Holder sees MAGA “destruction” ahead — Transcript

you know, Dr. King always said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. But the deal is it don't bend on its own. It only bends when people like us, that is average, ordinary, but extraordinary American citizens put our hands on that arc and pull it towards justice. And that's what each of us has to ask ourselves, what am I going to do to save this democracy and make this nation the exceptional one that it has shown that it can be.

Hi everyone. Uh welcome to the Best People podcast. We have a real treat for you this week. Someone whose words are um really precious in these tumultuous times. Someone I seek out when he's on my colleague's program, someone we always invite to be on ours. Um someone we feel very, very fortunate to have an hour with today. Um without any further ado because I want you to hear from him. This is the best people. This is former Attorney General Eric Holder. Thank you.

Thank you for being here.

Good to see you.

Thanks for having me.

So I always like to pull back the curtain and and sort of show our listeners my work, um our work. And the first thing I said to you was that um I'm wrestling with the story we're covering right now, which is about Alex Pretty and the horrific way in which he was killed uh by Donald Trump's immigration agents. And you had a very profound um note for me. So I'd love to pull that out of you again. You think it's important that people see what's happening with their own eyes?

Yeah, I I do think it's important for people to understand the totality of what happened to uh an American citizen who's only there demonstrating consistent with his First Amendment rights and to see how he was treated. It is a difficult thing to watch, but it is something that I think we need to see in order to really get a sense of what happened there. And I think back to the to the fifties and what um Mamie Till Till did with regard to her son, Emmett Till, when she made the determination to display to the world uh his disfigured face after he had been beaten, um thrown in a river, and that had a profound impact on the civil rights movement. And I think if America could handle that in the fifties, America can certainly handle it in the twenty-first century.

Now, it's easy thing for me to say that's not my boy who was lying there on the street of uh of Minneapolis. And yet, I I think the issues are are larger, the questions are more profound, and I I think a demonstration of what actually happened to that good man, that nurse, that good man, uh needs to be seen in its totality by the American people.

His parents had a a note to that effect. I mean, when the lies were told about him after he was killed, um they wanted the truth to come out about their son with a real echo to what you're talking about.

Yeah, and I I think that's important. You know, immediately after uh the incident, the incident, the the shooting, potentially the murder, um no legal determination has been made. We had Christie Nome, other administration officials describing him as a domestic terrorist or a person who brought a gun to do great harm to people in law enforcement. And we need to know who this this this, and I given my age, I can say this, who this young man was.

You know, a nurse who cared for our veterans, the things that you all have been showing, uh the words that he said as a deceased veteran is being taken out of the hospital. I mean, that shows from my perspective, the compassion, the caring, um that uh inhibited, um this this young man. And so I think we need to know who he was so that we can push back on the narrative that uh the administration would have us believe.

Before this um shooting, this killing burst into the headlines, um we wanted to talk to you, we want to talk to you about everything, how far from normal the Department you led is, the Department of Justice, um how vital to the future of our democracy the redistricting fight is.

But I have seen your posts about Minneapolis and about the people. And I think that the story of our time is this moment in Minneapolis from ordinary people who have day jobs, who have families, who have seen two innocent people in the streets trying to protect other human beings pay with their life for that. And I I wonder how you see the courage of the people in Minneapolis and its import right now.

You know, we underestimate the power that we as so-called ordinary citizens have. And what I said was, we saw a group of extraordinary ordinary citizens make a determination that they weren't going to be pushed around. And the impact of their in mass peaceful demonstrations, as we have seen throughout the civil rights movement, through the suffragette movement, resulted in official change. I mean, Greg Bovino got his butt kicked out of Minneapolis, not because they wanted to remove him, not because he wanted to leave, but because the people of Minneapolis made sure that the only tenable thing for the administration to do was to get him out of there. So now they bring in, you know, Tom Moneybag Homan, and we'll see how, you know, that works out that for for him. But we can't underestimate the power of an aroused American citizenry.

The American people, I've said this often, are slow to rouse, but once we do get to that state, we are in fact a mighty force. And you have to understand history to understand that that is so. And that we still have that power. We still retain that power. Our institutions have failed us. The executive branch has failed us. Congress has failed us. The Supreme Court has failed us. The only thing that's going to save this nation, that's going to save this democracy, is the American people, an engaged, focused, committed American people.

