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

private sector, have since been running businesses that have put hundreds of people to work every day. So, Chuck, I truly got to live my American dream and have been, you know, living that life as a private citizen for some time now, and it's been increasingly hard to sit on the sidelines and watch working families across this country, working families like the one that I grew up in, eating steamrolled by a political and economic system that I think continues to treat them as acceptable losses. So, as you said, I started exploring a run for the Senate. This administration found out about it, and, as it is wont to do, began trying to act revenge on people, no matter how long they had served, no matter what they had served, but because they had said mean things about Donald Trump. And we're thinking about standing up against some of what we're saying today, and they revoked a security clearance and you know, came after me the way they've come after so many others. 00:06:31 Speaker 1: What made your democrat? Why'd you pick a party? Yeah? 00:06:36 Speaker 2: When did you pick a party? 00:06:37 Speaker 1: 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? 00:06:44 Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a. 00:06:46 Speaker 3: 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 away from that came, perhaps shockingly to some people, through military service. The military exposed me to people from all walks of life, nationalities, sexual orientations, all of that, and I began seeing, you know, what I have since come to believe is, you know, this source of strength in our military and in our country, which is the diversity that we have. But it was also seeing the lies of the Iraq War. 00:07:28 Speaker 2: I you know, I. 00:07:29 Speaker 3: 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 decisions we've made, certainly in my lifetime. So that began, you know, a of reassessment for me away from you know, what was the Republican Party or conservative viewpoints. And I would say that the journey into being, you know, a Democrat is something that happened much later. 00:08:13 Speaker 2: You know. 00:08:14 Speaker 3: 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. 00:08:24 Speaker 2: Danger of Donald Trump. 00:08:25 Speaker 3: 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. 00:08:37 Speaker 1: 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. 00:08:56 Speaker 2: Vance. 00:08:57 Speaker 1: 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. 00:09:16 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:09:17 Speaker 3: 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. And I would say, my life for six years has been a project and trying to understand how this country could, you know, create my life, which I see as a truly uniquely American life, coming from Valley Station, Kentucky, to the halls of the West Wing in twelve years, to leadership and business. If my life is uniquely American, so too was my father's death because people do not die from fentyl overdoses in a statistically significant way in other parts of the world, yet it's the leading cause of death, I believe in the United States for people ages eighteen to forty four. So I became aware of he'llbiliology during that time, and I would say, there are a lot of similarities between my story and JD. 00:10:10 Speaker 2: Vance's. 00:10:11 Speaker 3: 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, and that being that I didn't turn into a giant asshole at the end of it. 00:10:39 Speaker 1: Boy, I didn't see that landing. I didn't see the play landing that abruptly. 00:10:42 Speaker 4: 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. 00:10:53 Speaker 1: 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 anybody's head right on motive. But he just looks from the outside. O. This stuff doesn't doesn't compute. But what does compute, frankly, is the fact that these so many of these stories exist and why politicians have had a hard time figuring out how to use government to fix this. So let's talk about that. Like I would assume for you, if you get elected that a priority is going to be okay, how do we deal with it? I mean, take the issue a fentyl. You got a president who's manufacturing is using the fentyl crisis, which is real, and ascribing it to the Venezuelans, which has nothing to do with this, right, and getting us potentially to screw up yet another Latin American country. With interventions that will only cost us cause this country problems for decades to come, and our distrust in that region of the country. And it's like, how many times do we have to screw up our relationships with Latin America with this? But what is you know, you've you've it sounds like for the last six years in particular, you've really wanted to understand both the struggles people have with fentanyl, how it gets into this country. What should we be doing differently to stop fentanyl from getting into this country? And is it Is it possible? You know, are we trying to like stop the weather right Like is this impossible? And instead we've got to go about this another way. 00:13:03 Speaker 3: 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. 