Transcripts For CSPAN2 Evan Osnos Joe Biden 20240711

You can do so by clicking on the q a icon at the bottom of the stream. The chat function will also built the active in that column youll find a link for purchasing the copy of the new book that evan has just written entitled joe biden. Evan is one of the most talented journalist of his generation. At the first part of his career overseas, will see the first of the Chicago Tribune which he joined shortly after graduated from harvard in which three years later was sent to the middle as to report to iraq and other countries. Next he went to china for the trip, the 2008 shared a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. That you rejoin the new yorker, stayed in china for several more years before moving to washington where he has been covering politics and foreign affairs. An excellent book about china, age of ambition when the 2014 National Book award and was a finalist for the 2015 Pulitzer Prize. This new book is adapted from occasional series of new yorker articles he has written over the past decade. Including most recently profile of bidens. As evan said biden for him has become an area of accidental expertise. The portrait he presents of the former Vice President in the book highlights bidens extensive experience empathy, fundamental decency and language of healing. This is a compact work put together quickly but written with evans characteristic articulate and insights. Speaking of articulate and insight, and conversation with evan this afternoon will bp buttigieg, former mayor of south bend, indiana and the 2020 democratic president ial candidates. Mayor pete also has a new book out, americas best chance. We already did in the event for that three weeks ago said the mary sue to recognize evans work and also of course put in a plug for his former primary opponent and now enthusiastic picked to be the next president of the United States, joe biden. So evan and mayor pete, taken away. Wonderful, first of all thank you so much. It is an honor and a treat to be participating and a place as iconic as politics and prose. Having now and appeared both virtually and in person. I am delighted to be there once again. Especially for a journalist and writer and observer of the caliber of evan osnos who is so well suited to help really open a window into somebody who on the one hand a well known and recognized figure in u. S. Politics. And on the other hand even now often misunderstood. On the work covering him before, during and since his Vice President and now in his campaign is crucially important for the country to spend time. Especially as i fervently hope and i will not pretend to be neutral on this one, we are talk about somebody who a week from tonight or very soon thereafter we will know as the next president of the United States. So thanks for the chance to have this conversation. Im really looking forward to digging in on a number of subjects with you. Let me begin by asking about the role of fate. I think about the first time i worked up the nerve to ask one of my predecessors as mayor. In fact i was in my 20s thinking about running. If he thought it might be a good idea for me to it run. And instead of directly answer my question, this was governor joe kernan who had his own markable career at indiana after soaring entrance serving as the mayor of south bend. He stared his basket of french fries which felt like for whole minute. Then he turned to means that in politics so much is out of your control. And let me know that the first thing you need to think about is to prepare for that. So in a moment when so Many Americans felix so much is outside of our control, and when someone like joe biden is going to be leading us ford who on one hand and feels like many ways as meeting a kind of lifelong destiny. And on the other hand never knew he would reach this point. I wonder if you can share with this that gripping opening anecdote that you write in the book about his aneurysm in his brush with death. And more broadly what role Vice President s relationship with the uncontrollable has played in his formation, his political life and is likely to put play in his presidency. These. Guest thank you part i will have to say mayor pete is a ludicrous honor to be appeared talking about the subject and im really grateful. The politics to prose and you for taking the time to do it pretty got a very busy schedule right now. And i think, to brad and alyssa for making space for us to talk about this in a week when theres a lot of people thinking about politics. It feels like an important peace of work. And im grateful to be here talking about it. You race for what is me one of the most interesting elements, the story of joe biden. I decided to begin this book with a peace of his biography that is often overshadowed by some of the political milestone milestones. He has a political biography that could fill a book of its own watch in some ways made it all that much more reason to begin with something someone doesnt talk about. The floor of a hotel room in 1987 and he was unable to move his legs. He couldnt figure out how he got there. He had had a brain and years in, he had to it was a ballooning of two arteries in his brain. In the description of it was agony. He was able to get himself on the bed. They got him to a hospital and the surgeons told him that he was at risk of such grave injury. He could have died so quickly that they said had to summon a priest to give last rights even before his wife could get there. And joe biden had been on the campaign trail for months. He had this nagging headache even pushing aside. The strange bit of fate that he dropped out of the race, bombed out of the race as he would tell the story. The fact that he was out meant he was able to have a moment. He was going to give a speech and that was when he was attacked with this aneurysm. So the doctor said to him frankly lucky man. Because