this evening. will the prime minister agree with me it is important we continue to have a debate on black history month? >> i am not sure at the moment going to something labeled temptations is -- [laughter] but this is a really important initiative. it is important date to mark. i am pleased to be hosting the event this evening. >> that completes prime minister's questions.

talk a little bit -- i want to play a little bit of it and then get your response. [video] >> good morning. welcome everyone.

we'll go ahead and get started here. my name is tony mills, i am the senior fellow here at the american enterprise institute and director of our center for technology, science and energy. thank you for joining us in person and those of you joining us online for supporting this timely conversation about federal research and development in the age of global competition. after many years of enjoying great economic success brought in part large -- the united states now faces serious challenges abroad. changing dynamics in the international marketplace as well as deliberate actions by some governments to restrain free trade has combined to diminish the competitiveness of many american goods and services. this challenge to america's competitive standing in the international economy has stimulated a reevaluation of u.s. policies on several fronts. it has prompted a reevaluation

of basic questions concerning the role of the public sector itself and fostering economic growth, 10 illogical advance and regional development -- technological advance and regional development. in the preface to a 1986 volume on industrial policy, published by api press and edited by my colleague who will be joining us on stage this afternoon, history does not repeat of course, but it does rhyme. today we find ourselves at a similar inflection point with fierce global competition and shifting political alignments prompting deep questions about the role of the state in science, innovation and industry. questions that call for careful analysis and thoughtful reflection. perhaps no one today is better positioned to help us think through these questions than dr. arati prabhakar. it is my pleasure and honor to welcome her here this morning.

dr. prabhakar is there director --in this capacity, she is the president's chief adviser for science and technology, a member of the cabinet and cochair of the president council of advisors on science and technology. applied physicist by training, dr. prabhakar has led two different federal r&d agencies prior to taking the lead at ost p, darpa as well as the national institute of standards and technologies. she has also worked at government labs and nonprofits across a wide variety of sectors including a stint in silicon valley. welcome dr. prabhakar, and thank you for being here. joining dr. prabhakar onstage is my colleague, chris miller, associate professor at the

fletcher school at tufts university where his research focuses on technology, geopolitics, economics, international fails and -- international affairs and russia. -- which was awarded the 2022 financial times business book of the year award as well as the council on foreign relations author award. before handing it over to chris, i want to invite everyone here to stick around for the -- stick around after the conversation for a terrific panel that will provide further context and analysis on the role of federal r&d in today's changing landscape. thank you again for joining us. i will turn it over to you chris. prof. miller: thank you tony and arati for joining us. there are a whole lot of topics i would like to cover, but perhaps to start, can you help us understand how you arrived in your current position? tony laid out all the different

roles you have played in different parts of the r&d ecosystem. can you layout your career steps that lead you to the office of science and technology policy? dr. prabhakar: it is great to be with you and thank you for the warm welcome. i appreciate, this is such an important topic. my story in washington started 40 years ago this fall. i came on a congressional fellowship, i had just gotten a phd in applied physics on semiconductors. i came because i wanted to work on things that had more impact than i thought i could just borrowing in on one topic in a lab and i had a chance to go to darpa as a program manager and now i am at a point where i have have public service, private sector, most of that venture

capital, and what i saw in that 40 year journey was the fact that this country does enormous things. think about the mrna vaccines, huge things get done and those things get done because the public and private sector each plays their part and that was the perspective i had when a couple of summers ago, the white house called and asked if i would come to this role in the ostp. i was delighted because it was one of those areas where you can actually work on the entire system and understand how those linkages reinforce each other. we are at a time we had so many huge things that we want to do as a country, i think it is absolutely a time when this

phenomenal innovation capacity we have has to be brought to bear. prof. miller: fantastic. you've been watching and playing a role in key aspects. what has changed? how is it different today? dr. prabhakar: that quote from 1986, about 40 years, we've been admiring some of the hard problems that we have, in the flourishing of the american economy. i'm telling you, i am so proud of what this president and vice president have gotten done because on multiple fronts now, we are finally taking the kind of action that is going to change the trajectory, and a lot of it is about taking huge advances in science and technology and turning them into the impact that changes american lives. that is true whether the --

whether it is the inflation reduction act, rolling out clean energy to reduce the climate crisis, the first real action anyone anywhere has taken that will change the climate trajectory. it is true on semiconductors. we have talked about the fact that semiconductor technology has globalized and got dangerously concentrated. in this administration we are taking action, and that has taken us from a trajectory where we were going to continue to have 0% of the most leading manufacturing -- i think it is 28% of global manufacturing capacity in the next decade. that is how you start changing what those prospects look like. prof. miller: you noted the

importance of having a clear definition of what the job is in the public sector and what the job is of the private sector. how has that balance changed or has it? dr. prabhakar: we are coming through a period where for many years, we had over simple fight assumptions that globalization solved all problems, the market solves all problems. globalization and market forces, a lot of things happen. many of them were good. they did not solve all of the countries' problems and it led us to a place where we had fragile supply chains, a place where we have a degree of income inequality that is dangerous and hurting our country, driving polarization, a halloween out of many regions of our country. these things matter to our success as a nation but aren't the things that market forces or

globalization magically fixed by themselves. the approach in this administration is to recognize that the answer is to not just sweep all of that away, but rather to partner with industry and do together public and private sectors, but we can't do separately. to stick with the chips example, in summer 2022, congress passed the chips and science act that advocated -- allocated $52 billion toward manufacturing incentives to make sure we brought leading edge manufacturing back to the united states. today, over $400 billion of private capital has stepped up to the table and it is because of this catalytic effect of a public commitment.

that exemplifies how a public investment and a clear message that this country cares about an industry that is foundational to our supply chains and to our military capabilities, once you say that is important we are going to invest as a public entity in that area, i think it has a huge effect on how private capital is allocated. prof. miller: does that represent a shift in our thinking. we are now realizing that manufacturing is really impossible to separate from rnd. dr. prabhakar: it is not just manufacturing but if you think about the purpose of research and development, it is to change the options you have, change the possibilities you have. once he creates those new possibilities, once those

advances become within the realm of the feasible, then you have to implement them. that can be manufacturing. it can be other kinds of businesses, all of which feeds into the economy. it can also be about how you make wiser decisions about regulation, the functioning of government, government services. we need to understand the role is broader than just manufacturing or feeding the economy. ultimately it doesn't matter, if you don't translate it into that impact. just as i think we had an oversimplified model in which the model or globalization was going to solve everything, and we realize we need to refine it, in research we had an oversimplified model that was if we just do the basic research, all the good things will happen. that is not how the world works. with the structural shifts that have happened, the rise of global competition, the internal shifts with corporate r&d

declining, much more entrepreneurship, a much more effective and engaged academic community, those shifts mean we have to pay much more deliberate attention, not just to seeding basic research but making sure it doesn't just sit on a shelf. that is reflected in very tangible ways if we are talking about clean energy, semiconductors, advanced manufacturing. but also the research we are doing today. the national science foundation for example, started the first new directorate in new -- in decades. technology, and ovation and partnerships directorate. one of the goals is to try and catalyze regional economic development, recognizing that we can't simply go on having beautiful university research across the country, but not connecting it, not letting it be harnessed by local economic

opportunities that communities can pull together. prof. miller: i would love to get back to the question of corporate to get back to the question of corporate are indeed may be a transition to a question from scientists or labs. what is the right way to do translation? you have worked at darpa. how should we think about the right kind of models? dr. prabhakar: first of all, it is always hard. people talk about the value of death. they don't work in the real world, so you just have to recognize it is hard. if you are in the rnd business, it is inherent in your world you will come up with things that seem cool but are just breathtaking hard to translate an impact. by the way, the more revolutionary your result is, it will break things for people. actually, some of the biggest

advances are some of the hardest to implement. i think back about stop technology, which is completely obvious that you want your aircraft to be, that idea was spot so fiercely by the air force until it worked and it seemed life, and now they cannot imagine not having it, so i think it really gets to this idea and you have to try for the biggest most disruptive changes and you just have to recognize it changes so many things for those who will use it. that is why it is hard. the places where i think it has actually gotten better in the u.s. you think about universities, a number of decades ago universities were, even engineering departments were much more isolated from the corporate world. they often think they should not get their hands dirty and should remain pure and untouched by

what the market should do. that change today i think is dramatic. by the dole legislation, an important factor here. but today, the ability for universities to provide technology and resorts results to get into industry is much better and the ability to start new businesses is something that is much richer. in my mind, that is something that has gotten better. corporate r&d. many industries that did a lot of corporate r&d have shifted to near-term product development. prof. miller: let's dig into that. because i think you look into the history of r&d, bell labs looms large and for half of a century was producing nobel prizes. why do we not have an equivalent to bell labs today? dr. prabhakar: a monopoly paid for by r&d.

bell labs put me through graduate school. that was before divestiture, right before that era. and i remain grateful for that. but also, you can't not be impressed by the goodness that came out of that. it was nobel prizes, but it was also the transistor. things that really were the beginning of massive changes that happened. i think we also need to recognize the innovation that came after it was broken up was what would happen in the old monopoly. i remember my colleagues at bell labs were all about quality and they could not imagine the world we live in now or we carry around cell phones and a world built on the foundations of the internet. my view is you need a mix. you need organizations that are very, very, very good at further

refining what they do today, and there is innovation to be had there, but you also need organizations that are just completely blowing up the current paradigm and feeding things that could be as dramatic a change as the internet was for communications. prof. miller: i guess i would agree with your argument that corporations today tend to do more d than r. more short-term tweaking products than taking 20 year long bets like bell labs did. there are obviously exceptions to that rule. dr. prabhakar: right. prof. miller: what does that imply about the role of either universities or foundations or government in filling that gap? dr. prabhakar: i think let's take a look at what the innovation system looks like. first of all, i will put it on a global context. we in america still spend more than any other country in the world on research and development. the latest numbers were something like in the vicinity of $800 billion a year.

we recently put 3.5% of gdp, which is the largest percentage we ever spent of our gdp. that was driven by phenomenal growth in industry r&d. that has gone much faster than gdp. you can see the intensification of the innovation economy, the information economy in particular. and that is where some of the interesting new research is coming out of industry, especially in areas like ai today. i think that is part of the good news in america's competitive position. important news in global r&d is china because the people's republic of china in a period in which we doubled r&d spending in the united states, 25 years in which we doubled our spending in real terms, china r&d r&d expanded the group 20 -- china expanded the r&d group 27 fold. now they are only behind us in

total spend. 30% more than all of europe altogether spends on r&d. hard to get your head around how massive that is. very strong continued investment by the government in the public r&d. they recently announced they will increase government spending in r&d 10%. notably including a 13% increase in basic research. this model that china just copies and follows, that is not the whole story at all today. because once you start manufacturing and building your development keep ability, that is what allows you -- capability, that is what allows you to but a robust research-based. so we are very strong but we are no longer alone. that is why r&d has been such a priority for this president. again, big growth in the u.s. has been private sector r&d. federal r&d has bounced around and stayed level.

plus or minus gdp a little bit for a while. it has not kept pace, kept up with the scale at which our economy has grown. and much more importantly, it has not kept pace with the scale of our ambitions because we have big things we need to do on health care and creating opportunities. the president made it an important priority. he was able to get increases in federal r&d that were about 24% in the first couple years of this administration. and of course that ran into the republican budget cap on capitol hill, and that flattened growth. that is a great concern to me because of china's rise, because of how ai is such a disruptive force today. that will require investment to get it right and to use it to do the country's work. but most fundamentally, because american r&d does not thrive

unless we have the federal component to lay this foundation of basic research, to educate the students that are going to feed into all of these industries, to do the basic research that feeds the industry but also the public missions the government is responsible for, fully responsible for national security of course but also critical roles in energy and the energy transition in space in dealing with the environment and agriculture and many other areas. that is the work i think still has to get done. i think it is so powerful and there is so much promise, but we have to get serious again about making sure it keeps up with the scale of the great ambitions we have. prof. miller: the description of the international picture you laid out a striking, especially the role of europe. i have not put that number in context before, but it is quite shocking. i would love to hear how you think about relations with all

allies when it comes to r&d like working with japan or korea or taiwan or our european friends. what is the substance there? dr. prabhakar: i think critical. this president and vice president rebuilt our strong alliances around the world thanks to technology engagements that have been critical to that. that is true that we are addressing a critical sector like semiconductors, where we were clear from the beginning that part of what we wanted to do was to make sure that the critical components we need for supply chains and for the military have a good strong footprint in the united states. but this was never about, you know, rolling up the sidewalks and doing everything here. and all of our allies and partners around the world have been key in the strategy thinking about semiconductors. and i think those have been very good strengthening relationships

there. and then it is equally true on the r&d side. so when i meet with my counterpart at the g7, we spend a lot of time on shared issues of climate and health, on how we approach ai to make sure we wrangle it and manage the risks but sees all of the tremendous benefits. prof. miller: you mentioned -- we can segue to national security. in some ways, i think the key r&d programs, since the end of the cold war, there has been less investment across the board. that might be changing as the international picture darkens in a pretty substantial way. what other types of r&d investment today that are necessary for national security, and are we making them? dr. prabhakar: i will reflect on my time when i was leading darpa . that is always the core question when you are the agency responsible for creating breakthroughs for national security.

i would tell you that i think by definition the likes of what we invested in had to change. and in the time that i was there, we were focused on what does it mean that christian -- that commercial technology is available around the world? we focused on how to harness the next generation of the information revolution, including ai. this was a decade ago. most people in the science and tech world -- ai did not just appear a couple years ago. there has been a lot going on for a long time now. we were always looking for new horizons of research that were going to have huge implications for national security. and i will tell you my favorite story about that. i showed up as director of darpa in 2012. i have been gone for 19 years so i had a little catching up to do. i was getting acquainted with my program managers and one

of them was a geneticist and air force colonel. this is 2012. he said there is going to be another pandemic. all the conditions are ripe. one of the problems is we do not have the ability to create a vaccine fast enough but there is research in mrna for a rapid vaccine response platform. in 2024, that seems obvious. in 2012, that was crazy talk. by people who really knew about vaccines. dan persevered. he told me that first meeting i just met this little startup in boston and they are using mrna approaches but going after cancer, which as a former venture capitalist i would go after cancer too. unfortunately, you can always count on that market. you cannot count on the

infectious disease market. dan said, i think we might be able to persuade them to work on infectious disease. thankfully we did. because it took a lot of people doing miraculous things for us to have mrna vaccines as quickly and effectively as we did. but the reason moderna was able to ship vaccines for clinical trials within a few short weeks of nih identifying the stabilized spike protein that the vaccine needed to produce, the reason that happen so quickly was dan in darpa had that kind of foresight. so i think it is a great example of understanding national security in a broader context that reflects today's realities and secondly it gets right back to what government and industry do together that they cannot do separately. prof. miller: every decade of history, darpa has a story like that. dr. prabhakar: that is actually the job description. a former darpa director told me

that darpa gets all of its resources and support, which both of those are important, and he said all you have to do is do one to two things per decade. prof. miller: i think darpa is one of probably the few institutions around this town that has almost unanimous support in terms of its accompaniment because of its track record. it is a better track record that many venture capital firms have to be sure. dr. prabhakar: yeah. prof. miller: what explains that success? if we could learn the key to that success and replicate it, we would have a lot more successful r&d. dr. prabhakar: first of all, there are enormous successes that happen across the federal r&d enterprise. darpa is in the business of going for high-impact and being able to take high risk in order to reach for high-impact. and that is why when it succeeds, its successes are so dramatic. but i think it is important to

recognize it is both on top of this foundational base of research funded by nsf, nih, and other parts of the defense department and the basic research it supports. because none of these big breakthroughs happen in isolation. i think you have to recognize that, and you have to recognize the partnerships that darpa itself forms, not just with universities, but with companies and throughout the defense enterprise, military focused objectives. but core to given the big caveat that exists under the ecosystem, i really felt when i was leading darpa that i had the great privilege of building on six decades of successful history that bought for me the confidence of all of my bosses literally all the way up to the president. they understood how important darpa was. that its mission required that

they not meddle, to make sure other people did not meddle, but to make sure we had room to run, and put the onus on us to produce results. i have bosses who pushed me to make sure we were reaching far enough but did not micromanage and did not tell us what their prep projects where, and i think it is very hard to find any organization public or private, by the way, that gets that kind of rope. but you have to give people that kind of rope if you want to go big. prof. miller: one of the under other interesting things about darpa's success or failure comes after decades. i think that point to another challenge about assessing r&d in general, how do you know when it is working? dr. prabhakar: yes. it is not a business where you get to tell on a quarterly basis if you are making your numbers, and the word that gets used a lot is metrics. if you are in the r&d business,

everything you can measure mr. going to not tell you much actually -- measure is not going to tell you much actually. number one, you are aiming for huge impact in the future. whatever you are doing r&d, your ultimate impact will be in a future that is too far out for you to manage on a day-to-day basis. and the art of r&d is for going out how to tell whether or not you are on track to that goal or sometimes a different, even better goal that might open up new prospects, and figure out what can you observe in real-time. when you are managing eight darpa program, what you are looking for is, are the teams coming together and working constructively? are they hitting interim milestones? is the research they are generating really vibrant and exciting and interesting or pretty incremental? that is what you scale by. you stop the things that are

not working and very active management and you accelerate others. that is how you work day-to-day. work with the users to persuade them to pick stuff up. famously, they often start off hostile. such a crazy idea. but eventually, they have to go from hostile to at least just skeptical so they will tell you what really has to happen. eventually like in the mrna vaccine case, a really important moment was when we proved enough that nih said we need to partner with moderna to start moving into the real world. that is what those steps look like. again, we are talking about darpa, but president biden started this for health, recognizing that kind of high-impact orientation was something we need to bring to the challenge of health outcomes for americans. and taking those methodologies and adapting them to a very

different set of issues, different science base, different technology issues, very different ways to achieve impact. but i think there are many elements of that model with energy have been successfully adopted, which is great to see. prof. miller: i guess that points to the question of how easily we can scale our r&d structure. you called for spending more. are we convinced it would be useful? dr. prabhakar: i think we are in a deficit right now so we have to do some fixing up. the thing that is really boring to everyone but has to happen, which is making sure we have facilities and infrastructure that work. i go out to the ni t where i was director 30 years ago and i was so proud because it represented the scientific

progress we had. it was under instruction for a long time because they cannot finish the construction because we cannot seem to get construction dollars appropriated to keeping the facilities going. it is also many other places. we have to do so many foundational things. it is time for us to go back. the possibilities that science and technology really bring us. i will use ai as an example because today it is the most powerful technology that is shaping opportunities. this administration has done a lot of work to get ai on the right track. the president and vice president seized the generative ai moment that started about a year and a half ago, a couple years ago, just saying we have to manage its risks so that we can -- excuse me -- so we can harness its benefits.

