 Good afternoon everybody, you're all very welcome to this lunchtime webinar, I'm Michael Collins and I'm Director General here at the Institute of International and European Affairs, the IIEA here in Dublin. And today I'm absolutely delighted, we're absolutely delighted to be joined by Congressman Brendan Boyle, whom I formally introduced in just a moment, but his contribution obviously at this lunchtime on this day is very timely. The incoming Biden administration is beginning to take shape as we all know ahead of January's inauguration. And meanwhile on this side of the Atlantic, of course, EU, UK negotiations are continuing even as we speak. The issues surrounding the Northern Ireland protocol and the protection of the peace process, something I know that Congressman Boyle and indeed the President-elect of Biden himself have been very active on, has of course moved on a little bit in recent days, thankfully, and I'm sure we get around to talking about that as well in the course of this afternoon's webinar. But let me just say a few words about Congressman Boyle. Congressman Boyle is a three-term member of the US House of Representatives representing the second Pennsylvania Congressional District in around Philadelphia. He currently serves on the House Ways and Means Committee and the House Committee on the Budget, having previously served two terms on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. Prior to election to the US Congress, Congressman Boyle was elected to the Pennsylvania State Assembly in 2008, becoming the first Democrat to ever represent his legislative district. And I was delighted to meet him in that capacity when he came to Washington now some 10 years ago on a visit there. He came in to say hello to the embassy at the embassy, where I was serving as ambassador in the early indication of his interest in Ireland and indeed his ambition also to become, as he eventually did, become in 2015 a member of the US House of Representatives. Congressman Boyle received his BA in government from the University of Notre Dame and his MA in public policy from Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. Before I hand the floor, the digital floor to the Congressman, let me just say a few words on the format. The Congressman will speak for about 10 minutes or so and give a brief overview of the Biden administration's priorities when it comes to Ireland transatlantic relations. And then I will speak to him for a little while, address a few questions and of course the floor is open to any questions that you might have. So please join the discussion, ask your questions and we'd be free and we'd be delighted to get to as many as we possibly can in the time available. Just a reminder that the full event this afternoon, both the Congressman's initial remarks and the Q&A are on the record. Please get involved in the discussion as I say, submit your questions using the Zoom dedicated Q&A function and we ask that you please identify yourself when doing so. When asking your question and please include your name, your affiliation if that's applicable. Lastly, we encourage you all to join the conversation on Twitter if you use Twitter, using the handle at IEEA. So with that Congressman Boyle, Brendan, you're very, very welcome indeed. We're delighted to see you here with us at the Institute. The virtual floor is yours. We look forward to your remarks and then we look forward to the wider conversation that we'll have later. Welcome. Yes, well thank you. It's wonderful to see you again, Michael. I could be wrong on this but I believe the last time I saw you is we both bumped into each other leaving Charlotte, North Carolina for what was then President Obama's Democratic acceptance speech for a second term as President. Michael was still ambassador and don't worry in that capacity he went to both the Democratic and Republican conventions but a nice advantage of being ambassador unfortunately one of his successors, Dan Mulhall, kind of got the short end of the stick this year being ambassador during a presidential election in COVID and you didn't have the sort of usual presidential campaigns that you typically have but it's great seeing Michael again had an opportunity to work a little bit with him when I was a state legislator and then of course more closely with two of his successors now, Ann Anderson and Dan Mulhall as Irish ambassadors to the US. I thought what might be helpful since I have about 10 minutes or so and I don't want to exceed that since generally I find that the Q&A ends up being more fruitful anyway. Before I talk about the Biden administration specifically on foreign policy, I could take a step back a second and kind of root this in its context. I think that might be helpful so if you look at we've had now about three quarters of a century of the post World War II era and looking back at most of those 75 years you would have to say that on the really big issues for as much partisanship as there is especially right now in in American and Washington and one might even say hyper partisanship between the two parties there has by and large been a bipartisan consensus on some of the really big issues of foreign policy. For example, the maybe the biggest of all the whole concept that the US would lead the transatlantic relationship that manifests itself in many ways especially through NATO support for the European Union but essentially that has been the bipartisan US foreign policy whether it was Democrats like Harry Truman and JFK Republicans like Dwight Eisenhower, Ronald Reagan all the way up through 2016. Donald Trump in the last four years has turned that on its head often making common cause with and showering real affection on dictators like Kim Jong-un even saying at one point and no I'm not making this up even saying a couple times now that he and Kim Jong-un fell in love. Imagine Ronald Reagan or John F Kennedy or Dwight Eisenhower saying such a thing about a brutal dictator who has indeed starved to death thousands if not tens of thousands while at the same time an American president and Trump going out of his way to really bash Chancellor Merkel of Germany as well as leaders of other allied countries. So now it's 2020 or actually it'll be January 2021 President Biden is coming into office having to essentially repair a number of relationships with our traditional allies and answer the question is the US even really still committed to the transatlantic relationship does Europe have to look elsewhere or within itself in terms of its own army its own defense etc. So if I were to come up