It is a tremendous honor to introduce our guest tonight, senator mitt romney. Growing up in utah, i can see from002 olympic ski jumps my backyard. Senator romney helped save those olympics and forever transformed my home state. From running for president turnout representing the state of utah in the senate he has exhibited the best of American Leadership in private and public sectors, getting results well detaining the utmost character and integrity. Thank you for being here to share your perspective with us tonight. Tonights event is cosponsored by the College Republicans and the Bipartisan Coalition. I will now handed over to our moderator for the evening, the geopolitics executive director. Matt, thank you for your generous introduction, and for your continued participation, not just at the institute, but your leadership at the mcchord school. I want to thank the georgetown andege republicans Bipartisan Coalition for joining us and putting on this event. I want to thank all of you who are spending part of your evening with us tonight. For our final virtual form of the semester looking at American Leadership during times of crisis. In a moment i will be joined by senator romney in conversation. The way tonight is going to go for the next hour or so is for the first half, senator romney and i will have a conversation that will draw a lot on his experience in the United States senate as a member of the Foreign Relations committee, as a governor, as a business leader, as a civic leader, and drawing on some of those lessons to think through what American Leadership during this crisis and beyond looks like. About 25hrough, minutes, we will take student questions from those participating in this zoom webinar. If you look at the bottom of your screen you will see a q and. Tab click on that and type in your question. When the time comes, someone from our team will notify you, using the chat feature that you are up. Then, make sure you are tv ready because we will bring you onto the screen to ask your question directly. Feel free to start populating that q a tab with your questions now or at any point during the program. This event is being recorded and livestreamed on all of our social Media Channels and the recording will be rebroadcast at a later time. With that, i think that takes care of the housekeeping. Would you please join me in welcoming senator mitt romney. Senator, thank you for being with us. Romney thank you, mo, and thank you, matt, for that generous introduction. And someone from park city utah, that is unusual. Matt is from a lovely place and it is nice to have heard his introduction. Thank you for inviting me to join you and your colleagues. We are thrilled to have you. We have all been cooped up for several weeks, and if you are like me you are inundated with information, news that looks at every angle of what is happening with the response to covid19. 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. If you think about every major Global Crisis of the past century, 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 United States to lead the way out. Occasionally though now, it looks as if in this crisis we are playing catch up in a lot of ways to the rest of the world and how we are responding. I wonder, i would love to get your thoughts on that. Are we playing catch up or are we poised to provide the leadership that the United States historically provides in leading the world out of this crisis . Sen. Romney there are quite a few phases to what is going on and that is up big question. I will take longer answering that then perhaps the other questions that are posed. The first phase, getting ready to respond, clearly, we were not in a position of extraordinary strength. We didnt have the testing as fast as we could have or should have. We did not have the personal protective equipment we would have hoped to have. Part of that is the recognition that in many cases american companies, multinational companies, are producing these products elsewhere. In china, they had the crisis first, so they got the ppe and we did not. Then in terms of Crisis Management, the willingness of the federal government to step in and coordinate everything from ppe, to testing, to repairing our hospital systems, none of those moments stood out as being great examples of American Leadership. I think the world was surprised by that. You are right, they think of us as the nation that was the first to the moon, has accomplished things in the new economy, yet when it came to ppe, to testing, the speed of our response looked slow relative to people like south korea, singapore, china, armany, and even sweet into certain degree. The first phase is not one that will stand out and being a great phase in American Leadership. The next phase, which is recovery, i think we have the to stand out in a positive way and the recovery area. And im talking about with regard to treatment said vaccines. That kind of Research Work is going on around the world. We may or may not be first. There is a lot going on that is not going on in other places and we may well be able to lead in that area. But then comes the time of stimulus. Trying to get the economy going again. We will certainly be looked to by the world to help get the economy going. Our consumer will come to the fore as our consumer typically does. We have Financial Resources, as the reserve currency of the world, and as the dollar being the safest place for people to put their money. Those resources give us the capacity to encourage the domestic economy, which also helps pull the global economy. Yes, we will be a key leader in that regard. But then in the area that is perhaps most longlasting, which is post cover, because that will come at some point, i think the u. S. And china will be the two nations that really stand out, because technology will be seen as being more critical than we might have anticipated, critical to identify threats, critical to meeting the needs of consumers. We are a technology leader. China is also increasingly a technology leader. Those nations relying on yesterdays technology will find they are not able to keep up and to aand the u. S. , degree china, will be stepping farther forward. In the first phase we did not look real strong, and that is kind of an understatement. After this is over, i think what we will be