out somewhere around richfield. what he is actually proposing is eminent domain and farmland, adding another third bridge. joe is literally trying to sell you a bridge. that is crazy. my work is to ensure our federal tax dollars come home. that we have the resources necessary to give small businesses the support they rely on for commerce. i am fighting to ensure that when the bridge is built, it is built with southwest washington labor and american steel, and we are growing the next generation of tradesmen who will fix the bridge and go on to address the big projects that demand our attention in this country. i believe in america that can take on the big projects, that can build beautiful things that last, that are proud of what we do. not trying to push it off to the next generation to deal with.

i believe the congress should bring the money home. that's fantasy, not the real world of bringing back our tax dollars. it is only a fantasy for our current set of priorities that prioritizes the major corporate donors, foreign aid, and foreign wars over actual american infrastructure. it is very simple. i am saying we need a third bridge because you cannot relieve congestion b a third bridge with a third bridge. retro grading, whatever it is still a third rate bridge we have a growing area of the gets a ton of through traffic from a trucking. there does nee to be a third bridge to adjust for the growth and alleviate th congestion. if we are going to just spend billions of dollars relieve congestion by replacing bridge. retro grading, whatever it is still a third rate bridge we have a growing area of the gets a ton of through traffic from a trucking. there does nee

to be a third bridge to adjust for the growth and alleviate th congestion. if we are going to just spend billions of dollars to replace a three lane bridge with another one we don't have to put light rail and tolls on it, but that is something she doesn't want to talk about because this plan has light rail's the people of our district and county have voted against on three separate occasions. the light rail will not stop in vancouver. it will continue up the i-5 corridor. i you live here you might have vagrants from seattle or portland dumped on your doorste with this current plan. show less text 01:00:47 >> i've made my living, built my home off of fixing internal combustion engines. i believe i having transportation. it is important we are meeting the needs, but also thinking forward. those are the decision that need to be made at a local and state level. if oregon want to build a taj mahal, a bridge, they need to pay for it. i am working hard to ensure the voices of people who were sitting in traffic trying to ge to their jobs are heard and accounted for when the bridge design is finalized. in my county, 80% of employed people are employed outside of the county because the timber industry has been hollowed out. it is critical we are rebuildin the timber industry, supporting

paper in our mills, but also that our people who have to commute every day are not stuck in traffic and they are at the table. i am fighting to ensure your voices are heard. in the bridge design at the local and state level and bringing back the infrastructure we rely on. >> thank you. >> the ongoing israel-hamas conflict has intensified debate about u.s. policy in the middle east. of all the topics our community members requested for us to address tonight, this issue rose to the top. as members of congress, how would you approach the role of the u.s. in the region over the nex year? and how do you plan to address security interests, ongoing diplomatic efforts, and the palestinian humanitarian crisis in the region, particularly gaza? let's start with you, mr. kent.

>> the current crisis that kicked off almost a year ago, this is a direct result of kamala harris and joe biden giving iran billions and billions of dollars. under president trump we had the historic abraham accords. regardless of how you feel of the people who negotiated that, we had historic peace in the middle east. they were cooperating with israel because iran was a direct threat to bot of them. we economically isolated iran. we we did key counter terrorism strikes, like the killing of -- we had the iranians isolated, but we were not in a hot war with them. biden gave iran access to over $100 billion and iran does what iran does, they fund their proxies. this is what gave hama the ability to conduct the horrific attack on october 7. it's what gave them the ability to fund others and now they're threatening international commerce in the red sea.

we need to maintain and restoree abraham accords and we have to making ourselves easy targets i the region. i spent most of my young life fighting in the middle east. unfortunately, my opponent, has never heard a shot fired in her life, voted to leave american troops devoid -- deployed in iraq and syria. we need three new gold star families defending the try quarter region of iraq, syria and israel. she voted to leave them there. our presence in the region makes us much, much more in an unsafe condition and gives iran the ability to access us in an easy way. deprived iran of targets and funding, strengthen the abraham accords, let israel take care of their own business. one of the biggest mistakes israel made was calling us and asking us for advice. they are doing just a good enough job right now defending their own borders. we need to cut off every access avenue that iran has to capital. that's what we can do to support

our allies in the region. >> joe came here tonight to razzle-dazzle us all with his superior knowledge of houthis i the red sea, and the abraham accords. but the reality is whe i am at the doors, when i am at day care drop-off, what i'm hearing from my community, the top eight issues are all economic. whether you can't afford your m whether you can't afford your groceries, whether you can't afford day care. the top issues are economic in our community, and those of the issues that motivated me to run for 2ongress to reflect our values and our interests. not the interests of partisan politics and advancing a geopolitical agenda. my agenda is the agenda of america, that we can exercise pe's instability. we do that by supporting our

allies. the attack october 7 was the deadliest day for israelis since the holocaust, ok? the fastest way for that war to end is for hamas to release the. that would end the war. it is critical that we are supp our allies and their right to defend their security and their boarders. that's the work that i've advanced. what's going on in gaza is tragic. it is truly tragic. i can't imagine what that is like for them. my heart breaks for them. but the way that we are going to advance security over the next 20 years is not by pulling out support for the only liberal democracy in the middle east, but ensuring that women have a liberal democracy in the middle east. that is how we ease the suffering in the long term. >> mr. kent? >> there's normal razzle-dazzle about making three new gold star families. i'm a gold star family. my late wife was killed fighting isis in syria. we made three new goldstar fami

after you voted to lead our troops there. it lined the pockets of the mil industrial complex supporting her re-election campaign. this is one of congress's funda jobs, authorizing war and the appropriations and the funding for war. we need people who understand and can hold the pentagon and the intelligence community to account. she says she supports israel. her and every single democrat l israel high-end dry when they had american hostages and attempted to negotiate a much better package for other foreign wars that drug on. they les israel high and dry when they had american hostages and teamed to negotiate a much better package for other foreign wars which drug on. house republicans put forward a that would have given israel immediate aid while hamas still had american hostages. we have to stop making ourselves target in that region. we have to do what is right for the american people to secure our own border we have to support our allies i meaningful ways that truly matt. >> i'm glad you brought up the

vote on syria. his best friend in congress matt gaetz put forward a bill that would have demanded the pullout of 900 american soldiers on 180 that is not a realistic timeline. it is part of why i voted to condemn the administration's role in the slapdash retreat fr afghanistan, where we created 13 new service members who died. i was at the congressional gold medal service for those families. i saw them. i can't imagine. that loss will never go away for them. that's why i opposed pulling out of syria on a slapdash record. supported the pullout in somalia, which was a year-long timeline with 450 troops stationed. it was much more safe. that is why i voted in favor of repealing the still existing aumf on iraq from 2002 so i say that i have been consistent and clear in ensurin our geopolitical interests. >> our troops are still in iraq and syria under fire right now

because she's going to leave them there. >> we are done with this questi the 2017 tax cuts passed during the prior trump administration are set to expire at the end o 2025. if they're not renewed, federal income taxes will increase for most of us, and some much more than others. where do you stand on those cuts? do you favor total renewal, partial renewal or letting cuts expire? congresswoman perez? >> these tax cuts are going to renegotiated in the next congress. if i am there, i will be fighting to ensure small businesses have a level playing field. one of the things i saw is that my wages earned at an hourly rate were taxed at a muc higher level than my earnings as an owner of the business. that's not right. when billionaires with teams of lawyers don't foot the bill and play by the rules that are already established, working people are left holding the bag. so i think it's critical that we have a level, predictable playing field for small

businesses so they can invest and grow our economy here at home. that's my interest. not creating loopholes or party favors for the corporations that donate to his campaign. he has not upheld his pledge tot take corporate tax money and i have. i'm proud of that, that i am responsible and i'm accountable to you all here. not corporations that fund my campaign. you can look it up on the f.c.c. website. that joe has been taking money from corporate pac's. i have not. that is the reality. so you know who would be negotiating in the interest of our community when those tax rules are renegotiated in the next congress. >> she's co-chair of the pac that take all the corporate pac money for her. then they phoned her reelection campaign. she thinks you don't understand

that. i think it's pretty clear. look, the tax cuts, we need to make sure we maintain those tax cuts. we cannot tax our way out of this debt and we can't spend our way out of this debt. we actually have to put the federal government on a diet and we have to grow the economy. we grow the economy by giving tax breaks to working-class americans. we do it by putting no tax on tips, no tax on the social security you have paid into that's how he actually grow the economy. we work very diligently and hard to actually secure our border, deport the people who came here illegally. she voted to give actual govern assistance none of you get access to two people who have come into our country illegally that's gotta stop. we cannot continue to fund these folks coming here. we have to depress their ability to get legal wages. all the illegal immigrants who come into our country, these guys are nothing but one big corporate tax subsidy for the government for leaving the board open. the illegals drive down the negotiating power

of miles per hour workers. we need to get them out of the labor pool and put our workers first so they don't have to compete with illegal immigrants specialized visas that take awa jobs from tech workers, and als so that our american manufacturing doesn't have to compete with overseas manufacturers that will use slave labor. we have to bring back our manufacturing, implement tariffs, that is how we are going to ease the tax burden. we can fill that void by terrif people who want access to the american economy. we've seen the blueprint for this. we actually saw working-class wages rise under president trump. president trump just needs a congress who will support him and not fight him. >> you can hear clearly that this is about partisan politics for him. it's about delivering a republican majority. i'm not here for that. i'm here for us. and when you look at the way that i've fought for money to come back here.

to ensure that our seniors would have a reliable water system. it's to get dollars to our rurar systems. i'm not trying to get a dog park named after me, the way some of my colleagues are. i am trying to ensure we have reliable water systems in our country. that we have roads and bridges that will last and be an asset. joe keeps talking about blue dog pac, blue dog bark, dogs, because he doesn't want to admit that he is taken corporate pac money. i will be negotiating on the interest of our community, as someone who has actually navigated it as a small business owner in the trade to ensure we have the next generation of machinists and people who know how to make things last in our country. not to get wrapped around the axle about whatever things, partisan talking points he's landing on. >> mr. kent? >> you have notes right there. who am i taking corporate pac

money from? she's taken money from the military industrial complex, astrazeneca, the defund the police pac's, 2he 2ist 2oes 2n. -- the list goes on. she is taking money from the sugar industry so she can continue to subsidize the way sugary beverages in foods are prioritized in food stamp programs to keep our young people obese, so then they need pharmaceuticals from big pharma to make america on a perpetual cycle of being sick and ill. we need to get all these corporate interests out, stop prioritizin foreign aid, and actually prioritize our citizens. >> he did say my name. do i need to respond when he does that? he asked me who he's taking money pac money from. he's taking money from the same organizations, citizens united, that gave corporations the same access to funding and involving themselves in our local and federal and state elections. that is who he is taking money from. the same people who took away our right to control our election. >> 30 seconds, mr. kent?

>> citizens united sent me $25, she has taken almost $1 million from astrazeneca. >> no, i didn't. >> look at the reseeds. she has probably five ads to every ad i have. when you talk about how you don't want to fund a bunch of foreign wars and cut corporate interest from cheap free labor and bring back american manufacturing, there are not a lot of corporate lobbyists knocking on your door offering you a deal but if you have her corporate record, there is ample opportunities to stuff your coffers. >> mr. kent, the biden administration is considering breaching the lower snake river dams to help endangered salmon runs at an estimated cost of $2 proponents argue it would restore vital ecosystems, while opponents, i including utilities and columna -- columbia river

ports warn it could reduce hydropower generation and disrupt shipping routes. what i your position on this proposal and would you support necessary appropriations for breaching th? >> short answer, no. that is an absolutely horrible idea by the biden administration and this insane green agenda. our dams provide a great source of hydropower which is clean and renewable, it gives us a lot of our power here. it is also the reason we have so much navigable water on the columbia. i'm sure my opponent will tell you she will stand up to the biden administration because it is an election year. oh, we're very much against this, mr. president. however, they gave the biden ad the executive authority to take this unilateral action without asking anybody here in washington state. my opponent unfortunately voted against the reins act which would have made this kind of drastic measure go through the legislature. it would have actually stopped these regulatory agencies like the epa and the executive branc

from creating regulations that are de facto laws. it would have put control of natural resources like our rivers and fishing and timber industry, put that control right back here where it belongs. so, again, this is where records matter far more than rhetoric. you cannot give the executive branch, regardless of who is in charge, this unchecked power to simply regulate their way into making and creating lawings. luckily the supreme court agreeh us, so we have a real opportunity here with the chevron issue being overturned. we have an opportunity here to go through and dismantle the administrative state and return control back down to the u.s. house of representatives and the senate. that gives every single american an actual seat at the table in these very critical and impactful decisions. we are not letting bureaucrats washington, d.c. do that.

unfortunately, my opponent, regardless of what she says here, she allowed for d.c. bureaucrats to continue to make sweeping regulations that affec all of us. >> when i'm talking to my neighbors in my friends and people at my church, what i am hearing from them is now we hav more than ever a need for cheap reliable, dependable, affordable, emissions free energy. and that's what we get from our hydrosystem. i don't support breaching the snake river dams. each one of the barges you see is about 156 semi-loads of grain. if you are worried about wear and tear on your roads, having that navigable dam system is an integral part of our train structure. in my family we say that it's a shoddy carpenter who blames his tools. joe keeps harping on this reins act thing. congress already has authority to come after these agencies when they do something that is out of line with our values as a nation.

it's called the congressional review act. so he's going on and on about t thing so he can get credit for reinventing the wheel. use the tools you have. i have a very clear voting record on holding agencies accountable when they don't listen to local people, when they don't listen to the facts on the ground. i fought hard with my republican colleague to the east, dan newhouse to get $5 million to support removing sea lions. you want to talk about water quality and fish and natural resources? i have been i live near it. you see these sea lions the size of a corolla and they're gobbling up fish. i am fighting to ensure we have all the tools necessary to remove them and to stop them

from recruiting more sea lions on the river, stopping the families who rely on natural resources like fish from being able to do that. i am proud of my record on this, standing up and ensuring we have in all of the above energy policy and at we move to electrification in some things that we have the power to do that. we have the energy supply at hand. >> thank you. mr. kent? >> if she was going to actually represent the interest of the people here, she would have done it already. she has that ability and power right now. this is why we have -- need the reins act. fine, if there's a better solution. let's stop letting the federal government regulate the columbia river. let's start getting rid of the sea lions. let's start getting rid of the y birds taking the salmon. i was recently out on the colum with my kids, pulling their first fish out of the water. it was a great day, it was awesome

the traffic on the river it was at an all-time high. most of them were charter vessels, a huge boom for the local economy but because of what the sea lions and the bird pray are doing in the way the federal government can shut down the salmon season like they did two years ago, it is a major hindrance on their industry and for us in the district. if she was going to do it, she would have done it by now. this is where records matter more than rhetoric. we have to take away the power d.c. has to regulate our natural resources. >> thank you. kongwoman? forks, washington. you don't know where that is, but it is the nexus of where th wars hollowed out ou communities. so many people in my family lost their jobs when that happened. we have not recovered. we have not seen timber harvest rates come back up. instead they are coming from tree farms in the southeast or croatia. i fought hard to ensure we have

a natural resource economy that is driving our economy. it is great to have gift shops and art galleries but you don't get those things without a connection to the natural resource economies like our hydro system and are timber and fish. joe says i don't fight for local issues because he is not listening to what the local issues are pretty i thought har for our aquaculture folks. i fought hard for our farmers and producers who rely on research on cranberries and green crab. it is the same work i am going to continue to do, listening to all of you about your priorities, not taking the bill that whatever party wants you t. >> thank you both for your responses to our questions. we're to the point where we'd like to give each two minutes for a closing statement. rep perez: so much for a civil dialogue this evening. i think it is illustrative. joe is the most decisive, violent and -- >> we are almost to the end,

people! hold it. it's not to see who can yell the louders. everybody plesac like an adult that much longer. rep.perez: joe can't put a proud boy on his campaign staff. this round he developed a shell corporation to hide who he is hiring. that is not being level with our community. the joe kent who showed up tonight, who is here to take partisan votes to have a single party control over rural america in the trades, that is the same joe kent who is going to show up in washington, d.c. i will be the same person i said i will be, someone with an independent voting record, who is from here. my family has lived here for si i was married here, i built my house here, and i am going to fight for our values and our culture in washington, d.c. that is why i am in the top 3% of the most bipartisan member

of the u.s. house of representatives. joe kent wants our priorities and values to seem small. he wants it to feel small. but if he's saying that my accomplishments and values are small than he is saying transportation for rural veterans is small. he's saying that standing up to president biden for his failed border policies is small. he's saying ensuring law enforcement has the resources they need to fight the flow of fentanyl is small. funding roads and bridges is small. supporting the timber industry and our paper and pulp entries is small. those things aren't small. they're our values and your values. i am here to listen to what is important to you and reflect that in washington, d.c. i will continue to fight for our value there. i will continue to be th same person i have always been. i will not change my stance whe the political pollsters tell me that is what i need to do to get elected. i have a describable vote record that you don't need to look up

on his knockoff website. you can see my record. i would be honored to continue to represent our community in washington, d.c. >> mr. kent? >> thank you all for being here. it got a little raucous, but th you for being here. it is a ver important election we have coming up. i appreciate my opponent being here. our countr is hurting right now. the inflation we are experiencing i taking wages away from working-class americans. when i talk to people in my community, i told you about my church, we are right now putting together basic food necessities for people because the economy is stretched them so thin and these were people that were doing just fine a couple of years ago. unfortunately when you get out and talk to folks they say, i was doing well a couple of years ago but now i'm barely making ends meet. and young people, their ability to move out and get their own apartment or afford a home, that is being completely squandered and thrown away because of thisl economy. it's really disappointing my opponent wants to talk about

name-calling and all these different things, trying to present me as a scary person, when she voted for this inflation. she's been there for less than two years. we have $4 trillion in new spending. that simply cannot go on. when i talk to people in the community, everyone is having a major issu with this out-of-control crime. we have talked a lot about fentanyl this evening, about th toddlers being killed because they are exposed to fentanyl. we have talked about how many people have lost a loved one du to the scourge of fentanyl. it comes from the southern border. it is not just a performance to go down there, i wanted to see for myself. we also have a ton of foreigners coming into our country are not our neighbors. we have the potential of another terrorist attack coming and that is approaching very soon. that's something that i take very, very seriously. it's time to send someone to washington, d.c. who will not prioritize simple party politics, big pharma, infringements on basic civil liberties. it is time to actually represent the people, and that's what i'm going to do for you guys in washington, d.c. it was an honor for me to fight

for this country for over 20 years. i'd be honored to represent you in washington, d.c. [cheers? applause] >> with one of the tightest races for control of congress in modern political history, stay ahead with c-span's expensive coverage of key state debates. this fall c-span brings you access to the nation's top house, senate and governor debates from across the country. debates from races that are shaping your state of the's future and the balance of power in washington. at c-span.org/campaign. watch tuesday, november 5 for live, realtime election-night results. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics, powered by cable.

>> friday night watch c-span 2024 campaign trail. a weekly presentation of how political news has progressed in the week. and to look at the week again. watch c-span's 2024 campaign trail friday night at 7:00 eastern on c-span, onlinehan c-span.org or download on our free mobile app or wherever you get your podcast. c-span, your unfiltered view of politics. >> if you ever miss any of c-span's coverage. you can find it anytime at c-span.org. markers guide you to interesting and news worthy highlights. these appear on right-hand side of your screen when you hit play on select videos. this makes it easy to quickly

get an idea of what was decided in washington. scroll throw and spend a few minutes of c-span's points of interests. >> the house will be in order. >> this year, c-span celebrates 45 years of covering congress like no other. since 19 9 we've been your primary source for capitol hill, providing balanced, unfiltered coverage of government, taking you to where the policies, debates are decided. c-span, 45 years and counting. powered by cable. >> next on book tv's other inte program "after words cost journalist brigid schulte explores how to better align workplace culture with the need of american workers. she is interviewed by business insiders's chief correspondent. "after words" is a weekly interview program with relevant

guest hosts interviewing fiction authors about their latest work. here to talk with you today about your new book. it's about all the ways are over working culture harms us and also about the ways a potentially fix it. it's a deeply reported book with a ton of research and talk to a lot of people for it. but i think what struck me about it is that your character in it as well and maybe to kind of kick us off, can you talk about the personal place that you wrote this book from? what about your life made you want to write it? yeah, sure. well, first of all, it's so to be in conversation with you. i'm really excited to be here. your work has been really great as well. i'm excited to have this conversation. so this book really it's really a book of journalism it's a it's sort of a journey, if you will, of me as a journalist asking. questions and looking for answers. but it did start. my first book was called

overwhelm work, love and play when. no one has the time. that was very much a it started out of own experience trying to understand why it so difficult to try to combine work and family. i had a job as a journalist, had two small children. you and everyone that i talked to, it seemed like was so impossible. why? and so i finished that, which was another sort of journey book, really trying to understand a lot time, time, pressure, gender roles, intensive work, intensive parenting, why we make no time for leisure this country. and i got to the of that process and i have to i'm very driven by equity, you know, as as a as a woman, as someone who has care responsibilities, i want to try to understand why is it so difficult for all to have access to a good life, to have meaningful work, to have the time that they for care and

connection for love, for joy? and why? why is it difficult for really all us to find time? you know, to put away that sense that we always have to be productive and busy? why is it so difficult to have time for leisure and joy and. you know, sort of like asking those bigger questions of like, why are we here? what we doing? and i realized that so much of sort of the pain and the misery not just for women, not just for for people with care responsibilities or honestly, workers with disabilities or workers with color of color. you know, where i think that the the disadvantage is felt acutely but really for all of us i began to see that it really originated in our work culture the way we think about work, the way we organize work, particularly in the united states and, the way we actually do it. and i did look broadly across globe, but i was very focused on the united states where we have not just a hard work culture.

i think we all believe as humans in hard work that there's a value in that. but we have it's morphed into an overwork culture where work is starting to squeeze out time for for the other great of life and sort of capturing more and more of our identities and really looking at, at why that is, what drives it, what the costs and consequences are. and then how do we move beyond and why is it so important? we do not just now, but as we think about a future of work. right. right. you know, speaking of that line you mentioned between work hard, work and overwork and one of the moving chapters you have in your is about workaholism, which i guess it's like a word that a lot of us use colloquially, like, oh, i'm such a workaholic. but in the book you talk about how it's a very serious condition. it's a medical diagnosis. so you go anmeet people out of work, colleagues, anonymous meeting who are desperately trying to overcome their

addiction to work. at what point does your job end up become an addiction that kind of, you know, impairs and potentially ruins your life because it feels like that's a fuzzier line than we we it to be. that's such a good question. and it's really true. you know, i, i put a lot of work hours and i love i do and very passionate about that. it's my job to try to make sure try to ask those questions and, you know, how do we make a good life available to all people? you know and a lot of us, regardless of what of job you have so many people that i spoke to for this book i with care workers and they have such pride they take such they have such sense of meaning in what they do. they know just exactly what music their clients like or how to fix their hair or where to take them on walk or what to do when they're upset. i spoke to retail workers, you know, and they take such pride

in what they do and how they stock shelves. and, you know, so i think that we have this sort of false that the only people who find meaning in their work are sort of educated kind of more the professional class. and that's that's not true at all. if you go all the way back to studs terkel, that's one of the things that really shines through in all of those all of the interviews that that he did so many years ago is we all find meaning and purpose. you know, many of us do in in in the work that we do. and so so the question is, where is the between? good, good enough work? you know, what's difficult is if you're not working in a factory or you're not working in sort of set hours, which even retail workers and hourly workers aren't anymore with so much unpredictability, it's hard to know, you know, if your is to write great journalism or try to change the world at a nonprofit. it's to know when to call it a day. so work hours can stretch

longer. and so i really looked a lot at the research between the difference between work engaged meant when you were really passionate, interested in your work, and then you're able to unplug from it, you're able to still say, yeah, maybe i wanted to accomplish today, but it's over. and i'm going to do i'm going to spend time with family and friends. i'm going to do something. i enjoy doing. you have you have you have the ability to unplug work. but for workaholism, it's often driven by it's driven by a feeling of sort of not enough ness. and there's this sense that when you've stopped working, it is like an addiction. you it's very difficult to unplug from if you if you aren't working, thinking about it, you're worrying. you're like, you should be working. and so it's very difficult to. enjoy time for other areas of your life. it's talked many, many

workaholics and they said vacation is the hardest time for, you know, having having time off and away from work. so i think that's what's important to remember is there is a line and it tends to be you know, there are internal drivers to workaholism or overwork, you know, where you can feel they can be positive. you know, you're excited, you're curious. i would say curiosity. a lot of my work, devotion, work, so to speak, you know, want to learn things, you know, they can also be very negative drivers. you know, that feeling of inadequacy or fear. but we live in a culture and this is what so many workaholics told me. we live in a culture that so values and rewards long work hours that they were rewarded for the very things that were causing them pain that were them, from having a healthy relationship or being able to do anything outside of work. and so that's where the problem comes is, you know, when you're not able to unplug and then you,

you live in a culture and you work an organization where people think that's amazing. right, right, right. yeah. when you drink too much or, you know, you have a gambling addiction, it's so clear that that's a bad thing. but it's not immediately clear that, you know, being addicted to work is a bad thing. i mean i mean, i think you know, it's one of those cliches in job interviews, like when somebody asked you when the interviewer asked you like, what's what's your one flaw? and i feel like a lot of people say, like, oh, i'm a workaholic right. and, you know, that should be a bad thing. because the other thing is looking into the research long work hours, you know, we tend to think that it makes you a better worker, you know, and you're right, we reward that. oh, my goodness. if you come in early and you stay late and you work through lunch and, you never take a vacation. i mean, i've worked in newsrooms where you would get emails. oh so-and-so never take it. you know, they work for the last five or six weekends. aren't they amazing? you know, so you get these messages. that's the best way to work. but if you look over time, the

research is really clear that the longer you work, it becomes counterproductive to both productivity. you get tired you kind of make fuzzy. you know, you're becomes fuzzier. it takes you longer to make decisions. you're not always clearheaded about them, you know. so it's it's not only counterproductive to productivity but you certainly cannot creative and innovative when you burned out and crispy around the edges. you know, the research is really clear that if you look at neuroscience. if you look at sort of the science behind innovations or the aha moment that happens when we are well-rested, when we are feeling relaxed, i mean, there's a physiological reason we have our best ideas in shower, you know, where we're rested and the water feels great and we're sort of in this daydreaming mode. and so i think that's what's really important for, you know, the larger culture recognize

that we need to stop rewarding the behaviors that are not only hurting people and they're individual lives, but are also really antithetical to if you to run an efficient, effective business, you know, if you want to have employees who don't work themselves into the ground, that those long work hours and work holism, they're not good for anyone. yeah, i mean, you talk, you know, the importance of culture here. i think in the book you make a funny observation that was it italy of all places that's done the best research workaholism. yeah. isn't that amazing. you know, it's like the place that you would think, oh, you know, you have lunches with cappuccino or whatever. but i think what's interesting, too, when you talk to the handful of workaholic workaholism research in the united researchers in the united states, you know, they all say that they've struggled trying to get attention and rewards for their work because it's not seen as a problem in the united

states. it's again, it's something that's seen as almost a price of entry. you know, it's almost expected in many professions. yeah. i mean, the book you go to a lot of different countries in europe. you go to iceland, you go to scotland. you just about italy. in this example was it. i mean, i'm sure you've been to europe before you started writing this book, too. was it kind of wild to go there and just experience how differently people think about work? there compared to how we think about work here in the u.s.? well, and to be and to be fair, i also went to japan, which has a very very different view of work, more akin to the us. and so i wanted to experience different cultures who had different of work, and i wanted to really look closely at gender equality, at health and well-being you know, and also at class mobility. what was this doing to workers

across class and gender and? you know, some of the things really astounding. and i think in japan that the whole idea that long work hours really don't was so clear because i would talk to people would be like 11:00 at night and they'd still at the office and they would be doing sort nothing. they'd be sitting around and you'd ask, well, you know, why are you there? and they said, well, my boss expects me be here. i can't leave, you know. and this is a country where know young people are not having children. they're talking about having an aging. they are not very productive. when you look at the number of hours they put in and you talk to researchers there and they call that waste, you know, it's you're wasting a lot of time just physically either being at work or, you know, kind of hanging around your computer and spending late night emails. and it's sort of what we have here in sort of long work hours and busyness cultures in the united states as well.