with a phrase you know the campaign use the slogan build back better and that was mostly focused on domestic policy I think it can apply to foreign policy as well but I would also add to it a return to normality that you will see Joe Biden investing a good deal of time on this subject on which he is quite passionate and that is rebuilding the transatlantic relationship restoring the idea and the ideal that the United States is a beacon for those countries that are struggling democracies it is a leading advocate for human rights not always necessarily perfectly or perfectly consistent but nonetheless a country that is constantly preaching the gospel of liberty democracy human rights etc and I think you can glean a lot in terms of what the bar the Biden foreign policy will look like by the speech he gave in Munich in early 2019 before he was a presidential candidate Biden did not give many speeches as a former vice president knowing that he would possibly run for president that was a trip he made and I would encourage everyone to go back and look at that speech because I think now two years on it is very instructive I also while I'm not a European I think I can predict how most of my European friends will will react to a an American return to normality and I think you can see it in the ovation that then vice president or former vice president Biden received in Munich that afternoon when he gave his speech it was in clear contrast to the dead silence then vice president Pence received uh that morning so everything I think with with Ireland with Brexit with all those other issues I think have to fit in that overall frame of what I think the Biden foreign policy will look like now wonder why don't I pause there Michael and then can address the specific questions and specific issues but I kind of wanted to root us in in the larger context that we're really in because I do believe that will very much guide the Biden foreign policy over the next four years yeah so so thanks indeed Brendan thanks congressman and the questions are already beginning to come in and we've come to them in a minute but just could I just go back to you know what happened in November in terms of the election itself obviously the headline result is the election of of of of president elect Biden but it probably wasn't a great day you know for the democrats overall I mean what happened that this expected blue wave it didn't materialize at say at congressional level in the way that obviously you would have hoped for it was was there what was the what was the the difficulty there that what was the point of resistance yeah Michael I've spent as not just someone as a congressman but as a lifelong for better or worse a lifelong political junkie I've been attempting to think about previous elections like this and I couldn't come up with one I mean this was a very strange election result because typically especially at the end of an election things swing either one way or swing another way in 2018 in the midterm election all the close races broke democratic at the end we ended up winning 40 seats the most since 1974 we won back that's to say house democrats won back control of the house representatives for the first time in a decade won a ton of state legislative seats basically you saw it every row of government democrats were winning big in 2018 2020 was a mixed result so at the presidential level it was a clear democratic victory Joe Biden won by 4.4% that this quirky mechanism unique to this pandemic in which so many people myself included voted by mail and so many states such as my own in Pennsylvania really weren't equipped or used to dealing with this since for many of us it was the first time and they're pretty overwhelmed so it took a while to count those ballots because of certain security measures double envelopes and things like that they take longer to count than your election day voting by machine ballots and then you had this um quirky reality that more democrats because of the pandemic wanted to vote safely by mail whereas more republicans being encouraged by Trump weren't as concerned about the pandemic and voted in person and so that created the unique dynamic in which the results on election night skewed more republican but then once all the ballots were counted you know you saw where things actually were and so I think that that in the end the fact that Biden won by 4.4% has maybe been obscured by the early headlines where the race looked closer than in the end it actually was but that's the presidential race then Michael you're right as you talked about when you get to the other races it was much more mixed democrats did win again a majority in the House of Representatives and that's nothing to you know breeze over lightly it's only the second time in 30 years that democrats have won the House of Representatives two times in a row at the same time it is a greatly reduced majority it looks like we lost a net of about 10 seats and we will have now the most narrow House majority in more than 20 years in the Senate democrats picked up at least one seat but it looks like it was not pending the result of these two special elections in Georgia it looks like it was just short of the projected majority for democrats to win so the final result will be anywhere from 52 48 Republican to 50 50 and then as you go down the line and look at other races state legislative races other statewide offices you again see this mix even here in Pennsylvania we had three other statewide races that that you know no one would really be paying attention to outside here but I point them out because they prove exactly what I'm saying about the closeness and the mixed nature this result democrats won one republicans won two and all three races were within a couple points of one another so what that shows you again is just how politically close things are in the united states and some of these results are really decided by the margins and so with a very close democratic house a very close likely republican senate in order to get anything done legislatively it will have to be very centrist type of legislation not far right or far not far right or far left you can see why given that political reality it will be quite enticing for joe biden to spend even more time on foreign affairs and what he can do as an executive outside of congress especially in dealing with coven i wouldn't be surprised if you see biden spending more time in those two directions just because of how close and tight the margins are in congress yeah and uh bended the um obviously the president trump