Lessons in Leadership, Service, and Patriotism
Speaker: As we honor American freedom and the values that preserve it— leadership, service, patriotism—this special compilation features Walker Webcast guests, military heroes, civic leaders, entrepreneurs, and public servants who have dedicated their lives to building a stronger nation. Their stories remind us of the enduring promise of the American dream. We begin where many stories of service start, with a call to something greater than oneself. Here is retired U.S. Navy Admiral and Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, Admiral James Stavridis, discussing his experience of being in the Pentagon on 9/11.
Willy Walker: You are in arguably the most secure building on the face of the planet. And yet from your telling, that's as close as you ever came to getting killed during your military service.
James Stavridis: Indeed, absolutely. Here I was in the Pentagon. As you say correctly, the safest place in the world, right? Full stop. I mean, you're guarded by the strongest military on Earth. You're in a massive concrete building with huge, huge walls. You are in the capital, the richest country on the planet, and the irony of the moment is, no, I was not safe. That was in a career with my fair share of combat, where I came the closest to being eliminated. Back to the firefighting point, if you think about it, on a ship at sea, you've got to put out the fire. It's not like you can just walk across the street and declare the building a loss and put a perimeter around it; you're at sea. So yeah, we're all trained. We do initial, very significant training, and then we all do a refresher course annually, every sailor. So, yeah, we're pretty good at fighting fires. But that day, we didn't have any tools. We didn't have big hoses. We didn't have big pumps. We didn't have all the access equipment. We didn’t have, above all, the masks, the oxygen breathing apparatus that allows you to go into a fire. We didn't have all that. What we had was a few bulkhead-mounted cylinder fire extinguishers, no good at all against that inferno. So we all stumbled out onto that grassy area outside the Pentagon and up came the first responders, big heroes, true heroes, and they fought that fire like hell. I lost a lot of shipmates there. Unfortunately, the plane killed a bunch of army folks because it hit the personnel section of the army, but it hit the Navy Intelligence Center in the Pentagon. So I lost a number of great shipmates, colleagues, and friends who died in that. When you take that trip to Washington that everybody does, and you see the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Monument, and the 9/11 Memorial at the Pentagon, go and see that. It's got a bench there for everybody who died, both on the plane and in the Pentagon. It's a beautiful, serene place. You don't need a particular clearance to go. You can just go, and there's parking right there, right by the Pentagon. Go see that; it's very moving.
Speaker: From the halls of the Pentagon to communities across the country, the call to serve takes many forms. Next, we turn to someone whose family name is synonymous with American public service. Anthony Shriver, nephew of President John F. Kennedy and son of the first director of the Peace Corps, reflects on a life shaped by legacy, purpose, and the enduring joy of serving others.
Willy Walker: Your late uncle, President Kennedy, founded the Peace Corps by an executive order in 1961, and your dad was the first director of the Peace Corps. What did you learn from your dad as you talked to him, reflecting upon that part of his very, very illustrious career as it relates to running that agency, growing that agency, and a little bit as it relates to what you've done with Best Buddies? What are some of the things you recall your dad telling you about his time of launching the Peace Corps and growing the Peace Corps?
Anthony Shriver: I think that the most important lesson is he always communicated to us that there's no greater life than a life of service, and that there's no more joy that's brought into your life than a life of service and that if you're working day to day and trying to figure out ways to support others and to give back and to sort of be other centered instead of self-centered, you're going to have a really happy life and you're going to have a life full of faith, love, and joy. There’s so much joy in service and there's so many great people you meet and such a great sense of, you know, having a life of purpose and every day, you know, you finish the day and you know how different your day is and how dynamic your day is and how interesting it is and the people you meet and how you feel. It's hard to match in any other career. He used to just repeat that over and over.
Speaker: Many of our guests are world-renowned leaders, and their stories reveal a powerful truth. Leadership isn't defined by titles or rank, but by responsibility, resilience, and the courage to act. General David Petraeus, a four-star U.S. Army general and former director of the CIA, embodies those principles. Here, he shares what it means to lead from the front and why American leadership on the world stage still matters.
David Petraeus: Competition comes from within. It is actually fed by when you do well, you want to do better. But again, I really do believe that people don't want to be led by somebody who's proud to be average, who is satisfied with the gentleman’s B. In fact, I made a point of going back to West Point after my combat tour as the commander of the 101st Airborne Division as a two-star general during the fight to Baghdad and then the first year in Iraq. And I said, I want to address the senior class, and I want them to understand just what I said just now is, your soldiers, the greatest privilege and responsibility in the world is to lead American sons and daughters in combat. And you're going to do that. You can see this. This should concentrate your mind and if you were proud to be too cool for school, or again, proud to be average, that is not what your soldiers want. They want somebody who is fiercely competing to be the best that he or she can be, who is striving hard to be an expert to achieve all of the professional expertise and knowledge and qualities and attributes, and be in shape to lead from the front—all of the qualities that will help them have the best chance of coming home alive.
