Sen. Sonya Halpern, Georgia State Senator and Vice Chair, Senate Democratic Caucus Bruce LeVell, Trump Senior Campaign Surrogate, Former Executive Director National Diversity Coalition for Trump Dennis Lockhart, Former CEO, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta Moderator: Diane Brady, Executive Director, Fortune Live Media and CEO Initiative, Fortune
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00:00You know, we were commenting backstage, actually,
00:03on how calm the music was.
00:06And so we started talking about walk-up songs.
00:09I actually want to start with that.
00:10What would be your walk-up song to come on and energize us?
00:13What would it be?
00:13I said.
00:14I'm going to say Sender, Sonia, and then I'll call you soon.
00:16I said Stevie Wonder, Boogie on Reggae Woman.
00:19All right.
00:21How about for you?
00:22Well, the first one was Gonna Fly, you know.
00:24The Rocky theme.
00:25Or Another One Bites the Dust.
00:26Another One Bites the Dust.
00:27It depends on how we're going to act here today.
00:29Are we at a sunny outlook or a dark outlook here?
00:31How about you, Dennis?
00:32This is a walk-up song?
00:34Your walk-up song.
00:35The song that you, you know, like, let's think of wrestling
00:37and you're coming on stage.
00:38Walk on by.
00:38How about that?
00:39OK, Dionne, I like that.
00:41So let's now move from our walk-up songs to ESG.
00:46Well, no, let's talk about climate change.
00:48Because I think one good way to just level set
00:52is on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being like it's not important
00:57and 10 being it's the most urgent issue.
01:00Where do you think, in terms of priority for the party,
01:03it should be?
01:04Let's start with you, obviously, the Democrats.
01:07Yeah.
01:07I mean, I think for the Democratic Party,
01:09it's way up there.
01:10So I think.
01:11What number would you put?
01:12I'm going to say 7.
01:147.
01:15Even 8, you know.
01:16It's way up there for us.
01:19How about for you?
01:20I think it's more like, for me, a 2.
01:22A 2?
01:23Which means what?
01:24That it's just not a priority?
01:26Well, I've been blessed of world travel.
01:28So I think that the US, if we're speaking about the US,
01:32does a leading edge in terms of how we govern our emissions,
01:38et cetera, based on our foreign adversaries
01:40and across the country.
01:41So obviously, I would hope a lot of our neighboring countries
01:46would adopt some of our initiatives
01:49in terms to combat that issue.
01:52And you're speaking, obviously, as a surrogate.
01:54You'd say if President Trump up here, it'd be a 2.
01:58So that's it.
01:59I think for me, personally, I think
02:02there's more critical issues on the domestic side
02:05and foreign proxy wars that are going on that are more
02:09precedent.
02:09We're talking about the former Fed president over here.
02:11What would you say?
02:12Where do you think it ranks?
02:13I won't paint it politically.
02:15I'll just say I think climate is the defining
02:19challenge of our age, period.
02:21So from 1 to 10, where would you rank it as a priority?
02:249 or 10.
02:269 or 10.
02:26That's interesting.
02:27So the former Fed president ranks it higher than anyone else.
02:30The downsides, which are all a matter of probabilities,
02:34the downsides are devastating.
02:37You know, well, one of the things, I'm from New York.
02:39So it's a bit of a flyover state from an ad perspective.
02:42We haven't actually seen many because they just, here,
02:45of course, I've seen a lot on TV just in the space of coming
02:49here yesterday.
02:50And one of the things I'm curious about
02:52is the degree to which this is factoring into politics.
02:55And I know this was discussed yesterday,
02:57but here we have this situation with, you know,
03:00in a natural disaster, we tend to come together as a country.
03:04And right now, we're seeing, you know, with Hurricane Helene,
03:07you know, this disinformation campaign.
03:10I'm actually going to go to you first.
03:12You know, we've got another major storm.
03:15How do you, how is that impacting the discussions
03:18around just what's happening with,
03:21whether it's climate change or otherwise, the discussion?
03:24I mean, and this is a really important issue for us here.
03:27Obviously, Hurricane Helene devastated parts of Georgia
03:31that still don't have power.
03:33And of course, with the new one coming,
03:35I mean, ultimately, what Georgia has been able to do
03:40is work towards recovery.
