John Podesta | Senior Advisor to President Joe Biden; Counselor to President Obama; Chief of Staff to President Clinton; Founder, Center for American Progress

John Podesta: Foreign.

Karan Takhar: Hello everybody. Welcome to the Zenergy podcast. I'm, um, your host, Karn Takar. And today I have the privilege of speaking with John Podesta, someone who has had an immensely impactful career in government. John Podesta is the founder and the chairman of the Board of Directors of the center for American Progress. He served as senior advisor to President Joe Biden for clean energy innovation and implementation. John also served as counselor to President Barack Obama where he was responsible for coordinating the administration's climate policy and initiatives. In 2008, he served as co chair President Obama's transition team. John previously served as the White House Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton. Today we discuss his journey into energy and politics. Inflection moments working with President Clinton, President Obama and President Biden. How, uh, future administrations could structure energy and climate policy to make it more resilient and so much more. Thank you as always for tuning in. And now please enjoy my conversation with John Podesta. Hello Mr. Podesta. It is amazing to have you on the podcast. Thank you for taking the time and I'm personally really inspired. Inspired by your career at the center of US politics really, and also helping to shape energy policy. Would love to kick things off by somewhat starting at the beginning. What did you imagine yourself doing when you were just starting out and looking back now, are you surprised at uh, how your journey has unfolded?

John Podesta: Uh, I got involved with politics at a very young age. It was during the height of the Vietnam War and I volunteered to work and then went on the national staff for Gene McCarthy's campaign. He was running against Lyndon Johnson on an anti war platform and I hadn't seen much of the country. That gave me an opportunity to really get around the country during the course of that campaign. But I got sort of the bug to think that uh, elections mattered, politics mattered, the direction of the country was important. And I was still in college and I finished school but stayed engaged in electoral politics. I worked in a Senate campaign in 1970 with then a young law student at Yale named Bill Clinton. He and I sort of became, uh, friends forever. And I worked on the 72 campaign. That didn't work out either. And we ended up, I ended up going to law school and sort of thought I wanted to be an environmental lawyer. I went to the Land and Natural Resources Justice Department. But I was kind of called back policy and politics. So I ended up working in a, uh, policy oriented job in the Carter administration doing national service and then ended up on the Hill. Was on the Hill for a long time. Before Governor Clinton was elected president. And then I went to the White House Day 1 and served with him ultimately as his chief of staff. And then again, really with great fortune and great honor. You know, it was just an honor to do it. I, uh, got to come back with President Obama and then come back with President Biden.

Karan Takhar: What do you point to as some of the inflection moments?

John Podesta: Well, two things. One, looking back that far, there were dark moments in American history. You know, I was working for Senator McCarthy, but I was in the campaign headquarters when Senator Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. During the campaign, I was on my college campus. But back and forth into the campaign when Martin Luther King was assassinated. Countries in great turmoil over both the war and civil rights. Uh, and we came out of it and we, you know, we did some things. Wasn't always a straight line, but we made, uh, improvements. Now we're another dark time. Maybe one of the most challenging in my lifetime in terms of the kind of authoritarian nature of the current, uh, administration. I've never gotten too cynical. I always think that if you kind of work hard, you can get back going in the right direction. And my old boss, President Clinton, says, we make a lot of mistakes along the way, but the American people almost always get it right at the end. Uh, this is just a long twilight before, uh, a better ending. So from my perspective, it was kind of staying at it. And the other thing I would say, really, particularly to young people who I think are, know a lot of the people who follow your podcast, be open to opportunity. Don't overthink your career. Don't, don't, uh, plan that I have to do X before I can do Y or whatever. If you, if an opportunity comes along, if it seems like it's gonna be a fun thing to do, if you think you're gonna get a lot out of the experience and learn something from it, take a flyer, uh, go do it. It almost always works out.

Karan Takhar: So when you were working on these campaigns and then it didn't ultimately work out, like, what was your mindset at the time?