did secure whatever it is something in the 70 millions uh 70 million people voting for him um like biden obviously was a good seven million ahead of him which is a very substantial margin but nonetheless i mean uh and given everything that's happened since um that there it does suggest a kind of a pretty serious divide in us uh u.s society how is that is that is that is that the reality and if it is a reality to what extent can that um that divide uh if it is a serious divide be bridged um you know it's in a by the administration um i i think it's a real challenge i mean things are as i said previously pretty close um politically between the two parties and you know donald trump and i'm not just saying this because i'm a democrat i i think basically almost anyone can see that he is an enormously divisive figure who fans the flames of division constantly whether it's on twitter or the rallies that he loves to attend um by the way rallies that i think he will continue bizarrely even as an ex-president just because he clearly as a person in an individual craves that sort of attention so much um so this is uh really going to be you know completely unprecedented america's never had an ex-president who does these sort of things typically they retire they become if i could draw a rough analogy ex-presidents in our system almost become de facto monarchs and what i mean is they tend to stay out of politics um when you do see them it tends to be in a role of trying to bring people together um you might remember former president bill clinton former president george herbert walker bush both jointly doing charity things the uh relief for the tsunami uh back in i think it was 2004 maybe 2005 um that's typically the role ex-presidents play jimmy carter building homes for habitat for humanity maybe occasionally they would delve into politics certainly when hillary clinton was running you know bill was there to campaign for her kind of a unique circumstance but generally that's what we expect from ex-presidents donald trump will be will be very different so um those uh divisions i think will continue in american society i am very concerned about the way um american society is self sorting it's self sorting and what i mean is you were seeing and it's interesting you see a little bit of this in other country's politics as well that is the democratic coalition becomes more uh well educated and upscale it becomes more concentrated in urban areas not just cities but also um more upper middle class suburbs around those cities and then in more rural areas away from metro areas you were seeing what was already a republican area becoming the deepest uh shade of red and and that sort of division is just not healthy for society i think we're seeing it in england as well by the way um and certainly the brexit vote reveal that so what we do moving forward to bridge that divide of people wanting to live here and with those who are like-minded i think that's a bigger issue than just politics i think that is is a more generational societal uh issue that we have to tackle okay let me just take go to a few questions i see a question here from ted smith who needs a former colleague of mine he says um living now in the united states he says thank you congressman for your intense support of the irish americans for biden campaign he said how important was it to mobilize the irish american vote for November selection yeah well tap this trade and did a lot certainly worked hard to help ensure that joe biden won pennsylvania by one point instead of losing it by a point like four years ago so i i am proud of the fact i think we made a critical difference uh here in my state um you know it's interesting the uh the irish american vote and then a little more broadly i would say the white catholic american vote which is a good quarter uh you know 25 percent of the american population uh is important because it is very much a swing constituency uh it tends to be on average better educated and um either middle income or a bit above average income and so in in some ways by those measures you would think it should be a more republican constituency but i think given history given you know concern for the poor concern for um certain um you know values issues in terms of society historic support for organized labor that kind of you know pulls some some more folks to the democratic side of the aisle but it is an incredibly important uh swing constituency and i i think some others who you know um maybe just look at all of us who have rather pale faces as quote-unquote white and and put everyone in that same bucket misses these nuances of difference how you can appeal to people kind of separately and in the biden campaign you know we had a special outreach to eastern european ethnic americans who tend to uh be more republican supporting and certainly that was the case in in the reagan era but we thought we had you know real possibility given trump's cozy relationship with russia uh and and his lack of support for ukraine so we made a special outreach there we had a an outreach to people of faith in different faith communities and i think that that was a great way to campaign that frankly has been lacking in democratic campaigns at the presidential level in recent years specifically to irish americans the fact that um joe biden was pretty vocal uh when it came to the brexit issue that i think was helpful the fact that his um heritage is uh sincerely something that's important to him i think that that was something that we could trump it and that we could run on uh and so i think it made a real difference it's not the case obviously there are a lot of irish americans it's not the case that every irish american cares about uh brexit or is even knowledgeable about it but there is still a certain number who do and that's a pretty large number and and so being able to tap into that and say well you know you might agree with republicans on issues x and y and you might agree with democrats on issues a and b but here is why here's the big reason why you should vote democratic why you should vote for joe biden i think we were able to to make a real difference okay a few questions here until you want from uh i see from david heli from aria in around the question of i suppose irish influence um again not on relation to what you've just been talking about david wants to know and when he first of all he says president elect biden's support of the good fight agreement as part of the brexit debate was very welcome as the irish american lobby declined in recent years or is it as prevalent