The outgoing chairman, mike johnson from louisiana from indiana mike johnson from louisiana and jim thanks from indiana. Im going to do a quick interruption of them and then ask questions but we will take questions from the audience. If you would like to ask questions, please submit them to chris see hris. Gavin at a. Org. We will put them up. I have a bunch of my own questions as well so we will try to get to them as they come up. Representative jim thanks is chairman elect to the committee and representative thinks is inn his second term representative of the Third District covering the Northeast Corner of the date including four lane. Thanks service in the Armed Services committee on education and Labor Committee and Veterans Affairs committee. He is the father of Young Children so we always like to have, no about peoples families. Representative johnson is the outgoing chairman, the second term representing Fourth District of louisiana covering the northwest part of the state including freeport. He serves on the Judiciary Committee and Natural Resources committee so id like to start with you, representative johnson. We feel productive two years with study committee. It was labeled at that time, referred to as intellectual conservatism in the house. The status operated as a policy job, our conservative philosophy makes its way into legislation where we put that on the paper. We develop an agenda to move forward in congress. It did help do that when w youre in the minority and thats where we find ourselves the last two years but we decided when i became chairman and i committed to our group, we have 148 members in this congress, the largest caucus of conservative begins in congress and when i put the group together i said were going to have an minority and theres this idea that something that will happen when youre in the minority in the house, you downshift and i said were ready to t attack and i propose to you always been this next two years really with our handsat the wheel. To actually drive the metaphor but were going to work very hard. Going to realize what we do here at the rsv, our vision is to get rid of the many taskforces we have. For example we had a Second Amendment task force in rsv on which every Single Member was kind and they rarely did anything so we trimmed the fat so to speak. We narrowed our focus to a handful of seven taskforces and we separated the membership and those taskforces by letting his one between 10 and 15 members and the charge was this, were going to develop actual policy from each of these groups. The National Security and Foreign Affairs task force, reform task force, budgetary task force and the American Workers task force, health task force. Im going to give you a visual aid here. We call this a conservative playbook. Its a compilation of all that work you did over two years, 335 feet policy manual where each of these taskforces came up with publications , 60, 70 pages over the course of two years where we had a real sound conservative solution for all those challenges facing america. This is our playbook and we have our governing moment, we think were going to have kthat and we are good to go s representative banks, what are your goals for the coming year . Thank you robert, thank you to aei for hosting this. Aei has just been very important to me as a member and my staff educating us on policy issues but as you said, aei has been a great partner with the Republican Steering Committee for a long time and we look forward to building on that partnership in relation with the next couple of years and im proud to become the chairman of rsv and follow in the footsteps of my great friend mike johnson from louisiana but theres a strong hoosier legacy within the Republican Committee, Vice President mike pence was chairman of the school adecade ago and before him , other hoosiers like dan burton and my friend David Mcintosh were chairs of this Influential Group and i hope to do this job as well mis what mike johnson and man of those others have done in the past. And to be chairman of this d strong influential conservative body in the house. As mike said hes laid the groundwork. Mike didnt just say were in the minority, theres nothing we can do, were going to sit on ourhands over the last term. Mike johnson over the last two years has now doubt a roadmap of where were going to go when we win the majority, now we have another two years in the minority but we can takethe majority. Were just shy of winning back the majority in the house and i believe republicans will win the house in two years and one thing, one way that rsv is going to play a role in our winning back the majority is in in the fight. And i want to lead us in the fight on a number of areas but a few areas that are really important is closing how radical the left has taken over the Democratic Party and juxtapose that with where the republicans are. I think most of america is and a few of those issues would be right out of thegate , the fight to preserve and protect stop heinemann will be one of those major initiatives that republican studying committee will lead. Educating the American People about how important vitamin has been working. And saving unborn babies. And preventing our taxpayer dollars from going to fund abortion. Rsv will be on the frontlines of exposing how radical the democratics have become. Was s once bipartisan what president s from jimmy carter to bill clinton and joe biden have defended and supported in the high commitment is no longer supported by the democratparty. Thats quite were going to engage in right