Transcripts For CSPAN2 After Words 20160124

Egos on both side of the house. As we unfold here today and go through this process, let me say, usually im sitting in your chair. Im answering the questions. Today im asking the questions. So bear with me as we unravel this or peel this onion. I went through the book and i saw so many interesting things about how we get to a better chemistry. How do we get to civility. How do we get things done . Just let me ask you at the outset, why write the book . Thats a great question. I think we write the book in part because we love the institution. We want to see it continue to thrive and progress and be what it can be and what our Founding Fathers envisioned for us. That takes work. It takes leadership. It takes adjustment. I worry today that because of the dysfunction, we are at a crisis point. We are going to have to take some corrective action to bring it back. This institution is only as good as the people who serve. I think we take it for granted and we have to remind the American People how fragile the government and these institutions truly are. It requires maintenance, it requires commitment to the process and to the whole spirit of what it is we need to do in it democratic republic. That is what the book is about. First of all, we both served in the house like you did so we have that background in the house and senate. Why do we write the book . Tom and i went through a lot of difficult times together and yet we managed to get a lot of things done working with president bill clinton and president bush. Over that process of dealing with the tough things like 911 aftermath and anthrax attacks and other things, we came out with a good list of things we got done and as friends. Since we left the congress, we continue to get together and our friendship has grown, and i was down in South Carolina with tom and his wife and my wife and we were talking about the growing concern in the gridlock and the experiences we had. We had some ideas Going Forward. I think tom was the one that said maybe we think about doing a book together. So that is the genesis of it. I think in many respects these are the times that thai mens souls and affect their thinking. Not only in congress but in politics as a whole, all across the country. Weve seen some things that are very unusual. We think we are at a pivotal point, a crisis point domestically and internationally with how we need to do things differently to get a result of American People and so we put it in this book. When you talk about doing things differently, the older we get, the more difficult it is for us to unwind. We think what weve been doing for the last 20 years is right. Its the best. Democrats never think their addictions are as bad as the republicans and republicans never think their addictions are as bad as democrats. Unlearning and getting to a better way, a better solution, ive often said, going into Public Service, i think we all come as principled people. Thats one of the reasons we get involved. When a better plan emerges, its not principal, its arrogance that says, or its pride that says, no, no, no. Theres a better solution, i dont like that. Senator daschle thats a better solution, but i dont dont like that. Thats not principal, thats thrive. Pride. How do we get beyond that . You make some recommendations in the book but share that with me on how we get there. How do we get over that hurdle to say and learn and lets look at best models and best practices. I think if you talk to elected officials in both parties in various parts of the country, they realize there are problems now. They dont and in the congress. We laid a predicate before we got to this with the suggestions we had Going Forward. How do you change the dynamics and move things forward . We went back and looked at history. We talked about what our Founding Fathers had in mind and the difficulties they went through. There are many times in our countries history where things were worse than gridlock, but then we talk about what we went through and i just sense that people are looking for a way to change the politics and the ugliness of what we have now. It wont be easy, youre right. I hadnt really thought about it in that way. Some of the things we suggest like bring your families with you to washington, work five days a week, everybody do one your Public Service. There will be people who say wait a minute, thats going the wrong direction. They dont want to do that. So we put it in a collage of things that we think would change the dynamics and the culture. We think it needs to happen because were not dealing with the countrys problem in an effective way, in my opinion. One of the things i think we have to do to fully exceed is to ask ourselves, what happened that got us here . I think a lot of factors overtime called this evolution to occur. I think the airplane is partly at fault here and in part because it made it so easy for people not to be in washington. They leave on thursday and come back on tuesday. Somehow we try to run the country on wednesday. Money has played a big factor, the media has changed radically from what used to be. Weve reconfigured the lines for most congressional districts. All of those things have contributed to this new environment and when you put them all together, you get the result that we are now seeing. This dysfunction. Its all exacerbated in part by some of the factors that