13th & Park

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Pavan Agarwal, CEO of Celligence and a pioneer in AI-powered mortgage technology, joins Adam Goodman on 13th and Park for a conversation about one of the most consequential barriers to the American dream: a mortgage system that has remained largely unchanged for four decades. Drawing on more than two decades as a loan officer in South Central Los Angeles and later as a fintech builder, Agarwal traces how a process designed around W-2 workers from the 1960s has systematically shut out gig workers, minorities, veterans, and anyone whose financial life does not fit neatly into a traditional box.

Agarwal shares striking data from seven years of government Home Mortgage Disclosure Act records, finding that for every two African-American applicants rejected in the conventional process, one would have been approved by AI. Three out of eight Hispanic applicants and two out of three veterans who were turned away would have qualified. He argues the problem is not the borrowers but a system built around high operational costs, roughly $5,000 per loan, that forces lenders to chase simple, low-risk files and abandon everyone else. His company's AI platform processes the same loan for under $125, and passes every dollar of savings directly to the consumer.

The conversation covers how AI removes the human anxiety and implicit bias baked into a traditional loan officer interview, replacing it with a private, consistent, and warranted decision that 200,000 families have already benefited from. Agarwal also raises the alarm about how lenders exploit veterans through predatory refinances that save them $5 a month while stripping tens of thousands in equity, and explains how government adoption of AI loan review could knock half a point off interest rates for all borrowers.


Chapters
0:00 Intro
8:29 Welcome and Guest Introduction
9:03 Two Decades Inside the Mortgage Industry
9:41 Loan Officer in South Central LA
10:46 The System Fails Borrowers
11:42 The Stress of Applying for a Mortgage
13:35 Where AI Changes Everything
14:29 Racial and Veteran Disparities in Lending
16:09 Why Banks Are Stuck in the Old System
17:35 The Traveling Nurse Story
20:11 Millions of Americans Left Out
20:58 Cutting Mortgage Costs by 97 Percent
22:09 Lost Decade for First-Time Buyers
25:06 Homeownership as Economic Engine
26:45 Pavan's Family Story: $100 and a HUD Repo
27:51 From Engineer to Mortgage Innovator
28:47 Helping Families Keep Their Homes
30:31 Message to Government on AI and Housing
35:20 Hope for Young Homebuyers
37:04 Closing Thoughts
38:45 VA Loan Exploitation and Predatory Refinancing
40:36 AI vs. Conventional Mortgage Side by Side
42:40 Government Pilot Testing AI for Loans
45:37 AI Outperforms Human Underwriters
48:08 Every American Should Be Cheering for This

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Jay Feely spent 14 seasons in the NFL as a place kicker, but his resume extends well beyond the field. After football, he built a career as an NFL broadcaster, served on the NFLPA Executive Committee negotiating billion-dollar collective bargaining agreements, and devoted years to community work in Arizona and abroad. Now he is running for Congress in Arizona's 1st Congressional District, one of the most competitive seats in the country. On 13th and Park, Feely sits down with Adam Goodman for a wide-ranging conversation about what a life lived under pressure actually teaches you about leadership.

Feely walks through the most scrutinized moment of his career, a game in Seattle where he missed three potential game winners for the New York Giants, including the role that sports psychologist Bob Rotella's book Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect played in his mental preparation. The lesson he took from that night, that failing as badly as you possibly can and surviving it is actually liberating, became the throughline for how he thinks about coaching, parenting, and now politics. He argues that the willingness to share your failures honestly, something almost no politician does, is exactly what voters are hungry for.

