Joining, there are three different ways to join. You can watch for free on the Library Facebook page and you can purchase a copy of the book for ten dollars and pick it up at your local branch after the release page or as is tonights case you can purchase the enhanced experience and receive a copy of the book and have dinner from a local restaurant delivered to your door the night of the program and watch. You can read about all of those menus on the website and while you are there you will see in the coming weeks we welcome sonja as many of you may remember from sesame street. And on october 202nd we welcome american poet and civil rights activist. There are a lot more. All of these events with the enhanced experience where you get a special meal delivered to your home. I would be remiss if i didnt mention none of this would be possible without the generous Financial Support of the Library Legacy foundation to host programs like tonights conversation and countless other programs and services that are still vital to the community. We are also incredibly grateful for our supporting sponsors and community sponsors. Our program tonight is being recorded and uploaded to the Youtube Channel and chat functions for questions at any time and we will get to them as soon we can. Im so pleased to introduce the moderator for the evening who served as the first female senator elected in 2013 to 2019 and during those six years she worked across the aisle to fight for north dakota. She showed we can Work Together for solutions and she served as the attorney general and states tax commissioner. Also founder and chair of one count country project focused on the needs and concerns. Please join me in welcoming heidi heitkamp. Guest thank you for having me. This is going to be a fun night and the conversation. If you are from parts of the country we would say grab your favorite friday night beverage. We know what they are. Now let me mention the featured author hardworking productive member of congress which involves getting down in the dirt with democrats and republicans alike and in average american from the small town who grows organic food on his farm and is also a u. S. Senator the tester shares lessons from the early life on and off the farm and what it can teach the Democratic Party about connecting voters across the country. We welcome the honorable senator. Thank you very much. We will get into it in a second. This should be a lot of fun. An explanation of what the library is doing you cant get a better combination than that. It doesnt get any better than that and so i want to thank the library and all of the sponsors and everyone that supports it and most importantly the folks that tuned in tonight because hopefully we will have a little fun and pique some interest. Thank you all for viewing. Im going to get out of here and step aside. I want to start by saying when john tester was running and we found that he was making headway in montana, we could recognize early on he came to the United States senate before i did but when i showed up and was doing a lot of campaigning, someone came up to me and offered he said you know i know who you are. You are john tester the first. And weve always had a good chuckle about that. I think that when you come from places we come from and struggle as a democrat in places trending more and more republican, its difficult to see how you cut through that. I was able to do it once and john was able to do it three times. When i read his book i was so intrigued by the stories in the book, the stories that formed his life. But also where the title of the books come from and if you read the book, when you read the book, you will experience that sense of where that comes from. But i want to ask you first how is it you came about the title and what does it mean to you . Its kind of interesting because by the time we came up with the title it was a joint collaboration between my former chief of staff who did a marvelous job and myself. And i will tell you i think we came about it for a couple of reasons. We just finished and we farmed the ground so theres that angle and then the influence whether its my parents, my mother particularly, and my grandfather or i went to a very small school and had about 160 kids and nine through 12. But the people in that school were like family. It was a small school because i started first grade and graduated the teachers and friends also was a part of the grounding but most of all im not somebody that bounces off the walls. Its critically important for this country. Right now President Trump has folks up in arms and rightfully so but i do think that we need to think what this country needs Going Forward after this president has long been retired. I want to start with each one of these aspects of your life because as you know, i knew right away when i saw the title it was going to be much more nuanced but i want to talk first and foremost about the place. He represents what we are seeing much in america which is that kind of exploitation of working people but yes that is what brings us back and i have to tell you when you talk more than once in the book about your mother how you could smell the soil i dont connect with that because i know that now. I know that theory of organic matter coming up from the soil. Talk a little bit about your connection and how you ended up being an organic farmer. My great grandfather, we dont know why grandma and grandpa moved out here and they moved out and part of it was influenced to sell folks a bill of goods for a better life and my grandmother didnt get along very well. They were both very strong but the best in the world if you look at it today