if you are on the campaign trail and continued ignoring your symptoms you might be dead right now. And they said joe biden, youre going under the knife are going to give you surgery to try to save your life. You may lose your ability to speak. Somehow in that moment i have to note he did find some bit of humor in it. He set i sorta wish it happened to me last summer. Sure enough they did operate on him. He did of course come through. And it was an ordeal of the kind that shapes a persons conception of their own vulnerability, their frailty, the role as a father and husband and ultimately a political person breeze out of congress for seven months. He comes back and when i think is fascinating is through his life you see this recurring pattern of these moments of extraordinary misfortune. And in your own curious way misfortune. I pursued that very question you started this with. For a long time and key conceptualizes fate and control over ones own circumstances. And he has come to a bit of homespun philosophy about it. He brought from his daddy since everyone in me has some sort of philosophical cosmic ledger in which the highs, the great highs will be compensated by the great lows. And then is how he made sensitive in his own life. He continues his pattern all the way into today. I think sometimes though one of the things thats interesting is he grew up at a time in which there was a great sense of control. This great sense of you could define your fate. That was sort of the american mantra of the postwar period. There is a feeling today that americans have they dont have that sense of control. Fate has something less able to define and something happens to them. I think that is a nerve ending that runs through our politics. That leads to Something Else i wanted to explore with you which is the question of being shaped by the moment or the generation you come from. I came of age in a generation that started out with the big argument being over whether it was the end of history. Whether things and just settle down and all the tough stuff was over. We can ease ourselves into a period of prosperity and consensus with technology. Especially the media. Helping to create that sense of factbased reality and decency. It sounds almost tragicomic now to think back of the way we thought about it in the 90s. That was kind of the period in which i was formed the chain of events that started thousands of miles away. Wound up effecting us very direct way. I think about that with the students that i now spend time with, the undergraduates i teach at the university of notre dame. Almost exactly 20 years apart for me. They too had their lives rocked by chain of events that started overseas. But in a different way also feel that their entire experience has basically been their awareness of the world have been fashioned during president trump, and formed and between the crushing blows of the Great Recession in which they were gradually becoming aware of the world. And the pandemic and anything that happened between. Joe bidens interesting generationally because he doesnt quite sit in any of the generations we have the most convenient political stereotype stereotypes. There is the baby boomer generation, i think you be qualified more is whats called the silent generation. Certainly in the generation that couldve been directly involved in world war ii, but he was not quite of that counterculture, 60s moment which was when we touched on. I think a lot of us are you using and make sense of 2020. I wonder sometimes he is, gets in trouble for being perceived as nostalgic. And the same time has a very uniquely i think humble conception about how transition and transformation might be the hallmark of his administration. So with all that kind of in the atmosphere i wonder what conclusions you grew about how he was shaped by the moment he came of age and how now he meets this a moment, this unique moment of 2020. Guest i found that sort of generational framework really compelling. There is a way in which you talked about in your own work in writing, i see it in joe bidens. There is a point at which everyone is an individual pretty dont assign them characteristics that define who they are. There are certain elements at the moment we come into being a become of age that shape us. Theres a great acacia written by my former colleague eb white who once wrote about the postwar generation per he called them and society of movers and doers. He said as he put it a pompous lock indeed. What he meant was its a community gutfeld as if they could do things because there was this sort of had the tools to create their own reality. But in functional terms their work coming out of world war ii in the Great Depression they were one of the smallest generations there the first generation before them for they had the g. I. Bill. That all kinds of very specific advantages that were allowing them, as a practical matter because there were so few of them. Sociologist called them the lucky few. The generation that biden was a part of. That meant it was easy to become class president for his easy become the star the show. It was easier to get promoted along the way. It does shape our policy. It shapes the way people came to imagine that they had this degree of control. And to some degree they did not need to, thinking of a topic or how to talk more about today they did not need a trusted institution as much. They could do it themselves. Then you fastforward to today. Which millennials are after all the largest generation in American History. They are the most diverse. They have come of age obviously in a time of which you have two recessions in 20 years. And youve given them this very different sense of what they can and cannot control. and i think so much depends on having a touchstone of shared reality so to take one exampl example, the experience of my generation is radically different from the experience of