Preet Bharara:

From CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network, welcome to Stay Tuned. I’m Preet Bharara.

Darren Walker:

Today, one of the things I worry about, and at the Ford Foundation I get to focus on, is just how many people in our country and in many parts of the world feel invisible and feel very much like they’re at the bottom.

Preet Bharara:

That’s Darren Walker. He’s president of the Ford Foundation, the $16 billion global philanthropic organization with the mission to, “Reduce poverty and injustice, strengthen democratic values, promote international cooperation, and advance human achievement.” Walker, who grew up in the segregated south in the 1960s, was one of the first children to enroll in Head Start, a national early childhood education program that changed his life. Walker joins me to discuss how to recapture the hope that he felt decades ago as a child, why capitalism in its current form is not working, and whether philanthropy can help remedy its ills. That’s coming up, stay tuned.

Preet Bharara:

Before we get to your questions, we have some exciting news. Historians Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman, hosts of the Now & Then podcast, are having another live taping and, for the first time ever in Now & Then history, they’re bringing along a guest, Carol Anderson, professor of African American Studies at Emory University and the author of The Second: Race and Guns in a Fatally Unequal America. They’ll discuss Carol’s scholarship in the history of voting, issues that can speak to our current intense political landscape. The taping will stream live on both Zoom and Heather and CAFE’s Facebook pages on Thursday, October 21st, at 6:30 PM Eastern Time. RSVP and receive updates at CAFE.com/live. Don’t miss this passionate about how our past informs our present and what we can do to be best prepared for the battles over law and justice still to come.

Preet Bharara:

And one more thing: the final episode of this season of Up Against the Mob is live. That means you can binge the whole season wherever you listen to podcasts.

Preet Bharara:

Now, let’s get to your questions.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes in a tweet from user @peacelovingRN. #AskPreet: “Do you believe the subpoena will be enforced that was issued to Steve Bannon? He was not employed by Trump & Company neither at the time of the insurrection nor for a long period beforehand. Thanks.” Great question and even greater Twitter handle. I appreciate that you’re asking specifically about Steve Bannon and the subpoena issued to him by the 1/6 select committee in the House, and also that you’ve asked the question in the passive voice. I don’t know if that was intentional or not. Obviously, the committee that issued the subpoena to Bannon and others want compliance with the subpoena, both the submission of documents in response, submission to deposition testimony, and perhaps open hearing testimony as well. As you know, Steve Bannon has, on the instructions of former President Trump, said that he will not comply under some dubious theory, and dubious is very charitable, of executive and other privileges.

Preet Bharara:

The question is who will enforce the subpoena, which is why I thought it was interesting you asked the question in the passive voice. As we’ve said before on this podcast and as I discussed with Joyce Vance this week on the CAFE Insider Podcast, there are really only three options. One is Congress enforce it itself based on an inherent ability to hold someone in contempt of Congress; that is never used and I think that we don’t have systems in place to cause that to happen now, but I guess it’s possibly on the table. The other is to go through the regular court system, civilian court system; and the third way to compel compliance is to refer the matter criminally to the Department of Justice and see if the DOJ will file criminal contempt proceeding because it’s actually a violation of a federal statute to file the subpoena from Congress. As we’ve also discussed here and elsewhere, that is a power that’s almost never used.

Preet Bharara:

The reason that I thought it was interesting that you isolated Steve Bannon, because among all the subpoenas that have been issued, probably the weakest form of resistance based on law and facts and precedent, is the one being asserted by Steve Bannon. Because as you very smartly point out, he was not employed by the White House. He was not in the executive branch. The executive privilege and other related privileges only apply to communications between and among people who can enjoy an executive privilege, and that means people who are in the executive branch.

Preet Bharara:

So the lawyer for Steve Bannon, who’s claiming that he doesn’t have to appear on instructions by Trump, is acting in bad faith. Every argument in favor of his not having to come testify is an act in bad faith. So what you have here is sort of a combination of extraordinaries. You have the extraordinary event that was the insurrection of 1/6. You have the extraordinary committee that has been set up to try to find out the facts and details and the causes of that event on January 6th; and then you have an extraordinary refusal to testify based on an extraordinary instruction by a former president who doesn’t have the power to assert executive privilege. That power is in the hands of the existing president because the privilege covers the office, not the person.

Preet Bharara:

So at the end of that combination of extraordinary circumstances, my view is, even though it has been seldom used before and it’s a pretty extraordinary remedy to get involved in, that this is a case where if there is a bad faith refusal to testify or provide documents based on nonsense and BS interpretation of the law, I think this is a case where the enforcement of the subpoena should go into that category three, by the bringing of charges for criminal contempt. We’ll see if Merrick Garland in the Justice Department have that same view.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes in an email from Jennifer. “Hi, Preet. Long time listener. How concerned are you about what is being called the slow-moving coup. Bill Maher laid out the doomsday scenario last week and it got a lot of attention.” So, Jennifer, thanks for your question. I was actually on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer this week and he, Wolf, played a clip of Bill Maher and asked me about it. Wanted to know my reaction. Bill Maher said among other things:

Bill Maher:

Here’s the easiest three predictions in the world: Trump will run in 2024; he will get the Republican nomination; and whatever happens on election night, the next day he will announce that he won.