got us here. We talk about spending time in washington. I was elected in 94 and it gave republicans the majority of for the first time in over 40 years. In that class, we kinda said were not going to live in washington. I even campaigned on the fact that i would be home on the weekends. In eight years i touchdown every weekend except for four weekends. If i had to do it over again, i would bring my family to washington. Thats the wisdom of having done it for eight years. I wouldve brought my family to washington. In terms of creating a chemistry or a culture, i find that there is not the relationships. In reading the book, you you all talk about the relationships created in the senate and each senator is assigned a number and it was interesting, talking about whose desk you were sitting in, thomas jefferson, et cetera. You know the senate is different in terms of relationships with the house. Give us some thoughts on what you all did. Some of the things you did to create those relationships. One of the things that we both feel strongly about is the need for inclusion. By that, the president inviting mayors down to the white house. We did that right after 911. President bush invited us down. He told us we had to be there at seven in the morning every tuesday. That conclusion created a chemistry among us that allowed us to deal with the real crisis at that time. It made a huge difference. The relationships that came from it really made a difference in terms of what we were able to get done. Joint caucuses, opportunities for republican and democrats to sit together and break bread together. To listen to leadership together, rather than separately. These separate caucuses dont just become things for your side. Doing things to socialize, bringing spouses together and get to know each other in a more informal basis. Thats how they used to do things. It really made a difference. We dont have any of those things anymore. None of that happens today. I think thats one of the problems. We would have a joint Conference Meeting of republicans and democrats in the Old Senate Chamber. It used to be the head of cia briefing about something or sometimes we were trying to find out how to proceed with the impeachment trial. Every time we had those joint meetings, whether it was just in the Senate Dining room or in the Old Senate Chamber, marvelous things came out of it. We heard each other out. We made decisions and we moved forward. Talk about the grand kennedy agreement. Oh yeah, this is the one where tom and i had come to terms that the house had voted to impeach the president and we were going to have to have the trial. We werent sure how to proceed. We hadnt had one of those in over 100 years. Finally, we came up with an idea that we would meet in the Old Senate Chamber and have a discussion about how to proceed. We didnt know what the result was going to be. We really didnt. I called on denny akaka of hawaii to open it with prayer. He asked for gods guidance on how to proceed. Then i asked them to tell us history about our constitutional responsibility. He did a marvelous job. Then we opened it up for discussion and people started talking back and forth. Finally, ted kennedy made some comments and then bill graham. Bill graham from texas. There are the poles of the two parties. Very liberal line of the democrat and conservative line of the republicans. It sounded like they were saying the same thing. I looked down at my buddy and he nodded and i said thats it, we had the Kennedy Graham solution. Everybody was so excited. We had an agreement on how to proceed. Tom set i think we should tell the press weve reached this agreement. We were going down the hall and i dont know which one set it, exactly what did we agree to . I think i probably set i dont really know either. Why dont we get some Key Players Like bill graham and ted kennedy and put a minute room and have them write up what we agreed to. We got the agreement and we proceeded. We did our constitutional responsibility. We didnt remove him from office but we did it in a way that we thought was fair to all and we came out the other side with the ability to go back and do legislation for the people. That was a pretty incredible achievement. Ive made this point many times in the last couple of days, the goal of the book isnt to say this is how we did it, do it like this, it was just to come up with ideas that we thought would help. We are trying to call attention on what weve accomplished but what wed really like to do is say what Lessons Learned are there from past experiences that we can apply and add a few new wrinkles, but thats the purpose of the book. One of the things i noticed in the book, you said you had senator daschles help on it and you would call him direct. I had a red phone on my desk and i only answered it in one place. It was interesting, i picked up on what you said and i kind of read between the lines that when you would explain something or articulate something or suggest something, when senator daschle said, i totally agree, that was a Pinky Promise to say were gonna take the politics out of this and were both on the same page. Today politics are exhibited in such a way, its kind of like fox and the hound, if youve ever seen the movie where they played together as kids and then they were disjointed and then they met as adults and the fox wanted to still be friends and the hound said im here to eat you, im a