the baby boomer generation and those who experienced the vietnam era. But i can walk into an American Legion and have talking to a veteran because we both had the experience of service. But it will service all the same the same brand sure country and against the touch stone but how American Society communities are supposed to work goes all the way back with voluntary association but we create the circles that overlap you dont want to my generation but i belong to your church. We live in the same neighborhood and there is overlap there is a chance of trust. This is another area of technology that such a conundrum to cut across our existing pockets and theoretically i can be in conversation with an elderly resident of pakistan as my nextdoor neighbor. And with the algorithms that serve up what reinforces our pockets of belongings in those circles that are content and that is dangerous. We are running out of things that we have in common. One of the things is the presidency and part of the point is the symbolic walking symbol of the minimal amount of things and we may not support the same person for president but we have the same president at any given moment and the person that grasps that knows they are walking symbol of the existence and i have learned the hard way because i came to office wanting to do policy and that was my focus play began to lean into how important it was. And this is central to the joe biden appeal and this idea of unity to bring us together across generations and political boundaries as our country has gotten polarized and sliced and diced so what anecdotes did you encounter to shed light on how he could deliver on the appeal and this promise . And there is this idea is it possible to talk about unity . Is that a euphemism to say we will just come to a consensus . That is not what it has to mean what i have always found fascinating if you follow him we have the democratic habits the habits of unity to establish a connection with people in which he tried to transcend those boundaries of belonging. I have been with him overseas in beijing and at ukraine following him for reporting and this is a classic political line that he says to people wherever he goes he sends to people if i had hair like yours i would be president and he has use that and beijing, wellington, i dont know how many times maybe in south bend and it works because its disarming two no matter who he says it to to help political people function and he said to me at one point he and obama have a shared idea that unity is possible thats what brought them together but then of course obama has this ability to transcend to just reach down into your soul to find something i didnt have a name for and put it out there that is what we saw at the 2004 the famous moment when he emerged talk about not a red america will pull america a bit joe biden is more practical and believes a lot of diplomats dont like me because when i start the process of negotiation and domestic policy, my first idea is i cant Say Something to somebody that i think is bullshit so just acknowledge that they have something that is worth listening to now that is a radical motion to say i will have the conversation. But i would be curious im sure you encounter people along the way how can you look at our politics and think unity is possible . How is it not to fortify our own tribe . All of us think of this lens for our experience and that redemption comes local. I have been in so many local political processes no less lucius for one important differences the coalitions are not quite as stable or predicted by what party you are in. The same person who might be at my or vice versa might turn around to be the swing vote that delivers my budget. The same person who i might be going toe to toe with on housing policy could be my greatest ally on the lgbtq policy. And then we encountered each other first as human beings because as a mayor you eat what you cook. You are on the same streets and shopping at the grocery one Grocery Stores of those that you serve. That is our politics is to adjudicate differences. And then to arrive at that and not completely blow each other up because of that strange bedfellows moment. I think the trump moment has open the possibilities for that in many ways because so many things that are contrary to conservative or liberal values maybe once in a generation moment as i think the election will go into force the Republican Party to decide what would be next. There could be an interesting moment for that and there is no native a and this is the quality that comes together with joe biden. Nobody could say has many years in the senate he has is naive or innocent about how things work. But at the same time he says a really do mean that he really does with the need to bring us together and you can feel that. So just a little later we will turn those questions but not before i share a few more. So talking about that shared experience, we often hear about biden is how will he contend with the left side of the party that doesnt agree with him a lot. Into that fundamental instinct and his motives. And with the progressive activist by the degree to which joe biden has been open that what Bernie Sanders was saying that the Biting Campaign had been more open than we expected nobody says this is the trojan horse fantasy but there is a openness with a good example if you take a aoc clear she had her differences with joe biden in the primary and she said look if we were in europe i may not be in the same party as this person they get to the end of the primary joe biden couldve said i dont want anything to do with you instead he said help, right my climate policy. Thats how you ended up with them in a room with a range of different voices representing different interests with his conception of politics they were all given a chance i talked to progressive activist afterwards and they said i pleased and surprised