We Work Together when we were in washington 18 hours a day and there was almost no opportunity to no trust the people. What a remarkable story. You arrive never having been here born in india, granddaughter of the British Police officer, remarkable mother and father. Tell us a little bit about immigration that has been the policy that has infused your public service. Lets start with a little bit of what that was like. You say youve landed in the airport with two suitcases and that was it. Guest thats right. Thank you for taking the time to do this. It is a pleasure to be able to have an indepth conversation with a colleague, something we just dont get to do. I landed here two months before i turned 17. I came by myself. My dad had about five bucks in his bank account and he used of all to send me here because he believed this is the place i was going to get the best education and have the most opportunity. I show up at jfk airport with my two suitcases. We didnt have any money to pay for more baggage and i just remember, and i write about this in the buck, how strange it was to see first walmart the diversity of people i was used to seeing. Its pretty diverse in the grand scheme of things. A lot of physical displays of affection i wasnt used to seeing, mcdonalds and burger king, which you sort of dreamt about when you were in indones indonesia, but they hadnt made it to that part of the world debt, and then of course, just being in a completely new place, you know, with a completely new environment not knowing if you were going to fit in, how you are going twere going to fit in. I was a georgetown graduate here in the Nations Capital and i remember when i landed at georgetown and i went to the board Student Office to get my information and they said, i said something about a foreign student with not having my assignment. A guy that was well meaning i think all he heard was foreign student and he stopped what he was doing and said do you speak english. I remember being so surprised by that and said jokingly, while, i do, but only if you talk very slowly. [laughter] so, that was the beginning of my entry into the United States, and i dont think i could have ever dreamt i would be sitting here talking to you as a member of congress. Host yeah, absolutely. It is an intimate portrait and i would encourage people to read the story to see how somebody arrives at the age of 17 for the first time ever, the evolution that results in that first becoming a member of congress. One of the reasons this conversation is going to be fun as they were the leader of the progressive wing of the Progressive Party and by the new Democratic Coalition the more centrist wing. One of the things that was fun about your book is for the stereotype progressive they have to grapple with the fact you went to visit a school school, n wall street and medical device corporations. That is a wonderfully rich portrait of how the world is more complicated than the politicals. Types. Talk a little bit about that and having worked in the private sector how you think about the issues that affect the private sector. Guest that comes from my dad got ibm. He said youd either be a doctor, lawyer or engineer. Those are the acceptable options. Politician wasnt one of them and so when i went to college i got a degree in economics and somewhere along the way decided i wanted to be an english literary nature with the one phone call that i had to tell him i was going to be an english major and he screamed at me and said you know, i didnt send you to the United States to learn how to speak english. You already know how to speak english. So i promised him that i would get the same job with an english degree that i would have gotten within economics degree. At that time, this was the mid1980s, mike milken was king, wall street is the place he wanted to work if you were smart and competitive, that is the thing you tried to do so i went to work on wall street in investment banking, i did a lot of things go 20yearold should ever have done. Frankly representing companies into bankruptcy proceedings and working on leveraged buyouts. I realized it wasnt for me but one of the things i tell people a mentor all the time is it important to find out what you dont want to do just as much us to find out what you do want to do and also the skills you gain along the way you are invaluable. Anybody can put a spreadsheet in front of me. I work on very complex 300 page spreadsheets before exile was a thing back in the lotus 123 days, and i could find the errors. I understand financial statements, went to get a masters in business, worked on economic development, sold medical defibrillators in ohio and indiana, and i feel like every single one of those things that made me better prepared for being in congress, because i think just as hard as they were employing, you know, people think about a progressive as being somehow completely divorced from business, not understanding economics but i dont think those portrayals are true. But i think people are always surprised to hear about my background. But its really helped to inform my view of wall street accountability and main street and about what actually makes good economic sense. What is pragmatic and practical in my world is based on how i think about what the future looks like from an Economic Perspective as well as a social perspective. Host it was an interesting biography. I worked at a bank for a while and i was 22 when i was doing that. [laughter] guest a whole two years older than me. Host i agree with you 100 . I cannot like you, enjoyed that. I felt like i was learning a lot. A lot of the negotiations, but selling skills if you will i did learn in the private sector. But then you make a wonderful transition and this allowed us to transition to the issues that i think really animate your book. Youre not satisfied, youre not