we have done a lot to get on a better track in terms of managing risks of safety and security and bias and discrimination. and i think there is more to be done there. but i have really been eager to turn our focus now to the second part, which is how are we going to use this to go big? when i talk to my colleagues in the tech industry, they for sure are looking at every possible business opportunity on productivity and enhancing the way we do all kinds of work. as long as they do that responsibly, that will be great for the country. i want to see that happen, but there are things we need to use ai for that are not just for things the market is going to drive. they are for public missions doing the country's work. i think about how we design and approve drugs. i am thinking about how we close educational gaps for our kids, which we have been trying to do

for a long time and have not made the kind of progress we need. i am talking about how we deliver our weather forecast. think about what is going on right this minute with the climate, the exacerbated weather events. think about our transportation infrastructure. think about how the government delivers its services to its citizens. we can see these tantalizing prospects about how ai can transform each of those areas, but those are all going to take serious investment in r&d. and i think to me that points to the reason to get federal r&d on a healthy track is not just to compete. it is not just to r&d make sure we keep the base healthy. it is so we can do these things. prof. miller: let's open it to questions for a couple minutes. i would look to hear your

thoughts on how you think about that very large area and what the priorities are when it comes to r&d. dr. prabhakar: the term biotechnology for decades now has meant pharmaceuticals, the new way to build drugs that are really effective. there we have an industry that is well underway and there are critical supply-chain issues that need to be looked at for the health of that industry but the core technology of using biology to synthesize chemicals and materials is now something as most capabilities have expanded. there are interesting prospects building on pharmaceuticals that are really tantalizing. one of those at darpa, we had a synthetic biology program. the program manager came in and said there is a future where the air force instead of pouring a runway could grow a runway. a biological process that harvests materials in this place

you just landed in and actually can build something of that structural capacity. that is actually something we have proven you can do now. there is an effort to build that out. this sort of gives you a sense of how much more biology can do and where we are today. this was the focus of an executive order the president signed a couple years ago now in order to make sure that america leads in this area. what i don't want to do here is a playbook we have done many times which is we do beautiful research and someone else commercializes it and we do not have the manufacturing capacity here. one of the areas we have focused on is building the bio process caleb capacity so that -- scale up capacity so that we not only know how to do things in a lie but we can start showing what scale up looks like to vent out the process so it can then be commercialized much more rapidly. prof. miller: an example of the

need to combine r&d efforts and supply chain analysis at the same time. dr. prabhakar: the whole picture. that is exactly right. prof. miller: let me see if we have any questions from the audience. please, sir. >> hi, good afternoon. i have a quick question. i joined late but i heard you talk about health and combining ai. so i wanted to apply it to cancer. it seems like that has been the long-running issue, and there are so many different types of cancer. we still don't have something beyond the traditional chemotherapy and immunotherapy to circumvent the various cancers. can we apply it to that? i think that would be a celebratory day. dr. prabhakar: i with you. president biden started it when he was vice president, and he and the first lady reignited it a couple years ago. you know this is personal for them having lost a son to

cancer, but cancer is personal to every person in america and around the world who has been touched by this horrible problem. and the goal they set when they reignited the cancer moonshot, the quantitative goal was double the rate of progress we have been making and to cut the cancer death rate in half over 25 years. that would be 4 million lives saved from cancer deaths in that time period. that is a huge deal. i have been thrilled to see daniel carnaval, who is part of my team at ostp, the leader of the cancer moonshot. thrilled to see her approach, not just as an area for more research, but an area where we are putting in place regulations that will prevent new cases of cancer. for example, from pfas and other contaminants. doing the work of screening and early detection so we can nip cancer from the bud.

americans missed 10 million cancer screenings during 2020 because of the pandemic. we have regained that and gotten screening out to many people, including people who did not have health insurance, did not have primary care. we are making progress on that. and therapies, making sure the therapies that exist are affordable and reached by more people, but also that the new therapies can come to the fore. very much to your point about using a height, there are so many possibilities. i will mention one program that is using ai to look at approved therapies and discerning which of those might be good candidates for rare diseases, including rare cancers, which are very difficult, very challenging to get therapies for. but mapping a safe and effective treatment for other diseases. looks like a very high potential way to accelerate treatment for rare diseases.

>> hi. claude with aei. in decades past, the washington policy community, the science community has obsessed with the role of the science advisor and the relationship with the president and the rest of the apparatus. how has that role changed? if you look back at the bushes or clinton or even obama, how has the role of the science advisor changed, if it has, over the past decades? dr. prabhakar: i find that the role of the science advisor is really shaped by the president, number one. i had the great privilege of coming into this role, working for a president who has always seen science and technology as -- this is a president who loves to talk about how america is a country that can be defined in a single word, and that word is technologies.

technology. he has always been a supporter for science and technology for its myriad of applications. how it changes health outcomes to how it changes economic opportunity. part of being a great nation is understanding how the universe was shaped and pursuing the boundaries of fundamental knowledge. he has always appreciated all of this, so that made it great fun to be in this role. a lot of my time in this administer should has been shaped by the fact that chatgpt showed up about a month after i showed up in this job so a lot of my direct interactions with the president have focused on artificial intelligence including showing him chatgpt and image generators early on like a year and a half ago. that was a session that kicked off a lot of the ai work. and because of his approach,

both he and the vice president really sought ai as bringing growth promise and peril. they have approached it from a perspective of being aggressive about going after risks but also making sure that we are laying the groundwork so we can seize the opportunity. that has been one of the areas of tremendous focus in my interactions with him. >> thank you. thank you for both being here. fabulous discussion. chris i hope you choose to write a follow-up to chip war, perhaps chip war 2.0. dr. prabhakar: what do you think? >> speaking of semiconductors, i am curious. because of the chips and science act, a lot of the billions of

dollars have been allocated to intel. intel, as you know, has had some challenges. i am just kind of curious, if you were working with intel or could offer advice to intel, what kind of advice and guidance might you provide to have intel challenge other types of semiconductor companies? dr. prabhakar: i don't think i am in a good position to give advice to intel. if you look at what the chips act is getting done, i mentioned the important shift from 0% of advanced node manufacturing in the u.s. to getting to 28% over a decade. what that represents is not one single company, but now we are on track to have the five leading-edge manufacturers from around the world have operations, manufacturing

production operations in the united states. that to me is really significant, that cohort as a group. no other nation has more than two. and putting us on a path where we have five of those gives us the position that we are seeking to get to. prof. miller: in the back? >> a research public policy professor at george washington university and the last remaining member of the carter administration's industrial policy sleeper cell. dr. prabhakar: wow. >> because in 19 80 the carter administration was in the process of coming up with an industrial strategy that would have been implemented except for the election. so i got in the business of doing industrial strategy at the regional level, probably 200 projects, and the question has to do with the collaboration between the public sector and the private sector and how that

gets done, because right now the chips act, the way the government is used to working now is through rules. the chips act is all about the rules. to be eligible for this, you need to meet the following criteria. there is nothing about business and government collaboration, and the high point of the collaboration, maybe chris knows this, was under the esteemed commerce secretary in the 1920's, herbert hoover, who had industrial strategy and set up mechanisms for business and government collaboration that happened to be white male anglo-saxon protestants so they were comfortable working with each other. but the two mechanisms where boards, the remnants of which is in the commerce department now, the international trade administration. and the other was the commerce department setting up trade associations, beginning with the u.s. chamber of commerce. the u.s. chamber of commerce was created in 1912 by the federal government to be a partner for industrial policy with the

federal government. that changed during the new deal. so this is all a question too, how do we set up mechanisms that are transparent and accountable in which government and business come to some mind meld because it is the private sector that produces the stuff, not the public sector? dr. prabhakar: i love that history. that was great. my view is our economy and the look we are trying to do, it is not single threaded. it is complex, and you have to break down the goals as in figure out what the nature of the partnership needs to be. so in the case of chips, we were very clear that the country's goal is to make sure we have the advanced semiconductor manufacturing we need sufficiently located in the u.s. and we have our allied

relationships in a way that meets our economic goals and our military goals. that is what the country is trying to get done. of course, every partnership, every arrangement that secretary raimondo's commerce department is putting together with each company, the company is we together because they have business goals and they find enough shared interest to make something happen. that is the nature of those partnerships. it is a very different kind of partnership when you are doing the kind of r&d i was describing in my darpa story. i think we need to be open to many different kinds of relationships and arrangements, but all goal driven and recognizing what the partnership represents is the government acting on behalf of what the country needs and the companies acting on behalf of what they need because they are entities that have their own goal. i would not look for a cookie cutter. i would like to have many, many

different approaches. >> so word on the street is there is an election coming up. dr. prabhakar: how about that? >> it is kind of hard to call so your time at ostp may or may not be coming to an end in the next few months. kind of a three-part question. any of which you may be willing that you would say we are so proud to achieve this? number two, anything at the opposite end where you say i wish i could have done this but because of unforeseen obstacles? and number three, what are you looking forward to doing next? dr. prabhakar: i have no idea on the third one. i think about one and two all the time. that is the day job, figuring out if you made it. i am proud of what this administration has gotten done to put ai on the right track. tons more work to be done.

but ignoring this powerful technological course that is we shaping society was not a good plan and the fact that we have been active there is something i am very, very proud of. more globally, i think something that has been a great passion of mine and a reason i was so excited to have this opportunity is that federal r&d, in my view, is still too much on auto drive from and this frontier, which is now 80 years ago -- endless frontier, which is 80 years ago. it is too long without really rethinking the roles and purposes and the way to accomplish those roles and purposes for the federal r&d enterprise. and i would tell you i think we made very important progress in, for example, starting to focus on health outcomes and starting

with the new technology innovation partnerships director at nsf on the important basic research we do and making sure we are aiming the whole enterprise at achieving. look, the whole contract between the american people and federal r&d is when r&d will deliver a better tomorrow for the american people, and ethic we have gotten a little better at that. at that is a very hard thing to do so i am proud of the progress we have made their. the thing that i regret that i think we have but that this country simply has to do, we have got to go big. we are not taking many big shots at really huge opportunities. part of the reason i am excited about ai is it is disrupting every area, but if you figure out how to use it and wheeled it, it can be an enormous accelerator. i think that is true for our

most important societal goals that we talked about, opening up access to opportunity for every person, economic growth, national security goals, health, dealing with the climate crisis. i think the opportunities are immense. i think this r&d enterprise we have in this country, public and private, is fully capable, but we have got to aim it at resources to generally achieve the big things i know are possible. prof. miller: could i follow their? making sure we are going big and achieving goals, what is the limiting factor? you mentioned research and aiming. those are important to him about people would agree going big is better than doing small, so why are we not? dr. prabhakar: let's talk about what going big would look like. a great example is when the senate ai leadership group that majority leader schumer put together, they came out with their ai roadmap a while ago. one of the things they mentioned

was a $2 billion resource for nondefense ai r&d. i think a lot of people looked at it and said, $32 billion, what would you use that for? to put that in context, as a government we spent close to $200 billion a year on r&d. 32 billion dollars is a 13% kicker to that. if you give them $32 billion on top of what we are currently doing in r&d, that will take federal r&d from about 7% of gdp to 7.7% of gdp, so it starts moving you in the direction of sufficient federal r&d investment to meet our ambitions. what does it look like on the ground? what it looks like is today we have thousands of known diseases for which there is no treatment, and we generate new

pharmaceuticals and address new conditions at the rate of 20 or 30 a year, so thousands, 20 to 30. if you can speed that up tenfold or a hundredfold, think about what that means. that means my kids might be able to grow up without worrying about dementia at the end of their lives. that is just unbelievable but it could be possible. it really could be possible. we are doing pieces of the basic research to pursue that. pharma companies are each taking their own trove of private data and trying to make progress on that. but until we pull all of that together and supercharge it with investment, my kids are not going to achieve that future. i want them to have that future. we got work to do. one or two prof. miller: --prof. miller: one or two final questions, please. our two final questions, and

then we will wrap up after that. >> thank you so much. i am with the m.i.t. washington office and my question would be the influence on china. our national r&d. looking at it from an m.i.t. perspective, the international students harnessing the innovation possibilities that their on premise brings but also managing the risks that might appear with ip. china high-risk on the watchlist, how do you see the future or what r&d has to do what has to be done? dr. prabhakar: this is an issue that has been very challenging in the research enterprise and especially universities. it is not that long ago that everyone was being encouraged to build these linkages with chinese research organizations. and it started to recognize that china's behavior has changed over the last 10 or 15 years and they have crossed one boundary after another, whether it is

militarily in economic interchanges or going after intellectual property. in research in particular, i think how you deal with that has been a vexing issue for you. it has been a vexing issue for all of us as well. and we recently put out security guidance to try to wrangle three facts. one of china's aggressive and inappropriate behavior. the second is the fact that research, basic research can only thrive with open global communications. you cannot lose that in the process of being less naive about what china is doing. the third factor is at the individual level, which is a core value in this country is we do not discriminate against people because of their ethnic background, and that cannot be part of how we deal with this situation.

i think it is -- we are getting guidance in place i hope will make it easier for universities to, you know, be just a little smarter about how to deal with these issues while making sure we treat people right and keep that openness that is so vital for research. >> thank you so much. >> i am from the american university. thank you so much for this discussion today. you already talked about something that does not exist which is a big step, but i am concerned about the things more upstream of the steps. so do you feel like there is an attention being paid to that? thank you. dr. prabhakar: i'm sorry. do you mean for example materials? >> yes. at the end, the production going

in for the chemicals to be used. my concern is at some point we build all of these great things but do we have the supplies to run them? dr. prabhakar: first of all, critical minerals and critical materials have to be paid attention to. i don't want to be five or 10 years down the road saying i wish we had done something back in the mid-2020's. that is a great example of an area we need to be looking to the future. i mentioned the part of the chips r&d effort going on. building on top of what we were talking about with respect to what ai can do. the pressures on advanced materials for the next generation of semiconductors are extraordinary. they are trying to do technically very challenging things to make chips like. they have to worry about supply chains. and a lot of those materials and processes use pfas and other

chemicals that are very problematic as we learn more about the health implications, and the regulatory pinch is definitely affecting semiconductor manufacturing today. that seems like an almost unsolvable problem, but to me it is a perfect example of where really innovative research can make a difference. so this chips r&d effort recently launched an initiative that is about using ai first to expand the universe's possible materials and combinations of materials and then coupling that with autonomous experimentation to much more rapidly drive practical solutions that can be transitioned into production much more quickly. i love that because when i see an impossible problem, i am itching to find science and technology ways to make that turn into a trackable problem. if we can do that, there are just in manufacturing remaining and continuing to

build in the u.s. which is part of the r&d effort. prof. miller: it has been a fascinating conversation. dr. prabhakar: great to be with you. [applause] under trump and biden and i worked well with both of them. she is the first one who is trying to --

>> that is a "star trek" line. this is our all-star panel. a description i use rarely. and not reluctantly in this case. all right. close the doors. seal them. locke them. no one is leaving. thank you for coming up and staying for the second of our federal rnd related panels -- r &d related panels. we have a super panel. i will start way over there with claude barfield, senior fellow here at aei, next to him is a professor at the school of business at duke and next to him is a senior fellow at aei, and

next to him is the co-ceo of the center for progress, a center that is so dynamic they need two ceo's. this is a topic i love, so happy to be chatting about it. i think it is super timely but despite the fact that it was wildly timely, we will start with a little bit of history, which i want to direct initially to dan and claude. everyone is allowed to jump in as you wish. i will start with dan and then over to claude. how did we get here? we are spending about $200 billion a year on federal r&d. the government used to not let -- not spend a lot of money. how did we get from there to here? >> how much time do we have? >> you have a little bit. >> i will try to be a bit

concise and precise. >> you can go decade by decade. >> to give some context, world war ii was a transformative moment in innovation policy. if you look back about a century ago, the u.s. government had a heavy hand in supporting research and development outside of agriculture. not a lot of funded work and world war ii changed all of this. we had in that cauldron of a crisis, a new approach to r&d policy that was brought on by the necessity of the moment.

an organization was created for research and development that organized, funded and led an r&d attack on wartime problems. out of -- on the back of that effort was the modern research policy infrastructure we have today. it didn't quite take the form that bush proposed at the time. you had different organizations, but in the 1950's, even before then, you had on our -- you had onr and defense research offices.

you have the now department of energy. the portfolio begins to build and expand, but the interesting thing about it is just how carved out it has become. you have different organizations with different jurisdictional patterns that overs -- that overlap and intersect, but there is much more we can attack. a lot of it has more or less remained in place. you put the pieces together and that is a constellation that we are working with today. budgets have grown tremendously since then in real terms but this is where we are at the moment. i will go ahead and pass it over. >> the only couple things i would add is throughout the

entire period, the common role of defense, defense has had a long -- security has had a large role and certainly, dan sent us a great paper about the beginnings of all of this in world war ii, but it came out of necessity for a security and that was one of the -- the second thing is, to reemphasize that this is a fragmented system, it does not start from the top and go down. in terms of domestic r&d. it comes up from the top and third, i would say well we have the national come back, the

famous bush report made the case for basic research and then we had the national science foundation which i think is the basic institute for federal support of research. other programs, other departments, other agencies are substantial. a substantial role and other agencies, the department of energy has a huge r&d role. we have not one agency that sets priorities. it remains a fragmented system that comes up from the bottom.