The conversation moves into the policy terrain of Arizona's 1st District, including the Colorado River water crisis, the affordability squeeze hitting working families, the regulatory drag on home construction, and the implications of TSMC's $250 billion chip manufacturing investment in the state. Feely draws on his NFLPA experience negotiating on behalf of players across wildly different income levels as direct preparation for the budget and benefits fights he expects in Congress, and explains why owners and players alike, including Falcons Owner Arthur Blank, have lined up behind his campaign.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:33 Welcome to 13th and Park
1:46 Adam Vinatieri and the Hall of Fame
2:53 The Mental Game: Bob Rotella and Kicking Under Pressure
5:10 Seattle: The Worst Game of His Career
8:07 Philadelphia: The Redemption Kick
9:27 Leadership, Failure, and Sharing Your Scars
10:29 Running for Congress in Arizona
15:09 Water Policy and the Colorado River
19:36 Affordability, Inflation, and Housing Costs
22:17 Lessons from the NFLPA
27:36 Favorite Teammate: Larry Fitzgerald
28:13 The Fake Field Goal Touchdown
29:31 His Wife and Family Life
30:31 A Coaching Legacy and His Daughter's Soccer Team
33:51 Closing Thoughts on Leadership

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Oklahoma Senator Alan Armstrong joins Adam Goodman on 13th and Park for a candid conversation about what happens when a career energy executive trades the boardroom for the Senate floor with a singular mission and a nine-month clock. Armstrong spent nearly four decades at the Williams Companies, rising to CEO of the Tulsa-based firm that handles roughly one-third of America's natural gas, before Governor Stitt tapped him to fill the vacancy left by Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullen. His focus from day one: the most comprehensive permitting reform proposal in congressional history.

Armstrong breaks down why permitting reform matters far beyond its dry, technical-sounding name. He connects the dots between a culture of blocking infrastructure projects and the soaring utility bills hitting American households, particularly in the Northeast, where opposition to natural gas pipelines has left residents paying $4.50 a gallon for heating oil instead of the natural gas equivalent of $0.46. He recalls a pivotal meeting with then-Governor Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, who openly told him cheap natural gas was unwelcome because it would undercut the political pressure to invest in greener alternatives, a candid admission Armstrong says the public never got to hear.

The senator is equally candid about the challenge of building a bipartisan coalition in a Senate paralyzed ahead of the midterms. He describes the frustration of watching moderate Democrats, who privately understand the urgency, face relentless pressure to block anything that might be called a win for the current administration. His colleague John Barrasso, he says with a laugh, watches him wrestle with the politics and just shakes his head. Armstrong is clear-eyed about the timeline: he almost certainly will not be in the chamber when a signing ceremony happens, but he does not care whose name is on the bill. He just wants it done.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:29 Host Introduction and Oklahoma Story
2:15 The Call from Governor Stitt
4:32 Family Reaction and the Landrieu Connection
5:24 What Is Permitting Reform?
7:43 Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Public Education
9:46 Northeast Pipelines and Higher Emissions
11:10 The Deval Patrick Meeting
12:24 Building a Bipartisan Coalition
14:53 China Is Building Faster Than America
17:23 Texas Roots and the Williams Companies Legacy
19:30 Building Infrastructure vs. Building Coalitions
21:31 Legacy Beyond the Senate Term
22:16 Appointed Senators Who Came Before
23:15 Closing Thoughts

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Missouri Senator Eric Schmitt joins Adam Goodman on 13th and Park for a conversation that moves from a viral SportsCenter moment to one of the most personal stories in the United States Senate. Schmitt, a former two-sport college athlete, made a full-extension diving catch at this year's Congressional Baseball Game at Nats Park, bloodied his nose on the warning track, won MVP honors, and landed on ESPN's Top 10. He jokes that more people have stopped him about that play than anything he has accomplished in politics, including a stranger watering flowers near St. Louis and a Jumbotron appearance at Busch Stadium.

