Thank you for joining the Virtual Forum hosted by the institute of politics and public service, commonly referred to as g. U. Politics. My name is matt percy and i am a student in the school of public policy. In my time at georgetown, i have had the opportunity to attend many discussion groups and special events. I can part of a team launching a Student Organization in the court migration andy policy initiative. It is a tremendous honor to introduce our guest tonight, senator mitt romney. Growing up in utah, i can see the 2002 Winter Olympics ski jumps from my backyard. Senator romneys leadership saved in the olympics and transformed my home state. From cofounding band capital to serving as governor of massachusetts, to running as the republican nominee for president , to representing the great state of utah in the u. S. Senate, he has exhibited the best of American Leadership in the private and public sectors. Getting results while maintaining the upmost character and integrity. Senator romney, thank you for being here to share your perspective with us tonight. The event is cosponsored by the Georgetown College republicans and the georgetown Bipartisan Coalition. Mwill hit it to our moderator for the evening,o moderator for the evening, mo. Mo matt, thank you for the generous introduction. Continued leadership at the mccourt school. I want to think the Bipartisan Coalition and republicans for putting on this event. I also want to thank you for spending your evening with us tonight for our final Virtual Forum event of the semester, looking at American Leadership during times of crisis. Be joined byi will senator mitt romney and conversation. But the way the night will go for the next hour is for the first half, senator romney and i will have a conversation that will draw on his experience in the u. S. Senate as a member of the Foreign Relations committee, as a governor, Business Leader and a civic leader, drawing on those lessons to help us think through what is American Leadership during this crisis and beyond. Halfway through, we will start taking student questions from those that are participating in this webinar. If you look at the bottom of the screen, you will see a question and answer tab. Click on the antitype in the question. When the time comes, someone will notify you using the chat feature that you are up, and then make sure you are tv ready because we will bring you on the screen to ask a question of the senator directly. So feel free to start populating that tab with your questions now or at any point during the program. Is being recorded and it is being livestreamed on all of our social Media Channels and at the recording will be rebroadcast at a later time as well. Think that takes care of all the housekeeping so please join me in welcoming senator mitt romney. Thank you for being with us. Romney thank you for the generous introduction. Very kind. Somebody from park city, utah. That is unusual. Matt is from a lovely place and it was nice to hear his introduction. Thanks for inviting me to join you and your colleagues. Mo we are thrilled to have you. So, we have all been cooped up for several weeks. And if you are like me, you are inundated with lots of information, cable news, that looks at everything go piece and angle of what is happening with the response to covid19, but i wanted to elevate the conversation a little bit and talk about American Leadership during this time of crisis and what we can learn moving forward. Major think about every Global Crisis of the past century, whether it is both world wars, the cold war, the great depression, the global war on terror, the economic crisis of 2008 and a host of others, the rest of the world looked to the u. S. To lead the way out. If inonally, it looks as this crisis we are playing catchup and a lot of ways to the rest of the world in how we are responding. I would love to get your thoughts on that. Catchup . Ying are we poised to provide the leadership that the u. S. Historically provides in leading the world out of this crisis . There are quite a few phases. That is a big question. I will take longer answering it and perhaps other questions. The first phase, getting ready to respond, we were not in a position of extraordinary strength. We did not have the testing as fast as we should have. We did not have the personal protective equipment that we wouldve hoped to have and i think part of that is the recognition that in many cases American Companies are producing these products elsewhere, typically in china. They had the crisis first, so they got the ppe and we did not. In terms of Crisis Management, the willingness of the government to step in and coordinate everything from ppe the repair of our Hospital System and so forth. Out of those really stood as great moments in American Leadership. And i think the world was surprised by that because they do think of us as for instance, we were the first to the moon, we have accomplished stored in a things and when it came to ppe, testing and the speed of our response, we looked slow relative to people like china,orea, singapore, germany and even sweet into a certain degree. So that first phase was not one that will stand out as a great moment in American Leadership. As we get into the next phase, which is recovery, i think we have the potential to stand out in a positive way. And i am talking about the development of treatments and vaccines. That kind of Research Work is going on around the world. We may or may not be first, but there is a lot going on here that is not going on in other places and we may be able to lead in that area in the area that is longlasting, post covid19, because that is going to come at some point, i think that the u. S. And china will be there to nations that really stand out be seentechnology will as being more critical than we may have anticipated. Critical to identify threats, most able to meet the needs of consumers in a changing world. And we are a technology leader. China is increasingly also a critical leader. Those nations at rely on yesterdays industries will find that they are not able to keep up with us. And the u. S. And china will be stepping further forward. Phase, we did not look strong. That is an understatement. After this is over, i think what we will have been able to do and our Technology Base will maintain the reputation that we have as being a leader, if not the leader of the world. Let me ask some followup questions. First, focusing