able to do and our Technology Base will maintain the reputation we have as being a leader, if not the leader, of the world. Mo let me ask a couple of followup questions. First focusing on specifically the covid crisis. It seems a lot of the time at least what we hear about is how we are dealing with it within our own borders, at the federal level, in various states and localities. What sort of American Leadership role is going on now and coming in actuallynow coming up with a Global Response . There needs to be a Global Response, right . There is no corner of the globe that is untouched by this. Beyond the economics you mentioned, what is the appropriate role for us . And specifically im curious, you have been critical, along with a lot of others, of the World Health Organization and how it has responded up until now. I am wondering, the president has suggested pulling funding. Is that the right role for the United States . Is that the right approach . How do we work in a multilateral way led by the United States . Sen. Romney i begin with a perception of global competition, the geopolitics of the current environment. We, of course, 25 years ago anticipated that personal freedom and Free Enterprise was the way to go, and we figured everyone in the world would be copying us. It turned out different from that. China has a very different view. They have adopted Free Enterprise of sorts, capitalism. But they have not adopted freedom. They are more authoritarian than we would have anticipated they would be at this stage. Then you have the jihadists and the view that theocracy ought to rule the world. In a setting like this, the question is, are we best just to turn inward and ignore what is happening in the world . I dont think so. In order to have a safer world, a more prosperous world with less poverty around the world, a safer world from a disease standpoint, a safer world in terms of having the freedoms we enjoy, we need to be involved in the world. I think there has been a tendency over the last decade or so for us to become less and less involved in International Institutions. In a setting like that you will find a competitor, the main competitor being china, stepping in and saying we will play a bigger and bigger role. As they play the bigger role, they tilt the communication, if not the strategies of those various International Institutions, to their benefit. That is not in our longterm interest. Whoever is writing the rules of the game will ultimately win the game. It is very much in american interest, in americas very selfish interest, to be involved in the world, to be shaping events in the world, to be writing the rules of the world, to make sure those who participate fairly and freely in trade are the ones who are successful. That the nations who enjoy read rather on the ascendancy than that retreat. Freedom is not on the advance. It is on the retreat. I would be more involved in these institutions. Who isesnt mean the doing a fine job and i think we ought to give as much money as they want. No, i think they are not doing a great job. They are more political than they should be. They are more bureaucratic. They happen to be the only institution we have globally to help the poorest countries in the world. We should be more involved, not less. We should try to get it to become more effective, efficient, and use our Financial Resources and global clout to get these International Institutions to do a better job and make the world a better place for our trade, our technology, for freedom, and for the values that have defined a fulfilling life. Recently, thinking in the context of postcovid phases, you recently wrote an oped in the Washington Post about how this could be a moment now, couldre seeing be a moment to reset our approach and the international communitys approach to china. Specifically. Elaborate on that. Sen. Romney i hope people understand, china intends to eclipse us as the leader of the world, to write the rules of the world, to spread its form of authoritarianism around the world, to be the geopolitical leader of the world, to be the military leader of the world, and to be the economic leader of the world, to be the most wealthy nation in the world. It will surely have the largest gdp in the world just by virtue of its Larger Population eventually. To go, where it intends and most of the world has been thinking of china as being a developing country and a long wait to go. That is the furthest thing from the truth. Their military investment in hardware is pretty close to our own. We spend a lot on retirement benefits, salaries, housing, and so forth. Our military spending actually is on procurement, and china is spending a lot of money on procurement to be imperative with us. Geopolitically, they have inserted themselves into International Institutions. Economically, they have used a methods and of techniques that are illegal in the u. S. We outlawed then with our antitrust laws long ago, but they arent illegal in china. They have used those to basically crush industries in the west and become the dominant player in the world will stop much of the world has been asleep to that, much of our own 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. It is like, what . To find out that our protective equipment, that comes from china. Our testing equipment, we dont have the reagents or the swabs that we need. That comes from china. And other nations that are not free. I think people around the world were surprised, not just americans, but the british and french and germans to say wow, we really have let china get a hold of industry after industry , many of them critical to our health care. That is also true across our economies. Because of that, i think there is a wakeup potential right now to say, wait a second, how far are we going to let china go before we say to them you have to play by the rules the rest of them play by. You cant continue to bribe or to sendh monopolies, your belted road around the world grabbing the rare earth of , the world so you can dominate and monopolize the products of the future. Hold on. I think it is a chance for us to come together, and if we collectively come together i think we can dissuade china from the course they are on. If instead we all focus internally and only think about our domestic policies and how we are going to