Extended Interview: Co-Founder and CEO of With Honor Rye Barcott

Summary

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Face the Nation Extended Interview: With Honor CEO Ry Barcott

Date: June 8, 2026
Host: Margaret Brennan (CBS News)
Guest: Ry Barcott, Marine veteran, Co-Founder & CEO of With Honor, author of Courage Can Save

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth discussion between CBS’s Margaret Brennan and Ry Barcott, a Marine veteran and the Co-Founder and CEO of With Honor. Barcott discusses the mission of With Honor—an organization supporting veterans and public servants running for office—his new book Courage Can Save, and the urgent need for bipartisan moral courage in American politics. The conversation highlights how military and public service can provide a path to national healing and greater trust in government, especially among younger generations.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The Mission of With Honor and the Book “Courage Can Save”

[01:21–03:13]

• With Honor's Purpose: Founded 8 years ago by Ry Barcott with David Gergen and a fellow Marine, With Honor seeks to elect veterans and public servants who pledge to serve with integrity, civility, and the courage to cross party lines.
• Book’s Focus: Barcott’s book, Courage Can Save, profiles 10 extraordinary Americans (5 Democrats, 5 Republicans) with military or service backgrounds. The book’s intended audience is students, aiming to inspire a new generation to study and practice courage as service to the common good.
  • Notable Quote:

    “I define courage as a form of service—that it is taking risk in the service of something larger than yourself. It’s not self-interested, it’s serving...the common good.”
    — Ry Barcott [02:28]

Addressing American Distrust and Inspiring the Next Generation

[03:13–04:08]

• Polls reveal only 17% of Americans trust the federal government, with young people especially dispirited.
• Barcott underscores the importance of service in building purpose and camaraderie across backgrounds, noting that veterans and nurses are among the most trusted professions in America, according to Gallup.

The Nature of Military Service & Moral Courage

[04:08–04:53]

• Discussion of moving beyond just “warrior ethos” (physical valor) to also include moral courage—standing up for principle and building bridges.
  • Notable Quote:

    “The beauty of the military is that it is a reflection of the United States...all walks of life...a melting pot.”
    — Ry Barcott [04:27]

Obstacles to Bipartisanship and Courage in Politics

[05:38–06:36]

• Barcott and Brennan discuss increasingly hostile partisanship, including structural political barriers like redistricting that discourage cross-party collaboration.
  • Notable Quote:

    “The forces are really going against us. Most Americans want courage, but feel like they see very little of it or none of it. And what I wanted to shine a light on is to say that this still exists...Here are 10 examples of it.”
    — Ry Barcott [06:00]

Examples of Courage in Political Office

[06:36–08:29]

• Highlight: Don Bacon & Brian Fitzpatrick
  • Both profiled in the book for their bipartisan leadership, including work supporting Ukraine and using a rare discharge petition to force congressional action despite opposition from party leadership.
• Afghan Allies & Mental Health Legislation
  • The Bipartisan Veterans Caucus, formed by Don Bacon and Jimmy Panetta, tackles not only foreign policy but domestic issues, e.g., advocating for Afghan allies and establishing the 988 National Suicide Hotline.
    • Notable Quote:

      “It takes courage to seek help and to say that I need help.”
      — Ry Barcott [07:57]

Selection Criteria: Not All Veterans Qualify

[08:29–09:49]

• With Honor supports only about 10% of veterans who run for office, focusing on those who exemplify character, integrity, civility, and bipartisan commitment.
• The organization conducts in-depth vetting, including interviews with military peers. Some members are removed from caucus when they stop upholding these values.

Partisan Incentives & The Cost of Bipartisan Relationships

[09:51–10:56]

• Current political incentives favor online attacks and partisanship. Barcott highlights Senator Todd Young as a model of effective, low-drama bipartisan legislating.
  • Notable Quote:

    “It takes courage these days just to have relationships across party lines. It’s silly to say that, but it is actually the case.”
    — Ry Barcott [10:04]

  • On Todd Young:

    “Somebody reflected, and I added it as a quote, the most impactful senator you’ve never heard of. ...he’s actually been a workhorse...He focused on content and getting things done and is...a model example.”
    — Ry Barcott [10:38]

With Honor Pledge & Practical Bipartisanship

[10:56–12:46]

• The With Honor pledge includes commitments to civility, cross-partisan meetings, and joint legislative efforts.
  • Notable Quote:

    “Can we amp it up and expand it more? I hope so...it is not easy. ...Just meeting is one thing, but actually having the courage to put your name with another and say we’re going to stand for this, even though I might get attacked for working with the enemy...”
    — Ry Barcott [11:26]

• Extreme polarization: 80% of party-affiliated Americans view the opposing party as “the enemy.” Barcott insists bipartisan courage is essential for the nation’s future.

