About, i know we will talk about immigration because immigration has been a policy issue that has fueled your Public Service but lets talk about you say in the book you landed in the airport with two suitcases and that was it. Guest that is right. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. You are right. Its such a pleasure to have an indepth conversation with a colleague and something you just dont get to do. Yes, i landed here a few months before i turned 17 and again by myself. My dad had about 5000 dollars in his big account and used all of it to send me here because he really believed that this was the place i would get the best education and have the most opportunities. I show up at jfk airport with my two suitcases because that is all you are allowed to bring without having to pay for more baggage we did not have money to pay for more baggage. I just remember and i write about this in the book is how strange it was to see, first of all, not the diversity of people but its pretty diverse, new york is, a lot of displays of physical affection that i was not used to seeing in asia and smells of mcdonalds and burger king which you sort of jumped about when you are in indonesia but they had not made it to that part of the world yet. And then just being in a completely new place with a completely new environment, not really knowing if you would fit in or how you would fit in and i went to Georgetown University undergraduate here in the Nations Capital and i remember when i landed at georgetown and went to the oren Student Office to get all my information and they said, they said something about being a foreign student but not having gotten my rooming assignment and the guy who is very wellmeaning, i think all he heard was foreign student in stock and said do you speak english and i remember saying and being so surprised by that insane jokingly saying well, i do but only if you talk very slowly. [laughter] that was the beginning of my entry to the United States and i dont think i could have ever dreamt i would have sitting here talking to is a member of congress. Host yeah, absolutely. I would encourage people to read the book just to see how somebody arrives at age 17 in the United States for the First Time Ever that results in that person becoming a member of congress but one of the reasons this conversation will be fun is you have a high profile of the leftist wing of the Democratic Party and i am a leader of the new democrat division, the more centrist wing, and one of the things that was fun your book was anybody that wanted is a Progressive Left to grapple with the fact that you went to Business School and worked on wall street and you worked for a medical Device Corporation so that is wonderfully rich portrait of how the world is such more comp gated and so talk a little bit about that and how they worked in the private sector to inform how you think about working in the private sector. Guest that stems from my dad wanted me to be the ceo of ibm who he said if i will use all my money and send you cross the ocean, you better be a doctor, engineer or lawyer. Politician was not one of them. And so when i went to college i got a degree in economics but somewhere along the way i decided that i wanted to be in english lit major and called my dad with one phone call i had a year to tell him i would be an english major and he screamed at me and said you know, i do not send you to the United States to learn how to speak english, you already know how to speak english. I promised him i would go get the same job with an english degree that it wouldve gotten with an economics degree. At that time was the mid 1980s and Mike Milliken was [inaudible] and wall street was the place you wanted to work if you are smart and competitive and that was the thing you tried to go do and so that is what i did. I went to work on wall street and in Investment Banking and i did a lot of things that no 20 yearold should ever have done frankly and representing companies and bankruptcy proceedings and working on leveraged buyouts and i realized it wasnt for me but one of the things i tell people i mentor all the time is that its really important to find out what you dont want to do just as much as you find out what you do want to do. Also, the skills you gained along the way are invaluable and so anybody can put a spreadsheet in front of me and i worked on very complex 300 page spread streets back before xl was the thing, back in the lotus one, two, three days and i could finally understand Financial Statements and went on to get a masters in business and worked in Economic Development and i think like every one of those things has made me better prepared to be in congress because as you were implying people think about the progressive as being somehow completely devoid from business, not Understanding Economic but he dont think those betrayals are true. I think people are always surprised to hear about my background but it is really helped inform my view of wall street accountability and the need to support mainstream and about what actually makes good economic sense and what is traumatic and practical in my world based on how i think about what the future looks like from an Economic Perspective as well as political perspective. Host yeah, no, really interesting and i worked at a bank for a while and i was 22 when i was doing that so. Guest a whole two years older than me. [laughter] host but i agree with you 100 that i, like you, enjoyed that or i felt like i was learning a lot and a lot of negotiations skills and a lot of the writing skills that are important to politics and i did learn [inaudible]s are related to that. Then make a wonderful transition and will play this allows us to transition into the issues i think really animate your book that you are not satisfied you are not saying that for the social engagement in the private sector and you go abroad to a camp but all of a sudden now the new concept of immigration that you come or stay in the book you understand what drives migrant so lets talk about immigration because there is so much of your story and its at the core of not just the policy debates but we sort of play defense against the president who has, as i tell my constituents, crated this redhot core of anger and baloney, quite frankly, to drive these immigrants like criminals. Given where you come from and this book its key that the immigration debate is based on morality and with your experience, here we are at a moment where we are having the most dysfunctional non conversation about immigration that i can