feeling that sort of soulful engagement but in the private sector you go against and get a cab on the river but now all of a sudden, the whole process of immigration you say in the book you understand what drives. So lets talk about immigration because that is so much of your story and of course it is apt the core, not the policy debates that we sort of play defense against a president who has come as i tell my constituents come hes created this redhot core of anger and baloney quite frankly, describing immigrants as criminals, you know, given where youve come from, given this book that is in the debates with morality you probably saw on our own experience, here we are at a moment we are probably having the most dysfunctional conversation about immigration that i can remember, so i know 9 11 was important to you, but what gets you so passionate about the moral immigration policy . Guest when i was in thailand, and this was the summers between graduate school i had this opportunity working for three months for the largest nonprofit, and i happened to go to the largest refugee camp at the time, mostly refugees from cambodia and laos, and it was a stunning experience for me, deeply moving to see people fleeing. There was a bomb in the camp just days before i arrived, so it was still a very active camp in that sense. Most of the people thought they were going to be there for a short time before they would be able to get permanently settled again, coming out of the war, losing children, losing families, and you just see the resilience people have and how difficult life is for people is getting terrible, terrible economic situations, drought, the war, and it was the formation i dont think i thought about it as immigration or migration i the moment. I thought i was just experiencing what was happening but it was definitely a core piece of how life related to the immigration when it was about other people, because my experience as an immigrant, as everything you said, but it wass reflective to be cognitively privileged as hard as it was. I spoke the language, i went to college, all these Different Things that allowed my experience to be easier than most of the people i worked with. Later, when i switched from the private sector, i worked in International Health and development for several years running a fund, and i worked over the world can iindia, africa, asia, latin america, everywhere. And again, i saw the sort of challenges that was the root causes of migration. Thats always been my orientation is how do we think about immigration in terms of the root cause. Then when 9 11 hit, i started thinking about it from the perspective of being an immigrant here in the United States, what is our policy needs to be in became very ensconced in that and what became the largest Advocacy Organization in Washington State. In fact, many of our policies along with california for immigrants to live, and i think a lot of it is because of the work that we did over the last two decades to preserve dignity and rights the opportunity for everybody, and so i got to know the policy detail of immigration, too. I talk about in the book how there is such a lack of nuance to the debate about immigration in this country when in fact the immigration system is so unbelievably complex, and everybody has a story to tell unless you are native american and of course if you are African American you are blocked unwilling so its a different situation. But everybody else has a story to tell. The moral core of the identity of every nation of immigrants we could explain to the American People how they have not had a system of immigration law. Weve had a few here and there when a president and congress has managed to move a complete overhaul for word, but its been decades. Our system hasnt been fixed in decades. Theres been no major change and that is unattainable for a country that has such deep Economic Needs hi of such deep societal and familial needs and whose identity is focused on the role of immigrants into building our country. Host that is absolutely right. One of the things to the president s point of view which i think is a key point of view and we will come back to the policy that its just built on lies. As you point out, we are a nation of immigrants. Business people say when you dont even take the moral approach they will tell you it is absolutely essential to have more robust immigration. A programmer at Washington State and of course an agricultural worker in folks unseen and seeig ironically but ive seen in our restaurants [inaudible] so, describe for us because it isnt hard to look at the current mess, and it is a moral mess that we will come back to the family supervision because i think that is in moral terms, but describe what you think this is your thing and has been for decades if you were to wave a magic wand and the immigration policy would change overnight, what would it look like, and how does that compare to the bill . You were not here in washington yet come up with a bill passed what was it, five or six years ago the senatorial votes and there was a difficult process for the 11 or 12 million undocumented this country has had a chance to sort of identification and verification, all sorts of thing but it got 67, 68 votes in the senate. So, tell us your view of a good immigration policy and how does that compare to what got through the senate in this bipartisan manner fiva bipartisanmanner fi . Guest i was on the outside pushing for that and it had a lot of compromise but frankly not all of us liked, but it had a major component. The key thing to think about here a lot of americans will say because of what the president said our people before the president , its been taken to a completely new level in demonizing immigrants, something no other president before him has done in the same way in recent history that the first thing