 Good afternoon, everyone. Good afternoon, everyone. Welcome to the Ford School. I'm Michael Barr. I'm the Joan and Sanford Wildein of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. It's my delight and pleasure to welcome you here this afternoon for this very special policy talks at the Ford School event, Voices from Across the Isle, and to welcome two of Michigan's own representatives, Debbie Dingell and Fred Upton. We have brought them together as part of our new initiative, Conversations Across Difference, in a dialogue today moderated by Ford Professor Brendan Nyean. I won't read their extensive and impressive bios which you have in your program. As you well know, these are extremely challenging times for our nation with fractious political discourse, gridlock and partisanship in our nation's capital, and an increasing lack of trust in institutions everywhere. The relationship between Representative Dingell and Upton is the antithesis of the partisan politics operative today in Washington. This depth of the relationship has been perhaps most poignantly displayed in the last week with the passing of Debbie's husband, John Dingell. Debbie, we are so sorry for your loss. And in the course of last week's event, we heard wonderful remarks from Fred Upton, a eulogy for John that was really very, very powerful. And John will be sorely missed by many of us here at the Ford School and in our country. Our two guests today have worked on numerous bipartisan efforts together, most recently during the shutdown introducing emergency legislation to allow states to make unemployment benefits available to unpaid federal workers. Congresswoman Dingell and Congressman Upton, however, do represent different parties and different constituencies, parties and peoples with sometimes different ideologies and different policy positions. This session will look at the manner by which such divergence can help or sometimes hinder the democratic process and how we can work better together. I think it's an especially appropriate way for us to spend this afternoon of President's Day. Let me just say a small word on format. We'll have some time towards the end for questions from the audience. Please write your question on the cards provided by our staff and our staff will collect them. Joining me to present the questions and really presenting the questions themselves rather than me are students Kate Westa and Brett Zazlowski, the new co-presidents of We Listen, a wonderful University of Michigan student group that fosters dialogue across difference here on campus. For those of you who are watching online, please tweet your questions using the hashtag policy talks. Again, welcome to all of you. Brendan, I'm going to turn things over to you and thank you very much. Thanks so much everyone for being here. Congressman Upton wanted to start by saying a few words about the relationship between the Fords and the Dingles, so maybe I'll turn the floor over to him. Well, it really is apropos. I mean, President Ford really was known for working across the aisle and great tribute. I urge all of you to go to his Presidential Library in Grand Rapids and see some of the things that he did. But it's interesting, we did a tribute on the House floor earlier this week. It seemed like a month ago to John Dingo, a mentor to me, but obviously the Dean of the House with just incredible credentials, and we're so fortunate to have as Debbie now serve in that seat and Dingo representing Southeast Michigan for 86 years. But I want to share this with you because it's from the Ford family. Mike Ford actually sent an email to Debbie Wednesday afternoon and she shared it with me and it's just a couple paragraphs. I just thought I'd read it because it's a good intro for this afternoon. Debbie, since learning of John's recent passing, my thoughts and prayers have been consistent with you and your extended family. Through my reading of the many wonderful remembrances of and tributes to John, I have been deeply moved and blessed to revisit his remarkable legacy of leadership and service to the people of Michigan and to all of our nation. John and my father, though identified from competing political parties, hold so much in common as men of wisdom, integrity, compassion, and selfless service for all of humanity, and their friendship was true and enduring through a shared lifetime calling of public service. John Dingo and Jerry Ford represent what is good, honorable, and decent in our country. May you know of God's abiding comfort, but appropriate for where we really want to see the country move. We work together to solve the nation's problems. Jerry Ford did that. Certainly John Dingo did that. Debbie and I try our best to follow that path. John and Jerry Ford were friends for decades and they did a lot of stuff together. They really did. So I thought we could say that's a beautiful way to start this event and really consistent with the kinds of issues we'd like to talk about. I wondered if we could talk first about bipartisanship and practice, which is something that you, too, practice in your relationship as legislators and something that people often hunger for in this country. We talk about a lot, but I actually think people don't hear about it very much. A lot of the bipartisan work in Congress is somewhat under the radar. The conflict gets more media attention and more coverage. So I wondered if you could talk about an issue or two where you've worked closely together and your offices have collaborated, especially on things that are relevant to us here in southeast Michigan like PFAS or opioids. Congresswoman, maybe you could start and talk about that. First of all, I want to say I don't look at somebody and say, oh, you're a Republican and oh, you're a Democrat. I look at somebody as an individual who's coming from some place from, I'm looking at Rusty Hills who I've known for decades, maybe longer than Fred. I don't know which one I've known longer. I don't look at Rusty and say he's a Republican. He's someone I've worked with and I hope you're teaching the kids well, too. But, you know, you start, you can't, if you want to pass something, if you want to get something done that's going to be good and right for this country, you don't do it working for just one side. You build a coalition. You find the common ground. You find the way that you can get something done. So for us, I mean, Fred has been one of my dearest friends. He's always, he'll always be older than I am, too. It's a few months or more. But our common ground and for the Michigan delegation, the common ground is Michigan. We love this state. We want to do what's right for it. So the Great Lakes, the auto industry, PFAS, so many issues that really matter to people in this state that we talk with each other. How do you build that coalition that will get done what's got to get done to do what's right for the state that we represent? You know, things flip. When I was first elected, so, and I worked for President Reagan a lot of years ago, and he had a wonderful relationship with the Congress. You know, a Republican president, Democrat Congress, but he got a lot done and the country loved him. When he ran for reelection, he won 49 states. I mean, that's the real test, you know? Man, he lost only Minnesota. He won California, New York, and the Republican. But when I came, I never thought the Republicans would ever be in the majority because they hadn't been for my lifetime. They really hadn't. And so I was, I sat down with our leadership and they brought in all the Republican freshmen together and they said, you know, hey, if you have a good idea, two things are going to happen. It's either going to get stolen or to be defeated. You're really, you know, you don't have a lot of Republican votes here. And they said, no, that's not going to happen to