 Good evening and welcome to the latest in what someone else has labeled Purdue University's Presidential Lecture Series. Over the last few years, our series has welcomed great scientists, entrepreneurs and other business leaders, renowned journalists, and a number of esteemed public officials past and present. But rarely have we hosted guests more significant than those joining us tonight or a topic more timely and crucial to our national future. Great special for a second reason. I have a co-sponsor for this program, a unique two-year-old student organization named the Political Discourse Club. Among the more than a thousand student organizations at Purdue, this one stands out for its mission of bringing together people of disparate viewpoints to discuss and debate their conflicting ideas in an atmosphere of mutual respect and civility. Our profound thanks to Chairman Sunil Green and the Political Discourse Club for proposing and helping conceive and arrange tonight's program. We're joined tonight by two of America's most admired and consequential public officials, Paul Ryan, former Speaker of the House and Vice Presidential Candidate, and Senator Heidi Heitkamp, who served her state of North Dakota in multiple capacities, culminating in a role as a U.S. Senator. Beyond their legislative accomplishments, these two individuals were known for performing their public service with openness, friendliness, and a desire to seek out common ground. They're ideally suited to help us explore the questions, what's next for our democracy, and it's corollary. Can we be one nation again? Senator and Mr. Speaker, thank you for participating. As we start, I've got to tell you, Speaker Ryan, Paul, we've known each other a long time, but preparing for tonight, I found there was something important I didn't know. Amid your many achievements, you drove the Oscar Mayer Wiener Mobile as a college job. Yeah, apparently it was down in Dallas, and then Jack Knight on the highway went into the dish, and a bunch of friends of mine sent me photos of that saying, but Scott and I, like you were driving it, this would never have happened. I am so envious. Every time I've seen one of those, I've wondered, now what kind of person gets that assignment? A good summer college job. Now I know. Well, in any event, Senator, I'm not sure you can top that. You've had a great career, but I think you'd agree that nothing to quite match Paul's, that in Paul's resume. It's hard to beat something yet glamorous, it really is. My view, exactly. Let me start by asking you both. And the questions I have, and by the way, our student participants will be here in the second part of the program with their own questions. And we want to mainly look forward, but I think we maybe need to start with some diagnosis of the problems which are troubling so many Americans. So let me ask you this question, was the last president more a cause or more a symptom of the incivility and the, as we say, tribalism that now afflicts the country? Yes, Paul, you can go ahead and then I'll contradict you. I was just trying to be polite, Heidi. I'd say he was a symptom and an accelerant. Clearly, we've seen the rising tribalism in America. I describe it as we have these entertainment wings of both of our parties, where in the old days, like 10 years ago, if you wanted to succeed in politics, you had to prove yourself through a meritocracy, through legislation and persuasion that it was the best policy ideas and things like that. Lately, because of cable, internet, digital, all these different multimedia platforms, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, you can just entertain yourself into fame and leapfrog the meritocracy and that breeds polarization. This allows compromising common ground and frankly, in many cases, common sense. And Donald Trump was the ultimate performer of this. So in a field of 17 people running, he was my 17th choice. I made that pretty clear at the time, but he was the ultimate performer, the ultimate entertainer, leapfrog, vanquished all of his opponents. And that is the system we sort of had and the rewards that it has today. And then I think he was just more of an accelerant. So I would say he was the ultimate symptom of this, dynamic in society. And then he accelerated it by just doubling down on tweets and all of the rest of it. And yes, it's divisive and yes, it's polarizing. And yes, I'd say it's great for ratings for websites and TV and all the rest. It's not great for our politics and our political system. Senator, granted that he was some of both, more a cause, more a symptom. And as a symptom, was he a symptom of anything else beyond what a politician talked about? I'd like to use a word like reflection. He was more a reflection of the divisions that when he, as the speaker has said, excellently. But he did something beyond that. He went out and did like the largest focus groups in the history of America using case rallies to test theories, to test anger, to test division and had exploited it and blew it up. But he did something that I think the Republican Party will have to figure out long term. And that is he basically invited people to the political discourse in a very front-row, stellar state that have never been invited before. And by that I mean nice supremacist groups, groups like the oath keepers, groups like the proud boys. And he purposely did not ever want to alienate. And now these groups had front-row center in the Republican Party and it's really hard to distract yourself. And you think about QAnon, why would anyone in any political party embrace those theories, but yet here we are. And so I think that he took it one step beyond what I think anyone has ever taken this level of division before by inviting people who literally pedal hate in their political discourse to the table and legitimize them. And that's something that we all need to be deeply concerned about, but I think especially someone who's concerned about the future of the Republican Party. Paul, you want to say anything more to that? Well, first I'd say those groups are disgusting vile groups that have no place in the Republican Party period, end of statements. If you ask me who the proud boys are or the oath keepers or QAnon a year to go, I'd never heard of them. So they should be disavowed. They need to be disavowed. I clearly disavow them. I would say one thing he did do also, though Heidi, is he brought a lot of disaffected blue-collar workers into the party. I can just tell you from running around Wisconsin, not unlike Indiana and North Dakota, you had the forgotten men and women who felt that globalization, technology, trade, whatever passed them on in the 20th century. My own town of Jamesville, we lost our GM plant and everybody lost a great paying job in our town only to be replaced by, you know, 30 to 40 percent of the salary they were making and people were really upset about that and he spoke to them and he brought them in the Republican Party. So I can speak with just personal experiences. He brought a lot of disaffected blue-collar workers into the party. Also, those elements you mentioned that he breathed life into or gave