on specifically the covid19 crisis. It seems like a lot of the time, what we hear about is how we are dealing with it within our own borders. At the federal level, various localities. Americas leadership role, what is going on in coming up with a Global Response . There needs to be a Global Response, right . There is no corner of the globe untouched by this. The economic that you mentioned, what is the appropriate role for us . And i am curious, youve been critical, along with others, of the world health organization. And how it has a up until now. The president suggested pulling funding. Is that the right role for the u. S. , is that the right approach and how do we work in a multilateral way to get back on track . Omney can begin with the perception of the global competition the geopolitics of the current environment. Thatars ago we anticipated we and everybody else realized that personal freedom was the way to go and we figured that everybody in the world would be copying us. China has a different view. They have adopted Free Enterprise, capitalism, but they have not adopted freedom. They are more authoritarian. You have the jihadists and did they have a view on the global world. Besthe question is, are we to turn inward and ignore what is happening in the world . I do not think so. I think in order to have a safer world and a more prosperous world with less poverty, a safer world from a diseases standpoint and a safer world in terms of having freedoms we enjoy, we need to be involved. And i think there has been a tendency over the last decade for us to become less and less involved in International Institutions. In a setting like that, you will find the competitor, the main competitor being china, stepping in and saying we will play the bigger role. And as they play that bigger the, they tilt communication and strategies of International Institutions to their benefit. That is not in our interest. My argument with my domestically focused individual friends is that whoever is writing the rules of the game is ultimately going to win the game. It is very much in americas selfish, in americas interest to be attempting to shape events in the world, to be attempting to write the rules of the world, to make sure that those who participate in trade are the ones who are successful, that the nations that have a freedom are not on the retreat. Which i think you will find as you look at statistics, that freedom is not on the advance, it is more on the retreat. Involvedwould be more in these aestheticians institutions. Ist does not mean the w. H. O. Doing a fine job and we should give them as much money as they want. Andthey are more political bureaucratic than they should be. They happen to be the only institution we have globally to help some of the poorest countries. And we should be more involved there, not less. We should try to get it to become more effective and efficient, and use our Financial Resources and our global clout to get these International Institutions to do a better job and to make the world a better place for our trade, for our technology, for our freedom, and for the values that have defined a fulfilling life. Context,ing in that ed recently wrote an op about how this can be a moment, what we are seeing happening now can be a moment to reset our approach and the international communitys approach to china specifically. Elaborate on that. Sen. Romney i hope people understand that china intends to eclipse us as the leader of the world and rewrite the rules, to spread its form of authoritarianism around the world. To be the geopolitical leader of the world, the military leader of the world, and to be the economic leader of the world. Most the most known wealthy nation. It will have the largest gdp just by virtue of its population, eventually. That is where it intends to go. Most of the world has been thinking of china as a developing country with a long way to go. That is the furthest thing from the truth. Their military investment in hardware is pretty close, if not identical, to our own. We spent a lot on retirement benefits, salaries, housing and so forth, only 15 of our military spending actually is on procurement. And china is spending a lot of money on procurement bacon jet to be competitive with us. And they have inserted themselves into International Institutions. , they have used a methods and of techniques that are illegal in long. S. , we outlawed them ago, but they are not illegal in china. They have used those to crush industries in the west and become the dominant player in the world. And much of the world has been asleep to that. Much of our country has been asleep to that. I think it came as a shock to us to find out all of our penicillin comes from china. What . When we found out that our masks and protective equipment, that comes from china. And testing equipment. We do not have the swabs we need. It comes from china and other nations that are not free. I think people around the world were surprised, not just americans, but the british, french and germans who said wow, we have let china get a hold of industry after industry, many of them critical to our health care, but that is also true across our economies. Because of that i think there is wakeup potential right now to say, wait a moment, how far will we let china go before we say, hey, you are going to play by the same rules the rest of us play by. You cannot continue to bribe or establish monopolies, or to send your belt and rode around the world grabbing the rare earths of the world so you can dominate and monopolize products of the future. Hold on here. So i know there is a chance for us to come together and if we illectively come together and think we can dissuade china from the course and they are on. But if we focus internally and we only think about our domestic policies and how we will get ahead of our fellow western countries, then we will miss an opportunity to create the leverage we need to play by the rules and become a competitor as opposed to becoming a predator. It is a predator today, which represents a longterm threat to freedom. And that has to change. I think this crisis has the potential to wake people up. When Boris Johnson comes out of the covid crisis himself, i think he will be more concerned about the fact that huawei, a chinese enterprise, will be managing their major parts of their to collect mutations other telik a medication and threatening their National Security. The is an opportunity