Mr. Ambassador, welcome. Im thrilled to be here. Thanks for letting me come home. Very nice to see you again, sir. Thanks for letting me come in this building. You know, ive been by here millions of times. I dont think ive been here in years. Welcome to this great stage. Were happy to have you here. Youve spent more than 20 years alternating between public life and private life. You did a stint as secretary of state, seven or so years as mayor of dallas. You resigned to run for the senate. Then you went back into private life, practiced law. Came back out to be the ustr. Do you prefer being in private life or public life better . Yes. Which one . Youre liking both. No, im going to make you pick. I can tell you that my bride loves the time of being an incomeproducing spouse. Oh, thats what she cares about. No, look, im blessed ive been able to do both. Ironically, as a kid growing up in austin, and austins a wonderful place to be from, but 60 years ago, we were still the segregated south. [evan] very different austin. It was a very different austin. We werent as welcome on this campus or anywhere else. All my dreams were animated by my parents passion to make sure that my Three Sisters and brother and i were going to have a very different future from them. They believed that everything president johnson was doing, which i have to note, because we have just celebrated 50th anniversary of everything. It really reminds us just what a wonderfully gifted legislator, president , and leader lbj was. But i was inspired to be the next Thurgood Marshall. From the time i was a kid, i knew who Thurgood Marshall was. He really did play a disproportionate role for you growing up, as a role model. He absolutely did. That was a wonderful editorial. I know were short on time. But finally just writing about the courage of him. Because i think thurgood gets lost sometime in the very legitimate debate about the role of dr. King versus malcolm x and the militants, because people didnt see the energy. But this guy was going into segregated courthouses by himself. Right. Suing white people. And this is long before most of the country knew him. Oh yeah. Even as a boy, there was this real i guess i can say it. Im at home now. But im 60. I can say what i want. But even as a kid, there was, there was this real big always asked us, you know, whats the difference between the Klu Klux Klan and the Supreme Court . The answer was, the Supreme Court wore black robes and scared the hell out of white people. laughter that was a long time ago. Thats a long time ago. But anyway, i was animated. Thats why i wanted to be a lawyer. Really, having watched my parents struggle against a poll tax, and fight for the right to vote, the idea of not voting, not being civically involved, was just not in our dna. But my dreams were all to be a part of that fight for justice through the courts. Your parents, at that time when you were growing up, were not passive observers of the world. No, no, no. Absolutely not. Your mother and father were both active in the civil rights movement. Your mother was a schoolteacher. Your father was a postal worker. My father integrated. My father was the first black postal clerk in austin, texas. [evan] in austin, texas . Not a letter carrier. We make that distinction. But a postal worker. Postal worker, because whites wouldnt even deliver mail into east austin. We had black and hispanic letter carriers, but he was the first to work inside. And they were very conscious of their obligation in passing on to your and your siblings the importance of all this stuff. I want to come back to race in a little bit, but i want to go into the administration and your work. Youve done something. Its a small club that you belong to, people whove served at that level, at the cabinet level of the administration. What was it like . Because most of us are never going to know. We only see it from the outside of the glass. It was humbling beyond anything i could have imagined. I was really flattered and stunned, to some degree, when i got the call and was asked to serve. You had known the president. I met the president when i ran for the senate in 2002. Youd known him. But we bonded, ironically he came to a fund raiser for me when i was running for the senate in chicago. Stayed behind and followed me on the elevator, and introduced himself, and said, im thinking about running for senate, but i know that when you ran for mayor you had two little girls. They were 6 and 3. Youre married to this powerhouse business executive. How the heck did you convince her to do it . So we bonded initially around family. At this point hes in the state senate. Hes in the state senate, married to a very prosperous lawyer with two little girls. So we bonded around the challenges of pursuing our love of Public Service but keeping your marriage and your family whole. So anyway, when he asked me to come in i was thrilled. There was only one answer. God forbid if any of you have a friend that gets elected president. And they ask. And they ask, you say yes. At that point, i kind of knew the realm of things they would look at a mayor for. I might have been transportation, maybe commerce. But when i found out the trade portfolio was open, i really, i raised my hand. It was the only thing i lobbied for. Why . What about having served as dallas mayor put you in the mind at the that time . But just so you know, to keep me somewhat humble, my daughters remind me, nobody else raised their hands. Oh, is that right . Theyre always quick you thought everybody raised their hands and you looked