Speaker 1:
From the library of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City, you're inside the ICE House. Our podcast from Intercontinental Exchange on markets, leadership and vision and global business, the dream drivers that have made the NYSE an indispensable institution of global growth for over 225 years.
Each week, we feature stories of those who hatch plans, create jobs and harness the engine of capitalism. Right here, right now at the NYSE and at ICE Exchanges and clearing houses around the world. Now welcome inside the ICE House, here's your host, Josh King of Intercontinental Exchange.
Josh King:
This is not going to be a newsflash. I worked for many years in Bill Clinton's White House. I've also made it pretty clear on past episodes of this show that I still have many friends who work in Joe Biden's White House and in his administration.
But anyone who's listened to me, week after week, knows I strive to find the common ground in everyone. Our microphones have always been open to everyone. I've had Republican senators and cabinet secretaries on the show and I also think it's a pretty good thing that people who enter or aspire to enter public service, that they've had a full-some career in something other than politics before they ask for a fellow citizen's vote.
Now, I went to an event last week with New Hampshire governor, Chris Sununu, long before Chris got to the State House in Concord. I followed him as a guy who served customers instead of constituents, leading a group of investors who engineered a buyout of one of my favorite haunts, Waterville Valley Ski area.
I watched Chris manage a balance sheet, hire good workers and make sure folks were safe and happy as they went up and down a mountain. On stage or on skis, Chris strikes me as a reasonable guy, someone I could work with.
Another guy who gives off those vibes is David McCormick. Dave did a tour in government working in the Treasury Department in the second Bush administration, but he also did a tour in Iraq. As a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, Dave was an army ranger who saw service in the Gulf War alongside one of our recent guests here inside the ICE House, former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper.
In Secretary Esper's book, A Sacred Oath, Mark details the myriad challenges we have countering the pacing threat that is the People's Republic of China. In Dave's new book, Superpower in Peril, Dave almost picks up where Mark left off writing in one section, the Chinese Communist Party's economic warfare is the greatest external threat to American innovation.
In a minute, our talk with David McCormick on his career and his new mission outlined in Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America. It's all coming up right after this.
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Josh King:
Our guest today, Dave McCormick, is no stranger to Wall Street or our mission to preserve capitalism here at the New York Stock Exchange. He was CEO of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world's largest investment management firms before taking on Mehmet Oz in the 2022 primary race in Pennsylvania, trying to get that Senate seat left open by the retirement of Pat Toomey.
Raised in the Pittsburgh area, Dave graduated from West Point and after completing his army service, went to work for McKinsey before helping to bring software firm, Free Markets, public on that other exchange. There's a lot more about his bio that we're going to unpack in our conversation, but for now, welcome Dave McCormick inside the ICE House.
David McCormick:
Oh, thanks so much for having me. I'm really delighted to be with you today.
Josh King:
Dave, you graduated from West Point a year after Secretary Esper. Your lives as cadets tracked pretty closely during the presidency of Ronald Reagan and his Secretary of Defense, Cap Weinberger. When you were at CAO, did you know Mark as a first-in? And what was the world that you found when you paraded off the plane in 1987?
David McCormick:
I don't think I knew Mark as cadets. I got to know Mark soon after we both left the Army when he was a staffer on Capitol Hill. But we did serve, as you said, in that period. I graduated in 1987 and we were really seeing the end of the Cold War really right before our eyes. 1989, the wall came down. 1990, the unipolar moment where America was the sole superpower and then tested soon thereafter in the Middle East with Iraq's invasion of Kuwait.
And so it was a unique moment, and I talk about that in my book Superpower and Peril because it was really a moment of maximum economic and national security capability. And sadly, through most of the period that's followed, we've been in decline. That's the focus of the book, how to renew Ourselves from that period of decline.
Josh King:
We're going to talk about how to renew ourselves a lot more in our conversation, also to talk more about your military service mark. But your book is dedicated to your kids and your wife, my friend Dina Powell, but also to your parents, Jim and Maryanne. What kind of fixtures were your folks in the community? What did they teach you?
David McCormick:
Yeah, mom and dad loom large throughout the book, I didn't really realize how big a part of different aspects of my life they were until I wrote the book and they kept popping up in various chapters, but they're both teachers.
We are, I think, seventh generation Pennsylvanians. My mom was born in Punxsutawney , my dad in Plumville, which is right outside of Indiana, so western Pennsylvania. And they both were teachers. My dad went on to have a very successful career in higher ed and became president of a little state teacher's college, which became a university, and that's where I grew up. He was president of the college in Bloomsburg and my mom was a teacher as well, and at the age of 50 went back to graduate school and did a PhD, which took a break while I was in the Gulf War because she wasn't able to focus on anything other than getting me home safely.
But they're a big part of my life. The commitment to public service, I think decency and humanity, they brought to everything they did. The commitment to the next generation as teachers.
Josh King:
Dave, right outside the New York Stock Exchange where I'm sitting today is Broadway, where heroes have been honored with ticker tape parades. The largest in history at the time came in April 1951 for General Douglas MacArthur with over 7 million people in attendance. I want to hear a little bit from General MacArthur at West Point, 11 years before that parade
General MacArthur:
Duty, honor, country. Those three hallowed words irreverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying points.
Josh King:
They are your rallying points. Dave, your book starts with that quote. How did you get to West Point and what was your experience there?
David McCormick:
I was just there last week. I was there last Wednesday and I walked the beautiful plane and I walked right past MacArthur statue and read that quote. It's such a touchstone for what America is all about and what West Point's all about and a reminder... A funny aside here, is that MacArthur's mother moved into the Thayer Hotel at West Point when he was a cadet and Dean and I have six daughters and I keep insisting that I'm looking for accommodations right outside their campuses where I can stay, which is the most horrifying concept in the world today.
I'm absolutely horrified. But I grew up in a small town, as I said, Bloomsburg. I was a decent student, but I was a really focused on sports wrestled and played football. And I got recruited to play football at West Point. And then I got recruited to wrestle at West Point, and I ultimately wrestled all four years at West Point. Pennsylvania's a big wrestling state.
