 To Think Tech, I'm Jay Fidel. We're doing community matters this morning with Congressman Ed Case. We are delighted to have him on the show. Welcome Ed, nice to see you. Aloha, good to be back. So as I was saying before, we live through your eyes. We see through your eyes what is going on. And to a certain extent we see through the filter of your emotional reactions, what's going on. And I wanted to get a handle on how you see and feel these events over recent weeks and the events to follow. What has been your experience watching this election process be attacked this way and undermined along with the other things that have undermined our democracy over the past few years? Well, first I think I want to take a little issue with your premise because from my perspective what I'm trying to do is to take 750,000 people that I represent here who have a variety of different views about what's actually going on and try somehow to synthesize that and translate that into what I should be doing to truly represent them and you back in Washington, D.C. So I don't think it starts and ends with my eyes. It's really a longer process than that. But I of course am the U.S. Congressman for the first congressional and one of two for Hawaii and I live and work in Washington, D.C. And so yes, my job is very much to tell people back home what I'm seeing and what I'm feeling and to allow them to participate through me and what's actually going on in Washington for better or worse. So to answer your question, it is of course a very, very uncertain, very chaotic time for our country. We've had a chaotic four years but when you take all of the factors of any presidential transition, especially a transition where an incumbent has been beat which hasn't happened that often in our history, that is always a very uncertain and to some extent chaotic time. Number one, number two, what has added to that of course is this president's approach to the transition. I think that is certainly complicated things. I think we could all say that whether we voted for or against President Trump. Number three, Congress is also turning over. So we are ending a two year Congress and we're going into the next Congress and some of the elections that are gonna be key to how Congress responds are themselves uncertain to elections in Georgia, most directly. And then finally, of course, we're sitting in the middle of a pandemic and a public health and an economic crisis that is not going away. And so perhaps in March and April, we thought, okay, fine, we can let this by the fall and then we'll have an election and then we'll all kind of be off to the races, whatever happened after the election. Well, that did not happen and it is not happening. So you take all of those factors together. And for me, it is trying to navigate with as much stability and calmness and sense of purpose as I possibly can on behalf of Hawaii to continue to rather to complete this Congress of the Gens on January 3rd and to work into the next Congress. And of course, COVID-19 doesn't care whether Congress turns over or presidents turn over. So that's not going anywhere. But there are many things that are on my plate, but what I try to do very hard is to keep my focus on my job, which is contribute to national leadership. Number one, number two, to help Hawaii wherever and however I can and number three to help individual people with their own needs. And I would add to that list in this particular time that I am changing partners. Congresswoman Gabbard's term ends and Congressman Kehele's term begins. And so I'm very much involved in that transition because for a small state like Hawaii, you only have four, two in the house and we got to be tight all the time. So that's very, very much on my mind. Yeah, I had the impression from comments you made with him, Kehele, that there was a partnership here that you guys want to work together and that's obviously a great way to go. Do you agree? Yes, and I would also say though that I had a good partnership with Tulsi as well. You know, I have a good solid personal relationship with her. We agree on many, many issues. We certainly agree on trying to help Hawaii wherever we can and in Hawaii, although we technically have two districts, first congressional being urban Hanlulu that I represent and the second congressional being the rest of Oahu and the state that I used to represent, that Tulsi now represents, so those are our technical districts. But I think everybody in Hawaii that follows us in any way, shape or form and even if you don't follow it, you really don't think about your US representatives as district focus. We are really two at large members of Congress if you want to think about it that way. And so I've had a good solid two years with Tulsi. It's been a real privilege for me to serve with her and we've gotten a lot done together. But I mean, the first month that I returned to Congress, she of course announced her presidential campaign and that's where her attention was. And so, you know, I and I don't fault her for that. That was her right. That was her privilege. That was her choice. But it's tough to carry the entire state. You really need two full-time contributors. So I am looking forward to, you know, Congressman Elect Caheli coming in and really being full-time focused on his duties in the house. We also have a very long, you know, personal and professional relationship dates back almost 20 years now. We both come from the Big Island. We're both, you know, from Hilo. We have a lot of shared experiences, shared emotions, I would say, shared approaches to how we deal with certain issues. So I think it's going to be a smooth transition to the credit of both Tulsi and Kai. And it's going to be a good, solid partnership. I think it's going to be a good delegation overall. I mean, we're all, you know, we're all different people, but I think it's a good, solid four-way partnership. So there was some issue about whether Nancy Pelosi would continue, whether the House would reorganize itself with some of the leader. How do you feel about the ultimate choice, which seems to be that Nancy