number so i know 911 was important to you but walk me through what really gets you so passionate about morals, moral immigration policy . Guest when i was in thailand and this was the summer between graduate school i had this opportunity and working for three months in thailand for the largest nonprofit and i happen to go to site to which was the largest refugee camp of the time mostly refugees from cambodia and laos and it was a stunning experience for me. Really deeply moving to see people bombed and there was a bombing days before i arrived there so is still a very active camp in that sense. Most of the folks they are thought they would be there for a short time before been able to get permanently settled again and coming out of war, losing children and family and you just see the resilience that people have. You see how difficult life is for people who are put in terrible situations, economic situations. It was the formation and i dont think i thought about it as immigration or migration in the moment but i think i was just experiencing what was happening but it was definitely a core piece of how i had related to the issue of immigration when it was about other people. My experience as an immigrant is a few pieces of everything but it was relatively privileged, as hard as it was. I spoke the language and i went to college and all these differ in things that allowed my experience to be a lot easier than most of the people i worked with and later when i switched from a private sector i worked in International Talent and development for several years running a fund and i worked all over the world, i work in india, africa, asia, latin america, everywhere. Again, i saw the challenges that are the root causes of migration and that has always been my orientation is how we think about immigration in terms of root causes of sending countries and how do people get there and then when 911 hit i then started to think about it from this perspective of being a u. S. Citizen and an immigrant here in the United States and this is our immigration policy and what it needs to be. It really became very, very ensconced in that and started with it being the largest immigrant Advocacy Organization in Washington State. In fact, many of us policies in washington were one of the best states along with california for immigrants who live and i think a lot of that is because of the work we did over the last two decades to preserve dignity and rights and opportunities for everybody. And so, i got to know the policy detail of immigration to and i talked about in the book how there is such a lack of nuance to the debate about immigration in this country and in fact, the immigration system is so unbelievably complex and everybody has a story to tell about immigration unless you are native american and of course if youre African American or on a slave ship unwillingness was very different situation but everybody else has a story to tell about a parent or grandparent or great grandparent coming to the United States and the more core of the identity that forms the United States of america as a nation of immigrants and so that has been, i think, very important to me to make sure that we explained to the American People how we have not had a system of immigration laws. They have a few laws here and there but there have been a few times in history where president has managed to meet and the congress has managed to move a complete overhaul of immigration laws forward but it has been decades. Our system has not been fixed in decades. There has been no major change and that is untenable for a country that has such deep Economic Needs and such deep societal and familial needs and whose identity is focused on the role of immigrants in building our country. Host yeah, thats absolutely right. One of the things i think for all of us that arent subscribers to the president s point of view on immigration which i think its a deeply immoral point of view but we will come back to how morality influences our policies. As you point out, we are a nation of immigrants and secondly if you talk to Business People you dont even take the moral approach they will tell you absolutely essential to our economy to have more robust immigration, not just acrosstheboard but from Washington State and that is the agricultural worker in the folks that are deemed essential but i was in her restaurants and its that sort of thing. So, describe for us because its not hard to look at the current net and its a moral method and we can come back to family separation but i think its good to think in moral terms but describe what you think since this is really your thing and has been for decades if you could wave a magic wand and, you know, American Innovation policy would change overnight, what would it look like and how to that compare to you werent here in washington yet but the bill passed the United States senate five, six years ago with 67 senatorial votes and had [inaudible] it had an advanced sort of employment identification and verification in all sorts of things but tell us what your view of a good immigration policy would look like and how did it compare to what got us through the senate in a very strong bipartisan manner five, six years ago. Guest yeah, i was on the outside pushing for that bill and it had a lot of compromises prickly that we did not all like but it had the major components. The key thing here to thing about is a lot of americans will say because of what the president has said or people before the president frankly this issue has been a political football for a long time but its taken to a new level in demonizing immigrants and something no other president before him is done in the same way in recent history. The first thing is people say you should get in line. You have to understand there is no line in the United States. There is no system for people to even come here legally. I will give myself as an example. It took me 18 years to get my citizenship for a whole host of reasons but i came in on a student visa so first thing we need to do is need to rectify the system so there are processes easy for people to navigate, whether youre coming on a Business Visa or whether to join the family or whether you are coming here to work temporarily or be a student. Those quotas they were set three decades ago, those need to be completely updated. Now, in addition to that that allows you to have a functioning system going forward. In addition to that you have to provide a pathway to citizenship for the 12 billion undocumented immigrants that are here. Why . Because