the researchers there it waste i ended up calling it you know the performance of work or stupid work so you know and what i what i realized and and to get back to your point of like why i went to different countries i realized that i began to think about work in three ways. they're sort of the core work that we talk about where we get a of meaning. we're doing things that we're interested in, we're developing skills that you're really connected to the value of what you're doing, the meaning and fulfillment part. and then there's then the next concentric ring is what i call the work around the work. it's the emails and the meetings and the logistics and the planning that should go to help support that meaningful work. but oftentimes becomes the work. that's what you spend whole day doing, running to meetings and you're not quite sure why you're there. and you know plowing through and an inbox that never, ever seems to to be under control or answering messages. and then i began to think about

work, that sort of final concentric concentric circle. i it the performance of work. so when are in a culture that rewards busyness that that cares more if look productive than if you really are or that values the long work hours the input of what you're doing rather than the output the output you know what are you creating? what are you actually doing what's the performance? what's the what's the impact in the world that you're if that doesn't matter, you know, then you have a whole lot of people running around trying to look important and busy and sort of performing work that isn't work at all. and that's what i saw in a lot of us. that's what i saw a lot of in. and the reason i went to iceland is because they have a short work movement there. it's not a four day workweek, but they from 40 to 32 hours and they made that available to 85% of the population.

so it wasn't just for elite, professional desk workers. you people who sit behind computers. i went there and i spoke to childcare workers, to nurses, to police officers, you know, as well as to travel agents and, you know, factory, you know, people work in factories and things like that. and what was so interesting is for them to be able to get 32 hours at the same rate of pay, they had to completely rethink what work was and. the first thing that they did is got really on that first circle. what the meaningful work, what creates most value, how do prioritize that and they work on that second circle you know all of the meetings and logistics and planning like what are the processes that we can make to streamline it, to make sure that we're that most important work. and then they completely got rid of the stupid work. there was no more performing, you know, there was no more pretending to be busy and then getting kudos for because if you

were no longer rewarded for just simply being a button, a chair or a presence or sending late night emails, and you were really focused on what was important about work. the work got better and it was interesting to the architects of the other shorter work hours movements. they wanted. do it for wellbeing, to bring people's stress levels down and increase health. and that's happened. and they also wanted to do it for gender equality and that has also happened because as men's paid work hours come down, they they're spending time sharing unpaid work of care and home, which we all know that around the world women are still spending anywhere from 2 to 10 times more more time doing the unpaid work of care and home. and they're not able to put in those long work hours, long work hours cultures. so those long work hours cultures, they up creating more of a monoculture over time because, you know, people with care responsibilities that you simply can't put those kinds of

hours. and so that was one of the things that actually became really enraging after a while that were rewarding wrong things and then were really disadvantaging so many people, you know, and we live in an era where you need to work to survive. it just felt so unfair. and then what we're doing is because leaders tend to believe that that's what you've got to do. that's the best to work. they end up rewarding who work like them. so you end up just sort of reconfirming a kind of a corporate monoculture over and over and over again, you know, making sure that men and people with no care responsibilities are the ones that will always be in charge. and, and it just doesn't have to be that way. right. i mean, when go to iceland, i think you go in with quite a bit of skepticism. yes. you know, experiment in this, you know, tiny little country would have any lessons for us here in united states. you know, the world's largest

after. you went there. did you feel differently about the skepticism you had going into. yeah, that is such a great question because. i really did. because, again, i struggle with my own, you know, with my own work, overwork. you know, when i was writing book, i also had a full time job. yoknow, i basically were to do two jobs and all of my unpaid care work with my kids and my mom and, you know, so it was it was too much. and sometimes i was thinking i would to work a shorter work out workweek, would i do that? and so i began looking in the us, the uk, where some pilots were starting. but i have to be really honest, i, i saw a lot of them the time i think they've changed now. but when i was reporting the book, many of them were smaller, kind of techie, you know, kind of male dominated. and i began to really worry. it's like, well, if, if that's the only, you know, if those are the only workers who are going to benefit from shorter work hours, that just felt, you know,

kind of more gender inequality, you know, you'd have like, you know, high, high, highly paid men surfing on fridays, as you know. and then all of the women doing so much of the care work and the, you know, childcare and home care and nursing work, so many of them work days a week that just felt like that's not that didn't feel like an answer that didn't feel like something i wanted to try to explore that we could learn from. and then a friend of mine said, well, you should go to iceland because. they have made it available these short work hours available across, all sorts of industries, you know, to 5% of the workforce. so i was skeptical because i struggle with my own work hours. i was like yeah, just kind of show me, show me how you really do this. but i was also because you're right, you know, i even say that in the book. i know we're not iceland, you know, because is it's very small, it's homogenous it's, you know, it's a very unique of place. and the united states is so vastly different. we were enormous and we're

enormously diverse, you know, and there's a lot dynamism here. there's a lot of economic inequality here that, you know, we have all sorts of issues that we need to work on. but i think what i up coming away with was it's not like we're iceland. we shouldn't be iceland. we'll never be iceland. you know, we are united states, you know, but what we can learn is the process we could in that sort of a universal, whether it's through public policy or through, you know, organizational change, the process that they went through, get to those shorter, more effective hours and then the culture change they went through to reward what really important and to things like equity and human well-being rather than endless growth and gdp and, you know, kind of outsized profits for ceos as well. frontline workers, wages have stagnated really since 1971. you know, there are processes that we can learn from that i

thought were really valuable. and that's what i really focus on in that chapter in you able to convince your employer to implement a four day workweek. well, so so i run a nonprofit, you know, and so as program director, i have a lot of autonomy within within my organization work at new america. and so really, ever since i got there i mean, that is one thing that i will say is that even though i have struggled with long work hours over my, you know, over my career, i have always thought to work very flexibly. so i have always had more of a sense of choice and control over my time. and so that's what i give to my team and flex disability is our default. so i try to do is make our objective lives and our goals very clear. the deadlines, the standards very clear. we have a lot of transparency, regular on ones. and so then where do you do that

work when do that work or how you do work becomes far less important. are you doing excellent work? you know, in the time that we need it and in taking of your own health and and responsibilities at the same time. so i have always a measure of flexibility not only to my own work habits and work life, but to my teams as well. and you know one of your chapters is about reading mining work where you talk about some very promising experiments that generated great results, but they still didn't end up they just kind of fizzled out after a few years. it's something i've been thinking about a lot as a workplace reporter these days because companies are trying so hard to their employees to come back to the office even though there's so much research showing that it's great for employers and employees and you know i've just been about like it's almost

like there's this force of gravity separates us back to the status quo every single time. and i think you kind of show that in the book, too, like, what do you make of that? like, why why is it so hard for companies to. so i want to say two things about that, because you're absolutely right. i write about what would have been it wasn't creative innovative work redesign intel and i go through the process of how you know they really talk to the people found what their pain points were designed a really creative way to address it and it worked well for people their wellbeing for equality it worked well for the company. they didn't have to like lay people off and and rehire them the next month you know, it sort of one of those a win win win situation. and what i'll say about that is what i found with so many work redesigns and you're seeing that with the return to office fight with you know all of the covid

and the experiments and how some people embraced it and others others didn't. it really comes down to the power of what leaders and i think that was of the things that most struck me. all of the reporting that i did in this book. and it's why it's not surprising that we have these return to office fights, because if you have leaders who who grew up a certain way of working and that's the way they were successful, many them that's the only way they know how to work and so they believe the best way to work and and so i think that's what you see over and over again is that you would see these wonderful work, work redesigns and there would be evidence data to show that they were better on a whole of measures, better for the company, you know, far less turnover higher profitability, more productive. and when there was a leadership, a new leader would come in and say i don't get this. it's not the way i like to work. i'm uncomfortable, we're not doing it anymore. and so they would it.

but the second thing that i want to say, and this is what i think is most important right now, is that covid was like a grand experiment on a grand scale. i mean it was a horrific pandemic. we lost a lot of lives. we were forced to so many things about the way we work the way we live, the way we care, the way we go to school. but forced us to do things that we didn't think were possible. and we did. and people showed that they could be incredibly productive in very trying circumstances. all of a sudden, the hourly, the the service workers who have been sewing visible for decades became essential. and we saw their plight and like, oh my, why? why do people you know, why are we putting up with the fact that so many people are in such poverty wages? you know, why are we putting up with the fact that we've got companies, we allow to give their workers such unpredictable schedules? so there were things that we saw. there were things that we tried.

there were things that we did and the pandemic lasted long enough that many have started to stick. you and you've written about this people to you know as you saw death all around you and in real struggle people to think about their own lives and did work mean or what do i want out of my own life we sort of broke some cycles that we had been where we just took for granted that you know yes hard work is good to overwork must be better. and so i'm just going to go, go, go, go, go. and busyness be good. and we started to kind of begin to question. of those status quo realities. we started to question some of that inertia. and so what i will is that even though, you know, amazon is the most recent return to office back five days a week, and there's others that that have come out, but there are a host of other smaller companies, other companies who have made the commitment to doing something differently.

they may not be getting the headlines. they may be getting the all of the attention, as you're right, the the research is so clear that if you want the most productivity, if you want the most sense of satisfaction out of workers, but also middle managers and managers is some kind of hybrid is so much more it gives people so much more of a sense choice and control and flexibility in both the time manner and place of their work and that i think that there is more lasting power. and i think that's what's to remember is that before these work redesigns, we're sort of trying to push against a very powerful inertia and status quo. and now, you know, there are there sort of cracks in the concrete. and i and i and while there are some want to snap back to 2019, i think that's to be very difficult to do.

and it sounds like you might be much more of an optimist than i. i mean, as you're you're talking about this, what i'm thinking is like, is a new wild that it takes you know the largest global pandemic in a century to actually make these changes happen like it's just so sad that like you evidence isn't enough to change the way that we work. you know, i. i couldn't agree more. it's it's astounding, especially when you, you know, i think it you you listen to business leaders and all sound so rational, like, oh, we want to make the business case and we these goals and objectives and on and on and and then the way people act or is sometimes so divorced from reality and it is astounding. but to me it comes back the power of, well, first of all, who's power and what they believe. and so when you look at some of the most effective either it's short work short work movements

or work redesigns. it's like, you know, the process is you know, you kind of stop and you figure out, okay, what's that core work? that's most important? but then, you know, you get out of that c-suite bubble and you and you start asking people, what are your pain points? what are you struggling with in your life? you know, what would make your work and life and play better? how how could we co-create together what was so interesting is like going to iceland or some of these other work redesigns, you know, it's like they had leaders buying from the top, okay, something needs to change. we don't know how. so we're going to turn it over to teams we're going to turn it over to the people closest to problem. we're going to ask we're going to listen to then you come up with, you know, one child care center that i spent with in iceland. the director. okay, we're going to go to short work hours. i don't know how we're going to do it. so she said, i turn it over to my team and i tell, i told them,

we can figure this out. you're going to have to do it. and so they went through their days in 15 minute increments and really had to think. okay, what's the most important thing here? giving quality care? how do we do that? what are the are the processes that we need? and they threw those, you know, really fine, fine. going through their schedules with a fine tooth comb, figured out how to do it, you know, and were happier. the kids were happier, parents were happier. you so so there's a lot of that can come from redesigning and transforming work when you put humans put humanity and well-being along with productivity and profits you put that in the center, you're not just, you know, doing your job to make a lot of money for a handful of shareholders is sort of what's happened, particularly in the united states in the last several decades. and it's interesting. i want to go back to, you know, what you said about japan and i grew up in so that that really

hit close to home for me and you know you talk about the most extreme manifestation of is currency which in it's death by overwork i've always known that this was a thing because i grew up in japan but i found it so moving. read about the intimate of the people who literally work to death and the families that they left behind. can you talk about what happened? mina mori and what her family did after her death? yeah, that was just there are some stories that that, you know, that as you report some people that you spend time with, they just they just get inside your heart, you know? and this is one of those that that i just sit with that i live with that, you know. and i wanted to go to japan for very reason. it's like we the west, we hear about, you know, the occasional currency death that seems so unusual and so outrageous.

and people tend think, well, that's just over there. that's a different culture that could never happen here. and i wanted to go and really understand that. is that right? is that the samurai culture? and i found that that's that wasn't the case at all. and actually, if you look here in the united, we have a lot of what i call currency, but we don't recognize it. we don't track it the way the japanese government does. we don't a word for it, but we have as much work stress and demands of long work hours in many of the professions that they do. japan, we have the same, you know, we have similar people. you you know, similarly, you have people who have acute, you know, acute reaction to stress, whether it's a cardiovascular event or a stroke, you know, and then the long term chronic stress, you know, that can lead to cardiovascular disease or obesity, diabetes or a shortened life lifespan. so i think that's of the first

things that i think is important, is i didn't find an outlier in japan. i found the same that we have here in the united states that are born of cultures where long work hours are valued sort of at face value, that that's the status quo. that's sort of a leader belief rather than based on evidence. and in a culture that becomes so entrenched, it's hard to try to push back against it. and so that's what i really learned in japan, was i spent some time with families and just being so humbled by these families who have suffered such and they are so determined that they don't want anyone to go through what they've gone through or their loved ones went through that are leading the fight to change laws. that's why japan tracks is because of the the corrosive act and families they have been pushing for decades to change laws to make sure that there's a white paper that comes out every

year to work on the court systems that you can you can push to get punitive damages so that that could, you know, try to influence corporate culture. they are working you know they are working really to try to change the culture and what i'm what i was so struck by is. you know we can talk about, you know, whether the return to office, whether there is hope or not or, you know, am i optimistic or should be more cynical? what keeps them going is hope. and so i guess if they hope that things can change, i can have that hope as well. and the story with me now, mori, she was a young woman very close to her family. you know, had been doing been doing art classes, but then found a company that she really wanted to work that had all sorts of different things that she thought this could be place where i could learn, i could go

start somewhere small. and one of the easy careerist restaurants, but then i could move into other places. and so she felt really hopeful that this could be the start, you know, kind of like a really brilliant career, a wonderful life that she wanted to have. and so she and her mother had actually been watching a documentary on kenosha. and the mother was very worried and she was worried about this particular company that had a very bad reputation. and, you know, it said basically she really valued valorize ised and rewarded long work hours. you know, 24 seven work til you die. that's the way you've got to work here and mother was very worried and said to her daughter, you know, i don't want you to work that way. and the daughter, don't worry, you know, i'll leave before ever gets to that point. but what ended up happening is that she got caught up in that overwork culture. one of the things that you have to do in japan that, again,

these these families fighting against is called service overtime, that you're expected not only to work your long hours but then put in service overtime, you know, late nights and weekends volunteering at different places. it's it's part of the culture there. and what ended up happening is after two short months, nina mori became so exhausted that she ended up taking own life. you know, in the hours before her death, she had gone to a store and bought and an alarm clock and different things. so her mother doesn't think that she meant to take own life, but that she was just so delicious and exhausted from work but also with feeling so broken, so, so hopeless and, helpless. and i think that's what's so powerful about the families is that want to take those the you know just that horrific tragedy turn it into something a force for good. and the other thing that i'll say about, you know, fighting

against that kind of culture, you know, young people who are also involved saying we just want a good life. you know, we don't want this to be our only future, our only option and it's also young are actually fathers of any age, sort of a fathering movement saying, you know, we don't want to be those of, you know, fathers who never see their children, who work all the time. and that's what's expected us. we want something different. and so what i what i find hopeful in that is that, you know, we can talk about effective work. and i do talk about that because trying to sort of get into the hearts and minds of of leaders. but it's so much so of where the drive for transforming work comes from is really from the of people who just really want to have they want to have work. but as one part of a very rich and full life. yeah, it's interesting to hear you talk about how a lot the

momentum is coming from young people in japan because i wonder if that's actually happening here in the united states as well. when i when i speak to gen z workers, i'm always really struck by how clear their priority seem to be, how much they reject the kind of ways that we used to work before and how willing they are, speak up and out about these things to their bosses, which is something for me as a millennial, i never would have considered doing at beginning of my career. yeah. or me sort of the tail end of the baby boom and beginning of gen, gen x. you know, i came into the workforce in the 1980s right after sort of like the first wave of women en went into the workforce. and let me tell you, i was told you have to work twice as hard, be three times as good. you're a woman. you'll never accepted. so i think that's part of where some of my long work hours came from. is that message that you don't

and you're going to always be a struggle, always going to be a fight, you know? and i think what's sad is you get to this point where a lot of a lot of people, women who have worked that way, a lot of them at great personal sacrifice, you know, and you see this regardless of gender, you get into power and you feel like it's almost like a hazing ritual. well, if i had to go through it, well, then you better go through it. and what i want to tell everybody that stop, it wasn't. good. you know, and even people who to go back to 20, 19, 2019 wasn't good. let's stop the stuff. d'alger for 2019, you know, work still wasn't working for a lot of people. and you know, again, was working for perhaps a handful very high power male workers, as you know. so i think that the getting back to the generations, i think two things about that and one is that when you look at surveys over time, what's interesting is that every young generation wants what z wants.

now they've wanted a good life. you know they've wanted good work, but they haven't wanted work to squeeze out everything else or, eaten them alive, you know. and then it's interesting, you know, ten years ago it was like, oh, millennials, that will save us. and i remember to leaders at the time shame on you you shouldn't expect the people to be the ones doing the hard you need to create the systems and the culture and the organization where everybody can then have that work life balance, you know, and it's not about lesser work or being soft or not hard core, it's about doing good. but then being able to go home at the end of the day and have a good life know. and, and i think what's different. and then you've hit on it again. think covid and the disruptions of covid were were so devastating and yet so powerful and potentially lasting is that you do younger people who are more willing to say, you know, i

don't i don't buy into this and i will walk away over time. what ends up happening sometimes is they get sucked into that inertia and that culture, and then you end up acting that way because you feel like you have no choice. but i mean, that's an question and we'll see. yeah, you know after all this reporting you did that, took you all over the country and all over the world, i wonder if you ended up doing anything differently, your life personally, if there were lessons that you kind of ended applying in your own life? i absolutely. oh, my goodness. you know, and at the end of the book, that's why i have these sort of appendices, because i know we we're all looking for the five ways to do this, the ten ways to do this. you know, i listen, i love that stuff. and so at the end of the book, i do have four individuals. i want people to feel they have a sense of agency. you know a lot of this can feel so enormous. you know, congress hasn't raised the minimum wage since 2009.

you know, outrageous. but sometimes that feels like outside of what i can do on a monday, you know, you know we don't have paid family medical leave in the united states. we don't invest in care, child care or care infrastructure. that's big stuff. you know that that's worth fighting for over time organizations. there's a lot that organized nations can do. you know, changing culture, changing work practices is, you know, really focusing on human well-being, seeing humans as an asset rather than a liability be cut, you know, so laying people off so that your books will look good for wall street so that you can satisfy your shareholders which is a lot of what happens. you know, which is really short sighted and very damaging to people. so there are there's a lot that we can change at that policy level, the cultural level, the organizational level. but, you know, that will take time. what i say is there are things that we can do in our own lives right, right now. and it's almost like putting on your oxygen mask that's.

what i want people to think of, because if we only the problems for ourselves, we're not helping. it's like nobody wins till we all win. so think about that's the way i like to think about is like, all right, how can i get more oxygen, bring some more of time and reason into my life? how can i live more of a fuller, good life? and then how can i then, you know, use that energy to to work some of these larger changes. so just a couple of things that i'll share with you. i learned i learned so much from behavioral science during this entire reporting trip that was, you know, this reporting journey was just so, so fascinating, you know, and how important systems changes and and all of that but in terms of what the individual do, you can go through your sort of work excellence mission like like they did and work redesigns or in iceland you can spend thinking in your own life what's most important to you? what is the work that you really want to do?

and i define work in the book very broadly. in my view, work is that is not fr time and so work is you do for pay. it's the unpaid work of care. it's how you make your home, you know it is volunteer in the community. it is being part of civic life. all of that is work. all of that is good work and. it needs to be valued. you are the three principles that i talk about defining. good work are meaning fairness and cooperation. so thinking work in that bigger way in your own life, thinking about those principles of fairness and meaning and and really understanding there is no such thing as pulling yourself up by your bootstraps that was always sort of came from a joke you know, that we are part of communities and that we need each other you know that we care is a human fundament fundamental. you know, human activity. it's how we survive well as what

gives us sense of meaning. so think in your own life, what is important to you in? your work, you know, in your care and in what gives you a sense of joy and then how do you make time that? and then backwards from work back work backwards from there. you know, in terms of the way you spend your time, you know, think about what drives you internally rather than a lot of those external pressures that will will always you know will be you to work more. you're not doing enough. you can never be enough. so some of that is turning down turning down the volume on those external pressures, getting much more clear spending with yourself, figuring out what's important. and then, you know, one of the smartest things that i've heard from, one of the behavioral scientists is like thinking about your time, you know, recognize your time and attention, are your two most precious resources. so how will you deploy them?

how will you spend them in a way that helps helps you with your internal driver of your own to get to your own priority. and so one of the ways that that i like to think about it, this behavioral scientist me is like rather than thinking about your schedule like a pantry that you just cram with a bunch of stuff, you know, because that how a lot of our busyness cultures if you value people running around sort of breathlessly and all the time you're going to cram your calendar with back to back to back meetings and you're going to plow through your inbox and you to the end of the day and wonder, i was busy. i don't know what i did all day, you know, which is what happens a lot. so he said rather than kind of thinking about your calendar in a way that might be externally rewarded and think about it again from your own internal driver and think about your calendar is more an art gallery. so what's most important to you? and choose a handful of those things and hang them up on the wall.

and make sure there's white space before so that you can prepare for them and then when you're engaged with, that beautiful piece of art be fully present, you know. so that means don't go to a meeting and answer emails and sort of half listen and and send sort of half written emails that you're not really paying attention to anything. that's really a waste of time and spends an awful lot of brainpower so be fully focused on that and then have white space after that whatever that is that you've chosen to spend your time and attention on. so that you can follow up, you can process, can think and then choose. so what's the next thing you're going to go to? and then when you build some of that white space in, you know, it's sort of cuts down on that, you know, breathless busyness, running around on the treadmill. because the other thing from behavioral scientists that science that i found so fascinating is that when when we have that feeling, busyness and time scarcity and we're running, running, running, we get into a

situation they call tunneling, you know, that that we literally cannot see very far ahead the distance. it's like we're we're stuck in a tunnel. and so then you just go to the next thing you can see sort of right in front of you. and so then you'll always be in kind of code red and answering kind of firefighting. so you won't have that sort of the time and the bandwidth to kind of get outside the tunnel and see the bigger picture and work on those systems and work on the processes. you know, individually or for your team that could lead to a better result. so much misery. hmm. yeah, i love all that. those are, you know all great tips. but like you say know you didn't write a self-help book. so much of your book is about the systemic changes that we need to change or over work in culture here in the u.s. and also in the world. but don't know like when the solution is something is large. something like like a call to

pass universal basic income. it just the reaction i always have things like that is just like that. that is just far away from where our political system is today. like that is just so that feels so unrealistic that then all of these like individual tips that you just talked about i'm just i just kind of get to a point where i'm like, oh, like what's even the point? like, if we get these big things what's even the point of like trying little things and then i'm kind of like, what's even the point of any of it at all? and i think, it's pretty easy for me to get to this place of pessimism that is that. yeah, well i think the first thing to recognize is that, you know, talking about universal basic income or universal basic services, that is sort of that's more of a future conversation, a future of work conversation. i mean, my god, if we don't even have maternity leave in the united states, we're definitely not ready for universal basic

income, but we can have those conversations now. we can start having discussion and kicking the tires of things. you know, i guess where i go back to is change you know things are always changing you know where we where we have been for good and for ill. you know where we were 20, 30 years ago. when you think about you know, where were in the 1970s compared to where we are now. you know, there is change there has been progress. and so i, i look at it as a continuum and change can come in surprising. you know, look at marriage equality. for the longest time, people couldn't think that it was i didn't think it was possible. and then very quickly, it became the law of the land, you know, so the same thing with the reverse with roe v wade, people that, you know, having control your body and your reproductive systems, the law, and then all of a sudden it wasn't so change can be can be surprising can

happen in all sorts of different ways. and so i think where i come from is like well what's the point of being pessimistic you know yes these are big changes but so is climate change. you know, so is anything that's worth, you know, if you want to make it if having a good life if having that available on an equitable basis, you know, to not just the lucky few if those are sort of things are worth fighting for, then it's worth fighting for. and taking the time that it's going to take to get there. even when you know what the answers are. and so what do is you start small and if that's a pilot here, you know, and then share your stories, you know, when think about one of the one of the stories that i write about in the book, you know, are reil, hourly and service workers who were having all of these horrific schedus d they didn't know when they would work or how long they would work or they would work at all. they'd have to on call at all times. so they couldn't arrange childcare. they couldn't go see a doctor,

you know, they had no lives of their own. and these were really poorly paid jobs. and so many workers just thought, well, this is just the way it is. there's there's no other there's no other choice. and then they got together and started sharing their stories, started sharing their pain started with their suffering. and they saw that they weren't alone they came together and they have they to have reasonable, predictable schedules. and now, that's the law of the land in oregon and in several states or in several other cities. many other organizations have have, you know, have now committed to that. and people's lives are mature, different, you know. so that's where i get hope from. you know, iceland, they went bankrupt in 2008 and it was from sort of the ashes of that catastrophe that they realized, huh, maybe focusing on success, sort of a measure of gdp growth and less growth and huge

profits. the handful of the few, maybe that's the right way to go if. we want to have a quality of life. maybe we need to think more about, you know, how do you measure quality of life and well-being and maybe those should be the measures of the success of a nation. so i guess that's what i say. it's like, of course, these are difficult problems. you know, it isn't easy, but there are answers there and there are people the hard work. and i think that's what i wanted to highlight in the book. so, you know, so if you're pessimistic, see? well, look, here's the here's a in the gloom, here's a bright spot, here's something that we can learn from. how did they do it? could we do it here? because that's where change comes from, is seeing that it's possible, you know, and not being so afraid of it and then trying something even if it's small and letting it letting burble out from there. yeah. i mean, i when you know you're a

reporter, you decide to dive really deep a problem. you can come away with two responses. sometimes you away with this deep pessimism and this like deep understand ing of just how hard changes and how it's almost certain that things are going to continue to be the same way. and i think like a second response, you can sometimes have is, you know, a sense of optimism, ism to not just hope, but i think and optimism that things can and might actually get better which it sounds like you had more of the latter response after finishing the book. yeah absolutely very optimistic. i'm very hopeful. and a lot of it is because of, you know, the change agents i follow and tell their stories. and also i was very influenced by this dutch historian named john lucas then, and he wrote a book called the story work. it's this massive tome. he goes the way back to pre-history and he writes about humans and the way work in a relationship with work. and one of the things that he writes that just so stuck with

me, he said that throughout human history, there's never been one right way to work. we have organized work in an infinite number of ways. and it's always changing. and so i think that's what gives me a lot of hope is so much of the way we work comes down to the stories of what we choose to believe and can choose to believe. different stories. and there already are good examples out there and. that's what gives me a lot of hope. well, i'm getting the to wrap this up here. i think one of the most moving details that i learned in your book was from mina morris family. they decided take the settlement from her, her employer. they created a fund for other victims of carol. she they named it nozomi, which in japanese means hope. and that's kind of the feeling that i took coming away from the

book as well so bridgette thank you so much for writing this book. it was great to be here with you today and thank you for everyone for tuning in. so great to be with you

