatever else.And right now what we do is we say, well it's some king of shadowy image from being human. So we tend to undercount like animals intelligence. And people tend to be surprised like, look, you know, some animals mate for life and everything else, they clearly have a theory of the world and it's clearly stuff we're doing.We go, ah, they don't have the same kind of consciousness we do. And you're like, well they certainly don't have the same kind of consciousness, but we're not doing a very good job of studying like what the, where it's similar in order it's different. And I think we're gonna need to broaden that out outcome to start saying, well, when you compare us and an eagle or a dolphin or a whale or a chimpanzee or a lion, you know, what are the similarities and and differences?And how this works. And um, and I think that will also then be, well, what happens when it's a silicon substrate? You know? Do we, do we think that consciousness requires a biological substrate? If so, why? Um, and, you know, part of how, of course we get to understand, um, each other's consciousness as we, we get this depth of experience.Where I realize is it isn't, you're just a puppet.Eric:  [laughs] I am, I am just a puppet.Reid: Well, we're, we're talking to each other through Riverside, so, you know, who knows, right. You know, deep fakes and all that.Eric: The AI's already ahead of you. You know, I'm just, it's already, no.Reid: Yeah. I think we're gonna have to get more sophisticated on that question now.I think it's, it's too trivial to say because it can mimic language in particularly interesting ways. And it says, yes, I'm conscious that that makes it conscious. Like that's not, that's not what we use as an instance. And, and part of it is like, do you understand the like part of how we've come to understand each other's consciousness is we realize that we experience things in similar ways.We feel joy in similar, we feel pain in similar ways and that kinda stuff. And that's part of how we begin to understand. And I think it'll be really good that this may kick off kind of us being slightly less kind of call it narcissistically, anthropocentric in this and a broader concept as we look at this.Eric: You know, I was talking to my therapist the other day and I was saying, you know, oh, I did this like kind gesture, but I didn't feel like some profound, like, I don't, it just seemed like the right thing to do. I did it. It felt like I did the right thing should, you know, shouldn't I feel like more around it?And you know, her perspective was much more like, oh, what matters is like doing the thing, not sort of your internal states about it. Which to me would, would go to the, if the machine can, can do all the things we expect from sort of a caring type type machine. Like why do we need to spend all this time when we don't even expect that of humans to always feel the right feelings.Reid: I totally agree with you. Look, I think the real question is what you do. Now that being said, part of how we predict what you do is that, you know, um, you may not have like at that moment gone, haha, I think of myself as really good cause I've done this kind thing. Which by the way, might be a better human thing as opposed to like, I'm doing this cause I'm better than most people.Eric: Right.Reid: Yeah, but it's the pattern in which you engage in these things and part of the feelings and so forth is cause that creates a kind of a reliability of pattern of do you see other people? Do you have the aspiration to have, not just yourself, but the people around you leading better and improving lives.And obviously if that's the behavior that we're seeing from these things, then that's a lot of it. And the only question is, what's that forward looking momentum on it? And I think amongst humans that comes to an intention, a model of the world and so forth. You know, amongst, amongst machines that mean just maybe the no, no, we're aligned.Well, like, we've done a really good alignment with human progress.Eric: Do you think there will be a point in time where it's like an ethical problem to unplug it? Like I think of like a bear, right? Like a bear is dangerous. You know, there are circumstances where pretty comfortable. Killing the bear,But if the bear like hasn't actually done anything, we've taken it under our care. Like we don't just like shoot bears at zoos, you know? Do you think there's a point where like, and it costs us money to sustain the bear at a zoo, do you think there are cases where we might say, oh man, now there's an ethical question around unpluggingReid: I think it's a when, not an if.Eric: Yeah.Reid: Right? I mean, it may be a when, once again, just like AGI, that's a fair way's out. But it's a when, not an if. And by the way, I think that's again, part of the progress that we make because we think about like, how should we be treating it? Because, you know, like for example, if you go back a hundred, 150 years, the whole concept of animal rights doesn't exist in humans.You know, it's like, hey, you wanna, you want to torture animal X to death, you know, like you're queer, but you're, you're, you're allowed to do that. That's an odd thing for you to do. And maybe it's kind of like, like distasteful, like grungy bad in some way, but , you know, it's like, okay. Where's now you're like, oh, that person is, is like going out to try to go torture animals! We should like get them in an institution, right? Like, that's not okay. You know, what is that further progress for the rights and lives? And I think it will ultimately come to things that we think are, when it gets to kind of like things that have their own agency and have their own consciousness and sets of existence.We should be including all of that in some, in some grand or elevated, you know, kind of rights conceptions.Eric: All right, so back back to my listeners who, you know, wanna know where to invest and make money off this and, you know.Reid: [laughs] It isn't from qualia and consciousness. Oh, wait.Eric: Who do you think are the key players? The key players in the models. Then obviously there are more sort of, I don't know if we're calling them vertical solutions or product oriented or whatever, however you think about them.But starting with the models, like who do you see as sort of the real players right now? Are you counting out a Google or do you think they'll still, you know, sort of show?Reid: Oh no. I think Google will show up. And obviously, you know, Open AI, Microsoft has done a ton of stuff. I co-founded Inflection last year with Mustafa Suleyman. We have a just amazing team and I do see a lot of teams, so I'm.Eric: And that's to build sort of the foundational…Reid: Yeah, they're gonna, well, they're building their own models and they're gonna build some things off those models.We haven't really said what they are yet. But that's obviously going to be kind of new models. Adept, another Greylock investment building its own models, Character is building its own models, Anthropic is building its own models. And Anthropic is, you know, Dario and the crew is smart folks from Open AI, they're, they're doing stuff within a kind of a similar research program that Open AI is doing.And so I think those are the ones that I probably most track.Eric: Character's an interesting case and you know, we're still learning more about that company. You know, I was first to report they're looking to raise 250 million. My understanding is that what's interesting is they're building the models, but then for a particular use case, right?Or like, it's really a question of leverage or like, do people need to build the models to be competitive or do you think there will be... can you build a great business on top of Stability or Open AI or do you need to do it yourself?Reid: I think you can, but the way you do it is you can't say it's cause I have unique access to the model. It has to be, you know, I have a business that has network effects or I'm well integrated in enterprise, or I have another deep stack of technology that I'm bringing into it. It can't just be, I'm a lightweight front end to it because then other people can be the lightweight front end.So you can build great businesses. I think with it, I do think that people will both build businesses off, you know, things like the Open AI APIs and I think people will also train models. Because I think one of the things that will definitely happen is a lot of… not just will large models be built in ways that are interesting and compelling, but I think a bunch of smaller models will be built that are specifically tuned and so forth.And there's all kinds of reasons. Everything from you can build them to do something very specific, but also like inference cost, does it, does it run on a low compute or low power footprint? You know, et cetera, et cetera. You know, AI doctor, AI tutor, um, you know, duh and on a cell phone. And, um, and so, you know, I think like all of that, I think the short answer to this is allEric: Right. Do you think we are in a compute arms race still, or do you, do you think this is gonna continue where it's just if you can raise a billion dollars to, to buy sort of com GPU access basically from Microsoft or Amazon or Google, you're, you're gonna be sort of pretty far ahead? Or how do you think about that sort of the money, the money and computing rates shaping up?Reid: So I kind of think about two. There's kind of two lines of trends. There's one line, which is the larger and larger models, which by the way, you say, well, okay, so does the scale compute and one x flop goes to two x flops, and does your performance function go up by that?And it doesn't have to go up by a hundred percent or, or two x or plus one x. It could go up by 25%, but sometimes that really matters. Coding doctors, you know, legal, other things. Well, it's like actually, in fact, it, even though it's twice as expensive, a 25% increase in, you know, twice as expensive of compute, the 25% increase in performance is worth it. And I think you then have a large scale model, like a set of things that are kind of going along need to be using the large scale models.Then I think there's a set of things that don't have that need. And for example, that's one of the reasons I wasn't really surprised at all by the profusion of image generation, cuz those are, you know, generally speaking, trainable for a million to $10 million. I think there's gonna be a range of those.I think, you know, maybe someone will figure out how to do, you know, a hundred-million version and once they figured out how to do a hundred-million dollar version, someone also figured out how to do the 30-million version of that hundred-million dollar version. And there's a second line going on where all of these other smaller models will fit into interesting businesses. And then I think a lot of people will either deploy an open source model that they're using themselves, train their own model, get a special deal with, like a model provider or something else as a way of doing it.And so I think the short answer is there will be both, and you have to be looking at this from what's the specific that this business is doing. You know, the classic issues of, you know, how do you go to market, how do you create a competitive mode? What are the things that give you real, enduring value that people will pay for in some way in a business?All of the, those questions still apply, but the, but, but there's gonna be a panoply of answers, depending on the different models of how it playsEric: Do you think spend on this space in terms of computing will be larger in ‘24 and then larger in 25?Reid: Yes. Unquestionably,Eric: We're on the, we're still on the rise.Reid: Oh, yes. Unquestionably.Eric: That's great for a certain company that you're on the board of.Reid: Well look, and it's not just great for Microsoft. There are these other ones, you know, AWS, Google, but…Eric: Right. It does feel like Amazon's somewhat sleepy here. Do you have any view there?Reid: Well, I think they have begun to realize, what I've heard from the market is that they've begun to realize that they should have some stuff here. I don't think they've yet gotten fully underway. I think they are trying to train some large language models themselves. I don't know if they've even realized that there is a skill to training those large language models, cause like, you know, sometimes people say, well, you just turn on and you run the, run the large language model, the, the training regime that you read in the papers and then you make stuff.We've seen a lot of failures, of people trying to build these things and failing to do so, so, you know, there's, there's an expertise that you learn in doing it as well. And so I think—Eric: Sorry to interrupt—if Microsoft is around Open AI and Google is around Anthropic, is Amazon gonna be around stability? That's sort of the question that I'll put out to the world. I don't know if you have.Reid: I certainly don't know anything. And in the case of, you know, very, very, very, um, a politely said, um, Anthropic and OpenAI have scale with huge models. Stability is all small models, so, hmm.Eric: Yeah. Interesting. I, I don't think I've asked you sort of directly about sort of stepping off the Open AI board. I mean, I would assume you would prefer to be on the board or…?Reid: Yeah. Well, so look, it was a funny thing because, um, you know, I was getting more and more requests from various Greylock portfolio companies cause we've been investing in AI stuff for over five years. Like real AI, not just the, we call it “software AI”, but actual AI companies.For a while and I was getting more and more requests to do it and I was like oh, you know, what I did before was, well here's the channel. Like here is the guy who, the person who handles the API request goes, go talk to them. Like, why can't you help me? I was like, well, I'm on the board.I have a responsibility to not be doing that. And then I realized that, oh s**t, it's gonna look more and more. Um, I might have a real conflict of interest here, even as we're really carefully navigating it and, and it was really important cause you know various forces are gonna kind of try to question the frankly, super deep integrity of Open AI.It's like, look, I, Sam, I think it might be best even though I remain a fan, an ally, um, to helping, I think it may be best for Open AI. And generally to step off a board to avoid a conflict of interest. And we talked about a bunch and said, okay, fine, we'll do it. And you know, I had dinner with Sam last night and most of what we were talking about was kind of the range of what's going on and what are the important things that open eyes need to solve? And how should we be interfacing with governments so that governments understand? What are the key things that, that, that should be in the mix? And what great future things for humanity are really important not to fumble in the, in the generally, like everyone going, oh, I'm worrying. And then I said, oh, I got a question for you. And he's like, yeah, okay. I'm like, now that I'm no longer on the board, could I ask you to personally look at unblocking, my portfolio company's thing to the API? Because I couldn't ever ask you that question before. Cause I would be unethical. But now I'm not on the board, so can I ask the question?He's like, sure, I'll look into it. I'm like, great, right? And that's the substance of it, which I never would've done before. But that wasn't why, I mean, obviously love Sam and the Open AI team.Eric: The fact that you're sort of a Democratic super donor was that in the calculus? Or, because I mean, we are seeing Republican… well, I didn't think that at all coming into this conversation, but just hearing what you're saying. Looking at it now, it feels like Republicans are like trying to find something to be angry about.Reid: WellEric: These AI things, I don't quite…Reid: The unfortunate thing about the, the most vociferous of the republican media ecosystem is they just invent fiction, like their hallucination full out.Eric: Right.Reid: I mean, it just like, I mean, the amount of just like, you know, 2020 election denial and all the rest, which you can tell from having their text released from Fox News that like, here are these people who are on camera going on where you have a question about, you know, what happened in the election.And they're texting each other going, oh my God, this is insane. This is a coup, you know, da da da. And you're like, okay. Anyway, so, so all like, they don't require truth to generate. Heat and friction. So that was, wasn't that no, no. It's just really, it's kind of the question of, when you're serving on a board, you have to understand what your mission is very deeply and, and to navigate it.And part of the 501(C)(3) boards is to say, look, obviously I contribute by being a board member and helping and navigate various circumstances and all the rest. And, you know, I can continue to be a counselor and an aid to the company not being on the board. And one of the things I think is gonna be very important for the next X years, for the entire world to know is that open AI takes its ethics super seriously,Eric: Right.Reid: As do I.Eric: Does that fit with having to invest? I mean, there are lots of companies that do great things. They have investors. I believe in companies probably more than personally I believe in charities to accomplish things. But the duality of OpenAI is extremely confusing. Like, was Greylock, did Greylock itself invest a lot or you invested early as an angel?Reid: I was the founding investor as an angel, as a, as a program related investment from my foundation. Because like I started, I was among the first people to make a philanthropic donation to Open AI. Just straight out, you know, here's a grant by Wednesday, then Sam and Crew came up with this idea for doing this commercial lp, and I said, look, I, I'll help and I have no idea if this will be an interesting economic investment.They didn't have a business plan, they didn't have a revenue plan, they didn't have a product plan. I brought it to Greylock. We talked about it and they said, look, we think this will be possibly a really interesting technology, but you know, part of our responsibility to our LPs, which you know, includes a whole bunch of universities and else we invest in businesses and there is no business plan.Eric: So is that the Khosla did? Khosla's like we invested wild things. Anyway, we don't care. That's sort of what Vinod wants to project anyway, so yeah.Reid: You know, yes, that's exactly the same. So I put them 50 and then he put in a, I think he was the only venture fund investing in that round. But like, there was no business plan, there was no revenue model, there was no go to market…Eric: Well, Sam basically says, someday we're gonna have AGI and we're gonna ask you how to make a bunch of money? Like, is he, that's a joke, right? Or like, how much is he joking?Reid: It's definitely, it's not a 100% joke and it's not a 0% joke. It's a question around, the mission is really about how do we get to AGI or as close to AGI as useful and to make it useful for humanity. And by the way, the closer you get to AGI, the more interesting technologies fall out, including the ability to have the technology itself solve various problems.So if you said, we have a business model problem, it's like, well ask the thing. Now, if you currently sit down and ask, you know, ChatGPT what the business model is, you'll get something pretty vague and generic that wouldn't get you a meeting with a venture capitalist because it's like “we will have ad supported”... you're like, okay. Right.Eric: Don't you have a company that's trying to do pitch decks now or something?Reid: Oh yeah, Tome. No, and it's awesome, but by the way, that's the right kind of thing. Because, because what it does is you say, hey, give me a set of tiles, together with images and graphics and things arguing X and then you start working with the AI to improve it. Say, oh, I need a slide that does this and I need a catchier headline here, and, and you know, da da da.And then you, and you know, obviously you can edit it yourself and so on. So that's the kind of amplification. Now you don't say, give me my business model, right?Eric: You're like, I have this business model, like articulate it.Reid: Exactly.Eric: Um, I, politics, I mean, I feel like we, we live through such like a… you know what I mean, I feel like Silicon Valley, you know, has like, worked on PE everybody be able to, you know, everybody can get along. There's sort of competition, but then you sort of still stay close to any, everybody like, you, you especially like are good, you know, you you are in the PayPal mafia with a lot of people who are fairly very conservative now.The Trump years broke that in some ways and particular, and that, yeah. So how did you maintain those relationships?I see headlines that say you're friends with Peter Thiel. What is, what's the state of your friendship with Peter Thiel and how, how did it survive?I guess the Trump years is the question.Reid: Well, I think the thing that Peter and I learned when we were undergraduate at Stanford together is it's very important to… cause we, you know, I was a lefty. He was a righty. We'd argue a lot to maintain conversation and to argue things. It's difficult to argue on things that feel existential and it's ethically challenged is things around Trump. You know, the, you know, Trump feels to be a corrosive asset upon our democracy that is disfiguring us and staining us to the world. And so to have a dispassionate argument about it is, it's challenging. And it ends up with some uneven ground and statements like, I can't believe you're f*****g saying that, as part of dialogue.But on the other hand, you know, maintaining dialogue is I think part of how we make progress as society. And I basically sympathetic to people as long as they are legitimately and earnestly and committed to the dialogue and discussion of truth between them and committed otherwise.And so, you know, there are folks from the PayPal years that I don't really spend much time talking to, right?. There are others that I do because that conversation about discovering who we are and who we should be is really important. And you can't allow your own position to be the definer.It almost goes back to what we were talking about, the AI side, which is make sure you're talking to other smart people who challenge you to make sure you're doing the right thing. And that's, I think, a good general life principle.Eric: Well, you know, I feel like part of what my dream of like the Silicon Valley world is that we have these, you know, we have, Twitter is like the open forum. We're having sincere sort of on the level debates, but then you see something like, you know, the…Reid: You don't think it's the modern Seinfeld show I got? Well, not Seinfeld, um, Springer, Jerry Springer.Eric: Yeah, that's, yeah. Right. But I just feel like the sort of like, if the arguments are on the level issue is my problem with some of the sort of, I don't know, Peter Theil arguments, that he's not actually publicly advancing his beliefs in a sincere way, and that that's almost more corrosive.Reid: Oh, that's totally corrosive. And as much as that's happening, it's terrible. And that's one of the things that I, um, you know, in conversations I have, I push people including Peter on a lot.Eric: Yeah. Are you still, are you still gonna donate a lot, or what was, what's your, are you as animated about the Democratic party and working through sort of donor channels at the moment?Reid: Well, what I would say is I think that we have a responsibility to try to make, like with, it's kind of the Spider-Man ethics. With power comes responsibility, with wealth comes responsibility, and you have to try to help contribute to… what is the better society that we should be living and navigating in?And so I stay committed on that basis. And I do think there are some really amazing people in the administration. I think Biden is kind of a good everyday guy.Eric: Yeah.Reid: In fact, good for trying to build bridges in the country. I think there are people like Secretary Raimondo and Secretary Buttigieg who are thinking intensely about technology and what should be done in the future.And I think there's other folks now, I think there's a bunch of folks on the democratic side that I think are more concerned with their demagoguery than they are with the right thing in society. And so I tend to be, you know, unsympathetic to, um, you know…Eric: I know, Michael Moritz, it's Sequoia, that oped sort of criticizing San Francisco government, you know, and there's, there's certainly this sort of woke critique of the Democratic Party. I'm curious if there's a piece of it sort of outside of he governance that you're…Reid: Well, the interesting thing about woke is like, well, we're anti woke. And you're like, well, don't you think being awake is a good thing? I mean, it's kind of a funny thing. Eric: And sort of the ill-defined nature of woke is like key to the allegation because it's like, what's the substantive thing you're saying there? And you know, I mean we we're seeing Elon tweet about race right now, which is sort of terrifying anyway.Reid: Yeah. I think the question on this stuff is to try to say, look, people have a lot of different views and a lot of different things and some of those views are, are bad, especially in kind of minority and need to be advocated against in various… part of why we like democracy is to have discourse.I'm very concerned about the status of public discourse. And obviously most people tend to focus that around social media, which obviously has some legitimate things that we need to talk about. But on the other hand, they don't track like these, like opinion shows on, like, Fox News that represent themselves implicitly as news shows and saying, man, this is the following thing.Like there's election fraud in 2020, and then when they're sued for the various forms of deformation, they say, we're just an entertainment show. We don't do anything like news. So we have that within that we are already struggling on a variety of these issues within society. and we, I think we need to sort them all out.Eric: Is there anything on the AI front that we missed or that you wanted to make sure to talk about? I think we covered so much great ground. Reid: And, and we can do it again, right. You know, it's all, it's great.Eric: I love it. This was all the things you're interested in and I'm interested in, so great. I really enjoyed having you on the podcast and thanks.Reid: Likewise. And, you know, I follow the stuff you do and it's, it's, it's cool and keep doing it. 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Train Derailment & Environmental Fallout In East Palestine Leads To Political & Legal Frenzy The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio has led to a frenzy of political activity, criticisms, lawsuits, investigations, advocacy demands, and conspiracy theories as the fallout from the derailment continues to maintain prominence in the national conversation. The derailment has prompted criticism of both the Biden and former Trump administrations, ensnarled politicians like Gov. WeWine and Secretary Buttigieg, and has led to numerous lawsuits, criticism of the EPA, and many other activities. One nonprofit law firm We The Patriots USA (WTP USA), a nonprofit public interest law firm, “will host a press conference in Akron to discuss litigation against the Environmental Protection Agency” according to local reporting from WKYC. Americans are increasingly sensitive to environmental disasters and this incident could refocus public scrutiny on environmental regulation, and potentially spur increasing attention toward nonprofit environmental advocacy and intervention efforts. Read more ➝     Summary Many Ukrainian refugees in US are sponsored by ordinary Americans | USA TODAY IRS working with nonprofit New America to deliver online direct file tax system study | FedScoop The nonprofits accelerating Sam Altman's AI vision | TechCrunch  Together We Rise becomes Foster Love  