Willy Walker: I'm curious, are we living in a more dangerous world today than we were in, say, 1984 or 2014?
David Petraeus: Certainly more dangerous than since the end of the Cold War. And the way I characterize it is to say that there are more threats and challenges. So a greater number of threats and challenges, and some of them are vastly more complex than at any time absolutely since the end of the Cold War. …. I am a real believer that the U.S. has to lead in many of these situations and that if we don't lead and try to keep our allies and partners with us to the greatest extent possible, the so-called rules-based international order. That is what we have tried to preserve, to sustain, and bring into being in the wake of World War II. It has been advantageous for us. This is cold, and it is hard realism at work here. And if we don't sustain that, those who are trying to make the world safe from authoritarianism will chip away at that. And some of the advantages that we have enjoyed will erode.
Willy Walker: One of the things that makes me sleep well at night is that for all of President Trump's rhetoric, that I have been told by people who know him well, that he very much does not want, nor is, and is somewhat fearful of warfare, that deep in his core, he wants to avoid, is that correct? Is that what you're taking from people?
David Petraeus: I think it is, and I think that we've seen this to a degree because of reports that he really prevented Israel from doing, reportedly, what they wanted to do, which was conduct an attack on the Iran nuclear program earlier rather than later. See whether you can get a negotiated resolution. Look, having seen what happens in warfare, when you roll the iron dice, as Bismarck termed the decision to go to war, you never really know how it is going to turn out. And I think that Trump is properly cautious in that regard. I hope that we still hold out that threat and also the possibility of carrying out the operation, because that's going to be one of the major factors that will induce Iran to agree to a deal. And the same is supporting Ukraine against Russia. If you really want Russia to negotiate, you've got to make it probably more painful for them before you get to an agreement. So again, the threat of force, I think, is absolutely vital, and those forces should be capable, lethal, well-trained, and on the cutting edge of technology. And I hope that this trillion-dollar defense budget will enable that kind of advance.
Speaker: American leadership is built not just on power, but on principle— on the resilience to lead through uncertainty and the resolve to act in the face of fear. Chris Cassidy, former Navy SEAL and NASA astronaut, has carried those values from combat zones to the edge of space. In this next segment, he shares how training, trust and a steady mind are essential to confronting the unknown, whether in war or among the stars.
Willy Walker: What is it that has gotten you so relaxed about being in situations that most of us would be petrified to be in?
Chris Cassidy: I think I've thought a lot about this, really, about this concept of fear. I think fear is largely driven by unknowns, uncertainties, and things you can't control. The higher the uncertainty, the higher the fear. And at the very basic level, I kind of love this analogy. You look at a kindergartner on day one, never having been to school before, and they're screaming and crying, and mom and dad are dragging their hand to the door. They came back at lunchtime and the kid’s got 20 best new friends. They're smiling. They don't even know mom and dad are at the door because all the anxiety and fear are gone, and you know the environment now. And so that's how I equate training and preparation. You're never going to like in case of a space launch, when you strap yourself to a big pile of fuel, you're never going to eliminate all the risk, but with the smart engineers and the well-designed spacecraft with redundant systems and emergency ejections and things you can do with a variety of things, you feel a little more comfortable because you know that the team in mission control can respond to certain things. You guys can respond to certain things as a crew, and that drives the anxiety down. You just know, “Okay, we've trained for this; we prepared for this. We can battle our way through whatever those situations are.” Same thing on a combat mission as a SEAL. That's the whole point of detailed mission planning. You assess every single risk and put thought and kind of “what if, what happens if this.” Then, at NASA, we call it the next worst failure. Okay, we're given this scenario. What's the worst thing that can fail that would make our lives miserable? And then do one more; we generally do two “what if, next worst case failures.” I love that concept because then you as an individual and you as a group, feel like, “Okay, there's always risk here, but we know what we're going to do in a variety of different curveballs.”
Willy Walker: What's interesting, given where U.S. and global relations are today and the trade wars that are going on and the war in Ukraine and relations with Russia, is that the U. S. Space program has been in partnership with Russia for decades. And you actually spent almost two years outside of Moscow in the Russian training facility, working with cosmonauts in partnership. And I saw the trade-off in command from, I believe it was your 63rd mission to the 64th mission, I think it was. And you were handing it off to a Russian cosmonaut who was the lead, Sergey, who was going to be the lead of the next mission coming in. It's interesting to look at that and the partnership that has been forged between the United States and Russia in space, and it's endured even though we have more of a Cold War happening back on the face of the earth.