how much they were interested in hearing from me. That is a tone if you learn anything about politics the tone and tenor really does matter. Absolutely that is his instinct and in moments that if you are a sitting or former Vice President of the United States and a 30 something yearold mayor shows up and challenges for the contest for the president i thank you have every reason to say do you thank you are . Or worse. One of the things i appreciated about him at the beginning and the middle and the end of the arc of my campaign when i was up and down he was equally interested just being decent and getting to know you and building you up and in a way i found there was no need for me to change tone with how he treated me and also before and during and after my decision to support him. That speaks a lot to an instinct not only a political strategy but something more than into the core of who he is. So lets talk about where she is i believe today it is in a Place Associated with fdr and i think there is a growing interest in comparing this moment looking for anything at all that could seem parallel to 2020 in the past. But when and democracy seems to be in question around the world or when people are hurting in many different ways , moment when the future of america is in question and perhaps the immediate decisions of managing the crisis will turn out to be decisions with the political and economic over my look like cant see a lot in common between the circumstances that greeted fdr and will be waiting for president elect biden. Wonder how much you think that analogy holds up are there instructive ways it doesnt . So given dimensions joe biden himself has made of that presidency and moment, how much is that how he approaches the historic character of the season in American History that may well be arriving as our president . I think a lot of american americans, maybe some on the call that were skeptical somebody who spent his career as a centrist word say now i pursue transformative change in politics was a measure of your inauthenticity and in conversation with barack obama he framed it this way is not that joe has fundamentally changed his stripes but the circumstances changed it is a different country than we enter the race but we are facing a functional and moral emergency we werent before and that calls from him a greater impression. I think it ties into the threat something a try to capture that in some ways his ambition to achieve something meaningful in Public Services part of the reason why he finds himself in this moment taking on the ambitious presidency maybe you didnt imagine his identity before getting to a feature of his we dont talk about enough which came through he will admit mistakes. Thats partly because the book is for examples of making mistakes nobody has had a career as long as his has been with a life of unblemished choices and decisions. There are things he regrets and he realizes he didnt fully understand. Rising to that moment is about that ability to be reflective. I dont mean to state the obvious his opponent is not endowed with the same capabilities of self perfection but one is that left out to me after the killing of george floyd i said how do this change you . The killing of george floyd, what did you learn from that . He said one thing i learned is that i was wrong. I have been telling a parable about race in america that starts with me growing up and jim crow delaware where democrats were stopping at segregated rest areas and then i became the Vice President of the first black president so what i saw on that video is that we were wrong and this history was not finished actually was ragged and alive and we were contending with it. You cannot distinguish hate hate hides and waits for a leader to give it oxygen and then it comes back. There is an element. There is an element coming through the trump experience having higher believe in the power of the office than he did before because he sees what damage it can do and for him its a learning process as well. Moment that can drive people into that reflection one of the remarkable things is he continues to see ways to respond to what is happening and learn from it and update his account of how the world works even now was so much in it is that one of the qualities that served him well in the primary . The primary victory is extraordinary if you consider how much he was written off and he attempted to run for president before and more than once and fared very well and a lot of folks did not see him getting to iowa let alone a commanding lead coming out of South Carolina and then pretty quickly after that bringing the Party Together under his candidacy. What you think of the factors that explain that when there is a. Were very few commentators were described as the favorite. We will swap thats because i will ask you the same question but one is it was a measure my industry gets things wrong we are locked into certain patterns of understanding saying this is what it is today this is what the electorate is or is joe biden but then all of a sudden what we discovered what the Campaign Plea from the beginning the Democratic Party most were describe themselves as moderate or conservative democrats even though in the press pays attention to the newest members and most public members but the other feature looking at jim clyburn who delivered this crucial endorsement in South Carolina that allowed joe biden to break free to secure the nomination and he reminded me he not may not look to in washington as the hippest guy around but in South Carolina while contending with the massacre in a black church at the same time donald trump is announcing his presidency, for us, this is a matter of existential significance we dont just gravitate to the newest and most dynamic person and is Cornell William brooks put it toward me there was an unapologetic pragmatism a black voters in South Carolina that drives