Bringing America Together

>> Bill Whalen: It's Monday, April 29, 2024, and welcome back to Matters of Policy and Politics, a Hoover Institution podcast devoted to governance and balance of power here in America and around the globe. I'm Bill Whalen. I'm the Hoover Institution's Virginia Hobbs Carpenter Distinguished Policy Fellow in Journalism. But I'm not the only Hoover fellow who dabbles in podcasting.

If you don't believe me, go to the Hoover website, which is hoover.org dot. Click on the tab at the top of the homepage that says Commentary. Head over to multimedia, and then where it says audio podcasts and up will pop about a dozen podcasts and all, including this one, which is at the top of the list.

I think it's at the top of the list because I try to get the top guests that I can, today being no exception. My guest is former US Senator and basketball great Bill Bradley. Where to begin with this man's biography? Let me see if I can encapsulate it as quickly as I can.

Senator Bradley, three-term senator from New Jersey, two-time NBA champion with the New York Knicks, an all-American at Princeton, an Olympic gold medalist, a Rhodes scholar. Author of six, I think, six books on American politics, culture and economy, three of them New York Times best sellers. A son of Missouri who grew up along the rolling waters of the mighty Mississippi river, all of which was covered in the excellent HBO Max production Rolling Along, a one man show in which Bill Bradley reflects on his remarkable journey in life and lessons learned.

Be it faith, education, race, value, and rewards of hard work, teamwork, and public service. Senator Bradley, thanks for coming on the podcast.

>> Bill Bradley: Well, thanks for having me.

>> Bill Whalen: This must be kind of an interesting time in your life every May, because with each May brings the anniversary of your NBA championships.

I think the first one came on May 8, 1970. The second 1, May 10, 1973, you were at game two of the Knicks Sixers game, were you not?

>> Bill Bradley: I was, yeah.

>> Bill Whalen: Yeah. So what's it like being back in the garden? Does it feel like old times?

 

>> Bill Bradley: Well, I was there for the Knicks and then that playoff game. Then about four days later, I was there for Billy Joel, and it had the same impact. You look around and you realize that that venue has played a big role in your life. That's where we won the 70 championship in the seventh game.

It's where I gave a keynote address to the Democratic National Convention. And where I spoke to a convention where I had the most successful fundraiser of my presidential campaign with all the basketball greats back on the court for an event that had 9,000 people.

>> Bill Whalen: Yeah, there's that jersey hanging in the rafters, so it must seem like a second home for you.

I was recently on an airplane and I happened to be sitting next to Jim Palmer, the great Baltimore Orioles pitcher. And I'm big baseball fan, so I started asking him about what he watches when he goes to a baseball game. Curious, when you go to a Knicks game, what are you looking at?

And my guess is you're looking at the number of passes.

>> Bill Bradley: Yeah, that's good. Sure, look at that. But the number of passes that go toward the basket. I mean, you see a lot of teams have handoffs at the top of the key, 3ft or 6ft beyond the top of the key.

They don't go anywhere. Only a movement toward the basket goes somewhere.

>> Bill Whalen: Yeah, it's funny, you may or may not recall, but you and I have actually played basketball together once. This was on a Saturday morning in Arlington, Virginia. Golly, I think it was back in the early 90s or the late 80s.

And long story short, I was a journalist working in Washington, playing at a pickup game on Saturdays. And a lot of the principals in that game knew you in one fashion or another. Some of them covered you on the hill, a couple you knew through democratic circles. It became kind of a running joke, that part of your initiation in that group was, if you ever run into Bradley, ask him if he'll play.

And what he's gonna do, he's gonna say no, because he'll say, same question as when Teddy Kennedy was losing weight and people would say, he's losing weight, he's running for president. You would always say, if I start playing basketball, people think I'm running for president. But lo and behold, on one Saturday, we're playing, and I looked over on the sidelines and there you were.

And we all just kind of were shocked to see you there. And it was really funny in this regard. You played three games with us. The first game, you were like a dad in the driveway. You just passed the ball and told us how to cut and how to run and just kind of play like a nick.

The second game, you took some shots. I always remember your shots were very soft. We're playing on these unforgiving outdoor rims. If I took a shot, odds are I was going to go ricocheting 30ft and take out somebody's windshield. But your shot always kind of was very soft and hung around the rim, which I think is just a sign of skill.

But you lost that game and you were a little upset. I think in the third game, you kind of took over. You took a lot more shots, a little physical at times, saw kind of a competitive edge to Bill Bradley come out.

>> Bill Bradley: Well, you have a deeper memory of that day than I do.

All I know is Bob Cohen said, are you gonna come out and play? And I said, yes, he was the star ledger reporter at the time. And I do remember going, and I do remember playing. I don't have any recollection of what you just described, however.

>> Bill Whalen: And that was the other funny answer.

 

>> Bill Bradley: I'm sure you're right, though. I mean, I'm not casting aspersions on you. I'm sure you're right. And you also remember that time you dunked on me.

>> Bill Whalen: Senator, the only time I've dunked is on my grand nephews, and it's about a two foot high rim. So not quite that.

The other joke, by the way, Bob Cohen was about five eight, I think, on a good day. So your condition was, I'll play if you let Cohen guard me. Okay, so let's talk about life. Let's talk about Rolling Along, Senator. Easier to perform in front of 19,500 fans or to perform alone on a stage?

 

>> Bill Bradley: Well, they're different. They're different and they came at different times in my life. I don't need to spend much time talking about the Garden and the Knicks and so forth. But I gave my papers to Princeton, my political papers, and they did an oral history, and they interviewed about 50, 60 people.

