If i hack up a lung, i apologize. I committed to this a few months ago, and you just never know when youre going to get sick will im here to share my journey from arizona to working in National News and politics here in the nations capital. Before i start rambling about myself, id like to get to know all of you a little better. How many for you is it your first time in washington, d. C. . Welcome. Thats kind of a lot of you. And where are you from . Any west coast eers . Yeah. Not that many. What about new yorkers . Anyone from the south . Nice. Are there any d. C. Locals here . A few. You know, my twoyear anniversary in d. C. Is going to happen at the end of april, and i notice that d. C. Is a very transient city so i never really meet a lot of people that were born and raised here who stay here. Its a tough city, but its a beautiful city and theres so many opportunities out here if you look for them and if you work hard. How many of you want to pursue a career in politics or news . Makes sense. How about just news . How about fake news . Just kidding. And politics . And those of you who are raising your hands for politics, do you want to run for office or do you want to work for the government, work for political candidates . Feel free to shout a few things. Run for office. I like it. More women in office, im for that, especially young people and millennials. Who is a freshman and junior . Raise your hand . Im sorry, freshman and sophomore. . Okay. Some young folks in here. The juniors and seniors . Okay. Very good. And the reason im asking this is because once upon a time, i was in your shoes. I was trying to figure out what i wanted to do for a living, my life, what career i could pursue and actually be good at, and how i could make a difference. I just want to pause for a second, and i want all of you to give yourselves a pat on the back for being here today, just even getting into a college that you wanted to go to and being part of this program and visiting d. C. Is a huge accomplishment. You know, dont underestimate yourselves. Its a big deal. I think youre going to learn a lot today from everything ive heard about this program ,and hopefully at least you will take one thing away from my conversation today. I wanted to tell you a little bit about what im doing right now. And then after ill give you the details on how i was able to pursue my passions. I work as a video columnist for the daily caller. You may be asking yourself what is daily caller. Does anyone know what the daily caller is . No . You will learn today. And then you might be asking yourself what the heck is a video columnist . I didnt know what a video columnist was either. That title didnt really exist when i was in college. The daily caller is an online media outlet. Its cofounded by tv commentator Tucker Carlson. Hes the host of Tucker Carlson tonight on fox news. Thats a very successful and highly rated program. In fact, tucker came in at second place as the most watched cable news host in 2019. The first place host went to sean hannity. Third place went to msnbcs rachel maddow. The other cofounder is neil patel. Hes former chief policy adviser to Vice President cheney. Patel is very involved in our daytoday operations. We get around 20 million unique readers each month, which is kind of a pretty big deal actually, so for me its an honor to have such a big, huge platform with so much flexibility on what i can cover, who i can interview and what i can talk about. For video columnist that didnt really exist when i was in college, as i mentioned and as you may have noticed the News Business is evolving fast. In college i remember actually getting a newspaper in the morning and reading it while Drinking Coffee and then walking to campus. How many of you actually get a newspaper at your dorm or your apartment or house . A few people. One person back there. Three people here. Its incredible. I mean i just cant believe it. Newspaper every day. Now were all on our cell phones. A lot of us consume our media from social media from twitter and facebook. I think the majority is something close to 70 last time i looked at the numbers. Not that im that old, im a millennial, by the way, not trying to age myself here today, so i also write and i shoot video monologues, mostly Opinion Pieces or explainers from a conservative perspective. I consider myself more of an opinion person, registered republican, but everything i talk about is fact based. Im careful and thoughtful about the things that i put together. I take issue with a lot of the journalists today who pretend that theyre unbiased or have no agenda, no motive, and thats kind of what i set out to do at first, was i wanted to just tell stories, but as my career has been changing ive decided to take a side and have an opinion. So i interview a lot of highprofile people, senators, members of congress, Trump Administration officials, political candidates from across the country. I go to protests and rallies and talk to people there. I ask them questions. I talk to regular folks who have interesting stories. A lot of stories i get people just dm me on twitter or facebook and tell me about a story, and thats also what i love about social media it connects you to people that would never really have a voice. I do a lot of my own video editing, which i used to complain a lot about in college, why are they teaching me how to use premier and eds and final cut pro. Im not a computer person. I never thought i would have to use it, but im using it every single day right now with all of my stories and a lot of people have a hard time believing i edit all of my own content. I write and publish my own articles so im pretty busy these days. I was also cohost for like it or not that airs on fox 5 in the d. C. Area. A weekly regular on fox business, fox news. Ive made appearances on msnbc, sky tv australia, local news in puerto rico, cspan which i think theyre running a live stream right now hi, mom and dad i hope they are watching. Abc 7 