Transcripts For CSPAN2 Rep. Jim Himes Town Hall 20240713

Take the time out of your saturday to have this conversation. This is your hour nap. And i believe the best time for your questions and comments or suggestions. No one open with just a couple of minutes of context and thinks that i see happening in washington and i will turn it over entirely to you the way will do that there are microphones on either side of the room. And rather than having me thinking in choosing within the audience. Please just line up behind the microphones if you are in fact a question or comment. I will ask you to be brave in your questions and observations and i will be brief in my responses because we will probably have lots of people who want to be heard. Another thing i want to see is just see no, we agree to allow cspan2 to record this town hall meeting. I had no doubt whatsoever that we can continue ship the country the kind of thoughtful and respectful dialogue that we have here in Fairfield County so just be aware the could be famous as he said. So that you are aware. And as i said before we get into your questions and comments and observations, i just wanted to take a few minutes to give you some context on some things. I want to start with an optimistic and hopefully somewhat reassuring note because it is no secret that we are in some of the most polarized angry political times that most of us can remember. It is no circumstances, hard to get things done and it is hard to have a and civil dialogue amongst ourselves. Given the polarization. So i want to start with a reassuring note which is really is it too full. Number one, even in these polarized times, stuff gets done. Stuff that is important to you and to me and stuff it is important to our state and i want to just a couple of quick examples just to reassure you. Its not used if not Climate Change not reform educational same but it is important stuff. Just two years or so ago federal government mayday major commitment to addressing what i consider it a Real National emergency in this country which is the opioid situation. The family or community has been touched by the tragedy of opioid addiction overdoses. In connecticut we actually have an incident opioid overdoses that is twice the National Average so it is the very serious issue that discriminate rich or poor young or old and about two years ago federal government made very substantial commitment and resources that every Police Officer and firetruck had this miracle, antidote that is saved so many lives to make sure that our communities and Public Health people who understands guys who know how to guide folks who are suffering from addiction. And in the appropriate areas and then we work the center of Disease Control and very difficult exercise of getting doctors to say about other mechanisms for pain control that are less risky than opioids. And as a result, partly as a result we have seen what has been an appalling six operation and the rate of death in this country attributable to overdoses begin to live a lot. And obviously we need to do everything we can to make that car go downward but that hasnt had an impact communities. In another thing i would highlight for you in this is very interesting because it was so bipartisan. A little over a year ago Congress Passed and the president signed something called the First Step Act. Some of you will be familiar with this. It was our first reform in a long time of our penal and our judicial system. The look to address in a small way this way is called the First Step Act, some of the things for example that grew out of the 1970s restructure out legislation is bringing in the 70s but back then i seem like a good idea to see if you been convicted of three felonies, you are in prison for life. Woa we had an awful lot of people in federal prison for life who had suddenly been caught dealing small quantities of narcotics. And that apart from the tragedy for the community in the individual concern is staggeringly expensive thing. And so the First Step Act is addresses some of those issues in the sentencing and activities and its been observed for a long time that the sentencings associated with crack cocaine is much were severe than the sentencings associated with use of powder cocaine. Our current cane happens to be a drug was more prevalent in communities of color in the African American communities of powder cocaine was so. So there are amy number of steps that we are taking to try to address the racial inequities continued to plague at every step of the way our judicial system. The thing apart from it being good legislation and historic bipartisan report sent was led by norther and cargo. And paul. Two guys no Work Together on a lot of stuff. And President Trump sign it. So again, i cherish that because it was just a nice combination of things are less say which to us and everybody but after way is it too long, we did get the James Drummond 911 survivors bill passed in this millions of dollars the go to support those individuals who its been so much time down the side of 911 and their families many of these new individuals who are [applause] took is it too long but it got done and particularly resident for this community. Looking forward, i want to give you a lot more examples probably because im not sure i can but i do want to look forward for you and tell you we are obviously going to go through tough political moment in the next month or two associated with the impeachment process. Say about that if you like. I will tell you the looking forward, i say there is a pretty good chance that we can continue get some success in something that is very important to the people in this room which is the spiraling cost of prescription drugs. I dont do a town hall meeting or have a meeting where i dont hear about with the overarching and unbelievable cost of healthcare generally, it is scription drugs is the part of the Healthcare System that is as bright most rapidly in terms of price. The house has a built is known as hr three not get into the details of your interest in the senate has bipartisan bill the president has said over and over again is interested in actually acting in a way that was put down with pressure on prescription prices and expressed there. A little bit more but u. S. Mca, which is now sent to plano. Actually say its going get voted on and passed. This is an updating of the nafta trade agreement of a better Labor Protections for mexico to have better enforcement around environmentalist issue actually hired u. S. On milk bills and other good stuff in there and he cant say he can get i say my figures remain cross but off of im not wheeling to but the farm on the proposition that president still has less to do a big infrastructure plan and i dont need to tell anybody in the room how important that is to our quality of life and our future. Here in southwestern connecticut. You know where i stay on on a lot of issues associated with this president but the minute he is here about putting together a substantial on infrastructure, i will be there. To be part of the effort