around. Theyre always quick to say, come on, daddy, everybody hated trade. Nobody else wanted the job. I reside in a territory my daughters affectionately call kirk party of one, the trade guy. But what made you interested, and what made you the guy . Well, you remember, in my introduction you were kind enough, i was secretary of state to dan richards. I was secretary of state to dan richards when we were fighting passionately to get nafta passed. [evan] that makes sense. Bill clinton was president and nafta passed. I know there are places around the country that dont think of it the way we do. But nafta helped change our texas economy. I got elected a year later the mayor of dallas. When they asked me, whats your Economic Development platform . I reminded people, i said, weve complained for a hundred years that we dont have oil, we dont have water. I said, we sit now in the middle of the largest trade zone in the world, at the time. The dfw is now 3 hours away from everything. If we cant make this work, nobody can. I looked at trade through a prism that americans say they want to look at trade, as job producing, giving us a chance to enrich our economies. Frankly, i did not like the tenor of the debate in my party. I am a lifelong democrat and will be. But its like it is now. All the discussion about trade is that its horrible. We dont want any more of it. I just dont believe that. We cannot afford to be in a position where we want the United States sitting on the sideline in a world in which 95 of the consumers now live somewhere other than here. Thats a losing proposition. Mr. Ambassador, the people in your party who objected to nafta then, and who object to some of the trade agreements that are in play right now. They say worker protections. They say human rights. They say Environmental Concerns in other places. We dont necessarily want to be we dont want to be in this business. Well, the one thing ive said to them, and if theres anything im proud of, when i took on this portfolio, i sat with the president and we talked about the challenges. He told me of his passion for this. He said, weve got to stop dismissing the critics of trade like theyre just heretics. Weve got to pay more attention to that. I reminded him i married a woman who grew up in detroit. I know what its like to be in a place where people feel hurt. The one thing i did, evan, and i love reminding my friends at the wall street journal. They wrote a scathing editorial about me a year in my term, for what they called my listening tour. Because i decided that as much fun as it was to go to geneva and china and paris and africa, that we werent going to win the trade battle there. The rest of the world wants to do business with the u. S. I took a year and i went to pittsburgh, and i met with the Steel Workers. I went to detroit. I met with all the auto manufacturers. I went to North Carolina to those textile mills. I went to maine. I let people bang on me in every place i went. And they did. And they banged. I met with the labor groups. But what i came back and i would tell my staff, theyre not against trade. They dont like the fact that they feel everybodys taking advantage of us. If you hear them, what theyre saying is, at least give me a chance to compete. Were americans. You give us a level playing field, we can win. But weve let everybody in our market. When do we get in theirs. What i said to them is, im going to hold your feet to the fire, because im going to produce a trade agreement that looks like what you said you wanted. Have you done that . So youre responsible, though youre out of office now. We inherited three outstanding trade agreements with panama, columbia, and korea, all over different issues. After our engagement, all of that, i never will forget, we im the only i said the first, leo gerard reminds me. Im the only u. S. Trade representative ever invited to speak to the united Steel Workers executive board. So you got through. The kids who worked for me said they just put out a press release saying they still oppose our trade deals. I said, thats a win. What they didnt do is ask 20,000 Steel Workers and Truck Drivers to show up to congress and circle it and burn the white house. I said, thats a victory. We passed the trade agreement with korea by the largest margin of votes in history, for an agreement, because we responded to their concerns. I know were going to talk about more. But this transpacific partnership, people say, we dont care. This is the agreement the one thats up now. Right now up. All those things people say they want, we heard them. Theyre in the agreement. Nafta was done 20 years ago. We didnt even have a labor chapter, or an environmental chapter. This is the first trade agreement in history that not only has the strongest labor chapter ever, but its now enforceable. You can make the the same for the environment. You can make the argument to labor and to environmentalists, mr. Ambassador, that this is a deal they should support . Im going to make that argument. I dont at all suffer from any illusion im so persuasive im going to turn them around. But what i can do is sleep well knowing that this president and this u. S. Trade representative heard them, and we did as much as we could to answer their concerns, not in a sort of pat you on the head way, but in a substantive way. But i will never accept the proposition that our countrys going to be stronger sitting on the sidelines and letting the world compete for all these new consumers. Because the best thing about my job, as opposed to being stuck in washington with