out of the gate. The second fight will be preserving the trump era defense budgets. What President Trump did over the last four years to rebuild the military is significant. Democrats now are telling us that they want to cut military spending substantially, right out of the gate the beginning of the new administration. We cant allow that to happen as we fell behind before, and now weve caught back up with our teeth adversaries in china and russia. Some others by rebuilding the military impact, thats where we are with significant defense budgets. But rsvs legacy issue is balancing the budget. Its fiscal responsibility, were going to be out here we have on this issue but robert, the big area that we have to move his different for the conservative movement. President trump has tossed and very populist ideals of the President Trump mawhich is the traditional conservative issues. Those are new areas where i want rsv to engage in. One area would be freespeech censorship, section 230 hreforms, thats an area where the rsv is being heavily engaged in. Theres also the china subject which i know we are going to talk more about in this as well. Being on the front lines of being out there and challenging china, Holding China accountable for the rsv is what we will engage in heavily as well i want to follow up on that about marrying the two strains of conservatismrepresented by President Trump and maybe more traditional conservatives. And i have a question about entitlement. Sticking with you representative banks, are you , when you talk about debt and deficit and spending constraints, youre talking about medicare and Social Security which doesnt trump say was sensible, isnt entitlement reform maintaining the group of these big commitments of retirees, was that no longer a part of republican study committees agenda were where are we on . Its definitely a part of our agenda and last term, chairman johnson gave me the honor of chairing the Budget Task Force for rsc and we put forward the only budget that came anywhere in the house came from rsc and it was a balanced budget, balance this year tackled Social Security, medicare and medicaid and made reforms to those programs as part of an effort to show our colleagues you cant balance the budget. The president s budget shows a balance of about 12years. Our Budget Proposal balance is half that amount of time and i think we can agree it will never be more difficult for a balanced budget then now after weve gone through the pandemic and all of the stimulus spending we passed over the past 6 to 8 months. Ebut rsc once again is going to be out there showing the rest of our colleagues that it can be done and we will present a budget just like we always have to be the first half. Johnson, you said at the start of this pandemic is a real thing, you know it because you have suffered from your colleagues in the senate and i think your colleagues from new york also yesterday joined the group putting out a emergency stimulus package of about 1 trillion. Where was the rsv be on that work done quickly. During thelameduck session. I think theres a broad recognition among conservatives in the house and senate that the American People need some relief. What we have been focused on his wanting to double down on programs that we knew worked. The protection program, some of the things related to that because we know it had that effect. In my district alone we lost hundreds of thousands of jobs that were saved through the Paycheck Protection Program. Its an extreme measure taken by the government but we can justify that because remember ecit was the government that took the economy down, its unprecedented so it needed a proper response. We would invest in that again because we see that truly as a wise investment. It protects employees, it protects the working but those funds have long since been exhausted and theyre running out, there are a number of Small Businesses that are the lifeblood of our economy and so many others y that frankly will to survive through this holiday if they dont have a little bit extra that they can qualify for. The Senate Proposal early on several months back and many of the iterations is that business could show more than 50 percent drop in revenue this year, they might qualify for another round of tbp but theres reasonable measure, some objective standard we can use so i think theres a broad sense we can do Something Like that but the problem we had to this point is pelosi, schumer, the democrats have wanted to load it up like a Christmas Tree with all certain things unrelated. And the problem is robert as you know , getting back to the central theme of all this is this enormous debt that the country has incurred through covid and prior to that. Where 27 trillion now, that is something that should keep everyone up at night because it will be a record. As far as the details of the specific plan theres going to be more negotiation. I think perhaps its moving in the right direction. I like to make it clear to things, to make these tough decisions but a, michael strain and Brent Hubbard helped design the tpp which did have a positive effect keeping people employed and during a very difficult time. Representative banks, do you agree that something needs to be done but that debt and deficit is still to be tackled in the future and while im on that let me get a followup. We have a scholar at aei who done work on broadening the base for revenue services. Maybe even including a consumption tax or some way of raising those. Is there any way the rsc given the debt and deficit support anykind