Transcripts For CSPAN AZ 20240703

Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema about their views on bipartisanship and the election process. This is part of a conference hosted by the Milken Institute in los angeles and is just over one hour. I guess i am supposed to follow that but i do not know what it is. Thank you and welcome. We are going to have a wonderful conversation today. I know all the panelists are so wellknown that they need no introduction and therefore they will not receive one. We are going to jump right in. But i want to tell you something about these people and why we are having them here. They all have a lot of things in common, even though they have different perspectives on a number of policy issues, they have all been in Government Service for a long time, 14 years to 40 years. Three of the four have been elected at the state level, three of the four have served in the house prior to being in the senate. Someone he just somebody already asked the question, if all the senators were like them, the place would work great. So i think it is great to have people with different points of view that find ways to get things done and that is what we want to talk about today. I thought it would be nice to know one aspect of each that besides their service is important so i will let them decide whether to claim ownership. One is the director of the largest youth camp in the company, serving over 51,000 young people every summer. . . Anybody that would be me. We already know all of the answers appear. Ok. Who wants to guess this one . Which one of these would you trust because they are a licensed pilot . Joe manchin. Someone up here has climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and completed the ironman triathlon championship. After a disastrous hurricane struck, [indiscernible] ok. It shows that individuals can be different but all come together. Here is what we want to talk about and it would be easy to talk about everything that goes wrong these days but lets talk about what goes right and how to make it more right. The hundred 18th session of congress has a current Approval Rating of 16 . If it were not for Investment Bankers they would have no one below them. One thing is the reelection rate is very high. Any group with a 16 approval and gets reelected all the time, we have to talk a little bit about what that is about but i want to compare it to the 117th session right before this one, one of the most productive legislative sessions we have seen. Infrastructure investment, chips and science, inflation reduction, america rescue plan, respect for marriage, Postal Service reform act. So how do we get from where we can pass a lot of Bipartisan Legislation to right now, not being able to . How do we get back to where we were . I will start with senator cassidy. Could you talk about what is something you have done bipartisan that you are proud of and you have mentioned the way to do it. In the 116th congress we addressed surprise medical billing for those who would go to the hospital and then you would get a 100,000 bill. So there is good policy and we still work on a bipartisan basis for two or three years before we pass legislation. The next is to have good policy, good process. At that time, republicans had the senate, democrats had the house. Everyone knew what was going so there are bills on both sides being vetted. You have to have the good publicity. We had outside groups publishing articles and videos. There was a businesswoman from boston. The new york times, the los angeles times, the post, were all publishing articles about the kind of wrongness of surprise medical billing. We had the policy, the process and the publicity and that lined up the politics. It was hard to be against it at the end. Whatever your perspective, because we need good policy, good process, thoroughly vetted, and we had so much publicity. It was hard but we got it through. Name it. All publishing articles about the kind of wrongness of surprise medical billing. We have the policy, process and publicity and that lined up the politics. It was hard to be against it at the end. Whatever your perspective because we have good policy, good process, thoroughly vetted and we had so much publicity. So much publicity. It was hard but we got it through a divided government. I like you being optimistic. You can be optimistic, but it is slow. Having to work hard to get things done that you really believe will make an impact on the public. On average, the first year after that bill passed, they prevented 1 million Surprise Medical Bills per month. And, i forget the exact number of how much it saved, but saved consumers that huge amount of money you would expect that statistic. So you were worried about impact, not politics, which is great. Oh yeah. Senator cinema, you have been involved actually with these two anothers impasse some very important legislation. Would you like to talk to us about what you are proud of, what you did . You might talk about the cost and how did you do it . What do you think is a way to get Bipartisan Legislation done . I think folks know that the Bipartisan Legislation is the core of my belief, the reason you serve in congress. To pass meaningful legislation that makes a difference in the lives of the people that you serve. I was lucky enough to lead the negotiations for the bipartisan infrastructure law. Three of the 10 senators who negotiated that are sitting on the stage right now. I was also really grateful to help get it across the finish line. The Safer Communities act which was not in your list, made the most meaningful investment in Mental Health care in our country and over a generation also reducing violence at the hands of individuals who were mentally ill with weapons. And then, marriage and religious liberty, the list is really long of those accomplishments. In each of those situations, i approached it with what i would consider practicality. First is this acknowledgment that a problem exists. That a problem needs to be solved. Second, and openness to what it looks like. Keyed to approach a problem with curiosity and interest in a solution rather than attachment to what that solution looks like that is difficult for elected officials because many people have campaigned for years and years and years on very specific policy prescriptions and outcomes. When you approach a problem with the interest of finding a solution, without a personal attachment to exactly what