00:13:13 Speaker 2: Over the years. 00:13:14 Speaker 3: 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. 00:13:29 Speaker 1: There. 00:13:31 Speaker 2: We talk about, you. 00:13:32 Speaker 3: Know, a drug war, and usually what we mean there is attacking the supply and where the stuff is coming from. 00:13:38 Speaker 2: Yes, we have to secure our borders. 00:13:40 Speaker 3: Yes we have to go after and chase to the ends of the earth the supply of this stuff, whether we find it in a factory in Beijing or whether we find it being pushed from boardrooms in some of the largest companies and richest families. 00:13:54 Speaker 2: In this country. And you know, we've had many, many. 00:13:57 Speaker 3: 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. 00:14:14 Speaker 2: We've made

some progress on that and uh. 00:14:17 Speaker 3: 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 country could do. When I talk to you know, friends in Europe about you know, what's going on with with with drugs and addiction here, and they're like, wait a minute, drug addicts, you know, they often not because they're terrible people, but because they're literally out of their minds while using do some destructive things, whether they steal or or a public nuisance or wrecked cars and all these things. These are stories that are just so vivid, vividly remembered in my life and in my family's life. 00:14:59 Speaker 2: In European friends are like, wait, you send those people to jail. 00:15:02 Speaker 3: 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. 00:15:16 Speaker 2: This past year. 00:15:17 Speaker 3: 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 for I think eighty percent of what we call deaths of despair, which are deaths from overdoses of some form or another, or from suicide. And I think this can all be tied back to people see their prospects of deming, who see that no matter how hard they work, they're not going to be able to get ahead. And that's something that has to change. And I think that once we have a seen economic policy in this country for the working class upon whose backs all of this prosperity was built, only then we be able to truly address these problems with addiction. 00:16:22 Speaker 1: 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. 00:16:42 Speaker 2: You just died. 00:16:45 Speaker 1: So you know, I've got it's always what of? 00:16:47 Speaker 3: For me? 00:16:47 Speaker 1: 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? 00:17:02 Speaker 3: 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 bought us some valuable years with my dad. He was able to see his granddaughter, you know, grow up in his best moments, you know, in my in my recollection were always when he was a heavily involved father, and it was as my you know, my life and his started going in very different directions when I was a teenager. And this is because you know, there was a free fall that happens in this country. You know, you grow up, you have some roof over your head or some access to basics, You get good public education, and you've got some opportunities if you make just even marginally okay choices in this country. 00:18:05 Speaker 2: And my dad's path, you know, wound through a. 00:18:08 Speaker 3: 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 it was it was you know, surgeries and things like that that started to get these pain pills into his system. And then as his economic prospects dimmed, those that became a way to medicate away some of what I'm sure was existential pain for him. I was going to provide for his family. I was going to provide for his kids, for son and his daughter, my sister. So to answer a question specifically, yeah, we are doing a lot more today. There's a lot more awareness about it than there was before. This is an uncomfortable thing to talk about, as I'm sure it has been for you, you know, opening up. 00:18:47 Speaker 1: 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 what can how do you learn from it? Right? How do you how do you try to try to try to move on? You know, you brought up Medicaid. I mean you feel you're I take it your concerned that these Medicaid cuts are just going to make it that much harder. You know, do you feel like Kentucky needs more facilities that do rehab or they have enough facilities, they need more resources to staff those facilities. 00:19:36 Speaker 3: 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 not like the average Kentucky voter. And they paid for all of this by taking money out of healthcare programs that as our governor has been front and center in the press sounding the alarm about this. These cuts put thirty five rual hospital pills in this state under threat of closure for people, you know. 00:20:19 Speaker 2: To lose access to that healthcare. 