administration. representatives dave brat of virginia and jamie raskin of maryland spoke to students at the american university in washington, d.c. they outlined topics they see their parties working together on in the future. including education and infrastructure. due to technical difficulties, we're only able to bring you 45 minutes of the event. >> money aside -- well, present we're in that world. do you think, for example -- jamie, you've suggested that more discussion is part of the lawmakers process. what -- what else could change that would allow you to serve your or represent your constituents better? >> well, i don't want to rush too quickly by the point that dave just made because i think it's very important, about the money. you know, the -- i'll make a bipartisan gesture by invoking our last great republican president, abraham lincoln, who talked about government of the people, by the people and for the people. that is the dream of american democracy that we're -- it's always slightly elusive, a little bit out of reach but we're always trying to move towards it, but today the big threat of government by the people is a money power, which dave correctly describes as bipartisan. in fact, sometimes people come to my office and say we've got a bipartisan jaagenda and i'm ver nervous because it means they want to buy both parties or buy one and get the other for free. so i'm interested in a popular agenda. you know, george washington used to say, we've got to remember that a party is -- comes from the french word, it just means a part of the whole. it's great to have parties to articulate agendas, we can fight it out in the elections, but when we get in we have to remember that each party is a part and we have to try to seek the whole. if the money power is too dominant, it's very hard to respond to a popular agenda, which is why i'm a big champion of public financing of campaigns to break the cash nexus between politicians and the special interests that dave directly describes. and i think you can get there from both a progressive democratic perspective or a conservative libertarian perspective. you don't want rent-seeking in government. people who say, oh, i'll invest a few million dollars here and get hundreds of millions of dollars back in the tax bill, for example. >> i'll just add to that. i agree with jamie on the -- on the -- kind of the advantages of having legislation down at the states' level. so, i mean, the republican, right, we are -- we want a smaller federal footprint. if you look at the rise of corruption and money and whatever, everyone, including churches, right, i went to seminary -- churches now instead of having pancake dinners for the poor are hiring lobbyists to come up to d.c. all of these voluntary -- they're all fading away. everyone is hiring lobbyists to come up here to the federal government. you wonder -- the pie up here, the government pie is a nongrowth pie, right? so everyone is fighting tooth and nail to get their hands on a smaller and smaller piece of government. the mandatory spending part of the budget is 75% of the budget now, right? discretionary, what you all think of as the budget, transportation, education, military, is 25%, 30%, and it's shrinking, shrinking, shrinking, because mandatory means mandatory. so the more seniors you get, it's mandatory, they get it. it used to be reversed. 50 years ago, those percentages used to be reversed so that's putting huge strains. in virginia, the process was just like jamie described, every person can come uh up to the mike. in virginia, every law had to have one topic. >> the single subject rule. >> single subject rule. if you could get that through the house, that would be a miracle, right? because then you don't get to add all the special interests off in the subsections. passed a budget bill, we're still learning what's in it. it's amazing. i just learned halfway buried in the budget bill, the senate announced they're not going to do a budget next year. that's brilliant. right? you really can't make it up. and it's broken. i mean, and that's where -- i want less federal. i want 50 state experiments. let's see who gets it right and people will copy them. >> so it seems we have a lot of consensus or some shared beliefs about the concerns that you have. i'm not asking for any names here, but do you see a -- is there a change -- you're both relative young members of the house. do you see a -- is there a generational shift that we could have -- maybe have some hope on in terms of seeing these challenges or limitations? >> well, let's see, i don't want to overstate the area of partisan overlap. you know, the -- i mean, there are clearly a lot of things that dave and i agree about, you know, for example, the most recent budget caps vote, the all-nighter we pulled, we both voted against it. i think you voted against it, right? again, the process was a nightmare. it came over in the middle of the night. nobody had read it. very reckless spend, like i think the tax bill was extraordinarily reckless. it's