When the transcript becomes available, we will include it here. -Thank you!

David Blackmon [00:00:08] Hi. Welcome to the energy Question with David Blackmon. I’m your host, David Blackmon. And with me today is my special guest Rye Barcot Marine Captain, who is also the founder of a group and CEO of a group called With Honor Action. And before we get into it, I just want to read a little bit of Barbara’s bio, which is very impressive. Where I served five years on active duty with the Marine Corps, where he attained the rank of captain and deployed to Bosnia, the Horn of Africa and Iraq. In 2006, he provided written testimony to the Iraq Study Group and authored an article about the Iraq Military Intelligence Academy in proceedings of the Professional Journal of the US Navy. ABC World News with Charles Gibson, covered the work in Tarboro and his military service in Iraq, and named him person of the week and a 2006 person of the year. Captain Barcot, thank you for your service and thank you for joining us today.

Rye Barcott [00:01:11] Great to be on. David. Thanks so much for for having me.

David Blackmon [00:01:14] Well before we. When we started recording here, I was, talking about what a big job you have, with your, your group with on action, which is, you know, designed to help. Spur more bipartisanship in the US Congress. Which, you know, my 20 years as a lobbyist, I, I saw the the polarization really mushroomed, as it has now. And, it’s, it’s a big task. And I certainly, thank you for trying to do it, first of all. And just tell us, tell us about how it works and how you’re trying to go about it.

Rye Barcott [00:01:54] Sure. It’s definitely against the grain these days, but I pulled out of the organization, with another marine that I had served with. And, David Gergen, who was a Navy veteran back about six years ago. And, what we saw was that we realized that there was a pretty striking trend downward of veteran representation in Congress. Vets in Congress used to be not too long ago, over 70% of Congress had served in the in uniform from both parties. And now we’re below 20%. And of course, what’s happened during that time and as you mentioned, from your own experience, on Capitol Hill is the level of polarization has just gone up exponentially. And, and we think those two are connected. In fact, we we actually know that they are because we studied how bipartisan, veterans are in Congress over the last 50 years versus non veterans. And what that analysis showed was that the vets, were more bipartisan the way that they voted and also cosponsored legislation. And so what with honor does is we have a pledge which is to serve with integrity, civility and courage. And it sounds pretty simple, but these days in Congress, it’s it’s certainly not. And it includes the courage to actually work in a, bipartisan fashion, build trust with folks that you may disagree with. Of course, when you serve in the military, you know all about that, because it doesn’t matter what the man or woman believes to your left or right in terms of their, you know, political ideology or their religion or things of that nature, you’re in it for the same, same mission. And that’s that type of orientation that that now, 30 members of Congress that we’ve helped, elect, train, recruit and support, are participating and are in a caucus in the US House called the Four Country Caucus for our Country Caucus. And that group has passed over 150 laws that really matter for the for the country in areas of national security, National service, which is a, a long standing interest of the caucus and with honor to get more Americans to voluntarily serve in the military or in other forms, in other capacities, and, and then in veterans, affairs and for military families, so that this is an example of one group that’s actually working. And it shows that it is possible to break our tribal divides and actually get things done, have adults in the room and, and make things happen. So it’s a pleasure to be a part of it. I, I came to this work after the Marine Corps, actually, worked in energy. I had the good fortune of working at Duke Energy, in my hometown of Charlotte. And, had a great, great opportunity in the private sector and then decided, a few years ago to pursue this, this mission for our country.

David Blackmon [00:04:39] What do you attribute? I mean, I knew that the, percentage with military service had dropped. I didn’t realize it was quite that severe. Is it just kind of a function of the fact we’re getting further and further away from years when we had a draft? And so you had so many more Americans who actually have national service in their background in military service. Is it just a function of that, or are there other factors at play there?

Rye Barcott [00:05:07] There really to two factors. That’s that’s one of them. Fewer Americans in general serve, us then less than 2% of Americans now serve in either military or civilian capacity and less than 1% serving in the military. But but there’s there’s a larger, factor, too. And that is the costs of elections has just skyrocketed. It’s gone up more than than anything else. Any other index, health care costs, etc. nothing compares to the cost in our elections. And so when you’re in the military, you’re typically deploying around the world. You’re certainly not making a lot of money. That’s not what it’s about. And and so many vets face a very steep hurdle, which is just the the sheer costs and and frankly network in order to, to run and, and successfully serve again. And so those are, those are really two of two of the drivers. But the good news is that disproportionately military veterans want to serve, they want to serve, in both elected and appointed capacities. They want they seek that mission to continue to give back to this great country that, for all our flaws, is, still the greatest country in the world and creates just incredible opportunities for all of us.

