>> all right.

i will let everybody settle in. welcome back to the afternoon session this saturday everyone. hopefully you had time to get enough lunch. i know it's a quick turnaround but i appreciate everybody bearing with us in getting back for the rest of the discussions. it is an honor to introduce the next panel. i think it is really critical. the discussion they will have is really a testament to the leadership that these women have exhibited. the title of the panel is "leading with principal" i will welcome them to the stage. speaking up for the truth. i think that is easier said than done a lot of times particularly when you are in the middle of a battle and you are serving in positions of government. you want to serve. you want to serve the country and all three of these women have done this.

alyssa farah griffin now of the view is your will be here -- now of the view is here moderating the discussion joined by cassidy hutchinson the former white house aide to mark meadows. [applause] and sarah matthews the former white house deputy press secretary. please give all these women around of applause for their courage. >> think you guys so much. i honestly get cheered up when i see these two because i have so much respect, love, and

admiration for their bravery and courage. when the two of them spoke out against the most powerful man on the planet they were in their 20's. they were younger staffers with big jobs, big titles they earned. they came forward to do the right thing when so many people three times their age saw the same thing and did not say a thing about it. these are two incredibly brave woman that i am honored to be with today. [applause] i would like to note that i do not think kassidy and i would have had the courage to speak out if it was not for this woman here. i know kassidy agrees with me. thank you for being an inspiration to us. let's get right into it. i want to focus a little bit on what brought them to where they were in the process of speaking

out. i want to reserve time to talk about what a second donald trump term, godfrey bed, would look like -- god forbid, would look like. all of us have unique insight and i think at the moment it is not getting enough attention. if both of you could just share what ultimately made you want to speak out and what that process looks like for you and the days, the weeks, months that followed after you do something like that. >> go for it. >> bypass was not exact -- my path was not exactly linear. i work in the white house for the chief of staff until january 20. i did plan to move to mar-a-lago with mr. trump after the administration even after january 6. i look back on that now and i have a very different perspective. at time when i was -- at the time i was still entrenched in that world i felt he needed good people around him.

i had been blinded to the fact he was surrounded by enablers, but he is also the perpetrator. i think that speaks to a lot of what we have seen as a continuing problem with donald trump. how he has been able to artificially seduce people into believing his lies. that said, i spent about 1.5 years trying to tow both worlds. i did not really want to be involved in donald trump's world at all anymore. i was very outspoken after january 6 that we were at fault for what happened. i also had financial constraints. i had an attorney that was helping me through the first year depositions. it was not until a few pages of my transcripts were published that for lack of a better term i had a mental breakdown. i was reading these pages. i knew the public servant i had wanted to become when i entered

public service. and i saw how far i had strayed from that person. i saw how i was avoiding telling the truth. i had not been as forthcoming as i had wanted to be. so, i called a member of congress. i refer to him as sam here he -- sam. he is a current sitting member of congress, a republican that did not serve on the january 6 committee and that night he asked me to go look in the mirror and i was kind of annoyed at him that night. i was crying like i don't want to look at myself right now. he said don't look at your appearance, go look at yourself. that was a really profound impactful moment for me. next he asked me, could you look at yourself or the rest of your life knowing that you are not honoring the person you want to be? can you look at that person for the rest of your life? i knew that i could not. a few other people including alyssa helped usher me back to

the right side of history. but i was really scared. it was not until i discovered the book called "the last president's men by bob woodward featured aaron alex butterfield you worked for richard nixon's chief of staff. and ended up for healing information to the watergate committee. but he did not want to come forward. he still felt loyal to richard nixon. the difference between myself and alex butterfield was the moment he was asked to come forward, he did. he honored his oce and his owes at the public servant as a former member of the military and an american. i saw who i wanted to be in alex. that gave me the drive and push to move forward in this so-called journey. alongside a lot of other incredible, primarily women, my team of attorneys that came in

early june. >> i have been asked was it on january 6 you decided to resign? i think that was the tipping point for me, but it was kind of a slow burn that started after the election because on election night i remember sitting in the west wing and it seemed the result coming in and knowing that georgia was not trending in the way it should be for a republican candidate and i remember telling this roomful of people we lost. there's no coming back from this. people were saying we might wake up tomorrow and things will be different. obviously that evening i think it was like 3:00 a.m. donald trump went out to declare victory and i felt really uncomfortable from that. it was from that day moving forward as he started to cling to conspiracy theories to try to explain away how he could lose

to someone he perceived as weak as joe biden i became increasingly comfortable with staying at the white house but i felt a duty to finish the term and a see-through peaceful transition. i promised my boss at the time, the white house press secretary kayleigh mcenany, that i would stay on until the end. then january 6 came and we all know what happened that day. donald trump sat back and watched and enjoyed it. i was working as a spokesperson for him. i think that made my decision to resign may be a little different than other people that were also working at the white house. because, my job would have been defending that. walking into the white house gates the next day and acting like everything i saw was fine trying to tell reporters that and it defend his lack of action , i just could not do that. so i ended up resigning that

night. after that i actually went back to republican politics. i went back to work on capitol hill where i got my start. that felt like a safe landing zone for me. then, a couple months went by. eventually, i got connected to liz cheney through alyssa. liz asked alyssa if she thought i might be willing to cooperate with the january 6 committee. obviously, i wasn't sympathetic to the cause and believed there needed to be an investigation. then, when they asked me to publicly testify, i was more than happy to. and shed some light on what i saw in the lead up after the election and on january itself, that donald trump did not care what was happening at the capital -- the capitol and sat back and did nothing. i think something we all spend a lot of time thinking about and none of us have here answer to,

but some perspective on, is we are lifelong conservatives and republicans and we all probably agreed with about 7% of donald trump's policies. i think we were open eyed to his character but came to the decision that he is commander of you need people there of good condors that take the oath they swear to the consecration -- constitution seriously. what we wonder is why other people have not come forward that saw what we saw and heard what we heard and why that was not enough of a motivating factor? my working theory looking back at my time in the white house is part of it is you are going one million miles per minute and another part is you start to exist in an echo chamber of people telling you this is all right. we will get through this. you are watching a media environment. it's right wing it's fox news. it is validating what you are doing, hearing, and saying and you almost are to lose yourself in it. i think that speaks a lot to what we are seeing from a lot of

elected republicans in congress. all of us know we know -- no they know better. tim scott knows better. it is hard to wrap your head around the mental joe knapp sticks -- mental gymnastics takes to get where he has or somebody like elise stefanik. the question i want to ask you guys is, what is your perspective on why liz cheney came forward and thought more people would follow and it was like the three of us and no one else? why haven't more people came forward? >> i think sadly people are more concerned with their own positions of power than was doing -- with doing what is right for the country. [applause] it is so sad. because, these people were elected to not serve donald trump. they are there to conserve -- preserve their constituents and

they seem to have that confused. so they are doing his bidding. they are so concerned with painting a target on their own back. donald trump, when people speak against him, what does he do? he tries to find a primary opponent for those people in their race so he gets them out and gets someone he approves of in. i thing a lot of these politicians are using that as a calculus to not speak out and that is really disappointing because i think a lot of people probably think, i cannot imagine donald trump is that bad if there are not a lot of other republican speaking out. well they aren't saying anything. there are only a couple people the same disgruntled or what have you or want the limelight or something. they come up with some excuse to explain away people like us coming forward. but, i think that people would believe the threat of donald trump if there were more willing

people, elected officials that come out and say what i know they say privately publicly. [applause] >> brilliant. you took the words out of my mouth. i want to touch on one thing alyssa said earlier about the singular worldview, something to that effect. when we existed in that environment, at least in my experience, it can be an extremely isolating place. on one side, you do have fox news telling you what they believe is true, and they have received lawsuits so that's not necessarily the case that it is truth. but aside from that, the isolation is such a powerful tool that donald trump has done anything successfully in his life he has successfully weaponized isolation and joined that with his message to make it

the only message that matters. if you disagree with him, we are beyond the tribal politics at this point. if you disagree with anything he says, it does not matter if you are a democrat or republican, you are automatically the enemy to him and he will go after you and go after you fiercely. sometimes, i do struggle with people that don't come forward even though it is the right thing to do. in our situation we have all been subjected to horrible attacks and threats on our life. it is not easy to be in this position. but just because it is not easy does not mean it is not worth coming forward. [applause] in the next election cycle, we won't solve this problem in this election cycle in totality.

there is a lot of work that needs to be done to help bring people back to reality, to bring people back to not believing these in spirit as he theories and of the propagation of lies donald trump has done. what we need to do is practice compassion for people that did fall into that seduction and were artificially duped. we need to help educate those people. we don't shame people out of their belief system. we have to welcome them back. that is something that in my journey i have been extremely fortunate with. i was very warmly welcomed into a room full of wonderful people like you. that's not the case for everyone. i think of ruby freeman and shaye moss innocent election workers in georgia. i think about rusty bowers trapped in his home as donald trump supporters and rudy giuliani sent to his home while his daughter is passing away inside.

this is a problem that has persisted. we are at a level of political violence we have not seen in modern time. we need to retract from that. we need to restore some normalcy. we start in the next election by doing everything that we possibly can to make sure donald trump never gets near the oval office again and to make sure that every member of congress that has been an enabler of donald trump's agenda is also held accountable and voted out of office. [applause] >> very well said. just underscore something to read you alluded to something important. i always try to catch myself to make sure i'm not being hyperbolic talking about donald trump. i don't want to fall into the trap of trump derangement syndrome. but i want to tell you that a

somebody that knew him very well and spend a lot of time with him is that the worst things you have heard are only scratching the surface. this is an unprecedented moment we are in. granted, we are some of the more vocal former trump staffers, but he has been denounced by all of his most seem -- most senior staff. we have never seen that in modern american history. multiple white house chief of staff, multiple secretaries of defense, his former national security advisor, his former communications director. people that saw him in the most decision-making environments say he is unfit and threatens democracy and people need to wake up to that. something i think we are all very passionate and energized about going into the election season, knowing we are eight months out from that and he could be presented -- president again, what would a second term look like? foundational he, and liz cheney has made this point before, we are not even out of the woods if

he leaves. the idea that his supporters will take it lying down and it will not be another contested election where you have a speaker of the house potentially who is not going to certify election results depending on the makeup of congress. and if he does win, what that could look like. can you both speak to some of what you think would happen in a second term based on what we know from what he has said? >> i like to touch on what he has said very vocally about schedule f appointments, something that was actually discussed at the end of his first term too. i focus a lot on schedule off because i think it is something that sometimes, at least in my view, we get stuck in the beltway talk. the average american person might not know what a schedule f government employee is. but essentially donald trump wants to take schedule as employees, career civil servants

, and be able to fire them and replace them with trump loyalists. we have seen that donald trump and his supporters and enablers and different groups have already started compiling databases of people that are sufficiently loyal to fill the spots for him. in a second trump term there will not be people that are willing to stick up for the truth. there will be people that are willing to execute donald trump's plan and it donald trump's plan only. that is fundamentally un-american. that's fundamentally undemocratic. that is, in my view, one of the biggest threats to the constitutional republic we are facing. >> going off of that too we see now even in his court case is where he is arguing that he should have presidential immunity. his law years literally arguing he would be allowed to assassinate someone and get away with it because he was acting as president. i think we should take him at his word when he says things

like this. because, it's very easy to get desensitized by all the crazy stuff that comes out of his mouth. i think a lot of americans have. i think we are able to tune that out because he just continues to say these kinds of crazy things. when he is talking about wanting to weaponize the government and put in loyalists to carry out his agenda, and he has even called for doing away with parts of the constitution, this is someone that has no regard for our constitution, no respect for our institutions him and he does not care about the rule of law. he thinks he is above the law. that's really scary to think of a second donald trump term because this is something i have tried to make the case for two people who i know that still support donald trump or are considering voting for him.