me. And so I made the decision that virtually every issue that I've ever worked on has been bipartisan. I'll reach across the aisle. I got a lot of friends like Debbie on the other side of the aisle and a lot of Republicans on my side that want to work together. And somehow I got to be, end up chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, arguably the most important committee in the Congress because we have more jurisdiction than anybody else. And guess who taught me? John Dingle, who was a great chairman for me. And I like to think I was a great chairman for him because he was on the committee later on. And the proof in the pudding is that, you know, we had a Democratic president. President Obama was president of all my tenure as chairman. And guess what? He signed more than 200 bills that we moved through our committee all on a bipartisan basis into law. One of those that impacts everyone here big time. And Debbie did a wonderful, we had a couple round tables here in Arbor called 21st Century Cures where we speed up the approvals of drugs and devices. We added $45 billion to health research over a 10-year span. And NIH money is so important for all of our educational institutions. But if we're going to find the cure for cancer and Parkinson's and Alzheimer's it will be because of the work that we did on this bill. Debbie had a great group here, different disease groups talking about the need to make sure that we can find the answers to these. And it was overwhelming, powerful. And at the end of the day, that bill took three years to get done. We passed it $392 to $26 on the House floor and $92 to $8 in the Senate. And it literally took the very last day of the Congress to get it done. We had to get cloture, we had all these different things in the Senate to run things through, but it was bipartisan and it will impact everybody's life on the planet. Let me also give a plea for the value of partisanship and polarization. Sometimes the parties do disagree and that's an important part of our democracy too. We should need to make sure not to lose sight of that. Political scientists think parties are essential to democracy. Parties help contesting the issues of our day is an important feature of our political system too. So I wonder if you could talk about a time when you decide to move forward with a policy issue on a partisan basis. You mentioned healthcare, that's certainly an issue where the parties have moved in different directions. Not on that bill, but on the core issue of the ACA and whether to repeal it or not, the parties have taken a really different path. So I wonder if you could talk about the challenge of policymaking on these issues where the parties fundamentally disagree and what can be done about it or whether you should just go on your own. I don't think it was good. And I got in trouble with the young Turks because I said that I wish that there had been Republican support and actually poor Fred. Watch that shoulder. I hit a tree skiing, so I just had a little surgery over here. I have great friends on both sides of the aisle. So last week, there was a, I love him, that Republicans, he's a Republican. Oh, I know. You can tell how Fred feels. That Louie Gomez from Texas is, I mean, he and I did some good, look, I know everybody thinks he's crazy, I love him. But he is writing an op-ed for Nolan Finley right now. Fred can't believe this. And he is making the point that if John Diggle had been, and I don't want to get political, this is, but he's making the point that if John Diggle had been chair of the committee, the Affordable Care Act would have been written with Democratic Republican support and that it would have, Democrats wouldn't have had the, this is what he was telling Nolan on Friday. Democrats wouldn't have had the problem they had in 2010. I think a bill, when you are passing a bill of such significant policy, that if it is partisan, half the country's not going to accept it. I'll tell you right now, I don't know if I'm going to make somebody mad. I don't know if we, if the time comes for impeachment, impeachment should never be done on a partisan basis. It's going to tear the country apart. You need to have everybody there understanding what that wrongdoing was and you need to, we're not Republicans or Democrats, we're Americans first. So I, you know, some, I horrify everybody by saying some days, why do we need the two-party system? Shouldn't we have independent candidates? So I'm not going to go, I mean, I do think that the parties provide us and I, I mean, well, I mean, I don't know how many people here know. I was a Republican when I married. I knew that. John Diggle, but I was a Milliken Republican. And Bill Milliken was more liberal than John Diggle on some subjects. So I think it's important for somebody who gets elected to know what their values are and to know what you stand for and to always stand for their values and never, never, never not know what you believe in. So let me just say two things. First of all, I concur with what Debbie said about John Dinglebin Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee at the time. I didn't say it, Louie did. All right, Louie said it, right. I'm going to remind him next week when I see. He, it would have been bipartisan. I think that there's some things that they could have done to have done that. And, you know, I can remember when President Obama first came into office and we did this big stimulus package. Remember, it was like $750 billion. And I went to Rahm Emanuel and some others and said, I don't really, I don't care about jobs. We were going through a terrible recession then. A lot of people, you know, were really hurting bad. And there were some things as it related to the auto industry that had they done it, I think, looking back, you can ask her when you talk to her tomorrow, Candice Miller. She was one of my colleagues, great, great friend and colleague and no longer in the Congress. But she and I were both on the auto caucus and had they done something on autos, I think we would have been there. And I think we did a motion recommit, which is a little inside baseball, but had that been as an amendment on the bill, you would have got us on board. You know, the tax bill that we did, yes, I believe strongly that it really helped the economy, could have been better. Could have been a lot better. Could have been better. No, no, it could have been better. And I wish that we had had some Democratic votes for it. Then you should have written a better bill. Time out, wait a minute. It wasn't our committee. In ways it means they have this special right. When they bring a bill to the House floor, there's no amendments. But they should have. I worked with some of the folks on the committee trying to get it to be where I think they would have had some Democratic votes. But it was a tragic that they didn't, you know, get some of those provisions included. So what do you think are the forces that are the reason, right? So a lot of this, they're good people, right? They're good people. We have good people on this stage, right? But there's an institutional process, right, that's generating the bills that people vote on, right? So how do you think this works in terms of the House? A lot of the bills that we pay. So you read, you know, you get the 24-7 news and everybody watches one network or the other, depending on where their mindset might be. But at the end when you really, so we just came through a terrible shutdown the last five weeks, okay? But look how it finished up. 300 people voted for it. Debbie and I, two of the 300 that voted for it. It could have happened five weeks ago. It should have happened five weeks ago. There was actually a better deal that maybe would have even had more votes at the end. We went through this terrible dilemma the last five weeks that