The Historical Decline of Veterans in Congress

[12:46–13:36]

• There are currently 98 veterans in Congress (about 20%), down from a high of over 70% following World War II and Korea. Barcott shares stories of bipartisan friendship among veterans in earlier eras and stresses that this ethos, while not a “silver bullet,” is an important path forward.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On defining courage:

  “It’s taking risk in the service of something larger than yourself.”
  — Ry Barcott [02:28]

• On partisanship:

  “The forces are really going against us...Most Americans want courage, but feel like they see very little of it or none of it.”
  — Ry Barcott [06:00]

• On seeking help for mental health:

  “It takes courage to seek help and to say that I need help.”
  — Ry Barcott [07:57]

• On the bipartisan enemy dynamic:

  “There’s a survey out that 80% of Republicans and Democrats...refer to the other side as the enemy.”
  — Ry Barcott [12:08]

• Optimism despite polarization:

  “The US is the flag. It has a crack in it. It’s not broken, but it has a crack in it...At the end of the day, I believe this is an optimistic outlook.”
  — Ry Barcott [12:25]

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Key Timestamps

• 01:21–03:13: Motivation for With Honor’s work, purpose of the book
• 03:13–04:08: Inspiring the next generation, trust in veterans
• 04:08–04:53: Military diversity, moral vs. physical courage
• 05:38–06:36: Structural barriers to bipartisanship
• 06:36–08:29: Real-life examples of bipartisan courage (Bacon, Fitzpatrick), legislative victories
• 08:29–09:49: Vetting veterans, standards for With Honor endorsement
• 09:51–10:56: Challenges and incentives, story of Senator Todd Young
• 10:56–12:46: Details of With Honor pledge and the reality of cross-partisan work
• 12:46–13:36: Decline of veterans in Congress, historical anecdotes
• 13:36–13:39: Closing remarks

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Conclusion

Ry Barcott’s interview on Face the Nation delivers an urgent call for moral courage and bipartisan service in American politics, anchored by the example and trust that veterans provide. He argues this ethos can help restore faith in government and inspire a new generation toward public service, even as polarization and entrenched interests make cross-party cooperation increasingly rare and difficult. The episode is hopeful, underscoring that courage and integrity can still make a consequential difference in American democracy.

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Transcript

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[CBS Interviewer]

Joining us now is Ry Barcott, a Marine veteran who is the founder of With Honor, an organization that works to elect military veterans and others who've dedicated themselves to public service in the last eight years. The organization says they've helped over 100 get elected. Currently 50 of them serve in Congress. His new book is Courage can save 10 extraordinary Americans and the fight for our future, profiling five Democrats, five Republicans, all of whom have had military service or in one case, FBI experience. Ry, it's good to have you here.

[Ry Barcott]

Thank you. Thanks for having me on.

[CBS Interviewer]

So we need saving?

[Ry Barcott]

Yes.

[CBS Interviewer]

It sounds like yes. In your book, you profiled these 10 people, some of them currently including Representative Don Bacon, who's on the program, and then two governors. What about them made you right?

[Ry Barcott]

Yeah, so I've been leaning with honor. I co founded it with the late David Gergen and another Marine that I served with during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars about eight years ago. And through that period of time, we've helped recruit and train and help elect veterans that take our pledge to serve with integrity, civility and courage, including the courage to work across party lines at a difficult time to do so. Through that process, I've gotten to know many of them quite well. And so what I decided to do was select 10, an even balance of 5 and 5, all of whom were in office at a very difficult, challenging time for the country and really unpack where their courage came from, and then look at moments of courage, both in military service as well as in politics and elected office. Sometimes that courage is quieter. It's more of a moral courage versus a physical courage, which they may have encountered in in the military. But that was my approach to this book, which I've written principally for students. I'd like to see more students being able to Study courage. I define courage as a form of service that it is taking risk in the service of something larger than yourself. It's not self interested. It's serving what's referred to oftentimes as the common good.

[CBS Interviewer]

Well, you do need to inspire younger people, it sounds like, because when we look at the polling Overall, 17% of Americans, according to Pew, trust the government in Washington to do what's right all or most of the time. Our own CBS polling has showed the younger generations, dispirited, they're anxious about their futures. So how do you inspire them to join a system that they believe is broken?