going to drive $1.5 trillion deficit hole into what's already a big budget hole that we've got. so i think there is a lot of irresponsibility that is taking place. you know, but it is a time of tremendous political fluidity. so i think it's a time of some possibility, and, you know, i'm drawn to the idea that we should try to get back to some values, basics, like let's try to figure out what the american experiment really is all about and maybe, you know, we can make some connections. i've got what one resolution i would love dave to sign on to, which is a bipartisan resolution i did with colleagues on his side of the aisle, congressman mooney from west virginia and colbertson from texas. it's about religious freedom around the world, calling for the state department in america to take a leading role in attacking laws against blasphemy and apostacy and heresy and sorcery, all sorts of things putting people in jail for religious offenses. christian and muslim societies, muslim and hindu societies. anybody who is a religious dissenter, they get accused of one of these image anywhere religious crimes. president trump made his first foreign trip to saudi arabia and said nothing about the hundreds of people rotting in prison in saudi arabia for these kinds of ima imaginary crimes that the state puts people in jail for or people can get executed for alleged apostcy or heresy. >> dave, anything to add on that? >> no, i'll jump on that train. i'm from virginia, a quite superior state to maryland. >> let's not say that. >> well, you had the lincoln joke, i had to get you back for that. >> although, virginia is a nice blue state today, so you've got a point. >> don't get me nervous. i was feeling relaxed. we had a couple of guys named madison and jefferson that came up with statutes of religious freedom. >> he wanted the founding of the university of virginia and the declaration of independence. >> not a bad list. >> not a bad list at all. >> so i'm all -- that project, that is what we -- i'm a classical liberal. breaking news. "the new york times" i won called me a calvinist atheist randian. with indepth explanations for all four philosophical systems. they provided that in the article. they call you names. it is endless. there is no -- the root word of liberal is liberty. education is an area i see for real bipartisan -- we have to change -- both parties -- we all agree that k-12 is broken. it's outdated, a 50-year-old system and republicans go choice and democrats go no, but there's got to be some way of bringing the gulf, right? i taught freshman economics for 20 years. so if there is one thing i can say an expert on, what freshmen in college know about business, and the answer is zero, right? we pay $14,000 a year for 13 years in k-12, right? 14 grand a year and they don't know what a price is or a cost or a profit or a entrepreneur or accounting or marketing or xcel spread sheet. half the kids won't go to college. the bottom half of the income distribution don't know what a business is. they know what a triangle. you're on your own, buddy. china is on it. india is doing software and design, et cetera. we're just way behind. then we have all of these great band-aid programs. in the band-aid, they're all good, but the big money is the k-12 curriculum. i think there are huge moves. if you look at greenspan and bernanke back in '08, what's the biggest loss from the firearm crisis? it wasn't like $6 trillion that disappeared. they sid the major loss is workforce skills, right? the retraining efforts, pulling these 20 to 25 million able-boded peopable able-bodied people back into the workforce. supposedly we have tight labor markets? really? that's fascinating. the unemployment rate is really low because everyone left, no one's in the workforce. think there is huge bipartisan we can do there. >> so we'll have to invite you back for a discussion of education at various levels to continue that. let's -- i said before, money aside and naively, perhaps, but now with money back on the table, what's -- what were the major -- how has the campaign trail and of course the money raising issues associated with the demands on your time and your interests, how does that affect the job that you do when you -- when you arrive? >> well, everybody's experience would be iddio s-- i'd love to about dave's. he and i actually have this in common. he was sort of a giant slayer when he ran against eric cantor, who was the majority leader, and i prevailed in the most expensive congressional primary in u.s. history. i think there was more than $21 or $22 million spent. i was outspent 9-1. something like 25-1 on tv. i only had one tv ad that we ran the last week, just to say we had a tv ad. i ran totally on the strength of grassroots organizing and the young people i got in my democracy summer project, college kids, a lot of them from a.u. or high school kids come out. so i've done whatever i can to try to escape the tentacles of the money system, as dave was describing it. you know, i've got the benefit, like dave, of having