that, the donald trump you met that came onto the political scene in 2016 and the donald trump of 2024 are different people. in 2016 he ran on an optimistic message. make america great again. the campaign message now in 2024 is all about retribution. it's all about himself. it's not about you and improving your everyday life and making policy changes in that way. it is literally about him wanting to consolidate power in the government to weaponize the power, to enact revenge on his political enemies. >> building off that, he is a man that prioritizes authoritarian rule over rule of law. we can't let somebody like that near the nuclear codes. we can't let somebody like that occupy the oval office. we can't let somebody like that get reelected to the white house. i know that if one day hopefully i am fortunate enough to have children of my own i don't want

to have to explain to my children that we were all bystanders as the greatest democracy in the history of the world is crumbling. and we are just watching it happen before our eyes. i think when donald trump says -- and he acts like he jokes -- but he says he would be a dictator only on day one. you aren't a dictator for one day. if donald trump is reelected, that is the greatest step towards facets -- fascism we have taken in the country and that it will not -- and i do not know if we would be able to return from that. >> we have to look at the domestic front and international political front when it comes to donald trump. on the domestic front the first term they did not really know what they were doing. to put it mildly. [laughter]. >> learning curve area >> -- curve. >> he did not know how to use delever the -- use the levers of

federal power the way he will second term. and there were people that offered checks throughout. i think of a conversation donald trump made last week saying of nato members did not increase their shares that russia should invade them and he would essentially do away with article five of nato. he talked about doing that in the first term. he wanted to that -- to do that in the first term if not for john bolton and secretary esper being there to stop him. that could have already happened and those people won't be there next time. to your point the heritage foundation, once esteemed, is now collecting names to staff a future administration that is full of, as they have described it, tucker carlson's, not ronald reagan's or paul ryan's. we are looking at the most powerful institutions in government being staffed with sycophants and loyalists not people with experience that have a global perspective. on the domestic front he knows how he can use the system

better. something he started to delve into in his term was appointing people in acting capacities at departments. it's a white -- way to bypass senate confirmation. we essentially have three equal but separate branches of government for a reason. him going into the second term would intentionally put people in acting capacities to bypass tone through confirmation and they could be there for 180 days without any senate approval. what you can do in that amount of time is actually quite stunning and scary. be thinking about who are the voices he is amplifying? who are the people he is surrounding himself with? those are the people he will bring to government. it is a really scary moment. i want to ask you guys, the future of the party. it is really hard to be sitting here, the three of us, eight months from an election, three years after january 6. it feels like the party is completely lined up behind him. he will very likely secure the

nomination, basically tonight is not the first week of march. what can we do in the eight months ahead? >> i am definitely encouraged by this room of people. it shows me that even though we might be small there is a growing number of republicans and independents that are fed up with donald trump at his chaos and divisiveness. that want a return to normalcy in our politics. i love hearing the message from nikki haley, honestly, on the campaign trail. she has been leaning into this. do you want a normal candidate? i think we all crave that. we want to go back to that. yes, republicans and democrats have always fought. but, i think things have just gotten so ugly in the last 10, 20 years. so, i think that i feel encouraged by this remand -- broom, and at least for me i want to do everything i can either that several months to ensure donald trump is never

president again and i am hopeful that by speaking out it will encourage others to come forward and even i feel like as i have mentioned with nikki haley, the turn we have seen from her in the last couple months and her getting more aggressive in her attacks against donald trump, it really gives me hope. honestly, too, even in the primaries of a chris christie, asa hutchinson, will heard, their voices were so important. even if they were not going to be able to overcome donald trump it shows me there are politicians out there that have a backbone and are willing to stand up and say this is not acceptable. i hope that we will see more of those people start to run for office. and it does concern me too when i said about the current makeup of our government. we are seeing a lot of the more normal republicans start to retire now. recently we had mike gallagher from wisconsin say he was going to retire.

like in his 40's. he was the chair of a committee. he is so fed up with washington, clearly. he wants to be as far away from it as possible and is going to retire. it makes me sad. we need more people like mike gallagher in congress and less people like marjorie taylor greene. so, --. applause --. [applause] it sounds cheesy but be the change you wish to see in the world and i really hope more people will be set up and seek to run for office. i hope more republicans will speak out against donald trump as we get closer to the election. >> to build on that, sarah, you are on fire today. but, to briefly build on that, as i have been traveling around the country these past few months i have been very

encouraged by the amount of young people that see the threat donald trump poses. but we need to do more. we need to do more to mobilize voters. we need to do more to educate voters. the reality is the next election will come down to a handful of states, similar to how it happened in 2020. we need to focus on those estates to make sure those constituents are adequately educated on who they are voting for. and if the ticket is a binary choice between donald trump and joe biden people need to understand that at a very basic, very fundamental level, that there would be one candidate on the ballot that will support our democracy and continue to support our policies so we can continue to thrive and it is not donald trump. [applause]

in saying that too, we cannot just focus on donald trump. donald trump is a big part of the problem and i don't want to underscore that. but, we also need to focus on congress because donald trump would need to congress, or joe biden, in a potential second term, would need to rely on congress. right now, the republicans running for reelection or running for office are not honorable people. they are not serious politicians. if this means we need to vote them all out and rebuild the party from the ground up, that is what we have to do. this moment is so much bigger than partisan politics. it's about the future of our country. there can be no stone left unturned after this november. [applause] >> that is a very important point. donald trump is the biggest part

of the problem but we need to look beyond that. congress matters. i appreciate that liz cheney, adhering to the first motto said i want good republicans to win and i want to win and i want bad republicans out. frankly this house republican conference is dangerous and enabling donald trump. there's a handful of good ones. i want to shout out donald fitzpatrick who seems to be doing a discharge position to get aid to ukraine. [applause] but if you are continually lying to the public, withholding critical aid from our allies, refusing to secure our southern border to deny a win to the right and administration get out. -- divided administration, get out, that's not what we need. >> something i want to add piggybacking off the idea of republicans and people in the house being a threat in terms of

them being willing to do whatever it is for donald trump. it is so funny. looking at the current speaker of the house, mike johnson and he really is not much of a speaker all. because, he makes kevin mccarthy look like nancy pelosi. >> kevin will love that. >> he really does. it's really sad. he actually has such a moment right now to fundamentally impact the history of the world with aid to ukraine. i mean, like, if we don't send them this money they will probably run out of resources and ammunition in. not even months, weeks is what i heard a member of congress say on tv recently during a briefing on that. that's so concerning. the house, i believe, is currently on recess until february 28.

the last two weeks that is what they have been doing. instead of being in their doing their jobs passing this aid to bill. i think this could send a message in the wake of alexei navalny's death that america will stand on the side of freedom, not people and vladimir putin. it is very unfortunate that it appears that speaker johnson is just a puppet for the puppeteer donald trump. x and vladimir putin -- >> and a vladimir putin. >> it is also a contrast looking at cpac this weekend. i have heard it reported have not sold nearly the amount of tickets they have in previous years. i wonder why? it is because of the lovely people here. this also speaks to where the party is. there are people they're apologizing for vladimir putin that aren't sticking up for ukraine.

it is beyond my comprehension why this has become such a polarizing issue. it is pretty straightforward at the end of the day which is unfortunate. but this is american freedom. what has made america special and unique since our founding is that we have been able to either correct our wrongs and look towards our better angels and a set a better example for the world stage. in america we are very fortunate. we have not had a direct threat to our country like we are facing right now. but this is how it starts to happen. look at countries like venezuela whether his dream -- where the regime completely toppled because people were not paying attention to the very fundamental values of democracy and what we stand for in our republic. when we look at the next election, like what sarah was saying, we need to think about the example we are sitting on the world stage too.

>> i want to note, whether you love or dislike nikki haley she is proving something important in this historic moment. that about one third of republicans cannot be with donald trump. they are pleading for someone else. all of us in this room have a degree of power as a minority in being able to try to stop him from winning the presidency. but to cassidy's point, and this is why we also stay vigilant, seven swing states and .5 million voters will ultimately determine this election. donald trump will lose by the largest margin of the popular vote probably in modern history. there are more americans that do not want donald trump than that want him. that does not mean he will not be in the oval office again. we have to use our voice and we have to speak out. i want to give you both a closing word here. if the moment of coming to ukraine's eight against russia is not a sobering one for republicans in congress to step away from donald trump just once and vote, if someone like lindsey graham, a hawk, john

mccain's best friend cannot but up and do it in this moment they are too far gone to salvage. we constantly quote liz cheney saying that there will be a day when donald trump is gone and their dishonor will remain. the world is watching. our children are watching. we need to get this through. [applause] >> final thoughts? closing words? >> i echo everything alyssa just said and in brief closing i want to thank you all, seriously, from the bottom of my heart for being here today and for listening. one of the biggest fears i had before i came forward and spoke out was that people would not listen. i think in our society now we have an issue where we often talk to be heard, not to be listened to. the fact that you are all sitting here listening to us

speak, that gives us a platform. this brings legitimacy to the fact that donald trump is a fundamentally dangerous man. the more we can create environments where people feel they are being listened to and that there are thoughts are also heard, you know, my story is a cautionary tale of what can happen and always did happen. it is not a story of complete retribution for myself. this is an arc. it is what i work towards everyday. honestly, some of the most difficult days for me came after i testified. that is really when i began to process the magnitude of how dangerous what i was involved in was. the other thing i would say is in the next election cycle, please, keep using your voice is. keep talking to people. please keep listening. that is the only way we get out from theirs. it is if we come out from underneath of it. but it takes all of us coming

together regardless of our political affiliation to do so. [applause] >> tough to follow that, but i will do my best. i think everything cassidy said is correct. speaking out against our former boss that happens to be the most powerful man in the world and president of the united states can be very scary and isolating. so, being in a room full of people like you all make that kind of voice it. i think all of us have sacrificed a lot in different ways to speak out because we thought it wasn't morally correct to do. i think that this gives me hope that maybe that there can be a change and we can move past donald trump and chart a new course for our future. >> i would like to also thank

alyssa farah griffin one for being here, but two, she was really the first person to take that step in early december and resign. i have goosebumps now because she set the example for people like sarah and i. i want to thank liz cheney. i want to thank adam kinzinger. i want to thank nancy pelosi for being steadfast creating the january 6 committee. [applause] and finally, i want to think and pay tribute to the work that is currently going on in a lot of different court systems in america. and that we respect the court process as it plays out. that there will be a day when the courts will rule but we can't rely on the courts to stop donald trump. we have to stop donald trump in these next few months.

>> thank you sarah matthews and cassidy hutchinson. a round of applause. [applause] as for year, and symbols -- we award our profiles at a courage award and it is my honor to be joined by our 2023 recipient mr. harry dunn now running for congress at capitol police officer. we know the courage he showed on january 6 afterwards. cassidy, we give this award, our agenda committee and are host committee, our grassroots committee, we vote every year to

pick somebody that really exemplifies what it means to be principals first, to put the country ahead of party and even personal interest and stand up, as you did, at such a young, early time in your career with so much on the line. that is exactly what everyone in this room and so many around the country have been asking our elected leaders to do. republicans, just end up and take one risk. you have done that in spades. this is for you. we are honored to have you here. thank you.

[applause] all right. get that logo in there. [laughter] one more, ok. thanks. [applause] all right. we will keep chugging along here. the next session is going to be a slight change. from how it currently appears. i think we will really all enjoying this next discussion. i think we will change the title to, unplugged and unafraid with mr. charlie sykes. it is my pleasure to welcome him to the stage. i don't think he needs nt

introduction -- any introduction. it should be a great conversation. charlie, take a seat. [applause] all right. mr. charlie sykes in the flesh. what an honor to have you here. >> it is good to be out of the basement. [laughter] . >> i think this might be your third. you have been here with us from the very beginning, in the trenches. obviously everyone in this room has listened to your podcast and read your writings. i'm curious, from your perspective as someone that has been in the business for years and seen the ebbs and flows, from the media perspective, 2024 elections covered donald trump wants. they know the drill to some extent. is the media going to cover donald trump in 2024 the right way?

are they going to get it right? >> no. >> thank you. >> thank you for having me back. i appreciate it. it is always great to be in a room of people who are also not crazy. that's the price of admission for all of you. the media won't get 2024 right and we have already seen evidence of this. donald trump has broken the model of american journalism. american journalism has not recovered. to give you an example, i actually brought notes. i thought you might ask that question. i want you to think about some news stories over the last couple months. ok? donald trump called for the death penalty for general mark milley. he mocked the hammer attack on the 80 plus-year-old husband of nancy pelosi.

he has called repeatedly for the summary execution of shoplifters. he endorsed x traditional murders. he asked -- extrajudicial murders. he asked vladimir putin days after he launched a genocidal war against ukraine for help in smearing joe biden. can i just stop right here? these stories on earth to point to what have dominated -- two point zero what have dominated the headlines. it would have been wall-to-wall coverage. but when you go through them you go, i forgot about that one. because, the news media, again, i think if you ask them, you know, this is not normal, you know that, right? yet, we pretend it's normal. we pretend it's reasonably within the range of normal politics.

as you watch the political coverage, if you blinked, you can think, it is 1996 all over again. it's 1984. when in fact, we are seeing an amazing transformation of american politics. i know that i am preaching to the choir here. we are not sufficiently alarmed by this. i don't want you to be despond and. i want alarm but not to be despond and. to understand exactly what we are up against. every time you hear the horse race stuff, the polls, the focus group. it's like, yeah this is why we have a primary election. this is election night. as if, somehow, we have not broken something fundamental. i only got about 50% of the way through my list. donald trump incited an attempt

to overthrow the government. that is like number three on the list. as the previous panel mentioned, he openly called for terminating elements of the constitution to restore him to power. just take that story. how many front pages were devoted to that for one week. i think the questions about joe biden's age are legitimate, i want to say that. but if joe biden stumbled coming off air force one that would receive more coverage than any of these stories. i think that's part of the problem. so in the last week, donald trump basically said he would abandon our nato allies and invited vladimir putin to invade europe if people did not pay their nato dues, which do not actually exist. after the murder of alexei

navalny shocked the conscience of the world, donald trump was unable to come up with any comment because he was too busy hawking golden tin issues. then, he compared himself to alexei navalny. that's obscene. the problem is, we have the banality of crazy. there is so much. there are so many moments that would be disqualifying. when he was campaigning against nikki haley, he was mocking, where's nikki's husband? where her husband? he was doing what you were too afraid to do, put on the uniform and go defend the country. was that a page 14 story or anything? we keep going through all this.