some kind of normalcy to, which is totally wrong. This cute thing is just a crazy conspiracy theory. Frankly, I think we have a real problem with conspiracy theories now, partly because, not just Donald Trump because of just the way the internet works and the way these things ping around the universe before the truth gets out and leaders have a responsibility to tamp those down and that's where he would miserably fail on that front. Well, I want to come back. Yeah, and if I can just ask the blue-collar, I totally agree with Paul. When I started out in politics, my base was blue-collar workers. The Democratic Party, the guests themselves as a reflection of what their values are, the party of the little guy, we've lost the little guy and we need to look very, very closely at how that happened. Very important point, and we will come back to that, I'm sure, before we're done tonight. Let me ask you this question with regard to our divided society. Common threats or common enemies have been commonly one way that the society's got past that. In fact, it's been a tactic of some leaders in past societies we can all name to either manufacture one or find a common enemy. Now, we had one in COVID, we have one. It has not apparently brought the country together in some ways. It seemed to exacerbate the partisanship and the differences. I moved to ask you this question. If 9-11 happened today, would the country rally together even temporarily as it did now a couple of decades ago? I'll go first. I think when you look at the early days of COVID and when the president was addressing the country, that's some of the highest ratings the president received during his presidency. And there's a reason for that, because that rallying cry to come together. And then after a period of time when people started saying, well, you're not doing enough, this isn't happening, then that's when you saw the political divisions enter into all of this. And so I firmly believe if we had a 9-11, we would rally together as a country and fight it together the way we need to. But we need that leadership that continues or provides the continuity. Thank you, Paul. I think so. I think we would rally. I give one caveat and one reservation, which is I do worry about the acceleration of conspiracy theories these days. And I think with 9-11, you would, you know, there was a bizarre conspiracy theory then that got nowhere. I worry in today's digital environment that that might not quite be the case. But nevertheless, I think our country would have overcome it. And it was kind of a moment. The difference with COVID is it's lasted a long time and it's just wrecked the economy and it's wrecked small businesses and the lockdowns and the debate about lockdowns has just really frayed the edges of society. And just so many people have lost their jobs and so many small business people, lots of friends of mine have just lost their livelihoods because of the lockdowns. So that's always going to stress and strain a community. I mean, a country, I think with 9-11, yes, I do think we would rally, but I think we'd have to worry about the bizarre conspiracy theories that just getting more life these days because of the way our digital system works. To return to a topic that you broached a minute ago, Mr. Speaker, perhaps the biggest change in society since 9-11 has been the advent or the onrush of not just of the internet and social media in particular. It's affecting us in ways that people are only beginning, I think, to analyze and identify. To what extent is it a material factor in the mutual hostility, the division, the tribalism that is making politics and government so difficult right now? I really worry about this. I teach down the road in South Bend at Notre Dame. I'm a die-hard Badger fan, yet I'm wearing Northwestern colors today. So I guess I'm keeping it in the Big Ten, but I probably should have picked a better shirt today. But I digress. I taught a class on political polarization last semester at Notre Dame. And if you dig deep into this, there have always been anxiety. There have been different anxieties. And what the digital social media platforms do is it really trudges up and gives life to these anxieties. And the problem we now have is you can make money on an anxiety. A person can make money and monetize polarization and anger and those kinds of darker emotions. They're good for hits, they're good for clicks, they're good for ratings, and they can be monetized. And what I would call political opportunities can seize that, jump on that and ride that. This is a new challenge to self-government and to democracy of the likes that we've not really seen before, which means each of us, not just like political leaders, but community leaders, civic leaders, business leaders, academic leaders have got to work much, much harder to try and overcome these challenges and to revitalize civil society, which is that space between ourselves and our government, where we actually lead our lives, to get us to put our tablets and our phones down and to work with one another, to experience one another and get people out of their comfort zones, out of their homogeneity societies and integrate with one another. These are the things I do work out on my American Idea Foundation. I have a poverty foundation that seeks to try and bridge gaps to get suburbanites into the deep inner cities and get inner cities out to the deep rural areas and to try and get people to kind of cross-pollinate and find common ground so that we can find solutions. Long story short, Mitch, is we've got to find ways to revitalize civil society and to put aside these new challenges and to pick leaders that endeavor to do so versus those who try to ride the division to the top. Senator, you won and lost elections before and after the advent of all these phenomena. How do you see the effect they've had on our politics and then beyond that, the practices of government? Well, it's interesting because I think if you were, in fact, speaking to somebody who runs one of these platforms, what they would say is to blame us for what's happening in America makes as much sense as blaming the bulletin board outside the supervalue here in North Dakota where you've got an apartment for rent advertisement. It is way more complicated than that. And I agree with Paul that there has to be some analysis of what happens, but the real trick for all of us is to build a more literate, resilient population who doesn't listen to this and automatically say, oh, that's the truth because it's coming from this platform or it's coming from that platform but uses critical thinking skills. I blame, as I think the speaker was kind of alluding to, that the lack and the breakdown of kind of civil discourse at a very local level. I mean, what's happening to the local newspaper? Who's having a dialogue in the local newspaper? I always say, you know, in my small town growing up in Manador, you know, you had Democrats, you had Republicans, you had Packers fans, you had Vikings fans. That's far as much diversion as what we, division is what we had. But all these people would come together and they debate the issues at a table and