people say you should get in line. You have to understand there isnt a line in the United States, there is no system for people to even come here legally and i will give myself as an example. He said my entire life but it took me 18 years to get my citizenship. I came in on a student visa and so the first thing we need to do is rectify the system so there are actually prophecies that are easy for people to navigate whether you are coming here on a business visa, to join families, or whether you are coming here to work temporarily or via student. Those quotas that were set three decades ago, those need to be completely updated. In addition to that, that allows you to have a functioning system going forward. In addition to that, you have to provide a pathway to citizenship for the 12 million undocumented immigrants are here. These are folks who primarily have been living here for 15 to 17 years, decades. It is hypocritical for us to say they shouldnt be allowed to stay when in fact, if they were all deported, first of all it costs the taxpayers an enormous amount of money and secondly, if they all left, the entire economy would collapse. So, lets recognize we havent had a system that has allowed them to do the work we need to do. They are americans in all ways except that so give them a path to citizenship and allow them to come out of the shadows and people contributors and understand when they do that host which by the way is the position today that because of the way President Trump talks about the undocumented, that concept a mere half decade ago had potential republicans apart because they understood if nothing else, the food supply chain, farms, meatpacking plants simply dont work without the population. Guest thats right. Insight of what trump has said, but you said iwhat you said is. There is still substantial support for a path to citizenship. Its kind of amazing given the demonization of trump has done. But they are staunch republicans in Eastern Washington and central washington. The businesses, the chamber of commerce, there is the sense that we need a path to citizenship and comprehensive and humane reform just as it is clear to those that might get there for different reasons. But for everybody, people understand we need to fix the system. And third, i would say we need to make sure we have humanitarian ways for people to continue to see the United States as a beacon of hope and light. So, our asylum processes, the Refugee Resettlement, this is another area that is traditionally been bipartisan support. Speakespeaker pelosi always liko talk about the evangelicals who call the Refugee Resettlement program the crown jewel of humanitarianism. So, i think that this is another place where donald trump has destroyed everything that has to do with people seeking refuge. He is absolutely shut down the Refugee Resettlement program. He shut down the Asylum Program are merely taking any. He shut off all illegal ways for people to come, so we should be clear. The opposition isnt just to the undocumented immigrants. Its all legal immigration. Thats why h they tried to ban student visas on the people that were here on student visas. Thats why hes tried to shut down illegal immigrant programs for people who are coming here to work, h. One b. , spousal visas, roll back all of that. Lets be clear, his agenda and the agenda of Stephen Miller and others around him in the white house is no immigration, and this country will die without immigration. That is clear. Host i agree with your statement that probably no president has made immigration such a toxic part of their approach. Sadly, however, this is at some level same old same old. Chinese immigrants were talked about in the late 18 hundreds come absolutely brutalized and dehumanized on the west coast and of course thats been the experience in every wave of immigrants, the irish catholics, mediterranean, sherman and Northern European immigrant immi mean, this is sadly a very strong recurring theme, and its ironic because as you point out how all of us start somewhere unless we are indigenous to the continent. Lets try to get behind the policies of politics. On some level that sort of absurd that this country says its value is all about immigration and all this stuff but for 240 years practically this country has also been absolutely brutal to the latest wave of immigrants. Whats going on there and how do we change that because if we dont, there will be a demagogue that decides to become the latest wave. How do we change that . Guest we have to change the policy, and it requires doing it in spite of what people say. Every Immigration Reform thats happened has happened with tremendous resistance, and get the president that has overseen not have actually moved it forward despite any concerns that he might have about what the reaction might be, because it is what is good for the country and in some ways that is what happened with civil rights and what happened with every difficult transition that the country has to make. You dont wait for people to get the full place you just do it appropriately so that you remove that obstacle, but a political football from the field. Because lets be clear, it will continue to divide us. Youre right america has had a complex history with immigrati immigration. I talked about it in the book. Its sort of a lovehate relationship. And i think that that has to do with the fact that fear of the author caother can be used and t in Donald Trumps playbook, fear of the other. So, our work has to be for people to reconnect with our immigrant history. The policy is not hard. We have crafted policy around this over and over again. We know exactly what we need to do in the bipartisan no. I would change some things about it today because weve moved on from where that is, but i will say that the way that you secure the United States and preserve our