YouSaid · the spoken record

Adrian Perkins

lines on the record: 69
first: 2023-07-27
most recent: 2023-07-27
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“That are starting to come down into these local races as well. So I think that our local level here in Shreveport, we're still doing well relative to state and federal. But I do think that we are on a downward trajectory to meet that type of polarization if we don't put some breaks into play very, very soon. We have to remember that we have way more in common with our neighbors than we have differences. And unfortunately, the rhetoric and our social media is not doing a very good job at reminding”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“2018 when I stepped in, that fabric was very strong and still holding tight. That's the reason why I think I was able to come into office with a coalition of young people, the LGBTQ community, a lot of white moderate voters, a lot of the African American community. But in 2022, when you look at what's coming out of Silicon Valley and our social media companies that are propping up the worst of our voices with algorithms is starting to tear that thread away. When you look to the other coast in Washington, DC, where I elected officials are removed from their policies and are putting out that rhetoric because it's the loudest voice, not the smartest voice that gets you on Fox News and CNN. They're ripping away their fabric. So the fabric at the local level that's holding together our democracy the most is still being torn it. And that's not even considering the political dollars.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I have very strong thoughts about this. So let me just say this, and I think I might have mentioned this to you. I think local government is the last bastion of the democracy that we were used to. And the reason I say that is because at the local level, if you're the mayor, if you're a city council member, you got to go to the grocery store and you're going to encounter not just your constituents, but you're going to encounter other city council members. You're going to have to go to church and you're going to counter other elected officials that you're also interacting with. You got, you know, Little League baseball games, football games, gymnastics, you name it, where you're constantly interacting with these people. So just spouting out harsh rhetoric and distancing yourself and polarizing yourself doesn't work well at the local level at all because you still have to keep that sense of civility. Now, I'll tell you, the nature of that changed between 2008 and 2022 when I was in office.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Times they do not want to hand off their mantle, their personality is so tied into the position. And that's not a trap that I want to fall into myself.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, it's not something that would drive. It's too soon. It's too soon. I just stepped out. And, you know, don't put it in context. I went to West Point when I was 17. I'm 37 now, like 20 years of my life was given a public service. So I'm literally just taking a break right now. It's not something that'll draw me, but I'll tell you, as much as I said, I was stepping aside. I've been more involved with local politics. I've given so much money to local commissioners. We got a sheriff Canada here that's amazing right now. And I have, I know the people that are going to run for that seat. And I've talked to them on the phone and I'm, you know, I'm encouraging them as well. And I'm going to support them so that we can get that second representative because it will mean a lot to the state of Louisiana. It'll mean a lot to the city of Shreveport. And I want to be involved. I just don't have to always be the face of it. I don't always have to be the one sitting in that seat. And I want other people, other leaders to realize that as well. Some of our older generation, a lot of”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you have more hands in that group project. My time in office, the fate of my city, the fate of our country will be so much better if we can broaden that group project. So I don't want to be, you know, I talked about me being a sacrificial lamb earlier. I don't want to do that all the time. And we need more people to get involved and make those sacrifices in the public sector. So that's what I want to do with the next generation. I don't want, I'm not saying I'm putting up the next generation and I'm stepping back completely. I'm saying I want to encourage the next generation to step up. so that if I was to step back in, I have more people pushing along with me. And that's why I give credit to President Obama. He often told, was very candid with the American people and told him that he was going to ask a lot of them. And a lot of politicians don't do that. They come off with this like strong man, a strong woman persona as if they're the answer to all their problems. And that's just not the way government works. That's not the way our society works. And if we don't change soon.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You are a young person, okay? Everybody's got their perspective. But by most measures, you are. No, no, no. I wouldn't say I'm done. I just tell people I'm not thinking about this for three to four years. And let me give some broader context about why I say I want to encourage younger people to get involved. America is a joint project. Like we are in a, it's just a joint project. Put yourself in a classroom, a science classroom. You got, you know, five other students that are helping you on a joint project. Unfortunately, with us narrowing what service means to you have to be in a uniform a lot of times, whether it's armed services or a police officer or a firefighter, with us narrowing down. We only got one or two people working on that project. My time in office would have been much, much better if we would have had more people coming and approaching government with the same mentality that I have on giving. And we have more citizens saying, okay, I can contribute too.