John Podesta: It was usually, where was the unemployment office? And, huh, how am I going to survive for that next month or two after that, I just, uh, found something. Uh, like I said, I ended up, uh, going, uh, to, uh, Georgetown Law School after the, uh, McGovern campaign. And that was not only fortunate in terms of my career experience, but I met my wife Mary there. And, you know, we have three kids and they're all doing great, and, you know, adults, uh, and they have kids uh, one. My oldest daughter has two kids. So I think you just don't give up. Be tenacious if you want. If you think what you're doing is meaningful, believe in it. Just go back to it and, and keep at it. So I've had great people that I've worked with, great bosses. You know, obviously got to work with three presidents. But, uh, I work with Patrick Lee from Vermont on Capitol Hill, Tom Dashiell. They're great people to work with. And, and I think we managed to accomplish some things. There were times where the other side was winning more than we are winning. But if you could stop bad things from happening, if you can make good things happen, if you can improve people's lives, if you could kind of keep focus on the fact, particularly in government service, what are you there for? Whose life are you trying to prove? How are you trying to improve it? Are decisions you're making? Is the work you're doing making people's lives a little better, a little easier, giving people more opportunity, expanding the circle of opportunity in America? Uh, that's a pretty fulfilling journey.

Karan Takhar: Yeah, it seems like you're focused on what can you do? Not necessarily what do you want to become in status or like in title. And also, it seems like relationships were pretty core part of a lot of your professional experiences. You mentioned having great bosses, also becoming good friends with Bill Clinton. So how do you view relationships as you reflect back on your career?

John Podesta: You know, I think that those bonds, those friendships are kind of not just from a professional perspective, but from the web that you're building in terms of, uh, fulfillment, uh, is really critical. I encounter a lot of particularly young people who are always trying to networking so that they think that it's going to get them leveraged someplace. I mean, good for them. But I think mostly it's about the depth of how you lead your life and what kind of tracks you leave with. With other people. I've never tried to plan out my career or think about what the track was. I've just, I think, seized opportunity. I, uh, I work hard. I've worked hard and kind of like failing at retirement again. So I think it's important to be and recognize that you have to work hard to really make a difference. But I've never cared much about titles and whether my neighbors thought I should get a bigger parking space on the street. Uh, I still do my own shopping at the grocery store and cook my food and do all that stuff. Uh, particularly, again, if you're in, uh, the world of nonprofit advocacy or you're organizing or you're in government service, you know, you see how much, how hard people just work to get by and if you can be helpful in making their experience a little bit better, it's, it's really quite rewarding I think in the end of the day.

Karan Takhar: Well, thank you, thank you for expanding on that. A few more questions on the start just because I think it's super interesting to hear your perspective here. You mentioned some, some dark times and also like losing campaigns. And then I'm sure just throughout your career you've navigated some, some tough challenges during those periods. Are there any like, practices that help you get through those successfully and maintain that consistency and resilience that you were talking about?

John Podesta: One of the things that is actually important, I really started doing this when I was in the White House with President Clinton, uh, in the 90s is stay fit. So I'm still running. I'm an old man. I got really slow, but I still, I'm still, you know, out there running and trying to pretend to be racing, which I could do with people my, you know, against the people my age. I'm still, you know, like competitive for the over 75 year old set, I think that's really important. And then as I said, I think having a sense of what, what's the mission that you're off on? Is it just making money? Is it trying to improve uh, your community or the country or the world and do something that makes you happy? Perseverance into work is really important, but in addition just kind of trying to stay and healthy. It's actually really important. Otherwise you just, the fatigue overwhelms you, I think.

Karan Takhar: Who's faster, you President Clinton or President Obama on the road?

John Podesta: Obama never was a runner. Um, um, I'm sure he's faster than Clinton blew his knee out. So I was running but I, I never, I think I ran with him once but then he blew his knee out and he started doing, couldn't keep up. He started working out, um, and that was quite an occasion because he was in Florida at an event and he was staying at Greg Norman's house, the golfer. And he tripped and, and wrecked his knee and it was really a bad injury. But we had a week later, uh, go to Helsinki after he had serious surgery on his knee, uh, to meet with President Yeltsin to try to secure uh, an arms control deal. So having to travel and having to perform in a context in which you're just getting out of the hospital, being herded around in an ambulance, uh, to go to these meetings was. I was with them for that on that trip was really something else that you. That. That you could have the fortitude to. To uh, be able to kind of overcome the pain and be able to perform in that. In that setting.