it looks like, you could need much more space to get to that solution. Third, i believe that when you approach a negotiating situation , the first goal should be to figure out what other people in the room need. And then try to determine to get them what they need. If you can help people in the room get what they need to get to yes, then they are much more willing to help you get what you need in order to get to yes. That is actually a real challenge in todays political environment. And involves an elected official putting their own personal interest at the back of the line and seeking to address other peoples interests first. And then i would say the fourth thing is an unwavering commitment to yes. It is so easy to walk away when the going gets tough. It is so easy to do that. Men like to do that. So [laughter] making sure that folks dont leave when the going gets tough, making sure taking a break, talking to them privately, bringing folks back to the table and saying i know we can solve this problem, it feels tractable at this moment but we can solve this problem. Being willing to keep everyone at the table within optimism towards a solution is the key. It is so much easier to go to a press conference and say i tried very hard but asked was unwilling to do the thing that needed to be done to get to the agreement. Four many people, that is more satisfying. But i, oldfashioned demo satisfied when we actually get a product and then pass it into law and change the lives of the people that we serve. I think it is those four steps together which are key to frankly not just political negotiations, that is negotiations at any setting. Dont take no for an answer. I never take no for an answer i think you told me at another time a lot of the things you worked on have been very impactful. The boat on the filibuster, i think that you told me was the toughest one or the most important one youve ever done. It was not the toughest, it was one of the easiest folks i have overtaken because i was rocksolid in my conviction of how poor the filibuster is to the longterm continuity, health and survival of the United States senate. It is the most impactful. By far the most important boat i have ever taken. Frankly, i was very disappointed that the United States senate got to a place where a knowingly failed vote on the filibuster was created for political spectacle. Because, even though it failed, joe and i, of course, stood very strong to gather to prevent the filibuster from being overturned the fact that we took cap boat, the fact that that political hitter occurred, has, in my opinion, deeply damaged the senate and it ensures that that debate will come up again and it is my concern that when that debate comes up again, the boat could go in another direction by either party. If that were to occur or as i believe when that occurs, it will damage the United States senate. The filibuster was designed to require bipartisan comity and cooperation. It was designed to force compromise. To seek those Lasting Solutions that last longer than any of our careers or lifetime spirit and, so, that is why it was not a difficult though. It is why it was the most important boat. That is great. You were facing a lot of pressure. That is where diamonds come from, alan. Youve been under the microscope a few times for things you have stood up for. I believe in the past you told me that also the filibuster was the most important. Could you go a little deeper into that as to, you know, what really the filibuster does do that senator cinema just gave us what it does accomplish and the pressures. I know it is a very important subject to you. The success that we have had is because you have for people who like each other. We know each other. No our families, no our backgrounds. If you have a friend, you do not want to put your friend in a difficult position. You want to work it out with him it is hard to say no to a friend building relationships is extremely difficult. Every one of us knows that. You have to play, really, the country has to be for it. Either our personal cell for our politics. Once you are able to decipher who was there for that purpose, you are drawn to them. You know who wants to be there and do the right thing. So, these are my friends and i appreciate all the success weve had and i appreciate all the challenges. I look at every challenge and basically we can still overcome them. The filibuster, i come from West Virginia which is proper territory. Pretty much writing the rules of the senate. He told me, ive known him forever and he said when i am governor, the most unusual place , there is nothing like it in the world. There is nothing like us. We are so special. Basically, we can put the glue to it. We can put stability to something. As hard as it may be to make something happen to find agreement with 60 votes right now, he says it is even harder to get rid of it. So the stability that we have, the rest of the world looks for leadership instability, that is what gives into a. We are both amazed that our colleagues in the democratic side left us. They were all being driven by, and we were both concerned about can we do more for Voting Rights , protect Voting Rights, this and that, but that is pretty much a state issue. We figured it would be worked out. But to throw away is, the filibuster to where it really made us say, okay, now, james and bill, what do you think. What can we do to make this happen. That would not be necessary. Whoever is in power, if you have 50 plus the president and Vice President , that is 51, you can do what you want. If you think its been dysfunctional with the house right now, we get rid of the filibuster it will be on steroids in the senate. It will be so dysfunctional. It will destroy. You have no ability to say, well , we have passed this piece of legislation and i guarantee in two years if the tide turns it will be repealed. That is what we are trying to prevent. We have done a good job of that, i believe. When you look at all the things we have done in the bipartisan way, even if some of our republican friends could not vote with us, sometimes we would differ, i still want their input tell me why. Tell me if i could have made it better. That is a conversation you have to have. Today, and ive said this out before, the political system has been weapon eyes. We are expected to be against james and bill. That they are running for reelection, we are expected, however the democrat find we are expected to