of method of increasing revenues . In the future, given how much we all agree on it. Let me address your first question. Yes, we should do more and extending the Paycheck Protection Program as mike johnson said is a commonsense b move forward that i had bipartisan support before but its been held hostage by Speaker Pelosi ever since. Er theres still billions of dollars left unspent that weve appropriated to ppp but because it hasnt been extended it expired. Those dollars are just sitting in washington when it could be used to support businesses in indiana, louisiana and elsewhere. Mitch daniels who was governor of indiana, wellknown used to say that living next door to illinois is like living next door to the simpsons. And when it comes to these radical democrats with all the spending deals coming from democrats would force taxpayers in indiana to offset deficits, fiscal irresponsibility and estate tax decades before the pandemic which states like illinois and hoosiers and taxpayers in indiana would have to pay for. Thats what i cant support is whats come out, even the bipartisan deal yesterday which rewards fiscal irresponsibility in some states and puts the onus on the backs of taxpayers in states like mine who have been responsible and put forth balanced budgets every two years andare statehouses. Thats just what i cant support moving forward. As far as your latter question, that additional revenue and other places that we can offset the deficit and now the 27 trillion National Debt. We put together a plan that we will send it to you, robert. Weve actually put forth a year and a half ago that cuts wasteful spending. There are reforms, entitlement programs and without having to increase taxes anywhere across the board so we will have it done in the next term and we will have to fight even harder to put forward those ideals of fiscal responsibility and im the first to admit weve fallen flat on their face when it comes to being the leparty of fiscal responsibility. Yesterday republicans chose our new leader of the Budget Committee from missouri who is a strong conservative and it will be his job as Ranking Member in the upcoming term to advocate for fiscally responsible republican budget and we will get the majority in two years it will be his job to put forth a budget, doing what democrats have failed to do over the last term, Speaker Pelosi famously said and challenged republicans to put forth the budget and when we failed to do that, democrats in the last term did not put forth any budget at all out of their budget ato the committee. When we get the majority back it will be our main responsibility to put forth an idea and i know jason will do that when hes chair of the committee in two years. Im glad you mentioned the tension in illinois and indiana. My older brother runs a Manufacturing Company in indiana. He came from illinois and the Adult Children have moved to join him from illinois because of its more business friendly,better schools, more governing environment in indiana. I want to stick with you just a minute more and ask about china. Heres an area where President Trumps approach seems to have mixed the country as a whole. We need to be less just say tougher on china in a variety of ways whether its tariffs or protecting taiwan and hong kong. Where do you feel is the space you would like to see the country go in continuing the application of pressure on china in the coming years . I would continue contend that the country is already there. Its washington matching up with the rest of the country and thats what trump taught us and for those of us who are longtime ideological conservatives, its hard for us to wrap our minds around the freetrade ideals with Holding China accountable for unfair trade practices. Thats what, thats what is at the top of the list, one of the areas i appreciate most aboutPresident Trumps leadership over the last four years. Thats catching up with the rest of the country that the country wants us to hold and in a strong bipartisan way they Want Congress and the administration told china accountable. This is where im really worried about the sharp turn of a Biden Administration and contrast that where the Trump Administration has been. The Trump Administration hasnt been perfect but what were hearing from president elect biden is the opposite message of what weve heard from President Trump and in a policy of appeasement towards china versus accountability and pressure that the Trump Administration is trying to put forth towards china so the committee needs to fill the vacuum, we need to be out there. Ive served on the china task force. An effort last term i start on the Armed Services committee and if you identify and recognize that china is the greatest existential threat that america faces economically and militarily, then Congress Needs to react to that in a bigger way than what we have. And the rnc supports anumber of proposals in this area and i put forth over the next several years we will continue to make this a primary focus. Once again that the theres the policyof it, the importance of it when it comes to the conservative movement , putting china accountable basically accountable to who we are as conservatives to build a Winning Coalition that we need to build to win the white house. China needs to be a big part of that platform. P governor johnson, were talking about politics and carrying the country. This election was interesting in thatrepublicans did very well in the house. Including gaining i think 11 or 12 seats depending on the outcome of a couple not yet called elections. And