st. Clair, the daily caller was featured in an episode of showtimes the circus which was kind of cool. I was interviewed by abc nightline. They dropped by my office last year to interview me about a twitter feud i had with rapper cardi b. The feud was over twerking. And im not kidding. Like this actually happened. I never imagined in a million years that, you know, i would be on nightline talking about twerking. Before the daily caller i was an adviser for National Diversity coalition for trump. In a nutshell its a group that strongly supports the president and his administration. The coalitions mission is to recruit, mobilize and educate citizens of all backgrounds. It was to be the voices for minority communities. The list goes on. I am bicultural, so dont let my highlights and my last name fool you. My mother is an immigrant from mexico. She comes from the state of halisko and comes from a very small town outside of guadalajara, the second biggest city, and the farm town like 300 people live there. And she came to the u. S. Many years ago to come live the american dream. She did it the right way. She applied for citizenship, and it was history from then. My dads side of the family is from michigan and i si habla espanol, better than beto orourke. It was important for me to communicate with my family that still lives there and i visit mexico quite a bit and still communicate with my family there. The reason i talk about all of this, take a break for water for a second, a lot of people ask me or suggest to me that maybe i came from privilege or that my parents must be like well connected, and thats not how i got my foot in the door in politics at all or in the National News at all. Its not even close to my story. My family wasnt well connected. I grew up in a middleclass family. Ive worked at least a parttime job since i was 16. I was the first to actually graduate college in my immediate family. I didnt have anyone to guide me through the process. I just figured it out along the way. I give my parents a lot of credit for being supportive and always inspiring me to do more and be my best. Youll find that a lot of people want to be a critic, they dont want to empower you, they want to tell you no, you cant do it or its too difficult, its impossible. I mean, even just wanting to study journalism, people are like, oh, youre not smart enough to go to college. Journalism school is too competitive. You wont get in. Our teachers in Journalism School, a lot were great, but they were very honest and said, you know, a lot of you if you want to do tv broadcast, youre not going to make it, youll never find a job, its low paying. If you want to be poor the rest of your life, this is the career for you. Its not worth the struggle, run, do Something Else fast. But i didnt like those answers, and i think that you have to ignore the negativity thats around you because even the people closest to you sometimes will hurt your feelings, shut you down, step on you, et cetera. Ive had a million doors closed on me. Ive had some like extremely soul crushing moments through my life. Im sure i still have a lot more to overcome. Things are going pretty well right now, but you never know. A lot of you raised your hands when i asked who wanted to pursue a career in news and politics. We all have our own reasons and motivations. Hopefully theyre good ones. Yes. Okay. These are important careers and they both shape and influence the direction of our country. Somebody has to step up. So i think its really important to take on these roles. Journalists, theyre supposed to be the watchdogs of our nation and the world. Theyre supposed to expose corruption. Keep politicians in check. Keep us informed. Theyre supposed to be the fearless voices for our communities, among other things, and as for the state of the news media today, well, we can get into that in a bit. I can just say that im very concerned and very disappointed. Now politics, as you already know, our political leaders play a key role in the creation of policies and all of those policies affect the way we live our lives. So that goes from how much we pay in taxes, from the health care that we receive, the quality of water, gas prices, education, our national security, the air we breathe, literally everything, even the food on the shelves at the grocery stores. If youre at the National Level in politics, of course that affects everyone in our country, state and local, that affects our communities. I think you get the point. So all of that was fascinating to me when i was around your age learning about it and to be honest, i really couldnt articulate what our politicians did or our local officials did. I didnt know what the difference between the city council, the state legislature and our members of congress and the state senate. Like that was very confusing for me when i was your age. Maybe youre a little smarter than me when i was in college. You never know. I remember one of my classes they would have us cover the city council meetings, we would write stories as if we were real working journalists and we would interview some of the City Council Members, and they would give us quotes. We would turn in our articles. It was very legit. Most of the students in my class thought it was really, really boring, but for me, it was like an eye opener on how everything works in our towns and cities and showed me what an Important Role that the people we elect have. From there i got lucky. One of the City Council Members saw that i had an interest in city government, so he invited me to intern for him. His name was rodney glassman. He was a democrat. I wasnt always a registered republican. My views have changed over the years, as i have had more time to examine some of the issues i care about and carefully think about what matters to me and what i think is best for this country. At the time i was a registered independent, and i was an independent up until around 2016. After that, i was approached by one of my university of arizona