he has made it very clear that if elected president he will pardon the rioters that attacked the capitol. that beat up police officers. now, again, i know i use the phrase too much, i am old enough to remember when the republicans claimed to be the party of law & order and back the blue. here he is saying i will stand in solidarity with people that literally beat up police officers. how is that not a consuming news story? how everyday do we go without having republicans in congress shown a picture of somebody saying, would you support pardoning this person? do you think this is a genuine american hero? i have not even gotten to the fact he paid off torn star -- off a porn star or a federal jury and judge said he raped one

then. somebody asked today, debts vitamin put in have compromise on donald trump -- does vladimir putin have compromise on donald trump? what more could you have that stormy daniels? and e. jean carroll? the republican party says yeah, we are ok with that. the question was, where the media get 2024 right? no. they will continue to go maybe we can have a town hall meeting with donald trump. this will be a ratings get for us. we will cover both sides as if this is a reasonable moment in american politics. i do not know what the right answer is except that, you have to call lies lies. you have to not turn your platform over to someone like this.

you cannot pretend that will happen in my hometown in milwaukee this summer is normal political convention when the colt gathers to anoint donald trump. i am sorry. that was somewhat of a long answer. >> you covered a lot of good ground. >> i gave you the short answer. >> a lot of things to jump in on there. one thing i am particularly interested in when i hear you talk about the responsibility of the legacy mainstream outlets. i think a big problem is the silo-ization of the way we consume news. so many americans are not even watching these networks, to some degree. to a lot of degrees some don't watch them at all. they are watching newsmax. they are watching tucker carlson on twitter or andrew tate on youtube talking about god knows what. how does that happen?

you have been in conservative media ecosystems back when it was normal. is that a problem we can fix? is it addressable? or will it just continue to get worse? >> i think it is likely to get worse before it gets better. i wrote my book about how the right lost its mind in 2017. i was pessimistic, but it was way worse than i thought. this silo-ization has accelerated all of the incentive structures in the media to silo people off and create safe spaces so people don't talk to one another. i do not see that changing anytime soon. in fact, if you understand what the business model now of the right-wing ecosystem is, imagine meth dealers on the street in competition with one another and the only way to stay ahead is by selling stronger meth than the guy on the next block read

you have to keep ramping up the outrage, ramping up the hippie punching, etc.. if you back off from that, you run the risk of losing your audience. we are seeing the audience capture. i know people think, if we just did this to fox news, it is not always compound. -- top down. but a lot of it is bottom up. these are my people, have to follow them, the heart wants what it wants and they are captured by an audience demanding harder and harder and harder stuff. now, the really bad news, i am afraid, is that if you step back from what is happening right now -- and i want to talk about the crazy pill thing -- we spent the last eight years going, why is this happening? why do people believe this sort of stuff? when will it go back to normal? it is not going back to normal. in fact, what is happening now

is a reminder of what happens in a society where people become isolated, alienated from one another, board. when all of the mediating institutions of society following and we are all spending time in silos. the silos, to your point, understand that all of the outrages i just mentioned about donald trump, that is maybe 40% of the country -- there is maybe 40% of the country that does not know any of it, that will never hear any of it. unless there are ads on the hallmark channel or something that told him this. which isn't a terrible idea, by the way. i think this atomization is going to continue. i think it becomes more and more difficult. i think i have told you this story, how as a contributor, i always assumed everyone got both sides of the story. by 2016, it was pretty obvious

you could not push back against fake news because it if it was outside the silo, people do not want to hear it. those of you who have relatives, you know how hard it is. you have a piece of fake information, how do you refute it? the answer is it is irrefutable. we are going through a period of real tectonic change. i don't want to compare what we are going through now to, say, the black death or to world war i or that oppression, but the reality is the world has changed globally. we are not alone. there have been dislocations that are taking place across the world. the pandemic changed a lot of things. if anyone here imagines we will go back to the politics of the before times -- i think that is why we are so shocked all the time because we think we understand. americans like this, politics is

like this. if a happens, b happens. are we the crazy ones that is not happening? the problem is that world does not exist anymore for millions of americans and we will have to get used to this. this is something that will not get resolved in 2024. heath: optimistic discussion. [laughter] i am just tracing forward that arc you are sketching because i agree with it. i don't think it is reversible. i don't think people will wake up and we will have starting nice monday morning conversations about the debate. i'm just curious what the people in this room, what citizens, consumers of news and information, and citizens, like you say, they coach their kids t ee ball teams with these people that are getting a completely different narrative.

how do you break that cycle? at the end of the day, we cannot address siloization with more siloization. i don't know the answer. i ask it a lot. i am curious if you have thoughts on what people in this room can do to address that problem. charlie: you are right. you cannot fight siloization with more siloization. i know there are some people who believe that the response to all of this is for those of us that look at donald trump, see what donald trump is doing, that watch this mad rush towards extremism and say the only way to fight this is we all need to become liberal democrats now. we need to fight the tribalism by all emphasizing our tribal loyalties to the other side. it is dangerous because this party needs two rational

political parties. from my point of view, the most important people in american politics are the people in this room right now. the people who are center-right, in the center. the people like liz cheney. people like adam kinzinger. people like mitt romney, larry hogan. those people who have said we are still republicans, but we are not crazy, we are not authoritarians. we signed up for libertarian party, not a fascist party. those are the people who can still speak to the people who determined that election, which are the swing voters, maybe half a million voters in seven states. those people are conservatives, who have voted republican, may vote republican up and down the ticket despite what i may tell them to do. but, will say donald trump is a bridge too far. he is not normal.

he is an existential threat to american democracy and we are going to bail. if we decide, no, really, we like all the policies of the liberal left and we are not concerned about the attacks on liberalism coming from the left -- the decision i have made is that there is an attack from the left and then the liberalism of the right. the liberalism of the left is like long-term cancer. the liberalism of the right right now is like a heart attack, immediate. right now, you call 911. we need to unite to deal with that, but don't pretend there are not other problems. don't cut yourself off, silo yourself off from millions of americans who are fundamentally decent people. how do you do it? you show up. you go to little league.

you go to t-ball, you go to soccer peter you know what you . you know what you notice about the people standing around? they are not crazy. they may be on a weird facebook page. this is the thing that makes me take the crazy pills. these are people who would never tolerate this kind of behavior from their children's coaches, from their babysitters, from a coworker. they teach sportsmanship. they teach decency. they want their children to treat one another with respect. they believe in the truth. yet, somehow when it comes to who they want to put in the presidency, they are willing to set all of that aside. so, to the extent there is some optimism, this vestige of fundamental decency that if you get them away from -- the way i would do it is don't start by talking about donald trump.

start showing that you share their values, that you understand them, that you don't hold them in contempt. once they realize you are like them and that you care about the things they care about, then you can move to the others. you start at the top line, you know how it goes. you have all had that conversation. you start the principles. heath: i want to switch gears a bit. in one of the other panels, they talked about mike gallagher resigning, recently making that decision. paul ryan stepped down before him. good principled conservatives who basically said i'm out, i'm done. i don't want to put up with this. i'm curious, is there hope in wisconsin? do you think those guys will be back?

should we expect them back or do you think they have just accepted the state of the party? charlie: paul ryan is never coming back. no. i think in some ways, that is unfortunate because he represented an alternative direction for the republican party. i know there are some people who believe that donald trump is just a logical extension of where every republican was going. i don't think that is true. one of the things i've been doing lately is i have been walking my dogs a lot more often lately. i actually got a couple of audible books, listening to all the collective columns of a principled conservative. impossible to go back into that before time and listen to mind like that and think, yeah, this will lead to trumpism. the nuance, the intelligence, the understanding of history. the appreciation for the american values, the rule of law.

to your question, the story about mike gallagher, you are all familiar about it? young, bright congressman from wisconsin. had to make compromises with maga. in the last two weeks, he said i'm am not running for reelection, i'm leaving. i think there's a larger pattern here with waves. waves always break sooner or later. the republican party is in the process of eating its young, its intelligent young. think about what the bench will look like for the republican party. if you are a really bright young guy like a mike gallagher or fill in the blanks, look at the list of people who have retired. these are people who say i don't want to be part of this anymore. i like being a congressman, but not if i have to sit in the same room as lauren boebert or

matt gaetz. this shit is not worth it anymore. if you are young republican, you want to get into public life, what do you have to do right now? think of the crap sandwiches you have to swallow. think of the things you have to kiss and the litmus tests you have to pass. all of these young men and women are saying i will do something else with my life. look 20, 30 years from now. 10, 20 years from now. what is the bench of the republican party going to be looking like? what is the younger generation going to look like? because right now, donald trump is dominant in the republican party. maga is in complete triumph. but, the price is think about all the people who are self-supporting, self-selecting themselves out of that political party.

i think that will have consequences for a long time. heath: we have a couple minutes left. i want to offer maybe a counter narrative of maybe the next four to six years. suppose -- i am of the view that trump's grip on the republican party is not really rooted in any sort of policy agenda. he has not convinced everyone to abandon their ideas. it is not really an idea thing. it is the cult of his personality. the fact that are not very many strong leaders to go up against him in the party. he's like this big, charismatic -- i will say it. agree with him or not, he's got some charisma and personality that resonates with the voters. charlie: i really don't get that. [laughter] heath: it's enough to capture the voters. it is like a big hot sun in the

middle of a maga solar system that keeps all the planets revolving. i think one counter narrative could be that when that sun is gone, when you take that sun out of the solar system, it will be a shit show. it will be crazy. you will have marjorie taylor greene, vivek. it will be chaos. in that moment, when there's no leader, no person that can fill those crazy shoes that he has created, is there -- where does the party go? i don't think it goes back to reagan. if you are in that narrative, what does the conservative movement after trump look like if one could possibly exist? charlie: that is an interesting question because that will be a helluva moment when he leaves. it will not be a snapback, but it will be what some theorists call the plastic moment in history where you have these hinge points where everything is in play and in a short time, you

can have really dramatic choices. from the highest level, i would say this will be a maga-like party for a long time, but one caveat today -- it is saturday. haley will go down in defeat in south carolina and the usual pundits will say see, there's no room for anyone like that in the republican party. but, i would say the debate that is taking place right now over the future of ukraine is going to be one of those decisive debates. republicans have shown a willingness to cave in on virtually everything else. i am not naive about that. but right now, the more traditional conservative republican internationalist point of view, it is an endangered species, but it is not extinct yet.

if there was a vote in the house of representatives, if mike johnson, when he comes back from vacation, find a paragraph in deuteronomy that tells him he can have a vote -- [laughter] the vote would be overwhelming. i think there would be 300 bipartisan votes for aid to ukraine. you saw there were 70 bipartisan votes in the senate, so there is still a very live issue. so, i do think there's a possibility that on some of those wedge issues, there is hope you will push back against -- i think this debate about ukraine is going to be so serious, but also try to think ahead. what is the next step? the story of donald trump and vladimir putin is not going to get any better. it's not going to improve. the election cycle is not going to make things calmer.

so, part of the difficulty of making these predictions you are talking about is we don't know the level of chaos that is still coming. i'm always glad to see harry dunn up here, but every time i see him -- the police officer who saved the capitol. i think january 6 was a dress rehearsal. does anyone in this room think that donald trump will graciously concede defeat in 2024? does anyone? what do you think the aftermath of the 2024 election is going to be like? we were shocked after 2020. is the media preparing people for that? might there be another assault on the capitol? other outbreaks of political violence? that is a wedge issue in the future. right now, donald trump can

provide cover for every sort of dishonesty, immorality, every sort of incident of wink-wink domestic terrorism. i am not sure that will survive. i think if you believe -- none of what i am saying is ideological. it is not right versus left. it is a fundamental decency, a sense of right and wrong. i think as you watch the international stage play out, but also what might happen domestically, i think there might be a pivot moment coming. heath: thank you very much. charlie: thank you. [applause] >> is it a coffee break now? it's not. oh, just one second.

it is not a coffee break . i'm sorry. everyone should make their way back in. while you do, i will hunt for our next set of panelists. if the 2:20 panelists can make their way to the front, we will get started.

heath: everyone, we will get

started in two minutes. in two minutes, we will get started.

