 Good morning, my name is Nancy Lindborg. I'm the president of US Institute of Peace and I'm delighted to welcome you to our bipartisan congressional dialogue series. This is the 14th bipartisan dialogue since we launched the series in late 2018, and these events have become I think a really inspiring forum that demonstrate the importance of coming together across the political aisle to engage in conversation and dialogue. This of course is the essence of peace building. And this does happen every day in Washington DC so I'm pleased to welcome today to congressional leaders. This is Congressman John Molinar from Michigan and Congressman Tom Swazi from New York to share their perspectives on advancing international religious freedom. This topic that USIP has focused on for really most of our history, we launched our religion program 30 years ago, researching the ways that violations of religious freedom contribute to violent conflict. And our findings underscored that the religious discrimination is not the root cause of most violent conflicts. The role of religion and peace and conflict is often very significant and needs to be understood. So for the last three decades our work and our research has borne out that building societies and states where people of all faiths and none can flourish is not just an effective piece. It's also a critical ingredient for establishing peace in the first place. So based on that conviction and that evidence our former USIP colleague David Little helped advise on the passage and implementation of the first international religious freedom act in 1998. And today our religion and inclusive societies program supports the peace building efforts of religious communities and organizations in conflict affected areas around the world from Columbia to Pakistan to Iraq. And this past year we partnered with USA to launch research initiative to better understand the correlation between religious freedom, peace, and development. And this project will produce practical locations for USA missions around the globe on how to design the kind of development projects that both protect and strengthen the freedom of religion and believe. So I just want to note yesterday we were pleased to welcome Knox Tims to USIP shout out to Knox, he left government after 20 years of service working exactly on these issues so welcome to the team Knox. Thank you Congressman Molinar and Congressman Swazi for joining us today to discuss what what you're doing in Congress to raise the importance of international religious freedom. The two served as honorary co-chairs of this year's National Prayer Breakfast. And I want to note that this was the year that Congressman John Lewis offered the closing prayer. And he very powerfully said that we must become truly one family and hold on to each other. We must believe in one another. We must never give up on our fellow human beings. Together, today, we go in peace, we go in love, and we commit to treating each other as we would treat ourselves. So both of you have reflected in recent days on the remarkable contributions of Congressman Lewis and your sorrow in his passing. The entire US Institute of Peace community joins you in that sorrow and sense of deep loss. We're we're just grateful you could join us this week. So Congressman Molinar represents Michigan's fourth district. It includes parts of Midland, Lansing and Central Michigan and he serves on the House of Appropriations Committee. Congressman Swazi represents New York's third district, includes parts of Long Island in Queens. He served on the House, he serves on the House Ways and Means Committee, and as Vice Chair of the Bipartisan Congressional Problem Solvers Caucus. So each brings rich expertise to this issue and the broader arena of international affairs. So I'm so happy you both could join us in just a moment. Congressman Molinar will offer remarks followed by Congressman Swazi. After that we'll have a moderated discussion between the two I get to ask a few questions, and then we'll take questions from our online audience. Viewers can participate in the live Q&A. You can submit questions on the USIP web page and please join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag Bipartisan USIP. So with that, Congressman Molinar, I'll turn things over to you. Thank you for being here. Well, thank you, Nancy. Very much appreciate the chance to be with you and appreciated your opening remarks as well. And I'm just grateful to be here with Tom and talk about the important issues of religious freedom and the religious persecution that's happening occurring around the world. And last year we visited the Institute of Peace and that's when this event was first suggested. We hope to be with you in person, but obviously the current circumstances don't permit that. But, you know, as co-chairs of the National Prayer Breakfast this year, we made religious freedom the theme of the breakfast and highlighted stories of religious minorities around the world who are doing very good works in the face of oppression. And really Tom was the driver in making this the theme and had the vision for this, so I'm grateful for that. But the people we focused on live remarkable lives of faith outside of the comfort that religious freedom that we enjoy here in the United States. And as they had that steadfast commitment, their faith was a powerful testament in the incredible work these people are doing. You mentioned John Lewis at the onset and once again, you know, just were reminded about what a wonderful, gracious person we had to enjoy as our congressman here, as well as, you know, his legacy and the civil rights movement. Just a wonderful man and we were so grateful that he gave the closing prayer at the Prayer Breakfast. I can still remember the day when Tom and I talked with him on the house floor about this and he had been getting treated for his cancer. He was weakened, but he immediately said yes and he said he would either do it in person if he was able to or would tape it. Of course, he was only able to tape it, but we were just so grateful to have him provide that spirit of unity right to close the National Prayer Breakfast. It's truly an honor to serve with him in Congress and our prayers are with him, his family, his loved ones and friends as they mourn his passing and also celebrate his life. His legacy of faith and courage and service to our nation will live on for a generation that is an inspiration to Tom, to me and to so many of us who serve here. You know, faith provides us with the will to carry on even when all earthly obstacles seem to stand in our way and with faith we can overcome what stands in our way to make a difference in our communities. But if you live in a country where