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>> this week we are joined by jazmine wright and paul steinhauser to talk about the latest moments in the presidential, senate and house campaigns from the last week. these disasters are playing out on the campaign trail? >> good morning from pittsburgh and it is no surprise hurricanes have been impacting political presidential campaigns for a long time. think back to 1992 and president herbert walker bush, his response, fema's response to hurricane andrew which slammed into florida did him no favors. we have seen presidents as well, think 2012, superstorm sandy smacked into the eastern seaboard. arguably helped president obama win reelection. we have back to back hurricanes. helene which tore through the

southeast doing some immense damage in states like georgia and north carolina. two crucial battleground states. and now milton which yesterday we saw go through florida and there is still a huge mess down there. a couple million still without power and the death toll as well. obviously former president trump, his campaign, you heard the clip you just played from senator vance a few minutes ago. very critical of what president biden and vice president harris, it is the same administration, they see this as a political opportunity to criticize the competence of kamala harris. >> what are the campaign saying about efforts to ensure voting access in hurricane impacted areas? modify early voting days and changing polling locations if needed. >> both republicans and democrats at the local level are open to try to make sure they are retaining access to people's right to vote in these

hard-hitting areas. in 2020 republicans were not for modifications to early voting days when it came to issues like disasters and now they are asking for it in states like north carolina and georgia that were hard hit and that are going to be consequential to president trump's base. i think it is getting to paul's point. the former president has used these disasters to criticize vice president harris but vice president harris is using disasters to criticize former president trump because him spreading that this information saying fema was giving disaster relief to migrants which has been debunked several times falls into her campaign's playbook which allows them to say look, there are two choices in temperament. there is president trump and vice president harris. allowing her to call him on serious and her to -- her to say he is unsympathetic. we have seen her try to show the

most sympathy to the american people. it is also working on the vice president's. >> you mentioned you are in pittsburgh. that is where barack obama was appearing with kamala harris with the campaign should this is barack obama about a minute and a half from yesterday. >> when donald trump lies or cheats or shows utter disregard for our constitution, when he calls pows losers or fellow citizens vermin, people make excuses for it. they think it is ok. they think at least he is owning the libs. he is sticking it to them. it is ok as long as our side wins. and by the way, i'm sorry, gentlemen.

i have noticed this especially with some men. who seem to think trump's behavior of bullying and putting people down is a sign of strength. i am here to tell you that is not what real strength is. it never has been. [applause] real strength is about working hard and carrying a heavy load without complaining. real strength is about taking responsibility for your actions and telling the truth even when it is inconvenient. real strength is about helping people who need it and standing up for those who cannot always stand up for themselves. that is what we should want for our daughters and for our sons and that is what i want to see in a president of the united states of america. [applause]

>> former barack obama in pittsburgh. paul steinhauser, what was your assessment of barack obama back on the campaign trail and how the campaign plans to deploy him in the final weeks? >> this was the first event for the former president who remains if you look at polling, he remains extremely popular with democrats. ratings are above water with independents as well. this is all about getting out the vote. the first of a number of stops -- down under four weeks so the time is clicking. he also was helping senator bob casey of pennsylvania who is in tough reelection battle. while the races that could determine whether the republicans win back the senate should but i thought was important about that clip, of course he was criticizing former president trump. he did that throughout his speech. he was creative and vicious in

some ways in dissecting trump. the idea of the gender gap and we are seeing a tremendous gender gap in this election should you sell that message tailored to men. to not be susceptible to donald trump's portrayal of strength. earlier at a stop at campaign headquarters stop before he did the rally, he tailored that message specifically to blackmail voters because we have seen polling indicate donald trump is doing well with blackmail voters and making some serious gains. this is some embarrassed campaign is concerned about and one of the reasons for former president obama to zero in on that message last night. >> you mentioned the -- the gender gap. this is an nbc poll among men. kamala harris with 40% of the mill vote, 52% donald trump among women -- among dental -- tasman right on that pitch by barack obama.

>> battle of the genders for sure. i think it is funny because there is no better way to tell the democrats are in the closer than when they bring on former president obama. he is the person democrats to bring in -- democrats bring in to close the argument. also to rally democratic voters to get them to the polls early. that is why they are deploying the former president right now not just because democrats love early voting. they have always had the advantage of it for the last few modern cycles but because of these hurricanes and the depth of reporting that we are going to see in states like with caroline and states like georgia crucial to the former president but also vice president harris when she is trying to make them purple states. there is not going to be quality polling because people have the -- people barely have the ability to charge their phones. getting folks out early is going to give the campaign that data

they need to know where they should surge the last minute resources. this is why former president obama is so effective because he makes the case but also encourages people to mail those ballots in early but also go to the polls early. we know pennsylvania is a state that provides democrats a lot of trouble when it comes to voting because people mail in ballots what they don't get counted on to the last day. this is about trying to figure out where those numbers look soft. the former president gets the case of democrats and he gets them out more than most people. >> go ahead, paul steinhauser. >> there is another former president who will be doing the same thing. that is former president bill clinton who like former president obama spoke at the democratic convention in chicago in august. he will be heading i think over the weekend to georgia and on to north carolina next week where he will be doing a bus tour.

that is the whole idea as well get out the vote. this is something where democrats have been emphasizing this for a couple cycles now. republicans have tried to catch up on this. the republican national committee for a couple years has been having this bank your vote campaign to emphasize it is ok to vote early. the problem is their person at the top of the ticket has gone back and forth on this. we remember his comments from the 2020 election. he is stepping on the messenger also -- often when it comes to republican efforts to get out the early vote. >> democrats, 202-7488 rosen, republicans, 20274 eight 8001, independents, 20274 8002. paul steinhauser is in ms. britt. you were recently in and of the

in arizona. >> is arizona a purple state? not to the people on the ground. they feel it is traditionally republican. i was there for a couple days. spent some real-time around people throughout the political spectrum from canvassers to organizers to campaign ads, move from republicans and democrats and independents and the vibe i got was people are feeling hopeful because of the enthusiasm and energy the vice president has brought to the campaign since she replaced bite and the top of the ticket. they are not optimistic and that is because they are facing a serious numbers problem they did not happen -- they did not have in 2020. over 100,000 registered democrats have left the state since 2020 so democrats have deficits not just with republicans but it has expanded. to have a deficit with republicans of over 200,000 registered voters but they also have a deficit with independents. . a flip from 2020 when they had more independents in that state. when we see the harris campaign

reaching out to the mormon community, reaching out to publicans, she has amassed a large amount of high-profile republican endorsers in that state. it is not just because of virtue. it is because of necessity. they need those republicans who were molded in the image of john mccain who are more men, who are independent and who are exhausted or just don't like extremism, don't like an action done nihilism, don't look donald trump to come on the vice president side. they are having trouble because it is such a tall order. this is a traditionally republican state. a lot of their identity is based in being a republican and there is one thing to say we won't vote for donald trump but a lot are finding it is another thing to say we want to vote for the vice president people across the state are spread out trying to confront this problem in a lot of ways. candidates reaching out to independents, both with independents of color, latina women, reaching out to

republicans trying to amass this coalition that did not even exist in 2020. >> what is the explanation for that democratic exit is -- democratic exodus? >> people don't know. so many people are pouring into arizona. one person told me to hundred people pour into maricopa county itself a day. a lot of them are british during independent because there is not a penalty of it. you can request a republican or democratic primary ballot. there are a lot more independents in the state since 2020. diversifying their interest. they are coming from states like california which obviously those are two, arizona and california are two politically distinct states. it is a melting pot of folks. we see the harris campaign doctors focusing on republicans or independents, they are focusing on the tribal committee, latina working-class women. they're trying to eat out the

vote against latino men that is a place where they having a lot of trouble. as we saw in the times poll, harris is down double digits in comparison to trump with latino men in that state. they are trying to amass a different kind of coalition that did not exist in 2020 because of the changes in the demographics. >> political reporter there. paul steinhauser joining us from pittsburgh. this is rhonda joining us from new jersey. line for democrats. good morning. >> good morning. is the topic politics or disaster? >> they can be what you want to talk about. it is a political tale -- a political roundtable. we have been talking the politics of disaster. >> good morning, everyone. i wanted to say i'm praying for all the people in florida, north carolina and south carolina that

have been affected by these hurricanes. i went through sandy and your homeowners insurance will pay for you to live somewhere else for two years while your home is being rebuilt. that is how it is in new jersey. we live in the best state in the country. as far as politics goes, i'm glad you have a fox person on there. could you tell them to please start telling the truth to their supporters? ? it is really sad they would politicize a natural disaster and tell people if you take fema assistance, they are going to take your property. that is a lie. >> rhonda in new jersey. paul steinhauser on the fact that fema had to publish a fact check for misinformation out there. how unusual is that? >> pretty unusual. we were talking about this at the beginning of the segment.

we have seen president biden and vice president harris numerous times this week chiding former president trump for making things more difficult for fema and for government responders trying to help those hurt by these hurricanes. it is a major issue not only for politics but for the rescuers and for fema as they try to help people get back on their feet after these back to back dangerous storms. >> let me go to lee in grant gorge, new york, republican. >> i was concerned about yesterday's obama rally for kamala harris. both he and hillary are campaigning for her. last month, she called trump a threat to democracy and the world, which i find ludicrous considering during obama's presidency, hillary as secretary of state on national tv gave the

reset button leading americans to believe russia is our new best friend. they gave them permission to mine uranium in three u.s. states. obama was overheard telling met you have to tell code and he had more flexibility during his second term when russia invaded ukraine and took over crimea. obama said they were mostly russians there anyway and did nothing to help the ukraine russia -- using campaign funds to establish the -- russian collaboration -- >> got your point. on russia, ukraine, barack obama, hillary clinton. >> i think the democrats will see at a different way but

largely the view of u.s. election ships with russia in 2014 is very different from the relationship with russia now because of their invasion of ukraine, because of how far they are going and how far the democrats, vice president harris, president biden believe they would continue to go with former president trump in office. this has been a rallying call of the vice president shins she replaced -- president since she replaced biden. basically saying trump had said he likes dictators, he would become a dictator on day one and that is something the vice president has said is a liability for him and making him unable to be president invalidates that option for him because of the way he would cozy up to russia. now trump has denied these things. trump has said democrats are in some ways responsible for the threats on his life. something both parties feel the

volume should be turned down. we are in different place in 2014 when it comes to the u.s. relationship with russia or ukraine. >> how much do you think we are going to be talking foreign policy on the campaign trail in these last 25 days? >> there could be an incident overseas. we have a lot of hotspots right now. we saw what iran just did in reaction to israel. as of now, know it will not be a top issue but of course what happens on the ground in the middle east or in ukraine could insulate change -- could instigate change. when it comes to, harris or donald trump, there is not much difference on -- this is night and day when it comes to their philosophies on what to do with russia and ukraine. it is an issue that is a divider

between those two. >> let me talk about another issue that gets a lot of attention on the campaign trail and what this latest report on inflation means. the headline from the washington post. the consumer price index fell to 2.4% in september from a year earlier. the annual rate has not been this low since february 2021. >> this is something that is a win for democrats because so much about this election has been wrapped around the idea of inflation specifically for arizona. very few states in the country have seen higher inflation that has stayed in the state of arizona. the emigration but that has become what voters in that state are most concerned about. what is rep. brown: voters ideas about election and above voting. this is a win for democrats. this is something they have said they have been trying to do, that the reason why biden has done these various things and

his federal reserve, two separate entities but have done all these things with the economy after covid to get to this point where we have lower inflation. when people go to the ballot and their gas is lower, their housing price has not gone down but things look better at the grocery store. the vice president talked a lot about price gouging, that is a win for the vice president because so much of these conversations have been that the democrats have screwed up the economy since former president trump and people are not better in the last four years. >> 2.4% inflation is still positive inflation. the bulk of septembers increase driven by a rise in prices for housing and food. the increased .2% and .4% respectively on those issues and what is on voters minds. >> overall the economy is doing well.

do americans feel that way? no in poll after poll shows that. it is so visceral when it comes to inflation. you see that when you go to the grocery store. you see that when you go to the gas station. that is why donald trump has had a large lead on the economy and the economy remains the top issue on the minds of american voters. the margin is not as large as it used to be but it is still an advantage for him. it is one of the reasons why it is a margin of error race with less than four weeks to go. >> arlington, texas is next. bob, independent. welcome to the roundtable. >> i would like to know about kamala what she did before she got in to the vice president's role. she and willie brown turned san francisco into a super. nobody can deny that. i would like to know her qualifications. she has nothing to do with

finances, economics or the military. these are important criteria. the only connection i can find with her and hollywood is the fact she was known as wonder woman. >> bob in arlington, texas. what does the harris campaign say about kamala harris's qualifications on the state and federal level as a senator when the these questions? >> they should try to take his words and use wonder woman as a bumper sticker. a new name for her as they hit the final stretch. i think when i talked to a lot of her allies, continuously say she is one of the most qualified people they believe that has run for president because of her long history in politics. before she was vice president, she was a jr. senator of california. she was on the senate intel community. he asked about her military experience. that is a prestigious committee

senators joined where they get classified information about the issues happening in the world. that is where she brandished her ability to know about foreign policy and it is something not all of the 100 senators have access to a because you have to be on that committee. before she was on the senate intel committee and in the senate she was attorney general for several years of california. california is a massive state. they have a massive budget. whether or not people feel like she did a good job, she was one of the top executives of that role. that is why she says i have been an executive in all these places because she was in charge of running one of the largest criminal justice systems in the country. before she was attorney general for multiple years, she was district attorney where she was district attorney where she dealt with smaller issues in the state of california and san francisco area. she has had all these positions. has she moved up the ladder quickly? sure but she has had these positions where we think of

politicians having in their route to the white house and in these roles she says it on the trail that she prosecuted transnational crime. that was her first touch is when it came to the issue of immigration. she sued these different banks when it came to the housing crisis. she does have these various experiences they believe make her more than qualified for this position and a lot more positions than a lot of men you see run for office before. >> greg out of inverness, florida. line for democrats. >> i am calling today, you got a fox host up there. i don't know if he still works for them or not but i wish they would stop all the lies that they tell. i would like you to tell -- >> we will let you talk about your career in political

reporting and give you a chance to respond, paul. >> i was with cnn for many years before joining fox but we are in a divisive time. viewers have strong opinions of the media and how the media covers the presidential election. that is understandable. >> what you think about the media coverage or the media that hosts a debate and concerns we have seen about that and you think we will see another debate in the cycle? the harris campaign still calling for another debate in the final 25 days. >> cnn and fox news have been trying to get another debate with the former president has said alterable times including yesterday or the day before that will not be happening. his argument has been early voting is underway in one -- in almost half the country. he says it is too late to do another debate so it does not

seem like we will see another face-to-face encounter between trump and harris. it looks like the vice president a debate from two weeks ago will be the last one. >> he made sure to add in the post you're referring to i won the last two debates. i excepted fox invitation to debate but she turned it down. jd vance easily won his debate and the post goes on from there. gordon in kansas city, kansas, republican. good morning. >> when i called, i thought you were going to be fair and balanced here. i thought jazmine was going to be something like michaela montgomery aware candace wins. three against one right now against me. i would like either one of them to tell me what five eyes is and if they can't i can tell them because that is barack hussein

obama spying on my president before he was president. >> gordon in kansas city, kansas. the same question we gave paul about the focus on the news organizations themselves and trust in people delivering the news. is it because we are so close to the end of a campaign cycle that we have gotten so much focus on that or is it your experience this entire cycle? >> let me just say i am not candace owens. i am jasmine right but i'm glad you are listening. there are a lot of valid reasons in why people have a certain distrust for the media. that has been a trend that has been intensifying over the last decade. this erosion of trust. journalists worked really hard and we do try to bring you the most fair and balanced news that focuses on context and facts.

just because the facts do not align with your belief, do not make them wrong. it just means you do not agree with them there has been a focus on tearing down the media or making it feel like they are only on one side. that is really a difficult place for journalists to be in but journalism has its own responsibilities. i think people are more focused on reporters, individual reporters as we get closer to the election. my mentions are usually a garbage fire. journalists are working hard to give you guys the context and give you the understanding that is required to make a vote at the ballot. that is what our job is no matter the hate or the focus on who we are as people come and go because at the end of november we want you guys to be the most informed you have been because that is what it is going to take to make the choice you want to

make for the election. >> i think our bures are my you're with paul's organization fox news and the concrete monitor. what is notus? >> notus is a new outlet and we focus on examining power in washington. who has it, who wants it and how we wield it. not only do we have this reporting outlay but we have this teaching institute where we bring in young fellows, folks just graduating college, went to grad school, even older folks. we have one guy john who was in the military for a decade and now was to become a journalist and other local reporters who want to get into national journalism. we teach them journalism by trying to get to the last point which is create this new generation of reporters who are so focused on facts and nonpartisan reporting because we are a nonprofit newsroom that we combine it together to have this crappy group of reporters who are doing the best work in d.c.

telling folks what they need to know before november. >> that mistake on the media for one more second. what you make of kamala harris's media blitz of week and the nontraditional media outlets she has gone to to try to reach voters? >> i think in some ways it is targeted toward female voters. we were talking about the gender gap earlier this segment. part of her strategy for victory is to pump up the female vote. these interviews, some of them are designed to do just that. there has been plenty of criticism of kamala harris since she replaced president biden on the top of the democrats ticket in mid july that she had been avoiding the media. she is stepping it up now but the criticism continues that these are -- these outlets are friendly and she has not done any hard-hitting interviews. she did the 60 minutes interview

but the trump campaign instantly attacked cbs more than her saying they edited out choice segments and they wanted to see the entire transcript. >> what is interesting about her media strategy is the election is going to come down to a couple questions. the first is who is kamala harris, what does she want to do and how she going to make your life better than donald trump? that media strategy is answering the first two because maybe they're not as hard-hitting, baby she is not going into depth about what she would do in ukraine or other issues although she did in 60 minutes but maybe not so on call her daddy and other podcasts geared to young people but she is talking about herself and she is giving substantial answers to who she is and where she has come from and how she views the world. that is something most people did not have a real reference for before she did this media strategy. i think it has been successful in detailing who is kamala harris and how empathetic can she be and how can she connect with the voters.

there are other people who want to hear more substance. that may or may not come but the question she had to answer, one of the questions your dancer is who is kamala harris. she has tried to in these friendlier podcasts, the friendly media appearances like the colbert show, call her daddy, all in podcast tried to answer that question about who she is and what drives her. >> everybody knows donald trump. opinions are very strong on him. it is clear how people feel. kamala harris is an open book when she took over at the top of the ticket three months ago. this is been a battle between the trump campaign and harris campaign to define kamala harris. it has been a major part of this presidential election down the stretch. >> what do you make of donald trump's strategy? we talked about kamala harris especially upcoming events in

coachella california and madison square garden in new york. >> is new york in play? is california in play? ? we have not had a republican win in new york since ronald reagan in his 1984 reelection lens like. wise donald trump with time so precious at this point in the campaign, it is extremely precious so why is donald trump going to these blue states is a great question. he was also, the stop in madison square garden, october 20 seventh will be his second in new york in a month. he was at nassau coliseum a few weeks ago. his campaign says -- they are realistic. it is not like they are going to be winning electoral votes in california or you knew -- or new york. this is more of a media capital -- media strategy. go to hold a large rally in madison square garden and is going to help you in new york maybe. but this is more about getting

the message out across the country in those battleground states. >> i think what is interesting about his strategy is the reliance on these podcasts and live streamers that are focused on younger men. maybe with some education, maybe no education. trying to get out the quote unquote burrows to the ballot -- quote unquote bro to the ballot boxs. these are people who don't vote all the time. he is reaching out to them playing within the gender gap making sure young men feel seen by him and enough that they are provided the permission to do what their mothers are doing which is elect donald trump by going to the ballot box in way they had not gone in past cycles. >> you talk to the trump campaign and they will mention going after low propensity voters is a crucial part of their formula for victory. >> logan paul.

>> logan paul is now a boxer. he used to be a youtuber. he has a massive following. donald trump sat with him. donald trump sat with other folks who in a lot of ways repel a woman voter. but it is such a hyper focused niche group of male voters that don't engage with the democratic party so they are up for grabs in this into who the trump campaign is courting and trying to motivate them enough to mail in their ballots, register to vote and go to the ballot. that is a risky thing trying to get people who don't do sara lee vote all the time to the ballot but that is how the former president is trying to drum up his numbers potentially in states in which democrats would -- a republican. >> mike in philly.

