 Yeah, the military in Hawaii. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Stink Techist, the two o'clock clock on a given Thursday. And guess what? Ed Case joins us. Representative Ed Case, it's so nice to see you smiling face in. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me back. So it's always interesting to talk to somebody in Congress when Congress is in such disarray. And I wonder if you could give us a little praise on how it's doing as you see it and how you're doing in it. Well, I think, you know, there are really two levels of Congress. The one level is what you actually do see in kind of the everyday, you know, media and the other presentation out there to the public. And it's not a pretty sight at all. And Congress is very polarized. Congress is very divided. Congress, too much of the time is paralyzed by non-consensus thinking. And, and, and, and, you know, the thought that if I, if I compromise with the other side, that's going to be viewed as a loss for me and a win for them. And it'll be put out there in the public that way. And that has just been really destructive on a number of levels. It certainly has been destructive to some of the large policy calls that we've had to make in our, in our country and in our national government. But on occasion, you have some bright spots. For example, we did pass to the point of this call a National Defense Authorization Act, which is our annual defense bill. It's been, it's been passed on time and, you know, on a, on a fairly non-partisan basis for decades now. And so that was a good solid result. We passed a bipartisan infrastructure package at $1.2 trillion last year that was, that was passed and is now in the process of rolling out to the country. I supported it very strongly. And so those are bright spots, but it's, it can be very dysfunctional and even discouraging on a day-to-day basis. There are whole areas of Congress where we actually do work pretty well together a little bit below the radar. One area is on the House of, on the House of the Senate Appropriations Committees. And I'm a member of the House of Appropriations Committee, which is responsible for all federal funding every year. And that committee tends to be a little less partisan. We tend to, you know, be a little bit more deliberative. And of course we have our fights, but they're, they're not, you know, Mortal Kombat or anything like that. And so that's, that's an area that works pretty well. And then there are a number of caucuses, which are, you know, fairly official organizations or just working relationships that you, that you put together on particular issues that are very, you know, operate in a less partisan atmosphere. Two examples of that would be, I'm a member of something called the Problem Solvers Caucus, which is a caucus in the House of 29 Democrats, 29 Republicans. And, and we're there to see whether we can find those solutions to some really naughty problems, whether it be immigration or China. I was just appointed Co-Chair of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a China working group. And then the other area that- How successful has that working group been? We just got going on it. We just actually had our first meeting this week. And we've got a lot on our plate clearly. And then the final thing I would answer from the, from the, in general in Congress, is Pacific Islands Caucus, which I co-founded a couple of years back on a bipartisan basis. That is, as it sounds like, focused on our country's relationship with the Pacific Islands themselves. So our backyard, military, non-military, everywhere in between. And that caucus has been quite a joy to work with. We've come out with some, some major legislation in this area and that much of our legislation is now adopted and passed the U.S. House. And so I would, I would, I would answer you. It's a, it's a, it's a mixture of a lot of things. But from my own personal perspective, sure, I get discouraged quite a bit of the time, but I really can't afford to dwell in, you know, discouragement. I still, I've got a job to do. And I just use whatever position and whatever, you know, influence and, and, and whatever tools are at my disposal to try to, try to advance things in whatever way I can. Yeah. Oh, voting rights, voting rights, voting rights is so important. And unfortunately, it's not stuck in the house, it's stuck in the Senate. And not too much you can do. We've passed, we've passed very, very solid voting rights legislation in the U.S. House a number of times already. And that is one of the tragedies. That is one of the real areas where there just is not any real good explanation for the failure of some of my colleagues to move on, on basic voting rights, but that somehow the, the maintenance and, and expansion of voting rights represents a threat to them politically, which is a very sad commentary really in many, many areas. I hope we can, you know, overcome that at some point, but it's, that has been a discouragement to me. Yeah. And before we go off to the military issue, which I do want to discuss and I know you do too. It's, it's the issue of the select committee looking into January 6th. That must have implications all over the house. It's a house committee. And it's very newsworthy and very important. You must be rubbing shoulders with those guys and girls. What's your sense of it? With the select committee itself or, or