religious freedom does not exist, it makes it harder to have that faith. And when freedom of religion is oppressed, it becomes harder to unite as a community of believers to make positive change. Without the freedom to worship and sing together faith and solitude becomes more challenging and more difficult than believers are discouraged. And there should be no doubt that the mission of the Institute of Peace and Global Religious Freedom go hand in hand. And when the goal is to bring together warring sides, trust must be built and opponents will have to believe in a peaceful future that they cannot see at the time, but they must create together. And if we accept all faiths, people around the world can come together as one, there'll be less to fight it over, religious freedom and faith, our partners in peace that will make our world a better place. And just again want to thank you for the opportunity to be part of this Institute of Peace gathering for bringing us together and discussing this important issue and hosting us this morning. Thank you so much. And Congressman Swazi, are you with us and ready to go? Yes, I'm here ready to go. Ready to go. Okay. Over to you for a few opening comments. Now, can you not, can you see me or not? We cannot. I don't know why that is maybe my Wi-Fi is nuts. There you go. Okay, good. You're good. All right. Well, thank you so much for inviting me and thank you, John. John, those were great remarks. You always do a great job. And we're so lucky to have John in the Congress, even though he's on the other side. John is probably one of the nicest people I know in Congress. I don't know how he makes it in Congress. He's so nice. You know, we have a great relationship. I want to thank him publicly. He gave me a great picture of he and I serving on the prayer breakfast yesterday, and I want to thank him publicly for doing that. And I want to thank all of you for the good work that you do. And what we tried to do in this year's prayer breakfast was try to figure out where is a place that we could bring some commonality that we could bring Democrats and Republicans together in a clear message that we could find agreement. And you know, you have to remember that the prayer breakfast was literally the state of the union was on Monday night. The acquittal of the president for impeachment was on Tuesday and the prayer breakfast was Wednesday morning. So it was a, as you can imagine, a tense time in our nation's capital. And we wanted to figure out how could we find some common ground. And John and I worked together to talk about religious freedom. And we showed a video that day of Nancy Pelosi who was on the dais that day, speaking about the importance of religious freedom how, how horrible it is for somebody who is a captive. And their, their captors come to them and say, you know what, nobody really cares about you, everybody's forgotten about you. That's the worst torture that someone could receive is to be there alone in prison and to hear that nobody cares about you. And then we had a speech from the president, you know, both of these were on video where he was talking about the importance of religious freedom and how 80% of the world, and he was saying how shocked he was when he read the statistic, 80% of the world does not enjoy religious freedom. And John had the brilliant idea of asking John Lewis to give the closing prayer that day. And John just described what happened with that. Let me just say that John and I were with some people the other night and someone read a reading from a letter of the Paul to the Ephesians for the early church and talked about the importance of in, especially when the people are in conflict with each other to exercise humility and gentleness. And that's exactly what John Lewis did, humility and gentleness. I mean, I just can't, I know I need to be a better person whenever I see, whenever I think of John Lewis. And even John, John's a great example of humility and gentleness and, and something we could all try and work on a little bit more. There's so much religious persecution of the world today we read about the Uighurs all the time I helped to co draft some legislation on the China Executive Commission on human rights to sanction the Chinese Communist Party related to the Uighurs, the way that the Chinese have treated the Tibetans for such a long period of time. We've heard so much about the Rohingya over the years even Jewish persecution. We talk about the fact that there's two and a half billion Christians in the world, there's one and a half billion Muslims in the world. There's 900 million Hindus in the world is 300 million Buddhists in the world. There's 40 million Sikhs, but there's only 15 million Jewish people in the world and 6 million were killed during the Holocaust. So I mean put that in perspective, and think about the persecution of Jews not only in America but in Europe and throughout the world on a regular basis. There's a lot of the Coptic Christians and the Christians in the South American countries and then Iraq and just, you know, there are people being persecuted for their religious values all over the world and as john said, you know, looking at most of our faiths, the different face of the world. There are a lot of them are grounded in the same mission that you have of peace. And if we could encourage religious freedom, we could serve the dual purpose of encouraging so many other things, but especially peace. And it was a great honor to serve in the prayer breakfast this year it was quite a, it was a historical moment. It didn't go exactly as we planned in some respects but a lot of good things came out of it. And we know the more good things will come out of it in time. So thank you for the work that you do, and for inviting us here today and we'll be happy to answer any questions that you may have for us. Wonderful. Thank you both and thank you for holding that bipartisan space such a such a particularly difficult moment. Well, I have to interrupt you for one second because john wants to say something he says, go ahead john you go first. Okay, I'm a, I'm a Republican. So I'm a Republican. And I'm a Democrat. I have 15,000 farmers in my district. I know a guy named farmer. There's more to our stick but we couldn't be more different from each other but we found common ground. I just want to start at somewhat of the personal level I mean you have both noted the importance of the stories that you've heard and at the prayer breakfast you showed a video of people from around the world who were facing religious persecution. And I'm wondering, you know are there stories that have really stuck with you that have been a motivation for you on this. Well and are you want to start if you've got