Karan Takhar: M. Yeah, that's. It makes a lot of sense. Are there any examples of really tough situations that you recall that you point to? Is like that decision was a really impactful decision and it was, you know we're like back and forth on how to go about it and that come to mind. I'm sure there are probably if you just given incredible nature of your experiences. But I'd love to just get a sense of like how you navigate those particular situations.

John Podesta: Yeah, they, you know they. They kind of wash over you because there's so many of them in the White House. Everything you just. Something happens every day. You know, I always tell the story. I was there. And when people read newspapers and before there was. It wasn't before the Internet, but it was.

Karan Takhar: There's no what a newspaper.

John Podesta: People read newspapers waking up to seeing uh, the faces of two identically cloned sheep on the front page of the Washington Post and New York Times. Dolly, if I remember the sheep's name right. And I didn't know I was going to be then spending my next, you know, kind of weeks and months working on cloning policy. But that's what you have to deal with. You know, just things come at you and the national security incidents, uh, come at you pretty fast. I think the, you know, the most difficult situation I've been in with, with Presidents, uh, uh, both President Clinton and Obama, where you need to use force and when you know that the consequences of your decision both putting people's lives at risk, but you're also going to be taking people's lives from the actions that you're taking. That's a somber, uh, responsibility and somber responsibility for the advisors to the president of what uh, the scope and uh, context of those actions are. Those are probably the toughest things. Politics can get pretty frenzied and pretty heated and we were constantly under investigation, et cetera. But I think it's the consequence of those decisions and the moments where you have to decide, I'm going to go for it because it matters. Like President Obama's decision over the advice of some of his senior aides to keep going for the. As much as he could get on the uh, Affordable Care act to give people universal coverage in this country, that was a controversial thing. And there were people who were advising him um, take a half a loaf, take a quarter of a loaf, take a slice of the bread. It's too hard to get this done. And I think from his perspective, he felt like, look, I promise the American people are going to try to get this done, so let's just go for it. And it took, uh, Senator Kennedy died. Uh, there were 60 votes in the Senate, then there were 59. It was a really complicated bunch of maneuvers, uh, to be able to get it passed. But he went big, got it done, and there are millions of people who benefited from that.

Karan Takhar: That's amazing. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. Seriously. It's like incredible to listen to. And given that this is a energy focused podcast, I feel as if we should speak at least a little bit about your recent experience serving as a senior advisor to the President for clean energy innovation and implementation. Can you walk us through what that role involved and what you saw as your biggest priorities?

