Lets get ready to go. Once again, im going to give everyone the reminder, when you have a question for the speaker, come up to the question mikes, say your name, your university and your nice concise question. It is my great pleasure, were very fortunate to have Michael Steele with us, the former chairman of the Republican National committee and former Lieutenant Governor of maryland. When he was elected Lieutenant Governor in maryland in 2003, Michael Steele made history as far as the first africanamerican elected to state office. As chairman of the rnc he was charged with revitalizing the Republican Party. A selfdescribed lincoln republican, under steeles leadership, the rnc broke fundrairaising questions durin the 2010 congressional cycle and republicans won 63 house seats. His commitment to Grassroots Organization and Party Building at the state and local levels produced 12 governorships and the greatest share of state legislative seats since 1928, over 600 seats. As Lieutenant Governor of maryland, mr. Steeles improved the quality of marylands public educational system, expanding Economic Development in the state and fostering cooperation in the state between government and faithbased organizations to help those in need. Furthermore his ability as a communicator and commentator has been shown in his political role on msnbc, appeared on meet the press, and the daily show. In addition to his work in television, he can be heard on the radio on sirius xm. Were very fortunate to have Michael Steele here today. Ill hand the podium over to our guest. Plod plod. Thank you. Good morning. Happy new year. Its so good youre up and alive and feeling good. Very simple way to start this. Donald trump is still president. Happy new year, and welcome to washington. Im done. This is it. Have a good day. No, really. Hes like, i like that, hes out. There are so many places to begin the conversation. I do want it to be a conversation because its a lot more fun that way. Id rather hear from you and what youre thinking, feeling, expecting, afraid of, happy about than standing here droning on about stuff you already know or think you know. I do want to frame the conversation this morning a little bit. I think one of the things thats not getting picked up too much in all of the drama that is the administration and all of the inconsistencies that exist right now within my own party that struggles with this internal reality of governing, is leadersh leadership. Youre all leaders, you just dont know it. The purpose of this program is to light that flame within you so that you see it. Others may see it. You may have had someone say to you you should run for office or you should think about doing this and with your ideas, your voice front and center. Leadership is a lot more than that. Leadership is the quite of sacrifice that our leaders today are afraid to me. For me, someone who has been an elected official, a party official, a grassroots guy. That was very disappointing. So part of the opportunity i see right now is to reignite that flame in all of us so that we understand fundamentally what our Civic Responsibility is as citizens. It is not to be sheep. It is not to be sheep. It is in our own way to lead. How we do that day in and day out matters. How we do that does lead to results oftentimes. I think before you get to all of that, you have to understand fundamentally three words, and why those three words are the flame, the ignition, the energy, the fuel of your leadership. They are we the people. See, what we started to do in this country its something i watched over many, many years, is that we will elevate this young lady here in our community and say, okay, shes going to run for fill in the office. And we get behind her and we rally her and she comes up with Great Campaign slogans and she makes beautiful commercials. She says all these wonderful things that make no sense but everybody goes, oh, thats great. Everybody gets all in the groove of the campaign. She has president given a frickin thought to what shes going to do the day after shes sworn into office. We the people sit back on our fat behinds, go back to our lattes, our daily whatever were doing. We turn it over to her and say, okay, baby, do your thing. See you in two years or four years. But the responsibility of leadership is there for both the candidate, now elected official, and for us, the citizen. We are the check. We are a government of checks and balances, are we not . The house and senate checks the executive. The executive checks the judiciary. The judiciary checks everybody, right . What makes us think that we arent a check on the very people that we elect and the very people that we elect also are a check on us to make sure that our expectations and our desires and our wants dont outstrip our capacity, our abilities to actually get things done. So that part of this for me is important as i watched the past two years. And ive watched this new leadership style emerge, this sort of reality tv kind of inthemoment style. I was all about disruption when i was rnc chairman. I love disruption. I think anything that disrupts the status quo is good when its done right, meaning its not destructive. Theres a big difference between being disruptive as a leader and being destructive as a leader. Where youre tearing down, not building up, not creating the kind of synergies that are going to be important for a foundation to stand on to do future things. One of the things that i remember as rnc chairman was having a conversation about the Health Care Bill at the time, now affectionately known as obamacare. One of the things that we were trying to figure out was how do you