00:20:22 Speaker 3: 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 recent months that they do not care. So I do think that we need to increase the supply of healthcare. We need to invest in more of what people actually need, and in Kentucky that does mean you know, more access to addiction treatment and overdose prevention. 00:21:04 Speaker 2: But again, I think the root causes of all this happened. 00:21:06 Speaker 3: Way earlier in life, and I would again tie it to increasing inequality and dimming prospects for working families. 00:21:17 Speaker 1: 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. It includes cases where insurance companies offered next to nothing, just hoping to get away with paying as little as possible. Morgan and Morgan fought back ended up winning millions. In fact, in Pennsylvania, one client was awarded twenty six million dollars, which was a staggering forty times the amount that the insurance company originally offered that original ofw for six hundred and fifty thousand dollars twenty six million, six hundred and fifty thousand dollars. So with more than one thousand lawyers across the country, they know how to deliver for everyday people. If you're injured, you need a lawyer. You need somebody to get your back. Check out for the People dot com, Slash podcast or now pound law, Pound five two nine law on your cell phone. And remember all law firms are not the same. So check out Morgan and Morgan. Their fee is free unless they win. So let's talk. You know, it's interesting I know that the next and perhaps you know the fear of AI displacement for sort of middle class white collar workers is now you know, there's like a whole new group of folks that are learning what blue collar workers were worrying about during audit. The rise of the initial rise of automation and robotics, right plus the global the global trade system in the

nineties and in the early odds, and that created this displacement. Now we've got AI. Displacement's going to hit another chunk of workers. This attempt to bring manufacturing back, frankly doesn't involve many individuals, right, It is more of a robotics and automated situation. So, you know, how do we You know, we can't go backwards. We're not going to force companies to use humans if it's cheaper to do an automated thing, right, That's just not how capitalism works. Well, what's what should we you know, what what is what are the jobs in the next twenty years that we ought to be trying to get our communities prepared for, get our public education system geared towards you know, because I think about think about the last thirty years, and we thought all of our kids needed to learn to code, right, And it turns out whatever coding you've learned, it. 00:23:45 Speaker 2: Doesn't matter anymore. AI is going to do it. 00:23:47 Speaker 1: And so I can tell you this as a parent, You're petrified, am I am my kids? 00:23:53 Speaker 2: You know, my kids going to have a future and what does that look like? 00:23:57 Speaker 1: 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? 00:24:07 Speaker 3: Yeah, for the record, my son is is sixteen and this is obviously a very uh. 00:24:12 Speaker 1: 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. 00:24:22 Speaker 3: So so look it We've always had I mean, America is the innovation engine of the world. 00:24:27 Speaker 2: We have always innovated. 00:24:29 Speaker 3: 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 to believe. And I'm someone who spent a lot of time, you know, running a technology company over the past couple of years I've had the chance to, you know, when I lost my security clearance, some of the you know, the most strident and well known right wing trolls on Twitter told me that I should learn to code. I'm like, yeah, thanks, I did that six years ago. You know already did that. So I say that only to say that I've you know, spent a lot of time playing around, experimenting with and understanding AI tools and you know, their implications in the workplace. I am less bullish about the immediate, you know, wide scale impacts of this, because there are a lot of implementation issues, or a lot of data quality issues, hallucination issues, and all these sorts of things that I think even companies who have made a decision to lay off and displaced workers thinking they're going to be replaced with AI, are going to see and relatively short order that that it is not the panacea that they might think it is. Even still, I do accept the premise that we are going to have some massive changes in the economy, uh and in the jobs that are available to people. And I think that there are there are two things we need to wrestle with. Is one like, okay, if a business finds a more efficient way to do something, well, great, they're going to have more profits. But now we're going to have more people on snap benefits. Now we're going to have more people, you know, needing Medicaid because they don't have healthcare. Because you know, all this activity in the economy has to come from somewhere. It has to come, you know, from from consumers buying things. And what I'm increasingly worried about is just that that the broad consumer base in this economy is just going to be completely left behind because the wealthy have enough at the top to continue pumping money into these businesses and these experiments and buying really expensive things. 