>> one more history question, anyone can answer. one of the most amazing charts i have seen is looking at what we spend as a share of gdp, at the peak of apollo in the 1960's, and then it kind of went down, with bubbles here and there over the decades and i find that astonishing because when you talk to economists, they tend to like open trade and immigration. they all tend to think, at least basically, fundamental research, they are all in favor of that, yet i would think that we would be spending more. why did we stop spending so much after apollo? we won the space race but why

didn't we figure out new things to spend lots of money on? there were still big problems. do we have a good explanation, other than being worried about the budget? >> let me jump in. i don't think there is a single uniform answer but part of what is going on if you look at when the united states was spending money and what was the instigator, the very first sputnik moment is almost a metaphor, it was sort of this shadow of international competition that i think has historically driven the united states to take itself seriously and i think it is not an accident that after the collapse of the soviet union, the u.s. became complacent. we didn't have an international competitor either in a military or economic competition. we were on top of the world and we felt area secure in our position. without some kind of runner behalf -- one a racing besides

us, there was no reason to keep spending. >> the sputnik moment, it was a moment in which intercontinental ballistic missiles and war between continents was possible. it was that moment. we kinda forget this as well, that there is a military component to the rest of the r&d culture that existed from 1957 onward. at some point i think we should have a tight discussion about what apollo meant and what moon shots meant. we use this word very consistently within the conversation and i'm hoping we can talk specifically about what that actually meant, what is it we were trying to achieve, why was it within that cultural context, why did it exist terribly? the united states did not have at the time -- in 1957, just months before sputnik was

launched, and before that also, there was intercontinental ballistic missiles that were launched. the united states was failing at that, and it became an international crisis because they realize that russia, the ussr had bombs and they also had the means and the missiles to do it, and we did not. that created a very interesting time and between the military and what later became the broader civilian goals of getting to the moon. those things are inherently tied together. >> nih has dramatically gone over that same period. the share of that portfolio has

-- at least that is one way to get a little bit more insight into what is inside that black box. >> one other bigger point to this is military spending and federal share of r&d is going down but the total percent of r&d per gdp, the overall level is at the highest it has ever been. we are now at like 3.6% of gdp and at the time of apollo it was 2.8%. the entire nature of it has changed which is important. there are reasons why like bell labs don't really work anymore. ethic it also puts a lot of emphasis as we talk about r&d, about the start up system and the startup ecosystem, there are a lot of new interesting tech issues. we have all done important

fundamental work to push that but that is part of this conversation, that the american innovation and ecosystem looks very different than it did in the 1950's and 60's postwar and i think we need to embrace that and try to write policies to help build that. >> there still is no consensus, when people talk about 3.6% or whatever it is, there is no consensus about what is the optimal level. i don't think there is ever going to be a consensus because it depends on the needs of the nation, at least in part. i know my colleague here, there are reasons to discover more about the universe and where we live, but the political and

economic pressures change over time and that does not give you an answer to how much we should be spending at a given moment on r&d, either federal or federal and private together. >> at seems to me that where the debate is right now, or the changes that are happening, there is a big push to spend more, i don't know what that optimal level is but there seems to be a lot of agreement that optimum level has not been reached and we need to be spending this money differently. the more sort of government intervention, the more controversial it becomes. both those goals right now, spend more and have government to some degree take a greater role in directing how that money is spent, where are we with that? how is that being filtered through the political process?

so far it seems like it is very difficult to spend a lot more and changing the mission, things are pretty controversial and i wonder how that can be sustained through a series of administrations. we will start with claude and then dan. >> i don't think it can be sustained. what we are facing is the priorities beyond just r&d are going to increasingly impinge. we are in a period that we have moved from a period where there is skepticism about the federal government not going beyond basic r&d but getting very much involved in development. he heard this morning, the most articulate discussion of the role of government by the

science advisor that i've ever heard. i would start from the other end of this, and terms of answering your question, that yes, there is a role for government but i start from the position from where is there market failures? do you need to have the government intervene? that is a perfectly legitimate way to go, but i think -- we are in a time where that question is increasingly lesa asked and we will's -- less asked and we will swing back in that direction at some point. >> i also see these problems through the lens of market failures and the kind of, we

have a reason to believe that research is under invested, by the private markets and the private sector, so there is a role for the government to fill that gap. i think it goes beyond that. there are categories of technology where firms face intrinsic obstacles. for example, establishing complex supply chains, coordinating investments across different firms that maybe aren't firmly integrated and have reason not to be, matching and coalescing with ecosystems and frankly this is a role that darpa has played all stop and certain specific technology areas, where there can be value and i will call it a bit of

industry coordination in nascent technologies. i see it as an extension of market failures. what that would be today. the other piece i want to bring out here, getting back to the phrasing of jim's question is how the priorities are set, how would they evolve over time. it is useful because their priorities come about in different ways. the department of defense has mission driven priorities. everything from basic research funding that are investing in research and building and equipping the army of the future, a long term, versus a more applied process. that is one set of problems but

if you look at the national science foundation, it was set up in the 1950's for basic research. in that sense, the pieces are complementary, but they are -- it is largely funded by scientists with some politically appointed leadership, but at the end of the day, who does peer-reviewed and so on. the priority has come from the ground up with different mechanisms based on the objective and the mission of the organization. >> to me, there is almost a surprising amount of skepticism about -- maybe the history of

research spending, we've had this pandemic, where we sortable he had -- where we sort of had business and government come together to create and then turn out and i guess i would have thought, whatever criticisms you want in that process that seems to work, it would be a powerful example, still relevant in american politics that would suggest the policymakers, we should do more of that. that worked great, so we have two pretty good examples and sometimes we overlook the darpa example. darpa can't be for everything but it is an example of how government can be effective. we have operation warp speed, a relevant example of something beyond just pure research being effective and yet there seems to be a lot of skepticism that we

should return to a pre-owi's era -- pre-ows era. >> i think there are several overlapping problems. one is that sometimes we see firms that do innovation and seem to be profiting from it and so we assume because there is a business model there, there must not be -- i think you saw this around covid. it was true that pharmaceutical companies did make some profits from it. it doesn't mean that the social values that we put in, and terms of the commitment and did not pay for itself 100,000 million times over. a huge public return. people sort of see companies

making money and they get skeptical and that is one reason for step a schism around public versus private sector r&d. give a thing is i am so glad that dan and his colleagues are trying to turn the spotlight on this but finding the return to innovation is very hard and it's only been recently that we've able to get better evidence on the different kind of returns we get on public versus private sector r&d. different sectors were looked at whenever a federal agency starts increasing r&d, how does that spillover into applications and found that the public spillovers were three times larger in terms of their effect. it is hard to measure but all of the economists have come to the conclusion that it seems like the returns are massive and it is hard to predict which ones

are going to work out, but we know that in aggregate, those portfolios can produce a lot of returns. the other problem is more political, which is that because science is hard to anticipate or predict what the downstream applications are going to be, ethic a lot of people are familiar with the now infamous example in 2011 where basically folks from the -- were brought in and castigated for having funded a study where they were testing to see the speed of a shrimp on an underwater treadmill. this became a euphemism for wasteful public r&d dollars. clearly there is no conceivable reason why taxpayer should be spending for this but science is unpredictable. it is hard to know what the downstream applications are going to be, and this is something that was our ticket leader very well that if we invest in research, 30 years later, you get really exciting applications the mrna vaccine.

two forces, being hard to measure the public returns and the political opportunism and being able to call out the failure points and wave them around and say they are examples of the overall portfolio. when darpa has failures, those don't always come to light, we only see the positive applications and yet we are very excited about those. >> i just think the example is not a good example in the sense that an earlier session we had here, our colleague used the covid example as one place in his mind that he really had a great defense of the government intervention, but -- you had that vaccine but it is not the same as trying to do a new

industry or compete with other industries. there could be criticisms of what the company got out of it but it is not the same as an industrial policy for semiconductors or some other sector where you are trying to create or advance a particular sector which has many different modes and kinds of competition. that doesn't make the point, if we were to have another pandemic, that you could do that again, but that is not the same as saying we ought to have a broad base intervention of the government and we can get into definitions here, certainly in applied or development. >> sort of like on -- the next

day, i will think, carbon tax plus basic research, let's call it a day, like why do you think that is the right answer? where are you? >> to add context, a couple elements that might clear some of these questions, there is an extensive margin question when it comes to research and development, should we have a higher level of r&d? another question which is the margin, the federal funded side, how do we create the best programs that will be beneficial to as many people as possible? those things are -- i primarily have an interest -- have been interested in this question of how do we make sure that the government grants that exist are

doing a better job, that the programs that are already in existence, there have been cuts, at nasa and the nsf and these primary agencies that are doing a lot of this work have seen cuts, but there is the secondary question about how do we form the right crying -- the right kind of grant programs? it is so successful, understanding that project. what you are asking on these different days is really just fundamentally a question of, and the instance of darpa and some very specific projects, it seems that be -- it seems that government help and research and funding can be quite impactful. there are a lot of examples of that. turbines and the effect on natural gas and making that more efficient, that has been a well-known example. we've talked about apollo and the reason i bring up apollo is when you look at apollo, it is

actually a relatively low -- it is a high point of government funding but a relatively low amount of funding for the entire economy and i think those two things, you can have a relatively important project that can do important things and it does bring attention and the prime example is operation warp speed, a very high-profile project that brings a lot of tension. under very specific circumstances. what i think is probably the most important thing to take away from this is a mother's are things we can actually do. there are things we can do, how we can better understand how agencies can do things well, to better understand the context of some of these projects that have been dynamic and powerful local economies and kind of build on that. there is still so much.

something like half of all the time that is actually spent in that grant making or dealing with that grant is purely on paperwork. 46% or 45% or something along those lines. the point is, there is so much that goes into making those grants, that r&d process that we need to think much more critically about making it more efficient, thinking about fast grants. figuring out how we can do this better, how we can get permits better, a broader conversation about the efficiency games we can have of reforming government and looking inward, and i think we should be focusing on that. i am hope all that one of the goals of this, is the production of that. >> this might hit your question

but it might not. so funding for basic research, a lot of people agree on that and as you more -- as you move more intervention, the decline, i love basic research and there is some advanced company, a doe grant that needs -- a doe -- it seems like the public will still stand if we fund it. where does your skepticism begin to increase as we move? >> i want to take a step back because this is a very basic toy model, a theoretical model for trying to understand how does this whole ecosystem fit and where might you want to do different kinds of interventions? imagine that on the one hand you have pure basic research, curiosity driven.

when you try to predict ahead of time how investments will lead to downstream applications, you are just as likely to produce an innovation in an adjacent area. it is incredibly hard to predict what downstream applications will be and that is where the basic case for curiosity driven research resides. there are huge market failures around creation and innovation of new ideas. we know if it is going to be 30 years downstream when you can take advantage of that, it is hard for businesses unless you have a monopoly to justify investments. on the others, you have mass commercialized applications that are the peer advent of the market and we think about business development and there is a pretty wide gulf between those.

economists try to look somewhere between the 30 year lag between the basic science discovered and ready and when you actually start seeing wide scale adoption and deployment within the commercial realm and one thing about the mission driven or technology driven or place based or military things, are they trying to shrink that gap. there may be times will remain be able to say mrna vectors -- vaccines are sitting on the shelf but they are really useful if we could shrink the time to develop it. instead of 10 years, we want to make it one year. other times, the reason for doing that work is because of defense applications. want to make sure we have better drones than china, so we will invest in that area. sometimes we may think there are big social spillovers like a malaria vaccine. you can't actually signal to the market they are willing to pay because there are people in africa who don't have a lot of purchasing power.

that is my rough model as we can spend a lot of money and it is really useful to continue developing that stream of basic science investment so we have ideas we can pull from when it becomes -- when it comes time to commercialize. maybe it is fine to let that 20 year timeline payout -- play out because -- in particular cases when there is a strong market failure or social benefit that is not being captured, -- mission driven agency or the conceptual landscape. >> have you seen conversations about interventions where that is a bridge too far? >> i think it is case-by-case. if there is a strong market failure externality, then i'm

going to at least be open in principle towards it. there is not a clear market failure externality. >> with having to have the chips in the united states? >> this gets warped because politicians are trying to bundle a couple externalities. there is the national security externality, kind of what happens if there is a war in taiwan. sometimes this gets smuggled or bundled into other externalities like we think there are externalities that include jobs. i tend to be more skeptical of job externalities and think we should separate the specific margin of analysis, whether this is purely a national security case or a jobs case or political favoritism.

>> this is getting realized in washington and there were interest groups that see market failure everywhere who want the government to intervene and they get back to what you were talking about. we had a session earlier where someone from the cato institute jumped all over me because i said even with reservations, i would have supported the chips act and my point was one that was just mentioned, that i think it is not a great idea to have 90% of the advanced chips produced in taiwan. right off the chinese mainland coast. that to me was a legitimate rationale. i said that knowing, getting back to the interest groups, congress was going to do all kinds of things that i would not agree with in the chips act, and one of the things that make your

point about how many new production facilities and manufacturing facilities we need, that is still not clear. there is going to be the impression to do more and more. i knew that was going to happen and it was going to be some rolling of the dice, but still it made sense to me. the other side of that and i know you have other questions but you mentioned nsf. one of the things we should note is that i think -- i don't pick it is a dangerous term but i think it is unfortunate that you added a tech directorate to the national science foundation. i applaud senator schumer because his original bill, the so-called endless frontier act would have changed the mandate of the national science foundation to science and technology and we ended up with a directorate.

the things that the bureaucracy and the civil service are quite good at doing our very different from the kinds of things that nsf has done before. i don't know if any of you have seen the congress mandated the nsf put together a so-called roadmap of how do you get forward in the technologies? if you look at that roadmap, the bureaucrats in this part of the nsf release -- really think of themselves as venture capitalists. how do we invest in particular parts of technologies to advance u.s. competitiveness or to advance u.s. national security? my only point is i think this is something, it may be beyond any bureaucrat, but certainly beyond the civil servants who work in the national science foundation and also beyond -- i think someone was talking about peer

reviews and academic universe in which nsf normally works. it is beyond the kinds of things this agency has done, and i think it is unfortunate misdirection of at least part of the nsf, and i understand that is what they do, basic research. >> one undercurrent that i think isn't present across this panel and even in the earlier session is all choices and strategies are going to present trade-offs. if i am the ceo or cfo, i could increase my return on capital by keeping low inventories on the other hand, i could invest in --

that is one of the undercurrents in this conversation we had earlier, which is that there are different or better -- different objectives that are not fully aligned and one of our national objectives is to build more resilience because our global inputs are now at risk. certain choices may run against prior paradigms that prioritize economic efficiency alone. those two things ultimately, i'm not the one who sets the objectives of course. congress and the president do. putting those two side-by-side, to me, helps clarify why we are even having this conversation. >> it is kind of a big set-aside. if i ever look at changes in funding, the rest of the federal

r&d establishment, would i think that we supposedly have this massive economic and military threat in china? is that yet reflected? looking at the world war ii example, it might be easy to make the case for a lot more spending or a huge change, but are we actually seeing those changes that we talk about? are we really seeing it? >> in other words, has the threat materialize? yes and if not, the corollary question is, are we ready for it? if you go back to the world war ii era, this organization that was created to manage civilian research into military technology and the effort that bush led back then, we could argue several reasons why that

was broadly -- just like operation warp speed, we think it was pretty successful, but -- >> we are pro-vaccine, good to hear it. >> one of the crucial inputs to both efforts was that there was knowledge on the shelf that was ready to be put to work. in those cases, some science had to be done but at the time, there wasn't really -- urgency didn't allow conducting long-term basic research. you took what you had and ran with it. when a thick about preparedness for a future crisis, it's about having the resources and advents in place to filled from. fundamental knowledge, talented workforce, technical expertise, institutions, even collaborative

structures that can be triggered in a moment of need. the threat hasn't materialized. i haven't checked the news today, but you tell me, but as a matter of preparedness, it is very important. >> especially a matter of speculation or just future trends. the single biggest advantage china has over the united states is they are three times our size. just raw population size. we know that the size of your economy matters your ability to dictate global trade terms and shape innovation. the fact that china is working with a population three times hours is 8 -- three times ours is a reason. >> beyond that, they are

graduating more students in science and engineering, substantially more students. we talk about the second cold war. the soviet system was a sealed off system that wasn't working economically. despite xi jinping and china's current problems, we are facing an economy that is in the world economy and does compete. it may compete unfairly. it is a very different, not just in size but in terms of what the population is doing. >> and entrepreneurship in

china. >> i will tack on one thing which is as a matter of preparedness, my read is -- like the world war ii era, it wasn't just technology but the ability to scale it up and produce a radar system and put them into practice. this is my view where modern policy fits in and having domestic capacity to be able to do that. >> i'm concerned that we won't be prepared to compete with china as we should. i'm also concerned we are going to screw up what we already do really well which is basic research. how concerned should i be?

changing the focus to technologies that can be commercialized sooner. that process will stop doing well the thing we used to do very well. >> there is definitely a concern we should keep in mind. i'm not too worried about it at current margins. i think we are very cognizant of the trade off and trying to be thoughtful about it and looking for ways that we can make -- investments. basically our commercialization pipelines in campuses and how to make those more effective. if that investment pays off, that's a way of making all the traditional basic investments very effective even better. it is something to be aware of

and on guard for and we wouldn't want to let our advantage in basic science slip, but i don't know that these should necessarily be at odds. the larger thing is that in the same way that we shouldn't feel complacent in the way that -- just because we are better at basic science than a lot of the rest of the world doesn't mean there aren't lots of ways that we could be doing much better. at a fundamental level, the way we fund and structure science has not changed much since the 1950's or 1960's we know the underlying -- has changed dramatically. economists have document of the rise of team science, having away from one-off geniuses writing on whiteboards. teams of people. if you look at proving the existence of the higgs boatswain -- higgs-boson, taking thousands of people, contrasted with

einstein coming up with three of the most fundamental equations in modern physics. the institutions we used to structure science have changed very little and that means we are under utilizing it. >> that is the number one response i get when i say we should spend more. is that such an optimized efficient system? >> hopefully the two can get together. institutions are very protective of what they have currently. try new things, experiment, what could you actually do to build these relationships and continue to make current processes work even better. >> we are supposed to go to questions now. i will keep that promise and go to questions now.

if you have a question of relevance, ending in question marks, as opposed to soliloquies about current events, i would love to take a question or two. does anyone have a question? there is a gentleman standing. >> terrific, thank you. andrew reamer of george washington university. what we can learn from history, regarding how the u.s. government has worked with business, over the decades and what we can learn from it. 1830's, -- >> did you say five examples? >> the national academy of sciences is 1860, usda, working with farmers, 1860. the moral act, land-grant

colleges were set up for universities funded by the federal government to work with manufacturers and farmers for research. 1830's, the harpers ferry and springfield arsenal working with the private sector to figure out how to make things and the u.s. manufacturing edge that blue britain away was because of the business-government collaboration around making muskets. what can we learn from history, regarding how business and government can collaborate regarding cutting-edge r&d? >> there are a lot of examples. a couple things here.

the world pre-1940, when there were mobilization efforts, compared to what we now have with more modern systems that developed, especially since the 2000's, those things probably make comparisons between how projects and products work as compared to now. there are lessons to be had in each one of those examples. but more fundamentally, figuring out what this means now and how we specifically collaborate, as we have kind of laid out on a case-by-case basis, talking about the chips act looking very different from ows. there can be lessons. those should be delved into. there is a lot to be done. but also, one thing you asked was a should i be worried about this, affectively should i be worried about this system of innovation and it think yes, we

are in a good position but there are very clear reasons to be worried about the american regulatory state and its relationship with the production of big business. there is a big kind of anti-big business sentiment and some of it is justified. >> they do a lot of r&d, those big businesses. >> literally billions of dollars each year in this space. i worry about that. i think the chips act, you took that off the table, these one-off deals need to be understood contextually. my view about the chips act which i think is important to note is that we probably could have done it for much cheaper. a lot of things were added on and i think that is the conversation, that we should care about. >> that is part of the political process. >> exactly.

those are fundamental elements of creating those projects which we should have some kind of working consensus on understanding how these things came about. we know the way in which the system of diversification, you go multiple different lines for a vaccine and that is really powerful here's to me, there are different lessons to be learned, but the fundamental thing is that most people should be worried about this relationship, especially the regulatory state, with business and how that affects things, separate from federal r&d and grant programs we have. >> another question. a gentleman right there. >> my name is roger and i wanted to thank the panel for dwelling a lot on history of science and

research in the united states. my question goes back to another historic example. it is a contrary example to the ones that have been cited so far. by almost any measure, 1972 was the peak of the cold war. a shooting war in vietnam between the united states and russia. proxies in southern africa, the middle east, south america. yet at the height of the cold war, the most anti-russian president we probably ever had, richard nixon signed an agreement with russia for apollo. he spectacularly showed that science cooperation was above geopolitics. there was an area that was so visionary that we could cooperate. obviously the russians could have slipped the american

astronauts' throats or bombed part of it. the point i'm getting to is if we compare then to today when the most anti-russian president in our history would cooperate in a spectacular example of pure science cooperation, it is my impression that we cannot cooperate with russia today on planetary defense, we cannot cooperate with them on climate change, we cannot cooperate with them on pandemic research. international cooperation with our adversaries in pure science is today, off the table. is there any area where we should today do what richard nixon did, at the peak of the cold war and say there is an area of science or we can cooperate with our adversaries, who are killing us in vietnam, the same day we signed the agreement? i don't know if there is any area where we can cooperate in pure science with our

adversaries. >> can we work with the russians, the chinese, the canadians? [laughter] >> one challenge is that it has become more low -- legible or known to the international community, the relationship between scientific development and military prowess. as the dual use nature of technology becomes apparent, it becomes harder to collaborate on things like ai because you never know when that might lead you to have a more superior military. i would love to see more international collaboration, it becomes easier in the basic space. the other place you could imagine what collaboration is in technologies or research areas where it is obvious there are no military applications. things like climate change seems useful. how can you push down the cost curve on different technologies that would make it profitable to deploy across the world so we don't have to have this trade-off between energy

abundance and carbon emissions? chinese are really driving down the cost of solar panel manufacturing which has enabled countries around the world. the other area i would love to see more international collaboration is on the global health side. i think there are so many obvious biomedical technologies or vaccine targets that we could be deploying. millions of people around the world, it does not have military applications but it should be funded right now. >> the dual use nature, that is important to point out and the reason i mentioned icbms at the beginning. the dual nature of it makes it a very potentially problematic area. it is an area where -- the russians did in those collaborations, that was how they got inlays in order to

steal plans for what became the -- there was collaboration that did have spillover effects that seemed to be pretty negative at that time. that is primarily because of the nature of space. these are rockets, fundamentally weapons. they really truly are. again within that context and the reason i bring it up is i think caleb is right about the nonmilitary use spaces. i would say specifically about space, china, this is one of the things i've been trying to do work around, china has very specific strategic ambitions for space in a way i don't think the united states has ever come to grips with. one of the things we were talking about intentionally with this is the apollo mission and what it means today. what the apollo mission means today is we need to do a good job of managing nasa. there are currently astronauts stranded in space and that is -- >> delayed.