Train Derailment & Environmental Fallout In East Palestine Leads To Political & Legal Frenzy The train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio has led to a frenzy of political activity, criticisms, lawsuits, investigations, advocacy demands, and conspiracy theories as the fallout from the derailment continues to maintain prominence in the national conversation. The derailment has prompted criticism of both the Biden and former Trump administrations, ensnarled politicians like Gov. WeWine and Secretary Buttigieg, and has led to numerous lawsuits, criticism of the EPA, and many other activities. One nonprofit law firm We The Patriots USA (WTP USA), a nonprofit public interest law firm, “will host a press conference in Akron to discuss litigation against the Environmental Protection Agency” according to local reporting from WKYC. Americans are increasingly sensitive to environmental disasters and this incident could refocus public scrutiny on environmental regulation, and potentially spur increasing attention toward nonprofit environmental advocacy and intervention efforts. Read more ➝     Summary Many Ukrainian refugees in US are sponsored by ordinary Americans | USA TODAY IRS working with nonprofit New America to deliver online direct file tax system study | FedScoop The nonprofits accelerating Sam Altman's AI vision | TechCrunch  Together We Rise becomes Foster Love  

Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg finally arrives in East Palestine, Ohio to assess the damage from the Norfolk-Southern Rail collision. Secretary Pete, who immediately blamed Trump for the accident, now does not want to make this political. The NTSB releases a report and the NTSB director hold a press conference.Karine Jean-Pierre takes questions from the Press about Mayor Pete - er - Secretary Buttigieg. J.D. Vance commends Trump for his support in Ohio and Trump's crowd looks different than Pete's.

8AM ET 02/23/2023 Newscast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howie Kurtz on Secretary Buttigieg visiting the Ohio train derailment, Tim Scott fueling presidential run speculation and Ivanka and Jared getting a subpoena in Jan. 6th investigation.  Follow Howie on Twitter: @HowardKurtz For more #MediaBuzz click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Howie Kurtz on Georgia forewoman hinting of a Trump indictment, Secretary Buttigieg taking heat for Ohio derailment response and backlash from Netflix cracking down on password sharing. Follow Howie on Twitter: @HowardKurtz For more #MediaBuzz click here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Biden's been totally absent to the threats to American citizens in Ohio and in the sky. Karine Jean-Pierre is supposed to be Joe Biden's cleanup crew, but recently she's needed a cleanup crew herself. Ten days later, self-assured climate eco-warrior Pete Buttigieg takes to social media to express his concern. Secretary Buttigieg, you and your concern are about nine days too late. Is it pure incompetence, or is it corruption?

Comedian Roseanne Barr joins Fox Across America With Jimmy Failla to talk about her new Fox Nation special “Cancel This!”, and shed light on how her industry has changed over the years. Jimmy slams Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg for spending more time worrying about diversity among construction workers than addressing the horrific disaster caused by the train derailment in Ohio. South Carolina Republican Senator Tim Scott explains how President Biden's weak posture on the world stage is being exploited by our adversaries. PLUS, co-host of “The Big Money Show” on Fox Business Brian Brenberg stops by to break down the January consumer price index report.   [00:00:00] Secretary Buttigieg finally addresses Ohio train disaster [00:37:03] Roseanne Barr [00:47:23] Senator Tim Scott [00:55:30] Assessing the 2024 GOP field [01:13:50] Reacting to the January CPI report [01:32:20] Brian Brenberg  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last night, Lebron James broke the NBA scoring record that was held by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for the last thirty-nine years. Now we all know what the question is now. Is Lebron James the G.O.A.T? On Wellness Wednesday, Dr. M.J. Collier joined the show to bring healthcare information to the RSMS crew and listeners. If you want to save your heart, you may want to go on a walk. President Joe Biden made his State of the Union speech last night. He has vowed to protect the US from China and Russia among many other things, like the “Billionaire's Tax.” US Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. He talked about the successes of President Biden and the disrespect from Republican hecklers in Congress. Secretary Buttigieg also talked about what is necessary for the Infrastructure Bill.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's episode of The MeidasTouch Podcast, we sit down with Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg! During this interview, we cover a variety of topics including the the tangible impacts of the Infrastructure Act, how the Department of Transportation is addressing the challenges of rural transportation and the needs of rural communities, what Secretary Buttigieg makes of Republicans who voted against the Infrastructure Act that try to go back to their constituents and take credit for the improvements in their home states & much more! The rest of the episode we break down the latest breaking news of the week to keep you up to date! We discuss the latest developments with Jack Smith's criminal investigation into Donald Trump as he secures grand jury testimony from a top Trump official, new George Santos updates that put the MAGA fraud in massive legal jeopardy, Kevin McCarthy weaponizing congress and instituting a committee to “investigate the origins of COVID,” the mental gymnastics Republicans are doing in order to rationalize the classified documents found at Mike Pence's Indiana home and much more. New full-length episodes of the MeidasTouch Podcast featuring the brothers are released every Tuesday & Friday morning. The rest of the week, enjoy our short-form content we call ‘The Mighty.' If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to rate, review and subscribe! DEALS FROM OUR SPONSORS: AG1 by Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/meidas ZBiotics: https://zbiotics.com/meidas Shop Meidas Merch at: https://store.meidastouch.com Join us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/meidastouch Remember to subscribe to ALL the Meidas Media Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://pod.link/1510240831 Legal AF: https://pod.link/1580828595 The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://pod.link/1595408601 The Influence Continuum: https://pod.link/1603773245 Kremlin File: https://pod.link/1575837599 Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://pod.link/1530639447 The Weekend Show: https://pod.link/1612691018 The Tony Michaels Podcast: https://pod.link/1561049560 American Psyop: https://pod.link/1652143101 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here's what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Beyond candidate races, the midterms were a battle of ballot questions. V breaks down the impact these results will have on communities across the country, from capping power in the highest courts to consolidating law enforcement in local counties. Plus, are you frustrated about all the fees you pay when you buy concert tickets? You're not alone — your president's fed up, too. Then, V is joined by U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg! On the first anniversary of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the two discuss the changes the country has already seen and everything that's coming down the pike. Buckle up, ‘cuz we're talking planes, trains, and infrastructure bills. Follow @USDOT on Twitter and find even more updates online at https://www.transportation.gov/. Keep up with V on TikTok at @underthedesknews and on Twitter at @VitusSpehar. And stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia. For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

NABWIC presents comments for U. S. Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, and Executive Director of AIAI, Lisa Buglione as we revisit infrastructure opportunities for women in construction.     Pete Buttigieg took office in January, 2021, as the 19th U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Secretary Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. A graduate of Harvard University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Buttigieg served for seven years as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, taking a leave of absence from the mayor's office for a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014.In South Bend, “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg worked across the aisle to transform the city's future and improve residents' everyday lives Lisa Buglione is Executive Director of AIAI. With more than 20 years of high-profile management and operations experience, Ms. Buglione oversees every aspect of AIAI's operations and national public outreach initiatives. From coordinating regional and national conferences to creating game-changing organizational operations strategies, Ms. Buglione is instrumental to AIAI's rapid growth in terms of membership, brand awareness and prolific organizational expansion across the country. _____________________________ NABWIC's Vision: The Vision of the National Association of Black Women in Construction (NABWIC) is to build lasting strategic partnerships with first-rate organizations and individuals that will provide ground-breaking and innovative solutions for black women in construction and their respective communities.| NABWIC.ORG