for free nations of the world, and nations that play by the rules, to come together collaboratively , to put aside our differences and collaboratively develop a strategy, sit down with china and make sure that they begin to play by the rules. Mo lets turn our attention inward to the u. S. Response domestically. Very broadly, we touched on this a little bit, but what are we doing right right now and what are we not doing right, right now . Sen. Romney the topic is related to covid19 . Mo we will bring you back later for a broader discussion. But yes, covid19. Sen. Romney we got off slow in testing. There will be plenty of time to figure out why. I am not blaming this administration, this is a long history of that we just were not prepared for something. We should have seen it coming. Someone called it a black elephant. The elephant in the room suggests we should have seen this. Withre not prepared for it the testing and protective equipment. I remember asking in the early , in, the Public Health team our stockpile how much ppe do we have it for the needs of our Health Care Personnel and they said 10 . It is like, you have got to be kidding. We did not do a good job getting out of the blocks. At this stage, we are ramping up. I would haveto me a far more centralized coordination effort in terms of manufacturing the devices, the ,eagents, the swabs and tests getting them to the places where they need them most. I think it is hard to say to all governors, you guys do your own thing. I think it is more effective if it can be a centralized coordination. It does not mean directing everybody but doing our best to make sure that the places that need help immediately get that help. The governor has done a good job, but i think the federal coordination has been less than my personal style. I have been involved in some crisis settings, in my Business Career and as a governor, and i found it helpful to bring together different taskforces with individual responsibilities given to one task force after another, depending on the challenge and i go back to said. Ing which bob gates you may remember the former secretary of the treasury, defense as well. Leadershipe key in is recognizing that you are not the smartest guy in the room. In a setting like this, it is important for the people at the top to recognize that there are always people with more information. You want to bring them in, divide response abilities and have them manage them. With that, we are not where we want to be. But then i ask, how is the private sector doing . I think it is doing pretty darn well. It is not as coordinated as i would like it to be, but people are working like crazy whether , it is to find a vaccine, curs, produced ppe. And the american spirit the , individuals in our Health Care Sector really are inspiring. If they look haphazard to people around the world, not as coordinated as they may have expected of us, but the collective, the goodness of our people and volunteers really stand out to those of us who are watching it. Are manynk that there americans that feel like it looks haphazard. I am struck by the fact, and you referenced it a moment ago, if you look at the polling, the trust the American People have in their governors versus in the federal response, there is a pretty big delta there. At a time when people rally around their leaders, during a crisis, there is a pretty big delta in the trust in governors versus trust in the federal response. So i guess my question is, you said that maybe we are too decentralized, what is the appropriate role of the government, visavis the states, and what can the federal government do to demonstrate its trustworthiness once again for the American People . Sen. Romney that is a big question. We will probably not change how the federal government is managing this crisis because we have the management style of the president , management style of the people around him, who he has brought in as his team. They are pursuing this response in the way that they think best. It happens to be a different style than i have employed in my prior responsibilities as a governor and in the private sector. I tend to bee much more focused on bringing together and coordinating the resources, cut through the red tape and dividing the various tasks and clearly defined subgroups, taskforces if you will come people given if you will, people given responsibilitys, reporting back how they are doing. And there are some things i think have to be done at the federal level and other things that can be done closer to the people. Deciding for instance which county to open when, that is better done by states and localities. Deciding where the ventilators want to go, that is probably best should go, that is probably done best at the federal level. And if we need more, where can we get more manufactured. Then deciding which states need them now and which states can get them later, that is something the federal government can coordinate. If i am a governor, i do not want to be the one that is shorthanded when it comes to a ventilator. Every governor will get as many as they can get their hands on. And that will mean more requests than deed actually exists, so better to be coordinated. Part of it is, it is a skill of art to decide what things are done best centrally, what things are done best locally, but this is not our first rodeo or crisis we have had. I probably would lean on the side of more federal coordination, and in some cases procurement, then turned to the wayes to determine the best to open up again. Then the best way to stimulate the testing, once they get the equipment. How do they get the tests done then . That is probably better at the state level. Mo i am going to ask a couple more questions, then they will open at up to the students. So students on zoom, click on tab to begin populating those questions and we will get to them shortly. Obviously have been through every sector we have talked about. As a governor, senator, member of the Foreign Relations committee, as a longtime Business Leader, as a civic leader running the olympics, which we talked about, right after a major crisis. I am wondering if you have a couple of sort of high level lessons on Crisis Management that we can draw from as we look at how to deal with the covid19 crisis . Sen. Romney a couple things. When i was in business, we would often invest in or acquire a business in trouble. And a turnaround, we called it. I wrote a book