get ahead of our fellow western countries, we will have missed an opportunity to create the leverage we need to get china to play by the rules and to become a competitor as opposed to becoming a predator. It is a predator today, which represents a longterm threat to freedom. I think this covid crisis has the potential to wake some people up. When Boris Johnson comes out of a covid crisis himself, i think hes going to be more concerned , aut the fact that huawei chinese enterprise, is going to be managing major parts of their telecommunication system and therefore threatening their national security. This represents, in my opinion, an opportunity for the free nations in the world and the nations who play by the rules, even if they are not free, to come together collaboratively and develop a strategy, sit down with china, and make sure they begin to play by the rules. Mo lets turn our attention inward to the u. S. Response domestically. Very broadly, what are we doing right right now, and what are we not doing right right now . Sen. Romney is your topic related to covid19 . Mo yes, covid19. We will bring them back later for a broader sen. Romney i was going to say, that is a very big question. In terms of covid19, we got off slow in testing. No question about that. We had plenty of time to figure out why. Im not blaming this administration. This is a long history that we werent prepared for something we should have seen coming. Someone called it a black elephant. It wasnt a black swan. The elephant in the room suggests we should have seen this thing. We were not prepared for it with testing, with protective equipment. I remember asking in the early in ourr health team stockpile, how much ppe do we have for the needs of our Health Care Personnel . They said 10 of what Health Care Personnel needs. Its like, youve got to be kidding. We didnt do a real good job getting out of the block. At this stage we are ramping up. If it were up to me i would have a far more centralized coordination effort in terms of manufacturing the devices, the reagents, the swabs, the tests and so forth that are necessary to find out where they are and getting them to the places that need it most. I think it is hard to say to all 50 governors, you guys do your own thing. I think it is a lot more effective if it can be a centralized ordination. It doesnt mean directing everyone what they have to do, but coordinating it and doing our best to make sure places who need the help most immediately get that help. The governors have been doing a real good job, but the federal coordination has been less than my personal style. I have been involved in a couple of crisis settings in my Business Career and as a governor, and i found it helpful to bring together various task forces with individual responsibilities being given to one task force after another depending on a particular challenge we face. I go back to something that bob secretary, the former of treasury, and i believe defense as well. He said, the key in leadership is recognizing 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 there are always people out there with more information. We are not where we ought to be. Say how is our , private sector doing . I think our private sector is doing pretty darn well. It is not as coordinated as i peopleike it to be, but are working like crazy whether it is to find a vaccine, cures, ppe. The american spirit, the individuals in our Health Care Sector and other essential worker sectors are inspiring. It may look a little haphazard to people around the world, and not as coordinated as they might have expected from us, but the collective goodness of our people and the volunteers stands out to those of us who are watching it close hand. Around thet people world, i think a lot of americans feel it looks haphazard. Atruck by the fact that moment ago, if you look at the polling the trust that American People have in their governor versus the federal response, there is a pretty big delta there. In a crisis people tend to rally around their leaders. There is a pretty big delta in trust in governors versus trust in federal response. My question is, you said we are maybe a little too decentralized. What is the appropriate role of the federal government visavis the state, and what can the federal government do to demonstrate its trustworthiness once again to the American People . Sen. Romney you know, that is a big question. We are probably not going to change how the federal government is managing this crisis, because we have the management style of the president , the management style of the people around him who he has brought in as his team, and they are pursuing this response in the way they think best. It happens to be a different management style than i employed in my prior responsibilities as a governor and private sector individual. I tend to be much more focused on bringing together and coordinating all the resources, trying to cut the red tape, and dividing various tasks in clearly defined subgroups, will, ofes, if you people being given specific responsibilities, reporting back on a daily basis how they are doing. There are some things i think have to be done at the federal level or are best done at the federal level. There are things that need to be done much closer to the people. Deciding which county to open when, that is probably best done by states and localities. Deciding where the ventilators ought to go, that is probably best done at the federal level. First of all, finding where they are, and if we need more, working to get more manufactured, and finding out which states need them now and which can get them later, that is something that are coordinated for the federal government. If i am a governor, i do not want to be shorthanded when it comes to ventilators. Each is going to get as many as he or she can get their hands on. Thats going to get more requests than the need exists. Art to it is a skill or decide what is best done centrally, locally. This is not our first rodeo. This is not the first crisis weve had. I probably lean on the side of more federal coordination, and in some cases procurement, and then to the states to determine the best way to open up again, and then the best way to stimulate the testing. Once they get the equipment, how they get the tests done, that is better,etter, at as the