politics that don't depend on hegemony and we have to depend less on coercion and dominance-- >> we are going to leave this book tv program for a brief moment to go live to the senate for what we expect is going to be a short session and lawmakers are expected to return on monday to work on funding measures. live coverage. senate on c-span2. doitsz the presiding officer: the senate will come to order. the parliamentarian will read a communication to the senate. the parliamentarian: washington, d.c., january 5, 2024. to the senate: under the provisions of rule 1, paragraph 3, of the standing rules of the senate, i hereby appoint the honorable thomas r. carper, a senator from the state of delaware, to perform the duties of the chair. signed: patty murray, president pro tempore. the presiding officer: under

the previous order, the senate stands adjourned until 3:00 p.m. on monday, january 8, 2024. january 8, 2024. >> and the sin as gavel out for the week after ushering in the second session of the 118th congress on wednesday. the next vote in the chamber scheduled for monday when senators return to work as expected on funding the federal government. live coverage of the senate here on c-span2. c-span2. we now return to booktv programming. >> i mean, unfortunately it is an ever more popular strategy in certain quarters especially the republican party but what you do say that we can do and should try to do is do you say we want the world not that notl but is hospitable to the continuation of the american experience. can you elaboratete on that? >> yet. i guess there, too, i'm going separate out, i'm trying to

imagine a world in which without american hegemony we can still be confident in the future of the american experiment. it's harder than the last time we hadte a major ship in international politics when the end of the british last century and america was a scrappy, young, growing industrial country that was right there ready to catch t the ball so tht was a handoff from one, and just deeply flawed colonial democracy to another, and liberal ideas had a guardian as international politics involved. there's no obvious, there's no single actor today for the united states to handoff to. so we face a more complicated challenge where we have to build a coal cycle constellations of cooperation around different global problems and kind of p hd off, the more comfortable being part of a board of directors on something that a ceo. >> you say in the book that the

world doesn't run itself, and we've had this multilateral institutions that have been set up for decades. we, if anybody who's been following what's going on v in e u.n. general a summary this week and volodymyr zelensky being so critical of its ineffectiveness, you quote i don't know which french president was who said nato is brain-dead. so if all the structures in place that a been there for a long time. aret they just not working, ors it that we need an attitude shift about how to reconstitute them? >> kind of both. i mean, as somebody who was ambassador to an international organization that operates wholly consistent and included the russian federation, i know about how hard it is to reach consensus on everything. these organizations are only as good as the participant in that. it's not that deep flaw within the united nations security

council that causes the united nations to get a counsel to not to take decisions in the interest of world peace. it's a flaw with vladimir putin's regime and often with the chinese government and others who do not support actions that the u.n. should take to help secure peace in the world. i think where to stay committed to those organizations. they are inclusive and their place for us to make arguments. overtime this argument to have maybe not every time but over time those arguments do have weight and do have a fact. i also think we're going to see much more of what was trying to see and theli biden administration's in several things that are examples of this come like aukus of the quad. were going to start seeing much more flexible i think, frequently kolko flexible plurilateral lizzo orbu somethig like that. that the catchphrase but we'll see much more innovation of identifying either about certain issues, fishing in the pacific ocean or whatever, or regions. were going to see pulling together a group of countries around climate, a group of

countries for particularly interested in a particular issue or problem, and problem solving in those kind of new groups. >> suggest as a side question, when you at the osce, did you practice this art of convincing and that coercing, let's say, with the representative of the russian federation? i mean come out of that actual plant in practice for you? >> well -- >> did he give you ideas for this book? which i'm sure it did. >> i mean, two things in practice. one, it was somebody on my team who came to meet in the early days of the invasion in 2014 and said we could use a model like what the osce have done in the former yugoslavia. we could have mandate that would allow observers to look at the conditions, simply observers to look at the conditions on the ground. the russians within spewing false allegations about terrible things happen in eastern ukraine. there were terrible things that they were perpetrating, that

they were spewing false allegations. and so they said, sort of claiming that all this that things are happening, we should just take their claims and say we should send in an observer mission. there was somebody on my team who wrote up the first mandate, and we negotiated, including with the russians, and yes, they were called that because of the making of this complaint and look like when answering them with the solution. and so we did get something done even with the russians as they were invading another country that was participating state. and then over, became much harder to get things done after that, but over the ensuing years there were weekly debates on russia's invasion and ukraine ambassador and i with each speak in the russian ambassador would speak, and there are 57 participating state in the u.n., in the y osce, and let me tell u that the other 54 want a site of

the ukrainian ambassador, not on the side of the russian ambassador. whether they said so or not, making those arguments come making people realize where a principal is come that the mets are people and the message they send back to capital is basically that the russian ambassador had no leg to stand on, but he was embarrassing itself, things like that. that is the important international politics to try to continue making the argument on a principled basis for making a really good case for why these very flawed organizations in the situations gives to get some stuff done. can we movees to investment fora second? is a quote i live in a book which is you say that investment is a statement of interest. >> yeah. i mean, and a commitment to the future obviously. intent aboutt of the future, sorry. >> yeah. i mean, one of the core arguments of the chapter that is the investment test is we have to not just think around with the dials but actually recognize

that the enormous technological change that we've gone through means that we have to invest in the american people in a way that we have done in the past. and again, look, the last century when the kind of first wave of industrial revolution had ended and we realize there was a realization whether conscious or not that people need more education in order to stay ahead, we create public schools that went through 12th grade. we now need more than that. people need more than a high school diploma to be successful in the global economy today. and not only that, we can no longer afford to not be educating all americans because the scale problem means we need everybody off the bench and participating. so we have to messst of investig in human capital and that means not just education but also making sure people are able to work, that means childcare and elder care. those are theca things that are going to drive the american economy for the making our

