Interview Only w/ Joel Willett - How Democrats Can Win In Appalachia

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Mister Willett, nice to meet you. Yeah, thank you, Chuck.

So let's start with how you got in a service. Look, we're taping just before Veterans Day. You're a veteran. I'm a huge advocate that feels as if that the people best equipped to what I call to I'm looking for more pastors for patriotism in this country right that. I think the military community and the intelligence community, where you have to be Team America before your Team Red or Team Blue, is probably as good of a place to find these pastors for patriotism as you can find.

But tell me how you got what got you into service? Yeah? I love that term. Atn't heard it before, so I'm probably gonna steal.

Well, I'm using it over and over. I'm obviously a little proud of it, so I'm going to use it probably too much.

But you know, well, my grandmother took me to church

I speak Russian. Do with that which you will, and you know.

Finished my last year in government in the White House Situation Room as a nonpartisan civil servant, there to provide intelligence and crisis management support to the president who was then President Obama and Vice President Biden. There to serve the presidency, not the president, and the true spirit of

What made your democrat? Why'd you pick a party? Yeah?

When did you pick a party?

Do you remember when you've said, you know what I think, I am a Democrat? Or and this is why I'm doing it? What give me your reasoning for?

Yeah, it was a.

It was a long, maybe a short evolution out of being a conservative, which is, you know, I would freely admit to holding some conservative views as a as an interested teenager or even in high school. But my journey

I you know, I.

Could see something very different than what the George W. Bush administration was saying publicly, you know about this status or the state of our military, our readiness to fight such a war, and then you know, we we we later come to learn that much of the rationale for going to war in Iraq was a house of cards, and I continue to see that, you know, some twenty years later, as one of the most disastrous foreign policy

You know.

I'm sure somebody will fact check me on this, but if my memory serves me, the first time I registered as a Democrat to vote was in twenty sixteen, and it was in response to what I saw as the clear and present.

Danger of Donald Trump.

And I have been proudly a Democrat since that time because that is the party that I see standing up for a strong America, for an America that works for everybody and not just the wealthiest.

You know, hearing your story talking about your personal story, your parents struggles with opoioid's, the tragedy of your father, the strength of your grandparents, I'm sure I'm not the only person who they start to think. I wonder what he thought of Hillbill the book Hillbilly Elegy by a gentleman by the name of JD.

Vance.

Some people may recognize him as the current Vice president, and some people may wonder if the same person wrote that book. And I'll set that aside. I'm curious what you made of that book and how much of what Jdvan shared in that book resonated with you.

Yeah.

I first became aware of that book in twenty nineteen when I lost my father, and you know, an attempt to process my own emotions around that, because Chuck, it was, you know, one of the most debilitating things that had ever happened to me, because no matter how long I had expected that phone call, nothing really prepares you for it.

Vance's.

I my heart aches for, you know, the life that he describes, you know, living growing up, and so much of it resonates with me. And I understand that, you know, he similarly felt a need to serve his country, and you know, I will have to transition now to say that there are major differences between my story and JD. Vance's,

Boy, I didn't see that landing. I didn't see the play landing that abruptly.

That was may have crashed it a little bit, but I was just going to say I had one of those landings yesterday actually, while flying back from Miami, where it was the first I think a runway that he wasn't used to using it.

It was like Boa, like we all hit the ground road WHOA, that was an early morning flight, so it woke me up. No. I mean, look, it is very hard to square jd Vance, the author jd Vance, the conservative pundit of twenty sixteen, right with the person that ended up in the United States Senate, you know, sort of making a what appears to be a political deal, right, And look, that's yeah. I've always slightly hesitant on motive, in assuming motive because none of us can crawl inside

Yeah, I think we certainly have to go about it in a different way than we've attacked this problem or any other of the drug crises that we've had in this country.

Over the years.

But you know, let me start with kind of the supply side of this, where we you know, that's where Donald Trump's conversation around it seems to end. And unfortunately for many Americans, he's not the only president that has stopped the conversation.

There.

We talk about, you.

Know, a drug war, and usually what we mean there is attacking the supply and where the stuff is coming from.

Yes, we have to secure our borders.

Yes we have to go after and chase to the ends of the earth the supply of this stuff, whether

In this country. And you know, we've had many, many.