Preet Bharara:

I don’t see how any reasonable thinking person who understands even a little bit but the psychology of Trump, but the psychology of his supporters, and the dynamic that has been in existence since the 2020 election, could think anything other than those three conclusions and predictions are correct. I’ve long said that I think the most important thing to Trump in the world is not necessarily power, but attention. He succeeded as president in becoming the most talked about person on the face of the earth, which I think, for him, is an end in and of itself. And I just don’t see a way when it comes to decision time about 2024, that he’s going to cede power, authority, influence, and leadership of the party to someone like Josh Hawley. It just boggles the mind.

Preet Bharara:

So not only is the scenario that Bill Maher sketches out not outlandish, it seems almost certain and that’s a problem for a lot of reasons. Fiona Hill, who’s going to be a guest on the show in the coming weeks, has, I think, accurately described the 1/6 insurrection as kind of a dress rehearsal for the future. So I think all these things that we’re talking about, the big lie before and after the 2020 election, much of which we’re still learning about. We have a report from the Senate Judiciary Committee chaired by Dick Durbin that gives new details about the kinds of things that we’re going on behind-the-scenes to try to get Georgia and other states to undo the election results there. We know more about what Mike Pence, how much pressure he was facing, to undo the election results.

Preet Bharara:

That’s important as a matter of history and accountability to learn what has happened in the past, but as Bill Maher points out and others are increasingly pointing out, the more important issue is, what does it portend for the future? What does it portend for 2022? What does it portend for 24? The number of people who subscribed to the big lie in the Republican party, in Trump’s party, is going up, and the one thing about a dress rehearsal is you catch your mistakes and you learn better strategies for the real thing.

Preet Bharara:

One thing that Trump & Company have learned is you need very, very loyal people who care about Trump more than they care about their oath of office, more than they care about the rule of law, and it was some people who had a view that their oath was more important than the president that stopped a coup in the making. Trump will make that mistake the next time. We are already seeing in state after state after state in this country officials who are loyal to Trump and Trumpism, trying to take the reins of power changing some of the laws to allow state legislatures to simply overturn a fair and just election result. All of these things are happening.

Preet Bharara:

One of the things that I don’t necessarily agree with Bill Maher about, he said that in 2022, in all likelihood, the Democrats will lose the House and Kevin McCarthy will be the Speaker of the House. I have said, and some people find this controversial and also outlandish, I have said that there’s nothing in the law or in the constitution that prevents Donald Trump from being the next Speaker of the House. Republicans in the House, if they take it back, can vote for an outside citizen to take the reins of power of that chamber. People may think it’s unusual. People may think it’s crazy. I don’t think it’s any crazier than the idea in 2014 of Donald Trump winning the presidency in 2016.

Preet Bharara:

I know there are a lot of issues for people to care about and think about and worry about, but if we don’t keep being vigilant, if we don’t keep fighting for voting rights, if we don’t keep looking for accountability for the people who caused the insurrection of January 6th, if we don’t keep trying to uncover what Trump did to subvert democracy and violate the rule of law, if we don’t keep doing all those things and we don’t keep voting for the people we care about, and we want to be running this country, we could be back with Trump with more power, more influence and more anger and more craziness than we did in 2017.

Preet Bharara:

This question comes from Twitter user @87rubber who asks, “Do any Supreme Court justices subscribe to your podcast?” Well, that’s a really good question. I do know that there are a lot of members of the third branch of government, the judiciary, who subscribe and listen to the podcast. We don’t get subscriber information or name so I can’t peruse a long list and see if Clarence Thomas is on it or not. I doubt that he is. There are a lot of district court judges, particularly in the southern district, who I know enjoy and appreciate the podcast and I hear from them from time to time sometimes because I’ve forgotten to say something about the law that I should have and sometimes they just enjoyed a conversation we’ve had on Stay Tuned. I know there’s some circuit court judges because they’ve told me that they listen to the show and appreciate the show.

Preet Bharara:

As for the Supreme Court, I don’t know. But I do remember on one occasion when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was being honored at an event at Columbia Law School, my alma mater, she’s being interviewed by Nina Totenberg on stage. There was a moment before that where I was allowed to go backstage and say hello to Justice Ginsburg, who I know a little bit, and Justice Elena Kagan was there. As I said hello to Justice Kagan, who I knew from her time in the Justice Department when I was also there and also when she was the Dean of Harvard Law School, she made some comment about the fact of the podcast. She didn’t say she liked it or she listened, but she made some comment about the fact of the podcast or congratulations on the podcast and I said, “Well, Justice, you’re free to come on anytime you want” and I regret to inform you that she made a face. So I don’t know if that’s a function of what she thought of the podcast or the idea being interviewed by me in public was something that was unlikely to happen. But that’s the extent of my information about whether or not anyone on the Supreme Court deigns to listen.

Preet Bharara:

Stay tuned, there’s more coming up after this.