Excuse me, chills.

Um, I I agree with your assessment and I think that seeing things as they are is another hurdle to getting out of it. And I wonder if that clarity permeates the Democratic Party in your view. Do you think they understand that these institutions have failed and we have to go on to plan B, which is to follow the people who are out in mass, not just in Minneapolis, but in cities all across the country?

Yeah, where law firms failed us, where universities failed us, where tech bros failed us.

Yeah.

Uh, the American people have not. What we see in Minneapolis is in some ways the most profound demonstration of that, but we have seen demonstrations of people getting together all around this country, everything from the No Kings March to things that come up in a more spontaneous way.

And so I think that the Democratic Party needs to understand that there is even just from a political sense, there is uh there's a well of support to tap into. But beyond that, and more important than that, if we are going to save this democracy, Democrats have to be not an opposition party in normal times, but a defender of democracy. And that's what this is all about. I'm not being hyperbolic, I'm not being alarmist, um but unchecked this administration, if it when it leaves in 2029, I'll make that assumption, um could have changed in a profound way, um the nature of the American experiment. And we can't allow that to happen.

I agree with you. I think I think this ends in in January of 2029 when a new president is sworn in.

But what are the instruments to protect what we have right now?

Well, the floor is to vote. Um, but that's not the ceiling. Uh, I I think it involves or requires um civic engagement on the part of the American people. And I think what we have to do is again, learn from our history. Uh, it means getting out there and, well, you know, if you can't march, and I I think you should try to find ways to do that.

You know, supporting candidates, becoming engaged with um with political campaigns, working with organizations that are doing things to try to save our democracy, the League of of Women Voters. I mean, there there's a whole range of organizations that are looking for um support. If you are issue-oriented, you know, work with those people. But somehow, some way, um get engaged. Now, it won't be an easy thing. We all have busy, you know, personal and and business lives, but if you devote one, two hours per week to the cause in some form or fashion, you will feel better about yourself and you will help this nation. And the thing that you don't want to do is look back ten, fifteen years from now, when your kids, your grandkids, or you're asking yourself, you know, what did I do in this moment of crisis for the nation? You want to be able to answer that question in a substantive way.

I have the same um sort of conviction um that everyone will be judged uh by the answer to that question. What did you do?

It is now so atrocious what they are doing. And I I am relieved that the killing of two American citizens has crystallized everyone's attention.

But I'm equally horrified and in some ways more afraid for the human beings that they have behind closed doors, that they have in detention, that they have shackled and and flown off. And and I wonder if you are confident that we will at a point in time understand what we've done to human beings in in the name of Donald Trump's mass deportation policy.

You know, I worry that we will not know the full dimensions of it in the same way that we have never totally come to grips with or understood the totality of their family separation policy. You know, we came up with a number of kids who got separated from their parents. Not all have been reunited. The number that I think that we um use is, I think, an estimate.

And so the number of people who have been taken off our streets and put in these detention uh centers, I think we'll get a rough estimate of who they were, but I suspect we will not know where each and every one of those persons um ended up. Those who left the country, what country did they go to? Those who remained in the country, hopefully we'll have a better sense of, you know, where they ended up. But I don't think there's any reason to believe, given Trump one, the first Trump administration, or the way in which this more radical, um second Trump administration is conducting itself, that we're going to get a real good handle on what has happened, all the people who have been a part of this, um of this sweep.

And I think we need to understand also, you know, the American people, me, I I'm for getting rid of people who commit violent crimes and who are here illegally.

I mean, you know, we did that during the Obama administration. We used the normal techniques through the courts to to to do that.

Um, and even if you want to focus on people who are just recent arrivals, who don't have community ties, all right, that's something that you can consider as well. But sleeping in, you know, I remember it was a waitress in Illinois, been here for like twenty, twenty-five years.

You know, doing nothing other than her job, and yet she gets rounded up, ultimately because of community involvement was was placed back. But that's not a good use of um of limited resources that we have, and it certainly is not who we say we are as a nation.

You know, because I think one of Trump's um triggers, if you will, um is the successful immigration practices of President Obama. I mean, I I think the numbers that he was aiming for in the first term were to exceed President Obama's.

Can you just level set, as you as you just started to, what the policies were, what the practices were, why you didn't need to deploy the FBI and DOJ, take them off fighting cyber and fighting national security to do what you were able to do, um effectively, not just in in in the administration's view, but in Donald Trump's view. He seems to be chasing that legacy. How was it different?