people would self-correct as they listen to that dialogue. And the other thing about leadership is they figure out, maybe they didn't agree on politics or who they're going to vote for, but they could get the lights on the Christmas tree or the Christmas time, you know, in the town square. And that kind of civil, local engagement and dialogue is not happening in America. It's happening on Facebook pages. And so it just becomes amplified in a way that is not healthy. And how you recreate that, I think is, and whether you can recreate it, if you can, will create a resiliency to kind of the crazy that's out there and automatically go, I don't believe that. As you were talking, I'm afraid a few of our students at least might have been asking each other, what's a newspaper? You know, the fact that a lot of people have fastened on is that despite their protestations, these platforms are more than that. They are selecting in many cases what we will see and read. Reacting to what we see and read by shoveling us more of that. And now we discover, in many cases, shutting down views that they or somebody thinks may not be favored. Let me ask about what we've thought of as the more traditional media. I don't think they can be exonerated either and read you just a quick line from a recent column where the writer really disputed the idea that these are purely neutral purveyors of information said ultimately today's news media and social media make their money on conflict and catastrophe and on anger. Media outlets today, with few exceptions, want their audiences angry. The angrier, the better. Is that fair, Paul? Yeah, that's what I was saying earlier. Look, I remember talking to one of my local newspapers, the Racine Journal Times, and having an argument with a reporter who was asking my vote on a particular issue and he started arguing with me about it. I'm like, wait a second. Aren't you supposed to just take my quote, put it in and then write the article objectively and report on this issue? This is no, I disagree with you. I'm going to write against this. I'm like, oh, is this an editorial? They proceeded to tell me, we've adopted a new standard, we call advocacy journalism, not objective journalism. We're going to advocate within our articles for opposition because that's what our readers want. This was like 10 years ago and it was kind of an eye-opener for me and the long story short is I think this industry, newspapers in particular, but also frankly TV and cable are getting displaced by big tech. They're losing their revenue and so they're doing everything they can to try and chase eyeballs, hits and clicks and revenue. So that's a real challenge. So I think this is all built upon a foundation of moral relativism which is pervaded society. Throw on top algorithms, mathematics, and tech and you have yourself a witch's brew of toxicity, of polarization because in order to survive and keep a businessman on working you've got to stir people to your website and that is the darker emotions, not hope and aspiration and good feelings, but anxiety, fear and anger and that is unfortunately how we get out of this, I just wish, I think we got to attack the root cause of moral relativism and that's not government, that's family, that's parents, that's people, that's community, that's civil society and that's not a really clean, crisp answer but I think it's the best one that we have these days. Senator, anything you want to add to that Pollyanna view we just heard? You know, I think you say what is the cause? The cause is people wanting that kind of content. I mean, if I think about New Coke Coca-Cola decided they're going to abandon their old formula and put out something they thought was new the people rejected it overwhelmingly no matter how many focus groups they did where people liked in a blind test taste the new coke better and my point is what is it about us as a people that motivates us towards fear, that motivates us towards these darker images, this judgment image and that's really what it is this idea that I can criticize you because I feel better about myself when I do that you know, that is something as Paul said you got to look at families you got to look at individuals, you got to look at what it is at a very basic human level that we need to address I also think you have to look at it from above and when you have a leader who is motivated and knows that he's going to be successful and I mean President Trump in dividing and making people mad and then you think about that great speech, inaugural speech that President Kennedy gave really called on all of us to address this from our better angels and then asked us when we're all together that we come together and so how do we get leadership that is skilled at motivating to the positive and not the negative so it's a top up and a bottom down problem but at the heart of it is they're going to give you what sells and so let's figure out how we can get people to want a different product I'll digress for one second Mitch and just say identity politics is a root cause part of this problem it's an accelerant in this wrong direction both parties practice this this used to come from the left from Solowinsky in that crowd but the right now plays identity politics question that people like me and like minded Republican leaders are trying to figure out is how do we get rid of identity politics and how do we make successful inclusive aspirational politics so that the ambitious people coming into politics see that that's the right way to go and they want to pursue Reagan like aspirational inclusive politics how do we make that cool again so that the really ambitious people who are it's ambition over everything else don't grab the identity politics wheel and grab the wheel of Reagan and aspiration I'm an old Jack Kemp guy you know that how do we grab that inclusive aspirational wheel and we have yet to figure out how to do that and both sides both sides have had grabbed this identity politics play and they played it very successfully you know think about President Trump incredibly charismatic what if he had used that charisma to unite the country wouldn't that have been wonderful but it didn't happen and that's why I'm saying it can't just come from families and individuals it has to come from the example that we in leadership provide to the public well in in pursuit of some unity and let's hope that it doesn't come through a a mortal threat or an attack on the United States I want to ask if there are if you can identify areas issues topics that might serve to bring Americans together let's recognize that there's very little overlap in Congress anymore on very few of either party finding it in their conscience to vote with the other party so this will be harder than it may be has ever been but are there issues that you can think of where this division might be bridged and the country might be given a couple examples of how a compromise and cooperation can effectively work Paul can you go first yeah I think China in the challenge with China and the great power struggle that's in front of us today is definitely a bipartisan issue I spoke with just as many Democrats