Rebecca Cokley is a Program Officer, developing the U.S. disability rights program strategy at the Ford Foundation. Prior to joining Ford, Rebecca was the co-founder and director of the Disability Justice Initiative at the Center for American Progress (CAP). She was responsible for organizing a campaign that resulted in an unprecedented 12 Presidential candidates developing disability policy platforms. Prior to her work at CAP, she served as the executive director for the National Council on Disability where she worked on sexual violence on college campuses, policing reform, and the civil rights of disabled parents. A three time Presidential Appointee, Rebecca served in key policy roles at the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as a successful stint at the White House where she oversaw diversity and inclusion efforts for the Obama Administration.  Learn more about Rebecca and the Ford Foundation. Learn more about Cara Reedy. Learn more about The Passionistas Project. FULL TRANSCRIPT: Passionistas: Hi, we're sisters Amy and Nancy Harrington. We founded the Passionistas Project to tell the stories of women who are following their passions and fighting for equality for all. The more we spoke with women for our podcast, subscription box and the annual Power of Passionistas Summit, the more we saw a common trait in all of them. They are unstoppable. Whether they chose to use their voices to start a women owned brand or fight for the rights of the marginalized, we found that all Passionistas are resilient, compassionate and persistent. Each year, we honor women who embody these qualities by presenting the Passionistas Persist Awards. This episode of the podcast is an interview with one of the 2022 recipients. Our final award this evening is the Passionistas Persist Humanitarian Award, which honors a woman who spends her days in pursuit of equal rights and promoting human welfare for all people. The award is being presented by Cara Reedy, a journalist, actor, director and photographer. As the director of the Disabled Journalist Association, Cara knows that the world is missing out on some of the best stories on the planet, and the journalist in her knows that can't stand. Cara: I met Rebecca three years ago when I was interviewing her for a documentary I was working on at The Guardian. Literally, the moment we clapped eyes on each other, she screamed, "You don't get down with that LPA bullshit either." I knew we would be friends immediately. Rebecca is a second generation activist. She's been around since she could ride on her godmother's wheelchair to, uh, protest. She was the co-founder and director of the Disability Justice Initiative at Center for American Progress, where she built out a progressive policy platform that protected the rights and services disabled people depend on for survival and also developed an innovative solutions like a proposed disability disabled worker tax credit, and increased access to capital for disability owned small businesses. She stewarded a campaign that resulted in an unprecedented 12 presidential candidates developing disability policy platforms. She's a three-time presidential appointee. Rebecca served in key policy roles at the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services, as well as oversaw diversity and inclusion efforts for the Obama administration. I'm honored to present her with a Passionistas Persist Humanitarian Award. Rebecca: Thank you so much, Cara. It is such a tremendous honor to accept the 2022 Passionistas Persist Humanitarian Award. 43 years ago, my parents, both people with dwarfism, recorded an interview for a local news station where they said that they hoped for a future for their child or people with dwarfism would not be jokes. Could achieve any job they desired and live a life free from discrimination. Their work as activists and advocates paved the road that led me to youth leadership programs, to the University of California, Santa Cruz, Go Banana Slugs, the White House, numerous campaigns and today at the Ford Foundation. As the mom of three, I find myself honestly wishing the same thing for my children. 43 years later. If there was anything I learned from my mom, a single mom who became a single mom when my dad left us after she got accepted into college, there was a lesson in persistence. Sometimes the only way out is through. And in troubling times like these, there is no one else I would rather be in the trenches with, working our way through all of this hot mess, than all of you fellow Passionistas. Thank you again for this tremendous honor. Cara: I always like to think about like how people grew up and like I grew up in a, in a house full of black people cuz we were black, that persisted through the Civil Rights Movement, but I didn't have a full understanding of like disability as an identity, how they intersect. Just I, I was a little behind kind of in my understanding of disability and oppression. How do you feel? You being a second generation, um, activist in this space has prepared you to attack the problem, the problems of oppression of disabled people. How did your understanding of your oppression as a child lead you to this and, um, having your parents kind of lead you to. Rebecca: My parents never hesitated to talk about either our oppression that we faced as people with the warism or the privilege that we faced. And you know, you see, I have a good trouble banner up in the background. Um, my dad was the son of a federal judge in Selma, Alabama. I have no problem using the term, a white supremacist federal judge in Selma, Alabama. Um, who. Routinely through Freedom Writers in Jail who oversaw the travesty. That was the Reverend James Reeb trial and who, uh, filed an injunction that made it, like, made it a violation of the law for three or more African Americans to congregate in Selma and talk about voting. And that history was never hidden from me. My parents were very open in talking about. How my dad was raised, how he was brought up, um, his parents and, and siblings perception of the world and their place in it. And you know, for my dad, yes, he was, you know, the younger son of this, this big time jackass of a judge. But my dad was also the only little person in his family. And so, you know, wherever they went, yes, he was the judge's kid, but he was also the d. Um, and his older brother had schizophrenia. So in a, in a very southern, very patriarchal family. Both sons were disabled. And I think that was something that was never lost on my dad. His, his brother became institutionalized when my dad was a teenager and his brother was in, was in his early twenties. Um, and so while yes, he grew up with a lot of privilege, he also grew up with a brother. You know, nobody talked about. Um, and then he was the heir, or, you know, you had the air and the spare if we're gonna, you know, use a, use a, um, a monarchy term. Um, and the spare was a little person. And so, uh, you know, my dad. Spent a lot of time thinking about what, what his life was like. And my dad grew up with gay friends in Alabama and saw how they were treated and ended up at a little people convention where he met my mom. Who was the, the number five of nine kids, all red haired flower children. And it was love at first sight. My dad went home to Alabama and packed up the 69 Camaro and drove her from Selma to San Francisco. Um, and they got married like six months after my mom turned 18. And, uh, my mom was also the only person with dwarfism in her family. And growing up at the bay at the height of the AIDS epidemic, my dad ran a Center for Independent Living. My mom ran a disabled student center at a community college. . And so they were losing friends and students and clients left and right. And I remember as a kid, like my parents skipping my ice skating lesson for us to go to funerals. And I remember like being like, Why are we going to another funeral? And my parents being like, Nobody deserves to die alone. Like, we have a responsibility to show up for people. Um, and that was always my parents' core value. And you know, we would talk about things like, I remember. When I had the realization that my dad's best friend was gay. And I remember asking my dad, Why does Uncle Don's roommate come with us whenever we go anywhere? Like, why, why does, why does Mark come with us? And my dad was like, Well, that's his, you know, that's his roommate. And my mom was like, Come on, Billy, Like, give me a break. And my dad was like, That's his partner. They love each other. And like, I was six. And so it was like, Oh, they love each other. Ok, that's cool. Like whatever. Um, you know, so my parents were really open in both talking about sort of the, the ways they moved about the world, but also the fact that like, that there was oppression and that we had to talk about it, and that it wasn't always like stiff upper lip or, you know, pick yourself up from the bootstraps. That there are days that it really sucks being a disabled person and like they didn't hide that. . Cara: You also kind of touched on like grief being a really big part of being disabled. I don't say that lightly. But what I, whenever I say this or, or bring up something that's negative around disability, people are like, We knew it. And it's like, no, not, you don't really get it. Like, that's not what we mean by that. But it's, but there is a level of grief that is involved in being disabled. Um, because the systems let you down so often. How do you navigate your grief, um, to keep moving? Rebecca: I was in your spot and I was interviewing Senator Tammy Duckworth, um, when we launched the project that I was running at the time at the Center for American Progress. And I asked her about it, um, as a disabled woman veteran, and she said, You know, Becca, sometimes you just have to embrace the. And I thought that phrase was so perfect, and I was like, I've never heard anyone just say it like that. And she was like, Yeah, there's days. It totally sucks. Um, and there's days that it's really rough. And that's, that's the reality. And we don't tell the, we don't do any of us a service by not being willing to talk about that. And I think as a, you know, as a kid, growing, My parents, um, handled people staring at us very differently. My dad being a southern kid and being a judge of son, was it, you know, eternal politician would go be like, Hi, my name is Billy. And me like, I was sitting in the corner like going like at like six and I remember the first time I did that and my mom, like the other parent, grabbed my mom and was like, Do you know that your child just flipped off my. and my mom pulled me aside and was like, Did you just flip them off? And I was like, No. I gave them the finger. And she was like, That's what that means, . Um, and I was like, Why is it okay for them to act that way towards me in public? Like, why am I supposed to be, um, okay with it? Um, you know, it's not okay. And like if I can't act that way in public, Like, why are they allowed to act that way? And my mom was always like, Well, you know, different people are raised differently and whatever. But like there are moments like I find even now as a parent watching my kids grow up. Um, and, you know, two, three years of a pandemic meant my kids weren't in school with their peers all of this time. They were remote learning. And I remember my son's response the first time. He saw his best friends from, that he had been going to school with from kindergarten on after this break. And he was like, Mom, they got really tall. And I was like, Yeah, they did. And he was like, Oh. and it was a reminder for my hus, like my son is a, is a jock. He loves sports, he's super outgoing. But I remember when I was on softball teams and I remember when it got to the point where my 100% was literally dwarfed by their 100%. And no matter how hard I tried, like I couldn't keep. And that's like, and, and going through that period of time. And I remember coming across a, a book on dwarfism, um, recently actually that had my mom's story in it. And my mom talked about how when she was 16, my grandpa, to me woods just north of San Francisco and with the family of nine kids, nobody got alone time with parents. It just doesn't happen. And my grandfather sat in the car with my mom in the, in the Volkswagen bug that they had and told her she was never gonna get any. And, and her talking about her morning process and like that wasn't something my parents took for me. And so, you know, there are days when it sucks. I mean, I remember there was a job I really wanted a vice president for health justice for, for a progressive women's organization. I was a finalist. And then they called me to tell me I wasn't getting the job. And what they said, and I quote was, Our organization is not ambitious enough to hire someone. Oh, and I was like, What the, like what the hell? Like, am I, is that a compliment? Is it an insult? Like, how do I even take that? And I remember being like, Oh, okay, like you're proud that your organization has such a ba like backwards view about the world. Um, you know, And so I think it's just, it doesn't, doesn't mean you're not proud in who you are. It actually means that you have just. Like, you know who you are. I've spent a lot of time like investigating ableism that like ableist ideas I have and um, I feel like you end up kind of almost mourning that like period where you're like, Oh, this isn't gonna get any better. Like, it's always gonna be like this, but that's okay cuz I know how to do. And you have people to do it with. I think, you know, growing up with community, with people with all different types of disabilities, with role models, with dwarfism, um, had such a positive impact on me because, you know, did I know when I was like a teenager that like the people that I looked up to had the same insecurities and fears and whatnot that I didn't know they were the cool teenager. Who managed to get their parents to pay for altering acid washed jeans and let them crimp their hair like they were cool. Um, and like being able to see that was really important. Being able to, um, . I remember the first time I ever saw a porn and I was at my godmother's bridal shower and I was, I was, 15 and in a room with a whole bunch of women with a whole bunch of different types of disabilities. There were deaf women, there were cerebral palsy, there were women who used communication boards to talk. It was like the most like pro feminist, rabel, rousing crew of like disabled, crippled women on the face of the planet. And this porn came on. And I remember just like being like, I dunno what to do with this Ok, this is interesting. And like they thought it was the funniest thing on the face of the planet. I remember just being. This room of like real, like what does it say that this room of really, like, we're sitting here laughing at the ables doing like sex acts on TV as a room of like disabled women and just being like, this is funny. Like, right, this is funny. Like, am I supposed to laugh at this? And I remember my mom just be like, I cannot believe I'm watching this with my 15 year old daughter. Um, you know, and, and I think it's moments like that where, You share space or, I mean, as, um, my, Patrick and I just watched almost Famous the other night and they talk about the, the currency of being collectively uncool. Mm. And I think there's something about that, like among other disabled people or among other people from other diverse communities too. Cause I've found similar, um, similar support and comfort among like my black women friends. You know, one of my biggest frustrations is, doing media and having the article come out later that's like little person, big, whatever. Or you know, Rebecca's personality is so big. I never noticed she was small and it's so enraging cuz it's like, so you don't understand my reality and you don't know me. From the time I wake up in a bed that's oversized and huge and made by Restoration Hardware and I have to high jump to get on it, even though I really love it. Um, I wake up in a world that's been structured for average type people, so I have to talk to you like a child because you're acting like a child. Um, you know, And so I think that there is this, I I watch media claim to try to. But that would actually require, as, you know, like the, the labor that comes with doing the work versus being able to say, Well, let's just like slap a reality show tag on it and call it a day. Passionistas: We're Amy and Nancy Harrington and you are listening to the Passionistas Project Podcast. Are you looking for the perfect holiday gift for the women in your life? Visit ThePassionistasProject.com to order our subscription box filled with products made by women owned businesses and female artisans to inspire women to follow their passions. Get a free mystery box with a one-year subscription using the code WINTERMYSTERY. Now here's more of the Passionista Persist Award ceremony. Cara: I find there's a lot of. Language around sensitivity. Like, Oh, we are going to be sensitive to, to disabled people. And I'm like, well, I don't care about your sensitivity because this is fake sensitivity. What I need you to do is do your job and investigate things. I don't care about your feelings. Which kind of brings me to my next question about you building out your the Ford Disability Program. I, I feel like one of the things that you do the best, you do a lot of things great, but like one of the bigger, biggest things is that you're such a connector, but you not only connect dots, but you. You understand how to fund them and like it's, it's been amazing to watch just from the little bit. I know. Can you talk a little bit about how you've approached kind of building this groundbreaking sort of platform and base for so long? Rebecca: The number one thing holding back work in the disability rights and justice base. We don't have money. And so I remember, um, when I was at the National Council on Disability, I should know even before that, I remember when I was working for President Obama and I needed to find people with disabilities that were experts in housing policy. And I made like 30 calls and I couldn't find anybody. I was just like, Oh my God, this has, this is ridiculous. Why is there this problem? And you know, part of the problem is because people with disabilities live in a state of legalized, codified poverty. And so folks don't go to college or can't go to college, can't afford going to college, or if they go to college they can't work. Cause if they work, they lose their health insurance. Um, and I remember just being like, what would it be like if like money wasn't the problem? Like, what could we build? And so I started years ago building this list that was originally entitled things that We Need. And it was like a cross disability rights community housing portfolio, like policy agenda. Like what, what do we like? What are the issues? What are the problems, et cetera. Um, like what else do we need? Why do we keep, I remember saying like, why do we keep funding exoskeleton? When disabled people by the thousands die every year as a result of bed sores, like Jesus, do we need another GA exoskeleton? And why is money going to this? And people are like, Oh, the, the averages and the ables are like, Oh, it's exoskeleton. So, yeah, but I'd rather not die of a bed. So, um, and so I just started building a list and then, uh, when I was asked to apply for the job at Ford, the list became a bit more formal and turned into cool shit. I want the Ford Foundation to fund at the back of a notebook and in it, um, I'm very specifically laid out like, we need a place doing work on immigration reform. We need to fund work, uh, supporting. Native and indigenous folks with disabilities. Um, we need a disabled journalist organization. We need a disabled, or we need an organization of disabled doctors. Um, you know, especially during this pandemic. And so much of the, the health reporting is just so crappy. So if we have good journalists and we have good doctors, like as a package deal, we can, we can move something forward. Um, you know, and real like, I need a disabled economist. I wanna be able to break down the numbers. So we can actually tell the real story around disability and poverty and like, if we're talking about reparations, have we thought about how reparations would impact disabled African Americans? No, we haven't. Well, how do we make sure they don't screw African American disabled folks? Um, and can I get an economist to build out that work because I know we're really gonna need it, but no one's doing it. Um, and that's like the most fun part of the job is sometimes just like sitting back and being like, Okay. So if we get this, this, and this, like what's the next thing? What would be really cool to do? Like who? And also at the same time being at a place like Ford, like I joke all the time that when I was at the White House, everyone took my calls. No, like 90% of people took my calls. 100% of people take my calls when you give away money. . And I was lucky that I had friends that worked in the foundation space that were like, Enjoy it now. Cause when your time is up, nobody will answer your calls. They're like, so like, use it. Um, and so continually thinking of like, what are the spaces we need to be in and how can I use. The privilege that I have in my role at the Ford Foundation to get our people into those spaces and make sure that they're supported in those spaces and that they can thrive in those spaces. Cause it's not just getting in the door. Cause like you can get in the door and then be surrounded by a room full of assholes. Um, but how do we make sure it's the right door? How do we make sure whatever we're funding is set up to thrive? How do we make sure the people on the other end get it and are going to, to, to truly welcome and embrace, um, not just accept, but amplify and support disabled folks and disabled issues in that way. And, you know, I think through my career, like having the, the sort of sense of scale of the community that I do and sort of the sense of the progressive world as it is, you know, just always continually like keeping, keeping track of who's doing cool work, Like who's doing something that's really neat. Who's doing something that's different.. And is there a way that we can fund it? And if not us can I like connect them with another funder that can help support their work? Cara: Your kids are third generation now activist, and they're already Rebecca: Mouthy, obnoxious, persistent. Cara: They're persistent, which is, they're persistent. Where do you hope to get the disability right? Civil rights space to hand off to them? Rebecca: I want them to not have to choose whether they're black or they're disabled. Like I want them to be able to walk in a space, whether it be a disability, majority space, um, uh, African American majority space, and be welcomed and celebrated and support. For who they are, regardless of who their mother is. And what I had to do to, to lovingly encourage those organizations to stop being butt heads and let them in. I want them in those places and thriving, you know, if they, if they wanna be. I've made a point of never running for office in LPA because my mom did that my entire life. And I told myself I was not going to be an LPA officer because I wanted to be the parent at the pool with my kids. I wanted to know who their friends. I wanted their friends to know me. Um, and, you know, if they want to move in these spaces, I want them to feel comfortable with it. I want Kaya to be proud of the fact that Elizabeth Warren made her pinky promise to consider running for president one day that Elizabeth Warren called her to ask her about her presidential platform that you po that she had me post on Twitter, you know, and at the same time, I want ki if Kai wants to say, You know what? I wanna be a teacher instead, or I wanna be a mom. I want those choices to be her choices and not choices she feels are imposed on her or limited by society. And I want Kendrick to feel okay for just being an average. You know, I want good jobs for, for average kids like. Light bulb turner is just not good enough. Like person who hands down stuff to their mom from the top shelf at the grocery store. No. Like he can go to college too. He can do real things. Cara: What are you most passionate about? Rebecca: It's hard in this moment to think about things that we're fighting for. You know, like I won't, I frankly, am struggling like a lot of people and figuring out what is it I'm passionate about in this very moment because it's hard to feel excited about stuff as a disabled person and watching society be like, Oh, we're just going back to normal. And like I was talking to somebody recently and they're like, Well, as we go back and our grantees go back to to the office, and I was like, Who's grantees? I was like, my grantees aren't going back to work. My grantees are still afraid of going outside and dying. My grantees are mad that they have to take a, you take a bus to the pharmacy to get some damn in 90 fives, because our government didn't think enough about sticking them in the box with the task kits. I wanna get to a place where I can be like positively passionate about something I adamantly despise. And I pour JK Rowling in all of the horrible things she says and does. But as somebody that grew up, uh, reading Harry Potter as a, a late stage adolescent slash early adult, I remember like reading the first book on the plane when I realized that they wouldn't card me as a little person on the plane. And like drinking a Corona at like 19 on a plane was like the first Harry Potter. But I have a, I have a tattoo that says constant vigilance, um, which is Mad Eye Moody's, a constant warning throughout, um, book four. And I got that tattooed when Trump became president because I never wanted to take my eyes off of what was happening. I knew it would be really easy to turn away and just be like, I'm just not gonna listen to that guy. He's a reality show. Blow. And we need to be in the fight. And so I dream I, I am passionate about getting to a day where I don't have to be constantly vigilant. Tell us about a time you persisted back when I was at the Center for American Progress and we were starting to talk about the 2020 election, and I remember a colleague of mine. A dude who, um, was overseeing some parts of my work and may have contributed to giving me more aggressive migraines, which I still live with today. I'd never realized that somebody could actually give you a disability, but like this person gave me an extra disability and like I never even got to thank them for that said to me. What are the two or three things that you would like to see presidential campaigns buy into as it relates to your people? And so at the time we were thinking, well, elimination of sub wage marriage equality for disabled folks on SSI and means tested programs, um, greater funding of special education and home and community based services, HCPs were like, Those are the four things. And I remember sitting there and being like, Yeah, that. And I remember getting a phone call as I was walking through the airport, um, and I answered it and it was from a, a five 10 number, so it was Oakland and I answered it and it was a staffer for then Senator Kamala Harris. And they were like, Hey, so we wanna build a disability platform like it's own standalone platform. We don't just wanna like weave stuff into. The senator is is talking about, but like we want our own standalone. Like this is where she stands on these issues. And mind you, at this point in time, there were 25 Democrats running for president. So the field was beyond full. Um, and I remember talking to them as I like walked through the airport and being like, Well we could, like, these are like the four things. And they're like, Well, what else? And so I remember being like, Well, you know, we could look at, let's break down income inequality. Let's make sure that any income data is broken down by race and disability and race and disability together. Um, and they were like, Huh, okay, that's cool. You know, we talked about a couple other things and, and the phone, and then we hung up the phone. Then like three days later the phone rang and it was Senator Booker's staff, and they were like, Cory wants a disability platform. And so what I realized at the time, there were a couple things. One, everyone was looking for a way to stand out. And everyone was looking for a, a piece of vote that hadn't been claimed yet. Um, and the other part was on the cap website. Disability was right between climate and the economy. And so as they were going through pulling platform ideas from the organization, Like putting disability between climate and the economy. Alphabetically was genius because they were just like, Oh, let's call the disability people. Hey, I guess we need to have a disability platform. Cap says we should have it. Like, let's do that. I remember like after talking to, um, to, to Senator Booker staff being like, you could get bigger than this. What if it's not just four bullet points? What if we could get every can. To have a platform. And I remember people at my office being like, Oh, that's never gonna happen. And mind you, these were the same people that told us, Oh, this project's never gonna do anything. No one's ever gonna give you money. Like, ho hum, whatever. This is a trend. It'll go away eventually. Um, and then I remember actually like getting towards the end. And we had had, um, Pete Budha judges' platform come out and, and hiring Emily Vorge as a, as a campaign staffer. Um, Secretary Castro, Senator Warren. Um, and at that point we were waiting on, on on, on, uh, Senator Sanders's platform. And I was on a train and my phone rang and it was a a two one oh number. And so I answered the phone and it was Secretary Castro. And I was like, hello, this is Rebecca. And he is like, hey Rebecca, it's Julian. How are you? And I was like, Good. And he's like, look, I'm just calling to say thank. For what you did for writing that platform for us, I'm really proud of it. We're really excited and like this is massive for people with disabilities, for Texans with disabilities. He's like, this was a learning moment for me. And we talked for about 10 minutes on the train and I hung up the phone and never in my entire life had I ever received a call from any of the candidates I had worked with. And then the next week, Senator Warren called to say thank you. And to date, they are the two political candidates, um, that I've ever called to thank me for my work. Called me personally and just been like, Thank you. It was awesome. Like we learned. And it blew my mind because like, like I had expected we would get some things done. I expected, I was like, maybe we'll have an impact. But to see then Secretary Castro stand on the debate stage and get asked a question about education. And him talk about, and then also specifically turn it around to turn it into a disability question to see Senator Warren take a disability question, See, you know, second now Secretary Buttigieg. Um, to see Senator Sanders talk about home and community based services after he released a 40 page plan that included everything and the kitchen sink. God bless Bernie. And then to have to fight Biden and Biden's people who were my friends that I had worked with in the white. On putting out their disability platform and actually having to create a hashtag, hashtag access to Joe to shame them that he was the last man standing. We still didn't have a platform. And um, finally getting that out and then being able to take a app and just being like, I'm gonna take a nap now. Like, and then somebody was like, But what about Marion Williamson and Andrew Yang? And I was like, Nope. Had nothing to do with them. B bye bye . Um, you know, and today to still have the relationship. Secretary Castro and his team and Senator Warren and that they haven't given up. It wasn't a fluke, and if we hadn't have fought for it, we wouldn't have gotten it. Cara: Why is it important for women to lift each other up? Rebecca: We have a responsibility to do things better than previous generations, you know, and Richards used to say there's a special place in health for women that don't support each other, and I totally believe that that's true. Cara: What does the Power of Passionista mean to you? Rebecca: It's the power of the fight. It's the power of not giving up. Um, it's the power of the possible. The thinking about in this moment, feeling not excited about the world, but still not losing hope, like still having hope that we will get to a place where. Um, we can live our fullest lives, be bring our whole selves unabashedly and proudly and excitedly to whatever table we go to. Or if we don't like a table, you know what? We pull out a chainsaw. We saw the damn thing down. Set it on fire and we have a campfire and we set a campfire that we can all bring our whole selves to. Passionistas: Thanks for listening to the awards presentation with Rebecca Cokley and thanks to Cara Reedy for the amazing interview. To learn more about Cara and the Disabled Journalist Association, follow her on social media at InfamouslyShort. To learn more about Rebecca's work as the program officer for US disability rights, visit FordFoundation.org. And if you're looking for the perfect holiday gift for the women in your life, visit ThePassionistasProject.com to order our subscription box filled with products by women, own businesses, and female artisans. To inspire women to follow their passions, get a free mystery box with a one year subscription using the code WINTERMYSTERY. And be sure to subscribe to the Passionistas Project Podcast so you don't miss any of our upcoming inspiring guests. Until next time, stay well and stay passionate.