write checks. It could be donald duck running against him. We have to get rid of them. Are you crazy . I left the democratic party, just a reminder. I left the party. Just want to remind everyone. When you get to washington, you have to pick a side. You know, you caucused here, you caucus there. Senator, part of what you said, i knew this was important. That is what happens. This is so important we have to get this done. They dont realize what they are doing longterm to get this done they do, really. We begged him not to do that judges. He could not get republicans that would give obama his staff, put the staff together. Harry took it into the judges. All harry had to do, god rest his soul, he and Mitch Mcconnell did not communicate. They did not seem to get along real well. I told him all you have to do is go to mitch and say, mitch, these are will and pleasure. The people that obama wants will be gone when he has gone. They dont have any longevity. Let them have that decision unless there is a criminal offense or something. Let him have his staff. They would not communicate. When you go down that path you cannot reserve reverse it. If we are both, either one of us or both of us would have said i dont think so, maybe we can fix this a little bit better, you cannot. You just cannot do that. I think ive asked anybody that comes to me i want to run for the u. S. Senate and say what you think, would you defend the filibuster. I dont care if youre democrat republican or independent. If i dont get an answer, i am not going to support you. Senator langford, lets move to this. A long period of time to do something you thought was very important. A lotta people thought was very important on Border Security. You have to spend a long time doing it. I think you got to about inside the 1 yard line. After many years. After a long time and they did not get across the goal line. Could you tell us a little bit about that . What did you have to do to get it to the 1 yard line and what did you learn from what you did with that as you think about what that taught you about going forward. Let me make a couple of comments about this. I will wrap up the comment joel just made about the filibuster. A rare moment for joe to be completely correct. On anything. Thats why i love him. [laughter] the filibuster is unique to the United States. If that blows up we blow up bipartisan conversations. It just goes away entirely. The noise that we have right now gets even higher. That does not help us as a country. The filibuster force is one place in government for people to talk to each other and that is helpful. Two of the three people that were involved in the immigration are sitting right here. We spent a large amount of time together the three of us over almost five months. Literally from the middle of october until february we worked every single day on this thanksgiving day, Christmas Day and half of new years day. Other than that, we literally worked on it every day. When we talk about trying to be able to move it, it is very technical. It is very challenging but it is also extremely political. As bill was talking about before any piece of this can have its own challenges. One of the things that i really understand even more on that is the biblical term of everything there is a season. Once we get past december and we started moving into january and february of this year and the political primary season, people started turning their attention away from policy and more and more towards politics and we lost our season. That was number one. We need to have as many people on board as we possibly can to work through this. As you are working through something extremely challenging and difficult yet people committed to getting it done. A lot of people committed to it being done but not doing it. There is a big interest in saying this needs to get behind us as a country. But actually getting engaged to be able to solve it, that is different. Especially something as technical as this. For kiersten anaya and chris murphy working through all of this, we were constantly looking for allies that wanted to actually help us get it done. That is still an ongoing challenge for us. Yesterday we had people illegally crossing the border. We probably will again today. The problem still remains. This is not going away. When it was not able to pass the senate we contacted leaders and said you guys put together a bipartisan package that can pass the house and senate in two month later they said yeah we couldnt get it done but it still needs to be done because the problem still remains and everybody sees it. What did you learn about process as you worked that hard and did not get it done. I think you always have to save yourself if i knew that id go back then. What would you have done differently if you thought about it now and you know what happens is there anything you look back and you would have done differently . A unique challenge right now trying to be able to get bipartisanship when you have about one vote party in the house and senate. We are literally equally divided cannot be any closer than that. We have to be able to get more people involved. The key thing is there is a season. We missed our window. And we wouldve gotten it done two months earlier than that we wouldve been able to move it. It was not right at that point. The text was not ready. I would have loved to have had it done in december. Voter bills are incredibly technical in alignment. I talked to my team all the time saying nothing moves faster than the senate until it does. At that moment that it moves fast you are there have to be ready because the American People are talking about it, the press is talking about it and people are saying i want to do something. If you do not have the legislation done that day, you missed your window. You have to be proactive to have everything written prepared and ready to go. In this situation, we could not do that. People just disagree. From connecticut conservatives from oklahoma dependent from arizona where ground zero every day. I would joke with chris murphy all the time. The only border he is worried about is the border with new york. It is just not a thing that they have to think about all of the time. We do in oklahoma. They do every day in arizona. When it was time to be able to move it we had to be able to have it ready. It was not ready at the moment in the moment passes. Let me say one thing. We passed a bill in 2013. It had 68 votes in the