i also gathered that theres a big influx of new women into the Republican Caucus. And i just would say as to the rsc, looking to new members, do you think you will get many members to join . Are these going to be conservative Women Joining arthe Republican Caucus and other things that really happened to the audience, how does the republican steering Freedom Caucus which we hear so much about dowhere the Republican Steering Committee is a little more focused on the details. Tell us the difference. Requesting, we aresuper excited about this. Its the most diverse ever , that was by design. It was a real effort to get out aand improve outstanding candidates and so many of them got elected. Weve already spent time and i spent time with his incoming class, these individual members. Most of them will have an interest in joining rsc, its not automatic, their chosen but were going to have a vast majority of thiscaucus as part of the group and were excited about that. With regard to the different caucus and the Republican Committee, the steering caucus is a little bit smaller group. We have the largest caucus of conservatives but the philosophy is aligned almost exactly. We have a huge crossover so i abthink in this congress, probably 75 or 80 percent or more were also members of rsc. Tactics differ sometimes and thats great but i dont think it was anything like this between the two groups at all in congress and the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, hes one of my closest friends and we work onstrategy altogether almost daily. Aligned in that way so it just is a further strength to have one of those voices in the room. What we tried to do at rnc for the last few years this is what i said, i feel like in some ways came in and i came in as freshmen with President Trump when he came into office and that was tan interesting time last four years have been interesting time as we all know. Other statement, but in some ways, the landmark has been moved so its been this idea and aei talked about it a lot, all our groups respectively, what is does the conservative look like Going Forward. How do we define what is the big conservative, how do we make a pitch to a millennial in an elevator to explain to them why our philosophy is superior to the socialists and all these other ideas and what i propose two years ago as i said, we have to take out the foundations and remember the Core Principles of the conservative movement and what are they . What Ronald Reagan said in his farewell address, i paraphrase him but he said i was a great communicator but i wasnt back, i just communicate great things and theyre the same great things that havegotten the country over, theydont change. At the beauty of being a conservative. Seven Core Principles and i said it individual freedom, limited government, rule of law. This goal responsibility and free markets and Human Dignity. Theres a lot of subcategories, for example Human Dignity and the sanctity of every human life. The idea is robert when we bring in new members, when we take what were doing as largest caucus, when we move forward with polyps policy initiatives and when we published our conservative playbook forrepublicanled congress, all of that is grounded in those Core Principles and when we have a new Member Development team , i just got to let the vice chairman know im talking with the leadership about how were going to have some seminars to help them think through what this looks like. Some of these freshmen have never been legislators he before. Never had to put their philosophy into practice we want to help them through that and i think by doing that were going to i think train up a new generation of leaders in congress and its going to be great. Representative banks, representative johnson just mentioned im going to ask you about two of them, one of them is limited government and the other is how fellow conservatives might say that President Trump challenged that tenant. Its more of a Bigger Picture guy in sort of a desire for National Industrial policy. And one of the areas that thats also, has been family where the Trump Administration has been more t inclined to be supportive of Something Like emily leave mandates or things of that sort. Another area thats happening right now and i want to ask you pacifically about it because president elect bidens team has said they support as powell, is a significant child tax allowance. Now, senator lee and senator robbie said theysupport something along those lines. That will insist that that includes full refund ability all the way down to people who pay notaxes at all. And many who make significant transfer payments through the itc and food stamps. Are you going to, the Republican Committee point out that additional cost that comes with the child tax plan. Where are you on those tax policies and where are you on making it refundable all the way even to people already get the benefit. Robert, first and foremost when we look at 300 trillion National Debt and what that means to the future of this country. My daughters are 11 and nine andseven years old. What the death of their generation is inheriting, its only going to stimulate if we dont do something about it, we have to recognize that we cant pass more irresponsible spending moving forward and this is a great example of what the rsc does. To get the mechanics of what we do on a daily basis, we of about 10 individuals who work hard every day. Its also one of the differences between the rnc and other conservative caucuses on the hill is the talent weve seen that we have, the policy