Kentuckians lose a father or a brother because of unregulated capitalism and doctors who had very perverse incentives to continue pushing highly addictive opioids and poison uh into our community. So I think we've we've got to pursue the supply of this in many different directions.

We've made some progress on that and uh.

But but it's the demand side of it. Why are people turning to these drugs? Why do people want to use them? And I think it is that that we need to that there is so much more that this

In European friends are like, wait, you send those people to jail.

Why don't you send them to the hospital, because it sounds like that's probably what they need. In Kentucky, we've had three years of declining overdose deaths from synthetic opioids. We've got down to like fourteen hundred and ten.

This past year.

A lot of that progress was made because we invested heavily in this state and medicaid expansion, and it was access to medicaid that paid for treatment that helped people, paid for some NARCAN community awareness, and also paid for treatment for addicts. And I do think that is just something we have to invest more in because you know, we want people to have good lives and good opportunity in this country. And you know, young men, especially account

So when you think about the things that could have helped your father, you know, what's an intervention that we're doing now? I mean, you know, I lost my father at sixteen. I'm sorry alcoholism and hepatitis C in the late eighties when we didn't have a pill to take to sol hepatitis CE.

You just died.

So you know, I've got it's always what of?

For me?

The what if is, oh, my goodness, if you just lived ten years longer than there'd have been a cure and he would have survived. When you think about the things that we're doing now, if they had been available even ten years ago, do you think your father there would still be a lot? Well?

I know that as a civil servant, you know, living on an okay salary, but in a very expensive city in Washington, d C. It was very tough to get access to resources. And so I always say, you know, we confronted my father and checked him into you know, dollar store rehab and Elizabethtown, Kentucky. You know it was there were professionals there were doing the best they can, but it wasn't the most well resourced facility, and a lot of desperate people showed up there. But even that

And my dad's path, you know, wound through a.

Union and I got him jobs that were relatively you know, well paying when he could work. But you know, obviously there were mornings in the union hall where he didn't have work in the you know, earlier mid nineties. But

And and it takes Look, you're never going to get over it. I you know, my wife and I both lost parents at different times of our life, and we always say, you know, the thing, the thing that you learn when you lose body like that, no matter when you lose it, it doesn't matter, it's always painful in it. You never get over it. You just sort of you live with it. Right, right, that's what we do. You just learn to live with it, and then you wonder

I think it's both, and I'll just zoom out to healthcare large. We need more doctors, we need more health care facilities. Uh. This administration passed an unconscionable four trillion dollar tax cut to put money back in the pockets of the already ultra wealthy, like the ten billionaires that serve in Donald Trump's cabinet. I find is saying those billionaires are not like the average Kentucky voter. They do

To lose access to that healthcare.

Even people who maintain health insurance through their employers are going to have to drive farther, wait longer. These communities are going to lose you know, one of the largest employers in their communities. So yeah, we have a shortage of health care access in the state of Kentucky and in many parts around the country. And I think Republicans in this administration have shown just play in simply in

But again, I think the root causes of all this happened.

Way earlier in life, and I would again tie it to increasing inequality and dimming prospects for working families.

There's a reason results matter more than promises, just like there's a reason Morgan and Morgan is America's largest injury law firm. For the last thirty five years, they've recovered twenty five billion dollars for more than half a million clients.

Doesn't matter anymore. AI is going to do it.

And so I can tell you this as a parent, You're petrified, am I am my kids?

You know, my kids going to have a future and what does that look like?

It sounds like you have younger kids, both of mine are in college. What do you think about is the jobs of the future and how should government be thinking about it?

Yeah, for the record, my son is is sixteen and this is obviously a very uh.

Yes, you're right as a moment conversation. Yes, I have a freshman. I have a senior in college and a freshman in college. Oh wow, yeah, good stuff.

So so look it We've always had I mean, America is the innovation engine of the world.

We have always innovated.

And with every wave of you know innovation, from you know, the industrial age to you know, the assembly line to even modern management theory and efficiency in factories and in business, there's there's always been displacement and we've always found, you know, ways to innovate even around that, and people have always found, you know, new ways to to to labor and to work. And I think there is some there are some reasons

Now we're seeing it right now, You're where the high end consumer market is doing just fine. Yeah, but middle and long people are pulling back. People are saving money, and it's like this income and equality line is gap is just getting bigger and bigger.