professors who told me about a paid internship at the state legislature in phoenix with arizona capital television. The state version of cspan, sort of. We ran the live feeds of all the floor debates and votes. We also did feature pieces on the elected officials, and this was so their constituents could get to know them a little bit better. It was really a great experience and im so thankful for that professor who approached me and asked me to apply. It was a very competitive internship. I was one of two students from the Journalism School who was selected that semester. The reason i bring this up is because sometimes we dont realize how important it is to talk to our professors, have them get to know who we are, what were interested in, because theyre very connected. They can help you guys. They can connect you to these internships similar to what my professor did for me. It was life changing. I hope that you guys take those advantages. Obviously youre here today, so like i said, step in the right direction here. How many of you have done an internship or are interning right now . Nice. For those of you who didnt raise your hand, why are you not doing internships yet . Anyone want to comment . Exactly. Yeah, working part time. It was tough to balance all of it. But i would say that internships are so important, and its really where you develop your skills and learn about your strengths and weaknesses and learn about responsibility. And the more you do, the more connections you make, the stronger your resume is and youll have a better idea of what youre really interested in. So i know it is really tough to try to balance work and school and socializing and Everything Else about being college students. But you really got to make that sacrifice. So whether its just an internship a couple hours a week, that will make a big difference. So how many of you who didnt raise your hand for internships might consider trying very hard to get one in the next year or two . One person. Two, three, four, five. Okay. Cool. So from the State Capitol i was after my internship at the State Capitol, i was asked by the same Council Member from tucson to join his statewide senate campaign. We ended up winning the fourway democratic primary, which was cutthroat. It was vicious. It was really difficult to win that in arizona. Unfortunately, we lost against the republican candidate which was the late john mccain. You may have heard of him. It was an unforgettable experience. I traveled all over the state from the Navajo Nation to the border cities like nogales, arizona. I had a chance to talk to elected officials. Across the the state, meet with people and realize how big our states are and how different each community and county is and each state. Its so incredibly different. You realize what a challenge it is for our state senators who have to manage an entirely state. Not just members of congress who have our districts with needs. Our plans to go to washington died with that failing campaign. I was hoping that my candidate was going to take me to d. C. If you guys know how campaigns work, usually you dont get paid much, you work a lot of hours a week. I think i was working 80 hours a week or more. I put everything into that. Usually campaigns will pick from volunteers or workers and give them their first pick of workers or jobs in the district they are representing. So i had to kind of figure out where i was going to go from there. So i started sending out video reels and doing standups for news packages because i studied journalism. So what else would i do . I included some of the work i had done at the state capital. No one was biting. I think i was maybe sending my demo reel to the wrong places. I thought i was ready for primetime news. I didnt realize you had to start in small markets and work your way up. No one told me that. So wasnt having any luck. Out of the blue i reached out to the person who inspired me to study journalism. Her name was lorraine rivera. I talked to her a couple years ago and saw her in tucson. She works for pbs in tucson. At the time im not going to go into the whole story how we met. Its kind of a weird story. At the time she worked as a local news anchor in tucson. She told me directly, your reel sucks. You need a reel, by the way, is just a montage of your best work as a journalist. And she hated it. She told me to come to work with her one day and shadow her. She was kind enough to let me interrupt her workday. She let me borrow a videographer and let me to the standups for her stories and they gave me my own video. It was one of the kindest things anyone has ever done for me, an she had no reason to do it for me. She eventually ended up helping me land a job in yuma, arizona, a cbs affiliate. We covered the desert southwest, which included parts of mexico and california. As a reporter i didnt really have a beat. I covered the border, crime, court trials, agriculture, politics, education, pretty much everything. I was also a weekend anchor and the weather girl. The meteorologist taught me how to put together my own graphics. Luckily in yuma, arizona its pretty much clear skies all the time if youve ever been there. Is anyone from arizona, by the way . Any wild cats . Bear down. Did anyone go to the asu game over the weekend . Okay. Well, it was a home game. U of a crushed the sundevils and it was awesome, and i was there. Great homecoming for me. So anyway, from there i went on to work for one America News Network in san diego, california. It was a new conservative leaning news network. I was a writer, producer, booker, reporter, and fill in anchor. I was so busy, it was like i didnt have time to use the bathroom. It was like hard to eat and get a break in. Probably not very fair, but thats life. And i actually started at this network before it even launched. It was a huge decision to leave the cbs affiliate. It was pretty risky. I remember having a conversation with my parents. Its always good to bounce ideas of things you want