Preet Bharara:

My guest this week is Darren Walker. Since 2013, he served as the President of the Ford Foundation, one of the largest and most distinguished philanthropies in the world. Under Walker’s leadership, the organization has prioritized reducing inequality because democracy itself, he says, hangs in the balance.

Preet Bharara:

Darren Walker, welcome to the show. Thanks for being here.

Darren Walker:

Thank you very much, Preet. I’ve been looking forward to this.

Preet Bharara:

I’ve I’ve been excited to speak to you for a long time. So there’s a lot I want to talk to you about: inequality, income inequality in particular, the nature of philanthropy, the purpose of philanthropy. But before we do any of that, to give folks who may not be familiar with the size and scope and scale of the Ford Foundation, could you give us some metrics? How big is it? How many folks do you employ? How much money do you give out in any given year? Give us some stats.

Darren Walker:

Sure. Ford Foundation was founded in 1936, by Henry and Edsel Ford. Today, we are a foundation with an endowment of over $18 billion. We have a annual budget of just north of $700 million. We give away about 2,000 grants a year around the world in 11 regions.

Preet Bharara:

So why did you choose this path? You are, like many people including me at the moment and some other folks on the Zoom that we’re recording, are a latched lawyer. How’d you go from lawyer to philanthropy?

Darren Walker:

Well, I was lucky to be trained in law, but I was even luckier that I found my way to the Abyssinian Baptist Church after 10 years on Wall Street at Cleary Gottlieb, the law firm, and then at UBS, and I found my way to Harlem because I wanted to work in a black community and the iconic African-American community in this country. I had read in college the Great Renaissance writers. I had a sort of romanticized idea of Harlem. Of course, when I arrived in New York in 1985, Harlem was a very different place than the idea of Harlem that had been in my head for so many years. But I found my way to Abyssinian because I wanted to figure out a way to work in a black community in New York Cit. I was volunteering at a school called the Children’s Storefront School on 129th Street and I just became more and more embedded in the community. I moved from downtown in Midtown. I moved to 120th Street in the early 1990s, which was a very different time than it is today. There was no Whole Foods, for sure. There wasn’t even a supermarket. There wasn’t a place to send your dry cleaning. There wasn’t the kinds of resources we take for granted that you see in Harlem today. It was a very different place.

Preet Bharara:

You’ve spoken about your experience as a young person employed as a busboy. Could you share with folks the relevance of that experience to your path?

Darren Walker:

Well, the relevance of that experience is, for anyone who has worked in a restaurant and so many of us have had jobs on our journey in the food service industry, and I worked at a restaurant in Baytown, Texas, where I was a teenager. When you’re the busboy, you know you’re at the bottom of the organizational chart. You clean the bathrooms and you bust the tables, and your job, in part, is to be invisible. So you walk around that room, taking away the things that people discard, and you do it as discreetly as possible and you’re simply not noticed. You are often not acknowledged. Your dignity is not necessarily recognized, and that’s your task.

Darren Walker:

Today, one of the things I worry about and that the Ford Foundation I get to focus on is just how many people in our country and in many parts of the world feel invisible, feel that their dignity is not acknowledged, feel that they’re not heard and feel very, very much like they were at the bottom with very little opportunity to rise. I knew when I was 13, that I was going to be successful in some way. I knew that because I felt, even though I was poor, single mother, and many of the data points that might indicate downward mobility, I knew that I was upwardly mobile because I knew my country was cheering me on. I felt that America wanted me to succeed even as a little boy. So for me, today, I hope that at Ford we can do our small part in bringing hope and opportunity and to allow people to have the kinds of dreams that I had as a young boy.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think … I think it’s implicit in what you’re saying … that we have less empathy now? That America is not cheering for people like you in the way that they did when you were young?

Darren Walker:

I certainly believe that and, in fact, the data show that. Young people today do not feel that America is cheering them on. How could you feel America is cheering you on if the idea of higher education, which, for me, there was no barrier to higher education other than my ambition and how well I did in school, and today, I mean the idea of a six figure debt to go to college is overwhelming. So how would you feel your country was cheering you on if education costs that much? How would you feel your country’s cheering you on if you are low income, a poor white person living in rural America, dealing with the opioid epidemic that has been unleashed and that we knew about, and we allowed it to persist? How would you feel if you were a young black or brown man or woman in our criminal justice system? We know that you would feel burdened and you would feel discriminated against because, in fact, you are being discriminated against in our system. So I worry, Preet, that young people don’t feel that their country is cheering them on.

Preet Bharara:

You mentioned college, and regular listeners of the show will know that this is a subject I keep turning back to again and again, because there are people who think that, given how much space there is in colleges and given the cost and given that two-thirds of Americans don’t go for one reason or another, that we place too much emphasis on higher education. Do you think that’s true or should we continue to place a lot of emphasis on higher education as a path to mobility, upward mobility, rather than downward mobility? Or, should we think of ways as a society, and perhaps even the Ford Foundation as a philanthropy, to make sure that we’re addressing people who are not going to or ever going to go to college and cheer them on in some different way?