hunting dog. When you look at that analogy of the fox and the hound, thats kind of how it is in so many respect in Politics Today when you say i totally agree, you felt like tom is given me his word and hes gonna go and sell it to his caucus and im gonna sell it to mike conference. I dont want to talk about the bill could im not sure we did a great job, but there was one occasion where tom was with the democrats and he was pushing back on what we were trying to do. I was having the same experience in the republican conference. They didnt want to move forward with this bill. I called tom and he came outside and we discussed it. We both knew we had to get it done and tom said, ill meet you on the floor the senate in five minutes. We left our conference. We went to the floor and we said were calling this bill up now. By 9 00 oclock that night the bill was done. You have to be willing to put a little on the line. Im not sure that happens now. Its so important that you have a relationship. I trusted tom, i respected tom. Even though philosophically, we had our differences and we were leaders of opposing parties, youve got to have that open door of communication. You have to develop a trust trust. We agreed we would not surprise each other, and every now and then i would be surprised and i was prepared to say thats not cool, and we would talk about it, but i dont see that happening now where you have that courtesy. Not being meanspirited to each other is important. You all mentioned in the book, you can turn to page for the book and because of those five bullet points there, you have a good sense of what the book is about, but you all said you demonstrate why courage is such a necessary component of the leadership that you all have talked about. I think today its a little tougher on the line of speaker as it used to be. Its a little tougher on harry read as majority leader or Mitch Mcconnell as majority leader. Its a little tougher on them because weve grown so far apart. Leadership, chemistry, courage, those are the things you talk about and you touched on leadership, but can you unravel that a little bit more and give us some sense of what you had to deal with as leaders of your respective conferences, and what Mitch Mcconnell and paul ryan and harry reid and nancy pelosi today are dealing with. One of the things that is different today, even though though it was bad then, its much worse now. Its just a constant need to fund raise to stay viable politically. What that means is members get on more committees which they cant do the kind of job they need to because theyre spread so thinly. Each party has its own constituency and fundraising based. The amount of money, my last race was 50 million. Dollars. The last two senate races in 2012, 2014 were a hundred 20 million. Theyre now talking about 115 Million Senate races. So its just the incredible insatiable demand for more more money and thats one of the issues that is exacerbating all of this. It made it harder for the leaders to bring people together because first theyre not in town, secondly, theyre doing all of this other stuff that doesnt allow them to be the legislators they were a lot elected to be in third you have the special interest pressures. We were talking about how dick lugars word has name has become a verb. That i want to lose in the primary because he lost in the primary in part because he tried to find consensus. There are all those pressures that make it harder for leaders to lead, just as you suggest. I have been watching what goes on in this city since 1968 and i think i think the atmosphere is as bad as its ever been. Its for a variety of reasons. Times are different. People are different. The media is different. Now you have social media. You have 247 coverage. You have tremendous turnover in the house in the senate. A majority of the senators that have been elected in the last eight years. And, with that, youve lost some of what we call the old rules or what i prefer to call the senior statesman. John was known as the conscience of the senate. He stood up to talk about the ethics committee. People would listen. Pot that monahan would come to the floor, i would go to the floor and listen. I respected his knowledge. I dont see that now. Who are the leaders . In the house you had henry hyde. Regardless of what i was doing, if he was on the floor i wanted wanted to stop and hear what he had to say. Ron was another one. I might disagree with him but i wanted to hear what he had to say. Is that true now . I dont that happens too much. Now, this too shall pass. Its not going to pass without some leadership and courage and determination to do things differently. We do recommend some change in politics. We think there should be a Single National primary instead of all this due process that they go through now. Its endless and the campaigns are way too long. We are concerned about Civic Responsibility. Millennials. What what do they know about civil responsibility and voting and how are they forming their opinions. What do we do to get their attention and future generations . We recommend everybody do one year of Public Service right out of high school or when they get to be 17 or 18. They would have a greater appreciation for serving their country. Whether its the peace corps the military, its a combination thing. We dont want to be just how we did things, but look at history. History is littered with dysfunction