Just when you think things in America can't get any dicier, they do. And now is definitely a time to stay vigilant. And in this episode especially, we've got you covered.  Unless you've been sleeping on the beach for the last week, you know that the Feds delivered a search warrant at the Mar-a-Lago residence of former President Trump. And what you may not know, is that Trump supporters of all kinds, (and especially the most radical kind), are activated. They are threatening. And things in this country just got a whole lot hotter.  And we're digging into it. And doing what we always do–bringing light to contrast the heat. Paul rips into the true scope and scale of the rise in domestic threats. Highlights the helpers that are making a positive impact. And talks to a very special (returning) guest that rose to prominence precisely because he brought an approach and tone that was more about building things up, than burning them down.  Back in December of 2019, Secretary (then Mayor) Pete Buttigieg (@PeteButtigieg) joined this show for a huge, live-audience Episode 37 at the Classic Car Club in NYC. Buttigieg was on fire at the time, and nearing the peak of his Presidential run. And when the dust settled, he had landed in the cabinet and now serves as Secretary of Transportation–overseeing trillions of dollars in projects nationwide.  Buttigieg is one of the most important voices in American politics–and a leader that's had unique appeal for independent Americans. He's also the only combat veteran serving in the cabinet outside of the Secretary of Defense. In this new episode, you'll again get to hear Buttigieg asked questions he's never been asked before. He and Paul chop it up on everything from extremism in America, to parenthood, to Afghanistan, to pancakes vs waffles. And whether or not he will run for President again. It's a deep, fast and fun conversation that will give you insight into what's really in store for the future of our country.  Other shows focus on what's happening. This show focuses on what's next.  Every episode of Independent Americans hosted by Paul Rieckhoff @PaulRieckhoff) breaks down the most important stories–and offers light to contrast the heat of other politics and news shows. And talks to powerful and influential leaders of all political backgrounds. It's independent content for independent Americans. And all Americans. Always with a unique focus on national security, foreign affairs and military and veterans issues. In these wild times especially, Independent Americans is your trusted place for independent news, politics, inspiration and hope.  Stay vigilant, America. Skip the other run-of-the-mill political shows. And listen now.  -Get extra content, connect with guests, attend exclusive events, get merch discounts and support this critical show that speaks truth to power by joining our IA community on Patreon.  -Find us on social media or www.IndependentAmericans.us.  -Represent for this show with some very cool Independent Americans merchandise.  -Wanna advertise on the pod? Hit us up.  -And you can watch video of Paul Rieckhoff and Secretary Buttigieg's conversation here. -Also check out new episodes of other Righteous Media podcasts including the B Dorm Podcast, The Firefighters Podcast with Rob Serra and Uncle Montel - The OG of Weed.  Independent Americans is powered by Righteous Media. Righteous is an independent, American, Veteran-owned and led content company that delivers independence, integrity, information, inspiration and impact.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is in Salt Lake City to tout the infrastructure bill. But what does Utah get out of the deal? And what is his plan for the future of transportation? KSL NewsRadio's Heather Kelly got a one-on-one interview with Secretary Buttigieg and tells Boyd what she learned and why it matters to regular people. To hear the full interview with Secretary Buttigieg and Heather Kelly, subscribe to the Money Making Sense podcast here.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You may have missed it, but Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has announced he is moving to Traverse City, Michigan. He'll even be voting from there. He's not losing his job, just getting out of D.C. It got Boyd to thinking how the country would benefit if whole departments were moved out of the bubble of Washington, D.C. and into regular communities. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Melinda Metzger is the first female Executive Director for Pace Suburban Bus, one of the largest bus and paratransit systems in the United States covering 3,500 square miles and serving 272 communities.  On this week's Transit Unplugged In Depth, Melinda and Paul talk about how the great resignation has impacted public transit and how local partnerships are combating those effects. To get more bus operators at Pace, they are covering the cost of tuition at a local community college to help people get their Commercial Drivers License (CDL) and be ready to start training at Pace to become full bus operators. Get a glimpse of what the future of electrification looks like in the Chicago area as Pace gears up to reach zero emissions by 2040. You'll also hear about a brand new Pace bus facility opened by Secretary Buttigieg, and what our next generation of riders is prioritizing in their daily commutes. Catch us next week to hear Tom Wright, president and CEO of RPA regional planning association. RPA focuses on improving the prosperity, sustainability, and livability of people in the New York Metropolitan Area. If you have a question, comment, or would like to be a guest on Transit Unplugged, email us at info@transitunplugged.com.

June 3, 2022 — Senator Mike McGuire may have taken his victory lap a little too soon at a town hall about the Great Redwood Trail on Wednesday night. “Tonight we are able to announce — and this is late breaking,” he declared; “We have finally put a nail in the coffin of Big Coal. We have beat back Big Coal and the toxic coal train.” The nail may be in the coffin, but there's no train in it yet. McGuire was exulting about what he thought was the extinguished threat of an anonymous coal interest, registered in Wyoming, that was planning to buy the railroad from Willits to Eureka and use it to ship coal to Asia out of the Humboldt Bay. That would put an end to years of effort to turn the railroad into a recreational trail all the way from one Bay Area to the next, from Marin, through the Eel River canyon to Eureka. Sections of the trail have already been built in some communities alongside the tracks. But McGuire and trail advocates were looking forward to railbanking, or filling up the tracks with dirt and gravel, so the trail could be on top of the ready-made line. In order to do that, the federal Surface Board of Transportation would have to declare the tracks abandoned, and grant McGuire and his allies permission to railbank. Anyone who wanted to prevent that from happening was supposed to file their intent to buy the tracks with the Surface Transportation Board by May 31. But the next day, possibly while McGuire was thanking supporters for beating back Big Coal, the North Coast Railroad Company announced its intention to buy the entire 176 miles of track from Willits to Eureka, including appurtenant branch lines. Congressman Jared Huffman issued a statement Thursday, saying “their late application should disqualify them for further consideration. If not, the coalition of community opposition and their lack of transparency certainly will.” The only name associated with the Wyoming-based LLC is Robert A. Wimbish, the attorney, who apologized for his tardiness by explaining that it was “due to unforeseen vacation travel delays.” At a hearing last month, Huffman asked the Surface Board of Transportation Chair, Martin Oberman, where he stood on demanding transparency. “Would the Board require that entity to engage with the community and the public in an open and transparent way,” he began; “in other words, if they're secretive about who they are, about where their funding comes from, is that a factor that you would consider?” Oberman replied, “that's not a factor that's come before us. But I generally believe in full disclosure, and when we get those kinds of applications, we have the ability to insist on a more fulsome application of the facts, which would include revealing the basic financial structure of the entity and so forth. So the general answer to your question is yes, but it's very much case-specific.” But North Coast Railroad isn't the only company trying to buy part of the track. McGuire is also worried about another application, by Mendocino Railway, the parent company to the Skunk Train. Mendocino Railway wants to take over 13 miles of track from mile marker 139.5 to 152.5, from Willits to just past Highway 162, in order to ship gravel from Outlet Creek to Willits or Fort Bragg. However, there is a tunnel on that stretch of the track that long been out of operation due to a landslide. “So right now, if there was a rail company operating on this line, they couldn't even get to the coast because of this massive landslide that's blocking the track,” McGuire said. He added that he does “have some concerns with this application…number one, it's going to create a huge hole right in the heart of the Great Redwood Trail.” In addition, he estimated that, while the cost of railbanking could be $12,000 to $15,000 a mile, repairing the damaged track and the tunnel would cost tens of millions of dollars. Oberman told Huffman the Surface Board of Transportation doesn't concern itself too much with financial details. “You know, we generally are mandated by statute to make it easy for rail lines to come into existence,” he said. “That's one of our jobs. “There's a spectrum on how much we look at financial viability. Generally speaking, we take the view that the market will determine whether a rail line is viable.” Two other train-track oriented interests filed their intent to buy sections of the track, as well. The Timber Heritage Association, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the timber history of Humboldt County, wants to buy 18.5 miles from Eureka to Samoa, to offer excursion rides on restored timber crew cars. Pete Johnston, the Association's president, assured the Surface Board of Transportation that “Designation of this portion of the right of way is not in conflict with the larger Great Redwood Trail Agency's trail mission;” and he is willing to negotiate with the Agency “on any dual access or potential conflicts emerging to preserve corridor usage for both parties.” And Rail Runners Humboldt Bay in Arcata operates what it calls “a recreation concession for passengers to experience a pedal-powered rail vehicle for an excursion along Humboldt Bay.” In 2019, the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors, the mayor of Eureka, and the Humboldt Bay Harbor Recreation and Conservation District, all wrote letters in support of the concession. The owners demonstrated their financial viability by taking out a line of credit on their home and putting up part of a retirement account to buy 5.5 miles of line in Eureka and Samoa. In his remarks to Surface Transportation Board Chair Oberman, Huffman characterized the coal train as, “very unlikely to happen, certainly is at odds with the climate policies expressed by the Administration and Secretary Buttigieg. So I just hope these factors will be on your mind as you discharge your responsibility.”