as before and i suppose you know having been in the united states for so many years we were always mindful of whether you know how strong was irish america how strong would be in the future where they're young people like your good self coming through uh uh so i suppose uh uh how can iarland best assure um uh that it's influence the influence that it does have in the united states particularly at congressional level but now of course at the center of power itself in the white house with the president elect biden was surrounded by indeed so many irish americans how can irland i suppose uh assure uh that that that that irish american dimension and and it's it's um it's importance is protected in the future is there anything that we should be doing that we're not doing yeah well first i i want to give credit where credit's due so i don't want to uh swipe a good line without uh some attribution but a journalist um said something the fact of a couple months ago that this past year was um the strongest moment for irish americans in washington since the good friday agreement in the 1990s i mean think about it you saw the speaker of the house nancy polosi may chamber of the ways of means committee another group of about eight or so members of congress traveled to london traveled to dublin traveled to belfast to make clear our strong support for the good friday agreement and our opposition to any us uk trade deal if the uk were to violate the good friday agreement in leaving the the e u in the manner in which they would leave um you then had uh you know uh the at that point democratic presidential candidate who was leading in the polls tweet pretty emphatically the same position that is supported again by his top foreign policy advisor who's now going to be the secretary of state tony blinkin as well as all the support on capitol hill that is pretty remarkable for a country we think about the republic of ireland about five million people and then all told the island of ireland uh just about seven so i i would say that this year really showed the sort of influence uh an outsized influence that uh that irish america has now in terms of the future it's also the case that i am the only member of congress with an irish-born parent after 1965 it has been far more difficult to legally come to the united states from ireland i was fortunate my family was fortunate that when my dad came in 1970 he was sponsored by an older sister his aunt brige who had come in 1960 so the ten-year age difference um between the two of them turned out to be you know pretty helpful given that that uh that she got in before the changes in 1965 so as we look forward um i do have some concerns that we really do need to reopen and restart that pipeline of course it isn't just us immigration law that is the reason why you've had a decline in irish immigration there's also a good reason for the decline in irish immigration to the u.s and that is the strong irish economy when when my father left exactly 50 years ago he was 19 years old coming from county dunagall leaving a country that had at that point and i looked it up not too long ago the unemployment rate was somewhere between 20 and 25 percent um that's not the experience of my cousins uh in ireland a generation later and certainly not the experience of those younger than me were growing up in ireland today that's something to be very happy about there isn't that mass need for immigration um but that said for those who do want to emigrate whether they're uh more skilled labor or like my dad and like the traditional irish immigrants of yesteryear uh more uh blue collar um they're the people who help build america and there should be a legal mechanism for them to to be able to come to this country uh i think it's in you know the best interests of ireland and the us irish relationship but it's also in the best interests of america um i say probably a little bit biasly on that point that's okay but just so uh future flows of immigration um do you think that realistically is something that we can that can be achieved for those who want to um to avail of that and secondly i suppose and i suppose more motively uh to you know the the the the whole question applied to the on the current undocumented in the united states which which seems to be uh have been without resolution now for for for many many many years and with the bite administration are we maybe putting too much optimism in in in the possibilities that he or indeed the current congress have of of of addressing some of these issues in ways that will make a difference for ardent the um to show you how long michael we've been dealing with this issue um and you certainly will have memories of it from when you were ambassador here uh the first major effort on immigration reform was the kennedy mccain bill and both of those legendary senators are frankly you know no longer with us no longer alive so basically this whole you know effort uh has been about 15 years and the irony is for all the legislative failures and immigration reform polls show this is in part thanks to reaction to donald trump immigration reform has never been more popular in the united states that's the irony last poll had 68 percent of the american people favoring uh immigration reform now the challenge is and it goes back to the fact the base of the republican party is so against it and they make this such an issue of importance that it's very difficult if you're a republican leader to put that bill on the floor uh up for a vote so i think a widespread immigration reform will be again a challenge to achieve even though polls show that a pretty big uh majority of americans support it i will say specific to the irish though there is outside of comprehensive immigration reform there is the e3 visa issue um which we were able to pass last congress in the house unanimously by a voice vote and in the senate one senator a very republican a very conservative republican tom cotton from arkansas uh unfortunately was able to hold it up so i am i'm still optimistic actually about the e3 issue and if we were able to get that and for those who aren't versed basically ireland would be able to take advantage of a visa program that right now is only reserved for australians uh that would i think go a long way to solving that pop problem and reopening that pipeline okay i've just brought it out of a Brendan out to the wider agenda the trade issues and transatlantic issues if i if i may and we've question here from john mcnally uh on the question of the um the prospects of um he wants to know will an