Darren Walker:

Well, of course, not everyone is going to be college-bound. As you said, we’ve got two-thirds of Americans who do not achieve of a four-year degree. Let’s also be clear that mobility can come in the form of just a simple certification. You don’t need a degree, a four-year bachelor’s degree, to be employed in many high-paying jobs. So I’m not an advocate that we should have universal BA degree for everyone. I am an advocate that people should be able to maximize their aspirations with the certification, the credentialing that is necessary in order to have a skill, to have a livelihood. So, no, I would agree with those who would say, “Let’s make sure we’ve got strong vocational programs.” There are technical credentials that are not a BA, a bachelor’s degree, that one can pursue. The problem, Preet, is that many of those programs are for-profit programs, and so we have an educational system that has turned what ought to be a public good into a matter of private finance. Again, the predators take advantage of primarily low income people of color, low income rural white Americans, and they are doubly disadvantaged.

Preet Bharara:

Do you think that colleges, speaking of the third of folks who go to college and in some remainder of the other two-thirds who just can’t find a spot, do you think that higher education centers, public universities, in particular, should, as some people advocate, scale up? In other words, double or even triple the sizes of their classes and make curriculums available either in person or remotely so that more people have the chance to get that degree? Or is that not feasible?

Darren Walker:

There’s no doubt. There is no doubt that we made progress around digital curricula and delivering high quality, high impact education online. There’s no doubt that, that has been achieved and you’ve got some real stellar, outstanding schools like Arizona State University is one of many examples. So I do believe there are ways to scale. I think, need to scale public investment and those public institutions. They’re the only mechanism that will get us to reaching the populations that need to be reached. Again, I come back to the problem of the system, which is because there’s not enough room in the public system, so many people turn to these private for-profit schools, some of which are reputable, many of which are not reputable and are predators.

Preet Bharara:

Now, there’s one challenge among others, I guess, when we talk about scaling up universities and doubling the class size, for example, and that is the alumni of some of those elite schools or public universities. I wonder if they will have the view that, that, in some way, lessens their degree, makes their degree less elite if you double the class size. Have you seen that kind of reaction in either that context or other context? People want to maintain some amount of exclusivity at the cost of not letting other people achieve what they achieve? Does that make sense?

Darren Walker:

No, it absolutely makes sense and it absolutely happens. There’s no doubt that efforts to provide an online education at elite private institutions, there’s no doubt. That, that pushback is real, and the reality is the elite privates, they really don’t have an imperative, a reason or want to prioritize that. I mean, it’s just not who they are as institutions-

Preet Bharara:

Can we pause on that? Because-

Darren Walker:

Sure.

Preet Bharara:

I guess I don’t unders … I mean, I went to an elite college in law school and you’d like to think that these institutions of higher learning have as part of their mission public good. So it’s interesting when you say, and maybe it’s a stated mission but they fall short in practice, but wouldn’t you think that the great institutions of higher learning in this country should have that ambition rather than maintaining the status quo?

Darren Walker:

Well, let’s be clear. These institutions are called elite and elitist for a reason.

Preet Bharara:

That’s true. That’s true.

Darren Walker:

I mean, they have no imperative to not be anything but that. They do not want that the value of their education diluted, people holding the same degree that they do. It’s going to take a lot of disruption to get private leads. You know, the Ivy’s, the small liberal arts colleges to move in this direction. The reality, Preet, is that most people and, particularly, most minority people and most people were concerned about getting on the mobility escalators, are not going to those schools. In fact, we know from the data that the schools that actually provide more upward mobility are not the Ivy’s and the liberal art elites, it’s CUNY, it’s the Cal-State system. Those institutions move more people from the second and third quartiles up to the top than than do even the elites. So let’s focus on those institutions and strengthen them and provide them with the necessary resources so that they can scale and provide an education to more students.

Preet Bharara:

I want to go back to something that you said earlier about the change over time in whether or not people are getting cheered on like you felt that you were by America. So some things have gone backwards, I think that’s clear, and, as you point out, the data show that. But some things arguably have gotten better. One of those things is personal to you and I know you think about and you’ve talked about a little bit of the bizarreness of the legacy of running a Ford Foundation that was founded by a family who had members who might not be pleased with who leads the Ford Foundation now. This is the way you put it and I found this fascinating. “Henry Ford never imagined that a black, gay man would be president of this foundation, but that’s what’s great about American philanthropy, that it continues to evolve.” Is that evolution? Is that irony? Or, is that a one-off in your case?

Darren Walker:

I think it’s two of the three. I think there’s no doubt that it’s the evolution, and I could have said that’s what is great about America. Not just American philanthropy. I think, of course, there’s some irony, but there is much irony in American history if you compare the arc of that history over 200 plus years. There is absolute irony in the fact that I lived as a boy in Liberty County. The county seat, Liberty, did not allow African-Americans to reside there. So there was irony in the fact that we had to live in the next town, which was the “colored town” in Liberty County, Ames, Texas.

Darren Walker:

So there’s lots of irony in our history. I think Henry Ford would certainly be surprised. I think John D. Rockefeller would have been surprised that a Jewish woman in Judith Rodin was the president of the Rockefeller foundation. Andrew Carnegie would have been surprised that Vartan Gregorian, an Armenian immigrant, was heading his foundation. So that is remarkable that we can evolve. I think, Preet, what worries me is, at every turn, there have been entrenched stakeholders in the status quo in keeping things the way they are or bringing us back to an earlier time, that time when fewer of us were allowed in the circle of opportunity and that’s what I worry about.