On this episode, Tina chats with award-winning anchor and correspondent for Bloomberg Quicktake, Mady Mills. Mady has interviewed high-profile personalities like Dr. Anthony Fauci, Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary Buttigieg, and Deepak Chopra. She also has an extensive background in journalism and has worked for both the New York Times and New York Magazine. Mady gives us a behind-the-scenes look at a day in the life of a news anchor, reveals her best tips for a great interview, and shares her expertise in salary negotiation and the most important financial decision you'll ever make. Connect With Mady - Instagram: @madymills Twitter: @MadisonMills22 Follow us on - Instagram: @obsessedwiththebestpod YouTube: Obsessed With The Best Patreon: Obsessed With The Best TikTok: @obsessedwiththebestpod This Podcast Is Sponsored By Better Help For 10% off your first month of virtual therapy tap the link below or enter code: OBSESSED at checkout! https://betterhelp.com/obsessed This Podcast Is Sponsored By Ombre Labs For $30 off your at home gut health test tap the link below or enter code: OBSESSED at checkout! https://tryombre.com/obsessed Shop our Favorite Brands! Beauty Counter Shop with us so we can answer all of your beauty questions, PLUS we love to send free samples! To shop clean beauty with Obsessed With The Best, just tap our link below and enter code CLEANFORALL20 for 20% off your order! https://beautycounter.com/obsessed Plant People: Use code OBSESSED for 15% off your first Plant People order at www.plantpeople.co/OBSESSED Get your Obsessed With The Best Merch! https://obsessed-with-the-best.creator-spring.com/ Feel free to email us any time at obsessedwiththebestpod@gmail.com with questions, comments, and product or guest suggestions! Support us by supporting our host network, DimlyWit Productions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today, Tanner and Delaney analyze audio from Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg. He talks of plans to give rural areas more opportunities through improved infrastructure, explains his plan on moving toward electric vehicles, and shares his thoughts on the role that biofuels play in America's energy mix.

Pages 540 - 547 │ Oxen of the Sun, part VI │ Read by Pete ButtigiegPete Buttigieg currently serves as the 19th Secretary of Transportation. Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Secretary Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. A graduate of Harvard University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Buttigieg served for seven years as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, taking a leave of absence from the mayor's office for a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014.In 2019, he launched his historic campaign for president. Throughout 2020, he campaigned for the election of the Biden-Harris ticket and served on the advisory board for the presidential transition. In December, he was nominated by President-elect Biden to be Secretary of Transportation. He was confirmed by the Senate on February 2, 2021, becoming the first openly gay person confirmed to serve in a president's Cabinet.Secretary Buttigieg lives with his husband Chasten, their two children, Joseph and Penelope, and their two dogs.*Looking for our author interview podcast? Listen here: https://podfollow.com/shakespeare-and-companySUBSCRIBE NOW FOR EARLY EPISODES AND BONUS FEATURESAll episodes of our Ulysses podcast are free and available to everyone. However, if you want to be the first to hear the recordings, by subscribing, you can now get early access to recordings of complete sections.Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/channel/shakespeare-and-company/id6442697026Subscribe on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/sandcoIn addition a subscription gets you access to regular bonus episodes of our author interview podcast. All money raised goes to supporting “Friends of Shakespeare and Company” the bookshop's non-profit.*Discover more about Shakespeare and Company here: https://shakespeareandcompany.comBuy the Penguin Classics official partner edition of Ulysses here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/d/9780241552636/ulyssesFind out more about Hay Festival here: https://www.hayfestival.com/homeAdam Biles is Literary Director at Shakespeare and Company. Find out more about him here: https://www.adambiles.netBuy a signed copy of his novel FEEDING TIME here: https://shakespeareandcompany.com/S/9781910296684/feeding-timeDr. Lex Paulson is Executive Director of the School of Collective Intelligence at Université Mohammed VI Polytechnique in Morocco.Original music & sound design by Alex Freiman.Hear more from Alex Freiman here: https://open.spotify.com/album/4gfkDcG32HYlXnBqI0xgQX?si=mf0Vw-kuRS-ai15aL9kLNA&dl_branch=1Follow Alex Freiman on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/alex.guitarfreiman/Featuring Flora Hibberd on vocals.Hear more of Flora Hibberd here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5EFG7rqfVfdyaXiRZbRkpSVisit Flora Hibberd's website: This is my website:florahibberd.com and Instagram https://www.instagram.com/florahibberd/ Music production by Adrien Chicot.Hear more from Adrien Chicot here: https://bbact.lnk.to/utco90/Follow Adrien Chicot on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/adrienchicot/Photo of Douglas Stuart by Clive Smith See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Pete Buttigieg took office in January, 2021, as the 19th U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Secretary Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. A graduate of Harvard University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Buttigieg served for seven years as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, taking a leave of absence from the mayor's office for a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014. In South Bend, “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg worked across the aisle to transform the city's future and improve residents' everyday lives. In 2019, Secretary Buttigieg launched a historic campaign for president, and in 2021 made history as the first openly gay person confirmed to serve in a president's Cabinet. Secretary Buttigieg lives with his husband Chasten and their rescue dogs, Buddy and Truman.

(01:00) Law of the Day: Leviticus 5:1 – “If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity.” (09:18) Idolatry Watch: Today I look at two recent clips, one from Vice-President Kamala Harris and the other from Secretary Pete Buttigieg. VP Harris presents a false gospel of vaccines while playing fast and loose with the COVID numbers. Secretary Buttigieg sets a new goal of zero traffic deaths nationwide. Both are examples where idolatry leads to a false gospel of mankind's power and ability. This is the recipe for tyranny. CDC COVID Data from Nov 2021 - Jan 2022 Video Clip of Vice-President Kamala Harris Video Clip of Secretary Buttigieg As always, if you have any civic/government related questions, feel free to email me at thegbgpodcast@gmail.com, and I will be happy to address them on the program. Thank you and God bless! Follow me on Facebook or Twitter or go to www.ericluppold.com Please support me on Patreon!

(01:00) Law of the Day: Leviticus 5:1 – “If anyone sins in that he hears a public adjuration to testify, and though he is a witness, whether he has seen or come to know the matter, yet does not speak, he shall bear his iniquity.” (09:18) Idolatry Watch: Today I look at two recent clips, one from Vice-President Kamala Harris and the other from Secretary Pete Buttigieg. VP Harris presents a false gospel of vaccines while playing fast and loose with the COVID numbers. Secretary Buttigieg sets a new goal of zero traffic deaths nationwide. Both are examples where idolatry leads to a false gospel of mankind's power and ability. This is the recipe for tyranny. CDC COVID Data from Nov 2021 - Jan 2022 Video Clip of Vice-President Kamala Harris Video Clip of Secretary Buttigieg As always, if you have any civic/government related questions, feel free to email me at thegbgpodcast@gmail.com, and I will be happy to address them on the program. Thank you and God bless! Follow me on Facebook or Twitter or go to www.ericluppold.com Please support me on Patreon!

NABWIC presents comments for U. S. Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, and Ebony Pittman, Deputy Secretary NC Department of Transportation.  Tune in to listen to segments from NABWIC's Billion Dollar Luncheon in Transportation Opportunities.   Pete Buttigieg took office in January, 2021, as the 19th U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, Secretary Buttigieg served two terms as mayor of his hometown of South Bend, Indiana. A graduate of Harvard University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Buttigieg served for seven years as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, taking a leave of absence from the mayor's office for a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014.In South Bend, “Mayor Pete” Buttigieg worked across the aisle to transform the city's future and improve residents' everyday lives. As deputy secretary for Business Administration, Ebony J. Pittman directs the N.C. Department of Transportation's Office of Civil Rights, the Office of Historically Black Colleges and Universities Outreach and oversees Purchasing and Facilities Management. As a 16-year veteran of the N.C. Department of Justice, Pittman provided legal support to NCDOT on a wide range of transportation issues related to the use of highway right-of-way, state contracting and procurement, and personnel matters. Most recently, Pittman provided legal support to the N.C. Turnpike Authority. _____________________________ NABWIC's Vision: The Vision of the National Association of Black Women in Construction (NABWIC) is to build lasting strategic partnerships with first-rate organizations and individuals that will provide ground-breaking and innovative solutions for black women in construction and their respective communities.| NABWIC.ORG

Listen to Sean Rima on demand. Topics include Secretary Buttigieg's racist highway theory, and the Biden administration's plans to undo the historic wrongs done by pavement. The University of Austin, which will be a bastion of free-thought, is in the works. The star witness for the prosecution in Kyle Rittenhouse's case proved to be a better witness for the defense, and Sean celebrates National Scrapple Day.

89 is the number of years since CBC's founding in 1932, which also makes the annual gala held on October 12, 2021 the 89th Annual Awards Dinner. This year's Medal for High Civic Service winner was Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. CBC was fortunate to have Governor Kathy Hochul welcome Secretary Buttigieg and talk with him about public service and issues facing New York State. After their discussion, Secretary Pete delivered remarks on efforts underway to rebuild our nations and regions infrastructure, and he generously spent some time answering CBC Trustees questions. A very short portion of the audio was edited.

Pete Buttigieg has risen from college student to Mayor of Southbend, Indiana and all the way to Secretary of Transportation under the Biden Administration. What was behind his meteoric rise to prominence and power? How did the entire transportation and trade infrastructure of the United States end up in the hands of this relatively young and inexperienced man? Well, Pete Buttigieg's rise is primarily because of his ideology, an ideology that was first formed by his Father. Pete Buttigieg's Father was Joseph Buttigieg, who was considered one of the top scholars in the world in regards to the teachings and theories of Antonio Gramsci: the father of what is known as Cultural Marxism. So when you are wondering what has been guiding Secretary Buttigieg's frame of reference when dealing with our current infrastructure crisis, remember that Gramsci's “transformation of consciousness” influences his decision-making process. https://sovereignnations.com Support Sovereign Nations: https://paypal.me/sovnations https://patreon.com/sovnations Follow Sovereign Nations: https://sovereignnations.com/subscribe https://facebook.com/SovereignNations https://twitter.com/SovNations https://youtube.com/SovereignNations https://instagram.com/sovnations/ https://minds.com/sovnations?referrer=sovnations https://parler.com/profile/sovnations Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/sovereignnations https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-causes-of-things/id1383339158?mt=2 https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLnNvdW5kY2xvdWQuY29tL3VzZXJzL3NvdW5kY2xvdWQ6dXNlcnM6NDQ1NTczODAwL3NvdW5kcy5yc3M https://open.spotify.com/show/3mNCQcQAdawzIYAAuHfy8r https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/sovereign-nations/the-causes-of-things © 2021 Sovereign Nations. All rights reserved.

Christopher Steele thinks the Trump pee tape probably exists. Too many Democrats announced possible retirements. Shitler's stupid website was hacked by Turkish hacktivists. The fascists over at Sinclair Broadcasting were also hacked. Nazi-curious Tucker Carlson blathered idiotic drivel about Secretary Buttigieg's paternity leave. Man-baby has been trying to sue a House investigation panel rather than turn over requested documents related to the insurrection. Many wankers have been busted attempting to smuggle guns onto planes. Antisemitic over-valued bag of rat poo Mel Gibson will be in a television show about the origins of John Wick. Conservative Q-loon Marjorie Taylor Greene tweeted a panicked plea to her constituents urging them to vote despite a contrary message from 45. Putrid human Ted Cruz had his Republican starfish handed to him by Aussie Michael Gunner after comparing Texas to down under. Former GOP senatorial candidate Lauren Witzke is now an executive producer for "The Stew Peters Show" and assures her fellow panelists on "No White Guilt" that Peters and his audience share their concerns. Right-wing skeet storm Bill Mitchell is leaving Gab after realizing that it is a cesspool of bigotry and antisemitism. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell died from COVID complications.  