make the case to the American People about what this means and how it impacts them. Of course, there was the typical sort of consultancy kind of cra crazy, outlandish stuff they want you to say and do and go out and say these things. But thats not factually right. We cant go out there and scare people out of health care or into health care. We have to inform them. We have to do it and make a principled argaumenargument. What i realized is there was a battle even in that situation when you feel you have some control over the outcome, where you kind of lose your grip, where those other forces say no, no, no, dont do the sensible right thing, dont do the even though i was in a partisan position, dont do the think thats going to create a landscape where theres a conversation, but rather throw the fire bombs. Its all about raising the money, keeping the grassroots engaged. If ive got to scare people, if ive got to make them angry and pissed off, if ive got to tickle their funny bone or whatever to get them engaged, what does that say about us . What does that say about you . I tell people all the time. People moan and groan and complain about the administration. Baby, hes a reflection of you. Rereflects you. Dont give me oh, well, he lost the popular vote. Thats not how we elect a president. That doesnt change your circumstance, right . I wish i could blame somebody else for my lack of hair but no, baby, this is who i am. I cant blame anybody else. This is how it is. Understanding and appreciating the situation as it is helps you understand and define your leadership and how you step into the moment. When i was a young man im still a young man. No, no i spent a number of years in a monastery studying for the priesthood. It was a very powerful, exciting, formative period of my life. Went in right out of college. I learned a lot because when i stepped into that environment, i was immediately thrust into a world in which three things became very, very important. An important focus for me. Poverty, chastity and obedience. Those were three things that i promised in this new life. And what i discovered in that journey from then to now is how those three things work and how those three things actually shape my leadership and define my leadership because theyre not what you think they are. They rollie arent. So lets start with the fun one, chas stay. Everyone thinks chastity is about sex. Its not really. The biggest sex organ is what . Not between your legs. Its right here. I know some folks will say, well, i dont know about that. Trust me. It really is right here. And chastity is how you show your love for someone. Its how you define your relationship with someone. Certainly in a religious setting, the obligation, the commitment you make when you lead a chased life is not just to be unencumbered by a oneonone relationship with someone and certainly a physical relationship with someone, but its how you define love for others, how you are chased for everyone, loving each persons cally, showing respect, showing a connection for them. So i can then help them and be more accepting of that person. Whether they love me back, thats not what its about. Obedience. Obedience is again, not about bad boy, good boy. Obedience is about how you listen, how you listen to someo someone, particularly when you dont listen to someone. When youve had it up to here and you say, i just dont think about a priest in a confessional, how obedient you have to be in that moment, hour after hour, listening and loving. Being chased in that moment for that person and being obedient to thatperson by listening to them and trying to appreciate their walk, their concern, their issues, their problems. Then there was poverty. Poverty was not about the absence of having a nice car or having money in the bank. Its not about that. Poverty was about being poor in spirit. Dying to self, setting yourself lower than the people you serve, being a servant leader. So as i moved from that period of my life into a more public life, i brought those values with me, and they have been part of the architecture of my leadership ever since. As Lieutenant Governor, as rnc chairman, how i find ways to listen to people, to be obedient, how i find ways to love them when i really want to smack them upside the head, to be chased in that moment, if you will, and how to be poor, how to die to oneself, elevate someone else, even though im the chairman, im the Lieutenant Governor, im not the most important person in the room. The most important person in the room is that individual who is seeking help, that individual who requires assistance, that individual who has a problem. That individual who just wants to say hey, how are you doing . I like what youre doing. I think a lot of our leaders have lost that aspect, those aspects of what it means to be a servant leader. So the first thing i want to just sort of drop with you is that, i look out in this room and i see the future of our country, not 30 years from now, folks. Get that crap out of your head. Im talking about what youre going to do when you leave here today, when you go back to your universities and the institutions youre affiliated with, your communities, how will you assert those three values if you will in the relationship you have with the people you encounter. If you go on and decide to do something next year like, oh, run for office, or you start managing your own company or whatever happens in your life, how do you then elevate those principles and show them as a sign of contradiction in the world in which you live . Show your capacity to listen, and in that listening hear and understand and love someone as you find