them to make the choices that they made that i would ask the same question of you. We surprised by the results when it happened and to what degree did you see this coming . What did we get wrong from the outside or how did you interpret what happened . A lot of it does have to do with trust. Especially South Carolina and for him the expectations are already higher for him and he beat them. That reflects a level of trust of the southern black voters and no other candidate not just candidates like me but candidates of color. I think just the idea that even if there was a sense you did not agree with him on every choice that he made there was a sense of who he was that cut across that and also persistence he didnt get discouraged by results that others would question if they would stay in the race that gives back to how we start the conversation with a sense of awareness of the ups and downs and all that served him well those qualities that make him so recognizable and connect him to people either from a different generation from the Big Ten Party and that would be important for governing. Now will turn to the audience questions this one from swede sweden, how do you think mr. Biden word make decisions as president . I have no illusion the swedish members are not here to see me they are here to see when i am grateful for that. The question is fascinating because it came through my inquiry of how does his mind work . How to see taken information or decide what to do . I had encounters with people who worked with him closely in the white house who said one interview someone in the Obama Administration said the cliche joe biden is he talks too much. We know that the people dont get he is listening so here is an example in this particular case he said he would call me up yes sometimes he would talk to 90 percent of the occasion but at the end he would say great talk but he would always pick something up that was built into the decisionmaking matrix to use that point of analysis you can make a obvious contrast who cant read his own intelligence briefing but in this case you have somebody that comes from a productive insecurity like he said on the stump the first nominee without an Ivy League Degree since walter mondale. He carries with him a certain openness to continue to grasp that new piece of information what you know and he doesnt know he constantly is seeking that i guess he would talk to you about that. Constantly he asked me question things i didnt know much about and then i had the humility i think that is lost. We all know he can talk but he can listen and hes a waste of those questions and i can see that process to soak up information to inform his decisionmaking. And institutional question is the senate. The senate is a unique and powerful legislative body few spent more time than joe biden how do you think his background as a senator drives his understanding of the presidency and government in general . At the molecular level he is a senator core to his conception of human beings interacting that we can disagree on the first day and make a deal on tuesday that is the senate way to look at things to the point when joe biden joined the vice presidency he kept his locker in the senate jim because he enjoyed going over there with people hes like the intelligence gather to go over there then come back to the white house as little tidbits like the color of the negotiations in the way things were going. Thats who he is. But the problem with that, there is a disadvantage barack obama said the problem he came of age and the senate that function you could get stuff done but in obamas words it has been painful for joe biden to come to terms with what might need to be done to make the Senate Functional again. Thats what we get back to these important structural reform prospect if he will undertake Something Like getting rid of the filibuster and now we are at a point it is a basic question of the functioning of the senate needs to be revived. You mentioned in the book its important for people to remember we forget we use to refresh the democratic functioning more than we do every ten years we would do these reforms and we dont do them now. How did that come outside those boundaries . Believe it is like we are out of practice as a country although you could argue the Senate Republicans have done it their own way like changing the justices on the Supreme Court Mitch Mcconnell changed it to a until he took power but going through the motions of updating our democracy even things like one of the last voting amendments we had lowering the voting age to 18 at a time when you could be old enough to be drafted in the military but yet not old enough to vote on the leaders who were drafting you. We do seem to be out of practice but there is a moment of reform ahead its interesting to see how many of those who are creatures of the old senate even like harry reid come up with the new filibuster tells you there is no danger of dramatic reform destroying the senate is just how we put it back together and that will be interesting to see how President Biden will guide that. Offtopic actually the dogs are out of the house for the moment they will be making an appearance that also means we will not be interrupted as we sometimes are. [laughter] they may find their way and spent there is a question from another anonymous attendee that draws attention to the transition and this is a period where i cannot think of another time in modern history where the window transition has mattered more maybe a little bit under obama during his arrival and its worth mentioning that for all the dramatic differences is a remarkable degree of collaboration between the outgoing george w. Bush and then coming barack obama to align legislation because those crashes happening september october cannot wait until january maybe i get is a standing killing but even so nothing like this so how do they do that during