will continue? You've lost some seats, Republicans. I'd also like to know how you feel about whether that will change anything as far as the House actions are concerned. Well, there was really never any doubt that Speaker Pelosi was going to continue as a speaker. You know, she was unopposed to return as speaker and she was voted in by acclamation. So there was not even a recorded vote. Actually, that's a caucus decision. We do have to all vote individually on the first day of Congress. But I expect that there's not going to be anything, you know, that's going to change between now and January 3rd. But that is not to say that there isn't a lot of discussion, a lot of angst, a lot of questions as to why on balance the House Democrats lost seats as opposed to pick them up. We were expecting to pick them up, but obviously in those frontline swing districts across the country, the bottom line is those districts did in fact get lost. And many of my very good friends were among those. So that's an emotional time. I mean, you form friendships. So then one day your partners with them in Congress and the next day their voters have decided to return them home or turf them out and you still have that friendship. But there's a couple of people in particular that I just was really far down the road with that I'm going to really, really miss. And I think that that decision, that question has to be asked. Why? Why did that happen? And for that matter, I think there's a larger question because we're obviously in a divided country here. And although President-elect Biden got the highest popular vote total in the history of our country, President Trump got the second highest vote total in the history of our country. Here in Hawaii, President Trump got 35% of the vote. So one in three voters have voted for President Trump. And I think I have to ask the person that represents them, even though I did vote for President-elect Biden, I still have to represent those folks. And so I think we all need to understand a little bit more what actually is going on. There's going to be some areas where you just never going to have any agreement at all. But there's a whole middle of this country that is quite uncertain. And the state for that matter is quite uncertain about the direction of really either party and has decisions to make every election. And my job is to try to understand what that is, why and how do I embrace the folks that did vote for me and the folks that didn't. Yeah, interesting. Are you across the aisle kind of guy who makes friends with Republicans and tries to collaborate with them on issues and actions? I do. I look for those opportunities. I mean, there are issues that there's really, it's very hard to strike some middle ground. I won't say extreme, it's just two ways of approaching an issue. And one way is one way and the other way is the other way. And at some point people are kind of locked into what they think is the right direction and you have to just vote. And that's a straight majority vote. And that's how the system should operate. However, if the only thing you do is just line up majority votes all the time without trying to find those areas of agreement and collaboration and consensus where you actually can get something done that's more than just to 51% where you're up into the 70s, 80s, 90%, that's worth the effort. And so yes, I absolutely do look for those opportunities. I'll give you one quick example. This current term, I and fellow Democrats and Republicans formed the Pacific Islands Caucus first time that Congress has ever had a caucus which is a collection of members of Congress that come together for a specific purpose focused on the Pacific and the Pacific Island countries and jurisdictions. That was completely bipartisan. We introduced out of that caucus a major bill called the boosting long-term US engagement in the Pacific or the Blue Pacific Act. And that had two primary introducers on the D side and two primary introducers on the R side. So that was an area that I found common ground and we pursued it. But there's other times that you just, you just, you know, the same people that I'm working with on the Pacific Islands Caucus we don't agree on every vote. Yeah, well, you know, to me it seems, I'm just making a guess, but if you have more Republicans, still the Democrats have the majority, but if you have more Republicans, they're less likely to be amenable to discussions because they feel they have more leverage that way. And it may be hard for you to, you know, actually convince them to come over to, you know, the more liberal side, if you will. And I wonder if, do you have conversations with some of them where you say, look, you know, can't you change your mind about this? You know, gun control is a good thing, whatever the issue may be. Let me try to persuade you. Is that possible? It is possible and it does happen and I do have those conversations. I don't take somebody's position for granted just because they've said that's their position, you know, that's part of the legislative process is understanding, you know, why somebody feels that way and whether it is a way to solve their problem. And similarly with me. And so that is as it should be. There are some issues that are very, very tough either philosophically or increasingly in a very divided and polarized country. Let's say that a Republican actually does agree that we should again ban assault weapons. That's a position that I believe we should. And somewhere around 80, 85% of the American people, including many Republicans believe we should ban assault weapons. But to get Republicans to vote on that are, they may believe that, but they're so petrified of a very, very vocal part of their primary election electorate that it's very hard for them to do that politically. I would say on your basic observation that it's harder. It's actually easier in a situation where we have a very slim majority, the slimmest majority we've had in 20 years. That actually is easier to get things done in the middle because you cannot round up automatically a majority of Democrats to ram through