National Security is actually to have a functioning immigration system where you can keep track of everyone that comes in. Its easier for people to come and go out. We have circular flow of migration which was very popular in earlier decades but has gone away. You dont build walls and bridges. Uganda borders that are secure, but they are secure because you have systems that allow people to come in and go out, not the other way around. So, what we have to do is sort of gold a few times if you are in a tough district where donald trump is firing of people based on the immigrant state, and we have to stop criminalizing immigrants and pass this policy because it actually dreads through everything else. It stays out there as having donald trump can go back to, or any president frankly, can go back to over and over again to try to divide us. And we should not be a divided country on this because we do have the identity. We just havent done policy. The policy is sadly given a path to citizenship when a senate bill passed, we would have spent so much less on all the things we have been spending in the department of Homeland Security and we would have had a far more secure country. Instead we are pouring money into things like walls and making the walls black when it doesnt make a big difference. What we need is the reform of the system. Host for one of the things i try to do, i get people coming to town Hall Meetings using just brutal language against the undocumented, despite the fact the area that i represent would come to a halt if they were to simply disappear. One of the things i find to be quite helpful, we will move on to a discussion of reality and politics is to reframe peoples minds of the values. First of all, we need to grapp grapple. People are not wrong to say that the system is broken. When you have People Living in the shadows we dont call them illegal to yes they are here on an undocumented basis and that is an affront to the rule of law. One of the things that i find this works in a town hall meeting, immigration policy is hard and complicated and we have to acknowledge what the economy requires. However, you cant come to the Public Square dehumanizing people and suggesting all immigrants are gun dealers are somehow subhuman. That is rejected by your religious faith and i find it if you can in that moment remind people we are talking about people that are doing things that are not radically different than what your parents, grandparents, great grandparents did. Now some of the fervor leaves the room, and i find that appeal to the human values. We are talking about human beings, not about dehumanized entities. But, lets grapple for one second with certainly the language of donald trump and the criticism. The system in which on fox news you would be accused of supporting an illegal, terrible language, the undocumented. We all acknowledge a system in which there are 11 or 12 million People Living in the shadows undocumented is a terrible system. On fox news you would be accusing the president is that alof thatall the time wanting cy open borders, and i dont know what that means but entry by anybody that wants to come in. Can you express those donald trump fox news fantasies . Guest i go on fox news quite a bit, and i have to laugh sometimes because im never talking to the anchor. Their job is to get as explicit as possible but i am talking to people who watch fox news because i think people are looking for a new way to think about things. What i say is listen, i understand if you are frustrated because you havent been able to find a good job. Before, we had the best the quality weve seen since the 20s, so i talked to people about their situation firsthand how we make sure we are working for everybody in this country to have a decent opportunity. Then i talk about how in that moment when you have the equality its easy to blame somebody. Weve all been in this situation before, but dont blame the immigrants. Lets think about your immigration story and family history. Getting people to connect back about how they came to this country. And then the third, in terms of the border, i find that so funny because we are actually talking about creating a system so that you could know whos coming in and out and allow people to have the beauty of being with their family. I say to the fox news host of time you used to be the party of family values. What happened to family values when you walk in cages or separate a child from their parent for 16 years of your filipino or 22 years if you are from some other country . The amount of time that it takes to allow a parent to be with a child in this country, even separate from cages, walking kids in cages, its remarkable bowl. If we had a system that functioned its not about open borders, its United States has the right to determine who is in the country into this and and it should be done according to the human rights values and global treaties that we signed on to. But at the same time, if you dont have thought, that is when you need to worry because then not only a do you not have what you need for security but you also dont have what you need for the heart and soul of america is moral value as a nation of immigrants and as a country that shines a beacon of light around the world for people like me that come here and for so many of their ancestors and generations of people that come to the United States. I find that when i go through that, i may not get the fox news host, but i do find i get a lot of emails from people watching fox news who say to me i didnt realize there wasnt a line. I didnt realize undocumented immigrants pay Social Security taxes so that i can go and retire as a u. S. Citizen. They are not paying my Social Security taxes, i speak to you ] that just isnt true. Host right. Good conversation. So, lets go even deeper here into the policy and to talk