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June 5, 2020 - Rudy Giuliani
29:36
First The Pandemic, Now Looting - How American Businesses Are Responding | Ep. 42
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It's our purpose to bring to bear the principle of common sense and rational discussion to the issues of our day.
America was created at a time of great turmoil, tremendous disagreements, anger, hatred.
There was a book written in 1776 that guided much of the discipline of thinking that brought us to the discovery of our freedoms, of our God-given freedoms.
It was Thomas Paine's Common Sense, written in 1776, one of the first American bestsellers in which Thomas Paine explained by rational principles the reason why these small colonies felt the necessity to separate from the powerful Kingdom of England and the King of England.
He explained their inherent desire for liberty, freedom, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and he explained it in ways that were understandable to the people, to all of the people.
A great deal of the reason for America's constant ability to self-improve is because we are able to reason, we're able to talk to each other, we're able to listen to each other, and we're able to analyze.
We are able to apply our God-given common sense.
So let's do it.
Hello again, this is Rudy Giuliani doing Rudy Giuliani's Common Sense.
Today we have with us John Schnader.
Who is the founder of Papa John's, you know Papa John's, you've all had it, particularly watching football games.
And also a man of, a man who really is the quintessential American made man, you know, who was able to create this himself.
A man who has endless number of ideas.
And a man who's been up and down in life.
And I can't think of a better time to talk to a man like that, and a man with a terrific optimism and vision.
I can't think of a better time to talk to a man like that, that now that we're going through a pandemic, we're going through these riots where American cities are being attacked.
He also has had Papa John's in just about all these cities, so he really knows them well.
And he knows the American personality well.
John, it's a great pleasure to have you with me.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thanks for those kind comments.
John, tell them how we met.
2012, I needed a coach to throw the first pitch out to the New York Yankees in the Tampa Bay Rays game.
And sure enough, you were there, and you were coaching me, and you gave me a lesson.
Release it high.
You nudged me on the shoulder and said, you listen well, pizza guy.
Well, John, I've since gotten to know you really well.
And you're a real... I consider you like a real American original.
You're one of the people that's created an iconic brand.
But you only create iconic brands if there's something about you that's very unique and unusual.
And I'd like to tell... Just briefly, for the benefit of our audience, where did you develop this spirit?
And how did you get... If somebody has this spirit, how do they get started?
Well, I appreciate you saying that, but really it's the people I put around me and we had a great team and they did all the heavy lifting.
They really did a great job.
I was kind of alone for the ride, but I was taught early on to just really love and respect other people.
I came from my parents and my grandparents.
I can remember when we hired our first waitress at Mixed Lounge for $7 a day, who's still with us, Denise Robinson.
Do you mind telling me how long ago that is?
It was October of 83, so we're looking at 36 years, coming up on 37 years.
But my dad hired her as a cook.
And I said, well, great, we finally got a cook, $7 a day.
And I said, Dad, you know, that's fantastic.
And he goes, there's one problem.
And I said, what's that?
I called him champ.
I said, what's that champ?
He said, she can't cook.
And I said, you hired it.
This is back when we didn't have seven bucks.
I said, you hired a cook for $7 a day and it can't cook.
What are you doing?
He goes, she's got a great personality.
She's got a great attitude.
And so we've learned early on a fabric of it.
Hire for attitude, train for aptitude.
Been with us ever since she's fantastic.
Hire for attitude and train for aptitude.
God, that's fabulous.
You know, I always, this is a different field, but I always, as a U.S.
Attorney, I used to have a lot of very qualified people, and I always picked the one with the most enthusiasm.
Yes.
Because I always felt the one, the people with enthusiasm will love the job, and if you love a job, you do it better.
Absolutely.
It's attitude.
You know, you've got to have a positive mental attitude.
If you think you can, you're right, and if you think you can't, you're right.
And that is all about being enthusiastic.
That's the problem with the situation we're in now is emotions are infectious.
Anxiety is contagious.
Now more than ever, we got to stay positive.
Yeah.
You know, and it's true.
All of the, virtually all the things that we hear are negative, right?
And then even, even when, um, let's say the president tries something uplifting, uh, that his democratic opponents try to twist it, like the, uh, appearance at St.
John's But a president has no idea.