called turnaround, after i had the occasion of going to the olympics. The reason i was given the opportunity is the governor of utah recognized i had done turnarounds in my Business Career and we had an approach i found to be most helpful. One, was to do what we called at the outset a strategic audit. Not a financial audit, but strategic, where we would look at the Current Situation and say, lets learn everything we can about it honestly. Where do we stand . In this case, where is our equipment, where are the health professionals, where is the disease most aggressive, who are the strong as players in the field . It would be a thorough analysis of exactly where things stand and no baloney, no happy talk, i want a full analysis of every aspect of where we are. That is number one, strategic audit. Number two, we have the rule of three focus, focus, focus. Determine the most essential thing to get right. In the situation it is testing, testing is the critical thing we need to get right from the very outset. So you focus resources on the and Everything Else is pushed to the side, perhaps, or put on the back burner until you take care of that one first. Number three is build the right team. So sometimes you have one team and you look at what your focus is, you look at the strategic audit and you say, i do not have the right people for this. I have good folks, some of them can do one thing, some can do another, but i need people who have better expertise for a particular challenge. Enterpriseleading an and when i was at the olympics i determined off the bat, there are skills needed here that i do not have. I had a partner in big capital that was really good at that, i asked him to join me and help me. And he became my partner in this. And if you are a governor and you are trying to figure out how to deal with the flood a flood, hurricane, those across the country, texas, alabama, florida, they deal with those things all the time. So over time they build a team that can respond to those types of crises. For most of us, this is a new experience when that happens and sometimes you have to change out the personnel. In a setting like this, and i have been and if i was the president of the u. S. , i would say, i need to bring in the to organize this, somebody like chris christie, who dealt with that terrible new jersey. I need to get people in here who have really dealt with this more than i have. And that i think is the approach. Audit,arts, Strategic Focus and build the right team. Kind ofast question takes it out of the realm of policymakers and more into the realm of the American People themselves. I have really been struck by recent polling that shows titudes andat perceptions of the crisis very wildly based on their partisan identification and wildly based on where they get their news and, with viewers of cnn msnbc on one side of the spectrum, there is of a fox on the other end of the spectrum, viewers of broadcast networks in between, republicans over here in democrats over here. And i am wondering your thoughts you are right, we have been through a crisis before, but are we too polarized at this moment in our history to come up with a truly unified response, or how do we get past that polarization we are seeing play out too often today . Sen. Romney our way to polarized . Yes. How do we get out of it . I can only look at history, or settings where nations were in real distress. And typically there were two means by which a civilization pulled out of a downward spiral. If a crisis came along that was so severe it really will people up. Woke people up. But not so severe it killed the civilization or enterprise. The other is where there is a leader of such extraordinary personal skill that this leader thed above the vision, Division Commander and resentment and division, anger and resentment and brought people together. I think of Abraham Lincoln and his approach to the country during the civil war. Even though he did not live long enough to implement his vision, malicetheless, with toward none and charity toward all, that helped to heal a nation that was more divided, certainly more polarized than we are today. I think of Winston Churchill, when the whole world was ready to throw in the towel in some respects. I him exaggerating a bit, but people were very much downcast and he stood and he spoke and led in such a way that brought his nation together and it helped enter dies energize the entire world. Going back a long time ago, rome, obviously it was headed downward then three emperors came along with the vision and they were able to reestablish romes status once again. So, you know, if i look at this setting, i believe that this crisis may be the kind of thing that helps get us past some of the polarization. And i also look to our leadership. Is their leadership in the white house, yes, that is important. But there is leadership in governors offices come in homes, churches, institutions of learning. There are many leaders in our country and people willing to recognize at that we can disagree with one another and still respect each other. That is something which i hope we will see throughout our society, but it will have to come from each of us. A goods use this as pivot point now to the questions from the students. When i call your name out, i ask that you introduce yourself, tell us who you are, your school, your year, what you are studying, where you are zooming from, and try to keep the questions concise. Ets start with maya maya and iy name is am a freshman studying math and government in the college. I am on the board of the Bipartisan Coalition. I and calling from the north suburbs of chicago. I was wondering what you thought the future of moderate politics might look like, especially considering the trend of more extreme views receiving more attention and votes. Is there a future for political moderates and how have recent elections changed this . How should politicians bring american dialogue back to the center . Sen. Romney that is an unusual combination, government and math. And i wish that we had more people like you that understand numbers and are adept at using numbers to develop trends and to reach conclusions that can be acted upon. Putting that aside for a moment, how do we have a feature that includes, if you will, the center as opposed to just the extremes . And i think what we have found in the last, oh may be five or 10 years, is there is a very powerful political juice at being