Chris Cassidy: Yeah, it's really interesting because now I've been out of NASA for four years and kind of viewing it more as a civilian, and it surprises me that we're still able to cooperate and do it. But I think it's a great example of technical challenges where you're trying to do a risky endeavor together, whether it's climbing Mount Everest or launching into space, those people, the sort of political sides of it, aren't factored into what we have to do to execute this mission safely. Now, it was interesting to live over there for many, many months in Star City and have very close Russian cosmonaut friends and Russian engineer friends, and instructor friends. They're people too. So they’re just like here in America. We've got left-leaning folks and right-leaning folks, and you've got friends who are probably all those. At the Gagarin Space Center, it's the same thing. They have people who really support Putin, and they have people who are really skeptical of Putin's agenda. And it's just a matter of comfort level in those conversations.
Speaker: From outer space to state government, the American spirit is defined by a belief in responsibility, opportunity, and the courage to lead. Governor Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin's longest-serving governor and a national voice on welfare reform, shares why leadership sometimes means making the tough calls to strengthen communities and uphold the promise of earned success.
Willy Walker: You focused a lot on what you mentioned a moment ago, Governor, on welfare reform. You invested heavily in education and opportunity, and you also did a great deal to reform entitlements. Obviously, your leadership had a lot to do with it. But I guess the broader question I'd have for you is, why have we as a nation, in so many states, been unsuccessful at entitlement reform?
Governor Tommy Thompson: I don't think they have the courage. It's a very difficult position to take because what you're doing is you're taking away something that some people think they're entitled to and requiring people to work. In this day and age, nobody really wants to require somebody else to work and they feel the government owes them something. I never believed that. I always felt from my background and growing up relatively poor and having to work for everything, everybody should have the same opportunity…People have got to realize in America we have a system of checks and balances, but we also have a capitalistic society, which means you have to work. You have to be able to deliver. You have to produce. And that's the kind of mantra that I preach to the people of the state of Wisconsin. And they responded enthusiastically. And they finally gave me the support, and the legislature finally did. I don't think too many governors want to take on that message because it's much easier to give. You know, somebody asked you for something. Give them some of the taxpayers’ money. I took away….People used to call me the Tough Love Governor. And I think it works. I think people need to work and be responsible for their actions.
Speaker: Serving America takes many forms, whether reforming policy at home or building bridges abroad. Admiral James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, reflects on a career shaped by military service and international diplomacy and explains why the recognition he values most comes from the nations he helped unite.
Willy Walker: You've won 50 medals in your active military career. Which is the most meaningful, Jim?
James Stavridis: I think in the long throw of my life, the thing that's most meaningful has to do with those medals, but it might surprise you as follows. I have been awarded 50 military decorations. 28 of them, more than half, are from foreign nations. And I think that as I look at my life, the fact that I've been able to engage in the international world to such a degree has been central to who I am. A long career in the military, Commander of NATO, but then five years as dean of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, it’s a School of International Relations. And now, my role is Vice Chairman of Global Affairs at the Carlyle Group. I'm a believer in America's place in the world, I think that's critical in every way.
Speaker: Patriotism isn't confined to uniforms or elected office. True public service means putting the country above partisanship and working for the common good. Mitch Daniels, former Indiana governor and university president, shares why leadership is a duty of citizenship, not a career, and how staying grounded in principle can keep democracy healthy.
Willy Walker: You seem to be someone who has politics at heart. It was your first job. It seemed to be what pulled you. And yet I've heard you numerous times talk about both the joy that you've gotten out of running Purdue, as well as your time in the private sector at Eli Lilly, being the most rewarding professional experience you've had. Are you a politician by nature? Are you a leader by nature? Are you a businessman, or are you an educator? Or are you a combination of all?
Mitch Daniels: I like to be thought of as an American in the sense that politics, while it's part of our civic duty, we get the opportunity to participate, have a say, have a hand in. My judgment was never intended in our system to be the center of life. To me, public service, from which I came and went two or three times, is something that a citizen ought to do if she or he gets the chance. Not as an end in itself, not as a lifelong pursuit, but as a way to help the important parts of life flourish. The important parts are those places where people work, raise their families, and come together in voluntary associations. And I tried always to make certain that the folks working around me understood that. And saw it the same way, to protect against government becoming overbearing, overweening, and too expensive, all the things governments and all bureaucracies tend to do. So, I guess that's my outlook. And I'm really grateful for the different opportunities that I had to take part in our public life.
Speaker: Fixing democracy means more than electing the right people. It means reforming the systems that shape our politics. Business leader and political innovator Katherine Gehl explains how her journey through frustration led to action, and why renewing America's democratic institutions starts with changing the rules of the game.