heath: all right, if people are standing up, maybe we can filter

back into our seats here and i will introduce the next panel. this next discussion -- they can make their way onto the stage, our analysts, while i am introducing them. this next discussion is on a lot of people's minds. the title of the panel is moral leadership in america, principles for state, church, culture and community. i think this is an issue we have seen increased in importance in christian communities, faith communities, what has happened to them in the wake of all this political turmoil we've had in the country and the way that moral leadership matters. telling the truth matters and how we form those morals in our country are important. the panel we have here is really second to none. this is exactly who you would want talking about these things

at principles first summit. hosting the conversation will be the president of the trinity forum. if you are not aware of that organization, it is a fantastic organization. great printed materials. i encourage you to check out all the literature. mr. michael weir, the president at the center of christianity in public life. also tackling these issues head-on. mona sharon of the bulwark. she really needs no introduction. she has been at this a long time and has been focused on social policy and issues of family formation in the united states. a lot of great thoughts on that. then, we are delighted to have i think for our first time, mr. robert a. george, writer and speaker. you are probably familiar with him from twitter. he's formerly of bloomberg

opinion but rights some insights ful commentary about our culture, the state of american life. i am thrilled to hear from all of them today. thank you. [applause] >> thank you very much and great to be with you all. i will confess it is a bit intimidating to have to follow the courage of kassidy and sarah and alyssa, as well as the a e brilliance of charlie sykes with moral philosophy. the last few years have proven the incredible importance of this topic. it shows the reason why this topic, moral formation and moral leadership preoccupied so much of history, the historians, the moral philosophers. it shows why this pre-occupies the mind of the founders and framers. why they wrestled so extensively

in the federalist papers with what it meant to check and constrain and channel self interest. to check faction and cultivate the better angels of one's nature. it is why george washington took the opportunity at his farewell address to talk about the indispensable support to political prosperity and freedom itself that moral leadership and moral character in citizens played. it is also why we are at such an important and in many ways unsettling crossroads right now. because while it is certainly true that throughout history, it is not like we had one great moral leader after another. there have been plenty of villains and scoundrels and liars and tyrants and moral mediocrities who are citizens and who have been moral leaders. but, we had retained a sense that a more perfect union is possible and we as a country have also faced challenged, and

overcome some significant moral failings and moral challenges in our past. right now, we are at a point of great challenge and peril. on both ideological and partisan folds, there are real challenges to the idea of moral formation and leadership. whether it is on the left, where character and morality itself is seen largely as a smokescreen for power plays and virtue and blame are seen to be more likely whether you belong to a colonizer class or based on the intersection of your identity. as well as on the hard right, where frankly, evil and nihilistic leader whose worst tendencies of belligerence have not only been tolerated, but valorized in what it means to win and show strength. so, what does moral formation

and moral leadership mean? what does it look like? how can we cultivate it and what difference does it make? it will be hard to get through all of this, but we have a panel who can make a huge dent in our understanding of why this is so important. the attention we should be paying to it and how we can cultivate it for more perfect union. starting off, i want to turn to my federal -- fellow panelists. when we speak about moral formation and moral character in our leaders and citizens, what are we talking about? how is character formed? >> great. i am really happy to be here, really happy to be on this panel. part of the problem here right at the outset is in politics, the sum of what it means to be

moral has been taken up with having the right positions or the right answers. i think the way in which that consumption of morality alone, the way that can be misused has become really apparent. when you talk about formation -- i talk about a spiritual formation in part because of that reason. the spirit refers to our character or our will. formation is about the process by which our will takes on a specific defined character. everyone has a formation. there's no getting around it. one of the reasons why i love the name of this gathering, why i love principles first is because it could just be the organization for the right principles. principles first implies that we want to be the kind of people who can uphold our principles

even when it is difficult. kassidy is a wonderful example. she didn't just have the right ideas. a lot of people have those ideas. a lot of people if you ask them in a survey, yeah, rule of law is fantastic. the real test is are we the kind of people that can follow through on our intentions in the moment of crisis? and that's a real issue for us. t.s. eliot once suggested -- by the way, he was not positive about this, it was an observation. the great human endeavor has been to create a system so perfect that people no longer have to be good. and that is the political that we have. that we can have the right answers without being the kind of people who can back them up and that is why moral formation is so critical.

cherie: i want to invite my fellow panelists to jump in as you see fit. if there are other thoughts, feel free. >> before i begin, i want to thank all of you for being here and all of the people i was able to greet and talk with last night and during the day so far. it is so gratifying to see you in the flesh. you are -- i am old enough to remember george h w bush's expression about the great civil society that was out there. he called it 1000 points of light. that is what i see in this group and it is unbelievably moving so thank you for being here. [applause] i love what you said, michael. i was thinking about moral

formation and it is very important, morality is key to a thriving democratic republic. we have all kinds of expressions of this from the founders. for example, john adams said our constitution was made for a religious and moral people. it is wholly inadequate for the governance of any other. and yet, look, we have to be realistic. the people on the maga side and the people on the far left, they also feel they are the moral ones. they think we are evil and they will say that very clearly. kristi noem at cpac said there are two kinds of people in this country. there are people who love america and there are people who hate america. i want to reflect on this for a

minute because it is important to understand, i think, or try to understand the moral reasoning that can lead people to embrace what we think is one of the most wicked, evil forces that has darkened america's doorstep in our lifetimes. so, we have to think about the fact that they argue that the house is on fire. the country is in dire -- it's in a dire emergency and because of that, we have to turn to a strongman like trump. if your house were on fire and your neighbor came along with a garden hose, you wouldn't turn his help away because he was a sex offender, right? you would accept the garden hose, you would accept the help, and then you would thank him very kindly. of course, in that analogy, you would thank him, but then you

wouldn't elect him president of the neighborhood association. and, that is, i think, so key to why they maga people always need to say this is an emergency. the country is burning. biden is destroying america. it is all hands on deck because they know that they have embraced this really morally compromised, horrible leader. so, there is never a time when th could acknowledge that the country is actually just fine. that we are not in any kind of dire emergency. that is the secret of their -- i

don't know if it is a secret but it is my interpretation for their justification. a great science fiction writer once said "man is not a rational, but a rationalizing creature." and they do rationalize their support for trump, so they need to make the other side seem evil. that is why we have all of this nonsense about the biden crime family. biden is many things. a master criminal, he is not. but, that's the key to their moral universe. whether we can puncture that, whether we can appeal as cherie says to the better angels of their nature, i don't know. certainly not for the maga hard-core, but potentially for people who are not quite at that level, but who are in the more

persuadable category. >> mona, i get what you are saying on the robert line. it is a real honor to be on this panel. i should tell everyone here, i signed up for this conference about seven or eight days ago. then, the next day, i got an email saying would you like to be on a panel? what i am saying is, this could also happen to you. whether that is good or bad is up for you to decide. i would slightly disagree with something mona said. while it's true that maga is saying the country is on fire, and you said ultimately that

they overstated the case that the country is fine, i would say the country is not fine. maga and donald trump are reflections of the how far the country has gone off course. right. the thing is though, it is not just that. as you were saying before, this view that we pat ourselves on the back and say we are the somewhat sane middle, those on the left and those on the right that call us evil because either we are not woke enough or not maga enough for them. we cannot rise to the moment that is required.

just in the context of where we have gotten to and where this moment of amorality, i sort of see it in a spectrum of a 25-year, quarter-century kind of decline. just so we can get a little bit of old school here, i would bring up a name that is not been mentioned much so far and that is bill clinton. i think when you go back to that moment of well, it depends on what sex is. it was at that moment where you have the president of the united states that is in a sense putting moral relativism into the public sphere.

and while there was bipartisan consensus at the time that the president had done something wrong, the question was what was the solution about that? republicans thought it was impeachment and democrats said censure and move on and so on. but what ultimately came out of that, the democrats, in almost any other moment in our history, the bipartisan consensus, the pressure would have been strong enough to get the president of the united states to resign. but, what we ended up with was a decision by the democrats and allies in the media and so forth that what he had done was not so bad that it required

resignation, and instead, there was a powering through. the first principle, if you will, at that point was kind of power. how can we push through against these usual ethical and moral barriers that historically would have been enough to move the president out of the way and allow the vice president to take over? instead, the president pushed through. he survived, within the question is -- but then the question is at what cost and what lesson was learned? i think one of the residual lessons is that forget about ethics, forget about actual morality. the number one principal in politics is power.

i think that's a lesson that the maga people have learned. their standardbearer has taken the clinton model and amped it up to 10. cherie: just riffing off of that a little bit. i want to ask you each your thoughts on what has gone awry. part of what i mean about this is not just a political analysis. we will hearken way back, thousands of years to saint augustine who talked about how virtue is largely properly ordering your loves and desires. ordering your values that accords with reality, wise and prudent, as well as love. loving things in the right way. when you think about that, you think something has gone on dion just -- beyond just the political.

the former president does not fill stadiums for people looking forward relishing seeing their enemies humiliated because they want to see a win in the next election. there is something that we the people are starting to value the wrong things. starting to love domination and humiliation of our enemies too much. what has gone on? mona, we can start with you. mona: nice, small topic. there are many things that are tearing us apart. we have a radical change in family structure where many people now are living alone. a record number of people are living alone and record numbers of people are lonely, which is not exactly the same thing in every case. you have lots of kids growing up

with very chaotic home environments, where they not only see their parents split up, but then the parents have new relationships and the kids are shunted around two different homes with different stepsiblings and all of that. we know that is not good for the stability and mental health of the kids raised in those environments. this has been going on for several decades. we also have the rise of the internet and the information silo, which gets mentioned a lot but it is crucial. when i was growing up, people say you are what you eat. i think now, we are what news we consume. new can tell everything you need to know about a random, 70-year-old, single man who lives in central pennsylvania by whether you walk into his house if fox news is on all the time or something else. people have become so insulated

and into their own bespoke realities. they create their own realities and it is unbelievably disruptive of a country that is by its very nature large, pluralistic. we have lots of different communities. huge geographic diversity. religious, racial, every kind of diversity. and we need to be able to have certain things that we agree on. we have to have certain facts that we all except as true so we can compromise with one another and we can say, ok, you like more immigration, we like less immigration, let's meet in the middle. that has become practically impossible in our age of bespoke realities where people on the right don't just think that democrats want more immigration or have more liberal views about it. they think that democrats have a

scheme, a plot run by jews to import more dark skinned people into the country in the great replacement. so, how do you compromise with such a terrible -- [laughter] and so, those are -- it's both a technological challenge that was brought to us by the internet and also by cable television. so, the technological challenge is part of our problem and the social challenge, as i mentioned, with more and more people living alone. let's say this last thing about being lonely and being alone. i cannot prove this, but i think people are more easily led into extremism when they are not living face to face with other humans. and having the ability to bounce off ideas. get a reality check, right?

sam saw something on the internet that says there is a scheme to run an underground railroad from mexico through canada. which by the way was on the internet. when he goes online and puts this in, you get all kinds of people who say yes, we heard that too. you are right, we agree. whereas if he said it to his wife or his live-in lover or whoever, she would say what you talk about? no. that does not sound right. there are fewer and fewer of those in real life sort of reality checks for a lot of americans. i think that is part of life we are seeing that the crazy gets more traction. michael: the state of our

politics is a reflection of the state of our souls. this is the beauty and weakness of democracy. there is no getting around the kind of people we are. if our ultimate principles derived from politics, then our ultimate principles will be subject to circumstances. that is a lot of what we've seen . in 2020, a group of social scientists came up for a framework for thinking about the particular kind of polarization we have today. they called it political sectarianism. they said it is a toxic cocktail of three ingredients. first, a version -- aversion. the tendency to dislike and distrust a political opponent. othering. the tendency to place as other or essentially different from

those who are political partisans. and then the tendency of a misplaced moralization. the elevation of political disagreement to that of good and evil. when that is the fuel of our politics, then all kinds of rationalizations can take place, similar to what robert was talking about. the problem is not that we take politics to seriously, but that we take it seriously and all of the wrong ways. if you think politics is not just about power, then that is what is going to guide your political actions. part of what we need to do is provide a vision for a politics that is not solely about who has the power, who can impose their will? that is a chief challenge because frankly, that is how our politics has operated for quite some time.

we need to have a different source. this is the issue with liberalism onboard from a higher philosophy which is that liberalism allows for decisions that are made on the basis of power. but if that is your only construction of reality, yeah, everything becomes you have one opinion about january 6, i have another. there is a truth. there is a reality. it is not just who thinks january 6 was a bunch of patriots fighting for a fair election. it was a disgraceful affront to democracy. there is an actual reality and we don't need to be insecure just because there's a difference of opinion. we actually need to understand that we can name a truth. robert: exactly.

some of us look at this partly in a political context, but we can also see this moral relativistic aspect in other institutions as well. one that i have been part of for 25 years, the media broadly understood there's a large responsibility as well. as mona said, there has been a collapse of media, partly because of the internet and the siloing of news. but, one of the greatest responsibilities that media traditionally has is to inform and to educate. now, either yesterday or the day

before, i forget when these clips ran. at one of his events, the former president was saying i am going to stand for christians because the other side is coming to take your crosses. the first thing that communists do is try to get rid of these religious symbols and so forth. basically, terrifying the base. meanwhile, you have a guest on msnbc who basically said that christian nationalists believe that our rights come from god and this is what the christian nationalists believe. this is what they are trying to do if they get into power. all you have to do is look at something like the constitution. it has been in the news.

it is something people should be able to read. you can find that it says right there, that the rights come from a creator. it is not a christian nationalists sensibility to believe that. but, when a media entity put that out there, it makes it so much easier for people on the other side to say, well, maybe trump's got a point. maybe they are trying to come after us for our religion, for what we actually believe. that sort of thing is happening from the media. meanwhile, if you are watching the house hearings a few weeks ago and you've got three intelligent, supposedly

intelligent academics who can't find it easy for them to say that, oh, if our student body calls for the death of jews, that might violate our free speech codes. when these supposedly mediating institutions also are not able to either, a, educate correctly or, b, make clear moral statements, it is not surprising that the broader society is collapsing as well. cherie: robert, i want to pick up on one of your points just now which is about our media institutions. our mediating institutions have been one of the chief ways of trying to call forth the better angels of our nature, in terms of being morally formative. institutions can also be morally d formative -- deformative.

