Bulwark Takes - GOP Mayor: Real Leaders Step Up Because Trump Won’t (w/ Mayor David Holt)

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Sam Stein speaks with Mayor David Holt about America’s struggle with political violence, from the Oklahoma City bombing to today’s climate after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, and how local leaders are finding common ground on housing, crime, and inclusion.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the bulwark YouTube page. I'm joined by Oklahoma City's mayor and David Holt. You are the 38th mayor. Am I right? This is correct. You've done my homework. Wikipedia was very generous. You are the 83rd president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. You were elected in 2018. And this one really killed me. 2020, you were elected with a 40-point lead overall. Yes. Is that right? Like, I got 60 and second place got 20 and third place got 13. And those were well-funded. I mean, I had TV ads. I'd say they were like legitimate opponents, but totally MAGA. Like that was the 2020 challenge that I had was sort of from my right. But you're a Republican?

I am a Republican, yes. And so I like sort of touting the margin. Good for you. Look, if I want anything by that much, I would doubt it too. You are here in D.C. because of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and we're going to get into that a little bit. But obviously everything that's happening right now, we're speaking here on Monday, middle of the day, is clouded by what happened with Charlie Kirk, the assassination, and the fallout from it. You saw the statement that you put out, I believe it was from the U.S. Conference of Mayers, but am I wrong to say that you had a heavy role in crafting it?

For better or worse, I have always written everything I'm ever attributed to. So yes, I wrote it, yes. I want to talk about that because the statement was really nice. It was, I thought, hit all the right notes. The word that kept coming up in that statement was dehumanizing or humanizing. And you kept coming back to it. That's sort of the core problem that is with us right now and that obviously you believe contributed to what happened with Kirk, which is we've dehumanized our political opponents.

Talk a bit about why that word was so important in that statement and why you emphasize it so much. Yeah. Well, you know, to be the mayor of Oklahoma City is that. actually to be a little bit of a subject matter expert on political violence. So many of your listeners or viewers may forget, right? But 30 years ago this year, 168 people were murdered in downtown Oklahoma City in an act of political violence by, in this case, a far right-wing veteran of our military who bombed a federal building. And, you know, in this instance, killed people that were not prominent political activists or politicians, they were people working in the Social Security

office and people working for the Department of Agriculture, right? But he had dehumanized them to the point where, you know, they were soldiers in this war that he thought he was engaged in. And so I have really, you know, if you were to go back, I speak as mayor at the annual commemoration of the bombing on April 19th of every year. So I have sort of seven address. now on this topic. So when things like this happen, like I have been talking and thinking about this, you know, for a significant part of my adult life. And yeah, I think that's where it all begins. I mean, it starts with words. Every violent act in, you know, human history began with people saying things. And inevitably, they began to talk about their political opponents in ways

that dehumanize them. Maybe they call them evil. Maybe they call them their enemies. Maybe they called them, you know, we've had this odd usage the last few years of vermin and rats and, you know, and again, like, I mean, what's more dehumanizing than literally calling them animals? And it paves the way, obviously, for you to do these horrible things because you've separated their basic humanity, you know, from their political opinions. And so it's just to me, I think you've always got to talk about that when you talk about political violence. You've got to try to do what you can. I mean, it seems like sometimes you're, you're not. You know, it seems like sometimes you're fighting a title wave, but I think people like me still nevertheless have to talk about

how we are all the same. We all go home to families. We all go to jobs. We all like, like, we are just barely this different and we are the same this much, right? And instead, we keep dwelling, and I think social media obviously feeds it on these differences when they are such a small part of what makes us humans. You call it a tidal wave, and you reference social media and obviously the Utah's governor, Spencer Cox, I think pointedly said it's a cancer on society. Do you think social media has amplified this? And if so, in what ways? Yeah.

Well, I mean, listen, when we were growing up, right, there was always like a phrase, a joke, sort of a cliche. You know, don't talk about politics and religion, right? I mean, people have been saying that in America for 200 years is just a thing, you know, right? Well, here now we've sort of created these mediums that we live in where we talk about politics and religion not stop. what do you think is going to happen? There was some wisdom in that cliche. And yeah, I think social media... But isn't there sort of a contradiction between your one point, like we need to talk with

each other, relate to each other, not dehumanize each other, and then on the same time being like, well, maybe we're talking too much about religion and politics? Right. Well, but shouldn't we talk about our kids? Shouldn't we talk about our sports teams? Shouldn't we talk about these other things? We ultimately have to talk about politics. Of course.