it. Well, one of the individuals that we focused on was Mama Maggie, who is a Coptic Christian in Egypt. And we focused on her because, you know, Coptic Christians experience persecution in different places. What was so amazing about her was how she is serving the poorest of the poor, caring for children in Egypt, and regardless of religious background regardless of, you know, whatever the rules are in place. She's doing an incredible work. You know she would be, in my view, a modern day mother Teresa, and we were so thrilled to focus on her story but also have her join us at the prayer breakfast and and just be part of that so that to me was a tremendous encouragement. And I can't I can't point to one specific story I think if somebody I mean I heard one story in preparation for the breakfast and we invited them to come to the breakfast of a bishop. Faith where you can you can marry and his wife had been raped. And you know they continue to serve the public and stories about the Tibetans for so many years where they've been persecuted and the Uighurs I mean the idea that in today's world that there are a million people in forced labor camps, and some of the products that the Uighurs are actually show up in the American supply chain. And it just goes in and they're forced to eat pork, you know they're Muslims, and they're forced to eat that they're forced to eat during Ramadan when they're supposed to be fasting. You the horror stories all over the world of people being persecuted for their religion. The battles between the in India and Pakistan over cashmere and just the Amadai Muslims. There's just there's just so many stories of people being persecuted just because their religion is someone different from others. So just given us a long list of of faiths and individuals who are facing this kind of process persecution. Do you see as the most important role that Congress can play. How do we best as the United States play a role in protecting religious minorities. And do you all think of the potential for unattended. You know so there's there's a lot to balance here obviously that you know we, it's it's hard to exercise foreign policy just based upon what's the morally right thing to do, because we'd end up being in conflicts all over the world if that were the case because there's so many things that are wrong, taking place in the world and we have to balance our national security interest in the process, but we have to be guided by what's right and wrong as well. And that's why, as I mentioned earlier we worked on the the Uighur act to try and hold the Chinese Communist Party accountable for what they're doing of the Uighurs and we need to do more there, and you know, working on the in America the never again Education Act to educate people to provide funding for Holocaust education in America. It's remarkable when you look at the statistics that so many people still think, you know, especially young people don't even know the Holocaust happened. And we need to, you know, that was only that was 75 years ago I talked about how I went to the battle bulk 75th anniversary. This past I can't remember when it was now or things old blur, but I read the book band of brothers in preparation for it. And literally weeks before no excuse me days before and miles away from the concentration camps, the American soldiers were debating amongst each other is this for real these rumors we've been hearing. The six million have already been killed, and millions of others have already been killed. And, you know, they have these extermination camps people being burned in ovens. And it's happening in real time. And people are still wondering if it's just a propaganda campaign. Think about us now 75 years detached from that, and people consciously trying to say that it's not real. And trying to promote that it's not real. How much impact that has we haven't. So Congress has a big job to help make sure that we're educating people about the Holocaust. And, again, the persecution of just pointing out sometimes sometimes just. You know, the anti Pelosi speech that we used in the video at the prayer breakfast, sometimes just speaking people's names or speaking the events that have happened that we believe that those get back to the people that are being persecuted and that gives them hope. And so we need to just speak out. And of course as a nation we need to hold ourselves up as an example once again that we do stand for something special. So that's slipping away, and we need to get back to holding America up as an example of, of what's good and just and right. Thank you Congress and moon are you want to add. You know I think Tom is exactly right that in the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act was a step in the right direction and know one thing that has come to the forefront since the pandemic began is the need to bring manufacturing personal protective equipment back to the United States. We need more capacity in our country to make those items and last week the New York Times reported that Uighur laborers are being forced to make PPE against their will and sometimes what they make is being ending up in other countries including ours and so you know we can't allow China to use slave labor for its diplomatic efforts around the world and part of that is, is making sure that we're making the things we need. So we aren't relying on China for that and you know if the individual level is Tom mentioned we need to be wary of what China's efforts are to use propaganda to divide us but also, you know, we have to have the freedom to criticize them. One time also coexist and try and find ways to work with China but at the same time not hesitate to criticize them when they're doing the kinds of things they're doing you look at what's happening in Hong Kong and the freedoms that are being taken away. That's simply not acceptable and we need to speak out on those things and of course there you're penalized for speaking out you know whatever they oppress their own people they crush freedom to speech they jail Nobel winners and much worse and so as Tom mentioned you know we can't simply turn a blind eye to this we need to speak out and at the same time look at ways of building better relationships with countries around the world so we have a higher standard and and America needs to lead the way. Are you finding that this is the topic where you can maintain a good bipartisan consensus. Yeah, go ahead John. Well I yeah Tom, I think we would both agree how important it is to our country to our daily lives. It's in our Constitution and it's always been who we are as a country and because of this I think there's a bipartisan consensus that something we can do together. And I believe that you know religious