David Blackmon [00:06:23] So is without or action how is it structured? I assume it’s a nonprofit. That is a 501 C3 or C4.

Rye Barcott [00:06:30] Great question. So. So our organization is a nonprofit with Honor Dawg. We also have separate political action committees that get involved in in races. In those issues, we’ll get involved in primary races as well as general races. Our co-chair of the the or the co-chair of the four country caucus, for example, is Tony Gonzalez. And we were just supporting him there in Texas in a, in a, primary fight that he’s coming up against, in part because he’s been bipartisan. That’s that’s part of the reason why he’s he’s up in a fight right now.

David Blackmon [00:07:02] Yeah. And you have several members from Texas and Iraq, as Pfluger is one of them. Who else from Texas is is part of the.

Rye Barcott [00:07:08] That’s exactly right. And, and Jake Ellzey, just a great, a great Texas cook for there. And it was great to see, your your superb, show with, with August, which I commend to other viewers.

David Blackmon [00:07:20] He’s fantastic. Yeah. He’s doing such great work out there in the Permian Basin. It’s such a vital piece of our state, you know, that, really funds our state government and our schools. And, you know, it’s always important to have strong, strong members of Congress from that part of the state.

Rye Barcott [00:07:36] One of the one of the, really privileges of my job now leading with honor is that I get to meet and and, with, with veteran candidates as well as members from all across the country. And so I remember really fondly meeting with August when he decided to to run it was he had never run for office before. Went out there to to Midland. We had a great lunch, you know, got to see the territory and, and even visited the old homestead of, the Bush family, which is. Oh, yeah. You know, it’s a national, treasure. It’s like stepping back into, you know, 1950, very humble, humble abode.

David Blackmon [00:08:16] Yeah. It was the 50s when when they were out there, the 50s and 60s. People forget about that part of the Bush family’s history. Sometimes Midland’s, an amazing place. I, in my own career, worked for companies that had offices out there off and on and goes through so many boom and bust cycles. And, fortunately, the, you know, it has diversified enough out there to where even when the oil industry is down, it doesn’t lose half its population and two thirds of its economic, you know, production. So it’s become a lot more stable area for, for people to, to raise families right now, which is really nice. I. How do you see? So, you know, and again, I really admire folks like you who work to, to try to create a sense of bipartisanship, but the, the political debate in this country has become so emotionally based. You know what? What are the kinds of things y’all do to try to encourage these members who are so polarized from one another and who just don’t have much in common anymore. And I think this is really kind of exemplary of our whole society. What are the kinds of activities y’all engage in to try to and encourage more members of Congress to be a part of this kind of thing?

Rye Barcott [00:09:42] It’s a great question. You know, there’s a there’s a. Simple kind of fact in human nature, which is that it’s it’s harder to hate somebody that, you know. Yeah. You know, in a visceral way. It’s harder to hate. You know, and so what happens in Congress is that from the very beginning of freshman orientation, the two tribes are split apart.

David Blackmon [00:10:02] Yeah.

Rye Barcott [00:10:03] And so and and oftentimes, the incentive to be a show horse versus a workhorse will start, if not before day one on day one. For example, there was a member that that had, a cable news network reach out to them on the second day to jump into some culture war issue. And that member who’s a member of the caucus, actually one of the members from Texas, just said, no thanks. I’m going to take a pass. I’ll I’ll come back and talk about something that really, you know, that I, that I know something about. First of all, how about that? And I’ll actually talk about something that I know about, but that but that I’m also passionate about and have a point of view on. So I don’t just need to jump into the to the culture war. For the culture war. Say, one of the things that that has happened in Congress is, and you probably recall this from, from, from the 90s, you still had more members that were there with their families and were able to build some relationships, with the families. The pressures have gotten so great that there’s just less interaction. So one of the things that with honor does is we sponsor, congressional delegations where members from both parties, as well as sometimes their spouses can travel together and build real relationships and then go and go someplace like a military base where they can learn something that’s focused on their on their work, but also have that time together to build relationships and take that time and rooted in trust. One of the reasons why we focus on veterans is not only because we are veterans, but because the military is the only institution, public institution in the United States right now that has trust above 50% from both political parties. It’s the only one. And so the veteran veterans as an identity, is a unifier. When you’re building relationships with somebody that you feel like doesn’t have a lot in common with you, you look for the common ground. And anybody that served in the military immediately has something that they can talk about with each other that matters. That is in many cases, the transformative point in their lives. It certainly was for me when I served in the Marines from from 01206. Yeah. My father, when he served in Vietnam in 1965. I mean, that is that’s that’s a common ground. So. So these are the we look for both activities where members can, interact with each other in a social capacity and then, be able to be more productive together when they’re having, official, business meetings on, legislation that matters for the country. And in this case, the caucus, typically, the four country caucus typically meets, once every two weeks. Again, under the leadership of of Congressman Tony Gonzalez, who is a retired master chief and cryptology in the Navy is Texas. And, and then Jason Crow, who’s an Army Ranger, out of Colorado.

