#1657 - Mayor Steve Adler

Joe Rogan (0:04)

The Joe Rogan Experience. Thanks for doing this, man.

Steve Adler (0:15)

No, I appreciate you.

Joe Rogan (0:16)

What's it like being the mayor of Austin?

Steve Adler (0:18)

You know, it's a real trip.

Joe Rogan (0:22)

If you could go back and do it again, would you?

Steve Adler (0:25)

I keep reminding Diane that we volunteered to do this. Yeah, because there's so many things about it that are spectacular.

But it is also the most frustrating thing I've ever done.

Joe Rogan (0:36)

Have you ever done anything in public service before this?

Steve Adler (0:40)

Not in any kind of elected office.

Joe Rogan (0:42)

What gave you the motivation to do it?

Steve Adler (0:45)

You know, I was in and around politics, but I worked on some campaigns. I had a friend who became a state senator, and I took some time off helping him set up his office. I think, you know, really it was, you know, literally the city had been real good to me. You know, I came here as a pretty poor student, passing through town, never left, stayed here for the music and the breakfast tacos.

You know, 40 years later, I've achieved so many things that I didn't even know existed, and it was a chance to give back. This is the classic case of no good deed goes unpunished.

Joe Rogan (1:26)

Well, and then, you know, the way it stands now, it's such a strange time, right? Like, everything was fine. I mean, so many mayors across the country had, you know, you have your standard mayor problems, but then COVID hits, and you have everything is exacerbated.

What kind of, like, massive change has this been for you?

Steve Adler (1:48)

You know, it actually starts before that. You know, let's go back. We've had three 100-year storms in my seven years where people have died. We had a bridge wash out way north of here sending silt downstream, and we ended up having to do a water boil in Austin.

And this was at a time...

Joe Rogan (2:09)

The water boil, I mean, people had to boil their tap water, so the processing wasn't working?

Steve Adler (2:13)

In the city of a million people, you couldn't drink the water. I mean, that never happens. But yet, in my time as mayor in seven years, it's happened twice. We had a bomber that was putting bombs on people's porches, mailing people, and people were dying.

You know, we had a thousand law enforcement agents here.

Joe Rogan (2:35)

We were talking about that.

Steve Adler (2:36)

And then COVID.

Joe Rogan (2:38)

What was the bomb about? What was that about?

Steve Adler (2:41)

It was no motive.

I mean, he was evil. He was just randomly sending bombs. Of course, when it started, we didn't know that it was random. Everybody was trying to figure out who's next and what the plan is. And it was fascinating to watch the FBI and Austin Police Department work on that.

Joe Rogan (3:09)

How long did it take to catch them?

Steve Adler (3:11)

You know, it was over in a matter of just a few weeks. And I don't even remember now. It could be even shorter than that. It could be two weeks. I remember it being a really long period of time, because every day lasted forever.

But it was relatively quick.

Joe Rogan (3:29)

What is it like being the mayor? Well, something like that is going on. Well, you're trying to sleep, and you're thinking like when's the next one going to blow? And how do we catch this guy? What is that feeling like?

Steve Adler (3:40)

It's hard, you know, because you know your community is scared. And you know that the community is looking to you to try and gauge how scared it is that they need to be.

You know, we had the FBI and APD, we had other law enforcement that was working on it. I was kind of like the translator. You know, they would listen to the official reports by law enforcement, and then they would look at me and say, so how are we supposed to be feeling for this? What's our swing thought? I mean, what are we supposed to be thinking about right now? And I, you read, start reading, you know, about other situations, other mayors that have gone through some similar kind of thing looking back in time. And so many of these things end where it just stops. They don't catch anybody. There's no finality to it. So there's this lingering, unsettled place where you just never know when it's going to come back again.