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of love for me. I love my city. I gave it everything that I have. And I got into the seat-based op-democracy and I was taken out of it based off democracy.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know what, David? It was not painful to me because I knew I did everything that I possibly could. It was disappointing. It was some disappointing elements to it for sure. Let me be candid about that. I love this city. And I thought I was the best person to leave this city. I just finished leaving the city through multiple different crises. The disappointment was not knowing if my successor would be able to come in and keep the programs, you know, the universal pre-K programs that we were running, the public safety program, right? If they would have the competence or even the will to be able to keep those programs going and take care of the city. So I was disappointed about that part, our leadership not continuing on. But I wasn't disappointing or regretting any decisions that I made either. I know I did them all for the right reasons. And this is, you know, this is very much like a labor.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I didn't really care about making that sacrifice if I was going to be the sacrificial lamb, if I could actually get people help.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Being done in our community. So I was in that state of mind and some people were talking about the same, you know, obviously I was involved in state politics already at that point. And people were talking about the Senate race and some people actually did some polling on me without me even knowing about it and reached out and said, you know, hey, would you ever consider this? And I said, you know, hey, I want to stay focused the first couple of times they called and then I got to the end of my rope and I was like, no, I need to help my people. Even about change the conversation, even if I don't win, right? And I know the odds that I was up against. I was up against a mountain. No African American has ever been elected post Reconstruction in the state of Louisiana for a statewide office. But it wasn't about people got to stop making politics about them too and realize, well, look, let me just say that this is my philosophy. Politics isn't about me just holding this seat. Politics is about me being in the seat and actually doing something when people need it the most.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I do not know how I'm going to pay rent today. I do not know how I'm going to keep a roop over my children and say, this is before they announced the moratorium on housing. Mayor, I just lost my job. They just laid us off. They won't be needing us. I don't know how I'm going to feed my family. I'm hearing, you know, hey, you know, somebody just got shot in the neighborhood. I'm worried about the crime that's going on, you know, all these things every single day. just talking to my citizens I was like, I can't do anything else like I am at my limit and you know how powerful a mayor's office can be and I saw the bickering going on in Washington DC and the fighting about this and this and this and it seemed like they were taking their time and not realizing the urgent the sense of urgency that was on the ground if they were on those calls that I was on I promise you they would have acted fast and they would have understood how much damage was”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I don't consider it a mistake at all. Let me explain my motivations behind it because I've explained it, and for some reason, a lot of times the rhetoric does not get out there. And there's a certain narrative. So we at that point, we had already made the front page of the Washington Post. We had already been deploying resources to our community to keep small businesses afloat. We had started putting out micro grants. We were doing block grant dollars to help people with housing. And I saw a local budget cannot keep a city afloat, especially one where I didn't even inherit a city reserve. We are hitting our limit on keeping people afloat. But this is what I was doing every day. I was calling citizens and I would talk to 10 citizens a day about just like how life was going. And, you know, just to check on them, since I couldn't get out and do events, I needed to stay connected. And every fault, well, you know, just about every phone call, Mary.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“100%. Yeah, we had an explosion in crime. The pandemic year, we broke, we almost broke the record during the pandemic year. We did break our homicide record the next year. So going from a community to safest has been in 40 years to breaking a homicide record, the pandemic did a number on us. And people don't realize how low Officer morale was considering they were watching people stay at home, be safe from the pandemic, but they had to go out each and every day and expose themselves to things that we didn't even know about yet. They still put themselves in that gulf. And it was just hard to do policing at that particular time that a lot of think mental health issues were building up in our community because, you know, human beings aren't used to being stuck in the house and not going to work and things of that nature and not socializing. So it was, like I said, it was a cocktail for disaster for us.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Vaccine. And there's already very strong rhetoric against it. Little did I know those two forces would keep Shreveport as one of the lowest vaccinated places in America after we kind of broke their 30 plus percent threshold where people were the original people wanted it. And we unfortunately made the front page of the New York Times for that as well. They came down here when Louisiana was leading the country in lowest vaccine rate and was did a story about why people weren't getting vaccines, but I had those political currents, those religious currents alongside those historical currents and stigmas with our healthcare system in the black community. And there was a cocktail for disaster for us.