Katherine Gehl: In 2015, I sold my business so I could do this work full time. And where that came from is really what I describe in my book is the five stages of political grief. And I'll just run through them really quickly, which is as a citizen, as a business leader and as a parent, I cared right deeply about our democracy. And so, at first I thought, “Oh, I'll get involved with candidates and, I won't just vote, I'll actually support good candidates.” And so, I did that. I was at that time supporting Barack Obama for President. He's someone I had known for many years, and he went to the White House, and I was super disappointed with how things unfolded after that, when I looked at Congress. And I thought, “Wow, here we are, massively polarized.” It's not about just the presidency. Congress has a huge problem. So, I said, “Oh, I won't do candidates anymore. I'll do culture.” You know, like people should work together. So, I got involved with this organization called No Labels, where everybody says they want to be past partisanship. But then I was like, “Oh, well, they say that, but then they all vote the same way and do the same things.” Hmm. Second stage. “It's not culture. I know – I'll do policy.” So, I got involved in the debt, and the debt and deficit are a huge issue for me. I got involved in the CEO Fiscal Leadership Council for Fix the Debt. And then after a while, I said, “Oh, everybody knows the broad outlines of the policies that we need, but nobody will vote for it.” Okay, it's not policy. So, I know I'll do candidates again, but this time I'll do candidates that are independent and they're not beholden to the Republicans or the Democrats. And then I said, “Oh, they can't get elected.”
So finally, it became clear to me, thanks to a former congressman named Mickey Edwards, that ‘it's the system stupid,’ is how I would put it. Remember Bill Clinton's 'It's the economy stupid'? So, it's the system stupid. I'd always been a systems thinker in business, you're probably a systems thinker yourself, as are many of the watchers. And I can't believe it took me that long to see it for politics, which is to say the rules of the game create the incentives that drive the behavior that deliver us what we're getting, and that the problem is in the system, not where we think it is with the people, the policies or the culture…We're not solving for who needs to win, we're solving for what any winners, regardless of what party or ideals they come from, what winners need to do, what actions do they need to be incented to be taking in order to actually solve problems in the interest of the broad public interest and a way forward for the country as a whole….what Final Five voting does is it changes the rules of how people get and keep their jobs to create a connection between taking those kinds of actions and voting yes on these kinds of solutions dealing with trade-offs on complex problems and the likelihood that they'll get reelected. So, we're not trying to take self-interest away or say you should just do the right thing. We're trying to say doing the right thing will actually increase your chances of reelection instead of guaranteeing that you lose your job. It's the most obvious thing that needs to be done in the world.
Speaker: Building renewed trust in American democracy requires citizens to stay engaged, even when the system feels broken. Former Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam shares why stepping back from politics isn't the answer and how we can find common ground by remembering that disagreement doesn't mean division.
Willy Walker: I guess the question that I have for you is those two capitalist forces that have allowed for this massive polarization of both the media we get and the ideas we share. So, barring massive regulation of it to try and limit its impact, what's the solution to using it toward better good, if you will?
Bill Haslam: Well, I think two or three things. This is going to sound kind of backwards, but I think we need to both be more involved in politics, and we need to care a little less about it. Let me start with this: would you be more involved in this? I can’t tell how many people tell me, “I'm just frustrated and exhausted by all this.” I bet if we polled your audience right now, and if we could somehow say everybody raise their hand, if you're frustrated and exhausted by our politics today, we'd get 80%. Okay. I ask that question everywhere I speak, and I get that. But the reaction from a lot of what I would call normal people say, “I'm not playing anymore. I'm not going to get involved in a primary; they're crazy on the right and left. I'm not going to get involved.” But guess what happens? That's who determines our candidates. The fastest growing political segment today is independents. And you might think, well, wouldn't that be good? We have some people in the persuadable middle, and you have to actually persuade them to win an election. But the problem is they're not determining who the candidates are. The candidates are going to be baked by the time they get up to the table. And so, my first thing would be don't withdraw from the process. Who we elect matters way more than I thought it did. That's number one. Number two, too many of us are getting our identity through our politics. And we're determining everything through that lens. And we decide we're on the side of good or evil, depending on whether you're with my party or not. And like I said, we've already secluded ourselves in the ghettos, so we already think, “well, yeah, I'm pretty sure those other people are evil.” We need to come to the conclusion that somebody can disagree with us and not be evil. And that's what I meant by we need to care a little bit less about our politics in the sense of the political part of the other side’s the enemy. The other side is not the enemy. The other side has different opinions than you do. And if you sat next to them at a football game or at your kids' swim meet, you might decide they're not such a bad person after all.
Speaker: A stronger America isn't just built in Washington; it's built in our neighborhoods, schools, and streets. Now, we'll hear from leaders working to address homelessness, housing, and economic inequality, starting with Egon Terplan and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston on the urgent need to expand opportunity and prevent crisis before it begins.
Egon Terplan: Maybe actually stepping back on homelessness for a moment before getting into the tactics in downtown; I think we have to see this very much as a national problem. And clearly, at its root, homelessness is caused by insufficient housing, and it's also an economic challenge. But then, as people become homeless, a whole series of other challenges unfold. Something that you've done very well. We're talking about the tactical side once people are on the streets, but also sort of upstream a little bit. It's actually preventing people from getting into homelessness from the outset. And I think that becomes a strategy we need to think of as being much more affordable, allowing people to stay in the homes that they're in. A lot of people are on the margin. And what we're seeing is an opportunity for something relevant from a real estate perspective, opening up more ownership opportunities opens up more rental opportunities. More people who are currently renters get into ownership. It frees up space in the rental market for a lot of people there at the margins anyway, and those people might become homeless to begin with. So I just want to start by saying I think it's a very important and critical strategy. We all step back and try to prevent it from the outset.