highly divisive, to calling upon resentments, to looking for a scapegoat. From the right, the populism suggests our problems are because of immigrants, because of foreign goods, and that life is not as we would like it to be because these immigrants are coming across our border and the foreign goods coming into our country, and that is a powerful message which is obviously connected with a lot of people connecting with a lot of people and led to the ascendancy of that in my party. On the left, there has been a very strong sentiment that our problems are all because of the rich people interbankers, and and bankers and the billionaires. And life would be better if we did not have the big banks, billionaires and Big Companies like google and amazon, lets break them up because they do things that are bad. Oth visionsh b play on a degree of populism and resentment and anger. And that turns out a lot of people. Unfortunately, i think that both visions are wrong. I think one of the reasons we are not growing as fast as we could is we do not have as many highly skilled individuals as we could have and we should bring in more high skilled, highly educated people from around the world. People who go to college and get a degree in this country who come from a foreign country, i would have them stay. On the left, the Big Companies like google, microsoft and amazon, those are the ones that are investing in new technologies into basic science that will help rescue us going forward, and make america the leader of the world, despite the fact we are smaller than china. Think that both sides are badly wrong. I think it will play out eventually, meaning i think people will go to the extremes for a while, then finally there will be a resurgence of a centerright or centerleft. And i do not know whether that means of the creation of a new party that draws from the centers of both, or whether it is one party or the other that becomes more centrally oriented. But i think that there will be an ultimate rejection of the extremes, simply for the reality it does not work. Let the policies of the extreme do not make things better. It was Winston Churchill who said, basically he said he contrasted the americans to get things right after they have exhausted all alternatives. And we have not exhausted all the alternatives yet. We will try our hand at the extremes, and they will not work. Id when they dont work, think we will return to some of the policies, whether they are centerright or left, that i think have more potential to make life better for all of our citizens. Than for the questionks thank you for the cushion. Mo next, luke. Introduce yourself and tell us where you are zooming in from. Luke thank you for taking my question, senator. Im zooming from indianapolis, indiana. My question returns to one of the things we talked about, that you talked about earlier, which is American Leadership. I was wondering if you think that there are ways in which congress and state governors are able to do their part to contributing to American Leadership globally,leadership. Think what ways do you that is something only a president can do . Sen. Romney there is a question of president ial leadership, it is the most vital and most effective. The president conducts foreign policy. I am on the Foreign Relations committee, we are we have hearings and advise the white house. I am pleased with the fact that i meet with a number of white house individuals that express different views as well as the rest of the committee and the senate, but the president sets foreign policy. And, we can try and push, cajole, and convince, but ultimately it is the president that makes those calls. I hope that as we go forward there will be a greater and greater recognition in our administration and the white through our institutions of government that it is in americas interest to be involved in the world, after the Second World War a long time ago, harry truman and his secretary of state developed a new American Foreign policy. Because prior to that we had been isolationist, and the new policy was this, we will be involved in the world, we will be strong by virtue of not just our own military and economic might, but by linking arms with our friends that alliances make it stronger, and number three we will promote our values, Free Enterprise and the like. The we have been following that for the last 50 plus years and there is some question as of if it is the right strategy. I think it is. What can i governor do . A governor can meet with other leaders and establish trade relations with other countries that are countries that abide by the rules of the road, if you well, malaysia, indonesia, vietnam, Northern Africa . I think it is important for us to establish more economic links throughout the world. China is doing that aggressively. We are not doing as well as we might, i think Corporate Leaders and governors can do that. I think senators and congresspeople are wise to go on trips and meet with leaders of other countries and talk about the values that we share, promote those values and look for Economic Opportunities for us to be investing in other parts of the world. My colleagues created legislation called the build act, which provides funding for enterprises to invest in places like africa or the subcontinent. That is a good thing, those are the kind of things we can do, even if the president is less inclined in those regards. Tose are things we can do establish stronger links around the world. Because if we do not play a role around the world, bad things are going to happen. They will suck us and or make our products less competitive or make us unable to compete, in which case, we will have not the kind of Economic Vitality and security that we aspire to. Thank you. Mo thank you, luke. Gabby, you are a. Gabby thank you. I am from north carolina, also a second year in the master of science in Foreign Service program. My question is about the state department. A number of our diplomats have had to be evacuated or returned and i found these those is crises are increasing. Exhibit more china expansionist policies and the south china sea. I was wondering what you think this impact will be on the diplomatic arm and how it can adapt to some of these changes. Sen. Romney thank you. I think china will very aggressively seek to take advantage of the current circumstance. They will not be able to say if they were true or not that they were able to knock down