Preet Bharara:

So what’s interesting about that is the status quo stakeholders, as you refer to them, happen to be among the very people who largely fund philanthropy in this country. I know from watching you and hearing you over time, that you’re very aware, you’re acutely aware of the paradox of your perch a little bit, that capitalism has failed a lot of people, but it was capitalism that birthed the Ford Foundation and many other significant foundations also. Explain to folks how you think about that paradox and how you thread the needle of being critical of a system that funds the work you do or has funded the work you do?

Darren Walker:

Well, let me be clear. I am a capitalist and I believe that capitalism-

Preet Bharara:

So am I. We can still say that, right?

Darren Walker:

Absolutely.

Preet Bharara:

Okay.

Darren Walker:

But if we do believe in capitalism, we have to also acknowledge that the kind of capitalism we have today is not generating the kind of shared prosperity and is generating too much inequality. So there’s a difference between believing in capitalism and worrying about inequality run amok, and I think that’s what I worry about. The kind of inequality that is so harmful to our aspirations, to our belief that it’s possible for mobility. So many of the people you and I know who have succeeded in this system, the challenge is they need to acknowledge the shortcomings of the system that produce their wealth. That’s where the rub is. I mean, it’s the difference between what I call the generosity paradigm and the justice paradigm.

Darren Walker:

Andrew Carnegie and Rockefeller and the others were very comfortable. They didn’t see a real problem with the levels of inequality. Their view was just we need more people to give and to be charitable. My view is really informed by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King on the subject of philanthropy, in which he said the following: “Philanthropy is commendable, but it should not allow the philanthropist to overlook the economic injustice, which makes philanthropy necessary.” So what Dr. King was saying was something different. What he was saying was we need to move from charity and generosity to dignity and justice and if we, as philanthropists, take a lens of dignity and justice, we’re going to challenge some of the very systems and structures that produce inequality. So that’s a very different experience as a philanthropist, as a donor.

Darren Walker:

When you give, even if you think about walking into Macy’s and giving at Christmas, the Salvation Army guy ringing the bell, well, we feel good about that, right? When you write a check for the homeless shelter or for a foster youth program, you feel good about yourself and you should feel good about yourself. This isn’t about making you feel bad about being wealthy or being a donor, but you should not simply be comfortable and feel good about writing a check to a homeless shelter. Justice will demand that you think about why is there so much homelessness in this city. When you see that person on the street in New York City, as we see all over our city, you don’t just say that, “Oh, what a shame, there but for the grace of God, go I.” I mean, you actually say there’s something unjust about a city, a country, where this many people can live on the street and it become normalized where literally we just walk over them, if you’re having to climb over people to just go about your daily business.

Preet Bharara:

So that should incentivize people who engage in some charity, then they should think about the structural reasons for those problems: income quality, homelessness, whatever other problems ail one’s community or one’s country. So, in that sense, in a way shouldn’t people be incentivized to spend scarce resources of time, attention, and money that they have working on structural solutions as opposed to contributing to philanthropy. Does that make sense?

Darren Walker:

Well, I think people can work on structural change and they can work at a community level. I mean, I’ll give you a very concrete example. I have a very successful friend who has said to me on many occasions, “Darren, I’m not interested in education reform at large all the schools of New York City. I’m focusing on a set of charter schools in Brooklyn that are almost 100% free lunch, low income kids. I want to get those kids a hundred a year into college.” He’s not focused on the structural problems of K through 12 and the need for reform. He’s focused on a specific school and a specific neighborhood. Good for him and good for those families that he’s decided to do that, and I don’t want to get into a binary where what he’s doing is not as important as what we are doing, et cetera, but I do think we need to be doing both.

Darren Walker:

We need to have a focus on the system, and then we need to have people who are working at a community level, one person at a time, making a difference in the life and that’s what we can do as individuals. You or I as an individual can do that, can change one life. That’s philanthropy. That’s a major contribution. But an institution like the Ford Foundation or the Gates Foundation have an obligation to be working at scale and looking for lasting, sustainable, significant solutions that address the problem and that reach and touch millions of people.

Preet Bharara:

Stay tuned for more discussion. We’ll be right back after a short break.

Preet Bharara:

You’ve characterized the business of philanthropy in various ways. Sometimes they seem to be at odds with each other. So you have said, for example, in philanthropy, we’re in the business of hope, and I want to know what you mean by that, but you’ve also said much harm has been done in the name of philanthropy. And further you’ve said that there is a problem of arrogance often in philanthropic work. What do you mean by all that?