my district very close to d.c., so i'm able to be in constant touch with my constituents. and i don't spend so much on money as much as personal presence campaigning and grassroots organizing. >> dave? >> well, i like being provocative, so i'll challenge the professors in the room to grow a backbone. if you ever write a paper that is relevant, you'll be threatened with getting fired. >> okay, those are fighting words. >> i know. and i'll explain exactly what i mean there. when the freshman democrats or the freshman republicans come in, let me tell you the correlation of voting with leadership, right, and then see the chairman of a committee or subcommittee, this is bipartisan, then see if you're on a money committee, ways and means and financial serves, energy and whatever, where you get a few million bucks for waking up in the morning, right? and he ran on 10-1 spending. i was outspend 40-1. i had 150 grand versus $5 million. and they called me a liberal professor. those were fighting words. i didn't want to admit i was a classical liberal. i didn't know if the audience would catch the distinction when you're running in a conservative primary. >> as a liberal professor, you should stick to your roots. >> i'm sticking to it. and so -- but the faculty out here, that's the thesis statement. everything else is just details underneath that. everyone says, oh, i want to change everything, but it takes guts because as soon as you get near the money, i mean near it near it. you're all in trouble. classical education. all right? that ain't good. is it a nice little creature or a mess? it's a mess, right? once you go after laviathon, you're going to be in trouble. the faculty get to the thesis statement that the whole political system is corrupt and we might have some breakthroughs. >> students, come see me during office hours. but let's focus your description, i couldn't keep up with all of those fancy words that a called you. so let's shift to talking about you care to start with you -- i believe you call yourself and identify strongly as a conservative or a color of conservatism or -- could you talk about that ideology, the ideas that keep you together? >> yeah, it's pretty easy. you can predict my vote, seriously, 100%. i don't think i've deviated. if you put together two people. james madison and adam smith. you ever heard of james madison? he's from my district. he went to what school? roughly speaking, princeton seminary. where i went. that's why we're both interesting characters. i'm just trying to appeal to the sense of humor over there. he was college of new jersey, it wasn't really princeton cemetery. "the new york times" will do a fact check, brat lies to young minds. he stuck around and studied what when he was done? hebrew, right? that world view informed the writing of the constitution. the world view behind the constitution and adam smith who was a presbyterian, he differed with his buddy hume, but that's the world view. i'm a conservative because i believe in conservative ideas, the western sinynthesis between the judeo-christian tradition that came up with freedom of conscience and freedom period. and moses and madison, et cetera. it's the combination of the judeo-christian tradition along with greek reason. if you know your history of thought, augustan, anybody heard of him yet? no, they teach you that here at american? they better. augustan, who based on what famous philosopher? quick. come on, faculty, get moving. plato. then you get equinis. okay, we've got somebody paying attention. that's conservatism. the big idea that entered history, built all the foundational pieces. it -- the fundamental claim of conservatism and every great thinker agrees with is that human nature is very flawed, not a little bit flawed. there are two exceptions, roseau and marx. they thought human nature was great. build a system based on that assumption. how does that work? all right. i'm done. i went on too long. >> students if he asks what price and costs are, i expect answers from you. there you go. jamie, progressivism. >> well, let's see, it's funny, the other day one of my gop colleagues said to me, thii thi there was legislation to strip reproductive freedom in the district of columbia which, of course, isn't represented by voting members in congress so i feel it my responsibility to help defend the district of columbia of the tyranny being governed by other people's representatives without their consent. we got into a thing, raskin, you're a liberal, i said damn right i'm a liberal. the heart of the word liberal is liberty, and if not liberty, what are we fighting for? and progressive, the heart of the word is progress. that's what government has got to be about, moving things forward for as many people as conservative. these days i call myself a conservative and gladly so because i want to son serve the air, the water, the climate system, the constitution, bill of the rights, social security, medicare, medicaid, the affordable care act, the fair labor standards act, the national labor