EU trade agreement be prioritized by the biden administration of course you're on the ways of means committee and of course our good friend rich anneal is is chairing the committee another great irish american so i mean first of all i suppose will will will the president elect i will president biden will he prioritize um relations with europe um in the ways that you seem to suggest particularly since his um unik speech in 2019 but i suppose um the questions a question then there's more than one question here on the prospects of a us EU trade agreement of course uh is is something that would obviously very be very important for ireland as well yeah as i mentioned in in my introductory remarks there's simply no question that the us-eu relationship more broadly uh will be a big priority for president biden now specifically uh under that the question of trade i think the answer is still yes though i would point out that you know for those who might be you know just focused on uk versus eu and which takes greater priority there's still china um and that will be the the number one uh issue of focus specific to trade that will still be the number one issue it is the issue that a lot of my constituents care about um there's a lot of bipartisan agreement interestingly when it comes to dealing with china the perception i think rooted in at least some reality that um china takes advantage of the trade relationship with the united states swipes intellectual property left and right um there are a number of issues with the us chinese trade relationship that has to be dealt with and just given the size of china 1.3 billion people given how many um us companies are uh have a presence there that will still be the number one trade relationship to have to grapple with once you get beyond china there will be a um a changing of the priorities when it comes to the us trade relationship um and when you look at the european union eight nine times larger than the uk market it includes the um largest gdp country on the continent of europe in germany it's just no question that when you look at this pragmatically um it's pretty obvious which uh you know one should should take precedence and again that's regardless of a sort of ideology if you take any of those lenses off it's it's pretty clear uh which one should be focused on and so i think you will see a greater priority put on attempting to reach a us eu deal though that ends up being more complex than a us uk trade deal just because you obviously have more you know more cooks in the kitchen yeah there's a question here from um clothe quain who's one of my colleagues at the institute one of our researchers and just in essence she wants to know um i suppose how much of um the president elect biden's foreign policy would be consumed on restoring its former international commitments you know the commitments that president trump has decided to abandon uh versus needing new initiatives so you know indeed he would all with with with repairing the damage i mean will he have much scope for doing new things well you know these these things aren't mutually exclusive right so for example take the environment um the old thing which will be a pretty easy thing to do is rejoin the paris climate accord we helped lead the drafting and the coming together in paris that was a major achievement of president obama the fact it was a major achievement of president obama was the big reason why president trump was so keen on us leaving it um rejoining that will be pretty easy and and straightforward um mechanically and legally for the us to do so that you could look at as a quote-unquote old thing but it's also part of a new thing and that is putting a uh a real emphasis on addressing and tackling climate change in a way that we haven't done before i mean this is a much bigger issue in the us now than it was even 10 12 years ago you saw that or i hope you saw president elect biden put former secretary state john carrey in this new created role specifically to deal with the environment and addressing climate change we know that they uh the ticking clock is drawing closer to the day in which we'll cross the point of no return in terms of dealing with this issue so i think it's a personal example of how old and new um go hand in hand in dealing with an issue yeah and you mentioned there uh you are u.s um u k the prospects of the u um are u k u u s trade and the deal of course which is very much in focused um in the context of the issues that surrounded the the protocols the friday agreement peace on the island of ireland and to what extent are you you happy now that that those issues which are the subject of agreement last week uh are substantially anyway are substantively to what extent do you think uh the way has been cleared at least on that front uh for um uh you know the opening up of a dialogue with the uh the u k in terms of a trade relationship between the u s and the u k and would that uh take priority in any way or could you see it it might be simpler than a u s u agreement but which comes first or are they both in parallel or does the u get priority yeah well first let's see how this um ultimately gets resolved between uh the u k and the u in terms of uh in terms of the brexit process uh i'm glad that talks are continuing but i mean my my calendar shows it's december 16th and so uh december 31st only you know a little over two weeks away it's still something i'm concerned about especially given the fact that uk a year ago signed up to the northern island protocol and then suddenly in september said essentially never mind we're going to violate uh international law so i'm glad that they've backed down from that and they are again uh agreeing to um what they signed up to a year ago but that said i will not breathe easily until we get um final resolution on between the uh between the uk and the eu now um in terms of the question you asked about priority for the trade relationship again like i said earlier when you look at the the difference in size the eu is simply far larger and includes the single most important um country on europe on the continent of europe but that even includes the uk's germany is the largest gdp of a european country it's an enormously important strategic relationship uh for the us if one is uh you know just looking at things pragmatically it's pretty obvious that that is the relationship that um should be focused on uh us eu and i think trade is a part of that now the one thing i think that goes into the uk's favor is it is a little more straightforward and easier to do a bilateral