Yeah, And so tax policy is I think the number one thing that can address this. You don't have a situation where, you know, the America's first billionaire he died a billionaire, John Rockefeller in nineteen thirty seven. Bill Gates, fifty years later became the fifteenth billionaire, and thirty eight years since then, we now have seven hundred and fifty right, and you know, all of the gains in the economy since the early nineties or like fifty two percent of

One, it's im moral.

But two, anywhere in the world in history where you see fascism grow, it does so in the fertile fields of wealth inequality, and people get desperate, they turn to strong men who.

Say I alone can fix it right now. And that's I mean.

I look at I talk about the fall of Turkey in Venezuela all the time to former democracies.

I guess you could take Turkey.

Is slightly higher on the democracy rating scale than Venezuela is. Buttheles right Air Dowan and Hugo Javez before Maduro, but Ugoshaves who sort of started this revolution. Both of them used frustration and poor communities to go after the so called elites right in Istanbul or Caracas. I mean, look, I assume this is your experience overseas, that this it is.

Yeah, and it's replaced with corruption and crony capitalism, every hypocrisy.

Of some sort.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So we we do have to reckon with our tax policy that that I think has concentrated wealth at the top.

That you know is certainly what does.

That look like? Because I've heard this before and in frankly, you know, we you know, this is what we did one hundred years ago when we have all these robber barons. We passed the Amendment on the income tax. That was not about taxing Americans. That was about tax making sure the rich paid something back to this country that they were taking from it. And that's when property taxes became mainstream.

Was back then.

So what is what is today's answer? Because I agree that tax policy is probably the that's what a small d democracy should do in that sort of capitalism with guardrails. What what what large areas are you thinking when it comes to comes to tax policy and trying to close the income inequality gap without it coming across as redistribution, right, there's that fine line there, right.

Sure.

Well, one easy answer is something that that Ronald Reagan actually did and then in the late part of his second term, which is ensure that capital gains, you know, gains from investment were taxed same rate as your labor. I see no reason why people working forty eight sixty hours a week and are subject to payroll taxes. And you know, even if they don't make enough money to actually be subject to income taxes, they're paying a lot

Bush undid that policy. And I don't remember if it was eighty eight or ninety, but one of those years check up on me.

I think that that is a fairly easy place to start. And then the second thing, you know that we just have to deal with, are you know, the strategies that the ultra wealthy use to live off of their unrealized gains. You know, people will say, if I, if I have

Basically, if you, if you UH obtain cash.

Flow from those unrealized gains in any way, at that point it would be subject to tax.

So these are kind of simple things.

I think there's a lot of other complicated things that I'm sure academics and tax policy experts have a spectrum disagreement about. But I think you know, to your last point about redistribution, this is where democrats often get in trouble because everybody sees that, oh, well, we're going to tax, We're going to tax everybody more, uh, you know, hard working people, and then we're just going to do handouts to people who don't want to work.

And this is just silliness, right.

I believe that that's a myth for the most part, that most people receiving, whether they're SNAP benefits or medicaid or whatever.

Actually do want to work.

And I think forty million people on SNAP benefits, fifteen million of them do work full time. They don't make enough to actually be able to afford groceries. So I think we got to do away with some of those myths about the working poor in this country.

But separately, rather than handing people.

Money to go buy things, we as a country need to invest some of those proceeds into building more.

We don't have enough high quality education in this country.

We have an energy grid that is increasingly falling behind for the demands that are going to be placed on it by an aiicentric economy. We don't have enough hospitals

No, And it does seem though that there is a collective agreement on that. And yet you've seen this. This Congress doesn't function very well at the moment because we're in this you know, we're in this like forever cold war between red and blue.

Yeah, and it.

Is very dysfunctional. And even when you can have consensus, or even when you have you know, broad agreement on issues, you know, progress remains elusive. And I believe that it is just that this system has been captured by the political and economic elites that are entrenched interests. We have campaigns,

No chip in five bucks to save democracy.

And then a lot of that just goes back to, you know, paying for campaign consultants and all the absolute fundraiser makes the money. Yeah, it's absolute nonsense. And I think that that, you know, we have to start electing people to the Senate who understand the struggles of the working poor in this country. We talk about how much representation matters, you know, especially as Democrats, and we mean that in a variety of different ways, but one way in which we don't explicitly talk about it is do

In any of the people that are elected to represent them?

