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There are lots of reasons to be cynical about the crisis in our politics. The trouble is, one of the biggest causes of that crisis is cynicism itself.
We should always be skeptical about politics. People aren’t angels, as James Madison reminded us.
But skepticism involves checking to find out what’s really going on, good or bad. Cynicism is just assuming that it’s all bad.
This is often mistaken for savviness, which lends cool-kids credibility to claims like “all politicians are crooks,” or “there’s no difference between the parties,” or “government never works.” Except none of those claims actually stands up to skeptical scrutiny.
Political journalists reinforce cynicism when they cover politics, day by day, as a dirty game in which all the players are more or less the same: self-interested schemers. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen blames it on what he calls “the cult of savvy,” which rewards reporters for the cynicism of their coverage, when what we need from them is skepticism.
Skepticism is healthy, and necessary for democracy. You can’t say either about cynicism.
If we automatically accept cynical beliefs as true, we make them ever more likely to become true. People who work on behalf of hope gradually withdraw from the arena, leaving it to people all too happy to encourage despair. And those are people who do in fact have very bad motivations.
In this way cynicism reinforces itself and becomes a political death spiral.
Democracy can’t run on despair. But authoritarianism depends on it. This is why authoritarians like Vladimir Putin or Donald Trump don’t care that you know they’re lying — they want you to know they’re lying. It serves their interests if you conclude that everyone is a liar, and lose hope. Then your only safe choice is to back the most powerful liar.
All this is why I wanted to talk this time about what has become a deeply unfashionable topic: morality in politics. Yes, it does exist, and in a democracy it must exist.
And once again I talk with Kevin Lewis and Zach Friend.
Kevin has been a communications advisor and spokesman for former President Barack Obama, the White House, the Department of Justice, both Obama campaigns, and Meta.
Zach has worked for the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the U.S. Senate, the House of Representatives, and several presidential campaigns, including both of Obama’s. He’s currently an elected Supervisor in Santa Cruz County, California.
Both have seen lots of the good and bad in politics, but neither is a cynic.
— Spencer
Transcript
00:00:01:28 – 00:00:05:05
Spencer Critchley
Welcome to dastardly cleverness in the service of good. I’m Spencer Critchley.
00:00:05:15 – 00:00:06:16
Kevin Lewis
Hi, I’m Kevin Lewis.
00:00:06:27 – 00:00:07:26
Zach Friend
And I’m Zac Friend.
00:00:08:14 – 00:00:29:27
Spencer Critchley
Well, guys, I’ve been thinking a lot about something that a lot of people consider an oxymoron, and that’s morality and politics. It’s come up in a variety of ways, and it’s actually come up for me over a period of many years. And the fact that people think it is an oxymoron, meaning they assume there is no morality in politics, I think is a problem.
00:00:30:26 – 00:00:59:25
Spencer Critchley
And I think it’s just wrong. And I actually think in the end, it’s not very smart. And that’s what I wanted to talk about, because I know talking about both, talking about this subject with both of you, you’ve you’ve had experiences like this. None of us, I think, has any illusions about what goes on in politics. But I know we’ve had lots of experiences, each of us, where we’ve seen that actually people do make moral decisions, believe it or not, and you kind of have to or else it doesn’t work.
00:00:59:25 – 00:01:26:17
Spencer Critchley
So that’s what I thought we could talk about. There’s so much stuff going on in the news that could easily make people cynical. And I think people should be skeptical. But I think cynicism is is just wrong in all kinds of ways. So I wanted to talk about that. So let me start with Zach this time. Zach, I know you have all kinds of well-earned reasons to be cynical, as does go, but I actually don’t think you are cynical in the end.
00:01:26:17 – 00:01:29:05
Spencer Critchley
And I’d like you to tell me a little bit about your perspective on this.
00:01:30:02 – 00:01:54:22
Zach Friend
Yeah, I appreciate this question because I actually think that a lot of the country, a lot of voters, a lot of engaged members of the electorate actually look at the world through a moral construct. And so as somebody who is an elected official and has worked on a lot of campaigns, I think that that just from a pure strategy standpoint, it actually makes sense to engage in a similar way.
00:01:55:02 – 00:02:17:27
Zach Friend
Now, that’s that’s a pure process standpoint. But I mean, let me speak from a from a broader standpoint, from a legislative standpoint, which is that I think that, quite frankly, most people that get into the world of public service do it for the right reasons. And the ones that that don’t maybe have an outsized, amplified voice right now in some of the national media.
00:02:17:27 – 00:02:47:14
Zach Friend
And I think that there’s also there rewarded for the greater bombast or cynicism in a way that quite, you know, honestly, they may not even actually they may not even actually hold the truths to be self-evident to themselves. I mean, when I’ve had conversations with some of the what I would argue would be some of the sort of most extreme members in my state, that there’s there’s sort of a one personality when they’re talking to the media and another personality when you’re having a one on one conversation to them.
00:02:47:14 – 00:03:19:10
Zach Friend
So they’re rewarded for a set activity. But I really think that people do run for office for the right reasons, try and legislate for the right reasons, and even with all the challenges in the American system through special interests and the way that financing goes, etc., at the end of the day, I think we tend to notice and amplify when decisions that are made that are inappropriate and we ignore the literally tens of thousands of votes that are cast at the local, state and national level for the right thing every single day across the country, because it doesn’t really make the news.
00:03:20:02 – 00:03:25:16
Zach Friend
But I do think that most folks that run really do engage in a true moral, moral sense.
00:03:26:03 – 00:03:26:24
Spencer Critchley
What do you think of.
00:03:28:03 – 00:03:56:03
Kevin Lewis
Thinking about what it takes to go into public service with the understanding that you’re representing people and you have a desire to make things better? And I think what sometimes gets gets conflated is because I don’t someone doesn’t agree with your style of doing something or your policy than someone might say that that might be immoral because your values don’t apply of mine.
00:03:56:27 – 00:04:23:05
Kevin Lewis
And I think there are going to be times in politics where values aren’t going to be aligned. Policy is not going to be aligned and sometimes it’s a jump to say that there’s a lack of morality. I think sometimes the influx of money that’s in politics and what’s influencing certain people sometimes gives the impression that there’s a lack of morality or people aren’t doing it for the right reasons.
00:04:24:02 – 00:04:45:22
Kevin Lewis
But I believe that at its core and the politicians that I’ve worked with in the time that I’ve served in government and in politics and the campaigns that I’ve served on, I felt like I was surrounded by folks who were immensely, immensely moral and and getting the public service for for reasons where they want to make things better.