these are folks who primarily have been living here for 16, 17 years, decades and it is hypocritical for us to say they should not be allowed to stay when, in fact, if they all left that they were all deported it would cost the taxpayers an enormous amount of money but secondly if they all left the entire economy would collapse. Lets recognize that we have not had a system that has allowed them to do the work they need but to also stay and they are americans in all ways except that piece of paper. Give them a path to citizenship and allow them to come out of the shadows and be full contributors and understand when they do that. Host by the way, that position seems exotic because the way President Trump talks about the undocumented but that concept that you were here a half decade ago got republican support because they understood that if nothing else our food supply chain, farms, our meatpacking plants when when they simply dont work without that population. Guest that is right. In spite of what trump has said, what you said is exactly right. There is still substantial support for a path to citizenship. It is kind of amazing given the demonization the jump is done but, you know, my [inaudible] who are staunch republicans in Eastern Washington and visit the chamber of commerce there is a clear sense they are that we need a path to citizenship and comprehensive and humane reform just as it is clear to human rights activists that might get there for Different Reasons but for everybody people understand we need to fix the system. Third, jim, i would say we need to make sure that we have humanitarian ways for people to continue to see the United States as that beacon of hope and light. Our asylum or Refugee Resettlement processes and this is another area where they have been traditionally bipartisan support. Speaker pelosi would like to talk about that the even jello goals who call Refugee Resettlement program the crown jewel of humanitarianism. I think this is another place where donald trump has destroyed everything that has to do with people seeking refuge. He is absolutely shut down the Refugee Resettlement program and we are barely taking any pre he shut down the Asylum Program and we are barely taking any and he shut off all illegal legal ways for people to come. We should be clear donald trump opposition is not just to undocumented immigrants but to all legal immigration. That is why he tried to ban student visas and it is why he tried to shut down legal immigrant programs for people who are coming here to work, spousal visas and he rolled back all of that. Lets be clear, his agenda and the agenda of the white house with Steven Miller and others around him in the white house is no immigration. This country will die without immigration and that is just clear. Host so, i agree with your statement that no president has made immigration such a toxic part of their approach but sadly however, this is at some level same old same old where chinese immigrants were talked about in the late 1800s and absolutely brutalized and dehumanized on the west coast and that is been the experience of every wave of immigrants with the irish catholics, the mediterranean immigrants and they were different and the Northern European immigrants so very strong reoccurring themes and its ironic because as you point out all of us came from somewhere unless we are indigenous to the continent so lets get behind a policy and the politics of this and on some level that is absurd that this country the president s value is all about immigration and being a beacon to the world but for 240 years practically the country has also been absolutely brutal to the latest wave of immigrants so what is going on there and how to be change that because if we dont change that there will be if it happened in the past it can happen in the future where there is a demagogue to take on the latest round of immigration. How do we change that . Guest we have to change the policy and it requires that despite of what people say. Any immigration form that is happened it happened with tremendous resistance but the president that has overseen that has actually moved forward despite any concerns that he might have about what the reaction might be because it is what is good for the country and in some ways that is what happened with civil rights and what happened with every difficult transition that a Country House to make. We dont wait for people to get polling to the right place but you just do it and you do it quickly so that you move that obstacle and political football from the fields because lets be clear, it will continue to divide us and you are right that america has had a very complex history with immigration. I talk about it in the book. Its a lovehate relationship. I think that has to do with the fact that fear of the others can be used. You see it at in Donald Trumps playbook. All work has to be for people to reconnect with our immigrant history policy is not art, jim. We have crafted policy around this over and over again. We know exactly what we need to do in that bipartisan bill in 2013 and i would change some things about it today because weve moved on from where that is but i will say that the way that you secure the United States and preserve our National Security is actually to have a functioning immigration system where you can keep track of everyone that comes in and its easy for people to come in and go out and when you have what is circular flow migration which was very popular in earlier decades but that has gone away. Build roads and bridges and you have orders that are secure but they are secure because you have systems that allow people to come in and go out, not the other way around. What we have to do is we have th district where donald trump is firing up peoples based on immigrants and you just have to stop demonizing immigrants and pass this policy. It stays out there as the thing for donald trump can go back to or any president , frankly, can go back to over and over again to try and divide us. We are not, we should not be a divided country on this because we do have a history and we do have the identity. We just have not done the policy and the policy is, you know, had we given a path to citizenship back in 2013, 2014 when the senate bill passed we would have spent so much less taxpayer dollars on all the things we have been spending in the apartment of Homeland Security and we wouldve had a far more secure country but instead were pouring money into things like walls and painting walls black when it doesnt make a bit of difference. We