- [Announcer] Funding for
Overhead with Evan Smith

is provided in part by the Alice
Kleberg Reynolds Foundation

and Hillco Partners, a Texas
Government Affairs consultancy.

And by KLRU's Producers Circle,
ensuring local programming

that reflects the
character and interests

of the greater Austin,
Texas, community.

- I'm Evan Smith, he's
a former U.S. Secretary

of Housing and Urban Development
and a former San Antonio

mayor widely regarded as a
rising star in the Democratic

party and a possible future
candidate for president.

He's the honorable Julian
Castro, this is Overhead.

(inspirational music)

Let's be honest, is the
about the ability to learn

or is this about the experience

of not having been
taught properly?

How have you avoided
what has befallen

other nations in Africa?

I hate to say he
made his own bed,

but you caused him
to sleep in it.

You saw a problem and
over time took it on.

Let's start with the sizzle
before we get to the steak.

Are you gonna run for president?

I think I just
got an F from you.

This is Overheard.

Mr. Secretary, good to see you.

- Great to be with ya.

- Welcome back to Texas, I
guess you're living here now

so it's not really
much of a welcome back

but in some ways.
- But welcome back to Austin.

- You've been gone,
welcome back to Austin.

So here we are, I
looked it up today,

it's day 124 of the
Trump administration.

- Ah.
- Does that feel long

or short based on what
we've seen so far?

- It feels like the longest
124 days of our national life.

- Is it really any
different than you expected?

I mean, obviously, your side
going into this election,

thought you had it won,
didn't end up that way,

coming out of it, worried
your fears would be realized

and in many respects,
suspicions confirmed,

it's been somewhat
like you thought.

Has it been really though
worse than you thought?

- Oh, no doubt.

Let's start off with a caveat,
that caveat is we're only

a few months in, and
I think that Americans

of all different stripes
tend to give a president

a little bit of room to
learn and grow on the job.

- Whether they were
for him or not.

- That's right and
that's usually reflected

in public opinion polls.
- And you want him to succeed.

- Of course.
- Of course,

everybody wants the
president to succeed.

- Everybody wants the
president to be successful

in moving the nation forward
in the right direction,

of course, we have very
strong disagreements

about what that means,
but you want for the sake

of that office and the
country for him to succeed.

Having said that, it has been
a mess, unqualified mess.

(audience laughs)

You have a president that looks
like, if reports are true,

that he's abusing his power,
potentially has obstructed

justice in terms of the
investigation into possible

collusion between his
campaign and Russia,

they put together a healthcare
package that would mean

that 24 million less Americans
would have healthcare,

put forward a budget that
just decimates opportunity

for people who are low
income and even middle class.

- I think in fact every
state agency except

for Homeland Security,
Defense, and Veterans

saw a decrease in this budget.

- Yeah, it's a train
wreck of a budget.

- But practically,
it's dead, I mean,

that budget's not gonna
go in, practically.

- So it doesn't matter
who the president is,

you're not gonna get
everything that you want.

In this case, I hope that he
gets nothing that he wants.

(audience laughs, applauds)

Just to give you
an example of that,

over at my former department
at HUD, the proposal was to cut

more than $6 billion
from the HUD budget.

Now mind you, when Reagan
walked in the door in 1981,

HUD had about 16,000 employees.

Today it has less than
8000 and at the same time,

the needs out there have grown.

- Well the population
has grown, right?

- Population has grown
and the needs have grown

and this is a budget that
would cut from the ability

to provide for low-income
and middle class Americans

housing opportunity, it
also would impact things

like Meals on Wheels,
which is very popular

and make sure that poor
seniors have food to eat

during the day, and so it's a
very draconian compassionless

budget that we haven't
seen in a very long time.

- You know, there are Democrats
I've had the opportunity

to sit across from, some
Democrats including Nancy Pelosi

recently, we interviewed
her a couple weeks ago,

and she said, "I can't
believe I'm saying this,

"but I miss George Bush."