[Ry Barcott]

Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of young people are. They're feeling lonely. There's a lack of a sense of purpose. One of the great things that I found through military service was that it gives you. It gives you a sense of something larger than yourself and a common mission with Americans from all the different walks of life. So one of the key takeaways for the book is to find a. To find a route into public service. And that's one of the goals with this, the veterans. And the book obviously focuses on veterans. We have a partnership with Honor, the nonprofit that I lead of which the proceeds of this book go to. It partners with Gallup every year and measures the trust in veterans. And veterans is one of the few groups within the United States. Nurses is the other that has particularly high trust across party lines. Again, I think that's because of the service mentality and that's a special thing and something that we need to, you know, safeguard.

[CBS Interviewer]

Do you worry about needing to safeguard that right now? I mean, a lot of the language we hear from the Pentagon is about the warrior ethos. It's about physical descriptions of what warrior ethos actually looks like. It's about lethality. That's not the thing you are characterizing here.

[Ry Barcott]

Yeah, I mean, my. The beauty of the military is that it is a reflection of the United States. I mean, across all walks of life, every socioeconomic background, all different races and genders and ethnicities. And it needs to be that melting pot and that place. And that's what the 10 that I profile come from all different backgrounds and have found a common mission in service.

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[CBS Interviewer]

Do you worry? We are at a point where the kind of moral courage you're describing is nearly impossible to fill. Because when we look at the kind of partisanship out there and then you look at, for example, the redistricting, that may lock in that partisanship and disincentivize the thing you say you want to encourage bipartisanship. The forces are kind of against you.

[Ry Barcott]

The forces are really going against us. And most of Americans want courage but feel like they see very little of it or none of it. And what I wanted to shine a light on is to say that this still exists. It still exists. Here are 10 examples of it. It's hard. We need to celebrate it when it arises. And many concerns about the overall sort of structural factors that are making this more difficult because people are humans. We're all flawed. These 10 are not perfect. There are many things that they do that folks will disagree with by nature because half of them are on one side and half are on the other.

[CBS Interviewer]

So is there a single story among the 10 that, like, stood out to you?

[Ry Barcott]

Yeah, well, you're having Don Bacon on in a moment. And we just yesterday teamed up with him and Congressman Brian Fitzpatrick, both of whom are in the book, and they have made a real stance on support for Ukraine. They took the unique position of forcing a discharge petition this week in order to maintain more support there.

[CBS Interviewer]

We actually traveled to force Republican leadership to consider something they wouldn't have otherwise.

[Ry Barcott]

That's right. Yeah. And face, you know, that takes guts. You know, they have peers that are looking at them askance. I mean, I was, you know, exchanging notes with them this morning, but they, that is a core thing for them that they believe is right. And that's what courage comes down to, is doing the right thing in the face of risk, understanding the risks and going forward with it. We actually traveled with both of them to both Kyiv and Kharkiv, along with two Democrats, Salud Carbajal, who was there with us last night, and Jimmy Panetta. Jimmy Panetta and Don Bacon co founded the bipartisan caucus of veterans in the House that with honor my nonprofit works and supports. It's about 38 members of the House.

[CBS Interviewer]

And there's some legislative issues they get behind. They were trying to help the Afghan allies as well.

[Ry Barcott]

That's right. That's right. And one of the first legislative priorities was established by one of the founding members, Seth Moulton. And I write about this in the book. It's another example of courage that maybe takes a different form than people are used to, and that is the establishment of the 988 National Suicide Hotline. Seth had the guts to come out and say, hey, I've had some problems with ptsd. You can seek help. It takes courage to seek help and to say that I need help. And so we put that in place. We've helped grow and sustain it. I think it's an example of something that got done across party lines that really makes a difference in a lot of people's lives.

[CBS Interviewer]

You know, past military service doesn't guarantee a flawless life. I mean, you gestured to that. But we've been talking about this with candidates. The Democratic Senate candidate in Maine, for example, other lawmakers. Do you ever look at candidates and say, despite your service, I can't support you?

[Ry Barcott]

We do. We only. We usually only do. About 10% of the overall vets that run. This year, there is more vets running than any year before. We'll announce the total numbers on Tuesday when the book announces, but it's an increase of over 30% across party lines. Quite encouraging. Many of those vets are not running in races that are winnable. So that's one criteria. But really fundamentally, we look at character, and you have to commit to this pledge to serve with integrity, civility, and courage. We watch how people conduct themselves on the campaign trail. We interview individuals that served with them in the military under duress. And it's only about 10% of the veterans that make the cut once they serve in office. They really need to be committed to it. They have to maintain that trust across party lines. That doesn't mean that they'll agree on every issue. Most issues they don't, but they'll maintain trust and relationships. It doesn't always work. Some have decided to leave the caucus over the last eight years.

