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What do we find at the intersection of faith and the world?

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Our new podcast, Crossroads, explores this question

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and thought provoking conversations featuring guests from around the world

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who are seeking to live faithfully in the public square.

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This is a safe space to discuss politics, technology,

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and our responsibilities as citizens.

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Pull up a chair and meet us as we search for a better way forward.

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Welcome to Crossroads, where we discuss the intersection of sacred and civic.

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I'm your host, Jo Nygard Owens.

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Today on the show, we're sharing an excerpt of the conversation

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between the Cathedral's canon historian, Jon

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Meacham and Congresswoman Liz Cheney.

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A full replay of the evening's program is available on

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the Cathedral's YouTube channel, and we'll link to it in the show notes.

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Now, I was present for the conversation, and the energy of the 2300

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people in the audience was palpable.

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As we noted in the first episode of the podcast with Dean Randy, it's

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this type of candid conversation that people are hungry for.

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The words I'd used to describe the conversation

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are integrity, honor, and truth telling.

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And as Congresswoman Cheney both told us and showed us,

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never underestimate the importance of individual action.

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We hope you enjoy this excerpt of the conversation

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on Principles and Politics.

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Well, it's interesting because I think that part of what's happening

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is a reflexive partisanship, and it's a sense of, you know, look,

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Republicans vote for the Republican nominee.

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Democrats vote for the Democratic nominee.

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And I think that as a nation,

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all of us have to do everything

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we can to to pull us back from this

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abyss of, of toxic

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Partizan political dialog and,

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and look, it's something that anybody who has been in public life,

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I'm confident, has said things they wish they hadn't said, I certainly have.

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I mean, I think one of the things that I learned when I was working on my book

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was that when Speaker Pelosi wanted

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to name me to this select committee,

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not everybody on her staff thought that was the best idea.

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So one of the members of her staff

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went to her with a list, and it was the top

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ten worst things Liz Cheney has ever said about Nancy Pelosi.

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And there were more than ten.

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It was like ten. I haven't actually seen this document, but I can imagine.

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exactly what was on it.

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But to her great credit, the speaker looked at the piece of paper

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and she said, why are you bothering me with things that don't matter?

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And handed it back and and the point was,

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look, we're in a moment now where we have to save the Constitution.

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And, you know, Jamie Raskin, who is a dear friend

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and was a fellow member of the committee with me,

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Jamie and I would joke, we really look forward to the days when, when he and I can be disagreeing again.

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Right. Because it'll mean that, you know, we've we've righted the ship.

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But I think in terms of I've told you this story before, that

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I keep in my office a picture.

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actually, it's Dora's father, President Bush 41,

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and my father and Brent Scowcroft

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and, they're in the Oval Office, and

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and President Bush is holding a report that my dad has given him.

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And it's it's called Soviet military power, 1989.

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so that tells you the the date of this.

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But I keep that picture because it reminds me of seriousness

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and of of serious people and and you can agree disagree with policy,

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but getting to a place where you had a majority of Republicans

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willing to say, we will listen to the intelligence, we will read

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the intelligence, we will, you know, engage on substance

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about what is right for America to do in terms of the foreign aid vote.

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that's the kind of thing that we ought to be encouraging.

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And we ought to be encouraging legislating that's

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based on substance and not sort of reflexively.

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Let's go to our Republican and Democratic corners.

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So there's a wonderful story. One of the wings of a butterfly that might create a hurricane

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actually involves your father, in 1989.

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You all may remember this. The only room in America that would remember, what I'm about to say.

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the, That's not good for you,

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so don't mean you didn't get out more.

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Wait a minute. when John Meacham calls you a nerd, you know you're in trouble.

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I mean, like. It's like this is an intervention.

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the nomination of John Tower, senator from Texas

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to be the secretary of defense collapses in 1989.

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George H.W. Bush on a Friday reaches out to a congressman who's on his way

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up the leadership ladder in the House named Dick Cheney.