even though a us eu deal would technically be bilateral let's face it you have france in there attempting to protect certain industries you have other countries attempting attempting to protect jobs in different industries that just does take more time to become more complex than than say dealing uh with with one country but that having been said uh i still think that us eu trade deal uh takes precedence and you will see that now suddenly uh up the the ranking order okay and just to go back to the internal markets um the controversy at the issues within that that were so controversial and to what extent do you think that um um the the the the johnson bar's johnson's administration would have been concerned about the american concerns about about the internal market bill and its implications for peace in the iron barn in other words the us influence in terms of getting the us or the uk to back down as it seems to have done in terms of the internal the the the controversial provisions within the the the the internal market bill it was just a demonstration of of irish american muscle uh um i writ large well i um it's funny i you know typically when one talks about me muscle is not the first word that comes to uh come to mind but um i will say that i was gratified that a number of mps um in london with human friends as well as a number of journalists uh who who cover the british government have told me that the pushback from the us and the strong vocal pushback surprised them and weighed on this government's thinking ultimately though i wouldn't be the person you know to to say or verify what you know the extent to which that is true i would only say i hope and believe that it had an impact we're really attempting to ensure that there's a just solution here and one that ultimately preserves the peace process and and i hope we've achieved that be good maybe i'm going to jump around a little bit now for me brendan i mean just a variety of questions which uh you know may may see us going back and forth across the atlantic but um in terms of the issues involved i see one here from donal of roller con who's a member of our institute and he said or he says or he asks given the deep divisions within the united states within u.s society would it be a strategic error uh in terms of um enhancing democratic governance for presidents like biden to focus on foreign affairs as opposed to issues e.g. declining living standards outside metropolitan areas and big being too big to fail health infrastructure i suppose the extent to which he can really focus on foreign policy issues when there are so many domestic issues that need a clearly quite urgent attention yeah this is a tension um that any president uh faces and i go back i think of the early 1990s one of the things that hurt uh george herbert walker bush the 41st president he got hit with the perception that he spent too much time on foreign affairs and not enough time paying attention to the needs and concerns of ordinary americans perhaps some of that um was you know was unfair uh but there's no question that perception hurt him so i think it's always a challenge for any u.s president because let's face it for anyone running for office most of our voters care about domestic issues and foreign affairs as important as it is tends to only rank highly when there's something big going wrong um isis was in the news a lot around four or five years ago because of the awful sort of videos that we would see online and the fact that isis was on the march so you then saw that uh issue rise in the opinion polls in terms of things that people cared about but otherwise generally it's health care it's education it's jobs right now obviously covid 19 would be far and away the number one issue so making sure president uh biden strikes that right balance between addressing the issues that people care about and will make a meaningful measurable difference in their lives with the responsibilities on the world stage but i'm pretty confident that the president biden will be able to do that you know uh one one aspect to biden that i think is sometimes overlooked is the fact that he has so many years of experience and what i mean is that's pretty obvious that you know he spent so much time in washington dc he's been a senator or was a senator from 1972 to 2008 and often that's presented as a negative i look at it very differently the fact that you have someone who has been a conventional politician for so long means he gets this he's been around it basically his entire adult life there's a real advantage to that they're a go figure there's a real advantage and just in someone who actually has a lot of experience in this and so i have real confidence that joe biden will be a very good president and i think that he his skill set very uniquely meets this moment yeah and just back on the u.s. domestic agenda again i see a question in here from paul sweeney who's a member of the institute at a former trade union economist indeed and he wants to know will will will biden president president biden reverse president trump's uh tax cuts for the rich um so the what's called the tcja washington dc is horrible with coming with giving an acronym the basically any piece of legislation or agency that has ever created but the tax cut in jobs act which is what republicans called their big um two trillion dollar bill that passed in 2017 that president trump signed it was in my view egregious it was so tilted to the top one percent according to the nonpartisan congressional budget office which is legally required to do these projections 83 percent of that tax cut 83 went to the wealthiest one percent of americans at a time when you have record wealth and income inequality in the united states so uh i certainly am pushing um for president biden to reverse a lot of the damage that was done uh in that tax cut uh now this is where control of the senate really makes a difference if if we're talking about a 52 48 or 51 49 democratic senate as i thought we would be talking about pre-election instead right now we're talking about a 50 48 republican senate maybe we'll get to 50 50 depending on what happens in those two seats in georgia but that will make a big difference just a couple senators one way or the other will make a very big difference in terms of what can be achieved here uh in reversing a number of those very egregious tax giveaways to the the richest americans um you think at some point beyond covid we are going to have to seriously look at revenue raising measures and the way to do that clearly is americans who