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- [00:00]
Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser
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- [00:40]
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- [01:09]
Jamie Weinstein
Welcome to the Dispatch Podcast. I'm Jamie Weinstein. My guest today is Juan Williams. You know him from Fox News, where he is a Fox News political analyst and often the one liberal you might find on the Five or another panel show like that. He is also the author of the new book, New Prize for these Odds on what he sees as a second civil rights movement in America, and that is the main topic of our discussion. We talk about his book. I challenge him on parts of it, talk about dei. At the end, I ask him a little bit about Fox News, what he would change if he was the head of it, as well as what he makes of some of his colleagues like Dan Bungino getting major jobs in this administration. Without further ado, and as always, I think you're going to find this episode interesting. You know, here is Mr. Juan Williams. Juan Williams, welcome to the Dispatch Podcast, Jamie.
- [02:17]
Juan Williams
Thanks for having me. I'm thrilled to be with you.
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Jamie Weinstein
Your new book is out. New prize for these Eyes, the Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement. Why did you write it and what do you hope the reader takes away from it?
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Juan Williams
You know, it's one of these moments where I think I see something taking place in America. And most people, when I tell them I think there's a second civil rights movement underway in the United States, they say, well, what about the classic movement? What about the first movement, Dr. King? Isn't it just a continuation? I say, no, this is a very separate movement. And that's what this book is about. Jamie, this book makes the case, in fact, that there is a second civil rights movement taking place that's having more impact than the first movement. And the way I try to make the case for people in simple elevator speech terms is to say, think back to the first movement. Think back to Dr. King. Think back to the great march on Washington in 1963. One day, 250,000 people. Fast forward. Today we saw in 2020, thousands of marches not only around the United States, but globally with millions of people, all under the Black Lives Matter banner. And that's just part of this second movement that I believe is so important and so much a part of modern American history. And people have to tune into it so they can understand the power of that movement and the power of the oppos.
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Jamie Weinstein
Write of the book. And correct me if I'm wrong here, but you believe it started with Barack Obama's 2004 Republican or Democratic convention speech. Why do you think it started there? And do you think Barack Obama would agree with you?
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Juan Williams
Well, Jamie, I have no way to know if Barack Obama would agree or disagree. But what's clear is when people talk about a post racial America, he agrees that that concept took hold after the speech. But what he doesn't agree on is that he was some post racial president. Now, I think it's important for everyone who's listening to this Dispatch podcast to know the history here, because just as Jamie suggested, I think it starts with Obama's speech at the Democratic convention in 04, when he talks about this is not a black America and a white America. This is not a Latino American, Asian America, liberal America, conservative America. This is America. We are the United States. And then he goes on to say his story as the son of an African immigrant and a white woman from Kansas wouldn't have been possible in any other country but the usa. And I think in that moment I was there at the convention, people were just stunned to the point of elation because they hadn't heard. You know, you think back to Dr. King, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton. Typically, the speech from a black leader is about the grievance, the slavery, the discrimination, the anger on the part of black America. Here instead was an optimistic, sunny, even message coming from a black leader. And it opened the door, the mental, psychological door, even to the idea that, you know, we could get out of the same old stupid arguments that don't seem to go anywhere about race in America, and we could start having productive, optimistic talk about how the races can get along in a more and more diverse country. And of course, Obama, when he runs for president, his campaign signs simply say hope. I mean, he was, it was such a positive message. And then when he's elected again, just to reiterate this point, he says he's not, not only is he not a post racial president, he said he's not a black president, he's just the president. And he's a politician. He's not a civil rights activist. So for him, I'm not sure he would agree, Jamie, to your point that it all starts there, but I think he would agree the whole notion of breaking beyond the first movement to open the door to the idea of post racial America emerges in that moment.
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Jamie Weinstein
You know, I'll tell you one, I was surprised. I was in the time of the Daily Caller mainly during the Obama presidency, and I was surprised that people, conservatives always said that he was, you know, racialized things, that that was a focus of him. I would say with, with the exception of, you could argue the beer summit and a comment about, about the, the Tray Von Martin tragedy, he seemed to avoid race from, from my perspective.