with select committee and the work of the select committee? Well, I believe in that select committee. I don't think you can, I don't think you can let an event such as January 6th happen, a major attack on our U.S. capital and attack on our democracy. I was there. I, you know, I lived through it. I felt it an embarrassment in the eyes of the world. And just on so many levels, you can't let that just be kind of, you know, whitewashed off as just kind of a one off and a casual occurrence that just one day a bunch of people, you know, attack the capital. I don't, I don't think that you can let it go. You've got to understand exactly what happened, why it happened, and you've got to hold people accountable that, you know, either made it happen or incentivized it to happen. And you've got to, you've got to find the lessons in it. And so, you know, I'm really sorry that at the very, very beginning of the, of the, this process, we came out with a strong, very, very bipartisan bill with, with equal representation on both sides of the aisle. And I thought that that was the right way to go. I thought, I thought that, you know, we should all rise above it and try to find out what happened, regardless of where that trail may lead. That didn't happen. And so we, we basically had to do it ourselves. And I support their work. I don't know what the results are going to be, but I certainly expect that we will get to the bottom of it and that whatever we find will be, you know, not only fully transparent to the American people and to us, regardless of whether that's, it's a negative reflection on kind of how we went about things on that day or preparation, but that we can learn the lessons from it. Yeah. And of course, those things, all those things are of great concern. But right now, immediately, as we discussed before the show, Ukraine is a great concern. And that, and that does touch the military and the appropriations for the military and so forth. And so on the paper today that, in fact, we were sending troops to Poland in some substantial number. So it's not boots on the ground, but it's boots close by. And I wonder what your thoughts are about that and how you, how you feel it affects the Congress and the people, the country? Well, you know, Ukraine is a sovereign country, a country that is aligned with us. It's not technically part of NATO, but certainly it is part of the community of nations of Western Europe and Eastern Europe who aspire to and want to live under a system of government, then we share those values, who want to, you know, exercise their sovereignty, who want to, you know, better their people, who want to practice democracy and who want to be part of the international rules-based order that has maintained the peace in our world for three generations now. The peace didn't happen by accident. The peace happened because we came up with common rules and common ways of resolving conflicts. We memorialized them in institutions like the United Nations, certainly NATO is a part of that world. And so, you know, the threat, even the threat by any country to invade the sovereignty of another country who wants to go in that direction is a direct threat to us. And it's not just about Russia, and it's not just about Ukraine. It is about whether, you know, countries like China can do the same thing in the end of the Pacific or beyond for that matter. And so, you know, this is unfortunately one of those, you know, very difficult situations where the implications are very severe and significant for Ukraine itself, for Europe, and for the world. And we are part of this world. So, you know, sometimes I still, you know, hear people saying, well, what business is it of ours, what happens in Ukraine? Well, it is our business. We are part of this world. We are leader of this world. And we are being challenged by very authoritarian regimes who want to impose a different view of the world on not only their own citizens, but the rest of the world. And that does affect us. And so, you obviously have to ask yourself, so I'm not one of these that says, you know, let's go back into our own little world here and, you know, just worry about purely our domestic policy, first of all, in an interlocked and interconnected world, we can't do that even if we wanted to do it. And second, it sounds very much like the 1930s at some point. So, we'll talk about learning lessons. Now, I'm not a proponent of, you know, boots on the ground in Ukraine, but I certainly am a proponent of taking every measure that we can to dissuade Russia from invading Ukraine and to make the consequences of Russia invading Ukraine so severe that either it decides not to do it to start with, which, of course, is the intent here, or decides it can't do it, even if it starts to do it, or pays such a heavy price for doing it, that it and others never think about doing it again. So, that's an economic response. That's a that is a defense response. We are helping Ukraine with their own defense. Congress is involved in that. I believe we should help them with their defense. We've funded their defense capability, and we obviously do have some obligation to be prepared for the worst to include a military presence in other parts of Europe. Now, what's interesting is this somehow is different, where Vladimir Putin plays it out as a sort of chess game, and you never know what he's going to do the next day. At the