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Cheney becomes the secretary of defense,

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which opens a slot on the leadership ladder that is filled by

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Newt Gingrich. And one of my favorite stories about perhaps

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how we got where we are is the following.

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Vin Weber, then a congressman,

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had run Newt Gingrich's internal House campaign.

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George H.W. Bush, who had been a man of the House from 66 to 1970,

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asked Gingrich and his colleague Vin

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Weber to come down to the white House to have a beer.

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Talk things over, you know, classic retail politics.

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And they're sitting there, and Ben can tell that there's

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something President Bush wants to say, but he can't quite say it.

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And so they're on their way to the elevator in the residence.

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And finally, Weber says, standing there with Gingrich.

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Mr. president, what worries you most about us

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pointing to Newt and President Bush is sort of relieved to have this opening.

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And he says, I worry that

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sometimes you're idealism

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may get in the way of what I think of as sound governance.

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And Weber said, I've always appreciated that.

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He said idealism. He didn't say nuttiness.

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He didn't say even ideology.

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He said, your idealism, your purity.

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And when you look back on that early 90s,

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late 80s, early 90s period with Gingrich, with Pat Buchanan,

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who got, I think, 40% in New Hampshire on an America First platform in 1992,

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who talked about a culture war for the country in Houston that year.

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You see the filaments of this.

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Can you see filaments now of an answer to that?

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You're one of them. But when you look around, you must hear from people.

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do you believe there is a reformation in the works

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and you're in a Cathedral? So we approve of reformations.

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I think that it is

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necessary, that there be a reformation.

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But I don't think of it passively.

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I think that every American has a role to play in that.

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And I hope that what people have taken from

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the terrible lessons of the last three years in many ways,

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and people would say before that, but I hope what we've taken from

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that is how important individual action is and that,

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you know, if you look, for example, the Republicans

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sometimes will say things to me and publicly like, well, our institutions

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held on January 6th, it wasn't so bad because the institutions held well.

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The institutions held because of people, you know, they held

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because of the Capitol Police, on January 6th, who

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prevented, far worse.

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And they held because individuals who were in positions that mattered did the right thing

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and and the lesson for all of us.

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And I'm amazed at how many political leaders

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seem to view themselves as bystanders.

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But we also all have to hold our elected officials to a higher standard.

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And, you know, when I think about the most memorable and important and

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I hope, you know, consequential experience is that I had in the House, you know,

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before the select committee, it was times when I was in a debate

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with somebody who I didn't they didn't agree with,

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on whatever the issue was, but they were very knowledgeable.

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It was with another member or, you know, members who knew what they were

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talking about, understood why they had arrived at the view they had.

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You know, I hope that, you know, I had come to the debate as prepared

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as they were. And when you have that kind of exchange and you have you show that kind of

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respect, that's how you get good policy because you're willing to

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to listen and maybe you change their mind, maybe they change yours.

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But we have to make sure that we're incentivizing

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the elected officials who are operating that way.

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I would say I think it's important that the people who are conducting themselves

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around substance use need to be incentivized for doing that, and we have to be willing

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both to make sure that we're voting for the best candidate.

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But also people need to run for office.

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People need to go put their name on the ballot, make sure that, you know,

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we all have good options when we go into vote.

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So one of the ways we've come through, not dissimilar

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moments in American history, the particularly about the McCarthy era,

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Lincoln's birthday, 1950, he gives the speech in Wheeling, West Virginia.

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It's not until late 1954,

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that he's censured Margaret Chase Smith.

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One of your progenitors, gives

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a speech called Declaration of Conscience.

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in the Senate, she gets six Cosigners

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Republican senator from Maine denounces McCarthyism.

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Only six people, agree with her.

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McCarthy dismissed them as Snow White in the Six Dwarves.

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And yet for so, as usual, the women were right.

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it didn't took another four years for the rest of the Senate to get there.

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I'm at a loss to figure out what the McCarthy like

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step would be, except that

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we are the consumers.

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As you're saying, we are the viewers.

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If we didn't like cable news, we wouldn't watch it.