president suggested, at the state level. Ask one question, then we will open it up to the student level. Students participating via zoom, click on the q a tab at the bottom. We will get to you shortly. Senator, you have been through every sector we have talked about, right . As a governor, as a senator, as a member of the Foreign Relations committee, as a longtime business leader, civic leader running the olympics , right after a major crisis. I am wondering if you have got a couple of highlevel lessons on Crisis Management that you think we can all draw from to help deal with the covid crisis. Sen. Romney there are a couple of things. When i was in business, we would often invest in or acquire a business in trouble. A turnaround, we called it. I wrote a book called turnaround after i had the occasion of going to the olympics. The reason i think i was given the olympic opportunity was the governor of utah recognized i had done a number of turnarounds in my Business Career. We had an approach that i found to be the most helpful. One was at the very outset, do what we called a strategic audit. Not a financial audit. Audit a financial audit, but audit. We look to the Current Situation did we stand . In this case it was, ok, where are the equipment . Professionals . The strongest players we have on the field . A thorough analysis of exactly where things stand. No baloney, no happy talk. Just a full analysis of where we are. So, strategic audit. Number two, we call it a rule three. Focus, focus, focus. Determine the most essential thing to get right. In this case, depending over you were, it is testing. Testing is a critical thing we have to get right from the very outset. Focus your resources on that, things are put to the side and put on the back or as you take care of that one first. Number three, build the right team. Sometimes you look at the right team and you look at what you are focused on and your strategic audit you say, you know what, i dont have the right people for this. Ive got good folks, some can do one thing, some can do another, but i need with better expertise for this particular challenge. If you are leading an enterprise , and i have been in a setting like this. At the olympics i came in off the bat and said look, there are skills needed here that i dont have. I had a partner of mine back at rain capital who was good at that and i asked good health and he became my partner in this. If you are a governor trying to figure out how to deal with a flood, a hurricane, or governors across the country, texas, louisiana, florida, they deal with those things all the time, they overtime build the kind of team that can respond to those kinds of crisis, but for most of us it is a new periods when that happens and then you have to change out the personnel. In a setting like this if i was president i would say you know what . I need to get real experts in Crisis Management, getting the mckinsey or the vein guys to help us organize this, or someone like chris christie, who dealt with the terrible hurricane in new jersey. People in here who have dealt with this more than i have. That i think, that is the approach. Three parts, strategic audit, focus, and build the right team. My last question, kind of taking it out of the realm of holocene makers and more into the realm of the American People , i have been struck by recent polling that Shows Americans and their attitude and their perceptions of the crisis very wildly based on their partisan identification and very wildly vary wildly based on where they get their news from, viewers of cnn on one end of the spectrum, fox on the other end, broadcast Network Viewers somewhere in between. Republicans over here, democrats over here. Wondering your thoughts you are right, we have been through crisis before, but are we to polarize that this moment in our history to come up with a truly unified response . How do we get past the polarization that we are seeing play out too often today . Sen. Romney are we to polarize . Yes. How to we get out of it . I can only look at his region where nations or civilizations were in real distress. Meanslly there were two by which a civilization pulled out of a downward spiral. One was, if a crisis came along that was so severe, it really woke people up. But not so severe that it killed the enterprise or the civilization. The other, of course, is where there is a leader of such extraordinary personal skill the this leader stood above division, the anger, the resentment, and brought people together. I mean, i think of lincoln following the civil war and his approach to the country. Even though he did not live long enough to implement his vision, with malices towards none and Charity Towards all, the image helped to heal a nation that had become more divided and polarized than we are today. , think of Winston Churchill when the whole world was ready to throw in the towel in some respects. Im exaggerating a bit, but people were very much downcast and he stood, spoke, and led in such a way that brought his nation together and helped energize the entire world. Rome, going back a long time ago, rome was obviously headed downward and three great emperors came along with vision that was able to reestablish once again. I look at the setting, i believe that this crisis may be the kind of thing that helps to get us past the polarization that we have and i also look to our leadership. With this leadership in the white house, that some orphaned area but also in the governors office. Homes, churches, institutions of learning. There are a lot of leaders in our country and people ready to recognize that we can disagree with each other and still respect each other. That is something i hope to see throughout society, but it is going to have to come from each of us. Ok. Pivot point to the questions. , i askcall your name out that you introduce yourself, tell us who you are, your school, your year, what you are studying, where you are zooming from. Try to keep your questions concise. Lets start with maia. Hi, senator romney. My name is maia and im a freshman studying math and. Overnment in the college im on the board of the Bipartisan Coalition. I am calling from the north suburbs of chicago. I was wondering what you thought the future of moderate politics might look like, considering the trend of more extreme views