Darren Walker:

Well, there’s no doubt that when you provide a scholarship, as I was provided by a wealthy Texas family that had been set up to recognize Texas, promising … I forgot the term it was … in recognition of promising Texans, Texas young men, or something like that, and so I got this scholarship to go to the University of Texas and that was life-changing. That gave me hope. That’s the kind of thing, whether it’s giving scholarships or underwriting programs in the neighborhood, or starting Head Start, which is what the Ford Foundation helped to do. That gives people hope and there is no doubt about that. But there’s also harm that philanthropy can do and we’ve got a lot of records of that. We’ve seen initiatives that were top-down, that weren’t considered by and with the people in the very communities and that that were not sustained and didn’t work.

Darren Walker:

We’ve seen in the early 20th century philanthropists coming together to support the American eugenics movement. We’ve just had the hundredth anniversary of the infamous meeting of American Eugenics Society that was funded by philanthropy, Rockefeller, Roosevelt, Russell Sage. I mean, you name the names and the gold standards were all behind this movement in the name of philanthropy. So there’s a lot to learn from that. There’s a lot to learn from our arrogance that comes with wealth and privilege. I mean, how many times have I heard some wealthy philanthropists say, “Well, if I could just get this organization or this system to do what I want, because I know what it needs,” or the number of people I was in a meeting once and they said, “Well, we know,” and the people in the room, we’re all a group of wealthy people, “we know how to spend this money better than government does.” I thought, “Well, that’s an interesting idea because you’re a group of techs billionaire, you think you know how to do that better than our democratic representatives.”

Preet Bharara:

When people say that and they exhibit that kind of paternalism or arrogance or whatever you want to call it, what do you say to them? Are there things that you wish you could say, but you don’t?

Darren Walker:

Oh, there are things often that I wish I could say, but I know that if I say that, it might give me satisfaction, but it won’t move the dial or achieve the end I want. So I learned a long time ago to manage that compulsion because there are times when you literally just want to tell people what you really think. So I don’t do that. What I say to people-

Preet Bharara:

That’s an amazing thing because your position is paradoxical in ways we’ve discussed and in other ways as well. You’re Darren Walker, you’re the president of the Ford Foundation. That’s an enormously powerful, influential spot in the world and yet it sounds like there are occasions where you don’t think you can speak as candidly as you want to.

Darren Walker:

Oh, it’s not that I don’t speak as candidly. I speak candidly. It’s how I speak candidly. I think it is important, if you keep your eye on the price, I mean, I’ll give you an example. I was with a group of people a year ago, some of them complaining about the taxes in the city and one person was … one guy … these were all very successful people, and one guy was saying, “Well, you know Larry. Larry has decided he’s moving to Palm Beach,” and another guy said, “Yeah, and Jerry, Jerry’s going to move to Austin. We’re just tired of the taxes. We’re tired …” As people were talking, I interjected and said, “Well, that’s really interesting that we’re in the middle of a pandemic and this would be the thing you’re most concerned about. I’m just surprised. Did I misread that? I mean, we’re in the middle of a pandemic and what you’re worried about are your taxes? Really?” I mean, and so-

Preet Bharara:

And what was the response?

Darren Walker:

The response was, “Oh, no, listen, you’re right, Darren. That’s not our high … We are concerned about a lot of things.” I said, “Oh, well, it’s dominated the discussion at dinner and I just wanted to make sure … I would hate to think that, actually, here we are, sitting in this beautiful home in the Hamptons around dinner, and in the middle of a pandemic, what’s going to dominate the conversation is a concern about paying taxes.” Wow.

Preet Bharara:

Speaking of taxes, this may be at a little bit out of left field, but you just made me think of it. Do you think there should always be a tax deduction for charitable giving?

Darren Walker:

Yes, I do. I think there is a … This is a unique American invention, which I think has worked tremendously effectively, and I absolutely believe we should continue it. I think there’s some tightening and modification that could be done to tweak it and make it even more impactful. But, absolutely. I mean, if you look at the rest of the world, I mean, there are the Europeans and the British are trying to figure out how to do a system more like our system. The thing that I worry about, Preet, however, is the way in which charitable mechanisms can be manipulated and can be used to shelter wealth rather than to put wealth out the door to charitable purpose. So that’s what I worry about, but I absolutely believe in it and think it’s essential.

Preet Bharara:

Going back to a theme we’ve been discussing that there are people who look at philanthropists, people who have a lot of money, and call themselves philanthropists and do good and give money to good causes and help people in certain contexts, but they got to where they got, some of them, by not treating their workers well, or by taking advantage of people, or by manipulating the system on Wall Street, sometimes even outright cheating and had sanctions imposed against them. There’s a view on the part of some folks, regular folks, that this is an enterprise not so much of charity and philanthropy, but of reputation laundering. Is that fair with respect to some of these folks?

Darren Walker:

Absolutely, it’s fair, and there’s no doubt, if we’re to have a really honest, candid conversation, that reputation laundering has been a part of the story of American philanthropy from the person who is the gold standard of American philanthropy, John D. Rockefeller, who, in his time, was the most hated, reviled, despised man in America. There is no doubt that he was. Yet when anywhere in the world you go today and the idea of what is the gold standard of philanthropic excellence, the name Rockefeller is the name. So John D. Rockefeller’s son understood this and in part doing great work, but always in the name of his father. That is why we see the Rockefeller name plastered all over the planet. So while I would like to think that sometimes I think we think that some of our contemporaries who are unsavory, if we want to use that term and turn to philanthropy, well, there’s a long history of that in this country.