Yeah, I mean, our view was that borders have to mean something, and there are ways in which people can present themselves at the border, make their case for entry into the United States, and we would follow those rules. But for people who were here and who had committed violent crimes, you go again through the processes, through the immigration courts, make your case, and in those cases that we presented, we were overwhelmingly successful in getting people out of the country.

And to the extent that you wanted to focus on uh other people, we focused again on those people who had been here relatively short periods of time, had not established um really significant community ties, and again, went through uh the immigration courts and then had them removed. But we also expanded when I was attorney general, what was a legitimate basis to seek entry into the United States to include, for instance, women who were the subjects of domestic violence in their in their home country.

So political asylum, domestic violence, there were a number of ways in which people could um come into the United States. But at the end of the day, you know, we still have a broken immigration system. And, you know, we had a proposal by a very conservative, um Oklahoma, uh Senator, Republican Senator Langford that was being considered. People on the progressive side, the Democratic side had to gulp to say that we would support that, but that was at least a way in which we could have normalized, regularized that which we are dealing with now. And what happened? Republicans were for it until Donald Trump told them not to be for it. They want the issue. They don't want the solution.

Rubio was one of the co-sponsors in the Senate. I mean, my my old boss went through a similar exercise and he was from Texas. I think he had very liberal views on immigration, Reagan-esque views, if you want to call them liberal. Um, and he had partners in the Senate in Ted Kennedy and John McCain, but his own party torpedoed it, um, during his presidency as well.

Do you think that immigration can be solved, um, absent, um, solving what has been a steady decades-long attempt to dehumanize people on the right?

You know, it's interesting. I actually think that the excesses that we are seeing now make it a little more likely with a Democratic Congress, a Democratic president, make it a little more likely that we can get to um that desired place. I I think we've all been appalled by what it is that we have seen, not only in Minneapolis, but to see, you know, the breaking of of car windows, the shoving of people down on the street.

That little five-year-old with the with the little blue hat with the little white things hanging on. I mean, it breaks your heart. And those are the kinds of images that I think will stick with people.

Yeah.

And I think we'll have a political resonance for um people on the Republican side of the aisle. Doesn't mean that you get the majority of those folks on the Republican side, although maybe you do, um but you get a sufficient number of them such that you can come up with a way in which we finally come to grips with our so-called immigration problem. And I think it's interesting you said, you talked about, you know, your former boss, good man.

You mean, you talk about Ronald Reagan as taking kind of liberal positions. You know, I think that they were taking American positions. This is a nation built on immigrants. And unless you are a descendant of the native people, you are of immigrant stock. If you can't, if your folks came over here on the damn Mayflower, guess what? That makes you an immigrant.

The only question is, when did your people get here? And in my case, how did your people get here? But we're all immigrants except for, um, you know, Native Americans, the indigenous people.

But I I think the the mask is off, right? It isn't about immigration. It's it's about race. And Donald Trump in in some ways lets us point to the things he's saying and doing to prove that that's the case.

Yeah, racism, you know, is still the the unsolved problem in this nation. We've never come to grips with the original sin in the United States, slavery, you know, it's it's little brother, um, segregation, and the impact that it had then, the its continuing impact, uh, now. And, you know, you look at Donald Trump's history around who he would rent to in his buildings when he was a landlord in New York, what he said about the central, the exonerated Central Park Five when he wanted to to execute them. Um, he's got some racial issues. Um, many of the people who surround him have racial issues. I don't I'm always reluctant to call people racists, but I think there's a a race, a negative race consciousness that uh that these folks have that infects the policies that they make.

And and they're clear about it. You know, we don't want people from certain countries who happen to be brown or darker skinned coming into the country.

But yet, we'll open our borders to white Afrikaners. I mean, I I suspect if you want to come in from Norway or Sweden or Finland, you probably walk in the door and you'd be just fine. To have a legitimate reason to try to get to this country, and yet you're from uh someplace in Africa, someplace in South America, someplace in Asia, uh you face a whole set of hurdles that uh a person who is white does not.

You know, his effort to erase the history, the actual factual history feels like, um, this attempt to move the country backward.

