The American Enterprise institute and craig aaron who is president and ceo of free press. Mr. Aaron, what in a sense or two would you in a sentence or two would you describe as Hillary Clintons tech agenda . Guest well, you know, based on what the campaign has put out so far, and i want to start out by saying im certainly not here as a representative of hillary clinton, and i have lots of praise in her agenda and plenty to criticize. But i would say the key elements that interest me most are her commitment to really expand Broadband Access with a lot of talk about competition and bringing the benefits of broadband to all americans. And then i think theres another strong theme thats running through around the idea of inclusive innovation. In other words be, how do we make sure that the entire country, everyone actually shares in the benefits of the internet economy, of all the big, huge silo changes that are happening as a result, what do we do to make sure that not too many people are left behind. Host how would you describe Donald Trumps tech agenda . Guest mostly awol. I havent seen a lot of it. I see very little written down. I will say i was pleasantly surprised to see mr. Trump come out strongly about the at t time warner merger on day one with some very Strong Language about too much media power in too few hands. Not sure i am capable to analyze where that came from, but i find it very, very interesting to see the candidates moving in that direction of criticizing that kind of media concentration. Otherwise i think with trump you sort of have had to read between the lines. Maybe my colleague can shed some more light. What weve seen is a lot of things off the cuff, some talk about shutting down the internet. Not a lot of details. Host jeff eisenach, same questions. Guest first of all, same disclaimer, im not representing either campaign in any way. As far as mr. Trumps policies are concerned, i think, you know, theres a lot of sharing of goals and objectives. I think we all want to see the internet, the benefits of the internet be made available to all. I think we want to see more rapid innovation. I think we want to see lower prices. I think what mr. Trump is saying is that the way, the path to those objectives is less regulation, lower taxation and so forth. So if youre a believer in government as an instrument of achieving those goals as Many Democrats are, then youre going to have a bullet point agenda as secretary clinton does. And theres no question that her bullet point agenda is much longer and more extensive than president than candidate trumps agenda is. I think the trump folks would argue less government, less regulation, lower taxation is an acrosstheboard policy that will achieve good results on the internet as well as elsewhere with. Host now, craig aaron also brought up the fact that donald trump has spoken out against the proposed at t time warner merger. What did you think of that . Guest yeah. Weve seen a number of big mergers in recent years, weve seen comcast nbc which was approved. We then saw comcast seek to take over time warner. And kind of my reading of the fccs review, particularly the fccs review of that is its not obvious to me that this fcc would have approved the comcast nbc merger. They didnt quite say we got it wrong and wish we hadnt done that, but they certainly said were not going to double down by letting comcast get even bigger. They didnt allow at t to purchase tmobile, they did allow it to purchase directv. So i think at this point all of these mergers are going to be looked at very carefully. I think the notion that all republicans are complete laissezfaire when it comes to antitrust policy, i dont think, is accurate. So while most people would look at the Republican Party and say more likely to approve mergers, i dont think trump is that far off base or outside the frame to say, hey, this is one to take a close look at. Host well, here to help us dig into some of the specific issues is amir nasr of the morning consult. Thank you. One thing that you mentioned, mr. Aaron, was broadband deployment. I was interested, i know that this is an area where in the past especially in congress its brought republicans and democrats together. Secretary clinton has discussed she wants to bring 100 percent of households online by 2020. The gop Party Platform talks about building private and Public Partnerships to bring Rural America online. Im just curious from both of your, you know, perspectives, is this an area where we can see the most, its most likely to bring consensus in the next administration, next congress . Guest i think thats a good question. I think there should be consensus. I certainly think at a baseline that the notion is now a necessity, i think thats something that even clinton said in her tech agenda, and i think theres growing agreement, you know, that while the internet may not quite be up there with water or electricity, it ranks alongside hot water in terms of need and importance. [laughter] i would like to see that kind of agreement coming from both parties. I think one of the challenges will be, you know, whos willing to really confront the problem, and the problem as i see it when we look at the changing nature of the digital divide, there are some areas that dont have access, but the biggest barrier seems to be price. It just costs too much. The price is too high. And that requires, you know, more competition. Thats one proven way to bring down prices. So i think we need to see that. There are other ways you could look at but, ultimately, thats whats keeping most folks off line. Its not that they dont want with it or need it for their jobs