same time, I think it's a learning experience for this country, a learning experience for President Biden, because he's found new ways to deal with that. He's found new strategies for public opinion for public discourse. And my view, I'd be interested in yours, my view is that he's doing a good job in order to deal with the misinformation, disinformation that we are getting from Russia. Well, he's done a number of things. Well, I think in this area, he has been, I think he's found the right balance between very straight, talking tough language and without the kind of attitude that can be projected out there in the world, that can be misinterpreted very easily and cause the situation to inspire a lot of control. So a clear set of consequences. I think that one area that's done a very good job of is working with our friends and allies and partners around the world to present a united front to Russia because we cannot do this alone and we should not do this alone. If Europe doesn't care about what happens to Ukraine, why should we in some ways? And Europe does care about what happens to Ukraine, but we've got to hang together. And countries like Russia and China are constantly trying to figure out whether they can shatter these relationships, so that they can divide these alliances and whether they can splinter the folks that they think are getting in their way of imposing their system of government, their system of directives and mandates and own view of an international rules-based order, which is an order that they created for us on them. And so it's very important for us to hang with our people and I think Biden has done a good job with that. Well, let's move on to the military per se. We're here on the military in Hawaii and I know you have a report to make to us in a sense about how the military in Hawaii is doing, its connection with the federal government, appropriations and policy. What are your thoughts these days about how well the federal government is handling Hawaii and how well Hawaii is handling the federal government? Well, of course, you can never get into this discussion and I think it would be some time before we can get into this discussion without taking Red Hill straight on. And so I talk now, leaving Red Hill to its own specific discussion. So these are general observations and I think Red Hill has changed some of this equation, which is one of the really tragic consequences of Red Hill. But in general, let's start at the beginning. I mean, if in fact we do believe that we should worry about countries like Russia, like China, if we do believe that we are a leader of the world and a partner of the world, much of the world, and a direct ally of countries like Australia, like Japan, that we want to head in the same direction with countries like India, with all of the countries of the Pacific Islands, that we value our common heritage, identity, and values, then you have to be able to present a very strong defense posture out there in the world because countries like Russia and China, well, they're not into this kind of a debate, they're just into what's the strength and can we impose ourselves on other people? It's very practical calculation. And so I believe that we need to do all of that. I believe that we must continue to do all of the above I've already talked about. And I also believe that Ukraine notwithstanding, the front of this is the Indo-Pacific, and that is where the future, the president, the future of our country and our world are being charted. And we have to be involved across the board, but we have to have a strong military presence throughout. And that's far more difficult and complicated than it used to be, primarily because of the rise of China, but not just China. Let's not forget that Russia is a Pacific power. Russia has a major fleet in the Pacific. It has disputed territories in the Pacific. It comes down here and sends its navy around Hawaii itself. Doesn't do that by accident. It's coming down here to see what it can learn and to make a statement. And it wants to leverage this relationship with China. It wants to have an access with China. Well, yes, of course, because they have one common goal. And they have one country in particular that's kind of in their way. As far as they have their own problems. So it's a marriage of convenience and it can unwind at any time. But right now, they view it as in their mutual interest to align and to present some kind of a united front. And that's a problem for the rest of the world, including us. So where that takes me to is that our Hawaii is incredibly important in all of that. And that is our role. That is our responsibility to our country. And I believe we need to embrace that role and that responsibility. Sometimes I hear people say, well, if the military just wasn't here, then the rest of the world wouldn't pay much attention to Hawaii. That's dead wrong. We're not going to be able to escape the circumstances of our geography, of our placement, of our own history as a part of this country. And so I try where I can to advance the interests of our military, both in the Indo-Pacific, as well as specific to Hawaii. And I also fully cognizant, as we all should be, that in the process of doing that, we also have a direct benefit to Hawaii given the economic return of our military in Hawaii, which is major with somewhere around, depending on how you calculate this, but 