Mike Johnston: I totally agree with that. And we focus on what I call the entire ladder of housing. Right now, you literally have folks who are on the ground, not on the first rung of the ladder. They're experiencing street homelessness, getting them first into a transitional housing site, then into an affordable subsidized rental, then into a market rate rental, then into ownership. Everyone's on some version of that ladder. We have teachers, nurses, and firefighters stuck on the can't-get-access to an affordable unit. Want to talk about what we're making. I also think the biggest bet in the country is affordability, or on making sure you can keep an affordable housing stock and also what you do upstream to prevent people from entering homelessness in the first place.
Speaker: Addressing homelessness means more than providing shelter. It requires tackling the root causes of inequality. Bobby Turner, an impact investor focused on underserved communities, shares why education, housing, and healthcare must be addressed together and how restoring hope is key to unlocking the American dream.
Bobby Turner: I did not grow up wealthy. I did, however, believe that with hard work, with a decent education, with decent healthcare, and a little bit of luck, I could become successful. But the reality is, there are hundreds of millions of Americans today in this country whose educational, healthcare, and financial outcomes are predetermined by where they are born, by the color of their skin, by their nationality, by their gender, and they have been foreclosed out of the American dream. While historically we have looked to the government or philanthropy to provide a basic social safety net to provide clear path to or a level and fair playing field for prosperity, I think we can all agree that our reliance upon the government and philanthropy have handicapped our outcomes, particularly in the areas of education, housing, and healthcare. What I truly believe is that the biggest challenge we face as a society is not the disparity of wealth but rather the disparity of hope. Well, we've raised about $1.7 billion over the last seven years, which have empowered us, enabled us to do four times that with leverage, five or six billion dollars of community-changing infrastructure.
Willy Walker: Does it start with the school? Does it start with the clinic? Does it start with housing?
Bobby Turner: It's a great question. It starts with the community and what the community needs. I will tell you that hope is a three-legged stool. We will not see a clear path to prosperity. There will not be a fair and level playing field unless all three legs are addressed. There's an interdependency between education, housing, and health care, so all three have got to be addressed at the same time, and therefore, all three of our funds are focused on the same communities. It might be in East L.A., it might be in West Baltimore, it might be in North Philadelphia, where we are not just building schools, but we're focused on building schools that are then enriching our housing projects that are then supported by preventative health care clinics within close proximity to the projects that we built and the schools that we built as well.
Speaker: Turning ideas into impact takes partnership and persistence. In our next clip, Bobby Turner is joined by NBA star and philanthropist Chris Paul to discuss how meaningful change happens when community leaders and private investors work together to level the playing field.
Willy Walker: Do you think we will look back and see this moment in time as sort of a seminal moment where all these desperate efforts come together to try and create social and racial change?
Chris Paul: Can I say one thing before you talk, Bobby, and just to talk about you for a quick second Bobby? It's hard to talk about you with you right here listening, but I will say this. Just like most professional athletes, when I came into the league, I started a foundation, and I was refurbishing basketball courts. We've done a lot of amazing work. We went into inner cities and went into Boys and Girls Clubs and put up computer labs and repainted and did different things like that, but I'll never forget a conversation that I had with Bobby, and he was like, “That is amazing work but in order to make sustainable change it costs real dollars. You can't just go into certain locations and basically just put band aids on real issues.” So that was one of the biggest things that I learned, and that has a lot to do with my partnership with Bobby, and what I've been able to learn is that you really have to get in there and make change. Like with the housing developments, you can't just go in here and say, hey, we think about this, we think about that. No, people want to know that you're really putting in the work.
Bobby Turner: We can all come together as a community and recognize that upward mobility is a three-legged stool. Unless we infuse hope into communities, give them a clear path of prosperity through education, housing, and health care, that three-legged stool will fall over. So while Chris and Carmelo and Dwayne Wade and Willy and myself all have different philanthropic endeavors, I think we can all collaborate together and recognize it. Three critical issues are essential for us to write this listing ship of social justice in this country: education, housing, and health care, and recognizing the interdependency between the three.