because its probably the single most challenging thing for all of my constituencies and southwestern connecticut. Before i turn it over to you, on amy one last thing. Two days ago three days ago, i had an Election Security update with Denise Miller was the secretary of state state of connecticut. I will report to you for two minutes, then it denise this is this from her. Of view looking over the shoulders of our registrars and looking at the equipment and systems that we used about, and city of connecticut cannot i see this from the angle of someone on the Intelligence Committee news easy efforts are being made by Foreign Countries to probe our election mechanics and we both feel pretty good that the tech mutual side, and going into our Electrical Apparatus changing and attacking we felt really good cautious but pretty good that we are wellpositioned to detect such attempts and to stop such attempts. It is actually pretty hard to do because as you all know, elections are administered at the municipal loophole so we have a fabulously fragmented system. Theres all sorts of breaks, we do vote here in dorian, the results are not automatically dissed in the coming use suck and addicted to the internet and actually to get data to the secretary of state news office, a human has to enter that data into a system that uses. There are breaks at that. And again you never see its impossible but entries made some Real Progress in upgrading equipment. I do worry about and you have a handout, i say it receives but i do worry about that society in which free thanks christian is the value, people get to try to manipulate you. I printed out for you and it was for those of you who dont have the size, print out for you some examples of the advertisements that were purchased by the russians in advance of the 2016 election. And the reason i want to show you them is because we will continue to push hard on the technical side of this but theres really no way to stop purchasing the polarizing and emotional environment the ability of russia or china or russia or iran to manipulate is based on the information we see and were having a vibrant conversation right now about twitter and facebook but i want you to see this because it is really pretty dark stuff. In particular want to. Out the ads on the right there. The market at, we believe should be banned. In the lower right and never forget the black Panthers Group formed to protect black people from the kkk and the government to get the black panthers in the kkk selfcare. Russia purchased creative if it ad. You see what theyre doing. They are trying to poke at the fishers in our society and so i wanted you to have this and to see this for no other reason than to suggest to you that we as citizens have work to do to remember what we see online may actually be an attempt to get each other at each others throats makes a manipulate you and we need to be little more critical to limit more and we all experience. I love the fact that i represent people from every corner of the political spectrum. But we do see something that you would agree with others this rush of adrenaline and you fill a good bet it. And if i want to make is we need to be critical about where we get our information when it is and what people might be trying to do. So only that theyre going talk more about it. What the manipulation by the russians look like back in 2016. And if youre interested there is a website up there. A lot more prescient stuff up there. That is everything i wanted to see in context with you. Click on rules. Amy topic is inbound i will you ask you to be relatively brief and i want to make sure that everybody has a chance to speak. And i will do the same. Just one final reminder. I cant tell you how thrilled i am when we get a room full of people who have some disagreements. But it would just ask disagreements is the strength. In all of us deserve respect in our opinions. I would just ask the people and less to show people respect so they can finish and regardless of which side of the spectrum your honor what you really, lets just to each of the respect. Our opinions are all valid and they deserve respect to beliefs and two. Thank you for that. Lets go to the mikes. I did leave something out to the other handout. Is this mike working. Test test. Maybe i need a little closer. Before we go to questions you will also have understates one pager which shows the bills that passed out of the house of representatives that i shouldve mentioned that i was talking some of the bills that passed into law, you will see a lot of bills that didnt become law. Some of those bills by the way passing the Democratic House and even the best advice would not get taken out the republican senate. Some of those bills should. Hra designed and as many of you know is the universal background check legislation that was a if you exercise your Second Amendment rights no matter where or how you will do it you will be subject to a background check. Supported by 95 percent of americans and yet the house, [applause] and the house, euphemistically waiting for action in the senate. Okay, hopefully. Thank you for how hard you work for our country. And i want to ask what his, stew to make sure the impeachment process is transparent grid so that all americans know whats going on. Sue makes a good question where we are in the impeachment process right now, this week thursday and friday, there will be open and televised hearings involving three diplomats all three of these diplomats are professional diplomats in their not politically appointed for partisan reasons. They will be interviewed by an equal time between democrats and republicans on the Intelligence Committee so that will be there for all to see it. All three have been deposed in previous depositions that i participated in. So pursuant to the legislation that was passed or the resolution was passed last week, these open hearings will be followed by consideration in the Judiciary Committee and the Judiciary Committee will decide if articles are ultimately written in the president is afforded the same sort of due process and protection in that process the president has been afforded in past impeachments theres only been three of them but then what would happen if the Judiciary Committee chooses to put articles in the floor, the president will have the opportunity to interview witnesses and the Judiciary Committee to respond to this articles to submit written testimony and then if the articles were to pass the house for, it would then be a trial in the senate. Some patient is really a twostep process and impeachment in the house which is the content the indictment. As a rule and is the sense of guilt, it essentially says we are the right analogy is indicting the president and then there would be a fullblown trial looks like pretty much amy other trial incident in which chief justice of the Supreme Court presides their prosecutors and there are defense and it will look a lot like the trial they might see in a traditional courtroom. Afternoon. Thank you for coming here to hold this very important