lately as Republicans on this decoupling of China is occurring Joe Biden sounded like Donald Trump just with obviously different style on the issue and I think that's something that you're going to see a lot of bipartisanship on an issue that it has to be tackled I tried it and had a tweet that threw off my vote count is immigration Bush tried it, Obama tried it it's been tried but that's an issue where there is a center I've tried to put together a lot of deals I broke my pick you know whacking against the stone on this one but if we can get an immigration deal which I do think can be done staying within the 40 yard lines both parties I think that would be really good for the country and I think there is a sweet spot there so a volatile issue like immigration if it can be overcome would be a real confidence bill for the country and then things that were already in sync on infrastructure China policy you know there are a lot of things the last term of speaker we passed 1172 bills out of the house it's about double the production of a session in legislature usually you passed about 600 almost 1200 about 600 of them made it into law over 80% of those bills were bipartisan bills so opioid a big thing in opioids criminal justice reform the cancer moonshot cures act I can go on and on and on the point I'm making Mitch is the system still actually does work but all those bipartisan reforms which were generational changing reforms passed without much notice in the media without any any great notice because we all got along we got together we got stuff done it happened under the radar with the microphones turned off and then when we were fighting each other tooth and nail on TV that's when the Klee lights turned on that's when we got a lot of press and that's what people remember so the good news in this story is Congress still can and does work and can still get stuff done and then if you have the kind of leadership that tries to really promote those things you know maybe you can break through and show that we can walk and shoot at the same time before we go to Heidi first just an observation my sense is those things that you just talked about happened on the radar the media just wasn't interested in them because it didn't fit the criteria which you know sells the clicks and sells ads and so forth before we ask the senator to comment just for the benefit of the audience Paul what's between the 40 yard lines what would be the elements of an immigration bill that you think might attract the majority support and some from both sides I could take two hours I'll try and take six sentences four sentences a path to citizenship where the person doesn't get cut in line but has a pay affine is at the back of the line for the dreamers you give them automatic visas and then allow themselves to earn a green card which gets them to pass the citizenship and then they call it chain migration that word offends some people but it's a way of saying switch from family based immigration to economic based immigration while keeping nuclear families intact so the visa categories that keep a nuclear family keep that intact but the longer distant relatives convert those visas to economic based visas to get the economy what it needs because of birth rates we're going to have labor shortages and we need to address those in western Wisconsin Silicon Valley needs entrepreneurs healthcare is going to need a lot of people with baby boomers retiring so gravitate toward a Canadian like immigration system to give visas based on economic need keep nuclear families intact and then give the dreamers who know no other country a pathway and then to get the issue of amnesty off don't give amnesty but give people a way a reasonable way to normalize their condition in their place that was less than 2 hours so thanks so senator issues these and others on which people might agree and put on the list either to dismiss or to include some regulation of the big tech and social media I think I hear people from both sides concerned maybe for different reasons about that topic well first off I would remind everybody that the senate in a very bipartisan way sitting in our desk and marking the moment did in fact pass comprehensive immigration reform with almost 70 votes it died and withered on the vine in the house and I don't blame the speaker for that but clearly there was an opportunity that was missed there because people again found a better way to threaten people to say you know this isn't good for you instead of saying this is what's good for America you know I think it's interesting because we talk about China why I mean China is fairly remote for people people kind of get that it's out there but the reason why civic leaders are very concerned about China and very interested in strategies is because China is now going to emerge I think in the next couple years as the largest economy in the world they have 1.4 billion people that's a large consumption base that people who want to export look at very closely and the challenges for us in China are really is America going to maintain its dominance its economic position you know China is going to form a cryptocurrency a lot of people thinking that the dollar no longer will be the reserve currency and what does that mean to American dominance economic dominance which we think has led to the growth and the promotion of liberal democracy across the world and the promotion of peace and so this is a big big issue but it's going to be really it's a really complicated issue but I think one that we could come together on I think that when we look at economic justice and it's something that I know Paul has worked really hard on we approach it from a different standpoint I think both sides realize that you cannot have this level of economic inequality whether it is income inequality or wealth inequality and really maintain a balanced economy moving forward how do you address that now that's the problem the problem is that if you sat down with Americans and said what kind of America do you want to live in it wouldn't matter if they're Democrats Republicans independence you know Green Party they would all give you the same answer because how do you get there and that takes political leadership skills and you've got to want to lead the institution of the senator of the house and I think Paul is a great example of this you got to lead the institution and not be a political leader and I think way too often our leaders of this great congress and this great institution article one branch of government are political leaders they're not leaders of these institutions and so I really think that there is an opportunity Joe Biden is a creature of the senate he has a lot of friends there he understands the legislature but I will tell you that if you want unity in this country and you want to move things forward get out of Washington DC and start talking to people of this country because we're less divided and when the motivation is power and winning you aren't going to get anything other than fear and division when it's getting things done for America that table that I was talking about at the coffee shop they know