senate. Unbelievable piece of legislation. Tremendous amount of Border Security but also a pathway to legal immigration. As a country, if we ever stopped or prohibit legal immigration, god help our country we will not be the country that we are. Youve got to be careful of that what they did was tremendous. They worked and had a bill that we thought was a slamdunk. They have come to an agreement, lets do it. On sunday night, monday night it got questionable. Tuesday night we lost today wednesday the vote went down because of donald trump. A dear friend of mine, we passed a bill in 2013. I called john weiner and he has been a dear friend. John, just put it on the floor, i know it will pass. He said i cant. Just got beat by a far right tea party. They use it as amnesty. So it killed it. He was afraid. He will tell you today one of the greatest opportunities he missed when he says everything has its time is by not putting that on. We would have been out of the system by now. One point that i want to make to james comment about the season, i agree we would have had the votes. I think it is important to note that we did not have a product ready in december. A significant Border Security package. Some of you may recall the wall street journal said it was the strictest immigration proposal in over 40 years. In december of 2023 the white house and chris murphy who represented the vast majority of the Senate Democratic caucus were not yet ready to agree to the proposals which ultimately ended up in the package. James and ive been saying all along we have to get the elements into the package. There is also human nature that you have to consider. You cannot ask folks to go from here to here in six weeks. Emotionally, they cannot manage the movement from over here to over here in a matter of six weeks. It takes times for folks to emotionally metabolize the changes to understand what must be given in order to get the ultimate goal or out. That could not be rushed. And, so, i am not sure what lesson you take for the future except to say that the earlier that you start tackling these large issues, the more time that folks on both edges of the spectrum have time to go through the fact stages of grief. A compromise that will ultimately result from the negotiation. And that is something that i think is overlooked during the process of negotiations. People think this is so technical and difficult. Lets not overlook the emotional difficulty that folks have been changing their opinions of what they are willing to live with. Okay. Lets talk a little bit. Lets take a step back. How you try very hard to get things done in the current system. But what i am also hearing is we are on the brink here. We can improve things or we can have real bad outcomes. And is very interesting, a couple of things you said, i just want to cover and then move on to say, people always think they elected president because what their policies are what will happen in this country. In yet other than foreignpolicy the president has very little to say about what happened here in this country every day. Congress does that. A congress that cannot pass bills means the country, it does not matter who you vote for, nothing will get done. And then go back to eric, the primaries are the main way that people determine who is in office. If you get primaries, so many elections that are already known who will win if they win their primary. So, there is that impact with so few people voting in the primaries. This point about 16 of the public thinks congress is doing a good job and yet they keep reelecting the same people. Around what you guys are saying is a way to get reelected is to say you need me to protect you from that guy across the aisle. That is the main thing. How do we get either the messaging, maybe senator cassidy , like you are talking before, the publicity and or any process changes that could give the American People more of a chance to vote for getting things done instead of just, you know, keeping the other guy out. I am a big believer in open perimeters. A nice little addendum to that. When closed primaries are put in place way back when, i think probably 40 of the population was democrat and 40 were republican. Now 40 that are independent. It includes senator cinema. And, so, if you have that group of people you disenfranchise those people with a close primary system. I am a doctor, the more urinated off people get at the parties, the more likely they become an independent which further instills the party into something more and more out here i am a republican, i am a proud republican. But i certainly do not want to disenfranchise somebody that is an independent. The open primary process allows that to happen. If you will, it allows someone who is trying to work beyond his or her kind of narrow Interest Group for everyone to actually benefit from working for everyone as opposed to being punished by those who wish them to only represent a small group. Open primaries are the best way. I think we talked about this, you believe strongly in that. I think that bill is dead on. Open primaries. Giving an example. Eleven states have closed primaries. There is 30 Million People registered independents. They will not be able to participate in the primary. They cannot vote. Nothing to vote for. We are just disenfranchising people. Last election, i think there was about 10. Ten11 Million People that voted each primary. A team primary and in our primary. They made the selection on 155 million of us who they will vote for in a general election. It gives the person who basically had no financial backing or was not really connected to the party system, if you will, just a good person wants to be involved had no chance whatsoever but in open primary gives that person the best character, the best quality of a human being you would want to represent you in this democracy of ours a chance. It would be easier for us to recruit people. All of us will tell you, i want you to run, why dont you run. I will go through what you went through. Im not going to take that beating and they all tell us that so we cannot recruit. Now your time comes, you cannot run no more. You dont want to run no more or whatever. With that, i am totally convinced on term limits now. Anything we can to get more participation back into the system. I am concerned about this election. Im concerned about 2024. If we do not get it right, the checks and balances right now, it is just really something. We will