It was interesting because I didn't have really much interest in going when I initially was recruited, but my father insisted that I apply. He said, "This is a personal choice you have to make, but you must apply." And to my surprise, I was accepted.
In my small town, being accepted became a big deal because no one had gone to one of the academies for decades and it sort of took on a life of its own even though no one in my family had been in the military. It became really the greatest decision I ever made because West Point opened my eyes to the world, to America and a sense of purpose, which was sort of vaguely in my mind about service. But West Point really is all about service to country and it embedded in me, I think this commitment to serve throughout my life. I've tried to live by that.
Josh King:
Now at the beginning of that life of service, Dave, your enemy in the early 1990s was Iraq. Part of the first President Bush's effort to push back an incursion into an ally of ours, Kuwait. Now in the 30 years since, a lot of our military's time and treasure has been spent on securing that same turf as well as Afghanistan. Was that time and treasure misspent, instead of focusing on China?
David McCormick:
I've had a lot of time to reflect on that because when I was in Iraq in the first Gulf War, President Bush, 41, made the decision to withdraw after Iraq had been put back in its place in Iraq and pushed out of Kuwait. And that was the commitment he had made to the coalition. And when 9/11 happened and subsequently we invaded Afghanistan and then Iraq, at the time, given the thread of weapons of mass destruction and the intelligence that I certainly understood to be in place, I thought it made sense and even wrote an article at that point that said it made sense.
But now in retrospect after 20 years, it's clear that there were a lot of decisions along the way that prolonged our time in Iraq, a lack of strategic clarity, a lack of focus, a lack of political leadership. I think there were enormous mistakes made.
You sort of see that and you talk about that conceptually on a podcast like this. But then when you're on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, you see it. That's why I think you have this rise of concern around Ukraine, which we can talk about in a minute. But the people that most suffered from 20 years of war were people in the third and fourth quartile, socioeconomically.
There are people in small towns in Northeastern Pennsylvania and western Pennsylvania, Ohio that sent their sons and daughters abroad. Not only lots of lives, but we have lots of people that came back and really had their lives significantly disrupted and still are back on track. A statistic that still shocks me is that 22 veterans a day take their own lives. And so there's lasting effects that we need to deal with, which I think call lots of the decisions into question.
Josh King:
Talking about calling decisions into question, Dave, I helped bring President Clinton to Beijing and each of his successors in the Oval Office hoped for better outcome with their counterparts: Zhang Xinming,Hu Jintao, Xi Jinping. You were under Secretary of Commerce and under Secretary of the Treasury during the second Bush administration, did our past leaders misjudge their adversary?
David McCormick:
I think so. I think there was bipartisan misjudgement. Interestingly enough, there was a bipartisan consensus 20 years ago, just like there was a bipartisan consensus say 20 years ago, the bet that policy makers made was if we open our markets to China, encourage China and for economic liberalization, that would be great for America and industry because we'd have reciprocity.
That would be great for the evolution of China and increase the likelihood that would be benign in terms of China's goals and aspirations. And it didn't turn out that way. The intellectual property theft that's taken place over the last two decades has been enormous. China has built really under President Xi, a techno-authoritarian state, which poses, as I say in my book, Superpower in Peril, enormous challenges both economically from national security perspective.
The aspirations of China to displace America are without question. If you have any doubt about that, the last couple of weeks when we saw the picture of President Xi and Russia encouraging and validating Putin's invasion into Ukraine, and in the very same week, the Chinese foreign minister brokering a deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, you see that China has a set of objectives and capabilities that truly threaten America and America's place in the world.
Now, we have another bipartisan consensus, which is we need to toughen and strengthen ourselves in response to that. What we don't have is a clarity of what to do, a clarity of a strategy, which is what I try to outline in the book. I say in there in a line that China has a plan that it's executing brilliantly and America doesn't have a plan and this book is among other things, meant to provide a plan.
Josh King:
You're talking a lot about the people that you've met on the campaign trail and certainly about your roots, Dave. And skipping back to the end of your time in active duty, you could have headed anywhere after you left the army.
I read an old item in the Post Gazette about how Glenn Meacham and Sam Kenny, the founders of Free Markets, which you took over as CEO, worked hard to support the local community. Some stuff about how they rebuilt the public theater's new downtown facility. What was it like to grow a tech company that was so far from Silicon Valley?
David McCormick:
That was quite an adventure. When I left the Army, my dad in particular was horrified because only 15 more years than I would've had a pension. And so he, the certainty, and I love the military, I love the army. I almost stayed for a career, but eventually decided to go back to grad school and go to Pittsburgh. I was born right outside of Pittsburgh, and that was a remarkable stroke of good luck because this was in the middle of the Pittsburgh's Renaissance, which I talk a lot about in the book because there's a lot to be learned by how Pittsburgh recovered from the demise of the steel industry to become really healthcare and technological center, innovation center in America today.
But I had the good fortune of joining a small company called Free Markets and Free Markets was one of the early users of the internet to create commerce, business to business commerce. And so we recruited heavily from the tech industry, Carnegie Mellon, and we were competing against the Silicon Valley, but it was really ideal because our customers were those industrial manufacturers across Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania, and they didn't want to necessarily deal with those Silicon Valley folks.
They wanted to deal with people from Pittsburgh. It was an amazing experience building that company, giving people hope in Pittsburgh, that Pittsburgh could be part of the next generation, the next evolution of technology. This was marked by putting our sign on top of the building neon sign on. It was the first sign on the Pittsburgh skyline. So when you came in through the tunnel and the Pittsburgh and you have done that, it's spectacularly, the city opens up in front of you, we had this sign of Free Markets. So it was a remarkable period to be there and a great joy to be part of it. And it really contributed a lot to the building out downtown Pittsburgh where we had our offices.
Josh King:
The Free Market story ends with a successful exit for everyone involved. And then you began this long run at Bridgewater Associates, the founder of the firm. Everyone knows Ray Dalio has been to the NYSE a bunch of times. We had Mark Hayes on this show a couple of months ago. You write, I'm going to quote you from the book, "Bridgewater's process, distinguished it, but so did its insights." What was the Bridgewater process and how did you fit into it?