>> 2025. the fact that it is not on the news every single night, yet again, we have a massive failure of a project. it's not as though we didn't see this coming with starliner. all that is to say that the management of these things we do them well, i think is far more important and specifically managing these large projects is critical to understanding and making t

requiremts. firearms sellers and manufacturers mustark their products for serianumbers, maintain sales records and conduct background checks. the industry has followed those conditions without difficulty for more than half a century and those sic requirements are crucial to solving gun crimes and keeping guns out of the hands of minors, felons and domestic violence abusers. but they have tried to circumvent those violence. they framed and receivers to require minimal work. they advised the product as ridiculously easy to assemble and dummy proof andouted that you can go from opening the mail

to have a fly functional gun in as little as 15inutes. no serial number, ckground check or records required. those untraceable guns are attractive to people who can't wfully purchase them or who plan to use them as cris. as a result, our nation has seen explosion of crimes committed with "ghost guns." in the face of thatris, atf underscoredwo points. first, a weaponar kit that can be converted to function as a gun with common tools often in under an hour is a covered fiar second, a product is a frame of receernder the act even in the buyer must drill a few holes or remove a few pieces of asc to make it functional. its nsistent with how atf has implemented the act acros five decades in 11 different presidential administration. respondents seek a sea change in the acts scope claim thoht the

firearm in the 100% functional, it is missi hole that could be drilled in secnd assemble into a gun, that product could beolto anyone online with no bacrod check, no records, and no serial number. that contradicts the plain text and it ctradicts common sense. this cou should make clear that the act regulates these odts as what they are, firearms and frames and receivers of firearms. i welcome the court's questions. >> does this new regulation cover all of chapter 44? >> yes. so i think that the understanding of a firearm reflected in the final rul reflect the 922a-13 definition. >> would it also apply under 924? >> yes, and so i think that also corporates, though, the men's ms

rea regards that responds have raised that manufacturers could be swept up tse restrictions. it requires a sho of wi willingfulness with respect to sellg productsut a serial number or without a license. >> you make a lot ofhe fact that you've been right. this has been related for half a ceur but it wasn't regulated in this way for half a century. what was the original reg? >> -- i agree that this rule flts any approach because under that reg, atf recognizessed that even when that framer reiver, the component wasn't yet fully finish ordinary complete, it would qualify as a rem looking at the same factors listed in the things like how much time is it gog take to make

function? do you need special equipment in do you need to buy parts and are th readily available? so all long from 1968 on, the agency had consistently focused on thisame issue of how quickly you canake that framer a working gun and the onlyrt of change in the rule is that atf is now taking account of template who is which are a form of tools because they show you where you have to drill in that weapon so there's no trial and error or guesswo b as atf explained the final rule, tt wasn't a change in statutory interpretation, it was a change that jigs arehe same function li iexing to show you where you he to drill so much it goes to the question thathe agency has asked all along how quickly and efficiently can this process be completed.

ener, i'll looking at a si letters stretching back as far back as 1978. and each of them basically use the same language that the current regulation is using the agency lette 1978 said we evaluateditem on whether it had reached thege of manufacture that it might be readily converted to functional condition, correct? >> exactly right. and that refute suggestion that atf had somehow been applying a ffent standard over the 50-year history of the gun control. instead, atf looked atheer the item has rch the crypt stage of manuftu to make it functional. it's not like these are entirely se context as the 1978laification letter you made clear.

and what steps you need to take to turn that into a functional frer receiver. >> i can ima a framer reciever is just a of medal. that'seadily convertible. so if can point to onem that wouldn't qualify, would -- could be swept up potentially by the new regulation, is that enough to defeat a facial challenge? is it enough or is that always as applied challenge? >> that is not enough to deft a facial challenge.

the only question the court should be asking in this case is whether there is anything on the face of the rule that is contradicted by t stutory text. and they can't make that showing here. it is true that they tried to ggt and your question touches on the idea that there mi particular marginal products out there that could test the bounds of whether thing is converten but the court doesn't need to consider those kinds of products in this case because that can all be adjudicated. versus ncir,ch basicallyement tracks you're justing. but in reno versus flores, we use different standard and said that a respondent to prevail must establish.

there are to set of circumstances exists under which the regulation would be valid you didn't go that route. >> tt uld be an even more stringent standard but we think under the inc staar it is very clear that there's nothing on the face of the gun contro act -- >> how about the washingto state range standard which says even if there me some applications that are imper missen, those alitions could not render the rule invalid so long as the rules have a plainly legitimate sweep. >> yes, and that standard is satisfied as welle. you pointed to the hypothetical possibility of marginal case where is a product could take a lot of time to put petting. but -- put together. the "ghost guns" kits and paiay completed frame or receivers leaving utohis rule. those are issues or products where the readily convertible determination was not hard at

all because the products designed a marketed to individus o could put them together with nialized skill and often and de an hour with cmon hand tools. and so is a acknowledge the point that maybe the could be other applications of the rule that could test the bounds, but i think that under any conceivae andard for adjudicahe facial challenge, respondents have not come close to satisfy their burden to show that the statutes forecloses the standards and the rule. >> what is the meaning of the term weapon in 921a3a? >> that's an undefined term d it carries i pin dictionary definition. but nothing in congress is used to the term thatuggests it has to be functional in order to qualify and i would say the rest of the staffry provision mes clear that the weapon mite have

to undergo a conversion. >> but before it's converted, it must be a weapon. >> that's right. we don't dispute that. it has to be an instrument of combat design and id to be used in this way. and congress made cle tt the reason it used that term is because there arebjects out there toys and tools that have a well-known non-weapon use but that actuall do expel projectiles through the action of an explosive. a cap gun is an example of this. it expels bird shot. and it would set within the functional definition. it's not a weapon but intended to be used that way. >> is it the case that a coonent that could easily be converted into something duty that thing before they are converted? as a mat ordinary usage? >> it's a matter of ordinary usage. statuary reference to one thing includes separatend distinct things that could be convert

under frame or receiver, that -- >> no, i want to stick with the definition of weapon for just a second. here's a blank pad. and here's a pen. all right? is that a grocery list? >> i don't think that's a grocerli but the reason for that is because there are a lot of tngyou could use those products for to create something her than a grocery list. >> if i show you, i put out on a counter some eggs, some chopped up ham, some chopped up pepper and onions. is that a western omelet? >> no, because those items have well-known other uses to become something other tha omelet. these weapon parts kits are designed and intended to be used as instruments of combat and they haveo other conceivable use. and i think the further evidence comes fm e fact that respondent themselves agree that a dissembled gun qualifies as aeapon. >> ok. so that's helpful soour

definition is a group of components that are -- can readily be converted into something and have no other use. they must have no other use in order to execute that thing. -- constitute that thing. in that situ they already constitute tt thing. >> you can rogze that something is a weapon even if it'son-functional. >> no, that' true from the face of the statute because it has to be -- it's sufficient if it's capable of being converted into something that can expel a projectile. all right. thank you. >> i just want to follow up on the question on the omelet. would your answer change if you ordered it from hello fresh and you got a kit and all of the ingredients are in a kit? >> yes, that presses on the more apt analogy here whicishat we are not suggesting that scattered compones at might have some entirely separe

function could be aggregated and called a wpon in the absence of thisvince, but if you bought fm trader joe's some omelet making at had all the ingredients to make the omelet and maybe included whatever you would need to start the fire in order to cook the omelet and had all that indication that's what's being marketed and sold, we would recognize that as being sold. especially under statutory nguage that refers to something like breakfast foods or things that can be converted to make breakfast. >> ask you abouthe difference bet the destructive device and machine gun definitions that also referenced parts in a way that this definition does not? been thinking about in 1968 in the gun control act why congress might have done that differently. and these guns weren't around.

these kits are a more recent oblem which doesn't cover the unintended consequence but in 1968, and i don't know enough about the g industry to know which is why i wur take on this. wasn't it the case then, i think, that destructive devices like grenades or even machine ere not things thatou tended to buy wholeecause they were regulated and illegal to purchase that way as opposed t firearms. so they were generally purchased as components or t that were, you know, able to be cod or made. like it would make sense to think about that. am i thinking about that correctly? >> you're right about that relevant difference and now people were ordinarily constructinghis like destructiveevices. and the important thing to recognize is that congress can use a variety of verbal form police stations to cover similar types of c, each of these other definitions that responded

refers to parts were enacted i different times from the definition of a firearm and they adess different issues in the way that your question touched on. but what they are doing is ignoring the languag the it referred to things that can be readily cveed to ex pile a procte. quite literally, the kit is intendedndesigned to produce that functioning weapon in a very short amount. time by people who don't know anything about guns and can do it with little skills. >> general, i understand your argument under a with respect to things that could be readily nverted but there's also an argument b, frame or receiver that might bring in this more obviously what's your thought about tt? >> i do think there's language that congress refers to frame at receiver but didn't define tt term.

it is true tt congress used that language but thats congress's defitn of the term. that wou limited to operational weapons. so congress had a really good reason to use the language there. >> moving on to b. >> congress didn't define the term which means it carries the plain and ordinary meaning and a noun like frame or receiver includes object that are complete but are missing a few holes that neetoelled. >> we can't think that every nounha congressses and every word in the u.s. code is useds a noun that cares with it things like justice alito's pen and pencil as a grocery list, right? so there's got to be a line that makes this on your theory, the case, why we should read that into b here but not everywhere in the u.s. code. re your thoughts?

>> right. iant to be very clear that we think that this is a matter of ordinary meaning that you dot need it to be 100% complete. and that runs acrosshe board. i mentioned a bicycle but it was missing pedals, you would still recognize what that is. >> yeah, but if i'motnclined to think that every noun is used in that wayn e u.s. code. dramatic argument. be a very right? theainotice to people that every piece of paper and pen is a grocer. you're on notice of that. but is there something particular to this statute that you think would a more narrow approach? >> y the context and purpose and the reason is because throughout the federal firearms law, whenever congress has provided a definio it has included not only the fully complete and functional item but

things thacabe made to function that way. so that's cgress's own indication in this statute that it's trying to ense verage not only of things that have the functionality of the frame or receivthe moment they're sold but frames or receivers that can converted. >>f youave something tex rule, i would love for you to point that. and your friend will make something of this that as recently as 2021 in a brief filed in a southern account of new york. >> with respect to text, what we have is the turn frame or receiver that is not defined and e court has recognized it need to interpret text and context. just one undrilled hole is enough, then that covers for frame or receiver -- >> does it help that c and d deal with muscle lesser --

mufflers and silencers that don'tavframe or receiver? does thahe you? >> it goes to showhat congress was trying to broadly cover the scope of products that can qualiffiarms and it refutes responde'suggestion here that every covered object under the statutafenings needs to have -- >> i'm wdeng whether looking at c and d and a which carries some broad language about not omplete items, might be a tex text -- tex rule way to carry this feature. >> i think respondents are eading that brief. they suggest that the brief todafothe principal that atf was arguing that a frame or

receiver has to be fully functional to qualify but if you lo at that brief, it walks through the statury and regulatory history here and kes clear that repeatedly over five decades, atf hass looked at whether a paral or complete frame or receiver can be brought in the condition. there is no dramatic break in the way that atf has regulated throughout the entirety of the statute's history. >> i will look at that again and la qstion for me and i'm sorry to take up so much time. in the regulation, it indicates that a frame or receiver and i'm stuck on this b point, which has en cut into pieces is still a firearm. buone that's been shredded is not. w i'm not sure what the difference betwe cut into pieces and sledding is, but -- shredding is but perha can enlighten me there. >> this refers to whenou already have a fully complete

andunional firearm. what steps to formerly destroy that firearm and except it from regulation. >> so it's not convertible. >> so once you brought something from the regulatory scope of the statute, it is a specialized term in the firearms industry, i cate you that the most coon way that you destroy a firearm is to torch cut it and with three specified cuts -- >> well, i'm sorry to interrupt but this is about frames and receivers that i'm talking about and it's 48 -- 478.12c and. ok? and it talks about partially complete dissembled or non-functional frame or receer that's what we're talking about, not the firearm. and, again, maybe there is a li that -- a through line that i couldn't fi one between

shredding and cutting into pieces. i thought that was pretty much the same thing. >> so thacos from 478.12e which i should espondents haven't challenged in this case. about what it takeso stroy a frame or receiver or regulated object. they are not challenging that here and the one tng that is before the court is the definition and rec -- >> no but it illuminates what is a sufficiently complete frame or receiver if a complete frame or receiver is not a firearm. and the only way i can be sure that i don't have a fully completer nearly complete or convertibly complete frame or receiver and therefore a firearm is to shred it and not cut it. >> oh, no. that's not accurate at all. as the regulation itself makes clear, you don't evegeto the question of asking whether it's functional shape unless you have

the component part so you have somethg at is well along the way toagrame or receiver and that's when you could conduct the inquiry and there is nothing the rule or in the agency's past practice to suggest that anything that isn't shredded or cut up or destroyed is going to be considered a framor receiver. that would be entirely inconsi >> thank you. >> on to the rule, what percentage of parts of a firearm must be included to be a firearm kit? >> they come with a frame or a receiver usually the part that needs a couple of holes drilled. then the weapon parts kits geray come with the additional come points. if you are asking whether it uld still qualify if it were missing other parts that is a

matter of degreend presses on what it mes. so with a part missing it is super specialized and hard to track down or cost you a million llars that might not be readily veteraned. but if you are missing a single pin you could have around the house it would be i don't think the court needso consider all the perform stations with respect to dip products. the thingsoueed to ask did the agency reasonably define the term readily and it gave the ordinary definition d d they identify relevant factors with time, exrte, scope of work and if your quetouched on what parts would be needed. >> we have a clue fromhe starter gun as an example of something readily convertible. as i understand it to make a gun

operable you have to replace the bore so you need a new bore part or drill out the exi wling bore on the starter gun and get a pin, rrt? >> that's correct. th post cmonly publicized top mind forongress and cited is the example of a gang member bought the starter guns in bulk and had t drill out the plugged barreut it off and rethread it d ten you have toen large the barrel so it can chamberommon things. >> s incomplete items qualify. >> yes. i think it also shows as the statutory tbgts makes clear things n psently functioning as guns can be rdi are covered ends subparagraph a.

that is what they were trying to accomplish that things are used asnstruments of combat with minimum work would be win the federal firearms law. >> were weapons parts kits common in 1968? >> there have only been a couple of exale reflected. we cite the stewart case and witt case one an oozy making kit ananother making it possible through kit form to construct a machine gun. it was not ptilarly common because the big developnd technical devopnt was using polymer to make this, a form of plastic. >> are there kits that consist ts taken from disassembled firearms that have been altered

in a way to make them nonfunctional without some modification? >> i'm not awa of any commercial product right now >> on what it means to be . readilyrtible i don't know whhe it is possibledo something -- that is a statutory term -- more precise than what a.t.f. has done, but it would be interesting if it would be help you could perhaps explain a little more what that me what level of expertise is taken in account, what collection of tools is taken io account? can you provide any time mi how long must it take se us who are not and don't have of mechanical ability have spent ur and hours trying to assemble things that we have

rcsed. >> i'm with you on that justice alito as someone who str with ikea rnure. i think the thing to points to is case law because a.t.f. was coming with the factors of nowhere but because we have 50 years of judicial precedent flushing out t ctours. courts and agency has said it is y converted if a novice in a fairly quick amount of time can easily and efficiently converthweapon to function. you asked outside bounds li time limits. the case la the long period of time was eight h and the agency has not consideredny product greater than eight hours beeadily convertible. so a court might hold that sets appear outer bound. with respect to skill or parts

availability that wi be fact and context specific. i think the important thing is these are principles that we drawn from case law and the agency i thinkan be expected to do better than courts have done in trying to flesh out the standards congress chose to use. >> ms. sotomayor. miss kagany. >> in addition to the parts kit analogious to a ikea table k uphill o'connor was considered that would include any aggregation of gun parts. say a gunsmith wanted to replenish inventory andot a big box of gun parts from a gun manufacturer. would that count uerstood the a.t.f.? >> no. the lower court originally misunderstood how this final

rule operates. sn't regulate a gun smith buying individual parts to aggregate. this only governs commercial manufacturers and sellers of firearms constructing the weapons and kitanputting them on the markets. then with respect to with the rule would cov iis clear from the rdily convertible analysis y he to have a processelatively quick, ever easy and once sweep in thing that would require a lot of skill and expertise or time to track down the missing parts. i nto emphasize it is not like a.t.f. feels comin up with the rule without experie about the kinds of products the fringe 346rs re putting on the market. these were kits you could puts together under an hour, they have the relative components, you just need to do the finishing work and will together and they are usually

only a couple stems. e first thing most require is drilling the holes, usuix holes and you do it with j so it removes all the trial and error and you know exactly where to drill. then it is remove the blocking tabs, that doesn't require mh work because you clip them off with a pair of pliers and file it down wi a amendment nail file or a rotary tool a lot of people eeclly dog owners becaus it is helpful for trimming your dog's nails. then you can quickly assemble in. that is how the products we marketed. >> tni to the saeupls of frames or -- frames or receivers there were cng that the new regulation is intentional today capture times -- terms sold with jigs or tell plays.

