Thanks to the founders of the center, president jerry falwell, jr. And charlie kirk. That is the math. We are waiting a little bit. We have tom cotton coming up momentarily. We have a traffic grid issue. He will be with us momentarily. Up. Nted to tee steve bannon has always emphasized action. We have four tremendous speeches coming out of the government, attorney general barr, Vice President pence, secretary of state mike pompeo. I wanted to get steves perspective. It is remarkable to me. Cnn, the left media is not covering china. Why is that . It goes against their narrative and the Mainstream Media as been one of the social aspects of this decline of the judeochristian west, particularly in the United States. This story has been in peoples faces for so long. Let me give you a very specific aspect of it. On the third week of january of 2017, there were two speeches given. What was in doubles at the World Economic forum. Gen z president xi. This is the Top Hedge Fund vendors, Top Investment advisors , banks, investment banks, law firms, communications and Mainstream Media. She talked about the biggest problem in the world was rising populism and economic nationalism and that globalization was the future. It had done so well. , whateverpeople aspect whether it is investment, law, they are in the information business. This is the 21st centurys dominant business. They knew the concentration s. Mps of the uigur they knew about the suppression of the catholic church. Organnew about harvesting, the Tiananmen Square movement. They knew about all of it and it did not matter. Donald trump three days later gives what is known as the american curried speech. He goes through a litany of the elite and what they have not done. Action. S the hour of he was a descriptor to that system. Defend trump. And he was a defense of the nationstate and how it sovereignty and a collection of alliance of liberty of sovereign nations will defeat this. The Mainstream Media is saying what a visionary xi is. He understands globalization and they see trump from the deplorables, etc. At the Mainstream Media as been inextricably linked and here is the reason. It is the reason American Finance englobal corporations, it is part of the business model. They are business partners. When pompeo gave that speech and library, Nixon Richard nixon said after 30 or 40 years, have we created a frankenstein monster, our capital him our technology . I am glad you brought up the Freedom Alliance. It is amazing. India, europe, u. K. , brazil, take us around the world and let us know what the mainstream is refusing to cover. They are refusing to cover the world. We need an awakening. We need an awakening of the American People about what the facts are. When you get the facts out as it action center, people will naturally come to your side. This is about this alliance of liberty from india, the Worlds Largest democracy to australia, japan, taiwan, the people in hong kong. Obviously the United States is the leader of the free nations. Hms the british, deploying between elizabeth with an entire carrier battle group. What you are seeing on the eurasian landmass are the totalitarian dictatorships led by the communist parties led by korea,eaders, north pakistan, turkey, and russia and the west, that is why you venezuela. They are trying to consolidate the european landmass dry the lines of liberty offered to the periphery, controlled the asian landmass in a totalitarian dictatorship. When they had this vote about hong kong, our great allies, the saudis and uae voted with the chinese. You saw those 53 votes. Very limited democracy if at all. Ispeo was so powerful it interviewing fox last week. The Chinese People understand they have inalienable rights. I am looking forward to tom cotton. If you are ready, come on out. I came here for the tom cotton talk. How are we doing . We are already. Good. He is he is miced this is our kickoff session for the panel this afternoon. We cannot wait for you. Go out to the fulcher center on facebook for the agenda to see what is coming. It is my pleasure to introduce you to one of my personal friends and heroes and the u. S. Senate. She served our country in the military for years. He has got an intellect at harvard law. The great figures that emerge in history that rise to leadership positions have a strong firm moral backbone and center. I amis the key to the man about to interview, senator tom cotton. It is an honor to have you with us. Thank you for being with us. Thank you. I am sorry for being a few minutes late. Thank you for being patient. Steve bannon to the war room pandemic show prior. One of the centerpieces of this event is trying to get leaders positions, this is an action conference. Virus you phrase how the from china made its way here . Was there active intent . Where are you at on these days. . China unleash this plague on the world. It was typical of the Chinese Party. It was negligence. Come from the earliest days of not seeking the cause of the outbreak of an , notwn pneumonia in wuhan listening to local authorities, and having created a system that discouraged local authorities to be honest. The malevolence started when they actively began to suppress the reporting. They visited some of the doctors who were blowing the whistle on this virus in the middle of the ht and refused of course, they to early. You have the World Health Organization. Y continue to allow refused to allow International Scientists into wuhan. They began to intimidate taiwan and the World Health Organization from sharing some of taiwans early lessons. Taiwan has