Preet Bharara:

Are names important? Are those legacies important? There was a debate not long ago over the question of removing Woodrow Wilson’s name from the public policy school at Princeton. Has anyone ever argued or considered seriously changing the name of your foundation?

Darren Walker:

Well, there certainly have been people who have suggested that Henry Ford was not worthy of having a foundation, a charitable foundation named just as John D. Rockefeller. The same argument was made, which is why he could get a charter to give away his money. But there’s no doubt that it has been live. I haven’t heard it recently, I mean, in recent years, but there was a time, absolutely.

Preet Bharara:

Do you find that silly and beside the point, or do you find it worthy argument? What do you think of it?

Darren Walker:

Well, I mean, I certainly don’t … It’s not that I find it silly. I just don’t find the conversation about philanthropy names. I think these other questions of public institutions, not private, I mean, these are all private foundations. So changing the name is different, the conversation about changing the name is different than changing the name of a school, changing the name of a college or a public square, et cetera. So I think they’re different. It’s apples and oranges.

Preet Bharara:

Can I ask you a social question about how money is raised for many charitable causes? I certainly get invited to things. I got to wear my tuxedo for the first time during the pandemic so I’ve amortized it a little bit more, which is how I think about the purchase of an expensive tuxedo and it was a great event for a very good cause. It was held at a fancy place and people were in ball gowns and tuxedos, and there was a nice dinner and there was top shelf alcohol everywhere. It seems to me, I’m not denigrating that event or any of the others that I’ve been to and including the ones that don’t invite me … Why is it the case, and I’ve talked frankly with some people about this, why is it the case in a metropolitan area like New York, San Francisco, LA, that in order to raise money for a good cause, so much money has to be expended and so much red carpet culture has to be injected into that. Is that just the nature of how people with means contribute?

Darren Walker:

Well, there’s no doubt that this is consistent with history. So this is not a new phenomenon to the 2000s in New York. We have to face the reality that wealthy people like to celebrate. Part of that celebration is charitable and generosity and giving and wanting to genuinely make a difference in bettering the world. That is that a driver, but-

Preet Bharara:

But could you have a successful gala at like Five Guys Burgers or not?

Darren Walker:

Yeah. So let’s talk about that because that’s often said … I’ve often heard people say, “I’d rather just stay home and write a check.” Actually, there have been some organic experiments like this. I mean, there was a major organization that tried that and people didn’t give as much. People didn’t give as much in part because, in seeing their name, their names weren’t being seen as much. So when people don’t see … so when you go at the gala you attended, somewhere in the program, there were the top underwriters, the people who bought $100,000 tables, and then there are the people who bought $50,000, and it was all there.

Preet Bharara:

And you see it. But the-

Darren Walker:

And so the competition, the competition among the … and it’s there are some benefits and some organizations that do this really well, that understand that wealthy people are competitive. Robin Hood is great at this. United Jewish Appeal is great at this. They understand that people want to give and that they’re competitive at giving.

Preet Bharara:

I think you make an incredibly important point, generally, that the idea of competition is not limited to for-profit enterprises in the marketplace. I used to make this point when I was U.S. attorney. Federal law enforcement agencies are competitive with each other.

Darren Walker:

Absolutely.

Preet Bharara:

U.S. attorney’s offices, and we were in pursuit of justice and good causes, we were competitive with the Eastern District of New York. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. One other good thing … I think that it is important, when you’re trying to draw people into your cause and get them to contribute for there to be a gathering, because what I find is you get a lot of energy from the other people who care deeply about the cause-

Darren Walker:

Exactly.

Preet Bharara:

… And learn more about the cause and meet some of the people who have benefited from it and meet some of the people who are in the field doing the actual work. There’s nothing more inspiring than that. I mean, to me, the best part of those events is hearing about the great work and the lives that have been changed for the better by the organization that you support. I just also wonder why I have to be in black tie.

Darren Walker:

Yes, no, and I agree with that. I think the thing that you have to manage is that it doesn’t become a kind of woe is me show and tell by some group of black, single mothers or young Latino kids-

Preet Bharara:

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Darren Walker:

… who are involved in the kind of performative we’re poor, woe is us so that affluent white people can clap and feel good about themselves. I think I’ve experienced that, which is a kind of an extreme of what you described, which is a good thing, which is truly enriching, and that can actually happen at these events.

Preet Bharara:

Can you, in the few minutes we have left, can you engage me in a farfetched, but not completely outlandish thought experiment?

Darren Walker:

Absolutely.

Preet Bharara:

Suppose tomorrow. Well, not tomorrow. Suppose sometime in the future, I managed to get a number of people together and could raise money for my own foundation. So I’m starting from scratch. There are all sorts of other foundations that are out there doing great work, and I want to become a philanthropist. Let’s say, hypothetically, let’s make it a fairly large number, not large by Ford Foundation standards, but by normal human standards, let’s say I raised a hundred million to start a fund. I came to you, I said, “Darren, Obi Wan, what is your advice for someone who would have that unbelievably privileged opportunity with that amount of money?” What are your three pieces of advice to such a person?