analysis of every single piece of legislation on the floor and a part of that analysis is a fiscal impact and what every bill would do to increase the size and scope of government or to decrease it and if there conservative concern that laid out in legislative analysis, when members of congress, members of rsc, thats what theyre paying for. Theyre paying for a lot of things but theyre investing in this legislative analysis. They are a sharp talented team that is second to none on capitol hill. They spent hours writing it and he goes to members of congress. This is a good example of where they would write analysis on expanding or growing tax credits like these tell us what we would do to increase spending, increase the deficit. I promise you robert that rsc will be on the frontlines of this debate and exposing the result of what programs like this cando. What deficits and spending even further. For both ofyou and maybe congressman johnson , on the rule of law and conservatives not only have sort of a commitment to tradition, order and respect for institutions. And all that is coming into question a little bit in theha wake of this election. Theres some really serious tension in Republican Party now. The Arizona Governor and georgia governor and wall street journalists engaged in very intense conflict on the president s behavior concerning the proper turning over of power. Where do you think conservatives should be on that issue, especially as the president seems not able to win any court case anywhere. Where does that stand with regard to your respect forthe rule of law . This is a great struggle and one of the things that keeps us up at night in addition to the increasing debt that we have in this country is the decreasing faith that people have in our institutions and you said it very well. One of the things thats presupposed in the Constitutional Republic is that people have to have this idea that their institutions are reliable and trustworthy and fair. You cant have a government by and for the people with a king in this country. Tthe people are the sovereigns themselves instead of the government and if the governed dont believe that the power structure is in place are a fair and equitable one, the whole house of cards falls. A Constitutional Republic is a fragile thing and relies upon the faith in these institutions so when you have an election that people have no confidence inand they see and hear incidence of fraud on a broad basis that are credible, it makes them doubt. It makes them wonder whether they should take the time to go and vote again in the future at all and its of great concern to all of us so im a constitutional law attorney with a background and ive spoken to the president myself about this, encouraging him to exhaust all the legalremedies because i think its so critically important. I think every american citizen, every voter is whoever they voted for for president because we have to root out the fraud, the irregularity and all that and make sure this current election is not capable of being overturned now, thats reality but we have to make sure this does not happen again in thefuture. He has exhausted his legal remedies. He says he wont concede even then. Isnt that decreasing the confidence people should have in their constitutional system . The previous president lost Fair Elections but they conceded and recognized the importance of the power transition. He has to do that, theres no question about that but the only question is what is the appropriate time weston mart is it right now . Do you wait until the final case is resolved . Im in that camp. The president clearly in his own words two days ago at the white house is he will obviously participate in the peaceful transfer of power and leave the white house at the appropriate time and all that but the difference between this election and all previous ones is you didnt have this level of fraud alleged in somany places at one time. The rapid , the big increase in male in absentee ballots in this election cycle is unprecedented and that is where the problem lies so we got to make sure that all these questions are not lingering. Not hanging overour election system Going Forward because its exactly what you said , people aregoing to lose faith. Itim literally getting Text Messages while were talking from people watching our program right now, constituencies who are on my phone on the subject, stand with the president ,make sure the election is fair. A lot of republicans are deeply concerned about this routing of fraud. During the last several years one of the heroes of the conservative movement has been the attorney general of the United States bill barr who has taken tough stands and encouraged thewrath of the president s left. He said theres no evidence of fraud. And now the president and people are attacking him. To the you react attorney generals comments. I appreciate that the attorney general made the comments and if he is saying that he cant and the department of justice cant identify fraud, we should take those comments seriously but let me say this. At the very outset ofthis congress , when the democrats , nancy pelosi took the gavel and democrats took the majority , they symbolically introduced their very first bill, hr one which is symbolic. That means this is their top priority and they need the hr one. Thats january 2019. Long before covid19, long before the pendant, hr one is a piece of legislation that would nationalize elections and push all states towards male in balance this was their strategy way too years ago, long before the