Separately, a look at Colin Powell's legacy See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this week's Government Affairs Update, we are joined by Rodney Slater, former Transportation Secretary under the Clinton Administration and Bill Shuster, former Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Both are now with Washington, DC lobbying firm Squire Patton Boggs. In a wide ranging conversation, we cover the status of infrastructure in Congress, how Secretary Buttigieg is doing, and the what lies ahead for Speaker Pelosi in the House as it returns from the August recess.     Transcript: Host: Welcome to the Government Affairs Update from American Council of Engineering Companies. Today, we are very pleased to bring you two experts when it comes to infrastructure to get some interesting perspectives on what's happening right now in Washington, as the bipartisan agreement on infrastructure moves from the Senate over to the House. And I'm joined today by Secretary Rodney Slater and former Chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Bill Shuster, both of whom are right now with Squire Patton Boggs in Washington, DC. Secretary Slater was Transportation Department Secretary under President Bill Clinton, and Chairman Shuster, in full disclosure, I used to work with Chairman Shuster while he was Chairman of the T&I Committee. Both bring extensive experience here. And I thank you both for joining us today on the program. Thank you very much for coming on. Secretary Slater: Thank you. Host: I want to start off actually with you Chairman Shuster, because this is, this is kind of an interesting situation we find ourselves in because you spent a significant amount of time and energy as both a member of T&I, and then also as Chairman in pushing a long-term, substantive infrastructure bill beyond just highway authorization. How does it feel seeing this now to be so close to such a generational investment in infrastructure? Chairman Shuster: Well, I think it's good. The bill is, is this large -  a trillion dollars, it has some positive, real positive things in it. Like for instance, taking the cap off the PABs, that is one thing they've done. They've done some procurement reforms in it. That's positive. And they've also put in a section, I think it's a hundred million dollars that goes to states and locals to help them analyze a big job, big projects, to see if it makes more sense to use the private sector dollars or to or to stay with traditional government programs. And I think that's a thing because I think they're going to find in many cases it may be a little bit cost higher up front, but when you get the private sector involved over a period of time, it usually drives the cost down because the private sector is very much focused on that. Chairman Shuster: They did some things in there that I wish they would have eased up on. Some of them, they put some regs in there too, and I believe it's going to make it a little more difficult to build roads and bridges because of some of the things that they put back in or increased. But I think overall the fact that it's a bipartisan bill, it's got a pretty big number. It includes some things that haven't been traditional like broadband, which I think is is something that you've got Republican support for. I just wish my good friend, Peter DeFazio, he didn't, he wasn't able to get a bipartisan bill out of the house. And, and I think we've seen over the last 20, 30 years at Secretary Slater knows transportation bills when they come out on a bipartisan way they pass. And that's what we've seen in the Senate. And I think the House will take it up to pass it also. Host: And Secretary Slater, I mean, looking at this bill and how expansive it is and how it goes beyond your traditional roads, bridges and highways and rail systems and the like, you know, what, how, what do you think this means, you know, for the economy? Secretary Slater: Yeah. Well, first of all, Jeff, I'm excited about the bill. I mean, it's taken them a long time to make infrastructure week something other than, you know, a tagline to a conference without the action to go along with it. And so I applaud the President, you know, I know the Vice President was involved, and clearly other members of this team Steve Richetti in particular and the entire Congress for really working hard to pull this off. Now I say the entire Congress. So you know, I'm being cautiously optimistic here, but I think with the momentum built by the action of the Senate, that that's a real possibility and I'm, I'm excited about it. I echo the sentiments that the chairman noted about the differences in this bill as relates to bills in the past. You know, this focus on broadband is just essential in this day in time. Secretary Slater: And especially in this post pandemic era that we're trying to bring online, but I also applaud the leaders for really giving us a bill that has a lot more resilience focus to it, sustainability focused dealing with some of the climate challenges we face and then issues as relates to equity. And so I think that it's a bill that is future oriented future leaning. There are those who might argue that more needs to be done clearly the Democrats and any Republican that might have that belief will have an opportunity to deal with that with the with the other measures that are being put forward. But when it comes to really doing something that is akin to what we've done in the past, and then sort of building back better, I think that this is an answer to that to that challenge, Host: You know, Secretary, you bring up a good point because one of the words has been used a lot is the question of resiliency, and it's just not resiliency against extreme weather, but it's also resiliency for critical infrastructure against external threats. I mean, we're seeing a significant increase in the number of cyber-attacks on computer systems and just critical hard infrastructure. And Chairman you also did a lot of work at T& I on pre-disaster mitigation getting the dollars there and getting things done before the next storm hits before the next tropical storm turns into a hurricane. Do you think the bill does enough? If not, you think that, that, what, what do you think needs to be done in addition, you know, to really what we're looking at here in this bipartisan agreement to really strengthen our infrastructure? Let's start with the Chairman. Chairman Shuster: I think the bill does. A good bit in it to help with resiliency, which, you know, as we were talking about back on the committee of how do we build things before they collapse or hurricane blows them down or whatever the case may be. And at the end of the day, you save money by building these things stronger, being able to withstand a catastrophic weather event. So I think it's positive. I think that there, there needs to be more streamlining to get these things done because I just, I feel that as we did in the past, we run into these hurdles to build these things faster and more effectively. But I think overall, it's, it's a, it's a positive thing. It isn't enough, probably not, but it all depends on what if the hurricanes and the tornado seasons and the earthquake seasons and the fire seasons over the next coming years looks like. But I, I think it's definitely a step in the right direction. Secretary Slater: I agree with that. And Jeff, if I may, I, I think that the members of the Council really have a big role to play here. I mean, this is not something that's across the finish line just yet, but you know, engineering companies that are in the business of giving us the kind of system we need and deserve going forward, actually spending the resources in a proper way. You have a lot to say about this bill about it's, I mean, people may say shortcomings. I just think it's to be applauded the fact that we've gotten it done. There are other things that could have been done. Maybe a bit more here or there that can be done later. We shouldn't allow the perfect to sort of distract us from the, from the good, and this is a good, good start. Secretary Slater: And when it comes to the issue of you know, security and cyber concerns, I mean, we, there's a report in today's paper about the rail system in Iran, possibly being attacked by cyber-attacks. And then just a few months ago some pipeline here in the US and also a ferry system up in the in the Northeast. So we've got these issues to be concerned about, and I'm very pleased, and we're starting to really come to grips with this, both the public and the private sectors to do something about it. Host: Yeah. You raise a good point, especially with the rail system in Iran. I mean as some of our larger firms and actually a lot of our medium-sized firms as well, you know, it's a question of designing the best infrastructure possible. And usually today, that means with the rise of AI and machine learning and the like, intelligent transportation systems, which are networked, which are, you know, have to talk to each other that are open up to potential external threat. So the question is designing it in such a way where it's hardened. Host: And you're correct to the point that it's good, that we're having the conversation that, that this has to be. And also the fact that our firms are designing not for what is today, but what will be 20 years, 30 years down the line, the bridge is going to last a hundred years for the building on a shore that's going to potentially see a sea level you rise or, or erosion from the beach. Host: And those are all things that, of course our members are very concerned about. On the question to pay-fors because this is something which is interesting because when we got the framework, when everybody's wondering, okay, how are we going to pay for this thing? And then through the debate and the amendment debate, you know, they really considered everything from unspent COVID dollars to changing regulations on reporting requirements on cryptocurrencies, but what wasn't really talked about a lot with the user fee and, and, you know, Chairman Shuster, I know, you know, from my experience with you, it was always that simple, very basic argument of saying that if you use the roadways, you should pay into keeping them in good repair, and that user fee consideration. Secretary Slater, you were with the Clinton administration. Of course I was the last time the tax, the gas tax was actually addressed. It seems like we're getting further away from the idea of that user fee model. What do you both see as the future of, of infrastructure funding chairman you know, where do you see things moving? Chairman Shuster: Think it's, first of all, look, we made a mistake when the Republicans controlled the house in 2005, I guess when we passed safety loo we, when we were doing this big tax bill, I, you know, what the leadership and try to convince them, instead of giving the average American a $2,000 cut in their taxes, let's do $1,800 or $1,750 and, and deal with the gas tax because that is a user fee. And again, I think they missed the opportunity not to do the user or the gas tax forever, but to do it for a period of time that they can't implement, implement something that's different. And that would be miles travel tax. And they, they, they put some big, they expanded the pilot program, but I really think they were going to be dealing in five years with how are we going to fund the next transportation bill? Chairman Shuster: And with this bill, they had to back fill the highway trust fund shortage. It's like $120 billion, and that's going to just keep growing. So, you know, and it's, I believe as a conservative that as you pointed out at the beginning, if you're going to use the system, you need to pay into the system. And I'll just say this for rural America, where I come from, the average, every dollar that a rural community puts in, they get back about a $1.70. So it's a pretty good benefit for rural America for roads and bridges being built across their communities. Host: And we also saw last year the number of states that took it upon themselves to increase their own state gas tax that state after state, you know, did something to improve the amount of revenue that was coming in to their own coffers. And no one seemed to pay that political price that everybody expected, that, that idea that boogeyman of saying, if you raise the gas tax, you're going to lose an election. At least the state level never actually materialized. Right? Chairman Shuster: I was going to add, I think that number's up to about 35. Yeah. Have done it. And then the real test case was California. Two years ago, I guess was two years ago. Was it less than a year, I guess was a year ago they had it on the ballot and they rejected repealing the gas tax, something like 57 to 43. So, you know, people understand, they want the roads and bridges to be uncongested and they don't want to bust their tires, break a tire, damage their vehicles. So I think people get it if you, if you pitch it in the right way. Secretary Slater: Yeah. You know, I, I agree with the Chairman on this. And I, I would say, I was thinking about actually Kentucky, Arkansas, some of the other Southern states in particular where Southern governors, you know, have stepped forward to move these measures. Secretary Slater: I was pleased to hear about the reference to California. I mean, I think it makes the case that it's happening across the country. I would offer this in defense of the of the Biden administration in this regard. I think what the president is attempting to do is to sort of rebalance things. And he recognizes that there has been this inequity in the system where frankly, the burden of progress is placed on the shoulders all too often of those who can, you know, either least pay or have the hardest time paying. And I think what he's trying to do here is to say, look, we're not going to raise the tax burden of anyone making less than 400,000 as a couple. That's, that's pretty significant. And so he did not want to raise the gasoline tax for that purpose. Secretary Slater: Did not want to go with vehicle miles traveled for that purpose. And I think where he finds himself at this point, it probably is a policy. That is a good one. Now I don't think that it closes the door always to an increase in use of fees. I think it probably such it up where it, at a time in the future, it'll be a lot fairer to maybe do some of that. And I see that, that time coming, but I can see why the president would want to, at this point have significant lines in the sand about what he would and would not want to see. And then, you know, frankly keep his powder drive when it comes to negotiating at an end point where, you know, you have to find closure on these things. And so I think that's a pretty good position to take. Secretary Slater: I will note this too, that Jeff you're right, that during the early days of the Clinton Administration, the gasoline tax was raised but the president would note that he made the case that it should be raised to deal with the deficit to put our economic house in order in balance. And then four years later was actually when we had the resources transferred from the general fund to the highway fund. So as to take advantage of that 4.3% increase in the gasoline tax. So it was done in a two-step kind of fashion. And it may be that with the passage of time, we may get to a point where we can support more funding for infrastructure through user fees. I agree with that. But I also think we should test any number of other options too. And I know the chairman agrees with this because we've talked about things like an infrastructure bank. We've talked about other public private financing techniques. I mean, putting it all on the table and then selecting those that best fit the moment is the proper course, I believe. Host: It seems like today with the amount of innovative financing available that there are a lot more opportunities to break away from the paradigm of just a simple, you know, either a lockbox highway trust fund, or just all always pulling from the general fund to instead look at other options - P3's whether it's capture or that investment, the reinvestment of potential, you know, I forget exactly what was called chairman, but it was something that you were talking about when you were chairman. It was, it was when, when we bring somebody in to buy something or to lease out an airport.... Chairman Shuster: Asset recycling. Host: Yeah, exactly. How a P3 or asset recycling, something like that. In your conversations with people in government in and out, is that something which seems to be gaining some traction? Chairman Shuster: I think you're always going to have to have some kind of governmental component, whether it's a fed state putting money into it, because these deals we're seeing around the beltway here in Washington, DC, I think the Virginia invested about 20% of the money into it to get a cost down where they wouldn't have enormous tolls on those, on those hot lanes or fast lanes. But so I think there's always that component that will always be there, but I think yes, looking at things like an infrastructure bank and because we look at an infrastructure bank and we've been pushing this during this bill, they almost had a piece. It was a very scaled back version of, there was a infrastructure finance financing agency was small and they, they finally pulled it out the end, unfortunately, but I think, you know, folks in your community the ACEC they deal with these TIFIA and RIFF programs. Chairman Shuster: And every time I talked to a contractor engineer, they tell me it takes 14 to 16 months to get through this process and it's painful and it's cost a lot of money. And so I think having a true infrastructure bank based on the federal home loan bank, it's a real bank, it's independent chartered by the federal government. They're going to be, they can make loans in 90 to 120 days. And if it's a good project or not, and it's only going to be a component of the, just like a P3 is a component of the financing package. So I think it's time for us to really look at these other ideas, asset recycling where it makes sense. And again, as the Secretary said, what comes next is probably a vehicle miles traveled, but we've got all kinds of barriers and hurdles because folks don't want somebody tracking them. But as far as my son, when he was in his early twenties, he held up his iPhone and said, they're tracking every moment of the day. Host: You're being tracked one way or another. Secretary Slater: And Jeff, Jeff, can I just say this, I should have mentioned earlier that even when we increased the gasoline tax and the chairman's father was actually in the Congress along with a former secretary and Congressman Norman Mineta. I mean Jim Oberstar, I mean, just a wonderful group of individuals on the House side. I mentioned the House because I want to put the heat on the House to do what the Senate has done that. But, but they also really gave us tools to create some of these innovative financing programs. The chairman mentioned the TIFIA program, the RIFF program, all of that came into being at that time. And again, it was because of a good piece of legislation that gave federal highways and federal transit and all the Department of Transportation and others, the Treasury the ability to, with the private sector to gain insights about how we might fashion programs that resulted in those programs. I think that there are likely to be some measures that can be used in this bill. Even though, you know, it may not be as clear now that will help us to tap some of those private sector dollars and the private sector ingenuity that you just have to have as a part of an effort like this. And I think ACEC can be a really big part of that of that effort going forward. Host: That's, that's a really good point. And thanks for bringing that up because that's something which, you know, our members need to be pretty strong advocates for this, and they need to take, take their own experience from the private sector, work, working with public sector clients and explaining how they can be more efficient. And that's one of the things we always talk about, qualification space selection. It's kind of that idea of saying that Secretary Slater: We are at the lowest price exactly. Qualification over, over cost. Host: Secretary Slater, let me, let me ask you as a former Secretary of the Department Transportation, right now, how would you, how would you rate the job that Secretary Buttigieg is doing on selling the agenda? Secretary Slater: Well, I don't think it could have been express better than in the post today. That was a, a love piece. Although I thought it was, was balanced as well, because it's all teed up. He still has to deliver it. And yet I've talked about that too. I said, you know, it's great to have a president. Who's talking about infrastructure is great to have, you know, the conduit team that you've got with Polly Totenberg and others there to help you make it happen. But at the end of the day, you gotta make it happen. And I thought what was very telling in the article today, and this is what I really want to underscore is the way that he's made himself available. I mean, to Republicans and Democrats this was actually, I thought set up in his hearing where there were so many members who, you know, they had their issues with him and they, you know, they would take him on, I mean, that's the responsibility I think of the Congress to test the administration. Secretary Slater: That's what our three branches of government separation of powers. That's what that's all about. But then almost invariably at the end of the round, you would have a member saying, and I hope that you will be able to come to mind my state. I know that the chairman has had that experience and, and, and to have a, a secretary or a member of the administration say that not only am I willing to do it, I look forward to doing it so that we together can be on the ground with your constituents, looking at challenges you face that's what really gets a member's attention. And that's what gains their respect, that rate. And throughout the article, you could just see just any number of people mentioned in that way. And you know, that they don't all have this, that they don't all agree on everything. Secretary Slater: And so I think that he is doing a tremendous job. I think that the article was correct in saying that there was always the likelihood that he would be in the president's cabinet or a member of his team where he selected because of the endorsement and the warm endorsement that he gave to Mr. Biden at a very critical time in his campaign. And then the president saying just off the cuff that he reminded him of his son. I mean, all of those things sort of lining up. And then it was noted that he had some interests, but, you know, the president gets a chance to choose. And he said, look, I think that you can best help me and help the country serving in this capacity. And I would say that that the former mayor Pete now, secretary Pete has not disappointed. I'm very, very pleased with the way he's gone about his work. And I think all of these relationships, they're going to pay dividends in the short term and the longterm, and they'll pay dividends for him or his team, and clearly for the the president as well. And so I'm, I'm very, very pleased Host: Chairman. You've worked with a number of secretaries. Where would you put him? Chairman Shuster: I, well, first I think the, you know, Secretary Slater is right on target saying, I think he's done a pretty good job. He's measured when he speaks to, you know, to the media. He's not, you know, throwing bombs out there, which I think is important, especially on an issue like transportation and infrastructure. I think, I think he's also, he's, he's obviously bright. I think we did. He demonstrate that in the debates, I was always impressed with them. Didn't always agree with where his policies were, but I smart he's young, hopefully that makes him want to think outside the box. It says to the secretary of Slater's point, you got to get it done, man. It's great. You got to having a bill here, but you're the guy that's going to have to make that department start to hum. Chairman Shuster: And I think too, that, and this is, I forget who said this - might have been Secretary Slater, or maybe Secretary Skinner said, this is the first time I can remember that the Secretary of Transportation was a presidential candidate. So he's got his own platform of followers. They're saying, Hey Secretary, Pete, you know, we love the guy we were with him when he was running for president. So I think that gives you a whole different platform to be able to get out there and go around the country, but to Secretary Slater's point, he's absolutely right. Going into members' districts, talking to members. I think I think what I've heard from a number of the, at least the moderate Republicans that said, he's great, great access to him, he would call them up. He would, you know, talk, talk through the issues, what they thought were important. So I think that's really important. I know the Secretary Slater did it. I know Ray LaHood did it. You know, through the years I named Sam Skinner, when he would have him out on a conference, he said, he sat down with a members' leadership of the House and the Senate different committees once a month and had breakfast with him. So he, you know, he stayed in touch with him. So I think that's important. Host: And I mean, if this does, if he does land this and like you said, you gets it done. He's going to be sitting on, I mean, Jeff Davis from Eno, kind of doing a rack up on Twitter. And it seems like he would have in competitive grant funding, almost the amount will be quadrupled over what is, what is, what has been in the past almost about 24 to $33 billion, depending on exactly what gets through appropriations. I mean, that's a massive war chest to sit on. That's a political weapon as well. Now I think you meet that point, you know, being a former candidate, he's young, he's got aspirations. I, you know, for the Secretary, I mean, how, how, what advice would you give to sit on that record amount of competitive grant funding? Secretary Slater: Well, I, I would say it a little differently. I would say Jeff, don't sit on it. Host: Yeah. Send it, spend it. Chairman Shuster: I would agree the secretary - right out the door. Secretary Slater: You know, all of the meetings up to this point where you go out and you say, oh man, this would be a great project to fund, that's one thing. When you can go back a little later with all of those resources and say, this is a great project to fund and we're going to fund it. That's a lot better. First of all, you basically say I'm here with the Congressman who is going to make an important now, because it's all about continuing to build those relationships. And I think that I think the secretary is going to really have a wonderful time with members of his team doing just that. And, and, and frankly, I think he'll be creating opportunities really for the president, the vice-president, you know, maybe even a secretary of grand home and others to do that same thing as well. Because the, the key is to not, you know, it's, it's not to sit on it and it's also not to gloat in it. I mean, it's all about really doing the business of the American people and getting everybody involved. And I, I think as a mayor, he's going to understand a former mayor. He's going to just understand that instinctively. Host: And Chairman, I mean, you were great at this. I mean, you made sure both as Chairman and then also back in the ninth district of making sure that everyone at every level of government was included in those announcements, because to underscore the fact that everybody from county commissioner all the way up to member of Congress had a part to play. Chairman Shuster: Well and that's the Secretary's point with the department that the Secretary of Transportation, he may not go down to that granular. When you're a member of the House, you need to go to the township supervisors, have them sit in there with you or whoever it is because it's you know, it, it helps it helps everybody out. And so I think this is, as the Secretary said, you get the stuff out the door. And I believe he's going to get it in places that need like rural Pennsylvania, if he does some good work in rural Pennsylvania, the next time around in elections. I mean, the Democrats win Philadelphia and Pittsburgh big, but if they can diminish how big they lose in the, in the center of the state than it, it's better for their candidates. And again, there's, there's good projects out there for everybody to be able to participate. Secretary Slater: Yeah. And Jeff before, before we go on, I just thought about this. I do think that that Senator Schumer should be given some credit here as well. And I think it was very significant that you had, you know, 19 Republicans, including the minority leader. And I just think you know Majority Leader Schumer and Minority leader McConnell. I just think that they, they deserve a lot of credit here. And I know when the chairman was in office, these were the kinds of victories that you really relish where it was not just the chairman, but it was the ranking member and, you know, the other members of the committee and leadership and really down to the last person coming on because of seniority coming on the committee. Secretary Slater: So I think that manifested itself on the, on the Senate side as well. And, and look, you've got that Brent Spence bridge in the Ohio Kentucky area on I-75 that's going to get some attention now, much needed attendance. And that's very important to the constituents in that region. Chairman Shuster: And it won't be lost on anybody that Rob Portman was the chief, negotiator. Secretary Slater: No doubt about it. Chairman Shuster: And he's from the Southwestern and Cincinnati area. Secretary Slater: We were honored at one point that he was a member of Squire Patton Boggs too. I think I should, we should say that, you know, years ago, Host: Well, I have two final questions. One, I want to ask the Chairman, because now we're looking at the house, we've got the INVEST Act. You made the point that, that it wasn't as bipartisan as previous bills have been at least on the vote total coming out. You know, there's, there's some argument being made about, okay, take the Senate bill up and just get it done. Your experience working across from Chairman DeFazio for a number of years. I mean, he's been very vocal on some areas of policy that are not in the bill, dealing with climate, also dealing with resiliency, do you see him letting leadership kind of move this forward or use without the opportunity to amend it. Or do you think he's going to want to have that formal conference, he's going to want to have the opportunity for the house to put his stamp on it? Chairman Shuster: Well, he's already, he's already given up on a conference because he realizes you go to conference and this thing will never get done. So I think it's going to come over. I think there's the potential for being a couple of amendments, but they're going to be very few and they've got to be something that's agreed to by the, basically the 69 senators that voted for it. So it can be things that, you know, are correcting things and maybe the Senate didn't do right. Because that always occurs, but I don't think you're going to see anything major. And I think the DeFazio, Chairman of DeFazio is going to now focus on getting more dollars to put in these different areas that he has that he, that he supports very much. And that'll be some of these things like resiliency. And, but again resiliency and some of the climate change policies, but he can't change the policy and budget reconciliation, but he can plus up plus up the money or pick the money from one to another, but he can't change policy. So I think he's going to be very focused on that. Host: And just a state of play question for you both to kind of round out the conversation. So right now the current state of play in the House Speaker Pelosi has floated a dear colleague letter, but essentially says that she wants to try to twin both the budget resolution to the infrastructure bill in the rules package, which means that voting on one is voting on both. That's gotten some pushback from moderate Democrats. How do you see this playing out? Do you think that it is going to be a twofer or do you think that you know, there's going to be an agreement to allow infrastructure to go first and then the budget reconciliation? I mean, how do you see the state of play in the House coming at the end of the month? Chairman Shuster: I think she's in a very tough spot. She's got her progressives, they're saying they're not voting for it unless they vote on the big package. And she's got her moderates saying, we're not going to vote on that big package, you need to pair it down. And by the way, we also want to vote on this thing. So I think she's in a really tough spot. She can't afford to lose more than what, three votes, four votes? So she's in a tough spot and I'm not sure how to work out. I don't think it's going to happen. Well, I know for sure it's not going to happen at the end of this month because they're just coming back in the House, to vote for the budget, which will pass. And then they they're coming back September 20th. But I think if she's got this fight to keep them paired some way somehow you know, one goes, first, one goes second kind of thing. Chairman Shuster: She'd probably be, I would bet on Nancy to get it done, but I don't think it's going to look the same you know, at the end of August as it does at the end of October. I mean for these two bills. The infrastructure is going to stay basically the same. It's how big the other package will be. Secretary Slater: Yeah. You know, I'd pick up on the comments of the Chairman in that regard. I think that if I were going to bet on anyone getting it done, I would bet on the Speaker. But that doesn't mean that you cannot acknowledge that it's going to be a heavy, heavy, heavy lift. I, you know, I just think that first of all, I, I just, I don't think we, and I think, I think she took note of this. Secretary Slater: I, I don't think you can just dismiss the significance of the bipartisan vote in the Senate and the size of that vote. I mean, that was, that was very significant. I didn't know that the numbers would be that high. I mean, I would, I was basically counting on 10, 11 maybe. Yeah. But that was it signaled that they would, because I think the highest we got with those who were sort of saying, well, maybe it was about 11. And so I think it bodes well for a number of things that are important to a number of people beyond infrastructure. I mean, I think you've got a criminal justice reform opportunity here. I think you might have something on voting. And I think that you know, the, the Speaker has all of that to navigate and to balance and to negotiate. Secretary Slater: And I just think she ultimately gets it done, but it'll be very, very difficult. I'd also like to say just in support of a Chairman DeFazio, I think he's done a tremendous job as well. I think that his effort was necessary, even though it was a little partisan. And I think, you know, it cut against what his natural tendency was. I mean, and that was to work with your Ranking Member to kind of work through, you know, the process in a way that is, you know, institutionally sound and, and frankly an effort, a way that he'd been a part of for so many years. But I think that what he recognized was that he had to really help the Speaker in speaking to the progressive wing of the party in a way that would keep it engaged. And you know, and I think engaged is probably the best way to say it and they are engaged. Secretary Slater: Now you've got this process going now where the various you know, parts of the party will express itself and she'll have to hear all of that, not dismiss any of it. And then carefully, you know, bind it all together with, I think the ultimate argument and that is don't let perfect get in the way of the good, I really think that it comes down to that and let us survive for another fight. And, you know, it's, it's acknowledged that some of that fight in the future will have her being supportive of others who will be at the helm. And I think she will say, look, stay with me. And you know, I've just tried to be as open as possible to make sure that all opinions are heard, all arguments are given an airing and I believe this is the best we can do. And I think that's what it ultimately is. That's what the final question is. And then the votes are counted and I don't think you take a breath until the last vote is cast, you know, so, and as, as the chairman said, it's a three vote - I mean, she's got three votes to [inaudible]. Host: Yeah. Well, it's going to be an interesting end of August. It's been an interesting August to begin with. I mean, so let's, let's get it done. Hopefully this can get this voted on and passed before the beginning of September. And, and that would be a great thing. So I really appreciate your time and your insight because you both been there you've worked on these issues. You have great insight that I know our audience of member firm executives loves to hear. So thank you for taking the time both of you. And of course, Rodney Slater former Secretary of Transportation is a partner at Squire Patton Boggs now. And of course, Chairman Bill Shuster, former Chairman of the House Transportation Infrastructure Committee, and representative of the of the ninth congressional district or the ninth as it were before redistricting - a Senior Policy Advisor at a Squire Patton Boggs as well. And again, this has been the government affairs update from American Council of Engineering Companies. Thanks for being with us. We'll going to see you next time.