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Juan Williams
Right. So he's not, I mean, I think you're exactly right, Jimmy. I, I think he avoided racing and saw it as potentially a drag on his political fortunes if he became explicitly racial. So you mentioned two things that I think are key. After Trayvon Martin is killed by a volunteer security guard in Florida, and then that security guard is acquitted by a jury, what you hear from Obama is if I had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon. And the reaction from white America was so negative, it was as if they said, well, wait a minute, I thought you said you were not the black president. Now you're speaking as a black man and you're racializing this incident for black people. It had been long ago been racialized, but now white America was like, wait a second, what are you doing? And he saw his approval numbers in white America go down. And then the second one that you mentioned, Jamie, was with Henry Louis Gates. That happened earlier. But Gates had a confrontation with a white policeman in Cambridge and Obama said, how stupid of the white policeman to arrest a guy trying to get into his own house. And again, people said, wait a minute, I thought you said you were the non black just President of the United States. But you are inserting yourself into this racial debate and you're taking the side of the black guy over the policeman. Again, I think what's key from my perspective is if you look at Obama's approval numbers among whites. Once that happens, and I believe that's early in his first term, his approval numbers with white America never again go beyond 50%. So it was a constant slide. And then as you approach the effort for reelection, he is quite explicit in saying, I'm not the black president. I'm trying to be president of all America. And that was his effort throughout. But I think it cost him with, you know, not only did it cost him at times with white Americans, it cost him with black Americans, especially people who were activists who said, you know, you finally have a black man in the White House, and he refuses to speak up about black issues. And so, Jamie, you're right. I never saw him as any kind of radical in there. I saw him as a politician seeking more votes.
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Jamie Weinstein
You write that with without Obama's presidency, you wouldn't have gotten Donald Trump. What did you mean by that? And was it worth it?
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Juan Williams
Wow. That's a heavy one, Jamie. You know, worth it. Wow. Well, I don't think there's much doubt that there was a backlash to Obama's presidency. Not just the presidency, but the idea of a black man as president.
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Jamie Weinstein
If the consequences of Barack Obama presidency, for good or bad, produces whatever results from Donald Trump, Was it worth having those eight years as president? It wasn't trying to say, was it worth having a black person on sprints.
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Juan Williams
No, no, no. I understood what you were saying. I guess I took you in the best spirit. I didn't misinterpret it at all. No, I understand. But the question about, is it worth it having a president and seeing the pendulum swing so broadly away from the kind of ideas and policies represented by Obama, produce a Donald Trump. It would be hard to justify because I think Trump is an absolute terror when it comes to so many issues, but especially so when it comes to American race relations. And I think that part of it is, in fact, you think about where Trump starts out politically, it's with the birther movement. He's on TV and he's saying that Obama isn't even a legitimate president and suggest that he was born either in Kenya or Indonesia or something and wants to see Obama's birth certificate. And then this is what I was thinking about earlier. If you look at Obama's principal legislative agenda and achievement, it would be the Affordable Care Act. The Tea Party was a reaction to Obama's effort to change the health care laws in this country. They said, why are you taking away our health care? You're doing this for the working poor, the poor disproportionately minority. It made him the black president. And then Trump comes in, he jumps on that train and begins to question Obama's legitimacy. And then, of course, you know, he runs against Hillary Clinton, Obama's former secretary of state. So I don't think there's any question Trump is a reaction to Obama.
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Jamie Weinstein
Let me ask you about Trump. There was a podcast, at least I believe. I couldn't go, I couldn't find it, but I remember it, so don't quote me on it. But there was a podcast around the time Trump either elected or was running, and I believe it was the Atlantic. I think Jeffrey Goldberg was interviewing Al Sharpton. That's my memory. I remember Sharpton, who knew Trump for many years and decades, knows Trump well. Trying to frame Trump as understanding him not through a racist lens, but a racial lens in Queens, that he sees everything through racial kind of, you know, he sees a Jewish guy with a kippah. You know, there was a story of him going up during the campaign once and said, well, I'll be good for Israel. He just views everybody by their race and thinking that they have certain issues based on that. Is there a difference? I guess I wonder what you think of that theory and is there a difference between racial in that sense and being racist?