relations act, everything that we've built that is under attack today, and so most of the people, present company excluded, who calls themselves conservative, i honestly don't know what they're conserving anymore other than their own wealth and power and that's not just enough for a great -- that's why you're standing for the noble ideals. what those noble ideals are, i think we might have some differences. for example, you know, the -- our beloved thomas jefferson and madison, they marked a revolutionary break from centuries of theocracy and religious warfare in europe between the catholics and the prthe -- every bit as vicious what we see between the sunni and the shia. they wanted to create a government that is founded on a secular principle. no establishment of religion. free exercise and worship to anybody who wants it. no religious tests for public office and they wanted to break from inquisition and crusades and witchcraft trials and all of it and set it to the side. that's what we should be selling the rest of the world, that we have figured that problem out, and that we should be promoting the separation of church and state and the demolition of t k theocracy, which is such a dangerous idea all over the world. [ inaudible ] >> your descriptions of what motivates you and what you hold to, but the devil's in the details, many times. so how do you translate from the big concepts to the details of specific legislative votes? are there some issues or types of issues that are more complicated or complex than others for you? individually. >> i think your mike went out. so the question is, get down into the details. how do you get down into the details where all these -- we're evading you with our ideals? when you get down into the brass tacks. jamie and i might differ on when he says you have to make progress, who is against progress? i'm not against progress, but the progressive caucus had a -- they had 107 votes for a $10 trillion tax increase this year. we did a tax cut. then we differ on that. >> i must have missed that one. >> no, i'll get it for you. i've used it a million times. >> okay. >> i'll get it. over ten years. and so you go to evidence, right? i studied economics at a nice university, got a phd, so you look for evidence. i called the tax foundation. does our tax bill pay for itself? they said, no. i don't think it is either. it adds 0.3% to gdp each year so s.o. it doesn't pay for itself. have you ever scored republican policy agenda all together, not just the tax bill? because people don't care does the tax bill produce the growth, does the economy in the real world produce the growth. what growth rate would you have to hit to pay for the tax bill? they said 2.75. i said, good, because i think we're going to hit that pretty easily. if you revert to the mean, you're going to hit that. wages just went up. the stock market flipped down 1,000 points two times last week due to wage inflation. that's good news. that means wages are going up. it's evidence after evidence -- everybody's getting checked in the mail. you're getting income tax back. i think it pays for itself. the evidence will support me. the atlanta fed has us growing at 5.4 next quarter. i'm not making stuff up. i don't think you'll stay at 4 or 5, but i think you'll stay at 3 1/2, that's above 2.75 so we pay for $1.5 trillion. last week we add another $400 billion and a infrastructure package for another $1 trillion. we're $120 trillion in debt and $100 trillion in unfunded liability so you young people won't question any major programs when you're seniors, so make sure you get a good job. >> jamie, would you care to add anything on your -- types of bills issues, complexities of going from the concepts to the details in lawmaking? >> well, let's see. again, i'm always looking for common ground, and, you know, one of the things within the judiciary committee i'm hoping we can find some common ground on is marijuana policy. unfortunately we've got an attorney general in the country who wants to turn the clock back, you know, 30 or 40 years in terms of marijuana policies. that's an example of an issue where the vast majority of the public thinks the war on drugs as applied to marijuana has been a miserable failure. marijuana prohibition has been at least as brutal and counterproductive as liquor prohibition was. it also should be returned to the states and lots of different states are going in different directions on it. most states have said people can use medical marijuana if they've got a disease like multiple sclerosis or aids or cancer, what have you. a bunch of them saying we're decriminal easing, a bunch are saying we're going to legalizize regulate and tax it. the attorney general wants to clamp down on it and wipe it out. i'm hoping -- i know we've got some libertarian republicans who are with the progressive democrats in saying leave the states alone. that's a place we can get into the details with very practical policy problem that is affecting millions of people across the country, but you see it's a