need the reform of the syst system. Host yeah, one of the things i try to do because even in southwestern connecticut where my district is, people come to the town Hall Meetings using brutal language against the undocumented, despite the fact that the economy of the area i represent would come to a grinding halt if there are undocumented that are shipped out. We can move onto a discussion of morality and politics but one thing that helps is to reframe and remind people of the values. When i get someone to stand up and they say a legal this or illegal that, first of all, we need to grapple with the attacks of the right wing and concerns of the people. People are not wrong to say the system is broken. We have 12 Million People living in the shadows and you dont call them illegals but they are here on in an lingo basis that is sort of an affront for the rule of law so one of the things i find works in a townhall meeting is i say, immigration policy is harding obligated we have to in knowledge who we are as a country and acknowledge what our economy requires however, we cant come to the Public Square dehumanizing people and suggesting that all immigrants are drug dealers and they are somehow subhuman. Now some of ther fervor leavs the room. And i find that a appeal to sort of core human values. Were talking about the human beings here, not about, you know, not about dehumanized entities. But lets, lets grapple for one second with, certainly, the language of donald trump and the criticism. The system in which, you know, on fox news you would be accused of supporting and coddling, quote, illegal. Terrible language, the undocumented. We all acknowledge that a system in which there are 11, 12 Million People living in the shadows undocumented is a terrible system, right . And question number two is on fox news you would be accused, the president does it all the time, of wanting completely open borders, is what he says. I assume it means uncontrolled entry by anybody who wants to come in. Can you just address those donald trump fox news fantasies . Guest yeah, i go on fox news quite a bit, and i have to laugh because im never talking to the anchor, and the anchors job is to get as explosive as possible. I am talking to the people who watch fox news because i think people are looking for a new way to think about things. I understand if youre frustrated because you havent been able to find a good job. I mean, before covid hit we had the worst income inequality and wealth inequality that weve seen since the 1920s. So i talk to people about their situations first and how do we make sure that were working for everybody in this country to have decent opportunity. Then i talk about how in that moment when you have that deep inequality, its really easy to blame somebody. Weve all been in the situation before. But dont blame the immigrants. Lets talk about your think about your immigration story and your familys history. Like you said, jim, getting people to connect back to the human part of how they came to this country. And then third, you know, in terms of the border, i always find that so funny because we are actually talking about creating a system so that you could know whos coming in and out and allow people to have the beauty of being with their families. I say to fox news hosts all the time, you guys used to be the party of family values. What happened to family values when you lock are kids in cages lock kids in cages or you separate a child from their participants from their parents for 16 years if youre filipino . The amount of time that it takes to allow a participant to be with this a parent to be with their child in this country even separate from locking kids in cages remarkable. And so if we had a system that functioned, then thats not about open borders. Thats about saying that the United States absolutelies has the right absolutely has the right to determine who is in this country and who isnt, and it should be done according to human rights values and global treaties that we sign on to. But at the same time, if you dont have that, that is when you really need to worry because not only do you not have what you need from the economy, not only do you not have what you need for security, but you also dont have what you need for the heart and soul of america, the moral value of america as a nation of immigrants, as a country that shines a beacon of light for people around the world for people like me to come here and for so many other ancestors and generations of people that come to the United States. So i find that when i go through that little litany of things quickly, i may not get the fox news hosts, but i do find that i get a lot of emails from people who are watching fox news who say to me, wow, i didnt realize that you didnt there wasnt a line. I didnt realize that undocumented immigrants pay Social Security taxes so that i can go and retire as a u. S. Citizen. They are paying my Social Security taxes, you know, i was buying this stuff that immigrants dont pay taxes and they dont do this and they dont do that. Thats just not true. [laughter] host right . Great, great, good conversation. So lets go even deeper here in sort of the substrate of policy, and lets talk about morality and politics because one of the neat things about your book is, you know, part two is all about moral vision. You talk about three different policy areas, and its all about moral vision, and your story is infused with an awareness and an advocacy for a more moral world. And i really enjoyed reading it because ive spent years thinking about the role of morality in politics, right . And the way what ive been able to sort of figure out over time that politics without morality is sort of an insane notion, right . I think we are here because we have values x people in this country have different values. We share a lot of values, but we have different values. So morality needs to suffuse everything we do as public servants. But theres a downside to moral framing which is on the extreme it will make us [inaudible] you know, if youre not quite with my world vision, well, youre immoral. And it is sometimes i see this all the time sometimes when we are really aggressive at framing things in moral terms, it makes it very to compromise hard to compromise. Something were not nope for in the Congress Today because you can compromise with a libertarian, but you cant compromise with somebody whos immoral. So im really interested in where and when morality is key and where and when we need to draw back. And immigration is interesting in this