freedom makes our country in the world a better place and, and I hope, you know that's something that is the, as Congress as well as the State Department really working on promoting this. As Tom mentioned you had the Speaker of the House and the President both giving speeches on this. It's something that our country can stand firm on and be a leader for other nations around the world. This is you know this is an example of, I think that every Democrat every Republican would agree that the religious freedom is something that we should aspire to, and it just becomes a matter of degrees you know who's going to, who's going to let our economic interest for example outweigh our desire to stand up for something that we believe is morally right. What other strategic interests come into play. You know, for example, I just went to a ceremony the other night with some Greek Orthodox folks in my district, because the Hagia Sophia was just changed back into a mosque. This is one of the greatest churches in the Eastern right, and then it was made after the Ottoman Empire took over they made it into a mosque, and then about 85 87 years ago they made it back into a museum to celebrate both religions. Turkey, you know, priding itself on being a secular country. President Erdogan recently said, oh, let's make it back into a mosque and exclude the Christians so the Greek Orthodox had a day of morning throughout the world on on July 24. So, you know, well, Turkey is a NATO ally. Turkey has very important strategic assets that are important to the United States, as far as our common defense, but President Erdogan continues to be more and more, not a secular country, and become more of a fundamentalist and is doing things that are not necessarily consistent with the values of NATO or the United States. So how do we balance something we all believe in religious freedom with our other strategic interest and that's the challenge of smart people of goodwill working together. You know, you can't solve any complicated problem in an environment of fear and anger. And that's why you need to identify people of goodwill that's why you know the relationship john and I have, and the relationship that we have with some of our, our colleagues that we build trust over a long period of time, even though we radically disagree with each other on certain issues. But we trust each other we admire each other. And, or at least I admire him I should say, and so, and so you know we know that we can try that you know we're coming from a place of boy we really just like to do the right thing here. And when you can find people of goodwill to sit down and have conversations, then it's more likely that you could find common ground, when there's a fear of an environment of fear and anger, and distrust. It's very easy to just retreat into your, you know, opposing corners and throw out the sound bites and just say you're one of those. We have to figure out how to get that back in our country with a lot more relationship building and it's not easy in this environment, a lot more relationship building so we can find the common ground on issues like religious freedom that could really morph into so many other things. But that none of these issues are simple everything's complicated every issue we discuss healthcare immigration the environment, you know, peace, they're all complicated not simple, but you need people who can trust each other to start. And as a starting point, even when they disagree with the prayer breakfast speaker. The speech was love, love your enemies. And, and the idea was is that you know it's not that we disagree of course we're going to disagree, we just can't hold each other and contempt. If we hold each other and contempt that we can never get to find common ground. The first indication of contempt is when you roll your eyes at the person. So no more eye rolling on this call. Well you you've just outlined the core tenants of peace building so thank you for that. And, you know, of course a lot of our research has on on peace and really has focused on the ways in which religious freedom, freedom to believe or to have no freedom to believe is fundamental to creating a more peaceful societies. Do you think there's room to use that evidence basis to put forward the ways in which religious oppression damages a country's national security interest. I haven't mentioned what's going on with the IS Sophia and Turkey, you know the evidence suggests that Turkey's national security will be undermined by an increasing environment of religious oppressed religious oppression. We absolutely should use use any knowledge that you've gained from the work that you've done for so many years with so many experts, evidence based knowledge that we can try and share with others we've. I know that I would be willing to I'm sure john would be willing to help you to promote any of those concepts and try and spread it amongst more people. Exactly right. You know, you mentioned a moment ago conference was about the complexity of all these issues. So I'd love to get both of your takes on the relationship between religious freedom and other human rights, freedom of expression, including the right to criticize religion or civil rights related to gender or racial equality, which in different contexts, of course can create different tensions. Thoughts on that. Well, I, you know, I look at our First Amendment, and I think it's a great model for these ideas. I also look at, you know, when you think of, you know, our founding documents, talking about people created in the image of God and endowed by our creator. And that kind of a foundation, if, if, if everyone was to look at others in the same way you tend to to recognize the significance of each person. And I think where you have the totalitarian totalitarian regimes that are suppressing, you know, expression religious liberty are treating one race different than another. It all comes back to that idea of a power over another and using government to coerce others into some kind of behavior and, and to me, if we can step back and try and help people see a foundational difference that it that all people are created. You know, in the image of God, then it's hard for a government to then step on those rights because, as we believe in our country, you know, those rights are unalienable. And so, you know, it's hard if you don't have that foundation and that's why sometimes when we talk about freedom and different nations doesn't live out to the promise of it like that we've enjoyed in our country. And it's that process of continuing to strive for these ideals in our own country, promoting them abroad and, and, and helping educate across the board, why this matters. Thank you. Yeah, and I