to do in the future with the people that you love. My dad is like thats really risky. Why would you leave cbs to go work for some network that no one has ever heard of. Thats crazy. My mom is, you should do it. Go to san diego, National News. Thats what you want to do. So this was a big back and forth. I just to roll the dice and how i did even find out about this network that wasnt on air yet. Well, there was a person i had had interned with at pbs in college who worked there on the entertainment side for what was called, the wealth of entertainment. He d. M. d me on facebook and told me to apply. So i did. Which brings me to relationships and how you treat people. I think that all really matters. The world works in mysterious ways. Not only not that you should be nice to people because youre expecting something in return. Thats not how it works. But just remember to treat people the way that you want to be treated. What goes around comes around, seriously. It really does. A lot of the opportunities ive had in my career come from the relationships ive had with former coworkers and people ive met along the way. So i really think it matters, and you should always give back when you can. Never expect anything in return. Another big one is for political another big one for political and news people is social media. How many of you use social media . Okay. Anyone opposed to using social media . Theyre totally off twitter, dont use facebook . Why dont you want to use social media . It is. Big time suck. I know. Trust me. So the reason im asking about social media is i think its a game changer for our generations. People like me from a small city with no connections now has a national platform, and part of that reason is because of social media. I know its annoying. Theres a lot to manage. It also has a lot of disadvantages because everything you say can and will be used against you later on. May seem like a good idea to tweet at 2 00 in the morning after you had a couple glasses of wine or cocktails. But then you wake up and realize there is something called tweet tunnel. Right . Also were living in the cancel culture era. You say one wrong thing and everything you worked so hard for, they want to just make you disappear. Its sad. Im for forgiveness, second chances. No ones perfect. Social media is how i got connected with the trump Diversity Coalition. They noticed a lot of the video clips i was posting, some of the things i was saying. So thats how i got connected with them. Its obviously how i got connected with one America News Network with my former friend intern who i hadnt talked to in a long time. He was watching my work on facebook. So people are watching you. We can all help each other. And now im here. I also wanted to warn everyone what its like getting your foot into either business as i was told in college, little pay, no pay, a lot of like, free internship not free but working for free in internships, very long hours. Major sacrifices. I told you about the soul crushing moments. I have so many sad stories. But im not going to tell you today. Its kind of weird. Ill save it for my first book. Of like horror stories. There are so many talented and intelligent people in the political and News Business world. I think what really sets people apart is work ethic your character. A College Degree is great if youre if you can afford to get one which all of you are here. Youre in college, so you took out some huge Student Loans or you have some nice parents that set aside a little cash for you guys to go to school. My parents helped me a little bit. I had to take out Student Loans. Its rough. So depending on your profession, of course i guess i always tell people this. Too. I dont think college is necessary to be successful in life, and youll hear a lot of stories of people that have done well. But college is great if can you go to college. I say stay in school, get your degree, but know that thats not going to guarantee success for you. If youre a brain surgeon, i think you do need to finish medical school, by the way. As for my politics going from wait, quick question. Time wise . Okay. Q a. Well, let me just read this really quickly then the q a. As for my politics, going from supporting democrats to republicans, i dont want to get too political on you guys. Im respectful of other peoples opinions. I think its important to hear other views. And i think its good to have people challenge you. Its okay to be uncomfortable. I love america. I deeply care about our country. I believe that we live in the greatest freest nation in the world. I hope to help and preserve what makes our country great for future generations to come. I stand for the National Anthem and our flag. I believe the u. S. Constitution is the greatest document ever written. It remains relevant now and in the future. Im pro second amendment. You value free speech. Im against the effort to try to fundamentally transform america. I think democratic socialism which is what our favorite congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez promotes is dangerous and misleading. Im for law and order i supported donald trump because of his focus on putting america first. That really resonated for me. Not that im for america alone, but what trump was talking about was fairness when it came to trade deals and tariffs and defense spending from nato countries. I think they all have to pay their fair share. We need to tackle the illegal Immigration Crisis in our country. I dont think our country will survive with open borders. I say this as a daughter of an immigrant from mexico. I dont think our immigration laws are racist. We need to take care of the people that already live here. Think about the homelessness crisis. Its unacceptable that there are third world Living Conditions in states like california and other cities in our country. I think we can do better. I will jump to q a. So who is first . Theres a mic over there. Good. Hello. My name is cecilia. Im a student at the