David McCormick:
Well, I joined Bridgewater after serving in the government. I had been the undersecretary of treasury during the financial crisis. I didn't really know about Bridgewater when I first got the phone call, I got it in November of 2008, and I said, "I can't talk to anybody about anything. I'm in the middle of what's going on in the financial crisis." But I said, "Call back in six months." And so I ultimately... George Bridgewater is part of Ray's desire to have a succession plan.
At that time, Bridgewater was reasonably well known, but much smaller than it is today. What was unique about Bridgewater among other things was a culture of continuous improvement, radical truth and transparency, an idea of meritocracy. These were key themes that weren't just words, but really drove how the culture of the firm worked. It was the idea that in markets, the right answer don't necessarily reside with the oldest most senior person, and you needed to have an environment where people could debate ideas and really truthfully and rigorously try to get to truth with rigor.
The second part of it was the idea that understanding markets had started with some principles, fundamental views of how markets worked, which could be systemized into a set of equations, algorithms that could be then used to trade markets in a very diversified way.
The mantra was fundamental, systematic, diversified. That was a really unique way of thinking about markets that Ray started 40 years ago when he would write down on a yellow pad of paper how markets were supposed to work. And ultimately with computerization, he was able to create algorithms that reflected those views.
The beauty of that is you could constantly test your thinking, see what worked and what didn't work and go back and adjust. It recognized that understanding is a compounding process and that by building on what you learned yesterday, you could be smarter for tomorrow. It was an incredible leadership experience, an incredible way to learn about the world and learn about markets and it was an incredible way to learn about myself.
Josh King:
In the not too distant past. Bring us to Bridgewater in 2020. Obviously, COVID took hold early in February or March, but not before everyone did their annual flock to Davos. Here's Ray on CNBC at the World Economic Forum that January. I want to hear him talking with Andrew Ross Sorkin about China.
Andrew Ross Sorkin:
Does it play into not just whether the bonds are attractive or not, but whether there's a larger fight at play or battle at play?
Ray Dalio:
There are four major conflicts that we're having with China and trade is one of them. And this deal is a small part. It's a deal and it's done, but there's a trade, there's a technology war going on, there is a geopolitical war that's going on.
There could be a capital war that is happening. Because what you're having is the emerging power in many ways going global and challenging an existing world power. And there's going to be lots to argue about.
Josh King:
Dave, I've heard you talk about how you were in the drafting process of this book long before the campaign. So maybe you and Ray were sort of both at your computers as he was writing The Changing World Order: How a Nation Succeeded and Failed, but were you and he aligned on how you saw the landscape changing? Did it feel like a superpower standoff to you as well?
David McCormick:
We're more or less aligned on the quote that you just shared, but we weren't aligned in my view, and we agree on lots of things, but we didn't agree on really the evolution of the US-China conflict and the motivations behind many of the things that Chinese were doing. So I saw China as an emerging threat.
I saw that as early as 2005, by the way. As I write about the book, some of the speeches I gave, I certainly didn't see the techno-authoritarian success that China would have where it's really a technology leader in confronting us and challenging us in many ways. But I certainly saw the early signs in 2005 of where China was headed and that's only gotten much worse.
I don't see its intentions as benign. I see China's intentions as aggressively countering US interest. I think where Ray and I may have some differences, at least based on what I've seen him write, is that I view this as an existential threat and I don't view it as misunderstanding on both sides.
I view it as intentionality on the part of the Chinese leaders and Chinese Communist Party. We should say that our dispute in my mind is not with the Chinese people, it's with the communist leadership that's taking China in a very unfavorable direction and that our response is in reaction to China's aggression. China's actions are not in response to our aggression. The intentionality, the motivation, the root cause of the conflict in my view is where China's headed, particularly under President Xi. And so we need a strategy that both confronts China but coexists with China because China's the second-biggest economy in the world and is going to be a rival superpower. But we need to stand tall in confronting the aggression of China.
Josh King:
When anyone sees an existential threat to something they love, they want to do something about it. You had everything going for you in 2021. You'd made your nut, you'd been married to Dina for a couple of years, and then you jump into the Senate race. And I remember my friend Jake Seaward sent me a link to your new ad that gave all of us a couple of chuckles. I want to have a listen to the audio of that ad.
David McCormick:
I shot my first buck right over that hill. It was huge.
Speaker 8:
It was a four point buck. I thought it was a doe.
David McCormick:
Growing up. I bailed hay, trimmed trees. Worked hard.
Speaker 8:
It means he chased girls.
David McCormick:
I played football here running back. Lots of touchdowns.
Speaker 8:
Yeah, guess who did pretty boys blocking?
Speaker 17:
And the tackling.
Speaker 9:
Dave McCormick's Pennsylvania roots will keep him grounded.
David McCormick:
I'm Dave McCormick and I approve this message because with these guys, I'll always remember where I came from.
Josh King:
Was it a doe that you shot? Tell me about the making of that ad. I mean, did overly protective image makers like I used to be, warn you about appearing in camo, holding a shotgun?
David McCormick:
Well, there was probably some worries, but the beauty of that ad is at the core of it are two truths. Truth one is those are my buddies from high school that I've known forever and we've stayed friends throughout our lives, even though our lives have gone very different paths.
Though one is a local sheriff and the other went into the secret-service and then came back and is settled back in our hometown. So they're real different. And the second is they never miss an opportunity to bust my chops.
You can be a fancy pants and move on with your life, whatever. And when you go home, those guys give it to you and so that ad was a lot of fun and those guys have newfound notoriety, which they absolutely love as you might imagine.
Josh King:
Tell me about putting the campaign together. The last Pennsylvania campaign I was involved in was as a volunteer for former congressman Bob Edgar, when he challenged Arlen Specter. Was it fun to reconnect with your roots and sealed friends, like the guys in that ad?
David McCormick:
It was mostly awesome, mostly awesome. There were some parts of it that were not so much, but one of the challenges was we decided late. The real catalyst, people had approached me on running when Timmy decided to step down, I had initially thought it wasn't a great idea.