i think it is fair to say we are at a point right now where many of our most important and formative institutions are weakened, which are true in the political sphere. congress is significantly weaker than it was just a few years ago. but also in our civic sphere, with families and churches and schools facing their own internal challenges. and, mona, maybe we can start with you. what hope do you see for the renewal and reinvigoration of morally formative institutions? mona: at the risk of getting outside my area of comfort, because i am jewish but i am very interested in what goes on in the christian world, which is far more influential obviously in this country. there's a great book by tim

alberta where he outlines -- yes, applaud that book, fantastic. the corruption of the churches and how they have become really sacrilegious. they have replaced a worship of the united states for god. they have replaced, in many cases, they are elevating donald trump to some sort of godly figure and status. and that is profoundly, obviously dangerous, deforming of our national character. the struggle within the church -- of course, they should be morally forming institutions but a lot of the pastors will say, look, they are watching fox and the are on the internet 12 hours a day, and i've got them for two

hours on sunday. it is no contest. so, people come to church now believing in qanon and that sort of thing and they are impatient with pastors who try to dissuade them. that is a huge problem. an institution, the churches which should be a bulwark, if you will, against the forces of nihilism and baseless hatred and demagoguery are instead elevating it. joining in. giving fuel to the fire. the good news is there is pushback and that there are people within that world who are very energetically attempting to roll it back and provide far better models. russell moore, david french,

david alberta -- tim alberta. we have to give them all the support we can and hope that is somewhat successful. people are drawn to religion because it helps you to see the good and it helps you to see what is right. we have to rely on that part of human nature to prevail in the end. it is a huge struggle to sort of wrap your arms around what's happening in the churches. i turn to you, michael. michael: i will just say certainly, we are seeing -- i have a new book out on the spirit of our politics and i talk about this concept. some of you may be familiar with

the term moral theism. i introduce the idea of political theism, which is supported by beliefs by god is on my political party's side or god has a general approval of my behavior in politics because i hold the right position. and, there has been a development. for number of reasons we will not be able to discuss today, what it means, in the same way, what it means to be to have christian politics means to have the right answers on a few discrete policy issues. there has been a theological development that is almost exclusively in the west that what it means to be a christian is to provide mental assessed to a few lines of doctrine and you can have the worst kind of character possible, so long as you're willing to nod your head

yes. that's it, you're in . that is fundamentally contrary to the gospel. to the christian nationalism point, i am profoundly hesitant both substantively, but also strategically to point at a group of folks who welcome someone like donald trump, to tell them that loving your enemies, that stuff from jesus, maybe try that in your personal life but if you try that in politics, you are going to get steamrolled so let me take care of you. i'm really hesitant to say that is christian anything. [applause] we need to be careful about what we are willing to give over to

donald trump and his branding and his outreach. i feel very confident fundamentally saying if your politics is not oriented towards the good of your neighbors, it is not christian. it is not christian. [applause] robert: who needs a golden castle, when you have golden sneakers? we're running out of time, but really, this particular part of the question is much broader because we also have a large, an increasing percentage of society that no longer sees itself as religious. it's not just no longer

christian. they are completely secular. if not atheist, maybe agnostic. when you have that society that decides to stray away from some version of religion, the lessons that religion can still inform on a broader secular society tends to deteriorate. and the common moral language that kept the country going for 250 years or so starts to fray. we no longer manage to in a sense speak the same language. that is sort of where we are. what's going on with maga and christianity and so forth is certainly a problem, but the fact we cannot really speak with same language across a society

is the far greater problem. mona: could i jump in on that point? for years, i would say it is really a problem that religion is declining and more and more people are not members of congregations and they don't have that sort of community development in their lives, and that's a problem. yet, right now, we are also living in a time where some of the craziest and most destructive voices in this country are the most religious, i am sorry to say. [applause] cherie: we have talked about the kind of moral confusion and different realities that people are occupying, such that we are in a situation where you can have protesters chanting in support of genocide on one hand, and on the other hand, people invading the capitol and hosting

prayer service. we talked about the decline of the morally informative institutions that have helped shape character. we talked about the perversions and distortions of christianity that have enabled an accelerated the decline of character and moral leadership. all this leads us to the big question. what do we do? how do we go about renewing and reinvigorating moral formation and moral leadership in our country? we are going to mix up the order. robert, we will start with you. robert: thanks a lot. the immediate word that comes to mind is pray. but, i'm going to say a phrase you don't often hear on panels

like this, and that is i don't know. because what's going on here is something really fundamental and certainly maga and trump are symptomatic of what's going on. but, it can be somewhat argued that that aspects on the far left, some of the wokeism sometimes elevates itself to almost a pseudo-religion as well . and that is also something that is to be pushed back on. the kind of self-love and identity overall. this sounds like a little bit of a cliche, but a lot of it has to

start with basic education. you are trying to instill civics , moral civics at the earliest ages. that means in a sense, having stronger control of the elementary schools and so forth. that is one place to start. mona: well, i admire you for saying i don't know. you are right, most people say that. i would agree, i am not sure. i would say what i am personally trying to do in this moment, because i do think that the information silos, the two completely different realities that people live in is one of our biggest challenges. one of the reasons why i started my podcast is i wanted to show

or model you can have a civilized conversation amongst people who have different points of view. we do happen to agree because we all agree about trump, but other things we do disagree and we model that you can respectfully hear out somebody who has a different point of view and come to some sort -- you may not agree, but at least you can have an airing of views and have an agreed set of facts. i have to believe that the greatest challenge is helping this country to be able to have at least a shared reality instead of separate realities. i would just close by reminding us that we have an unbelievably rich history and tradition to draw from, and that gives us strength. our roots are so deep. i was reading about john adams sending his first couple --

spending his first couple of nights in the white house, the first president to live in the white house. at the time, it was unfinished, it was drafty, damp, uncomfortable. but, he sat down and wrote a letter to abigail and he closed with these words which have since been inscribed into the mantelpiece in the fireplace in the state dining room. here's what he wrote -- "before i end my letter, i pray he aven the best of blessings in this house and all that shall after. may wise men ever rule under this roof." cherie: michael, bring us home. [applause] michael: fortunately, i do have the answers. [laughter] no, i'm just kidding.

robert: what is the name of your book? michael: it is all there. i gave you just enough of a taste to find the actual answers in the book on amazon. [laughter] look, part of what it means to come to terms with our situation is there is no program or three-point plan for getting us on the right track. we can delude ourselves into thinking there's a technocratic approach here. one thing i would say is, one of the greatest gifts we can give our politics in this moment is not telling it what it is, what it must be, but reminding our politics, reminding our fellow citizens of what politics is not. we need to provide a further horizon than just political outcomes. that means further out than this upcoming general election. further out than donald trump.

we need to help folks understand what is true, that politics is not ultimate, it is penultimate. politics is not the area of the dogmatic, it is the area of the potential. the politics is not pure expression of our will. it is about a conscious of ideas. the palooka parties are not meant to be brands, they are vehicles for mediating difference. these kinds of things helping americans once again or maybe for the first time rightly situate politics would do so much to help the state of our politics. [applause] cherie: michael, mona and robert, thank you so much. it has been a delight. >> thank you.

cherie: i think you all are released for your coffee break. heath: we will observe the 10 minute coffee break and we will get started with the economic panel at 3:20.

>> we are live at the principles first conference in d.c. former chairman of the republican national committee and marilyn lieutenant governor michael steele is expected to speak around 4 p.m. eastern today. then, stay with c-span for live coverage of the south carolina gop primary, starting at 7:00 p.m. eastern. we will have more live coverage of the principles first conference when they resume the program.

heath: it is my honor to welcome to the stage our first set of panelists. the panel is america's tradition of classical liberalism. i will invite them to come on the stage if they would like. the moderator will be mr. bill kristol, why am sure you all know from defending democracy together. mr. francis of stanford university. his famous book is well known. matt of the american enterprise institute. and quinn from the washington examiner. thank you. >> thanks, heath.

congratulations on this conference. i remember when he and i spoke first on the phone six years ago. i think i am doing this principles first thing, we will have a conference every year. it is kind of tough to do. that is my usual cheerful, encouraging self. congratulations on proving me somewhat wrong. it is great to see all of you. you seem to be recovered from last night, the wild happy hour, cosponsored by the bulwark along with principles first. [applause] it cements the bulwark's reputation as the party animal of the never trump movement. wild after parties which i should not even discuss. what happens at a principal first conference stays at a principles first conference. it is right to moderate this panel.

>> is a pleasure to be here. i thought i might start with the title of our panel, america's tradition of classical liberalism. it strikes me as a very novel title in many ways because just a few years ago, the phrase classical liberal was not in circulation. you are either liberal or current conservative. maybe you got deep into the weeds, you are a certain type of conservative. maybe you are a progressive as opposed with liberal democrat.

and then something happened. we have now entered a period where we have to rethink labels. we have to argue over terms and a way we really hadn't had to do for many decades. prior to the last 10 years or so. it is no longer conservative. you have to say i am a classical liberal because i'm defending a tradition of freedom. i think that points to a change on the american right. it was assumed for much of the history of the american right after world war ii that the right put freedom as the primary political value. so conservative and an american context was almost synonymous with the belief of freedom, economic freedom, freedoms overseas. the idea that american ideals

should inform american foreign policy. and then over the last 10 years or so, freedom has not been the primary value of the american right. you talk to republican house members, republican activists, they will still say they believe in freedom and american freedom but there's another value at work, another value that is held first especially among the maga wing of the republican party which is now the dominant wing. i spend a lot of time trying to figure out what that value is. i don't think we really identified it. early on after trump appeared, peggy noonan took a good stab at it where she said the value of the maga movement was protection. protection from overseas entanglement. protection from immigrants coming to the united states.

protection from trade competition overseas. that seems very defensive. there also seems to be sometimes an offense of plan to the maga movement. it is not quite about protection. it is about strength. but for what? we don't know. other times, look at capitol hill and say among the caucus -- chaos caucus on the house side, the primary value is simply negation. no, we don't like it. we want to tear it down. it is all bad. in a situation where these values are undefined, where terms are unclear, you get strange accommodations. you get a panel on what it means to be a classical liberal in america today.

you get tougher carlson -- tucker carlson interviewing dictators, but also welcome into his platform people who have been associated and sometimes still associated with the far left. that is a sign of how unusual our moment is. as a historian, i know there is precedence to that moment. i look to our period is very similar to the 1930's. also very similar to the late 1960's, early 1970's. political identities were contested and varied. on the one hand, that is a moment of great uncertainty and anxiety and danger. but on the other, it is a moment of great prominence. it means we really have an opportunity to think through what it is we believe and to understand the reasons why the

liberal tradition and -- in america is important and to reflect that a tradition of freedom also rest upon strong social institutions, like families and communities. that need to be revived if we are going to revive the spirit of freedom as well. [applause] >> thanks. terrific and thought-provoking. >> thank you very much. it is a great pleasure to be able to address this audience. everything i know about american politics i learned from one of my great mentors, seymour martin, the great political scientists and sociologists whose last book was called "american exceptionalism." that book was basically his left work -- life work. what is it that makes america unique and that was really the liberal tradition that led

america to be different from other liberal democracies. so, the tradition has a highbrow origin. it comes out of the tradition of thomas hobbes and john locke, the great english theorists of the 17th century, who argued that life and individuals represent the collective interest of those individuals, but the right to life that is in the declaration of independence begins with thomas hobbes' insistence that the fear of violent death was the greatest human passion and governments were to protect that. this liberal tradition is embedded in american politics in many ways. lipsis noted it is a double edged sword. it has both a good site and a

bad side. you take something like rule following -- americans basely don't like to follow rules. there is a kind of anti-status tradition that comes out of the american revolution, out of the revolt against the british monarchy and british parliament that led to the american revolution. and it has made americans distrustful of state power and very much reliant on their own individual initiative. this had enormous impact on the economy, for example. american views on property rights are very much more secure than those of other countries that are now liberal democracies. france, japan, germany, and the like, because they believe in locke's view that you get property by mixing your labor with the otherwise worthless things of nature. that has led to this innovative

tradition of a market economy that has been the strongest and continues to be the strongest in the world, but it also has a downside because americans don't like to obey laws. it means we have a higher crime rate than most other developed democracies. in a way, it is that same kind of rebellious spirit that leads to apple computer and innovation that also leads to a certain degree of social disorder. heath: principal economics, a formula for growth and sustainability. this obviously is an important conversation because there's not a lot of leadership right now on principles or economics, i would say. so, it is important to have this discussion about the facts. i don't know if we could have a more esteemed or accomplished panel to discuss it with us. i will introduce our moderator

here who will then introduce the rest of our panelists. it is my privilege to introduce our moderator. mr. bob bushman. he's an original principles firster. he was at some of our earliest meetings in atlanta, back when we were 10 people around a chili's dinner table. just kind of talking about conservatism and the principles that ought to define our country and our politics. he's a state economist of georgia now, appointed last summer by governor brian kemp for advising on tax policy and other economic matters. he was previously with georgia state university and worked with the state government to score proposed revenue legislation. also, occasionally taught macro

economics but otherwise focused on tax policy and public finance research. take us away. bob: good afternoon, everybody. let me introduce the panelists first. mya mcginnis to my immediate left, president of the bipartisan committee for responsible federal budget where she oversees community projects, including the grassroots coalition, fix the debt. fix u.s. a project better seeking to understand the root causes of our nation's growing divisions and deteriorating political division. mya is also a returning principles first panelist, having come here two years ago. doug holtzeakin. before founding aaf in 2009, he

taught economics at syracuse university and served as chief economist on president bush's council of economic advisers. as director of domestic and economic policy for the john mccain presidential campaign. and on the end, we have brian reidel, senior fellow at the manhattan institute. his area is on the area of federal spending, tax policy, and the debt, as well as issues like inflation and economic growth. he has also served as chief economist for senator rob portman, staff director of the senate finance subcommittee on physical response bloody and economic growth. and in policy positions with the mitt romney and arthur rubio president of campaigns. welcome to all the panelists. thanks to all of you in the audience for spending your saturday afternoon with us for the dismal science panel.