- You know, I actually
saw that, I saw that.

- And she's not the
only one to say that,

I mean, there is this idea
that somehow those of us

who thought, not myself,
but people who thought

in the Bush era, we hate this,
this is not what we wanted,

they're nostalgic actually
for a time like that.

- You know, to me,
and the budget is a
good example of this,

to me it just feels like he's
turning over the supervision

and mechanics of government
to right-wing ideologues.

I would be surprised if
President Trump actually knows

the basics of
what's in the budget

that has been proposed
on his behalf.

- You think it's
staff driving this

as opposed to his
vision top-down.

- No doubt.

- Let me make the counter
case to you, Mr. Secretary,

that there were things
about the Obama years

that needed to be fixed, that
is the case that was made

during the campaign, it's the
case that's being made now

and this budget and the
policies that have been

put into place or have been
articulated since inauguration

day are really an attempt
to rescue the country

from the brink, that
was the argument

that Mr. Trump made
during the campaign.

- Well the argument that
he made during the campaign

was that there were
forgotten Americans,

folks, for instance, who
lived in Wisconsin or Michigan

or Ohio who had been
impacted by free trade

and jobs moving overseas,
the problem is that he hasn't

lived up to his promises.

For instance, in this
budget, he takes away

economic development money
from the very communities

that he said that he
would help to revitalize.

- And in many cases,
communities that voted for him.

- That's true.

- The Affordable Healthcare
Act translates into the AHCA,

it is said that the people
who will be hardest hit

are often people
who voted for him,

in the communities
that supported him.

- No doubt, no doubt.

What folks have to
understand about Donald Trump

is that he spent the
last four decades almost

doing certain things like
railing against free trade,

railing against China,
railing against Saudi Arabia,

at one point in the 1980s
railing against Japan too,

and he gets into office and
the first thing that he does

is to say, well, maybe China's
not a currency manipulator,

and maybe we do
need NATO after all,

and no, we're not gonna scrap
NAFTA the way that I said

that we were, we're gonna go
ahead and try and renegotiate

it with Canada and Mexico,
so time after time,

not only has he gone
back on what he promised

during the campaign, he's
not even the same guy

that he was before he
went into politics.

He has turned into,
basically, Mike Pence,

a right-wing ideologue and so,

whether it's 2018 or 2020,
the decision that people

are gonna have to make is do
they trust someone who flat out

lied to them about the man
that he would be as president.

- You understand
though, Mr. Secretary,

that although his
approval ratings are lower

than most presidents over
time have been at this point,

at the end of the day, a lot
of the people who supported him

are still with him, they
actually knew he was imperfect,

that he maybe said things
that didn't square with facts

during the campaign or
that he had done things

that you would kinda
shield your eyes from,

but they still voted for
him, what makes you think

that all of a sudden now,
they're gonna break with him

when they had ample
opportunity to break with him

before and did not?

- Number one, in August
of 1974, there were people

who were still
with Richard Nixon.

- Right, it was
only at the very end

that he lost the
majority of Republicans.

- No no, I'm saying
at the very end,

when he flew out
in the helicopter.

(audience laughs)

I bet you that there
were 25 or 30% of people

who didn't think that
he should be flying out

in the helicopter, who didn't
think that he should resign.

And so let's dispense with
the idea that his support

is ever gonna go down
to zero, it's not.

Now I think the more
interesting question is,

the 10 to 15% of folks who
would determine an election.

There's very good
polling data out,

compilation of months of
polling that has shown

that the folks who
strongly support him

has diminished by 1/3.

And so he's losing those folks,

he's losing them because
people can tell it's a mess.

- So you think if the
election were held today,

he might have a
hard time winning.

- Oh, no doubt, no
doubt, and not only that,

the other thing I was
gonna say is, election,

whatever election it is, I
don't care if it's for school

board or for city
council or president

is always a match-up
between two or three people.

And he's never gonna have
the same match-up again.