And I would say that they do not, because you know, many people who seek office year after year, cycle after cycle and win or lose. I just don't think they have much in common with the people who who they are trying to represent.

And I think that that representation matters a lot.

So, And I'm not like asking you to throw shade at potential primary opponents I may already have. Yeah, sorry,

Yeah, I mean there's there are a lot of you know, contributing factors, and you know why you should ask Amy what her assessment of that race is.

I'm sure that she had all.

The money in the world, all that money in the world. This was not a she didn't This was not a financial issue. So this became a you know, the you know, an old marketing slogan was that the dog that doesn't matter how much money you throw behind the dog food, if the dogs won't eat the dog food.

Yeah, you know, it's not gonna work. Why didn't it work? Yeah?

Again, she would probably be much more uh, you know, qualified to share an assessment with you on that. I will say Amy McGrath. McGrath has an incredible life story. She's a patriot that you know, has served her country

And when when.

Democrats don't actually offer an alternative vision, when they sometimes speak in ways that sound just kind of republican but just a little less republican, I don't think voters can really tell the difference, and so if you got people on the fence, they're going to just vote for the Republican and Andy Bisheer, didn't you know do that? This is a governor who led with his values in both

So I think that that's probably the big difference.

What do you think is the best way to win win over somebody who voted for Donald Trump in twenty twenty four to vote for Joel Willett in twenty twenty six.

Yeah, I would just ask those voters do they see more of themselves in Joel Willett or in Donald Trump. Donald Trump's net worth has increased three billion dollars according to the most recent estimates since January twentieth. How's your bottom line doing Kentucky? Wages are stagnant, costs are up, you can't afford groceries. They're actively trying to take your

Do you believe that this man has your back?

And I think there is ample evidence at this point between his ballrooms, his own increase in his wealth, and these other policies he does.

Not definitely has a gilded age feeling to it.

Doesn't it like, yeah, let them cake whatever, you want to whatever cliche you want to pick. It feels it like you're just like, yeah, the pictures are jarring. Having good life insurance is incredibly important. I know from personal experience. I was sixteen when my father passed away. We didn't have any money. He didn't leave us in the best shape. My mother, single mother, now widow. Myself sixteen try to figure out how am I going to pay for college?

The Democratic Party.

One that says, hey, they're squirming, why give up now?

The other that.

Says he's taking away snap benefits, he's putting the travel system under duress. Somebody's got to be the adult in the room here. And oh, by the way, if you're trying if the whole point of this was to bring more attention to healthcare, that's been a mission accomplished. And then now the burden is on them to either deal with this or watch out. In twenty twenty six, this becomes a certainly a populist issue. So obviously you could

Yeah, but I'm not someone who is going to ever play hide the ball with the people that I want to vote for me and the people that I want to represent. So in that spirit, I believe that the deal that was just struck is a betrayal of working families, in this country. And I'm absolutely disgusted by this choice, with the with the eight Democrats who who broke pretty angry about this, I am very fired up, Chuck. I went to bed mad and angry last night. I woke

Big bullshit bill back in July.

They did that right with without getting the support that you know they wanted from Democrats. They could have funded and reopened the government the same way. Not sure there

Fighting for them, to just immediately turn.

Around and say, why why do you assume the fight's over? I mean, this is a temporary opening. You know. I could if you made me have to message it sort of on your I would say something like, look, we're not going to we're not going to make people have to ration food because this administration is going to do it.

And what's wrong? What is wrong with that strategy?

Because you do sort of try to strike I could argue that it strikes the balance between you know, helping in the immediate term and again I think, look, we're playing with fire with what's going on with their traffic control and not paying these folks and and all of this stuff.

And I take it we had a we had a crash here and right, we don't know if.

That had an was that impacted by right and we can't say for sure, but we know we've put these people under duress meaning they've got to work with a promise to be paid right, which I've never met the landlord that said that, hey, I'm gonna post date this check just you know, I just don't know when I have to get to post date it. Do you not accept the premise that there's time to fight keep fighting for this in two months?

I think when you look at the eight Democrats who voted for this, it sort of betrays the parties thinking that they don't really buy this premise either. None of those people are facing reelection next cycle. To my knowledge,

I don't think you find that Democrat any.