[laughter] most of you probably recall from the clinton years the line the economy is stupid. polls tell us that the economy is the number one topic voters want government to vote on. voters have different ideas of what economic issues are important now. and depending on their political leanings, widely divergent views on the state and direction of the economy. according to a suffolk university poll, 46% of americans think we are in a recession or depression right now. another 21% think we are in a period of stagnation. only 29% think we are in a period recovery or economic growth. the reality, the u.s. economy grew at an inflation adjusted rate at 2.5% last year and averaged 3.4% real growth over the last four years.

unemployment last year tied for the lowest level of my lifetime, reaching 3.4% for the first time since 1969. we are only slightly off that level. wage and salary incomes of americans have grown by 5.2%, over and above the rate of inflation since the last quarter before the pandemic. does the economy stink or is it strong? that is where we will start. this will be sort of a lightning round. how is the economy today really? and what are the top economic policy issues we should be concerned about? we will start right here. >> thank you. i want to say thank you, it is great to be here. this is truly an organization i am such a fan of and i am glad to be part of it. the volunteer coordinator out there. i will volunteer, sign me up. i think it is an important organization. how great it is people have come

together for this conference. how is the economy doing? i think the economy is doing really pretty well in the immediate which is not interest me the most. i think the economy is strong. i worry about inflation probably more than a lot of people are worried about inflation. i am not sure we have it under control but given the challenges that it took to get us here, it is a generally strong economy in the moment. i think i will give three things that i worry about the most and that is what i spend my time worrying about. i could also do top 10 but the three biggest, not surprisingly for me is the fiscal health of the country. i could go on. we could all go on with a long list of the numbers but we are so in debt. we are close to the record we've ever been in debt. the last time was after world war ii. this time, it is after no war. we are spending more on defense. it is a long list.

it means we are weak not just from an economic perspective, but also from a national security perspective. the two others i would add to my list, i am very worried about income inequality on its own, but also more so because it is causing people to lose trust in the economic system. many people think the system is not fair, it is rigged against them. that if they play by the rules, they still will not get ahead. that leads to my third worry, which is i am particularly worried people are starting to walk away from the system of capitalism and markets being used for the allocation of capital because they are losing trust in our economic system, and we are thereby going to end up with things which are really bad for the economy and slow growth dramatically. we will stop considering growth as much as we should in our policy decisions. the smaller economic pie will lead to more political tension than we already have. i am both worried about the

problems of capitalism, but i am worried that people are about to reject it rather than making some tweaks to improve it and that would be very dangerous. doug: the voters are always right. first of all, thank you. this is my first time. a fantastic organization. i question only how you spend your saturday afternoons. i think the voters are onto something. in the near-term, the remains an elevated possibility of recession. the genie is not yet back in the bottle. those two terms are real. the larger concern is the fact that in the 21st century, we grew quite rapidly. gdp per capita grew at 2.4% per year. all you need to know is in one working career, 29 years, the standard of living would double. in between for century, we are

growing -- in the 21st century, it is true, people feel like they cannot get ahead. has we kept growing in the 20th century rate in the 21st century, everyone in this room would have another $19,000 in real gdp. i want my 19, and i think you should too. we have an enormous problem. part of that problem feeds the deficit. we would have another $1.2 trillion a year in revenue. given the deficits we face, $3 trillion over the next 10 years. the deficit and the structure of the federal budget and is the biggest headway of economic growth. if we take on the deficit, we take on the growth problem. brian: the best thing about the economy is the unemployment rate

is low. the bad thing is it is low because of a typical inflationary overheating we've had over the last couple of years. the inflation rate has come down but prices haven't. prices are still up 18% since president biden took office. you see it when you go to the grocery store. wages have generally not kept up. they have started growing a little bit more but depending on how you calculate wages, compensation, whether you remove composition affect, a lot of real wages are still down and ultimately real wages is what matters the most. are you getting ahead? it is not even the numbers on growth. the cost of buying a home has doubled since the last three years if you take into account the rising interest rate at the same time of a rise in prices. the mortgage on a median priced home is double what it was three

years ago. moving forward, my first concern about the economy is that we have been powered by a series of bubbles. in the late 1990's, we were powered by a stock market bubble. that had a painful burst. then, we had a housing bubble power us for the next eight years. that burst painfully. now, i am worried we have a debt bubble that has been powering us ever since and i am worried that will be the worst burst of all. i really hope we can talk more about the deficit numbers because we just have the deficit double to its highest level in american history outside of war and recession. it went from $1 trillion to $2 trillion in one year. depending on what you think about the tax cuts and interest rates, we could be heading for deficits of $3 trillion to $4 trillion by the end of the decade.

my concern is just like the other two bubbles that if we don't get a hold of our budget, this bubble will not end well either. bob: ok, thank you for all of that. there were some issues i had and i thought you would mention. we will start with -- that is an excellent segue. a deeper dive on deficits and debt. maya, i recently watched your policy director. if you all are not familiar with the committee's website, there is so much content that is very informative. there are video presentations like this when i am talking about. it was called richest to rags. i figured we would start with the question he tries to answer with regards to our massive national debt which is basically how did we get here? what policy choices over the last couple of decades have been the biggest drivers of deficits and debt? maya: this is a study we

undertook because anytime we would go testify for congress or talk about the issue of deficits and debt, it starts into this painful finger-pointing game between the two political parties. it is your fault. no, it is your fault. just right there. i'm always afraid while i am doing a congressional hearing, i will suddenly lose my temper and start yelling. you guys are breaking the country. none of you care about this. you are acting like children. i am embarrassed for my children to watch you. i should stop testifying until i learned to meditate or something. it has been an incredible blame game going around and the biggest part of it started, on the democratic side, there was a chart that showed if we had not cut taxes under the bush era, the trump era, the budget situation would be fine. we went and i said, i bet that is probably true but i am sure

that's not the whole part of the story. basically, it showed whether you look at spending or revenue, they have all on their own contributed so much that we kind of deteriorated the situation from when we were riding budget surpluses to deficits many times over. there are two ways to look at this. the legislation that you put in place and what we found, the deterioration was one third from tax cuts, one third from spending increases, and one third from recovery from crises. of that legislation, close to 80% of it bipartisan. this is not a republican or democrat situation. both parties love to borrow. the other way to look at the issue is where are we with spending and revenues at gdp compared to where it was when we were running the budget surpluses? if you look at it that way, one

third of the problem is revenues and two thirds of the problems are spending. so much of our spending is automatic growth in the budget. you don't vote for it. legislation does not change it, but social security and medicare keep going up automatically. get over the blame game. almost all of you voted for these things. if we hadn't done any spending increases, the debt could be close to paid off. if we didn't do any tax cuts, our deficits may be lower than it is. everybody has contributed. one other study we did because i was getting frustrated with the no new taxes pledge. just curious how many of the members have promised not to raise taxes have raised spending. in my mind, a courageous pledge would be no new spending or no new borrowing. it turns out roughly 80% to 90% of the folks who have taken the pledge not to raise taxes have also increased spending.

it is a hypocrisy on both sides. you can look at people promising not to touch social security. there are very few clean hands in terms of how we got here and if we don't stop and look forward to the tough choices we will have to raise taxes, fix social security, cut all sorts of spending, then we will be lost and this continued fiscal deterioration. bob: just to give you all some quick numbers. last year, the federal budget deficit was $1.7 trillion and the federal debt held by the public today is 98% of gdp. just a few years ago, there were so-called economists promoting theories for why deficits and debt don't matter. we can keep printing money and spending as long as we keep with

debt, u.s. dollars will not matter. why is it important that we address the deficits and the debt? doug: it is very important. i want to touch a little bit on what maya went through. i was in the white house in 2000 through 2002 and ran the cbo for a few years after that. i was on the mccain campaign and ran a think tank. people ask me what happened? you were there. you did this. [laughter] it's my fault. thanks, doug. i have thought a lot about it. there's this old saying that his policy. -- budget is policy. george w. bush said we would win the war on terror at all costs. you look at the obama budget, they said as long as they pay their fair share, it is all

good. president trump did not say one thing about debt reduction in four years. nothing. this crowd and promises build back better. whatever you want, more and more. the most important economic fiscal educators in the country have for the 21st century told the american people there is no problem. they don't think there's a problem, so if you vote to raise taxes, cut spending will fix the problem, you will lose your job. it is not complicated. the american people have to be told there's a problem. we do have a problem and the need to be told, and then they would be willing to vote for people who will fix the problem and vote against people who want. the problem is twofold. number one, we have the enormous deficit, $2 trillion, probably

bigger with the projections. that is cash that has be raised by the federal government. they are taking it at the expense of private firms and households and americans who want to invest it in education, technologies and businesses. so, they are competing for that and they are crowding it out. that is the most well-recognized channel. there's a really important channel that i don't people -- think people understand. our government is simply spending too much and when it spends money, does not invest, it subsidizes consumption. an economy can only grow if people save and invest in the future. what we do with our federal budget is we take those dollars and use it to subsidize consumption and then steadily erect a headwind against economic growth. that is why we are growing slower in this century than last

century. we are not taking care of business and eating away at the quality of the economy that we are leaving behind for the next generations. we are leaving them with a poor standard of living and a financial bill. that has to be recognized and corrected. brian: i will take a lot of the same points as doug and just put my own emphasis on it. i'm a numbers person so bear with me. interest costs two years ago in the federal budget were $350 billion. last year, they were 600 62 $3 billion. next year, interest costs will pass defense, medicare. a decade from now, depending on the extended tax cuts and every thing else, interest costs alone could approach to trillion dollars a year. at that point, 30% of your federal taxes will be paying interest on the debt. you will work and pay taxes for three months out of the year just to pay interest.

it is not going to finance the social security check or build a highway, just interest. and then, it keeps going. over 30 years, we are on pace to borrow anywhere from $119 trillion to $150 trillion depending on current policy assumptions. by the end of that, you could be paying half or more of your money to the government just for interest. it is such a waste of money. fun fact, every point that interest rate rises adds $30 trillion in interest costs every year. that is per point. all of this assumes interest rates stay low. here's the problem. let's say we will borrow $119 trillion over 30 years, who will lend us $119 trillion? china only holds $1 trillion. japan only holds $1 trillion,

they are selling our bonds. the fed holds $5 trillion, they don't want to finance the debt because that is inflation. how are we going to borrow $100 trillion, from what, mutual funds, insurance companies, bonds, state and local governments? that will raise interest rates. you will not be able to borrow $100 trillion from wall street without raising interest rates and that is when the debt hits you from that angle. higher interest rates, higher debt costs, higher mortgage rates, higher business tax rate or business investment rates, and you get less investment and growth, so that is bad. maya: would you mind if i add a couple more? >> can we do competing fun facts? maya: i will do more to worry about. >> these are numbers that you

will not have any friends at cocktail parties. [laughter] this is the biggest group i have been in in like six years. over the next 10 years, the federal government will spend $82 trillion. $12 trillion will be interest costs. $20 trillion will be things that congress votes on every year. the remaining $50 trillion are on autopilot, $32 trillion are social security and medicare. what are your nation's leaders pledged not to touch, social security and medicare. i win. maya: i will throw another concerns you have to have. doug is right. brian is right that the borrowing is growing interest rates and will lead to a spiral. beyond that, we need to be able to borrow when emergencies happen like covid or downturns. we have always been able to borrow and our rates have not

gone updated that is an incredible privilege that we are squandering. they are going to be more crises. it is going to be increasingly difficult for us to borrow when we should because we borrow when we shouldn't. another reason to worry is we have a social contract that is absurdly outdated. it fixed the problems of last century, not for this century at all. we also have social security and medicare that are heading towards insolvency and political promises not to do nothing. we need to think about a new social contract that insures against today's risk instead of the old risks. we don't have the money to even entertain that discussion. in terms of foreign policy because this is the one that freaks me out these days, wars are not about boots on the ground the same way they used to. they are economic and digital. our ability to be economically and fiscally strong is a huge portion of our national security. many people believe other countries are encouraging us to borrow more because it is weakening us. so, this is a huge national

security risk at a time when global hotspots appears to be everywhere. finally, there could be an economic crisis, meaning interest rates go up and you cannot get out of it. if you get through all of those, we still hosed our children because we said we have given a budget that is terrible. you owe all sorts of money on it. interest payments, all sorts of promises to support us even though we didn't do anything to invest in your future, and there will be generational tension. bob: ok. [laughter] brian: intergenerational tension is already here. maya: if you have teenagers, that is the status quo. bob: we've had lots of numbers and now we are going to do math and a couple more numbers now. you will not be tested on this. so, in spite of what some

political actors would have us believe, we cannot just eliminate deficits to start paying down the debt overnight. maybe 25 years ago, somebody might remember worrying about what happens if we pay off all the debt? that is not our problem now. the budget math is really against us. crfb on their blog had a couple of posts last week about the budget math. i just wanted to see if, maya, you could give some idea of the scale of the problem and how much you would have to actually cut spending just to stabilize the debt relative to gdp and start to bring it down to more manageable levels? maya: one of the things that i think is very important is you set out fiscal goals that a reasonable. first, it would be great if we can set out fiscal goals, period. we don't pass budgets. if we did, there would be no requirement for fiscal goals.