pendant. They asked it out of the house. De since it send it obviously didnt move it forward and they use the guys of that pandemic in many states, in state of democratic governors and statehouses, they expand mailin ballots, they use mail in ballots to their advantage thats one of the reasons its my job saying so Many Americans have lost faith in our institutions and they lost faith in the election process. There are things that we should do and we should recognize that we should look at ways that we should create standards for mail in ballots. Altogether eliminate the use of mail in ballots, preserve the integrity and security of our elections. Ive been working with architect secretary of state in indiana on legislation a pretty that would require eight to receive a matching federal grants that would be related to elections and match their voter with Social Security databases. There are sensible pieces of legislation we could have that would return the Election Integrity and security back to our elections and i think preserve the American Trust in our elections esprocess and i want rsc to be at the middle of that debate and i want to find over the next couple of years and advocate for legislation that might deal with. I want to ask one more question of you Mister Johnson from louisiana where theres a long history of federal intervention in local elections. And with the shelby case in the supreme court, we just ended section 5 of the act because it was too aggressive. At this time, and intrusion offederal power in the local elections. Given what happened are you open to reconsidering a larger role the federal government and elections in the states. Ive been very resistant to it because i have and also conservative and there is a reason our federalism, its important and we have from time editorial in this country we have handled the election process but theres also a source of division that it will be done fairly and in justifiably and thats a problem and we just think we have to look at it. Im not in favor of the federal integration in elections and i do think that response ability primarily calls with the legislators and i think theres going to be a new resolve in the new w year, certainly by the oe republican legislatures to clean this up and make sure amend one thing a moment ago, so the attorney general bar did say that they havent seen for. It would be sufficient to overturn the election but he also clarified later that day, maybe last night that theyve not yet reached a conclusion, theyre looking into that. Its an academic discussion now, i think everybody realizes its too late to overturn the election but we have to exhaust every remedy. We have to conduct investigations to make sure we know what happened here so this doesnt happen again. So i have a question from one of our listeners that i wanted to ask you and this concerns given the debt and deficit issue taking us back to the role of the house. Are you inclined given the circumstances to advocate for additional tax cuts . Is that something that is something, is there an area of the tax code that you are certain will reform that the committee wouldentertain . Ill tell you as a general notion that weve been very consistent about that. We believe if we run the clock to february work before the coronavirus it was one in the history of the world and there are reasons because we were just out in regulation and we unleashedthe american economy. We believe that general idea, that philosophy, that principle and i think thevast majority of our members would double down on that. What were going to be doing obviously for the next two years we have a commitment by the president elect biden and his team that they want to raise taxes and we cant do that. Its the opposite of what we need so youll see a big defense of our policies and ideas i think in the next two years. The first thing we need to do is make the tax cuts on the individual rates permanent. Republicans if they really are the party of the working class and the working people and we should have done that from the beginning. We may make Corporate Tax cuts permanent but we locked in the individual rates of 10 years and i think that was one of the big misses of tax reform in an area where republicans need to go back to make the individual rate t, cuts permanent. Mike johnson is saying though that the next four years likely we will be fighting against the progressive platform altogether so thats a fight that the Republican Committee willbe in the middle of. One thing that was fair in the election at least to me was the working class americans were positive about the state of the economy before covid. The poverty rate, the ratio of people to employment. They were all time best achievements. Given that Vice President biden had the team from president obamas economic policy, do you think they have what it takes to get us back to an economy in 2000 19 or what is your view . Id like to think so but its hard to see that the economic advisers who did the most damage to the working class perhaps in modern times would be willing to take a page from the trump playbook they despised so much that they campaigned against in this Campaign Cycle so thats an area where i hope we can see the mantle and spend the next two years going back to the House Majority in the next four years going back to the white house to remind the American People that the Republican Party and the policies of the Republican Party are for the working class and and the Democratic Party isnot. Do you represent the working class and are your voters coming from