and challenges. George washington almost had to resign because of the jay treaty. What we want to do is look forward and say here are some things we think would make a difference. One of the ways to cut back on expenses of campaigns is to cut back on the length of campaign. Then the question is how do you do that. When you talk about money, i think many people on both sides would agree or would say that money does drive things. Having to raise money to get elected and reelected, without throwing the constitution out the window, both of you give me your thoughts on how we might do that. You suggested that if you shorten the campaign process that would be one component, unravel that a little bit more. One of the simple things that i think we used to have and we dont have as much as we did before is transparency. Just making sure that everybody understands whos giving what and we all know the Supreme Court has ruled that money is speech and thats a constitutional issue as a result of their interpretation of the constitution. That will be a little harder to grasp. Some states have passed laws that prohibit raising money while the body is in session. There is some value to that. Just restrict fundraising. Even though it might not have limits, restrict when it can be done. If we could do that and we could sort of set up a timeframe within which campaigns could be run, all of those things would fit constitutional parameters. I think we have to explore as much as we can. What can be done without major transformations through the constitution or our statutes. I think theres a growing realization that until we do some of these things, we will be very plagued with this problem of money and ways that it influences the process that are just not healthy. The super pack is one example. This is a way to get a lot of money without knowing exactly where its coming from. I have found on more than one occasion where the socalled beneficiary of the super pack would prefer the super pack would stop but you cant have that communication. I think we need to take a look at super pacs. I think we should at least know, i always believed in instantaneous reporting and transparency. Let the people decide. Im not saying dont do it, just make sure that its open and obvious whos doing what. We all know Newt Gingrich, but thats been one of the things hes advocated for a long time, transparency and immediate reporting, et cetera. You both have mentioned money. Youve mentioned the media. Of course, when i was was elected to congress in 1994, that was a fruit. Today everybodys got iphones and instagram, tweeting internet, et cetera. I think something that has contributed to this and you spoke about this about how we can go for the next month and never talk to anybody that disagrees with us. I think we tend to become very shortsighted and even depressed today with the Cable Network of 300 plus channels you can listen to news shows that only agree with me or radio that only agree with me. I find that people dont watch news shows or current affair shows looking for the truth. They watch them to have their opinions affirmed. Ill watch fox 247 yet my partner watches msnbc 247. Now we at least talk to each other and agree to disagree sometimes, but yes thats how the culture has changed so much in the media standpoint. The media used to be the referee and now theyre the participant. I really think that something that we still havent adjusted too. There is no line any longer about objective and subjective. They like to cover conflicts. Getting a result and getting an agreement is so not sexy. But if you can have two candidates like trump and cruz going after each other, the other guys on the platform are chopped liver, so thats where the focus is. I want to encourage you senator lott and senator daschle, i want to encourage you if youre watching fox and nbc, i demand you give Andy Griffith equal time. [laughter] i do check in once in a while to see what matthews is up to. I get a little bored sometime and ill see what cnn is doing, but that is a part of the culture. Its not just about us. Its all over america. No question, i totally agree. When we do politics with only people who think like us and go to church with people who look like us and think like us, were on social media, our entire network of 500 friends, 498 of 498 of them think like us or watch the same shows, i do think that has hurt us in more ways than one. I had, as a member of congress, i had white staff and black staff. I think my white staff gained a lot of value from my culture and my family and my observation. I learned a great deal from them and got a great deal of value from them. But if were just hanging out with people who look like us and think like us, i think that hurts us. The diversity of who we are as a nation, thats the strength of america. The great debate is how do you get behind and get results . There are a lot of things we can deal with in congress that are not a war zone. Do we need to do more in Cyber Security for the safety americans future . Yes. Do we want Safe Drinking Water . Yes. Does the federal government have a role to help these communities . Of course. A highway bill, who among us thinks we need better highways and safer bridges that wont collapse . There are a few of hope out there, they did come to a broad base agreement last year which was a glimmer of hope. Jim and Barbara Boxer our total opposites but they