I invited them all to a reception, and 40 came. I stood up and told stories about each one of the 40. One was a guy that's produced 72 plays on Broadway. I'd known him for 50 years. He came up to me after and said, sound a little bit like Hal Holbrook doing Mark Twain.

You ought to work something up. So for the next year, I wrote the play or the show, and then I took it to 20 cities around the country and workshopped it. I'd read it and then asked the 50 people or 70 people, what do you think? I take notes.

And then I decided I was gonna do it. But Covid hit and that delayed things. But I asked, do I have to memorize this? They said, yeah, you got to memorize it. And so I memorized it by walking around Central park. And then once I had it memorized, I had to stay sharp.

So every day at 3:30 in the rec room of the apartment building I live in New York, I did it. And sometimes two people, sometimes five people, sometimes nobody, sometimes 14 people. And then I did it over four nights in the theater on 42nd Street, and we had five cameras going, and the result is Rolling Along.

 

>> Bill Whalen: It's really a great production. Now, if somebody was very much into Bill Bradley and they read life on the run, which came out, I think, in 1976, if they read time present time passed, which came out in 1996, that's a ts elite reference, isn't it?

>> Bill Bradley: Time present, time passed, yeah.

By all means, yeah.

>> Bill Whalen: Right. Yes. That came out in 1996. Those were 20 years apart. It's now almost 30 years since that last book, though. What are they gonna discover in this show that they didn't discover in your two books?

>> Bill Bradley: Well, this is a very candid exploration of my life.

And I did it because I felt that if I wanted people to watch it, it had to be Candida. And so I talked about things that I had not talked about in those books, and I did it really because I thought maybe it could be an act of healing for people who watched it.

Who realized that what I was celebrating was our common humanity. And that's the important thing. And so it's been on max now since February 1st and gotten a lot of responses.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, I'm gonna ask you a question now that you're probably going to shoot down really hard, but it's this.

Do you feel like you're going through something of a, not a renaissance, what's called a Bradleyssance, in this regard? Hear me out of. It's about 50 years ago that America turned to somebody from Missouri, Harry Truman. And you probably remember this very well, Truman did not leave office very popular.

The Democratic Party struggled with what to do with him in his post-presidency and then the early 1970s. The country is really struggling on all sorts of grounds. The country rediscovers Harry Truman. The rock group Chicago puts out a song called HarrY TrUman. The lyrics, America needs you, Harry Truman.

Along comes the play in the movie given hell, Harry. And suddenly we're discovering Harry Truman and Missouri values, if you will. Now, I know Truman plays a role in your life. I'm gonna get to in a minute, but do is there something about Missouri that you think is special to get here?

My theory is this. You come from the center of the country. Ultimately, that gives you perspective in all directions, whereas a lot of politicians are coastal.

>> Bill Bradley: Yeah, I mean, I grew up next to the Mississippi River, which is one of the great metaphors of our country's history.

And I grew up in a small town 35 miles south of St. Louis with one stop line. And the reality is that that's a different kind of experience than growing up in an urban setting or a rural setting. It's a small town experience. And so that gave me kind of my unique perspective.

We each have our unique perspectives. I would have had one if I grew up in Queens. I had one if I grew up in Crystal City.

>> Bill Whalen: If my Internet sleuthing is correct, your Princeton thesis was on Harry Truman's 1940 Senate run. Is that correct?

>> Bill Bradley: That's correct, yeah.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Why did you choose that campaign in 1948? Everybody focuses on 48.

>> Bill Bradley: Well, 48 would be the cliche choice because come from behind, victory and so forth. But 40, 1940 is reelection to the Senate after being elected in 34 was really a precursor of 48. He was running against the district attorney that sent the big corrupt boss to jail and a white hat governor in the Democratic primary.

And he was the product of the Pendergast machine in Kansas City. Nobody gave him a chance, but he established his own identity. He worked hard, he made some very good moves in southeast Missouri. And the result was he got the nomination. Of course, when he got the nomination in Missouri in those years, he was going to be elected as a Democrat and he was.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Now, do you see a parallel between that and when you ran in 78?

>> Bill Bradley: No, I don't see any parallel between Harry Truman, 40, and me in 78. No, because you're a well known entity. Yeah. I mean, two different circumstances, times of history. So there's not a comparison, really.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, let's keep with Princeton for a moment. Senator, your roads have-

>> Bill Bradley: Harry Truman was the county judge. I was a Nick.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, sticking with Princeton. Your Rhodes application, you said that voters who chose-

>> Bill Bradley: How do you know what I said in my Rhodes application?

 

>> Bill Whalen: Internet research.

>> Bill Bradley: Jesus.

>> Bill Whalen: Here's what you said. You said that your brand of politics would, I quote, stand for moral as well as material progress. Let me repeat that. Stand for moral as well as material progress. Do you think those are attainable goals in this day and age?

 

>> Bill Bradley: I do, yeah, I do. And at that time, it might have been a leisure in the larger scheme of things because racism was so overt in a country. There's a moral dimension to that. And so it was probably easier then to find the moral dimension. But there are always people who have more and people have less.

And the idea is you want to make sure that everybody has an equal shot at being the best they can be in this country.

>> Bill Whalen: And do you find political figures right now who you think embody those qualities?

>> Bill Bradley: Which qualities?

>> Bill Whalen: Well, politicians who could stand and credibly say that I stand for moral and material progress.

 

>> Bill Bradley: Yeah, I think there are some who are out there. I mean, I'm not in the body. I'm not in the Senate. So I don't know everybody real well, but it seems to me that Mitt Romney stands for some of those things. It seems to me that I think Ron Wyden stands for some of those things in a strange sort of way.