see what happens. I want to ask you this way, it is also, i believe in open primary, i believe in choice. Part of it besides giving people a chance is also it changes the nature of the research i have seen on campaigning. I. E. Voters say if you are in an open primary it cannot just be about how bad somebody is. You have to prove you are better than the others. It starts to make it more about how do you campaign in a way to tell people what you can deliver as opposed to keep out that evil do you agree with that or our viewers having that chance . What do you think. I launched a grand experiment about whether or not they can survive in the Political Climate the experiment failed. I do think that there is a real difference in the data would support this between an open primary and right choice voting. Arizona has had open primaries for quite some time. The Largest Group of registered voters in arizona are independent. No party affiliated. Those two facts are significant. If you take a look at participation in arizonas primaries, they still behave like close primaries because the data shows that independence while they are the Largest Group of independent voters in my state do not participate in the primary election whatsoever. So the primaries continue to behave like a crow close primary which is the most extreme individual closest to the farthest edge of the party line is the victor of the primary. Now, that is different where all the candidates run the ballot at once and there is a real actual disincentive for actual campaigning because not only can you say you dont like the target of the negative campaigning you can say you dont like the genesis of the negative campaigning. I would encourage you to take a look at the data separately from open primaries to right choice voting. The behavior and the voting patterns of those that participate is different in those two settings. I think there is another element that is important to note and that is, as i said in arizona, the Largest Group of arizona voters are independents who do not feel like they are being served by either party. But when asked, who they will vote for, even those individuals largely fall along party lines. Because in our current Political Climate, they are more afraid of the other party and they are willing to say no to the excess of the party with which they are slightly less offended by. And, so, the partisanship has gotten even more extreme even with the growth of the primaries ranked choice coatings and others. I would suggest while there are mechanisms that would help, there is not actually a legislative solution to this challenge. It is a cultural solution. We must in our culture decide that as americans we want to support someone with whom we only agree with 60 of the time. We must choose to say it is okay that i disagree with him 20 or 30 or 40 of the time because of his integrity, because i believe he believes in the constitution standing up for the core values that we share even if we are not aligned on every policy perspective for each boat. I cannot tell you alan the number of times someone has come up to me and said, you know, i used to just love you but then you took this one vote and i will never support you again. I just cannot agree with you on this one thing. What i always say to that individual is i really thank you for your opinion. But i do want you to know that if you need an elected official with whom you agree with 100 , either he is lying to you or you are not taking for your self in both of those are deeply, deeply dangerous to the longterm health of a democracy. So, we as americans must address both of those issues. Senator langford, on that, i think there are a couple of things including who shows up at the primaries even if they are given a chance to and they are given more options, who shows up to vote it all and how they understand it. A little bit on that. It feels like the primaries. The people that are the most ardent about a particular issue, they can turn out the primary. Whether it is on guns or the nra or unions, teachers unions about certain things, you know that if you go against that group they will show up big in the primaries, even if they may be a small amount of the vote and the general election. How can we get to the senator and how people are thinking about this . How do you get the message through that if people want things to happen they have to vote and they have to vote in the primaries as well as the general. Second, are there rules that we can create that make it easier for people to be able to vote. They are all sorts of debate about that. What do you think about that . Let me make just a quick comment. Id be the skunk at a garden party and we can spend a long time. I dont agree with that. That is in the 40 . Ive got it. All four of us are friends on other issues. I think it takes away trust because the method formula is behindthescenes. We cannot see it. You cannot really tell who the winner is. Hard to track that until several days later. It allows for a lot of mischief in the process of misinformation that is one of the big challenges that we have right now is clarity. The Biggest Issue is getting people to show up and vote. When there are eight people running for primary, many people will say, tell me when there is two and then i will go vote. I dont want to research eight people. I dont want to think about that it becomes hard to get accurate information. I think that is a key issue. Getting more people to vote. As clear as we can make it. As parties or individuals or information out there. And then encouraging people to actually show up in primaries and vote. If we do not affect the primaries we dont affect what happens in november and we have lots of people that they are frustrated with november. Several months ago you had a lot more options at that point. You have to be able to be engaged. I do think our Biggest Challenges cultural right now. When i talked before about we have a onevote majority in the house in a onevote majority in the senate, we literally are the most divided in the history of our nation as far as legislatively. We have never been more divided than this is a country nice month have you ever heard of 1861. Weve had more divided times and we have right now but where we are is we are very divided of what direction to go. I think the problems have grown so large, that deficit, what will happen with inflation in our economy, how do we deal with the difference between