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Juan Williams
Well, I think that there is a difference between simply saying, I see a black man walking down the street and you know, that had that even that is loaded in America because he said there's so much fear of like a black teenager in a hoodie or listening to his hip hop. Is that a threatening figure? Or as you were pointing out with Trump, he'll even see a Jewish person with a yarmulke on and say, oh, I'm going to speak to you as a Jew, not as a human. I think there's a lot of that in the world. But with Trump, I think that it goes beyond that. Because when it comes to blacks, when it comes to Latinos, there's a strong record here of acting on this in a very prejudicial, biased way. I would say most famously, maybe, you know, oh, these kids are accused of attacking a woman in Central park and he's taking out full page ads in the paper and he's calling for them to be executed. Even when those kids are cleared, he doesn't apologize nothing. And in the case, it seems to me so much vitriol again, coming down the golden escalator and talking about Mexicans as criminals and rapists. It's hard to get away from Trump associating the worst aspects of human nature with certain people. There's even one very funny incident, according to one of his workers who was at a casino run by Trump, who said, I don't want a black guy counting my money. I want a Jewish guy counting my money. I mean, so stereotypes, for good or bad, he attaches to people. But when it comes to minorities and immigrants, those stereotypes often are corrosive, negative, and damage.
- [14:53]
Jamie Weinstein
As you mentioned, you listed a couple famous historic incidents with Trump. Of course, he was sued by the government, his family's company, where he was head of at the time, in the 1970s, for not renting to black people. But I guess my question to you is, you know, do you think, on the, on the other hand, you have, you have all these, the history that you mentioned. But on the other hand, it does seem that he would want success for everyone. He would want his economy to help black and Hispanics and everyone, maybe only because he would get credit for it. But what, I mean, I guess, how do you evaluate someone like that where there is this history where credible allegations, you could claim of racism. But the other hand, he's not acting to harm. At least it seems like he would want, want his economy to succeed for everybody, blacks, whites, and Hispanic. I mean, maybe I didn't frame that correctly, but if you understand what I'm getting at, how do you deal with those two?
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Juan Williams
No, I think you framed it fine. I understand, Jim. But I will say this. He doesn't allow into the conversation the idea that for certain people, especially people of color, there are burdens to be born, and there is a disadvantage and there's a history, a very troubling history in our country of disadvantage to people of color. So what I notice is if you are Herschel Walker, if you are Tiger woods, if you are somebody famous and somebody who has a lot of money, then it's almost like Donald Trump welcomes you as evidence of minorities able to thrive in the American economy and they would profit by Trump policies, is his thinking, and everybody should want to get on board. I can't help but stop at this moment, Jamie, and say, you know, people always ask me, they say, why do you think a quarter of black men voted for Donald Trump? Why did half of Latino men vote for Donald Trump? And one of the theories I have is a lot of them think that, wow, this guy has a ton of money, he's got a lot of women, he's got his name in gold letters on a building. They see him as like an old gangster, you know, like, like, like, you know, Mr. Big. You know, they want to be part. They like the glamour and the bragging and the bullying talk. It's. They find it well, you know what, they don't have much in their lives and they aspire to be like Mr. Big, right? So to me, for Donald Trump, if you have a minority person who is successful, fine. But for the majority of these people, no, he sees them as a threat. And I think that's why he associates crime, bad neighborhoods, bad schools. As he famously said, what the hell do you have to lose by voting for me? Because he sees all of them as living the very worst way and the very worst life and totally dysfunctional. That's what he sees. That's his stereotype.
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- [19:48]
Jamie Weinstein
Hi, I'm here to pick up my son, Milo. There's no Milo here. Who picked up my son from school?
- [19:53]
Juan Williams
Streaming only on P. I'm gonna need.
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Jamie Weinstein
The name of everyone that could have a connection.
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Juan Williams
You don't understand. It was just the five of us. So this was all planned. What are you gonna do? I will do whatever it Takes to get my son back.
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Jamie Weinstein
I honestly didn't see this coming.
- [20:10]
Juan Williams
These nice people killing each other. All her fault.