split within the republican party because there is the authoritarian wing represented by attorney general sessions and i think trump on this, and then there are the younger more libertarian members who really do see that that is totally dysfunctional, counterproductive policy. it's a war against our own people. the only ones benefitting are the organized crime gangs and the syndicates because it inflates the price of the drugs. it's something that some conservative economists figured out a long time ago, like, you know, william f. buckley who was for, you know, deregulating marijuana and legalizing it decades ago. >> so you anticipated my last question. so we'll switch to dave. what do you say the potential opportunities over the next few years for progressives and conservatives to cooperate on, to work together on? >> yeah, i'll just be quick because i want to get to student questions. i know we're probably -- we're are we at on time. >> we have just a couple of minutes. >> education is it. in economics, technology is what is between your ears, it's knowledge, right? everyone thinks of technology as this technical cyber stuff off in silicon valley. no, your human capital, technology, if we don't do better in k-12 with everybody in this country, it's a disaster, right? so we've got to totally turn that around. it's so outdated i cannot tell you. i want a revolution there. i welcome any collaboration on that. >> okay. and jamie, anything to add? any other opportunity or important issue that you'd like to see? >> well, you know, one of the lost opportunities of the last year of the new presidency was in the infrastructure realm. you know, our bridges are falling down, our metro systems are eroding, the highways and roads need repair, the port systems, cyber security, obviously our elections were under attack in 2016. we are not ready for the 2018 elections in terms of cyber security and so on. so we need a massive infrastructure plan. we need to do it in a way that actually advances our environmental goals. so i think we need something like a green deal for america, where we're putting real money in the way that great democratic presidents like franklin roosevelt did and great republican presidents like eisenhower, who built the highway system, or lincoln who did the transcontinental raid road or lbj with the great society, that's always been a bipartisan thing, but we've not seen the administration come forward with a meaningful frurks plfrurks -- infrastructure plan. i agree with dave on public education. i hope we could begin with a core value of common commitment to rebuilding constitution and civic literacy in the country. i think the collapse of knowledge about how politics works and government works is really dangerous to us as a democracy. there's a general collapse of critical thinking skills in the population, so people are told one thing one day and one the next and they don't even compare the lies day to day. we've got, you know, fake news running rampant through the society, mass media, the white house, different government channels. so the public needs to rebuild the means of intellectual self-defense and it's not got to be through education. >> one other footnote, i got a little cynical on the $100 trillion piece. medicare and others were sound. the average death age was 65. the irony of modern medicine is, the better it gets, right, now the average lifespan is 83. it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that you're bankrupt, the logic. now you guys go to school until you're 30, you go to college and then aspen and ski for a year and get creative, come back to grad school and then you work. it's all good. it's a free country. right? then you retire at 62. medicare, social security, kick -- can everybody agree that's not going to work? so he's saying you've got to do infrastructure and whatever, and then the ultimate irony is the seniors, right? they all have at accumulated wisdom of the years as an asset and we're not using it. and if you don't raise the age or do some reform, but as soon as a republican does that, he's going to run an ad against me with a cliff and grandma falling and i'm dead meat. right? so that -- get on it. help us fix this thing. >> i'm sure jamie wouldn't do that in the spirit -- >> i would not do that to dave. >> he can only one run ad. >> i don't run negative ads. >> i didn't have any money to run any. >> thank you for your candid answers and identifying these points of discussion and intersection. i think it's time now to take some questions from the audience. i will move to my right first, since i've had my back at you for the entire time. and how about the gentleman in the first row here? >> so recently i guess we saw a very hot topic is immigration and border security. and we saw republicans and democrats come together and work out a deal, and it was kind of a traditional give and take kind of process, from what i understand. you guys probably know it a lot better than i do, democrats reached a deal with some aspects to daca and