how to get things done go out and visit with them thanks as I indicated earlier we now have a series of questions from the host group and their constituent groups they have drawn together in the political discourse club other organizations across the spectrum of this campus I think it's one of the great developments that we've seen at Purdue recently and I want to commend all those involved once again they'll introduce themselves I'll ask our two respondents to be a little bit concise because we've got several questions to get through and the first of them I believe comes from the founding group but let's hear them in the order we receive them Hello my name is Shai Robinson and I'm currently a freshman studying political science with my name is Spanish and I am from Fortwyn, Indiana I would just like to take this time to thank President Mr. Daniels and Mr. Paul Ryan and Mrs. Heidi Heikant for coming and speaking with us tonight in a nation where political views are in constant opposition of each other and those with opposite ideologies are seen as enemies rather than respectful opponents how do you get a white minimum wage worker in Bismarck, North Dakota to care about the problems of a Chinese immigrant in Madison, Wisconsin who faces social discrimination due to COVID-19 what responsibility do politicians have to diffuse the increase in political polarization and how can college students apply this to their lives thank you Paul go first let me answer this so smart question that was exciting that was great you're right I know Fortwyn pretty well a bunch of Jamesville people from the GM plant moved to Fortwyn so I've got some friends down there I think you need to articulate a political philosophy and view of life as a leader that seeks to unify and inform and inspire people what I mean when I say that is friends I served in Congress for 20 years I have a pretty big Hispanic diaspora in Racine and Kenosha some towns I represented and I always did Spanish town hall meetings with an interpreter and I got people in the rural areas who give me a hard time about that and then I would ask them to come join me with these I would try to explain to people how this is a melting pot how when my Irish ancestors came over during the potato famine they were kicked to the curb they could only get jobs as firefighters or policemen or construction workers my family did construction and we were not really well received either and we need to change that in society so I think there's a history of this it's just been accelerated by technology and I think it is really incumbent upon leaders to try and articulate a vision of inclusion of assimilation and our common goals our common humanity the common theme of opportunity upper mobility we want a free society that is safe and prosperous and full of opportunity and this is what people are seeking and oh by the way they're creating jobs they're adding they're contributing these are good things and you have to go out of your way to point those out and you have to lean into it a little bit meaning when you get that constituent from Bismarck or from Jamesville pushing back on you on this you have to push back and appeal to the common humanity and see if you can open a person up you have to do that the alternative is you could just say yeah absolutely feed the populism ride the populism and take it to a dark place which is regrettably what I think a lot of ambitious politicians again on all sides are doing these days for a short quick fix of quick popularity it comes at the expense of the common good frankly and I always tell new people in congress don't you're not in such a race the tortoise wins the race here be good be diligent be hardworking be true be honest and don't be so flash in the pan don't be such a entertainer on TV be a legislator and you will have deeper longer lasting respect and be a better leader at the end of the day but so many people are tempted to the quick fix of fame that you can get in flame and that is a real problem in our politics today what do you say to that worker in Bismarck people are afraid of what they don't know and what they've never experienced and so there has to be an understanding and uniting of common experiences you know I I find it interesting as frequently in North Dakota people say well you know we work really hard here and we pay our taxes and we're paying our taxes and working hard when people in cities don't work hard and I said well you know I don't know that that's true and you know it's easy to say yeah they're they're bad people and we're really getting taken advantage of and what the speaker that is it is incumbent on all of us to back up and say no let me tell you about my experience let me tell you why I think it's important that you have an understanding of a Chinese immigrants experience coming to this country and what they've lived through and why they bring such a richness and an opportunity to grow this country and to grow this economy you know what it comes down to is a couple things number one lazy politicians who don't want to do that who find it easier to demonize and because that takes care of quote unquote the base as opposed to kind of educating and leading I think the other thing is that that we haven't as a society really brought each other along and that's always been true I was part of a program once where George Mitchell who was the leader of the Senate now just a statesman if there's a definition of statesman he certainly qualifies there and when people went through this oh look what's happening in our society he gave a little history lesson to remind us all that people of German heritage who came about the same time the Irish came you know I'm German you know no Germans dogs are Irish we've always had this challenge of uniting the country when we've had great leaders and I would include Ronald Reagan who did an immigration reform bill who brought the country together explained why it was important that we we we unite this country in a common American identity and that that's all of our roles I think I think that what we're missing in all of this is leadership but we also are missing proximity because we've now decided that if you live in New York you're going to think this way if you live in Bismarck you're going to think that way and we've got to start getting out of this mentality of pigeonholing ideology into various regional baskets and start thinking about how we can weave a common American identity and that takes leadership and it takes patients and it takes civil society by that I mean the churches to stand up and say you know this is why this is important it takes public leaders, education leaders universities like the great one that we're talking to today that has a rich culture of inclusion that many people from Jamesville or Bismarck are going to get exposed to people and those experiences and that exposure is going to change the world and certainly change their world view. Well that was a shy gave us such a great question we got two great answers but they were a little long so in the interest of making sure that the next several great questions get answered let's go to the next