independent. thanks for waiting. >> thanks for taking my call. i am glad your guy -- you guys are talking about terms media campaign because that is part of what i wanted to talk about. i don't think the former president's upcoming dates in coachella or madison square garden have anything to do with whether or not he intends to win this race. i think he intends to use those platforms to speak directly to republicans who feel disenfranchised because they live in states that traditionally lean blue for lack of a better word. parallel to what we are going to see in medicine square valley is the rally forward spoke at in the 30's for the 30's. get them riled up and engage in the same behavior we saw him

engage in last time. the intent is not about whether he wins. it is about trying to make it about he has an excuse when he does and it is something we should all be worried about. >> any thoughts on that? >> it is clear in blue states and i was at the event at nassau coliseum there are plenty of trump supporters in the states even though they are vastly outnumbered by democratic voters. maga is alive and well in parts of california come in parts of new york, in parts of pennsylvania which is a deep purple state. as for the excuses for charging voter fraud if he loses, it is clear if donald trump loses this election he is probably not going to be accepting defeat. i think that is pretty clear. >> to add in georgia, a republican. >> my comments about the

presidential election, i am not a gambler but i want my words to go out to everybody, to pass this on to anybody you know who is a gambler. anybody that plays the powerball lotto or the mega millions lotto, carmella is set to collect more in taxes than the person who actually wins the top prize and that amount of money is very hard to win. you have to have half a billion tickets to win that thing. >> get me to your question. >> wait a minute. all right. what my question is, do you think it is fair as hard as it is to win the lottery that the government should get more in

taxes than the person who actually wins the lottery? > that is ed's question on texas. i don't know if you want to tag -- to talk tax policy? >> i love playing the lottery and i love going gambling at a casino so i am with you there. i think they both have very different views on tax policy notwithstanding whether the state gets more money with the lottery system. the vice president has tried to tried to share -- has tried to show american voters particularly the middle class that she wants to create a tax incentive like for housing, like for starting a new small business. that she wants to tax peaked -- to tax people who are over 400,000 dollars, she talked a little bit about the tax gains trying to separate from president biden on that. she wants to fashion her

campaign as one that is in support of the middle class. she has been trying to tell the american people in her argument this is somebody who does not care about you, that does not care about the middle class. donald trump has been talking a lot about tax cuts. something that is going to expire that he put in place in 2017. he wants to create more tax cuts for americans. he brought up one a couple days ago. they have vastly different views about how they want tax policy to shape their economic message to americans particularly on the issue talked about so clearly that is so important to americans about the number one issue, the economy. >> donald trump yesterday talking tax policy. >> i am also announcing as part of our tax cuts we will make interest on car loans fully deductible. [applause]

so, a -- a lot of you people are in the car industry. what do you do? i am in the car industry. a lot of them. a very knowledgeable person. he said -- i don't want to embarrass him but he said where did you come up with that idea? that is the coolest thing. it is like the paperclip. somebody comes up with the paperclip and everybody says why the hell didn't i think of that? somebody came up with the paperclip and made a lot of money. other people said -- he said i have been in the car industry all my life. i have never thought about that. going to make it fully deductible, the interest payments. that is going to revolutionize your industry. this will stimulate domestic auto production and a ownership

more affordable for millions of working american families. this is a phenomenal thing if i do say so myself. [applause] >> donald trump yesterday in detroit. paul steinhauser on that proposal and how you think it is going to play out in the final 25 days. >> it is pretty clear what he was aiming for in michigan which is a state where the polls indicate a margin of error race. the political message crystal clear. i was with trump two days ago in scranton, pennsylvania. big signs, no tax on tips, no tax on overtime. donald trump has been putting a lot of these proposals since the summer. it is a populist message. a lot of working-class voters will like that message. the flipside of this is the harris campaign pushes back

especially when it comes to the proposals from former president trump on tariffs and they say that would be a tax on voters. there would be an instant sales tax that would increase your prices for any product that comes overseas. what is clear from both of these candidates is neither of them are talking about fiscal responsibility and budget deficits. that is something of the past. it is truly remarkable how the republican party has changed. the republican party which used to be a fiscal hawk party now under donald trump as anything but. >> i think one thing the harris campaign continues to say about the former president is asking how he is going to pay for these different tax cuts and whether or not the brunt of the tax cuts are going to fall on the middle class. trying to hit the message donald trump does not care about the middle class. that is what the vice

president's campaign says. the four presence campaign says the vice president's policies don't make sense. that they would not create real change for americans and they would not get passed by in congress that is elected come november. they are very dueling messages for the vice president trying to focus on the middle class. i -- a more populist message but you are not hearing in depth how folks want to pay for these. in her 60 minutes interview push on how the vice president would pay for the tax credit for new businesses, would pay for the tax credits for new homes etc., she said behind the scenes i talked to congress and they are in favor of these policies secretly but there is not evidence to it. there is a lack of fiscal responsibility on both sides but certainly i think for the former president, he says these tax

policy ideas but never shows his maps high the scenes. >> ted is in ocean view, hawaii. good morning. >> good evening. it is still evening here. your morning. it is 3:00 in the morning here. >> what is your question for 3:00 a.m.? >> i have been a farmer all my life. i grew up in washington state. i have more -- i have formed here macadamia nuts. you tend to get a fuel for listening to people or making a character judgment. we can break it down to bits and parts they are talking about. most people have a hard time grasping that. the majority of our populace. if they just go with what sounds like the truth to them. it would go along way in this election. >> what is your character judgment of kamala harris and

donald trump? >> to me it is dead simple. kamala harris in her career reeks of quality character i can't say on the others. there are people that go both ways. it is going to come down to a lot of people have a hard time putting these bits and pieces together. the average american is going to end up to shoot from the hip and go i think this feels right. if you do that we will be making a step forward. >> any thoughts to what it comes down here? >> character is a key part of this election. the biden campaign and then the harris campaign trying to paint donald trump as someone who has none of those qualities. has been crystal clear that as part of their messaging strategy for months now. whether that is effective or

not, you heard your viewer in hawaii where it is 3:00 in the morning right now say so many people are divided on this. it is another issue that shows how americans are incredibly divided when it comes to these two candidates. >> to max in mechanicsville, maryland. you are on the roundtable. >> thanks for taking my call. you had a sink called earlier who asked a lot of important questions and it was not addressed. full disclosure, i voted for barack obama, i voted for al gore. considered voting for hillary clinton. . i voted for joe biden. one of the issues the democratic party has and the reason people are considering voting for somebody like trump who i would never vote for and is a flawed individual is they are not addressing the fact barack obama did say russia -- the 80's were calling for their foreign policy back in russia was not an issue

and the lady brought up the fact hillary clinton did give the reset button to the foreign minister from russia, her counterpart from russia. also addressing the fact -- there were a lot of things done. you have the dossier created against trump and nobody addresses that. hillary clinton and al gore contested the election, forthright contested it. >> on russia policy, do you think kamala harris gets tied to the obama administration or the biden harris administration and if it is her own administration, how do you think the biden harris administration has done on ukraine and russia? >> nobody knows who kamala harris is tied to. she has been inserted into the election because joe biden was ousted. we don't even know why. nobody will address why joe

biden is not owning for president anymore. what happened? >> did you want him to run as a democrat? >> it doesn't matter now. i voted for him the first time but it does not matter now. there is somebody who did not go through the primary process that was inserted into the election. >> that is max in maryland. on that concern which we heard perhaps more of at the time when joe biden stepped aside, how much are you hearing that these days besides max? >> i think we are actually hearing a lot less but max makes an important point which is people are confused about the democratic process and all the things that happen. to answer your question, the reason why president biden is no longer on the democratic ticket is his fellow democrats did not feel as though he could win a race against donald trump launched in part because of that june 27 debate. if you ask president biden, i don't he think he would agree

with that -- i don't think he would agree with that. i think he feels he would have a good chance but his democratic counterparts including nancy pelosi, other folks in the house and congress no longer had the confidence he could win and also the poll numbers did not say he could win against donald trump. they were really much further apart than they are now with the vice president which is why he stepped down. he said putting his country over party and then you sell the vice president. i think there is always a question of they inserted the vice president. the fact is that the vice president's team which surprised a lot of people including me who has covered the vice president for more than six years was incredibly adept at consolidating all of the people including jb pritzker, including gretchen whitmer of michigan, all of the people, wes moore in maryland who democrats thought would launch a bid if the current president stepped off the ticket.

she consolidated those people in 48 hours. she consolidated the delegates. i guess my answer would be it is hard to run a primary if there are not people to primary the vice president. she did step up and i think her team was adept at it whether or not people feel that is a transparent democratic process is another thing versus what happened. there was a lot of doubt about president biden's capability after that debate within his own party. that is what led him to step down. >> when we try to get one more call. phyllis has been waiting a while in durango, colorado. >> good morning, c-span. i was watching obama this morning the whole hour. he trashed and made fun of donald trump. my issue is that the democrats will not take any responsibility for dividing the truck -- for

dividing the country the way it is. i'm losing it now. >> we will take that point. paul steinhauser, you were in pittsburgh where barack obama was yesterday. what is your take? >> he spent a good portion of speech criticizing donald trump, chiding him and mocking him for trying to sell things to people including the trump bible. that was part of and you are going to hear that from former president obama going forward on the campaign trail. that is part of his argument that donald trump is not worthy of being reelected back to the presidency. as for this idea of division, democrats for a long time have called donald trump a divider in chief. that is his mantra. both sides in a heated election are going to be saying things that are going to upset voters. that is crystal clear.

>> paul steinhauser joining us from pittsburgh. jazmine wright has been in studio with us. >> a reminder, this program and all of c-span'sgood morning.

and good evening for those who are on the other of the world. we are congressionally -- a congressional think tank, and fiercely nonpartisan. so feel at home. the values hosted by the refugee and displacement initiative which provides analysis.

right now at this moment, the state of the world is just -- i don't know how to describe it. the world is bleeding everywhere. incivility and disaster related factors that continue to displace millions of people in every region, from the middle east, africa, asia and europe to the americas and in between. these factors contribute to the disruption of food systems, leading to food insecurity which produces hunger and the cycle continues. the world food program, the global hunger crisis is driven by the overlapping and escalating factors which are

conflict, climate disasters and economic shock. in 2024 according to the world food program, it took more than 300 million -- in 71 countries. in the words of former senator bob dole, and i quote their sediment -- sentiment, we can continue to provide leadership in the world or we can turn our back on the world hunger issue. we can empower our neighbors with the tools to put food on the table, or we can watch our enemies fill those same hands with weapons. food insecurity pin a neighborhood is over food insecurity in our household. this is because if we do not help our neighbor address the root causes of the issue, it

will spill over and affect us in every way. people who do not have enough food to feed themselves or their families will make decisions out of desperation whether to stay or to migrate. we are tackling the root causes of food insecurity in america. both los angeles declaration of migration and the global compact on migration analyzing addressing the key drivers and factors that force people to leave their homes. migration from latin america driven by factors that include food insecurity. the consequences of food insecurity highlight the need to better understand the dynamic in the region and provide policy

responses to ensure the well-being of displaced people in their homes. and as political inaction and bureaucratic -- continue to stand in the way of facing food insecure communities and saving lives, faith-based actors and others are stepping up to deliver essential services with limited resources. our experts will discuss the intersection of food, poverty, hunger and migration, roles played by actors and building hope in the solution to address the root cause. thank you again for joining us, and now i will introduce briefly our speakers. sitting on the far left is the

founder of the building lives network, which is now building the center for hope in the quarters of latin america and community transport, transformation. a trained leader throughout the usa, latin america, the caribbean, africa and asia. he has experience leading in various capacities, and he's very committed to meeting the needs of all people. he is also the founder of -- and author of -- leadership. next to him is a key global

policy and advocacy officer, where she leads global policy efforts to extend the protection of refugees and other displaced people. prior to this, she served for international programs where she extended the global impact across latin america and the caribbean. rachel cofounded -- and gender discriminatory claims in federal court in new york city. she received a ba from yale university and a law degree from university of british columbia. and next is the senior director of public policy at the world food program usa.

previously worked with the united nations food and agriculture organization and the center for tropical agriculture and others on climate change, food security, and agriculture. with an interest in food insecurity and conflict, humanitarian assistance, climate change and sustainable agriculture, work on food systems in developing countries across latin america, africa and south asia. he has led several major research initiatives including hunger and instability in the other report entitled a link between food insecurity and conflict. he has served as an expert witness at the center for relations committee. in 2018, he delivered a ted talk

on winning the long game in the fight to end hunger. and last but not least, joining us virtually is a doctoral researcher at the university of arizona school of geography, development and environment. she is also studying food system transformation in communities across the americas. the study food security politics in guatemala. her research in guatemala focuses on change in food security programs which stems from the increasing challenges of climate change and staggering malnutrition rates. she's written about positive

trends in food security politics as well as the limitation of -- and other proposals to discuss food scarcity and climate change. so thanks for joining us. now we will start with the panel. as i discussed in prior communication with all the panelists, but i will do is ask each one of them a question and respond within a limited time, and this will be a conversation. so let me start with the open question which you can just respond in one or two minutes, each of you. let me start with you, rachel.

not rachel, sorry. with carrie, and then i will come here. we all have motivations in their work and in our career. so this is a question for all the panelists. what motivated you to be working in the area of expertise that you're in now, be that food insecurity or migration. your turn. thanks for joining us. >> good morning, everyone, thank you so much for the invitation to be here. i am very honored to be invited to speak. wish i can be there in person, i'm a long way away in arizona where it is still 100 degrees. definitely wish i could be there. i i started -- as a peace corps volunteer in peru.

that line of work eventually took me to work on a project in guatemala, one of the usa's flagship security programs, and then work sort of as a short-term -- on a project that was supposed to be supporting farmers and making sure the project was especially inclusive because everyone was talking about guatemala, the inclusion of the mayan people, so that was my work in guatemala. they gave me a first-hand perspective of a lot of the systemic barriers and challenges that these kinds of programs face, and i became sort of increasingly motivated by a lot of the unmet needs that i was seeing firsthand and i eventually went back and got my phd and did research about food

security programs, especially those funded by world -- funded by usaid, and the food security program. compared and contrasted with previous efforts in cultural development and food security and food security in central america. so my work has not been --, it is on migration, but my research is primarily qualitative which means i spend a lot of time in rural communities talking with people informally and being on the ground in a place like guatemala, especially in verbal communities, it is impossible to ignore migration. it is so in-your-face all the time. so often informally, anecdotally, i would hear a lot about migration. that is how i started to think about and write about migration. >> thank you.

he will start with you and then go --. >> appreciate it. i mean, i started out my career with the united nations from an agricultural organization and that was in 2009. there were a couple big events that happened in 2009 and 2010. 2009 in particular with the climate change negotiation. for those who are following that at the time, climate change negotiation in copenhagen failed pretty miserably. we had these scary warnings coming out based on the ability to come together and come up with a solution for the long-term challenge of climate change. but on the backend of copenhagen came a lot of optimism. a kind of redoubling of the belief in the values of multilateral negotiation process. and simultaneously agriculture found a seat at the table as climate change negotiation in 29 -- 2009 and 2010, so most of my

career has been riding a wave of agriculture revolution that has happened coming after that 2009 crisis, the multilateral one. the other thing in 2010 when i was at the food and agricultural organization was the earthquake in haiti and i think a lot of us remember that. 200,000 lost their lives. level of devastation that i don't think have ever been exposed to professionally before. and i remember sitting in the halls, looking over my shoulder in both directions wondering, and then you sort of catch your own badge in the reflection and you go well, i probably have a small role to play. i got very excited about humanitarian assistance in particular as a way to marry my interest in domestic politics and international development. >> thank you.

rachel, what motivated you? >> it's on, ok. first of us, thank you so much, it's wonderful to be here with all of you and the audience. mine is a very bernie i gas -- journey i guess, when i look back at my family for full can the audience as now, members of their generation were not going the same place our parents were. that was something that really captured my attention, my focus, globally something that was in the back of my mind going through my undergraduate degree in law school, and i think

really what has driven my work in refugee and displacement space has been looking about family history, but also thinking through some of the drivers of displacement -- displacement globally. you made reference to that. persecution, inequality, poverty, hunger, climate. these are these huge external factors that are sort of driving what is happening in the world together with the intersection with sort of vulnerability in my own life, marginalization. we talked about what is the intersection with one's own identity and these major drivers. all of these things that come together that have me involved both on the legal side sort of dealing with my presentation and starting of programs to provide

assistance to asylum-seekers and refugees globally. >> thank you. scott, what motivated you? >> thank you for allowing me to be part of discussion and thank you other panel members, i feel almost like a fish out of water here. many things catch our eyes, a few things catch our hearts. and because some had the privilege of going to other places in the world, i kept noticing people really don't care what you say when their stomachs are growling. that meeting people's needs, we don't feed people, we feed animals. serve people. that is what we do. meeting their basic needs of hunger really is a great motivation. i got involved training and equipping leaders there. to give them the tools they need to transform their communities.

hopefully transforming their communities that would be places of hope and peace where people don't feel forced to migrate to other places. we do understand that climate change, food scarcity, those things propel people forward. we need to help communities and people thrive. so we got involved. i looked around the room and saw my reflection and if not me, then who? obviously i'm old, i've been doing this a long time. i should be enjoying my retirement on a beach in florida. of course the beaches right now are not so great. leaders who need to be motivated, educated, communities that need to be transformed great organizations like i'm discovering that i'm doing this in a great way. but to hear there are others in the fray gives us courage and confidence to keep doing what we

are called to do. i look forward to a discussion and look forward to learning from these very enlightened, right done people. >> thank you. every issue as a human being is connected to our personal lives. now let's get into the discussion a little bit, and i will start with carrie because i know you are not in here with --. but here, that is about food insecurity, and you find that

food insecurity occurs despite strong economic growth. the first question i would like to ask, can you set the context for us? explain the link between food and security and food migration in the region. just set the context in about two or three minutes. thank you. >> sure, yes. a tall order but i will try to summarize some of the best points that i make in that report that you mentioned. the first point that is important to understand is national and regional variability. i think we are referring to this region, the northern triangle, and there's a lot of reasons to push back against something, not thinking of a finer grained

about the region. i think we are going to emphasize that there is important national and regional variability and we are talking about food insecurity and the causes of food insecurity as well as the causes of migration. and i think also by elevating the conversation around food insecurity we don't have to diminish or make light of other factors including violence, but i do think it is important. we know that a lot of migrants are not known to be especially violent. this obviously some caveats. all that to say that they are very difficult to untangle.

i'm going to talk a lot about guatemala because that is where i spend the most time. farming is a way of life just as agriculture is a way of life and we also know that there a lot of pressure on traditional practices including persistent and irregular drought. we know that the food crisis was devastating, guatemala specifically has not bounced back to the extent that other places have. especially in places like in rural guatemala. there's not a lot of great evidence. i wish there was more careful evidence here about food

security driving migration, but to my knowledge, there is a lot of qualitative research for making this link. i wish there was broader evidence for that. i think those are some of the things that we need to understand for context, food security and migration. >> thank you. you've spoken to congress and about the history of current trends and tackling food insecurity and hunger. you previously identified the politics of hunger, that is just a blurb, but in your assessment,

what more can be done to raise awareness about the link that we can see between migrating and hunger and food insecurity? >> i think court of the problem right now is that there's just not a lot of oxygen left in the room when mr. conversations about forced migration in latin america. you look across the landscape of emergencies that the program is responding to, there are other things grabbing news cycles right now. you've got an entire population in gaza in need of humanitarian assistance, one of the largest military and emergencies around the world right now that you may not have heard of in sudan. 26.5 million people in that country facing crisis levels of hunger. not to mention northeastern if the op a, not to mention syria and yemen. so when i say there's not a lot

of oxygen left in the room, i really mean that. we have a limited pool of attention. congress has a limited pool of attention. we have to make strategic decisions about the issues we bring up before those audiences for them to take action on. so we're in this world now where frankly, we are not combating the problem of global hunger with nearly enough resources. she's been studying the feed the future program for agricultural development, but that operates at $1 billion. one billion dollars over 12 or 15 countries. we are not tackling the problem of hunger. we are in order of magnitude off in terms of what resources we are applying to the problem. lawmakers in my experience respond for one of three reasons. they either morally care about the topic, or is the right thing

to do. others are motivated by the economic factors involved. when you make an investment any country that cannot feed itself, that is number two. but increasingly lawmakers are concerned about the national security implications and failing to feed someone who cannot feed their family. we have traditionally done a very good job. the moral and economic applications of acting or not acting are pretty profound. what we haven't done a good enough job with his have food related instability can lead to conflict, can lead to migration. you look at the most recent national security strategy, that

is an impressive number of references to food security. there are lawmakers who understand this. there are folks in the administration who i think understand this. there are conversations that we have had before. so i think we are making ground on this front. >> that is a factor that feeds into the quote that i just cited from the two former senators. but if we have a vacuum of not helping our neighbors, that is something. including issues related to gender-based violence, how does gender impact food insecurity?

that is an angle that you can bring into this discussion. >> thank you for that question and it is often a very overlooked question. food insecurity and gender equality are inextricably linked. so we know from the world food program, from the u.n. food and agriculture organization and others that have studied the issue that women and girls have a close to 30% higher chance of being severely food insecure than men. that is a huge number around the world. the difference is slightly less in latin america but it is still there. that means that of the 300 million people experiencing extreme hunger, nearly 50% are women and girls. which is pretty stark.

so there are some questions that we have to ask ourselves about why that is. and the answers really point in most places in the world and in latin america to deep-seated inequalities that are related to the way that communities are structured, the way that families are structured, and that means that women's access to resources, access to paid employment, it's not that they are not working, they are just not getting paid for it. land ownership, and information about their rights and access to services are deeply restricted. and that means they're access to food and nutrition and the security and health associated with that are also limited. carrie was talking about women in rural areas, and that also

can be an aggravating factor if they are primarily responsible for food production there. they may be particularly vulnerable to food insecurity during droughts and other climate shocks. so that in a section with climate that we have been talking about also plays a significant role. and that in turn will drive displacement. again, numbers are hard to really get accuracy about, but we know that food insecurity is a driver, among any other issues -- gender-based violence, persecution, lack of security, economic unrest -- that drives women and girls to migrate out of the places where they are unable to access to sufficient food and nutrition and also unable to access security. so that hunger, however, i think

is important to point out, it's not just something they will experience in their home environment, but also when they are en route to find safety, and it may also affect them in the places where they seek asylum or some level of protection. so it's important to think of the entire displacement cycle when assessing access to nutrition, and for women and girls in other at-risk populations, access to protection and prevalence of gender-based violence. john: that's an important point, that hunger is experienced both at home and while also moving. it's a continuum. you spent time on the ground with people, and you have witnessed the social dynamics of

those communities, families who are struggling to make the decision on whether to state or leave-- stay or to leave, because of so many factors, including food security. and both rachel and you, your organization are somewhat faith-based organization, and so you work with people on the ground. what do policymakers miss about the people on the ground when they are trying to address the root causes of this issue, food scarcity? what don't policymakers see that you see on the ground? scott: john, it brings up a lot of motions to me. rachel, you set of numbers can be called. but when you look at the eyes of a hungry child, it is stunning. we helped feed 180,000 hot meals on the border in 2021.

we are small, we are not a big organization. in fact, it's just two of us. we fund most of what we do out of our own pockets. and the generosity of other folks. but when you see a child that is unaccompanied, it moves you. and faith-based things, you can throw sociality in it, faith-based in it, but whether you are a person or not a person of faith, you are a person and you have great value. whether you are a small guatemalan child or the president of sun country, you matter -- sun country, you matter. working with people in that experience is staggering. i was in rwanda a few years ago and i watched a country that was devastated by genocide. you are familiar with that, you are from that area of the world. i watched all three organizations came together and transformed the nation.

going to rwanda now is a mostly going to europe. there was a middle-class almost like going to europe. there is a middle -- going to rwanda and out is almost like going to europe. there is a middle-class. the government and the faith community came together to bring about true transformation. it was in rwanda that i started thinking we have to do more than just equip leaders. to teach leadership principles is great and helpful, but we have to meet those needs, and partnering with people on the ground -- john, may be departing from the question just a bit, this has to be led by indigenous leaders. it has to be costa ricans, guatemalans, on doran-- hondurans, salvadoreans, colombia, venezuela, they have to own this. it has to be theirs. i was in india training 5000 liters, and i walked out and i saw a lady living the field -- in an open field, that is where

she lived. she was pregnant. i had a backpack full of protein bars because often when i travel i worry about my diet. i emptied my backpack, and my handler said, "please, please, do not feed her." i said i have to feed her. "you will be overrun." if i'm overrun, i'm overrun. it is compassion for one that leads us to care for the awful soup when you are not aware, you don't care. you become aware, you have to care. you have to care. john: thank you, and i would come back to you on that, empowering, the local people, the indigenous people, as a way of sustaining the initiative. we will come back to that. but yeah, policymakers, what do they miss?

that sense of connectedness with the people. and from my experience, when i was in the refugee camp, a delegation from the u.s. congress went to ethiopia in the late 1980's. and we were such a huge number, and we were chanting, "welcome, welcome, american congressmen." but what they saw there when they returned change the lives of some who visited the camp and lead to the process of resettling most of us here. i think being there and seeing the reality is different from watching the news and reading the statistics. carrie, i'm coming back to you, because these small farmers in rural community are the backbone, and so let's talk about what improvement has been

made -- again, building on your research in the region -- to better their lives in the lives of people who have been displaced there? and how do you assess success based on your research on the ground? carrie: yeah, thanks for the question. i am employed in academia and i get to be critical and pessimistic quite a lot. it is harder to be optimistic, but i'm going to try to say a few positive things here. i'll start by saying i think the covid pandemic was really tough. it took a toll especially in rural areas in guatemala. we have to acknowledge that that probably sent back a lot of-- set back a lot of progress. i think it's hard to speak in concrete here.

there is a lot of development agencies including the u.s. agency for international development and feed the future program which i look at specifically which report a lot on output, the numbers of farmers being trained, the number of women receiving training, good nutrition practices or breast-feeding practices, these kinds of things. it is a lot harder to actually know nationally or regionally what progress is being made. yeah, hard to give a lot of specifics there. i will talk to a couple of positive trends that i've noticed in my work. i talk a lot about this sort of export agriculture-driven approach that a lot of development agencies including usaid have been invested in for decades and decades, especially in central america, this approach that assumes that connecting farmers to value chains or to markets, global

markets, getting farmers to adopt the production of nontraditional exports like snow peas or broccoli or the kinds of things that don't go induring certain times of year, getting farmers to change to these clubs and then focus on export -- change to these crops and focus on exporting these crops, that will alleviate poverty and a lot of the challenges or a lot of the impacts of poverty such as food insecurity. but i think there are cracks that are starting to form in this kind of dominant thinking about how to resolve these issues, and i think climate change is putting a lot of pressure on us to change the way we think about how this problem gets fixed. and so i do think that there is -- chase also talked about climate-smart agriculture. i don't think that is necessarily as an umbrella perfect or even coherent

approach. i do think that some of these new discourses, these new approaches are pushing things forward, and climate change in particular i think is forcing us to ask questions about what needs to be done. so i think that is generally positive. and that also there are small examples i can give that are positive, specifically in the case of guatemala. there was i thinking 20-- i think in 2018 the foreign agricultural service of our country put a lot of pressure and did a lot of logging in guatemala -- lobbying in guatemala. we talk about the importance of this being sort of driven at the national level. so putting pressure on the guatemalan government to resolve

some of these issues. one thing that happened in 2018 was a school feeding law passed in guatemala that tripled the budget that went to school feeding programs also mandated that 50% of the food purchased for school feeding be purchased from local folders.-- holders. there are lots of logistical challenges to rolling that out, but i think it is the kind -- and it's still not being fully realized, but those kinds of laws, those kind of structural changes are really important, and i have been encouraged to see the u.s., usaid, and the foreign agricultural service lobbying those more structural political changes that i think are really what are going to resolve this issue in the long run. john: thank you.

rachel, coming back to you, your organization is present in the region and you have been in the region as a practitioner, and one of the organizations operating there. what trends are you seeing, and what our successful responses to the protection needs of people on the move, whether it is violent related or food insecurity-related? what is your organization -- rachel: sure. i think a lot of us have seen coverage of people moving from south america through central america to the u.s.-mexico border. one big trend is that it's not just local populations, it's not just south americans and central americans on the move. people who are flying in through different regimes that allow them to come into brazil,

nicaragua, what have you, from asia, from africa, all over the world, and trying to make this dangerous journey, often having to pass through the derby and cap, you may have read about, the dangerous jungles in panama. that is one big trend. people are moving for a whole variety of reasons. food insecurity is one of those. that is the focus here. but it is often connected to a range of other driving factors, whether that is violence, insecurity, gangs, lack of economic opportunity, total economic breakdown, and lack of security, as in the case of venezuela. there are a whole bunch of drivers that come together. and there are different ways that countries, multilateral, and ngos are responding. i can speak as an ngo in the area.