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Polled was to me and to City Council on how we could mend the fences and try to bring people together. So I did that before the pandemic, before the George Floyd summer. So I was on a call with my committee and I was telling them and I was giving them an update on where we were with COVID. And I told them, hey, somebody brought up the vaccines and I told them, hey, we should be getting more soon. It was at the beginning of COVID when there was a mad dash on the vaccines. And I said, I think we're going to hit a point where African Americans are not going to get the vaccines. I'm starting to hear some resistance in the community. And there was a pastor on the line that says, you're absolutely right. We need to get communication out there early. We need to be proactive about it. And one of my white commissioners raised his hand and said, hey, I think you're missing something from the other side of the community. I go to evangelical church and I'm hearing people say that they're not going to take.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, if I can share a story, if you'll humor me for one moment, I stood up before the pandemic, I stood up a committee on race here in Shreveport. Coming from New York and Boston and being in the military, I quickly realized we had a racial issue here in Shreveport. So I want to stand up a committee to study it and make”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. I mean, that's the case, right? You got people not as many people with healthcare insurance. You still got stigmas on our healthcare system from the minority population, but also it was a density problem as well. People don't realize a lot of African Americans live with extended family, just like in other areas as well. They don't have the biggest homes where they're sharing their family. They share what they have. So that was a problem. And also at the beginning of the pandemic, I'm sure you remember there was a lot of misinformation as well. And a lot of the people that we were seeing on the news and hearing about the victims coming down with COVID. And this was trending on Twitter where black people didn't even think they could have it. So we were fighting that misinformation too. And unfortunately, while that misinformation was going around and we were fighting all those historical barriers, the virus didn't care about any of it. And it was ravaging our communities.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, you know, we were committed to doing everything that we can to keep our citizens safe. We didn't care about what people were saying.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You're absolutely right. So once again, big problem call in my chief technology officer to see what we can do with technology. And we realized, we gather some data on where our EMS funds were, and we were able to figure out that the virus is very much concentrated in the denser areas, the urban neighborhoods in our city where predominantly African Americans live. And I'll tell you at the time when I was bringing this, even bringing this up to Louisiana Department of Health leadership, they were pushing back saying they didn't want to stigmatize these neighborhoods. But I was able to push against them even harder to say, I'm from this neighborhood. I know that these citizens want to be safe more than they care about a stigma in this moment. And I'm going to publish this anyway. So after we published those statistics and we got all this coverage, the state followed suit. Other states followed suit. Other cities follow suit. You know, obviously when a story like that,”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. As soon as my stad, you know, as soon as I knew where the bathroom was, we got rocked. I remember being very proud of that and being excited about all the things that we could accomplish considering what we accomplished in that first year. And lo and behold, you know, two months later, the world around us completely changed and we took all those skills and efforts and we deployed them into just keeping our city safe. And we did a great job at it. We made the Washington front page, the Washington Post. We use technology in that instance”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was affected as well. We got a lot of praise for our involvement in getting out there and being booch on the ground in our community, not just when they're calling us about emergency.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, 100%. Yeah, 100%. As I told you, I saw the criminal justice system in law enforcement early in negative context. But I also was informed by my time in Iraq as well and, you know, understanding with coin and the way that we were implementing our strategy, you have to get to know those village elders. You have to get to know those village leaders and realize there's a much bigger gulf between me and a sheikh in Iraq than there is between a law and a police officer here in Shreveport and a neighborhood that they're. And if I had to breach that gap and I saw the effectiveness of bridging that gap and how we were able to get the intel that we needed, we were able to stabilize the communities that we needed, then yeah, it had a big impression on me that you need to know the people whom which you were patrolling, whom you exercise this type of power over. So yeah, that informed me big time.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. So the first year in office was the safest year in Shreveport in 40 years. We made a lot of headway on it. And again, we were leading with community-oriented policing. I would lead myself neighborhood walks at least once, sometimes twice a month along with my officers because I wanted my officers to be exposed to the communities they were patrolling, not in just negative context. And I also wanted them to see them.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So we did a good job at being fiscally responsible and still implementing technologies here and there. But yeah, we use technology in a lot of different ways. We use technology with our public safety officers by standing up a real-time crime center before I left office. We were able to get them more technology in the field to where they wouldn't have to do handwritten notes and we could keep them on the road longer with economic development. We always push having broadband and expanding broadband opportunities in our area as well to make sure that we had a very skilled and or the most skilled workforce that we can have. So yeah, technology was a big part about the thing we implemented just full responsibility. We did everything that we possibly could.