The Afghanistan withdrawal for me was a very poignant moment and one that made me say, "This is the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I wanted to try to find a way to serve and make a contribution." And then we had a health issue on our family, which led us to believe this isn't the right time and so we decided not to do it. And then the health issue more or less resolved itself over Thanksgiving and we said, "What the heck? We're going to do it!" And by the time we got into the race and I could professionally depart from Bridgewater, it was early in the new year. So it was only a five-month race for me.
And as Dina likes to say, I had zero name ID. When I started thought McCormick was a spice, my primary opponent was Mehmet Oz, who had like 100% name ID. So it was a challenge to kind of learn everything as a candidate. I'd been a CEO for, I don't know, 15 years of my last 25. And I had learned to lead in a certain way. And running a campaign, as you know, is completely different. You're not talking about nuance. You're an advocate for a set of positions. You're talking about yourself and why the voter should vote for you.
I had never talked about myself as a CEO. That became a challenge. But the greatness of it was I had a pickup truck on my family farm, which saw that we had bought four or five years earlier and I got in that pickup truck and 30,000 miles over the five months. Every diner, VFW and fire hall I could find I visited and that gave me a lot of clarity on the issues, the people, the obligation, the honor, the responsibility. There's that great line from William F. Buckley, which is that citizenship in America is a privilege to be part of the greatest country in the world, but it's also a responsibility to do everything you can to keep it.
I felt that sense of responsibility and it was just reinforced over and over on the campaign trail. Overall, a fabulous experience but it had its ups and downs, but it was overall great.
Josh King:
I want to get to one of those downs, Dave, because 11 days out from your Senate primary in Pennsylvania, you climbed into that pickup truck that you just talked about and went to an event in West Morland County and there's President Trump there the same day and at the risk of giving you a little PTSD, here's part of what he said in that one hour and 22 minute speech that he made.
President Trump:
So I don't know David well, and he may be a nice guy, but he's not MAGA. He's not MAGA. He's more Toomey than he is MAGA. I do know that he was with a company that managed money for communist China and he is absolutely the candidate of special interests and globalists and the Washington establishment, and those are the people that are not only spending millions and millions of dollars on his campaign, they have unlimited money to just try and destroy ours.
But they want to destroy this great warrior and a truly nice person. They're not going to do it. And they're also the people that are ripping off the United States with bad trade deals, open borders and every other thing that the people in this audience will never stand for and you fully reject.
Josh King:
What did he get wrong about you?
David McCormick:
Well, he got a lot wrong about me. The context of that was he had stayed on the sidelines for most of the campaign, which is what I had hoped he would do. I knew he had had a good relationship with Mehmet Oz and so I had hoped that he would just... He had endorsed an earlier candidate and then that candidate had withdrawn him and I heard he was going to endorse Oz.
I knew President Trump. I had interviewed to be in his cabinet. He had offered me the job of deputies defense secretary, Dina had worked for his administration, his deputy now security advisor. So we knew President Trump and I ran a campaign which I talked about in the book where I embraced a number of the policies, which I thought made sense and I explained what about them made sense in the book.
When I went to see him, he was frustrated with a couple comments I had made publicly about polarization and I was asked the question about whether I thought he had contributed to the polarization.
I said as a leader I thought he had, but then he said that he didn't think I could win the election unless I said that the 2020 election was stolen, which I told him I couldn't say or wouldn't say. And then a couple of days later, he endorsed Mehmet Oz. So that was the context. I was surprised frankly with that rally because he came with the explicit purpose I think of really attacking me because I was still ahead in the polls and I was three or four points ahead in the polls and I think was on a path to probably beating Mehmet Oz when that happened.
What he got wrong, the warrior in the story is me, I am the outsider. I was running as someone who had never served an elected office. I was running as someone who had really no connections, got no support from anyone other than my individual donors and was running as someone who thought that the system was broken and that the traditional party hadn't been serving Americans and Pennsylvanians adequately, which was my motivation for running.
And so I tried to talk about that in the book. To be clear, when you lose a campaign as I did, 1.45 million votes cast, I lost by 900 votes, there's lots of things I could have done to win the election. I don't blame anybody other than myself for losing the election, but certainly having the President of the United States come and do a rally against you doesn't help much.
Josh King:
If you judge two former candidates by their Twitter feeds, Dr. Oz has pretty much gone back to that old focus on health issues and what has made him a celebrity. Well, you are still on the front lines of politics and policy. I saw a couple of tweets you sent out the other day from your return to West Point and the lecturing that you're doing. When the votes didn't go your way in 2022, how did you dust yourself off and chart a new course?
David McCormick:
Well, I said that even the day I conceded, I really didn't know and still don't know exactly the path, but I said, I'm committed to Pennsylvania. I want to be part of helping Pennsylvania. That may be helping other candidates that may be being a candidate myself. And you can't have the motivation for running for office and say that you think the country's headed in the wrong direction and then lose by 900 votes and say, "Just kidding."
If you really believe that, then you kind of have an obligation to do what you can. The book Superpower in Peril, I started before I ever decided to run before Toomey had even announced. I finished that and the book was really a representation of what I was trying to do in the campaign, which is lay out a positive vision for where the country should go that's grounded in the values that have made America great, but also policies that reflect our moment and the challenges we face in terms of the deterioration of the American dream as well as the challenge of China.
The book essentially lays out a path for educating our people, confronting China and securing America, securing the country. So that's what I'm focused on and I'm not sure whether you know what the next step will be. I'm considering running again for office, but I haven't made any decisions, but I certainly want to be a contributor to the debate and hopefully be part of the answer
Josh King:
After the break. More on that new course, more on the debate that Dave just mentioned and the new fight we're in with China. We're talking more with Dave McCormick, author of Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America. It's all coming up right after this.
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Josh King:
Welcome back. Before the break, I was talking to David McCormick, author of Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America, about his early life, his military service, and his career leading up to his 2022 Senate campaign to replace Pat Toomey.
Now Dave, we're going to pivot a little bit to the battle plan and what may take you and us to 2024 and beyond. I have been watching your Twitter feed, so we were just doing it West Point the other day.