got it resolved. Youve got some good legislators on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the capital that do have the ability. Sherman schuster of the house who did the highway bill, he had a partner in Barbara Boxer. We need more of that. We have a companion bill in the senate. We have issues that have been very confrontational. Thats one thing we advocate, pick the places where there is a deed where something good can be done. In 1995, during a time where we were in the senate and i was in the house, you all talk about vision in the book. In the house, during that time, we were talking about research and development to deal with some of the eels of america. Some of the things we were dealing with in the health arena. We were talking about opportunities for businesses to grow and create more job funding. We were thinking futuristic lee. I literally do not watch a lot of current event shows. Thats like watching a show soap opera. You cannot watch it for six months and go back and tune in for two minutes and you realize all the talking points on both sides are still the same. Eric is still doing the same old thing in adams doing the same old thing. When i was in football i used to watch all my children. [laughter] be that as it may, it seems that weve gotten out of the mold of thinking about tomorrow. Everything is right now. How do you make that happen . How do you make that happen . You have to have a leader or leaders that will stand up and make it happen. I think paul ryan has that potential. He said jack camp type guy. Without a vision the people will perish. I still believe that. Thats one thing that upsets me about the tone of the election. Were angry and frustrated. Were not to take it no more. I understand that. I hear it. But what is the anecdote. If you just want to curse the darkness or do you want to show the way to light. I want a positive message. One of the things that upset me was my republican colleagues in the last couple of elections, whats their agenda, whats their message, what do they stand for . Nothing other than we are against obama. I understand that, but what do you want to do for america . We need women and men that will spend time thinking about that and talking about that. Then you can make it happen. Before you give your thoughts on the vision thing, i remember when i was conference chairman, i was in charge of communication and painting a picture for what were doing. I used to say to make democrat colleagues, i would say being against president bushs plan isnt a plan. Now were saying saying to republicans, being against president obama is in a plan. If i dont like senator daschles plan, he would probably say to me, okay, at least ive got a plan. What is yours . What is yours . So we do, i think people and most voters do want us talking about the future. Think about the world war ii generation. If they had not given us the foundation to get out there and do it militarily in terms of our community, i think they were the greatest generation. They thought about jc watts in 1995, where he would be in the opportunities that he would have. I do think thats important. Senator daschle, please share with us your perspective on why thinking about the future is important. And not just thinking about it, but doing something about it. You really touched on one of the most important questions. I think if were going to think about the future, we have to act on our future by remembering who our future is. Our future is our children and grandchildren. My grandchildren. Their starting school and we have to teach them the importance of Civic Responsibility and the need to give back. If we want this country to continue to be great thats what we need to do. I had a firstgrade teacher who used to say that Public Service was the highest calling you could have. She inspired us to think about Public Service. It so registered with me. I would not be here today if it were not from the inspiration i got for my first grade teacher. I dont think we do enough of that today. I dont think we put the emphasis on history and civic involvement and the kind of things that really inspire the next generation. Beyond the millennials, weve been much sooner in life than that now and we need to do a better job. I think most kids grow up thinking washington must be a horror show. Why would i ever want to go to washington. I think we have to re learn that there is no send to want to serve in washington and be a part of the democratic process in a meaningful way and be involved in these debate, and changing that mindset is not only a function of congress but of teachers and communities and parents. We have to do a better job all the way through that process. The three of us have lived the american dream. My dad was a Shipyard Union worker and my mother was a school teacher. You, republican from oklahoma as a great quarterback, and weve been able to be involved and benefit from this great country that our forefathers left for us. Now what are we going to do . Thats why we wrote this book, crisis point. We are at the point where we can make some decisions how we change Going Forward to preserve this Great Republic that we have all benefited from. I worry about it. Our grandson is 17. I get him to watch the debates and give me his analysis. Its interesting to see how he views the debate participants. People need to do more of that and think about where we want education to