about morality and politics, because one of the things in your book is part two is all about the moral vision. You talk about three policy areas and its about moral vision and your story has an awareness and advocacy for a moral world. I enjoyed reading it, because thinking about the role of morality in politics, but i started to figure out overtime is politics without morality is an insane notion. We are here because we have values and people in the country have different values. So, it needs to defuse everything we do has public service, but there is a downside which is that on the extreme if you are not right with my moral vision, then you are in in mortal. Sometimes if we are progressive in framing things in moral terms, it is hard to compromise something that we are not known for in the Congress Today because you could compromise say with a libertarian. So im interested when and where morality is the key and where we need to draw back. Immigration is interesting. No human can look at family separation and in his offict the border as you did, too mac. A mother is in a separate style from their 6yearold daughter. If that doesnt like fires of moral outrage in spite o insidem not sure you are alive. On the other end of the spectrum though, of course, the immigration policy is enormously technical. So, questions of what is the proportion of the agricultural visas, that kind of stuff doesnt lend itself to the kind of moral clarity family separation does. You have this concept of moral vision about where is it essential to the public policymaking process and at what point do you run into more of a lets close the door and get the deal done way of thinking about this . Guest its a great question. One of the reviewers in an interview said congresswoman, im so depressed at the first section is called politics and the second is called moral vision. Do they not go together, and i think this is the question that youre asking. For me it is clear it isnt used for everything. I dont know what you fight for if you dont know what your own values are. We can use the term values because i actually think that we share regardless if you are republican, independent, democrat, we share some human values which is w as we all wane right to be respected. They want opportunity, we want to be treated with dignity and respect. Those are the kind of things i talk to universally with republicans in my district as well. So, i think that the thing we have to remember is our system is not a representative system. It has led to an unrepresentative system and government. Is it in the sense that People Choose you and me and we call that a representative democracy, but if you look at so much of the institutionalized racism and sexism that has invaded the system for so long, but reality is that people that are in power and making these decisions have a particular perspective of what may be mortal or not and many of the details of the policy, even though it doesnt sound like it, if lays the groundwork for a continuation of that racism and sexism and, or whatever it is. So calling you look at these policies, i just think it is very important to keep a northstar there, and i think about our colleague john lewis who just passed away, or Elijah Cummings who also just passed away, both of whom were so welcoming of me when i came into congress. I remember saying in my fighting too hard on family separation and also immigration and other things, and they both sort of took me, shook me by the shoulders and said you keep fighting with the urgency. Because i think sometimes politics gets reduced to the lowest common denominator. The thing that is easiest to move forward most likely. But that isnt actually the thing that gets to the root causes of what is happening that requires a deeper analysis to the solution. So do we need people to agree with this 100 on everything, of course not. Are there technical pieces where you can argue about how many visas or how many people get covered for healthcare during this versus another, sure, all of those are real. But what happens is the characterization of people, for example, the criminalization of the poor or the criminalization of immigrants that happens with welfare reform, those are detrimental to any progress moving forward, and so that is often the biggest thing we have to fight about, and we dont. When we are on the floor and the republicans want to divide us, what do they do, for the people that dont follow every piece of what we do and focus around criminalization of immigrants, criminalization of black people, brown people, and we dont we are too afraid to take them on and say go ahead. You want to talk about criminalization, lets talk about who these people are. We are too afraid of the 32nd ad that might come for the trump district. I mean, i understand not every district is a democratic district like mine, but i do think that that is where leadership comes in, because if we dont fix those undermining pieces of recognizing dnas work of all human beings, then that is going to hurt us on any policy we try to put forward. Host you made me think. They are designed to split a party and motions to recommit when we were in the minority. We need to be a little bit more humble about the fact both parties there are to blame. You were there so you could tell me. They never split on those motions and a word i wont use on cspan but they recognized them as completely ridiculous and procedural and they didnt worry about it. Host they were remarkably disciplined. As long as we are talking about republicans, in my opinion today, when i won in 200351 in a republican district. Its gotten gradually more blue. Lets talk about very briefly because theres so much in the book we need to get to. We have that republican relationships to get over its values and not to a set of principles that we may disagree. They isolated themselves