is there anything else that was intended it capture if not and why did a.t.f. made that? >> they openly acknowledged the decisionecse it recognized when you have a jig which is this tool as i mentioned t removes all the trial and error and makes it dummy proof as the manufacturers have claimed it goes t question all along which is how quickly, easily and efficiently this be made to function. it is no different from indexes on the frame or receiver. that is something a.t.f. looked as from 1968 on so if you put a dimple in the frame that will speed up the process and jigs work the same way. >> let me ask youader question. metimes this court looks a regulations and it says, you know there's an old statute and it doesn't contemplate aew problem and a new problem comes

and congress can't get its act together and deal with the old problem. so the agency takesul statutory language that do not really fit the problem but is vague enough oreral enough or broad enough so there could be made to deal with the new problem and this court has sometimes said that is not rit, the new statute -- the old statute had notngo do with this new problem and this is kind of the agency just taking over ats really congress's bu. is that a story line tt the respondents here canell about this regulation? >> no, i don't think there's any way racterize this regulation as an attempt to change the meaning of the statute to confront a new problem. first of all, this is an age old problem. i think congress recognized manufacturers mighteeto evade central ruirements.

that is why they define itis whether can be readily made. tnk that is described. in somebody aph b it is not a duane but we think congress was tracking ordinary meaning which recognizes if you have the pncipal structural component a handgun that can be represented as a frame or receiver even if missing a single final hole so i think it would be to say it doesn't cover the situation. on top of that, we have context and purpose here. on respondent's theory of this statute it would be incredibly easy for any gun manufacturer to avoid the regn and serializing bronze check by leaving one little of the wpon unfinished claiming that is not what congressas intending and its this case squarely

cases where the court recognized if you have an interpretation of the gun control acta will allow that entire circumvention the statute shouldn't. >> you may wan to be a stronger cast. >> it is a t sir come srepbg is more profoundecause it -- the circumvention would be effectivelalweapons going forward would not needs to be serialized or sold with bronze checks and record keeping. >> your statutory interpretation has forc i had some concern at the space stage and mens rea. this is an agency regulat that broadens a criminal state beyond what it was befor what about the seller, for that they are valenting the law

and gets criminally charged? whatssurances can you give about mens rea, about inions to the jury that the government would seek and the like? let me begin with the statutory standards whi multiply addresses this. this is 18 u.s.c. 924, a, 1, d requiring willfulness. so if theanacturer is not putting a serial until on because it believes in goods favorite it is not rick lated it will not be criminally charge believe because the government can't prove mens rea. so that is a check. the something thing -- does willfully it all potential processes? >> it applies if there's to

serial number and if it is sold thout a license. i believe that respect t conducting a background check that is under a different provisio that requires knowledge buthentry point is whether or n i has a serial numberndhat is at the point of manufacture. i want to emphasize -- >> how would that work on a background check? i want to make sure i'm not missing something the. >> i thi if you have a seller who wants guidae with respect to technique products it is necessaryo the background check e rson can seek a khrafpgs from a.t. -- classification from a.t.f. thmafacturer is the one and that is the way to get a preenforcement as to whether that is deemed to be a reguled firearm then if you don't like the answering have a rev >> but if you have not done that

and you truly -- take the hypothetical -- you truly believer not violating theaw, could you be charged under that provision? >> as a theory rest calendar possibilities i think only with respect to bronze checks. i'm not aware of any prosecutions that looks like this. >> is that something the gornnt would do? >> i don't think the government would beikely to carjack and it is not anything where the manufacturers were the seller pu the products on the mark with the explicit knowledg it is puts into the hands of taoerpblgs. >> anythie you wanted to finish with that? >> the only ear thing i say we think there's a lot o protection for manufacturers seeking to apply. a.t.f. is not trying to hard the ball. this is not a game of gotcha to criminally prosecute people. ere was a serious public safety thr posed by the

explosion of ghost guns in crimes so it is tputhe regulated industry on notice of how it applies an always applied since the statute was enacted. >> you had a lot of clcation letters, this was to collect everything and put everyone as you say on notice. >> i don tnk this is a advance expansion but a.t.f.'s long >> some exnsn. >> only with the addition of looking at jigs but that just changes the factors relevant you would the statute. >> that is heavily. thank you. >> i have a question about ar-15's. a concern was expressed because ar-15 seasons creadily converted into machine gap receivers th turns were who owns an a.r.15 into a criminal.

>>that is wrong. i want to be clear about terpretation. we are not saying a statutory rerps to win in includes all other separate and distit things that might be readily converted. the example in the reply brief is a pair of pants is not regulated as a pair of shorts if you have a statute referring to shorts even thoughhe pants could be converted in shorts. they are distinctptns. the rule incorporates ts principle by requiring the regulatedbjt has to be clearly identifiable as the unfinished component of the guted weapon so you would have to say there is a clearly u unfinished component part of a machine gun. t you couldn't say that about an ar-15. that is something that is desind intended to b used for semiaumac fire and the

fact tt u might be able to understood take drilling to convert it into a machine gun do not me it would be regulated as a machine gun. th agency has never held otherwise and this is theam interpretation that the agency has had all along a h never suggested ar-15's standing along are regulated machine guns. >> just kagan talked abouthe problem of the agency potentially taking over what is congress's business. i guess i'm worried about the different concern which about the court taking ovt congress may have intended for the agency to do in this situation. so, all ofestions -- the reason i didn't really engage the other part is because all of that concern.for you stem from

you have phrased the question presented in this case as whether certain iweapons, complete and disassembled y receiverslify as firearms within meaning of statute. i'm concerned this framing because it doesn't seem to accoun in my view, or the tual claim the challengers made, which is the agency exceeded its statu authority. so i'm trying to figure out how we are supposed to address what i thin is a distinct question about the scope of the agency's authority vis-a-vis the court to fill out the category of what is firearm. are we to conclude that appear choose what we think is the best meaning of stutory term? is that how the scopethe

agency's autho to promulgate a rule is supposed to be determin. we compare what the agency believes qualifies as a firearm with what we think is a firearm thing a had something we would not have put there we say the agency has exceeded authority? i think thosenot right to me as a way ofuring out the question of exceed the authority. and i thinkt can't be assumed the agency exceeds the authority whenever it interprets a statutory term differently than we would such that we have to do as part of this c today is just decide what we think a firearm is. can you react to that? >> as any statutory interetion the task of this court is to determine wh congress meant. we think we have clearly the pwhrerp station of the has said time and again you ourt

don't just look at textut you interpret it in context >> but can i -- let me drill down a little bit. the term we are terpreting, i thought, wcategory. congress has said firearms and frames and receivers which defines the firearms part way.to be treated in a certain in order to implement the statute the agency to look at real world circumstances and determine what particular items fit into that category. i understood the delegation of this entire things to an agen to be that task. at is what the agency is supposed to be doing. k at firearms and definition of the firearms says the agency ok at things in the world and say x y, z are in that ry. my question is, when the challenge does it exceed the

authorities if the court action should have been in 25 cament the agency still that the authority -- in loper it may have realized it gave the agency authority to make certain calls, right? >> i think inponding to this question it is helpful to distinguish between facial but as applied of the agency dermation wave is within the definition. i think the court con taconic in drafted the statu had categorically preclud a looking at time and then it would be exceeding authority cause if congress said in t statute you can't think about me and the agency can't choose toso. we are miles from that situation here because all the factors the agency listed on their face are nsistent with the plain meaning -- >> so what you ves do is not come up with our list of wh

items we think should be in the firearm category. we have to think of exactly each thing. in this facial challenge inger sawing we need to do something more like did the agency that take into account the relevant factors of making the determination wave goes into this category >> that's correct. particular products to examine. the only re question is the facial question of doeit regulation conicwith anything in theun control act and our answer is no. we think it follows from the plain text of the gun criminal act and is consistent wi judicial precedence. with respect to following products that could be assessed in light of their specific facts to see how they might cash out in an indidl case. before the front line question of the agency's authority we think everything in the final ruleconstent with the statut >>hankou, counsel.

mr. patterson. >> mr. chief justice and may it please the court this turns on des made by congress in the gun control act of no68. first, congress althe common understanding of firearm to include weapons that might be readilyrted to firearms. seconds, congress decided to relate o single part of a firehe frame or receiver and didn't alter the common of a frame or receiver. a.t.f. has exceeded its authority by operating outside the bonds sets by ngress. it has expanded the definition of frame or receivthings that could be readily converted to a frame receiver. then it expandearm to include collections parts that are npons and that do not include a frame or receiver.

so, some concern has been raised ab circumvention and complying with the statut is not circumventing in it. a the court said congres to control access to the ned ek degree. didn't regulate theecondary market for firearms. that secondary market is a much bigger source of firearms than privately firearms. there are also questions about the agencies prior practice. there has been a sea change by e agency. it projected it would put 42 out of 43 unlicensed manrers out of business. what the agency said in the syracuse litigation was a unfinished frame or receiver do meet the statutory definition of firearm simply because it can be designed to or read converted to a frame or re. instead, what they looked at is

ether critical machi operations had taken place and we have no quaith that prior practice. we have raised alternatives something has to be completely machined or two the critical machine operation test and the latter we submit is more consistent with the statutory language and solves th machine gun problems because in the machine gun frame or receiver is regulated and if oneis all that separates a semiautomatic receiver f machine gun receiver it is hard to see the readily standard wouldn't also be applied. >> judge oldham makes were of the 80% rule in the stage of manufacturer versus the receiver or ite capable oran readily become. we have had much discussion

about readis morning. does it make a difference as to your architect whether it is the 80% rule or the current readily become rule? >> i think it does. swiatek submit it be readily because we congress wanted it toadily it put it in thetatute in multiple stances. two, it has a different practical impact if the standard is readily and the government drilling one local but if that is all youto do to make it a machine gun reir it is hard to see how that is not machine gun receiver. the congress said the frame or receiver. t didn't include in the statute are parts that may be used to convert an item. >> i'm more interested in how

the 80% rule operated. we have had hearducabout the readily and whether or not that change took place and whether it really matters. does really matter and 80% rule is a cloak weapon of mass destructionism. the governing stupl is the critical machining and they would say based on the fr essentially firing of a f ds the we will look at that and see if critical machining operations have taken place and as a cross check this sometimes would be temporal considerations this is whhe court said in syracuse it was tied to the case. so they would look at tem considerations. but -- we can see this clearly

in the regulation of ar15 lowers, and that is the same pie metal can be considered a frame or receiver deg on what is sold with it. the old standard, you would look at the item itself. that is what congress did. they said look at em itself. itt say look at other things tt y be used to convert that item into arame or receiver. that is what they is now doingh respect to look at jigs because what is looking at hat jig is being regulated because the same piece of metal can be a frame or receiver. >> i thought readily convert believe is in the statute. >> it in part a but nt pwfrplgts. so it -- it is not part b. it would be odd to say it is implicit. >> does the 80% rule

i'm just trying to understand your answer to justice thomas with regard to the 80% rule. we are using 80% rule as a andn for critical machining operations. it is what the agency would look at as to whether something had become a frame or receiver. >> once you admit that you need to figure out when something has become a finished product, you have to have a standard to decide that. and you are saying thetandard manufacturing.thing that goes to psg is saying that is a silent way of saying has the manufacturing gone far enough to make this essly a frame or receiver? can it be converted to be fully functional? they are saying the two are doing exactly the same thing

you prefer one becou want to sell frames without a serial number or sell fthat you have to drill a hole in and say that is not regulated. they are saying, a hole i really not a critical component of the frame, everytlse is. so, i'm having difficulty understanding, once you admit that some st test is necessary why this particular test exceeds statutory authority. since it is only a different way of getting to the same thing. if i have enough of a frame or receiver to call it a frame or er. >> uerood. there are two alternatives. although machining operations had taken place. if you were a sculptor, all the chiseling had been done. >> you don' disagree that taking it off a frame, is that a

completed frame? >> i don't thinking a tap off if you could do it with your finger, that is not removing material. >> if you have to drill a hole to attach it to something, that is not a com frame? >> this is where the difference between t alternatives we under the first alternative,n. ling a single hole would be what would make it across the line and the government admits that sometimes drilling a single hole can be the difference between a semi automatic receiver and a machine gun er. a ma gun receiver is much heavily regulated. the notion that just one whole separating something from another item is somehow absurd is clearly not the case. the alternative we have given you is the critical machines operations test which is different from gent's new test because it is not conflictin the statute i taking language from another part of the statute that is not there and putting it there.

and where the government represented in the syracuse litigation in 2021, we can't do that. >> what is the purpose of selling a receiver without the holes drilled in it? >> well, some individuals, just like some individuals enjoy weekend, some individuals want to construct their own firearms. so the purpose is to prode individuals with materials with which they can do that. >>l, drilling a hole or two i would think doesn't give the same sort of reward that you get frking on your car on the weekends. [laughter] >> i would encourage court to read the basket is brief. -- vasrief. this is not a particularly easy thing to do. the press democrat article

showed the reporter could not friends to help them completeage this that were expert in firearms. even once yo a come -- complete frames not a trivial matter to put it there are small parts that have be put in precise locations. the reporter could not put it together from the completed frame. it is not clear -- it is clearly not a trivial proposior someone to do this. >> well,'t know the skills of the particular reporter. [laughte t my understanding it is not to do this.fficult for someone and it is certainly no terrible -- terribly difficult to take the plastic piece out. is that part of gunsmithing? >> the plastic parts that are brought -- blocking the rai that have been highlighted, that has to be taken out. it is recommended you put it on a drillress and use a drill s with a specialized bit to

ke that away. they recommend against using a drum all. they say that could damage the pr i don't know -- i know we don't have any particular product at issue here. the point is that we want to regulate the fr receiver itself. >> i'm suggesti tt if someone who goes through the process of drilling one or two holes and takinghelastic out, he really wouldn't think he has built that gun, woul he? you know, i don't know that person would think. i think he would. it is not a simple proposition hose who took 21 minutes to acquire the tools, learn hown to use t tools. this person was a mechanic so they knew how to do these things. for the time to learn how to machine the object. they watched two hours watching instructional materials for startingt that item together.

even after that 21 minutes, the person had done it incorrectly and it needed to be repaired. >> i would like to circle back to justice sotomayor's question. i take that one position has to be that it has t a frame or receiverse there iso condition of readily converted the way there is in a. but i think you have suggested that now we have accepted that the e incomplete frames or receivers, ts indeed an artifact now. if that is true, first of all, is that true? >> our primary argument i it has to be complete, but we have given an alternative argument that it could be an artifact now, but if it is the sthould be critical machining and not readily converted. >> let me press on the first argument. why wouldn't this be an artifact now in ts atute given a, which does suggest incomplete

things can count, c, mufflers as sincs, d, dtructive devices which don't ve traditional receiver? i think the examples we have been given our penn guns and things like that. why wouldn't that be an indication that here if not throughout the u.s. code? >> i thinkuld be precisely the opposite, because congres put that language specifically into thoseboring statutes, words like converted or words like collections of parks -- parts. t would be odd where congress has taken special care to use that sort of language when congress wanted that language to be applied to say, we are just going to infer that it also applies here wre congress did not put that langua i think it could recap it the firearms laws. because there are of things that can be readily converted. aditional rifle can be

converted to a short-barrele rifle ininutes with a hacksaw or by swapping in a shorter so this concept y converted, congress put it into specific places. in the machine gun provision, congred readily restored instead of readily converted. we need to be very precisee. in terms ofhy we would take critical machining operaon instead of readily converted, if we are looking for evide meaning, if we are not going to say it has to be completed, one evidence of meaning was what did atf and the industry working together over a period of years arrive at? what they arrived at was this critical machining test because it does not pose the same problems as readily converted would potentially with other prov to code. it alsore consistent with the statute by not importing readily into a place where congss chose not to put it. >> thank you. >> it doesn't appearn the statute, it seems a little made up.

the critical machining test. your other problem is pulling the tap off the front and saying now it is a frame or rec but it wasn't before you pulled the tape. the critical machining doesn't come from the statute. it is a way of allowing ford to minimus exception. >> i wouldn't say that, your honor. you think of a sculptor, when everythi has been sculpted, if someis put on to protect it and it has to be pulled off, i wouldn't call it a- machining. under the secondary test, it would come from the lady -- la of frame or receiver. it comes from an artifact, but what does the artifact now an point is something a frame or receiver. we think thence of meaning of the agency and others in the industryre very keenly interested in this question g it out over a period of

years and sayingere is this test that we have come up with, thiscal machining test, it is much better attested than readily. >> would you say that the ordinary usage? nowrybody just understands based on long-standing practice at the critical machining test is the point at which frame or receiver -- >> correct and it is not that we are deferring to that, it is the best evidence of what this means. >> an ordinary ag an object that is created to perform a function may be called by the name tt attached to that object even if it is not that what this gets at?isn't >> i don't believe that this is what it gets at. there are two prov here. >> before you walk away from that, let me give you an example. sometimes se that my neighbor is resto classic car. but he has taken out some

critical p and then someoneays, what is that? i say, that is a 1957 thunderbird. even though you couldn't drive it and it would take some work to make it do the thing that was originally created to do. isn' that the essence of your backup argument? ing must still be such that one would call it a frame receiver, even if it is not fully ready to be functional as a frame or receiver at thi time. >> yes, our primary argument is that it would have to be. you could think of the situation with the carnd you ask your neighbor, could i borrr car? you give him the car with the engine taken out. they would say that is not a the backup is th some point something is a car even if it can't currperform that function. >> so what exactly does the itical mturing -- critical machini tt involve? what does that mean?

explain it to somebody, to a layperson. >> yes, frame or receiver is the part of a firearm that holds the components that allow the firearm to function. soiring mechanism, the trigger and such, and the ceiling component that makes sure the barrel is sealed so the round go of the barrel and the energy from the exn doesn't go elsewhere. so what the critic machining operations test was is we are going to focus on the parts of the frame or receive either have the holes drilled or materials removed that are g to hold those parts. and we are going to see, have those operations been performed or been performed to some degree? if they have, we will say the frame or receiver -- t follows the hole -- solves the one hole in the air problem because rson would be drilling the final hole. until the final hole is drilled

orndexed, that critical machining operation has not taken plac it would be hard to see how iten could be readily in this context and not readily in the machine gun context. >> you haventedhe court with the critical machining alternative and you say you have these two alternatives. e agency has presented yet her way of going about this. do you concede that under facial challenge like the one you have brought, your task is actually to demonstrate that your alternatives are the only permissie ones under the statute? >> well, i think under a rule of party presentation, we have presented the court with the alternatives that have occurred to anyone. i think these are the best alternatives. >> you see the question as is the best alternative? and the is just supposed to say, we have three options, which one do we think is the best?