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, yeah. Unfunded. And David, you know how long these pension funds have been around. And I think you can safely say I wasn't the one to start it and have put us in those negative positions. But don't forget healthcare costs as well. A lot of people don't realize they. And those things weigh heavily on your operating budget. You're having to use money that you have right now and put those and patch up those gaps. But even with all those fiscal pressures, after the first year, we had already pulled ourselves out of a deficit. I think we had $8 to $9 million. And then after the second year, we had over $15 million. That was without any federal assistance at all.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You need resources and money to do those things. When I walked in, and one of the secrets that I found underneath the seat of the mayor's office was that we had a negative $1.3 million deficit. We weren't even supposed to be running a deficit at all. So I knew we were going to be struggling. So I always ran to my CTO, my chief technology officer when there were bigger issues and asked him, hey, can Tech help us in any way? Unfortunately, they found some unclosed transaction orders to the tune of $3 million pretty quickly. that they were able to consolidate and get into our fund. So we just using technology and doing some deep diving into our accounting, we were able to cover up that deficit and start off with something.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so my platform was about public safety. I wanted to implement more community oriented policing. As a matter of fact, two months before I took office, we had an officer involved shooting with an African American male named Alvin Chiles of the community was still ruling about once I stepped into office. I wanted to talk about economic opportunities as well. Shreveport was just like the Rust belt with it got crushed with outsourcing and automation. So I wanted to make sure that we talked and we were very aggressive with our economic plan. And lastly, I wanted to implement technologies. We were probably a couple decades behind with technology adoption at City Hall. But I not only wanted City Hall to do that, I wanted the community to adopt technology and get more used to it as well. So I tackled those problems that way. And you already pointed out I had a fiscal deficit. That was one of the things I had to attack first because let me tell you, another point in naivety, me talking on the campaign trail about all these things I wanted to do and not realize.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Five months ago, five years ago, you know, 10, 15 years ago. And that's something that I had to realize too. It was never sufficient for me to say, you know, sorry, that was, you know, previous administration, but we're trying to remedy it. I really just had to forget saying it was the previous administration to say, hey, we understand this has been an issue for a while. You know, this is the plan that we have to remedy that. So yeah, that's a very difficult position to be in.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I agree. You live with the policies that you implement on a daily basis. There is no driving an hour or two hours to, you know, the State House. There is no flying to DC. You are living with everything that you do. You're living with the constituents. And something else that's hard, David, at the beginning of that as well, it makes it even tougher is that people want you to fix things immediately. That's another very difficult element to that. So as you're trying to understand all these problems and you realize like, okay, my citizens are holding me accountable. They're holding you accountable immediately for policies that were implemented.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, David, you've done your artwork. I feel like you were there with me as you just explained my situation It's a couple profound thoughts I had. One of them was no longer do I have a battalion commander or a division commander to run issues up to higher leadership. Like I am the last stop here. You know, it's kind of going a transformation from a captain in the military. And then three years later, without any leadership specific training, three years later, I'm like running the military. You know, there is nobody else to go to with an issue. So that was one of those profound things that I learned.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I will tell you, and being honest, it wasn't a whole lot that I learned from law school. I think my crucible of leadership that I used the most and I knew I was going to rely on the most was from the military. The law school, I would say, helped me understand the more liberal environments of America. I was considered extremely moderate coming out of my military background where I thought I was pretty progressive in that particular environment. So I had to work as a moderate and pull together a lot of different student organizations that were ideologically very different around common themes, common missions to host different events and to really facilitate student life and more of a unity, you know, a unified fashion as opposed to a disorganized one.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Their stories about their neighborhoods, about their families, and just realize no matter what part of town I was in, the east side, the west side, predominantly black neighborhoods, white neighborhoods, everybody wanted the same thing. They wanted security. They wanted, you know, their families to be safe. They wanted opportunity. They wanted jobs, you know, just hearing it across the board. I knew that my heart was very much in continuing my public service and not going to a corporate law firm as much as I love my experiences at the Austin.