a bill or a proposal that 40 to 50 of those Democrats don't agree with. You used to be, if you've got a 20 person majority, then yeah, 20 Dems can vote no on it. You'll still pass it, but now your margin is eight Dems. Many of whom are in frontline districts. And I think the minority party, the Republicans in this case, would look for those opportunities, unfortunately, unfortunately, both to fashion a middle ground consensus bill that could pass and to exploit those divisions. So we'll see how it goes. Yeah, and then of course in two years time, we'll have another election and the house will be in play again. But let me ask you about the Senate. The Senate is so interesting and McConnell, I really thought McConnell was a second quality candidate as against that woman. I think her name is Amy Thatcher, who was running against, she retired Marine pilot as well and very, very presentable, very articulate, very smart, but she lost. And so McConnell is there again. The Senate is, depending on what happens in Georgia, the Senate is in control. The house had been frustrated on so many things and it's been impossible for Congress to act on so many things because the Senate has been intransigent. I mean, how do you feel about that? This is a real problem. You can legislate all you want, but you need both houses to pass a bill. Well, what's a real problem? And this is emblematic of that problem, but that problem has existed in other combinations over the last 15, 20 years. The real problem is that one political party views participating in passage of bills that the other party is gonna claim as a win as a loss for them. And so we're in a win-lose situation. So in the case of Mr. McConnell and assume for now a Republican Senate majority, even if Democrats came up with a bill that was supported by a fair number of Republicans and passed it through, I think that, and I think this is tragic. I'm just trying to answer your original heed, which is what do I see? So I'm reporting what I see, but I'm one of those folks that for this point is reporting what I see without stating an opinion on it. My opinion is pretty obvious, but from their perspective, if they let that bill through the Senate, is that considered a loss? And is that gonna be exploited? That loss, that weakness, if I can put it that way, is that gonna be exploited by opponents of those Republican senators come two years from now or by Democrats nationally? And so you get yourself into this mindset that if you let anything through, other than must pass bills where it's very, very obvious that you have a piece of that or it's a consensus that the American people support, other than those kinds of bills, I think it's gonna be very difficult to get through Congress in a Senate majority leader, McConnell, some of the signature bills that I very much believe in, whether they be HR1, the Ford People Act, which is major government reform across campaigns, spending, lobbying, et cetera, elections, to irresponsible gun violence bills that I already spoke to, to environmental initiatives, responsible climate change and on and on and on. Those solid bills, I think it would be very difficult in that situation. That's really tragic. It's very, well, I think it is tragic. And there's my editorializing on my view now. It is tragic because I think these are initiatives that are supported by a majority of the American people, a significant majority, including many Republicans, but back to the basic problem. And that is that many of these Republican senators, they're not worried about their general elections. They're worried about their primary elections. And of course we have President Trump who wants to maintain power and influence after he leaves office. And so I think many of them are looking over their shoulder at, if I'm not bound to the orthodoxy of Trump Republicanism, somebody's gonna come after me in the primary. And by the way, just to be very equal about that, the same model and the same, milieu I suppose I would say exists over on the Democratic side too. So nobody is excused from the unfortunate consequences of extremism in our political system and its failure to produce good solid mainstream common sense solutions that can get through Congress and the American people support. Well, you'll agree with me that Trump's administration has certainly exacerbated the division in the country. And I have a personal theory on a run by you. And that is that when he's out of office, hopefully, that'll happen in due course. When he's out of office, the power will drain from him. And he can go on and talk radio. He can have another reality show. But the bottom line is I suspect a lot of people in those 70 plus million people who voted for him are not gonna be as impressed when he doesn't have the power of the office. And therefore, between now and the midterm, is the picture kaleidoscopically is likely to change because of that phenomenon. What do you think? It may be not as much as you think. It is clear that there's a lot of power in the presidency and in being in office. After all, if you're in office, it's usually more influential than not being in office. But I don't think that you're premised that the power will drain all the way out of former President Trump in that instance is accurate. You take the 74 million last count or so people that voted for him. They voted for a variety of reasons, I think. And obviously one of the things I wanna figure out is exactly why, including again, back to the folks, the one in three voters in my district that I represent, why did they vote for Trump? I think I understand why people voted for President and elect Biden. But I don't pretend to fully understand why folks in Hawaii generally voted for Trump. But back to the point, I would say, I don't know, somewhere around half plus, they're just completely loyal to President Trump. So these are not folks that are voted for Trump because they were against Biden. That wasn't their primary reason. These were not folks that voted for Trump because they believed that the Democratic Party philosophy on any number of issues, let's take the