03:44You heard all of the disinformation,
03:46really the lies that the president
03:49and the vice president hadn't contacted our governor
03:51who very clearly articulated that that wasn't true.
03:55I mean, I think the challenge is that, you know,
03:58we're requiring courageous leadership
04:00in areas where it shouldn't require courage, right?
04:04So the governor gets credit for saying the truth.
04:07And in fact, you've got a whole other arm of people
04:12who want you to believe something different.
04:15And when information is flying as quickly as it does,
04:19it's easy for people to be in their own echo chamber.
04:22That's really the biggest problem.
04:24People don't break out of their own echo chamber
04:27and the algorithms are made specifically
04:29so you only hear what you wanna hear.
04:32Well, and let me go to you because do you think,
04:35first of all, there's been a big problem
04:37with disinformation right now with what's happening with-
04:40You mean the fake news?
04:42I think I'm talking specifically about-
04:45The situation around the handling-
04:48Well, you know, like we said in the green room,
04:51obviously the social media apparatus
04:54has perpetuated and streamlined information quicker.
04:58But I still think it's historically has always been
05:03a partisan situation on who react fast, who whatever.
05:06And I think for me, respectfully,
05:11I've been through Hurricane Alicia when I lived in Houston.
05:15I've seen what happened with Katrina.
05:17Our church went there and spent a month down there helping-
05:21That's when Dennis actually came in
05:22a month after Katrina, didn't you?
05:24Yeah.
05:25Not after Katrina, but-
05:26Yeah, and let me get back.
05:27I just wanna focus on the issue at hand,
05:29which is really about, you know, this is a tight race.
05:33This happens to happen right now.
05:34It's all fair, it's sort of in love and war.
05:36I mean, because there's, when you look at sort of
05:39the politicization of this, I think it gets to
05:42really how we talk about climate,
05:44how we talk about diversity.
05:47We've seen, we've heard the president say things,
05:49you know, how would you address that?
05:51Do you think it's been, these are political issues,
05:54or do you feel like it's been fair
05:56how the characterization of the disaster's been handled?
06:01I think, you know, it's, you know,
06:03this is one of these things where,
06:05and guys, you know, I'm from the
06:08take care of your neighbor generation,
06:10and you're always gonna have,
06:13especially during the election season.
06:14It's been going on.
06:14I think people have short memories,
06:16but at the end of the day, it's the resiliency
06:18of our ministries and our churches and our families
06:21and our community that prevail,
06:23and that's what I mainly focus on.
06:26Yeah.
06:27But I will tell you this, though,
06:28and I didn't get to finish this, though.
06:31I long, and some of the audience can identify this,
06:34I'm dating myself, I want the Monica Kaufmans,
06:38the Brenda Woods, I want the real journalists back,
06:42not the opinionated folks that just go up there
06:45and opinionate everything, instead of just report the news.
06:49So a lot of it gets-
06:50You think it's been misreported, then?
06:51I mean, I just-
06:52Well, yeah, because people-
06:53I don't want to focus too much on this,
06:55but also, you know, I think that area
06:57where you're here as a surrogate,
06:59let me go to Dennis, because, you know, obviously,
07:01how do you think, I mean, you've seen
07:03the impact on the economy,
07:05but these have become partisan issues,
07:09issues that, to some extent,
07:11really should be factual, science-based,
07:14come together as a nation issues.
07:17How do you, what do you see from your perch?
07:22Well, I see an immense amount of noise
07:27that should not be taken seriously.
07:30Noise in the political campaigns,
07:33and noise in general around the economy,
07:37the politicization of matters
07:40that we can be relatively certain of by looking at facts.
07:45And we just have gotten away from that.
07:49And it's not only the perpetrators,
07:51it's the receivers of the information
07:54who have gotten away from that,
07:56and don't exercise discipline in listening to authorities.
08:01You know, I know it's always tempting
08:04when we talk about diversity to immediately go to race.
08:07I think one of the areas in which business in particular
08:10has really felt the impact is actually LGBTQ+.
08:14Now, I know there's the transgender issue,
08:17but also we've seen Toyota, Harley-Davidson, John Deere,
08:21a lot of them go back on their DEI policies,
08:26you know, say that they're overtly
08:28not gonna support pride parades, et cetera.
08:31Give me some sense from that, you know,
08:33with that issue in particular,
08:35how are you thinking about that,
08:37and give us a sense of what's around the corner.