So, yeah, there are, I think Cory Booker does, for example. There are always people who understand, conceive of their role as a politician in a moral dimension, and that's not gonna change over time.

>> Bill Whalen: Two senators come to mind here, the late Joe Lieberman, who left us recently.

And then I was flipping through the channels the other day, and up came a PBS American Master show on Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

>> Bill Bradley: Well, both of those were friends of mine. I went to Joe's funeral the other day. Al Gore gave a beautiful eulogy. And of course, Pat Moynihan was a partner on the finance committee for 18 years.

So I had tremendous respect for each of them. I think I went down to Washington. I went down to Philadelphia Day before yesterday because there was a group that wanted to talk about rolling along. And I got on a train at Moynihan train station. And so I was thinking to myself, how appropriate that this train hall is named for Pat Moynihan, who gave so much to the state of New York.

 

>> Bill Whalen: It was, and I strongly urge our listeners to check that out, american masters Moynihan, because it just chronicles how he starts from an impoverished life in New York City and is a self made man, but just also an intellectual man at all times. He's just thinking great thoughts and trying to make those great thoughts live.

And that is the ideal of a United States senator.

>> Bill Bradley: Well, I think it is an ideal. It's not the only ideal, but it is an ideal that you are a doer and a thinker simultaneously. And I think he was.

>> Bill Whalen: Though you left the Senate in 1996, at the end of 96, you did not go for a fourth term.

Do you have any regrets not going for a fourth?

>> Bill Bradley: No, I don't have any regrets whatsoever. I was ready to move on, and I was ready to move on. I actually came to Stanford, where I was a visiting professor there. That was a remarkable experience for me.

I also was a visiting professor in Notre Dame and University of Maryland. And I had a chance to begin to reflect on my life and where I wanted it to go and think about would it would take the run for the presidency, which was a lot easier when I was outside than when I was inside.

And I ultimately did try in 2000 and failed to get the nomination.

>> Bill Whalen: You were a young man when you left the Senate. I think you were 53 years old at the time.

>> Bill Bradley: Something like that.

>> Bill Whalen: All right, so when you came to Stanford, you would have come across George Shultz?

 

>> Bill Bradley: Yes, well, I came across George Shultz, actually, many years before that. George went to Princeton, obviously, and I remember him when he was secretary of labor, coming to Nick games in Baltimore and afterwards saying hello. And so, and when I was in the Senate, I always viewed him as the paragon of public service because I thought that his values played out in what he did every day.

And I thought that his competence was obvious and his candor and his leadership ability. And so he was a kind of mentor for me over the years, more in the latter years and early. But I got to know him well in Charlotte when I was at Stanford, I spent a lot of time with them.

And we ultimately co chaired something, which was the US Asian Leaders conference out of Stanford. And he also participated in the US Japan Leaders conference, which was Dan Okimoto's thing professor at Stanford. So I got to know George very well. And then we were on the JP Morgan advisory board together.

He was the chair, and I was a member. And I had tremendous respect for him. I have a radio show on SiriusXM where I interview people, really three kinds of interviews. People who have unusual jobs, like a woman who goes into their glaze and catches pythons and brings them out, or a person who does something selfless in their community, which is a guy who shines shoes at the Pittsburgh Children's Hospital for 46 years.

And out of every tip, he put a portion of that into a fund to pay for poor kids healthcare. And the year and the day I interviewed him, he put over $100,000 into that fund. And then the third kind of interview is people that I just wanna interview.

And George Shultz was in that category. And so we had two shows. It's basically, I talked to him probably 40 minutes, maybe 45, which is eternity when you're in the radio business. And he always had things to say. He always had a clear view. He had a clear view that came from a set of values.

And he was generous with his experience. And so I felt that George Shultz was for my mind, the epitome of what a public servant is. And I've done over 1700 interviews in the 17 years I've had this show, over 485 shows. So he was one of the better interviews.

Paul Volcker was also good. Bonnie Raitt was also good. Those are in the third category of people I just feel like I want to interview.

>> Bill Whalen: Yes, the George Schultz catchphrase as trust is the coin of the realm.

>> Bill Bradley: There's no question about that. And I think that he was able to get people's trust.

The key is the coin of the realm, but not everybody knows how to acquire it and I think he did. Whether it was talking about Shevardnadze in Russia or whether it was talking about Del Madrid in Mexico or whomever, I thought that he had a real ability to gain people's trust.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Preparing for this senator, I watched rolling along last night and then I also flipped over and watched an ESPN 30 for 30 show called when the Garden was Eden and you were featured prominently. This is about the heydays of the Knicks in the late 60s, early 70s.

And this kept getting brought up by your teammates. Bill Bradley likes stories. And I think it might have been Dave de Buscher who said, jeez, if you went to a coffee shop and there was a Martian sitting at the counter with an empty seat, Bradley would sit down next to him and start talking to him.

But you like to hear people's stories.

>> Bill Bradley: I do. I think that's, I mean, what's the Bible? It's a pile of stories, of parables of people and their travails in life and their faith, etc. And so I remember reading a book by Robert Coles called the, I get the exact name, but it was something like the pull of stories.

I read that about 1985 when I was in the Senate. And after that, I realized also I'd give speeches and I'd have a real analysis, economic analysis, and then I'd tell a story, and afterwards, people remember the story. They wouldn't remember the economic analysis. And so stories are the way you communicate, I think.

And that's what I wanted to do when I did rolling along. I wanted to be a lot of different stories about my life and the country.