  ACEC was honored to welcome Rep. Peter DeFazio, Chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee onto the show to discuss the next steps for the bipartisan infrastructure bill and budget reconciliation in the House. Transcript: Host: Welcome to Engineering Influence, a podcast from the American Council of Engineering Companies. Today, we are honored to be joined by a longtime friend of ACEC and the engineering industry and a strong advocate for America's infrastructure, House Transportation and Infrastructure Chair Peter DeFazio, who has represented Oregon's 4th Congressional district since 1987. Chair DeFazio is a powerful advocate for transformative federal infrastructure investment and consequential action on climate change. He drafted the INVEST in America Act, which passed the House in early July and became the vehicle for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which cleared the Senate last week. With passage of that bill, the issue of infrastructure once again squarely lands in the House, which is expected to return from the August district work period later this month to address it, as well as a budget reconciliation bill.  I'm also pleased to be joined by ACEC CEO Linda Bauer Darr for today's conversation. Thank you both for taking time to join the podcast today. And with those introductions out of the way, I will throw it over to Linda for the conversation. Linda Bauer Darr: Great. Thanks for doing this, Jeff. And thank you, Chairman DeFazio for being with us. When we were getting started, you mentioned that you just adopted a dog, a Labrador. So, what's the dog's name? Chair DeFazio: Liddy. She's now learning her name. She came from a pound in Texas. They named her Lydia, and we've stuck with it. Linda Bauer Darr: So, you're sticking with it. So how old is she? Chairman DeFazio: A year and a half. The story was that she had pups and was in the kennel with the pups. The pups got adopted. She didn't. They put her on a transport, she came to Oregon, and we got her. So there are a lot of dogs in Texas that are apparently neglected. Linda Bauer Darr: Well, you've joined a long line of people who have adopted pets during COVID. I'm down one pet during COVID, so I'm on the other side of that fence, but congratulations, and I'm sure you will have a great time with Liddy. Linda Bauer Darr: We'll go ahead and get started. You were able to secure passage of the Invest Act in the House. By the way, great job. I know that was a Herculean effort. No doubt that had an impact in showing people that the bipartisan package was on its way and that it was going to make it through the Senate. What stands out to you as the most important provision that you secured in the bill? Or what would you be most proud of? Chair DeFazio: First that we went through a real legislative process. We were in committee for a total, I think, of close to 60 hours over the two years. Hundreds of amendments in committee, hundreds of amendments on the Floor. An actual legislative process. Yeah, I didn't get a lot of Republicans for it in the end, but quite a number of their amendments were included in the bill, in contrast to the Senate bill written behind closed doors principally by people who don't even serve on the committees of jurisdiction in the Senate. So, you know, my bill was transformative. It was really to take the country beyond Eisenhower 8.0 and into the 21st century for transportation policy, dealing with climate change, resilience, and social equity and creating one whole hell of a lot of jobs. Unfortunately, their bill is Eisenhower 8.0 for the most part with a little green dressing on the side, Chair DeFazio: There's more money spent on subsidies for fossil fuels in their bill than on alternative fuels. When you add it up properly you know, they, they say that 25 percent of the zero-emission bus policy has to be spent on polluting buses. Half of the $18 billion for fossil fuel reduction can be transferred to highways. There are a number of provisions like that in their bill. Their bill is slightly bigger on highways than mine, but way less on rail and transit and way less on social equity, way less on wastewater drinking water and lead pipes, which came out of Frank Pallone's committee. So we're going to deal with those deficiencies in Reconciliation, which is in part why we're pairing the two. Chair DeFazio: Reconciliation is going to continue a lot of the democratic agenda. I'm unwilling at this point to pass this bill without some changes. It's been made clear that the cabal who wrote it are not interested in going to regular order and having a conference. That the chairs of the committees of jurisdiction in the Senate were not consulted during the drafting is an absolute insult to them, to the legislative process, and to the House of Representatives. And it's not how you get the best legislation when a group of people write something behind closed doors. So we're going to do our best to fix it. Linda Bauer Darr: I will applaud you on regular order. I think people who have been in Washington for a long time have been very eager to get us back into that good rhythm. And even if neither the Senate nor the House has the perfect bill, the fact that we're exercising those muscles again, I think is hopeful. So, you talked a little bit about Reconciliation and you know, how you're going to marry these things. Can you talk a little bit more about that and the strategy and how you think that's going to work? Chair DeFazio: Reconciliation is going to go through—at least in the House—a committee process. I assume it will in the Senate. It came out of the Budget Committee. The House will pass the budget, and then the committees of jurisdiction will be given their apportionments and we'll work through a legislative process committee-by-committee to put together a bill by mid-September. I think the deadline for us to have legislated our parts is the 15th of September. I'm going to mark up on the 12th of September in my committee. Chair DeFazio: And I'm dealing with the White House since there have been some vague pledges that I'm not quite sure of from the President saying no more money for things that are in this bill, but I didn't make that agreement and I think there are ways to work around that. It can be just a little bit different but I'm working to add back money to transit. We got $100 billion just to bring it up to a state of good repair, let alone to provide new options for people. My bill critically included frequency, which would really help with ridership. Their bill has no decent policy in it. They don't understand transportation. Then rail, Amtrak's doing pretty well, but high speed rail didn't and I very much hope to come up with a different novel high-speed rail category. Then social equity, again, under-funded in the Senate bill. Didn't include my sidebars for affordable housing and to prevent gentrification, which has happened in a couple of cases where we removed freeways. Great, we've just rejoined a community that's been split asunder, and now they're all being driven out. So, I'm not sure how we can deal with that under the Dead Guy Rule, so-called Reconciliation, the Byrd rule, but we're going to try and deal with that. Wastewater is a tiny fraction of the investment we need and way less than I had in my bill. I'm hoping to increase wastewater. I'm hoping also to figure out how to bring back in a green infrastructure for wastewater, which has tremendous promise in addition to methane capture and electricity generation. And then certainly again, I partnered with Frank Pallone on this, drinking water and lead pipe removal were way under-funded. Hopefully we can deal with those things. And then EV  charging is very lacking also, and they didn't include Park and Rides. I mean, seriously, I know that truck stops were fighting viciously against including rest areas, but I didn't know anybody was against EV charging at Park and Rides. Unless you're trying to tell people not to take transit. I don't get that one. It might by a that might be a Toomey amendment as he hates transit. I don't know. Linda Bauer Darr: You said that high-speed rail didn't get what you felt it deserved. And then, of course, Amtrak did pretty well. I imagine that had to be one of the President's "This is the deal, and you're going to have to accept it." I imagine it was a huge priority for him. And probably also something that ultimately was pushed by Senator Carper. Obviously their long-term friendship was helpful. Chair DeFazio: Carper didn't have a voice in writing this bill. I talked to him. They did not consult the chairs of the committees of jurisdiction. It was written by the likes of Sinema and Portman and Collins and a cabal of other people and Manchin who got his $8 billion for blue hydrogen, which by the way, if you read the New York Times three days ago—and I've known this for a long time—so-called blue hydrogen is more polluting than CNG. And there are a lot of elements in that bill that are parochial and not dealing with climate change and not dealing with the investments we need to make. Linda Bauer Darr: So how does this all get worked out? You put a lot of time and effort into your bill. It goes over to the Senate and the Senate has negotiated, or some of the leaders in the Senate have negotiated, with the President. We've got it through the Senate. Now we have to come back together. How does this play out ultimately, and how can you have a voice in this process? Chair DeFazio: We are going to have a voice in the process because Reconciliation originates in the United States House of Representatives. We are intending both for the Build Back Better agenda, the things the President wants to do for families, for childcare—so more women can get into the workforce—all those things, in addition to what we can do to at least mitigate some of the shortcomings of the Senate infrastructure bill. Which is why we are pairing the two together. If we moved this infrastructure bill tomorrow, first off, it doesn't go into effect until October 1st, so what's the rush? And secondly, I predict that then we wouldn't even get a Reconciliation bill. It's very likely that wouldn't happen. Often around here, the next thing doesn't happen. Chair DeFazio: I remember when I voted against Obama's recovery act because they had dramatically reduced real investment in jobs, investment in infrastructure, school construction, and other things for tax cuts too small to notice because of that jerk Larry Summers. I tried to get Jim Oberstar to vote the whole committee against it, and I said, Jim, we've got to fix this. He said, "No.They promised me the next thing would be a big infrastructure bill," which then Obama killed. So next thing never happens around here. And that's my opinion on Reconciliation. If we were to just blithely pass. without addressing some of these concerns in the infrastructure bill, we would never see reconciliation. Linda Bauer Darr: You've talked a lot about sustainability and climate and those issues are very important, and frankly that engineering plays an enormous role in—as well as equity—so, you've been vocal about these things. What are the other differences that you see in the Senate bill that stand out to you as red flags? Chair DeFazio: The fact that there is more investment in promoting fossil fuels, requiring that one quarter of the zero-emission buses be fossil fuel buses, allowing the transfer of half the funds into highways, no fix-it-first provisions. Not to make states look at whether more lanes are the best way to go. Senator Kaine tried to do this as an amendment in the Senate because Virginia is the poster child for this. Republicans were in charge. They said, More lanes on 95. It's backed up all the time." But the projections were, in 10 years with two more lanes, one each way, that it would be just as congested as it is today with induced demand and no alternatives at a cost of 10 to $12 billion. Chair DeFazio: And they instead are coming up with an innovative rail project, working with CSX, new right-of-way, new bridge over the Potomac River for rail, the other one's at 99 percent of capacity. CSX likes it. And they're going to run fast trains—not high-speed trains—but fast trains down to Richmond from DC at half the cost, reducing all that pollution. And they have great projections on how much it'll reduce congestion. I was doing a press conference with the mayor of Richmond and he said he never really wanted to be a bedroom community in DC, but it's way less expensive down here. So, things like that that were left out, and they're going to be hard to fix. The other thing is that Secretary Buttigieg under this bill is going to have $100 billion of discretionary grants. I'm working with the White House on how we're going to mitigate some of the boneheadedness in the Senate bill through that $100 billion dollars of discretionary spending. Linda Bauer Darr: That brings to mind years ago when I was at the Department of Transportation, and they were talking about a talent drain, how people were leaving government. And the last Administration, obviously, made an effort to reduce the size of government. How are we prepared in the Department of Transportation to take this money and run with it, considering a lot of it is going to be discretionary and there's going to be a process that needs to be taken on? Chair DeFazio: I'm hopeful that DOT will act with unusual dispatch, and hopefully this won't require a lot of laborious rulemaking. I'm not totally conversant with the details of the discretionary money yet, but we will certainly look at ways to expedite it. If DOT needs more staff to deal with these things or people with different talents, I'd be happy to look at dealing with that either in Reconciliation or in appropriations. I'm already looking at that with the FAA. They lack inspectors both to deal with air rage and with ongoing problems with the industry and the manufacturers. So, if other parts of DOT have been hollowed out—I wasn't aware of DOT getting as hollowed out as the State Department or a whole bunch of other agencies that Trump decimated—but I'll ask on my next conversation with the Secretary what he needs. Linda Bauer Darr: Well, that'd be interesting, if after all this effort, we ran into that bureaucracy, when the money is finally flowing towards projects, that we are all excited to get started on. So, this one is not a question. It's really more a word of thanks. You know that the engineering industry is facing a challenge among firms that took these PPP loans to save jobs and are now being told that they have to give those forgiven loans back because of a quirk in the Federal Acquisition Regulations. You and your great staff on the T&I Committee were very helpful in getting language attached to the Invest Act to lessen the impact of the problem. It didn't make it through in the Senate. At one point, we were making great progress with Senator Braun and some others who had actually even expanded on the work that you did. We were excited about that. Ultimately, it got held up by the process. A lot of the amendments that had a good support behind them fell out, particularly by Rand Paul. He was kind of the party killer. We were very close to getting it done. Linda Bauer Darr: If it comes back to the House, I hope that we're going to be able to count on your support. We've talked about this issue before. It really is unfair. We've got contractors and everyone else that contracts with the government being treated differently than the engineering industry. We're being pulled out and told that "This money that you were given as basically a grant. Well, everybody else doesn't have to give it back, but we're going to take it out of your hides going forward in future projects. So, in some cases you're not going to be paid for the work that you're doing." That, to me, is just insane. We're hoping very much that we're going to be able to get this taken care of, and we hope that will be something that's important to you as well. Chair DeFazio: It's important. It's outrageous. I was not a big fan of the PPP program. The restrictions that were put on people. This is one glaring example. The fraud that occurred through that program. The thing I did for aviation, the Payroll Support Program, had zero fraud and no questions. I know the fix I did in the House wasn't everything you wanted. Unfortunately, I don't have complete jurisdiction. I deal with two other committees who objected. I didn't know how close you came in the Senate. And it's sad that that's a body where one person can stop something that has I think extraordinary merit and we'll continue to work on it, continue to work with the green eyeshade people at DOT, and see what we can do in the House. Chair DeFazio: We're very bound by the Dead Guy Rule, the so-called Byrd rule, the Reconciliation rules, but we'll see what we can do. Policy is tough under his rules. It's pretty absurd that we're held up by a rule written by a Senator dead 12 years and written 28 years ago. It makes no sense to me. And the Senate does have discretion, which they seem loathe to use to just have the chair rule things in order. And then it takes 60 votes to overrule the chair, which turns the filibuster on its head and ultimately in a good reconciliation bill, if the parliamentarian and seance with Robert Byrd is saying, you can't do these things, I'm hopeful that the Senate leadership puts Harris in the chair to rule it in order. And then the Republicans are going to have to get 60 votes to overturn her ruling. And they can just go forward with the bill with 50 votes. Linda Bauer Darr: We will be in there pitching, and we'll do everything that we can to try to make sure that people have the information they need to make a decision. We absolutely appreciate, again, your support and hope that we can continue to count on it, which it sounds like we can. It's just the process and anything can happen with the process, so let's work towards that. Let's assume and hope that we're successful and we get this major infrastructure package to the president's desk this year. Then what? Other than a vacation, clearly, what's next on your list of committee priorities? What else is up? Chair DeFazio: We've already started working on the Water Resources Development Act, which we try to do every two years. And this time not to use the around-the-barn, indirect way of funding individual projects. I intend to go through a similar process to that that I went forward with, which is very rigorous and scandal free on member directed spending, in the Surface Transportation bill, which, by the way, I haven't given up on yet, We have some ideas of reconciliation. Although individually we can't do a projects, we have some ideas. And then some water resources, Coast Guard authorization, reforms at the Federal Emergency Management Agency I'm hoping in reconciliation to create a new pre-development program substantially funded at the Economic Development Administration, which could help a lot of the smaller communities who don't even know how to begin to try to access a federal grants for wastewater, drinking water, housing, or any other thing that relates to economic development. So that that's also something that we'll be working on, plus all the usual burdens of oversight and trying to get the money out the door. This bill will go into effect October 1st, and we want to have a really robust construction season. Linda Bauer Darr: We're with you on hoping for that. I know you don't have a lot more time, but you did reference member-directed projects, which to me is code for earmark. Is that right? Chair DeFazio: Yes, except technically an earmark is something the Appropriations Committee does that isn't authorized. We always did designated spending in surface transportation bills in the House, and they always went through a legislative process. In the Senate, not so much. Things got airdropped in. We went through a rigorous process. 109 Republicans and almost all the Democrats had projects up to $20 million. They had to work with their local governments with their states. And there are a lot of really good projects in there that the state bureaucracy or the federal bureaucracy is never going to get to in people's districts. It was about 1 percent of the bill, and I'm still working on that because I think it has a lot of merit. There are some ways—I'm not going to go into detail—but we have a couple ideas to get around the Dead Guy rule. Linda Bauer Darr: You and I had talked about this over a year ago. I'm with you on the need to give the members some ownership of these projects, give them something to bring back to their communities, because frankly they're there to represent their communities and make the case for their communities when infrastructure projects are required. It seems to me like this is an even bigger issue than what we're working on with infrastructure. It's the ability for Congress to collaborate and compromise. The opportunity to  reach across the aisle and say, “I want to help you on this priority. Will you help me on this?” Or “I can do this. It's just doing business.” And it seems like when we were deprived of that. Regular order came to a halt, the wheels of Congress grinded to the halt, and there was less bipartisanship as a result. So, I think you feel passionately about that. I know we at ACEC feel very passionately about it. I think it's important going forward. We thank you for recognizing that. And you know, before we wrap, I am curious, how did you go about vetting those member requests? That's got to be a difficult job, right? Chair DeFazio: It just about killed the staff. We brought in hired some additional staff. First we had to get a vendor to create a software program. And then they had to be submitted online, posting online all of their documentation, showing local support, affidavits of no pecuniary interest, all those things that in the past led to scandals. Plus, obviously, I created equity. I got 20 million bucks and the newest freshmen got 20 million bucks. And you can do a lot. I spread it around between wastewater that'll help a small port in my district attract a fish processor, worked with the port of Coos Bay on rail sidings that will enhance the port activity and get more product on rail instead of truck, and I had a number of projects for electric buses and multi-modal facilities. There were a lot of things that people liked. Chair DeFazio: Quick story, when the whole earmark thing blew up back after ‘06 and the Tea Party came in and they got this bad name and Republicans banned them. I was down in my second most conservative county. Most of my counties are red except for two. And a guy stood up and said that earmarks are horrible. And I said, “I know there have been some issues, but what do you think about the Weaver River Road bridge,” which is a bridge over the freeway that opened up an industrial park. He was “Wow. It's great.” And I said, “Sir, that was an earmark. He said, “That wasn't bad.” And I said, “Yeah, the state wasn't going to do it and the county couldn't afford it. I got it done.” I did a lot of them in my years on the committee and there's never been a scandal. I had some people object to joining North Bend and Coos Bay with a bike path, but tourism is a really important part of our economy. Linda Bauer Darr: That's a great example there. And who knows better than your constituents about what the needs are and who is better positioned to deliver for them than you, but you have to have that opportunity. The reason for us having this federal program is because it all needs to tie together ultimately. It's like the circulatory system of the body, right? At the center of it maybe is the federal government, but then the state portions and the local portions go out from there and they need to be right on, and we need to make sure that the blood is flowing between the heart and the end of the system and make sure that all the communities are weighing in and earmarks are a way for us to do that. So, we agree with you. It's good for the nation, and I think, it's good for government. And it's good for your constituents ultimately. So again, thanks for being bold and going forward with that, because I don't think without your pushing that it would have entered into the frame again. So, thank you for that. Chair DeFazio: Okay. I enjoyed doing the interview. Liddy and I have done three Zooms in a row. She needs a break. Host: So. Mr. Chairman, I do appreciate it. And thank you for your time today. Good luck in the legislative session ahead. And we appreciate your strong voice for the built environment and for infrastructure. And we do appreciate for everything that you do, and Linda, thank you very much for joining us today on the program. Thank you. Chair DeFazio: Thanks Jeff. Thanks Linda. Hi to everybody who listens to this podcast. Host: And again, this has been Engineering Influence, a podcast from the American Council of Engineering Companies. We will see you next time.