be. Where do we want healthcare to be . Whered we want our economy to be . There are some that say what we want is nothing, we want nothing to happen. One of the arguments i make to my conservative friends as if you dont like the size of the government and the way its being run, doing nothing is not the answer. You have to take affirmative action to change what congress is doing or what the government is doing or not doing. Regulations are waiting down the american economy. What are we going to do about that . My faith teaches me that tom daschle may disagree with me or trent lott may disagree with me, but you all have just as much value as i have as individuals and human beings. You all talk, again one of the will appoints, you talked about harnessing the natural conflict that comes with the body of different ideas, different personalities. Again, you all have to deal as leaders in the senate, you had to deal with 98 other people who were elected independently of you guys. Paul ryan, nancy pelosi, Newt Gingrich, they gingrich, they have to deal with 432 other people that got elected just like they did. I think there is some builtin conflict but you put on top of that the personality, the egos, them my addiction is not as bad as your addiction, my world view is more important than your worldview. How do you harness that conflict . I think the viewers are probably turning up the volume right now to say what kind of answer are they going to give in harnessing the true conflicts that come from a body of personality and egos that you have to deal with. I say that respectfully, egos and personality, because we all have those crosses to bear. Different geographic points of view, like in agriculture. You have to find a way to bring that agriculture together that is acceptable to the south, west and midwest. I worry a little bit about sounding too simplistic but i would start with tolerance. There has to be an understanding about the importance of tolerance in the difference of religion, philosophy, politics that is so core to the value of a democracy. I think we become less and less tolerant in the last several years. That concerns me. The other word i would use his inclusion. Finding ways to include everybody at the table. So everyone has a voice but that this collective group comes together so when you finally reach a Common Ground everybody has had their chance to give and contribute. Hopefully a consensus can be born, but it starts with relationship and tolerance and communication and a recognition that weve got to find Common Ground. Lack of it, just saying its my way or the highway, is my way of a dictatorship. Thats how you define dictators who get it only their way. This country wasnt built on dictators. It was built on consensus. Before you give your thoughts on that, you mention relationships. I learned relationships from the football huddle, and when you go into war every day with people, you learn to trust them. In the locker room, those guys would say things that on the street would be politically correct. And i would think oh, thats tom. He doesnt mean anything by that. The military doesnt have that. You talk about i am a republican, that diversity and inclusion and tolerance, those words dont offend me. I think my training on that has come from my faith more than anything else. Newt gingrich used to say inclusion means inviting senator daschle and senator lott to help me bake the cake and eat the cake. Thats inclusion. The problem that has evolved over the years, i dont think you can put it on the back of any one person is that more and more of the legislative process has been from the top down. The Freedom Caucus complains about that. We have to find a way to bring it all from the bottom up. That needs to happen from committees. Im glad to see paul ryan and harry read maybe going back to regular order. Have a hearing, have a subcommittee and do some investigation. They dont have time now. Are they doing much oversight now . Not much. Certainly not in the senate. Do the subcommittee, go to the pool committee, thats where the real work and where the rough spots are sanded down so when we get to the floor you dont have 150 things to work through because its already been done. It does go back to the relationships you were talking about. Ill tell you story. When i first came came to washington in 1968 when i was 26, i was the top aide to a democrat congressman. At that time they had four roundtrips home a year. They brought their families, they did the work up here and on thursday afternoon theyd go to the capital of the medicine room. They would drink cheap alcohol and play cigars and play gin rummy which is a card game i couldnt tell you how to play to this day. Who was in that room . A liberal democrat and a conservative democrat, a republican from california, there would be eight or ten like that. They knew each other. They loved each other. Did they agree philosophically for a lot of reasons . No. Religion, region, all of it. But all of that came incredible pieces of legislation that made america what it became and what it is today. Thats why we talk so much about relationships. Thats invaluable. The job is not. In tulsa oklahoma or sioux falls, the job is not. Its here. It involves the time to do the job so we put a lot of emphasis on that in our book. You talk about those things in the book, but i got elected in the Fourth District of oklahoma. I got elected