- It's a choice,
not a referendum.

- It is a choice, that's right,

and so it's a choice,
there's also timing,

he's gonna have a
track record next time.

The Republicans are gonna lose
their majority in Congress

in 2018.
- Well you say that.

(audience applauds)

We don't know that,
well we don't know.

- Well I guess, Evan,
you're right, we don't know.

- These guys notwithstanding.

If you were sitting
here on November 7th,

you'd say, and we're gonna win
the presidency the next day.

- Let me just say that
if I was a betting man,

if I were a betting man, I would
put money on the Democrats.

- House, Senate, or both?
- Well keep at least

holding the Senate,
winning back the House.

- Holding the Senate
in what respect?

- Holding the seats that
we have in the Senate.

- Currently.
- Yeah, 48 essentially.

- But not winning
back a majority.

- Right now I'm not
willing to say that because

there are a couple of states
that are very difficult.

- Well the fact is
there are 10 seats

that the Democrats
have to win next time,

when they're up for reelection,
that were either in states

won by Trump or that
Trump barely lost,
so you're gonna have

to assume that those are
gonna be hard to hold.

- I think that we're gonna hold
everything that we have now.

- So you said every election
is a choice, not a referendum,

if that's the
case, is the reason

that we're in the situation
we're in now because Trump won

or because your side
lost a winnable election.

Do a little bit of self
analysis or autopsy

on what happened last time.

- It's clear that from
the very beginning,

you had a race that was
gonna be a challenge

for Democrats to win, and I
said that because the Democrats

had held the presidency
for two terms

and it's rare that you get a
third time with the same party.

- George H.W. Bush.
- That was the last person.

- Is the exception
that proves the rule.

- That's right so when
you start thinking

about the framework of that,
it was always gonna be tough.

Secondly, there's no question
that something was in the air

in 2016, populism, to a
certain extent nationalism,

this idea of America
first that Trump ran on.

- Russia.

- Russia, we don't know
what the impact of that was

or wasn't right now, but
yeah, it's conceivable

that that contributed,
of course.

So I think that the overall
dynamics of the race,

if somebody were
looking back on it,

they would say that they
were not good for Democrats.

- Easier to see now
when you look back

over the totality of it.

- And Trump was an
unconventional candidate.

He also did a very good job
of, and I think here is where

the Russian influence and
social media influences

comes into play, they did a
very good job, and by very good,

I mean effective, of
smearing Hillary Clinton.

Basically on social media,
they turned Hillary Clinton

into somebody that she was not.

I can't tell you how many times
when I would post something

on Facebook or on Twitter,
I would get back this really

virulent strain of, oh,
this person is a criminal,

she should be in
jail, I mean, come on.

- But they used the
tools available to them,

they used the new tools
particularly of campaigning.

- For sure.
- And as they say,

this stuff ain't bean
bag, it's tough stuff,

and they used it effectively.

- I think that it's
gonna be difficult

for either party to
achieve that kind of result

in the future because
I think people are,

each time folks go through
that as a populace,

they get a little bit smarter.

- So you learned from
at least that aspect

of the last campaign,
you learned about that.

What did you learn about
the Democratic message,

what the message of
your party needs to be.

If you go back now and you
look at what the message was

in the last election and
you think ahead two years

or four years, what
should the message be,

what tweaks would you
make to the message?

- I would focus a lot more on
what the policies Democrats

embrace would do for low income
and middle class Americans.

- An affirmative argument.
- An affirmative argument

instead of an argument
that focuses so much on,

this is a bad guy and
look at what our children

are thinking, watching him.

I just think that that
didn't seem to resonate

the way that folks
thought it would.

But look at his policies, look
at the fact that he's gonna

strip healthcare from
24 million Americans,

that he's making it harder
for poor senior citizens

to get some food delivered
to their doorstep,

that he's making it
more difficult for folks

who are developing
HIV in Africa,

something that President Bush
championed, supporting them,

taking that away or at
least 1/5 of that budget.