meeting. Representative jamie, introduced a bill into the rate voting for congressional elections. The voting. [inaudible conversation] there are a lot of benefits from primary voting in the job nominating candidates in about a off a dozen primaries and the general elections and the risk of thirdparty spoiler candidates. My question is would you consider cosponsoring representative passes bill. Thank you for the question. There may be some folks in the room and hearts of our familiar with the concept of right choice pointing. The concept of right Choice Voting is the budding procedure that is actually in addition now being used in new york has been used in the state of maine. Now for it guess a couple of years. The idea is that you dont just see i vote for the republican that went out the democrat and democrat it but not the republican, you actually rank the candidates. Sofi three kennedy to write 12 and three. Also known as an instant runoff election. Because what happens is if no candidate injuring choice selection receive it majority, the third place in the example i just gave, the bottom vault, results are sloped out but the bottom vault burner is the second place with the people who put that person is the first place get reallocated to the other candidates. So its a little complicated to follow but with the effect of that is if there are three people on the ballot, lets just see for arguments fink republican democrat and a great party letter to Green Party Candidate, in all likelihood the Green Party Candidate gets a small percentage of the vote in this most recently wasted and they can be some smiling and says because they are wasted, the people who voted for that very party dont really get to express the will. This procedure that would read that was a long explanation. Jamie by the way through the guys in congress, i say i like the bill, havent read it yet. So i want to reserve the right to read it if i commit to it but i do say its really good idea. I say it will enfranchise more people and i say it will do something comfortable for the country are good for the country which is i say it shifts some of the momentum or power if you will towards the more moderate position. Which in my opinion, and this is the political statement. Would be a good thing either of the bill yet but dont want to commit but i do like the idea and i will read it. Most likely will support it. Site ask you to please cosponsor or promote hr 1384, we need medicare for all we met about a off a Million People declaring bankruptcy every year most of these are people with Health Coverage but cant afford healthcare. And thats just absurd. With only country who has problems like that. In about 35000 people died because they can afford healthcare. Thank you for the question. The question was about to care for all. Which is robust debate happening in the democratic president ial primary right now. If you allow me to sort of set out the issues let me start with the idea of medical for all is the crazy idea. The folks who are attacking medicare for all things socialist bobo bok, we as medicare for all in the United States. Medicare is the single air system and the va, the singleparent system that people get their healthcare through those two systems, really like them. And has brought a radical idea. In fact some ways mythologies can occur and help care system at room remove an awful lot of the obligations that would probably wind up in the long run be a cheaper system because medicare executives the way our Health Insurance committees do read there is a couple of silicide there in the conversation we should be havi having. We have to personal concerns with medicare for all. At least two but the two that i struggle most with his on in particular hell live warren plan, the way it works financially is by doing two things. Really dramatically reducing the payments that go to providers to hospitals and doctors and by substantially raising taxes. Hell live warren business stacked will be raised on the wealthiest americans. What i would like to see the soup before we start putting downward pressure on how our providers are paid, would like to see us focus on the actual system in other words not who is paying the bills, that can we create a more effective and efficient system. He did that. It continued to evolve away healthcare model where everybody is paid for making People Better when theyre sick or fixing them when they broke into a system that encourages and incentivizes the healthcare profession to get people healthy. I. C. E. Is important. Every single one of you being medicare are paying for dialysis for tens of millions of americans to have an essentially preventable chronic disease type two diabetes. This is the devastating thing. Type two diabetes is often avoidable through nutritional counseling good dietary habits if you get yourself to a point in type two diabetes, where you need be dialyzed, three times a week and 678 hours, and 6,070,000 a year for each of those. So one thing i want to do before we start doing what will be implied lets relate focus on efficiency and equality in the system and now i need to see something a little bit political. The country doesnt do radical change very woa. And not an expert in the Healthcare Industry but i can tell you from an expert in communicating healthcare changes to my constituents. When as a freshman, i did 14 town Hall Meetings one in norwalk in 1200 attendees there were Police Officers because people were that passionate and that angry and that concerned. And you understand why. Healthcare is deeply personal. To all of us in all of you in a way that maybe serious. I would much rather see this be presented to the American People as medicare would be a choice that you have for every american as opposed to the hundred and 55 Million People who today have Health Insurance through their employer as a union plan and told sorry giving of your plan and we have a better idea and i know how the American People respond to being told that i is the federal official had a better plan for them when they have. I know hell live warren loves their health and thats probably true in the loan people dont love the job either but if you tell im taking away your job, going to have a reaction. Where i come out on this is why would we ever go to the American People and see im going to take away something that you are familiar with and that is deeply personal and replace it with something that the government hooked up. As opposed to see going to be this additional option buy into medicare and if you like it and people like it more people buy in. Ultimately out defeats the Healthcare Industry. So thats where i come out this. The problem with that is it doesnt work the choice because you know lose the layers of administration and private networks. In layers of profits. It doesnt work. And only works if its a singlepayer. In 1965 he came in in one year nobody screamed but they were losing their private interest they all got public insurance and nobody believes is the note like that on the back private. Ive had for some time, medicare. I