← Morning Wire
Morning Wire
Mike Rowe: Forging Hope & Fixing America
00:23:51
Mike Rowe joins John Bickley to share the stories behind his new feel-good series People You Should Know, spotlighting ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things—from forging second chances to redefining the value of skilled work in today's economy. Get the facts first on Morning Wire.
Loading summary
Transcript38 lines
- [00:03]
John Bickley
Since rising to national fame as the host of Dirty Jobs, Mike Rowe has become a prominent voice in highlighting the efforts and achievements of working class Americans, those who are often overlooked by elite institutions. In his newest project, Rowe is turning the camera on what he calls the real heroes of the country, ordinary people doing extraordinary things. In this episode, we sit down with Mike to discuss his new series, People youe Should Know, as well as the cultural and economic shifts that are putting blue collar Americans back in the spotlight. I'm Daily Wire Executive editor John Bickley with Georgia Howell. It's Sunday, May 11, and this is a weekend edition of Morning Wire.
- [00:40]
Georgia Howell
Sometimes you have to choose between a great deal or a great experience. Other prepaid providers sticky with slow networks and price hikes. But with US Cellular Prepaid, getting a great deal doesn't mean sacrificing a great experience. US Cellular Prepaid offers great nationwide 5G coverage without any gimmicks or hidden fees. And now you can get a free Samsung Galaxy A16.5G to make a great experience. Even better, stay without making sacrifices. Terms apply. Visit uscellular.com for details.
- [01:10]
John Bickley
Joining us now is Mike Rowe, who has just launched a new show that we want to talk to him about, as well as some other issues that he holds near and dear to his heart, including plumbers. So we'll get to that later. It's good to talk to you again.
- [01:23]
Mike Rowe
Likewise. Thanks for having me back or virtually back or whatever we call this these days.
- [01:27]
John Bickley
We'll take virtual mic, we'll take in person mic, whatever mic we can get. So your new series, you call it a feel good series and it focuses on heroes of the country. Its own phraseology describes it as focusing on the ordinary, which I find very interesting. Tell us, what was the idea behind this series? What what sparked it and what are you trying to accomplish with this series?
- [01:49]
Mike Rowe
It's really the making of a feelgood show. There's certainly a feel good component at the heart of it. But what I've always tried to do, whether it's Dirty Jobs or Somebody's Got to Do it or any of the projects I work on, is, is bring the viewer along for the ride and really try and make them a fly on the wall. We spent a lot of time admitting our mistakes and sharing the frustrations with the viewer that come along with making content. I've always done that and so I'm certainly doing that again here. The project itself will be familiar to anybody who saw my last project, which was called Returning the Favorite. And this is kind of Interesting, because I don't think it's really happened in entertainment before. But Returning the favor aired exclusively on the Facebook Watch program. And it was one of the first things Mark Zuckerberg did in an attempt to decide if he wanted to compete with Netflix. So we had this idea to elevate and reward the neighbors that most people wish they had. Regular people doing something nice in their community. We'd show up under the auspices of making a documentary about the topic, and then surprise them with an elaborate gift at the end. And the town would come out, and there'd be a parade, and people would cry. And it was just really a fun, honest celebration of basic decency. Right. So we do 100 episodes of this thing. I win an Emmy for it, and the show's canceled a week later when. When Facebook decides.
- [03:35]
John Bickley
I'm sorry.
- [03:36]
Mike Rowe
Well, look, I mean, it's. It's extraordinary because they decided, look, they spent a billion dollars learning that they didn't want to compete directly with Netflix, but that's what they needed to do to get to that place. And so, for the first time in my life, and certainly with everybody involved in the project, a hit show was canceled at the height of its popularity. I've just never seen it happen. And so it took me a couple of years, but there were a couple million people on a Facebook page who were just rabid supporters of this project. And they've literally been nagging me, bugging me, threatening, I dare say, for the last two years to get this show back. So I don't own returning the favor, but the format is anybody's. And so we changed the title to people you should know. We're picking up where we left off, and It'll be on YouTube. It's on my YouTube channel as we speak. And, yeah, I'm entering a brave new digital world. Late to the party, perhaps, but nevertheless, I'm in.
- [04:44]
John Bickley
Maybe to Inside Baseball, maybe you can't reveal this, but are you getting any blowback legally from this?