this transition when its ambiguous of the official winner and after that . Was already mention the fact we forget was very contested transition between bush and obama there was a high level of collaboration down to the functional handshake of the Incoming Department had which makes a huge difference. A you could drop joe biden into any capitol in the world and hes would he will admit that person at some point along the way and theres something valuable there for country like ours in the moment of reconstruction. Sin lets dig into that. Its rare to have a new president surefooted on Foreign Policy is joe biden is in terms of these relationships that you are talking about with his tenure in the senate before he came to the white house where he insisted on being a central player in the National Security and foreignpolicy decisions and theyll bomb it Biden Administration a lot of questions around the subject. I dont want to miss the chance especially to get your insights on this. In the least you know china well so you know joe biden you know d. C. And you know china so how is he going to handle xi jinping and where is that story go . Well interestingly one of the things that first got me interested in joe biden was when he came over to beijing when i was living there and he did a very unusual thing. Instead of eating inside the hotel he and his staff some of whom are with him now worked on the China Project and went to a little place right around the corner from where i lived. Thats exactly the kind of thing a political figure does in iowa. On the diplomatic trip and china i dont know how a Security Team mean then lets you do that. Their heads exploded. We are going whered we are doing what exactly . Off he goes and he goes into this place and he says to rebut a look i know you guys came in here a. M. Screwing it all out. For your behalf the soul restaurant carried a biden special on the menu are the reason he did that and the reason why i mentioned it as it wasnt just it was a nice done that he had a deep meaning about the nature of the american and chinese contrast in politics. China at that point is going to the series of scandals around official corruption and luxury and self dealings and so bite making the subtle gestures and we are going to treat ourselves like we are a real visiting party. We are going to meet with people. He put the chinese Political Class on notice and not long after that xi jinping sure enough went to have lunch at a little dumpling restaurant in town and he called the biden effect or theres really something fascinating theres a direct relevance to that now because one of the things he asked to do one of the kinds of messages he will have to do as president if he has that opportunity will be to begin to remind people around the world what is it actually to be a free country . What does it mean and what are the countries that are today practicing democracy and doing the hard work of maintaining and restoring it. I think as we move into this stage will call it what it is the face of the world in which we have two governing systems the american system and the chinese system impending and offering claims for certain natural rights and its incumbent on us particularly now so when our democracy is weekend to go out and begin to make that case again and he comes at it from a point because he hes been doing for a while. Coming back closer to home i think about a question of unity within the coalition that is the Democratic Party. One thing i took is very encouraging is the rnc didnt have a lot of problem with republicans. The bushes wanted nothing to do with it then they werent there obviously and the mccains or at the previous rnc chairs. The Democratic Convention by contrast had folks like aoc and Bernie Sanders folks like me folks in the moderate wing of the party and republicans. They all were saying we have to be there for joe biden. I remember a year ago one of the most frequent questions i would get if i were doing a paddle or in appearances how can the Democratic Coalition Stay Together even long enough to make it to election day and i think its worth remembering how much that exceeded expectations and unified our side that have none of the fears that have come to pass which is a credit to joe bidens leadership but also as to the leadership of the progressive wing of the party welcoming the imitation to be part of the conversation and the involvement in the independence of republicans who see something bigger at stake. Its one thing to do that in the campaign. Roberts question is if biden comes to office in january how will he deal with the competing factions of the democratic parties party is to satisfy the dettra wings especially as robert knows because democrats will have an imperative to avoid a repeat of the midterm white at wipeout in the first term of the obama white house. Give us insight on how he will hold a complicated coalition together. I will answer that question but i want to reserve a couple minutes for one more question for you. The question of unity is an interesting one because the truth is the left end of the Democratic Party is going to start pressuring joe biden if he wins approximately 30 seconds after. And frankly he should. Thats how the system works. He should continue push the party because otherwise thats how you get the kind of fall out of touch with the demands of people have. Theres a difference between and seeking to undermine the progress and ultimately if somebody said to me a progressive activists look if we want her cells in the fortunate position to have joe biden as president we will have to go from protest to persuasion howdy get things done without being selfrighteous and thats incumbent on all of us as citizens to decide how do we go forward without staring somebody down. The question i want to ask which is a hugely important piece of your book about trust is about National Service. You mentioned