The Texas Tribune hosted this hourlong event. Welcome all. Im Abby Livingston. Im the chair of the Texas Tribune and im delighted to welcome two of the most pivotal people in the american politics. They have the jobs that are not most well known. To my meet left i have cheri bus tos. Hello. And i have congressman tom emmer and hes the chair of the National Republican committee. It took me a while to understand the acronyms. Theyre not as well known as. N. C. Chairman or d. N. C. Chairman. But these are members of congress who have been elected by their colleagues to basically get the gavel whether that means protect it or take it. And so it is a difficult job. They manage millions of dollars. They decide who gets that money in ad spending and it can be a brutal process if your side is not doing well in the election year. I had one former chairman describe to me what its like during the house floor and tell a colleague im so sorry, i just cut off your Television Ads and youre going to lose reelection. Yall might have heard of a man named rahm emanuel. He leveraged that job to very high levels of the american government. And so i find the job fascinating. But i would like to start off and ill start with congressman bustos. Can you describe to me what this job is . Sure. Hello, everybody. First of all, thanks for being here. I want to thank the Texas Tribune. Im a newspaperwoman, thats my guac background. I forgot to do bios. Were not afraid to talk about ourselves. [laughter] thats what i did. I was a newspaperwoman. I have a great appreciate what Abby Livingston does out in washington. And then i worked in health care very briefly worked in healthcare for another 10 years. Worked in marketing communications, Public Relation first a Health System and nonprofit Health System. And while i was doing that was on the city council which any City Government folks here . No. I think it is a great Training Ground for serving in congress because there is actually no excuse for not getting the job done. Youve got balance the budget every year. Youve got to answer to your neighbors and all that sort of thing. I love the fact that, you know, journalism i think is a great background for pretty much anything you go into, if you know how to write, if you know how to communicate su sippingtly. If you care about people and their stories and what motivates them and what concerns them. I mean, abby ought to go into politics as part of our next her next career. I just think its a great i think its a great background to. Have so that said, i still remember march of 2011. Im sitting at my desk at the Health System and get a call who is with the d triple c. I said what in the heck is the d triple c. And now im running the place. Its the Democratic Campaign committee. Its the political arm of House Democrats. We have two jobs and two jobs only. I happen to be in the majority party. Our job is to hang on to the majority. And job number two is to grow that majority because it is if youre a democrat, which i have been pretty much my whole life, you believe in what we stand for, what we fight for. And and so that is why its not just for political purposes that we grow the majority and hang on to the majority, but because i think it is the right thing for our nation. And so the job is those two things. And as you said that we we work with millions of dollars. It is you know, you race money to make sure that you can get your messaging out to to people here. And i hope we have a chance to talk about texas, because texas is ground zero in 2020. And im very, very excited to talk with you about that. [applause] yes, thank you. Its a very, very exciting state to be in from a democratic perspective. Chairman emmert, can you give us a little bit of your view of the job. Im a family guy. Ive got seven kids aineds was doing the city council stuff, coaching, all of that. You, kground is as i told im not a professional storyteller. I tried cases for the better part of 20 years usually defending people and their businesses in civil courts in the state of minnesota, wisconsin and north dakota. I came to politics late. This job is well, it can be defined this way. The National RepublicanCongressional Committee is just a name. The business is roughly at 200 million with 80 to 100 in a building in d. C. In a network that spreads across the country that will run 435 campaigns on its way to restore a republican majority in 2021. Thats what it is. All right. So im going to jump to thing everyones talking about and thinking about. Its been a long week. Its been a crazy week at the capital. I was there for the rest of the week. Ill throw it to chairman emmer i know we havent had much time to poll. What is your political read . And what is the advice youre giving your candidates about impeachment right now . What i would say, abby, is this socialist democrat majority, that currently occupies the majority, their hatred for the president is so deep wow. Wow. It is so deep that they cant focus on anything than undoing the 2016 election. They went for three years two years and 32 million to get a report that show nod collusion. Quid pro quo. I hope everybody has read i do too. Please read every word of it. And my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are getting nothing done. This will be the end of the new socialist democrat majority in the house. And its why were going to win next november. So abby, i hope i can i dont even need a question on that. [laughter] so i happen to be one of the 31 democrats who was elected a district that donald trump won. So i am i can tell you positively you know, any kind of socialist label is just doesnt even have any kind of fit whatsoever for the vast majority of democrats in congress. We believe first of all, we believe in democracy. Thats important to note in light of whats happened this last week. You know, i brought the the the transcript from the president s conversation President Trumps conversation with the president of ukraine. And i was going