and reelected by wider margins every election. The folks in the Fourth District had a vote on me. They didnt have a vote in the Fourth District of massachusetts or connecticut. It was very difficult, i always found myself finding it very difficult to say to the people in massachusetts it or connecticut that theyre saying you dont know what youre doing or your not agreeing with me. Thats the part of being a free nation, a democracy, republic. You all talk a lot about relationships and i am big on relationships. I think they cover a multitude of areas. I remember we had a bipartisan Prayer Breakfast. I remember one woman give up personal testimonial about her mother who was 86 years old and she was involved in city council and engaged in Community Activity and community service, and up until that point, i had a certain perspective of what i thought thought or who i thought she was. Today i saw rosa about a month and a half ago and asked her about her mom. I said his mom still living, zero yes, she still living in very active. But again, that one moment in time gave me a perspective or a perception about rosa that i wouldnt have gotten otherwise had i not gone to that Prayer Breakfast to hear some of that story. Empathizing where the story is coming from makes it easy to empathize with someone. I have to put myself in toms shoes. I think often we come to our worldview honestly, our past experiences inform our worldvie. Its difficult to unlearn when we realize weve been wrong for the past 20 years. Relationships are a big thing. Theres a book about dead young soldiers and he talks about how we have 1 Million People who have given our lives so we enjoy our freedoms today. One of the last line was we give them their death, give them their meaning. Every day when you walk through the doors of the capital, we have that responsibility to give all those deaths their meaning. They gave up their lives fighting for it. Now we have to work at it to give those deaths their meaning. I hope that something every member of congress can appreciate to remember that there is a lot on the line when you walk through those doors. Giving those deaths their meaning is part of it. The junior senator from oklahoma, tom was a part of my class, it was the 94 class sworn in 95. I would walk on coals for tom and i have Great Respect for him. Hes very transparent. Tom had a really Good Relationship with president obama. It was people who didnt understand it but i thought that was a perfect picture of much of what your book talks about when it comes to relationships. They were at opposite ends on most parts of the spectrum, but they had that communication that weve been talking about. That communication led to a relationship that ultimately led to trust but they disagreed and could still respect each other. As you all know, i learned this from quarterbacking and in politics and in the youth ministry, having to make calls but the burden of leadership is sometimes heavy as you all know. It does take courage. Can you give a little more thought, if you will, on what you talk about in the book. You. You touched on it in the conversations earlier, but give give me a little more thought about your thought process in the book regarding the courage of leadership. Im not sure your caucus today in your Conference Today would allow what you were all able to do from the mid 90s on. Give some thought, or as i say, peel the onion on, define courage. I used to ask myself in the house, whyd you become a a statesman . What is a statesman . My predecessor had that reputation. Then one day i found out what it was. Its when you are sent to washington to get to know a subject and vote on behalf of the people. Thats what its all about. At some time we come to conclusions that your constituents may not agree with you, but its the right thing to do for your country. You decide im going to do it even if it cost me the seat. Thats the job i have because its the right thing to do. I think thats when you become a statesman. Thats not to say that you have to come appearance well rather than growing and maturing, but you also have to live with your conscience. You have to have the courage to do something as best as you see fit on behalf of people but then you have to communicate it. Weve had a lot of experiences in our time where we had to show leadership. By the way, we have some good leadership in washington but we dont have a whole lot of good followers. A leader is only as good as his or her followers. So you do need to reach out and explain whats going on. The one instance that i was talking about when we had the 5050 senate. Can you imagine trying to manage a place that is 5050 . But we had the majority so we had to figure out how to make that work. I said okay, look, lets divide everything 5050. Will split the money and the chairman will be republican and hell get a little ticker to run the office. I almost lost my leadership position because they thought i had given into much too early. Tom who is having what experience, same thing. People didnt think i was tough enough. We had a lot of persuading to do. We finally got through it all. It was a struggle on both sides. I think thats part of what leadership is about. Its also about realizing that whatever it is you are leading at the time, i think its healthy to realize you have that mantle for a period of time. You have to maximize that mantle for whatever time you have it. Then