>> Bill Whalen: Well put. Let's talk a little policy for a couple moments, senator. Let's, first of all, let's look at taxation.

>> Bill Bradley: Well, to me, the best taxation is the lowest rate and the broadest base, meaning we have, I don't know what it is now, hundreds of billions of dollars of so called loopholes, which means if you do x, you get a lower tax than me.

So as politicians trying to figure out, you should be incented to put solar on your roof or buy a house or whatever. And I always felt that the best tax system was the one with the fewest of those credits exclusions and deductions and the lowest possible rate. And back in the paleolithic eradic, back in 86, when we did tax reform, that's what we did.

We lowered the top rate from 50% to 28%, and we eliminated a whole slew of loopholes, thereby not increasing the budget deficit $1, even though we cut the rates from 50 to 28. And of course the people who use the credits exclusion deductions are overwhelmingly wealthy people, so they're having their rate cut, but at the same time, they're paying more taxes because they don't have the loopholes.

And to me, that's the best form of income tax system, still is. I still advocate that. And of course, as soon as we passed it, the special interest came in around the edges getting their little thing back in the code. And as soon as they get their thing back into code, it leaves the rest of us paying a higher tax rate than we otherwise would have to pay.

 

>> Bill Whalen: All right, something near and dear to you, race and civil rights.

>> Bill Bradley: Yeah. I think that if you see rolling along, you'll get a sense of that continuity in my life. I think that it's our greatest challenge in this country, and it's something we can be proudest of, something that we have furthest to go.

It's something that I think you have to come to see. And in the film, I use one phrase several times and that is phrase from my grandmother. It says, never look down on people you don't understand. Now, that applies to race. It also applies to people in Appalachia.

It also applies to people who don't have an education. It also applies to whatever. Never look down on people you don't understand. And so at the end of the film, when I think about what I want to say, maybe, I say, maybe we should think about what would happen if we had more.

Take responsibility for yourself. Respect your fellow human being. Disagree with them openly, honestly and civilly, and never look down on people you don't understand. When I say disagree with them honestly, openly and civilly, I mean George Shultz disagreement. I do not mean shouting and lying, but a reasoned disagreement.

And if you do that, you keep people's spirits all on the same line, and you're a part of the same community. You're not trying to destroy each other. You're trying to enlighten each other. And to me, that's the real beauty of it.

>> Bill Whalen: Right, and I think you've just identified a key problem with today's politics.

One side looks down upon the other. One side goes on its respective cable TV channel and disparages the other. Nobody seems to want to work together.

>> Bill Bradley: Well, there are people who want to work together. I would reject that there's no way that people won't work together. Just look at the aid to Ukraine and Israel and in Taiwan.

I mean, that was bipartisan. It was bipartisan in the best sense of the word. So it's wrong to say that. But what has happened is we've given people with the most extreme views a bigger megaphone than the people who want to be great senators and get things done.

And the result is that to rest the population, that's what politics is. I mean, politics always has had its characters. I mean, Huey Long was not a kind of quiet man, right? But overall, the institutions held. And so I think I was encouraged by that foreign aid package.

I was encouraged by the infrastructure bill that Biden passed in the first term. I was encouraged by the CHIPS bill. There are plenty of things that you can be encouraged by. The issue is focus on them and not what you're discouraged by, which is the latest outrageous thing that Trump says or the outrageous thing that whatever the Green woman says from Georgia or wherever she's from.

And to me, that's the point. I mean, it is not an institutional problem. It's a people problem. And the only institution needs to make sure that we hear from those who want to be good senators and make progress is the media. And the media, it's all bifurcated in 100 different ways now.

And the result is that sometimes the loudest voice is over here.

>> Bill Whalen: Let's go to another area, Senator, campaigns and special interest influence. And I think this is one of the reasons why you soured on the Senate.

>> Bill Bradley: Well, no. I mean, I've been an advocate of campaign finance reform for a long time.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Right.

>> Bill Bradley: I think it makes ultimate, great sense. I think that allowing people to spend unlimited amounts of money on politics is wrong, and it is destructive of things that you need to do as a successful politician, which is bring things together and to me, and focus on the substance.

And I think that's why we need, I would say, public financing of elections at a minimum. And I think if we had that, both sides would have the same amount of money now, they might misuse it and shout at each other with the money, but at least they wouldn't be obligated to the people who put the money into the campaigns.

Not saying that everybody is obligated, because they're not. But the appearance is something that those who don't participate as contributors in politics see and conclude they're obligated. And that erodes trust.

>> Bill Whalen: You ran for president in 2000 and lost in the primaries to Al Gore. What did you take away from that experience?

It could not have been easy because your life had been winning, winning on the court, winning elections.

>> Bill Bradley: Yeah, well, I learned it's a big country. I knew that before. But that's one of the things that I was reminded of, and I was reminded of how much I love the American people.

When you stand in a town meeting in Omaha or Spokane or Atlanta, and you stand before them and you say, what are your questions? They ask you questions and they tell you stories. And to me, that's the magic of the interaction. You hope you get out of every town meeting at least one or two stories that you can then tell at the next meeting.

And to me, that's the best part of running for president. I think that the other part is really important, and that is you have to think of the country as a whole. You can't think of your state. You can't think of a narrow group. You think what's in the best interest of the country as a whole.

And to me, that was main reason I focused on healthcare, campaign finance reform, a few other things.

>> Bill Whalen: Now we're doing this on Monday, the 29th. And the big news coming out of New York is what is going on on the campus of Columbia. Earlier today, there was a deadline for the students to take down their encampments.