knowing both of those regions as we do now it made a lot of sense and they said things looked really, really good. This is the spot. Im going to tell you in retrospect if you look at this area its a hard time supporti supporting. My grandfather went out and was trying to make a living like we did in the red river valley. Its amazing because we have been able to survive. Let me kind of put this in perspective it was because of the homestead act. You want to talk about tough people, they were tough people. Folks were making a living out here and covered things like be bad trade deals. Its nothing compared to what they went through and so that grounding to what they went through is Pretty Amazing. Im talking too much and then im going to let you go. When my grandmother and grandfather came they planted all sorts of crops some of the more successful and some of them werent and one of the reasons that we moved organics is we didnt get along with the chemicals very well. The prizes were very, very dictated at the markets with way too much consolidation. There itheres lots of people fo and people that may not have ever experienced a rain on the great plains and the beauty from what the landscape looks like. Its a beautiful, beautiful spot and a real opportunity to be whoever youre going to be. Those are your people who gave you their courage Going Forward. I will tell you what my wife says after a nice rain and we had one here and by the way we did about 12 on average per year, so its not much but it can sustain by my measure. I had to fly back to dc and they said this is what heaven smells like. Its the most marvelous smell that you will ever come across. Its sweet and refreshing. Theres nothing else like it. I was struck reading the book about how you have been thrown your entire life by strong women and the fact. It was unheard of at the time when women were not Getting High School degrees how do you think the commitment to education affected your life so much . It was a foundational issue for me she has a son and then three girls. They all ended up with degrees and using those degrees and it just kind of shows she passed away when i was 16 in 1973. She was always with it and looking towards the future. She was always looking towards the future and thats what she was doing for their kids, tomac and knew the value of a College Degree this is just amazing to me. Especially when people are getting denigrated for having a College Degree which doesnt make any sense whatsoever. But she understood you have to have a strong k12 Public Education system and she supported it not only with her actions but with her pocketbook and understood if they were going to have a chance in this world, they needed to go to college and get a degree. Its different than today. And i understand what their endgame is and it drives me crazy because i wasnt brought up that way. You know growing up the way that we did, my grandmother her parents were from germany and my grandfather was from norway and they believed this democracy was dependent on people being educated and people appreciating education and i think when you look at education available to everyone and free and you look at it now where theres kind of this sense that thats not part of what we need to do in america and its frightening what you are confronting. Ive been watching the inability of congress to provide resources to Education Systems right now for struggling to make sure the school is safe and the teachers have the resources they need and that we continue to educate the kids. And we have to stand up for Public Education. And the fact that you come from strong women which might be why i like you quite a bit because you understand and appreciate all of the values, not just those traditional male values and so women have kind of had a big influence on your life. And i think that is reflected in your priorities in washington, wouldnt you think . Absolutely. My mother was a very strong person. Short of being my mother i watched her cope with things throughout life and she could prioritize and get things done and stay focused. She was just an amazing human being. They went to college and became teachers and taught as did i and quite frankly we have teachers throughout the family and it bothers me when people go out and say teachers dont work hard or teachers are expendable. They are not. They are frontline folks that have almost as much an impact and in some cases more than the parents do. I had to smile when i was reading about your love affair with charlotte. You dont put it that way. You talk about how beautiful she was and how you competed for her but i think sometimes people wonder is that genuine, is that real and i can tell you what an amazing story you have because without charlotte, there is no john tester. So i just wanted you to talk a little bit about your family and how that relationship is. We got married pretty young. I just turned 21 and she turned 19. Weve been married for 43 years and quite frankly, we have had happiness and sadness and went through good times and sad times and its all of the above. The reason is because she, like my mother was focused on whats best not shortterm, but longterm, and she is somebody who quite frankly when i start saying things that may not be the best things to say, she kicked my butt. She will either take me apart easily verbally and take things back to prospective. Shes somebody there as an anchor and thats what she is. Incredibly helpful for me, and i am the same for her. It makes me a better father and a better teacher when i was a teacher and School Board Member and certainly it makes me a better senator and thats because shes there keeping life in