On policy, Schmitt walks through the Protect College Sports Act, the bipartisan bill he has been advancing alongside Senators Cruz, Cantwell, Coons, and others. He frames the NIL era in two buckets: a governance piece covering transfer rules, eligibility limits, guaranteed scholarships, and health insurance for student athletes, and a pooled media rights structure that would allow conferences to negotiate television deals collectively under antitrust protection. His argument is straightforward: college football has historically subsidized women's and Olympic sports, and if that revenue base collapses, hundreds of thousands of student athletes lose scholarships and opportunities. He shares what he has learned from extended conversations with SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and Big Ten Commissioner Tony Petitti, and explains why voluntary participation is essential to making the media rights strategy work.

Schmitt also breaks down the American Citizenship Act, his statutory response to the Supreme Court's rejection of the president's birthright citizenship order. Drawing on Justice Kavanaugh's concurrence and the language of the 14th Amendment alongside the Civil Rights Act of 1866, he outlines a legislative roadmap he believes could produce a 5-4 Supreme Court decision in the other direction.

The most revealing stretch of the conversation is personal. Schmitt describes the night his son Stephen, who has tuberous sclerosis, epilepsy, and autism, suffered a four-hour grand mal seizure. Watching a red digital clock above the ICU bed and waiting for doctors to try the next medication, Schmitt began a process of discernment that led him into public service. He credits Stephen with reshaping his perspective on what matters, driving his early push for autism insurance reform in the Missouri state legislature, and anchoring the bipartisan disability legislation he continues to pursue in the Senate today.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:30 The Congressional Baseball Game Catch
2:35 Kids React to Dad's Viral Moment
3:57 Protect College Sports Act Explained
6:55 Conversations with Conference Commissioners
8:28 Pooled Media Rights Strategy
9:51 Birthright Citizenship and the American Citizenship Act
11:57 Son Stephen and a Father's Mission
14:14 Families Who Have Reached Out
15:25 Working-Class Roots and Public Service
17:42 Bipartisan Hope in Washington
19:25 What He Wants His Kids to Remember
20:33 The Second Catch Nobody Saw
21:34 Closing Remarks

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Audrey Tang, Taiwan's former digital minister and one of the world's most recognized civic technologists, joins Adam Goodman and Amy Tong on 13th and Park for a conversation about artificial intelligence, democratic renewal, and how to move a deeply polarized society toward uncommon ground. Tang, now academically based at Oxford, challenges the dominant framing of AI as either existential threat or salvation, arguing that the real problem is the misaligned recommendation engines of 2014 that trained us to mistake outrage for engagement. The path forward, Tang argues, is not to pick a side but to design platforms that surface what people already agree on without knowing it.

Drawing on Taiwan's remarkable turnaround from 9 percent government approval during the Sunflower Movement to broad public trust a decade later, Tang explains how citizen assemblies, deliberative polling, and tools like the Polis platform can compress what took the printing press generations into a matter of weeks. The episode traces concrete examples from Taiwan's 94 percent reduction in deepfake investment scams to citizen-driven policy in Bowling Green, Kentucky and a Connecticut property tax assembly, all powered by the same core idea: when you remove the reply button and the dunk button, people find each other.

Tang and Tong also dig into the question of scale, with Tang pushing back on the assumption that what worked for 23 million Taiwanese cannot work for 330 million Americans. The 50 states, Tang argues, are 50 laboratories of democracy, and California, Utah, and Central Oregon are already running the experiment. The real barrier is not size or polarization. It is simply that most people do not yet know their neighbors are already doing this.

The conversation closes with Tang reflecting on a childhood heart condition that shaped a philosophy of publish before perishing, a habit of sharing half-formed ideas in public that turned disagreement into friendship. Tang's next book, underway at Civic.AI, frames democracy itself as a social technology invented largely in America, one that Taiwan ran at internet scale and is now ready to return home.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
2:34 Doomers vs. Bloomers on AI
4:28 Why Change Feels Faster Now
5:36 Race vs. Mission Framing
7:07 Finding Uncommon Ground
9:02 How Recommendation Engines Broke Us
11:12 Taiwan's Democratic Comeback
14:40 Can This Scale to the US?
18:48 Citizen Assemblies in America
20:00 Tang's Origin Story
22:25 Meeting the AI Moment
24:10 Social Media and Young People
26:52 Democracy as Technology