strength in the world and is going to take a shift in the way people think about and there's nobody, some of this investment will come from the private sector but there's nobody that kind of quarterback this other than the federal government. states will play a key role. so we have to have a mindset xtthat if we want to compete in the next 50 years, we have to invest in the american people in the way we have done in the past. >> you talk about the care of economy. you just mentioned a couple aspects of it. that also hits on issues of pay equity and institutional and racism in our economy. structural, economic forces that work against thehe most marginalized people. when i was reading that i was reminded, i don't know if any of you read this piece about katie porter a s couple of days ago, t she says in her book, being a real person and having a real life is in fundamental conflict with american politics. you know, that is so apt and it's a lot of what you're talking about. i mean, if you can't, why is her

healthcare system, other job so e low-paying, they are pocketed usually by people who are always at the bottom of the economic ladder. >> yes. and i guess part of the argument that i'm making is that, well, for me a it is compelling to a social and economic justice arguments about pay equity or about closing the achievement gap in education or about making sure that healthcare workers who are doing home healthcare are paid a a living wage. the social and economic justice arguments are compelling to me. i alsoo think if you're not persuaded by that, you just have to believe in math. we will not have the kind of economic achievement we need to have for america to stay strong if wee don't invest in those things, if we don't solve those problems come if we don't take a racism. like we need everybody off the bench and fully in productive work, and we can't do that if we are held back by racism, sexism, et cetera.

>> absolutely. i just wonder though if the biggest challenge of o all isn't the sort of zero-sum game mentality that you talk a little bit about that in the fairness section. if i can't see the benefit of having well-paid healthcare workers and how it might rebound notches on society but on my community, it's going too be a hard sell, isn't it? because all of this structural forces are at work to stop us from doing this. >> yes, and i think winter break out theng bad habits. i mean two things on that. one, i think it's important that rich people in america of which are great many recognize that if america continues on the trajectory were on right now in terms of widening inequality, the quality of life for their children, even if they're rich, is not going to be great either. it's going to be worse than it would be. they are going, does he want to live like a rich person in brazil where they are worried

abouto kidnapping? i mean we want to have a more equal society, and more for society because it will be better for everyone. everyone will feel safer, more secure. be more possible to find a fulfilling life no matter whether you are very rich or not. so, i mean, i think it's important to make the case to reach people that they also have something to gain out of this. and i forgot my second point. >> will, you remember bill clinton used to. say i should always be getting taxed more. i'm with pincus and you try to make a point, i'm wealthy and i don't pay enough taxes. >> we are going to have, there are only two ways for the government to invest money, and one is to borrow it and the other is obviously through taxation. i think the kind of investment, i mean, i think there's a difference between consumption spending, which frankly tax cuts are in their affect, and genuine investment in the future of the american economy and in the

health and well-being of the american people. and i think it is a fair argument and we should have these debates in congress about which kind of spending we're talking about, whether we're talking aon consumption for the kinds of investments that will pay dividends in the long with and that will leave all americans better off. >> toho make the point we maybe shouldn't, i wasn't making the distinction in my own head just now of consumption spending versus other kinds of investment spending. but you make the point why do we just think of these things as investments, not spending? >> yes. so not spending and a sense of consumption, yeah. not spending anyway that i buy it t-shirt that then goes away. >> but in meantime we can't even pass a budget. >> right. >> and we beingd held hostage y a spineless, week house speaker who is now beholden to a handful of extremists and can't get anythingng done. >> i'm going to confess that i've i started to feel sorry for kevin

mccarthy. >> not quite there. >> i i mean, two things on that. one, there's no question, think about what it looks like from other world capitals. think about what it looks like beijing to see that the american congress can't agree on rules to discuss a budget. >> fake out the popcorn up. >> right, exactly. you know, part of china's strategy is premised on american decline, and this kind of political circus validates their thinking. there's no question that is not good for us in the world because it doesn't look like the way that you want a grown-up country to be. and it's not just this budget fight. it's obvious if the fact that congress has repeatedly failed to pass a proper budget for the functioning of the federal government. and that doing that means you actually don't adapt your spending so that you are doing more investment because what they do ison they just continued the old budget. well, the old budget problems was a great for 2017, but it's

really not appropriate for 2024. and if we just continue what we were doing iner the past you ner get the opportunity to innovate and do things better.ot so we need to pass a budget. the other thing i think in this is part of what i talk about in the book is we should recognize how deeply connected this kind of political circus and dysfunction is to for instance, our campaign-finance system. it is connected both to the fact that wealthy elites in this country effectively control, currently control the kind of make up of the u.s. senate because money has become so important to electoral politics, particularly kind of the senate is a sweet spot of where it's a very significant office but not necessarily a national name. but you need statewide media stuff like that so it's expensive to run. and there's often, often when you say that, and it is true, that the very wealthy are

spending too much on american politics and buying power that way, the small dollar donors are not a perfect antidote to that. i mean, don't get me wrong, i think people should be able to make small dollar donations butl the way that that has evolved because so much money is required to run for an office in our country, the way that the small dollar donors have evolved is to create these army's of often fringe on both sides, people, you know, we all get his fundraising e-mails and you think it is a height of his work on? what are the sudden exclamation marks and wired using hyperbole? both parties do it. the edge is it doesn't work on people but it works with 3% of people of people and they keep giving $20, and by the way they won't let their lauren boebert or marjorie to the green vote for the rules to debate the budget when kevin mccarthy needs him to do that. because those people are m