economy, let's take COVID-19, let's take foreign policy, China. These people would probably vote for another Republican at some point on a philosophical ground, so not loyal to Trump. But a great number are completely loyal and they're gonna remain loyal. And Trump is telling them still that this election is invalid and they believe it. And I think that's a real tragedy. What do you think about the possibility of a shutdown? We've seen references to that. There's a certain concern in the community that it's shut down, especially in the context of all the problems economically and COVID that we have now and all the chaos that's been going on. A shutdown would just make more chaos. Is it coming? Is that gonna happen? Well, it's possible. I don't think it's probable. It's certainly possible because we did not pass our appropriations bills for the current fiscal year. So we're talking about FY21, which started on October 1st. And we have to pass those bills once a year, 12 appropriations bills. I'm on the Appropriations Committee. We got our job done. We actually came back the Appropriations Committee in the middle of COVID-19 and spent two, three weeks. I think it was just as a committee in Washington just getting our job done. And it's been stuck in the Senate ever since. And so because we did not pass those bills by October 1st, we passed what's called the continuing resolution, which is a fancy way of saying, hey, we haven't gotten our job done yet. So just keep spending what you did last year while we do our job. That CR, as we, excuse me, referred to it, expires on December 11th. Now, after December 11th, if that CR is not extended or if the appropriations bills are not passed, the federal government runs out of money. And that's what the shutdown is. Now, it doesn't happen immediately, but it happens soon enough. And that happened just two years ago. We had the longest shutdown in our history, incredible devastation and damage to many parts of our country and society. Real hardship to many people that are particularly dependent. And so there's a lot of pressure right now to either pass those approved bills by the 11th or pass another CR. President Trump has said he may vote against, he may veto any of those bills or CR because there are provisions that he considers sacrosanct, like border walls, and he apparently is willing to shut down the federal government to get his way in the waning days of his presidency, which I think is its own tragedy, but we'll see. Maybe he's just bluffing to negotiate something or I hope he doesn't bluff and take it to the edge with the American people in the middle of all of this chaos and uncertainty that I already referenced. Well, I was happy to see that Emily Murphy relented or Trump expected her to relent and she opened the transition or said she would yesterday. And now Joe Biden has got all these people he's appointing to high positions in government. And so you have a feeling of, may I say, normality. Finally, in this process, that's encouraging. But I wanted to ask you, I was thinking about what we would discuss today. I wanted to ask you if you knew any of the people he's appointed or if you had some kind of proximity to them where you could speak about the quality of these appointments, the quality of his transition and the likely quality of his administration on January 20th. Well, I know a fair number of them for having met them. I can't say that I know them well. I have an assessment of them both individually and collectively. Cedric Richmond, who is going to be part of President-Elect Biden's legislative team. In other words, a relationship with Congress. Anshuanda Gough, who is the head staff member for the majority leader and she basically runs the floor. They're both going into the administration, I know, and both they're high quality people. Cedric is a representative from Louisiana. And so, he is my colleague. And I think that it is from what President-Elect Biden has done so far. It is a good solid group of people both individually and collectively. Of course, President-Elect Biden has focused on foreign policy first. I mean, there is not a lack of quality at all in any of his appointments at state or intelligence or national security advisor. Good folks that have been in foreign policy for a long time. And I think really what he is striving for. And I think this is the right choice under the circumstances is some stability, some calmness, some predictability, some stability, some forward thinking direction in his administration that still is devoted to the world as it is today, as opposed to, when he joined the Senate decades ago. But nonetheless, is a, I don't wanna say continuation because that implies, rigidity and status quo. And I don't think that's where he's going. But the folks that he has put in so far in the foreign policy side. And I expect that we'll see also on the non-form, the domestic policy side, are solid people with experience that would not embarrass themselves in a press conference in Tokyo or anywhere else. And I think on top of that, let's recognize that he has stated that he is very much interested in a very diverse administration, whether it be ethnic diversity or geographic diversity or gender diversity. And he's honoring that so far. I mean, this is at the end of the day, this is gonna be certainly the highest number of women ever in administration, rightly. And starting, of course, with the vice president. And so I think he's on the right track here. So I'm looking forward to the rest of his nominations now. I still have to oversee them. So, just because I went from a Republican president and his administration to a Democratic president and his administration doesn't mean my responsibilities as a separate independent co-equal branch of government don't somehow change. And so the responsibilities are the same. I'm just hoping that I don't have to disagree so deeply with so many of the actions of an administration in areas like the environment or in some cases foreign policy. Well, you've talked about, of course, policy. You've talked about their qualifications. You've talked