hias has been around since the 1880's. we are the oldest refugee resettlement organization in the u.s. and worked with displaced preparations globally 20, 25 years ago, and our first stop was in ecuador responding to displacement inside of colombia that expended to venezuela, and now countries from guyana up to the u.s.-mexico border. we do a number of interventions. some of them are related to legal assistance and documentation, others are related to access, gender-based violence prevention and response. we do mental health support compared is often underestimated as a need for people on the mood -- on the move. and we do work related to food security. in ecuador we work with world food program, we provide 5000 people a month with cash and

voucher assistance, which allows them to feed themselves. it is also supplemented by nutritional education. in peru and other parts of latin america, we implement something called the graduation model, which is a sort of comprehensive approach that allows people to achieve food security through skills training, resources, connection with local communities, and really focusing on the specific needs of high-risk communities. we do that work in colombia and costa rica, we do work specifically to help women in their communities accept greater protection and security. and in places like venezuela, where access to food is so limited, we equip refugees and host community members with skills to generate secure income

and some stable access to nutritious food. what we find is doing the work around food security also needs to be done not only with populations on the move, but with local communities. and to this point about engaging indigenous populations, a a lot of the work that we do is in partnership with local organizations and local communities. and another key factor is looking at intersectional identities and recognizing that women and girls, indigenous populations, afro-caribbean populations are going to face additional challenges to accessing resources, and so programmatic responses really do need to take that factor into account as well. john: and building on that, scott, so your organization and power locally-- empower locally

the people, but also the host communities, just what rachel was saying. talk about your plan, what you're currently doing in the migration corridors where you have established some centers. scott: in fact we are in the process of building -- i will probably mess it up in spanish -- i don't speak spanish, but i speak redneck fluently. we want to build centers of hope, places where people there more en route -- or en route confined places of hope. our strategy is simple, we want to partner with indigenous leaders. fortunately we have a great relationship with the methodist church in costa rica. my counterpart who is costa rican, his uncle happens to be the bishop of the methodist church. that's an open door. it is funny how relationships not only make our life rich, but

fuels are movements. we are building kitchens of hope. cost is about $15,000 to put in a high functioning full-service kitchen in a local church that that is responsible for creating these things, partnering with indigenous leaders, equipping service leaders as opposed to egocentric leaders, teaching them time-honored leadership principles, assisting the poor, not giving them a handout, but giving them by hand up, which includes micro financing, agricultural initiatives, all tied into what you guys do so amazingly well. and that we want to care for the sick. during the aids epidemic, it was just devastating that the sick were ignored. i'm going to say this, and hopefully it is not offensive -- it is not a sin to be sick, but it is a sin not to take care of the sick. what we discovered in costa rica

is a high level of addiction. so recovery opportunities, helping people to break the grip of addiction, to move away from sickness and also waterborne illnesses and other things you guys know so well about. we want to do this last thing, and that is to educate, to educate children, educate women, give them what it means to have a healthy life. that spells peace. p-e-a-c-e, partnering, equipping, assisting, caring, and then education. we want to bring peace to bring community transformation. i wish i was smart enough to think that a i stole it from others who stole it from others. please don't publish that. if you do, leave my name out of it. in costa rica, nicaragua, colombia, and mexico, and we are

asking for opportunities in the triangle, which we have yet to make it into the northern triangle and two other places. that is what we are trying to do, build these centers on the corridors that bring hope and transformation and community. and hopefully people stop and settle and say this is where i want to be. i think this -- i may be wrong, you can help me -- most people don't want to leave where they are from, they like where they are from. but they cannot stay where they are from if they are not secure, socially or physically or mentally, if they cannot feed their children, if there is no hope for the future. they have to move. this is what i said about the policy makers, if we spend more energy on the root, maybe the other problems would be diminished. john: that is a very good transition to what i want to ask chase. your peace plan working with the local people in partnership to the issue, and chase, you where

so many hats-- wear so many hats. the policy side of things, world food program one of the largest dealing with this issue. but as you mentioned, there is not enough oxygen. what is the world food program doing about this, especially in the region now, and the shifting political gear or lack of political will? chase: well, i guess to start out i would reinforce something you said earlier, john, which is seeing refugee camps firsthand, seeing feeding operations, emergency feeding operations, etc., that can be transformative for lawmakers and staff. a big part of what we do with the world food program usa and partner organizations is to take lawmakers out and get them in front of the programs and come back.

typically in those situations they feel compelled to act. that is a powerful tool for someone to see that firsthand. i went to reinforce that in terms of things we need to be doing next and were often-- more often. let me say some thing optimistic. i'v been working with folks on capitol hill for almost a decade. i came into washington, d.c., quite pessimistic. i think it is easy to be pessimistic about her politics today. it is quite easy to be frustrated with congress. but there are people who genuinely care, and particularly people who genuinely care about this problem of global hunger and forced migration. and it comes from unsuspecting places at times. there are folks on the state foreign operations subcommittee, people in the agricultural committee, who you wouldn't consider an ally. but for one of those reasons, moral,, economic national security reasons, they are willing to come to the table and fund international food

assistance programs because they feel compelled to do so. capitol hill and congress can get things done, and we have seen that happen the last couple years. act in response to the covid-19 pandemic and russia's invasion of ukraine, lawmakers managed to pull together a $5 billion supplemental for food assistance program. that is unprecedented, it is huge, larger than the base funding for those accounts. so that was a massive achievement and a good example of congress acting with a lot of political will. we saw the same thing come in the national security supplemental a few years ago. this is on the back of the events in gaza, or you're going out, another half billion dollars in food assistance programs. we would like to see this coming more permanently and we don't want congress to come with a firehose every time there was a fire and we want to make sure they are providing robust resources for not just food assistance programs, but programs like the future. so i think that are reasons to be optimistic. part of the reason we benefit so

much at the world food program from american support -- you have to remember, the world food program, we have a $23 billion operational budget this year. we will deliver 15 billion euros over the course of the year. it is a massive operation. but we never meet that level of assistance from donor governments. this year we are looking at about 11. the gap is $12 billion of support from donor governments all around the world. but the united states cares about this program because the world food program at the end of the day is inherently an american idea. it was an idea that was born in the aftermath of the second world war, stood up during the eisenhower administration, or at least proposed, kennedy, the start of usaid, was critical getting this started. george mcgovern, who worked alongside bob dole and tom daschle, all of these folks have been critical in moving the needle forward on funding for international food assistance

programs, and simultaneously developing safety-net programs in the united states for school feeding and snap programs. there is this shared history, there is an understanding of one of the best american ideas that no one ever heard of, the world food program. it is critical important to remember that going forward. we're run by ambassador cindy mccain. the --we have been led by an american since the 1990's. there is an investment here and the world food program is something we can be very proud of in this country. john: thank you. now this is the second round with a panel. start preparing your questions to submit to the panelists, whether online, virtual, and here in the room. but before i take your questions, and then we will go to the final round where the speakers will have key recommendations, key take away

for you and policymakers, let me go back to carrie. and this is the sustainability question. we hear that funding is not enough for all the challenges we have globally. what is being done locally? and maybe that is where scoot will jump in ash where scott will jump in -- maybe that is where scott will jump in, too. but working with small-scale farmers in rural areas, what is being done about sustainability or food security? you talk about the national level, how the policies -- but tell us something about sustainability. carrie: i'll do my best. so i take a lot of encouragement in social movements, in particular in guatemala the 17 movement,

indigenous -- sovereignty movement, indigenous sovereignty movement. there was really earthshaking presidential election in guatemala this year. and an exciting, very credible anticorruption leader was elected. and thanks to some pressure from the united states and other western countries, he was able to peacefully transition and take power just this year in guatemala. and a lot of that can be -- we can thank social movements for electing him. i think there is a lot of reasons to be hopeful about this administration and about some broader changes afoot in

guatemala. that is one thing that we should look to regularly, what is happening, who is organizing, what things are they organizing around. to give a more specific example, this has also been something that usaid and feed the future have invested in and that i've been really happy about, food sovereignty at the local level initiatives like seed banking. more interest and effort and investment in subsistence practices, traditional maize and beans. this thwarts the decades-long approach of encouraging export ag, so i think that is happening through external funding, like

through feed the future, as well as local indigenous groups demanding these kinds of changes. that is also something that i'm encouraged to see happening at the local level, but reinforced through external funding. john: thank you. scott, how you are building kitchen centers, and how are they sustainable? scott: that's the big question. hopefully we can have an indigenous movement of local farmers and produce to bring that, and maybe some corporations in the nations themselves that would be benevolent enough to lean in with us. one of the local churches, they are developing a farm, and they want to produce produce, protein, and product. the product will help with poverty. and of course the protein, the

wonderful things that they eat in costa rica, that is part of that process. but the local people have to have ownership of it. i've watched this as i gathered with a group of costa ricans this summer as they literally came together and fed thousands of people, thousands of people and a gathering where the community brought their sustenance together. when communities are brought together, whether it is through the course of faith, the course of care, communities accomplish a lot. what i want to do is throw gas on that fire, to encourage leaders to be bold. there is a proverb that says don't despise the small beginnings, because of the small beginnings can become great things. i love to hear chase, he talks about the annual budget of the billions and i think about the $12 i pay for the lyft to go to the airport.

it is the al qaeda process. the resources art -- it is the whole kind of process. i know i'm surmising, and i apologize for that, but local people know the needs of their community, they are best equipped to meet the needs in the hearts of their community as opposed to us organizations who fly in, observe, and fly out. empower the local leaders, and they will change the culture. i believe that is our mandate, and that is what we are trying to do through the building lives network. john: thank you. before i ask the audience -- that's great -- rachel, there is something i want to ask you about. the president and ceo went -- there is a lot going on, and we have a fellow here at the wilson center who is writing a book

about the gap. the title of the book is that is that it is a billion-dollar market by human traffickers. you have litigated issues -- how do we -- again, and might be out of topic here, but it is related to people moving for reasons including food insecurity, but you also have human traffickers in that part of -- that adds to the complexity of the movement itself and also the root causes. maybe hias is present here, you can comment on that. human traffickers. rachel: sure. i think one thing to recognize in this ecosystem is that smugglers are going to be around, people are going to move. it's normal. our families all moved. we got here.

displacement and migration is here to stay. we need to come up with ways to address the full ecosystem. some of that is by focusing on the root causes, like we are talking about here today, food security, safety, economic opportunity, political stability. and so there is a lot of work that has to go in that direction to break the smuggler model, if you will, if that is even a goal, which i don't think we can really -- it is never going to be eliminated, so we do have to recognize that. i think another big piece of this is that our kind of -- the obsession with smuggling in certain corners of congress has meant that organizations like hias and many other local groups on the front lines providing

assistance, helping survivors of gender-based violence, providing emergency shelter or emergency cash, are being accused of smuggling or facilitating caravans to the border. and we need to work to educate members of congress and others who are basically vilifying the organizations that are trying to help people and people on the move themselves. i think there are models that can be looked at to address the amount of money that is going to smuggling, and there are plenty of agencies in the u.s. government and through the entire region that are focused on that. but that work has to be done within this broader ecosystem of addressing the drivers of displacement and helping to support folks that are on the move without turning them into

villains or the organizations like yours and others that are trying to assist them. scott: may i interject something on that? john: sure. scott: rachel, you are so absolutely right. i the privilege of interviewing a smuggler in july, through an interpreter, of course, my compadre. he got out of smuggling because he had a spiritual transformation. he was exposed to something greater then the lure of money. he smuggled people from the panamanian border to nicaraguan border. $18,000. that's a lot of money. a lot of money for me, a lot of money for most all of us in this room. but what happened with him was his heart turned, and he said he could no longer do this. when he walked away the next night, the leader of the group was killed by the police.

he escape his destiny by spiritual transformation. so what happens in the heart of someone changes the trajectory of their community. that is why we can't look at people as numbers or products, or people on the move. they matter. humanity matters, from the smallest child even to the coyotes. they matter. and have to take care of people, and meeting them where they are. i was nervous when i interviewed the coyote, but i soon found out he was a guy who had a family, who had a need, who saw how to meet the needs of his family, and chose a dangerous disaster of a path. but there was intervention. i guess i am pollyanna-ish, hopeful that could happen to more and more coyotes. one coyote at a time. i don't even like the word. one person, one man, one woman at a time. sorry to interject, but i had to

bring that up. that was transformative to me, because i have a tendency to look at people globally instead of individually. i need to change my view. john: and that is the humanity aspect of it, too. thank you. i'm going to turn to the audience, and i want to maybe give her the first comment or question we have. cindy, a this to quit fellow of the wilson center, the former direct -- a distinguished fellow at the wilson center, the former director of latin america program here, so she got her sense a complexity of the things we are talking about in the region -- she understands the complex and the of the things we're talking about in the region. >> [indiscernible]

-- i have a brief comment and then a question. you mentioned the lack of -- ok, about the lack of evidence -- i guess i have allowed boys -- -- a loud voice -- the lack of evidence about hunger and food insecurity as a driver of migration. i have to say, sometimes i get really frustrated by the attempt to draw specific linkages, because if you ask and refugee coming -- or a migrant coming into the united states, why are you coming, and you give them a list of reasons, they may say "because i can't make a living." so that person is classified as an economic migrant, therefore less worthy of protection or asylum than someone else fleeing persecution. but the way that climate change affects food insecurity and therefore results in the

incapacity to feed your family are so closely linked that trying to separate these things -- and i've seen numerous articles that say climate is not a driver of migration. it just drives me nuts, because i think it is obvious that it is when you look at -- when you peel back the reasons why people think they are economic migrants. my question is really for all the panel and carrie may have the best sense of this on the ground, but all of you may have an idea, is whether the root cause is strategy that started under the obama administration and has continued through the biden administration, has focused on this specific aspect of food insecurity as a driver of migration, because my perception, which may be inaccurate, is that a lot of the effort from the office of the

vice president has been to get large corporations in the u.s. to make investments and thereby create employment and opportunity, but not necessarily addressing the rural sector, which in countries like guatemala is easily 50% of the population. i would be interested in your take on that. finally, a quick plug, in march or april of this year we put out a report on climate change and local community resilience in addressing this that intersected over and over again with food insecurity, and we relied on lots of reports from the world food program and the fao. thank you. john: let's start on that first, that others can come, but carrie , why -- the root cause of the

strategy used by the administration and investing in employment that fails to address the root cause. carrie: thanks for the question. i don't know that i have a great answer, so i can punt to other panelists as well. personally i would say i haven't seen a lot of really groundbreaking changes since the root-causes strategy or language started being employed. i do think there has been an increase in funding for food security and agricultural development. and i do think not only because of the root-causes strategy, but also this just blatant fact that malnutrition is not going away in guatemala, even though there

might be some improvements in the last couple of years. there really is just such a stark and inexplicable kind of phenomenon. i think because of those facts as well as the reality of climate change and the long droughts and things like that that there have been some shifts in programming that i think are important to acknowledge. i do think that unfortunately most of the food insecurity funding still goes to training farmers, capacity-building efforts that are still focused on export ag. one example would be training farmers in bio sanitary sort of conditions that need to be met so they can qualify for starbucks programs and things like that.

and while i don't want to diminish those efforts, i haven't seen, at least first and, those -- at least firsthand, those being life-changing or the kinds of programs that would change the underlying conditions of people in rural and specifically the western highlands of guatemala. maybe someone else can step in and speak to that point more. john: chase, quickly comment on that, the root-causes strategy. is it being realized, or is it just in the book? chase: well, i am probably not right person to comment on this. i'm willing to say a couple things, but i don't really want to get into administration policy and how it affects manager and operations. we in particular operate under neutrality and work with beneficiaries regardless of where they are from. i don't want this to become a conversation about whether the

united states migration policy and root causes is working or not. but i will say, to reiterate the coming here that i made earlier--comment here that i made earlier, we are not meeting the problem with the skill of funding that is required. when you look at guatemala, maybe carrie can say more about the level of funding that came through for the future, but my suspicion is there have been really good outcomes, outputs at least in that program and outcomes probably, but are we in a position where we can truly scale that with the resources available? i don't know the answer to that. that would be from a third-party perspective. john: unless you two want to comment, but i want to put this and then get more questions -- and let the root causes of -- unless the root causes of foreign displacement are addressed, forced displacement numbers will keep going up. and that is just logic.

and i think talking about root causes, if we are talking about food insecurity, wars, instability, conflict, other factors, if we don't address them at their roots, we are reacting to the symptoms. and the symptom is manifested in the number of people displaced. so that is something that should be in every conversation tackling the root cause, whether it is food insecurity, whether it is war. that is in the best interest of people being displaced. everyone want peace, everyone want to go back to their homes. but unless those factors are addressed, people will keep moving. scott: there is an african proverb that says when the elephant fights, the ground suffers. what we see around the world is the elephants are fighting and all of us are suffering.

instead of policies and politics -- i know i am a beating the drum of humanity, but to see that there are organizations that are trying to make a difference, that are hopefully making a difference one person at a time, that is what drives us to see that bellies are full and hearts are healed. and maybe that is a slogan, but it is more of a slogan when the reality is changed. that is why we do what we do. that is why it motivates these distinguished people on this panel, are far more gifted and educated than i am, but we do this together. i think about the people in the audience and perhaps online. i would love to take you. i would love for you to see the former refugee camp on the border of panama and costa rica. over 2000 people crowded into a half-acre spot with no food, no water, no sanitation. we went in and we fed over 400

people, starting with women and children. especially if you are a woman, we took care of -- especially if you are pregnant woman, we took care of her. because it matters in your heart is changed. i know i'm being a little preachy, sorry, but that is the humanity of it. if we as government organizations, food organizations, partnered with local congregations, local people, i think we could see a difference. we've got a group of guys that are going to pay out of their own pockets to go build a kitchen. we're not looking for a government subsidy. that would be nice. good gracious. but we are going down to do good, and that is what america has been about. john: that is why we have this public conversation, so that the real citizen can get involved in all this and help wherever they can. ok, questions?

just introduce your name and then straight to the question. >> thank you. i'm from george mason university. i guess i headed question -- >> mike's not on. >> oh, there you go. i'm from george mason university. i have a question for everybody, i guess. i'm with an organization that helps refugee students get connected and succeed on campus. i guess the question is, we talk about compassion and stuff like that -- i guess the question is how do we get connected with people especially in congress? how do we get connected to people and show them what is going on? how do we effectively do that? because i've heard from you guys, it is easy to get really hung up on whether it be

smugglers and stuff like that or pinpointing exact things going on but not looking at the broader picture. how do we connect with them and just help them help us, i guess? john: ok, thank you. we want to get one more or two. yeah. >> is it on? my name is marlene, i'm from norway. we talk a lot about investment and root causes of food insecurity, local projects. you mentioned empowering indigenous leaders, and carrie mentioned structural, political changes.

m questiony is how can foreign governments and organizations ensure projects are enduring and transformative long-term, especially when it comes to combating corruption and community inclusiveness? i know we have talked about this, it's a big question, but the main takeaways of what organizations and governments can do better in that department. thank you. john: thank you. one more. ok. go ahead, go ahead. >> ok, sorry. hi, i'm kate. my question is we talk a lot about agriculture as the root cause, but often times violence increases when people are hungry, they become violent because they are desperate to feed their family or to gain opportunities that are

oftentimes not there. we have seen some improvements in the northern triangle related to national security, but i wanted to kind of get your thoughts on how violence -- how hunger contributes to violence we often see in this region of the world. thank you. john: do we have online? >> yeah, from thomas kim, humanitarian policy advocate with care -- in tackling these root causes, how concurrent modalities of assistance-- can current modalities of assistance be better -- better integrate gender sensitivity into helping communities? john: ok. panelists, we have a lot to work on here.

ok, how do we effectively get connected to congress, that's one question. how can foreign governments invest in enduring solutions and addressing corruption, inclusiveness? what is the connection between hunger and violence? how can hunger contribute to violence? a hungry man is an angry man, that is the same. and the current model of assistance incorporating gender-sensitive. so why don't each of you take whatever you take? let me start with carrie, because you are virtual. among those questions, if you could quickly, because time is coming now, your key take away. one minute each. carrie? carrie: i will respond to i think marlene's question about how can foreign governments invest in more sustainable ways.

i would just say that spending more money or making sure that more resources are actually contributed at the local level, the distribution of benefits are really important when we think about foreign investment. as much of the resources that can stay in communities, especially at the grassroots, the local level, that is really important. so much of the funding gets spent just managing and operating these programs. i think there are positive examples of foreign governments investing in ways that stay more at the grassroots level. i would also say there is the importance of listening and really matching investment efforts to the needs of rural communities and the intended beneficiaries. i think that is often an overlooked step in the process. john: thank you. that's brief. chase, you want to talk about the current model of assistance,

effectiveness? chase: there is a couple in it there that i think are directly in my wheelhouse. i think the first question and one of the later questions about food-related instability is an important one. if you haven't checked out "systematically -- "dangerously hungry," report that looks at how food insecurity drives conflict around the planet, from social unrest to interstate conflict. that is a good resource. i don't want to cheapen that relationship, it is complicated, it is messy. hungry people are not necessarily violent people and a violent people are not necessarily hungry. there is a lot we have to take into account. on congress, it's an open door. you can walk up there right now and knock on your representative's office and tell them what your issue is. it is your house at the end of the day. you do sometimes have to assert that.

but your voice is more powerful in the collective. there are ways for you to be joining broader movements and the extent to which you can do that, the more pings an office is going to get, the better. one easy thing you can do if you're interested in hunger specifically -- sounds like it is refugee resettlement or hunger issues -- but you can go to wfpusa.org and that message is darkly to capitol hill offices. as a staffer, it is difficult to ignore the mountain of comerica -- a mountain of communications coming from people. it does move the needle. john: thank you. rachel, the current model and gender sensitivity. rachel: sure. and i will piggyback on that and say there is a numberless organization called the refugee council -- there is an

organization called the refugee council usa and you can see how groups and campuses across the country might want to come together to chase this point and meet with representatives about your issues. on thomas's question about mainstreaming gender protection into current modalities of assistance, there are a number of ways to do that. the first piece is to assess what women and girls need. before you design a program, talk to the people you are going to be accountable to in designing programs. codesign programs with women and girls, do that together. ensure the evaluation of programs involved the people who are meant to be protected or supported by those programs. those are some very key ways of doing it. essentially the core of that is listening to the people that are affected and being accountable to the people who are impacted

by the programs or the funding that is meant to support them. john: all right -- scott: i will piggyback on that just one second. empower women to lead. i'm not being biased here at all, but women addressing women issues, because they understand the issues, like men, we don't. empower women to lead. i'm thankful to my wife, who has shaped my leadership over the years, and value a woman's voice. we are to be complementary to one another in our genders. rachel, i'm very impressed with you. you are a great leader, so keep it up. whatever that means from an old man, keep it up. john: thank you. time is up, so i'm not going to take more questions. but i want the panelists to have that forward-looking sentiment

you can take away from here today. each of them will give the key take away for the audience. and then restart virtually wi-- we start virtually with carrie, and then we will go to rachel, and then we will go to scott, and then we will end with chase. quickly, what is your key take away for the audience, and recognition, whatever you want to say for one minute? carrie: i would reinforce thew work, the research on the inability to engage with system practices -- assistance practices and decisions to migrate. the inability to practice subsistence agriculture because of land access, climate change, and market forces, things like global coffee prices. i think those are really

important factors that don't get enough attention. and even though i'm in agreement with chase, there are just really vast challenges that are difficult to meet within the budgets that folks are working with, i still think that developing programs including feed the future need to continue to improve and better meet the needs of communities, vulnerable communities wealth already -- who are under so much pressure and are making choices to migrate. john: rachel, what is your key take away? rachel: two. one is to piggyback on the last one. to the extent congress is appropriating funds for latin america, they continue to recognize the importance of keeping that funding coming through regardless of the administration. and create pathways for that

funding to trickle down to not just large multilaterals for the u.s. government but local organizations and local leaders so it is actually hitting the communities directly. the other piece relates more broadly to the region, frankly, congress needs to pass comprehensive immigration reform and has not done that in more than three decades. they can really recognize not only the concerns of u.s. citizens, in particular employers in desperate need of laborers, but to uphold basic rights to asylum-seekers and some of the population who face the issue we have been talking about today. john: thank you. scott, what is your key take away? scott: as i look across this

gathering in the room, you guys are not the future, you are the now. lean in now, don't wait. if we lean in together -- this probably will not happen in my lifetime but he could happen in yours. people on the move who are struggling need care and assistance. we will always have migrants and we should always care for the migrants, whether they are en route or in place. you are bright, you are smart, you are young, the world is in front of you, tackle the causes. i want to go back to the funding piece. we are accountable to stakeholders and those who write checks. we do not get to buy a house on the pacific ocean, we have to put the funds to use and that is what we are doing. john, thank you for the

opportunity to be a part of this. john: thank you. policy and anything else? >> i am stuck with this quote i heard when i joined the world program a few years ago and it was with a former executive director. she said hungry people do one of three things. they revolt, migrate or they die. there is this idea -- it probably has a lot to do with politicalization -- i think there is this idea that people migrate purely on the idea of opportunity. frankly, what we find is people are migrating as an opportunity or a way to prevent starvation. that is a fundamental difference. you are not running to something, you are really

running away from something in a meaningful way. in the changing and shifting of the narrative is important and part of that is recognizing the importance food insecurity has as a root cause of migration. we have to be doing more on the social protection space. we talked a little bit about government food based social safety nets. those are the way humanitarian organizations do not have to save the same life twice. social protection is critical. it allows governments to build trust with its people and allows governments to provide services to its people and that is probably one of the best protections we have against migration. i urge us to think more on the social protection front. john: please join me in thanking all of our speakers for their time and expertise. [applause]

i want to take this time to also thank you, the audience, online and in present for tuning in. this is the kind of constructive conversation we need around this topic. we can help address what makes the world bleed. this topic about food insecurity we are interconnected. when you are disrupted by something else, it affects individuals. the importance of this, let's continue the conversation. thank you very much. [applause]

culture, politics, laws, and the government. hosted by the american university. this is an hour and a [chatter]

>> is this on? can you guys hear me? hello everyone. we are about to begin. my name is tom merrill and together with my colleague allan, we run the political theory institute of the american university that hosted this event. unfortunately he could not be here. can you hear me? would you like me to be louder? is it better if i stand closer to the microphone? it is important we get these things right. is that good? please tell me if it is too quiet. the political theory institute's mission is to bring the great books and ideas of political theory to bear on contemporary issues and events. we aim to promote healthy citizenship by getting students out of their echo chambers and to engage deeply and

thoughtfully with both a wide array of views and with each other. today's event is special thanks to c-span. we especially want to thank the c-span viewers who are watching this on the reruns in the future, so hello to you. we have a wider audience than usual. it is more intimate as we welcome back and american university and alumnus as our speaker. american university consistently ranks as having among the most politically active student bodies in the country, and today's speaker illustrates this perfectly. i thought he would get a laugh out of that. he is the director of social cultural and gross additional studies at the american enterprise institute where he also holds the chair in public policy. he served as a member of the white house domestic policy

staff under president george w. bush and as executive director of the president's council on bioethics where i had the pleasure of working with him, and as a congressional staffer on the member committee and leadership levels. the founder and editor of the journal "national affairs," he is also a senior editor at the "new atlantis," contributing editor at the "national review," and contributing writer and editor at "the new york times." he is interviewed frequently and has published essays and articles in numerous publications, including the wall street journal, the washington post, the atlantic, and commentary. he is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently "american carbonate: how the constitution unified donation and could again." he holds a masters and phd from the committee on social thought at the university of chicago,

and this is the important part, a ba from american university. "go eagles," that's right. one last introductory remarks, tonight's event is over and constitution day lecture made possible with a grant from the jack miller center, a tremendous private foundation dedicated to helping educators teach the ideas, documents and history at the life and heart of the american political tradition. thank you, jack miller center. and i want to add something before we introduce our guest which is, as you know, the american university is enrolled in something called a civic life, the presidency. initiativ to and encourage civic engagement and dialogue with the people who disagree with. part of the initiative is a program called "the civic life fellows" which would have a student part and the faculty

part. applications are open for the student's civic life leadership program. i want to encourage all the students in the room if you're interested in this kind of work, we would love to have you apply. there should be an email in your inbox from president alger with a link to do this. so, without further ado, i am pleased to welcome our friend on "can the constitution unify americans?" thank you all. [applause] >> thank you very much, tom. i appreciate that. i will try to speak loudly but i will begin by apologizing. i am just getting over a cough and i just spent an hour talking with some students and i will probably lose my voice during the course of this. i will do my best to avoid that. i loved being a student here, i

loved every time i come back here. i met my wife here. it is a fantastic place and those of you who get to be a part of this community are very fortunate for it and i think it is just a fantastic collection of people who care about politics and the country's deepest future. i always leave my time here with that impression and i appreciate it. is this working reliably? [indiscernible] >> oh, i see. ok. well, we will do our best. i want to take up a subject with you that may seem a little strange in this moment, and it may seem a little strange because of the nature of this

moment in american political life. the subject is how we might think about the constitution of the united states as a framework for national unity. it may seem strange because we are obviously living in a periods of intense division in american public life, and it often seems like our constitution or system only makes our bitter conflicts and divisions worse and more intense. congress and the presidency and the courts have all become both arenas and objects of culture war combat in recent years so that frustration with the cause additional system now is really rampant and widespread. in fact, on the surface, it can seem like just about everybody is frustrated for one reason or another. you heard the frustration from the left that the system is too cumbersome or too slow or not democratic enough. from the right, that the system sometimes will emphasize process over substance and ignore the moral content of the common good of american life.