and education and every day life or, its that they simply cant afford it. Guest so i do think were all in favor of expanding the opportunity for people to get online. I think maybe we have different views in terms of what that means. So if you look first at Internet Penetration, its leveled off under the Obama Administration at about 80 , talking about wire line and Internet Penetration. Now, the fcc is still measuring Internet Penetration as people who have a wireline connection. And the question is, do the other 20 of people need a wired Internet Connection as opposed to 4g and 5g smartphones. You know, my 4g smartphone is often as fast as my wire line Internet Connection depending on where im connecting. How are we going to define Internet Penetration. Another question is how were going to define competition. For the most part, the democrats have taken the position that more competition can be defined as having more competitors, so theyve advanced the model of resale competition where you take the people who invest in infrastructure, and you say to them you need to resell your infrastructure that youve spent billions of dollars to people who are going to compete against you, and well define all of those people as competitors, and theres more competition because weve created these resellers who are going to, going to resell the product at a lower price. My wife at the moment is in school at oxford, and i mention that because im a broadband consumer in the United Kingdom which has sort of been the poster child for pursuing that set of policies. And both in terms of wire line and wireless Broadband Connectivity in the United Kingdom, its really very dismal. And theres a direct line between that set of policies, the policies Many Democrats have tried to pursue x those results. Because the effect of those policies is to discourage investment. And the brits are suffering terribly from that, and they know it. They constantly, every year theres a fiveyear plan to roll out more fiber, and so far the fiveyear plans havent been very successful. Guest although it seems like folks elsewhere in the world, japan, south korea, have seemed to borrow some of those good old policies, and i think from the consumer end, talking about the resale end for starters, clearly there is a market thats being served, the wireless market, for example, being able to offer Different Things that has created, you know, even more penetration and a lot more availability. Thats missing on the wired side. So i guess i have yet to see a better answer that competition means more competitors. We certainly seem to need more. And with manager as important as that internet with something as important as that Internet Connection, hopefully, well start to see it. Guest you know, i think the question though, craig, is how you think about competition in the internet ecosystem. If you think about other aspects that you know how they work, you know weve got one dominant search engine, google. Weve got one dominant Online Search shopping site, amazon. One dominant social network, facebook. And no ones saying, hey, we need a government Facebook Commission or a government amazon commission or a government Google Commission to break those company up or force them to resell their services. I think you guys probably tried a little bit of that with the search neutrality issue at the ftc, but those companies are competing with one another with very dynamic business strategies. And when you see comcast and charter and at t and verizon and tmobile and sprint, you know, thats a lot of competitors in a market like this. All of them competing vigorously with one another and offering creative new business plans. You know, one we might talk about is tmobiles zero rating plans which are or very popular with consumers, not so popular with, you know, some liberal Public Interest advocates. And, you know, thats the kind of innovation that current levels of competition are creating, and i think in a very healthy way. One interesting thing you bring up is open internet issues. Sec secretary clinton, obviously, has come out very strong in support of Net Neutrality rules and has pledged to fight for open internet rules abroad as well. Im curious, i know in Congress Like senator thune, congressman upton, congressman walden have discussed wanting to rewrite the Communications Act for the internet age and the Net Neutrality rule somewhat undermines that. You should a Republican White House under a Republican White House and if they managed to keep the majority, do you think theres a possibility for that to reas far as, the ability resurface . Guest well, you know, i certainly think theres a consensus. I think, first of all, i think the trump campaign, it seems to me and, again, without going down a long list of bulleted policy initiatives as far as Telecom Policy is concerned has made clear that wasteful spending, unnecessary agencies, regulations ought to be reduced and cut back. So i think in general youve got a predilection toward smaller government, and certainly looking at the republican platform and what republican members of congress have tried to do, the notion of a less intrusive fcc, more focused on enforcing rules and less focused on writing new ones and theres a long list of things coming out from the fcc over the course of the next, last couple months and coming months less focused on writing new rules and more focused on enforcing existing ones, i think probably you would see support for that. Guest i mean [laughter] well, so much. You know, i think its interesting to seeing having no policy details as sort of a positive here. I think that, you know, a lot