Darren Walker:

One would be to have clarity about the impact you want to see in the world; two, to have a sense of the area where you want that impact to be whether it’s education, the environment, et cetera; and three, to approach your foundation’s work with humility. Those would be my three bits of advice.

Preet Bharara:

If I asked you the question, and I know you have a parochial interest in this, and I said, “Look, I have these 50 people that I’ve come across who all want to do something good with the vast fortunes that they’ve accumulated and they’re capable of putting together a hundred million dollars,” and I said, “Should we give the hundred million to some foundation that’s already doing good work or start a new one?” What would your answer be?

Darren Walker:

My answer would be work with existing institutions who are already having impact, add capital to their work, intensify it, scale it, accelerate it for impact. One of the real challenges in philanthropy is what I call the egos and logo problem. People wanting to see themselves represented and not focusing enough on the impact and how we get to impact. I had a person who came to see me after visiting Africa and said, “My family and I, we’ve got this foundation, we’re going to start giving away money. We’ve got a big liquidity event coming up. We decided we want to build health clinics in rural East Africa, where we love to go and have been going for years, et cetera, et cetera.” My question to him was, “First, who asked you to do this? Like what Kenyan asked you to come and build health clinics in rural Kenyan, Tanzania? And have you talked to the people who are already, the multitudes of public health programs in Eastern Africa?” They had done very little work on that.

Darren Walker:

For me, I always start with that question, “Why are you doing it? Who asked you to do it? Who are you consulting with to come up with your hypothesis of what is needed in this geography?” I think what I often find is that people want to … I mean, again, when you look at, for example, at what Mark Zuckerberg wanted to do in Newark schools, I appreciate and acknowledge Mark’s desire to want to help a troubled urban school district, but he knew nothing about urban schools. He’d been educated in private schools his entire life. While I understand he was relying on people who came to him, he really didn’t know enough to say, “I’m going to give $100 million dollars,” which is what he did, “to this project.” So I do think we need to really make sure we do our homework before we step out and say, “This is what I’m going to change.”

Preet Bharara:

Yeah. Money doesn’t answer all the questions. You mentioned public health. Can you speak briefly about the global vaccine initiative that you’re engaged in?

Darren Walker:

Absolutely. I mean, Preet, the reality of what is happening around the world as a result of this pandemic is existential. There is no doubt that we in this country have been challenged by it, that we are clearly not where we need to be. I think the president’s initiative has kept a focus on it, and we know that there are a lot of headwinds that seemingly get erected to keep us from increasing the vaccination rates at the pace we need. But, at this point, two-thirds of Americans who are eligible have received at least one jab. In many countries in Africa, that number is 2% to 5%. The reason for that is because they have no access. The pharmaceutical companies have prioritized the wealthy countries who could pay, and so we have this massive inequality in vaccine distribution that mirrors and only compounds the larger inequality that we see between the developing world and the EU and the U.S., for example.

Darren Walker:

So we need, and we’ve been working at grassroots level, with Charlize Theron and her foundation in Africa, particularly in South Africa, at the community level and at the grass tops with the IMF, with Gates, Rockefeller, Open Society, and other foundations to design a financing mechanism that the G20, hopefully, will agree to and align both resources, the policy changes around IP sharing, intellectual property sharing, for example, that is going to be essential if we are to increase the rates of vaccination in the rest of the world, which we have to do because we cannot inoculate ourselves to continued viruses that will be developed if the rest of the world is not vaccinated.

Preet Bharara:

That’s just common sense. I mean, the whole reason we’re in this mess in the first place is because this is a communicable disease that went from China all the way around the world in nanoseconds seemingly.

Darren Walker:

That’s right, but there’s a solution to this. I mean, here’s the reality that is so frustrating is the solutions are within our reach. It’s do we have the will and does this country, which we pride ourselves on being the most generous nation in the world, the place that truly is a beacon on the hill, and yet on this issue, while I applaud President Biden’s recent announcement, we are well over a billion dollars committed to this. It’s going to be a multiple of that number if we are to really get this under control globally.

Preet Bharara:

Darren Walker, thank you for being on the show. Thank you for spending some time and thank you for all your good work.

Darren Walker:

Thank you, Preet. I’ve enjoyed this very much.

Preet Bharara:

Well, that’s it for this episode of Stay Tuned. Thanks again to my guest, Darren Walker.

Preet Bharara:

If you like what we do, rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. Every positive review helps new listeners find the show. Send me your questions about news, politics, and justice. Tweet them to me, @PreetBharara, with the hashtag #askpreet, or you can call and leave me a message at 669-247-7338. That’s 669-24-PREET. Or you can send an email to staytuned@CAFE.com. Stay Tuned is presented by CAFE Studios and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Your host is Preet Bharara. The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The senior producer is Adam Waller. The technical director is David Tatasciore. The CAFE team is Mathew Billy, David Kurlander, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, Nat Weiner, Jake Kaplan, Chris Boylan, and Sean Walsh. Our music is by Andrew Dost. I’m Preet Bharara, stay tuned.