00:04:46:15 – 00:05:16:03
Kevin Lewis
There are even instances where I didn’t necessarily agree with someone who was on the other side of the aisle, but I didn’t always jump to the fact that just to say that they’re not moral now, that doesn’t mean that they are immoral people who are currently serving. I often tell people, you know, it’s the House of Representatives and they represent different people within the country and everyone may not be on the same page when it comes to acting morally.
00:05:16:04 – 00:05:27:09
Kevin Lewis
So I think there’s just a kind of close it up. I think there are there are individuals who may be immoral, but I think it’s false to say that that politics is immoral.
00:05:28:04 – 00:06:01:16
Spencer Critchley
Yeah. And I think that this is part of my concern because it’s a death spiral. Basically. If you assume everybody’s corrupt, you create a market opportunity for people who actually are corrupt to exploit that assumption. Right. So I think now we actually are facing a moral crisis in much of our politics. And I think, you know, the more the Republican Party currently in its current state is morally bankrupt, in my opinion, that doesn’t mean every Republican, certainly not every Republican voter is morally bankrupt.
00:06:01:16 – 00:06:26:12
Spencer Critchley
But the party itself, I think, has lost its moral core when you’re electing trying to elect, you know, speaker of the House candidates who have actively plotted to overthrow democracy. I think that’s a moral crisis. But as I say, I think to some extent we’re in this situation because of the cynicism that’s been there for such a long time.
00:06:26:12 – 00:06:52:06
Spencer Critchley
And, you know, have you mentioned that you’ve worked with people who, you know, were moral? The three of us have. And I know that when a lot of people hear that, they think, oh, well, of course he would say that. You know, Kevin McCarthy says stuff like that. You know, Matt Gaetz has stuff like that. Of course, he would say that he’s in politics, but I happen to know that what you’re saying is true.
00:06:52:06 – 00:07:18:01
Spencer Critchley
I’ve seen it myself. Can either of you tell me stories that might make that seem a little more credible to people as opposed to you just asserting that it’s true? So who wants to go first? I’ve got stories like that. Who’d like to give me a an anecdote that indicates that no, as wise as you may think it is to assume they’re all crooks, who I’ve seen with my own eyes, that is not always the case.
00:07:18:16 – 00:07:29:17
Kevin Lewis
I want to I want to defer to the acting, the currently active public servant on the interview right now. So I’m going to pitch it over to Zach and then I’ll follow up.
00:07:30:18 – 00:07:52:25
Zach Friend
But let me I’ll sort of talk about two different things. One of them and I know that that both of you would remember this, but when when working for then-Senator Obama on the air campaign, he would say repeatedly that good policy is good politics, meaning that doing the right thing actually is is even good from an electoral standpoint.
00:07:52:25 – 00:08:23:02
Zach Friend
He truly believed that. And, you know, I mean, I think there’s a million examples from the 2008 campaign, obviously a transformational campaign in a lot of ways, both on approach and message. But I mean, he faced decisions. If you think about Reverend Wright or some other issues, that he just approached it head on. I mean, it would have been a lot easier to take the easy road that the talking heads on television wanted him to do when we were in Pennsylvania, actually, at the time.
00:08:23:02 – 00:08:47:16
Zach Friend
And and instead, he gave context to the complex ity of the issue and explained from a moral perspective, by the way, and had no issue invoking both his moral core and Northstar, as well as his religious beliefs in in those speeches as to why the outcome needed to be the outcome that it was. And I’ll speak from my own perspective.
00:08:47:16 – 00:09:16:09
Zach Friend
I mean, I’ve been casting votes for 11 years and I can easily say that there’s only been one vote in that entire time that I even questioned myself a little bit at the end of it about whether it was the correct approach from, I guess, a moral or ethical standard. And the complexity was just the fact that even though I knew that the end result of the vote was correct, I thought the process leading to it wasn’t.
00:09:16:09 – 00:09:41:17
Zach Friend
And that’s I mean, that’s the nuance of that situation. That’s as far as I’ve come to even questioning whether that’s whether I’m doing the right thing. Obviously, I’m going to think that about myself all the time. But I do know that I’ve seen my colleagues grapple with what they think is right versus what’s expedient or what’s right and what might advantage them moving on or what’s right and what might make their life easier.
00:09:41:17 – 00:10:02:27
Zach Friend
Right. And this is one of the challenges of the greater political construct. I mean, you can’t watch a television show or movie and have an honest politician portrayed. I mean, there isn’t there isn’t like a hero. I mean, The West Wing was sort of like an outlier. I mean, things are more much more about House of Cards. I mean, this is how society creates these images, in part.
00:10:02:27 – 00:10:22:21
Zach Friend
And the media amplifies the decision making or actually rationalizes, if it’s convenient, the poor decision making of some electeds as to why they’re doing it. And it’s the other side that’s just trying to bring them down. But I think that at the grassroots, as somebody who’s engaging right now with hundreds and hundreds of electeds across the country all the time, that’s what I do.
00:10:22:21 – 00:10:36:13
Zach Friend
I really do think that people are overall driven by the right thing and yet that isn’t for some reason permeating throughout the country or the sort of ethos as to the way elections are.
00:10:37:00 – 00:11:08:01
Spencer Critchley
I got to I got to respond to a couple of those things, Kev, before I throw it to you. First of all, that point that people actually want politicians to do the right thing, that that’s actually the market opportunity. You know, you may disagree about what the right thing is, obviously, and you can disagree very strongly, but people want politicians who are apparently behaving based on moral principles, and it makes them furious when they feel like they’re not getting that.
00:11:08:08 – 00:11:39:27
Spencer Critchley
And so-called savvy politicians who think they’re being smart by being shifty. Again, it’s not I’m not being sort of all wide eyed here and innocent. I’m saying I think that’s dumb. I think they’re missing the market opportunity. And somebody like Obama really demonstrates the power when you are seen to be standing up for what you believe to be the right thing, even if they disagree with you about what that right thing is.
00:11:40:14 – 00:12:04:00
Spencer Critchley
And the other thing is, I think the toxic effect of television and movies, which we tend to assume are not the enormous educational force they are for, for good or ill. And people actually think they understand how politics works based on what they see on TV and in movies, just like they think they understand how all kinds of things work based on what they see on TV and movies.