wealth and poverty in our nation to try to bring people together. Immigration. So many very large very complicated issues that we know if more people just retrieving to cap videos on tiktok and saying i will not Pay Attention anymore. Im just not. Those are hard. The challenges some of that has moved to congress as well. We have members of congress that will not do the work that it takes to develop a real solution they will do a Bumper Sticker answer into a press conference and walk away from an issue. That is a problem. It takes want to do a press conference in the senate it takes 60 to make law. It is really easy to do that press conference and walk away. Its really hard to sit down with people you disagree with and say this is hard. How do we deal with social security. How are we going to deal with medicare. When are we going to admit there really is a problem on this. We sit down with people that we disagree with like grownups do and actually have that heart conversation get to a decision and work on the next issue. I remind people all the time, d. C. Is a mirror to the country. No one wants to admit that. It is not an anomaly. We are a representative republic we are a mirror to the countrymen people say thats not true d. C. Is angry and yelling at each other all the time a typical percentage when the whole family got together. Often people will lack just like that and say we left early. [laughter] so, because, we are that divided as a country because the problems are large and what we really need our leaders to be able to sit down and say these are hard. We are supposed to do hard things lets do hard things together. One of the things i say when asking people, what is the one thing you would never want your son or daughter to have somebody to marry and it is not anything but the party that they represent which is amazing in todays world. How to create the leadership to create the culture that, you know, who follows who here. Due to politicians lead the public to find a good way . Let me ask you, senator cassidy, weve heard a lot of times like when senator mansion talked about 2013, always talk about a gang of six and things like this what if, i dont know, eight or 10 senators got together and said five from each party, im making this up, lets take some of the things that were said and come up with a holistic solution that we are all willing to bring out. I. E. We will do this about entitlements in this about that in this about border. Pick several things that interact because when you do this, what about that. What if a group got together and said lets get in a room, find some way that we can Work Together to come up with something that we all support even though we do not like aspects of a. Is Something Like that possible to start to create leadership on being more thoughtful about outcomes than just the process . It is. It takes context. Just 10 people getting together and then announcing to the world like venus to milo coming up on the beach we are here, we are beautiful, look at our policy. It will not be nearly as attractive. If it is 10 people that really put the time and, who accept this appointment but they do not quit, then they begin to socialized socalled overton window. What is an acceptable discourse and they begin to socialize it. You have to have a two chamber strategy, to. You have to be working the house side on a bipartisan basis. You have to be working the white house because they can veto you. You have to be working your leadership so that they understand, they are not blindsided. You have to be working your stakeholders. I am working on social security. For a while, i have three of those partners, 12 and three, we have 14 senators ready to go out and announce we have a plan. The white house deepsixed. We will brush ourselves off. Trying to get ready for next year. Speaking to arp, Heritage Foundation to committee for financial responsible federal budget. You can do that if 10 are willing to do the hard work to touch every one of those boxes in a few more that i did not. Still you may not succeed, but if you when you really went. If i could say one thing, the current thing that we are concerned about most in our country is the misinformation that changes the culture. Where is the crux of the problem guys, we are just moving into ai in its infancy. Can you imagine what its going to do. If you think you have misinformation now. People having doubt. Not trusting us. Where they transfer the power, not a fair election. We will be getting into this. We have already gone through some of that. You know, the constitution says trying to form and putting this together a more perfect union. There is no perfect bill. I have never voted on a bill where i said that is perfect. I have never seen one. We try, but it is not there. No is it easiest we make. No. When i vote no, i dont have to explain a lot. There are always people that they did not like that and i can always defend it by saying it just did not fix this, that is why it was not for it. Let me ask you, when you go to a Football Game do you get up and leave the First Quarter when they dont score a touchdown every time . Are you okay with the couple first downs . Do you basically get up and leave the basketball game because they dont make three points every time they shoot . I keep trying to put it into perspective. That is not who we are. Why do you expect us to have a perfect bill. I cannot vote for you for that. That is crazy. What happened is, in order to protect themselves, just vote no just continue to vote no because i guarantee they will not push you too far. I did not know that was in there i did not like that either. The perfect is the enemy of the good. There is always something you can tell people was not right. Optimizing is better than trying to maximize one thing. Trying to find a way to do that. We have some questions from the audience. One is something that we have talked about. It feels like the u. S. Is crying out for more than two Political Parties. Amen. How to engage the independence through the system we have. People point out that our founding fathers, several of them wrote that they like the system they created, but their biggest concern is we would end up with two parties the answer which is just trying to keep the other party out. That was our founding father saying lets not get there. Senator mansion, you have talked about this. They were smarter than we are do you think that now is the time for a third party . A