David Blackmon [00:12:55] You know, don’t you think? And I’ll explain why. Why I’m asking this question. Don’t you think the 24 hour news cycle has had a big impact in this? When? When I first started lobbying, out of Washington, we could walk into a restaurant. And, you know, I remember one night we walked into the Capitol Grill and the first thing we saw is Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, having dinner, dinner with Patrick Leahy. And there was Patrick Leahy, a Democrat, from, Vermont, I believe, you know, and they’re there with their families if you do that today, you know, and nobody thought anything of it, you would see that, and you wouldn’t think anything of it. If two senators from opposing parties had dinner at the Capitol Grill today, it would be the topic of a panel discussion the next morning on MSNBC. And and so hasn’t the development of this 24 hour news cycle and these, these, these different channels all competing for some sort of salacious story to put on the air, had a real impact in the ability of members of the Congress from different parties to work together just because of concerns like that, that you’re going to be on the front page of The Washington Post or on a panel discussion at CNN the next morning.

Rye Barcott [00:14:21] It certainly has. And another another piece that has that changed, which was a rule change that that we have advocated to to, to revert is that, the cameras are allowed to record most, most of the committee meetings now that occur in Congress. And that’s created this stage for performative artists to that are not trying to ask questions to get to real answers, but instead are just using it for a stage, typically to throw a culture war bomb and then go raise small dollars off it immediately after they do it. And it creates this kind of kabuki theater that is so exhausting to watch.

David Blackmon [00:15:05] I have to tell you, I use that term constantly in my writing that I do anyway. Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, theater is a perfect description of what happens. But anyway, sorry to interrupt.

Rye Barcott [00:15:15] Yeah, it’s kind of crazy. I mean, Americans may think, wow, this is this is just not working at all. Well, it certainly isn’t working. Well, the when you write in the open view and oftentimes, as you might expect, that the real work happens, the mind behind the scenes with people that trust each other and can and can get to that point where every member of this 30 member caucus in the House and the six senators on the on the in the three Democrats, three Republicans in the Senate, that with whom we work. I guarantee you, every single one of them can go into a room one on one with a member from the other party that’s in that group and not have to worry about this information leaking, you know, two hours later or or that member referencing their conversation in a cable news hit piece. Yeah. And instead and that but that’s a special thing within this group oftentimes in Congress now, the relationships are so afraid that, you know, everybody’s kind of constantly looking over their shoulder and just assuming the the worst intentions, which of course makes it all the more difficult to get to get really, important things done. Like pass a budget. For example, this week we may and may have a government shutdown again on on Friday. I mean, it just it’s not.

David Blackmon [00:16:29] Yeah, we’ll either have that or another continuing resolution for three weeks, right. I mean, this this constant brinksmanship drives me out of my mind. Yeah.

Rye Barcott [00:16:40] And in the meantime, the other, like, major world issues that matter. I recently got back from Ukraine.

David Blackmon [00:16:46] Yes, please. That’s correct.

Rye Barcott [00:16:48] Yeah, yeah, we’ve been involved with Ukraine since the very beginning of the war. Yeah. When the the first meeting that a group of Ukrainian members of parliament took was with the, the four country caucus and the what’s, what’s happening here, regardless of sort of where someone sits on the spectrum of what level of support we should give to, to Ukraine now that we’re two years into the war, this could be a long, protracted war that certainly there, there, there, there needs to be proper oversight. I think there probably is, the worse. Been a remarkable success to date in terms of overall expenses is less than 3% of our overall military expenses. But regardless of where somebody is on Friday being critical of how much we do, one thing for sure is it is a terrible dereliction of duty to just immediately cut off ammunition and weapons assistance in a time of war. I mean, if you want to actually jeopardize the the front lines breaking and Putin rushing back into Kyiv, which of course did happen two years ago, he was right on the outskirts of Kiev. Massive country? No. Country, right. And it almost it almost toppled. If you want to, like, really waste all the money that’s been invested and all the human effort do nothing and completely, you know, completely shock and starve a starve a place for, for any level of support. So at any rate, this is an example of also an issue where it has the support, it has the votes across party lines. It just needs to actually get done. And Congress’s polarization leads to this paralysis, which is now, you know, putting, putting, in jeopardy, one of the the forefront of the fight against from democracy, against autocracy around the world.