them, not as you want them to be, and then be willing to do what is necessary to help them improve the state of their life, the condition theyre in or just listen. Even in that simple moment, it solves many problems. I remember once i gave a speech to a group of young adults. These were men and women in their late 20s to late 30s. They were in this particular program where they were getting their ged. They had to walk a tough walk, and they were trying to get themselves back together. One of the first steps was to get the high school diploma, get the ged done. Then we can transition to other things. I gave this talk, and at the end of it this young woman was sitting there and she was very upset, started crying. I was thinking to myself, oh, lord, what did i say . I got this woman crying. Now the governor is going to call me. I went up to her and asked her what was wrong. She shared with me the fact that she has a little boy, she has a job and shes doing this program. The problem is that when she does this program, when she comes for this class and the seminars, shes away from work. And when shes away from work, her boss refuses to pay her her salary . So her paycheck is coming up short, and because her paycheck is coming up short, shes behind on her rent. Because shes behind on her rent, her landlord just sent her notice of eviction. Shes trying to figure out how shes going to get herself together, how shes going to care for her child and how shes going to try to continue to improve the kaumt quality of he through this program when shes on the street because at the end of the week, she has to leave her apartment. That is a poverty, chas stay and obedient moment if ever there was one. So what i did was, i got on the phone to our secretary of housing, and i said to him, i said, look, please tell me that in this big thing called government we have a program for this problem, that theres a way in which we can put resources to work that can help. We found a program for her in which it supplemented her income because her employer wasnt paying her her full wages. She graduated the program, she stayed in her apartment, she got a job, she and her kid were going to be okay. That comes from listening, loving and doing. As leaders, thats all youre asked to do. You have to figure out how to do it. Youre going to make mistakes in doing it. So i know i could have come up here and sort of waxed poetic. Well get into the q a and get into all the crazy that is this town, but i just felt that its important that, as we come into this new year and as you are finding ways to embark on your own individual journeys, whatever your aspirations are, know that you are part of this ideal called we the people, and that you have a responsibility that goes with that. Its not just voting. Its not just reading the newspaper and being up on the news. Its about how you civically engage as well. Its how you become part of many solutions, solving as many problems as you can, and you may never hold elective office, right . You may never run a business. You may never do anything that has you out front in the public eye, but always know that youre still a leader, that there are people who watch you and learn from your example, that there are people who will listen to you and learn from what you say, and that is an awesome, awesome thing and its an awesome responsibility. Its one that i think a lot of us as citizens have forgotten. We have grown lazy. We have grown bored with ourselves. Thats why donald trump is so damned entertaining, to be honest. He shaped his viewing audience into a voting audience. Were in a reality tv presidency where all those qualities arent necessarily important anymore. We dont have to listen because its fake news, right . We dont have to do because its partisan. This is my tribe. Thats your tribe. We dont mix. I dont have to care because i dont like you, you dont like me. And i dont think that is what our Founding Fathers and mothers because you know the women were sitting there, all right, george, get up, you got to go to philly, get up. So thats not what they wanted and its not what i expect of your generation or any generation. So that i think to me is the way to start our conversation. Ill leave that seed with you. Ill be happy now to kind of throw it open and we can go wherever you want to go in the q a because trust me theres a lot to cover. I want you to think about that as you go from here. My name is alexander and i go to Suffolk University in boston. Six feet of snow your way i know i think i can speak for all of us by saying we thank you and appreciate your time today. Sure. I wanted to talk to you about the gop tax bill. You recently came out and said you were kind of shocked by the fact that the plan is kind of setting us and our generation up for quite a bit of debt, additional debt. And i was wondering, could you expand upon that . Can you add any other critiques of the gop plan and additionally kind of how some of the gop leaders handle the situation in terms of listening to their constituents, but also kind of putting party over common good. Sure. Well, lets start with that. That is the first fundamental flaw in the process, was this was not public. It was not something that engaged the American People. As we saw six, eight years ago with obamacare. Same thing. Washington does not work when the republican tribe and the democratic tribe decide to play in their own camps. We have too many examples of that recently, and we also have examples of the opposite. When you stop and look at the 1986 tax bill with Ronald Reagan and tip oneill at their respective helms. That was an 18month process that ended with bipartisan