This is a democracy. There are forums for that. But, you know, this very online subset of the population for whom everything is political. And you kind of know it. I mean, you go to like, you know, like somebody comments on your post and sometimes you'll wander over to their page to see who they are, you know? And it's like, it's like thousands of political posts, right? And their bio is all about their political views, right? That's not healthy, right?

Like your whole life should not be involved in politics. Heck, even if you're the mayor, your life should not be completely involved in politics. So I say, yes, I mean, we should talk, we should communicate. We just shouldn't always be talking about politics, which is what social media creates, not for all, but for many. And they're just like kind of living through life enraged all the time. That was why the old idiom was don't talk about politics because it was like you're going to make people mad. You're going to like turn a nice dinner into an argument, you know. And so you've got to find the time and place for that.

There is, there has to be a time in place for that. But it shouldn't be like all day, every day. And that's what social media has put like a walking argument into our pockets all day long. We're not built for that. No. You said, well, you know, there's this refrain after the Kirk assassination that I've seen a lot. And I'm not sure I agree with it, which is there's no place for political violence in America. And of course, no one wants political violence in America.

But you yourself referenced the fact that your city has been scarred deeply by political violence. Political violence has been with us since the founding of our country. I guess the question is, how do you grapple with that political violence? How do you minimize it? What do you do to avoid it? And I'm not sure we have the good answers, but do you agree with that assessment of our history of political violence? Well, let's even step back from the American experiment and just look at humanity, right? We're an outlier, right?

I mean, violence is probably the chief method of communication across the totality of human history. And what we have created in America is a bit of a departure from that. But of course, like, if that's so much of human history, we cannot possibly hope or imagine that we would completely eliminate it. Right. But we have created other methods that are pretty damn effective. Right. starters, we've done a terrible job of explaining that to people when they grow up, you know, like explaining like really what the root reason for this is, what this thing

we call Congress in Washington and your state legislatures and courts of law, like all of these things exist to keep you from feeling like you have to kill each other. Right. And I don't think we could do a great job of explaining that. But yes, you're right. I mean, of course. I mean, we had a civil war in this country. We had the 1960s. You know, We've certainly had, and we'll always have because we're humans, instances of violence, but we should never tolerate it or condone it, and we should do a better job of explaining another path that we have uniquely created for ourselves. I mean, even just look around the world.

I mean, there's political violence, violence of all kinds everywhere. We have lived for 249 years in mostly, despite the fact that certainly there are major exceptions, but compared to the rest of the world, we have lived with peace and prosperity. Why would we throw that away? What kind of lessons does your city provide recovering from what happened in the 90s to current modern day and age politics where people say this is just the worst it's ever been? How do we recover for this? Well, I would say we provide those lessons quite literally,

but we also provide them, I think, as a historical event. But we have a museum, a memorial, like we have programming. there. We have a program called Better Conversations. It kind of sounds a little bit like some of the stuff Governor Cox has been pushing. We've been using that phrase for a decade in Oklahoma City. So we talk about that a lot. But the event itself, whether you come to Oklahoma City and go through our programming or not, you should always look at that scar in downtown Oklahoma City and use that as a reminder of what happens when you go down this path of dehumanization. You know, it doesn't end well for anybody. Nobody wins in this. Nobody would look. Nobody will

lived through the Civil War, would say, boy, that was great. That was awesome for the Union, great for the North. We only lost, you know, however many hundreds of thousands of our young men. I mean, this is not going to end well if we keep going down this path. We've got to pull back from this precipice and maybe it's touching grass, whatever it takes, as Governor Cox said. But we've got to remember what a special thing we've built in America and take advantage of it. Well, I agree with you.