Another aspect of our military here in New York This week, the Navy will commission the U.S.S. Cooperstown. It's a Freedom-class littoral combat ship, perhaps sort of passed its time already even as it gets its commission. You tweeted a Wall Street Journal story about another naval vessel, the USS Rushmore being out of service for a key training exercise to deploy marines to the Asia-Pacific in your book, and you quoted Ernest Hemingway who wrote, "Bankruptcy happens gradually, then suddenly." Are we in the sudden part?
David McCormick:
I think we're on the verge of the sudden part. Yeah, if you look at the book, Superpower in Peril that I just wrote, you'll see the covers very stark, big, bold, red lettering, Superpower in Peril. And then the book is very optimistic and people ask me, "Where's the source of the optimism?"
I do think we're at a tipping point. I think that we have a combination of two things going on at the same time. We have some of the fundamentals at home deteriorating. Our economy is deeply challenged with record high debt, 40 year high in inflation, the lack of social mobility, the probability of getting out of the fourth or third quartile less than it's been in any period in the post World War II period, 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck. Two thirds of Americans think their kids will be less well off.
80% of Americans think the country is headed in the wrong direction. The American dream, the idea that you can do better than your folks and that we have that expectation if you work hard, play by the rules, it's not happening. And then second, we have this enormous challenge from China, which is displacing us geopolitically in the ways I described earlier. But a critical statistic here, which you may have seen a couple of weeks ago in the Wall Street Journal, this Australian think tank had done a study of key technologies, 44 technologies critical to our economic vitality, but also our national security.
This independent think tank included that China was ahead in 37 of the 44. We've got this challenge outside, challenge within and so it's an existential moment. So then people ask, where's the optimism coming from? And the optimism comes from the fact that this is the American story.
We get to the edge of the cliff, we pour ourselves back. We get to the edge of the cliff, we pour ourselves back. It happened in the Civil War. It happened pre-World War II. It happened in the late 1970s when I was a kid growing up in rural Pennsylvania where we had 16% inflation and we had gas lines around the block and odd days and even days. And we had Desert I, where we lost eight service members on the sands of Iran, a lot like the debacle in Afghanistan.
And 80% of Americans in 1979 thought the country was headed in the wrong direction. 1983, I was at West Point as a plead, walking on those beautiful walkways looking in the Hudson Valley. The economy was on fire, inflation in check, military buildup that ends the Cold War six years later without a shot and it was morning in America. Leadership matters, Ronald Reagan brought that right leadership and the right policy. So that's the cause for hope, but we need policies and leadership that'll make the difference.
Josh King:
In the notes of your book, you referenced a guy that I read a lot at Swarthmore College, Samuel P. Huntington, who wrote in Foreign Affairs back in that time that you just referenced in '83 to '87, the buildup. He wrote, "The ultimate test of a great power is the ability to renew its power." And that might have been a little easier to do in 1988 when the Soviet Union was fumbling between Brezhnev, Andropov, Chevnenko and Gorbachev. But how do we do it in 2023 when Xi Jinping has appointed himself leader of the CCP for life?
David McCormick:
It's always very hard to judge relative capability in the moment. It's easy to look back and see it. But I'll say two things that will seem contradictory, but I don't think they are. One thing is China is really eating our lunch in certain ways and technologically in its clarity around data as a key source of innovation and security.
It's geopolitical strategy, the way it's engaging around the world and we have a much better hand than they do. Those two things may seem of a contradiction, but they're not. And by that, I mean the uniqueness of America is its agility, its resilience and its versatility. Time and again, we have shown an ability to adapt to the circumstances of the moment, whether it's new changes in technology or changes in the geopolitical landscape where China is faced with really significant demographic challenges, huge indebtedness, an authoritarian system that's going to require constant oversight in terms of driving unity and the right behaviors across its citizenry.
The chaos and dynamism of America ultimately puts it in good stead, I believe, for the future. But unfortunately, go back to history in Huntington and Hemingway. It's only in these moments where the risks seem so extreme that America seems to find its way. It's a little bit of a dance here where people, I think, have a growing realization that we could screw things up and really destroy the America we all know and love.
I'm hopeful and optimistic that that clarity of the risk, the threat will also bring us together around sound policies, which I try to outline in the book. They're meant to be a conservative agenda that captures traditional conservatism and also the populist pulse that is reflective of the American dream not working for many Americans. But as I say in the book, it's really not about conservatives, Republican or Democrat, it's about America. The policies are meant to be really what's great for America regardless of party.
Josh King:
Talking about America, finding its way, the very earliest days of America's finding its way, in your chapter on decline is not inevitable, you again visit Pennsylvania, but this time to Philadelphia, dateline 1787, when the framers put securing the blessings of liberty on top of their agenda.
In a country though that is still challenged by issues of race and class, not necessarily party or geography, how can liberty that which makes us truly exceptional, be insured to everyone?
David McCormick:
Well, I'm so glad you asked that because there's a whole section in there where I make the argument that America is truly exceptional. If you don't recognize what's exceptional about it and are dedicated to preserving it, then the American experiment will be lost. What's exceptional about it is it's a country that was conceived with the very notion that the government works for the people and is conceived in the idea that individual freedom and liberty are paramount.
What's happened since its creation is that it's been a constant journey in pursuit of that and as you say, with very, very dark chapters associated with slavery and human rights and so forth, but also a constant striving for a more perfect union to get better. What I say in this is I object to President Obama gave a speech where he said, "The Greeks think they're exceptional, the Brits think that..."
No, I object to that. I think that America is exceptional by any measure. What is what's happened in the world in terms of alleviating poverty, saving Europe from Nazism, the economic growth and vitality that America's brought to the world is beyond measure and in comparison to any other country. Yet, there's these dark chapters for which we need to stare at and constantly pursue and get better. One of the things I'm worried about is that in our focus on all that's wrong with America, and I'm certainly not saying we should shy away from what's wrong with America, we've lost the essence of what's right about America and we need to teach history and reinforce the uniqueness of that experiment even as we acknowledge the things that still need a lot of work, and they're the ones you refer to, racism and so forth.
That's my take on it. I'm deeply worried that our next generation is not grounded in a true understanding of that. If you don't have that next generation thinking that it's their obligation to preserve America, I'm afraid that we won't.