support and votes. And everybody got a little win. Everybody got a little bit of pain. And i remember being in a particular industry at the time. I was doing some work in the finance area and they wiped out completely wiped out what i did. Okay, fine, fine. Something else to do. So everybody had a little pain and everybody had a little gain. The problem that i have with this bill is that there are a couple of things i found to be disconcerting. The first and foremost was how disingenuous we were about the impact and the cost. Remember, i had a hand in electing 63 members who came to congress on the idea that they would not grow the size of government, they would not spend one dollar that we could not afford and they would not increase the National Debt. The debt had grown close to 10 trillion under george bush which was a real problem for fiscal conservatives, and led to some of the big shellack ns we saw in 2006 and 2008 where republicans said enough. And then, of course, it doubled under barack obama. By the time we got to 2010, you had these individuals who said enou enough, again, reflecting what they heard from their constituents back at home that they were concerned about the debt thats being placed on future generations. Ill be straight up, the 1. 5 trillion that they just created, thats not my problem. Sorry, it aint. Its not my problem. Its your problem. Its your kids problem. A child born today owes the federal government over 55,000. If you dont think thats a problem, cool. Well go on our merry way and see where things end up. All of a sudden because you have a republican in the white house and you have republicans in charge in the senate and the house, to throw away a fundamental principle that we had been beating up everybody over for the last tenplus years, to me was wholly disingenuous. I had a problem with creigh the idea of creating this much debt, how are you going to pay for this . How do you make sure that bill is covered. The second part is i had a real problem with the weight of the bill. Permanent tax cuts for corporations look, im a corporate guy. I love it. Great, wonderful. But your tax cut is not permanent. Its not. In fact, youre going to have a battle by the time you get to 2024, 2025 over whether or not they make those tax cuts permanent. So a future congress and a future president are going to have to have that conversation. Why . To sell this as something it was not to me was problematic. I think those two pieces for me were of such a magnitude that i found it very hard to go out and say, yeah, this is a great bill. Theres features in the bill i like, but a lot of stuff i dont like. State and local tax is going away. Lets call it what it was. Can we just be honest and say this was to screw blue state democrats. If we cant be honest about the stuff right in front of us, i dont understand oh, no, it wasnt that at all. This was good Public Policy. Fine. Tell that to the people in california, new york, florida and elsewhere. So those aspects of the bill to me were really problematic. Thank you so much. Sure. Im from Miamidade College in south florida. What future do social conservatives have in the Republican Party, not just in the age of trump, but in the aftermath with roy moore losing the alabama special election . The future is going to be wherever they want it to be. I consider myself a social conservative, but im not going to beat you up about it. Theres some aspects of Public Policy where i think we should be mindful of certain principles and ideas. Im willing to have that debate and fight over those issues. Thats what you do. Thats what any republic, any democracy, any Strong Political environment would welcome. But what i saw in this last election with respect to particularly evangelical voters was disheartening beyond words. Im sorry. Im just a straight up kind of guy. You dont preach to me for 30 years telling me how to live my life, who to love, whatnot to do, what to do, where to live, what kind of person i should be and then in this election cycle and certainly in the case of roy moore say thats my guy. Oh, hell no. Thats not how this works. To me all credibility particularly in the case of roy moore, all credibility was lost, and thats going to be something thats going to take some time in my view to rebuild because i just please, do not come up in my face preaching, do not. That to me was just such an insult to back someone with the kind of credible evidence of his personal behavior and say that i have to stand with this guy or we have to support him because of some damn vote in the senate . Are you kidding me . Thats what our principles now have become, whether or not we had a vote in the senate. So we throw all that out. It makes no sense to me, and i think its going to come back to bite republicans hard this year. I think women in this country looked at that and went, okay, okay, thank you. We know. Got you, got you. We got you covered in november. Well show you. If you dont believe me, just look at virginia. 