nobody was happy with. Everybody was a loser and it was really unfortunate. But at the end, it was bipartisan to get us out of that hole that we were in. And the Senate did the same thing. I was with Gary Peters this morning over in Holland. And, you know, he was one of those with Debbie Stavitt on both our senators voted for it. But it passed three to one over there. Now, you know, that wasn't what we saw Friday when the president signed it into law, but it really was a bipartisan effort getting, putting Humpty Dumpty back together again. And all of us pretty disappointed with what happened the previous five weeks. Do you think that's going to set a precedent? So, I mean, let's talk about the consequences of polarization. So something people worry about, it's not just that the parties disagree. It's when government can't function because of polarization. So the shutdown has made that quite dramatic. And there's definitely a temptation to take these more extreme steps. There's lots of ways, as you both know, to shut government down. But they don't control things. So you got the hard right and the hard left. But most of us are in the main lane there. And if you allow... So one of the things that Debbie and I did a couple years ago, we joined this thing called the Problem Solvers Caucus. And we had a real win beginning last month, January, when the rules of the House actually were changed, forced to change. It's frankly, I don't, as an outsider, I don't think Nancy Pelosi would have been Speaker had she not agreed to those changes, to the rules changes. But now there is going to be a much greater emphasis, I think, on bipartisanship, on forcing amendments that are bipartisan to be allowed and debated on the House floor, whereas they were denied before. And we've been working together for the last couple years now on a number of issues. But now with these rules changes, we're going to be in a better spot. Because if you can show it's bipartisan, the Rules Committee, which is not something you learned about in ninth grade civics or even poli sci when I went here, graduated from Michigan, but that Rules Committee dictates what amendments can be allowed on the House floor after the committee is done with them. And if you can promote bipartisan amendments that may change the whole thrust of that bill, whether it be a tax bill, whether it be a health bill, whatever, all of a sudden you put more emphasis in the middle where if you can get agreement, that's going to happen. And we're going to push that. We've got a couple of really good ideas that we're going to be pursuing, whether it's on health policy or some other things. Congresswoman, what do you think? I think we're at a precipice. And I think we're most focused in, a lot of people's lives were hurt by the most recent shutdown. There were, people have no idea. You know, really good. I mean, if you just look at the Coast Guard, the Customer and Border Patrol, the TSA, the FBI, Secret Service, were all working and not being paid. They were, and if you, I was trying to meet with them almost every day or talk to them and they were scared to death. You know, all of those branches are, if you get a bad credit rating, you could lose your job, but they couldn't afford to drive to work. I had a woman from this district that had been deemed essential. She couldn't afford to pay for her daycare. She was going to lose her daycare spot for her child. She wasn't allowed to take time off to take care of her child, even though she was not being paid because of her status, she would have lost her job. So she took the midnight shift at Denny's to pay for her child. And I think there was more, but remember that a year ago we had two shutdowns, almost back to back. And I think all of us have to look at what's happening in our country. It's not a way to govern. I think each of us, Democrats and Republicans, have to look ourselves in the eye. I think, this isn't a, this isn't Republicans or Democrats. Democrats have had these, but we cannot let the far right and the far left dictate what is happening. I mean, Fred, I love you, but too many members of your party are afraid to stand up when the president is doing something wrong because they're afraid what the impact will be. I'm worried about what is happening in the future of this country, and I think every American's got a responsibility to stand up, to elect people that are going to do what's right, and we need to worry about this democracy. I think we live in the greatest land in the world. United we stand, divided we fall. Do you think there are things we can do to pull the parties back from that kind, those kinds of extreme measures, or is it just something where you have to feel the political cost? Like you both describe the human cost and the political cost of the shutdown, but imagine a world where now the Democrats have the opportunity to exploit the debt ceiling the way we saw in the past, the next time the debt ceiling has to be increased. That threatens financial chaos, and you can stick something on that, use it to exploit your leverage to pursue some policy priority. So the concern is that under those circumstances, there are a lot of pressure points that people can apply if they're more extreme. So is that something if for folks you just both describe yourselves being in the main lane of your parties, from using those kinds of tactics? Well, debt ceiling is a tough vote for anyone to vote for, or a Democrat is right. But it has to be done. We're on the track that you're not going to get a balanced budget this year. It's not going to happen under any scenario. It's unfortunate that there was actually a budget reform effort at the end of last year that was bipartisan, but they had to get a super majority to get the votes to get it done. I was asked a little bit earlier this morning, you know, we have this one-year budget issue. It ought to be a two-year budget. We're dealing with trillions of dollars, and the budget is supposed to be done by April 15th. When I worked for President Reagan, it came up to Capitol Hill on the first week in January. I worked at the Office of Management and Budget, and we sent the Reagan budget up at an ambulance because we were told it was dead on arrival. And so we wanted a sort of a clever idea that we did, and it got a lot of attention, and it was dead on arrival. But it sort of sets the stage. Well, here we are now. It's already mid-February, and because of the shutdown, we're not going to see the President's budget being released until for another month. How in the world are we going to live to the law that it's got to be enacted by April 15th? Ain't going to happen. So changing that process, which would include the debt ceiling, and that was one of the ideas that they were looking at, I think we just have to realize that times have changed from where we were before, and it has to go up, because otherwise we default, and if you default, that means interest rates are even going to be higher than they otherwise would have been, which only adds to the deficit. I mean, it's just a bad snowball that goes down the mountain. You know, you keep saying party systems, sort of applying the two-party system. I would actually argue with you that... I mean, who is the Democratic Party? Well, who is the Republican Party? But it's actually the Socialist Democratic Justice Party, which is a different party that defeated Joe Crowley and AOC, who I love, actually, and talked to a lot. Inside the Democratic Party, such as the same inside the Republican Party, that is terrifying. So each party has its own. Even when you talk about the two-party system, it's Ralph Nader that kept Al Gore from being elected. When you look at the populist vote... Ross Perot. Ross Perot. So it's not as clean as you want to make it. There are a lot of dynamics you've got to... Absolutely. Let me ask about one. The parties are quite diverse internally, and that's one of the things that creates opportunities for bipartisanship in some cases. I wanted to ask Congressman Upton about joining the Climate Solutions Caucus. So that's an area where people were... So the parties made a difference on how to address climate change, but the underlying science and coming to agree on it, and starting to find a path forward on addressing it seems like an important issue. So what do you think about that? It is climate change. I mean, does anyone here not believe in climate change? I mean, it's happening, right? There may be one or the other two, but yeah, I don't really... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hill College is not in my district anymore. No, I'm just... We tell the truth. Yeah, I'm proud to be on the Climate Caucus. It's happening. We all want... I mean, I grew up on the shores of Lake Michigan when I care about the environment, air and water and everything else. And if we can have a cleaner environment, we are all better off for it. I was one that publicly scolded the president for pulling out of Paris. Let's have these goals. Let's see if we can work together. And yeah, I wasn't real happy that China and India weren't part of that. And they get to go, you know, increasing their emissions dramatically over the next couple of decades before they come to a magic moment with Jesus on this. But at the end of the day, we all got to work on the environment. And we're going to have a hearing that was canceled this week. But our first hearing is Top Republican on the Energy Subcommittee is going to be on energy efficiencies. I'm glad. You know, I got a new Jeep this year, or I guess it was last year. I'm delighted that it gets 10 or 15 miles better per gallon. I had miles per gallon than my old Ford. And this one has four-wheel drive. And I needed it this morning. So that's some terrible accidents. But, you know, we ought to be investing in that type of energy efficiency so that we can reduce emissions, not only here, but show the way for the rest of the world. This is a bipartisan caucus, the Climate Change Group. And I'm delighted to be part of it. And it shows that, you know, we do need to work together. Just another issue of where we can get some bipartisanship on an issue that most Americans would agree is it really is happening. So Congresswoman, are you optimistic? So I was just on the Hill and I heard kind of two stories. One that the Green New Deal was potentially polarizing Republicans and another that this was maybe a moment where the parties could find some common ground. So do you think climate is an area where progress can be made? That is a complicated question. The Green New Deal may be a little bit too heavy a lift. The Republicans are going to try to force a vote on everything they can inside the Green Deal. Let's be honest. There can be a vote on it. I haven't read it in the Senate. But I do, you know, look, we come from Michigan. So I went to AFC, Alexandria. She's actually become a good friend. A lot of people are trying to figure out how we become good friends with me being from an auto state. But I said to her, I want to work with you on something. Part of the Green Deal is to go to a carbon-less society, which means we got to keep improving automobiles, which means we need electric vehicles. But people aren't buying electric vehicles because they don't have continents in the battery. We have no infrastructure system. We have nothing so they don't trust the range. We've got to build an infrastructure system to support it. So instead of everybody, you know, the end of the world is here, the end of the world is here, let's work together to do what we've got to do to keep us, put it in a positive way. And then actually Rashida was with me on another day. And I said, Rashida, I'm inviting. She's another colleague for those of you who don't know her. I'm sorry. I think everybody knows the names of three Democratic politicians. We don't know her on my side of the state. You know who they are. I've seen them all the time. You know, not me. I don't do that. He doesn't. But she's going to come to Detroit. And we're going to... So, you know, I don't... By the way, I don't look at her and say she's a Democrat and I don't... I talk to people. I find where that common ground is. Because by the way, we do need to do something about it. But I want to protect jobs and I want to build the infrastructure. So I don't... Instead of looking at people, that's Republican or Democrat, I want to look at somebody. Where can we find that common ground and actually find something? I think that's... Now, this, I think, is the difference between a man and a woman. I think women are problem solvers. I think we're used to balancing multiple balls in the air and we try to figure out... And that's why we need more women in politics. And that's why we need more women in government. Because we look at things and we don't look and say, oh, he's near... We look and say, how do we solve the problem? And that's what I think we need to do more of, period. All right, well... Okay, I got him rattled. Yeah, yeah. No, that was good. That was good. So, let's talk about a hard issue to get people together to solve problems on, which is immigration. We just had a government shut down over it. The president has declared a national emergency. It's going to go to the courts, right? There's a lot happening. And one thing I think that's important to think about is when the president... When any president gets involved in an issue, it can sometimes actually make it harder to find compromise. So, I wonder how you... That's right. It's hard to find compromise. How you think about this issue now, right? Where Democrats actually are counter-polarized on immigration as Trump has come out so strongly on it, right? You're seeing more Democrats who are taking more liberal positions on that issue than they have in the past. So, I wonder how you think about how the House is going to be able to handle this issue and what the right, as a policy matter, what you think the right path forward is. Well, I hope that we can get this done. Actually, it was the first issue that really brought the problem solvers caucus together on an issue. It was newly formed. We were in a shutdown in December of 2017. We're supposed to be home in our districts doing something else, and we weren't getting out of session. And a bunch of us got together at Tijuana Coast. What is that restaurant? That wasn't Tijuana. It's Tortilla Coast. Yeah, Tortilla Coast. He drank that down. Down in the basement. I remember. I drank your water. Remember, I started choking on this. Anyway, all right. But we started working together. There are about 30 members of Congress that literally filled up this basement. We had two tables, and we started, you know, what is it that we have to do on immigration reform to really open up the process so we can have some votes? Because it's broken. It's gone on way too long. Not only for employers, but, you know, the dreamers and the DACA kids and all these different issues that just, it breaks your heart. And I worked with Debbie on a couple of cases, individuals in her district to try and help her so they could stay. I've got a couple of people on my side of the state as well that just breaks your heart. And we made a difference. I mean, we forced it. But then at the end, we didn't have the votes to get it done in the House or the Senate. The Senate, they actually got 54 votes, but they didn't get 60. They had a couple of different versions. Again, they're bipartisan groups that came together. And our group, Problem Solvers, met with the President, President Trump a couple of weeks ago. During the shutdown. I didn't. Yeah, you were supposed to go, but you didn't. Anyway, we