Josh King:
In talking about the next generation, Dave, part two of your book, you give that section the renewal agenda where you focus on talent, technology and data. I want to just take each in quick tandem starting with talent. Now, you gave the 2009 commencement address to graduates of Bloomsburg University where you mentioned earlier your dad once served as president.
The next commencement of the college is next Saturday, May 9th, in Redmond Stadium. But well before they get their diplomas, how do we make radical improvements as you write to our K-12 education system?
David McCormick:
Well, this has been something that if you're a conservative, people have talked about school choice as the key for ensuring the right quality in our schools, the right competition for great students. I would argue school choice is the absolute best way to ensure opportunity, equality of opportunity because it's not the blue collar kids, it's not the minority kids, often, that have choice.
If we don't have choice because wealthy parents can send their kids anywhere. I think our current system really has a heavy bias towards disadvantaging those kinds of students. I think we have a moment. So COVID gave parents a window. I heard this on the campaign trail over and over again. They're looking over the kids' shoulders. They see the curriculum, they see the role teachers are playing in their students' lives, the kinds of conversations that teachers are involved in versus parents.
They found it wanting. We saw this in Loudoun County with Glenn Youngkin. We see this in the legislation that many states are passing in Arkansas, Iowa, Florida, and elsewhere. The school choice really is a tipping point.
I know this is an issue that divides people often along party lines. But for me, that school choice revolution is upon us. It offers an enormous opportunity to improve the quality of K-12 and an enormous opportunity to give a greater opportunity for all because the money is on the back of a student and goes with the student as opposed to going into a public school system, which by any measure, outcome measure is failing.
Which by any measure, the dollars that have been allocated over the last 10 years are disproportionately going to administrative cost and not to students. It's one of those things if you're in business, it's such a failed system that I can't imagine we wouldn't embrace structural changes that would fundamentally bring about change.
Josh King:
Now here at ICE, we have a long list of engineering jobs that we need to fill. You write and I'm going to quote you here from the book, that skilled immigration can help fill the labor gaps we're experiencing in our economy and make our nation more innovative and dynamic.
If you were in the Senate, Dave, how would you work with Secretary Mayorkas both to secure the border but also remain true to our creed and make it more easily welcome those who can help us rebuild the nation?
David McCormick:
I talk about that at length, the skilled gap, the skilled worker gap we have. And there's two solutions to it. One is we have a mantra, I grew up with this where a four-year college education is the path to a great middle class life and great opportunity. We know that there's a great opportunity to train people with technical skills to be able to fulfill some of these great jobs at manufacturing or fracking or whatever it is in places like Pennsylvania and there's just inadequate skilled workers. We don't have enough emphasis on that. We don't have enough programs on it.
I think that if I was a US Senator, one of the things I'd be emphasizing is allocation of resources, VA benefits, Pell grants, all of that to making skilled training two-year degrees, community colleges and so forth, a real area of focus because it's an enormous economic opportunity.
It's one way to address that American dream slipping way problem. The other thing I do talk about at length is skilled immigration. So I visit the border. I think by any measure, our border is a disaster. We need to secure the border. I think the current administration has failed on that and I think there's a lot to be done. But let's not let that conversation stand in the way of recognizing that skilled immigration has been critical to America's innovation, its economic wellbeing, and it's great for all Americans.
It doesn't displace US jobs to have skilled immigration, particularly if we had reforms to our immigration system. One of the things that I think offers real opportunity is a reform to our current or legal immigration processes.
We've got to embrace that, I think, for economic wellbeing and economic opportunity. One of the things I outlined in the book is an agenda for reform of that legal immigration system that's more analogous to what Canada has, which is zeroing in on particular skills that our economy will most benefit from and all Americans will benefit from
Josh King:
In the area of technology Dave's Superpower in Peril uses, I will posit a relatively unsympathetic villain in Huawei to demonstrate the perils of Chinese dominance in technology. But I'd wager without asking for proof that you and Dina have a couple of iPhones and iPads lying around. Until a spate of recent stories about expanding manufacturing in India and buying microchips made here in Arizona, Apple has been producing about 95% of its products in China.
I want to hear a clip of Tim Cook speaking at an event late last year at the Taiwan semiconductor manufacturing facility that was just opening up in Arizona.
Tim Cook:
Good afternoon, and hello everyone. I am so glad to be here to celebrate this milestone with you. We're joined this afternoon by President Biden whose president sends a powerful signal about the significance of this moment. President Biden, thank you for your leadership and thank you especially for signing the CHIPS Act into law, which will make more and more projects like this one possible.
Josh King:
Dave, you say in your book that President Biden's CHIP Act is both flawed and incomplete. Why?
David McCormick:
First of all, the sentiment, what's behind it, I think was good in the following sense. We have made a huge strategic failure in the sense that our entire semiconductor industry is offshore. That creates huge national security risk. 90% of the semiconductors we need are manufactured 90 miles from mainland China. This is madness.
It is a bipartisan failure. The CHIPS Act is a first step designed to try to address that. I think there's three things that are flaws. One is the government should be much more involved in basic R&D. We spend about half of what we did on basic R&D as a percentage of GDP than we did in 1950. That's something that the government should play a unique role in from a national security perspective.
Second, I argue in the book that we shouldn't do what China does, which is state-owned enterprises and subsidization. But the CHIPS Act is more analogous to traditional industrial policy, in the sense that it directs money to specific companies.
And second, soon after the CHIPS Act was passed, you saw the Commerce Department roll out a set of policies where that were designed to ensure that if you were going to get government money, you had to have certain healthcare standards and diversity and inclusion, a whole series of other things, which is exactly the problem with industrial policy. It's a slippery slope of the government imposing either political mandates or agendas beyond those that market forces would necessarily dictate.
I applaud the goal, but I think it was failed in its execution. And what I try to outline in the book is we can't have traditional industrial costs. We also can't have China state-owned enterprises. What we need to do is have a set of policies that are directing private capital to the areas that matter most for America's security and doing that through thoughtful tax incentives or co-investment by the government that draws in private capital and doesn't suffer from the government picking winners and losers.
We know what that means historically. We don't want any more cylinders. We've got to have a much more significant flow of capital into these areas of such geopolitical significance. I don't think the government playing a heavy-handed role is the answer, but I do think the government being much more involved is, which is why I have a part of the book, which you may have seen, which says, "What would Milton Friedman say?"