David Rubenstein interviewed The Honorable Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Secretary of Transportation, on Tuesday, July 20, 2021.Prior to joining the Biden-Harris Administration, in 2019, he launched his campaign for President. Throughout 2020, he campaigned for the Biden-Harris ticket and served on the advisory board for the presidential transition. In December, he was nominated by President-elect Biden to be the 19th Secretary of Transportation. He was confirmed by the Senate on February 2, 2021, becoming the first openly gay person confirmed to serve in a Presidential Cabinet.Secretary Buttigieg served two terms as Mayor of his hometown of South Bend, Indiana from 2011 to 2019. Known as “Mayor Pete”, he worked across the aisle to transform South Bend's future, establishing new resources to extend opportunity and access to technology for all residents. Under his leadership, household income grew, poverty fell, and unemployment was cut in half.A graduate of Harvard University and a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Buttigieg served for seven years as an officer in the U.S. Navy Reserve, taking a leave of absence from the Mayor's office for a deployment to Afghanistan in 2014.Secretary Buttigieg lives with his husband Chasten and their rescue dogs, Buddy and Truman.

Mayor Pete is now Secretary Buttigieg, which means that the former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, is now a member of the Biden Administration. A surprisingly popular presidential candidate in 2020, Buttigieg has an unusual story, and in just a few years, he’s gone from planning bike lanes and roundabouts to overseeing the nation’s highways, airports, and more. Buttigieg has already run for president once and he’ll almost certainly do it again, so it’s South Bend and beyond on this episode of "Who Is?," for a look at the man who could one day be America’s first (openly) gay president.  Sam Centellas, Executive Director of la Casa de Amistad, a community center which has been serving the needs of immigrants and residents of South Bend, Indiana, since 1973 Beth Osborne, Director of Transportation for America. During the Obama Administration, Osborne served as the Acting Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy as well as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Transportation Policy  Adam Wren, a Features Correspondent at Insider's Washington Bureau Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

On April 21, Business Forward, Small Business for America’s Future, and other partners hosted a briefing and Q&A on building our infrastructure back better with Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg. Secretary Buttigieg and NewDEAL Leader Mayor Woodfin of Birmingham, Alabama discussed integrating racial and regional equity into the American Jobs Plan rollout, creating good jobs, and providing opportunities for small businesses to get involved in infrastructure projects. This briefing is the first in our Build Back Better briefing series. This series will cover the Biden administration’s policy priorities across a range of topics, including those covered by the American Jobs Plan and the recently passed American Rescue Plan.

Matt Reiffer joined the podcast to discuss action on VMT, NEPA and a Senate water bill.  Plus, we announce that Secretary Buttigieg will appear at the upcoming 2021 Virtual Annual Convention and Legislative Summit.  Register for that event today! 

While the nation's roads continue to decline, improvements in rail and some other categories raised the nation's overall infrastructure grade to C-, a very modest improvement from the D+ grade in the 2017 report card from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). Andy Herrmann, a professional engineer, past president of ASCE and a member of the report card committee since 2001, says he is optimistic that Congress can agree on an infrastructure package. He echoed U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who told the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) last week, "I'm looking forward to a day when infrastructure week is no longer a groundhog's day joke but something that delivers investments to the American People."In 11 of the report card's 17 categories, the grade was in the ‘D' range: aviation, dams, hazardous waste, inland waterways, levees, public parks, roads, schools, stormwater, transit, and wastewater.The study concluded that, overall, the long-term investment gap continues to grow as we lose value in our infrastructure. That gap grew from $2.1 trillion over 10 years in the last report to $2.6 trillion, meaning the need now is $259 billion per year.In terms of funding solutions, Herrmann explained why he thinks a shift away from the fuel tax and to vehicle miles traveled (VMT) makes the most sense. In his remarks to AASHTO, Secretary Buttigieg suggested a usage levy is necessary.A Tax Foundation report in August 2020 thoroughly explores the VMT option, observing that only three states raise enough dedicated transportation revenue to fund transportation spending. The last Michigan-specific report card, in 2018, assigned a D- grade to roads and gave the state a D overall for infrastructure. That report concluded, simply, that "Michigan's infrastructure is old and outdated. We're now faced with pothole-ridden roads, bridges propped with temporary supports, sinkholes destroying homes, and closed beaches." The report highlighted Michigan's 21st Century Infrastructure Commission conclusion that an additional $4 billion annually is needed to maintain our infrastructure."Michigan must support innovative policies leading to cleaner water, smoother highways, and a safe environment that will attract business and improve our quality of life," the report said. View a nationwide map of Dedicated Transportation Tax Revenue, fiscal year 2017.