I used to do security for Ronald Reagan.
I even did security for Clinton when I was U.S.
attorney.
Presidents don't spend time on how they get moved.
way or the other, and then they attack them because people had to be moved aside in the
park.
But a president has no idea.
I used to do security for Ronald Reagan.
I even did security for Clinton when I was U.S. attorney.
Presidents don't spend time on how they get moved.
If they did, they couldn't be president.
I mean, it was a cheap shot, but it's almost as if there are forces in this country who
don't want us to be positive.
.
Well, unfortunately, we're in election year, and the negativity of the two parties pulling against each other is, I think, a deterrent for us all to get back on our feet.
And we've got to put politics aside, because this is a triple whammy.
You have the virus, the coronavirus, And then you've got the fallout with the economic situation, 20% plus unemployment, people losing their homes, and now we've got the protests, the riots.
So this is a triple whammy.
So we've really got to dig down, we've got to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps, and we've got to pull together and get this thing back on top here.
That's for sure.
You know, you're absolutely right.
And I just want to spend one more minute on how you got started.
Now, you know, now you have a whole history and you've learned a lot and you can teach it to other people.
But when you first got started, there had to be a feeling of fear that you might not make it, right?
You were taking a big risk, weren't you?
Huge risk.
And, you know, when things are in doubt and you think you're not going to make it, that's when you have to hold on to yourself.
You can't listen to the naysayers.
You got to stay positive.
uh... when the whole world's fall apart you gotta hold on yourself and stay
solid pull yourself up by the bootstraps and and get through it and that's what
we did then we did that with the bar we did that with the broom closet
we've done it uh... multiple times
with papa john's through the years now this is a big one
i mean what we're dealing with now as a country is big and i just remember how
brutally tough it was in the broom closet but at least i could sell my product
Tell people about the broom closet a little bit.
They know a lot more about Papa John's than they do.
Everybody knows Papa John's, but the broom closet I think would be, you know, not as many people.
Well, I had the concept for Papa John's in college in 82 and I put it in a little box and so I wanted to open a pizzeria, but I didn't have any money.
But daddy in the back of his 50 cent bar mixed lounge had a broom closet.
So I sold, uh, I created a pizzeria for 1600 bucks cause that's all I had.
And so I sold $5 pizzas out the back and 50 cent beers in the front.
And that was the beginning.
Um, but again, we, we could open the doors, we could do business.
I couldn't imagine being the small business owner and not be able to sell my product.
That is really handcuffed.
I don't like it.
If you had gotten knocked out for two months or three months, suppose you and your father had been told, like right now all the bars are closed now almost for two months, maybe more.
I think my father would have probably lost his business or he'd have to really go back and borrow money and get started again or do something.
That would have been very tough, right?
I don't, um, I'm just being, I'll just be brutally honest.
I don't know if we would have made it because remember there, I was in the bar business and the pizzeria, um, and the bar business was carrying the pizzeria.
That's how I got, you know, it bought me time to figure out how to perfect the recipes and the mechanics, um, and the concept.
So if they had to shut that bar down, I'm pretty sure I would have had to shut that pizzeria down and there wouldn't have been a Papa John's.
Yeah, there must be a lot of people in that position right now.
A lot of people that are sort of close to the line.
Maybe they're just about making it, and then all of a sudden they get knocked out of no income, no revenue for two months.
Well, like you, Mayor, I love people, and I love people to be successful.
Because if everybody's successful, we're all going to be successful just because it works that way.
So I think to be empathetic, you have to walk a mile in somebody else's shoes.
And that's why I can relate to small business.
I can talk to them because, you know, I was broke.
My checking account was overdrawn and I didn't know what I was going to do with my life.
And I was scared.
Frankly, I was scared.
I can't even imagine being in a small business and not being able to open my doors and just sit there and wait because time is money.
you know, fixed cost or fixed cost. And so my heart goes out. I'm heartbroken by what America
and small business owners are going through for this. And I know you know we're doing some things
and we're trying to do our part, but I don't feel like it's enough, frankly. I really don't.
Yeah, it probably isn't. You know, I don't think people realize the way you do because
you live through it, the kind of damage that's been done by this.
I mean, particularly if they're people that had like a steady job and they got paid during the pandemic and they were home, I don't think they realize that there are people who don't get paid.