intense political combatants of all kinds are clearly frustrated with our constitution for getting in their way. that in itself i think is actually a point worth thinking about. the most polarized elements of every side of our culture war think the constitution is fundamentally a tool or weapon of the other side. they feel like it restrained them and doesn't let them get their way. and they are right. the most intense combatants in our contemporary culture war find the constitution frustrating because the key part of its purpose is to frustrate intense political combatants and keep the extremes from winning. it is to make sure the system as a whole does not become a weapon for one side or another in the kinds of conflicts that are most dangerous to free societies and to make sure instead, that different sides of disputes have to somehow deal with each other. that is what people find frustrating. it is also one of the most

valuable things about our constitutional system and read the most important things. in other words, a key part of our constitution's purpose is to facilitate greater national unity, to build common ground in our society to reduce tensions, to make people less afraid of one another and less alienated from one another. if that's right, it would certainly suggest that our era of division is also an era of constitutional failure, in some important sense. but it forces us to ask how much of that failure is a failure of constitutional practice rather than constitutional design and, therefore, whether the renewal of our politics, a restoration of some of our national cohesion might require us to learn something from the constitution and from its framers, and to return some way to its core purposes. it should lead us to consider where the constitution might be in some respects at least, more of a solution than a problem at

this moment. that is what i want to suggest to you today. not that the constitution's critics are all wrong, but that they underestimate how much it has to offer them because they tend not to see bitter division itself is an important problem to be addressed. they tend to accuse the constitution of being too simple, to backward, too naive to work for us now. they say it's an 18th-century relic that cannot serve our complicated moment. but i would suggest that is about exactly wrong. whatever its flaws, the constitution is actually more sophisticated than most of its critics. but the most significant challenge that conference of modern free societies, the challenge of cohesion amid diversity, of holding together despite our differences, that challenge was on the minds of our framers. it is the first goal put forward in the preamble to the constitution to form our union. it is an interesting subject in

the federalist papers. it was constantly on the agenda of the constitutional convention in one way or another. unity is not the only purpose of the constitution, the preamble goes on to list a series of other complicated and ambitious aims and the document speaks to more than just cohesion. but unity is aand so the constin part an answer to the very question that we now constantly find ourselves forced to ask. how can the vast, diverse society hold together and govern itself? to see the constitution through the lens of that question would help us to grasp some very important things about it that are not otherwise obvious. and it would help us to understand some facets of our contemporary national challenges that are also not otherwise obvious. it might even point us to some ways forward. let me briefly sketch out what seeing things that way could involve. first of all, to see that the constitution is conserving unity

is to take notice of a distinct understanding of unity. that would be very useful to us now. it is an idea particularly evident in the thought of james madison, who was uniquely attuned to the dangers of division and faction. medicine outlined a distinct understanding of the nature of political unity which begins from an apparent contradiction. on the one hand, he insisted that disagreement about fundamental questions is inherent and unavoidable in any free society. he put that point very bluntly. quote, as long as the reason of man continues fallible and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed. period. but just a week after that was published, writing in federalist 14, madison warned his readers not to despair of national union, writing with unusual passion, he said, quote, hearken not to the unnatural voice which tells you that the people of american, knit together as they

are by so many courts of affection, can no longer live together as members of the same family, can no longer continue unusual guardians of their happiness, can no longer be fellow citizens of one great respectable and flourishing empire. so americans will never stop disagreeing, but should not give up on living as one nation. unity is achievable provided we do not expect it to mean unanimity. and so, what should we expect it to mean? embedded in the constitution is a classical approach to this crucial question that looks to parrot -- politics as an arena for coming to agreement about common action. simply put, in a free and therefore diverse society, unity does not mean thinking alike. unity means acting together. now, this is not to say that citizens start out with no common foundation or shared beliefs. americans are not strangers to each other and we do have some basic principles in common,

especially those laid out in the declaration of independence. although those imposed general moral boundaries on american life, there is enormous room for disagreement. that includes real disagreement about exactly what the declaration's principles mean, let alone disagreement about discrete political and policy choices we also have to make in politics. our politics is unavoidably organized around these disagreements and requires us to find ways to act together without fully resolving them. but that formulation invites an obvious question. how can we act together when we don't think alike? i would suggest to you that the united states constitution is, in many important respects, intended to be an answer to that question. how can we act together when we don't think alike? almost everything that is mysterious and frustrating to many americans now about our system of government is a function of into being in part to answer that question.

a lot of the dysfunction of our dental clinical culture is a failure of constitutional practice that stand in the way of putting the constitution's particular answer to that question into effect. the constitution's answer is not simpleminded. there are simpleminded ways to answer that question. you might say for example that we act together and don't think alike just taking a vote and seeing what the majority wants to do. that kind of answer would endanger minorities. and precisely because we do agree that all of us are created equal and we have lived and national history that too often has trampled over that truth, americans know that although majority rule is an absolute essential -- it can be a tool of oppression. also balancing majority rule and minority rights. that is not a simple task and ours is therefore not a simple system of government.

it looks to broaden majorities before empowering them, to restrain majorities while relying on them. it deals with tensions like this and contradictions by seeking a dynamic balance between competing pressures over and over. that is its strength but also why we sometimes find the constitution so frustrating. acting together we don't think alike requires creating space for competing approaches to coexist. it requires compelling opposing factions to bargain, to negotiate, and seek accommodations. it requires administering the government in steady unpredictable ways, and requires enforcing clear boundaries on the powers of majorities and public officials. this is the work of federalism, congress, the president, and the courts, and all requires a citizenry well-formed in some core republican virtues by the very experience of acting together even when we don't think alike. looking at the parts of the constitution through the lens of that distinct understanding of

unity can help us to see each of those parts in a different light than we might normally see. let me quickly suggest some of what that would look like. to begin with, we might avoid a common misunderstanding of american federalism. wetend to view it through subsidiarity. we think of the states and national government as layered over each other and we think federalism encourages us to emphasize the lower layers. that is a way of thinking about federalism that is convenient to communitarians like me. but it is not quite right. it would be better to think of federalism as describing parallel governments, not layers. and the imperative of unity is a key reason why that is. american federalism is intended in part to reduce the number and scope of political controversies that have to be resolved uniformly at the national level.

federalism emerged as a compromise between partisans of a centralized national state and champions of a decentralized federally. their dispute came down largely to one core question. with the national government govern the people directly, with the state serving as its administrative districts, or with the national government govern only the states in a few discrete areas while the state governments alone would have direct contact with the american people? unable to agree on either approach the convention worked its way towards a novel idea. the state governments and the national government would both govern the people directly, but with regard to different subjects. they explicitly rejected a layered approach in favor of a parallel approach. broadly speaking, the federal government would govern the a plot -- the economy, diplomacy, and defense. it encompasses quite a lot, especially given economic policy. and the states would continue to

govern everything else including the core police powers. that peculiar kind of compound republic can let our national politics specialize in national challenges where we can't avoid the need to decide in one course of action while state governments can focus on matters near at hand in their own different ways. that allows for a diversity of government approaches to coexist and even compete without having to be resolved into a single national approach in most arenas. that has never been a simple matter, to put it mildly. in particular the decision to leave the question of slavery and race up to the states proved both wrong and untenable, again, to put it mildly, and ultimately had to be resolved on the battlefield. the 14th amendment added the imperative to apply the law equally to all citizens to the federal government's relatively limited set of responsibilities. this was a necessary rebalancing

of american federalism and in practice it has taken a very long time to be put into effect. with regard to many other contentious if less existential questions, separation of authorities could still offer a practical means of allowing americans to live with their diversity while still forging a cohesive national identity. seen through the lens of cohesion, what matters the most about federalism is the separation of governing authorities which allows for genuine diversity in the ends and not just the means of american government. it may be that we now need to broaden again a list of issues that belong in the federal purview but is crucial that we not combine state and federal authority over those issues and just let the states deploy different means to achieve federal lands as we have done in education, health care, welfare, and other areas in the last 80 years now. very much to the detriment of the constitution and its ability to keep us together.

constructive reforms of american federalism need to untangle our parallel governments and not layer them over each other even more. those questions that do need to be resolved at the national level are intended first and foremost to be addressed by bargaining in congress. the purpose of congress also looks of it will different in light of the constitution's emphasis on unity. congress is really at the center of the constitutional system for good and bad. in a republican government the legislative authority necessarily predominates. republican government is representative government. although the presidency, and to some extent the courts are also accountable to the people, it is only congress that is designed to be representative of them. congress is of course the absolutely essential institution in the constitution's vision of unity. by representing our plurality, our national legislature can allow for negotiations among the key factions that compose that plurality.

this is first and foremost a way in which the constitution envisions americans acting together even when we don't think alike, by negotiating broadly acceptable courses of action. in some ways that is the essence of our national politics, the primary way in which the constitution seeks to address the kind of problem it was meant to take on. when it works, congress can function as an arena of contention, of coalition building, sometimes even of integration. as the representatives of different american points of view are compelled to find ways to accommodate each other and in some respects, come to understand themselves as engaged in a common effort in ways it can reflect back on their constituents. madison took this to be may be the primary advantage of representative as a touche and. they can refine passions and give them forms more amenable to

negotiated accommodation so they can be turned into more coherent kind of governing objectives. the people's representatives can reach arrangements that the people they represent could not have reached directly. this is a key reason why congress is not simply majoritarian. u.s. congress differs from the sorts of parliaments he would find in most other democracies of the world because it doesn't empower simple majorities to govern unrestrained until they lose their mandates. the distinct overlapping electorates that choose the house and senate, the constant threat of presidential vetoes, the assorted super majority requirements here and there, paul mean that narrow and ephemeral majorities cannot exercise power effectively in our system. they have to deal with broad and durable minorities. work to build some consensus for they can really emphasize general institutional power. excuse me. this is in part to protect minorities, but also to build consensus that reaches further

than simple majority power. to make us more unified for we really act. this kind of coalition building often doesn't feel unifying as it is happening. negotiating processes are inherently adversarial. but by compelling different factions to deal with each other with the aim of concrete come in action in the end, there were sorts of processes can forge common ground. an effective legislation accommodation doesn't just give each side half a loaf, it gives us practical experience in living and acting together. it builds cohesion and social capital. as much as it is a source of public policy, congress is a source of this kind of accommodation. an arena for working out differences in ways that can disarm dangerous divisions. a system with a reasonably functional congress at its center is assisted with that kind of accommodation at its center. and so with the desire and ability to resolve disputes within a shared framework at its center. needless to say, that is not

what congress generally looks like now. and so it is not what our coculture looks like. there have been some instances in recent years of genuine cross partisan arguing, especially thanks to the filibuster in the senate. but much of the time the institution is dominated by culture war theatrics and auditing grandstanding. that congress is broken is the primary reason why our political culture is broken. but when reformers consider how congress need to change, they too often overlook what it is failing to do. frustrated with the failure to advance their favorite legislation rather than the failure to address national cohesion, they often yearn for the model of more european parliaments. that kind of model is not likely to yield durable legislation, and more important it would further undermine the capacity of our politics to engage in common work towards irreconcilable goals.

if congress is to be reformed, it should be reformed in ways that make bargaining across lines of difference more likely, not in ways that make that kind of bargaining less necessary. too many of the well-intentioned proposals for reform of congress are on the wrong side of that distinction. they look to make the legislative process there and faster at the cost of making it narrower and more devices -- more divisive. -- the task of turning congress's negotiated frameworks into functional administration falls to the president of the united states. but the president's role is not what it's often perceived to be either. critics of the constitution who are dissatisfied with how

inefficient policymaking by bargaining and accommodation can be often look to the president to act more decisively on behalf of the nation. some also insist that because the president is the only official elected by a national consistency, we president is the figure most representative of the public as a whole. but this is completely at odds with how the framers understood the office, and i think with how we should understand it too. the presidency is a unitary institution, so it cannot be a venue for accommodation and bargaining. it is the office of one person. it is a locus of action intended to execute the laws and this -- respond to demanding challenges on behalf of the country. the framers generally did not view the presidency as a representative institution. the chief executive is elected in order to keep him accountable, but no one person could be representative of a diverse society. to imagine a single individual could hold us together by embodying our unity is to assume away our universe -- our unity.

that is what a lot of the constitution's critics seem to implicitly assume. but the opposite is surely closer to the truth. mccarley -- because we are a diverse society, representing us requires a plural institution. but the president, among his other important functions, does have a distinct and crucial role. he does this by providing a stable backdrop for our national life. stability, consistency, and critic ability, what alexander hamilton called steady administration, forms the executive's distinct and crucial contribution to the unity of american society. stability is essential to social peace. as madison argues, precarious changeable administration makes it impossible for people to feel secure, to make plans, to take risks, to engage with each other across lines of distance. an unsteadiness in government makes it hard for anyone to be a

faithful law-abiding citizen. these arguments do not apply exclusively to the executive. they are crucial in respect to congress too. but it is the president who bears the greatest responsibility to act with steadiness, to avoid sharp changes in direction or reversals of course, even the course of his predecessors. and to keep our government stable and secure. stability is not stasis. the president is expected to give steady direction to our policies. even to some extent to congress's work to set general priorities, to propose some legislative measures, to veto once he disapproves of. but in doing all that, the president's chief purpose the on the defense of the nation is to turn congress's negotiated directives into steady and consistent administrative action . reframe or's emphasis of this point is unmistakable. here too our contemporary practice has become disconnected

from its intended aims. we have come to think of the president as speaking for a party more than acting for a nation. a change of party in the white house now leads to a nasty whiplash, as a new president rushes to undo his predecessors signature actions and put in place new measures of his own, many of which his successor will undo. each apparatus of agencies built up around the president, what has come to be called the administrative state, often functions as a substitute legislature, less slow and cumbersome then congress but not less partisan. the various kind of policy voids the constitution intended only incremental incremental -- that obviously undermines the work of steady administration. it is at least as harmful to our society's capacity for unity and civic peace. it vastly increases the stakes of presidential elections and

encourages us to see our society as two opposing camps weighed against each other for control of the instruments of power. reining in the administrative state is therefore not just a matter of constraining public power, it would offer us a way to recover the capacity of our governing institutions to force -- forge common ground we lack and the presidency to secure a stable backdrop. the courts are also essential to making greater unity possible, but not necessarily in the way we might first imagine. the crucial service provide on that front is not the resolution of the disputes that divide our society. they do resolve disputes of course, but they are intended to resolve disputes over what the law is, not what it should be. so they are not the right venue for mediating among the visions of the public good that make up american public life. great public disputes over what the law should be need to be resolved through the work of the

legislature above all and in a very different way from how the courts resolve disputes. for the courts then do is make sure that those negotiated rumor of law area doubt promptly. the most valuable service the courts provide to the cause of national unity is in their policing on the rules and boundaries of american institutionalism. thei restrictingr to pursue end runs around the structure of the system. the federal courts have enormous counter majoritarian power which makes them inherently dangerous to our republic. it is absolutely crucial that power like that be used to guard the structure of the system to keep elected officials focused on their opera work and not to substitute minority rule for majority rule. the temptation to use the courts to decisively resolve political disputes is of course enormous. it was the strong inclination of the left while left-leaning judges dominated the supreme

court for decades, but it is quickly becoming the inclination of the right as the courts are more dominated by right-leaning judges. it is a grave mistake in both cases for the same reason. elite fiats are no way to resolve differences in our society. they only deepen our divisions. the courts must instead protect the space in which genuine resolution can happen and especially the space in which congress doesn't work while also protecting the rights of individuals and minorities against majority our. he can do both at once by keeping everyone involved, public officials and citizens alike, true to the constitution and bounded by its structure and substance. it should prevent end runs, not facilitate them. but of course end runs are now rampant. none of the institutions of the system work quite as intended or as i have described. this is in no small part i would argue because the constitution's vision of the nature of unity in

a free society has long been a controversial and contested. the idea that the consultation exists to let us act together even when we don't think alike has never sat easily with some critics of the system. the deepest critiques have always been what i would call integral list objections to madisonian pluralism. they argue it has to answer to one vision of the good or else it possibly work. woodrow wilson was the most articulate of the critics. he argued framers operated with a you tony and view of government, but in reality government is more like an organism. this means of separating powers and setting interests against each other does not make sense. quote, no living thing can have its organs offset against each other as checks and live. on the contrary, its life is dependent upon the quick cooperation, ready in response to commands of instinct or intelligence, their amicable community of purpose.

he saw society as one living thing, not an assemblage of different voices. wilson explicitly rejected the idea it was even possible to act together when we don't think alike. contemporary progressivism is often similarly integral list, insisting every institution in our society must be engaged in the same social state, no exceptions, no exemptions. and implicitly there can be no society without a single comprehensive common project. there are some on the right to agree with that and might substitute more something like catholic national law or the christian legal tradition that has to guide a social organism. taken to its logical conclusion, that would mean no sort of free society is possible because people in a free society will never think alike. wilson was only calling for an incremental step in that direction which would require a different form of society based on a more radical ideal of majority rule. he thought democracy required a

politics in which different parties offered comprehensive programs, the public selected among them on election day, and the winning party would have essentially unlimited power to pursue its program until the public voted for somebody else. the westminster model works more or less along these lines. it is a legitimate democratic model of government but one more geared towards the administration and accountability than accommodation and social peace. wilson was not blind for the need to unity but he was deaf to the logic of building cohesion by representing plurality. unity should be achieved by unitary leadership and therefore above all by the president, who alone has the national mandate to speak on behalf of the entire society. that sort of critique points towards dramatically different ways of understanding each of the key institutions of our system. it has no patience for the havoc and disorder of federalism and wants the system ordered by national priorities.

it wants a much more disciplined congress, answering the pound to leaders and accountable to more partisan platforms. it wants to substitute orderly administration and adjudication for messy deliberation. it wants the president to stand in for the nation. and of course our system is moved in exactly that direction now for many decades. that has happened under both parties, as a practical matter the most -- whatever might be said about the administrative and ideological consequences of this counter madisonian turn in american constitutional practice, we surely have to acknowledge it has contributed to making us more divided. it has made our politics more partisan. it has raised the stakes, and therefore the temperature of our elections. it has closed off some essential venues for deliberation and accommodation. and so it has left us for fewer tools for combating authorization and fragmentation.

the wilsonian turn in our constitutionalism is not the only reason we are divided, needless to say. but it is why we think our constitution cannot help us to address our divisions. why we think it is a relic with nothing to offer us. in reality the constitution was designed to address just the kind of on them we are facing and it could make a real difference if we let it. better grasping the presumptions and -- could help us to see that in our divided moment, the constitution is less the problem than the solution, or at least that we need to let the logic of the system better inform our prior this of constitutionalism. but there is one final lesson we can draw from the constitution's peculiar approach to unity that could be very helpful for us now. it points back towards the more serious criticism now offered of our system. these critiques are generally arguments for a simpler majority arianism. we suggest our system is

standing in the way of change the public wants. and so they imply that divisions are just illusions and we are actually fairly unified, but have been denied what we want by a system geared to frustrate us. there have been times in our history where something like that has been true. when the deliberate recalcitrance of the american constitution has been our key problem. when large number -- large majorities of americans have expressed clear desires but have been denied by the institutional rigidity. there have been other times however when strife and discord in our society have been our foremost problems. when americans were bitterly divided and viewed one another more as enemies and friends. so we have been able to form clear and durable aspirations beyond getting rid of their opponents. we are plainly living in one of those latter moments now. there is no broad and durable american majority, advancing a coherent agenda somehow obstructed by our constitution.

simple majority arianism just would not be very useful when there are not there majorities for anything. rather, our politics overflows with partisan bile and each of our major parties views the other as our country's biggest problem. our problem is not that we are not expressing our broadly shared aspirations through public policy, but that we are not forming broadly shared aspirations. that is what we need help with from our system now. we need help in finding ways to act together when we don't think alike. and that suggests we will need to choose to prioritize cohesion, coalition building, and the forging of trust. to do that, we should begin by recognizing that these are among the original aims of our constitution, and that today's intense disunity has been driven in part by our broken constitutional practice, which has undermined by which these aims can be pursued by our system. to better pursue those aims, we will need to uncover the understanding of --

to grasp its appeal and truth and think about reforms of our institutions in this light. rather than rush to reshape our institutions in the mold of our worst contemporary civic vices, we should let the structures of our institutions teach us something about what we are doing wrong and then think about how we might reform those institutions to better achieve their aims. that aspiration suggests not only an agenda for reform but a particular spirit in which to approach that work. citizens who want to see our society grow stronger should is institutions in the spirit of repair, informed by a sense of what has missing and gone wrong but inspired by a sense of what is good and what can serve us well. this moment tempts us to repudiate our inheritance but requires us to a new it -- to renew it. americans are free cleat -- are frequently angry at the constitution now because we sense it is broken. but we can see it needs us if it

is going to serve us. by rising to repair it we can enable it again to repair our society and bring us closer together as was made to do. the work of healing our divisions would have to start with our constitution. thank you. [applause] prof. merrill: thank you. we are now going to have questions. our practice is to take questions first from students. at some point you will have the executive power to decide to move to others. i also want to issue an invitation to those members of the audience who are on zoom. you can put your questions into the chat and i will read them. we will try to get to as many as we can over the course of the conversation. but with that, you are in the driver's seat. mr. levin: so, students. i did spend time with some of

you, so maybe i have tired you out. tell us who you are. >> thank you very much for coming today. i was wondering, my name is murphy, thank you. i was wondering, you put forth the preamble of the constitution as a kind of normative guide, so i have a two-part question. the first is, does it supplant or supplement the declaration of independence, which is kind of the traditional normative guide? and also, you mentioned the spirit of the laws in your book. i was wondering if that is a substantial way of interpreting the normal intent of the constitution? what role do the courts play in determining that, if they should determine what the law is instead of what it should be? mr. levin: a wonderful question, thank you. first of all, the preamble

certainly doesn't supplant the declaration of independence. i don't think anything supplants the declaration of independence. i think the constitution flows from the logic and principles of the declaration. the preamble describes in broad terms the very ambitious aims of american government. it does something that the declaration doesn't do, in the sense that it gets into the substance and process of policy. the declaration offers a simple, or at least straightforward view of what governments are meant for, to protect our rights. that is certainly true. governments are also instituted to advance certain national goals, to meet certain national needs. the reason we needed the constitution is because the government we had before under the articles of confederation was not not a very effective government.

that didn't mean it didn't effectively protect the rights of some americans, but it didn't allow the nation to achieve core political and policy objectives. the constitution rises to achieve that. the system as a whole describes a system that is fundamentally democratic. that is, it is accountable to the public. the declaration of independence actually doesn't do that. it says government has to be established through the consent of the people, but it is suggested there are a lot of forms of government that would be legitimate they were established that way. it does not suggest that monarchy is, say, an illegitimate form of government. the constitution answers some questions that are left open on behalf of the american public. that doesn't mean that ours is the only legitimate motive government, but it doesn't mean that it is our answer to what illegitimate and effective government would look like in

american life, or at least what it did look like to the framers of the constitution in their time. i think the vision it offers still very appealing and very effective. the preamble is not law. there is actually one funny exception but it generally has not been used by the courts to interpret the constitution. a lot of the constitution, i think once you see that fact, becomes clearer. the constitution, while it is law, is not only law. it is the supreme law of the land, it can be interpreted by judges and by, and it creates the framework to legislative action, for lawmaking at the national level. but the constitution is more than law. it is a legal framework. it is also an institutional framework, policymaking framework. and it is a political framework. it describes the way of life of

the american people in a way that suggests something about the spirit of our politics. that is very important for how we as citizens and also for how legislators and neck it is think about -- and executives think about their roles in their government. the courts apply to constitution as long. that means that there is a limit to how far and how broad they can get in there interpretation of the meaning of the constitution. the courts to decide the meaning of the law but there are also ways in which the spirit of our constitution can be violated by other constitutional actors that are not necessarily illegal. i think for example that when a president signs a statute and says i think this is unconstitutional but i will leave that to the courts, that is a failure of presidential responsibility. the president i worked for did that, george w. bush. he said it was unconstitutional and signed.

and the courts did not throw it out. it is in effect today. i think that when a president says if congress doesn't act, i will, that president is telling us that he will violate the constitution. as president obama did with regard to immigration. as president biden has done with regard to student loans. trump did in directing money to the wall. if congress doesn't act, i will. that is not necessarily illegal. the courts are not necessarily in a vision to strike it down -- in a position to strike it down. we as citizens should be able to see that that kind of action is counter constitutional. it is a violation of the spirit of american political life. so you can't leave constitutionalism to judges. the role of judges is limited. it has to be limited. if they could just act based on what they think the spirit of

the law is supposed to be, we would be in big trouble. they have to act raised on what the text of the law says. but the rest of us as citizens, as policymakers, need to act with a broader sense of what are diffusional obligations are. being a citizen of a republic like this is demanding. it means there are constraints and obligations and we cannot just do whatever we want and leave it to judges to clean it up. >> hi. i'm sam. within this role of the citizen that you are talking about, and also that often within these constitutional frameworks you have outlined that we kind of lose track of some of them. what do you think the role is in improving the constitutional literacy of the general american

citizen, especially in our electorate where they are not even close to 100% of us vote in elections who are eligible? mr. levin: i think it is a complicated question. i don't think it is absolutely necessary for the functioning of american politics that every american be able to recite the constitution. that is a high bar, it is hard. i do think we want to have some general familiarity with the kind of system creates and the kinds of demands it makes of us. i think generally, americans actually do. you will find constitutional premises, constitutional logic making their way into all kinds of areas of american life. a couple years ago a few friends of my son were arguing out.. one said i had the right to free speech. he was like, nine years old. i thought, that's a start. there are other things.