13 out of the 16 seats that were won were won by women. What people dont i think appreciate, what has happened in the course of the last year, folks looked at the womens march on washington the weekend after the inauguration and said, oh, its a one off, a lot of people upset, cant accept the election. Okay. What i did was i just stayed in touch with folks. I listened to what they were saying and i watched them. What i saw was organization, instruction, identification, support for women to run. And i applaud that. I want to see more women running stuff because the men really have showed they cant seem to get it right at this point. Hello. Am i off here or what . I think that that is its a balance in the system that we i would particularly like to see more republican women run. The way the narrative about our party gets changed is when white men stop being the ones defining who we are, to be honest. And i think that that is that pla balance, when i see one woman standing there when i know all the other women that can serve, thats a problem. When i look around the country and see how were out promoting and supporting people of color, women, et cetera, for various office when i was in office we focused deliberately on that. Got hispanics elected governors of our country, sandoval and others. We got members elected to the house, state legislatures, judgeships, elected black judges in texas. When your mind is there and youre focused in it, it can happen. All this stuff about social conservatives and how this plays out doesnt matter for me at this point because they tore that card up for me. Thank you so much. Yes, sir. Hello. Im andy from New Jersey City University located in jersey city, new jersey. My question is, the Republican Party, theyve been going through a massive period of upheaval since the last election, whether it be john mccain voting down to repeal and replace obamacare or how with the sexual allegations and many longtime republicans coming out saying they dont support trump or they will not work with him. Where do you see the Republican Party going for the next few years and do you think the Republican Party has lost its position in the United States because of all thats been going on . I dont think its lost its position. It certain wli has not helped itself. I gave you an example of where i think theyre going to find some real problems going into campaigns this year. I think the other thing to understand about some of the dynamics with the base of the party and the elected leadership, into get this a lot. Why havent republican leaders, mccain and others not mccain, but mcconnell and others sort of really put their foot down with their president. Because they go back home to their districts and states and see the president sitting at 60plus percent. Do the math. If the guy is popular in your back yard, youre not going to go slam them. Thats unfortunate, but thats the way politics works. So you see, until you see a dropoff for the president in states, and you saw that in alabama. Why alabama . Little noticed, little noticed in the alabama race was a change in the numbers. This really kind of makes my point. President trump for a significant portion of the year was at about 63 approval in the state of alabama. On the day of the election, 48 . So what that said to me was that dropoff, that 15point dropoff was the sign of something. Remember, were talking alabama. Were not talking, you know, something thats weighted more towards democrats or weighted more towards independents. This is a conservative state and conservatives dominate in the state. So that told me there was a problem, theres leakage, seepage. Where was the seepage . Among republican women. So i think when the party is looking at that and youre seeing trend lines, thats where youll see a change in behavior. It shouldnt be that way, because if youre a principled individual going back to the way we started our conversation it shouldnt matter what the poll numbers say, it shouldnt matter whether the president is popular in your district or state or whatnot. What should matter is how do you insert your leadership and inject your voice into that National Conversation about x, y, z. Thats going to be a real struggle for republicans going forward. Theyre going to be one eye watching the numbers and with the other eye trying to figure out how we survive. We are in survival mode starting right now. Youll see that play itself out in crazy ways between now and november. Yes, sir. My name is josh dub bows with harvard extension. Special counsel special counsel. What do you think the likelihood that well get a report from mueller without an attempt by trump to get him fired . And if we do get a report, what do you think and the report implicates him in some criminal activity, what do you think the current gop Congress Republican congress will respond with . Well, its a little bit complicated in the sense that we dont really know what mueller knows or where hes really going. Now, ive said from the very beginning that this was never about collusion. I dont even know what the hell collusion is. I dont know what it looks like, i dont know how you do it. Thats the problem. Its not illegal. It just isnt, but other things are. The moment that muellers office said we want to take a look at some financial records see, the thing about a good, good criminal enterprise is not the crime, its how they pay for it. Its the money. Its always the money. Thats the trail he seems to be on right now. Yesterday certainly mr. Bannon gave us a lot more fodder for that particular argument. I think in terms of what mueller does, if mueller comes out and says i would not be surprised, by the way, if mueller doesnt indict the president or find any criminal wrongdoing by the president. I would not be surprised at all for that. But if he does, what it will do for the congress is put it back on its heels because they have to make a very harsh political calculation. Do they do like former u. S. Senator baker and go down to the white house and say, mr. Preside president . Or do they jump on the trump fake news narrative and sort of play it off as fake news and its not real . Harder to do given that mueller, despite what you may see and hear and read in the newspapers is very well respected and regarded in this town. A lot of the bs out