15%, 20% of our total state economy is related in some way, shape, or form to the military, whole segments of our economy that are very much related to the military, such as construction. And the fact of the matter is that's fine with me. If we are able to fulfill our responsibilities to our country, and it will help us as well, then that's where we should try to focus our energies. And so there's a lot of different aspects to, number one, where and how our military is involved in Hawaii today, as well as kind of where it's going in Hawaii today, and how I work primarily on the Appropriations Committee, on the Subcommittee on Military Construction, for example, which is about, I think we have 10 members and we're responsible for all military construction across the country. So there's a number of areas where I'm able to really pitch in from this perspective, but I think maybe what I'll do is I'll just stop there and you can take it. I fully take your point about the importance. In fact, we talk about this on the show and the military and Hawaii show all the time. I just wonder how you feel that that plays into the resolution of the Red Hill thing. I remember only a few days ago, maybe it was your committee or maybe it was Brian Schatz. You've found money to rebuild the tanks. How did that happen? Where's that going? How does it play? When will it resolve the dispute, if at all? Well, first of all, let's get into Red Hill here because there are a number of levels of Red Hill that are all disappointing. The first and foremost disappointment of Red Hill is the fact that it leaked to start with that thousands of families were displaced, that they were injured, that they lost their pets, that they are still to this day, not back in their homes, that their children cannot go to schools that are considered safe, that businesses are not fully open, that they rely upon, and this is not acceptable for our ohana. I mean that in the broadest sense because of course, those of us that live here all the time, they're clearly, you know, we're all part of the same ohana, but so are our military families. It doesn't matter whether they're here for six months or two years or five years. It doesn't matter whether they're legal residents or not. It doesn't matter if they vote here or not. As far as I'm concerned, when they're here, they're here. They're part of us. They are us, and they have been severely affected by the leaks at Red Hill. And second, of course, is the direct risk posed to our own water, which so far has not showed up in non-Mavie drinking water system wells, but certainly could still be there. It doesn't look that way so far, but we don't know that. And just the general risk of Red Hill is very, very clear at this point. And then frankly, I will say also that the Navy's response, in particular the Navy's response was not acceptable. Now, it's a lot better now than it was then, but it was defensive. It was in some ways creating obstacles to getting to the bottom of what was really happening. And public statements were very, very unfortunate on a number of levels. And so the early days of Red Hill continuing until fairly recently were really a disaster in many ways for our Navy. And so Red Hill has just been really, really bad all around, I would say. But on the broadest possible level, our military presence here in Hawaii does depend on our support of our military. Our military cannot carry out the degree of logistics, of preparation, of activity, whether it be Pearl Harbor, or Hickam, or Kaniohe Bay, or Pochalua on the Big Island, or Kahuku for major training ranges, or training ranges that are in state waters. They can't do that without our support. And we have supported them. I think most people in Hawaii understand the importance of our military, believe in our military, understand the mission, and support the military presence here and the military's use of our resources that is necessary for the military to fulfill its duty and its responsibility to our country. And by the way, to us, because they do protect us as well. Well, they stand ready to help us in times of natural disaster. Well, not just natural disaster, but, you know, a broader protection as well. So there's a benefit there. But that public confidence has been shaken by Red Hill. And I don't think that most of us distinguish between the Navy and some other branch. It is the military. And so one of the real consequences of Red Hill has been really a real blow to public support of our military in general. Now, I think most people can distinguish between the failure of Red Hill and the overall performance of our military, but certainly the confidence that was there and the kind of the carte blanche that was there, that will take a while to recover. And of course, it depends very much on what the Navy itself does in terms of the remediation of Red Hill and of compliance with the state's order, which orders it to defuel. And frankly, I think it's also going to depend at the end of the day on our Navy and our military in general, coming to a conclusion about other alternatives to Red Hill as a field storage facility. Yeah, you know, it's interesting that, you know, the in World War II, the population was much less, was a lot more land available to the military. And they were a significant, a more significant, they are still a very significant part of the economy, but they were even a more