perspective for me. Host in this age of people being cynical and thinking you have to say that, how genuine that is and how fortunate i am at the kind of same relationship as someone who loves you unconditionally and believes in you unconditionally and whose goals they share and are willing to sacrifice for the public good you are trying to promote. I think good communication and honest communication is important. Its important in business and critically important in government and charlotte has taught me how to communicate. I havent had a chance to meet your daughters, but i know the love that hes experienced. To be grounded as a family and finding space. I want to talk a little bit about your two teachers. You talk about them quite a bit. Theres a funny story at the end of the two teachers are someone you identified as coach, and i noticed the teacher that was positive in your life you identified by their name and so i want to talk about how that is the yang yang of motivation and how both of these teachers motivated you to be the person you are today. I will preface this by saying today the teacher i wasnt fond of and i have a tremendous amount of respect for and see him once a year, just happened to run into him [inaudible] bygones or bygones but the truth is when i was in high school, it was a small school on the people wanted you to play football and basketball and run track and do all this stuff and quite frankly, i helped my dad on the farm a lot and so football didnt really work most first third of the season and missing Three Fingers due to a meat grinding accident so i think maybe they thought i couldnt play basketball as well and maybe they were right. So, there was a little bit of unfair treatment quite frankly but i lived through it and there were some things that absolutely turned out to be true. We were not thinking for ourselves and i hated it because i knew what the name actually meant and i wasnt a follower, but it motivated me to not only prove him wrong, but to go to college and get a degree and be successful, period and of my speech teacher after athletics i decided to give a speech which was the best decision in my life and i did the speech and debate and speaking and he was an amazing teacher and amazing man and motivated even if i did things as well as i could he would say you did that great and heres why you did a great. If you want to improve on something, maybe take a look at this. And i tell you i would literally run through walls for that guy. He was an amazing teacher, just an amazing, mastered teacher and respected a lot of kids. I dont think you will hear anybody tell a different story than itel, that he was a positive influence. He passed away a few years ago but the truth is when he was alive, every once in a while call him up and say what do you think about this or what would you do if you were in his shoes and he was just a good guy. There were just two different ways that motivated me. One of them i didnt like much, but it was effective. [inaudible] when you feel like you have something to prove, you can do some Pretty Amazing things. I remember, john, when i graduated from law school, neither one of my parents went to college and we were First Generation College goers. I called up my dad and said i graduated from law school. Youve got to take that test, meaning the bar exam. Said he was always setting the bar a little bit higher, always challenging me to reach a little higher and not be satisfied where i was at. Thats what i think is the beauty of education and educators. I can tell you when i talk to kids behind their parents and grandparents, the people that have had the most amount of influence in their life are educators. Not the United States senator or governor. Its the person they know that supported them for good or bad that propelled them forward. Im going to take some questions. Someone asked this from the audience. They said my 15yearold son would like to get into politics. What advice would you give him today based on your Life Experiences and what advice should this gentle man or woman pass on to their 15yearold son . Different people take different grounds of Public Service and i would tell you i think the best thing a person could do it 15yearsold is look around their school and say how can i make this place better and then get some kids together, talk to your teachers and administrators and make sure they are okay with it and work to make the place better. If its not the school, its a town. Walk up and down the street and say maybe its just cleaning off the sidewalks or removing the leaves in the leaves start falling. But started b start by making yr community a better place whether it is your school or in front of your house or wherever it might be and try to bring people along to join you. People Pay Attention to that. People my age Pay Attention to kids working to make the world a better place and we remember those people. They say can you help us out here, you remember that kind of stuff so thats what i would do. I had a different route. I spent the first 20 years doing local Public Service with the school board and i was on the organic certification board. I never thought i would be a u. S. Senator. It wasnt something on my radar screen, but because i did those things, when i did decide to run for the state legislation which was on my radar screen when i was in high school, it made it a lot easier because people knew i would work and accomplish things and move the ball forward so i would say look at your community, find out where you can make a difference, get some folks to help you and make a difference. I want to turn to some other questions coming in, but i do want to