there now by republicans they should be ashamed of themselves. These are the same people who but a few years ago were singing his praises and lauding this man for his character, his qualities, his capabilities. You want to dismiss the faeng news, any republican who gets up and slams robert mueller, just know theyre lying because, trust me, thats not how they really feel about him. Thats not how theyve ever felt about him and donald trump certainly doesnt change that for them. But the politics, again, getting back to the poison that is coming from our politics will make that very, very hard to navigate once that decision is made whenever it comes out. Look, youve already had folks pleading guilty. Come on. Youve got four people, oh, i give up, we did it, sorry, im guilty. And then you go and say, well, theres nothing here, theres no legal i dont understand why were having this, this is crazy. Thats just not believable. So something will come. What it is we dont know yet. I applaud mr. Mueller and his team for keeping this so close to the vest as they have. And i think that when its all said and done, republicans are going to find themselves in a very tight spot regardless of whether or not the president is formally brought into this in a legal way. Because of the reputation and the work of his team, it does matter. All the side stuff with strzok and others, the fbi agent who was musing abiliout the preside hes a private citizen. He gets to do that. Sorry. Nothing wrong there. No prejudice there because all theyre doing are following facts. Theyve got to take that before a judge who will then see if theres any bias in that because hes looking at the evidence, too. Youll have to justify that in order to get the indictments, in order to get the subpoenas, in order to get the investigation to go down the road. The fact that it has tells me that was not a bar to any of that. Mueller did the right thing by getting him out of there because he knew the politics. He knew exactly how it would play politically. Yes, maam. My maim is rebecca reeves, a senior at Keen State College in new hampshire. Keen by nature, a majority of our students are democrats. I was wondering how do you believe the Republican Party can effectively engage millennial voters, especially young women and what policies aside from the tax bill do you believe will impact millennials the most . Thats a very good question. Lets start with engaging millennials. The one thing i love about millennials i was about to say millennial voters, but millennials in general, is the intuitive nature that you have about things, the instincts you have about problem solving. My way of describing it is millennials look at a problem and ask one question, is there an app for that . If theres no app, they go and create one. They create one to feed the poor and the hungry. They create one to deal with issues within the community, and i think that that is something that is a very powerful tool resource for our community at large going into the future, to have that kind of sort of intuitive look at problem solving which is not the environment in which i came out of. If there was a problem, you never had to ask me about an app because you were too busy creating other problems to solve that problem. So its a very different approach. So that being said, i think what i find opportunistic is the fact that in many instances millennials tend to be a little bit more apolitical. In other words, parties dont mean as much to your generation as they did to the generation before or the generation before that or certainly my generation. And this will redefine how we engage politically. When the r and the d matters less, as i think it should, and i say that as a former national chairman, but ive always believed that, even as a part san, that the less emphasis we place on the party and the more we place on philosophical ideals and policy, thats how i think we can win the day, make the case and win the day. So, for example, looking at things, that entrepreneurial spirit that defines your generation, were all about that, were all about creating that space in which entrepreneurs flourish and thrive. Its not just about tax policy, but its also about how thats integrated with health care, how its integrated with wages. And i think we can lead on these things, the environment. I remind my party a lot about the fact that we walk away from our history on some very basic things that i know are very important to millennials. Civil rights, for example. We were in the forefront of that for many generations. We walked away from that. Environmental policy. Again, in the forefront of that for many generations. Walking away from it. We forget, a republican president created the epa. Today we treat the epa like its a cancer on the political system. We do the same with Voting Rights. We were champions of Voting Rights and we cant even get the damn Voting Rights bill out of the drawer and voted on for renewal. The last time it was done was under a republican president , george bush. Without hesitation, boom, done, everybody moving on, protecting the rights of citizens ability to vote. Those things matter to millennials in a way that weve not seen and to a degree weve not seen in other generations. I think being able to speak to in an honest authentic way is going to be important. Unfortunately i dont think we can do that right now, to be honest. I think its a possibility of losing that vote early enough right now instead of growing it. As you get older and more established in your political thinking and ways, i want to be a part of that. I want the party to be a part of that and be competitive with democrats. I dont