The students did not honor the deadline. So it's an open question what comes next. Are you watching this situation unfold, senator, not just in Columbia, but campuses across America? And how would you compare and contrast this to what you saw in the 70s with Vietnam protests?

>> Bill Bradley: I think it's totally different.

 

>> Bill Whalen: How so?

>> Bill Bradley: Vietnam was something that germinated over many years and then reached the white hot pitch. And this was caused by the Gaza invasion, and it was caused first of all by the Hamas murders of all. So, I mean, anti-Semitism, you've got to condemn at the same time.

And you do, it's despicable. At the same time, 35,000 Gazans killed is a lot for our young imagination to handle. And so I look at this and I say, this is different. It always is different. It's never the same. Historical parallels are treacherous, and this is no exception to that.

And we just hope that we can get some progress going on in the Middle east. And I think that they were going for the big one and I hope they get it.

>> Bill Whalen: One other difference might be that protests of Vietnam in the 60s and 70s, they were personal, you lost a classmate in Vietnam.

You lost a neighbor.

>> Bill Bradley: I think that's a good point.

>> Bill Whalen: You question why we lost the war. I'm not sure how many protesters, Senator, have a stake in Gaza or have-

>> Bill Bradley: I think that's a good point. I mean, you have a stake in Gaza if you're a human being.

You don't have a stake in Gaza if you determine your stake by losing a friend, because you probably haven't lost a friend. But 35,000 people is 35,000 people. And as bad what's happening on the West Bank with the settlers. And I believe that we're turning a blind eye to some of the things that are going on.

And that's unfortunate. And the students, of course, overreact and they wanted black and white, evil and good and so forth, and life isn't that way.

>> Bill Whalen: One thing I took from rolling along, I didn't know about you, you almost played basketball at Duke.

>> Bill Bradley: That's true, yeah. I signed an athletic scholarship to go to Duke in my senior year.

And then my father, who was a small town banker and never graduated from high school, said, you ought to take a trip to Europe. I said, what? Yeah, I got this college tour for you to go on. So I went on this eight week college tour with 13 women and me.

And they couldn't figure out why I was going to Duke if I could have gone to Princeton, Yale. And then I came back from the trip, broke my foot playing baseball, started reading books about Oxford, because the trip had gone to Oxford, read about something called Rhodes Scholarship, which is get you back to Oxford.

And then, I think two days before the Princeton freshman class was to convene, and four days before the Duke class was convenient, I changed my mind and switched to Princeton.

>> Bill Whalen: Do you think you'd still be Bill Bradley if you went to Duke and not Princeton? Because part of the Bradley legacy is, here's this fellow starring at basketball at Princeton, for God's sake.

 

>> Bill Bradley: I mean, I can tell your life story in a way that you wouldn't be who you are, too. You know, the reality is I didn't do that. The story is I did it. That's worth exploring. But it would have been a different life, no question about it.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, you look at what's going on at Columbia, Senator, the president of Harvard lost her job. The president of Princeton lost her job. Are you concerned about where the Ivys are these days.

>> Bill Bradley: President of Princeton lost-

>> Bill Whalen: So the president of, pardon me President of Penn.

 

>> Bill Bradley: Yeah, yeah, please.

>> Bill Whalen: Yes, glad I got your attention. Are you concerned about where the Ivys are these days?

>> Bill Bradley: No, am I concerned about where they are? What do you mean?

>> Bill Whalen: Well, the kids who are going to the Ivys, the control the Ivys have in terms of running, the controversy at Harvard over SATs, over applications, over screening kids.

 

>> Bill Bradley: I think that the Ivys, of course, but what about Stanford? I mean, Stanford is not exactly state U.

>> Bill Whalen: That's true.

>> Bill Bradley: And there are plenty of great private universities in this country, and some of them are in the Ivy League, but by far, not all of them are in the Ivy League.

So I don't think there's anything unique to being Ivy League. It's more the substance of what the issue is.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, you endorsed Barack Obama. You campaigned for Barack Obama in 2008, and Barack Obama ran under a simple four letter word called hope. Do you see hope coming along in politics anytime soon?

And what I'm looking at, senators, the 2028 election, because I think we can agree 2024 is not a very hopeful looking election at the moment.

>> Bill Bradley: Well, it partly depends on what happens in 2024, right? I mean, you know, but of course, I don't think that people have lost their capacity to hope in this country.

It's ridiculous. Not the way we're constituted as human beings. And we need simply to have enough people step forward to touch that hope. Button in us, allow us to hope once again. And there are plenty of people in this race that have hope. I mean, if you're the person who got a job in infrastructure or you're a person who got a job in semiconductors, you have reason to hope.

And I think that that's the case across the board. I think hope is never gone. Hope sometimes is submerged when the winds are blowing above, but it rises up. It's always there. We haven't changed as Americans. That's who we are. We offer people hope wherever they are in the world.

Now, that means we have to pay attention to our own house and keep it in order and look ourselves in the mirror and say, is this who we are and who we want to be? But I do not think that this is anything close to the time where one has lost hope.

 

>> Bill Whalen: All right, what I'm looking at is a generational turnover in politics in this regard. John Kennedy comes along in 1960. He's the first president born in the 20th century. It's a generational shift from Eisenhower. Bill Clinton comes along in 1992. He is a generational shift from presidents who had been defined before that by service in World War 2.

I worked on the Bush campaign in 1992, by the way. That is a painful lesson that I learned, although I encourage people to work on campaigns. Even if you lose, it's teamwork and it's a good experience. But Clinton was a generational turnover, born in 1946. Obama born in 1961, technically a boomer, as was Clinton.

Still, though, a generational turnover in terms of age. But now we get here to 2024 and seems to be one issue here is that boomers will not leave the stage.