They got to produce their money in order to feed themselves and their family.
And there are over 100 million of them.
So that's a lot of people.
Well, let's take one thing at a time.
Let's take the virus, corona.
I mean, there's three outcomes.
One outcome is we have another wave.
Oh, heaven forbid.
That's not good.
We can't really afford to go back to where we were a month ago.
Two is we have just enough people get sick where the hospitals are full, but they're not overwhelmed.
I don't like that scenario.
Scenario number three is there's no repercussion.
Nothing happens again.
And then you want the American people, did they feel like it was a farce?
Did they feel like they were duped?
And the next time when somebody calls wolf, I mean, what's, what's going to happen?
I don't like, I've never been in a situation where I'm not sure I like any of the outcomes with regards to this virus.
The economic carnage is, we still don't know.
I mean, we, you know, we haven't seen these kinds of unemployment numbers since the great depression.
And remember the great depression went on for 21 years.
I think we're smart enough and with have enough persistence and tenacity that we're not going to have that kind of longevity, but we still don't know what's going to happen.
So now we are at two fronts where we don't know exactly I think it is.
I think it is.
I think that the only thing we can do, I mean, the only way through this is to create a hypothetical scenario that gets us through it and try to make it happen.
I mean, do the best we can to make it happen.
For example, if it comes back again.
If it comes back again, we're probably going to handle it better.
We at least have a few medicines now that could lessen it.
I think we understand that we didn't have to close down completely, because the children, young people, 40 and under, don't get it, at least they don't get it in a way that it's all really dangerous for them.
I do think actually in some ways if it doesn't come back, there is going to be a very... In some ways that might be the most difficult to deal with, because people will feel that they've been really Probably hoodwinked or part of a political plot.
You know how people are.
They get very upset.
But it's a real challenge to how great a country we are.
Yes, America will bounce back.
New York will bounce back.
I know that's where you did great things and you were a great leader and you've been through 9-11, so you've seen it all.
But if you look at the LA riots and Rodney King and that situation, it took 10, 15 years for that area to get back on its feet.
I mean, now we have a country where a lot of this is happening everywhere.
Yeah, I can't even keep track of it.
They say there are 40 cities that have had, you know, significant damage.
And I can't name all 40 for you.
And then I'm surprised sometimes at some of the cities.
But I do think the thing you're saying is it takes a long time to recover.
From this kind of damage, particularly if you add it on to the pandemic damage, maybe some of those businesses that were going to make it back now just got their business destroyed.
Again, I'm, I'm an optimist.
I mean, I'm positive and we will get through this.
I, we don't need anything else to happen right now because it seems like a pile of negatives.
I don't think it's going to take 10 years for New York to get back on his feet because of the Tenacity of New Yorkers.
But the point I was making is there's going to be some residue here.
And it's going to take a little time to heal this.
Right.
And so I think in the interim we have to don't react to other people's reactivity.
Understand emotions are infectious.
Anxiety is contagious.
Anxiety right now is at an all time high.
You can feel it.
I can feel it.
America can feel it.
those emotions have a tendency to make people reactive and do things that are not healthy.
We've got to stop doing those kind of things.
And then we've got to stay solid with ourselves, our values, our principles,
you know, what this country was built on.
So I think we stick to our principles and values, have a positive attitude, the three E's,
effort, enthusiasm, entrepreneurship.
I think we'll get to a good place sooner than later.
Now, John, you probably know each one of these cities in one way or another, right?
Because of your business.
Papa John's all over America, right?
We were actually in all 50 states and in 50 countries.
I thought so, yeah.
So every one of these states and cities means something to you.
Yes.
Do you think there was a connection between the pandemic, the lockdown, the shutdown, the fear over making a living, and then what happened?
Although the protests were about George Floyd, there was underlying that was also this other tension that's going on?
I think there was a lot of pent-up emotions.
You have three kind of folks here that are demonstrating.
One are peaceful, and they should be out there.
This is crazy.
What happened to this young man is absolutely horrific.
This is something that's got to stop.
It's bad for everybody.
It makes all police officers look negative and be in a negative light, and it's not good for our country.
It further divides.
And you got folks that are kind of coming in from out of town that were set up to do this.
To, you know, loot and cause destruction.