Chris Paul: When my kids were starting school I’ll never forget, me and my wife were taking a tour of the school and I was walking around the school and I was mesmerized. We walked in and they were like this is our smart board, this is the library just for the lower school, and I saw all these iPads and these Macs in the classroom, and I was blown away. I was like, this is for kindergarten? I was blown away. I remember walking around and I tapped my wife and I was like this is blowing my mind. I was like, yes, I feel blessed and fortunate that our children will get this but what about the kids on the other side of town, why aren't they getting this same type of environment? So that day, I'll never forget me and my wife we started putting learning labs and learning centers in underserved communities because how are we expecting these kids to get these different opportunities if they're starting so far behind. So when you say that as far as coaching, I don't know the answer and I'm working to try to figure it out but that's one of the biggest things that I think we're working on is trying to make sure we level the playing field and that's part of why I do so much work with HBCU’s, Historically Black Colleges and Universities…A lot of these schools aren't properly financed and that's why you have to do the research and the education. There are 107 historically black colleges out there. A lot of them aren't financed properly so a lot of these kids, especially when I was growing up, you didn't feel like you could go to an historically black college because you wouldn't have been seen. But now with the world of social media or whatever it may be, if you're good they will come, they will come. These networks will show up at those schools and these kids need to know that going to an historically black college does not make you any less than anyone, because that is somewhat of the perception, so we have to change that and I want to be a part of that change because it's time, it's time.
Speaker: Jon Gray models the American spirit of innovation through his philanthropic work, supporting education and pioneering medical research. Listen as Gray shares his own optimism about how science and technology are accelerating progress and saving lives.
Willy Walker: You and Mindy have a great foundation. You've been wildly philanthropic, done some great things, as it relates to the New York Public School System and setting up a grant program to give 10,000 kindergartners in 2016 a head start, if you will, by setting up savings accounts. I very much look forward to seeing how that grows and what the returns are on all that. But as it relates to your medical research, Jon, and the foundation that you all set up after the loss of Mindy's sister, Faith, you're doing cutting-edge research on BRCA and on inherited cancers. You're right at the cutting edge with your researchers. Have you started to see some really incredible things as it relates to AI accelerating the pace of research in the areas where you all are funding right now that gives you just great excitement about what we might see as it relates to medical breakthroughs?
Jon Gray: I would say it is early, but I think it's promising. I think BRCA, this gene mutation, which unfortunately, we lost my wife's sister, Faith Basser, too, when she was in her early 40s, and we set up a center at Penn called the Basser Center, named after Faith. We've been doing a ton around early detection and ultimately you know awareness raising and ultimately prevention as well treatment also but the thing where I think the AI can be super powerful is in the early detection area which is can we use the AI to identify particularly people with elevated risk of cancer in the case of BRCA for women in particular it's breast and ovarian cancer, can you look at what's happening in their blood to start to see the early evolution of cancer? Today, if a woman has a BRCA mutation, the recommendation is to have a prophylactic oophorectomy, mastectomy as well, which is very difficult for a woman late 30s, early 40s. If we can use AI to make the early detection so much better, so you can get it basically at a precancerous level, then I think that can vastly improve the quality of lives for people with BRCA. So I would say AI is coming. There's nothing today I'd say we've had this step function increase, but if I close my eyes five or 10 years from now, I'd be shocked if, in an area like early detection, the AI hasn't made a massive difference.
Speaker: At the core of American civic life is a sense of duty, an obligation to give back to the institutions that shaped us. David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, explains why his philanthropic mission is rooted in gratitude and how preserving our nation's history is a vital part of investing in its future.
David Rubenstein: Usually, what I try to do is I find organizations that I really think are doing good jobs that I feel indebted to, and I want to stay involved. I’m not doing it because it's going to look good on my resume, but because I really want to be involved with them, because I either owe them something, or I feel they're doing a good thing for our country.
Willy Walker: As you think about your legacy, what do you hope the legacy of David Rubenstein is?
David Rubenstein: Well, based on this interview, I hope the legacy is I can persuade you to be my eulogist because you're going to do a better job than anybody else I'm going to find. But look, everybody wants to feel that their time on the face of the earth was useful and that they did something productive with the life that they have, whatever it might be, 50 or 60 or 70, 80 years, whatever it might be, you've done something useful and you want your children, if you have them, or your parents if you have them, to feel you were a productive citizen. So, I suspect my legacy will be something that is a modest part of what I actually do. But five percent of my philanthropy is what I call patriotic philanthropy, fixing up monuments and memorials or buying historic documents and giving them to various institutions. But it's five percent of my philanthropy, but 95 percent of the attention is because no one else is doing what I'm doing. So, I suspect the obituary will say, “patriotic philanthropist, founder or co-founder of Carlyle died today.” Hopefully, they'll say at an age of 100 or something like that but who knows if I'll make it that long.
Speaker: Service takes many forms, from preserving the past to shaping the future. Colorado Governor Jared Polis shares what drives his commitment to public life and why using personal experience to serve others is one of the most fulfilling missions of all.
Governor Jared Polis: I think what the public sector gives is that additional fulfillment of knowing, okay, I'm now working really on behalf of others, trying to bring the experience that I have in life to create a better outcome for everybody, whether it's improving education for kids, whether it's fixing our roads, whether it's in saving people money on health care. I want to make sure that I'm doing everything I can to make that a reality. I do like the public mission of being able to work on a broad array of public policy to make life better.