>> Bill Bradley: We will definitely have a generational turnover in 28, no question.

>> Bill Whalen: What do you hope for?

>> Bill Bradley: Well, I'm excited by some of the young talent out there that will emerge.

I mean, there are still good people in America who are selfless and who want to work for the people. And that's not ended when the baby boomer generation leaves the scene. They're down there now. They're working in Congress or they're working maybe some governorship or maybe they're at this time a state senator, but about to emerge.

And I think you have to have hope because we have a system that allows people to emerge. Money makes it difficult but not impossible for the right person who believes the right thing and communicates it effectively to touch people's lives and give them that four letter word hope.

 

>> Bill Whalen: I was looking at a CNN poll today, senator, and what stands out is over 20%. It was a presidential poll. I think Trump is at 42, Biden was at about 33, and about 20% of the vote was third party candidates.

>> Bill Bradley: What poll is this?

>> Bill Whalen: CNN.

 

>> Bill Bradley: CNN, that's a snapshot of the moment.

>> Bill Whalen: But 20% for third party candidates?

>> Bill Bradley: Yeah, well, that's a convenient resting place for people at this stage of the campaign. And ultimately, you have to ask yourself, are you serious about participating in our democracy? Are you one of, throw your vote away, and the only vote is either Biden or Trump.

It's not Kennedy or the Green woman. It's not Stein. It's not any of these. It's one or the other. And a vote for any of the third party candidates is a vote thrown away. And therefore you have responsibility as to whether you want your vote to be, maybe the key vote in deciding it'll be a Trump presidency, or depending on your point of view, a Biden presidency.

And it seems to me that that's the real opportunity.

>> Bill Whalen: Now, 16% of the vote went to Robert F Kennedy Junior. I think we can agree that RFK Junior is not the RFK that you knew.

>> Bill Bradley: Yeah, and I saw the poll also where most of those, over two-thirds of those come from Trump.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Yeah.

>> Bill Bradley: So, I mean, you can tell these third party candidates any way you want. The main thing is the main event is the one that's going to determine your life. It's not, you know, let's assume you vote for a third party candidate and the next president declares war.

Well, that's your responsibility, right? Because you chose not to vote and maybe you would vote for that candidate. Okay, well, then you've endorsed the war. But the economy is very strong. At the same time, it's very fragile. And in the event of a economic downturn, dramatic downturn, a lot of unemployment.

Well, that'll be something that'll be on you because you weren't participating in this.

>> Bill Whalen: Let's talk about-

>> Bill Bradley: You have to make a decision. Do you think you have a chance? I mean, Teddy Roosevelt ran. He had a chance, but he was former president, and so I don't think either any of the candidates fit into that category.

 

>> Bill Whalen: No, they don't, spoilers. Spoilers, the best. Now, after rolling along, you mentioned Hal Holbrook. Do you want to do a roadshow? On rolling along, do you want to go around the country?

>> Bill Bradley: No.

>> Bill Whalen: Make yourself a cabaret act.

>> Bill Bradley: I've done my thing. I wrote it, workshopped it, memorized it, performed it, and talked about it.

And that's where I am. Matter of fact, the other day I was walking through Central Park and I thought, let me go through the old routine again. I got about 40% through and I lost it. And so, you know, I'm not going to spend the rest of my life honing this presentation.

My goal was not to be an actor, but to say something that touched people's lives through my own life. And it's now on film, so you can see it by going to Max and rolling along, and it'll be there until August.

>> Bill Whalen: Very good, you didn't write it in pencil, I trust?

 

>> Bill Bradley: Some of it I did.

>> Bill Whalen: Did you still write, still writing with a pencil?

>> Bill Bradley: Some, I mean, if I knew that this is probably gonna be erased. I wanted to erase a couple of things, I would write in pencil.

>> Bill Whalen: I'm teasing you, Senator. I was reading about you where you wrote.

Nick, you wrote one book, literally in pencil, and someone said, my God, man, don't you type?

>> Bill Bradley: The answer is, when I write, I write long head.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, so there won't be a sequel to rolling along. What about speaking? What about using rolling along as an educational tool?

 

>> Bill Bradley: Well, that's up to other people. I think one of my hopes for rolling along is that it will have a healing impact on a divided country, because by me being as candid as I was, what I'm really celebrating is my own humanity and by reference, our common humanity.

And at the end of the day, that's what's gonna save us, it's not RD. It's our common humanity and the values that are behind what we care for and what we fight for.

>> Bill Whalen: I wrote a column recently, Senator, about Stephen Curry, the great Golden State Warrior shooting guard who has a children's book out.

And he did an interview, I think it was on CBS, and he was asked about, what about life after basketball? Would you run for office? And he gave kind of a deliberately vague answer about I want to do good and you know how the media work immediately. My God, Steph Curry's running for office.

And I kind of had fun with it because I pointed out that, he's a Californian. So I point out, well, if he wants to run in California, he's kind of boxed in or boxed out, to use a basketball metaphor. The Senate races here become lifetime positions, and we have one that's up this fall.

So he's kind of missed the window for that. The congressional district he's in that seat just became available, and those are now 30 year jobs as well. I'm not sure he wants to be governor. There are only half a dozen people are lined up to run for governor in 2026.

So what I hypothesize is maybe running for president is his best ticket here. But you've done this. You have run for President. You've run for the Senate. What's your advice to athletes who want to turn the corner and run for politics? I'd add, by the way, that Steve Garvey, the baseball player, is running for the Senate out here in California.

So what do you advise athletes? What would you advise an athlete?