had about, you know, 15 members or so down in the Situation Room. We talked about immigration. And, you know, the President, I know he'd like to see us move, this is on the overt, not the wall part, but he does want to go there. But I mean, on the other issue, dreamers and others, he spoke to the American Farm Bureau National Conference in New Orleans a couple of weeks ago. And in his speech, he talked about solving the issue for the ag workers. Yeah, that's, that's going to be hard to do, but it's got to happen. And as I told the President, I complimented on that. But I said, there's some low hanging fruit here. A lot of us thought that this whole shutdown issue, if you go back, look at the Wall Street Journal or you look at the Chamber of Commerce and some other people, some proposals, they really thought there was a grand deal that we could do. That you could do both border security and you could combine a number of elements on the immigration side that would make some sense to get a package to get it done. Legal status for folks that have been here. I mean, a whole number of different things. And at the end, that part didn't make it in the equation. It has to though. We've gone too long. And I know that just this week, in fact, I was sitting behind Steny Hoyer at the funeral for John on Thursday. And I, you know, always doing business, you know. And before it started, I was talking to Steny, who's the majority leader, number two position in the House. And there's been, there was a public effort this week to talk about some legislation with dreamers that'll be bipartisan. So I want to say hundreds of businesses have signed on to some letters of support to try and get things done. And I leaned over to Steny and said, we've got to make sure that this is bipartisan because we've got a lot of Republicans that want to work on this to try and get it done. And I'd like to think that we can. It's a major issue for me, particularly as I know so many of these folks and their individual stories and some of the bad things that are happening to them because we don't have status for them that's really got to get fixed. So I'm hopeful. I'm a Cubs fan. I'll confess, you know, root for the Tigers as well. So I'm an optimist and I'm encouraged that we can get something done on this. And I know that our problem solvers group has been very involved in this really from the first moment of its inception. Do you have anything you want to add, Congressman? We need a comprehensive immigration reform. We need to get some balls and get it done. It's been, we've needed to get it done for 20 years. The DACA kids, they are Americans in every single way. These kids, I mean, they're your classmates. They go to school with you. They just, they're paying taxes. They're fighting and defending this country. And they've become a political football. So that's where we got to find that in getting businesses here, we got to build the coalition that's just going to get this done once and for all. And that's, that's what business has become much more involved. And it, I mean, we, the hospitality and entertainment industry, the construction industry, the agriculture industry, they all have economic issues here. So, we got to build the coalition that's going to bring people from both sides and say, enough's enough, let's get this done. The country needs to get us done. And let us stop and stand up to the people trying to divide this country with fear and hatred. And we need to do that on both sides of the aisle. Stand up to it. Call bigotry for what it is and stop letting people divide us with fear and hatred. So what we have, let's take up that point. I mean, so when people worry about our political system, it's not just that the parties disagree, right? It's the way they view the other side. So I wonder if we could talk about that a little more. Like what do you see are the forces that make it so hard for these compromises to be found and to what extent do you think what are the factors that are making your colleagues in some cases appeal to the worst in people or be more competitive and uncivil than we'd like to see. Because we do see it in public opinion, right? We see people see the other party in more negative terms than they have in the past, right? So people are getting this kind of message about the other side and I wonder why you think that is and what we can do about it. They see all politicians from a negative perspective. Yeah. So you want me to go first. You got to reach out and find people on the other side of the aisle that you can work with. And I got it. You know, this is early in the Congress for this Congress. You know, we went through this, you know, terrible thing the last five weeks. Things now, I think, get back to normal when we come back into session next week. But I think it's it's the caucuses. It's your state delegations. It's the votes that you have that you really do. You know, I've not met AOC yet. I know who she is. You know, I've seen her, but I've not been anywhere close to say hello. But you got to you got to build those relationships and see people look at you in the reverse side of having respect for, you know, willing to stand up, you know, when you need to on any particular issue and to build that relationship a trust that hopefully can try to get things done. I would also say that the Congress needs to remember that they're an equal branch of government to the executive branch. And the Congress needs to stand up and do its job. I guess I I'm would encourage you all to read something that was in the Washington Post last week. Okay, you finish. Well, Big John on his Dane Di Dane Dane Dane wrote a really wonderful piece that really reflected on his career and where the country needed to go. And we should have actually made copies and had them here, but you can you can Google it. And it was more than just the Washington Post. It was the national news, broadcast news. It's it's everywhere. You can find it real easy. But he, you know, he was involved in every issue since I've been live. I mean, he was voting on those issues. Steny Hoyer made the point at the funeral earlier this week that John had already been in Congress 25 years before he was elected and then they served 38 years together. So he saw these debates and he really offered pearls of wisdom for where we have to go and it's very much along what this place, the Ford Policy School really cares about working together, having ideas go first, put policy ahead of politics and let the chips fall where they may. Don't worry about your next election but really worked. You named the issue to get things done. It was a wonderful piece and if you read his book and you know he gave me a copy that I finished a couple weeks ago. You know, I've saved the article that was in the post and that'll be taped on the inside of the book jacket. But talks about this point. I wonder if you could maybe speak to the especially the young folks in the room, the students and the people were thinking about their lives both in terms of what you would say about the importance of public service which is something that's really come through and both of what you've said but also how they can be involved in the political system. What are the ways that they can make their voice heard in Congress? You know about how members have ways for them to kind of communicate that to be heard in our democracy. You know I first of all everybody needs to become involved. Your voice matters. You know I got public service the only decent thing the only good thing that came out of this most recent government shutdown is maybe people thought about public service and thought about you know we all love to take potshots at government and realize the functions they serve and that they're there for the common good to make all of our lives better and to make