John Podesta: I, uh, had worked very hard both in the run up to the 2020 campaign and then subsequently to encourage the then Vice President Biden as he was running to go big on climate, and then worked hard on what was originally called Build Back Better. The climate investment strategy that he put in. It passed. I was thinking, okay, I could ride off into the sunset. One of, uh, my, one of the many times I failed at retirement. And um, I got a call from Ryan Klain, he said chief staff. And I talked to the President about coming back to really run a team that was charged with working with all the federal agencies that had a piece of the action to implement the major investments in the Inflation Reduction Act. So that was my principal charge. I worked with the Climate Policy office and the President's, uh, climate advisor, Ali Zaidi, broadly on climate policy. Uh, but my principal focus at that time was to make sure we got competitions for funds that were going to be, uh, dispersed by grant that. We got those grant proposals out and uh, available to people that the money was obligated. Think we did a very good job of getting that done. The current administration trying to roll a lot of that back. It's all being litigated because generally money that's been obligated, that's uh, consistent with the uh, congressional enactment, is a contractual obligation from the United States to the grant recipient, but that'll play itself out in court. So we did that. There was a huge amount of. The Inflation Reduction act was built around support for private sector investment and innovation through the tax code. So this was a kind of massive tax reform bill which required Guidance across a range of, uh, 20 plus different, uh, tax credits for clean energy, clean manufacturing, clean transportation, et cetera. So my team worked very closely with the Treasury Department to coordinate the whole of the federal government to ensure that, uh, the clarity of that advice in the tax code was released and executed and those investments were really paying off. The bill that passed this summer that President Trump signed rolls back. A good deal of it, uh, some of it remains in place, and in the near term the support for at least projects that can get off the ground on renewables, particularly solar, remain intact. But they're trying to cut back as much as they can. But what that bill did, the fact that there was certainty in the advice and what I think the public, the private sector saw as a sort of durable approach, set off a boom in investment. There was nearly $800 billion of investment in clean energy related, ah, uh, technologies, more than 400,000 jobs created. This is all, uh, before 2025, before President Trump took office, and tremendous amount of innovation in, uh, people investing in new, more efficient battery chemistries, new plants. We had the highest percentage of investment in manufacturing facilities in 50 years, uh, as a percentage of GDP in this country. So you had a booming sector. I wouldn't say it's just been completely killed, but it's certainly they're trying to throttle that back. And the result has been lots of jobs, lots of projects, cancellation of projects. And it's crazy to me because we're at a moment, which is different than it's been in a generation, where you see huge increase in demand for power, particularly for electric power, as a result of data centers, artificial intelligence, electrification and transportation and buildings. And they're taking off the table or trying to impede as much as they can the development of the cleanest, cheapest, most employable sources of new generation. It's a hard turn to the past and to the special interests that have controlled energy policy in this country for a long time, particularly the fossil fuel industry. The President promised him at one point sitting down with a bunch of oil executives, that if they, if he gave him a billion dollars to run his campaign, he would take, he would take care of them. And he certainly directed through executive order and otherwise his, uh, his cabinet, to do everything he can, including ordering coal plants that the operators want to shut down. He's ordered them to stay online or the agencies have ordered them, say, online. So it's a remarkable reversal, also has an effect more broadly on the economy. So we've seen job loss in the sector, we've seen Job loss in manufacturing, job growth is essentially stalled out in the country. The combination of the tariffs, other economic policies has called caused manufacturing to really, I think stall is uh, at a time where we saw the US again taking an affirmative lead in the development of these newer cleaner technologies.

Karan Takhar: Thank you, thank you for sharing all of that. I think you answered like three or four of my questions just in that one response. And firstly, I'm sorry. No, it was great. That's great. And I think speak for a lot of us when we say, thankfully you didn't tell Ron that uh, you're trying to retire you back and like you said creating all of those jobs, all of that investment was transformational for this sector just in the past couple of years. And I'm wondering from your vantage point just given now how the current administration is attempting to roll back some of this investment and some of this policy. Were there ways for future administrations that you feel could structure these policies slightly differently to make them more resilient to political change?