And I think Spencer Cox has been pushing that. And it's good to see there are people who have not been pushing that message in the aftermath of the Kirk assassination. And among them, I mean, I don't, doesn't give me great pleasure to say it. But Donald Trump has been arguing that this is an opportunity to go after the institutions of the left saying that they've bred this, that they are inherently violent and that they need to be confronted. What do you make of that rhetoric? Listen, in 2025, I don't know anybody in the United States, even people. who are admirers of the president who turned to the White House for calming influences at this point, right? So I think what I have seen in the last week is almost sort of a kind of a just like,

okay, we heard you say that, but we're going to do this. It's like, oh, it's only the president. But like, we're way past like disappointment over that, you know. I mean, I think we've learned to just kind of factor that in and filter it out, right? And so, yeah, I mean, that's disappointing, but so be it, right? I think we don't live in a dictatorship. I'm certainly not going to take that approach. And I see a lot of people, even I saw my own Senator, James Langford, say some very admirable things.

Well after the president's speech, so he was aware of the president's approach on this. But I see a lot of people saying the responsible thing on both sides of the aisle. And that's certainly what I think we just all have to encourage. And we'll let other people say what they want to say. But hopefully we can over time that. He's got a big megaphone, though. No doubt. No doubt. It's not helpful, for sure. But I can't control that. So one of my models in life is control what you can control. So I'm going to try in my own little corner of the universe set a standard that I feel like, actually, I've been setting for a long time. I mean, for me, this is not the kind of event is changing my behavior. We've been trying to create that political culture in Oklahoma City for a long time, largely because of what happened in 1995. Well, before the incident with Charlie Kerr a couple weeks ago, you wrote an op-ed for the New York Times, which I thought was, in a way, almost prescient, talking about diversity not as sort of the, you know, the opposite of bigotry.

And you made a very compelling case that people need to stop looking at diversity in that lens where it's like, well, if this person is included, therefore I am excluded. And in particular, you mentioned LGBTQ pride. And there's a lot of, as you're aware, anti-trans stuff going on right now. So talk about this sort of idea that we need to grapple with diversity as a positive thing in this modern age when a lot of people don't see it that way. Yeah. Well, I think there's a couple things that come to mind here that really come from, I think, my first principles growing up as a conservative Republican. First of all, I want everybody to have equal opportunity. I understand.

We don't promise equal outcomes in this country. Right. But when you look at the visual I used in the piece that you're referencing in the New York Times was the wall. The wall of mayors, right? How many were white men? What was it? All but one, because the one was a white woman. So they were all white and virtually all male.

And I'm sorry, you can't look at that wall and say, you know, and nod and go, ah, meritocracy. You know, no, of course not. It's an exclusive meritocracy, right? So as a Republican, I've always believed in providing equal opportunity. And so, like, when you look at these outcomes, you can't say that that's just like the way, that's just the way, the cookie crumb. I mean, you know, and when you look at so many other things in our city, it's not just about who the mayor is. I mean, you look at like the difference between growing up white in one part of the city and growing up black 10 miles away. I mean, you're talking about 15 years differential and life expectancies, you know, vastly different educational and health outcomes and economic outcomes.

So, so to me, it's Republican to be thinking of these pathways to inclusion. You know, I think, and then I think when you talk about pride, I mean, again, I think Republicanism obviously shares some strains with libertarianism, and I think people should just be able to do what they want to do. I think that's why you saw, you know, gay marriage shifts so dramatically in such a short amount of time because it was like, everybody even on the right side of the aisle. Yeah, but now we're saying a shift back. I know.

We'll get there. But like on the, you saw people in that time period, even on the right side of the aisle, suddenly like dawn on them, wait, they just want to do what they want to do and they're not like hurting me. I think this pushback is this perception that you're not just doing your thing anymore. You're like trying to force your thing on to me. And, you know, I mean, and listen, both sides do have to check themselves and make sure they're not doing that, right? So, but as long as that's not what's happening, no, I'm not going to, I'm not going to change my views on. I'm the first mayor in the history of Oklahoma City to proclaim pride, march in the

parade because, you know, they're part of my city too, and I'm the mayor for all people, and they're just doing their thing, right? Like, I should, everyone in my city that's living their life, the way they want to live it, has the right to do that, that's freedom, because freedom is not just that everybody does the thing's exactly the way I want them to and exactly the way I do. True freedom is when other people do things that you completely disagree with. And as long as it's not hurting other people, you have to support that. But again, I think we do a bad job of explaining what freedom really is in this country anymore.