republicans also got more, i guess, funding or more for border security. for awhile it looked like it was going to become a solid deal. then 48 hours later, we saw a president who kind of scrapped everything. >> and the question is -- >> and the question is, how do we ensure bipartisanship and continual compromise between the two parties when we kind of see a president who isn't willing to help the process? >> can i go first on this one? >> please do. >> i think that's an awesome question because, really, i don't think bipartisanship is the issue so much as each branch of government standing up for its own interests. so, you know, in congress we actually have a commanding majority which supports the d.r.e.a.m. act, a clean d.r.e.a.m. act. just like in the country, i think it's upwards 70% of the people support a clean d.r.e.a.m. act. what's the problem? here i don't want to point fingers, but i'd invite dave to point out what's going on. we're told the problem is the so-called hastert rule. they don't call it the hastert rule for obvious reasons. mr. hastert isn't the greatest symbol or role model in the country, but the rule remains, which is that they won't -- the speaker of the house will not let anything get out of the gop caucus without a majority vote. so even if you have, say, i think it's 70 or 80 republicans who would vote for a d.r.e.a.m. act with all the democrat so it would pass overwhelmingly, they won't let it come to the floor because it doesn't get a majority within the republican caucus, so you get a minority view frustrating the majority will. and so the -- that becomes a real problem. so even if we do get an agreement through and then the president changes his mind, as he's wanted to do from day to day or hour to hour, then we get a kind of collusion, i hate to use the word, from the majority in congress with the president and say, okay, we'll just let nothing happen. i mean, ever since i got in, yes, we're all for the d.r.e.a.m. act, want to deal with the dreamers. they keep kicking the can down the road. and we know that there are 800,000 young people whose lives are in the balance here. at what point are we going to deal with it when a majority of the american people and the majority of congress do want to see an answer. >> dave? >> disagree. so daca, we have a solution. when the president came down the escalator, the american people and the left went bananas, right? they thought tens of millions of people were going to be deported, right? from that position, we've come over to in the house we have the goodlatte bill. i like the way jamie started off with a process, right? the process is, these ideas should work their way through the committee, through the house, we have a bill and then the senate, they get a bill, and that's not what's going on, right? the senators are a majority of one right now, right? one senator can bring down the place because we've got 51 republicans senators. so one senator can bring it down. i don't think that president trump went against the deal -- he went beyond the goodlatte bill in terms of the compromise, right? the goodlatte bill was to take care of all daca kids, all 700,000. they get a pathway towards legal status, out of the shadows, in exchange for if you send a signal, hey, these american people, they're nice people. once you get in there, eventually you're going to get legal status. well, if you're making 50 grand on average and the rest of the world is making way less than that on average, the signal, the magnet is huge. from south america, you see, if you don't put policy in place to deal with -- they're not unintended -- they're entirelier for seeable consequences of just rational policy. so we wanted to put an end to chain migration. you can't bring in every uncle, cousin, whatever, right? then we want to put in e-verify, which is legal hiring. and that compromise is on the table for a daca deal. then trump went beyond it. so the question i don't get, trump went beyond it from 700,000 and upped it to 1.8 million, right? so he jacked it up beyond what the house bill was going to do. i don't know if that number -- he did a pathway to full citizenship. i don't know if that would make it through the house, right? the problem is he started off right. the executive, they're -- he was elected, right? so he does his thing. the senate needs to do their -- they representatives and we're representatives of our districts. that's the way the process is supposed to work, but it's not working that way. on the health care bill was hodgepodge, lindsey graham is waving a shiny object and then dick durbin comes in, what about this, it's a disaster. let the process work. have open debate. let's get to a solution. >> good. >> can i just add one quick thing on that? which is that, you know, the reason that pelosi took to the floor for eight hours in that historic quasi filibuster or magic minute that she had last week was she simply wanted to say bring out the bill, bring out all the bills, the goodlatte bill, a clean d.r.e.a.m. act, let's see which