08:41I mean, I think more of that is around the corner.
08:43The thing is that it all depends on who wins,
08:47but either way, we're gonna see more of that, right?
08:51If you have a Kamala Harris's president
08:53whose administration is gonna be pushing
08:56to be much more inclusive,
08:59you're gonna still feel a pushback against that,
09:03and loud voices saying this isn't right,
09:06and this is why she shouldn't be president.
09:08If a Donald Trump becomes president,
09:11you will see from that administration
09:13a paring back of equity, of inclusiveness,
09:18and funding of initiatives,
09:20even at the federal government department level
09:23that would help to continue to move people forward,
09:26and then you're gonna hear from my side
09:28pushback against that.
09:31To some extent, I think a lot of this conversation,
09:34particularly post-George Floyd in 2020,
09:37you saw so many businesses say,
09:39okay, this is a flashpoint moment,
09:41let me actually embrace and move forward
09:44with these initiatives that maybe I've been dabbling in,
09:47and I don't think that we have seen that kind of activity
09:51since the Civil Rights Movement,
09:53and so now we're-
09:54Some corporations step up a lot
09:56after George Floyd too, of course.
09:57That's exactly right.
09:59But now we're seeing the counter-reaction to that,
10:04and I think-
10:04Is it fair, the counter-reaction?
10:06From where you're a novice,
10:07I'm gonna ask you, you're a businessman too.
10:11So I think that it,
10:15I think that the way that it's being framed
10:19makes it very easy to think that companies took it too far,
10:24and I think that whenever you're changing culture
10:27and generally, in general, right,
10:30there is a process to doing that
10:32and getting people to move along with you,
10:35and I do think that the rate of change happens so quickly
10:38that a lot of people's heads kind of spun
10:40and they couldn't really wrap their head
10:42around what was happening as quickly
10:43as the change was happening.
10:45How do you feel about this, Bruce?
10:47I think that is an issue where, really,
10:49there's a sense you wanna be quiet right now
10:52about some of these issues,
10:54especially if you're in the corporate realm
10:56and there are a lot of people in these seats here.
10:59We've created sort of a real partisan divide over it.
11:03What do you say?
11:03Well, you know, listen, I know some board of trustee folks
11:08in some of our Fortune 500 companies.
11:10I won't mention their names, obviously,
11:11because I do a lot of media,
11:12but I think there was good intentions, respectfully,
11:16in some of the, especially some of the bigger banks
11:19and some of the other bigger Fortune 300 and 500 companies.
11:23I think the intentions were good,
11:26but you see where it ended.
11:28And I've been in business 29 years in Atlanta
11:31and I came here with $35
11:33and it's been very good to me, Atlanta.
11:37Ups and downs, the financial crash of 08,
11:39as well as the pandemic we went through.
11:42And I think that I did speak to a lot of my other employees
11:46or business owners about where I was coming today.
11:50And the philosophy was, and I speak for myself,
11:54I put all my eggs in my employees
11:57and then the customer second.
11:58And so I think that the workplace is to afford,
12:07put everything you can to help your employee be successful,
12:11but the social issues,
12:12I just like them before and after the job,
12:15where they can come to work and they don't have to,
12:17they can just do their job, go home, go to their mosque,
12:19go to their temple, go to the church.
12:21Let me ask you a question, if you don't mind,
12:23because you're in this role right now
12:24and then I want to go to Den's talk with this,
12:26but you are, I think you're in such a unique role
12:30where you really are the voice, President Trump.
12:33Are there moments, have there been any moments,
12:35let's take race, where you've felt a disconnect yourself
12:39or any disappointment around his rhetoric?
12:44And I'll ask the same of you, of course.
12:45Yeah, I think for me, and I said it earlier in the room,
12:48I'm more, I'm strictly a numbers man.
12:50I'm just not-
12:51But we're emotional creatures.
12:53When it comes to politics, I'm not.
12:55I really not.
12:56No, because I'm a community guy,
12:58everyone that knows me in Atlanta,
13:00all the way back from our great civil rights icons here,
13:03which my family were on that side, historically,
13:05that some of them were on that Montgomery bus boycott.
13:08I understand.
13:10How often do you talk to the President,
13:12or former President, I should say, Trump?
13:16We talk.
13:17How often?
13:18Like, I mean, do you feel like he represents
13:20a lot of your views on race and such?