What's the running the compromise? I think the question is whether you're running. You know, you get to keep running on healthcare? I would argue you do, oh.

Sure, because but the problem is you've got tens of millions of Americans who are absolutely now going to see premium increases or they're going to go without health care.

That is now a fact that is going to happen.

And you know a lot of people are like, oh, do you trust Republicans that they're actually going to give you a vote on this or whatever. It's like, Okay, I think you know, Thune has been very public that there is going to be a vote and it's going to happen on such and such date and all that. So take them out the where there's going to be a vote. Is that going to accomplish? Do you think magically Republicans are going to extend these enhanced subsidies?

I think enough, because I think they're petrified of this. I think they're absolutely petrified of the impact. Commiss I think they're looking her way out. Yeah, we'll see, right.

And so I don't have that level of faith right now because they are beholden to Donald Trump. And this is a man who who who found his affordability narrative for a maximum of five hours one night before he

Don't talk to me about affordability.

I mean they are going to do whatever he says, and until he's out there saying the impersonation is.

Noted there, Joel, I see that.

It's incredible. Check you.

Got to keep that up.

What bory is it?

Just have or do you have others that you're pretty good at?

Oh well, we'll save those for future besodes. My wife hates my impersonations by the way. Oh, she's got to be the biggest fat she can't do that to you.

I just want to discourage it. And I've got a shared brown impersonation that I've always been really proud of.

Ground to be.

I just need, you know, with the men and the working men and wavebow. You know, you got to you gotta have the dignity of work. There rol.

That does very good and quick aside.

I was was able to uh see Carl Rove and Paul Lagala do a fireside chat last last fall, and both of them, I mean, Karl Rove has an uh, you know, an incredible impersonation of Donald Trump and an even better one of George W. Bush, the president that he served so firstly, and Paul Lagala busted into a Bill Clinton uh that would deceive anyone. And I just thought that was very impressive that the presidents that they had served, that they had just kind of embodied their voice so realistically.

Well it makes you wonder did they embody their voice or did the do the president's embody the voices of their chief strategistic Yeah, you know who's pulling this strength now, I'm kidding I'm kidding on that front. So I take it that if there's no deal on healthcare, you'd say, you think that this that these that shut down the government in January again.

Right, Yeah, I don't see what choice.

I mean, look, I say this as a civil servant, and and and perhaps I should you know, lead with my.

You know, I understand I've lived through shutdowns. I had. I was always a.

You know, a an essential employee doing government shutdowns and had you know, pay at risk, and they got paid. Yeah, it always came back. But even if there was like a you know, a temporary you know, blip in it, you you you're not getting paid that much anyways, right, and you you continue to show up and it's it's work that you care about. But ultimately, you know, you've got to be able to afford things. And I don't want to use public servants as a as a political

One.

One side of the spectrum right now is letting Donald Trump just run rough shot over the entire federal government, dismantling civil servants, civil service that we fought so hard to build in an a political way, in this country, and uh, you know, so I get Tim Kane when when he's trying to support federal workers, but you know the same is true from our corner, and so so I do think this is uh, we have to keep fighting.

But like Democrats have to read the room the do you think Schumer should resign as party leader?

I I think that there are very valid and open questions about that.

I want.

I don't know Chuck Schumer. I've not met with Chuck Schumer.

You know, I get that, you know there is a lot going on behind the scenes, and you know, for.

A party that is out of power, and so.

You know that's that's not something I'm prepared to say, as we said here.

But it is an open question. In my mind.

Doesn't sound like somebody, if you won, you would support keeping Chuck Schumer as a leader.

If you had a vote, it would be a difficult vote for me to take today, I will say that before.

I let you go. I'm just curious. You know. I just interviewed Governor Basheer earlier this weekend. It's on a new sphere, which is another sort of independent media outlet, and he said something interesting. I said, you know, I said, he was talking about tariffs, and this is a case where Andy Basheer, Mitch McConnell, and Ran Paul are all on the same page. And he basically said, if all three of us are agreeing on something, maybe there's something there.

Ran Paul is an idiosyncratic senator to say the least. You know, his views will sometimes overlap in very weird or align, you know, in very strange and unexpected ways.

It's a weird ven diagram, isn't it?