- [20:14]
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- [20:18]
Jamie Weinstein
Let me, let me press you on some things. In the book you talk about Di. In the book you defend it. My view is that, I think that if you, if we get specific at what is being taught in various schools, I think 90% of the country will agree black, white or otherwise. What do you see as DEI when you say dei? What do you view as what you're defending and advocating for?
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Juan Williams
Well, DEI is simply about, to my mind, the I, the inclusion diversity, I think is taking care of itself. This used to be a country in the terms of the first civil rights movement, let's say 1954 to. So that's brown decision to passage of the Voting Rights Act. You're talking, Jamie, about a country that was 90% white, about 8 or 9% black, just 1 or 2% Latino or Asian or something else. So it was an overwhelmingly white country. Today, as I'm Talking to you, 2025, it's about a 60% white country. And blacks are not even the second largest group. The largest minority group is Latino. Asians, the fastest growing minority. It's a different country. So diversity is honest and I think it's a reality. So the diversity takes care of itself. Equity is a big issue because still the case in terms of money, wealth, education, power, in terms of political circles, it's overwhelmingly white. So equity is an issue, but diversity is taking care of itself. We can't help but deal with diversity. And I think part of the argument about DEI as we hear from Trump is that he doesn't want non white voices in the conversation. And so when we talk about dei, we're really talking about, well, who gets into a school, should their race be an issue or consideration? And college admissions. How about in hiring? How about in promotions? How about in terms of cultural representation? Should we have a female face in the picture or a black face and a Latino face? And I think this really leads into something that's kind of touchy. But what about in our school curriculums? Should a white child be told about the troubling history of, let's say, not only slavery, segregation, but, you know, refusal to admit Jewish people fleeing a Holocaust? Should we tell them that story? Or does that just make that white child feel guilty about America's past? And so for Trump, it's like, yeah, we don't need that stuff. We don't want that. He is trying to, I think Sanitize so much of the history and again, it's all about, I think, eliminating the struggles of people of color and people of ethnic backgrounds. He doesn't like that conversation this week in the papers he was saying he doesn't want anything, any words on websites or government documents to deal with diversity, injustice, inequality.
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Jamie Weinstein
Juan, let me push back a little bit on this. I know that your former colleague Pete, Pete Hegseth, when, when he enacted that program and there was some school that was going to not teach that tux Tuskegee Airman, you know, he reversed that immediately, saying that's not what he meant. And I'm not here to defend what Pete Het believes or not, but I do think when many people see here dei, they're okay with diversity. What they don't like is the ideological element of it, which again, which I think, as I mentioned, I think 90% agree a lot of the stuff you said, I think a lot of people would agree with teaching the worst of America warts and all. But what, what are your thoughts of, you know, the person that was most associated as the ideological leader of DEI and last several years was kind of the Ibrahim Kendi thought, you know, things like there needs to be a department of anti racism with the power to veto local policies that they deem racist. Any disparity is proof of discrimination, that whiteness is inherently evil. I think a lot of people see DEI as an ideologically driven movement and not just merely let's promote diversity because I think that would get widespread support as opposed to kind of the ideological element where people see dei. How do you respond to that?
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Juan Williams
Well, I think that when people have this discussion, it's really subject to the effect, the Trump effect, which is that Trump takes something like anti racist movement or deep on the police or critical race theory and cast it as a threat to equitable, fair discussions about racial justice in America. He says these people are in fact radicals opposed to the American way of life. Now when you talk about someone like Ibrahim X Kendi and he's saying we need to be anti racist and that what I think you said, he said that if that anybody, white or white people are evil, that is so extreme and ridiculous and stupid, I don't know where to even begin with it. I just don't feel that way. It's not my life experience. I just don't know. I can only imagine that he is doing that in a way as a rhetorical device to force people to confront day to day life and say, well, think about the advantage that you enjoy as a white person in America and think about the fact that if your child was born and you could pick the race, no one would say, oh, yeah, I think, because I want my child to succeed, I want that child to be black in America. No, clearly, success, power, wealth attached to whiteness in America. So maybe that's what he's doing. But to me, it's self destructive and hurts his own argument to say stuff like white people are evil. That's craziness. And in terms of critical race theory, I think, Jamie, you know, that there's, you know, the idea that people should think about race in legal school, in law school, in legal circles, and its impact in terms of how we apply the law. I mean, that's not taught in elementary school or high school or even most colleges. But again, for Trump and for people who see this as a threat, they make it out to be like constant and everywhere. I think you're right. I think most people, most people, if you ask them about the need for equity and diversity in our lives, an America that is such a racial mix, such as a boiling pot and an increasingly racially diverse America, they would say, fine, we do need to have discussions about race and we need to all get comfortable because we are a unique place in the world in terms of our racial diversity. But the Trump effect is such that people then start viewing each other as enemies and don't want to have an honest discussion. They want to point fingers. And Trump politically benefits by all the finger pointing. And I, I'm not buying into it.