getting more attention . Is there a future for political moderates . How have recent elections changed this . How can we bring american dialogue back . Sen. Romney thank you. Thats an unusual combination. Government and math. I wish we had more people like you that understood numbers and are adept at using numbers to to reachrends and conclusions that can be acted upon. Putting that aside for a moment, you know, how do we, you know, how do we have a future that includes, if you will, the center as opposed to just the asked dreams . I think that what we found in the last maybe five or 10 years is that there is very powerful little juice to being highly divisive. The calling upon resentments, to looking for a scapegoat. From the right, the populism suggests that our problems are because of immigrants, because of foreign goods. As we would not like it to be because of these immigrants, coming across our border with the foreign goods coming into our country. Thats a powerful message that connects with a lot of people and it led to the ascendancy of that ilk in my party. On the democratic side, on the left, there has been a very strong sentiment that our problems are all because of the rich people, the bankers, these billionaires and our life would be a lot better if we just didnt have billionaires, didnt have these big banks and big companies, like google and amazon, break them up. These big things are bad. That is why our life is not as good as it could be. Ofh visions play on a degree populism and resentment and anger. That turns out a lot of people. , i think both visions are wrong. I think one of the reasons we are not growing as fast as we could is because we dont have as many highly skilled individuals as we would have and we should bring in more highly skilled, highly educated individuals. People from a foreign country their highly skilled, i would have them stay for heavens sakes. On the left, Companies Like google, microsoft, amazon, they are investigating new technologies that will rescue us going forward, making us the leaders of the world. Both sides are wrong. I think it will play out eventually. Meaning i think people will go to the extremes for a while and they will only be a resurgence of a satellite centerleft and i dont know if that means the that of a new party the creation of a new party that draws from both or one party or the other that becomes more centrally oriented. I think there will be an ultimate rejection of the reams simply for the reality that it doesnt work. The policy of extremes doesnt make them better. It was Winston Churchill who said you can basically trust the americans to get things right after they have exhausted all the alternatives. We havent exhausted all the alternatives yet. We are going to try our hand the extremes and they wont work. When they dont work, i think we will return to some of the policies, republican or democrat , right or left, that have more potential to make life better for all of our citizens. Thank you for the question, maia. Thanks, meyer. Next up, luke. Luke, remember to introduce yourself and tell us where you are zooming in from. Thanks for taking my question, senator romney. Indianapolisn from , indiana. My question was sort of returning to one of the things that we talked about, that you were talking about earlier, American Leadership. I was wondering if you think that there are ways that congress and state governors are able to do their part to contribute to american , or in whatlobally ways do you think that is something that only a president there is noromney question that president ial leadership is the most vital and most effective. He has not only the biggest bully pulpit, that is bully pulpit, but he freely conducts foreign policy. Im on the foreign advisory committee, we advise the white house. Im pleased with the fact that i get the chance to meet with individuals in the white house and express my view, as do relationsthe or in committee from the senate, but the president really sets foreign policy. We can try to push, cajole, and convince, but ultimately its the president that makes those calls. I hope that as we go forward that there will be a greater and greater recognition in our administration, in the white house, and throughout 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, president truman and his secretary of state, dean ansys and, develop the new american foreignpolicy because until that time we had been. Airly isolationist the new policy was this, we will be involved in the world, we will be strong, we will be not just virtue of Strong Military and economic might, but by linking arms with our friends. A lions is make us stronger. Number three, we will promote our values, Free Enterprise,. Reedom and the like we have been following that for the last 50 plus years. There is some question as to whether that is still the right strategy. I think it is. What can a governor do . A governor can go to other with leaderseak there, establish trade relations with other countries that are countries that abide by the rules of the road, if you will. Vietnam,onesia, northern africa. I think its pretty important for us to establish more economic links throughout the world. China is doing that very aggressive. We are not doing as well as we corporatei think that leaders and governors can do that. I also think that senators and go on trips wise to around the world, talk about the values we share, promote the values as we have in the past, and look for Economic Opportunities for us in the rest of the world. My colleagues, before i became a senator, had the build act, which provided funding for enterprises to invest in places like south africa, the subcontinent, those are good things. Those of the kinds of things we can do even if a clip a president is less inclined in those regards. Those are things that we can do to try to establish stronger links around the world. Because if we dont play a role around the world, bad things can happen that will suck us in or lessour products competitive or unable to compete around the world, in which case we will have not the kind of Economic Vitality and security that we aspire to. Thank you. Thanks, luke. Gabby, you are up. Thank you so much, senator. I am gabby burnett, from north carolina. Im a second year in the master of science or service program. My question for