Speaker: America's strength has always come from its ability to unite people around a common purpose. In this next section, we turn to voices who are helping shape a more inclusive and resilient future. Entrepreneur and Civic Leader John Hope Bryant shares his vision for a nation built on dignity, opportunity, and shared responsibility.
John Hope Bryant: Light wins. Love wins. Relationships win. Giving more than you get wins. You build brand value and brand equity by what you give and not what you get, and how people feel about you. Going public is a narrative. You mentioned a slogan earlier. Really, what I'm doing is weaving a narrative of America. What did Dr. King say? he said, “I’m not going to save black people.” He said, “I'm here to redeem the soul of America from the triple evils of war, racism, and poverty.” Oh, how can you not be for that? And I think we have to include everybody in our vision for the future of this country. That's why I wrote something recently called A Business Plan for America. Not a business plan for black people, Latinos, Jews, Asians, or Protestants, it's a business plan for America. We're all in this thing together. And if we don't figure that out quickly, we'll be speaking Mandarin in 20 years because four countries want us to fight: China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. They love the food fight that we sometimes find ourselves in. Everybody wants to be an American, but Americans. Everybody wants to come to this country, but we don't appreciate it. And this is the greatest experiment on the planet. We've got all kinds of problems. Slavery was horrible, bad capitalism. But look at us now. I've gone from the bottom. I was homeless, and I'm at the bottom of the 1% now. Not a bad trajectory, and I'm not done.
Speaker: A hopeful vision for America also requires honest conversation and the courage to protect truth in public life. Former Governor Tommy Thompson speaks candidly about the challenges social media poses to our democracy and why restoring trust and integrity is essential to moving the nation forward.
Willy Walker: Social media is a complete option in all of our lives, and at the same time, it's having this, in many instances, pernicious impact on American society. What do you hope to achieve by having joined the Council for Responsible Social Media?
Tommy Thompson: I'm trying to bring a degree of candor. Right now, in politics and on social media, nobody has to tell the truth. A lie is spread just as fast as the truth is. It's probably faster. And nobody checks on that. Nobody does any cross-checking to find out if what you've said, if what is out there, is truthful. That really tears at the fabric of our democracy when you're basing decisions based upon falsehood. Right now, nobody has to tell the truth. Nobody has to be honest. When I was first running for governor, the press was there. And if you lied, they'd excoriate you. Right now, you're lying, and nobody ever checks what you say. Is that really true? And that's what’s causing, I think, a tear down of our fabric of democracy. It really bothers me. I'm trying to get ethics, integrity, and honesty back into government. I don't know if it's even possible with social media, but at least I'm going to try. You and I, we can bring together ten Republicans, ten Democrats, and I tell you in an afternoon, we could find a solution. We can find a solution that works, and we can put that up. Now all we need is the people like you and I would have the courage to vote for it. And we could fix the problem. It’s not rocket science. There are actual answers to the problem. If you came together and worked on them, as Ronald Reagan says: “Give people some credit.” You don’t have to have the credit. Give somebody else the credit for coming up with the idea. You’d be amazed how much we could get done.
Willy Walker: So, I have two final questions for you, Governor. One of the things that I’ve always been impressed with in your leadership style is that you’re always looking forward, not looking backwards. There are many leaders who do look backward. They either rest on their laurels, their time harkening back to some time that used to be. And they use that for a power base to say to people, we don’t want to change. You’ve always been forward-looking. How have you maintained that? What is it in your way of thinking and focusing on issues that makes you constantly forward-looking rather than looking in the rearview mirror?
Tommy Thompson: A simple statement, Willy. How can you make progress if you always look backward? How are you going to move forward if you don’t have a plan to move forward? And if you believe in the status quo, which so many people do, you’re going backwards. If you’re not looking over the edge, you’re taking up too much space.
Willy Walker: I love that quote. That is so good.
Tommy Thompson: I want you to look over the edge. I don't want you to step over the line, but I want you to look over to the line. And I want you to find a solution. And you look forward when you say that's a problem. You can look backward and find out if there was something in the past that might help it, but look forward. I've got to fix that problem.
Speaker: American democracy depends not only on truth, but on the freedom to become fully ourselves and to build a more just society together. Gloria Steinem, pioneering activist and writer, reflects on the power of community, the promise of equality, and why connection remains at the heart of our shared future.