talk about some shared experiences that we had here and obviously the big difference is you survived in montana and lets see, the authenticity, the sense of community, sometimes in politics you just get lucky with the right opponent and you get people that take it for granted. One of the things i was struck by in the book, you were talking about each one of your individual campaigns and how each one had a different job. From the primary to running against an incumbent to running against a sitting congressman who thought he was going to win and then running again the year donald trump was after you big time. Each one of those experiences, im struck by the fact. Youve never been afraid to come in and lets get ready to rumble. But somehow these opponents seem to be afraid of you. They try to make me into Something Different than i was and themselves different of them they were. Its hard unless you are who you are and that might have been the problem. If the election where i beat the incumbent in 2006 stated that, i really doubt i would have one because quite frankly things were starting to turn the wrong direction but i got lucky and we had a hell of a campaign by the way. Sometimes that doesnt matter and the best person doesnt when. You do the best you can do but when it comes to debating im not sure if it changes peoples minds but it does a lot to your own selfesteem. I think it really helps if you go out to the other venues. That makes a big difference, the positivity that you put out and its all driven by the debate. Its why you feel there are some stories. We see it right here in north dakota. Its turned into anger and fear and so how do we get back to having those conversations in your cases a town of 90 people i grew up with. You knew who the democrats and republicans were but they figured out how to fund but people dont think that is what the political system is doing right now. How do we get back to that value we grew up with watching politics. Its being able to work across the party lines and compromise and being able to get things done. I will just be frank with you. I am a moderate if there are two people that would have been willing to roll up their sleeves and work with the president , it certainly would have been me and heidi heitkamp. The president s reaction to that was to slam everything like he does anyway. Anybody that says anything about the response is always negative rather than look at himself. Its always somebody elses fault. Trump is an incredible divider. Ive never seen anything like it in my life. I will tell you this when i first got there, george bush was president and i wasnt a fan of the iraq war. I found george bush wasnt a bad guy at all. He was a pretty good guy. I was at the white house a couple of days and i didnt have that opinion after talking with President Trump. My thought was he is very, very selfcentered and he isnt looking out for what my constituents want. Hes looking out for what he wants and his best interest, not the countrys best interest. The reason that is important is because when you go down the street, youve got to be able to find something you have in common. If you have a d by your name he denigrates you. [inaudible] at that level and i think that Rural America was looking for Something Different than what they had gotten in the last eight years of the obama administration. And if we as democrats dont acknowledge that, we really are fooling ourselves. What lessons have you learned in the last campaign and this last cycle what lessons have you learned and what advice can you give somebody running in a state like montana and north dakota. If you dont show up you cannot make a victory. Dont try to be something youre not. And by the way i think this works everywhere. Listen, dont tell folks what you think they should know. Let them tell you what they know and then try to find Common Ground and move forward in the conversation in a way that can make positive change. I would say those are three things and if you want to compare for example joe biden and donald trump in Rural America, joe biden has some real positive advantages. He wasnt born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Hes had to work for everything. He believes in Public Education and a foundational issue to the country. He thinks Social Security and medicare need to be around for generations to come and that we should take care of our veterans and treat them with responsibility and respect and he believes in infrastructure. Those five things that i just listed our things the democrats stand for. They absolutely believe in those things. You take a look at what theyve tried to do with obamacare and Public Education what they tell you to do with medicare and Social Security. We have to fight like hell. They worked with me to get it covered and to get the presumptives covered for cancer like the Vietnam Veterans exposure to toxins. Agent orange, so all of those things are in our camp we just need to talk about it and make sure people know what democrats are fighting for but weve got to show up to do that. People asked me did trump do better than you did in north dakota and i say as you move west in montana by that, i mean, in the appreciation we have for the Natural Resource that promotes tourism and provides you with that experience. Im not saying north dakota isnt beautiful, but i spent a lot of time in your state and these are beautiful places. We have a question from the audience about how can we convince people if we are only on this earth a short period of time and have to treat it accordingly what would be your advice and how do you talk about in a conservative state t talk about your ethics and values . I