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Amy Tong, former California Chief Information Officer and Secretary of Government Operations, and now a Partner with Ballard Partners and Chair of the Emerging Tech and AI Policy Group, joins Adam Goodman and co-host Anthony Williams at Ballard Studios in Washington, DC for a wide-ranging conversation on what it actually takes to modernize government from the inside. Tong arrived in the United States in 1986 as a 12-year-old, landing at San Francisco International Airport with her family and 8 suitcases after her parents, both college professors in China, decided the American university system offered opportunities that simply did not exist back home. That immigrant drive runs through everything she has done since, including a 31-year career spanning 6 state agencies and 5 governors, from the mainframe era all the way through the AI revolution.

Tong breaks down the digital transformation of California government, from the early days when technology was seen as a back-office function to today's expectation that citizens should be able to renew a driver's license as easily as they order something on Amazon. She shares how the COVID-19 pandemic became an unlikely catalyst for breakthrough change, forcing state leaders to rethink how government communicates and delivers services in real time, when the old playbook no longer applied and the public was watching every move online.

The conversation turns to cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, two areas Tong describes as inseparable in the current threat environment. She helped create California's Cybersecurity Integration Center under Governor Jerry Brown and later led implementation of the nation's first statewide executive order governing generative AI in state government under Governor Gavin Newsom. Her message is direct: complacency is no longer an option, and any government that does not put digital service delivery at the center of its mission is not one decade behind, it is multiple decades behind.

Now advising private-sector clients through Ballard Partners, Tong offers a rare insider view on what technology companies consistently get wrong when trying to work with government. Relationships built on genuine understanding of an agency's mission matter far more than a polished pitch, and the companies that invest in that long-term trust are the ones that win when contract opportunities finally arrive. It is a lesson rooted in decades of watching both sides of that equation up close.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:39 Welcome and Guest Introduction
2:00 8 Suitcases: Coming to America in 1986
3:46 From Mainframes to Mobile Government
5:42 Public Expectations of Digital Services
7:18 COVID-19 as a Digital Turning Point
12:13 Building California's Cybersecurity Center
14:41 AI for Good: California's Executive Order
16:15 Working Across 5 Governors
18:19 Advice for Incoming Governors on Tech
19:05 What Private Sector Gets Wrong About Government
22:10 Reflecting on Family and Sacrifice
23:57 Silicon Valley's Entrepreneurship Mindset
25:06 Schwarzenegger Stories and Bipartisan Tech
28:05 Closing Thoughts on Innovation and Curiosity

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Ambassador Mike Waltz, the 32nd U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and former Green Beret, joins Adam Goodman on 13th and Park for a wide-ranging conversation on American diplomacy, the reform of the United Nations, and the foreign policy vision driving the Trump administration. A decorated combat veteran with four Bronze Stars, including two for valor, Waltz brings a soldier's directness and a businessman's focus on outcomes to one of the most consequential diplomatic posts in the world.

Waltz walks through his confrontation with the Cuban foreign minister on the floor of the UN General Assembly, where he publicly called out the Castro family's private planes, private yachts, and luxury lifestyle while ordinary Cubans starve, prompting the Cuban diplomat to pound his translation device so hard he broke it. He frames Cuba's propaganda campaign as a last-ditch effort to blame the United States for communist mismanagement, and places it inside a broader realignment of the Western Hemisphere back toward the United States, from Argentina and Chile to Panama's withdrawal from China's Belt and Road Initiative.

On Iran, Waltz details the maximum pressure campaign squeezing the regime's finances, describes the real and documented assassination plots against senior U.S. officials, and explains why preventing a nuclear Iran is not just a Middle East issue but a global one. He also breaks down the UN's first-ever budget cuts under his watch, the defeat of a proposed billion-dollar-per-month carbon tax on global shipping, and the push to consolidate humanitarian agencies so more aid actually reaches people in need.