00:26:44 Speaker 1: 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. 00:27:01 Speaker 3: 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 them have been captured by the top one percent. So there has to be a reckoning with this growing inequality. 00:27:35 Speaker 2: One, it's im moral. 00:27:35 Speaker 3: 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. 00:27:45 Speaker 2: Say I alone can fix it right now. And that's I mean. 00:27:48 Speaker 1: I look at I talk about the fall of Turkey in Venezuela all the time to former democracies. 00:27:54 Speaker 2: I guess you could take Turkey. 00:27:56 Speaker 1: 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. There is a pattern here right where when they when there's a belief when the gap between rich and poor gets so big, you can weaponize the poor against the elites

and the pitchforks will come. But democracy leaves. 00:28:37 Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's replaced with corruption and crony capitalism, every hypocrisy. 00:28:43 Speaker 2: Of some sort. 00:28:43 Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, So we we do have to reckon with our tax policy that that I think has concentrated wealth at the top. 00:28:50 Speaker 2: That you know is certainly what does. 00:28:53 Speaker 1: 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. 00:29:17 Speaker 2: Was back then. 00:29:17 Speaker 1: 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. 00:29:43 Speaker 2: Sure. 00:29:45 Speaker 3: 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 into to FIKA and into payroll taxes. And even in the you know, Reagan years, they found a way to say, hey, no, we're going to make sure that Okay, if you're if you're just putting money, you're making money off of money, well that's going to be taxed in the same way that making money off of you know, your labor or breaking your knees, you know, welding iron together and setting iron. Is that we're going to tax the same And that actually happened in this country for two years until George H. W. 00:30:38 Speaker 2: 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. 00:30:44 Speaker 3: 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 stock and it appreciates in value, but I haven't sold the stock, I didn't actually make any money. That's true, except that you also collateralized that stock and borrowed a lot of money from banks to be able to live off of. You know, you you accessed some value from that appreciation and that gain. And so I think even a simple policy like removing this

by borrowde wealth preservations strategy that wealthy people use could also go some way and uh in curing or or making this a more equitable system. 00:31:32 Speaker 2: Basically, if you, if you UH obtain cash. 00:31:36 Speaker 3: Flow from those unrealized gains in any way, at that point it would be subject to tax. 00:31:40 Speaker 2: So these are kind of simple things. 00:31:41 Speaker 3: 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. 00:32:04 Speaker 2: And this is just silliness, right. 00:32:06 Speaker 3: I believe that that's a myth for the most part, that most people receiving, whether they're SNAP benefits or medicaid or whatever. 00:32:12 Speaker 2: Actually do want to work. 00:32:13 Speaker 3: 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. 00:32:26 Speaker 2: But separately, rather than handing people. 00:32:30 Speaker 3: Money to go buy things, we as a country need to invest some of those proceeds into building more. 00:32:35 Speaker 2: We don't have enough high quality education in this country. 00:32:39 Speaker 3: 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 and doctors. As I alluded to earlier, we need to invest in all of these things heavily, and infrastructure in this country. 00:32:55 Speaker 1: 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. 00:33:12 Speaker 2: Yeah, and it. 00:33:13 Speaker 3: 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, you know, bought and paid for. Elon Musk invested forty something million dollars in getting President Trump reelected, and all of these parties you know, are looking out for their own interests, and they are the ones you know, funding politics. And we have tried to have grassroots campaigns over the you know, the past decade, but these relentless text messages and emails and candidates like myself have to send two people who already