- [04:52]
Mike Rowe
Great. And honestly, I don't expect to, because, you know, Mark was super decent with me about this. We. We had really candid conversations at the beginning of it, and one of the things I said was, look, there. There are no new ideas. Right? I mean, we can all agree on that. TV is just TV and this kind of format. It's. It's really dirty jobs. It's a crew and I going out into the world to meet a real person without a script, without casting, without any writing, without any second takes, and a documentary camera that films the Whole thing. I've been doing that for 22 years. I, in fact, every seven or seven years or so, I just change the title of the show. I've been doing the same show for my old, my old career. And I'm not kidding about that. Literally, if you boil it down, all I do for a living is tap the country on the shoulder and say, what about him? What about her? Get a load of that. And where Dirty Jobs was a rumination on vocations and somebody's got to do it was a rumination on avocations, people you should know, and returning the favor. Those are ruminations on decency, on kindness, on bloody do gooderism. And all of those things, in my view, are apolitical. They're agnostic. I don't think anybody can hold a copyright on them. I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but who in the world is going to object to a show that elevates and celebrates the neighbors that you wish you had? Indeed, it's impossible to object.
- [06:37]
Unknown
In the promotions for the show, you.
- [06:39]
John Bickley
Do emphasize the fact that you, you.
- [06:41]
Unknown
Are revealing behind the scenes about making a show. I find this very fascinating. It's actually part of the vision for our video show. Here is a lot of the behind the scenes for the making of the show. Why do you feel that that approach is effective in this circumstance?
- [06:55]
Mike Rowe
I think. I don't know when it happened, but I think in media we left the age of authority and entered, call it the age of authenticity. It probably started with the advent of reality TV and nonfiction programming in general. And there was a brief shining moment when reality really did mean that like the. The early days of reality TV were refreshingly honest and blisteringly authentic. And I'm super proud to say that Dirty Jobs was, you know, on the vanguard of that. Why is it so important today? I think because today trust in institutions overall is at an all time low. Which means in, in my world, there's never been a less. There's never been a time where it's been more unpersuasive to say things like trust me or take my word for it, right? The trope of the traditional host, the traditional narrator in a crisp, well modulated baritone, telling you a story about a thing. People have become suspicious of all of that, I think, you know, and so what do you do if you're a host and a spokesman working in a world where nobody believes hosts and spokespeople anymore? I think part of what you have to do is show them the warts and all of your process. And if you take them for a ride and if you show them the truth of whatever it is you're trying to get at, whether it's a commercial campaign or an entertainment property, I don't think it really matters. You can see how that's impacting news. Like, you can see the numbers fall off the cliff for most, For a lot of traditional local news, for a lot of national news. And part of the reason, I think, is because those guys are still clinging to those old tropes. Live, local, late breaking. I mean, you want to be believed, right? And so what do you do? You slap a bunch of pancake on your face and you sit there in front of a prompter that you pretend not to read while you're reading. Just feels to me like the whole underlying construct is rooted in a pretense. And that pretense is designed to fool you. Viewers somehow got the memo. They know this. That's a long way of saying, I think the most honest way to do a show in the nonfiction space is to cling to the actual definition of the words non and fiction.
- [09:51]
John Bickley
Indeed, I think the artifice is a turn off now. Slickness, polish. We want authenticity, like you said, and this idea of manipulation. You have a camera, you have a mic. On some level, there's artifice and manipulation there because of where you. Where you choose to point the camera. But if you can have another camera showing the other camera being pointed, showing the decision making going on about why we're choosing to highlight this, there is a more. A sense of. More openness about the transparency, about the process. It's.
- [10:24]
Mike Rowe
I love you process it. Your brain processes it in a completely different way, whether you're conscious of it or not. I think it's got something to do with the Heisenberg principle, the uncertainty principle. Right. The act of observing a thing changes the thing. But the act of observing the observers observe a thing somehow reorients the equation. And what comes out the other end, I think, is some. Some new version of authenticity.
- [11:03]
John Bickley
So you. You noted that there's no scripts and you're choosing to highlight. You say, you know, ordinary people in some ways, but they're not just ordinary people in the sense that they do some extraordinary things. Can you. Can you talk about some of the people you've chosen to highlight in the show?