Freedom, we've completely redefined it. What's the main distinction between the conversations you were having with your constituents a year ago from today and today? Like, how is the tone different with them? What are the topics that are coming up that are different? Is there any substantive differences that you detect? You mean, like, just because, I mean, there's been. People more frightened or people more eager, are people more happier?

Do they feel like costs have come under control? Do they feel costs or not under control? It's a little difficult because I do have to say, like, Oklahoma City is killing it right now. So like, people are out there. You weren't killing it a year ago? I mean, and you're in your estimation, you're killing it. If you said to any person in Oklahoma City right now in September or 23-5, how do you do it? That's where I'm going.

You knew where I was going with that. There is a sense of sort of a good and a glow right now that may overcome a lot of other things. But no, I mean, listen, in all seriousness, beyond the NBA championship, I mean, our unemployment, employment has been below 4% for four years straight. It's a record. Crimes going down. Homeless is going down. I mean, we actually are kind of in a golden age for our city.

So you can have cities and states having slightly divergent experiences from the country. And like, so I can't say what it feels like every other place. I think if you wanted to say, hey, let's put all that stuff aside. Let's focus on political discourse. Yeah, I mean, of course, they're like all Americans. They're going to say, yeah, it's not great. But they probably would caveat and say, but hey, in Oklahoma City, we're working together because I have so militantly and intentionally talked about this narrative

that we do things differently in Oklahoma City, you know? And a whole lot of people have bought into that. Never everybody. But like I think you would, you would see virtually all Democrats and probably two-thirds of Republicans in Oklahoma City say, hey, we do things differently here. We work together. And I think they would be fairly aware that I cultivate that. Now, as your approach at the U.S. Conference of Mayors, I mean, there's a lot of cities that are now sort in tight spots. And by that, I mean, D.C., apparently Memphis is going to have

some sort of federal incursion of some sort to deal with the crime problem there. Chicago for a while thought they were going to. There appears to be escalated ice presence in the city. You guys put out a statement, I thought, you know, trying to thread the needle, which just says, look, if it's top down

and the city's not bought in, it's not going to be a good approach. And you said, there's never any proof that does work, but if it's a cooperative, it can work. Do you view, I mean, D.C.'s been a kind of weird case study because it kind of has been a cooperative. The mayor did end up saying, yeah, we like it, but now she wants them to leave, but now Trump's saying, well, we might come back. And so it's like, it's the uncertainty, I think, that gets a lot of mayors here, which is what is going to happen. Yeah.

So much to unpack there. I mean, obviously, and D.C. is a unique legal relationship. You know, I mean, it's not a state, right? So, but, I mean, I think it's really important for mayors to always lead with, we've always asked for help with personnel boots on the ground. And we've been doing that for decades. I mean, a very famous pro-city urban policy from Washington was the COPS program in the 90s where President Clinton helped fund our police officers. So it's not to say that we don't want people. And most every mayor in America would tell you they're trying to hire more police officers. I mean, in Oklahoma City, we've had that story for years. We have the money. We just can't find the people.

I mean, so, like, we want more people on the street, unquestionably, but when they come in sort of by force and they're not coordinating with the professionals and the experts, it's highly debatable that that's going to produce any kind of lasting result. And in the near term, it kind of depends what kind of crime you're dealing with, but in the near term, it may not produce much of a result either. You know, what people don't always understand, I don't know, maybe they're just like their whole idea of crime fighting comes from Batman or. something. But like in reality, you know, like probably a lot of people who serve in positions like this, I get an email every time someone's murdered in Oklahoma City. And I would tell you that nine times out of ten, it's people who knew each other, happened in their living room, it happened in their driveway. You know, it's nothing that could have been stopped by a police presence on the street. People are not generally across American cities being murdered or robbed indiscriminately

in public places where a police officer would have been standing. It is, that is what, like our efforts as mayors and police departments over the years have gravitated more and more towards intervention and prevention. And like a youth program is more effective sometimes than a police officer. Well, that was part of the 90s bill too, right? There's all the after school program, midnight basketball, things like that. Yeah. Right. So like, I mean, that stuff matters. And I think that's why you've seen crime actually dropping in most American cities. And certainly that's the case in Oklahoma City. Law enforcement has a, has a big role in that. No, no No mayor, despite, you know, rhetoric to the contrary, actually wants to defund the police department.