covid19 and look what happened to the United States where it is still running amok. That will be commencing to many, and they will also try and blame us somehow, as they continue to try and do. They will make a very aggressive effort to expand their influence particularly in the third world, butjust with velvet road, with economic investments in other kinds and their involvement in geopolitical institutions. They will be aggressive in these ways. If we sit back and say we are inwardly focused, they will advance authoritarianism will get a further lead, and freedom will be further in retreat. That would be very unfortunate. That are a number of us have called upon the administration to undertake a very aggressive effort to counter chinese propaganda, to promote the truth and our relationships with other countries, and china got the first round because they had masks when no one else had them. They had tests when the world needed them and was able to send it around. They are calling it mask diplomacy, and we do not have it because we do not manufacture them like they do. That is going to change. I do not know who is going to develop the vaccine next, that if we do that is something that we can help provide to other nations, certainly the technology, if not the product. And there is no question that coming out of this, that we will have an economy that helps rebuild the global economy, and we will have the technologies that the world will look to to be able to keep their people safe. In germany today, they said they are looking to google and amazon as the places that are going to be developing the social distancing technology that they are going to look to. Can take advantage of the circumstance, but we are starting off in a bit of a whole , and we have got to acknowledge that. You have to become much more aggressive in asserting our values and the truth as opposed to letting china getting get away with a story that is untrue. Thank you. Mo thank you. Connor. Go ahead. Mentionedllo, you Holding China accountable to the rules, but i was wondering if you could outline a tangible way to do that. For example, trumps tariffs were meant to hold them accountable for intellectual property laws, but the end result was damage to the businesses and industry and it did not even achieve phase one. I want to know how do we actually hold china to the rules while not sacrificing the economic efficiency or the welfare of our systems . Sen. Romney i will tell you my own view, and that is that we have a lot more capacity to get china to be dissuaded from a predatory approach if we combine with our friends, and nations that follow the rules. I am talking everyone from japan and south korea, taiwan, and everyone throughout the pacific, and europe, the middle east, and these nations come together and say china, we are not going to allow you to have free access to any of our markets unless you ceaseanddesist from the following things. And, describing precisely what those are, we will have to work those things out amongst ourselves, but we say, we cannot come rushing into our market that are hightech and essential to National Security and we cannot let them come rushing in unless they are playing by the same rules. They cannot be allowed to price their products dramatically and, in the United States under the sherman antitrust act, it is called predatory pricing. Companies will get find and penalized by the justice department. It is not illegal for countries to do that in their own country, but we have to say to china, and you sell products below cost, we will not allow you to have access to our market. Basishat mean on a global . Of tariffs . Probably. Does it mean in some cases and we will say we will not let you sell that product into our country . Productnot let huaweis into my communications network, it is so essential. It is something that we would have to work out with friends and allies. If well come together, and we have more capacity to negotiate with china, and they are not going to pick up their marbles and go home. They want access to the market, they will have to play by the rules, and i think that is something which is hard for us to do, but i think this whole covid crisis creates the opportunity for us to have that conversation with our friends. Normally, they look to america to lead that effort. I do not know whether that administration this administration wants to do that, but somebody ought to. If it is divide and conquer, we will get conquered, and china is going to be ascendant, not necessarily in a military conquest, but economically and geopolitically, and that is not acceptable to the cause of freedom. Mo thank you. We have about 10 minutes or so left so we will try and squeeze in as many questions as we can. Sanjay, just a reminder to introduce yourself and where you are zooming in from and all of that good stuff. Sunday ok. Hello, i am ay freshman in college studying government and i am zooming in from a maryland suburb of d. C. It seems that since you ran from theident, for president Republican Party has changed, what do you think has shaped the party in recent years . And how do you see it moving forward, what do you think it will look like . Sen. Romney there is no question that the party has changed a lot. I think that the dust is that this a test the statistics will show that suburban women and collegeeducated men and women have become independent or democrat. At the same time a lot of folks unionre democrat, households and sore if josh so forth have moved into the Republican Party. It is just cohort by choque by cohort changing its makeup. The party used to stand for fiscal discipline and balancing the budget. We pretty well walked away for that, that has not been a priority in the last administration. We used to talk about how Critical Care doctor was, and talking about moral character, and we are not talking about that much. Be the bad russia to guys, china, north korea are all bad guys, and yet the president has taken a different approach than we have in the past, and to their leaders in particular. Yes, i think the party has changed in some respects. I also think, and maybe i am wrong, but at least in my own case, i believe we were pro illegal immigration, we saw immigration as positive to our Economic Growth and our technology. I calculated at one point that half of our leading Technology Companies in america were founded by immigrants or the secondgeneration of immigrants. So, that