so without giving too much liquor cartoon, it is the bulk of the Labor Movement or at least it was very closely split. And again i know these are complicated issues and you have strong feeling people that are not on the winning categories that you look at these communities in ohio and the midwest it does feel to me like they dropped the ball and play to those communities that we might guest yes we totally agree on that end in ibook i talked about it quite a bit. Donald trump is a symptom and a cause of tremendous pain and xenophobia and everything else. He was elected because there were too many people would ask the country including those in White Working Class neighborhoods but also black folks and brown folks across the country who were disenchanted with democrats and didnt believe we fought for them. They were confused about our stance on trade. Donald trump went right in. He said im going to fix these unfair trade agreements and make sure people across the country keep their jobs. One of the popular policies across the country, health care. Donald trump has made all kinds of noises about what he believes in making it sound like hes going to fight for the little guy. Democrats havent done enough to either show we are on the side of regular working people, collective bargaining rights. We should have expanded the collective bargaining rights ten years ago, but we didnt. We said to the labor Union Brothers and sisters listen, we are with you. Later on top of that and many other things hes used at the time when so much of the country is suffering. If the country was doing well, some of this wouldnt have worked some of the country wasnt doing well. 60 percent didnt even have 400 in their bank account before coronavirus hit. So, this is where he came and i think that for us as democrats, we have to remember two things. Number one, the base is critically important. When they take out likely voters and factor in for enthusiasm that drops substantially so dont think that we dont need the base. We need young people, folks of color in all places. We need everybody to turn out. The turnout matters in these places. Second, i think that when joe biden is elected, we have to be bold and recognize that if we dont invest in people in and education and housing and opportunity and transportation, that we will ultimately worsen these and there will be an opportunity for another donald trump to come and when. So we will have to step up and invest in our communities and hopefully keep the white house in 2024. Host i agree that there is a great deal more commonality and agreement across the political spectrum particularly on economic issues. You and i have an agreement on the policies but theres no doubt that those things consistent in the universal availability of healthcare education if you can be persuasive providing that, you will appeal to everyone. Theres an interesting part in the book i want to highlight it is harder in the realm of social issues and because they recognize we win if we have an honest economic debate they realized that if that is the debate but instead they try to paint the democrats as leaders of our obsessed with genderneutral pronouns and they use a lot of dark language and i think that is a little harder conversation and i do that in my own district sometimes. Incredible progress in this country. Sorry the light is going off in my house. Making progress and acknowledging we have a long way to go, the member delegation i dont think anybody was for marriage equal to the. Barack obama was famously kind of out of it. We have seen dramatic change and some of it is scary when they come from the areas that you and i live and theres a wonderful page in your book where you have a non binary child who wishes to be referred to as the condescending comment and then theres the thing where you say i should use pregnant people do you acknowledge the term and that shows a great deal of care for people that at best have marginalized but i think you would agree i thought this is a step or two beyond what i thought inlay represents southwestern connecticut. My question at the end of that speech is how do we make sure that we are bringing people in. I think we bear some blame for how we talk about these. How do we get to people in a constructive way on social issues . Just for the generosity and abundance and i think about that many of my friends were concerned about these. My mother is in india and. I try to come at it as the love of a parent and how we want our kids to be free to express who they are. Understanding that intention is important, but i also think that everybody wants to be seen and visible for who they are and those identities are so critical and fundamental to somebody being able to be seen and so we should continue to be strong about it and be loving and generous. I try not to judge people and thats why i had problem with republicans were talking about non binary people, is the most dehumanizing. It isnt just saying i dont understand, but they were talking about people in dehumanizing ways. That is my child and that is unacceptable so of course i had to speak out but i also think the other thing is there are so many points of connection and we dont have to agree on everything in order to respect each other. Im in a state that has a top two primary which means they go on to the general election. Im facing another democrat in my election. I decided i was running as another democrat and i decided i should go talk to republicans because they are 20 of my district and they dont have a republican to vote for, so why not me. So i went to talk to them and had a story, it was a beautiful sunny day. Shes out there cleaning, and they have some things on my mind about how the conversation is going to go. We end up getting into a wonderful conversation and she agrees with me on the 15dollar minimum wage and