love it. It is absolutely troublefree. No pills, no networks, youve to amy dr. That is the choice you have. Now you dont have the choice. The choice of medicare are not. Off of we do even have that but you dont have a choice of doctors and you dont a choice of hospitals and those of the choices matter. You raised a very good. I dont agree that its not possible because in the house version of the Affordable Care act, we had a public option that essentially wouldve been optional medicare. There is projected to have worked sadly, even though at the time was Democratic House senate was not included in the final but it technically it can be accomplished. You are right that the complexity and the additional cost inside the private Insurance Business are problem but i do say it can work and he responded little bit in 1965 medicare was brought about, nor asking a lot of Senior Citizens to give up their private interest in 1965 report Medicare Insurance companies didnt cover because of course that over 65 population that uses most healthcare sold for a lot of Senior Citizens prior to 65 he didnt selfinterest of his little easier sell in 65 that it would be today for people who have an option. I dont want to fight or argue with you because your points are valid and good. I do say the medicare for all proposal needs to be more about how we make for a better and healthier efficient system how it can be sold to the American People and when that happens ill be much more positive about it thank you. Yes maam. I congressman. Thank you heart so much for being here. My name is jen and i represent, norwalk action. We appreciate that. My question is run guns. You touched on h. R. 8. And since february since thats ass so its sort of an impossible question wondering if you say this would bring it to a vote. I never going into december were going to have holiday break and then were going into 2020 and i guess take along that question is cannot just sit there for ever. Does it expire we have to go through this again. We are sort of happy about that. But because people do every single day we are not the happy about that. It is not real until becomes law. It is immensely for tradin frus. An assault weapon ban for ultimate reason is much controversial and this is not controversial. It is not likely to get brought up in the senate. For two reasons, im here under federal offices so im not here to talk strategy or be partisan for two reasons is not likely to be brought up in the senate, number one, leader mcconnell has turned the senate into exclusively a judicial appointment machine so the senate has given its time to approving federal judges were the federal judiciary is 25 judges that have been appointed by this president. Number two being negatively political. Heres rehave a chance to change the dialogue. Hr rate would be a pretty tough boat for a lot of republican senators because it has a lot of support even in a lot of red places but theres the fringe of activists focused on that side of the aisle to make it very difficult for republicans to vote yes. The honest but sad answer is no i dont think itll come up for a vote in the senate and will require to pass it in the house again and hopefully get it to pass that time. We will and hopefully we will get better treatment in the next congress. I could be wrong but i would not bet on it being passed into law. My question is, donald trum trump donald trump has used his power to not only enrich himself but kind of pressure foreign governments to help him reelection. One of the next steps for impeachment and beyond the public hearing, what is actually going to happen beyond that . Next steps on impeachment and what that might look like. Let me be more detail. I was talking about how i think this plays out. There are important issues we need to consider. First of all, we have not gone over the facts and you are going to see open hearings this week so i will not spend a ton of times on the facts. My way of thinking and observation the president very severely abused his power by using 400 million of aid by holding that and the balance to extort the new ukrainian president not to not be corrupt but to investigate joe biden in his son and burisma. And held up a white house meeting and fired in abbasid because Rudy Giuliani did not think the blaster was on board. I think that raises all go through the process in the right way so i will not sit here and tell you that this is the way its going to play out but it certainly in abuse of power article, there is certainly an argument that his president orders to not answer congressional subpoena is not only a constitutional crisis but impeachable obstruction of justice and that could form a second article. And there may be one or two others. But i feel very strongly about the second one, is not quite as easy to get angry about as a firing as ambassador and holding up a military aid to a country where russians are killing ukrainians under thoma republican colleagues this all the time, you do not want a world where the president feels he can order his people to ignore a congressional subpoena. I do think there needs to be accountability both for the people whove ignored the subpoenas. Let me see this out with you because you need to give it a little bit of thought. There will be pressure to include emoluments and this is an area im not a super expert but its a part of our constitution, its not funny. But there will be pressure to add an emoluments article im not sure how that will play out. There will be pressure, i hope you dont lose friends for saying this but there will be pressure to include things that are policy things. Family separation, family separation is a moral abomination. [applause] but i dont ever want to let this country or contribute to this country getting to a place where impeachment becomes the thing you do because you dont like what the president is doing. I want impeachment to remain the think that the president breaks the law and abuses power and obstructs justice et cetera. The articles have not been written yet, im priming you for this and trying to make you aware of the things will all need to think about. Thank you. Lets fix this problem. Ill repeat your question. Ill repeat your question. [inaudible question] [applause] i want to thank the office and the sponsors, nadler we have the building marked off on next wednesday for hj read 79. Im asking you to help us get a vote on hj 79 to drop the ratification deadline. We are working and we believe we will be challenged on the ratification deadline, i need that vote before the end of the year end i asked you if you help us get that vote before the end of the year to drop the ratification deadline for equal rights amendment. Thank you. [applause] thank you you have my commitment to help you with that and i dont know if everybody heard the same thing, one of the outcomes of the Virginia Election will be in all likelihood virginia will ratify the equal rights amendment which then makes it a part of our constitution. Its exciting that we would be alive at a point in time and steer constitution