The conversation turns personal as Waltz reflects on his time as a Special Forces soldier bridging the gap between battlefield realities and Washington policymaking, the strong women who have shaped his life and career, and what it feels like to sit in the White House Situation Room knowing the weight of every decision. He closes with a reminder rooted in America's 250th anniversary: that the founding idea of rights coming from God to the individual, not from kings or governments, is still the most radical and powerful idea in human history.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:23 Welcome to 13th and Park
1:55 Cuba Confrontation at the UN
4:10 Latin America Strategy
5:37 Reforming the United Nations
7:31 Blocking the Global Carbon Tax
8:45 Business Mindset at the UN
10:53 Iran and the Strait of Hormuz
14:01 China and Energy Realignment
16:06 Tim Tebow, Nicki Minaj, and Human Trafficking
18:38 Green Beret to Diplomat
21:47 Family and the Women in His Life
23:36 Inside the Situation Room
26:49 A New American Foreign Policy
29:04 America's Founding Principles
30:02 Closing Remarks

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Senator Roger Marshall of Kansas joins 13th and Park for a wide-ranging conversation rooted in service, values, and the practical demands of governing. A fifth-generation farm kid and first-generation college student, Marshall spent 25 years as the only OB-GYN serving roughly 60,000 people in Great Bend, Kansas, delivering more than 5,000 babies before bringing that same instinct for listening and diagnosing to the United States Senate. He draws a direct line between what made him a good doctor and what he believes makes a good senator: the willingness to stop talking and actually hear what people are telling you.

Marshall breaks down what Kansans are really worried about right now, from the lingering cost-of-living squeeze left by four years of cumulative inflation, to a housing market that has effectively locked out anyone under 40, to a deep and surprising anger he says is being actively stoked by both cable news and social media. He describes his practice of touring all 105 Kansas counties every year as a kind of ongoing focus group, one that has surfaced everything from childcare and fentanyl to farmer mental health and the heated debate over data centers and water resources.

On policy, Marshall details two bills he helped push into law: the return of whole milk to school cafeterias and a new housing measure. He explains the Rural Health Transformation Fund and the Rural Emergency Hospital model he developed alongside Dr. Oz, a concept designed to stop the financial bleeding at critical access hospitals while keeping emergency services close to home. He also walks through the 45Z tax credit for ethanol and sustainable aviation fuel, which he personally pitched to President Trump at Mar-a-Lago and which he believes could multiply American agricultural exports by tenfold.

The conversation closes on the state of the Senate itself. Marshall reflects on the loss of Senator Lindsey Graham, leads a bipartisan prayer breakfast every Wednesday, and pushes back hard on the purity tests he says are fracturing both parties. His closing message is characteristically Kansan: get back to fundamentals, protect the American dream, and remember where you came from.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:27 Bob Dole and Kansas Legacy
2:14 25 Years as Doc Marshall
3:36 What Patients Taught Him About Leadership
4:29 What Kansans Are Saying Right Now
6:54 Touring All 105 Kansas Counties
9:30 Kansas Values and Getting Back to Fundamentals
11:00 Whole Milk and Housing Bills
13:06 Rural Healthcare and the $50 Billion Fund
16:09 The Rural Emergency Hospital Model
16:44 Agriculture, Cattle, and the 45Z Tax Credit
19:20 Quick Take on Iran
20:08 Bipartisanship and Senator Graham's Legacy
22:54 The American Dream He Wants to Protect

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Jim Allen, CEO of Seminole Gaming and Hard Rock International Chairman, joins Adam Goodman on 13th and Park for a wide-ranging conversation on the global expansion of Hard Rock, the rapidly shifting gaming landscape, and a life journey that began in the kitchens of Atlantic City and led to one of the most consequential careers in the history of the industry.