of us look at or really were asking for those details because this is the one chance you have to decide which administration is going to be in on making all these decisions, and i think they are huge decisions for a lot of things jeff has raised. The power of these gatekeepers. Thats something we need to be looking at. I think people all over the country are very concerned about how much power facebook or a google or an amazon has. What are they doing with their private information. Those are going to be important questions for the next administration. But there are also differences, and i think, you know, one of those big differences is no matter how important facebook might be in my life, i can headache that choice to, you know make that choice to, you know, go away from facebook, to turn it off and get my information elsewhere. Thats a lot harder to do when it comes to my Internet Service provider. Where i have at most two choices, and its that important in their life . I think that does require a different set of answers. So i think, you know, and i hope the Clinton Administration thinks that in many ways a lot of what the wheeler regime at the fcc has done is really a model. They stepped up to protect consumers, theyve actually challenged some of the powerful industry lobbies in town. They arent gotten they havent gotten everything right, but when we look back over the course of what theyve done, i actually think this theres a lo be proud of, and i would hope that the next administration is looking to build on that and not tear it down. Host well, one of the questions that amere was going to ask, im going to go ahead and ask, who would you like to see, craig aaron, as some of the new gatekeepers . Guest oh, the new gatekeepers or in washington. Wow. Its so hard to get into the name game, you know . I think people are probably less asking us for who should get the nomination than, you know, how angry would you be if it was this person. I find it a little bit hard at this juncture to really predict who its going to be partly because i dont know whos going to get those really big jobs. I think a lot of times what happens in a new administration is people come in, and everybody thinks they should be commerce secretary or secretary of state and, you know, once those jobs are handed out, fcc chairman starts to look a little bit better. I see names bandied out that are a lot of veteran telecom insiders, and i think some of them are well qualified for the job, and ores probably wouldnt others probably wouldnt be my fist choice. Yeah, a lot to be determined starting on november 9th. Host jeff eisenach, any names . Guest no. [laughter] host what have we been able to glean from the candidates when it comes to cybersecurity . Guest yeah. So mr. Trump gave a speech on cyber and talked about the need to be more aggressive on that front. And if you look at the republican platform, it goes into still more destale. So i think detail. So i think he does understand. And this campaign has certainly brought out the importance of cybersecurity between secretary clintons emails and the hacking of the dnc which is all the daily news, the daily grind of politics all of a sudden. The importance of cybersecurity, i think, is evident even to the candidates who might not otherwise pay so much attention to it. If you look at the republican platform, its pretty clear in calling for a more aggressive posture against foreign attackers. The republican platform, and this mirrors not because i think they read our report are, but mirrors some work that we put out at aei this summer calling for a more forwardleaning approach that both looks at the sources of cyber attacks, attributes them and, where appropriate, retaliates in the sense of imposes consequences on countries that are engaged in attacks or enabling such attacks by criminal groups. And even, you know, begins to contemplate the notion of preemptive action. When we can see an attack coming, and i wrote something for aei yesterday, we have not yet experienced a serious kinetic cyber attack in the United States. What weve experienced is sony, small ball, maybe a dam in new york that was tinkered with. But the potential for a really serious kinetic attack is there if you take what happened on friday last week which was a very widespread attack enabled by internet of things devices and think about that happening in, at the core of the Financial System or a different kind of attack attacking control systems at power plants or in traffic or airports. You can easily see kind of loss of life. And we do have the capacity to see those coming. We have very capable folks at the nsa. Weve mostly had them sitting on the sidelines for the past eight years. The current rule is before they can engage in any way, really they have to go through a really bureaucratic process that can take days or weeks. The opm attack was off the Playing Field for more than a week during the time that attack was going on because they were negotiating a bureaucratic memorandum of understanding with the department of homeland security. So, you know, i think you would see a Republican Administration wanting to cut through the red tape there and get our ateam on the field defending america. Guest yeah. I mean, ill say, first of all, that i dont with purport to be a cybersecurity expert. So well leave a lot of that to jeff. But, you know, i think without question anybody whos going to be in the white house next, obviously, this is going to be very high on the list, certainly watching the attack last week, you know, anybody whos going to be sitting in that chair, you know, this is one of the big problems that needs