panelist. Hello I'm Allison Hicks I'm a sophomore majoring in English and I'm from Pennsylvania. Thank you President Daniels According to the census and the health resources and services administration 26.1 million Americans lacked health insurance in 2019 and 14 million lived in areas without access to adequate medical services with the coronavirus pandemic costing millions their jobs these numbers are only going to increase what steps do you believe are necessary to ensure every citizen has access to insurance and health care as well as address the disadvantages low income and marginalized communities face when seeking care. Well I I'll do it real fast I authored the alternative to Obamacare and I offered and I brought one through the house a couple years ago. I would do refundable tax credits which means a voucher to buy health insurance for everybody more for the poor less for the wealthy and I would change the way the insurance rules work so that you can get more affordable insurance and I would have risk pools that cover the people with real big illnesses so if government just bucks up and pays for the people who have catastrophic illnesses you can dramatically lower the price of insurance for everybody else so that that tax credit goes really far and everybody can get affordable care. I could go on and on I'll leave it at that plus transparency on pricing and quality so you have true competition in Milwaukee the variation on prices on MRIs is like 300% based on who you are and where you go that's ridiculous you need more choice in competition universal vouchers or tax credits and then cover the people with with deep illnesses so that insurance can be priced like other insurances. I'll leave it at that. I would say number one you've got to lower the cost to make insurance affordable for everyone how you do that is you embrace technology you start looking at where the waste fraud and abuses in the health care system and you start embracing wellness strategies because every one of us as individuals in this country have an obligation to reduce our exposure to chronic conditions. 70% of health care costs relate to chronic conditions most of which are avoidable and we don't talk enough about lowering health care costs it's a drag on our economy it's way too big of a percentage of our economy we need to move beyond this so we can do other great things in our economy but we have to look at the failure of employer based insurance and why that isn't working right now whether it's in the gig economy or whether it is in unaffordability when you become unemployed and so there has to be a replacement mechanism for that insurance on access no one knows this better than we do who come from rural America we've got to embrace the technology that could bring access we've got to look at how we can engage the public health community in providing local health care services in rural areas thank you let me point out the last question came from a member of the young Democrats and we thank her for an excellent question next one please hello my name is Tyler Sweezy I'm a senior from Indianapolis Indiana studying finance and journal management thank you President Daniels, Mr. Ryan and Mrs. Heitkamp for being willing to speak to us tonight according to the congressional budget office in fiscal year 2019 the US government made $375 billion interest payments on its debt while there is much talk of defense spending being the main driver of the debt at 3.41% in fiscal year 2019 US defense spending as a percentage of GDP is close to its post 1960 low in actuality the main drivers of the national debt are mandatory spending programs such as our major health care programs and social security which combined were 10.7% of GDP in fiscal year 2019 these programs were already facing a distant future and COVID-19 is only hasten that trend what are the roadblocks to congress taking prudent steps to reform our entitlement programs and get control over the national debt Senator, you want to go first because I know Paul is in the starting blocks on this one but why don't you preempt him well what I would say is the first thing you need to do when you look at the projection or the trajectory of debt is you need to get health care costs under control you can say well these are mandated spending programs so we're going to ratchet back the bottom line is these are people especially in the Medicare area that need health insurance who have earned health insurance and we have to take a look at how we're going to lower the cost of delivering that product to them because health care is a major driver of debt but what I will tell you in this where Paul and I will agree any dime spent in addition on interest is a dime we can't spend on a moonshot for cancer or something else we have to have a common understanding that this debt is going to crush us and the debt itself is the largest generational transfer of responsibility but I also say it's the largest interracial transfer of responsibility as old white people are building it up and younger more diverse people are going to pay the bill and so what I would say is we need to have a true commitment on debt and deficit we need to make it understandable for the public why we need to address it but we also need to understand these programs that you're talking about have in fact been addressed and Paul can talk to what Representative Larson is doing over in the house I think a lot of good leadership on social security is coming at the house a lot of bipartisan leadership so I'll just turf that to him Tyler, occasional thought to these questions This is the Mitch Daniels Paul Ryan question right here Tyler, you asked the most important question facing your generation I'll be as brief as I can this is existential it will affect your generations just your prosperity and your ability to have a good life and a good economy it really kind of does come down to health care if you look at our health care entitlement programs those are the greatest chunk of our unfunded liabilities and we have an important social contract needs to be met promises made to people here in social security so the question is how do you keep these promises how do you fulfill the mission of these programs without totally bankrupting the country and driving us into debt I think the biggest best answer is reforming these programs to bring more market based solutions to them which brings more choice, more competition and brings down the cost escalation to them I'm proud of the fact that when I ran the house and when I was budget chair and ways means chair every session the house passed a budget that balanced the budget and paid off the national debt premium support for Medicare important reforms to Medicaid tax reforms budget reforms, spending caps so there's a way to do this the problem is we can never get it anywhere else but the house representatives in those days it is really hard for politicians to touch these third rails of embracing these reforms this and immigration reform are the two big ones that got away from me that I think if we solve we got a great 21st century for America my last comment is getting healthcare right which