our community strong. I got involved in politics when I was your age. My roommate got very sick with the heart condition and she was a woman and I found out there was no information. You know the heart study and aspirin a day keeps the doctor away is still the most significant cardiac heart study that's been done in the history of this country. Framingham heart study is what it is and there are to this day there are no women in it. Think about that. So I started the National Women's Health Resource Center because the federal government would not allow women to be included in any research program because we had hormones. We were more than 50% of the population but we had hormones. Whoops. So that's what got me involved and it got me very and I met people and I started to become engaged and I tell I know you're going to now they're going to hate me when I say this. I tell young people don't get a political science degree. Care about something. I know. I know. But care about the Ford School is not a political but you guys get into. She had two bucks of this people I'm telling you. Care about is it poverty? Is it a housing? I was talking to some of the kids before this. Get understand what your passion is and go learn about that and then go into the public policy arena and fight for the change you want to see. I guess the other piece of it I said this earlier just I think to somebody social media is a great tool. It's one great thing that's happened. The worst thing that's happened in the world. Forget the United States of America, the world. People are not civil. You feel like you've got a blanket you know to say whatever you want that's awful and terrible you take it as a substitute for involvement. I think I would you know and actually this was another message that John Diggle had last week which is just to take a second and try to be a little gentleman to try to think about the way you say things and I would also say that as you look at public service how do you connect with somebody else? John Diggle would always say this you've got two ears and one mouth for a reason use those ears to listen to understand other people's perspective to grow I don't believe in the same things today that I hey I'm a Democrat not a Republican I got smart yeah but I guess that's one of the things that I would say I'd say real quick start it's real easy to be involved I gotta say that when I graduated from Michigan with a journalism degree my goal was to go right for the the Cubs or somebody else and I met a young guy that was running for Congress who I had never met before and I volunteered to help him six cents a mile and later and he won and my dad said I cannot believe I remember him sitting down and said Fred you've graduated from such a wonderful school you got a great start and we were challenging and incumbent incumbents don't lose so you are working for a loser I don't know where this is going to take you because six months from now you're not going to and guess what we won and I had never been to Washington and I went I was in charge of special projects and working with local leaders it was a wonderful job four years later I was ready for another challenge and ended up at the White House I did that for four years and then people called would you run for Congress and I said I'm happily married I got two black labs I salute the Marine Guard and the West Wing and the White House every day going in no I'm not interested I never thought about running for you know I'm not even a precinct captain let it run for Congress and so then they convinced me to change my mind and we won and it's real easy you know I look you know the staff it's not real easy well no no it's not no but it's no you didn't let me finish it's real easy to get involved they didn't let me finish so I'll cut me off like that but you know I look at you know we we couldn't do the job that we did without our staff without our spouse couldn't ever do it and I'm just so fortunate they have you know we have terrific interns but you know the people that work for me they're just as dedicated they work just as hard they care just about those same issues so it's easy it's easy get involved start great well I'm going to turn over to the President thank you my name is Bretzislavski along with Kate Westa and as we were saying we're the new co-presidents if we listen our first question is coming from Facebook which is in the spirit of bipartisanship what major bipartisan legislative milestones or policy areas can you anticipate progress on this coming session I'm hoping for a lot of issues but I think I'll give you one that I think is very important healthcare prescription drugs I don't think there's a Republican or Democrat that doesn't have constituents a diabetic patient whose insulin costs have gone up monthly by $200 $300 $400 we all know we've got to do something to make drugs more affordable for working men and women I think that's an area we will reach don't you think I think there's some real possibility there I will just say I've driven across the state twice now with my structure and I look at our roads we've had the worst win or ever really bad but we're all up together up at the Sue locks two years ago as a delegation with Governor Snyder that lock has been was built 60 years ago the POLOC P O E would double the nation's unemployment rate almost overnight. None of that iron ore would get down to the steel plants. So whether it's the autos or you name the industry that needs steel, we're done. It's going to cost a billion dollars to replace that lock. And we're starting now to see that happen. That will be, I hope, part of that infrastructure project that will be bipartisan that we need to get done. I know you're also seeing a clean water PFAS. I think you will see very significant hearings and legislation to begin to hold EPA more accountable than they were under a certain EPA administrator. As you touched on, the media promotes partisan controversy for ratings and advertising over the types of relationships that you guys have. What can we, as Americans, do to incentivize bipartisan action? Well, people need to look at the whole picture. They pick out one. This year we'll cast 600 votes. Some people will just focus on a handful of those votes and think you're evil or an ogre or whatever. I think that part of the reason that we're here today is to talk about what really is happening, where is some bipartisan success, and for us to get encouragement from you that we're on the right track because we're not ideologues on way on one side or the other. And so part of it is an education experience on both sides. I think American people have to start to hold people accountable. They need to say to their elected representative, shutting down government's not OK. I think the American people have to, I mean, too many people don't think their vote matters. And they stay home. And they don't engage. And I think that people need to start to really become more engaged in the electoral process. And they need to go to town hall meetings, get your elected representatives to hold town hall meetings. And to really ultimately, if you look at when in the last year you saw people suddenly when they realized children were being ripped away from their parents, this country's conscience, thank God, woke up. And the president backed off. You saw something happen. We need more of that. We need more people saying this isn't what we are in America. It's not OK. Our next question is also from the audience. The question is, when you see conflicts in the interests of your constituencies versus the interests of your parties in Washington, do you ever see such conflicts first off? And second off, if so, how do you reconcile that? How does that sort of manifest itself in the day to day? Well, I mean, you have to look at the background that you