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So it goes back, as you're saying, to human agency

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and to people making fundamentally a moral choice.

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Right? Right. Yeah. Well, and and look, I am I'm actually optimistic

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that that choice will be the right one in November.

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That when this decision is put before the American people,

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you know, we were talking about this earlier. The majority of people in this country aren't spending day

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in and day out thinking about politics, usually.

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But when it comes time to choosing the president, people will need to be engaged.

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I think will be engaged. And I, like I have great confidence that pretty much any audience, any place

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in this country, if you said to them, do you want your kids to live in an America

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with the peaceful transfer of power

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where that is guaranteed with a president who guarantees it,

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the vast majority of people will say, yes, that's what we want.

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And the extent to which I think Americans want to be

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reminded that not only are we a great country,

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but that we're a good country and that our people are good people.

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And you want your president to be somebody

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that you're proud for your children to look up to.

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It's not a Partizan issue.

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Run for office.

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what else is on your list?

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Well, I think,

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you know, commit yourself, to to remembering

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how much ultimately our politics really matter.

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you know, you can't sort of think to yourselves.

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And I'm certainly tempted at times to think, my gosh, this is so messy.

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And it is it's it's a headache

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and not something that you would choose every day to, to be involved in.

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But we have to remember what an incredible blessing and privilege it is

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we get to live in a country where we we do get to choose our leaders,

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and we do get to decide what laws govern us.

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And most people in in most periods of history,

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in most places in this world, have not had that freedom.

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But we have a responsibility to make sure our kids know that freedom

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and that they grow up in that country. And that means be active, be engaged, be involved.

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It does make a difference, you know, write letters to the editor,

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write to your member of Congress.

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Make sure that politicians understand they're going to be accountable,

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and that you're watching. And people I, I've had people ask me, you know, well,

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does it really matter if I write to my, my member of Congress?

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And I will tell you, it does matter, and I will tell you my very favorite

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piece of constituent mail I, ever got

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was a handwritten note, that said,

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Dear Liz, I never liked you much, but I'm starting to

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and I all sums it up.

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I think you've gotten a lot of that recently.

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Every once in a while.

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Well, thank you, thank you. I'd like to ask you to close this out with quoting yourself.

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it's like the old preacher

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who said, as our Lord said, and rightly,

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this is a speech you gave at the Reagan Library after January 6th

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and the hearings. This was the day after Cassidy Hutchinson testified.

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And she's one of the individuals who showed such tremendous

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bravery and courage.

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This is this is actually quoting myself, giving a speech in my own book.

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I mean, this is like, really over the top.

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It's, it's a little solipsistic, as we say, but sorry.

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I. Asked. So let us all, as we leave here tonight,

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resolve that we will embrace the grace and the compassion

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and the love of country that unites us.

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Let us resolve that. We will fight to do what is right, and it will be able

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to look back on these days to say that in our time of testing,

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we did our duty and we stood for truth.

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Ultimately, that is what our duty as Americans requires of us,

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that we love our country more, that we love her so much

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that we will stand above politics to defend her,

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and that we will do everything in our power to protect our Constitution

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and our freedom paid for by the blood of so many.

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Liz Cheney,

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thank.

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Here at Crossroads, we end episodes by asking,

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where is the hope since our esteemed guests are not with us to answer,

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I would say that the hope was in the room that evening, and in every space

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where this conversation is heard, hope is found.

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When we're willing to talk and listen, even when it's difficult

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and when we work for a better way forward.

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And as I mentioned before, the full video of the evening can be found on our YouTube channel.

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We hope you'll join us for our next episode when we continue

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the conversation around AI and life in the digital sphere

17:00

with Doctor Robert Wolcott, author of Proximity

17:04

How Coming Breakthroughs in just in Time Transform Business, society

17:09

and Daily Life, and doctor Sonia Coleman, the Cathedral's director for digital engagement.

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It's a fascinating conversation and you won't want to miss it.

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Thanks for listening to Crossroads. And until next time, peace be with you.

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