00:12:04:12 – 00:12:22:03
Spencer Critchley
That’s a big reason why Trump got elected, right? As people thought he was actually a super successful businessman because they’d seen him on The Apprentice. And so they go in assuming that it’s it’s the way it’s shown on TV. And exactly as you said, that you can’t have a politician character on TV, it seems who’s who’s not a crook except the West Wing.
00:12:22:18 – 00:12:49:09
Spencer Critchley
And I’ll close with this for now. Anyway, I, I had the experience and I think many people had the experience. It was almost spooky On the Obama campaign. How much like the West Wing it was because because it was full of idealistic people working their hearts out to do the right thing and people who were also very smart and very good at their jobs, but who were completely committed to doing the right thing, as hard as that is to imagine.
00:12:49:09 – 00:12:55:21
Spencer Critchley
And I think based on the cynical conventional wisdom that’s out there. So I’ll I’ll I’ll let you take it up.
00:12:56:10 – 00:13:22:22
Kevin Lewis
So I actually want to I often try not to delve too deep into my group thing because I think it’s going to be very easy to agree with you on all of those points. And I’m actually going to challenge you a little bit when we talk about what’s right and what’s wrong. And sometimes it’s a lot clearer, especially for folks on this in this conversation, to decipher.
00:13:22:22 – 00:13:48:22
Kevin Lewis
But sometimes it’s just really not. And it’s more of a dilemma where some things, both answers are not going to be great right. And I think if you want to be able to I think if we’re looking for any healing or any like path forward when it comes to the country, I think we need to probably do more listening and understanding where the other person or where the other perspective is coming from on certain things and jumping into that.
00:13:48:29 – 00:14:14:27
Kevin Lewis
No one here is doing that, but like jumping into all of this is right and that is wrong. And an entire group is this or that is it’s it’s easier to do. I think the hardest part and you know Zach knows this more than I do when governing or trying to put forth a piece of legislation is we need to find some level of compromise and I need to hear what your concerns are.
00:14:14:27 – 00:14:30:26
Kevin Lewis
And we need to find something that addresses my concern. Addresses your concern because, you know, if we’re still in this for the right reasons, it’s to you know, it’s to make things better and in a way that benefits our constituents or the people that we’re representing.
00:14:31:29 – 00:14:54:01
Zach Friend
Kevin, can I ask a follow up to that? So how do we reconcile I agree with you. So how do I reconcile as an elected where polling data shows that I’ve seen polling data that says 80% of folks want politicians to compromise. And in the same poll, they’ll say that that they think that the other party is literally evil incarnate.
00:14:54:01 – 00:15:08:03
Zach Friend
Right. So how do you reconcile the same person being polled saying that they want me to compromise with the quote unquote, other side, while also saying that the other side is so evil they couldn’t even imagine sitting at a dinner table across from them.
00:15:09:06 – 00:15:33:14
Kevin Lewis
I think we just look, I don’t think that there’s any easy way to do this. And it is hard in this current environment to be a politician if we’re lobbying the same insults or the same characterizations to folks on the other side, then it will make it impossible when make it more of a challenge to to compromise. Because why would you want to compromise with that person?
00:15:33:14 – 00:15:56:10
Kevin Lewis
Last week you just said that that person is intolerable, ignorant, immoral, whatever it is. So why would you want to? And that’s why, even though it’s you know, it’s it’s I don’t want to say easier, but it’s I can see why folks would want to use certain framing and certain and certain descriptions for folks who may not agree with you.
00:15:57:02 – 00:16:19:15
Kevin Lewis
But it does feeding that negative energy, even if you feel like you’re doing it for the right reasons, is contributing to the bigger problem, which is we’re not listening to each other and we’re not trying trying to find pathways for us to be somewhat on the same page because it is not helping anyone in this country for us not to have a Speaker of the House.
00:16:19:29 – 00:16:43:24
Kevin Lewis
Does that mean I think that, you know, Hakeem Jeffries and Democrats need to go and bail out Republicans, which I think is ridiculous? No, I don’t think that at all. But I think that needs to just be more of a I don’t know. I think there needs to be more of a conversation around global. How do we not vilify each other?
00:16:44:09 – 00:17:09:23
Kevin Lewis
So when there are times when we need to work together to, I don’t know, provide funding for know certain humanitarian issues that are going around in the world or, you know, fund issues that we’re having right here domestically at the border or right in our communities. Like if we keep lobbing these characterizations and insults at each other, like I can’t possibly sit down with you and why would my constituents want to?
00:17:09:23 – 00:17:49:24
Kevin Lewis
And I think it’s good to go back to Spence’s other point when he asked, you know, instances of morality. You know, I think that the politically expedient thing or the more beneficial thing for President Obama to do in his first term was probably to solely focus on the economy and we also knew maybe through his personal experience with his mother and hearing stories and his time in the Senate time in Illinois Health care became a huge focus for him, and it cost Democrats significant to cost them the majority in the end.
00:17:49:24 – 00:18:06:00
Kevin Lewis
But it took several years. And he kind of told us, he said, you know, we’re not you may not see it right now, but in a few years, you know, they’re going to be these stories of individuals who are going to be significantly benefiting from the policies that we put forth through the through Obamacare, through the Affordable Care Act.
00:18:06:21 – 00:18:29:23
Kevin Lewis
And it was a tough thing to do. And folks on the other side for him were, again, you know, making up all kinds of nonsense about what it was. But what he charged his administration to do and the folks who are pushing the message on this is to tell our story better. And it’s going to be easier for us to kind of fight them and, you know, fight fire with fire.
00:18:29:23 – 00:18:47:27
Kevin Lewis
But if we tell our story and we allow the policy and we tell them where we talk more about the policy, the people impacted by that policy in the end, that will prevail. I think that’s what also, you know, he could have he could have he could have been a very different story where health care could have been his downfall.
00:18:47:27 – 00:19:05:18
Kevin Lewis
But we dug ended a way, but a job of telling the story of how it was benefiting the American people and the benefits that you working on the economy, how it impacted the economy as well. And I think I think we ended up on time and we ended up having a second term. So.
00:19:06:09 – 00:19:33:09
Spencer Critchley
Yeah, you know, I think that and I’m I’m really glad you raised those points, Gav, because I think there’s a lot of confusion about what the moral dimension of politics is or should be or confusion about what morality is. And one way to say it, I think, is morality isn’t the answer. It’s the process. You know, we, we and I and this is a risk, you know, among some folks on the left is thinking that we can know for sure what the right answer is.
