The Exchanges

Q You know, and I, I think it'd be interesting to hear your perspective on, is this the worst time to be in American politics?

A No. It's not. Uh, it's, it's bad. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying it's cheery and wonderful. But, uh, even in the lifetimes of people who are around today, like me, It's been worse. You know, the sixties and seventies were terrible. We were deeply divided as a country over the issue of race. We have a bigot running for president in 1968 who wins five states, and in 1972 he runs for the Democratic nomination and runs 1.8% behind the ultimate winner, Eugene, excuse me, George McGovern in the, in the popular vote. Um, we have the peaceful protests, mostly peaceful protests of the 19 fifties give way in the 19 sixties to violence. It begins in 1964 and, uh, excuse me, 1963 with the major riots in big cities, uh, Harlem. 1964 and 65 more riots, including Watts. Seven days, the center of our great American city is burning. In 1967, it's called The Long Hot Summer. 100, over a 140 American cities are racked with huge protests over the, over race. In April of 1968, Martin Luther King is assassinated, gunned down in front of a motel in Memphis, Tennessee, and over a 140 American cities burst into flames within a matter of hours, and 47 Americans die. And, um, we have political violence. November, 1963, the president of the United States is assassinated in Dallas. April of, of, um, 68, Martin Luther King is gunned down. Six weeks later, Robert Kennedy senior is gunned down in, uh, the…

AI assessment note: “No. It's not. Uh, it's, it's bad... It's been worse.”

Q I like that. Isn't it true that in parts of Africa, the Bush's first names are some of the most popular names for children? I heard that statistic. Is that true?

A Uh, well, I, I don't know if it's true, but I do know this. I, I was in, on that same trip in, in Nigeria. The guy came up and introduced himself to me, and he said, I am a governor of the state in the Delta region of Africa. And he said, do you know what the most common birth names are for young men and young girls, boys and girls in my part of Nigeria? And I said, I have no idea whatsoever. He said, George and Laura. He said, uh, tell America thank you for PEPFAR, for saving our people. Twenty-five million people alive today because of the generosity of the United States. And, um, you know, it, it was, uh, George W. Bush was a vehicle to do that, but it was an expression of America. We did this after World War II. You know, it was, we, we saved a, we saved a continent that had been ravaged by war, and, ah, and then with PEPFAR, we're saving a continent that was ravaged by disease. Yeah.

AI assessment note: “He said, George and Laura. He said, uh, tell America thank you for PEPFAR”

Q So what would be an example of that?

A Well, John Kerry liked the fact that he was, you know, um, You know, that he had, he wanted to be pure thoughtful and so nuanced, but what it made him look like in reality was like he was, um, fully capable of going here and going there. So that, so that we've got it, Mark McKinnon picked up on this with an ad, with an ad, we got footage of him windsurfing on the Columbia river. And so that, you know, he, first he said this, you know, this, then he said that. You know, it's like he voted against, he voted against, while, while we're in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, he votes against an eighty seven billion dollar war funding bill. And we, we bought 11,000 or 14,000 dollars worth of ads in Huntington, West Virginia. I think it was February or March of 2004. He was going to be appearing the next day in front of the VFW audience to talk about his military experience versus Bush's lack of it. So we ran these ads talking about how he voted against While American troops are under, under fire in combat, he voted against the eighty seven billion dollar war funding bill. And because he wanted to be shown as thoughtful and nuanced, he stood up the next day with a microphone in front of the veterans and said, I actually voted for the eighty seven billion dollars before I voted against it, which became the line that, that exemplified the 2004 election. So we took what he thought was a str…

AI assessment note: “I actually voted for the eighty seven billion dollars before I voted against it”

Q But even, I mean, I sort of think, maybe this is wrong, but is it slightly like a COO in some ways? Like, you're kind of taking all of his ideas. The vision comes from the president, but then you're like, all right, now it's my job to kind of help figure out how I think we can do this and who we need to get in line.

A Well, the people who operate are the heads of the various divisions, we call them departments. Those are the people who have to execute. And the administrative agencies and, and departments of government, that's where you need to, you need to have a secretary of commerce who says, I'm doing this. If my goal at the Interior Department is to make certain that we expand opportunities for environmentally sensitive drilling on federal lands, that's where that happens. If you're, if you're the guy who's in charge of the every 20 or 30 year modernization of our nuclear weapons program as the Secretary of Energy, which is really weird, you, you better be, you better have a physicist who can help you, advise you on how to do that. So each, but you gotta, you gotta pick people in each one of those agencies who are capable of Operationalize in your vision.

AI assessment note: “the people who operate are the heads of the various divisions”

Q And did you, um, do you feel like conservatives today are still thought of as compassionate? No. Is there a segment?

A No. When we have Marjorie Taylor Greene saying we must stop AIDS relief effort in Africa because we've got bigger problems here at home, it's a, it's a wrecking, it's not a, it's, it's just not thoughtful. It's, we spend a pittance, a relative pittance of what this country has Uh, on saving lives, human lives. I thought we were pro-life. And the expenditure of a modest amount of money saves an enormous, has saved an enormous number of lives. And so, yeah, I don't know. We've got, we've got, the conservatism is today in, in flux. And it's because imparts success. Both parties are suffering through this, liberalism and conservatism, Democrats and Republicans. But, ah, You know, we each in our own way have been successful at certain things. Democratic Party had become the party of civil rights. We've become the party of, you know, limited government. And, you know, we've succeeded at certain things. And it's caused, you know, us to figure out what's next. And so we have populism, populists like her who want to basically isolate us from the world and then spend our money in rewarding our constituencies, you know. It's like I saw Steve Bannon the other day who was talking about how, ah, during the battle over the tax cut bill, he wanted to raise taxes so it was 50% on the top bracket. Didn't want to lower it. He wanted to raise it. Because government ought to be able to take away 50…

AI assessment note: “No. When we have Marjorie Taylor Greene saying we must stop AIDS relief effort”

Q You've been sort of behind the scenes with politics throughout this, you know, Biden administration and far before it. What do you think about, did a lot of people know his rate of decline?

A Oh, absolutely. In fact, that's the thing is, this is, this is, and this criticism is, you know, now, now people are popping up saying I was in meetings and I was worried. I mean, I've been, I mean, I've been worried for a couple of years. I mean, I, I thought I was saying a year and a half ago, I cannot imagine why he's running again. I mean, he's in bad shape now, and he's only going to get worse. And so literally, You know, Jill Biden and Valerie Biden Owens, his sister, wife and sister, are the two most powerful people in effecting him. And for their own reasons, they've decided we want Joe to remain and to run. And it's not going to be good for him. It's not going to be, if he were to win, it'd be terrible for the country, but he's going to lose. And so they're going to, they're going to be sort of, you had a chance to step aside to be the, we all thought he was going to be a transitional figure. That's how he got elected. I'm going to end the chaos. I'm the transitional guy. There are lots of new people coming up, younger people, but it's me versus him. I've got the responsibility of ending his political career, serving as a transitional figure, and then we can go to a bright future. Now, I'm the only one who can defeat Donald Trump is what I think he's saying to himself. But no, it's, it's, I don't know if the reports are true, but they said the reports of the family mee…

AI assessment note: “Oh, absolutely. In fact, that's the thing is... now people are popping up”