university in boston. So you mentioned you were not always a registered republican and that you did change party affiliation. So my question is, what experiences did you have that were very significant in your change of thoughts . I think they always say if youre not a democrat when youre young, you have to heart, if youre not a republican by the time youre 35 you have no brain. No offense to anyone here but thats what i was told. I started looking i was socially liberal and fiscally conservative. So some of the main issues i always cared about remain the same. And when i was an independent working on democratic campaigns, i just mentioned one campaign i worked on. I helped several other democrats on their campaigns, whether it was working at the Democratic National committee in arizona and doing phone banking and going door to door dropping off flyers for a congressman which i consider one of most radical leftists in congress right now, i mean i have several examples of this. But so i was socially liberal. Fiscally conservative. I was always prolife but when i was younger i was prochoice for women. My views on that changed, i guess, as i started to learn more about the issue. Ive always been pro second amendment. In arizona, i grew up shooting guns with my dad. He was really into hunting. I kind of got a better understanding of regulations and taxes and how that affects all of us. Growing up, my parents werent political. They didnt lecture me on what i should think or vote for. I remember asking my dad when i was starting to learn about politics, i was like how do we vote in this household . And as a middle class family, my dad said we vote republican because at the end of the day, we have a little extra money in our paychecks every month. Or every week. And i know for some democrats like House Speaker nancy pelosi, she calls them crumbs when we get a tax break. For everyone else not living in mega giant mansions, that makes a difference. So some of the issues i had a chance to look at closely. And i think that its important to be learning all the time. And i love what i do because i basically get, you know, paid to research and really study and examine issues every single day and talk to people and learn. I think living life is about learning. If youre not learning, youre dying. Thank you. Hi. Im mark shepard from Central Michigan university. In the beginning of your presentation, you said you take issue with people who claim not to have a side and you are open with your opinions. Do you see a danger in news outlets showing opinion piece thats viewers can interpret as fact instead of their own ideas . I think news organizations should be a lot more careful when it comes to how they present Opinion Pieces. Ill have a lot of my friends, who are democrats, will reach out to me and panic with an opinion piece they read from New York Times. They are up in arms, oh, my gosh, did you see this . Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Calm down. Breathe. Thats an opinion piece. This guys opinion. Its not fact. Could be maybe fact based. But based on his views. And so i think in general, yeah, we should be more careful on how those Opinion Pieces are presented because a lot of people are confused. They dont know really what the difference is. Like they just see it and they assume that if its published by something reputable like New York Times or cnn, that it is what it is. Its a fact. Okay. Thank you. Hi. My name is drew cole. Im from Keen State College in new hampshire. I was just wondering how your experience as the former adviser for the National Diversity coalition for trump has translated or carried over to your job at the daily caller. So the daily caller is a diverse newsroom. We have democrats that work for us, people who arent trump supporters, people who are have no opinions. Theyre just straight News Reporters. They always like to bring in different voices. So they brought me in as kind of a trump voice, to give a little different perspective and opinion. And also to launch this video project that we have right now. When i started at the daily caller, we didnt have much much of a video department. So we helped create it. And a lot of the news sites, if you might start taking notice is that a lot of them are going to videos. They like to share quick one minute, three minute videos. Im sure your facebook feeds are full of informational videos whether it is from vice news or now this and other outlets. So i think that definitely helped me. I had a platform. I was already doing National News hits, speaking on behalf of the Diversity Coalition in defense of trump. So it was helpful. Thank you. Hi. My name is quinn carothers. Im a graduate student at harvard extension school. I was wondering if there was any pushback at the daily caller for what the Southern Poverty Law Center calls a White Nationalist problem or if there is any push back on the publishers who publish articles from White Nationalists. Well, so there was a time where somebody was found out to be like a white supremacist or something. They were fired immediately. We take racism and White Supremacy very seriously. There are no White Supremacists in our newsroom. If there is one to be found out, they will be terminated immediately. Our company is minority owned. Neil patel, his family is from india. And as i mentioned, our newsroom very diverse. People from all backgrounds. It just something we dont tolerate. I think its a smear from the left organizations who dont like what were doing. They dont like that we have a different opinion, a different voice. Even though were a 24hour news publication and do straight news, they dont like that we have a conservative opinion angle. They hate. That they hate that we give people a voice. So i think were, you know, i would never want to shut down or smear any other sites and thats not something i would do. We know that the New York Times has had trouble with antisemitism. But that doesnt mean that everyone at the New York Times is