So there's plenty there that
shows that this is a guy,

who is a billionaire,
who is making policy

or suggesting policy to reward
billionaires and millionaires

in Wall Street and I would
focus a lot more there.

We need to lay out
a positive vision

for opportunity in
the 21st century,

it needs to focus on
opportunity for everyone.

If folks remember
when Barack Obama

emerged in 2007, 2008,
there was this great hope

in this sense that
opportunity would be expanded

and it contrasted very
well with the Bush years

and I believe that the Democrats
have a golden opportunity

to do that going forward
against Trump because it's so

focused on the past, it's stuck
in trickle down economics,

it's such a mess,
it's just dour,

that we have a real chance
to be something different.

- So on the subject of
Obama, I wanna look backward

before we look forward, I
wanna talk about your time

as HUD Secretary,
what did you learn,

why was this a good decision?

People say, well he's rising
up through the Democratic ranks

at least in his
home state of Texas,

he's running a city
that was then and is now

the seventh largest
city in the country,

dealing with a lot of problems
that affect people's lives

every day, he's gonna disappear
into a federal cabinet,

he goes to Washington, he
becomes part of the problem,

not part of the solution
in the rest of the country,

why was this a good decision,

what'd you accomplish,
what'd you learn?

- The satisfaction that
I got from serving at HUD

was the knowledge that
the work that you're doing

is helping to provide
opportunity for folks

who are low income, folks
who are middle class

but are willing to work
hard and are just trying

to reach their dreams
in the United States

and to go and see the country
and see what's working

and what's not, I got to visit
100 different communities

in 39 different states,
I never would have had

the opportunity to do that,

at least in the same
amount of time, as mayor.

The satisfaction of being
mayor was that you kinda have

the wind at your back,
there's a sense of community,

a pride in the city, that's
what it felt like being mayor

because things just
move much more swiftly.

The bureaucracy sometimes
lived up to its reputation,

things go a lot more slowly,
you're dealing in an ecosystem

where you're not in
command of your own ship

because Congress
appropriates your funds,

you have a whole bunch
of rules and regulations

that have built
up over the years,

but what I learned was that
when we do policy right

and we make the right
investments, that you can make

a fundamental difference
in people's lives.

The best example of that was
the Obama administration's

push to end veteran
homelessness.

Because of smart policies
like Housing First,

which says the first
thing that we're gonna do

is get somebody into
permanent housing,

not make them jump through
hoops to get housing,

because the Congress
appropriated the right resources

because mayors and county
governments out there

got on board and starting trying

to drive down
veteran homelessness.

Between 2010 and 2016, we
saw veteran homelessness

decline by 47% in
the United States.

47%, that's proof
that we can do good

when we do government right.

- Now did you talk to Ben
Carson, your successor at HUD,

about this program
or any other program,

I mean seriously, I mean
there's obviously a handoff

of responsibilities at that
agency as you looked ahead

to a new administration,
how much guidance

and what kind of guidance,

if you're willing to talk
about it, did you give him?

- We had a brief conversation
before the holidays last year,

before he took office, and
of course I offered my help

and he was very gracious, we
really didn't get into much

of a policy discussion,
I left him a short note,

there at his desk.

- Dear Secretary Carson, this
is not brain surgery, get it?

(audience laughs)

That would have been what
I would have left him.

- I will say that, to his
credit, about a week ago,

he assembled, he asked the last
four or five HUD secretaries

and their spouses to
join him in Washington

to have dinner and give input.

Now, I was not able to make
it but I did get a hold

of his office and tell him
that I'd love to give any input

any time he has a question,
any advice that I can provide

because he's in a tough spot.

- And you gotta
root for him the way

you're rooting for
the president, right?

I mean, at the end of the
day, you want him to succeed.

- His department is
being decimated in
terms of the budget,

in terms of the personnel,
also I do disagree

with the perspective
that he has on the people

that HUD serves, I don't
believe that receiving housing

assistance or other
types of assistance

necessarily makes you
dependent on government.