dont know if the person that wrote that has read my book or not but you have to read what i told my grandkids. It is a fact our kids and grandkids will not have the opportunity. You said we are the first generation to the baby boomers will be the first generation in American History that inherited from our parents and we inherited a free world and infrastructure and the belief in community and we are borrowing from our kids and leaving nothing positive behind. That is a condemnation of baby boomers that we cannot escape but its not too late for us. Its not too late but the truth is that is an example. We should make it better for our kids. If you have dirty air and polluted water, now in a third world country [inaudible] all you have to do is look around the earth and you can see what works and what doesnt and lets just go with what works. What works is making sure we take care of what we have so when we pass it on to the kids not only are we able to enjoy it but they are, tomac. Im not talking about camping but water without getting sick. Its absolutely imperative. We ought not to be screwing it up. I was struck in your book because i think a lot of people are curious about farming and certainly about organic farming but i was struck by the fact when you were talking about irrigation, what that does for the soil that makes it even more alkaline and understanding the ground we are standing on. In my office my staff is like we are going to have a big column like 5 feet. We have to secure it because what we do is production agriculture. You have a unique perspective in the United States senate there is nobody else like you. One of the reasons i hate to say this because you and i have so much fun back and forth you are truly a unique character in the United States senate. Coming from the places we come from i think we have a unique perspective about the job of being a United States senator and also a unique perspective of the responsibility of citizenship. Let me for a minute to talk about that responsibility and citizenship and how john kennedy inspired you and me and said ask not what you can do but what the country what you can do for your country. How do we reestablish that sense of responsibility to each other in these difficult times . It goes back to that question the lady asked about her 15yearold son. How you make the world a better place and that is what we should all be trying to achieve. We take care of the planet and you give it to your kids in a better shape than you got it. We are 45 days away from an election. Its about making sure that we vote. Thats how this country works. The most important thing we can do is voting yet the larger percentage of the folks out there dont vote. They need to vote because this is their country, tomac and their voice is very, very important moving forward. So its about looking around, and its about making your world and the people that live in your world better. Ive never lived in a big town and ive lived in this place basically 64 years and went to college back and forth but now basically ive lived here my entire life and if you dont try to make the world a better place i think that is the definition of citizenship. It certainly is a big issue. Let me deal with this just for a second. You know what, thats what happens when you have brothers but i just hung up on him. Where the hell was i. [laughter] talking about we might have to drive a little further but accessibility is important no matter where you live. But that doesnt matter and we still need access. I would hope Public Education is just as important as it is in Rural America. I hope its a high priority and if it isnt, we need to make it a high priority. That is something else. I can tell you that i think the average farmer is 59yearsold i think the last statistic i saw so things like Social Security and medicare are really, really important and by the way, infrastructure, the roads and bridges, broadband, trying to make sure, if this pandemic has taught us anything weve got to have good broadband. I dont know that theres anything out there. We may look at Climate Change differently, but i dont think its a massive difference. The key to solving these issues, and it is a tough issue by the way, its getting folks to the table, listening to people and finding that Common Ground moving forward on things so people dont think they are being attacked. I think its the same thing in urban america. Bring people together, let them say their piece, find out where the Common Ground is and move forward. So i dont know. I cant think of something when im asked this question and im asked quite a bit, first generation in america and new york city [inaudible] he or she wants good Quality Health care if they get sick. They want to be close to their parents and to experience the American Experience of homeownership. None of that is different. And we spend so much time in this country trying to divide the country by demographics and regional differences, and at the end of the day, the america that i know is in america wa with the same common values. Frequently you see this is real america. All of america is real america. And everybody is entitled to those economic opportunities. But the one thing we know is we have additional challenges but the dreams and aspirations are almost identical so what you are going to see in any part of the country. And to me, thats part of why we started the one project to reconnect the party to Rural America and one thing we are proud of as democrats as we are the party of fdr. And john, i love your book because you talk about how your grandparents were fdr democrats. That is the tradition i grew up in because they believe