people whose incomes are lower than the traditionalview of the Republican Party as the rich . Absolutely. First i would say that i do believe that the bright spot, the silverlining of this election outcome is that with biden and harris in charge we will have the opportunity to draw a very stark contrast in policies we implemented in the Trump Administration and what theyre going to propose and try to do amid the rise of socialism in the house. Going to have a very distinct contrast to draw and we really like that going into 2022 because we have a good message. We can show what weve done and that means a lot in a district like mine. Im in northwest louisiana with 15 parishes and counties in louisiana. Theres a rural area with one of the lower on the economic scale, Median Household Income is relatively low. We have the least best of state financially, i dont want to say im in a poor state. I think we have the greatest people in the world and our state has the greatest Natural Resources arguably of any state. We have all these conditions here to be number one on the list but whats held us back is wrongheaded policies on the state level and decades of graft and corruption. Weve been changing but we have to have the conditions on the federal level to allow our state to compete well and best and then its up to us at the state level to adjust oureconomic policies to make it work. My people designed that they appreciate the opportunity. They love President Trump because of what he did for them. As you said there Household Incomes went up and they had more Economic Opportunity and more economic mobility or more people. The pathway out of poverty was brought for most people and they experienced it themselves. And many of our longtime democrats said my goodness, maybetheres something to this. We have to seize upon that in the Republican Party, make that compelling case to the workingclass americans that we are the party to invest in and represent your interests and give you and your family a great opportunity. The truth is on our side and were anxious to make those targuments. Last word for you on anything else youd like to tell us about. I represent the district with the most manufacturing jobs per capita of any district in the country. Much of it is automotive. My dad by the way is an example of the working class voter. Hes not a traditional republican but who loves President Trump and came to the Republican Party more firmly than ever because of President Trump and four republicans in the future we got to keep voters like my dad. I tell people all the time i got elected to congress four years ago the same election my father got elected to local office my dad was more excited about donald trump winning the white house and he was at his sons wedding. And again, if were going to win the majority, weve got to keep workingclass voters in the polls and President Trump taught us how to do it. Again, i think that china subject is a key part of this. My dad when i was a kid nafta was a four letter word. Us mca, one could argue that its just extending or reforming nafta, the fact that President Trump spent time renegotiating and drafting trade deals with American Workers first. Those are areas that are hardcore, free trade, traditional conservatives can wrap their heads around and we have to learn these lessons before going to be a politically viable party and the conservative movement is going to be a winning movement in the future and thats the conversation i want the rsc to focus on the next couple of years with trump out of the white house, what can we learn from him . What other lessons can we learn from the trump era that can help us sharpen ourselves and grow our movement Going Forward because theresno better place to have a conversation. This has been a great conversation. We have distinguished members of the house of representatives and im honored to have you with us this morning and i appreciate your service to our country. Thank you for listening and we will see you next time. Saturday President Trump speaks at our rally in valdosta georgia in support of Georgia Republican senator perdue and kelly loeffler. Watch live at 7 pm eastern on cspan. Book tv on cspan2 has taught nonfiction books and authors every weekend. Coming up saturday at 8 15 p. M. Eastern coverage of the 71st annual National Book awards. Sunday live at noon eastern on indepth, conversation with author and chair of africanamerican studies at Princeton University any role junior the author of several books including again and again, james baldwins america and lessons for all. Accidents, democracy in black and an uncommon faith. After electing the first black president in 2008, the country responded by with voter id laws, the tea party and then we elected donald trump. So were at a crossroads. Who is going to be . At the heart of it all its always been this moral question. Who do we take ourselves to be . Jn the conversation with your calls, tweets, texts and Facebook Messages and at 9 pm eastern on after words, kevin wiiamson and his book on the politics and everyday lives of white workingclass americans in appalachia. Hes interviewed by Washington Examiner and cnn contributor. Watch book tv on cspan2 this weekend. We say good morning to congressman Tom Mcclintock from the disict of california, northern calirnia joined us to talk about a number of things including a measure coming up in the house today debated yesterday, more debate today on decriminalizing marijuana. Congressman mcclintock tell us about that measure and your support of it. We simply decriminalizg