is market based solutions in my opinion but I think the way to do this politically speaking and I hate saying this because I always thought this was a political punts is a commission like the Greenspan Social Security Commission or the base closing commission I was on both simpson it was disavowed the minute it came out with its result by the president then Obama rather than Pelosi a commission that requires an up or down vote on its findings by both houses that cannot be filibustered I think frankly is the best political path to getting this done Mitt Romney and he's got a democrat I can't remember who his lead democrat is but there's a bipartisan bill to do just this now in the senate and it's been introduced in the house by the problem solver caucus so that to me is the best political solution that's available right now thank you for a great question hi my name is john pabbist underline I'm a junior from north field Illinois about 25 miles north of Chicago studying aeronautical and astronautical engineering and before I say anything I also want to thank president Daniels for hosting and moderating this event our two speakers are taking the time and effort to be here and the political discourse club for all their work in organizing it I'm the president and cams coordinator of turning point USA at Purdue and here's our question on behalf of our chapter in the past five years there have been 99 disinvitation attempts from universities to various invited speakers the majority of which leaned right of the aisle as we're seeing a rise in political polarization overall it's also seen in the foundation for individual rights and educations disinvitation database that the rate of disinvitations is increasing since 2015 and it is expected that this issue will continue on both sides unless we're able to find a way to tone down hostility towards each other when public schools either disinvite or outright block speakers coming to campus based on their speaking topic or their political views what's your response and how could you suggest that students go about ensuring there's diversity of thought on campus and that their school administration is holding true to their first amendment rights and obligations to their students, thank you I appreciate your response Senator you were a state official one time you go first I don't understand why administrations would disinvite anyone I understand that you know people may have tough and gut feelings about things but the absolute worst thing in fact it would be contrary to what I just said which is embrace the diversity, understand each other stand next to each other now in my opinion there's a spectrum of what you do if the old keepers if you said I want to invite the old keepers I would say that's a very bad idea because it legitimizes a hate group and so there are groups that should not be legitimized by a campus invitation to speak because they don't belong in the discourse but I think you know you look at the the movement on anyone speaking on behalf of Israel that's happening on campuses I think that's wrong I may disagree with some practices but let's have the dialogue and let's see if we can change minds of people who may already agree but now would disagree with the right presentation so I think this isn't so much driven by students as it is by reluctant and hesitant administrators who don't want to take the heat for letting it happen Paul we have this tyrannical intolerance that is creating this radical conformity that is very dangerous to a pluralistic society my own experience is going to University of Wisconsin which I grew up a season ticket holder my family they lay down in front of my truck when I went to University of Wisconsin to talk about entitlement reform like the last questioner it's gotten radicalized it's very dangerous a good friend of mine wrote this book liberal fascism which I think is a great book that sort of talks about the origins of this and if you can allow this kind of radical intolerance to proliferate you're going to stifle pluralism civil debate and dissension and it really is up to the leaders of these academic institutions to build these tolerance codes University of Chicago has a pretty good one Mitch I'm sure you do knowing you I apologize for not knowing what it is but these schools have got to open this up and allow differing views and different thought to occur it is very dangerous it's very alarming and frankly as a dad whose kids are just starting to go to college I look at this and I'm like there's no way I want my kid to go to college if these people are being heismaned at the campus door and cannot make it on the campus I'm not talking about crazy white supremacists I'm just talking about normal conservatives trying to go on campus and explain the virtue of freedom Nicomachean ethics and Bastier and Mises and Hayek those are the things I teach at Notre Dame I'm glad they let me do that but a lot of campuses don't even allow that stuff to be taught anymore it's crazy I don't want to let this go blind without saying I was at Harvard and disinvited to speak at a group at Harvard because they didn't share some of my political views so this cuts both ways these stuff well it's time to defend pusellanimous administrations somebody else can speak for them but I will tell you that Purdue's Board of Trustees made this the first public university to embrace the Chicago principles verbatim the ones you referenced and that is our code here and we try to live up to it next question My name is Praveena Ravi and I'm from Dallas, Texas and I'm a political science and I'm a representative of Pi Sigma Alpha Thank you President Daniels I also want to take a moment to thank Speaker Ryan and Senator Heitkamp for being a part of this event My question concerns my home state where millions of Texans lost power for over 24 hours during Winter Storm Yuri this past week it is important to note the Texas Electrical Grid was deregulated privatized and removed from interconnected networks to avoid federal regulation and increase profits for a small number of wealthy individuals in light of these recent events it seems like grid deregulation may have been a mistake what are your thoughts on this and to what extent should federal funding be allocated towards equitable green infrastructure investments going forward Thank you Paul you want to go first Sure I wouldn't say the answer is more in new regulation it's just the proper rules of the road if I'm not mistaken my daughter goes to college down there and she just came up here for the week because her dorm shut down I would say they need to be better prepared for Winter Storms cut the tree branches over the power lines there are a lot of rules that they should have been living by to be prepared for such a thing but more regulation I don't think is the knee jerk reaction proper regulation is the knee jerk reaction not knowing enough about the regulatory system in Texas I really don't feel equipped to say where they fell short on the regulations but just to gag reflex on over regulation I think is a bad idea because it would just raise costs with respect to encouraging green energy I think