regard, right . No human can look at family separation, and i saw this down at the border and you did too where a mother is in a separate cell if their 6yearold daughter. I mean, if that doesnt light fires of moral outrage inside of you, you know, im not sure youre alive. On the other end of the spectrum though, of course, you know, immigration is immensely technical. And so questions of what is the proportion of h1b visas versus agricultural visas, that kind of stuff doesnt really lend itself to the kind of moral clarity that family separation does. So id love to hear you muse, since your book is infused with this moral vision, where is it essential to the Public Policy macking process making process, and at what point do you pull into a more, hey, lets close the door and get a deal done . Guest yeah, its such a great question. And, you know, so many one of the reviewers for my book in an interview said, congresswoman, im so depressed that your first section is called politics and your second section is called moral vision. Do they not go together . And i think this is the question youre asking. And i think that, you know, for me, it is clear to me that morality is infused through everything. I dont know what you fight for if you dont know what your own values are. And we can use, we can use the term values, because i actually think that we share regardless of whether youre republican, independent or democrat i i actually believe we shower some very core human values which is we all want the right to be respectedded, we want opportunity, we want to be treated with dignity and respect. I mean, those are the kinds of things that i talk to unirrsally with republicans in my district as well. And so i think that the thing we have to remember, jim, is that our system is not a representative system. It has led to an unrepresentative government. Now, its representative in the sense that there are, you know, 750,000 People Choose you and choose me, and we call that a representative democracy. But if you look at so much of the institutionalizedded racism and sexism that has pervaded our system for to long, the reality for so long, the reality is that the people who are in power who are making decisions have a particular perspective e of what may be moral or not. And many of the details of our policy even though it doesnt sound like it lay the groundwork for a continuation of that racism and sexism. And so or whatever ism it is. And so when you look at these policies, i do think it is very important to keep a north star there. And i think about our colleague, john lewis, who just pass away. Or Elijiah Cummings who also just passed away. Both of whom were so welcoming to me when i came into congress, and i remember saying am i fighting too hard on family separation but also on immigration and other things, and they both sort of took me and shook me by the shoulders and said you keep fighting with that urgency. Because i think sometimes politics gets reduced to the lowest common denominator. The thing that is easiest to move forward most quickly. But that is not actually the thing that gets at the root causes of what is happening that requires a much deeper analysis and fix to the solution. And so is it, you know, do we need people to agree with us 100 on everything . Of course not. Definitely not. Are there technical pieces where you can argue about how many visas here or how many people get cover average for Health Care Coverage for health care, sure, all of those things are real. But what happens is the characterizations of people, for example, the criminalization of the poor or the criminalization of immigrants that happened with welfare reform, those are detrimental to any progress moving forward. And so thats often the thing i think we have to fight about and we dont. You know . When were on the floor and the republicans want to divide us, what do they do . They use some mpr, motion to recommit, thats focused on criminalization; criminalization of immigrants, of black people, brown people x. We dont, we are too afade to take that on and say, you know what . Go ahead. You want to talk about criminalization, lets talk about who these people are. Were too afraid of 30second ad that might come for top districts. I mean, im not i understand not every district is a democratic district ooh like mine. But i do think that that is where leadership comes in. Because if we dont fix those underlying pieces of recognizing the unnate worth of all innate worth of all human beings, then that is going to hurt us on any policies we try to put forward. Host yeah, yeah. You made me think about you talk about the republican, and youre might, the mtrs are designed to split a party. By the way, we did it too when we were in the minority. Its sort offed is sad. I think we should be a little humble about the fact that both parties bear the blame guest i think they never split though, right . You were there, so you can tell me. Recognized as a word i wont use on cspan, but they recognize them as completely ridiculous and procedural, and they didnt worry about it. Host yeah. They were remark by disciplined. Lets but as long as were talking about republicans, in my opinion today, and i, when i won in 2008, i won in a republican district. Because its new england, its gotten gradually more blue, but prior to me in the 4th district of connecticut, you know, it was generations of republicans. Lets talk about, very briefly because i, theres so much in your book we need to get to, but, you know, one of the things thats really disheartening to me about Politics Today that our republican colleagues and we should say both of us have republican friends. We actually have good republican relationships. But its ring mark bl to see this party really give over its values and its loyalty not to a set of principles which we may disagree, you know . But to one man, one man who has actually taken advantage of the fact that i think democrats, and you talk about this in your book, isolated themselves from some of their traditional constituencies. So without painting too much of a cartoon or a stereotype here, you know, the fact is i think ive seen statistics that suggest that the bulk of the Labor Movement supported donald trump, or at least it was very closely split. How in the world did that happen, right in and, by the way, i see this when i go to union halls in connecticut, a lot of protrump sentiment. Theres a correlation between education in support of donald trump, gender in support of donald trump. I know you have very strong issues about not dividing, you