to be solved. Thats not the attacks arent going away. You know, i will also share some, you know, overarching concerns which have to do with spying and surveillance and, you know, who is the nsa spending their time watching. And i think those are, those are really Big Questions that the next president s going to have to tee up. I think theres a lot of work to do there as we look at, you know, whats worked and really what hasnt in the patriot act with some of those authorizations coming up again. You know, a whole set of things to strike that balance between the protections we absolutely do need on these networks and not just sweeping up, you know, millions and millions of people who are completely innocent in a huge dragnet. Guest i do think this is an area for potential there are not very many [laughter] areas for potential bipartisanship, at least looking back. But when we released aeis report, we had senator Corey Gardner and mark warner together up on capitol hill. And theyre now cochairing Senate Federal cybersecurity caucus which, actually, they announced that when we released our report. So i think the potential for reaching across party lines, everybody understands the threat and the urgency, many people understand the you are yen city of it, so i think we could see cooperation there. The other issue thats definitely going to have traction the next couple years is encryption. I know its extremely difficult, it has been for lawmakers, to really forge a specific either we need strong encryption each notwithstanding the, you know, the need for Law Enforcement to get into some of these encrypted messaging applications, but im curious from both republicans, the Republican Party platform mentioned encryption but didnt really stake out a strong one way or the other position. And clintons tech agenda talks about the idea of a commission. Im curious what you guys think of the opportunity for bipartisanship is there in the next administration. Guest you know, this is an area where im critical of the clinton tech agenda. I think they punted on the issue in classic washington fashion of, hey, lets have a commission. You know, i would certainly like them to move much more strongly toward really supporting encryption. I think, you know, around the world its really important that we have these technologies that it not be easy for the government or anybody else to break into, you know, our phones or devices that carry so much of our lives now. So i would like to see a stronger position out of the new administration. I dont think thats reflected in the agenda. I think that probably does very much reflect the views, you know, especially of a candidate who spent so much time in the state department and elsewhere. But that would be an area that i think this administrations going to need a lot of attention, really the whole suite of sort of surveillance issues but absolutely including encryption where theyre going to need to hear from a lot of people. As you know, i think the Obama Administration did especially around apple and everything after san bernardino. Guest i, so, you know, we have a commission underway. Congressman mccall created a bipartisan commission, theyre working on trying to address whats really a very early problem. At the end of the day, unsolvable. I think as i look at the wait, republicans, as democrats, are on different sides of this issue. And i think if instinctively one says if you are apple and if you have the capacity to assist in a Law Enforcement investigation involving a terrorist whos killed a lot of people, you ought to find a way to do that as a patriotic act. I think if you then drill down more deeply into that and realize that involves opening a pandoras box and kind of allowing everyone into everything and putting American Companies at a terrible disadvantage in the trade environment, i think the weight of kind of republican opinion is to be in the same place where i think craig and i both are which is, you know, as much as youd like to, as much as youd like to be able to have kind of the secret key hiding in the safe at the fbi or someplace, if theyve got it, its likely somebody else is going to find it, and you cant go down the slippery slope. Theres another issue thats come up a lot this election cycle, trade. Is and i know its very important to the Tech Industry that theres free data flows, you know, internationally and that these, that if theres strong support from the Tech Industry for tpp. Im curious kind of the rhetoric, it sounds like both candidates now say theyre against tpp. What does that mean for the Tech Industry exactly . How do you see that moving forward, how do you see the reaction . Guest well, politically, you know, i think youre right to describe the positions of the candidates and, obviously, secretary clinton made a big change in response to a lot of the pressure from the Sanders Campaign and elsewhere. So, you know, i think in terms of, you know, given the opportunity to weigh in there, i dont see how she goes the other direction. You know, again, were getting at the edges of my specific areas of expertise, but i think that, you know, both candidates really speaks to the real anxiety that people out, everywhere across the country are feeling about trade and really are feeling about the stuff hidden inside the trade deal, you know . That they cant see, theyre not sure what it is affecting lots and lots of areas in ways that dont feel very democratic and who are really feeling to see the benefits in their communities of these deals. And i think thats going to be one of the big challenges to whoevers in the white house, is what are you doing to speak