just, my big concern about the world these days, even in America is that we have to have some basic values that we that guide our behavior, the world is so fast moving. These days, you know, I when I was a kid I remember in grade school I was a same Patrick's grade school and one of the nuns said oh the world is moving so quickly these days. You know, we were in the space race and there were new medical advances and, you know, television. So this was in the 60s and early 70s. And you know, she was concerned that we haven't had a chance because everything's moving so fast to figure out how this affects our values, how it affects our families how it affects society, you know how it affects the economy and workers and everything's just moving so fast. You know how fast things are moving today. And if we can't rely on basic fundamental values like the intrinsic value of every human being. If we can't rely on basic values of the things that we take for granted in this country, the First Amendment that John was talking about. We can't possibly make decisions in this complicated fast moving world, unless they're based on values you can't really rely on anybody. The only thing you can really rely on is your values, and we are seeing our society in America become more and more, especially with young people, not based on a set of values, and it doesn't have to be a particular religion or any religion It's just a set of values. These are the values we uphold. But when you say I'm secular, and I'm ashamed of America, and I don't like the founding fathers of our country, and because of their flaws, then we don't have any basic values to all have as a common language. And then when we're dealing in the international arena, there are many countries that don't share any of those basic values that we have, either no values or a completely different set of values. So we have to figure out how can we have some common language with each other and base it again on the intrinsic value of the human being. You know, I'm always so encouraged with my, my Indian American friends where they say Namaste and they put their hands together, you know, that's like I recognize the worth of you as an individual. And there are so many other societies and religions that are based on individual human worth. And so we have to get back to that somehow. Yeah, please go ahead. Yeah, if I could just build on what Tom just said I think it's so important that intrinsic value of the human being. One of the heroes is William Wilberforce who led the abolition of the slave trade Britain, and one of the things they did when slavery was a huge financial industry in Great Britain one of the things they did is they created a medallion that showed a African who was depicted as a slave but then he also it across it says, am I not a man. And they use this medallion to really drive home the point that regardless of your race we are all human beings and there's intrinsic value and every human being. And Wilberforce's day what they did over a period of 3040 years was turned it from a huge economic boom, where he was vilified for introducing a resolution against slavery. And I think that they basically had, you know, outlawing slavery, and it was almost unanimous at that point because they were able to shift public opinion based on the intrinsic value of every human being. Thank you both and I want to remind our viewers that you can submit your questions on the US IP web page and you can follow the conversation on hashtag bipartisan US IP. I have a number of questions that are coming in. And let me ask one that builds a little bit on Congressman Swazi your demonstration of the Namaste, which may serve us well. Yeah, as we live in the era of COVID. And the question is, how has the pandemic and the resulting lockdowns affected religious freedom around the world. Do you care to give that a world. Well that's a tough, tough question. Because we don't really have as much information about what's going on in the world right now. I mean we're so I was thinking about this especially when I was home in Glen Cove and with my family, and we're thinking we're so intent on staying safe. We're so intent on trying to address, how are we going to protect our families and protect our communities protect our congressional district protect our country. We're so intent on everything's going on. Think of all the things that have been pushed off the pages of the newspaper and on television that we just aren't hearing anything about. So I'm sure that there are a lot of dark places in the world. That we just have no idea of what's happening to people and I'm sure that there are some people with nefarious motives that are using the cover of the pandemic and people's distraction of the pandemic to, to carry out other nefarious objectives. So we just don't know, we don't have the information as to what's going on in a lot of places and the information is not flowing is freely because we're just also distracted with what's going on. The same time, it's given us all an opportunity to pause, and we're not quite as on the on the hamster wheel going around and around is as usual. I think that we've had a chance to think about what's important. And I've certainly thought about, you know, what's my obligation, what's my responsibility, holding this job is important job to try and make the world a better place to live in so hopefully something good will come out of that with some sure a lot of people are doing that. And that goes also to your earlier comment about the importance of just shining a light on what's happening and keeping the, the witnessing up. Yeah, I, you know, one of the things that struck me about this time that we're in, you know, we've seen so many things are outside of our control. You know, people want to make plans, you want to make plans for the future and it's very uncertain. And as Tom pointed out, it does provide an opportunity for getting clarity on what is most important. I think that has been one of the positive things that have come out of this is, you know, time for families to spend more time together. On the other hand, if someone is anxious and stressed by losing control sometimes those behaviors to cope with that can be harmful. And I think we'll find out more about that. As we go forward but you know I for one have found how much I missed just being with people. And so when I have the opportunity now I'm just very grateful. For being together with, whether it's family friends colleagues. And, you know, it's kind of that absence makes the heart grow founder concept and we, we've missed a lot of that in the last few months. So there's another question or asks, what do you see as the specific roles that faith based communities and