John Podesta: Uh, let me begin by saying that I think that the US perspective and President Biden's perspective that we can take on the climate crisis in a way that benefits the economy, that creates strong levels of investment, GDP growth, job growth, uh, and do it in a way that builds on the prowess and the innovation capacity of the country, harness our science agencies, invest in basic research, move forward with every tool that we have to create not just a more sustainable planet, but to create a more sustainable and a stronger economy. I think that is, was the central idea behind the President. You know the president was fond of saying, when I hear climate, I hear, I hear jobs. And I think that commitment to investment, innovation and integrating this into your overall economic policy has become the standard around world. I think at first it kind of surprised people and there was a question about whether you could get real emissions reductions through this process. It turns out you could do both. So what happened? We saw that strategy copied all around the world. In Japan they passed gx which is slightly different. It's looking at a little bit more in the future on uh, technology but definitely an investment led strategy in the eu adopted the green industrial deal, sort of spreading across the Labor Party, uh, came into office in the UK with a whole new and bold plan to invest uh, in clean energy to revive the economy that was burdened by uh, Brexit. In developing world. You see this focus on trying to build out supply chains, not letting China dominate everything from critical minerals up to finished uh, products. That's uh, happening in India. It's happening in Brazil. It's happening. I just talked to a colleague who's at the Africa Climate Summit. It's happening all over Africa to try to build into essentially greening the economy in a way that's also just equitable and sustainable. And I think that central notion that this is um, at its core an economic challenge but the tremendous economic opportunity is the place we need to come back to. So you asked the question can you make it more durable? Ultimately I think one question is whether the Congressional Republican Party. I've had different experiences with Republican governors who really love the investment, you know, want to see their uh, jobs created and businesses come and you know they want to, they just want to do more. Whether the Republican Congress can come to grips with the reality that climate change is happening. It's a serious threat to our health and well being and to our security and we'll uh, find ways to cooperate. You know during the fight to repeal these provisions there are a lot of Republicans who at least paid lip service to the fact that they like leaked the investments that were majority of which were in Republican districts and states and asked that they not be thrown out. And they got a little, you know, maybe they had some effect. But the ideology of sort of climate denial, science denial, pro fossil fuel that the administration uh, espoused won today. And so how do we come back to it? I think we come back with again with an investment led strategy. Wasn't that long ago where John McCain was proposing a cap and trade system. Mitt Romney, their 2012 Republican presidential candidate implemented the uh, uh, Reggie in the first big cap and trade in Massachusetts. So it wasn't Arnold Schwarzenegger was a, uh, active in, in, in California promoting a cleaner pathway for and with, with success. So either they need to come back to it or there has to be a kind of reckoning and where Democrats are able to convince the American public you got to stick with them for some period of time if we're going to deal with this stuff. But in the end of the day this will be a choice coming from the American people and how they vote. Assuming, you know, assuming our democracy stands and we're able to vote on that

Karan Takhar: point of the American public. Just curious as to what you feel is the reason for why some of this investment didn't actually translate into some communities like a lot of the Republican districts to buy in as much as one would expect.

John Podesta: Yeah, look, I think you know there is a lag. It's just sort of natural. I mean I, I look at the experience with the Affordable Care act, unlike the uh IRA which remained, the underlying programs remain relatively popular really across political spectrum. The investments in clean etc. The ACA was underwater when it passed and it took a while for people to feel the benefits of it. And the difference was Obama had two terms and he it, you know it passed in UH 2010 and by 2017 when Trump came into office try to repeal it, he couldn't do it because I think so many people were dependent on it. So there is something to the staying power of making these policies. You know, embedding these policies in reality on the ground telling a story about what will come but also seeing the direct effects. I think we could have structured the program somewhat differently and maybe had more impact quicker. Was in the consumer facing programs which were largely built around deployment through state programs. It's the way like liheap, the Low income Energy ah assistance program, you give the money to the states, they set up a program. Federal government has to have criteria for that. Then State Department has a criteria for that. Then the state government has to set up a system by which people can access uh the benefits of that, get their homes retrofitted or um, get benefit of uh, really zero cost home improvements that reduce their energy bills. I think we have to figure out a better model because in the end of the day I think one of the things that really burdened uh the administration and then burdened Vice President Harris in the campaign was the uh, impact of inflation. You could talk around the fact that it or that uh, it was Covid inspired. A lot of it had to do with um, supply chains et cetera. But people felt that and they wanted relief from it. And I think there were programs that could have provided that relief. It's in the process of being repealed where the uh, home tax credits to get uh, solar on rooftops, energy efficiency retrogrades that lasts until through this year but then will be repealed. But I think we needed to get that going faster. You could tell them it was gone but you needed to show them that was there for them. And uh, some states a little bit better than others at getting New York got its program up and going pretty quickly. But that was just a long cumbersome uh, process. So I think if we had to do a redo that would be a place I would look to get things going faster. Ezra Klein's got this book out on abundance. They're focused on permitting. I think it is true that there are permitting challenges. I think that subject and I think again I think did a pretty good Job of this, of political leadership demanding public participation, but due speed in getting the work done. So if you got people at the top who want to move things at the cabinet level, then things will move. And so we cut permitting time, for example, in offshore wind in half. The first meeting I had, literally the first meeting I had with cabinet secretary after I came back with Biden, uh, this is in September of 2022, was with Secretary Granhall and we were doing the long distance, uh, we were looking at long distance transmission. What was it going to take to connect these renewables to the grid, et cetera. She had a list of projects that needed permitting. Top of the list was a project that I thought I had resolved in the Obama administration. Ten years later, it's still on the list. Well, that's like unacceptable. And ah, it got fixed, it got permitted. I was at the groundbreaking for uh, Sunsea, which takes uh, uh, wind power from uh, eastern New Mexico to uh, Phoenix and Los Angeles. But that takes like discipline and work and really the political leadership determined to not let things get stalled and all separate issues around litigation. But for the most part, if your mission is to get uh, good things going, we got a little help from FERC towards the end. Could have used a little bit more, Congress could do a little bit better job in this space. But part of this is just keeping focused, keeping on schedule, being determined that uh, where there's a glitch, you resolve it, uh, and where there's a need workaround, you work around it, you know, because sometimes there are serious issues that arise from, you know, major projects in terms of environmental impact or impact on Native American communities, et cetera. You just gotta, you gotta get in there, you got to work it through and you got to find a solution to it. And I think if you're determined to do it, permitting can be resolved. It's not just a question of the barnacles that have been built up over the years. It's a question of will to get things done.