00:19:34:00 – 00:19:55:28
Spencer Critchley
And if you disagree with that right answer, you’re you’re you can only be mistaken or corrupt. Those are the only two possibilities because we know what the right answer is. And it’s very similar to what you see on the right. It’s got a religious characteristic to it, a fundamentalist religious characteristic to it. Where you believe you have come up with religion is a set of strict rules that give nothing but the right answers.
00:19:55:28 – 00:20:15:06
Spencer Critchley
And anybody who disagrees with you is an infidel. And I actually think that we see that happening. I hate this is not both sides ism, by the way. We have a terrible crisis on the right right now. But you see it on the left as well, where morality is the right answer, not the process by which you get there.
00:20:15:06 – 00:20:39:01
Spencer Critchley
And I think it’s much more about that process, which I think is fundamental to liberalism. So, you know, getting back to Obama and health care on the right, they were making up stories about death panels. But on the left you had people accusing Obama of selling out to big Pharma when he didn’t achieve single payer health care nationally.
00:20:39:01 – 00:21:09:18
Spencer Critchley
And the only explanation for that for them was he had been bought off by Big Pharma, which of course was not true. And this gets to what you’re saying, Kevin. I think that when you’re actually doing politics, you are dealing with the complexities of real life, with real people’s lives at stake. In many cases, as in the case of health care or whether we go to war or not, or all kinds of decisions, poverty, and you are not an absolute dictator.
00:21:09:18 – 00:21:12:03
Spencer Critchley
So you don’t get to just decree what’s going to happen.
00:21:13:16 – 00:21:36:21
Kevin Lewis
I think for me, as long as as long as there’s humanity behind what you’re thinking and what you’re doing, which I think you’re touching on that point in every and every aspect of your answer. I think when folks have that in mind, then I think you’re on the right track. And I do appreciate that. You said morality is is the process.
00:21:36:21 – 00:22:02:21
Kevin Lewis
I was the scribe in the process and you were you were giving it the name. And I think part of the process is the listening, is the understanding that, you know, even going into these conversations, I might be wrong instead of I know you’re wrong. Right. And when I say humanity, it’s there. It’s a respect, right? It’s a respect that not saying that of this person’s a fill in the blank, negative, deplorable thing.
00:22:03:12 – 00:22:25:02
Kevin Lewis
It’s wow. They there they feel really strongly about this thing and I might not be as close to it as I think I am, but let’s at least have a conversation now. Here’s where I have a line and this is in the line is actually much further away than this. You want to cause an interaction in my country.
00:22:25:02 – 00:22:48:24
Kevin Lewis
That’s a nonstarter for me. Right. And I think we need to and this is a this is one of the challenges with the current state of politics is is we have to we’ve lost our way in a sense, because there’s some basic things that are just un-American or immoral that we used to be on the same page about.
00:22:49:18 – 00:23:21:00
Kevin Lewis
And just folks far left, far right are dominating those conversations and they are much louder, even though there are a lot fewer. And I think that’s something else it’d be interesting for that. Maybe this group or another conversation to go into is like, how do you how do you suggest about the folks who are so far fringe, who are who are who are hurting this country and hurting the process right there?
00:23:21:00 – 00:23:29:28
Kevin Lewis
What if they hurt in this country? You’re hurt in the process. Was it not allowing us to, you know, pass bills that allow us to fund the government and things like that that we need, you know.
00:23:29:28 – 00:23:53:00
Spencer Critchley
You know, part of the problem, I think, is that and I actually I think another aspect of the issue here is that you just you just said far left versus the far right. And I think that that makes people think, oh, so you’re saying the answer is in this mushy middle where you’re just kind of a centrist Democrat or you’re a compassionate conservative or something, and a lot of people would say, well, you’re just compromising on principle and you don’t stand for anything.
00:23:53:05 – 00:24:12:06
Spencer Critchley
And liberals, you know, broadly defined, have a reputation for it’s kind of hard to tell what they stand for sometimes. And I think it would be helpful if liberals could clarify what that is, because this one dimensional view of politics as if there is only one axis, right? You have to be somewhere on this axis from the far left to the far right.
00:24:12:23 – 00:24:46:00
Spencer Critchley
And and that defines everything, which means that if you’re on the far left, you’re probably too radical. If you’re on the far right, you’re probably too radical in the right. I actually think that there’s more than one axis, and that’s part of why we’re confused. So if you define the axis as liberalism broadly defined, not just the left, but liberalism as in liberal democracy, the philosophy of individual rights and equality and freedom and rule of law, democracy, that that kind of liberalism that we used to all believe in, you can be very far left.
00:24:46:00 – 00:25:08:05
Spencer Critchley
You can be very progressive and you’re you’re still a liberal and you can be very far right. You can be a libertarian who believes in the smallest possible government and the maximum amount of individual freedom. And you’re still a liberal as long as you believe in those basic principles of individual, of freedom and equality and rule of law and and democracy, etc..
00:25:10:02 – 00:25:28:26
Spencer Critchley
But there’s a growing number of people who no longer believe in liberalism. And I think that’s part of the problem, because there are people on the left who who explicitly think liberalism is just the polite mask of exploitive capitalism, and we need to do away with liberalism. And that’s where a lot of the intolerance, in my view, on the left comes from.
00:25:29:10 – 00:26:03:14
Spencer Critchley
They would see any kind of compromise with people on the right as a form of either serious error or corruption. And on the right you see a similar sort of illiberal movement, which is a lot of what MAGA is, which is people openly saying they admire, you know, Putin or Orban in Hungary, people like this because they believe there is a morally right answer and tolerance with people who are immoral in their view, all Democrats is is morally wrong.
00:26:04:08 – 00:26:28:15
Spencer Critchley
And I think that’s where part of this difficulty is, because I think liberalism itself feels to people like it has no moral center because, you know, it’s kind of its downfall, because liberalism is so in all encompassing. You can be like Bernie Sanders or, you know, a very far right libertarian and you’re you’re part of the liberal family.
00:26:28:15 – 00:26:50:16
Spencer Critchley
As long as you believe in those core principles. But that doesn’t mean there’s no there doesn’t mean there’s no moral core, because I think that the idea that each of us has the same rights, that we’re all of equal value, that we resolve our differences peacefully and we believe in the rule of law and that everybody gets to vote.
00:26:50:25 – 00:27:10:23
Spencer Critchley
That’s that’s a moral code. Right. And I think to me, that’s where a lot of this confusion is. And so we don’t have to just say, can’t we all just be moderates? It’s when you stop believing in tolerance of disagreement or you start to believe that corruption and cheating and lying is okay in the service of whatever you think is more important?