this early and something i think about a lot coming back to the country after being overseas for a number of years that we talked about unity today over and over and when the things youve been thinking so hard about with trust is your experience of doing something together of laboring for purpose larger than yourself. Its almost a miraculous effect on the view of yourself. You see it as your military life and we have something that can do it but it feels to me like we are approaching a moment when we are ready for something bigger. There was a moment before the peace corps. I wonder how you think about National Service and why its important and what it might take for us to reach that new phase. You know i think america does better when we have a project, National Project of some kind and in some ways the world war ii month to such a thing. The moon landing have that same even if not as Many Americans were participating directly in it. I think right now we have no shortage of demand urgent or even existential way important important projects that have a vessel which conquering this pandemic might be the most immediate but Something Like conquering climate changes no less urgent that a lot of these would benefit from engaging more and thats part of the promise of the National Service. I believe theres good work waiting to be done but really as you tdap in your question is the experience itself even if the work words quite so urgent. It is but leaving that aside just the fact that more americans would have some occasion to deal with other americans in a collaborative way where you hide have nothing in common with them besides being american. There might be nothing besides the uniform we were wearing or the flight on her shoulder. You connect to someone who had had different backgrounds or different racial background or buried politics a lot of the time. Because of the pressures we were under an omission that was in front of us and i dont think you have to go to war in order to get that. Thats why im excited about lining up the funding for voluntary National Service opportunities not only for young people but especially for young people. I dont think we have to make people do it. We could make it a norm improperly pay for it. You would make enough to get lied then it would get to where it wasnt close to universal and i think that would do so much good in some idea but im excited about because i dont think its a partisan idea. Take it would help with some of our political estrangement. I wrote about what that might mean in the book and senator great ally in the senate chris coons. Keep basically fund some of the instruments we are to have. It helps deal with things like americorps and if we gave them more resources we could do with more people and i hope he gets more attention. With that thing as a surprise me mention the book for americorps to rate is less than one in five of people who want to get in there but theres not. In some ways this is a practical answer to the big question we are thinking about which is how do you know unify a country . A think our time is drawing to a close but im so thankful ive been able to visit with you and again encourage everyone to read what amounts to a handbook on the style and the character in the parties of a person who if i get my way and most americans do i think agree on this will be the next president of the United States. Thanks so much for the chance to be here and i will turn it over back over to you bradley and thanks again for hosting us at politics and prose. Mayor pete great moderating could you have such a neck for this sort of thing and thank you for your being here this afternoon and evan osnos congratulations on the traffic look and as the discussion made clear it helps us better understand the barry public figure who we think we know and as you convey this even more to him. I really believe you have a right to say whatever but i think the basis of that argument in the book is that if you are going to talk about the or you know whatever racism, whatever it is it has to be funny. You can tackle that issue but you better craft a beautiful joke around it because her to it is late you know sort of the shock value you would never joke about it. Thats not what we do. Thats not what americans do. Comedians make you think and laugh at the same time. So i read about, because im a and i came out in the mid90s but i came out on stage as a parent. I finally had our first son. I had so much material and of course i was going to talk about my mother. Ive never talked about my father because he was boring frankly and then we have this kid. Oh my gosh this is amazing. Also no pun intended but also it was hilarious and im doing this material and after a few minutes some parents in the audience super straight would be laughing because its the same stuff we are going through. At one point in the late 90s because you know its interesting how far, we have come so far and yet you have children and that was the early 2000 might people were like why cant you get married . It really was ridiculous. You think about all the people that are allowed to get married and i cant get married. Mary letourneau married her students and Jerry Sandusky married and i was in houston and the military guy came up to the active sean was like i see why you guys want to get married now. And it was like oh my gosh the power of comedy is so amazing. It breaks so many stigmas. Its disarming. Welcome to our Virtual Program from the commonwealth club. I am Brian Christian your moderator John Zipperer your moderator. Wed like to thank you for making her Program Available and thank them for supporting the club during these uncertain times. Today im joined by Brian Christian author of the new book the alignment problem Machine Learning and human values. Hes best known for his theoretical contributions in the Tech Industry documented in the bestselling book the most hum