to all of those folks, to speak to those anxieties about these really fundamental changes that are very real in everyones lives and actually to see how do we get the benefits of silicon valley, of the internet economy to actually reach the most americans. And, you know, and not just if you happen to be a ph. D. From stanford or whoever. Guest yeah. I guess a couple of things. The i agree with almost everything craig said in terms of, you know, the impact of nafta and our current trade policies on what we used to call the rust belt in america has been, has been very damaging. And, certainly, people in those states perceive that, and both of the candidates were responding to it. I think one perspective, i think, in thinking about the candidates and about the outcomes here, i think its very important to kind of put the candidates in the context of their parties. So with secretary chinton, we see clinton, we see someone who was very reluctant to embrace that net neutrally regulation, kind of took a guest in the one email. [laughter] guest well, maybe, but i think that is consistent with the position shes had over the years. And then under pressure from her party, forced to move the other direction. The same with tpp. With a trump administration, i think you have you contextualize a potential President Trump within the context of the Republican Party. Both parties are split on trade, but on balance, the Republican Party has been the more profree trade party. That may be an unpolitical thing to say in todays environment, but i think thats more in the republican, in the republican genes. The other point i think thats worth pointing out, china is a real challenge to the United States on trade. At aei, one of our scholars whos covered trade for literally 30 years, i think, is as dyed in the wool a free trader as you could ever run into, an economist whos a true believer, and claude has now come out and said continuing to turn the other cheek towards chinese intellectual property theft is not viable. Guest and i would just jump in to say that i think for example, the Net Neutrality email which i believe the secretary was described as ambivalent on the issue but, of course, came out very strongly in support of Net Neutrality not long afterward. If were ending up with ambivalent but persuadable, ill take that every time. And i think the outcome if you look at the secretarys evolution which is in response to the publics views, that, to me, is a good outcome. If we see actual politicians moving into response what theyre actually hearing from their constituents, the fcc heard from four million people, they changed their position. Secretary clintons hearing some things, changing and evolving her positions, thats a wonderful outcome host if there were a President Trump, would Net Neutrality be reversed . If there were a President Trump, would multistakeholder in ikann be reversed dicann icann be reversed . Guest well, candidate trump has said clearly that hes opposed to Net Neutrality, was opposed to the Net Neutrality regulations. What i dont think a President Trump would do and would hope he wouldnt do is intervene to instruct an independent Regulatory Agency how to issue a particular regulation. I dont think that what president obama did there a year ago march was the right way to go about it. So i think in general taking his broader views on regulation into account, you would expect him to appoint to people to the fcc who would be inclined to take a less regulatory position. Host amir nasr are, we have one minute left. Last question. Last question. In terms of looking forward to the next administration, what do you think the biggest policy goal in tech will be for each of your respective guest well, i think the biggest challenge that the new administration, i hope theyll take up is affordable broadband. I think we have to figure out how do we make the internet affordable and available to everyone. I think any administration, you know, stepping in making that a priority from day one would be doing the right thing. Guest yeah. I think, i think at the end of the day both administrations, whoevers elected president , is going to be forced to confront directly the chinese challenge to american supremacy online. Were all living off of a 25yearold first mover advantage in a world in which apple, amazon, microsoft, google are the dominant players. But the chinese have a bigger ecosystem. Its not true because theyre communists, they cant innovate. Theyre innovating very rapidly. So i think were going to be in a position where were trying to put in place policies that make it possible for americas very successful innovators to keep innovating in a global market. Host jeff eisenach, craig aaron and amir nasr, thank you for joining us. Cspan, where history unfolds daily. In 1979 cspan was created as a Public Service by americas Cable Television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. Now, u. S. House candidateses for minnesotas 2nd congressional district, republican jason lewis be democrat angie craig, debate tax policy, national security, gun control, health care and transportation infrastructure. This is 30 minutes. Moderator good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us for this witness news vote 2016 special. Im leah mcclain. Tonight we are bringing you live, commercialfree debates in two of minnesotas hotly contested congressional races. Later in the program youre going to hear from 3rd district candidates. First, though, we want to start in minnesotas 2nd district where political newcomers angie craig and jason lewis are vying for a rare open seat in congress. Minnesotas 2nd district sttc