probably don't make much. 00:34:00 Speaker 2: No chip in five bucks to save democracy. 00:34:02 Speaker 3: 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 poor people see themselves. 00:34:34 Speaker 2: In any of the people that are elected to represent them? 00:34:36 Speaker 3: 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. 00:34:51 Speaker 2: And I think that that representation matters a lot. 00:34:54 Speaker 1: So, And I'm not like asking you to throw shade at potential primary opponents I may already have. Yeah, sorry, why did why does Andy Basheer succeed and why did an Amy McGrath fail in twenty twenty? 00:35:09 Speaker 3: 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. 00:35:18 Speaker 2: I'm sure that she had all. 00:35:19 Speaker 1: 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. 00:35:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, it's not gonna work. Why didn't it work? Yeah? 00:35:42 Speaker 3: 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 she she's been in this fight. I think my assessment is that in a place like Kentucky, and it's a state that has been you know, that has put its faith in its trust in Donald Trump, you know, three times three three elections in a row, and it you know, voters here believed the promises that he made and believed that he was going to be looking out for them. 00:36:17 Speaker 2: And when when. 00:36:18 Speaker 3: 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 of his campaigns. He didn't shy away from talking about hard things, but he explained his

choices, his decisions and reasons for different things, and decisions he would make and policies he would advocate for. And even people who disagreed with Andy Bushier said that they trusted him and they thought that he would look out for them. And then he has shown up. We've had fourteen natural disasters or something declared in the state of Kentucky over the past couple of years or during his administration. This isn't a guy who hides in the governor's mansion. He's been out, He's been present with people, and I think that even when they disagree with them are in marginal things, that he has their back on the major thing. 00:37:17 Speaker 2: So I think that that's probably the big difference. 00:37:19 Speaker 1: 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. 00:37:28 Speaker 3: 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 health care. This man went to the Supreme Court this week to try to get permission to not give people money to buying groceries in this administration, sure that Republicans in the Senate couldn't negotiate a deal with Democrats so that Americans wouldn't be faced with this unconscionable choice between being able to afford groceries or seeing a doctor when they get sick. And I would just ask voters to keep asking themselves why that is? 00:38:16 Speaker 2: Do you believe that this man has your back? 00:38:19 Speaker 3: 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. 00:38:27 Speaker 2: Not definitely has a gilded age feeling to it. 00:38:31 Speaker 1: 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. 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I understand the rationale on both sides of this argument inside. 00:40:43 Speaker 2: The Democratic Party. 00:40:45 Speaker 1: One that says, hey, they're squirming, why give up now? 00:40:49 Speaker 2: The other that. 00:40:50 Speaker 1: 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 see I can argue one side of this. I understand the other that, hey, the shutdown's gone politically really well for the Democrats, and Trump has made all sorts of mistakes like advocating to not pay snap benefits even when a judge says to do it, and the Speaker of the House is abdicated responsibility, right, Like, I can I get the arguments and I couldn't I hear both of them. Where do you fall on this argument? And I'm mindful that you're in a Democratic primary at the moment. 00:41:53 Speaker 3: 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 up this morning the same exact way. And while yes, there are you know arguments there, I you know, we're fond of, you know, saying in sports and when we're trying to encourage people to to you know, get in there and fight and play a game, we said, well, hey, you can't win if

you don't play. But I want to quote my favorite, probably one of my favorite TV series of all times, The Wire, and I'm sure this was a David Simon line, but one of the characters told the police chief, you can't lose if you don't play, and that is I think some of the energy Democrats needed here. If the Republicans wanted the government and open, they found ways to force through the you know, the. 00:43:03 Speaker 2: Big bullshit bill back in July. 00:43:06 Speaker 3: 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 would have been some procedural issues and delays and things like that. They could have gotten it done if they wanted to. Democrats did not need to go support this. And yes, it is terrible to watch people potentially lose their their SNAP or food stamp benefits. I was on food stamps as a kid. I know what that's like. You