but we do have a sense that we are rights bearing. we do have a sense -- that sense very often extends to what other people owe us. that is just natural. it will be better if we knew about what we owe one another. that demand increases as our involvement in politics increases. it would be good if members of congress were familiar with article one of the constitution. which it often seems they are not. at mount vernon they have george washington's copy of the constitution, where he actually worked the road -- word president next to every line in the constitution which created every obligation on him. there had never been a president before and he just didn't know what to do. i think everyone of our presidents should start out by doing that. maybe looking at his constitution because he got it right, but also looking through the constitution and thinking what really is my job.

because a lot of what they do now is not quite their job. and look, if i asked myself how can i help constitutional literacy, that is one reason to write a book like this. that is one thing i can do. i think we can try and inform ourselves about it, to read about it, to be good students of it, to be thoughtful citizens, which doesn't just mean learning what we have but thinking about what can be improved in american life. how does this system let us achieve that and what ways are be to have to make changes. i am a fan of active citizenship. i don't measure that by voter participation. when i was an au student, and robert putnam wrote an essay that we read a lot in those days, i graduated in 1999. the thought was low voter participation is the first symptom of the collapse of our civic life. if you look at the book he wrote later, bowling alone, that is what he said. well, since he wrote that book,

we have had the three highest voter participation elections in american history. the highest was the last election in 2020, had the highest voter participation rates since before women can vote. i am not sure that i would say that therefore i think we are in a healthier place than we were 20 years ago. because there is a way in which intense engagement in politics can be a sign of trouble, too. we have to look for more complex kinds of indicators of civic health than just that simple measure of whether people are voting. i think by a lot of important measures, we are in some trouble. but yeah, some civic literacy is a place to start, certainly. >> thanks for speaking tonight. i've another question about the preamble. we have seen some waves of populism in america, right and

left recently. even the phrase we the people, or who counts as the people, has become sort of hyper-partisan and been distorted. you talked about coming to the constitution with a spirit of repair. how do we repair such a fundamental distortion of a principal that underlines -- mr. levin: i'll will tell you why i love this question. my original title for this book was we." my publisher would have none of that, and she was right. but "we" is the first word of the constitution. i thought of that as a title also, because it speaks to something in my own story. i am an immigrant to the united states. i was born in israel. my family came here when i was eight and i became an american citizen when i was 19 when i was an au student. i took the citizenship oath at the federal courthouse in newark, which is not america's

most beautiful city. and after the oath, the judge you gave it to us, in my manned this judge was a grizzled old judge, but i was 19 so maybe he was 40. i got -- he got up to give a speech and i thought he was going to talk about lincoln or the founders. instead he said something kind of strange. from now on you have to think and talk about america in the first person plural. you had all these new americans looking at each other like, i don't think that was on the test. at 19, -- he said you have to use terms like we and us. in the experience of immigrants there is often is a big day, the locals, the natives, they are your reality. becoming a citizen means understanding yourself as part of the whole, and saying we and meaning americans.

i was disappointed by that speech, i have to admit. but i am repeating it here so many years later because i think it was exactly what we needed to hear. not just we immigrants, but what we americans need to hear. we have lost the knack for saying we and meaning the american people. when we say we now we just mean the people on our team, the people in our party. we all live with a big "they" who are ruining the country. a lot of the time i do think they are ruining the country, but nonetheless we have to understand that our struggle with a big "they" is a struggle for our common life together. we are arguing about how we are going to live together as one nation. not whether we will, but how. that means we ultimately have to think about all of us as constituting one people. that is part of why to think about our nation through the framework of a constitution is a helpful way to think about it.

and i do think we have to find ways to rebuild that knack, to use the first person plural where we can to engage in coalition where we can. the only way to build up those virtues is to just do it. and not to stand around and wait for members of congress to do it. they are not going to be the first, they will be the last. but to do it in your own life and find ways where you are to get through a project together with people without taking offense at what they think about donald trump or what they think about you thinking about donald trump or whatever. it is hard to do now. but it is very important that we build up that habit, that we build up that knack. because ultimately the kind of renewal we are talking about has to start from the bottom up, it has to start with people who understand the challenges of citizenship as fundamentally a challenge common to all of us.

that also is connected with civic education. it is connected with a certain kind of constitutional literacy. it is also just a matter of habit. being able to see your neighbors as human beings. they have political views, but there are other things about them. you have some concerns and interests in common. find ways to let those defined what you do together and understand you can act together even if you don't agree about everything. we have lost the knack for doing that for a lot of reasons now. we are just in the habit of talking only to people we agree with about people would -- we disagree with, and that's not going to work. >> you mentioned in your book that you think there are rare occasions where the declaration of independence can be used as an interpretive institute -- instrument. i am wondering what are these rare instances and how would they work? mr. levin: i was persuaded of

this by reading clarence thomas. i think i would have set otherwise before i encountered this incredible essay he wrote before he was a judge. where he takes up this question basically, is the declaration law? he acknowledges it is a complicated question and that in. general it is not law. but he begins with this peculiar fact that the declaration of independence is the first item in the u.s. code. it was adopted by the first congress after the ratification of the constitution into our statute books. it is written there. it's not clear what that is supposed to mean. what are you supposed to do with that? but he suggests that there can be situations, and he talks in particular about the congress that created the 14th amendment after the civil war, where to take our bearings constitutionally re-irons us to reach further into the american soul, and to correct some

failings of the constitution, we have to understand ourselves as defined most fundamentally by the declaration of independence. what that congress did was amend the constitution. so that is not a case where a judge would say the declaration is law, and therefore overrides that it is somehow constitutional and overrides an act of congress. but i do think that it matters that the declaration is in the u.s. code. i think it matters that we have taken the action as a people of treating it as a kind of law. and the declaration really is the animating spirit of american life. it's an extraordinary thing and we should not take it for granted. it sets us apart in a way we should take seriously, which we have not always done in america. >> i am curious about your idea

of american federalism as two parallel governments and not overlapping governments. going back to the earlier question, how does that work with this construction of a "we," where in some ways there are two political communities. if you take community to be the people under an institution or under a set of laws. in american federalism, that means in some ways there would be two political communities, the national and state political community. i am skeptical whether you can really be a part of these two without giving several of c2 one over the other. i don't know if you can have co- equal political communities. how would you reconcile that? would you say the state political community would reign supreme or would it be the other way around? mr. levin: i think supremacy is an important word in that

question. the constitution does give supremacy to the federal government. in cases where there is a direct conflict. the supremacy clause means to say what it says. but the constitution also tries to minimize occasions when there could be such conflict. so that most of the time we don't have to ask which do we choose and it is possible to let different communities make different decisions, and to same question in different ways at the same time, and still be one nation. i think that is a fact about diversity. diversity is the basic reality of modern life. what separates classical politics from modern politics is the fact of classical diversity. the extent of it in our modern experience is what is extraordinary about our modern experience. a lot of our political thought has been a struggle about how to

live with that and not be at war all the time. because there are a lot of instances where that has fallen a art and we have been at war over questions that, from a distance, seem really small. i am jewish and i cannot tell different protestants apart. and they fought a 100 year war. it was not even catholics and protestants. those reasons were serious reasons. and you can see why the russian has to be resolved for the nation. you can arrive at a place where there is no other way to resolve it other than to fight. of course we have had such a question in american life too. it is a question rooted in the declaration of independence about whether we are all equal and we did have to fight a war with one another about how. to resolve that question. but not every question needs to work that way. and art of the secret to living amid diversity is finding ways

to let people live in different ways at the same time, even though it is your view that they are doing it wrong. i think that is part of what has always been hard for some americans about our system. i find it a little easier being from a 2% minority in our society. i think if we just empower a caesar, he is just not likely to be all that great for me. but i don't think he would be all that great for anybody and ultimately, to see that it is in allowing people a great degree of freedom in making the most fundamental kind of choices that we can actually pay greatest respect to the underlying fact we do agree on, which is that we are all equal in basic human dignity. it is because we are equal that i don't think i can force somebody to practice my religion if they don't believe it is

true. and so ultimately that underlying commitment which we do share and do not compromise is why we are. able to compromise elsewhere. it is hard to do. it is hard in every generation in different ways. but i do think it is necessary if we are going to be able to sustain any kind of free society in modern circumstances. and we are not the only society that doesn't. there are massive diverse societies elsewhere in the world. not everywhere, but societies that are most satisfied with themselves tend to be not very diverse, and they will tell us how little public violence they had. if we just had swedes here, we would probably not have much violence. the swedes have learned that lesson, god knows, the last 30 years. it is hard, this is very hard to do, but we have been doing it for some time. i don't think liberalism is impossible. look around. >> i have a follow-up question

to that. it sounds like what you are saying is that the constitution puts forth a national political community that allows for diversity within it and not a confederation of smaller political communities living together. mr. levin: that's right. there is such a thing as an american. that is hard to deny. no one other than americans would deny that. we sometimes do deny it but we are just wrong. so yes, there is a. national identity. i don't love the term national community. this is a very big society and community has a particular meaning. but in the way you are describing it, i do agree with you. >> i'm wondering if you move from philosophical to the practical, and you think about what unites us as americans and you think about the constitution. are there practical things that you see out there that give you

optimism about us, learning how to bridge those differences that we seem to be so confronted with in the current day? mr. levin: first of all, and we just talked about this, i would not say optimism. i am a conservative and i am not an optimist. i don't think if we just sit back everything will be great. but i am not a pessimist either. i think ultimately, between optimism and pessimism, which are both dangerous devices because they both invite us to be passive, there is a virtue called hope. and i am very hopeful. i am very hopeful about america. you can't help but be hopeful in looking at the history of our country and what kind of challenges it has been able to rise from an renew itself. and in looking at the life of this country. underlying all of my work is a simple premise that america is just awesome. it is incredible. it has a lot of problems.

those problems are my daily work. but the fact this country is here to let us live the kind of lives we live and let us have the kind of arguments we have is an incredible achievement and we should be grateful for it and not underestimate the capacity it provides us for renewal and for solving our problems. in the book, there are practical ideas for policy change. i tend to think about the kind of culture change we are talking about here in institutional terms. incident -- i talk about incentives and how to change the ways in which both citizens and public officials make decisions about politics. i think our primary system is not a good fit for contemporary political culture. it may be was not always terrible but it is terrible now. we have to think our way out of this system.

i think there are ways to help congress function better by incentivizing legislative work rather than incentivizing performative theatrics, which we do now. those would be fairly mundane kinds of reforms. and i think ultimately those are how big changes get started. >> you talked about negotiations. presumably negotiation in the congress in an ideal form as members of congress representing their constituencies equally. but a big problem we have, at least according to current supreme court interpretation of campaign-finance law, is that we have basically taken away all restraints on campaign-finance. and so we have millionaires and billionaires who can pour money into elections -- they have to

do it indirectly through super pac's and stuff. but we know this has enormous influence on decisions. i have literally heard from staffers who will admit this to me that i take my donors' points of view more seriously than others. given that interpretation, and given all citizens treated equally, these don't work together. mr. levin: first of all, i think the court is right about the constitution. but the situation it has created is a function of the ways we have attempted to reform the campaign-finance system. those reforms begin from the premise that the parties are the bad guys, they have to be disempowered, and their capacity to serve as the fundamental venues for campaign financing

has to be stripped of them, which was done over a long period of time starting in the 1970's. and then, all kind of constraints have to be put on the ways individuals can the ways in which individuals can contribute. the courts said those constraints have to go. the constraints on parties don't have to go, but they should go especially if the others do. we've been left in a place where the only way to raise money is secretly in that is not. it -- that is nuts. and not a good way for the system to operate. i think we need to undo the campaign reform of the 1970's. the parties have been weakened in a number of ways. the irony is the parties and institutions need to win

elections across the country. if you need to win in mississippi and oregon, you need to build. if you can't work that way and instead you have to make your appeal to intense, intensely devoted political activists and donors, the party is not able to play that role. individual politicians have been pushed in the other direction. i think that has a lot to do with undermining the capacity of politics to build a coalition, we've undermined the parties in a similar direction where they don't really choose candidates now. they are chosen by an almost random electorate, 8% of americans turn out to vote on primary election date and they are the craziest people in america because they love politics. i love politics, but you know. [laughter] my priorities will not be everybody's.

the result of asking 8% of the public that is most intensely devoted to policy -- the parties in politics who should be in the system is what we have. we have a system deleted by crazy people. the primaries now need to be rethought. i don't think we should go back to backroom selection of candidates but there are ways to experiment with other modes of candidate election. i talk in the book about random toys and things like that in primaries that i think would strengthen the parties and allow them to do their core work, which is ultimately to enable coalition building in our system. the parties right now can't do that work and i think campaign finance reforms are part of the reason and primaries are another. you have to get the people elected in the current system to change the system. i don't pretend to know how to make the case persuasively to them but i think it needs to be

made to everybody else. >> i work in congress and i was wondering how politicians use confrontational interpretations for their political agenda. and am wondering how likely or helpful it is that politicians and those in power are able to switch how they view the confrontation from using it as a means for their political agenda to viewing it in the unity mindset you are talking about. mr. levin: i think the appeal of a more unifying politics is it would allow us to advance a political agenda. this kind of coalition building politics is not alternative to pursuing your agenda. it's the only way to do it. tell me what you care about.

do you care about the federal budget, climate? you can't do anything about it until congress works better. the argument for congress working better is not that you should give up your priorities, it's that this is the only way to achieve anything. it does mean you cannot achieve everything, and you have to make concessions to decide who you prioritize more and make an agreement you can live with that of other side prioritizes more. it happens now and then. i got to be a witness when i was a student to the 1997 budget deal, i was a house staffer. that deal was made by people that did not like each other, to put it mildly. it was made by house republicans and bill clinton. my boss was the chair of the budget committee. had a very low opinion of bill

clinton. but there were things he wanted to do -- and by the way, i think clinton did ok, i don't know. there were things he wanted to do, things clinton wanted to do, and they understood that they each had priorities in the process and they talked to each other. neither of them was super happy with the outcome but they were somewhat happy and that's what success looks like. i think we've gone to a place now where the key priority of each party is not to give an inch to the other party. that's what you are trying to achieve. the only way to achieve that is to achieve nothing else. there are to me people in our politics including numbers of congress who run saying i will never give an inch. that is running saying i will never do my job. there are all kinds of jobs you can have. member of congress is not one of those jobs.

the core description is to do that. that's why how we populate the system needs to be thought through a little better. that's not in the constitution and in many states it's not even in the law. it has to be done through decisions by the parties in some places at the state, lower-level. we have to see the ways this is not working and it becomes powerfully evident when you spend a lot of time with members and staff. >> a question from kyle. -- owes its tolerance to a christian tradition doesn't work when religions without the tolerance of christianity are part of the pluralism and if it doesn't work out we fix that? mr. levin: i think it can.

that's a question, a real question and candidate work has always been a real question about american political life and i think about the politics of any society. we can't just assume the preconditions are there for all of this to work. we have to work to sustain them, to help people see why they matter. i think the united states has been reasonably successful at the kind of assimilation of minorities that is required for our society to protest -- to persist. it happened with catholics when people thought it was impossible, and it worked in practice. i think it has worked with other minorities in our own times, smaller ones. to me that suggests it is possible. it doesn't prove it will work. but i think, again, anytime you

think about political change and reform, you have to ask yourself, compared to what? and what really is the alternative to trying to make this work? i think the arguments that liberalism is untenable has to be confronted with that question. what do you propose? i don't think they have a good, persuasive answer to that question that would speak to the american people. >> i'm wondering what you think about the future of constitutional amendments. you mentioned at the outset you don't believe the constitution is something that is outdated and cannot keep up with the times, but have we reached a point where we are beyond constitutional amendments? it's been a while since we've been through that process. are we oversaturated? what is your take on the process? mr. levin: in some sense i am the wrong person to ask. i'm the kind of conservative who doesn't think we have a problem

to which a constitutional amendment is the answer in this moment. i don't know what would be worth expending the clinical capital for an amendment right now. there are other things to expend the capital for. i haven't been persuaded any of the existing amendment ideas are worth it or achievable. that's not to say the constitution is perfect. i think many of the amendments we have had were improvements and i think some of them were not. it is worth seeing when you look at american history that constitutional amendments come in bunches. there has often been a long period between groups of amendments. there was the bill of rights, kind of on time, a couple others where the electoral college created crazy situations that had to be fixed immediately. and we went quite a while.

post-civil war amendments and we went quite a while. the progressive era amendments and we went quite a while. there were several minutes in the vietnam era. we haven't really had a serious constitutional amendment since. the 27th amendment was symbolic, it just says congress cannot raise its pay until the next session of congress. it was in the original bill of rights, madison lovett, congress did not -- madison loved it and congress did not pass it, imagine why. a college student in california said we should pass this now in honor of james madison and his teacher said that's not a bad idea and his senator barbara boxer said that's not a bad idea and it became a constitutional amendment. really. it is in the constitution. but it was not a big break from the past. it's been a long time since we

had a amendment that had to do with public dissatisfaction, congress moves. that's not to say it's impossible but we are in a 50-50 time, we haven't had the kind of parties and it's hard to see how you get a super majority. >> during your presentation you spoke briefly about the disagreement you want that you think the constitution can enable that is more constructive than the disagreement we currently have in modern politics. i'm wondering to an audience of students and people in academia how you might give us advice to

manifest that on a college campus or in the community. as you say, culture change comes from institutional change and is there advice you might give me to relate back to professors, admin, something like that? [laughter] mr. levin: is there ever. let me start this. i think the lost habit is something like coalition building. which doesn't really come naturally to us now. i think part of the reason that has happened for all of us, particularly young americans, has to do with the kind of confusion of expression for action in contemporary american culture where we think that when we've said something we have done something. and the fact is to say something is to do almost nothing about that thing. to give a thumbs up on social media -- you haven't done a

thing, nothing has changed. when we think about movement for political change in american history, we now emphasize the ways in which they were expressive. the civil rights movement had a lot of protests. but it had a lot more than protests. it was a highly organized political movement, deeply aware of the importance and power of coalition building. it understood its purpose was to appeal to people who did not start out agreeing with its themes. that's hard to do, it takes time and a certain disposition and it is very draining and tough. the civil rights movement succeeded because it was willing and able to pull that off. i don't think there are a lot of political activists in america on any side of any issue know how to do that very well right now. to begin from a civil premise, michael is to persuade people

who don't agree. -- my goal is to persuade people who don't agree. if you listen to politics right now, the goal is to activate people who do agree. that's a different goal. it's not crazy, you need to get voters out, but is not enough especially when you are evidently not in the majority. what it does is exacerbate frustration rather than alleviate it. it doesn't give you a way out of the kind of stuck feeling american politics is in. i think a lot of what would be required is a sense that the way out is by building coalitions. by saying this is what i need, what do you need? not to people all the way on the others of the issue from you who could go either way. i think that something we can practice in the institutions we are part of. certainly universities could do that. i think it's something we could practice as citizens.

it's surly something we should expect and demand of politicians. specifically what you should demand your professor do, maybe we will talk about later. [laughter] >> [indiscernible] mr. levin: no. i do think there is an important, and this has been a critical issue in the university debate, universities are one of those places where it's possible to encounter voices that are not yours and views that are not yours. and to the extent universities come to believe their purpose is to shut down those voices, to narrow the range of debate in american life, which too many universities seem to believe is their role, they are undermining american citizens. i do think on that front, when it comes to facilitating a broader range of views that students can be better educating, better informed, that are able to participate --

better able to participate, is essential. that's a way american universities have failed dramatically in the 21st century. it's a failure they need to recognize. i think that's been happening increasingly. obviously there is more work to do. it's not easy work or safe work and it's easy for me to talk about it not being a professor. it's hard to do when your livelihood is at stake into the place where you live becomes a hostile place to be. >> my colleague asks, went to the constitution -- do best when we disagreed and what was second-best? mr. levin: find question. there are couple of ways to think about that question.

i think the constitution tended to work best for us when there has been for an extended duration a clear majority coalition in the american two-party system. our system is strange. it is generally just to parties for reasons that run deep into the structure of it and broadly speaking, when in that kind of system you have a broad, durable majority, that majority is engaged in sustaining a complicated coalition. when you're in the minority for a long time, all you can think about is how to broaden your coalition. both of those parties are engaged in coalition building. after a time, at least so far in our history, there has been a kind of change election, realigning election that has allowed the minority party to achieve majority status for a time.

generally majority coalitions have lasted for decades. we have now lived in the longest stretch of 50-50 politics in american history into the next longest was much shorter, but 18 years, at the end of the 19th century. it was similar to this one, a lot of contested elections, crises, elections were the popular and electoral vote were different. there is a kind of underlying structural challenge which is related to the constitutional problem. the parties today are not doing a good enough job of broadening their coalition. they are not thinking about how they could do it. there is an implicit assumption you cannot get more than 50% plus one voter in america now and that is not true. you can see that in some states whereby running a good candidate you can have a republican governor in eight years in virginia. it's possible.

something like what could happen at the national level if we thought about different about the purposes of the parties. they are stuck in a post-cold war moment and we are having a lot of trouble thinking about basic issues that are now most important to the american people. neither of them have any idea of what america's role in the world should be or anything approaching economic policy. they have to think about what to offer the public. i think in moments like that, we have tended to see the possibility of reaching across and building complicated coalitions between a durable majority and durable minority. we think of these civil rights era as having been achieved by the presidents and courts of those years but the achievement of those -- that your bank was legislative. the enduring things were the civil rights acts, achieved by long, arduous bargaining processes. there were very hard negotiating processes.

at a time when there was a majority party in prague -- in congress. i think these problems of the breakdown of the party system and the incapacity of our coalition building are related and in looking for better times, it makes sense since -- makes sense to look for something a little better. things do get done, it's not true that nothing passes congress now but there are large issues that have been left on the table because our 50-50 moment is not able to deal with them and everybody knows they are just sitting there and no one can do anything about it. thank you. [applause] >> i want to say thank you. most important we are proud of who you are and what you do and we want to say thanks for spending time with us to talk about this. thanks, everybody, we will see you at the next pti event.

good night.

that don't engage with the democratic party so they are up for grabs. >> part --. >> president donald j. trump. ♪

>> [crowd chanting "usa, usa, usa"] >> thank you. it is great to be back. in this beautiful state with thousands of crowds, hard-working american patriots. that is what you are. [applause]

. before going further i want to let everybody who is still recovering from the hurricanes that hit florida, georgia, north carolina, south carolina, alabama, tennessee, virginia to know that we are thinking of them and praying for them. god bless them. god bless them. we have a lot of great people today. we have a lot to talk about. what is happening with our country? what are they doing? what are they doing to colorado? they are ruining your state. they are ruining your state. let's do this. let's very quickly mention some of the great people and patriots and then we will get back to the business of discussing what we will do. do you know what he will do? you will vote for trump and we will solve your problem in 15

minutes. we are pleased to be joined this afternoon by congresswoman lauren boebert. good job. also greg lopez. thank you, greg. and a woman that beat this chinese by the largest margin in the history of -- that beat -- and a woman that beat liz cheney by the largest margin in the history of congress, got out of that whack job. harriet hagerman. what a job. the single biggest victory in history defeating a person in congress. and she was bad news. thank you, harriet, you are fantastic. and we have congressional candidates that are very terrific people. they have my endorsement. gabe evans and a candidate for

congress and former eyes field -- ice field office director that did a great job for me. he did a great job. wyoming secretary of state, chuck gray. chuck gray, thank. great job. the sheriff of douglas county darren wigley. aurora city councilwoman danielle stravinsky. and, stephanie hancock. the founder of the president of the article three object, we

want him in a high-capacity. mike davis. thank you, mike. he is a man i met backstage. i realized i would never be a big football player. denver broncos erica wolff. there he is. you are one big guy. but you had a great career. 10 years in the nfl with your team. he was a winner. we have a great political person and congressman from texas wesley hunt.

and a woman who is unbelievable. it was a surprise endorsement. she believed in what we were saying. when i came down the escalator and made my statements, everybody said, how terrible were those statements. turned out they were minor. little minor statements by comparison. she got it better than everybody and endorsed us very early when it was not the same to do. from alaska, the great sarah palin. thank you, sarah. with the help of everybody here today, 25 days from now, think of it. 25 days. we are going to defeat kamala

harris. who has no clue what is going on, i have to say. did you see she did a town hall yesterday and used a teleprompter. you don't use teleprompters. we don't use teleprompters, period. no, she is not the right person for this country or any country. very simply we will make america great again. i have been waiting for this day. i have been reading about it, like many people around the world. i wanted to get here as soon as i could. i picked a good time and a good

day. we could sell this place out four times. you see what's outside. nbc, of all networks, said a little while ago, they announced it is the single longest line for anything they have ever seen. that's right. [applause] but, i've been waiting for this day and it is here finally in aurora, colorado to call the attention of the world. unfortunately, the world already has its attention to one of the most egregious betrayals any leader in any nation has ever inflicted on its own people. what they have done to our

country. what we are -- they are doing to our country. they are destroying and ruining our country. we are being led by stupid people. we can't take it anymore. for the past four years. as the so-called border czar, kamala harris -- and you can't use the name harris. if you say here is nobody knows who you are talking about. harris. nice name. so we use the name kamala. she came in last and now she is running. i was not a fan of sleepy joe but he got 14 million votes and she got none.

she never made it to the great state of iowa. out of 22 people she quit. she had nothing going. when she came in she was ok, pretty good. then they heard her talking. they watched her brain in action. when they saw the brain in action they said here she is again. she has imported an army of illegal gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the third world. think of that. they come from the dungeons of the third world. prisons, jails, insane asylums, mental institutions. she has had them resettled beautifully into your community to prey upon innocent american citizens. that is what they are doing. and in no place is it more evident than right here. in aurora, multiple apartment complexes has been taken over by

the savage venezuela prison gang . law enforcement know them all over the world. they are a savage gang, one of the worst in the world getting bigger all the time because of our stupidity. they are known as gda. they have killed seven people. last month, six men with rifles and many men standing right outside waiting for them in handcuffs were caught on camera as they were forced into a situation. they weren't forced. they got their way into an apartment building. they threatened the tenants at gunpoint. these are people that have never saw anything like this. these are people that have never experienced criminals and crime.