Milton Friedman, I'm not sure what he would say. He would probably argue against what I'm arguing for. My response to Milton is, "Hey, we're losing." And so we've got to find ways to draw market forces into our policy toolkit in a way that solves the policy problem, but doesn't sacrifice some basic principles of markets.
Josh King:
So we've talked about talent, we've talked about technology. Let's finish this sort of central part of the book on data. ICE's second quarter earnings are going to be released on Thursday. About a third of our business is literally data services, but data really infuses the whole business. And Bridgewater's systems too, you wrote, ran on millions of pieces of data. I used to think that was somewhat a cliche phrase to say, "Data is the new oil. We've used it on this show a couple of times." But why do you believe data is the new sunshine?
David McCormick:
Well, first of all, data is of enormous strategic significance for innovation, for national security, for personal privacy, for social behavior. Its importance is growing exponentially, and that's why it's of such strategic importance. The reason it's not like oil is it's non-rival.
What that means is it can be used over and over again. It's got added power for that reason. And this is an area where China also has a plan and we don't have a plan. And China, because of its authoritarian model, has access to data and is using data in ways that I'm not advocating we should do, but it gives it enormous advantage. We've got really no national data strategy. We don't have adequate privacy to protect individual data. We don't have adequate guidelines for sharing data for innovation purposes.
We don't even have appropriate liability that I argue from a social media perspective in terms of guiding the marketplace of ideas, which in my estimation is tilted in a very significant way in terms of the social media atmosphere, which is where the majority of Americans, a growing number of Americans are getting their information. What I argue for is a data framework that talks about how we use data at home, but also how we collaborate abroad to make sure that the power of data is brought to bear in preserving US economic and national security leadership.
Josh King:
Moving forward into leadership, because it's a good segue, let's finish up our conversation with part three of your book, which is Leading Renewal. Let's start with a conversation that your old friend and mentor, the former Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Bob Kimmet, had a couple of years ago sounding the alarm on China in his conversation with David Weston on Bloomberg. Let's take a listen.
Bob Kimmet:
But let's be clear. We are in a decades-long competition with China, not just on trade, but also political, military and other issues. We thrive on competition. Let's all play by the rules and continue to compete. So I think this trade deal will be an important next step, but we are looking at decades of competition between our two countries and by the way, our two systems,
Josh King:
Your view is confront China, secure America. How do we do that?
David McCormick:
Well, on the China front, there's sort of two things I argue. The first, and this can't be lost and I don't hear enough of it, we need to go to the gym at home. We need to build muscle at home. Part of our challenge with China is we're not doing the right work at home.
And then, so that whole education reform, data security, all the technology policy, those are necessary to have the kinds of strength at home that we need to confront China. That has nothing to do with what China does. It has everything to do with what we do. And so that's a big part of the book. But the second thing we to do is have a whole of nation strategy for dealing with the challenge of China. I lay out four or five pieces of that, first and foremost, strategic decoupling.
What I argue for there is the things that have enormous national security implications or economic implications where we should reduce our dependency. Semiconductors is the best example. Pharmaceuticals is another. Think about this as concentric circles. There's a set of things in the closest concentric circles that we wouldn't want anyone to have control of, but certainly not the Chinese who are our primary adversary. We've let ourselves become dependent and we need to bring that home.
I am not one who's arguing for a complete decoupling. I think that very practically speaking would be very difficult, would have enormous economic implications. Going through the campaign trail in Pennsylvania, you go to a manufacturing facility and they say, "Listen, we need to stop the unfair trade practices of China." I agree, and I argue for that. But I go to a Harley-Davidson supplier and they say, "Hey, listen, we want to have access to Chinese markets because we're selling our Harley-Davidsons there and the racks we make for the back, 80% of that business goes to China."
And so I think it's probably okay to sell racks for Harley Davidson and motorcycles to China and probably natural gas and other things that would create their dependency on us, but not those things that work dependent on them. So strategic decoupling is one.
Two, investment reviews. I think it's shocking at this point that we have venture capital firms in the Silicon Valley investing in artificial intelligence companies in China, whose primary customer is the PLA, the Chinese military or the Communist Party. We need to have a reverse CS to review those kinds of investments and stop them.
Third thing we need to do is hold China accountable for bad behavior. The most notable is Coronavirus. It's also an example of where we're not having an open and honest debate. And from a media perspective, the idea three years ago that the COVID virus might have emanated from a lab in Wuhan, given that it started in Wuhan and that the lab does such research was viewed as conspiracy theory, we couldn't even talk about it.
Now, three years later, we have acknowledgement that our intelligence services think that that's a real possibility. That kind of thing we need to hold China accountable for. And then finally, we need to have a much more, and we're start starting to see this, clear strategy for how we engage with our partners around the world like the Philippines, like Australia, like Japan, to ensure that we have a set of alliances that will help check Chinese economic and security aggression abroad. That's the outline for that I put forth in the book.
Josh King:
Dave, one of the final chapters is reviving institutions. And it spans really from your days playing for your high school football coach at Bloomsburg High School, Tom Lynn to ESG pressures that you and your colleagues felt at Bridgewater to what you see as the current risk aversion in the military. How do we get more people like Coach Lynn to speak the truth, call people out and get leaders to assume responsibility for what happens on the field?
David McCormick:
Yeah, I really try to imagine, first of all, you can write a policy book but I got halfway through writing the policy book and I said, "Well, if we don't have the right leaders to carry this forward, it doesn't..." You can have all the great ideas in the world. But the leadership is an incredibly important part of the equation.
And you need leaders that demonstrate a certain set of characteristics, which I talk about. But I think we need also leaders to renew our institutions. I argue that we have real institutional corrosion across all the institutions, whether it's our military or our business community. We see that in one of the most important factors of leadership, which is trust, which the American people have lost trust in their Congress, in their public officials, in their business leaders, even in their military, which for decades had been at the pinnacle of public trust.
And there's lots of reasons for that. But I think first and foremost, there's this notion of institutional decline where institutions are starting to take on a life of their own and putting forth policies and agendas that aren't necessarily in line with their missions, their core missions or their core goal.