was our orientation, and that is less so today. Where does that leave us . Hasy opinion, the president extraordinarily unique skills at activating the base of the party that he has put together. He won. That is a hard thing to do. And what i do not know is whether that is anyone who have scales as unusual as his to keep the group together. Road, postk down the President Trump, and whether that is in one or five years, post President Trump we will have a hard time maintaining a majority without being able to do a better job with young, minorities, women, collegeeducated whites, and by the way maybe i am wrong, but of course i tend to be more mainstream republican dan republican. And that is where i think we have to head thank you. Sen. Romney thank you. Mo thank you. Emily, you are up. Emily thank you for speaking tonight. Studyingphomore politics and i am zooming from West Virginia right now. Of do you see the principles institutions being maintained throughout this crisis keeping in mind health concerns. Sen. Romney i missed the first part of your question. Repeat that, if you will. Emily sorry. Principle ofe the our institutions being maintains especially regarding concerns for health. Going toey there is be a challenge, our institutions have been under fire, i think from the left and the right for a long time. Thatof these institutions were a staple and considered above it all have taken on heat, and whether that is the media, or whether it is the fbi, or the intelligence community, even our Public Health community, it is now fair game on the left and the right to attack institutions which were in the past seen as being fair arbiters. Clearly the media has a point of view and that is the nature of a free pay free press. A reduction ins the confidence and credibility that is associated with many of our institutions. I happen to think that is unfortunate. Where there are mistakes and bad actors, you point them out. Most of the institutions that i describe, when they make mistakes they say it. Our Public Health said forecast is that we will have 2 Million People die from coronavirus and then it came back and said it is more like 50 to 100,000, they say that the input is not accurate and here is the right data. That i think should create more credibility, but in some circles it seems to detract, and the political people grab onto these things and say that these people are bad and not telling you the truth, i think it is really unfortunate. It is good politics, but it is damaging to the health and wellbeing of our national psyche, not to mention our National National spirit. Important raised an question and i hope that is something that we find that people give more respect to one another than perhaps we are trying to do. By the way, what a handsome scottie. At is mo antonio, you are up. Antonio . I think you are muted. Antonio i appreciate the time you are taking to discuss with us your favorite topics. Taking a broderick approach and in consideration of the different things, i would like to ask about the president ial election. We have heard that this is the most important election in American History and the stakes are so high. I would like to ask your perspective, what do you think the stakes are in committed in consideration of American Values and all of these things. What do you think the stakes are and what is your take on that . Sen. Romney without question the most important election in our lifetime was in 2012. Just kidding. Importantnk it is an election, and i think it is likely that the incumbent will win, why do i say that . It has been 28 years since an incumbent lost in his bid for reelection. There is great power to incumbency, you set the National Agenda and get tv time when your opponent cannot, and particularly in a crisis you get a lot of tv time. It is likely that the economy will be doing better than we are feeling. We are heading down or back out by november, and that will augur to the advantage of the incumbent. The polls today that joe biden is leading in a number of swing states, but we are far away from november and political life. A, i think it is pretty much jump ball, although i give the advantage to the incumbent. It is more likely he gets reelected than not. There are two very different visions of what the challenges we face. President trumps vision is clear in most peoples minds, and what he stands for and what he would do. His term is clear. I think Vice President biden is less clear in peoples minds as to what he would do. I think his political advisers will tell him what he should do is make the election a referendum on President Trump and whether or not you think President Trump deserves a second term as opposed to laying out his own vision for what he would do differently. , but iy or may not come think it is an important election, and i think you will see that our involvement in International Affairs would be different under the two individuals. Domestically,urse the priority of whether we are talking about immigration policy, health care policy, or immigration policy, they will have different views and they will have a big impact. I for one think it is critical on immigration to bring in more skillalent, high individuals, whether or not we can get that done i do not know, but that will be in the mix. I think it counts. I do not i am not sure if this is the most important election ever or in a wild, but this is important in a nation like ours, i think it is very important. I hope that those like yourself, who are focused on these issues will encourage other people to vote and otherwise you will have people who will sit at home that otherwise could have had very something very important to say. Thanks. We are getting close to the end of our time, so i want to squeeze in one more student question. Nick, you are up. Ick thank you for your time, am joining you on a social distance walk, i am in the Undergrad Business School and i am minoring in government. The question i have for you, what do you have to say to young next five the decades, an unprecedented level in the deficit and increased taxes coming down the pipeline, what would you say to young Business Leaders that are trying to rise up in that environment. Sen. Romney i know a number of people are planning on going into government, which is very important. If people are going into the private sector they play at least as important a role. Government only has money to spend if businesses are producing