the agency didn't pick the best, the rule is stricken. >> i think our burden is to show that the agency is wrong. maybe we don't have the right interpretation. but if their interpretation is incorrhan they are asking the wrong question. >> by iorct, you mean they don't have the authority under the state to reach that, that it insistent with the statute? >> correct, frame or receiver does not include ite that may readily be converted to frames or receivers, than the rule is beyond their authority regardless of what frame or ceiver does mean. they have gone beyond their authority. we have presented the courts with two alternatives that we k are better interpretations. but the key here is that the agency's interpretation is incorrect. >> do you believe that a weapon that has been disassembled, a gun that was once fully

operational, that everyone would agree with the firearm, disassembled, as sometimes happen, maybe even after a e, is that still a firearm or nr your view? >> yes and for two reasons. the first is that it will have a frame or receiver. that is what congress put in the statute -- >> if ame or receiver is not in the box. >> then no, it is not a weapon. >> so all that matters really is b, the frame or receiver. >> that is how the statute is structured and part of that m be due to statutory history. beforetatute, the definition was any weapon that is designed to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive and any part or parts of any such weapon. what is all that language doing if all that matters for the purpose of the defn if all that matters is that a frame or receiver? >> what i was going to say is at background and they said,om

weoing to alter the definition of a to include adily convertible weapons and we are going to ale definition of b to focus on particular part, the frame or receivd it is the frame or receiver of any such weapon, so that is why itructured that way. it could be the frame or receiver of and then insert a, instead of any such weapon. that is really how the statute structured. >> could you clarify for me what you mean? assume thathere are all the parts of gun,eapons kit with all the parts of a gun, but e receiver or the frame has a hole missing. so that is tpon parts kit. is it your position that under a, assuming we were to fat readily convertible does include some drilling, some holes, etc.,

just like the starter guns making a weapon, wout be covered under a? >> i think whether it would be covered would turn on the interpretation of b. if the court accepted our backup argument. so you are taking out of b readily convertible and also tat out of a. >> we are not taking it out of a, because of what a was meant to cover and thahe starter guns that were guns, they had handgun frames, but the barrel has to be -- >> you have no quarrel with the proposition th agency can, within whatever the statute limito do, determine what makes a completed or nearly completed -- a completed frame or receiver? >> i'm not sure i understand the question, but we have no quarrel

have presented with the critical machining test and the hypothetical your honor presented with a single hole that likely would mean that test >> thank you. anything further? ank you, counsel. rebuttal, general? >> mr. chief justice, i want to begin with the question you asked about why manufacturers would leave these holes in ild. you have said, what is the ose? my friend responded is that it is to create a kit that hobbyists can put toth. if it only takes 20 minutes, the hobbyist is probably not going to get his money's worth and want to havehexperience of building a gun. the facts on the ground.ed by thevidence shows these guns were being purchased and used in crimes. they were sold to me guns. there was a 1000 percent increase between 27 d 2021 in the number of guns that were

recovered as part of criminal igations. it makes perfect sense because e ole reason why you would want to get your hands on one of these un-serialized, untraceable firearms is if you are a prohibited person or you want to use that gun in a im if there is a rk for these kits for hts, they can be sold to hobbyists, you just have to cplwith the gun control act. someone lawfully allowed to possess fiarm can purchase that kit if they undergo a background check. if there is a market for these productsth can operate under the statute. the evidence shot the market for those guns seially claed after the rule was permitted to go into effect,hich underscores what was evident all along, the reason why you want a ghost gun is because it is un-serialized and can't be traced. on the question of a frame or receiver, just sotomayor asked what governed it here. this is an undefined term in the

statute. does it require to the -- the weapon to be functional? we think the answer is no. if you are missing a single hole , you can clearly recni that as an unfinished component part of a weapon a it is readily convertible to the functioan that fits within the plane dictioryefinition of what a frame or receiver is to be, no different than a bicycle missing pels we have a picture onage 34 of our brief. it is hard to know what else to exactly like the principalk structural component of a gun. that race is the follow on question, if it doesn't have to be functional, what standard shldou use tmeure when it is a frame or receiver? there are good reasons why atf focused on whether it cod readily convertible. first, that is most consistent with how congress has approached the issue when it has defined terms under theedal firearms law. that is the sndd congress uses to mark the terrain of what products are regulated.

second, there was a consistent ency practice of applying that readily converted standard. my friend several times tried to suggest that the 50 plus years of agency practice instead focused on whether it has reached a critical stage of manufacture. but that is ignoring the actual elements cited in the classificaetters. they looked not just at what had been done, but what steps remained. how much time it would take to perform those functions, equipment you would need to make it functional, what skill you would need, and whether there are othepas. none oe other elements go to what has alreadyn machined on that particular frame or receiver. ey are centrally relevant as toer it can be converted to function just as the agency has said all along. for a third reason, that mean this is a standard written in the law and familiar to industry. it is notable that we don'have the major gun manufacturers suing us about this final rule. the reason for that is because this readily converted standard

t one that has governed their conduct ever since the gu control act was enacted. it means there is a stable body of traditional precedent and agency practice to draw on in further answering concerns about whathearticular types of products will be regulated, which justice kavanaugh also answered some of the concern about how the regulated parties will know whether conduct falls within the scope othlaw. finally, in thinking about responding to primary argument which ishaa single undrilled hole is engh to exempt a product from regulation, i think the court does not have to blind itself to practical ramifications of that rule the status quo.terpretation is it is how the law has been applied over 50 years. if the court now says that one undrilled hole is enough to exempt products omegulation, that is going to bac change i how the gun control act is implemented. at that point,t can serve its tion because all manufacturers everywhere could simply exempt products from

regulationhrgh the simple expedient. that means going forward, all guns could become ghost guns. the court said 200 years ago that you don't to interpret a statute to be self-defeating ke that if there is a plausible alternative cotrtion. our construction is not only plausible, it is the best reading of the statute looking at text, context, purpose and history.

port for ukraine in its war against russia. ♪

>> good evening, everyone, and welcome to the v.r.c.13 news studio. tonight an election 2024 special event. a debate between the candidates for the seventh congressional district. the candidates include democratic incumbent congresswoman for the seventh congressional seat, district susan wild and republican challenger in the 187th district, ryan mckenzie. i'm general manager of tv 13 and i'll be the moderator for tonight's event. we're proud to bring this important political event to our audience. i'd like to introduce to our panelists. marie john and ben ste m.r.i. ck. marie is a senior producer here

with more than 36 years of experience managing news content. ben is a ben covers news events across the poconos and lehigh valley area. the candidates will have a two-minute opportunity to introduce themselves to our audience. then they'll each answer a series of questions from our panelists and also a number of questions that viewers have sent in. both candidates will each have one minute to answer each question and then both candidates will have a chance for a 30-second rebuttal. so it's time to meet the candidates. we drew straws to determine tonight's order. our first candidate is congresswoman susan wild. ms. wild: thank you for having us. i'm susan wild, i am your

congresswoman. i've been in congress for six year, but only representing carbon county for two years. i have lived in northeastern pennsylvania for the last 40 years. i grew up in a military family, my dad had been in the air force his entire adult life. i got used to moving every two years so 40 years in one place feels definitely like home. but in addition to that, my two now-adult children were born and raised here, went to public schools from k-12. and i have to tell you that when carbon county became part of my district, district 7, my first goal was to make sure that the people of carbon county felt that they were heard and listened and that they were represented in washington. so thes if

very first thing we did was we opened an office in lehighton, a full-time office staffed by carol etheridge. very proud to have done that and i also had our first town hall of this congress in january of 2023 in summit hill. the issues i've worked on in congress have been the kinds of things that matter to working families, to seniors, to veterans, to the middle class and honestly i'm incredibly proud of a lot of the work that we have done in terms of bringing down prescription drug prices. there's still work to be done there but getting insulin down to $35 a month was a big deal. i've worked in the educational field making sure that all of our school districts are treated well and i've done a lot of work for seniors and veterans. this is an amazing place to live. we can only make it better and it's an honor of a lifetime to represent you and i hope to continue to share my vision for the future with you tonight. >> thank you, congresswoman. we will hear an opening statement from state representative ryan mackenzie.

rep. mackenzie: thank you to brc13 for hosting tonight's debate. i appreciate the opportunity to have this conversation. for those of you that i haven't met, i'm state representative ryan mackenzie. i'm a ninth generation resident of the valley, was born and raised here, went through the parkland school system. my wife and i are raising a 5-month-old baby boy that we were blessed with. as grateful and happy as we are that we have that son joining us, we're very concerned about the direction of the country and the future that lies ahead and tonight's debate we'll have a clear contrast between two different candidates and the opportunity we have to elect someone to represent us in congress. my opponent, susan wild, is a self defined progressive. she will tell you she's moderate but she's on the record as

calling herself a progressive. she's voted for every single plan for bidenomics and voted against the border wall 10 times leaving us less secure and has voted for forever-wars around the globe. at the same time as state representative, i have a proven track record of bringing people together, getting conservative bipartisan results on things like helping our veterans start a business when they return from service, on things like eliminating the inheritance tax for small family business and also doing things that help individuals with their health, like improving stroke care and maternal health. those are the things i'm proud of but there's much more that needs to be done at the federal level and we're not served well by someone like susan wild who has said derogatory things about people in carbon county, saying she was dismayed to represent them and she needed to school

you. hopefully we'll have kafertion tonight where we get to see this contrast unfold as well. >> thank you. on november 5, pennsylvanians will cast their ballot in the general election. it's time to start this debate to see who you want you to represent you in the seventh congressional district. the first question is from marie johns. >> the first question is regarding infrastructure to congresswoman wild. with the rapid increase in warehouse and distribution centers in the lehigh valley, how would you address the growing infrastructure issues caused by heavy truck traffic and how do you balance free enterprise with preservation of green spaces. congresswoman wild: warehouses are something we hear about probably more than almost anything. i'm proud to have voted for the

bipartisan infrastructure law and part of that has come home to carbon county -- road repairs and bridge repairs and that kind of thing which have been very important. we have to continue to invest in our infrastructure and we are going to continue to see proliferation, i'm afraid, of warehouses because of the unique zoning laws in pennsylvania. what we have to make sure of is that our residents are not suffering as a result of those warehouses, that the roads around them are -- that traffic is being diverted, truck traffic is properly diverted, that roads are kept up and that they are kept away from school areas where small children might be walking so i think that we really -- and with regard to keeping places green, there's no place in my district that's as green as carbon county. i have to say that preservation

of the beauty of carbon county and the rest of the district is a top priority and we should never let industry invade that beauty. >> state representative ryan mackenzie? rep. mackenzie: as a growing community where we're so blessed to have people that want to come to our area to raise families, start a business or enjoy themselves for tourism, we do have a balancing act, because of that growth, we have to maintain our integrity and community but at the same time figure out ways to manage new individuals in the community so infrastructure is a part of that and a balancing act we need. i've worked with local representatives who have the zoning authority to actually help improve and reduce the impact when a new development is going into our community. that's something i've done as state representative and you could continue to do as a congress person. we need funding for roads and bridges.

often a lot of money is diverted away from the physical infrastructure to other projects and other needs and we need to make sure that doesn't happen because if we continue to do that, we have bad roads and high taxes that come along with gas prices and inflation. >> thank you. we're going to move on to a viewer question at this point and this is a question involving inflation. inflation is affecting everything from gas prices to groceries. what specific steps would you take to lower costs for working families in our district, starting with state representative ryan mackenzie. rep. mackenzie: families across our country are crushed by inflationary prices. across the board, everything is up 20% or more -- food and fuel, housing and healthcare up 40% and sometimes 50%. i've never voted to raise taxes and i've introduced legislation and passed it to eliminate inheritance tax for small family businesses and was helpful in

getting past the childcare tax credit. i've introduced a package of 10 bills to reduce or eliminate high taxes for people in pennsylvania to put more money back in their pockets. susan wild has voted for every plank of bidenomics. the massive spending in washington, d.c. has caused the inflation and high prices so we we need to rein in high spending in washington, d.c. and that's something i would do if elected to. >> congresswoman wild? susan wild: i feel the impact of inflation, too. i do my own grocery shopping and pump my own gas. i'm very aware of prices and although i'm happy that gas prices seem to be coming down, believe me, i understand what people have been going through.

we have got to make sure we are doing everything we can to reduce costs across the board for the average working family. that includes prescription drug prices. it includes groceries. and by the way, corporate gouging is a real thing. if you go to the grocery store and look at the box of cereal you used to buy, it will be the same price that it always was or perhaps a little more but it will have 6 ounces less of the cereal so shrink flation is one of the problems. people at the top are doing just fine so we have to crack down on corporations that are price gouging and finally, i have to say that the housing problem has got to be a priority. prices are way too high. >> time. thank you. our next question comes from ben stemrick to congresswoman susan wild. ben: this question is a worldwide question with a local feeling to it. pennsylvania's the second

largest ukrainian population by state. lee heighton is one of the most populated areas in the state. what are your thoughts of funding to ukraine with the war with russia? congresswoman wild: i have been hearing about residents about ukraine since before the war started. we have a significant population in carbon county and lehigh county. i've spoken with them and supported the funding we have sent to ukraine because of the fact that ukraine have fought very hard to be a democracy. we need to support them and by the way many of my constituents still have friends and family in ukraine. i am proud of the actions that i have taken and i think we need to make sure that ukraine wins this war. this is putin's war. he would love to take over ukraine and move into poland and the rest of eastern europe. we can't let that happen.

it would be world war iii and our european allies would be greatly affected. rep. mackenzie: a serious issue and we have a ukrainian population we love so much and i've enjoyed meeting with many of you. what vladimir putin is doing is an atrocity and we need to call that out and evil acts recognized. at the same time, the failed policy and foreign policy of susan wild and joe biden has let this war drag on for 2 1/2 years causing death and destruction in ukraine. the people i've talked with are looking for a peaceful resolution. they want to go back home and visit family and those living there to go about their lives but what is going on now is we see chaos around the world. not just in ukraine but in the middle east, we see us on the verge of war in asia, as well,

where china is rattling its saber so all of the things they have done have not solved these problems or deterred dictators because we're not exhibiting strength that leads to peace. that's what we need to get back to. >> marie johns, you have a question for state representative mackenzie. marie: property tax reform is a state problem. citizens look to all our legislators to fix this problem. seniors and people on fixed incomes are at risk of losing their homes. is there a way for you as a federal legislator to work with pennsylvania state reps to help generate new ideas to help ease

this problem after many, many years. rep. mackenzie: this is a serious problem that too many people across our community face. as a homeowner, i see the high prices of our tax bill every year. i have voted multiple times to reduce and eliminate the property tax in pennsylvania. those of us in growing population communities always vote for that. those in declining population areas vote against it so it's not a partisan issue but it's based on geography. i have voted for those changes. unfortunately, we haven't been able to get elimination done but this year we were able to expand the property tax rebate program which gives relief to low income seniors. we have to do a lot more and as a federal representative we can lower taxes on people, make sure we're putting money back in their pockets. i support no taxes on tips and no taxes on social security that would directly put money back into people's pockets.

there's more we can do but those are two ideas. >> congresswomman susan wild? congresswoman wild: it has been noted, property taxes are a state issue and can't be addressed at the federal level but what we can do at the federal level is make sure the tax code is fair to the middle class which it's not currently. the tax cuts enacted at the end of 2017 primarily benefits the 1%. workers who need supplies for their jobs, work boots, used to be able to deduct those costs. no longer. we have got to go back to making sure that the middle class is properly served and that they are not being gouged with taxes. we've got to make sure that the 1% is paying its fair share. it would go a long way towards solving a lot of the problems in this country if we didn't have tax cuts for billionaires. i also believe that we absolutely have to roll back the tax on social security that was

a number of years ago enacted. i think it is unfair to seniors, to tax their social security which was already taxed when they first were paid. >> we're going to move to ben stemrick for our next question for congresswoman susan wild. ben: we're going to stay on foreign policy. the u.s. has been deeply involved in the war in gaza. what's your stance on the u.s. continuing to fund the offensive movement into the region? congresswoman wild: let me just say first and foremost that i believe israel has the right to defend itself and the u.s., actually most of the money that has been sent by the u.s. in the form of arms has been for defensive purposes, not for offensive purposes. but let me just say, what happened on october 7 was just horrible. nothing any of us could even imagine.

and it was -- it's something that -- i understand that israel must eradicate hamas and i think that the united states is in a good position to help make that happen but we cannot forget the hostages and that's my biggest concern right now. recently six hostages were killed. there has to be a means to bring an end to this war, bring an end to the suffering of everyone involved and first and foremost, get those hostages home and that's done through diplomacy. >> state representative mackenzie? rep. mackenzie: absolutely. another very serious topic, the atrocity on october 7 was heartbreaking and what we see with terror around the world is that we cannot let actions like that stand. as someone who advocates for peace, i believe we need to first and foremost demand that

those hostages be returned. some are american citizens. they need to be returned before anything else can happen. at the same time, we need to make sure that we are stopping iran. iran is funding this war in the middle east through their proxies all around the region. we just saw another long range missile from the houthis hit israel recently so we need to crack down on that. at the same time, what is going on in washington, d.c. is the failed foreign policy of joe biden and susan wild. susan wild wrote letters to constituents saying she was pro israel and pro gaza -- not pro hamas. but she is trying to take both sides of this issue. she was called out for that. >> i'll allow rebuttal. congresswoman wild: we don't have a one-size-fits-all letter that we send to constituents on any subject. we try to address the concerns voiced in whatever communication we get.

every dollar that has gone to israel i have voted for. as i've already stated, israel has an absolute right to defend itself but at the same time this war must be brought to an end. it's gone on too long. there have been way too many casualties. rep. mackenzie: what the congresswoman is failing to recognize is that on the same exact day she sent those letters, one saying she was pro israel and one saying she was pro gaza, she was caught red-handed taking both sides of a serious issue like this to our constituents. that kind of deception should not be allowed. i think it's reprehensible. she won't take accountability for it and that wavering has allowed the hostages to be held for 11 months. >> moving to the next topic and

we'll talk about violence. school shootings remain a major concern nationwide. some school boards in our area are arming school resource officers. where do you stand on this issue and what do you think should be done, starting with congresswoman? congresswoman wild: no parent should fear sending their child to school. as a mother of two, i can't imagine if i had had that concern when my kids were going to school. i believe that the vast majority of gun owners, certainly in this area, are responsible gun owners, law-abiding gun owners. what we have got to do is make sure that the people who should not own guns, who will do something like shoot up a school or concert or supermarket, that they're not able to get guns. that's what we absolutely must do. we must have universal

background checks but that is not enough because you won't catch on a background check something about a 14-year-old that should cause alarm. we've got to have safe storage laws and frankly i think that holding parents accountable for their children's actions such as the recent school shooting is very appropriate because parents have that ability. >> and state representative? rep. mackenzie: any life lost to crime or an act of terror is a tragedy and we want to make sure we can do everything possible to prevent those incidents. i was proud to vote for increased funding for mental health and increased security in our local schools. at the same time, we need to make sure that while we're protecting second amendment rights, we're keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. i voted to make sure that mental health records are put into our

background check system so that somebody who should not have a gun like that, aren't able to purchase a gun. the same is done for domestic abusers so we have to make sure we do that. i'm proud to have received the support of our fraternal order of police and carbon county sheriff stan ziglar. those tasked with keeping us safe know i'm the best candidate to do that. i appreciate their support. congresswoman wild: my opponent has voted in favor of ghost guns so the idea of keeping guns out of the hands of people who shouldn't have them while voting to allow ghost guns to be made is a complete inconsistency. >> anything you'd like to say? rep. mackenzie: absolutely. my opponent, susan wild, is a self-described progressive and wants to take away people's guns. that's what she advocates for in congress and votes that way all the time so i think we need to hold her accountable to that anti-second amendment rhetoric

she's putting out there. at the same time, i've made my position clear. we need to protect the second amendment rights of individuals and keep guns from criminals. i have been able to do that as state representative and look forward to continuing that record in congress. >> time for one more question before heading to commercial break. marie johns for state representative mackenzie? marie: deteriorating properties or blight is a problem facing many regions in pennsylvania. we continually do news stories about neglected properties and recently there have been instances where buildings fall into the street. what would you do on the federal level to ease the financial burden that often is left to our municipal leaders? rep. mackenzie: great question and i appreciate that. something that we have dealt with at the state level because those harm our communities. they reduce property values and

bring in crime. a lot of this is a local issue. at the state issue, we've made sure there are blight records and logs of those properties and provided funding to municipalities where they can purchase one of those properties and get it back on the tax rolls to help the community that way. there's more that needs to be done but this is an instance where you you need to work with local elected officials and i'm proud to work hand in hand with state representative doyle heflye and commissioner nostein. they've endorsed me because they know i'm the best person to help carbon county. congresswoman wild: it's interesting, the questions about blight. i was just in weatherly and we

were discussing the problem of blight. carol, who is in my district office, has been working with the mayor of weatherly to address blight through community project funding which is a vehicle that the federal government provides where you can actually direct funding to a specific area to solve a problem and i believe this is an absolute priority. when you are losing properties to blight, when property values go down, it causes a loss of housing, it means prices will go up and it ruins the natural beauty of carbon county and the area. i think the community project funding is something we absolutely should be looking at for the blight problem and something i have been speaking with local officials about. >> thank you. we've got lots more topics to cover as the debate for the seventh congressional district seat continues. stay with us.