religious actors can and do play reducing religious discrimination and polarization around the world. How can US government best support these religious peace builders. Congress well I think protecting. Yeah, protecting people whose voice is maybe running counter to the regime. I think trying to advocate for the freedoms and the, you know, the liberty to speak out. You know, I think I was pleased when Sam Brown back convened a lot of the foreign ministers. The evening before the national prayer breakfast foreign ministers who basically agreed to sign on to some of the principles of religious liberty and they came and met in the United States and. So I think the United States can play a role of convening Congress can do that in a way of whether it's, you know, passing resolutions that highlight what's going on in the world but also can can convene gatherings of people to discuss these issues and and try and advance the cause. You know you think about the people that must be on this call I don't I someone told me there can be 200 people on this call. I'm sure that many of you who are involved with the with peace issues know that so much violence throughout the history of the world even today has been based on religion. We've gone to war with each other over, at least on its face, saying that it was based upon religion. And we've got a real challenge to number one shine a light on religious persecution. Number two to find common ground here in our own country among Democrats and Republicans, but with people throughout the world, similar to the effort that Ambassador Brown back had to try and find people who believe in religious freedom to work together across country and three to encourage not to let religion be the basis for persecution. I mean that's that's really a scary historical fact. So, I think that just, you know, really talking about it, supporting groups like yours, working together finding common ground. It's, it's, you know, I've been doing this for so long sometimes it sounds like well it doesn't sound that exciting to say that but it's really it's just a lot of hard work, and it's a lot of effort to try and and get people to find this common ground to work together. Leadership really matters when I was younger I would have never said that I was the mayor of my hometown, starting in January of 1994 for eight years and there was a county executive for eight years. And now I'm in Congress for whatever it is three or four years. And now I really believe leadership really matters, and getting people to just lead on issues of common ground is is what is the saying john that you had the guy from Harvard who said leadership is disappointing your fault your supporters at a rate they can absorb. So we need some more of that. That was Marty linsky. That's good. We have had the great privilege at us IP of working with very courageous pastors and moms in northern Nigeria, for example, who have been leaders and saying wait a minute we're not going to fight these people just because they're different. So you, you are wise to remind us of the importance of that kind of leadership. And there's some great examples right now, great examples in Kenya right now we're opposing factions really found peace with each other through through faith. Yes, yes. And our research demonstrates that oftentimes, you know, religion is not always the root cause it's often invoked. There's often other causes, but when you have freedom of religion you're more likely to have a peaceful society. Excuse me question and that is, you know, we talked a little bit about Turkey but there are also a lot of examples underway right now of the persecution of Muslims in India. India of course is a democracy, an ally of ours. And the concern is that it actually could lead to national security damage for India. But how should we respond what what could the US do to address this trend in the world's largest democracy. I think the great hope for India is that they have a very strong system of law and rules of law, and their Supreme Court has been very very good about enforcing the law, even when it disagrees with the administration. It's a big challenge for us when you know we have an ally that purportedly shares our values. Democracy worth of the individual, the rule of law. And then we see them doing things that we don't like. We recognize the sovereignty of other countries. We have to recognize that they have in a democratic system, a system of elections where they're electing their leaders, and we have to have some confidence that they're going to figure it out themselves. I mean think of our allies looking at America right now with you know with you know the violence being being taking place. We're questioning what's the heck is going on in our country. And you know, so and we don't want them interfering with our country, even though we see that that is happening. So, I think we need to speak out against the things that we think are wrong and just speak up for what the values are that we have. We've got to figure out how to do that in a way that balances our long term interests with those nations as well. That's why relationships again, most important thing in relationships is not just amongst members of Congress but relationships with our allies. And we're in a position of trust where we can say to them and criticize them in a that will not damage our relationship in the process. That's a matter of hard work over a long period of time based on evidence and values. Thank you. Well, I think Tom's right there, you know, there's when I think of William Wilberforce, I look at what he did was persuasion and influence and, and I think that, you know, in our case with other nations, you know, we have tools like sanctions. We can certainly criticize, but we also want to influence and persuade and positive ways, and that can be through, you know, different institutions like yours that can be through government to government relations that can also be in the private sector. And I, I look at the opportunities where when we're doing business with people for the influence there as well and, and I think it's a combination of all of the above in order to influence nations in a better direction without the heavy hand of, of direct intervention at times. Thank you. We have, we have questions stacking up so I'll try to get to everybody's questions one is, can you point to examples of successful congressional intervention on behalf of greater religious freedom. And if so what do you think were the dynamics that enabled that positive improvement to happen. I can't point to anything specific right now this is a relatively new phenomenon for us and you know this was something that we really started to engage in I started to engage in