in keeping people on the farm and keeping the family farms viable. That is the legacy. Lets talk a little bit about that. That small family farm, and you talk about this in the book about eisenhower not being popular with farmers and the secretary of agriculture said you have to be to be successful. Wisconsin if you dont get bigger, you are not going to survive. That isnt the job, the job is to figure out how we get every farmer to survive and thrive. If we consolidate the food chain that way, thats a disaster for our National Security in my opinion. And i know you share that [inaudible] and its a disaster for Rural America and across the board. It was a very difficult time and fdr came in and made sure the government had our back and quite frankly i remember that. All this talk about the government being bad. Look, the government needs to be, you need to watch the government to make sure that it doesnt overstep the truth is the government plays a very Important Role in this nation. In job creation and making sure things work. Take a look at the pandemic for example. If we have a federal level that worked as well as the government in the state level, this pandemic wouldnt be nearly as big of a problem as it is today. And that is because the guy at the top doesnt get it. But fdr did. And because of that, my grandparents attributed our ability to stay on the farm during the most difficult times in the 1930s. We complain today but it isnt anything like it was back then. And because of that, from 43 to 1978 they were able to stay on the farm and [inaudible] and hopefully until my grandkids or one of my grandkids, i dont know which one, want to take it over. So i think its important we recognize what fdr did. By the way, what he did for my grandfather and grandmother, he did for every farmer around this country. We were not special. He did it for everybody. It was the greatest generation i believe, and we need to get back to that. We are up against the clock but i want to encourage everybody to access the book whether you want to listen to it on audio or it from the library, whether [inaudible] i want you to understand you are reading a book about the most extraordinary ordinary person that i know, and i know that sounds contradictory, but its about someone who is extraordinary in our political dialect today because he comes from places that all of us understand and appreciate in an ordinary life with an extraordinary personality and extraordinary family that compelled him to provide an incredible level of leadership and so i am so proud to call john my friend and be referred to. Im okay with that. Somehow that visual isnt very good. But i will leave that to you. We are going to turn back over to jason but thank you so much for the conversation. Thank you for writing this extraordinary book that gives people in toledo a glimpse of what its like where we grew up and what its like to live. It really is a remarkable book. I cant thank you enough. I want to say one more thing before we turn back to jason. My folks always said if you are pointing one finger at somebody, theres Three Fingers pointing back at you. Thank you. Love you, john. Appreciate this so much. Honestly i hope the folks watching feel as privileged as i do. We got a conversation between two friends that are so knowledgeable and specifically engaged and its a real inspiration. I appreciate you taking the time and thanks to you all for joining us. Please do pick up the book at your local independent bookseller, library, and learn as much as you can from it. Thank you for joining us tonight, and i really appreciate everything. Take care, byebye. First of all i do not believe any statue anywhere ever should be torn down by a mob that should is not my view is not appropriate we need to have a National Conversation we are beginning to about which statues were wet. The history and for my money for example the confederate generals and admirals who took up arms against the United States of america and were traders not only to their oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States but also to take up arms against the nation that included slavery. I dont think those individual pass muster to have statues put up about them there are many of them are on the country. And then probably to come to the conclusion as i have. Studying the history of the civil war so confederate generals and admirals should not be glorified for the Founding Fathers and i am well aware of the instances that my folder and point out for those who have gone after a statue of general or president grant im aware of the movement to take down statues of Thomas Jefferson who is a slave owner for example. I can understand that emotion but that is a different set of circumstances than the ones i mentioned a minute ago. So the words to make the decisions to have a collective conversation. My would be to take on the statues and the monuments of confederate admirals and generals and for my money, washington, jefferson, gt , not perfect, slaveowners, perfect, slaveowners, and the Broad Spectrum of life and times their contributions and their statues and monuments remain to be on display. And then to make the point that jefferson hold slaves. That is a valid historical point but that does not rise to the level of tearing down the Jefferson Memorial or tearing down other monuments or the president ial home so i do think theres room for a meaningful conversation. I do not believe ever mobs should be tearing down statues or anything else. Good morning and welcome to this book launch webinar featuring doctor when cheney and Vice President cheney in a conversation about doctor cheneys newest book the virginia dynasty