Now, I'm not saying
he believes this part,

but I also don't believe
that poor people are lazy,

I don't believe that there's
something wrong with the idea

of trying to help people and
my hope is that he will listen

to the many great professionals
that have been there

at HUD over the years
and know the programs,

they know the impact
that they're making,

and maybe just as importantly,
listen to all the mayors

out there, listen to the
folks that are running

housing authorities.
- Who are on the ground.

- Yeah, they're on the ground,
they're working with folks,

they see the need out there,

one program that's
up for elimination

is Community Development
Block Grants, CDBG,

and that's been around
for 43 years now.

It makes a lot of difference.

My hope is that he and the
administration will actually

listen to the need out there.

- Well of course you
were mayor and as I said,

mayor of the seventh-largest
city in the country,

San Antonio, you would
be one of the mayors

he'd be talking to so go back
now to your time as mayor.

What were the things you
took away that you would be

telling Secretary Carson
if he were asking you

about the biggest challenges
that are being faced

on the ground in these cities?

- Number one, that what the
Obama administration did,

now this is from
when I was mayor,

to encourage the mayor to
work with the school district

superintendent, to work with
the Housing Authority Director,

the transit administrator,
everybody working together

and physically take
neighborhoods that
need revitalization,

include the community
and then go step by step

trying to work at the same
time to improve the educational

achievement, to lower crime,
to improve transit options,

to try and get more jobs by
investing in small businesses,

neighborhood by neighborhood,
go to the toughest sections

of cities, one by one,
that was basically the idea

behind Promizons and we'll
see how much fruit that bears

in the future but in San
Antonio, at least preliminarily

on the east side, we've seen
that it is making a difference.

The graduation rate is
higher, crime has gone down,

there's more of a sense of
optimism in that community.

- Right.
- So it can work.

- But of course the
challenges in any big city,

not just San Antonio,
were going to be,

that's the nature of big cities,

you have a disproportionately
high number of people

without health insurance, you
have educational attainment

that may not be great
at the K12 level

or college readiness may
not be what it needs to be,

poverty is a big
issue to deal with.

Transportation, getting
people from place to place,

affordability of housing,
these are pretty significant

challenges, any one of them
would be a significant challenge

but if you're a
mayor of a big city,

you have to deal with all
of them and it's just hard

to know which to tackle first.

- Yeah, I mean I guess
so my message would be

the sooner you get to
addressing them holistically,

working together
at the local level.

- Strategy, not tactics.
- That's right,

and then the federal
government working,

there were 17 different
federal agencies working

as part of this Promizons effort

and in San Antonio,
when I was mayor,

we began working
across those lines.

So my message would be
encourage folks to look

at these challenges holistically
and you can both save money

and also have a bigger
impact and the other thing

I would just say is that
there's a whole lot of need

that is not apparent,
but is there.

The fact is that poor
people, lower income folks,

are often in the shadows,
and I'm not saying anything

profound that people don't know.

- But often they don't have
a voice in conversations

like this one.
- They do not, they do not.

They're not up there lobbying,
they're not giving campaign

contributions, they don't
have the means to any kind

of megaphone that others do,
and so I would just encourage,

whether it's Secretary Carson
or any of the other folks

in the administration, when
they do their listening tours,

which I think is a good idea,
that they also go out there

and try and listen to folks

who are actually
living the challenges.

- In some of these communities.

So are you gonna run for
president at some point?

I mean, I may as well just
ask you straight away.

There's speculation about your.

(audience cheering)

There's speculation
about your intentions.

There were many people who
believed that we might see

what I thought of as
a Patty Duke moment

at the top of the
ticket in Texas in 2018,

with you running for
governor and your brother

running for the Senate,
O for two on that.

But then people naturally
go to the next opportunity

for you to decide to
get back into something

and that might be
an election in 2020,

well it sounds like every
Democrat in the country

is talking about
running so why not you?