It? Very much? Is I mean? But we have this in Kentucky with Thomas Massey as well.

You've got liberals across the state celebrating Thomas Massey's willingness to stand up, you know, for the release of the Epstein files, which, by the way, this issue is not going to go away either.

Those finals I believe will see the light of day. They have to. Voters are demanding it. But you make a.

Broader point just about you know how we have to work together. No one senator can promise to get anything done on their own. You have to build relationships. You have to be able to work across the aisle. And I'm not somebody who presentds just to be some above it all centrist. I am not, and I, like I said, We'll always tell voters you know where I stand on things, and my mind is made up on something.

I'm not going to hide from you what I believe about it.

But that doesn't absolve me or any senator or any congressman of a responsibility to represent all the people in our states, because it is inevitable in a state like Kentucky if I win, you know, there are going to be lots of people here who did not vote for me, and they deserve a voice and they deserve.

Representation as well.

The problem that we have right now in this country is that you know, you can have seventy five million people vote for Kamala Harris and marginally more millions vote for for Trump, and they pretend that the score was one hundred to nothing, I know, and then all the other people didn't exist.

You don't you didn't win that sualy.

Not what our founders intended. They assumed it was going to be a messy compromise constantly.

Yeah, and so you know, we have to be able to do that.

So you know, I would, I would work with you know which who would then be the senior senator from the state of Kentucky to take care of working families in this state. They deserve a voice, they deserve representation, and we need solutions minded politicians. And that's exactly what I would be.

Outside of Kentucky. Who's the US Senator that so far you've been the most impressed with.

You know, It's funny, somebody asked me, asked me that question a few weeks so, not who I was most impressed with.

I was able to say a few.

But I'm I'm gonna I'm going to continue to give Chris Murphy props. I have appreciated, you know, he's been a very level headed senator. He speaks passionately about you know, a lot of issues, but you know, particularly he's someone you know, I talked about, you know, my dad dying a uniquely American death from fentanyl. Well there's another uniquely American death, and that's to get killed at your elementary school.

And yeah, so I admired, admire that guy.

And I take it that Governor Bursheer is your pick for president in twenty twenty eight because you got a you're going to be a home state guy. Is he?

Is he running? Is running? I don't know. I don't think he's U I don't so.

Yeah, look at you doing a little bit of blocking and tackling that I don't.

Look at twenty twenty six, right, Yeah, of course, and that does have to be our folks.

I will tell you this, I.

Do not believe, and I know Gavin Newsom has been very public in saying this. I've been saying it privately for months that this administration intends to have free and fair elections in twenty twenty eight. And so if your listeners care at all about our two hundred and fifty year experiment with democracy here or liberal democracy in America, it is imperative that we turn out in massive numbers

So I don't think the stakes could be any higher.

And I will say Andy Basheer has been an incredible governor of this state, and he's shown a path to victory here for Democrats who want to lead with their values to respect him for that.

Let me get chatty here on this because you worked in the intelgen's community, and I've been working with some people, former members of the intelligence community on an exercise on trust and media.

And it's not just about media and journalists. It's more about the information ecosystem and what happens if you have bad intelligence. Like I'm working with people who are nervous that the information you know, we already know. There's a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there, and that if we don't figure out clean ways to get information, then we're going to make terrible national security decisions. Like how

That question more than you know, and and uh, you know, would would love to have an extended conversation about it, because I think that there are a lot of different forces that are polluting the information environment and leading to very poor information hygiene, not just in you know, our federal government with policymakers, but with our kids and with with school aged kids and people in university and and everything else. I would just turn to Russia as an

Have you noticed his nails are suddenly super long?

Oh no, no, right yet?

Right, yeah, Well, when he grows a beard, we'll know that the transformation lenen beard.

Yeah, yeah, but it is it is an isolated autocrat who behaves the way that he did during COVID, who also then makes the decision to invade Ukraine. And when you listen to Vladimir Putins speak about, you know, his reasons for invading Ukraine. Yes, he has this sort of imperialistic worldview about Russia and you know, glory of Russia and all these.

Sorts of things.

But he also routinely just says things that are untrue, and you don't know if that's propaganda. I believe at this point the Vladimir Putin's information environment has become massively polluted because everybody in the Siliviki and the intelligence community

Senate, just astablishing something you said six years ago. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, what they use.