one passes, which one the majority of the members want because it's been like charlie brown and the football, we want the d.r.e.a.m. act but we want to end what they're calling chain migration, which we've called family reunification. it takes years or decades to get family members over, but why is -- that's a principle enshrined in american law for centuries you can bring a family member. most of our families were created that way in america. why suddenly should we terminate that? and, you know, of course sometimes they want the wall. you want the wall? great. build the wall. keep your promise. let mexico pay for it. if mexico pays for it, we're all for it. but i don't see why the american people should be forced to pay for it. we should keep that part of the promise. it's the wall, the barbed wire, the motes and so forth. we've put billions of dollars into enforcement and we should have meaningful enforcement and we're willing to talk about that, but at a certain point we need an answer from the gop about the dreamers. when i first got in, we'll take care of it in the summer, then it was the fall. we thought we had an agreement when pelosi and schumer went to the white house back in june, the summertime. they kicked the can down the road again, even though we thought we had a deal. so, you know, it's very hard because we can't get firm answers from people. >> so i'll just summarize this so we can get other questions in. >> i want to add one other footnote. >> i've give you 20 words. >> they're very clever, their use of language. she wanted and bill and then she wanted a certain bell, the hurd/ing aul hurd/aguilar bill. and then the queen of the hill bill. the house, senate and the white house are won by republicans. we need nine votes in the senate, right? so we ought to compromise, but good god, maybe he's in charge in six months. >> so i gave you more than 20 words, on like my students in their papers, but it seems like broad goals, some people share but the rules matter. right? in terms of what is finally produced. institutional structure as well as party rules. i had -- let's go to the middle here. >> -- school of public affairs and i was interested in knowing how -- you you see social media and the way that legislators communicate with their constituents and colleagues, and also about policy, how you think that social media affects the way that you're able to do that in a civil way and in real life as well. >> well, i love it. you know, we use facebook, we use twitter, we have e-mail, of course. i get, i don't know, 10,000 or 15,000 messages a week. i can't answer each one individually, but i can write about what's happening with immigration, what's happening with reproductive freedom, what's happening with religious liberty, i can write a general thing to send to people and then i try to answer as many individually as i can, but it's a great way to stay in touch with people. we do facebook live as well to stay in touch with people and we go out and do the old fashioned town meetings. to me, that's the part of the process. obviously there is abusive stuff that goes on online, too. we know that there are russian bots and there are, you know, there is certainly a hate subculture online, but you just have to try to tune it out and use it to, you know, communicate to the people who still have some, you know, mental balance. >> dave? >> yep. i agree. it's a huge asset. but the negative, right, it is overwhelmingly negative, right? i mean, you've got one-on-one, in committees, in the mainstream press, it gets a little worse, right? on the fake news. both sides have their versions. and the online stuff, it's a blessing but it's also a curse. the language out there in the town halls, et cetera. i got mauled. i had my last town hall in a church. they're loving f-bombs at me one after the other. it's all online and you're just going, wow. you start answering and you can't answer. that wasn't as bad as the online stop. people personalize it, right? i've never run a negative ad. i try not to go -- i try to keep it on policy. the press comes up i'm doing a story on so and so. i don't do stories on so and so. ask me about their policy, i don't do personalities, i don't do drama. if you disagree you're a bleep, right? it's pretty unsilver ocivil out. >> okay. question from my left. do we have anyone? yes, sir. >> hi, my name is jack. i first want to thank you go for giving us your time and being here. the current president has made some very outrageous comments towards the opposite party. specifically he called democrats treacherous for not clapping at the state of the union. how do you both think this impacts bipartisan issues all around and what point do you think the republican party needs to come together and say to the president, like, we need to work with the democrats and we've got to move forward as a nation as opposed to one party? >> yeah, well, i agree with you. i -- i have to come in after charlottesville, i was on vacation, right? hugely controversial. so i go on to cnn and fox news