significant part of the economy then. And the community has grown up around them. It's the old story. And now, when you say that collectively we've got to find another place for them to go for their fuel storage, it's not as easy as it was. Yeah, that's true. But the military does have an adequate footprint today to fulfill their reasonable needs for a long time into the future. So the challenge, we don't have the challenge that occurs some parts of our country and world where our military needs expanded facilities in order to fulfill their function are such constrained on their facilities that the friction between civilian and military uses just becomes so acute that it is very, very problematic to continue. Okinawa would be a good example of that where we had major military bases right after the Second World War that were out in the boonies at the time. But then, you know, Okinawa itself, the population grew up around those bases in a very dense way. And they have to move those bases. And I think they should move those bases. We don't have that here. But certainly, again, the military does utilize not only its own land, not only its own resources, it utilized our resources at least as state lands. It, you know, obviously occupies and does joint use with, you know, much of our civilian community. It's not walled off. And so it's really critical that the tragedy of Red Hill be remedied in a way that does restore public confidence in our military. Because I can't, personally, I can't accept the alternative. Now you asked me about cost of Red Hill. And, you know, my function over this last two and a half plus months of this crisis is, is I guess I would I would put it into three buckets. Number one, number one, taking care of those directly affected. So primarily our military families flushing the water, testing the water, paying for their for their temporary facilities, doing whatever we can to take care of those directly affected right now. Number two, identifying exactly what happened at Red Hill and why so that we can correct for even any movement of the fuel, for example, for de-fueling and remediating. So how do we actually restore the confidence of the rest of us that that water is safe, that you can go to any, you know, water pipe in this in this city and county and it's going to be safe drinking water. And as part of that, I think the support for the state's emergency order, which again directs the Navy to come up with a plan to defuel and then defuel. And then number three, the longer term consequence of Red Hill and as you, as you know, Congressman Caheli and I introduced the bill just last week where we crossed that last bridge and said, no, we need to close it. We need to come up with another way to satisfy bulk fuels, fuel storage facility capabilities in the Indo-Pacific and you military will work with you, but you need to figure out what that's going to look like and then we got to close it. Now that's all going to cost billions and billions of dollars. We estimate that already this fiscal year, I'm sorry, not this fiscal year, but just just really literally in the last 11 weeks, probably the cost is somewhere in the range of $500 to $600 million spent to date. And it's going to go up to another couple hundred million, probably to a billion by the end of this fiscal year, which ends in September. And then of course, we'll have to continue on from there. And as we finance the defueling and the stabilization and the alternatives to Red Hill, those are going to be billions of dollars over the next couple of years. We started down that road. Actually, it's interesting. It's very, very topical because the initiative that Senator Schatz initiated was to utilize the current a bill that's moving through Congress right now. This bill is to extend for three weeks the current federal spending that is necessary, that extension is necessary because we have not completed our fiscal year 2022 appropriations. And so we have had to pass what's called the continuing resolution. And if we don't pass that continuing resolution, then the government runs out of money and has to shut down nobody wants to do that. So we just passed a bill in the House to extend that period of time for another couple of weeks so we could finish our work on FY 2022. Now, Senator Schatz viewed that as an opportunity to do a down payment from Congress on the costs that have been incurred to date. And he and I worked with him on the House side because these bills have to originate on the House side succeeded in putting into the bill that is passing through Congress right now, $403 million. It's the only funding, additional funding mechanism in that entire bill. That bill is only about extending deadlines and it's very, very unusual to get funding like this. But our colleagues understood the dire needs here and they luckily agreed with us that we needed to start that funding. And I just was looking at my screen as we're sitting here talking, that bill passed the House state last week and as we speak, the bill passed the Senate. And so it's going to be signed into law by the President probably tonight and that will directly appropriate $403 million to Red Hill. And I think that's also a good example of our delegation right now is really very strong in these areas. We have Senator Schatz and me are on the appropriations committees, the money committees, and Senator Hirono and Representative