In fact, we're some of the most pro-law enforcement elected officials that there are in this country. But we also understand you've got to do some other stuff, too, because really kind of like police on the ground is sort of like the last resort, right? You've gotten to that point. I have a theory, though, that this is, well, it's not a theory. I mean, it's pretty anecdotal, supported by anecdotal evidence. A lot of this is from the administration is about ICE and immigration enforcement. And that what they're really trying to do is bring in officials to crack down on undocumented workers, undocumented citizens, things like that, undocumented Americans, I should say. In your Hispanic communities in Oklahoma City, in your minority communities in Oklahoma City, is there fear?

Is there an escalated presence of ice? Is it creating downstream economic ripple effects like we've seen in Chicago, for instance? There's definitely fear. I don't personally know of any actual evidence that we're seeing an escalated. Vice presence in Oklahoma City. One of the very five of my residents is Latino. That's by far the fastest growing segment of our city over the last 25 years. And so that's, that community is very important to me.

It's very important to our leadership. It's very important to our police department that they be trusted and that they can go help that community when crimes are committed and that they're not scared to call the police department. Right. So that's really important to us. But yeah, I hear it. There's definitely a lot of fear just because of the national headlines.

That's not to say, I mean, I don't know everything. I'm not omniscient, but I... You're not? But over the last... What am I about to ask you? But over the last nine months, I doubt, you know, there's rumors and there's things that fly around, but like, I don't know that we've ever really been able to pin down any specific thing that would really say, hey, there's like a concerted effort to escalate here.

It seems like those things are happening in other places. You're here to talk about housing. You're here in D.C. to talk about housing. There's, and far be it for you to offer advice to Democrats, but there is a big Democratic debate over the issue of abundance, I'm assuming you've been following some of the, a little bit, yeah. A little bit. It boils down to, can we create more things like housing? And if so, how do we do it? And is it all upside or are there downsides, frankly? I have a suspicion. I know where you're going to come down on this one, but I'm going to tee it up for you anyway. Talk about the importance of building housing and just more abundance of resources for people in cities. Yeah, I mean, this is not news to anybody, you know, and it's been, tagged with the word crisis for many years, the American housing crisis. And so it's, it operates all across the United States. Yeah, but people might not understand what the crisis is. So why don't you explain? Yeah, we just don't have enough units. Yeah. I mean, I don't

have the numbers off the top of my head, but plenty of people have done these studies. I mean, in just every city, every mayor can produce for you. We need more housing. Like what the number that they're short, right? And it is so it cascades down and and contributes to homelessness. It contributes to much higher prices. You know, people are seeing. you know, vastly escalating housing prices across the country. Excerates inequality, things like that. Yeah, I mean, it's just across the board. It's just, you know, it's the most fundamental need, I guess, next to water and food, you know.

And so we, I think, entered the election last year believing that, hey, you know what, no matter who wins, like this, we could work on this issue. And I don't know that we necessarily given up on that. I mean, it's challenging sometimes to, like, come to the table with this highly substantive policy topic when everybody wants to talk about, you know, the daily reality show up here in Washington. But, like, this is something that we think can have bipartisan support. And so we're still pushing it. And we were pleasantly surprised a few weeks ago when Senator Warren and Senator Scott of South Carolina introduced a bipartisan housing bill,

passed it unanimously through committee. And we're here. There's about, you know, a dozen or so mayors here for the next couple of days talking just about that bill and others that anything that can get traction, but we thought, hey, this is one that's, like, actually moving in the process. So that kind of was, I'd say, the instigating factor to get us to do a little fly in here for 48 hours. It wasn't to come on the bulwark? Well, that was, yeah.

I just built the trip around this podcast, yeah. But, yeah, I think we think that's an area of bipartisan consensus. Like, that's something everybody wants across the political spectrum. Republicans and Democrats want more affordable housing. And, you know, obviously we don't necessarily, as yet. have any particular traction with the administration, but we're seeing it in Congress, and we'll build from there. And we have a record, you know, we're, I think you said on, what am I the 83rd president or 93rd or something?