And that's no good.
Then you have the third group that are stealing stuff and they got to put a stop to that.
So, um, and then, and then we're in the middle of a election year.
So you have the perfect storm of people pent up.
Uh, now you have a peaceful protest, which we should be doing.
And then you have the riots and the theft, which we shouldn't be doing.
And you combine that with the economic carnage has been done by the virus and you have the perfect storm.
Lord help us.
Let's don't have anything else happen right now.
Let's clean up what we got.
I think this would be a good time to take a short break.
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Welcome back.
I think as I listen to you, John, I think the answer, if there is one, is we've got to go back to where we started.
This all started on the 25th of May at 9, 10 o'clock at night.
And somewhere between that night and the next day, almost everybody saw that video of the police officer with the knee on the man's neck, people yelling out, you're going to choke him.
He kept the knee there anyway.
And I think at that point, we were pretty close to as united as we ever get as a country.
You know, your first reaction to it, it was horrible.
My first reaction to it was horrible, and I'm a Trump Republican.
Liberal Democrats had the same reaction to it, white people, black people.
This was almost a missed opportunity for us to unite around something we all agree about and then talk about how do we prevent it in the future.
And I almost feel like it's been hijacked by people for bad purposes.
Well, to your point, what they did to this young man, Mr. Floyd, is just... It's worse than atrocious.
It's just horrible.
And it just... It really does mean we gotta stop this with this police brutality.
It's gotta stop.
I mean, look at the damage that's done when one or two bad police officers do this to an innocent man.
It just... The carnage and the effects are just...
Catastrophic.
But one thing I learned, Mr. Mayor, from Peyton Manning was when things are really bad, like I said, Peyton, what do you do?
He said, I learned this from Archie Manning.
He goes, always level set.
So what do you mean?
He goes, I look at the time, I look at where the ball is at, I look what plays, I level set, and then I move forward.
And now's the time where we have to stay positive, no negative thoughts, no attacking each other, and level set.
Play the next play.
Put everything behind us and let's move things forward and stop with the negativity that are pulling us backwards.
Level set.
I think in this situation it would mean let's realistically look at this problem and find out exactly what it is, because some people exaggerate it, some people underestimate it, and then find a way to kind of deal with it in a much more effective way, and as you say, stop it.
And then try to get all of those, I mean, the vast majority of people don't fit in the category of thieves or people who want to loot or burn things.
So they got to be isolated.
Somehow they have to be isolated.
Right.
I think there's, and you've lived this being me and Mayor of New York, you would know better about the issue of police brutality than I would.
I knew it was an issue, but I don't think I really had the appreciation that I needed to have that I have today with what I just saw.
I got to tell you.
But what I don't like about this is we have an issue here.
We have an issue in this country we have to solve for.
There's no question about that.
And what happened to Mr. Floyd in Minneapolis can't happen again.
That's crazy.
But there are a lot of people that are exploiting this.
I don't like that.
I don't like it when people take a situation that's already horrific and exploit it for politics or personal self-game or stealing stuff.
I just think that therein lies a big problem.
There may be people that don't want to solve it because this is the way they make their living.
They make their living by jumping on top of these situations and They don't want to solve it.
So I think it is very necessary, and the president has to be a big part of this, of finding the people who really want to solve it, who in good faith want to solve it, even if they disagree about politics.
And you're right.
It's very hard to do that in an election year because the people on the other side don't want to give them a victory.
Well, it's even worse than that.
There's people out there that not only do not want to solve it, they want to make it worse and then attack the people who are trying to solve it.
So it's, it's, it's, you know, that escalates that way.
But there, I think the one thing about this president, you know him better than I do, he is resilient and he does not back down.
And the, he is a leader.
And he's being pretty aggressive with this situation, but I want to ask you, how do you feel like he's handling it?
I think he's handled it—I think he's handled it as well as anybody could have handled it, and better.
But I think that there's a real effort.
Everything he does, they find a way of either lying about it or twisting it, or—so they don't give him a chance to unite, because, look, let's say we're 50% for Trump and somewhere around 50% against Trump.
Maybe it's a little more in his favor or against him.
He's talking to the 50% that are for him very well.
50% that are against him, I think he's talking to them well, too.
But the people they respect and admire are all attacking him.