00:27:10:23 – 00:27:46:16
Spencer Critchley
That’s where I think we lose lose the core of democracy, essentially. And I’ll tell you at the local level as well, I when I was doing that, a lot of this kind of work for clients, not just national clients, but a lot of local and state level clients here in California. The number of times I heard reporters and I’d like to hear your both of you on this subject, how this affects reporters, how you get it from reporters and the way reporters look at the world in your experience.
00:27:47:03 – 00:27:59:18
Spencer Critchley
A number of times I heard reporters expressing the opinion, Well, we just assume that you’re lying. This as if there is no moral center to any of this stuff.
00:28:00:05 – 00:28:06:07
Kevin Lewis
Well, I think that’s I think as a reporter, you naturally are skeptical and you ask questions.
00:28:06:07 – 00:28:27:10
Spencer Critchley
And that’s what I mean by the difference between skepticism and cynicism, because cynicism is that that function could be performed by an algorithm, a simple algorithm. You know, you could write the code right now, it’d just be a few lines. You know, public official says something. Public official says X, assume X is untrue. That requires no thought at all.
00:28:27:26 – 00:28:51:10
Spencer Critchley
Whereas checking to see if it’s actually true requires some work. And so skepticism is checking to see if it’s true, which you absolutely should do if you’re a reporter. But cynicism is just assuming it’s untrue, then you don’t have to do any work at all. But the point the larger point, I think, is that’s another value. Like liberalism has a moral core, you know, and and it doesn’t work when that moral core is missing.
00:28:51:10 – 00:28:52:26
Spencer Critchley
And these are just sort of examples of that.
00:28:53:24 – 00:29:35:03
Kevin Lewis
I think that’s I think that’s a that’s also a tricky example, too, because if reporters have been accustomed to working with, you know, certain public officials who have not been truthful or when there’s certain communities, I’ll give you an example. So when I served in the Department of Justice, there were a series of officer involved shootings and killing of African-American males happening around the country and a higher frequency than than normal, at least being reported in higher frequency than than normal during that time.
00:29:35:03 – 00:30:07:12
Kevin Lewis
And a lot of times when you’re doing investigations too expensive, you know this, Zach, I think you know this as well. You cannot disclose certain information because it will impact the investigation. But there’s a lack of trust within certain communities, especially when it comes to, you know, public officials, because they kind of feel like everybody’s in it to look out for themselves because they’ve been instances where the D.A. is happy to be talking to the police chief.
00:30:07:12 – 00:30:37:29
Kevin Lewis
Right. And there have been instances where, you know, injustice was happening within a justice system. This is a reason why they have consent decrees. And and you have the federal government putting policies and changes in place at the local level to because there have been instances of wrongdoing happening within, you know, police departments or, you know, various like law enforcement officers.
00:30:38:19 – 00:30:42:00
Kevin Lewis
So anyway, I digress. So part of we had.
00:30:42:00 – 00:31:03:20
Spencer Critchley
Completely on point. I think that’s completely on point. And that’s a case where skepticism, in my view, is completely justified. You know, there wasn’t enough skepticism in the past. And as you know, all three of us I know you know, all three of us have dealt with that issue from from various directions a lot. And absolutely, people should be skeptical.
00:31:03:20 – 00:31:19:15
Spencer Critchley
They should be reporters should be skeptical all the time. They should be businesses. If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out. It’s just the old saying that skepticism. That’s the work of checking it out. So.
00:31:20:00 – 00:31:21:00
Kevin Lewis
Yeah, I think black.
00:31:21:00 – 00:31:40:15
Spencer Critchley
People should be skeptical about policing, given the history so far. Now, that does not mean you should assume, obviously, that every cop is a racist thug. But I don’t know, because that’s it. That’s it. That’s cynicism. And that’s now you’re just not bothering to think or you’re not bothering to check everything out.
00:31:41:03 – 00:32:11:08
Kevin Lewis
I think I think it’s even more complicated than that. I think when you have a history of or a pattern and practice of of mistrust between, you know, various communities, then, you know, whether he’s saying it’s right or wrong for you to feel that way, or there’s times when I was at you know, when I was serving in the Department of Justice, I think this is when I was press secretary at the time.
00:32:11:08 – 00:32:35:20
Kevin Lewis
There were times when I had to there were protests happening outside the Department of Justice. All the while, we are trying our hardest, you know, with the attorney attorney general to have a presence on a local level when it came to these officer involved shooting. And we are putting pressure on law enforcement to take a deep look at what they’re doing.
00:32:35:20 – 00:33:04:29
Kevin Lewis
And we’re also, in many cases investigating those departments. So we’re doing all the things. But what was missing and this is a point I want to get to think what was missing was that level of trust. Like, how are you injecting trust and understanding in a situation where it’s not understandable, much like someone’s child died? And there were times where I had to go out and talk to mothers who lost their child to, you know, at the hands of an officer.
00:33:05:17 – 00:33:30:25
Kevin Lewis
I work at the Department of Justice. I work for the top cop in the entire country. So I’m far from anti law enforcement, but I’m also we also represent the American people. And we also need to show that, you know, someone’s there listening and there’s another arm of government and looking into what’s going on, especially when that trust is frayed.
00:33:31:06 – 00:33:54:15
Kevin Lewis
And then we took it a step further to find instances where we can bring different communities within communities together to kind of say, hey, how do we prevent this from happening again? But if we if I get upset, if I get if I were to get upset with the mom who is protesting outside the Department of Justice and saying, hey, we’re doing everything that we can, like how do you put that protest somewhere else?
00:33:54:15 – 00:34:23:18
Kevin Lewis
And this is like deep hurt happening and she she had to look at me. She’s like, I hope you understand what I’m going through. And I said, Man, I can only fathom like, I just had my I think my son was just born maybe like in months before I had to do that. And it truly impacted me. And so and I think, like, I just want to be mindful not to judge anyone for why they show up where they are.
00:34:23:18 – 00:34:45:23
Kevin Lewis
And I think going back to Spence’s point about the process and its how do we just find more opportunities to listen to each other? And, you know, Zach, I don’t know if that’s something that you’ve experienced also during your time in public office where you’ve had to convene different groups that may not have agreed with each other or maybe on opposite sides.
00:34:45:23 – 00:34:57:28
Kevin Lewis
I’m talking about outside of like politics themselves. But what was that like? Do you have examples of just bringing two different factions together and then having an opportunity to hear each other, And then what the result of that might have been?