803rd. Yeah. We've got a nearly century-long history with the conference of mayors, and we have been significant contributors to major legislative successes through the years. Bipartisan infrastructure bill just a few years ago, we were front and center at the bill signing on the South Lawn. So, like, we think, like, when we mobilize historically, I know politics are weird these days. But like, historically, we were, we were able to get things done when we really got behind something and we want to get behind housing. Okay, last question, taking you away from the U.S. Conference of Mayors hat and more towards your moderate Republican hat. Tim Miller, our colleague, my colleague, I should say, praised you. And he never praises anybody.

I've never gotten a compliment from him once. But he says that you're one of the few sane Republicans left. And he said that in your book, in his book. And frankly, you are sort of a rare breed of Republican these days. What's your synopsis of the state of the party currently? Well, yeah, I mean, it's obviously very challenging. I mean, you know, I worked in the Bush White House. I came of age during that era, liked him, right? And a lot of the core principles that we would associate with the Holicum Party don't seem very prominent anymore. And also maybe just sort of the policy issues aside, just sort of the kind of the moral way that people comport themselves doesn't match with like what we bought into as young Republicans.

So, yeah, I mean, some days you can feel a little bit like a man without a country. But, you know, it is what it is. I think in Oklahoma City, I'm blessed by an electoral system. And this is like a thing I can get a little zealous about because it is, to me, the root of all evil in this country is the electoral system in Oklahoma City is that. Everybody who wants to run for mayor puts their name out there. Every voter gets the same ballot. And so therefore, all of the candidates have to face all of the voters. All the voters see all of the candidates.

It's kind of a top two system is one way to describe it in sort of political science terms. It's also nonpartisan, although I think that's secondarily important. I think the most important thing is that everybody gets the same ballot. And that motivates and incentivizes people like me to build a coalition of normal Republicans, Democrats and independents, and that's how I beat people by 40 points. It's not quite ranked choice, but it's almost... No, I'd say what it has in common with ranked choice is that everybody gets the same ballot. To me, like, ranked choice loses people with this idea.

What am I ranking? Weird and mysterious things are happening after they have voted, right? But at the beginning of it, the core thing is these two principles, I think, are so valuable because open primaries can mean like a zillion, infinite things. But these two principles of all the voters get to see all the candidates, all the candidates have to face all the voters. Show me an electoral system like that, and I will show you much more unifying

and pragmatic outcomes and candidates that are incentivized to build coalitions. Like, I don't know, like the way we did for like 230 years in this country. And so, as you know, of course, as most people who follow politics know,

most people are not elected that way than I just described. In fact, we're going in the reverse. We're doing a bunch of redistricting now and make it much easier, yeah. We're working harder and harder and harder to get fewer and fewer and fewer, people making all the decisions and those people are generally outliers on the political

spectrum. And they're like the 15% of people at both extremes. It kind of just depends where you live, which extreme you're going to have to answer to. And so yeah, then the poor voters in the general election are sort of presented with these two polarizing choices. And, you know, this, it's very common to say that, you know, this is a polarized country. And I dispute that because I think Oklahoma City, we are politically and demographically a perfect microcosm of the country. Look at our ethnic demographics. Look at our politics. Trump won the county by one point in the last two elections. And yet we pass all these initiatives and elect to mayors with 70 percent, like time and time again,

which I think demonstrates that if you have the right electoral system, you can still build that 70 percent consensus. It requires compromise. It requires, you know, nobody gets exactly what they want. Imagine that. But that was what we were taught to accept in kindergarten. But now we're like we're trying to do these political systems where one extreme or the other gets exactly what they want and like 80% of people are disappointed and you know it's led to this I think chaos that we currently experience so if you really want to fix the country in my view it's it's all about the way

we elect people and we need to emulate the way that most mayors are elected which for whatever historical reason is usually what I just described just emulate Oklahoma City that well I would I would say that in any on any front just don't take away our championship import Alex Caruso problem solved championship delivered this mayor thank you somebody I appreciate it I appreciate you