the answer for government's role is basic research not applied research meaning fund basic research that gets gets new breakthrough technologies going versus picking winners and losers in the actual marketplace and trying to stack the deck Senator It's interesting because you raised one area where Speaker Ryan and I have had a few disagreements and that would be on things like the production tax credits and the investment tax credits that have driven I think more and more power towards renewables whether you agree with that or not it definitely has had the intended it has had the intended consequences of those policies and I've done a lot of work on the electric grid in fact I sat on the board of directors of a subsidiary corporation to a large generation of transmission power co-op that did 11 states if you said North Dakota is going to only rely on itself in the power grid to provide power that is foolish foolish foolish and one thing Texas is finding out to basically divorce itself from the rest of the country so you can have you can say we're going it alone isn't the right way especially in a time when we're seeing the dramatic consequences of climate we're seeing these ice storms in Texas that take out the power grid whether it's rising sea levels and increased storms and tornadoes in you can disagree with me but I think we're seeing weather patterns that should have us all concerned and so we need resiliency one thing I really agreed with the Obama administration on is when Ernie Moniz did his quadrennial energy policy he didn't focus on the source of energy in terms of delivering energy and how that makes us less resilient and how it makes our power grid less reliable and so this is very complicated but the answer is not for Texas to go it alone the answer is for all of us to be interconnected the way we would but goodness sakes that's why we have an interstate commerce system so that we can share the opportunities across state borders so Texas made some really bad decisions and I think they're going to have to clean up the mess that resulted as a result of those bad decisions that Texas made thanks we're literally down to our last couple minutes there were some follow up questions and I'm just going to select one and it came from the discourse club it's directed to you senator and it raises I think an issue that is very central to our current problems for senator hype camp the club asks as a democrat who served what has become a predominantly political minority what would your advice be to potential candidates seeking office in areas where they are in the political minority before you answer I just want to ask you to take into account the fact that yours and as you told us before it's become the party of the wealthy the 10 richest congressional districts in the country are all represented by your party 44 of the top 50 and the financial edge in the last election and the state of one so this is a huge change from what you knew and what we knew and I just want to read you this quote from a democratic pollster in the recent new yorker reflecting on people she had talked to in Ohio and Wisconsin where she had run successful democratic campaigns people told her they think they're better than we are their pc their virtue signalers they lecture us while they're in charge and they're ripping us off you hear that in North Dakota and how would you win an election there from the minority under those circumstances if only if only I had the answer to that question you wouldn't be calling me former senator idea you know this is really complicated and it's complicated because we've gotten more our votes have become more aligned with our party and I ran in 12 about 20% of identified republicans in North Dakota would crossover and vote for me and did when I ran in for reelection in 18 it was only 4% and so what I would say for all of you who say I want to go back home to Idaho and run I'd say go back home and decide what you're going to do in your community go back home and decide what you know what issues you want to take on and how your state and then build that reputation for being somebody who gets things done regardless of the party label and don't be afraid to say why you're a democrat I tell you that table that I was talking about that the democrats get up and leave or they just hang their head because they feel so beaten down and to have a bright start from Purdue come home and work on whatever you know kind of new power solution or a new innovation in agriculture and then say I'm running and I'm running as a democrat because I believe in these principles but I'm running because I believe in Idaho and so I would say always put your state first don't put your political party first lead with your ideas lead with your personality don't lead with I'm doing this so that I can go and vote with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell and you know that that's not that's what's wrong with our governance and so I would say call me afterwards and we'll brainstorm how we're gonna get you into the running in a in a state like North Dakota and I'm hoping that by the time you make that leap as a college student that the work that we've done to expand the understanding of people in the in the country of the democratic party and that that we've got the democratic party to listen more to working people will have clouds and ground for you so give us a shot to build the base of working class people and and go for it it's a wonderful answer and even though we're just slightly over let me ask each of our panelists lightning round fashion just speaking to young people today as citizens and whether or not they ever and aspire to a public career what would you encourage them in a few words with regard to the task we're leaving them of drawing this country together Paul why don't you go first don't lead with your emotions boil things down to irreducible primaries check your premises and just know that the other person that doesn't agree with you is not a bad person it's just a person that doesn't agree with you listen to them you got two ears you got one mouth use it in that proportion and senator you can have an ideology but first have an idea first have a method and first always always always respect whoever you're sitting next to respect whoever you're talking to and understand they may have a different perspective but guess what it's a perspective that you can learn from thank you both in my most pessimistic moments I think of people like our two guests tonight I recognize that through ups and downs this country has somehow produced wonderful public servants like these who think about the public interest not their own self interest I know the generation that I see every day here produce going to do the same thing I want to thank once again the political discourse club not just for this evening but for your reason for being which is such a great example and I hope you'll thrive and obviously we will be happy to support your activities any chance we get thanks to the audience for tuning in and for your concern for rejuvenated more healthy political process in America good night good night thank you