we get around them by not passing budgets. the senate budget committee did not even offer a budget this past year. i don't know how anyone gets to keep their job. the other problem is when people overpromise. you hear promises, i will balance the budget neither 10 years or four years. the answer is no, you are not. once you put out goals that you will completely miss, the whole process gets compromised. it used to be you would try to balance the budget which would require $15 trillion over a decade of savings. we adjusted the fiscal responsibly act which focused just on discretionary spending. i am a great fan to this. it is great we can generate some savings. that was $1 trillion to $2 trillion fee to we will not suddenly be able to save $15

trillion. people promise not to raise taxes, cut defense and social security and medicare. the last time we raised anything close to $15 trillion was never not even close. i think about what is the best fiscal goal we can get to and i think the most aggressive would be to stabilize the debt where it is. keep it under 100% of gdp. that would require about $7 trillion in savings. we have done blueprints, no political aspirations so we can say things that are suicidal. to get there, you had to do everything. we raised a lot of taxes. we cut every dollar we could find. we cut money in defense and we are not going to be able to. defense is going up. that was a huge left. -- lift. my push to congress's pick as high of a goal as you can possibly get to, but is actually

reasonable. if we have savings packages going forward of $3 trillion, $4 trillion, i would call that a huge win at this point. bob: one more political, another process perspective. i think a significant barrier to addressing deficits and debt, it is partly a process problem and a political problem. what is broken about fiscal policy making and makes it so hard to do anything to reduce deficits? and what are some process fixes that might enable progress? doug: i am firmly in the camp that was begun by the second cbo director where the process is not the problem, the problem is the problem. i don't think these are process fix. i think this is a leadership issue.

the existing budget process and generate serious attempts to address it if we had presidential leadership, first and foremost, that provided the air cover for congress to do things that is necessary to do. without that, there is no process that congress cannot execute on that would solve the problem. brian: we do have process problems. we don't pass a budget. 70% of the budget is on autopilot every year. but, the ultimate driver is not the process. it is that over the next 30 years, medicare faces a $77 trillion shortfall. social security faces a $38 trillion shortfall. and no one is pledging to do anything about it. you can have any process in the world but until it is not politically suicidal to point out that we can't borrow $116 trillion for two programs, we are not going to fix the

problem. i'm going to level with you. there is no way to address long-term deficits, no way to stabilize a debt at 100% of gdp unless social security is reformed and medicare is reformed and middle-class taxes are going up. i'm a conservative. i hate tax hikes. you can't get rid of $116 trillion shortfall just on spending cuts. the math does not work and the politics don't work. the reason the problem gets worse because the three things politics take off the table is social security, medicare, and middle-class tax changes. i hate the idea of raising middle-class taxes but i feel like it is my duty as someone who works in this policy to warn you, you should expect that your middle-class, the middle-class taxes will rise over the long-term because that is where

the numbers are. maya: can i respond? oh, clap for brian. [applause] i do think the process can make a difference a little bit. a huge part of the problem is that everything you need to do to fix the fiscal problem is the opposite of what our polarized moment has created. if you want to create fiscal progress, you need to focus on the long-term, not the short-term. not the immediate, the longer term. you need to focus on good policy, not good politics. you need to admit they are hard choices instead of pretending everything is a free lunch. you need to compromise which used to be a good word and that was a bad word. those are literally the opposites of the things i see going on with polarization. he leads me to think the process does have to be more of a fix.

it is not very democratic, but our democratic leaders are not doing anything hard. i would require there is a budget and if there's no budget that cuts spending across the board or spending and raises taxes across the board, something that encourages the budget, i would stick with the paygo rule. if you are new spending in place, you have to offset it. they have this whole work around where the end of the year, there is a scorecard. they pretend it didn't happen, they wipe it clean. i would make it very clear that paygo is the law and you have to stick to it. this is what budgeting is. you have to figure out how to pay for it. i have come around to the belief that we definitely need a fiscal commission or something that would insulate the politicians from the hard choices they have to make. the problem is the problem. the leadership is the problem but i also think the process could help nudge us towards a

solution. bob: would either of you all would like to comment on the fiscal commission idea? doug: there's a lot of information on maya's website. it is a whole faq on fiscal commission, and what it means and how it works. i will make two points. point number one, i really do not believe you can ask people to put politics aside and go do the right thing. they are politicians. they cannot put the politics aside. that is who they are. it is incumbent on people like me to make good policy and good politics. we need to get the education to the public and change the atmosphere that surrounds the politics so that it is good politics to do the right thing.

i dedicated my adult life to that mission. there is absolutely no evidence any of those things are true. that is number one. i do question whether you can trap them into doing the right thing. second, fiscal commission. i am not a believer. the very first commission was created by the very first president, george washington. it was supposed to solve the whiskey rebellion. commissions fail. they all fail. in the end, members of congress have to vote and they have to be willing to take the vote that will support the good policies. we are back to that issue. a commission will not get you around that problem. i want this commission idea that you can end run politics, that is an illusion. i was also on the financial crisis commission. two years, millions of taxpayer

dollars accomplished nothing. no more commissions. brian: i have also had the joy of working on a commission that didn't work. i staffed the 2011 supercommittee that failed miserably. i will take the squishy middle between two of you on commissions. here's what a commission can't do. a commission cannot create the willful reform when no will exists. if congress does not want to fix the problem, the commission cannot make them. they will not get together. they will not compromise. they will not take the risky vote. my worry right now with the commission is even if you create one, if you don't have presidential and congressional leadership by both parties, they are never going to compromise. they will never build a realistic plan and never bring it to the floor and pass it. you have to have the will to reform first. if you get it, they commission

can help structure the reform. it can get everyone in the room, it can create a structure. it can create some credibility to the public and it can get fast tracked in congress. you can implement a will with commissions, but my worry is if you want to know a commission is serious, check who they can point -- they appoint to it. if they appoint congressional leaders and chairman of major committees, it is a serious commission. if they appoint backbenchers and ideologues who have no history of compromising and noreal creda check the box commission that will die a quick death. >> what kind of leadership issue -- we have got a leadership issue? that is a big part of why we are here. we have only got nine minutes left, we will not get to policy or inflation or regulation, i

guess, unless you want to ask questions about those things. you will use the last 90 minutes for questions from the audience. raise your hand in the front. >> [indiscernible] >> a blog post a couple of weeks ago. >> why are we not talking about billionaires? >> i wrote a report you can google called the limits of taxing the rich. billionare taxes are going to have to be on the table because everything has to be on the table. if we are going to tax the middle class like i said, you are right rich people should be on the table as well and they have the ability to pay and i think that they will be on the table. we also have to be realistic. if you seized every dollar from every billionare and i mean every house, yacht, every investment, every business, and

right down to the basketball hoop you can find of the government one time for nine months. that is gone. it is not a renewable resource when their wealth is gone it is gone. one time for nine months. the idea that billionaires can fix the problem i think is mathematically not the case. if you are going to ask plumbers and waitresses and teachers to pay more in taxes than billionaires, you are right. >> what contributions could more generous immigration policy making reducing the deficit? >> what contribution can more generous immigration policies make towards the deficit? there is no single economic policy that is more powerful than an immigration reform.

the nativeborn population has suffered fragility and we have talked in the absence of immigration, we get older and smaller and we get less potent on the public stage and the flipside to that is all of our future growth in population and workforce and composition and skill set hinges on our immigration decisions and we are currently squandering this opportunity away. [applause] >> you had on your blog or website, personal musings? [laughter] >> bailey something. just the other day, about how much money we spend on immigration enforcement. versus how much we would spend if we actually processed

immigrants in the normal fashion and put them to work. >> yes. it is the problem with being an economist, you find the least expensive issue -- answer to a problem. it is executing on the legal immigration and visa granting system, trying to close out the southern border which is a real problem, it is a serious problem. but it is cheap to get people into the economy. we have an enormous backlog and a wise man told me if you have a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it, solve it. solve the backlog and put people to work and generate tons of additional gdp and tax revenue if we just gave the u.s. customs and immigration services a bit more resources. it is a fee driven system, the

immigration committee and the people who bring them here pay fees to make the backlogs enormous which is extra money. >> let us go over here. >> you were talking about how congress meant make up the largest ruling party. social security is one thing, medicare is a bit different because there is a market behind it. can you talk about there is not so much faith left standing by there may be some public decisions to think about that would perhaps make it bring our medicare costs in mind closer to what it is? >> i think we all have ideas in this. why do you not go first? [laughter]

>> here is the deal, here are the important things on social security and medicare. social security is just money and anyone on this panel can fix it numerically. the important characteristic of social security and medicare sure that is they are growing much more rapidly than the economy will grow at any source of tax revenue will grow. it is not about cutting them or have them grow more slowly so that they grew at the pace of the economy and they go faster. with medicare, there are four parts to medicare. a b, c, and d. a is the one that has a payroll tax and the others are premium finance. when they designed them they thought we cannot have them pay the whole premium. the premiums cover about a quarter of the cost of the medicare program. three quarters comes from general revenue. unlimited drawn the treasury.

that is a problem. medicare is responsible for our federal debt outstanding. we should stop the unlimited draw, put medicare on a budget and save beneficiaries and doctors and providers and pharmaceutical companies, this is it, this is what you got this year. you can maybe take that 7% growth rate and get closer to what we need and still delivering medical services. printing medicare into a high-value system is the key. we spend a lot of money to deliver adequate care. everyone can do better on the quality front. it should process well as well. >> right here. >> what about raising taxes on social security? >> yes. [laughter] >> keep in mind the reason that the tax is capped is the benefit is capped.

the question is if you raise the cap do you also let the benefit rise? or do you delink the tax and the benefit? if you do it, and eliminate the cap, you eliminate half of social security shortfalls. social security has a balance of 1.8% of gdp by 2030. getting rid of the cap and giving no benefits gives you 0.9% of gdp. i think lifting the cap should be on the table and it will be a part of the solution along with aging benefits. the three real levers with social security is the tax, age, and income benefits, you cannot solve the problem with raising the cab, but it will be a part of the solution when they do it. >> you cannot follow with that because a lot of people have not lifted the payroll tax cap of that is not the solution. used to be a decade ago and it is a reminder that by

procrastinating the cost of waiting to fix it has been huge. all of the things we could have done before that would have fixed it and if people word have not felt much difference at all, those are no longer available to us. we have to do every social security change that there is. i would lift the payroll tax cap but i wish we did not have to because i raised revenue from hiring from people and my first use of it is not giving pendants to people who do not need them. i need those dollars for other things more. much more or much greater priorities. believe the cost of waiting has been huge and i fear a lot of people thinking we should wait until the last minute. that is a fireball effect across the board. >> we already have. >> when we do social security reform and it was pushed at the cbo, my bumper sticker was well taken. i did not need the penchant i

was promised. the demographic shift and if you agree, you grandfather me and you grandfather the problem. they grandfathered me. >> violet baby boomers retire and catching them and i think it would say cutting the benefits to people who do not need them first would be along with raising the retirement age of the most sensible priorities. >> ok, i have a clock flashing over here that says 00:00, that is the rating? [laughter] [applause] [laughter] >> with that, i want to thank our panelists are coming out today and think of all of them for enduring this. [applause]

all right. how is everyone feeling right here at the end of the day? day one. a fantastic day, it has been great to see many of you, a lot of the returning, a lot of you for the first time in the hallways, we have a great day in store tomorrow as well. to cap us off this evening, to bring us home, i cannot think of a better person to put a capstone on what we are doing here today and this weekend. he has someone who i greatly admire, his leadership in maryland and also at the rnc, mr. michael steele, he made history when he became the first african-american to be elected to statewide office in maryland were he served as lieutenant governor for 2003 through 2007, when he was chosen to be the first african-american

chairperson of the rnc from 2009 through 2011. i think it is important to understand what happened in both 10 years of -- 10 years of his leadership, under his leadership the rnc broke fundraising records and more than 198 million raised during the congressional cycle and i think, i do not think it went to pay anybody's legal bills. [laughter] you can correct. me if i am wrong. around of applause for that. -- you can correct me if i am wrong. a round of applause for that. he fixed the education system, the expanded economic development in the state, reforming the state's minority business enterprise program and sponsoring cooperation between faith-based organizations to help those in need, he is the leader of principles first, of the highest order, he is someone

i greatly admire and i am looking forward to hearing his vision for not just our country, but for the group of people and leaders in these chairs today. with that, i would like to welcome mr. michael steele. [applause] michael: what's up? what are you doing? how you doing? you had me worried here! [laughter] you know your rebels, right? i love it. this is a real honor for me to be a part of this conversation. more importantly, this movement towards preserving, protecting, and defending democracy. towards lifting up the values of

america and the principles that we live by. and you, all of you are on the front lines of that. the honor for me is to be here with you. and to thank you upfront, not the end, but at the beginning of what i have to say for what you are doing which you are bravely enduring. and what you are about to do. because that is what i want to talk to you about and i want to lay down for you some tracks so that we understand to get our heads around the moment we are in. we cannot deal with stupid. [laughter] right? we cannot deal with ignorance and not understanding what this moment represents. thank you. for allowing me to share thoughts on that and thank you for the entire principal first team for bringing us together. in this way. [applause]

because, it is important and like my buddies are in the house, i know i am good. i am safe. i want to start with the 1970's. the 1970's. america was changing and the idealism of the 1960's was being tested by the trials of watergate and vietnam. from the full throated expression of conservatism by ronald reagan i recall as a young man, that this time was different. i recall what seemed so strange to some people today. that a 17-year-old black kid growing up in washington dc could find himself values, priorities, his beliefs, reflected in what he heard from

a republican party and its leader whose experiences and backgrounds were so very different from his own. in a life spent advancing republican principles since then, i have had the privilege to do so when it was not particularly easy. in fact, in many instances, it was unwelcome. yet, with all of my republican bona fides like many of you in this room, and outside of this room, this republican party is not enough. it is not enough. over time we would watch republicans lose their voice on things that mattered and they bent of the ark of the party towards the baser motives of one man who was neither republican, nor a conservative. more and more of the men and women who once stood on the front lines of moving the party

into the future were forced to retreat from the future and watch this once honorable political movement rooted in principal and core philosophies spiral into a cult of personality. i would like to begin this conversation with a defense of the things in a particular thing that our mothers told us as young kids that they did not have too much of. common sense. what are parents knew as common sense is the unsung hero of our decision-making. the silent died that goes unnoticed but remains as a central element of our daily lives. it is apragmatic at intuitive wisdom that helps us navigate the intricacies of existence. offering practical solutions to complex problems.