amended, it shows you is a living breathing document and exciting and in a way sad given how obvious that it is that womens should not be discriminated in any environment that is taken this long to get it done. Im optimistic thatll get done and thinking for our advocacy. [applause] thank you for being here. I am curious for the next episode of scandal in washington, d. C. You talk about the open hearings which will be thursday and friday but your committee i presume continues to have interviews with people in the closed setting before they go to an open setting . So its going to go on parallel tracks . There will not be many more close depositions. There may be negotiation to be had with john bolton, i personally would dearly love to have my former colleague Mick Mulvaney, he is resisting. The reason that is important is because is pretty clear mulvaney gave the order to the department of defense and National Security apparatus to put a hold on the military aid to ukraine and i would like to know the conversation that happened between Mick Mulvaney and the president. That will be naturally very hard because he may not show up and speaker policy has taken the approach that were not going to go and litigate this for two to three months instead because the facts are pretty clear we will just move forward. Nonetheless i would like to hear from Mick Mulvaney and i like to hear from Rudy Giuliani because hes of the core. [applause] of also heard they want to put jim jordan on the committee and i presume they have the power to do that if they remove somebody they can replace them. They have done that. My colleague Rick Crawford has stopped down in favor of jim jordan am going to resist the temptation to elaborate other than to say you cannot imagine two humans on opposite and then adam schiff in jun jim jordan. So tune in. One of your goals was to improve infrastructure. My question is in support of improving infrastructure, would you support deflation the cost billions of dollars every year and does not allow for market competition. In queue. Thank you for the question. I dont usually get that one transportation per good question. For the purpose of folks in the audience who do not know about davisbacon. Its a legislation that passed along time ago and basically says federal Government Spending weather for the construction of federally paid for Affordable Housing or in most transportation projects the federal government will pay prevailing wage in whatever jurisdiction it is being built. And this has the practical effect as you might imagine, ruling out lowercost bidders on that construction. It also has a practical effect of creating a separation between Union Construction and nonUnion Construction because nonunion tends to be cheapest. So you asked me a very specific question, what i support eliminating davisbacon. Neu do not. Im cognizant of what you point out rightly so that has the effect of raising prices. It also has the effect that making sure there isnt exploitation, not bringing in people from southern texas to do the work here at half the wage rates that are local workers would do it out. It also has the effect of making sure your workers are as good as they can be. Union workers go through certification and training and apprenticeship that result in high quality work. But ura, i will not convince you that you are wrong about that. If you were to eliminate davisbacon it would lower the cost of the construction over infrastructure and Affordable Housing. But i would rather have high quality, local prevailing wage jobs done then as they used to say, they joke about the three astronauts launching up to the moon and one guy says were sitting on top of the work of the lowest bidder and were talking about bridges and that sort of thing i want the assurance of quality and local payment. Thank you for your question but no i will not support doing away with davisbacon. Everybody seems concentrated over here. What is your policy calls towards the environment . [applause] good question. What is your name . Im so glad a young person asked that question. Everyone else in this room that is not a young person is going to have to inherit the environmental situation that we leave to you. Im so glad you asked that question. That is a big question. We take just two or three pieces of it. The biggest in my opinion, the biggest challenge that we have in leaving you a world that is good as the one that i got to groping, we began to aggressively address the effect of Climate Change on our planet. We see this every day in the changing weather and the much more violent hurricanes that we see, we see sealevel raising, were headed toward the cat aism if we dont start acting like the adult that we are, you will have a problem that you may not be able to solve. We do that through here all lose the young folks but by putting in place a refundable carbon tax so solar and wind energy are more competitive with burning coal and gas and we do it by investing in businesses that you may work in some day like advanced batteries, im a big fan of solar and wind but as you know the wind does not blow all the time in the sun is not out all the time. How do we fix that, we store the power that gets created when the sun is shining. And we could do that, we could create batteries that could run the town for a week. The technologically we are not there yet. We need to invest in that. And the last thing i will mention, because you can help on this. We all need to do a better job about conserving energy that we do have. So what can you do, you can d do turn off the downlights. We all have a role to play. It really appreciate the question, we talk about it for a long time but its one i feel passionately about because youre the one that will ultimately be with the world that we either mess up or dont mess up. [applause] thank you for joining us. My name is robert and i wanted to ask you a question how do we ensure that everyone gets the facts in this country. Im a lifelong republican and i also watched fox news to see whats going on but im no longer a republican. [laughter] [applause] i was a regular republican because i was born in romania and i was grateful that he made the wall come down. But i want to make sure that everyone in this country gets the facts and the facts are that donald trump is working with people who are connected to the russian mob. Giuliani is being paid half a Million Dollars from their partners who are getting that money and in theory they work for giuliani but in fact the people who work for you are actually paying you. How does that work. Manna fourth work for free but he didnt really work for free because he was getting compensated by the Russian Oligarch who are part of the mall. But the fact that these people were indicted and they are always the criminals. That will be perfect. Donald trump is reading his own charity. Its a fact. He had to pay a Million Dollars recently. Donald trump is like the firemen who comes to your house when your house is burning and says im not going to put out your fire, until you do something for