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of what Yeah, no, 100%. I am very aware of that reality, and that is the motivation behind a lot of the things that I do and a lot of things that I say. So you're right. But I think it would have been pretty arrogant of me to think that, oh, you know, that video is going to inspire people to ask me to run for mayor. I had no idea that that was going to happen at all. I was focused on the task at hand, which was just being a student body president. And yeah, I went vocally viral and people called me and I made a compromise with my best friend and some other leaders. I said, hey, I will go to Sidley Austin and see how that is. And then I will come back my first semester to do an exploratory period. And I will go back and forth between Shreveport and Cambridge. And I did that. And after that exploratory period, David, where I was not knocking on the doors of hundreds of people a day and asking them, you know, what they wanted to see out of a community and what they wanted to see out of a mayor and a leader.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, so no, the only thing I talked about in the video is myself and my vice president, Amanda Lee. And the only thing we talked about was leading the student body and bringing the student body together and advocating for students. But one thing, the video was posted on my middle school's website. I think one of the assistant principals posted that video, but they were trying to recruit students to my middle school. And I think they were trying to make the equivalence of if you go to this middle school, you can go to Harvard Law School. Pretty big straight. So that's how I started spreading the community, not just from my own social media. Although if you're a kid.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I was. I was. That is a very true story. What happened? This is the way the story goes. What happened was I was a 2L. I had already been accepted to go to Sidley, Austin, very prominent law firm. Now, I ran for student body president, so I recorded a video when I was a 2L and I put it on my social media page, which I have a lot of friends and family back home that saw my video. So I tell people, I don't know if like locally viral is a thing, but my video began to go like locally viral and spread around my community. And a lot of people started to reach out to me and ask me what were my plans after law school. Emphatically, I told him, I'm going to corporate law firm. I told him my plan. And I told him, but eventually I do want to be back in Shreveport. So I remember my best friend calling me and asking me to consider coming back to run for mayor. And, you know, it was other people that had already called that specifically wanted me to do that.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, not at all. I wasn't intimidated at all. I was excited about the challenge. I was excited about learning law. I was excited that I got this opportunity to begin with.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it actually wasn't. I had a blast. You got to think about my perspective, right? You know, a lot of these students, and by the way, I was 29 when I went to law school. They call us owls, older wiser law school students. Yeah, so my perspectives were very different. I was used to tough, hard military life at that point. And a lot of my classmates were coming out of undergrad. So like studying was all that they knew. So my perspectives were very, very different.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Action the previous form of it had put us all on the same scale. And I don't think it achieved the diversity in which it was looking for to this day the way that socioeconomically we become polarized and disparities in our society. So what I would say is that I think that it needed to be overhauled anyway. And I hope that we can use this as an opportunity to consider more socioeconomic diversity on top of just racial diversity. But the diversity the racial diversity is very much needed for sure. But I think it's some things that we can do to really modify that and bring the even more richer experiences into the classrooms and eventually into society.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Get this information probably a little bit more than most students. The poorest 15% of my law school class made double the average American family salary, $120,000 was the poorest 15%. Now, I come from a household where my mom made like $30-something thousand dollars, right? So I'm a massive outlier there. I 100% believe there needed to be socioeconomic considerations in our emissions process on top of just not just race. And that being said, me just being black does not make me fit into rooms at Harvard. And I'm sure it's like that across the Ivy Leagues. When somebody from such a low income background walks into those rooms, there's just as much of a learning curve and things for me to catch up on, you know, when I'm encountering black people with summer home, black people whose families were corporate lawyers, you name it. And with affirmative.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, you know what? I am a very complicated person when it comes to affirmative action. I think that I want to say this. My friends from West Point, I have like this group of friends that are my best friends to the day. A lot of us are similarly situated and being southerners from low-income backgrounds. You know, a lot of us with single parent homes, I think 80% of us. And I cannot, and to this day, some of them are attracted to be generals in the army. Some of them aren't tracked to be C-suite executives. Some of them, these are leaders in our society today. And without our time at West Point, I can't see that happen going to other institutions. And, you know, obviously my imagination might just not extend there. And a lot of us, I'm sure, benefited from affirmative action. So I'll say that, you know, I'm a fan of affirmative action there, but I will tell you this, David. When I went to Harvard, I'm throwing some more statistics. And I think student body present.