in a world where we are bombarded with information and conflicting opinions, common sense stands as a beacon of clarity. guiding us through the noise and chaos. what happened? how did we lose our common sense? common sense is supposed to be an equalizer. it levels the playing field where the wisdom of a sage aligns with the insight of a child. when it comes to our politics today, it appears that the children have gagged and bound the sages. the application of common sense is often overshadowed by partisan agendas. polarized ideologies, and sensationalism. however, harnessing the power of

common sense gives any political movement and its decision-making is not just an unofficial, it is imperative. it is imperative for the well-being of our society. at its core, common sense and politics involves approaching issues with practicality, rationality, and a focus on the common good rather than the personal or partisan gain. it requires a shift from divisive rhetoric and entrenched positions towards solutions that actually benefit the broader population. which brings me to our two political parties. political parties that many in this room have come to learn our a bit like a rash -- are a bit like a rash. unsightly, irritating, and lacking any ideological

coherence. however, also like a rash, political parties can be a problem. they cannot be safely ignored. a rash may prove inconsequential , a rash can heal itself, but in the case of our current political climate, it may be a symptom of a malady that is much more serious with consequences that could leave a permanent scar or worse. since our founding, the story of america largely has been about what we aspired to be. no doubt our recent presidential and midterm elections have tested that proposition as our elections have become more and

more about what makes us mad. restoring elections, there is nothing more dangerous than unmet expectations. it has been the unmet expectations of countless americans fueled by the lazy and often times incompetent behavior of elected officials compounded by the zero-sum engagement of both political parties that have defined the current political landscape. we have allowed our anger and frustration to be exploited to the point that we no longer recognize the face of america. or that it does not have to be the great america. america is blessed. we have lost sight of our blessings. we are blessed by the fruits of this land.

we are blessed by the spacious skies and amber waves of grain. we are blessed by the exceptional nature of the people who call themselves americans. at the heart of all of that, is the faith that weight place in freedom. -- is the faith that we place in freedom. the founders and trying to this ideal in these words. -- enshrined this ideal in these words. we the people of the united states in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice , insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and

secure the blessings of liberty, to ourselves, and our posterity. they wrote those words with a lot of people in this room not included in them. but we are now. that is the blessing of america. while the ideal in our founding would be transformational, so too were concerns about its lasting resilience. ben franklin noted upon the signing of the constitution are a new constitution is now established, everything seems to promise it will be durable, but in this world nothing is certain except death and taxes. [laughter] >> franklin would go on to cite the people must take part in and

to support the government in order for it to be successful. let me repeat that. the people must take part in and support the government in order for it to be successful. during his farewell address president george washington warned however fashions -- whatever factions are likely in the course of time and things to become potent engines by which conning ambitious, and on the bold men would be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins government, destroying the engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion. >> washington and franklin new what they were talking about.

they saw us coming. we bear witness to washington's warning, the republican party has become infected by such conning, ambitious, and unprincipled men who have done their very best to subvert the power of the people. we have watched senators and house members walk away from reelection because of this infection. representative ms. cheney lost her republican house conference chairmanship and her seat in congress because of this infection. our fellow americans stormed the halls of the united states capitol because of this infection. one is seized by infection, we must want to get better. to be better. to do better. how else do we go on to form

that more perfect union? liz cheney was direct to the point about this, we cannot embrace both the big lie and embrace the constitution or even democracy itself. defending the and dependable -- defending the indefensible time and time again has left a stain. it has left a stain on the contrary, it has left a stain on us. while the former president donald trump spent time successfully reshaping as much of the republican party into his image and failing that, setting the rest of it on fire. the fracture is not the biggest issue in american politics today. we have lost sight of that. in fact, this fracture was alone in the making before there was

even a president donald trump. this fracture is significant in highlighting the ongoing battle to preserve, protect, and defend american democracy. from the voting rights to constitution and rule of law, to the ones lauded choice of a partisanship, character over corruption, and country over party. we have witnessed a systematic deconstruction of the legitimacy of our republic, ultimately to the point that one of our two major political parties declares that the events that occurred on january 6th or political discourse. how messed up do we have to be to get to that point? americans are exhausted. physically, emotionally, and spiritually. but the question i have for all of you in this room and for those of you who are hearing

these words is are we so exhausted that we cannot begin to address our wounds? that we cannot begin to unify behind our shared beliefs? that we cannot again looked at each other and say let us do this together? to truly unify we must first be honest about what our nation is going through. more importantly, care about it! i presume that is why you are here. you give a damn about your country. you give a damn about your neighbor, your friends, about people you do not even know. they stepped foot on this soil i want to be a part of this great experiment -- and want to be a part of this great experiment. they want to find their own

little piece of the american dream, as families in and outside of this room have. that is our story. that has been our blessing we have shared with the world. you give a damn enough about it to protect it. our public ultimately -- our republic has reached the point that our minds are fogged over by the magnitude of post-covid life, and current global events, the distractions of politics, but we have always found a way to lift each other up as we lived the nation to do better and to be better. as others quoted, america is a more enlightened than any other nation, but rather, in our ability to repair our faults. as i said -- [applause]

as i said it is not about america's greatness. the revenue but how blessed we are -- but rather how blessed we are and we have the ability to face adversity and the difficulties that we encounter. to repair our faults, and to move our country forward. and now the hard part. this is where your leadership comes in. this is why each one of you are here. to help us heal, help us repair, help us reconnect with our fellow americans. to help each other understand why this wacky, crazy experiment still matters in the 21st century. you listened today and you will tomorrow to people laying out

practical solutions and they are important. they are real. they are doable. we digest and we go through and we kind of work out some of the angst and the pain in the frustrations we have had with all of it. it is time to get busy. it is time to get serious. it is time to stop making excuses, it is time for each one of us to stand up as part of we the people and the legacy that has been handed to each one of us to help strengthen the country and move it forward. you cannot sit down and think someone else will do it because they will not. you have to lead now. you have to be the leader now. our country has witnessed difficult times. it has witnessed an appalling injustice. it has fallen short of the ideal

positive at its founding. notwithstanding the sacrifice of prior generations, we remain vulnerable to the appeals of basic elements of our nature. how much do we really, truly appreciate the danger of unmet expectations? are you even concerned that at this hour our nation is moving further away from its ideals and hopeful optimism? are you just rationalizing all of what is happening because of the tribe you belong to? which do you value more? the price of gas or the price of freedom? what concerns you more, the increase in the rate of inflation or the rate at which state legislatures are decreasing access to the ballot box and fundamental rights? the problems we face are real.

voters and those maligned as deplorable or as clean to god or religion are coming from countries or from cities no human being would live in, those people, our fellow americans are right to feel marginalized and ignored. many of our communities, those far from washington, new york, and silicon valley are afflicted by a growing despair. it breeds pathology that further afflicts our neighbors and even our families to our basic truth and facts are no longer believed. one individual can come in and reshape the land. in his image. to the choices we have made and the scores of national and local elections we have abolished slavery and expanded suffrage and provided conditions that have heightened the standard of

living unmet anywhere else on the planet. more importantly men and women we choose to lead during these times understood that despite all else, our american purpose remains to work for achieving the ideals written on parchment years ago. more than most, abraham lincoln understood that those ideals if they were implemented would be transformational. a nation conceived in liberty could and it did empower us, each one of us. we the people. in this moment. to help our country. to stand with our neighbor. and to defend against a liberal -- against illiberal and ugly behavior.

do you still believe in america? it is on us to understand and answer exactly what that question is asking. finally, addressing a reunion of civil war soldiers in 1875 as grant predicted that dividing lines in the nation's next great conflict will not be masons or dixons, it will be between patriotism and intelligence on one side and superstition and ambition, and ignorance on the other. 8075. -- 1845. he just called us out. the narcissism and self indulgence in state capitals across the nation not only impedes the formulation of sound public policy but it has corroded our politics.

turned facts into lies, and allies into truth and made our personal relationships one to the other nothing short of nightmarish tribalist entitlements. everything is a fight. we have become like our public officials. either too afraid to speak truth or apoplectic about renal and observe nonsense -- over nonsense, we lose our mind over dumb stuff. a governing coalition that coalesces around a personality or the latest rantings of unserious people, rather than addressing the nation's needs is not just unsustainable, it is dangerous and debilitating. it is not leadership. that is what you are required to bring in this moment, each one of you, leadership.

that is focused and driven by principal. that people see themselves reflected in, their pains and desires, elevating up for them their freedoms and helping them understand why we are all connected. i have no ending here. that is why you are here. because the ending is left up to each one of you in this room when you walk out that door. you are riding it. you are going to live it. you will share it. you are going to make it possible for someone else. it will either be a good ending or it will not. dr. king knew that his dream,

that movement towards civil rights and human dignity would not be realized on that national mall in august of 1963. it would not be realized in his lifetime. it would rest in the dreams and ambitions of americans as they faced like his generation efforts to use the constitution and our civil rights against us. he understood that was the essence of the dream, that we would rise up in that fight. as we witnessed our leaders today using our rights and the constitution against each one of us. his faith in us led him to believe that we could nonetheless write this new chapter, on behalf of liberty, on behalf of of freedom, on

behalf of opportunity, on the american dream. the question is are we willing to pay the price to do so? defeating ambition and ignorance with patriotism and intelligence begins with applying a little common sense. as we do so, we must not only embrace but install outdoor democratic principles like civic responsibility to the rule of law and constitutional order. this is how we defeat the tyranny. the tyranny of donald trump. this is how we defeat the tyranny of the illiberal. destructive behavior. the undermining of the value of

the proposition that all of us are free. [applause] last point. we have work to do. this does not end well for any of us in this room or outside of these walls. do not screw it up. [laughter] [applause] >> day one in the books, thank you everybody for coming, i think for three quick announcements very quick, the first is if you did not get a chance to get your book signed by cassidy, she is coming back tomorrow, she will sign some books tomorrow if he did not get that chance.

a second announcement is if you are interested in the grassroots leadership session, it is an optional session in here at 7:00 p.m.. go get some food and take a break and come back. we will be talking about principles first and what we have planned. brainstorming ideas about how we can kind of take this energy and momentum throughout the course of what will be an important. year. . last but not least, what is the third thing? [laughter] i am like rick perry over here, what is the third apartment? energy? 1, 2, 3, the start time tomorrow, 9:00 a.m., we start with the panel, michael wood will be joined by their former commander of the international space station, that will be interesting. and after that we will have george conway, and others.

come back, we will get going tomorrow morning. [applause] >> today, watch c-span's campaign live coverage of the south carolina gop presidential primary, unfiltered and uninterrupted, beginning with a simulcast of south carolina educational television's coverage, hearing from a local

political analysts, experts, and reporters across the palmetto state and that primary results as they come in. candidate speeches and we will get your reaction on social media and by taking your calls, they south carolina gop presidential primary at 7:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, a free mobile video app, or online at c-span.org/campaign 2024. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. ♪ >> c-span's washington journal, discuss the latest issues, government, politics, and public policy. from across the country, coming up sunday morning, we will talk about the news from campaign 2024 was a republican pollster -- with a republican and democratic pollster.

and we discussed the second anniversary of russia's invasion of ukraine and the death of alexei navalny. washington journal, during the conversation live at 7:00 eastern on sunday morning on c-span. c-span now, or online at c-span.org. ♪ >> the resolution is adopted. >> alejandro mayorkas' is the second cabinet member to be impeached by the house, next week, follow the process as the house impeachment managers led by mark green deliver the two articles of impeachment to the senate, refusing to comply with immigration laws and bridging the public trust. patty murray presides over the trial and senators will be sworn in as jurors. live coverage next week on c-span two come on c-span now,

our free mobile video app, and online at c-span.org. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these companies and more including comcast. >> you think this is just a community center? it is way more than that. >> comcast is partnering with community centers to create lift spaces so students from low income families can have the tools they need to be ready for anything. >> comcast supports c-sp as a public service along with these other television providers giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> jennifer granholm will talk about prioritizing energy and industrial policy, including workforce investment and innovation and she discusses electric vehicle production and charging station infrastructure