they burst into the building and held tenants at gunpoint and at knife point. 10 minutes later they opened fire on a 25 year old man outside the building, fatally shooting him. of the barbaric thugs that have been identified, at least three are illegal aliens that were in border patrol custody. they were in custody. four years ago we had the safest border in the history of our country. put up my all-time favorite graph. get that put up. [applause] it's the most beautiful graph i have ever seen. it is the most beautiful piece of paper i have ever seen.

i take it home every night and i sleep with it and i kiss it. o, i kiss it. because without that sucker i would not be here now. when you think about it, illegal immigration saved my life. i'm the only one. usually it is the opposite. thank you very much. you see the arrow at the bottom. that is when i left. that's the day i left office. you have the lowest number of people coming into our country in the history of -- the recorded history of our country. then look what happened. like a rocketship. they were rough, the ones that came in. we were very careful. remain in mexico, checked everybody out at people came in, but then they got rough. then they said let's do open borders. let's let the whole world in. as soon as they did that jails

were emptied. mental institutions were emptied. i would have done the same thing if i were in charge of many of the countries we are talking about. three of the thugs were in border patrol custody, but were released into the united states by kamala . they were released. they killed people. a lot of people. they were released. my message today is very simple. no person who has inflicted the violence and terror that kamala harris has inflicted on this community can ever be allowed to become the president of the united states. we want to let it happen. -- we won't let it happen. and you're weak and ineffective governor -- a totally ineffective guy, by the way, i hope you know that. his name is jared polis.

i got to know him. [crowd booing] i got to know him in the white house. he would come in with other governors, some democrats. i saw the mall and worked with all of them. i know the good ones and the bad ones. he is not a good one this one. he would come in, sir, so nice to meet you, sir. such an honor. this is the oval office, thank you sir, thank you sir. then he comes back here and says i did not like the guy. can you believe it? i gave you -- not him -- everything they wanted. because, i love the state. this state has to flip republican. it has to. [applause] let's do it. that is why i am here. let's do it. i am not here for my health.

that is why i am here. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: let's do it. that is why i'm here. let's do it. i'm not here for my health. that is why i'm here. think of where i could be. i could be with my beautiful wife all over the world the best properties. i have the best properties but i'm in aurora. but polis is a coward, a fraud. pathetically trying to deny -- they don't want to see. them to stay and they will get

indicted so he is afraid. they are all cowards. this guy doesn't see what you see. he doesn't see people bursting into buildings with ak47's, military style weapons, sometimes better than our own military. there are illegal migrants that come from poor areas where the hell do they get these guns? who gives them better guns than our military has? but she is committed crimes against the state by allowing these criminals in and many of these people are murderers. let's take a look at a couple of quick notes that i put up. we are giving you the expensive treatment because we want to win it state so badly.

so we have a couple videos. >> it feels a mistake to loosen the immigration policies. do you regret terminating it? >> the entire world is showing up at or doorstep crossing illegally and expected to get relief in the united states. >> a group of men walking up a stairwell appear to be carrying rifles and gather arnold a door -- around a door and go in. another video shows men forcing a radar open breaking into a restaurant apartment to move a venezuelan in to collect rent. this is the businessman and he doesn't like it and they will fill him with bullets.

they are a gang that has victimized thousands through extortion, drug and murder. a former venezuelan police officer said he fled his country in large part because the gang was so powerful they could kill law enforcement like him with impunity. he refused to create with the gang and he was shot 50 advertisements. now -- times. now they have made their way into the country. members have been tied to hundreds of crimes while assaulting officers and a murder in miami while shooting two cops in june. >> we are hear from the mother of a 12-year-old assaulted and killed in joon -- june by illegal immigrants. they have the green light to kill police officers in denver.

we went out to some of chicago's most violent neighborhoods who say us that it showed up when the city opened migrant shelters and the venezuelaens have moved in. they are helping the migrants but no one is helping the american citizens. >> they said they couldn't do anything unless something happened. it is not isolated. i call 911 and no help comes for me. we were left on our own to die. [cheers and applause] >> open borders deadly consequence, record high crossings are putting a strain on cities across america. it is a full blown invasion storming an apartment complex in araur row -- aurora, colorado.

they created a program to bring them in. we won't treat people who are undocumented across the borders. >> more than 13,000 illegal immigrants convicted of murder have been released into the united states. >> my daughter's murderer were apprehended by border patrol leased into the united states. you think of starting from scratch. >> an afghan was in custody after entering the u.s. on a special immigrant visa. more than a dozen expected of being gang members in san antonio. >> details in the murder of him riley because of this is a venezuelan national. >> i was paroled and released into the country by the biden

administration. >> they are charged with capital murder. >> court documents suggest a group of men beating and robbing a dallas woman are part of a venezuelan gang. >> manuel hernandez was released the day before the robbery. mr. trump: four years ago, it would be unthinkable that you would be watching something like that. think of it, we had the safest border in the history of our country. joe could have gone to the beach, at least he looks good in a bathing suit and leave the guys we had. they were great people and we ran in tough, remain in mexico.

we want people to come into our country but they have to come legally. we don't want them. now america is known all throughout the world as occupied america. they call it occupied. we are being occupied by a criminal force and we are in criminal state that refuses to let or professionals do the -- let our job they want to do the job so badly but they are constantly. you will lose your pension. what is this ideology? it is so sick but everybody here in colorado and across the nation i make this pledge and vow to you, november 5, 2024, will be liberation day in america. [cheers and applause]

[chants of u.s.a.] mr. trump: thank you. [chants of u.s.a.] mr. trump: i will rescue aurora on every town invaded and conquered. these towns have been conquered. explain that to your governor. he hasn't got a clue. they have been conquered. we will put these vicious and blood thirsty criminals in jail or check them out of our country and we will be very, very effective in doing it. it is going to happen very fast. we are going to get them the hell out of our country. and if you are a weak and ineffective governor jared pole us if he was doing less job he would be getting them the hell

out of colorado now. he called me sir, would have done whatever the hell i wanted. yet it was polis who had me took off the ballot because i was leading in the polls against all the democrats. then the supreme court, very brave and brilliant, actually voted 9-0 that i should be on the ballot. unanimous. they said we have to get him off the ballot. not only the weaponization, but

this was part of the weaponization. their first move is to try to get me off the ballot. they didn't want to run against me. they liked the other people much better. we ran and won in 2016. we did much better by millions of votes in 2020 but we won't discuss that. and i will tell you, you see it outside, let's take a look outside. we are today there's more enthusiasm for this movement, maga, called make america great again. [cheers and applause] there's more enthusiasm than ever before. but there was great indignation in colorado by what this ineffective person did. they were angry at him and especially you know who was the

most indignant, the democrats. that is the real threat, so i hope that colorado -- i love this, i have a lot of friends here and they tell me the whole thing is turning where you can't live like this with these people. these are stone cold killers. you could be walking down the street with your husband and you will be dead and they won't remember they did it the following morning. so i hope colorado will show a tremendous protest vote for what they did to try to keep me off the ballot and, more importantly, what they have done to the fabric of your culture. and remember i really believe colorado -- you know, we are very close. in one poll we are leading by a

little bit. think of it, though, the democrats are good people. the democrats were angrier than anybody. they thought it was terrible, the concept of it? and even when you get the three very liberal votes in the supreme court when at the vote for trump you know it has to be off the wall but i respect them for doing it. but colorado is going to vote for me because i'm going to make colorado safe again. we are going to do it fast. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: in three local apartment complexes kamala has invested with the pitcher -- prison gang 80% of the residents

are now living with their relatives in different states and other places. they have been forced out of their buildings. 20% stayed and they are fearing for their lives. they had no choice but to stay. they are being threatened every day. they will be out soon. they don't have to be out. if they can hold out, january 20 -- it is too long. but january 20 those guys are going to be out on their [beep] and out of this country. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: members of the gang now beat down doors with hammers and engage in open gun battles in rival groups in t there once people pretty crime-free. the alleged leader behind the invasion of aurora was arrested

for beating a man beyond recognition, breaking his nose and joe and inflicting traumatic brain injury. he will never be the same. the thug was later arrested for shooting two men in the same apartment building and breaking another man's ankle, which he did just for fun. once again this animal had arrived at our border and was released into the united states by camp their harris the worst border czar in the history of our country. here in aurora -- and remember that chart, my all time favorite chart. looked what happened, that arrow, all time low in history, and then look to the right what happened literally the day they took over it became a scene that

nobody thought feels possible. did anybody think five or six years ago anybody would be up here talking about a venezuelan gang with the most sophisticated rifles, weapons and guns anybody has ever seen would be taking over your state? and they are not stopping. this guy gets in -- you have to get a new governor by the way. but if gets in again, runs next year, but more importantly, i can't believe she gets in. did you see "60 minutes," her answer was so incompetent that cbs and "60 minutes," a precision show -- but i knew they were crooked as hell for years. to me they used to cut my

segment. to her you added. you want the guy to get cut i made such agreement statements i said why do you cut that? we felt we had to for time. for them they added so they took her entire statement out and some words -- she doesn't know what she is talking about. there is something wrong with her. they took these words -- think of this. and you know they got caught. i think it is the greatest scandal in broadcast history. they took it out and added something else in. did they do that for trump? her statement feels so bad that rather than airing it they took out the whole thing and added a much shorter statement that she paid 10 minutes later having nothing to do with the question. i don't think anything like that has ever happened and now we find out it happened throughout.

now we are thinking it probably happened with biden because he was interviewed by "60 minutes" and some strange things handled. so, cbs gets a license and the license is based on honesty. i think they have to take their license away, i do. here in aurora 35-year-old mother of three will to leave her apartment out of fear for her children's lives. she said quote it is not save there especially if you have kids. my kids used to walk to school. they were so happy, we were so safe but they don't feel safe any more and i would never let them walk to school. sometimes i keep my kids home. when i announced my presidency in 2015, you will remember that time. they said he is doing it for

fun. you think this has been fun? i have been investigated more than al capone. car -- "scarface." i try to think of evil people but i was investigated more. he goes hillary clinton. how about hunter? i think about capone because there's a toughness, meanness, "scarface" and all. and i have been investigated more than alphonse capone but i said they are not sending the best and i took such heat. this is america. what i said was like peanuts compared to the fact i said they are sending people with lots of problems -- which they

definitely do. they are bringing problems and crime and they are rapists. i made that statement and i got the hell knocked out of me by the fake news. but i took a lot of heat sore saying it -- for saying it but i was right and now everybody is and hitting i was -- admitting i was right. those statements are peanuts comparing to what is happening to our country. these are the worst criminals in the world. kamala used to say the people are very nice people, they don't commit crime. or criminals are the worst. our criminals are like babies compared to these people. they are the most violent people on earth and they come just from south america, they come from

the congo, africa, all over the world. they come from the middle east, from asia, they come from prisons and jails and she was saying these are very nice people. either she's really dumb or she's very naive. something is wrong up there. the only good thing about it -- there's a couple good things. there's only one good thing, but maybe two. one of the good things about it is they make our criminals look like nice people. so our criminals are now we see these horrible criminals and we say they are not so bad. the other thing is that they are really great if you happen to be running against the politician that allowed this to happen because i don't know how it is possible for anybody to lose because we have to clean out our country and make america great

again and we are going to do it. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: so, you know the story here. we are joined by another aurora rent -- resident cindy romero. she published her camera of what she had to do flee her home after a car was hit with gunfire, another day in aurora. can you imagine a lot of these people in aurora. most of you live in colorado. can you imagine you have somebody up here talking about this. she said life in her community had become quote a total nightmare and every time she went to take out the trash or went to bed she had to lock the door with four separate locks

and put braces on the door. she was preventing people that were knocking on her door that were wanting to do a lot of bad things. she's been very brave. she was able to release footage that was so violent. cindy, i wouldn't have done it but you are probably braver than i am. come up for a minute, please, cindy. come on up. [cheers and applause] >> thank you. this isn't just affecting me. this is affecting all of you as well. we have to get trump back into office. we got to get it done.

with trump's help we can take this state back over. we can make a difference. thank you guys so much for all of your support, thank you. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: you are very brave. thank you. she is very brave. getting all of the evidence and that footage, i just said you are very brave, cindy. thank you very much. you are a big help. because of cindy and others like her the radical left can't say it never happened because there we have it. i promise you this, cindy, kamala harris's reign of terror ends the day i take the oath of office. your community will no longer

live in fear. you will once again have a protector in the white house. i'm going to be a protector. i think we are doing very well with women, doing great in the polls, winning in all the polls just about. but somebody said people love my policy but they don't like me. i think they do like me. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: so, they said -- i said a week ago, i said i think women like me because i will be your protector and i protected you for four years. we had no wars, we had no terrorism, we had none of these things that you are seeing today at levels nobody in the world is experiencing. and i said i will be your

protector. they said who the hell is he to -- but the women didn't say that. they don't want people pouring into their house. you know where else i protect you? where i protect you very well. i knocked out isis. they have been playing with isis 20 years. we have the greatest military in the world but you have to know how to use them. but i protect you against outside enemies. but i always say we have the outside enemies so you can say chain, russia, kill jung un but if you have a smart president no problem. it is the enemy from within all the scum that hate our country. that is a bigger enemy than china or russia.

if i was president ukraine would not happen and october 7 wouldn't happen. every day americans are living in fear because camilla harris decided to empty the slum and printer cells of contact -- caracas and many other areas. crime all the world is down because they took the world's criminals, gang members, drug dealers and deposit them into the united states bus after bus after bus. [booing] mr. trump: in venezuela their crime rate went down 72% because the took the criminals out of

caracas and put them along our border and said if you ever come back we are going to kill you. and we have to live with these animals. but we are not going to live with them long, you watch. kamala's policy is to release and resettle all illegals without checking. she is a radical left person so you know. there's no way -- the biggest problem isphobe knew who she was. who is running, harris. who the person running. the one that was the first one out in the 22-person campaign for the democratic nomination. she is more liberal 19crazy --

than bernie sanders. she is more liberal than pocahontas. she said she is indian because my cheek bones are high and therefore i'm an indian. she made a living going to say she was an indian. going to college, becoming a professor but i hit her hard and that was the end of her presidential campaign guaranteeing unfetterred abscess for venezuelan gangs and thugs. we are talking a lot about venezuela because aurora is affected by venezuela but they are coming from all countries. we have the great tom homan told me the other day last month they came from 168 countries all over the world. most people -- we have actually more than 200 but they came from 168 countries, most of them criminals.

and they deposit them in our country and we are supposed to take it. then the liberal philosophy we will make them into wonderful people. you are not going to make them into wonderful people. many people murdered more than three people. the murderers that came in, some were on death row and they said it is better if we let them go to america. this is what we have. and in your community but they will be all over, and other communities in other states because every state is a border state now. it is not texas and arizona. every state is a border state. and people are living in deathly fear. most of them, a lot of them already been hit but a lot of them haven't but they are going to be hit because there are millions and they are all over the place and they are walking through our country and they will be settled in a lot of states that never thought this

could happen. it will only get worse but we are going to make it better and make it better really fast. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: kamala is flying them -- think of this -- she said about two months ago her and sleepy joe said we are really getting killed by this issue so let's toughen up the border. all he had to do -- he talks about policy amount trump told congress not to do this and that is false. all he had to do is call up border patrol, this is the president of the united states speaking, close the border, and the border is closed. you don't need a bill. you don't need a bill? but he doesn't want to do that. because they actually want to have open borders. so they had 21 million people -- i think were more than that.

think of this. if you had four years of that you would have 200 million people come in, the country would be over and finished. you wouldn't have a country. you would have a crime den. she cannot be allowed do this. she shouldn't be the one chosen because by the way she chose her she is a threat to democracy. she really is. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: just in case you didn't know it, biden hates her. i believe there's a small possibility -- very small, like 1% -- there's a 1% possibility that he hates her more than donald trump. i think he hates her. the last thing he thought -- he won the primary in all fairness. it was me against him. i have to run against the guy, i

spent $150 million and debated the guy. he went way down. and i thought it was over, then they put in a new person and we don't know anything about her. but now the people are learning and she is crashing like a rock. uh-oh, i just thought, just a thought. i'm a very brilliant mind. they might want to put a third person in there. oh, no. please be nice to kamala to my people. everybody on the trump team be nice to kamala because they are going to put in a third person. who will they put in next? they keep saying hillary. hillary is back. you know, it is interesting. if touch talks about the 2020

election they say indict him. he is a conspiracy theorist but hillary is still talking about 2016. she has serious trump derangement syndrome. she's got a massive case of trump derangement. have you ever noticed she talks about it but we anybody from the right talks a little bit no, no, we are not forgetting. hillary is talking about it. two days ago -- isn't it nice because i haven't looked at these stupid things in about 15 minutes -- isn't it nice to have a president that doesn't need a teleprompter. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: look at that! would some of you like to go outside and let them take your

place for a while? i taught that won't happen. -- i thought that would happen. she is flying them in with migrant flights. so they tightened up a bit but it doesn't count, the migrant flights don't count. so she forgot to tell anybody that they have massive boeing aircraft flying them in one after another over border. she didn't close it. then they have the apps where they have an app so that the gangs, the people, the cartels, the heads of them, they can call the app, they call the second most resettlemented population, they calm the app and ask where do we drop the illegals and people are on the other side. she created an app, a phone system where they can call up --

she is a criminal, she is a criminal. she really is. you think about it. so, now we inform them that you didn't close the border because you have hundreds of thousands of people being flown in over the top of the border. no, no. if they ever did get this -- and i don't believe it will happen because the american people ultimately get it right but you would have hundreds of millions of people come in and they will attack your house. -- they will take your house. that woman has a beautiful house. enjoy it because you won't have it long like venezuela. venezuela was a very successful country 20 years ago, rich beautiful country. it was taken over. i used to talk about this. i said if you don't get it right you will have venezuela on steroids. that is what you will have if you don't vote for trump. but if you vote for trump you

are going to have one hell of a country. we are going to build it back. venezuela illegals are the number two most resettled population but they do it through the phone app. and on day one of the trump administration, if you look at spaoeldz, ohio shall shall -- springfield, ohio. 50,000 people, no crime. everything nice, schools, everything nice. they dropped in 32,000 -- they took them in through probation so i assume they assumed they are like prisoners and therefore they are little. they brought in 32,000 people into a community of 50,000 and now if you want to go to the

hospital you can't get in. your children can't get into school. the mayor is a nice man. he is trying to be nice. he is looking for interpeters because they don't speak the language of you and you and everybody in this room. so they look for interpreters and he is acting like we are having a hard time hiring interpreters. this community was hit with 32,to you -- 32,000 illegal might go grants. they have to go back to where at the came from. springfield, ohio. i want to get back to the trump

administration, the great thing about this four-year period they have done so badly we will be able to do it in cheers because people say how bad it is and has been run. that is why there's far more movement nor this movement -- for this movement. and if it wasn't fake news would be headlines. when biden got up we are going to do something with magazine georgia, remember the pink wool he looked like the devil i think it is called maga. we are going to stop maga. i said joe, it is called make america great again. and he wants to stop it. we are going to stop that. but the border will be sealed. the invasion will be stopped. the migrant flights will end and

kamala's illegals will be shut down immediately within 24 hours. all within 24 hours. i have always had an ability to do a lot of things so i will do something else. we will make the border strong quickly and get people out that are criminals and horrible people. but we are going to do something else. drill, baby, drill. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: on that same day we will begin the task of deporting every gang member. this will be a major national undertaking. according to newly published data from ice, the great patriots of ice they are tough as hell.

they should be fighting for dana white, ufc. they go in, ms13, they are tough as hell. they have taken them out by the thousands. she wants to ends ice. but -- to end ice. they informed us 13,099 illegal aliens convicted of murder are at large and dropped into the united states against their wishes, against our border patrol's wishes. they are like please don't do this. even as "new york times," which is totally corrupt -- i can't stand that paper. i can't stand them. you know what you do with the times, you read a story and you think of the opposite. "new york times" is the enemy of the people, washington, d.c. is the enemy of the people, too.

then they lose credibility and eventually go out of business. i call it the failing "new york times." but even as they recently recorded the venezuelan apprentice gang has sneaked into the united states among the millions of migrants and pedaling drugs, guns and women all across the united states from new york and florida to chicago beaches to the once transmittal middle america. -- tranquil middle america. were once tranquil. in colorado the gang even got a green light to shoot police officers. did you know they got the oklahoma to kill your -- the ok to kill your police? that is "new york times," that is not me saying that. they got the green light to kill your police. just days ago i was in a small town in wisconsin. we are leading in wisconsin by 4

1/2 points, too. they have a similar problem. almost all states have this. just so we set it straight aurora has a lot of publicity but you have states with a bigger problem than aurora. a lot of people that run states don't want to solve it but they are not tough enough. you need very tough people like ice, like military. you need very tough people to solve it. you will have a shiver with one or -- a sheriff with one or two men and 25 migrants with weapons they have not seen. you need help but they don't want to talk about it because the public relations is so bad for the little city or the big city. look at chicago, los angeles. in wisconsin last month an illegal alien member was holding

a mother and give and sexual ly assaulting them again and again and used it in june 12-year-olds jocelyn was tied up, assaulted two hours under the bridge before she was murdered by two venezuelan t.d.a.'s, these gang members that kamala harris let them in just come in. and in new york city another gang member shot two new york city police officers hitting one in the chest and other in the leg. they were really, really badly hurt, probably going to make it. and just last week people arrested over a dozen members of it. d.a. who had -- of it. d.a. who had taken over a complex in san antonio. they take over a lot of real estate but do it by gunpoint.

i had to borrow money. they terrorized them. san antonio police very aptly named their law enforcement effort operation aurora because aurora is the one who first got all the publicity. operation aurora. in honor of jocelyn nangari, lincoln riley. rachel, lauren and all the others that are dead, and/or mortally wounded at the hands of migrants who should have never been allowed in our country. i'm announcing today upon taking office we will have an operation aurora at the federal level.

[cheers and applause] . mr. trump: to expedite the removals of these savage gangs and i will invoke the aliens enemy act of 1798. this was put there in 1798. that is a long time ago, right? to target and dismantle every migrant criminal network operating on american soil. who would have ever thought a future president would have to stand here and say such things. who would think that is even possible to have to do. so many things have changed in the last four years. but that is the state of our country after kamala and joe biden have detroit our country. -- destroyed our country. we are a failing country and

failing. we will send elites federal officers to hunt down, arrest and deport every last illegal gang member until there's not a system one left in this country. and if they come back into our country, they will be told it is an automatic 10-year sentence in jail with no possibility of protocol. and i'm hereby calling for the death penalty for any migrant a that kills an american citizen or a law enforcement officer. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: with your vote we will achieve complete and total victory over these sadistic

monsters. it is going to go quickly. our local people are great. i know them so well. they know everything about every one of them. they know everyone. they know their middle names, serial numbers and where they love and they want to do their job. you have no idea how many police officers say we are going to indemnify them against any prosecutions because they get prosecuted if they do their work. it will pass so fast. if they do their job they get prosecuted by their own people. they get sued by the people who won't take care of the criminals. thing of a.g.'s, they won't go after the criminal but they will go after our police officers if they do the job. we will take back our suburbs and cities and towns and we will take back or country and we will -- take back our country and do

it very quickly. remember, i remember when joe -- he didn't want to do it. he was too tired. i like to do it myself and how good is j.d. vance? is he great? [cheers and applause] mr. trump: i know j.d. he will be saying sir i want to do it, sir. and if he did it, it would be done right. but i say j.d. i want to do it, we will have an arpbgt over who is -- argument over who is going to do it but he was great exposing the total moron, man, can you imagine how about in a debate a guy calls himself a knucklehead. he says he is a knucklehead and he is when you get down to it. what a team that is. so, joe biden is considered the worst president in the history

of our country. they are considered the worst administration in the history of our country. and the only one that is happy is jimmy carter because by comparison he looked like a brilliant president, ok? much better. he was much better. what kamala harris has done it our border is a crime and atrocity of the highest orders. but even after all the pain and suffering she's caused when she was asked this week if she would do anything different than biden, she choked like a dog. she said not one thing i would -- so she would not have done anything different. let's look at this video. >> we could have have done something differently tan president biden in the -- than president biden. there's nothing that comes to phaoeupbltd. >> i watched you on the tarmac

watching you check your watch. the evacuation from averages cost the lives of 13 u.s. soldiers. >> would you have done something differently? >> there's not a thing that comes to mind. >> more than 15,000 migrants convicted of murder released in the united states. an afghan is in custody after plotting a terror attack. we have the details of lincoln riley. it is murder and it is a venezuelan national who crossed the unsecured southern border. some are in the country charged with capital murder. a fifth illegal immigrant accused of attacking two new york city police officers. >> is there something you would do different? >> there's not a thing.

>> only 18% said the economy is in great shape. inflation has increased by 9.1%. the cost of homes -- home buyers need to earn 80% more than they did in 2020. >> were you the last person in the room? >> yes. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: i watch that and i say well this is going to be a long answer because she changed 15 policies. she was in favor of gun confiscation, everything you don't want. and she changed. if you change one thing you are in trouble. she did every single thing. but everything she changed she would do including banning fracking, which is going to drive up costs and hence i'm leading pennsylvania by a lot.

that would be the end of pennsylvania. but i can't think of a thing from joe biden, the worst president ever. i thought this would be a long answer. i thought you would do a weave like trump does and come back like you have to have a great memory for that. she doesn't have that. but what she said is disqualifying. if she had think honor she would drop out of the race and resign the vice presidency in disgrace because what she's done to the country is unthinkable. it was just announced yesterday inflation was substantially higher than expected last month double with was predicted with much of the with food prices going up, rent and house going up and car prices through the roof. when i left office we had no inflation, virtually -- we had no inflation, virtually for my

whole term. we had the greatest economy in the history of our country. we never had an economy like that. and we were energy independent. how does that sound? we were energy independent. now we are buying our oil from venezuela and other countries. under biden and harris we have the worst inflation in history costing the typical family $29,000 in higher prices. but i think to me the worst thing of all when she says she wouldn't have changed, this is something that if it was me -- i mean you never would see me again. i really believe it. kamala lose 325,000 migrant children who are dead or in slavery. she's missing 325,000 children.

their parents are looking. they are never going to see their parents. they were taken in and they are either dead, in slavery or just plain missing. it is a horrible thing. i thought i would put this out because it is a beautiful day, we have some wonderful people and i want you to take a look at military the way it was when we won two worlds wars an we had fort bragg. you win two wars out of fort bragg and they want to change the name. but where at the change the name, they change it out of places we won a lot of military battles, wars. i taught you should see -- i thought you should say the way it was. you will get a pretty heavy dose of this. i saw this the other day and said we have to put it up. go ahead, please. >> i got your name.