know, people who are not on the winning segment, not in the winning category here in the United States, but it does feel to me like you look at devastated communities in ohio and the industrial midwest, the south, it does feel to me like democrats dropped the ball and that donald trump figured that out and played to those communities in a way that we bear some blame for doing. Yeah, let me just ask whether you agree with that. Guest yes, yes,sing yes. [laughter] we totally agree on that, and i talk about in my book quite a bit. Donald trump both the symptom and a cause. He is the cause of tremendous pain and divisiveness and racism and xenophobia and everything else, but he is also a symptom. He was collect elected because there were too many people across this country including those in White Working Class neighborhoods, but also black folks and brown folks across the country who were disenchanted with democrats and didnt believe we fought for them. They were confused about our stance on trade. You know, donald trump went right in there, and im not talking about what he did later, im just talking about what he did when he ran for president. He said im going to fix these unfair trade agreements, and i am going to make sure that working people across this country keep their jobs. He talked about opportunity for working people. Democrats took so long to get on board for a living wage. One of the most popular policies a across the country, health care. We ran and won on health care in 2018, thank goodness, because theyve continued to destroy health care. But, you know, donald trump has made all kinds of noises about what he believes in, making out sound like hes going to fight for the little guy. And democrats have not done enough to either show that we really are on the side of regular working people, collective bargaining rights. We should is have expanded collective bargaining rights ten years ago, but we didnt. We passed the pro act in this congress, but we should have done that a long time ago and said to our labor brothers and fors, listen, were with you. We want you to have a powerful voice for democracy on the job. And so i think that this is the hole that he came into. Now layer on top of that racism and many other things that hes used, xenophobia, fear of the other at a time when so much of the country is suffering. If the country was doing well, jim, some of this wouldnt have worked, but the country was not doing well. 60 of americans did not even have 400 in their bank account before covid hit. So this is where he came. And i think for us as democrats, we have to remember two things going into the next election. Number one, a base is critically important. You and i are pulling for joe biden to be president of the United States. It looks like joes got bidens got a big lead on donald trump, but i would say be extremely careful because when they take out likely voters and they factor in for enthusiasm, that lead drops substantially. So dont think that we dont need our base with us. We need young people, we need folks of color in all places because michigan, we need everybody to turn out. Turnout matters in these places. And then secondly, you know, i think that when biden is elected president , we have to be bold. We have to recognize that austerity spending hurts us, that if we dont invest in people, in education, in housing and opportunity and transportation, that we will ultimately worsen these inequalities and there will be an opportunity for another donald trump to come and win. So were going to have to be bold, were going to have to step up, and were going to have to invest in our communities and then hopefully we keep the white house in 2024. Host yeah. I agree fervently that there is a great deal more commonality and agreement across the political spectrum particularly on economic issues. You know, you and i would have probably slight disagreements on Economic Policy because we come from different tribes within the Democratic Party, but theres no doubt that, you know, those things consistent and universal availability of health care, a reasonable shot at an education, i dont care what your socioeconomic circumstances are, if you can be persuasive around providing that, youre going to appeal to everyone. I would draw a distinction here, and theres a really interesting part in your book that i want to highlight here. I think its a little harder in the realm of social issues, and i see the republicans because they recognize that we win if we have an honest economic debate, we win that all day long. Look at their tax plan, delivered 83 of its savings to the top 5 . Look at their policies. They realize that we win the economic debate if these the debate. But instead they try to paint the democrats as coastal elitists that are obsessed with genderneutral pronouns and, you know, they use a lot of dark language about people who are different, people who worship differently, you know, who love different lu. Differently. And i think thats a little harder conversation, and i see that in my own district sometimes. Why . Because weve made incredible progress theres a light going off in my office. [laughter] acknowledging that we have a long way to go in this country. Ten years ago or eleven years ago, the fivemember delegate barack obama was famously kind of outed for Marriage Equality by joe biden. So weve seen dramatic change. And some of the change is, i think, scary to people who come from more conservative areas than you and i live in. And theres this wonderful page in your book here where you have a nonbinary child who wishes to be referred to as [inaudible] and, of course, the right wing makes all sorts of condescending pronouns, and theres this thing that says you should use pregnant people instead of women throughout the piece to give acknowledgment to trans and nonby their people nonbinary people. That shows a great deal of care for people who have traditionally been at best or marginalized, at worst targeted. But i think you would agree that that, i mean, i read that page and i thought, man, this is a separate way of thinking than i thought. My question at the end of that long speech is how do we make sure that we are bringing people in and saying to ourselves perhaps, you may not be quite as far along the journey as others, but we want to help you rather than being condescending or attacking you or i calling you bigoted. Because, quite frankly, thats not just what the republicans say about us, but when a president ial candidate calls people deplorables, when we call somebody who is struggling with these