The examples I use, for example, are the military where I think the sustainability agenda has almost hijacked the military agenda and the Biden administration, the army, which I of course feel particularly allegiance to, released its climate change strategy before it released its war fighting strategy. What I talk about there, I try to do this in a very thoughtful way. I try to acknowledge what the goals are, but I think we've lost true north in terms of institutional leadership. There's some people that say, the only way to fix this is to blow up our institutions and start over.
I don't think that's practical, but I do think the right leadership at the top can completely reorient the direction. So I try to outline what that would mean in our military and driving the innovation agenda, what it means for business leaders that I think need to come back to the core principles of building businesses that maximize value for shareholders, for employees and for customers and don't go down the slippery slope of CEOs becoming political actors.
I think it's a very hard thing to stop once you get started. I know that's controversial, but I try to lay that out in a thoughtful way as somebody who's been a CEO of a public company, of a private company, someone who's been in on boards and sees all these pressures. I try to make the case for institutional clarity and integrity and leadership that drives towards those core missions. And then in the final chapter, I try to then talk about what the essence of real leadership is and what kind of leadership we need transformational leadership at this moment.
Josh King:
As we wrap up, Dave, and let's talk about a time for leaders and it'll bring us back to really one of your toughest days. I want to bring you back to your concession speech almost one year ago, June 4th, 2022. A recount showed that Dr. Oz beat you by 950 votes out of more than 1.3 million cast in the May 17th primary election. Let's hear what you said that day with Dina by your side.
David McCormick:
With the recount largely complete that we have a nominee. And today I called Mehmet Oz to congratulate him on his victory. And I told him what I always said to you, that I will do my part to try to unite Republicans and Pennsylvanians behind his candidacy, behind his nomination for the Senate.
Josh King:
It wasn't the first time you'd ever been counted out. Ray Dalio once asked you to become co-CEO of Bridgewater, but then he fired you and asked you to take on a lesser role and you could have left the firm. But for the next five years, you bore down, logged more miles than anyone else in the company and then rose to become CEO again in 2017.
Now, there are calls for you to do what Bridgewater did, be that man in the arena that Teddy Roosevelt talked about at the Sarpone in Paris. I'm not going to ask you if you're going to challenge Bob Casey next year. Everyone does that on all the shows that you appear on. But answering that call is for you to do at some point in time of your choosing.
But what I am interested in knowing is if you did do it again, answering the call for a time for leaders, what would you do differently compared to what you did 2022?
David McCormick:
Well, there's so many things that were incredible about that experience, but the thing that I learned most was finding my voice as someone who was trying to be a political leader, essentially was a full circle of understanding the issues and sort of working my way through what were on people's mind, but then authenticity, being myself.
I'm not suggesting I wasn't authentic in the last campaign. I was at every step of the way, but I think authenticity is the currency of politics. Authenticity is, I think, what's often lacking in politics today. Authenticity, I'm not sure if it's always a winning strategy. I'm not sure you can win by being completely authentic, but for me, the clarity of authenticity is the thing that I value most in terms of pursuit of public service is the thing that I would emphasize, that every question would start, every policy position, every opportunity would start with what do I authentically believe? What do I think and how can I convey that to the voters?
I think if you have that as your true north, then however the chips fall, you're going to feel like you've done your best and competed well for the thing you're competing for, which for me, was to make a difference. I think if you don't start with authenticity and carry it through from beginning to end, your capacity to make a difference in a way that you're proud of is also going to be really limited. That's the watch word, authenticity.
Josh King:
And you are authentically being surrounded by your two biggest fans your golden retrievers who are calling for you to get into the race through their plaintiff cries. I can hear them at the rally out in Western Pennsylvania right now.
David McCormick:
I think that just may be calling for lunch.
Josh King:
We'll wrap up real quick, Dave. But the circumstances of 2022 were one where President Trump was trying to exert his influence by anointing nominees, as he did with Dr. Oz, as he did with Kari Lake. I began my introduction talking about Chris Sununu, who doesn't shy away from distancing himself from President Trump, but he leans in hard to crossing over to appeal to Democrats and even New Hampshire liberals. What's the case for more people like Sununu, Mitt Romney as the future of the Republican party?
David McCormick:
I don't want to align myself with a particular person. The case, I think, that need the needs to be made is what I made in the book. I took 250 pages to make the case. I think the Republican Party needs to course correct.
I think the traditional Republicanism, small government of the party was inadequate to meet the needs of the people. I think the populist pulse that we saw under President Trump has merit, but needs to be aligned with some core conservative principles. That's the agenda I've tried to lay and I think that agenda with the right leaders is what's going to take the Republican Party, the conservative movement and the country forward.
I'm in favor of candidates and leaders that want to look forward and have an agenda like that. I'm happy to hear other agendas, but that's what I was trying to do with the book, is kind of lay out a roadmap of where I actually thought the country needed to go and the solutions for the genuine problems and crises we face.
Josh King:
I won't ask you to make any predictions about the next campaign, but you write a lot about your joy in attending the Army Navy game. I've been to the last two, the Meadowlands and Lincoln Financial in Philadelphia.
Last four of those contests, split two and two, Navy, Army. And Navy leads the series 62 to 54 with seven ties. Next matchup, December 9th, Gillette Stadium in Foxborough. Navy has a new coach. Any predictions of the next Army-Navy game?
David McCormick:
Go Army! I will strongly predict Army will win this game.
Josh King:
With that strong prediction, I'm going to let you go. Thanks so much, Dave for joining us inside the ICE House.
David McCormick:
Thank you for having me.
Josh King:
That's our conversation for this week. Our guest was David McCormick, author of Superpower in Peril: A Battle Plan to Renew America. If you like what you heard, please rate us on iTunes so other folks know where to find us. And if you've got a comment or a question you'd like one of our experts to tackle on a future show, email us at [email protected] or tweet at us @icehousepodcast.
Our show is produced by Pete Ash with sound engineering and editing from Ian Wolf. I'm Josh King, your host, signing off from the Library of the New York Stock Exchange. Thanks for listening. Talk to you next week.
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