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Jamie Weinstein
Let me, let me pinpoint it though. One, because you mentioned, I think that even when you include Trump supporters, I think 90% of the country, maybe more would agree with you that you should teach the, the greatest sin in America in history, slavery. And you should teach Jim Crow and you should teach as they, they didn't, I didn't learn in school. And it should be taught, you know, black Wall street, that, that burned down. But on the other hand, do you see the, what, what the rebellion is against dei, the excesses that you see in some of these, you see them on Fox all the time. These diversity, you know, administrators, most of whom are white, they get hired by these companies, they come and they, they teach, you know, a lot of the Abraham Kendi type things that, you know, white fragility and that, that's not him, but that's, you know, another one of those kind of schools of thought, whiteness is evil, that, that black people can't succeed. Do you see that that maybe meant as a Positive, beginning with that DEI has been hijacked to mean something different than maybe it was originally intended.
- [28:54]
Juan Williams
Yeah, I do. I think that, you know, to my mind, what I see as the negative here is that there's a lot of people who I think go to extremes. And again, I think maybe there are people who are trying to get through to folks that the everyday assumptions and stereotypes that are in your mind need to be challenged and that you have to be willing to open your eyes to the idea of inclusion, that previously people were not simply enslaved, but denied equal opportunity. And I would go in terms of education, job opportunity, certainly promotion. I mean, you look at the executive class in American society, it's a hugely white group of men, to be frank, not just whites, but white men. And to say to people, you know what? We need to challenge it. I think you have people who do that now. How they challenge it, I have trouble with personally. I mean, when people get into things like Latin X and you have all the kind of talk about, you know, white people are prejudiced, I just. I just find this offensive. And I think it's. It's like almost like you're. You're getting people into some kind of program, you know, like, you must think this way, you must talk this way. You misuse certain language. I think it is self defeating. Remember, I mentioned to you a moment ago, Jamie, this talk of defund the police, how has that helped progressive movements, racial equity movements in this country? It hasn't. It's been used by the opponents, by the Trump base to say, oh, these people are radicals who want to do away with police that protect me, my home and my family. And it has had a tremendously negative effect on, not only on progressive causes, but on Democratic Party politics. I would argue even on moderate Republican politics, suddenly everybody gets polarized and you're supposed to be with one camp or the other. This doesn't make sense. And it's not just me. I mean, in the book, in New Prize for these Eyes, I talk about Jim Clyburn saying he's in conversation with John Lewis and they're saying, who came up with this defund the police thing? This is like going back to the first movement when Stokely Carmichael came up with black power. It was like, wait a minute. You are alienating the very people who you need as allies to keep this movement going and to create an equitable racial landscape in this country. What are you doing?
- [31:45]
Jamie Weinstein
Black Lives Matters. That comes up in your book. You defend it. You mention and argue that about 90% of these rallies, maybe more were PE. But let me press you on that a little bit. You know, you talk to Trump supporters and they will argue that, you know, 90% of January 6th was peaceful. Isn't the issue that 10% were violent and therefore creates a negative impression of the movement generally?