to lay down how i view those topics, right? it was kkk, anti-semitism, racism, fascism, et cetera. i laid out my first principles on major news shows, and i think the white house has to do more than that. i said the president needs to work on the presbyterian thing. that's my background and his background. things should be aired out on that ethical plain. if you want to talk about fascism, what's fascism? a big total state. my party's for a small state. so you have a debate on the issues, right? then i hear hisses coming from the audience here when you make fundamental eighth grade claims. you have to have a rational debate without people hissing and making noise and rebut human reason. i don't like the drama, the statements, a bunch of the tweets are rough, right? i don't do that, right? but people need to distinguish between this person, that comment, this person, that comment, and it's tough. we're all working on that, but you can only do what you can do. >> jamie? >> well, let's see, first of all, treason is the only crime that is defined in the constitution. it's a very strict definition if you look at it. you need multiple witnesses showing that a person has adhered to the enemies of the country in a time of war. so what the president said was absurd, and, of course, betrayi betraying complete constitutional ignorance and legal ignorance. i think it's more befitting, the attitude of a tin pot dictator or a banana republican as opposed to a good old fashioned republican. we don't accuse our political adversaries of treason because they don't clap loud enough for you or they don't stand up, you know, even in the case of steve bannon describing members of the trump family and the trump campaign as treasonous for the famous meeting that took place in trump tower with natalie veselnitskaya and the other russian agents, he called that treasonous, and, i mean, i think that's moving closer in the direction, but there was no clear conspiracy there to engage in some plot against america in some ways. so i thought that was wrong. think that was probably what got the president upset and made him turn around and call us treasonous for not standing up when he wanted us to stand up in the speech. but, look, the question of love of country is one that goes to the heart of what it means to be an american. people express their love of their country in lots of different ways. in millions service, in teaching, you know, as dave keeps talking about, in community service, in religious action, in social movements like the me too movement, like black lives matter, all of these are expressions of love of country. i want to salute those young people who get engaged. a.u. continues to be the number one campus for engagement and volunteer activity in the country. that's something we can be really proud of here. also the students at uva when the nazis and the klan and the skinheads showed up without a permit on that friday night of august 2017, there weren't many students there because they weren't back in school. the orientation leaders were there and i think some of the football players and athletes were there. when they saw what was happening, they went out to the statue of thomas jefferson to say that is not what this campus stans for, that's not what thomas jefferson stood for or what the ideals about the declaration about. some people like to call your generation snowflakes. i say go and take a look at what they did that night when they stood down that band of fascist thugs and hooligan who's came to charlottesville and killed heather hay heather heyer and they were outnumbered 10-1. i've got a lot of faith in your generation. >> i believe on that very positive note, and after a great conversation, we'll draw it to a close. i'd like to thank our guests for your terrific conversation. and sharing your time as well. [ applause ] >> and thanks to jane, too. >> c-span's washington journal, live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. coming up wednesday morning, georgia republican congressman rob woodall discusses the 2019 budget and infrastructure plan. and welles lee college professor katherine moon will discuss the u.s. goal of using the olympics to highlight issues with north korea. watch c-span's washington journal live at 7:00 a.m. eastern wednesday morning. join the discussion. coming up, treasury secretary steven mnuchin testifies on the 2019 budget proposal. we'll join live starting at 10:30 a.m. eastern on c-span 3. veterans affairs secretary dr. david shulkin testifies about his agency's 2019 budget proposal thursday. secretary shulkin appears before the house veterans affairs committee live at 8:00 a.m. eastern on c-span3. >> c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span was created as a public service by america's cable television companies, and today we continue to bring you unfiltered coverage of congress. the white house, the supreme court and public policy events in washington, d.c. and around the country. c-span is brought to you by your cable or satellite provider.