me. [applause] and people who watched fox news are not getting any of these facts. What are we doing to change how the media is being run in this country. Great question. [applause] great question. Its worth spending time on this because this is honestly a really hard issue and its a hard issue for a couple of reasons. I think there is easy stuff, i completely disagree with Mark Zuckerberg willingness to allow blatantly false advertising on facebook. [applause] and they appreciate twitter stance that they will not take political ads i think facebook should do the hanasono meaningful part of facebook revenue so i think that would be constructive. Id be interested how can we take what we used to do in this country when we can regulate broadcast television because they are using a public good, the airwaves and say we have certain obligation which you need to present both sides, its a much more, located thing to do for whole bunch of reasons use optical fiber that is privately owned. I do want us to have a conversation and be smart about how we can say you need to be more evenhanded and what you present. But it is a hard problem, its a hard problem for at least two reasons, at the government level, i hope nobody wants us to deviate from the First Amendment and what i mean you do not want i do not want, the government saying this is a fact, that takes us back to stalin in the totalitarian regime. And it is also hard because truth turns out not to be black and white. Particularly in the protocol arena. Ill give you an example i use the other day, medicare is probably the best and most wonderful social Insurance Program the United States has produced in 240 years of u. S. History. Thats an arguably true statement. Medicare is mathematically doomed if we dont reform it. Its also mathematically true statement, one statement appeals more you see what im saying. How do we determine the truth of things like that and who do we want making that determination. I would like to put more of the weight of this onto the Media Companies but im not particularly comfortable with Mark Zuckerberg deciding whats true anymore than the governme government. Again, i dont want to argue with you on this because i couldnt agree more but heres the point i want to close on, be surprised if the democrats saying this but i feel passionately about this. We are citizens of the greatest democracy in history. [applause] and we forget that democracy and we been reminded lately it is not a gift, it is something we as individuals work and fight for every day and as individuals we have got to get there. Thats what i show you the russian facebook ads, we have got to get serious. Uncomfortably serious about being better consumers of information, there is a reason 100 years ago this country said when they had a very small government that every american child would be educated in public schools, the reason we said that it had an economic reason but had a profound democratic reason which is you cannot be a member of the democracy and be in ignoramus with truth in the facts. And so my ears are wide open for how we can better do social media and how we can regulate the social media but we have got to do a better job. Im not a fan of fox news either but i do meet a lot of people who only watch one show. Make sure you get ideas that make you uncomfortable. Its your obligation as american citizen. I dont mean to give a long speech but the answer cannot be that the federal government will figure out how to make you a better participant, we need to figure out how to make us a better participant. [applause] may i follow up on that, thats pretty much where i was at, we allowed trump and the republicans to set the narrative after any information that comes out and jim jordan being in example where he wants to set what the narrative wants to be in because trump is such a showman we get to see him so often say. Now that we will have open hearings, i was wondering if we could have a daily sub knobs done by someone like neil or someone who can explain what actually happens in the open hearings and the lasting eight hours, ten hours, someone will have to take this down for us and can we go to the Democratic National Committee Website and really see this or have a thing going on with cnn, msnbc, fox news, put this on his ten minutes, 15 minutes, it is so much information, i even turn off and i dont even breathe this stuff because its driving me crazy. There you go. Thank you. [applause] we will try. Im sure both minority and majority will do synopsis and that sort of thing. If you indulge me one Second Period im going to take two minutes. Lets dig deeper into the question of why were in a world where facts dont seem to matter where the president support is unshakable regardless of behavior, i think is worth unpacking and have two offerings for you of things we can think about and do as a society that might get us to a more thoughtful cynically oriented politics. Theres probably ten things i will offer into minutes because i need to give the day to you. One is, the politics and i made reference to this, they emphasize the extremes. Most congressional districts, there is not a lot of mystery of what happens in the general election in november, this is not one. It did not used to be. It used to be a red district, became a purple district and now its purple but a lot of republicans are not comfortable with the president in this place. Most districts are not that way, no member does not matter. What matters is the primary. In a primary system it is the most activist fired up people who participate. My former colleague lost alexandra ocasiocortez and involve 10 of the electorate and am not making any judgment but the point is we created a system where the candidates are chosen for the most committed activists folks on both sides. Syc met romney as a liberal republican governor of massachusetts become a totally different person when he ran for president. Hillary clinton did the exact same thing. We should think hard about whether we can recalibrate our system to d power the extremes and empower the middle. The second thing, this can be worth a whole another hour. We have a project in the country that i personally hope it starts a year from now to rebuild the dialogue and the way we talk to each other. In the service of that, we need to really understand why always a stereotype, why a high school educated white man in Youngstown Ohio its really excited about donald trump. Donald trump has one huge legislative, which may, i hated it without the tax cut lot of hd courtroom places intercounty. Heres what im trying to make, we better get underneath why people want to grab on to somebody tells them that the system is rigged and a fals fauf immigrant and the fall of this, we have to address the pain that they have to hang onto that politics. Its not a coincidence that the poor message the donald trump and the poor message of Bernie Sanders are more or less the same. The core message is the system is rigged a the core message is the system is rigged against you and those people are not robbed. It