collective bargaining. He agrees with me on a whole bunch of things. I dont start with that, but he agrees with me and then he asks about gun. How do you feel about guns and i say honestly i dont like them, but i understand, second amendment. My husband used to hunt, i dont tell them hes now a buddhist and a vegan, but he used to hu hunt. It becomes clear we are not going to agree and it should be to drive a car you need a license, you need to be responsible and he says you are one of those democrats thats going to take my guns away from me. He says even though i would give you my vote but then we got to the guns conversation and i just dont think i could do that, i disagree with you on that. He said 23 years. Thats amazing. Do you agree on 100 and he laughed. You may read her, im just asking for the vote and he absolutely is still for a moment, crack is a says you are a different kind of competition. Im going to vote for you t but you try to take my guns away and i will be on your behind. And i dont think we have to have everyone agree that we should be authentic and real and okay with that disagreeing with us as we might disagree with them. Its a good thing that the story broke the way that it did instead of sorry, its over. [laughter] guest that would have been bad. I dont want to be a marriage breaker. Host i spent a lot of my time thinking about cohesion in the party at different points of view. Why isnt it clear and this is a stereotype that includes proverbial he leads, africanamericans, latinos, lgbtq communities, the Labor Movement all you need to do is come and look at settin sittinge floor in the house of representatives. I spent a lot of time thinking about cohesion in the party. The attitude as you just described there is one area that i would say it changes a little bit which is the area of medicaid for all the. There is a hybrid. The world demonstrates in the healthcare system. Your discussion of medicare for all i came away from it where the progressive wing thinks that medicare for all is the way. In your discussion here you say they are spreading lies about medicare for all. I got the question with the rest of the book did i get this impression elsewhere. I spend a lot of my time even though i have issues with its defending medicare for all because we use it and its hardly an radical. But i did sense a change of tone when you talk about medicare for all. Is that because this discussion and critical issue or is it because you are more of an expert than i am and really that is the system that works for the United States . Guest i do believe it is a system that should work and im not saying everything that is in my bill is the only way. People would say to me how can you have a twoyear transition and i would say listen, everything in politics you put the legislation forward and then theres got to be changes. If we get to the point we are talking about a two or fouryear transition caught and passed it. Im ready to have that conversation. But i do believe that a universal Health Care System hed for by the government and that is coordinated by the government i should say, that the government as the main conduit through which health care is guaranteed and that its not tied to employment or any other factor, that that is absolutely what the United States should do and with most other countries do. If this changes here and there starting to change in a different direction but most countries do that and maybe they have a little bit here for the private sector. That is not our system today. And the reason for some of what you accurately pick up in that chapter is i have been very frustrated by the attacks on medicare for all by our own party so it isnt that some people are saying you know, that is absolutely the goal that we should get to and lets talk about some of the issues that are here and lets debate them. Its absurd you cant get rid of Employer Covered Health Care because healthcare from employers offers so much choice. I kept saying what choice do you have when you lose your job, your Health InsuranceCompany Tells you which doctors go to and which procedures are covered, that doesnt sound like a choice to me. The Program Choice was medicare for now nobody is making that argument at 45 million americans that file jobless claims and 27 million lost their health care because they lost their j job. Guest that is the frustration that i have is that somehow we are naive and idealistic and then the cost discussion drives me absolutely crazy because i do have a sense of cost and economics and i can tell you if we keep going with this system, we will be paying 50 trillion over the next ten years. Nobody wants to talk about that. They only want to talk about the cost of the medicare from old system which is less than that. That is the reason for my frustration is that i feel like people within our own party for whatever reason, i wont attribute reasons. I have my thoughts about it, but for whatever reason, they refuse to acknowledge that our system of healthcare was never a system and we are seeing it right now with this pandemic. And the fact that africanamericans are four times as likely to die. Latinos, nine times as likely as white americans. Hard way because they never have healthcare and they were never able to pay even for the treatment they needed that left them exposed with all of the underlying conditions that caused covid to take hold. And in 2018 and so we one so today is incremental so we have to be suggesting to get the attack canada and friends they all do it differently so we can overcome the allies and all the socialism this is now the Democratic Party reconnecting with a lot of observations. But we are way over time. Have never done this before. Im not a talkshow host but thank you for a great conversation. Thank you so much for reading the book and having such a wonderful conversation