have, the people that you trust. You know, I consider myself a governing Republican. I want to work to keep the government open and hold a number of different things. I'm trying to think of where an issue might be purely partisan. I mean, you look at the association of groups that you're with. So you've got all these caucuses. They don't meet all that often, but you get a lot of information, particularly for the staff. You look at the groups that you're involved in. Problem solvers, caucus meets almost every week. There's 30 members that are there. We bring in Secretary Mnuchin from the Treasury Department or they had the White House Congressional Affairs Office. She was there the other day. I mean, they hear from us that it's got to be a two-way street. I started the Tuesday group, which is the moderate Republican group in the House back in the 90s. We meet every week. We talk about every issue that's there. You find a group of folks no one likes to be the only person voting yes or no on here. And you build relationships on the other side. I mean, you don't like to see a political position work on the daily functions of the House of things that we have to do. We have to pass all 12 appropriations spending bills. We have to deal with immigration. We have to deal with the defense authorization bill. There's a lot of things that routinely come. We have to reauthorize the clean water bill. We have to reauthorize a highway bill, first time in five years this year. We have to do an ag bill, which we did last year, which happens five years. You get into these cycles and you got to know the issues and work with people on both sides to get them done knowing that we have now a Republican Senate that doesn't have 60 votes. And I don't think the Senate ever will have 60 votes again for one side or the other. In a House that's pretty narrowly divided, not a big margin for Pelosi. Not like what she had 10 years ago when she was speaker. And you got a Republican White House that's sometimes four bills that they end up being against. So I mean, it's the whole new dynamic that's out there. I'll give you an example. And I'll tell you where I probably won't be with Fred, but I'll be with President Trump. Trey, before I ever got sworn in, I was on CNN. And they thought you did a gotcha question about supporting President Trump on TPP, TPP. And I said, let me be clear, I will not support the president. I was opposed to TPP. Well, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the one we have to do, what I call NAFTA 2.0. Maybe he'll be with me. I don't know. But I said I was elected to represent the men and women of my district and my state. And I am not going to support legislation that is going to cost people jobs. And it was never, I was one of the leaders of the anti-TPP Ford Motor Company, Chrysler, the UAW, the supply. There was, this state knew that that bill was back for him. And I'm going to do what's right for the people that elected me. Now, NAFTA, I do not agree with President Trump on his trade policy in the way that it's been chaotic, not consistent. What he says at 10 AM may not be the same thing at 3 PM, trying to understand the. But NAFTA, you see all those shuttered factories in this state? It happened because NAFTA was a bill that cost us millions of jobs in this country. We no longer had a level playing field. You cannot compete. When you've got Mexico paying $1.50 to $3, the most that people are making in a General Motors plant right now is $3.50 an hour. That's not a living wage. You need a level playing field. Now, NAFTA is not, and I call it NAFTA 2.0, because I don't want anyone to forget what NAFTA 1.0 did to this country. But I talk to Lighthouse regularly. I've talked to it, and if we get some of the things fixed. He's the trade rep. He's the trade rep, thank you. If we, I don't want to see General Motors put one more, work just shuttered for plants here and a plant in Canada. And General Motors announced it's building blazers in Mexico. And by the way, every one of those blazers is coming back into this country. That, to me, is not good policy. My job is to protect jobs for working men and women in this country. So that I'll work with whoever will do what's right for the people I was elected to represent. And he does. Excuse me. I'm going to tell the president you might be the president. Well, I want to see what he's doing on tariffs, and there was a little letter to the anyway. What do you see as the main values of your respective parties and have the parties moved farther from the center in recent years? If so, why do you think this is how it is? These questions are all a little bit sort of the same to a degree. But it's, I just think the American people want us to deal with the issues that are before us. And their patience isn't real long these days. We've got to look for areas where we can agree. And knowing that so many of these different issues have to be reauthorized, and 2.0 is a good thing. NAFTA needs to be improved. We'll see what the elements are of it. Now, our bill on 21st century cures, we're working already on another version that's going to add to what we did over those 10 years, looking back and learning from what's happened the last three. And what's frustrating is that at least on the big picture, so the MSNBCs and the Fox, you see their guests, not Debbie, are often the folks that are on the fringes, because they're the ones that are screaming at each other. And they're the ones that maybe get higher ratings versus someone that may be trying to put some of the things together. Debbie's actually quite good on TV. She's not in that same group that I would put Louie Gomer in for a Republican friend. But I think that's part of the problem that we have, is that the 24-7 news cycle often gets the folks on the far end, and the other side, or the middle, just turns it off. I think, again, I keep getting struck by it. It's hypothetical when you talk about the two-party system, but nobody's monolithic in either of these parties. So we've got a brand new freshman class in this new Congress, and I bet every one of you could give me the name of three who are great, and they're all friends of mine. But they don't represent. This isn't a monolithic class. The fact of the matter is that there's a group of veterans, women veterans, who are really much more, and they all have one in what we call red to blue districts, which are now frontline, that are, they're not going to support that. The new Green Deal has very important principles in it. We're going to have to really study it and look at, we all agree that we've got to do something about global climate change, and we've got about a dozen years left, and you can see what's happening, how you get there, and what the goal is, where the difference should be. But this class had, I mean, just look at the Michigan delegation, by the way, and they represent the diversity of this freshman class. We have Rashida, who's, I'm sure, one of the names that everybody here does know. MF helped make her popular. But Alyssa Slotkin is one of the veterans that won Mike Bishop's seat. She is a, someone who's very dedicated to bipartisanship working across the aisle. I, by the way, I'll give you an example of something that I won't do. I will not campaign against an incumbent member in Michigan. I just, I won't give money. And I think our Michigan delegation needs to be a delegation that's got to work together. And that's just, it's, and Alyssa said to me when I'm going to do the same thing when I get elected in half, since she's gone and, I don't know, she's, she's tried to meet with every Republican and is trying to, hey. I met with her the other day for about an hour and a half. Yeah, it was very, and you know, one of the things that, so our delegation really is pretty close. We have regular meetings. Sort