feels that way to them. We have to make more people feel theyve got a chance and dont need goes wild extreme of promises of bringing back the call minds. [applause] was make what seems to be true, that is where it seems to be so at large. I feel like you understand. I just dont i grew up here. I love my american system. Very sorry if it would be anything that included the majority. Fair point. Im not saying it is their turn and got to be careful what we mean. Lets understand and address the pain. Instead of calling them deplorable lets understand and offer a better vision. A vision that helps everybody but we need more of this kind of conversation because we do need to fix our politics. What can be done about the more subtle election interference like the facebook ads you showed earlier that im changing ballots . Great question. Two things, a bunch of things can be done but let me offer two, theres a reason i showed them to you. I want all of you to see what they look like so when you see them in october 2016 you think to yourself wait a second. Maybe this takes me feel good or bad or angry but maybe this is the russians or north koreans trying to manipulate me, you need to show what they look like and think about the effect they have on us. The other thing we can do is easier, which is at a minimum we should require facebook and twitter and snapchat and all these social media things some of which i dont understand we should require whoever buys that add to say who they are, right . [applause] if you see, lets take the russians out of it, the russians should not be playing in our elections in any way, shape or from the think a much better would be if you saw and added and at the end of the and someone had to say this was purchased by americas pharmaceutical industries or americas gun industries or about prevailing wage, by a union, we would know who it was that was trying to Say Something to us and that would be a good first step. [applause] thank you for your service and i would like to make a comment and a question about the Affordable Care act. Right before you were elected the first time you had a lot of concerns about the ability to sue doctors when healthcare was withheld from people because of their insurance. And i understand why you had to push for the Affordable Care act even though it had a lot of flaws but one of the biggest flaws in the Affordable Care act is we rely on people with thirdparty insurance to pay for the Affordable Care act, we rely on doctors and rely on hospitals, doctors and hospitals are losing money, doctors more than hospital, losing money when they see medicaid, medicare patients but they do it out of a sense of social obligation to care for these people and it is supplemented by people with thirdparty insurance. The hospitals have money that comes to them from the federal government that helps offset the money they would lose from medicaid and medicare and residents working below minimum wage to make it more affordable. I know in my case i spent 16 years in training, either paying to be there or paid below minimum wage to be there and when i get into private practice i cant afford to continue to lose money on people, cant lose money on everybody be the way you practice your business or your never going to be able to get anybody other than either very dumb people or people with wealthy parents become doctors and it will change healthcare to be something we do not accept as americans so i would like to know what can we do about having something funded by the government that would allow people to have the limitations imposed upon you if you have the type of Health Insurance Medicare Medicaid and the va offers and not have the doctors send out all these tests americans expect when if the doctors dont send those tests out, it wont show anything, but one in 1002, doctors still have to send them up because otherwise they are suited they can lose their practice. What are they doing to address that. Sounds like maybe you are a medical provider. Im a physician. Sounds like a couple things, party liability, medicine being practice to stave off the lawsuit. My sister is a highrisk ob gyn doctor and i dont think they get more risky than that so i understand. In the narrow area of Liability Reform i think there is work we can do that would move to the forefront evidencebased medicine and part of the Affordable Care act was pointing us in that direction with the creation of a group of medical professionals that would make determinations on what the science shows is indicated in certain cases and that has some benefits. One of the main benefits is it would have shut down a lot of arguments doctors and providers have with Insurance Companies because it wouldve been determined the other thing im intrigued by, the Affordable Care act didnt do this but im intrigued by. If you can really put evidencebased medicine to the forefront it feels to me like that out to be maybe not a safe harbor, and they dont respond predictably to treatment and things and there will always be cases that go badly. It seems to me there should be a defense, that i followed these guidelines, something of a defendant in the case of liability lawsuits. I want to be careful about things like caps. People propose caps on damages. I do want people to retain the right in the case of negligence to be able if they lose a child because the doctor is negligent to seek redress for that. I do think there is work we can do with respect to provider liability. What about a panel to go through the cases before it becomes a case . Most of the cases are frivolous, 95 of the cases that go to court i won by the physicians a lot of folks shouldnt see that. There are other areas of law where you have expert panels who greenlight litigation. Im blanking on what they are but thats not an unprecedented idea, not what i am particularly opposed to. The Affordable Care act did some really good things in terms of eliminating the inability of people with preexisting conditions to get coverage and expanding coverage through medicaid but it didnt do nearly enough on general cost control, and liability expenses are part of that so we need to revisit that. Your idea of a panel that would greenlight legislation the way today, you understand this better than i do, the way today there is some litigation, plaintiffs attorneys are generally compensated through a percentage of any award given which is 30 , plaintiff attorney looks at the case and they have an incentive not to bring a frivolous case because if it is frivolous they are not going to get paid. That based on your statistic doesnt do enough, but anyway when we have that conversation i would like to hear more ideas on how better to control this. Thank you for taking time to speak with us. I want sorry. I wanted to expand a little bit on the First Amendment and the role in our society today. You mentioned earlier that we can do things for example like both sides laws to get people more information, more reasonable debate. I wanted to question the usefulness of some of those laws because there are some cases where