- I've said very clearly
that I'm not taking that

off the table, that I'll look
and see how things develop

over the next year or so
and then make a decision

as to whether that's
something that I wanna do.

- If someone in your situation
were going to do this,

what would the case
be for a former mayor

and former HUD
secretary as opposed to.

- You don't think I'm
that dumb, do you, Evan?

Come on.
(laughs)

- I don't think dumb is a
disqualification, candidly.

(audience laughs, cheers)

- That's a good point.

- You've got a bunch of
United States Senators

who are in significant
positions, you've got governors,

you've got people who
are doing big things,

being mayor of San Antonio or
HUD secretary is not nothing

but what about the
job appeals to you

or what about you
might appeal to them.

- Well, first of all,
that is not something

that I've made a decision to do.

- I'm not suggesting you have.
- And may well never.

- We're living in a
land of hypotheses here.

- I would just say that

a lot of attention has
been focused on this

Make America Great Again
and the word in that phrase

that sticks out to
me is the word again.

Because this entire
administration is
just looking backward

and I feel like that
we need a vision

that is forward-looking,
that we need to embrace

the 21st century and that we
need new blood at all levels

that is going to be
bold and really set out

a positive vision for
expanding opportunity

instead of pitting
people against each other

and scapegoating folks the way
that this administration has.

And so whether somebody's
running for mayor

or for governor or
for president, I'm
gravitating toward

people like that and I recently
just endorsed a fellow,

Andrew Gillum, who's the
mayor of Tallahassee,

that's running for
governor of Florida,

Colin Allred who actually
worked with me out there at HUD.

- Former NFL player who's
running for Congress in Texas.

- NFL player, lawyer, just
a terrific, genuine guy

who is also young, who's
running against Pete Sessions

in the 32nd Congressional
district of Texas.

So I don't know how
much that adds up to

or whether the, what the sense
is gonna be in 2018 or 2020

and whether I run or not but
my sense is that this country

is looking for a
vision for the future,

not a vision for the past.

- Is there anybody
at the national level

who is talking about
running, if it's not you,

who you look to and you
think, the kind of person

I'd be comfortable supporting,
who I would be interested

in supporting
potentially is, blank.

- I think there are
plenty of folks.

There are very talented
folks from Elizabeth Warren

to Cory Booker,
Kirsten Gillibrand,

that's why sometimes
I read this,

in Politico or some of these
other commentary news sites,

this idea that the Democrats
don't have a bench.

- You think the
bench is pretty good.

- Oh for sure.
- In fact there are perhaps

two dozen people who are
talking about running,

that feels like a
pretty deep bench.

Whether they win or not.

- And again, as I said,
at the end of the day,

it's a choice that
folks have to make,

and so you don't need
a perfect person,

what you need is somebody
that has the right values,

that has the right experience,
has the right vision,

and then folks are
gonna make a choice,

I assume it's still gonna be
Donald Trump but who knows.

- You know, we're living in
a who-knows world, aren't we?

Right, when will you decide?

- Probably next year.

- Okay, well then you come back.

- Yeah.
- Okay.

Mr. Secretary,
thank you very much.

(audience applauding)

- [Announcer] We'd love to
have you join us in the studio.

Visit our website at
klru.org/overheard

to find invitations
to interviews,

Q&As with our
audience and guests,

and an archive of past episodes.

- One of the first
things that I told people

when I walked in the room was,

yeah, I'm asking you
to raise your taxes

and it's gonna cost
you $7.81 a year

so that we can fund these
22,000 low income students

to get high quality, full
day pre-K over the next eight

years and then people can
see what we stand for.

- [Announcer] Funding for
Overheard with Evan Smith

is provided in part by the Alice
Kleberg Reynolds Foundation

and Hillco Partners, a Texas
Government Affairs consultancy,

and by KLRU's Producers Circle,
ensuring local programming

that reflects the
character and interests

of the greater Austin,
Texas, community.