Caheli are on the respective armed services committees. And so we are all deeply involved in our military here in Hawaii and really throughout the world from both a direction and a funding perspective. That's great. That's great to hear. I hope this works out. It works out soon. But I think the bottom line I was interested in your thought about it is that this is really infrastructure. The country changes, the military changes, federal facilities change, communities change, population development changes. And we have got to make the infrastructure change with those changes. This is at the end of the day, this is another infrastructure project, isn't it? Are you talking about Red Hill in particular? Yes. Okay. Absolutely. I mean, Red Hill is a fuel storage facility. It functions extremely well as a national security asset. However, a national security asset cannot risk our drinking water. And unlike any other infrastructure, it ages. It gets to kind of end of life. And it becomes outmoded. And sometimes even the basic concept of the infrastructure needs are refreshing. For example, consider that Red Hill is the largest fuel storage facility in the entirety of the Indo-Pacific. And obviously from that perspective has a critical strategic purpose. But that was a World War II concept that was true for a number of decades after that, that you would actually centralize your fuel in one place and kind of bunker it up and protect it. And you kind of, you know, come in and out with your tankers to disperse it. But you have a different threat now facing us. Much more nimble threat. And our armed forces need to be a lot more nimble and be able to move around a lot easier. And they need to be closer to the fight. And the fight is not here. At least we hope it's not. The fight is farther west. And so our military is, and so if there's a silver lining at all in Red Hill, it is forcing our military to go back to the drawing boards and ask themselves a basic question. Do we want a large central fuel storage facility that's kind of in the thousands of miles away from where we're actually going to need it in a very short period of time in the worst case scenario? Or do we want to, you know, forward position it a little bit more and disperse it and have it be a lot more nimble and mobile along with our forces? And so that's the analysis that they're going through right now, which is, which was a requirement that we inserted in our last National Defense Authorization Act before the Red Hill Fuel Leaks became, you know, happened. It sounds just like energy. Energy was centralized. You know, it was all the hub and then the spokes of the wheel would send it out to consumers. Now it's being distributed. So you have distributed energy. It's the same modern process. It's the same technological process, I think in both cases. I mean, as you talked to some of our military, for example, they'll basically, you know, say, well, if the, again, worst case scenario of a fight occurs in the South China Sea, just to pick an example, is it going to be over before you ever had a chance to get any of your bulk fuel storage from Hulu there? Those are the kind of questions that they're going to have to, you know, that they are answering. And so personally, where I think this is probably going to end up besides the fact that, you know, Hawaii is by and large, almost uniformly opposed to any continued function of Red Hill as a bulk fuel search facility. Certainly, the congressional delegation has taken that position as the governor and as has the mayor of the city in Kanei of Honolulu. And so really, we have a real unity of conclusion here. And obviously, we're going to try to carry that through in Congress itself, using all the tools at our disposal. But I think that actually the military is going to come to this conclusion on its own. And so I think we'll all be aligned and we'll just have to be, you know, talking about how to achieve it rather than whether to do it. Well, I think it's nice and important to have you in that conversation and really with this kind of collaboration and looking for solutions, we'll find one. We only have a couple of minutes left. In fact, we're over time. But during the program here, I have received two questions they don't necessarily relate to everything we've been talking about. But if you don't mind, I'd like to post them to you quickly and see what your thoughts are. The first one is seriously, what is the US government going to pay a fair rent for all the property that the government occupies in Hawaii? Example, 147,000 acres of prime land in Oaxaca Law for a dollar for 65 years. Really, that's one question. Thoughts on that? I don't necessarily believe that our military should pay, quote unquote, fair dollar rent. I could have this discussion on a lot of levels. And to be honest, I haven't thought it all the way through myself. So this is kind of a first reaction. But I do believe we have obligations to our military. And I do believe that where we can help our military, we should. Now, I believe that our military should help us as well. And I believe that that that degree of economic contribution to Hawaii from our military presence is a lot of help. And so to some extent, I feel that if we have, you know, land like Oaxaca Law that there really would not be used for any other purpose where we can help our military. And there will be a benefit back