00:34:59:24 – 00:35:45:05
Zach Friend
Well, Kevin, before I was in elected office for about a decade, I was the PIO for a law enforcement agency. So I have an intimate knowledge of exactly what you’re talking about, including doing death notifications and doing community meetings. After kids were killed or women were sexually assaulted and dealing with the inherent and understandable distrust of the institution that was charged with trying to remedy the situation, recognizing that even the remedy isn’t an actual remedy.
00:35:45:05 – 00:36:33:29
Zach Friend
Right. I mean, at the end of the day, an arrest doesn’t undo the action slightly different from law enforcement related actions that cause the harm. What you’re talking about, these were community driven, but still the inherent distrust around law enforcement. Being the driver in California, where I was working at the time, you know, also a lot of noncitizens not very interested in reaching out to the law enforcement agency to with the information that they may have regarding a certain act of violence, because they didn’t trust local law enforcement, that they wouldn’t be turned in, that they wouldn’t something wouldn’t be used against them, etc..
00:36:33:29 – 00:37:02:12
Zach Friend
So there’s a whole host of challenging conversations. And in fact, I actually would say that it was probably the best training possible that I could have had for elective office, because you’re always in a crisis situation, you’re able to determine the difference between what’s important and what’s urgent, which aren’t always the same thing. You become a little bit of impervious toward public group think.
00:37:02:12 – 00:37:29:10
Zach Friend
I mean, just remember it’s you’re elected for your judgment. In theory, you’re not elected to just simply do what the majority of people are asking you to do. And one of the things that you’re in those situations is trying to distill the important stuff in perfect scenario or say during COVID, you’re making decisions as you go that have real impacts on folks lives with imperfect information.
00:37:29:10 – 00:37:53:12
Zach Friend
I mean, that’s that’s the nature also of public safety and crisis response. But I think that to go back to a point that you had raised or an issue that raised some time back, I think one of the overall challenges because the ultimate question is how do we get out of what Spencer called a moral crisis within the country?
00:37:53:12 – 00:38:35:00
Zach Friend
And you alluded to that. We’re in a situation where you’ve got disagreement over whether or not overthrowing the government is an acceptable means of approach. And democracy is more of a question of what things that are within our institutional control can actually prevent. That being an ethos that’s permeated the country, I think is is the broader question. And and for me, as we had mentioned in the last part that we did, I mean, the breakdown of the media to me is is a massive problem here because, I mean, I have I have always felt a real responsibility in engaging with the media as really an equal partner in the in the entire process of what
00:38:35:00 – 00:39:18:10
Zach Friend
I do. But that is not I mean, that that clearly isn’t held anymore, nor is it rewarded. Additionally, the overall breakdown of institutions and distrust of institutions is well beyond government. I mean, I’ve had conversations with faith leaders that are saying that they cannot believe the interactions they’re having with their own congregations. I mean, just the expectations. They become a lot more political in their engagement, the expectations that they need to use it for things other than I mean, even just raising vocal meals for the food bank has become weaponized or politicized and things that were that are core to the tenets of of the individual faith drive and conversations with school leaders right now
00:39:18:10 – 00:39:40:29
Zach Friend
about what it’s like to try and run a public school in the United States or how higher education is villainized as something that’s really just that for the elite, which it’s in some respects actually become for a lot of reasons, both from an economic standpoint as well as a completely out of touch standpoint in some of the things that are engaging.
00:39:40:29 – 00:40:03:16
Zach Friend
But my point is, is that this overall breakdown of institutions to the final point where we’re not even literally trusting science or doctors to tell us what to do on the health care side. That overall breakdown, I think, is is those that erosion has been happening. And then we see an attempted overthrow of the government or people thinking that an entire election was stolen.
00:40:04:02 – 00:40:35:23
Zach Friend
And we isolate that as an individual. And all these things are interrelated. And where we where we need to start addressing is in this more macro discussion about these individual issues that are leading to these two. That I mean, in some respects I tried to put myself, as you had mentioned, Kevin, in these listening sessions, of what would what would me to the point where I’m going to the to the house of government, right to the people’s House and trying to stop the certification of an election.
00:40:35:23 – 00:40:58:10
Zach Friend
And I think that if you truly believe through your entire ecosystem, I mean, your entire ecosystem, right, from your faith institutions to your immediate ecosystem to your friend network, to everything that you’re engaging in, that all the things that are being said have actually happened, then you actually feel like you’re there to save the country, right? I mean, there’s the irony, right?
00:40:58:10 – 00:41:17:28
Zach Friend
Then the other side, and as has come up in some of these trials, folks have been as they’ve had time to reflect, either sitting in jail. I mean, they’re literally saying, you know, I believe this stuff. I mean, an end to some of them. Actually, I, I understand it. It doesn’t it doesn’t justify it. I mean, it doesn’t justify the killing of a police officer.
00:41:17:28 – 00:41:42:01
Zach Friend
It doesn’t justify it. I mean, the things that were folks that were doing by any stretch, But I think the context actually really matters in this overall institutional erosion and these things. I’ve lived in relative harmony with Walter Cronkite reading you the news or faith institutions, maybe I didn’t necessarily agree with some of the teachings at the end of the day, but just some folks that provided a moral code or compass.
00:41:42:01 – 00:42:07:04
Zach Friend
But now it’s becoming weaponized and politicized, too. I didn’t really question the books that I was choosing in my elementary public school. And now you can’t even have a book that talks about history without it being questioned as to what history means anymore. I think that that erosion of things leads to then when you need to be trusted in a crisis situation, it’s not there.
00:42:07:11 – 00:42:45:25
Zach Friend
That’s a long way of me saying you would ask this question about whether I’d been in those conversations. I said, At the end of the day, when you know that whatever hits the fan, there needs to be somebody that somebody turns to and says, Well, they’re the authority right now that is leaderless because of these other issues. And that, I think, is a problem that actually gives an opening for our adversaries, That gives an opening, I would submit, actually, for success of the Republican Party electorally, like they they they succeed in generating chaos and cynicism because that the way that they’re viewed as the anti-establishment, interestingly, through a narrative creation, not through reality.
00:42:46:28 – 00:43:02:11
Zach Friend
And I don’t have an answer for this, but I think that we don’t talk about the broad erosion of institutions enough as leading to some of these other challenges we have because we just look at individual instances and say, how could that have happened? And I think that that should be a broader discussion.