- [32:10]
Juan Williams
Yeah. Well, let me just say again to people listening to this Dispatch podcast that it's not Juan Williams in New Prize for these Eyes who says, oh, most of them were peaceful. These are independent people who monitor protests and demonstrations across the world. Who said, you know, after they were all over here, look, here are the numbers on Black Lives matter protest in 2020 after George Floyd was killed. More than 90% were peaceful. And your point to me as well, but there were some, Even if it's 10% of people who were misbehaving, even potentially violent or started a fire, etc. And if you wanted, Jamie, you could even go back, remember Ferguson, Missouri, after, I think that's Michael Brown. After Michael Brown was killed by a policeman in Ferguson, there were nights of fires and attacks and, you know, huge confrontations between police and young black people on the street. Well, is that a, was that a protest march? I don't think so. I think that was a riot. So, I mean, let's be careful about the language. But in terms of people who marched after George Floyd's death in 2020, it's not Juan Williams. It's people who are independent monitors who said, oh, no, overwhelmingly these were peaceful marches. But if you listen to Donald Trump, even Donald Trump when he walks across Lafayette Square in 2020 after George Floyd is dead in the demonstrations have begun, the protest marches, he wants to show that he is the law and order president. I think that's what he called himself in the Rose Garden before then walking across Lafayette Square and getting people in the National Guard and the US Park Service to use tear gas against peaceful protesters. There was no, there's no question. Those people in Lafayette Square, they may have been loud, they may have been obnoxious, they may have been chanting, but there was no violence. And yet they used tear gas on them so that he can hold a Bible up in front of St. John's Episcopal Church. That's the reality. And my feeling is that in instances where you have huge marches with millions of people, you're going to have some people who are troublemakers or want to take advantage of this moment. And I think it's sad and I think it's regrettable, and I think they should be arrested and they should be stopped. But to characterize them as representing the entire movement is so absurd. One last point on this. I think people, given how Trump has caricatured Black Lives Matter and the movement would say, oh well, it must be just a minority. It's a black people thing. Excuse me. Let's look at the numbers again. The numbers say that 60 plus percent of the people who marched after George Floyd was killed were white people. Whites. It's a tremendous support coming all across America. You could have been in small towns, all white towns, and people are marching and saying, you know what? Kneeling on a guy's neck for nine minutes and killing him is wrong. I think that's America.
- [35:27]
Jamie Weinstein
Let me tie this all back. Our conversation to where we nearly began at which is President Obama or then senator. Actually it wasn't even senator then candidate Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, which you place as the start of this new civil rights movement. My question to you, isn't it at odds with some of the BLM movement what he said in that speech or dei, at least some of the excesses and the Ibrahim Kendi elements of it when he's talking about a colorblind society, there's not a black American and a white American, a Latino America and an Asian American. There's United States of America. Whereas, you know, DEI and a lot of the rhetoric around it explicitly rejects the idea of this colorblind society. Isn't, isn't there an odds with what came from what you say at the beginning of the second civil rights movement with what Obama said in that speech?
- [36:25]
Juan Williams
I think there are people like Ibrahim X Kendi. I'm trying to think of the name of the woman who wrote White Fragility. I mean, there's always going to be people who have radical thoughts or are trying to be provocateurs on the left. We have a lot of them on the right, I can assure you. But there are people who are going to say things. Do I think they represent the broad band of American civil rights efforts under the Black Lives Matter banner? No, I don't.
- [36:57]
Jamie Weinstein
But I think it was. I think it is pretty common and even moving from the more moderate elements from Abraham X. Kendi to, to say that we, we, you know, in this new civil rights movement, as you call it, reject the idea of a colorblind society because a colorblind society doesn't recognizes the differences that we all have and the nuances of our history. I mean, that has been what I have heard of in a wide swath of BLM and black activists and leaders on TV shows and talk shows who run the gamut of the spectrum from far left to not so far left. But that does seem at odds from the idea that Obama espoused and what you say, the start of the second civil rights movement, that we are just Americans and, you know, we're not Latino Americans or black Americans. This is the United States. You don't see that tension at all?