You know, he's put this chill, I think, in corporate America, which has has illustrated its cowardice or its calculation. Again, I don't I don't know what their motivating force is, but they've capitulated on on DEI programs that had made great strides.

Um, but the erasure of history is something that is very much ongoing. How do you envision just the the level set on on on reinstating the things he sought to erase structurally, whether it's knocking down the East Room, um, historically and factually?

How do you get that back?

Yeah, I mean, I think it'll take a concerted effort. I think, you know, we are there's going to be a lot of damage done. And we have to steal ourselves for that between now and 2029. And then the question becomes, what is it that we do? And when people talk about rebuilding, I think that's not a great term. I think we need to be thinking about reimagining.

Yeah.

And to come up with ways in which we make better the system than certainly we get left with, but even better than the one that Donald Trump uh inherited.

And so it's going to mean making people focus on issues that are painful to confront.

Race may be chief among them. You know, I gave a speech back in, I guess, 2015 when I was first attorney general, and I said this was a America was when it came to race, a nation of cowards. And I I what I meant by that is that we are afraid.

On the African-American side, Hispanic side, the white side, we're afraid for whatever reason, reluctant to confront issues of race. And if we want to make real racial progress, we have to be prepared to ask ourselves some difficult questions and face some hard truths. The erasure that these folks are engaged in means you just sweep to the side questions, issues that ultimately we're going to have to deal with.

People got to remember, this is a nation that by I think 2043 now, where whites will be a a numeric minority in this country. Our diversity can be um a strength for this nation.

Make us better, stronger, um than more homogeneous nations, or it can be something that is used as a political tool to um divide us.

And it's clear what this administration has decided to do.

I'm hoping that a successor administration, Republican or Democrat, will look to the ways in which we strengthen um our nation and embrace not only our heritage, but also our reality.

Yeah, the facts.

I I wonder too, I mean, you look at how he's historically unpopular. Donald Trump is right now more unpopular than he was um during COVID. And I I

Think about that one.

Right?

Think about that one, okay?

I mean,

Yeah.

What does it say?

I I think it means that, you know, it's funny, I when I was coming down here, I was thinking to myself, you know, what are all the things, what are all the reasons why this guy's having such problems? And I look, all right, look, Justice Department weaponization, HHS, we are less healthy.

Measles, you know, measles outbreaks, trying to somehow denigrate the use of vaccines, DHS, citizen violence, NATO, the destruction of that which has kept the nation um secure and led to unparalleled prosperity over the last eighty years. Um, the economy, tariffs, the impact there, the wholesale corruption.

And so all that litany of things that I have just laid out, and let's not forget Epstein, I I think is the reason why you've seen the cratering of uh of his support.

Let's go through them one by one.

You just you ticked off my whole list of things I wanted to ask you about. You ran the department that that that in my view comes the closest to explaining a lot of the cowardice, right? So Trump has taken over the Department of Justice.

Um, even if you understand it's toxic to your brand to capitulate to Donald Trump, he's made clear that he'll criminally investigate and try to prosecute you with his Department of Justice.

How

did

it

how

Give in to that which the president said. You know, when I was attorney general, you get to put up four portraits of your predecessors.

And one of the people I had up there in my conference room was Elliot Richardson, and he was there to remind me that if I got an order from the White House that I couldn't agree with, either I didn't, I would say I wouldn't do it, and maybe I get fired, or I would um resign. And that's the kind of view that an attorney general has to have about the about the job that he or she has. And that is not the case with regard to to Pam Bondi, to Todd Blanche.

Um, they are they are are simply people who are surrogates for the president. I mean, you might as well call Donald Trump, you know, the president and the attorney general, um, you know, because that is that is in fact the the reality.

And that distinction, that notion that you keep the the Justice Department separate from the White House is not something that was unique to the Obama administration, not something unique to a Democratic administration. You saw that as well with regard to Republican AGs, Republican presidents, um, as well.

And the only time the Justice Department and attorneys general got into trouble when that law was when that line got blurred. One quick example, I made the determination that we weren't going to um support the Defense of Marriage Act. Consequential decision, could have political ramifications, but I thought that was something that should be decided in the White House.

President Obama didn't know about that determination, and I didn't tell him about the decision that I had made until I was at a Super Bowl party at the White House, I guess we were going to announce it on Tuesday, so it's the Sunday before. And he said to me, uh, boy, I'm really glad that that's what you decided because that's where I wanted us to be.