David Blackmon [00:18:39] So, read a story yesterday that indicated a of course. We’re recording this on March 20th, folks. Just so you know. So the deal hasn’t been reached. But I read a story yesterday that indicated a deal had been reached. Right, but wasn’t clear on whether it included any funding for Iraq or, or, the Middle East or anything. And so where, where do we stand on that as far as you know?

Rye Barcott [00:19:05] Well, first of all, I think we’re I think we will see, weapons assistance. I mean, when I was in the frontline units that these basic these, these brigades with individuals that have been in combat for the

David Blackmon [00:19:18] Ukrainian guy. Not US.

Rye Barcott [00:19:19] Yeah, yeah. Ukrainian for sure. Yeah. These are the Ukrainian frontline units. And they were running out of just basic things like mortars and, one, five, five artillery rounds. These are not expensive. These. But they are they are very basic levels of ammunition. So I do think I’m an optimist by nature. I think we’re I think we’ll get there there certainly the level of support to get there, where we currently are in terms of state of play, is, is figuring out a way to actually get it to the floor, have a vote and, and then and then push on. And that’s all complicated somewhat. By I mean just. So I here. Actually have a, call.

David Blackmon [00:19:56] Relax. Okay. That’s fine.

Rye Barcott [00:19:58] We’ll turn that off.

David Blackmon [00:19:59] It happens.

Rye Barcott [00:20:01] Hey. Let’s go. So I think we’re going to get there, but it is an example of an issue where it’s important to keep talking and actually getting things done because there is bipartisan support on it.

David Blackmon [00:20:12] Yeah. Yeah, I so there’s just so many things like that happening in Washington, all these important issues. And with the party so polarized, you have these narrow margins in Congress. You have an election coming up. How do we get to a final and actual. Process in Congress where they actually do the 12 appropriations bills. They’re supposed to do every year and actually have a real federal budget for it would be the first time in almost 20 years if they ever get to that point. Right?

Rye Barcott [00:20:49] That’s I mean.

David Blackmon [00:20:50] Are we any closer to that? Does your caucus feel like we’re getting closer to achieving that goal or further away from it?

Rye Barcott [00:20:58] Well, the the way to get there is to to help elect the right type of people. And one of the most senior appropriators, what’s referred to as a cardinal, in the GOP is a fellow named Steve Womack, who’s a 30 year veteran, is part of the the four country caucus. And, Congressman Womack speaks frequently about this of of we need to get back. This is the way the it’s like any it’s like any military mission you look at what is the what is the way that something is supposed to work. And then we create our checklist and we we take our steps and then, something that’s been broken down for well over a decade. So I think we need the right type of people in office to, to, to effect this change. And that’s part of the reason why it with honor, where we’re not just policy focused, a big part of the organization is, is political, and it’s focused on not only helping to win elections, but helping to recruit and train the right type of people that will go into this service and not not view it as, a stepping stone necessarily to a career in elected office, but rather, a hardship post. This was a military you think about hardship post when there’s an important and often dangerous mission up ahead. You jump into it for intense, concentrated period of time and and do your part. And, that’s the type of mentality that a lot of the, the veterans that are part of this, this caucus, have toward their service.

David Blackmon [00:22:27] What with your nonprofit status and the PACs that that you’re involved in. Obviously, people will have an opportunity to support these efforts. And I want you to to tell folks where they can find you, how they can can support what you’re doing. Because I know there’s a lot of people out here in our audience who are craving to go back to a time when we did have some, some bipartisanship in Congress and, and actually got things done that the government supposed to get done. So tell people how they can find you and to educate.

Rye Barcott [00:22:59] Thank you. Please do, check out the work and sign up. It’s with honor.org. You know, it is estimated that almost 40% of Americans now are independents. They’ve the it’s the largest party, so to speak, is not a party. Why? Because both of the the two parties, this duopoly has just gotten more and more extreme and more and more dysfunctional. Both of them have. And so the the the dialog that you often hear on cable news or just tune in every day to is being driven by the extremes and what that that often causes, folks, and I’m one of them as well to do is to step back and say, well, this is such a mess. I don’t know where to begin. And so I’m just going to disengage and let the kabuki theater run its course. And I get that that’s a natural human reaction. But the fact is, the country, the country is in a really difficult and dangerous spot right now. And we need people engaged. We need them actively, supporting efforts, like with honor and, and a handful of others that are not Partizan but really focused on getting the right type of people, and fixing some of the structural challenges that we have to keep our democracy resilient and strong and frankly, the, the beacon, of the world.

David Blackmon [00:24:15] Man. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you taking the time here. I’m going to let you get back to your important work and, and wish you the best of luck. Really and truly, I hope you have tremendous success in all this.

Rye Barcott [00:24:28] Thanks, David. Great to be on your show.

David Blackmon [00:24:31] Thank you. And thank you again for your service. I’m David Blackman and that is all for today.

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