you have to walk away with your head up in your chin high knowing you did the best you can. I had felt like i needed to resign for the vote of noconfidence. They stood up and said what you talking about. We elected our leader. He did the best job he could. We have a job to do and its a 50 50 senate. Lets quit this argument and move forward. That was leadership by pat robert. He stood up and pulled everybody back to their senses. Unfortunately, it is tough. You take the paul ryan and john boehner, you have a lot of new members that i call the hell no caucus. They say no to everything. Thats hard to manage when you dont have the majority of your caucus with you. The same is true with harry and mitch. Theyre being pulled by the left and by the right, dont get too far, dont give into much and by the way, one of the things going on in the senate is every two years, you cant cant be too sure whose can be in the majority. Its gone back and forth eight times in 25 years. Everybody gets up in the morning saying if i dont let them have a good vote or we find a way to beat them today, i might be chairman or majority leader. So again, i dont want to focus on the negative. I want to focus on the positive. One of the things that we really do focus on is getting the work done in committees and by the way, i talked to a member of the senate whos on five committees including preparations and security, theres just no way physically that he can do all that. There really ought to be a lit limit on committee assignments. I would remind you all that when we became a majority in 94, after the 94 election, we had said, were done with the budget and pay down the debt all of those things happen, president clinton actually signed those bills and we can literally say that we were in congress in a time where we actually had a balanced budget, where we pay down our debt, but Newt Gingrich had to resign his speakership because some didnt think we had gone far enough. They didnt think we had done enough. Now we look back on that and man, those were glory days considering what were going through today. We have some democrats that supported it and thought it was a good idea. Clinton signed it into law today. Its sad to say that some of that would be blasphemous. But again, new resigned his seat and i think a lot of those members today, i think they have a better appreciation to what leadership was challenged with back in those days, republicans and democrats. They hadnt been in the minority for over 40 years. They hadnt been in the majority for over 40 years. We had a lot to learn and we both made mistakes, but nonetheless we saw a very productive time and bob dole, i cam to washington again based on what people were saying that bob dole was a bad guy. He wasnt, he wasnt our kind of republican or whatever the case may be, but i believe the fact that senator dole had Good Relationships and trust from the democrat and republican side, when i left washington, or when i stepped down from congress, i had Great Respect for the legislative abilities of senator dole. I thought he was a master of the senate, if you will, what they said about lyndon b johnson, but it was relationships. I totally agree. Thats the Pinky Promise. Im with you come hell or high water. We seem to have lost that. Lets go back to the courage thing briefly. I think we have about three minutes left. You think over the last hundred years, the leadership in the courage that weve seen starting with washington and jefferson and abraham lincoln, we just celebrated Martin Luther kings birthday last monday, Ronald Reagan at a time where it was difficult times. He showed a lot of courage, but the relationship of alls between president reagan and speaker o neill at the time. I talked to one of the former Staff Members last night. I asked this, why did tip oneill even allow the votes to occur on the reagan budget and the answer was because he was president and the speaker thought he deserved an opportunity to at least have his issues heard. He won on them. Does that exist today . That was a unique relationship by two unique human beings. It wasnt always pretty. I was a whip in the house during those days. I had account votes. The fact that he cooperated with the president was critical for the reagan administration. When they needed it the most, they benefited from remarkable leadership. I think we have this capacity and its almost inexpressible to rise to the occasion. I think thats part of what we are calling for in this book. We need people to rise to the occasion again because it is another crisis point. Not the same as the crisis points we faced through history, but nonetheless, our, our democracy is on the line in many respects. The quality of our democracy. The ability for us to thrive in this complicated new world. The way we communicate and how we live, the way we govern, it calls for different kinds of leadership and we have to instill that pride in Public Service and the belief that through tolerance and through inclusion we can govern again. Thank you cspan for allowing us to do this and thank you our good friends. Thanks for coming in and being with us. My q is saying its time to wrap so i will hold the book up, crisis point. It is worth reading. I hope the people will buy it because again, i wanted to read it and they gave me an opportunity to give this. Cspan has, on several different occasions, i wanted to do this one. This is a new