all those knuckleheads, i will tell you, going around the world i was humbled. Going around the world with Hilary Clinton, the reception we got was almost frightening. Because the whole world was engulfed in the same economic tsunami. People all of a sudden looked at this young president , who they saw was truly the first internationalist, with his unique heritage, and the combination of barak obama and Hilary Clinton flipped our image around the world overnight. But the expectations of what we could do for them were just unrealistic. But everybody wanted to do business with us. Its going to sound jingoistic, but evan, im telling you, the most treasured words in the world for poor consumers are made in america, because they know, if i put something on the table thats raised in america, probably not going to hurt my family. If i buy something from a bunch of kids i read about in ut, you know what, its probably gonna do what they told me. And the cool thing, because they got all these rules and laws in america, if it doesnt work, you call them, and theyll either fix it or send you a new one. [evan] take it back. Thats not the case. What breaks my heart, in africa, 90 of the drugs sold today are counterfeited. Thats only because through petfar and what weve done at state and the world health organization, we brought it down from 99. Now, how would you like to be a mother with a child with a fever, and youre talking about a crap shoot, praying that what you think is tylenol or advil is close to that, much less not something that wont kill your child. Mr. Ambassador, you brought up Hilary Clinton, which is interesting, because secretary clinton, former secretary of state clinton, with whom you traveled and did all the work youre talking about, has recently come out opposed to the trade agreement that you are advocating for, tpp, Trans Pacific partnership. She had at one point been more favorable to it, in fact, wrote in her book how it was going to be the Gold Standard for such agreements. But within the last couple of weeks of the president ial campaign, either because she changed her mind, or because she felt pressured politically from her left, shes now come out against it. What do you say about that . I think its a great question to ask candidate clinton, as opposed to secretary clinton. Well, im asking ambassador kirk. Mr. Ambassador, why is she wrong and youre right . The opinions expressed by ron kirk are not those of the Hilary Clinton for president campaign. Well, let me put it and i have contributed to the secretary clinton. I was going to bring that up. I differred with her. I will do everything i can to prove this agreement worthy of that Gold Standard that secretary clinton gave. But what i can tell you, look, at least for me, my decision to support somebody is not because they agree with ron kirk on everything. But ive traveled and ive worked with her. I tell people what i find fascinating about the debate and about hilary, nobodys questioning her competence, nobody. But because we know her so well, now we want to pick her apart. Well, i dont like her shoes or pantsuit. But last night people got to see her heart. Last night, as we sit here, was the democratic debate. All were doing is looking at their character, and we have no idea if they can do this job. This is the toughest job in the world. It is brutally more difficult than americans think. This is not a place for somebody to come in and think they want to do it. Let me tell you, whether its secretary clinton, or the Vice President decides to get in, either biden or clinton would be infintely better prepared to walk into that office from day one and deal with the difficult issues that confront the president every single day. Is that your read on that . So thats your read on the race. Your read on the race is youre a good democrat, loyal democrat, as you said, lifelong democrat. Youre with whichever choice the democrats make. Somebody asked me, and they said always a fence sitter, because i wouldnt pick. But i tell them and youve not picked, youve not endorsed weve talked about it. I want to be in a world where the only action in texas is in the democratic primary. But were not going to be in the general [evan] its not the world youre in. But i know i never had more fun as a Texas Democrat than the 08 primary when we hosted right here on this campus, the cnn debate between president obama. Then senator clinton, and senator obama, and john edwards and everybody. It was we had more fun, because texas was in play, and we were energized. But weve got two weve got a fantastic candidate. No disrespect to those who support Bernie Sanders or others, but i think secretary clinton demonstrated last night that she is head and shoulders above the rest of this field. Have you formally endorsed her . Ive given her money. I signed up right away. I am giving, i love joe biden too much to do anything to pressure him one way or other. I want to withhold a formal endorsement until hes decided hes in or out. Are there any republicans you look at and think, im concerned if the Republican Party nominates this person that we could have a problem, my party in the fall . laughter well, look, we started talking about my love of government and Public Service. I think i was a good mayor because i ran on a somewhat arrogant proposition to the voters. I know what im doing. Im been secretary of state. Ive run Government Affairs for the city. I worked for lloyd benson. Weve done enough of this. Elect me because im not a politician. I mean, you think about it. Think about the absurdity