So it's hard for him to crack through that.
But I think, you know, the one thing about him is he doesn't give up.
No.
Like the tax cut.
He tried the tax cut four times before he got it.
I mean, I read 100 articles that he'd never get it, and I said to him, you don't know Donald Trump.
He will eventually get us through this.
It may take a little trial and error.
You know, he'll go up one road, then he'll go up another road.
The good thing about him is, this is a man without prejudice.
When they say he's a racist, they're so far off.
Whatever he is, this is a guy who treats people on the merits.
You know, you do a good job, he's happy with you.
You do a bad job, his first instinct is to try to help you.
Try to help you learn how to do a good job.
And then it's only if you're just impossible that he'll give up on you.
I know you're that way.
You wouldn't have been successful if you weren't.
Well, I appreciate that.
I really appreciate his leadership and his tenacity.
I feel like I'm a pretty resilient human being.
I've never seen anybody like Donald Trump.
I mean, I've never seen a guy that just, he's got certain fundamental beliefs, and I wish he'd go at it a little bit differently.
That's him.
But you know, he doesn't get paid for style.
He gets paid to get the job done.
Right.
And he does get the job done, but I mean, with what this guy's been hit with, and he just keeps marching, it's pretty, It's fascinating.
It's amazing.
And, you know, I think... I know all the folks in D.C.
All the politicians.
I know them all.
And the one thing they all agree on, Donald Trump's the only guy in D.C.
that's not on the tape.
The only guy.
Just about true.
Just about true, John.
You know, I hate to say that.
Maybe there are a few others, but...
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it's—the whole idea that he would be affected by lobbyists is ridiculous.
Yeah, I mean, how do these politicians work 10, 20, 30, Pelosi's case, $100 million?
How are they worth this kind of money when they make $180,000 a year?
How does that happen?
Right.
Well, yeah, there are a lot of them here.
Let me give you a little thing to look at.
When they die, look at their estate.
Right.
And you know who has the money?
Usually the wife or the brother.
The wife of the brother.
I used to do this for a living, investigating.
But John, I have to tell you, I really admire you, and I want to ask you one last question.
What can we expect, John?
I mean, you're a young man.
I think you've got at least three more big things you're going to do.
Well, I'm going to be patient.
Good.
I want the right opportunity.
When you've had as many blessings and has been as fortunate in life that I have, and you can kind of do anything you want to do, what I really like is improving humanity.
That's what real making other people's lives better.
And maybe that's another pizza deal.
Maybe that's something in the health industry.
Maybe that's something in the food product.
I don't know.
But in my soul, it's got to be something that benefits humanity.
Otherwise, I'm not going to do it.
You let me know because I'm betting on you.
And I'll support you.
Thank you for having me.
This has been wonderful.
Well, I look forward to seeing you really soon and we can talk some more.
Thank you, John.
I really enjoyed it.
I think this will be very helpful to people at this particular point.
I think you isolated and summarized really well what we're going through all at once.
And God bless you.
God bless you.
I hope that was helpful.
It sure was.
All right.
You're the best.
I look forward to seeing you.
So that was an interview with an extraordinary man.
I think that it will be very, very helpful to many of us because, at least for me, a lot of what I've learned about leadership and a lot of what I've learned about how to run businesses and prosecutors' offices and law offices came from other people.
If you read my book, Leadership, you'll see I say there that I think I borrowed everything I did right from somebody.
And I try to locate in the book who taught me that particular lesson, whether it was my father or my mother or one of my teachers or the judge that I had the good fortune to clerk for, or sometimes a lawyer who was an opponent that did something particularly well that I didn't.
I think without even knowing it, that's how we learn in life.
And sometimes it's good to focus on it that way and say, now look at this man, look what he achieved.
Let's go back over that interview and say to ourselves, what do we think made him succeed?
And I think you can see it, right?
Optimism, giving a lot of thought to what you're going to do.
Surrounding yourself with really good people, using a method for finding them, which is who's the most enthusiastic, who seems to have the most spirit.
A lot of things you could learn from that.
I suggest listening to it twice, and the second time take out a little piece of paper and put down what you learned from it.
That was a particularly useful interview.
So thank you for listening, and we'll be back very shortly with Rudy's Common Sense.
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