- [37:52]
Juan Williams
I do. I think that what Obama was saying was not that we are not black and we're not white, Latino, not Asian. We're in the United States of America. In saying that, he's not denying your individual identity. There's no question that I'm Christian. There's no question that. That as I meet and talk to people, people will discover who I am. They may discover, hey, he grew up in Brooklyn, New York, he likes baseball, all that kind of. They'll discover who I am, but I'm part of America. And to understand that is about understanding the value of individual merit and individual experience in the grand melting pot that is the American experience. Now, I think something I keep picking up from you, Jamie, is that some people are insistent on saying you've got to recognize the black experience in America and that it can be off putting to some people because they feel like you're not talking about being colorblind, I think is the way you put it. You're talking about being color conscious. And then color consciousness would lead you in terms of human beings to say, well, white people are responsible for slavery and discrimination and black people were the victims. It can lead you down this line of thought that is so difficult and polarizing. And I think take us back to what I would characterize as, you know, sort of the thick mud, stuck in the dirt, discussions that don't seem to go anywhere and don't lead us to a more positive, productive. And my feeling is again, you know, you could say, hey, Juan, you know, you're a little bit of sunshine. And, you know, I don't know what the, you know, pink colored, rose colored glasses on this one, but my feeling is most people in the country recognize, and this is historical, by the way. I mean, when President Johnson signs the Civil Rights act of 64, he says, you know, this isn't the end of this story. Black people come with a burden of history. The slavery that you described as original sin, America's biggest sin. But he said also the burden of lack of equal opportunity, beginning with education, but extending to jobs, extending to bank loans, family structure, you know, having been devastated in so many Ways he was aware of this. And I think most people are aware of this. You know, it's like me walking down the street, Jamie, am I aware of the threat posed by the 17 year old black kid in the hoodie? You know, yes, I'm a black man, but I know that for me it's more likely that I would get shot by that black 17 year old than by a white cop. And so I'm telling you there's more violence in black neighborhoods. Do I want to ignore that? Do I want to say, oh no, that's not politically correct for me to say, oh, there's more violence in black neighborhood. That'd be stupid. I would be putting myself, my family, my friends in danger unless I was cognizant of this reality. But is that the basis for then discrimination? No, I think it's wrong. And I think if you talk to most people, they will tell you they are aware of racial difference. Not in terms of saying someone can't do it. You can't be an astronaut, you can't be a math teacher because you're black, or you can't be it because you're a woman. They understand that historically there have been barriers and that when we think about diversity and inclusion in this moment, we're saying we're opening the door to the best of America, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity. That's the struggle. This other stuff that plays so well among kind of the extremes and that shows up in our conversations, especially where provocateurs are valued on, you know, so much of the websites that are so polarized. I don't think that's the real conversation about race in America. And it certainly isn't given, as I said to you, that after George Floyd is killed, you're seeing the overwhelming majority of the people marching are white. What does that tell you? There's a lot of white people out there who say, we got a problem here.
- [42:31]
Jamie Weinstein
Let me ask you, you mentioned, I think, in this interview and in the book that the second civil rights movement could be more significant than the first civil rights movement. The first civil rights movement obviously was extremely significant. And you can point to a lot of tangible examples of how it changed America in a positive direction.
- [42:49]
Juan Williams
I wonder, what do you think of.
- [42:51]
Jamie Weinstein
The successes of the second civil rights movement? What has it given us?
- [42:56]
Juan Williams
Well, I think let's start with the political terms because you and I both follow politics and this is a dispatch podcast, so you guys know a lot of smart political thinkers. But I mean, clearly George Floyd happens in the middle of 2020, which is an election year. And I think that it really doesn't go well for the Donald Trumps of the world in terms of his behavior, his reaction, all that. I think it really pushes a lot against Donald Trump in the 2020 election, which is won by Joe Biden. And then, of course, Donald Trump claims that election was fraudulent and there was voter, you know, misbehavior, especially in big cities with heavy minority populations. I could go on, but you can see that there's a racial element there. So in essence, I think it stopped him at that juncture from having a second term. The second thing to say is if you think about someone like Stacey Abrams again, in that very period, she is fighting against voter suppression down in Georgia. And what comes out of it? Well, you get a Jewish senator from the state of Georgia and you get a black US Senator from the state of Georgia. Again, I think that's very concrete and real result of people aware of a second civil rights movement. And then you think about the Supreme Court and you think about Ketanji, Brown, Jackson, get a first black woman on the Supreme Court. Again, I think these are sort of concrete, tangible results. But I think there's something more at hand, which is, I mentioned to you before, we've never had such a diverse population here in this country. I think you see in terms of advertising, I think you see it in terms of, you know, our dramatic comedic fare. The way that we think of our world today in America is more diverse, more inclusive than ever in the history of the country. And I think Black Lives Matter is part of that effort. And I think that Trump, Trump doesn't like it. I think literally Make America Great Again is an effort to take us back in time. It's sort of a nostalgia trip. Yeah. We're going to have these Confederate monuments. Yes. We're going to have discussions about race, but it's all with white voices and white male voices who are the determinative actors. We don't like the idea that you have these Latinos and these blacks and these Asians who have voice and they're telling us what they think. And these women, oh, my God, these women have their own opinion. You know, they don't like it. I just get the sense that the Trump people are locked into a world that existed in the past and they want to go back there.