you is about the state department. A number of diplomats had to be evacuated or returned stateside just as a number of crises were starting to increase. For example, we are seeing china with more expansionist policies. I was wondering what you think the virus impact will be on diplomacy and how can the diplomatic corps adapt to some of these changes . Thank you. I think that china will very aggressively seek to take advantage of the current circumstance. They will be able to say, whether it is true or not, that they were able to knock down covid19. Look at whats happening in the United States, still running amok. That will be convincing to many. To blame us,o try somehow, as they continue to try and do. They will make a very aggressive effort to expand their influence particularly in the third world. Not just the developing world, but with economic advancements of other kinds, as they have in geopolitical institutions. They will be aggressive in these ways. If we sit back and say that we are entirely inwardly focused, they will advance. Authoritarianism will get a further lead and freedom will be further in retreat. That would be very unfortunate. There are a number of us that have been called con called upon by the administration to take an aggressive effort to counterfeit chinese to counter chinese propaganda, promote the truth and our relationships with other countries. China, they got the first round. They had masks when no one else had them. They had tests when no one else need had them. They are sending them around, calling it mask diplomacy. We dont have that, we dont have the masks like they do. But that is going to change i think. I dont know who will develop the vaccine next, if we do that is something we can help to provide to other nations. Certainly the technology, is not the product itself. 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 the world will look to to be able to keep their people safe. In germany just today they said they were looking to google and amazon as the places that will be developing the social distancing technology that they so yeah, we area can take advantage of the circumstance, but we are starting off in a bit of a whole and we have to acknowledge that. To become much more aggressive in asserting our values and the truth as opposed to letting china get away with a story that is, as you know, untrue. Thanks, gabby. Thanks, gabby. All right, connor. You might hold it accountable international community. I wonder if you can outline a tangible way to do that. Trumps tariffs held accountability towards International Poverty laws because the end result was business industry and it wasnt even achieved in china in phase one. How do we hold china to the rules without sacrificing economic efficiency or the welfare of our systems . Is a good question and my own view on that, we have a lot more capacity to get china to be dissuaded from a predatory approach. If we combined with our friends and nations that follow the rules. Im talking about everyone from japan to south korea, taiwan, throughout the pacific and eastern europe, western europe, the middle east, as these nations come together and say, china, we will not allow you to toe unfettered free access any of our markets unless you cease and desist from the following things. Whatdescribing precisely those things are. We would have to work those things out first amongst ourselves, but we would say look, we simply cannot let them come rushing into the market, particularly with products that are high that are essential to , we cant letity them come rushing in unless they are playing by the same rules as everyone else. They cannot be allowed to price their products dramatically below costs. Its the antitrust act called predatory pricing and its illegal. Companies do that, they get fined and penalized by the justice department. Its not illegal for countries in theirt, however, own country, but we have to say to china that when you sell products below costs, we will not allow you to have access to our market. A global mean on basis, tariffs . Probably. Does it mean in some cases we are going to say we wont let you l the product in our country . Yeah, i wouldnt allow these products into my country, and to my telecommunications network. Its essential to national security. Its something we would have to work out with friends and allies. We would all have to come together and if we get i think we would have more capacity to negotiate with china and, look, they are not going to pick up their marbles and go home, they want access to the world market, but they will have to play by the rules the rest of us play by and that is something which is hard for us to do, but i think this whole covid crisis creates the opportunity for us to have the opportunity to have a conversation with our friends. Normally they look to america to lead that kind of effort. I dont know if this administration wants to be the one to do that, but someone has to do it. ,f it is the light and conquer we will get conquered and china will be ascendant. Not necessarily in a military conquest, but economically and geopolitically. Thats something that is essential for the cause of freedom. Thank you for the question. Thanks, connor. We got about 10 minutes or so left and we will try to reason as many questions as we can. Sunday, you are up. Remind us where you are zooming in from and all that good stuff. Ok. Hello, senator. Im a freshman in college discovering studying government and im zooming in from the maryland suburbs of d. C. It seems that when he ran for president in 2012, the Republican Party has changed a lot. Overo you view the change recent years . How do you move forward looking forward to what will be in the coming years . Sen. Romney theres no question in my mind that the party has changed a lot since 2012. The number of suburban women and collegeeducated men and women, many who were republican have become independent or even democrat area democrat. Union household and so forth have also moved into the Republican Party. by cohort, it has changed its makeup. The party used to stand for fiscal discipline and balancing a budget. Talking about how critical character was, often we talk about moral character and we are not talking about that much is days either. We consider russia to be the bad guys. China, north korea, all