know, when my parents had to make decisions between being able to afford groceries or putting gas in the car to get to a job so they can make money to buy more food. I get that personally, but it is not Democrats that have made those choices. It was not Democrats going to the Supreme Court to try to get permission to not pay SNAP benefits. That was Donald Trump. That was Republican enablers in Congress. Democrats had a very radical idea throughout this shutdown. Maybe in the most prosperous country on earth, with thirty trillion dollars in GDP, we can have a country where people can afford groceries and be able to see a doctor if you get sick. That seemed like a pretty noble fight to me. And I don't understand, you know, when we've had millions of voters across this country, in Virginia and New Jersey, in California and New York show up just this week, right, you know, over the past seven days, rather to support a party that it's a. 00:44:27 Speaker 2: Fighting for them, to just immediately turn. 00:44:29 Speaker 1: 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. But we're going to keep fighting for healthcare and come January, if they don't do this, we're shutting this place down again. 00:44:55 Speaker 2: And what's wrong? What is wrong with that strategy? 00:45:00 Speaker 1: 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. 00:45:17 Speaker 2: And I take it we had a we had a crash here and right, we don't know if. 00:45:21 Speaker 1: 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? 00:45:49 Speaker 3: 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, find me one person who wants to run on this compromise right now next cycle. 00:46:08 Speaker 2: I don't think you find that Democrat any. 00:46:10 Speaker 1: 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. 00:46:18 Speaker 3: 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. 00:46:28 Speaker 2: That is now a fact that is going to happen. 00:46:31 Speaker 3: 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? 00:46:53 Speaker 1: 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. 00:47:03 Speaker 3: 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 the next day said. 00:47:16 Speaker 2: Don't talk to me about affordability. 00:47:19 Speaker 3: I mean they are going to do whatever he says, and until he's out there saying the impersonation is. 00:47:23 Speaker 1: Noted there, Joel, I see that. 00:47:25 Speaker 2: It's incredible. Check you. 00:47:30 Speaker 1: Got to keep that up. 00:47:31 Speaker 2: What bory is it? 00:47:32 Speaker 1: Just have or do you have others that you're pretty good at? 00:47:34 Speaker 3: 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. 00:47:44 Speaker 1: I just want to discourage it. And I've got a shared brown impersonation that I've always been really proud of. 00:47:49 Speaker 2: Ground to be. 00:47:50 Speaker 1: 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. 00:47:58 Speaker 2: That does very good and quick aside. 00:47:59 Speaker 3: 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. 00:48:32 Speaker 1: 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. 00:48:53 Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, I don't see what choice. 00:48:56 Speaker 3: I mean, look, I say this as a civil servant, and and and perhaps I should you know, lead with my. 00:49:05 Speaker 2: You know, I understand I've lived through shutdowns. I had. I was always a. 00:49:08 Speaker 3: 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 football in that way. But we cannot be the only party that cares about that. 00:49:40 Speaker 2: One. 00:49:40 Speaker 3: 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. 00:50:03 Speaker 2: But like Democrats have to read the room the do you think Schumer should resign as party leader? 00:50:11 Speaker 3: I I think that there are very valid and open questions about that. 00:50:16 Speaker 1: I want. 00:50:17 Speaker 2: I don't know Chuck Schumer. I've not met with Chuck Schumer. 00:50:21 Speaker 3: You know, I get that, you know there is a lot going on behind the scenes, and you know, for. 00:50:28 Speaker 2: A party that is out of power, and so. 00:50:32 Speaker 3: You know that's that's not something I'm prepared to say, as we said here. 00:50:36 Speaker 2: But it is an open question. In my mind. 00:50:38 Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like somebody, if you won, you would support keeping Chuck Schumer as a leader. 00:50:42 Speaker 3: If you had a vote, it would be a difficult vote for me to take today, I will say that before. 00:50:49 Speaker 1: 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. What do you make of Rand Paul? And I say this because if you win, that's a senator, you know, the States senators, you know, no matter even if you're from different parties, at times you need to work together. What do you make of him? And what do you make of his attempts at seeking a little bit of distance from from Trump World in a way that we haven't seen in the past. 00:51:38 Speaker 3: 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. 