of. No, well, they're regular. They're regular. I'm the lobbyist for more regular meetings, Fred. Yeah, but the delegation is, we look at issues where we can be close. You walked into that. Yeah, I know, I did it in purpose. But the, I'm always nagging Fred. Now you're getting me off stuff. But you know, whether it's Great Lakes, whether it's Autos, you know, the auto rescue plan saved Michigan. What was that? It was our delegation working together. And we worked together, and that was the time of the election with McCain running against Obama. And we got both of the candidates on board and President Bush to finish up the job as it was getting started. But it was almost off the tracks. And Speaker Boehner was the speaker. And Dave Camp and I was from Midland. We went in to see him and said, you can't let this get off the tracks. We have to have this vote to get it done. And we passed it with an overwhelming margin which helped carry it through the Senate. Without that bill, Michigan would be dead. As with the country. Yeah, it would have been. So again, it was our delegation working together shoulder to shoulder that really got it done. This next question from the audience is on more of a policy note. The question is, how does Congress plan to address the opioid country, or the, excuse me, the opioid crisis that is sweeping our country in a bipartisan manner? And maybe if you can outline the progress that has been made so far. Couple of things. This hits everybody, every community, every family. We all know somebody. Last year, probably don't know this, but we passed about 60 bills in the Congress and the President signed every one of them. There might have been altogether in those 60 bills, maybe 12 people that voted against them. And we moved them all individually. Debbie had a good number of bills. I was co-sponsor of hers. She was co-sponsor of mine. More education, more funding. One of the things, I'm going back to 21st century cures. Obama signed that in December of 16. We put $2 billion into that for opioids. I bet a lot of people back then couldn't even spell it. But we knew it was a real problem. We're now seeing that money come down to the locals to try and help. One of the things that we did over in my district just the last two months, we had a, I'll tell you the story. We had a young man that I knew that played basketball for Lakeshore High School. And he got into heroin and he didn't make it. I think he might even go into jail a little bit but he tried treatment. And it was my boss's nephew. Dave Stockman was my first boss. He died, Sammy. So we have now started a center in St. Joe that's been funded, tens of thousands of dollars to help families deal with this crisis. Don't know where to turn to. We're gonna try to get the surgeon general to come and do a forum there this fall before school starts. We've done those. We all know people, families, what can we do to help? Thank God so and so they didn't go to jail or whatever. See the movie Ben is back. There's no answers. This stuff is so addictive. This fentanyl is so bad. I mean, we found that there was one postal inspector for all of West Michigan. Can't use dogs. The State of the Union address, there was an officer and policeman from Ohio and pulled somebody over. I don't know the whole story but just the loose fentanyl, he overdosed almost died. You talk to your law enforcement folks and they're using Norcom, sometimes multiple times, individual officers and sometimes the same people over three or four day stretch. So we need to do a lot more. Money is a part of this and we're just starting now to scratch the surface but it's just, it's so scary to see this stuff that's so addictive and it comes in and it's so cheap. There was a raid last week and they figured that there was enough fentanyl to impact every American in the United States because that's all it takes. The president on his interview on Meet the Press or whatever it was two Sundays ago said that he raised it with the Chinese about trying to get it stopped. But at the same time, I mean, one of the bills that I got done that the president signed into law was more research to try and find out if we can find some non-addictive pain killers. You know, pain is an awful thing. I mean, people are willing to do anything if they have a, whatever that medical issue might be you need the pain killers for it but maybe we can develop some that are non-addictive that are not gonna be like some of the others that are out there and we're just starting. And again, it was usually bipartisan and something that we moved through our committee and Debbie was a big part of that in terms of getting it done. It's a very personal issue to me and I can't talk about it today because I get near tears several times today so we'll talk about it another day but I will say this that we're not doing enough. We made, we did a beginning. Yeah, we started. We've only started. We got a lot more to do. We need mental health. We need to remove the stigma from mental health. Many of you will remember about a year ago a Central Michigan University student ended up killing his parents. This was a very educational experience for me because he knew he had a drug problem. He went to the emergency room seeking health. There was no provider and no bed available to him. I met around the same time the grandparents that were now taking care of their two grandchildren because their daughter was an addict. Their grandson was already drawing pictures that showed stir and he could not get an appointment with a mental health provider for, they could not, eight months. And I said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What is it? You know, I was trying to understand was there a money problem? It wasn't a money problem. It was simply, and it's true here at the University of Michigan. I've got, since then, I've gone. I've met with the doctors at U of M. I've been to the emergency room and they know they've got a problem. That night of that horrible incident at Central, I was with many of the hospital administrators and they told me that not one person had gone into inpatient psychiatry residency that year. We've got to incentivize more people going into. There are many things. Every time FDA or NIH comes up and appears before the committee, I ask the same question which Fred was just talking about. When are we gonna get a non-addictive pain treatment drug? I mean, that's, and Francis always says, it's coming, it's coming. Well, it's gotta do more than it's coming. It's gotta get here. So we gotta work together and do a lot of things. This is gonna be the last question. Do you think Veterans Affairs is headed in the right direction and does Congress have any plans to address veterans' issues? Well, Congress will continue, we need to. The men and women who serve this country and defend us need to be taken care of, period. It is one of my number one priorities, but I do believe that veterans- It's the easiest vote that we cast. Is to take care of them. There are issues, there have been management issues. Well, I mean, even there have been issues here at the Ann Arbor VA Hospital. Tim Wahlberg has gone, Tim and I, I don't think we should ever politicize taking care of a veteran ever. And when there've been issues, I always make sure that Fred or Tim are with me. Both the John Dingell VA Hospital and the Ann Arbor, and we just have a moral responsibility to take care of those who serve. Absolutely. It's not where it needs to be, but all of us have gotta. That was just absolutely fantastic. Please join me in thanking our wonderful moderator and our great guests. Our terrific students for organizing questions just a great event. Please join me outside along with our guests and our moderator for our reception in the Great Hall. And thanks very much for being here at the Ford School.