that guys. The president has taken a different approach, to their leaders in particular. The party has changed in some respects. Own case we were prolegal immigration. Economic growth in technology, i calculated at one point that half of our leading Technology Companies in america were founded by immigrants or secondgeneration of immigrants. That is orientation and we are less so today. Where does that lead us . The president has extraordinarily unique skills in activating the base of the party he has put together. I mean he was the winner for petes sake. That is hard to do. I dont know if anyone has anyone, with skills as unusual as his, ken keep that together . On the road, post President Trump, whether that is one year or five years, President Trump post President Trump there will be a hard time maintaining a majority without being able to do a better job with young bull, with minorities, with women, with collegeeducated whites, and maybe im wrong in that regard. I think thats all we have to have. Emily, you are up. You foror, thank speaking to us today. Im coming from West Virginia right now. Think ofou institutions being maintained throughout the cut crisis with as opposed to bouncing concerns over elections . Sen. Romney asked that again, i missed the first part. Sorry, senator. How do you see principles of our institutions being maintained throughout the crisis, especially regarding concerns for health. Sen. Romney thats a challenge. Institutions have been under , they have been for a long time. They have taken on some heat, whether its the media or the guy or the intelligence is now fair game on the left and the right. So i think there is a bit of and i happen to think thats unfortunate. Most of these institutions when iris describe, they say hey we have made a mistake. When Public Health said, you know, the forecast says 2 Million People dying from coronavirus, and then they came tok and said it was 15,000 11,000, the input was not accurate and now were looking at the data. That should create more credibility. In some circles it seems to contract. Now they say you see these other people not telling us the truth, they are people . Its good politics but i think it is damaging to the health and wellbeing of our national psyche. Not to Mention National spirits. That i hope we find on the left and the right. And what a handsome scotty that is, by the way. [laughter] thank you. All right, thanks, emily. Antonio, you are up. Taking a broader approach and consideration of the different approach we are talking about in the upcoming president ial election, frequently we hear that this is the most important. Lection your perspective, what are the stakes in consideration of american values, commenting on these crises, what do you think the stakes are and what is your take on that . Without question the most important election in our lifetime was 12. [laughter] just kidding. I do think that this is an important election. I think its likely that the incumbent will win. It hasi say that . Well, been 28 years since an incumbent lost his bid for reelection. Theres great power to incumbency. You basically set the national agenda. , itsularly in a crisis likely that the economy will be doing better and we will probably be heading back up by november. That will be to the advantage of the incumbent. I know the polls today say that joe biden is leading in a number of swing states, but we are far, far, far away from november in political life. So, i think it is pretty much a jump ball, though i think i give the advantage to incumbent president advantage to the incum, President Trump. That heit is likely gets reelected than not. The challenges we face in the world, President Trumps vision most peoplesar in minds these days, what he stands for, what he would do in his coming term is pretty clear. I think Vice President biden is less clear in peoples minds as to what he would do. I think his political advisers would tell him, what he should do is make the election President Trump, and only 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. Not come. Ay or may i think it is an important election. See that ourill involvement in International Affairs would be different under the two individuals. Domesticallyourse on the priority of whether were talking about immigration policy, health care policy, education policy, i think they will have differing views in those areas and those will obviously have a big impact. Critical ons really immigration, as i mentioned, to bring in more high talents, high. Killed individuals whether we can get that done, i dont know, but i think we will be in the midst of it in this election. I do not think this is the most important election ever or in the last little while, but it is a really important election, in likerespects, in a nation ours every election is really important, and i hope that those like yourself who are focused on these issues will get out and vote and encourage other people to vote, otherwise youll have people who will perhaps sit at home, who otherwise could have had something very important to say about the direction of our country. We are getting close to the end of our time, so i would like to squeeze in one more student question, if that is ok, senator. Nick, you are up. Am joining you in a social distancing block in dallas. I am studying Political Science and government. What do you have to say to young people in the next five dese decades they face an unprecedented level of the deck highereficit and taxes coming down the pipeline. I know a number of people on this broadcast are planning on going into government, which is very important, but i also recommend that the people in the private sector may play just as important a role. Governments only have money to spend if this is our producing goods and Services People want to buy. On thepends competitiveness, the relative quality, if you will, of our goods compared to those offered by china, germany, or anyone else. Being in the private sector, i believe is essential to our leadershipd american on the planet. I appreciate what you are doing and i would tell you, i am concerned about the amount of debt we have. I do not think it is going to be backbreaking i certainly hope not, in part because of interest low. Being so i think they will stay low, as the dollar is the safest place for people