issues bigot9, i think we bear some blame. So, again, its a remarkable page in your book. How do we get to people in a graceful and constructoff way on social issues . Constructive. Guest well, you know, i have this phrase that say, i always approach life with generosity and abundance, not with scarcity and fear. And i think about that when i talk to people about having a nonbinary child. My mother, i mean, my mother is in understood ya and, you know, he took a whole course when jenna came out as nonbinary, and she still cant get the pronounce nouns right pronouns right, and thats okay because she loves them. I try to come at it from the love of a parent and to talk about how we want our kids to be free to express who they are. And when people have have trouble with that, it doesnt necessarily turn me off of them or make me judge them because i myself had to go through my own process. I still sometimes refer to him as key because for 20 years, thats what he was. So i think that sense of understanding and intention is really important. But i also think that everybody wants to be seen, jim. Everybody wants to be seen and visible for who they are. And those identities are so critical and fundamental to minute being able to be seen. To somebody being able to be seen. I think we should continue to be loving and generous and call people in. I try not to judge people, its why i really had problems with republicans who were talking about nonbinary people in the most dehumanizing of ways. It wasnt just saying i dont understand, they were talking about people in dehumanizing ways, and that is my child. That is unacceptable. So, of course, i had to speak out. But i also think the other thing is there are so many points of connection, and we dont have to agree on everything in order to respect each other. Theres, you know, im in a very democratic district, but im in a state that has a top two primary which means that the top two vote getters go on to the general election, so most of the time im facing another democrat in my election. And when i was running for the state senate, i decided i was running against another democrat in the general, and i decided that i should go talk to republicans because theyre 20 of my district, and poor things, they dont have a republican to vote for, so why not me . I went to talk with them, and i had this story in there. It was a beautiful sunny day, i went out to these republican households and, you know, they were identified on my walk sheet as republicans. And i go up to this one guy, and hes out there cleaning his harley, hes a big, burly guy, hes got a bunch of tattoos, and i have maybe some stereotypes in my mind about how this conversation is going to go, but i love talking to people no matter who they are. So we ended up getting into this wonderful conversation, and guess what . He agrees with me on 15 minimum wage, he agrees with me on collective bargaining. He agrees with me on a whole bunch of to things, actually also on immigration. I dont start with it, but he agrees with me, and then he asks me about guns and how do you feel about guns. I say, honestly, i dont like em. But i understand second amendment, my husband used to hunt. I dont tell him that my husband is now a buddhist and a e vegan, but its true, he used to have guns in his home. And we have a conversation. It becomes clear that were not going to agree on this issue of guns. I just new it should be responsible just like if you drive a car, you need a license. You need to be responsible about your guns. And he says, oh, god, youre one of those democrats, youre going to take my gun away from him. And so its time to move on, and i said can i have your vote, and he said i was ready to give you my vote, but then we got to the gun conversation. And i just dont think i can do out. His wife was standing there, and i shade how long have you been married to your wife . 23 years. I said, wow, thats amazing. Do you agrees agree on 100 of issues . He laughed and said of course not. I said, well, you married her im just asking for your voice. And he absolutely is still for a moment, cracks up, takes my hand says, you know what . Youre a different kind of politician, so im going to vote for you, but you try and take my guns away, im going to on your behind. And he did vote for me. And so i think we dont have to have everyone agree with me, but we should be authentic, we should be real, and we should be okay with them disagreeing with us just as we might disagree with them. Host yeah. Thats a wonderful story. I really enjoyed it. Its a good thing that the story broke the way it did. Host all you can do is look at us sitting on the floor of the house of representatives. And again, withouter the yo with typing too much stereotyping too much, the other party is not. You look, and ill just put it this way, if you look at the other party, its almost exclusively white guys, right . So we i spend a lot of time thinking about cohesion within our party because we dont win if we dont have cohesion, if we dont embrace our different points of view. And one of the things that was really fun about your book is your attitude of one of being open and graceful with people with different views. Theres one area that i would say where that tone changes a little bit which is in the lawyer of medicaid for all and this, of course, is a very difficult topic. I think we mishandle it within the Democratic Party. Why do i say that . Pretty much every other industrialized country disease disease does it better than we do. Great britain has a nationalized system where everybody works and has a hybrid system, canada the world demonstrates lots and lots of Different Health care systems. Your discussion of medicare for all i came away thinking manager i feel sometimes within debates which is that the progressive wing really thinks that medicare for all is the way. You know, in your discussion here it becomes, you say the polls out there that are spreading lies about what medical care for all i got the impression which was actually discordant with the rest of the book that, and i get this impression elsewhere in discussions, in internal discussions in the Democratic Party that the supporters of medicare for all and, by the way, i should say this, i spent a lot of my time, even though i had some issues with it, defending medicare for all, because we use it and lots of other countries use it. Its hardly ad call, exotic ideas. But i did sense a little change up until now when youre talking about medicare for all. Is that because this is such a critical issue in