goods and services that people want to buy. Our ability to have value in our currency depends upon the competitiveness and relative quality of our goods compared to those that will be offered by china, germany, or anybody else. Being in the private sector is andntial to our vitality the preservation of American Leadership, and the planet. I appreciate what you are doing and i would tell you that i am concerned about the amount of debt that we have. I do not think it will be backbreaking, i certainly hope not in parts because Interest Rates are so low and will stay low because the dollar is the reserve currency in the world and the safest place for people to put money. I think the interest is a burden, but it is not backbreaking yet. We have to deal with it. The idea that we keep on adding another trillion dollars to the debt cannot be the case. We simply have to finally confront this, and i am afraid my generation put in place more spending that benefits us, more benefits for us, and we are walking away leaving your generation with the bill. I think that is wrong, and i believe that we have to, and this upcoming cycle, finally deal with that, whether it is by increasing taxes on us, i hope that is not it, or whether it is done by reshaping programs so they stand on their own feet and become fiscally solvent. There has to be an approach that finally counts comes to grips with these excessive spendings that we have. We spend in 4 trillion a year and we taken 3 trillion a year. That is during good times. A big issue for me. I think i am one of the very few that considers this a really critical issue, but i am going to be battling on this issue, and hopefully getting colleagues to come along with me. Thank you for the question and i am glad you i have an ally, and good luck in your Business Career. Mo i want to close with one final question. Through every major crisis our country has faced, our leaders have asked the American People to come together through some sort of call to arms as a people , to deal with the crisis. The call to arms in this one is to stay home, is to not come together socially. Even then the message is complicated, as we have seen. Anxietye is a lot of and a lot of the students you are talking with do not know if they have summer internships or what they will do when they graduate. So i am wondering if you could end tonight with a message to them about what it is we can do together to get through this time beyond stay home, sort of. Thinkomney you know, i we are always tempted to look and see what the person or people at the top are doing, but it is far more important that a country like ours is blood in each individual is doing. Leadership is not something that happens by one person at the top, or even by 50 governors, ceos, or religious leaders, it happens on a persontoperson basis. What i see day today, which is most encouraging is young people and a little older people acting the profound shows sense of humanity, of goodness, of care for others that i think has always characterized our country. One of the things that i most enjoyed about the chance to run for president was to go across the country and i saw that people that do not make the evening news. The people that make the evening news did something bad. The people who do not make the news are doing pretty good things, and that is characteristic of our country. Future,fident in our not because i think we will elect all the right leaders every time we have an election, but i am confident in our country because we are fundamentally a good people that care about our kids, and care about their future, that care about the values that have always characterized United States of america. America, but if i look to give advice, it would be to do your very best in the profession you have chosen, and be a fundamentally good human being. Mo senator romney, as much of our students know, i spent most of my career working on the opposite side of the aisle. Sen. Romney i know well. Have always respected your leadership in every stage of your career, so i want to thank you for your continued service and for sharing your thoughts on how we as a people can come together and dealing with this crisis and what American Leadership can look like moving forward can moving forward. And i hope the next time you speak to the institutes of politics and public service, it will be with us in person. To everyone that tuned in tonight, all the students that participated on zoom or those that watched across social Media Channels, i want to thank you for your time tonight, for joining us on so many of them since we shifted to this virtual model. I want to thank our partners, students andn coalition for joining us tonight and to our technical partners, optimum audio and aie media to help us figure out how to do this in pretty short order. Thank you all. For the, we are done semester, you have finals, good luck. Stay tuned, because in the next few days we will be announcing a very full summers worth of virtual programming as our social distancing continues, we are going to give you a way to stay connected campus, to one another through our events. So, please stay tuned and good luck with your finals. Thank you so much everybody. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] journalngton primetime, a special evening edition of the washington journal and the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic. An guests, dr. Michael sag Infectious Disease physician and professor joins joins us to talk about the latest in clinical care, also david quam and, offer author of pathogens looking at like the coronavirus i can pass between humans and animals. Join the conversation at 8 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan. Sign up today for cspans newsletter, word for word, providing new updates to the coronavirus Pandemic Response from state governors, White House Task force briefings, and important updates from congress. Sign up today, go to cspan. Org connect and enter your email in the word for word signup box. Rnal continues. Host our first guest this morning is dr. Sarah fortune. Not only is she a professor at the Harvard School of health, she serves as the chair of the department. She is here to talk about the response of covid19 in the United States. Good morning. Guest good morning. Host in the ultimate process of resolving covid19 or putting controls to it, can we start with the role of antibodies. Playnole will they