thats just not applicable like Climate Change is an undeniable fact. Vaccines are safe, that is an undeniable fact. There are some things that should not have more than one side and yet you can see fox news and breitbart and all these crazy, now crazy news outlets spewing out misinformation that half the country will believe like how can we defend our First Amendment rights and make sure we get a wealth of viewpoints out there while still understanding there are some things that are completely indisputable . Great question. Great question and i dont avocado dried answer. In the previous question i said this is hard. It is hard. We are more Diverse Society than we were when i was a kid, not just in terms of who we are as americans but divers in terms of how we get our media. Most people remember you use get 3 channels on your television. Now television and its 500 channels is only one of many media sources. It is a harder problem than it used to be. You are absolutely right. There is a logic in a political context, if you have a Republican Point of view, and democratic of you to say we need both points of you. On the issue of Climate Change why would we say on something accepted by the Scientific Community for 2 of folks that dont believe in it, youre absolutely right. That is a complexity. Im not sure it is an unsolvable complexity. A system doesnt need to be perfect for it to make the Current Situation better. Your point is well taken. It is a much more complicated thing to do. There are more points of view and more media for which those points of view i delivered. I would separate what you said. You said First Amendment. I think we should give some thought to what we can do to make sure people are exposed to more than one point of view. That is worth having a conversation and i will engage in it all day long. First amendment, freedom of expression issues, thats a very different issue for me. We need to guard the rights we have under the First Amendment, we dont ever want the government saying this is true, this is not that point of view is valid, that point of view is not. I make it sound like that is easy to do. All of our rights and the First Amendment right particularly if you say what i say you have to be comfortable with a member of the nazi party going to that microphone. Our rights are hard but the point im trying to make is trying to diversify the views we get and somehow inclining us towards truth rather than fiction is a worthy effort and i would try to separate that from questions of the First Amendment and freedom of expression. The best for last. I am a registered republican and unlike many in this crowd im a lifelong member of the nra even though i dont necessarily agree with a number of positions of the nra. First and foremost im an American Patriot and i value our Economic System of capitalism, i value liberty, freedom, justice for all, i value the rule of law, i value our military. I value duty, honor and country. And im here today because i stand with Lieutenant Colonel vincent. [applause] i stand with john mccain. [applause] but i also stand with our former president S Jimmy Carter and jfk. Jfk, that predated my time but as a child i remember his very poignant words, ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country. And today i think it is imperative, given the polarization the majority of the people in the middle speak up the stand up and speak out. [applause] i do not subscribe to the politics of division and hate. We as a country are compassionate, we are principled, we each need to defend the rights inscribed to us in the bill of rights. One thing in particular that concerns me. The Current Administration is Michael Bloomberg said, he knows a and when i. And even though i am a registered republican currently i value with the romanian gentleman said, donald trump is a man, a fraud, a charlatan. And we as americans need to stand up and say that is not okay. That is not okay. Regardless of whether you are democrat or republican. I am not a socialist. Im not a fan of antifa but im also not an outright neonazi fascist and we are living in very dangerous times. We are seeing the rise of fascism around the world and donald trump is stoking that fire in my personal view. [applause] so i am here today with the home of the Darien High School blue wave to renounce, i am going to be selling the never trumper hat. [applause] nevertrumper. Com. Specifically getting to my comment to you in particular as a member of the nra fool on norman rockwell. I want to address your comment about the gentleman in youngstown, ohio. And i will tell you i am originally from georgia. I have a lot of my family that relate to that guy in ohio and i will tell you that fear is a powerful motivator in american politics. As a member of nra i get inundated with propaganda stoking fear in this country. I think it is time that we take a look especially Intelligence Committees take a look at who is really funding the nra. Is the russian government funding the nra just like they are funding these fake facebook ads . I dont know the answer to that. What i do know is there was a delegation of nra membership that went to russia and that concerns me. It really concerns me. I know the nra as an organization that fights for the protection of the Second Amendment. We all know, sportsmen and hunters but that is not what the nra is today. It is more of a propaganda machine. I submit to you it may very well be a russian propaganda machine. I would appreciate you guys looking into it and also appreciate every member of the house and senate leading by example and remembering first and foremost we are all americans. Not necessarily these far right republicans or far left democrats, lets fight for the American People and the nation as a whole, thank you. [applause] thank you for your comments. I cant add to that. I will close by saying it is tough and scary times right now. Thank you for so eloquently saying that. I have just done three of these townHall Meetings. I was really worried about it. This is the most polarized time i have ever done them. Not the most polarized issue. 10 years ago before iraq generated some real energy in townHall Meetings but i was in trumbull and richfield and darien, those towns are pretty mixed towns, darien is a pretty republican place by registration, trumbull just elected a lot of democrats. A pretty mixed group of towns and without exception three times one and halfhour conversations, nothing but proud of the manners, the civility, the dignity with which we conducted this conversation in this polarized time, so thank you for being that way. [applause] at the close of this weeks house session steny hoyer and republican whip Steve Scalise talked about the upcoming legislative schedule. This is 20 minutes. Thank you, madam speaker. I ask unanimous consent to speak out of order for the purpose of inquiring to the majority leader the house for schedule next week. Without objection the gentleman is recognized. I also ask unanimous consent to revise my remarks. Without objection. I would like to yield to my