But I didn't think it was appropriate for me to share with you what my views were. Now, that, I think, shows a healthy relationship between um a White House and a Justice Department when it clearly does not exist between the the so-called Justice Department that we have now and the White House.

Well, it's it's an interesting example because it shows how far from anything normal or or you use the word regular we are.

I mean, right? Like you, you you were friends also. Um, and but the function of your job had nothing to do with checking in with the White House. And it it you know, I think the inversion is helpful. It's not just that they defer to him, it's that he runs them and they allow him to.

You know, we're talking about what the next three years portend. You know, they've already in year one tried to indict and prosecute Jim Comey.

They've gone before a grand jury three or four times for Tish James. Are you afraid?

I

mean,

are

you

afraid

that

they'll

try

to

manufacture

something

Sure. Anybody who is a critic of this administration has to think in the front of his or her mind, in the back of his or her mind that uh they're going to look at something.

Um, of some part of your life and and somehow construct out of whole cloth a case against you. But that can't stop you. That can't stop you. Because as Jim Comey said, you know, he had great faith in the system. I've got great faith in the people of this country, whether they serve on grand juries, whether they serve on trial juries.

Such that, um, you know, if if they come at me, well, you know, I'll I'll get through it. I mean, I I haven't done anything wrong. Um, and what are they going to it's like when they were going to try to investigate the the mayor of Minneapolis and the governor of uh of Minnesota.

And I said, well, what what's the charge? Felony disagreement?

Right.

I mean, you know, what what are you going to what are you going to charge them with? You know, the threat of it is, I think, the thing that they really rely on more to try to get people to cower, to capitulate, and to accept that which is imposed upon them.

And we got to push, we got to push through that. I mean, this country took on the mightiest empire in the world to establish the United States of America. And there were times, I'm sure, when our forefathers thought, can we really pull this off?

As Dr. King really thought, you know, can I really pull down pull us off?

Rip down a system of American apartheid. The same strength that they showed, the same strength that they showed in pushing through their doubts, is that which we have to um exhibit and embrace um in our time. You know, I think for too long, Democrats and progressives have been uncomfortable with the acquisition and use of power.

And I think we got to get over that.

Doesn't mean that you get power and then use it inappropriately, but if you have power, you've got to use it in ways that will benefit the American people. You know, Roosevelt was unafraid of acquiring and using power.

Johnson, unafraid of acquiring and using um power.

And I think that's what Democrats have got to get back to. You know, there's a process, uh you put out your positions, you try to support them as best you can.

And in the way that, you know, Mitch McConnell, he got power and used it and slept, you know, every night like a baby.

He didn't care.

Right.

You know, what people were saying on the on the other side. And we got a Supreme Court now that we have to deal with.

Because of the way in which he used the power that he had to keep Merrick Garland off the court and to get Amy Coney Barrett on the court.

In ways that are inconsistent with the rule that uh is supposed to apply.

Why do you think Democrats who have such an advantage in the the court of public opinion on the issue of the Supreme Court?

Supreme Court is is issuing ruling after ruling that is wildly out of step with the mainstream of American thought and ideology.

On abortion, on on money in politics, on environmental questions.

Why are Democrats challenged in using that issue politically?

I don't know.

I don't get this.

You know,

You know, I've talked to the caucuses up on the hill and and said, you know, it's not an inappropriate thing to run against this court.

Um, given all that they have done from, I don't know, Citizens United, overturning Roe v Wade, keeping partisan gerrymandering cases out of the federal courts.

There's a whole range of things that they have done to our democracy, the immunity decision for the president.

So, yeah, you run against the court, you run for what it is done.

You run against the court for the way in which it has been composed. And then you have to be prepared to ask some fundamental questions. You know, and be unafraid.

If if they Democrats hear the words, oh, you're packing the court. Whoa, whoa, whoa, can't do that.

Well, Mitch McConnell packed the court.

And so, you know, think about what's and I promise Donald Trump would if the tables were turned.

If he got there and and the court was a a liberal majority.

We we would be talking about it in the past tense. The court was packed.

And I mean, I understand, you know, we are traditionalists.

And we are kind of rule followers, but that doesn't mean, again, with the acquisition and use of power.

That we don't put in place institutions that are going to work for us in the twenty-first century.

Um, the last time that the court was expanded, it was to make sure that there was one justice for each federal circuit.