to put money. I think the interest is a burden, but it is not backbreaking yet. But i think we have to deal with it. Battinga that wiki adding on another trillion dollars to the debt every year we can keep adding on another chilean dollars to the debt every year does not help us. Is giving more and more benefits to us and we are walking away, leaving your generation with the bill. I believe that is wrong and we have to, in this upcoming cycle, finally deal with that. Whether it is by increasing taxes on us i hope thats not or instead by reshaping programs so they can stand on their own feet and become fiscally solvent there has to be an approach that finally comes to grips with the excessive spending that we have. We spend about 4 trillion a year, we take in 3 trillion a year. That is during good times. This year our debt will be a lot than 1 trillion we added to the dead. I think im one of the very few that considers this a very critical issue, but i will be battling on this issue and hopefully begetting some colleagues to come along with me. Thanks for the question and im glad that i got an ally, and good luck in your Business Career. Senator, i want to close with one final question. Through every major crisis that our country has faced, our leaders have asked the American People to come together for some sort of call to arms as a people , to deal with the crisis. In this one iss to stay home. To not come together socially. Isn then, that message complicated, as we have seen in recent days. There is a lot of anxiety about their. A lot of the students i have been talking to, they do not know if they have summer internships, the you not know they do not know what they will do when they graduate. What is a message about what we can do together to get through this time other than stay home, sort of . Sen. Romney we are always tempted to look and see what people at the top are doing, but far more importantly, a country , is what each individual is doing. Leadership is not something that happens by one person at the top or even by 50 governors or ceos or religious leaders and so forth. Leadership happens on a persontoperson basis, and what i see that is most encouraging is young people and older people acting in a way that shows the profound sense of humanity, of goodness, of care for others that i think that has always characterized our country. One thing i enjoy the most about the chance to run for president is i got to go across the country, and i saw the people that dont make the evening news. The people that make the evening news typically did something bad. The people that dont make the news are doing good things, and that is characteristic of our country. Future,fident in our not because i think we are necessarily going to elect all leaders every time we have an election, but im confident in our country because we are fundamentally a good people that care about our kids, care about their future, care about the values that have always characterized the United States of america. I am bullish on america. I want to tackle our challenges, but if i would give you advice, it would be to do the very best in the career you have chosen and to be a fundamentally good human being. As most of our students know, of my career working on the opposite side of the aisle from you. Sen. Romney oh, i know well. Respectedave always your leadership in every stage of your career. I would like to thank you for your continued service, i would like to thank you for sharing your thoughts on how we as a dealingan come together with this crisis, what American Leadership looks like and can look like moving forward. I hope the next time you come and speak to us at the institute of politics and public service, it will be with us in person on campus. Good toney thanks, mo, be with you. And to all the students who participated here on zoom or watched across social Media Channels, i want to thank you for your time tonight. For joining us and so many of them as we shifted to this virtual model. , want to thank our partners the Bipartisan Coalition are to our us tonight and technical partners, optical audio and ai media, who helped us figure out how to do it this semester in pretty short order. Thank you all. Done for theare semester. You got finals. Good luck with the finals. Stay tuned, because in the next few days we are going to be announcing a very full summers worth of programming, a virtual programming as our social distancing continues. Wayre going to give you a to stay connected to campus, to one another, through our events. Please stay tuned and good luck with your final. Thanks so much, everybody. Cspan has unfiltered coverage of the federal response to the coronavirus pandemic with white house briefings, updates from governors and congress, and our daily callin program, washington journal, hearing your thoughts about the coronavirus crisis. If you missed any of our live coverage, watch anytime, on demand at the span. Org coronavirus at cspan. Org coronavirus. Mcconnellder mitch announced the senate will return for legislative work this monday. They will vote on an executive nomination and later in the week could work on coronavirus related legislation addressing lawsuits. After consulting with members and the attending physician, the house will not return for legislative work next week. They will continue to hold brief pro forma sessions every three days. Bipartisan negotiations continue on different options for voting remotely, in committees on the house floor. Follow live Senate Coverage on cspan2 and the house on cspan. Offormer u. S. Defense secretary jim mattis joined the director of the United Kingdom special forces in a discussion on the Global Response to the coronavirus pandemic. They discussed the importance of competent and decisive leadership in times of crisis. The response from the u. S. And u. K. And how militaries can play an effective role. Thanks, and welcome everyone. When we held our First VirtualDiscussion Forum six weeks ago, i dont know if we would have imagined this would become, as it has, such a wonderful ongoing series. We are incredibly fortunate to be able to draw upon a network here at jackson of our senior fellows, faculty, and our friends. Fellow isormer senior sir general graham lamb. Graham has taught at jackson for a number of years, is a retired army officerho