00:51:51 Speaker 1: It's a weird ven diagram, isn't it? 00:51:53 Speaker 2: It? Very much? Is I mean? But we have this in Kentucky with Thomas Massey as well. 00:51:57 Speaker 3: 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. 00:52:10 Speaker 2: Those finals I believe will see the light of day. They have to. Voters are demanding it. But you make a. 00:52:16 Speaker 3: 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. 00:52:37 Speaker 2: I'm not going to hide from you what I believe about it. 00:52:40 Speaker 3: 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. 00:52:59 Speaker 2: Representation as well. 00:53:01 Speaker 3: 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. 00:53:20 Speaker 2: You don't you didn't win that sualy. 00:53:21 Speaker 1: Not what our founders intended. They assumed it was

going to be a messy compromise constantly. 00:53:27 Speaker 2: Yeah, and so you know, we have to be able to do that. 00:53:30 Speaker 3: 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. 00:53:48 Speaker 1: Outside of Kentucky. Who's the US Senator that so far you've been the most impressed with. 00:53:55 Speaker 3: You know, It's funny, somebody asked me, asked me that question a few weeks so, not who I was most impressed with. 00:54:00 Speaker 2: I was able to say a few. 00:54:02 Speaker 3: 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 you know, when you've got senators, you know, who are completely owned by the NRA, that that aren't you even looking out for response responsible gun owners anymore? You know. I've just been impressed with, you know, his leadership on that issue and other things, and somebody who I think is intelligent, whose heart's in the right place. 00:54:45 Speaker 2: And yeah, so I admired, admire that guy. 00:54:49 Speaker 1: 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? 00:54:55 Speaker 2: Is he running? Is running? I don't know. I don't think he's U I don't so. 00:55:00 Speaker 1: Yeah, look at you doing a little bit of blocking and tackling that I don't. 00:55:05 Speaker 3: Look at twenty twenty six, right, Yeah, of course, and that does have to be our folks. 00:55:09 Speaker 2: I will tell you this, I. 00:55:11 Speaker 3: 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 in twenty twenty six. I believe it's one of our last chances to provide accountability for this administration and to ensure that Americans have a free and fair choice, whether that be for Andy Basheer or anyone else in twenty twenty eight. 00:55:45 Speaker 2: So I don't think the stakes could be any higher. 00:55:47 Speaker 3: 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. 00:55:57 Speaker 1: 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. 00:56:07 Speaker 2: 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 bad is the flow of intelligence these days? Do you is it in considering sort of how much we've alienated some of our key allies, you know, in the in the world of the Five Eyes, all the English language allies of ours that I get the impression that there's either concern that you know, we've got too many leaks in our system or all of our stuff. There's one country in particular that gets access to intelligence without telling them what what is? What do you feel like as the state of America, the American the intelligence that are are the intelligence community is getting these days? Yeah, I appreciate. 00:57:13 Speaker 3: 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 example of this. During COVID. You may recall some of these images of Vladimir Putin setting at the end of a you know, a thirty foot table and an advisor you know, at the other end, and I, you know, equipped at the time that he had entered the uh late stage Howard Hughes phase of his government, his governing. 00:58:01 Speaker 1: Have you noticed his nails are suddenly super long? 00:58:03 Speaker 2: Oh no, no, right yet? 00:58:04 Speaker 4: Right, yeah, Well, when he grows a beard, we'll know that the transformation lenen beard. 00:58:08 Speaker 3: 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. 00:58:33 Speaker 2: Sorts of things. 00:58:33 Speaker 3: 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 in Russia has figured out that like, this is what this man believes, this is what this man wants to hear, and that's what they tell him, and he's manipulated in those ways. So there are very real examples of the consequences of that type of government that we see with Russia and the atrocities that are being committed in Ukraine. So let's go from Russia to the US intelligence community, and then I'll just finish my response with kids. My security clearance was revoked, as we talked about it at the top of the show, and it was revoked because I said something mean about Donald Trump six years ago, and because they found out I was going to exercise political speech by potentially, you know, by considering a run for the US. 00:59:31 Speaker 2: Senate, just astablishing something you said six years ago. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, what they use. 00:59:36 Speaker 1: I mean, that is just like thought police stuff. Let's write out all the while. Yeah, it truly is. 00:59:42 Speaker 3: 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 up on some list that nobody knows how. So this is going to and perhaps already has a massive chilling effect throughout our federal government. 01:00:18 Speaker 2: And it's not just the intelligence community. 01:00:20 Speaker 3: 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. 01:00:31 Speaker 2: Right, So, up and down the civil service. 01:00:33 Speaker 3: You have people who know that if they speak truth to power like they're supposed to, they're. 01:00:37 Speaker 2: Just going to be out a job. 01:00:39 Speaker 3: And so that is dangerous for national security. It's dangerous for domestic security to not have expertise in the civil service. 01:00:47 Speaker 1: 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? 01:01:08 Speaker 2: Sure is legal? 01:01:09 Speaker 1: 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. 01:01:24 Speaker 2: I'd simply resign. 01:01:26 Speaker 1: 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. 01:01:44 Speaker 2: There is not. 01:01:45 Speaker 3: 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. 01:02:08 Speaker 1: 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. 01:02:15 Speaker 3: 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. 01:02:32 Speaker 1: Those inspectors general, so it's not even clear who you would report violations of the Constitution to. 01:02:37 Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. 01:02:38 Speaker 3: 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. 01:02:51 Speaker 1: Look, the fact that the head of Southern Campan resign should have been a much bigger. 01:02:54 Speaker 2: Deal with the American public. 01:02:56 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I don't think we I don't think that whatever's left of legacy. 01:02:59 Speaker 2: Media made a big enough deal about it. 01:03:01 Speaker 3: 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 carry out lawful orders. And it's easy for me to say from the cheap seats over here at this stage in my life, I only, you know, hope that I would have had the courage of putting the same situation that i'm that I am asking other people to exhibit a day. 01:03:34 Speaker 1: 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. 01:03:52 Speaker 3: 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. 01:04:03 Speaker 1: I am I am a as I say. It's like, I'm as long as you're not yellow at me. 01:04:08 Speaker 2: The whole time. I didn't. 01:04:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, and my campaign job and my campaign will fire me if I don't remind people to go to Joelfurkentucky dot com. 01:04:18 Speaker 2: If you're at all interested in supporting this camp? 01:04:21 Speaker 1: 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. 01:04:29 Speaker 2: Yes, I'm very concerned about that. 01:04:32 Speaker 3: 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. 01:04:52 Speaker 1: 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. 01:05:05 Speaker 2: Thank you so much. Check how you done it. 01:05:09 Speaker 1: This episode of the Chuck Podcast is brought to you by wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake from Frozen subscription box for our teasonal breads, seasonal pastries, and fresh pastas, plus all items conveniently bake in twenty five minutes or less. Unlike many store bought options, Wild Grain uses simple ingredients you can pronounce and a slow fermentation process that can be easier on your belly and richer in nutrients and antioxidants. Wildgrain's boxes are fully customizable. They're constantly adding seasonal and limited time products for you to enjoy. In addition to their classic box, they now feature a gluten free box and a plant based box. I checked out the gluten free box, and let me tell you they have a gluten free sour dough bread. It is. We got two loads of it and we've done one loaf already. It's a cranberry and almond sourdough bread. It's like the best raisin bread you've ever had, except it's not raisin. It's great. You're gonna love this. You know, it's hit or miss if you mess around in the gluten free bread world. This is a hit. Seriously. I was impressed, So look for a limited time. Wildgrain is offering our listeners thirty dollars off your first box plus free croissants in every box when you go to wildgrain dot com slash podcast. To start your subscription, follow these instructions. Free croissants in every box, thirty dollars off your first box when you go to wildgrain dot com slash toodcast that's wildgrain dot com slash podcast, or simply use the promo code toodcast at check out. Always use the code get the discount. I'm telling you it's excellent, excellent bread