third party is legitimate. I am saying this, we have all talked about, everyone has been pushed to their corners respectively. Just the american party, all about country first. All about senator left, the senator right. Democratic party be responsible again. Those people really feel like they are homeless right now. Is there a place . I think having a place like that you will bring both the dmd are to the businesses they formed back to realization. This is not what we are therefore. It is not all about how much money we have coming in and how big is our operation and this and that and the other side is the enemy. The other side just has a different opinion on how to fix something. I have been in politics for a long time. When harry reid told me in 2011, in january 2011 he said, joe, we will have a partyline vote. I have been secretary of state, ive been in the house, state senate, ive been governor my state, i have never heard the term. I said what does that mean. Weve all got to vote for this. I read the bill and i said, harry, i cannot sell this crap. It makes no sense. I cant go home. He started explaining to me why. I said, harry, you are not my boss, i do not work for you. You did not hire me and you cannot fire me. You can imagine our relationship went downhill after that. That is what is expected because that is the model that was his business model. Once i start realizing my daughter heather brought that to my attention, the business that we are all part of and sometimes we do not realize the grip they have on us. She realizes it because you saw the things change. That is when it comes to reality what is happening to you. More today than ever before to keep the truth from going off the rails. I think more parties would be great. My concern is less about what a third party would do and more about what i personally see as the erosion of the two parties that exist. There was a time in our country s history where the two parties had some differing values. Some differing ideas of how to get to a solution, but shared some core American Values and did not see each other as the next substantial threat to the future of the country. One of the challenges we see today is both of the Political Parties are money machines. These are, you know, multibilliondollar industries that exist to accrue and hold power and as you said are more interested in denying the other party a victory and they are advancing an agenda of their own i think the danger you see here is this. When each Political Party views the other party and its members and representatives as an existential danger to the country, and their goal is to eliminate or extinguish the other party, we are no longer talking about a democracy. We are now talking about one party rule. Our forefathers were concerned about having multiple parties just be in charge of anything. But i think what they would be most concerned about is the idea of one party being in charge of everything. That is the opposite of what our forefathers wrist their own lives for when they founded our country. So, yes, creating additional parties is a good and reasonable idea especially to pull folks that have no home like myself to a place where they can feel supported and actually moving forward on a moderate, you know, pro american agenda. More important than that is shifting the perspex if of those who manage one and support each Political Party away from the perspective that the other party is a threat to the country. That, that is the part of the psyche that is dangerous because that is where you stop thinking about democracy with a small d and start thinking about power with a big p. When that becomes more important than you have lost sight of the goal which is to protect our country and the constitution and the freedoms enshrined therein for all of us as americans. When the end justify the means, its okay to get rid of the filibuster for the Supreme Court because the dems did at first, its okay to get rid of the filibuster for legislation because we want to pass Voting Rights or its okay to add more people to the Supreme Court so we can protect abortion, all of those little things, all of those are the ins justify the means which basically our elected officials saying its more important that i get what i want and that i protect the institution of democracy in our country and again, back to culture, that is what i think that the real danger is. A third party may help with that , but i do not think that it solves it. It is still a cultural problem that we have to address americans. Senator lankford. I totally agree. I dont think you can have 10 parties solve it. Yet to have integrity in the process on it as well. People have to be able to engage they need to be able to vote on a. I look at so many countries around the world that Upper Parliament and they walked 10 or 11 parties on it and say that works really smooth but that coalition is chaotic as well. Now you just have chaotic coalitions that actually have to be formed to get anything done. At the end of the day you have to determine whether you will really get stuff done and you have to stop attacking people that you disagree with sometimes but also agree with sometimes. That fellow american is not my enemy. We disagree on things but we disagree on things but lets figure it out like grownups do on this. I will be brief on this, years ago, the author from san antonio , a pastor and he tells a story about going fishing with some friends. They were in an rv, they go out to fishing place to get there and its pouring down rain so they just play card games all day. The next day they play card games in the rv. By the third day they are fighting so much they just pick up their rv and drive home. He says the lesson that i learned from that is when fishermen dont fish they fight. We are at that moment now legislatively where we dont legislate, we just fight. We are not trying to accomplish something, when we are not doing what we are there to do its a lot easier to fight. There are all these different onsets in washington, d. C. That they make all of their money off of attacking the other side and quite frankly attacking their own. Fundraising in d. C. Is a lot easier when your Republican Group if you are attacking fellow republicans, that is easy money to raise. Those folks are not pure enough so they raised tons of money on that and it just causes a fight. When fishermen dont fish they fight is very true in d. C. People are not legislating, when