- [46:00]
Jamie Weinstein
Let me close on a couple non book related questions. The number one viewer of the network you appear on all the time for probably over a couple of decades has been the President of the United States has He ever called you? Have you ever met him? Have you had any interesting interactions with him?
- [46:16]
Juan Williams
I have met him. I actually met him in the lobby at Fox in New York one day. And, you know, to me, what happened subsequently was when I was critical of him, he lashed out at me and described me as childish and said I begged for a picture with him when that's absolutely not the case. I was helping a janitor get a picture with him, and, you know, he has attacked me. I remember once being when he was attacking me, and, you know, it was something about economic policy. This is during his first term. Janitor. And it was a Sunday. I had done it on the Sunday show, the Fox News Sunday show with Shannon Breen. And I was off swimming, and then my cell phone blew up to the point where my wife and children were like, hey, you got to get the. Something's going on. And I pick it up and it's. You know, everybody in the world wants me to react to the fact that he is attacking me on Twitter. You know, this has happened a few times. I. I find. I find it fruitless. I. People say to me, what, do you go to the White House? Do you talk to him? I find this fruitless. I just find it. I am so turned off. I find him to be someone who politically thinks that he benefits by racially antagonizing people, and I just can't be part of it. I won't go to his parties or his birthday or, you know, Christmas and. No, no, thank you. If one.
- [47:53]
Jamie Weinstein
They made you the head of Fox News, would you. How would you change it?
- [47:58]
Juan Williams
I don't know how to deal with that one. I mean, you know, the people who are there now have the biggest cable news channel in all America. And, you know, obviously, I am not, you know, my viewpoints are not the viewpoints that attract that huge audience, but, you know, it's a huge platform. I am grateful when I can get on there and give my opinion. No one tells me what to say. So to me, when you ask that question, you know, maybe I'm the wrong guy, because it would be a different. I obviously have a different point of view. I'm not a Trump supporter.
- [48:40]
Jamie Weinstein
Actually, one last one before we go. I. I know that you. They asked you in one show about Pete Hegseth at the Defense Secretary. But since that interview, we now have another major Fox News contributor in a new position, Dan Bongino, as deputy FBI director. Do you know him? What do you make of that? Is that someone who you trust as the number two at the FBI.
- [49:06]
Juan Williams
I can't say in all honesty that I trust him as the FBI director. I trust him as like a podcast host or something, maybe for a right wing audience. But I mean, it's like with Pete Hex said, here we are having this conversation, Jimmy, about diversity and has the country gone too far? The Ibrahim X Kendis and the people. You hear from Trump. Oh, so and so is a DEI hire. So and so is an affirmative action hire. Let me get this straight. What is Pete Hegset? Do you think that he's qualified to be Secretary of Defense of the United States? Has he demonstrated the capacity to run that level of bureaucracy, much less the policy chops to deal with defense issues globally? I just don't see it. So I got to imagine it's based on loyalty to Trump or Trump saying, I like this guy, he's a frat. So to me, that's a huge affirmative action hire. It has nothing. I mean, maybe if he was black, you would say, oh, it's an oppressor. No, he's a white guy who Trump likes. That's what is important here, I think. And the same thing with these other folks. I mean, I just think it's all about lining up to be one of the Trump loyalists, and that's what he's picking. To me, it's almost to the point of parody, like, what are you doing? Who are you? These are not qualified people.
- [50:32]
Jamie Weinstein
Juan Williams, thank you for joining the Dispatch broadcast.
- [50:35]
Juan Williams
Jamie. It's my pleasure. Thanks for a good interview. I appreciate it. Sam.