- [11:17]
Mike Rowe
Sure. The episode that's up right now features a woman named Lindsay Phillips. Lindsay was hopelessly addicted to methamphetamine. Somehow she beat it. She nearly lost her kids. But the reason she didn't is because she accessed an incredible organization called Care Portal. This is a virtual portal that anybody can go to on the Internet and see at a glance who in their neighborhood is struggling. There's a lot of connective tissue, sometimes churches, sometimes civic organizations. But be that as it may, it's a virtual network of bloody do gooders who want to help. And the real goal behind it is to keep families together. Our foster care system is busted in any number of ways, but if study after study proves if you can somehow keep a family together, it's going to be so much better for the kids. Anyhow, Lindsay goes through this, she comes out better for it. She's utterly rehabilitated, and now she's working full time for Care Portal. We show up under the auspices of making a documentary. Lindsay doesn't really know why we're there, and in the end of the episode, we surprise her with a. With a pretty elaborate gift that allows her to do more of the good work she's already doing. So you, you can see what I mean, how that, like, if I were pitching you this project, it would sound impossibly earnest and you would hear move that bus in your mind and it would be some version extreme home makeover. But the way we do it is, is a warts and all. Look at the. You get to see what it is we're going to try and do, and you get to experience our successes and failures along the way. You still meet Lindsay, you still learn about the Care Portal, and you still laugh and you still cry, and you still hopefully will go to your Internet and check out the underlying foundation because all they're doing is changing the world. And it's, you know, like you say, you can point your cameras at anything you want. I'll tell you another one that's coming up that really got me. The Black Horse Forge. PTSD is a horrible thing. You've heard the stats. Right now it's 17, 18 people a day. Service people kill themselves. This guy, Steve Hotz, hit rock bottom. He was a. He was an interior designer who volunteered, joined the 82nd Airborne, broke his back as a paratrooper, lost an eye, came home rock bottom, opened up a forge, started making knives and realized the, the therapeutic benefits of bending metal into something useful were enormous. So he opened his forge to other vets who were struggling. 22,000 vets have gone through the Black Horse Forge with zero suicides. Wow. This is, I think, headline news.
- [14:20]
Unknown
It's incredible.
- [14:21]
Mike Rowe
It's a absolute game changer. So, yeah, to go meet that guy, to see what he's doing to make some knives with him, to hang out, to spend a day in Fredericksburg and then to put that out there into the ether in an honest way, you know, what else am I supposed to be doing with my misspent career other than point people toward these stories?
- [14:42]
John Bickley
What strikes me about that, the knives. A lot of people, ordinary people, have small ideas that they think, what good will this do? This seems like a very small idea on some level, right? And it's turned into something massive. 22,000 people is astounding. 22,000 people have gone through this and have not committed suicide. Like you said, the suicide rates are shocking. We've done some deep dives on that. And I actually couldn't believe the stats when I first look into it.
- [15:13]
Mike Rowe
I can't believe how is this not a national scandal? That's in the headlines every day. That's what's shocking. And so, yeah, we've highlighted on returning the Favor we did 14 different non traditional approaches to treating this, this disaster. We've hunted pythons in the Everglades with veterans, we have built motorcycles from scratch with, with vets who are struggling. And in every case, you see that what, what moves the needle is getting these men and women out of their heads and focused on a task that involves or requires a kind of platoon mentality. So you've got the camaraderie, you've got the band of brothers, you have a new mission. And then in the end, you've got a motorcycle that works that didn't, or a python that was captured that needed to go, or a knife that you know, a day earlier was a railroad spike and a piece of trash. So, you know, the metaphors are steep with this one. And I've just. All of those organizations, by the way, work. I've just never seen one work to the degree the Black Horse Forge has.
- [16:35]
John Bickley
That is extremely notable. I'm glad you're highlighting it. Do most episodes, most of the people that you highlight usually have some sort of organization that they're also attached to or a company or something that they've created?
- [16:47]
Mike Rowe
It's really fluid. Sometimes it's just super modest. Sometimes it's just the story of a kid who shoveled the sidewalks after the blizzard that wound up saving the life of the shut in because the ambulance came when it came and there was a way to get her out. You can tell little stories. There's a story I want to tell of a kid who worked for Ace Hardware up in the Midwest somewhere. Old man came in, wanted to know where the shovels were. Guy was about 85 years old. This kid takes him back to the tools, gets him the right shovel, ask him what he needs it for, learns that the man's dog died. His best friend. And now he's alone. So what's the Kid do? This 19 year old clerk says, you know what, give me your address, I'm going to come by your house, I'll dig your hole, I'll help you bury your dog. What do you do for that kid? How do you acknowledge that kid? Right, so some of the stories are impossibly modest and just rooted in a basic good Samaritan idea. The story I was telling you about with Careportal, that's big. Careportal came to me through an organization I've worked with for years called Stand Together. Stand is obsessed with bottom up solutions and scaling them. And so normally I wouldn't spend time with my crew telling a story about a big successful nonprofit that was already killing it. But when you hear Lindsey's story, you realize you can spend the day with her, with one person, and then you can tell the story backwards in a way that's good for Care Portal, good for Stand Together, and most of all, good for anybody who watches the show. Because when it's over, people are going to go log on to see how they can participate in their own community. And that's the final point about extraordinary people. I realize, you know, when I talk about ordinary people, what I mean is anybody who's watching can relate to the circumstances of the individual we're highlighting. There's nothing extraordinary about who they are. There's nothing extraordinary about their gifts, their skills, their talent, their wealth. Nothing except for an absolute commitment to give a damn and then do something about it.