make more than four hundred thousand dollars a year that was something joe biden talked about a lot in the campaign it's actually popular you know there's a perception that raising taxes is never popular when he was talking about raising taxes on the rich and raising taxes on those that make more than 400 000 a year polls showed it it actually pulled quite well um so i i think that is something we're gonna have to turn to but the arithmetic in the senate does make achieving it more challenging and how optimistic would you be uh brendon in relation to those two georgia seats um would you be optimistic that that that you can get one to talk both of them you know it is amazing georgia um in our lifetime has gone from a solidly red republican state to now very much a 50 50 state it shows you the changing coalitions in both parties so many of those suburban upper in suburban atlanta upper income voters have uh flipped from republican to democrat combined with the fact that georgia is a little bit more diverse today and when i say diverse i i don't just mean it in the white black context that the word is often used i mean that georgia actually is a much higher asian-american and hispanic-american population that we tend to think about when we think of of the south so the combination of increased diversity but especially the migration of white suburban voters from republican to democrat in the trump era has really helped make georgia now essentially a 50 50 state if you looked at what happened in november joe biden narrowly carried georgia by under one percentage point but in other races such as the senate races when you add up all the votes were cast republicans did a couple points better so i would say right now i expected to be very close i think we're the underdog in both of those races but you know i think it's probably in the end going to be 51 49 one way or the other and when the margins are that close anything can happen okay to put it back on to the um the the immigration issue again and um not specifically related to our levels question in here uh from shona murray who's the european correspondent uh from euro news and it um she wants to know what's uh present like biden's policy on children separated from their parents and putting cages would he pledge to reunite those families and help them with the trauma they've suffered i can't believe that um and this is no offense the person who asked the question it's a quite right question to ask i just can't believe the question even has to be asked i i never thought in my lifetime i would see the united states of america pursue some of the policies it did at our border under the trump administration i think it's something that 50 60 70 years from now my grandkids will be reading about in the history books with real horror um i think we have a clear moral and legal responsibility to reunite these kids uh with their parents i i'll i'll just stop there absolutely one of the most disgusting things to happen the last four years and that is really quite the statement thank you for that thank you so just and um we're coming we're running a bit tight on time now so i'm going to take in as many questions and maybe just one here from um peter mcloon who's an rea board member he says with the us under president biden immediately restore funding and support the essential work of the who so this is lightning round so i won't i won't uh you know get substantive and detailed answers as i would like so i'll simply just say yes good and a few more lightning questions some of them my own and some of them reflecting kind of questions that have come through um just um will president elect uh biden appoint a special envoy for northern ireland do you think i think that that's likely in terms of timing um by the way my phone's been ringing off the hook with certain you know a number of people would be interested in that position like let me say so that's the good news um and i think that the us to mention even outside of brexit i think there is still a role a constructive role for the us to play here so i would hope so certainly something i'd be pushing for as then a member of the foreign affairs committee i was pushing the obama administration toward the end to do it was pushing early on the trump administration to do it i'm glad in in my friend i have a bipartisanship bipartisan friendship with mcmelvaney so i'm glad that he was appointed by president trump and and i do believe that the president biden will appoint a successor and a new special envoy okay and as we're talking about as we talked earlier on who just a little bit briefly on coven if we may um and particularly with the vaccines coming on stream um when do you think that the us might reopen uh to um ireish and ewes e u travelers you know that specifically i don't uh actually know i i i would be surprised if if that has been determined to any degree of specificity uh really right now the focus is on the vaccines and obviously we've had very good news um the one vaccine the feiser vaccine was approved here um late last week it looks like the moderna vaccine will be approved on thursday um i think we're making real quick uh actually advancements in this area so i think that that will inform then the decisions to take place on travel in both directions as well as reopenings here in the us so on that i think it's still tbd and do you think president biden would be an early visitor in that context i i i know he very much wants to i mean i remember campaigning with him in iowa and it was night before the iowa caucuses and we were talking about the visit that he made uh as as vice president we were talking about where my family is in in dunny gall and cousins i have in mayo and then his family in mayo so i know it's something that's very important to him i have no doubt it will happen um it'll just be a matter of fitting it in on the the schedule uh obviously it'll be sometime post uh covid 19 that's for four okay um just um you know there's there's a huge amount of optimism of course that that that that and um people are encouraged obviously by by in many ways by the um by the election of president biden and um almost believing that this is the answer to all our prayers uh for their hot immigration and all sorts of other issues but obviously there there i'm sure there are any number issues out there where an incoming democratic administration would also have views on some issues that are sensitive here in ireland like corporate tax issues um for example uh so um uh you know to what extent should we be disabused of any idea that