for antisemitism or that theyre antisemitic as a whole organization. Thank you. Hola. My name is gabriella. Im from Suffolk University in boston. Weve been reading the past few days about how identity shapes political views. There was a data set that was in one of the readings. It showed that College Educated women, as well as people who identify as hispanic or have some minority identity, tend to vote for the democrat party. And as a female and the daughter of a mexican immigrant, i was just curious how has your identities shaped have shaped your political views . Yeah. So we get that a lot. You know, people ask me, oh, your mom is from mexico . And youre a trump supporter. Like doesnt trump want to send you back to mexico and send your mom there . How you could support republicans . Theyre racists. So the racism thing is kind of like the easy button for the left and democrats to scare people into voting for them. And i remember even when i was in the campaign trail back when i was working for democrats, that was like a buzz phrase back in the day. I never said it. I didnt think republicans were racist. But i remember people would like use that as part of their campaign speeches. I was like, oh, they are racists. I said did you talk to them . Do you know if theyre actually racist . They try to, you know, compare Illegal Immigrants to legal immigrants. They try to blur the line there. And i think that, you know, some people say, well, trump is trying to keep brown people out. Like Illegal Immigrants are not all brown. Its like, its so crazy and its so misleading and so dishonest and so devisive. I hate that. I think that democrats need to sell a better platform to voters if they want people to vote for them. I think the race card obviously didnt work in 2016. I dont think its going to work in 2020. I was looking at some of the numbers. And you start youre starting to see a lot more minorities are leading toward Republican Party because theyre seeing some of the things that are affecting them. They see the 401 k s are growing. Thats great. Theyre paying less in taxes. They feel pretty secure when it comes to Border Security. I mean the list goes on. Our economy is on fire. Weve had had the lowest unemployment ever. And that includes for minorities, for women, for everyone. So i think that, yeah thank you. Hi. My name is mari. Im also from Suffolk University and i also speak spanish. Hola. Hola. My question is, you mentioned and we were talking about it before too that your parents immigrated here and that allowed you to get an opportunity and be here today. How do you like if the borders you talked about Border Security and how it needs to be more controlled. If it was more controlled in the past, do you think that your parents would have still came and, like, you would have still got the opportunity you got and have been here today . Because im an immigrant. I immigrated here myself. I feel like i have such a privilege to be here and to be able to have this opportunity to get an education. So how do you feel about that . Yeah. I mean, well u. S. Has always been strict on immigration. I think it was stricter back in the day. But i mean its such an honor and blessing to be born and raised in the greatest country in the world. And my mom is so thankful to be in america, and shes, you know, lucky she was able to get citizenship. My dad is actually from michigan. Like i said, im bye cultural. Im bicultural. Half my family lives in michigan and the other half lives in mexico. So i think that at the end of the day, you know, if in a Perfect World everyone could come here. But with he have to be realistic. And the fact is we cant just open borders and be a welfare state and give everything out because we have like a 24 trillion national debt. We really just cant take everyone in. Thats just not how it works. There has to be a limit. When it comes to immigration, were already the most generous nation in the world when it comes to green cards. By far. I mean were letting in a Million People a year. And i think that one of the big issues i think going into 2020 is fixing the immigration system. I think what is going on is really unfair. We have people that have been living in this country for 30 years, living in the shadows. I think Tucker Carlson has kind of stated this pretty clearly. Democrats and republicans have been profiting off the backs of Illegal Immigrants. Something needs to be done. They need citizenship or some sort of amnesty. We need to talk about those issues. We cant have people just living in the shadows like we give out drivers license but youre not allowed to be here but you can work here. Its very confusing. And so i think we need to treat the illegal immigration population better. We have like 30 Million People here. And so, yeah, i guess your question was, you know, if my mom could come here, why cant anyone in the world that wants to come here come here . I think there has to be a limit. I guess i would ask you do you have a number on how many people could come here . I dont. But i also feel like i got the opportunity, why shouldnt someone else in my country right now struggling get that opportunity, too. I would also like to see them good, as good as im doing now. Unfortunately, not everything is fair. Same thing with universities. They only let in a certain number of people. Its unfair for those that couldnt go to their choice university. Like at some point there has to be a cutoff. We need to take care of our people that are in this country first. And like i said, were very generous when it comes to immigration. But theres definitely room for improvement. That is something i will continue to fight for. Thank you. Hi. My name is megan dire. I also go to Suffolk University. My question for you was being a Strong Female republican in this day anderson age, how do you feel about the lack of female representation within the Republican Party . I think there is lack of representation in the Democratic Party, too, when it comes to