Balancing N. Korea, Iran, Baltimore, and Annapolis, Ben Cardin, U.S. Senator

This is the one hundred and fifty-first episode of Public Interest Podcast with Peter Franchot, Democratic Comptroller of the State of Maryland, member of the Board of Public Works, former Delegate representing District 20 in Montgomery County, former Capitol Hill staffer, attorney, former Democratic nominee for Congress, former delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2008, 2012, 2016, and U.S. Army veteran. Franchot, a self-styled fiscal watchdog and warrior for the public interest, speaks about elected office as a noble profession in which empathy, compromise, and independence are virtues that he hopes will reverberate across society, generating a future generation of public servants.

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PETER FRANCHOT is the Comptroller of the State of Maryland. Peter is also a member of the Board of Public Works. He's a former Democratic delegate representing District 20 in Montgomery County, Maryland, is a former Capitol Hill staffer, an attorney, and a veteran of the United States Army. He's a former delegate to the Democratic National Convention in 2003, 2012, and again in 2016, and is also a former Democratic nominee for the United States Congress. Franchot: I have been a warrior for public interest issues all my life. I think my mother taught me always to stand up the police and in school and I always felt much better when I was sticking up for some of the kids that were not good athletes, so that is the genesis of my altruism that I've carried forward in my public career. Now that I'm Comptroller I find that every day I am working in the public interest primarily by helping individuals who are in financial situations that are difficult and complicated but also in being available as a state elected official. Cooper: After college you enlisted in the United States Army, which is associated with more politically conservative individuals, yet you made a career out of serving as a liberal elected official. How did you end up in the Army with such liberal views? Franchot: Well I actually didn't finish college. I was at Amherst College and halfway through my sophomore year I dropped out to go to New Hampshire to work on the “Clean with Gene” campaign with Gene McCarthy who was running in the 1968 Democratic Primary on an anti-Vietnam War platform. Ironically, while organizing college campuses against the war for Gene McCarthy, I got a draft notice saying: “Dear Sir, You no longer are protected by your college involvement and you are to report for the draft law,” which was a shock to me. Cooper: You left college to join a political campaign because of the anti-Vietnam war platform of those campaigns. And by virtue of your civic activism you actually ended up getting embroiled in the war. Franchot: My parents actually said I was pretty clueless that I didn't realize I was giving up my student deferment but such as it is it actually in retrospect proved to be a tremendous experience. I was drafted for two years. I spent 21 months not 24 months because I was allowed to get out early to return to college. But the Army was a great experience for me not in the sense that I enjoyed it but I was put on a troop train in New York City and sent down to Fort Jackson, South Carolina with the other draftees, who were a different group of people than those with whom I was previously associated in my life. Cooper: Despite your experience in the Army, you’ve never seemed to use your experience and your status as a veteran to your political advantage as have others, most notably former Lt. Governor Anthony Brown in his 2014 bid for Governor. Why? Franchot: I didn't have the kind of long-term career that Lt. Governor Anthony Brown had; I was just a very ordinary cog in a very big machine. But I will say that the machine the military proved to be enormously beneficial to me as an individual and I would recommend the military as a terrific stabilizing force for young people who are looking for direction in life. Cooper: So running off that idea, Peter I'd like to ask your opinion on a matter that you don't have jurisdiction over as a comptroller but that you might have theoretically had jurisdiction over the course of your 20 years representing the People's Republic of Takom...