it's going to be all going our way uh under president by president uh by the administration yeah well first i think the the good feeling and optimism is justified uh overall but you're right nothing is ever you know 100% one way or 100% the other um i i always make the the point um and i'm sure michael probably had to cite this when he was ambassador you know um i point out for my constituents 90% of whom are not of irish descent i point out that actually um ireland invests a lot in the us including in our district that there are as many americans working at irish companies here in the us as there are irish working in american companies in ireland right now it's about 125 to 150 on on both sides now the um the challenge that we have in our economy of companies fleeing to lower tax jurisdictions is a real one um president trump often brought up ireland in this context and really used it as kind of a whipping post i think unfairly at first i mean the reality is ireland's overall economic strength is not just because of that 12 and a half percent corporate tax rate it also has incredibly well educated literate population that is english speaking with a legal system pretty similar to ours and is a geographic and cultural bridge between the united states and europe so i i think actually those who would just point to the corporate tax rate uh are um really selling uh ireland short overall though what i would like to see is the world community come together in a multilateral way to deal with this issue of tax avoidance so not so much the rate i'm talking about here but the idea that there are companies that are gaming the system and figuring out ways to pay no tax whatsoever we have that problem with tax inversions uh corporate uh inversions in the us though they've slowed down in the last year that is still a problem that is hanging out there but i i think that ultimately this is something for the world community to solve because it doesn't just affect the united states okay just um they were coming in the last few minutes uh now brendan but uh we get maybe a few more questions in one here from francis jacobs who's uh former head of the european parliament office uh in ireland and he says he's talking about uh your own party the democratic party he says seems quite divided between moderates and progressives um he says will this harm the bite of administration or will the narrow margins in congress mitigate these divisions uh the latter um they're in the same way president trump uh was actually a very good unifying and motivating force for the democratic party the one blessing in disguise of having a narrow majority in the house means that whether you're an incredibly moderate member or credibly left wing or somewhere in between ultimately we need you on the team i would also say by the way um the media does i think uh exaggerate the degree to which there are divisions within the democratic party at least i would say from the perspective of congressional democrat i mean i i'm on a conference call last night with a pretty wide spectrum of democrats some of whom you would identify as leading moderates others you know their names and clearly on the progressive side and we're working right now on a measure to attempt to change our house rules that would make things easier and improve the process and and call actually get along quite well so i would say be careful about what you read often um it is exaggerated the degree to which there are differences or disagreements on our side okay just to maybe one final question um you had the the clarity that came from the electoral college um determination on monday so is the path now clear for a smooth inauguration of president uh biden on the 20th of of january are are there more surprises possible are any surprises possible yeah it is over and i know that saying something definitively in the year 2020 uh you have to be immediately looking for wood to knock on and keeping your fingers crossed but i can say very confidently it is over the electoral college has met joe biden at 306 ironically the same figure donald trump got four years ago that combined with the fact that the friday night beforehand the supreme court in a uh in a 90 decision actually made clear that there was no merit to um any of the the trump campaign legal efforts uh and what's interesting is three of those supreme court members were appointed by president trump a majority on the supreme court are conservatives and have been appointed by republican presidents so the fact that judiciary has showed no willingness to entertain these crazy lawsuits combined with the fact the electoral college has now met it is definitive it is 100 it is over joe biden will be sworn in as president on at noon at noon eastern time on january 20th okay um on that base i think we're going to uh conclude it's it's coming up to two o'clock irish time it's a little bit earlier in the morning for you and we'll just say thank you brendan congressman for uh for joining us today for giving us the benefit of your your insights and and and just the territory that you've got to add to a number of issues um it's great that ireland has such wonderful friends in the united states as you said on both sides of of the island the privilege of having the pulvanian deed on one of our webinars a little bit turn the back but uh you know it is just um for ireland obviously it clearly remains a matter of huge importance that we have uh people who relate to ireland to our ireish who are ireish anti-students in positions like yours so just want to salute your success of course congratulate you on your own reelection it's not inconsiderable um and a very big margin indeed and to just say uh we're welcome back to the institute anytime hopefully when the corridors reopen in terms of travel between ireland the united states and vice versa that you'll find your way to doublin find your way to ireland or find your way back to ireland indeed and come to our institute and that we may have a session in person uh where we can continue this conversation and we look forward to that but in the meantime just a warm um and uh genuine and um salutations and i wish you and your team their happy christmas and and and look forward to our further engagement future engagement indeed well thank you very much i enjoyed it i'm glad a very substantive session that we're able to get a lot of questions in and i very much look forward to being able to be with you in person uh in doublin hopefully uh sometime for all of us soon thank you thank you okay happy christmas good day thank you indeed