00:43:02:11 – 00:43:43:07
Spencer Critchley
And this, again, you know, this to me is the pragmatic, real world importance of the moral dimension, because people one reason people have lost faith in institutions is the loss of this shared moral narrative. You know, and this is a condition of the modern age since the Enlightenment, right? When reason and science took over from tradition and religion, it used to be that in Western countries you were a Christian and you were not only a Christian, but you were a member of one particular church like the Church of England until fairly recently, was the official church still of Great Britain.
00:43:43:07 – 00:44:06:19
Spencer Critchley
And that’s all gone. So people are left to kind of make it up for themselves or line up behind somebody who claims to provide all the moral answers, which is another thing the right does a lot. But I think also we see that on the intolerant left as well. It all comes down to I think people need to have some sense of what the morality is and when that’s missing.
00:44:06:19 – 00:44:41:28
Spencer Critchley
It’s not just a nice to have. It’s actually essential to the functioning of a society, let alone politics. I also wanted to get back to what you said, Kevin, about your days at the Department of Justice. And I remember those days very well. Again, from the more local side of that issue and the importance when you say listening, this is another one of those things where cynical people, I think, would say, Oh, that’s that’s one of those political platitudes, but it has a real important practical value aside from it being the morally right thing to do.
00:44:43:22 – 00:45:05:11
Spencer Critchley
If you and this is what you were saying, I think somebody comes to you and says, Well, I happen to know the whole U.S. government is just, you know, the Department of Justice. Sure. Department of Injustice, it’s all just dirty, racist cops, etc., etc., or however they look at it, people on the right now who who think the FBI needs to be dismantled or all judges are corrupt.
00:45:05:11 – 00:45:31:02
Spencer Critchley
If you argue with them and tell them they’re wrong to feel that way. If you don’t start by listening and recognizing what’s causing their fear and their pain. In the case of that, motherhood lost a child. If you just tell her, Oh no, they’re good people here, you know, and you’re you’re mistaken about that. Not only is that not compassionate, but it ends up not working.
00:45:31:02 – 00:46:01:08
Spencer Critchley
Well, you I think you have to start with understanding why does this person set aside whether you think they’re right on the facts or not, why do they feel this way and acknowledge the way they’re feeling? And I think by not paying attention to that, this is something that I think Democrats have in some cases developed a tin ten year over, especially as they’ve become better and better educated and tended to get stuck in their heads.
00:46:01:08 – 00:46:11:00
Spencer Critchley
In my view, don’t start the conversation with telling people why they’re wrong. Start it with finding out why what they’re feeling and why they feel that way.
00:46:11:14 – 00:46:49:06
Kevin Lewis
I think that’s right. But I think I think that the challenge here is to also do that in the instances where you really don’t agree. Right. And I think, look, I’m not alone and that I don’t want to I don’t want to speak for that. But what I a part of what I heard him say was, you know, even though we don’t agree with at all with any of the tactics used on January 6th, he was through the reporting on on folks having reflections on their actions.
00:46:49:06 – 00:47:15:16
Kevin Lewis
What we’re hearing is they felt as though they were there because in their ecosystem, they were hearing that the election was stolen and they were being wronged and they feel forgotten. And I think even though we don’t agree with the actions being used on that day, I think it’s still important to listen to what they’re saying, because those happen to be the people who who were caught.
00:47:15:25 – 00:47:44:25
Kevin Lewis
But I think that that sentiment was obviously shared by the multitude of people that showed up on that day. And even if you don’t agree with the tactic, the tactics were deplorable and un-American. I think it’s by my own standard and what I believe, I think we need to recognize that those feelings are out there and figure out ways for us to address those feelings and create these forums for for discussion.
00:47:44:25 – 00:48:12:03
Kevin Lewis
And I think, again, there were so many insights that I got from doing that, you know, doing a national tour around community policing and building community trust between law enforcement and the communities they serve. And one of the biggest things, again, talking about humanity was law enforcement. The vast majority of law enforcement, they they do what they do because they want to serve people and they want to help.
00:48:12:18 – 00:48:40:26
Kevin Lewis
They want the communities that they serve to be safe. Right. There is a feeling in many and in the communities that we were talking to where they believe the opposite. But everybody wants to they want to feel safe. Everyone that we spoke to when we got them at the same table, from the pastor to the young person at the community center to the police chief and several officers, we made sure there was vast representation in the room.
00:48:41:20 – 00:49:08:27
Kevin Lewis
Everyone wanted to feel safe and at its core they didn’t want to hate each other. And I think in that and having that and this is the the real thing when it comes to, you know, choosing the right type of leadership. This is going to different conversation we’ve had over the last few podcasts. This is what some, you know, the current option that Republicans are putting forward.
00:49:08:27 – 00:49:37:00
Kevin Lewis
Jim Jordan isn’t a viable option because he’s he’s been against just about everything. He’s been against his folks from his own party. And destruction can’t be the plan forward. Right. You need to have someone who is a who’s going to be a convener and be able to bring at least someone from the other side to the table to figure out how we can move forward as a country.
00:49:37:00 – 00:49:57:29
Kevin Lewis
Because even though you may have a different idea, you may have a different political philosophy. We are all Americans. We are all on the same team. And I think when that again, humanity and then also understanding that we’re on the same team is at the center of these decisions, or at least choosing the leadership that understands that. I think we’ll be in a in a much better place.
00:49:58:07 – 00:50:30:25
Kevin Lewis
And in this. But we’ve been talking about, you know, the impact of the decision at the very local level and at the national level when an America doesn’t show up, you know, it has global it has a global impact, and then you create spaces. You know, we are worried about, you know, not having the right leadership and creating space for, you know, far right Republicans to, you know, fill that space or Trump Republicans to fill that space.
00:50:31:06 – 00:50:47:22
Kevin Lewis
That’s one thing. I think if we don’t show up as a country in a way that we need to, you know, we are creating space for, you know, whether it be, you know, other countries that to kind of fill their space in a way that that wouldn’t be ideal.
00:50:48:15 – 00:51:19:03
Spencer Critchley
Yeah, I you know the the situation as we speak with the Israel-Hamas war it’s certainly not something we can sort through as we’re talking but I think that it’s an example of morality is the process rather than the result. In a lot of cases you’re striving for a moral result, of course, but you don’t go in dictating what you’re sure is the right answer.
00:51:19:11 – 00:51:46:08
Spencer Critchley
And I think that this is something that Joe Biden is doing really well. And I can step back, you know, from my my partizan views as a Democrat, I’m fairly confident that I’m not blinded by my preferences on policy. If he were not doing a good job, I’d be okay with saying that He, I think, is doing such a good job.