of our campaigns. We elect people who tell us how little they know about politics, and they run on that platform, and we put them in, and then they prove that proposition. Then we get angry because it doesnt work. Then we gonna get another guy, you know, joe the plumber. I say that, i look at the republican primary, whether you think they were good or bad, think about this. The three largest states in the United States are larger than most countries. The governors of those three states, new york, florida, and texas, couldnt even get a blip in a field of 15 republicans. Were not playing verbal sparring here. This is serious business. [evan] i guess, mr. Ambassador we need serious candidates. I guess, mr. Ambassador, i was wondering not are you concerned about who might be the republican nominee because youre worried that they couldnt run the country. Im more asking, are you worried that anybody that they nominate could potentially beat your candidate. You know, i dont think so. Is there anybody in that field. Secretary clinton has prepared herself her whole life for doing this. I think once you know, right now, its kind of like being the other kid who might be better than swoops, who might be better than her. Nobodys more popular than the quarterback on the bench. But once you get down and it is the democratic nominee versus the republican [evan] when its a choice. Weve got a choice. The other thing is, and you said were going to talk about it, were proud of our president and our record. Were not running from what weve done. You know, ronald Everybody Loves to frame everything in terms of good or bad. Ronald reagan phrased the best question for american voters, whatever it was, 40 years ago when he asked one simple question. Are you better off today than you were when we came in . And by any standard, america is vastly better than we were, and i cant wait for us to run on that record. Unemployment is half of what it was. Our country was growing at a 8 . Now its growing at a positive. We have restored our esteem that our leadership around the world, in this president , this young president who singularly said i am not going to give up on this. Did something that everybody from eisenhower to truman to nixon to johnson to carter to bush to clinton to bush promised. Thats he delivered on the promise of healthcare. I tell all my republican friends, you are gonna rue the day that you decided to call this obamacare. Because the more people get it, and the more they understand, now i dont have to stay on this job i hate, because i can move and my childs not going to lose healthcare. Or my kids out of school and they decided to go back to graduate school. I can keep them on my healthcare program. Women should be entitled to the same services as men. People love the components of that. I think it is a reflection of this president still, of his integrity, of his resolve. I cant wait till we get past this silly season of the primaries and then we have a real substantive debate. You mentioned a bunch of areas in which you believe the world, and the country, is better than it was at the beginning. Are Race Relations in this country, having nothing to do with the president , are Race Relations in this country better today . This has been a hell of a year as it relates to its been a hell of a year. It began with ferguson about a year ago, baltimore, sandra bland. Weve had a conversation all year long about black lives matter, about race and incarceration, about race and policing. You mentioned the Voting Rights act anniversary, which was this year. But we seem really to be kind of in a weird place as far as race in this country. Whats going on . I know, i want to be respectful of your time. Thats okay. But i want to take you back to election night. Because it was just magical for me. I watched every tv show. I ran the Obama Campaign for texas. I made the decision i wanted to be here. I didnt want to be in chicago. I just wanted to absorb everything. I just i was more proud that it felt like that night, for just a few hours, we laid aside all of our chains and said, you know what . Whether you love obama, democrat or republican, this is a uniquely american achievement. Everywhere we went as ustr, the First Six Months i got nothing done, because id go into a country and they would have to explain to me what a big deal it was that barak obama was president. That wouldnt happen in any other country, because every other country, for the most part, was 90 homogeneous. They wouldnt elect anybody from a different faith. So we celebrated that. I remember the next thing we talked about, what it meant and all the great things, are we post racial. One commentator said, this has absolutely brought out the best of america. But im afraid its also going to bring out the worst in america. What weve seen happen, and im not going to sit here and tell you, with barak obama not only occupying that white house, but having been reelected twice, and reelected the second time by the largest vote since roosevelt, and the only president reelected with unemployment above 10 , that we havent made progress. I cant sit here, as all of those honorifics you gave me, and say we havent had progress. But im also not blind enough to ignore the reality, when you see the sort of venom spewed at this president every day, and the Republican Party looking the other way, that if you challenge the very birthright of this president , his respect, and we had a gubernatorial candidate who brought ted nugent in here, called the president a mongrel. How easy is it for a police