they are not sitting down trying to solve stuff together it is just a lot easier and quite frankly Campaign Dollars better to be able to fight and it is to actually finish. Senator cassidy, could you put in perspective how much of what we see out of the electorate culture et cetera is the baby boom generation has been the dominant voting force for a long time . How much do you see, is there a change that you could be and how Younger Voters who have not been as active you know might be change the way they see things and also what you are talking about before. Real briefly regarding the thirdparty. History tells us if theres a threat of a third party, the incumbent parties act so as the coop message. It may be that the threat is what corrects as opposed to the actual need. Younger voters, i cannot recall off the top of my head, i will say that the Younger Voters clearly have different attitudes i am not sure they are always better informed, but it does seem as if they are more likely to think differently, why not, they are younger and i do think the source of reform, i would like to think comes from those Younger Voters. By the way, pulls 40 of people under 30 when they are pulled on what they think about when they are asked their source of news on these events, 40 of those under 30 say only to talk. Excellent. China. In terms of being informed. It is a big issue. You know, i think the senator and i talked about this before, famous Business Reporter has written and said, basically, the two parties are doing what any business would do to protect their power. The only differences businesses would have somebody else have a chance like an independent party to comment except in politics the duopoly sets all the rules. Why dont you ask the crowd because we overwhelmingly saw the influence and the misinformation that tiktok was putting out and being stimulated through algorithm with china to be used against us to persuade. How many of the people here believe that we did the right thing by trying to take to talk and remove it from basically the information. How many agreed that china should not be able to agree tiktok . How many disagree . Just to be clear, this is not a representative sample of america. Pretty diverse out there. Slightlys viewed. Mostly to talk users. We try to explain it, you know, china will not allow our media into their society in order to be able to influence them. Let me do this quickly. I dont think this could possibly happen. What if both were anonymous. When people be able to vote what they believe . I do not think that could ever happen. Anything like a very difficult situation that the senate could decide they would have a an anonymous vote so people could feel free to vote for what they believe in . I represent my state. The right thing even if they personally disagree. This is a cultural change. People have to feel comfortable and they have to know they will be supportive and tolerated if it is slightly different than what your base funds to see you do. Quickly want to thank all of you very much not just this panel but more doing the right thing then the thing that will get you the most votes in somebody who paid the price to do that. With got to wrap up onto and this way, give me lightning round, the one thing that makes you the most optimistic, the one thing should be optimistic about. The American People. The insurance policy for future. Weve been hard times before and you can look back, everything in the northern part of the United States used to be republican in the southern his to be democrat. It has in many ways he wants the culture, we have a function constitution, the guideline is still there. The first with pat, everyone had the greatest excesses weve ever seen and society. Everything we turned around. The ability you think generation coming up has the ability to cure family, diseases around the world, everything youve seen where the world is out of balance can be brought in balance with opportunity and we are the only country i can fix the problems we have the want to take our place and has the ability there because freedom around the world God Bless America and i believe we do have a chance to fix it. The principles enshrined are like unlike any other country that exists today and it is those who founding principles, constitutional protections each of us enjoy that will allow us to do what weve always done which is to adapt, survive and thrive so that constitution in the world is to have dream of a person has success with. Thank you so much, we ran out of time. Thank you. The new york timeis reporting jury selection started mhattan in the corruption trial for new rs senator bob menendez. Jurors will be selected for manhta the bronx or n york counties north of the city. Nator melendez, along with his wife and two businessmen, have pld t guilty for the role in an International Bribery scheme involving gold bars, cash and a mercedesben prosecutorwi the u. S. Attorneys office for the Southern District of new york say they expect ttake as many as six weeks to present their case against lawmaker, who says he believes he will be exonerated. Hes leaving open the possibility of running for reelection as an independent candidaten vember. Tuesday on cspan, the house rernat noon eastern for general speeches, folwed by legislative business at 2 00. Members will consider the final version of a fiveyearaa reauthorization bill. A deadline is friday. The Senate Approves a bill last week ba te of 88 to four. That were require a two thirds majority to pass ithhouse. At 9 a. M. On cspan two, the u. S. Chamber of commerce i hosting an infrastructure conference with Biden Administration officialsnd state and local leaders. At 3 00, the center returns to consider the nomination for u. S. Permanent representative to the uned nations educational, scientific and cultural organizations. On cspan3 at 4 30 p. M. , a hearing to examine the 2025 budget request for the v. A. s office of infoatn and technology. You can watch our coverage on e cspan now video app or online at cspan over. They want to come here and collect welfare instead. So no asylum cases. Most people come here to make a better life if not for them than their kids. My grandparents never spoke english. I never had a conversation with them and yet they made america great. Friday, author and coulter and columnists or of amari and a columnist discuss the question should the u. S. Shut its borders . The debate is moderated by journalist barry