>> Bill Bradley: Same thing. The same thing I would advise lawyers. Same thing I would advise professors the same. And that is, if you have an idea of what you want to do and you care about it, then go for it.

I mean, there's no amount of calculation that can replace conviction. And so you have to know why you're doing it and what you want to accomplish and be able to tell stories about each of those aspects in ways that get people to listen. And, I mean, I don't know what Steph Curry's gonna do.

I think it's great if people run for office and the fact that he's an athlete. I mean, Tom McMillan was an athlete. Jack Kemp was an athlete. We've had athletes before. They shouldn't be prevented or discriminated or discouraged from running. If they're citizens, they should run if they think they can help make the world a better place.

So the proof is always in the pudding. I remember the day I declared my candidacy for the US Senate. I was 34-years-old at that point, and it was in some office building in New Jersey, and I was in a room with my wife, and the cameras were all whirring outside.

And I looked at her and I said, look, am I really gonna do this? And the answer was yes. And so once you take the plunge, then you're off and running. But you have to decide that's what you really want to do. And it helps to know why you want to do it, not just because people said you ought to do it.

You could do it. You could win. You could do that. No, no, what do you want to accomplish?

>> Bill Whalen: Right, Willis Reed, I think nicknamed you President Bradley. He used to call you President Bradley when you walked in the locker room. Did you feel like politics was manifest destiny for you?

 

>> Bill Bradley: No, I did not.

>> Bill Whalen: Yeah.

>> Bill Bradley: I was interested in politics, but as I said, I wasn't sure that I was going to do this until I walked out of that room and went behind the podium and said, I'm a candidate for the US Senate, which was an audacious act in New Jersey in 1978 or 77.

 

>> Bill Whalen: And the beauty of the way life plays out, Senator, here you are now, and you're out of politics, and you, the son of a banker, are now in banking.

>> Bill Bradley: Yeah, yeah, finally my father's banker son. But I'm also a radio show, as we talked about, 1700 interviews, 480 shows, people who have interesting lives or people who won't have an interesting life until I interview them and it'll turn out, yeah, their life was interesting.

And that means a lot to me.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, let's close that with a couple minutes on sports, if I can indulge you, senator. One is college basketball. So I'm sitting out here at the campus of Stanford University, which has just been absolutely shook up by the change in sports between conference realignments and NIL and one and done and so forth.

To the point now where Stanford is playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference, come next year, so they will be on Tobacco Road playing North Carolina and NC State and Duke. Nothing says tradition like a Stanford Duke matchup in basketball. You watched NCAA. And two things strike me. First of all, it's this geographical realignment.

But then secondly, Senator, with the one and done policy now, you don't see, even though, yes, Connecticut's won back to back titles, you don't see dynasties anymore. You don't see teams making these great four year runs like Georgetown did with Pat Ewing or UCLA did with Bill Walton and Lou Alcindor.

Correct me, those are three year runs because of freshman eligibility. Are you pleased with the college game right now?

>> Bill Bradley: I'm certainly pleased with the women's game. I'm a big Caitlin Clark fan. Lisa Bluder was somebody who supported me in 2000, so I'm a big fan of hers.

I like the women's game because of the passing.

>> Bill Whalen: Yes.

>> Bill Bradley: All of the things around the game are disorienting for an old guy like me. And one thing is despicable, and that's gambling. One of the few laws, in fact, the only law that I ever passed in the Senate banned sports betting.

And the Supreme Court three years ago declared it unconstitutional, overrode it, with the opinion being written by those great athletes, Anton Scalia and Alito. I mean, they don't have any idea, they have zero idea of values you learn in sports. And so they allow gambling to pollute the whole system, it's, in my view, a sad moment.

I mean, were there gamblers when I played pro? Yeah, there were gamblers, how did I know? Cuz once we were ahead by six points, I scored a basket, we won by eight, and they booed, and what the hell, they booed? Well, the line was six points, but they were always peripheral figures.

But now, since it's been legalized, legitimized, you have a whole industry growing up around it. And we will rue the day that we've turned athletes into roulette chips. And you will have scandal after scandal that will endanger the values, that is why we want our kids to learn sports.

You really think your son or daughter will have a chance to be a pro? No, but you hope they might learn discipline and cooperation and selflessness and imagination that they can apply to everything in their life for the rest of their life. So we've gotten away from that a long way, and it's most unfortunate.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, it's 1964 and 1965, and William Warren Bradley at Princeton can take advantage of NIL, name, image, likeness, what would you have done?

>> Bill Bradley: I would have done nothing. But do you remember I played ten years in the pros when you could take endorsements. I refused to take any endorsement.

 

>> Bill Whalen: Why?

>> Bill Bradley: Because it destroyed my sense of what the game was. The game is about the values that I talked about. It's not about me selling a shaving lotion or beer. And I think that NILs are destructive of the game, in my opinion. I mean, it's just materialism, materialism, materialism.

And the best of sports is not materialistic. Now, I don't begrudge people making money, I had a good salary when I came into the NBA. But it's become so pervasive, combined with gambling, you have the makings for a gigantic, scandal, and turning a sport into something that has never been, and having it lose, the values involved in it.

I mean, you want your kid to, hey, Tommy or Louise, look, practice every day so you can win the championship. Or you say practice every day so you can get an NIL deal or so that maybe somebody gambles on you, it's ridiculous, it's unfortunate, we will rue the day.

And I'm an old guy, maybe, but so what? That's what I think.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, a couple minutes on the NBA, if you would, senator, we could lament the economics in this regard. I was reading a piece on the Knicks and how they've had a good season and they're talking about one free agent and they sign up for $10 million a year.