- [19:09]
John Bickley
One more question specifically about this show. And then I wanted to ask you a broader question. Where can people view it? When do episodes release? All that good stuff.
- [19:17]
Mike Rowe
Yeah, it's on my YouTube channel. It's the real Mike Rowe. Or just Google people. You should know Mike Rowe. The first episode is up right now. I shot six. We basically bootstrapped this ourself with some help from Stand Together. And it's the old Kevin Costner thing, right? If you build it, they'll come. I know the audience is there, but I'm putting six out there to see what the universe thinks about it. And. And if the audience shows up, I'll do 60. So yeah, that's where it is.
- [19:49]
John Bickley
I hope that's the case.
- [19:51]
Unknown
Broader question about plumbers. You've been Banging this drum forever, trying.
- [19:55]
John Bickley
To highlight the importance of the trades.
- [19:58]
Unknown
Of going that route for education and also emphasizing the trades in general as something that should be more highly valued by the American and then particularly by the American elite, like the media, who doesn't give them enough attention. Wall Street Journal did a big piece on plumbers being picked out by big investors to kind of give them a boost because they're recognizing the value of these guys, that this is a cash cow if you look at it the right way. Have you seen this trend and if so, what do you think about it?
- [20:30]
Mike Rowe
I've seen it. My foundation, Microworks started on Labor Day in 2008 and it started for this very reason. We were seeing a skills gap widen with every passing year along with a will gap, by the way. Right. Even at record high unemployment, you know, you're looking at 2, 3 million people who are not working and not even looking for work today. It's as, honestly, it's as bad as it's ever been. There are 7.6 million open jobs, most of which don't require a four year degree and 6.9 million able bodied men who are not only not working but not looking for work. That's never happened in peacetime before. So throw $1.7 trillion in student loans on top of that and the steady drumbeat to get everybody a four year degree and you can see, you know, how all of that combined to create the stigmas and the stereotypes and the myths and the misperceptions that lead people to conclude you can't make a great living being a plumber. Well, bull crap, man, you can kill it. I've got 2,200 people who have gone through Microworks. Many are plumbers. Most are making six figures. Some are making a lot more than that. Double that for electricians and welders. So I talked to the foundation administrator and we're right in the middle of an enrollment cycle now. And I said, how many applications do we have? As of this morning we have 10 times the number that we had a year ago today. So Gen Z has got the memo. They are looking at the millstone of $100,000 in debt around their neck to start a career that probably and statistically won't mirror their major. And they hate that. And they're starting to look for other ways. And so too are the biggest employers in the country. I just got off the phone with a guy at Blue Forge alliance who oversees the maritime industrial base. Those guys, that's 15,000 individual companies who are collectively charged with delivering three nuclear powered submarines to the Navy. Every year for the next 10 years. This guy calls to say we are desperate. His words, desperate to find tradesmen. Can you help us? I said, how many do you need? He said 140,000.
- [22:54]
John Bickley
Wow.
- [22:55]
Mike Rowe
So that's one company in one vertical that most of your listeners have never even heard of who are looking to hire 140,000 welders, electricians, steam fitters, pipe fitters and so forth.
- [23:07]
John Bickley
That is incredible.
- [23:08]
Mike Rowe
Throw the automotive industry on top of that and it's just every single company that relies on skilled labor has just got the memo. Especially the energy industry. They're in a full blown. The data centers, AI, all of this stuff trickles down to who's going to build them. And if we don't do something to reinvigorate the trades, good luck, President Trump, with the 2 million manufacturing jobs you hope to create. It's the same challenge Obama had in 2009 when he talked about 3 million shovel ready jobs and the Highway Infrastructure act to a country that had virtually no interest in picking up a shovel. So there's a lot to unpack there. But you know, I'd be remiss if I didn't tell your listeners we, we have the money. It's earmarked for anybody who wants to learn a skill that's in demand. And you can go get some@microworks.org we.
- [24:06]
John Bickley
Will direct them that way. Thank you so much, Mike, for talking with us.
- [24:09]
Mike Rowe
It's a pleasure. Thanks for having me back.
- [24:12]
John Bickley
Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back tomorrow morning with more news you need to know.