[CBS Interviewer]

Have you had to ask them to leave?

[Ry Barcott]

It's not my caucus, it's the members caucus. So the leadership of the caucus, people like Don Bacon and Jimmy Panetta have handled that. But there have been been a few occasions, because the incentives, of course, in this place are not to govern. The incentives are to pick your culture war and issue and attack online. To be more partisan, you raise small Dollars, et cetera. So it takes courage these days just to have relationships across party lines. It's silly to say that, but it is actually the case. There's an example in the book of Todd Young, Todd Young, of course, of Indiana. Somebody reflected, and I added it as a quote, the most impactful senator you've never heard of. Of course, in this town, a lot of people have heard of Todd Young because he's actually been a workhorse. He's gotten a lot done. The CHIPS bill that he passed, he partnered with Senate Minority Leader, then Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. So you can imagine how uncomfortable that would be. He was leading the campaign arm for the Republicans at that time, but he focused on content and getting things done and is, I think, a model example and somebody that we should shine a light on.

[CBS Interviewer]

Never heard of him because he's never come on Face the Nation, even though we asked for him all the time. But when you talk about the pledge, when we looked it up, the pledge is to bring civility to office, participate in a cross partisan veterans caucus. You ask members also to pledge just to meet with a member of the opposing party once a month and then join them in significant bipartisan legislation.

[Ry Barcott]

That's right.

[CBS Interviewer]

Can people actually build more on that?

[Ry Barcott]

I mean, it seems so.

[CBS Interviewer]

This isn't legislating these days.

[Ry Barcott]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Can we amp it up and expand it more? I hope so. We have continued to grow and maintain that cohesion, but it has been difficult. I mean, there have been many moments over the last eight years where we've. Relationships get frayed. I mean, January 6th was one example, you know, many others. And this matters for the country, but it is not easy. And you know, meeting alone is one thing, but then actually being willing to have the courage to put your name with another and say, we're going to do this and we're going to stand for this. Even though I might get attacked for working with the enemy. I mean, it's a crazy thing. There's a survey out that 80% of Republicans and Democrats, registered Republicans and Democrats, of course, about 40% of the country are non affiliated. But among those that are affiliated, over 80% refer to the other side as the enemy. I mean, that's what we're. And that's why with this book, I think courage can save us as a country. The US is the flag. It has a crack in it. It's not broken, but it has a crack in it. We're in a serious place as a nation. We're turning 250 years old. But at the end of the day, I believe this is an optimistic outlook. There are a lot of people that are still serving for the good of service, something that's larger than themselves.

[CBS Interviewer]

So there are 98 veterans in Congress right now. You want to drive that number up?

[Ry Barcott]

Yeah. So they're at historic low, but it's still larger than the population. So about 20% in Congress now. It used to be as high as 70% back with the World War II and Korea War generations. And they set a model for us. My late co founder, who I miss dearly. David Gergen, a Navy veteran, often spoke about some of the relationships between veterans like Dan Inouye and Bob Dole, who forged a friendship recovering from wounds in World War II and then went on to encourage each other to run for office. Different parties and made a difference throughout their careers. We want to get back to that type of ethos of service, and this is one way to do it. It's not a silver bullet. I'm not claiming it's a silver bullet, but it's a constructive way forward for us.

[CBS Interviewer]

Ry Barkup, Good luck with the book, for sure. Thank you.

[Ry Barcott]

Thank you, sir.

[Autotrader Parent]

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[CBS Interviewer]

Really?

[Autotrader Parent]

At a playground?

[CBS Interviewer]

Yeah. Really? Look at these listings from dealers.

[Autotrader Parent]

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[CBS Interviewer]

Really?

[Autotrader Parent]

And you just put in your info and boom, car's in your budget.

[CBS Interviewer]

Mom needs a second.

[Autotrader Parent]

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[CBS Interviewer]

Really? Or I can pick it up at the dealership. One sec, sweetie. Mommy's buying a car.

[Ry Barcott]

Mommy, look.

[Autotrader Parent]

I think your kid is walking up the slide.

[CBS Interviewer]

Kyle. Again? Really? Autotrader, Buy your car online? Really?

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