want to see those arguments or that ground. Doesnt mean ive got to capitulate on my values. I dont have to be less conservative. I have to be a rino and all that other crazy b. S. I have to be true, authentic, honest and say this is how we see america grow and processeriprocess esperingprosp, this is how we see your role in it. To be honest, i think its a little bit harder argument to make to millennials today, particularly on some of the issues i just raised and say, hey, go support the republican here. And they look and say, well, wasnt he the same guy who supported the pedophile . And it becomes a very hard argument. This will be real quick. We can do this. Good morning, sir. I wanted to know if serving leadership as a check against populism. Can we use that to make a return to a more buckleyesque conservatism or has that train left the platform . I havent given up on that train. Look, i dont have a problem with populism. I have a concern about nationalism. I have a concern about the distortion of certain values and principles that i think are foundational. And thats why i think servant leaders are the ones who can reanchor that in a raeal sense. I like that idea of competing ghe against this emerging philosophy, if you will, the bannonization of american politics, which you now see at odds with the very person they supported. That tells me where that wants to go, and i think we need to be prepared for that fight. Im asking all of you to stand your ground. Youre want to fight for an america that Still Believes in what that lady in the new york harbor stands for. You want to fight for an america that Still Believes as citizens we all are equal and have an equal say and access to opportunity, that my neighbor is not my enemy, that the press is not there lying to me every time they write, say or show me something. If you want to fight for that, then okay, lets get engaged. If you dont, roll over, because youre about to get it, trust me. And it wont be fun. I have a question on civic engagement. Do you think theres a chance that people will once again believe in we the people when many individuals today believe their voice doesnt have a say . I think they do and i think they can. The reason i have that hope is because im looking at a room full of people i have hope in, to be honest. We the people is literally that, we the people. If one of us falls down, what does that say to the rest of us . Weve got to figure out how to help him up and keep walking, right . Or are we going to just leave him there. Thats the cross roads were asked. Youre either going to have compassion and act on that compassion or youre just going to be a stone and youre just going to move on and let it go. I hope you dont do that, i really do. This wonderful wacky experiment we call america still has meaning, still has value. Yes, its past and history is ugly, its tortured, its painful, its this, its that. But its also one of the most fundamentally important things that we have to offer the rest of the world. And they want us to offer it. I mean, i talk to diplomats. I talk to leaders from around the globe. These folks still look to us and they still look to future generations of americans to help us help the world. And the world wants to be a part of helping us too. I think theres a lot there to still fight for. And i hope all of you will find a way in the words of thurgood marshall, we all pull ourselves up by our own boot straps, but once in a while we need someone to help us and thats where you all come in. Thank you very much. [ applause ]. Appreciate you all. Have a very good year. Make the most of it. Create as much noise as you possibly can. Be disruptive, not drug drug destructive. All right. Thanks. Well be leaving this event at this point as the next featured speaker hasnt been cleared to appear on tv. And the hill writing this morning that a group of Senate Republicans are expected to meet with President Trump at the white house today as they try to get on the same page ahead of a looming fight over immigration. Theyre supposed to meet at the white house, a number of Senate Judiciary members to talk about d daca. Read more in thehill. Com. Later today mark goldwine will talk about the National Debt and u. S. Economy. Live coverage starts at 12 30 eastern here on cspan 3. On our companion network cspan, the Washington Institute for near east policy will host a forum on the ongoing protests in iran. Live coverage starts at 12 30 eastern. Sunday night, federal apel late judge jon newman looks back at his judicial career in his book benched. As a judge of 45 years, having gone from that active life of making decisions and doing to court and advocating a case to judging, was that a difficult transition for you . And did you ever miss the life of advocacy, so to speak . It wasnt difficult. It had been for some who ive known. In fact, ive known people who became judges and so disliked the Decision Making process, that they left the bench. I was an advocate. I was glad to be an advocate. I found the decisionmaking process, while it was different, enormously challenging, enormously satisfying. While i liked being an attorney, ive got to say i loved being a judge. The opportunity to resolve disputes, large and small they all matter to somebody, but some of them have large public significance. Thats a very satisfying role. Watch sunday night at 9 00 eastern on book tv on cspan2. Up next, army, navy and air force senior officials testify on defense acquisition and management, including efforts to improve military readiness and capeness through weapon and military modernization. The Senate Armed ServicesCommittee Held this hearing last month