00:51:46:09 – 00:52:10:11
Spencer Critchley
I’d like to hear how you guys think about that just from the in the within the context of our topic today, if you have any thoughts about that. But in approaching one of the most difficult imaginable moral challenges for a leader and his core message throughout is it’s really quite simple that the value of every human life is precious.
00:52:11:28 – 00:52:34:09
Spencer Critchley
And he and, you know, I think Anthony Blinken and the rest of the administration involved in this, I don’t know firsthand. I’m watching this from the outside, but it looks to me like this is another case where you can agree or not with the decisions they’re making. But it looks to me like the moral considerations are absolutely central to what they’re doing.
00:52:34:21 – 00:52:44:21
Spencer Critchley
Again, whether you whether you agree with where that ends up or not, I, I just think it’s naive to think that that’s not absolutely central to what they’re doing.
00:52:45:13 – 00:53:15:22
Zach Friend
Look, I got to say briefly, I mean, as I know that we’re coming to a bit of a close here, but that I think that President Biden won in part and in a fiercely divided electorate. I don’t know that we’re a divided nation. Interestingly, I think we’re just a divided electorate in a way, because there were enough Republican folks that felt that he was a decent person.
00:53:17:03 – 00:53:54:14
Zach Friend
I mean, remember, you’re talking 11,000 votes, 17,000 votes, 22,000 votes, Right? I mean, these are these are close states. But I think that his approach and his unquestionable moral compass for decency made him president of the United States in a really divided electorate. I mean, we can look at other things and young voter turnout. And I mean, none of these things are causal, but without enough of these flipped voters and is really small but one half of one percentage point in Michigan and Georgia made the difference.
00:53:55:19 – 00:54:29:05
Zach Friend
And I think that that’s what it was when I traveled with him extensively in 2008 in Pennsylvania. And then when I was with him, when my district in California suffered catastrophic damage this year, I can say that where his strength is at the human level, I mean, you could not name another American politician in history that suffered the kind of personal loss that he’s had.
00:54:29:05 – 00:55:10:24
Zach Friend
There’s been others that have suffered losses. Kennedys, Lincoln, I mean, no question. But the extent that he’s been through and continue to go through and his ability to understand human suffering and go to the right place is an amazing element. And I think because of that, because they can attack, meaning the right can attack him on that, they create other caricature issues and questions about age, questions about, you know, his his oratory abilities and etc. that are really just red herring issues in many respects.
00:55:11:18 – 00:55:35:05
Zach Friend
Whereas because they can attack him on he’s a fundamentally good dude. There’s the quote, right? I mean, he just is. And when I watched him however many years later, sitting in my own district in California, driving his Secret Service detail crazy because he refused to leave with anybody that wanted to talk to him and tell their personal story.
00:55:35:05 – 00:55:57:23
Zach Friend
This is the president of the United States. This is a leader of the free world. And you would have thought he had the entire time of the world in order to ensure that somebody’s issue was addressed. So Yeah, I think that he is morally driven. I think for a future podcast, we should talk about his electoral accomplishments because for whatever reason, the world doesn’t know about them, but they’re there.
00:55:58:04 – 00:56:04:26
Zach Friend
I mean, they are massive. I mean, they really are. I mean, it’s unbelievable. And I’m largely.
00:56:05:09 – 00:56:27:29
Spencer Critchley
Zach, sorry to interrupt, but again, the practical value of paying attention to the moral dimension, Biden gets these bipartisan accomplishments done in one of the most divided Congresses in history, you know, with people on the other side who will be severely punished for being seen to do anything that involves cooperating with Democrats. And yet he somehow gets it done.
00:56:27:29 – 00:56:33:15
Spencer Critchley
That has to be related to decades of trust that he’s built up through being basically a good person.
00:56:34:03 – 00:56:49:10
Zach Friend
And I’m sure it is. I mean, look, they’ve they’ve blown through a couple of speakers of the House as a result. He’s one of them as a result of somebody who, quote unquote, worked with him or as Kevin said in the last podcast, for doing the minimum requirement literally of the job, which is is keeping the damn government whole.
00:56:49:10 – 00:57:08:20
Zach Friend
But it’s like not even impressive, you know. But I mean, these guys can’t even choose somebody to run their meetings right now. I mean, like and we’re asking them to they got life and death decisions and they literally can’t even like my eight year old tells me that one thing that frustrates them at recess is when it takes them longer than 30 seconds to determine who the captains are for tag, you know, and these guys can’t even you know, they literally can’t choose somebody to run the meetings.
00:57:08:20 – 00:57:28:20
Zach Friend
That is like unreal. But hey, they got the keys right now out of that kingdom. And so that’s what we’ve got to deal with. But yeah, back to Biden, the morality that he really I mean, he’s a he’s a unique figure. History is going to judge him very differently than we are right now. History is going to judge him as one of the more I mean, this is going to be shocking to hear this, I guess.
00:57:28:20 – 00:57:38:10
Zach Friend
But one of the most accomplished presidents in American history. And and I and I and he deserves it. I mean, I’m glad that he’s the person. He’s right time, right place, right person.
00:57:38:10 – 00:57:50:05
Spencer Critchley
Yeah. That’s my experience being around Biden as well to the extent that I was, which was mostly 2008 and then maybe once or twice afterwards, just obviously a good person.
00:57:51:06 – 00:57:53:16
Zach Friend
Kevin wants to close this out with some brilliance here.
00:57:54:16 – 00:58:00:29
Kevin Lewis
No, I think I think I think both you and Spencer, I think you ended it ended it really well.
00:58:03:04 – 00:58:08:28
Kevin Lewis
If you get me, they’re talking about alternative incarceration programs and juvenile justice. We’ll be in for another hour or so.
00:58:09:13 – 00:58:10:16
Spencer Critchley
We should talk about that.
00:58:11:03 – 00:58:13:22
Kevin Lewis
We we definitely curtail have too much to say.
00:58:14:10 – 00:58:23:02
Spencer Critchley
I always great to talk to both of you. Thanks so much. And I guess we’ll we’ll have to stop this now rather than turn it into some kind of 24 hour telethon.
00:58:26:03 – 00:58:31:22
Zach Friend
Or raise the money for good things. Let’s keep going. But it was it was an honor to be back on. Spencer, thanks for having.
00:58:31:26 – 00:58:34:15
Spencer Critchley
Same here. Thanks to you both.
00:58:34:15 – 00:58:34:26
Kevin Lewis
Take care.