to bring it up here. I know its in the back there. But please do read that. Please do read that. Look, i did not call for any kind of impeachment, impeachment inquiry. I didnt even utter the word that started with i. Please take the time to read it. It will take you 30 minutes to read both the transcript and the whistleblowers report. The president literally is trading defense assets to under mine the 2020 election. And tom, while were up here, i guess im really curious how you defend that conversation the president of the United States had with the president of ukraine . I would love to hear the defense of that. First off, youve completely mischaracterized it. Please read it. When you talk about no socialism democrat party. When you have 150 of your members that want socialized medicine, that want to kick people off of their private Health Insurance and their Employer Sponsored Health plan, when you have 100 members supporting the new green deal which were told by folks on your side is nothing more than redoing the free market economy. Its not about climate. Clearly this is is the new socialist party of america. If youre not willing to fight for it and take it back, you own it. Tom the hatred of this president and his family, the out right hatred of this president and this idea that anything we can do we can do anything to try to undo the 2016 election is the reason i understand pivoting. I was a reporter for 17 years. I understand whi people are trying to evade a question. My question is how do you defend the president of the United States getting on the phone with the president of ukraine saying let me do let me ask you a favor, after the president of ukraine is talking about defense, and then the president talking about the favor being can you dig up dirt on the guy who you think is going to be my opponent in the 2020 president ial election again, you mischaracterized whats in it, cheri. Thats in my red bag back there. If i can read the first full paragraph, i will be happy to read it. Its out there for everybody to see. They should. They absolutely should. You guys are silent its like crickets. It is like crickets. How do you defend the president trading our defense assets so ukraine, the leadership in ukraine digs up dirt on his political opponent . I need the other one too. By the way, unclassified. Can i read this, abby . Very briefly. This is not a litigation. The only thing i would say which is the skilled newspaper reporter, you cant. You have to read the whole memo because this has been the problem on your side. Cherry pick certain cherry pic sentences and take them out of context. Everyone here has access to the internet. Just read. Why is what better . What is the context . Read it. Just read the entire thing. This is not my words. This is not my words. This is the whistleblowers words. I think you should read the one from the president not the whistleblower. Im happy to do that. Why are you reading the whistleblower . I hope you read the whole thing. This is the president of ukraine saying i would also like to thank you this is his conversation with President Trump on the phone word for word. I would also like to thank you for your great support in the area of defense. Were ready to continue to cooperate for the next step specifically. Were ready to buy more javelins. This is the Defense System from the United States for defense purposes. The president of the United States. First words, i would like you to do us a favor though thats the first words out of his mouth. And he goes on to talk about the mueller report. He talks about he goes on to talk about mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that mr. Giuliani will travel to ukraine. You will meet once he comes to ukraine. And then he goes on to say, the other thing theres a lot to talk about bidens son. That biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that. So whatever you can do with the attorney general would be great. I mean, look, these are the president s words. And again, i would just ask you, chairman emmer of the nrc, where are the republicans calling out for full and complete transparency of the president of the United States getting on the phone saying this to the president of ukraine . Now, youve already taken out of context the military discussion because it was about again, if you would like me to finish i would be happy to. You can yell over the top of me. You can characterize specific sense sentences. It talks about the fact that germany hasnt been paying the fair share. They talk about the great relationships that these two countries have. Then they move to an issue by the way i thought you were very concerned about and that is ukrainian med knowingly the u. S. Elections an russian meddling. You spent 32 million trying to go through all of these details and when there was nothing there, now, youre trying to make up facts that dont exist in this. Yes, you absolutely are. Well, you are. This is this is the last thing if you study our history. This is the last thing you should be doing. The American Public know theres an election 13 months from now. Thats where it should be handled. The fact that socialist democrats hates this president and his family so much that they want to undo the will of the people in 2016, its going to cost you at the ballot box in november of 2020. All right. Lets move on. [laughter] and i think this is going to be almost as controversial. Ill start with chairman emmer. How many seatses are in play at the u. S. House level . Theres one that will be competitive. Texas is texas is not in play. Texas is going to stay red. Well probably win back two of the seats that we lost. And you know, youve got to youve got a state that donald trump won by nine points. Youve got 550,000 trump voters that didnt show up last fall but showed up before. But more importantly, i wish my colleague in her conference good luck trying to sell the socialist agenda in this state. Kicking people off their health care plans, making private