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so the diversity at Harvard was more than diversity at West Point. I didn't talk about the statistic earlier, but when I was at West Point, it was about 7% African American. I think we had, we either were right it or hadn't broken the threshold of 20% women yet as well. And I'm very proud of my undergrad institution, especially when under the leadership of General Chasm, when he came in a few years later, he doubled the African-American population there. I think I know for a fact he got beyond 30% women population. So West Point is a much more diverse institution than when just when I went there and graduated in 2008. But Harvard was way more diverse.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There, but um, yeah, I made the decision to transition out and go to law school thinking that I would be a corporate lawyer and, you know, become a partner and make some money and then be able to come back to my hometown and obviously none of that happened.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but I wanted options for myself. And I end up getting accepted to teach at West Point as bus and go to social sciences department. And I end up getting accepted to law school, which I actually didn't have a lot of faith in. I didn't know about. I am the first person in my family to go to law school. And just talking to some of my mentors and looking at the trajectory of my life, I actually wanted to come back to my hometown sooner than doing a 20-year military career. And I figured if I would go to law school, it would create a shorter path for me. But a lot of my mentors also told me, like, hey, I think that this, you know, not everybody gets into Harvard Law School. I think this is something that you need to take advantage of. So I end up leaving the military in July of 2015. I was a company commander in Afghanistan where I had about 200 soldiers in my headquarters company. And I started law school in August of 2015. So a very quick transition. And there's some stories to tell about.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so a couple of different factors to it. I was at a crossroads in the military, so I did a couple things. I applied to teach economics at West Point, which is my dream job for the military, and I applied to law school at the same time. I wasn't sleeping much at this time.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, that occurred afterwards. I understood that the way that I always envisioned the military and my role with the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan and the questions around it is that we were the arm of the United States and our elected officials were the ones responsible for throwing that punch or putting us in those situations to defend the country. But yeah, obviously, as I've gotten older and I've read a lot more about those wars and the reasons that we were being there, especially Iraq, I have had questions about my involvement and had to situate my involvement in that particular war.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Was like, okay, this is what it takes to lead in this environment. And, you know, the deployment went pretty well after that.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, the organic material that they use to make bombs, we would set it up at checkpoints to check cars for that organic material And the PLS is this long vehicle. It's like an 18 wheeler without the top to it. It is just a long trailer, broke down on one of the busiest streets in Iraq. And for security reasons, you need to keep as big of a buffer around you as possible when you're doing operation. And we're on one of the biggest streets. So I had to get out of my vehicle. And all I could see a play in my head was, you know, the scenes on CNN and everything else where people getting blown up and this and this and this. And I had to get out of my vehicle, first mission out, very unorthodox, not going according to plan at all and be able to establish a security perimeter around our PLS so that we could come and they can, you know, tow it out. And it was extremely nerve-wracking. Shutting down one of the busy streets in Baghdad, middle of the day, mission not going right at all. It's my first time and I'm 23 years old. And I could tell, though, all my soldiers, as soon as they see me step out of the vehicle, they were able to step out of the vehicle and just get on the mission. And that's when I.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, over 100 combat missions in Iraq. But what set the conditions forward is the day I flew into Baghdad, we got mortar while my plane was landing. So we had to run off the plane and get into bonkers because there was mortars hitting the tarmac. So I'm like, wow, this is a wafer to start off. It's my first deployment. And then my first mission out where I was actually the commander on the mission, we had this band that would check for organic material and we had to take it out to a certain traffic control point. The carrier that was on broke down.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I was 23. I was a platoon leader in Iraq and the Marines, they called him platoon commander. So I had responsibility of 30 plus soldiers. I was in Iraq. And we were, I was an artillery unit, but we had an infantry mission. So we would go around all day and do stuff that the infantry units would have because Iraq was a very built-up area. We weren't firing rounds into the city at that point. So every day we would go around instead of traffic control points. Sometimes we go look for high value targets. We have various missions, but I'll tell you, and I'm honest with a lot of young people that I talk to because I get this question a lot. On my first mission, I was very, very afraid. That is not something that I was like confident and cocky about either going into it. But it was knowing that those 30 people were watching me that really gave me the courage to be able to do what I had to do. And then once you all won mission and two missions and three missions, you get very comfortable. So I end up doing.”
2023-07-27 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 542 — Adrian Perkins · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source