If you did that now, you would have thirteen justices.

You wouldn't have nine.

So that's at least one marker that again, again, look at what happened with Amy Coney Barrett.

And what happened with Merrick Garland, that's another place in which you could say, oh, that's too justice.

And so asking those kinds of questions, putting in place an ethics code, um having Congress, which has the ability to overrule Supreme Court decisions that are not deemed constitutional in nature.

Use that power.

And don't be reluctant. You know, we kind of place the Supreme Court in a special place.

And it deserves, you know, some degree, it has to be removed from, you know, from politics.

But they're not the Oracles of Delphi, you know, the gods are not speaking to them and telling them what the truth is.

They're they're regular men and women who get gut checks that say United States government on them just like I did when I was a GS-14 young lawyer at the Justice Department.

You know, they're fallible.

Well, and it doesn't I mean, I I think the thing, and I feel this way about Ice, I feel this way about the Supreme Court, they are not served by operating with impunity.

The Supreme Court would be more popular if there was more scrutiny of them.

The Supreme Court would benefit from an ethics code.

We we would benefit.

The whole, you know, upside down and backward nature of all the people who want to operate with impunity, having impunity, and then being historically unpopular because of it or with it or as a result.

Feels like one of these break glass moments for civic society.

No, I think that's right. Um, you know, the last thing that we need is to have our Supreme Court.

Federal court system more broadly to be seen as political in nature. But I think, you know, we have to draw a distinction.

Between the district courts and the federal courts of appeals who have actually done a pretty good job, whether they are Republicans, Democrats, Trump appointees, um or not, pretty good job.

I will disagree with some.

Um, you know, Eileen Cannon, just just to forget about her.

But the Supreme Court has done things that you really have to kind of scratch your head.

And I don't think they're necessarily partisan in nature as much as they are ideological, um, in nature.

They're not following precedent and principle, they're following the other P, which is personnel.

You know, we've got the power now to do those things which have been fever dreams, um, for people in on that part of the uh ideological, um, spectrum for years.

And you see that time after time after time, and the overruling of precedents.

Takes you have to take into account that people order their lives on the basis of that which they think the law exists.

Chief example of that being, you know, Roe v Wade.

Um, people made decisions on how they're going to women made decisions on how they're going to conduct their lives.

With that thought as to how our society was ordered. And then suddenly, boom, it was was gone.

And now we have a bifurcated nation in which you do have uh reproductive rights for women in some states.

And not many reproductive rights for women in other states.

And the criminalizing of of of health care providers.

My last question is about uh your scenario.

You're you're sort of um not best case scenario, but but in your view most likely scenario for for the way out of of this.

I think it's going to take a a series of um defeats and shattering defeats.

Perhaps for of Republicans for them to um get away from from Maga.

And from, you know, the Trump echoes. Uh, I think if the election is fair in 26, the midterms.

And that's a big if, because we have to deal with, you know, the mid-cycle gerrymandering.

We have to deal with voter suppression. We have to deal with potentially the deployment of American troops.

In areas that could have an impact on the turnout in in certain Democratic areas.

But if we have a fair election in 26, I think you're going to see the start of that comeback.

Uh, and then I think you have to see what happens in in 28, both with regard to the presidency, uh, as well as federal elections.

But importantly, what happens in the states, too often we get all, you know, up or all really focused on who's running for president.

As we should.

And we don't pay as much attention to who our state legislators.

Who is serving at the local level.

And I think you're starting to see with the work that we tried to do with our allies, you know, an unwinding of a lot of these gerrymanders.

And we'll have more fair elections.

And I actually think that we're going to be okay, come, um, 2029.

But between now and then, there's going to be a lot of damage done. There's going to be a lot of fighting that needs to be done.

To protect and to try to minimize the destruction that we're going to uh have to endure.

You know, Dr. King always said that the arc of the moral universe is long.

But it bends towards justice.

But the deal is it don't bend on its own. It only bends when people like us.

That is average, ordinary, but extraordinary American citizens put our hands on that arc and pull it towards justice.

And that's what each of us has to ask ourselves, what am I going to do to save this democracy and make this nation the exceptional one that uh it has shown that it can be.

It's an honor. I had another three hours in me of questions for you.

I hope you'll come back and do this again.

Sure.

Any time.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much for your time today.

Thank you.