Gloria Steinem: When the women's movement, as we think of it now, was really beginning, there was vast interest and not a lot of support. So, I, together with a fearless woman named Florynce Kennedy, a wonderful human being, an African American woman lawyer. I don't even look her up. You’ll be totally knocked out. She was going around to speak. She suggested that I go with her because that meant if we were representing each different group, in a sense, not that we're different, but anyway, we would attract a more representative audience…I think I was lucky to grow up first with loving, kind parents who let me be who I was. My mother always said that each baby was like a person from another planet and had to just wait until you could see who they were, and you could help them to become who they all already were. That's pretty great of a parent. This country, Trump, to the contrary, is a democracy. And we are better able to become ourselves than in many other countries. I lived in India for two years, and I saw a whole different culture. And I can't put together all the happenstance, but whatever it is, I'm so glad that I am at this moment in this room with all of you. We don't know each other, but we kind of think we know each other. And I don't know what dreams and wishes and anger is important to what is in you right at this moment. But whatever it is, because we are together now, it's going to happen—because we are here supporting each other in that way. We, as human beings, need to be together. The reason that solitary confinement is the worst punishment all over the world is that we are communal animals. We need each other.
Speaker: As we look to the future, we also honor those who sacrificed and shaped our past. Next, we'll hear from leaders committed to preserving America's legacy, from the battlefield to the classroom and beyond. Former Navy SEAL and NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy shares the vision behind the Medal of Honor Museum and how it keeps the stories of courage, service, and sacrifice alive for generations to come.
Willy Walker: You raised $285 million to build the Medal of Honor Museum. Talk for a moment about the museum, the genesis of the museum, I guess. Since the Civil War, 40 million Americans have served in the armed forces, and 3,500 of them have won the Medal of Honor. It is the highest medal to be received by members of the United States military. What's the genesis of the museum?
Chris Cassidy: It's actually a hard problem when you have 38 or 3,500 stories to tell. How do you pick? Certainly can't tell that in one exhibit. People couldn't get through them all. So, how do you choose what you're going to tell? We wanted to make sure there was a broad spectrum across civil war to global war on terror across all five service branches, geographically represented around our country. There's one woman Medal of Honor recipient there. So, there are a number of stories that we knew we wanted to tell. Like you said correctly, there are certain places, certain events in our military history, where there were a significant number of medals of honor. Guadalcanal that you see here, Iwo Jima, Vietnam, of course, and now present day in GWOT. Civil War, it was the only medal. Like now we have a sort of tiered system, Medal of Honor being at the apex, all the way down to lesser levels, medals for other activities to be recognized. But in the Civil War, it was either the Medal of Honor or you didn't have anything. And so there's a predominant number of those 3,500 who are from the Civil War timeframe. And we also wanted to incorporate technology. You can't build a museum anymore. And I'm sort of a basic museum goer. If it's all plaques and text panels, I'll check out after a few of those and I'll meet you in the cafe. So we wanted to keep it engaging for all ages and not just the military buff of the family, but for everybody to enjoy.
Speaker: Honoring our heroes reminds us what they fought to preserve: a nation built on enduring ideals. Few articulate the beauty and majesty of America's founding principles as powerfully as Jeffrey Rosen, President of the National Constitution Center. He reflects on the brilliance of our constitutional system and the civic virtues that can sustain it.
Jeffrey Rosen: There is something majestic and inspiring about the fact that our history has been defined by a battle of ideas. And even though all sides have often betrayed their principles, at least they've had these great principles to betray and also to march for. When you think about why we are fighting for democracy. Why must we be committed to preserving it? We've got to preserve it because the ideals are so inspiring: liberty, equality, democracy, freedom of conscience, natural rights. All of these ideals of the Constitution and Declaration, which Hamilton and Jefferson share, are the right ideas. They're self-evident truths. It is self-evidently true that we are all created equal and born by our creator with these glorious rights, and we do form a government to secure these rights. And we've created the greatest experience in self-government ever. The only written constitution still survives. It's urgently important to preserve it. And I guess now that I'll finish up this 4th of July speech by saying the way to preserve it is to listen and to deliberate and to remember Franklin and the spirit were not too sure that was right and not my way or the highway. It's virtuous self-mastery, calm, temperance, moderation, prudence, courage, fortitude, and justice. Let's remember those virtues. They'll make us better citizens. And at the very least, in these anxious, challenging, difficult times, they'll make us happier people.
Speaker: The Constitution gave us the framework. What we do with it is up to us. Senator Michael Bennet reflects on the genius of American democracy, not in agreement, but in the creative power of our differences.
Senator Michael Bennet: This is the genius of democracy: the way this is supposed to work is not that we are supposed to agree with each other. That is not why the founders created a democratic republic. They created it on the theory that we would disagree with each other because there was no king or tyrant to tell us what to think. And out of those disagreements, out of those clashes, we would create not shabby compromises, but more imaginative and durable proposals than any king or tyrant could come up with on their own. I think if we do figure out how to unlock the genius of this pluralistic system, there's not a country in the world we're not going to be able to compete with.
Speaker: The story of our great country is written not just in history books, but in the lives of those who serve, lead, and believe in something greater than themselves, as these Walker Webcast guests have done. May these voices remind us of the strength we carry, the unity we need, and the promise we all share to build the future of America together. Please join the Walker Webcast next week for another insightful discussion.