which we fall so short of where we should be, or is it because and youre more of an expert on health care than i am really thats the system that works for the United States . Well, i think its two things. I really believe its a system that should work, and by that im not saying that the everything that is in my bill, 1384, is the only way. People would say to me, you know, how come you have a twoyear transition, you should have have a fouryear transition. You put the legislation forward, and theres got to be changes. If we ever get to the point where were talking about a twoyear or a fouryear transition, fantastic. Im ready to have that conversation. But i think that i do believe that a universal Health Care System that is paid for by the government and that is, or is coordinated by the government, i should say, the main conduit and its not tied to employment or any other factor, that that is absolutely what the United States should do. Finish and that is, in fact, what most other countries do. Yes, there are some changes here and there, and there are some countries that are starting to change in different directions. But most countries do that. And maybe they have a little bit here and there for the private sector. That is not our system today. And the reason for some of what you accurately pick up in that chapter is i have been very frustrated by the attacks on medicare for all from our own party. So it isnt that people are saying, you know what, pramila, that is absolutely the goal we should get to and, you know, lets talk about some of the issues that are here, and lets debate them. Thats not what happens. People say, oh, its absurd. You cant get rudd of employercover canned health care because health care from employers offers so much choice. And for years, jim, i kept saying what choice do you have when you lose your job . I mean, i also had host yeah, yeah. Guest what happens, what choice when your employer picks your health care . Your Health Insurance company tell you which dos you can go to doctors you can go to, that doesnt sound like choice to me. The program with the greatest choice is medicare. But now nobody is making that argument as 45 million americans have filed jobless claims and 27 million lost their health care because they lost their jobs. Host yeah, i know, i went through the Affordable Cares act. Guest so thats the frustration i have, that theres this sense that somehow were naive and eyed lislist. Idealist you can. And the crossdiscussion drived me absolutely crazy because i do have a very clear sense of cost and mixes, and i economics, and i keep telling you if we keep going with this system, we are going to be paying 50 trillion over the next ten years. Nobody wants to talk about that. They only want to talk about the cost of a a medicare for all system which everybody acknowledges is less than that. So that is the reason for my frustration, is that i feel like people within our own party, for whatever reasons i wont attribute reasons. I have my thought abouts about it, but for whatever reason, they refuse to acknowledge that our system of health care was never a system, and we are seeing it right now with the covid19 pandemic. Host yeah. Guest and the fact that africanamericans are four times as likely to die than white americans. Latinos, nine times it is as likely to be hospitalized as white americans. Partly because they never had health care, and they were never able to pay for even the treatments that they needed which left them exposed with all the underlying conditions that caused covid to take hold. So its a travesty to me, and i get worked up about it, and i am a happy to have the discussion with anybody. But i find that people dont even want to have the discussion, and that bothers me. Host yeah, no. And i tell my constituents all the time, we are the very definition of inefficiency e and immorality because we dont cover everybody. We pend far more money for far worse results. And so, obviously, something needs to be done. Anyway, great guest just one hopeful note there, jim, for you is, you know, i just finished cochairing the bidensanders health unify unity task force. I did not turn joe biden into bernie sanders. However, we made tremendous progress on what we can achieve as a party for our platform. Its not sufficient, but we did make treg progress in terms of the biden platform for the Democratic Party on achieving universal health care. Host yeah, look, thats how we won in 2018. Our Health Care System is a mess. My freshman term we fought and nail for the Affordable Care act, so its something which we need a lot of work. I think we just need to be humble about the notion and in some circumstances suggesting that the [inaudible] we need to be humbled about the notion that there are a lot of end points. Japan, great britain, canada, france, they all do it differently, they all do it better. But i think if we can overcome the lies, the death panels and socialism and all that, if we can overcome the lies, this is how the Democratic Party reconnects with an awful lot of mar marginalized. I think were way over time, and ive never done this before, im not a talk show host, but hints book shelves now [laughter] by my good friend and colleague, pramila jayapal. Guest jim, thank you so much for, you know, reading the book and for just having is such a wonderful conversation and for everything that you do in your readership. Its a pleasure to serve with you. Host thanks. Youre watching booktv on cspan2. Every weekend with the latest nonfiction books if authors. Cspan2, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider. This afternoon President Trump will deliver remarks in yuma, arizona, on immigration and border security. Watch live coverage beginning at 5 15 p. M. Eastern here on cspan2, also online at cspan. Org, or you can listen with the free cspan radio app. Our lye coverage of the democratic live coverage of the Democratic NationalConvention Continues tonight with congresswoman alexandria ocasiocortez, former president bill clinton and former first lady dr. Jill biden. Live coverage of the Democratic National convention tonight at 9 ian on cspan. Eastern on cspan, Live Streaming and on demand at c cspan. Org dnc. Cspan, your unfiltered view of politics. Host well, joining us now on booktv is senator joni ernst, republican from iowa. Shes written a new memoir, and its called daughter of the heartland. Senator ernst, what prompted you to write this book at this time . Guest well, and thank you, peter, so much. This has been just a journey of love for me. I grew up in