officer, seeing a black kid walking down the street with his pants hanging down and a hoodie, to give that kid value. I dont think its an accident at all that the extraordinary attempts to delegitimize barak and Michelle Obama hadnt trickled down to manifest itself at a level that people feel like that all of a sudden its okay to do that. That venom has unfortunately moved from the street corners to the internet, and its harder to see, its harder to police. Its so much easy for people to act out on that and foment that. Of course, the flip side, mr. Ambassadror, is youve really straddled two different eras. Just think about how far youve come. When you were back in austin as a kid, as youve said, you attended a segregated school system. The world was a vastly different world back in those days. You became the first black mayor of dallas. You became the first black u. S. The fifth black the fifth first black mayor of dallas. The fifth first black mayor, because four other mayors in other cities had been born in dallas. Tom bradley was born in calvert, texas. Maynard jackson, who was mayor of atlanta, was born in dallas. Emmanuel cleaver, who went on to become the mayor of kansas city, was born in waxahatchie. My friend, the great willie brown, in san francisco. Was born in minneola. So your the fifth [ron] \and any of them first black mayor. [ron] could have done it. But my like my sisters and so many others, because of jim crow, we exported talent for too long. Its relevant to where we are now. I remind people, my story of where i am now is a story of what texas can be. Because when i was a little kid in east austin, working with my mothers twin brother at the sheraton crest as a bus boy, and at the cherried inn, all those white people i worked at looked at me and they saw a bus boy. Because thats all they were supposed to see. Nobody asked me what i wanted to be. Nobody knew what was in my heart. Now you think about, this is a manifestation of what a special country we are. In one generation, i went from being that kid, to being secretary of state in the state that wouldnt let my parents vote, to being elected mayor of dallas, to serving in this cabinet. I remind people now, you make a huge mistake if we think that all these young, brown, new immigrant faces that are mowing our yards and taking care of our kids, and patching our roofs, and fixing our streets, if all you see is a roofer, or a lawn boy, or a housekeeper, are you missing the boat. Because those kids have the same drive, the same ambition in our hearts that you did and i did. Poverty, language difficulties, is no indicator of what you can do. But if we empower kids, give the same tool weve always done, more than anything else, give them access to a quality education, and then let them fly. Dont put bars on them. This state better understand that were only going to go as far as this next generation of young black and brown boys and girls are going to take us. Thats a hell of a place to stop. applause mr. Ambassador, that was pretty interesting there as an end. That was pretty great. I kind of hijacked your interview. No, no, no, thats okay. Thank you to my show, welcome. Im happy to be hijacked. We wish you luck as you transition further into the next phase of your life. You bet. Thanks so much for your service, mr. Ambassador. Ron kirk. applause wed love to have you join us in the studio. Visit our website at klru. Org overheard to find invitations to interviews, q as with our audience and guests, and an archive of past episodes. Everybody loves to beat up on the Koch Brothers, in the context of citizens united. Before we knew what the Koch Brothers were they had done their damage. Because in 2008 they realized, we dont care about washington. We care about the governorships. Because whats going to happen is were getting ready to have the decennial, and were going to gerrymander the hell out of these congressional districts. It isnt an accident, in texas, in alabama, in ohio, theyve all followed the same play book. [voiceover] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community. Also by hillco partners, a texas Government Affairs consultancy. And by the Alice Kleberg reynolds foundation. fanfare Garrison Keillor after serving in the United States navy, Galway Kinnell was a field worker in the south during the civil rights struggle of the 1960s. Hes been a macarthur fellow, the state poet of vermont, and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book award. A poem expresses ones most private feelings, he says, and these turn out to be the feelings of everyone else as well. For i can snore like a bullhorn or play loud music or sit up talking with any reasonably sober irishman, and fergus will only sink deeper into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash. But let there be that heavy breathing or a stifled come cry anywhere in the house and he will wrench himself awake and make for it on the run. As now, we lie together, after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies, familiar touch of the longmarried, and he appears in his baseball pajamas, it happens, the neck opening so small he has to screw them on, and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep, his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child. In the half darkness we look at each other and smile and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body, this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making, sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake, this blessing love gives again into our arms. applause