women in government roles and politicians. I think that theres obviously an absence of women. We need more women involved. Im not for like identity politics. I think that the person whos most qualified should get the role. I think that there are a lot of women who are extremely qualified who maybe arent getting out there and or maybe they want to, you know, raise a household. Its tough. Politics is tough. This is draining. Im 33 years old. You can google it. Im not hiding my age. Im not married. I dont have kids. So its a real sacrifice and its a real grind to be in this business. Would i like to be a mom and raise a family . Yes. I dont have time for that right now. And so its i think it is something that women have to died because, you know, do you want to stay at home . Do you want to raise a family . Do you want to have kids . I hope more women are inspired to get involved. I hope we can have a better balance. Weve seen, you know, a lot more women coming forward. Mostly democratic women. We saw some of the wave of like Young Millennials like congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio cortez. I give her credit for being brave. A lot of people tolder how much i disagree with her, a lot of people told her, hey, its not your turn, dont run. She didnt take no for an answer. And she went out there and she did it. I think more women, whatever side youre on, get out there and go be a voice. Thank you. Hi. I also go to Suffolk University. My question is framed around how did you narrow down what type of journalism you wanted to pursue and how has politics influenced that throughout the years for you . For journalism, i thought i originally wanted to do be like a general News Reporter or like news reader. I guess. And then as i started studying journalism, broadcast journalism, i told you about that class i was taking that would invite us to the city council and they would have us write these fake stories. And thats what opened my eyes to politics and how important it was for our communities, our states, and for our country and for the world. So thats what helped me kind of figure out my way. And, you know, things are always changing. I dont know what im going to be doing next year or i know what im doing tomorrow. But, you know, things are kind of changing. But im kind of like back and forth with politics and news. So would i ever run for office . Would i join a campaign . There is a lot of Different Things i might do. Its in that same circle. Thats what interests me. I think ive always like some people just want to take some sort of leadership role. I hate sitting back and letting everyone else do it. If you want it done right, you have to do it yourself. Thank you. Thanks. Hi. My name is lexie. Im from ilan university. I, similar to you, come from a bicultural family. My mother is mexican and my father came from a white background, european descent. My question to you is similarly both of us have the luxury of hiding the fact that we have mexican heritage when it seems convenient. Because during the Trump Administration there is a rise in intolerance of the mexicanamerican community regardless of legal status. I was wondering how you respond to that intolerance, specifically of those who show they are mexican, have legal status, but are discriminated against regardless. I certainly think that there is discrimination in this country, and it comes from all sides. Its from latinos to whites, its from blacks to whites, whites to blacks, like its just totally comes from all sides. So that, you know, i dont want to downplay racism in america. There are obviously horrible racist people. This are very good people in this country as well. Think we focus a lot on the individual stories. When you say like i have the luxury of hiding my identity. Not on purpose. But in the sense that if someone was to be intolerant of mexicanamerican community, meaning, you may not so much face the discrimination that they might face because we dont look mexican or like part of that community. We dont see as much of that hate that they might see. Yeah. I mean rephrase the question. I want to make sure. I dont want to discredit you. I want to hear this question again. I wanted to know how you respond to the intolerance that Community Faces because i think that there is a tendency for us to identify with the Mexican Community but not have to face as much of the discrimination that they do because we dont you know, a lot of my family members my exboyfriend is mexican. He didnt really speak great english. He lived in this country for 20 years. His english was terrible. I dont think he was discriminated against. But hes light skin, i guess. But hes mexican. I dont know. I guess i i think that there are intolerant people and we should definitely shut down racism. I havent really experienced it or maybe i have and just havent noticed it. So its something that, you know, we should all be aware of and treat people equally and, yeah. Thank you. Hi. My name is owen westbrook. Im from Central Michigan university. Im an economics and finance major. So i was particularly interested when you said you were physically conservative most of your life. And i would also say the republicans, the more conservatives, would label themselves fiscally responsible when it comes to the economy. This being said, every year of the trump candidacy, the deficit has risen. And that also being said, the economy is doing amazing. But does this deficit rising affect your opinion of the president . Does it weigh in at all in how you view him or how you view his policies when it comes to the economy . Yeah. When it comes to fiscal responsibility, its something im keeping an eye on. Somebody i interviewed recently is senator rand paul, hes a fiscal hawk, if you will. He came out with the government waste book and talks about how much our money, our taxpayer dollars are being mismanaged and wasted on just, like, silly projects, the bridges to nowhere. Its an outrage. We need to get a better