insurance illegal, ending eating hamburgers. And by the way ending fossil fuel youre going to stop all production of oil, that makes a lot of sense in the state of texas. Its not going to sell well. Youre referring for medicare for all sorry, sir well have audience q a. It is funny. I dont blame you for laughing. Youre referring for med care for all and the greenbay new deal. Thats just the beginning. Those are the easiest ones. Congresswoman bustos. Do i need to talk in this or is this fine . This is fine . I think you should have asked the chairman a little bit differently. I think you should have asked me how many seats are you going to lose and ask me how many seats are you going to win . We will hang on to lizy fletcher and Collin Allred two seats that we flipped in 2018, austin members. Theyre off to a great start. Were going to play in six additional seats. And the word of the day since were sitting in austin, texas is texativ. What does it mean . It means that already on the other side of the aisle there have been 18 members of the republican members of the u. S. House of representatives who have announced theyre going to retire. Five of them are in texas. And so anybody who studies politics knows that when theres an open seat, youve got to youve got a better shot at picking that up. So we believe that we can play in six of the seats. If we want to call one out right now, it would be in the farthest Southwest Corner of texas where will herd who was viewed as by the way, the rising star in the texas or in the republican u. S. House of representatives and will herd announced that he couldnt take it anymore and is retiring. Weve got Gino Ortiz Jones is a candidate that lost by under 1,000 votes and is running again. Is one of the best fundraisers if you want to look at that as a sign of strevpkt. Is one of the best fundraisers among all of the candidates. We believe we will play in six additional districts on top of the ones we already flipped. Chairman, i asked this from some of your candidates yesterday. When i talked on the phone to republican operatives and we go through the numbers, some of them are pretty close. Michael mccall race. Some of them i didnt see coming. And these opener actives will say just the beto effect. Without beto in the mix. There arent going to be the coattails. Whats your response to that . This is a ptial cycle. And all of the districts that i just talked about where we will play, trump is under water in every single one of them. And there will be is that your internal polling saying that . It is polling in general. Youve got internal polling. Youve got external polling. It is polling that shows that trump is under water. So lets look at texas. Is everybody whos from texas . Ok. So just about everybody. So you know your own politics here. Youve got changing demographics that are pointing in the way of democrats. Youve got a more suburban state in the key area where is were looking at pick up these districts. Its becoming more and more suburban and more and more diverse and it is more college educated. So all three of those things point in the direction of ben fitting democrats. On top of that in the Six Districts where we will be playing, the republicans won those by five points or fewer. So thats the science part of it. So you know, theres always a science part of politics and theres the art part of politics. And the art part of it is making sure you have great candidates. And so so we are you know, in fact, earlier today, i met with several candidate who are looking at running and some of whom have announced that theyre running. Thats the combination. And you look at somebodys work ethic. Whats their background . Do they enup having end up having the resources to win . If i could have one part of or texas strategy. E texative is not just happening. Weve been in text for many months now. We identified as soon as the 2016 election was over and saw that we flipped these two seats and came so close in the six others that we were going to this was going to be ground zero for us. So we have had a headquarters opened for many months now in texas. We have some in houston, dallas and san antonio. We have people all over the state. So we are already communicating with the key voters that we want to make sure that we bring in and we can turn out to vote in 2020. Strategic a very methodical step by step process that we think will lead to some success in 2020. Mr. Chairman, whats your response strategically to what she just laid out . Well, retirements is nothing new. The difference between republicans and democrats in the u. S. House is that in the democrat conference the way you advance you merely have to outlive the person next to you. On the republican side, people come in, they move up the ladder. Their termlimited with chairmanships and they go back to the private sector. The seats that were brought up earlier, they have a republican advantage on average of 14 points. I love the the narrative that were trying to create that somehow this is where were going to invest all the money. Ive got polling. Polling thats been published. I think politico put it out a couple of weeks ago. Lizy fletcher is already down by two points in houston. And were seeing that all over because again the socialist democrat agenda, this radical socialism that theyre pushing for the people in the suburbs it doesnt fly. This is what youre going to hear between now and 2020. Thats their only line that theyve got. Thats it. It doesnt fly. And heres the other thing. I think its great if the strategy is invest all our money in a state called texas where were not going to be successful because weve got 55 seats and weve targeted 31 of those seats donald trump won just two years ago, in fact, with democrats in there. Eight of those he won by more than double digits or won by double digits. What they should be doing if they were going to try to protect the house is move to a more moderate approach in terms of their agenda instead of this radical