13:22Well, I think he represents the America First agenda,
13:27which is pushing back on just, not relying on government,
13:34but pushing it where we rely on each other
13:36as a country, as a community,
13:38and that's something I gravitate to.
13:41Dennis, let me ask you, in terms of where you sit,
13:45talk a little bit with, I mean,
13:47I know we're talking about ESG, DEI,
13:49but obviously, the economy is the number one issue.
13:52How much are these factors going to impact the economy?
13:59It's hard for me to see that the pendulum swinging
14:05on DEI, or even ESG, is gonna have a major impact
14:09on the macroeconomy.
14:11Macroeconomy is such an enormous social system
14:17that it's somewhat impervious to some of these
14:21pendulum swing kinds of issues,
14:25and the economy is in rather good shape.
14:28I think the issues that we have to worry about are fiscal,
14:32because it just doesn't seem to be any appetite
14:36to address the fiscal situation,
14:38and for that matter, the solutions are unpalatable
14:44and probably not going to pass muster politically.
14:48You know, so we have some time left.
14:51I'd like you to speak to the audience right now
14:53in terms of, give us both your perspectives, some advice,
14:57and from where you sit, I know that you're gonna,
15:00you know, you're up, you're talking to a lot of people,
15:03you're coming up for re-election, what,
15:05how do you think about these issues in terms of how
15:08it's both dividing people apart and where we come together?
15:12There are a lot of issues that have been politicized,
15:15and if you are an elected who's a Democrat
15:19or an elected who is a Republican,
15:21you often feel that pressure of conforming
15:25and retreating to your corners
15:27that are completely different corners
15:29and not actually coming together.
15:31I think the challenge is to have more people,
15:35and I do do this, but the challenge is to have more people
15:40have the confidence to say that problem solving
15:44is more important than actually, you know,
15:47constantly fighting.
15:48At some point, compromise has become a dirty word,
15:51much more at the federal level than I would say that,
15:54that's not true at every state legislature,
15:57but at the federal level,
15:58compromise has become such a dirty word.
16:00For you all in business, what I would tell you is that
16:04you already know that this kind of work
16:08is about future-proofing your business,
16:11so you can continue to do that work.
16:14At this point, there have not been any laws and policies
16:18that have been passed that have held muster in court
16:22that would force you to stop.
16:24At the end of the day, stop me there.
16:27I wanna give you a chance, Bruce, I wanna give you a chance.
16:29What can we expect, you know, if Trump,
16:31if there's a next second Trump administration
16:34on these issues, especially around race, climate, et cetera,
16:38what would you say to the audience?
16:40Well, it's getting back to what his unfinished business was.
16:43I think it was more of the, you know,
16:46putting the responsibility back to we the people
16:49and not look at the government.
16:51And you know, guys, I come from a generation where
16:55the leadership in your community wasn't the congressperson
16:58or the state house, it was that great preacher
17:00down the street, it was that great educator
17:02that took every don, he took a penny,
17:05her last dollar out of her purse
17:06and bought pencils for her students.
17:08It was that man, that banker that gave you that chance
17:12on your first loan when you were 19 years old.
17:15You know, that community and that great church.
17:18And I think that's been a part of my life
17:21for my whole life.
17:22May I ask one question, Bruce?
17:24I'm sorry, I know time is tight.
17:26You know, how do you feel conversations about race
17:29and climate are gonna change?
17:31Anything specific there?
17:33I just, I never see it in the lens of,
17:39you know, we've had some historical issues,
17:42I'll grant it, here in Atlanta,
17:43but I think we've gotten a lot better
17:45and we're getting better.
17:46Let me give some, last word haiku almost for you.
17:50Tell me I have seven minutes.
17:51Time is tight.
17:52Oh, I just saw the timer, I'm sorry.
17:55I have one second.
17:57Yeah, give us a pithy phrase to close us out here.
18:01I'll just make a point to the question
18:04of what's at stake in this particular election.
18:07Broadly the election.
18:08Not just the presidential election,
18:10but the broad election.
18:11Very good.
18:12And that is the ability to appoint judges.
18:16Because what we've come to in our governance
18:19is the courts decide at the end of the day
18:22and their decisions are lasting.
18:24Yep, very much so.
18:26Listen, I could talk all day.
18:27You're all fascinating.
18:28Thank you so much.
18:29Please join me in thanking our speakers.