about their diversity. But it leaves me wondering, what's gonna happen in the Senate when they come up for confirmation? And it refers back to what we were talking about before was Mitch McConnell and this argument between this ongoing argument between the Senate and the Democrats. And I wonder how they stand politically, whether any of them are gonna be targets for trouble in the Senate on confirmation. Well, I think, President, like Biden from what I've seen from somewhat of the outside here is trying to navigate that very carefully. So he has not put up any really just off the charts out of the mainstream or for that matter, controversial folks for nomination so far. He has chosen people that he thinks will gain confirmation where necessary in the Senate. I think he's doing that very, very deliberately. And I think that that's fair because I think one of the results of this election if you think about it was that the people wanted to change the president but they didn't necessarily want to go in a completely different policy direction in this country. They still wanted a fairly moderate mainstream policy. They didn't wanna be out at the extremes of either party. And I think that at the end of the day you're gonna see an administration out of the president and elect that's gonna have roughly that look although there are gonna be areas that the Republicans in the Senate probably gonna disagree completely with. For example, the president elect Biden has already said he's gonna take the country back into the Paris climate accords as I believe we should do. He has already indicated that he may try to stitch together the Iran nuclear deal again. Those are areas that Republicans may well balk at. So I don't think he's gonna be shy to take on controversial issues but in his choice of cabinet appointments that require advice and consent in the Senate I think he's being pretty conscious and careful not to put up somebody that's just a no brainer defeat from the get-go just to make the point. Yeah, a lot of commentators at least on the Democrat side have said that the things that Trump administration has done have destroyed parts of government. And it'll take Joe Biden at least four years or more to repair those problems and to take us back to normalcy. I hate to use that term as you know but take us back to a place where we can make affirmative and constructive steps going forward. So he'll have to look back before he can actually do initiatives going forward on many issues. And I wonder how you feel about that. You may have surprises and frustrations in the house going forward that you maybe didn't fully expect. We live in a time of chaos and thus surprises. How do you feel about going into this session? How are you girding your loins to deal with those surprises? You know, I've just been in so many situations throughout my life where whether it be in my professional life or my personal life or my political life that I've dealt with uncertainty, I have tried to anticipate plan for and implement what I can see or what I can reasonably expect. And I just acknowledged to myself at this point in my career and in my life that uncertainty is just a part of it. And so I try to anticipate what might happen and I try to prepare for it but there are things that come out of the off the wall. And you have to deal with that. I'm still the representative even though I got thrown an outside slider or whatever it might be that I never expected but I've just done it so many times that I just run myself through a routine. What exactly happened? Why did it happen? What are the alternatives? What can I do to effect what my constituents and I believe should be done in this situation? How can I collaborate with others? That hasn't changed, that doesn't change. And so I guess I don't fear uncertainty. I know it's a reality of the world and I try to control my world as much as I can but I can't control the entire world and my world and much less the rest of the world. And so what can you do? I think in terms of damage if you want to use your word certainly President Trump has taken actions within his administration that I deeply disagreed with. For example, he has systematically tried to take out the inspectors general from the departments, the cabinet departments and these inspectors general are the folks that look over the shoulders of the folks that are actually doing the job and they're supposed to be independent. They're supposed to be able to review a situation and report publicly as to what actually happened what went wrong. So they are critical to the operations of government and President Trump systematically has tried to obliterate them because they have said that what he wanted to do was wrong or what he did was wrong. Now that's a huge mistake. That's a matter of going back and reinstating them and putting them back into positions which President-elect Biden presumably will do but other things are a little bit more long lasting from a damaged perspective. One example and these are areas where President Trump can take actions that are binding so to speak on the next president and very, very hard to unwind. For example, President Trump decided after decades of Republican and Democratic presidents and Congresses to the contrary to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. Now that's hard to unwind. So you can't just kind of hit reverse back six months. He already did it. Yeah. Well, you know, in you I hear the sum total, the cumulative total of all your life experiences as a lawyer, I hear a lawyer. I hear a guy who's been in business in the tourism industry. I hear a guy who has had courageous experiences in the Hawaii legislature and a guy who is turning out to be a venerable, long-term representative of the state of Hawaii and a realist who appreciates the options and the need to analyze them. I admire you for that. Thank you very much for appearing on our show. I hope we can talk again soon. Thank you so much for having me and I look forward to working with everybody down the road at case.house.gov, case.house.gov. Thanks so much. Stay safe. Aloha. Aloha.