with the China Commission and the Uighurs. Most recently and you know Hong Kong is not really religious freedom but same same concept there. And then with the prayer breakfast was to try and bring a light to this issue. And quite frankly Sam Brownback ran with that idea, at the same time, and started to develop this international coalition for religious freedom. And honestly, the prayer breakfast got a little sidetracked with its theme, because of some other things that happened that day. And, and then we hit the pandemic. So there hasn't been as much momentum with this as we would like. But I have, I have, I have no doubt that if we can, if we can bring it back to the four, it'll be very successful. Yeah, I think it's difficult to point to a piece of legislation that is, you know, as I mentioned earlier you know we have different tools. And sometimes it's the heavy hand that sometimes it's more incentive based. We need to look at everything we're doing, whether it's, you know, interactions on the, you know, the aid that we give other nations, whether it's, you know, kind of our relationship relative to sanctions and those kinds of things. And what I love about the idea of sort of the informal relationship building the influence of persuasion that can occur individual to individual. To me, what that can do is foster trust. And then some of the issues that are underlying can come out in more constructive ways I, you know, one of the powerful in examples in history is, you know, the Rwanda genocide. Think of how that started where two presidents had been trying to work at some kind of a reconciliation they're playing to shut down, shut down. And all these issues that have been underlying in the country came to the surface in a very violent way, very tragic, you know, a step forward was, was, you know, in happening and then the tragedy, and then the larger tragedy. But then you look at the healing that has occurred in that country since that time and the progress that's being made through peacemakers people promoting reconciliation. It's, it's got it we've got to be vigilant to work all the way through and you hope that you don't have those kinds of horrific events and that we can work on the issues. Before it gets to that point, but Congress can only do so much through its formal policies and channels. A lot of this has to be done informally relationship by relationship, and then also kind of what message we're sending out about the dignity of human life and each person having that intrinsic value. And it has to be an effort of the executive branch quite frankly that you know that to bring it all together in a comprehensive policy. And we're trying to encourage that to be something that's re embraced by our nation. Because it really has to be a comprehensive overarching policy as John Lewis said over and over again this is not the work of a, of a week or a month or a year or a decade this is the work of a lifetime. America, you know, has been a project of two centuries. And, you know, we're not exactly on the same trajectory we were, let's say, you know, 10 or 20 years ago. So we need to figure out what trajectory we want to have going forward internationally, and what kind of image we want to hold up to the rest of the world and what role do we have to play regarding human rights generally, of which religious freedom and religious persecution are a part of that. Let me build on that last comment because we have several questioners who are asking how do we ensure that the rights of people belonging to oppressed groups, such as the LGBTI communities are not infringed upon on the basis of religious freedom. That's a very big challenge. You know that's that's that's a really big challenge and you know you have a person like John Lewis, who was a very religious man, a good example that we would all hold up as somebody that we would want to emulate. And he would always talk about how the people have intrinsic human worth, whether they're black or white or they're rich or they're poor or they're straight or they're gay. And, you know, I would, I would say that you know it's essential that that intrinsic human worth that we talk about has to be seen for people, regardless of their sexual preference as well. I understand that you know everybody's still a human being has to be treated with with human respect and dignity. Yeah, and just to build on what Tom said I think the idea of the golden rule treating others the way we would want to be treated I think is important. I think it's also, you know, as Tom mentioned this intrinsic dignity and value of in human worth, viewing all in that context without demonizing people, even though there may be disagreements. You know it's not always about agreeing on political issues. Sometimes it's understanding and respecting someone who may have a different viewpoint and I think that's an important thing that our culture. We need to continue to stress that because I fear that at times were silencing people's voices that we don't agree with and it's important that people are heard and respected even though there may be not the same viewpoint on a political issue. Thank you both. Another questioner asks what role do international organizations like the UN play in religious freedom around the world, and how does the US collaborate or plug into those opportunities and do these multilateral efforts ever lead tensions over how the US and our allies think about religious freedom. You cited earlier. NATO ally, Turkey, who we're disagreeing with right now. So, you know, the UN, you know, we're not always happy with the way you a UN conducts itself. And but it's the idea of the UN is the one of the great ideas of history. You know, we have to figure out all of this stuff is always, you know, it's very frustrating for me as a former mayor and a former county executive to not be the boss to be a legislator now it's really how good a legislator I am sometimes because I just want to just fix things right away. But a lot of it is about cajoling and and, you know, a tweak here and a tweak there and making a speech and trying to persuade people over a period of time. It's not the same as having an agenda and driving the agenda and using your resources to move it forward. So, you know, the president who I don't agree with on many things, gave his speech about religious freedom at the UN. And it was a very effective speech, such that we, you know, we put it in a video, along with Nancy Pelosi speech before our committee on human rights. So, you know, these international convening bodies are great opportunities for people of different backgrounds different agendas, different values to come together under the banner of trying to find common ground, and utilizing, you