kindled this virus better than any other land in the world. Then they continued to lie about the severity of it. They even allowed air travel to continue from trying it to the rest of the world, which had the effect of ceding cases in places like italy or new york, which unleashed at the pandemic on the world. In my opinion, there is no doubt the Chinese Communist party is responsible for turning what could have been a bad local Health Challenge into the worst pandemic in the last century. Thank you, thank you. You have been following china, in terms of u. S. Strategic interest for years. But there has been reluctance from the Political Leadership on both sides of the aisle to want to engage. Just on simple inspection. If you say the premise is either through negligence or intent, china did send it. They shut down airports in wuhan, going to beijing, but they allowed 400,000 flights out to milan, new york, and san francisco. J there is some level of intent there is some level of intent period. Millions of americans out of jobs, Small Businesses shut down, bankruptcies. All of that flows logically from the virus. Half a year ago, we were watching football and kids were going to school. It goes beyond the u. S. , it is global damage. How do you assess the total damage done . How are we going to hold china accountable for that damage . Ones, had loved ones fall ill, lost their jobs, had their savings damaged, their schools have been closed. There is really no one in our country, may be no one around the world, that has not suffered because the Chinese Communist party was so deeply indifferent to human life. Not just our lives, but their own citizens. The Chinese People were the first victims. Too cynicalis to suggest using pink xi jinping would do this to the world. I would respond the Chinese Communist party has killed 60 million of their own people. If you dont think they would sacrifice a few hundred lives of foreigners to maintain their relative power in the world to make sure they are not the only one who suffered a virus induced recession, you are being very naive. They should be held accountable for it. There are some ways to hold them directly accountable. Ive introduced legislation, the administration has taken similar action to sanction officials who have lied about the virus, or who do so in the future. I introduced legislation to a few of my colleagues that would amend the foreign sovereign communities act to allow americans to sue chinese officials responsible on inflicting this harm on them. There may be a couple of exceptions to the doctrine of sovereign immunity under the current law, but why beat around the bush . Lets just say clearly that what we did for the 9 11 victims, we should do for the victims of this virus, as well. There are a couple of ways to make the Chinese Communist party pay directly. There is a host of things we can do to make them pay indirectly, things we probably should have done a long time ago. But this virus has really opened the eyes of so Many Americans who need to do those things. For instance, over the last 30 years, especially the last 20 years, as Congress Gave china permanent most favored nation status, and china into the world trade organization, we have lost millions of manufacturing jobs. Some of those jobs are in critical industries. Not childrens toys or lawn furniture, things we have learned, medical equipment. Pharmaceuticals, hightech, telecom. We have to get the manufacturing out of china for those critical goods. I think most americans were shocked when they learned earlier this year how dependent we are on china for lifesaving items. So ive introduced legislation that would provide the incentives necessary to get manufacturing jobs back in the u. S. Accelerated tax subsidies, direct support through states, things like the semiconductor industry. Assuredroviding an source of demand for pharmaceuticals. The department of defense, v. A. , medicare and medicaid, they buy a lot of drugs. Then you say they cant by any made in china, that means we are going to have the domestic manufacturing capacity we need, and we are only going to trade in the critical goods with our partners. Countries like japan, denmark, or austria that are already sources for those imports. Theres other things we can do. We need to continue the rebuild of our military the president launched three years ago to deter china from ever thinking they should take a shot at the u. S. Or our allies and partners in the western pacific we need to crack down on what happening on our college campuses, where china has seeded campuses with confucius institutes, little more than a propaganda outfit at best, or espionage centers at worst. A crackdown on the practice of supporting american researchers covertly at college campuses, often as a way to get them obliged to support the Chinese Communist party through their research. Things like the thousand Talents Program and other programs. Its kind of a scandal that its not illegal itself. People who get charged with these crimes are charged with failure to disclose it, because they get department of defense, or department of energy grants. An engineering professor in arkansas a couple of months ago faced these charges. We should make them an actual practice of being funded by the Chinese Communist party, or supported, illegal itself. There are not direct ways to make them responsible for the virus, but they are so integral in the way they have built their economy to compete with ours to take our jobs, that we will feel that pain serially severely. I have a few questions. You just brought