>> welcome back to the seventh congressional district debate. i'm kim bell, your moderator for this evening. i am proud to have with us state representative -- congresswoman susan wild and state representative ryan mackenzie. our panelists, marie johns and ben stemrick. let's get things started again. ben, we begin with your question. ben: abortion is a hot topic across the nation. it has been moved from power of the federal government to the state. is that something you agree with, state representative mackenzie?

if so, would you agree with rape and incest exceptions? rep. mackenzie: very serious topic, something we need to talk about with compassion and empathy for individuals. when we look at this issue, i want to make it clear that i do not support a federal ban on abortion. i also do support the exceptions for rape, incest and life of the mother. during my time as state representative, i've always voted in the bipartisan majority when issues around women's reproductive health come up. i was the leader on advancing maternal health legislation to improve outcomes for expectant mothers and those that are postpartum. i've voted in favor of i.v.f., i support that procedure and when it comes to contraception, i voted in favor of mandating coverage through insurance. these are things we can do. we also need to support women. my opponent has an extreme radical fringe position where she supports taxpayer funded

abortions and no restrictions on abortion. >> congresswoman? congresswoman wild: my opponent doesn't believe that women should be able to make choices for themselves. i guess he doesn't trust women to do that. honestly, the problem with abortion being a state issue as opposed to a federal issue is that you have state legislators like ryan mackenzie who will vote to do away with a woman's right to make her own decisions about reproductive care. in fact, in 2016 and 2017, he voted in favor of a ban on abortion that did not include exceptions for rape and incest. frankly, i don't believe the government or any politician should have any say-so in what any human being does with their body. i think that is up to, in the case of women and reproductive rights, it should be up to them, their partner, their physician, and keep government out of this 100%.

>> rebuttal? rep. mackenzie: absolutely. what we heard from susan wild is a bunch of lies. she's been called out twice for misleading people on issues of reproductive health. last campaign she was called out for misleading voters. just yesterday there was a headline on the front page of the newspaper where susan wild was called out for misleading voters about my stance on i.v.f. she continues to mislead voters when she is the one with an extreme fringe position on this issue -- taxpayer funded abortions and absolutely no restrictions that she supports. congresswoman wild: my opponent received somewhere around $35,000 from the speaker of the house, mike johnson, who has vocally and aggressively been in favor of a national federal abortion ban so i think that who you take money from says a lot.

many of his donors have been anti-choice and the women of this country, the women of this community, deserve better than somebody who wants to tell them what they should do with their bodies. >> thank you. our next question is for the congresswoman. >> to be clear, senate bill 3, you did vote yes on which did not offer exceptions for rape and incest. rep. mackenzie: in current state law you are allowed to have abortion up until 24 weeks and after that this is an exception for life of the mother. the bill would have reduced that time frame to 20 weeks. in other instances, that is just the abortion control act. there are other pieces of legislation which regulate abortion in pennsylvania. i have always voted to protect the exceptions of rape, incest and life of the mother. in that instance, the exception for life of the mother was in the law. i voted to protect that. in other instances where we have medicaid coverage which is state

and federal, that allows for exceptions of rape, incest and life of the mother. i again voted in favor. in the bipartisan majority in both of those instances to protect all three of those exceptions in current law. congresswoman wild: not just on sb3 but also on a house bill, my opponent has voted for a ban on abortion that does not include any exceptions for rape, or incest, or life of the mother. he may want to tell you something different now. when he ran in the republican primary against two other candidates, he had a huge portion of his website devoted to his pro life position which right after the republican primary he scrubbed. it's no longer there. i think that tells you something about his position on this. >> we're going to move forward now. marie johns, you have a question for the congresswoman . marie: according to the social security administration, benefits are projected to run out in 2037.

should our work force paying into this system be concerned that they'll never see a benefit? why or why not? what reforms would you propose to ensure its long-term viability? congresswoman wild: thanks for that question because our seniors in my view are one of our most important assets. they've put in a lifetime of hard work. we made a promise to them that they would be able to withdraw social security and we have to protect that right. the folks on the other side of the aisle in washington are gung ho on reducing social security benefits and as for the question about social security running out of money. there is a relatively easy fix and it's called taxing billionaires, as you should. at the present time, a billionaire stops paying into social security on his first day of work in any given year whereas you, the ordinary

citizen, continue to pay into social security all year long. if we properly taxed the people at the very top who are doing just fine we would not run out of money in social security. >> state representative? rep. mackenzie: on the federal level we need to do everything we possibly can to protect benefits like social security and medicare that those individuals have paid into and have earned and deserve so i will do that every day. what my opponent does is she does massive deficit spending, absolutely reckless spending in washington, d.c., which hurts our ability to fund those benefits and that's why why we need to get people like susan wild out of office because that massive reckless spending is not only hurting their ability to receive social security down the road which will run out in 2034 and benefits are cut by 20% so that needs to be clear on the record and what is also happening to our seniors is they are struggling with high prices on inflation on everything from

food, fuel, housing and healthcare, driven by that massive spending which drives inflation in washington, d.c. susan wild voted for bidenomics which inflation is hurting senior. congresswoman wild: . susan wild: my opponent is in favor of zero based budgeting which would put medicare and social security on the chopping block every year meaning that seniors could not rely on getting their social security and medicare next year because it would be at the whim of legislators who are doing zero based budgeting. it's completely inconsistent with my opponent's position on this issue. i have to tell you that i am proud to be an original co-sponsor of social security 2100 which is an important bill. >> thank you. ryan mackenzie: it's unfortunate that my opponent continues to lie. you heard my position clearly that i will do everything to protect social security and i

also believe that there should be no tax on social security. my opponent, again, continues to lie and fear monger. she wants to scare the good people in this community on issues that are critical like abortion and social security. it's reprehensible and not what we should be doing. we should have an honest debate. she's continually called out for lying and continues to do it tonight. >> we're going to move on. we're going to stay with inflation. young people are facing a serious dilemma right now. many of them are unable to get a mortgage yet they have to pay a rent that's even higher. how do we help our young people to start out on their lives? state representative? rep. mackenzie: this goes back to the failed policies of joe biden and susan wild driving inflation on everything. housing in our community is up significantly and i just came across a young person recently on the campaign trail who is paying over 40% of their income for their housing.

that is unsustainable. what is driving prices is inflationary pressures and the massive amount of illegal immigrants coming into our country. susan wild has done nothing to close the border and in our community we have a non-profit that is supposed to be housing individuals who are evicted or out of their home and they have been contracted by the federal government to house illegal immigrants taking away valuable housing spots from american citizens. that should not happen in this country but because of inflation and a wide-open southern border, people are pushed out of their homes and forced to deal with incredibly high prices for housing. that failed record is on susan wild. >> congresswoman? congresswoman wild: i worry about our younger people because they're faced way triple whammy -- the higher cost of higher education and we know that higher education, what field it might be, will help you considerably in your career.

if they get married and want to have children, the cost of childcare is exorbitant and we know how expensive homes are. i am on a bill that would provide assistance to first-time home buyers in the form of an actual amount of money to help them towards a down payment. i have been part of a bill to lower the cost of childcare which won't be taken up by speaker johnson in this congress unfortunately but i assure you when democrats take back the majority it will be and it is something that would absolutely help people afford to have children and take care of them responsibly, put them in a daycare center or universal preschool where they can learn and the cost would be much less. >> we're going to move on with a question for congresswoman susan wild. ben? ben: immigration is on the top of everybody's mind. in 2023, we saw a record number

of encounters at the u.s.-mexico border. what policies do you support or will you support to help combat that? congresswoman wild: i was fully in support of the bill that the senate crafted and it was a bipartisan bill including some very conservative senators who spoke out after speaker mike johnson in the house refused to even put that bill to a vote. now, i didn't like everything in it and believe me, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle didn't, either. but there was so much good in that bill and we have not yet taken it up and speaker johnson has declared it dead on arrival. we would have had a solution this year to the border problem if, i hate to say it, donald trump had not instructed speaker johnson not to take it up far for a vote so he could use it as a campaign issue. i'm co-sponsor on a bill that mirrors the senate bill that provides for people seeking

asylum to remain in their countries and provides funding and i have voted multiple times to increase funding for border guards and technologies that will help us solve this problem. rep. mackenzie: a few days ago i visited the southern border in arizona and saw the crisis going on there. the cartels are running that border because they are bringing across guns and drugs and all kinds of human trafficking and sex trafficking are going on. it should not be occurring in this country but now almost three years into the biden administration about almost 10 million illegal immigrants have come into our country. as state representative, i have gotten bipartisan legislation passed by the expansion of e-verify to crack down on illegal immigrants taking american jobs. i have been opposed to sanctuary cities.

susan wild has called a border wall silly, has voted against border wall funding 10 times and told us that sanctuary cities are safer. those are ridiculous statements and this bipartisan proposal has failed to address it and doesn't have support. congresswoman wild: that bipartisan bill contains all of the things my opponent mentioned including e-verify and the border wall because the border wall makes sense in certain places but not everywhere we and we have to invest in technicals available and our coast guard in the ocean, that they are equipped to literally stop the transit of drugs into this country and all of that was addressed in a bill that the speaker of the house will not take up for a vote. rep. mackenzie: it's scary that

a congresswoman doesn't know what she's a co-sponsor of. that legislation contains a different program than e-verify. it does not include funding for a border wall and what i heard at the southern border is that cameras are great and manpower is necessary but a border wall is an absolute deterrent from criminals coming across that border. susan wild has voted against that 10 times and called the idea silly. that's why we have 10 million illegals in this country. >> congresswoman. susan wild: i have voted at least once for border wall funding in connection with another bill and i have consistently voted to support our border patrol and make sure that they have the funding that they need at the southern border. so i think that quite honestly this has got to stop being a political football. it has been for decades. every president we've had for the last 40 years has been dealing with immigration

problems because politicians in washington can never get something done and that could have happened this year. >> moving to a viewer question, a local question. it's important to a lot of people especially those that commute to new york city. what is your stance on reinstating passenger train service from scranton to new york and how do you think it's going to impact the poconos and surrounding areas, state representative mackenzie? rep. mackenzie: it's worth exploring. i remember hearing about passenger rail back in the day and i think that's something that was glamorized and people enjoyed it. at the same time, as someone who went in and out of new york city for college, i think it would have been a benefit to our community. what happened with putting out all of the rails that were in place, now it is a very

expensive proposal that would require years-long eminent domain. there is a study being undertaken to look at this proposal and i think the prudent thing would be to look at the proposal when it comes back and see the overall impacts on the community before making a decision of this magnitude because other passenger rail services in other communities have been on the order of billions of dollars. not something to jump into without all the facts. congresswoman wild: i'm a big proponent of passenger trains, would love to see a train line from scranton to new york city as well as other places in the eastern part of pennsylvania and i think it would go a long way towards solving some of the problems that people in carbon county have. every weekend the traffic is a nightmare and i know the residents feel that way. they probably don't even go down to jim thorpe on a weekend. it was a mess to get through and

parking is also a problem. by the way, most of the license plates i saw were from out of town. it would be great to have a train. tourism is a driver of the economy in carbon county. let's help people get here via passenger train and not be destroying our roads and making traffic nightmares and making our roads less safe to drive. >> ok. we're going to have a question from marie johns and this is for congresswoman wild. marie: given the polarization in congress, how do you plan to work across party lines to achieve meaningful results for the seventh district? congresswoman wild: one of the things i've proudest of is that i consistently work in a bipartisan manner. i was rated by the lugar center as being in the top 10, my ranking was in the top 10 for bipartisan members of the house. i work across the aisle every

day and quite frankly, when i am dealing with things in my district, i rarely know whether a mayor of a borough is democrat or republican and it doesn't matter to me and the people i speak with, it doesn't matter whether they're democrat or republicans. i represent all of the people regardless of party affiliation. i'm also happy to say -- although my opponent will claim otherwise -- that i have disagreed with the biden administration on a number of things. i disagreed with a pause on natural gas drilling. i voted against my party on a major spending bill. i am a bipartisan congresswoman and i'm proud of that. >> thank you. state representative? rep. mackenzie: in terms of accomplishing legislation, bipartisanship is critically important. as state representative, i have been proud to do that on almost

every piece of legislation that i've authored and has seen its way into law has had strong bipartisan support on serious issues including e-verify and maternal healthcare. susan wild is a radical partisan. she talks about the rating from the the lugar organization, that's only on co-sponsored bills. she has voted -- according to 538 -- 100% of the time with the biden administration and 98% with speaker pelosi. she said people drank the trump kool-aid and she would school people in carbon county on those issues. she said she was dismayed to represent the people here. that's not the language we need from our elected officials and when violence was threatened against mitch mcconnell, she said people should pay him a visit at his home. that rhetoric leads to danger and violence in our communities. >> congresswoman? congresswoman wild: i'm glad my

opponent brought up comments i made about carbon county because it gives me an opportunity to apologize. i taught my kids to think before they speak and i need to take my own advice. i believe that actions speak louder than words and my actions with regard to carbon county, opening an office here, making sure i'm working with municipalities, having a full-time staffer in my office in carbon county, that's because i care about what the people in carbon county say and solving problems for them . ryan mackenzie: what we heard in those comments from our elected congresswoman do not show that spirit and she made those comments both times when she thought she was in private on a zoom call.

thankfully, she was recorded on those zoom calls because that let us know where her true beliefs and intentions are. she has disdain for the people of carbon county. she's said it twice on the record. it's reprehensible. >> do you wish to address it? congresswoman wild: actions speak louder than words and my actions have been supportive of carbon county residents. >> we have time for one more question but in order to allow both of you to have a one-minute closing statement, i'm going to ask that you ask the question without rebuttal. ben: politics is a game of compromise. what areas would you be willing to compromise to make things work with the other side? rep. mackenzie: i'll give the example of e-verify. i've talked about that tonight. it's not everything that i wanted.

i would expand e-verify but the problem we were facing was in the construction industry. talked about illegal immigrants from maryland and southern parts of new jersey taking away american jobs and reducing wages so in the effort of bipartisan compromise because we had agreement on that issue, i authored that legislation to tackle illegal immigration in the construction industry. we were able to get that done in a bipartisan fashion with super majorities so on a difficult issue like immigration we were able to find common ground and that's what we should be doing. congresswoman wild: i have demonstrated my ability to compromise. i was part of the effort in congress to make sure that we started negotiating the price of prescription drugs with big pharma.

i would have liked a lot more to be in that bill but we were forced to compromise and so at first it was just about insulin and inhalers and this year -- 10 additional lifesaving medications and hopefully many more to come. that was the result of compromise. i've indicated i would have voted yes on a compromise bill on immigration had the speaker taken it up. i have worked on the house foreign affairs committee, known as one of the most bipartisan committees in congress. and i'm ranking member of the ethics committee, the only completely bipartisan committee in congress consisting of an equal number of democrats and republicans and we have to compromise every time we have a hearing and take a vote and i'm very accustomed to it. >> we have just enough time to hear our final thoughts from each candidate. we begin with congresswoman susan wild.

congresswoman wild: no matter where we live or what our party affiliation is, most of us have the same concerns, quality of education for our children equality of healthcare and making sure it's accessible and affordable. these days the need for cheap internet, the desire to have a decent retirement and, of course, our freedoms and liberties which are so important. i have worked very hard on all of these issues. we cannot afford to roll time back. we cannot afford a candidate who is an extremist on women's rights and does not trust women to make their own decisions about their body, who's an extremist on workers rights, on education, who literally voted to turn $100 million away from public schools in favor of charter schools. we shouldn't do that. living in this district is an amazing experience. i just want to continue to work

for this area and make sure it's even better than it is. thank you. >> thank you. state representative ryan mackenzie? rep. mackenzie: i think what was on display tonight is a clear contrast about the discretion of our country and representation we'll choose in november. my opponent is a self defined progressive with radical ideas on many areas. her failed policy choices have led to rising prices and a wide-open border and chaos around the world. i'm here for a better opportunity to move forward together. one issue we didn't talk about tonight is our veteran community. in carbon county over the course of the campaign i had the opportunity to meet gold star parents mike and sally wargo. their son tragically committed suicide when returning from service. they reached out to

congresswoman susan wild's office to have a meeting about veteran suicide and were rejected. that's not the representation we need to washington and i hope to represent you. i'm asking for your vote so we can chart a better course forward. >> we're out of time. i thank congresswoman susan wild and state representative ryan mackenzie. thank you to our panelists and staff for being part of this event and good night.states, ka.