And the phrase honest to goodness was, he was a bargain at $10 million. I shake my head when I see $10 million in the bargain. I can't imagine what goes to your head when he sees that. But, the way the game is played right now, we were talking before we came on about how the Knicks.

Interesting style of play out here in the West Coast, the Golden State Warriors, have been all the rage for the past decade or so. And it's interesting, when you watch the Warriors, everybody was enamored of Steph Curry shooting three pointers. But the warriors were playing basketball kinda similar to you, they were a passing team.

You would see them on a night score, they score 40 baskets and 35 would be on assists.

>> Bill Bradley: Yeah, and Steve Kerr played for Phil Jackson and for Gregg Popovich. So he learned that team is the most important thing, and it still is. And in my mind, if you take a look at the champion, the champion is always the most unselfish team.

And the other teams don't realize that, they don't learn. All of them wanna think one or two people will carry them, they won't.

>> Bill Whalen: I assume you're a Jokic fan.

>> Bill Bradley: I am a Jokic fan, I like the way he passes, mainly, that's why I'm a Jokic fan.

I'm usually not fans of seven footers, right? Because my game was moving without the ball and a lot of passing. But he's a great passer, and I think that makes me really wanna watch him play. You wanna watch certain people play, I wanna watch him play because of it.

 

>> Bill Whalen: You do, but if you watch rolling along with some of the Knicks clips, you watch when the garden was Eden, you see these highlights of you and your teammates, and it's pass, pass, pass. And it's the best kind of basketball because it's the pass to set up the pass, which then sets up the basket, the extra pass.

 

>> Bill Bradley: You got it, you watch it carefully, and ultimately that's, you do that, why do you do that? Because you win, and that's what the game is about. It's not about scoring 100 points, it's about winning. And if you don't win, what are you in the game for?

Now, I'm not saying if you don't win the championship, you had a failed career. Well, let's say you've had a diminished career, and the only way you win is through unselfishness and imagination and discipline.

>> Bill Whalen: Okay, final question, Senator, if you can change one thing about politics today, one thing about basketball today, what would you change?

Let's start with politics.

>> Bill Bradley: With politics, I would have public financing of elections and eliminate the role of big money in politics. If I could change one thing in basketball, it would be get rid of all these peripheral things, the gambling and the NILs and all this stuff.

Let's just focus on the game with the team that is the team, the best team, winning.

>> Bill Whalen: Very well put. And for all your Knicks fans out there listening, Senator Bradley's advice on getting excited about this team right now, it's very tempting, they're up three one on the Sixers.

Next round looks pretty good, the Boston Celtics are looming ahead of that. Should we be getting over our skis with the Knicks right now? Cuz I've seen this movie play out before.

>> Bill Bradley: As a player, you're happy when you win a game in the playoffs. You're very happy if you win the first round of the playoffs.

But all that means is you've gone to the second round, then you gotta win the second round. And all that means is you go to the finals, you gotta win the finals. So it's a long way from being euphoric. There are signs along the road that are positive.

And the key thing is once you get into the playoffs, the game is elevated and players play at the very top because they all wanna win. And unfortunately, only one will. And will it be the Knicks? Hey, what's the Knick, always a Knick.

>> Bill Whalen: We'll put Senator. Well, Senator Bradley, sure appreciate your time today.

Again, the documentary is tremendous. Anything I should plug here before I let you go?

>> Bill Bradley: Well, they can listen to my radio show, American Voices on SiriusXM every Sunday morning at 11 or 12 in east, so it's 8 or 9 in the west. They can go to Max and download the film and see for themselves what I've been talking about here.

And thank you for the interview. It's great to be connected in some way once again with Stanford.

>> Bill Whalen: And come out to Stanford and come out and see our director, Condoleezza Rice. We're doing a lot of things on citizenship and civics that I think you would find very interesting.

 

>> Bill Bradley: I hear that that sounds very interesting, but given that it's Condoleezza, I'm not surprised.

>> Bill Whalen: Thank you very much, Senator Bradley. Take care and keep rolling along.

>> Bill Bradley: Okay, peace.

>> Bill Whalen: You've been listening to Matters of Policy and Politics, the Hoover Institution podcast devoted to governance and balance of power here in America and around the globe.

If you've enjoyed this episode, please don't forget to rate, review and subscribe to our show. The Hoover Institution has Facebook, Instagram and X feeds, our X handle is @hooverinst, that's Hoover I-N-S-T. I mentioned our website beginning of the show, that is hoover.org. While you're there, sign up for the Hoover Daily Report, which keeps you posted on what my Hoover colleagues are up to, that's emailed to you weekdays.

Here we go with the Bill Bradley Plugs. Bill Bradley is on X and Instagram handle is @senbillbradley, Bradley spelled as you might expect, B-R-A-D-L-E-Y. His Instagram handle is @billbradley. He is on SiriusXM channel 124, POTUS channel. The show is American Voices with Senator Bill Bradley, it airs multiple times on Sundays, rolling along at American stories streaming on Max that is formerly HBO, for those of you who might be confused.

Bill Bradley is on Substack and he also has a website where you can find all this information even more, and that is billbradley.com. Now, if you just find a way to get the Knicks past the Celtics, he will have solved all of our problems in our lifetime. For the Hoover Institution, this is Bill Whalen, we'll be back soon with a new installment on matters of policy and politics.

Until then, take care, thanks for listening.

>> Hoover Representative: This podcast is a production of the Hoover Institution, where we generate and promote ideas advancing freedom. For more information about our work, to hear more of our podcasts or view our video content, please visit hoover.org.