Allen walks through the construction of Hard Rock's second Guitar Hotel on the iconic Mirage property in Las Vegas, a site he calls the true 50-yard line of the Strip, and reflects on how the Seminole Tribe of Florida's sovereignty and long-term vision gave Hard Rock the structural freedom to take bold swings that publicly traded competitors simply cannot. He breaks down the future of sports betting and iGaming, the threat of offshore illegal gaming, and why he believes the Supreme Court will ultimately need to give the industry the regulatory clarity it needs to move forward responsibly.

The conversation turns personal as Allen shares the story behind his decision to raise wages for line employees to a minimum of $18, pushing toward $20, at a time when the political debate was stuck at $13 or $14. He describes offering to fund the initiative personally if the board pushed back, and connects that decision directly to his own upbringing, losing his father at 48 with a stack of bills and no insurance, and to the experience of doing every job in the industry himself before leading it.

Allen also reflects on his close friendship with Lionel Messi, crediting a senior marketing executive named Elena for building that relationship, and shares a story about Messi staying until 11 at night to play with every group of underprivileged children at a South Florida event. Throughout, Allen makes the case that integrity, a strong balance sheet, and genuine investment in people are not just the right values but the right strategy for any enterprise built to last.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:34 17 Years with Adam Goodman
2:12 Hard Rock's Memorabilia Collection
3:18 Guitar Hotel at the Mirage
6:59 The Future of Gaming
10:50 Balancing Casinos and Sports Betting
11:59 Hard Rock Bet and Sports Betting Growth
14:40 Regulation and Offshore Gaming
15:59 From Atlantic City to CEO
19:12 Buying the Hard Rock Brand
21:00 Lionel Messi and Celebrity Partnerships
23:40 Giving Back and Community Values
24:57 Raising Wages to $20 an Hour
30:12 Advice, Legacy, and Life Lessons
31:32 Closing Remarks

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Governor Tate Reeves of Mississippi joins Adam Goodman and co-host Will Russell on 13th and Park for a wide-ranging conversation on conservative governance, economic development, and what he calls the Mississippi Miracle. The episode covers how Mississippi has transformed its national reputation, drawing billions in private investment and posting some of the most dramatic education gains in the country, all while cutting taxes and paying down debt.

Reeves breaks down Mississippi's strategy for becoming what he calls the yes state, a place that starts every conversation with a prospective employer from a position of openness rather than obstruction. He shares how Elon Musk coined the phrase insane execution speed to describe Mississippi's business climate when announcing a $20 billion investment, the largest private sector commitment in state history, and how that competitive advantage translates into a simple but powerful promise: Mississippi can take a company from spending money to making money faster than any other state in America.

On education, Reeves recounts the sweeping reforms passed under his tenure as lieutenant governor that launched Mississippi from 49th in the country to 9th in 4th grade reading and from 50th to 16th in math. He connects those classroom gains directly to workforce readiness, explaining how the state's Accelerate Mississippi program puts the private sector in charge of workforce development to align training with the jobs of the next 50 years, not the last 50.

The conversation also covers Mississippi's all-of-the-above energy strategy, Reeves's early career as the youngest state treasurer in the country, the leadership lessons he drew from navigating 14 federally declared disasters in his first 14 months as governor, and the personal story of growing up as the son of a small business owner in Florence, Mississippi.

Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:19 World Cup and Emma Reeves
1:58 Appalachian Regional Commission
2:41 Conservative Governance and the Mississippi Story
4:10 Tax Cuts and Education Gains
6:39 State Treasurer and Fiscal Reform
9:25 Workforce Development and Skilled Jobs
12:48 The Yes State and Execution Speed
15:18 Energy Policy and Data Centers
17:53 Leading Through Crisis: COVID and Disasters
19:30 Mississippi's Future Vision
20:41 Growing Up in Florence, Mississippi
23:50 Department of Education and Linda McMahon
26:04 Closing Thoughts

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