up higher ed. At libertyty i am university. We are dedicated to faith and freedom. Those are the biggest, no confucius aspects here. You spent time at harvard. For me, its amazing how the just i know the answer will be money, but how have they chosen to bypass all economic logic . What mba school said you put all of your supply chains the first thing you learn at finance class is diversify. How did we get to this point . How did we just ignore the monopolies that have arisen in the Information Space that can be used by china . Facebook, google, and all of these . Twitter and all this . How in the world have is it a matter of selfinterest and our firms have been watching the shortterm economics . I think they are going back 30 years to the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre. We made the mistake of largely overlooking that massacre. There were some modest steps taken, but i think it was a wasnt as the soviet union crumbling that the Chinese Communist party showed its true faith. It is still a communist country. Ping doesnt stay up all night reading marks, but it has the hallmarks of a communist country. It has one party governments, that party is authoritarian, it denies the free flow of capital goods, it is a state directed economy, a statesupported economy, it brutally represses christians and other religious minorities. It is now violating International Commitments almost on a weekly basis, whether it is cracking down on hong kong in violation of its commitments to the united kingdom, or innovating india and killing 20 indian troops. We largely overlooked all that in the 1990s. We should have known better. Communist chinese comin party, its hiding your strength and biding your time. They were hiding their strength as it accumulated, and biding their time. At best, it was a flawed experiment, more likely a terrible mistake, to vote to give china permanent most favored nation status. In the 1990s, that vote happened every year. That meant American Companies were not going to invest billions of dollars in supply chains in china if the next chinese atrocity, or a new congress or president might say we will not continue that. Once we made it permanent, these American Companies rushed into the chinese market. First, it was trying to get cheap labor. Highey are taking good, paying American Manufacturing jobs and getting cheap labor. Then it was about continuing Market Access to china. Thats what you hear from business executives. We cant let maverick wear a taiwan patch on his Leather Jacket in top gun 2, because we wont be able to access the chinese market. When was the last time you saw a movie in recent years that had the chinese as a villain . The way we sell movies all the time with the soviet union. You just dont see it. Thats because hollywood is beholden, not only to chinese money coming into studios, but to the Chinese Party to get access into a market of 1. 3 billion people. Too many of our Business Leaders are willing to focus on shortterm profitability to sell out american workers, or trying to get access to that market without thinking through the longerterm implications or the risk it poses. Those businesses then being shaken down by Chinese Communist officials through tougher regulations, harassment to the permitting process, or the forced Technology Transfer to Chinese Joint Venture partners, then getting kicked out and losing access to the market. This is why the fbi said the Chinese Business model has been robbed, replicate, replace. They rob americans of our technology, jobs, they replicate it, and replace us. Leaderslong, business didnt recognize it. They were looking for shortterm gains and quarterly profit statements. I commend the president for opening a lot of eyes in washington, im not sure they are fully open, but the American Peoples eyes are now certainly open. Hope,anted to offer some it is pretty dire. When i was in congress, i know every morning you get the 10 papers on the floor in the morning at the office. The chinese inserts are in there. They are having a profound impact on our culture. Virus,na has sent us a the pandemic is global. The harm is devastating. People rationally know it is from wuhan and from china. Yet in the suburbs, when you see the political polling, this doesnt seem to have seeped into the American People. The political choices of President Trump has been pretty forward and aggressive on china. The first president in 40 years. That is significant. So im do you see any hope coming our way that folks are starting to see the culture revolution in china in the 60s, they got rid of all of the old culture, old religion, old leadership, old habits, old everything. Now we are having a little mini cultural revolution in the states, get rid of statues, get rid of religion, get rid of education, get rid of history, get rid of this. Im shocked that the numbers of American People are still going with it. It seems they would clearly go out. This is over the top. What is your assessment . Also in my travels around the country, voters long have concerns about china. Concerns that unfortunately were not reflected in their elected officials in washington for many years. Theres a lot of reasons voters would have to be concerned or even angry about china well before this virus. Think about the factory workers who lost their job when the factory closed and moved to china. Think about the troopers and their family members who are stationed in south korea, japan, on the ships in the western pacific, or worried about chinese aggression like those indian troops. Just about christians, hum