to us from our military that is enhanced by the availability of training ranges. Then I don't necessarily believe I need to receive a dollar for dollar fair market value in that context. However, I definitely believe the military has to take care of our resources. And so obviously it needs to spend the money to preserve Oaxaca Law or whatever the resource might be. But I guess I just don't look at it quite the same way. I acknowledge and understand the appeal of that argument. But I think it's a little more broad and complicated than that. If the military, you know, clearly, if we were to pay, require them to pay the value of the use of that land by them, then it's not going to be the end of my day. But I don't automatically go there. Now, bottom line is we want to maintain the best possible relationship with the military. We go back a long way. The Navy was at Pearl Harbor in 1850. We are intertwined in our history of culture and our interests. Well, second question, and what suggestions do you have? This goes back to our earlier discussion of the program. What suggestions do you have to bring our society back together? legitimate question. Whether locally or nationally, are our divisions, divisiveness, I suppose, real or mostly hype and manipulation of and by media? Well, I think our divisions are real. So I don't believe that they're somehow fictitious. I don't believe that somehow the very, very strongly held and diametrically opposed views of our fellow citizens on a variety of issues today are some figment of somebody's imagination or hype. I certainly think that division is amplified by how we talk about division, how we treat division, how too often part of our society exploit a division for their own purposes. And so I think we are divided society to start with. We've become more intolerant of each other's perspectives and less willing to try to find that mixing ground where we all give up a little bit of our own thoughts in order for a common good. So I think that's very real. So I don't take that lightly. And I don't believe that the solution here is to shut down free speech and say, well, you can't exploit those. I hate the fact that they are being exploited, but the opposite side of that is to not have people talking about divisions to start with. I can't accept that solution. I think we all have to practice what we preach. If 90% of this country thinks that it's way too polarized and way too divided. And we can all agree on that to start with, then you can't go around and say, well, I'm going to insist on my way or the highway. You can't go around and not look to the other viewpoint and ask, is there merit in that viewpoint? Can I understand that? Is there some way to find a conclusion on it? So what I try to do myself, because I'm a leader of this country and I feel that I need to practice what I preach. So I try very hard not to, I'm very careful with the kind of rhetoric I use and how I use it and what circumstances. I try where I can to find those consensus positions, even if it means not exactly the way I would do it. I try when I do disagree and let's face it, democracy is not about all agreeing all the time. Democracy is about providing for a common view of it that generally represents the majority subject to protection of minorities. And so we're going to have these debates. Should we have a wall on the border or not? Should we invest X amount in the defense of our country in the end of the Pacific or put that money towards some other social program? These things are part of the decisions we have to make in a democracy. We don't have Putin. We don't have autocratic presidents. And so we're going to have these debates, but we can have them in a way that doesn't question each other's loyalty to the country, doesn't question each other's motivation to the country. I hear people say outrageous things in Congress sometimes. Outrageous. There's nothing that I agree with, but I try not to go to the next step and say they should not be my fellow citizen. Sometimes I feel that way, but I can't go there. And so I think we all have an obligation here. We can't just sit here and say if somebody else has thought that there's so much polarization and division and then go yell and scream at social media and call somebody a personal jerk because they have a different viewpoint than what you have. So that's a long way of saying, yes, it's very divided. Yes, it's very polarized, but I don't think it's hopeless at all. I don't think it's irreversible, but I think it's going to take some some practice and action by all of us. Thank you, Ed. Representative Congressman Ed Case in Congress, one of our delegation joining us today on the military in Hawaii. And I have to tell you that while we were talking, other questions came in, just shows how popular you are. And I hope we can circle back and have another discussion to answer those and any other issues that come up in any event. Thank you very much. Thank you. And for the questions, case.house.gov is how to reach me. So if you if you just want to reach out to us straight, we'll try to answer your question. But yeah, I'd welcome it. And I appreciate the opportunity to add some perspectives, especially on our national defense and our military, especially in the end of Pacific. I think this is a critical area for all of us. Thank you, Ed. And thanks to the people who sent questions in. Aloha. Aloha.