Karan Takhar: Well, Mr. Podessa. John, thank you. This has been truly incredible conversation. I'm um, feeling super inspired just listening to you talk. I see that we're a couple minutes over from. Feel like I could ask you a million more questions. I'd like to end on. I'll give you the choice. So I'm super curious about. Just given that you've worked in politics for so many decades now and have a unique lens as a result, do you feel like this country has come a, uh, really far way in a positive direction? I mean of course there are some areas where you might have gone back, some areas we might have moved forward. But overall how do you sort of view how things have developed? That's uh, one option or another, just advice. Question for young people. Is there any piece of advice that you'd give to yourself way back when you were just getting started out?

John Podesta: Yeah, I think it's important to think about this over the long, longer history, particularly given the challenges that we're facing in the current environment, which is the movement on civil rights, on LGBTQ rights, on um, a range of uh, support, uh, for people, the ability to really be who you are. It's just much more profound. It took a lot of work and a lot of organizing and so I think you just gotta remember that, stick with it. Uh, although the country's gotten a lot wealthier, we've seen a lot of increase in uh, inequality, uh, in the country over really kind of starting with Reagan. But it's been, been a long trajectory of more inequality, more of the wealth that is generating, going to the very top. And that's fixable too. And I think, you know, the country's still a great place, but it's going to really take a lot of work. And I think that the challenge that I guess my generation, even the next generation, generation after that, that came before this generation, my children's generation, my granddaughter's generation, uh, face is the structure of media is so different, is so different and to some extent poisonous. You know, so that is really that uh, division that's driven by trying to drive people apart, get clicks and eyeballs. And that uh, impact of, of social media makes just the challenge a little bit harder. More definitely harder. And it's going to take I think creativity to come through that. But the kind of work you're doing I think really helps in that regard to listen, to talk, to interact, to be open to ideas from conservatives, but to stand your ground and fight for a better future.

Karan Takhar: Amazing. Well thanks to people like you who are willing to share their incredible perspective and experience to people like me so we can learn from all of that knowledge and just learn how to navigate through these. And I think that that long term perspective, really, really appreciate that and thank you again for, for this conversation. Really truly grateful that you took this time to join the podcast. Thanks so much for checking out the Zenergy podcast. If you enjoyed today's episode, please take a moment to rate and subscribe to the podcast. It would mean so much to me and the rest of the team. We release episodes every Thursday, so Stay tuned for all new episodes featuring industry leaders building a cleaner, greener future for us all. See you next time.