handle on this and President Trump cant do it alone. We need our members of congress. We need republicans. And we need democrats to participate. We cant keep just spending and spending away because theres going to be serious consequences for future generations to come. Im glad that youre bringing it up because a lot of young people dont talk about it. And has it changed my views about the president . You know, i still support President Trump. I think he is has a better message when it comes to fiscal responsibility than the democratic president ial candidates right now. We have some of the candidates that are talking about a government takeover of health care that would cost, like, 30 trillion. I mean, where is this money going to come from . Even senator Elizabeth Warren couldnt explain how it would be paid for. So you have to kind of compare what your options are and right now i just dont see that the democrats are taking fiscal responsibility seriously at all. Thank you. Thanks. Hi. My name is mark nealan. Im from seton hill university. I have two followup questions. You talked about the Democratic Party using certain trigger words such as racism and thats race as a kind of coverup to bring fear into voting for their party. But several times during your speech you talked about open borders. Where necessarily no democratic candidate or very few of them actually advocate for open borders. Instead, they advocate for possibly decriminalizing and making it a civil offense rather than when you cross the border which would essentially stop the mass jailing of these immigrants coming from different countries. And so i want to know what you thought about that and the kind of double standard that comes there. And also how you felt about earlier in your speech you talked about your mother coming here the right way and doing everything correctly. Meanwhile, wait time for immigration has more than doubled in the time since 1991. So its not necessarily the same process. So i just wanted to get your thoughts on that. Yeah. Well, we saw some of the democratic president ial candidates all raise their hands for Free Health Care for Illegal Immigrants. I think that is kind of an open invitation to, hey come to this country. Not only will we rollout the red carpet for you, were going to give you drivers licenses. Were going to give you Free Health Care and this and that. So why wouldnt people come here . And then if you decriminalize it, crossing the border, then its like a total open invite. So i dont thats what i mean by open borders. The if there is no punishment, no penalty, then thats not going to stop anyone from coming here. We saw the numbers go down when it came to apprehensions at the border. After President Trumps administration implemented the stay in mexico policy. The thing is we have a lot of people coming in from south america and honduras and el salvador, everywhere. And, you know, they think theyre going to go directly to the united states. And they want to, you know, could am in, get a little ticket that says come back to court and well hear your deportation hearing. They never go back. They end up just, you know, being let off loose in the streets. And then we just never see or hear of them again. Thats just not the right way to operate things. There needs to be a system here. So if i get that, you know, Asylum Seekers, there are different rules. A lot of people are taking advantage of the asylum laws. They have internet. They have cell phones. They hear the news. Theres attorneys on our side that are, like, helping them find the loopholes and to get through all of this so that they come here and, you know, get a pass. So we have people that are taking advantage of the asylum laws, which are actually hurting real Asylum Seekers, which is an outrage. We need there needs to be control in all of that. And the second question was, you know, its taken a lot longer. Yeah, i think we and my family, we tried to get citizenship for some of our other family members. Its, like, the paperworks been there for 15 years. Unfortunately, no luck. So, its unfair, but at the end of the day, there has to be a limit. I was more pointing that toward the Asylum Seekers that are kind of forced to come here because they are fleeing, like, family threats, theyre fleeing danger, violence. Yeah. All that stuff. Mexicos a great country, so why cant they stay there . My family lives there. You know, theyre being offered a great place to stay. Stay in mexico. But they want to go to the u. S. And thats because america is a great country. You can come from nothing. And, you know, build a business. Can you really pursue any passion and any dream. Mexico. Its pretty difficult. Theres huge wealth inequality just like there is in this country. It is a lot harder to make your way in mexico, but i will say im really proud of my moms sister. My tia anna. She on scholarship was able to get herself through medical school and be one of the most influential doctors in guadalajara. My mom grew up poor on a farm. No one ever managed my tia would become one of the most successful doctors in mexico. Unfortunately, she passwed away at a young age. Again, lifes very unfair. Thanks. [ applause ] thank you. Hopefully this is what you guys were looking for. It was great. Okay. Wait. Let me get a selfie with you guys before i leave. And we have three or four minutes before the next speaker if you need to stretch your legs, do it quickly. And thank you, guys, for being so respectful of my views. It aint easy being a conservative these days. Even though im a woman and minority, people are very mean to me. Awe, very sad. Its okay. I have a thick skin. Im used to it. Good. Thank you. Thanks for the introduction. Good to be with you. Good morning. Thanks for your attendance. Mostly im looking forward to the q a. Steve asked me to give a quick overview of my life. So well be here for three days. No. This will be just about a few minutes. Both my political journey and also very briefly some thoughts