know, what you talked about before you know proven models of peacemaking you know different techniques need to be used in these international bodies. So that they aren't hijacked. No same as religions not hijacked. These international bodies are not hijacked. It's why politics and governing and peacemaking is so hard, because there will always be people who will try and hijack the good intense of the people involved to try and push their own agenda instead of trying to find common ground. And so it just requires a lot of smart educated hardworking people that are willing to make a sacrifice over a long period of time to do the hard work that's necessary to move forward. You know, the UN is such a fantastic idea. It's like unbelievable. NATO is so what an awesome thing. You know, NATO came out of, you know, the D-Day invasion. That's where we actually started to work with each other for real as a big group of complex differing interests with different sets of power. You know, it's just it's just a long period of time, a lot of hard work over a lifetime. Just don't give up. Yeah, one example I'd like to say both Tom and I have gotten to know David Beasley, who is head of the United Nations, or the World Food Program. And to me, that's an example of how nations coming together to help people who are suffering from the COVID-19 locusts in some areas of the world, famine, war, terrorism, all sorts of crises. And you have an organization where people are contributing in the United States has been a real leader in this, bringing food and trying to find ways to get it to the people most in need. To me, that's a great example of collaboration. It's, it's not full of political agenda and intrigue. And to me, that's an area where, you know, some really positive things are happening on the ground. And I do think, you know, as Tom mentioned, there's an appropriate role for the United Nations in terms of foreign voices to be heard. Where I think it gets somewhat complicated is, you know, there's a lot of different agendas and alliances and intrigue and sometimes it doesn't seem as as productive as as we would like it to be. But I certainly think the World Food Program and the work they're doing right on the ground is a tremendous benefit for all of us throughout the world. Let me, let me just say one thing that's a more general topic. You know, our country's so divided, and there was a study done called Hidden Tribes. And America is divided up into seven groups. The far left, which as I said before, has become very secular and very ashamed of America and really unhappy with our country. It's really only 8% of the country. That is the far right, which is, you know, very racist and anti-immigrant and anti this and anti that and makes it like 6% of America. Then you have the traditional progressives and the traditional conservatives. But there's three groups in the middle that make up most of America these days, 52% of our country, which are the politically disenchanted and the politically disengaged. The 52% of our country, which is saying, ah, I'm just so sick of it all. Everybody stinks. Nobody's any good. The whole system's broken. It doesn't work. And you know, maybe think of this, you know, there's so many people say, oh, the UN, you know, that doesn't do anything. And it's not working. And this international organization that word, that's not working. This is not working. And I'm just so fed up. There are interests that exist, both in America and outside of America that want us not to believe in our system, in our country, and don't want us to believe in the international organizations that have been set up. They want to foment the more extreme voices using social media. This is a relatively new social media is a relatively new phenomenon. We don't realize how much our strategic adversaries will use social media to try and foment civil unrest in our country and throughout the world by trying to promote some of the most extreme voices as to why we can't get along with each other. Why we can't find a common ground. Why you should be politically disenchanted. Why you should be politically disengaged. This goes back to the whole fast moving world and how much things have changed. You know, technology and globalism have happened very rapidly over the past 1020 years, maybe even the past 10 years, 10 years, five years, and we haven't caught up with how this is affecting us. And there are people that are manipulating the messages that we are hearing on a regular basis that are discouraging us from utilizing these international agencies from using American institutions to try and solve our problems and there are people in very powerful positions that are trying to foment that type of distrust and disengagement. So we have to guard against that and be conscious of it and work to try and address it because most people are like most people on this call which is like, Hey, can we just work together to try and solve the problems. Can we just make the world a better place to look at me. Can you just sit down and work it out. Thank you for that and we are out of time. So let me just check Congressman Moulinar if you have any quick final thoughts you'd like to add. Well, first of all, thank you for hosting us and it's been a wonderful discussion and I appreciate all the people who participated. Virtually in this and it's good to be with Tom Swazie is very thoughtful and you know he's someone who is a person of goodwill and we always look for ways to find common ground on things, whether we can work on it legislatively or as true friends through relationships. He's really a joy to collaborate with we collaborated on the national prayer breakfast and and look forward to other opportunities as well but again thanks for having us. I'm reminded of the phrase blessed are the peacemakers and thank you for what you're doing to to promote peace around the world. Thank you. Thank you. Congressman Swazie a quick last word. Just thank you so much for the good work that you do. We know how important it is, and you're so valued for what you do and and and I recognize that for all of us. Sometimes people don't recognize the good work that they're doing and, and we do recognize it we're grateful to you for it for devoting your lives to try to make the world a better place so thank you so much. Thank you both. We're very grateful for the work that you're doing for the bipartisan spirit that you're carrying forward. Thank you for reminding us about the importance of values and trust, and sitting down and having a conversation with each other. We are very thankful that you joined us virtually we hope to have you in the building for our next conversation. And thank you to all of our viewers for joining us. Thank you.