[cheers and applause] vp harris: north carolina!

good afternoon, north carolina. [cheers and applause] can we hear it for thomas? good afternoon. it is good to be at ecu. and it's so wonderful to be back in north carolina. thank you. it's so good to see you. [cheers and applause] thank you, thank you. this is an auditorium packed

with incredible leaders and i thank you all for taking the time this sunday afternoon, with all that you have going on. i thank you, i thank you. thank you all. i also want to thank state senator smith, state senator hunt, your next lieutenant governor, congressman davis, a proud graduate of ecu. and let's elect josh stein as your next governor. [cheers and applause] and he and governor cooper are not here today because they have been working around the clock with hurricane recovery efforts. we want to always thank them, and all the incredible local, state, and federal leaders who have been working together for north carolina. i was here eight days ago in the aftermath of hurricane helene,

and since then there was another powerful storm, hurricane milton. and our hearts and prayers go out to everyone who has been impacted by these storms. i have spoken to both state and local officials, both republican and democrat, to let them know we will be with you every step of the way as you recover. [cheers and applause] because in times like this, we stand together as one nation. that is who we are. [cheers and applause] so, north carolina. [cheers and applause] we have 23 days until election day. and we are nearing the home stretch. we are nearing the home stretch.

now, listen, let me just say, i know we are really excited to see each other. i could not be more excited to see everyone here. but i'm going to tell you, it is going to be a tight race until the very end. and we are running as the underdog, so we have some hard work ahead of us. but we like hard work. hard work is good work. and with your help, in 23 days, we will win. we will win. we will win. [cheers and applause] yes, we will. we will win. so what we know -- [crowd: we will win] vp harris: and here's why, here's why. one of the reasons is that we

all know, and we are gathered here together, because we know this election really is about two very different visions for our nation. one is focused on the past. the other, ours, focused on the future. ours is a campaign focused on issues that matter, for example, to working families across america, like bringing down the cost of living. investing in small businesses and entrepreneurs. how many small business owners do we have here? [cheers and applause] thank you. we are focused on protecting reproductive freedom. [cheers and applause] we are focused on keeping our nation secure.

but none of that is what we hear from donald trump. [booing] instead, from him, we are just hearing from that same old tired playbook. he has no plan for how he would address the needs of the american people. he is only focused on himself. and he's not -- but here's the thing north carolina, he's not being transparent with the voters. he is not being transparent. so, check this out. he refuses to release his medical records. i've done it. every other presidential candidate in modern era has done it. he is unwilling to do a "60 mi nuters" interview.

like every other major party candidate has done for more than half a century. he is unwilling to meet for a second debate. [booing] and here's the thing. it makes you wonder, it makes you wonder. why does his staff want him to hide away? one must question, one must question. are they afraid that people will see he is too weak and unstable to lead america? is that what's going on? [cheers and applause] so folks, for these reasons and so many more, it is time to turn the page.

it is time to turn the page. because america is ready to chart a new way forward. ready for a new and optimistic generation of leadership. which is why democrats, independents, and republicans are supporting our campaign. because they and we know, we need a president who works for all the american people. and that has been the story of my entire career. i have only ever had one client -- the people. as a young courtroom prosecutor, i've stood up for women and children against predators. as attorney general of

california, i took on the big banks and delivered $20 billion for middle-class families who faced foreclosure. i stood up for veterans and students being scammed by the big for-profit colleges. i've stood up for workers being cheated out of the wages they were due. stood up for seniors facing elder abuse. and as president, it is my pledge to you that i will always fight for all the american people. [cheers and applause] and together, we will build a brighter future for our nation. and that future includes building what i call an opportunity economy, where everyone can compete and have a real chance to succeed.

under my economic plan, we will bring down the cost of housing and help first-time homebuyers with a $25,000 down payment assistance. we will expand medicare to cover home health care for seniors. so more seniors can live at home with dignity, and give more support to the sandwich generation, for those of you who are raising young children and taking care of their parents. and look, i just have to say something about home health care and the need that i know so many people have for health. look, so when my mother was sick after she had been diagnosed with cancer, i took care of her. and for for those of you who have taken care of somebody who needs that kind of help, it's

about trying to cook something that they have a taste for an want to eat. it's about trying to find something that they can wear that is not irritating their skin and is soft enough. it is about trying time and time again to figure out something you can do to bring a smile to their face or make them laugh. it's the work that is about getting folks dignity. but far too many people on this issue of home health care, if you need the support to give that care to your family member, it means either paying down and using as much as you can to be able to afford medicaid, or having to leave your job, which means cutting off the very important part of your income, just to give people in your life the dignity and the support they deserve. that's why i'm saying, we're going to have medicare cover

that home health care, to help you. [cheers and applause] to help you. we will lower costs, including on everything from health care to groceries. i will take on corporate price gouging. i've done it before and i'll do it again. i will give a middle-class tax cut to 100 million americans, including $6,000 during the first year of your child's life knowing that the vast majority of parents have a natural desire to parent their children well, but not always the resources to be able to do it. and so, extending the child tax credit to $6,000 to give folks the ability to be able to buy tha car seatt for that crib in that most fundamental phase in their child's development.

so all this to say, i will always put the middle class and working people first. [cheers and applause] i come from the middle class, and i will never forget where i come from. now, donald trump, well, he has a different plan. [booing] just google project 2025. it is a detailed and dangerous blueprint for what he will do if he is elected president. donald trump will give billionaires and corporations massive tax cuts, cut social security and medicare, make it easier for companies to do not overtime pay for workers -- to deny overtime pay for workers. he will get rid of that $35 cap for insulin for seniors. he would impose what i call a trump sales tax, a 25% tax on

everyday basic necessities, which will cost the average american family $4000 more a year. and on top of all of this, donald trump in tends to end the affordable care act. and he has no plant o replace it. did you see the debate? he has concepts of a plan. ok, so he's going to threaten the health insurance coverage of 45 million people based on a concept? come on. and take us back to when insurance companies had the power to deny people with pre-existing conditions? you know where i'm going. well, we are not going back! [cheers and applause] no, we're not.

no, we're not. [crowd: we're not going back] vp harris: because we will move forward. ours is a fight for the future. and it is a fight for freedom. like the fundamental freedom of a woman to be able to make decisions about her own body, and not have a government telling her what to do. [cheers and applause] because we know donald trump hand selected three members of the united states supreme court with the intention they would undo the protections of roe v. wade, and they did as he intended. and now, more than one in three

women in america lives in a state with a trump abortion ban, including right here in north carolina. many of these bans have no exceptions even for rape and incest, which is immoral to tell a survivor of a violation of their body that they have no right to make a decision about what happens to their body next. that's immoral. and let us agree, let us agree, one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree it should not be the government telling her what to do. not the government. [cheers and applause] if she chooses, she will talk with her priest, her pastor, her rabbi, her iman, but not the government telling her what to do. and when congress passes a bill

to restore reproductive freedom, as president of the united states, i will proudly sign it into law. [cheers and applause] proudly. and north carolina, across our nation, i am telling you, i am traveling, we are witnessing a full on assault on other hard-fought, hard-won freedoms of american life. like the freedom to vote. the freedom to be safe from gun violence. the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride. [cheers and applause] so much is on the line in this election and this is not 2016 or 2020. the stakes are even higher. because a few months ago, the

united states supreme court basically told the former president that he would effectively be immune from whatever he does in office. [booing] but let's think about that. y'all have heard me say, i do believe donald trump is an unserious man. but the effects of him being back in the white house would be brutally serious. just imagine donald trump with no guard rails. he who has vowed if reelected he would be a dictator on day one. that he would weaponize the department of justice against his political enemies. he has called for the, quote, termination -- oh wait, hold on, hold on, hold on. because here's the thing, here's

the thing. let's let the courts handle that, and let's handle november. we'll handle november, how 'bout that? [cheers and applause] because listen, this is what we know. anybody who wants to be president of the united states who has called for the, quote, termination of the constitution of the united states, should never again have the ability to stand behind the seal of the president of the united states. never again! never again. [cheers and applause] and the people who know him best know it. his former national security advisor. two of his former defense

secretaries. his former chief of staff in the white house. his own vice president. have all warned america, donald trump is unfit to serve. or just listen most recently to what we heard general milley said. general milley, former chairman of the joint chiefs under donald trump. it was just reported he said, quote, no one has ever been as dangerous to this country. in referring in referring to donald trump. think about that. think about that. and we can already see what he's up to as a candidate. most recently spreading disinformation in the wake of national disasters. blocking real solutions that

would stop drug cartels from stopping the border when he tried to kill, and did, that border security deal. because you see, donald trump cares more about scaring people, creating fear, running on a problem instead of what real leaders do witches to participate in fixing problems. i care about fixing problems and as president of the united states, i will be focused each and every day on solving problems that affect you and your families. but north carolina, it all comes down to this.

we are here together this sunday afternoon because we you know what is at stake. we are here together this sunday afternoon because we love our country. we love our country. [crowd chanting "usa"] vice pres. harris: that's right. we love our country. i believe it is the highest form of patriotism to fight for our country and to fight to realize the promise of america. the promise of america. election day is in 23 days and in just four days, early voting will begin statewide.

you can go to the polls and cast your ballot. if you haven't already registered to vote, you can do it right then and there. register to vote and vote. now is the time to make you plan to vote. if you have not received your ballot in the mail, look for it. if you have, i would like you to fill it out right away. [laughter] please don't wait. because as my friends say, the election is here. the election is here and remember always that your vote is your voice and your voice is your power. [cheers and applause] and so, north carolina, today i then ask you, are you ready to make your voices heard?

[cheers and applause] vice pres. harris: do we believe in freedom? do we believe an opportunity? do we believe in the promise of america? and are we ready to fight for it? and when we fight -- we win! god bless you and god bless the united states. [cheers and applause]

[applause]

c-span.

pres. biden: hello, folks. just been with a number of homeowners wiped out and coast guard and fire department. i'm in florida for the second time in two weeks, and to survey the damage of another catastrophic storm. hurricane milton. thankfully its impact was not as cataclysmic as we predicted. but two on top of within another

seems to be getting worse. but for some individuals it was cataclysmic. all those folks who not only lost their homes but those who lost their lives, lost family members, lost all of their personal belongings. entire neighborhoods are flooded and millions without power. earlier this morning i did an aerial tour of st. petersburg and the battered coastline. i flew over drop can into field and the roof is almost completely off but thank god not many were injured. i spoke to first responders who are working around the clock. i also met with mall business owners here and homeowners. they have taken a real beating in back-to-back storms and they are heartbroken and, --

exhausted and their expenses are piling up. i know from experience how devastating it is to lose your home. several years ago my home was struck by lightning. the thing i was most concerned about was not just the home but was all those things pres. biden: all the pictures i saved that my daughter will drawn when she was little, family photographs and albums and things that really matter. folks, the fact is that when you lose your wedding room, old photos, family keepsakes things that can't be released and sometimes that is the part that hurt the most. i'm standing next to the mayor here and chairwoman peters. both their homes were damaged in hurricane milton.

the mayor's home flooded, family vehicles washed away. experienced significant damage in the past two storms. just finished rebuilding and suddenly back in. now they have to do it all over again. both their families lost precious personal belongings. but they stepped up not only to look out for themselves but help other families, help their neighbors. that is the resilience of the people of west florida. i want to thank them and all the public officials who suffered consequential losses but are doing things to help other people who had serious losses. it matters. the american people should know the sacrifices they are making. they have been steadfast partners as well. we have been in frequent contact and it is moments like this we come together to take care of each other, not as democrats or republicans but as americans,

americans who need help and americans who would help you if you were in the same situation. we are within united states, within united states. i also came to talk about all the progress we have made. it is a whole government effort from state and local to fema to u.s. coast guard, army cause of engineers, department of defense just to name a few. fema has delivered 1.2 million meals, over 300,000 liters of water and 2,000,000 gallons of fuel and installed satellite terminals to restore communications so families can contacts their loved ones to be sure everything is ok and reach out for help. speaking of help, so far we have 10 disaster recovery centers in florida with more to come so people can have one stop to meet

with officials and get the federal health that they are entitled to and no interest payment loans, mortgage relief and so much more and being go online to disaster assistance gave or call 1-800-621-fema. yesterday after i signed the major disaster declaration more than 250,000 floridians registered for help. the most in a single day ever in the history of this countries. 250,000. i know you are concerned about the debris removal. we are working with state and local partners to clear roads and get wreckage off properties so more folks can return home and businesses can receive much needed deliveries of food,

medicine, other essentials. that is a priority for me. power is also being restored it over 2 million people in a matter of days. thanks to tens of thousands of power workers from 43 states and canada working nonstop even more people will have more power restored soon. today i'm proud to announce 612 million dollars to six new cutting edge projects to support communities impacted by these hurricanes including 47 million dollars for utilities and another $47 million for florida power and light. this funding will not only restore power but make the power system stronger and more capable and reduce the frequency and duration of power outages we extreme weather events -- we extreme weather events become more frequent.

we were able to restore power because of things i did as vice president to enforce the grids. that means the power prosecute it is produced to homes and businesses. we have been hardening the grid by burying transmission lines and replacing wood power amaze will concrete or composite poles so they don't snap. we have other cutting technology. i'm here to personally say thank you to the brave first responders, men and women in uniform, utility workers. look at the numbers that showed,from around the country, from canada, california,

nebraska, all over the country, to come here to help. healthcare personnel, neighbors helping neighbors an -- and so many more. it is a team effort. you made a big difference and it saved lives but there's much more to do. we are going to do everything we can to get power back in your homes not only helping you recover but build back stronger. god bless you all adds -- and may gods protects our to first responders and protects our troops. i will turn it over to secretary granholm. >> i would like to echo the president's response to the first responders and utility crews who have stepped forwards to help in our time of need here and in the other affected states. d.o.e. continues to work with the utility sector to make sure

you have what you need. i'm pleased to say about 75% of the pure has been restored across florida and most believing that by the end of tuesday the vast majority will be online. the unprecedented intensity of the damage and disruptions overwhelmingly underscore the actions that the biden-harris administration has taken to harden the grid against extreme weather including the new investments the president announced for the southeast. when we took office we knew the grids were suffering in decades of underinvestment. there was dire needs for it and they got funding in the bipartisan infrastructure law. before the president's announcement today since the

passage of that law the department of energy has allocated roughly $680 million to grids resilience projects just in the states that have been affected by hurricanes mills ton and helene -- mills ton and helene and roughly doubles with matching investments in states and utilities and several were under way for example undergrounding the power lines, raising substations in the face of flooding, installing technology on the grid that can identify blackouts before they happen and shorten them when they do happen. technology that increases transmission capacity so the power can move where and when it is needed most. so, the announcements of additional $612 million the president made today will mean we will have seen $2.5 billion

investment in these states it make the grid more resilient, a combined investment from the department of network, states and private utilities and the partnerships are critical to making these projects successful and bringing resilience to families and businesses across the southeast. they are not going to prevent the next storm but they will certainly make sure that in the coming years we can respond and recover more quickly. so, to the people of florida as the president has said, we will be here for you as long as it takes. thank you. with that i would like to bring up the mayor of st. pete. >> thank you, maddux -- madame secretary. mr. president, i want to thank you for coming here today to see the devastation and destruction with your own eyes. we thank you for your support

during this difficult an historic time. like so many of my neighbors my family and i felt the full force first of hurricane helene and also milton. after the floodwaters of helene hit we thought we could begin to recover patching windows, cleaning debris and trying to get back to something like normalcy. as we began it finds our footing here comes mills ton and another wave -- mill -- milton. trees,pulled up. homes destroyed and like so many in our town, my wife and i we thought we are concerned about our safety, about the future of our town. i have walked these streets and seen with destruction and sat with families that have lost so much and seen businesses struggling it reopen. i have first happened felt the

emotional and economic toll these storms have taken on all of us. but one thing remains true. we are americans. we have been beaten, we have been battered but we will not be broken. we are resilient and we will rebuild. we can not do this without the incredible support of fema, state, county, first responders and your administration, mr. president. the resources that you have helped provide have been a life line to my family and community and neighbors. on behalf of all st. pete beach you have our sincerest gratitude. we know the road to recovery is long and today i ask for your continuous support to bridge the gap between where we are today and where we need to be in the future. we need help to ebuild

infrastructure and provide assistance to families. the urgent needs are clear. we need economic relief and federal resources and a path to ensure our community and other cities who are devastated like this town can emerge stronger tan ever before. together, with your support we can and will rebuild. thank you for standing with us. >> it is very good to be here and i love to see our first responders who have done an outstanding job. i can tell you that the county is working diligently to get our water running, sewer systems back up and with duke energy following them to cut down trees

to make sure they can get the power grids up and running. we have worked closely with the state and i cannot thank our governor and state officials enough. they have done an amazing job to helps with re-- to help us with removal of debris and get the port open to get gasoline and gets businesses running. i have spoken with the president and his staff and they are working tirelessly to send assistance and i'm very grateful to the way the president has responded. i think he's done an outstanding job and i'm truly grateful. i sent a letter to the state which will then go to the white house asking for just at a minimum to merge the two storms. can you imagine if we had to separate our debris this is helene debris and this is milton debris.

there's no possible way we would be able to do that effectively and efficiently. by merging the two into one disaster will help expedite a lot of red tape to make it much quicker a recovery. so, i'm looking forward it that announcement that that will -- to that announcement. i want to thank the most my neighbors, first responders, neighbors have been helping neighbors, i too will four feet of water in my home and lost all my personal things and clothes and memories. but what has been outstanding is every neighbor helping other neighbors, the kindness that has poured in has been amazing and overwhelming. it makes us so proud to be americans. america has always been strong and this is just an example of the resilience and strength of every one of our residents in our community and i'm so

eternally grateful for all my neighbors, police officers, fire an e.m.s. personnel. my son was in the water rescues people at night during helene and in the water rescues people in the apartment buildings in clearwater. i can't thank first responders enough. this is a story we will never forget. thank you that have been working with me to meet with the president and make our community safe again. thank you so much. and thank you, mr. president. thank you so much. seat to demo.

peter: heath hardage lee, did pat nixon enjoy being first lady? heath: i think so. the spotlight was not what she loved but she was very patriotic and committed to her role and she really liked meeting people one on one. sometimes the big state dinners and fancy stuff was not her thing but i think she liked meeting everyday people in her outreach, volunteers, she had so many different projects. she said people are her project. it was not just one narrative to

find things, it was outreach to people so i did -- so i do think she enjoyed parts of it and other parts she did not enjoy. her adage was i never cancel, i never get sick, i will always be there. even towards the end of his presidency, she was working up until the last three weeks of the presidency and the last three weeks of that administration she was working every day inside the white house on a project. even then, she never canceled. it was not her style. peter: how would you describe her support of richard nixon's long political career from the 1940's to the 1970's? heath: i think she did know he was interested in politics early

from the get-go and she worried about that. i found oral histories were she told a friend she was not sure if she could live in washington. however, let's think about the time. her job was to help her husband do his job. so she is totally on board, i think she is excited about it. the first race where he wins in 1946 to be in the house of representatives, that was the campaign and the wind they both enjoyed most of all and then the senate race is a little more difficult, things are a little tougher and it escalates from there. i think she did enjoy the political life for a while but quickly sees the dirty tricks, the things that happen, she has

reams of campaign literature stolen that she has invested in, that was one of her wake-up calls. she realizes that some politicians are weasels and this is something she does not think at first but then she sees clearly what they are up against. peter: why do you call her the mysterious mrs. nixon? heath: i like to think of myself as an archaeologist or anthropologist and i have always perceived her as a little enigmatic. i am 54 and do not really remember his presidency but what i remember is not really knowing who pat nixon was, not really having a positive or negative, just almost a link. and then -- blank. and then i was reading more and there is