I mean, that is just like thought police stuff. Let's write out all the while. Yeah, it truly is.

And you know, it was right wing Twitter that started that dug up some of this and started attacking me. And then I guess right wing Twitter runs our intelligence community. Now it's a very dangerous thing. Or a Loomer the CIA chief apparently, Yeah, exactly. And so what do I think the follow on effects of something like what happened to me? But it is since I mean James Comey being indicted and other people who were actively serving in the CIA being walked out by security because they ended

And it's not just the intelligence community.

I mean Donald Trump went to war with a weather forecast during his first administration. We might recall where he modified the course of a map rather than just saying, you know, I accidentally added an extra state in my comment.

Right, So, up and down the civil service.

You have people who know that if they speak truth to power like they're supposed to, they're.

Just going to be out a job.

And so that is dangerous for national security. It's dangerous for domestic security to not have expertise in the civil service.

And what would you do if you're in that situation, You know you have the So literally a week before the head of Southern Command decided to resign rather than carry out these orders on these on these Venezuela on these boats out off the coast of Venezuela. I'd ask Jim Stavridi's former NATO superamaut Like commander, former head of Southern Command. I said, what happens if you get an order you're not on our pretent?

Sure is legal?

Right? We know we know that, you know if if you follow an illegal order, you're going to be held accountable to right. We have made that clear in our in our law. And he goes, well, you would, he goes, I'd probably resign and not go public about why I resigned.

I'd simply resign.

Let others And you know, there's there's this sort of there's always that that sort of a would you if you were in a similar situation, would you simply resign? Would you resign with a bullhorn? Or do you try to keep working within the system? Because it feels like there's no there's no perfect answer here.

There is not.

And I just want your listeners and American voters at large to understand that the admirals and the generals and the private first class is they're the privates first class. They're not coming to save you. If you think there is some massive resistance that's going to build up in this way, you are mistaken, and it's because these are gut wrenching decisions that have extreme amounts of personal consequence to you.

The culture it tells you, Look, if you've got an issue, then you go ahead and resign, but you need to do it on your terms, right, Yeah.

And civil servants have an obligation I think, to resign rather than you know, carry out those things. Whether they speak about it at public or not would depend on, like, well, this is a super classified thing. What can I say. You know, there's whistleblower things. We have ostensibly protections in this country for that, but you're still all.

Those inspectors general, so it's not even clear who you would report violations of the Constitution to.

Yeah, exactly.

In the military, you don't have the luxury of always just being able to resign, you know, admirals and generals and those sorts of things at various stages of their you know, contractual commitments to the country, but they can you know, resign and make a show of it.

Look, the fact that the head of Southern Campan resign should have been a much bigger.

Deal with the American public.

Yeah, I mean I don't think we I don't think that whatever's left of legacy.

Media made a big enough deal about it.

No, and the Defense Intelligence Agency who you know, the director there also gone because of you know, questioning the efficacy of the military strikes that we took on Iran. So there are a lot of a lot of things there, and there are a lot of problems. But I do think that you know, you do have obligations to not

Joe Willett, It's been a pleasure to get to know you. I sort of you come at this with a with a style that that is very appealing to me, I hope. But in that you seem like you think this stuff through, seems like you think before you speak. There's not many politicians that do that these days.

I try, Chock, have been watching you for years, you know, I've only probably yelled at you through the television a few times, but you know, appreciate you having me on and for having a thoughtful conversation.

I am I am a as I say. It's like, I'm as long as you're not yellow at me.

The whole time. I didn't.

Yeah, and my campaign job and my campaign will fire me if I don't remind people to go to Joelfurkentucky dot com.

If you're at all interested in supporting this camp?

Are you concerned that the big money people in DC won't invest in Kentucky because of what happened in twenty twenty with all that money.

Yes, I'm very concerned about that.

You know, we invested on you know, ninety four million dollars in the in the race here and got results worse than we had ever gotten before. And I think that is on people's mind spot. There's an important difference here now. Andy Basheer has shown this path to victory, and we just have to have the right candidate walk down that path.

Joe Willette, we'll be watching your primary, that's for sure. I know, fairly early, right may right, yeah, leave me So that is six months are going to fly by, So be safe from the trail.

Thank you so much. Check how you done it.

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